#it makes him look even weirder next to all the insect-like characters

[bluegekk0]

Updated Grimm's design. He is more fluffy now and has a tail :)

[aion-rsa]

Godzilla Singular Point: The Weird History of Jet Jaguar

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The latest take on Toho’s iconic, building-crushing lizard comes in the form of Godzilla Singular Point, an anime series now available in dubbed form on Netflix. Taking place in the not-too-distant future, this reimagining of the King of Monsters involves a group of human characters becoming aware – through rather bizarre ways – of a coming apocalyptic event. Now the only thing that can save them is a behemoth out to punch monsters and look out for the little guy.

No, not Godzilla. He’s actually the apocalyptic event. No, our hero is none other than Jet Jaguar.

Yes, it’s finally time for Jet Jaguar to get his due.

A concept nearly 50 years old at this point, Jet Jaguar is one of those characters who was initially doomed to fail, but lives on due to nostalgia and the golden notion of, “I realize most people hated that thing from my childhood, but I bet I could make it good!” At best, he was a rad addition to the Godzilla mythos. At worst, he was a dumb idea from a dumb movie. For the most part, he’s remembered as something goofy that gets laughed at, despite having some genuine earnestness.

Jet Jaguar was created from both a fan contest and a corporate game of telephone. Back in 1972, to jump on the bandwagon of tokusatsu giant superhero/robot shows, Toho asked fans to design their own superhero design. The winner was a half-man/half-bird robot with a lengthy neck resembling a stack of rings named Red Alone. The concept was turned into a full-on rubber costume, but they changed the color scheme, which upset the young winner. They later decided to just scrap the whole thing, keep the color scheme, and make their own new design. And so, Jet Jaguar was born.

The superhero made an entire one movie appearance in 1973’s Godzilla vs. Megalon. As the urban legend goes, this was initially intended to be a standalone Jet Jaguar movie that the studio just didn’t have faith in towards the end and they hastily threw in Godzilla and recurring Godzilla villain Gigan. While the claim is dubious and unproven, it certainly is easy to understand where the allegations come from.

Everything about the movie feels rushed. As the last-minute replacement for another Godzilla film that didn’t pan out, filming took several weeks and production was a mere six months. Even the Godzilla costume was whipped up in record time. As for the story, outside of the intro, the preexisting elements (Godzilla and Gigan) aren’t thrown in until about 2/3 into the movie. Up until that point, it feels like a Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon movie with the production team hitting the panic button.

The plot of Godzilla vs. Megalon is that a scientist Goro Ibuki is working on a robot called Jet Jaguar, along with his little brother Rokuro and his best friend Hiroshi. They get wrapped up in a plot involving a group of beings from Atlantis-But-Not-Really, who are annoyed at all the nuclear bomb tests going on in their neck of the woods. They steal Jet Jaguar and use him to guide their insect god Megalon to different cities for the sake of smashing them up and punishing humanity.

Goro and friends get their hands on Jet Jaguar’s controls and use him to lead Godzilla to where Megalon is. Then the Seatopians call some alien friends for a solid and have them send in Gigan. Jet Jaguar is able to break away from all control and becomes fully sentient, as well as revealing the ability to turn into a giant. It becomes a big tag team battle, mostly remembered for Godzilla doing the silliest dropkick you’ve ever seen, followed by a second one for good measure.

The villains escape, Jet Jaguar and Godzilla shake hands, they go their separate ways, and Jet Jaguar reunites with the humans heroes after shrinking back down. He gets his own snazzy theme song to close things out.

In Japan, the movie wasn’t all that successful. As the thirteenth title in the Godzilla series, it brought in the worst returns yet. Between public burnout and the movie’s lack of quality, it just wasn’t grabbing people. That said, it came out at just the right time in the United States. Released in 1976, it came out months before the anticipated King Kong remake. The American movie poster for the movie even bit on the King Kong poster by featuring Godzilla and Megalon duking it out while each standing on a different Twin Tower, even though the movie at no point took place in the States.

A year later, the movie would be cut down into 48 minutes so they could broadcast it on NBC in prime time, across an hour with commercials. The only reason I mention this at all is because it was hosted by John Belushi wearing a Godzilla costume, which is sadly somewhere in the abyss of golden lost media.

Getting back to Jet Jaguar – the topic of this article – I feel the need to bring up Germany’s handling of the movie’s translation. Rather than call him “Jet Jaguar,” they referred to him as “King Kong.” I mean…sure, why not. Even weirder, when the next two movies introduced fellow giant robot MechaGodzilla, Germany once again referred to the robot as “King Kong.” Guys, I know what you’re going for here, but it doesn’t work that way.

Anyway, Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla and Terror of MechaGodzilla followed Godzilla vs. Megalon and closed off the classic Showa Era of Godzilla movies. Not only did Japan need to rest Godzilla as a concept for nearly a decade, but this also meant that whenever Godzilla would come back, it was going to be some kind of reboot or new “only the first movie counts” installment. Jet Jaguar was never high on the list to be brought back, especially since MechaGodzilla completely overshadowed him.

He would at least get a little more exposure in 1991 when Godzilla vs. Megalon was featured in the second season of Mystery Science Theater 3000. While much of the episode is spent making fun of one of the Seatopians for looking like Oscar Wilde, they toss plenty of jokes at Jet Jaguar. Most memorably, they “translate” Jet Jaguar’s ending theme, which notes that his mother never loved him and he looks a lot like Jack Nicholson.

Due to rights issues, Godzilla vs. Megalon is one of the few MST3K episodes that is no longer legally available for viewing. This does make the original MST3K Collection Volume 10 box set (which included Godzilla vs. Megalon as one of the four movies) a collector’s item, as it was later discontinued and rereleased with The Giant Gila Monster taking its spot.

A stranger use of Jet Jaguar comes in the form of Certain Distant Suns’ music video for “Bitter” in 1995. While there’s not much of a narrative outside of the band playing, footage of Godzilla vs. Megalon being shown, and a few shots of guys walking around in Megalon and Jet Jaguar costumes, I really insist you give the video a look due to the ending. It certainly goes in a direction I wasn’t expecting.

In 1997, Jet Jaguar made his next official appearance in another frankly bizarre spectacle. In Japan, a series called Godzilla Island appeared on TV in three-minute increments. While it only lasted a year, there were a whopping 256 episodes, meaning almost 13 hours of footage. If you’ve never heard of Godzilla Island, you might be thinking, “Wow, almost 13 hours of Godzilla stuff? Why isn’t this more well known?”

Well, it probably has a lot to do with the fact that instead of using guys in rubber suits, the kaiju action was done with action figures. Yikes.

Not only did Jet Jaguar show up during these adventures, but they gave him the 90s superhero action figure treatment. Much like how they released as many figures of Batman as possible for different crime-fighting scenarios, Godzilla Island gave us Silver Jet Jaguar, Medical Jet Jaguar, and even Fireman Jet Jaguar. Collect them all!

Read more

Movies

Godzilla vs. Kong Writer Talks About Spending 8 Years in the MonsterVerse

By Don Kaye

Movies

Godzilla vs. Kong Director and Writer Talk Future of The MonsterVerse

By Don Kaye

In the early 2000s, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee was released for the GameCube and Xbox under the Atari brand. It was a fighting game featuring various characters from Godzilla lore and though Atari wanted to include Jet Jaguar, Toho refused. Still, at least Megalon was included in the game. There would be two sequels in the form of Godzilla: Save the Earth and Godzilla: Unleashed. FINALLY, Jet Jaguar was playable, because if there’s anything you can count on, it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel when you’re working on multiple installments of a nostalgic who’s who project.

He’d also return in 2014’s Godzilla game for PlayStation 3 and 4. The producer of the game didn’t even plan on putting him in there, but he saw that the programmers already were working on him and just shrugged it off. There was a special trick to summoning Jet Jaguar as a boss character. By ending up in three different Godzilla vs. Jet Jaguar scenarios and winning all three times, you would then unlock a special cutscene of the two shaking hands while a confused military woman would wonder about their history.

Around the mid-2010s, IDW Publishing was all about releasing a bunch of comics with the Godzilla license. Their mainline series was Godzilla: Rulers of the Earth, which went on for 25 issues. Early on, Jet Jaguar appeared out of nowhere during a fight between Godzilla and the team of Gigan and Orga. In human size, Jet Jaguar flew into Orga’s mouth, then expanded into giant size, causing the beast to explode. Especially awesome was that it came with the cliffhanger text, “Next: PUNCH! PUNCH! PUNCH!” a reference to Jet Jaguar’s theme song from the movie.

Jet Jaguar showed up regularly in the series, coming off as Godzilla’s designated driver friend and handler. What I mean is that he seemed to be out to protect Godzilla, but that meant having to keep his violent ally on task (ie. pointing out that Gigan was nearby to stop Godzilla from attacking Jet Jaguar) and throwing punches when the situation absolutely called for it.

This continuity played up Jet Jaguar as more enigmatic than anything, as although he was mechanical, the only human character who knew his origins was killed off before it could be explained. Even one of the invading alien villains saw him on a screen and basically went, “Oh crap. It’s THIS guy!” Regardless, he still came off as a total badass, winning fights against Godzilla, Gigan (the chainsaw-hand version), and Destroyah.

Then again, at one point he needed to be saved by the 1998 American Godzilla, which at least proved as a reminder to the robot hero that there are Toho characters far more hated than him.

Toho started using Jet Jaguar again, albeit in sillier ways. In 2019, as an April Fool’s Day prank, they put up a teaser on YouTube for a Jet Jaguar movie. They also had him appear a few times on Godziban, a Godzilla web series for kids that, once again, used dolls and action figures to tell its stories.

Now Jet Jaguar is a major part of Godzilla Singular Point. To get into specifics on the plot would be like explaining advanced calculus, but to keep on-topic, Jet Jaguar is the creation of Goro Otaki as both a way to ward off monstrous threats and as a company mascot. Considering King Kong’s role in King Kong vs. Godzilla was “kidnapped to be a company mascot,” maybe the Germans were onto something with the rename.

Anyway, this version of Jet Jaguar is more mechanical in appearance instead of having to rely on making him look like a human in a costume. Jet Jaguar is there to protect the heroes from the endless supply of monsters, usually taking some extensive damage. Still, the robot gets rebuilt stronger and stronger and becomes advanced enough to become self-aware and speak in…well, the voice of a teenage girl.

I don’t know, I guess I just figured he’d sound like Astro Guy from King of the Monsters.

There’s a big hard-to-explain twist, but the main thing to know is that Jet Jaguar becomes a full-on badass by the end of the series, turns out to be a huge key to the plot, and has a completely kickass showdown with Godzilla. In a way, Jet Jaguar’s journey in Singular Point is a lot like in real life, going from a lame idea that appealed to kids and gradually being understood as a respected part of the Godzilla mythos. Something initially representative of the worst of the franchise, proven to be something genuinely cool in the right hands.

Now it’s time for America to return the favor. Once again, timing is on Jet Jaguar’s side. The Monsterverse was on its way to the graveyard after the box office intake of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but Godzilla vs. Kong came out at just the right time in the tail end of the pandemic to be a big success and keep the series going a little bit longer. There aren’t too many names in the toybox left to pull out, but at this point, Gigan and Jet Jaguar have to be high on the list.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Make it happen, Hollywood!

Godzilla Singular Point is available to stream on Netflix now.

The post Godzilla Singular Point: The Weird History of Jet Jaguar appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[loveafterthefact]

Love After the Fact Chapter 57: Wasting Time with a New Friend

Lotor makes some new friends. Together, they discover that word of Lance and Keith's union has reached video game developers in the worst, best way.

Featuring Leakira in the role of comic relief (Not to offend Leakira fans, this is meant to be a fun, happy place. I just thought it might be funny little detail) XD

First  Previous  Next

Lotor finds them sleeping in a hallway. A much-needed distraction.

More specifically, it’s an adolescent Olkari with orange feelers, dressed in green and white garb stained with red dust. They’re incredibly small, even for a smaller species. Pretty adorable, like a wolf cub.

So obviously he nudges them with his foot.

“Can I help you?” the kit growls, amber eyes glaring up at him.

“You’re sleeping in a hallway.”

“And? What’s your point?”

“... You know what? I’m not really sure.”

With a groan, the kit sits up, tugging on their feelers. “So what are you up to, Mr. Prince?”

“Oh not much. Wandering around, looking for trouble.” He’s actually looking for a distraction, but that’s almost the same thing as trouble.

“Trouble, huh?” The Olkari smirks. “I’m Pidge. Lance’s resident tech genius and vent crawler- I mean spy.”

“Ah-haha, I see. You’re one of his ‘associates’.” Lotor grins, helps Pidge to their feet.

“Yes. Working for Lance usually involves some level of trouble. What are the princes up to today, anyway?”

“Lance is with Allura. She’s having a hard morning. Keith is with Thace, our emergency medic and reproductive specialist.”

“Oh, really? Making sure his junk works?”

“That’s the idea. Why?”

“It’d be awesome to have some dirt on Keith. He’s just so perfect.” Pidge skips down the hallway, a curious prince following behind them. “The worst thing he’s done is drink a bit too much, find his happy place at a party, and get really snuggly with Lance.”

Following Pidge into what should have been an old, empty storeroom, Lotor’s eyes widen in surprise. The typically ignored room is set up with monitors and a work table covered with Balmeran crystals and a few other tools.

“Where did you get some of these tools?” he asks, eyeing a choice laser of Galra design.

“I crawled through the tunnels underneath the actual labs and stole them. I’m welcome in the labs, of course. I just don’t want to share my work with them. The field of science is rife with thieves.”

“You found the tunnels already?” Lotor stares. There are tunnels all under the mountain, his ancestors making the massive peak into an insect hive. There are escape tunnels and hidden caches and underground pools and even a forge made of volcanic glass that he discovered as a small boy.

He still likes to go down there on the rare occasion he can find the time. Someday, he’ll take his children down there, and tell them all about the stories carved into the ancient walls.

“Yep! Anyway, let’s see if I can hack into Thace’s equipment. And by that I mean give me like, thirty ticks because I can definitely do it.” While Pidge types away on their computer, Lotor sits himself on the floor, eyeing a faint square cut into the stone. Most people don’t notice, don’t know to look for the fine edges carved into the floor. “Ooh… Interesting.”

“What’s interesting?” Lotor asks. “Is Keith okay?”

“You really care for him, don’t you?” Amber eyes smile at him, intuitive.

“Of course I do! He’s my cousin! And my friend!” And he has more than his fair share of health problems. Lotor himself was not a healthy kit, so he understands the worries that his cousin might have.

“Aw-w. You’re just a big ol’ sweetheart, aren’t ya?” Pidge turns back to their computer. “What’s interesting is that Keith is… surprisingly healthy. His weight and body mass index are good… Thace is optimistic about a successful pregnancy.”

“Why is that interesting?” Lotor scratches his head, frowning a little.

“Because our boys requested contraceptives, probably due to health concerns.”

“Miscarriage risks are higher for him. That’s partially due to his sex, and partially due to his condition. Do you think they’ll use contraceptives?”

“Pfft. No. They’re young, they’re stupid, and they both want pups. I doubt Lance can keep it in his pants.”

“What about Keith?”

“He’s shy.” Pidge shrugs like that explains everything. It kind of does. Keith’s priorities are probably more of the cuddling variety than the ‘aggressive hugging’ variety. “Can I have some of your blood?”

“Hm? Uh… How much blood?”

“I dunno. A few vials? Maybe I’ll swab your cheek too? It might help with my experiments.”

“And what might those be?”

“I’m trying to invent Altean-friendly prosthetics. It’s not going well. Alteans are stupid inside and out.” Pidge gathers their tools to stick him, and Lotor stares. This tiny little Olkari is far more than they appear. “Who do you think will kill Lance for getting Keith pregnant? Krolia or Shiro?”

But they're young, still playful and carefree.

“Hm… My money’s on Krolia. Or the creepy friend.”

“Adam? Oh, he’s softer than he looks. More likely he’ll live vicariously through their children and terrorize anyone who tries to mess with them.” Pidge sticks a swab in his cheek as they fill a second vial with his blood. “Your fangs are adorable.”

“Thanks?” Lotor regards them. “So you do science, you do people… What don’t you do?”

“Relationships.” Pidge cleans the crook of his arm, bandaging the spot where they bled him. “And genders. Those are for more primitive individuals.”

Lotor laughs. “More highly evolved, are you?”

“Exactly. Unlike Alteans. Stupid, scaley assholes with stupid, cranky cells.”

“I don’t get it. What exactly is the problem?” Lotor peers over Pidge’s shoulder as they examine his cells under their microscope.

“Not sure, but Alteans have some odd properties that make their biology incompatible with metal, coral, bone, wood, and other prosthetic materials. When used, the Altean’s cells refuse to accept the forgein material, even if it’s biocompatible. Hence, their cells are stupid.”

“So it would seem. How are my cells?”

“Hm… I'll have to run some of my own, secret tests. I may try to culture your skin cells to figure out how it all works.”

“Have at it. Can I interest you in a secret?”

“Always!” The young Olkari’s eyes shine, eager to learn. To know. A person after his own heart.

“Most of Altea’s technology is rediscovered. Thousands of decaphoebs ago, there was what’s known as The Forgetting. The Altean’s powers were quite suddenly drastically altered, and their society descended into chaos. Much of their technology was lost, then rediscovered within the last few milophoebs.”

“No fucking way!”

“Way. This includes their lauded Teludav technology.”

“Those fakers! How have I not heard of this?”

“I know! It’s their best kept secret. Also, beneath Mount Sil’brana is a petrified forest.”

“Oh, that’s so cool!” Pidge makes a note on their datapad. “I wonder… I don’t know if I could interface with that or not. Probably not, since it’s no longer organic, but then again perhaps I could reach the echo?”

“Echo?”

“All organic life leaves behind an echo. Sometimes, I can reach that echo. I’d be great at solving murders!”

“Well, if ever I am murdered, do find my killer. I’m sure my wife would appreciate it.”

“Unless she did the murdering,” Pidge snickers.

“Some days, it wouldn’t surprise me at all. She’d say it’s my fault, but…”

“Pregnancy.”

“Yeah. How do you think Keith will be when he gets pregnant?”

“He’s relatively mild-mannered as long as Lance keeps him happy, so either unbelievably psychotic or unbearably sweet.”

“He is really sweet. I honestly didn’t expect it when he first arrived. Lance is a little… He’s reserved, but also high-strung at the same time?”

“He definitely can be. But he can also be very playful. Those two are either quiet and reserved together, or cutting up and goofing off together. But Lance is the high-strung one, for sure. Keith just wants to know whose head to crack open. Lance wants to know every single little detail about everything.”

“So he’s a control freak.”

“Little bit, yeah. We’ve all got our thing.” Pidge smiles. “But Lance gave me a home when mine was lost. He had no reason to do that. He didn’t know what I was capable of.”

“I had assumed you were on Altea for research?” Lotor's curious, but won't push.

“No. Though I do enjoy research. For example, I have the new Phantasm Killbot game. I just got to the first visual novel part where they introduce the characters and their little side plots and all. Wanna help me out? For research?” The Olkari holds up a controller.

“Yeah alright. Anything for research.” Lotor takes the controller, waits for the character introduction screen. He’s played this game before. “Player one… Leandro.”

“Player Two… Akira.”

The screen loads.

“Uh… That’s… Interesting. Is that- Does that look like Lance to you?” It really does, at least to Lotor. The only difference is that ‘Leandro’ has brown hair and his scales are a very pale blue.

“Wow, that’s weird. Okay. Let’s see where this goes- Oh my fuck, this is going to be good.”

Lotor can’t help but agree, staring at a screen of a smirking ‘Leandro’ lounging with a wide-eyed Galra presumably named ‘Akira’. The Galra has purple hair and golden irises, dressed in what might loosely be referred to as clothing.

It’s exceptionally weird, even weirder given that Akira is the name of Keith’s father, Lotor’s uncle.

“I cannot wait to tell my cousin about this,” Lotor breathes, coming to the realization of exactly what’s before him.

“Yes! We have to! Right now!” Pidge stands, tugs on his arm.

“Well, let’s not be too hasty.” Lotor stares at the screen, that mischievous part of his brain clicking and whirring. “I mean, we have to do our research, right?”

“You know…” Pidge taps their chin. “You might be onto something.”

“I mean it’s just courtesy, right? Making sure we can give them all the information we possibly can?”

“You’re absolutely right. Okay, so you get first choice for dialogue and it looks like Not-Keith has a prompt for us.”

“Oh, gods. Okay, I am so sorry, Keith… Let’s see, here.”

…

Akira: We can’t keep meeting like this. What if people find out?

Leandro: I’m a prince, my sweet. I do what I want.

Akira: But you could be killed!

Leandro: You’re worth dying for.

Leandro: It’s my fault, anyway. I just couldn’t resist you.

Akira: It’s not your fault. I let you have me.

Leandro: You should let me have you again.

Akira: Please… I need it…

*Kiss Passionately*

Leandro: Oh, my sweet. You’re in season!

Akira: Make love to me, and I will give you a son.

…

“I feel dirty,” Lotor mutters. “This is what’s passing for entertainment right now?”

“It’s so bad! I love it!” Pidge snickers.

“Lance is going to be mortified.”

“No, he won’t.” The two new friends turn to see Adam leaning in the doorway, smirking.

“And why, pray tell, is that?” Lotor asks, one eyebrow almost reaching his hairline.

“Lance is bigger than that. He’ll be filled with a sense of… well-being.”

“Oh, gross! Adam!” Pidge chucks a wrench at the Altean’s head, the trio laughing as he dodges, then retrieves it for them. “I don’t want to hear about my friend’s dick!”

“Am I wrong?”

“No, and I hate it.” Pidge drags Adam to the floor, sits in his lap. “Okay, you can help us. What should Leandro say next? ‘A daughter would be fine’ or ‘Honor me with the gift of your flesh’?”

“Who the quiznak wrote this?” Adam mutters. “And we want ‘Honor me with the gift of your flesh.’”

“I don’t know, but I will find out. And kill them,” Lotor mutters.

“Easy on the instincts, Mr. Prince.” Pidge continues to the next cut scene.

“It’s nothing to do with instincts! I just hate that I had to read that!” Lotor sighs. “At least that cut scene is over. Now we have… Brothers, Sven and Kuron? Lots of new characters for this one.”

Adam blinks, gaping at the screen. “What. The fuck-”

...

Allura sighs, running a hand through her loose curls. It's been a rough morning, one that doesn't promise to get easier. A howling chorus of laughter cuts through her stressed thoughts. Cracking open a storeroom, she spies her husband, Adam, and Pidge laughing away at a video game.

"I wOuLd DiE fOr AkIrA," Pidge mocks, cackling.

"Leandro, please!" Lotor laughs, cutting through a false simper as he pretends to swoon. "I couldn't live without you!"

"That's such a toxic sentiment, honestly." Adam shakes his head, but his eyes are glittering bright.

Shaking her head, Allura leans in the doorway, settling a hand on her slightly protruding stomach. Life is never perfect, not for anyone. But seeing her husband playing around and having fun with their friends -his new friends- suggests that everything might still turn out alright. Or at least, not as awful as it sometimes seems.

[funkaliciousfrog]

I’m bored, so I’m temporarily turning into a seasonal anime blog for a single extremely long post. 

I’m checking out more new anime than usual this season, and I’ve been in the mood to write lately. So, I thought it’d be fun to record my expectations for each show and my impressions of their first episodes. Even if no one but me ever reads it. 

Joran the Princess of Snow and Blood

That one show I’m watching partially just cause Aoi Shouta is there. I’m interested to see if he can pull off a female character who dresses as a man, which as he put it himself is the “gyakku-pattern” compared to his usual roles. Tbh watching shows just cause Shouta is in them hasn’t worked out super great for me in the past (I didn’t really like 2.43 or Kimi to Boku, and Hamefura was just alright), so we’ll see what happens here. It’s an anime original so who knows how the story will end up. But going off the trailer, at the very least we’ll get some cool aesthetics and sick fight animation.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the plot of this show is gonna involve some politics, since it takes place in an alternate 1930s where the reign of the Tokugawa shogunate hasn’t ended yet. Yeah, you might need to skim a Wikipedia article or two on Japanese history for this one. The main characters are assassins, working undercover for the shogunate and fighting some group of superpowered shapeshifting animal people. The protagonist works in a bookshop by day and lives with her very young sister who does all the housework. She also has some kind of crow-related powers that haven’t been explained yet. In fact, there’s a lot of things about the setting that were only touched upon and I guess will be elaborated on later. 

The character designs and background art are very nice, but something feels off with the actual animation. Things move in weird stiff ways, some of the special effects are kinda ugly, and the fight scenes in particular are disjointed at points. Although I think that disjointedness came more from the storyboarding than the animation itself? I can’t say for sure since I’m not one of those sakuga expert people. But, I can still tell the production value here isn’t quite as high as it appeared from the PV. The premise has potential, but as the story unfolds we’ll see if it’s good enough to carry the less than stellar animation. 

And as for Shouta, all he really got to do this episode was be dapper and talk in cryptic insect-themed metaphors. Oh, and randomly pull out a lightsaber, since I guess they have those in this show? I’m mostly curious to see how the people who don’t pay any attention to voice actors will react when his character’s actual gender is revealed. 

Mashiro no Oto

Hibike Euphonium was one of my first anime and remains one of my faves. So,  I’m always interested in shows about classical music and/or playing instruments. The manga has won multiple awards so it should be a good story, and hopefully this adaptation is just as good. As another show about a traditional Japanese instrument, the Kono Oto Tomare comparisons will be inevitable. But honestly, I’d be happy just learn some stuff about the shamisen cause I think it's cool. 

This was quite the whirlwind first episode. Our main character Setsu has been playing shamisen with his grandpa since he was a little kid. But, turns out his grandpa is displeased with his grandson’s sound, so he makes it his dying wish that Setsu stop playing shamisen. Once his grandpa does die, Setsu feels distraught, impulsively gets on a bus to Tokyo, ends up living with a random gravure idol for a week, picks fights with her no-good wanna-be rockstar boyfriend, at the very end a SWAT team shows up... it’s a lot. 

And I don’t really know how it will proceed from here either. After speeding through this escapade in Tokyo, I think (or hope) that the pace will settle down starting next week. And going off the poster we’ll eventually end up in a high school shamisen club, somehow.

I really enjoyed the bits and pieces of shamisen music in this episode, it just sounds so cool! I hope to eventually get more specific information about the instrument and its repertoire. All I really want from these shows about extremely specific topics is to be educated! They also played either the OP or ED at the end, and it sounded pretty neat. Unlike Kono Oto Tomare they actually put the instrument of question into the song, which I appreciate (though I still like all the Kono Oto OPs and EDs). 

The art in the PV didn’t seem like anything that special, but the episode itself actually looked very nice in the important moments. I especially liked the snowy background art from the beginning. They also took an interesting direction with the character designs: everyone is drawn with very thin lines and most of the time without cel shading. Sometimes it looks like an aesthetic choice, and other times it just looks kinda cheap. The animation itself is nothing crazy, but at least from my uneducated perspective the shamisen playing looks pretty believable. 

After 2.43's Fukui-ben from last season, I guess this show will be my new source of Japanese regional dialects. Apparently Setsu’s accent is so strong that the girl he’s staying with asks him if he’s a foreigner, which I thought was funny. They don’t mention where he’s from, but he and his family use the same “-be” ending as the main character from the Great Pretender. Which isn’t helpful cause I can’t remember where he was from either. But anyway, for some reason it just amuses me every time someone says “dabe”. 

(A footnote about Setsu’s accent: I’ve done a bit of research, or rather literally just typed “be” into jisho.com, which I can’t believe actually worked, and it seems to be some type of Touhoku dialect. His voice actor, Nobunaga Shimazaki, is from that area so I guess that checks out? Although according to the Wikipedia page it’s used as a generic rural accent in media, so maybe they don’t care about the specific region as long as he sounds like a country boy.)

Farewell, My Dear Cramer

Finally, an all-girls sports anime! There are a few out there already, but I haven’t seen any of them yet (except maybe Chihayafuru, which has a mixed gender cast but an awesome female lead). As far as I’ve read, most have mixed reviews and tend to lean into other genres and/or have a lot of fanservice. So, I’d really like this show to be the female version of a straightforward realistic sports show like Haikyuu that is missing from all our lives. But it looks like it might be a drama about sports instead, which potentially could be just as good. It did come from the Your Lie in April mangaka after all, if you couldn’t tell from the weird lips. Besides that, the art in the trailer looks really nice. 

So apparently soccer, especially women’s soccer, is an unpopular sport in Japan? The protagonist Nozomi thinks she’s too good for girl’s soccer after playing with the boys for all of middle school, but is convinced to join the girl’s team in high school anyway. Then we meet a couple of her new teammates who were similar prodigies in middle school, and jump right into a scrimmage between the first and second years? 

It’s kind of a weird first episode. While it does technically establish the setting and characters, after the first few minutes it kind of feels like we’ve just been thrown into the mix of things. There’s also a noticeable lack of music in a lot of scenes which makes it feel even weirder.

The character designs are less of a problem than I thought they’d be, although the lips and sometimes the eyes still do look a bit strange. The simple, almost graphic quality is actually kind of interesting. It’s also very refreshing to see a variety of female characters that just look and act like normal high schoolers. They’re really just here to play soccer, not to be sexy or cute or really attractive to the viewer in any way. 

Although we do get some nice soccer playing in the ED, the animation in the episode itself definitely isn’t at Haikyuu levels or anything. They avoid actually animating a lot of the action with speed-line backgrounds and barely-moving shots where only the hair and clothes flap in the wind. 

Nozomi has the same voice actress as Kaede from Gal and Dino, and her performance there was one of my favorite parts of that show so I’m looking forward to more from her. Aoi Yuki and Tomoyo Kurosawa, definitely a couple of notable names, also show up in this episode. 

Fruits Basket Final

More Fruits Basket, lets gooo! Second season was awesome so I have high expectations. I’ve already been slightly spoiled on a few things about the ending, but I’m still looking forward to seeing the specifics of the mystery of the Soma family curse wraps up. 

We pick up right where we left off last season with Kureno dropping the ~big reveal~ about Akito’s gender on Tohru. Turns out she’s a girl, but raised as a boy by her mother from birth for yet unknown reasons. Then he talks more about her parents: her dad Akira seems to be dead (yet another mysterious white-haired Akira Ishida character for the books), and her relationship with her mother Ren is messy to say the least. 

Finally, best girl Saki shows up and saves the day! She brings Tohru back to her house, and along with Arisa gives her the reality check we’ve all been waiting for: she is going to burn herself out if she keeps on putting others’ needs before her own. 

Interestingly, even though she seems to be a pretty bad mom, Ren is in the right here about the unhealthy relationship between Akito and the zodiacs. Is she really being kept inside because of physical and mental illness, or is that just Akito’s excuse for locking her mother away? I suspect it’s the latter. Akito loves a good power trip, and if Ren were allowed to talk to the zodiacs she could possibly undermine the hold Akito maintains over them. It could also be a combination of both reasons, so I’ll just have to wait and see.

The OP is awesome! The photo backgrounds incorporate the 2D characters well and it just looks very nice. The song’s R&B-ish sound also stood out instantly from the pop ballads Fruits Basket usually gives us. Once it comes out on Spotify, I will be adding it to my playlist along with Chime and Eden. Btw, if you haven’t heard the full version of Eden I recommend you check it out cause it really goes some places you don’t even get to hear in the TV-sized version.

On a side note, this show has some real fashionistas. Rin, Haruhatsu, Saki, and this episode Arisa have great outfits. That cropped shearling jacket with the skinny scarf? 👌 It’s also adorable how Saki and her little goth brother coordinate their looks. I will never forget that time they casually rolled up to an okonomiyaki restaurant rocking black opera gloves. 

Zombieland Saga Revenge

More Zombieland Saga! The best part of the first season imo was the comedy, but I’m guessing we’ll get more into the mystery/drama part of the show here: more information about Kotaro and his motives/methods, Tae’s identity, etc. We’ll see how it goes. I’m also hoping for more bops like Adabana Necromancy and Saga Jihen. 

Oh how I missed this show’s manic energy...

Since the end of the last season, it seems Kotaro got overzealous and booked an arena for a concert that only sold 300 tickets, putting the group into a whole bunch of debt. So now the girls are all working part-time to pay it off, and they’re not nice jobs either: factory worker, farmhand, construction worker... milk-deliverer? Do they even have those in Japan? Now there’s some #commentary on showbiz. 

As for Kotaro, the whole thing has left him in such a haggard state that he’s managed to grow his hair down to his collar bones in a month flat. Now he spends his days bar hopping and rambling even less coherently than usual (although Mamoru Miyano is clearly having as much fun as ever). Franchuchu are left to prepare all by themselves for their anniversary concert at the tiny venue where they made their debut. But, they decide they’ll use it as a chance to sing the unperformed encore song from the arena concert for Kotaro, thinking it might relight his spark. 

We do get a drop of new information about the plot: turns out there’s a strict deadline on the Zombieland Saga Project, which is the real reason why Kotaro so upset. Maybe whatever necromancy he used on the girls will wear off after a certain amount of time and turn them back into corpses? The bartender at his favorite spot is apparently in on the whole zombie thing, and he’s the one who finally snaps Kotaro out of it. He sprints over to the anniversary concert and literally starts throwing hands with the unreceptive metalhead audience. To finish out the episode we get a glorious slow motion brawl sequence as Franchuchu sing the encore song. 

I don’t know if that encore will be the OP or ED, or if it’s just a insert song. It was alright I guess. To be honest I liked Iron Frill’s songs more than Franchuchu’s in the first season, and I feel like that will continue to be the case this season. I’m excited to see the new OP tho, even if it’ll be hard to beat the iconic Adabana Necromancy. And on a vaguely related note, it was cool to see the real Zombieland Saga ost album, Franchuchu The Best pop up in the episode.

Pretty Boy Detective Club

This one has people intrigued because it’s written by the author of the Monogatari series (which I haven’t seen yet) and animated by Shaft. There’s also the extremely Ouran-esque setup, with Maaya Sakamoto even voicing the cross-dressing main girl. Also I just think the title is funny. Honestly I don’t really know what to expect from this one besides the usual Shaft aesthetic, so we’ll see what happens. 

Mayumi wears glasses to keep attention away from her pretty eyes, but while stargazing on the roof she gets caught without them by Ayumu Murase in a detective hat. He ropes her into the Pretty Boy Detective Club, a shady secret organization at her middle school. We enter the clubroom and meet the members, a bunch of over-the-top eccentric tropey characters that wouldn’t be found in any non-anime middle school in a million years. Shoutout to that one guy in the hot pants. Then Mayumi reveals that she’s been looking for a star she saw once on a family vacation, and the boys decide to take up her case. 

I knew I was really in for something when I was hit with musings about Voltaire right out of the gate. Although from what I’ve heard about the Monogatari series, this kind of ~intellectual~ monologuing is totally on brand. And I don’t know if anyone else picked up on the subtle hints they were dropping in those monologues, but I sense that, maybe, perhaps, beauty is going to be a theme in this show...? Maybe it’s going to be some kind of #meta #commentary on pretty boys anime? That could be interesting, although there’s also a chance they’ll just play it straight. They even have an idol-anime-esque ED sung by the the main cast, so honestly it could go either way. 

As expected from Shaft, the visuals are all on point. I love both celestial and geometric imagery so this show’s aesthetic feels made just for me. The shifts in art style are also pretty neat. As for the character designs, my favorite part is probably the snazzy school uniform with the galaxy printed ties and striped pants and skirts. Although Murase’s character momentarily sprouted one of those flesh-fangs that I HATE they look so NASTY. 

I has a pretty fun time with this episode, it was just so absurdly Anime. I liked hot pants guy and his poses (tho I don’t love that he’s 12), and delinquent guy who was just tired of everyone else’s nonsense and casually ate food off the ground. They were at the beach too, so it probably got all sandy? And when this popped up I died laughing; truly words to take to heart.  

(A footnote about the ED: I thought I had spotted an Elements Garden member in the songwriting credits, and then of course I had to find out if they actually made it or not. The lyrics were written by RUCCA, who isn’t actually in the group but collaborates with them frequently according to the Google Translated version of his Japanese Wikipedia page. He’s written for quite a few Elements Garden produced Aoi Shouta songs, which is where I recognized his name from. The composer is Masatoma Ohta, who as far as I can find isn’t associated with Elements Garden but did a pretty good job emulating their sound. Both of them have done a lot of work for seiyuu, idols, and seiyuu-idols, so I guess that’s why I instantly understood what this song was going for lol.)

[ciathyzareposts]

Ween : The Prophecy – Dragons and Cherries

Written by Alfred n the Fettuc

Once again, I apologize to our fellow readers for the very (very) long time between my posts and the short lengths of my gaming sessions but I was drowning in a huge quantity of work these last months. Hopefully, it should get better soon and I should be able to play and write more about adventure games… fingers crossed and thank you for your patience.

Last post I was saying that if this game managed to keep its momentum, it could be a very good one. Unfortunately, the next portion of the game was not as good as its introduction. The second grain of sand was quite easy to obtain, but confronted me to a tedious boss battle that took me way too much time to beat.

But first things first. Last time I managed to put my greedy hands on the first grain of sand (out of three) needed to complete my quest. Now it was time to confront the dragon in order to obtain the second one. Right after receiving OHKRAM’s congratulations on the first part of my quest, I find myself in front of a subterranean lake.

With that just beneath his house and with a little bit of money, OHKRAM could easily be a chiroptera-shaped vigilante.

When I try to cross the bridge, a big and ugly disembodied head blocks my path. It identifies itself as KRAAL’s messenger and drops a feather while appearing. I pick up the feather and look around the room. Three quartz crystals are shining on the floor near a seemingly-empty treasure chest.

Well now that I’ve left behind me a knife, a sword, a bowl of acid and poison berries, I agree that I have my doubts.

Using the feather on PETROY tells me that it’s a magical feather, used to make invisible things appear. The empty chest! Waving the feather at the chest reveals three items in it : a vial of venom, a vial of pollen, and a parchment telling me the instructions regarding the vials.

Testing my new Serpensortia potion.

The parchment also tells me that, when mixed, the potions could make other lifeforms appear. Unfortunately, when I mix the two ingredients in the cauldron and try to drop it onto a quartz, it doesn’t work. Using once again PETROY as a guide to everything magical in this game, I learn that the elixir I found into the room last time could be used to reverse the effects of other potions. I mix the elixir, the venom and the pollen into my cauldron and drop it on the monster… and it disappears. Yay!

Okay… errr… What?

Let’s rewind a bit. The venom makes a snake appear and the pollen makes a flower appear. So I guess it means the monster was part snake/part flower? Even if it made any sense, dropping a mixture of pollen and venom on a quartz should make a monster appear, no? I mean, it would have been a nice clue. But no, you have absolutely no means of solving this puzzle except by sheer luck. If I missed a clue somehow, feel free to correct me for CAPs.

Right after destroying the famous flowersnake monster, URM appears out of nowhere and tells me I don’t need my half-fish-amulet. I know it was supposed to help me breathe underwater if I was able to complete it, but I never found the other part. This tells me there is more than one way to solve puzzles in this game! I’m guessing that I missed the other part somewhere in the rooms I’ve already visited and that it would allow me to go underwater, hence bypassing the flowersnake puzzle entirely. I’ll continue for now but I’ll make sure to look into this alternative path once the game completed! (Please, fellow readers, if you want to give me clues about this, use ROT13 so I can look into that myself)

By my teeth, there’s no point in loading yourself with the million dollars you just found. Let me relieve you of this burden.

Going onto the bridge, I find myself in front of what can only be described as a sword-wielding imp guarding a patch of giant strawberries. This game keeps getting weirder every time.

Maybe this monster is part strawberry, part rock?

Looking around, I find a rock with characters etched in it. I can’t understand it but PETROY can. This is seemingly another riddle. “Beneath the dagger, the cauldron, the bow, the roast and then the game.” I think it will help in yet another game of pressing buttons in the correct order. I can pick up the sword from the hands of the imp (which, by its lack of reaction, seems to be only a statue) and use it to move the big rock into the hole next to it. I realize that this is the second time I do that in the first two hours of the game and ask myself if : A-the developers are already running out of ideas, and B-if the swords in this universe are only used as leverage to move things around.

Beware the fabled sword of Rockmover!

The two giant strawberries behind the imp statue were obviously going to turn URM’s head around and as soon as I clicked on them, our fruit-eating friend just appeared out of the blue and eat them. And then it… errr… vomited a pile of gold coins.

And I use the word vomit because I don’t want to imagine the alternative.

Clicking on the other holes make some kind of insect appear and disappear. URM tells me this is an Orivor, a short-sighted gold-eating insect. I plug the other hole with my cauldron and click on the last remaining hole. The orivor exits and ask for something to eat.

And he is every bit as ugly as a lot of monsters in the area.

Helping the little buddy to the huge pile of gold URM… errr… dropped on the bridge, the Orivor devours it and let me access to the rest of the area. I get back my cauldron (after a warning from the game that I shouldn’t leave my cauldron there, once again confirming the reassuring fact that this game seems to be devoid of dead-end scenarios) and proceed. OPALE appears to me once again and tell me to hurry because KRAAL wants to force her to marry him.

I will make sure to barge into the wedding with a ghost-zapping root-beer bottle.

After this intervention, I arrive in front of a gate guarded by a snake, which I had seen earlier into a vision. URM arrives once again to insist on the fact that I missed an alternative path into the game.

Oh come on you can’t make it even more obvious?

Using the torch on the snake doesn’t seem to scare it, but using the venom potion on it changes it into a quartz! The dangerous snake gone, I’m given free access over the rest of the screen. I pick up the torch and burn the thorns with it, opening the gate. However, a swarm of wasps immediately invade the place where the thorns were. I pick up a tiara on the ground and am told this is “one of the sacred jewels”. From what PETROY explained to me earlier, the sacred jewels can change the shape of my copper ball. I use the ring on my cauldron to turn it back into a copper ball and using the tiara on it changes it into a… copper pipe. Yay! You have a magic artefact that can change into different shapes and use it to make different kitchen appliances. Neat work OHKRAM. What’s next? A copper spoon?

Most boring magic ever.

The donut-shaped white thingy in the upper left corner of the screen appears to be a (timely) wasp-trap and I can reach it using my newly-shaped copper pipe. Using the wasp trap on the wasps trap them (you didn’t see that one coming, did you?).

Oh my… this wasp trap looks suspiciously like… blu-tack! NOooOOOooO!

I can now go through the gate in order to meet the famous dragon! OHKRAM appears to me to explain that the dragon is a shapeshifting one that can assume a hundred different appearances (including the ultimate weapon which is the shape of a dragon, which gets me asking why it bothers changing shapes at all in the first place). I have at my disposal three magic parchments in order to change shape myself, and the dragon only needs to be slightly stronger than his adversary to stop him from getting past. I sense a boss battle/puzzle coming up!

And I spent waaaaay too much time on this screen to my taste.

So. What do we have here. You can choose one of the three scrolls on the left of the screen to change your shape into something else. You name it : lions, bears, elephants, wolves. The whole circus is in town. Despite the fact that the dragon never, ever attacks, it always choose a more powerful form than you (debatable in some cases. For example : if you turn into a lion, it turns into an elephant, and if you turn into a wolf, it turns into a buffalo, I’m pretty sure these two battles could hold some kind of suspense).

I like the haughty attitude of the lion. He doesn’t really care about the battle.

Despite the fact that I spent way too much time on this screen, I’m still unsure of what each scroll does. I think there are classed by size because the first scroll only turn you into a lion or a buffalo, while the last one only turn you into smaller and smaller animals, but there is no real order here and a lot of it seems random. I tried many combinations. My first guess was that I had to turn the dragon into an elephant then turn myself into a mouse or an ant by selecting the smaller scroll but it doesn’t work. It also doesn’t help that the music is atrocious and repetitive during this segment.

My favorite battle : house cat versus beagle.

After quite some time, I realise that I can turn the dragon into a wasp! And what do I have on me? A wasp trap! I don’t know why it took me so long to understand that I could use my regular inventory items in order to solve this battle. Maybe the alternative interface with the scrolls made me think that it was some kind of mini game only? Whatever it was, I now had a trapped wasp in front of me.

Oh yeah. And I’m a worm too.

Once the wasp is trapped, though, nothing much happens except I can’t change shape anymore. I search the screen and find some cherries on the ground next to the tree! URM! I call URM using the flute (as a worm. I’d love to see an animation of the worm playing the flute), give him the cherries and order him to carry the wasp trap far from here. And the dragon is vanquished! The twins make another of their silly victory dance.

By the way, are the two pillars on the side my feet? Are they so small? How do they manage to carry my stuff? Can they change their height at will? This mystery must be solved.

OHKRAM appears once again and tells me I won my second grain of sand. Score! I’m then teleported to another part of the labyrinth in front of three doors. The Borgol is also back and tells me that KRAAL has casted a spell on the guardian of the REVUSS and that I need the fragrance of some flowers to give her her real shape back.

The Guardian of the REVUSS sounds like it could be a Doctor Who episode title.

And there we stop for today. The third grain of sand awaits behind what appears to be a maze. Join us next week to help the Guardian of the REVUSS and look into the real size of UKI and ORBI!

Session time : 45 minutes Total time : 1 hour 45 minutes Inventory : Copper Ball, Flute, Ring, Tablet, Venom, Pollen, Tiara, 2 Grains of Sand Companions : PETROY, UKI, ORBI, URM

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/ween-the-prophecy-dragons-and-cherries/