#ninjago post dethroned the ayin manifesto in length but it still lacks 1k on the lumie ramble

[felikatze]

hi hi yes this is my season 8 write up you’ve probably seen one of these already by now and i gotta say what the fuck was that how the fuck was that oh my god oh my god. is this still the silly lego ninja show. am i dreaming.

this is the first one i’m actually structuring in advance because i have so many thoughts i have so so so many oh my godddddddddd. oh my god.

BROOOOOOOOO

i had. feelings about this season. 2.6k words of them.

i did not like the first two eps because (gestures at fake out romance plot) i’m sorry i hate ninjago romance plots and pixane are the only bitches i respect. the first two eps went HARD on building up harumi as super duper sweet trust me like the whole fuckin princess jasmine sequence made me cringe. do not like themmmm i do not. after that we’re good though. props to these eps to starting on the harumi lloyd parallels via comparing her position as jade princess with lloyd’s as the green ninja in addition to their both at this point primarily green color schemes. lloyd is unshippable to me though sorry. aroace lloyd supremacy.

one thing i noticed this season is how the ninja use their elemental powers differently. instead of just spawning their elements in, they take advantage of the environment. one scene that comes to mind is nya using the rain to safely land the bounty or jay redirecting lightning and using power lines to shock the big stone monster in episode 10.

i really like this change! this makes fight choreography more interesting by including the environment! nya bursting some pipes to blast away garmadon? kai using torch fires to throw at people? i love that!! it’s great!! feels natural feels good to watch!!

the elements look amazing as well! particle effects this season are off the shits! this season just plain looks good. love the redesigns on the spinjitzu effects to differentiate them and incorporate elements better than just color. LOVE the lighting. looks so good. i already praised season 5 for this but this takes the cake.

speaking of more changes. weapons!! i called season 7 sexy for giving everyone their unique weapons back and there’s some changes here! nya got a trident!! love that!! so cool!! thematic!! and no ninja has a polearm yet so. vry cool vry cool.

last time, i complained that kai and zane got the short end of the stick cuz people keep infringing on their weapons. that’s fixed now! kai gets TWO swords, which is SICK. i just think duel wielding is sexy. zane gets a bow, which i’m more hmmm abt. it’s still the only long distance weapon of the squad, so i guess it works. shurikens still seem to be mainly zane’s thing, as they’re how the gang recognize zane’s plan to go undercover.

cole also gets a hammer instead of a scythe. i GET IT hammers are better for a blunt force character like him, but.. scythes are sick. ninjago gets a pass due to my affinity for blunt force weaponry. this time.

speaking of cole. admire how he was just READY to be a dad upon finding a random baby in a dungeon somewhere. said baby being Wu is objectively hilarious because cryptic old man wisdom is replaced by baby babble. cole is just so. he is Taking Care Of This Baby. in the beginning of the season before finding the baby he’s already Dad Mode somehow because he’s telling everyone to eat their veggies. i love him. it’s so funny. someone has to save the baby from plunging off the airship? cole’s here. someone gotta play with the baby? cole. someone gotta hold the baby? cole. misako only takes over because he’s busy after everything’s gone to shit. cole is the dad friend.

REDESIGNS. redesigns. i like em. i’ve watched the lego ninjago movie twice i like the movie and i think the designs are good. they’re a bit more complex than the previous ones esp in the hair and it fits better with the improved graphics n shit. i just wish they’d been more consistent with the past designs. like the side kai’s scar is on being the opposite one to his notched eyebrow. or jay missing his slit eyebrow. this is just about eyebrows. jay’s freckles are cute though. only redesign i dont like is zane’s i think his eyes and hair look weird and why does nya have a mole now feels weird. anyway.

i heard the redesigns are so it’s easier for potential new fans from the lego ninjago movie which is hilarious. the potential that THIS is someone’s first season of ninjago. the one that dregdes up emotional conflicts from season 2, the one season that breaks the status quo by having the ninja lose at the end, the one season that doesn’t have weekend whip as the intro. hello. HELLO.

how did we get here

moments i enjoyed: zane undercover, mister E fight

OKAY ONTO THE SEASON ITSELF OKAYYY.

i rlly liked zane’s stint undercover i think that was a great sequence. (how many akira slides do ya want? oh? all of them? okay). motorcycle races were fun. (fun fact german dub just refers to the sons of garmadon as “garmadon’s bike gang” which is kinda funny aint it. german dub never change you fuckhead). the fights this season were cool for aforementioned elemental reasons but also just sick in general. i enjoyed zane getting trashed by mister e (ohhh like “mystery” okay okay). fucked up that zane dies again but whatever it was a cool fight.

what i disliked abt the general sequence was cole’s singing which i KNOWWW is supposed to be bad i aint even talking abt kirby morrow since (dub watcher) but like. yeah whatever the irony of cole being a horrible singer but they did not have to make it a running joke. i didn’t like harumi’s singing either i just don’t like singing in non-musical shows. only good singing was when everyone was singing weekend whip karaoke. german dub show me the forbidden weekend whip german cover full version. i liked those lyrics.

PIXAL OFFICAL RETURN SHE’S HERE I LOVE HERRRR (<- PIXAL STAN SINCE SEASON 3). i am mildly heartbroken by pixal being soo afraid of the possibility of going back into the computer and how she’s so afraid she won’t be useful being the way she wants to be. this is where zane pulls thru because the only one who doesn’t respect pixal’s autonomy is pixal herself. everyone is always so supportive of her choices even back in season 3 and i like that this is continued here i LOVE pixal becoming samurai x and making it her own thing. she still takes on a support role occasionally but she’s doing what she wants to do and everyone loves her for it (including me). pixane is the only romance subplot i respect (jaya is valid only when a coinflip lands on heads). i wanted to say something else about pixal here but i forgot. i love her.

BACK TO PLOT OKAY OKAY. episode 7 makes me sick in the head. i think how the harumi reveal is handled is done SUPER WELL esp in regards to lloyd. i think on the ninja side tracking her comms is kinda goofy how she just goes to background evil smirking cue cliffhänger. BUT.

when she tells lloyd to take the mask i immediatly went like “Oh god she knew he’s part oni” and THEN lloyd says “how’d you know i’m part oni” like OH SHIT!!! OH SHIT!!! lloyd piecing it all together was so fuckin satisfying cuz it’s all the stuff i ALSO noticed. good shit.

this is where i get into harumi bcuz *rotates her in my mind* this is insane.

her motivation is so understandable but also so twisted. FIRST OF ALL her backstory confirms something cartoons typically like to avoid. death tolls. her parents died in the season 1 finale. this fucks me up because now you gotta ask yourself, where else did people die here? who else didn’t make it? because it’s not just season 1. did you know that nya straight up killed everyone in the cursed realm? chen appears as a ghost in day of the departed. she killed him and all his followers but does she even realize? hello? okay? who did the stone army kill? who did the nindroids kill? not to sound like a broken record but DEATH IS REAL IN NINJAGO.

additionally the flashback shows harumi and lloyd to be the same age which fucks me up for a PLETHORA of reasons least of all that lloyd’s age now actually matches his appearance. the flashback also confirms time exists and years pass. how old is everyone. are the other ninja all in their mid twenties now. christ.

OKAY BACK TO HARUMI. her motivation is so. it’s somewhat of a running gag that whenever the ninja bring up the great devourer someone chimes in with “garmadon defeated it, not you.” it’s perfectly logical for harumi to now idolize the person who is repeatedly stated to have defeated the thing that killed her parents.

(side note her title being “the quiet one” because she temporarily went mute because of trauma is SO FUCKED UP GOD. side side note the german dub makes a really smart choice in how to translate her title because it calls her “der stille boss” / the silent boss. german is a HIGHLY gendered language and for a LOT of nouns, specifically occupational nouns, there’s the -in suffix to make them feminine, which would spoil who the quiet one is cuz you’d immediatly look toward the newest girl. but “boss” is a loanword, and thus uses the generic masculine without any actual implication of gender. the script also doesn’t substitute the title for pronouns ever, to further avoid masculine connotation. props to that choice.)

moving on, i brought it up already, but paralling jade princess / green ninja. delicious. harumi never wanted to be a princess she never wanted the responsibility but her being “chosen” by the emperor and empress. god. this directly puts the ninja “failing” as the deciding factor that pushed her into the fate she abhors. godddd. insane. insane.

HER METHOD IS STILL SO WRONG THOUGH AND SHE WORKS SO WELL AS A VILLAIN AND AS A FOIL TO LLOYD. i want to talk about episode 8 now she is so needlessly cruel. like i GET where she’s coming from but it feels like she made all the wrong conclusions. what she doesnt get is without the ninja EVERYONE would be dead not just her parents. furthermore she seems to have it out for lloyd specifically when like, lloyd wasn’t even a ninja back then. the show COULD’VE brought up how he was the one to release the serpentine in the first place but it doesn’t sadly.

she’s soooo needlessly cruel it’s kind of horrifying. she reminds me of lime witch’s heart a little bit if there’s any fanbase overlap besides literally just me and anybody knows who i’m talking about. she just wants him to suffer as she did she wants someone who gets it she wants someone who went through the same experience she did.

BUT LIKE AGAIN THIS IS WHERE THE PARALLELS COME IN. she and lloyd were the same age in season 1 he was not a ninja during that fight. he was also chosen for a fate he didn’t want at way too young an age and he had to deal with it. them being the same is what makes her so cruel.

i gotta talk abt the garmadon revival and episode 9 now. first of all i’m SUPER happy klaus-dieter klebsch reprised his role as garmadon in the german dub because he is THE garmadon voice to me always and forever. he does evil laughs good and the voice direction is eh with how drawn out all of garmadon’s dialogue is but the performance is on point as always. anyway.

isn’t it fucked up how harumi doesn’t just want to destroy lloyd emotionally by kidnapping his mom and emotionally manipulating him but also deliberatly in making him fight his dad again. remember season 2 when garmadon was like a complex character who was very conflicted between his essentially Obligation to be evil and the love he still has for his family. like i remember that version of garmadon, lloyd remembers that version of garmadon. the one who still put family above all despite everything and that’s why it HURTS man. garmadon’s dialogue in episode nine dear god. like the “i wore many masks” dialogue and the finishing touch of “i don’t have a son” cue garmadon throwing lloyd through a wall again. like the garmadon we got to know from s3-4 might as well be dead because it’s not him that came back. it’s really not.

bringing up season 2 again it’s understandable why lloyd wanted to confront garmadon on his own so badly bcuz despite being told that he won’t be the same the entire season the last time lloyd confronted garmadon with love it worked. it brought him back and this time it DOESN’T and because last time it did is why this hits so hard for lloyd (and also for me).

GOD the ending of episode 9 where lloyd gets thrown through a wall and he lands in the sand and groans and to desparately comfort himself he pulls out the picture he keeps of himself and his father, but the wind blows it away out of his hand into the desert. heavy handed symbolism but it WORKS okay it WORKS. sensei garmadon is DEAD he‘s GONE but lloyd still has to grapple with killing his father all over again.

it’s Inch Resting how harumi essentially Stole garmadon for herself like. harumi has a TON of parental issues and she idolized garmadon for however many years it’s been since season 1 and he’s like. a bit fixated on her as the one who brought him back i.e breaking her out of jail. that’s what i mean by her being cruel cuz like she’s the one fighting with garmadon now she’s the one “important” to him (as much as anyone can be important to the revived garm like geez man)

tldr feels bad man

ONTO THE FINALE THAT’S SICK. actually having them just LOSE bcuz in ep 8 you think like “ah they won” but then you (I) looked at the episode counter and saw 8 out of 10. and you go. ah. they never defeat the villain till the darkest hour. the darkest hour is still coming.

like they LOSE they SPLIT UP THE TEAM. inch resting how the guys stranded in the realm of oni and dragons are the “original team” essentially i.e. the og four ninja + baby wu and how the ones still in ninjago are the “new team” i.e lloyd nya pixal + misako and whichever side characters they’re gonna scrounge up.

ALSO LLOYD THINKS THE OG TEAM IS DEAD WHAT THE FUCK. HE THINKS THEY’RE DEAD HE DOESN’T KNOW THEY HAD TRAVELER’S TEA.

my expectations for season 9 are ALL OVER THE PLACE. will lloyd and nya continue to think their friends are dead or will this be cleared up. how the hell is the og squad gonna fare against mythical creatures (and loads of em too). how’s lloyd gonna get back up and get back at harumi.

the last scene of the season between lloyd and harumi is really nice cuz “ninja never give up” motif is always cool AND how lloyd paralles HIMSELF to harumi by framing himself as a villain since “the worst one is the one you can’t catch.”

fun fact “ninja never give up” in german sounds really nice as a phrase cuz it’s trochaic, i.e entirely in trochaic meter. ninja geben niemals auf :)

lloyd jumping off a building landing squarely on the rest of the new crew’s boat is cool it’s a really cool shot to end on because it’s also like very hopeful despite the. extended darkest hour moment. an end is just a new beginning :) good albeit cheesy use of phrase motifs. he’s not giving up even if all his friends are dead and his powers are gone harumi!! suck it!!!!

IN CONCLUSION: oh my god what the fuck. this is the first season that made me actually tear up dear fucking god.