#i almost never remember them in the context of evangelion if that makes sense

[cypheragent]

the evangelion rebuilds are so fucking bad it's really easy to forget they exist, let alone that they have anything to do with evangelion

[autumnblogs]

Day 2: Symphony Impossible to Play

Picking up from yesterday, we just met Rose.

https://homestuck.com/story/220

Right out of the gate, here’s something interesting - another one where a character interacts directly with her medium! I wonder whose eyes she feels on her. Are Rose’s Seer powers allowing her to detect us watching her? Later on, it turns out that Kanaya was watching her all along during her intro. Maybe that’s who she senses? I think it’s possibly both of those, and a third option - Rose is a paranoid girl who doesn’t feel very secure in her own home, or comfortable in her own skin.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/223

John does a lot of roleplaying, and this is one of the earliest spots in the comic where he does this. Specifically, John performs a lot of his favorite scenes from different movies, and no surprise to anyone, almost all of the times he does, he’s performing either the role of a lover, or of a father. Malo, who I respect a lot, talks a little about John’s appreciation for signifiers here, along with some of their chums. I was going to say something about other points where John’s inner voice comments on the necessity of signifiers to make a thing itself (OR ELSE IT’S A PRETTY PISS POOR EXCUSE FOR THE THING) yesterday, but I didn’t have the thoughts fully formed at the time. Luckily, Malo will call attention to it for me.

This is another one of those weird things about the way that reality works, and it might all retroactively work that way because John expects it to work that way. Homestuck is full to bursting with symbols - everything in Homestuck is extremely abstracted as part of the art style, and also as part of the storytelling, often rendered down to some basic elements that make it recognizable. An example of something Homestuck uses as a symbol would be like, Mustaches - a symbol associated with Grandpa. Swords, symbols associated with Striders. The symbol doesn’t have to have any kind of literal logical association with the thing it represents, but we associate the two things with each other because of cultural context.

https://homestuck.com/story/225

I always liked Rose’s house best out of the group. There’s something deeply romantic to me about the premise of a wooded retreat far away from civilization. I’m pretty sure the Lalonde residence is based on Falling Water but I could be mistaken. As long as I’m thinking about Symbols, by the way, Cats are a Lalonde Symbol. Their presence in the story always evokes Lalondes even when they’re not in the room (which is not very often, as it turns out!) and by association, witches. Both of the Lalondes are witches in the sense of being powerful women who attain to that power by consorting with dubious and transgressive sources.

Rose is up front and melodramatic about her not so great relationship with her Mom, and it’s pretty much literally always on her mind. (Rose’s Mom is an alcoholic, and I should be clear that her relationship has lots of reasons to be not great, but Mom Lalonde deliberately being spiteful to Rose is not one of the reasons). I like to think there are a lot of these misunderstandings between parents and children and if that we were just a little more open with each other, we’d find that we didn’t have as much to be afraid of in each other as we think. But I might never know. Another one of my favorite series that has the inability of Parents and Children to communicate with each other as a central theme is Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion and if you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend you go do so.

https://homestuck.com/story/231

The presentation of the Guardians is so unsettling that in my first readthrough, I thought they must be some kind of monsters artificially imposed into these characters’ obviously artificial lives to create difficulty for them. Clearly, I thought the story was going in a completely different direction than it actually ended up going.

https://homestuck.com/story/236

Rose does not always think her cunning plans all the way through, something she has in common with her biological father.

https://homestuck.com/story/271

I probably could have mentioned this funny little guy earlier than I did, but Wayward Vagabond is in the story now. I’m not totally clear on whether the Carapacians have any greater meaning, but they sure are charming, and like just about everything that isn’t specifically John and his friends, they exist on a layer of the story that is just a little further away from just the text, and a little closer to the audience - they can enter narrative prompts, much like you or I would have if we were involved in Homestuck’s earliest pages. As a rule in Homestuck, the more influence you personally have over the narratives which change the material conditions of the characters’ lives, the more sinister and ambiguous you become. Luckily, WV turns out to be a pretty benign guy, but if you’re the sort of person to be reading this, you are no doubt aware of the fact that most of Homestuck’s narrators don’t turn out to be nearly so friendly. The Carapacians introduce us to the idea that characters in the story are allowed to be audience members and narrators too. So I guess, really, that’s the greater meaning of the Carapacians.

https://homestuck.com/story/272

Always enjoy Rose’s long, outlandish metaphors. Any chance to read more of them is a good chance to. (Although the main one on this page is a holdover from some of the cringy stuff in MSPA’s early days - some of it slightly racist, some of it slightly homophobic.)

https://homestuck.com/story/287

Andrew’s insistence on having characters like Dave rap at us, the audience, actually reminds me a lot of JRR Tolkien’s tendency to pepper his stuff with songs that he wrote for his in universe stuff. And while both are legitimately talented at their craft, as one of my friends put it, “I’m not a rapper... so stop rappin’ at me!”

https://homestuck.com/story/293

Jade is another character whose first post I forgot to mention, but here she is having a bit more to say than before! I think I remember my initial impression of Jade being pretty favorable, and then gradually declining until she got a bit more exposition. Perky people bother me.

https://homestuck.com/story/307

Another one of Andrew’s cool prose poems. I don’t mind these as much as the rapping, clearly. Rain and Strings are another pair of symbols pretty strongly associated with Rose, although I hardly need to tell you that. This obviously alludes to Rose’s mythological quest. I think it also foreshadows a lot of her worst decisions. Rose overthinks and overthinks and overthinks, and then by the time she should have acted, it’s too late, and she overreacts instead, usually in catastrophic ways.

https://homestuck.com/story/312

Dave’s room isn’t nearly as messy as Rose’s, but his bed isn’t made, same as every other Derse Dreamer. This is also probably the first place that we get hints of Dave’s fascination with death (he collects dead things). He’s specifically fascinated with his own death, and fantasizing about self-sacrifice, something that he ends up doing twice over the course of the comic, is one of the ways that Dave experiences masculinity. Thanks for that, Bro.

https://homestuck.com/story/320

Dave almost immediately fails to uphold his irony schtick within just seconds of our getting to know him. For all that he pretends to the same extreme aloofness as his brother, I don’t think there’s an insincere bone in Dave’s body. Then again, maybe he’s just getting distracted by food, of which there is a significant dearth in his household. Thanks for that, Bro.

https://homestuck.com/story/326

I will never get back the time I spent reading Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. Was it worth it?

Yeah probably.

https://homestuck.com/story/332

I think this is the very first time I’ve noticed that Dave has a nifty gaming computer with the transparent glass pane and the interior lights and everything. Like, this readthrough, this panel. I’m sure I mentioned somewhere that I get more out of this webcomic every time I read it.

https://homestuck.com/story/333

Dave and Rose are another character relationship I just enjoy tremendously. Their verbal sparring is one of the highlights of the webcomic.

https://homestuck.com/story/344

Bro’s puppet fascination tells us pretty early on that this is a hands-off, manipulative kind of guy. While Bro isn’t in a metanarrative layer the way that the Carapacians are, positioning him as a puppetmaster, controlling things from behind the scenes, still gives him the same kind of sinister ambiguity as one of the comic’s actual narrators.

https://homestuck.com/story/357

Far from being the kind of chill cooldude who kills with a straight face and doesn’t look at explosions, Dave kills a random bird and immediately feels remorseful about it. Poor kid.

https://homestuck.com/story/360

There is almost nothing worse than having someone perform interest in something you enjoy to try and influence you. Unfortunately, that is not what is taking place here. Rose is quick to assume malicious intent as she does a bit earlier when she tucks her journals under her bed because she feels like she’s being watched.

https://homestuck.com/story/369

Mom, sadly, giving your daughter oodles of presents and showering everything she does in ostentatious displays of affection is sadly not a substitute for earnest communication with her and your emotional presence. These two need to learn each other’s love languages. (Note to self. Not everybody enjoys lavish presents as much as I do.)

Roxy is a giver. That’s something that shows up time and again, especially when we meet her in person much later.

https://homestuck.com/story/377

Mom Lalonde performs femininity.

https://homestuck.com/story/382

Jade sees right through Dave.

In other notes, I think most of these kids would be way happier if their Guardians were more emotionally available, and less badass.

I’m going to come back to that and write more on it at some point instead of just alluding to it repeatedly. Maybe after Dave Strifes with his bro.

https://homestuck.com/story/389

Is Mom’s compulsive gift-giving because that’s her love language? Is she performing capitalism by giving her daughter extremely expensive gifts as a show of affection? Is it both things? (Roxy is never exposed to Capitalism except by the awesome powers of Dirk’s cached wikipedia archives, and her gift-giving tends to be significantly less ostentatious than Mom’s.)

https://homestuck.com/story/404

John roleplays some more.

https://homestuck.com/story/414

Here’s where I’ll say one of the things that I think is like a big deal, because I guess now’s as good a time as any. A lot of the roleplaying that John does, and the one-upsmanship that he and Dave do with each other, and Dave and Bro do with each other, and Mom’s ironic housewife routine, and the burial of Jasper in a mausoleum are rituals. Like symbols, they’re cultural touchstones that are ultimately empty when they no longer point to the thing that they signify. Funerals are grieving rituals. When a funeral doesn’t functionally serve the purpose of helping with grief, it becomes an empty signifier. Maybe this is how Mom grieved for Jaspers - I’ll have to check and see what Roxy thinks about it when I get that far, because I forgot.

We do a lot of stupid things in a monkey see monkey do fashion because we’ve just always done them that way, even when they were built for a completely different society, and no longer serve the same function that they used to serve. Big ostentatious funerals are like that, I think. Ideally, they’d give big families an opportunity to come together in mutual support, celebrate the joy brought to them by the deceased, demonstrate compassion to the grieving, and so on and so forth. I’m not prescriptively saying “don’t have a funeral” here, my point is just that funerals are one of those cultural narratives that I mentioned in the first post.

This funeral does not serve the function of helping Rose to grieve. It’s just kind of fucked up.

https://homestuck.com/story/415

Oh hey, Rose has more fish language attached to her - she earlier makes reference to her knitting-needle tech by saying that she thinks she could probably filet a fish with them. Here, she talks about having bigger fish to fry. Rose is associated with Water through her planet, the Land of Light and Rain, and with fish through Cetus. She’s also attached to other deep sea creatures in the form of the horrorterrors.

https://homestuck.com/story/420

I’m going to pause for now and post this since I’ve read through another roughly 200 pages of Homestuck this evening on the fortuitous page of 420. It probably helps that I started earlier than I did yesterday. Nanna’s about to give some exposition, and I already wrote my big brain take for the day so for now;

Cam signing off, alive and not alone.

[andmaybegayer]

Watched Rebuild of Evangelion 3 now so hoo boy what the hell was that.

Alright I’m writing this before reading anything anyone else wrote about the Rebuilds so that I don’t copy anyone because I have had a Moment thinking about this.

It’s not... good? on it’s own? these movies don’t stand on their own. Well, the first one does but that’s because it’s a retelling of the first few episodes of the original series cut down for time and with a bigger budget. But the other two, just, aren’t anything.

When I was trying to think of how to write this I thought “these movies are not intended to be viewed alone, but in comparison to the original series” and I think that’s true but it also sounds like the thing an insane person would say so I didn’t WANT to say it but it’s true.

2.22 is just Evangelion minus any of the interesting parts. it’s Evangelion written by this guy.

Like, if you read this post, I didn’t really mention the story. I spoke about the sensory quality of the show, the music, the animation, the new character who exists. That’s because there isn’t anything else to talk about in 2.22.

Nothing... happens... in it? Like, you get this new character, Mari Illustrious, but I don’t think you ever hear her name other than her answering her phone, and that is a tiny moment. You never see her meet any other characters and as far as I can tell her entire personality is “good at robots, guns, and throwing things to asuka when she needs them”, I don’t think she’s ever even tangentially involved in any personal conflicts. Given how deeply the original series cares about the motivations of each individual character, it’s weird to bring in this weird new girl who appears to exists solely to give the anime character model makers another statue to produce.

Asuka and Rei both have a crush on Shinji, which is out of nowhere and doesn’t go anywhere. It happens and then the story goes elsewhere and it’s basically never explored again. There’s none of the usual post-fight dialogue and bargaining that all the characters have with each other, just, here’s some cool robot fights. Have fun. You like that, right?

Asuka’s character starts off promising! She’s an overachiever prodigy who likes to throw her weight around and who thinks she doesn’t need anyone else, except then she finds out she likes having friends! Except this also doesn’t go anywhere. It just kinda gets disregarded because she’s swapped in for Suzuhara during the test that goes bad so she’s injured and offscreen for the rest of the movie. Her role is filled by Mari who once again does almost nothing other than Being Good At Robots.

The movie spends just, so much time on random shit. There’s a 10 minute sequence where they go to an aquarium and it’s just worldbuilding! Evangelion was never about worldbuilding and this worldbuilding doesn’t pay off in any way! It’s just, like, oh yeah, all ocean life is dead, we brought some back, but they have to stay here. The ocean used to be blue. Isn’t that interesting, to you, person watching? Same with the fights. Long fight sequences were always a part of Evangelion that was fun to watch but they were not actually important.

I think... this is supposed to be like, what would happen if all the people who complained about the end of the series, and who think that evangelion is too impenetrable, got what they wanted. It’s just a boring ordinary anime, with big action scenes and cute girls who have crushes on the shitty main dude.

I don’t remember it for certain but I think that Evangelion was about two things: 1) depression, and 2) opposing generic anime tropes. Getting in the big robot doesn’t solve your problems, it’s just running away from them. Asuka is a tsundere, but you shouldn’t be trying to date that girl, she needs serious help. Rei isn’t a beautiful blank slate for you to mould however you want, she’s got shit she needs to work through and trying to date her isn’t going to help either of you.

It seems like 2.22 is just Evangelion if it leaned into the trope that fights are cool and girls are there for you to fuck, hence the brief love triangle around Shinji/Rei/Asuka. It would also explain Mari, who appears to be from an entirely different universe where 14 year olds actually like piloting giant robots with the weight of the world on their backs. You need the context of the original show to understand why this is so weird. It lacks any of the meat that would make watching this alone worthwhile.

And then you get to 3.33. Look. I get that some people probably liked 3.33. I understand. But 3.33 is like, three different things simultaneously and I don’t know which part you liked because they aren’t all good.

Now, there are good parts. But I think they only make sense in the context of the original show. Everyone is constantly telling Shijni what to do: pilot the evangelion! don’t pilot the evangelion! Like this is the whole thrust of the series. Do you do the big thing that lets you run from your problems, or do you do the small hard work that is actually becoming a better person. The first one is very appealing if you’re afraid of the hard work of becoming a better person, so you have to grow up before you can do it, you have to accept that sometimes you have to do hard things to get what you want. But if you’ve only seen the Rebuilds, then you have no context for what the hard thing looks like. Everyone has done nothing but take the easy route of flying around in big robots shooting at aliens. You have to compare it to the end of the series, where Shinji thinks long and hard about what he needs to do to actually be happy in this world, and decides that he actually can improve himself for the better.

You spend 10 minutes at the beginning with Asuka recovering a McGuffin from space while backed up by Mari who appears to communicate entirely in sassy quips. Then we watch for another 10 minutes as they make a flying boat. The only really important narrative information conveyed in these 20 minutes is that it’s 14 years later, and that Shinji has been stuck in space all this time. Almost none of your points of reference survive this time skip, so we now have to establish a whole new pecking order and set of characters for this movie.

In 3.33, he does none of that. He instead bullheadedly fixates on piloting the Evangelion as the way to solve all his problems, and as a result causes an even greater disaster. This is Shinji if he didn’t learn anything from his experiences. This is about what happens when you don’t improve yourself. It seems to suddenly snap back around to the message of the original series, that you need to connect with other people and sort yourself out, not hide away and perform great feats to appear to progress, but it’s framed so weirdly that I can’t figure out /why/ you would go through all of this just to tell this story.

I’m not sure what the message is. It’s not sufficiently different from the original to claim a new message, but it doesn’t seem to have any message if you disregard the original.

I’m just baffled by it. It’s not the same, it’s not telling the same story. This feels cautionary, this is what not to do, but it’s also not different. The story is not distinct from the series. It still relies on the series to give it meaning. This is a series for people who watched evangelion, but I’m not sure why you would watch it. Is it for people who watched evangelion, and didn’t like it? Is it supposed to be like, what would happen if the entire series was made in the style of The End of Evangelion? I’m not sure. I’m going to go read some other people’s writing on this now, and hopefully that will clarify it.

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Pokemon, Episodes 1-3

And so we begin our longest journey yet with our first tentative step. Does this show still hold up 20 years later? Is Ash as annoying as you remember? What’s it like to look back on where it all began after marinating in everything it’s become? Welcome, folks, to my adventure through the Pokemon anime!

The Wayback Machine

This is gonna be the weirdest analysis I’ve ever done for this blog.

I am not that familiar with Pokemon as an anime. The most I’ve watched of it has been the movies up to Arceus and the Jewel of Life, as well as pretty much the entire Diamond and Pearl saga. At the same time, though, I am hugely familiar with Pokemon as a cultural phenomenon. I bought all the games from Emerald to Black and White, I dove headfirst into the increasingly dense Pokedex data, and I absolutely fucking loved learning about each and every new critter Game Freak added to the canon. I devoured their stats, their lore, their type advantages, the mythos behind them, what kind of concept they were all based on, the human characters that interacted with them from trainers to villain gangs to gym leaders to Elite Four, and everything in between. I’m familiar with Ash, Misty, Brock, Team Rocket, Officer Jenny, Nurse Joy, Giovanni, Pikachu, Mew, Mewtwo, and all the rest of the original 151 pocket monsters. I love OG Pokemon. I don’t know a single nineties-aughts kid who doesn’t. It really was the perfect toy concept, endlessly merchandisible and utterly ubiquitous. Pokemon was just as much my childhood as everyone else’s, a staple of the young imagination that took root like nothing else.

And now’s the first time I’m actually freaking watching it.

This is the kind of prior expectation setting that no other franchise could possibly hope to match. Pokemon is a giant, massive, multimedia franchise, with trading cards and video games and plushies and everything in between, and it’s entirely possible to get the “story” of Pokemon in its entirety, as it were, without ever having to actually watch the most story-based element of it. I now know pretty much everything there is to know about Pokemon (at least up until Gen 5, after which I lost interest for a while), all the heaps and mountains of context that color what this franchise has become. But this original anime didn’t have all that outsized context. All it had were the initial few games and the barest beginnings of the goliath Pokemon would become. It had to be the bedrock upon which everything else was built, the foundation that would grow into the inescapable tendrils of pop culture that ensnare us today. The kids of twenty years ago didn’t go into Pokemon with decades of cultural expectations built up; they went into it with fresh eyes, discovering an entirely new world, with entirely new characters, being told a story that had to hook them in completely with its own merits. And now, here I am at last, analyzing a marathon right from its starting point when all I’ve ever known of it has been its finish line. How the heck am I even gonna make sense of all those conflicting patterns of thought? It’s almost like I’m gonna be re-watching a series I’m experiencing for the first time.

But you know what? I tackled all 367 episodes of Gintama no matter how many times it left me emotionally broken. I suffered through abominations like Guilty Crown and Future Diary and lived to tell the tale. I re-watched Neon Genesis Evangelion, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, and Angel Beats, three of my top five anime ever, and still found new and exciting things to say about them. This blog has been nothing but me overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds, finding the words to communicate the extreme, indescribable, sometimes incomprehensible feelings anime can leave me with. I am a writer who lets nothing stand in my way. So what’s one more impossible task to complete? What’s another thousand episodes of setting familiar eyes on something I’ve never seen before? If I’ve survived talking about anime as long as I have, then I can survive Pokemon too. Who knows, maybe that dichotomy of past and present experience will make my analysis even richer than it otherwise would have been. After all, there’s something really powerful about standing at the end of a long journey and casting an eye back to where it all began.

So bring it on, Ash Ketchum. You and I both have a long-ass journey ahead of us, so let’s make every step count.

Living in a Pokemon World

So, with all that rambling word salad introduction out of the way, all qualifiers and asterisks set aside, how are the first ever few episodes of Pokemon? Well, they’re good! Very good, even, in some respects! It’s definitely far from perfect, and the product of being cash-cow kids’ show translated by an equally cash-cow marketing team isn’t exactly subtle. The animation isn’t always the best; there’s a particularly goofy moment where instead of animating Pikachu’s thundershock attack, the screen just pinwheel-cycles between four still images of the attack as they rotate around the screen’s corners. Some of the dub voice acting is quite good, while some characters- Gary Oak, Misty, and Officer Jenny- can get seriously grating with how rough-edged their voice-actors are. I’m also taking a little to get used to Ash’s voice, as the only version of Ash I ever heard was after the actor changed in Diamond and Pearl. It’s goofy and corny and very simplistic at times, with characters who can act like insufferable brats in the worst-case scenario. But you know what? I’m still really fucking enjoying it. For all its numerous flaws, it’s driven by a sincere, imaginative passion that really shines through. There are so many charming moments, so many clever touches, and so many ideas that really made me sit back and say, “Wow, no wonder this show caught on like it did.” This isn’t just a cash-in money mill for the profit machine, it’s trying to be a genuinely inspiring, horizon expanding adventure story. And despite how long the road ahead looks, I’m genuinely excited to follow it.

I think what stands out the most is how deeply committed this show is to wringing out every last ounce of potential from its concept. It doesn’t just want you to love Pokemon, it feels like it sincerely loves Pokemon itself. I can only imagine what this must have looked like to the kids of twenty years ago experiencing this world for the first time, not knowing all 151 original Pokemon and seeing everything with fresh eyes. Why is a three-headed bird crowing like a rooster to signal the dawn? Why does Ash’s alarm clock have a face on it and spring open to reveal a bird figure inside? Who are all these mysterious creatures we see Ash running by as he escapes from the murder birds, and what cool powers might they have? What’s that giant fucking water serpent that almost eats his face off? What’s that majestic bird we see flying over the rainbow at the end of the first episode (side note, HOW IS THERE A FUCKING HO-OH IN THE FIRST EPISODE WE’RE NOT IN JOHTO YET ARE YOU SHITTING ME)?  It’s easy to forget with how ubiquitous the brand is now, but the concept of a world populated by hyper-competent super-animals that integrate perfectly into human society is kinda freaking bizarre, yet this show completely sells it. You feel just how much deeply entwined humans and Pokemon have become, how carefully this entire society’s been constructed around their presence. Even that one scene of Caterpie and Pikachu talking in episode 3 was really charming; it’s remarkable how much chemistry you can establish between two characters who can’t even use words. I can only imagine what it must have been like seeing all this for the first time, marveling at the endless possibilities this world would allow. And we’ve only just got into Type advantages and Evolutions; how fucking cool must that have been seeing it for the first time?

And heck, even for a grown-ass adult like me who’s been marinating in this stuff for decades, there’s still stuff here that really sparks my imagination! I love the goofy primitive voice chat that uses corded telephones connected to the computer monitor, the wet dream of communications technology past. I love the bizarre way that actual living beings can be stored and transferred through a network connection at the Pokemon Center. Heck, I’m even intrigued by the mystery of that mural in the Pokemon Center with the four legendary beings depicted on it; at first glance it just seems like the three Legendary Birds, but Ash seems to think one of them’s really Ho-Oh, so is that actually true? And who’s the fourth Arcanine-looking guy in the bottom right? And then there’s the residual angst of seeing Ash break so many of the rules from the video games, which made for more than a few moments of complete expectation readjustment. Seriously, he catches a Caterpie without any damage, he catches a Pidgeotto with just a single Thundershock’s worth of damage, he gets to keep his Pokeballs even after failing a capture with them, and he takes down two trained and dangerous poison Pokemon with a single use of fucking String Shot, and then his Caterpie evolves after just two battles? Somebody get Game Freak on the phone, because they’ve been stiffing us poor players for years while Ash gets to break all the rules. Clearly, even a lot of stuff I think I know can no longer be taken for granted in the wild world of Pokemon.

Gotta Ketchum All

If I’m being honest, though, the most promising aspect of the Pokemon anime isn’t the fascinating of the world itself and all the ways it can incorporate the titular critters into it. Shockingly enough, what gives me the most hope for this anime success is none other than Ash Ketchum himself, the perpetual butt of jokes since 1997. It’s easy to pick on this perpetual ten-year-old for his brash arrogance and how it took him 22 years to actually become a Pokemon Master, but I was stunned by how quickly he wormed his way into my heart here. Sure, he’s definitely reckless and a little too proud of himself, but what sticks out the most about him is just how committed he is to doing the right thing. He’s gotten so much shit thrown at him already, between oversleeping, Gary’s jackassery, Pikachu’s initial disdain for him, and his constant bickering with Misty, not to mention a certain trio of Poke-nappers gunning for his new companion. But for all his exasperation and attitude, he consistently tries to do right by the people around him. When Gary’s giving him sass in the first episode, Ash still tries to make friends with him over their shared love of Pokemon, eager to hear about which one Gary got from the professor. When Pikachu’s refusing to obey him, he does his best to listen to its demands and give him free reign instead of confining to for a Pokeball. And even after bristing against Pikachu’s stubbornness, he doesn’t hesitate a second to throw his own life on the line to keep his new pal safe from the attacking Spearow flock. Ash is the kind of guy who can easily bitch and moan about his misfortunes, but when the chips are down, he’ll quickly step up and make the right call, because his heart’s genuinely in the right place.

In short, Ash Ketchum is one part the animal-loving softie of Steve Irwin, one part the prickly defensiveness of Yusuke Yurameshi, and one part the wanderlust-driven traveler Gon Freecs (side note, when did Hunter x Hunter start in comparison to the Pokemon anime? Because the whole concept of a shonen protagonist kid setting off on an adventure across a modern, yet undiscovered world, chasing the profession that his absent father once performed... yeah, I got questions, Togashi), and that combination makes for a surprisingly fun protagonist to be around. He’s driven by a genuine love of Pokemon, and it’s clear he has great respect and admiration for the many remarkable critters he comes across. When Misty’s freaking out over his Caterpie, he doesn’t hesitate to comfort the poor guy and give it the encouragement it needs. He’d even let it travel on his shoulder alongside Pikachu, because that’s how quickly he’s come around to the idea of treating Pokemon with kindness and respect. Heck, when Caterpie’s crawling off in a huff, he even crawls right alongside it rather than just spend five seconds getting out of his damn sleeping bag. This kid might be a few good multiple choice answers short of an SAT, but he’s ready and willing to jump right into the thick of things, mess up however he has to, and keep on trucking until he finds the right way forward. If nothing else, you really gotta respect that gumption.

To Protect the World

And now, folks, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the moment when the true stars of the show take their first bow. Drum roll, please!

*ahem*

To protect the world from devastation!

To unite all peoples within out nation!

To denounce the evils of truth and love!

To extend out reach to the stars above!

Jessie!

James!

Team Rocket blasts off at the speed of light!

Surrender now or prepare to fight!

(Meowth, that’s right!)

Christ, is there a single more iconic villain motto in any other anime? In any piece of media ever? Heck, is there a more perfect villain introduction than these three hooligans using a fishhook to snatch their own wanted poster from the comfort of a hot air balloon emblazoned with their head honcho’s face, only to complain that their photos aren’t flattering enough? You tell me, because I’m not seeing one.

There’s no getting around it folks; there is no set of fictional antagonists quite like Team Rocket. Jessie, James and their talking Meowth are the stuff of villain legend, some of the most perpetually entertaining foes ever to grace the silver screen. And even with just two appearances under their belt, I completely understand why they exploded in popularity to such an extent: they are an absolute delight. They’re all the pomp and circumstance of villainy mixed with the buffoonish incompetence of the Three Stooges, masters of showmanship and grace but complete morons at actually, y’know, being evil. So they’re able to be as enjoyable over-the-top as the best scenery chewers without any of the associated sense of danger that more competent villains give off, and the result is possibly the single most perfect villainous banter and chemistry of all time. You get all the enjoyment of the villainous flamboyance with none of the associated risk, because these lunkheads can barely go two seconds without descending into infighting. There the rarest of all treasures, some of only few villains who you’re capable of loving unconditionally, even rooting for their success safe in the knowledge that they’ll never cause any actual harm. Bottom line, I’m already enjoying the hell out of them, and I look forward to many more happy blast-offs to come.

Odds and Ends

-Yep, that theme song is still killer.

-asdjhasd I didn’t expect it to start with the freaking game graphics

-WHY DOES HE HAVE CHEELREADERS ISTG GARY

-”The early bird gets the worm. Or in this case, the Pokemon.” Wow, Professor Oak really let him open all those empty pokeballs instead of just telling him up front. ASSHOLE.

-”Shocking, isn’t it?” PUNS? That settles is, Professor Oak is the real villain of the series.

-”Oh, you’re playing catch! You’re friends already!” Ash’s mom is a delight.

-”Enjoy your last moments of freedom!” Don’t think about it too hard don’t think about it too hard don’t think about

-”It also comes to open fields to steal food from stupid travelers.” WOW, way to call him out, Pokedex.

-”I’ll give it back someday!” Ash Ketchum, Kanto’s Most Wanted.

-I. I forgot about the Pokerap. Why is there a Pokerap. WHY.

-”You know there’s a driveway.” The way Nurse Joy says this, it makes me think Officer Jenny must barge in through the front doors a lot. Hmmm. Hmmmmmm.

-”Oh my goodness, I left my motorcycle parked at the front desk!” ...fuck it, I ship it. JennyJoy for life.

-”I suppose that proves it!” Oak continues to be the most chaotic presence in this entire show.

-”Well... money isn’t everything, right?” akjsdhaskjdhaskjdhaskjdh

-”Mmm, anchovy, spinach and pineapple pizza!” Out of all the surprises I was expecting from the Pokemon anime, Professor Oak being the secret evil mastermind was not one of them, yet here we are.

-Okay, so some of the Pokemon’s voice actors are putting in a lot of effort to sound like animals, and then there’s Goldeen. Just... Goldeen.

-Ash Commits Domestic Terrorism(tm)

-”No, not this again!” He’s already sick of their intro askjdhasjkdhasd

Hot damn, here we go. Still over 1,000 episodes to go. Can we make it? Only one way to find out. Thank you all for joining me on this new adventure, and I’ll see you next time!

[natsubeatsrock]

Juvia Lockser: Death and Rebirth

For the uninitiated, let me explain my title.

On March 15, 1997, fans of Neon Genesis Evangelion were greeted to a new movie: Death and Rebirth. Originally, it was meant to be the conclusion to the series that would explain what happened in the final episodes of the television series. What ended up happening is the half the movie being relegated to flashbacking about eight hours of material into one, the second half ending up as the first half of a movie that would be made later called “The End of Evangelion” and an in-movie five-minute intermission in between the two halves. It’s considered by many fans to be the worst anime entry of the NGE franchise.

In the same vein, I’ve gone on record to say that I believe that the worst thing Mashima has done is kill Juvia and bring her back in the way that he did it. There have been a lot of terrible things that have happened before and after I’ve made this declaration that make it hard to continue to affirm this statement. However, I still think this was still a really terrible decision on Mashima’s part and I want to explain why.

If you’re wondering why I’ve decided to wait so long to talk about it, I’ve wanted to wait until I heard everything I needed to from both sides and the controversy about it died down. Needless to say, I think both have happened. (alsoiseemtoenduptalkingaboutjuviadyingonthisdatesoifiguredthisshouldjustbeatrendfromnowon)

I feel that before we even get to the actual moment, it’s important to remember the context that this moment took place.

Two years ago, we just got chapter 453 and, if the title of the previous chapter - “Prelude to the Final Battle”  - was any indication, the Alvarez War was just about to start. This chapter was talked about for a lot of reasons at the time. Natsu broke into Lucy’s house again. Wendy made a promise to Erza that I’m not entirely sure was kept. The Gajevy fandom still questions whether or not they slept together.

However, the most relevant thing is from Gray and Juvia’s conversation with each other. There’s this line where Gray says that he’s going to give his answer to Juvia about the way he feels about her. As you can probably guess, this caused a lot of people to talk about whether or not Gray and Juvia would actually mean they would end up getting together.

However, there was another conversation going on. A few pages before, Natsu and Lucy had a talk about death flags. To quote Lucy, “The minute a character starts talking about how happy life, will be after the battle. you just know a tragedy will happen so that future never arrives.” 

A lot of people, myself included, were worried that this meant that something was going to happen. And a lot of people, myself included, guessed that meant Juvia would die. I already had a feeling that Juvia would die, but that’s beside the point. 

So that’s what this is about? A bit of disappointment that we didn’t get the death we thought we would? 

Well, there’s a bit more than that.

As the arc went on, there were a lot of terrible writing decisions. The Spriggan 12 that was supposed to be super threatening ended up being total disappointments, with the exception of Ajeel and DiMaria. The sacrifices of Aquarius and Ultear were argued to have been weakened by their returns. Brandish went from incredibly intimidating to an even bigger disappointment. Natsu managed to get sidelined by what was considered at the time to be “magical cancer”.  And this isn’t even everything.

Most notably was the experiences of Gajeel and Mirajane. Both were considered to have died in different situations, however, both managed to stay alive. Gajeel was brought back from death through questionable means and Mirajane’s was a simple fake out with an even flimsier explanation within the same chapter she almost died.

Eventually, we get to the end of chapter 498 and Invel puts Gray and Juvia into a death match. The only way to get out of the match is by killing the opponent. This is a set-up on Invel’s part. He’s doing this in hopes that Gray will kill Juvia, go berserk and destroy E.N.D. And Juvia has no intentions of killing Gray. She plans to kill herself before she loses control.

The story is basically telling you that Juvia is going to die. There’s not really any other way to read it. There is no reason to that she wouldn’t die. That being said, the rest of the arc has shown that Mashima isn’t willing to kill off members of Fairy Tail and hasn’t been handling the rest of the events well. 

An easy assumption to make is that Juvia will be another victim of fake deaths. We’ll see Juvia die the next chapter and she’ll eventually come back right as rain as if nothing happened to her in the first place. Even when Juvia died, people were already acting like she was going to come back. 

I really believed that Juvia wouldn’t come back. Today last year, I was really confident that Juvia was definitely dead and the fandom and characters would have to move on. I figured it was possible that she could come back, but I knew that it would be a terrible idea.

Sure enough, we got to the landmark chapter 500 and Juvia came back. Now, I’m going to give Mashima credit and say that this wasn’t as bad as I thought a death and resurrection of Juvia could be handled.

It was worse. It was so much worse.

Part 1: Death

I know what a lot of people might have been thinking about my declaration that these moments were terrible: I hate Juvia and I wish that she was dead.

I want to make it clear now that I don’t hate Juvia and I’ve never wanted her dead. In fact, I was torn up about the idea that Juvia could possibly die for the entire time I thought she would die. Interestingly enough, I don’t think Juvia should have died. I talked about this before but nothing about Juvia dying makes sense. 

One thing that I can’t believe I didn’t talk about when it happened is Invel’s plan. It’s incredibly counterproductive to have a plan killing E.N.D if that means that Zeref would die. I get that, from an in-universe point, he wouldn’t have probably known that would have been the result. But like what was Mashima thinking about when he did that? 

Juvia’s body is made of water. How come she can’t just phase through it? Look, this is nowhere near a consistent part of Juvia’s magic that has mattered in other parts of the manga, like when she almost died in the GMG arc, and that’s an issue in and of itself. Even still, that’s still a thing that’s possible.

And the big thing that everyone I’ve seen talk about this mention: Devil Slaying Magic. Gray has the power to grow stronger by eating ice. The chains he and Juvia were bound by were made by ice. Need I say more?

I can sort of buy into the fact that Gray and/or Juvia are able to will their way out of Invel’s mind control. They care so much about each other that they’re both able to overpower the grip Invel has on them. Heck, this could even be the scene that makes Gruvia clearly canon, as opposed to the ambiguous “I’ll take you seriously” line I’ve seen argued on both ways.

But I’m actually supposed to believe it took less effort for both of them to make their respective weapons and stab themselves than for either one of them to just escape the chains? Why else would it make sense for them to commit literal double suicide?

By the way, let’s talk about the fact that they stabbed themselves. The big thing I saw thrown around about this scene was something akin to “The did the same thing because they feel the same way.’ I could fight this with Gray’s quote later on, but in the spirit of that quote, I’ll take this argument seriously.

I could see that point working in some scenarios, but I don’t think that this is the kind of scenario for this argument. The conceit that Gray and Juvia would both be willing to kill themselves so that they wouldn’t harm the person that they love is, on its own, disturbing and an understandable reason not to like Gruvia.

However, add into that the fact that Juvia has been an advocate for living for the people that you love and that Gray has been taught and reminded to live for his friends at least two different times throughout the series, one time in particular after remembering Juvia, and that he had a scene earlier in the arc where he remembered the people that brought him to where he was, which also included Juvia and-

Why was it a big deal that I joked that Gray would kill himself with Iced Shell again?

You know, even before writing this, I figured that the conceit that this was the moment that caused Gray to go insane was stupid. But, trying to go through the logic of this is making me go crazy and I’m just reading this series.

Intermission

Before we actually get to the talk about Juvia coming back, I want to talk about the other stuff happening at this moment that has nothing really to do with either that or Juvia dying.

After the “double Gruvia suicide”, the chains on them drop. Now, I’ve actually heard an explanation for this. This happened after Invel saw that they “died”, which means that it’s likely that the condition that the chains drop after they die is dependent on Invel seeing them die.

There are two problems with that. The condition that you have to see someone die doesn’t account for the possibility that they’re playing dead. That’s not an egregious error. I can see that being an actual condition that someone’s magic has.

What actually is an egregious error is knowing that and not making sure that Gray and Juvia were actually dead, especially considering that possibility for faking deaths. Why would you not make sure they were dead? And don’t say it’s because he thought he had control over their bodies because that’s the reason they’re supposedly dead in the first place.

And then there’s the issue of Water Make Magic. I’d argue that the issue isn’t that Juvia knows a magic different from her main magic. There are plenty of examples of that in the series and it’s not too different than her main magic. The issue is that this is the way that we’re learning about her magic. We’re learning about this magic relevant to the story as it becomes relevant to the story. If only there was another time where we could have learned about Juvia having magic she didn’t have before the second time skip...

Part 2: Rebirth

So, what makes the fact that Juvia is even back, despite dying in a fake way, even worse? A lot of it has to do with the way this death was presented. 

First, consider the big comparison made to this “death”. The one most people have heard was the comparison to Reina from Rave Master, which I did a whole rant about when the chapters dropped. Long story short, it’s a bad comparison, but not an entirely unwarranted (read: unpredictable) comparison for anyone who has read both series and seeing this moment.

And, even though I was just smack-talking Water Make Magic, there is a clear message behind it. She gave up her life to Gray. Mind you, the fact that Juvia sacrificed her life so Gray can live on kind of goes counter the fact that they both just killed themselves in order to not hurt each other. Whatever, the point is that Juvia giving up her life so that Gray can continue to live.

She even says “Juvia lives within your body” and “Juvia’s live is yours”. I don’t care about how you interpret that from a shipping standpoint. The fact of the matter is that the message of this ought to be that Juvia has sacrificed her own life so that Gray can live. Juvia is dead because she thinks it’s more important for Gray to live than for her to live. If anything, that’s the best thing about this death.

But then she comes back. Yeah, she’s just alive now.

And I know what some of you are thinking. I know exactly what some of you are thinking. If you’ve read enough stuff from me, you can tell where this is going. So, let’s just get it out of the way.

When Lisanna “died”, it was portrayed as a tragic accident. Her siblings decide to live for her sake, but not because she lost her life while trying to protect them, especially considering that’s what lead to the accident, to begin with. They live on because they realize they shouldn't be blaming themselves for Lisanna dying and she would want them to be happy.

And by the way, we got an explanation for why Lisanna might be back.

We got an explanation for how Erza survived Etherion.

We got an explanation for how Gajeel survived Bradman sucking him in.

We got an explanation for how Mirajane survived August’s shot to the chest.

Natsu avoided death three times and there was an explanation for why he wasn’t dead each time.

You can go down the list and talk about how each of those non-deaths did or didn’t make sense or could have been handled better. I even plan on doing that for Lisanna and (to a lesser extent) Erza. However, there is in fact reasoning behind all those characters not being dead, no matter how bad it may seem.

What is the in-series explanation for Juvia not being dead?

There is none.

Wendy and Carla say that if they came any later she probably would have died.

Except everything about the last chapter gave the impression that Juvia was dead.

Now, even if Invel couldn’t be bothered to check if Juvia was actually dead, Gray ought to have been able to see if Juvia was dead. He was holding her head. All he had to do was check for a pulse to see whether or not she was actually still alive. This isn’t a tragic accident. This almost feels like the setup for a joke. I mean, Gray...

May or may not have kissed her? 

Yeah, that’s a thing Gruvia fans speculate happened based on Juvia’s line after being brought back. You know the fact that any time in chapter 500 was spent on that and not why Juvia wasn’t actually dead is kind of depressing. But if that’s true, that means Gray prioritized kissing what he thought to be a dead body over checking for a pulse via her wrist or neck. 

And you know, I’d almost say this would be a good shocking twist. That, if you somehow forgot about the other fake deaths a few chapters ago, we were supposed to come to this moment and feel like Mashima duped us. That, for as clumsy as this may seem, Mashima tried to pull the rug out from under us.

Too bad he decided to include her on the chapter cover. Yeah, that was a thing he did. He killed her off a chapter ago but thought that he should bring her in for the special cover. Thanks for not even letting us consider the possibility that she isn’t coming back, Mashima.

By the way, thanks for also showing Juvia right before Natsu talks about not letting his friends die and Lucy mentions how they’ve beaten the odds before. Yeah, didn’t think anyone would notice? I’m almost shocked no one thought to bring that up.

Epilogue

A while back, I made a post about why I don’t like when people defend a bad decision with “It’s just fiction” and this is one of the best examples of what I was trying to argue against. I have a problem with the fact that Hiro Mashima sat down and thought that this was a good idea to do. 

I don’t have as much of a problem with Mashima presenting people as dead only for them to be revealed not to have died as so many other people do. But I do have a problem with Mashima presenting someone as dead and not acting like they died. He couldn’t have been bothered to give an explanation similar to Lisanna’s where it’s likely what happened but it could be something else at play. Even with Mirajane almost dying, there was a near immediate explanation as to how she didn’t die when she was revealed not to have died.

A lot of people have speculated that this was done because of fan backlash to Juvia being killed in the first place. That his original plan was to kill off Juvia but this end result was the fault of too many people complaining. 

As cozy as that line of thinking is, I’m wary of that line of thinking. Not because I’m wary of those kinds of theories anyway. Because if that’s the case, I still have to believe that Mashima’s editor was also okay with a sudden change from whatever his original plan was. (Even though ) And, again, it’s not like the death before was all too good anyway.

Now some of you might be wondering how I would fix this. The complex answer where Gruvia may or may not be confirmed as canon would require me to fix Gruvia as a whole. (more rants for later days?) 

The simple answer is to just not have the scene. Yeah, just have fight happen a different way. This could have been a regular Gruvia team-up battle against Invel that starts in one chapter, takes up the majority of a second chapter and ends in a third. Almost exactly like the fight against Jacob Lessio (which wasn’t all that good anyway). 

At that rate, it probably could have been about as offensive as some of the other fights in this arc. Who knows, this could have beaten out Wendy and Sheria vs DiMaria as the best fight of last year. But, as it happened, this is one of the worst things to happen in both the arc and the entire series.

To be fair, without this death and rebirth, we don’t get the setup for chapter 507, which is my personal favorite chapters of the arc and even series, as a whole. However, I can’t say that getting some of the worst chapters to set it up was really worth it. (The other chapters before it were also bad.)