#I think a lot about her season 4 spotlight episodes bc they were very good episodes but it was also a gut punch

[femmeroi]

I bet Asuka has the capability to be silly like Fubuki, unfortunately we only see her during the worst moments in her life

[markantonys]

thinking more about the garden scene, rereading it has just made me want even more for the show to do a "rand and egwene trespassing in the caemlyn palace and meeting gawyn, galad, morgase, and elaida" version of it in early s3! because gawyn is adorable in the book version, but mostly exists as an extension of elayne and a helpful infodumper to explain to rand and the reader what's going on while the other 4 caemlyn characters are carrying the scene.

so in a version of the scene where elayne is not there (as i'd imagine she'd go straight from falme to tanchico, which is pretty nearby, while the rest of the gang could pass through caemlyn in their longer travels), that automatically brings gawyn more into the spotlight and makes him an independent and more noticeable character during that whole sequence. now gawyn alone is defending rand (and egwene) from galad, morgase, and elaida, which would be a strong and memorable first introduction to him as a character. (it would also be a great meetcute for gawene <3 and i'd love to keep the book vibe of gawyn being so kind and friendly to rand and having a huge crush on him when they first meet bc it makes the forthcoming events all the more angsty.)

and in general, the book version of course has elayne as the focal point of the caemlyn sequence, so in the show where the audience already knows and loves elayne from other scenes, an elayne-less caemlyn sequence would be a great opportunity to let the other 4 caemlyn characters shine more. seeing gawyn, galad, morgase, and elaida argue over what to do with these trespassers, without elayne present, would do a lot to shed light on all 4 of them as characters and on the various relationship dynamics between them, which would be really good because the gawyn-elaida dynamic will be key to understanding his role in the coup later in the season (maybe we see him being willing to stand up to galad for the trespassers, but then being kinda cowed and backing down once elaida gets involved), and both gawyn's and galad's relationships with morgase are very central to their individual storylines and motivate a lot of their behavior down the road (more so than elayne, who ofc loves morgase and mourns her death, but doesn't really have those feelings as a main motivator for her behavior).

also, i've gone back to reread the wotseries articles about the shohreh aghdashloo (elaida) and olivia williams (morgase) casting leaks, and uncovered a couple interesting tidbits about the caemlyn filming!

both actresses were spotted on a set that is almost certainly the caemlyn palace (filmed inside a real-life castle with andor's banner hanging up)

wotseries believes that since this set is a location shoot 200 km away from jordan studios, not too much time will be spent there in s3 as frequent shoots there would be inconvenient

this filming occurred in late may 2023 and was for sometime in the first 2 episodes of the season

this all supports my theory of a one-time caemlyn trespassing sequence in approx 3x02! however, wotseries didn't report anything about josha or madeleine being spotted on this set, or about galad's actor or any potential gawyn actors being spotted. but that definitely doesn't mean none of them were there, maybe some or all were but just weren't leaked. on the other hand, i could also imagine maybe there's just one brief caemlyn-set scene of morgase telling elaida to go to the white tower and ask about elayne, and then G&G are introduced later when tagging along on elaida's trip and none of them meet our main characters during this season (or even just gawyn tags along with elaida while galad is instead introduced as a whitecloak in perrin's storyline, though personally i think it's important to galad's story for him to NOT be a whitecloak at first and then become radicalized out of worry for elayne). or it could be that there are multiple scenes in the caemlyn palace but some were filmed on a studio set and this location shoot was only used for a particularly grand room like the throne room or something. many possibilities and such little concrete info to go off of yet!

anyway, overall, i think that first introducing the rest of the caemlyn crew to the audience via their interactions with main characters we already know could potentially be more interesting than introducing them in a vacuum as a totally separate storyline (and indeed, most of the new characters in s2 were introduced via preexisting characters meeting them, iirc). and i think that it would be really great for rand and egwene to get a chance to meet the caemlyn crew before they get tied up in other storylines for the foreseeable future, since elaida and gawyn, in particular, are quite important to both rand and egwene later on (or rather, rand is important to gawyn but not vice versa djkfjg poor gawyn). but only time will tell if i'm onto something here or if i'm way off base!

[lesbianmarrow]

I know you've talked a lot about not really caring for nate but I actually think he fulfills an interesting role in the show in that he is, more often than most of them, put in the role of a support character. he occupies a niche that's generally filled by women and people of color. he's got a good heart and he's very kind and he slots into being.. sometimes a caretaker, in small ways, but very also often someone for other characters to bounce off of. his dynamic with sara is very sweet, and with ray, and with both zaris, and mick, and Amaya. I think it's really refreshing to see him in that position. that's not to say none of the other characters are ever forced into that position but he fills it way more often than I would generally expect from a white guy. I think looking at him through the lens of the role he plays relative to other characters makes him a lot more enjoyable

that's an interesting way of looking at the character, and not one i had considered before! i'm going to keep this in mind next time i watch an episode of legends of tomorrow. that said, i'm not necessarily convinced that nate often being placed in a support role necessarily is taking away from other characters being placed in that role? bc i've often noticed it with zari 1.0 and charlie as well.

i often feel like zari 1.0 gets relegated to support for other characters' storylines a bit more than is fair, while she often isn't the focus of the story. i guess in season 3 part of that is to show how she fits in with the rest of the team and establish her personality and her role thru these character dynamics, so it makes sense. but then in season 4 it's like well first she's support for ray's storyline and then she's kind of tagging along for charlie & constantine's adventures and then she's support for nate's storyline and it's like :/ now it IS possible that i just disproportionately notice when this happens with zari bc she's my fave and that this happens to other characters just as much but still this is just the impression i get. we do get 4.02 and 4.11 as zari-centric episodes which is good it's just unfortunate that both were just not very good episodes imo. BUT zari 2.0 is getting a lot of focus as her own character and is not just there to support other characters and that's a very positive change imo.

i think it is fair to say that in season 4 charlie is mostly supporting other characters' storylines and gets less focus than she should. while 4.03 was a really great showcase for her, her other major episodes are 4.08 and 4.15, and both of those she has to share with other characters who are getting more focus than her in those episodes (constantine in 4.08, zari and others in 4.15).

SORRY i just kind of went on a rant about other characters i feel have been underserved by the show. i don't think what i'm saying negates your point exactly, but i don't think nate being in the background necessarily saves other characters from being in the background if that makes sense? still you know i do also enjoy when nate is friends with other characters like when he and ava had their little coworker thing going and when he is a good friend to ray. his blandness makes it hard for me to actively care about him but it's not like i hate him and i definitely agree that him kind of just being there is totally preferable to him taking up all the spotlight.

[snkpolls]

SnK Episode 65 Poll Results (for Anime Only Watchers)

The poll closed with 98 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Manga Readers’ poll, click here.

Anime only watchers, beware of spoilers if you venture over to the manga readers’ poll results.

--

RATE THE EPISODE 94 Responses

Although a bit muted compared to last week, the response to this episode was still overwhelmingly positive, with 96.8% of people giving it a rating of 3 and higher. MAPPA’s on a roll!

Amazing!!!!

i just wanna see more!! 20 minutes is not enough. its too good

Awesome episode! Great pacing and the cgi was not too noticeable.

WAAAAYYYYY TOO HYPE

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING MOMENTS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 93 Responses

Mikasa and Levi took the spotlight this week! 30.1% of viewers felt most hyped up by Mikasa’s “explosive” reintroduction to the anime, while 22.6% were stoked to see Levi take on Porco to save Eren. 18.3% were most hyped by the Survey Corps taking on the Jaw Titan and the subsequent cliffhanger.

THE CGI CONTINUES TO BE A POINT OF CONTENTION. BE HONEST, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE EXECUTION OF CGI SO FAR THIS SEASON? 93 Responses

Just under 50% of responses seemed to indicate that they thought MAPPA was doing very well with the CGI utilized. A little over 15% stated that although it was not their favorite, they understood that it could be a lot worse. Other responses (in order) were being neutral about the CGI, not liking it, but understanding the need for its usage and folks who adamantly rejected 3D animation. 

I actually prefer CGI titans because of the way their movements looks, it looks almost slower, to me it fits very well with how the big titans are. Im not an anime guy at all so ive never seen cgi in other anime but i really like the way Mappa's CGI looks, it blends in very well. I dont like CGI people though, the shot with Jean throwing the marly soldier off the rooftop i didn't like very much.

I feel horrible saying this believe me... but I really vibed with the CGI up until this episode. I think maybe because it's the first time its been used on humans (OPM) rather then titans. I'm not massively put off though, I really apreciate the efforts this episode must have taken. TY Mappa

The episode is great no doubt, my only concern is the CG personally, as a 3D artist myself, I think I would prefer an all 2D medium like the battle at Stohess. Using 3D is fine as long as it blends seamlessly to the background, like kengan ashura, it's not perfect but bearable.

I honestly think that 2D will always 100% be better than cgi but I can understand why mappa is using cgi

It was fine in the other episodes, but in this episode, it looked overused and bit bad

HOW WAS EREN’S ROOFTOP SWAN DIVE? 94 Responses

When it came down to Eren’s swan rooftop dive (“Like a fallennn angel…”), the majority seemed to be impressed, with 68% giving it a score of 4 or higher. It was not a monolithic opinion however and many seemed also rated it poorly. Do better, Eren!

WHICH RETURNING CHARACTER’S ENTRANCE WAS YOUR FAVORITE IN THIS EPISODE? 94 Responses

The Survey Corps has returned! Of these reappearances, viewers most enjoyed Mikasa’s (48.9%), Levi’s (31.9%) and Sasha’s (14.9%) the most. Jean and Connie got a little less love, though we’re sure people were still happy to see them!

WHICH RETURNING CHARACTERS HAS THE BEST GLOW UP? 93 Responses

It would appear that the slight plurality sees Mikasa as having the best glow up out of the cast, followed by (in order) Eren, Sasha, Connie, Jean, Floch and Levi. The Old Captain doesn’t like to change up his style, we suppose. 

Eren didn't have a glow up- he had a glow down.

Mikasa can stomp on me please god

OF ALL THE ORIGINAL CAST, WE STILL HAVE NOT SEEM ARMIN, HANGE OR HISTORIA YET. WHICH OF THE THREE ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING NEXT? 93 Responses

In relation to the previous question, we still haven’t seen 3 major members of the cast. Armin, Hange and Historia. When we asked which of the three you were most looking forward to seeing next, the slight majority (52.7%) expressed their excitement for seeing Armin again, followed by 11.8% wanting to see Hange most. Some others have also expressed their desire to see Historia again. 17.2% simply could not choose and 10.8% stated that they simply didn’t care about the 3 characters.

WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE WARHAMMER TITAN? 90 Responses

The Warhammer received an overwhelmingly positive response, with the majority expressing much excitement over both its design and powers. 15.6% noted that the design was a bit too creepy for their liking, but the powers were awesome. And on the flip side, 10% noted the Titan’s design was rather cool, in contrast to its rather OP ability. A select few did not enjoy either aspect. 

Would probably enjoy it more if it belonged to someone that likely is not going to be just cannon fodder

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE NEW UNIFORMS? 92 Responses

The Survey Corps returned sporting new uniforms to much fanfare. 30.4% of respondents really enjoy the upgrade, finding the suits to be badass. 23.9% couldn’t find the words and just settled for pure hype. 20.7% enjoy the new uniforms just as much as they enjoy the classic uniforms. 12% felt it was a much needed upgrade, though 10.9% don’t care at all about the uniform change.

I like both but I prefer the old design

EREN SAYS TO MIKASA, “YOU GUYS ACTUALLY CAME.” THIS IS FOLLOWED UP BY MIKASA ASKING EREN TO COME HOME. DOES THIS INSINUATE THAT EREN WENT TO THE MAINLAND ON HIS OWN? 90 Responses

The circumstances of the Survey Corps’ presence on the mainland continues to be a mystery. When we asked about whether Eren was there alone or not a few episodes ago, the majority believed that he was either there alongside the Survey Corps or was sent there by them. Overall, the feelings seem to be the same (that Eren came alongside the Survey Corps). 45.6% think that Mikasa’s words may have some other meaning and that things are way too planned out to be coincidence. 18.9% believe that Eren did go rogue, while 15.6% think that Eren didn’t necessarily go rogue, but wasn’t working with them for a while either. The remaining 20% have already been spoiled on this particular plot point.

THE ATTACK ON LIBERIO SEEMS TO PARALLEL THE BREACH OF SHIGANSHINA. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS EVENT IN COMPARISON? 92 Responses

Now that both sides of the conflict have had their rude awakening, we asked how you guys felt about the two events comparatively. 33.7% feel that both attacks were tragic, but still feel more empathy toward the Eldians on Paradis than they do toward those who were raised on Marley. At a tie, 22.8% of respondents felt that the victims of the Liberio attack got what was coming with them, while another 22.8% felt about the same amount of sympathy for the victims on both sides. 10.9% feel this is way worse than what happened in Shiganshina and feel more sympathy for the victims in Liberio. 

I am yet to know the goals behind this attack.

Marley did this countless times so I don’t feel bad for them. I kind of feel for eldians tho bc they are brainwashed from a young age to give up their lives for a country who doesn’t give a shit about them. 

Honestly they deserve what Eren is doing to them. Excluding Falco, no one outside of Paradis has earned my sympathy, even with the additional context.

SADLY, UDO AND ZOFIA DID NOT SURVIVE THE ATTACK ON LIBERIO. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THEIR DEATHS? 91 Responses

Udo and Zofia have joined the ranks of characters who tagged along with the main cast for a while only to be killed off for character development. 25.3% anticipated at least one of them to die, but not both. Another tie on this poll, 24.2% stated that they were disappointed and was hoping to see more of them, while another 24.2% didn’t care about them at all. 14.3% are happy to ditch the focus on them in favor of more familiar characters, and 8.8% feel pure and utter devastation. 

Good riddance Warrior scum

Sad but allows for Gabi’s development 

sad but okay. death is common in this anime.

EREN AND FLOCH’S LAST INTERACTION IN S3 WAS A VERY TENSE ARGUMENT. NOW IT SEEMS FLOCH IS DEDICATED TO EREN’S CALL TO ACTION, SHIFTING THE “NECESSARY DEVIL” STATUS FROM ERWIN ONTO HIM. WHAT DO YOU THINK THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS LIKE NOW? 91 Responses

Eren and Floch were anything but BFF’s at the closing of season 3. Now Floch seems to be wholly devoted to Eren’s cause… What changed? 28.6% believe that nothing has actually changed in terms of their relationship, but that Floch simply just latched onto Eren’s fight in need of a new devil. 23.1% feel that they still aren’t friends, but are in more comfortable “ally” territory. 15.4% aren’t sure what to make of it. Smaller handfuls feel that they either grew to become friends and/or co-conspired to attack Liberio together. 22% are already spoiled on the details. 

Floch is easily persuaded...and annoying 🤷‍♀️

WE SEE GABI GRAB THE GUARD’S FUN AFTER WITNESSING SASHA KILL HIM. WHAT DO YOU THINK MIGHT HAPPEN? 90 Responses

Gabi moves headstrong into the fight, wanting to play her part in defending her hometown. A large chunk of anime only viewers have been spoiled on future developments for her character. But for those still in the dark - 24.4% feel that she will successfully kill a member of the Survey Corps. 21.1% aren’t sure what to expect, while 10% think she will only manage to injure someone in the Survey Corps. Smaller amounts feel she won’t be successful in any capacity or may even die herself.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

Epic episode, survey corps come back, OH YEAH, but I wished they didn’t use CGI on humans and bettered the CGI on Titans.

It really makes me sad how Eren is continuing the cycle of revenge by killing innocent Marleyan civilians, but it makes sense for his character. 

Real cool ep but w h e r e a r m i n

It sucks that I like the warriors and the Corp bc both of them are victims in different way so seeing them have to go head to head sucks. They all deserve better

SO great I loved it! However, I missed Reiner, Falco, and Zeke. I hope they're okay :-) RIP Udo and Zofia :-(

I think I need more dialogue between the old crew to really settle back in with them. I kinda believe that Mappa's still trying to 'click', they obviously can't just get it right immediately. Other then that I loved the titan scenes, more than ODM scenes 😔

This was a great episode and I was literally vibrating in my seat from excitement! I think MAPPA is doing a great job with the animation and the music works really well with the action. Can’t wait for the rest of the season!

I miss wit studio

Willy seems to have his first daughter really early, he looks like 30 !

I’d say the episode as a whole is a solid 8-9/10, the cgi in some parts really ruins the moment for me

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 88 Responses

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

[gaarfielf]

k im gonna throw in my hot take on part 5 now i think the time has come where i’ve watched enough of the damn series i can make a coherent essay on whats what on what (putting it under a read more bc this shit is gonna be long and i dont want my followers to suffer too much)

I’ll do this character by character starting with the new ones

Ami: I’m having a hard time deciphering whether she’s being underutilized or over utilized because number 1) her character isn’t interesting enough to have her keep coming around, especially when her only connection to the group is Lupin. She hasn’t had any interaction with Goemon or Jigen that i know of and she hates Fujiko for ??? reasons. That being said, I would’ve preferred if she was fleshed out more because 2) literally having her be the distant girl that is quiet and doesn’t understand social norms is..... really boring. It’s almost as boring as having a female character whose only there as a set of boobs... (coughs). She isn’t interesting because they didn’t make her interesting, yeah? It’s hard to hate a character based on the fact alone they were clearly written by a man but I mean it very literally when I say she could’ve been something great. Having her confess her love to Lupin was straight up disgusting and I really expected more from tms in that vein. Putting romance where romance doesn’t need to be is bad enough let alone when you jack knife it in between a child and an adult. And for those of you saying ‘Oh hhhh she’s like nineteen’....look into your heart. Even if she is 1) she sure as hell doesn’t look it and 2) Lupin is like 40-50. In the wise words of me, children loving adults was a myth made up by pedophiles in support of the devil. Npot to mention pitting her against Fujiko because they both like Lupin?? I ain’t even gotta explain why that’s a pathetic excuse at writing. But I will. Fujiko is a grown ass woman so why the fuck would she care and Ami is a child who shouldn’t be in love with him anyway. She has truly been nothing in the series except a tool and even at that not a likable one.

Yata: Do I even have to say that I can’t write anything about a man who hasn’t had more than 4 minutes of screen time in the last 24 episodes? He was hyped up before the series started and he’s done nothing but be Zenigata’s personality in the place of Zenigata y’know. Actually speaking and having one for himself BUT WE’LL GET TO THAT LATER. He’s done nothing but yell and cry over literally nothing? Like he fights Zeni’s fights because for some reason Zenigata got super lazy this season (again, we’ll get into that later) and he’s just a pointless character.

Albert: Gay rep for life haha just kidding he was bad at that too. I think they literally introduced him as faux-gay rep because they know the fans wanted more sensitive interactions from their already existing male cast members and they were like ‘well that’s gay so we’ll give them this guy’. And speaking on behalf of myself - ‘I don’t want these’. So Albert shows up, supposedly having a HUGE connection to Lupin’s past and then............we never see him again. And they literally tell us nothing about him except he’s gay and works in the government. Apparently when we say ‘we want gay rep’ they hear ‘very minor gay character??’ and didn’t hear us say ‘no’ back. And every time I hear anyone say 1) ‘well, his connection to Lupin is supposed to be a mystery!’ I can feel hives growing on my skin because i’m allergic to bullshit like if they weren’t gonna tell us the connection, and whatever the connection is didn’t reveal anything new about the character outside of ‘Lupin knew somebody that wasn’t Jigen when he was younger’ then why?? mention it?? why make an entire arc dedicated to not telling us something if the end result was ‘it doesn’t matter who he is’? 2) ‘well they’re obviously cousins’ except they obviously aren’t. if they obviously were, they’d say that they were cousins. like if y’all are digging up bits of the manga from 40 years ago to say ‘there was a character who had the same last name’ but are also out here saying ‘Jigen doesnt have a sister bc they said that over 40 yers ago and haven’t mentioned it since’ then I ain’t got nothing to say to y’all, you’re just dodgy and ain’t worth the stress of talking to. 3) ‘they’re maybe gay’ well the cool thing about gay rep is that we don’t give honourary mentions out for series that were too cowardly to actually come right out and say it. So in conclusion, Albert was written by cowards who couldn’t decide what to do with him.

Enzo: Boring. That’s literally all I have to say. Trying to give him depth by making Ami his daughter was predictable and not at all interesting. To be honest I completely forgot she was looking for her dad anyway because she didn’t seem to care that much about finding him either (or seem to care about anythign really). He’s a shitty villain and every time he speaks I got my finger on the right-key because I don’t care what he has to say and so far I haven’t missed anything good so yeah. Just disappointing.

I think that’s it??? For new characters?? So I’ll move onto the main cast

Jigen: I 👏 WANT 👏 JIGEN 👏 TO 👏 DO 👏 SOMETHING like good fucking God the man hasn’t done anything this whole series up until 24 where he got  5 minute scene dedicated to him killin’ cops (direct action) but like?? As a character he hasn’t progressed he has BARELY spoken and we’ve learned one new thing about him the whole series in the episode where he meets the daughter of a woman he used to work with. And that one thing that we learned was: he used to work with the mother of this girl. That’s it. Episode 24 he got a little bit of dialog with Lupin that I guess was supposed to be like character development but it was so weird because it was kind of directed at the audience?? So it’s like is he talking to me or to Jigen because if I was Jigen I would not have one goddamn clue what he was talking about. Also, he’s so depressing this season?? Right up until now we’ve seen very little personality from him aside from Angry and Complains a Lot. He smiles sometimes sure but like he doesn’t exactly have a lot to smile about this season considering he’s not really in the limelight anymore and is only brought back to foreshadow how much he hates technology and wants to retire. Personally, Jigen is one of my favourite characters and the fact he hasn’t achieved much this series is a big let-down

Goemon: I can’t even imagine how let down Goemon fans feel because again, up until Episode 23 he did nothing. He had an episode where he fell in love?? With a girl?? Disguised as a woman?? For some reason?? It was in one of the throwbacks and I’ll admit that maybe the episode made sense and I probably missed something but to me I had no clue what was going on. ANYWAY like his big scene in the spotlight is 3 episodes before the end of the series (its not like he’s a main character or anything) and he cuts Lupin. Because he thinks that he isn’t really his friend. That’s it that’s the only reason he almost murders his friend. Just kidding the other reason was that it was a half ass attempt at shock value to make sure the audience was still paying attention. They can’t seem to decide this season whether they want Goemon to be edgy or stupid but I think we’ve gotten a greta big helping of both so thanks tms /sarcasm/. They’ve really just dragged his character through the mud this season because he used to be stoic, mysterious, traditionalist but lowkey clumsy guy and then now he’s. I don’t even know how to describe it he’s just become so cutesy and edgy at the same time so we get him cutting Lupin in half right in front of UwU i eat my fish skin first ! I’m quirky ! like what am I supposed to feel about this grown man? He’s really too back-and-forth for me this season

Fujiko: I’M GONNA GET HEATED ABOUT THIS ONE SO BUCKLE UP I’ve never seen Fujiko written this poorly since TWCFM (yes i’m outting that as a bad series too so don’t @ me about that lil tidbit). She’s there as a piece of eyecandy bUT SHE IS SO POORLY DRAWN IT MAKES ME WONDER IF ANYBODY AT TMS HAS EVER SEEN A WOMAN IN THEIR LIFE TIME. Seriously her proportions are so off and outwardly repulsive looking it makes it hard not to skip anything she says in the series on account of how half-ass her character looks. Not limiting herself to being visually repulsive, she also has a half-ass personality. Suddenly Fujiko isn’t the come-and-go as she pleases, mysterious woman that gives Lupin intel on very high security operations she’s just. There. At some point in the series she said ‘a woman’s body is just a tool to get something she needs’ and I wanted to puke this is NOT Fujiko’s character at all and I’m disgusted that they’re brushing her off as a pair of walking talking boobs. Also her absolute lack of empathy is just mind numbing because they’re somehow trying to convince the audience that Lupin broke her heart due to wedding related reasons that still haunt her but? Seeing him cut almost in half does nothing for her? And then she deadpan ‘This is just how it is’ like this is just putting her in such an evil light that I hate because I love Fujiko! In every other season she’s fighty and sarcastic and witty AND NOT JUST THERE FOR EYE CANDY. And going back to the wedding thing, why is this being made into such a big deal? There’s literal episodes in other seasons called ‘Fujiko Doesn’t Look Right in a Wedding Dress’ ‘Fujiko Doesn’t Want to Be Married’ ‘A Ring Is Like a Trap’ like she 👏 don’t 👏 want 👏 to 👏 be 👏 married 👏. And the preview for the next ep shows her in a wedding dress so I’m ultimately preparing myself for the big season finale being them getting married.

hurray.

Final thought on Fujiko being, the episode where she picks up Lupin to save him from succumbing to his crossbow wound (easily the funniest thing thats happened all season) I mean. Yeah it’s kinda cool. I don’t really have any strong feelings about that like I’m not about to praise them for something like that when it was immediately followed by her and Ami slap fighting over him again.

Lupin: In my days of watching Lupin movies/specials my slogan was ‘if the ratio of screen time in the movie between characters is 10:0 in Lupin’s favour then it ain’t a good movie’ and it’s ringing true to this season where it’s all about Lupin. I understand obviously it’s a series called Lupin III like I’m not stupid but the amount of ass kissing to his character is something else like they’re putting him on this huge pedestal like he’s a do-no-wrong kind of guy to the point where he’s boring because he’s done nothing wrong. Ever. He doesn’t argue with anybody he doesn’t have any strong emotions really (outside of that episode where Zenigata loses his memory we see him outwardly angry for a minute). It just makes him such a dry character when they try to mold him into being absolutely flawless and admirable. Also the amount of faking his own death and ‘oh no is he gonna die’ moments are just not entertaining. Like I said earlier when he got shot with the crossbow that was the hardest I’ve laughed in a long long time. It played like an SNL skit (you know what one). And again we aren’t learning anything new. Whose Albert to him!? We never got to know, What’s his relationship to Fujiko!? We’re probably gonna find out they’re getting married last episode after all the touching moments they had together this season like.... like uh.... when they uh... oh right they’ve barely spoken to each other all season. And when they did they were arguing. Love is in the air huh?

Zenigata: AI’ll try to keep this brief but Yata’s taken over his character this season. He’s barely spoken, he has like, NO energy or determination. After the episode where Lupin faked his death (the first time, not the proceeding 90 times) Zenigata just stopped appearing and stopped doing anything productive. If anything his character became an excuse for an info dump. Like oh we see a war torn area whats going on? Zenigata is conveniently nearby to say ‘these people are at war!’ and then outside character will tell a 18 paragraph history on him of whose at war and their history and then Zenigata says ‘okay’ and doesn’t appear again for the next 2 episodes.

Now for the closing thoughts I guess

i don’t know why they’re looking at Lupin having plot as separate from Lupin being episodic. Like they’ve separated him from adventure so he’s just doing the same things over and over again. Not to mention like I said earlier, the fans wanted to see more sensitive interactions between the already existing characters, and if anything, they’re farther apart and just really confusing and contradictory. It’s hard to get through an episode when every week its another ‘great time for another plot arc they’re never gonna finish’. When I watched episodes of Part 1 and 2 and 4 (not so much 3 because i can’t find anywhere to watch it lol) I’m pretty attentive all the way through because the series drops tidbits of information about the characters and they make the episode enjoyable to watch. This season is so dreary and dry I can’t find anything to enjoy about it because it’s just one disappointment after another. I’m trying to to sound bitchy as I type all this out but I mean I’m speaking as a fan who is just really disappointed. I know I’ve said ‘disappointed’ a lot in this whole thing but there isn’t another word to describe it because that’s really the way that I feel about part 5. Seeing my favourite characters on screen is supposed to make me feel happy and excited to see where they’re gonna go and what they’re gonna do not make me think “I hope they don’t ruin this character for me’ in every. single. episode. This season has been underwhelming, unenjoyable, inconsistent and just really exhausting to me overall.

i gotta go eat now so peace out and if you read to the end of all this then hopefully i’m not the only one in this boat but if you don’t agree with me then i guess thats just how it is yeah?

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the callbacks were cool at first but now I just find they’re baiting me into thinking i’ll enjoy the episode because i’ll find something I liked from one of the better seasons in it. They’re just really overused at this point because these callbacks aren’t being used for anything. like ‘lupin is making his plan at the cagliostro castle!’ like. why. ‘detective melon is also angry at lupin!’ but if she isn’t like teaming up with zenigata or actually doing anything to find him why should i care. 

[soulswimmr]

Thoughts on s6~

Putting it all under a cut because I can’t not talk in lengthy paragraphs. Feel free to shoot an ask/message if you want to talk about s6, too

Ok wowie, good season. There were noticable weak points, but I’ll address those along the way. First let’s talk about the 

Plot

It was good. It was surprisingly good. The hidden altean thing where they bold faced put that Lotor was responsible for hundreds or thousands of deaths teeters way out of kids’ show territory. They were not fucking around with that. The fact that they made it clear that the plot was not just paladins vs Galra (esp with Lotor wanting to do away with the Galra), but more along the lines of paladins vs lotor vs generals vs sendak vs so on and so forth makes it not just more complex, but stacks the odds against voltron and adds good suspense. Clone shiro was incredible. It was everything i’ve been waiting for. 

The fight scenes, inside and outside voltron (cough cough KeithvsKuron) were breathtaking. Everything about Krolia was very well put together. THE ANIMATION WAS BREATHTAKING. 

On that note (and dipping into characterization a little bit), they kinda layed it on thick with Lotor romanticizing Allura. He was too goody goody and it made the betrayal lose a little impact (aside from the whole mass murderer thing). there’s a difference between that and foreshadowing. 

Idk why the huge timeskip with Keith and Krolia stuck on that mission bugged me a little, but it did. A timeskip makes sense and is a cool tool to use for the fam to get to catch up, but it just felt. Strange. Two years is a long ass time. Keith was completely unaffected seeing the team again. One could argue that this was bc of the mission, or Krolia teaching Keith how to be a member of the blade and have Super Mission Focus, but still, for Keith to have that much almost-off camera development and not be at least startled to see voltron again was weird. I love my mom to pieces but two years alone with her and eventually I’d go a little nuts.

Characterization

That last point brings me right into characterization, and unfortunately this one is gonna be a little more on the critical side. For the most part, characterization/character focus was well balanced this season. But there were some Moments.

Everyone on team voltron developed, and it was arguably best executed this season than any other. We got to see some great Coran moments, where he really felt like a member of the team. Hunk having a no-nonsense teacher, even just for like 15 minutes lol did him good in terms of communicating with their new allies. Hunk is a people-person, and it shows very well. His camera time wasn’t 100% food related all the time, in fact, barely ever. Bravo.

Pidge of course got her own arc, but it was still a GREAT moment when she admitted to having the coding on Shiro’s arm uploaded and on hand just in case. It was CHILLING when she made eye contact with Kuron before he took off. This is, imo, how Dreamworks should’ve handled other characters who didn’t quite have the spotlight in previous seasons. Not a whole lot of moments, but when they were there, they had impact. I hope they continue to do this.

Do I even need a section for Keith? Holy shit. My boi finally accepting his role as Black Paladin and so much more. :’) I won’t elaborate because c’mon, it was in part, a Keith-centric season

Same for Allura. She really is the heart of Voltron. We got to see a lot of sides of her. 

Lotor being a psycho bitch but still having genuine feelings for Allura?? good shit

LANCEY LANCE. Bless him, Dreamworks is doing their best. In terms of his relationship with Allura, seeing him going from meaningless flirting to serious heart to hearts and a team player was fantastic. BUT I have some grievances, here we go.

Lance got a mini-arc and it was great, and he very clearly grows and changes, this is great! However, regardless of ships, seeing it centric to a romantic relationship, and basically being a rebound for Allura was ahhhhhhehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh eh. 

Pidge and Hunk teasing Lance about his crush was normal, and them pretending to be Lotor and Allura was adorable and hilarious, but Lance was really hurting and when they didn’t stop and just walked out, I???? What. That, to me, is out of character. Hella out of character. Lance is their friend, and they should be?? Friendly??? I was mad @ them

Finally, as much as I love broganes and the great arc they had, they’ve had a tremendous amount of camera time. We’re well away that they’re practically inseparable. What I really wanted to see was the whole team being involved with finding out about Operation Kuron. With Lance seeing Real Shiro in the astral plane, I was really on board with him pulling aside Keith when he came back and be like “ey dude I saw some fucked shit”, and them rescuing Shiro together was a theory I was personally super into. Was kind of disappointment that we didn’t see the relationship between Shiro and the other team members deepen a little more.  

Ships

If you don’t want to read about ships feel free to stop here and thanks for reading!! Message me if anything I said caught your eye.

First of all, daaaaaaamn that Allurance.

I’ve shipped allurance for a while now, more casually than other ships, so to see Lance change and mature and support Allura while Allura started to show that she really values Lance meant a lot to me. It’s good to see Lance grow up a little. For everything that they were this season, forced was most certainly not one of them. Their relationship felt organic.

However, it was not without flaws. I can’t help but feel like Lance was treated like a rebound, and was almost too? supportive??, and it was telling when Allura was talking with the mice, upon them snITCHIN ON LANCE DAMN MICE, she frowned sadly. I have to wonder if she actually returns his romantic feelings. And I do like the ship a lot, casually and aesthetically. But at the end of the day, what I was hoping to see was a really solid friendship. I think from here they don’t need to be straight up romantic. Their relationship is no doubt one of the strongest in the show, but I think it would be an incredible writing path to keep their friendship, because allurance has been hinted since episode one, and I think it’s almost?? Too easy for the writers to turn it romantic. I think Allura and Lance are a great team and very compatible for friends, but uhhhh read on.

I’ll just address the elephant in the room and come clean, yeahhhhh I like klance and yeeeaaahhhhh I would have really liked to see some more content this season, so sue me lmao. 

If I’m gonna be really blunt about my feelings, I feel like klance is a fantastic direction for Dreamworks to take. I feel like it would be good writing to make klance endgame. Why? Because it’s the path of least resistance. That’s why so many people like it. Keith and Lance were so salty at the beginning, but the crew made an effort to show that in moments that were particularily tough, they have loads of potential and can be very good for each other, romantically or platonically. It’d be harder to write, it’d take time, but I think it’s a worthwhile pairing. And there are definitely some moments that are super disruptic to both Keith and Lance’s development when they, Lance especially, straight up regress in their development and fight for no reason. I think it’s unfair, and it almost always makes me go “wait I thought they were starting to get along better??”. Now that Allurance is a thing, I’ve stated in another post that, because it would be strange for Lance to have two romantic arcs, it’s pretty unlikely that klance will actually happen. Do I think they teased us? Yeah. Do I think they straight up qbaited us? Not really. In the end, my biggest hope is that they continue to develop Keith and Lance’s friendship and don’t abandon the really strong potential they have together. Don’t let them regress, Dreamworks.

I’m not gonna address she/th (or tag it, because who goes into the tag looking for someone to say IM NOT A FAN OF XYZ JUST THOUGHT U SHOULD KNOW) too much because I’m personally not a fan. There’s so much about their relationship associated with “brothers”, and Keith looking up to Shiro that it just doesn’t rub me right in terms of romance. I had to wonder if they aged Keith up two years to justify possible future she/th?? if it happens I’ll be bummed, and I think the random aging up is kind of a cop out, but hey, it’s their show.

RIP Lotura. I stopped shipping it and figured out Lotor was a hoe after his third Dramatic ‘Let’s Bring the Universe Together’ Speech to appeal to Allura’s sense of duty. It’s a shame tho, I was really digging it at the end of season 5

PUNK FOREVER YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY

Thanks 4 coming to my ted talk, get in my ask and discuss w/ me ovo