#Jab We Matched series review | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lazyrabbit755 · 2 years ago

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Ok so I finished Wednesday...

So first of all I wanna start by saying I really liked the series. I'm gonna go into detail about what I liked and didn't like and what I want to see improved in later seasons (assuming there are any). But overall no matter my criticisms overall I really liked the show as a whole! You might be asking yourself why I'm not just writing a review on IMDB or something? To which my reasoning is that this is my little blog and I am going to exercise my right to rant about my stupid little obsessions on the internet as much as I want!

Just a heads up I am going to go into spoilers so I would highly encourage you to watch the show first and come to your own decisions before reading what some rando on the internet has to say about it. Now with that out of the way, let's get into it...

The Good:

Obviously the art direction is great, I mean it's Tim Burton directing an Addams Family reboot, that's a match made in heaven! The characters were wonderful, I honestly think they carried the show imo. Eugene and Thing were some standouts to me although of course Bianca, Enid and Wednesday were my favorites. I just really feel like Eugene was like the MVP and like was consistently one of the nicest characters both to Wednesday and the other characters (although the scene where he barfs all over the pilgrim bullies was kinda dated, really felt like I was watching an early 2000s movie making fat jokes in poor taste) The music score was lovely it really sold the whole "Goth Girl Hogwarts" vibe which I don't mean as a jab towards Goths cause I'm obviously here for that or I wouldn't be writing about this show.

The not so good:

Tbh the whole teen romance subplot wasn't doing it for me. I mean I get why they wrote it in but it felt kinda forced at times ngl. Like having Wednesday go back and forth between Tyler and Xavier, (the two most boring "straight guy" names of all time btw) after a while it felt like writers ran out of excuses on why Wednesday would be leaving one of the boys hanging while pursuing the other. Yes a lot of people have complained about how boring in general Xavier and Tyler were as characters and I agree! You had on one had an artsy loner boyfriend who has psychic abilities and the power to LITERALLY MAKE HIS DRAWINGS COME TO LIFE and they managed to make him uninteresting and kinda unlikable (that last one being more subjective to myself but you get the point). And on the other hand a literal serial killer boyfriend who turns into a 10ft tall monster with a mommy kink. And like just saying the whole idea that Laurel controls Tyler because she told him the truth about his mother also being a Hyde was kinda weak. Like just say the kid has mommy issues!

In all honesty the main gripe that I have with the show is actually about Wednesday herself. She didn't really get that much character development throughout the season. YES her relationship with Enid was very cute and I love Enid...BUT...the show even acknowledges that Wednesday is kinda a jerk to her friends. Enid straight up tells her to her face that she doesn't like the way she treats her, bringing her along to dangerous investigations and tricking her with the promise of a girls night out. And before we knew that Tyler was the real killer he was in the same boat. I mean she leads him on prioritizing herself first and her investigation and uses him to get what she wants. Same with Xavier who REALLY got the short end of the stick getting PUT IN FUCKING JAIL (even if it was only for a night or so). It felt like towards the second half of the season that Wednesday was going through a series of selfish decisions and having characters highlight them to her face so that she could reflect on her bad actions and grow as a character. But instead of giving us that payoff she literally doesn't grow OR APOLOGIZE to basically anyone! And when she does apologize it's weak as hell! Instead most of the characters she treats like crap come to her and apologize or attempt to rekindle their relationship. I MEAN FOR GOD'S SAKE Enid literally tells Wednesday TO HER FACE, that she is the one making most of the effort in their friendship and instead of apologizing, Wednesday just tells her she doesn't need friends and that she's a gigachad alpha. And Enid just comes back like an episode later and has a change of heart. And her "apology" to Xavier was just pathetic. He just sorta forgave her for everything after being justifiably pissed the fuck off at her for ruining his life and then suddenly forgives her for everything because she took an arrow to the shoulder for him.

Like it feels like the writers ran out of time or something, like they wanted her relationship with Enid and the other characters to have more depth. Like most of the other side characters have at least decent character development arcs, like Enid and Bianca standing up to their Mothers. The thing is I like Wednesday as a character, contrary to what you might have just read I want to root for her! But the writers made it a bit hard towards the end. I know they wanted to sell the whole Goth girl, raven from teen titans, attitude but it's ok guys you can make her a little more likable.

Conclusions:

You may think that I have been a bit harsh or nitpicky about the show. Or perhaps you're thinking "Why the hell did this loser nobody write several paragraphs about some dumb teen drama Netflix show" to which my response is why are you still reading? YES I'm probably a bit harsh on this series or nitpicky but that's because I like it so much! When something that you enjoy is so close to being "perfect" (or at least really well done) it's all the more disappointing when it just barely falls short. If your favorite sports team loses by one point right before the final whistle you're even more crushed that you would've been if they had lost by 8 points.

To conclude despite the cheesy teen romance plot lines and boring ass love interests, I enjoyed my time with this show and if there are more seasons to come (which it's looking like there will be considering the success of the show) I want to see the show do better and improve upon it's previous seasons.

If you read all that borderline incomprehensible word vomit here's a gold star 🌟 you deserve it. 👍 And hey, Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a great rest of your day/night and if you watched the show lemme know if you agreed with some stuff I said or you think I'm fucking insane for caring so much and writing all this. Either way it's just a show at the end of the day. :)

#wednesday #wednesday spoilers #wednesday series #netflix wednesday #enid sinclair #wednesday addams #the addams family #netflix series #netflix original

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jabsbiotech · 3 months ago

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mirrorfalls · 3 years ago

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Lego Liveblogs ST: TOS, part 27 (of who-the-hell-knows-how-many?)

Well, “Errand of Mercy”. To it we owe Worf, we owe B'Elanna, we owe the only other Geek Conlang that can actually catch up to Elvish (speaking of, anyone compiled a Complete Elvish Shakespeare yet?). But do we owe it praise in itself? All contemporary and modern reviews say yes, but let’s see for ourselves, shall we?

* A D- in Culture? Sounds like my kinda planet. * Ahh, the ‘60s, back when “Belgium” and “weak innocents” belonged in the same sentence... * And we’re right into the Action. Everyone yell and throw yourselves! * I applaud your “Don’t turn this into a shooting match even if there is a Klingon fleet” instincts, Kirk. Less your “Spock and I are all we need for this vital diplomatic mission!” instincts. * Ah, now I remember what the Big Twist behind this one is supposed to be. Let’s see how well it holds up without the element of surprise. * “Captain, that goat is most Fascinating. Permission to observe?” * And the Cold War metaphors kick into high high gear. I don’t really mind how on-the-nose all this is (and by all accounts the IRL Soviets were kinda this bad), but you’d think Kirk would’ve brought some photos or recordings of all this shit the Klingons - supposedly - get up to. * “There is no evidence of any progress as far back as my tricorder can register.” “Awww shit, are we back on Gothos’ planet? Or the Purge planet? Or-” ** In all seriousness, though, the planet not having any public facilities does sound like cause for alarm. * And now, in all their glory... Les Klingons Originales. Less racist-looking than I was told they’d be, real- ** Ooohh. Nevermind. * Three lines in and this guy’s already made my shortlist of smartest Trek villains. * “I don't trust men who smile too much.” Okay, extra points for preserving at least one genuine aspect of Russian culture. ** (Yes, even if Kor smiles more than anyone else in this ep.) * That mock-salute. Classic Kirk. * “Vulcans never lie?” “Never,” Spock lied. ** In all seriousness: I’m glad we now have an answer to how Spock would’ve done against that brain-probe from “Dagger of the Mind”. * This is a pretty strong moment and all (with more-than-decent-for-the-time effects), but given where the episode’s ultimately heading, might it not have been stronger still if Kirk had gotten something along the lines of, “Captain, do you realize you set off your kaboom ten feet from a nursery?!” or something similar? * Well, in any case, time for the real main course: the We’re Not So Different, Really dialog with Kor. The series has used this kind of scene to humanize The Enemy before, of course, but this is its first concentrated effort at “You’re Not So Different... and that’s Bad, you idiots!” - and all these decades later, it still has more than enough punch to it. ** The “minor ideological differences” jab in particular - at first blush it seems like a stereotypical Evil Cannot Comprehend Good bit, but as you get older and learn a democracy is capable of pretty much any atrocity a dictatorship is... ** (Also: the Eyes they make at each other...) * Ah yes, the bouncy rubber floor. A must for any self-respecting dungeon. * Holy Plot Twist! * Honestly, with what he knows (and doesn’t know), Kirk’s being remarkably gracious in his judgment. These guys aren’t defenseless - they vanished his and Spock’s Phasers without them even noticing. They’re just not interested in defending you. ** ... or are they? * Phasers-to-Stun all you like, Kirk, but that fall looks like it’s gonna kill ‘em all the same. * This... is one easily-reached Boss Chamber, but we’ve only got eight minutes left so I’ll let it slide. * “If someday we are defeated...” Yep, Kor’s my new favorite baddie for sure. * Oh, so that’s how they pull everyone apart... on-the-nose it may be, but I kinda love how this tactic amounts to “You want a Hot War? Enjoy!” ** All told, though - you should just be glad these guys didn’t stick you in an arena like those other peace-loving Alien Gods. * “Well, no one wants war-” *Head Turn* * “It is true that in the future, you and the Klingons will become fast friends.” There’s no shortage of TNG jokes to be cracked at this, but speaking strictly without hindsight, I find it interesting to wonder whether he’s talking in hope or pure horror. Who’s to say, after all, they won’t bond over their worst instincts? Like Kirk and Kor are doing right now, really? * Aaaaand there you have it. A Lasting Peace... over this tiny corner of the galaxy, anyway. You guys better hope they don’t hook up with any of the other Alien Gods floating around. * “Even the gods did not spring into being overnight.” What kinda theology have you been reading, Spock?

Subtle it ain’t, and the ending’s more than a little rushed (what the hell are the Klingons going to tell their superiors?), but it’s still as powerful a commentary on nation-vs-nation as the last episode was on industry-vs-environment. And really, I was not expecting to like Kor even a tenth as much as I did - I tell you, without his charisma, the Klingon may well be as forgotten as the Talosians today.

Next: The Big one. And I promise to have some Big Thoughts to meet it all.

#Lego Liveblogs Star Trek #Star Trek: The Original Series

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kittasune · 4 years ago

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“winter warmth”

“WINTER WARMTH”

“WINTER WARMTH”

📘┊pairing. akaashi keiji x gn!reader

🔖┊tags. post-time skip, fluff, co-worker friends to lovers, mutual pinning, holidays, seasons abloom

📚┊wc. 4.3k

📖┊note. I wrote this for akaashi’s birthday but i’ve been meaning to write this fic for a long time now. well, here’s my first fic posted on tumblr! feel free to message me your thoughts! i plan to make this an on-going series of small one-shots so… please expect more in the future.

The biting cold that accompanies the change in seasons looms over the metropolitan city of Tokyo, the city where Akaasji Keiji was born, where his career is, and most importantly; where the love of his life is – the International Library of Children’s Literature. Literature has always been one of Akaashi’s passions to pursue as it opens endless doors of opportunities that could grant him success in the future. The majority of his stress stems from his work,

“Having a job and a stable career makes you successful!”

“You should have a steady income first before you pursue your passions so you have a stable foundation to fall back on just in case things don’t work out, Akaashi-san.”

He can hear the string of back-handed compliments and empty advice he’s received from co-workers and relatives alike echo in the back of his mind, clouding his thoughts and possible future realities he wishes to envision. Literature is one of his hobbies that became his career due to his love that caused him to become attached. Manga, novels, plays, poetry, and even textbooks sometimes caught Akaashi’s attention and he couldn’t help but consume the knowledge and navigate the uncharted waters that flow through the pages in inky waves. The beautiful thought of literature that had once been untouched and pure in Akaashi’s child-like wondrous mind has now become something as lifeless as house-hold chores to check off a list.

Now, as he sits at his desk in his office cubicle eying the unsurmountable manga panels that consume more than half of his desk with their shiny patent ink and crisp lines framing the edges of each page – he can’t help but sigh.

“You know, I’ve always been told that it’s bad luck to sigh.” Akaashi perked up at the sound of ceramic hitting the surface of his white acrylic desk. He looks up to see you holding a matching mug brimming with the café nectar that he so desperately needs.

“Is that so? You sound so sure of yourself considering that your break ended 5 minutes ago.” Akaashi hid his face in his hands to mask the upturned corners of his lips pulling into a smirk.

“Thank you for the coffee, I know that I’ll need it considering that Hide x Seek’s 100th Chapter is going to be released in this edition of Shonen Jump.”

“I heard that from Udai-san, he seemed so excited that he wanted to make this chapter special by making it holiday-themed with all the holidays being piled all together at the end of the year.” You said with a look of contemplation as you sipped the burning liquid in your mug.

“Have you read Hide x Seek before?” Akaashi leans back in his office chair and sets his gaze upon you while placing the cup next to his lips, the creaky sound apparent from the quality of wornness and evidence of sleepless nights he’s spent hunched over reviewing and editing the work assigned to him.

“I think I’ve read it once before, it’s the one where the high school students hide from an intruder but they don’t know who’s the intruder… but it ends up being the ghost of a former student that seeks to kill out of revenge and spite the higher-ups who have wronged her, right?” You said while fixating your gaze to the edge of his desk as if to recall the synopsis from memory, your coffee mug was left forgotten on Akaashi’s desk as you appear lost in your thoughts.

“Not quite, you just said the plot summary of Peek-a-boo? not Hide x Seek.”

Akaashi said while looking pointedly at your mug on his desk that would surely leave a faint circle as he knows you tend to haphazardly spill its contents as you “vigorously” stir your coffee to ensure that all additives are well-mixed. He recalls asking as to why making a vortex in a cup smaller than his hand is necessary, to which, you responded,

“I need everyone to get along harmoniously and seamlessly blend with one another, imagine drinking a cup of coffee that you’ve prepared and longed for only for it to have lumps and chunks at the bottom, no-thank-you!”

The dim grimace on your face spoke volumes of a less-than-happy experience you must have gone through and as a result, the chaotic meticulousness of your coffee shenanigans intrigued Akaashi to befriend you.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t notice you flush red at the realization that you’ve embarrassed yourself in front of your co-worker, friend, and “potential suitor” as your friend lightly put as a shallow jab at your private love-life *hint – it’s practically non-existent.

You sigh. “Maybe I’ll give Hide x Seek a read during a vacation or something.” You mumble the words, cursing yourself for looking like a fool in front of your longtime friend, Akaashi Keiji.

The image of you grumbling and lamenting in front of Akaashi mirrors a panel sitting on his desk that has him fondly reminiscing the same image of you from last spring about how you had no one to accompany you to the Hanami Festival and so, he acquiesced to your invitation thus, establishing a tradition in your friendly relationship.

“I think it would be best to return to your desk, y/n, wouldn’t want to lose the privilege of seeing you every day and being the object of your admiration.” Akaashi propped himself up on his desk, resting his head on his forearms in a lazy slouch peering up at you with one eyebrow raised and a ghost of a smile playing upon his lips.

“You should really stop flirting with me at work, Akaashi. One of these days I might get the wrong idea and think you’re into me or something…” You chastise him while walking back to your desk which is conveniently next to Akaashi’s.

“I’m hopelessly enamored at the thought of you and it frightens me to think of a day where you’ll be missing from my side…” Akaashi thought as he proceeded to leaf through the panels laid out strategically on his desk. He looked over at you as you started to situate yourself with your work and said, “I wouldn’t sigh if I were you, I heard that if you sigh it brings you bad luck.”

“Stop mocking me and go do your work!”

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The clock struck at 5:00 P.M., then at 6:00 P.M., just right before the clock struck at 7:00 P.M. you blearily glance at the time blaring in the corner of your monitor and drift your eyes to the decorative hourglass sitting on your desk. The intricate gold timepiece hid tucked away in the corner of your desk hiding behind a framed picture of you and Akaashi posed in front of a bookstore where a work-related event took place. A faint memory surfaces from the back of your subconscious from earlier this year.

“Akaashi, why do you have a plastic apple on your desk?” You glare at the object as a red plastic apple seems so peculiar to associate with Akaashi, in your mind at least, so you questioned its purpose. Is it for sentimental reasons? Are apples his favorite type of fruit? Do apples have an artistic appeal or is it just a trend?

“It’s a tomato.” He responded, not once looking up to acknowledge your effort to engage in conversation. As Akaashi is seemingly focused on the task at hand, you further prodded with your innocent questions wanting his attention so you could lose yourself in the oceans that reside in his deep blue eyes.

“Then, why do you have a tomato on your desk?”

“Keeps me focused on the task at hand. Have you heard of the Pomodoro technique before, y/n?” Akaashi still focused on his work while you continued questioning.

“The time management one, right? I think I’ve read about it somewhere before if I’m being honest…” You lose yourself in your thoughts as you attempted to recall the correct definition from an online blog you briefly glanced at.

“Then you should know about how it helps you complete your work in a timely manner while balancing the efficacy and quality of the work produced.” Akaashi stopped in his ministrations and averts his attention to the now glaringly pointless object occupying space on his desk that was a prize Bokuto won at the Momiji-gari festival they attended together last October.

“Yes, that’s the time management aspect after all.”

“If I may then, why is it you stress about not having enough seconds in a minute, enough minutes in an hour, and not enough hours in a day to complete your work and yet have all the time to talk to me well over your allotted break time?” he swivels around in his chair to face you, steel blue eyes locked in a heated rage-ridden gaze with yours.

Too stunned to talk from the blunt harshness of his words, you reply, “Quite snappy today are we? At least I know now you pay attention when I mindlessly make a fuss about my workload.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you with my statement, I was going for light-hearted banter at best… I guess I can blame it on the weather. The heatwave must be getting the better of me.” Akaashi said while pulling at his necktie, an excuse to keep his hands preoccupied and mind distracted in avoidance from the awkward silence beginning to build between the two of you.

“Tell me about it, I never really liked summer as a season or the heat.” You crinkle your upturned nose in an act of disdain as you face the glass windows doing nothing to shield you from the overbearing sunlight pouring into the office.

“With summer comes the sun, with the sun comes light, and with light comes warmth,” Akaashi says so matter-of-factly that makes you wonder what’s his favorite holiday. He interrupts your train of thought by asking, “What’s your favorite holiday, y/n- san?”

“Winter, I like the snow. Or more of what snow symbolizes…” you trail off towards the end of your sentence deep in thought.

“Usually people like winter because of the holidays and spending time with their loved ones under a kotatsu. What’s so enchanting about snow? When you touch it, it just melts… not to mention it’s cold.” Akaashi looks over at you inquisitively that could almost be mistaken for scrutiny if a stranger were to eavesdrop between you two.

“If you are out in the first snowfall of the season with someone you like, true love will blossom between you.” You recite from memory what the old woman who owned the corner store grocery near your place told you during your times as a highschooler.

“Besides love, if you make a wish when the first snow blankets the city your wish will come true.” You swing your legs to-and-fro underneath your desk covered from the public’s eye but Akaashi can tell it’s one of your habits you do when you’re excited. The sparkle in your eye accompanied by the ecstatic hand gestures would also giveaway your feelings of excitement but Akaashi knows better. You stop in your motions and jerk towards him almost like you’ve had an epiphany, the sparkle in your eye flashed again mimicking that of a light-bulb going off.

“Snow also signifies that all lies will be forgotten, isn’t that refreshing? The thought of new beginnings with the first snow sounds so romantic! I wish I had someone to enjoy it with…” You take a chance and glance at Akaashi to gauge his reaction to your statement, he already beat your intentions by turning back to face his desk at lightning speed so you wouldn’t see the faint flush of red on his cheeks that bloomed after your profession of love for snow. He didn’t want you to know he was flustered because of the way you turned to him and uttered the words ‘besides love,’ to his face, and the realization that he was going to respond with a simple, ‘hm?’ had him leaning further into his desk in embarrassment.

“Akaashi, what’s your favorite season? You know mine and my reason now.”

“Same as you, I like winter.”

“Why?”

“The holidays.”

“Boring!”

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You shake your head in strong efforts to clear the fog that clouded your mind during that flashback.

“Nodding off so soon?” Akaashi’s voice startled you back to reality as you whip your head towards him.

“It’s almost 7:00, we were supposed to get off work an hour ago like someone said..” you fix your steely gaze on his figure hoping he could feel the mock-resentment radiating off you in waves. “I hope we get overtime pay for this as this isn’t the first time this has happened.” You lean against the back of your chair raising your arms above your head in a half-stretch with valiant efforts to hear the satisfying pop of your back.

“I made no promises, I was going to tell you this when we got off but Udai-san said we have the day-off tomorrow. The reason behind it ‘to reward you guys for your dedication to the company’ were his exact words.” Akaashi said as he began to clear his desk wanting to get to his apartment as soon as possible to sleep. This week took more of a toll on him than he would like to admit, the endless piles of work, deadlines to meet, and the cold that accompanied the winter months were taking a toll on him. The holiday season’s cold seeped into the bitterness of Akaashi’s hidden emotions, like an ice pick scratching the surface of Akaashi’s lonesome facade he tried to hide under cool indifference. In stark contrast, you acted as sunshine that brought the warmth that he desired to thaw his endless winters.

“Done with your work, too? Let’s go home.” His sunshine that spread light and illuminated the darkness that clouds his mind.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The walk from the subway station to the shared apartment complex was only a 10-minute walk but tonight it seemed never-ending to Akaashi. The time was almost 8:00 and the streets seemed less deserted than usual. The city lights glimmer looked dim in comparison to past nights and the mood almost felt too solemn with the holidays around the corner. Akaashi was lost in his thoughts that he failed to notice the crosswalk light flickered to red signaling the oncoming traffic to cross the road, if it wasn’t for you pulling him by the back of his jacket… he ignores the thought that briefly filters across his mind.

“Akaashi, are you alright? I wasn’t going to mention it but you’ve seemed more aloof than usual.” You said while gripping onto the back of his jacket tightly almost grasping him in a silent plea.

“I’m fine.” He responds curtly while maneuvering his tall frame in an off-handed demeanor that cues for you to let-go. This action only fuels your act of defiance to pull him harder in your direction causing your bodies to collide clumsily disrupting the systematic ebb-and-flow that is pedestrian traffic. As you and Akaashi apologize and wait for the crosswalk sign to turn green, you can’t help but laugh which makes Akaashi let-out a small chuckle as he realizes what a commotion your exchange must have looked like.

“We make for entertaining crowd spectacles,” He spoke softly through a genuine small smile that washed over his handsome features that could have rivaled ‘any top celebrity that calls themselves a pretty boy,’ in your words, not his. The cold weather combined with the hotness radiating from his silent chuckles caused a light layer of condensation to form on his glasses’ lenses. As the haze rendered him sightless, he took off his glasses, pulled out his handkerchief he kept tucked away in his inner jacket pocket, and proceeded to clean his square frames. You took this opportunity to admire the man before you. His brown hair fell gracefully in a light tousled manner as a result of his hands raking through them from stress. Your gaze shifted to his hands, his hands easily engulfed the metal frames balancing delicately in between his slender fingers that looked natural holding the awkward position for prolonged periods of time. Your eyes flit over his face that was normally impassive and difficult to read, now his cool indifference shifted to a look of frustration. The furrow of his thick brows and the faint vertical lines creasing in the center of his eyebrows almost made Akaashi look younger.

‘He looks like a petulant child being told what to do’ you mused to yourself. When he felt content with the cleanliness of his glasses, Akaashi scanned his surroundings to see where you led him to. He realizes that you stopped right in front of the steps to his favorite place in all of Tokyo – the International Library of Children’s Literature. Even with the library being closed as evident by the lack of people and dimmed lights, he still found this place breathtaking.

“The architecture of this library looks similar to the Palace of Versailles don’t you think so, Akaashi? That was one of my first impressions when you first brought me here, I just forgot about it but remembered after seeing this place again” You said as you stared in awe at the smooth concrete walls and tall glass windows with lattice fixtures intricately lining the tall double doors that greeted over 1,000 visitors each day.

“The International Library of Children’s Literature, originally called the Imperial Library, was constructed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government under the Meiji era in 1906. The artistic movement that inspired the architect was the Renaissance movement which explains the Western-like elements incorporated into the building’s design.” Akaashi recited from memory and turned to you after he finished his statement only to find you already facing him, eyes widened and mouth agape in surprise. After seeing your reaction he turns back to the building and says in a soft whisper, “This place brings back fond memories,” while unconsciously playing with his hands, fingers intertwining with one another in a playful open and close. He can feel your gaze openly assessing his figure standing awkwardly in the library’s pathway, he knows that you want the answers as to why he’s acting less like his “usual” self. You find yourself confused by Akaashi’s paradoxical behavior, sometimes he’s willing to let small cracks appear in his otherwise smooth facade of coolness, and other times he shrugs you off in efforts to maintain his cool indifference. His true emotions are caught and given to you in minuscule pieces and this frustrates you as you wish to be with the man that’s always beside you and occupies your mind all the time.

Akaashi can’t help but feel the subtle self-conscious feeling starting to arise after pondering how out of place you and him look at the moment, two people standing alone in front of a closed library engaged in a heated silent exchange. His heart sank when he realized that you two could almost be mistaken as a couple with the way the both of you look now, he wishes for this to be real, his wish is to be with you. Akaashi wishes for you to know his true feelings and declare his love for you and yet, he finds himself biting his lips to silence himself in spite of his friends saying he has a chance of being with you.

The shuffling of feet is heard as you shift your weight from right-to-left and your avoidance of all eye-contact are all tall tale signs of your unsureness, your actions break Akaashi from his own thoughts as he raises his head to see you standing closer to him than earlier.

‘You’re so close I could kiss you right now.’ He wants to say, even in a playful manner but is too afraid to be caught expressing his true feelings even through teasing comments.

“Akaashi, what are you thinking about right now?” You ask in a futile attempt for him to confide in you what thoughts occupy his brain that’s causing him to both distance himself from you emotionally.

Just as Akaashi begins to open his mouth he’s interrupted by an abrupt shout that causes the both of you to stop all conversation.

“Look mom, it’s snowing!”

Childlike excitement blanketed the distanced onlookers frolicking the crosswalks as snowflakes kissed the cherry red noses of daily commuters and people doing last-minute gift shopping. You and Akaashi fix your gazes up to the dark depths of the night sky now obstructed by the white flurries of snow clouds now hovering over all of Tokyo.

‘It’s now or never,” Akaashi thinks to himself, ‘if I can’t do it now, when will I ever get the chance again?’ Akaashi takes a deep inhale and closes his eyes to bask in the brisk coolness the winter air has brought with the changing of seasons.

“I think about how seasons shift out in a cycle of four and I find myself not being able to cope with each change.” He breathes out finally and continues, you stare at him in silent apprehension while anticipating each word.

“Seasons change, people change, and yet I find myself coming back to you… meeting in the same place where we first met each other. Fate has a funny way of telling us that we’re supposed to be together. Coincidence has a hand in pushing us together hinting that we’re meant to be. Destiny is telling me that you’re the one but, choice whispers it’s harsh words of reality only permissible when conditions are met that echoes in my thoughtless mind every sleepless night.” Akaashi locks your eyes in a steady gaze, your eyes widened in shock while his eyes portray a deep-rooted passion now surfacing after being hidden for so long.

“Our love is blossoming like the sakura trees in the spring, a love that mirrors the perennial endless summer hydrangeas in the courtyard in front of our apartment building. A love in which I catch myself falling for you like the leaves during the autumnal months. A love that engulfs me in the warmth of the fire, with its ember flicks illuminating your faint silhouette as we embrace each other in the moonlight. Falling in love with you was experiencing a life I have not lived before, for the first time I welcomed the uncertainty, my fears, my doubts never once clouded my mind. You are my moonlight that illuminates my path in the inky depths of nightfall. My starlight when I look to the sky brimming with untold stories in your constellations that guide me back to you. I want to be with you during the first snowfall of each winter. I want to experience each change of the seasons with you, I want you by my side to accompany me as we live our lives – I wish to be together with you.”

Akaashi finishes his confession of true feelings for you and a sense of relief washes over him as a weight has been lifted from his chest. Akaashi starts fiddling with a loose thread in his pockets starting to feel anxious at the sight of you as he begins to anticipate your response since you haven’t spoken since it started snowing. The feeling of temporary relief was now replaced with a sense of dread fueled by his self-doubts and the thought of rejection, he averts his gaze downward to avoid meeting your eyes.

Akaashi stayed cemented in his place with no signs of moving, so you decided to close the distance between you two. Feeling bolder after Akaashi’s profession as you were reeling from the excitement of seeing snow paired with your feelings being returned by the one you love, you grab his jacket sleeve to signal for him to remove his hand from his pocket and slowly begin to intertwine hands. He shifts his gaze from your interlocked hands to look at you, as he scans your face to gauge your reaction, he finds himself surprised by the beaming smile matching your bright energy and warmth that rivals the sun during the summer months. Your actions and the bright reaction is all the confirmation he needs to know if you reciprocate his feelings so he steers you, hands intertwined, in the direction of your shared apartment complex.

“What about your wish, did it come true?” Akaashi asks while he notices you started to swing your joined hands unconsciously, ‘probably out of habit,’ he thinks to himself silently while a smile threatens to breach his lips. You stop him and take his other-hand so now he’s facing you, you want his full attention as now, it’s your turn to confess.

“My wish was always to be with you, you’re my happiness and the reason for me to continue to live and grow. When I’m with you I’m at my happiest and your constant presence has always been comforting. The sureness in your voice and actions speak volumes about your reliability and the love you have for others. My wish was for you to see the light in yourself and for you to realize that you are loved and needed, not just I think this way but your friends Bokuto, Kuroo, Kenma, and everyone else you’ve met and encountered will agree with me on this point I’m trying to make. I love you, Akaashi Keiji and I wish to be with you… if you’d let me.”

Compared to the shuffling of footsteps and avoidance of eye-contact from earlier that hinted towards your unsureness, Akaashi can see the confidence in your stance and actions as you grasp onto his hands, the unwavering sureness you exude while maintaining eye-contact has Akaashi falling in love with you over again. The brightness in your eyes and cheery playfulness reminds him of the reasons he fell for you in the first place and he senses that he will keep finding reasons to fall in love with you over and over again.

“Let’s go home now, sunshine. I’m afraid that your warmth will melt the winter snow.”

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ducktracy · 4 years ago

Text

175. speaking of the weather (1937)

release date: september 4th, 1937

series: merrie melodies

director: frank tashlin

starring: mel blanc (leopold stokowski, cholly jam, walter snitchall, dog), billy bletcher (prisoner, judge)

a frank tashlin directed merrie melody? yes, you’ve got that right! tashlin finally joins friz freleng and tex avery in directing the more expensive, prioritized merrie melodies. considering tashlin was so outspoken with his disdain for porky, i’m sure this was a breath of fresh air for him, finally able to use his talents elsewhere.

inspired by the early days of hugh harman and rudolf ising (as he himself conceded), tashlin makes his merrie melodies debut by sticking to a genre tried and true: books coming to life. tashlin would direct three of these, the other two being have you got any castles? and you’re an education. ironically, the latter would be his final WB entry in the ‘30’s, getting fired from the studio after an argument and then making his return in 1943 with the tour de force porky pig’s feat. for now, we’re treated with a variety of “books coming to life” gags--including a plot with an escaped convict.

open to the cityscape in the dark, a yellow clock face illuminating the silhouettes against the deep, blue, sky. the camera trucks out and pans over to a drug store, complete with that streamlined, frank tashlin look--these opening backgrounds are nothing short of gorgeous. the backgrounds in the tashlin cartoons, both black and white and in color, have always been some of my favorites. i’m not so sure who does the backgrounds in tashlin’s unit here, though i do know a man by the name of art loomer was in charge of the background department in the ‘30′s. the background artists didn’t get credits until the mid ‘40′s, so sometimes trying to identify them can be a bit of a guessing game. but i digress!

inside the pharmacy, we pan across the seemingly interminable magazine shelves. everything is coated in a dark shadow, until the camera focuses on a spotlighted magazine--radio stars, with musical comedian bob burns--labeled as “bob boins” on the magazine cover--playing the bazooka (a trademark of his) to the tune of “with plenty of money and you”. certainly a frequent tune in the 1937 cartoons! a nice, simple choice to do a close up of him playing the instrument and gasping for air--the solid yellow background really brings out the animation and makes it the priority, so that the audience isn’t distracted by extraneous details. plus, saves paint, saves money!

after more strenuous playing, the bazooka breaks into pieces. segue into another close-up, the skillful, dynamic animation belonging to none other than bob mckimson, who was one of the studio’s best animators (if not best!) and later a director. the animation is strikingly realistic, perhaps even offputting--it looks quite similar to his animation of uncle sam in the terminally boring chuck jones cartoon old glory a mere two years later. burns tells us “y’know folks, i can’t play this bazooka as good as uncle fudd back in van buren. we know him as uncle fudd, you know him as ted lewis!” the uncle fudd bit is lost on me, but the van buren reference is a nod to bob burns’ title: the arkansas traveler. burns would often reminisce about family stories back in van buren, arkansas. coincidentally, frank tashlin worked at van beuren studios before rejoining the warner bros. staff as a director.

a clarinet toting lewis gives his trademark catchphrase of “is everybody happy?”, prompting ned sparks (known for his deadpan demeanor) to grovel “no!” in response. nevertheless, lewis launches into a rendition of “with plenty of money on you” on his clarinet, sparking an entire dance party from the magizines: a beaver from the cover of outdoor life strums the bass with its tail, a pair of silhouettes dance together on the cover of “[the] dance” magazine (as well as a pair of boxers from “the ring”), and two dandelions from “house and garden”, with animation reused from friz freleng’s 1935 short flowers for madame.

lewis ends his song by doing a variety of very smoothly animated acrobatics, including some wonderfully fluid animation of him twisting through his own legs. toys (reused from toytown hall, among other cartoons... perhaps as far back as the shanty where santy claus lives? it’s hard to keep these cartoons straight!) from child life magazine cheer him on, as do a jovial, giggling hugh hubert reused from the coocoo nut grove, all underscored by a brief rendition of “the merry go round broke down”. the number is complete as lewis takes a bow, with some nice animation of his coattails shaking their anthropomorphic fists in the applause.

elsewhere, more magazine gags: a snake charmer on the cover of “asia” magazine woos a hose on the cover of “better homes and gardens”, prompting it to dance and spit out water. the water rains down upon famed conductor leopold stokowski (who collaborated with walt disney in the making of fantasia a few years later), who dons the cover of “the etude”. the underscore is, fittingly, “september in the rain”, also the title of a friz freleng merrie melody just a few months later. stokowski opens up his sheet music: william tell’s “the storm”. pressing a button, a mini windshield wiper wipes away the raindrops from the music sheets. the rain animation is very well done, especially pooling on top of the music. my guess would be that this is A.C. gamer at work, warner bros.’ effects animator.

the decision to have silence (save for the sound effects of stokowski tapping his music stand and the rain) prelude the oncoming rendition of “the storm” is a powerful one indeed. stokowki directs with all his might, pulling his hair and moving spastically, mirroring the intensity of his music... and then comedic timing swoops in wonderfully well as he bursts into a slightly off tune rendition of the title song, “speaking of the weather”, sparking the music portion of the short. this is probably my favorite song that has a merrie melody in its honor--it’s very catchy, both the original version and the cartoon’s rendition!

quite a bit of animation is reused from previous cartoons in this one, but the decision to reuse animation from a tom palmer cartoon took me by surprise. three women (the boswell sisters) seated at a piano sing the chorus, reused from 1933′s i’ve got to sing a torch song. for those who don’t know, tom palmer lasted a never-ending stint of 2 cartoons at warner bros before getting fired on account of how poor his shorts were. he also introduced the world to buddy, the blandest studio mascot of all time, who dominated shorts from 1933-1935. thanks, tom!

elsewhere, a caricature of lydia pinkham sings affectionately to a caricature of clark gable (reused from the coocoo nut grove), who cleverly dons the cover of “woman’s home companion” magazine. elsewhere, tongue sandwiches stick out their human tongues and “la la lala” along to the rhythm, reused from buddy’s beer garden. the tongue sandwich gag would be reused even as recently as bob clampett’s 1941 goofy groceries--for all i know, he could have been responsible for the original gag in buddy’s beer garden in the first place. you often have to take some of his claims of what he made with a grain of salt, but he did mention that he pioneered the whole “___ come to life” sequences at warner’s, so it serves as some food for thought!

more gags include a teapot (reused from little dutch plate) whistling along to the rhythm, a caricature of greta garbo reading a book and using her shoes as a rocking chair, a dancing lobster whose frequented many cartoons, debuting in how do i know it’s sunday?, and clams clacking to the rhythm. as the song winds to an end, topped off with the cheering toys from earlier (as well as oddly segmented animation of hugh hubert jamming his fingers together in applause), a shifty looking crook (animated by volney white) furtively sneaks out of his post from “the gang” magazine. i LOVE the choice to slow down the beat of the music at the appearance of the gangster--the rhythm becomes much more furtive and cautious.

more volney white animation as the gangster uses a spare blowtorch to burn off the front of a safe plastered on “the magazine of wall street and business”. pan over to a caricature of fictional detective charlie chan, telling the convict that he’s under arrest. the fade to the next scene obscures the animation, but there’s a nice little bit of animation as chan twirls his gun in satisfaction. next scene, the criminal (whose bellows are provided by none other than billy bletcher) gives his confession, obscured by silhouettes--bright pink silhouettes, a jarring yet intriguing design choice. his interrogation takes place, of course, on true confessions magazine.

the judge, also voiced by bletcher, sentences the criminal to life... magazine, a gag that would be reused 9 years later in book revue--my favorite of these book series. i didn’t notice this until the time of writing this review, but the animation of the judge is rather whimsical and fun: he has a tattoo of a pinup girl on his forearm (labeled mabel), and as he jabs his finger through his long beard in the midst of his sentencing, flies flutter out to indicate his age.

struggling against the bars, the prisoner wipes his brow in defeat, until something out of his peripheral catches his eye. i think this may be bob bentley animation--the animation of the prisoner wiping his brow matches up rather well with the scene he did of porky wiping his brow in porky’s railroad. the criminal sneaks behind a wall of magazines, a pan across the scene being our only guide to his movement. with that, he stumbles upon another magazine with prison bars: liberty magazine, where he escapes with ease.

a caricature of columnist walter winchell lives up to his dubbed name of “walter snitchall” as he alerts the public about the prison break, peeking through a keyhole provided by look magazine for his evidence. thus sparks the infamous tashlin montage: overlays of various animated scenes all at once to convey a sense of heightened dramatics and urgency. cop cars, bugle horns, boy scouts on the run, even tarzan and a stampede of animals (reused from the coocoo nut grove and porky in the north woods respectively). as if this cartoon couldn’t date itself further, we’re also met with recycled animation (perhaps from buddy of the apes???) of blackface caricatured natives joining the fight. even animation is reused from as far back as 1931′s ride him, bosko! with a gang of cowboys riding their horses into battle.

time for another caricature, this one being william powell, who lumbers out to a constipated rendition of “the boulevardier from the bronx”. powell starred in the movie “the thin man” three years earlier, and is caricatured as such from his side profile, which is practically non-existent. a dog from “dog world” brags “that’s my pop!” and jumps to join his side.

something you’ll notice throughout this cartoon is the magazine dates: they’re almost all dated october 1946. common speculation is, seeing that this cartoon got a blue-ribbon release in 1945 (which means it was re-released for theaters), that they went back in and changed the dates of the magazines to appeal to the more modern audience. i doubt this is true: this is the same studio who didn’t switch to having full color cartoons until late 1943 to save money--i doubt they’d do something so costly and meticulous as changing the dates on magazine covers.

nevertheless--the convict is now disguised as a baby, donning the cover of better babies magazine. volney white does some nice hat takes as the convict realizes he’s being followed, his baby bonnet twisting up as it attempts to contain the prisoner’s cap from flying through the roof in shock. william powell’s dog sniffs the ground... and we pan back to reveal powell doing the exact same thing, crawling around on all fours. there’s also a GREAT little gag where powell spots something, which is evidently enough trouble to constitute him blindfolding his dog. they continue their search as normal, dog now blindfolded as they cleverly past a line of magazines: the saturday evening post (whose covers i LOVE, especially the ones by norman rockwell and j.c. leyendecker!), literally adorned with wooden posts. the joke being, of course, that powell doesn’t want his dog to stop by the post and pee on it.

some nice, sharp comedic timing as powell and his dog confront the baby carriage where the prisoner is hiding: there’s a pause, and suddenly the convict pops out from the carriage and whacks powell in the face with a baby bottle. cue the climax as the prisoner makes a break for it in a baby carriage, the music score a jaunty rendition of “country boy”. after getting pelted with eggs by a polo player, a cowboy on the front of “western story” magazine lasso’s the criminal, yanking him out of the carriage and dragging him (painfully) by his neck. you’ll notice that on the cover of the magazine, a “cal howd” is credited, referring to warner bros. storyman and short-lived director cal howard.

all of the heroes in their little magazine worlds work together to put a halt to the criminal’s escape: ships fire cannonballs that break the makeshift noose around the convict’s neck, sending him pummeling, spears thrown by the (ugh) racist native caricatures from before cause the crook to face plant, good ol’ saint nick drops his back of toys that wrap around the convict and slow down his run (the animation complex but very well done, topped off by the sound effects of clanking and horns being crushed), greta garbo trips the crook and sends him into a pond on the cover of “country life” magazine, and so forth. i love that rendition of “country boy” as the music! it was also used in earlier 1937 high energy scenes in cartoons such as the fella with the fiddle and ain’t we got fun.

a reprisal of the title song serves as a jaunty underscore as the criminal is launched onto a giant pinball machine, where he’s sent springing around, animation reused from sunday go to meetin’ time. he hits the jackpot, his reward being a sentence to “twenty thousand years in sing sing” by “warden flaws” (a play on lewis e. lawes). hugh hubert taunts the criminal with his signature high pitched giggle that daffy would appropriate into his own signature laugh, aggravating the criminal enough to grab a globe off of the cover of the world almanac, used to sock hubert right over the head. iris out on the convict gleefully impersonating hubert, giggle and all.

this isn’t my favorite tashlin cartoon by a long shot, but it’s also not the worst entry in the book series. rewatching this one a few times certainly heightened my appreciation for the short. though it’s HEAVILY dated, it’s a very clever cartoon, especially if you put some time in to do some research on who these caricatures are or what the magazines are about. i always particularly enjoy analyzing these cartoons chock full of references--time consuming, sure, but you get to LEARN something from them and you get to actively discover and absorb new information you never knew before, and that’s what it’s all about for me.

this is a fun cartoon. the colors are nice and bright, but tastefully so, the music is jaunty and happy (again, i LOVE the original song!), and the animation has its merits. i particularly enjoy volney white’s scenes, as well as the scene of the ted lewis caricature literally bending over backwards to play his clarinet. with that said though, this isn’t a perfect cartoon: some parts feel more cobbled together than others (the scene where the toys and hugh hubert applaud ted lewis’ performance feels oddly out of place), and of course you have reused animation of blackface caricatures... but, in all, it’s an endearing cartoon. there are certainly more boring cartoons out there in this genre.

this is a cartoon i’m neutral on, but i’d say that if you’re curious to see it in action, go for it! if not, you can easily skip it. it’s not a make-or-break type of deal.

with that, here’s a link!

#lt #looney tunes #speaking of the weather #reviews #long post #tashlin #racism m #WHEW that was a tedious one to type

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cryysiswritesthings · 4 years ago

Text

The Multi-verse Theory || UFC

Series: Inuyasha, Modern AU Rating: Mature Warnings: N/A Status: On-going Pairing: KogKag Summary:

Something caught his opponent’s attention. Gold eyes flicked to the side once, twice, before lighting up with recognition. Split lips lifted in a smirk, a single fang glinting in the overhead lights. His stance shifted, newfound resolve strengthening overworked muscles.

Kouga knew that look. When it was genuine, he’d watched winning contenders get slaughtered by their opponents. But you always knew when it was faked. The loser would put on a show, try to get in a few jabs, and then lose their false confidence at the knockout. But for a guy like this…

The scent hit him then. Subtle and hard to make out through pounds of sweat-soaked bodies. Vanilla and sandalwood.

Damn it all. She’d shown up.

Find it On: AO3

Tumblr Tags: #kogkag #inuyasha #multiverse #ufc fighting

His coaches were yelling in the background, but he couldn’t hear them over the crowd’s roar and the blood rushing in his ears. The half-breed was breathing hard, spitting blood to the floor. He was a flagging; a few more hits and he’d be down for the count. Bastard put up a better fight than he’d expected, but it hadn’t been enough. Not even close.

The scent hit him then. Subtle and hard to make out through pounds of sweat-soaked bodies. Vanilla and sandalwood.

Damn it all. She’d shown up.

Kouga wiped at the sweat dripping down his head, using the motion to hide his grimace of annoyance. Somehow, her presence had a way of screwing him over every time. Just like now. A moment ago, he’d had this fight in the bag.

Looked like he was wrong.

–

Kouga sat alone, head hanging in gloved hands while the crowd cheered outside. He’d been so close. So damn fucking close. It was almost laughable.

Three combos and an uppercut. That’s all it had taken. Total knockout. And it was all her fucking fault.

Metal hinges creaked, telling him someone had come to witness his defeat. Likely one of the coaches coming to give him another ‘pep talk--’

He caught the scent of dog. He bared his teeth, the expression hidden in his gloves.

Dog, sandalwood, and vanilla.

Her heels clacked against the concrete floor, but Kouga didn’t lift his head. It was the scrape of a metal chair against the concrete that finally made him look at her, glacial eyes brimming with a mixture of amusement and rage.

Raven black hair fell against her back in waves, storm grey eyes lined with kohl. Her shirt was navy satin; her black skirt stopped above her knees, showing off creamy skin and smooth legs. In her manicured hands was a small tape recorder, its red light shining power. Glitter pink lips lifted in a smile.

Kagome Higurashi. Reporter for the Sports Radar.

He’d been a goner the second he laid eyes on her.

“Kouga, the self-proclaimed Wolf of the ring. Three-time tournament champion, tonight’s victory will send him on a one-way trip to the national semi-finals. Or at least,” Kagome’s smile shifted, becoming an amused grin. He had to fight not to return it. “It was supposed to.”

“Nice to see you too, Higurashi,” Kouga growled crossly, finally letting his hands drop..

“Tell us Kouga, after that… sudden, epic defeat, how are you feeling? It has to be tough, knowing you were so close, and then seconds later having it all ripped away from you.”

His gaze flicked between her face and the glowing light on the recorder. His coaches hated it when he fucked up interviews. Too bad he didn’t really care.

He straightened on the bench with a tired sigh. “You here supporting my opponents now? Thought I was your favorite.”

Pleased, she mimicked the motion. “I don’t come to offer my personal support. I just do interviews with contenders.” Her grin sharpened. “And write glowing reviews of the winners.”

‘Glowing reviews.’ Yeah, all that white hair had nearly blinded him at the start of the match. “And when this is over, how long is it going to take you to ask his opinion about my answers?”

She tapped her chin, thoughtful. “I suppose that depends. Sports fans always like hearing about their favorites losing to the underdog.” He wondered if she’d be able to hear her smile when she listened to the recording later. “Even if it is just to scream about the match being rigged.”

“If you’re there it may as well be,” he groused. He glowered at the recorder. “Turn that fucking thing off, unless you want those sports fans to hear something they shouldn’t.”

She laughed and rose. “Why Kouga,” with practiced ease, she flicked the switch and pocketed the recorder. Finally. “Whatever could you mean?”

Kouga growled and tugged her into his lap. “Woman…”

Kagome smiled and brushed the tip of her nose against his. “Problem, champ?”

“Ex-champ,” he said sourly, then nipped her chin sharply. “So thanks for that.”

She snickered, unashamed, and ran slim fingers through his sweat-soaked bangs. “I’d say I’m sorry, but it wouldn’t really be true.”

“Mh-hm.” He let his eyes close and savored the feeling of her nails dragging over his scalp. “How much longer are you here for?“

She shrugged, tugging at the tie in his hair until it came free. The hand not in his hair cupped the back of his neck and scratched at the soft skin. “Could be a while. Managers want me to cozy up with the new champ.”

Kouga’s lips lifted in a snarl, his peace momentarily shattered. Clawed fingers pulled her satin shirt from beneath her skirt, his large hand a brand of heat against her side. “Yeah, I know. I hate it.”

He didn’t see Kagome’s smile, but the kiss she pressed to his lips was meant to soothe. His chest rumbled; he didn’t appreciate the placation, but let her do it anyway. He liked her feisty, but she tasted that much sweeter when he played at understanding.

She brushed her cheek over his jaw, her breath warm against his ear. “You know no matter what they ask me to do,” she whispered, “you’re the one I come home to. That’s not going to change.”

He bit his tongue to cut off his immediate response. Instead, he wrapped his free hand in her hair and directed her face to his. He returned her earlier gesture, a soft brush of the tip of his nose against hers. “Yeah. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.“

Satisfied, Kagome hummed and dripped kisses over his lips and jaw. “I wouldn’t ask you too. There is one good thing about this though.” She paused. “Well, two things, if you want to think about it.”

Kouga’s snort was all the answer he needed. Rather than keep talking, he pressed kisses over her neck and nipped gently at the delicate skin. Her soft gasp encouraged him, but it didn’t erase the burn of his jealousy. The dark bruises he sucked on her neck helped.

“Kouga…”

He released her, but only to hike the edge of her skirt up to her thighs. “Problem, Kagome?”

Her whimper answered him. His smile was wicked; he kept his mouth busy at her neck to hear more of those sounds, the scent of her arousal hovering in his nose. When her skirt was high enough, she straddled his lap of her own volition. His hands covered the tops of her thighs and pulled her closer. There was just enough space between them for her to undo the first buttons of her blouse and reveal fine black lace, peppered with shining crystals, over the white silk of her bra.

Kouga growled low, and in his anger he drug his fangs over her throat. “This had better not be for him. Tell me that isn’t for him.”

Kagome gasped in surprise and shook her head. “It’s not,” she tugged his face from her neck with his hair. Blue eyes locked, firm with intent. “I didn’t wear this for him. It’s a present. I got it for you.”

His anger subsided, soothed by the admission. Kouga slid his fingers higher under her skirt. “Matching set?”

She bit her lip and nodded, sliding the fabric up to her waist. The sides were black ribbon, neat bows keeping the fabric in place. There was a column of black lace over the center of white silk, and more black ribbon sitting atop it, a double-cross lacing that stretched from one end of the lace to the other.

But the pièce de résistance of her lingerie took shape in the large tear-drop crystal at its center, a beacon to draw the eye and keep it there.

Kouga’s smirk was all predator, his rumble of pleasure vibrating in her chest. The sound set off sparks of heat everywhere in her body. One place in particular.

The scent of her arousal filled his nose, and he swelled with pride. He nibbled her ears' outer shell, making the woman in his arms shiver. “You want me.”

“Yes,” she said quietly, and bit her lip when he pulled at the ties. “Kouga, wait…”

“Why?” His jealousy flared again; he rocked his hips upwards and his erection against her slowly dripping core. “Your new friend waiting for you?”

“Yes,” she snapped back, growing tired of the game, “he is.” That had always been a part of the deal, no matter how much he disliked it. He wasn’t allowed to interfere with her work. But she didn’t want to fight, so she tried to soften her tone.

“I have to finish my interview,” she tilted her head back and rose to her knees, putting herself above him. “And we both know how you get. Once we get started, you can’t stop.”

Kouga narrowed his eyes. “I don’t ever hear you complaining.”

“I’m not complaining,” she laughed, kissing the bridge of his nose. “I would just rather not start a sex marathon in the locker room when I have to be somewhere.”

The wolf snorted. “I don’t see the problem.”

Kagome rolled her eyes. “The problem, champ,” she teased, finding her feet so she could stand, “is that you don’t like being interrupted. And I don’t want to have to worry about my responsibilities when you’re pounding into me.”

She laughed at his scowl, but the wolf didn’t mind. Not really. Instead, he watched her set her clothes to rights. “You said he’s not seeing those?” She hummed an affirmative while she fumbled with a button. Kouga stood and took over for her. “Then we compromise.”

His reporter raised a brow. “I’m listening.”

He backed her into a wall, trapping her with his body. “I let you finish your interview with… minimal complaints,” he ignored her snicker. “But I only got to see part of this new set.”

“Mm, that’s true.” She tilted her head to the side to give him access to her throat. He accepted the offer and set his teeth against his previous marks. “And I did spend so long picking it out.”

“Exactly. It should be properly appreciated.” It was hard to resist the urge to pick up her and wrap her legs around his waist, but he managed it. “So you go finish your interview, and I let the assholes yell at me for a bit. But when I get home…” he drew a claw down her side. “I want you laid out in my bed. With just my present.”

Just the idea made her quiver; heat pooled low in her belly. “I think I can manage something.”

His smile showed glinting fangs.

“I thought you’d say that.”

#kogkag #inuyasha #multiverse #ufc fighting

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat: The Many Ways the Crossover Almost Happened

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Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, the game that really kickstarted the fighting game genre, has turned 30 this year. To celebrate, Ryu and Chun-Li are appearing in Fortnite. It’s par for the course for Ryu, who has been in so many crossovers to fight everyone from everywhere. Ryu has crossed over with the cast of Tekken, the guys from King of Fighters, the Marvel superheroes, just about everyone under the Nintendo banner, GI Joe, Power Rangers, and even Family Guy for some odd reason. Ryu and Street Fighter have crossed over with nearly everyone.

Yet for some reason, the number one dream fighting game match-up has never happened. Yes, we’re talking about Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat. These two giants of the fighting game industry have never exchanged blows despite being household names from the very beginning of the fighting game boom of the early 1990s.

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been some close calls or that they haven’t brushed shoulders in the past…

The Beginning of the Rivalry

The first iteration of Street Fighter II came out in February 1991. This was the sequel that made good on the promise of the 1987 original, which had great ideas that it couldn’t really execute. It would be bold to say that Street Fighter II perfected the formula, but it was such an improvement that it’s still incredibly playable to this day. It was a lucky break for Capcom, who would go on to milk the game’s success with several new editions of the title, from 1992’s Champion Edition all the way to 2017’s Ultra Street Fighter II: Final Challengers for the Nintendo Switch.

If you’re a fighting game aficionado, you know the history. The success of Street Fighter II sparked a boom for the fighting game genre. In Japan, SNK released Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting right on the heels of Capcom’s hit, while Alpha Denshi gave us World Heroes in ’92. Meanwhile, in America, Midway Games was planning its own Street Fighter II competitor, which was originally meant to be a tie-in game for the movie Universal Soldier starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. When that project fell through, Midway turned to the much gorier Mortal Kombat, a fighting game that digitized actors instead of sprites, an innovative approach to animation at the time.

Released on October 1992, Mortal Kombat was a major hit, and Midway quickly put out a sequel, Mortal Kombat II, six months later in April 1993. The third game would be out two years later. Mortal Kombat was speeding through its early days with cabinet after cabinet, while Capcom was focused on re-releasing newer versions of Street Fighter II. After making bosses playable, adding new characters, and tossing in other bells and whistles over the course of various upgrades, the studio concluded the game’s original run with 1994’s Super Street Fighter II: Turbo.

That meant that at a time when the internet was in its infancy, these two popular franchises were mainstays of print gaming magazines. Announcements, previews, reviews, secrets, tips, and so on. If your early ’90s magazine didn’t have at least a page dedicated to Street Fighter and/or Mortal Kombat, then get your eyes checked because you weren’t looking hard enough.

In 1992, Electronic Gaming Monthly famously pulled an April Fool’s Day gag on readers where they took the Street Fighter II mistranslation, “You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance,” and insisted it was a reference to a secret boss fight that involved working your ass off in the game in a way that was outright impossible, making your way through the game as Ryu without taking a single hit until your battle with M. Bison (and that was the “easy” part). The joke led to many stressful nights for gamers, who were finally told the truth about the hoax the following December.

But Midway took the idea of a secret boss more literally. Using the Sub-Zero/Scorpion ninja sprites, Midway introduced a green-clad fighter named Reptile, a seriously difficult opponent that you could only fight in arcade mode under some seriously ridiculous circumstances. Reptile was added in the 3.0 version of Mortal Kombat, making him the first secret boss in the genre’s history.

Capcom would eventually catch up with Akuma, a character extremely similar EGM‘s design for Sheng Long, in Super Street Fighter II: Turbo. By then, Midway had thrown in three more secret boss fights for Mortal Kombat II, and even SNK had already introduced Ryo Sakazaki as a secret final boss in Fatal Fury Special.

Brushing Shoulders

The Mortal Kombat series really thrived as a gorier and campier alternative to Street Fighter II‘s more fundamental approach to the genre, but that didn’t stop Midway from taking a couple of jabs at Capcom. In-game, secret characters would occasionally pop up before rounds and say something cryptic for the sake of helping the players figure out how to unlock their fight, a nod to the Sheng Long joke. But there were more direct pokes at the competition. For instance, Jade would occasionally appear for the sake of asking, “CHUN WHO?” and vanishing. Midway also included “RYU” as default initials on Mortal Kombat II‘s high score board. Cute.

Meanwhile, Capcom stoked the fire with a commercial for Street Fighter II: Champion Edition for Sega Genesis. It featured a security guard at a toy store coming across a box for the game. Blanka’s arm would thenreach out and grab the nearby box for Mortal Kombat and crush it into smoldering trash.

But it wasn’t all jabs. The two companies crossed paths in other interesting ways. In 1993, Malibu Comics published a Street Fighter II series for only three issues before having to drop it because Capcom was unhappy with Ken Masters’ grisly fate in the story. Around the same time, Malibu also launched a Mortal Kombat series, and the publisher would actually batch issues of both series together and send them to vendors.

Games

The Strange History of Street Fighter Comics

By Gavin Jasper

Games

The History of Mortal Kombat Comics

By Gavin Jasper

Hasbro double-dipped when it came to action figures too, releasing sets for both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, complete with weapons and special vehicles. But while Street Fighter characters were treated like part of the GI Joe line, and were even featured in commercials where they all hang out and beat the crap out of Duke, Mortal Kombat was kept separate from Hasbro’s most popular figures.

Nintendo also used both franchises as major selling points for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The SNES ports for Super Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat II both played big parts in Nintendo’s Play It Loud ad campaign. One such commercial even had a guy getting a massive Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat tattoo on his torso.

But the closest thing we’ve ever gotten to a real crossover between the two games was through their Saturday morning cartoons. Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm were both released as animated follow-ups to their live-action movies, although they were directly inspired by the games themselves. On Nov. 16, 1996, both series, as well as Savage Dragon and Wing Commander Academy, took part in a long-forgotten crossover event based around a hero named the Warrior King and his search through the multiverse for a special orb that controls the weather.

The Warrior King played a major role in his Street Fighter episode as the romantic interest of Chun-Li, while in Mortal Kombat, he merely made a quick cameo as a shadowy figure running through a portal. Regardless, both stories involved the villains (M. Bison and Shang Tsung) wielding the same mystical orb.

No, the crossover ain’t much, but that’s still more than what we got in Wreck-It Ralph. Although the Disney movie featured M. Bison, Zangief, Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, and Cammy, it didn’t bring in any official Mortal Kombat characters to face them. Instead, the movie included “Cyborg,” a blatant Kano knockoff with the same cybernetic eye, goatee, and zest for heart-ripping. Why didn’t Disney just use Kano? Probably because he’s a Warner Bros. property. Still, missed opportunity.

Copying Test Answers

The video game adaptation of Street Fighter: The Movie will always be a fascinating novelty. Released in 1995 in arcades, the game not only copied Mortal Kombat’s digitized actors but it actually featured Jean-Claude Van Damme, the actor Midway had been unable to secure for its own Universal Soldier tie-in years earlier.

Interestingly, whenever Capcom sets out to make a totally new Street Fighter game, the studio usually chooses to go in a new art direction. Street Fighter V is the exception, although Capcom did initially start with a more photorealistic art style before nixing it and going with “Street Fighter IV but extra.” So, when Capcom tapped Incredible Technologies to put together the video game version of Street Fighter: The Movie in 1995, it was at a time when the publisher was also considering using the digitized Mortal Kombat style for Street Fighter III. Thankfully, Capcom decided not to go in this direction.

Midway hilariously dipped its toe in Capcom’s waters a bit more blatantly in 2004. Mortal Kombat: Deception introduced a fighter named Kobra who was supposed to be the latest human POV character, only evil. But Midway initially named him “Ken Masters” due to his physical similarities to the Street Fighter character. The studio included “Ken” in a beta version of the game provided to the press, with the express direction NOT to mention the character.

Guess what happened next. A German publication posted the images of “Ken Masters” anyway, suggesting Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter was finally happening. Sadly, no, this was not a teaser for the long-awaited video game crossover. It seemes Midway just hadn’t come up with a proper name for “Ken Masters” yet.

Capcom did throw in a cute reference to Mortal Kombat in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. The game featured Nathan Spencer, the Bionic Commando, whose cybernetic arm could shoot out like a grappling hook and grab opponents from far away. When doing that to yoink an enemy towards him for a haymaker to the face, he’d quote Scorpion’s famous “GET OVER HERE!” Nice.

Not the Right Fit

Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon admitted in 2008 that he’d tried to make Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter happen at one point but Capcom wasn’t interested.

“I’ve always wanted to cross MK over since about MK4, or something like that. I’m a big fan of all of the other fighting games, Street Fighter, Tekken. I always thought, wouldn’t it be cool to have MK vs. SF and MK vs. Tekken? We pursued some of those ideas to the extent we could but we always ran into some kind of road block and couldn’t do it.”

A full-on roster vs. roster situation was out back in the ’90s, but these days, guest characters are a normal part of fighting games. Tekken 7 alone includes representatives from Street Fighter, Fatal Fury, Final Fantasy, and The Walking Dead. Mortal Kombat and Injustice have gone all over the map with their DLC choices, including slasher villains, ’80s action heroes, Spawn, Hellboy, and even the Ninja Turtles. When a fighting game announces a new season of DLC, you usually know to expect at least one crossover character to be included in the package.

For 2019’s Mortal Kombat 11, Boon reached out to Capcom once again. Wouldn’t it be neat if a Street Fighter character got in on all the gritty time-traveling action? While we don’t know which character Boon was interested in using, many fans theorize Akuma would have been the perfect fit. But Capcom said no.

Here’s what former Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono had to say about it:

“It’s true that a proposal for a Street Fighter character in Mortal Kombat was rejected by Capcom, but it wasn’t me personally! There were many people at the company that felt that it wasn’t a good fit for our characters. I actually met Ed at the Brazil game show and spoke to him personally about it. So it’s true – but I didn’t make the decision!”

So why didn’t it happen? Probably because Mortal Kombat 11 is banned in Japan due to all the gore and extreme violence.

“I understand why people want it,” Ono said at the time, “but it’s easier said than done. Having Chun-Li getting her spine ripped out, or Ryu’s head bouncing off the floor…it doesn’t necessarily match.”

Maybe one day. For now, we’re left waiting for Ryu to finally get over here.

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Special thanks to tabmok99 for helping with this article. You can check out his Mortal Kombat know-it-all YouTube channel here.

The post Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat: The Many Ways the Crossover Almost Happened appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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radwolf76 · 4 years ago

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FLASHBack: Week 99 - Harry Partridge's Skyrim Songs

Another Thursday, another FLASHBack. But today is also 12 November 2020, which means that yesterday was the ninth anniversary of the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on 11·11·11. So for today, we're going to be checking back in with Flash Animator Harry Partridge, who you may remember from two months ago when we discussed his Saturday Morning Watchmen animation. That animation helped him to the attention of Bethesda Game Studios, who commissioned him to make some funny Flashes to hype up Skyrim before and after its release. After all, this was only the Dawning of the Fourth Era, before Skyrim had been Re-Released, Special Editioned, Nintendo Amiiboed, and ported to Amazon Alexa. And well before Microsoft bought Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax for only a little less than what Disney paid for Lucasfilm and Marvel combined. Harry's first Elder Scrolls animation was simply titled Skyrim, essentially an animated reaction to the announcement trailer linked above. It was posted to YouTube on 3 February 2011. I don't believe he was commissioned by Bethesda yet at this point, but it probably sealed the deal for his future collaborations with them. The animation opened with a reference to Saturday Morning Watchmen, but then proceeds to Harry watching the Max Von Sydow voiced trailer and then singing a filk song set to Jeremy Soule's theme Dragonborn, dismissing other games' fantasy worlds while praising Skyrim.

Bethesda's first commission for Harry would be Song of Skyrim, released on YouTube 5 November 2011, and then on Newgrounds two days before the game's release, where it would be Frontpaged, and win the Daily Feature and Weekly 2nd Place awards. This time around, the Flash contains 100% less Partridge boner and no mention of his girlfriend's breasts. It does however rattle off important game features like dual-wielding and being able to give your character a beard. On a personal note, I ripped the song audio from both these animations and played them for my fellow line-standers at the midnight release event for the game — they were both big hits with the crowd. Then after the game's release, Bethesda's next Harry Partridge commission would drop. Uploaded to YouTube on 1 December 2011, and the next day to Newgrounds, where it also was Frontpaged, and won Daily and Weekly 2nd Place, was Elder Scrolls Adventures with the Dovahkids. This time around Harry returned to familiar territory: 1980s Saturday Morning Cartoons. Instead of the wide net of inspiration he drew from for his Watchmen parody this one pulls primarily from one source: the Dungeons & Dragons animated series. Transporting a group of children into a fantasy realm where they're transformed into archetypal character types from that setting is pretty much an exact match of plots, and the Dovahkids' Dragy the Dragon is an obvious stand-in for Uni the Unicorn. The rock concert in front of the Dragon Wall is about the only element that's out of place, but I suspect that Harry may have wanted to mix in just the slightest pinch of Kidd Video into the recipe for spice. As an aside, while it may seem curious that a game like Skyrim, which in its original incarnation at release was 6gb in size, could fit on a single 5 1/4" floppy, that floppy probably only contains the installer for the Steam client. Bethesda would again commission Partridge when it came time to promote The Elder Scrolls Online MMO. On 11 April 2014, Back to Tamriel was released on YouTube and Newgrounds. Once again Newgrounds Frontpaged it, and it won Daily Feature, and Weekly Users' Choice as well as Review Crew Pick awards. This one opens with references to the final bosses of Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim and then gets rolling in typical Harry style. They let him get away with mentioning breasts in a commissioned Flash this time, and the usual self-deprecating digs at gamer culture are there as well. Then, when Bethesda announced the Special Edition of Skyrim, they once again sponsored Harry so he decided to get together for a collaboration with someone else noted for creating Skyrim-based content, nerdcore rapper Dan Bull. Together, they made Return to Skyrim, posted to YouTube 14 November 2016, and Newgrounds the next day. As previously, it too was Frontpaged and won Daily Feature and Weekly Users' Choice. The song opens with Dan watching Todd Howard's announcement of the Special Edition before Harry pulls him into his animated world. This time around the lyrics make jabs at the fact that NPC's theft detection can be defeated by blocking their line of sight with a bucket or a cauldron put on their heads, as well as the fact that the game's numerous side quests and faction storylines can entirely distract a player from ever finishing the main quest. Namechecks are given to Skyrim's DLC expansions, and mention is also made of the Elder Scrolls Series' pastry of choice, the Sweetroll, as well as the game's vibrant modding community and the sometimes strange content it produces. Adelle the Mudcrab from Harry's previous Elder Scrolls Flash gets a blink-and-you'll-miss-her cameo, as do the Dovahkids, and the whole series gets bookended by Harry popping another gamerboner. A remixed version of the song appeared on Dan's own channel. One thing that I've not done much of here on FLASHBack is get into the nitty-gritty of how Flash animations are made. For Harry Partridge's Elder Scrolls animations however, we have a unique opportunity, as the YouTube series Boundary Break, while normally focused on out-of-bounds content in video games, did happen to do an episode on Harry's Flashes. Of particular interest out of the topics covered are the fact that Partridge uses the more traditional frame-by-frame animation technique, avoiding the automated shortcuts that Flash provides, such as motion tweening. That wraps it up for now. Next week, we'll start on the Brackenwood Wildlife Documentary Series.

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slothcritic · 5 years ago

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Dragon Ball Z Abridged - Episode 10 Review

A satisfying conclusion with plenty of jabs, jibs and a ghost whatnow?

While The Punchline has been split up into three parts, I will be reviewing and judging all three parts as a single episode within a single review. I will be giving out scores for each part just for posterity however, but only the overall score will be considered this episode’s actual rating.

In the cold open, Vegeta is absolutely thrilled over snapping Nappa out of existence, and Goku asks Krillin and Gohan to retreat while he deals with Vegeta. Krillin is already gone, screaming and crying. Gohan and Goku have a brief conversation about putting dinner on, because he's hungry. There might be some reference I'm not getting here, or if it's really just a face-value scene, but I think it would've been funnier if the title sequence had begun just after Krillin is shown running (flying) away to safety.

[Title Sequence, Part 1]

Goku and Vegeta opt to find a new battlefield, as the one where Nappa decimated the Z Fighters is a little "corpsey." King Kai starts taking bets on which of them is going to win, and even the Narrator tries to get in on that, despite already knowing the outcome.

The delivery on Vegeta's lines early on is not promising. I'm not sure if it's poor audio quality caused by a crappy microphone or if Lanipator was struggling with some kind of throat infection while recording these lines, but it's noticeable as there's a long extended conversation with a voice that sounds like sandpaper to the ears. I actually went back to check on the previous episodes to see if I was taking crazy pills, and no, Vegeta sounded just fine before. I have no idea what the reason or cause of this change might be, whether it was a deliberately different delivery or if they were rushing to put this episode out, but Vegeta sounds consistently more raspy in this episode than the gravelly deadpan to which I've become accustomed. For all I know, yelling as Vegeta might just by taxing on his vocal chords.

Putting the voice issue aside, Goku's oblivious lack of understanding for the word "elite" and the back and forth between the two of them works on the whole as a great scene.

"I'm going to start beating you now. I don't know when I'll stop."

I can't remember whether or not that's a reference, but I love the delivery on it. Vegeta has just finished dealing with Nappa and now has absolutely zero patience for someone just as braindead.

Sure enough, after being taunted about a cave full of gumdrops and ice cream, Vegeta drops the "That's it! EVERYONE DIES!" which might be one of my favorite things said in this episode, but it’s followed closely by:

"Say goodbye to your planet, Kakarot." "Well that's not very nice." "OF COURSE NOT! I'M FUCKING EVIL!"

The dynamic here works astoundingly well. It's very different from Vegeta and Nappa's duo, but works on similar foundations. With Vegeta and Nappa, Nappa was the ridiculous one and Vegeta served as his anchor. With Vegeta and Goku, the roles are flipped and Vegeta is now the ridiculous one, screaming his head off in frustration and writhing around in the death throes of his pride, while Goku's complete obliviousness and innocence keeping him grounded as the anchor. Nappa was purposefully annoying because he was a bratty, childish mook, while Goku is just annoying by happenstance and being very, very hard to put down. It doesn't help that Vegeta actually wants to kill Goku, and unlike Nappa, he's having less than success with this one.

The overall production of the climatic beam struggle is surprisingly well executed, and is perhaps the best moment in this entire episode from a technical perspective. Goku speaking as he charges up the Kamehameha doesn't sound cheesy, canned or forced, and neither does Vegeta's delivery. The sound effects and music are also on point here. This is an important moment in the series and I'm glad they got it just right. I have no objections with anything here.

If anything, at about five and a half minutes in, the viewer has had enough time to adjust to Vegeta's new raspier voice and it no longer seems out of place. If he had been speaking "normally" up until this point, I probably would have criticized the delivery on these lines, but it almost feels like it fits on the whole now that this has been established as the "new normal" for the last five minutes. The main point I'm attempting and probably failing at making is that my original complaint was that the new voice took me out of the episode, but in this moment with the beam struggle, Vegeta's voice flows naturally and I honestly wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't just (as of now) dedicated two whole paragraphs of this review to JUST talking about how Vegeta sounds slightly different now.

Alright, now it's time to back up a tad, which isn't something I like to do a lot. Twice in this episode, Goku has used the Kaio-Ken and then the Kaio-Ken times three. The first time he used it, he seemed to at least match Vegeta. The second time he used it, he jobbed Vegeta straight into a rocky wall. But it's only good for a few seconds, so it has no sustain. It's essentially one really strong punch or a really quick beat down, but leaves Goku winded and struggling at the end of it.

The reason I didn't bring these up as they happened was because frankly the scenes didn't do enough for me to write about it. I write about what I feel is significant to my review to give context or explanation to my thought process, not to give a play by play. Simply put, they were funny, but nothing notable happened because of it. It was a quick skit, okay, move on. But it's now important to draw attention to those two moments, because while they did very little for me the first two times... Well, during this beam struggle, just as Vegeta feels like he’s gaining the upper hand, the dramatic music quiets to nothing but the sounds of the beams clashing, and all we hear is...

"Kaio-Ken..." Vegeta look on in horror. "...No..." "Times..." "No no no..." "FOUR!"

Vegeta is sent skyward with a loud FFFFUUUUUU- and then twinkles like Team Rocket just blasted off again. Goku is the victor... of this fight at least.

Then there's an odd cutaway back to Roshi's island that's slow to start, but eventually got me to smile. It's all the characters from Dragon Ball reminiscing of times where they used to be relevant to the story. Guest appearance by Baba who almost doesn't appear in Z at all!

It initially felt like a bit of tone whiplash but it warmed up to me. And "Whatever happened to Launch?" actually got a laugh out of me. Seems like Toriyama isn't the only person who forgot about her.

I'm not sure what the point of this scene was, but I agree with the decision that after that climax, a break or calming down period in the tension it had built up was definitely necessary, even if the transition felt a little jarring at first.

"Meanwhile, back at the plot", which is an amazing segue, Vegeta gets off Mr Goku's Wild Ride and the beam continues on without him into the pink sky.

I don't think -UUUUUUCK! counts as an F-Bomb so it doesn't get censored. Booyah!

Vegeta then undergoes a post ass-kicking identity crisis. After devising a plan to turn into the mighty Ozaru, he then undergoes a where's-the-damned-moon crisis.

Good thing Blutz Waves are a thing. He yeets the artificial moon into the sky and boom, King Kong. The other King K attempts to coach Goku through dealing with this beast (that is canonically stronger than Captain Ginyu at this point) and advises Goku to find a safe, secluded location to charge up the Spirit Bomb.

Goku however decides to do it right out in the open. Just as Ape Vegeta's massive fist obliterates Goku, King Kai's crystal ball turns to static and gets the operator disconnected message. I think a dial tone would've been slightly funnier, but this has the same energy so I'll take it with no complaints. An excellent way to end the first part of this episode!

[Part 2]

This part begins with Goku hitting a rock so hard he thinks he's in Dragonball Evolution for a moment. After blinding Vegeta with a solar flare, which I'm still not entirely sure how that works or why people don't use it more often to get cheap surprise shots on blinded targets, Goku finds a quiet spot that he can use to charge the Spirit Bomb. He ends up borrowing so much energy from the planet that he may or may not have drained all the life from an old father deer. Dark, but morbidly hilarious.

Goku tries to fling the Spirit Bomb at Vegeta, but surprise: He's got a mouth laser! Knocks the Spirit Bomb right out of him and sends him tumbling against a rock.

"Hey Kakarot, what's the opposite of Christopher Walken?" "Huh?" "Christopher Reeves!"

CRUNCH! The giant monkey stomps down right on Goku's legs, crushing and immobilizing him.

This is such a bad, good joke. I still think about this one from time to time. And honestly, considering how I started binge-watching these in high school (where I more or less developed into an entirely different person), this joke here might very well be the genesis of my love for black humor. I'm fully willing to admit I'm biased on this, but I think this is one of the funniest dark jokes in DBZA, full stop. If not the whole series, then at least within Season 1. Don't care, evil.

Just as he's about to be crushed for good, Goku shoots a quick energy blast into Vegeta's eye, causing him to stagger backwards. This is where Goku makes his cunning escape, dodging, weaving and doing aerial acrobatics around the massive monkey man, accompanied by victorious fanfare. Or not. Goku's legs are still broken. But it's nice to just imagine how cool that would’ve looked, y’know?

Vegeta then decides he's just going to squeeze the life out of Goku, and his screams can be heard well into the distance, all the way to Krillin and Gohan.

The giant monkey keeps squeezing Goku until he squeaks like a rubber ducky, or a chew toy. He does it again, and another squeak.

"Oh my god, that's hilarious."

In the middle of squeaking Goku relentlessly, Gohan decides to make a stand, having blown back to fight Ape Vegeta. He gives a verbose speech that culminates in "The bigger they are, the harder they fall." and then strikes a fighting pose like his five year old ass is going to do anything against a fifty foot behemoth. Battle gong and everything playing in the background.

Vegeta just stares at Gohan, and then after a pause, squeaks Goku again. This has delightfully petty energy to it, especially coming from Vegeta.

While Gohan has caught Vegeta monologuing, Krillin attempts a sneak attack on Vegeta, but he effortlessly humiliates him and thwarts his efforts by simply hopping over the Kienzan that was coming from behind.

However, he couldn't anticipate two sneak attacks. That or Yajirobe was simply that unlikely of a hero, but here he comes sword and all to save literally everyone's lives as he slices Vegeta's tail clean off his rump.

With no more tail, Vegeta regresses to his original Saiyan form. He's no less dangerous, however, and just as Krillin tries to bring the hype, he gets immediately pinballed into the nearest rocky structure and the owned count strikes 9.

The writing on Vegeta's speech following this is actually quite good. "I thought I'd be angrier" is not a take I expected from someone who's had such major meltdowns and cataclysmic conniptions thus far. It does a good job of illustrating how far down the rabbit hole we've gone, to the point where he has become so angry that he's encountered a stack overflow.

Goku and Gohan have a touching moment, both broken, beaten and bloody, but as they share a heart to heart, and their hands extend towards one another's like a Michelangelo painting, Vegeta comes in like a good fiend and gives Goku a killer knee-shot to the ribs. You have to wait for the right moment!

They immediately cut away to an intermission, which they never do in any other episode, but honestly it fits here. The alternative would be to end the episode here and we've still got another three minutes and some change to go. It's an arbitrary production joke but it's necessary and well done for the scene as a whole so it gets a pass and then some from me.

When we resume, Vegeta and Gohan duke it out, which provides a convenient distraction for Goku to hand off part of the Spirit Bomb to Krillin. It turns out he'd been saving some of the earth juices from when he got the snot knocked out of him earlier, but only a little bit of it. Krillin is confused as to why Goku would trust him of all people with it, and Goku concedes that his back is kind of against the wall on this one.

With a yipee-kay-yay and a booyah motherfucker, Krillin lobs the Spirit Bomb Lite at Vegeta, who simply jumps Krillin’s attack for the second time. Maybe aim a little higher next time, or better yet don’t loudly announce your attacks. Not that anyone in this series would understand that concept anyways.

Now the Spirit Bomb is heading straight for Gohan. But it's okay because Gohan is a main character, so he just Uno Reverse Card’s the Spirit Bomb off his hands and it sproings upwards towards Vegeta once more.

Side note, I don't think it's ever explained, either in the abridged or the original series, how Goku is able to communicate telepathically with Gohan. Yes, Master Roshi says in Dragon Ball that "any highly skilled martial artist can read minds" but does that just mean reading minds or actually communicating between them? And if that's the case, why doesn't Goku use this more often? I could probably find at least one plot point that could've been avoided by this, but the answer is probably extremely simple. Goku is a moron. It's very easy to explain away forgetfulness or inconsistent writing when you can just default to saying that your main character is an idiot who forgot he could do those techniques that you forgot existed as a writer. Don't think about it too much I guess.

"What smells like deer?"

I’ve actually missed this joke every single time I've watched this episode so far, except for just now, when I watched it to write this review. The old father deer from before! That is such a cool and unexpected callback.

Anyways, Vegeta gets punked by the Diet Spirit Bomb and goes sailing into the sky. The Z Fighters - which is now just Goku, Gohan and Krillin - are ecstatic in celebration.

"It's been tough, but now, we'll never have to see that rotten Saiyan ever again."

Cue Vegeta's lifeless body ragdolling to the ground with a meaty thwap. Krillin tempts fate by approaching the body, and that goes as expected. Vegeta opens one eye and screams. Then the others all start screaming.

Very weird production mis-step or weird decision with the source footage here. Vegeta's face at least moves, but because all the others have panning shots, they freeze in weird, awkward positions. The action lines don't move, some characters aren't fully in frame, and it's very obviously a still image instead of something like a loop. Maybe this is just what they had to work with. Still, very immersion breaking. Though honestly, I'm almost glad that if something like this had to happen in this part, it was at least in the last ten seconds.

Goku is confused because he can't move. I mean, they won right? Why is everyone screaming.

[Part 3]

This part begins immediately with Krillin getting bitch slapped, earning a 10/10 on the owned counter. Vegeta then decides he has had exactly enough of everyone and everything, and goes for the nuclear option.

Fortunately for our heroes, Vegeta has been so worn down, battered, sent through the ringer, and has suffered so much damage to that one eye in particular, that he doesn't have enough energy left to kill everyone all at once. Instead, he opts to get his hands dirty and cut them each of them down one at a time. Speaking of cut, here comes Yajirobe with his sword. It can pierce through Vegeta's armor, which is wonderful news but ultimately pointless. However, it serves as an excellent distraction.

Remember that fake moon? Remember how Vegeta only returned to normal form because his tail was amputated? Remember earlier how Piccolo had to destroy the Earth's actual moon because Gohan was a rampaging Donkey Kong lunatic? Well guess who just woke up staring right at that fake moon in the sky.

Lacking any barrels in the vicinity, Ape Gohan decides to throw around some rocks.

Goku, again, reaches to him telepathically and reminds him not to go on a rampage killing everyone.

"Remember Icarus? He did it."

Now, purely within this episode, this isn’t an issue. It’s a funny haha moment. However, this scene gets a little more irritating or perplexing once you’ve seen some of the DBZA movies. This knowledge did hamper my enjoyment of this scene on rewatch. However, that ultimately isn’t fair to this episode as a stand alone product, and my gut instinct of “My knowledge of episodes that came out well after this one retroactively makes this episode worse!” is also something I try tooth and nail to avoid. So I’m going to talk about this for a bit and get it out of my system so I can approach it fairly.

Simply put, Icarus is a headache. He's Gohan's friend and pet dragon of sorts, for like three random movies, some episodes of Z and then never gets mentioned again. Goku implies that Vegeta is responsible for Icarus' death, despite the fact that Icarus is still alive at some point after Goku defeats Freeza. I would normally take up the stance of “okay, let’s ignore the official canon / non-canon and just stick to DBZA” but he ALSO features in the DBZA movie Cooler’s Revenge, so this is multiple layers of crazy.

I understand that DBZA exists primarily as a form of parody and thus prioritizes humor and “working with what you’ve got” over some things a harsh anal-retentive person might deflagrate them for (cough cough) and are not afraid to contradict themselves on points of little significance for the sake of humor. I also don’t think they had any long-standing plans to incorporate Icarus into Z at the time this episode was made - They may have simply wanted to make a joke about the DBZ equivalent of Poochie the Dog from Itchy & Scratchy.

Like I said, Icarus is headache. However, simply in this moment and nothing else, I do feel it works. It’s shows a cute dragon geting exploded. Who couldn’t feel bad for this poor random dragon that I totally haven’t ever seen before? It also works within the story itself - Gohan gets sufficiently angry, and Vegeta starts treading the tightrope of desperation.

Gohan's Ozaru form isn't long lived however, as Vegeta suddenly learns the Kienzan and slices his tail off with it. Small problem though, Gohan was airborne, and the regression back to a normal Saiyan form is not instantaneous. His massive body looms over him, and with a Big NO, Vegeta go splat.

He's down but not out. He at least has enough energy to call for his Space Uber to come and pick him up. As he's crawling hands and knees into his escape pod, Krillin suddenly decides he wants to be important, and appears with Yajirobe's sword, poised to strike.

Vegeta is understandably terrified, because after the day Krillin's had, he's gone full ride or die mode and isn't about to wait on an invitation to go full Thanksgiving turkey on this maniac.

However, Goku wants the pacifist ending and gives a very simplified version of the original speech to Krillin. If he's sorry, we have to let him leave. Because that's what being a good boy is all about. It's noteworthy that one of my all-time favorite Vegeta quotes happens right here in the original dub.

"When I come back to this planet, you're all going to suffer. And when you beg me for mercy, I'll stare into your eyes as I crush the life out of you."

However in this version, we're treated to "Yes, I'm very very sorry. Sorry that you're all still alive, suckers!"

And honestly, both versions are fitting for their respective interpretations of Vegeta.

As we pan out, the narrator waxes on the victory of the heroes and how he made bank from his bet with King Kai. Next time, don't make bets with the narrator you stupid idiot. Big dumb idiot god.

I'm writing this at close to 4am if you couldn't tell. Scheduled uploads!

"Has anyone really not seen this show already? Find out in the next season of Dragon Ball Z Abridged!"

And that's it folks! Well, almost. We have one final scene to go through first.

Vegeta is hurdling through space in his Saiyan pod, lamenting his laundry list of losses and failures, but at least concedes that his situation cannot get worse. But we all know what happens to people who tempt fate.

"Vegeta... VEGEEEEEETA..." "Wh-What?" *DING* "I'm haunting you."

And thus, we've reached the end of Season 1! The Ghost Nappa song plays and the outro credits roll.

Conclusion

First off, definitely a longer review than I'm used to writing. Secondly, this was a great three-parter. I wasn't sure if the format would hold up like it does for single segment episodes, but it does. Now I'm sure there are bad episodes to come in the future, but for now I'm happy that the last three or four episodes have all scored relatively high. TFS is going into Season 2 with some great foundations built upon their older, more crude material, and they still have a lot of room yet to improve. I should consider being more critical with this next season as the expectations will be higher!

There’s one noteworthy gripe I have with each of these three parts, but only one worth writing about. -Vegeta suddenly sounding different, as if I didn't talk about that enough. I swear I'm not taking crazy pills. -Weird freeze frames at the end of Part 2. -Icarus, simply because he messes with me on a personal level. This fucking dragon doesn't make any god damned sense.

Other than that, I liked it. I don't know if I'd say "I loved it" but for the series as a whole, we're getting there at breakneck speed.

The first part had some great back and forth interactions with Goku and Vegeta, both the dialogues and the beam struggle, while the second part had more stand-out moments with just Vegeta, from the squeaking Goku, to the "I thought I'd be angrier" speech, his perfectly timed knee to ribs, and the famous last words "What smells like deer?"

The last part... didn't actually have much of this. I didn't find the talk about Vegeta’s father to be terribly funny and nothing else he said was extremely stand-out like in the previous two parts. This part didn't so much have humor as it was the "let's wrap things up" segment. Most of the noteworthy moments happen close to the tail end. I will admit, even ten years later, I still got a little sentimental hearing that outro from LK, and let's not sleep on Ghost Nappa. They may have done you dirty in Kai 3 but we still love you!

Overall, I'm happy that this was as good as I remembered it. I found jokes I didn't pick up the first few times, flaws that I didn't know existed, and a new appreciation for some subtle details that may have glossed over me while I was busy laughing about Christopher Reeves.

Part 1: 75 Part 2: 78 Part 3: 72

Score: 75

Passing Thoughts

"Kaio-Ken!" "Kaio-What?"

Small error on my part - Piccolo blows up the moon in Episode 4, and in my review of that episode, I mistakenly attribute a scene from this episode to DBZ Kai Abridged.

"I'm going to enjoy this far more than I should." - And like that, Vegeta has suddenly become relatable.

"Thank God, I thought he meant penis!"

"Time to crush you like an Arlian." "A what?" "Exactly."

"I haven't killed a damned thing since I got to this god-forsaken planet! Not for lack of trying mind you."

#slothcritic #DBZ #Dragon Ball Z Abridged #TFS #teamfourstar

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saiyanhajime · 6 years ago

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DBS: Broly - Review

I was excited to see “Dragon Ball Super: Broly”, obviously… It’s Dragon Ball! But I wasn’t expecting to be as blown away by it as I have been, to fall in love with it. For me, Dragon Ball has always been more about the fandom than the official media. When I first formed a love for the franchise, it was elusive and unattainable, so I had to get my kicks elsewhere.

I think DBS Broly might be my favourite piece of DB media, ever. It’s everything I ever wanted and everything I didn’t realise I needed from this franchise. I haven’t loved a piece of media like this in a long, loooong time.

Worth noting that, at the time of writing, I have only seen the English dub. I’ll wait for home release to see the subtitled Japanese audio version as I struggle to keep up with text and visuals at the same time!

The Cinema Experience

My first viewing was a small, packed screen on opening night here in the UK. The audience seemed to be mostly around 25-30 year olds, almost entirely fellow guys (my friend was one of maybe 5 women - seriously, where are you all??). But the ethnic diversity of Dragon Ball’s audience is something most movies could only dream of attracting. It was a great time, with people audibly laughing out loud and clapping at the end. The movie is genuinely so brilliantly funny, a surprise in itself.

My second viewing, the following night, alone, was a larger screening. Roughly the same audience demographics, but this time, the audience erupted into cheering with each transformation… It was so fucking incredible to be a part of. I was grinning the entire time. It’s hard to overstate just how important the social aspect of enjoying this movie in the cinema was.

It’s incredible to finally be living Dragon Ball “up to date” like this and the excitement shows.

Spoilers incoming...

Story Isn’t King

That's coming from someone who has always wished for more depth to DB, but what I've realised recently is that the level of storytelling the community plugs into this franchise is not something that belongs in the official media. We do it better, because we do it free of constraints the official releases require to be Dragon Ball, that it requires to be so widely popular. The official text is a framework, not a rulebook. I think one of the things that contributes to Dragon Ball’s insane popularity and ability to speak to so many people in so many cultures is how vague it can be. The snippets of depth are there for us to draw our own conclusions. DB doesn’t need canon absolutes in backstory.

Overall, I prefer the old “Bardock - The Father of Goku” telling of the prequel events that set up the Broly movie, though man it's been an age since I saw that. I wonder how much of my preference is just nostalgia? How much is knowing that Bardock: Father of Goku wasn’t “canon”, and so didn’t really matter? That is liberating. Now Dragon Ball Minus and DBS: Broly seem to demand that this is the way it actually happened with no room for headcanon and I feel a little turned off. There is plenty to like with this retelling. Gine is a delight, more of the saiyan homeworld is welcomed and just look at small details like Bardock actually moving his tail in this scene rather than it constantly being wrapped around their waists ready for combat. Ideally, I would like a perfect blend of the best elements from both tellings. And ya know what? That's the beauty of fandom... I can have that.

It is so obvious that huge chunks of story are missing here, yet it already drags for me a little... I’m not sure what the solution is, really. I’ve seen people suggesting it should have been two movies, but I’m not sure I agree.

Once the movie skips forward to present day, the storytelling revolving around the discovery of Broly, Paragus and their recruiting into the Freeza force is entertaining and I’m way more invested. So maybe it is just apathy for a prequel story retold a slightly different way…

But when the insane 30-40 minute non-stop action starts in the latter half, that’s when the movie comes into its own for me. This is Dragon Ball.

Overall, the narrative does something new for the series. It sets up, foreshadows and references back in a more conventional pattern than ever before. It feels, I dunno. It feels… Westernised? It feels, both narratively and in overall quality, more like a movie and not just a tacked on side-story. There’s no unnecessary inclusion of side characters irrelevant to the plot making cameos. Everyone is here for a reason.

Character Personalities

The characters behave like themselves again, and not just through exposition dumping monologues the series is famous for, but through visual storytelling! There is so much not said, so much told through the fight, through their expressions and movements.

From the moment Vegeta’s playful spar with Goku ends at Bulma’s vacation house, you get a very different Vegeta to the one we’ve seen through Super. His turn to listen to Goku and Whis's conversation is full of character. He's so on edge about something. And proceeds to tell us why with a humorous but genuinely livid jab at Goku for wishing Freeza back to life. Vegeta is worried. In the scene where Bulma is reviewing the CCTV footage of the Dragon Ball theft, Vegeta double takes and glares at Goku when it becomes obvious the thieves are Freeza’s men. They say nothing. It’s all character acting. It tells us so much.

Vegeta's anxiety continues on, affecting his fight with Broly… He barely has a chance to enjoy the fight at all. We get so little cocky Vegeta enjoying a battle and instead a very serious Vegeta who feels the need to to end this threat right now. What I take from all this is an example of quality character development - instead of Vegeta simply becoming more friendly, his personality that we all love is still there, but his morals have changed. His entertainment isn’t as important as protecting his family. And having witnessed Goku’ recklessly endanger their friends and families in throughout DB Super, Vegeta is not prepared to take any chances here, attempting to deliver a finishing blow very early on.

And Goku, who’s characterisation in Super felt so utterly insulting at times, is back on form here. His idiotic moments don’t feel so absurdly stupid that they’re unbelievable, but instead come across as cute and heartwarming. Moments like his talk with Broly mid fight, with Piccolo when he’s lying on the ground battered and bruised and when he’s simply watching Broly transform into a super saiyan for the first time convey Goku’s ability to be serious and regretful. It was so refreshing to see Goku back on form. The first half of his fight with Broly is incredible - going from excitement, to confidence that he could talk Broly round, to being put firmly in his place, on the ground. People who criticise the series for having no stakes fail to understand that the stakes are truly nestled in the characters personalities and their pride. The stakes are whether they will be able to overcome their flaws, both metaphorically through transformations, and literally.

Voice Acting (Dub)

Whilst on the subject of the characters, the voice acting is unbelievably good… Chris Ayres as Freeza steals the show, but the others are brilliant also.The line delivery is one thing, the ability to so brilliantly match that to the mouth flaps another, but the writing for a Western, English speaking audience is just superb. I cannot wait to see what differs in the original Japanese - I’ve heard that Freeza’s “Hello Monkeys!” line was a dub change from “Greetings!” for example, which in my opinion is so appropriate and elicits an uncomfortable, awkward laugh from the aforementioned ethnically diverse audience in the west in a such good way. Freeza as a tyrannical, racist, piece of shit, is an important character trait to a Western audience. The jokes that ride on line delivery alone are so numerous - one personal highlight for me is Whis’ ever-so-gay coded “Oh my…” when Gogeta bursts in. Took the words right out of my mouth, Whis. The voice acting is on a whole different level to anything before now from the American team. The scene I’ve already mentioned where Goku is contacted by Piccolo, Schemmel really sells the pain Goku’s in. And lets not forget Broly himself, played by Vic Mignogna, whose line delivery really conveys him as this Tarzan-like character in his sane scenes… But really shines in moments of mania when he’s flailing, yelling, crying as a cornered, manic, rabid ape who cannot control his emotions or immense strength. The scene where he’s just making noises at Goku, copying his fighting stance before he launches at him - wow. Even new side characters like Lemo have an outstanding quality to their voice acting that blows any previous English speaking Dragon Ball performance so far out of the water it’s insane.

Broly

Having a Dragon Ball story focus on so many characters who aren’t Goku is refreshing for a franchise that’s been so heavily criticised for being The Goku Show… For years we’ve wanted to see other characters step into the limelight. I still haven’t forgiven the last movie, Resurrection F, for stealing the win out from under Vegeta.

Vegeta still doesn’t get the long awaited limelight here… But this “new” saiyan, Broly, is something rather special. I wasn’t a fan of the original Broly. Loved the idea, but never liked the execution. His visual design I found personally off-putting, but more importantly it failed to convey his character very well. He looked so prestigious? And the idea of being so affected by Goku crying as a baby next to him, that it sent him into uncontrollable rage whenever he heard the same “Kakarot” is so laughably stupid. I’m glad that’s not here.

The cool concept of the legendary super saiyan, though... I think most people dig that. Here that’s kind of gone too - but the idea of a freakishly strong saiyan from birth who is the embodiment of their animalistic heritage and rage-induced potential is beautifully executed. The great ape form, or rather Broly having found a way of accessing that power without transforming, is referenced more than once throughout the story. There’s this sense that the way Goku and Vegeta have learnt to control themselves has perhaps potentially hindered them. That maybe the ultra-instinct forms Whis has foreshadowed for so long is related, or could be used to tap into the natural potential of saiyans. Huh.

With a visually pleasing design to boot, Broly is absolutely awesome as the star in his own movie as a tragic menace. So much is done to sell this as Broly’s movie, from his sheer amount of screen time and characterisation in both his placid and manic states, to that awesome first person perspective part of his fight - incredible.

Animation and Aesthetics

You don’t need me to tell you this film looks gorgeous and I’ve already mentioned some scenes where the characters convey so much through movement alone. This looks like Dragon Ball never has. It feels nostalgic, but refreshing. It’s stylistically so unique and fluid and choreographed and magical. Impacts hit with such full-force conviction, the characters gracefully zooming around each other in dueling harmony, the electrifying ki beams piercing through the bleak environments with their vibrant colour and form. For once you really believe just how powerful and fast these superhumans are… Perhaps one of the reasons why the first half of the film is so much weaker for me is simply because there's less of this beautiful action. But the entire film is steeped in impressively bold and emotive colour pallets that sell the mood of each location so well.

But there’s a great big elephant in the room… The cgi.

It would seem I have a different opinion to most on this subject. I don’t mind the environmental cgi, but the character animation is jarring and I hate it. It is a blemish on an otherwise gorgeous piece of art. Now, I’m really funny about “bad” cgi. I also don’t know dick about animation. I just know when something looks really, really wrong. It’s as if the cgi characters have no squash and stretch applied that keeps them fluid. They’re stiff. There’s no elasticity, no umph. They move like someone just put strobe lights on. Their joints like that of action figures. I’ve seen so many people say it’s not bad or they even like these parts and I’m really glad it didn’t ruin it for most people, but my god does it ruin those scenes for me. Just look at the awkward mouth flaps and dead eyes, especially on Goky, in the Kamehameha/Galick Gun combo scene. Yuck.

Soundtrack

I love the score.

Before I saw the movie, I heard a lot of people talking about the chanting and how weird it was - but the second it started my first thought was how much it reminded me of Akira. And yeah, it’s kinda weird. And I love it. It hypes up this epic match and I don’t find it cheesy at all. I love it both in context and even when listened to in isolation.

The entire score is all over the place yet manages to feel whole as it attempts, and succeeds, to convey the atmosphere and emotion of each location, narrative beat and every swing of a fist or blast of ki. The only track I’m not keen on is the rendition of Chala Head Chala. I think it’s a pretty pants rendition of the song and is immensely distracting in an otherwise moving soundtrack. The movie totally needs a rendition of Head Chala right there, but not this rendition. I just don’t like it. The weird boingy sound is awful.

Final Thoughts

The success of Dragon Ball Super: Broly, especially in the west, is a joyful reminder what this 30 year old franchise means to so many people. Very few non-fans are going to have set foot in a cinema to see this movie, and yet the current total earnings at the time of writing on January 29th 2019 is $98,584,176 according to Box Office Mojo.

That is truly insane.

It feels like this movie was made especially for me and for that I am eternally grateful. Speaking to fellow fans and reading their reviews, it’s so clear that everyone has different things to love about this movie. There’s so much content here for every fan to find something they love. I cannot wait to get hold of a home release and I cannot wait to see what’s to come, ho-ly shit! What a time to be a Dragon Ball fan.

#dragon ball super broly #dbz broly #broly #dragon ball super #dragon ball #dragon ball z #dbz #dbs #dragon ball movie review #saiyanhajime

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elliepassmore · 5 years ago

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Throne of Glass Review

5/5 stars Recommended for people who like: fantasy, strong female leads, multiple POVs, deadly competitions This is where Celaena's journey technically, 'actually' begins. Coming into ToG, it's a year after the end of Assassin's Bladeand Celaena is, miraculously, still alive. She's fetched by the Prince and Captain of the Guard and once more thrown face-to-face with the King of Adarlan and other people who would gladly kill her given the chance. I'm sensing a theme to Celaena's life here...might it be another Tuesday? UnlikeBlade, ToG is told from multiple 3rd person POVs, so we're able to get a broader view of the things going on during the events of the book. I think, reading it for the first, time without having readBlade first, you definitely have the ability to sympathize with most of the POVs....but coming fresh off of Blade, I couldn't help but feel defensive over Celaena. There's really a stark difference between how Sam treated her versus how Chaol, the Captain of the Guard, and even Dorian, the Prince, treat her. Perhaps obviously, I preferred Celaena's POV followed by Dorian's, then Chaol's, then Kaltain's (a courtier at the palace). Celaena's character definitely has a darker, sadder feel to her in this one (perhaps obviously). She's still ferocious, but there's also a part of her that's more doubtful than she was in Blade, which, considering the amount of care Maas puts into foreshadowing and other details, I'm going to take as an intentional change in Celaena's character. Never fear, though, she's still the same spoiled, luxury-loving, arrogant assassin we know from the prequel. Never one to falter, Celaena almost immediately gets back to training and rebuilding her strength, and we do get to see that progression. In the beginning, Celaena loses a sparring match to Chaol, at the end, she's able to hold her own in....less than favorable conditions against an opponent much stronger and more ruthless than Chaol. Reminisce of the prequel, that spark of Celaena that wants to get away from Rifthold and be free is back again, as well as the reckless and loyal sides of her. Perhaps it is the proximity to Adarlan's crown, but Celaena also has more Terrasen in her in this book. It was referenced multiple times in Blade, but I feel it's more prominent here and it lends itself to getting a bit more of Celaena's background. Dorian might be just as spoiled, if not more-so, as Celaena. Celaena might be in-your-face about it, but it's clear that while Dorian doesn't believe in what his father is doing to the rest of the continent, he's never really been face-to-face with it the way Celaena has (so perhaps we're talking about two different kinds of spoiled here). He makes the distinction from the beginning that he wants people to genuinely respect him and has little patience for the drama and back-stabbery of the court. It's clearly an attempt on Maas' part to make him a sympathetic part of the very despised nobility and, while there's plenty of room for it to fail, it actually comes off naturally on Dorian. He's a witty character, willing to take jabs at the people around him, but he also has a more sensitive side that knows when to back off and let things go. He also shows the ability to be bothered by the things that happen around him. He's often bored in his POVs, which can lead to being bored while reading them sometimes, but he makes up for it with his behavior in other peoples' POVs. I think I ended up liking his POV better than Chaol's, despite the moments when he's boring, is due to how much he's consistently nicer to our main character than Chaol is. Chaol is the Captain of the Guard and Dorian's best friend, soof course, he's going to be snippy and wary of Celaena, but there are times when he's just downright mean to her. If Dorian is spoiled because he's never been fully faced with the consequences of his father's regime, then Chaol can only be purposefully ignorant of the implications of following the King of Adarlan's commands with little more than blind commitment to duty. Chaol used to be one of my favorite characters, but as I've grown and had time to read other books and reread this series, the more I find myself just turned off by his behavior. Yes, Celaena's a notorious assassin, but she's also a teenager who's fresh out of a death camp, cut her a little slack. He does have some genuinely nice and funny moments, though, which start to redeem his character a little. Kaltain was just a pain in the ass to read and I don't recall ever really liking her character. That being said, now that it's been a couple years, I can appreciate that Maas included her as a character with a POV. One the one hand, Kaltain gives us a view of who's plotting against Celaena and gives plenty of foreshadowing for things to come. Kaltain also has access to speak to characters that some of the others don't. On the other hand, and at a deeper level, Kaltain acts as a world-builder. It's easy to write off Kaltain's interest in Dorian as a vain grab for power, but I think it represents more than that. It's a way to show how girls in Adarlan, perhaps specifically girls in nobility, have little ability to determine their own futures. Katlain's interest in Dorian doesn't simply stem from vanity, but from a desire to have power--over herself, over or for her friends, and potentially over the people who wronger her. From the way I read it, Kaltain desperately wants to change her situation and her station. Maybe it is all vanity and shallowness on her part, but a part of me believes her actions are because she feels stuck with her role in life and the people she's been surrounded by have taught by example that manipulating and clawing your way into the top position is not only the way to gain power, but also the way to gain followers and admiration. I really like Nehemia's character. Like Celaena, Nehemia is from a country that's been conquered by the King of Adarlan. Unlike Celaena, Nehemia is in a position to help her people and country. She clearly cares about her people and wants them to be free from Adarlan's rule. She's a princess with a plan, even if the entire thing isn't totally clear yet. From her introduction, you can tell Nehemia's wildfire. She speaks Eyllwe and talks about people to their faces, benefitting from the fact that nearly everyone solely knows the common tongue (which, surprise surprise, is not Eyllwe), and she has no issues flaunting orders (again, no surprise considering she's a princess). I do wish we got to see more scenes of her sparring, I would've enjoyed seeing her whoop Dorian's ass. I like that she befriends Celaena and doesn't mind that Celaena cannot tell her the full truth about things. I really liked Philippa too. She's a little gruff at first, but I think Celaena needs someone to be a bit gruff with her on occasion. Besides, Philippa is more of a motherly-gruff toward Celaena than anything else. I thought she also had quite a few funny lines and more than enough steel in her spine to protect Celaena if need be and to aid in any debauchery...well, to an extent. In terms of romantic relationships...I'm skeptical of all of them, to be honest, but I'm especially skeptical at the beginning signs of Chaol's. When I first read the series, I liked the idea of Celaena and Chaol together, but the two times (one and a quarter times?) I've reread the series since, I can't help but dislike Chaol's interactions with Celaena. As mentioned above, neither Dorian nor Chaol treat her anywhere close to the way Sam does. Obviously, they're different people with different ways of expressing things, but Sam acted like Celaena truly brought him joy, never acted truly afraid of her, and never had qualms about accepting who she was or what she did in the past. The key with Sam is that he trusted her, but he also respected her and more-so, he respected her decisions. Never while reading ToG can I say I felt Chaol or Dorian came anywhere near any of those points. Chaol definitely doesn't accept who she is or what she's done, he doesn't trust her, he doesn't even entirely respect her, while he never fully shows it, I don't think he's unafraid of her either, and while there are moments when Celaena makes him happy, I don't think she brings him joy, or vice versa. Dorian's a bit closer to Sam, I'll admit. Celaena makes him happy, and I think he respects and tentatively trusts her, but the trust definitely isn't all the way there, and I think, despite his acceptance of her now, he still has qualms about what she's done in the past. On the flip side, I can say with confidence that neither Chaol nor Dorian bring Celaena anywhere close to that light, chest-bursting feeling she had with Sam, even if she does find them both attractive. Plot-wise, I enjoyed the idea of a competition, but I wish we got to see more of it. I think we get to see five of the total 13 events, plus the duel at the end. Since the competition was one of the main driving forces behind Celaena's motivation, as well as of the plot, I think we should've been able to see more of the events, more of the training, and more of the competitors. I think seeing more of the training could also have helped with character and relationship development some. From other books I've read, I can say that watching a character train, especially if they're training with someone, is a good metaphor for the character's arc--as they get physically stronger, their arc/development also grows 'stronger'--and when that training is with someone else, it creates a kind of intimacy between those two characters since the one has helped build the other up (and because of the amount of alone time training requires). In view of the larger series, I think this first book sets the stage pretty well. The whole thing's very action packed and has a clearly defined arc and goal, but it leaves enough paths open that they can be revisited again later on to help move the series forward. *BONUS* The Captain and the Prince 4/5 stars My paperback copy of ToG has a scene at the end of it between Chaol and Dorian before they go to fetch Celaena. It's pretty short, only a couple of pages, but it's technically part of the readable canon so... Despite the scene being so short, it definitely characterizes Dorian a great deal. We get to see his impatience with court, his disdain for his father, and his burgeoning desire to get out from under his father's yoke. I actually think we get a pretty good characterization of Chaol here too. He's cautious and protective, but he doesn't altogether shut Dorian down. He might be nicer here than he is in most of the book, to be honest. The scene also sets a decent stage for Dorian and Chaol's relationship as well. We get to see that Dorian is most definitely the impulsive one, but that he does think back on his previous reckless decisions and learn from them. At the same time, we get to see that Chaol is the more cautious one, but that he's willing to bend a little to make his friend happy and to get a bit of freedom himself. I think it's a decent short to read before starting ToG, and the dropped star has more to do with what my gut is saying than with any concrete evidence I can dredge up for an explanation.

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hazyheel · 5 years ago

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NJPW Best of the Super Juniors 26 Final Review

I’m not going to review everything on the card, because not everything was super important to the overall stories. So we will start at the Tanahashi Comeback match, Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Jay White. White attacked before the bell, trying his best to ruin Tanahashi’s moment. White targetted the arm, as Tanahashi recently came back from elbow surgery. At one point, it looked like Tanahashi was going to lose by countout, but White pulled the ref out of the ring to interrupt the count and continue to attack Tanahashi. Even when Tanahashi was on the offense, simple things like holding the ropes during an Irish whip would cause him a lot of pain. As Tanahashi continued to beat down White, White began to play possum, refusing to get up for suplexes, and instead picking the arm for a fujiwara armbar. It was a rough looking armbar too, looking like it was killing Tanahashi. He was able to get to the ropes, much to the crowd’s thrill. Tanahashi worked over White’s knee a bit, but was almost never on the offensive. Tanahashi hit two consecutive slingblades for a near fall, and then went up for high fly flow. Gedo tried to stop him, but was kicked off the apron, still allowing White to crotch him on the top rope. Gedo even tried to get involved with Brass knuckles, so Tanahashi put him on his ass. The ref was distracted by Gedo, allowing White to hit a low blow. He then went for the bladerunner, but Tanahashi fought out and hit a low blow of his own, but only a near fall. They then struggled for finishers, but White hammerlocked the arm and got a rollup for the win.

Grade: B+. Really good match, and some really good booking for Jay White. I love the idea of a heel winning the comeback match, and he was drawing a ton of heat for everything that he did. These guys have a rivalry for the ages, and I doubt this is their last match, but as things stand, White has Tana’s number for now. Still, their matches always deliver.

Into the US Championship match, the debuting Jon Moxley vs. Juice Robinson. Moxley entered through the crowd, Shield style. Kevin Kelly talked about how they used to feud waaaaaay back in FCW, when it was Dean Ambrose vs. CJ Parker, which I thought was pretty interesting. This had a big fight feel even before the match started. Robinson even cut off his dreads for this match, which made him look much more serious. They beat the hell out of each other right at the bell. It wasn’t even a minute in when they brawled through the fans. At one point, Juice drilled Moxley with a somersault senton off of the rigging by the entrance, wiping out his opponent and several young lions. Another time, he tried to canonball Moxley on the outside into the barricade, but he dodged and Juice crashed and burned at a super high speed. Robinson was busted open pretty early, right above the eyebrow, and I think it was too small of a cut to be a blade job, but it accomplished the same effect. When the ref tried to tell Juice to lay off a bit while he was laying into Moxley, he straight up told red shoes to fuck himself, not something that Robinson does often. At one point, Robinson went to the top rope, and Moxley shoved him right off and to ringside. Then he grabbed a table from underneath the ring, and even drilled Juice with a chair shot. He then did a sort of splash with a chair onto Juice, but the table did not break. So, Moxley gave him a suplex through the table instead. Moxley continued to work over Robinson’s knee throughout the match, whipping it into the ringpost, and doing the figure four on the ringpost as well. He was going to attempt to break Robinson’s leg with the chair, but Red Shoes argued with him about it, allowing Robinson to grab the chair and throw it into Moxley’s face. The two traded chops and jabs, with Robinson firing up as they did, even no selling a few of Moxley’s hits. The battle spilled to the outside once again, and Robinson gave Moxley a running canonball into the table. He was a little overzealous and nearly soared over the barricade too. The table didn’t break, so Robinson powerbombed him through it instead. Moxley fought back into it, able to lock in a cloverleaf at one point. Both guys tried for their finishers, with Moxley being able to hit the double arm DDT after a kick to the knee, but only for two. So, Moxley picked him right back up and hit the double arm DDT, which has been called Death Rider, for the win.

Grade: A-. An awesome brawl, and definitely fitting for his first match out of WWE. They beat the living crap out of each other, and almost none of it took place inside the ring. I loved all the table spots and weapon shots and the hate that Moxley brought out of Juice. Not to mention what this means for AEW. One of their top stars holds a title in New Japan. They have their hooks in, and I think we may be looking towards a business agreement between the two companies. I sure hope so, and I hope that this starts to instigate that.

And in the main event, we had the finals of Best of the Super Juniors 26. Shingo Takagi vs. Will Ospreay. Ospreay came to the ring with a sword, and I was so excited and that was awesome. There was a bit of a feeling out process early on. The two had a series of counters that lasted nearly a full minute, with Ospreay flipping out of a rebound german suplex, and Shingo countering an os cutter with an arm drag. Shingo was not playing it straight here. He was being a heel, and the fans treated him as such. Ospreay did his classic fake out of a suicide dive, and Shingo was so frustrated that he threw a water bottle at Ospreay. At one point, Shingo actually pulled out a tope con hilo, destroying will Ospreay and crotching himself on the barricade in the process. This forced Ospreay to play from behind, and he was rocked with strikes and slams. At one point, Shingo hit a huge double hand chop, and Ospreay just kipped right back up and hit a roundhouse to the chest. At another, Shingo caught a kick from Ospreay, and he flipped him right around so that Ospreay landed on his back. Ospreay even countered a verticle suplex into stundog millionaire, a little callout to Mark Andrews over in the UK. There was a sick spot where Ospreay hit cheeky nandos, and then went up to the top for a stormbreaker, only for Shingo to counter it into a top rope death valley driver. Shingo even went for a burning hammer, but Ospreay flipped out of it to hit a double kick. He then went for os cutter, only for Shingo to counter that into a noshigami. Then Shingo went for a pumping bomber, and Ospreay countered that into a sickening powerbomb. That was just an insane series of moves. At some point during this, Ospreay’s mouth got bloodied, not so bad that it was clearly noticeable, but it was there. As the two were hurt on the apron, Ospreay fought out of a noshigami and hit an os cutter on the apron. That nearly got Ospreay the win by countout, but Shingo made it back in just in time, and then hit a Springboard dropkick across the entire ring. Ospreay then hit an inverted 630 senton onto Shingo’s back, followed by a shooting star press, a robinson special and an Os cutter, but still only a near fall. Nothing would put Shingo down. The two then had a striking contest that left Ospreay completely battered, and Shingo was able to hit last of the dragons, but Ospreay wouldn’t stay down. Shingo tried to hit it again, but Ospreay countered into a nasty looking reverse rana. Ospreay nailed Shingo with a hidden blade, and nailed an os cutter from the top, then a stormbreaker for the win.

Grade: A+. Fucking hell, this was so good. The way they both fought, trying to get the win in any way that they could. Shingo looked crazy strong in defeat, taking 4 finishers to take him down. Shingo’s incredible strength during this match really made it seem like he was unbeatable. He seemed invincible after kicking out of the os cutter. And ospreay sold like crazy, flipping all over the place to make Shingo look awesome in defeat. This was the perfect match to end the tournament, and a perfect end to the arc of Will Ospreay as a junior heavyweight. I really doubt that he will continue in the juniors. This would be an awesome fairwell to the BOSJ as well, but I guess we will see. This match was goddamn incredible.

After the match, Ospreay announced that he was moving to Japan, really integrating to the company. He even said it in Japanese. It was a heartwrenching moment. He said that he will challenge anyone who steps up to him, heavyweight or juniors, because he loves the company, and he is the best of the super juniors.

Overall grade: A-

Predictions: 3/7. I was super close though, I had all the names right, but in the wrong orders. I had Taguchi at 3rd and Phantasmo at 2nd, and also Ishimori at 3rd and Lee at 2nd.

Pros: Tanahashi comeback match; us championship match; main event

Cons: A weird moment where Gedo ran into the ring with brass knuckles and didn’t get disqualified

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Battle of the Episodes: Celebrity Deathmatch: Rockstarmageddon Vs When Animals Attack

Hello all you happy people! And welcome to a minty fresh new segment on the blog cooked up by longtime fan and friend of the blog weirdkev27, named by me: BATTLE OF THE EPISODES! In this new segment I take two similar episodes from a show or franchise and put them up against one another and see which ones better. He pitched the idea to me for something he could do, he had two patreon reviews free so I suggested why not do it in April and here we are!

Before I begin I will admit I’d forgotten PieGuyRulez had done a similar idea with his podcast ReCast, which I’d never seen and only vaugely heard of. However I feel what i’m doing here is still diffrent enough to keep doing, I have nothing but respect for the guy, and I promise to not do any topics he’s done. If you have any suggestions for this new segment, i’d love to hear them. I already have another one in mind for when I have a free moment on the schedule that I simply didn’t get around to next month.

But for our innugural contest, Kev being the one who pitched it picked the show and it’s a show i’m only passingly familiar with as I did see bits of it growing up: Celebrity Deathmatch. Celebrity Death Match was a late 90′s and early 2000′s tv show on MTV with a revivial on MTV2. It was born both out of a short done for MTV’s Cartoon Sushi, their equilvent of Oh Yeah Cartoons! and What a Cartoon, pitting Charles Manson against Marilon Manson, and that short was popular enough to lead to a special after the superbowl. Said special ended up being the highest rated progam MTV had broadcast at the time, so naturally it got a four season series.

The premise is exactly what it says: two celebrties battle it to the death in goofy claymation fights, one shall stand, one shall fall. Meanwhile our hosts Johnny and Nick banter and set up the fights, talk to interviewers etc. It’s essentially a combination of wrestling and celebrity mockery, and unsuprisingly given MTV’s teen audience who loved pop culture and a bit of the ultra violence it was a massive hit.

The show later got a revivial a few years after it ended on MTV2, which fans often derided and which I saw more of as I was watching MTV2 at the time... look i’m not proud of the fact i watched “Where My Dogs at?” and i’m even less proud I watched “The Adventures of Chico and Guapo”. But with shows like that you can imagine how high quality the reboot was and how much fans flocked to it. Me I never took to either incarnation. I don’t HATE the show and do appricate it’s gorgeous claymation and copious use of Stone Cold Steve Austin. I love that beer drinking, hell raising, boss humliationg hellion, it’s just the combination of modern celebrity mockery, something that rarely ages well unless the joke is just funny on it’s own, and ultra violence never appealed to me as I was a pretty squeamish kid and teen.. i’ve grown out of that, but I just had no real desire to go back. It’s not a bad show but it’s not really one for me, but I get why i’ts well loved and popular.

But being a death match fan, and given the similar premisses, Kev picked this to be our inagural contest. Pitting the original against the reivvial. For this he went with two death match time machine episodes: the original’s finale rockstarmageddon and the revivial’s when animals attack. Each episode has it’s own unique theme within the general theme of a dead person versus their successor... and a very much alive person one or both of the hosts thought was dead versus their succesor as a joke: the first is about rockstars and their supposed imitators, the second is about putting two animal themed people against one another.

Each Battle of the Episodes will have diffrent comparisons as every show or franchise is different, comics are also open for this by the by. So for this one i’ll be comparing time machine use, the person explaning the machine, individual episode theme, the joke about one of the “dead” combatants turning out ot be alive, and each of the three matches. How many will also very, either 5 or 7 depending on how many talking points i have. So with that in mind LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE under the cut and see which episode walks away a champion and which episode walks away a bloody pile of clay on the floor.

Doing the matches first as a lot of this stuff overlaps with the later bits.

Round 1: Lenny Kravitz Vs Jimmy Hendrix VS Horatio Sanz Vs Chris Farley Whelp this was a bad start to BOTH episodes as these matches are the worst of each episode and all 6 matches period. So it’s less which is better as both are a black hole of comedy.. and more which one sucks slightly less.

The Jimmy Hendrix vs Lenny Kravitz bout is just.. a black hole of comedy, It’s VERY clear the writers hated Kravitz but to me in 2020.. it just hasn’t aged well. I just don’t CARE about Lenny Kravitz. He had maybe one good song, are you gonna go my way, and that’s it. He was not good.. but he was an easy target for the time and an easily forgotten one now. It’s not smart, clever or even cathartic to watch him die. He’s also nowhere similar enough to Hendrix for the comparison to work: for one he had a vastly diffrent look most of the times and for another at most both played guitars and were not white. That’s it. It just dosen’t work.

The finisher here is just also... one of the objectively worst grossout bits i’ve seen in animation and i’m almost 30. That’s a LOTTTT of stupid gross gags that aren’t funny. The two vomit into each others mouths. Yes really. Not only is this really disprectful to hendrix death, as ODing on drugs is not something I really find funny nor the show makes funny, but it’s just.. horrifying to think about and gross and makes me want to , ironically enough, vomit thinking about. it’s just deeply unpleasant easily the worst thing i’ve encountered in my time reviewing so far, and it’s going to be a hard bar to clear. This match sucked and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Now as for the Horatio Sanz vs Chris Farley Match...

I honestly have never seen Horatio Sanz that i’m aware of and unlike Kravitz who at least is mildly memorable if not a very good musician, Sanz has just been.. forgotten. I don’t know anything about him and once again it feels like the show punching down, picking an easy target versus a legend.

And speaking of easy targets the entire segment is just fat jokes. Just a ton of fat jokes. No really, it’s a battle of “Hog vs hog”, chris eats a lot and hte main joke is Chris Farley can’t stay alive long enough to fight. That being said while I find the joke in VERY poor taste, as Farley died of a heart attack and was a really good person and having his death be a punch line just bothers me.... I’ll admit it’s at least clever to have one of the death match time machine contestants come back again, and again, and again. It’s not Funny, it’s horrific.. but I can at least say they put in some effort ofr that one gag and given the horrifying lack of effort for the other match this one BARELY gets the W Winner: When Animals Attack:

Round 2: Shaggy vs Bob Marley VS Christan Bale vs Adam West

This one’s a no contest... seriously the gulf between jokes is wide and deep.

The Shaggy Vs Marley bout is the best of Rockstarmageddon. It’s funny, the target actually deserves being made fun of as Shaggy was a talent vacum and is memorably bad in comparison to Kravitz, so I still like seeing him get roasted, and they find a lot of funny jokes to do with Bob Marley. I only have a passing familiarity with the guy and while they do the obvious weed joke, they also have him ask for a tiny hammer or a small axe, beat shaggy with his dreads and after using a ring post to kill him, MAKING HIS REMAINS INTO A BONG (hilariously called a “legal novelty smoking device by the commentators). This match shows me why the show was popular: not every match was GOOD.. but the ones that were were creative and a joy to watch. While I sitll feel it’s mildly punching down, it’s funny enough I don’t care.

Bale Vs West just sucks both by comparison and just in general; The IDEA of having the current Batman at the time and the 60′s one duke it out is great.. but it’s very clear they didn’t like Batman begins nor have any actual christian bale jokes. While this was pre terminator rant and the much more iconic dark knight, if they didn’t have any good jokes , why do this. They just have nothing and are insulting a legitimately good movie instead of making anything funny and making cracks about everyone thinking Adam West is dead. More on that in a bit, but it’s just really not funny and really wasted my time... though West turning him into a batsignal of the cross was clever i’ll admit.

Winner: Rockstarmageddon

Round 3: Dave Matthews vs Keith Richards VS Jamie Fox vs Ray Charles

Another mistmatch.. but this time in the opposite direction.

Dave Matthews Vs Keith Richards sucks. While there are some good gags up top, we’ll get to that in it’s own section, the match itself just isn’t funny and I really don’t get comparing the stones to dave matthews band. the two bands aren’t remotely similar. The most clever it gets is Dave injecting Richards with his blood, which mellows him out but also revitalizes Richards. There’s a few good jabs at richards but otherwise just nothing of susbtance and like Kravitz Dave Matthews Band has been largely forgotten and unlike Kravitz or Shaggy, just doesn’t seem like as valid a target.

Fox vs Charles on the other hand was a great misdirect, changing his opponent and “punking” fox, forcing him to go from someone he was ready to throw down with to someone he rejects. There are way too many mr mcgoo style I’M BLINDDDDD gags, but Fox is a much more deserving target, and they had far more clever gags, with charles pulling out a cat o n grammys, and using a piano to finish Jamie. It’s nothing GREAT... but at least it’s actually funny and actually picked a good target for the time, if not one that has aged well.

Winner: When Animals Attack. 1 to 2

Round 4: Who Used the Time Machine Better?

Narrowly .. rockstarmageddon. While it had the same justification for it, the original taking on an upstart attempted replacement, the keith richards gag we’ll get to in a second is better than the farley gag for not being grossly insensitive and unfunny. But neither really use it well; Rockstarmageddon just uses it to mock artists they like and Animals uses it because the first one did. Neither really had a clever idea for it other than “get it this person sucks compared to that one.

Winner: Rockstarmageddon. 2 to 2

Episode Theme:

Similar to the time machine, this one comes down to which one had the better indvidual theme... and i’d have to say it’s Rockstarmageddon. It used the theme POORLY, but at least it both had an interesting idea, dead rock stars vs their successors in modern day, versus an easy one (animal matchups) it abandoned for the final match and used REALLY fucking insultingly in the first match. Seriously I don’t mind a WELL done fat joke, as an overweight guy myself, but this was just...

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In it’s purest form.

Winner: Rockstarmageddon 3 to 2

Special Guest:

Each episode had a guest for the time machine... and this one is again no real contest, Rockstarmageddon wins.

For Rockstarmageddon the show brought back frequent guest star , wrestling legend Stone Cold Steve Austin, who I enjoy and was indeed part of my childhood and star of many video games and one of my brother’s all time favorite wrasslers. The show contrasts his blue collar hellion image with him having made the machine, getting quantum mechanics and unlike nick getting that Keith Richards is dead. Austin clearly gets the show, is fully on board playing along and has fun escorting Hendrix back to the machine and getting his revenge on Nick for doubting him that Keith Richards was alive. He just fits perfectly into the show.

The revival.. could not get him, likely because he didn’t want to or saw the script and rightfully stone cold stunnered them, i.e. what he shoudl’ve done when Adam Sandler offered him Grown Ups 2. Seriously Adam why bring him in if he’s not going to do something wrestling related to you? This is why people don’t like your films. That and you keep giving your old buddy rob increasingly racist work. And david spade work. And nick swarsdon work. Please do keep giving Shaq work though he’s actually not half bad.

So instead they bring in Einstein and the joke.. is that he swears a lot and drinks a lot and pulls his pants down at the end.> That.. that’s it. I mean the original , at least the episode given to me, didn’t make a GREAT impression, but at least it was creative. The Reboot came off as shockingly lazy and half assed, with lesser voice actors for our hosts and far less effort put in and this is the biggest emblem of that. Soooo

Winner; Rockstarmageddon 4 to 2

Final Round: Their Not Dead

The final round is a short one and while the winner is already decided, might as well. Both episodes do a joke about one of the guests NOT being dead.. but once again Rockstar is more clever about it. Nick is CERTAIN Keith Richards is dead, and forces Stone Cold to bring him to the present... only for Keith to show up, and there be two keiths. One fades away due to time travel stuffs, a REALLy damn good gag, and Nick’s dogged instance he’s not dead despite everyone knowing he isn’t is just damn funny.

IN contrast all they have for the late great Adam West.. is insisting he’s dead. That’s it. that’s all they got. It’s not funny, it’s disprectful to Adam who while not an a list actor did a ton of stuff after batman. I mean the simpsons alone should shut them the fuck up...

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This one short gag is a MUCH better one than that entire 7 minutes. It was also DEEPLY uncomfortable now Adam’s passed. So naturally

The Winner of this Segment and Overall; Rockstarmageddon.

I wouldn’t say I LIKED either episode this go round, both had some pretty bad spots..but it’s very clear that while the original had it’s flaws, it was creative, had tons of energy, and a great voice cast. The revivial... has a good chris farley impersonator and that’s it. It’s very clear the people behind the reboot just don’t get the show and are doing the lazy bare minimum. While I didn’t LIKE most of the matches in Rockstarmageddon, I can at least respect the craftmanship: the animation, host jokes and energy is just BETTER. There’s a care and craft the revivial dosen’t have and the drop in quality is noticeable.

So yeah overall the original wins.. but the episode chosen clearly wasn’t it’s best. That being said both had some good moments, and I would be open to watching more if any one wants to comission it. This experiment has been intresting so let me know in the comments if you want to see more of these and i’ll see you at the next rainbow. And please join my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet.

#celebrity deathmatch #lenny kravitz #jimmy hendrix #keith richards #dave matthews #shaggy #bob marley #adam west #christian bale #horatio sanz #chris farley #jamie fox #ray charles

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