#they’re actually considered some of the weaker episodes by fans but they mean a lot to me especially now
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I am in tears
#kevin conroy#btas#batman#i remember the first episodes I saw#my mom rented a video from blockbuster#they’re actually considered some of the weaker episodes by fans but they mean a lot to me especially now
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vnc episode 11 thoughts
The penultimate episode of VnC season 1 has aired and I have feelings about it! This is actually the first time I’ve done an anime episode breakdown/ review type thing, and I was considering just doing a full season review after the final episode comes out next week, but I have a lot of thoughts on episode 11 specifically. So! Let’s get started.
one quick spoiler alert— this review contains spoilers for manga events that don’t happen/ haven’t happened yet in the vnc anime; and will probably spoil parts of episode 12 of the anime. proceed with caution..!
VnC season 1 episode 11 is based on chapters 19 through 21 of the manga. We see the entirety of Vanitas and Jeanne’s date, which, while having a handful of janky animations and proportions, is a very fun time.
The voice acting is all around fantastic; Domi and Dante’s interactions are great; Jeanne is pretty. The chibi sections are adorable (especially Jeanne eating snacks). The music that plays when Dante notices the pair on their date is fantastic, and so is the music when Jeanne spills her full plan to Vanitas.
There are a lot of little details that got cut from this date scene, along with two more major things we’ll get to later, but in general you don’t miss them too much. Domi telling Jeanne about a fable her grandfather once told her, Domi saying she only has experience getting romantic attention from women, Dante sharing candy with Domi, Domi telling Dante everything that led up to the date…. a handful of these little character details (mainly revolving around Domi) got chopped, but none of them are too important. The date moves at a pretty breakneck pace for a lot of the episode (the scene where Jeanne almost gets hit by a car is especially guilty of this), and these details likely woulda made it too cluttered and fast paced.
Speaking of pacing, there’s one part of Vanitas and Jeanne’s date where things seem to slow down— the scene where everything goes to shit and Jeanne very nearly attacks a human. Jeanne drinking Vanitas’s blood is fantastically ominous and dark, and I would say it was absolutely perfect… if not for the two parts of that scene that the anime left on the cutting room floor.
Firstly, they left out Vanitas’s vision of Mikhail after promising Jeanne he’ll kill her. This scene is so short and so significant and I think it coulda easily been thrown in after Vani’s promise.
To break down why that one other thing was omitted from the date scene, we first have to go over the other half of this episode— Ruthven’s encounter with Noé. As a warning, this is the section of the review is where I go full on salty manga fan. don’t worry, I still love this anime, I’m not gonna say it’s inferior to the manga even though it is, and this is all just my opinion! here we go
In my opinion, the cafe scene was by far the weaker half of the episode. I love chapter 19 of the manga so damn much, and while the anime did at least a solid portion of it justice, it also left out a lot of fascinating exposition and made the decision to chop this scene up into little pieces to play concurrently with the date storyline, leading to (((IMO) a much weaker scene in the anime.
Firstly, and similarly to the date scene, we lose a handful of interesting little details in the anime’s version of chapter 19. We don’t get any exposition on the shapeless one’s past or standing in vampire society, and we lose the hug pillow line and Amelia’s lil crush on Noé. And most importantly, the way the anime has the date and cafe scene run concurrently means we miss out on the thrilling final few minutes of Noé’s encounter with Ruthven, which will likely occur in episode 12.
I really dislike how the anime chops up the cafe scene. It messes with the episode’s general timeline (Jeanne and Vanitas are still on their date in the afternoon and it’s night by the time they retreat to the abandoned studio, while Ruthven and Noé’s conversation takes place entirely in the morning, but the anime flips between the two like they’re happening at the same time) and makes things feel quite rushed.
Not to mention… the “swear” scene at the end of chapter 19 adds a Lot to the blood drinking after Vanitas and Jeanne’s date. The anime scene is still really well done and horrifying in a good way, but it’s missing that extra boost of “oh holy shit what’s going on what did Ruthven dO” that Ruthven’s curse brings to the table.
I really do find myself wondering why the anime chose to purposefully save the end of Ruthven and Noé’s interaction for episode 12. Did they think including the scene and then immediately going to the date would be too abrupt a shift in tone? I do think the way the general tone of the episode across its two storylines stays pretty consistent, starting out fluffy and cheerful and slowly turning more dark and creepy, is very nice. Was there just not enough time to fit all of the cafe scene in? Did the showrunners want some sort of Olivier style “things are worse than they actually are” red herring cliffhanger? Or did something else entirely happen?
Either way, I’m pretty disappointed by the pacing and two big cuts from this episode. But! Regardless! This episode was still enjoyable. The music and voice acting is consistently great and the episode’s consistent tone across both storylines was a big plus.
I beliiiieve the final episode of the show will wrap up the events of chapters 19 and 21, and will probably tackle chapter 22 as well. I’m up in the air on chapter 23, because while the ending of chapter 22 seems like a very decent ending to a season, the events of 23 directly correlate to stuff that happens in 19, 20, and 21… I guess we’ll find out next Friday! Either way I can’t wait to see more of Roland and Olivier, Mikhail’s introduction, and the conclusion of Noé and Ruthven’s confrontation!
fun fact
Jeanne pretty
#vanitas no carte#the case study of vanitas#vnc#vnc anime#fun fact part 1.5; because I love overanalysis:#Jeanne’s outfit this episode mainly features colors she isn’t usually associated with…#we see Vanitas’s blue and Domi’s magenta (yes this color is part of Jeanne’s usual outfit; but…#…it doesn’t seem to be one of her Symbolic Colors TM)#the only place where we see Jeanne’s symbolic gold and pale pink are as decorations on her dress…#…and on her parasol.#the parasol she puts up when she’s pulling away from Vanitas; letting go of his hand;;#and the parasol she folds up again when the date continues and she tries to sorta fake sorta real confess to Vanitas at the end#///holds up Illuminati symbol// coincidence? I think not
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All right, reactions to Mando 2.05, “The Jedi”, in...semi-coherent form. Spoilers, obvs. I hated this episode, so keep scrolling now if you don’t want to see negativity. This is not in any kind of order except stream-of-conscious.
again, I reiterate, spoilers.
again, I reiterate, this is REALLY negative.
Rosario Dawson...yikes.
how...did Bo-Katan know that Ahsoka was on Corvus? are they in contact? since when? Ahsoka seems to have been on Corvus for long enough to be a nuisance to the Magistrate (Morgan Elsbeth), but normally Ahsoka is very efficient and she just...really does not seem to be here? I did not get the impression she was planning on sticking around for any period of time.
(the same could be true for Frog Lady and Bo-Katan on Trask several episodes back. that wasn’t a convert, that was three Mandalorians hanging around the port in cloaks. I guess they could be doing that on the regular, but? would the Empire not then be more worried about being attacked by Mandalorians?)
there was only ever a very, very slim chance that I was going to be happy with any translation of Ahsoka from animation to live action. I am on record as thinking that animation is the medium for Star Wars and that live action is always going to be a weaker medium than animation and that a lot of things that can be done in animation just cannot be translated to live action in any meaningful form. I knew Ahsoka’s fighting style couldn’t translate to live action convincingly (here’s what I said about the mo-capped duel in TCW); it never occurred to me that they couldn’t pull off TOGRUTA given that Shaak Ti, you know, exists, and also there are so many excellent Ahsoka cosplayers.
(Consider KM Creations’ excellent silicone lekku (S7), which have beautiful movement; the cosplayer behind that is CallMeSnips and her epilogue prototype is from SWCC is in there somewhere. I think Rei Kennex’s are latex (you can tell they don’t have much movement) but at least they’re the right length. I think Ahsoka94′s are also latex (again with the movement); this is her Mortis vision grown-up Ahsoka.)
AND YES, THE LEKKU/MONTRALS WERE A DEAL-BREAKER FOR ME.
I feel very “you have made your bed and now you have to die in it” about that -- apparently the reasoning is for stunts and movement, but for me here’s the thing: her lekku length wasn’t optional. This is not the equivalent of changing a hair style, which some people seem to think (believe me, I have read so many hot takes); this is like...I’m trying to think of a good comparison. Like putting Peter Mayhew or Joonas Suotamo in a wig because Chewie’s head was too hard for the actor to see out of, or giving them normal human hands because they can’t grip with the Wookiee hands.
Also your main character wears a helmet at all times that (if it’s anything like my Mandalorian helmet) is pretty poor visibility and full body armor and THIS was your breaking point for stunts?
Ahsoka’s lekku and montrals grow as she ages. These are about S7 length; as @reena-jenkins put it, THEY DE-AGED HER HEAD. Ahsoka fans coming in know this. PEOPLE SAW THE REBELS EPILOGUE.
I wonder how many of the people being self-righteous about being totally fine about Ahsoka’s lekku are the same people who claim that Katee Sackhoff is too young to play Bo-Katan.
this also puts them in a weird position in regards to the inevitable merchandise: do they go with normal Ahsoka from TCW and Rebels, the one everyone is familiar with, or do they go with these stunted lekku?
(I can’t believe they’re going to make Her Universe sell merch with this Ahsoka on it. it’s not going to happen but I wish HU was going to be petty enough to not sell any nu!Ahsoka merch.)
Here is some nice art of how Ahsoka’s lekku and montral should have looked.
hoo boy were those prosthetics also just Bad.
“but the stunts” buddy I’m sure Pedro Pascal and his various stunt doubles aren’t having a great time in full armor with almost no visibility either
if you’re going to put the character in, do it right
YOU CAN’T CHEAT
look, I am really, really aural -- the best example I can give is that even though intellectually I know that Matt Lanter and Hayden Christensen both play Anakin Skywalker, I literally cannot parse them as both being the same Anakin Skywalker and for that reason TCW and the PT don’t exist for the same continuity for me. (This also goes for Ewan McGregor and James Arnold Taylor, Natalie Portman and Cat Taber, and Samuel L. Jackson and TC Carson. I can kinda cope with the multiple Palpatine VAs. Yes, the decision to use Hayden and Sam in Ahsoka’s vision in “Shattered,” even blending into Matt’s voice from Hayden’s, threw me so badly I couldn’t take the vision seriously.) Ashley Eckstein has a very distinctive voice, and moreover has been the only person to ever voice Ahsoka up to this point (even in the Ahsoka novel audiobook). Barring a MIRACLE I was never going to be able to parse another actress’s voice as Ahsoka’s, solely because of how my brain works.
I could probably have parsed someone else’s face because animated Ahsoka is pretty stylized but the voice thing is a huge problem for me because of how aural I am.
(I say this but when Squadrons did a more live action-style Hera -- knowing they mo-capped Vanessa Marshall I think they used Vanessa’s face for Hera’s, which is also what it looks like on the revised art and face sculpt for the Black Series Hera -- I kind of had a meltdown about it (for...weird reasons). And that was the same VA.)
(The timeskip between TCW and Rogue One, then Rebels, probably saved Saw Gerrera for me here, but he was also never a main character.)
can you believe that Sam Witwer’s Maul got more live action respect than Ashley Eckstein’s Ahsoka
I love Sam’s Maul but wow
this is particularly jarring because Dave Filoni and Ashley Eckstein always seemed like they were friends? I realize that this gets skewed by how little of their actual lives we see online, but that is the vibe that I’ve gotten from interviews and social media posts.
can you believe that TROS gave more respect to Ashley Eckstein’s Ahsoka than Dave Filoni’s Mando episode did (here is her statement on TROS.)
back in March, when the Dawson casting rumors first dropped (or leaked, as the case may be), Ashley posted a statement about it saying that she was not involved in The Mandalorian. she has over the years been very vocal about desperately wanting to play live-action Ahsoka, who is a character solely associated with her up until today, and honestly this just breaks my heart.
I am not the massive Ashley Eckstein fan that many Ahsoka fans are, but I have never heard anything bad about her (I saw her at my hotel at SWCC while I was waiting for my roommate to arrive! that’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to her, a distance of about six feet), and I really desperately hope that someone told her about this beforehand and she didn’t find out from watching the episode.
Also, while I’m here talking about Ashley Eckstein, the characterization here was extremely off, in that specific way that happens when a writer/director is working with their absolute favorite character, DAVE FILONI. I do trust Ashley to course-correct Dave on Ahsoka (in the same way we’ve heard about Sam Witwer pushing back on people about Maul), and that...was not happening here. (I think Katee Sachoff said something similar to this about Bo-Katan in her interview last week, as well.)
how did you get Bo-Katan so right and Ahsoka so wrong
look, Dave Filoni is truly living up to George Lucas’s legacy in that he can story tell pretty well but he’s not actually that great at nitty-gritty of writing and directing. (none of the really good TCW episodes are his.)
this episode made me think of A Friend in Need (which he directed) which is not, like, a BAD episode but quite notoriously includes the Bo-Katan ass-slap and also Ahsoka beheading four Mandalorians at once.
it also includes a helpless village of oppressed and exploited Asian-coded civilians who are there mostly as background scenery so the bad guys can be bad and the heroes can feel righteous
I’ll come back to that one
the level of violence in this episode was...weird. honestly, too high? in a way that probably would not have registered if it was anyone but Ahsoka. look, I am an animated shows person. I know TCW and Rebels inside and out. I know that neither one is particularly shy about killing off faceless bad guys (though if you watch Rebels S1 compared to Rebels S4 they really dial back the amount of fatal violence the main characters commit in the last season, lol). But this felt off for Ahsoka in a way I can’t really articulate.
why is Ahsoka attacking a random Mandalorian (her allies are Mandalorians!) who is walking through the woods WITH A BABY? WITHOUT WARNING?
part of that is just her movement -- when they animated her for TCW back in 2008, they made a deliberate decision to give her mannerisms and movement and a fighting style that a human can’t do because she isn’t human and animation can do that. which means that they hobbled themselves when they came to translating her to live action because uh a human can’t do that.
something about her lightsaber blades looked really, really wrong and I can’t put my finger on what. it’s like they just used the illuminated blades of the stunt sabers but didn’t do the extra CGI that the films do? I don’t know.
Ahsoka did a LOT of dramatic posing and what WAS that?
Dave can’t direct live action, that’s what that was
since when can you canonically convey that much information mind to mind
are Ahsoka and Grogu a dyad in the Force (I know the answer is no but also: what? what was happening?)
the only people we’ve seen who can do that sort of thing are Quinlan Vos and Cal Kestis, who both have the rare talent for telemetry, and even that’s not mind to mind communication, that’s touching a thing and going “YIKES”
you are telling me that Ahsoka Tano, whom six months ago we saw take on Darth Maul, a whole barrage of Mandalorian warriors, and her entire clone trooper battalion and walk away without a scratch, had to work up a sweat fighting one woman with a spear
you do know that we all saw TCW and Rebels right
and here’s the problem! this episode makes zero sense if you HAVE seen TCW and Rebels because (1) she doesn’t look right (2) she doesn’t fight right (3) timelines? we’ve never heard of them? (4) is Thrawn back? did you find the Chimaera? (you all do remember that Ezra and Thrawn aren’t out there alone and are in fact with a 40,000 man crewed star destroyer right) (5) did you NOT find them? (6) are you even looking? (7) this is supposed to be AFTER the Rebels epilogue unless you’ve decided to take advantage of that specific ending scene not being super specifically dated and if it’s before IT MAKES IT EVEN WORSE! because I desperately hate that epilogue and its implications EVEN AS IT IS! (8) why would you call this episode “The Jedi” when since 2013 Ahsoka’s whole thing has been not being a Jedi
to be fair I’m pretty sure S7 tried very hard to course correct that but unfortunately, they could not because the rest of canon exists
are you still trying to deny me grown Ahsoka and Rex when we know you got Temuera back for a five second shot of Boba
to be fair I would have the same aural problems with Temuera voicing Rex because that’s Dee Bradley Baker as far as I’m concerned (I reiterate that this is because of how my brain process character and sound, not anythign else)
if you haven’t seen TCW and Rebels this is a random Jedi wandering around for no specific reason namedropping a completely random person who has no prior significance unless it’s going to turn up later
this entire show has consisted of namedropping random people and things with no prior significance within the show itself and it remains entirely unclear whether they’re ever going to have significance within the show itself
look, I can buy Ahsoka not wanting to train the kid both for her stated reasons and for some implied stuff from earlier on in canon (the kids in the Ahsoka novel, the babies from Future of the Force), even what happened with Ezra, and obviously she has Plans and cannot haul a baby around with her when that baby is going to be a baby for an indeterminate amount of time
which honestly is something that ought to come up because even if Ahsoka wanted to train the kid by the time she grew old and died he might, if we were very lucky, have advanced to being essentially a pre-teen and then would be on his own again? this is also true for Din.
lol sure go cast yourself out into the Force, I’m sure there’s absolutely not a single darksider still wandering around the galaxy who might perk up at “ooh, free apprentice!”
I’m literally starting to think that this show takes place in an alternate universe where Luke and Leia either don’t exist or died at some point in the OT
me, baffled, last season: you’re telling me Cara Dune, Alderaanian, had never heard of the Jedi? was she not keeping up with whatever Leia Organa was doing? was the Rebel Alliance actually big enough that PEOPLE IN IT HADN’T HEARD OF LUKE SKYWALKER?
what...is Luke doing right now. isn’t he training Leia?
WHAT HAS AHSOKA BEEN DOING FOR TEN YEARS are we seriously supposed to believe she peaced out of the Rebel Alliance after Malachor and whatever the hell they’re going to make that out to be (honestly at this point I’m betting on “they will never touch it”)
does or does Ahsoka not know that Luke exists
hoo boy can you just see them trying to cast a younger Luke, or do you think they’d CGI de-age Mark Hamill?
oh yeah let’s go through this again in a season with someone else playing young Luke, let’s, I’m not emotionally invested in that so I’m prepared to be entertained
hasn’t Sebastian Stan been floated (even if just on Twitter) for young Luke?
why are these not-imperials on this planet. what are they doing here. what’s the point.
why is the planet...being burned? I was half-expecting, like, normal deforestation (in terms of logging for lumber) but I’m also a bit ??? about this.
since when is beskar resistant to lightsabers, I thought cortosis was the only thing that was? whatever, it’s new canon, they can do whatever they want. (ETA: apparently that’s been true for a while; I am more a Jedi person than a Mandalorian one as far as the EU goes and my Mandalorian lore is my weakest point.)
dear god were these fight scenes bad
I did spot Morai and I appreciated the tookas
okay, I am taking the next thing out of bullet points because I was really, really upset by it, and as an Asian-American woman it affects me directly.
I was really, really shaken by the use of village of (space) Asian people who were portrayed solely as background victims to be tortured and exploited. Star Wars has a long history of Orientalism, and some of it I can look away from and some of I can’t. Mando especially has a very bad track record with its treatment of Asian characters (Fennec Shand), and in recent years the rest of Star Wars live action has also been pretty bad about it; I will never forget how shaken and upset I was by Paige Tico’s death at the beginning of TLJ, and Rose’s sidelining in TROS was a lot to deal with. There has also been some pretty appalling anti-Asian racism from the Mandalorian fandom that I have seen in regards towards casting rumors about Sabine (which brought me to the point of tears as recently as yesterday).
I had been braced for Rosario Dawson Ahsoka because it’s been rumored for so long, if never officially confirmed by Lucasfilm, and after they pulled the original VA for Leia from Resistance a few years ago (without ever making an official statement but it was after she made really dismissive statements during the Kavanaugh hearings) I was still really hoping they’d pull Dawson for the transphobic assault allegations, or that the rumors were false, or...something. I was not expecting the way that they treated the Asian civilian population here. I kept hoping that there was going to be something, and it’s like they kept almost going there with Governor Wing (you want to make either his name or his position clear in the actual episode, maybe?) but then kept pulling back, which just made the whole population victims that had to be rescued by outsiders. And exploited, and tortured, and abused in general.
And yes, I’m aware the Magistrate/Morgan Elsbeth is an Asian-American woman. That doesn’t make it better? Since Ahsoka presumably kills her offscreen?
(Also Diana Lee Inosanto is a stunt performer and a fight choreographer, why is that fight scene so wooden, damn.)
okay back to bullet points to wrap up
I realize I haven’t said much about Din and the kid and that’s because they didn’t...do...much? I guess if you’re actually invested in them “YAY HE HAS FEELINGS” is a major thing but I’m not
I have flashes of being invested in Din, but the problem is that I never know what the hell this show is doing because it’s all over the place. We are 5/8 of the way into season 2 and I have no idea what it’s trying to do: they keep setting stuff up and then not doing anything with it. I can make vague predictions based on what’s set up and based on my knowledge of canon, but this show is so weirdly set up and paced that I can never tell if they’re something for A Reason, for the lulz, or for the Aesthetic.
I feel extremely vindicated by the revelation a few weeks ago that Din grew up in a cult but I also straight-up feel like I spent the past year being gaslighted about what Mandalorians were, and that’s...not a great feeling. Do I think that the show is going to do anything with that? Fuck, I don’t know. I hope so. I know what I’d do as a writer. But I can’t predict anything they’re doing and that makes me really uneasy.
jeez, at least when George Lucas was making Star Wars you knew he was doing it to entertain himself and tell a specific story rather than constantly having to go back and wonder what story lines got compromised for a project down the road.
like, is this why they did mo-cap Ahsoka in S7, to brace us for live action Ahsoka here? I know they had already filmed Mando S2 before S1 came out. WHY THEY DIDN’T THEY REUSE LAUREN MARY KIM AS AHSOKA’S STUNT DOUBLE THEN? it’s not like she hasn’t stunted in Mando before?
if this was supposed to be a backdoor pilot to a Rebels sequel...I will flip a table
I enjoyed the Bad Batch eps in TCW S7 but knowing that there’s going to be a Bad Batch show I’m now wondering if they’re only in S7 to backdoor pilot that show
how far back does this go? did they put the Legacy of Mandalore story line in Rebels S4 solely to set up for this? especially considering that that’s the one thing in S4 that actually has saga weight and then they immediately got rid of everything it accomplished to set up for this?
I presume that this is the reason they refused to release the turnaround for Ahsoka’s epilogue look two years ago. apparently it doesn’t matter given they changed her entire epilogue color scheme and also her lekku and personality.
Look -- at the end of the day, there was only about a 2% chance I was ever going to like this episode, but I was holding out for it nevertheless. I do get surprised from time to time! I liked the Bo-Katan episode! This was, however, a hot mess. And yes: a lot of the things that bother me are not going to bother other people. (I haven’t seen anyone comment on the Asian villagers, for example.)
#just so there is no doubt: I HATED THIS EPISODE#the mandalorian spoilers#bedlam watches the mandalorian#mando the jedi
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ngl voyager gets a whole lot of very disproportional hate from the fandom and i'd hazard a guess that a lot of that is just garden-variety misogyny (and probably racism mixed in, considering how many of the most prominent characters are women, poc, or both). like, is voyager perfect? absolutely not. and no spoilers but there was a lot of executive meddling that wound up leading to the finale/conclusion being lacking and there's a lot of reasonable dissatisfaction with that--but again that was largely thanks to the execs fucking the show over and i recommend looking into that if you can once you've finished the show. but overall? voyager is trek right to its very core--it has heart, it's about family, and it never loses sight of that imo, even if some episodes are weaker or just duds (but, like, would it be a trek series without some episodes that just kinda suck but are still fun to watch???)
anyway, i absolutely love that you're getting into voyager, it is my all-time favorite trek series to this day for a lot of reasons, and i hope that ppl like that anon dont put you off bc i'd love to continue to see your thoughts as you watch the series!
Oh, it would take a whole lot more than some anons being salty that others enjoy things to turn me off :D
Thus far (I lost internet last night so I’m still only on Episode 7 of Season 2), Voyager is the Trekiest Trek I’ve watched. Which is a weird sentence, but I mean it in the way you said it’s “trek right to its very core.” What is Star Trek, if we strip the intent of the story down to its basics? It’s about exploration, discovery, that “wagon train to the stars,” wrapped up in the argument that life is fundamentally good. We have problems, but we can work past them. We have differences, but they strengthen us. Diversity is the lifeblood of the universe and the future will continue to improve so long as we embrace that.
Voyager is (again, from what I’ve seen so far!) basically a love song to that premise. I didn’t do too deep a dive because I’m trying to avoid spoilers, but I did look at a couple threads discussing why Voyager is so hated. Again and again I saw the same reason pop up: wasted potential. Now, a lot of fans left it at that (as if the answer to what potential Voyager apparently missed out on is self-evident. It’s not), but those who did expand on the idea consistently claimed that the show needed to be darker than it was, even if they rarely said it like that. Why aren’t the Federation and the Marquis at each other’s throats? Why isn’t the crew going crazy under these circumstances? Why aren’t characters getting killed off left and right in hostile space? “Anything could have happened out there and they played it safe!” but the “anything” here is always... awful. There’s this very pervasive idea that the world is inherently cruel, people are inherently divisive, that when pushed to the brink everything will fall apart... and that (while making for one kind of great story) is very much not Star Trek.
See, Voyager created an unimaginable scenario--lost in space, 75 years from home, forced to live indefinitely with strangers--and their answer to the question of “What happens?” is “People make it work.” They learn to respect one another, they uphold their ideals, they maintain a love of life and discovery, and they create a family. And that’s fucking fantastic. That’s Star Trek! I’m not going to pretend there aren’t problems with the show, with plenty more to come, I’m sure, but I don’t think this is one of them. Why do so many viewers think that hatred, horror, death, and growing jaded is the only potential here? Why would they expect that in a Star Trek show whose premise is the very antithesis of those things?
“But they don’t do enough with those things, even if they have happy outcomes.” They do plenty, they just do it in an episodic rather than serialized nature. I can point to multiple episodes where the replicator rations or Maquis differences are driving the characters’ actions. “But without that horror there’s no conflict.” There’s plenty of conflict. Hostile aliens aside, I just watched an episode where Tuvok and Chakotay are pissed as hell at one another because they fundamentally disagree over how to handle problems, but--because they’re adults with a well-tested respect for one another--they apologize and work through it. “But the characters don’t develop at all.” You mean they don’t grow harder. That’s not the same thing as no development. Tuvok is figuring out how to be more flexible, Chakotay is becoming more willing to accept cultures he doesn’t agree with, Harry is growing more confident now that he’s far from home, the Doctor is learning to see himself as a person, Paris is grabbing his second chance with both hands by making strong ties, and Janeway is learning to command and care for her crew simultaneously. I honestly believe that a lot of people think of “character development” as the character becoming a fundamentally different person, unrecognizable from where they started out. But characters can also grow into the people they wanted to be in the first place. “We’re far from home, in hostile territory, tempted to do horrific things to survive... but no. Right now at least, we’re holding onto who we are. We’re scientists, so we’re going to explore and learn. We’re peaceful, so we’re going to make friends with as many species as we can. We’re members of a society that teaches acceptance, so we’re going to form a family on this spaceship.” That’s incredible!! Did fans miss why Seska was an antagonist in the episode she was unmasked? Because she was trying to convince them to give up everything they believe in in the name of survival, an ends justify the means argument. And the crew said no, we will not give up what we believe in just to make it through. I legit saw a ton of fans saying some version of, “I can’t believe they were that far from home and actually followed Starfleet’s rulebook.” It’s because those rules don’t exist for the hell of it. Overlooking their practical function, they’re a philosophy that the characters believe in, and they’re figuring out how important that part of their identity is to them under these circumstances. Am I willing to steal a specie’s technology if it gets us home? Am I willing to die to help another uphold their own philosophy? (Chakotay in “Imitations”). What regulations should we bend or change to accommodate our new situation? The first two things Janeway does are a) giving the guy who just came out of a penal colony a rank and b) deciding that she needs to be more familiar with her crew than is normally encouraged for a captain because she’s essentially their mom now. Developing doesn’t have to mean characters do a 180 on their initial personality, or characters getting killed off when stuff gets “boring” so that others can do edgy things in response.
Voyager upholds Trek’s premise and runs it to its logical conclusion:
Voyager has the most literal trek--a trek back home.
Voyager has the most diverse crew--a woman Captain, Native American First officer, black Vulcan, Asian-American communications officer, and a White Dude pilot that realizes he wants to be soft and kind towards those who took a chance on him because Toxic Masculinity who?
Voyager has the most literal family--not just a 5+ year mission, but a crew who expects to raise the next generation. They have no choice but to work together, so they indeed come together rather than pulling apart
Except they do, of course, have a choice. In “The 37′s” the crew is allowed to stay on the Earth-like planet with a city of other humans and Janeway is convinced that a sizable number will choose that. After all, they may never get home and this is a safer, kinder future for them. In fact, the real question is whether so many will stay that they can no longer run the ship... but Janeway would never dictate her crew’s choices in that manner. So she swallows her worry down, opens the door...
... and finds that not a single person decided to stay behind. And the show has ensured we understand that this is not just because they all have some unshakable belief that they’ll get home (many don’t), but because this is their family now. This is home.
And fans want to toss that out for a generic, gritty, sci-fi adventure where hope is scarce, the universe is cruel, and people need to be pushed to the limit just to admit that they maybe, sort of, like each other?? Obviously like what you like, but that’s a hard pass for me. I’ll take the bridge crew comforting each other in “Twisted,” thanks. Besides, we already have shows like that. And we already have DS9 which grapples with many of those dark, pessimistic themes. Voyager feels like a breath of fresh air, even within the breath of fresh air that is Star Trek as a franchise. It’s a show that says, “Yes, when everything goes wrong people will come together. They will love each other. They will make it through.”
What’s more Star Trek than that?
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Mobile Suit Victory Gundam: Final Thoughts
Victory Gundam’s a series I’ve long been interested in watching before its return from its long SRW absence finally gave me the reason to go ahead and actually do it. Prior to watching it, the word-of-mouth I’d got from it was mixed. Apparently its reception at the time it was new in Japan was less than enthusiastic to the point that it effectively killed off UC Gundam as the mainstay of the franchise until relatively recently. Yoshiyuki Tomino, the creator, famously hates it and has even supposedly asked people to avoid watching it. Yet on the other hand I’ve seen fans praise it as one of the best Gundam series.
Ultimately I think it was a messy show - it was subject to budget issues and executive meddling and at points it really shows. Yet despite that there’s some really good stuff in here - enough that at least for me the time I spend with it didn’t feel wasted by the time I was through.
The plot setup is that in UC 0153, the Earth Federation is weaker and less effectual than its ever been, and a new militant spacenoid faction calling itself the Zanscare Empire seeks to take advantage of their vulnerability. They follow their queen, the newtype healer Maria Harmonia, and advocate to throw down the old order hitherto dominated by men and start a new matrilineal system bealt on motherly virtues. However, their methods aren’t in keeping with these values, as they make liberal use of the guillotine to execute dissidents and those who oppose their armed forces. While the Federation stands by idly, it falls to a civilian-led paramilitary force called the League Militaire to oppose the Zanscare Empire. One day, a skirmish between Zanscare forces and the League in Europe pulls a young man living in an illegal settlement named Uso Ewin into the fight, and he ends up piloting the League’s new mobile suit, the Victory Gundam, into battle.
As soon as you start the series you already see the beginning of executive meddling interfering with the plot. It starts in media res in the most confusing way possible - initially the Victory Gundam wasn’t meant to debut until after 4 episodes, but that wouldn’t do for the gunpla merchants at Sunrise, so the show begins with Uso getting into the Gundam and then spending the next three episodes walking it back and explaining how he got there. It’s the kind of opening that has you questioning if you’re watching the episodes in the right order.
Thankfully it does eventually get on track and it starts to get fairly good, although most viewers will likely be curious about what exactly the state of the world is - in particular, who the Zanscare empire actually are and what their plans are. Anyone with even a slight understanding of UC Gundam will be able to figure out that they’re similar to Zeon just from their aesthetics and MO, but the show doesn’t really open up with more detail for a fair while. There are other portions where the plot can’t seem to decide which way it wants to go and keeps walking back on itself, and as such there are times when there’s a serious lack of focus. As such, the overall plot isn’t especially compelling apart from those moments where it does sit down and focus for important flashpoints, most notable at the end and the segment at roughly the half-way point.
That said, it’s not like there’s no reason to watch even during the segments in between those. Victory’s got a large and fairly colourful cast of characters who are fun to watch interacting with one another. Uso, the protagonist, and much of the primary supporting cast are very young even by the standards of the franchise - Uso is 13, a record that wouldn’t equalled until Gundam Age aired. Despite this, the show doesn’t pull any punches, but the way he and his young comrades handle it makes him an easy character to root for. Much of the adulting supporting cast and characters amongst Zanscare are interesting as well, with a bunch of little dramas playing out at any one time, even though sometimes it can descend into melodrama, and sometimes characters exhibit odd behaviour.
The overall tone is one of the things this series is most notorious for, with it being considered the darkest, most brutal and depressing entry in the franchise. Honestly, I wasn’t really feeling that. Yes, there are a lot of character deaths in this show. Some of them are cruel and senseless, and they’re spread out fairly evenly across the series, meaning that it’s not afraid of delivering a gut punch to the viewer early on. But on the whole I’ve seen a lot worse. I felt like Iron-Blooded Orphans had a lot more senseless character death, and while it’s not hard to find tragedy in Victory there was nothing that felt as brutal as, say, Kamille’s cruel fate at the end of Zeta or the aftermath of colony gassings. If you look at some of Tomino’s other works outside of Gundam you can find far worse - look no further than the endings of Dunbine or Zambot 3, or the cosmic nightmare ride that’s Ideon: Be Invoked. I won’t deny that there is an air of cynicism and despair to Victory at times, apparently because Tomino was suffering especially badly with depression while he was making it, but I’ve seen a lot worse and I think its reputation has been exaggerated a bit. In fact, sometimes I’d say it goes to far in the opposite direction, with strange humour and a lighthearted tone in spots that doesn’t really fit the series’ narrative as a whole.
Still, ultimately I found more that I enjoyed than I didn’t in terms of the plot and tone, even if there was plenty that could have been done without. As for the presentation, the level of quality wavers but on the whole it’s pretty good, at least compared to its predecessors. Things do occasionally get rough when the budget clearly got tight, and you could probably find some better looking shows from the early 90s, but on the whole it’s quite good looking. Sound and music are pretty middle of the road, with nothing really standing out but nothing offensively bad either. There’s some excellent mechanical designs in here, especially the Victory and V2 Gundams that are in the starring roles - the V2 in particular is one of my favourite Gundams, and is probably the design that established Hajime Katoki as one of the masters of the mechanical design arts. On the other hand, Zanscare’s mobile suit design is often very eccentric with mixed results - it’s another thing this series is pretty infamous for. Some designs are genuinely brilliant, but others are just strange, like the serpentine Doggorla, and the overall strange obsession with putting giant tires on everything, including mobile suits meant primarily for use in space. Overall Zanscare design is a bit of an acquired taste.
Ultimately this show was somewhat of a mixed bag but was still watchable. It was the same kind of up-and-down viewing experience as ZZ Gundam was for me, just more towards the other end of the tone scale. It’s hardly mandatory viewing, as it’s not really all that connected to anything that’s come out either before or after, and it’s definitely not a good first-time entry for new Gundam viewers, but it’s probably worth checking out once you’ve got the main UC entries under your belt.
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almost every cartoon youtube channel use to always rubs me the wrong way usually the way they review "modern" spongebob was going to cause the apocalypse and then rob you and then when hillenburg returned people started warming up and being a bit nicer to spunch bop but i really wonder is that they simply picked up spongebob again because of hillenburg and actually saw more modern spongebob episodes instead of cherrypicking the weaker eps hmm
in general about cartoon youtubers usually these days i feel like the early 2010s and some mid 2010s a lot of cartoon reviewers were a lot more negative for some reason but i am glad a lot more seem to have cool down and actually be a bit more positive and give real reviews and criticismm and i like the review more when they say things like "i personally didn't enjoy this but if you did i am glad you liked it!' instead of saying "this is bad because it's bad and the crew for these are horrible people and whoever actually likes these is cringe and that is fact"
You're very right! I've got more to add on this. I remember watching a lot of cartoon reviewers when I was younger. I stopped watching spongebob some time around 2011 because I just wasn't a fan of the episodes. So years later when these cartoon reviewers started popping up swearing they have an explaination as to why spongebob isn't good anymore, I believed it. I was a kid but still. There's a lot of holes in their arguments. They'd put out video after video of the same thing. Spongebob isn't good anymore because the creator left and the people working on the show now is bad. Only like the first 3 seasons otherwise you're a stupid kid.
That's dumb. Hillenburg didn't completely leave the show. He still had some work on the show. Reviewing episode plots and scripts. There's a lot of good moments post season 3. Some people straight up think some moments from post movie episodes are classic episodes and I've caught this often. The newer episodes have a lot of qualities older folks would enjoy. It isn't going to be exactly the same as the classics in tone and its understandable if you're not a fan but gosh these people have no respect.
In the early 2010s I feel like it was clickbait. It was something that can easily to get a microphone and talk about how modern spongebob is ruining the world to get a lot of likes. It appeals to the largest demographic and so why not? Its funny because most of the time they meant 6-8 and even those seasons aren't that bad. They have some weaker episodes for sure and that can be for a multitude of reasons not just "new writers bad". Even I'm wrong since I shat on those seasons before, only to find out recently from some rewatches. They aren't that bad. I mean when there's a bad episode like yeah its not great. But I think my main issue was I just didn't like the tone of the newer episodes. It was purely subjective and I couldn't see that for so long. It makes me laugh how blind I was. They're so creative too and do so much but I couldn't find myself liking them because I didn't like the chubby cheeks design on spongebob, I didn't like how slow some episodes are. Blah blah subjective stuff. And I couldn't see outside my bias. The Hot Shot is a genuinely good episode from season 8, Spongebob's Last Stand is one of my favorite SB episodes of all time, The Sponge Model is so weird, I can't help but laugh.
I'm getting off topic but I really wish it was as easy to say that they're changing now. I mean YouTube cartoon reviewers, the ones who especially shat on spongebob during the early 2010s started to turn around and enjoy the show post movie. I largely assumed it was tone change in the episodes. They started to become more spunky and goofy. Maybe that just appealed to them more. A new feel made them have a bit of change of heart. Especially watching season 9a and season 9b there's a big difference in feel.
But also like you said, they were probably only open to change because Hillenburg was now said to work on the show. Which he's always have been. Just now he's more involved than before. But since his passing, err some people have been pretty rude. I know even before people sent hate messages to the crew on spongebob. Largely fueled by those irresponsible youtube cartoon reviewers who acted like modern spongebob was the root of all evil. But now a days I feel like its too common. Probably because of all the misinformation around kamp koral, Hillenburg's passing, and also some people's dislike with the expressiveness post season 10. It's been fueling a lot of hate.
I get people not liking the expressiveness. Its not for everyone. But gosh it really isn't as bad as people make it out to be. And I hate keep running into the amount of hate people flooded the crew with. I hate even more whrn the movie came out, people acted like it was ruining the integrity of spongebob even though Hillenburg worked on it and pitched what is the main plot of the movie. And actually getting in arguments because people think I was a "movie defender" for stating the facts. They all acted shocked when they found out Hillenburg approved of the movie and Kamp Koral when Vincent Waller officially came out and said it. But for a long time, the facts were there and readily available. I admit I was wrong before since I also fell for the misinformation but even after a while, I just didn't want to fuel the hate because it drove people to do crazy shit.
Its also interesting seeing people's biases. I remember seeing a review where someone was review of sponge out of water and the person's review is essentially "I think its bad and if you like it then you should feel bad about it" someone needs to knock their ego down a bit. They were right earlier in their video that they didn't like it and didn't need to explain to people why they didn't like it. And that's right and I wish more of the internet would accept they don't need an elaborate reason to dislike something. But gosh that was a bad take.
And its funnier when the 3rd movie came out, they made a video acting like the film was hell on earth and remarked that the 2nd movie at least has some qualities and is enjoyable. Like before they weren't telling people they should feel bad for enjoying the 2nd movie.
Or how seasons 4-8 was considered modern spongebob. People shat all over it. Then when seasons 9-12 came out. They act like 4-8 is apart of the classics. Like season 8 is the last good season. It kinda feels like a joke. Or maybe they finally got over their blind hatred for those seasons and now found something new to hate because they can't let go that the classics era is long gone. I remember watching a review where some guy was just acting like seasons 9-12 is hell and was like "look how they massacred my boi" mans really was just drawn with an interesting facial expression. Calm down. And then he later admitted he never watched the modern seasons because he doesn't have the strength. He was just going off a random clip.
It gets frustrating. Tumblr here is very tame but on twitter or wherever else, some people really don't know how to behave and do research for themselves. They act like Hillenburg is some kind of god who will save the show and while shitting on the exact episodes he worked on. His name is literally in the credits before each episode.
They're like "oh I would fire all the current writers and hire the ones who worked on the classic episodes" the ones who worked on the classic episodes are working on the show now. What are you going to do? Fire them and hire them back on??
This turned into a long rant but uhh I just had a lot to share. It just gets on my nerves since the patrick show coming up adds more hate to deal with. I haven't the energy. If you have a problem with Nickelodeon's corporate decisions then deal with the executives themselves ya kno? But it wouldn't matter because people are really biased. Especially with the lasting effects of those early 2010s cartoon reviewers.
#spongebob#spongebob squarepants#sb#spongebon squarepants#the spongebob connoisseur#spongebob meme#Ask
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Digimon Adventure: (2020) Final Thoughts
Considering I stopped reviewing this series episode by episode months ago, they’re more positive thoughts than you’d expect, though still not all that positive.
To summarize, this is an entertaining series with plenty of individual good aspects and great episodes that nevertheless leaves me cold as a whole. Much as I enjoyed following it week to week, I can’t say I recommend this series to anyone but hardcore Digimon fans, or hardcore fans of the wider “monster” genre.
Action
It felt appropriate to start with this, considering a focus on action was what the initial interviews promised, and they delivered in spades. It wasn’t perfect or too consistent, there were several times when the Digimon not evolving when they could just broke any tension the fights had, but this series had some of the best fights in any Digimon anime. Anything in the first 3 episodes, Greymon/MetalGreymon vs MetalTyranomon, SkullKnightmon vs Greymon and Garurumon, Mugendramon vs DoneDevimon, Mugendramon vs WarGreymon, Millenniumon vs the dragons, Omegamon vs Abbadomon Core… all of them among the best things the franchise has to offer in terms of action scenes, which after so many series where fights were solved by having a protagonist Digimon evolve and one-shotting the enemy, comes as a breath of fresh air (to be fair, this series also had a lot of that, but it had actual great fights to compensate).
Worldbuilding
Another thing promised in interviews was the use of Digimon from all over the franchise, and not only did they deliver, but they also included plenty of references to the “null canon” to enrich the experience for the most hardcore fans. The series made sure to constantly emphasize the savage nature of the Digital World, bringing back the Tamers worldbuilding of Digimon consuming weaker Digimon in hopes of achieving evolution. Along the way we saw a lot of allies fighting back against this status-quo, from things as overt as Leomon organizing a resistance or Petaldramon protecting weaker Digimon from the all-consuming Entmon, to less dramatic stuff like weak Digimon settling down to live together, or the mere presence of a restaurant where everyone can rest for a while of the hardships of their world.
The biggest flaw here was in how the series handled its antagonists. With very few exceptions, every single enemy Digimon in the series lacked dialog, whereas nearly every single ally Digimon could speak normally, and this disparity cheapened the whole thing, because instead of coming across as “this mentality is normal for this world”, it came across as just your normal “everyone lived together in harmony until the villains attacked”, which is very much not what the series was telling us.
Characterization
That brings us to the next point: the lack of personality for most villains. I joked elsewhere that Minotaurmon from episode 19 was the most compelling villain of the series, and that’s not completely a joke. Almost every single villain of the week was flat, plenty of the “main” villains were lacking in dialog (Algomon in the first few episodes, Nidhoggmon, Millenniumon) or turned mindless halfway through (Devimon, DarkKnightmon). Negamon/Abbadomon in the final episodes managed to benefit from this by being the embodiment of an “instinct”, but in general this meant a mook-of-the-week like Minotaurmon managed to be a highlight among the villains simply by having dialog and non-trivial desires.
But what of the protagonists? The popular opinion is that everyone is far blander than they were in the original series, and I agree. But rather than comparing it with the first series, let’s look at what it had to offer to us. Where in other Digimon series, the backstories and issues of the protagonists and their reactions to what’s going on around them make for most of the drama, in this series the drama comes from the villains trying to destroy everything, and for the most part that means the protagonists only need to be distinct and charming on their own, no necessity to create conflict between them. There is an overall character arc for all of them, though: accepting and interiorizing their new duties towards the world they had ended up stranded on, getting to know and love the Digital World. Was this well done? Not really.
Taichi and Takeru, for example, were so much the embodiment of the stock shonen hero that accepting their place in this new world didn’t really reveal anything about them we hadn’t already seen from their first few appearances.
Jou got stuck as an unfunny punchline 90% of the time, to the point of damaging his few “serious” moments in some of his focus episodes. His development of becoming assertive was compelling in theory, but it got muddled with so many unfunny and uncomfortable hotsprings jokes that the impact was lost.
Hikari started as an even more blatant plot-device “mysterious character” than she was in the original series, before unconvincingly changing to cheerful little girl afterwards (the whiplash between her in episode 33 and her in episode 34 was something else), and only really managing to settle into a compelling character in her last focus episode (58, defending the Digitamas from the Bakemon and SkullBaluchimon, which to be fair is a great episode and probably the best showcase for Hikari as a character in any product or continuity).
Koushiro was mostly fine, although we all remember the several times the series seemed to promise it might do something with him (his uneasiness when his family was mentioned, or that line about having to “face the darkness of his past” in the HerakleKabuterimon episode) that ended up being nothing.
Mimi is the fan-favorite, being charming in nearly all her appearances and having some of the best focus episodes, and it’s mostly deserved. If there’s anything I criticize from her, it’s that her focus episodes don’t really add up to anything.
Yamato was fine, started out as a stock shonen rival before becoming the single most chill “lone wolf” in any Digimon series, probably because of what I said before of the conflict between the protagonists no longer being the source of drama. He gets a slow development of caring only for his brother to starting to care for other Digimon for the sake of Sora and Gabumon to caring about the Digital World just as much as everyone else.
Sora was made fun of by a certain section of the fandom for having the worst focus episodes early on, and I agreed, but having finished the series I can’t get rid of the impression that her focus episodes, while perhaps not that good on their own, when taken as a whole explore her character the best of any other. Yeah, this mostly means exploring her compassion (these are not very multi-dimensional characters), but they deepen and deepen both her impact on the Digimon she saves and how she is impacted in turn by them, moving her away from saving others through her combat prowess to saving others by empathizing with the grief of another caring soul, and by the end I honestly ended up considering her my favorite character (despite none of her episodes making it to my list of favorites).
As for the Digimon… it’s following in the footsteps of other Digimon Adventure products by not really having much of interest for the Digimon themselves except for Tailmon.
Overall, for the most part the main characters were decent, but besides Mimi and ultimately also Sora, I don’t think they’re very memorable. All of them start out promising, but never really improved from that promising start (again, except for Sora).
Pacing
And now we get to the biggest problem of the series: Pacing. I’ve seen it stated elsewhere that this series was more episodic than most (any?) other Digimon series before it, and part of the backlash it got was from not being as serialized as fans expected it to be. This isn’t exactly true. From episode 16 (Eyesmon) to episode 24 (DoneDevimon), this series was as serialized as any other Digimon series has ever been, with nonstop escalation that demanded you keep watching it week after week. Then, from 25 to 35 (Angewomon) or 36 (BlitzGreymon), it pulled slightly back from that never-ending escalation, but was still pretty serialized. It was only afterwards that it became heavily episodic, and by that point it wasn’t expectations set up by previous series that hurt it in the eyes of the fandom, it was expectations set by this series itself in its first half.
Not that the episodes themselves were bad. Honestly, I found myself significantly more entertained by the episodic later half of the series than the serialized first half. Maybe it was because they didn’t feel the need to convince me they were the most exciting, tense thing I had ever seen when they were clearly not (hello, Mamemon episode), or maybe it was that there were more than just endless fights to them, but I normally ended up those episodes entertained and satisfied, whereas with a lot of episodes from Eyesmon to BlitzGreymon, I mostly just felt frustrated after watching them. I agree with the criticism that, when seen as a whole, breaking momentum so hard for so long after months of never-ending escalation wasn’t the right choice, but when seen week after week, I can’t see this change of approach as that bad of a thing.
Conclusion
I think that sums up the series for me. On a weekly basis, it’s pretty entertaining. It’s when seen as a whole that the problems really become clear. There’s been some speculation in the past few weeks of how much the current situation in the world might have impacted the series, but ultimately, I have to judge what actually happened, and I can’t help the impression that this series ultimately left me with nothing of substance after it was all said and done. Like, I enjoyed this more than, say, Appli Monsters, but Appli Monsters have things that stick with you after it’s over. Not so much here, unless you’re a hardcore fan that loves the Omegamon lore this added (which I am, btw; love that Omegamon lore). I don’t think I can recommend this series to anyone who isn’t a hardcore Digimon fan, or at least a hardcore fan of the wider “monster” genre.
One thing I’m grateful to this series for, though, it’s the commercial boost it has given the rest of the franchise. I’m not going to credit it for all the successes it currently has, after all the Card Game would have fell off by now if it wasn’t genuinely well-done and the Vital Bracelet happened because of years of the virtual pet division progressively building up its audience after it had nearly died off, but it’s undeniable they wouldn’t have sold as well without this anime advertising the franchise week after week. Next week, we’ll have the first episode of Digimon Ghost Game, the first time since 2001 that we have a Digimon series being immediately succeeded by another. If that isn’t a sign of how well the franchise is doing right now, I don’t know what is.
Favorite Episodes: 1 (Tokyo Digital Crisis), 6 (The Targeted Kingdom), 12 (Lilimon Blooms), 20 (The Seventh One Awakens), 32 (Soaring Hope), 42 (King of Inventors, Gerbemon), 49 (The God of Evil Descends, Millenniummon), 56 (The Gold Wolf of the Crescent Moon), 58 (Hikari, New Life)
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roasting my faves part one: my gear and your gown
I’ve been contemplating doing something like this for a while but considering I have a lot of Thoughts™ after the recent eps of my two favorite currently airing series (Oxygen and MGYG), I’m going to make two posts roasting them.
All thoughts are under a cut because these are negative thoughts and not everyone wants to see negativity on their feed/in the tags even if it is only joking/out of fondness. Also, please remember I love these shows a lot. That does not put them above criticism.
SO LET’S START WITH MY GEAR AND YOUR GOWN.
Please feel free to hit up my Ask/reply to this with your thoughts, including if you disagree!
The pacing is a MESS. There is not enough time for them to do anything properly during the university part of the story because they’re only going to get to it in episode eight. GET READY FOR A RIDE.
If they wanted to add so much to the high school flashback, they should have made longer episodes. Seriously, why are they so damn short? Six minutes are taken up by the intro/outro alone so we only get 32 minutes an episode of content. AND ALL OF THE SCENES ARE SO FUCKING DRAWN OUT AND UNNECESSARILY LONG? What is this editing? If they are going for a ~vibe~ they’ve missed in in episodes five, six and seven. If the episodes were as long as any other series and properly edited, the events of the past THREE DAMN EPISODES could have been done in ONE, and then we’d be in uni in episode six and the pacing would make sense.
Itt and Pai/Bai are not it. Marc and Win actually have good chemistry, but their characters are infuriating. This is true in the novel as well, but as mentioned above, everything is being drawn out so damn much that it’s accidentally emphasizing how weak the main pairing are. The intent seems to be to get the audience more invested in them before uni/explain their motivations in uni, but it’s not being done well. Pai is robotic and Itt is irrational/inconsistent. I also hate to say it but Win and Marc are the weaker of the actors (even Un does a better job in the few minutes we see him in episode seven). If they were going to rewrite the original story this much, I wish they had given better insight to them. There have been some really great moments, but I do not feel personally that by the end of episode seven we are set up for seeing them get together later.
The side, or rather non main pairing, characters steal the show. This is not really a problem, but I don’t think any series actually wants this to happen. There’s a clip of the first photoshoot the actors did for this series where Fiat jokingly says, “This is my show,” and I mean... he’s not wrong. The fans I see posting the most are more invested in Pure and Waan than they are in Itt and Pai. This, again, is due to the rewriting and not necessarily bad. In the novel Waan and Pure are flat and honestly not likable characters. All Waan talks about is girls/sex and he actually makes a really bad AIDS joke that likely resulted in Pure’s little side story. Pure is a fuckboy to the end. Developing them more in the flashback was a great idea, but the new material completely overshadows the original story. Also, because they added so much but couldn’t affect the main story, anything they added for Pure and Waan had to involve only them, hence WaanPure being everyone’s main ship even though it’s not going to happen. There’s a whole separate conversation to have there about how friendships are portrayed in BL and what good, supportive friends actually should be, but that’s not this particular’s show fault so I’ll leave it for now.
Hello, welcome to my essay? I don’t know, I adore this show and think the creators put real love and effort into it, but their priorities at this point feel off and unbalanced. I am still very, very excited for episodes 9-12 (PUREFOLK IS COMING, Y’ALL 💘) but I wanted to try and articulate my thoughts now that we are more than halfway through.
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What I thought about every episode of The Owl House Season 1 (Part 1/2)
Salutations random people on the internet who probably won't read this. I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.
Hey, do you miss Gravity Falls?
...
Yeah, I know, dumb question. Which is why I have good news! Not only is there a new series that is just as good as Gravity Falls, but in some ways, it's even better. That new series would be none other than Disney Channel's latest hit: The Owl House.
The Owl House, slowly but surely, became my new obsession since Eda reacted to decapitation with an unconcerned, "I hate when that happens." I wrote fan-fiction, made fan-art, and even began to separately review new episodes. Unfortunately, I got in a little late in the reviewing game and only managed to analyze the last four episodes of season one. And like an idiot, I promised that I'll review the rest when they came out on Disney+. Seeing that all of the first season has finally come on a legal streaming service (which means WATCH IT RIGHT NOW!), it's time I finally saw through to that promise. However, I'm not going to over-analyze each episode because that would be insane. So instead, we're going to lightning round these suckers. Because it's my Tumblr, and I get to decide what I review and how the hell I review it...hooah.
Which means this is your last chance to avoid spoilers if you haven't seen The Owl House yet. Seriously, it's a great show, and you can catch up right now on Disney+. A week-long trial is more than enough time to watch the series, so DO IT! With that out of the way, let's get started with:
“A Lying Witch and a Warden”: This episode gets a lot of flack for having poor pacing and being too preachy with its message. And to that, I say...you're not wrong. Yeah, I wish I could be that person who can defend this episode against criticism like that, but these are understandable problems that just left this icky feeling in my tum-tum when watching. But that's only when looking at it as a regular old episode when in reality, people need to see it as a first episode. The first episode in any show needs to get viewers interested enough to continue watching by answering these five essential questions: What's the plot of the show? What's the tone? Who are the main characters? What's the world they live in? And what are the rules of the same world? "A Lying Witch and a Warden" does a great job of answering all of these questions. And if you stuck around until the season finale, then that means it did a great job of keeping you interested in sticking around as well. So seeing how it got its job done, albeit, with mixed results, I give this episode a B-.
“Witches Before Wizards”: Don't mind me. Just reveling in the fact that Luz escaped to a fantasy world to avoid Reality Check Camp, only to get a reality check anyway. Because that's what this episode is in a nutshell. Through the "quest" that Luz goes on, she learns two important lessons: One, don't trust strangers who offer you something nice and shiny (bonus points for Eda warning Luz to avoid men with sandals and then have Ategast wear sandals). And two, there is no such thing as having a predetermined destiny. I love the idea that Luz coming to the Isles was just a twist of fate, and everything that happens afterward is pure dumb luck. And that moment when Eda gave a speech about making your own path instead of waiting to become something special? That was the moment when I went from thinking this was going to be a fun show to thinking it's going to be a great show. So consider this episode a solid A in my book.
“I Was a Teenage Abomination”: How is it possible for an episode to get better and worse with time? Because here's the thing: This episode does a great job of showing how perfect Amity's development is. After one single season, it already feels jarring, seeing the way she acts in certain scenes. However, in that same respect, it's the same reason why this episode got worse. I didn't mind that Willow practically got away with cheating and vandalizing the school with her magic because she and Luz were basically trying to show up a two-dimensional bully. But knowing what we know in the future, it does seem unfair that Amity gets punished for their bad behavior and Willow got little consequences for it. Sure, Luz got banned and had to work at gaining Amity's trust, but what about Willow? Although, despite this complaint, I don't really hate this episode. It builds a believable connection between Luz and her friends, and the B-plot King and Eda show off their budding friendship. So while this episode is a C-, it's a somewhat enjoyable C-.
“The Intruder”: Is it weird for anyone else that King gets most of the blame in this episode? Yes, he took the potion, but Luz was the one who kept pushing him. This is why it never sat right with me seeing how everyone, including himself, blames King for this episode's incident. That being said, "The Intruder" is fantastic. Eda, as the Owl Beast, is legitimately threatening, and the way the episode treats Eda's curse like a chronic illness is actually kind of sweet. It teaches kids how this is something that just happens to people, and they're not any weaker because of it, as long as they take the right steps. Which is cool, and it's why this is another solid A episode for me. Sure King getting the blame bothers me, but it pales in comparison to everything else “The Intruder” does right.
“Covention”: If you want my personal opinion (obviously, seeing how you're reading this), "Covention" is the perfect episode to show a friend to get them into watching the The Owl House. Everything there is to love about the show is seen in just these twenty-two minutes. Eda being a chaotic good, Luz being a sweet and understanding character, some incredible/natural world-building, an actually decent B-plot, an epic fight scene, great comedy, and, my personal favorite, the building of Luz and Amity's relationship. In fact, this episode has the most quintessential moment between these two, that Dana Terrace herself took charge of making the animatic for it. A scene that is so perfect that you can do an analysis of these few minutes alone...which is what I did. Click here to read it! "Covention" gets an A+ in my book and might possibly be the best episode of the season. Maybe even the series!
“Hooty’s Moving Hassle”: There's not really a lot I can say about this episode. I don't hate it, but I'm not exactly in love with it. The interactions between Luz and her friends are adorable, and there are a few good jokes that kept me laughing. But the story is kind of bland, and I just find Eda's sudden obsession with Hexes Hold'em kind of odd. Especially since a card game is what nearly defeated the "undefeatable" Owl Lady. If it wasn't for the nice reveal of Willow's and Amity's friendship (which comes into play in a far better episode), I'd say that you could skip this one on future rewatches. Because this is a C grade episode that just doesn't grab me as well as others.
“Lost in Language”: Ah, yes. The episode that made dozens of fans jump aboard the Lumity ship...unless you're like me, and you've been shipping these two since the show's theme song (And I don't know why, either. It's just the second I saw Amity my first thought was, "Oh, honey. You're gonna fall in love with the main character, aren't you?" AND I WAS F**KING RIGHT!). But jokes about shipping aside, "Lost in Language" is a fantastic episode. It has a great lesson about how people are more complex than their first impressions (Or to not judge a book by its cover, if you wanna stay on theme). Edric and Emira seem like a chaotic duo who cause mischief all for good fun. But Luz, as well as the audience, learns that Ed and Em are kinda the worst (they get better in future episodes, but still). Then there's Amity, who hasn't had the best first impressions in the last few episodes. We got glimpses of a good person here and there, but for the most part, that's all they were. Glimpses. Then there's this episode, which gives us more than a small look, but some actual insight into who Amity really is. Better yet, who she wants to be. It's something that I appreciate about The Owl House in that it wastes no time in developing Amity's character. So much so that I can forgive this episode for shoehorning a "Two idiots and a baby" plotline that does nothing but add maybe two minutes of padding. So yeah, it's an A+ for sure.
“Once Upon a Swap”: "Ugh! It's the body swap episode! How cliche and-" SHUT UP! Shut your mouth, and listen: Something being cliche does not always make it bad. Only when the cliche fails to tell an entertaining story does it have the right to work as a complaint. "Once Upon a Swap" may have a cliche premise, but it's still an enjoyable story (or stories) with great laughs and even some ok lessons. I can understand if you hate the episode because its premise is something you've seen a dozen times to the point where your sick of it. My most hated story idea is the "Character A saves Character B, and Character B becomes a life slave." If you have seen this story once, you've seen it a thousand times, and it's the same case with a "body swap" episode. But guess what: The Owl House is a kids' show. Kids'. Show. You can complain all you want about predictability, but kids are the type of viewers who will be new to this experience, despite if it's one that is done to death. Which is why this is solid B of an episode if you ask me.
“Something Ventured, Someone Framed”: Can people please stop shipping Gus with Mattholomule? Because that slimy, greasy, weaselly little son of A BASTARD BITCH WEASEL DOES NOT DESERVE LOVE IN WAY POSSIBLE!
...
But enough about how Mattholomule is the worst character ever, because "Something Ventured, Someone Framed" is a B+ in my opinion. Sure it shows the worst side of Gus and lets Satan's little herpe win in the end, but there is still quality to be had. We get insight into who Gus is as a character, on top of Eda swallowing her pride and cleaning the school so Luz can get into Hexide. Also, Eda's permanent record was the first time this show brought me to tears due to laughing so hard. So while I have to take points off for the inclusion of Mattholomule (I don't make the rules. I just live by them), this is still an episode I wouldn't mind revisiting.
“Escape of the Palisman”: I subscribe to this theory that Luz will one day have Eda's staff as her own. And episodes like this that strengthen the bond between Luz and Owlbert help confirm that theory. Luz's dedication to trying to make things right could just be part of her kind nature, but I like to believe that this is Dana and the crew trying to set up this possible outcome. As for what I think about the episode itself...it's ok. Again, Luz's dedication is nice to see, and King's adventure with Owl Beast Eda is somehow insanely adorable, but there's not really much to say other than that. So it's another B episode for me.
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And that’s the end of part one! Part two has probably already been posted by the time you finish this, so you can go ahead and find that if you’re interested.
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Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands
*bzzz* *bzzz* *bzzz* Oh wow, look at the time! My alarm’s gone off, which means another Ranma Rewatch is ready to begin! This week we’re nearing the end of the first season of the show, with the fifteenth episode. Judging by the title, this one introduces Shampoo, a fairly major character throughout the series. I’ve mostly been neutral on her, but I am interested to see if this viewing makes me like her more or less. We’ll see next paragraph, after I’ve seen the episode.
So, uh, holy moly. I did not expect this episode to be this meaty for stuff to talk about. I’m not doing a Character Spotlight again this week (waiting for more Shampoo content before I give her one), but this should still be quite the post. So, let’s get started.
The episode starts with Akane and Ranma (in his cursed form) eating parfaits in a restaurant together. There’s a TV special in the place showing some reporters making contact with a village of amazon women, who live deep in China. Ranma’s like, ‘Hey, I’ve been there!’ but soon one of the walls to the building is destroyed by someone. That someone is one of the amazon’s from that very village, Shampoo, and Ranma knows who she is: she’s there to kill Ranma.
Doing what he does best, Ranma hides, and Akane wants to know what the deal was with her. He explains that a few months previous (the timeline feels weird to me there), Ranma and his dad were in China, still with the Jusenkyo guide. So, probably not far from the springs. Oh, and they were still cursed at the time. They came upon that village of amazons, right as they were having a tournament. Ranma and Genma ended up eating the grand prize, and when the winner, Shampoo, took issue with that, Ranma just fought her to make him the winner. That turns out to be a problem, because in doing so he triggered one of their most customs: whenever they’re beaten by an outsider, the guide explains, they give them a Kiss of Death, which is a promise to follow them wherever they go and kill them.
Which is exactly what Shampoo did. The entire time they were in China, Shampoo chased them, and now she’s finally found them in Japan. Back at the Tendo estate, Ranma has changed back to his original form, so when Shampoo shows up she’s quite confused. She never met Ranma while he looked like that before, and doesn’t know it’s him. But she does remember seeing Akane eating with her target, and when Akane refuses to tell her where Ranma is, Shampoo decides to add another person to her murder list. Ranma defends Akane, knocking out Shampoo in the process.
At that point, everyone is expecting her to give Ranma the Kiss of Death, again, but she doesn’t. I mean, she does kiss him, a lot, but it’s not a murder promise. No, she is clearly snuggling up with him hardcore, pissing off Akane something fierce. For a moment, it looks like she and Shampoo will fight, but Akane backs off, leaving Ranma to her. Everyone is now sure that Ranma must have been lying before, and she was some girlfriend he had in China, but he keeps disavowing it. Akane only shows back up to the situation to clarify that she doesn’t think of herself as ever having been Ranma’s fiance, then storming off.
With Akane’s dad pissed as hell and wanting to know what’s going on, Shampoo, who barely knows any Japanese, hands over a copy of her country’s rules. Soun tries to read it, but he doesn’t know any Chinese. Nabiki starts reading from it though, revealing that the Kiss of Death is only for outsiders who are also women. If an outsider man beats an Amazon in combat, she has to marry him. Ranma pushes back against this, hard, but Nabiki makes clear she doesn't know Chinese either, the rules have a Japanese translation that Soun completely missed.
Later, Akane is beating up a training dummy she dressed to look like Ranma. Clearly, she is not upset about this situation whatsoever. She tries to tell herself that, well, it wasn’t like they chose to be together, their dads made the engagement. But she flashes back to an episode that hasn’t aired yet, remembering how protective Ranma can sometimes be of her. Then, she hears Ranma trying to tell Shampoo that her village’s customs are outdated, that they can’t get married for that dumb of a reason. Akane’s sisters appear to further explain to Akane that Ranma wasn’t trying to cheat on her or anything, it was out of his hands. Sadly, she’s set off once more as Nabiki translates some of Shampoo’s Chinese phrases as ‘My beloved husband’ and ‘I love you’. It’s obvious she either doesn’t understand Ranma’s attempts to divert her, or she doesn’t care. Either way, the more she snuggles up to Ranma, the more he has a hard time talking her out of this, making Akane mad again.
That evening, Ranma’s on the roof considering the situation. Now that she isn’t trying to murder him, he realizes that Shampoo is actually pretty cute, and ‘nicer’ than Akane. Ryoga appears, throwing cold water on Ranma and explaining how much he hates to see Akane getting jealous because of all this. Ranma starts to say that it isn’t his problem is Akane feels that way, but she appears and denies it, saying he could do whatever he wants. But then Shampoo shows up, sees the red-headed Ranma, and tries to kill him.
From there, the last five minutes or so of the episode is a loop of events: Ranma, in his cursed form, tries to escape the violent Shampoo; Nabiki, realizing an opportunity, gives Ranma hot water but charges him ridiculous rates to use it; Shampoo switches to trying to cuddle Ranma, he runs away, and Ryoga uses cold water to turn him back. The episode ends back where that cycle started, for the third time, as Shampoo chases Ranma away, and Mr. Tendo looks at his damaged home, realizing how much this whole situation is going to cost him.
So, that’s the episode! Let’s get into more detail, though. Starting at the beginning, I find Ranma’s scene there really interesting. I don’t think it’s the first time the show has shown Ranma as eating something he usually wouldn’t while in his cursed form, but it is the first time that’s discussed with someone else, I believe. Ranma clarifies that as a guy, it would be embarrassing to eat a parfait, but it isn’t embarrassing to do when he’s a girl.
This is maybe the first time Ranma has actually called himself a girl while in his cursed form, and it leads me to a few different ways to look at the situation. It could be that Ranma’s normal embarrassment comes from how other people see him, in which case he’s just using how he looks different while cursed as a way to avoid that. It could also be that Ranma’s embarrassment is entirely internal, and he’s started to think of himself in his cursed form as actually being a girl, giving him a way to do feminine things without hurting his pride. This is kind of a complex topic, weaving together gender and gender expression, so all I think I can say for now is that I don’t think this is evidence towards Ranma not being a guy, but instead that Ranma is an opportunist who will find loopholes, even in rules he imposes on himself.
Also, this scene raised another question for me: were they on a date? Throughout this whole episode, Ranma and Akane had a really different vibe to me. Especially in the sub, the way they talked about them made it sound as though they were actually in a relationship now, on some level. That kind of threw me for a loop, because it kind of shatters how I saw the series.
The way I remembered it, Ranma and Akane were ‘officially’ engaged, but never considered themselves more than friends, at least to a level they were willing to admit to. It’s obvious they care a lot about each other, but I didn’t think it went further than that, at least thus far in the series. But their hangout at the cafe seriously felt like a date, and while Akane is angsting later on she’s talking about them being ‘together’.
What’s so weird about this is that, well, it kind of works for me. They’re still rocky with each other, thanks in no small part to Ryoga’s interference, but they’re definitely a lot closer than they were even back during Ryoga’s introductory arc. I will admit I could just be reading these scenes wrong, but it is so weird to think that, at least before this episode, they had made a step towards being closer.
Let’s move onto the new character: Shampoo. The first thing I found myself thinking about, during this episode, was how similar her introduction here is to Ryoga’s. They both show up out of nowhere, trying to kill Ranma, having just come from China. The big difference, however, is that Ranma’s reaction to Ryoga was mostly, ‘Who? Oh, yeah, that guy from school. Good to see you again!’, and even as Ryoga has become a bigger fixture in his life, Ranma is rarely more than annoyed with him, except when enraged with Ryoga using his curse to get closer to Akane.
In contrast, Shampoo showing up scares Ranma, a lot. Unlike Ryoga, who Ranma never knew was even chasing him, Shampoo has been constantly trying to kill him for months. What is odd about that is that Ranma is clearly far stronger than her, which makes me wonder why he keeps running, instead of trying to fight her again. Does he think it would make the situation worse? Is he worried about the collateral damage? Has he tried it, only for her to just keep coming for him?
I mentioned it before, but I am not a super huge Shampoo fan. I’m actually seeing more to her, at least a little, but that’s mostly because I’m liking her Japanese voice actress more than her English one. She sounds more fierce and less airheaded in the original language, I’m finding. In general, my issues with Shampoo can be summed up as: I don’t really like that her character doesn’t seem to have a lot of agency; I find the fact she’s written to be dumb kind of racist; and the fact she is far weaker than Ranma is a missed opportunity, and more than a little sexist. I’ll cover those gripes more, along with how they evolve through this rewatch, another day.
While we’re still in the Shampoo Realm, there was something interesting I noticed this time around: at first, after she shows up, Akane calls her cute several times. In general, she doesn’t seem to have any issues with her at all, even joking with Ranma about how her attractiveness must make her chasing him at least a little better. She doesn’t seem threatened by her at all.
Again, there are a few ways to read it. You could use it as evidence towards Bisexual Akane, which I don’t mind doing because us Bi’s need more representation, yo. In addition to that, tying back to what I said about it seeming like Ranma and Akane are actually dating here, it might actually be a sign that Akane was feeling so secure in her relationship with Ranma that she didn’t have an issue with Shampoo, aside from the trying to kill Ranma part. It was only once he beat her again, and the kissing started, that Akane got jealous.
Speaking of, let’s talk a little about jealousy. So, fun fact if you didn’t know, but I’ve actually been in a poly relationship before. Polyamory is actually pretty neato, and if you don’t know a lot about it I’d recommend doing research. One important thing about it is looking hard at jealousy and where it comes from. A lot of stories show jealousy as a necessary byproduct of caring about someone, which I’ve grown to really dislike. We kind of get that here, as Akane’s jealousy is treated as a joke about how much she actually likes Ranma, and less as a character flaw to work past.
Jealousy is a very toxic emotion. It’s root isn’t in love, but self-esteem. It’s the fear that, if your partner likes someone who isn’t you, that makes you a less valuable person, that you could lose your partner and with them an important part of who you are. But it’s important to not base your self-worth on how other people see you, and to not be possessive. Just because you’re in a relationship with someone, that doesn’t mean you can control them, you don’t own them. I feel like the series does touch on this a bit as well, as several characters, including Ranma, imply that Shampoo is more attractive than Akane. Ranma has taunted her from day one about her being a plain-looking girl, so it’s obvious why this amazon getting so touchy with Ranma sets off her alarm bells.
Smaller note, but I do think it’s neat how we get a lot of this idea that, when Akane is really upset, she needs to do martial arts. This obviously isn’t the first time we’ve seen this, but I do feel like this episode hammered home the idea that Akane likes to work through her issues by, well, working out. Honestly, that’s not a bad idea, and it fits her character. She sees her martial arts as a big part of who she really is, and by practicing it, she’s emphasizing her individuality and her identity, in a way.
Last of these smaller notes, but I really loved Nabiki’s attitude throughout this episode. In one conversation, she goes from trying to show Akane that Ranma was kind of forced into this situation, to then making sure she knows what Shampoo is saying to Ranma. It genuinely feels like Nabiki enjoys screwing with Akane sometimes, and that was entertaining.
If it isn’t clear, ‘entertaining’ actually describes a lot of this episode. I really enjoyed it! Shampoo’s introduction was good, sure, but that last five minutes was just pure hijinks, and it was genuinely fun to watch. The episode was also just full of great humor. One of my favorite jokes being Mr. Tendo trying to read the Amazon Law book, that whole part got me really laughing.
Before I move onto the ranking, I did also want to talk a little about watching order. Like I mentioned in the recap, there’s a point where Akane flashes back to something that happened in an arc we haven’t gotten to yet. What’s up with that? Well, I mentioned in a previous post how Hulu has a different order from what I’ve seen online as the original one. That’s because the order on Hulu is the chronological order, as well as the one in which the episodes were originally produced. What I’ve been following, and will continue to follow, is the broadcast order. Apparently, they purposefully aired episodes out of order sometimes. In this case, they moved another arc back into the middle of season two so they could get to Shampoo faster, because apparently she was a really popular character in the manga. So that’s neat. But like I said, I’ll be sticking with the broadcast order.
Like I made clear just a few paragraphs ago, I really enjoyed this episode. But exactly how much? I’m actually having a hard time placing it. It’s introduced a major character, as well as just being a very fun episode. I think I’ll give it third place for now, right behind the middle episode of Kodachi’s introduction, and the episode all about Akane’s bad haircut.
Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’
Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!
Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands
Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!
Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around
Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know
Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!
Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga
Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!
Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another
Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart
Episode 1: Here’s Ranma
Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love
Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'
Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan
Will next episode be just as good? Find out with my next week, as I go into the next episode of this arc, “Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul” I genuinely don’t remember what that is, at all! See you then!
#episode 15#Enter Shampoo the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands#ranma 1/2#ranma saotome#akane tendo#shampoo#anime analysis#anime rewatch
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Media n Stuff
2/1/2021: American Psycho
Excellent, truly. Has a lot to say about those on the top of our social hierarchy, the wealthy and influential and how our modern system facilitates them at the expense of everyone else. A very stylish film, well edited and directed. Rests upon a truly magnificent performance in the case of Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman, who does a fantastic job of playing something pretending to be human. Soundtrack is a bop.
3/1/2021: Se7en
All right, not my kind of thing ultimately. There are some thoughts about legacy and what doing good means here but I feel its slightly obscure and could be more clearly stated; perhaps I wasn’t paying close enough attention. Directing is top notch. The acting also is good but nothing truly incredible. The suspense is very effective but on occasion can be defeated by pacing, excess time creating boredom. Further it was partially predictable, which harmed the effectiveness of the piece. Though the point of the state of the victims is to inspire disgust this especially did not fit the remit of entertainment for me.
4/1/2021: The Martian
Highly Enjoyable. As usual, weaker than the novel but not to a Golden Compass level. Any work that bends heaven and earth to save a single life is good in my books. Retains the wit and the scientific backbone to good effect to offset the bleakness. Likewise, the back-and-forth structure between Mars and other locations helps to make the survival scenario less overbearing. Star-studded cast, and I think rightfully so here as the performances are generally very good. Matt Damon as Mark Watney has many moments of excellence. Mars is beautiful and I’m glad Ridley Scott captured that well, on top of doing a job that lives up to his reputation.
5/1/2021: Dredd
Good. Though I worry about the implications of a “Not All Cops Bad” message, it could be interpreted elsewise and is decidedly sympathetic to civilians which works in its favour. There is the aspect of portraying Police and Criminals as two sides of the same coin, with Dredd and Anderson existing outside of said dichotomy to some degree, but ultimately implying that the existing system just needs the right people in it without severe reform, though again that’s up for debate. Otherwise, good spectacle and very nice presentation; the film can be beautiful at times and when it isn’t it has excellent action. Something I appreciate is a clear view of the action, rather than the choppy action of modern superhero films, and an unflinching approach to the depiction of gore even if I was flinching at times. Though I’m unfamiliar with the original work I find this an interesting dystopia, even if Dredd himself can be a little cliché. Performances haven’t left much of an impression though.
6/1/2021: The Wolf of Wall Street
Meh? It’s well made don’t get me wrong, everything looks and feels high quality. Of course, Scorsese is a good director. Of course, DiCaprio’s acting is fantastic, as is the rest of the acting to be frank, but it just doesn’t come together for me. I don’t feel like there was a compelling reason to sit through that for three whole hours. I can see meaning in the depiction of excess; of Belfort’s alienation, losing everything that should be dear to him; of the animal nature of people who just want to make money. I can appreciate the powerful performances and the craftwork on display. I just didn’t enjoy it.
7/1/2021: Enola Holmes
Enjoyable. Has a more juvenile tone than I like, that’s to be expected from a coming-of-age story, but it certainly does a far better job with the gifted sister idea than the BBC Sherlock series did. At times this film was truly joyous and inspiring and I would attribute that to a cast of endearing characters and a strong thematic core which is carried throughout the story. However, from a more radical perspective I cannot endorse a seeming admonishment of direct action, as much as I appreciate the idea that getting new blood in politics is a progressive step forward. Performances are good, Millie Bobby Brown does well in the lead, though I am not so keen on her 4th wall asides, and I always appreciate the sight of Henry Cavill. Also, proud to see Burn Gorman portray the most accurate Normal Englishman I’ve ever seen. I also wanted to make note of what id consider good editing, felt very snappy and effective.
8/1/2021: Shaun of the Dead
Very good, but maybe doesn’t quite live up to its reputation. Very put off by the use of F and N slurs even if the prior is in context with English slang at the time. Id say this is the lesser of the Cornetto trilogy films but with such competition it’d be hard to come out on top. Quite dry humour, I don’t think all the jokes land, but there are a few true laugh out loud moments. Similarly, it works emotionally only some of the time but at moments, especially in Philips last words, there’s some genuine power. I do feel like the pace lulls slightly too much at moments but is generally very good and saves itself for a fun final sprint. The Zombies themselves are true to Romero’s style of zombie and though the satire is light in comparison to character-zombie parallels it is still effective. Performances are good, and serve well in demonstrating the range of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in comparison with the later Cornetto films and Bill Nighy is always a treat. I only ever have praise for Edgar Wright as a fan of all his later works, so I’m glad to see even his first feature demonstrates his ability well, stylish young man is our Edgar.
8/1/2021: Avatar: Legend of Korra: Series 1
Not by any stretch a worthy successor but good by its own merit. Has powerful emotional moments and excellent action, I cannot get enough of any kind of bending in this universe. Some characters are likeable; Korra is a good lead, Tenzin is my personal favourite and I want to hug Naga. Bolin, however, can get shafted. his particular brand of comic relief inspires in me an absolute hatred I cannot fully fathom. I have many little gripes though. I find the love “square” (?) plot annoying and do not understand what purpose it serves. Just be honest with each other goddamn! In universe I wonder at the limits of metal bending, but the police are content simply to launch cables with it. Why are the Chi Fighters such an obstacle in the first half and yet become cannon fodder by the end? I also feel like a lot of the “powerful moments” I feel are dependent on nostalgia for The Last Airbender, such as any moment where the original theme is played, or when General Iroh appears etc. This is particularly egregious with the feature of cabbage corp. Really? It is frustrating to me that Korra spends the entire series past the second episode tell-not-showing us she can’t airbend before having it essentially gifted to her, similarly with the avatar state. As much as she does endure hardship, I feel like the series would be improved even slightly if Korra’s bending is taken away completely and she uses the avatar state to rescue Mako from Amon, when she is actually at her definitive low point. I find with most episodes there are moments which I’m absolutely invested in and really enjoying but then a gripe or two will pop up and marginally ruin the experience for me. But again, these are minor and as much as I fuss over these details the ultimate product is enjoyable and watchable. The setting is certainly interesting but (probably by design) New Republic City clashes too harshly with the magic system, and I think it harms the series. The animators and artists however should be lauded, as the spectacle here is magnificent.
9/1/2021: Ex Machina
Magnificent piece of work. This is what I imagine is actual good cinematography, rather than the usual “pretty stills equals good cinematography” take. Every frame a painting indeed, aided in that way by fantastically beautiful set work. Each actor deserves applause but I feel especially Alicia Vikander. As Ava she does brilliant work and at times uses an alien affectation which is an impressive highlight of attention to detail here. The director knows exactly what they’re doing, the whole thing has a kind of spotless professionalism. Special Effects are minimalist but used so very well, especially the work of making Ava and the other AI look so real. I love that this is a film which doesn’t stoop to explaining every little thing and treats the audience as an equal, and how the tension is reflected in all aspects of the piece and builds to such a mighty crescendo, though I was quite put off by the self-harm scene and would rather that were not a thing. Not only all of that but its deeply meaningful with a lot to say about our own minds (I don’t think Nathan passes Turing test) with a decidedly feminist angle too. It really is a treat.
10/1/2021: Sourcery (unfinished)
Even as a fan of early Pratchett, this ain’t it chief. I don’t like it. The jokes don’t land, the only character I like is The Librarian and the whole thing just kind of bores me, so I’ve stopped somewhere just past halfway as I can’t be fussed for the rest. I don’t care about Coin, or the wizards, or Rincewind, even the Luggage has lost that pariah charisma it usually has. Conina feels weird? I feel like there this constant unnecessary sexualisation of her and Rincewind’s affections seem more than mildly inappropriate. I’ve been reading it a week and I’ve barely been able to drag myself to it these past couple of days so I feel its time for something a little fresher.
10/1/2021: The Two Popes
Very good. There is excellence in all aspects of this films craft. Johnathan Pryce gives an endearing performance; Anthony Hopkins is likewise very good as you’d expect. I think this is a film to listen to through a good sound system, the sound work struck me as exceptional in its attention to detail while the soundtrack is good fun. Direction is dynamic and effective most evidently in the camera work which tends to feel Just Right. Dialogue is very well written and feels very organic. I enjoy the themes of change and reconciliation and feel contrasting the character of the two popes expresses this very effectively, however I would much rather see evidence of genuine change that surely must’ve occurred rather than a simple implication of change as we see. There is the argument to be made that fully reconciling the old and the new without altering material reality, beyond giving speeches encouraging others to do so, represents the will to change being co-opted and perverted by the conservative establishment. But its still a nice sentiment and a well made film regardless.
#film#books#series#opinion#american psycho#se7en#the martian#dredd#the wolf of wall street#enola holmes#shaun of the dead#avatar the legend of korra#ex machina#sourcery#the two popes
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Hokay, I'm starting Star Trek: Beyond. Going to rant again... maybe say some positive things here and there. Does McCoy get to be a character in this one? Guess I'm about to find out.
Summary:
(Because he did! And also other words! So there’s still some negativity here, but I liked this one best out of the three movies.)
What.... are these aliens. Why do they look like this. Why are they gargoyles. Why are they attacking Kirk. Why is this happening. Why is this in a Star Trek. Okay. I'm. Trying. Let me enjoy this. Let me try to enjoy this. I will stop being grumpy.
Haha he ripped his shirt okay you got me but if the nipples aren't out it doesn't count.
McCoy is onscreen early in a corridor walk that they could've easily left him out of, so that's a good sign? They were a trio for a second.
Why are they showing all Kirk's uniforms as the same? Where is his fat shirt? This is important to me, okay. Wait, I said I wasn't going to be picky.
Whoa, McCoy has a second scene already!!!!!!!! Oh they're having a whole interaction oh no it's cute. WHY IS McKIRK THE ONLY THING I LIKE IN THESE MOVIES? "You know me, Mr. Sensitive." Oh no he's so cute.
MCCOY'S CONTINUING TO BE IN SCENES AND ARGUING WITH SPOCK. It's still about nothing because these movies don't do deep conflict, but. Y'know. There was a tiny trio moment again. I'm being positive.
Okay, those were a lot of establishing shots for Yorktown, so I hope it's actually important...
MCCOY IS IN ANOTHER SCENE WOW.
Oh yeah this is the one where they kinda let us know Sulu's gay? I forgot about that.
Oh no don't make me cry about nimoy please i don't want to deal with real emotions watching these movies. :(
Some of this does feel vaguely Star-Trek, even though it's still taking place in such HUGE environments that it throws me off. Every room is so POINTLESSLY huge.
Um... we're leaving Yorktown so I'm continuing to wonder if those establishing shots meant anything...
The CMO is on the bridge where he belongs, thank you.
Oh, did they let the lady characters have rank now? Soooo progressivvvve.
Do we really need to completely destroy the Enterprise in every movie? Like. Gosh. Where is Kirk's weird sexual attraction to his ship that makes him want to keep it safe? He's sexually attracted to everything ELSE in this version.
Oh my god are Spock and McCoy getting to do something without Kirk there???!!! ARE THEY CHARACTERS????
Everything is so spaced out on the bridge that Kirk has to be standing at the nav station to talk to someone in another part of his ship???
Newer versions of Star Trek keep putting the "evil" aliens in five hundred pounds of latex and makeup... you don't have to make the aliens less humanoid to make them threatening if you just... write better. Also maybe stop creating evil aliens.
I really have no emotional reaction to seeing the Enterprise being destroyed two movies in a row. I don't even have any emotional attachment to this version of the ship because it looks so stupid inside.
... We couldn't get the red alert sound right? Really?
Too much action too much action too much action. Please give me a story so I can care about what's going on.
Once again the gravity situation shows why the Enterprise shouldn't have such huge interiors... I know I'm going on about that a LOT, but it's one of the stupidest design choices in these movies.
WHY DO THEY THINK WE CARE ABOUT THIS VERSION OF THE ENTERPRISE WHEN THEY HAVE MADE NO EFFORT TO MAKE IT FEEL LIKE HOME OR EVEN A SETTING IT'S JUST A BUNCH OF STERILE LIGHT FIXTURES.
Pointless action sequence with Scotty just... getting out of his escape pod. Cool.
Why put Uhura with an alien race where she could use her linguistic skills and then just have them know English? Sigh. Oh well, at least she's getting a scene to herself. Like she's her own character or something, wow.
Hello Spock and McCoy interacting! Thank goodness for small mercies. But a little less exciting when they have no established relationship to this point, but it's fine.
Oh wow they're having a conversation that could be considered somewhat philosophical. Someone saw a Star Trek episode before writing this!
The hot alien lady seems like a D&D character, but that's fine.
I appreciate McCoy yelling at Spock for collapsing in pain. But like, a caring kind of yell. Good job Urban.
I really do keep zoning out during action scenes. I barely know what's going on in the Kirk scenes because it's just a ton of action that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Like... the character who has already lied... lied again. Wow.
I really would like to have some emotional reaction to characters running around the wreckage of the Enterprise, but I don't. :(
Goodbye pointless alien who screwed everyone over a lot.
"Federation has taught you that conflict should not exist." No, these movies are just really bad at it, latex face alien.
Ooookay, we established Yorktown so we should care that this alien guy wants to destroy it because he hates unity or something. Cool.
Spock and McCoy scene okay. And we directly mention philosophy! Blunt, but cool. Again... it's just hard to get into it because there's nothing established with these characters, since these movies are more into action than character. But that was a good moment between them. Like... McCoy saying he'd throw a party if Spock left doesn't work because we have seen hardly ANY of the banter between them. It's relying on what we've seen in TOS... But Spock laughing was cute.
I like Jayla a lot. She's definitely a Star Wars character, but it's fine.
Lol they had to give us a ship older than the Enterprise to find one that looked a little bit like a Star Trek ship. Sigh. But at least they're doing it.
I love you Karl Urban for trying so hard to sound like you're from Georgia. I forgive you for, y'know, not.
OKAY AGAIN... the "Of course I care..." etc lines are good, but there is NO HISTORY BETWEEN THESE CHARACTERS BECAUSE YOU JUST MADE EVERYTHING ACTION SCENES AND THE ONLY FEELING I HAVE ABOUT THEM CAME FROM DE AND NIMOY.
He just yelled at Spock for collapsing in pain again, which is just the best.
Spock: [dying a lil]
McCoy: DAMMIT SPOCK STOP THAT
Gotta say... I did like the moment where Spock looks to McCoy when Kirk says he needs him to stay alive. All I wanted this whole time was the trio.
Okay, McCoy calling Uhura's necklace a tracking device, then saying that he's glad Spock doesn't respect him--when literally a few scenes ago, Spock said he did respect him--is kinda great. Especially since respect in this scenario is, like, a way of Spock saying he has romantic feelings for Uhura? Beyond is bringing Spones back into the picture, and it's not perfect, but I'll take it.
Scott saying "she's lost people too, Captain" was good. It was real good. There are good moments in this one, thank goodness.
Holy goodness, they're letting Scott be a character too! They're letting everyone be real characters instead of just scene dressing for the Kirk and Spock show!
I appreciate Kirk calling everyone Mr. Whatever and McCoy is just "Bones."
McCoy saying "I'll keep an eye on him" about Spock oh no. Oh no it's cute.
Wow this dumb motorcycle scene is Very CG.
The main storyline of this movie is Also Very Bad, but I can deal with bad plots when there are good character moments.That's why I can watch the worst Star Trek episodes for the most part... So Beyond is capturing the feel of a bad Star Trek episode, which is an improvement from the first two movies.
On the other hand, while I would like to try to judge these movies on their own merit, I CAN'T because they lean on the original series. The Spock and McCoy interactions are just one example where all of the emotion and development was actually in the series, but now I'm supposed to apply it to this version of the characters who have never shown any connection before now. So, I have to compare them to TOS and it's just not going to come out well for AOS in any department but special effects and budget. (And Pine being more likable than Shatner as a person tbh.) Then even the relationships they HAVE developed in the show, like Spock and Uhura, make me feel very little because they didn't develop them well. Again, action scenes take precedence over development, and it makes the entire thing weaker.
But little moments like Kirk going to save Jayla when she thinks she'll be left behind, which calls back on the moment with what Scott said about being a team... that was a good within itself because it didn't rely on anything from the original series without entirely deviating from the spirit of it! I wish moments like that weren't so rare in these movies.
Were all those establishing shots like an hour ago really enough for me to care about what's happening to Yorktown? Not... not really? I mean, it's sad, but. I don't know anything about this place. The only ones I have any connection to are Sulu's family, and that's only because I like Sulu...
AHHHHHHHHHH MORE SPOCK AND MCCOY um... do you see how easy i am to make happy like... i could have easily loved these movies if they'd done a little better
Scott and Jayla are really cute engineering buddies and this is one thing that's 100% AOS that I really appreciate.
This is how I feel when I hear the Beastie Boys too. (Not in a good way. Not a fan.)
Hey guess what I'm about to say! Guess what it is! If you guessed "This action sequence is too damn long" then you get no prizes because it's pretty much a given at this point.
.... Krall is Idris Elba? I could've been looking at Idris Elba this whole time? Stupid latex.
This... reveal makes... no sense? I mean, on the plus side, I guess this means that the evil latex face aliens weren't evil aliens, but bad Humans... Still not great that they use latex to other characters and make them more ~scary~ imo.
Also, this is... basically the same reveal as the Khan reveal, just slightly less stupid because we didn't already know this character like we knew Khan. But they literally did the "different name, and then we find out who they are" thing twice in Into Darkness... seems weird to do it a third time for Beyond.
ALLLLSO I'm really tired of every conflict in these movies being resolved with fighting... isn't the theme of this very movie about how conflict is something we're moving beyond as Humans?
Are McCoy and Spock still just flying around? I'm confused. Too much action has happened and I can't tell who is doing what. I only know Kirk is in danger because people keep saying he is.
Oh, okay, they were still just flying around so they could save Kirk at the last minute. Which is goofy, but okay. Gotta love Kirk continuing to give Spock all the credit when McCoy is the one saving him. GREAT LOVE THAT SO COOL.
Love that Spock's conflict about leaving Starfleet to help his people is literally the exact same in these two movies.
Oh no they're bringing back Nimoy related thing to give me emotions again. Don't do that. You didn't earn my love of Nimoy, movie.
OH NO THERE'S THE PICTURE PART THAT I WAS TOLD ABOUT OH NO MY FEELINGS. OH NO.
Oh, Karl Urban. I appreciate your accent efforts.
....... lol that look Spock and McCoy exchanged about the necklace. Um. Okay. I won't read into that, don't worry, not at all.
HEY HEY HEY THEY LET MCCOY JOIN THE KIRK AND SPOCK SHOW AT THE END WOW THANKS IT'S LIKE IT'S NOT JUST THE TWO OF THEM. AND NOW THEY'RE ALL DOING THE "THESE ARE THE VOYAGES" SPEECH. That's a nice touch.
Okay, this one was the best of the three movies by a lot. Still not. Y'know... great. But they introduced a new character I liked. They had some good Spock and McCoy moments, even if they pretended that the TOS relationship was intact. They let Uhura exist outside of Spock for a while. Scotty got some really great moments. Overall, I'm not as angry as I was while watching the other two!
But now I'm going to watch some TOS, and the next episode I have queued up is Journey to Babel, so. I'm much happier about that. (Yes, this is a call back to the gif I used up top. Look at me, tying things together like a cohesive story would.)
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Kamen Rider Drive Movies and Specials
This is the end of the road.
To finally close the Drive chapter in this journey here we are with the post about the movies. And this time it's extra special because I'll be talking about some of the specials for once, I usually never do those because it's too much of a hustle to go looking for them and I don't have that much time to watch them either, but to download some of the Movie Wars movies I had to download them from TV-Nihon batches and they include the specials on them so I thought, why not? Of course I did that before I had watched Drive and I saw that I didn't like it very much but oh well, they're on my hard-drive already I must as well watch them.
Anyway, there's a lot of stuff to go through so let's get to that right away.
Kamen Rider Drive: Surprise Future
This movie... oh this movie... I feel like this movie doesn't work at all after you've finished the TV series. And even if you haven't finished the series I think it doesn't work very well either because they expect us to have some sort of connection to a character that hasn't been around for more than 15 minutes, and whatever connection we have with this character also dies very soon when the revelation that he's actually a Roidmude happen so... Again, Drive doesn't do family drama all that well. Also a lot of recycled things from the show, like another evil Drive? Really? And Shinnousuke apparently dying and the belt being destroyed again? How many times did that happen in the show again? Another thing that watching this movie after the show kinda ruins it is the treat of the Global Freeze because after we see the show it's obvious that the Global Freeze is useless, heck they didn't even care to explain what it is and how it works so seeing that being the treat was just irrelevant to me. Also that ending when they "revived" Krim was such a dumb Deus Ex Machina, I was just rolling my eyes at that point.
Well, at least Chase had a good bad-CGI scene where he destroyed a big thing that I don't even remember what it was. And Proto-Drive Chase or whatever it is called was kinda cool as well. But the rest? Pretty meh I'd say. Also, this movie had a Ghost cameo?? That really surprised me seeing that he appeared twice in the show?? it felt a bit excessive, but oh well... whatever.
Drive Saga - Chaser
THIS MOVIE. IT HIT REALLY HARD ON THE FEELS. And I don't if it's because is centered around my favorite character or if it's really that good, but I really loved this movie.
I think they've checked all the right boxes when making a story for Chase and it was very well rounded, if I had to say a point that they lacked I'd say it was in the action, but I feel like that wasn't really needed because this was so focused on working on the characters so, in the end, the only thing that comes as weird from this movies was the uncomfortable comedic close-ups, the weird erotic scenes, and Chase bleeding that much to remove the feather from his chest, I'm not sure if an android would bleed like that, but it doesn't hurt the experience.
But they do hurt your heart, because seeing Chase get close to that kid was really adorable and seeing that he doesn't remember it at the end HURTS and hurts A LOT. I felt sadder for that moment than I felt for Chase's death, heck this movie made me feel more things than in the 48 episodes and 2 movies I've watched at this point. Gosh, it's so good. I also like the villain they chose for this movie, Angel was a very interesting Roidmude, of course, I'd rather if she didn't look so psychopath right at the beginning so it wasn't so clear that she had bad intentions, but for a one-off villain, she was great. It was also very fun seeing a "softer" Chase, props to his actor he was so different but he still felt in-character, you know? It didn't seem fake or anything, it was weird at first of course, but It was really good. I bet his vocal cords also really appreciated the chance of speaking in a normal tone for a change. XD In the end, this was really enjoyable, Chase once again being the best thing of Drive.
Oh, I almost forgot, another thing that was really fun was seeing Ryu again, that was really great. It also makes sense that the rider who can transform into a bike made a cameo in a show where the theme is vehicles. You know, I didn't really like Ryu during W but everything else that he has appeared he has been so great?? That's so weird. Also apparently now he has a child with Akiko???? What???? You know, for all the crap I give to crossovers and such even I must admit that seeing Ryu and how his relationship with Akiko has been developing is really awesome. I still don't know why anyone would want to marry Akiko and build a family with her, but if he's happy, good for him. XD
Drive Saga - Mach & Heart
You know, this one was probably the one I was less excited about, and it surprised me, but it also got me very disappointed. This was totally a mixed bag. I wish these were more connected, for Heart's part to work Gou needed to be there and that worked really well, but aside from the villain Gou's part had very little involvement with Heart's part and it felt like a letdown.
Heart's part was quite good, the set-up was great, the story was pretty decent, and I really liked the payoff. As I mentioned in my posts about Drive I didn't really care for the Roidmudes or for the rest of the cast in the Special Crimes Unit, but seeing Heart and Genpachi work together was quite awesome, I had a lot of fun. I'm still kinda meh about that amalgam Roidmude being a thing, it is a good villain I'm just picky about how this guy appeared, and I'm not the biggest fan of Heart's rider design, but Heart's portion has enough things on there that make easy for me to overlook them and consider it a solid especial. I like that he came back as a fluke, and I like that he has Brain and Medic on his head too, I like that Shinnousuke appears because of the thing he had with Heart, and the emotional bits between him and Genpachi worked beautifully.
The same can't be said about Gou's part because they decided to make a love story, and they also decided to put family in the mix because Drive really knows how to touch in family discussions, and this was just underwhelming as hell. It gave Gou some development, and at least that's good because the show lacked a lot in that department, and it's always great to see Chase again even though it was just some weird supernatural thing, but I really couldn't care less about the other stuff going on. But if you like Gou maybe this will great for you because you'll be able to see the dude becoming happy, so...
Drive Saga - Brain
This one was surprisingly good, I don't know why but I came into this thinking this would be a serious thing, but I was wrong because this is a special for Brain so of course it would be a comedy. I thought seeing that it was just a comic thing would throw me off of it, especially because I wasn't the biggest fan of Brain in the show, but here it worked quite well. It still has the things I don't like about the comedy in Drive, but for some reason, they didn't bother me as much here. I think what I like the most is that it knows that is something ridiculous, and it owns it, like there's a moment during the fight in part 2 where one of the villains says "but this weapon ain't yours, it's just a recolor" and I cracked the hell up, I loved the joke that Brain has only 600 Giga in his hard-drive making him even weaker than my previous computer, and the fake-out he did on the final villain where his final blow was a headbutt rather than a kick was just marvelous. I got a few spoilers from villains of Ghost and Ex-Aid, but it was worth it. This was fun, Brain's design as a rider was freaking cool as heck, it's a shame but also very funny that the comedic rider got the best form of this entire season, and I like that this serves as either a prequel or a sequel to the Mach & Heart movie. If you want something quick and fun to watch go do it because this one is great.
Drive Secret Missions
So these secret missions are kinda whatever, most of them aren't that good, but also most of them aren't that offensive, they're pretty mediocre. I think from these 5 only 2 are worth watching. Type ZERO is kinda okay, it doesn't add anything new so it's not that necessary, but we get to see Proto-Drive properly and that's really cool, his design is awesome, but that's pretty much the only interesting thing it has going for. Type TV-KUN is like a prequel for Drives episode in Movie Wars Full Throttle and isn't that good. Type HIGH SPEED is probably the worst of them because it's one of those Hyper Battle DVDs who have no purpose at all and are very boring, this one is even worse I feel because they try to make a full-length episode out of it and there's no need for that. Type LUPIN is another Hyper Battle DVD and while I love Lupin's design this one was pretty underwhelming, I'd say it was completely unnecessary.
Type TOKUJO, though, was pretty good, probably the best out of them and maybe the only one worth watching. Honestly, this story is so good it should've been in the TV show, I mean this gives inside on why each member joined the SCU, it's a fun case (despite the resolution being kinda dub, again), and also establishes that Bannou was inside Brain's tablet so it would've been perfect for it, I'd take this over any filler plot in the entire run of the show. I had a good time with it.
And that does it for Drive! Wow, this was very long, thanks for sticking with me until this far. If you have any thoughts, don't be shy, share them in the comments, I'd love to read them. Drive is over but this "marathon" isn't, and if everything goes right, the post with Ghost's first episodes plus his crossover movie should be out a few minutes after Super-Hero time finishes on Saturday (or Sunday, depending on where you are in the world). Once again, thank you so much for reading, I'll see you all around. Bye~
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So...what if Artina lived?
So, as my mind tends to do, I started thinking about potential fan fic ideas. In this case, it’s Disgaea--more specifically, Disgaea 4, a series I somehow both love and hate at the same time for strange reasons. In particular, I thought of the Time Leap episode that failed to satisfy my Valvatorez x Artina urges, and what could’ve happened if Artina actually DID survive.
But my speculating was about the “original” storyline, where nary a mechanic or time traveler’s to be seen. The first thing I thought was that if Artina survived, Valvatorez would still stick around in the human world and...he’d probably die because I like to imagine that Artina would never genuinely be afraid of him no matter what he does because he’s just too nice. Or he could just be on the brink of death due to starvation when Artina goes “your pride’s not worth your life” and gives him her blood while he’s unable to resist, forcing him to (sort of) break his promise. Valzy’s naturally upset at her, but he’s also mad at himself, because not only did he fail to scare Artina, but she went out of her way to save his life despite him pretty much threatening hers. It makes him question if he’s an inept demon who never really grasped the concept of fear. He feels like they BOTH need to be punished (Artina for making him break his promise and Valvatorez for proving incapable of keeping it), so he decides that he’s going to feed off of ONLY Artina until the day that she dies, because SHE deserves it for being so willing to give up her blood and HE deserves it because he considers himself “unworthy” of even biting another human’s neck.
And Artina...is okay with that, much to his dismay.. Because SHE thinks she needs to be punished, too--not for saving Valzy’s life or not having enough common sense to be afraid for her own life, but because she felt responsible for exhausting him to the point of nearly killing himself. Then she starts thinking about that one soldier who got in trouble because she saved him and thinks she ought to receive some punishment for not thinking abou the consequences of her actions--even her good ones.
Valzy takes Artina back home to the netherworld and Fenrich, who is naturally upset with the fact that his powerful lord is much weaker now due to some human woman with no common sense. He tries to convince Valzy to change his mind and just punish Artina by killing her, or keep drinking blood from other humans since he couldn’t possibly take enough blood from a single person to even satisfy his hunger, let alone bring his strength back to what it used to be. But Valzy is willing to accept whatever consequences come from this “punishment” as something he deserves, so he instead insists that he’ll take care of Artina until one of them dies. Fenrich attempts to have Artina killed a couple of times, but it fails because Valvatorez always swoops in to save her and Fenrich, not wanting his weakened lord to be hurt, always ends up helping to foil his own schemes. Whether or not he realizes what his servant has been doing, Valzy confides to Fenrich that if Artina died, he’d pretty much just let himself die since breaking another vow would be too much for him. So Fenrich begrudgingly tolerates Artina’s presence while scheming of ways to get him to drink more blood and regain his power before he’s forced to fall to Hades.
Eventually (or inevitably?) Valvatorez tells Artina he’s going to marry her, which he insists is because it would be awkward and rude to drink her blood if she were someone else’s woman. Despite Fenrich pointing out that he could just lock her up somewhere or keep her in a tighter leash, Valzy refuses to give Artina another choice. She gets upset about it since she’s a nun and also admits that she’d rather get married to someone who loves her, he states that not every couple who gets married loves each other and that this is just another layer to their “punishment” of being together, and they spend the first months of their marriage upset with one another. But eventually (inevitably?), they make up. Artina confesses that she’s fallen in love with Valvatorez and he...promises to be a good husband and make her content. Despite Artina’s disappointment with his unromantic response, she’s happy that they’re no longer on bad terms, and at some point in the near future, they finally consummate their marriage.
Artina eventually conceives and everyone has different reactions to the news. Artina is delighted and strives to prepare things for the baby. Fenrich is worried that the child will grow up to be someone who’ll intervene in his lord’s “destiny” to rule the universe. Valvatorez aspires to take care of his little family as best as he can, and so ends of getting a job in the corrupternment (but only because more “ordinary” employers were too intimidated by his reputation to hire him), though he’ll probably wind up in Hades due to slowly losing his power. All in all, it seems like a happy ending for those two.
As for Nemo, or the man who would’ve become Nemo, I’m torn between speculating that Artina surviving the war changes nothing about his own hatred for humanity or it helps him keep hope in the kindness of people. Regardless of whether he survives the war somehow or not, he might dedicate the rest of his (after)life helping others the way Artina helped him, or simply trying to find her to make up for the trouble that he believes he caused her. Or maybe he’s able to pass on and become a Prinny without waiting four centuries.
But if he doesn’t go about wanting to end all life on earth with his stupidly long and complicated scheming, that opens up a problem with those damn aliens, because Nemo’s the one who somehow gets them to NOT blow up the earth. Perhaps something else will stop them or they’ll just not go to Earth at all, but there’s also the matter of Desco not existing because Nemo’s the one who apparently(?) supported the research that went into making her. Maybe she’d be created at a much later time, at a point where Fuka had grown out of her desire for a younger sibling or her dream to conquer the world. For that matter, who knows what sort of ripple effect hijinks this could mean for Fuka? She might have a different fate, a different personality, someone else may be born in her place or her entire family tree could be drastically altered. Emizel’s life could be different, too, as it might take even longer to stop being a brat since there’s no netherworld-ending situation that forces him to mature. Though I’m entertaining the thought of “something” happening to Hugo, forcing Emizel to live in the lowest level of the netherworld and work in Hades just to make ends meet while he plots to claw his way back to the top.
And what about the rest of the Disgaea series at large? After all, 400 years worth of a ripple effect could have an effect on a LOT of things. Maybe D1 will follow the bad ending where Lamington is killed and Laharl becomes a Prinny. Maybe that could cause the events of DD2 to follow its bad ending where the entire netherworld is destroyed because Etna and Flonne (who doesn’t have access to her Pure Flonne form) don’t’t have the power to stop Xenolith, or because angels don’t go to the netherworld to slow down the rate of its destruction since it’s unlikely ANYONE would want to go to the place where the murderer of their Seraph came from. Maybe Zenon never reincarnates, making the plot of D2 never happen and ensuring the residents of Veldime remain happy, but also dooming Zenon to continue her lonely, paranoid existence. Maybe Almaz becomes the Overlord like in that one ending for D3, which is eventually accepted by his friends and he tries to share the responsibilities with Mao, who just wants to defeat him and earn the title rightfully.
Then again, this is all stupid speculation from someone who’s sick and been up since 12AM, so who knows how likely any of this would be. I’m almost curious to see if anyone responds to this mess and has their own ideas about what could happen. All I know is...I might actually write about this.
#disgaea#disgaea 4#valvatorez#artina#what if#this has been bugging me too damn much#valvatorez x artina#never mind don't look at my sleep-deprieved ramblings#the butterfly effect is amazing no?
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Born As the World Burns Episode Headcanons: Season 4
Are You There God, It’s Me Dean Winchester
Has waaaaay too much fun researching angels
What Witness would Emma see? Dean, maybe? Would it be Lydia, for having a daughter that betrayed the Sisterhood? Corbett? One of her first hunts, where she wasn’t able to save someone in time?
In The Beginning
Wakes up just after Dean is transported to the past by Cas - first one on one meeting with Cas?
Metamorphosis
Emma is torn on the issue of Sam’s powers. Cause if Dean sees that as Sam being something other than human… what does that mean for her?
Painfully aware that other hunters would consider her something that needed to be hunted.
But very not on board with the blood drinking, obviously.
facepalms whenever Sam and Dean reveal that they’ve been keeping something from one another.
Goes to research with Sam.
Hates the use of the term “long-pig”… cause memories. Considers going vegetarian after this (tries and fails- Amazons are obligate carnivores)
Silently cringes every time Dean says something about ‘monster’.
Sam: “This is my choice.” Emma: “Then good for you, Sam.” *proud*
Monster Movie
Emma has a map in her journal where she tracks all the states they go to.
Headdesks about the whole “rehymination” *eye roll*
“…there’s nothing wrong with being a virgin.”
But also, teases Dean by suggesting that she probably ought to be looking to lose hers as soon as possible if that’s how things are meant to be done.
Yellow Fever
Some of Dean’s early fears heavily revolve around Emma and her safety
Or maybe Emma is sick right along with Dean? she does use fear as a weapon
Sees the Amazons coming for her and Dean turning on her and trying to kill her
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester
Emma’s first Halloween!
Sam: “Two words: Jail bait.” Emma: “Dude, they’re like… my age!” *gag*
Corrects everyone’s pronunciation of Samhain
Cas: “Tell me, Dean, when your father gave you an order, didn’t you obey?” Emma: “When my mother gave me an order, I ran away so I didn’t have to obey. Orders aren’t always right.”
Wishful Thinking
Disappointed that Bigfoot is a hoax
Tries to actually sit down and talk to the giant teddy bear… cause why the fuck not?
What would Emma wish for?
Discount Rupert Grint was a prime candidate for “Vigilante Feminism” with his shower spying
Damn it, Sammy, maybe he doesn’t fucking want to talk about it cause it’s traumatic! *eye roll*
Gives Wes a kiss on the cheek in thanks (she finds him cute)
Starts to consider sharing some of the details of ‘boot camp’ with Sam and Dean to help Dean feel open to sharing about Hell
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Sam: “Let’s trade stories. How was Hell? Don’t spare the details.” Emma: *glares at him a second and then busts out the story of how they forced her to eat human flesh*
Can Anna see Emma’s ‘face’?
Goes with Ruby and Anna
flashbacks show Sam ditching Emma at Bobby’s, Emma semi catatonic in her grief
Heaven and Hell
Emma is the only one surprised when Uriel announces that Sam’s been screwing Ruby (cause she wasn’t there for the big heart to heart last episode)
An angel, a demon, and an amazon in the back seat of a car
Family Remains
Having three in the car makes sleeping in it a lot more cramped
Emma always has at least three knives hidden on her at all times, so at least they have some weapons left.
Stays out in the shed with mom and daughter to keep them safe
Criss Angel Is A Douchebag
Emma investigates parallel to the guys, masquerading as an aspiring young magician
After School Special
Emma enrolls in school - that’s an adventure
“Dude, Dad, those girls are my age! …kind of.” re: legal teenagers
Sex and Violence
Junior Agent Emma ^_^
just rolls her eyes at Dean’s joy over a case with strippers
goes straight to the back room to talk to the girls, who try to be super helpful but can’t actually help much other than give a bit of confirmation to the siren theory
“They’re princesses. All the girls that the siren is masquerading as have Disney princess names.”
Emma is tricked by the siren’s illusion but it’s venom doesn’t work right on her (weaker, easier to fight off) but still enough to get her for a bit
Follows along with Dean and Nick to the strip club, letting Sam have some alone time with Cara
wanders off, having befriended a few of the dancers who have decided to adopt her
Dean and Nick leave her behind there
Hitches her way back to the hotel just in time to help Bobby break the guys out of it and kill the siren
says nothing about their little ‘we good? yeah, we’re good” bro moment, but definitely left with the feeling that they are not, in fact, all good
Death Takes a Holiday
Can’t agree more with Pamela on how crazy they are.
Emma can’t do the astral projection thing so she has to stay behind and keep an eye on their bodies and Pamela
kicks some demon ass and keeps Pamela safe, thank you very much
On the Head of a Pin
Emma fights so hard against Uriel and Castiel taking Dean to torture Alastair that they have to literally knock her out. Probably breaks her hand punching Uriel.
And she doesn’t even make a move to stop Sam from killing Alastair.
Doesn’t leave Dean’s side for one second while he’s in the hospital until after he wakes up, and even then it takes some serious convincing.
It’s a Terrible Life
Emma Browning, recently hired to be Dean Smith’s new personal assistant.
Of course she follows along as the weirdness happens. Like he could stop her.
There might be a bit of flirting going on between Dean and Emma… and once they remember just exactly who they are, they both agree to never speak of it again.
The Monster at the End of This Book
Can’t stop laughing at the cover art.
Reads through them voraciously.
Skips the sex scenes.
Oh lord, you know that there are Sam/Dean/Emma fans in this verse. *facepalm*
“I mean… are we *sure* that he’s not actually a god?”
Of *course* Emma asks Chuck for an autograph. Probably hangs out at his place if Chuck and Dean let her, asking all sorts of writing questions.
Jump the Shark
“… it’s a binder, the rings open. Why the hell did he tear the pages out?”
Gets a weird scent off of Adam, can’t quite place it until they figure out about the ghouls - it’s death.
The Rapture
Emma points out that getting him back to his family might not be the safest of ideas.
I wanna say that Emma catches Jimmy sneaking out and tails him.
“Hey, I’m not gonna stop you from going back to your family, but I *am* going with you.”
Manages to hold the demons off till Sam and Dean get there.
Suggests getting Amelia and Claire some protective sigils maybe? Or anti-possession tattoos.
"Put pressure on the wound, Jimmy!”
“Uh, Sam, you got a little something… on your face…”
Emma makes an actual attempt to stay in touch with Claire.
When the Levee Breaks
“If you think that Sam is a monster…. then what does that make me?”
Dean: “Then at least he dies human!” Emma: can’t handle it, leaves the house before Dean sees her cry.
Emma refuses to choose sides between Dean and Sam on the demon blood thing... but she does follow after Ruby when Sam tells her to get out of there. Ruby manages to slip away from her, though.
Lucifer Rising
Backs Bobby up on Dean being a better man than John was, adds “a better father, too.”
Once again left behind when Dean is taken to the Beautiful room
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Besides Gaogaigar, (which, needless to say, is a must-watch for fans of Super Robots/Mecha, and definitely one of my all-time favorites) which of the Brave Series you've watched so far would you recommend?
One thing to note is that the ones I’ve seen are all actually quite different to Gaogaigar owing to different directorship. Yoshitomo Yonetani directed Gaogaigar and its sequels and spinoffs (and very little else, which makes him somewhat of an enigma to me considering how good it is) while the other three that I’ve seen were by Shinji Takamatsu (probably most notable otherwise for Gundam X.) While I’m not going to say that they’re not alike at all, because Gaogaigar does build largely off the foundations that Takamatsu and others built, Gaogaigar is definitely more serious and has quite a bit more common with other Super Robot anime whereas the others are more for kids and lean more heavily on humour while probably having more in common with Transformers. That said, I still enjoyed all of them quite a lot, just for different reasons.
If I had to pick my favourite, it’d probably be Brave Police J-Decker. This one actually has something of a fanbase here on tumblr, and it’s not super difficult to see why. It’s focused more on single-episode plotlines rather than a larger encompassing one, which is true of all three series but feels the most true here. It works out because most of them are really memorable, featuring a bizarre cast of colourful villains and some pretty zany plotlines. It uses most of these for developing its cast really well, which between the human protagonist Yuuta, the supporting characters and especially the cast of Brave robots themselves, might be the single best in a Braves series, perhaps even better than Gaogaigar. I think the biggest reason the show is popular here on tumblr as opposed to any of the others is probably the fact that the robot cast is so well developed, each member of the Brave Police corps gets a ton of character development time, usually in the form of at least one episode to themselves. The show wasn’t perfect, most notably it introduces a single overarching villain and an extended plotline featuring them at what feels like the eleventh hour and it wasn’t all that memorable. The second half definitely feels weaker than the first. Overall however, I thought it was great and probably the safest bet of the three to enjoy. I hope it’s the next Braves series to make it into SRW.
Out of the three,The Brave of Gold Goldran is probably the one that’s most for kids, with the most cartoonish setting by far. The cast of robots aren’t nearly as well developed as they are in J-Decker and the focus is more or less exclusively on the trio of human protagonists and the wacky adventures they have to go on. It’s good that the three of them have a lot of charisma though, and even though it’s a kiddy show at heart I still really enjoyed its sense of humour at times, it can get hysterical at points. Unlike J-Decker, it has an overarching villain from the get go, a blundering fop called Walter Walzac who might be my favourite comic relief villain in anything, whether its Braves, mecha or just media in general. He completely stole the show and is probably one of my top 5 favourite characters in the mecha genre as a result. The biggest negatives about the show are that as mentioned previously, the robots aren’t well developed characters, also the action is on the weaker side compared to other shows in the franchise and really the whole tone of the show is just wildly different from almost anything else in the genre that it’s probably a really hard sell to most mecha fans. That said, I personally really enjoyed its sense of humour, especially when Walter was on screen. It’s not going to be for everyone but I still think it’s worth giving a chance.
Brave Express Might Gaine is one I only really watched for the sake of getting up to speed for SRW T, and otherwise I probably would have avoided it because it hasn’t been fully and properly translated. The first thirty or so episodes have been fansubbed adequately and are available on youtube, but the rest still only exists as a pretty awful Hong Kong crabstick-style sub. That said, it’s still a good show and probably the single one that has the most in common with Gaogaigar that I’ve seen. Again, the robot characters are pretty poorly developed, and the focus is more on the human protagonist Maito. While Walter is my favourite comic relief villain, the rogues gallery of crime bosses that Maito faces throughout the series aren’t too far behind, and they’re actually probably the characters with the most development in the show. There’s an overarching plot from the get-go and it’s quite good, although infuriatingly the amazing climax to it all is only available with crabstick subs. I also think this is the show that has my favourite mechanical design and battles of the three, with some impressive attacks with animation from Masari Obari, which is probably why its become something of an unlikely SRW staple in recent years. It also has some of my favourite transformation and combination sequences, rivalling Gaogaigar at points. That said, the translation issue hangs like a cloud over everything, and makes it a really hard sell - if it was finished, it might have been the easiest. Funnily enough, what that means is that the best way to experience the plot is probably to play SRW (more specifically either V or X, it’s more of an afterthought in T.)
There’s still a few others that I’m eager to check out, with Fighbird and Exkaiser probably being the first in line, so this is far from a complete rundown on the franchise. Let me reemphasise that while these three are all worthy series, you shouldn’t go into any of them expecting to see something just like Gaogaigar, which I think is honestly on another level to all of the series I mentioned here.
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