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#but jokes aside at this point all i want from upcoming adaptation is simply a proper chemistry between the leads PERIOD
manderleyfire · 2 years
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tbosas is flopping already with their shitty marketing, you could've at least made an edit with real actors if you love the book so much DUH
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popculturebuffet · 5 years
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Comics Corner: Child’s Play #1 “Night of the Living Doll”
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Happy days before Halloween everybody. While I have an X-tra Spooky treat planned for the day itself, I thought i’d start branching out from X-Men Comics (though that will be my primary focus), with a comic i’ve been dying to read since I found out it existed: The Child’s Play mini series from innovation comic, one of only two series and 10 comics overall starring your faviorite murder doll and mine: Charles “Chucky” Lee Ray. Also contains a slasher off to see who would win between Chucky and some classsic killers because the comic put the idea in my brain. Wanna Play? Then join me after the cut. 
WARNING: This review contains scenes of Gore. While I did try to cut it down being a horror comic about a slasher villain, this was inevitable, Discretion is advised. 
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Child’s Play is a horror franchise I absoltuley love. While i’ve procastinated on seeing the DTV sequels, not that I think their bad i’m just a forgetful mess sometimes, and Seed, because no amount of Jennifer Tilly or intresting gender identity issue stuff will compensate for me having to watch Chucky masturbate, I have followed the series for years, afraid to watch it because I wasn’t a huge horror fan at the time and Chucky scared the shit out of me as a kid. Eventually I realized that despite my fear I loved the franchise for it’s thoroughly interesting killer, entertaining kills, and at it’s best great stories and at it’s worst so bad it’s good royalty. Even the Don Manncini, creator of the series and writer of every film and director of three, disowned remake is pretty good if thoroughly it’s own thing.  So naturally a Mini-Series taking place between 2 and 3 that may fit neatly into continuity, this is my shit and i’m so happy to finally read it. 
For the lapsed and unintiated, the Chucky/Child’s Play series, the original anyway the remake is it’s own thing and has it’s own backstory, follows Charles Lee Ray, aka Chucky, a serial killer who in desperation to get away from the cop perusing him after his partner ratted him out, used his vodoo knowledge, because every serial killer knows voodoo apparently, to put himself in the nearest vessel, a doll. The rest of the backstory can be covered as we go as the first issue does a really good job of organically explaning it for the unaware. Granted I don’t know if most non child’s play watchers would be intrested in this comic but it’s a nice gesture. 
This mini comes to us from innovation entertainment, a 90′s publishing company that made tie in comics for a number of things, and from writer Andy Mangels who also wrote Innovation’s Nightmare on Elm Street comics, which Linkara has covered in detail if your curious and which i’ll probably cover myself at some point, especially since this issue made a strong impression on me.  Speaking of which, the mini as mentioned takes place between the second and third films, both of which have their own adaptations that i’ll cover eventually, but I felt the original story was more appealing. As far as I can tell there have only been really three bits of media outside the franchise, not counting the aborted video game: A , from all accounts, terrible endless runner game, this mini series, and another mini series from Hack/Slash creator and former Nightwing Maestro Tim Seely, as well as a crossover between Hack/Slash and Chucky from Seely. And having read said crossover and found it excellent and feeling just like the movies in regards to the little shit, I hope to find the mini one day and share it with you lovely people. But even if I had i’d probably be covering this one first since chronological order combined with the fact it seems that mini dosen’t fit into canon anymore and this one might. Now the exposition is out of the way let’s get to the good stuff. 
Since I didn’t really cover the covers in my first two X-Men reviews, and feel I really should going issue by issue it just hadn’t occured to me, let’s look at the cover. It’s decent, kinda a parody of old horror comics covers or old horror movie covers and a nice start to things.. although frankly I would’ve preffered the splash page instead. 
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I love it. It’s a nice little gag, and while the blood splatter is partly nonsensical and looks like Chucky just killed a guy to splatter some extra blood about to make his collection look more badass.. though given who we’re dealing with it wouldn’t suprise me, so it dosen’t really detract. That being said being a burgeoning horror fan and having seen films from most of these franchises and knowing enough about those I don’t from other reviewers reviews, i’d be remiss if I didn’t speculate about if Chucky could win against these other titans of terror. PLACE YOUR BETS BITCHES, IT’S A SLASHER OFF. 
Chucky Versus Micheal Meyers: He’d stab him for the love guru. Easy joke aside the horror of haddonefield does have size and strength, even in his old man version from the recent movie and upcoming sequels, over Chucky and while I thought this would be easily him... Chucky has him in speed and agility. He could climb that fucker and stab him up and down, shadow of colossus style, until even Micheal would have to buckle over, or just as likely set an elaborate trap like 2k18 Laurie. Micheal has some intellegence and a Chuck’s own drive not to give up, but that won’t save him from an opponent who’s faster, smarter and just as piss angry stubborn. Chucky wins.  Chucky Versus the Creature from the Black Lagoon: Chucky. The creature is strong but chucky’s craftier and would poison a lake just to kill a bastard.  Chucky Versus Jason: Tough call. Like Micheal, Jason is slow.. but he’s also 20 times more durrable, stronger and way more likely to get Chucky off him. He’s also more likely to use the environment meaning even if I vastly prefer Chucky, it’s a more even fight and more likely to go in Jason’s favor, as any trap Chucky set would likely get walked off. Jason wins.  Chucky Vs The Phantom of the Opera: Not really a traditional slasher and I don’t really know the version that is or the version that isn’t to be frank, but it seems like Erik could take chucky in cleverness and ruthlessness and combined with having home field advantage, i’m calling advantage Erik. He wins.  Chucky Vs Dracula: Okay 1, make this a movie yesterday Mancini and 2, this is a tough one. On the one hand Drac has mist, a horde of brides, wolves and transformation. If it’s home court, Chucky’s gonna die, especially if the count simply uses his brides to seduce him as Chucky is kinda easy that way. But in the US? Chucky is an onry bastard and Dracula has a ton of weakness, so I could see Chucky loosing round one then coming back to kill the bastard at dawn and anyone dumb enough to defend his coffin. Plus Chucky isn’t alone having Tiffany and the ablity to split himself among good guy dolls, so I could see Chucky creating another army of himself to do a suicide run on Drac’s castle. It’d hurt but Chucky is a vengeful dick. Chucky wins. Seriously Mancni get on this.  Chucky Vs Freddy: Depends on the setting: In the Dream World, it’s likely Freddy as he can throw Chuck off guard by giving him his body back or using former survivors, while in the real world it’s Chucky’s turf but Freddy still has knife hands with more reach than his lumbering opponents, so even with prep I expect Chucky to eat that one, so I give it to Freddy. But honestly I prefer Don Mancini’s ACTUAL pitch for a crossover he’s trying to get happening: Chucky and Freddy meet up, and actually admire each other’s style but realize that two killers in town will dry up all the victims so they wage a dirty rotten scoundrel’s style looser leaves town contest: whoever chops up the most teens by dawn stays. I want that yesterday too.  Chucky Vs Xenomorph: If it’s a facehugger as shown, Chucky, it probably woudln’t be able to bond with him and he’d stab it. But a proper showdown.. xenomorph. It matches Chucky’s speed, ferocity and while not as intelligent is still far stronger and just as ruthless.  Chucky Vs Leatherface: Chucky. While Leatherface has the better weapon and matching speed, Chucky can outthink him. Chucky wins but while I haven’t seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre, against the whole clan Chucky probably woudln’t win.. but would probably throw in with them long enough to survive since he’s a murderous bastard too and as long as he dosen’t have to join in dinner, it’s essentially his MO with help and family. He’d probably grow to either love them or get annoyed enough to kill em all.  Chucky Vs  The Tall Man: Tall Man. The Phantasm Ball is just too powerful and Chucky too vunerable and stubborn for a teamup.  Chucky vs Pinhead: Pinhead. I may be too squeamish for hellraiser but he’s FAR above Chucky’s paygrade.  So overall it’s 4 to 6 with Chucky loosing, but he still put up a far better fight than you’d think. And for funsies before we move on to the actual meat of the comic at long fucking last.  Chucky Vs Ash: Ash. Ash is dumb sometimes sure, but he’s just as stubborn, has dealt with being accused of murder before so framing him won’t work, and unlike the Slashers he’s got a shot gun, which while chucky can dodge, I could see Ash pining him. Dumb dosen’t mean he isn’t clever. However I do want to see the hyjinks that would insue so please, Mancini, do this one if you either can’t get freddy or if you can after that. Please? Okay so with ALLLL of that out of the way, let’s dive in. 
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We open on the above, what’s left of Chucky after Child’s Play 2, being reforged into a fresh body. It’s exactly as pleasant as you’d think. 
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Maybe he just says that because the sight of him with lipstick gives grown men heart attacks. 
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See? Unsuprisingly, that’s one of my faviorite Child’s Play moments. Or maybe he just needs a pair of fresh eyes to stop being so hetronormative. 
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I do love this bit, it’s a nice bit of comedy that dosen’t feel too broad and fits right into the franchise, even before the outright horror comedies. And now for you ladies and gentleman and other’s pleasure...LIVE NUDE CHUCKY!
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Granted Bride would later retcon in a penis, but given he’s in a third body by then. Or maybe it’s the fact his body gets more human the longer he’s in one, so maybe he grows one or fused a strapon to himself. I dunno. I’m not an expert in Chucky’s Penis. That’s Don Mancini’s job. So Chucky puts some pants on, because wether it’s because you love somebody or want to stab them silly, you put your pants on for them, and wonders if he should wear something more inconspicuous before realizing he’s a 3 foot animate doll.. he’s always going to be conspicuous, another inspired bit of comedy. This is something I like about the issue: Regognizing how ludicrious the two sequels at the time were, Mangels leans into the comedy a little, but without overriding the horror, as you’ll soon see, somehow correctly predicting the direction of the franchise. But chucky made a mistake.. the last page showed him triggering an alarm by accident and well. 
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As you can see in a neat stylistic choice, the siren blares over the entire page as Chucky makes a run for it and a mysterious observer sees a slight against god running about, decides cool and follows. He accidently slams into chucky in another funny bit. He offers a ride and while Chucky balks at this weirdo, said weirdo points out that how’s he’s going to outrun the cops otherwise and Chucky reluctantly gets in. And it says something if the guy with a bigger body count than a heart attack still has reservations going with you. The teen says Chucky reminds him of a kid who was in the papers for claming a doll killed some people and his mother who backed up the story, was suspected to have did it and put her in an insane asylum, or as this little shit calls it “Electro-Shock Pallace” as someone who himself is mentally ill, and afraid of asylums and lives in a world two decades removed where mass killings happen often and are often pinned on mental illness, fuck this twerp and I can’t wait for his commupance. Chucky sets him straight. 
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See this is why I didn’t jsut do a big infodump on everything right up front, the comic does a good cjob recapping child’s play 1, and 2 isn’t relevant to the plot aside from the intro. They explain things quick and fast and chucky himself gives a good chunk of the film’s backstory pretty quickly once he and shades here get back to his house. 
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This is also interesting as even the films haven’t really gone into how Charles Lee Ray felt as he became a doll or if he was conscious when Karen first got him. There’s more of course, and while it’s not necessary to this story, Karen does show up in this series, so i’ll fill you in on where the story went from there, as well as what Chucky left out or wasn’t there for. Here we go... Karen Barclay was the struggling mother of young Andy, who wanted a Good Guy doll for his birthday. Karen, not having much, found one second hand... Chucky. Chucky started manipulating the young kid, offscreen though that just makes it more unsettling even if the mystery of if Chucky’s real or not is kinda pointless when we saw a guy explode himself into a doll. I also like the nod that Chucky knows about as much as the fans do as to why their was a mega explosion. He first kills Karen’s best friend and Andy’s babysitter for the night, which Andy blames Chucky. No one belivies him.. which is understandable.. what’s not is when Chucky kills next, having andy take him to his acomplice’s house and blowing it up, NO ONE seems to question why a little child blew up a known criminal, how he knew where the house was, or why, when the previous crime was done in the home with motive, he killed some random guy. I do love this film but this bit feels especially dumb on the cops part not even bending a LITTLE. But this isn’t a review of the first movie so let’s move on.  Andy is comitted, which as sad as it is to see an innocent child thrown in an institution does make at least some sense so they can find out if he’s really seeing things or not, and Karen returns.. and finds that the Good Guy dolls don’t come with batteries, yet Chucky has been talking like any other toy. As a result we get one of the best scenes in the franchise history if not it’s best, and really, as much as I try I can’t do it justice. Though if you can’t watch in short he does an exorcist when she checks the batteries, she threatens to burn him, and he reveals himself. In long... it’s worth a watch. 
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Chucky runs for it, Karen tries to tell Mike who dosen’t belivie her.. until Chucky comes for him. Chucky then heads for Dr.Death, his vodoo 101 teacher, who refuses to help him viewing him an abomination but stupidly left a vodoo fetish of himself around and you can guess the rest. He reveals Chucky can only transfer to the first person he revealed himself too so he heads for Andy with .. this. 
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Mancini had to know what he was doing right? Right? Anyway. Karen and Mike find a dying Death who tells them to aim for the heart and who his target is. Andy dodges Chucky and escapes the Aslyum heading home where we get a final confrontation between the Barclay’s, Mike and Chucky, which is damn good and ends with Andy burning the fucker with a badass response to his claim of being his friend to the end “This is the end friend”. This dosen’t quite finish him but a shot to the heart, with Mike to blame, kills the bastard.. for now. Now we’re all caught up, let’s get back to the story. 
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Dipshit has called his friends to see Chucky and as seen above, Chucky is wondering why he shoudln’t kill the guy.. but Dumbass has a good point for once: his one friend is studying magic, presumibly at Durmstrang since Hogwarts dosen’t tolerate that kinda shit, and could help summon dr. death to see if they can fix his situation. Granted Death viewed him as an abomination and wanted nothing to do with Chucky, but he might let something slip or have no choice and it’s better than the nothing Chucky has to go on. Chucky gives exposition to Fuckwit’s friends and claims he killed Dr.Death in self defense, which isn’t entirely innacurate and Steaming Bowl of Elephant Piss suggests holding a seance. But one of his friends, Burt, who seems to be the only one to see Chucky for the red flag he is, calls an audible and Chucky grumbles off while they talk in private. 
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As you can see, Fuckbucket sets the intellgence standard for his group. However their not SO obnoxious that it distracts from how horrible what’s about to happen will them will be. Except shitty shitty bang bang. Since It’s hard to remember all of the dead meets names i’ll be calling the girl Molly Ringwald, Burt by his name since he’s being sensiable, the moron drinking his own blood Edgelord, and Numbnuts MCGee my current barrage of creative insults. But yeah none of them take Chucky as a threat seriously, which is a nice little meta commentary on how most people think they could take Chucky, even though the guy is nigh unkillable, smart and fast and stronger, if not heavier, than him being a doll would make you think. Burt is the ONLY one here who seems to think harboring a serial killing doll is a terrible idea and thus the only one I respect. And “Most LIkely To Run Into A Wall” has the genius observation seen above where he asks “we’re helping him why would he hurt us”... when he’s already threatned to kill him and has no use for any of them once he has any info they can scrape up, with Burt pointing out even if their sucessful they’ll be responsible for more killing. Sadly he’s outvoted. Seriously while I do like Mangels, I question his opinon on teenagers and horror fans, especially given his long screed about the horrors of the world at the front of the issue and how his comics horrors don’t compare to racisim or homphobia, though the latter is a nice touch considering this was the early 90′s and some horror audiences could be homphobic morons, when the horror fans he portray are a darwin award of the decade winner, a moron who cuts himself not because he has serious issues with depression but to drink his own blood, a witch who goes along with their stupidity, and ... one likeable guy who’s coded as a wuss but is the only sane one here. 
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So morons r us, plus burt and chucky, call Dr.Death’s spirit forth in a very moody and atmospheric scene. Naturally it goes GREAT. 
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Dr.Death’s form dissolves terrifyingly and awesomely and our morons, and Burt,  are left, literally since they turned the light’s down in the dark> Burt is freaking out and has shards of crap in him thanks to all this.. couldn’t of killed fuckaround could you John? Burt is lead to the bathroom, while Fuckwit and Edgelord head downstairs, Fuckwit heading further down to check the breakers since the power is out for the whole house while Edgelord actually says something smart and wonders what they ALL shoudlv’e been thinking about: Where’s chucky? He has a response in this AWESOME looking panel. 
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And here’s where the it dosen’t undercut the tragedy bit comes into play. Sure these kids are kinda dumb.. but most teens are, and they might not belivie he actually killed peope or even if they did, think they can take him as foolishly stated. They had their whole lives to become better people, and Mollly Ringwald and Burt seemed like decent enough people while Edgelord was probably going though a phase. Dum Dum Dumbassigan dosen’t really get a huge repreive but the point is NONE of them deserve to die and they aren’t dialed up to obnoxious, except assface, to be that unsympathetic. Their being stupid sure, but again MOST TEENS ARE or will at least be easily talked into doing something that all common sense says should kill them. And sadly in David, aka edgelord’s case...
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Yeah it took a while but I had that gore warning for a reason. And he then decides to fill David with knives. I also stopped calling him edgelord because well. .look at it. The death is horrifying, well drawn and only made worse when Chucky decides to play “pin cushion” and fill him with knives off screen. His next target is sadly my man burt. He does complain A LOT and while a little whiny, given he’s covered in cuts, about to die and was the ONLY ONE here to excercise caution.. yeah he has a right to be. And then.. this happens to Burt in the bathroom...
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Yup, THAT just happened. But I like it a lot.. it’s done with style, humor.. but not without horror either. A nicely done little parody. Molly, or wendy as the comic calls her, wonders around the Darkness for a bit.. and then finds David’s corpse.. which I own’t show as holy shit it’s as graphic as it is horrifying. And given what I showed you of his death earlier, that’s saying something.She tells an approaching Moron to stay back.. and well..
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In order....... I am so angry at that first panel “I don’t know what happened here....” I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED HERE. 
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BITCHCAKES, YOU LET A SERIAL KILLER INTO YOUR HOUSE WHO VANISHED ON YOU AFTER A SPOOKY GHOST TOLD YOU TO KILL HIM OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES. WHAT IN THE STAR SPANGLED, CHERRY COATED MARSHMELLOW FUCK DID YOU THINK HAPPENED.  Second, while I get her logic, Fartnugget isn’t capable of working out basic sequence of events let alone killing a person.  And finally.. there is no amount of gifs that can convey how happy I am at that last panel. 
Wendy goes mad from the shock and Chucky, whos’ been lurking under the table this whole time with a Freddy Glove, strikes. 
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It’s no “welcome to prime time BITCH”, but I think Freddy would dig it. Naturally, the glove dosen’t kill her but she snaps her neck.. and then chucky , of all things, calls the police. 
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I’ll not explode with rage again btu the david’s dead line tempted me, as HE JUST KILLED YOUR FRIEND OF COURSE HE DID. As for his threat... Chucky is unimpressed. See this was his plan. At least once they stopped being useful. Gee who could’ve predicted that? Chucky has decided to frame ponytailed idiot for it, a real brilliant way of going about things, and to me WHY Chucky is such a threat. Even if you beat him, if you don’t have proof.. he still gets you locked up and then comes back stronger than ever. This ending also actually helps with a plot hole some might have with the series. 
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Chucky dosen’t leave fingerprints. He MIGHT as he turns more human, bud odds are he dosen’t, thus it’s easy enough to frame whoever’s left.. though it was neat to see him do so intentionally. Truck Nuts breaks down, Chucky flees and we end on a teaser for the next issue as some mysterious Doctor has come to Karen Barclay with promises to help go after Chucky. But that’s for another day. For now our story is done. There’s also a page for a “Stuck On Chuck” contest, with the winners getting to be in issue 5. Just bringing that up so if I ever get there, I won’t have missed it. And with that we finally close out. 
Final Thoughts: 
This issue is excellent. I was expecting something slightly cheesy and not great, and while there are narmy elements: the commentary on horror being a media scapegoat seems out of place and as I made abdundantly clear on second read the lead is insufferable. His fate is still tragic, but he’s such a moron I can’t help but feel he brought it on himself, but his friends aren’t so obnoxious that you don’t feel bad when they do die, a mistake full on horror movies make too often. The kills are gory, as shown there’s some nice visual flair here and there, and chucky is drawn amazingly, especially for the time. There’s an awkward shot here or there but for the most part the artist really captures him well. This comic is a hidden Gem and if your a fan of the films or even just the first one, I strongly recommend it, or if nothing else as I haven’t gotten to the rest, this issue.  If you liked this review, feel free to like or reblog, and if you want one like it for the issue or graphic novel of your choice, just pm and slip 5 bucks into my paypal and i’ll get right on it as soon as the first week of november. Until then, i’m your friend to the end. 
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Press: Emilia Clarke on Game of Thrones fans: 'Airports are a source of fear. It gets kind of freaky'
THE TELEGRAPH – Emilia Clarke walks into a suite at Claridge’s, a gaggle of publicists and agents surrounding her, with the kind of poise that you would expect from a queen.
  To the tens of millions of fans of Game of Thrones, the show that catapulted her to fame only a year out of drama school, it’s a not unfamiliar scene.
  Although of course, as Daenerys Targaryen, the all-powerful, slave-freeing queen of the show, it would be some kind of windswept castle or ancient pyramid, and her retinue would be in armour.
  Even her newly blonde hair is apt (until now she’s worn a wig on the show). Like the character she plays, Emilia’s is a story of success against the odds (of which more later), but there the similarities end.
  At 31, the English rose couldn’t be less like the prickly queen she plays (full title: Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, rightful heir to the Iron Throne, rightful Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains… or just Dany for short).
  Emilia is funny, light-hearted and, that entrance aside, a million miles from grand. She’s much more like the carefree, dancing girl she plays in the new campaign for the Dolce & Gabbana fragrance The One. (When the brand asked if she would be its new face, ‘I was like, “Well, yeah. Duh.”’)
  In the past, Emilia has had to deal with uncomfortable questions about how she, as a woman, justified the arguably gratuitous female nudity and gruesome violence for which Game of Thrones initially made headlines.
  But long before the Harvey Weinstein scandal turned Hollywood upside down, the show’s plot pulled a complete 180 – and now it’s the female characters who are fighting over the titular thrones. And everyone, but everyone, is rooting for the 5ft 2in Khaleesi, who is proving to be just as fierce as her dragons.
  Playing the role has sharpened Emilia’s own feminist impulses. ‘It’s given me a real insight into what it feels like to be a woman who stands up to inequality and hate. And as she [Daenerys] has become more empowered as a woman, you can’t hide any more,’ she says. ‘You are adding to the voices that are going to make people realise an equal society is what we’re aiming for.’
  Emilia grew up near Oxford with her older brothers, and was surrounded by strong examples of equality. Her mother, who worked as a marketing executive, was the primary breadwinner, while her father worked as a sound engineer in musical theatre – so it was the norm for Emilia to see a woman in a position of power at work.
  ‘That’s the lens through which I’ve been fortunate enough to view the world,’ she says. ‘It’s only when you go to school that you’re like, “Oh, that’s different, that’s weird.”’
  After attending the private boarding school St Edward’s in Oxford (where she discovered her love of acting through school productions), she was still studying at the Drama Centre in London – and earning money with a catering job – when she was cast in her first role, in an episode of BBC One’s Doctors.
  It was in 2009 that she auditioned for Game of Thrones. The casting director had been looking for a tall, willowy blonde. ‘I genuinely don’t know what it was that set me aside. I mean, I didn’t look the part at all,’ laughs Emilia.
  ‘I [readied] myself, listened to a little Tupac and bowled in, obviously still a bag of nerves. But I just tried to play the truth of it.’ It may have been her sense of humour that helped her win the role – the actress read for her part, but also broke into a ‘funky chicken’ dance in front of the HBO execs.
  As Game of Thrones gained momentum and Emilia has become a recognisable celebrity, she has struggled with some aspects of fame. She gets stopped on the street increasingly often, and finds crowds of fans incredibly stressful.
  ‘Airports are a constant source of fear,’ she admits. ‘When you’re in a really public place and someone asks you for a picture, then suddenly you get people who don’t know who you are, or really care, come up and join in. Then it gets kind of freaky. Because you’re like, “It’s just me. I’m by myself, feeling outnumbered.” It’s overwhelming.’
    One would think that all the nude scenes she’s filmed for Game of Thrones would also have caused her anxiety, but no. She has branded those who criticised her for going naked ‘anti-feminist’.
  Between seasons, Emilia has found time to film some major pop culture, including a role in Solo: A Star Wars Story, a prequel about Hans Solo’s early years to be released next year. The project remains shrouded in secrecy – all Emilia can say is that her character is ‘really cool’.
  She was also the lead in last year’s Me Before You, the adaptation of Jojo Moyes’s bestseller, and next summer she’s due to be reunited with its director, Thea Sharrock, in a West End play called Five Times in One Night.
  Both she and Kit Harington – who plays Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, and (spoiler alert!) is now her on-screen lover -flew to Naples to film adverts for Dolce & Gabbana (today, naturally, she’s in a black Dolce dress, with statement tiger-head buttons on the collar and sleeves). Set against the heady backdrop of a lively street festival, Emilia became swept up in the atmosphere.
  ‘I’ve been to Italy before, but not Naples,’ she says. ‘It was all locals in the advert, which was even funnier because it was so authentic. I think there were a lot of out-takes with me like, “What the hell is going on, this is so cool!” I feel Dolce & Gabbana is [for] girls [who] are at ease in their own skin,’ she says. ‘They have a frivolity and a femininity that I can relate to… It fits really well.’
  For now she’s now back on set for the final series of Game of Thrones. Last season, her Instagram feed was filled with videos of her and Harington goofing around behind the scenes. But this time around the restrictions are more serious.
  ‘We have a very strict social-media ban this year because people need to stop spoiling it for everyone,’ she says, pouting slightly. ‘It’s really frustrating.’ Even Emilia doesn’t know what’s planned for her character (the TV series has now gone past the point George RR Martin’s books have reached).
  ‘They’ve written a number of different endings,’ she says. ‘So none of the cast know what the actual ending is. If there’s ever a leak of any kind, don’t believe it because it’s probably not true.’
  No matter how it ends, Emilia seems deeply sad for Game of Thrones to leave her life. When asked how she’s feeling about it, she simply frowns and says, ‘emotional. It’s a big one.’ That said, being on the show is not without its downsides. During the seven months she spends filming each season, she typically wakes around 4am to head into hair and make-up, with 18-hour shoot days that can often involve riding prosthetic dragons in front of green screens for hours on end.
  As a result of this intense schedule, her personal life has fallen by the wayside. She dated actor Seth MacFarlane between 2012 and 2013, but isn’t currently romantically linked to anyone. Once Game of Thrones wraps for good in 2018, for the first time in seven years she will have free time.
  She often tries to remind herself that in order to create characters, you have to spend time in the real world. ‘The thing with being an actor is, to play the roles you need to have an idea of more than just getting into a car and getting to a set,’ she says.
  Her goal, lately, is to take more time to be herself. She and her best friend – the actor and writer Lola Frears (daughter of director Stephen), with whom she’s also writing a script – have been working their way through a list of 60 influential movies given to her by Solo screenwriter Jon Kasdan. The most recent: All About Eve.
  She’s reading Zadie Smith’s Swing Time, loves Kendrick Lamar and went to Glastonbury for the first time this summer. Fans filmed her dancing wildly to Stormzy’s set, but she didn’t care – she was having too much fun.
  Her family have always supported her dream of acting; although her father, being in the industry, joked early on that she’d only ever need to remember one line: ‘Do you want fries with that?’ Tragically, he died from cancer last summer while the actress was filming upcoming thriller Above Suspicion alongside Jack Huston in Kentucky.
  Now Emilia focuses on her mum and her brother, Bennett, who works in the camera department on Game of Thrones. She credits her interest in Star Wars and Comic Con culture to him. ‘My brother was a huge fan, and I wanted to be like my brother in every way,’ she laughs. ‘Sometimes he does the clapper before my takes [on Game of Thrones]. I’m always like, “Don’t f— it up!” It gets very unprofessional very quickly.’
  Game of Thrones has also brought her security – it has been estimated that she earns up to $500,000 per episode. She owns a house in the LA neighbourhood of Venice, although she admits that she rarely spends time there.
  ‘I can provide [financially] for my friends and family,’ she says. ‘Genuinely, that’s the best thing. Knowing that everyone I love is going to be fine. It sounds like a real Oprah Winfrey sob story, but it’s very true. It’s incredibly empowering as a young lady.’
  Emilia Clarke is the face of Dolce & Gabbana The One, £50 for 30ml edp.
  Press: Emilia Clarke on Game of Thrones fans: ‘Airports are a source of fear. It gets kind of freaky’ was originally published on Enchanting Emilia Clarke
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snarktheater · 7 years
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Series review — Game of Thrones (Season 7)
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Yeah, just because I decided not to snark every episode individually this year does not mean I'm happy about where Game of Thrones is headed any more than I was last year. It's actually kind of worse. Season 6 felt somewhat better than 5, but this is a nosedive. And the problem is, it's not exactly a nosedive in quality, which makes it increasingly frustrating to talk to people who still like the show. Not that it hasn't been frustrating for the past few years, but it certainly got worse.
But hey, who am I if not the guy who hates the cool stuff? Well, I'm still a lot of other things, but for the sake of the joke, let's pretend otherwise and talk about this season. This mercifully short season, yet still too long, in that it exists at all.
When I review something, I like to stay as nuanced as possible, which usually means being very…wordy. But when it comes to this show, I can easily summarize what went wrong. Namely: the showrunners ran out of books to adapt, and they did not understand the story they were making in the first place.
I'm not saying that as a book fan butthurt that they changed things (although…I am that too, kind of). This issue should be apparent even if you did not read the books. Because the show has basically become a completely different story. I'm gonna have to go on a tangent to explain this further, so bear with me, please.
A few years ago, South Park made a triple (triple!) episode mocking Game of Thrones (and promoting their then-upcoming video game). The main point of criticism they threw at the show, aside from daring to include male frontal nudity (which…you know what, it's stupid and I won't go there), was "when do the dragons show up?" There was a measure of self-awareness, since it was children asking that question. And yet, to someone like me monitoring people's reactions…it seemed to be a recurring one. When do the dragons show up? When do the White Walkers attack and we fight them?
But the show was adapting the books with relative consistency at the time. I could forgive minor changes, because I try to keep an open mind to adaptations and give them a shot at telling their own story and adapting to the new medium. So I let it slide. And the dragons or White Walkers showed no signs of coming sooner than the books planned, so it was fine.
However, if there's one impression season 7 has left me with, it's that the lovingly-called D&D (the show's creators) were probably those little boys asking "when do the dragons show up?" They had to bide their time, but as soon as they ran out of books, they made their move to get to "the cool stuff". Or what they perceive as such anyway.
Now, Benioff and Weiss are not completely incompetent storytellers (…I don't think. Yet). So this paragraph above is an oversimplification. They merged characters and plot lines in season five, leading to the horrendous Sansa marrying Ramsay moment, and padded others like Jon's to get everyone roughly on par. Then season 6 worked towards one goal: blowing. Shit. Up.
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Literally, but also metaphorically. With the Sept of Baelor, all of Cersei's political enemies were wiped out in one fell swoop. Dorne was taken over and made its moves. The Ironborn were brought back to be relevant and immediately split into two neat factions. Arya completed her training but also retained her identity and went back home. Daenerys breezed her way through gathering all Dothraki under her command, and Meereen's pacification was wrapped up by her and her entourage. Jon was brought back to life and unified the North, and even became King!
For a show that had been able to maintain a dozen plot lines, some of them seemingly unrelated safe for taking place in the same world, Game of Thrones sure did a good clean-up job. Season seven barely even has multiple plot lines running in parallel at all.
And the problem is, this creates a binary, dichotomic story. The framing is clear: in Daenerys and Cersei's fight for the crown, we should root for Daenerys because she's "hope for a better future" while Cersei is ambitious and ruthless and doesn't care for the people. Every major player but Jon has chosen a side, and of course, all the sympathetic characters are in favor of Daenerys. And Jon is all about saving the entire world from the White Walkers. And of course, guess who he goes to ally with early on in the season too. But we'll talk about Jon in a moment.
A Song of Ice and Fire isn't a dichotomic story with clear-cut good and evil. Hell, Game of Thrones wasn't one either. Even the Others/White Walkers aren't evil; they are simply death, which plays into bigger themes about what makes life meaningful. But in this season, we have a clear "Jon and Dany good, Cersei bad, White Walkers worse" thing going on.
This is what I mean when I say it's a different story. Thing is, it's a story I could actually like. For the longest time, my number one favorite books was The Wheel of Time, and in many ways, this season has a similar structure to the later books of that series, with factions being forced to come together and ally against evil. We even have the Cersei-esque antagonistic faction.
Problem is, The Wheel of Time was aiming that way the whole time, and it built up the dynamics so they could end there. While I don't doubt that A Song of Ice and Fire will at some point feature a battle against the Others, I sincerely doubt that the lead-up to it will be as simple as "all the sympathetic characters decide they should fight them together because it's the good thing to do".
Another issue with this polarization of the previously grey morality is that characters drift away from who they were. Daenerys is the most blatant example: the season even has trouble at times reconciling her established character with who they want her to be, so she's torn being hope for the future and being…a woman who wants to conquer a land because she views it as her birthright. The showrunners have apparently forgotten that Daenerys's opposition to slavery was driven from personal experience, not her innate desire for social justice everywhere.
But of course, the worst part of falling into the Good versus Evil cliché fantasy story is that…that story has a very clear protagonist. Which the show didn't have. Or, rather, every time a character looked like the fantasy protagonist, that character died (see Ned and Robb Stark).
So it's baffling, and somewhat infuriating, what is happening with Jon Snow. Not only is he confirmed again (repeatedly) as Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark's son, as per the popular fan theory. Not only is he King in the North. No, now the showrunners have added that Rhaegar and Lyanna were married, y'all. He annulled his previous marriage, and Jon's real name is Aegon Targaryen, and he's the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, even before Daenerys!
Oh, also, because he's now the Bland Male Fantasy Protagonist, he's not just the lost heir to the throne, he also gets a love interest in the form of the prettiest, highest-ranked girl of around the same age available. Also known as Daenerys. Her aunt.
Okay, there's a lot to unpack there, and I won't even touch on the incest as a moral issue because…I don't really care about that? I do care that the showrunners have once more taken Dorne as their victim, though. I mean, that annulled previous marriage is with Elia Martell of Dorne, a woman of color who had two kids with Rhaegar. One of those kids was named Aegon. Their death fueled the Martell hatred towards the Lannisters, but hey! No big deal at all, let's just pretend Rhaegar would just name another son of his the same way.
No, I don't think it's a coincidence that the showrunners are sidelining a woman of color's relationship with a major backstory character in favor of a white woman. I don't think they're actively racist, but I am fairly sure that that decision is motivated by racism. Unless it's motivated by sexism, of course! After all, the other biggest victim in that is Daenerys, since every argument she has for claiming the throne would also give Jon precedence.
There's another problem with Jon, though, regardless of all of that. Specifically, he's…a Mary Sue. Yeah, shocking, I know, the Bland Male Fantasy Protagonist is made into a Mary Sue. Who knew!
So after establishing Daenerys doesn't take well to defiance, Jon shows up, and…defies her, refuses to acknowledge her as his queen, and gets away with it. That last part being the one I take umbrage with, just to be clear. Then he sticks around to try and convince her to help against the White Walkers, and…he does. Even though Daenerys has everything to lose in that process and the show even built a scene in the second-to-last episode of the season where Dany sees the White Walkers and realizes the threat they post?
Oh, but it gets worse. That second-to-last episode is impossible to summarize in how many events should lead to Jon's death, but don't. He makes one mistake after another, survives everything, gets one of Daenerys's dragons killed, and yet not only is she an even stronger ally, but she also falls for him over this.
Just to be clear, the issue here isn't Dany falling in love with Jon. Well, it is, but only in so far as Jon faces no consequences for his errors, and instead, gets his way. Literally: the season ends with Dany renouncing on taking the throne until the White Walkers are dealt with. If there's anything more Mary Sue than doing everything wrong and facing no consequences for it, I…haven't heard of it yet.
It would be bad anywhere, but it's especially bad in a show where a man of honor (Robb Stark) fell in love with a woman and rallied her to his cause once led to him dying. And the thing is, I don't even like that they changed Jeyne Westerling into Talisa, because it completely undermines the tragedy of Robb's character arc (book!Robb dies because honor is his fatal flaw and he had to marry Jeyne for honor; show!Robb dies because he couldn't keep it in his pants). But that change means there's an even starker precedent for why, if this was still the same story, Jon should die.
And yet…this is also exactly what I'm worried won't happen. Because Jon is now our Bland Male Fantasy Protagonist/Mary Sue, the chances of him dying are…fairly low. The issue is: he is now fucking his aunt. While I wouldn't put it past the show to revel in that (they have dabbled in Targaryen exceptionalism…a lot), I think the backlash might force them to kill the ship, even if it hadn't been the plan. So who will die: the Bland Male Fantasy Protagonist, or his love interest who can give him ManPain™ by dying? Yeah, I know where I'm placing my bets. And just for the record I'll be happy if I'm wrong.
Jon is a microcosm of all the things that went wrong. Another example is the Lord of Light, who this season is treated a whole lot like the "one true religion". Characters eventually all start acting like they all serve the Lord, and…do I really need to finish my thoughts or can I just end here and say "Christianity"? Because it sounds like that's what they're going for, and that they're also equating that with being good, and once again erasing all the moral complexities of the various religions in the world of ASOIAF/GOT. Bonus points because Jon was brought back to life by a priestess of the Lord of Light, effectively making him a literal "chosen by god" trope.
This season was…well, unfortunately, it was exactly the sort of hackneyed developments I expected from the show based on the past two seasons. And yet it's also kind of worse? I just really want this to be over. I also really want to come out of this still able to like the books.
It does make me temper my expectations for whenever that Wheel of Time adaptation comes out, though. Is that a good thing, remind me not to overhype myself for other things? I'll take it as a silver lining. Another silver lining being that I can stop thinking about Game of Thrones until…whenever the final season comes out.
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allineednow · 7 years
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<p>Malcolm Turnbull is fighting for his political survival</p>
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Here is a question: has the Turnbull government entered the valley of the shadow of death politically, a bleak?
As the government edges perilously close to defeat on the floor of Parliament following the resignation of John Alexander, has mishandling of the citizenship fiasco severed lines of retreat?
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No agreement on citizenship
Despite a two hour meeting to try solve the citizenship crisis, Labor leader Bill Shorten and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull have not come up with a resolution.
These missteps include: the Prime Minister's ill-advised pronouncements on the likelihood of the High Court judgment in Barnaby Joyce's favour; ludicrous accusations against those seeking clarity of engaging in a "witch hunt"; an undercover procedure of self-regulation instead of an independent audit for MPs to get their houses in order; and now, inevitably, politicisation by which tit-for-tat referrals to the High Court are jeopardized.
Then there is the Governor-General sitting in Yarralumla.
What does he make of all this, including his responsibilities under the constitution to ensure Parliament itself is correctly constituted, according to the law?
Sir Peter Cosgrove would be remiss if he not contemplated -- in the event of an impasse -- nudging the PM towards early elections to enable Parliament to be reconstituted with a slate of representatives untainted by citizenship difficulties.
The High Court has spoken.
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Among the few glimmers of hope for Malcolm Turnbull is that he will be out of the country and thus removed somewhat from endless coughing on national issues as a new week begins under siege.
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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's best hope of surviving this Upcoming treacherous phase is to find a way to get ahead of the news cycle.     Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
What is clear is that Turnbull facing enemies within and without, and is currently fighting for his survival in an environment which could hardly be propitious for an incumbent beset by challenges on many fronts.
From the AFR Magazine's Power Issue, former Liberal Party director Brian Loughnane was quoted as saying of an unfriendly political atmosphere for incumbents: "Political leaders are now having to play defence ... They are more worried about defending their positions with whatever political capital they've got remaining. It is day-to-day survival."
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Out of the way: the Prime Minister arrives in Da Nang, Vietnam, for the APEC Summit.   Photo: Fairfax Media
He could have been describing Turnbull's predicament where a PM finds his "political capital" dissipated.
Not least of Turnbull's issues are a phalanx of conservative commentators augmented by disaffected former Tony Abbott-era staffers whose perspectives play out incessantly at a Sky News' agitprop activities echo chamber.  
All this is occurring against the background of a nation that has lost confidence in its elected representatives. This is reflected in a splintering of service for the parties, and populism given voice by Pauline Hanson.
What should be spooking Labour and Liberal is that their share of the principal vote is under pressure. The Coalition is polling a devastating 35 per cent. This is territory.
Having traversed thousands of kilometres of heartland Australia -- such as Queensland -- I can tell you contempt is hardly a strong enough word for the disregard in.
The Coalition in Canberra has reason to be anxious about results in the Queensland state election that is coming on November 25, where Hansonism is threatening to hamper, if not plunder, the base.
The Coalition holds 21 of 30 chairs liberally in Queensland. Lose government and shed Queensland, it goes without saying.
Turnbull loyalists assert that when the government preside over a successful conclusion to the same sex union plebiscite, such as follow-up legislation, can put the citizenship wreck behind it, and somehow make it through to the year without further mishap, a sunlit uplands beckon.
This may be regarded as a tiny fantasy.
A couple of years into the Turnbull leadership purpose is served on mistakes, where there have been many, including an initial failure to embrace comprehensive tax reform and thus budget repair.
What is clear is that the PM's attempts to straddle his party's moderate and conservative wings while clinging to a middle ground are precarious at best.
In the process, he's yielded that most precious commodity for a political leader: credibility. Put simply, it is not clear what Turnbull himself stands for in his attempts to adapt his party elements.
A Turnbull has not been shown to be Turnbull in expectations.
In the event that you should place yourself in the shoes of the PM's advisers, what advice might you proffer to a headstrong leader, and one who is now proclaiming himself as an accomplished "crisis manager"?
Leaving aside foolish talk of replacing Turnbull, what the PM needs to do is to remind himself of what made him attractive when he had a plus-38 approval rating (he's now minus-28, a 66 point turnaround).
Strategically and tactically he wants to be ready to fight with an election if necessary, and not one to which he is dragged screaming and kicking. To put it differently, his best hope of surviving this treacherous phase until elections can be held in the normal course of events is to find a way to get ahead of the news cycle. That means getting the politics right, and possibly more important, asserting control over his own fractious party.
Disunity is passing politically.
Tony Walker is a vice chancellor's fellow at La Trobe University and a Fairfax columnist.
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paulisweeabootrash · 6 years
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First-ish Impression: Angelic Layer
Welcome once again to Paul is Weeaboo Trash! 
Today’s topic: Angelic Layer (2001), based on three episodes.
I went to Saboten Con, an annual anime convention in Phoenix, AZ, this year, and I attended a panel on the history of the influential manga group CLAMP.  Even if you’re not an obsessive or long-time otaku, or only really pay attention to anime, not manga, you may be familiar with them from works like the TV adaptations of Cardcaptor Sakura and its brand-new sequel Clear Card, or tangentially from Code Geass (which they did not write, but did design characters for), or perhaps from the work of theirs I’m by far most familiar with, Chobits.  In addition to telling me some stuff I didn’t know about CLAMP’s members and catalog of works, the panel gave me a few promising things to add to my “to do” list, both for reading and for watching.  One of which, it turns out, my wife owns and I’ve seen the first episode of before, but which I somehow entirely forgot about: the earlier series to which Chobits is the sequel, Angelic Layer.
Angelic Layer follows the story of Misaki Suzuhara, a middle schooler moving on her own to Tokyo to live with her aunt.  As soon as she sets foot outside the train station, she is captivated by an enormous screen on a nearby building, showing footage of a fight during the championship of Angelic Layer, a sport where two players duel via remote-controlled robots called "Angels".  She immediately feels the need to learn to play, rushes off to the nearest department store and, with the help of an enthusiastic random stranger (who is understandably mistaken for a kidnapper by a store employee), spends all of her money (including money set aside for local train fare from the station where she arrived to her aunt's place) on the beginner essentials for playing Angelic Layer.  Including, apparently, a special purpose laptop preloaded with the necessary software.
The random stranger, by the way, is named Icchan, and he immediately takes an interest in Misaki as a player and teaches her the basics of the game.  He is revealed to the audience to be a comedic relief-level eccentric who works for the company that makes Angels and runs the Angelic Layer tournaments.  Misaki does not know this, which is bizarre and uncomfortable.  His insistence on teaching her could be portrayed as reasonable and kind of endearing, except that she has absolutely no idea who he is or why to trust him, and does not seem to question that he keeps showing up to offer her his help, which alarms me, at least.
Anwyay, Misaki gets to work setting up her Angel, which she names Hikaru, modeling her on Athena, the winner of that first fight she watched.  She even makes her own clothing for Hikaru, using what turn out to be experimental fabric samples given to her by Icchan.  Who was supposed to bring them to a meeting.  Oops.  As of episode 3, Misaki has won a couple of pickup fights against other, much more experienced Angelic Layer players -- getting into those fights accidentally both times -- met both extremes of the spectrum of realistic gamers (from supportive veteran encouraging new players to the antisocial jerk bent on pwning noobs), and made friends at school who share her interest in the game.  Icchan has even decided to sign her up (without her knowledge) for the upcoming tournament, for which she is technically eligible purely because of those pickup fights.  And this is where I am now, staring down the prospect of a tournament arc.
Usually, I would dread this sort of thing, especially with the way we’ve seen Misaki start out playing so easily.  I would be fearing the worst: an unreasonably talented competitor breezing their way through fights where the writers are inconsistent on or don’t bother to establish how their own narrative universe works as long as it furthers the plot goal of the main character winning... but Angelic Layer seems promising on this front.  It really seems like it should be a lot harder for any player to pick up even the most basic controls of this game, but I guess that could be chalked up to very good thought-reading technology -- and there’s a pretty obviously-foreshadowed but technically spoiler reason I happen to already know for why Misaki in particular would be talented.  But despite her too-easy start to the game, she also is shown winning partially through her opponents simply not anticipating her unusual choices, and more importantly, she is shown needing to actually learn new skills, which together make this angle not bother me as much as it otherwise could.  So maybe the tournament will turn out more reasonably than such arcs have a reputation for.
One thing that tangentially occurs to me about the setting: I wish I could put myself into the mindset of the original audience in 2001 (or 1998, when the manga came out), to know how immediate this felt, or didn't feel, then.  In 2018, it feels just around the corner.  Thought-controlled computer interfaces, e-sports, personal robots... these used to be the realm of sci-fi generally, and probably more prominent in otaku circles than in Western-focused nerddom.  Now they're things that get mainstream media attention, and there are even easily-available toys for small children based on customizing and programming robots.  If not for the more fantastical elements of the sport as depicted (the energy ball thing in the first episode, for example), I wouldn't be that surprised if people started playing it IRL in a few years.
I’ll definitely keep watching, and I’m glad I went to that event to remind me how many CLAMP stories I need to start or resume.
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W/A/S: 2/2/5
Weeb: Because of what I mentioned above about the trajectory of nerd culture and technology, I think this probably used to be far far weeb-er when it came out than it is now.  These days, probably the most foreign concept depicted is a minor being considered competent and responsible enough to take the train between two cities on her own.
Ass: Very little suggestive content, but still not something for small kids unless you want to answer uncomfortable questions about a couple jokes, e.g. Icchan realizing he's coming off as possibly perverted after he looks under Hikaru's clothing to examine her.
Shit: This is shaping up to be an interesting premise and enjoyable characters, but something is just... off... with the art, and I'm not whining because it's in a simpler art style than earlier CLAMP projects.  I mean things like uncomfortably long still frames, eyes that look like they're in the wrong place, and inconsistency in character drawings between different scenes in the same episode, suggesting this was rushed.  Finally, at my wife's insistence, I watched the dubbed rather than subtitled version for the first couple of episodes because she remembered it being pretty good, but some lines are just delivered with such awkward inflections that we questioned the competence of the direction, so, uh, add a full point of shit if you're watching that version.
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Stray Observations:
- Real life gamers like Kyoko, the player who challenges Misaki because she’s new and therefore presumably an easy target, are the reason I so rarely play online games.  That and I’m bad at just about all of them.
- Speaking of gamers like that, do kids these days even say “pwn” anymore?  I’m getting “old” by internet culture standards.
- Oh wow.  I knew this was an old DVD, but I was still surprised when it had an ad for Newtype USA play before loading the menu.
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