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pinkymoone · 8 days

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Akiba Maid Wars Review! *~Minor Spoilers BEWARE~*

Long time no see! I've been occupied with living, and boy, it's been annoying. Anyways, I watched Akiba Maid Wars during my long summer break and decided to write a review because it was one of the only series I actually finished since this year began [which says something abt this anime b/c I never finish anything].

First things first, this anime was hella funny because the concept was one of its kind: maid cafes x gang/mafia. The great dichotomy between those two concepts in itself is hard not to make iconic, and engaging the audience is quite simple when the "surprise" factor IS the plot. But...

...do you see how that can be problematic already?--detrimental and damaging to this whole anime?

I'm going to try to not get too rant-y because credit does need to be given to where it deserves, and this anime was very entertaining.

Pros: The characters had distinct, comical personalities. Although it was a bit stereotypical [a hopeful MC, stern friend, cute/cold friend, cute/violent friend], it wasn't a huge splinter to the story. I'll just say everyone had a funny dynamic with one another and the obstacles they went through because their characters were all different. The villain was a bit boring, but again, not a huge problem. For the plot, it wasn't anything mind-blowing or new, but it was decent mostly because it was so funny. It's so damn hilarious to think that cute maid girls are actually gangsters. I laughed a lot at each episode because of how ridiculous it was, and many scenarios were quite memorable. It made me think the writers probably had a good laugh themselves when writing a maid festival where cute maid groups had to fight each other/climb a huge maid statue to win and get more prestige and sales.

Now I'm not going to lie; there were many eyebrow-raising moments because things just didn't make sense/came off as unnatural.

That goes right into my cons: the plot execution was so messy. Not "just" messy, SO messy. It really affects the viewing experience about halfway through the season, even to the point that I just wanted to drop it. I can see that at the beginning of the series, there was a clear vision the creators had: to shock viewers when cute maid girls suddenly kill each other [obviously, like gangs]. I think they were also going for a meme/gag aesthetic. The first episode accomplished it well, but they already utilized the "surprise factor", so how were they going to top it off in the next 11 episodes? The scenarios began to get severely repetitive, predictable, and the weight of death wasn't there at all, with no consequences or realistic emotional damage. This is a huge problem; it strips away the human quality of the characters/setting that is based on IRL concept of maid cafes in Japan. If they were going for a totally unrealistic/absurd vibe, I'll take it, but the anime seemed confused, because they tried to add real sentimentality of gang stories.

SO at about episode 6 or 7, it was a struggle. They had nothing more to work with in later episodes as the same situations kept happening with loosely mended solutions. Sure, there was a plot to address, but in between that seemed like filler episodes of either kidnappings, sabotage, gun fights, and meaningless deaths. And I'll just say it now, there is such a thing as TOO MUCH killing sprees and character deaths, especially when it's either used as a brainless resolution or a pointless attempt at "shocking" the viewers. It just didn't make it enjoyable anymore, and I know the execution could've been better had they carefully constructed HOW they were going to present important plot points and HOW they were going to solve it. Were they going for a coherent story? Or just a gag (think Gintama) vibe? The humorous situations were what kept this anime going, but then you'd think about the foundational plot and wonder how serious (or unserious) it was, and just end up getting frustrated with the way things pan out.

As for the ending, it was nonsensically abrupt and did not make much sense; I think I constantly questioned, "Why am I still watching this?" at that point. But, you know, I commend the writers for giving it a happy ending than the miserable/sadder ones I see in mainstream media. They got the main message across pretty good: Maid's are defined by their duty to bring happiness. It isn't about power, money, or glory. I suppose you can apply this idea to numerous roles in our societies. Overall, a 6/10 watch.

It was a decent, turn-off brain series to watch, so if that's what you're looking for alongside good laughs, I recommend it. If you hate messy, nonsensical stories to the point that it exhausts you (i was indeed a bit exhausted) don't watch it.

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chibivesicle · 2 years

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Trigun Stampede - Episode 7 - with a title like ‘WOLFWOOD’, I was expecting him to die.

Yet, he is still very much alive at the end of the episode. He saved the orphanage - cue manga plot line to die. However, this wasn’t his second showdown with Livio; can’t have him dying just yet can we?

As I’ve said before, and I will continue to say, the technical aspects of this series are top notch. The smooth fight scenes, the great facial expressions, especially from Meryl in this episode. Yet, the payoff from the events of this episode ring hollow to me. But that is continuing on if the payoff is earned or not. And with all that introduction of the Bad Lads Gang, we don’t even get to see B.D.N. as an older fan, I have to admit that was a disappointment, he was a good villain who added to the character dynamics and helped flesh out Vash’s character early on. But before that, I’ll respond to some comments on last week’s post - I’m always bad about getting back to comments on posts - apologies. ^^;; One comment was on how Wolfwood and Vash don’t need to become friends since it is Wolfwood’s job to take Vash to Knives. That is totally correct - however, the ‘98 anime and manga both make it a point that Wolfwood and Vash become friends as it adds to their character development. Wolfwood realizes his guilt and also finds peace with his decisions because he became friends with Vash. And Vash respected him in both either by literally carrying his cross in the anime in the final showdown with Knives or by using his own life force/span to blow a hole in Knives’ ark just to show him Wolfwood’s dead body on the couch while looking very pissed off. Either way Wolfwood’s own actions that result in his death spur Vash into action. Another comment was about how I’m guessing this season is 12-13 episodes - I’m going by the fact that a lot of anime now are split into two parts for a single ‘season’ and they pace them out this way e.g. Spy x Family, LOGH:DNT etc. It just reflects a change in the animation industry instead of the 90s where they would contractually agree with a studio to make seasons that were either 24-26 episodes long in one go or as long as 36-40. Hence the use of recap and filler episodes, though I personally feel that the original Trigun does not suffer from ‘pointless filler’, it was clever in the story and character development. I haven’t been gleaning the Japanese sources with much vigor since I’m not that into Trigun Stampede to care that much. I think a comment on one of posts mentioned it might be a current 9 episodes for this part from Studio Orange. I care enough about Stampede to give it a college try and watch it but at this point, it won’t hold much re-watch weight when I could go back to the original or read the manga again and enjoy it.

The last comment was similar to the first one, and I agree as well that Wolfwood really is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He has to suck it up and do what he’s told to prevent other children from the fate he and Livio have come to experience. There is just so much we can discuss about this and I love hearing back from other people and the different ways to look at things.

Okay, onto episode seven!

The episode starts off with everyone panicking as the Sandsteamer is off course and under attack. And it is heading straight for Hopeland. Cue Wolfwood panic even further! The map labels the Hopeland Orphanage but the dialogue indicates it is also a town.

Which is it Studio Orange? Honestly, it would have been best to label it as the town of Hopeland and note it has an orphanage through context than making that the key landmark. It reads oddly. The original stated that the Church orphanage is located 300 iles from December according to Wolfwood.

Wolfwood has a lot of angst trying to figure out what to do, lashing out at the Bad Lads members and then goes back to fighting Livio while telling Vash to flee.

Again, the fight sequence between Wolfwood and Livio is brutal and the July MPs remark that the two of them are monsters. It seems that Livio has some sort of built in regeneration system that we can’t see and Wolfwood decides he has no choice but to kill him.

While this is happening, the Bad Lads gang is raiding the Sandsteamer and not really doing that much honestly. They are doing a hit and run. No B.D.N. - personal sadness.

Instead of disguising themselves as Bad Lad members, it seems that one of the two of them sweet talked them to spare them to report for an ‘Outlaw’ magazine. We have Meryl taking pictures of them as they pose during the raid.

Since Meryl is pretty quick witted, I’m guessing she’s the one who came up with the idea and Roberto is just rolling with it based on his body language. But hey, they aren’t dead! That’s a plus.

Then Vash shows up knocking out all sorts of Bad Lads making his way to Roberto and Meryl.

The group briefly chat about why they are there as Vash thought they drove off back towards July on their own. We have him using his gun as a blunt object along with his robotic arm. I guess when he ran away from Wolfwood, his goal was to just knock out as many of them as possible? It is unclear what his objective is other than this is the way the writers have him run into Meryl and Roberto. This shows off that he’s ‘not human’ according to Roberto and they don’t explain to him that they are still following him either.

He then continues down the hall taking out more Bad Lads with his knock them out strategy.

We do see Vash do this in the ‘98 anime (and in the manga) in the episode ‘Hang Fire’ with his famous terrible song about slaughter and genocide but the crux of that story was him begging a father wanting to kill the man who raped and murdered his daughter not to. He kicks a freakkin’ rocket grenade with his foot and takes out men with his long colt 45 instead of shooting them.

The action returns to Wolfwood and Livio. We had more 2D flashbacks about them and Wolfwood is resolved to take him out by insulting him and pretending him like he does care. Livio gets emotionally stunned and when he goes to shoot him at point blank range, his shot is knocked off course and destroys Zazie’s monitoring insect.

This is where he turns to Vash in shock, since this is one of the few times Vash has fired his gun in the entire series. Of course it is to protect Wolfwood and Livio.

Vash keeps pushing him to try to find a way to connect with Livio and Wolfwood fights him until he can damage the weird mind control device on Livio’s face. He pop back into awareness and realizes that Wolfwood is his older brother, Nick and it looks like they might get him.

But all of the brainwashing from the Eye of Michael kicks in and he staggers about pointing his guns at Roberto, Meryl, Vash and Wolfwood . . . before he snaps and shoots himself in the head and falls off the steamer. Tis a flesh wound. We know Livio will be back later.

Wolfwood is clearly concerned and looks over the railing and notices a car that he knows is likely Legato and others. However, he doesn’t share this critical information with others and instead angsting alone for a moment.

It then reveals that Legato is in the mood for some monologue time to state that Wolfwood’s ‘lack of faith’ is an issue and in order to get him to serve Knives better they need to destroy everything he cares about; Livio and the orphanage.

Once Wolfwood no longer has these important connections, it will be no problem to control him. [sighs] If you say so less nihilistic version of Legato. In the last episode we already had Legato establish that this version of Wolfwood has a very strong will and attachment to others, he should realize that this likely will backfire on him.

What is throwing me for a loop is that Legato is the ‘religious’ one in this version. That was squarely Wolfwood’s thing in the manga and ‘98 anime. He seems to (based on his dialogue) believe that faith in something is greater than emotions. Yet, in this episode, we do get some actual anger from him in his voice as well as a more sinister facial expression indicating our bad boy has emotions.

The religious fervor continues with his mannerisms as he decides to force his hand, literally. If the Bad Lads Gang, Livio and Wolfwood can’t do the job, then he will do it.

This does appear to be very tongue and cheek dialogue from him, but I’m disappointed. I miss ultra-nihilistic Legato Bluesummers. He seems to be going through somewhat villain motions, but is missing that sick and twisted edge that made him as creepy as fuck in the original works. I’m also missing his Knives worship. We have no indication that he’s a man craving validation from a person he’s obsessed with. Granted, we didn’t get that early on either, but he made it clear he was there for Knives’ agenda.

What is his ultimate plan? Trigger the ship’s ion cannon to fire at the city and plow into it as well! Wow! I’m sorry, this is again lazy writing. We are going to have Vash info dump for once, stating that the Sandsteamer is a modified spaceship, it still has it’s ion cannon and it was used to clear large rocks back in the day. And he knows how to operate parts of it and busts into all sorts of unused rooms.

Oh noes! We need to make the drama 110%, Vash declares that they have no choice but to try to manually override things. I would like to note during this entire course of events, Legato is just twiddling his thumbs thinking he’s done the job. Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched man.

Vash decides he’ll figure out how to mess with the cannon and ask Wolfwood to break into some sort of area to try to manually hold it back?

When we see Vash using the cargo container cranes to pull force on the ion cannon, and the moon in the background, I figured this was the new version of the Fifth Moon in Augusta. Since we don’t know if Vash can make his angel arm in this version, he’d blow a hole in the Fifth Moon with the ion cannon.

While Vash works on mechanically messing with the canon poor Wolfwood is having a melt down trying to do the impossible.

Meanwhile, Meryl is in the control room for the ion cannon with the fire lever before her.

Roberto makes his move and tells her it is time to go. They had a deal to pull out when it was too dangerous. He found an escape vehicle and orders her to take it.

She looks serious and hesitant.

He reminds her what her job is and that she is not a hero and is just a normal person. We can tell they are leading up to some sort of confrontation between the junior and senior reporters.

Poor Wolfwood is there pushing on a giant ion cannon losing his mind. This plot point is bonkers. I get this is sci fi and that Wolfwood can heal quickly but super strength wasn’t in his background right? Or not that we’ve seen.

The conflict boils over when Meryl takes her stand to not be passive or run away! She calmly says she can’t abandon them and that she doesn’t judge Roberto for running either.

But the events at Jeneora Rock shook her to her core. She can’t be passive and has been feeling frustrated since those events. Meryl has guilt for not being able to prevent Tonis from being injured and she sees it as her fault that he lost an arm.

She declares that she’s staying right here in the chance that she’ll be able to make a difference. Honestly, Roberto doesn’t have much to say back to her and thankfully, he doesn’t.

This entire sequence shows where Studio Orange kills it with her facial expressions. They are good, incredibly good. It also further shows that Meryl is also taking on aspects of Milly by caring about others and doing the ‘right’ thing to help out others even if it took her some time to get to this point. Studio Orange - I give you one point for actual character development for her.

Vash rushes down to help out Wolfwood. He tells him that he does have something he cares about and Wolfwood pretends to be obtuse while they strain to try to push the ion cannon.

We see it strain his robotic arm which cracks and sizzles with electricity as well. He’s working it to the max.

This entire scene gives Vash time to talk to Wolfwood as he tries to connect and humanize Wolfwood. However, the sheer physics of this is crazy. Even with a special robotic arm, they aren’t going to make that much of a difference. Yet somehow, they are able to nudge it just enough that when it reaches maximum charge, Meryl discharges the cannon.

Based on what happens it appears that the wrapped cargo crane cables and the collapsing of the arms created enough of a counter force that once they hit the ground it was able to pull it back and out of range until the discharge was complete.

I know this is a sci fi series, but the physics of this had me feeling a bit whaaaa? We’ve been sticking to more logical rules in this series; this was out of place to an extent. Additionally, Legato, why weren’t you trying to counter them more? Twiddling your thumbs I presume? Feeling superior?

Of course the crisis isn’t averted yet! Now, they need to stop the Steamer from colliding with the town. Wolfwood wants to blow it up taking himself with it. He vaguely taps into past Wolfwood’s need to choose the needs of the many as opposed to the needs of the few highlighted in ‘Escape from Pain’.

Yet, Vash gets him to stand down despite his vow that Vash can’t save people without hurting others.

Vash then sends Wolfwood to the engine room and he runs off to the plant room. This was briefly shown in the last episode, so we know the ship is powered by an individual plant.

Wolfwood becomes Kaite, and using his ability to heal, is able to open the hot pressure release door. We see all the other men sitting down looking at their hands and hot gloves unable to hold on long enough.

I missed the original plot point with B.D.N and the Sandsteamer. With the inclusion of Kaite, we see how Vash is able to convince someone to not be hopeless and to make a difference. It also leveraged the point that Kaite was small enough to climb to reach the release lever and it just takes a normal amount of human force.

It is through this nudging to action part that Vash is able to influence others to act, even when at times we know he’s being passive about the big picture for himself.

Vash then goes to the plant to get it to power down and stop the out of control Sandsteamer. Like in previous versions, he places his hands on the tank and requests assistance from the plant.

The Sandsteamer comes to a stop just before hitting the town and Legato decides to give up for the moment. He orders Zazie to retrieve Livio from the desert ground.

A sandstorm then appears, prompting Legato to ask if this is Zazie’s work which they deny.

The sandstorm moves in on the Sandsteamer. This time we have a real sandstorm as opposed to the one that never happened in episode three and also contrasts with the town that didn’t see wind power twenty-five years ago. I’m still not over the there is no wind in the desert plot point.

At the end of the episode the gang meets up to realize the only place Vash could be is the plant room. We see him hand to hand with the plant. The plants have lost their angelic design and instead look like the aliens from Avatar. Well sort of - or elves.

Vash turns to look at them and his face reveals the plant markings where in shock Meryl states that Vash is - a plant?

The episode ends with him looking at them before it goes black and he passed out collapsing to the floor. We have confirmed Vash’s plant identity. It seems like they were going for the same look of shock Meryl had to the Trigun Maximum manga when he uses his angel arm to deflect a bullet from hitting Meryl and she loses it.

Summary of this episode and some main points:

1.) Our team finally scores a win. Mark them one point in the W column! This was such a long time coming. I don’t consider the victory of the Nebraskas to count since it was just a sign of the doom to come.

2.) Wolfwood is at least getting some humanizing points. He’s been forced into a corner and finally stops to listen to Vash and back him up. Though it is with some reservations of course.

3.) Hope does hold out. It is hope that saved Hopeland. That is rather heavy handed Studio Orange! But that is the kinda of don’t worry viewer we will hand feed you the cheese are what you are going for with this series. And the ion cannon plot point - you know that they have to save the day with the paradoxical pacing in this anime.

4.) Religious elements in this series utterly baffle me. I don’t know where they are going with this. It is clear they didn’t get the original. I’m still sitting on an ask in my inbox about the religious element to the original series - it will require a longer reply than I have had time to do at the moment but it will come. Mainly, since the Christian elements can be read multiple ways and it is rather open to interpret in that context depending on your own knowledge of the base material. My main vibe is that by making Legato the religious one it just seems - oddly confusing. He’s a villain and does not have a moral dilemma that stems from his religious upbringing. I just don’t get why he’s the one reading the bible and going on about faith in some sort of higher power (Knives?) it seems OOC for him.

Character notes!

1.) Vash - fired his gun to save Livio! However, the rest of the time he used it to stun Bad Lads. So booooooo. What I’m really missing is that Vash is a skilled gunslinger. We have almost no indication of his skills. He was able to deflect Wolfwood’s shot and he’s had a few early on, but he’s not giving us his awesome tricks and skills. That is all being carried by Wolfwood at the moment. I felt it gave greater weight to Vash’s ability to use his long colt AND manage to not kill someone. It really made his vow to not kill more obvious in the manga and original anime. The series is called Trigun and it is about an infamous outlaw with a huge bounty on his head and is known to be an excellent marksman.

2.) B. D. N. or Brilliant Dynamites Neon - doesn’t show up! Major disappointment! I was expecting him to get into the mix with a Wolfwood vs. Livio and Vash vs. B. D. N. showdown; no dice. I was excited for that outcome when episode six ended. There was no high stakes gamble on a one to one showdown at the toss of a coin. Which Yasuhiro Nightow loves characters flipping American quarters and half dollars btw.

That look from Vash as he emerges from behind the rubble!

His carefully aimed shots that make their mark!

And then how B. D. N. saves him from being crushed by zapping the rock when he realizes how injured Vash is and also saves the day.

The absence of B. D. N. also highlights how Vash impacts the behavior of others for the better. He always respects them and it shows that people respond to that. Again, it gives Vash better and stronger arguments for his personal code of conduct.

3.) Meryl and Roberto - Our lone female lead carries her weight! And is able to contribute to the win for our core group. She shows character development, thinking of more than just her story and job and looking back on her resume which Roberto threw out the car window. Is following through on making a difference! I again think the animation for her facial expressions was top notch here. I don’t know who is in charge of her story boarding for expression but they need to be paid more. Roberto is a sad sack. Yet, I guess being a sad sack works in this episode. He seemed rather passive this episode. Not sure why. Where is old and bitter uncle info dump?

4.) Wolfwood - doesn’t die upon saving the orphanage. We have no idea if he’ll die after showdown number two with Livio. I was expecting him to die with our episode title, but instead, Stampede leaned into this episode of the Wolfwood Show again. I know he is a fan favorite and very popular, yet Studio Orange isn’t leveraging his character as much as they could and should be doing. But since he’s now an atheist, his original guilt is lacking from the anime and manga. He’s only now using the argument of finding the lowest number of casualties for the greater good. Which seems late pacing wise and also OOC for him.

Or as my friend Merdopseudo says, he’s not Wolfwood, he’s Fakewood. I agree that this character is not even close to him from the ‘98 anime or Trigun Maximum. Yet, suddenly, he’s starting to notice that Vash’s idea might work. And is willing to give him a chance - I guess after they stopped the cannon and that Vash got him to confuse Livio. Those two events are enough for Wolfwood to feel that he owes Vash one and will follow through with his plan to stop the Sandsteamer. Does it feel earned? I dunno, maybe if you squint enough. 5.) Legato - got angry and is religious. Right. We see him raise his voice and get visibly angry and try to do things himself but at the same time, he doesn’t follow through fully. Which means you failed man. What happened to your dedication to sparkle motion? -er- I mean your dedication to the mission of Knives? I am bummed out, I wanted nihilistic Legato. Was he so confident that he thought he could let things happen without keeping the pressure on Vash and Wolfwood?

6.) Livio - has an unhealthy younger brother relationship with Wolfwood. He was almost able to snap out of it and it looks like he was brainwashed by Chapel in the very hard to see flashback about his job. Using the trope of ‘I have to catch up to X character!’ is so over used and I don’t like it being applied to him in particular. Minus one for generic writing Studio Orange. Additionally, there is no indication that Razlo the Tri-punisher exists. We can see that he killed people in the flashback but it is not enough information since it is through Wolfwood’s flashbacks in Trigun Maximum that we first get an indication of Razlo’s existence. Wolfwood is the one who watches him and notices the disconnect and then doesn’t know what happens when he runs away.

7.) Zazie - present. We get to see an insect pulled out of their mouth. Better than a vagina I guess [shrugs].

And with that I’ve hit all the points that struck me. The episode ends with a sandstorm and Vash collapsing.

I’m going to guess that the sandstorm is generated by the lone remaining Seeds ship that hasn’t crashed to the planet’s surface and that they were tracking events and located Vash there. They will use the sandstorm to pull the core group onto the ship, Vash will get a new arm from the Doctor. He’ll also meet up with Brad and Luida on the ship.

We only have a few episodes left, but the crazy pacing continues.

#trigun #trigun stampede #trigun stampede meta #trigun stampede episode review #trigun anime #trigun maximum #Vash the Stampede #vash #nicholas d. wolfwood #wolfwood #meryl stryfe #roberto deniro #legato bluesummers #legato #zazie the beast #livio #livio the double fang

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i-like-sticks · 8 months

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2 and 10!

2. Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BROTP?

I don't usually get involved in fandoms as heavily as I did years ago because that sort of shit landed me in a hot mess of trouble. The same goes with shipping. I usually prefer to keep my distance with all that noise.

But there are a few so called fandom OTPs I do see and go "Eh, more a BROTP for me".

One being Barb x Poppy from the Trolls fandom. Like I get it. Its cute and I don't have anything against it, but I more prefer them as a BROTP then I do a couple. Trolls in general has a number of that for me. Same for FNAF.

SuperJail was another one of those fandoms that had a lot of shipping discourse with the Warden being shipped with everyone and everything around him. Me, personally, I just don't see him fitting with anyone for how selfish and childish he acts. BROTPs maybe with some of the main cast if he didn't annoy the hell out of some of them.

ATLA though... Oh boy, so many popular ships and I am like a good chunk is BROTP material for me.

But overall, I don't really involve myself in big fandoms anymore nor the whole shipping discourse of it. It's a bit pointless and tiresome for me.

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

I guess it really depends on the show/movie/whatever piece of media it is.

I don't much care for idle/filler arcs where literally its just the characters doing random shit for filler. A filler episode is fine every so often but when its an entire arc/season, it feels completely wasted and pointless. Like all that time just wasted on stupid shenanigans that really did not need to be seen.

Same goes for character arcs where a character is just spending the entire time being moody and mopey, angry at everyone who helps them and never makes an attempt to help themselves when people help them. But suddenly in the end they act like they knew this all along and just become great at everything. I really despise a rushed arc of development like that. It doesn't feel rewarding nor does it feel like the character is likable at all, but just instantly forgiven for their nasty behavior despite never saying sorry or anything of the sort. They go back to being mean and its just..meh.

And anything that is rushed/pacing is too fast, that almost all the info/lore is dumped on you in one go that you have no time to soak it in. ESPECIALLY, when its cast off as not important later on. Like, come on, dude. Really? It's so annoying.

#asks #matla speaks

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elpercotreviews · 3 years

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Reviewing My Anime 10/10's *Relatively* Spoiler-Free

Note: What I rank a 10/10 is very specific and obviously very subjective to my own. Something can only be a 10/10 if I already consider it a 9/10 AND I must have rewatched it. I am someone who typically does not rewatch/reread anything, unless it's something I truly absolutely enjoy. With that being said, because of the requirements, I only have 4 animes that I rank 10/10, and tbh only one of those animes would get that ranking from the general anime audience. The rest are SO SO SO specific to my particular tastes that I would be absolutely stunned if someone also had the same four as me, because the requirement is so specific. Imma make another post eventually for my 9/10's because I think that list makes a lot more sense for a general anime audience lmaooo.

Soooo, in order of least personal to most personal (although obviously they're all personal to me lol) we have:

1. Psycho-Pass

Recommended for people who: are really into that dark dystopian future society vibes, are fans of Ghost in the Shell, like detective/crime stories

Okay, for a few people, this one actually probably makes some sense. At the moment, it has an 8.37 on myanimelist which means this anime is super well liked. I've watched this anime twice, first the original and then the second time I watched the director's cut (yes that exists lol). Overall, I'm a huge fan of the entire Psycho-Pass anime series as a whole. I've watched all three seasons, as well as two of the movies. I didn't watch any of the Sinners of the System ones cuz tbh I literally couldn't find an english sub of that anywhere, it just doesn't exist lol. I think it's okay cuz the ratings for the Sinners of the System trio of movies seems meh. I've actually watched Psycho-Pass the Movie like three/four times LMAO but that's simply cuz a movie is obviously much quicker to watch than an entire anime season. Like just objectively, the Psycho Pass series as a whole is very inconsistent in quality due to the fact that it's all original, so they do technically just make up everything as they go lol. Season two is all right (I think it gets more hate than it should), three is good but season one by far is the absolute best in the entire series. I'd argue the movie is technically my absolute favorite out of the whole IP, but I actually give the movie an 8/10. The movie, because of being obviously way shorter, simply does not have the deep controversial and philosophical lines of thought that season one has. It lacks that extra depth that would make me put it anything higher than an 8. The two main characters have good chemistry as a crime-fighting duo and the main villain's rivalry/relationship with the male lead is super compelling. The female lead is meant to be relatively naive/more on the innocent side which works with the plot as it allows the show to naturally explain and give more exposition as to the actual world and rules of Psycho-Pass without having it seem so ham-fisted or just throwing info to the audience.

2. Violet Evergarden

Recommended for people who: cry to sad movies, like gorgeous animation, are very empathetic, like vignette-esque storytelling

All right if you even remotely consider yourself an avid anime fan, then this anime is probably also somewhere on your 10/10 list or at least an anime you consider to be "very good." That is, unless you are that very vocal minority who simply really just REALLY do not like this anime for some god forsaken reason. However, in my honest opinion, I think an anime like this just really doesn't sit well with ... how do I put this blunty ... people who do not give a fuck about other people or anyone else's feelings but their own. Basically, IF YOU ARE SELFISH, A NARCISSIST, EGOTISTICAL, OR ANY SORT OF COMBO OF THOSE THREE, YOU WILL NOT LIKE THIS ANIME. And if you do, you probably don't think you're any of those things. Because of the anime's very premise, I find it very difficult to see a very self-centered/heartless person particularly enjoying this anime. The whole premise of this anime is that the main character who, because of her upbringing, doesn't understand feelings/emotions, especially the concept of love, grows as a human and slowly begins to learn what love is. The show does this by showing multiple sets of characters meant to represent different types of love (romantic, familial, platonic, etc). The vocal minority of people I've seen give Violet Evergarden bad ratings all typically argue that although beautiful, the anime doesn't have any substance/doesn't really mean anything. If that's honestly all you got after watching the entire show, then you deadass just don't get it, and you probably will never ever get it. If you've seen or heard of Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song, than just know that these two animes are VERY very similar in vibe despite being technically different genres. However, I personally found the themes and concepts in Vivy are done much more masterfully in Violet Evergarden which I think is due to Vivy's heavier focus on a story-driven overarching plot/action as opposed to Violet Evergarden's focus more on emotional impact/an episodic format. I've watched the entire series and I've rewatched the main show twice. TBH you can probably skip the gaiden movie AKA the one set at the girl's academy it was highkey pointless. Compared to the opera episode they added as a "special", the gaiden movie was still good but I wish resources were dedicated to something that actually added to the story. ALSO YES I KNOW ITS A GAIDEN AKA A SIDE STORY AKA FILLER SO YES NO DUH IT DIDNT ADD ANYTHING, BUT STILL. As for the main show, I think I cried for three episodes (the one about the playwright/author I forgot lol, the mother and daughter, and the soldier). On my rewatch, I didn't cry but I still deeply cared for and related to the characters. Violet Evergarden is a beautiful anime with a beautiful story.

3. ACCA: 13-ku Kansatsu Ka

Recommended for people who: like bread and bakeries, don't mind a very chill and slow-paced story, like stories about political intrigue and hidden agendas

Based on a relatively short manga, ACCA: 13 follows the main character Jean Otus as he performs his job of auditing the 13 districts of his country Dowa, while rumors and politics brew in the background that threaten to entangle Jean into a complicated plot. To be honest, I think properly reviewing this anime is impossible for me, because I just can't really explain the vibes of this anime besides "chill" and "intriguing." I think trying to explain anything more than the basic premise I just wrote would spoil a lot of what ACCA is, because it's plot is actually relatively quite simple and straightforward. Compared to Psycho-Pass which has a relatively good cult following, and Violet Evergarden which is universally praised, ACCA is an anime that I've yet to personally meet anyone who has ever even heard of it LMAOO. And almost everyone I know watches anime, so that's saying something oof. ACCA is made by Madhouse, which if you don't know, is a super well known anime studio, producing big hits such as Death Note, Hunter x Hunter, One Punch Man, etc. That's why I'm surprised that ACCA has flown just SO under the radar, but that may be due to the overalls nature of the anime itself. ACCA is an anime where all the characters hold their card close and no one seems to really share their real thoughts. One main criticism the anime has is the lack of deeper connections to characters and that for a main character, Jean Otus is very bland. To be honest, I think that's a very fair criticism and I can understand why this would prevent people from rating this anime higher than an 8 or 7. Due to the very nature of the anime and its plot, I do agree that there is a huge cast of colorful characters that we unfortunately don't really get to know more about. To be honest though, I don't mind this because I feel that's honestly quite realistic, especially factoring in Jean's job. All these places he's going and all these people he's meeting, it's literally just his job. He's not on vacation, these people aren't his friends, so the anime has no real reason to dwell much longer on places past its specific episode. Just like in real life, you encounter so many people and go past so many places that you probably won't ever see again. So for me personally, I didn't mind that the anime didn't explicitly show much about the backstories or lives of the cast, save for the very main characters (as their backstories were plot relevant). I think as viewers of not simply an anime, but a whole other world, I think it should be satisfactory to inherently understand that these are whole "people" who have entire lives that we are not exactly privy to. So although admittedly our understanding of many of the characters was all around quite shallow, I think that works for the scope of the anime, which was relatively simple and focused on just Jean living his life and the political plot stirring in the background until it was brought forward in the second half of the anime. Also I love Jean Otus. I actually completely absolutely adore him. He is literally my profile pic for myanimelist LMAO. I think calling him "bland" is fair from other people's perspectives, especially as the supposed main character of an ANIME, but I feel that if ACCA was in a different format like a novel, I think his personality would have been less criticized. Like I said, I love him soo much. I don't find him bland at all, but actually very interesting and highkey attractive LOL (if only he'd quit smoking but it's part of his charm 😞). Yes for an anime "protagonist," he is quite underwhelming especially compared to others, but I think that makes him very charming!!! Like all he wants to do is just chill, vibe, and do his job lmaooo. I think as a person, he’s very charismatic, and in the world of ACCA the rest of the characters see that as well. Because like, if he really were such a bland person, why would so many people like him and actually trust him lol? As for why it’s technically my favorite anime of all time (my ultimate one is a movie), I can’t give super detailed reasons why to be honest. I just really like the overall vibes of the anime itself, and I think the anime is just super unique and original. I’ve watched a ton of anime over the years, but I’ve genuinely seen nothing like ACCA in the slightest. I mean, just look at the recommended animes on the myanimelist. The recommended animes are all stuff I’ve also personally really liked (like fugou keiji unlimited and the great pretender) but yeah there’s just truly nothing that’s close to what ACCA is, and because of that, it reminds my absolute favorite anime show. I’ve seen the dub and the sub, even though I am a vehement dub hater lmaooo (except for very few circumstances, and this also applies to all non-English media, not just anime). There was only one thing in the entire show that slightly confused me/ seemed slightly unbelievable and I won’t spoil but it had something to do with the overall timeline of some events, but it doesn’t detract from the story at all. Oh and the art style! I really love the art style of the anime. It stays pretty true to the manga, but is also just an overall kind of art style I really like. I really enjoy the more like 2d/flat/drawn art style versus really clean and really detailed stuff, and I’m typically not a big fan of very obvious use of CGI (unless done tastefully like in Demon Slayer). All the backgrounds in ACCA have this painted/drawn style and the anime itself has this like muted(?) filter over it that makes the anime seem like someone’s drawings just put up on display in a way that’s really refreshing and nice. I highly recommend this story for anyone who wants a breath of fresh air and to get away from the typical action-packed high energy of big name anime.

4. From Up on Poppy Hill

Imma make a whole separate post JUST for this movie so I can explain why I love this movie so so much. And honestly, Imma need a whole separate post in the first place to address the elephant in the room when it comes to this movie (if you’ve seen it, then you know what I’m talking about). And if you’ve haven’t seen the movie, maybe you’ve heard about one of its controversial themes. I’m not gonna say what it is, cuz I KNOW it’ll be super off-putting for a lot of people, but please omg just hear me out. I just love this movie so so much. I’ve seen it like 7 times and counting. I have it downloaded on my computer and on a flash drive. I’ve watched the sub AND the dub however I’ve stopped watching the dub because it makes me sad every time I hear Shun’s voice actor ;-; This movie is legit an honest-to-god comfort movie for me that I could watch over and over and I’ll fall in love with it again each and every time. And once again IMMA MAKE A WHOLE SEPARATE POST BECAUSE I SWEAR PEOPLE ARE GONNA BE LIKE “Yo ain’t this the movie with the -----” and it’s like PLEASE LET ME EXPLAIN. The vibes of this movie, the themes it addresses (yes even THAT theme), the music, the art, the characters, is perfectly presented in a way that I will never stop watching this movie. The only other film that has come close to the amount of times I’ve watched From Up on Poppy Hill would be Legally Blonde lmaooooo.

#anime #anime movie #from up on poppy hill #psycho pass #acca: 13-ku kansatsu ka #violet evergarden #anime review #myanimelist

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holycafe · 4 years

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While everyone is talking about cut scenes in episodes 18 and 20, I’d like to discuss any scenes possibly cut from 15x19 too.

Do I think that Cas and his storyline were supposed to be hugely involved in this episode? No, I don’t. Mostly because this episode did not have the same ‘cut and stitched’ feeling as 15x20 did. The episode wasn’t perfect, but I wasn’t left with the same ‘wtf is going on’ feeling that I felt during the finale.

The only thing that felt out of place was that ending…

It’s peculiar, isn’t it, that spn would do a goodbye montage at the end of their penultimate episode? That they would leave so many of their viewers with the sense that they’d just watched the finale? I’ve seen so many people questioning it, and not just on here in jest. No, the ending truly had a finale note to it. So, why do it? The episode was already so rushed, so why spent those last few minutes in a pointless montage when they could have extended some of the scenes with Jack, Michael, and/or Lucifer?

Well, I think I have the answer to that.

That montage was never supposed to be there, it was used as a filler for the episode after the higher-ups in CW made the call to axe the Destiel plot. I believe this decision was made after the filming of episode 19 was already over, and they were at least halfway into the filming for ep. 20. Why do I believe this? For one, because that would mean that it was likely too late to start shooting additional scenes with the actors who had already left set and could not return without quarantining for two weeks again. But also because Misha was almost definitely quarantining for filming in Vancouver (x) and because Mark P. said his final scenes was with Misha and Alex (x). But how was that possible if Misha was not on set???

Well, I believe that the final scene of that episode was actually supposed to have been Jack showing up in the Empty and discovering that all of its inhabitants are awake and causing the Empty a great deal of distress and anger. I believe that Cas would not have been brought back during this scene – not yet – but he would have been there as Jack tried to make a deal with the Empty. A deal, because it probably wouldn’t have been a good idea for him to just take Cas and go like Chuck would have done, not after the show deliberately showed us how Chuck’s blatant bending of their agreement was why the Empty wanted him out of the picture in the first place.

So, that is how I believe that 15x19 was supposed to end. The scene could have been simply the length of the montage itself, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if the scene of Dean and Sam sitting together in the bunker alone was also filmed and added in after the CW’s decision was already made to cut all the gay away. Because, for one… excuse the pun, but it just felt empty. Like the vibe had switched somehow between the previous scenes to this one – like everyone involved was pissed that their story was being changed on them against their wills. Also, truly, it served no purpose other than to show the initials carved into the desk. But that was given to us again in episode 20! So, why show it twice?

Also, remember how Misha said to Michael Sheen that he had one and a half episode left to film after the lockdown ended (x)? Well, it doesn’t really seem to me like the short 5 seconds of Misha’s voice they used in that episode would be worthy enough to be called ‘half an episode’.

No, Castiel was supposed to have a cameo in 15x19, but the CW took that away from us.

#they silenced you #fuck the cw #castiel deserved better #dean winchester deserved better #destiel #deancas #supernatural #spn #spn spoilers #misha collins #jensen ackles

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almozayaf · 4 years

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The end of season report – Anime season Fall 2020

It is 20th July and I finally saw the last episode of all my Backlog of this season, I’m so slow watcher and seasoning not for me, this will be the last time.

Before the ranking I want to talk about few anime I didn’t watch

Plunderer is anime I wanted to watch but didn’t have the time and it was episode 17 when I saw it, Hina is so cute that the only reason I wanted to see it and it weak reason as you see.

Hakushon Daimaou 2020 is a remake of old anime from the 70’s I saw as a kid long time ago, it didn’t have any fan translation.

Appare-Ranman! | Digimon Adventure | Gal to Kyouryuu | Yu☆Gi☆Oh! SEVENS

All anime I was watching but COVID19 , they got delayed some started some will started soon

Shadowverse | Shin Sakura Taisen the Animation | Shachou, Battle no Jikan desu! | Tamayomi

Watched First episode but didn’t like

10. Hachi-nan tte, Sore wa Nai deshou!

This is a bad anime I should not watch, but I needed one SHIT show in my list for to bad it good, but it was just boring

9. LISTENERS

I love Giant robots and music references but this one was not that good, it maybe better if it had time more than 12 episodes but who know, I just didn’t feel it.

8. BNA

This is good anime but the rest is much better, This season was good, full of good.

It like X-Men for Furry who like Trigger anime, it fine anime

7. Tower of God

It is good anime remind me of the first arc of Hunter x Hunter, it is great in few part but miss that thing that make it timeless, maybe one more season will show more of the story, oh yah so many characters just so LOWkey, everyone talk so softly, there no energy in action anime.

The T-REX guy is cool

6. Princess Connect! Re:Dive

Not good in a good way, this is pointless comedy anime with few ecchi and moe characters, I love this cat girl she had that cat personality LOVE HER, It is Isekai anime where the main character have no character, and they did it right, there so many filler episodes that just show case of new waifus, but it still has a lot of fun, this anime is 99% and 1% everything else.

If you like mindless cheap fun, watch it.

5. Yesterday wo Utatte

This is one of the best anime story wise but dame it, this anime so SLOW and I take it sweet time doing anything, and this is 12 episode anime that base on 113 chapter manga, can you imagine reading it, and yes it full adopted thanks god, the anime is so slow but faster than the manga for one.

I love the characters and the story and it not so emo or gloomy as you may think but it still a melodrama, but one of the few good ones, the slowness and the feeling of NOTHING happened is it only weak point but watch it.

4. Kakushigoto

It feels wrong putting this on number 4, This is great anime about a dad who try his best to rise his little girl it great, Melodrama yes but also one of the FUNNIES anime this season, mixing sadness with comedy is a great way to make me love your anime.

3. Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta…

This is the anime that I watched each episode the day it came out, Great comedy and lovable main character, and the story make you want to know what the next episode will hold.

2. Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai?: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen

COMEDY GOLD, no, COMEDY DIAMOND, no, COMEDY PLATINUM

This anime is the best comedy I ever saw this year, and one of the best comedy I ever saw in my life, I saw so many comedies.

I love the characters and the comedy is fast and hit the point, there few Drama moments but never slow the comedy (except in one episode that was so dark and melodrama but it was the best episode.

1. Gleipnir

Best anime this season, It was hard to rand 2-9, I know what number 10 was day one, that piece of shit, but this one was something else, I didn’t plan watching it at first, that why you watch seasonal, to find this gems.

Best action story characters, it so Serious in tone if you like your action with humor and more Shunen like Tower of god is that show, this on other hand the light Horror action anime, there blood action killing and no super moves but so much badass monsters and crazy will animated fights

In Summer I’ll not watch seasonal, it takes so much time and work, I’ll just watched all 2st episodes to take an idea of what we have this season and wait tell October

#Gleipnir #Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai #Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou #Kakushigoto #Yesterday wo Utatte #Princess Connect! Re:Dive #Tower of God #BNA #LISTENERS #Hachi-nan tte Sore wa Nai deshou!#anime #anime 2020

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ja-khajay · 4 years

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2020-2021 Animation Watch(ed)list

I haven’t posted about animation in a while that I remember, and I know a lot of my followers are into it as much as me so I decided to make a list of the animated movies and series I watched on the past year or so, coupled with my short, spoilerless take on them. Enjoy!

Organized by

Things I saw for the first time

Things I rewatched

Under a cut for the sake of your dashboards! PS: I have not added any images yet. If you are interested in knowing more about the visuals of these movies, I might make an old fashion ask-prompted imageset list.

Part One: Things I saw for the first time

The Bear’s Famous Invasion of Sicily

Movie, 2019, Italian/French

9/10, a delightful little movie with amazing visuals. It feels like an animated picture book.

One of those “plot is in the title” media! I had never heard of this before but was heavily recommended it by my family members, who all loved it! It’s a sweet story, nothing groundbreaking but the unique colorful visual style alone makes it worth it.

The Castle of Cagliostro

Movie, 1979, Japanese

10/10. Reminded me of all the books i loved reading as a child

I assume its because it’s so old and the art style and themes are so different that it gets little to no love compared to other Ghibli movies, which is a shame! It’s fun with an endearing cast and as always, great animation and music

Mushishi

Series, 2006, Japanese

10/10 three episodes in I knew it was going to be my favorite series ever

One of the few things I’ve seen I’ll describe as life-changing. It’s absolutely lovely but never toots its own horn about it. Humble, calming, emotional and surprisingly mature. It’s pretty impossible to binge due to how intense the experience is. I just want to walk in the forest now...

FMA: Brotherhood

Series, 2009, Japanese

6/10 Dissapointing adaptation of a classic story

I read the manga for this when I was in middle school and remembered loving it. The animated version does an ok job of presenting the characters and worldbuilding and has some nice action scenes but overall looks really damn cheap and just. Not very good. Seeing I already knew most of the plot I did not have the element of discovery that made me marvel so much reading the original. It’s still a nice series but I really recommend reading it instead.

Code Lyoko (s1+2)

Series, 2003, french

3/10. 1.5 being for the opening song alone

This show sucks ass if I hadn’t been watching this with my bestie I would have dropped it two episodes in. The art style is ugly the stories are always the same and the first season has a (later removed thank fucking god) LITERAL “erase any consequences” button as a plot device in every episode. If you watch it for one thing let it be the nostalgia factor of early 00s Vidya Game Plot

The Legend of Hei

Movie, 2019, Chinese

7/10. Impressive visuals and a poor story

I finally watched this, peer pressured by the load of gifsets on my dashboard! It’s a sweet movie with really impressive animation, sometimes a bit too flashy for my taste (the action sequences go so ham they become not very readable...) but the story was just ok? The setting is barely explained and you are instead bombarded with vague epicspeech about powers and stuff that made me fondly remember Kingdom Hearts lol but that asides it’s a really good time! I need to watch more Chinese movies the few I know are just delightfully off the shits in how they approach action and I love that

Hunter x Hunter

Series, 1999, Japanese

9/10. Superior to the recent one!

I first got introduced to the series via the 2011 one. Comparatively, the 99 series focuses way less on action and way more on the characters, which I love because that fits my personal preferences! Despite mediocre filler episodes and some weird slight pointless plot changes, what it changes from the original manga doesn’t have much of an impact on the characters. The animation quality isn’t always consistent including a huge art style change for an arc (???) but it’s overall pretty nice. The series really shines in the last arc it adapts.

Oban Star-racers

Series, 2006, Japanese/french

9/10 a lovely surprise

This series is completly obscure despite having been created by people famous for their other series (Cowboy Bebop, Code Lyoko that i can name) and it’s a crime! It’s a kids show but without being stupid about it who tells the story of an inter-planetary race. If you liked that one scene in the star wars prequels you know what I mean. It’s got surprisingly nice animation for a TV series, and some truly great character design. The art style is a bit unique in a not for everyone sense, but I didn’t mind it much. It’s also THE most offensively 2000s series i’ve seen in terms of visuals. y2k kids assemble

The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon

Movie, 1963, japanese

8/10. Classic fairytale format with incredible visuals

Watched this for the art style because I know it inspired Samurai Jack, and it delievered! I dont’ have much to say about this one, it’s a very simply film but it’s sweet. For my pirates out there if you want to find it in good quality with english subtitles it’s VERY hard to find. If you just want to see the looks of it, it’s on Youtube with portugese subs.

We now enter the Gobelins Shorts Zone....!

My Friend Who Glows In The Dark

10/10 makes me cry each time

Pure delight...great animation writing everything. A little short about death and friendship but not in the way you imagine!

Colza

9/10

Visual treat...homely and nice :) not far from a 10 but a 9 because nothing about it is that groundbreaking

Sundown

9/10

If you’ve ever been ten minutes from failing a group project because of a single dude you will REALLY enjoy this. Loved the colors and personality

T’as vendu mes rollers?

10/10

It’s SUCH a sweet little short I loved that one so much

Dix-huit kilomètres trois

10/10

Surprisingly well written dialog. Visuals are great but the humanity of the characters carries this to another level

Un diable dans la poche

9/10

Amazing visuals and the most tense/creepy of Gobelin shorts i’ve ever seen. Chilling

La bestia

8/10

I had some issues with the pacing. Interesting story and visuals choices but I was not fond of the art style

Goodbye Robin

5/10

Confusing but predictable. Both at once??? Yes!

Le retour des vagues

6/10

Cool animation stuff but felt pretty pointless

***

Part Two: Things I rewatched

Ruben Brandt: Collector

Movie, 2018, Hungarian

10/10. Underrated as hell

Watched this fully blind for the first time in an animated festival and rewatched it with friends. It’s a crime I never see anyone talking about it given the amount of whining I see about the lack of both adult animation and 2D movies? This film is a unique love letter to art in the form of a weird mix of charming crime story and psychological horror with amazing visuals. I recommend watching it blind and also buying it to show appreciation for how nice it is!!! WATCH THIS MOVIE...

Mononoke

Series, 2007, Japanese

10/10 Visual/storytelling masterpiece in the weird shit departement

If you can stomach intense stuff watch this. The visuals are incredibly unique and beautiful and under the jewel tones and art direction high takes it’s a really cool horror series. My only obstacle to enjoying it the first time I saw it was how dense it is - simply put, it’s so...culturally Japanese it’s not very accessible to me who doesn’t know anything about the culture? Watching it for the second time helped understanding the stories more!

Corto Maltese in Siberia

Movie, 2002, french

9/10 but really close to ten. A great adaptation!

I’m a huge fan of the original comic so I entered this a biiiittttt suspicious it would suck but it was a really pleasant surprise! It has all the wonder and charm of the original and the animation was surprisingly good for the little budget. If you’re not familiar with the series, it’s a sort of geopolitical action/adventure movie but with it’s own really poetic vibe to it. It’s almost impossible to find online but happens to be fully on YouTube so go ham I guess?

Redline

Movie, 2009, Japanese

10/10 cinema was invented for this, actually

Every review of this movie i’ve seen gives it five stars and starts by talking about how immensly stupid it is. I’m no different. It’s a masterpiece of escalating energy with the depth of a puddle and it fucking rules. It’s free on YouTube too so there really is no excuse to not watch it. Watched it for the first time on a huge cinema screen and despite this my second rewatch on my small laptop was as/even more enjoyable. If you watch this stoned with friends you might travel to another dimension

Spirited Away

Movie, 2001, Japan

10/10 deserves the love it gets

I watched this a single time as a kid and had little memory of it! I mean it’s Ghibli you know it’s going to be good as hell but this one rly shines in how colorful and detailed it is and in it’s world! It made me remember I had a huge crush on the dragonboy as a kid. I’m gay now

Kung-fu Panda (1&2)

Movie, Usa

10/10. KFP fucking rules

Honestly my favorite franchise of the whole disney/dreamworks/pixar hydra. It’s fun as hell, doesn’t skip a single beat and has amazing animation and character designs. If something is a good time I will not care if it’s deep or not and boy I fucking love these movies

Sinbad, Legend of the Seven Seas

Movie, 2003, Usa

5/10 Some great some really bad and overall generic

I tend to hate american cinema and this includes that era of animation I have no nostalgia for. Sinbad is in a weird place because I love adventure stories and the visuals of the movie absolutely deliver but it’s very predictable and TANKED by the addition of the female character, pushed in your face as “look we have woman!!!” despite her writing being misogynistic as hell lol. The evil goddess rules tho. This movie would have been a solid 9 if instead of the girl the two dudes had kissed

#j #animation #if you want links to these ill provide but not for the indie ones that arent free #i have no remorse p*rating disney or a movie thats over 50 but if its recent and underrated just legally get it!!!

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carmenpeach · 4 years

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aauuuauuaaugtgghhhh whats your favourite show rn and why? sell it to m bruh tell me all about it

this may be a surprise but its... hunter x hunter LOL for a lot of different reasons...

without spoilers best i can, first of all the storytelling/ world building of it is so precise and detailed, thought out years in advance to tie so much of it together as it progresses. watching it a 2nd time i saw many more little details of allusions to parts that wouldnt even be written in the manga for years (im think about watching through the end of yorknew again tbh) i think it has such good rewatch value well beyond just for entertainment. and i feel it's worth noting that i have a hard time just sitting down and watching things since it's hard for me to focus for too long (and when i first watched it at 19 i watched 75 episodes in 10 days somehow?)

the narration throughout it can be a little drawn out sometimes but the story would have a lot less impact without it. togashi (author/ artist) goes into such detail about aspects of the story to add to the experience is so well rounded. especially when it comes to nen (the "magic powers" of the series) and how it functions i feel that nen could be real.

beyond that i feel the main pull of it is the characters. even side characters add so much to the story that they dont come across like unnecessary/ filler elements. one fault for sure is how some female characters are just plot elements but that improves over time. but it's the main four, gon killua kurapika and leorio, is what makes the whole thing come together. the way they interconnect with each other is amazing. from narrative foils to the bonds they form. the show is about love at its core, how these characters love each other and how they sacrifice for each other (not always in the best way but in what they think is the best, from self sacrifice to separation).

i know everyone says this, but really it's a love story also romantically. it's definitly about killua and gon being in love, there is no other way to interpret their relationship really. i feel like if i saw this show as a closeted 12 year old then realizing im gay wouldnt have been so complicated tbh but that's besides the point.

it's really how intricate the whole story is woven together, how the focus shifts between the main 4 (and how even though gon is the protagonist, we havent even seen him the current arc and we are back on kurapika and hopefully leorio too, which makes sense since the chimera ant arc was only killua and gon)

it's also how serious the series gets as it progresses which is also another thing a lot of people talk about with it, especially in the manga right now. the chimera ant arc is where this switch clearly happens and it gets pretty brutal (my first watch of hxh i stopped in the middle of this arc since it got a little too intense for me. seeing not only gon and killua having to be child soldiers and dealing with loss and revenge while trying to protect each other and fighting the ants while also seeing the whole situation from the ants part of view) (side note yeah the enemy are ants but they end up being anthropomorphic creatures) and it's when we really see gon and killua pushed to their limits :(

but my favorite arc is the yorknew/ phantom troupe arc because it's a kurapika arc and i LOVE kurapika. everything about his character hurts so much. i feel like kurapika has the most obvious at first development to changes with his character and even though this arc is before the ant one, it definitly sets the tone for how the series is going to slowly change. im definitly more biased towards kurapikas role in the story which i think is... a little obvious by the way every other post by me is about him LOL but this whole part really sets the tragedy of the series too (but also shows that all the suffering isnt pointless and how love still shines through etc but that could be a whole long post on its own....)

anyways the show starts off so fun and happy like most shonen, and even though it follows similar story points like most (journey begins, trials and goals, training under mentor etc) it quickly becomes very unique and goes off track of this average heros journey (though yes i know almost every story follows this, i really cannot emphasize enough that hxh takes it a step further beyond "hero goes out to reach an end goal" considering that goal is met already 2 arcs i think before the current)

and i feel bad not touching much on leorio since his character tends to get sidelined unfortunately, and many people think he isnt too important just because his journey isnt about some huge difficult adventure, it's to be a doctor to help anyone in need for free, placing everyone else's wellbeing as absolute importance (and the way this works as a narrative foil and strain between him and kurapika is amazing too) (and hes handsome)

well i wasnt planning on writting an essay but. here it is, written kinda sloppy since im just trying to get my thoughts out. it's both painful and rewarding to watch but ultimately worth it. pls watch hxh (i STRONGLY recommend the 1999 adaption. i could also write a huge post on the difference between 1999 and 2011 but that's for another day)

#I REALLY WAS NOT GOING TO WRITE SO MUCH BTW #my other favorite shows right now would probably be... utena and alien 9 #i just like so many things and i didnt expect to love hxh as much as i do. i havent been this attatched to characters in forever...#hxh #hunter x hunter #ask #anon #i love u

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yourfandomfreak · 4 years

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The 100 7x06

lets get it out of the way: Sanctum’s storyline bores me the most.

however, Indra is absolutely queen, and she deserves to lead her people. I’m so happy she officially is leading them now.

I love how protective Murphy is over kids, and over Madi here.

Madi deserves to be a normal child, and have a good childhood. keep everything away that would hinder that.

Nelson is desperate, and I get it. I hope that Wonkru can find a new way to be, that doesn’t involve so much violence.

I hope that somehow, the brainwashed can see the truth.

on to Nakara:

Jordan’s crack about aliens; they knew us fans wanted that. Miller following up later about still wanting to see aliens was great

I don’t care if this episode was mostly filler, and the ice planet was pointless except to show people from Second Dawn and Polis and for Raven and Clarke to really connect again

also, Clarke finally showing some desperation to find Bellamy, even if it was in a scene transition (didn’t like how that was placed, but I’ll take it)

this was the Princess Mechanic scene I have been waiting for, for a long time honestly. I’m super grateful that they are on better terms now. and that Raven sees how hard and impossible choices can be. love her and Clarke, and Clarke encouraging her.

now, lets get to the opening of this episode. Diyoza is also a queen, and a badass. you go girl, kick some ass and rescue your damn self. (but holy shit that jugular biting was gnarly)

Hope and Diyoza and Octavia’s reunion was so touching. though Octavia believes Bellamy is dead. we know that’s not true, so I’m very curious what happened and where he went. (and where Gaia went too for that matter)

Echo was already off the deep end, she’s just continuing to chisel herself down past rock bottom.

I am definitely on the Octavia x Lebitt (Levitt?) train. I love them.

they’re all captured now again; maybe they should’ve taken their chances on the surface. I don’t know, but now they’re trapped again, unless the Shepherd wants to see them or has another use for them?

on the good storylines, there is finally more momentum, but the less good ones, there’s not as much movement except for singular characters stepping up (Indra, Murphy)

lets keep going, and hopefully we’ll have our Bellarke reunion soon, and our delinquent one.

#the 100 spoilers #clarke #raven #anti echo #octavia #madi #indra #diyoza

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sometimesrosy · 5 years

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Is bellarke the only reason you like season 5?

Lol. No. I don’t only watch The 100 for Bellarke. I’m a sci fi fan. I was practically BORN a sci fi fan, raised on Star Trek. That’s 40 years of scifi fanning before I ever heard of Bellarke. When I found the show, I was looking for something like The Walking Dead, and/or The Hunger Games, and someone said The 100. I’m not really a shipper, or not the way most of fandom seems to go about it. I like ships, but it takes a special ship for me to get really invested.

I liked the season 5 story, the dilemmas, the symbolism, the independent journeys of the characters. I liked Bellamy’s story, Clarke’s story, Murphy’s story, Emori’s story, Octavia’s story, Monty’s story. Didn’t love Raven’s story but it was okay. Didn’t love Abby’s or Kane’s story. Loved Diyoza. Madi. Loved the valley. Hated the bunker but in a good way. Hated Kara Cooper but in a good way. Hated McCreary, good way. Was slightly disappointed with Shaw but not too badly. I had high hopes. Was delighted with the creepy gentility of Vinson and his story precisely fulfilled all my hopes for him. lol.

I liked the action of s5, it moved fast. There were no filler episodes. The people who thought there were, well, I think they thought everything but bellarke was a filler episode. Which, I apologize, is a ridiculous way to engage with a story. To say that everything but your favorite storyline is filler. My goodness. The universe does not revolve around you.

Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s the only way I could imagine people saying the sandworms were filler episodes. LOVED the sandworms. Or a mcguffin. That was not a mcguffin. It was a plot point and an obstacle and a tool. That’s not what a mcguffin is. A mcguffin is a “thing” that is a pointless goal while the real journey goes on about something else. In some ways the Iron Throne was a mcguffin in GOT (okay that’s an interpretation.) Or the Holy Grail in Monty Python’s Holy Grail-- that was definitely a mcguffin. An excuse to get people to go on an adventure, when it’s not really the point. The sandworms failing to work as a weapon does not make them a mcguffin. They would need to be the *goal.* The *goal* was the valley, not the worms. The worms were an evil tool that wonkru wanted to use to TAKE the valley and bellarke wanted to stop them.

Y’all should google terms before you start attacking people or content with them. Don’t delight in your ignorance that way. Know what you’re talking about first. Or at least be willing to learn. We’re all on the internet and we all have access to google. This whole fake it till you make it doesn’t include using inaccurate terms to try and hate on other people and/or. stories.

Season 5 was about, as always, the obstacles facing Clarke and Bellamy and The 100. I do not dislike them facing obstacles, even when they fail, because that’s always been part of their story.... how they deal with failure and how they come back to win in the end. Seeing Clarke isolated was hard, but it made sense and it was part of her own journey of isolation that started, honestly, in the pilot, where she was released from solitary confinement, and dealt with her continuous efforts to run away from the people who make her vulnerable, compounded by the terrible “love is a weakness” advice, and the trauma that came from that.

I find that whenever I reframe my interpretation of The 100 as either Clarke or Bellamy’s personal, psychological and/or heroic journey, everything makes more sense. If I place Bellarke ABOVE the individual characters, I am disappointed. S5 was Bellamy becoming the hero we always knew, and Clarke always knew, he could be. It was him completing his hero’s journey. In that light, the season was FANTASTIC. Look at it as his choices and struggles and development and it’s great.

If you look at it from CLARKE’S perspective, it was about her personal and psychological journey after losing EVERYTHING. Someone recently suggested that this was not a hero’s journey but maybe the HEROINE’S journey, and I think that’s what it is, but it’s not done yet.

HEROINE AWAKENS TO FEELINGS OF SPIRITUAL ARIDITY/DEATH. The heroine’s new way of life (attempting the masculine/dominant identity) is too limited. Their success in this new way of life is either temporary, illusory, shallow, or requires a betrayal of self over time.

INITIATION & DESCENT TO THE GODDESS. The heroine faces a crisis of some sort in which the new way of life is insufficient, and the heroine falls into despair. All of the masculine/dominant-group strategies have failed them.

HEROINE URGENTLY YEARNS TO RECONNECT WITH THE FEMININE. The heroine wants to, but is unable to return to their initial limited state/position. [x]

Apparently, the heroine’s journey takes over when the hero’s journey ends, and that would mean that in season 4, saving her people from another apocalypse was the completion of the hero’s journey, and “dying” and waking up to an arid world is stepping into the feminine archetype rather than achieving the masculine archetype hero and staying there. Outside of this heroine’s journey, the whole season was about Clarke reuniting with Bellamy and her people after six years of isolation and it was not an easy story, which works for me. Too easy would have been cheap.

Oh and omigarsh I loved that talk with Echo and FlameLxa where she finally confronted her initial damage of “love is a weakness” and Lxa’s betrayal, which she was REPEATING with Bellamy.

The other characters also had side stories and I could go into them too, but in the end, they’re supporting the main story of redemption and meaning and transformation. Including Octavia’s fall into darkness and NOT reaching redemption (because they refused to give her the easy way out and her redemption needed another season.) I liked that, too. A lot. Since she was an antagonist, I read it more as part of Bellamy’s journey to claim his identity and power and set boundaries.

Season 5 was where Clarke and Bellamy were able to BREAK the cycle of violence and abuse and vengeance, which means that the entire narrative of the show has shifted from descending into hell or being lost in purgatory not knowing where to go next or how to fix things, and is now ASCENDING into upper realms of forgiveness, understanding, reconciliation, healing, change, unity, growth, and transformation.

This is what I am here for. This is why I like Post Apocalyptic stories, because they are about transformation, not just survival. And not just whatever you can do to survive, but choosing to be the good guys, being better people, believing in a better world, and having hope.

I mean. I can write reams about all the things I’m getting out of this show and all anyone ever hears is “bellarke.”

That is not a good thing. It’s reductive. It’s oversimplification. It doesn’t lead to understanding. When I say I thought s5 was a bellarke romance, I include that in part of my analysis. It is not the only thing I am saying, nor is it the only thing I like.

I am not sure where you ever got the impression that Bellarke was the only thing I liked.

And also, just because other people, even most people, didn’t like season 5 does not mean I am wrong to not like it. I get the feeling that the people who didn’t like season 5 were disappointed because Bellarke didn’t live up to their expectations. It DID live up to my expectations. And, as usual, their story was longer than what I predicted. This does not bother me. I just have to keep recalibrate my narrative time line. It’s still going in the direction I’ve been interpreting, confirmed by season 6. Season 5 is an interesting part of the whole story of Bellarke, the end of the story, we can now see, being s7. I can wait for that. And I can appreciate how season 5 is them coming back from the “all is lost” moment of Clarke dying for spacekru, and the complications that caused.

Also, I am not opposed to a love triangle. I do not read it as a betrayal of Bellarke, but an intensification of a love story that before had been subtextual. Love triangle is a LITERAL ROMANCE GENRE PLOTLINE. So for me, it’s confirmation. I truly don’t understand why other bellarke fans don’t get that. I think they’re just too full of anger and resentment to accept that a plotline they would LOVE in fanfiction is actually giving them what they want and so they reject everything that season 5 DID give us.

So what I’m saying is I think that the reason why people didn’t like season 5 is because it didn’t fit the fanon expectations they had for Bellarke. So they hated s5 only because of Bellarke. Which is the reverse of what your ask seems to imply.

If you didn’t intend to make me salty implying that I only liked The 100 for Bellarke, or there was nothing in s5 to like except my interpretation of Bellarke, then I apologize. You should have rephrased your question more like, “what besides bellarke did you like in season 5?” But as it is, I gave you what I liked with a rim of salt. Like a margarita.

#i actuallly don't like salt on my margaritas but i like the metaphor #and if this ask didn't mean to invoke two seasons of fandom discourse then it should have been more careful

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spoopy-moose · 5 years

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I know I said I wouldn’t but...

SPN episode review + anti-Destiel sentiments + MAG158 feeling dump and how it is so much better than stupid Supernatural

Let’s go

Spoilers for Supernatural up to S15E2 and spoilers for The Magnus Archives up to MAG158 under the cut

Also anti-Destiel, just in case I wasn’t clear enough

Overall, I just really didn’t like this episode, just the mood and the feeling of it in general, it just doesn’t convey the feeling that they’re trying to convey. First off, having ghosts in broad daylight, just why? Why on earth would you do that? It doesn’t make the audience feel panicked or anxious or scared, it’s just straight-up stupid. Seeing the bunch of “ghosts” they tried to dress up just looks bad, they don’t look like ghosts, they look like actors and they aren't supposed to look like actors.

Secondly, everything just feels really bland and uninteresting, they’re trying to do too much with the episode and it just jumps all over the place. Especially on the boys’ front, to be honest, I didn’t really pay attention half of the time and an episode like that is just filler. Like what did they even do? Made a soul catcher or whatever and then tried to stretch it all out with the reintroduction of Kevin and Ketch. If you ask me, both of them should have stayed dead.

“What’s dead should stay dead,” a young Winchester once said, well, certainly don’t apply to people that the writers like.

And don’t even get me started on the weird Rowena x Ketch shit. Just seem like buckenlemming just see Rowena and any other specimen of the male species and smushed them together, no matter how ill-fitting it is. The whole scene was just straight-up stupid and pointless, like back in season 13, the whole Gabriel x Rowena. Like no, stop, we get it, she’s a massive thot who wants to get into everyone’s pants, we understand, you can stop now.

But there are a few good things, no who am I kidding, only like...two good things. The dynamic between Amara and Chuck were pretty good and the connection that Sam is making Chuck weaker, well, that makes me a weak woman.

Now, let’s address the elephant in the room, who will it be this time? Will it be Rowena? Will it be Sam? Will it be Jack?

No of course not who am I kidding it’s fucking Destiel again.

There is, of course, a right way to write and interpret underlining romance without explicitly stating that these characters are together. Jon and Martin from the Magnus Archives are a perfect example (here comes the feeling dump, spoilers for the entire show up to 158). Martin has harboured a crush on Jon for years, he’s the only thing that gave him a will to live, he’s what kept him going. Jon was rude to Martin at first, but survived multiple events together and started to bond but he was ripped from him after he woke up from his coma. Martin was the first person Jon approached about leaving the archives, Martin is trying to keep Jon safe from Peter and Jon is going after Martin to save him from the Lonely.

That is how you write subtextual romance, Destiel is how you don’t write subtextual romance. Or rather, how you don’t interpret subtextual romance.

Let’s talk about the Scene and let me just give you a brief rundown without the shipper glasses getting in the way. Cas goes to apologise to Dean because Dean is mad at him for no reason, Dean snaps at him (again) and talks about how sad and confused and angry he is (you know, the usual angst fest), he talks about how there’s no point in life anymore and nothing is real because God made it all up and then Cas said “excuse me are you denying out existence” and that’s pretty much it.

I won’t deny that I don’t have a bias, but you’ve got to see that Cas is just referring generally, as in everyone, and so was Dean. This is not a “we’re the only real thing in this universe so let’s run off together”, this is a “please stop questioning life we’ve got bigger problems to deal with right now”. Why can’t people just see that maybe it’s not canon, maybe it’s not ever going to be canon, so stop trying to tell me that it is.

Just stop, please. You can theorise all you want but at the end of the day, it’s just a theory.

A GAME THEORY.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk

#supernatural #anti supernatural #kinda #anti destiel #destiew #i think tumblr blocked the anti tag lmao #which is good because wincest and j2 tinhats is rampant #and they bully a lot of people #they're not good either #the whole fandom is trash #s15e02 #wont tag tma because i dont want that fandom to be infected #the tma fandom is too pure #like i havent seen any really bad discourse #just friendly reminders here and there to keep the respect hat on #respect for that fandom because they're good and not a toxic dump

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peterstanslizzie · 5 years

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Re-watching Lizzie Mcguire: Episode 1.10 (I Do, I Don’t)

Lizzie is giving Gordo the side-eye but Gordo rolls his eyes without any care lol

- We first overhear an interesting discussion about which X-men character Lizzie and Miranda would choose to be in order to obtain Ethan Craft’s affection. Miranda chooses the shape-shifting Mystique while Lizzie opted for Rogue. I wouldn’t choose Rogue because touching your crush with your bare skin could lead to his demise.

- Gordo thinks this entire discussion is pointless because he predicts Ethan will end up working at a gas station, part-time in the future. Ouch! That’s not a very nice thing to say about someone, Gordo!

- Matt interrupts her phone conversation because he’s looking for a flashlight and starts rummaging through Lizzie’s pile of clothes on her bed until he is able to find it. Their dad, Sam also enters her room to ask her why Matt is covered in dirt to which she says she has no idea and she has other things to worry about like getting married the next morning! Married?! *Why am I shocked? I already kinda know what happens in this episode.

A Temporary Marriage

- For their social studies class, Lizzie and her peers are required to be paired up with one another and they must essentially act as a couple for one week and make decisions as a unit. Also, the pair that has the best ‘marriage’ will be rewarded by not having to write a paper.

Here are the pairings alongside their designated occupations:

1. Kate Sanders (TV anchorwoman) and Larry Tudgeman (mailman)

This is going to be hilariously entertaining!

2. Lizzie Mcguire (lawyer) and David Gordon/Gordo (sanitation engineer)

Gordo, a sanitation engineer is not a garbageman. You still need to be trained as an engineer, specializing in different elements like hydraulics, project design and environmental technology. Get yo’ facts straight lol.

3. Miranda Sanchez (homemaker) and Ethan Craft (surgeon)

The girls are hating on Miranda right now

Getting to Know One Another

- Miranda skips having lunch with Gordo and Lizzie to have lunch with her fake husband, Ethan and she shows off her fake (I’m positive) diamond ring that Ethan gifted her. That is such a middle school thing to do.

- Gordo isn’t going to let his designated occupation as a self-proclaimed ‘garbageman’ get him down. He is planning to build a huge and successful “trash empire”. Meanwhile, Larry wants to sit down with Kate and have lunch with her but she’s trying really hard to pay him no mind.

Honestly, the way Larry is interacting with Kate despite her being so mean to him is adorable. The way he calls her his wife and the way he tries to give her his Brussels sprout is just precious. Kate if you don’t want Larry, you can give him over to me.

- Gordo is trying to talk to Lizzie about his 20-year career plan as a ‘Garbage Business King’ but she’s preoccupied with the sight of Miranda and Ethan hanging out so closely with each other. Gordo notices this and he tells Lizzie to stop neglecting him. Crush or not, Lizzie should really treat her best friend, Gordo a little better here.

Jealousy and Matt’s Cave

- At home, Lizzie vents to her mom about not being paired off with Ethan and instead, she’s stuck with Gordo. She’s your best friend Lizzie! How would you feel if he said the same thing about you? She got on my nerves here.

- Jo is also worried about Matt behaving a little too well lately and she once again tasks Sam to go out and check up on him. *Please, I hope this B-plot with Matt is not complete filler in this episode....again*. Apparently, Matt has been digging up his own cave for the past couple of weeks because he wants his own place to just hang out by himself; Essentially, it’s a ‘man cave’.

- Let’s just cut to the chase. Sam and Matt decide to not tell Jo about the cave so that they can relax and seclude themselves away from the house. But eventually, Jo discovers their cave and forces them to leave because she feels like the cave could collapse anytime, which is true. Anyways, this whole storyline is just another instance of episode filler.

Kate’s Conspiracy

Oh no, Kate and Ethan are cheating on their spouses!

- At their go-to coffee shop, which I think is the ‘Digital Bean’, Lizzie spots Kate and Ethan sharing a smoothie and tries to sneak up on them and eavesdrop on their conversation under their table. Kate reveals to Ethan she’s planning to leave Larry at their reunion, which is basically where they are going to present and give a mini report on their respective marriages in front of the entire class. Ethan, being the not-so-bright person that he is, is just agreeing to everything she’s saying to him and he is convinced by Kate to also leave his partner, Miranda.

- All of a sudden, a waitress kneels down under the table to hand over Lizzie’s drink. This blows Lizzie’s cover and she is caught by Kate and Ethan. Awkward!

- Lizzie tells Gordo about Kate’s plan and she asks him for advice on what to do. He suggests to her to tell Miranda in person about what’s going to go down. I mean, Duh!!! That is such obvious advice but of course, it’s more complicated than that since Lizzie is jealous of Miranda being married to Ethan.

- At the cafe, Lizzie tries to tell Miranda about Kate and Ethan’s plan but as soon as Ethan shows up to sit down with them, she hesitates and backs away.

School Reunion and Lizzie’s Big Decision

- On presentation day, Gordo lets Lizzie know about his own feelings again about being taken for granted by her and being neglected by her all the time ever since they were paired off for this project. Lizzie feels bad about it. At least she’s self-reflective.

Kate’s hair looks like a lion’s mane here

- Kate and Larry are up first to present and Kate took over the entire presentation and comes up with her own narrative, leaving Larry with no room to say anything. This doesn’t bode well with their teacher, Mrs. Stebel.

- Lizzie musters up the courage to finally tell Miranda about their scheme and I am so frustrated by Miranda’s reaction. She completely jumped the gun and accuses Lizzie of being jealous and tells her she’s a bad friend for making stuff up. I mean, fine, Lizzie was and probably is still a little jealous of her but Miranda’s reaction was a little uncalled for. But again, I can’t blame her; She’s still a young teenager and sometimes they can be a little irrational (no offence to young teens reading this of course).

- It is now Miranda and Ethan’s turn to present and Miranda decides to trust Lizzie (thank goodness) and confronts Ethan on stage about his plan to leave her. She gives this awesome speech about standing up for herself and her dignity. She proceeds to run off the stage, leaving Ethan hanging and looking really clueless as to what just happened.

- Honestly, this moment should be THE moment Lizzie and Miranda would stop crushing on Ethan. But if I could recall, they still have crushes on him after this episode.

In Lizzie Mcguire, karma always gets to Kate within just one episode.

- Meanwhile, Kate is forcing Larry to admit to Mrs. Stebel that their poor presentation was due to a mutual decision they made but Larry decides to stand up for himself and even pours over a huge punch bowl over her. Kate, you deserve it and Larry, good on you!

- At the end of the episode, Miranda apologizes to Lizzie and Gordo for the way she has been acting and Lizzie even apologizes to Gordo for taking him for granted. All’s well that ends well.

Overall Thoughts

- This episode was not bad. My favorite part was how the main characters plus Kate, Ethan and Larry were paired up with one another. We got to see some interesting interactions between different characters. I particularly liked how Gordo called Lizzie out for ignoring him, which causes Lizzie to reflect on her behavior towards him and realize how important he is to her. As for the other 2 couples, they were mainly played out for comic relief. Also, kudos to Miranda for trusting her best friend instead of letting her emotions get the better of her by the end.

- As for the negatives, I don’t quite get Kate’s plan to leave Larry for Ethan at the reunion. First of all, Miranda and Ethan weren’t actually a couple; It was for a project. And secondly, if she wants to get together with Ethan, they could have just done it after their own presentations. What does she actually think this will accomplish besides being reprimanded by their teacher? I’m a little confused by her plan.

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miraculouscontent · 6 years

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Have you written anything about what specifically you dislike about Gigantitan? I tried searching for it on my own, but Tumblr Is Not A Functioning Website

I haven’t talked about it much at the time of posting, so don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything.

“Gigantitan” is my least favorite episode of Miraculous from a strict watchability standpoint, being the only episode that I wanted to quit watching outright (and would’ve had I not been watching with someone else). There are episodes that have worse writing from a plot/character view, but “Gigantitan” is the only episode that I firmly believe has no value whatsoever.

[Lolliplot]

I have no problem with filler in concept. Filler can actually be very important to a show’s runtime, letting shows rake in some more views for the more high-budget episodes by filling in story gaps with fun little snippets about nothing.

But this episode isn’t fun. It’s just nothing.

Let’s start with what this episode actually offers for future plot points. Firstly, it confirms JARM (Juleka, Alix, Rose, and Mylene) being already aware of the fact that Marinette has a crush on Adrien.

We didn’t need to know this. Everyone could’ve guessed that anyone in the class already knew. If I’d skipped this episode completely and seen “Frozer”, I wouldn’t have batted an eye at JARM already knowing and making suggestions about what Marinette should do about Adrien.

The other thing this episode does is show that an akuma can switch targets, which happens later in “Zombizou” anyway. Not only that, but I don’t know how genuine this moment even is, because it’s just a “comedic” ploy to get a reaction out of Hawk Moth. I can see the result in two ways: either this is relevant because this is going to happen later (actually making this episode pointless because it’s going to happen in a later episode) or this was a one-off and no one will ever know if it was a legitimate thing or a comedic detail.

It just leaves me confused.

Point being, I don’t want to hear brags from the writing staff about how this season has “no filler” because it’s a cheap way to generate hype when all they really did was sprinkle in crumbs of establishing plot into this particular episode. If one were to ask the question, “Why couldn’t it be established that they know about Marinette’s crush in a different episode?”, the only answer would’ve been, “Because this episode would’ve been filler otherwise.”

It’s lazy. Simple as that.

[Don’t Cry Me a River]

I don’t talk about myself often on my blog, but I’ll have to say a little bit to get my point across. See, some things I’ve never mentioned about myself before are that my ears are pretty sensitive, my eyes don’t like saturated colors, and I’m easily disgusted (not amused) by gross-out humor.

Already, my next problem with this episode is obvious.

I don’t like babies. I hate them, in fact. Don’t like looking at them, don’t like holding them, and every scream feels like sharp nails being jammed into my brain. They’re gross and loud and I have no maternal instincts whatsoever.

As a baby, August has no personality. He has no traits and his shtick is “he’s a baby.” That’s literally it. He cries, he screams, he’s easily distracted, and he’s completely unintelligent.

An akumatized person isn’t even supposed to be the same exact thing as the person they akumatize, but that’s exactly what Gigantitan is; August, but with powers.

And those colors blind me. The neon pink and green are hideous. One might say that it’s the idea because Hawk Moth akumatized a baby (and those akumatized might get to pick their looks), but that doesn’t change the facts that they didn’t have to akumatize a baby and that the design is still terrible to look at even if there’s a reason for it.

And the model is disgusting. I outright gagged at the scene with Adrien’s bodyguard and the saliva and just–EUGH, EW, GROSS!!

Once the timestamp hits the point where August turns into Gigantitan, it’s nothing by baby humor for eight straight minutes.

And Hawk Moth can’t just, y'know, release the akuma, because that would end the episode.

Hawk Moth’s even been shown to be able to torment his victims to some degree to get them to do what he wants but oh no we can’t have that because it’s a baby.

Personally, I would’ve drop kicked this obnoxious little menace into the Seine like a sack of rotten potatoes.

[Character Dos and Don'ts Except It’s Actually Just Don'ts]

No one has their head on straight in this episode. No one is safe from the “Gigantitan” go-with-what-the-script-says flu.

Alya setting up this huge elaborate plan instead of focusing on Marinette’s actual problems concerning Adrien.

Rose not understanding the flower naming theme despite being rarely shown as incompetent, which is also something no one does anything about because everyone’s so hooked on using codenames.

Adrien’s bodyguard calming down out of nowhere right when the akuma shows up.

Hawk Moth not just releasing the akuma and accepting that this was a bad idea.

Adrien brushing off all of Marinette’s stuttering despite this being a thing he should be concerned about by now and instead just being like “OKAY BYE YOU SEEM STABLE TODAY”

It’s all just set up so the episode goes exactly how the show wants it to and it drives me nuts.

Alya can’t be smart and realize that codenames aren’t a good idea (given Rose’s confusion) or the plan couldn’t mess up in “hilarious” ways.

Hawk Moth can’t do anything intelligent or the episode will just fall apart.

Even just the little things, like the fact that Alix brushes off Marinette’s fear that the boys know about her crush as “nah of course not because they’re boys.” That annoys me because I don’t like the suggestion that the boys are oblivious about love just because they’re boys. This escalates further in “Glaciator” with Ivan and I’m constantly frustrated about it because there’s already a logical, actually sensible reason for JARM to know and none of the boys to: them being closer friends with Marinette and thus seeing more of her than the boys do. I don’t mind specific characters gender-stereotyping, but not when it’s the show itself doing it and imprinting that on the characters themselves to make it true.

On another note, Adrien’s bodyguard is also extra infuriating because he has to get over his rage immediately or he’d be akumatized instead of the baby, which would’ve been actually fun. I’ve said it before, but one of the worst sins an episode can commit is presenting a more fun and/or interesting idea than what they actually go with.

Heck. Adrien’s bodyguard in general is pretty inconsistent. He gets upset about everything going wrong for him, then calms down almost instantly. You’d think the latter is because he sees Adrien, but when Marinette’s talking to him, Adrien’s bodyguard starts honking rudely at them instead of letting Adrien finish a freaking conversation. This is why I hate this guy so much; he’s so inconsistent and constantly swaps between caring about Adrien’s desires and just being irritating.

And, oh boy, that ending scene. I already complained about it in “Treatment of Marinette (Season 2)”, but it drives me up a wall.

Marinette stuttering was not her fault. It was the writing’s. It’s so blatantly obvious, especially on Marinette’s second attempt where she rejects riding home with Adrien.

Yet, the episode still has her friends get annoyed with her. There just comes a point where things stop being Marinette’s fault and start being the writers tripping her up and tugging at her pigtails because “No, bad Marinette, you’re not allowed to make progress even if it’s completely in character for you at this point.”

Marinette goes through this whole plan (and I frankly don’t care if the intention was to get Adrien’s bodyguard in trouble because screw him, honestly), even stopping at one point and almost ruining everything because she wanted to help a baby, and for what?

Nothing. Marinette embarrassed herself in front of her friends, embarrassed herself in front of Adrien, and she gets teased.

I don’t have to wonder why Marinette is constantly fumbling and afraid of screwing up, because her friends and others are always teasing her for being clumsy/stuttering/etc. Alya teases her at the end and Marinette looks so embarrassed at what she’d said, but then the end card just pops up as if we’re supposed to forget about Marinette’s issues and anxiety. They go completely unaddressed and this episode is the worst example I can think of when imagining episodes that try to brush off Marinette’s problems as “you just gotta get it right this time.”

And of course, Alix makes a comment about how Marinette knowing Adrien’s schedule is “creepy.” Like, ‘k, cool, so if she does believe that, what is she gonna do about it? Confront her? Just accept it because she’s her friend and saying anything would’ve forced this episode to not happen?

The is one of the few times Marinette’s schedule (that she has only ever used for purposes of confessing/taking a confession back/tracking down Adrien for crucial reasons) has been brought up, but the show doesn’t want to dwell on it. The show doesn’t seem to want anyone its audience to think about, but it still wants to crack jokes at Marinette’s expense.

And instead of addressing Marinette’s core issues, all five of her friends just waffle around them. If this was actually fun, I probably wouldn’t mind, but with this being the unpleasant experience that it is, I feel like the glaring flaws are constantly being shoved in my face.

[Predictakillity]

This is probably the fourth-ish time I’ve said this in my blog’s lifespan, but one way to send my interest into a downward spiral is when I can predict an episode. There are exceptions, like when I see a scene or hear a particular line and go “Yes! This is probably leading up to [x]”, but most of the time, it’s negative.

And, from start to finish, I could predict this episode. After every scene that happened, I could predict what was going to happen next.

The second I saw this elaborate plan, I knew it wasn’t going to work. Even more insulting was when they threw the fantasy sequence in, because that made it even more obvious. After all, why would they show us what’s going to happen later in the episode instead of building suspense and then having us see the happy moment when it’s actually real?

Not only that, but the fantasy sequence is doubly terrible because it was some top-tier Adrienette and it’s fake. It just brings down the next Adrienette scene that follows it in whatever future episode because now they have to beat “having ice cream together” or it becomes underwhelming.

And that’s exactly what it did, because “Glaciator” was the next episode with Adrienette in it and it had the gall to set up the exact same premise without even letting them have ice cream together. It tore me up too because I knew that’s what they’d do; I knew they weren’t going to show the audience what they wanted to see because the fantasy sequence in “Gigantitan” already showed it. I wanted to be wrong and I wasn’t.

Back to “Gigantitan” itself, most of the jokes and dialog are so drawn out that it felt impossible to not know where things were going to go. They hold on jokes for way too long and everything is so in your face that things become obvious.

The second Rose started messing up the codenames, I knew she was going to be a weak link in the plan.

The moment Juleka got stuck, I knew most of them were going to have to swap jobs and be stuck doing something they weren’t good at.

The instant August appeared on screen (with spoken dialog from the mom, no less), I immediately pointed and said, “That’s who’s getting akumatized.” No amount of Adrien’s bodyguard getting annoyed fooled me because I knew it would be a red herring.

At the very first mention of August wanting a lollipop, I knew that it was going to be important to take him down when he was akumatized.

When the akuma went into August’s bracelet, I knew Hawk Moth would just run with it and wouldn’t give it up.

Even with the lucky charm, which is typically one of my favorite moments in episodes because Ladybug always gets stuck with the most random stuff, I knew what it was for before Ladybug’s Lucky Vision even went off.

And at the final moments of the episode, where Marinette wanted to just get straight to the point, I knew; I knew she wasn’t going to be able to do it. I knew this episode wasn’t going to let her have her moment. I knew her friends would get irritated with her. I knew the writing would just brush it off.

When Marinette’s friends kept asking, “Is she going to do it?”, I was pleading for them to just be quiet because it made the outcome so obvious. Everything’s obvious. When I realized that August was the next akuma victim, I knew that this episode would be nothing but baby humor and gross-out.

I hated that I knew. I didn’t want to know. With every passing minute, I kept begging–hoping–that the episode would throw me some sort of twist.

One wrench in the predictability. One instance where something wasn’t what I expected. One nanosecond where all the characters just looked at each other and went, “Hey, maybe everything that’s going on right now is actually really contrived?”

I got nothing. Once the episode was over, I got into a three hour conversation on why it was the worst thing I’d seen out of Miraculous from an enjoyability standpoint.

And every time Gigantitan shows up as an akuma again, I feel all that annoyance come right back. A full 26 episodes haven’t even passed yet since his episode and Gigantitan has shown up three times.

I hate this episode so much. I hate it because it’s a combination of nearly everything I could hate in an episode.

Character destruction.

Gross-out.

Babies.

Obviousness.

Predictability.

And worst of all, the promise–the set-up–of progress that the protagonist deserves but doesn’t get in the end despite all the garbage they’ve been through and WILL go through.

I think back to this episode and I just find myself unbelievably frustrated. In a way, I feel like I should be glad about how pointless it is. After all, its pointlessness means that I have no reason to ever go back to it.

But also, it didn’t need to exist, and those 22 minutes could’ve been spent doing literally anything else that this season desperately needed.

Instead, it’s 22 minutes of nothing.

#((Rare occasion where I'm actually heated and not just stating facts.))#category: salt #((Super Salt.))#((Mega Salt.))#((Ultra Salt.))#episode: Gigantitan #other: ask and answer #category: long post #word count: over 2000

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future-critical-blog · 5 years

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How Pacing Fucked Steven Universe

Note: this is anonymous because I know what will happen!

Steven Universe is without a doubt one of the best shows I've ever seen. It's certainly the best cartoon series I've ever watched. The first four series, and a large amount of the fifth, are truly wonderful.

So, I'm going to be entitled and complain about the last little bit that didn't work for me. I got all those hundreds of episodes, and I’m just going to take a moment to really honk about the stuff I don't like.

Because we live in an age where Nazis are back, feminists think trans woman are the biggest threat they face and the world is burning - at this point, a bit of a moan about Steven Universe/Future will get lost I think.

Bear in mind: this comes from a place of love. I care about Steven and the characters because they took me on an amazing journey that really had an emotional impact on me. Then they tripped me right at the end, and now they're fuck-twaddling around taking up space in my brain that should be used for thinking about how great the show is.

This is about how the inability to wrap Steven Universe properly sucks and undermines all the amazing work the creators put into it. Now, that work hasn't gone anywhere: I can, and will, re-watch the series to reminisce about it. About what could have happened. Nobody has taken that away from me.

But still, there's nothing worse than a story that buggers up the ending. Worse yet, that ending is still going in Steven Universe: Future.

So what's the problem? Let's start.

Pacing, pathos and atmosphere

Things used to be teased, hinted and slowly revealed. Steven Universe used to a slow-burn that really built things up with the even-hand of a masterful storyteller. Remember that long shot at the end of 'On the Road', after the characters leave? We see just the empty, sinister kindergarten whilst a discordant note builds in the background before... bang, credits. It builds atmosphere and tension.

What happened to that? Slowly building a feeling, weaving a narrative, and taking us on an emotional journey? We got a very rushed pay-off to all this with Series 5. The crew thought the show wouldn't be renewed, so they made the executive decision to wrap it all up.

· Everyone’s fixed now. Pearl, Garnet, Amethyst, Steven.

· Diamonds are friendly now. Blue got sad, Yellow got angry and White got… put in her place by a comeback?

· The bubbled gems/corrupted monsters are all fixed.

· The Off-Colours and Lars just got home. No further adventures, they just got home.

Bits got missed out. Things got rushed. Homeworld, the Diamonds and five series of build-up got dealt with in the space of 40 minutes. For comparison, just Series 1 alone was 8 hours long.

Yeah, the network created that situation. You're cancelled! They seemed to say. No you're not! HA! They continued. But it still sucks, narratively, and the creators are now compounding that problem by trying to go back and add in the bits they missed.

Worse, there's no pacing now because there’s no more overall story. No atmosphere. Fundamentally, post Change Your Mind, everything is done. The series was wrapped up. All we have left now is some loose-ends and Steven being moody.

It came back mostly just to tie up random ends. But more of something isn't always good: Series 1-4 and about half of Series 5 are amazing. We shouldn't clap and applaud we get more just because it's more for its own sake, we should cheer things for being good in their own right.

I don't just want more meep morp, I want the morp to have something to say and to mean something. Victory laps and adding unnecessary lore is pointless: characters and emotion are what drive stories.

This isn't about 'filler' episodes as such, nor is it about breaks and hiatuses. It's about spreading the story arc (and the individual elements within that arc) correctly over the allotted time. A story that takes 700 pages to set up, only to be resolved in 3 pages feels badly unbalanced - I'm looking at you, Stephen King. And that's exactly the problem Steven Universe has. The set-up is incredible, and the payoff is badly disappointing. That's pacing.

Being the Underdog

This was covered nicely, if ironically in hindsight, with the episode ‘Historical Friction’. The play about olde-time mayor William Dewey was utterly uninteresting until Pearl rewrote the play’s script to make him an underdog. This is part of pacing. It's dull to watch a winner win constantly. The characters need to be in situations where they're facing actual threats, otherwise we're just watching a series of foregone conclusions unfold.

What would Lord of the Rings look like if the Hobbits just marched from The Shire to Orodruin, with no setbacks or problems, and then just lobbed the One Ring into the fire? What's the point of the story? It'd be like a grand-scale version of watching someone go out for groceries. Nobody wants to watch that, not really: you can go to the supermarket and see it if you’re that interested!

This couples with suspension of disbelief. Usually, the good guys win. We know they're going to win. We need to be able to suspend our disbelief, and that's something that the pacing and storytelling need to enable. We need to be able to get caught in the story, even though we know everything will probably work out by the end.

When you get it just right, even the creators don’t know for sure everything will be alright. Remember when Picard was assimilated by The Borg? Even the writers weren’t 100% sure how it would play out, because Patrick Stewart was playing hardball with the studio at the time over his contract. There was a chance this could have been the end of his character.

But Steven isn't an underdog anymore. He's a bossy, self-important grump with a martyr complex. He wins all the time, not least of all because of the pacing problems. By this point:

· Steven has healing powers that can literally bring people back to life

· He has all the powers of a Diamond

· He has the backing of the three other diamonds

· He now has an army of friends who will fight at his side

So where is the story to tell? Consider, in Steven Universe: The Movie, Greg's arm gets hurt by the injector. There's no danger, no worry. We know Steven has healing powers. So why bother showing it? It's about as relevant or interesting as watching Greg brush his hair.

There’s no danger. There’s no suspension of disbelief because the hero is now so super-powered.

This is even worse when coupled with the uneven pacing: when something takes so long to be painstakingly set up, only to be knocked down in a heartbeat, then why get invested in it? The 21st Century reboot of Doctor Who falls into this trap a lot: multipart episodes about a Dalek (or whatever) invasion… but luckily their Evil Machine has a ‘reverse’ switch that fixes everything. Dust hands, job done. All that build-up utterly squandered on an almost supernaturally fast resolution.

You Need a Story to Tell

The first five series have a definite story. It gets rushed, badly, come series 5 but there is still a story. That is done now: there's no grand, overarching tale now. We're very much into 'oh, what if...' territory.

What's the problem with that? Things get missed, because they don't need to fit into a cohesive whole. They just happen because they're cool.

Consider The Movie:

· Spinel goes from a cuddly, professional buddy to a would-be mass-murderer

· Spinel knows where to find a stupidly powerful injector

· She knows how to work it

· It is tuned to work to her 'trumpet' sound

· It is shaped like her gemstone

· She knows specifically where Earth is

· She knows how to fly a massive injector, with no obvious engines, to Earth

· This all happens in an afternoon

And the explanation we're given, after the event in a Q&A session? It's because Spinel and Pink Diamond were close. That is supposed to explain the entirety of those bullet points. It rankles me because it's not truthful. Those questions aren't answered by that, they're answered by 'because we thought it would be cool'. It's an unsatisfying explanation, but it's true and they’ve tried to handwave it into something else.

It's also what happens when you run out of proper story. Sure, you can still come up with little adventures but there's no big narrative anymore. There is no large picture for everything to fit into.

That’s dangerous territory. Not only does it lead to weird scenarios, but it also starts generating new lore at a maddening amount. The fans don't help this, it seems to me that some people purely watch Steven Universe to demand moar fusions, moar songs and moar lore. Even when that’s all they get, it’s not enough.

It's like demanding more swimming pools in your home because you're bored with foundations. Sooner or later the whole structure falls down because swimming pools can’t hold a house up. Neither can lore hold a story up: stories are about characters.

Similarly, the concept of 'fusion' relies on characters otherwise it's nothing more than the character dumps we used to get in toy-driven franchises back in the 80s. Songs have to have an emotional resonance otherwise they're just empty pop.

Remember the X-Files? How they got into a rut just generating series after series with no pay-off, but lots more wrinkles to an already convoluted story? Then it got to the end and... you can't end it. It's too sprawling, too stupid and too contradictory. That's where lore without a story takes you. Lore has to serve a vision, not the other way around.

Filler

Not filler the way it's come to mean to SU fans. I like the 'boardie' episodes - they're full of interesting characters and ground Steven's world in something resembling ours. No, I mean filler in terms of stories that don't mean anything: the characters don't learn anything, the world isn't made any more interesting. Things just happen in a self-contained bubble with no payoff or consequence.

In itself, that's fine. Some episodes are like that. If that were the only aspect to 'filler' episodes in SU, then who cares? The problem is the pacing. After glacial teasing, hinting and laying down groundwork... things get wrapped up so fast it'll make your head spin.

· The cluster? We talked it into staying bubbled.

· The Diamonds? They're fine now.

· Bismuth? Steven chatted to her.

· Lapis? She's sort-of fine, but not really.

· Spinel? Sent to live on a farm.

These are all things that took many, many lines of dialogue and building to create and were knocked down in the space of a couple of sentences.

This is where the 'filler' comes in. Instead of another story about Onion being weird, why not devote it to tying up the plot in a way that feels paced properly? Instead of answering questions about Watermelon Stevens, why not draw-out a little more the actual conclusion to a big story point?

Why do I think Onion and Watermelon Stevens should be singled out for Calvary? Simple: they have no explanation and don't matter. They don't matter to the day-to-day lives of the characters or the world. They serve no narrative purpose. They don't advance other characters' arcs. They don't ground the world they inhabit. They turn up, do 'stuff' in a little bubble and then go back into the toybox until the next Onion episode.

As a side note, I would lay a lot of money that Onion will never get any sort of pay-off. He doesn't age. He's deeply bizarre. He's apparently a wanted criminal. He's terrifying. And I don't think for an instant he will ever get a reason for being any of those things: he'll just carry on as a quirky in-joke and take up episode space because apparently that is a story-telling priority now.

Songs

Songs are sung when something is too important for the characters to just say it. The song needs an emotional resonance, to show what a character feels effectively. Contrast 'That Distant Shore' to 'Independent Together': one is about a deep longing and sadness for a home the character has never had. The other is a soft-rock ballad about how great stuff is when you can be your own self but also be with other people... or something.

See the resonance that the former has, and that the latter lacks? Whether you like Lapis or Steg, or the songs, is irrelevant to the story and the characters. One song has something to say, the other is there for the sake of giving fanservice. Independent Together isn't something so important to say that the characters feel they need to sing it.

This really kicks off around the middle of Series 5. Previously, songs were a special event. Now, they're commonplace. Even in Mr. Greg, a fully musical episode back in Series 3, the songs have so much emotion. Plus, Mr. Greg is an experiment: 11 minutes, mostly held together by 6 solid songs:

· Don't Cost Nothing: how much Greg and Steven just love one another.

· Empire City: how excited they are to go on a trip together

· Mr. Greg: Pearl almost lets her guard down, then realises and shuts down.

· It's Over Isn't It? : A heartbroken character sings for a life they never had.

· Both of You: A child shows the two adults they have something special in common.

· Don't Cost Nothing: reprised as a coda.

I won't pretend that all those songs have a huge emotional impact, but they do all serve part of the story arc. You can see it there: the status quo, the trigger, the choice, the quest, the showdown, the resolution and the new status quo. Couple that with the fact that at least 4 of those songs (counting Don't Cost Nothing and its reprise) do have a very real emotional punch, you've got a great episode.

All in 11 minutes.

That's the level of truly amazing, genius storytelling we're working with. Now contrast that to the 1hr 20m of Steven Universe The Movie:

· The Tale of Steven: A prelude to a re-cap song

· Once Upon a Time: a re-cap song

· Let Us Adore You: The Diamonds are emotionally disturbed and co-dependent! How adorable!

· Happily Ever After: The status quo. Also another bloody re-cap.

· Other Friends: The trigger! Not huge emotional resonance, but up-beat and plot-relevant.

· system/BOOT.PearlFinal(3): The quest.

· Who We Are: NICE. This one has emotional impact and says something important.

· Isn't It Love?: A Garnet re-cap. So at this point we're recapping what we re-capped when we recapped the re-cap. Lost yet?

· No Matter What: Again, NICE. Emotional relevance and says something about Amethyst and Steven.

· Disobedient: Kate Micucci hadn't been given anything to do yet?

· Independent Together: Aimee Mann brought a friend! Can he have a job and some dollarydoos?

· Drift Away: CHARACTER. PUNCH. PATHOS. It's here, folks. They can do it!

and so on.

See the pattern? For every one song that brings what we saw in Mr. Greg, there are at least four that are there just because. Because we thought it'd be cool. Because we needed more tunes to fill the runtime. Mr. Greg achieved more in 11 minutes than Steven Universe: The Movie achieved in over 80 minutes.

What's the reason? The Movie doesn't really have a story to tell. It's a victory lap. It's not bad: it's fine. Bits of it are simply excellent. But this is what happens when you stop having a big, cohesive narrative arc that you're trying to bring together.

Characters

Characters grow and evolve. Specifically, they have arcs. Just like the plot as a whole, and just like the subplots that compose it. Generally, the stages are:

· A status quo (Luke on Tattoine)

· A trigger (his Aunt and Uncle die)

· A critical choice (he leaves to become a Jedi)

· A quest (the adventure)

· A climax (the fight at the Death Star)

· A turnaround (the Death Star is destroyed!)

· A new status quo (the Rebels are ready to take on the next challenge)

SU gave most of its characters arcs broadly representative of this. The problem is, once those arcs were done the characters got put back in their boxes. They were 'fixed' and that was it. Amethyst's arc probably worked best: it spread over most of the first five series and felt like a real progression. Hence her fusion with Steven (Smokey Quartz) felt 'earnt'.

Pearl doesn't really grow or evolve much at all until Series 5. Ditto Garnet. Lapis is basically the same throughout the show: she broods, runs away and then comes back because of Steven's coaxing.

So, it’s back to my main drumbeat: its pacing is badly off. Some things take their good time and evolve naturally, others are wrapped up quickly and cast aside. Examples:

· Peridot worked to become friends with the CG. She had a character arc that took half a series.

· The Diamonds: it mostly turned on a sixpence in the 2nd half of Change Your Mind. Off-screen they then became annoying relatives, rather than murderous galactic tyrants.

Why does this matter? Well, most of the characters are now 'done'. Pearl is no longer co-dependent. Ruby and Sapphire know they're together (as Garnet) for love. Amethyst no longer hates herself. Peridot is a sweet (albeit socially clumsy) sidekick. Lapis is... well, the same as she's always been but seems happier with it now?

How do you tell more stories when your characters are already done? When the veg is cooked, you can't put it back on the hob because you've decided you want dinner prep to take longer.

SU keeps wrapping things up, believing they're 'done', then getting more time and needing to draw it out. This means either dawdling around with characters not going anywhere (which feels like either a smug victory lap or just something for its own sake) or actively unpicking their development.

Scrubs, in my view, is the poster child for the latter option: the show's cancelled, quick wrap up JD; Elliot; Dr. Cox; Carla; Turk etc! Oh no, we got another series! Undo the happily-ever-after so we can do more stuff!

That's why the pacing, particularly around characters and where they're going, matters.

Fusion

Fusion is the absolute biggest muddle of a metaphor. Is it friendship? Understanding? Sex? All? None? In any case, it used to be meaningful. Fusion meant something, even if that something would vary depending on the characters and the circumstance.

It took special effort to do: characters had to synchronise themselves through dance, to bring their thoughts together to fuse.

Now? It happens at the drop of a hat. No synching, no dancing. Fanwank it away any way you like: the characters are all 'fixed' now, they all trust each other, whatever. Fusion now doesn't mean anything because it takes no effort: pop here's Sunstone, pop here's Smokey, pop here's Opal. The fusions have just become like alter-egos that take no more effort than a quick-change in a phone booth.

And then there's Steg. Yeah, I get it: he represents the familial love between father and son. But why is he so built? Why does he look like some sort of sex-god? I'm a long way from a prude - it's just weird is all. A 16 year old boy + his middle aged father + the memory of the mother/wife shouldn't create a weird Adonis! But let me set that aside: the true problem with Steg is we had no build-up. Greg and Steven didn't talk about it, Steven just suggests fusing (through whispered dialogue we don't hear) and then it just happens.

Steg also isn't saved by being an interesting exploration of either Steven or Greg. He's fanservice. Fans wanted more fusions and more 'what if so-and-so fused!!' so they got it. He has 0 character. Just like Sunstone has no character beyond being an 'after school special'. Rainbow Quartz 2.0 has no character, aside from being chipper and cockney.

Contrast that to Smokey Quartz. Smokey is a delightful, self-deprecating scamp. She has a definite personality and stood up to a full interview with Sardonyx. Smokey has enough of a character that it would be possible for her to act out-of-character. What would out-of-character look like for Rainbow or Sunstone? Provided it was cartoon-English and early 90s cartoon dialogue (respectively) it could be anything.

What happened? Fusions used to be characters, they used to have personalities that couldn't be written down on a postage stamp in luggage marker.

The answer is the story ran-out. The characters are all fixed now - so there's no emotional or narrative drive for their relationships. Hence the concept of fusion is now just serving fans who want to see 'what if' combinations of characters.

Too Many Endings

I’ve touched on this already, but here it is again.

The problem with wrapping up a show is you put all the pieces away as well as you can, and implicitly make work for yourself if it is not the end. You've just set up a load of strawmen you need to kick over if you decide you've got more story to tell.

That's what happened here. Change Your Mind ended it. Except it didn't, so we went back and unpicked what we could. Even though everyone is basically fixed now and the characters have no real growth or underdog-fight. Then The Movie ended it. Except it didn't, so we went back and unpicked what we could. Even though everyone is still basically fixed.

Will Future be the end? Probably not.

That's why Steven is now a moody little jackass with a hero complex - we needed some conflict to drive what little plot there is, which exists only as a vehicle for tying up loose plot threads (Jasper!) we left out because of how rushed the first ending was.

It's a bit like when you misspell something, then you go back over it with your biro. But now it looks unclear. So you go over it a few more times to make sure it's clear. But now it looks like someone took a biro and leaked half the ink onto the page. The very act of trying to tidy it has made it less clear.

A Special Note About Garnet

This isn't about pacing, but whilst I'm on the moan I'll leave this here.

I feel wicked for this. Garnet is a brilliant character. I love Estelle: she brings Garnet so well to life. Any LGBT representation in a cartoon is rare and amazing, and we need more. But Garnet also sucks.

Why?

She's a metaphor. She's a metaphor for being gay and together in love. She is a symbol of a same-sex relationship. On a side-note: yes Gems don't have gender technically, but let’s not be wilful here: they have female-coded designs and the subtext is so obvious as to barely be subtext.

It's nearly 2020. We're now 20 years into the 21st Century. 2001 A Space Odyssey was set 20 years ago. First contact between Zephram Cochrane and the Vulcans is now only 43 years away. And we can still only talk about gay (or, God forbid, bi or transgender) characters in children’s' media through metaphor. I cannot emphasise enough how utterly shitty that is, and how glacial progress has been.

Now, that isn't SU's fault. However, what is SU fault is their clever (and I mean that genuinely) ploy to sneak a same-sex couple into the show means that we don't see them as a same-sex couple 95% of the time. They're hidden. Ruby and Sapphire's love and relationship literally lives under a disguise called Garnet.

And that sucks. It makes sense as a plan. It's great we have Garnet. Garnet is still amazing. But she also sucks, because she acts as invisibility for the lesbian couple she represents. Yeah, that’s some tough mental gymnastics to work that cognitive dissonance but I managed it.

My God, I Get It: You're a Cat Person

This is also nothing to do with pacing, it's just a creator conceit that bugs me. I freely admit it's also piddly and petty.

So: I'm not a cat person. And no, it's not because I haven't met your adorable little Tiddles or whatever. I don't hate cats, it’s just that most of the cats I've ever met are simply ghastly little shits. Their owners, through some mental blind spot; ancient Egyptian curse or brain parasite have become convinced that these hairball-gobbing, furniture-shredding, wildlife-destroying little cunts are angels. Somehow they've convinced themselves everything they do is adorable.

No amount of murdered birds or small mammals change their minds.

I've met, officially, two nice cats in my life and I treasure their memories. The rest can go to hell.

Why does this matter to SU? Cat Steven. Lion. Peridot and Amethyst doing little kitty-mouths when they're being cute. My God, crew, you love cats. I got the memo.

Why does that work me up? Well, do you know what I'd like instead? If a tiny amount of that 'cats are brilliant!' energy went into a proper wrap for Pumpkin. Created by Jessie Zuke and obviously a puppy metaphor... what happened to her? The crew don't care, because they won't tell us. If they cared even a jot it would have a story around it. Instead, we got some half-arsed bullshit from Joe Johnston about 'pumpkins don't last forever' and... scene. That's it.

But Cat Steven, OMG, yes we have to make sure to include him. Whenever we're at the Beach House. Especially if Garnet is there. Because... lesbians all love cats? Or something? Just... CATS. MOAR CATS.

Couldn't you show a little more respect for a character, albeit a not particularly important one, rather than worrying about how much airtime the various cats all get?

In Conclusion

It bears restating, this is mostly ire directed at Series 5 onwards. The other series are all still there, and I can watch them to reminisce. I can still enjoy some truly wonderful episodes of just about the best cartoon I've ever seen. This show is incredible... but the endings kinda suck. And that's down, mostly, to pacing. And how it kinda fucked Steven Universe.

#steven universe #steven universe future #steven universe the movie

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