#oh AND THE LEGENDARIES!!!! GOD HOW FUCKING COOL DID IT FEEL TO BEFRIEND LEGENDARY POKEMON!!!!!

[quietwingsinthesky]

my opinions on the eeveelutions are greatly affected by how goddamn hard those little bastards were to catch while playing pokepark.

[tumblunni]

I couldn’t get yo sleep even tho I’m deadly tired, so I figured I may as well do some more reviews/rambling for Monster Rancher! God I love this show. I love the games too but the show is just so close to my heart. (Incidentally the name of the third opening theme in Japan! The one that’s a montage of everyone crying! THIS SHOW IS SO FEELS)

Today we watch episode 2: aka ‘Oh Shit I Just Realized Where My Love Of All Grandpas Comes From’

I figured it would probably make more sense if I sum up the episodes in my reviews now, that way people who haven’t watched it can still read along. So yeah! In the previous episode our hero Genki got sucked into the world inside of a videogame, and was surprisingly okay with that. He met big ol destiny carrying girl Holly and her monster Suezo, who is basically our meowth of the series. And he also got his own monster Mocchi, and now this next episode is more of an introduction for this new team member. Genki has trouble initially befriending his monster, because he expects Mocchi to just be a perfect videogame creature and doesn’t understand how to be a good big brother to a lil kid. Its just a very cute episode! There’s also a lot of good world building during such a downtime episode. It reiterates and better establishes the villain, Mu, and the legend about how only the phoenix can save the world, thus Holly is searching for it. And we get to see how the people of this world are so beaten down and scared of Mu that they’re prejudiced against our heroes for wanting to stand up to him. They get kicked out of town right when they really needed food and shelter, leading to meeting the nice old couple who lead to the whole plot about genki and Mocchi becoming closer. And it also starts up the first season’s recurring plot of Genki realising this isn’t just a fun game, its real and terrifying to the people here. (Cos he caused them to get kicked out by talking about how he could easily win against Mu, even tho he only just got his first monster!) Anyway, they get saved by a nice grandpa and grandma after that, and have HEARTWARMING ANTICS and Genki learns a lesson, etc LETS DO SOME REVIEW BLABBERING!!

Okay.. Like… Matthew and Lily are really undeveloped but I still absolutely tear up at the very thought of them, geez! The first allies our heroes met on their journey! And Genki keeps the pair of workman boots they gave him, all the way to the end. WE’LL NEVER FORGET YOU!!! and just AAAAA the mere fact they did that for him! The tone in lily’s voice when she says ‘that poor little boy has no shoes’. I mean, they can’t really explain to her that he left them behind when he fell through a dimensional vortex, lol! They didn’t ask any questions, they just gave this gaggle of kids a bed to sleep in and the first good meal they’d had in ages and then some lovely handmade clothes. Just imagine this elderly couple running around in the rain offscreen, trying to find our heroes before they left! Complete stranger: you cannot be without shoes in this weather! And they clearly heard everyone saying that these kids were dangerous troublemakers opposing Lord Mu’s rule, but they still selflessly helped them and supported them on their journey and made sure they’d be prepared. They may not have many lines of dialogue, but their actions say so much about their personality! I FUCKIN CRIED LIKE A BABY AT THE ENDING Cos Matthew and lily were so lonely and so happy to have kids staying over! And they really loved hugging Mocchi and treating him like their own child for a few happy hours. It was so wonderful that in the end the heroes hatched a Spot Dino mystery disc and gave it to the couple as thanks for all their help. Oh god Matthew’s crying as he cradled this bunny-sized dinosaur! Mocchi’s lil sweet face as he and the dinosaur held hands, as he introduced it to its new family! MY FUCKING SOOOOOUL (Oh and random thing I probably should have also established! Monsters in this setting are hatched out of mystery discs- magical stone idol things leftover from an ancient civilization. The heroes need to find the one that holds the legendary phoenix, so they find a lot of other ones along the way.)

And let’s take a random moment to appreciate the animation! I remember reading another review that once pointed out how the characters become this lineless cel shaded style whenever it rains, to invoke a sort of blurred camera lens under the raindrops. And I mean… Its not necessarily expensive animation? Its still got all the usual shortcuts of the time, there’s a lot of static frames, stock footage, using a 'hit flash’ instead of drawing fists connecting, etc. But it feels like these were good animators that were forced to work within those limitations, not people who chose it to be lazy. At every possible opportunity they try to put extra effort into everything and make it feel like it isn’t on the low budget it actually has. Its really noticeable compared to other shows of the day! And honestly compared to the general awfulness of the first season of pokemon and digimon, this DOES look like high budget animation! Hell, its got better attention to detail than some high budget stuff…

Anyway! On to talk about genki and mocchi’s super family plot! I really like how this show consistently subverts and explores genre tropes of the 'mons anime’. Right from the start, even! It subverts with how genki is absolutely happy to be trapped in another world. And how this is used as a unique character development plotline where he’s TOO optimistic about things and doesn’t realise the villain threat is real and the heroes won’t automatically win just because they’re heroes. And then it also subverts things by having genki fight alongside his monsters, who’re all fully sentient individuals with an equal plot role. And he actually fights to defend Mocchi for these first few episodes, and he has to deal with a baby monster being a defenseless and impressionable lil brother when he wanted a badass doom machine. Mocchi does indeed learn to fight as the series progresses, but that doesn’t mean genki doesn’t have to learn some empathy too! And they’re such cool bash brothers that kick huge amounts of ass together while being adorable AF! This episode is good cos treating a new little sibling well is a lesson a lot of kids can relate to. And its nicely delivered, you can see genki’s opinion change 180 throughout the whole episode with a lot of it being purely delivered through animation. Like, it doesn’t patronise the audience even though its a very typically 'kiddy’ plot. Genki starts off being frustrated how his new toy won’t do what he wants immediately, and seeing it almost as an insult that people are saying something that belongs to him isn’t perfect. He does love Mocchi, but at first he seems to articulate these feelings into a weird sort of unhealthy 'pride’ for a version of him that doesn’t exist. I feel like he thinks he’s being a good friend for believing that Mocchi can do anything he can do, but instead he’s being pushy by forcing the kid to HAVE to do anything he can do! So he gets irrationally grumpy at his cool monster friend getting hungry and tired and scared and wanting hugs and pretty flowers and stuff. But he ends up learning to take better care of him, and learning to care about him as more than just a cool thing to boast about. And also we get to see that mocchi’s all-loving feminine personality doesn’t make him any less badass when they need to fight evil! But I really liked how we see Genki realizing he’s wrong just from like.. Some nice completely silent moments where you see his reaction. Same for the moment where he starts to worry that the journey is too dangerous to take such an innocent kid on, and feels incompetent as a brother/parental figure, deciding to leave Mocchi behind with the grandparents where he’ll be safe. There’s no moment of exposition explaining that this is why he’s making that decision, but you feel it anyway! Its a type of storytelling I really struggle with, I tend to over explain everything lol! But I also like that because genki is silent about his character development, it leads to misunderstandings with everyone else. Mocchi assumes genki just doesn’t want him cos he’s weak, cos that’s how genki was acting earlier. And everyone else thinks genki’s being petty again and getting jealous of Mocchi for finding that dino disc when genki couldn’t. But genki proves he’s genuine about his love by literally kicking a dinosaur in the face to protect his lil buddy! (The evil dinosaur, not the baby one XD) And I love that they animate a lil moment of him wiping his muddy rollerblades on the dino’s face mid-kick!

And then we just end on super heartwarming hugs and repaying the kind grandparents and bunni’s heart explodes OK I just really love this show! I love that it focuses so much on the slice of life stuff and personal emotion in a monster fighter setting, rather than just the fighting. Yet it somehow still manages to have way better animated fights! Also its like the only show that’s pulled off this cliche 'annoying younger sibling’ plot without making you hate the 'annoying younger sibling’, lol. I still didn’t like mocchi as much as the others as a kid, he kinda has one of those unrealistic 'me hungwy’ lil kid personalities, with a weird voice in the dub. But GOD HELP ME I will defend him with my life just like genki does!!! Least favourite in a cast of favourite characters is still infinately better than 90% of all characters in fiction!