pushovermediacritic

[pushovermediacritic]

[pushovermediacritic]

He's got something for ya

[pushovermediacritic]

I really loved how much the episode sold how much Panzy hated the collar and how freeing it made her feel being gone. It reminded me a lot of a few fantastic moments in One Piece.

Dragon Ball Daima 01x07 - Collar

Well, that's an episode title. Guess it's time to talk about that collar that Third Worlders have to wear.

...hehe...

...hehehehehehe....

...a lot of time, you say?

<.< >.> There's a room for that. Right here in this temple. Room meant for just such a scenario as this.

It's a perfect solution. Take the ship into the Room of Spirit and Time! Bulma can go in there, immediately implode from the intense atmosphere pressure, and then this is all-a y'all's problem now, fuckos. Wish me back when it's done.

Don't worry, Bulma. This feels primed to become important to the story later down the road, after we've been to Daimakai once and conveniently picked up the missing element.

It could just have been a goose chase to give these characters something to do while waiting for their turn at the plot, but I'm going to give it the benefit of doubt and assume the ship's been set up as a Chekhov's Gun.

At some point we'll be back here like "But we need to get back to Daimakai! How do we do that? Oh, I brought this neat rock back with us...."

The way Vegeta takes one step to the side as he turns, with audible footstep as the only sound that breaks the silence. Moving positions specifically to shield Bulma from whatever fresh Hell this is.

He only has one job around here but he is going to fucking do it.

Bulma: If I had a nickel for every time a Majin conveniently showed up right here in a spaceship to take us to King Kadan while I was working on this ship, I'd have two nickels....

WHO'S READY FOR ANOTHER EXCITING ROUND OF DEBATES ABOUT GOKU'S FATHERHOOD LET'S GO

What. XD Why isn't Popo looking after the temple? When did it suddenly become Kibito's job to do housekeeping for terrestrial deity Dende?

Did Popo pull "Pecking Order" the second Kibito was left alone with him for the first time?

Daima is going so hard to assure the audience that it remembers all of Goku's abilities. Trafficking him through a surprise inspection by remembering that he can just fucking teleport. XD

While also once again marking itself as not existing in continuity with Super. "Goku can't sense God Ki" is not a thing in this series.

It's funny that, despite the clever scheme to avoid suspicion, we end up having to beat up the soldiers anyway. Sometimes plans go awry. That's just how it is.

And the worst-case scenario happens!

STOP. WRECKING. THEIR. PLANES.

GUYS. GUYS.

WE SHOULD STEAL ONE OF THOSE.

GOKU YOU CAN TELEPORT

WE LITERALLY JUST WENT OVER THAT YOU CAN TELEPORT

TELEPORT ONTO THE PLANE AND CLEAR IT OUT SO WE CAN HAVE IT FOR OURSELVES

no

okay

BUT NOT FOR LACK OF TRYING

Incidentally, "Gendarmerie" is a weird way for the subtitles to translate 憲兵 kenpei. It means "Military Police". Gendarmerie isn't incorrect, but it is a weird French word that nobody says so I'm not sure how many native English speakers even know what that means.

Like. Imperial Stormtroopers are a Gendarmerie. But if you said "You know the gendarmerie from Star Wars?" nobody would have any idea what you're talking about. What the fuck is a gendarmerie?

I'm pretty sure this happened because if you stick 憲兵隊 kenpeitai or "Military Police Squad" into Google Translate it comes out:

Thanks, Google. That's French, but sure.

That is probably not what they're going to be called in the dub.

You know, I was wondering about that. If you put an indestructible collar on an infant it's going to strangle them eventually. The size has to be adjustable in some way or another or else the logistics just don't work out.

I'm glad they didn't drag the collar drama out too much. Panzy had it for just long enough to establish what it is and explain how much it fucking sucks, and now it's gone.

KAIOSHIN OFFICIALLY HAS A REAL NAME

Bootleg Bulma has a Bootleg Dragon Radar. She uses it for something else but still. The audacity. They aren't even trying to hide that she's derivative.

Okay he says that, and I'm sure Goku will abide by it because Goku's an athlete first and foremost. He's in it for love of the game. He wouldn't have it any other way than a 1v1 match.

But. Like.

What actually enforces that? That's a weird thing to have as a rule. The way this works is there's a big scary robot man with a Dragon Ball in its chest, and you have to defeat the robot man to get the Dragon Ball, right?

What's to stop three guys from jumping the Tamagami, beating the shit out of it, and taking the Dragon Ball? I mean, if they can win that, then... I mean, a win's a win. You're beaten to a bloody pulp; You aren't exactly in a position to contest the victory.

What stops "cheaters" from taking the Dragon Ball? Will the Tamagami file a formal complaint with the Wish Dragon Committee?

I dunno. I get the concept of "There are these insanely powerful warriors who are so OP that no one has ever matched them, and they guard the Plot Tokens." What I don't get is how there would be traditional Rules of Engagement for challenging such entities, or why anyone not named Son Goku would abide by them.

I love how Panzy's scarf initially disguised the fact that she was wearing a collar, and now it disguises the fact that she isn't.

Oh, this is definitely related to Glorio.

Some of the lines in the subs have this weird conversion artifacting that you'd expect to see from poorly encoded fansubs but not in an official product. Between that and the Google Translating I caught them doing, I have concerns.

It's fun when characters use powerful characters as yardsticks without realizing that our protagonists surpassed them a while ago. Remember that time Kaioshin tried to convey how strong he was to the Super Saiyans by comparing himself to Frieza? Same energy. XD

Dabra's a more relevant yardstick than Frieza was at that time. But still, what Panzy doesn't know is that the only one of the Saiyans Dabra was a threat to was Gohan, and only because he was out-of-practice.

I was not prepared for these things to have personalities and I am so, so happy that they do.

This is gonna be fun.

Ahh, what a fun episode. This one kept things moving and never felt dull. We learned some interesting new details about the characters. Panzy got her collar off. And now Goku's going to fight his first Tamagami. Looking forward to the next.

Also Team Bulma is finally in Daimakai. I wonder when they'll catch up to Team Goku? It'd be kinda funny if they just remained in pursuit for the entire series. XD

[pushovermediacritic]

[pushovermediacritic]

Regarding your question in the replies, this is a bonus page in the last volume:

It shows Rayne feeding his bunnies, Levis's brother getting better (the databook reveals his name is Lovie and his illness was due to Epidem, so it went away when Epidem was beaten, just like Anna's illness), Lemon returning home to her farmer parents with Spot, Spotty, and Spottington, and Ryoh returning home to his wife and son.

i think we as a society should pay more attention to the fact that dot can play the violin— and is quite skilled at it too— because that’s actually such a cool trait about him that’s forgotten abt so much

[pushovermediacritic]

Great analysis.

I watched the Rocky movies after the Creed ones, and as much as people don't like talking about Rocky 5, I really think that Creed 2 does something really interesting with Rocky 5. That being that it parallels Rocky's downfall from wealth in Rocky 5 with Ivan's downfall from fame in Creed 2's backstory.

The Rocky vs Ivan fight was the greatest fight of all time between two superhumans who could fight Captain America, but the aftermath of the fight was devastating for both of them. In the moment, it seemed like a fight where everyone won and peace was achieved, but in reality both boxers lost and the cold hard hammer of reality slammed down.

After doing some thinking on this, I think the most interesting movie in the Creed-Rocky universe is “Creed II”:

While most of the movies in the franchise are good, Creed II fascinates me since it’s actually different in how it approaches the main conflict. Most of the movies follow the same formula of underdog boxer must triumph over superior opponent, while Creed II feels more focused on the behind-the-scenes drama and history.

This movie could’ve easily just been a revenge story. Adonis wants to avenge his dad, so he beats up the son of his dad’s killer. However, it feels like the writers of the movie wanted to dig deeper into this. While the revenge story would be simpler and more theatrical, Creed II instead asks the audience how this would be realistically.

And the answer is…really sad, actually.

You’d think that Adonis would be at Kill Bill-levels of vengeful, but he’s not. Instead, he’s more frustrated by how he’s expected to want to avenge his father. He just became world champion and yet the media is only talking about him fighting Viktor Drago. Even Donnie admits you can’t talk about the Creeds without talking about the Dragos. Sure, he does resent Ivan, of course he would. But he doesn’t have a beef with Viktor, and it shows.

Viktor wasn’t doing any better. Although he was trash talking Donnie, you can tell how frustrated he was with how he was being used to “restore�� Ivan’s honor. He hated how the Russian leaders, especially his mother, were only treating him and his father well after he started winning in the ring. None of it felt genuine, it’s like he was just a racehorse to them.

When you look at Donnie and Viktor’s arcs as a whole, it’s fascinating just how the arcs work as an overall discussion on legacy. Legacy ends up being the true villain of the movie:

1) Donnie can’t establish his own legacy since he’s chained to his father’s legacy. Even though he has the belt, no one cared. They just wanted the spiritual successor to Apollo vs. Ivan.

2) Viktor was literally raised in hardship because of what happened to his father in the 1980s. Then, he realized he was being used as a way to restore his father’s legacy, which disgusted him.

3) For both Adonis and Viktor, neither of them harbored any actual hate to each other. Any feelings of resentment came solely from their fathers’ actions.

4) Rocky wouldn’t even put up pictures of his fight with Ivan, which makes sense since there wasn’t anything uplifting about that match. Sure, he ended the Cold War (lol) but it doesn’t change the fact that the fight was about vengeance.

5) Ivan was so traumatized by his defeat that he felt like he deserved his exiling. Exiled…for losing a damn boxing match. It took nearly losing his son in the ring for him to realize that reclaiming his lost glory was not worth it.

The end fight is, in my opinion, the most interesting showdown in the franchise. Instead of feeling like a battle between a hero and a villain, it felt more…therapeutic? It’s like Donnie and Viktor knew that they couldn’t move forward with their lives until they got this fight over with, so that’s what they do. You can tell there’s a feeling of relief on both ends once the fight finishes since Donnie got the win over Viktor (thus ending the media’s obsession over a Creed-Drago revenge match) and Ivan affirmed to Viktor that he’ll always have his father’s love.

I should note that there’s a deleted scene (it shouldn’t have been!) where Donnie, Viktor, and Ivan all make peace with each other. I feel like that was the point of making this sequel. It’s not a revenge story like what most people thought, it’s a story of healing, past trauma, generational conflict, and moving on from the past. That’s also why Creed III is a brilliant follow-up since, for the first time in the Creed series, it’s a movie that’s about Donnie’s legacy, not Apollo or Rocky’s.

Basically, Creed II treated the fight between the sons of Apollo and Ivan as an obligation that needed to be fulfilled. It’s funny since that actually works as meta commentary on the audience since that was what a lot of people wanted to see when the first Creed movie was announced. Once that obligation was finished, Donnie and Viktor were able to move on with their lives and establish their own legacies, as seen in Creed III.

And that’s kinda beautiful.

[pushovermediacritic]

Brook Collage 🖤 7/10

[pushovermediacritic]

I wrote this up after Part 1, so it's repeating a little bit of what you said, but expanded:

Let’s talk about the sexism in “Children’s War Game”! Or maybe I should call it “Boy’s War Game”, because that’s what it really is.

I hadn’t noticed this until I was re-reading this live-blog, but now I can’t unsee it. I’m not saying this Special is maliciously or aggressively sexist, but it is VERY dismissively sexist.

The team that fights Diablomon is Taichi and Koushiro, later joined by Yamato and Takeru. A full half of the 8 Chosen Children aren’t even involved in this conflict. And “coincidentally” enough, that half contains all three girls, Sora, Mimi, and Hikari.

In that light, Jou’s exclusion feels like a saving throw to try and convince the audience this decision has nothing to do with gender. Like Hisoda wanted to cut out all the girls and then threw Jou in as a “see, I’m not sexist” thing. Either that or Jou was planned from the start...

See, Jou’s exclusion does make more sense than Sora, Mimi, and Hikari’s. Jou is gone because he’s taking entrance exams, something he mentioned multiple times in the original show. His absence feels foreshadowed.

The girl’s excuses for being absent are much more contrived. Hikari is at the birthday party of a friend who we’ve never heard of before. Mimi is on vacation to Hawaii even though her family is relatively poor (despite what the dub would have you believe). And Sora is feuding with Taichi over something stupid that happened off-screen between the show and movie. All three of the girl's absences are based on things this movie made up. And because Sora, Mimi, and Hikari are absent, that means Piyomon, Palmon, and Tailmon have to sit this out, too. So that’s actually 6 girls reduced from main characters down to cameos, not 3.

The most important female character in this special isn’t Mimi, Hikari, or even Sora with her hairclip subplot, it’s Yuuko. Yep, Taichi’s mom who only exists to be ignorant comic relief in the background, baking a cake. She’s the most important simply by virtue of having far and away the most screentime. And even she’s short-changed.

Taichi’s attitude toward Yuuko is rude and dismissive of her throughout, which is both unnecessary and nonsensical. As you pointed out in part 1, there’s no need to keep this a secret from her, to mold her into the stereotype of “the ignorant parent who couldn’t handle cool saving-the-world stuff” you see in kid’s shows all the time. Yuuko knows about Digimon. As an adult, she could have been helping out in the background with the real-world tech stuff, like when the phones went dead. But nope, she’s baking a cake. A cake she’s only making because Taichi whined about it.

Digimon Adventure: Our War Game, epilogue

Well, we finished the movie but I wanted to take a moment to go over these epilogue slides. Especially for those fans who only know the OVA from its appearance in Digimon: The Movie, where the slides are skipped over so it can move on to adapt Hurricane Touchdown.

So, in the wake of near-nuclear annihilation how is everybody doing?

We close out Takeru and Yamato's story at the barbershop. It seems Sho has convinced Yamato to fucking do something about his scraggly-ass hair.

This somewhat bridges the gap between Our War Game and 02, where Yamato's hair is still a bit unkempt but no longer looks like a porcupine died on his head and he kept it as a hat.

Jou finished his entrance exams and looks like he's about to drop dead on the spot. Diablomon really fucked up this kid's day, and he still doesn't even know any of that even happened.

Speaking of people who have no idea what happened, Mimi is home from her Hawaii trip and everybody's got suntans. The Tachikawa family is as close as ever.

Hikari is still at that birthday party despite Taichi screaming at her multiple times to drop everything and come home. She has elected to invoke the rule of Go Fuck Yourself, a popular choice among women who've been treated rudely by domineering men.

She, too, remains blissfully unaware of the horrifying fate that nearly befell Tokyo today.

Yamato's grandma seems to be enjoying the peace and quiet since Yamato and Takeru ran off.

Nobody ate any of Yuuko's destroyed cake. Diablomon truly did get the last laugh in the end.

Koushiro finally gets to go home after what must have felt like ten years in Susumu's office.

The Digimon return to Gennai's secret mansion to continue... Whatever they're doing with their lives.

And this is the big one. Sora types out an email to Taichi that reads: "Dear Taichi. I'm sorry. Thank you for the present. Sora." Then we close on the true final shot of the film: A picture of Sora, smiling and wearing the hairclip that Taichi gave her.

As with Yamato's haircut, this also serves to bridge the gap between series as 02 will see Sora no longer covering her hair with headgear. The emotional landmine Taichi stepped on has finally been cleaned up.

So. How we feeling about this film.

Assessment: My biggest complaint is that not one of the show's three female characters got to actually do anything.

Half of the cast was written out, with only Taichi, Yamato, Koushiro, and Takeru having any significant roles - and Takeru's really stretching the definition of "significant" there. That's fine, but it does bug me that not one of the show's women apparently warranted any serious inclusion.

I think that's why they gave Yuuko so much screentime. To compensate for the fact that all three of the Chosen Children girls were excluded.

Diablomon is... pretty straightforward. It's a buggy Digimon made of bugs who eats data, and its eating of data causes more bugs. There's something simple and childlike about its demeanor right up to the end, but any sympathy I may have had for it vanished instantly with the reveal of the nuke.

That the nuke was not a reaction to Taichi and Koushiro but rather something it did right at the start of the film really gives it a lot of added menace that didn't seem present in its earlier stages. And yet it's not super clear if Diablomon even grasps the severity of what it's doing.

But it's unambiguously both aware of and complicit in the nuclear threat. That didn't just happen by accident as a result of a bug. The whole thing with the clock shows that Diablomon knows it launched a nuke and is making a horrifying game out of it.

Which is... All it really does. It doesn't feel like it's trying to destroy the world on purpose. It would have fired more than one nuke if that was what it wanted. It just feels like it's playing games. With extremely high stakes.

What an odd creature.

The stuff in Shimane with Yamato and Takeru was a lot of fun. XD More than I expected it to be. I kinda love the barbershop randos.

Sora and Taichi's drama seems like it's meant to be the emotional center of the film. This is what we open on, and it's what we close on. It's something we keep coming back to as the OVA progresses.

But it's also kinda flat due to Sora basically being a glorified cameo like Jou and the other girls. Without giving Sora any kind of active presence, there's not really anywhere it can go. All we can do is listen to Taichi wring his hands and complain about the drama they're having until his email arrives and it suddenly stops happening.

It's hard to do interesting interpersonal drama as a solo act.

I think the missile itself is the breakout star of this OVA. If there's one thing Our War Game is remembered for, it's... Well, actually, it's the debut of Omegamon. But if there's two things, then it's being the one where an evil Digimon tried to nuke Japan.

All in all... still a fun OVA. Now, there's nothing left between us and Adventure 02. The old guard are retiring to middle school. It's time for a new generation to take over.

[pushovermediacritic]

discourse.jpg

[pushovermediacritic]

Mashle: Magic and Muscles Special Joint Event "MASHLE PARK" Now Open!

The special event featuring the original manga and the anime adaptation of Mashle is now open in Japan! To celebrate, the official X/Twitter account has posted special phone wallpapers of the characters featured in the event visuals as a countdown to the event's first opening, one of which is drawn by original creator Hajime Komoto! These are the wallpapers featuring the main characters from Adler Dorm.

Described as where you can find everything related to Mashle, the event will take place at Yokohama Marui City from November 22 to December 8. It will also take place at Kyoto Space Galleria from April 4 2025 to May 5 2025!

Check the official website located at the source link of this post for more info!

[pushovermediacritic]

The corner store has Pop Tarts Bites? What even is that?

*one week later*

Oh hey, it's the Pop Tarts Bites.

*Two weeks later*

Wow the Pop Tarts Bites are still going strong, huh? Didn't think there'd be much of a market for them.

*Two weeks later*

Ha! Pop Tarts Bites! I keep forgetting that's a thing.

*Two weeks later*

You know what? Fuck it. If there's enough demand to keep restocking these, I gotta try 'em for myself. I'm buying the Pop Tarts Bites.

*Get home, begin eating*

Hm. Something... I can kinda taste the Pop Tartiness but it doesn't taste right. I can't place what it is but something's off.

It's like... I don't really know what it's like, it's just wrong. I thought it'd taste more like, y'know, a Pop Tart.

Wait, when does this expire?

*checks bag*

October 5th, 2024

...

Oh.

Ohhhhh.

I thought.

Oh.

[pushovermediacritic]

Matzo Ball Soup. I remember my grandma making it every Passover, and it was far and away my favorite Jewish food. To the point I even started asking for it for other occasions, it was just so good.

But it's been years now since I've had it. Writing this post has made me miss it.

Looking it up, there's actually a New York-style restaurant nearby, and they have sandwiches and Matzo Ball Soup. I think I'm gonna go there soon, maybe I'll reblog again if it was good.

Hey guys be cool and normal but reblog this with the homemade meal that would get you the most hyped as a child. I need it for reasons.

[pushovermediacritic]

Character design says you can only have hair on one end of the head, either the top or the bottom.

Ignore all the times that's not the case.

Say, what do Captain Benjamin Sisko, Green Lantern John Stewart, and Luke Cage have in Common?

Weird, ain’t it?

[pushovermediacritic]

I see what you're saying, but wouldn't the Tiger Hunt pose work better than the Oni Giri pose?

Zoro's swords look like Luffy's scar

[pushovermediacritic]

This meme got me thinking:

And I came to a conclusion.

The problem with modern Youtube is that it's too fucking boring and political.

Pulling back a bit, that's not to say I dislike those creators, or don't watch them. There is definitely a niche for opinion-based essays, discussions, and political content, and I enjoy watching stuff like that occasionally. And partially it's due to the current worldwide political climate being fucking crazy, so people genuinely do want to talk about it.

But primarily, this is an issue created by Youtube itself, with three major changes:

Videos can't have explicit content like swearing, sex, or violence, otherwise advertisers will demonetize the videos because they want to advertise to children. And no copyrighted music or footage, otherwise the video will get claimed.

Paradoxically, videos have to be marked as "not for children", and if they're too funny, silly, bright, and colorful, they will get in trouble with the government and be demonetized by Youtube switching them to "for children".

Also, the algorithm now favors overall watchtime over number of views. Both in terms of revenue and push. This means that short high-effort videos are less favored over long low-effort content viewers can put in the background while doing chores.

These three factors combined: no explicit content, no childish content, and no short-form content, means that people have naturally gravitated toward one style of video: being fucking boring and just talking about the news for hours on-end.

No-one could say that the news is "for kids", they don't give a shit, but just saying your opinions on current events can also be sanitized enough to not get demonetized (no sex or violence when you're just sitting in a room talking). And if you can ramble on for 2-3 hours on whatever current events have you annoyed, that's more watch-time. It's low-effort because it can just be a stream upload, and without music or visual aids, there's no worry of being copyright claimed and viewers can put it in the background while doing chores and listen like a podcast.

[pushovermediacritic]

Genuinely, what happened to “feminism is for everyone”?

That’s the feminism I grew up with: encouraging people to recognize that fighting sexism and restrictive gender roles helps folks of every gender. We’d push back on the idea that feminists hate men, pointing to inclusive feminist literature and how many men are feminists.

Now, there are so many people insisting that the solution to patriarchy is to openly hate and ostracize men no matter what. Why? What is the benefit? It’s certainly not effective in fighting oppressive structures to exclude half the population from your cause on the basis of immutable traits. It may feel cathartic to say horrible things about men and try to punish them for your frustrations with patriarchy. But the only actual effect I see is the increasing right-wing radicalization of young men, who are being told that the left hates them for the way they were born and presented with an abundance of proof that it’s true.

Why are we going back to treating men and women as different species? It doesn’t fix things to say “well women are the good gender and men are the bad one” this time. If you sincerely want to dismantle sexism, you’re going to have to unpack and let go of all sex and gender essentialism—even that which considers women inherently pure and men inherently immoral.

[pushovermediacritic]

one thing i've always understood as Akira Toriyama's influence on manga, even if just assumption on my part, was how his cartooning came to bear when he started writing pure action manga. when I think of his contemporaries I think of overblown special moves like Saint Seiya or the gory fist clusters of FotNS

to me it seemed what Toriyama brought to the table was the satisfaction of clarity in martial arts

when you read his fight scenes, which may have become notorious when animated for dragging on, there's no question about what's happening in the action

a clear kick to the jaw

a clean line of action on Yajirobe's slice

I first noticed this clarity pretty quickly early on in the General Tao fights during the red ribbon arc, where entire fight scenes playing out with these clear motions on the pages

Even as it got more detailed later on, the clarity stayed

clear hits on clear fight scenes

and dirtier but still completely legible lines of action

And when he started introducing the big over the top special moves we got the same thing quite often in DB: that simple visual clarity amplifying the excitement

i'm not super coherent on it right now, i'm not the biggest shonen action fan all the time and maybe Toriyama didn't introduce the world to visually clear and interesting fights in manga.

but when I see any action manga showing off clean fight choreography or sick ass lazer beams that show off clear shockwaves of destruction, i'll always be thinking of the GOAT

RIP Akira Toriyama