#because sometimes that stuff is ridiculous beyond parody

[sufferu]

Question, sorry if it’s been asked and answered before. How do you think the cast would react to pride if? Both the envy route and the pride route, what would be the alternative reactions to it? I can imagine the pride route characters after the viewing immediately deciding to go the imprisonment route of containing Subaru because killing him won’t work. And I’m not quite sure how the envy route would react to an alternate timeline of events, but definitely most likely horrified by this route. But you can ignore the envy route questions if you want, but the pride if is very interesting, especially if it’s the exact same cast as dog show. (Again sorry if this has been asked before, and apologies in advance for any follow up questions I might ask later)

Okay so, I feel like you’re asking me two different questions? By that I mean, with two different casts—

1) Original Dogshow Cast, beginning of Arc 5

Honestly I don’t think they’d even take it seriously. Like, maybe at first they’d be taking it seriously, as they watch those first three loops and maybe even those first few scenes of the Ayamatsu story (Rachins freaks at the idea of Subaru straight up murdering him in that alley but like. He DID kill Subaru first, so…) but then it’s like — sometime between Subaru getting a Gospel and Subaru becoming besties with Petelgeuse, everyone one by one completely loses the ability to actually go along with all this. It’s just too much: they KNOW Subaru, and the idea of Subaru going and doing all the bullshit he does in Ayamatsu is so ridiculous that it completely destroys their suspension of disbelief and now they’re all basically watching the corniest slasher movie fanfic they could have conceived of.

Reinhard is horrified at the burning of Lugunica, but that’s more at the idea that the version of himself onscreen can’t do anything about something so awful than it is about Subaru, specifically. Otto shivers at the idea of becoming a debt slave due to Subaru never stepping in to help him with that oil problem, but he puts it aside easily enough as things go on. At one point Ferris almost snaps out of it due to the horror of Crusch being erased, but then it’s followed up by “Subaru brainwashes Ferris into becoming his loyal servant” and now Ferris has decided that he will absolutely never let real!Subaru live down this bullshit parody version of himself, ever. The only person in that room who I think would be seriously traumatized by all that is Subaru himself, whose horrified reactions completely ease everyone else’s concerns about any of this EVER becoming a reality, because — look at him. Afterwards it’s like, “Okay, so — Ferris, stop laughing — those first three loops, did THEY actually happen?” “I’m so glad we got that cheesy-ass fanfic to ease some tension, god I needed that…”

But even that is just considering like — did they see those first three loops, or did they get catapulted into Ayamatsu with no context? Because if they got catapulted into Ayamatsu with no context then absolutely nobody is taking any of this seriously, from basically the moment Subaru kills Tonchinkan in the alley. (Except maybe Subaru, who at least recognizes that Return By Death is a thing that exists.)

2) Pre-Series Cast who never met Subaru before in their lives and is therefore at risk of entering the Ayamatsu route

This is the one time so far where the word “imprisonment” actually fits with what everyone is planning. Like okay — in regular Dogshow, the closest thing to that concept is “we need to put him on suicide watch,” and the one time that idea was developed past anything beyond throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what might stick as a half-decent idea, it was Crusch turning to Wilhelm and saying, “The Astrea Family has the resources to care for a suicide risk. How do you feel about a new grandson?” —But in THIS case, Subaru isn’t their friend: he’s a threat. As soon as he shows up, they’re gonna trap him and imprison him somewhere where he cannot die and keep him there until they figure out a way to neutralize the threat he represents for good.

If Subaru is right there with them and also pre-series, then they might be a little more assured simply because he’s just going “WHAT THE FUCK???” more and more as things go on. They manage to talk to him a bit before he disappears and kinda settle on “Alright, you would probably never do this, but we can’t take that chance — so in case you DO come here we’re just gonna prepare a room in the castle or something for you so that we can keep you secure just — for everyone’s sake.” “You guys have a castle???” The anticlimactic comedy skit of the ages. Subaru gets Isekai’d and immediately wanders over to the knight’s tower to wait for someone to come pick him up. “…You want some chips?” Most surreal series of events ever.

(They’re totally willing to just let him freeload indefinitely so long as he Stays Where They Can See Him, but eventually he convinced them to at least let him do SOMETHING to earn his keep, cause that’s the kind of guy he is. Subaru becomes the royal tailor. Nobody can answer the question of how he got the job, but at least he’s good at it, so whatever.)

[thesinglesjukebox]

JACOB COLLIER FT. KIMBRA & TANK AND THE BANGAS - IN MY BONES

[5.56]

If funk is exuding from your bones, you may be being used to make stock...

David Moore: This song has everything: Seinfeld slap bass, cartoon elephant ribcage percussion, multi-tracked falsetto approximations of exclamation points, audible pixelated firework GIFs, smeared squeals, spirit week clap 'n' stomp, huffs, puffs, boings, sproings, terrible rapping (blame Jacob, I think), competent rapping (thank Tank, I'm sure), time signature fuckery of the highest order, and the thorniest chord chart this side of a Steely Dan parody. What it lacks, unfortunately, is any semblance of funk, despite repeated invocations of the stuff. [4]

Kylo Nocom: Jacob Collier, notorious for making music theory a brand, collaborates with pop's biggest studio genius and a Tiny Desk Concert winner to release this. It's likely to be dismissed as NPR-sanctioned Fun, a tasteful enemy to the more vulgar forms of genre-blending that populate Minecraft music festivals. And I get it! The last time we talked about something like this, everyone who liked it had to qualify themselves because nobody wants to admit to sincerely enjoying Berklee funk. So much of "In My Bones" makes me want to hate it immediately, but somehow, they deliver something great! Kimbra's squeals and yelps counter Collier's nerdier impulses and push the song into nerd-crush song territory, while Tank's rapping launches the song into a higher plane of ridiculousness. That's not to mention the fantastic rhythm section, the interpolation of "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," and the ridiculous usage of "tintinnabulation." Every possible negative description I can come up with ("the regressive children's show indie-quirk that would've been fashionable in 2011," "mistakes sound effects and showing off polyphony for actual songwriting," "the shit that will have us suffering through more Bill Wurtz") just sounds like something unmistakably up my alley. [9]

Oliver Maier: Collier hits on the same problems as usual, aiming for a kind of proggy, pan-musical utopianism and instead arriving in Wackyland. His approach incorporates feats of musical theory that I have no doubt are technically brilliant and far beyond my grasp, but the effect is exhausting 1080p slapstick, desperate to entertain but without any sense of feeling, let alone a funky one. Collier includes a reference to To Pimp A Butterfly in his pitched-up rap verse alongside Tank (of the Bangas), but their main takeaway from that album seems to have been that sometimes you can rap in a really annoying voice. Kimbra is charming when she and Collier aren't duetting Windows startup jingles. [1]

Alfred Soto: The smug polyphony is the intention and problem: fun and/or Meghan Trainor singing 1983-era Heaven 17. The slap bass runs, massed harmonies, and disregard for melody lines might be cool to stage, I guess. [4]

Katherine St Asaph: Like you handed a couple of kids "Sat In Your Lap," "Can't Stop the Feeling," some Prince stems, a couple dozen gecs, and a defective blender, except -- much like the actual Kate Bush/Prince collaboration -- not as good as that sounds. When (not if) you find something in this song obnoxious, fear not; it'll be gone in five seconds. Of course this goes for the parts you like, too, and while it's hard to latch onto them in this cacophonous GamemasterAnthony maelstrom of an arrangement, the obnoxious parts come through just fine. Everything good -- that descending riff I swear is the demo song from an old Yamaha, the crush lyrics that at least match words to whirlwind -- is fleeting. And everything bad is hyper-amplified: the barrels of quirk poured into what might have been a groove, the vwoips and squeaks crowding out what might have been a throughline, and the main vocalist who wants to be Craig David but actually is soulDecision. [4]

Nortey Dowuona: I don't like Jacob Collier. He seems like another Robin Thicke, and I thought we learned our lesson the last time. But at least the bass and drums spin into a swirly mix that presses him against the glass, while Kimbra sinks in and gets stuck as Jacob tries and fails to find his way over to her. As I wonder how Jacob has been trapped in this expensive Tyler Perry house, I see MonoNeon and Tank chillin' outside, Tank spitting silly rhymes quickly, before hopping in her tank to blow up the house and send Jacob and Kimbra high into the clouds. I say all this to say: as long as he doesn't show up to the YouTube Music Awards with Rowan Blanchard twerking on him, I approve of Jacob Collier. [8]

Katie Gill: This is exactly what Justin Timberlake wants to do but is too mainstream to actually do. "In My Bones" takes the self-referential, 1970s-flavored, falsetto-tinged skeleton of songs like "Can't Stop This Feeling" or "The Other Side" and blasts it into its full, dancing glory, rather than keeping it neutered enough for Kidz Bop albums, end-credits dance parties, and family-friendly radio stations that only play modern music by people the color of copy paper. This is fun, weird, catchy as hell, gives off some proper funk vibes, and yet still cannot get that coveted [10] as it criminally underuses Tank Ball. Still, it's enough of a jam that I can mostly overlook that sin. [8]

Juana Giaimo: This is seriously one of the most annoying songs I have heard in a long time. It doesn't have the carefree, happy feeling of funk. Instead, the lack of balance makes it sound like a ball of nerves about to explode. [3]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Futuristic and atavistic, structured and unpredictable, earthbound and phantasmagorical, referential and errant, maximalist, camp, funk, chaos: I'm running out of adjectives to describe this! The percussion in this track feels like the mad machinations of a sentient robot. There are so few times as a music fan that you can genuinely say something sounds like nothing else you've ever heard before, but when it happens, it feels like being knocked off your feet in the best way possible. [9]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[lia-nikiforov]

Spring 2018 Anime Watchlist

THERE IS TOO MUCH ANIME THIS SEASON I HAD TO BINGE 37 EPISODES IN THREE DAYS TO CATCH UP

Dropped

Mahou Shoujo Site: Although I originally intended to irony watch this one, expecting something like MahoIku or King’s Game, its sadistic reveling in the main character’s suffering was impossible to stomach. I felt physically ill at the end of it. I’m not, in principle, opposed to gory stuff, y’all know I sat through the whole stupidity that was King’s Game, but MahoSite doesn’t even reach the level of ridiculous over the topness to make it funny, it’s just a cascade of misery porn with not a single moment of levity or triumph for the heroine. I think I was done the moment that gratuitous “if you punch my stomach my period won’t come” line, because apparently some dudes get off on the idea of a woman being so brutalized she stops menstruating??????

Kakuriyo Yadomeshi: I was willing to give this one the three-episode trial after the first episode in spite of the godawful main love interest and the fact that the grandfather sold the MC into literal slavery wtf, because the main girl seems proactive and independent buuuuuuut fuck I hated episode 2. Not only does she seem to quickly forgive her grandfather for SELLING HER OFF, the men around her keep speaking over her and making decisions for her and she turns out to be just independent enough to not be a complete doormat, but not enough to appear defiant and I hate it. Thanks but no thanks, I ain’t here to see a romantization of being literally sold into an arranged marriage.

YOU THINK?!

Cutie Honey Universe: Before this, I’d had zero interaction with any other iteration of Cutie Honey, so I wasn’t sure of what to expect beyond knowing this was from the creator of Devilman. Certainly blatant homophobic jokes and jokes about physical abuse wasn’t in my list of thigs I expected to see, yet here we are. I ain’t here for “hyuk hyuk look at these fat/butch/ugly lesbians, aren’t they ridiculous” jokes either.

Butlers x Battlers: I completely forgot I watched this one. I don’t remember anything about it except being confused

GeGeGe no Kitaro: This one didn’t do anything wrong, but I was never gonna watch it. I just checked out episode 1 because I heard it made a dig at Logan Paul. I wish they’d gone all the way through and killed that character, but I guess you can’t have it all. It was actually a pretty decent episode, and in a weaker season I’d probably keep watching it, but there’s just too much stuff coming out. And I have watched previous Kitaro anime and it’s sometimes too meanspirited for me.

Uma Musume: I didn’t expect much from this show and was pleasantly surprised by the double-length first episode. Special Week was a nice, fun protagonist to root for and although the world-building was weird as heck, it was fun and positive. So I’m not exactly sure of what happened with episode 2/3 that it left me feeling completely dry. The pacing was super rushed, the characters all felt horribly flat, and the races weren’t super exciting because rather than any strategy or strong emotional realization, Special Week just has to start running even faster and faster in the final leg. It was also kind of implied she had gained weight? But then never brought up? And it’s not made very clear why she lost in the end? Was she supposed to learn humility and not getting too complacent? Seems too early for her to learn that when she’s supposed to be an underdog. I don’t know, it didn’t really work for me and I don’t feel like I care to watch more of it.

Because this post is long af and has a lot of gifs some folks were having trouble loading it on mobile, so you’ll have to read under the cut to know which are the shows I’m actually watching oops

Chopping Block: 

There is too much anime and I’m near the end of the semester so I’m gonna have to cut at least one -preferably two- of these shows

Sword Art Online Alternative: This was another one I intended to hatewatch? But rather than offensive or idiotic it’s so far been pretty boring. Episode one was a slog. The first half of episode two was a horrendous spectacle of hating your own body. The only think I liked was the friendship between LLENN and Pito (btw Pito meand ‘dick’ in Spanish and every time she says “call me Pito” I die). Then episode 3 was more boring exposition. FPS games are the least interesting I could think of, and I’ve never been into Let’s Play, so this show is hitting all the right notes to make me bored out of my mind. I also don’t appreciate the big dude not telling Llenn the plan and just kind of being condescending to her. If next episode is just 20 more minutes of the dude explaining things to Llenn, I’m out. (Also, Pito is 100% Elsa Kanzaki)

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Not feeling this reboot at all. It’s all very dry and just dudes expositioning strategy at each other. Also there are 30 characters in the Ending and only 2 of them are women???? I’ll give it one more episode, but tbh I’ve had problems even paying attention to 2 and 3, it just doesn’t grab me.

Libra of Nil Admirari: Although I like the heroine and she might be one of the strongest reverse harem heroines I’ve seen, the plot itself is very... eh. The guys are also very uninteresting so far. There’s also the fact that Tsumugi claims to have no interest in men or love, but this being a reverse harem with a bevy of men starved for her attention makes me worry this’ll end with her being “fixed” by an actual nice guy who is worthy of her or something. But the OP is very cute!

Hatewatch

Darling in the Franxx: Boy oh boy, the otaku have been creaming their pants and tearing their clothes off for the last three weeks, but “Don’t call it Fucking, It’s Making Love” in the Franxx’s greatest achievement in my eyes is going for idiotically offensive to just bland and clichéd. A recent AMA on reddit with the producer seems to imply that none of the themes of sex, gender and heterosexism that have been at the core of the show were even properly thought out, nor were their implications even remotely considered. I don’t know if the show’s heterosexism would be worse if it was active propaganda rather than what it seems to be: a bunch of ideas the producers thought would be “cool” and “titillating” with no particular meaning to them. Also we’re 15 episodes in and all we’ve achieved is Palurdo has finally tamed his beast waifu who is Not Like Other Girls. Oh, and I guess the monsters actually had humans in there, what a shocker, never seen that before, never expected such a clever twizzzzzzzz....

Mid Priority

Tokyo Ghoul: Re : I thought I was done with Tokyo Ghoul after trying to read the manga and being bored shitless by all the unnecessary exposition, but this one, while not quite excellent, managed to pique my interest. The conceit of Kaneki losing his memories and joining the Doves and helping in exterminating ghouls I’m super not interested in, but his encounter with Nishio has made me curious enough about what has happened with the rest of the characters to keep watching for now.

Rokuhodou Biyori: The iyashikei show of the season I guess. The guys’ personalities are a little bland, so I might bump it down to the chopping block, but it’s only been two episodes, so I want to give it a fair chance

Persona 5: My history with Persona has never been good. Episode 1 of P4 made me sleep, and I watched the first P3 movie THREE TIMES and never managed to parse wtf it was about. This show shares some of the same problems in making me struggle to pay attention, but at least so far the plot seems interesting, the visuals are creative and striking, and I really like the main character’s design. I’m also more inclined to keep watching because Sayokan directed the OP for the videogame.

Hisone to Masotan: There’s a cynical part of me that watches this show and feels like I’m watching a commercial for the JSDF. Yvan eht nioJ, come join us, we have cool dragons!!! I also don’t love the fact that the dragon turns into a plane :/ BUT the characters have a lot of heart, the dynamics so far between Hisone and Masotan and Hisone and Kanzaki have been very touching. A part of me though, wishes Hisone had stuck with Otofu because it’s such a cute name and she sounded really funny yelling “OTOFU!!!”

Safe Sequels

Although some of these sequels would go in higher categories, I was unsure about how to rank them -especially the 2-cour ones- compared to some of my top premieres of the season, so I’m just putting them all together because there are A LOT of sequels.

Yowapeda Glory Line: FINALLY SOMETHING POSITIVE HAPPENED FOR SOHOKU. I was starting to feel exhausted with all the gloominess, especially for seeing Teshima punished, HE DESERVES EVERY GOOD THING. Now we can get back on track and hopefully have a fun race without Teshima brooding all the way through the episode. ALSO THANK YOU FOR THE EXCELLENT TESHIAO CONTENT

Nanatsu no Taizai: FINALLY ESCANOR SHOWED UP. It’s felt like the first half of the show dragged a lot compared to the manga, so I’m happy we’ve reached one of the coolest parts. Though if memory serves, the rest of the season will be spent floundering around, but damn, the Escanor vs Galand battle is very satisfying to watch.

Lupin III Part V: So this time around they’ve added the social media factor into Lupin’s adventures, and so far the result has been quite interesting. I don’t have a lot to say, the artstyle looks closer to classic versions of the franchise and has lost some of the edge from part IV, but the comedy and Lupin’s plans are still creative and fun to watch, even adding a unique spin to the social media component, so I’m excited to see where they take this. But we need more Fujiko yesterday pls

Binan Koukou Chikyuu Boueibu Happy Kiss: A soft reboot of this magical girl parody franchise, with frillier costumes and even more ridiculous attacks and transformations, and I’m here for it. I do wish we’d get at least some cameos from the original gang. I also feel that so far, apart from the Red guy (Kyotaro?) the others don’t seem to have much of a distinctive personality. It’s only episode three, so hopefully that’s something we’ll see developed as the show goes on.

Hozuki no Reitetsu: It’s the same as it’s always been, a brilliantly dry workplace comedy. If you haven’t watched the previous seasons, you’re missing out on one of the best comedies of this decade.

Boku no Hero Academia 3: After the recap first episode, the series has gone back full gear ahead into the next story arc and so far it looks pretty cool. Although I’m never a fan of “regular MC activity gets interrupted by villains”. Idk why it bothers me a lot -a prime example being the S Class exam getting cut short in Fairy Tail and the concept of S Class mages completely ditched thereon after. But anyway, I have faith in the writing that they’ll make this villain interruption cool and worth it. I do however wish they’d let us meet the Class B guys better.

Steins;Gate 0: You know, I was 100% ready to be disappointed and abandon this one right away, but damn, damn have these first two episodes been brilliant. The nuances in Okabe’s characterization, the portrayal of his grief, and his more mature attitude seem like a mirror of the watcher who has grown all the same in the seven years since the show’s original season. I’m hoping the teases about Maho as a potential love interest are a red herring, but other than that, I’m blown away by how good it has been so far. Just delete Daru please.

Card Captor Sakura: Clear Card: Things have started happening! We’re starting to see that Akiho’s mysterious book is somehow having an effect over the events of Sakura’s life. The episode with the animals was particularly strong, with a new card that had a nice renovated design, and a really emotionally effective scene of Sakura and Syaoran embracing to help Sakura regain confidence to save her friends. It’s one of the strongest episodes of the series so far, so hopefully we’ll have more of those and less of the “finding a card that only minimally makes 10 cm from a bookshelf disappear” type. As a sidenote, I find Akiho’s obsession with Sakura’s play a bit offputting.

High Priority

Mahou Shojo Ore: Given how little I knew about this series going in and how excited I was about it in spite of it, I’m pleased to report the show has lived up to my expectations in one way or another. The weird comedy is on point and also everyone is fucking gay. I’m rooting for you Blue Girl! Easily the superior show with Mahou Shoujo in its title.

Hinamatsuri: You know, I didn’t have super high expectations for this one, but it’s turned out to be a very nice surprise. It has that charming paternal relationship between Nitta and Hina that is cute and hilarious. I have to say I’m not super into the classmate-forced-to-become-a-bartender storyline and I’m not sure how that even fits with the rest of the show, so I hope there won’t be a lot of vignettes about it.

Piano no Mori: Wonky CGI and occassionally questionable character design choices (Ajino was so BEAUTIFUL in his youth, why does he look so ridiculous in the present?!!!) aside, this has been one of the strongest premieres of the season. I know fans of the manga have criticized it, but as someone unfamiliar with the original, I’m definitely intrigued by this story.

BESTEST

Megalobox: This one wasn’t on my radar at all. It’s one of those numerous cases of me seeing a title that sounds stupid and deciding to ignore the show based on that alone. I’m glad I stumbled on all the praise the premiere episode received because damn is it good. The story behind the cameras is that this is a 50th anniversary project for Ashita no Joe, and it was meant to be a reboot, but the director couldn’t find a way to make it work, so he created something entirely new, and aren’t we glad about that. It has a unique retro look and although the plot beats do call back to Ashita no Joe, our Joe feels like his own person alright. I think my only nitpick is that I’m not entirely sure of what is even the point of the additional gear. Also, I know how Ashita no Joe ends and I hope this show won’t end like that too :’D

Golden Kamuy: How long has it been since the last time a multi-awarded manga not only wasn’t disappointing but ended up being one of the most promising anime adaptations of the season? Yes, everyone’s seen the ugly CGI bear, moving on, this is a captivating and unique historical show with a so far excellent portrayal of Ainu culture and a kickass lady coprotagonist.  I am really excited to see where this one will go. Also, it was really exciting to hear characters actually speaking ainu language. I’ve done some research on Ainu history (and kickass Ainu women) for school, so I’m very pumped about this one.

Otaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii: By far my favorite premiere of the season. So far, two episodes in, it’s all I ever hoped it would be and more. The characters are charming, Narumi and Hirotaka’s relationship feels natural and effortless -both the romantic aspect of it, and the way they easily become comfortable with one another-. Narumi is delightful and very well-rounded, being as cheerful and optimistic as she can be cynical, and her quick-developing friendship with Hanako is so violently relatable I was screaming. I really love this show. ALSO THE OP IS SUPER CUTE

I FINALLY FINISHED WRITING THIS IT TOOK FOREVER BECAUSE THERE IS TOO MUCH ANIME

[sf-in-hindsight-blog]

“Samurai Flamenco, In Hindsight” 5th Anniversary Recap Project - Introduction

October 10-11, 2018 will mark the fifth anniversary of Samurai Flamenco, an oddball original series produced by studio Manglobe for the back half of the Fall 2013 noitaminA block on Fuji TV.  The show’s 22 episodes aired alongside a lot of other series that I still look back on fondly, but nothing else from that period hit me as hard, or has stuck with me as long.  Samurai Flamenco pushed me to do things I hadn’t done in years, like leaving the fandom sidelines to discuss the show with total strangers instead of lurking on the edges of others’ conversations, and exploring the show’s characters, story, and themes through art and writing.  Eventually, I even started watching some of the tokusatsu shows the series is so interested in so that I’d have a little more context (and could get more of the in-jokes).  The show has gotten me through some hard times, as have the friends I’ve made through the small but devoted SamFlam fandom.  

I love Samurai Flamenco, and I love what engaging with Samurai Flamenco has brought to my life.  And so, to celebrate the show’s fifth anniversary, I’m planning to spend at least the next year doing extensive write-ups on all 22 episodes.  These won't be reviews, but more like essays, each focusing on whatever struck me most about the episode in question.  For instance, I'll be looking at the use of repetition in the premiere episode, "Samurai Flamenco, Debut!", while episode 2's write-up will talk about how "My Umbrella is Missing" develops (and complicates) Masayoshi as a character.  Episode 3, I'm thinking I might talk about how “Flamenco Versus Fake Flamenco” sets up the series' overall look at violence as it relates to heroism and hero media…but I haven’t re-watched the episode for this project yet, and I want to be open to whatever this particular viewing suggests would be most interesting to talk about.

More details below the cut!

That might sound like a haphazard approach, but attention to each episode as its own distinct thing is one of my guiding principles for this project.  An episode of a television show is always part of a larger whole, but it also remains singular, and looking at an episode on its own can be just as worthwhile as taking the opposite tack.  I think that's true even for super-formulaic whatever-of-the-week series — but that it's especially true for a show like Samurai Flamenco that plays with so many genres and sub-genres, isn't afraid of big tonal swings, and will very explicitly race through an entire season’s worth of monster-of-the-week fights in a single episode to make points about toku TV and hero media more generally.  I will never be able to talk about everything I find interesting about this show, but this approach should at least give me plenty of opportunities to discuss plenty of different topics.  (That said, of course I’ll be drawing connections between episodes and across the series as a whole, because why else do a retrospective project?  I picked that subtitle very deliberately!)

More on What to Expect

Every write-up will begin with a short episode summary, and wrap up with some stray observations.  You can probably also assume that each of these will include some amount of close formal analysis — that is, taking apart what we actually see onscreen, what we hear, and how it all unfolds in time — as a way of understanding how the show works.  Episode one’s write-up is largely that; episode two is significantly less so, but you can still expect a fair amount of “long shot” this, “low angle” that, “shot/reverse-shot” SIT DOWN, and so on.  I’m taking that approach in part because while I recognize the very real limitations of formal analysis, I think it can be a good starting point for understanding why something works on you as a viewer — or why it leaves you cold, uncertain, etc.  (I also just enjoy doing formal analysis; it’s fun for me, and this project is meant to be a little self-indulgent.)

But I’ll also lean toward formal analysis because I think Samurai Flamenco generally doesn’t get enough credit for how well put-together it is.  I know, I know — the art is often off model; the animation isn’t particularly impressive; have you ever noticed how unfinished the backgrounds were in the broadcast version of episode 14, holy hell.  And the MUSIC, don’t get me started on

...well, to be honest, I’ve got a soft spot for the soundtrack, and think it fits the show’s overall tone and aesthetic fairly well.  So no real complaints there from me there — but I do get it.

Still, having watched Samurai Flamenco start to finish more times than I can count, single-framed my way through both the broadcast and Blu-ray versions of the show, and futzed around on a defense of the much-maligned Flamengers arc longer than I care to admit, I’ve spent a fair chunk of time looking at this show up close.  There is a lot of rough stuff, yes, but also a lot of really solid visual storytelling, great attention to detail, and some very daring choices, particularly in terms of what’s left up to the viewer to figure out on their own.  The show has good bones, I think, sometimes hidden by wobbly execution.  Beyond that, I think Samurai Flamenco’s story structure is ridiculously good — that as much as we talk about the WILD RIDE and MULTI-TRACK DRIFTING*, in hindsight, the show is carefully set up to go all the places it does in a fairly well-paced way, enabling the character development to unfold realistically over time, and very little feels rushed that doesn’t feel like it was meant to feel rushed.

All this is a long way of saying that I think there’s a lot of good in Samurai Flamenco’s construction that I want to highlight, and sometimes that will require going shot-by-shot to explain what I mean.  I’ll try to keep the jargon to a minimum, though — and for long segments, I’ll provide time codes if you want to see if your read checks with mine.

A final content note: be forewarned that all of the write-ups will assume you’ve already completed Samurai Flamenco, meaning they will be FULL OF SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES.

Posting Schedule 

(or, You Never Know What Could Happen to You in the Final Episode, But I Do Know It’ll Take a While to Get There...)

My original plan was to post each episode’s write-up on the anniversary of its original airing, working out to one a week for approximately 22 weeks.  Then I started work on episode 1, and…well, maybe I’ll pick up speed as I go, but one a week was way too optimistic given the time I actually have to work on these, and how slowly I write.  So these write-ups will come out as I have them ready.  If that’s one a month or every six weeks, so be it — but I am committed to finishing this project.

A final programming note: I’m starting this project here on tumblr because, frankly, I need to start, and this is what’s easy and available at the moment.  At some point, I may migrate to a blog.  If I do, I’ll continue to announce new write-ups here and then link to the complete post, so if you’d like to keep tabs on this project, follow this tumblr for updates.

Closing

I hope that you’ll enjoy reading these write-ups at least as much as I enjoy writing them.  If you do, please share them with your friends, and support Samurai Flamenco in whatever way possible.  Stream from legal sources (ex. Crunchyroll), buy the home video releases if they are available where you are (I can personally vouch for All the Anime’s excellent Region B Blu-rays), and support people who engage with the show, whether through critical essays and appreciations, fan art and fan fiction, remixes, or whatever.

Until next time, FLAMWENCO!

Ko (ratherboogie)

* When a show that should be a “train wreck” avoids careening off the rails and instead becomes even more entertaining, not by fixing what’s “wrong” with it by conventional standards, but by continuing to do its own thing with confidence, commitment, and a sense of purpose.  It’s not an entirely positive label, carrying a whiff of “I know this is trash, but...”  Still, you don’t say a show is MULTI-TRACK DRIFTING if you don’t love it -- and if you continue to enjoy Samurai Flamenco after episode 7, you know immediately why it gets this label.

(For full context, look up the Initial D parody “Densha de D.”)

[broadwait]

spooky scary newsies hc’s

This is just hc’s about what kinds of horror movies the newsies like/dislike lol

jack: likes things with a really big twist at the end, likes being surprised, lowkey kinda loves jump scares, loves suspense, doesn’t mind gore but doesn’t like a lot of it at once. really liked the belko experiment, the first saw movie, that kind of stuff

davey: psychological thrillers, babadook, would you rather, the circle, get out, watches stephen king but also has read every stephen king novel that exists. knows a lot of horror movie trivia

crutchie: he’s not super big into modern horror but he looooovvveess that old shit, like cheesy horror and stuff. house on haunted hill? he can quote every line. invasion of the body snatchers? he’s seen it more times than he can count. the twilight zone original series? he owns that shit on box set. he’s very into like 50s-60s kind of stuff bc it’s not intense and can be very silly but sometimes leaves you incredibly unsettled

race: is actually surprisingly squeamish around gore but is 100% chill with supernatural/paranormal horror. he closes his eyes when people get like cut open and stuff but can watch demons and ghosts with absolutely no problem. went through a phase where all he could talk about was IT (2017)

spot: scared af of horror movies, will start to watch but peace’s out as soon as anything spooky happens. hates suspense. HATES. DOLLS. (he was scared by the episode of the twilight zone “the living doll” when he was younger and hasn’t trusted a doll since. can’t even watch coraline) someone somehow got him to see annabelle creation in theaters and he literally was shaking so hard he couldn’t walk out bc his legs would not support him

finch: he’s allllllll about that 70s-80s horror. nightmare on elm street, the shining, jaws, night of the living dead, halloween, all that kind of stuff. the special effects aren’t the best and sometimes it’s cheesy but he still loves it

elmer: watches horror movies when other people put them on but doesn’t seek them out, hates jump scares, likes comedic horror/horror parodies because it’s breaks the tension and makes things less genuinely scary, stuff like tucker and dale vs evil, final destination bc it’s so ridiculous, scary movie, is the most likely to put on buzzfeed unsolved

buttons: hates horror movies but tries to pretend they don’t bother him. lowkey spends the whole movie with his eyes closed and/or with his head buried in someone’s chest. he’s jumpy and gets paranoid easily so he prefers not to watch them

albert: has seen every saw movie, watches them religiously, thinks the first saw was the pinnacle of all horror ever as a genre. gets really annoyed when people are misinformed ab the movies like “the puppet’s name wasn’t jigsaw his name was BILLY, jigsaw was the guy who made the TRAPS, get it RIGHT”

specs: okay literally “i hope its really bloody with a nice clear picture,” this guy loves GORE, watches anything and everything gross and bloody, even if there’s no real plot beyond that. hostel, american guinea pig, any of the saw movies, will watch movies that are banned in america/a lot of other countries bc he heard they had good special effects

tommy boy: likes found footage/stalking horror, lowkey likes home invasion/kidnapping movies. him and specs could eat a whole meal while watching something super gory and not bat an eye.

jojo: doesn’t like horror very much but will watch it occasionally, HATES DEMONS AND GHOSTS AND SHIT, very superstitious, will not FUCK with a ouija board, someone brought one as a joke when they were all hanging out and he deadass stood up and left, got halfway down the hall before someone ran to get him

romeo: american horror story all the way. went through a donnie darko phase, has 4 different theories on what the movie was actually ab bc it’s kinda hard to understand

katherine: loves horror musicals, like sweeney todd, little shop, american psycho the musical, they’re all her shit. watched all of stranger things in one sitting

[madegeeky]

Giftening 2020: Obligatory Vote for These Post (spoiler version)

Want the non-spoilery version? Seriously, though, super spoilery for main plot points for a lot of these. Skip the ones you don’t want to know about.

Ones with * are my nominations, so you know where my biases lie. :P Ones in bold are my top pick for the categories. I did not include things that don’t need the boost (like Utena).

ANIME 

Aggretsuko - A tv show about an unassuming shy red panda woman who works in an office building and deals with the stress of it by going to karaoke and screaming out death metal. The show largely deals with her making friends with two women who she admires and a dude who likes her. The dude who likes her is actually a geniunely interesting storyline because at the end of the first season (which I’ve not seen beyond), he basically admits that he’s built this image of her in his head that isn’t real and he wants to know the real her. (Which, fuck yeah.)

Fushigi Yuugi* - This is a story about two teens who used to be friends fighting over a man which is literally the antithesis of everything Jet is. And yet, Jet watched the whole damn thing. Watch her squirm as she has to deal with that in a liveblog format. You can get a preview of some of that in Doc’s liveblog of it that she did for Jet.

NON-ANIME ANIMATED

Archer* - This is an animated parody of James Bond made for adults. It's offensive as fuck because Archer, the titular character, is a James Bond stand-in and that character can also be offensive as fuck. In fact, one thing to appreciate about this show is that all the characters are shitty, awful people and the show never attempts to excuse their shitty, awful behavior. Plus, it's one of the few shows where half the main characters are women. I am a tiny bit hesitant to rec this for a liveblog due to the offensivness however, as far as I can tell it's not popular on tumblr, and those are generally the ones that cause the most trouble so... 

Daria - The story of a misanthropic teenager, her family, and her best friend. The characters are specifically meant to appear to be tropes before slowly being unveiled as three dimensional people. It's got a dry sense of humor that I think Jet will enjoy. I actually didn't know until years after I watched this that it was a spin-off of Beavis and Butthead (which I hated) so don't let that dissuade you. 

LIVE ACTION

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - I haven't seen past a certain point because it starts going super deep into exploring depression and that is one of my main triggers for a depressive episode, so I cannot speak of later eps. However, this show starts out funny and silly and evolves into a show exploring how toxic the main character actually is and how unhealthy her coping mechanisms are. It's amazing to see a character type whose actions are usually excused or written off as funny instead be specifically called out as being awful and toxic. (It was a Shit Show is still one of the best songs I've ever heard and Mr. Geeky and I sing it to each other whenever shit hits the fan.) 

Hannibal* - If you know of Hannibal, you know the basics premise is that of a man who eats people and is chased by the FBI. The writing in this is some of the best writing I've ever had the pleasure of seeing in a piece of media: it's subtle, smart, and trust its audience to follow along without having their hand held. However, what's really great about the TV show is that it's not afraid to do its own thing. It constantly fucks with your expectations and deconstructs and explores tropes in ways I've never seen before. I haven't seen the ending yet but I highly doubt it's going to end in a place where Silence of the Lambs will happen. The acting is fucking great and even though Anthony Hopkins gives an amazing performance as Hannibal Lector, after seeing Mads Mikkelsen play him there's no going back to Hopkins. In general, if you're looking for something original (which is ironic considering it's based on a book and there are several movies) and smart, I cannot recommend this enough. 

Russian Doll* - (Doc, please skip this one, as in 5 years when you're done with Two Storms, this is one of the things I'm considering nominating should I ever win a liveblog again.) I don't really know how to explain this show because it's so fucking weird and is so focused on character and ideas that the plot is both super simple and extremely complicated. It's a story about a woman who starts to relive the same day over and over again except, instead of the typical thing where it starts over when she falls asleep, it's only until she dies (so sometimes she lasts for hours, other times for a couple days). However, almost immediately there are signs that something else is going on, that something outside of the main character's repeating day, something has gone horribly wrong. (Count the fish.) It's a very thoughtful, character-driven show, more about exploring ideas than plot which I, personally, didn't mind at all. Another one I highly recommend overall with much less blood and gore than Hannibal.

Xena - IT'S FUCKING XENA PEOPLE! Okay, but just in case you don't know what the show is about is through cultural osmosis, Xena is a show about a woman who used to be a truly horrible murderous bitch and her continual attempts to make up for the wrongs she has done. The main relationship in the show is between Xena and her (girl)friend, Gabriel, and although the show can be ridiculously silly (time is made up and history doesn’t matter!), it also explores deep, dark issues. One of the best things this show explores is the idea of redemption and forgiveness and that perhaps nothing Xena does will ever get her those things.

LIVESTREAM

Crank* - Jason Statham plays a man who has been given a poison that slowly cuts off his adrenaline, meaning that eventually he'll die. He has to do increasingly ludicrous things to get his adrenaline pumping overtime to make up for it slowly being cut off. It's one of the most fucking bananas thing you'll ever watch but is just a bunch of fucking fun. (CW: Public sexual assault. I only mentioned because it’s a scene that last for a bit. It's a complicated scene so I won't get into it here but send an ask if you want more details.)

Dale and Tucker vs Evil* - Dale and Tucker, two hillbilly best friends, are going into the woods to fix up their vacation home when they stumble across some college kids. Random circumstances make the college kids think D&T have kidnapped their friend and so they decide they need to attack D&T to get her back. Hijinx ensue. I don't want to say much more because there's a moment that is, to this day, still one of the funniest fucking things I've ever seen, largely because I did not see it coming.

GAMES

Doki Doki Lit Club - This is a game about games. You play a guy in a dating sim. Your first playthrough everything seems normal enough. You join the literature club, meet and talk to girls, and then one of the girls commits suicide. And then game restarts and the girl who committed suicide just... doesn't exist anymore. Your replay the exact same days but it's as though she never existed. Things only get weirder from there. This game does a great job of turning dating sim tropes on their head, as well as exploring games in general. (Content warning for a lot of things. Let me know if you want more details.)

Slime Rancher (stream) - There's really not much to spoil here. You play a woman who is in charge of a ranch full of slimes. There's some messages you'll find, left by the old owner, telling story about their romance. There also some messages between you character and a deliberately gender-ambiguous significant other. And that's about the closest to story you get. Otherwise it's just catching and ranching slimes.

Subnautica* - Fucking fuck I love this game. When this game first starts it appears to be your typical survival game with no real direction other than what you want to explore. But then you find an alien structure. And you realize that your spaceship didn't randomly crash. And you find out that there's no way get off this planet except to explore deeper and deeper and find out what the aliens were doing on this planet. A genuinely beautiful story, told mostly through entries in data pads and voice messages left behind, this ending is one of the most moving ends I've ever experienced and I never ever would have expected to be able to say that about a survival game.

We Happy Few* - In this alternate universe, the Germans invaded Britain during WW2 (although, through exploring the world, you learn that the differences started well before that). When the story starts up, the Germans have left Britain behind and Britain, for unknown reasons, appears to be cut off and/or abandoned by the rest of the world. The majority of the country is constantly hopped up on a drug called Joy, which is specifically used to help them forget something horrible that happened in the past. (I have theories.) The story starts when your character goes off his Joy and gets kicked out of society. There's a general sense of unease about everything and the more you learn the more that unease grows. The art style is great and the world building fascinating.

MISC (there’s nothing spoilery here but it feels weird to not have it)

Interactive Horror Story Livestream - Doc has talked a bit about this in at least one of her Xmas streams and it sounds amazing. Not only is Jet hilarious with horror stuff but knowing Doc’s writing skill, it will be something that we’d never want to miss.

Bean Boozle When Failing a Hard Game* - I am a sadistic bitch, I admit to this, and I love watching people eat Bean Boozle, the jelly bean of horrible flavors. One of my favorite videos content creators has done is playing an incredibly difficult game and then being forced to eat a random one every time they fail. 

[johnnymundano]

Pieces (1982) (AKA Mil gritos tiene la noche)

Directed by Juan Piquer Simon

Screenplay by Dick Randall and Roberto Loyola (as John Shadow)

Music by Librado Pastor (Spanish version) or Stelvio Cipriani, Carlo Maria Cordio, Stephen Ham, Alain Leroux, Fabio Frizzi, Enrico Pieranunzi and Silvano Chimenti (International version)

Country: Italy, Spain

Running Time: 89 minutes

CAST

Christopher George as Lt. Bracken

Linda Day as Mary Riggs

Frank Braña as Sgt. Holden

Paul L. Smith as Willard

Edmund Purdom as The Dean

Ian Sera as Kendall James

Jack Taylor as Professor Arthur Brown

Isabelle Luque as Sylvia Costa

Gérard Tichy as Doctor Jennings

Hilda Fuchs as Grace, the Secretary

May Heatherly as Mrs. Reston

Alejandro Hernández as Timmy Reston

Roxana Nieto as Virginia Palmer, First Victim

Cristina Cottrelli as Jenny, Pool Victim

Leticia Marfil as Suzie, Locker Room Victim

Silvia Gambino as Mary, Elevator Victim

Carmen Aguado as Carla, Aerobics Instructor

Paco Alvez as Alister Schwartz

(Guilt Bleat: Seriously, how could anyone pause to take screengrabs while watching this...unique creation. So off to IMDB I went.)

Pieces is a legendarily terrible Spanish slasher flick. Pieces is a tremendously enjoyable Spanish slasher flick. If you think those two statements should be mutually exclusive then stay away from Pieces, which, uh, is a Spanish slasher flick. You have been warned.

Pieces sets out its tawdry stall early, erupting busily into action with a riff on the opening scene of Deep Red (1975). The latter was stylish, restrained and chillingly suggestive whereas Pieces’ opening is…very much not. Starting as it means to go on Pieces thunders into life with an oafishly crude start involving a nudey jigsaw, matricide by axe and a couple of Keystone Cops. Somehow, by some inexplicable cinematic alchemy, this laughably squalid business is enlivened by a kind of feral energy which never entirely dissipates over the following eighty-blah minutes, despite the unarguable terribleness of the movie. This, I think, is the key to Pieces’ successful bypassing of any finer sensibilities you may mistakenly believe you possess - the maniacal gusto with which it assaults the slasher flick formula. Sometimes Pieces is so bad it’s funny, but not as often as you think; sometimes it’s funny how bad it is and yet…and yet, ridiculously, it somehow works. Which is to say, I enjoyed it but I’m not proud of that.

In 1942 a young boy playing with his absentee father’s porny jigsaw is surprised by his uptight and highly agitated mother. The short-trousered scamp surprises her in turn by axing her in the head and dismembering her corpse with a hacksaw. When the police turn up he tells them a bad man did it and ran away; they believe him because, hey, why would you not? Case closed. Whoosh! 40 years pass! And, as so often happens, a girl roller skates into a pane of glass, triggering the killer’s dormant psychosis. Suddenly the peace of a college campus in Boston (an area in American where no one speaks English, apparently) is smashed in the face by a hammer made of flamboyantly violent murders. Murder having a detrimental effect on any educational establishment’s reputation, the Dean (Edmund Purdom; prissy) keeps things on the QT and very, very hush-hush, while Lt. Bracken (Christopher George; distracted) attempts to catch the killer, mainly by wandering about angrily with an unlit cigar in his mouth. This proves an unfruitful approach and more young women are butchered in scenes which seem to take an unseemly pleasure in the ridiculous splatter on show. Cunningly Bracken employs student babe-magnet Kendall James (Ian Sera; ridiculously unsexual in a knitted Starsky & Hutch jumper affair) and ex-tennis champion cum police detective Mary Riggs (Linda Day; not very good at tennis) to make undercover enquiries, unfortunately they find this places them in the deadly path of the killer. Can the killer be brought down before he completes his insane aim of creating a jigsaw of human parts?

Actually, that’s the least interesting question Pieces raises. All the really interesting questions Pieces raises centre around why you are spending time watching something so ridiculously trashy. Also open to question is whether the people who made Pieces were catastrophically inept or whether the people that made Pieces just had utter contempt for their audience. There’s no getting around it; there’s no redemption under the flag of camp possible - Pieces is just garbage basically, possibly even the legendary hot garbage of which the young speak. And yet…and yet it’s impossible to look away. With its unholy, slapdash fusion of the giallo and the slasher Pieces creates an irresistible aesthetic car crash which even hardened fans of the bizarre can only boggle at. Choosing to do a slasher in the giallo manner is a pretty clever move, let’s face it. 

That said, beyond the awesomely and unapologetically gross kills, it’s the only original thing about Pieces, everything else is slightly soiled hand-me-downs. Pieces has no shame; it is quite happy to caper about in someone else’s unwashed knickers. Often many people’s unwashed knickers at the same time. And just as Pieces is itself a wonky jigsaw composed of mismatched parts from other, better, movies the main cast of Pieces all look like cheap knock-offs of other, more famous people.  Christopher George looks like a bad tempered George Segal, Linda Day looks like a sedated Loni Anderson, Paul L. Smith looks like Paul L. Smith but with a squint, Professor Brown looks like a constipated Chevy Chase wearing a creepy moustache, and Edmund Perdom looks like ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown after a month at a health spa. There’s always something onscreen to entertain, because in Pieces there’s always something stupid onscreen.

Deciding whether the stupidity in Pieces is intentional or accidental is trickier than you might think. On more than one occasion Pieces acts as a fantastic parody of the slasher form. The bit where the policewoman/tennis champion is attacked by a martial artist for absolutely no reason whatsoever is funnier and cleverer a lampoon than anything in the Scary Movie, uh, movies. As are the parts where a killer dressed as The Shadow carrying a giant chainsaw enters an elevator without raising any suspicion in the victim, or where the flamboyantly attired villain stalks a woman in a swimming pool despite his being clearly visible at all times. This stuff transcends brute idiocy and ascends effortlessly to the divinely satirical. But is it supposed to be? Does intention matter? At one point a woman is stabbed to death on a waterbed and the killer’s knife hits her head and bends; it’s a split second, but I doubt any other split second comes as close to encapsulating the entirety of Pieces within it so successfully. Then there’s the climactic build-up where the killer attempts to drug his victim into insensibility but gets the measure wrong, and has to make her another cup of coffee, including boiling the kettle, irritable spooning, huffy stirring etc. while the victim sits there unawares as the police close in. What with the imperilled blonde and the race against time it’s like some Hitchcockian set piece, but one by Barry Hitchcock, Alfred’s unknown, glue huffing cousin twice removed who writes only in crayon. And don’t even get me started on the final shot; if you’ve got enough self respect to burn, Pieces is worth watching for that final “???!!!???” moment alone. In the end I think that is the only sane, human response to Pieces: “???!!!???”. 

TL:DR: Pieces is stupid. Pieces is great. Pieces is stupidly great.

[hannaedits]

  I’m far enough along in the series that some plot points and villains are starting to get recycled, but everything is still so epic that I’m happy to be along for the ride.

Invincible Vol. 19: The War at Home Robert Kirkman (writer) Ryan Ottley (penciler, inker) Cliff Rathburn (inker) John Rauch (colorist) Rus Wooton (letterer)

Major warning that there’s some cannibalism at the beginning of this book. That’s usually where I put a book down, full stop. I’m not sure that it necessarily added anything to the plot, but it was a good way to represent how ridiculous the Invincibles from other universes had gotten while stranded together.

As usual, more Invincibles equals more drama. And it seemed to feed into our own Mark Grayson, because he makes some questionable decisions throughout these issues.

Proving once again that Eve is the real hero we don’t deserve, she totally calls him on it. Some meta conversation occurs in this book about the lack of powered women in contrast to the number of powered men in this world, but it makes sense: If there were more powered women, there would be significantly less drama and ridiculousness to write a fun series about.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) stars. Cross-posted to Amazon and Goodreads.

Invincible Vol. 20: Friends Robert Kirkman (writer) Ryan Ottley (penciler) Cliff Rathburn (inker) John Rauch (colorist) Rus Wooten (letterer)

The title of this trade paperback is a complete misnomer, except that it really isn’t. The overall theme is very much how fine the line is between friends and enemies, especially when everyone has superhuman (and beyond) powers.

For once, two Invincibles is the smart and logical way to go about things rather than an excuse for absurd drama. Once Mark gets back to his home dimension, though, I’m reminded again that I’d sometimes much rather have all of this story from Eve’s perspective.

A frequent complaint about speculative fiction very much written for the masculine reader is that sometimes things get a bit “rapey.” And they definitely do in this edition, but in a way that completely flips the trope. The post-traumatic after-effects are subtle and well-presented through artwork, and I look forward to seeing how that is addressed and resolved.

As for everything else? Not much I can say without giving away all the spoilers, but things have definitely gotten REAL. Some plot threads are coming full circle, and while Kirkman might occasionally pull the old villain back to rehash some stuff, he certainly doesn’t shy away from putting his heroes through the wringer. Looking forward to jumping right into the next collection as soon as possible.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) stars. Cross-posted to Amazon and Goodreads.

Invincible Vol. 21: Modern Family Robert Kirkman (writer) Ryan Ottley (penciler, inker) Cliff Rathburn (inker) Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colorist) Rus Wooton (letterer)

For some reason, I took a massive break while reading this series, and this issue has been hanging out on my nightstand for literally months. But the spouse encouraged me to jump back in, and I’m excited to crank through to the ending now.

Mark is still trying to make the world fit into his narrative of black and white (right and wrong), but it’s not working out since Robot’s epic takeover. Because he has a family to think of now, he decides the better part of valor is to make a new start on a completely different planet. (Even though freaking Abe Lincoln calls him a coward for leaving, I can see both sides to the decision.)

But life on an unfamiliar planet isn’t easy, and Kirkman makes some great storytelling decisions about how adjusting to a new world and culture isn’t easy. He kicks things up a notch with the aliens and such, but overall it’s a fairly accurate story of culture shock.

Another great representation is Mark’s continued PTSD. This story line is far more than most characters in fiction get after extreme trauma, and I appreciate every moment of it (especially the gender-swapped elements). I’m really glad he finally told Eve the truth, but I’m also glad that telling her the truth did not magically fix their issues.

And… oh, Thragg. We just can’t quit you. Mark’s happily ever after away from Earth probably isn’t going to last very long.

P.S. Does Star Trek know how much they’re being parodied in this series? Because it’s still hysterical.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) stars. Cross-posted to Amazon and Goodreads.

Review: Invincible Volumes 19-21 I'm far enough along in the series that some plot points and villains are starting to get recycled, but everything is still so epic that I'm happy to be along for the ride.

[theomegakitty]

VSWID and Character Comedy

Playlist link:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlRceUcRZcK1zbWYtY6BZHQg4sE3_macD

Disclaimer: I’ve never met or spoken with Jim Sterling in any capacity. This is just an opinion/analysis I need to get off my chest.  

     I’ve seen most episodes of Jim Sterling’s brilliant series ‘The Video Game Show What I Done’ at least a half-dozen times, and the only reason that doesn’t apply to them all is because the ‘Nioh’ episode is too new for me to have repeat-watched as many times as the others. If life had many instances where jokes from this show could be fittingly quoted I would be the first one quoting them. Any time I watch an episode I marvel at the timing, technique, and invention displayed throughout it. It’s clear that Sterling has been honing his abilities over years and hundreds of scripted videos, and VSWID (as I will refer to it from now on) may be my second-for-second favorite work of his. If you’re willing to go along with the crude yet ultimately harmless sense of humor it’s a riotous, deceptively well-crafted series that takes less time to watch than an episode of ‘Twin Peaks’ and is just as bizarre.

     Yet I feel alone in this opinion. Maybe alone is a strong word, but the dislike bars on these videos are always proportionately higher than they are on the less controversial Jimquisitions, sometimes much more so, and dissenting comments are less comprised of the random fury that a lot of highly viewed (relatively speaking) videos get than they are made up of confusion and even frustration, questioning if the series is “centered around a private joke [they’re] not privy to” or feeling the joke just didn’t click, despite them noticing the “sarcasm” at play. And that’s cool. A series as intentionally malformed as this one is going to leave some people stumped, especially when done by someone who frequently comments on the business of video games. When he makes a joke involving ‘Overwatch’ it makes sense to assume that the joke is directed at ‘Overwatch’ itself, since criticisms have been made by Sterling toward the game’s loot crate system and other elements of the game and its business practices. It’s a logical way of thinking, but it’s not one I agree with. The joke of VSWID is not at the video games it is focusing on. The reason VSWID works is not because it’s satire, as some believe it is, but because of Rory Fingers.

    Rory Fingers is the fictional host of VSWID as played by Sterling. Rory, as a character, is difficult to summarize because of the dimensions present in the writing. At first glance Rory is rambling and unprofessional. He’ll stumble through a poor a capella version of Vampire Killer from ‘Castlevania’ for over forty seconds before being rudely interrupted by the death of Simon Belmont onscreen. His videos are slapdash (the zoomed in screen cutting off the score counter in ‘Mega Man’), his gameplay footage is terrible - he rarely understands anything about the games he plays - and his puns capping off videos/segments are given such half-hearted delivery that it’s as if he came up with them on the spot and isn’t sure if he should say them. This is to say nothing of how he gets names wrong and twists words around (Robot Nick is an example of both), but the main takeaway here is that Rory is not very good at making videos. That alone is probably enough to hang a video on. After all, many of us have tried our hand at making Let’s Plays or other types of videos without realizing how feigned our charisma is and how little polish the video itself has, and that can be easily parodied, which is what he frequently does. In the aforementioned Vampire Killer gag the joke runs longer than you expect it to, and it veers dangerously close to anti-humor before the end of the bit and the end of the player character’s life are connected. He was singing until he died, and by having that clear, motivated end point the joke hits. That’s Sterling’s attention to the principles of comedy but there’s more to Rory than parody. He’s a character, not a punching bag, and Sterling understands that the bar must be raised beyond concocted incompetence in order to keep the viewer watching for more than a single video. That’s why the dark side of VSWID is so crucial to its working as a series rather than a one-off.

     Rory is unwell. He throws tantrums, has to take “yellow pills for a year” to calm him down, and has a life coach - allegedly not assigned to him by the state. The videos imply much but only state the essentials, leaving the viewer to make up stories or piece together exactly what happened to, say, go from clarinet lessons to “many many scorpions so many scorpions”. The point is completely separate from the topic he was initially talking about (that being the requirement to pay for Skyrim DLC). It’s there for two reasons, the first being that implanting disturbing imagery in a semi-innocent way is a good way to get a reactionary laugh but its primary function is the second reason, which is to provide the viewer with understanding of how Rory sees the world around him. The incest joke in the ‘Doom’ video works as shock humor but what makes it land is that Rory genuinely seems like the kind of character who would believe that wanting to do “deep-kissing” with his mother is just another part of being a person. Him making the connection between violence in Street Fighter and his father’s violent assault (which I won’t spoil) is funny because the act itself is ludicrous but also because the connection makes sense in Rory’s head. But shock humor can become tiresome if not grounded in an attempt at empathy, which is why the third dimension to Rory’s character (the first being incompetence and the second being his disturbed nature) is the most important reason for why the show works as well as it does: Rory is an innocent .

    Whenever Rory does something wrong I’ve never felt it was out of ulterior motives or actual malice. If it were the character would sour the whole show. Instead, Rory is a creature of childlike instinct. He throws chicken legs at people when he’s “sad” (a perfect word choice to convey how simple and blunt the character is) and gets mad when his grandparents give him socks instead of video games for Christmas. None of this comes from a place of hatred, just a place of childish selfishness. He hurts others without realizing it because he hasn’t developed the empathy that Sterling’s adult voice (and therefore supposed adult age of the character) would suggest. And yet, though he speaks from a current perspective of PS4s and emulators, he still speaks as though he’s a child, despite the ‘Street Fighter II’ video stating that he’s been playing the game since at least 1998*. The way he both resents and idolizes his brother’s ability at video games. The way he’s seemingly cared after by others. The way he makes jokes that everyone on Earth has made with zero sense of irony (from the character, not Sterling). His penis is a constant source of enjoyment and he doesn’t care who knows it, and though that’s true of a good number of people the character’s obliviousness of that taboo (however mild) indicates Rory’s lack of understanding of the world around him. He’s Norman Bates with Open Broadcast Software and a microphone, and the unfiltered nature of the internet means he’s free to say whatever he wants without consequence.

     Rory reminds me of Mr. Plinkett, which considering Sterling has used RedLetterMedia content in his videos is not an unfair comparison to make. Both are disturbed personalities let loose via internet critique, but I think I prefer Sterling’s approach. Because Rory is (unwittingly) just as much as a victim as those affected by his condition Sterling invites the viewer to laugh at his behavior while finding his affliction pitiable. Plinkett, meanwhile, is disturbed without there being a point of empathetic entry for the viewer. He does such terrible things (and the RLM guys show enough disturbing imagery) that the viewer can’t understand his plight and the gag comes off as mean-spirited as a result**. He’s just too much of a monster. Conversely, Rory’s actions are unwitting, meaning that when Sterling asks the viewer to laugh at how pathetic this character is we are able to because Rory, though a victim, is a little shit. 

     And we’ve all been little shits at some point, right? We’ve all done stuff in our childhood that we’ve regretted, despite it being because we were kids, so Sterling uses that truth (at least for me) to invite us to laugh at ourselves. Though maybe not to the extent of Rory we’ve treated family members and friends like garbage at one point or another, and Sterling uses that fact as a jumping off point to create a character who is this inclination heightened to the point of ridiculousness. Because none of us are perfect, especially when we’re kids. Rory simply never grew out of that mindset because the world around him was so sickening, so he retreats into his comfort zone online and posts videos with the delusion of competence. If you’re reading this then maybe there’s some part of that idea that rings true, and Sterling understands that. We need to find humor in our natural awfulness lest we forget about it and pretend it doesn’t exist. VSWID is a show about an uninformed, disturbed, child-like, easily upset manchild who vents his frustrations through Youtube. Even if that’s not you then it’s likely you know someone like that. And, let’s be honest, that person is kinda funny. But Rory is a creation all his own, and Sterling knows that by heightening the awfulness to absurd levels it becomes easy to laugh at human folly. I can’t wait for the next episode.

* I realize that this may just be a continuity error or something. I still think it’s worth commenting on.

** I love RedLetterMedia to death and I’ve seen the Plinkett videos several times, but the story segments of those particular videos are my least favourite RLM content and I skip them when I can. Just wanted to clarify before people call me a hater.