#like 'they aren't really even involved in the main plot yet' level spoilers

[magicalgirlmascot]

The Toa Inika are going to go from having only Takua as a mentor to having 2-3 experienced Toa/Turaga EACH all falling over each other to look after them and help them with their new powers. This dynamic ranges from fairly chill (Onua and Whenua are usually on the same page when it comes to teaching Nuparu, and have both agreed it's best not to watch when Lewa takes him for flying lessons), to Absolute Mayhem (What happens when you put four generations of Air Toa in the same room),

I went a little insane on this so in the interest of not clogging dashboards here

Fire: Jaller takes the whole thing Incredibly Seriously. He turns up at KNPS twice a week after school to practice combat training with Tahu in the gym and gets extremely annoyed if Tahu forgets and goes home before he gets there. Vakama is always there when Jaller comes, though, and he's always quite happy to spend time talking to him about anything and everything. He becomes something of a confidant for Jaller, and Jaller appreciates that he treats him like a young adult instead of a teenage boy.

Water: Hahli keeps trying to focus on how she can use her powers for combat and Gali has to gently redirect her towards other uses for them, like reading the weather or healing. It's not so much that Hahli is obsessed with fighting like her Hahli the Barbarian persona suggests, more just that she always wants to make sure she's being useful. Her training with Gali and Nokama tends to be a bit more relaxed and focused on meditation.

Air: Lewa is taking his role as Kongu's mentor about as seriously as he takes anything, which isn't much. He's very excited to show Kongu how to do things and only a little annoyed that he keeps getting zapped whenever Kongu uses his powers. Kongu is still extremely grumpy about not being able to fly, but between him, Lewa, and Matau they're working on a way to get him airborne. Grandpa Iruini is the one who helps him figure out how to handle his telepathy, because he's the only one of them who can sit still for long enough to come up with anything other than "just don't think about it." He posits himself as the Normal One/Grumpy Old Man of the bunch, but also can't help ribbing Matau about stuff.

Earth: Nuparu is very much into experimentation, which is kind of at odds with how slow Onua was to accept things initially. He keeps trying to ease Nuparu into things by focusing on his connection to the earth, like Whenua did for him, but Nuparu mostly works like "what would happen if I did x," doing x, and then documenting the results. Whenua thinks this is very funny, but also helps Onua redirect him to do things like help in the garden. Sometimes in the middle of Nuparu's training with Onua, Lewa kidnaps him to teach him how to fly. Unfortunately the way their flight works is very different so it's a bit of a weird one, but Nuparu loves to experiment and Lewa loves to fly so they get along like a house on fire.

Stone: Hewkii and Pohatu spend most of their training time playing sports and shooting the shit. Sometimes Macku tags along. Pohatu's sneaky, though, and manages to teach Hewkii about using both his stone and his accuracy powers through The Power Of Sports(TM). Onewa keeps trying to convince them both to use their powers to do shit like spawn uncut gemstones and make art, but unfortunately they're both way more into sports than art so he's outvoted. He grumbles about it but honestly he's glad Hewkii is in good hands.

Ice: Well, Matoro is related to two Toa of Ice so naturally he avoids learning anything from his dad and sticks to learning from Kopaka and Nuju. Kopaka isn't sure what to do with an apprentice. He treats it like he does work, planning lessons and giving clear, concise instructions. Pohatu thinks this is very funny and teases him about it when he's sitting at the kitchen table poring over lesson plans and teaching objectives. Nuju teaches Matoro more about theory than anything on account of not having powers anymore, and Whenua is always so excited to show Matoro the archive any time he has any questions. Kualus tries to get involved but Matoro tends to shut down when he comes into the picture, so he settles for needling Whenua for details afterward.

BONUS

Takua's "mentoring" style is very "I definitely know what I'm doing and am not in over my head at all haha." They're so excited that their friends are Toa now and very confidently tell them a bunch of stuff that winds up being completely off base because the Inika are Fucking Weird and don't work like normal Toa. Takua doesn't work like normal Toa either but in a different way. It's all a bit of a mess. They get them through the basics, though, enough to figure out what they are and what's going on.

Krahka doesn't have a mentoring style. Sometimes she shows up at school pretending to be a student and hang with various Toa on their spares/lunch breaks. Sometimes she makes things worse on purpose for her own entertainment. Very often she leverages the fact that she used to be their therapist to Do A Therapy on them when things seem like they're actually bad. She goes home and regales Onewa with tales of What The Kids These Days Are Up To.

[bugsbenefit]

"where others saw order I saw a straight jacket, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades!" Okay soo, is his whole monologue worthless now? Does he even think any of what he said or is that the mf talking, is there even an Henry anymore? I'm so confused

Where does the grandfathers clock fit in all of this

(everythings spoiler tagged but i'm still putting the rest under a read more so it's easier to scroll past)

i'm genuinely kind of curious how little they seemingly did with it too. specifically things like the grandfather clock are so relevant to the character in s4 it's an odd choice to not give it any significance in the origin story spin off

but i'm still waiting for more leaks, what we have right now is a very bare bones summary of plot beats, so the grandfather clock showing up at Some point is still very much possible. it just doesn't seem to have any major plot importance

regarding the monologue, yeah it really depends on what else we'll get form the play i think. i said yesterday too that i'm not a big fan of them seemingly wanting to lean into giving Henry his powers later on in life via possession because it creates a few problems for the writing of s5. it does solve the Will/Henry situation pretty neatly, it makes sense why they're paralleled that much with this. but it gets a bit odd when you suddenly have this kid where there's Actually something wrong with him (posession/cosmic creature influence) on the show with main characters that are all inherently different (queer, poc, disabilities). that just falls out of line of the ongoing theme

and yeah, it does make the monologue hit significantly less hard. the whole sentiment of feeling trapped by society works well coming from someone who's othered in some way, and being directed at another character that is also othered. if Henry's prime "otherness factor" came from a supernatural encounter it would lose a lot of the potential it had

but again, i don't really want to speak too much on it yet because we only have major plot beats bullet point lists after the first day of pre screening. any nuance about the characters and story beats that aren't part of the main message are still mostly unknown, so i want a clearer picture before i say that i think they picked the weaker option writing wise

with the MF having more active involvement you could also still take the time theme of s4 to s5 to some degree with the monologue, even without it being in the play. aspects like Vecna being able to show Nancy an accurate glimpse into the future with the gates opening implies that, in this case the MF, is in some way not bound by the same time constraints as people. so they could instead turn the monologue into a him Literally seeing/being shown time on a level normal humans don't experience and that being the reason he has such a meta view on it. so i do think they could make the monologue make sense, depending on how they define the MFs relationship to time and space in s5 and what it's relationship/bond to Vecna is actually like (gives them more room to fumble it though since Henry himself experiencing oppression and otherness based on him as a person would make the monologue work better regardless imo)

but yeah, if they really Do want to go the "it was due to MF influences all along" route they're opening up the door to some troubles. like you say, the monologue would lose a lot of it's impact if the Dimension X encounter was really all there was

but well see well see, i'm curious for more leaks to get out

[azures-grace]

BIG FREAKING TES 4: OBLIVION SPOILERS BELOW

(Hello mutuals, I wrote it out)

Okay so basically

I FREAKING love Oblivion so much. Yes, the character design is a... Bit odd to say the least, but the story is SO good.

Skyrim could never have TWO quests with incredibly complex plots involving lots of murder, and yet, here this 2006 game does. Oblivion literally gave us one plot about a cult that was in a negative light (main quest) and one about a cult in a positive light (dark brotherhood) and I love that. Nuance. I think it really shows how being IN the cult can change your perspective. And I think it's important to remember that everybody in the Mythic Dawn was a person. Also Mankar Camoren was half Altmer and half Bosmer and that is so cool and Skyrim could probably never fathom a mixed character with that much importance (even if he is the villain).

SPEAKING of Mankar Camoren (probably one of my favorite antagonists, up there with like, Dagoth Ur in terms of complexity ((you can fight me on this, I don't care, I think Camoren is neat even if I hate him for being responsible for killing babygrill Martin))) he had such an interesting narrative and like, the fact that he roped his kids into his cult? And how Paradise/the savage garden is actually just hell and all of the Mythic Dawn people were duped? OOH! I love it. I also dig how there's that one guy in the forbidden grotto that clearly had a high enough ranking in the cult to not be tortured by the Daedra and, in fact, be trusted with the torture of his fellow (dead) members, and yet he TURNED BACK and decided to help the Hero of Kvatch??? OOOOOH COMPLEXITY

Also Camoren did Oblivion realms in books before Hermaus Mora made it cool

Changing topics, I really love how the factions ACTUALLY required progression! You aren't just the arch mage without having any magical abilities aside from like, casting one minor spell. I legitimately, during my first playthrough, thought the Arcane University was the end of the Mages' Guild quest line IT'S NOT(????) You can apparently become arch mage and little me's brain would have an aneurysm. Fighter's guild? Starts off as just being paid to fight, gets a plot later (and a sick one at that)??

And the leaders of the guild don't just... Die and then you get promoted. The Fighters' Guild leader "retires" and then comes back to help you. The leader of the Mages' Guild sacrifices himself so you don't get Mannimarco'd. Heck, for the Dark Brotherhood, Lucien, who I'm pretty sure most of us see as the head of the Brotherhood, WASNT EVEN THE HEAD. he was a SPEAKER, the HoK killed Ungolim, man. (Also the fact that you can kill Lucien when you meet him [which younger me did I had to roll back so much] is wacky.)

For all the issues of the random NPCs, a lot of them have distinct personalities. I might struggle telling you the difference between the Companions aside from like... Aela and Vilkas and Farkas, but I can totally tell you the personality of most of the Imperial City merchants?

ALSO THE HAGGLE AND DISPOSITION FEATURES

I don't really like the disposition mini game, but it's really interesting from a straight up rollplay standpoint because good people probably aren't trying to manipulate people into liking them. And it makes leveling up Personality or whatever so much easier.

I also love the way the landscape looks. The different regions have different flora and it's so interesting. Also there's just random minotaurs and land dreughs too (I prolly spelled that wrong)

Also, I am so so so madly in love with Martin and his whole character and I LOVE how he has growth from this timid lil priest guy to he's LEADING THE CHARGE at the Great Gate, but he doesn't ever let his power get to him. He's a very humble guy, but he's in no way penalized for that. He's not a super macho man, but he's not shown as like, weak or effeminate for liking to read and hide away. Heck, he's respected and well loved because he's not full of himself and he's treating all the Blades with respect himself. He has conversations with them where he's actively trying to just level with them and interact. I honestly think if he'd not sacrificed himself at the end to defeat Dagon, he'd have been the Numa equivalent for the Empire (get Roman Empire'd lmao) and would have probably focused on the scholarly and/or religious.

Also all the badass women, guys. That's so cool to see. Milona Umbranox is ruling Anvil ALL by herself, through her incredible grief at the loss of her husband, and even when you bring Count Umbranox back, she's STILL in charge, guys. It's so cool so cool. I'll get back to the Umbranoxes in a sec. This might just be me, but I really really liked Caroline. I'd talk to her every time I was at Cloud Ruler Temple and I still do. And like, Telaendril is so dope, bro. She literally outran her killer long enough to kill her father.

Ok, the Umbranoxes and the Thieves' Guild now. I freaking love the Thieves' Guild. It's such a cool questline. You have to start it by talking to beggars, because the guild really cares about the beggars, bro. The Thieves' Guild is almost certainly the people who help the beggars, change my mind. But like the fact that the Grey Fox is literally stealing an Elder Scroll just because he can is epic. The reunion of Corvus and Milona Umbranox was so sweet.

Additionally, I love how you can't just speed run the quests. Especially the main quest, it's an actual threat because you're constantly bombarded by Oblivion Gates and that makes fast travel really difficult. You have to take at LEAST 10 days to do the main quest. Actual progression, yippee!

And there's so many good side quests, too, like, I love the one where you go into a painting to get this painter out, and if I remember correctly, his dad was a really good painter but then lost his ability to use his hands or something so Dibella made him a paintbrush so he could keep painting. Disability rep?? In a 2006 game?? Hello????

I ain't even got to the Shivering Isles yet, holy crap. The amount of love I have for that DLC.

I don't think there is ever going to be a DLC like the Shivering Isles ever again, as sad as it is to think about that. That DLC was probably the most fleshed out think I've played in a long time that isn't fanmade. There was a whole new area to explore, where you choices actually affected the world. Also, the complexity of all the characters and their different flavors of problems from a hypochondriac to paranoia, to obsessive collecting, to depression... It was really interesting to see all these different characters with their issues.

And Sheogorath himself was super cool too! Wes Johnson had such a dope performance (and looks like the prince too, lmao) and honestly brought so much life to the character and his insanity. The Greymarch was almost like the Shivering Isles' personal Oblivion Crisis, with Beacons of Order poppin up like Oblivion Gates all over the Isles.

And the difference between Haskill and Dyus is so funny to me because they both seem so done with their respective Daedric Princes.

Anyway, I love this game so much and I really hope TES 6 is closer to Oblivion than Skyrim.

[ukaiknowsbest]

Review: Tamayomi

[will contain spoilers]

Lately I have been pretty bored with the recent developments in Daiya no A and Oofuri. New Shonen anime stuff just don't appeal to me, so I bit the bullet and watched Tamayomi for at least one episode a day.

Like me, people would normally think "HOW TF ARE THEY GOING TO PLAY BASEBALL? AREN'T THEY WEARING SHORTS??? IS THIS JUST FANSERVICE?? OMYGOD"

But I did it. I watched the whole thing. 12 episodes.

And I enjoyed it.

THE SETUP/PLOT

pretty standard fare

Pitcher Yomi Takeda accidentally reunites with her childhood friend who's actually a nationals-level in middle school catcher when they both end up in the same highschool.

School: former powerhouse located in Saitama, now baseball club is almost non-existent. Yomi and a few other will try to revive the team from scratch.

Basically Shin Koshigaya is a brand new team where they struggle to look for new members and majority are first years.

They have to face other stronger teams even when they have a few members and some decent players.

Demographic is SEINEN (like oofuri, last inning, one outs, etc.)

CHARACTERS

Yomi Takeda as Main character and pitcher- skilled, resilient, funny, hardworking, does a lot of research which enabled her to perfect her form and hone her breaking ball. She keeps improving in a good pace too.

Tamaki Yamazaki former childhood friend of Yomi. Is a decent catcher in middle school. A bit well known. Good communicator.

Yoshino - team manager and coach. srsly she is a boss. She's not infallible but she tries her best.

and other decent players with adequate skill

For a sports anime they have decent cast. This is probably the closest we can currently get of a story where the girls are just focused on the sport, do their own strategizing/planning/training. All of them are cute but also serious about what they do.

There's no boys here so there's no talk about het-crushes and other distractions. It's a clamfest babyyyy.

I've seen a little of Major 2 (the one abt the son and his coed team) and I couldn't stand it because it was just slice of life in sportsy undertones.

There is also decent communication among all the players. It's pretty refreshing to watch. The catcher is well rounded and the pitcher is good. Everyone talk things out and there is not a lot of drama.

FANSERVICE

Wearing shorts to a sport that involves a lot of making contact with the ground is just illogical lmao.

Their school uniform skirt is pretty short

A little bit of their manager prodding the thighs of each person she meets but with good reason (she can tell how much muscle/exercise a person does just by a little prodding). It's a trope thing.

That's all. There are no panty shots, unnecessary locker room nudity, boob action, see through sweaty shirts. Most of the cringy things I've seen in other girls sports anime aren't present.

Eventually I even forget that they're wearing shorts or that it impedes their performance. It seems like it doesn't matter much to the characters so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't know if like the hugging or holding hands is considered fanservice. In my experiece we ladies just act like that irl. What they do is nothing out of the ordinary.

REALISM

3/5. They wear shorts and dont tie their hair up. The baseball part seem pretty decent though. The pacing of the story and matches was like watching IRL Koshien. It's all very clinical and straightforward.

Plus they include a lot of interesting baseball stuff which I haven't seen happen in early stages of other shonen anime like: specifically training the pitcher in other positions, showing what fielders yell to each other, letting other relievers start to reserve their ace (ppl can yell DnA did this but remember Tanba was injury boy throughout Act 1).

COMPARISON TO OTHER BASEBALL MANGA

based on technicality Tamayomi is prolly one of the top among baseball anime/manga I have seen.

Last Inning

Oofuri

Tamayomi

Daiya no A

Now don't chase me with pitchforks because of this ranking just yet. The fact that Shin Koshigaya coach's decisions and reasonings for plays and lineups are discussed makes the show at par with Last Inning and Oofuri. (we dont see DnA kataoka talk abt this sht like..ever)

Moreover Tamayomi has similar vibes to Oofuri/Big Windup but less dramatic. I do not think it's good for beginners too (especially with just 12 episodes). You need to have prior baseball knowledge to understand what the characters were doing.

However, this show is probably the most no-fuss baseball anime/manga I have watched. It does not rely on hype like DnA and it also don't have heavy topics like Oofuri and Last Inning. It's not wacky like One Outs and it's not uber slice of life like Cross Game. It's just baseball.

My minor complaint is that they don't give numbers when talking about things like pitching speed tho. It would've been more realistic if actual numbers were dropped XD

ART/ DESIGN/ANIMATION

A.k.a the thing most viewers complain about.

Character design is subpar. Everyone's faces are almost the same. You can tell who's the character not by face but by hair and height. Personally I don't mind this. I don't really look for realism in most things I watch. And I think the hair designs are cool.

Lots of people drop this show because of bad animation. There are shots/scenes where it's like I'm watching fanmade AMV's in nicovideo/youtube from the early 2000's. Pitching motions and Batting motions look like character movements in rpg games.

It's not really a problem for me though. I think it's charming for some reason. I don't mind it. A lot of people do but I'm not them.

CONCLUSION

NGL I wanted more. 12 episodes is too short. I hope a better animation company picks this up. I'm rewatching the whole thing because I enjoyed it a lot. I'll even check out the manga if I have time.

If anyone's interested here's my tamayomi livetweet thread

This is one of the closest thing I could get to what a decent girl sports anime looks like. If the character designs, art, animation and the uniforms were just better this show would have gone pretty far.

Compared to Shonen types of manga this was relaxing to watch, especially before bed. I'd honestly recommend it you wanna watch smth that doesnt involve a lot of feelings and drama but still feel like watching an actual sport.

Girls are fun. Finally.

[personal notes under the cut]

I get that people reading this would think I'm being too optimistic about a show they considered shtty but I kid you not, I dropped Bakuten (boys gymnastic's anime) coz even with it's wonderful animation i thought it was boring af.

I have dropped so many prettily animated shows coz i just cant get into the characters nor the story.

I've also said before in my Two Car review that I am actively avoiding shows with popular VA's. Idk much abt female VA's in anime, therefore watching Tamayomi was the perfect solution for me.

The reason I like tamayomi so much is that it gave me the same feeling of watching Summer Koshien 2021. I just think an anime that made me remember that kind of feeling was cool.

I'll rewatch hanebado next. wish me luck.