#VEDJ-F talks

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Ninjago Ships: My Personal Ranking of Them

I had the urge to write out a list of Ninjago ships and give my opinion on them. I could use the tier maker things for this, but I wanted to actually make this comprehensive and give myself a reference for my views.

For the sake of simplicity, this list will just cover the monogamous ships. Bring in polyamory and it would become a whole lot longer, plus there’s not really any ship of that sort I’m fond of so it’d be kinda samey.

Also this is under a read more since the list is so long.

LET’S FSM-ING GO

Ships that I really like and actively ship.

Lava - I was hesitant on even checking out Ninjago until I saw these two bounce off each other in the movie video game and realised I'd misjudged it. But they genuinely have one of my favourite dynamics in the movie and the show. It was present prior to March of the Oni, in fact it was pretty nice in the original run before the Elements batch tried to write it out (although Possession was a peak). Since March of the Oni, it has become so lit (pun intended), there’s good material for it in every season since, even the one where Cole was deep in the mountain for most of it.

Pixane - What can I say, it's a cute couple who have had solid writing throughout. It's more impressive since it managed to make the "hey lets bring in a love interest and make it on sight" thing actually work for Zane's bigger humanity arc in Rebooted and only went up from there.

Jaya - What can I say, it's a cute couple who...have certainly had it rough at times. I think it was actually done pretty sweet in the original run (bar minor writing flaws here and there), got derailed in the Elements batch but rerailed thanks to season 7 and the movie forcing their hand. Nowadays it's fine.

Okay I Guess

Ships I don’t feel super strongly about, but there’s stuff I like about them.

Scruff - I can't think of that much dynamic between them outside of season 7 because they haven’t appeared together in events that weren’t erased outside of that, but I -get- it. I would not be opposed if they got more interaction in Crystalised.

Techno - Hey, they were consistently the best written characters in the early seasons so I keep a little bit of fondness for this one. Plus they just generally gel together thanks to their respective talents, actually have had a few moments to bond (especially early on), and who can forget the surprise gift that was "Sweatin' at the Goldies"?

JetFaith - Like Scruff, only even more limited since it only applies when the group turn on the Iron Baron. Still, I did find the idea kinda cute. That being said, it was a miracle we got Faith in March of the Oni, and I doubt we'll see either of them again.

Samurai - Nya and Pixal are pretty cordial, I can see them confiding in each other given their roles and linked history with the Samurai X identity.

Llokita - Hey, someone for Lloyd to actually talk to. I have no idea what the show plans for Akita, but what was shown was some fun banter and no big moves out the gate, and that's good. There is the whole ambiguity with ages of both of them, but I’m assuming the show considers them similar age to write them the way they did.

Glacier - Fun fact, when I first broached the show fandom at all, the fandom indicated that this was the show's equivalent to the movie's Lava. Then I actually watched the show and realised that Lava was the show's answer to Lava. I can only think of two big moments for Cole and Zane, both being prison escapes basically. Otherwise? Neat on paper, but eh.

Gemstone - Before seeing Master of the Mountain, I thought it was weird Plundar was paired with Cole out of all the Upply. Having now seen it a few days ago, I see where it came from. Not super strong on it, but could be cool. I think Plundar would need more development though.

Nightshade - This is almost entirely theoretical. Toxikita and Chamille sounds like a pair that could be really fun...too bad they didn't even really interact in Tournament of Elements and Chamille was also absent for Hunted (heavily implied to be evil, even). Not sure we'll see them again either.

Meh

Ships I’m indifferent to. There’s a lot of these.

Amberphoenix – Like others, it’s neat conceptually, but I don’t recall Nya and Skylor having too many interactions in Hunted. Then again I didn’t find Hunted overall memorable so that doesn’t help.

Opposite – Definitely not in the early seasons, even with Kai’s reaction to Zane’s death. Post-Movie seasons got them to work together on more occasions, but to me they come off like friends who really like ribbing each other when they get the chance. I don’t know if people seeing this are old enough to be in the workplace, but there’s always those two guys in any office I’ve worked in. Think that, but with ninja.

Wusako – Don’t actively root for it, but I don’t mind it in the same way others seem to have a problem with it. Guess it depends on how willing you are to accept messier situations like that.

Royalamber/Sunrise/Cherry/whotheheckknows – Basically crackshipping since Skylor and Vania have never met (although Vania seemed keen on the events of the Tournament of Elements). I just find it hilarious that this exists. That being said, there isn’t nothing in common (they have shared trauma over asshole fathers for instance), but when I look at them, I see Skylor becoming more like a big sister to Vania more than anything.

Eyepatch – I get why this one would be appealing since they’re both conniving rat-men with baggage. However, I don’t think they’d get along at all if they actually met. Ronin is a thief who wants to make a living, and Clutch wants glory through the artefacts more than anything, those seem like contrasting goals. Also I don’t think Ronin would appreciate Clutch kind of dooming Nya to die considering his previous rogue mentor role to her. That, and I am far more biased to Clutch material in City instead of Ninjago, sorry.

Copper – I just don’t get this one to be honest. Like, I can’t even remember scenes with Dareth and Cyrus together, let alone with chemistry.

Bluewire – I mean, them helping out each other has been cute for the few moments it happened, but it didn’t feel like there was anything there romantically.

Firewall - I mean...I guess I remember that scene in season 3? It was the funniest part of the worst episode of Rebooted at least. But nah, Kai and Pixal give me the same vibes as Zane and Kai except as more distant co-workers.

StolenData -  This is basically AmberPhoenix but with even less interaction between Skylor and Pixal. I don’t have anything else for it.

Thinkfast - ...This is a thing? I’m more stumped than anything.

Spell - Really, this would be abuse since it's clear that Master Chen is a power-hungry tyrant who gives no shits about anyone, let alone Clouse. But Clouse is a thoroughly loathsome individual so it's a match lol.

Nah Ta

This category is for two kinds of ships; ships I don’t like, and ships that I want as strictly platonic as that dynamic is really good.

Plasma – This has even less to work with than most ninja ships, with one bit where Jay was off his head and the proposal practice. Otherwise, Kai has taken so many opportunities to dig into Jay, and I’m pretty sure the feeling’s mutual.

Hope - I see this more as Faith being the cool aunt to Wu before he fully ages up, but I'm not super opposed to it I guess. The one factor that brings it below the line is that Faith's interactions with him were mostly while he wasn't his full self, so I don't know how it would work in normal parameters anyway.

Braincell – Honestly, not sure why, but these two make me want a really strong friendship from the fact they’re clearly the level-headed of the ninja (with Pixal holding both their braincells when they’re in antics), but don’t really want it pushed further. Dunno what’s up with that.

Conia – This a nice platonic ship, subverting the love on first sight cliché by both making it not love at all and still developing a strong friendship between them. Keep it that way.

Entombed – Aspheera is at least a thousand years Pythor’s senior. While this doesn’t toll on romance necessarily since Pythor is clearly an adult, I don’t think he’d see her as anything other than an ancestral figure given how well she’s known in Serpentine history.

Dayle – Dareth has been kind of a creeper to Gayle in the past. There’s been more genuine moments, but I’d not rather not.

Future – In canon, absolutely not. This gets its own entry here because the fanon for it isn’t actually that terrible? It basically runs off the fact that Acronix was far more sympathetic than Krux (manipulated by Master Chen, frozen in time so he wasn’t stewing in this pre-meditated plan for 40 years, less involved in the plan once freed) and pushes it into an outright redemption. I mean, Morro had something like that with his realisation of his deed in the final moments of Possession, so it’s not impossible, but again this is just for the fanon side. In canon Acronix hasn’t shown remorse and is pretty much dead.

Jadestorm – Speaking of Morro, what I mentioned above is why I don’t get this ship. If Morro was still his Green Ninja-loathing self I could totally see it, but he had turned around by the end of Day of the Departed, before Harumi entered the picture. And if Harumi didn’t repent in life, what makes anyone think she would do that in death either? The more likely case is that Morro would try to make Harumi see that she’s wasting her time, and she would just lash out because she cannot let it go (even when her blame is mislaid as far as she presents it).

Geode/Bruise – The one ninja ship I genuinely don’t like. It’s kind of not fair to it, but it still represents terrible writing for me. They’re at each other’s throats for a season due to an utter contrivance, then they bury the hatchet, which is fine...but then Jay brings it up again in the middle of Possession despite the love triangle not being an issue any more, and then Skybound spends its time course correcting even though the issue has long passed, and the event is erased on Cole’s side anyway. Just deciding to simplify it, calling them best friends and very occasionally calling back to it (as the show has done) is fine for me.

Kailor – Oh boy. If Pixane is “hey lets bring in a love interest and make it on sight” done right, this is that same idea but done wrong. I’ve mentioned in the past how the writing of it in Tournament of Elements was flawed and with no decent chemistry or dynamic, so there’s that. Which is really bad when that’s been basically the only season that bothered to try and justify it.

But I think there’s another issue, one that uniquely affects this ship more than any other ship post-movie; they haven’t bothered to establish how it even works in this version of Ninjago. The redesigns brought personality shifts with it. Most were pretty minor. But with Kai, as I’ve also said before, he had a massive issue with his personality shifting wildly between seasons, and what they decided on for him for Sons of Garmadon onwards is so much different to his personality in Tournament of Elements. With other ships, they got a chance to re-establish the dynamics and demonstrate how they still work (Jay and Nya just having a bit of an adjustment, Pixal having a new physical form which gives room to change her dynamic with Zane). Kai gets to interact with Skylor once to show brief concern when she’s powered down, and then they hug at the end, the show doesn’t bother to show how the newer Kai actually has a dynamic with Skylor. It’s no wonder every interaction they’ve had from Hunted onwards has been so off. Did you see that wink in March of the Oni? How did that come off as so awkward?

I mean, I guess they could try and say that they’ve been talking to each other offscreen to make it seem like the relationship has been ongoing as opposed to Kai literally never visiting her or trying to get in contact despite having the opportunities to do so. It’d still be terribly clunky, but at least I wouldn’t have to call it doomed to fail.

Garsako – Garmadon got with her until false pretences technically, and while he was nice for like two seasons, what has Misako had to live with outside of that time? A corrupted soul turned warlord who will have to kill her son to rule? I’d say no thanks.

Llorumi – Harumi deceived Lloyd, tortured him physically and mentally, tried to kill him and showed zero remorse for her actions. Even if she somehow came back to life and became good, it wouldn’t fix that load of nonsense. No.

Conya – Man, I may lay into Geode for being bad writing, but I am not letting the OG contrived ship off the hook at all. A machine tells Nya he’d be her best match and she goes with it despite not having any romantic spark with him prior? That’s not how people work. And then Cole pursues it heavily for a season before just dropping it? Can you say contrivance? And they didn’t even have any romantic chemistry for the brief time they were pursuing it.

Oh, but what’s been even more hilarious than the initial writing is how much this ship has been razed to the ground and sunk. There have been tweets from Tommy stating that Cole actually wasn’t interested in Nya when he pursued her, he was just confused because of her showing affection (which...what?). Then Skybound amped up his misogyny for Nya’s arc that season, further pushing them apart (sure, that was wiped, but Nya remembers it...or did before she became water). And if that wasn’t enough, Cole’s much later rant about her not having water powers directly to her face was hilariously vicious, especially since this was one episode after Firemaker, where Cole went out of his way to support her brother through the same issue!

Actually I have one more point to make, and it may rub some people the wrong way (especially on Twitter and Reddit lol); I think Cole is a lock for being gay. I don’t think it’s a fun headcanon, I don’t think he’s ambiguously bi or acearo or any other orientation. I genuinely think they are intentionally writing him as a man who only loves other men. The question is how this end up on screen. So yeah, this ship really doesn’t work for me.

Ninja/Villain Ships – If any of the villains were given a dating Catwoman dynamic, maybe, but Ninjago has never gone there, so for me it’s an outright no to any of these.

Lloyd/Other Ninja Ships - Honestly, I don't particularly care about this debate. I mean, if someone were to try and claim that Lloyd and another ninja were a romantic thing in an earlier season, I'd probably be like "that's fucked up". If someone were doing it with their current versions? The continuity on that is so confusing on that I just elect not to think about it. No, the reason I don't go for them is that all of the ninja just come off as older sibling figures, especially when the legacy of the Green Ninja exists. Even in later seasons where Lloyd is older, he’s singled out as needing looking over (for example, the power scene in Big Trouble, Little Ninjago).

Bizarre Copy Ships of Any Kind - They were meat puppets, so no.

Disguise Ships - A disguise doesn't change the person permanently what.

Incest Ships - DO I NEED TO EXPLAIN THIS ONE

So yeah, that’s a list of ships in Ninjago ordered on how much I like them. I don’t have much of an outro for this one. Soz.

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Ninjago Unpopular Opinions

Following on from my watch of the entire old series (combined with already having seen the last two series), I have enough material to work with to make a sort of unpopular opinion list. Some of these are lightweight, some of these are...uh, not so much. 

These aren’t in any particular order, this is more of a “I’ll just put them down as I remember them” sort of deal. That’ll be why they appear so messy. 

-Even after all this I prefer the newest seasons to the older stuff. There have been a surprising number of good to great older seasons, but I just love that hit of S1/S2 campiness with the more developed writing of later seasons. 

-Cole sucked as a leader, aside from in the pilot episodes. In the series proper he varied from complete meathead I hated (first part of S1), to having the same mentoring personality as everyone else (S1 - S2), to being consumed by the love triangle which made him pull a really shitty move (I don’t need to tell you what that refers to). He eventually gets ironed out in season 4, but Lloyd had already taken over as leader at this point. And rightfully so, even if Lloyd’s material got knocked from season 3 as a result. 

-I couldn’t really warm up to Ronin that much for some reason. I get the reason why he’s popular, since it was pretty obvious he was supposed to be like an off-beat mentor figure to Nya, but...I dunno, unlike with Dareth, it felt like his skeevy moments were more off-kilter, plus I didn’t really like his arc in Skybound (even if that was written out of reality). That being said, his was strong in Possession even with said moments. Maybe I just need a future appearance to see how I ultimately swing with him.

-I mentioned this in my Hunted overview, but I think Skylor’s just bland. Part of the problem is that she’s mainly just wedged in as an action girl and doesn’t have too many moments to interact outside of that. That’s mostly reserved for moments where she acts as Agony Aunt (which is fine, that shows that being supportive is in her nature), but she needs more to work with. And as an obvious offshoot, if Kailor is the intended endgame it sucks in its current form. They don’t have chemistry or a decent dynamic.

-The other Ninjago ship I don’t particularly like out of all of them is...actually Geode. Yeah, Rebooted obviously wasn’t good for it considering the love triangle, but what actually did more damage to it for me was Skybound. It went so far in trying to oversteer back that it beat you over the head with the fact they were making Cole and Jay best friends after said love triangle (made really obvious when Jay is worried about Cole’s reaction to him seeing Nya in his reflection in both Possession and Skybound, when Cole isn’t even phased when he’s told). It was just really off-putting.

-Jay is a better big brother figure to Lloyd than Kai. Yeah, Kai’s true potential moment in Rise of the Serpentine hinged on realising he (and the others, mind) were supposed to protect Lloyd, they all spent Legacy of the Green Ninja’s first half being Lloyd’s proper mentors, Zane’s death prompted Kai to hover with thoughts of the Green Ninja again (which seemed to me for different reasons to being envious of power at the start, although its handling was very clunky after that), and he had the first episode in Possession which was arguably the strongest showing of a dynamic with Lloyd, but Possession didn’t have much about it outside of said episode, and the show seemed to just forget it from that point beyond some very, very fleeting and sparse bits. In the more modern seasons, it feels like Jay’s stepped up to be more supportive of Lloyd on a more consistent basis (which would make sense with the common fanon that Jay is the youngest of the original Ninja, he’d be closer to Lloyd’s age). It’s something I kind of want tapped into in a proper way at some point.

-Sensei Garmadon is a bit overrated. Just a smidge. When he’s good, he’s good, but most of the time he’s no more interesting than Wu would be in the same position. And I feel like they didn’t really develop his fatherly bond with Lloyd too well despite that being what his character was there for. Again, aside from moments where he was really good.

-Most underrated season of the old batch for me was the last minute shock, March of the Oni. I did enjoy Day of the Departed (which has a worse reputation), but I can understand why someone wouldn’t like it considering how bare it was. March of the Oni is far from my favourite season but I thought it came together really well, so the fact it’s generally panned legitimately confuses me. I guess Hands of Time would be a contender too, but I think opinion on that has swayed in its favour after the new seasons came out (and Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjutsu would be here if I included the new batch) so that’s why it’s edged out. 

-Most overrated season for me was undeniably Tournament of Elements. It’s not my least favourite season, but Rebooted and Hunted are pretty maligned to begin with, while Tournament of Elements is usually considered one of the top ones. It starts strong, has an interesting premise and there are ideas that are executed well. The thing is that the elements that people tend to praise the season for are ones I actually think the writers dropped the ball on, hence why this ended up the toughest season to get to the end of, even more than Hunted. It’s a shame, but it’s just not for me. 

-Best ninja suits...honestly, I don’t really notice the suits unless they’re really bad, because I’m used to franchises where costume changes mark radical permanent redesigns, and are not just par for the course of the brand (it makes perfect sense with a toy brand who want to sell you the same characters over and over again but still). Not counting the S11 suits since they weren’t part of the old batch, I guess I’d honestly say the ZX suits, maybe? They’re simple, but they’re cute and very distinct. Also Sons of Garmadon Cole channelling the Movie costume was a very good move (and arguably looks even better ripped up in Hunted aethetically), and Kai’s suit was bleh in Sons of Garmadon but its overhaul in Hunted was way better. Also, just as a wildcard, Rebooted Lloyd looks like a more finely tuned ZX suit. Actually, just one last bit on a tangent to note a difference the show makes to the figures that demonstrates the figures’ limitations. For Kai and Jay’s S11 suits, their figures invoke similar feels (because underneath the accessories they do have a lot in common), whereas they feel very different in the show because while Jay sticks to the figure and looks snug, Kai has a lot exposed around the neckline, as if his gi is hanging loosely on the shoulders and should join Cole in the “For fucks sake it’s an ice realm wear a jacket please” club. 

-Worst ninja sui--what the hell happened to Cole and Nya in Hands of Time?! Nya’s main issue is that it’s trying to work too many colours and they just don’t mesh well. I think this was the time they were partially adapting the movie’s change, but they were clinging onto her having red to both represent Samurai X and her ties to her brother, but they should have just picked one or the other because it just doesn’t work the way it did in Skybound. And Cole’s outfit is just hideous. Its balance of colours and accents is all off-kilter, and to top it off the shoes just don’t work and somehow look like socks with sandals. I didn’t know that was doable with a whole suit. Finally, on a general note, I’m not a fan of when the suits are all very similar bar some very, very minor differences. One could argue that it makes them look more like a team, but I prefer the individual personality to come out. 

-It’s hard to judge the best and worst episodes, honestly. The seasons from Tournament of Elements onwards are done so tied to each other that picking an episode is rather difficult outside of designated finales (or the odd Jay-focused/Zane-focused episodes that happened in seasons 7, 8 and 9). I guess for best I’d say stuff like The Quiet One, or The Fall, or Grave Danger, or stuff like that would be up there. Worst episodes in those seasons are even harder, because usually it’s how arcs over episodes are written that get to me, not individual episodes.  This all being said, it’s much easier to do this with the more episodic first three seasons, and to that end I would still say that Tick Tock is my favourite standalone episode still, and Home is still my least favourite. For all the times the writing has dropped the ball, nothing has legitimately pissed me off more than what this episode did because it’s in its own category of bad writing. 

-There have been some concepts thrown in that, while they definitely wouldn’t work out in the long term, make for interesting snippets of what-ifs. Like, I loved the bit where Jay was a show host and got around the stage using his lightning powers. That seems like such a natural fit outside of his ninja identity I wish I’d thought of it. Imagine Bradley Walsh using lightning to get around the studio, that would be metal as fuck.

-On the other side of that coin, the bizarro Ninja are the single most overrated concept in the show. I don’t like Scourge the Hedgehog to begin with, but he at least had some efforts to make him unique (that fell flat, but eh). The bizarro Ninja are the equivalent of Evil Sonic; cliche and undeveloped. They’re not even useful for the cliche idea of framing the actual Ninja since even though they’re seen doing delinquent behaviour, this is never addressed. Heck Nadakhan was more effective with this idea. Thing is that I can’t blame the show at all for this. While the concept is naff, the show itself treats them as they actually were; Garmadon’s puppets and the scheme of the episode. Aside from bizarro Jay’s behaviour to Nya being full of unfortunate implications, there is no greater purpose for their existence, and the show never tries to do it again. It’s really the fans that have inflated their appearance in this case because I guess the idea of “take this nice character and give them an evil version” is just so appealing to the teenage demographic. Screw that, corruption is way more fun and interesting. 

-What I can blame the show for is the single worst execution of an idea, because to this point I still consider Kai’s green ninja “arc” in Tournament of Elements to be the single worst executed arc (yeah, even worse than the love triangle, but that one is still bad). The sad thing is it managed to convince me that it wasn’t such a bad concept when they explained it by being an offshoot of his depression following Zane’s death (before that I was very sceptical it could fit it in naturally after the last three seasons). But then it was used once when Skylor tried to get Kai to stab Lloyd in the back during the skating match (which Kai completely rebuffed and seemed over his depression-rooted negative vibes on Lloyd), and once more when he was overcome by the power of the staff. The latter is especially infuriating since this would have been the perfect opportunity for a character moment. Like, Lloyd and/or Skylor could have fought to get Kai out of the trance of the staff and see that his friends mean more to him than having power. It practically writes itself and is a perfect set-up. What happens instead is that Cole is technically the one to save Kai from himself as he rams the Roto Jet into the chamber and makes the rocky serpentine structure come crashing down on Kai. Maybe interesting to read into if you want a Lava reading of the show, but in that moment is just a wasted opportunity. Come on!

-Actually, also talking about other bad concepts, I don’t miss those weird energy dragons they could summon starting from Tournament of Elements. The dragons in Rise of the Serpentine/Legacy of the Green Ninja were fine because they had a logical reason for being there and actually were integrated into the plot (so you got to watch them being maintained and having moments with the ninja). The energy dragons in Tournament of Elements existed for one character as a plot thing (Zane’s, because he always had the good plots in the earlier seasons), but then everyone else suddenly could do it too and they became convenient plot devices and nothing else. Airjutsu I was more okay with because it seems more like a tool they’d use and could be integrated better, but I can also see why that stopped being used (outside of that one bit in Prime Empire).

-The Elemental Masters are both over-hyped and underdeveloped. The normal civilian cast really got the shaft once the series decided it wanted to explore this lore, yet the only ones I really got interested in in any way were the villain EMs and Karlof. And even Karlof is overlooked by the fandom, by the looks of it. 

-Jay actually came off the best in the Rebooted love triangle. He’s not entirely perfect, but he is essentially the biggest victim as a result of it in that season, and what Nya and Cole did either bordered on or was outright callous for different reasons. I think if people gave Jay the biggest shtick for Rebooted’s events, it’s influenced with how Skybound botched trying to patch it up. 

-The movie was a net positive influence on the show. Aside from me preferring the designs of the movie anyway, it forced the characterisation to actually pick a lane for each character and stick to it, mitigating a lot of the haphazard characterisation issues. The inconsistency in later seasons is tone instead, which is maybe why people thought the characterisation was inconsistent between Sons of Garmadon/Hunted and March of the Oni/SotFS (when really, they weren’t that different if at all). The show also made a good call in ignoring movie Zane’s characterisation; as much as I enjoy it in the film, it really didn’t gel up with what the show had done with him, so trying to force it in would have been more of a characterisation jolt than any of the early season stuff. 

-I’m generally fine with Jaya and Pixane. The former I can see why people would be off about it because there have been some badly written periods for them, but I think on the whole it manages to hold it together. The latter was written in surprisingly smoothly given the circumstances, so it’s no wonder I don’t see discourse about it. 

-Oh yeah, I don’t get Wu/Faith as a ship. Like, she was the cool drill instructor/aunt to everyone, including Wu. This is a quick one because it’s just a very small aside.

-Also I can’t really get behind Polyninja either. If the characters had a fairly even spread of interaction and moments between each other I could, but the spread ends up like lots of moments between Cole and Kai varying from little moments to huge dollops, and Cole and Jay having a whole best friends affirmation arc due to the fallout of the love triangle, to Kai and Jay having barely anything to work with and anyone with Zane getting a couple of table scraps occasionally. It’s not even enough.

-Following on from that though, Zane feels the least integrated with the group dynamic in general. He’s has some of the best plots and stories in the show, but nearly all of them have been focusing on him solo. And not even SotFS or Prime Empire helped with this one. Hopefully MoM can smooth this one out a bit. 

-Finally for this post, after going through all those seasons I still prefer Nya’s movie voice to her show voice by a significant margin. Sorry Kelly Metzger. 

I think that’s it. I’ve actually been on this for a week but I’ve been allowing time for more thoughts to come to me, because there have been a lot of thoughts coming in batches. I think I’ll leave it at this though, because I think most of it is covered pretty well.

I have at least two more text posts like this planned, but they’re not strictly about the old seasons so I’ve left them for after. I’m looking forward to them though, because they’re on specific topics and that is my bread and butter pudding. 

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Hey, I’ve finally gotten another step in my Ninjago watch!

Before I go through the season, there are some reasons why it’s taken so long to get to Possession.

1. Mum’s course I mentioned before is due to be handed in by tomorrow, so it’s been a bit hands on deck for her. Naturally, this means I’m being pulled in more to help.  2. The reason I started this was because I wasn’t able do my own work so had a lot of time to use up. Well, in the past week, it went from “oh you can’t work from home” to “you could but your smart card is at work and we won’t let you in so you’ll have to reject it” to “actually we can totally Indiana Jones it, here’s some WARs”, so I’m actually working again, so this will probably be a lot slower to go through. 3. Honestly, Tournament of Elements took a bit of wind out the sails. I mean, it was such a slog to go through, I was hesitant to do that again in a hurry if Possession ended up being a rinse and repeat of that.

But today, I’ve finally gotten through the season and...it’s serendipitous that this features the Elemental Master of Wind because this really was a second wind. I said that perhaps with it parring down the cast to a central focus that it would improve the quality over Tournament of Elements and that seems to have been the case. Let’s go through the points.

-I have barely anything bad to say about the characterisation of any character, main or side. Like, this season was mostly on point. I guess the main ninja were a touch on the mean-spirited side at the start, but this get smoothed out by the plot advancing. Jay could also get a little obnoxious at the start, but this was balanced out by him sassing out Wu for his absolute failure to disclose Morro’s existence anyway. -Of course the standout character is Nya, what with her whole sideplot and ending up a water-based BAMF in the ending. -The events of the Dark Island part of season 2 makes Kai’s fear of water and inability to swim jarring at first (because he swims just fine there), but I guess this was a change brought on by Rebooted’s soft reboot.  -Even Lloyd has his moments even though at this point his character feels fairly weak since the show is pretty much just interested in his status as this really powerful hero. But his moment to reconcile his grief with his dad is done nicely, and makes a better sendoff than season 4′s.  -Ronin’s good but that one moment was pretty uncomfortable. Thankfully due to circumstances it didn’t actually happen which prevents it from pushing it over. -But can I talk about the fact the show seems to expect you to have seen media outside of the show to understand his debut? When the ninja talk about Ronin as an old annoyance, I was like “man, you really think I played Shadow of Ronin, huh”. It would have been a shaky assumption in 2015 because the 3DS wasn’t exactly a big hit. But five years later, when the 3DS is nigh obsolete and I haven’t used mine in ages? It doesn’t help that the game is actually technically non-canon, only happening in vague.  -Morro is probably the best villain of the old stuff so far. I don’t care if he’s this edgy teenage bad boy that younger fans tend to veer to, his biggest strength is that despite him being another conqueror and having a lot of power, he still comes off as very human. He still has attitude quirks (like being a bit casual in places), he treats his minions different to any other villain so far, he makes mistakes and has slip-ups, and the conflict felt more like an actual to-and-fro as opposed to one side completely dominating over the other requiring some deus-ex to balance it (even season 1 had this issue, lest we forget how the ninja failed to secure a single thing in their fetch quest). Thus, when Morro is faced with his mortality and finally sees what Wu was trying to teach him, it feels like that would be a natural conclusion to his arc. -So Kai and LLoyd’s dynamic is good, it’s a callback to Kai’s development from season 1 where he got over himself and dedicated himself to looking after Lloyd (I mean, the episode itself fell a bit like an asspull, but S2 and S3 stuck it as a recurring theme), but what surprised me is that there’s actually relatively little of it in the season. There’s a bit at the beginning, then it tapers off until like the third to last episode. The way people talked about it made it seem like this big recurring arc but it’s not.  -Kai and Nya get surprisingly little throughout Nya’s actual training arc. You’d think Nya training to be the water ninja would be a bigger deal for Kai. They remember to give us a good dollop of it in the finale though.  -Can I take an aside to talk about Kai and Cole’s dynamic again? After S1 had such a good thing between them, I thought it was going to drop off entirely. S2 seemed to make good on that...but then S3 brought it back, albeit a bit more reserved. Even S4 had the same level. Why bring it up now? Because S5 turns it up to the point where it was one of the dominating dynamics outside of all four ninja together. And yet I have never heard this referred to by anyone. What, if two characters aren’t explicitly honed in on for interaction (ie Cole and Jay’s whole drama thing, Cole and Zane in S4/S8...I can’t think of any I’ve seen that don’t involve Cole yet), then it’s just pushed to the wayside? No wonder S13 seems to have decided that it finally needs to be addressed after the last two joint seasons focused on Jay and Nya then Kai and Nya.  -Speaking of, Jay and Zane actually get a cute dynamic going, albeit not as pronounced. Jay and Nya is surprising neglected, only getting some visual cues in the ending. Then again, I guess that’s what the next season is for.  -This season is not actually dark to be honest. There’s a couple of points where it drifts into that territory, but one moment is the climax which is typical for a kids show, and the other I guess is Cole’s thing (although the next episode took the edge out of that). That being said, kudos to them for sticking out the change to the status quo so it isn’t just a one season gimmick.  -Season 5 really said “That green ninja jealousy from S4 was shit so we’re just going to ignore it”. While I still have an issue with it as above, this is a relief. -Pacing here is fine, I have no issues with for once. 

So overall, Possession is a pretty good season, I can see why so many consider it one of, if not, the best. My only real beef with it is that the secondary dynamics (outside of the four ninja but within the general team) end up surprisingly underutilised. Otherwise, the only other barrier it has with me is just my preference for more light-hearted affair than this season’s fairly middling (but not dark) tone, but it’s so competently done that it still manages to outpace seasons that do hit that tone.

I would have to see S11 again to see how I’d stack it up to this, but my current season ranks are as follows;

S12>S11>=S5>S1>S2>S4>S3

So, next time I watch again, it’ll be one of the more marmite seasons in the pack; Skybound. One of the coolest season names, but can it continue Possession’s quality?

For now though, I have a whole thing lined up gushing about Prime Empire’s thematic roots because Prime Empire is amazing. And also I’ll have a (probable) season finale to watch and S13 leaks to look for. 

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

The Reason Lucy Rejected Tough Emmet (and why Catchy Song has another meaning)

So, as I’m want to do, I did another run through of TLM2 for enjoyment. The fun thing about this film is that you can go back to it a hundred times and still catch something you’ve been overlooking. This time, it’s about Lucy’s takeaway from Emmet’s toughening, and how that plays into a larger narrative arc.

Uncomfortable Lucy 

So the first scene being referred to is the one where the bricks are being shipped off to the temple. Lucy and Emmet reunite and it’s all happy and nice. Then Lucy, being curious, expresses her surprise that he was able to make it. This is when Rex pops up to interject about himself and how tough Emmet has become. It’s not just a pep talk though. During one part of the conversation he enforces this talk by punching Emmet in the arm, which Emmet is pretty clearly not happy about. 

Nonetheless, with the thought of impressing Lucy and Rex’s guidance at his side, he starts posing like a proper tough guy while Rex gushes on him. The posing is very awkward and clearly forced. Lucy is...pretty taken aback by this.

Now it’s easy to assume that she was taken aback because she realised that she wanted sweet Emmet and not tough Emmet. Personally, I think in this particular scene there’s a little bit more at play, in that Lucy is catching on to the fact that this behaviour is visibly uncomfortable for Emmet to do, and seems especially so when it’s due to following the example of a guy he’s known for less than an hour. She lets it slide though because she still thinks of Systar as the baddies that need to be stopped. As I’ll get to later though, this was a mistake. 

The next scene in this chain is the one in the temple itself. After they survive the cake ordeal, there’s the kerfuffle over Lucy’s hair. Rex is actively trying to wedge Lucy and Emmet apart by planting the seeds of distrust over Lucy’s loyalty given the whole brainwashing thing she and Emmet think is going on. She just barely manages to win over Emmet to continue the mission. Rex decides to press on as well, but in a very...questionable way. 

This time, instead of just staying by his side, he gets in really, really close. Like, unwarranted levels of close. Again, Lucy is clearly taken aback because that is a huge violation of personal space. At this point, although she continued on, I think Lucy caught onto the fact Rex specifically had something amiss about him. 

This culminates in the big cake scene. Lucy has learned the big deal with the Systarians, and wants to tell Emmet when she realises he’s still in the mindset to destroy the wedding. Emmet isn’t buying though, and part of the frustration she’s having with getting through to him is a little voice in Emmet’s ear...

Even here, Lucy realises who must be on the end of that headset, but she’s got no power to do anything about him here. Thus, when she bears her heart out to him, the influence is too strong and Emmet rejects her to fulfil the mission. 

All the time, Lucy could see the damage that was being done by his new “friend”, but because it wasn’t caught and stopped fast enough it ended up costing nearly everything. Speaking of which...

When a Person is a Catchy Song

Not too long ago, I did an analysis comparing the Loud Song from Lego City Adventures to the Catchy Song. The main takeaway was that the Loud Song was bubbly and fun, while Catchy Song is more aggressive and threatening. Which works well for it’s comparison to the more cynical side of pop music and conventional brainwashing tactics, but may not be all there is to it. 

Consider the full version of “Not Evil”. There is a chorus cut for the film that has these exact lyrics; 

“I'm Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi I never trick people into trusting me By hiding my true personalities So I can use them to accomplish my evil deeds 'Cause that'd be evil and that's so not me”

As has been pointed out many times, these lyrics describing what Watevra is not are a perfect mirror to what Rex is. But I’d like to propose that Catchy Song in its entirety is a mirror to Rex, with the section before being a perfect snapshot of why. 

What Rex ultimately represents is the pressure on children (boys specifically really) to grow up, abandon childish things and conform to the expected persona of being aloof and unemphatic. This can be as manufactured and packaged as any pop music, and through the scenes where Rex forces himself closer and closer, and more and more taking over Emmet’s thoughts it shows its own brand of brainwashing, and him getting stuck inside his head. 

Really, this all begins with his very first scene with Emmet. When I was dragged to the film reluctantly, the first bit did amuse me (which caught me by surprise), but as soon as I saw this guy I instantly thought “Okay, so this guy will be like a jerkass mentor who’s reluctant to take the protagonist under his wing and will probably make some moves on the female protagonist later to Emmet’s jealousy, this is the same sort of tropey crud that put me off Lego Movie”. But things soon became weird, because his attitude to Emmet bore nothing of the trope and his connection to him snapped from “Begrudgingly accepting” to “Protecting him come hell or high water”. 

From the perspective of getting inside his head though? It makes perfect sense why he’d behave this way. Before he goes through the motions of “thinking on” Emmet coming along, he spends a good deal of time buttering him up by bigging up his accomplishments (which as I’ve mentioned way back are exaggerated to what actually happened and excluded the efforts of his friends, a form of gaslighting if you will). And once he gets Emmet to trust him, he drops the facade of being reluctant entirely and just wants to get him to the point of being tough. 

This also explains later behaviour; despite his tough facade, Rex is sill prone to moments of sheer panic (a big visual clue about his true identity way before the reveal). What’s most interesting is when this actually occurs, since it’s mostly refined to four moments;

The lattermost moment is probably the least significant because they were in actual peril then. That being said, it is interesting that he focuses his sights on Emmet, as if his main concern is making sure he makes it out of there.

The third screenshot is almost the same, but they weren’t really in peril then. If anything, Emmet hanging around to see them be organised and actually pretty chill could have put his ultimate goal in jeopardy.

The first screenshot is like the third, but with an extra layer due to the context. Emmet easily perceived this as being peril (because, you know, tentacle creatures), but Rex surely didn’t considering his pep talk to Emmet isn’t about them being dangerous, but not wanting him to fall for their cuteness. 

The second screenshot, during the actual Catchy Song sequence, is the most damning to Rex’s real intent. When Emmet sees this normal couple just standing there with drinks, Emmet doesn’t even perceive a threat. Why would you, you just burst into their house and they were surprisingly chill about it. Rex freaks out straight away though; Emmet speaking to these normal non-chasing people for two seconds would bring the brainwashing charade and make it impossible for his brand of brainwashing to get stuck there. Hence, he panics and this prompts Emmet to perceive this as peril, Rex regaining his composure shortly like every other occasion. 

At the end of the day, Rex wants to take over Emmet’s thoughts, the ultimate step in him becoming Rex entirely. He’s a crooked mirror of what the Catchy Song sings about despite it’s harmless intentions. 

He’s honestly a really creepy villain when you dig underneath the superficial layers of just being a brute, and it’s probably why I’ve come to like him so much as a villain. 

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

More Ninjago watching at 4am in the morning, what could go wrong? And speaking of time, today it was the turn of Hands of Time. Hands of Time marks a number of endings. We see the original designs one last time, it’s the last time Jillian Michaels  voices Lloyd, and it marks the end of the brief period where the show was being affected production-wise by the film (which is where like half the concepts of the season come from (or at least from the scrapped ideas for said movie), as it turns out.

But what did I think of Hands of Time itself? Honestly, I think it’s a really great season. It’s weird in some ways but not in ways I consider negative for the most part. Let dig into the notes.

-Kai and Nya are on pretty great form this season, with Kai’s personality seemingly the transition to what would become the foundation going forward, and Nya mixing in a cute sub-plot that isn’t even related to the sibling thing, which came as a relief to me. In fact, the fact that the sibling thing doesn’t dominate the plot until the last two and a half episodes is good because they can sprinkle it in naturally (something which Possession missed a trick on with Kai and Lloyd) while letting them bat off the others too. The brother and sister dialogue thing is annoying, but thankfully is only used in a couple of scenes. The other thing that irked me is that it seemed to walk back a bit on what Possession did; S5 suggested that Kai had the biggest big brother instinct for Lloyd, but it was Jay who was most supportive of Lloyd’s master thing here? Huh? -The other main cast are on good form too, even Pixal despite the fact the show won’t reveal to use how much Pixal was here until next season probably. Jay sometimes veers close to the line of being obnoxious, but that thankfully gets reeled in and leads to one pretty epic moment where he confronts Acronix, and a whole episode where he gets to show off. It’s his only episode really, but it’s better than nothing. Cole, Zane and Lloyd have some small arcs of their own (in Cole’s case, it’s tiny), but at least they get to be involved in the team plot as well and get brief, good interactions (instead of leaving some in the dust). Wu was on good form this season too. Yeah, it repeats the whole “There’s something I haven’t told you” shtick, but this season really calls him out for it.  -Sides characters are once again surprisingly sparing in this season despite. Misako, Dareth and Ronin have basically one or two scenes each, and they’re fight scenes. Skylor appears too as an agony aunt of sorts (like season 5, which I didn’t mention), and all these examples are basically just fodder for Pixal’s confrontation from Nya. -No, it’s the parent characters who get more out of them this time. Ed and Edna get to shine again in Jay’s aforementioned episode, Cyrus Borg is a complete primadonna and is the best parent of the season (to Pixal, obviously), Ray and Maya are alright, and their moment first meeting their children grown up is done well, but they don’t get much time to really show off the full extent of their personalities due to circumstances, and Lou even gets a bit in with a more comedic slant (a minute or two before the Kai and Nya parent bonding...uh, tonal whiplash a bit). Even Jay’s mother and Skales get some time to show off through little cameos (the former not getting to bond with Jay due to it being the past and Jay being in the present).  -The Vermillion Army aren’t as engaging as the previous two seasons’ enemies, but they’re amusing in their antics outside of the more dramatic parts. I mean, they’re Serpentine, that’s kind of their thing.  -The Hands of TIme, aka Krux and Acronix...I’m just going to add Krux to my collection of older characters who I like who tend to get hated by the fandom. He’s good as a character, I like how he can mesh the ridiculous persona of Dr Saunders with menace, snark and grumpiness. Acronix is good too, I especially like the contrast between him being posed as a genuinely very serious villain (aside from one or two more cheesy lines) in the first episode to being like Deedee from Dexter’s Lab in the next episode. I actually think their dynamic with each other was kind of under-utilised though. I mean, outside of planning, most of their dialogue was about the conflict of modern tech against traditional ways, and while that was a good source of comedy, I feel there should have been more to it (like the brief line where Acronix notes that their mother always thought Krux as stubborn). Props to Krux for faithfully waiting for his brother for 40 years and neither of them even considering backstabbing the other, at least you can tell they’re very loyal brothers. -The tone of the season was completely unexpected. Even though it does have more of the world building and story expansion as the previous 3-4 seasons, this one tonally feels akin to S1/S2. Very strange, but appreciated since I prefer that sort of tone.  -The story was fine generally, and did feel balanced despite it being a Kai and Nya focus season according to itself. I did feel the disposal of Krux and Acronix was kind of quick. I guess the main thing was getting one over the Iron Doom, but the personal final fight was still over in a flash. 

So overall, I really like this one, it’s up there with my favourites of the pre-S11 stuff. Is it better than Possession? I’d say no but just because it’s a bit weaker on the villain and on the side of all the characters time to bond, although they don’t go without by any means. It’s still a good watch and a good time. 

So, next time, we’re getting a huge paradigm shift. Say goodbye to the OG designs and Jillian Michaels in lead position, and say hello to the movie repercussions (which I feel are better designs across the board mostly) and Sonic’s Underground singing voice stepping up to voice the Ultimate Spinjutsu Master in Sons of Garmadon. 

One last little note down here, this season made me realise that every fusion so far was made with romantic love. Sure, Kai and Nya used the fire and water fusion dragon themselves later, but it was created by Ray and Maya initially. Just interesting to me.

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

So I’ve made a few posts analysing Rex Dangervest. That’s all fine and good because he does have a lot to analyse (it’s a very good film with a lot of emphasis on theming, it comes with the package). 

However, I don’t think I’ve done any in-depth stuff with the other LEGO Rex most people know after that, and my PFP, Rex Fury. It’s a shame because I think between Chase Begins and LCU, there is a nice arc to analyse with Rex, but because way more focus is given to Chase’s arc (because protagonist and all), Rex is often seen as this pretty flat brute. So, I’m going to be tracking his characterisation between Chase Begins and LCU and showing that he too had a shift in character, and one for the darker at that. 

Merry Little Troublemaker

In my last post related to Rex Fury, I drew comparison to Emmet in where his arc goes. That being said, I want to make clear that Rex and Emmet have very different start points; Emmet is a run-of-the-mill worker who ends up becoming a hero due to his inherent qualities prior to his turn. Rex Fury is a bad apple from the very beginning. LCU even explicitly states that Rex’s criminal career started when he was just six years old (although we’re only shown him winding up kid cops by taking their doughnuts). 

All we know after that is that Rex eventually worked his way up the criminal chain to be considered the biggest criminal in LEGO City, and he has been arrested at least once before the events of Chase Begins. Then again, is being top of the chain really that much of a big deal if the competition isn’t that threatening. As we’ll see later, most of the crime he actually commits is closer to the standard of a very persistent above average criminal. The best comparison I can think of right now is Daisy Kaboom from LEGO City Adventures; she’s certainly the main criminal figure but she’s only got a bit more competence on her side compared to her colleagues. 

A really important point I should cover at this point is Rex’s actual personality in Chase Begins. For a start, he’s very cocky and joyful, for lack of a better word. When he gets to meet Chase for the first time, it’s via a sneak attack when Chase shows up in the middle of Rex getting explosives for the main heist. But for most of it, he’s got an adorable happy little manner throughout. He’s even jokingly thanking Chase by the end of the conversation!

The notable exception to this is when Chase accidentally reveals that Natalia has been freed from her frozen state, which Rex presumably thought would be able to hold her until the heist was over. 

Him taking the information in and rethinking the plan over is the first bit of vulnerability Rex shows, and it’s right in front of Chase’s face as well.

Second of all, Rex displays implicit but still very-much-present altruism. For example, the escape from Albatross Island he does involves freeing pretty much every prisoner, and not all of them end up working on his plan later either. Amongst them were four other major criminals considered comparable in rank to Rex himself. Out of those, it’s not clear who was working on the plan with him for sure, but we know at least Flash Johnson must have been since he was part of the Apollo Island distraction efforts. On top of all this, he later entrusts the abduction of Natalia (the only instance in the series where Rex abducts Natalia himself) and the Mayor to Snake and Bruiser (lower goons) respectively, while he sorts out something else. Compared to later conduct, that’s a high level of respect. 

Finally, there’s the heist itself. The contentious and lethal part of Rex’s entire plan in the game is the use of dynamite on buildings. While in the real world that would be classed as a terrorist act probably, in LEGO terms that’s a pretty standard higher-level criminal thing (Daisy Kaboom, as hinted by the name, even specialises in it). Plus, as Deputy Dunby (yes, Dunby) realises, all of his actions (both the fires and the kidnapping) were intentional diversions, so if Rex banked on the police showing up to these places and saving the people trapped long enough to pull off the heist, he probably wasn’t intending for there to be loss of life. It’s a reckless plan, but not that malicious. 

The Snapping Point

So as the big heist goes on, Chase eventually manages to work past the distractions and reach Rex Fury himself as he’s robbing the bank. Here is where his trademark anger really starts to flare, but even in this angered state he’s not that terrible. He gets a chance to show off his strength when he goads Chase to approach him (although he doesn’t throw him that far, so I’d say at this point his strength was merely above average and not super strength), he sets a fire behind him to put a barrier between him and Chase (which is more dangerous to him than Chase), he uses his dynamite to destroy property and not directly on Chase, and he even gets a bit of a casual word in with his goons. 

After this, he is rightfully frustrated, which only heightens when Chase insults his education. They get into a fisticuffs on the stairs of the bank, which leads up to the only other bit of vulnerability Rex shows while coherent; 

He’s recovering from the blows to his body (because he definitely is much weaker than in LCU), and as a result he decides to flee, taking a nearby rubbish truck. When that gets stopped, he does another runner, but when you get on the same vehicle, he resorts to hiding behind a shield while his goons try to attack you and fire with a water cannon (his only form of retaliation being to shunt the shield). 

Chase manages to throw him off the truck in one throw, and upon landing he gets completely dazed, ending his plan once and for all. Dunby makes an easy arrest, Chase accidentally reveals Natalia is willing to testify against Rex while Rex looks on dazed still, all ends happy...according to Chase Begins. 

LCU recounts this moment a little longer, but what is clear is that somewhere in that moment, when the humiliation, the anger and the failure against a complete rookie finally seemed to sink in, something in Rex Fury just...snapped, and he was no longer the run-of-the-mill criminal who was content with reckless distractions. Presumably while Dunby was seeing Chase off, Rex tried to do another getaway. His first showing of the change wasn’t exactly the greatest, granted (a lawnmower, really? Must have still been a smidge dazed), but what is notable is that the subsequent final arrest for that incident had him able to hold against six officers. If he was only a bit stronger in Chase Begins, how did he achieve that? Simple; the same way Emmet was able to achieve momentary feats of great strength, by channelling his heightened anger.

The Monster of LEGO City

After this point, Rex changed in a variety of ways, even if he still kept his position as top baddie. For a start, instead of being held in the regular part of the prison, he was given his own cell secluded in the warden’s office, effectively acting as a permanent solitary confinement. Over time, Warden Stonewall took the position from Warden Fielding. Unlike Fielding, Stonewall was corrupt, so to make his time easier with Rex he allowed concessions to Rex (basically anything he wanted if he was able to negotiate for it, and even allowing him to have the tools for escape, although he couldn’t just let him free as this would compromise his position). This meant two things happened; 

1. He was able to build his strength. Much like Rex Dangervest, there’s solid evidence he had been following a kind of exercise regime with a punching bag and numerous dumbbells. This made the momentary burst of strength a permanent feature. 

2, The altruism was practically gone. Instead of letting all of the other prisoners out in a grand scheme, his escape was only for himself, leaving everyone else to stay rotting in the prison. In addition, during his stay he had started to manipulate others into sourcing certainly luxuries, only to renege on the deal and stiff them. This is a tactic he’d eventually play to Vinnie with practically all the stuff Vinnie retrieved, when sometime after his escape from Albatross Island he agreed to work for Forrest.

It’s important to note how differently he does his plan in regards to others even once he’s freed. Instead of speaking directly to his goons, most of the communication is done through walkie talkies and is very impersonal (the exception is right at the very end, but even then his talk to them is very direct, not playful). He’s more willing to speak in person to those more equal to his station, but with Vinnie this was to continue “negotiations” and reveal a new tool in his arsenal; coercion by force. As for Forrest, this was probably the lightest he behaved, but it was still very matter-of-fact...mostly. 

The third change, the one that had built up silently, is probably the most fundamental one of all; his mischievous, angry and reckless but ultimately still tame personality had been replaced with malice, hatred, cruelty and a thirst for revenge. Compare how he confronted Chase in Bluebell Mines in Chase Begins compared to the same confrontation in LCU. 

There is no sneak attack here, he confronts him to his face in the open. And when Chase tries to retaliate, he responds in kind with a punch to the face. It also leads to the only moment what can be considered straight-forward glee he has; being told about the truck that’s been secured from the LCPD (a feed to his need for revenge). This is cut short when he loses his temper with the goons on hand with the ice cream truck, a much lower tolerance for their antics here than in Chase Begins. 

Much later on, after Vinnie decides to (unwittingly) cross Rex’s boss, Rex begins to display how deplorable he’s really become when he orders his men to put Vinnie on ice, ironically being more outright gangster than mafia don Vinnie. Unlike with Natalia, there would be no way for Vinnie to eventually thaw out, so this was an explicit murder attempt (even if it may have been under orders from Forrest higher up). 

This borders on depravity when Chase infiltrates Rex’s secret base to find Rex detaining and torturing Henrik Kowalski. It’s true that Rex was not the only one guilty of torture in LCU, but when Chan did it, it was in response to Natalia trespassing to find his secrets, and for the utilitarian purpose of extracting information about why she was there and what she had found out, before keeping her restrained up a crane once he’d got what he wanted. Forrest told Rex in the scene prior that he’s already secured the leverage that would get Henrik to talk (aka Natalia), but not only is this in response to Rex being keen to do this by physically beating him, he still goes ahead with a different form of torture when it served no purpose to the scheme. At that point it was for his sick pleasure. Again, not too dissimilar to Rex Dangervest, who had Emmet to rights under the dryer already but went along to gloat and eventually torture him to twist the knife in. 

Also note that Rex had to be aware of what Forrest’s ultimate plan was when he was granted his own spacesuit and would have need to travel to Blackwell Tower right after the torture scene. Given his eye roll when Henrik explains that the original proposal would have caused the animals to die (he was shown to be somewhat of an animal lover in Chase Begins), his sneer in anticipation of Henrik being threatened with his daughter’s life and complete lack of response to Forrest concluding his message (to take Natalia to the ship), Rex is 100% complicit in homicide on a mass scale.

Way up in space, Rex shows off the only other time he shows more of his old spirit; bragging to Chase about how he was the one who got him the robot T-Rex (the one Rex was now going to use to try and kill Chase). After this point though, between Chase besting the robot and Forrest stabbing him in the back, he becomes consumed with anger. He doesn’t show vulnerability this time, he just rages in response to Forrest. Even after the unit explodes and he barely survives on the ruins, his only goal is to kill Chase. While he does elect to use a shield for a bit, when the thing comes down he tries to run Chase down, choke him and throw him off the edge, he doesn’t hide. Throwing bodies at him only dazes him, which would have ended his scheme in Chase Begins but is merely a minor setback here. Only when the unit is broken completely and Rex is left to fall to the planet does his plan come to a stop. For reference, even Rex Dangervest shows vulnerability right up until Emmet makes it clear that he refuses to go along with his plan after learning all the hurt he caused, making him go insane. It’s implied the same has effectively happened here (”Are you mad?! We’re plummeting to out doom!”).

He gets humiliated further when he lands in a toilet, but even with the toilet on his head and with handcuffs on, after falling through space, he had enough resistance left to give the two officers moving him a hard time. It’s unknown how his future would pan out from that point.

The last thing I want to cover is how this is symbolised by his clothing ware. The beginning of Chase Begins and LCU imply that Rex isn’t a stranger to being bare-chested, but it’s always been very temporary. When he first appears in person in Chase Begins, he wears full clothing; a vest and a domino mask. When Chase has angered Rex outside of the bank, he’s not wearing his domino mask, stripping a layer from his self. In the ending, he wears the domino mask again but it slips off, and the domino mask is never seen again. LCU then shows the vest for only a brief time before he spends the rest of the game (up to the space suit) bare-chested, this time making the exposure to his more raw side a permanent fixture. 

So there we go, an (over)analysis of Rex Fury and what elements make him so interesting to me. I think it helps he was given two games to work across. Plus, outside of all this, he’s entertaining as heck. 

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

You know what? I know I only did Hunted yesterday, but March of the Oni is only four episodes long so heck yeah I blitzed that too. 

A little background before I actually cover my thoughts; March of the Oni feels just as much like old Ninjago before my entrance into the fandom as the other seasons. The truth is that it isn’t; I got into LEGO again because of watching TLM2 about mid-late February. I then went nosing around other LEGO branches a month later in March, which covered things like Friends, Clutch Powers, LCU, Nexo Knights and Ninjago. By the time I reached that, it was around the time March of the Oni was airing, so I got to see the reactions to the season in real time. Of course, I couldn’t really join in because I didn’t watch it with them.

But now I have, and it’s honestly rather fun, if not a bit weird. There is one obvious issue, but I think we can predict what that is. But enough of a history chat, I’ll get into my season note write-up!

-The characters are pretty on point even with the lighter tone. At its heart this is a focus on Lloyd to wrap up his plot, and Lloyd is just fine here. He obviously spends a lot of time in a downer mood here too (because circumstances), but he’s got more of his spunk back, the conflict between him and Garmadon in the Oni land is some nice banter. The FSM scene was kind of out of nowhere though. -The other ninja characters have their own small stories (bar Zane. Even the plot tries to excuse that when it doesn’t make sense) and they are all pretty enjoyable. Shout outs to Cole and Kai this time, they’re finally stepping up to take the entertainment mantle from Jay (well, when they’re not depressed in this special. I’ll get to that). Also, Pixal gets more time to show off here than in Hunted, which was a full season. What? -I didn’t even mention Garmadon in Hunted despite being a big player because there he was basically just a destruction machine. For some reason (which I know) he has a lot of sass this time. It means he’s a lot more fun, but after the last two seasons this feels like a very different direction. -Nobody else was worth mentioning aside from Garmadon’s epiphany being from talking to...a random cameraman? What? Even Dareth, Faith, Wu and Misako were basically just cameos.  -Omega and the Oni were actually kind of interesting. I mean, to start with, they’re supposed to be hell-bent on destruction by nature, so them being one-note is a lot more forgivable than more human characters being the same. For another, the plot used Omega to highlight something Hunted never really did anything with. When we saw the resurrection ceremony in Sons of Garmadon, the ninja appeared to interfere with it while it was still going on. The aftermath of SoG and the entirety of Hunted basically went along with the idea that this ended up a flawless resurrection anyway, and that the ninja interfering did nothing. Omega basically offers a counterargument that it was in fact botched, calling out this supposedly totally evil Garmadon as still wanting to connect to his human side. That’s why I’m actually fine with how it ended; Omega’s words have him conflicted, and he feels he can’t judge how to react to Lloyd in this state, so he ends up backing off to see he can find some answers for himself. Leaves the Omega’s words room to resonate and have payoff.  Plus he seemed so done with the family feud shit down below.  -Speaking of, I have seen people question why Cole was needed to fall anyway when he survived just fine and came back in the span of one episode. It seemed to be two-fold to me; to be the straw that broke the camel’s back between Lloyd and Garmadon (thus driving Garmadon’s possible road to redemption, since him and Lloyd are the focus of this season) and being the impetus that eventually leads to the idea of forging the Golden Weapons, and thusly the Tornado of Creation. Plus Kai was depressed pretty much the entire time until Cole came back (I’ll get into this one later).  -The whole premise of this special has a weird foundation; it was supposed to finish off the brand spanking new Oni trilogy, but was made to promote Legacy sets. That being said, it was nice to see the callbacks. From the aforementioned Tornado of Creation, to the Golden Master armour (NOT the Dragon Armour), to Possessions’ Sword of Sanctuary, and even Kai’s profession from the pilot play a pivotal part.  -As one may expect, the big thing about the season that holds it back is the pacing. With only four episodes to cover story as opposed to ten, a lot of beats end up going by very quickly without having time to really mull properly. Biggest offender is probably after Cole’s death, everyone is down, but as soon as Kai forges those golden weapons Jay and Zane are just stoked like “YEAH” and “COOL”. Like, come on. 

Okay, for this one I’m getting on a soap box about Cole and Kai again. I did it for Possession, but I need to do it here even harder. When I started this watching of the older Ninjago material, I thought, based on how everyone else talked about it, Cole and Kai stopped having meaningful interactions early on, only to come up again much, much later. It seemed that way when I started, being way down for season 2 compared to season 1 and the pilots. But no, season 3 picked it up again, and it persisted. It persisted so long, only season 6 could be argued to have dropped it again (and that has the excuse of them only appearing for half the season in Kai’s case). It was there, but it was on the low, left to simmer. March of the Oni feels like someone got drunk at the wheel and messed up the ratios of character interaction, because this season was just chock full of it. Like, it even comes to a point where Garmadon is looking at past photos of Cole after being admonished for his inhumanity about his “death”, and the shot just could not cut Kai out of the closeup of Cole. Between this season, and what the DHX seasons have done, it’s no wonder Lava seems to be snowballing.

Also can I just point out that this is some weird bizarro universe where Jay is being pushed by his girlfriend’s brother and his former romantic rival to propose when Jay’s the one not ready to do so? And that it gets even weirder for said girlfriend? 

Overall, I actually quite enjoyed March of the Oni, in spite of its reputation. It’s certainly very bizarre when taken as the follow-up to Sons of Garmadon and hunted, but I think it achieves what it set out to do, and in a satisfactory way. The deaths may have been a bit too cheesy, but everything has a narrative purpose, so none of it feels like fluff. Yeah, I think it’s pretty good. 

Well, it’s nice that the series has picked up again after Hunted. But next time, we get to see if it can...oh, wait, that’s it. I saw Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjutsu when it came out, and I really enjoyed that one. And Prime Empire is my favourite season of Ninjago altogether. 

So I guess for overall, I’d say this; Ninjago as a show isn’t without its issues. It especially seemed to have teething issues for the first four seasons, but aside for some clunky bits (decisions made in S6, S9) and some shaky characterisation that wasn’t quite ironed out, it’s been an enjoyable ride. I’d say I’d watch eight of the twelve seasons willingly again, and that is definitely not a bad ratio for such a long lasting show. 

This isn’t the end of my thoughts on old Ninjago though. Next time I get to do something more off the cuff and digging into my more nuanced thoughts; unpopular opinions!

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Alright, so in the middle of this S12 chaos (because no doubt that there’s more to come tomorrow), I actually saw Tournament of Elements for the first time. And I...think I might be falling on the unpopular side here. 

I mean, it’s not terrible at all, in fact I think it’s alright, but I don’t think it has much flavour. Or at least, not the flavour that made Ninjago appeal to me. Let’s just go over points.

-This season has an upside; moreso than any old season thus far, there’s more MVPs amongst the main ninja. Zane is great throughout when we see him, Cole gets a surprisingly focused sub-plot, and Jay pulls his weight in the early part of the season immensely. They gets lots of moments to shine and provide some brevity that I appreciated. -That does mean however that I think Kai and Lloyd suffer for the tone shift. Lloyd especially is so boring this season, a far cry from the first two seasons where he was doing a lot of the legwork. Kai has a flash or two, but otherwise he’s either in serious mode or “annoying fallen for someone on sight” mode. He actually came off rather skeevy at some times too, The idea of the green ninja jealousy is done...well, it manages to conceptualise why this may be a thing after what S1 and S2 established (thoughts resurfacing in a bout of depression), but it feels like the execution is undercooked...which will be a theme. -Nya’s got a pretty strong arc, so that’s appreciated. You can definitely tell this season is setting up for her to be the water ninja, there’s just so many signs, but at least her character was active without that slant to it. That being said, the whole Samurai X thing is kinda abandoned this season, isn’t it? -Speaking of abandoned plots, that love triangle was done with way quicker than I was expecting. You get a couple of episodes where it gets to flare up, resolve it in the third, and then that’s it. Can’t say I hate that being undercooked, it was terrible. I guess the writers came to that conclusion too, because Cole was back to feeling like pre-Codename Arcturus (aka only doing it to spite Jay, not having interest in Nya).  -Also speaking of undercooked...there’s Skylor. I can’t really come to hate her but that’s because she’s just such a bland character. She really is the generic action girl (something levied at Nya a lot even though I’ve never really seen it) and is mostly defined by either her romance to Kai (said romance being as hokey and cliche as it sounded, so the best romance of the season was still Zane and Pixal), or her literal relation to Chen. But I certainly won’t complain about her being manipulative and that because...you know...that was her job prior to her turn.  -This can apply to almost all the Elemental Masters, who get small moments to show their stuff but otherwise are just more characters to add to the pile. The only ones who significantly stood out for me were Karlof, Neuro and Shade, and out of those only Karlof was for entertainment value. He does also demonstrate the power of character writing though; at no point was I distracted by him sharing the same face as Okino, the mannerisms and expression work was just so different between them. -Dareth I’m mixed on. He seems more like dead weight by the end of the season, but he had some good moments at the start, especially his surprising ingenuity with the Kabuki disguise for Nya. -Likewise, even Sensei Garmadon, Wu and Misako feel like they didn’t have much. Sensei Garmadon started strong, but then was kind of reduced to exposition (although he did end on a high note). Meanwhile Wu and Misako felt extraneous even though the final plot point hinges on their relationships. What? -Pythor, in some twist of fate, comes in with a fairly last minute play to be near the top of the character chain. He was back on S1 form, and it was good to see him in good form again. -I liked Chen. With the Overlord acting as such a stoic villain for the most part, it was refreshing having someone as comedic as Chen in the villain helm, while still being plenty vicious and capable of villainy. Clouse I should theoretically like, but again, he was way stoic. -It was also nice to see the cameos -If you like lore, there’s plenty of lore here (there’s even like an episode that’s basically that). It’s interesting to see, but wasn’t great for the flow of the story.  -Pacing really killed this season for me, but for the opposite reason of the other seasons; it ended up going too slow. Like, after episode five, it really started to drag on me. 

So overall, S4 for me is a season that has an interesting overall premise, and really sells that at the start, but loses steam before it gets to the end. Not helping is the fact a lot of the characters and many sub-plots feel like they’re underdeveloped, possibly being a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. This is the real start of the lore building so hopefully that pays off in interesting ways. 

I guess I just don’t hold the same values in a series as other fans because I’d rather have the more light-hearted stuff with more serious bits sprinkled in than the rabbit hole the old stuff seems to be diving in to of taking itself way more seriously and caring more about the lore. 

That being said, I’d still say it’s better than S3, that season just went up and down and it wasn’t cohesive aside from Zane’s plot. This one feels more thought out, but just isn’t for me. 

Next up in terms  of watching the show is Possession, which was very, very heavily foreshadowed at the end of S4. I know it also takes the dive into being more serious, but it’s also a lot lower on the characters in the plot so maybe it’ll have more time to play about with its ideas.

But more immediately next up is more modern Ninjago chaos, and I am way down for that!

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Okay, so I actually used my quarantine time in a semi-productive way and decided to watch the pilot of Ninjago, to start getting more background (since I’ve only really seen seasons 11 and 12, a bit far into the series). So, here are some bullet points and some overall thoughts.

-Kai’s character does show hints of that obnoxious bravado, but here it’s...understandable. I mean when you first get an old man come in and waste time while you’re trying to sell stuff then right after have your little sister abducted (especially in the context of learning that Kai raised her from young), I would be more than a little on edge too. Plus it gets to really showcase that desire to protect his sister so that’s a plus.  -The shit with Nya is why Macy ended up so much better from the start. She gets a token moment to show “yeah I can fight with the boys” and then gets abducted right after. And then as any Ninjago watcher knows she had to moonlight as Samurai X for over four seasons after. Macy actually got to put her mace where her mouth was straight away (although she also had five years for the writers to get further). She has one line I found funny and that’s about it. -Master Wu actually started getting my goat straight away. On the one he’s funnier here than I think future depictions would end up with, on the other hand he is way too harsh on Kai considering the circumstances (especially in hindsight when you know what a bastard he’s been).  -The pilots really said fuck Jay and Zane I guess. -Cole and Kai have such a good connection in the pilot, it’s actually shocking that it has taken so many seasons to really touch on that again. That’s something asking to be explored in like season 2 or 3. -As an Autistic person...yeah, Zane doesn’t come across as Autistic, you can tell even without hindsight that there’s something more. For one, the underwater scene doesn’t show Zane drowning when Wu disrupts him, he opens his mouth then closes it when he gets over the shock (not something a drowning person can do). Plus throughout, his voice tone isn’t that of an Autistic person, it is downright stilted and...for lack of a better term, robotic. I am quite harsh on the writers usually, but I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt and say that robot Zane was on the cards from the beginning. -Seriously though, poor Jay. -The skeleton army sucks. They had one decent gag but the rest was obnoxious. This carries even up to Samukai. -Garmadon throws a little bone of interest right as he leaves, but otherwise he is so generic at this point.  -If people say that Ninjago has pacing issues now, I’ll argue that it’s always had it; this was all over the place with its pacing.

So this was decently enjoyable. As much as I can criticise bits about it, overall I found it okay. I certainly see how the higher ups saw enough potential in it to extend to a full series. I dunno how fast I’d get the gumption to watch all that, but eh.

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

At this point I’m just watching the seasons to keep the momentum going after two great (and one flawed but still okay) seasons. With Friday being a Bank Holiday, I might get the rest of the pre-11 stuff wrapped up by the weekend. But enough of the future, how about the season I watched, Sons of Garmadon?

It had a lot to live up to based on its reputation, and I’m happy to report that it delivers on what it sets out to do. Issues with the season are fairly minor tribbles, but that’s something I can cover in the notes.

-Hoo boy, let’s get this out of the way; the movie did fucking wonders for Lloyd Garmadon. Spending like five seasons stuck to his blander “chosen one must learn” characterisation, this season gives him a very long overdue overhaul into a more modern chosen one protagonist who is way more entertaining to watch. Bonus points for having a look I can take seriously now...yeah, sorry, but the Anakin hairpiece with the strange approach to voice commitment never did for me, even as it became the norm for what I was viewing.  -To be honest, his teammates get some good material here too. Some more than others (Zane especially has a really good little arc where he gets to show his more calculating side. Cole’s arc is okay but I don’t feel it quite nails the landing as well), but they all get chance to banter and have character moments, which is mainly what I come into shows for as opposed to straight up development constantly. Shout outs to Jay who has small moments, but important ones that do really good for his character (I could go into why Lloyd and Jay make the most sense as leads...probably after my season watching is done). I also like the callback to a character moment he had in season 3. Also this finally feels like the writers are sticking to characterisation, this season mostly keeping what Hands of Time did with them. Not so much design-wise, but I’ve made it clear many times that I prefer the new designs to old. Also, I get to throw in Pixal as a main character now since she’s clearly on the team full time. She’s good here too. -The dynamics get their own section just because I want to restate how I prefer the dynamic between Jay and Lloyd compared to Kai and Lloyd so far. Seriously, Jay seems to step up to bat for Lloyd more than Kai at this point. And yet no-one really seems to be interested in it within the fandom. -There wasn’t really much in the way of side characters this season (I am aware that next season will change that). Misako was good for what little material she had, Wu was fun and actually became a solid character in his own right once he became a toddler, Dareth is solid and really gets to show his alternative way of helping out, and the police commissioner...eh, better than season 6 but I’m still not big on him.  -I can sum up Harumi in one sentence; Skylor but done better on every count (and also evil). She’s engaging when she’s acting as the more humble Princess figure, and she’s nicely hammy when she’s unleashing her evil side. I can see why people would be into Lloyrumi with such a investing act (for the record, I’m not). This all being said, those who say that Harumi had a point are missing one important detail; as much destruction has been caused with the ninjas’ close call; what alternative is there? I don’t see anyone else stepping up to save Ninjago so it would have probably fully fallen a long time ago. And even with the Great Devourer, Lord Garmadon was channelling his good side to deliver a finishing blow, he still needed the ninja there.  -We have three other villains and two of them are enjoyable. Ultra-Violet is committed to her crazy shtick and amusing, and Killow is definitely different to how I thought he’d be, but it’s a lot more enjoyable (especially when Garry Chalk is channelling every bit of his Sonic Underground Robotnik voice he can. Kind of like how Clancee was Ian James Corlett channelling a lot of his scrub monkey third class). Mr E can go rust though.  -Unlike the other seasons which people cite as dark, this one feels like it does actually go there. It’s not completely a dark season, mostly the end of Jade Princess and scenes between Game of Masks and Big Trouble, Little Ninjago. It was still pretty fun and light-ish hearted outside of that. -Weirdly enough, most of my quibbles are on the technical side. People cite this season as having the best animation...but I don’t really see it. In terms of visuals it’s a step up, but the actual animation doesn’t feel that different to Hands of Time. They learned to use flashier graphics everywhere. Which is probably why the intro is the way it is, and I’m sorry but this is probably my least favourite intro. I can’t appreciate the spectacle when focusing on anything is difficult to achieve. On top of that, there were still some glaring graphical fuck-ups (like when Cole is shown with the other ninja in a scene where he was captured, or when Lloyd was shown with green eyes in a shot despite being drained of power at that point), which aren’t really any different to the ones Prime Empire has.  -The pacing of the season wasn’t entirely smooth, but unlike other seasons it’s not like one set issue. It’s more like a concertina effect; it was very quick at first, then slows down, then speeds up again, then slows down, then finally hits an even tempo about halfway through. This is why I didn’t mention the likes of Hutchins, the parents or the Mechanic before; because of the pace, you don’t really get enough time to really get attached to them (doesn’t help that the Mechanic has Alan Marriott doing the voice in his cameo, and man does it not fit compared to Skybound. I’m glad when the Mechanic got more substantial stuff they went back to his original VA, that voice is so fun).  -My other big thing is actually the complete continuity snarl that’s Harumi’s backstory makes. They’ve thrown in so many random events over the seasons but because of the sheer vagueness of the timescales it doesn’t really break suspension of disbelief. But Harumi’s turn to darkness is clearly during the ending of season 1, which we have a much more tangible sense of time for. Harumi seems like she’s about 8-10 then, the ninja seem like they were 14-15 then, Harumi seems like she’s 15-18 now but the showrunner still insist that the ninja are teenagers? How does that work, the most generous allowance for time is five years, and that would barely make them still teenagers in season 8. Certainly don’t believe they could be teenagers as of the most recent seasons. -On a completely different tangent, can we talk about the toilet humour? Yeah, it’s not like it’s never been there (there’s been poop jokes, fart jokes, halitosis jokes, and who can forget that one utterly cringe scene in S3?), but Hands of Time and Sons of Garmadon do it in a way that just comes off as really weird compared to earlier toilet humour. Like, there’s the implication by Jay in season 7 that Kai has issues with constipation, Cole’s truth tea dose forces him to say that he pees in the pool, and then there’s Kai, right to Harumi’s face, all but saying that Jay has issues with peeing himself. Her reaction to it is fucking hilarious, but it’s still weird, even though knowing Vincent Tong he would totally do that. 

Overall, this was a great season, and it’s clear to see how this became such a draw to the series (meaning in hindsight, LEGO’s method of dealing with the new style was pretty much a winner). The issues I have don’t stop the quality being across the board. Aside from Possession, I think this may be a favourite season from the pre-11 stuff. 

Next time, we effectively get the second part to this story. Yep, it ended in a cliffhanger so we’ve hardly wrapped it up here. Time to see how the OG ninja and newer recruits handle themselves alone in Hunted. 

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Arr, me mateys! I may have work to do in the day, but I consider myself a wee fast crewman! They even ran out of work to give me so I finished the day with long hours to spare. And since I got the time, ye bet I decided to use it to explore new depths of Ninjago with Skybound!

Okay, I won’t do that for the whole post. But honestly, I thought Skybound was...decent, but does have some drawbacks from how ambitious it was. Let’s just go through it.

-Jay...hmm. Two minds about him. His arc at the start of the season (lasting about halfway) was clearly intentional and setup for his later redemption, and his character after that point is the best kind of Jay. And the reason for said start of season funk does make sense (unlike Home). On the other hand, yeah, the first half is pretty much Jay at his worst with bits sprinkled in to remind you that they still remember his good side. It’s not like giving him that sort of flaw is bad, but it pretty much dominated his entire character for that duration so at some point you just want to punch the little git. Also his parent arc is a bit undercooked, but he’s got plenty elsewhere so that doesn’t really bother me, especially when Ed and Edna ultimately get to have the crucial pep talk.  -Nya has a similar problem to be honest, although part of hers was also fabricated by Dareth being an absolute dick at the start (despite his moment in season 4). After that, it was fine for her up until she starts the whole fucking thing by being stubborn in such a perilous situation. And then halfway through they calm it down and make her realise she’s taken it somewhat overboard. Once that halfway point crosses it’s a lot easier to get behind the both of them, but mileage may vary on how much you can stand before then. I did like the lunchtime scene though.  -Zane doesn’t get much this season, but I did like his sass, it was a good check. Otherwise, not much happening with him aside from one scene that people immortalise due to how out of character it was for him, but since that has zero consequences I just brush that off as a one time gag. Pixal had like two scenes but they were both great scenes for her.  -Lloyd had more going for him this seasons than prior ones at least (even Possession), but he was still on the more bland side. I think every character got an attitude increase in this season though. Seriously, even the one-scene characters. But let me tell you; Lloyd Garmadon is no Rex Fury, that’s for sure.  -Cole and Kai...I think were on some substance or other during this arc, at least at the start. -Kai has Project Arcturus’ issue of playing his vain side up to the point where it’s actively jeopardising the mission (and actually could be considered as much responsible for starting the whole thing as Nya), but at least this time they reign it in to turn it into something of a clever tactic. And of course this is all absent when he’s freed from the Sword of Souls because Kai typically gets characterised into two modes at this point in the show. -Cole has a similar thing. I mean, eating tools...what? It’s mostly comedic and not that detrimental to begin with (aside from him straight up ditching Jay at the theme park. Not out of spite or anything, just because the plot wanted an extra minute I guess). Then Kai gets trapped and suddenly his character is all about being Jay’s best friend, which in of itself is fine until it again gets way heavy-handed about it. I’m assuming that the writers just wanted any potential remnants of Cole and Nya as a pair to just die (hence why he has no reaction to Jay revealing things about the caves despite Jay’s worry over it, and why this is the season he starts really taking potshots at Nya), but surely Versus was enough on its own combined with Jay and Nya’s arc in this season? Plus the ghost thing is almost entirely wasted this season, only serving a point where his invisibility comes into play (oh, and I guess a threat when he walks the plank).  -Despite the much bigger cast of characters, they don’t really get to do that much. The standouts are easily Soto (who’s just funny throughout), Dareth (who despite having a really bad start with being a misogynist for no reason, gets much better when he comes in second time) and Ronin (who I guess was still a writer darling at this point). Anyone else? You might get a moment for some of them (mainly Misako and Echo Zane), but eh. It’s a shame because Jay set up the ninja replacements like it would be this shining moment for them, but not really, and they just end up as fight fodder. And being a gag for hating Jay for being annoying despite him not doing anything to at least a couple of them. Also because of my other LEGO interests, every time I see Ronin whistle for the R.E.X, I expect the Rexcelsior to just come down and crush everything. That would have been a bad time for Kai and Nya.  -One thing I didn't mention in Possession is how the villain and lackey dynamics are developing into something actually worth investing in (beyond the tension between Pythor and Skales), and Skybound takes it even further. This is the first season where the villains are just as investing as the heroes, and I like how its a slow burn from Nadakhan and his crew having comradery, to Flintlocke slowly realising that Jay was telling the truth, to him and Dogshanks playing key roles in the final confrontation. -Speaking of which, Nadakhan was an interesting villain. I don’t like him as much as Morro, but he’s still got plenty to him. What I find most interesting is how the Jay seasons like to play parallels with the villains, what with Nadakhan being a reflection of Jay’s romance thing and Jay using his abandonment to find a way to connect to Unagami. Also the fact that he doesn’t even seem to care that much about doing evil in Ninjago at first. He does evil stuff, and they’d certainly need to find a way to fix Wu and Misako’s situation, but it’s just as a means to get home. Once he finds out that home is just about to die? He loses the plot entirely, and that’s fun to see.  -Ironically, the interactions I liked best this season were the more understated ones. For example Jay and Zane’s conversation early on (which doubles as foreshadowing to Zane’s demise) was really nice for characters who don’t usually get time to speak to each other one on one, and I wish more of the interaction in the season felt as natural as that in the first half. As a bonus, it wasn’t even wiped out at the end so that conversation still happened! -Yeah, plot. The story was interesting once we got to the Sky Pirates, not quite as engaging as Possession but it was clearly aiming at more individual dynamics than looking at the whole group and it definitely managed to balance that with the actual story and giving the villain perspective. The framing arc was less interesting, if only because even for this show everyone suddenly turning on the ninja without giving them more chance to defend themselves is laughable at this point. And as for the ending...eh, I’m ambivalent on it. Jay and Nya’s arcs remain no matter what so at least that stuff stuck around (by design). But you do lose the existence of the other Sky Pirates who made a good chunk of the good stuff. I guess the other biggest thing you lose is all the scenes where Cole reaffirms that he is Jay’s best friend, but he can do that in future seasons and not just drop it because they’ve settled the score on the love triangle...right? -Once again, it felt like a pretty dry season in terms of tone. I think this is a running theme. -At least the annoying slow-mo seems to finally giving way. It was used twice. One was random, the other was thematically appropriate. 

Overall, this season can be described as “heavy-handed”, moreso than any other story-heavy season so far. When it’s in this mode, it’s pretty annoying even if not terrible. But it still has elements to keep it going, and ends up in a pretty good place. Definitely comes down to individual taste on how much of said elements you can stomach, so I’m not surprised it has a marmite reputation. Out of the non-Possession story-heavy seasons I’ve seen so far this is the better one, but it’s still below S1 and S2 for me. 

Next time, I will not be doing a season. The writers seems to want to end Cole’s ghost arc and that’s exactly what they’ll do in Day of the Departed.

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Got yet another early finish today, so because it’s just a special I decided to squeeze in a viewing of Day of the Departed, exactly six months ahead of the holiday it’s a special for. Ah well. 

So, it was fine. There is one very big issue, but there is a bit of context for why unlike a lot of issues in the show so far; with the Ninjago Movie coming up, apparently this and season 7 were thrown into utter chaos and you can tell. I’ll get into in the notes.

-MVP of the special is pretty obvious. Cole gets the focus here and he does not squander the opportunity. Not only does he get to be on his top form in terms of more comedic personality, he gets pathos to his ghost form (finally) and a good show of his empathetic side. Plus he gets a new power to play with, one that makes a very good toy gimmick (and will be keen to the writers too considering how often it comes up).  -The other ninja don’t so much get that sort of treatment, just little opportunities to show off a bit of themselves at that point. Lloyd and Jay have the best of this, having opportunities to reflect on their arcs in Tournament of Elements/Possession and Skybound respectively with the theme of death and appreciating those still living, Zane’s is kind of weak but gets the basics in, and Kai and Nya were basically just setting up for season 7.  -The villains are fun, if obviously just there for fanservice. I think I’ve heard that one of people’s big hang-ups with the special is how it didn’t treat them seriously and...to be honest, the selection it had were not villains I took seriously in the first place. Samukai, Kozu and Cryptor were from seasons (or pilot) that didn’t take themselves that seriously outside of, like, the Overlord, Chen is the one post-S3 villain that was supposed to be silly and fun up to this point, Morro was actually treated seriously and kept his development from the end of Possession, and Pythor’s just a bitch. What limits them is that they don’t get to do more because there’s so much being thrown around.  -Yang’s alright, a step down from the last two villains. I mean, he spends a lot of it just being the stereotypical villain looking to just stop the ninja, but at least it tries to throw him a bone at the end (and makes more sense of his motives considering his previous status). The conversion to good is pretty breakneck though.  -The side characters get some nice moments, specifically Misako twisting Pythor’s words in Lloyd’s favour, Ed and Edna just being super supportive and Dareth showing surprising competence in the wake of Kozu’s attack (despite his sleazy comment at the start). Also Lou is back! He got kinda shortchanged when he wanted to start efforts to rebuild the city first in S2 only for S3 to basically force in Cyrus rebuilding due to the whole technology slant. I like the little moment he got at the start, but I wish it showed more closure with the family thing. I mean, when you think about it Lou’s had his whole world shaken since S1, he would want to have some family time for once. I swear, the one thing that will get me to riot about S13 is if Lou doesn’t get anything, give the man a break! And finally, Dr Saunders is a bit of a scene stealer despite just being there to set up...this plot. Boogily boogily. -Time to address the elephant in the room though; the pacing of the special is so fast. If the thing about this being a season first then shortened down to a special is true, you can definitely tell because it tries to include all those potential threads, and a Cole focus, and S7 foreshadowing all in one go. They wisely make the Cole material the strongest and the least rushed stuff (although as I said with Yang, it’s not completely immune), but it doesn’t take a breather, ever. I can see why this could be overwhelming.  -Also the fighting choreography here is a bit naff. Again, probably because it’s rushed. -But hey, the tone feels like S1-S2 light-hearted again, and I’ve missed that. It’s a breather between the heavier stuff of the seasons gone...and the seasons coming up.

Overall, I can see why people regard this as one the worst Ninjago things, but I can’t say I find it any worse than something like Rebooted. it’s a shame things panned out the way they did, because with more time this could have been an absolute riot. At least the insight into the more grounded side of Ninjago culture is given the spotlight (pardon the pun), and Cole gets a pretty nice sendoff to his ghost state.

With the special out of the way, it’s back onto regular seasons when the next Ninjago viewing will be Hands of Time. I sure hope we get more of Dr Saunders now that we’ve introduced him, it sure would be a waste to have the eccentric museum owner only around for one special.

...Oh who am I kidding, I’m on Faky’s LCA server, nobody would believe I don’t know how that turns out with the prevalence of his candy-crushing, Lance Richmond-voiced relative on there.

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

So I was supposed to be doing secretarial work for my mother tonight. She’s doing degree-level work on mental health and I was scheduled to type up her research on Schizophrenia. But since the college has contacted her to make her aware of an extension, that has been postponed to tomorrow. But what can a working adult forced home do to fill the time void left by that?

Watch season 3 of Ninjago for the first time? Erm, okay.

So the narrative have definitely started to get heavier now. Eh, so far this is probably the weakest season for me to be honest. Like, the story writing is getting there but this season was bland in terms of entertainment. Let me just start.

-So the main ninja are back to being more active as characters now that they’re rushing a storyline, but the writing quality for them is all over the place. Kai suffers the least (that isn’t Zane), although he has the least focus in the season. The technology is a bit shaky considering that he uses the jet (in S1 and S3) and even got control of Samurai X in S2, but out of all the ninja he probably would be the least tech-savvy probably (being raised in a village as a traditional blacksmith) so it’s acceptable. What isn’t acceptable is how he was characterised in Project Arcturus. Seriously, what the fuck happened in that episode? He’s suddenly super obnoxious, ignorant of the mission Pixal is trying to drill the importance of in, and he outright endangers innocent people. And then this characterisation is ignored for the rest of the season. Were the writers asleep for the wheel for it? -Might as well get the elephant in the room out of the way now; The Love Triangle was pretty unbearable. Honestly, the biggest reason is the season seemed to try and use that as a crux for the entertainment side and it just fell flat. Nya generally really suffers as a result of it though because this shit wouldn’t be happening if she didn’t instigate it (yeah Jay blows up over Pixal’s recollection of it, but she wilfully keeps the fire burning by playing them both). One could argue that her youth means that she’s making some really foolish decisions, but it makes her come off as a bit of a bitch to put it frankly. At least she also gets more to do outside of it.  -Cole...I don’t know what to think about him. With the straight-forward love triangle perspective at the time, it would have definitely have been a douche move on his part to move on Nya even if it was instigated by her since it was clear in the second half that he was doing that and Jay and Nya hadn’t split. With the hindsight that he was never interested in her, the question is why he would this at all? Well, the first half of the season that reading is pretty easily justifiable since he seems more oblivious than anything, but it’s much harder after Project Arcturus. The reading I choose to take is that, given the later info that Jay and Cole were supposed to be prior best friends, Cole took it badly when Jay seemed to attack him out of nowhere so was just generally anti-Jay for the first half, then in the gap before the Overlord came alive again Jay didn’t patch it up and Cole found out why Jay attacked, so he decided to spite him even further. Which may be even more douchey. Ack. -Poor Jay. He seems to get a lot of shit this season, but wouldn’t you be confused if your seeming girlfriend suddenly just decided she had feelings for your friend out of the blue? And over a machine? No wonder he lashed out. And the only foreshadowing to any trouble in paradise is when he offers her Kai’s pudding cup and he does it a bit too close to her face, prompting a talk about boundaries. That’s really not enough. And given that Jay gets the most stuff outside of the main plot too (his interest in Borg Industries and the first emphasis on him being into video games, him sticking a middle finger to Child’s Play’s moral by getting into Lloyd’s comic, and even the interest in the bugs on the meteor), his biggest black mark is having to share the flat humour with Cole. -The best bits of humour were mostly the S2 characters cropping up again; while Dareth and Ed and Edna didn’t get much screentime at all, what they did get was great.  -Skales was also still the MVP for what little screentime he had. That said, the kinda retcon to the whole deal with the Serpentine’s past didn’t quite gel for me. -Sensei Garmadon seemed fairly eh at first, mostly espousing lessons. Kicking Pythor’s ass after he took his son really kicked him up a notch. -Speaking of, Pythor’s back...but he wasn’t as good as in S1. He had his moments, but generally playing lackey to the Overlord was a step down.  -I have nothing to say about Wu since he didn’t get to do that much (75% of his time was as a cyborg under the Overlord’s control). I also don’t have much to say about Lloyd "FUCKING STOP IT NOW" Garmadon since he really got no material to work with outside of bonding with his father. But most of that was in the form of lessons anyway, how is that different to what Wu did in S2? -Not any new additions outside of Cyrus Borg and Pixal, but they sure did put in the legwork. Cyrus does a fuckton of heavy lifting with the plot, he’s amusing to have around and he even got a great diet gag in the very last episode. -I actually want to talk about Pixal and Zane together because their story was really the main one. Zane is as sweet as ever, undamaged by whatever character weirdness was going on with the other ninja, and is a joy to follow. The romance between Zane and Pixal I feel was a little rushed, but the story at least tried to give some justification (since Zane is fascinated by the progression of tech and how it differs from himself). Thankfully the rest of the story is solid, and Pixal is a very good new addition (gradually learning to experience outside her programming through Zane and her need to help). For me, their story is able to hold it all together so there was still a good investment there. And I can understand why the Titanium Ninja was so shocking at the time; you expect Lloyd to pull something out as the Golden Ninja, only for Zane to step in and give his own arc some closure with sacrifice.  -I do have one quibble with the ending, but I’m saving that for the next season. You’ll see why.  -The baddies aren’t worth writing about. They’re so uninteresting. And the Overlord here is a real cardboard cutout.  -When I heard about the Digiverse I thought it was going to be this big place we got to see for several episodes, but it’s one room that’s there for one episode? And it’s not even that imaginative? Wow that’s kinda lame. I’m glad Prime Empire is taking full advantage of the concept.  -At least the pacing was fine here and the action was good. But the slow-mo is still annoying. 

Overall, the central idea is done well, but the stuff around it isn’t up to the same standard, which puts a dent in the enjoyment. Combine that with the fact that it just isn’t up to snuff on the more humourous side, and this has become the Ninjago season I enjoy the least so far. On the bright side, Pixal more than justifies why she got the privilege of being brought into Ninjago’s main cast much later.  But this is just the start of Ninjago’s story developments. I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to spiel on about when we get deeper. 

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

I need to actually stick to what I say for once.

I was going to do S2 on Monday, but then I got the realisation that after watching NS12, I was already running out of things to do. So, I did it tonight, and it’s...certainly an eclectic collection of thoughts. Hmph.

-The biggest point I have, and one I think really damages the season, is the pacing. You can tell the writers were aware that Ninjago was going to be cancelled (indeed, it was actually cancelled for a year) so they jammed two seasons’ story into one season. As a result, the last...say, five episodes are pretty strong since it seems the story beats were fairly set in stone (heh), but it takes over half the season to get there and before that you have some pretty meh writing. I know they didn’t exactly have full control over that, so bear in mind I am aware of this and assume I’m giving some leeway for it where appropriate, although I will still criticise it. -Lloyd Montgomery "For Fucks Sake Stop Grounding Me" Garmadon is the best character in this season. However, the fact we spent just seven episodes with young green Ninja Lloyd is a waste of an idea in hindsight.  -Skales remains an MVP before he’s written out of the story.  -I see now that S2 Garmadon is the basis for Movie Garmadon because he was great, and it was especially hilarious watching him bounce off his boring pilot self. -Wu is still the worst character. I’m sorry, he was bad enough when he was being too harsh on four teens, Lloyd is one kid and Wu is already like “I’m shoving the weight of the world on your shoulders”. Fuck you Wu. -The non-elemental parents do no get enough due credit. Ed, Edna and Lou are all great in their own way, and Doctor Julien is a badass considering he’s on death’s door.  -And yes, this does mean I like S2 Misako overall. She’s a victim of the rushed pacing though; her motive for leaving Lloyd at Darkley’s could have been way more smooth if she just had five seconds longer to speak, like “I left him to go and research the prophecy...and make sure the dark forces would not attack him”. You could answer at least three potential hangups with those few extra words. Otherwise, the idea of old regrets is one with potential, and it’s handled pretty well here. I am aware it gets fucked up later, but what else is new. -The bizarro ninja are about as good as early Archie Evil Sonic. Which means they’re terrible. Hopefully they don’t show up again.  -Wow, Captain Soto is an early one! I’m glad his contribution to the season actually had serious ramifications. -I like the way the first part of the season built up the new civilian cast, even if most were unnamed. Started to really give life outside the ninja, something season 1 was short of. Also Dareth wasn’t that great at first, but the mini-arc he had warmed me up to him.  -Nya...existed. Outside of being turned evil and using Samurai X once this was not her season. Kai used Samurai X more than her, even! -I don’t know how to vocalise my thoughts on the main four, their treatment was erratic. For the first eight episodes they were honestly pretty weak, basically being shoved into the mentor role and not being given much material beyond that. Jay managed to just about counter that with his obnoxious personality (actually acting as a positive rather than a negative). Zane doesn’t counter it, but because he’s generally like that anyway he adapts well to it. Kai and Cole suffer for it. I know I didn’t like them in S1 due to being abrasive and not my thing at all, but now they’re basically the other extreme; revolving around their mentor role, taking out a lot of the personality. All of this is probably because of said rushed pace so they had to get them as mentors lickety split. Then five episodes from the end the story’s like “Whoops, we left the personality nodes off, let’s just switch them back on” and suddenly all four of them were improved. Zane had his own arc to go through, Jay was electric, and Cole was apparently just unleashing the energy not used in the first half (How did we go from him being so stoic to doing the Moonwalk over Stone Soldiers???). Even Kai got moments back, and it finally genuinely felt like he’d become protective of Lloyd without it being forced in by the plot needs.  -Jaya has a bit of a stumble in S2 thanks to Double Trouble (thanks for nothing, Bizarro Ninja), but overall it’s still cute.  -Whoever said that the Stone Army isn’t treated with any comedic elements is a filthy liar. Even the Overlord got sassy at one point.  -The plot ends up being an overt Star Wars homage and I am okay with this. -I should have mentioned this with the first season but I hope the once-an-episode slow-down bits stop soon. The choreography of the fighting has improved though!

So overall? I honestly have pretty mixed feelings towards this season. In terms of quality it’s more consistent than S1, but at the same I feel it’s brought down more, mainly because of that omnipresent pacing issue. The last five episodes suffer less from it, but that is far too late to be kicking in. Not that the first part is bad, but you can tell they’re skimming content to get to the good stuff. That being said, said good stuff is good. 

I want to add a little extra though, because the way it ends only makes me more conscious of how the next few seasons take the story. The story here does feel like an ending point, and that was fine for the time. But hindsight has shown that this was not the case, and there’s definitely some corners that have been written into. So with that, I can at least understand why the Hagemans and Andreason might have thought at the time that creating new drama for all the main characters (that weren’t Lloyd because he needed a rest) was the best way to try and give themselves an out. But man, there are going to be moments where I am gonna legit fume (there’s a moment in S2 that makes the upcoming love triangle so much worse, and I think the bit I’m dreading the most now is actually Kai’s green Ninja drama in S4). 

Also poor Lloyd get schtick for hogging the limelight, when it seems in most instances it’s been circumstances that did that. S2 was trying to rush its story so it had to focus on Lloyd to tell it, and S8 was probably LEGO’s way of continuing the film inertia, and it just happened to be an arc that needed three seasons to resolve due to the way it was structured. For once, S11 is the most guilty since that one didn’t need to be Lloyd. 

Okay, so next up whenever I decide to do it are Rebooted and Tournament of Elements...oh joy...at least all the seasons are shorter this time.

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Change of plan, decided to get season 1 out of the way, so I can really get some groundwork. So technically, this is the first true experience of Ninjago.

-Right off the bat, 13 episodes felt too much. I’m glad that future seasons after S2 go down to maximum 10 for the most part. -Honestly the plot is all over the place. The first six episodes are kinda moral episodes, then apparently someone writing Tick Tock said “Actually, I have this kickass angst idea for Zane and I want to use” and the show decided now would be the time to drop the original approach. -Speaking of which, how many fetch quests can you squeeze in one season where there’s just absolute failure on the protagonists’ part? They couldn’t stop the five tribes getting together, and they did not stop one Fangblade being taken by Pythor. It got ridiculous. -That said, the Serpentine are way better than the Skeleton Army, or at least Pythor and Skales are. Pythor is just so hammy it’s fun, and Skales has some real neat setup in the first episodes to establish his moral root (and his eventual heel-face in later seasons, I’m aware of that one). -Some surprising character debuts. The mailman isn’t, but Mystake is already here which I wasn’t expecting for a few seasons yet. -In terms of main characters, Wu and Garmadon are weird. Wu spends half his time in the same bitchy sensei mode as the pilots, but then he has this side story in the underworld and it becomes a story of him trying to save his nephew and he gets all fatherly and it’s like what. Meanwhile, the story keeps drilling in your head that Garmadon is this evil dude yet his evil acts can be counted on one hand. He eventually steps up his game right at the end so I guess that was all S2 set-up (meaning the OG Garmadon was a central villain for one season. He had more evil time after his SoG resurrection!). The family bonding was nice to see after he was so bland in the pilots though. -Nya is more active in S1 which is nice, but it’s still moonlighting as Samurai X as I mentioned. I did not realise that the mystery lasted for all of one episode, so at least there’s not lengthy periods of time where Nya is pretending to be on the sidelines when out as Samurai X. Still really weird that they chose to do it this way until S5 but hey. -Lloyd is fantastic. He’s amusing as a brat and as the green Ninja, and my heart just sorrows at the pain is about to be put through. Weirdly enough, even ignoring the foreshadowing, Lloyd was always the perfect candidate to be the green Ninja. Think about it; he’s adaptable, cunning, determined, persevering, trusting, reflexive, agile, and this all traits from before he even turned good. He was gifted for a 10-12 year old. -Zane is a sweetheart who only had minor fumbles with the green Ninja thing, but he should still be protected at all costs. -Jay’s character is shaky at times, but overall comes out pretty good. The Jaya moments he has in S1 are sweet, and both Nya and Jay drive it naturally (which is good, because the way it was started in the pilot was really clunky). -Worst characters by far in S1 are Kai and Cole. They spend 90% of the time are meathead bullies, and some of it dips so cruelly I can’t root for them. They try to clear it up once we get to the full potential stuff, but too little too late man. Just let me punt these bitches off a cliff and let their S12 selves take over. -The choreography is still pretty piss poor. I didn’t mention it before but now you know. -The Great Devourer ain’t that great. Giant generic snake, woo.  -That being said;

Ed:  *Trying to start his jalopy* Oh, boy. Oh, gosh. Oh, golly. Oh, gosh. *Meanwhile Harumi’s parents lie dead under a building collapse while the child is scarred for life*

-Worst episode by a country mile is “Home”. What were they thinking, making a whole episode where all the ninja bully Zane for being different, regardless of how much Zane does not deserve that and how little sense it makes for Jay and Cole to do that with their history prior to Kai. And it wasn’t a special episode, it was set-up for a different twist. -Best episode...my heart wants to say “The Royal Blacksmiths” because it comes so out of left field in terms of how Cole and Kai are characterised, plays out like a near-legit coming out story (how did they do it this way by accident??) and has so much homoerotic tension between said Ninja. But the correct answer has to be “Tick Tock”. I know Zane is a robot (it’s a central point in S11 and S12), but I was expecting the reveal in S3. So when I realised where the episode was going it was a gut punch all the same, and Zane getting his memories back is legit heartbreaking. -The season also has one of the better first episodes.  -Also yeah this entire season is pretty good for Lava, although Jay and Zane do get plenty to do this time.

As it’s own thing, S1 is generally decent. However, there are some big lows in this season (mostly near the start), and I think some characters just can’t get through it without mud on their face.

As part of the wider Ninjago story, it’s made something apparent that kinda more depressing; the writers have lots of ideas for where Jay and Zane’s characters can go, even if the direction isn’t always met with enthusiasm. Even Nya and Lloyd have had strong stories to run off from the start. Kai and Cole feel like the writers don’t know what to do with them. They had to throw some drama for Cole, so they shoved in the dance thing, Kai needed more conflict, so they tacked on him being more obsessed with the green Ninja power than anyone else even though this was equal for all four at the start of the season. Outside of S1, they either get no arcs, get shunted into other arcs thus wrecking them (Jaya...:( ), repeat arcs that were done with seasons prior or just the most cliche, uninspired stories you could make. 

With the last two seasons going back to roots, I wonder if they have looked at S1 again and realised that this is something that should be examined again, what with the spoilers for S12 and S13. Only time will tell. 

I won’t review seasons over the weekend, that time is reserved for Prime Empire, and I know I’ll enjoy that more.

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

So it’s a bank holiday in the UK, especially for VE Day, where there are some people having street parties and not practicing social distancing while they’re at it. Plonkers. Anyway, with a whole day off more, what better time to look at Hunted. 

One thing that didn’t cross my mind was that this is actually the last full season of old Ninjago I need to watch. Like, the next one is just four episodes, and then I’ve caught up to Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjutsu. On the one hand, I can’t believe I’ve managed to get through 94 full episodes, and a pilot, and a special. With my usual attention span on shows, it has been difficult at times, but what a mountain to climb.

On the other hand, what a bum note to to end the full seasons on. After like three great seasons, a season with good ideas that got throttled in areas and a special that was curtailed for reasons outside of its control, Hunted ranges from eh to kinda bad throughout. Let’s get into it. 

-I’m actually going to start with the plot first, not the characters, because I think this is so big a factor it dominates everything else. The series is a sort of sequel...second half...continuation thing of Sons of Garmadon. In theory having stories told over two seasons means that you can make a more elaborate plot with bigger stakes and that. In here, it means that all the fun that I enjoy out of the series is reserved for the first half, while the second half by default has a more dour tone. In addition, the two plots they try to balance aren’t too great, as they both feel like they’re going too slow and crawling until like the sixth or seventh episode of the season, and the constant switching just breaks the pace even more. By the time we do get to the seventh episode it gets more cohesive, but even that has issues, which I’ll get to later.  -Okay, so onto the actual characters. Lloyd is pretty down this season, but above all others this is pretty understandable given his circumstances. At the very least he gets time to bond with Nya properly, and has some good material with other side characters. Plus his ending is genuinely cathartic, even if a little vague on what actually triggered getting his powers back.  -Nya manages to fit the tone while still being able to have time to shine and act as the backbone of the resistance. She doesn’t get the credit she deserves at the end, really, which is a shame because for me she was the best ninja this season. Pixal on the other hand is kinda left at the wayside this season, with one moment exactly to show her willingness to face terrible odds to try and fight back the Oni Mech. After getting to become her own character again last season, that’s a shame. -The other four, stuck in the First Realm...oof. Wasn’t really feeling them this season for the most part. Their antics weren’t really that interesting. Jay has to a do a lot of the heavy lifting for entertainment early on, but even he’s not enough to prevent the tedium setting in. Cole also has some moments with Wu, but they didn’t feel as good as they did in Sons of Garmadon. Kai’s moment with the dragon came out of nowhere, and Zane literally got nothing. Things improved a bit with Weakest Link, but by that point the plot was pivoting towards Wu.  -Speaking of, Wu was probably the best part of that side of the story (Wu being the best of anything, never thought I’d say that). Not just because he was the focus for it, he was good for some nice zingers, and actual character development (even if I was completely confused why they chose to restore his memories the way they did). He got to have his resolution outside of the final battle, which allowed it to have the time it needed to handle it well.  -When I’ve been hearing about Faith, I was led to believe that Faith was this demure person who obviously kicked butt but was also sweet and nice. Nobody told me Faith was a badass one-woman powerhouse who rocked. She reminds me of this canal trip I had in Birmingham. There was this conventional, scripted canal tour that was obviously the main one, but on this more run-down and bare bones canal boat was this badass Polish boatmaster who knew all about the dark side of Birmingham’s development history and wasn’t afraid to impart all her knowledge, no matter how sordid, onto its passengers. She was awesome, and so is Faith. -Dareth got a surprisingly good showing out of all this, arguably being the strongest demonstration of his character in the entire series (while he is oafish, clumsy and envious of having powers, he’s also steadfastly loyal, capable of doing some ass-kicking himself and absolutely will not sell the ninja down the river for anything). I think my final decision on Dareth is that while he can have his unfortunately skeevy moments, on the whole he’s a good lad. I like him.  -Mistake went from being a foot note to being a complete BAMF this season. If you’re going to kill a character off, this is how you do it; allow them to show off what made them enjoyable before, get some real smooth moves in that dupe even the greatest of threats then have them go down fighting. -The Elemental Masters were once again wasted to be honest, mostly serving as fodder to be captured once their job was done in Radio Free Ninjago and mostly there to get Skylor into the story. She still didn’t have much of a personality unfortunately, mostly having to act as the action girl because of circumstances, but she did get some good moments with Lloyd and Nya, and there was a pretty creative way of using her powers. This being said, if you told me Kai and Skylor had amicably ended their relationship after season four, and they were just more affectionate at the end of this season because they’d seen their exes go through hell, I would believe you. Seriously, Kailor was thrown to the wayside once it served its purpose in Tournament of Elements, they don’t get any time to develop it. Which is really bad when they miss a beat that would have made it easy to do so in season 7. And this is coming from someone who is fine with Jaya and Pixane’s handling in the show (bar a couple of seasons dropping the ball). It’s somehow worse than I thought. -Speaking of worse, the villains in this season are so bad. The Iron Baron has nothing interesting going for him (which is a waste, at least his VA came back for SotFS), their plot was basically the Sky Pirates but in its most basic form (seriously, the way the rest of the Dragon Hunters turned was very whiplash-inducing) and aside from Faith and Chew Toy (who was actually amusing in the Dragon Pit) there’s not anyone worth remembering. -And somehow, the Sons of Garmadon are worse. They were great in the previous season, but here they end up so degraded (especially Killow and Ultra-Violet, who have nothing to do here). Even Harumi, the main baddie of the last season, is jobbing pretty hard for half the season. She gets a couple of little moments after this, but then she gets unexpectedly and unceremoniously killed off at the end of Saving Faith. I know, poetic irony that she gets killed the same way her parents did, but it would have been more satisfying if she had more material. -As I alluded to before, the pacing of the first six episodes is pretty dang slow, thanks partly due to its format, but partly due to how repetitive the beats are while it feels they’re introducing little bits and biding their time for the plot to kick in fully. 

So, overall, not impressed with Hunted at all. It’s a shame because, like I said, it killed the good momentum I had with the previous seasons going all the way back to Possession. I’d honestly say that aside from Rebooted, this is my least favourite season. At least Tournament of Elements had more good ideas and concepts in place before the second half just killed my investment. 

Next time though, I get to the real finale of this watchback. Lloyd was warned of dark forces invading Ninjago, and we get to see the result of that in the final “season” WilFilm ever made, March of the Oni.