#and it was the tonal whiplash there that hooked me

[fromperdition4]

If there's anyone who's still (somehow) on the fence about watching Kinnporsche, this is the scene to show them.

It's got everything:

Kinn and Porsche bickering

Beautiful scenery

In-no-way-subtle innuendo

Complete tonal whiplash

A sweet forehead kiss

"Why Don't You Stay" (i.e., the anthem of our people)

[fractalheart-real]

Hazbin Hotel, The Death of a Misogynist, and The Issue with Aesthetics of Redemption

Now that we have the pretentious psuedo-intellectual caption, let me clarify that I love Hazbin Hotel, Adam is a horrific (fictional) person whos actions shouldn’t be belittled in an actual discussion. I’ve been thinking about this horrible, horrible man alot though!

So, the baseline. The hook and pitch of Hazbin Hotel is that its a show about demons being redeemed and working through their issues while the world dismisses the idea of change. The actual story of Hazbin Hotel is a constant uphill battle against an unfair, fascist bureaucracy and the status quo of complacency its created, while the world dismisses the idea of change. My issue is I don’t think Hazbin Hotel is truly interested in discussions about redemption. I enjoy its discussions on status quo and complacency, but all its shown is that its entirely uninterested in talking about redemption in any meaningful way.

The character of Adam, from his first to near-last moments on screen is consistently characterized as an entitled, misogynistic, dangerous man-child who firmly believes himself above the concept of making mistakes. The first man thinks that he was made perfect and thus acts above those around him. (Despite this he is a delight to have on screen, hes hilarious, don’t @ me). In the final episode of Season 1, Adam is killed in an anticlimactic way after his third act breakdown. Perhaps its the shows own evident pacing issues, but I find it very strange that a show with the aesthetics of rehabilitation portrays Adam as beyond it, and a joke. (Which he very well might be, but it conflicts with the shows aesthetics). Why is a show which claims to be about second chances so disconnected to its pure-evil villains? This critique somewhat extends to Valentino, but I consider him to be more of a plot device for Angel’s own arc (which I love) rather than his own character (it would be extreme tonal whiplash to try to humanize him so soon after Poison) While Adam exists as an extension of heaven and one of the shows many embodiments of an evil status quo.

In the show’s current state, it doesn’t treat the residents of the hotel as “that bad” of people. Which is good for a show supposedly about rehabilitation! But it clashes so hard with how it (and to a worse degree its fandom, but I digress) treat characters who’re meant to be hated.

This post might not be entirely honest, as in Adam’s very last moments he smiles to his lieutenant in an admittedly heartfelt scene, humanizing him in a way the show didn’t care to before. And while I enjoy this, unless Adam and Lute’s possible remnants of humanity are explored in season 2, the show’s aesthetics are hypocritical with how it treats pure-evil.

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Also Guitarspear😭

[kagaminelen]

I'm normally against the tonal whiplash that I feel occurs whenever a show with a serious topic employs comedic relief. I understand (in theory) that you need something to break up the deep stuff, I guess? But like, why don't I just take a break from whatever it is? The things that use this the most are things like books or shows, not things that are meant to be consumed in one siting, anyway.

But watching something interesting and serious, and then having random bits of unfunny in the middle is just not it for me. Maybe it's the fact that I find it unfunny. If I found it funny, maybe I wouldn't hate it so much.

I find this to be the worst when it comes to anime, when the comedic relief is normally just ecchi shit or something. I don't find it funny, and it feels like a waste of time for me.

For example, I love black butler, it's awesome cool etc. etc. BUT I hate the comedic relief. Not necessarily the comedy itself, but when the show goes out of its way to make a "funny moment" and most of the time I just don't find it funny. I know I'm alone in this because when I went to watch Book of Atlantic in theatres, there were plenty of people laughing at the parts that were supposed to be funny.

The only thing I've watched that works for me is Higurashi. It almost depends on the breaks of normalcy between the gore and horror. Like yes, it has stupid anime shit like crossdressing or people being perverts or whatever, but for the most part it cosplays as a normal slice of life 50% and a mystery/thriller/slasher the other 50% the dichotomy is very much on purpose and really does serve the purpose of normal people doing depraved things because of too many flaps of a butterfly's wings. It's a good thing my tolerance for anime bullshit it decently high, or else I think I wouldn't watch it. It's genuinely interesting and the mystery bits and darker elements of the show have me hooked

[scarlet--wiccan]

On the Avengers Academy infinity comic I really feel like they need to switch up the marketing for it or something bc I genuinely thought it was for kids like it was a kids comic with it having child characters, the whole school setting and it being an infinity comic but then it turns out there’s almost fully explicit nudity & sex in it and the author said on twitter that bc it’s him ppl should’ve expected that ???

That's kind of a weird thing for him to say. At least as far as Marvel comics go, I think this is actually some of the most explicit content I've ever seen from Oliveira. And I'm not saying that's necessarily a problem, but most of the characters involved are like... 18? And several of their castmates are approximately 12? And the overall branding and presentation of the series definitely makes it seem like it's for young readers? I think some of the gratuitous sexuality could have been dialed back juuuuuuuust a little. And to be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with sex in media, but I do think it's important to be able to recognize when sexuality is gratuitous. I don't have a problem with that, either, but as a matter of taste, I think it should be limited when it comes to very young and/or underaged characters.

If I can't say with confidence that Aaron is old enough to legally drink, then I don't necessarily want to be treated to sexy splash pages of him hooking up. If I can't say for sure that Justin is out of high school, then I don't necessarily want to treated to sexy splash pages of him coming out of the shower in a towel that barely covers his junk. And the comic doesn't need to go to that place or take that tone every time.

I promise I'm not trying to be some kind of prude. I'm old enough to remember when gay couples kissing on-page was an achievement, especially younger characters, and I love that this storyline involves a character who is HIV+ and has a healthy, active sex life. Plus, I think there's something really cool and interesting about having two people-- Justin and Aaron-- who are close in age but have different levels of experience, and seeing how that informs the way they approach sex and relationships. Those disparities are very common, especially in gay people at that age, but seeing it represented in a superhero comic feels quite novel. Honestly, it's one of the most compelling storylines I've ever seen in an Unlimited comic-- but when I remember that these characters are barely legal and sharing page space with middle schoolers, I have to wonder if maybe things could be a little more temperate. Or maybe I really am just getting thrown off by the fact that the premise and presentation imply something more kid-friendly, and that tonal whiplash is making me question how I should be showing up to this book. But that, unto itself, is a formal issue that ought to be addressed.

TL:DR: I love what's happening, but it feels like the intent and delivery are disjointed in a way that makes me slightly uncomfortable, and I think that could be avoided with a little more thoughtfulness.

[lilyginnyblackv2]

Just some thoughts on Bravern so far...

I'm on Episode 6 of Bravern and I kinda like it, but I also kinda don't. I have a lot of mixed feelings on it, especially in regards to the character Lulu and how the series chose to introduce her character and her role thus far in the series (I'm not a fan of how they introduced her character with sexual aspects going on - the misconception that Smith was engaging in sex with her - and then now they are going a sort of childish and infantile route with her...It's just...kinda weird and creepy, but not in the usual way). I'm glad with how they've been NOT doing some things with her character (her role with Smith after her introduction hasn't been sexualized since, thank goodness), but the character archetype that they are going with her character so far is also one that I'm not really a fan of for reasons involving issues I have with some aspects of moe and whatnot.

Lulu is very cute though, and I actually really love the diversity in the female characters and their personalities!

I'm also not really a fan of love at first sight and soulmate stuff, so a lot of the Isami and Bravern moments, while humorous in some ways (though also a bit uncomfortable in some ways for me, because I feel like there are some slight consent issues going on) don't really emotionally connect at all either.

The storyline itself also seems kinda all over the place. Like, there is a consistent goal in the series so far, but I feel like a lot of the scenes don't really flow into each other as smoothly as they could or should, so it feels like things are just happening. There is a bit of a tonal whiplash too, due to the random bits of English that get thrown around, sometimes in grave or serious situations, that kind of just throw me for an unexpected loop. It makes me wonder if this is a series that I might like a bit more (in that regards) dubbed rather than subbed.

The character designs lean a bit too into bara (gei-comic) style for me personally (like, Tiger & Bunny character designs are my limit, and like Antonio's design is too much for me in that regards, though I adore his character - I tend to be more of a bishonen fan), but I do LOVE all of the gay subtext and text that is literally everywhere. The ED also is a thing of beauty, lmao. I also think this series does comedy extremely well.

I'm also just really intrigued by how things will go and play out and just how far the gay stuff will actually be pushed (I've seen a clip for a moment later on, so I have some general idea, but I want to see just how far it really goes). It's also nice to see anime original series just pushing boundaries and doing some different things. That's what they are there for.

I'm also open to seeing how things evolve and change with the series (some of the issues that I have might actually get addressed or flip around for me in a later episode). I'm not hooked on the series. It hasn't grabbed me in the same way as Buddy Daddies or Tiger & Bunny did, but I'm still interested and will still continue watching.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts on this series so far. I'm probably going to do a write up after I finish it as well.

[somegurl8]

Been watching a ton of Jake and The Neverland Pirates as of late because of my brother and I’ve had these 5 thoughts relating to the show:

1. Ollie JRWI in a modern AU would 1000% watch this show.

2. Life would be so much easier if you got money every time you solved some problem in your life, no matter how small.

3. They keep giving Lizzy honorary titles such as “honorary princess” and “honorary mermaid” because she’s the only girl in the trio and it cracks me up.

4. This show keeps giving me tonal whiplash because occasionally you’ll have one part of an episode be something serious (for a show for preschoolers) like trying to stop a sorcerer from freezing all of Neverland in ice or like trying to keep Wendy, John, and Michael from forgetting about Neverland and Peter Pan forever after Hook steals their book about Peter Pan to make sure people don’t remember all of his failures. And the second half is like “oh boy time to stop that sneaky Captain Hook from trying to steal treasure from (insert fictional creature)!” or “we found a map that leads to some treasure let’s go!”

5. Hook low key had a bit of rizz with Red Jessica

[imthepunchlord]

Tonal whiplash of Betterfly’s theme song aside (because let’s be honest the whole series has a serious issue with that at this point anyway) there’s an AMAZING Re-Verse AU being done by revolutionary-thoy that I think you’d really like given your preferences. It’s not like a set webcomic to catch up on either, moreso character design and worldbuilding at this stage, so if you do decide to check it out, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it as well.

https://revolutionary-thoy.tumblr.com/tagged/reverse/chrono

Oh yeah I've seen some of it through Zoe's reblogs.

Art is cool and I'm liking a lot of the designs. But it's not going to be an au I'm going to click with, cause it's really working off what's rolled out in the Paris Special, which are things I don't click with, the biggest being the concept of the Supreme, which them being all build up but no show, I got to question why bother with the invention of them. He/they aren't even good sequel hook cause we never see him/them ultimately despite all the build up. Typically you want to visually hint the next big villain. Which the no show kinda tells me they probably don't even know who or what the Supreme is (though I assume it's Fu).

Even more so that it feels like the Supreme was made to add to the dArK aNd EdGiNeSs of this Special. Which is a tone they really wanted for it, even though I feel like it should've gone comedic cause there is no way you can look at these design changes and not laugh, cause they felt like a blast to the past of... gosh was it the early 2000s when we got all those punk/goth/emo aesthetic? Marinette and Adrien felt like a reference to that, and Gabriel/Betterfly (I cracked up everytime I heard that name) reminded me of Damocles, playing hero, and probably gets teased by kids and be so cringey.

It feels like the Special was a fanfic that is trying waaaay to hard to go for that tone, especially with Supreme, and it just feels unnecessary as you got preexisting plausible reasons for Adrien and Marinette to go antagonistic. You don't need the Supreme's existence to push this villainous agenda along.

Chloe apparently is the same (which what's the point of a reversal world if you're not going to commit to doing reversal of everything?) and no one backing Marinette ever, she can go down a dark path from snapping and getting fed up. Lashes out against Chloe and everyone that abandoned her. You can also work off everyone having demands and expectations and her constantly expected to give and prioritize others over herself and she can never put herself first as that's "selfish", and it leads to her snapping. There also seems to be implications that PS Marinette doesn't have a happy home life, at least with Sabine? That can definitely push someone to be antagonistic.

With Adrien, playing off that this is Gabriel at the core, even if he's a better person, he's still a controlling and neglectful father who isolates his son and puts a lot of expectation and busy work on him, and wasn't there to help him through the loss of Emilie. So Adrien lashes out. He gets destructive. Lets that anger, frustration, and anguish loose.

Supreme wasn't needed to bring out plausible reasons for them to go antagonistic. And it feels like they made things darker and edgier than necessary, and just makes things confusing cause Gabriel is implied to be running a successful fashion industry, but the way he talks about his Paris and by the intro, it sounds like it's constantly on fire and is a war zone? Maybe that's why the Special is set in OG Paris cause maybe they don't even know what Special Paris is even like.

Anyway, with Re-Verse, I'll appreciate the art when I see it, cause it's really good; but it's not going to be an au I'll get into as it works with the existence of the Supreme and rolls with that dark edgyness that I rolled my eyes at. It's not going to be for me.

[gmmtv-bl-tournament-but-evil]

ooh, the subject of first bls is interesting. i started in bl dramas officially with cherry magic. i started in thai bl when someone made me watch fish upon the sky. then i watched kinnporsche the series. complete tonal whiplash but I’ve been a bl manga enthusiast for a long time now, so it wasn’t too out there, let’s just say that.

id say futs was probably not the best beginning for me as a person who is not much into strong comedy over romance, and it was quite flawed, but it DID get me into the gmmtv style of shows and i loved pondphuwin so, it overall wasn’t that bad. kpts afterward was a rollercoaster and got me very intrigued with what else there was. then i went to not me, and had a complete blast. (funnily, though, tol afterward is what actually got me obsessed with thai bl) i think something simple but suited to their tastes in dynamic or trope and then something more crazy as the first two would be a good fit for most people? it got me accustomed to the feel of thai bl and then got me really pumped for more.

i know someone who got into thai bl through bad buddy (great, solid choice, i think! though it isn’t one of my ultimate favorites). i made my best friend sit through all of bmf with me and now I’m making them watch cherry magic (they like the cuter, silly shows, so I’ll probably try to get them more into those) but yeah, i agree with you that it’s best to get people hooked on something suited to them.

We have a very similar past in how we started getting into BL! I also used to read Yaoi manga when I was in middle school (way too early, I know) and continued all throughout high school and most of university. At the time, I was almost exclusively reading BL rather than watching it (anime is another conversation entirely) but there is one significant exception: Doushitemo Furetakunai. All in all, I was consuming exclusively Japanese BL at the time and then suddenly stopped altogether mostly 'cause life.

KinnPorsche was the one that pulled me back in completely out of the blue when I randomly had it show up on my dashboard and the rest is history. I also watched Not Me and ToL shortly after that along with some much older shows. I went into it with kind of a researcher mindset. Since I was already used to the Japanese style of BL, Thai shows were kind of a culture shock which I was determined to work through. I'm now consuming Thai, South Korean, Taiwanese, Japanese, and - a little less frequently - BL from Hong Kong and the Philippines almost indiscriminately. Japan still holds a special spot in my heart in that regard, though.

Bad Buddy is also a great BL for a first-timer, I agree. And yes, it's just so fucking awesome when you get the right recommendation to the right person!!!

[gremoria411]

And now we come to my feelings on Zeon’s mobile suit designs in Mobile suit Gundam Code:Fairy. After my feelings on the Federation’s MS were…… broadly positive, my opinions on Zeon are a tad more divisive.

First up, the Zaku II Sniper type. Honestly, I get it, you want a sniper unit, but you don’t want to deal with the Zaku I sniper type being unwieldy, so you make a new Zaku variant and give it a fancy rifle. Honestly, it’s just fine. No real strong feelings here.

The Zaku high mobility ground type Alma Stirner custom annoys me perhaps more than it should, because the more I look at it the more I think that a Gouf with a rifle would have been a better choice. My main quibble is that the standard version was one of the best mass-production ms of the entire war, being agile and exceptionally suited to combat on earth, in addition to retaining the regular Zaku’s wide range of armaments. So a fancy custom version of one of the best units available as the unit you start with….. it feels a little much. If you’d started with a regular Zaku then upgraded, then sure, that’d be fine. But knowing how good that suit likely is really makes it ring hollow when the plot tries to say that Alma’s outgrown it.

Right, right, enough complaining. What do I think of the design? I do like the basic High Mobility Ground Type, and Alma’s is essentially an up-armed version of it, being equipped with a heat sword, shotgun, missiles and Vulcans in addition to the normal armaments. I do very much like the Vulcan placement, and the missiles pleasingly evoke the Zaku Desert Type, but besides that it’s really just an ace custom unit with some different shoulders. It does do a good job in-game of being the close-combat specialist to the other two’s ranged firepower, but again, I think a Gouf with a rifle would have been similarly adequate.

I’ll probably cover the Zaku Half-Cannon if I ever do anything about the Zaku Cannon, but I honestly don’t have a whole lot of opinions on it, so I’m just gonna skip.

The Dom Gnomides. HATE. I usually find it difficult to express how much I dislike this design. The base unit being a Dom Tropical Test type? Fine, no problems there. But shackling a giant box to its back? The whole in-universe point of mobile suits is that they’re supposed to be agile units that fight at close range, where visual contact is key and the have to be able to dodge enemy fire. The Dom Gnomides can dodge fire about as well as a slug can dodge salt pellets. In-game, it’s difficult to identify incoming fire because the suits so massive it gets in the way. They took a Dom, a suit known for its high speed and mobility, and turned it into something that would struggle to outrun the Zock. But surely, that massive cannon must make up for it, right? Oh, you mean that massive cannon they obtained by

Grave Robbing?

The Dom Gnomides Pilot, Mira Brinkman, obtains the main cannon from the wreck of the Hidolfr, the mobile tank from Gundam Igloo.

In-game, they justify it with “well, at least we can give commander Sonnen (the pilot) a proper burial” but Mira’s primary concern is obviously the cannon. It’s just quite creepy, because at this point, they’re all sunshine and cheers about the whole thing “oh boy, let’s get a cannon for our suit and bury our fallen comrades along the way”, so knowing that in order to build this, they had to hose the remains of Commander Sonnen out of the Hidolfr just feels…… off? At odds with the tone? I know in war you should strive to recover equipment wherever you can, It’s just a massive tonal whiplash if you’ve actually watched igloo. The Dom Gnomides is armed with other weaponry, but honestly, they’re just fine.

The Efreet Jäger is the only one of the main three mobile suits to get a HG model, most likely because they’d already made a bunch of Efreet Variants. Honestly, it’s one of those rare models I would buy purposefully to mod. Paint some camouflage on there, maybe hook a ghille cloak or something over its shoulder, swap the odd weapon or two and I think it’d look really really good. The Efreet Line is another design series I’m very fond of, simply because the basic Efreet and Gouf are both designed to do the same thing, but approach it from different angles. Both are designed to be CQC suits par excellence, so are armed with heat swords, but whereas the Gouf fights more like a Gladiator, with its sword and shield it’s primary weapons, and then the Heat Rod and Vulcans to trip up the enemy; the Efreet fights more as a raider. Armed with two heat swords, trading defence for offence, and smoke discharges to temporarily blind the enemy to its movements- a fatal mistake in a sword fight. It’s typically also armed with a shotgun, for when something’s just out of range of the swords (though in GBO2, you can swap it out for a bazooka or Machine Gun). The Efreet Jäger is a sniper, unheard of in such a melee-focused line. This is essentially my only real criticism of it, another suit that is absolutely amazing at one thing being pigeonholed into yet another generalist. There are good sniping suits available, like the Zaku I Sniper, so an upgraded unit would fit very well. But instead they took a close-quarters unit and handed it a sniper rifle. I will fully admit that maybe something different for the line would be a good idea, but when it’s entire identity is built around one speciality, shifting to a different one just feels wrong.

The basic suit design is quite nice, the chests been modelled nicely and the asymmetry really plays up that this is a suit built for sniping and guerrilla tactics - asymmetrical warfare if you will. The rifle is gorgeous, and I like how it’s got grenades as part of it’s loadout. If I were to say the Efreet jäger is my least favourite Efreet, that’s more about the strength of the Efreet line as a whole than the weakness of the jäger on its own. I will say that, in game, the Efreet jäger is the best thing since sliced bread, purely on the strength of its sniper rifle having two settings. All my quibbles melt away after using it in-game, since you can just pop out of cover, nail an enemy with either single-shot, or explosive bust ammunition, then move on, with chaff and spotter abilities if you feel like playing support, and a heat kunai and shotgun if you need to fight up close.

Finally, we come to the Titania. It shares its name with the fairly obscure PMX-004 Titania designed by Paptimus Scirocco and is based on the absolutely fantastic Kämpfer (another of my all-time favourites). I do very much love the design, a little overarmed maybe (it’s got Vulcans, so I don’t really think it *needs* the arm gatling, and I consistently forget about the Beam Machinegun when using the Titania in game. GBO2’s decision to make it an optional weapon was, I think, a wise one), but the actual design of the mobile suit itself is wonderful. It’s slightly more heavily armoured than the original Kämpfer (so we’re told, anyway) and this is reflected in its remodelling, squaring off the Kämpfer’s smooth lines with blocky armour. The shoulders are just splendid, giving it a good silhouette along with the fuel tanks (which give the impression of wings). The choice to keep the original Kämpfer’s backpack was also a good one, since it effectively breaks up what could have been a rather boring back, and the extension of this design philosophy to the leg vents is also lovely to see. The legs appear to be slightly dainty, but none the less armoured for it, a design I appreciate. The head is gorgeous, it looks like it belongs one one of the Zabi’s royal Guard and evokes the design sensibilities of the Sleeves. Does it suit a Guerilla unit? No. Do I care particularly? Also no. All in all, it’s just a wonderful design variant on the Kämpfer.

However. The rationale behind its creation in-universe bothers me in the same manner that the Dom Gnomides does.

So, upon receiving the Kämpfer frame, unarmoured (and really missing a trick to tie it into the prototype Kämpfer, but whatever), the chief mechanic looked at it and decided “this design promotes recklessness, and is built for speed and power at the expense of armour”. Yes….? It’s an assault suit, designed to get in, cause as much damage as possible, then get out. Heck, the “E” in the Kämpfer’s model number is stated to stand for “Einhauen” - one strike in German. It’s not built for protracted combat, because it was never designed to be. So looking at the Kämpfer, a very specialised unit, and deciding that that specialisation is, itself, wrong is just kinda dumb. Like, they could have been sent the wrong materials, it could have only been intended to be used for one mission and Noisy Fairy managed to keep it running beyond that, it could have been an indication of how desperate Zeon was getting. Heck, the Kämpfer itself is stated to be one of multiple units built of the prototype Kämpfer each tuned for specialist uses, maybe they could simply use a different unit in the line? All of these options would have been better than “well it promotes recklessness and that’s BAAAAAD”

My other criticism is that it’s stated that they added extra thrusters to the design to offset all the extra weight of the armour and weapons (since the Titania doesn’t cast off its weapons like the original). Really now. You’re telling me you added “extra thrusters” to a unit that was already roughly 60% thruster by volume? I know it’s petty(ier) but it still bothers me.

However, none of this detracts from the fact that the Titania is a pretty sweet design, even if I do think I could’ve been integrated better (glances meaningfully in the direction of the Prototype Kämpfer).

[delta-orionis]

the fact that ashley precedes Simon's apology with "don't make this weird" feels almost like it was initially framed as a sike-out to the player. which to me is even stronger of an implication of him being aro/ace, or at the very least def not having feelings for Ashley. but perhaps it was removed bc it was too much of a tonal whiplash

(in reference to this post I made about Simon being aroace)

I definitely agree. Simon replies "it's not like that", and while it's easy to assume he's lying, I feel like the cut voice lines provide important context to what he means. Without that context, it's kind of ambiguous.

I personally think the dream sequence would have made a lot more sense if they had kept it in; in general it's a bit of a confusing scene. It's a bit hard to understand, and it wasn't until I listened to the cut voice lines that I understood what was going on; Simon is re-living Ashley's death and is trying to apologize to her, but he gets cut off. It's implied that this is a recurring nightmare he has, and he always wakes up before he's able to apologize properly.

Perhaps the reason why it was cut was because the devs wanted the dream sequence to be confusing on purpose. It's certainly weird at first glance; there's a weird mishmash of past and present events that don't entirely make sense, but I suppose that could be chalked up to dream logic.

Dreams don't have to make sense (in fact, they frequently don't), but I think they're hard to pull off as a form of exposition. The point of this scene is probably meant more as a story hook to intrigue the player rather than explain what's actually going on; there's plenty of exposition for that later on. I think this game is very good at laying out things that make more sense later on instead of hitting the player with a mountain of exposition all at once.

Anyway. All that to say, I think you have a point in saying Ashley's dialogue was meant to act as a sike-out to the player. I think it makes much more sense with the context of the cut dialogue, but it might have been cut because the devs wanted players to fill in the blanks. I guess we'll never know.

[ultraericthered]

Star Driver - To The Guy Who Didn’t Get It

It seems like whole decades have gone by since the early 2010s and it makes me feel so old, yet I tend to forget how somewhat different the online fandom/social media scene was compared to now, especially in regards to critiques of then-still running shows done on blogs. And I happened upon one on Blogger (Anyone remember that blogging site? Does anyone still use it?) by an anime reviewer who blogged his thoughts on different anime episodes after they’d aired. And back then in 2010-2011, Star Driver was one such anime.

To say he wasn’t a fan would be almost understating it given the scathing remarks he blogged about it on a weekly basis. While obviously his thoughts and feelings on it and mine could not differ more, I understand that people have different tastes and that’s perfectly acceptable and right even. ...But y’know the saying that goes “you’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts and logic?” If your argument for or against something is based in illogical fallacies and disregard for objectivity and truth, even the sort of objective truth in regards to what’s grounded in what is canonical to works of fiction, it’s not a good argument and deserves to be torn apart. It doesn’t help that this blogger was that sort of pseduo-critic anime snob who had some ideas about how good storytelling, character writing, worldbuilding, and overall execution of a made-for-TV animated series should look like that I don’t think has aged very well on today’s online world. So even though it was years ago and on a whole ‘nother site, I just HAVE to rip this hater a new one here!

On Episode 1:

...wait, what the Hell is going on in this show?  It's only episode one and I already feel mired in things that I don't understand, a sense of confusion that only feels all the more jarring after the sudden change in gears from comedy school setting to giant robots and people with masks jabbering about Cybodys. I'm sure this sense of confusion is kind of the point, and that all will be explained in due course, but I can't help but feel that this plunge into "the science bit" was a little too sudden - had it come at the very start of the episode it might have worked, but in jerking us out of our previous sedate reverie it just feels wrong.

In Which Anime Blogger Complains About The Entire Effing Point. The series is meant to hook you in here because you’re sent reeling from what’s going on, because you’re confused and don’t understand what’s being talked about and what’s being done, because of the tonal whiplash and clashing between two types of shows that leads to such insane high octane action and unashamed campiness. There is no “kind of” about it, it is absolutely the point. I swear that this came up elsewhere on the blog but this blogger was not familiar with the creators other works, mainly Revolutionary Girl Utena, and it constantly shows. If Star Driver, right out the gate, is How Not To Make An Anime, then Utena should’ve tanked and never recieved all the glowing critical praise it’s gotten over the years because it did all the exact same stuff with its storytelling and presentation. And he thinks the show needed to lead with the Cybodies and the Crux in order to let the viewer know that this wasn’t just some high school romcom anime and that we’d be in for some weird and exciting mecha stuff? Not only is that unimaginative and belittling of the audience’s intelligence, patience, and attention spans, but it misses that one of the earliest spoken lines was Wako saying “I smell a boy I don’t know”. The guarantee of silly weirdness was already given to us right there, we didn’t need to see the costumes and robots yet.

On Episode 2:

we finally come to what I'm guessing might well be our weekly dose of action, as Takuto and his Cybody Tauburn find themselves under attack by opponents looking for revenge, and of course the opportunity to get their more accomplished foe well and truly out of the way. While it looks for a moment as though they might succeed, in typical giant robot anime fashion Takuto steps things up a gear when he needs it most and wins the day once again.  Hurrah! Again he shows he’s not watched Utena or any of the Sailor Moon shows, where this sort of usual “weekly dose of action” formula was common. And yes, that’s exactly how it goes. You figured it out!

On Episode 3:

On the other hand, it still feels like we're quite some way from understanding exactly what's going on, and I can't decided whether this is a good thing or not - it's certainly leaving me hungry to know more, but by the same token I feel like I need more information to actually settle into enjoying this show or otherwise. 

“Can’t decided?” And no, it’s totally a good thing. If you’re spoonfed way too much information too soon, you coming to see the grand design of the series as it unfolds before your eyes and understanding it better wouldn’t be nearly so rewarding. The best stories give you only the most basic, general and digestible information right at the start, then more pieces of information come at you in gradual doses, big and small, so that the huge perspective-altering bomb drops of later on can come in naturally and feel earned. And once you have all the information and context behind everything, going back and looking over those earlier parts of the story that you’d first viewed through a lens of not knowing all information and context will make you see so much of what you’d seen and heard before in a new light.

Well, we're now three episodes in, and Star Driver remains little more than a pile of nonsense that doesn't know what it wants to be in terms of its plot.  One minute it's a high school comedy, the next its some kind of harem show, then it's a drama of sorts before we move to the week's admittedly impressive action scenes where we get to watch some big robots fighting... now with added swords!  I keep telling myself that there's something big, clever and more intricate in terms of the show's story just around the corner but I'm beginning to wonder - Star Driver is increasingly looking like some kind of "robot fight of the week" anime with little else to say for itself to the point of being wilfully obtuse.

Star Driver knew exactly what it wanted to be in terms of plot, what conclusions it wanted to reach, and how it wanted to reach them - this dude is the one who didn’t know. The high school comedy, harem and fanservice antics, and human drama aspects of the show are all core parts of the show’s identity when on the island outside of Zero Time and are pieces moving in tandem with one another to service not only the mecha anime action-adventure spectacle but the larger narrative, character arcs, and fundamental core themes. The “big, clever and more intricate something” was always right there, thinly veiled behind the campy, stupid, ridiculous “robot fights of the week” show, as that’s the sort of thing Igarashi likes to do.

A commenter on this blog also had this to say:

Seriously, at this point we can dispense with the rest of the show and just fast forward to the part where that caged girl starts singing. :)

Uh, no we can’t, because if we skipped the island stuff and only took in the Star Driver/Cybody shenanigans in Zero Time, everything the story culminates in by the grand finale, and the two arc finales before that, would have no meaning to us, as such meaning was only found in the parts of the show set within Southern Cross Island daily life.

On Episode 5:

I thought that perhaps the previous episode of Star Driver was paving the way for a slight shift in the show's formula and way of doing things... but no, I was wrong, as episode five proves to be another rinse and repeat affair which introduces a character, ties them in to the Glittering Crux brigade and then finishes with a Zero Time battle between said character against Takuto.

I can actually see his point here, at least. It’s rather strange that “Meaning Of The Mandrake” was placed after “Wako’s Song” rather than before it, ‘cause if it had been the other way around, the latter four episodes of the first arc would feel like they had more momentum of importance compared to the first four. The third arc had a similar issue in terms of where they placed the backstory episode - the middle arc (”Innocent Blue Chapter”) is the only one where they nailed the contents and the pacing pretty much perfectly.

Even though we're five episodes in now, I still can't figure out just what Star Driver wants to be (if it even knows itself) - last week's episode seemed set to shake things up a little before this instalment brought us back to the same old episode layout while playing its plot mostly for comic value, right up to our school nurse being defeated while she's checking Takuto out. Okay, that moment was pretty funny (and there were a few other giggles to be had from this episode), but I have to admit that it wasn't what I signed up to Star Driver for and it needs to do a whole lot more if it isn't going to join the rather considerable pile of forgettable mecha series that decorates the world of anime like some elephant's graveyard.

Yes, Star Driver knows what it is and what it wanted to be, this is a “you” problem here, Mr. Blogger. The fact that it does offer such big shakeups every three episodes or sometimes every other episode shows that Igarashi and co. were well aware of what they were doing and how they wanted to play their cards. And oh, the sheer dumb of those later statements. If you “didn’t sign up to Star Driver” for all the goofy stuff that define it as Star Driver, maybe you should’ve thought twice about signing up for Star Driver! And if by even that point your impression of Star Driver was that it could wind up “forgettable” if it didn’t push for being more than what it was at the start, I just don’t know what to tell you. Youv’e got such a terrible attention span.

On Episode 6:

At last, this feels like a real step forward for Star Driver, away from its sometimes frivolous characters and plot progression towards what feels like a more solid footing.

Yes. That was the whole point. That was the whole PLAN. NIMROD!

On Episode 8:

Herein lies the major problem with Star Driver as it continues on its merry way - no matter what happens to the major characters within the show and no matter what developments emerge, it seems like the series is Hell-bent on keeping its episode format intact. This makes for a tiring and predictable viewing experience where we know exactly what's coming, but we still have to sit and wait for most of the episode for it to happen. This wouldn't be so bad if the build-up to the giant robot scraps were packed to the rafters with fascinating drama and character development, but this is rarely the case, instead leaving us with some rather overblown stuff that doesn't have any real impact. Sugata's plight should have made for a huge amount of potential, yet here we are with that part of the story seemingly resolved and yet virtually nothing was made of it. No matter how much I want to like Star Driver (and those fight sequences really are increasingly impressive), it just seems to disappoint me every time I try to give it another chance.

Once again, see Utena, which did the exact same thing of “Episode Format Status Quo Is God, But Not Necessarily An All-Mighty God”. That show had an entire midsection story arc where the conclusion was that its main villain and events were wiped from having ever existed and from the minds of other characters, as though the whole arc that spanned several episodes straight never happened - that’s something that should be decried as a giant time waster and a Filler Arc, but the effects of what happened in it and where it left our characters mattered greatly to the events to follow. A series doesn’t have to break its status quo and throw game-changing, character-effecting, crucially timed, urgently paced, high stakes developments at us every other episode in order to have narrative depth, character development, and plot progression. Sometimes, this way is good enough, where you have the gist of what the show’s all about and know what to expect and what you might predict, but may still be surprised, enthralled, and delighted by the execution and might even find you weren’t as ready for what you end up seeing as you thought you were going into the episode, meaning it’s NOT always a “tiring and predictable” experience, as you won’t always know EXACTLY what you’re in for in terms of the whens, hows, and whys of what gets played out in the story being told. During my rewatch, I noticed a lot of the good, juicy bits of drama and character development that were seeded into those breather periods on the island away from the Crux’s lair and out of Zero Time, and Sugata’s plight was far from resolved by Episode 8 - it simply was transitioned from one point to the next, as oftentimes when things reach an “end”, it’s actually just a phasing out of something that comes with a phasing in of something else semi-connected. The Adventure Of Life Goes On and all that.

If Star Driver was disappointing him, it’s because he set himself up for such disappointment first rather than go with the anime’s flow.

On Episode 10:

Star Driver has become dull and predictable, and there certainly wasn't anything on show this episode to change that.  We're now even at the point where those previously spectacular mecha battles feel run of the mill, leaving us with little to look forward to each week. Something needs to break Star Driver out of its over-used mould, but at the moment I simply can't see anything capable of doing that.

Predictable, yeah. Dull? Hell no, hardly! And “I can’t see anything capable of doing that.” The You twins were RIGHT F**KING THERE!

On Episode 11:

So, another episode of Star Driver has passed, and I'm still utterly bored with its predictable layout and the knowledge that Takuto will always win his battle at the end of the episode one way or another.  Even outside of the action, the whole story surrounding "Simone" felt horribly forced whilst proving to be equally dull in its own right. I'm seriously starting to think that this series is entirely beyond redemption now, but can I really drop a show after sinking almost six hours into it?

If he was so “utterly bored” of this show, what was he doing still writing these posts on it? Takuto having to win all of his battles at the end one way or another is a feature rather than a bug, and does not necessarily break immersion or enjoyment - a lot of the oldest comic books and action-adventure TV serials, the sort of stuff that inspired Star Wars, were like this, where the hero is allowed to be put in peril and leave the audience going “Oh no! How will they get out of this one?” without there being any hint of a doubt that they will indeed  “get out of this one” in the end so that they can go on to their next thrilling adventure, rinse and repeat. It’s not super dramatic because it’s not made to be - it’s made to be FUN. It’s good old fashioned escapism and entertainment. If that’s not one’s cup of tea, then they ought to stop drinking it for no reason but to prove that they can.

On Episode 12:

While the comedy for this episode of Star Driver was far sharper than anything we've seen from the show of late, that's really all it has going for it as per usual - it got a few laughs, but was otherwise as dull and lifeless as ever. There are brief hints of movement courtesy of Kanako meeting and conversing with Mizuno, but considering we're effectively at the half-way point of this series it would be nice to see something other than the odd glacial snippet of plot progression. I too like to throw around words like “dull” and “lifeless” and “boring” and “tepid” and “predictable” and “frivolous” and “forgttable” and even “utterly” without really thinking about whether or not I’m applying them to anything that actually truly matches the meanings of those words but if they make me sound like a real critic who knows what the fuck he’s talking about then I use them, I R super smart! Again, the Black Rose arc from Utena’s midsection deserves mention here.

On Episode 13:

I really have nothing new to say about Star Driver now - it's utterly dull and lifeless, and the plot of this particular episode was plain to see within the first five minutes of the episode, making Takuto's eventual victory even more of a foregone conclusion then it was already. With no peril, danger or intense action to this show's name, what is the point exactly? 

There it is again - “Dull and lifeless!” And in this episode’s case, it’s a Breather Episode and an actually well-placed one at that. I also described already what the point of the show is - to entertain and be fun, sincere and wholesome and even compelling to any who actually engage with it. It’s not a bad show, you’re just mean and joyless.

On Episode 14:

That said, I do have to point out that pretty much everything that was good about the second half of this episode was blatantly stolen from Evangelion (and more specifically its recent movies), but if pinching cool visual concepts and ideas from that series makes Star Driver better than I say go for it.

A mecha anime gets mind screwy and throws in some psychological and existential angst coupled with visual horrors?  “Blatantly stolen” from Evangelion rather than just influenced by it! Overall, this episode hasn't left me with renewed confidence that this series has a clue what it's doing or what its end-game is, but it's at least managed to find a little more potential and promise to keep me watching for the time being. If only it hadn't taken so long to do so...

You’d had to have completely missed the underlining purpose of this episode to come to that conclusion. Everything about the Ayingott project and what Marino was doing as Vanishing Age’s substitute leader was thoroughly schemed out by Head and Ivrogne in order to move things to the next phase, which itself ties back around to earlier set-up with Sugata and Samekh, and what’s truly motivating Ivrogne in her actions. The series’ end-game is a clear picture that comes together like a great big picture puzzle whose pieces you weren’t even looking at ‘cause you were too busy whining about the series!

On Episode 15:

What's this?  An episode of Star Driver that doesn't follow the exact same pattern of nearly every other episode that came before it almost to the second Stop the presses!  After moaning about it for so many weeks, simply breaking out of Star Driver's cycle of drama -> Zero Time -> Takuto wins feels like a breath of fresh air which left me watching the clock and thinking "however are they going to fit a pointless Cybody battle into this episode?".  Well, thankfully they didn't, instead giving the rest of the plot some much-needed room to breathe - something it did reasonably proficiently with plenty of angst and drama to lean on whilst also shifting the positions of a few key pieces on the show's chess board, most notably Sugata and our "mysterious" (or not so mysterious) painter aside from Mizuno herself.  

Yeah, even this asshat couldn’t not give these episodes their due.

only to enter some kind of Endless Eight-esque state where every time she leaves she simply wakes up and has to start all over again - a situation which leaves her a nervous and bawling wreck in a ferry terminal car park after numerous iterations (again, much like most viewers of Endless Eight after a few episodes).

Including this here because it’s actually pretty damn funny. This alone wasn't enough to make Star Driver suddenly seem like a far more compelling series, but following on from last week's more focused offering the signs of improvement are certainly there to be seen. It has a way to go, but at last there's light at the end of the tunnel of mediocrity from which this show desperately needs to escape over the coming weeks.

If it wasn’t, then maybe it honestly didn’t even need to be? What it did for me was make these episodes themselves, and retroactively every episode that featured and slowly advanced the arc of the You twins, far more compelling in and of themselves. The remainder of the show could’ve tanked and it wouldn’t change how great this section was.

On Episode 16:

This leaves me with an episode that I'm rather torn about - the revelations and story built around Mizuno turned out to be quite a nice twist in the tale (although they arguably weren't used to their fullest extent) and the Zero Time section this week was absolutely stunning even by this show's standards, while the Glittering Crux finally reaching their so-called Third Phase after blathering on about it for several months is as much of a relief as it is a sign of some tougher competition for Takuto. Set against that, the whole flashback element into Takuto's past for this episode felt clumsy and bolted on, leading in to a sudden upgrade to Tauburn's powers that was boringly predictable but unavoidably so.

Fair point. I can see why the action grinding to a halt just to give us some backstory that ties directly in with Takuto’s big finisher of that day might feel off for some viewers and take them out of the whole moment, but I personally liked it and will have stuff to say on it later.

Thus, I don't know what to make of it all - certain elements of the series have moved in some decidedly interesting new directions while others look to be stuck in a rut. Overall I suppose that's an improvement, but it still isn't enough to turn Star Driver into a good series at this juncture, let alone a great one.

See what I said before about these Mizuno arc episodes. And to me, Star Driver was always a good series, and these episodes, plus Episode 20 and the final two, just solified it into a great one.

On Episode 17:

Just as it seemed as it Star Driver had broken free of its repetitive episode conventions, it looks like the announcement of third phase combat last time around has seen a return to the tried and far from trusted episode layout of weeks gone by - high school hijinks, Glittering Crux meeting, big battle where Takuto wins via some previously unknown/unexpected deus ex machina.

“This show...is still Star Driver! WHY IS IT STILL STAR DRIVER?!?”

On Episode 18:

I remain both bored and unimpressed with Star Driver again at present - every time is looks set to do something to come out of its coma of predictability, it somehow manages to ruin the whole thing. For what is supposedly an anime about Cybodies which could change the entire world as we know it if the Glittering Crux Brigade succeeds, there's still no tension or drama in anything we see - battles are finished with the equivalent of a flick of the wrist, and more time is spent on school life shenanigans than any form of character building or plot development.  Perhaps someone should get the Madoka Magica team onto a mecha series when they're done with that show?  By all accounts they could do a far better job than this effort which seems to borrow from numerous other similar series whilst completely missing the point of what makes those shows great.

Oh my God, this dude.... The anime is not “about” the Cybodies and the stakes of what should happen if Zero Time was broken and they were all active outside of it again. It literally ends with Zero Time broken yet doesn’t make anything more of it than what’s needed for the immediate focus of the final action. This is called “missing the forest for the trees.” There are some shows, even shows with giant robot fights, that are not made to ride and die on the sort of “tension and drama” that this blogger pines for. And in fact, a lot of the character building and slow-burn plot development to set up the next big advancements are in those smaller, so-called “school life shananigans” that he thinks shouldn’t be allowed in a mecha anime. The reference to Madoka here is important because it’s such an apples-to-oranges comparison; Madoka is a anime with plot and character drama that’s very tightly written, and drama and stakes that escalate by the episode, because it was a 12 episode one cours anime where continous serialized storytelling was necessary and breathing room a no-go. Star Driver, meanwhile...is not that. And how ironic that he said that last part when he himself was missing what made this show great because he was too hung up on his own preferences and expectations, likely influenced by other shows!

On Episode 19:

That aside, I felt that the whole "body snatching" aspect of this episode was rather a wasted opportunity - not much was done with a scenario that was ripe with potential, and Kou and Madoka were both so useless in their body switching roles that they frittered away the chance to cause some genuine chaos far outside simply messing with Wako's head.

Another valid, legitimate criticism. Those are more relieving to come by on this blog than outlier episodes are to come by on Star Driver!

On Episode 20:

After frittering away so many (read: almost all) of its episodes, it's nice to see things finally building in an interesting direction at this late stage - although I can't quite get my head around Takuto's parentage at this juncture (is Tokio really that old?), we did learn some significant information about the man at the helm of the Glittering Crux Brigade, finally see a fire (or at least a slightly damp match) lit under Takuto's feelings for Wako, and perhaps most important we got a Zero Time battle that was interesting for almost thirty whole seconds, which is a new record on my watch. With next week's episode also promising to continue in the right direction, can Star Driver pull out a decent ending to this tepid series?  It won't be enough to save it from the halls of anime mediocrity, but regardless of that I sure hope it does so that my hours of watching this series don't prove to be in vain.

Tokio’s First Phase slowed his physical aging, which is why he still appears to be college aged at most. Oh, and more throwing in big sounding critic words/ “Tepid”? “Mediocrity”? By whose measure?

On Episode 21:

Not for the first time with this series, Star Driver hits upon something interesting only to render it utterly dull and useless with its staunch refusal to add any kind of peril to proceedings. In this case, we were finally faced with a conflict where someone absolutely had to die, no questions ask or no chance to sidestep this brutal truth... until the episode pulls out a deus ex machina so it can all end without anyone getting hurt.  What. The. Fuck. Star. Driver.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is why everyone is raving about Puella Magi Madoka Magica and the world it's woven where everything has serious and realistic consequences; this is also why nobody gives two flying monkeys about Star Driver any more. The sooner this show finishes and puts us all out of its abjectly mediocre misery the better.

I cannot with this doofus and his vocabulary. Here’s where the Madoka thing comes back (ironic since that’s the name of the character in question who didn’t get offed), and for one thing, it aged poorly given how Mami and Kyoko, two characters who we saw absolutely definitely die on-screen just come back to life at the end which sort of negates the weight of their deaths (though Sayaka doesn’t for some reason?), the serious consequences at the very end of the series were so mired in the fantastical that you can’t really call it “realistic”, and then after that initial series, everyone came back and a whole freaking Madoka multiverse was established, so it’s not exactly a super grounded, gritty, true-to-life anime experience. And second of all, it exposes how limited this person’s scope of what can pass for a solid, enjoyable, satisfying series with good storytelling even is. If a series isn’t like a steadily building, super tense, dark, bleak, violent and suspenseful “Anyone Can Die At Any Point” affair like Game Of Thrones, or even a one cours quickie filled with darkness and edge, thrills, chills, kills, shocking plot developments, mindblowing and/or soul-crushing reveals, and constant bordering-on-torture-porn misery and despair at every turn every week like Madoka, then it’s just garbage to someone like this. It’s so sad to me.

On Episode 22:

Mark, who is played by Takuto and really doesn't do anything interesting at all aside from getting to kiss Wako at the end of the entire ordeal.  Which is, to be fair, a pretty awesome thing to do.

Another moment where even a first class fool can see reason.

Above all though, much of this episode is really just about hammering home the current state of Wako's heart when it comes to choosing between Sugata and Takuto, as though the end of last week's episode didn't make that entirely clear and we needed to sit through all of this to explain things. The state of Wako’s heart at the moment wasn’t about “choosing between Sugata and Takuto”, as she was starting to realize more and more after her birthday that she felt equal love for them both. The real drama that was being shaped here was the idea that Sugata could possibly renounce what his heart was feeling for Wako in favor of finally embracing and using Samekh’s power, which is the future that Keito was offering him and hoping that he would take.

I probably wouldn't be so harsh on this episode if it were ensconced within the first half of Star Driver, but with only three episodes to go the series still seems intent on pissing away what little time it has left on incredibly dull and forced plot devices in the hope of somehow seeming "deep" that really add very little to either the show or its characters. I know that Star Driver is a lost cause now, but there's still so much I want to like about it that even at this juncture I get frustrated by its inability to do anything worthy of note with its setting and the individuals within them.  Goodness knows it has enough intriguing, likeable or downright cool characters to play with, so how we ended up with this tepid and clumsy cluster-fuck of a series is becoming increasingly mind-boggling.

You know why that entire paragraph got bolded. Take it away, Luke!

EXCEPT for “Goodness knows it has enough intriguing, likeable or downright cool characters to play with” - those words were right.

On Episode 23:

But what's this?  A major plot twist involving Sugata?  Wow, I never saw that one coming at all.

A good plot twist is one that makes logical internal sense within the narrative and character-based framework and advances the story in an interesting direction, not just one that you don’t see coming. I mean, he even goes on to say this and thus sound contradictory:

Okay, so Sugata's defection does make things a bit more interesting for the final couple of episodes, and it does also fit in better with the evolving relationship dynamic between the remaining maidens, Sugata, and Takuto.  

However, that doesn't make this anything less than another clumsy implemented slice of utter mediocrity where Zero Time also means Zero Excitement and Zero Peril.  Nothing has grabbed or surprised me even at this late stage of the game, meaning that the only real excitement I have left is the thought that in a couple of weeks I'll finally be done with this tepid series - fingers crossed it doesn't get licensed in the UK so that I have to watch it all over again though.

“UTTER mediOCRITY!” “Where’s teh EXCITEMENT and PERIL?”  “This is most tepid series! TEPID, I SAY!” And of course he’s British!

On Episode 24:

Even a show as largely dull and tepid as Star Driver can't screw up its penultimate episode on account of being too dull... although episode twenty-four certainly tries its best at doing just that before the sheer weight of interesting stuff available to the series finally forces its way through.

And I don’t know what else I expected from YOUR penultimate effort!

Okay, I have to confess, the end of this week's episode of Star Driver was pretty damn cool - once I'd suppressed my laughter at the sheer stupidity of nobody recognising any Glittering Crux member until they remove their mask and go "hey, guess who?!", there were some awesome visuals on show and everything seems set up right to deliver a finale free from all the fluff and nonsense that the series has drowned in up to this point. The fact that it took half the episode to get to this "good bit" remains a blatant reminder of everything that's wrong with Star Driver, but at least for once it seems set to actually deliver on its potential - if only it hadn't left it so late to do so.

I’m starting to suspect this dude might actually end up liking Star Driver: The Movie better than Star Driver: The Show, as it gives him basically what he’s asking for in terms of cutting down on the “fluff and nonsense” and hitting off all the “good bits” of lore and drama and fighting action with marked high stakes and twists and turns and all that PLOT PLOT PLOT!, even when said “good bits” would feel hollow and stripped of all deeper meaning due to what was missed out on with the “building block bits” of the high school and island community content that are there to give you an actual connection to the characters, the setting, and the going ons. Again, reading this feels alien in an age where shows “cut too short” and having a lack of breathers and “filler episodes” is more bemoaned than celebrated.

On Episode 25:

It's taken half a year, but we finally we get the episode of Star Driver everyone had been crying out for from the very start.  

................................. This fucking guy just went and said that  “the episode of Star Driver everyone (read: he) had been crying out for from the very start”....was at the very end, as in the final episode, the episode that by its very nature had to be built towards and earned by a whole series worth of episodes leading up to it. 

Crowning Achievement Of Dumb right there. Who thinks like this? That an action-based and character-driven serialized TV series has to lead with a series finale-worth of material from the offset in order to be deemed good?  What is even the point of such a show if it can play not just its full hand but its full deck of cards right from the off-set? This is ludicrous and exposes what an impatient child this guy was. He had zero deep understanding of shit he was talking about!

Okay, it still has an utterly stupid plot (Head's motivations and actions come straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon, and Takuto's decision-making isn't much better), but it had lots of awesome action and visual spectacle to make up for that lack of coherency. 

That was the whole idea. That was his character, that he was like a damaged piece of art where underneath the deep, detailed, beautiful and enticing surface, at his core were some very simplistic ideas and desires. A seflish, petty, ultimately hollow and lacking man pretending to be a boy pretending to be a man and wanted to be a boy again.

Having seen this example of what Star Driver could have been all about somehow only serves to make the rest of the series all the more disappointing - if only the series had this level of tension and peril written into it from the very start, then we might have been able to forgive the ridiculous dei ex machina that turned up on a regular basis and the distracting slice of life shenanigans that would have served better as a spin-off series in its own right. 

Again, ASS. BACKWARDS. It is only because Star Driver was about so much more than the surface level space tech lore and mecha action, because it did not carry itself with this level of tension and peril written into most of its regular proceedings, that this grand finale ends up feeling as grand as it does and carrying such a staggering amount of high quality to it, the quality it feels was built, reached, and earned rather than taken for granted. And if there was anything you found to be “distracting” in the slice of life shenanigans segments, it came from you rather than from the show, which was laying its heart and soul bare in all of those moments, offering up all the smaller pieces that were to be joined together to show you the bigger picture whole of the story, but your mind and your gaze turned away from it.

In terms of wasted potential, this Star Driver must rank at the top of the tree for the last year, and one line in this final episode really said it all: an exclamation of "this battle meant something".  At the show's own admission it took twenty-five episodes to have a meaningful battle in a series built around such action sequences - I rest my case.

Twenty-four episodes of a show built around (but not necessarily super focused on or all about) mech battle action sequences were all stocking up its energy and budget as it built up to the Big One, the one that would be so meaningful that it’d retroactively justify and give validity to all the smaller steps taken towards it, at the very end. This sounds perfectly reasonable, yet this guy puts it as though it’s a serious flaw. Absolutely obtuse, illiterate, unimaginative buffoon.

There were also some choice comments I had to pick out:

There was so much potential depth in SD's universe... the Cybodies, the Entropeople, the Seals... and none of it was really explored that much in depth.

Almost as if those things were never actually made to be the focal points of the story, and that the greater depth lied elsewhere?

Not to mention the lack of focus on the characters. A lot of times it feels like they're there just for the sake of being there (i.e. the lesbians).

The characters who needed to be focused on and earn the shits given about them got their focus, though it’s true that some in this cast got very short-changed, the Vanishing Age lackeys especially.

Star Driver isn't meant to have a complex plot or anything, it's meant to be mindless entertainment. People are raving about it anyway, so I don't quite understand that part o.o

I am with the spirit of this post but not the letter. Star Driver’s plot, unlike Utena’s overarching storyline, is not especially complex, its events easy to follow and dictated by certain patterns that make it pretty predictable and its primary purpose is to entertain - to please, to thrill, to amuse and even to arouse. But to call all that “mindless?” Nah, that is giving it way too little credit. I’ve seen it in its entirety more than enough times to say with certainty that there’s a great deal of cleverness, brilliance and meaning behind this camptastic joyride.

Now here’s the blogger again with some imput on his own:

although it's also interesting that both of those posts are suggesting that "people don't get it" without really explaining what we're missing beyond having not seen Utena.

I’d not seen Utena in full by the time I watched Star Driver and I was able to get it just fine, so he’s right, it really is no excuse.

I comprehend the reason for the repetitive way each episode is framed, but to be frank that framing wouldn't be a problem if the show actually had worthwhile content within that frame - witness the reaction to Madoka's early episodes which were similarly repetitive in terms of their layout compared to Star Driver. I'm also pretty sure I "get" all of the allusions the series is trying to present, but unfortunately they're all tired old concepts that aren't remedied by dressing it up in some snazzy outfits.

It’s a purely subjective matter. If the content doesn’t seem worth your while, then OK, don’t engage. It’s not going to be the same for everyone. And yet again with the Madoka reference, even when in that show’s case it only had two episodes worth of standard formulaic Magical Girl layout before someone’s head got bitten off in Episode 3, so it was never interested in playing things straight and sincere the way Star Driver was. Deeper allusions within repetitious framework are just kind of Igarashi and Enokido’s whole thing, same as Ikuhara.

What really holes Star Driver below the water is that for all of its allusion, big set pieces and attempts to build a compelling character-driven narrative, there's absolutely zero tension in Zero Time - arguably any tension disappeared the moment we were told that Takuto dying would mean "game over". We know what's going to happen every single week, and that's where Star Driver makes the jump from "too deep for people to understand" to "dull". There is shed loads of potential in Star Driver, but by this juncture it's been entirely frittered away to the point where I doubt watching a couple of other series will suddenly help it much or cause some kind of "eureka" moment.

He’s argued this ad nauseum and it’s still not holding water. Stories where the hero overcomes their obstacles and “saves the day” on the regular don’t automatically lack tension just because we’re not biting our nails with suspense or even anticipation over who might die at any given moment or itching to see the status quo upended by some destructive instance of successful evildoing that the hero fails to stop. Sometimes, Saturday Morning Cartoon flavor works and is not “dull.”

Lastly, this is who he was responding to, who has some refreshingly solid, well thought out, well understood and very agreeable things to say on the matter. As such, I’ve bolded the ones that hit the best. 

I generally enjoy reading your blog posts, and you have interesting thoughts on different shows but really it seems there are things you don't comprehend about Star Driver.

What I mean by saying that you don’t ‘comprehend’ aspects of Star Driver is not that it’s ‘too deep’ but more from a narrative perspective. You’re right in saying that the posts don’t explicitly explain what people are missing. But the emphasis is that ‘plot isn’t the point’ in Star Driver, it’s more about the allusions / symbolism / themes / characters. So if people focus on the former opposed to the latter, they’re ‘missing the point’. And it’s the case that most people relate/understand to traditional narrative. In Star Driver, the audience makes out the story for themselves using the allusions / symbolism / themes / characters rather than an unfolding plot and this is where people get lost, ie don’t understand therefore don’t like it. That’s cool. This way of storytelling isn’t for everybody.

I suppose it bothers me when criticisms like yours are based on a traditional narrative as opposed to the jigsaw puzzle way of Star Driver.

I’ll elaborate. Themes / symbolism / allusions / characters are the devices used for the audience to create their own overall understanding as opposed to an unfolding plot granting them this understanding. Generally speaking, this is how it was done in Utena, hence the comparison in the links.

In a conventional narrative we have conflict/tension/resolution (simplified form). Star Driver doesn’t utilise this as stated above. From your posts I gather that the lack of tension is your major dislike, and what I’m saying (and what the links are basically pointing out) is that Star Driver isn’t designed to have conventional narrative/plot (ie tension). This is why it doesn’t resonate with many people. This is what is meant by ‘not getting’ Star Driver.

Basically in Star Driver, there isn’t a straightforward pan of events that involve conflict/resolution or build tension to ‘tell’ us the story. But rather it’s the allusions/symbolism/themes AND how the characters work within these that ‘build’ the story.

I will use your example above of the lack of content within the repetition. Within the repetition we are given clues to characters’ motives. No, they’re not big world changing reveals. But using these clues (such as reactions, dialogue) and combining them with whatever symbolism is floating around, the audience is able to build the story. Star Driver requires the audience to be cluey and build, rather being given the story. Specific example this episode: Kanako notes that Wako was angry at Madoka for flirting with Takuto in Zero Time. This is a hint that Wako is leaning towards Takuto. Combine this with a frame last ep which shows Wako carrying Takuto’s watch (opposed to Sugata’s knife) reinforces this. The ‘story’ point here is that Wako has chosen Takuto, so the audience wonders how Sugata will react to this. Yes the audience will need to use various clues to work this out.

That is how ‘story’ is told in Star Driver. Putting together the puzzle. It requires the audience to be active and build it. Which is not for everyone. Which is perfectly fine.

It’s not that Star Driver is ‘too deep to understand’. It’s that the storytelling method of Star Driver doesn’t resonate with a mainstream audience. I just wanted to enlighten you to other ways of thinking about it because for me, criticising Star Driver using traditional narrative as your frame of reference (as you are doing), doesn’t hold water.

All of that. Beautifully put. This is the link they put out there too :https://revolemina.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/notes-on-star-driver/

Related: a more recent blogging of Star Driver from “Wrong Every Time”, who ironically seems to get it much more right than this guy. https://wrongeverytime.com/tag/star-driver/

And another great one!: https://randomc.net/category/star-driver/

Bottom line of this post: this person had no love for Star Driver to begin with; that’s why he couldn’t see its actual greatness.

[missingn000]

i just finally got around to reading your immaculate spy x family fic (which i was saving reading for when i could get maximum enjoyment from it) and then got caught up on the latest phantom guardian chapter (we love tonal whiplash <3) aND BOTH WERE GREAT AS USUAL

loid teaching yor to slow dance in their living room before confessing his love to her? yeah yeah, that’s cool, just gonna fundamentally shift what i consider the epitome of romance, it’s all good. also also also, your descriptive writing???? i wanna eat it, im absorbing it into my bloodstream (affectionate). also all of your writing for their kiss was just, so fantastic. my asexual ass has never been so invested in a kiss before lmao. (also the scene of anya crying and loid trying to comfort her but ultimately failing because she knows his true intentions was fucking gut wrenching in the best way omg my heart)

and then y’know. the phantom guardian. delightful and agonizing as always. the shoko/nanami and yuki/toji content? immaculate, showstopping, 11/10. toji and gojo being sent to tengen’s place? screaming, dying, panicking (but also their father and son dynamic ;-; they fambly). THINKING OF RIKO WHEN SEEING MAKI AND THEN CALLING SUGURU????? agony, panic, morbid curiosity. suguru and mahito? dead, dying, throwing up. LAWYER MAN???? fascinated, hooked, oh god he has airpods in he doesn’t know he’s about to get roped into insanity. all this to say another stunning, and very on brand chapter to add to this masterwork of a fanfic. also i love your writing so damn much it lives rent free in my head and rattles around like a maraca <3 thank you for blessing us with your writing and i hope you’re doing alright and have a lovely day!!

HI YOU ARE SO KIND I'M GOING TO MELT 😭❤️️ i'm so pleased you liked my sxf fic!! i was really proud of how that one turned out...writing for a series for the first time is always tough and it's so encouraging to hear you liked all those moments between loid, anya, and yor. also, i TOTALLY get what you mean, my ace ass is over here cheering these two on for the kiss of their life. kiss scenes are so hard to write, dude. what comes to me way more naturally is people beating each other up /lh

regarding tpg, yup we're back at it with the tonal whiplash xD (i say as if there isn't some form of tonal whiplash in like every chapter...in 32, too). YES THE LAWYERMAN IS HERE! i cracked up at "oh god he has airpods in he doesn’t know he’s about to get roped into insanity." he truly has no idea what he's in for, this poor guy.

seriously, this message made my day. thank you for this lovely ask, and i hope YOU are having a great day too!!

[trulyinspiringmovies]

The Fabelmans

“The Fabelmans” is the semi-biopic of Steven Spielberg and has me conflicted over how I felt about the movie.

Sammy Fabelman is being taken to watch his first movie back in 1952. While his parents reassure him that the movie isn’t scary, Sammy is deeply affected by a scene of a violent train crash. Obsessed with recreating the crash, Sammy asks for a toy train for Hanukkah. Crashing the toy train over and over again requires Sammy’s father to fix it. Sammy’s mother decides to buy him a camera so that he can crash the train once and rewatch the footage. This is what sparks Sammy’s desire to become a filmmaker.

I went into this movie blind. All I knew was that this movie was made by Steven Spielberg and was about movies. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this was based on Spielberg’s own life. Spielberg is a master at transporting his audience into his worlds and I genuinely loved the look of his 1950′s America. The warm, bright lights really romanticized the time period for me. It truly felt like a special time to be a cinephile. There were also a lot of great shots that got me giddy. One example was the tracking shot of Sammy’s toy train into a close-up of his face after the train veered out of frame. That kind of dynamic camera movement feels so inspiring and never fails to make me happy. There was also a match cut that seamlessly transitioned the story of Sammy to an older version of himself. Everyone’s been talking about the final shot of the camera adjusting to make the horizon more interesting and I loved that. The performances were great all around. Paul Dano is an automatic win in my book every time. Michelle Williams truly carries the movie with her performance. Even Seth Rogen was good and I usually don’t like him in movies. But, I think the star of the movie had to be Gabriel LaBelle as Sam himself. The whole movie hinges on his performance and he delivers the perfect mix of teen drama and nuanced artistic passion. I was truly into the first half of the movie. I just liked being in the company of the family. There were hints of drama brewing underneath the surface that also had me intrigued. When my suspicions were confirmed with an amazing revelation scene, I was hooked. I was ready for the ride. I was ready for the drama to come crashing down. Then the movie lollygags and never really pays off the drama in a cathartic way. Because of this, the two-and-a-half-hour runtime really started to get to me. There was a point in the theater where I genuinely felt like I might be in purgatory because I couldn’t remember a time outside of the theater room. Granted, I was more tired than usual while watching this film. Still, the movie goes from fun slice-of-life to familial melodrama to a by-the-books high school drama. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. At that point, if the movie turned into a spy thriller, I wouldn’t have batted an eye. The tonal whiplash almost made me forget that the throughline of Sam being a filmmaker kind of gets lost in the middle of the movie. He quits and only really makes a school beach day compilation. Then he suddenly decides that filmmaking is his only passion after going to college for a bit. It frustrated me that there was no big payoff for his mother’s infidelity. She spends the majority of the movie being a bad person and then gets away with it and even is shown as the victim. The father is spineless throughout and doesn’t have the strength to deal with the problem head-on. I know this was supposed to be accurate to Spielberg’s life, but as a movie, it’s a bit annoying to watch. A lot of people seem to have liked this movie and had a deep appreciation for it, but I don’t want to invalidate my gripes because it’s blasphemous to talk ill of Steven Spielberg’s semi-biopic.

★★★

Watched on December 17th, 2022

[capricioussuns]

To answer your question, I would say that my all-time favorite TOP songs have to be:

*HeavyDirtySoul (One of my favorite songs ever period, honestly. It still gives me goosebumps every single I hear it)

*The Outside (Hey Alexa, how can a mid-tempo song about being bored still go so impossibly hard?!)

*Ode To Sleep (Tyler really is a mad scientist for pulling off the level of pure tonal whiplash you get from this song!)

*Navigating (This is a song you don't so much hear, as feel in your chest from that very first buildup to a thundering wall of drumbeats)

*Next Semester (Cue the tears)

*Jumpsuit (THE BASS!!! Enough said)

Oooh very good choices very good, ty for sharing!!

I think Navigating might be my new fave song off Clancy, but it was ATROFD last week so will it remain? Who knows. But man, their album openers pretty much always kick ass, Ode to Sleep was one of the first songs of theirs I heard, and got to experience that live. I was deeply confused by everything they had going on considering it was two guys on stage with One piano and One drum set and a fog machine, but they delivered SO hard with OtS that I become hooked instantly

Anyway thank you Josh for making sure Navigating got onto Clancy <3

[gatormeister]

First time watching Gundam Wing thread

Two episodes down before heading to bed and… Well I’ll be honest I have no idea what to think. I’m watching the dub even though it’s not considered to have aged well just for convenience, and it is very strange. Everyone seems to talk in a whisper. I switched to the sub for a scene in episode two just to see how it faired, and it seemed about on par with ZZ and Turn A in quality, which were pretty good.

But the voices are the least of my concerns, the dialogue feels so bizarre. I don’t even mean like the random “I’ll kill you,” Heero gives Relena in episode one after she tries to invite him to her party. I mean the way people seem to talk as though they aren’t an active member of the scene, especially Relena. Two people will be speaking, but they’ll each go on as though all they need to do is say their inner monologue out loud while doing things, and that counts as having a conversation.

Beyond that oddity, the only initial hook for the viewer seems to be, “The Earth Alliance is bad, Gundams are on Earth now, what are the pilots’ missions,” and, “Man that Heero pilot guy sure does seem to like killing people, making threats against strangers, and just being generally rude to everyone he meets in the most dramatic fashion. Isn’t that great?” And aside from those two things, I really have no idea what’s going on. Zechs and the Oz group are trying to take over the alliance or something like that, so that’s three, but it hasn’t been shown in much detail at all yet.

Overall, not the strongest start. I’d actually say Double Zeta had a stronger opening hook in its episodes than Wing. Double Zeta had some severe tonal whiplash coming out of Zeta, but it was still very expressive and engaging thanks to Neo Zeon having already been established as a threat in the previous series, and Judau having a very strong personality from the get go. I imagine Heero will become more defined whenever he becomes a proper POV character rather than viewing him through Zechs and Relena’s eyes, but I’ll have to wait and see.

If you were to ask me how I’d rank this compared to the opening episodes/scenes from the Gundam shows and movies I’ve already seen, I’d have to put these first two episodes at the bottom of the list. Which is a damn shame, because I love the look of the mobile suits, and was really excited to finally get to watching it. That said I have hope it will pick up for me as it goes on. Nothing ever becomes well liked for no reason. Divisive as the show seems to be online, I know that Gundam Wing still has a lot of fans who love it. So here’s hoping I can get a bit of that enjoyment too.

[thepermanentrainpress]

JANEL RAE: I KNOW I WEAR DEAD PEOPLE’S CLOTHES

I Know I Wear Dead People’s Clothes – Janel Rae Release Date: October 28th, 2022

Track Listing:

1. Yellow Roses 2. Lady Blues 3. The Old Piano 4. Adam 5. Answer me 6. What I Learned at School 7. Nellie 8. Hooks 9. Dance with me Mama

This is an intense, sad, deeply personal album. Overwhelming themes include grief and loss, abandonment, processing childhood trauma, and even how the process repeats across generations. Much of the album is about direct childhood memories and the absence of what is gone, whether it’s an old piano or a family member. The vocals and chords are often in minor keys and the lyrics are heartbreaking. Even the production is done erratically, playing with your feelings and ears. The style constantly rises and fades with all sorts of little clicks and sudden tonal changes.

There is a lot of self-backing — the layering and vocal harmonies are so interesting to listen to! I really thought other singers were involved in some parts. It’s a sign of talent that Janel recorded and produced the entire thing solo. Distortion, whispers, and wails all make appearances throughout nine tracks, with every song doing some sort of experiment with her voice.

Some of these lyrical meanings and allusions are mysterious. The whole album has a haunting feeling to it – the sort of music you’d hear played over a dark movie trailer or in a scary climax. The themes are appropriate to the almost otherworldly sounds. This is not a happy or casual album – it’s something that Janel channeled so much emotion into. Whether it’s the whispers, rising crescendo, or sudden whiplash, the music conveys a feeling of anxiety at times. It’s an interesting and enjoyable listen, but it isn’t always an easy one. I admire this element of it: this is music that challenges and engages the listener. From the first to the last track and even the title, it’s clear from the start this is going to be a journey.

There is even social commentary on the state of the world today, gender roles, and the emotions of disaffected youth. Lots of metaphors and vivid imagery discusses society, the angst of the present era, and reflecting on a time none of us can ever go back to. While never explicitly mentioned, this is definitely a post-COVID release. It’s gloomy and doesn’t hold back, and the current winter season is a great time to listen to it – perhaps on a rainy, stormy night.

The tracks themselves are brief, but creative and distinct. The whole album at nine songs is just 30 minutes long, ensuring we never linger too long on one concept. This is my only real critique of the piece, as just as I’m getting into a song, it moves on to something else. There are some abrupt endings, but perhaps this is the point. (“I didn’t learn at school what to do when your mother has cancer.” Incidentally, this comes from a song six and a half minutes long, dominating the album.) I’d love to explore more of the world and mind presented here. This was my intro to Janel, but I’m definitely curious about her other work.

While most of the album is melancholy, there is also hope, acceptance, and even joy to be discovered, particularly in the final track. This is a beautiful tribute to loved ones who have passed, as the singer describes what she’s inherited and learned in the aftermath. This is a story of overcoming obstacles and redemption, healing oneself after tragedy and trauma. Its greatest strength is in how distinct and personal it is — I’ve never heard anything quite like it. Janel Rae’s music is not the easiest to describe or interpret, but it’s something very special. 

Written by: Cazzy Lewchuk