#firebreather movie

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[sonicasura]

I rewatched Firebreather the other night and can say without a doubt that Duncan Rosenblatt wouldn't have fun if dropped in the Kaiju No. 8 universe.

For those who don't know Firebreather movie, it's essentially about a 16 year old half human/kaiju teenage boy trying to live his life despite his father, Belloc, being King of the Kaiju and secret government organization that kills monster keeping a close eye on him. His mother, Margaret, made a deal with them so her son can have a semi-normal yet safe life. (I haven't read the comic version.)

Duncan pretty much has a no kill code involving both species. He does his absolute best to avoid killing the kaiju that attacked him(movie wise) and really doesn't want to take his dad's role as king. The former might be broken if Duncan gets stranded in KN8.

All the Kaiju there are much different than what he's used to with most acting closer to an animalistic invading species. The closest nonhuman person he can find solace in is Kafka Hibino since we know how No. 9 and No.10 are like. Although Duncan doesn't know that.

Depending on where he lands, it could take awhile to just bump into Kafka. A dangerous amount of time as Duncan's kaiju heritage is more noticeable in human form. It's not hard to spot the eeriely scale like pattern across his orange skin such as his forehead. 👇

His eyes also turn yellow and become slits under enough stress, a signal that he's about to go into kaiju form. Duncan gonna need to hide his face since it's still recognizable despite the horns, wilder hair, alongside sharper teeth. The Defense Force will be after him in seconds once they spot our young half kaiju.

Least worst one for Duncan to run into is Hoshina Soshiro as the vice captain can be reasoned with. (I'm going with people unaware of Kafka's secret in the DF.) Duncan may have to avoid being sliced and diced first.

Like with my RE Leon imagine, he allows to be taken in by the Defense Force if apprehended by Hoshina. Not the first time he was under military supervision so it's something Duncan can personally handle. He'll probably end up in Hoshina's care too. Definitely gonna be an alternate version where Kafka finds him but I haven't planned that out yet.

What do you guys think?

[littlepryingpandorica]

I love this screenshot!

[yeeclaw]

The most unserious section of my shelf

[buddlebubs]

After all this time…randomly scrolling through and..I find the start of it all. My monster love started all from this fucker. I found a single screenshot on twitter randomly and immediately my mind dove to the deepest parts and was like

It’s HIM🤯

[dragonotaku-justineverything]

Firebreather was such a fun movie! I remember seeing it randomly as a young teen and just plopping down on our old couch and watching the whole movie on cartoon network like it was yesterday!

I always assumed that it was just a one off straight to TV animated film that not many people saw, but I've seen a lot of people talk about it recently and post clips of it so I'm glad I was wrong!

I was thinking about firebreather and are we just gonna gloss over the fact that his woman

FUCKED A KAIJU!?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Austin Grossman’s ‘Fight Me’

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

In Fight Me, the novelist and game developer Austin Grossman uses aging ex-teen superheroes to weigh the legacy of Generation X, in a work that enrobes its savage critique with sweet melancholia, all under a coating of delicious snark:

http://www.austingrossman.com/fight-me

It is, in other words, a very Gen X kinda novel. Prodigy (AKA Alex Beekman) is a washed-up superhero. As a nerdy high-schooler, he was given super powers by a mysterious wizard (posing as a mediocre teacher), who gave him an amulet and a duty. Whenever Alex touches the amulet and speaks the word of power, reaclun (which he insists is not "nuclear" backwards) he transforms into Prodigy, a nigh-invulnerable, outrageously handsome living god who is impervious to bullets, runs a one-minute mile, and fights like a champ. Prodigy, he is told, has a destiny: to fight the ultimate evil when it emerges and save the world.

Now, Alex is 40, and it's been a decade since he retired both Prodigy and his Alex identity, moving into a kind of witness protection program the federal government set up for him. He poses as a mediocre university professor, living a lonely and unexceptional life.

But then, Alex is summoned back to the superhero lair he shared with his old squad, "The Newcomers," a long-vacant building that is one quarter Eero Saarinen, three quarters Mussolini. There, he is reunited with his estranged fellow ex-Newcomers, and sent on a new quest: to solve the riddle of the murder of the mysterious wizard who gave him his powers, so long ago.

The Newcomers – an amped-up ninja warrior, a supergenius whose future self keeps sending him encouragement and technical schematics backwards through time, and an exiled magical princess turned preppie supermodel – have spent more than a decade scattered to the winds. While some have fared better than Alex/Prodigy, none of them have lived up to their potential or realized the dreams that seemed so inevitable when they were world famous supers with an entourage of fellow powered teens who worshipped them as the planet's greatest heroes.

As they set out to solve the mystery, they are reunited and must take stock of who they are and how they got there (cue Talking Heads' "Once In a Lifetime"). With flashbacks, flashforwards, and often hilarious asides, Prodigy brings us up to speed on how supers fail, and what it's like to live as a failed super.

The publisher's strapline for this book is "The Avengers Meets the Breakfast Club," which is clever, but extremely wrong. The real comp for this book isn't "The Breakfast Club," it's "The Big Chill."

When I realized this, I got briefly mad, because I've only had two good movie high concept pitches in my life and one of them was "Gen X Big Chill." Rather than veterans of the Summer of 68 confronting the Reagan years, you could have veterans of the Battle of Seattle living through the Trump years. One would be on PeEP, one would be an insufferable Andrew Tate-quoting bitcoiner, one would be a redpilled reactionary with a genderqueer teen, one would be a squishy lib, one a firebreathing leftist, etc. The soundtrack would just be top 40 tracks from artists who have songs on "Schoolhouse Rock Rocks":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoolhouse_Rock!_Rocks

Every generation has some way in which they seek to overthrow the status quo and build a new, allegedly better one, after all. "Big Chill"'s impact comes from its postmortem on a generation where it was easy to feel like you were riding destiny's rails to greatness thanks to the sheer size of the Boomer cohort and the postwar prosperity they lived through. A Gen X Big Chill would be a stocktaking of a generation that defined itself as a lost generation reared in the Boomers' shadows, armored against the looming corpo-climate apocalypse with the sword of irony and the shield of sincerity.

Which is basically what Grossman is doing here. What's more, doing this as a superhero story is a genius move – what could be a better metaphor for a teen's unrealistic certainty of destined greatness than a superhero? Superhero fantasies are irreducibly grandiose and unrealistic, but all the more beautiful and brave and compelling for it.

You know, like teens.

At 52, I'm a middle-aged Gen Xer. I've got two artificial hips and I just scheduled a double cataract surgery. My hairline is receding. I'm an alta kaker. But I wasn't always: I was a bright and promising kid, usually the youngest person in the room where we were planning big protests, ambitious digital art projects, or the future of science fiction. I had amazing friends: creative and funny and sweet, loyal and talented and just fun.

We're mostly doing okay (the ones that lived; fuck cancer and fuck heroin and fuck fentanyl). Some of us are doing pretty good. On a good day, I think I'm doing pretty good. I had a night in 2018 where I got to hang out, as a peer, with my favorite musician and my favorite novelist, both in the same evening. These were artists I'd all but worshipped as a teen. I remember looking at the two selfies I took than night and thinking, Man, if 15 year old me could see these, he'd say that it all worked out.

But you don't get to be 52 without having a long list of regrets and failures that your stupid brain is only too eager to show you a highlight reel from. No one gets to middle age without a haunting loss that is always trying to push its way to the fore in order to incinerate every triumph great and small and leave ashes behind.

That's why there's a "Big Chill" for every generation. Each one has its own specific character and meaning situated in history, but each one has to grapple with the double-edged sword of nostalgia. Not for nothing, John Hodgman (a bona fide Gen X icon) calls nostalgia "a toxic impulse."

Grossman really makes Fight Me work as a Gen X Big Chill. He's a great Gen X writer; his first novel, Soon I Will Be Invincible, was a knockout debut about superheroes and supervillains that had a very "The Boys" vibe, you know, that neat little move where you contend with the banal parts of a super's life and show how super powers don't make you a good person, or even a competent one.

His followup to Invincible came six years later. YOU is a coming-of-age story about the games industry with a second-person narrator (think "Zork"). Grossman is an accomplished game dev (Tomb Raider Legend, Deus X, Dishonored, etc), and he uses YOU to really plumb the depths of what games mean, what fun is, and how working on games isn't just work, it's often really shitty work, the opposite of fun:

https://memex.craphound.com/2013/04/16/austin-grossmans-you-brilliant-novel-plumbs-the-heroic-and-mystical-depths-of-gaming-and-simulation/

Grossman's last novel was Crooked, a very daffy alternate history in which Richard Nixon is a Cthulhoid sorcerer locked in a Lovecraftian battle of good and evil. This is a purely hilarious romp, wildly imaginative and deliciously certain to offend reactionary jerks:

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/08/26/austin-grossmans-crooked-the-awful-cthulhoid-truth-about-richard-nixon/

All those chops are on display in Fight Me: a book that covers its brooding with wisecracks, that spits out ten great gags per page even as it drives a knife into your heart. It's a great novel.

Fight Me doesn't come out in the US and Canada until tomorrow (it's been out in the UK, Australia, NZ, etc for more than a month). Normally, I would hold off on reviewing this until the on-sale date, but this is my last day on the blog for two weeks – I'm leaving on a family vacation early tomorrow morning. I'll see you on July 14!

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/01/the-big-genx-chill/#im-super-thanks-for-asking

[gayspacemonk]

give me super mario bros. sequel, give me Luigi's Mansion the Movie w Luigi trying to overcome being an scaredy cat by deciding he's going to live alone and it's going to be in THAT scary as fuck haunted mansion and for some reason tiny Bowser tags along and they bond over being each other's prisoners, eventually leading to them being an romantic comedic duo as Bowser grows protective of Luigi and bullies the ghosts they find or scares them away w his firebreath while Luigi tries to help Bowser in managing his anger issues at the same time

[safety-writes-noms]

I SAW DRAGON AND STARTEDNABRAGRHAHB

holding out my idea of wolfwalkers type shit but with dragons. im jsutbtrghgrhgbrjrghrgjngrughibkjfggfhbjgrfihdkjh SMASHING MY HANDS ON MY DESK. PLEASE.

just imagining big angry dragon miguel with gold accents trying his damn hardest not to snap as hes got a bunch of smaller dragons clambering on him and excitedly talking while waiting to be told what to do. being dragons and all they go around and make sure theres peace between kingdoms and stuff ....

sobbing into my hands. i need to see more dragon content im GGGGHR AAHHHHHH

YES OMG PMG I LOVE DRAGON AU’S (so sorry this is kinda late 🙏 school seriously beat me up this week. Also YOUR ART IS SO SO SO COOL!)

(Also also I’m so sorry but I’m not familiar with the wolf walkers series and never got the chance to watch it :(( but I absolutely love the animation style and premise from the ads I’ve seen)

THIS IS NOT NSFW AT ALL!!! KINK BLOGS AND NSFW BLOGS DNI

I can just imagine miguel grumpily walking around with all of the spider kids either nestled on his back or chattering somewhere in the cave, waiting to get assigned their missions. I am in LOVE with the idea of Miguel sending them out to keep the peace between humans since sometimes humans can be very… not wise. Idk actually, maybe the some of the spider kids are humans and that’s how they meet Miguel or peter and Jess (bc I’d love to see them as dragons theyre so cool)

imagine a human Hobie just confidently walking around a dragon’s cave/network society and just casually arguing with a giant dragon Miguel. I’m feel like he’d get in the dumbest arguments with him just for the giggles. I can see him also baby sitting a hatchling mayday, keeping her fully entertained while Peter goes off to finish missions too dangerous to bring her along. Their little interactions in atsv were adorable especially the little salute he gave her.

or the fight between miles and Miguel ☹️ even tho I love him (Miguel) and understand why he did that and his motives, I’ll always feel so bad for miles. I feel like it would even be worse because instead of having a 6’9 roughly judged 310 pounds of muscle man chasing after you and pinning you down, there’s a ten ton dragon hellbent on having your dad die for the sake of the canon, claws, wings, VENOM/FIREBREATHING. It’s pretty much game over at that point. Ofc miles is a resourceful amazing wonderful intelligent human so I think he’d be able to reason with him. Besides, even then I kinda doubt Miguel would want to kill a kid, even if they’re a human. Nurturing instincts don’t go away after ur daughter dies 😋! Actually Miguel might even nom miles in an effort to keep him from messing up the canon :( can you imagine being so so terrified of this huge creature and getting nommed and you don’t know you’re safe and you’re panicking and —

The hurt and comfort is strong here :o. And the guilt. So much guilt. Once they work out their issues (there are so so so many poor dudes) I’m sure they’ll be besties. But that’s for human miles au

dragon miles would definitely get the short end of the stick. Even if he’s a hatchling (kind of, he’s in that odd stage between adult and adolescent but on the younger side) he’s still a whole lot more durable than if he’s a human. Which means that Miguel won’t be nearly as cautious handling him physically. Ouch. Miguel genuinely wants to protect miles in the movie but does it in the worst way possible. That would probably transfer over to this universe too.

But still because I absolutely LIVE for found family, I want to imagine they work through their problems in a long and very very non linear path that has setbacks and leaps forward and minor changes and everything because I love all of these characters sm and without depth they don’t feel like people. Plus imagining sleepy spider kids/dragons stumbling into Miguel’s section of the cave system/lair and deciding to take a quick nap there because it feels safe and waking up with Miguel curled loosely around them, wing slightly shielding them from the chilly drafts and hsjskskdjskj they have my heart. (Miguel will deny it later.)

or peter b taking the human kids out flying to let them feel at least a little what it’s like to taste the sky while Miguel lurks in the background anxiously, crimson eyes tense just in case peter accidentally drops one of them. Not that he would, he may be goofy but he’s most definitely not stupid.

I can imagine Miguel trying his hardest to stop some of the kids from doing things that he thinks is wayyy too dangerous for them and just giving up and tucking them away in his brooding pouch. If they won’t listen to his very very valid concerns then he’ll just have to make sure they don’t go anywhere >:(. Plus it’s warm and safe and even though Miguel will never admit it, he feels calmer if they’re there, protected completely bc he’ll never let anything hurt them. At least not while they’re nestled in one of the literal safest places in the world. I can’t imagine anyone would have an easy time getting to them when there’s a very protective and vengeful dragon guarding his precious brood.

and I haven’t even really gotten into the other characters either :( especially exploring the relationship between Jess and Gwen or Hobie and miles/gwen and pav but I feel like I’m writing too much so I’ll end it here. If you or anyone else wants to continue this thread/au PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GIVE ME AN ASK! I LOVE THIS AU SM 😭😭

[pianokantzart]

Concept for Movie Verse Princess Daisy & Sarasaland

Sarasaland is highly isolated from all other worlds. It takes the fastest air ship roughly a week to get from The Mushroom Kingdom to Sarasaland without the assistance of a sky road or a warp pipe.

Sarasaland used to have hundreds warp pipes that lead to earth, but all of them are broken, and most haven’t been functional in thousands of years. As a result, Sarasaland is equipped with some bare-bones understanding of humans & human history.

There are wastelands filled with broken/useless pipes all throughout the deserts of the Birabuto Kingdom. Nobody knows where they came from or where they used to lead.

Sarasaland’s residents resemble those of Bowser’s domain in both looks and personality. Weirdly enough, the most friendly citizens are the goombas, who live as shy and timid tradesmen. Everyone else is either a dangerous beast or a ferocious warrior who fights first and asks questions later.

Daisy is a little unhinged, due in part to the being isolated from the rest of the world and surrounded by constant fighting. She is a whirlwind of impulse, untampered emotion, and extreme competitiveness.

But at the end of the day she loves her people for all their belligerent chaos, and her people love her back. She does not appear like a good ruler from the outset, but when the chips are down she’ll do anything for Sarasaland.

Daisy was adopted and raised King Totometsu, a giant firebreathing sphynx. He was killed fending off mysterious alien invaders shortly before Bowser’s rise to power, leaving Daisy as the heir to the throne of Sarasaland.

Daisy and Peach used to be close friends when they were children. Daisy was the one who first informed Peach what humans were, and let her know there were others like her out there.

Daisy and Peach’s friendship fell apart when Daisy signed a truce with Bowser, despite Sarasaland being one of the few powers who could stand up to him. 

When Daisy first sees Luigi, she becomes infatuated. Not only is he one of the first humans she’s ever met, but he’s so nervous? and soft? and sweet? and gentle? She’s never met anything like him in all her life! Heart eyes. SHE’S DOWN BAD.

She does not know what to do with these feelings. She keeps switching back and forth between showering Luigi with affection and bullying him.

She keeps trying to impress both Luigi and Princess Peach by proving how much stronger she is than Mario. Daisy does not understand why this keeps having the opposite of its intended effect.

Peach, reading the room, encourages Daisy to instead take Luigi aside and give him a few tips on how to fight. Daisy proves to be a surprisingly effective teacher, if not a little overbearing.

She hyperfixates the moment Luigi starts telling her about human sports. She wants to know everything. She wants to play all of the sports.

Super Mario Strikers is essentially Sarasaland’s grimdark, cuthroat, no holds barred interpretation of soccer.

[thebiggestfuckgiven]

rewatched Firebreather recently, for like the two hundredth time, and i am once again saddened by how under-appreciated/how little content there is for the movie. i mean, the POTENTIAL it has for fanart and fics

like, margaret and belloc reconnecting? megtaf using duncan to hunt down other kaijus? barnes getting over his shit and being actively against megtaf doing that? maybe megtaf experiments on belloc now that they finally have him? AND SO MUCH MORE

[sonicasura]

Hello its me again, I know its only been a couple of days since we last spoke but I could not wait to share with some of the changes I've done to my Kafka's Kaiju Family Tree hcs.

And I know I should probably tell you after a few weeks at the minimum to have more to give and thought things through. But thanks to a certain co-worker of mine I'll be so busy the next couple of weeks that I won't be able to work on these little hcs of mine for a good while.

And I wanted to know if you had anything to add? If your game of course.

I do suggest writing anything down just in case you won't forget. Life tends to throw curve balls at everyone so it's totally fine. I do have an idea about biological changes but plan to write it down on a different post.

Highly suggest checking out the movie Firebreather if you haven't as it has some pretty interesting worldbuilding that could be applied to Kaiju No.8 to some extent.

[st-guliks-fnord]

Tagged by @auspex , thank you!

This is gonna have an even split of “genuinely good” & “I didn’t say it was good I said it was my favorite”. If anyone else has even seen all of these I am kissing u on the mouth

Honorable mentions to Hereditary (2018) & Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth (2007) but these 5 encompass all my most rewatched

Tagging @lilicohirukoma @goreador @dreadbirate @vampiricegirl & anyone else who wants to do it!

[just-3d-mario-things]

Verdict: I liked it!

The Super Mario Bros. Movie was absolutely a love letter to fans. Yeah, I’ll admit that if you didn’t grow up with Mario, there’s not much for you in terms of story. It’s your basic Family Member Goes Missing, gotta save them and also Save The World I Guess kinda movie. I won’t give a comprehensive review, but I’ve got some thoughts about it :)

Positive

- Deep cuts! Foreman Spike from Wrecking Crew, as well as Charles Martinet cameoing as classic Mario’s design, was a nice touch

- Yeah, it’s an isekai, but isekais aren’t inherently bad. Mario has a lot of different continuities, and in some it is an isekai. They obviously care a lot about the Super Show, doing the jingle and all. They manage to respect their audience’s intelligence, and don’t provide much exposition (which is awesome!)

- Diversity! There were so many Mario enemies and races in the movie, it was great. Shyguys kidnap Luigi, Dry Bones chase him through a swamp reminiscent of Luigi’s Mansion, the penguins from 64 have their own kingdom, all kinds of Koopas and Spinies make appearances, Goombas look like Goombas, there are like a hundred unique Kong designs, and we get a Luma! I’m not sure if it’s meant to be Lumalee or not, though they do bear a striking resemblance to them. The writers did their homework.

- The jokes for we the fans were genuinely pretty funny. There’s a part when Mario is fighting DK and has only tried one type of Power Up thus far, a regular mushroom to make him bigger. Mario grabs a blue Mini Mushroom, unaware of its effects. The audience gets to see Mario triumphantly grab the mushroom, thinking it’ll make him stronger. There’s a good moment for the audience members who know exactly what’ll happen, but those unaware of the Mini Mushroom won’t until it happens and Mario goes tiny.

- A good Power Up selection! I was afraid only the Fire Flower would be used, but we got Cat Mario, Tanooki Mario, Fire Peach and DK, Ice Flower Peach, and Super Star Mario and Luigi. Here’s hoping the sequels will use Bee Mario, Penguin Suit Mario, and Frog Mario. Oh! And the Feather Cape is kinda cameoed in their plumbing commercial, when they’re posing on the stools wearing capes. That was pretty neat.

- A solid mix of games’ soundtracks and elements. I didn’t notice much from Sunshine unfortunately, no FLUDD or Bowser Jr or anything. Come to think if it, does Bowser Jr exist in this continuity? How about the Koopalings? Evidence of Ludwig exist: the piano Bowser plays is Ludwig von Koopa brand, which was really funny.

- Bowser. Bowser Bowser Bowser. I think he was perfect, honestly. We all knew it when Jack Black stepped up to the plate, but seeing the piano scenes. And him dressed in his suit with the top hat. Man. I’m so glad they went for a mix of dopey lovesick Bowser from Odyssey and super powerful firebreath Bowser from Galaxy. I really like that if you censor his Peaches song correctly, you could make it sound like he’s saying “bitches”, which is objectively funny. No bitches :’(

- The Jungle Kingdom was a super fun segment. Literally a rollercoaster. I really enjoyed the showdown between DK and Mario, the sound effects and music were on point. They play the opening riff that plays in the original Donkey Kong when he bends the girders, and then. The DK rap plays. It was so unexpected that I had to laugh aloud. DK uses it as like his personal anthem, kinda like how professional wrestlers have a signature song they play when they come out into the ring. The unique Kongs were really cool to see too, like in the stands and the dude who drives them into the kingdom. At one point Diddy in the stands has the bongoes from Donkey Konga, it’s all a blast.

- Speaking of, Seth Rogen’s DK is surprisingly strong. Like, dang, I didn’t expect the “Seth Rogen laugh” to actually fit DK’s character, but it does!

- Okay, fine, Crisp Rat did a passable job. I never forgot it was him, but they eased into the voice by having him do a fakey Italian voice at the beginning. Still waiting on the dub featuring English cast + Italian dub Mario with no subtitles. Considering how low in content the story is, it would be a perfectly fine movie if you muted him completely :)

- The animation! I mean, you’ve seen the trailers, this is the best work Illumination has done, no question. I really like how they partially modelled the characters after their VAs. Bowser is just dripping with Jack Black’s chaotic energy, and Luigi and Mario are eerily reminiscent of Charlie Day and Crisp Rat despite being 100% Luigi and Mario. Toad is pretty solid as well, Key does a really good Toad voice without it being incredibly grating. Jack Black’s smile and Parks & Recreation-era Crisp Rat seem to be some inspiration behind the way they emote.

- Peach is pretty good. I like her voice, Anya Taylor Joy understood the assignment. She isn’t too “girlboss-y”, and she’s actually kind of a weirdo. I love that for her. Makes sense, she was raised by Toads and all. She only brings Mario along to help him, and she isn’t really saved by him at all. She’s delightfully pink and pretty, and oooh her wedding dress, Fire Flower dress, and Ice Flower Dress are all soo pretty. Like seriously, I want that wedding dress. She only gets to hover exactly once during the training montage, and she doesn’t get her parasol, but otherwise I quite liked her. She doesn’t have any groundbreaking character development or anything, or even much for flaws, but she’s just peachy in my opinion :)

- I think the Question Blocks serving as Toad ATMs was really funny. Also, I liked that Pauline was on the TV in Brooklyn. And the brothers’ family was fun to see, they absolutely captured the Italian-American family dynamic. Also, acknowledging the white gloves was pretty funny. We got to see Mario’s actual hands, too, which was… unsettling. Luigi’s ringtone is the Gamecube startup sound, Mario’s playing Kid Icarus on his home TV, Satoru Iwata features in the credits, and the little retro shop in the Mushroom Kingdom was neat. I feel like they referenced all throughout Mario’s history, unlike the Sonic movies where they only focused on the golden years of the Genesis games (no shade to the Sonic movies, I actually really liked them too)

- Oh the score. Ohhhh the score. Just… the score. Not enough Galaxy rep, but it’s forgiven. They use the themes from Mario games so well, it’s actually incredible. Just, like, go watch it and see how many you can recognize. I think I got most of them, though I wish they used the Wii Rainbow Road music since that’s the RR I’m most familiar with. Ah, well. I’m not sure if they used a Mario Kart theme for that scene or nor, someone who’s played the other Mario Karts will have to tell me

Negative

- crisp rat >:(

- Lack of Sunshine rep :( I can’t remember if there were any musical references, but I didn’t detect any, anyway. No Shadow Mario, Bowser Jr, Piantas, or FLUDD. Maybe we’ll get to Isle Delfino in the sequel?

- No Funky, Birdo, Rosalina, Daisy, Wario, or Waluigi. I can’t expect to get all of the fun side characters, but when I saw the Kong kingdom and the Luma I had a few shreds of hope that Funky and Rosa would show. I have a feeling Miyamoto doesn’t really like Wario/Waluigi, which is fair but sad. There wasn’t much room for Daisy and Birdo since the movie was so quick-paced. With the Yoshi egg teased at the end, it is possible Birdo will appear in the sequel? Maybe? And since it is an isekai, it’s revealed that no humans are native to the Mushroom Kingdom/Peach’s world, so maybe Daisy just doesn’t fit in this narrative. Ah, well.

- I have a feeling other reviews will remark on this, but Cranky is kinda weak :( I expected him to get better dialogue/direction, since I think Fred Armisen is generally a good actor. He just wasn’t… cranky enough? I dunno. Every time he spoke, I just pictured a voice actor in a booth instead of Cranky Kong.

- The story was… a Shigeru Miyamoto story. That is, no real intense story beats. They don’t really try anything new, but hey. You don’t walk into the Mario Movie expecting Miyazaki, y’know? It was all a bit too fast-paced for me, but I get it, it’s better than senseless filler. Illumination likes cheap movies, so the short runtime might cover for the quality animation.

- The licensed songs aren’t abysmal, but I wish there were fewer where Mario songs could have taken their place. I dunno, as much as I love Take on Me, I feel like there’s a better song out there for introducing the Jungle Kingdom.

Aaand those are my thoughts! I have more, but I’m sleepy and it’s 1:58 AM for me at the mo’. I’m sure I’ll be MarioMovie Posting in the future :)

[eldritch-spouse]

Do you know the movie Firebreather? It was on Cartoon Network in 2012. There's also a comic.

This is Belloc and Margaret (the redhead/brunet)

They have a son, Duncan. He's half human and half Kaiju. Nobody knows how they did it. There's even a joke about that in the movie.

This is his human form

And this is his Kaiju form

What do you think?

Okay, so I'm not going to lie, this ask got me curious and I went ahead and watched a couple of clips. While I don't find anything about the story to be particularly distinct, I do like the designs. Duncan is a kid, so naturally I don't really care for him- But his dad?? 🤌👌 Top notch, I love him.

I'm not sure I caught the joke, but I definitely laughed very hard when Belloc introduces Duncan to the other kaijus and they immediately slutshame him for procreating with a human. Like it had me wheezing for a good while- That's so good. Yes, kinkshame King Kaiju.

It looks like a movie I genuinely would have been hooked on as a kid, it's a shame I missed it. There's even a Portuguese dub, I have no idea how it escaped me...

[magicalgirlagency]

Alright, so you hate modern shounen; but what's your opinion on those action-packed male-driven cartoons from the 00's/2010's (Ben 10, Danny Phantom, Xiaolin Showdown, etc.)?

Certainly SUPERIOR than Shounen, I'll tell you that. The characters are much more charismatic, the female characters are way more badass-y, and some of them at least bother to be a little bit more diverse.

I remember seeing someone jokingly referring to these types of shows as "Hamburger Shounen", and I think I'll use this term from now on, because while they do follow some elements and tropes utilized in Shounen, but they were created in western territory, rather than the usual japanese one.

Here's a list of some western cartoons that I consider to be Hamburger Shounen type:

Ben 10 (excluding that 2016 reboot, obvi);

Danny Phantom;

Xiaolin Showdown;

Sym-Bionic Titan;

Jake Long: American Dragon;

Megas XLR (borrows elements from Mecha and Kaiju, and has even parodied Magical Girls with the Ultra Chicks);

El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera (borrows elements from Tokusatsu);

Generator Rex (had a crossover with Ben 10 Alien Force);

The Secret Saturdays (it had a crossover with Ben 10 Omniverse);

OG!Teen Titans;

¡Mucha Lucha!;

Chaotic;

Static Shock;

Avatar: The Last Airbender;

Big Hero 6;

LEGO Monkie Kid;

Class of the Titans;

Code Lyoko;

Combo Niños;

Firebreather;

Into the SpiderVerse (I know, it's Marvel, but it's just so insanely good);

OK KO: Let's Be Heroes! (though this is more of a parody, and one of my least faves, to be honest... Has also borrowed Magical Girl elements with the character Elodie);

Sky High (this one's a live action movie, and I'll take this one over BnHA any day);

Hi-Fi Rush* (this one's a recently launched video game, but the accuracy it has with a 00's/2010's cartoon is just so beautifully crafted);

And that's all I could get from my memory. There's prolly a lot more out there, and I might be wrong in my predictament, but my shounenphobic instincts are saying "fuck it, we ball".

*Funny thing about HFR is that its protagonist, Chai, is 25 YEARS OLD. He's the only protagonist on this list who isn't a teenager, and yet he looks way too young and dumb to be actually 25. It's hysterical, really!