#but on my personal ranking of the franchise I’d put it second from the bottom honestly

[warriororb5]

Ok now that I’ve had some time to think about it;

Everything I liked and disliked about Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga:

Likes:

- That they tied in the one good thing from the comic, being Furiosa’s peach stone.

- Same goes for adding Scabrous from the game.

- Max’s cameo in his own franchise.

- Seeing the Green Place.

- Seeing Gastown.

- That even Joe of all people immediately clocked that the girl with Dementus was absolutely not willingly with him at all. (Takes one to know one I guess.)

- Seeing the Citadel not take Dementus seriously at all at first, basically the whole scene where they have his gang pick a random warboy to show him exactly how much he fucked up by picking a fight.

- All of the air fight stuff with the parasailing bikers.

- That Dementus and Octoboss both have their own version of Joe’s icon.

- That the warlords and Joe’s sons canonically hang out together at the Citadel.

- The shitty 3 wheeled car.

#1 - Praetorian Jack 🥰

Dislikes:

- That Peeps and Bullet Farmer weren’t at their towns at all the whole movie, especially when they tell Farmer to go get everything ready and he’s still at the Citadel afterwards. It makes it feel like the only reason they’re not at their towns is that they need them to survive to Fury Road and needed an easy reason Dementus didn’t kill them when he took over both times.

- How disappointing the Bullet Farm ended up looking.

- That we only get to see the Green Place for like 2 minutes (mostly only the outskirts of it) and other than establishing that Valkyrie and Furiosa were friends we get absolutely no other connections for Furiosa herself in her community.

- We got so little canon backstory for Furiosa other than the exact amount of days it took for her mother to die and they didn’t do anything with that, I personally looked over at my friend sitting next to me and held up two fingers on the morning of the second day thinking they were going to build suspense because the audience started the movie with that knowledge but no, they don’t make it clear how much time is passing.

- Furiosa mostly being hyper competent as a kid except for following her mom’s instructions to go the fuck home and walking straight into the enemy camp where she’s being killed.

- That Furiosa seems to have spent almost no time in the vault (possibly only one day?) before escaping and becoming part of the cog fodder then mechanic crew. That it doesn’t even seem like anyone bothered looking for her. That the only wives we see from this movie seem to be with Joe willingly, desperate to stay wives rather than be abandoned or demoted to milkers. Which I guess highlights their parallel to the warboys better, being brainwashed cogs in Joe’s machine. But the whole “everyone but Furiosa being cool with being in sexual slavery” gave me rancid vibes. It just seemed like a bizarre choice given how desperate the wives were to get away in Fury Road.

- Having basically everything terrible done to Furiosa in her backstory be done by Dementus rather than Joe. By the end of the movie it literally had me questioning why she even personally hated Joe as much as she did in Fury Road to even motivate the original “Remember Me”. Like don’t get me wrong, he’s still a warlord running a cult that dehumanizes everyone in it down to what they can do for him but why does Furiosa the titular protagonist hate him personally? He got her away from the man who originally stole her and killed her mother (for obviously selfish reasons by essentially bargaining for her like an object) and offered her what he and at least some of the other wives at this time considered a “”good”” future with him. After she (nearly instantly) escaped she became a Praetornian and then openly presented as a woman which Joe seems to not give a shit about at this point. And that’s kind of it. She shows up to tell Joe about Dementus’ trick which he believes and acts on. She steals his son’s car and gets Dementus herself which not only seems to have incited no punishment but he also lets her do that stupid tree thing to him. They gutted all of the implied horrors that Joe might have committed towards her to give the lesser villain from this movie more teeth and if taken as canon actively lessens Fury Road as a story.

- They didn’t even have her bond with any of the wives from this movie. . .

- Seriously guys, outside our protagonist there are basically no named women in this movie besides like her dead mom and that one biker who had the cool facial scaring, I’m not sure if she had a name in the movie so benefit of the doubt here. And I guess kid!Valkyrie for 20 seconds.

1# The stupid tree thing. Why. The actual fuck. Would Furiosa plant her peach stone in the Citadel before she knew she was going to stay there???? If she still planned to escape back home, and she did as we see 30 seconds after she gets the first peach from the tree, then why would she have planted that fucking tree in the first place with the expectation of abandoning it??? Also, just stupid. I go into a Mad Max movie with the intention of accepting everything. My willing suspension of disbelief for this franchise is so willing guys. But this is probably, hands down, one of the worst makes absolutely no sense endings in the franchise aside from Max “saving” those kids in the oasis with fresh water by leading them to the abandoned city for some reason in Thunderdome.

[ledamemangociana]

RANKING HAISUTE (or the ones i’ve seen so far)

not that anyone has asked me, but i’ve literally been so hyperfixated on these shows for MONTHS and although i’ve gotten my bestie into them now, it’s not like i can bombard them with all these deep-ish dives into these things and how much and why i love them, so i thought HEY why not just put it out into the ether coz DAMN i really wanna talk about them.

under the cut for length (HELLA LENGTH) and spoilers.

let me preface this first by saying i havent seen ALL the shows yet. i havent ever watched the first run of Itadaki No Keshiki, and i havent seen any of the new Karasuno cast shows yet, as by the time i had gotten hooked on these shows, the time to watch Strongest Challengers and Battle At The Garbage Dump on DMM.com had passed, and with my limited budget (i havent been able to work properly since literally mid-July last year), it’ll be a while before i can afford their twin pack DVD when it comes out next month. ALTHOUGH i am hoping to be able to download Fly High on DMM.com before the availability runs out in the middle of March, if i’ll actually have enough money for that.

additionally, i rank these from my least favorite to most favorite, but that does not mean that i hate or dislike any of them. in fact, i have little to zero negative things to say about any of these shows. i just happen to love some more than the others, and i think you’ll be able to tell by how long i go on about each show. i’ll TRY to keep things concise but im telling you now, i’ve already tried this once until an accidental button press erased everything i had written, and this will not be short. at all.

i’ll start first with the things i love about Haisute in general:

quite obviously, the projections. before i finally saw Haisute this year, i had only ever seen BNHA, KNY and Kuroshitsuji musicals, and while they have awesome set pieces, i had never seen video projections utilized the way Haisute does, and i think it’s so wonderful and creative, and so technically sound on everyone’s part. like, it has to be so precise with cast performance and blocking and sound and lights...like. dudes. shout-out to the tech staff of Haisute, y’all are amazing.

the acting performances in general. i dont think there’s a bad actor at all in any of these. some stiff-ish performances (Noah Ishikura as Lev, but mostly in SoE, which was his first time acting ever, so understandable), maybe, but even those actors do great when they’re having a pivotal moment, scene or dialogue. it’s hard to pick faves but somehow i do have them, lol - Kenta Suga as Hinata (obviously), Kentaro as Daichi, Hiroki Ino as Suga, Kousuke Asuma as Oikawa, literally ALL THREE BOKUTOS, literally BOTH AKAASHIS, Ami Saito as Yachi, Tatsunari Kimura as Kageyama, and my top two faves, Shori Kondo and Takato Nagata as KuroKen. for obvious reasons (see: my numerous gifsets that i still have so much to add to alkdjf).

the music is WONDERFUL. the varieties across shows, teams and characters while still maintaining the main themes are just so good. it’s easier for them to be highlighted to since there isnt any singing, and so many moments are told through the music rather than the music accompanying the moment imo.

the choreography is gold af. im sad we lose HIDALI after Tokyo Battle, but im sure the rest of the shows still keep that amazing spark. but i juST. HIDALI’s choreography is iconic. i’ll talk abt it a bit more in some of the entries in the list.

OKAY, now on to the rankings.

7. View from the Top (2nd Run) so again, I DONT HATE ANY OF THESE SHOWS. the reason this is at the bottom of my list is mostly because of what it doesnt have through no fault of its own, rather than anything that it does. i personally love watching character growth and evolution, so for the most part, the first story in anything that has multiple follow-ups tend to be my least favorite part, and i come to enjoy them more as a “look how far we’ve come” thing. that being said, i do think this was such an awesome show to kick-off what has become an iconic 2.5D franchise. so much of it feels like the transition from potential to kinetic energy. a little show that could, and then did. i do think i enjoy this more with a nostalgic sort of fondness than i do with a “look how cool this thing is!” feeling, but again, that’s coz i enjoy watching things changing rather than at the start. what definitely stands out to me here is that i came to it this as only my fourth 2.5D franchise, and the ones i’d watched before this were so different in staging and execution, and that really had me hooked. also, this franchise honestly is one of the best casting in any show i’ve ever seen in my life, like wtf, i havent seen a badly cast actor at all, even for the side characters i dont really pay that much attention to otherwise. you cant help but be sucked into the bright light that is Kenta Suga, and Kousuke Asuma has to be the most Oikawa Oikawa to ever Oikawa anything Oikawa. Tatsunari, Ryotaro and Justin absolutely jumped right out of the manga and anime and onto the stage as Kags, Tsukki and Asahi. and GAWD do i love me some Kentaro and Hiroki as DaiSuga. i went in a big fan and simp of Hiroki Ino and Sugawara, so for the first couple of watches, i was heavily focused on Ino!Suga, but by the third rewatch, Ken-chan came around a corner and smacked me in the face with a 2x4 wrapped in barbed wire. when that man smiles, i just get murdered.

6. Start of the Giant i honestly had a hard time picking between this and InK for the bottom spot, not because i hate this (AGAIN, I DONT HATE ANY OF THESE SHOWS), but because of how this show feels to me. ultimately, i picked this one to win over InK because of how much character progression is shown between these two shows. stating the obvious, KAZUMA KAWAHARA. HOO BOY. and big, BIG shout-outs to Kouhei Shiota for portraying Tanaka’s emotional roller-coaster so excellently to stride alongside Ennoshita’s big journey and Kazuma’s powerhouse performance. i also wanna spotlight how much more comfortable Tatsuya Kageyama was in his second go-around as Kags, and how well Keita Tanaka and Naoki Tanaka came in as new(old)!Daichi and new!Suga. it took me a while to get to this show because i was so sad to lose Ken-chan and Hiroki after SoE, and i thought i just would not be able to love DaiSuga the same way. turns out that that’s a good thing, because they do play similar but different DaiSugas to Kentaro and Hiroki. it possibly also helped to know that KT wasn’t entirely new, and to have known of Naoki from BNHA (with Hiroki!), although i hadnt known it was him until i started the show up at last, lol. Kentaro got to play a captain who was warm and very much one of the boys, someone who was growing into the role of a captain of a team that had a very real chance of going farther than it had in a while, while KT got to play a Daichi who, fittingly, was more established as a pillar of the group (and im sure the storytelling of this show helped with that), more of that Dadchi that we know and love. Hiroki got to play a gentle but mischeivous Suga who was all about watching over and taking care of the team, watching and waiting for his turn while understanding that Kags was their best chance, while Naoki got to play a more active, more athletic Suga who was becoming more active the closer the team got to Nationals. their performances stood out not just coz they were new, but because of the theme of this story in particular, about captains and leading, so i thought it was quite a nice way to welcome them into the fold. i also of course enjoyed Johzenji and Wakunan, maybe Johzenji more than Wakunan. i saw someone say they’re a bit like Fukurodani and Nekoma lite, and i can totally see and agree with that. this show also feels a bit like Revival lite, in that it’s got a fun first half and then a more action-packed second match with an emotional gutpunch at the end. but ultimately, this is lower on my list because, through no major fault of its own, it felt like a filler show, considering what was coming after this. it felt a bit like “lets’ get on with this story so we can get on to the last hurrah that everyone is looking forward to.” of all the side teams to have been portrayed in the Engeki story, i feel like i remember johzenji and wakunan less. again, that’s not really anyone’s fault, it’s just where this show was positioned in the timeline and what it was ultimately representing. as a parting thought tho, i just wanna shout-out the new lighting scheme they did for this show, especially coming from SoE where there was a lot of darkness or back-lighting. this show is brighter lit in general than most of the shows that came before it, and idky exactly but i do appreciate that a lot.

5. Winners And Losers objectively, this is probably one of the top 3 shows in all of Haisute’s history. but it’s lower on my list because it is the most taxing to watch and rewatch, not because it’s too slow or anything like that, but because it really just is such a tiring story, and i think that’s deliberate on the part of the writers and directors. this was Karasuno’s first major loss, and it was against an opponent they thought they knew, so of course the lead-up had to be a big deal. it’s also a story that revolves quite a bit around kageyama reaching a turning point and learning a few lessons that would ultimately change him, so the story had to also execute that change happening not just in Kageyama but around him. add to that the fact that this was Tatsunari’s goodbye performance (as well as Shohei’s as Noya, but then he doesn’t really get a big emotional moment here) and it’s just heavy on the emotions all around. the comedic distraction of ShoriTaka as Tetsuko and Kenko was honestly quite welcome, lmao. quick little shout-out to Kousuke Asuma and Allen Kohatsu as IwaOi, since they got to really show off the different sides to both those characters in this, and they just are stellar in general. that bit at the end of one of their flashbacks where Iwa-chan tells Oikawa that he’s not the only one fighting, there’s six people in that team, and Oikawa breaks into laughter as Kousuke strips off the flashback jacket, and Iwa’s like “uuuhhh did i hit you too hard, or?” UGH, i love that bit, that almost creepy laugh from Kousuke and the way he comes out of it to say “suddenly im not so upset” is just SO good. im also so happy to see Hiroki get his due as Suga when he finally gets to step up to the plate - or net, as it were - and basically pinch-hit for Kags. he plays senpai!Suga so sweetly, like you really can’t help but love him coz he’s so caring. i also did not expect to be hit right in the feels with the switch back from him to Kageyama, but that bit where he says “it’s frustrating, but hinata’s expression when he’s hitting my sets is different from when it’s yours” really got me. and then when he had to leave the court, asahi and daichi send a fist bump his way, and he gives just this tiny fist bump wave that’s both tired and disappointed and sad, and it’s juST! it hurts me everytime. and before this gets long, im gonna just spotlight the last 10-15 minutes of the show, right after Karasuno loses. Kenta absolutely nails Hinata’s expression in the manga, that wide-eyed disbelief and shock. and then when Daichi tells him not to apologize because he didn’t miss, when Daichi just walks over and hugs him, good gawd. (sidebar, but i’m so glad i got to see that bit with both Ken-chan here and KT in Strongest Team.) and the way Hinata couldn’t move after thanking the audience, not even after Ukai called him back, so Daichi had to actually go get him? my heart was in PIECES. and then the fuggin dinner scene. LORD ABOVE. like, if you dont love Kenta Suga as Hinata, this is the scene that should convince you you’re wrong.

4. The Strongest Team this is right smack dab in the middle of the list because it’s probably the best staged show of all the seven that i’ve seen, but it also hurts me so much for all the obvious reasons. this is the one i’ve rewatched the least, and everytime i rewatch it, i cry as if it’s the first time im watching it. the whole show absolutely feels like a tribute to the Karasuno cast and all the growth they’ve had and contributed to Haisute over their three years with the show, and the entire thing feels so fond, if that makes any sense. everyone on the team gets a big emotional moment, and it’s so sweet to see them each paid tribute. aside from them, i gotta AGAIN shout-out kousuke as oikawa. i like aoba josai enough, i like oikawa enough as a character, but that moment when kousuke absolutely broke down in the locker room after losing to karasuno broke my heart, even more so knowing that he absolutely felt all that gratitude because he wasnt sure he’d be able to come back to the show coz of his hip injury. i think one little moment that doesnt get as talked about as it should is just after he and Iwaizumi have that short convo of always being each other’s partners even after they’ve moved on to different schools. they do their fist bump, and then Iwa walks away, but Kousuke/Oikawa is still absolutely in tears, and as Iwa walks off, he just kind of reaches out and lets out a pained “Iwa-chan!” that’s just barely audible, and that jUST. GETS ME EVERYTIME. hell, im feeling a little heartstring pull right now just thinking about it. i also wanna shout-out Shiratorizawa because Engeki made me actually care about them. like, okay - i dont hate Shiratorizawa, at all. but watching the anime, despite having an entire season be around them, i just never really latched onto them. i like Ushiwaka enough, and i just...dont like Tendou (sue me). but Engeki Haikyuu has a habit of spotlighting other teams and characters enough to make you actually think about them and care about them, and Shiratorizawa was the biggest example of that for me. their theme is awesome, it’s this big, deep, heavy thing that feels as big and broad as the players look. and i could feel their almost militaristic teamwork when the coach is on them, and it’s so good. speaking of Coach Washijo, shout-out to that flashback scene to his younger days. Kenta looked absolutely risible in the wig and giant eyebrows, but i think it was an important touch to have the person playing Hinata be the person playing younger Washijo, because their inner conflicts are basically the same, and Washijo comes to appreciate Hinata’s efforts because of it, so i thought that was a nice touch. (still dont like Tendou tho, sue me.) i gotta end this entry coz it’s getting long, so im just gonna quickly list my favorite scenes/moments:

Yamaguchi’s pinch serve, and bringing out the spear. Kairi Miura wields that spear like he’s been doing it all his life.

Tsukki’s big “GODDAMMIT I THINK I LOVE VOLLEYBALL NOW” moment. the expression on ryotaro’s face right at the end of that scene, where he’s basically saying “it’s just a club, AND YET!” uuuggggghhhh, please i love it. also, shout-out to when Hinata pointed at him and just said “...nice.” like...that always feels like only half Hinata and Tsukki, and more half-Kenta and his best friend Ryotaro, just like the “Tsukki! that one was worth a 100 points!” line that absolutely gets Ryotaro so that on the live cam he had to turn his head away before he meant to for the next bit.

that moment in the last-ish set of the match where everyone is just DESPERATE to win, so it becomes this frantic rally and volley where everyone just starts to grunt and yell louder and louder, and people are running back and forth and jumping and diving, and it’s just this cacophony of sound and blur of movement that just seems to stretch on and on, until finally Shiratorizawa just yells “SHUT UP! WE’RE STRONGER!” and knocks all of Karasuno down. WHEW. that bit is just. WHEW. i almost always forget to breathe at that point. and then the waterworks get turned on as Ukai tearfully tells them to get back up, because volleyball is a sport where you HAVE to look up. LORDDDDD.

the bit towards the end of the match, after tsukki returns from his injury, where they absolutely acted out Ushiwaka pushing Hinata and Tsukki to the floor and holding their heads down. when i first watched it, i gasped because that is straight out of the anime and manga, and then when the rest of Karasuno came in to pull Ushi off, i just turned into a giant sobbing mess.

the graduation curtain call, obviously, but in particular, the bit that will ALWAYS, WITHOUT FAIL, destroy me is when Kenta says “this show was so tiring and tough sometimes, but when i look back, all i can remember are the good times, the best times.” GODDAMMIT IM TEARING UP BADLY RN JUST THINKING ABOUT THAT BIT.

3. Summer Of Evolution this is where the lines between the rankings get a little bit blurred, because i love these top three equally for the most part, but i had to choose a number two (i absolutely know what my number one is), and when i really think about it, SoE just gets edged out by my number two, but barely. i think what i love the most about this show is that this, more than any of the other shows, really portrays these characters as high school kids. and that’s not just because part of the story is set in the school and it’s actually showing the school sometimes, but coz they’re going through and portraying teenage experiences and emotions. most of the other shows portray the team in matches, so we’re seeing them more as volleyball players than teenagers or students, but we get to finally see that here, and it’s really refreshing. other than that, im gonna try to just list some of my highlights and favorites again coz i dont wanna keep going too long:

im so glad to finally have girls on the show, and not just in a “YAY FEMINISM! GIRL POWER! WHOO!” kind of way. kiyoko has always felt like an inextricable part of the team for me, so it was bittersweet to have such a great Karasuno cast but without a Kiyoko, so i was REALLY happy to finally get her here! and for a first time actor ever, Shizune was so awesome! she absolutely has that gentle strength that Kiyoko has, and the way she’s been written in absolutely does feel like she’s always been there. i do wish she got more to do with the third year boys, but all in all, it’s SO good to have an actual Kiyoko who absolutely looks like she came out of the manga.

im also just so DAMN happy about Yachi and her portrayal here. i think ami saito is so dang perfect, and yachi is such a fun addition that fits right in with the chaotic fun of Karasuno. one thing that i REALLY love, though, is how she gets to just act. before Haisute, my only experience of female characters and actors on a 2.5D stage is with Uraraka (and two or three other female students) in BNHA and Elizabeth in Kuroshitsuji, and those characters are your typical cutesy girls, and their movements and body language are so typically girly, you know what i mean, those softer arms and smaller movements, looser fingers, these little “Kyaa~” things, those things. but Kiyoko, Yachi and Saeko arent like that, so that’s not how they’re portrayed here. Ami as Yachi is just as loud and expressive and active as the Karasuno boys, bar actually playing in a match. also, her chemistry with Kenta is SO GOOD. i dont really ship YachiHina, i think they’re cute friends, but BOY DID THESE TWO MAKE ME RETHINK THAT. ami’s Yachi with Kenta’s Hinata made me think “YOU KNOW WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THESE TWO GO ON A CHAPERONED DATE.” they’re adorable. a particular fave of mine is when hinata climbs a tree to help a baby bird back into its nest and he asks Yachi if she wants to climb up too, and also after Yachi finishes making the Hinata poster, she jumps onto the back of Hinata’s bike and they ride off-stage together. PLEASE IT’S SO CUTE.

also: SAEKO NEE-SAN PLEASE STEP ON ME.

OH HI FUKURODANI. they are such good chaos boys, i love them. i dont have much to say about them here just yet, but WOW im so glad to have them onstage at last.  

NEKOMA IS BACK THANK GAWD I LOVE NEKOMA. of all the teams portrayed, i think nekoma is the one that feels the most connected together (AHA!). like, even when they have a new character and/or cast member, the new ones never really stand out as new, they feel like they’ve always been there. this play really showcases the teams at their most casual so we dont get to see as much of their excellent teamwork and connection as we do in past and future shows, but you really get a sense of their family dynamic and just GOD I LOVE THEM SO MUCH, and honestly dont get me started on ShoriTaka, i will literally never stop

shout-out to Tatsuya Kageyama, he had big shoes to fill not just in terms of character but also as an actor, since this is his first show ever. much like with KT and Naoki as DaiSuga, it does feel like he plays a similar enough Kageyama without just mimicing Tacchu. this is also the right Kags arc to introduce a new Kageyama actor with as well, since there’s a big change after that loss to Aoba Josai and Oikawa, so i think the writing of the show also absolutely helped Kage-chan ease into his role, and helped the audience ease into this new Kageyama. overall, i think he did an awesome job, and we’re really fortunate to have had two awesome Kageyamas before gen 1/1.5 changed to gen 2.

i also just noticed/realized that the backstage video for SoE starts with the introduction of Kage-chan and Fucchi as new cast members, and ends with the farewell to Ken-chan and Hiroki as graduating members, and i know that’s just natural coz the first time the Karasuno cast met the two new members was at the photoshoot for visuals, but also what a nice little circle of life there.

COMING INTO THE HOMESTRETCH NOW, if you’ve made it this far, thank you SO MUCH, im sorry, i really just have a tendency to ramble, and like i said, i dont really have anyone or an opportunity to talk this deep about these shows to, so thanks so much for your time.

2. Karasuno, Revival! WHEW okay, so idk if this is Unpopular Opinion or controversial coz objectively it is the best show so far, and i’ve put it only at number 2. BUT LISTEN: before i saw Tokyo Battle, this was absolutely my number 1 favorite. the Dateko match is so good and so fun to watch, and honestly, that rap battle gives me so much life im almost immortal now. i LOVE that they also got to show ikejiri (THANK YOU KENTA SUGA) and ken-chan as daichi got his moments because of it, and it gave us “katou tou shinakya, katenai!” as an iconic quote and theme for the show, we got a fantastic moment for Asahi that was paid off from the previous show, also honestly “otchita kyougo, tobenai garasu” is just gonna be stuck in your head forever for a while. we also got Kousuke and Allen’s excellent IwaOi back, bringing with them their “Iwa-chan, are you my mom” dynamic (and gawd the cackle i let out when Iwa yeets a volleyball at Oikawa, or that turn and yell that makes Oikawa yelp as he exits off stage lkasdjf), which is always a plus. but! BUT!! best thING FOR ME???? NEKOMA, BABY!! like im sorry, im biased, but i fuggin LOVE nekoma, kuroo is my favorite character in the entire series, and Haisute really gave them a fantastic story and dynamic, because again, there’s so much you can do on stage that you sometimes cant do in anime or manga, so they were really able to highlight Nekoma’s famous teamwork, especially when centered around Kenma. more on that later, but like. it was just such a JOY to watch Karasuno, still kind of scattered puzzle pieces at this point trying to figure out how to best go together to create one big picture, go up against the smooth teamwork of Nekoma, and learn and grow from it. also they honestly have the best team theme music and team dance, fite me. also thank you Haisute for making KuroDai so painfully real lakdsfj

1. Tokyo Battle okay okaY OKAY OKAY OKAY. i think there are some people who actually like this the least coz it’s just too different from the rest of the shows that came before it - no Karasuno, less projections, different music style, aesthetically different stage, etc. B U T. aside from me just being biased because Nekoma are my favorite team, i actually think many of those differences are what makes this show my favorite one. first of all, the music is LIT AF. the themes for each team are so distinct, they really help play up the animal motifs that are played up the most in this show than in any of the others. secondly, THAT CHOREOGRAPHY THO. good gawd. HIDALI said “it’s our last Haisute, let’s go out with a bang” and they really fuggin did. Fukurodani absolutely is TOKYO PARTY TIME, they got to really play up their party birds schtick and i love it. Nohebi i cannot HELP but love because i love snakes, but also, with Nohebi’s cast, you can tell the choreographers were so happy to finally have an actual technical dancer. they had yuu fukuzawa doing the most and then some in playing up the snake theme, and it’s literally so hypnotic to watch his pops, locks and isolations. he’s also just such an AWESOME daisho, and it helps that nohebi are written to be cunning and sneaky. i also love that he and Kuroo seem to actually have a lot of untold history, and i kind of wish we could get a bit more elaboration on that, coz Yuu’s and Shori’s chemistry as frenemy team captains is SO GOOD. and then of course. NEKOMA, BABY!! so okay. kenma absolutely should be the lead of this show, and he is, BUT he’s also, to a certain extent, inextricable from Kuroo and the rest of the team, so that you dont always get that feeling of Kenma being in the spotlight the same way Hinata is (for understandable reasons since Nekoma arent even really the main characters of the story as a whole), and i think that’s important because, again, Nekoma is all about that teamwork and connection. like, Kenma is the lead because he thinks for Nekoma, and Nekoma acts accordingly, instead of how it is usually where the story is showing Hinata’s perspective alone. it also feels like that in terms of the actors. like, technically Takato is zachou, and he is, but also several times in the curtain call speeches, the cast members refer to or mention both Takato and Shori together. even Takato says that when he had spoken to Kenta about how nervous he was about taking up the zachou mantle from him, Kenta had said “if it’s you and shori, you’ll be fine.” they are a unit, and it really comes across in their portrayals of Kuroo and Kenma as well, and even if you love nothing else about this show, you literally cannot help but love that about them. i think the show does a great job revolving the Nekoma team dynamic around that too without making it the ONLY thing that keeps Nekoma together. the star of the show is absolutely the theme of “connection” (more than the other theme of promises), and if you’ve seen the show and you dont cry at the “Tsunage” section as Nekoma wins the match against Nohebi, then are you really watching the show lmao.

OKAY OKAY I’VE REALLY RAMBLED ON, and if you made it all the way here, THANK YOU AND IM SORRY. but also, there’s still a lot of things i wanna talk about that i didnt talk about here coz im mostly a scatterbrain and live half my life radiating BDE - Bokuto Dumbass Energy. so if you’re also ridiculously obsessed with these shows and wanna talk about it, my inbox is open. someone come hyperfixate with me while i make SO MANY MORE GIFSETS OHMYGOD ALL THE GIFSETS geezas crust when i get to Tokyo Battle i will be insufferable.

[caribouwritings]

Sub-Zero

           I was only three when my older brother Eddie died. He had a brain tumor; he died a couple weeks after my birthday and a couple weeks before his.

          He did just as he told our mom when he said, “I stay four.”

          On June 27th, my big brother was gone at age four.

***

           My parents tried to give me a happy life. They gave me privileges that some kids are not as lucky enough to have (such as a vacation almost every year). Despite what the therapist had said when the event happened, I was damaged and it was only a matter of time before it would all show in forms that got glossed over repeatedly.

I didn’t just lose my brother, I lost my best friend, my protector, my guide… I lost my Eddie.

           Although I can now say it and not think much of it, I still cry at the thought I was cheated out of a big brother to teach me the ropes and take my hand when I was scared.

           Senior year of high school was the hardest. I was graduating (on that day fifteen years later) and my brother did not even make it to kindergarten, which he was so excited for because he’d get to ride a bus; His favorite thing in life besides me, our family, Scooby-Doo, and Donald Duck was anything with an engine.

           I outlived my brother who knew what he wanted (it could’ve changed in time, but it would still involve cars and trucks), and I had panicked. I believed people when they told me I would be a great English teacher. I wanted to be a writer, but everyone kept saying I am a teacher at heart. There was just a couple teeny tiny (major) problems:  I hate school (and still do), I am very selective with what I choose to read, and I don’t talk unless I want to or need to.

            Kudos to those who teach, but I’d rather not go back. School for me was where I had my individuality constantly beaten out of me, I was bullied by other students for who I was, have been accused and associated with things I am not, and my mental health got worse.

           However, being non-confrontational, I just nodded my head and let myself be pushed to a major I did not want and watched as I slowly went downhill, and crossed paths with someone a little bit before graduation who is just like me… sort of.

           I was looking for some new games to play that are like Street Fighter II. While watching a Top Ten Best Fighting Games of All Time video on YouTube, the channel (Watchmojo) ranked a video game called Mortal Kombat (2011) at number two, right next to Street Fighter II which placed number one. When I saw the game on clearance at Walmart, I put it in the cart with the plan to take over the unused Xbox 360 in the living room bought by my parents’ for the Kinect feature. My mom did not care anymore, she was just grateful that the expensive gaming system collecting dust under the TV stand was finally being used.

           I played through several kombatants (yes, with a ‘K’, most ‘C’ starting words are replaced with a ‘K’) in the Ladder Fights and Test Your Luck challenges for hours enjoying the blood and gruesome moves.

            I oddly kept finding myself drawn to Sub-Zero, the blue ice assassin (don’t call them ninjas, they find it highly insulting). I didn’t know why though; I couldn’t figure out why I thought the man with ice powers was intriguing. Curious by nature, I did what I do with everything else I found fascinating, I dug for all the information I could find. It didn’t matter how useless and random, I wanted to know everything about the world of Mortal Kombat, and I now know a huge chunk of it.

           Sub-Zero’s real name is Kuai Liang, and he was originally called Tundra. He is the younger brother of Bi-Han, the first Sub-Zero in the series, and Kuai Liang took the name Sub-Zero after his brother’s death to honor him. That was the only similarity I thought we had, but I was so wrong… I was so wrong.

           Mortal Kombat is super violent. The two ice powered brothers are best known for a fatality where they rip the head and spine out of their enemy opponent, both parts still attached together like a twisted party trick (and this is also the main origin to the ERSP rating system in video games). I am not even strong enough to lift a twenty pound puppy without nearly dropping the stubborn Shepard Labrador mix back on the ground with a thump. Plus there’s the other stuff on the surface:  blonde Caucasian female with an olive shade of green eyes, a bubbly persona and pink girly appearance, versus a dark haired Chinese American male with icy blue eyes, a cold persona and super violent history.

           “He is just a video game character, he is not real. You don’t need to care this much for this fictional character.”

           I know that. Kuai Liang is not real, but his story is real to me.

           Kuai Liang went through hell. Everything bad that could have happened, did happen to him. He lost his brother when Scorpion—the wraith of the NetherRealm (and the franchise’s fan favorite character)—killed him in retaliation for killing the whole Shirai Ryu clan, his kind-hearted wife, and innocent baby boy (spoiler alert, it wasn’t Bi-Han at all! Scorpion was tricked into killing an innocent man!). Wanting to avenge his brother’s death, and avoid the Lin Kuei’s new cyber-initiative their Grandmaster was keen on, Kuai Liang and his best friend, Smoke, ran away to find the answers to what happened to Bi-Han. Right when our new Sub-Zero nearly has his revenge and is to kill Scorpion, he is stopped and surrounded by members of his former clan who have been converted from human to cyborg; despite the robotic outsides and still human insides, they are brainwashed to obey like full-fledged robots. He is taken back to the clan and suffers the same fate of being turned into a cyborg and is renamed LK-520, then sent after Smoke who managed to get away. Lucky for both of them, cyber-Sub-Zero is knocked unconscious and Smoke gets help from his new allies to reset Kuai Liang, but although he gets his control back, he is now stuck as a mashup of man and machine. Until (in a rushed scene of the game) he is killed and his soul is sent to the Netherrealm where he is rebuilt from what is left of his remaining bits of human organs and bone inside his robotic shell. Although human again, he is now under the mind control of the sorcerer, Quan Chi (spoiler alert! He’s the real person behind Scorpion’s suffering!), and is now working alongside both the man who framed his brother and the man who murdered his brother, along with several of his new allies that died as well. In the tenth game, he is freed from Quan Chi’s control by being in the right place at the right time (and by also being a fan favorite character too).

           That should be the end of it, but it’s not. This is right before I realized how perfectly Kuai Liang’s life parallels mine. This is before I read the comics.  

           Like I said, I get invested in stories to the point I want to find out everything I can. When I found all three volumes of the comic series on Amazon, I couldn’t resist and I bought all three.

           When UPS came to deliver the package, I brought it straight to my room plopping the brown cardboard box on my bed, and cut the tape open with a pink mechanical pencil. I didn’t care for the other two books I bought (except enough to hide the one I bought for my little sister’s birthday in the closet) because there they were. Volumes one, two, and three were at the bottom of the box under giant green bags of air that are satisfying to stomp on and give unsuspecting siblings heart attacks, but that was unimportant in this moment. I took the three volume books out and spread them on my bed, and dived right into the unknown; into the rebuild of the Shirai Ryu, the second generation of klassic characters, and what happened to those who lived or were brought back like Sub-Zero.

           Sub-Zero, at this point, was my favorite character. In volume two, however, there was a shift in my view of him. In that shift, he became my number one favorite character ever and sealed his place into that spot permanently.

           Kuai Liang had become possessed by a cursed dagger in the previous volume, and it continued into volume two. Scorpion (he is a good guy now… sort of) and his apprentice, Takeda, go after him and get the dangerous dagger back, but the curse makes it hard for Scorpion to reason with Kuai Liang. Scorpion becomes frustrated and the two fight to what they believe to be the death, until Takeda manages to get the dagger away. Kuai Liang exhausts out all the remaining evil within him, and then is left standing there perplexed by why he is there and what is going on. It doesn’t matter to Scorpion though, he still beats the bewildered young Sub-Zero to a bloody pulp and leaves him to die.

           Kuai Liang rethinks his life as he lays their bleeding out, so when Bo’ Rai Cho (ew, trust me on this one, just ew) comes to him to help him get back on his feet, he asks him, “you haven’t figured out what all these events mean? Why I’m here?”

           Kuai Liang’s answer is, “I must commit hara kiri…”

           There. There it is. Right there. That is the line that made me see I am more like Sub-Zero than I thought I was.

           We lost our older brothers, we lost our individuality, we were beaten, we were bullied, we were brainwashed, we took orders, we went down wrong paths, we battled the world, we battled ourselves, and we took so much of a beaten that we laid in our own blood, sweat, and tears thinking “I must commit hara kiri…”

           What is hara kiri? To simplify, it is suicide.

           I remember putting the comic down on my stuff animal infested bed and staring at the lavender colored walls, looking at the big picture. Sub-Zero is a strong warrior with ice powers, and he hit rock bottom. He may be physically stronger than me, but he is just as broken and weak as me on the inside. He put up a shield, hiding behind his anger just like I hid behind my smile.

           I picked up the comic again, and skipped frantically through the pages of volume three just to get to Kuai Liang and find the answers. What did he do and how did he survive to be in the next game?

           It is complicated and complex, but the answer is different based on how you interpret his story. I obviously interpreted it well, because I am here. I am okay.

[tyrranux64]

Terry’s Favorite Playstation Games

I hate Sony. I have not made this secret, from much of my art to a good helping of Youtube comments reacting to blind praise, most who know me more than the usual internet passerby are acquainted enough with my hatred of the company and brand. 

And it is not a biased band wagon kind of hate either, no this took time to fester into a most blackened bloom. Interactions with the biased rank and file, learning of the less than favorable business practices Sony has employed, the constant in your face propaganda from even third party publishers made against its two direct competitors, but most of all and most important my own experience with their premiere game system. No joke, the PS3 was effectively the worst console I have ever had the “pleasure” of owning, both with the initial 600 dollar 40 gig grill and the used slightly slimmer replacement I had to get just to keep my own sanity. I blacklisted the PS4 for a reason and even now I look at what the fourth generation of the console has to offer and feel assured my choice was correct.

Again my hatred of Sony is not pure bias fanboy raging, it is the culmination of less than favorable experiences and acquired knowledge that has forever soured my perceptions of the brand. And to further stress this point? I’ll go ahead and give you the Playstation Exclusives I absolutely loved in no particular order. Heavy emphasis on “exclusive”, all the titles listed will be ones you absolutely need a Sony console to play, no multi-platform titles, no games that were once exclusive then ported to other systems. Sony only.

And don’t expect Shadow of the Colossus on this list, of all the excellent titles one can point to that is the lowest of hanging fruit. Everyone loves that one, everyone, even its critics and detractors. My reasons for liking it are the same as everyone else’s...

____________________________________

INFAMOUS & INFAMOUS 2; Honestly I couldn’t decide which I liked more since both offer the same consistently excellent design and experience, I guess the second one for being more polished and having more interesting settings but trading one over the other is heresy. And honestly if I didn’t hate Sony so much I’d be all over the third one (though after seeing the story on Youtube I gotta say, Fetch is a complete unlikable asshole).

Ultimately this is a 3D platformer, one that more than belongs in the same breath as the likes of Super Mario Anything and Banjo Kazooie. Despite its otherwise “serious, realistic and edgy” tone and design this is the kind of delightful platforming romp that’ll satisfy even old school players pinning for the bygone era of platformers being the dominant genre in gaming. And it just makes the circumstances of its creation more fascinating. How Sucker Punch followed suit with Naughty Dog going from cartoony mascot games to so-called serious realistic games, yet unlike Naughty Dog puts out a product that still feels like a spiritual successor to their previous work.

Naturally the biggest negative is the morality system. Bad enough it is so arbitrary and safety helmet in its design that it tells you which choices are good and evil but said choices are so cartoonishly extreme on both spectrum that any sense of ambiguity and nuance are lost. But on the flip side, it does present one of the most fun bits of obsessive compulsive gameplay features I’ve ever experienced....

The Pulse Heal. Damn was this so much fun. The sheer rush of not only going to help someone but actually having the capacity to do so, the kind of humanity enriching wish fulfillment I didn’t get enough of. And I wasn’t just blowing smoke when I described it as a “obsessive compulsive” gameplay feature, I lost count of the number of times I slammed the breaks on what I was doing every time I saw some helpless citizen in desperate need of a jolt. It was nuts man, a game that lets you play as a superhero and actually let you feel like one....one helpless citizen at a time.... ______________________________________

GOD OF WAR III; But then there’s this fucking game that makes me feel like a complete villain, go figure. Then again that has been the real beauty of this franchise especially after the first game, there are no real heroes, no real champions of justice. There are only villains. What separates Kratos from all the other villains is that he was ultimately the culmination of their selfish and petty machinations to satisfy their own ends, he is the necessary evil meant to liberate the world from the cruelty of Olympus.....unfortunately, it entailed nearly destroying the world and sending it into a state of anarchy thereby making things worse. Oops.

Well either way the games are still just good ol’ hack n’ slash shenanigans. Technically I should give the nod to GoW 2 for having the more satisfying journey involving the Sisters of Fate....but it ends with a complete blue balling of an ending. Pretty arrogant to have such an ending when you’re not even sure you’re getting a sequel....well it did but still....

Plus the third one lets you actually fight more than one Olympian, hell it actually lets you fight Hercules, the proverbial OG Superman himself. AND HE’S VOICED BY KEVIN SORBO. But what really cements it is the overall combat which feels more satisfying. Not only are some of the core moves fantastic (especially the grab moves) but all the available weapons are chained weapons. It’s the kind of sameness and consistency that actually works to the game’s benefit, complimenting the gameplay and Kratos’ overall design as a range based fighter. Also nice how all the button prompts are regulated to the side of the screen to correspond to the button placement, a nice touch to mitigate any disorientation of the chaos on screen. __________________________________

CRASH BANDICOOT: WARPED; Yes yes I know the N’Sane Trilogy is now gonna be multi-platform (thank Primus) but as many who have played it will verify it’s such an extensive HD remake that it doesn’t quality as being the same game. And sadly I don’t see the original ported to any other system.

Not much that needs to be said here, when it comes to the original trilogy everyone has their first favorite. I might have played the first one once or twice but never haven owned the first PS (fun fact I actually wanted it over the N64 but my mom was convinced to get the later) it would be this one that I ended up playing the most and ultimately beat first during one particular visit to my out of state cousins. _______________________________________

RATCHET & CLANK FUTURE: A CRACK IN TIME; I never got into R&C during my initial PS2 era days, it wasn’t until a decade or so later that I played all three of the original trilogy and the future trilogy. And I played them all in chronological order, so to go from the utter lackluster flop of a plot that was Tools of Destruction to this one was an easy step up.

I’m not gonna argue this game’s quality against the original trilogy, after much retrospect and hearing other opinions there is just no contest as far as story, setting and personality. The original trilogy wins. But as far as the future trilogy? Yeah, this is easily the best one, the other two are just boring.

Crack in Time just had the best story overall and an overall journey that didn’t feel like my time was being wasted. Plus this was one of those games that gave me incentive to actually seek out the optional side objectives. Gameplay balance is an issue as things can skew a bit too easy but I was having too much fun overall to mind. Plus any game that gives me something like the Constructo Pistol and Shotgun easily gets the nod. ___________________________________

LITTLEBIGPLANET 2; There is some part of me that still loves this game....but these days it is more of a tragic love story of love lost. Ultimately my creativity and ambition overgrew my actual ability and the limitations forced on me with both the allotted level space and materials (I mean good lord have you tried to make levels with a lot of gold and complex shapes? The game just flat out tells you to fuck off). Perhaps what really soured the experience was trying to do exactly what the devs did with the story mode they made, but I realize now it was as impressive as it was because they had no arbitrary thermometer limiting what they could put in.....bastards....

These days I more respect this game for what it was made to do and what others were able to do with it. But as far as what I was able to do? Yeah, it’s too heartbreaking to think about..... __________________________________

JAK II; Remember not even a few paragraphs ago I said I never played Ratchet & Clank until recently? This is why. Because in an industry where brand new games cost up to a few tens short of a full Benjamin, well, choices have to be made.

And yeah I was easily drawn to the first game with it being a more direct 3D platformer, easily the kind of game I’d get into after my time with the N64. And then the second game came along and added guns and an edgy dark hero super mode.....without compromising the gameplay the series was established on. And for as edgy as it was now being with the story it never felt ridiculous or out of place, one of the few times I’ve even see it work out really.

Also it was a laugh riot to play what was extensively Crash Bandicoot meets Grand Theft Auto. __________________________________

KINGDOM HEARTS; I have already chronicled my thoughts on this franchise several times before so I won’t bore you with too many details. Bottom line I feel the first one is the only good one simply because it had a nice fun story that felt like both a parody and love letter to Japanese RPGs without a hint of Kojima grade arrogance or self indulgence, unlike later entries >:/

And not once did this ever feel like a mere commercial for the Disney films represented, each world was an adventure all its own and the interactions with your favorite Disney characters actually felt like characters interacting, instead of just actors in a studio voicing their lines. So ultimately I’m able to tolerate the rather archaic gameplay because the story is still a treat to enjoy.

But more relevant to this list, this was the game that got me to get a PS2 in the first place. I was rather content going only with Nintendo but then I played this game while at another cousin’s house and was immediately entranced. And really it was at this point I was kinda tired of missing out on third party games that were PS exclusive for reasons that sounded as arbitrary excuses back then as they do now. 

I still can’t fathom how many games of the PS2′s third party library wouldn’t have worked just as fine on the Gamecube, thereby increasing the available consumer base and resulting in more sales. And if KH3 really is slated for release on Xbox One, why the hell are none of the HD compilations of past games also released on the console as a courtesy to those who might be interested in the series but don’t have reason to get a PS4? Sadly it’s a question I shouldn’t be asking because I know exactly what kind of answer I’ll be getting, excuses. ________________________________

So yeah, even though I have indeed enjoyed some of the titles available, not even these select games are not enough to sway my disdain for Sony. In fact the games listed that were developed and publish by Sony themselves only serve as a reminder of what the company is now all too willing to throw away in light of the current direction it is going for with its exclusives library.

And really it kind of makes sense that Sony just doesn’t give much of a shit these days, they were never a video game company to begin with, they are an electronics conglomerate. Movies, music, computers, headphones, that sort of jazz. Video games is just another department to satisfy their fiscal year quota, nothing more. People keep praising them for revolutionizing gaming but forget that they never needed to get into video games to begin with.....

Their only incentive to doing so was as a petty, vindictive, butt hurt reaction to Nintendo’s refusal to bend over the same way Michael Jackson did. Sony hates taking no for an answer so they acted like a jealous ex lover and produced a product based on a foundation of hate...and hatred only begets more hatred.... _________________________________

Also figured I give a few honorable mentions that can’t be on this list proper for one or two obvious reasons, but all of them I have experienced on Sony consoles...

CASTLEVANIA SYMPHONY OF THE NIGHT; Truth be told I’m more partial to Harmony of Dissonance but I know someone will get on my ass for not bringing this up. But yeah this was also on the Saturn....in Japan. Who’s dumb idea was it to keep the majority of the Saturn’s library Japanese exclusive?

MEGA MAN X6 (But Only On Easy Mode); On anything higher this game is just as broken and near unplayable as people say it is, shit even on easy it’s still a mess. Anyway this was the only PS MMX game I actually played on the PSOne back when it was new, this time on a friend’s console. And I’m not gonna lie I still have kind of a soft spot for it even with the glaring flaws....

KINGDOM HEARTS II; Yes yes this is a far superior game to the first one, gameplay wise. But in a game genre that lives or dies on the story being told there is no question that this was a serious downgrade. Everything that endeared me to the first game’s story this sequel proceeds to fuck up royally, and thus seeing the skip cutscene option as an absolute godsend makes me die a little inside, first rule of good storytelling in games is to make sure no one will ever want to skip the cutscenes even if they have the option to.

DEVIL MAY CRY 3; It was of course the first DMC I ever played and beat, and when said first happens to be the best in gameplay, structure and story it’s pretty hard not to be biased. 

TRANSFORMERS WAR/FALL OF CYBERTRON; I think you guys know by now that I am a big fan of Transformers, so my reasons for liking these games are a no brainer.

BAYONETTA; Yeah it’s weird thinking this game ever saw the light of day on the PS3 and 360, mostly because Platinum had the decent courtesy to port the first game to the Wii U in direct response to concerns about the sequel now being Nintendo exclusive. And what did they do when it was announced a third game was on the way? They ported the previous two titles to the Switch so that no one would be left out of the loop, not even those that passed on the Wii U. That’s what I call customer service, wouldn’t you agree SQUARE ENIX?

DEAD SPACE; Pretty much the last good EA game. The final gasp of air made by EA’s capacity for common human decency before tossing it away and effectively going all in on putting out a constant flow of bullshit on a yearly basis.

ASURA’S WRATH; Pretty much the only interactive movie game in all creation that still feels like a video game, with actual video game segments. Still bullshit that you had to pay additional money just to see the ending but hey at least said ending was actually worth the money, heaven help Capcom if it ended up being a shit ending...     

BATMAN ARKHAM ASYLUM; Yeah yeah I should be giving the nod to Arkham City but that whole business involving Talia Al Ghul all but killed the second game’s story for me....seriously Bruce what the fuck do you even see in that cunt to make you so sycophantic for her? 

DRAGONBALL XENOVERSE; Well it was fun while it lasted and even now I feel it’s a better “Kingdom Hearts” than any of the latter actual KH titles. But aside from also being on the 360 and such, well, it’s not exactly something I’m willing to play again.

GOD OF WAR: GHOST OF SPARTA; One of two reasons I even bothered picking up the PSP, and while I have since fallen out of love with Birth by Sleep, this is one I’m still able to go back to. Not only is it a decent adventure in its own right but somehow it makes God of War II better from a story perspective as now it gave Kratos even more reason for going against Olympus...

[theprocrastinatingalien]

Marvel Cinematic Universe - Ranking the first 18 movies.

We're nearly there, the movie event of the year is nearly upon us... AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR is out within the next week!

Like many, I'm ridiculously excited.  A little sad as I don't get to see it on opening day, I will have to wait until Monday 30th for my viewing... but seriously, the joygasms for this movie are pretty intense.

I've noticed many people/websites rating and ranking the existing MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) movies, and I couldn't help but do the same.  I'm not going to 'review' each film, although I will probably pass some sort of comment.

Whatever follows is, of course, purely my opinion.  Everyone has their own favourites, this list is just the order that'd I'd place these movies.  So let's get on with it.  The TOP 18 MCU MOVIES....

18. THE INCREDIBLE HULK

Whilst I'd rate the movie higher that Ang Lee's HULK outing, this movie doesn't quite live up to the rest of the shared universe in which it belongs.  The lasts act of the film devolves into what looks like a big budged computer game as CGI character bashes around CGI character.  It's not that I don't like the film, I just use it as the bench mark to compare all films in the franchise.  It doesn't help that I never believe that Edward Norton turns into Hulk in the same way that his successor Mark Ruffalo does. Plus that recasting really pushed the movie into being the forgotten member of the family.

17.  CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

It's very possible I'm being unfair to this movie, but I've just never really rated it that highly.  The cast are good, for me it easily trumps THE INCREDIBLE HULK, but I always felt it was a little dull in places.  It's got a good heart to it, and Chris Evans makes his mark of the title character.  The sequels overshadow it vastly though.

16.  ANT-MAN

Whereas a lot of the MCU entries feature humour, I'd never class them as a comedy... ANT-MAN, to me, is comedy first. Paul Rudd is good in the role, I was quite excited by his casting, but sadly the film sometimes feels to me as if it's a parody of the franchises rather than being a part of it.  I prefer Scott Lang in CIVIL WAR over a film about it. The knock on effect is that I can't muster up much excitement for the sequel... yet.

15.  THOR: THE DARK WORLD

When I first watched TDW, I thought it was better than the first, but upon rewatching the movie just doesn't quite appeal in the same way.  There are some nice moments, but I don't find the Dark Elves compelling enough, nor an I excited about Jane Foster's involvement.  Chris Hemsworth is good as the God of Thunder, naturally, but this film will always rank at the bottom end of the scale I think.

14.   THOR

I feel mean rating this film so low - I loved it when it came out, but other movies just tend to surpass it.  It introduced us to Asgard, Thor, Loki... it has a lot to offer.  Just not enough to be higher on this list!

13.   IRON MAN 3

On the slipside, I was extremely disappointed with IMIII on my first viewing, yet until THE DARK WORLD, this trilogy closer grows on me each time I see it.  Knowing what's coming actually works to this film's advantage (such as the 'Trevor Slattery twist', and director Shane Black offers some beautifully shot scenes.  Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if this is once film that risings up next time I do this list.

12.   IRON MAN 2

Controversial, I know.  Many would possibly rate this movie at the bottom of the pile, but I think it deserves more credit. It doesn't stand up to rewatching in the same way that the third part does but it deserves it's dues... it's the first sequel.  Every other film is sequel now, but IM2 was the first to bring back a cast (albeit with Don Cheadle replacing Terrence Howard).  It introduced us to Black Widow, Sam Rockwell is great as Justin Hammer, we get more Nick Fury (following on from a simple cameo in the first), we get more suits, the birth of War Machine, and whether you like Mickey Rourke's Whiplash of not, the Monaco scene is pretty cool.

11. SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING

Oops... another controversial decision?  Expect this movie to be a lot higher?  Don't get me wrong, it's a good film.  I believe it cements Tom Holland as the best (or at least my favourite) Spider-Man.  The humour is great, Iron Man's role adds rather that detracts, the talking suit is a great addition, I'm on board with Marisa Tomei's younger, hotter Aunt May than we're used to... but for me something's missing.  It follows in some pretty big footsteps.  I'm still of the mind that Sam Raimi's SPIDER-MAN 3, whilst messy, wasn't a franchise killer and that the fourth movie should've gone again.  THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN was unnecessary - it did gives us Andrew Garfield's Spidey (and I believe him to be superior) and Emma Stone is a great Gwen... but the sequel was terrible, a total misfire. HOMECOMING... feels a little small.  I guess that's the point, but towards the end I found it not that well directed, and Vulture, even with Michael Keaton playing him, a weak villain.   I AM looking forward to the sequel in 2019 though - I wonder which Avenger will appear?!

Oooh, okay, here we go... we're hitting the TOP TEN!

10.  DOCTOR STRANGE

Personally, I really enjoyed Marvel's venture into the other magical realms.  I get why some don't like it (I'm actually not a massive fan of Benedict Cumberbatch's American accent) but I thought it was a fun origin film. I'm eager to get more magical stories!  It has great visuals, and whilst I was annoyed with her casting at first, Tilda Swinton's Ancient One is a highlight.  In time, with more viewings, I might end up lowering the my position for it, but right now it makes my Top Ten.

9.  IRON MAN

Everyone needs to be thankful for IRON MAN.  If it hadn't been a great origin film for the character, then the MCU wouldn't have been built.  IRON MAN, with Robert Downey Jr's charisma and Jon Favreau's direction became the foundation for every movie that has followed.  I wish I could rate it higher as I don't ever want it to slip out of the Top Ten... but the MCU has offered us some awesome movies...

8.  THOR: RAGNAROK

Unlike the first couple, RAGNAROK finds the right balance for it's lead.  Chris Hemsworth as got comedy game, which was never utilised properly.  Under Taika Waititi's direction, Hemsworth gets to shine.  It also brings in an adaption of PLANET HULK, with Hemsworth and Ruffalo working well.  Karl Urban is welcome to any cast, as is Jeff Goldblum... but it also swaps bland Jane Foster for Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie.  A potential future female Thor?  Maybe!   Also, Cate Blanchet's Hela is probably one of the best and watchable villains in the MCU yet. Will we see her again?

7.  BLACK PANTHER

I'll admit, I have only seen this movie once... whereas I've managed a second viewing of all the others to solidify my views.  Based on one showing, BLACK PANTHER is a stand out, for an individual hero it is the only besides IRON MAN that doesn't misstep, It has all the advantages of the most up-to-date tech, and it does an amazing job of developing Wakanda, with all it's characters serviced well - Okoye (Danai Gurira) and Shuri (Letitia Wright) particular highlights. Considering the country and it's inhabitants will serve as a major part of INFINITY WAR, this film feeds towards excitement to see more.

6.  CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

This film changed the face of the MCU.  It destroyed SHIELD, a force that had been a thrust for the action since IRON MAN.  It's the first movie to be directed by the Russo Brothers, who are at the helm of INFINITY WAR, so it's important to see what they do here. What they do is make Chris Evans' Steve Rogers one of the most compelling and relatable heroes in the franchise.   He could've been pretty one dimensional, but this movie elevates him.  I believe until this movie came out, Robert Downey Jr/Iron Man was the symbol of the MCU, but THE WINTER SOLDIER puts Cap right up there. It also features more Scarlett Johansson, and introduces us to Falcon.  Those are good things to do.

5.  CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR

Like IRON MAN 3, I was disappointed with this movie the first time I saw it.  I had expectations, and it didn't live up to them.  Oddly, those expectations concerned the death of a main character.  The fact everyone got out alive (Rhodes was badly injured, but sadly this was shown in promos) was jarring as it took away the jeopardy.  it made me question, for the first time, if Marvel were just too scared to let go of a potential cash cow.  Luckily, INFINITY WAR has been confirmed to have some pretty high consequences, and what the Russo brothers do here is prove they can handle a lot of characters.  The Airport scene features twelve important characters share the same frame as they battle each other in what, ends up being quite an emotionally draining film.  Cleverly, this movie could easily have been an 'Avengers' movie, but instead is a Captain America movie, as his friendship with Iron Man is pushed to the limits.  Like IRON MAN 3, I appreciate this movie the more I see it.  The fact it has such a large ensemble brings added excitement, and pushes the film higher in my list.

4.  GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 2

VOL 2 deserved more praise than it got.  It follows on pretty closely to the Vol 1, and I think it is probably the perfect sequel to the first movie.  James Gunn expands on the relationships between the gang, deepening their friendships, love, and loyalty.  It adds great new characters (Mantis), whilst continuing to make you care about the existing ones... even the ones you may have dismissed in the first (Yondu and Nebula).  Also, I think Kurt Russell's Ego is great as Quill's father, and suitable massive for what is quite an intimate film.  It's a lot of fun, but riding on a lot of emotion.  And of course it has a kick-ass soundtrack.  Also... Baby Groot steals every scene.

Ooooh, look where we're at... the TOP THREE!!!!

3.  AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

Another movie I feel is just undervalued.  I make no apologies for being a Joss Whedon fan.  BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, ANGEL and FIREFLY earned me his respect, and here, following up to the first movie, I believe he manages to make another amazing outing for the super team.  It has killer robots (voiced by James Spader no less) and a city floating high in the sky, about to wipe out humanity.  It gives us Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, as well as Vision.  Sure, there are some missteps in there, I'm not going to say it's perfect, but it's damn near. There's so many things to enjoy, people should stop looking for the negatives and allow themselves to devour the humour, emotion and geekiness of the film.

2.  GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

When this film was first announced, I scoffed.  I didn't know about the Guardians, and I hated the idea of a talking raccoon and an Ent... but from the first trailer I was sold, and the movie didn't disappoint. The music, the action, the actors, the characters, it all comes together and works.  Director James Gunn is quickly elevating himself to Whedon status in my eyes. In many ways this movie was a risk for Marvel, they originally billed it as a stand-alone.  Two solo films featuring these characters, and now we're faced with the gang mixing with the Avengers... and really, is anyone NOT excited by that?  Thor hanging with Rocket & Groot, Star-Lord quipping with Iron Man and Spider-Man... This is the movie that made INFINITY WAR reach the scale it's going for...

And finally...

1.  THE AVENGERS

There's actually not a lot for me to say. It's my favourite movie.  It's my go-to happy place.  I've watched it more than any film.   It brings Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk and Thor together for the first time.  And it makes it work.  Joss Whedon's writing is typically electric, Loki is a great villain for the movie and it was our first introduction to a hellicarrier.

Where will INFINITY WAR fall in this list?  Every bit of me wants it to be the best.  Instantly.  No rewatching.  I think it has the potential to be.  I WILL miss Whedon's writing, but I'm glad James Gunn was on hand to help the Russo Brothers with the Guardians' scenes.   I'm predicting Top 3.  In just over a week, I'll be able to tell you. How exciting!

[bulbwalrus6-blog]

WCG Roundtable: Is Mitchell Trubisky A Franchise Quarterback?

There’s no question that the Chicago Bears went “all-in” on Mitchell Trubisky in 2018 following a rather strange beginning (the Year Of Mike Glennon and FoxBall) to his career.

In a very controversial move (especially at the time) Bears General Manager Ryan Pace traded up in the draft to take the his guy, Trubisky, as the first overall quarterback to come off the board in 2017.

Pace had determined that Trubisky was the franchise quarterback that the Chicago Bears needed. As we Bears fans are all too aware of, the Windy City hasn’t had a true franchise quarterback since Hall Of Famer Sid Luckman led the Monsters of the Midway to NFL championships in 1940, 1941, 1943, and 1946.

I don’t care how you count it, from 1946 to 2019 is a LONG time for a team to go without a franchise quarterback.

In this WCG Roundtable, our staff members have collaborated to answer three basic questions about Mitchell Trubisky and the franchise QB position.

First, we asked what each person thinks the phrase “franchise quarterback” really means. Secondly, we look at whether we think Trubisky is a franchise QB right now. Lastly, we ask each person to look forward and project what Trubisky’s ceiling might be.

Let’s get to the answers.

What does the term “franchise quarterback” mean to you... i.e. what traits are required for a player to be considered a true franchise QB.

Whiskey Ranger

To me, a Franchise QB is simply a guy who’s good enough to hold down the position for the foreseeable future. Someone who doesn’t need to be replaced for the team to be competitive. Anything at that level or above, is a Franchise Guy.

Lester A. Wiltfong Jr.

In my opinion, a franchise QB just means that the franchise has bought in on the player and he’s their guy moving forward. It doesn’t mean he’s an “elite” talent, because there are only a handful of those guys playing at any given time. These days average quarterbacks sign $100 million deals, so that franchise deemed them worthy to be their franchise QB.

Josh Sunderbruch

I think a franchise quarterback needs to be a player that can anchor a franchise. It’s not enough that the player be a capable starter. Someone who is the 15th- to 25th-best quarterback in the league is not a franchise quarterback. If having the quarterback actually makes everything else easier for the team, then the player is a franchise quarterback.

Eric Duerrwaechter

For me, the term “franchise quarterback” means far more than just a starting caliber quarterback that is able to put up good numbers statistically. He is someone that has the proven capability to carry a team when they need high-level play from their quarterback. It means being the leader in and out of the huddle for the entire team. It means to inspire everyone else to play at their highest level. That doesn’t mean they have to put up flashy numbers; moreover, be a player that is capable of stepping up their performance when called upon.

Robert Schmitz

A franchise quarterback is a quarterback that’s good enough to remain your quarterback for 5+ years. Practically speaking, it’s a quarterback worth paying 25+ million/year to. In terms of ability they should be a little bit better than “you could theoretically maybe luck your way into a Super Bowl with them” but don’t need to be “elite”, per se. A lot of teams force the “franchise” title on their quarterback (Bortles, Winston, Tannehill) but the true franchise QBs are the ones who make that money worthwhile.

Sam Householder

I think it’s a QB that a team is willing to build around and not be looking to replace. It’s basically any of those top 12-15 QBs. If you have the guy that’s 15th or 16th (think Alex Smith, Kirk Cousins), their teams were/are always kind of keeping one eye to replacing them.

Ken Mitchell

I think that to be a franchise quarterback you have to have to things going. First, a team has to commit to building around you. That’s a prerequisite. The second part of the equation is that you have to have a floor that places you firmly at least in the middle third of the NFL’s rankings... A bottom tier guy, year upon year, isn’t a franchise guy. A one-year flash-in-the-pan quarterback isn’t a franchise guy either. It’s the long term committment accompanied by at least a moderate amount of success that determines whether a QB is a “franchise” player.

Is Mitchell Trubisky a franchise quarterback right now?

Whiskey Ranger

Right now? I’d probably lean toward yes, but it’s always tough to tell with young quarterbacks. You never really know what they are going to be until they have a few years under their belt. Time will tell with Mitch.

Lester Wiltfong, Jr.

With young QBs, the jury will be out until their contract is up, but I think the Bears are comfortable with Trubisky moving forward as their “guy.” Things could obviously change between now and their decision to give him some new paper, but for now it’s full steam ahead on this as Trubisky’s offense.

Josh Sunderbruch

No. I think he is headed in that direction, and I think that the Bears can work with him (which is good, because they are sort of stuck with him), but Trubisky right now is quarterback purgatory. He is good enough to win some games and to be worth developing, but he is not so good that he is going to provide true added value to a franchise. He’s not bad, and he could be better. Unless he moves into the top ten or top twelve in the next year, though, then team is just going to end up spinning its wheels.

Eric Duerrwaechter

Almost. He’s getting very close to that distinction. The Bears are all-in on Mitchell Trubisky, and now, Trubisky has to continue refining his game. We saw just how much he’s grown from last year to this latest season in the final quarter of the playoff loss to the Eagles. He’s making big-time plays in critical moments to lead his team to victory. Now, he just needs to make those types of plays more consistently.

Robert Schmitz

The Bears sure think he is! Based on the moves that Ryan Pace made this offseason, Mitch is the Bears’ franchise QB for better or for worse. As to whether he’s a true franchise QB or not, I think he’s almost there. If he can grow out of some of his more immature habits (like his nervousness in the red zone leading to INTs in the end zone) I think he really can become one. His final drives against GB 2.0 and Philly say a lot about who he is, that he’s someone you can trust with the ball when you need a play. It’ll be when he becomes a consistent enough player to throw for 4,000 yards in a season that we’ll know he’s truly a franchise quarterback.

Sam Householder

Right now? No. I think he is on his way there, but we haven’t seen the consistency to earn a huge second contract, so for that reason I say no. I agree with the others that if he continues on the path he’s on and gets more consistent, that he will definitely be one, as soon as the end of next season.

Ken Mitchell

Not yet, but I fully expect him to be by the end of 2019. The first part of my theory of what it takes to be a franchise QB... the team committing to him... is certainly in place. He had a solid year in 2018, and I honestly can’t see how he will regress in 2019, but for me to say he’s established himself as at least a second-tier QB? Not yet. He’s close though. Very close.

I think by now it’s safe to say we have seen Mitch’s floor, what do you project Mitch’s ceiling to be?

Whiskey Ranger

With his arm talent, pocket feel and mobility, I think the sky’s the limit in terms of his ceiling. If he continues to work on his mechanics, continues to get better at reading defenses, and continues to improve his decision making process, he can be one of the league’s best. He’s got the tools, and flashed the potential, it’s just a question of whether he puts it all together.

Lester Wiltfong, Jr.

In my recent article, What should we expect from Trubisky is his second year of the Nagy offense, I looked at the numbers from several quarterbacks in the second year of “Andy Reid-like” systems, but based off of how Trubisky looked in 2018, I’m confident that he’ll play well enough to earn a big contract to stay in Chicago. I don’t think he’ll ever be mentioned in the same vein as the truly elite generational talents, but he’ll be a damn good football player.

Josh Sunderbruch

I think his ceiling is “bottom-tier” franchise quarterback. I think he can end up being #8 to #12 in the league if everything works out okay. However, when I look around the league, I don’t see him ever being one of the top five or six.

Eric Duerrwaechter

He’s a Super Bowl caliber QB. Not simply a Pro Bowler or All-Pro quarterback; those are all dandy and everything, but the Super Bowl trumps them all. I’ll dare say he’s got the highest ceiling of any QB in the NFC North. Aaron Rodgers isn’t getting any younger. Kirk Cousins falters in big moments. And Matthew Stafford is, well, Matthew Stafford. And for people wondering, “when will he make everyone around him better,” that’s the worst mindset to have when building around any quarterback. Continue adding weapons around him, allow him to build more chemistry with his receivers, and watch him ascend. There’s no reason to believe he won’t set every Bears franchise record for passing by the time he retires.

Robert Schmitz

”Ceilings” are weird, and Mitch Trubisky is a great example of why. If he consistently put all his tools together (plus mobility, plus accuracy (sometimes), plus pocket sense, decent reads, plus release), he could legitimately become one of the NFL’s best. The problem with him is that I think there’ll always be something holding him back. You’ll never know what it is (some weeks his footwork will be off, other weeks he’ll misread three coverages for INTs), but it’ll always be something. With that in mind, I think his true ceiling is Phillip Rivers. A competitive QB who, when on his game, is right up there with the elites.

Sam Householder

Hear me out here, because I am going to say a name and I can see a lot of fans and Mitch haters alike scrolling down to roast me in the comments, but I see a lot of Russell Wilson in him. Wilson was kind of above-average for his first couple years as he adjusted to the league and rode an amazing defense and now he’s considered one of the better QBs in the league. I see a lot of Wilson’s game (accuracy, ability to scramble, make plays when it looks like none are there, cool under pressure) in Mitch’s game and I think with more consistency that can be his ceiling.

Ken Mitchell

His ceiling is a top tier quarterback. He’s no ever going to be Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers, but then again, we’ve only had a handful of those guys in the history of the game. I think Mitchell’s going to eventually slot into the middle-half of the top 10 of the NFL QB ladder, probably somewhere in the 7th position. With the coaching staff we have, with the other talent we have, that’s more than good enough to start bring home Lombardi trophies to Chicago.

So what do you all think? You know the three questions, give us your answers. Spill the beans, WCG!

Source: https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2019/1/25/18180184/chicago-bears-is-mitchell-trubisky-a-franchise-quarterback-right-now-wcg-round-table-discussion

[murasaki-murasame]

Rambling about YoI’s sales data [and also LGBT representation in anime and how rare/unsuccessful it tends to be]

I know that there’s other people in the YoI fandom keeping up with and talking about the sales figures for the series, so I might just be repeating what other people are already saying, but according to someanithing.com [which is a really convenient blog for if you want some info on anime sales data in general], the sales average of the series stands at 62,666 [as of us getting info on volume five’s second week of sales]. Which is pretty astounding on multiple levels. Someanithing has a really convenient list of anime since 2000 that have gotten a 10k+ sales average [ignoring data from rereleases of series], and Yuri on Ice currently stands at sixth place, right above Nisemonogatari, and right below Osomatsu-san [which are at about 60.7k and 66.7k respectively].

Rest of my thoughts under the cut because holy shit this got REALLY long and only the first few paragraphs really specifically talk about sales data, but yeah the above paragraph is the gist of it, and the rest is just me rambling about really specific stuff, and wider anime fandom/industry stuff [emphasis on ‘rambling’, haha]. ALSO near the end I give my personal thoughts on how happy I am to see a show with a queer protagonist/central romance be so successful, and how notably against the norm it is, AND I shamelessly plug the manga Shimanami Tasogare, which I recommend to pretty much anyone looking for more LGBT representation in this general sphere.

Given that v6 has the whole Welcome to the Madness thing going for it, I expect it to get to at least 60k in sales lifetime, and I’m pretty sure that the Oricon half-yearly rankings at the start of July will give us a comprehensive idea of how every volume’s sold by then, which will effectively boost our data on the earlier volumes, so I can totally see the series maintaining a 62k+ average, maybe even a 63k average. Which would be kinda agonizingly close to Osomatsu-san’s number, but I don’t really think it has room to get quite that high, sadly. Oh well.

Also, in case anyone cares, there’s been some vague debates over the last few months about if Love Live Sunshine would be able to beat YoI, sales average-wise, but that seems increasingly unlikely. Since LLSS is currently at a 54.3k average, and would thus need to add, like, 40-50k copies to get close to YoI. I was curious to see if LLSS would have been able to do that, but we’re a good way into it’s second event ticket application period, and it hasn’t really gotten a noticeable boost at all. So yeah. With just a few weeks left until the event tickets become basically meaningless, I don’t exactly think it can add quite that amount in time to beat YoI. Of course this entire comparison is meaningless because they’re completely different series, and it’s kinda impossible to compare YoI’s fairly standard two event tickets to LLSS having five. This is mostly just something I’ve been looking at from afar as it’s panned out. I’m not trying to be weirdly snarky and hostile toward LLSS for “““losing”““ to YoI, and I don’t want anyone to use this data to be rude to that show and it’s fanbase, and gloat about YoI’s success.

But it IS still worth noting that the main reason I was intrigued by the comparison between these two shows is because they’ve been fighting for the spot of the number one best-selling show [by sales average, at least] of 2016 [I’m counting Osomatsu-san as a 2015 show]. So, with how it seems to be about to ‘beat’ LLSS, that also means that YoI will pretty much become the best-selling anime of 2016. Of course, there’s a looooot more to it than that because physical media like this is slowly declining in importance to a show’s financial success, and of course there’s aspects like how the animation studio might not be getting as much of a profit as this might imply because of their placement on the production committee [I forget where Mappa is on the committee but I think it’s near the bottom] but still. You all get what I’m trying to say. The bottom line is that YoI is incredibly, incredibly successful, and that’s wonderful. [Though it’s also worth noting that the merchandise and soundtrack and so on for this show are ALSO selling incredibly well, so bringing up the decline of physical media and whatnot is slightly less relevant here than if this was the sort of franchise where ONLY the BDs were selling well. And this is also obviously the most financially successful show Mappa has made, so even if they’re low on the committee you can probably say as a rule of thumb that they’ve gotten more from this show than their previous ones].

Back on the topic of YoI’s #6 spot on the ‘anime from 2000 to present with a 10k+ sales average’ lost, it’s pretty exciting that it’s so incredibly high, since it’ll probably maintain a top ten spot for, well, pretty much ever, considering how rare these sorts of successes are getting. LLSS is the only thing from last year that has any competition with it on that list, and that’s probably not going to surpass it. The only things, in terms of TV anime, I can see potentially surpassing YoI would be Granblue Fantasy, Osomatsu-san S2, and maaaybe LLSS S2 if that can have some kind of a notable sequel boost which I REALLY doubt, but you never know. Osomatsu-san S2 is also slightly doubtful but at least that wouldn’t need to surpass it’s respective first season to pass YoI. We’ll see how that turns out when that comes out, I guess. Granblue Fantasy is also a distinct possibility as a ‘challenger’ of sorts. It’s at least gonna be the best-seller of this current season, and will probably be in the running for best-selling TV anime of 2017. I have absolutely no idea how to predict anything with this anime though since it seems disproportionately successful at Amazon compared to other places and so estimates are out of whack for it, and also because each volume is bundled with a different sort of code, or some such, related to getting special items/characters/etc in the GBF mobile game. So it’s really hard to tell how that’ll affect things. Especially since I’ve heard some people in that fandom say that the rewards aren’t really equally interesting, so there might be some heavy fluctuation in sales between volumes. Possibly. Which would throw off estimates even more. So basically who the hell knows with that series. For reference, v1 has, as of two weeks of sales, sold a bit under 45k. But yeah that doesn’t really mean that much just yet. It’s still a bit lower than I expected given it’s kinda absurd popularity at Amazon, and it’s sorta amusing but meaningleses to compare it to YoI v1′s week one sales of 50k, but still. [[Again, I’m not trying to stir up any fandom wars of whatever here, and I don’t want anyone else doing such a thing either. There’s no reason to get mad at these shows or their fandoms if they sell well, or to be condescending and petty to them if they don’t]]

And since I’m on a roll of making interesting but mostly meaningless comparisons, it’s definitely noteworthy to compare YoI’s 62k average to Free S1′s 29.1k sales average. Like, wow. For reference, Free S1 is the current second best selling sports anime post-2000, unless we count Girls und Panzer as the second place at roughly 36.3k. But I don’t think most people count that as a sports anime sooo yeah. I’ll focus more on the Free comparison. It’s still REALLY surprising to me that we’re looking at around about a 110% increase in sales average between the two. That’s a pretty huge gap between first and second place on the sports anime genre list. It’s mostly surprising to me because Free always seemed like such an insurmountable juggernaut of a franchise. It still IS super successful and influential, of course, but still. For some reason it still surprises me to see YoI sell so much MORE than it. Of course Free also has it’s own second season plus two currently-airing compilation films and an upcoming sequel movie [I think] to even things out, but you get what I mean. It’s an interesting comparison to make. It really puts into perspective how big of a success YoI is. It’s sort of bonkers.

ALSO I want to just let myself gloat a little bit about how meaningful it is to me to have a show with a queer protagonist [a male one, in particular] AND a queer romance as the sixth best-selling TV anime since the year 2000 because HOO BOY. Sweet vindication. It’s always good to get shows like this that help prove that queer protagonists/romances aren’t always a death sentence to something’s success/popularity/mainstream appeal, even if these sorts of things, particularly in anime, still feel a little too few and far between for my liking. It’s sort of depressing looking at that big sales average list and seeing the huge lack of queer characters, especially in the protagonist sense. It’s not like there aren’t ANY, they’re just . . . pretty damn rare. Especially with male characters, where other than YoI it looks like we basically just have, uh . . . Tiger and Bunny and then Hetalia? Which I think are both way more vague about their queer representation, protagonist-wise, but I haven’t watched them so I won’t touch upon them. And obviously there’s a lot of other shows on the list that I haven’t seen, but most of them are popular enough that I have enough of an awareness of them to know that their protagonists are straight. For completeness’ sake, in terms of queer female protagonists we at least have Madoka. I think Lucky Star counts as well [and I THINK that the first MariMite season is just barely on the list???]. I’m less familiar with shows with queer female protagonists, though, so if anyone else knows more on the topic than I do, I’d love to get your input. It’s also worth noting that Revolutionary Girl Utena isn’t on this list at all because it came out before 2000, so it MIGHT have sold at least 10k but I don’t think we have any data on that at all.

I just think it’s sorta interesting, and depressing, to look at this sorta thing. It definitely makes me appreciate YoI even more. Especially since the queerness of it’s lead characters was obviously a noteworthy element of it’s success. But it’s worth noting that that’s by far not the ONLY reason for it’s success. At all. I mentioned the mentality that “““gay stuff”““ can’t sell well, but there’s definitely also a widespread mentality of ‘YoI just sold well because it’s about hot gay guys!’ [also throw in a generous heaping of misogynistic uses of words like fujoshi, and an almost complete passive erasure of the queer male portion of the fanbase for good measure!], which bugs me a lot, and looking at this list shows exactly why. Focusing specifically on stuff about male characters [since, again, that’s what I’m more familiar with], YoI is, as said, one of probably less than five shows to have sold more than 10k on average in the last 16+ years that have queer male protagonists, and the other ones seem even LESS focused on romance elements than even YoI. I don’t think that there’s a single BL/yaoi genre anime on that entire list. Which is odd because I thought that Junjou Romantica hit around 10k but I can’t find it on the list so I guess it didn’t. But that’s by far the most successful BL/yaoi TV anime out there, so . . . yeah. Really puts into perspective this weird idea people have that a show having gay characters in it is some sort of a ticket for immediate success. I mean, I sure WISH it was, but the world isn’t so kind, sadly :V [[also anyone who wants to act like that’s how things work should really look at how bad/forgettable the sales of shows like Shin Sekai Yori, No.6, Samurai Flamenco, HaruChika, etc etc, were]]

But yeah my point is that you really can’t brush aside YoI’s success as just ‘well of COURSE it sold well because FUJOS amirite???’ because, uh, no. I mean, there’s definitely stuff to be said about how female otaku in general seem to be more and more willing to actually buy anime they like rather than male otaku, and there are definitely shows that do “““pander to fujos”““ or however the hell you want to phrase it, but YoI’s success isn’t somehow commonplace. As both a sports show AND as a show with a queer male romance in it, it’s in a class of it’s own, and it really is a mix of so many different aspects that lead it to being so successful. It’s not just one single thing.

Even though the queer romance is obviously just a single facet of YoI as a show, I still hope it can serve as an inspiration for other creators, and for the anime industry as a whole. I hope it can help give support to the idea that you really can have this sort of story without it being dead in the water. You can take risks, and they can pay off, even if there’s no guarantees. So if this can, down the track, inspire more shows like this in general, especially in the specific sense of ‘non-BL/yaoi anime with queer protagonists’, then that’d be wonderful.

Basically I’m just desperately hoping that Shimanami Tasogare gets an anime adaptation at some point, haha. If you want a manga with some astounding LGBT representation, READ IT, SERIOUSLY. It’s one of only a tiny handful of manga I’ve read that actually specifically addresses how homophobia ‘works’ and how integrated into society it is, and how it affects LGBT people. But I won’t gush about it too much here because this is more of a YoI post.

[recentanimenews]

The Definitive Ranking of Bleach OPs

  For many years Bleach ruled the roost in the United States fandom as the coolest comic running in Shonen Jump magazine. For a period of time the anime was similarly successful, inspiring everything from cosplay to fanfiction to a live-action movie. Even more than Naruto, a far more sprawling franchise, Bleach defines a specific period of early 2000s anime fight media that briefly enraptured countless high school students as they illegally pored over multiple-part episode splits on YouTube, crafting AMVs set to Linkin Park while listening to Number One on repeat. And yes, I'm including myself in that crowd.

  The Bleach manga ended years ago, and the anime did too. That's all to the good for our purposes though, because it lets us build a genuine historical record based on the anime's most significant achievement: its range of incredible opening songs and animation. What is the best Bleach opening of them all? To craft this list I used this thorough and objective criteria:

  1. Is the song a banger?

  2. Is this opening at least as cool as Sonic Adventure 2's "Escape from the City?"

  3. How does it stand up as an artifact of its time, and how does it stand up today?

  Let's begin!

  15. "BLUE" (ViViD) 

    I like the attention to scale and space in this opening, with energy blasts blowing through whole rows of buildings and Ichigo knocking enemies over like bowling balls. But there's so much fighting happening here, crammed into such a short space, that it's hard to follow. Not a fan of the song either, so this one's placing at the bottom.

  14. "Anima Rossa" (Porno Graffitti)

Porno Graffitti has a long history composing opening themes for anime, accompanying everything from 2003's Fullmetal Alchemist to My Hero Academia. The song they've contributed here is a bluesy number that I'd rank above several other entries on this list. Then why is this #14? When watching this opening, I couldn't shake the feeling that this sequence could have been servicable for any other shonen anime series. Bleach earned its fame through a certain je ne sais quoi, and if it's not here, no matter how competent the sequence is otherwise, what's the point?

  13. "Chu-Bura" (Kelun)

  When rewatching openings to put this feature together, I was frankly blown away by the first half or so of this opening sequence. The cast being cute together and hanging out at the beach! Some unexpectedly fluid animated hijinks as Ichigo walks to school! A pretty good song! Then the fighting kicks in and the rest of the opening is comparatively boring. Worth a watch, though.

  12. "Harukaze" (SCANDAL)

  This was the last Bleach opening to be featured in the anime series, and features some fun callbacks to earlier episodes like a runthrough of every episode title card (!!). I wouldn't say this is one of the show's best, but it gets stronger as it goes along and features some neat and stylish visual tableaux. The doors opening at the end to reveal the sponsors is a nice touch, too.

  11. "Alones" (Aqua Timez)

  Watching Bleach openings on YouTube as a child, I used to be freaked out by the sight of Kon the stuffed animal very loudly singing the theme song. On rewatch, though, I think I underrated this one: it's a splintered sequence of memory, love and grief that bears the strong iconography Bleach had in its prime. Aqua Timez would later do better, though!

  10. "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" (Beat Crusaders)

  What makes a Bleach opening? Is it the music? Outrageous poses? Fast-paced fights? This opening doubles down on "style," which is admittedly Bleach's ace in the hole. There are sequences here that refer back to the first opening sequence, but on a grander scale: like the red and black silhouettes of Ichigo and Rukia being mean to each other, but projected on several television screens! Or every character recieving their own cool spinning CD cover. The song isn't really to my taste, but overall it's a good time.

  9. "chAngE" (Miwa)

  This opening makes an immediate statement when we see Ichigo's hometown erupt into an unmistakable mushroom cloud freeze frame. My other favorite bit is when the spooky devil hand reaches towards the other hand, just as the vocals spike. What can I say, I'm a mark for scenes in anime when hands reach out to each other but don't quite connect! I'm an Ikuhara fan, sue me.

  8. "Velonica" (Aqua Timez)

  This is the first great example on this list of a classic trope in Bleach openings: The Pose. It's no secret that Tite Kubo draws not so much to tell stories (though he can do that on occasion) but to showcase characters wearing cool outfits while they do cool things. This opening wrings everything it can out of the cast of the show standing in exaggerated poses while the camera swings from one angle to another. And it works! The bit of the Vizards being swallowed up by darkness, followed by Urahara's hat tip, has been lodged in my brain since seeing this.

  7. "Ichirin no Hana" (High and Mighty Color)

  More poses! The main cast looking very tired and noble as they stand on the battlefield. Shunsui's sword kata. Screaming vocals. When I asked the barista at the coffee shop today for his favorite Bleach opening, this was his answer; the harsh sound of the Soul Society arc's grand finale. It's a great pick, but the effects are a bit dated for me in 2020. Byakuya's special attack in particular screams early 2000s CG.

  6. "Shojo S" (SCANDAL)

  More outrageous poses from your favorite characters, except that you also have Rukia, Orihime and Rangiku doing a choreographed dance! I wasn't sure what to make of this sequence when I first saw it, but it's risen higher and higher in my estimation with each successive watch. Now I'm at the point where I'd say this is the Bleach opening I initially underrated the most (though there's some real classics coming down the pike!)

  5. "After Dark" (Asian Kung-Fu Generation)

  Bleach openings can be maximalist, so I find it fascinating how restrained this one is. Ichigo's friends running in the desert, the repetition of symbols juxtaposed to flaming credits, and a black-and-white super-cool layout of Aizen's war chamber. That's it. But set to the riffs of all-time great Japanese popular rock band Asian Kung-Fu Generation, that's all you really need.

  4. "D-technoLife" (UVERworld)

  This is the Bleach opening that defines the whole series for many folks. The theme song to the start of the Soul Society arc, it harnesses the band UVERworld (still putting out songs for shonen anime even today!) to a carnival of non-stop forward momentum that keeps topping itself with cool characters and fight sequences. Within its specific niche of early 2000s anime openings about shonen heroes determinedly running toward the camera, this one's never been topped. But it's not my personal favorite, so I'm putting it at number 4! The scene where Yourichi takes a bite out of Soi Fon's sword and holds it between their teeth is outrageously good, though.

  3. "*~Asterisk~" (Orange Range) 

    It's fascinating in retrospect how little Bleach's first opening actually has to do with what happens in Bleach. We don't see much in the way of hollows or shinigami, and the only swordfighting we're given is a brief few seconds of Ichigo fighting some interchangable bad guys in kimono. Instead we're given a vibe: Ichigo's friends wearing stylish clothes straight from the manga while the camera darts from one angle to another, Orihime and her friends spray-painting the title of the theme song on the screen, the camera revolving endlessly around Ichigo as he stands in the middle of the city. The promise of this sequence was eventually crushed beneath a never-ending tide of new characters and concepts as the series collapsed under its own weight... but for me and my friends, watching this opening relentlessly on YouTube as teenagers, it convinced us of Bleach's effortless cool. The best first Bleach opening.

2. "Ranbu no Melody" (SID ❤) 

  Like the previous opening, "Ranbu no Melody" is notable as much for what it doesn't show as for what it does. We see Ichigo, the hero of the story, for only a few seconds. Instead of our heroes running endlessly toward the camera, we are given the slow unravelling of reality by invisible forces that repeatedly squish and stretch the aspect ratio and blast the viewer with impossibly fast, overlaid images. The brainchild of Masashi Ishihama, one of the best directors of opening sequences working today, this one works as both a horrifying short film of dramatic climax and as a sneakily crafted foreshadowing-laden promise to longtime fans of Bleach that the story has been building to this arc from the very beginning. The best opening.

  1. "Rolling Star" (YUI) 

  As a child, I would watch the first six openings of Bleach over and over on YouTube. I loved the first, and the second, and the third. But the one I would return to over and over again, even though it came from a section of the series that I never reached myself, was "Rolling Star." Seen in retrospect, it's a synthesis of all the aspects that made Bleach openings memorable. It's stylish, rendering Ichigo's hometown as a neon-lit sunset hangout where battles secretly play out just around the corner. It's just a bit scary, with Ichigo duelling his masked evil self as traumatic future events are carefully foreshadowed. But more than anything, this opening sells a closeness between the main cast as they eat together and fight together. A careful juxtaposition between the high school gang of friends who were way cooler than you'd ever be, and the supernatural terrror just barely poking out from beneath the surface.

  This opening was also directed by Masashi Ishihama, though the previous listed entry represents a more concentrated form of his style. "Ranbu no Melody"'s sequence may very well be superior from an animation perspective, but from my point of view, "Rolling Star" is and will always will be the best Bleach opening. And the song's a banger, so there's that!

  What is your personal Bleach opening ranking? Did I underrate "D-technoLife"? Is Bleach more or less cool than Sonic Adventure 2's "Escape from the City?" Let us know in the comments!

---

Adam W is a Features Writer at Crunchyroll. He sporadically contributes with a loose coalition of friends to a blog called Isn't it Electrifying? He recommends reading David Brothers's old pieces on Bleach if you want to learn more. You can follow Adam on Twitter at: @wendeego

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[nerdy-bits]

AlmightyZing's 2019 Cinema Recap

Overview and Spoiler Warnings

As we all get ready to wrap up 2019 I wanted to share my thoughts on this year in cinema. This has been one of the greatest years for movies that I can remember, and we’ll be setting the bar very high in my first annual year in review. At the time of this writing I have been to the theater 37 times for 34 different movies. 

Throughout this article I will be referencing specific events, so be careful of spoilers if you haven’t seen some of the films I will be reviewing. If a film was still in theaters at the time this article was written I tried my best to keep them as spoiler-free as possible.

Best of 2019

I’ve always struggled when it comes to ranking movies against one another, especially when the content and genres are so vastly different. I’ve put a lot of thought into my top five list, and based these decisions on a number of factors - from personal enjoyment to the quality of performances.

5) Knives Out

RT Critic Score: 97%

RT Audience Score: 92%

Knives Out was by far the best murder mystery movie I’ve seen in a long time. The all-star cast knocked it out of the park with all of their performances and the way the murder investigation played out was a wild ride full of twists and turns. I enjoyed it more the second time around despite knowing who did it, as it was fun to notice the more subtle clues that were left behind. Rewatchability is tough to achieve in murder mysteries, so the fact that I’m looking forward to watching it again when it releases on Blu-ray speaks volumes.

4) Jojo Rabbit

RT Critic Score: 79%

RT Audience Score: 96%

A satire about Hitler and Nazi Germany? Who would dare touch something so controversial? Taika Waititi (and Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds). This film brilliantly tackled some incredibly serious topics while managing to keep a light and comedic tone - mostly. Jojo shows us how susceptible our children can be to propaganda and xenophobia, and how being exposed to other cultures can positively influence their opinions. The entire cast gave us masterful performances that brought out so many different emotions throughout the film.

3) Joker

RT Critic Score: 69%

RT Audience Score: 89%

This was one I struggled with when deciding where to place it on this list. I don’t remember the last time I felt that uncomfortable watching a movie. Normally that would put it on my ‘worst-of’ list, but Joker does that intentionally, and brilliantly. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance was phenomenal and the way the film blended reality and Fleck’s fantasies worked really well. I would love to see more DC villains get this darker, stand-alone treatment.

2) Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

RT Critic Score: 54%

RT Audience Score: 86%

This will by far be the most controversial pick on my list. I won’t get into spoilers since the film is still in theaters at the time of this writing. As we’ve come to expect with the Star Wars franchise, there has been a great divide among fans with the final chapter of the Skywalker saga. Being on this list does not mean that the film wasn’t without fault. The pacing was frantic at times, and some of the characters that had been built up in previous films didn’t get the attention they deserved, but overall I think The Rise of Skywalker did the best it could to answer as many of the questions we had. The fast pacing was a result of having to essentially cover two movies worth of plot in one, since The Last Jedi did very little to advance the story. As a fan of the Star Wars franchise, it was a fun and emotional ride and I look forward to what other stories we’ll get from our favorite galaxy far, far away.

1) Avengers: Endgame

RT Critic Score: 94%

RT Audience Score: 90%

It’s hard to believe it’s been 11 years since we were first introduced to the MCU with billionaire playboy philanthropist Tony Stark. Twenty-one films led up to the magnificent climax that was Avengers: Endgame. Infinity War left a lot of us needing therapy, and Endgame’s opening scene didn’t offer any emotional reprieve. We then jump forward five years and experience the gloomy world that was left behind by the snap. I thoroughly enjoyed the time travel and getting to revisit many of the key moments in previous films. It was tough to lose some of our beloved heroes, but it’s also exciting to look forward to a new chapter with new heroes. One of these days I’ll get through this film without crying. Thank you Marvel. I love you 3000.

Worst of 2019

Initially this was a bottom five list, but I struggled to find five films that I genuinely did not enjoy, and it wasn’t fair to the two that made the list for no other crime than being okay films. I typically only see movies that I expect to enjoy, and the three I’ve chosen did not live up to expectations. So, without further ado, here are my top three worst movies of 2019.

3) Hellboy

RT Critic Score: 17%

RT Audience Score: 51%

This film was, in a word, forgettable. I honestly had to look up a synopsis to remember what even happened. The fight scenes were gory and at times brutal, but they couldn’t overcome the mess of a plot that had Hellboy double-crossed, nearly killed, and still managing to tear apart the three giants acting as the film’s mini-boss. Meanwhile the main villain slowly gains power and Hellboy defeats her using Excalibur after he’s revealed to be a direct descendent of King Arthur. The film then teases Abe Sapien, although it’s unlikely this box office bomb will get a sequel to pay that off.

2) Rambo: Last Blood

RT Critic Score: 27%

RT Audience Score: 82%

I went into the theater excited for more Rambo at least on par with the 2008 old-man-Rambo film. What we got was an hour of mumbling Grandpa John fumbling his way through a rescue mission after his close friend’s granddaughter gets kidnapped by human traffickers in Mexico, followed by about 20 minutes of Rambo being Rambo. I really enjoyed that last 20 minutes of brutality, but it’s a shame that the rest of the movie didn’t share the excitement.

1) Godzilla: King of the Monsters

RT Critic Score: 41%

RT Audience Score: 83%

How do these movies keep getting sequels? I’ll admit the Kaiju battles were badass, but there needed to be more of it and a better reason for it. The entire human plotline had me groaning and rolling my eyes. I have so many questions. If Godzilla is radioactive, and his fire breath is radioactive, how are there even humans left alive at the end of the movie? I felt like following Dr. Serizawa’s lead and departing the film halfway through. I don’t blame him for wanting to abandon this ship. Since the last movie that made me want to walk out was 2007’s In the Name of the King, Godzilla was an easy choice for the worst movie of 2019.

Honorable Mentions

These films didn’t quite make it into the top five, but I wanted to include them as honorable mentions. John Wick and Alita had originally made the top five list and would now be 6th and 7th respectively. Ratings after that point get difficult, so this isn’t necessarily the second half of a top ten.

John Wick 3: Parabellum

RT Critic Score: 90%

RT Audience Score: 86%

John Wick has become one of my all-time favorite action franchises. From the moment Reek did the unspeakable in the first film, Mr. Wick has shown us why he is the greatest asset in the world. Parabellum was more of what we’ve come to expect in terms of high octane fight sequences and sheer brutality. Being pitted against the best killers in the Continental shows us just how incredible, creative, and deadly Wick can be. I also want to give a shout out to the amazing dogs in the film. John’s pitbull was adorable, and Sophia’s german shepherds were unstoppable. Give me thrilling action and good dogs and you’re almost guaranteed to make me happy.

Alita: Battle Angel

RT Critic Score: 61%

RT Audience Score: 93%

Alita was the first film of the year that I saw multiple times in theaters. I’ll admit that I had very little knowledge of the source material going into it, but the creator of the original comic gave his approval of the adaptation, which is usually a pretty good sign for fans. What stood out to me the most was the way that the motion captured CGI of Alita and the other cyborgs meshed well with the rest of the environment. When CGI is done poorly, it sticks out. This movie didn’t have that issue, and nothing seemed out of place. There’s even some cyborg dogs, which definitely didn’t hurt its chances of making my list. The only issue with Alita is that while it did well at the box office, it ended on a cliffhanger for a sequel that’s currently far from guaranteed.

Zombieland: Double Tap

RT Critic Score: 68%

RT Audience Score: 88%

As a huge fan of the original Zombieland, it was great to see what the gang was up to ten years later. I loved the new classification system for zombies, the Tallahassee and Columbus doppelgangers, and most of the new characters. Madison and the hippy commune were a bit on the annoying side, but nothing could distract from the methodical mayhem we’ve come to know and love from the Zombieland crew. I’d love to see more adventures, and I hope we don’t have to wait another 10 years for them.

Jay and Silent Bob: Reboot

RT Critic Score: 65%

RT Audience Score: 94%

If you’re a fan of Kevin Smith, you’ll love this movie, but I understand that his style isn’t for everyone. I had the privilege of seeing this live with Kevin Smith and Jay Mewes when they came to St. Louis on their Roadshow Tour. This was the second film I’ve seen with Smith in the audience and I think the commentary before and after his films really help add to the enjoyment. It was great to see so many old faces make appearances, including a very emotional scene delivered by Ben Affleck. If you’re a fan of Kevin Smith, I highly recommend checking out this film.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw

RT Critic Score: 67%

RT Audience Score: 88%

I’ll start off this one by noting that I checked out of the franchise after the 29 mile runway scene in Fast & Furious 6, but I couldn’t resist this spinoff after seeing the previous and I was not disappointed. The main franchise tries to keep things serious despite the absurd circumstances they’re put in, but Hobbs & Shaw embraces the insanity and drives home a great mix of action and comedy. I hope this buddy cop spin-off continues, and based on how well it did at the box office, I’m confident we’ll see the duo team up again very soon.

Most Anticipated in 2020

Jan 24 - The Gentleman Feb 7 - Birds of Prey Mar 6 - Onward Mar 27 - Mulan Apr 8 - No Time To Die May 1 - Black Widow Jun 5 - Wonder Woman 1984 Jun 26 - Top Gun: Maverick Jul 3 - Free Guy Jul 17 - Tenet Aug 21 - Bill & Ted Face the Music Sept 18 - The King’s Man Oct 2 - Venom 2 Nov 6 - The Eternals Dec 18 - Dune Dec 18 - Uncharted

@AlmightyZing

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Yes Giordano Norris blah blah, Tarasenko’s slump, under-the-radar players and more (Dec 17)

Ramblings: Yes Giordano Norris blah blah, Tarasenko’s slump, under-the-radar players and more  (Dec 17)

***

It’s that time of year again – The 10th annual Midseason Guide! It’s up for presale and the release date is Friday, January 11. Pre-order it here!

*

I’m a big fan of teams who go outside of the Old Boy’s Club to hire a young GM with a fresh, analytical hockey mind. So I’m a fan of Kyle Dubas and John Chayka. Dubas believes in creating a professional, winning culture from top to bottom and uses analytics to identify undervalued players. I think Chayka has the same philosophy. An under-the-radar thing that both men have done is set up a winning culture at the AHL level. In the offseason, Chayka added Adam Helewka (trade with San Jose for Kyle Wood), Hudson Fasching (trade with Buffalo) and Robbie Russo (trade with Detroit), plus they signed veteran David Ullstrom from Europe. The three forwards are close to a point-per-game for Tucson and Russo has 13 assists in 21 games. How good is that for the development of potential fantasy owns Conor Garland or perhaps Tyler Steenbergen? Those are two high-scoring junior players with a slim thread of development that would likely fizzle out in a lot of systems, but in Arizona’s system they are being brought along nicely. Teams like San Antonio (St. Louis’ farm team), Rockford (Chicago) and Cleveland (Columbus) struggle to score – do you think that helps Dylan Sikura, Jake Walman or Vitali Abramov?

*

I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of space here talking about the ‘G’ position over the last two months. My goal today? Get through this without even mentioning the word. Today it is all skaters, all the time. Honest.

*

Here is a quote that I’ve heard about a dozen times over the past week, during a dozen different games by a dozen different talking heads.

“Mark Giordano, now here is a name we never hear about in Norris Trophy talks.”

Uh, consider his name now heard. A lot. In fact, it’s the only name I am hearing in Norris Trophy talks, so you can stop saying that now. All of you.

*

Still, another two points Sunday gives Giordano 15 in 10 games. He had 10 in 10 games before that, and 10 in 11 before that. Remarkably consistent. Back in 2014-15 he had 35 points in 38 games to start the season so he’s done something similar to this before. But he’s 35 years old now and coming off a 38-point season. Who knew that getting rid of Dougie Hamilton would help him this much at this age?

In 2014-15 he slowed to 13 in 24 games before a biceps injury ended his season. In 2013-14 he had 43 points in 53 games, again showing a track record of similar production. That too was interrupted by injury (21 games – leg). His pace is for 90 points and he is seeing a bit of puck luck (9.89% 5on5 S% usually around 8.4%), but it’s the power play where he’s seeing the biggest spike. At 12 PPPts, he’s already surpassed last year’s 10 and is well on his way to a career high (currently 26). The Flames sit 13th in the league at 21.6% PP efficiency, which is certainly maintainable. I think if he stays healthy this is the year that Giordano tops 70 points.

*

Calvin De Haan has three points and nine Hits in his last two games. De Haan is a player who rarely reaches 80 games, but if he does he’s looking as if he’ll top 200 Hits. His career high is 140. In leagues that count Hits, he’s becoming an appealing option. He should also, if healthy, reach 20 points and 120 SOG, which would also be a career high. He saw secondary PP time Sunday (with Justin Faulk) for just the second time all season, so I wonder if that will be something to look for in the coming games.

Warren Foegele snapped a 25-game, yes 25-game, pointless drought Sunday. The fact that he was never once scratched ruing his slump tells me something. His value in other areas of the game will keep him in the lineup through thick and thin.

Vladimir Tarasenko has gone seven games without a point. Tarasenko – seven games, and he’s also minus-9 in that span. He is on pace for 53 points, which is his worst production per game since his rookie campaign. His linemate Ryan O’Reilly has four points in that span, but overall has been having an excellent season so it’s hard to imagine that Tarasenko’s production could suffer this much. Having Jaden Schwartz taken off his line has hurt, and I wonder if the Blues would be better served reuniting the Tarasenko – Brayden Schenn – Schwartz line and have O’Reilly play with Perron and Alex Steen or perhaps Robert Thomas or Patrick Maroon. Throughout his career, Tarasenko has been the driver for production on his line, but this year he is clearly the passenger and for whatever reason needs help.

*

We are 32 to 34 games into the season, depending on which team we’re talking about, and yet seven players have 45 points. That’s seven players reaching approximately 109 points or more – a level that zero players hit in 2017-18. Jack Eichel and Mark Scheifele with big games Sunday to join that club.

Eichel’s been playing on a line with Jeff Skinner and Sam Reinhart, as you know, and that line has been ridiculous lately. Eichel, with four on Sunday, has 25 points in his last 15 games. Reinhart has 19 in 15, Skinner has 14 in 15 (but 10 of them are goals). I took a look at the best lines for this season and the line is ranked 11th (after I filtered out the four-forward PP units that ranked above them). With Jason Pominville on that line instead of Reinhart, the line actually did better and ranked seventh. Looking at Eichel’s line combos, he was with Pominville for 28.5% of his ES shifts and tallied 41.2% of his ES points. He was with Reinhart for 37.2% of his shifts and that resulted in 32.4% of his ES points. Far more production with Pominville, but perhaps Sunday’s big game in which the trio with Reinhart combined for nine points was that moment in which the line really meshed.

Reinhart, by the way, is on a 10-game points streak.

By the way, the top line was of course Mikko Rantanen, Nathan MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog – and that was also the top producing line of 2017-18. Run this report in Frozen Tools to see the full list of top line combos this season.

*

After what I think was a short break (correct me if I’m wrong WPG fans), Nik Ehlers was put back on the Scheifele line and popped for three points. He had four points in 13 games to start the season and has 20 in 20 ever since.

Scheifele has three consecutive three-point games. The last player to do that for the franchise was Marc Savard back in 2005.

Tyler Myers had four points in 27 games to start the season and has six in his last five – three of them on the power play. He’s been seeing regular secondary PP minutes over the last nine games and that unit has been better of late. He pairs with Morrissey on the PP, while Dustin Byfuglien mans the top unit. Jacob Trouba has been removed from the power play altogether, it would seem – just 48 seconds total over the last four games.

Coach Paul Maurice is still riding Big Buff as his main QB, but he has to notice that Josh Morrissey has arrived. Even with secondary PP time he has 12 points in his last 11 games with four of them with the man advantage. The torch will be passed to Morrissey soon enough, but it seems as though he’s going to just walk in and take it on his own terms, and say “screw it” to the coach’s timeline.

Mathieu Perreault has points in eight of his last nine games. Maybe the 30-year-old still has gas in the tank after all. He had been so horrible over the last 20 games of 2017-18 and the first 24 games of this year, that I had my doubts. Just eight points during that span, plus a forgettable postseason in which he was dealing with a lower-body injury. I had figured that perhaps that injury had become something that stuck with him long-term and impacted his play.

*

Speaking of slumps – four points in 14 games for Yanni Gourde. He’s playing with Ondrej Palat and Steven Stamkos and still seeing decent PP time so I’d like to think that he’ll shake this soon.

*

A certain player in the G position was pulled Sunday for St. Louis. I’m not going to get into that, I am staying strong in my vow not to discuss that position for an entire Ramblings. But playing against that particular person in charge of guarding the twine was a real boon for the red-hot Flames’ scorers. Of course…James Neal wasn’t a part of the seven goals, but Auston Czarnik was. And I spoke of big line combos, and that line of Johnny Hockey – Sean Monahan – Elias Lindholm ranks third, combining for seven points Sunday.

But back to Neal vs. Czarnik in what is becoming my pet cause. I’m not saying Czarnik is great or anything, I’m just saying it sure would be nice to see what he can do if given the same chances that Neal gets:

Neal has seen about 522 minutes of ice time, with 76.5 minutes on the PP, with most of those 445.4 ES minutes with Matt Tkachuk on his line. He has five points at even strength and two on the power play. That’s a point every 100 minutes at ES and every 38 minutes on the power play, give or take.

Czarnik has seen about 226 minutes of ice time, with 27.3 minutes on the PP, with most of those 199 minutes at ES also with Tkachuk on his line. He has six points at ES and one on the PP. That’s a point every 38 minutes at even strength and 27 minutes on the power play, give or take. The contract is doing the talking here. The track record. Their puck luck is about the same (similar 5on5 S%), and Neal is getting sheltered minutes with a lot of offensive zone starts that Czarnik doesn’t get. And yet Czarnik’s CF% is higher (better possession), and his IPP is way higher (75% of goals scored when he’s on the ice he gets a point on vs. 43.8% for Neal). I’d just love to see him get a shot.

*

In a 7-2 loss Vince Dunn was in on both St. Louis goals and has five points in his last six games. He has stormed out to the lead among the talented Blues’ defensemen in scoring with 14 points on the season, three more than the injured Alex Pietrangelo and four more than Colton Parayko. He also have five points on the power play while the rest of the team’s defensemen combine for six.

*

Aw crap. I made it most of the way into the Ramblings without mentioning a ‘G’. I watched the Calgary/St. Louis game and caught the final half of the Edmonton/Vancouver game, but didn’t see the San Jose/Chicago game nor even flip to it for a second. And so in reviewing that one, I see that Martin Jones got shelled. Three goals given up on four shots and he now sits 46th in the NHL for save percentage. It’s been a terrible season for Jones and frankly after his initial year with San Jose he hasn’t been good at all since. Two great games – his best of the campaign – in early December gave us a bit of hope, but the Sharks are piling up the W’s despite him not because of him. Anyway, trust in the contract. He’ll continue to get all the starts he needs and will probably get 30 to 33 wins again. But I don’t see that SV% reaching 0.910 and perhaps not even 0.905. And this is the first year of his gaudy six-year contract. Thanks Martin, for ruining my goalie-free Ramblings. I even got past the St. Louis guy getting pulled without mentioning his name or position.

Kevin Labanc, who had two points Sunday, has seasonal points-per-game averages of 0.36, 0.52 and now 0.65 in this his third year (53-point pace, thank you Frozen Tools). We love steady development trajectories and I don’t have to tell you what I think next year will bring.

Dylan Sikura was called up by Chicago last week and picked up his first point of the season Sunday, an assist. He’s been lining up with Brendan Perlini and David Kampf. His 18 points in 26 games for Rockford sit him 12th in the AHL among rookies.

*

Jujhar Khaira is becoming a very good fantasy option in leagues that count Hits. He has seven points in his last nine games plus 24 Hits. Thirty points and 150 Hits would be a great return on an often overlooked second-year player. The preseason projection for him in my Fantasy Guide had 20 points and 135 Hits.

Interesting stat, after a Sunday that also included Brock Boeser picking up three points and Elias Pettersson extending his points streak to seven games: 668 of 3148 goals scored this season were scored by players 22 years old or younger (21.2%). The last time this happened was in 1987-88 when it was 25.8%. Gretzky was 26 that year so he wasn’t a part of the 25.8%, but teammates Esa Tikkanen and Craig Simpson were. Top scorers that year at 22 or under – Mario Lemieux of course, Jimmy Carson and Luc Robitaille.

*

See you next Monday.

{source}<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hPq6moXQ3y4" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>{/source}

      from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-yes-giordano-norris-blah-blah-tarasenkos-slump-under-the-radar-players-and-more-dec-17/

[zydrateacademy]

Review - Monster Hunter World (PC)

This review contains spoilers. The benefit of playing a port months after the game initially hits consoles is that there are a host of guides available, which I recommend if you want to take this game moderately seriously (bit of an oxymoron there but bear with me). I don’t typically like games that require you to have extra study material to understand but to its credit, all I had to do was watch one video guide about the mechanics of my favored weapon, the Light Bowgun. After which I was probably fifty percent better every hunt after that. So I certainly recommend looking into that.

The story begins with your highly customize-able character on a ship to a ‘new world’, previously undiscovered in other games of the franchise. Your ship gets waylaid by a mountainous “Elder Dragon” who came up from sea. His back is full of magma and volcanic spouts and you climb his back in order to escape. Once you’re in safety, you find out he’s one of many that have migrated to this place for mysterious reasons. Typically one every few hundred years, now it’s one every decade and that has caused some turmoil in the ecosystem. Your job is essentially research. Kill monsters, stabilize the ecosystem, and arm yourself while doing so.

Eventually there is an extended epilogue. Once you discover that Elder’s goal and what it might mean, you enter a “High rank” hunt mechanic because the ecosystem has changed and you react accordingly. Monsters in these quests are tougher and more aggressive, and you continually work your way up.

This review may maintain some comparisons to Dauntless. As I mentioned in that very review, my only experience with MH as a franchise was during a brief road trip with my friend back in the PSP days. I have little memory of it and I doubt I was any good or understand any of the minutiae of mechanics. As such, a majority of my experience in this genre comes from Dauntless, the free-to-play variant with more dumbed down mechanics than you couldn’t shake a stick at. Veterans of MH are calling World dumbed down, ha. If only they knew how far that could actually go. My immediate first impression of MHW was actually quite positive. There’s something I can do here that I never really could at Dauntless; actually solo monsters. Dauntless was fairly unforgiving, only giving you five (count them: five) potions per hunt. You burn through those without burning the monster down properly, and you were done. Mercifully here, you not only get dozens of varying degrees of usefulness, you can also craft more on the fly or withdraw some from your loot in various camps set up around the impressively large zones. While some monsters give me more trouble than others (most flying types can do a one-two knockout by rushing me, putting me in a twelve hour stun animation, then merely swipe at me for an instant death), I’ve been in awe at what I’ve actually been able to accomplish on my own. ...And unfortunately, I am forced to do a handful of things on my own. Let me tap into some of the problems I have before diving back into the meat and mechanics of the game. Steam reviews are mixed for a couple of reasons. Bad controls and connectivity issues. The bad controls are a remnant of the fact that it was originally a PS4 game and the menus really show that. The UI itself is very controller friendly while the M/K is barely given a second thought. I had to rebind my weapon draw to left click like it is with melee because I’d find myself engaged in too many fights, frantically clicking only to find out I was actually just using my slinger and tossing useless rocks at the monster. In addition, the radial menu might as well not exist, as it is bound to your various F1-F4 keys. It’s very clunky and not at all the “quick” menu that it’s supposed to be. Frankly, I’m tired of hearing “just get a controller” from my friends. I don’t think I’ve touched a controller since 2008. Next is a problem that Capcom and Steam are already looking into. While I’ve been able to progress, just last night I lost out on three high ranked hunts because it kept dropping me from the group. From what I’ve read, the monster’s hitpoints balance towards groups (instantly doubling when a second person joins your hunt) but doesn’t at all go back down if anyone leaves. At the time I was replaying what was basically the main story’s ending, fighting the last boss over and over. Thankfully his mission doesn’t have a lot of open combat and is mostly just firing cannons and ballistae at him over and over. Still, it dropped me three times and had little to show for it overall.

There’s no direct party system, just player listings and hubs. You have to find a convoluted “Session ID” in the menus for your friends to copy and eventually join together. Someone posts a quest and everyone joins it. You won’t physically see anyone outside of a hunt unless you visit the gathering hub on top of the main town. The whole Session ID is just a pointless extra step that the likes of Capcom just love throwing in there. I am reminded of Black Desert Online. Despite being a different country, it still has the same idea behind its mechanics. One does not simply just craft or buy potions. First you have to press thirteen buttons just to get a stack of them. Then they might be put in your storage box, not personal pouch so you have to remember to take them out before your hunt. Then there’s the canteen mechanic, where you’re encourages you to eat to gain decent buffs before every hunt. Why not make that a single item you can use midhunt? Like Dauntless, pretty much every important thing in town is far apart and forces you into miniature loading screens. After every hunt you’re plopped on the bottom level but you still have to run up to the Blacksmith to fetch some upgrades. One does not simply make armor, too. In the higher levels you have to micromanage “decorations” to socket into your arms and armor to increase various passive skills. Why not just make those skills up-gradable like the armor itself? Indeed, one does not simply upgrade their armor! You have to collect “spheres” that you get from bounties and hunts in order to do so. Everything just has a pointless extra step, but I admit these are all nitpicks in what I do believe is a pretty damn good game. I have adjusted to the controls (even though it takes twelve clicks to get anywhere in the menu, but the combat is fine) and I can stomach the connectivity problems... for a time. Everything else is just a niggling annoyance that I have to deal with before I get to the real heart of the game: Expeditions and hunts. To its credit there’s a lot to do. Expeditions are the closest thing this game has to an “open world” setting. You will keep everything you acquire, gather materials and hunt the local monsters at your own leisure (though once you attack, they enter a sort of timer where they will flee the area if you fool around too much, but the mode itself will never kick you out). You can pick up quests on-site and continually remain in the zone you’ve chosen. Admittedly I haven’t explored expedition mode to a severe degree, as doing the various optional quests and bounties give me more than enough gameplay on their own. I never really need to piddle around the same zone for that long.

I mentioned earlier that I was happy that I can actually solo a handful of monsters in this game as opposed to Dauntless. There’s a lot more to that, the “simplest of MH’s” claim be damned, I embrace convenience if it comes hand in hand with actual fun. You can farm the same monster a few times but I found that the game offers you a handful of armor sets that can be crafted from bones and minerals alone. You can pick up bones from piles around every map and mine at little alcoves and continually gain materials to sets that will be perfectly passable for a time. I wore the basic “bone” armor for a while before getting into the more specialized stuff. Revered is the Anjarath, the game’s T-Rex who has a fire breath attack that will absolutely one-shot you and serves as the game’s first difficulty wall. His armor, however, gives fire resistance so if you can stomach fighting him a couple times (ideally in multiplayer), then you can likely build yourself up to handle him properly. Fun fact; I’ve yet to solo him myself. Other monsters have given players trouble that have instead given me more fun. The Radobaan for example, a sort of mid-game encounter in a zone called the Rotten Vale. It is a place where many monsters go to die and their essence feeds the Coral Highlands above it. The Radobaan covers itself in the bones of dead creatures and is thus highly armored, and you must burn through that in order to do some raw damage. I know of players who find this armor annoying but his movements are highly telegraphed and he’s a fan of stumbling himself which gives me a lot of free shots at him. So far he’s honestly been one of my favorite monsters to fight.

I did not realize this was the franchise’s first foray into big name consoles and even PC, the rest were evidently all handheld games. The intro into this hardware allows for a lot more powerful mechanics to come into play. New to the franchise, as far as I’m aware, is animal behavior. I can’t speak for the other games but I noticed a few things. There’s a turf war mechanic where two big bad monsters will encounter each other and start their own duel regardless of your presence. Each monster has its own “rating”, and I doubt a Great Jagras (the first and easiest monster) ever wins any of those.

In addition to that, I’ve found that docile animal mechanics can occasionally tip me off. You see it in a cutscene a time or two but even before my scoutflies (the game’s justification for a “go this way” mechanic) start tracking the monster, I’d be going down a path and find herbivores running the opposite direction. Sure enough, down that path was a large monster. Part of the hunt or no, animals do react accordingly. Sometimes they’ll take defensive positions as you initiate combat, or sometimes they’ll fly down and knock you over in a moment of monster camaraderie that I wish they hadn’t bothered with. Still, its moments like this that help the world feel like an actual world, appropriate for the game’s namesake. I know I droned on a bit about the problems the game had but some of them (the controls) can be mitigated. I’m enjoying myself, spending a good majority of my time responding to SOS flares or pushing myself in the high rank hunts to see what exactly I might be able to handle. I rarely push myself to see what exactly I’m capable of in gaming, but MHW pays that off so well. Maybe I can’t handle that flying Rathian on my own, but managing to take down a tunnel dwelling Diablos was a thing of beauty. The hunts can be long and exhausting but finally watching a beast get taken down after a couple of deaths can be very exciting. The genre may not be for everyone. If you’re story driven, you’ll find the one here is short and weak and mostly just serves as a framework for the gameplay. If you like content, then there’s plenty to do that should be varied enough to keep you around, and I’m sure they’ll update more monsters in as time goes on. Even after I get my fill, I’m sure I’ll keep an eye on this one.

[junker-town]

Kenny Atkinson explains his vision to patiently bring the Nets back to prominence

Brooklyn’s head coach answered SB Nation’s questions at Vegas Summer League about his relationship with Sean Marks, Brook Lopez and D’Angelo Russell.

LAS VEGAS — Kenny Atkinson is pacing back and forth along the sidelines between his chair at the front of Brooklyn’s bench and the half-court line. He has the demeanor of a man who knows there is much work to be done.

Most Summer League teams, even those with first-time head coaches, have delegated coaching duties to the second-in-command. Atkinson wants to build with the young core Brooklyn is hoping can drag the franchise out from the bottom of the NBA. If he’s going to ask his guys to run in the Summer League, he feels he should down in the trenches with them.

“To me, this is a dress rehearsal. It’s like I’m taking a test,” Atkinson said during a lengthy one-on-one interview with SB Nation in the corridors of UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center. “You’ve really got to have the answer. I obviously don’t have a lot of experience being a head coach.

“This just gives me more time in a flight simulator.”

A look at the Nets’ Summer League starting lineup is eerily reminiscent of the roster that posted the NBA’s worst record last season.

Without Jeremy Lin, who missed the bulk of the season with a hamstring injury, Brooklyn’s young players finished 20-62 with their arena cheering opposing players more often than not.

Still, Brooklyn saw growth last season, especially on defense. They went from dead last in defensive efficiency prior to the All-Star break to No. 8 after it, thanks in part to installing Caris LeVert and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson as the starting forwards.

Playoff contention is still miles away for the Nets, and they know it. Owner Mikhail Prokhorov learned that the hard way when he mortgaged Brooklyn’s future — or present — for an aging Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett years ago.

Now, the message from the top has changed, and it’s trickled down to every level of the organization.

“I like slow progression,” Atkinson said. “This is a marathon, not a sprint.

The first leg of that marathon was establishing Brooklyn’s timeline, which did not include Brook Lopez. The Nets dealt their all-time leading scorer over the summer in a trade Atkinson detailed as “the hardest decision” he’s made as a head coach.

But in return, the Nets recouped the lottery pick it never had and landed D’Angelo Russell, a guard Atkinson plans to pair with Lin similarly to C.J. McCollum and Damian Lillard in Portland.

“Luke [Walton]’s a helluva coach, but I thought [Russell] was just looking for a fresh start. So we’re like a fresh program, fresh start, and I really hope that can jumpstart him.”

For Atkinson, a Northport, N.Y. native, coaching the Nets has been a dream too good to be true. But he can’t stop to pinch himself. Atkinson’s a “go guy;” it’s how he’s risen up the ranks from an assistant coach in France to an assistant coach with both the Knicks and the Hawks before landing his dream job at home.

That’s why pacing back-and-forth along the Thomas & Mack Center sidelines, Atkinson has the demeanor of a man who knows his work is cut out for him. Because the Nets aren’t competing for the now. They’re pacing themselves for the future.

Atkinson shared some of his vision for that future in an 11-minute conversation with SB Nation at the NBA Summer League. Here is a transcript.

Why are you coaching Summer League? Terry Stotts isn’t coaching. Neither is Earl Watson. But here you are, up and down the sidelines. Why?

KENNY ATKINSON: “I think it’s three-fold: One - I think this is a young core we’re trying to build with so I thought that was important. If I’m gonna ask them to play — guys like Spencer [Dinwiddie], Rondae doesn’t have to play — if I’m gonna ask them to do it, then I feel like I should be with them. I think this is the best way I can coach them. I can be hands-on, have film sessions. To me, this is kind of like a dress rehearsal. It’s hard to do that just working guys out in the summer and just doing skill work.

So I think there’s real value [through Summer League] in helping them improve. And I just value Summer League a lot. For a staff, figuring out issues. I think it’s undervalued honestly.

“Lastly, even improving myself. Even [in their July 13 win over the Nuggets], there were 2 or 3 situations where I could have played it better. It’s like I’m taking a test. You’ve really got to have the answer. I obviously don’t have a lot of experience being a head coach. This just gives me more time in a flight simulator.

And it’s hard to get during the offseason. You get 6 months off in the offseason. So this gets me back, gets the juices flowing.”

What area do you see for improving on yourself as a head coach?

K.A.: “I think just the flow of the game, substitutions. Just feeling that a little better. Out of timeout plays. Definitely can improve there. And general communication. Film sessions and messages before the game, after the game. You’re used to being an assistant, quiet never saying a word. Now, you’re managing a staff. You’re communicating with your players. Being a little sharper there.”

Is it ever surreal? You’ve gone from assistant coaching in France to head coaching at home.

K.A.: “I’m a go guy - just keep going. So I don’t really reflect on it that much. If I did, I’d pinch myself 1,000 times over because Brooklyn, I’m from New York, family. It’s too good to be true.

And I love working with [general manager Sean Marks]. We’re married so to speak. We are. We finish each other’s sentence. We have a few disagreements here and there, but for the most part, I think we both understand the culture we’re trying to build. And that’s not always the case in this league.”

How did you and Sean develop the relationship you have right now?

K.A.: “We had a lot of people we knew in common, and then we got to know each other on a somewhat friendly basis. I think our personalities fit. Because I’m a pretty intense dude, and Sean is like the ying to my yang.

I texted him the other day and said, ‘I appreciate you listening to my vents.’ Because I vent once in awhile because I want things done a certain way. He’s just so understanding, and he’s the perfect personality type for my personality.”

SB NATION: None of your young players emerged as a franchise pillar or star last season. Does that make your job tougher, from a player-personnel standpoint?

K.A.: “First off, there are very few guys who shine after one or 2 seasons. Only the elite guys do. But I kind of like it this way. We’re built like — you learn from your mistakes. When you’re not a superstar, you have a chip on your shoulder because it makes them hungrier to get better.

So I kind of like the progression. I like slow progression. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Mikhail Prokhorov has told us ‘patience, patience.’ I have the same message. We’re gonna be patient with them. They made some progress, but now to make that next step is harder. I’m looking two, three, sometimes development is four years down the road. That’s when hopefully we’ll see these guys, really. You’ll be talking about ‘man, that guy’s a heckuva player.’”

You finished with the NBA’s worst record last season. What kind of progress did you see as a team internally that people on the outside may have missed?

K.A.: “I thought we improved defensively when we put Rondae in the starting lineup and we inserted Caris — obviously Bojan [Bogdanovic] was traded. So all of the sudden we go from 30th defensive team to, after the All-Star game we were eighth in defensive efficiency. So I was proud of that. It’s not like the coaches did anything, but Caris and Rondae being a part of that defensive improvement I think is very important.

And two young guys going into starting roles every night? To me, that’s progress. It’s not super stardom but it’s progress. And that’s what we’re looking for. And Isaiah [Whitehead] getting the experience he had. Jeremy goes down and he’s gotta kinda step into that role and then finding his niche off the ball when Jeremy came back. We put him in a Marcus Smart role: you’re a 2, you can play some 3 because you’re so darn big, so figuring that out.

Again, we’re evolving, we’re developing, and there’s some bumps on the road, there’s no doubt about it.”

Do you see Caris LeVert and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson developing chemistry to potentially become franchise pillars in the future?

K.A.: “Caris didn’t play a ton of college basketball. So to be able to throw him into the starting lineup, then making the position change with Rondae at the 4, and I felt like he made real progress. So yeah, those are guys that I feel are building blocks, to me.

I know people want 30 and 10 and whatever, or 25 (points), but with their experience, it’s gonna take some time. But I’m very confident in both of them.”

How tough was it to pull the trigger on the Brook Lopez trade? What were the emotions like?

K.A.: “Very hard. Very hard. Very hard. I thought Brook bought in 100 percent. That’s hard with a guy who’s had I don’t know how many different coaches. He embraced our culture. He was a pleasure to be around every day. That was probably the hardest decision that I’ve made being a head coach. And that’s part of being a head coach. It’s not just coaching these darn games. It’s making decisions like that with Sean. And that was the hardest because he’s a heck of a player.

But again, our timeline’s a little different. There were a lot of different reasons why we did it. But that was extremely difficult.”

As a result of that trade, you get back a guy in D’Angelo Russell. He’s kind of the lottery pick you guys didn’t get this year. How does landing him jumpstart your rebuild?

K.A.: “Yeah because I do think age plays a part in this. You want a certain group that are gonna build together. I don’t think you want all your players in different age groups (while rebuilding). So it’s good that we have a young core we can build with.

And it’s a great second opportunity for D’Angelo. When i talked to him immediately after the trade, I felt like he was so enthusiastic. Luke [Walton] is a helluva coach, but I thought he was just looking for a fresh start. So we’re like a fresh program, fresh start, and I really hope that can jumpstart him.”

How do you see Jeremy and D’Angelo playing with each other seeing as though they are both so effective on the floor with the ball in their hands?

K.A.: “I think Brad Stevens said this the other day: We don’t even look at the roster like 1-2-3-4-5. We have our smalls, our perimeters that can handle the ball. Then we have our wings, then you have your shooting bigs and your rolling bigs. It’s like, I don’t anticipate any problems.

The way we play offense, it’s very conducive to both of them getting enough touches. You look at C.J. McCollum and Damian Lillard — and I don’t want to compare the players — but they end up both playing a ton of point guard. They just stagger the minutes. So believe me, there’s gonna be enough minutes, enough touches for both of those guys.

I look at it for myself as like, we just got another really good player. Jeremy’s really good, he’s really good. Now it’s up to our coaching staff to figure out how we can use them best.”

Some players used the word “freedom” to describe your coaching style. What does that mean to you?

K.A.: “I think we had a film session the other day, and one of the things I showed them was us turning down open shots. I think I’m an expand-your-game type of coach. I see the good in all players. ... It’s just a mindset, a growth mindset for players. I think they can do a lot more.

Now once the season starts, when the competition starts, we’ve got to figure out who does what best. But I think right now, we’re in a growth mindset. So I think we can take a little risk in terms of letting the ball fly a little and giving them freedom to play.”