#that literally had one of the main characters be decapitated in the first episode. but damnit

[waeirfaahl]

No one thought anything through at all

Let’s talk about meaningless and badly-written enemies without any purpose in the story and reason to exist in 5 season. These guys get a very least of critisizing simply ‘cause they’re just typical random bounty hunters, which have no connection to Aku, but just want money or whatever. They are at least understandable. Moreover, they are weak third-rate enemies, created for stupid joke.

Scaramouche, being the only assasin who really works on Aku in 5 season (and who kills by own will, not by Aku’s order, by the way), however, is absolutely unnecessary character at all. If you remove him from 5 season, nothing will change. The story will come to exact same events. He is just a waste of time. And I can’t for the life of me understand, why his head was still alive, if all other robots after mutilation, dismembering and decapitating died and explosed. He is not of the same model the robots were in 3 episode of 4 season — because if he were, he would have connected with his body and limbs and reassembled again into one he was before fight against Jack.

Then these guys. Who the f*ck are they?! Are they random bounty hunters? Are they the personal army of the High Priestess, but Ashi somehow didn’t know about it, and they just didn’t recognize Ashi? I have no idea, because neither the animatic nor the final version of 7 episode give absolutely no hints to answers about it! They just happen literally out of nowhere for cheap Lord of Rings reference, for wasting time and forced action scene! Because Genndy and Co apparently don’t understand that the elements, characters and events in the season with limited number of episodes and one cohesive story have to be logically explained and to have the important role in the story! There always must be the conflict behind fight sequences! You can't just take and add random unexplained crap without any personality, motivation, purpose, importance and role in the plot!

Then this sadist. Again, who the f*ck he is?! Is he another random bounty hunter or mad scientist? For what he built his factory in the first place? Like, I get it, he wanted to kill Jack, using Jack’s kindness as his weakness, like Jack will never hurt innocent or whatever, so he destroyed the city (how? alone or with soneone else? then where his allies?), then stole alien cubs and implanted them with chips to use as weapons, but... Do you realize, how forced and stupid this is?  Jack already had a case with hypnotized kids/teens in the classic seasons (from another random alien guy, who used magical music — and although his discs are with Aku’s face, it doesn’t mean that he worked on Aku, who has no reason for doing this), so why this sadist was so sure that Jack will fail and die instead of knocking them out and finding the way to free them?! As I said many times here and here, it’s extremely stupid idea to use some children against the smart and fast-adapting warrior, who slays powerful demons, robots and deities etc. 5 season is extremely pointless and stupid not only because of contradictions to the canon of the classic seasons and breaking their rules (and because of ruining Jack and Aku, of course), but also because there’s no single reason for every of these new enemies to exist in the story of 5 season. More sense just to hide in shadows and to shoot Jack with sniper rifle or laser tooth!

Plus, if you look closer, you’ll notice that he stole these cubs and took them under his control kinda for a couple hours before Jack’s and Ashi’s arrival. It's easier to win the lottery than to make Jack come right now, stumble upon a ruined city, find a temporarily near-dead (or survived, but very injured) inhabitant there and learn from him that these are not robots/demons, but real cubs, who are already controlled by the sound and chips. Very terrible building of the new villain, who died as quickly as he appears in the episode.

But the main issue with this aspect is Jack’s reaction and his immediate decision to die. Like, again, he lives 50+ years in this future, he’s extremely experienced and has to know not only various technologies, but also how to help in such situations (and also to have critical thinking and think everything through in advance). Why he didn’t check their breathing and heart-beating for being sure, whether they died or they are alive?! He had to, in a state of emotional outburst, hold their bodies in his arms and try to awaken them and desperately find the slightest sign that they were alive! Moreover, why this ghost warrior lied to Jack that these children died, if they are alive (here I discussed about this warrior and his gang, which are absolutely real, i.e. not inner demons in Jack’s mind)? Plus, why the hell these alien cubs were electrocuted at all?! Ashi destroyed the computer that controlled chips and hence alien cubs, so logically the computer doesn’t work anymore, i.e. no signal, so the sound and the chips have to just turn off and not affect the alien cubs in any way! Why the chips explosed and hurted them?! WTF?! It makes absolutely no sense! And the most uncomfortable question comes from Ashi’s words from 6 episode “Jack, you were misguided! The children are alive!”, and exactly after them Jack starts to fight the ghost warrior (i.e. not when Ashi mentioned about his friends from this future or about herself, but exactly when she mentioned about these alien cubs) — like, as if they were really dead, then Jack’s decision to die would have been considered as right by this logic... Wait, what?! Then why he didn’t commit seppuku in 1 episode of 5 season, seeing hallucinations of ghosts of dead kids and citizens the robot killed? And how would he then react to half of the survivors and half of the dead alien cubs, or just one survivor among them all? Also would go to commit seppuku? Damn, how forced and stupid it is... No one thought anything through...

And he just forgets and abandons Ashi, the girl he actually took responsibility for. After unconfirmed death of these alien cubs he literally doesn’t care, whether his new young friend is alive or maybe in danger or injured or even dead... And she is lucky enough to actually check and see that the alien cubs are alive. And for some reason Ashi loses all her pathfinder skills she and her sisters had in 2 and 3 episodes and she can not find Jack, who went not so long time ago and not so far from her and obviously left tracks... WTF?! And Jack doesn’t hear her calling for him... WTF?! All should end immediately in the end of 5 episode without 6 episode with this blatant and pointless fanservice and ruined graveyard scene!  If the authors so wanted the idea of Jack’s depression and despair with thoughts about death and with overcoming this and fighting against some ghosts or inner demons, then It would be more emotionally powerful and meaningful, if the blue cubs really died, and in 6 episode Ashi’s message was about “Yes, some people died, but it’s not your fault. You saved many of others, and they still remember you and your kindness. You can not give up. You can not die”.

By the way, in the entire 5 season that’s the only shot, where Ashi looks nice and relatable, and where her face, expressions (with sincere emotions as if she really experienced them instead of being newcomer actress with her first awkward debut) and lips are normal, and she really looks like a child, i.e. 13-16 years old teen.

Now about this pointless bullsh*t in the dumbest episode (well, I’d say that all episodes, except 2 episode, are moronic, but 8 episode is cringiest) of 5 season. The authors no longer hesitate to demonstrate how they throw problems to the heroes without meaning and logical-plot necessity. There was some kind of slab ship in space, a couple of asteroids hit it slightly, and it just ended up falling on Earth in the desert. Might I remind you, in the classic seasons the Earth was patrolled by guardian robots in space, but in 5 season there are absolutely nothing.

No air defense, no patrol robots and ships. Nothing. Moreover, whose ship is this? Why didn't anyone on the planet think to report this to Aku (the brother and sister, whose ship crashed in 8 episode of 4 season, were quickly captured as intruders)? Why (if the prison slab belongs to someone from other planets) nobody contacted to report the crash and pick it up with all potentially survived and escaped prisoners?

And if Genndy and Co didn’t want to use their brains for explaning this, then what’s a point to make it be a space ship prison, damaged and fallen on Earth exactly where Jack and Ashi will walk after couple of hours? What’s a point to show how this space ship happened to be here and to spoil any mystery and unknown threat they can encounter?! Why not to make it just an ancient remains of some relict ship or city, where the deadly monster hides?! Nothing will change, if you either replace it with something else or totally remove this out of the story!

Now Jack and Ashi share a half of near-dead brain cell for two. They get lost in desert and find the place to relax and wait until the sandstorm will calm and stop. 

They climbed into the ship. What the f*ck did they have to climb deep into this ship, if they could relax and sleep near the hole of this ship and wait out the storm there?!

Plus, where the other guard and prisoners? Did they escape? Did Lazarus eat them, since there’s no corpses and bones? Why Lazarus itself didn’t escape from this ship already?

And if there was a weapon, which can kill Lazarus, why the hell the owners of this prison didn’t kill him long time ago, if he’s so deadly and hard to kill?!

Now Demongo, who appeared as a small cameo and fanservice without any story purpose that could excuse his presence in 5 season. My question — how the f*ck is that possible?! Might I remind you, in the classic episode after Demongo failed to kill Jack and to capture his soul and lost all of his other souls, who kicked his butt, Aku killed him! How can Demongo be alive after this and perfectly feel himself without souls?! This poor character was also in the game with even more plot holes toward him. But it’s another story.

And the main sh*t of 5 season, of course, the Cult aka The Daughters of Aku, whose leader/queen is the main f*cking reason of why 5 season even happened. Before 5 season was released, I legitimately thought that they will be the main villains of 5 season, i.e. the deadly enemies for both Jack and Aku. Simply because we have never seen such type of characters before in Samurai Jack universe, especially such cruel and f*cked up character like their fanatical leader. They have to have the backstory and explanation of who they are and where they came from, their leader and her identity, backstory, motivation and goal have to be explained. So it’s logical to assume that they are not what they seem, that they will be the villains of 5 season and the greatest threat for both Jack and Aku. But what we get in 5 season, when it finally was released? They are literally cheap and worse replica of Outsiders from “The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride” with absolutely the same problems (but, at least, the leader of Outsiders had motivation and goal — she was power-hungry manipulator, who used her son as a weapon and a puppet to kill the king and to rule his kingdom, for this she brainwashed her son, feeding him with the idea that he’s the chosen one, who will avenge the rightful king and become king himself). And they give impression of morbid parody toward Aku’s fans, who likes him as a character. And although I duscussed about them here, here and here, analyzing and pointing out everything what’s wrong with them and with the story of 5 season, in this post I’ll talk about problems in exactly building them as some new characters/villains.

Are they some kind of primitive savage tribe or what? Why only women are members of this Cult? Why they have no technologies?! What their leader wanted from Aku? Why she fanatically saw him as virtuous god (and was absolutely okay with child abuse and animal abuse at the same time), if everyone knows that Aku is a fiercy demon, who rules thousands years, who created multi-cultural society and who is a patron of magic and technological progress and never needed these worshippers at all?! Why she created some kind of religion about him with absolutely contradictional doctrines about him being the most evil and the most good god at the same time (she has to be either dumb*ss without any logic or cunning psychopath with own twisted goals who just pretends to believe in this sh*t — and the version with cunning psychopath is more plausible, because she watched on Ashi all this time and saw everything what Ashi saw during her travelling with Jack and rescuing alien cubs and talking with Jack’s friends he helped earlier)?! Why she always hid her face and identity?! Since when the religious motives exist in Samurai Jack universe?! From what dense Middle Ages were these deranged cultists teleported?! Why Jack never heard about them and never saw them? Seriously, they just happen out of nowhere — there were no cults and religious motives in the classic seasons, so they exist 20 years at best! And 5 season gives no information about them!  Instead of normal script writing and character writing, Genndy and Co just add this random creepy bullsh*t, which also raises questions. For example, this WTF-screamer Ashi sees in 4 episode — her mother really talks to her at this moment (and it differs from the scene from 5 episode). So, why Ashi sees exactly that instead of her mother’s regular mask?! Seriously, what the hell is that?! If her mask can turn into this — then why her daughters didn’t use it as weapon?! Or it’s her real face, since we see squinting blue eyes, eyebrows, wrinkles, big mouth with big fangs and red tongue? If yes, then it's scary to imagine how she disfigured her face to look like Aku — for example, filed her teeth for making them sharp (like the Hessian Horseman from Sleepy Hollow did) and cut off her lips. That’s just another bright example of how morbid and f*cked up this character is. 

Plus, it’s extremely hillarious to realize that she and her followers never had thought that while they trained her daughters to be the best assasins for killing Jack all these 20 years (at least, I want to believe that 20 years passed, ‘cause montage of 1 episode of 5 season give impression as if they trained and grew during these few days Jack travelled to the city, destroyed by Scaramouche), Jack could die natural way or be killed by another enemy or by Aku himself. Such an irony of fate would have been — she would certainly have gotten rid of her daughters with her own hands, because they are no longer needed (although she herself went to kill Jack, and she could watch and talk and summon, hence they were not needed before in any way too, then why did she give birth to them at all?). That thought apparently never crossed the mind of this fanatical mother. I’m tired to say that again — but she deserves the Darwin Award.

Or this WTF-moment. Why Jack saw this?! He still dreams about Ikra or what?

No one thought anything through...

[callipraxia]

So, I’m done with S1 of Clone Wars, and have watched the first two discs of S2. Seems like a good time to check in with some Opinions.

1) this stuff is good. It’s the kind of good where, when there’s a moment that’s obviously written to cater to children and/or executives, those moments actually stick out noticeably. It’s a bit like GF: so good that its flaws stand out more than they should due to all the goodness around them, but in a way, the fact I’m bothering to point these little things out as flaws kind of highlights its excellence.

2) Padme’s design and animation weren’t nearly as awful as anticipated

3) Despite my strong appreciation for the writing and mild compliment to Padme…every other creature and thing on the screen has its moments where it looks almost real. Why, exactly, could they animate literally everything else so well (yes, there’s some moments of blatantly cheap or rushed background animation, but considering the sheer number of backgrounds…see my comments in Remark One) but not avoid making all the human characters look just…off, somehow, without exception, even in the best cases? And why, if they had to choose one actor’s face to be extra-insulting to, did they have to do…that…to Christopher Lee? Forget looking like his actor, Dooku doesn’t even look like a person!

4) more on that awesome writing. One thing I admire about it is how willing they are to let the protagonists fail. Yeah, there’s certain losses we know will be losses ahead of time (any time they think they are close to capturing Dooku or Grievous, for instance), but others run circles around the mains/at least take them to breaking even rather more often than they get ahead, and there was no narrative necessity to those characters. It’s tricky to balance letting your protagonists even partially lose regularly with preserving the audience’s respect for them, but they do it well, especially in such traditionally nuance-lacking genres. It’s quite the accomplishment to pull this off and actually convey the intended theme (that war is tedious and draining and damaging and you lose at least as much as if you win even in the best-case outcome) at all, but especially given the format.

5) It would have been a tad more effective had they started building up a few specific clones more as individuals earlier, but the inclusion of individualized clones and Ahsoka, along with recurring secondary characters (ex. Luminara and Barriss) was very clever - they add *some* tension to those episodes where the outcome is predetermined. Any of them could die, and anyone familiar with Revenge of the Sith knows that it’s very unlikely that Ahsoka will end the show in top form - sure, they *could* have just promoted her to Jedi and pretended she was just still on the Outer Rim when Obi-Wan and Anakin were called back to Coruscant, but considering how unstable Anakin is by the beginning of RotS, it seems more likely for her total absence to be explained by her being dead, MIA, in prison, in exile, turned traitor, or otherwise Not Okay. Separatists killing her in particular could have gone a long way to make it more sympathetic that Palpatine found it so very easy to convince Anakin to take up that job at Decapitation Station.

6) on Anakin’s mental health…knowing the future makes the ending of “Senate Spy” so much sadder. He was a bit of a jealous psycho in that episode as per usual…but it really did seem like all his Issues were firmly oriented in his own insecurities and/or pointed at Mr. Gropey McGroperson there, and he sounded sincere when, at the end, he assured Padme he never doubted her at all. Compare to him at the very beginning of RotS, where he almost lashed out at her because he could sense she was afraid of something and instantly drew the conclusion she was cheating on him. I…do not think he would have had the presence of mind, come RotS, to look past her hugging Rush long enough to notice the disc in her hand that she needed him to retrieve. He’d have just killed them both on the spot.

7) continuing on that theme…possibly an unpopular opinion, but I think Anakin and Padme were always doomed. Probably from the start, all things considered, but definitely after the war started. I started writing an essay here, but realized after I started getting into the ways Padme was in almost as bad of a place as Anakin for getting into a serious relationship when she did that I was exceeding the scope of this list, so I’ll make that its own essay, but…yeah. They were very intense personalities, were very intensely attracted to each other, and their mutual need to save people did less to unite them than to further divide them because of the ways it manifested. They’d have almost certainly divorced even under good circumstances, and the very best-case scenario would have been one where they managed to do so before having children and also managed to do so amicably enough that Padme didn’t feel the need to get a restraining order. Nine times out of ten, even without the war, I suspect she’d have ended up needing the restraining order.

8) on the subject of doomed ships…my gut says that Ahsoka/Barriss was/is a popular one. The part of me that produces things like Interproximal Gradations chapters 11, 12, and 15 also has a feeling there was a General Grievous/Obi-Wan Kenobi fandom at one time, and that not nearly enough of it was strictly limited to hateshipping. If I ever go temporarily insane and stick my toe into Star Wars fic, then I will try my very best to forget that suspicion of mine and, if I slip so far into temporary insanity that I read ship fic there, just stick to Barriss and Ahsoka, thanks. No way they realistically work out either, but as far as I can tell they probably had a better chance of than any other ship in this show.

So yeah. There’s some thoughts on Clone Wars Seasons 1 and 2A.

[into-september]

Before anything: I agree that all those other things should've been talked about more, though my theory on the fandom's fixation tends more towards "catboy in leather".

However, there are a couple of big, big differencees between Adrien and everybody else, and you'll forgive me for using your post as an excuse to talk about it.

Unlike all the others you bring up, Adrien is a main character. To the point where a lot of media literate people are raging on his behalf becuase HIs naMe is in the TiTLe! Which in the real world doesn't mean much beyond some prof forma attempt at marketability towards boys (TFOU demanded it, according to Zag) but which does set him apart from all the people whose faces appear for only a fraction of a second in the OP. His name is in the title and his face is on the title card. The paratext is telling us to pay attention to him.

Adrien is more important, and the plot of "Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir" is the story about how Marinette Dupain-Cheng comes to clean up the messes of caused by Adrien Agreste's existence. But it isn't Marinette who spent five seasons unknowingly trying to destroy the thing she wants the most, it isn't Marinette who is unaware of how one fatal identity reveal might be used to turn her powers against everything she's fighting for, it isn't Marinette who is made to kill her one remaining parent on screen.

For the considerable older-than-the-target-group audience of MLB, the dramatic irony is probably the thing keeping us hooked. We came for the cute superheroes and stayed to see everything come crashing down, because we want to see how Adrien is going to deal with all of that. And it is Adrien who is going to have to deal, because Marinette is not the one with anything to lose by defeating their nemesis.

In a show where character development only happened in whatever episode the writers needed for someone to act different than before in order for the episode's plot to gel, Adrien was the only character with a solid problem from his very first appearance. A problem which was frequently re-visited, always painted as intolerable, had a real thematic resonnance and was inextricably tied to the show's main selling point: the superhero battles.

Adrien learning Hawkmoth's identity was arguably the only event that needed to happen in this show. All the rest of them are plot holes, and annoying ones, for sure. But they're not absences which obliterate the themes the show had been building up to since "The Bubbler", nor do they decapitate the only consistent character of the story. That is a storytelling transgression that goes far beyond anything else, and it's hardly surprising that it's the one generating the most discourse.

There does seem to be a trend in the specific sect of this fandom that I circulate where people are only openly against writing decisions that impede Adrien's role in the story. Nothing was ever discussed on my dash about the following:

Lila's bizarre transition from a normal mean teenage girl (a strong narrative antagonist for Marinette's civilian conflict) to a weird Machiavellian criminal

Nathalie's (and Emilie's of course, but I'm saltier about it with Nathalie) role in the story being a prime example of a Fridged Woman

The way Marinette's long-coming crush on Cat Noir was tossed aside after two episodes

Zoe still not bringing anything to the narrative

The weird undiscussed presence of cheating in relationships in this whole show (Adrien apparently cheating on Kagami with Marinette in the NYC special, Audrey Bourgeois blatantly having cheated on her husband)

The increasingly bizarre events in this show that, to me, clearly just exist to make people go :O, not unlike how shows like Riverdale became increasingly bizarre over the course of their run in order to get viewers because they knew they couldn't grab viewers with their mediocre premise alone (Chloe becoming mayor, Felix and Kagami's weird little play, etc)

There's a lot more I wanted to add here, but figured were more my opinion than an actual Thing to be discussed.

Never saw any of this discussed in my circle of Tumblr, but I HAVE seen an absolute ton of discussion surrounding Adrien's screen time, Adrien's family dynamics, Adrien's role as a hero, Adrien's internal struggles, and how the writers apparently don't explore any of those things to their full potential.

And it makes me wonder why people are so fixated on him. Because I'm sorry to say this, but I've personally always seen him as a pretty unremarkable character. Don't misconstrue my words and say I said I don't like him, because I do like him. But I hardly consider him the most interesting character in the show.

My theory? He's just an easy character to fixate on, for the following reasons:

None of his struggles come from his financial, racial/cultural, or other kind of protected background, meaning discussions on his struggles don't have to be "difficult."

The fact that his primary antagonist is his father (as his father, and not as Hawk Moth) means fans can easily take the "I want to adopt him and give him a good home" route of character analysis

He's perpetually positive, meaning it doesn't require a lot of mental energy to like him-- he can just be a lovable "sunshine boy" to people.

On the rare occasion he IS upset, fans become obsessed, because who doesn't love more emotional depth?

When he's positive/nonplussed about something that he morally should be upset at, fans can easily explain it away as a result of his upbringing.

He's cute. There's no way to talk around this. He's got big green eyes and baby cheeks and flippy blond hair and a soft voice and cute habits like scratching his neck when he's nervous. The first three things are traits character designers often employ to get audiences to like their characters. The last two things are examples of things you can do to get people to subconsciously like you irl. This part is just psychology, and it makes me wonder if people would be affected by all the above points if he didn't look the way he does.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to like Adrien for any of the above reasons. I just want some people to think about their opinions of this show and ask themselves whether they feel as strongly about other writing decisions as they do about the ones that "hurt" Adrien, and, if they don't, why they feel so drawn to Adrien in the first place. Because it's definitely not because the show does him dirtier than everyone else.

[thenightling]

How Highlander the Series helped shape me as a person

     You wouldn’t expect something like Highlander The series to help you grow as a person but for me it was a big stepping stone in my perception of others and our capacity to change and forgive.

     Highlander was about this race of immortals who can only die via decapitation. The immortals live as ordinary humans until at some point they die a violent death and wake up to discover that they’re actually immortal.  The immortals have a belief that thanks to all their in-fighting one day only one of them will remain. “In the end there can be only one.”  The main character was Duncan Macleod, a good guy immortal who only killed in self-defense or if an evil immortal threatened those he cared about. 

        When I first watched Highlander the series in 1992 I was ten-years-old.  And in season 3 they introduced the character Methos, the oldest immortal, but he looked like a grad student.  In season 5 they revealed his backstory...

        They showed that Methos used to be a ruthless marauder, a part of a band of cruel men called "The Four Horsemen" and he was Death.  This was in The Bronze Age.  Not only did he slaughter entire villages but he also took another immortal woman as his slave and mentally broke her  and raped her several times.  She developed Stockholm Syndrome.  And no, not the “Haha, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is Stockholm Syndrome” kind. (Note: I do not actually think Beauty and the Beast is Stockholm Syndrome.  It's a tired old joke that needs to stop.) I mean trying to please her captor and win his approval kind, where her sense of self was utterly lost.   Eventually she snapped out of it and escaped but only after she nearly got raped by one of the other men.  

       Years later not only did Methos repent but he had become a pacifist who avoided fighting to not let that darkness back in.  He had worked as a doctor in the nineteenth century, treating the poor and enslaved, and he didn't want his 1990s friends to know how terrible he used to be. He was clearly ashamed. The character had grown a lot.  

         Ten-year-old me thought the show only did this to possibly reveal he was still evil all along and then kill him off.  To my surprise they did NOT kill him off.  The show's depiction of Good and Evil had been pretty black and white up until that point so I was very much not expecting this twist.  My mind was blown. 1990s Methos was so different from his Bronze Age self of five thousand or so years earlier.  He had even fallen in love with a dying woman and tried to find a way to make her immortal too, to save her life.  

         I couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that this was the same character.  I raged against it the way someone would scream “Problematic!” today.  I thought of it as bad writing at the time. It didn't feel like the same character to me.  But as I got older I was grateful I had seen those episodes (Comes a Horsemen and Revelation 6:8.)  It taught me about shades of grey and forgiveness and not the half-assed forgiveness you see in modern TV like the girl in Vampire Diaries "needing to be forgiven" for things she did when her emotions and conscience were literally shut off via hypnosis.  It taught me that anyone could be redeemed. And it taught me that our pasts don’t have to define us.  It taught me, better than any other work of fiction before it, that people can change for the better.   

        I don’t think any TV writer, today, would be brave enough to let a character with that dark of a backstory be a good person in present day and be forgiven.  Hell, it was pretty brave for the mid-90s.  And it’s a shame too.  Modern audiences have so much trouble forgiving characters with dark pasts now.  And it’s not just a matter of fiction.  It’s a reflection of reality.  If you can’t forgive fictional characters how can you forgive real people or even yourself?  

       In 2019 they made an awful new version of A Christmas Carol for the BBC that went out of its way to be extra dark and have Scrooge not forgiven by someone. I think it undermined part of the point of Charles Dickens’ story. And that’s all too common today.  If we keep teaching people to not forgive, soon no one will be able to forgive themselves for their own short comings, even minor ones.

      And this is why I am grateful I grew up with shows like Highlander the series.  It taught me how anyone can grow and change.  I think this is something a lot of people don’t understand today.  

    What provoked me to think of this old TV show now?  Well, I was just on Twitter discussing the new Sandman series based on the stories by Neil Gaiman.  In particular we were discussing the immortal character, Hob Gadling, and his friendship with Morpheus (the lord of Dreams).  There’s a part of Hob’s backstory that modern audiences might have trouble with. Hob was involved with the beginning of the European slave trade.  He regretted it years later but modern audiences might have trouble getting past that. 

       Another story component of The Sandman that modern audiences might have trouble with is Nada forgiving Morpheus for leaving her in Hell for rejecting him. I hope they don’t change that for modern sensibilities.  It’s important for Morpheus’s growth as a character to not only forgive but to learn to accept being forgiven.  It’s only because Nada forgives him that Morpheus starts to apologize for other past wrong-doings, something Delirium says he would never do before.   

      Note: To anyone who wants to watch these episodes of Highlander The Series that I just described to you, if you are in the US you can watch it for free on Tubi.  The episodes Comes a Horseman and Revelation 6:8 are in Season 5 of Highlander: The Series.  

[deltaengineering]

mid effort hot takes on the summer anime of 2022 that I watched this summer

Bucchigire

Took a chance on this one, didn't really pan out but oh well. It's far too generically shounen, especially in the way the main character and especially the main antagonists are the worst parts of it. There's really only one aspect that consistently delivers and it's the spicy Akira/Kogurou romance (a vanishingly tiny part of the show). Apart from that, it's not terrible but not good either. 5/10

Kakegurui Twin

Kakegurui S2 already wasn't very solid and Twin is not righting the ship. It's still technically Kakegurui nonsense, which makes it mildly entertaining, but it's lacking the special something that made S1 so exciting. Heavyhanded color correction also makes it remarkably ugly for no reason I can determine. 6/10

Extreme Hearts

This one is probably nobody's favorite show but it does have a few ideas that make it stand out from the crowd, such as the bizarre concept, the idea of padding out a 5 member plot with literal bots and some of the rivals. But on the other hand, it still is a very basic idol show with not particularly memorable characters and low production values. An attempt was made. 6/10

lmao of the Arsnotoria

This is an extremely weird one. At its core it's a competent but only slightly above average cute girls doing cute things in a cute setting. It's decent at it but that's it. However, it also randomly cuts to edgy dudes doing edgy things sometimes, with a vague implication that this may eventually matter. Well joke's on you, because the whole thing ends up feeling mostly like a prank. So while this does absolutely not deliver on the one real hook it has, it refuses to deliver to a degree that it's hilarious. Thankfully it's just good enough for the whole thing not feeling like a waste of time anyway, but again: it really is a mostly content-free cutefest that occasionally cuts to the most chuuni edgelords imaginable decapitating people and talking about Australia(?) for no apparent reason, and then right back to talk about cake or whatever. It's kinda amazing, but also not. 6/10

Chimimo

Chimimo is another very basic show in that it's a cutesy slice of life comedy with a mild twist. It's pretty well made and has no real weaknesses, but it's also not really punching above its weight and the strengths are rare. Entertaining, but hardly more. 6/10

Gooberploink Edgelords

Now here's a big one, and right off the bat I have to say that I can't be entirely contrarian this time. It's not as great as people think, because there's fairly severe problems: it's 90% clichees (if something isn't a cyberpunk clichee it's probably an anime clichee instead), the pacing is off (it starts annoyingly slow and ends in a dumb, ridiculously overblown yet still anticlimactic boss fight), the characters are somewhat lacking (they're not bad per se, but also not nearly fleshed out enough to provide the depth that the script seems to be aiming for), and Imaishi's penchant for comedic ultraviolence occasionally undermines any attempt at seriousness anyway. But I'd still take a bunch of clichees halfway competently strung together over whatever the fuck TRIGGER writing usually is (apart from the Gridmens, which are definitely better written than this). And writing aside, it's fun; Imaishi's thing is great in small doses and this script affords to let him go wild just about exactly the right amount. It always looks cool and occasionally super cool. So yeah, had a good time but don't believe the hype. 7/10

Summertime Render

I have a weird relationship with Summertime Render, because it definitely adheres to the shounen school of "no idiot left behind" writing. Half of every episode is basically exposition, with graphs and numbers and similes that really destroy any mysticism this show might have (and it's almost always the first half, which looks to me like an attempt of the scriptwriter to leave each episode off with a positive impression - which actually works!). I'd say those parts are pointless for about the first half where the plot is very simplistic, but then the second half hits and things get excessively convoluted. In a way, then two weaknesses cancel each other out: There's an absurd number of complicated twists but they're silly and not worth picking apart logically, so it's a plus that you can just take the show's word for it because it makes damn sure to provide it. So that's the bad parts but apart from that, it's actually surprisingly good. The first half has a solid, Twin Peaks-esque mystery vibe and while the second half devolves into complete schlock, it's very entertaining schlock. Also, it not only has an ending, but a well-paced, satisfying one at that - which is surprising given the nature of it (yes, it's exactly what you'd assume it is three episodes in). 7/10

Shadows Haus S2

I really liked Shadows House S1 almost despite itself, and S2 removes a lot of the problems such as the entire middle bit being a very contrived quest arc. S2 also has a lot better defined characters, and a ton more of them to boot. However, since we now know a lot more about what's going on, it's also significantly less creepy than S1, and that was really the best part about it. S2 is almost a different kind of show, more of an outright character drama. So while it's an improvement in almost all ways, I don't consider it significantly more enjoyable all in all. Which is completely fine, because it was plenty enjoyable to begin with. 7/10

Love Live Superstar S2

Similarly, Superstar S2 is just Superstar S1 but better. Since Superstar S1 was already arguably the best Love Live yet, that makes it pretty damn good. The two-stage group building really pays off here, because the character introduction arcs are historically the best part of any Love Live and this way they take up the vast majority of the show. And the new characters are great: Kinako is very cute, Natsumi is delightfully trashy and Mei and Shiki are the gayest thing to come out of this already exceedingly loaded franchise. They do try to ruin it again in the end (also a tradition at this point) with a drama arc that goes precisely nowhere, but the prompt promise of an S3 softens this blow enough to it still coming out on top of the Love Live heap rather easily. 8/10

Made in Abyss S2

I actually like Made in Abyss enough to read the manga, so I knew what this arc was going to be from the start. And, with that knowledge, I expected it to be very sketchy because the pacing is completely shot in the source material. Surprisingly though, the anime tweaks just a few things, brings out the strengths more and generally smoothens things out to a degree that it can easily hold its own compared to the first season and the movie. That's not to say the pacing is entirely fixed, especially the ending drags considerably (it definitely didn't require a double length final episode, for starters), and it also can't fix the main problem with the entire arc, in that it ultimately doesn't have a whole lot to do with the main narrative of Riko and crew. Some minor bits aside, it very much feels like a side story, and maybe it would have been a better fit as one. On the other hand, said side story (the backstory of Iruburu Village) on its own is fantastic. If you're this far in, it's not a spoiler that Made in Abyss is, despite appearances, an excessively grim horror story. However, this arc for the first time manages to fully make the grimness work on a thematic level. This is especially true compared to the movie, which, while certainly impressive, really was just a supervillain twirling his moustache past the point of ridiculousness. THIS arc, however, is legitimately a grand tragedy, one with the full impact (and grodiness) of an ancient creation myth followed by a matching apocalypse. Oh yeah, and the author's still a weird pervert. But he gets results. 8/10

[adultswim2021]

The Boondocks #4: “Granddad's Fight” | November 27, 2005 – 11:00PM | S01E04

My limited exposure to Boondocks has yielded a slight awareness of the show’s lore. It’s an awareness that is so slight that I had to confirm most of it by looking up stuff in the Boondocks wiki. For example: I was pretty sure that the character of Stinkmeaner has a recurring role in the series despite how the episode ends. I also learned that the rappers Huey watches on TV are recurring characters, a fact I was much hazier on. 

This one is about Granddad getting into a fight with a blind old man named Stinkmeaner. This is prefaced with a brief dissertation on the concept of a “(soft-a n-word) moment” (except they say the actual word, which I don’t get to say ;_;), examining the cultural phenomenon of black men becoming so angry with each other over a minor slight that they get into a life-ending skirmish with each other (usually at the hands of white cops attempting to break up the fight). Stinkmeaner is a nasty old man who went blind at the age of 15 and gleefully dedicates his life to making everyone around him miserable. This is all told via flashback after his proper intro, wherein he careens down the road in his broken-down car, his blindness causing an explosive and fiery car accident involving an ambulance. He’s truly a rotten character whose presence on Earth isn’t doing anyone any favors.

Granddad is humiliated in his initial match with him, which comes to a boil when Stinkmeaner steps on his brand new sneakers. It’s explained that a significant number of (soft-a n-word) moments begin with this very scenario. Granddad loses the fight, is what I mean. He eventually gets into a rematch with Stinkmeaner. Huey psyches Granddad out by showing him a Zatoichi movie, causing Granddad to prepare for the fight of a lifetime. It doesn’t really end well for anyone involved.

Explicit spoiler warning! SPOILERS AHEAD! In the grand scheme of things it’s pretty bold to have a main character whose basically a likable everyman on your show kill another character, especially on a non-absurdist sitcom. But this is Adult Swim we’re talking about here, so they were probably asking the show to routinely show grim life-ending moments at the hands of all our guys. Adult Swim probably called the first episode “gay ass” and suggested Riley decapitate Ed Asner’s character.

Hell, if Adult Swim had it their way™ the ho episode would consist of Huey accidentally shooting said ho with a bazooka before the first act break, and the rest of the episode would be a string of zany “dead hooker” jokes, including a subplot where they retrieve her various body parts blown across the neighborhood so they can stitch her back together. “Maybe call the episode Frankenhooker, and have a part where the characters look into the camera and literally pat themselves on the back for making such an obscure reference” Adam Reed probably chimed in with, while he and Lazzo took a brief break from making prank phone calls to MC Chris where they just screamed orgasm noises into the phone until he had to change phone numbers.

This one’s a pretty good one. Not as good as the first episode, but the best one since. In the name of critiquing something fully, because I can’t prove how smart I am without saying what’s bad about a thing, I’ll just say this: boy, you could tell they were stretching the animation budget thin in certain scenes. The “(soft-a n-word) moment” sequences featured a lot of freeze-frames and simple text overlays, and the scene where Riley watches the awards show fight break out between rappers is rewound and rewatched by the characters over and over again. Honestly, it all works fine and isn’t as flagrantly cheap as I’m making it sound, and there was no real reason for me to point it out. Except for the appear-smarter thing. Anyway, thanks for respecting me more.

MAIL BAG:

when was the last time you took a job and loved it?

I think basically every job (not counting fleeting entertainment-based gigs I’ve had where I worked/volunteered on a thing for a few days) I’ve ever had I’ve eventually grown to hate for some reason. I loved my video store job until the managers started neglecting the business and started actively sabotaging it, and I became the only person left that actually gave a shit. My last two jobs are sorta great, except for my co-workers, but I hate everyone so this is to be expected. What was the question

London Arbuckle writes:

Here's very good, very essential trivia for the mail bag: 12 oz mouse episode 6 "Spharktasm" is the final adult swim premiere to air before I turned 18. Childhood, like life, slipping away before all of our eyes. Pretty cool!

This is good. Here’s mine! I was 17 years old when I started attending junior college, and I have this very distinct memory of attending orientation, and being taken on a tour and I remember all I could think about was Adult Swim, which probably just premiered. Good to know that in 20 years I haven’t outgrown this stupid shit. Damn.

[caffeine-and-melatonin]

✨Bad Batch E13 Spoilers✨

FYI this one is probably gonna be on the shorter side in comparison to my other episode posts, so let's take a look at my brain during E13...

- @fictional-men-ruin-lives WHEN I SAW THE TITLE OF THIS EPISODE!!! Omg I instantly thought of your post about the hive mind episodes

- Ok seriously though I know their armor protects them and all that jazz but for a group chaotic clone bros who are hiding from the government, they really do stick out like a sore thumb (like those guards(?) clocked them immediately)

-"And who are they?" Tech back at it again with the funky vocal inflections that I absolutely adore

- Ok it might just be me but my brain instantly went "Is that young Vizago?"... it was not but still

- WHY DO YOU HAVE CID'S NECKLACE? Is she dead? bro what’s going on?

- Tech, love, you can't just casually tell a child that a person they have kinda become friends with was possibly murdered

-Aye abrasive great aunt space lizard isn’t dead!

- Cid's soft spot for Omega is something I didn't know I needed

- "I believe she's threatening us." "You're quick." 💀

- Cid really said "I endorse Girlboss Omega" huh?

- TECH'S FACE WHEN CID COMPLIMENTED HIM!!!! AND WRECKER GIVING HIM A SUPPORTIVE SMILE!!!! AHHHH HE LOOKED SO PROUD OF HIMSELF I LOVE THAT DORK SO MUCH 🥺❤️

-"This is a stealth mission. You boys are good at that, right?" bitch have you met them?

- Aww Wrecker finally got a nickname from Cid...actually he got like four all in one episode (someone please talk to Echo...give him a nickname or something just please talk to the sweet boy)

- Love how Cid totally picked favorites and had Tech and Omega go with her

- Ew hive??? Please no bugs. Please.

-Wrecker'panicked whispering gives me life

- Tech lifting that whole ass trap door by himself 👀

- What is spice exactly? Is it honestly just ✨space drugs✨?

- Ew giant fairy looking bat things...lol wait why does this lowkey remind me of the whole flying keys thing in Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone??? Is that just me?

- If flashlights = torches...then what do they call actual torches with fire?

- Ruby. Love her. She is the moment.

- AHHHH PROTECTIVE BIG BROTHERS!!!

- WHEN I TELL YOU I LITERALLY MADE A FINGER GUN AT MY TV JUST BEFORE THE BOYS DID WHEN THE PYKES SAID THAT OMEGA HAD TO STAY BEHIND.....sis I need to go to sleep

- Awww Cid cares so much about Omega

- Wrecker's face after she said that she got Omega into this and she was gonna get her out is so interesting, but I can't quite place it. Facial expressions are one thing that I really like to focus on because they can say a lot about the characters.

- Wrecker and Cid are a chaotic duo and it's so funny to me

- Durand is a trust fund baby. Makes sense.

- Love how Omega can literally become friends wieveryoneone

- TECH IS BUILDING A THING! LOOK AT HIM GO! I'M SO PROUD OF HIM!

- WRECKER'S VOICE CRACK WHILE SCREAMING

- Lol why does Tech slouch so much when he runs? Like it’s adorable but also sir why? (giving me major “spencer reid running with a gun” vibes if you know what I mean) 

- "INCOMING!"...sir how did you fit a whole ass star into a two liter container thing

- Bruh I thought they were gonna straight up decapitate Durand

- Cid: "First round's on me." Boys: *aggressive sprinting*

FINAL THOUGHTS:

- "So no Crosshair or Howzer?" *throws phone. breaks skateboard* (pls someone understand my vine references)

- Bro I totally called the whole thing with the “this episode is gonna be dark” tweet. So glad 4 years of stage crew really helped me translate lighting nerd humor 

- So no one actually got infected by mind control worms.....weird (go see @fictional-men-ruin-lives post about that whole thing on Disney+)

- Ok y'all know me, I don't really like to be overly negative all the time, but I feel like this was a bit of a step back especially after the past two episodes. Like the episode was fine and all, but sis there's THREE EPISODES LEFT! Like wtf can we please stick to the central conflict/plot???

- While we are on the subject of us only having three episodes left, it's already not super great that they aren't getting into any character development with Tech or Echo (don't even get me started about Cross), but is it just me or did Echo barely talk. Like he's just kinda there and the only times he does say anything it's like a singular sentence and it only serves the purpose of trying to enforce the idea of him being "the grumpy one" (which I feel like is a waste of existing AND potential characterization from a writing standpoint)

- We better be getting another season. I'm so attached to all of them and there is so much potential for each of them as characters as well as a story as a whole. Looking back at S1 of TCW and Rebels, yeah they were a bit slow at some points, but that was because they were trying to establish a world with a decent amount of new characters. With this, we already got the baseline characterization of each of the members of TBB in S7 of TCW, but aside from Hunter and (to a lesser degree) Wrecker, we haven't seen a whole bunch of growth. Omega, who obviously wasn’t in TCW, is a pretty well rounded character who I personally find interesting and I love her dearly, so it's not a matter of "oh it's just the first season we don't have a lot of time to GROW THE PERSONALITIES OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS". Idk I just feel like there is so much potential and another season has to happen or I will go to the studio or office or wherever and write it myself. 

P.S.I'm sorry if my final thoughts section was a little more negative than the stuff I normally post, I just have a lot of things I wanna talk about and y'all just happen to be the ones who have to hear it 😐

Overall, the episode itself wasn't bad, I just think it's placement in the season doesn't really help in the whole cohesive storyline department.

[ziracona]

What are your thoughts on all the survivors that weren't mentioned in ilm? Like bill and zarina?

Well, I’m under-informed on a few of them. If I wrote a story including Bill, Heather/Cheryl, and Ash, I would do more research first, because I only have their DbD paragraphs and a little personal knowledge to go with, but I’ll still give you my current takes haha. 

I’ve never played Left 4 Dead, but from his perks and the little I do know, Bill seems gruff and rough around the edges, but like he’s got a good heart and while his paragraph describes him as wanting someone to fight more than anything, I’d argue it reads a lot more like he wants to see people protected more than anything. (I mean, considering he’s quite literally died for his friends before, and some of his perks are based around survival alone, but he’s also got Borrowed Time, one of the most altruistic survivor perks in the game). 

Heather I feel bad for more than anything else. Poor girl goes to hell once and what do you do? Ya send her back. It ain’t fair. I’ve /seen/ Silent Hill and never played it, so again I have very incomplete information, but I liked her, and mostly I just felt bad for her that her life was super messed up. Poor kid is extremely traumatized, but I greatly admire the resilience and how powerful she is when most people would pretty understandably curl up and die.

Ash, I’ve /only/ seen the first Evil Dead film, so I only know him as baby Ash/the world’s single biggest himbo. I’m losing it. In that film, he really does see a friend turn into a demon zombie (not the first time it’s happened either), attempt to murder him and another friend, then get decapitated but still be chattering on the floor, and when he asks what they’re gonna do now and his other (kind of dying at this point) friend says they have to bury the zombie still living corpse thing, dumb hoe really does go “But we can’t bury her! She’s our friend : (”.  He’s so stupid but I loved him. The movie was kinda too grody for my personal preferences--kinda icked me out--but I really enjoyed poor stupid Ash. I am lead to believe he is much more charismatic as an older dude though, so I’d have to do more research to have an accurate opinion on DbD Ash.

Yui I really like. Actually, I try not to play against Yuis when I play killer, or to like, at least not play Legion or Myers against them (I main Wraith/Myers/Legion, although I’m also learning Huntress, Nurse, Hag, & Spirit), because this poor girl got assaulted by a nasty stalker boy with a knife & half her character is about speaking out for women who get stalked & abused and thus I like, don’t feel super comfortable knifing a character who is written as a figurehead for “don’t abuse women or stalk/kill them” down as a slasher boy in-game? (Kind of a weird choice by the devs tbh). I like her a lot though. It’s cool that she rebelled against gender stereotypes even though it made home life really hard, and did it in a society where that’s even more complicated than where I’m from, and that she carved her own path despite a lot of obstacles, defended herself against a guy who was entitled to her body because he’d seen her, beat him, and then went through PT and recovery and got back to racing and was kind of a figurehead of speaking out against violence against women and had a whole biker gang devoted to that. She’s very hardcore.

Zarina is also cool. I like her whole “search for the truth” freedom fighter thing. Her perks are really neat & I think the way she’s tied to Caleb is cool. It’s been a while since there’s really been a connection between killer and survivor (I mean, ST I guess, but the Demogorgon has no personal connection to those two, it’s just from their world, so to me it’s been since like, Jeff), and this is an interesting way for them to be connected. You’ve got Nea having trespassed in the Nurse’s workplace, Benedict went looking for answers at the MacMillan estate, and Jeff having been friends with Legion in highschool, but other than that and the licensed survivors who get taken with the monster hunting them (Quentin, Laurie, Tapp, Heather, etc), most survivors have no connection. It’s neat that she went looking for truth and trying to see if Caleb was a monster like history paints him, and that’s why she got taken. Kinda sad too, because part of what made Caleb end so violent was that the justice system was super unfair to him, and probably if he knew all of Zarina’s history, he would appreciate her and get some weird small amount of solace from it (I’m not about to suggest he’d like, reform or something, but like, it would probably matter to him, and he’d probably take it easy on her in trials, even if his life didn’t fundamentally change much), but he’ll almost certainly never know that. Her backstory is brutal but kinda real, and it sucks a lot for her that her whole life has been unfair, and then she got snatched by the Entity too. : /  I like her though. 

Nancy & Steve I like, although it’s weird to me they were the pair taken lol. It would have made more sense if it was Nancy and Jonathan, or Steve and his bff Robin. ST seems like a weird addition to me, because I don’t think of it as horror, but that said, I really feel like they missed out by adding Steve & Nancy as their survivors period, even though these are both characters I like in the show. See, almost without fail before that, the licensed characters taken were either from stories finished being told, or dead/presumed dead, and that was really cool (I mean, Halloween I guess not, but Halloween doesn’t count because it’s already got like 6 timelines going--what’s one more?). It was great to see Quentin get a second life through DbD, and Tapp just dies offscreen presumably in Saw 1, so he was a great pick for someone to develop further in a different story--same reason he’s the first protag of the Saw video games. That was a really cool way to do things, and I think they should have stuck to it. It was smart, and awesome, and a lovely idea. ST, however, isn’t even finished getting seasons. And especially with that being the case, it’s weird to just have some totally undeveloped and unmotivated AU where part way between seasons...2 & 3? Nancy calls....Steve? And just Steve? To help her look something up? And they go missing together? Like, if you wanted a ST episode, which could have been really amazing, I’d have way preferred you stick to your OG, really cool guns & drag in a dead or underutilized character and give them new life than create an unmotivated AU where some probably happy in main-stream canon character is now trapped in hell for the publicity grab. I’m not actually, like, bothered about them being in-game or smth if that sounds harsh, I just am a little bit sad they didn’t go with their old modus operandi and do something really cool! Like, ST has a terrible track record for killing off characters for no GD good reason post season-one and DbD YOU COULD HAVE UTILIZED THAT FAILING SO WELL. You could have done amazing things!!! Like, Alexi gets to have a second life in DbD? Sign me the fuck up, he was my favorite character in Season 3! I fkn DIG that. OR UH. GIVE ME FUKCING BOB. I WOULD NEVER PLAY ANYONE BUT SEAN ASTIN AGAIN. I”M JUST SAYING. WHY TF DID YOU NOT PICK THE MUCH BETTER OPTIONS AND DO WHAT YOU USED TO DEVS I HATE IT.

So anyway none of this is revolutionary but here’s my short form thoughts on the other survivors that weren’t in ILM. Thanks for the ask! ^u^

[msclaritea]

~Mr Azira Phale, Angel~

It struck me during the church scene that perhaps the Germans were calling him Mr. Fell because they thought Phale was his last name. So, I took a closer look at the two halves that made the whole.  

~Azira

...Arabic in origin, it means A Rising Star. Interestingly, Pre-Islamic Arabia practiced Vedic religion, and in Vedic Astrology, Azira is a common name for babies born within Krittika Nakshatra, the older name of the Pleides Constellation.

Krittika..."literally means a "sharp flame" or "sword of fire." Alternatively, the word "Krittika" may be derived from the Sanskrit root krit, which means "to twist threads" or "to wind as a snake." This clearly is related to the symbology of the Caduceus and the May Pole. The root 'krit' also means "to separate, cut asunder, or divide." This secondary meaning refers to the division of souls into two groups that occurs on the Day of Illumination. The subtle energy associated with the Pleiades constellation is considered a Sword of Fire because it cuts asunder or separates knowledge from ignorance. It separates light from darkness."     

~Phale

The name is actually of what is known as Pictish-Scottish origin. "The Picts were a confederation of Celtic language speaking peoples who lived in what is today eastern and northern Scotland during the Late British Iron Age and Early Medieval periods. Where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from early medieval texts and Pictish stones. Their Latin name, Picti, appears in written records from Late Antiquity to the 10th century."

"This interesting surname is of Scottish and Irish origin, and it is an Anglicized form of the Scottish Gaelic "MacPhail", and the Irish Gaelic "MacPhoil", both patronymics from the Gaelic forms of the given name Paul, derived from the Latin "Paulus, meaning "small", and is has always been popular in Christendom."

Now of special note is Paul, the Saint, originally Saul of Tarsus, considered by many to be the actual founder of early Christianity, who very much believed in Angels, spoke of them appearing to him, and who at first, was bent on persecuting Jesus, only to become an Apostle after he appeared to him in the famous story of his travels on the road To Damascus. I came across an eye-opening article, theorizing that not only were Paul's writings edited and twisted, making him a patriarchal misogynist, but that he in fact believed in equality, was hugely inspired by Plato, and may very well have been Gay.

From: The (Possibly) Gay, Elite Apostle Who Believed in Radical Equality for All by Jay Parini

"I tend to agree with Bishop John Shelby Spong, a brilliant theologian and church leader, who argues that Paul was “a rigidly controlled gay male,” as he writes in Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (1991). Be this as it may, Paul was clearly at war with his own body, tormented by the idea if not the reality of sexual desire, and eager to withdraw into the company of his male companions:  Luke, Timothy, Silas, and others. His conflicted feelings about his own sexual nature may account for the “thorn in his flesh” that he wrote about in his second letter to the church at Corinth. (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)"

Galatians 3:28: “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free man, neither male nor female. In Christ, all of these are one.” ~Saint Paul~

 Saint Paul was later decapitated by Nero! Oh, and one last thing...

              Azira is actually a girl's name.

BUT WAIT...THERE'S MORE.

For those who have looked closer, you may have discovered that Petronius worked for Nero.

Petronius was chief advisor to Nero and helped with the planning of all debauchery, orgies, feasts and crimes. He was known as Arbiter of Taste.

And Petronius wrote the infamous Satyricon.

Influence Of The Satyricon Upon The Literature Of The World.

"...It is to the author's recognition of the importance of environment, of the vital role of inanimate surroundings as a means for bringing out character and imbuing his episodes and the actions of his characters with an air of reality and with those impulses and actions which are common to human experience, that his influence is due...This class of literature, though modified essentially from age to age, in keeping with the dictates of moral purity or bigotry, innocent or otherwise, has come to be the very stuff of which literary success in fiction is made. One may write a successful book without a thread of romance; one cannot write a successful romance without some knowledge of realism; the more intimate the knowledge the better the book.."

"Petronius writes cynically and satirically about Roman decadence, about a society that’s corrupt and materialistic. Paul, to a certain extent, is writing about the same thing. He is certainly not humorous most of the time; he’s expressing his straightforward outrage about what he is seeing around him."

Petronius, set up for a treason charge by a rival, was threatened with death but chose to take his own life in quite a dramatic fashion, which is described in the notes to Satyricon. He died a year before Paul.

*Satyricon is compared often in style to Au Rebours by Joris-Karl Huysmans, and one translation published in Paris,1902 has been attributed to Sebastian Melmoth aka Oscar Wilde.

Now, was St. Paul an influence in any way on Shakespeare? The Bard of course wrote about Religion and Politics in his plays but due to his enormous influence, St. Paul managed to touch Shakespeare's place in a much different way. This has led to the discovery of a place I had never heard of from this time period...and a new head canon.

During Shakespeare’s lifetime, the area around old St Paul’s Cathedral was a hive of activity and industry...the main gathering place for acquiring (and spreading) news and gossip, purchasing the latest fashions and commodities, and, of course, for being seen. Under its Nave, as known as Paul's Walk, while the people who went there and into the churchyard were known as Paul's Walkers.

Complaint of Thomas Dekker in 1608:

‘What swearing is there; yea, what swaggering, what facing and out-facing? What shuffling, what shouldering, what jostling, what jeering, what biting of thumbs to beget quarrels, what holding up of fingers to remember drunken meetings, what braving with feathers, what bearding with mustachios, what casting open of cloaks to publish new clothes.’

Indeed, with its dozens of booksellers, Paul’s Churchyard was the centre of the London book trade, and was popular throughout the entire country.

"Booksellers on Paternoster Row became a source of competition in the latter half of the century, eventually winning the prominent position in London bookselling, but Paul’s maintained its supremacy well into the seventeenth century."  This link has a beautiful rendering that can be expanded to show the individual publishers." 

I imagine Aziraphale would have spent hours here, likely with Crowley beside him, eagerly pouring over the thousands of books available, excitedly meeting other writers, getting lost among a mixture of saints and sinners, just enjoying humanity. And I head canon that THIS is what gave Aziraphale his idea to open a bookshop.

What kept bringing me back to St. Paul?

It's imposing presence caught my eye during the WW2 sequence. Turns out, it was bombed during the last days of December 1940, but survived due to the hard work of British firefighters.

“There are a lot of secrets in the design—a lot of buried subliminal stuff,” he reveals, noting that he hopes an eagle-eyed fan will find all the Easter eggs in Good Omens." Michael Ralph, Production designer, who also says that he based Azira's bookshop on the design of a compass.

Purposeful or no, using St. Paul as a guide through Good Omens has been a fun history lesson.

  @consulting-nerd-of-many-things @ineffable-janthony @feifeicuttie @sarahthecoat @honeybeelullaby @echosilverwolf @englandwouldfalljohn@thegoodomensdumpster @fuckyeahgoodomens @artfulkindoforder @iamjohnlocked4life @artemisastarte @fellshish @brilliantorinsane

The Satyricon

https://www.uscatholic.org/church/scripture-and-theology/2012/04/putting-paul-his-place

The Influence of St. Paul on Shakespeare

An awesome podcast That Shakespeare Life on St. Paul's Bookshops

x x x  x x x

[valtharr]

I’ve been thinking about how I feel about Season 2 of Castlevania, and...I think I feel about the same way I feel about Fallout 3 & 4.  I like it as a standalone product, but as an adaptation of Castlevania, I’m pretty disappointed.

Let’s start with Trevor.

Trevor is a Belmont. The Belmonts are the heroes of Castlevania. Most games have one as a protagonist, and even the ones who don’t still have one play at least a minor role in the story and/or feature a separate playmode where you can play as one. They’re a big deal in the games.

In the show? I honestly get the feeling that, if Trevor had died after saying “let’s check out the Belmont hold!”, the rest of the story wouldn’t really have played out much different. Like, what did he even do this season? He was pretty much a supporting character! The closest he did in advancing the plot was protecting Sypha while she was actually doing something that advanced the plot. Then he chopped off Dracula’s head...which wasn’t really necessary, since he had already been staked, and even if decapitation was necessary, Sypha could have done that, as well!

Hell, the entire final confrontation was a huge letdown, looking back on it. Sure, the three “protagonists” entering the castle and wrecking all those vampires while “Bloody Tears” was playing was fucking awesome, but...they were essentially just the cleanup crew! Most of Drac’s troops had already been killed by Carmilla! Oh, and I’ll get to Carmilla and her plot, don’t worry. But yeah, they killed the last few remnants of Drac’s army, and then go to fight the big man himself. And the beginning of the fight was awesome! All three of them fighting, but Dracula giving them a run for their money....I think I actually said out loud “Finally, they’re showing how powerful Dracula is!” And then he unleashes his fireball in another cool reference to the games, the heroes deflect it and blow a large hole in the wall, Alucard zooms after his dad, and Trevor and Sypha...just go run around the castle, hoping to eventually stumble upon the fight, I guess.

So, while Sypha and Trevor take the tour, Dracula and Alucard have their little Dragonball fight, which is awesome, and then they arrive in Alucard’s old room, and Alucard kills his dad due to him turning into a little crybaby. Wow.

Which brings me to Dracula’s characterization. Again, looking at just the show, ignoring it’s based on a preexisting property, Dracula is a pretty good, nuanced, three-dimensional villain. Lashing out at humanity, but deep inside, he’s actually just depressed and wants it all to end. That’s not a bad characterization in itself...but it’s not Dracula. At least, it’s not Castlevania Dracula.

In the games, Dracula has the same backstory as he has in the show. But in the games, it results in an unending, vicious hatred and disdain for humanity, that can only be quenched once they’re all dead. He might have started out as a man driven by the loss of the love of his life (twice), but more and more, he simply became the embodiment of pure evil.

Castlevania Dracula isn’t just a vampire. He isn’t even just “king of the vampires.” He is an immensely powerful sorcerer with the power to dominate entire legions of night creatures to do his bidding. He is evil given flesh. In one game, which takes place in a time after Dracula has been killed off for good, a cult tries to resurrect him because they believe that Ultimate Good (aka God) cannot exist without Ultimate Evil, and that Ultimate Evil is the Dark Lord, aka Dracula. In another game, Dracula’s essence has been split into three glyphs that bestow the main character magical powers. Each of those glyphs is the most powerful one of its type, but also damages the character when she uses it. And when she uses all three glyphs, everything on the screen automatically dies - including herself. Dracula is so powerful and so evil, that if someone tries to channel his power - even someone specifically trained in channeling magical energies - that someone dies, and takes every living thing in the vicinity with it. Dracula isn’t an aristocrat who navigates a web of intrigue within his vampire court, he’s basically a demigod whose right-hand man is literally Death himself, and who turns into a giant gargoyle creature if he gets pissed enough.

Oh, but speaking about navigating a web of intrigue, let’s talk about that subplot, shall we?

Again, taken on its own, it wasn’t that bad, but looking at it as part of a Castlevania adaptation, it really ticks me off. First of all, it really seemed to take up most of the screentime, taking even more focus away from our supposed “protagonists”, Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard. Secondly, it took up a lot of plot relevance, too. Again, by the time the golden trio arrives at Dracula’s castle, most of his troops are gone as a result of the silly intrigues and backstabbing. What the hell? Yeah, it wasn’t badly played out, and people compared it to Game of Thrones, but you know, the thing is...

CASTLEVANIA ISN’T FUCKING GAME OF THRONES!

Castlevania isn’t some super serious gothic dark fantasy epic that’s littered with political intrigue. Castlevania is goofy, campy, ridiculous, tongue-in-cheek, action.

It’s the series that literally started out as a deliberate homage/parody of campy Hammer Horror movies. The series that features enemies such as chainsaw-wielding cannibal butchers in the early 1800s, or demonic maids who know kung-fu and whose souls you can absorb to gain the ability of summoning a magical vacuum cleaner that restores your health. The series in which one game gives you literal cream pies as a weapon, and where those cream pies are one of the most potent weapons against that game’s super hard optional boss.

Why were the writers so afraid to embrace the camp? Why take away the corniness? Why shift the focus from fun action and creative monster designs to political intrigue and rehashing of typical vampire tropes? Why, when adapting a show based on a series that is 90% running through Dracula’s castle, and that is fucking named after said castle, did they decide that the heroes should only spend about twenty minutes of screentime INSIDE THE FUCKING CASTLE?

Why not, I don’t know, have them arrive in the castle in the first or second episode, and then being all “oh, Dracula is cooped up in his throne room, and we need five McGuffins to open the magical seal!” and then have the rest of the show be the heroes fighting cool monsters in epic boss battles to get those McGuffins? You could still have character- and worldbuilding. You could still have flashbacks, or have Alucard talk about his time in the castle, or whatever!

The Fallout comparison I made earlier wasn’t just chosen willy-nilly. Because when looking at Fallout 3, one gets the impression that Bethesda just wanted to make a post-apocalyptic game, and thought that including stuff like Super Mutants, Power Armor, and Deathclaws was enough to make it a Fallout game. And just like that, I kinda get the impression that the creators of Netflixvania wanted to create a dark fantasy show, and thought that including stuff like Slogra & Gaibon (literally the only iconic CV monsters they used), Bloody Tears (literally the only iconic CV music they used) or the Morning Star whip would make it a Castlevania show.

Again, it’s a good show. I enjoyed watching it, and I’m curious what they’ll do in future seasons, if there are any. But...well, let’s just say it like this:

As a fan of dark, fantastical horror media, I really like it. As a fan of Castlevania, I’m severely disappointed.

[anamorph-marco]

Deadpool 2 (Spoilers)

Spoilers

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>>>>

. . . . Okay, if you're still reading this you have been adequately SPOILERS, warned.

Deadpool 2 sucks. And it is unfortunate that it sucks because when it is good and on its game it is one of the funniest wittiest and sharpest pieces of parody satire comedy of an over-bloated over-saturated genre I've ever seen.

But three specific things CONSTANTLY pull this film back from being good, and ONE specific thing, makes it FUCKING AWFUL.

Let's start with the three things.

This film's theme, or what it clearly wants to be its theme, is that "No one is beyond saving, and EVERYONE is worth that effort, no matter what." Which is a very solid emotionally compelling lead, that compels the plot of the film.

When the film allows itself to have a plot.

The film's next HUGE problem is that it is basically a poorly written mess.

It's seams show EVERYWHERE. And I mean in it's story telling and structural assembly. Every single scene, no every single shot, can be so clearly delineated between Plot relevant, and joke. It very rarely ever does both at once and creates (A term I'm borrowing from video game critique) Cinema-Narrative dissonance, constantly. (Otherwise known as dissonance of framing)

The third thing:

While directly related to the second point, this observation is worthy of it's own consideration. This film has a tone problem. It is constantly trying to play itself two ways, Logan level serious, and South Park level funny. The tonal yo-yo-ing is so extreme that I'm surprised neck-braces aren't required upon viewing. (That's a joke)

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS (seriously, like, don't read this if you care about that stuff)

The film basically opens with *Wife Character* (I know her name is Ness, but she is reduced to a prop and it's infuriating so to emphasize that injustice I'm going to refer to her in this way to point out this ...phenomenon? yeah. I understand if it's upsetting) Anyways,

Wife character dies. Straight up, no pulled punches, she's shot in the heart, and it comes OUT OF NOWHERE. The film has not built up any stakes for itself, opening with a suicide joke . . . nice . . . And continuing into a constant barrage of satirical slapstick buffoonery and then BOOM wife dies. It's so out of nowhere that every time it cuts back to this CHARACTER MOTIVATING SUB PLOT, I was constantly apprehensive waiting for the other shoe to drop and the reveal to be it was all a joke.

I mean, it literally cuts to him in a bar peeing on himself because he's so sad.

I kept waiting for it to reveal that he was overreacting and imagining it all, or that he was over reacting and she just had to get surgery and was fine. Like the camera was going to pull focus and she was going to be in a wheel chair behind him.

For the recod: That doesn't happen, she's legitimately dead, actually totes mcscrotes real 4 realsies no take backsies.

Its that poorly handled.

The film hasn't earned this, it fridges Ness just to . . . John Wick? Deadpool into the main plot? But really it doesn't have anything to do with the main plot, and is a sub plot, that starts the film and is only there to be set up for jokey jokes later.

And no, John Wick is unfair. Because the whole point of John Wick is that his wife dies of natural causes and he is forced to confront that of all possible ways this could have happened to him or her, random cruel chance, was never one he thought of.

Ness dies because Deadpool fails to kill a dude with a cream cheese spreader.

No really, that's the joke.

END OF THREE THINGS

Okay, all of those poits are bad, but ultimately not unforgivable. If the rest of the execution is on par or better this film could be decent to good, and if certain points really hit home, it could still recover.

All points I concede.

Though my critique of those moments does have objective roots, it is ultimately subjective that I feel they are a big enough problem to impact the film's quality if the rest of the film executes itself competently anyways.

THE SCENE.

In my mind it will be the scene forever (And yes I'm stealing this set up from Hbomberguy, go watch his vids he's amazing)

The SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

THe scene: AKA: The X-Force Death scene.

If you've seen the trailers you know that Deadpool assembles a team of celebrity cameos to be his new team to take down the big bad. In a joke moment he calls them X-Force and thus . . . they are. Setup:

Deadpool and . . . annoying Edgar Wright film reject character (The bartender whose name I don't remember) hold "Tryouts" for the new team and put out a Craig's List add for recruits.

A whole bunch of people show up.

And all of them get hired, Immediately.

So there's your set up. A bunch of volunteers show up to help a guy do the right thing and save a kid from a psycho killer.

The film has earned and built towards ZERO (0) animosity towards these characters.

Okay, *deep breath* the scene:

The scene features all of those recruits dying in the most brutal cruel vicious disgusting and violent on screen deaths I've ever seen in cinema history, and I've seen A LOT of Z rated exploitation horror films.

Half the deaths don't make sense. Are only there because the script said so, break the diegetic reality, suspension of disbelief, and core conceit; of a film where the main character speaks directly to the audience for jokes. How you even manage to FUCK UP that bad . . . I don't even begin to comprehend.

Terry Cruise slams head first into a bus.

Brad Pitt has a brief two second cameo as his character get's electrecuted on a live wire.

Acid Vomit man gets pulled head first through a wood shipper, but not before he vomits on Gary . . . or was it stu? Russel? Whatever.

And then

Shatterstar. Shatterstar is an alien. So his blood is green.

Shatterstar gets pureed into green slop by helicopter blades. And then his severed ponytail SLOPS onto the windshield of the helicopter in a moment that is burned into my retinas.

IT is disgusting, and cruel and directly the fault of Deadpool.

Who against all advisory, forces his team to jump despite a wind advisory.

So let's talk about all the reasons this is completely fucking stupid.

1. a commercial sky diving plane is not going to bring divers up in a wind advisory. SO he either stole the plane or killed people to get it.

2. A helicopter WOULD NOT BE initiating take off under said conditions.

3. Helicopters don't work that way.

And three is the real kicker.

In film history there are moments that live in infamy for various parts of the craft.

For stunts gone wrong, there is ONE (1) moment.

When filming Twilight Zone, against all advisory, the director of the episode put children in harms way, and all three were decapitated by the helicopter.

This is particularly poignant because during the filming of Deadpool, a specific producer, who's name rhymes with Brian Greynalds, went against all cautionary advisory and had a stunt woman perform a stunt in unsafe conditions leading to her death.

So then, in the movie, we have a visual recreation of the most notorious stunt gone wrong in film history, in a film with a stunt gone wrong, where the leader, ignores all warnings, forces his character to perform the task, and they die a gruesome cruel death.

yeah.

And this isn't a moment of reflection either. Because this 6 minute scene is followed by a minute of jokes at the expense of the dead and then NONE of those characters are EVER MENTIONED AGAIN.

So... Let's really analyze why this scene is a problem. It's grotesquely unfunny. Absurdly cruel. Completely Mean Spirited. Horrifically distasteful. and again Not in any way funny whatsoever? (You know, despite what all the press junkits with the cast might make you think where they laugh and joke about this scene)

But it's one more thing.

Remember what I said was the theme of the movie? *Flashback*

"No one is beyond saving, and EVERYONE is worth that effort, no matter what."

Yeah.

This scene, directly works against that theme in the starkest and most movie destroying way possible.

As we watch the protagonist, not just cause and allow for the deaths of 5 well meaning characters specifically trying their best to do the right thing for good reasons, die in the most horrible ways ever put to screen.

We then get to joke about it. With no remorse. and no reflection. and then, it's forgotten.

If I had a digital copy of the film. I could literally edit that scene and the character's introductions out of the film, and NOTHING WOULD CHANGE.

It's a bad scene.

And combined with everything else.

It makes Deadpool 2 a bad movie.

And the fact that everything else in it is so good, just makes it all the more infuriating, because this film snatches defeat from the jaws of victory for no reason. One that could have easily been fixed in editing.

It would have had tone problems.

It would have been inconsistent.

But it would have been good, with great highlights.

But instead.

It's not.

It's just bad

. . . . . . . . . . . . ***Post Credits thoughts: (I guess)*** ... And I didn't even go into the extended toddler dick joke scene. Because . . . yeah. That's a thing. and it's as uncomfortable and "pedo" sounding as that sentence implies. Also, what plot there is is pretty incoherent because of those three problems I mentioned before. It's literally like watching 4 different films.

[fuckblizzardbearlover]

(St:discovery spoilers)

Not to like... Trigger anyone by asking you to think of this....so by all means pass on by.. if you are having a good or bad day and dont want to think some bad thoughts maybe you shouldnt read this. And i’m only @ ing a few people because i know they would have a good opinion IF they are in the mood to share. if you dont want to then dont. I dont want to make you feel bad.

but like... at Discount Tires the tv was showing Horns (Daniel Radcliffe....horns, ect) and it was near the end and i had to purposefully avoid watching because of this one moment i hated.

It reminded of what happened with Star Trek Discovery. I’m glad i didnt watch it but apparently in their mid season premier they violently murdered the black gay doctor. and like ...most star trek time shenanigans usually happen in the same episode. IDK if there was a cut away or if they violently murdered him on screen (based on the show i’d guess the latter)

Naturally of course, based on an article covering interviews with the director and actors, apparently they think this isnt ‘bury your gays” because there was a reason for it?  “He wasnt murdered because he was gay he was murdered because he was the smartest one on the ship and figured something out”

Oh shit well i guess us never ever in any tv show not explicitely made by us, being able to have a happy ending is ok so long as there is a Good reason for it.

Like there was a reason for WIllow’s love to be killed, there are reasons everywhere. Thats never been the issue.

and anyways, I guess i’m pissed because.....these fuckos almost got me. They had me doubting myself, gaslighting me into thinking it was acceptable. even got the actors who played the gay characters to support it to the point i thought i was wrong.

Then i see this Horns and i remember. I remember the part when daniel’s character is getting harrassed. because everyone thinks he murdered his girlfriend and the horns is bringing out peoples deepest desires. and for some police officers in his small town that includes violently taking out murderers. but the two of them get distracted when one says he’s going to jack off later thinking about the other  strangling daniel’s character. And this leads to him getting away while they make out.

And i was at first a bit pleased. Yea there was some heavy sin imagery in this movie but it was deconstructing that. the horns didnt MAKE people sin it just brought out their truth and amplified it a bit. So while it was an awkward way to come about i thought that this happy accident might lead to in the background of this story of two closeted men finding each other.

and then it gets to the climax of the story and the officer feels bad for how he’s acted and is in on the truth, that it was Daniel’s FRIEND who killed her and he’s going to help him take him out. and in the ensuing fight in the forest a struggle happens and the officer’s shotgun is aimed at his head and his entire face is blown off.

Just....abrubtly ...on screen...I LITERALLY see a closeted man who through magical help came out to himself a day or two before literally have his existence bloodily snuffed out, having only a half second to comprehend the gun in his face before his body is turned into meat and he’s doomed to a closed casket funeral because he literally doesnt have a head anymore. not because its decapitated but because its in a thousand little bloody chunky brainy boney pieces all over the forest.

And thats why i’m renewed in my anger. These FUCKING neo liberal assholes who think they are SO progressive like creators like True Blood and American Horror story. thinking NOT “lets have a diverse liberal cast” but instead “Hey you know how fucked up gays are? how about we CELEBRATE how fucked up they are by having some of our characters be these fucking QU*ers. We’ll get such good ratings due to our Progressive points and beign Edgy cus of our Gays and the only thing that will make our show edgier? lots of death. Death and gays. The only thing better is Death, gays, and black people. Yep Killing people. violent sex murders against women, violently killing our MULTIPLE black cast and having our sweet summer child gays violently killed despite how much of a precious bean they are”

These fuckos got me and others like me doubting myself. “well maybe it isnt that bad” but I REMEMBER how i felt. I remember how happy i was to think that even as a non main character that there was a gay man who was going to be happy cus he had another gay man to be with and then his BRAINS WERE SPATTERED ALL OVER THE FOREST!

And I’m SO glad now i didnt watch that episode. I can just imagine my apprehension at the suspicioun. my concern as the doctor sees something is weird. The realization that  the Arab trauma survivor Is indeed a klingon sleeper agent. The anxiety i get when he confronts him about it instead of going immediately to the captain. The fear as he doesnt realize how much danger he’s in and the Revulsion and horror as i literally watch a gay mans life snuffed out with a 1 second action  by another man

Anyways so I was just wondering if anyone else would be interested in telling about how they got suckered in and utterly betrayed by fucking faking progressive show makers who not only queerbait but seem to have no idea how harmful, prevelant and universal Bury Your Gays, is.

@pastaspoon @fitzefitcher @nintendette

[atamascolily]

Episode Review - Sinbad 1x02 - “The Return of Sinbad, Part Two”

In which we resolve all the dangling plot threads from the first episode and create some new ones to sustain us for the whole season. Also, Sinbad meets-cute, wizards are fond of practical jokes, Maeve is a total badass, Firouz's invention saves the day and Rumina acquires some motivation. 

Again, there's some Early Installment Weirdness, but the main purpose is to get all our characters together and give them reasons to hang out/hate each other, which it does very well. It just looks odd in light of later developments in the series....

(Photos from Far Far Away.)

When we left off, Sinbad's ship was attacked by a badass sea serpent. Some random crew members get eaten. Such is the life of a background extra in this series.

Sinbad concocts a daring plan! He shares it with Firouz. Actual dialogue:

Firouz: "That's insane!" Sinbad: "And having my men devoured by a sea serpent isn't?" Firouz: "Good point."

I love this so, so, so much.

The plan is for Sinbad to go up to the mast and throw an improvised bomb into the serpent's mouth when it tries to eat Sinbad.

It works great!

While Sinbad is coming down, Admir starts to fiddle with the ropes. Rongar, however, is Not Amused and forces Admir to back down.

Anyway, they arrive at the Isle of Dawn at last. Sinbad takes the crew ashore in a longboat and leaves them at the beach while he goes to find Dim-Dim. Instead, he's attacked by a hawk.

When he recovers, he's staring up at a beautiful woman with a drawn sword. She's not happy to see him.

Whatever you say, ma'am, Sinbad says, trying to collect himself and generally failing.

It turns out to be her hawk that attacked Sinbad. "You can talk to dumb beasts?" exclaims Sinbad in amazement.

"Isn't that what I'm doing right now?" she rejoins. Owww. Harsh but true.

It turns out the hawk's name is Dermott and he was just "protecting his mistress" which a super-weird line in light of later plot developments, so we'll just leave it alone, okay?

She starts ranting about raiders, Sinbad cuts her off and apologizes by thanking her - which is confusing - but eventually, she shrugs and says that Dim-Dim is expecting him and leads him off through a magic circle.

Master Dim-Dim lives in an alternate dimension paradise full of roses, which is one of my favorite things ever in this entire show. He's delighted to see Sinbad - his childhood ward - and they have an emotional reunion while the woman - now revealed to be Dim-Dim's apprentice, Maeve - watches awkwardly from the side.

Okay. It's been less than five minutes, but we had a real, stumbling, fall-on-your-face meet-cute moment, some extremely tsundere bantering, and now a Shipper on Deck. If you think this show

isn

't trying to ship these two <i>hard</i> with these tropes in play... nothing's going to convince you. Nothing.

Of course, Rumina and Turok are STILL spying on Sinbad even when he's with Dim-Dim becase the master wizard has no privacy shields, WTF Dim-Dim?

Quoth Rumina, Oh, Sinbad's so dreamy. Turok is not so easily amused.

Turok does another bit of transfiguration, with the intent of destroying the Isle of Dawn completely.  

Meanwhile, Dim-Dim and Doubar have a happy reunion on the beach. Maeve, however, is much less popular. "Out of my way, tubby," she says in an Irish accent that the producers of the show correctly decided to drop in later episodes. Doubar is not pleased.

Neither is Mustapha. "It's bad luck to have women aboard."

"It's bad luck to have idiots as well." 

NOW SHIT IS GOING DOWN. "Ask me about my mother," he demands.

Maeve takes the bait. "She raised a loud-mouth son!"

When Mustapha tries to throw her, she decks him completely. One-handed. Holding a hawk in her other hand. HOT DAMN. This moment is so bad-ass we will see it replayed over and over again in the opening credits. It's just that good.

Look at that expression on Firouz's face in the background. Classic.

Mustapha knows when he's been beaten.

"Welcome aboard, ma'am," he concedes gallantly.

Remember, Sinbad, the fate of the whole world is on your shoulders! Dim-Dim reminds his star pupil. No pressure!

Dim-Dim also has a reunion with Prince Cassib, which is super-awkward since Cassib barely remembered who Dim-Dim was in the previous episode. But he apologizes anyway for being a jerk, Dim-Dim accepts the apology, and then starts to playfully tease the price and play jokes on him, and laughs his head off like a lunatic. Admir is Not Happy About This and glowers quietly in the background.

Oh, and as soon as they start to leave, Turok's transfigured rock destroys the Isle of Dawn completely. Dim-Dim's all fatalistic. Welp. That's the end of everything. Guess I won't be needing it anymore! Sinbad is concerned and confused by all the ominous foreshadowing.

Generic footage of Sinbad sliding down the ropes. You'll see this in the credits a lot.

Sinbad tries to chat up Maeve about their shared connections/enemies. It doesn't work. Maeve admits to wanting to kill Rumina, not Turok, won't talk about why, and stalks off in a huff when Sinbad presses further. Not his smoothest moment, I'm afraid.

Dim-Dim teaches Maeve how to throw fireballs, which is an important life skill that everyone should know.

Maeve accidently-on-purpose tosses one towards Sinbad and Doubar to freak them out.

Hey, there's that ring around the moon again! Are we going to be attacked? Hell yes! There's that ominous music again... 

Rongar sneaks into Admir's cabin, a rifles through his belongings to find... a fake hand!

Admir awkwardly makes conversation with Firouz. Firouz is awkwardly pretending to be interested.

But Admir starts talking about his own "inventions," which gets Firouz interested enough to come to his cabin. That's Rongar's cue to plop Admir's trunk - which he dragged up from the cabin - in front of Firouz, because Rongar wants to make sure this display is public knowledge.  Because when you can't talk, the next best thing is to make a big scene.

Admir, his cover blown, decides to admit everything - he's actually a demon named Eblus, sent by Turok to corrupt the prince and derail the mission!

Also, if the teeth didn't give it away, he eats people. I'm not sure who exactly was in the trunk - you'd think Sinbad would have noticed a crew member missing - so maybe it was some poor soul in Basra? I have no idea.  

Dim-Dim tries to exorcise the demon, only to be blown away into another dimension. So much for the all-powerful wizard trope. (I wrote a fic in which this particular fact is heavily lampshaded.) Good-bye, Dim-Dim, we will never see you again except as a plot device to motivate our heroes! 

Well, this sucks, everybody is clearly thinking, especially Prince Cassib, who realizes he's been totally (literally??) screwed by this demon the whole time. Cassib's dropped the awful clothing but not the eyeliner, so you can tell he's gone over to the side of good - enough to volunteer to sacrifice himself to Eblus so that everyone else can go free. Sinbad's having none of it, of course. 

Eblus morphs into his Final Form, which is not as good CGI as the sea serpent, but still pretty good for the show as a whole.

Sinbad and Maeve crash into each other and have a Moment of Tense Shouting, which is movie-code for They're meant for each other/sexual tension.

Most of the actors avoid physical contact with the CGI, which makes it all the more startling when Mustapha dies. But hey, what did you expect, he wasn't in the opening credits. Rongar is devastated by his beloved friend's death, especially when the body vanishes to become a Force ghost.

Rongar screams in devastation, and goes for blood, but it's Sinbad who eventually stabs the demon and saves the day in a typically dramatic fashion.

Poor Rongar. You deserve so much better than this show gives you. I'm really sorry about that.

"Well done," Maeve says softly to Sinbad. Not, "Where the fuck is Master Dim-Dim and how are we going to get him back?" which apparently never comes up. Oh, well.

Turok decides enough is enough and it's time to kill his hostage Princess Adeenah in a dramatic fashion.

Turok decorates his whole island in a typically dramatic fashion. (It's called the Isle of Tears in this story arc, and Skull Island later on the series - both are pretty accurate.)

Welp, that looks ominous, doesn't it?

Group shot! Sinbad's on the tiller while everyone clusters round and tries to figure out what to do. Good thing Sinbad has a plan...

The entrance to Turok's cave is a skull because everything is a skull. Turok likes skulls. Got it?

Turok brings Adeenah out on the balcony to threaten her where Sinbad can see.

In case that message wasn't clear enough, Rumina uses the magic pool to put her image in the sky and talk to Sinbad directly. If Sinbad agrees to be her "special friend," then she'll let the crew go. The princess's death is non-negotiable, though.

Sinbad talks sweet nothings to distract Rumina while Firouz and Rongar get him ready to launch with the hanging glider (which Firouz admits they've never tested before on a human being).

Stop flirting and help me kill the princess, Turok admonishes his daughter, breaking off the conversation right there.

The hanging glider does work and it's awesome....

... allowing Sinbad to glide right into the cave entrance....

...grab the princess and slice Turok's head off. Rumina screams. Note the complete absence of blood, because this is Fantasy Violence, y'all, and also proof that Turok Is Really Evil.

Now just to get back to the ship...

"Hey, how's he going to land that thing?" Maeve asks of curiosity. Wow, I forgot to think about that, Firouz admits, like you do.

Fortunately, that's what oceans are for! Crash-landing!

Once on board, Sinbad gives Maeve a dramatic head-nod. Wasn't that badass of me? 

Maeve nods back. Yeah, that was pretty badass, actually. Oh, you crazy kids...

A pissed Rumina sends a rock monster to destroy the ship while she sobs over the decapitated corpse of her father.

Maeve tries to throw fireballs, and fails. Sinbad decides to motivate her by slapping her ass to piss her off - and thereby give her more power. He apologizes to Dermott first, to show that he's doing it strategically instead of just being a jerk, but it still doesn't carry over well on a re-watch.

It does, however, work. Maeve hits the giant so hard he collapses and the resulting shock waves send her tumbling into Sinbad's arms AGAIN, ARE YOU SENSING A TREND HERE?

Rumina, sobbing, curses Sinbad and vows to destroy him but doesn't seem too motivated to do anything about it right now, so the crew sails away without further disturbance.

Well, that was great, we killed Turok and Rumina, Sinbad says as a way of making conversation with Maeve. This is a dumb thing for Sinbad to say, because I don't know why he assumed Rumina was dead just because they beat her rock monster. Anyway, it's all a cue for Maeve to sigh dispiritedly, and inform Sinbad that, no, Rumina is still alive.

"How can you tell?" "Just look at Dermott."

Sinbad is so confused. “He looks the same to me.“

"Exactly," Maeve says and walks off. Clearly, there's a lot of backstory she's not telling Sinbad here....

Adeenah gets to wear Prince Cassib's ugly old outfits because the prince is a gentleman now. They're so happy and in love, and grateful to Sinbad for everything. Sinbad is very magnanimous about the whole thing.

Sinbad goes and takes the tiller because All is Well in the World. Dermott lands nearby and starts chirping enthusiastically. Sinbad is having none of it and begins to monologue. 

“Oh, be quiet, featherbrain! I know your mistress is unhappy. Maybe a long sea voyage will cheer you both up. The way I look at it, this world is growing a little too civilized for me. It’s growing up. Growing serious. Growing dull. But out there, who knows what worlds await? And out there is our good friend, Dim-Dim. I promise to find him, Dermott. ....Of course, I need a good crew.“

Dermott flies back to Maeve as if to relay this message. She looks back at him with apparent skepticism, then back to the sea again. Too bad, Sinbad. Well, you can't win them all...

And with that, the crew sails off into the sunset for the next adventure...

So it's never clear why Maeve stays on board after this. Certainly, it's not something that's ever talked about or discussed - Sinbad's monologue is pretty much the extent of it. Also, why the hell does Rongar stay; Mustapha is never mentioned again (with one memorable exception in the Season Two finale); why can't a powerful wizard - who we later learn binds a much stronger demon - defeat Eblus; where did he go and why; and why doesn't Rumina just up and kill our heroes then and there? Sigh.

But does it really matter? As I've said, the point of this two-part opener is to introduce you to the characters, their basic motivations, and get them pointed in the right direction. Everything else comes later or is ignored completely.

Good parts: some fun dialogue and exchanges, watching Firouz's hanging glider in action, Maeve being a badass, Dim-Dim's awesome rose garden, Cassib growing up, good CGI effects (especially the sea serpent).

Bad parts: Maeve's erratic Irish accent. (I'm so glad they dropped that in the later episodes; it just doesn't work well here because it feels so forced.) Sinbad slapping Maeve's ass as a plot device, so many obvious shipping tropes crammed into one episode that it starts to feel really forced - I think we could have done without the last two "falling into each others arms" bits and still gotten the point quite nicely, thank you.

But anyway - now that we've established everything, time to start doing stuff. Next up: one of the series' best episodes - "The Beast Within".

[akanemachurida-blog]

Interview - “I’m going to meet that person in the 2D industry!” Furukawa Airi X Urobuchi Gen

This interview is at the very end of the SKE48 Extracurricular 2D Club book, published in April 2012.

Are all idols in danger of becoming like Mami? What’s the connection between modern magical girls and idols?

On the topic of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, some movies have been announced for 2012. There will be a movie with an original story in addition to two movies serving to summarize the TV series, bringing the total to three movies. Is the script for the movie with an original story already done?

Urobuchi Gen: The manuscript is already complete so the next step is for Shaft (the animation studio) to make it. I had the thought that “I can’t write a sequel” while originally planning the TV series, so when it was airing I pretended not to hear when someone said “It would be a waste for it to be only one season, so will you continue it?” (laughs) But the movies got announced and I didn’t have anywhere to run… I was able to keep going without any sort of unease when I gathered up my courage and tried to write, which surprised me.

Furukawa Airi: I want to see them soon~! I’ve liked magical girls for a long time but Madoka Magica is something completely different. It’s unbelievable how a heroine-like character like Mami dies in the third episode… Was that in the plot since the beginning?

Urobuchi: It was. That was actually decided before she was given a name. (laughs) In addition to advancing the plot by making the protagonist doubt whether she can become a magical school girl upon seeing a veteran magician die before her eyes, I wanted to shock viewers, so Mami was purposefully made to be a character you’d think would definitely not die.

The way she dies is quite something as well. She gets decapitated even though she’s a magical girl…

Urobuchi: If her death had been something like an arrow piercing her heart, then you’d probably think that she’d likely be revived. (laughs) I had to do something like that in order to let the viewers know that she absolutely won’t be coming back to life. However I didn’t expect Mami to contend for first or second place as the most popular character.

Furukawa: That’s because blonde hair with twin tails is a sure thing. I love the sickly beautiful girl characters so the scene where Mami goes crazy and attacks Kyoko really hit me!

Urobuchi: This may be something that idols are well acquainted with, but to live while being aware of things like “I need to do things properly in order to not break the dreams of those who admire me” or “I need to be everyone’s model” is something that’s really difficult to do. Stress builds up that way, so when it’s too much, it can become as scary as that scene… well, it’s a simple thing to imagine.

Furukawa: I’ll be careful at all times, not only as an idol, so as to not end up like Mami. (laughs) Also, another shocking thing about Madoka Magica is how the protagonist Madoka doesn’t become a magical girl, that surprised me. But she eventually becomes one during the final episode.

Urobuchi: It’s certainly a rare type of development. While it’s rare for a story to have the protagonist transform at the very end, it’s not a forbidden move. Ultraman Nexus, while part of the tokusatsu genre, did the same thing.

If you think about it in modern terms, it seems odd if she becomes a magical girl very quickly and fights. Just like Madoka, you’re going to naturally have motivation to fight after you experience a long period of conflict…

Urobuchi: It’s fine to include the main character’s original motivation for fighting in the first episode where the character beats the first foe, but that approach lacks persuasiveness in addressing the question of why the character fights. However, some claim that one series that succeeded in fitting things in the first episode is Mobile Suit Gundam, and Anno Hideaki, the director of Neon Genesis Evangelion, said that the limit of what he could do in the first episode was having Shinji enter the Eva. I’m aware of the hardships that my predecessors were made to experience time and time again, so I had Madoka run away until the last episode. (laughs)

Furukawa: Ah, I see. Amuro got the motivation he needed to fight in the first episode while Madoka got it in the twelfth episode. (laughs)

Urobuchi: That’s right. Well, it was possible to do it this way since it aired late at night. If it was a kids show airing during the day or evening, some of the sponsors would be toy stores, and they’d probably say something like “We want to make toys out of the soul gems, so please have Madoka transform in the first episode.” (laughs) Oh right, Madoka Magica didn’t have any of those sponsors in the beginning, so most of the merchandise currently on sale were made afterwards. So during the initial broadcast fans made their own goods of what they wanted to become merchandise.

By the way, Furukawa made her own Mami outfit while it was being serialized. And a Kyubey plushie as well.

Urobuchi: Wow! I saw them earlier but to think that you made them yourself… They look professional.

Furukawa: Ah no, that’s not true. There are some places in Mami’s outfit where the filling is insufficient, so I want to remake it. I want to challenge myself next time and make the muskets at the same time. I want to do the finishing attack, Tiro Finale! Oh, by the way, what does Tiro Finale mean?

Urobuchi: It’s Italian, it means “final shot” if you translate it literally. In essence it means “the finishing blow.” To tell the truth, at first it was given the inappropriate name “Ultima Shoot” in the script, and during an after recording session I blurted out “Is it really okay to give it such an inappropriate name?” and I was told “If you think it’s bad just change it!” (laughs) So I threw it away and rewrote it. I didn’t expect it to become this popular…

Furukawa: It’s become one of Madoka Magica’s famous quotes… So, what’s your favourite quote?

Urobuchi: Kyubey’s “It makes no sense at all.” (Note: Kyubey mutters this without thinking when his and human’s understanding of something are different.) When I wrote it in the script I thought that it seemed like it’d be popular online, and it really became popular, so… I did it! (laughs) What’s your favourite quote?

Furukawa: The quote that had the biggest impression on me was when Sayaka regrets becoming a magical girl and says “I’m really a fool.” My heart clenched when I heard that...

Urobuchi: Careless girls like Sayaka are able to be “good girls” because they aren’t self-aware that they’re careless. If they realized that, then they wouldn’t be able to be “good girls.” It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that I made Sayaka’s character because I wanted to make her say that.

Sayaka is one of the five magical girls in Madoka Magica, but which one do you feel yourself to be closest to, Furukawa?

Furukawa: Hm, I wonder. I don’t know my own personality well, so I don’t know… Well, I just know that I’m not like Mami. I don’t think that “I need to be an example for everyone.” (laughs)

Urobuchi: An easier way of saying that is to say that those who want to lead a team and who make fruitless efforts are like Mami.

Furukawa: Ah, well then in KII, the team I’m a part of, (Takayanagi) Akane is like Mami. She occasionally thinks too much about others and gets weird.

Urobuchi: The type of person that Akane relies on the most is someone like Madoka.

Furukawa: That’s (Mukaida) Manatsu! So what’s Homura like?

Urobuchi: A kind of person who interferes the most with those other two.

Is that you, Furukawa?

Furukawa: Ah, maybe! I see, so I’m like Homura…

Urobuchi: Since I made all five characters conscious of their puberty, it might have been difficult to get a sense of their “current selves” if these characters were full-fledged members of society who established their own way of life. However, when I began to think about what type of person coincides with “the self of puberty”, I thought, wouldn’t that apply to any girl? You’re still young, but what were you doing when you were in middle school?

Furukawa: Hm, I taped late night anime and did nothing but watch that… Well, that’s not any different from now. (laughs) I’ve liked magical girls since that time, so I watched stuff like Sister Princess and Chobits. Also, I like magical girl games so I watched my older brother play Kagayaku Kisetsu e... Oh, but I was in fourth grade at the time.

Urobuchi: That’s tremendous! That’s deep!

That’s right, she’s a talented illustrator and it seems like she made a copy doujinshi (a doujinshi that you print and then bind together) even before joining SKE48.

Urobuchi: You should make the best of that talent of yours. There are a lot of different kinds of idols, but there isn’t an idol who produce doujinshi yet.

Furukawa: I’d like to start drawing it right away if I could, but I have a lot of shackles… (laughs) But I’ll do my best. If I’m given permission then I’ll make a Madoka Magica doujinshi and sell it by hand while I’m wearing my re-done Mami costume. It wouldn’t be a copy doujinshi but an offset! (A technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface, done at a printing company.)

[book-o-scams]

What do you think of the Kanker's presence in Jingle Jingle Jangle? How is it different from their other appearances?

OKAY I FINALLY DID IT!  Step right up and see analysis of the Kankers’ parts of Jingle Jingle Jangle!  Only 3 or 4 weeks late!

First of all, in case I never analyze this special in full, I want to call out that this whole way of connecting the Eds’ A Plot to the Kankers’ B Plot is complete nonsense.... randomly discarded and forgotten flashlight + conveniently placed mirror = reflection of light pointed at the sky = Star of Bethlehem that uses Godlight to deliver sexual harassment to the main characters???  It is a purely visual idea, and what’s worse it seemingly has no meaning....  is it punishment for wasting a battery??  Then what was the point of the special’s other Chekhov’s lightbulb!?

Was that just a spiritual redemption, but not an escape from his punishment?  

Is it punishment for breaking his parents’ trust?  

Is it just to say the Kankers’ lives are sadder and this universe’s god prioritizes them above the Eds or anyone else?

Or is the Snow itself an entity, like the Static?  Both are terms to refer to television fuzz….  

Is Evil Tim in control of the holidays, with all the magical Santas and Elves and Monsters that get to appear in these episodes???  

The Snow is even the first thing to appear, in detailed close-up for one time, before the rest of the universe fades into existence, ushering Plank (and Jonny) into the digital era before the Eds OR the Kankers get to appear at all, and scenes where the snow is coming down are markedly more abstract and focused on the characters being quiet and internalizing their emotions.  

Is supernature itself overwhelming the characters at will and leading them to cruel fates!?  

Is the supersnow meant as a warning of the literal and figurative after-effects bound to invade any show switching to digital!?  

SOMEBODY STOP ME!

The snow even just fades out when Eddy’s light starts glowing.

I’m sorry to begin with a whole silly rant. It’s just that Christmas specials are normally the one episode of any show that can be counted on to let the main characters have a win.  The show was set to end with its stagnant nihilistic 4th season, so it was a miracle to get the holiday specials or digital era at all...  So this Kanker ending stung more than usual.

That said, this special has won me over as an adult!  The series’ first foray into digital animation looks really gorgeous and it’s such a visually driven special, you can’t look away.   The animation is unfortunately a little better than the digital era could make consistent, but it’s close enough to feel like the same show as everything that came before and after it.  Definitely some of the most experimental style choices the show ever made. I’m always so glad the backgrounds are still hand-painted throughout Jingle Jingle Jangle.

I’m fascinated by the way this star is clearly a digital effect, but at the same time it avoids being too high quality for EEnE by mostly looking like a dry brush (like when they do those paint-blurs when the characters move fast), and animating the star as white outlines with no color inside when they could easily do a real light effect is an interesting choice.  It captures the eery prettiness the star’s role demands without betraying the show’s sketchiness.

I really like the music direction this whole special, but this opening to the Kankers’ Christmas is one of my favorite parts.  It is about a minute long and starts 2 and a half minutes into the special.

As we start hearing dialogue from Lee, the camera whips down to the trailer park and the Kankers’ theme music drums in.  This is the one time the show really made me aware the Kankers have a theme so now I always keep an ear out for that music cue.  I know it fills most of their appearances in Big Picture Show.

Inside, the Kankers sit and squabble as always, playing with a box of Krazy Krackers.  Apparently Christmas Crackers are a more popular thing in the UK (the show had a lot of UK influence around this time, with Rachel Connor joining as head writer in the next season), but I think it’s been confirmed to be a Canadian thing too now.

Room analysis!   The Kankers seem to have to make do when it comes to decorations… They have lights on the staircase and around the windows, and a cute wreathe with a red light on top of their TV, but their tree is a lone stick that has 7 branches if it’s lucky, it’s plugged into the wall yet the one light on it isn’t working, and most of the ornaments seem to be recyclables, barbed wire, or orbs that have fallen from the tree.  Oven mitts have been hung from the wall in place of stockings and rather than garland, they’ve trimmed their living room with chains, fishing lures and… are those shower curtain lines?

This is probably the most the show really gets across how big of an economic difference there is between the cul-de-sac and the trailer park.  The kids, even Ed and Eddy (unfortunately we see little of Edd’s family’s Christmas traditions), seem to have very gaudy and extravagant decorations, most of them appear to be expecting family or coworker Christmas parties later in the evening.  The Kankers’ trailer is sparse by comparison.

Marie being the least cheery at Christmas is probably the most punk thing about her..

Focusing Kanker scenes on May is pretty typical of this point in the series, but I like how infallibly nice May is in this one.  Marie tries to blow the Christmas cracker up in May’s face, and yet May barely reacts to the threat level here as anything out of the ordinary.  Then again, this scene likely exaggerates how much these things are like firecrackers.

May calls the cracker a dud, so of course Lee razzes her, “just like you, huh, May?”  This moment has a good undertone of Lee trying to readjust Marie’s negativity to more of a light ribbing, to fit the season.

REALLY COOL DIGITAL DRYBRUSH EXPLOSION EFFECTS…

What’s the deal with this eyepatch on Marie though?  Is this just a “under the bangs” teaser gag like the one frame three-eyed Lee in BPS?  The artists don’t try nearly as hard to hide Marie’s full face as they do Lee’s….  Is it just an unexplained one-episode injury like Jimmy’s?  

so glad even the digital X-mas special gets inverted frames, one of the most interesting visual features of the series’ early episodes

Good honest reactions of concern for May from Marie and Lee..

WHAT IS THIS A HALLOWEEN SPECIAL!?

“Look, Lee, May got a makeover~!”

….how desensitized have they become to slapstick!?  Sarah and Jimmy react to a similar gag with Eddy casually decapitating Ed next season with utter horror and confusion!

Apparently the most important thing here is that Marie wasn’t left out of getting a crown.

5 fingers on her right hand for one pose…

Note that the Kankers have replaced their wall unit’s knick knacks with Christmas cards from their invisible friends and family! 

 “Joy”

 “HAVE A XMAS” 

“From Your Father” (please appreciate this rare acknowledgement of the likelihood of a preferred Kanker dad)

“Ho Ho Ho” 

“Happy Kwanza” (also the one acknowledgment of other winter holidays in this Christmas special and I don’t think it’s even spelled correctly… I thought for sure at least JIMMY would celebrate Hanukkah or something…)

“[doodle of a candy cane]”

“DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?” 

one of this special’s many references to classic holiday staples, in this case the song, ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Hear_What_I_Hear%3F

“Something twinkling in the sky!”

This opening scene to their plot starts the Kankers off as unusually innocent and naive, seemingly motivated only by an attraction to light, like moths.  Lee even has to ask “where is it?” to which Marie correctly points out that May already said the star was in the sky.

To be fair, Lee’s hair was blocking her eye, and we finally get to see her eye for the first time since season 1!

I LOVE this little detail of Lee twirling her foot before skipping out of frame.

Marie rises, embarrassed to have been choked and dropped so carelessly.

She tries to save face by telling May to come on.

May’s Christmas cheer will not be defeated!  

She teases Marie by giving Marie the same “come on” command.

Iconic!!  Doesn’t this shot kinda make you think of the night scenes in Disney’s Aladdin?

10 minutes later, we get another minute of Kanker B-plot.  I don’t think any other episode ever gets this close to the super-geometric outline-eradicating Samurai-Jack-esque style Rod Filbrandt uses in concept art for his backgrounds..

Such background porn…  I’m really unsettled by the weird abandoned signs of life this God Light takes the Kankers to…  It’s like a trail of death leading to the Eds’ bad ending and the Kankers are too desensitized to pick up on that.

Lee gives her sisters a quick glance as they approach.

Lee and May unintentionally shut Marie out and she steps around.

Also, I’ll give them points for the “gold, frankincense and myrrh” = “mold, franks and cents, and fur” rhyme gag, but only because I wasn’t aware of that part of the nativity scene until this special aired.  I was 13 when this came out, which means I’d already done like 8 grades of Catholic school, how did they fail to make any impression on me!?   But honestly, that’s a weird punchline to try and use as a button on this bit.  And as much as I love the art in that montage, it seems like it would’ve worked even better as a mood-setting detail if they found each gift separately between each house Eddy visited.

“What the heck is it?“  Pretty sure her mouth colors are mismatched.

“It’s a sign, stupid.“   Touching.

I love when they all look up in unison.

They look more confused as they walk away.

I’m really interested in how extra moody Marie seems in this montage.  I also noticed that their frostbitten walk through the snow seems to be slightly foreshadowing of the walk Eddy goes on in the climax.  

This is a really iconic shot and camera direction for me too, and it’s the one appearance of the junkyard at night in the whole show (as a setting, there’s at least one episode that shows it from overhead at night).  It’s also one of like 3 uses of the junkyard as a setting in the digital era.  And here you can barely even recognize it under the snow.  Still looks great, though!

They are SO introspective over this star… what are they contemplating?  Should we retroactively assume they’re regretting their situations with the Eds post-Fistful, or accept that this special wasn’t made in chronological order and think of something less specific, like family troubles or… just not thinking anything particular at all???  

Lee and May stare dumbfounded at their lost-in-thought sister.

Very cute Maries.

Love that unoutlined background pipe.

This glow effect seems.. broken.

“weiners and pennies!?“

Wait…  …Are you kidding me?  I just noticed that May and Marie are each wearing one half of the same pair of gloves and the same pair of mittens….

Oooh look at this goregous postcard-ready background of the construction site!  The construction site only has one other night scene I can think of that isn’t just an overhead shot, and it’s only one shot of Ed running there to grab a cement mixer during his fight with Nazz in Boo Haw Haw.

I really love how these gradient-silhouettes with blobby purple outlines look.  Their progression through the show’s locations reminds me of the EEnE video games (mainly Jawbreakers! for the GBA because that was the only game they had at this time)…  I think they also used this silhouette style for the kids on the Scam of the Century DS game cover.

i love EEnE vehiclessssss

I love wondering whose coat this is and why it’s been left here…  Also, do the rust and torn seat imply this construction site is officially abandoned? Or is this one of only a few vehicles that got left behind right before Christmas break and is now being ravaged by the elements?

This frame always makes me yearn for a future where Lee is a construction worker. Or demolition!!!

“It’s a coat.  Come on, we’re getting close.“  Oh sure fine, makes sense to me.

We then cut one street over to Eddy in Plot A, where it isn’t snowing, reinforcing the idea that the Kanker’s story is not chronologically synced up to Eddy’s story.

Anyway, another 10 minutes later, we get a final Kanker scene!

The Snow is strong enough to smack Eddy with a door (UNINTENTIONAL BRO FORESHADOWING?).  Eddy is also not very good at boarding a door, apparently.

On a scale of 1-10, how blasphemous is this shot?

The Snow encroaches upon the Eds

“Could it be!?  Three kings who have traveled afar!?“

How serious is that question, Edd.... why would there be three real-ass monarchs in Rolf’s shed in the middle of an American blizzard???

I feel real weird about Edd being so religious in this episode, it’s too soon after season 4 made such a point of Edd not believing in things that cannot be proven…  

I like that the special is religious.  As agnostic as Catholic school made me, Christmas specials that get sentimental about the Christian traditions get the most nostalgia out of me.  But this special and series clearly revels in sin and hopelessness, so I found it kind of jarring how much of this special lets the Bible references be played straight.  Making Edd super religious just so he can continue to be fanserviced as an angel felt a little cheap, and I feel like it creates an undertone that Eddy is being punished for not being as religious as the others around him.

But take my complaints there with a grain of salt, it’s impossible to understand X-mas Special Logic, where it’s not quite Christianity, just some sort of TV-safe offshoot with elves and magic and a generally more fantastical mythology.

Hey the silhouettes are back!

I already spoiled this joke...

I do really like this shot…  Nice to see Rolf’s animals get a Christmas cameo.

I do entertain the idea that the Kankers really think these gifts will warm the Eds’ hearts and earn their admiration.  But we all know this will be a short lived moment.

“This image certainly has the Christmas spirit…“

And now that there’s been a beat of peace, the Kankers reveal their true intention of pressuring the Eds into gifting them some kisses.  The way they trap them in the shed and suggest it’ll last a whole year is really one of the creepiest approaches to a Kanker ending in the whole show.  Obviously it’s not likely it would really last that long, and imo if it’s just kisses it’s not really new or surprising... but it’s still a pretty damn meanspirited ending for a beautifully-crafted holiday special that very easily could have been scrapped by the show’s season 4 cancellation. 

I do love the fur coat being draped over the cow’s face, though.

And it is honestly important to know the Eds can still do well drawn group scream takes in digital.

May and Ed scaring the animals is a nice touch, but I hate how we hear May going “oink” during this walla.

“WAIT”

“I’M AN ANGEL”

“STOP!!!!”

kiiiinda scary

I hate Eddy almost getting away but kinda love this rare separation of his eyes.

At this point my brain dies and I just go “aw the kids are so cute this is the only thing going on look how cute jonny is and kevin is being so nice and rolf is such a killyjoy i love this i love their group what a great xmas special nothing went wrong everyone is singing”

hope you had a good Kanker appreciation month!

*cries*

[rallyanime-blog]

Summer 2017 Anime Pre-Op 3.0+1.0 [FINALE]

The last and most anticipated part of the Summer 2017 Anime series: Anime you probably should skip.

You Should [Not] Watch

18if

No beating around the bush. 18if had what was perhaps one of the most atrocious first episodes I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through for a variety of reasons.

The foremost reason being its terrible animation and its sense of aesthetic design. I understand that the point of 18if is that it is set inside of a dream world with assumedly trippy dream visuals. However, 18if completely fails at this because these dream worlds are nothing more than an ugly mish-mash of over saturated colors and static backgrounds. This dream world lacks cohesion in any sense of the word and simply slaps together any prop or object possible under the guise that its O.K as long as its a dream.

When I think of a trippy dreamworld I think of the Witch encounters in Madoka Magica. Really, literally anything SHAFT has ever produced is crazier and more dreamy than whatever 18if is trying to achieve. This doesn’t even scratch the surface of how terribly directed this show is.

Frankly, the directing is boring as sin which wouldn’t be worth mentioning if we did not consider the type of world that 18if is trying to create. Not only is there extraordinarily limited animation, but the directing does nothing to hide it nor does it do anything to highlight the weird world that the characters are supposed to inhabit. Once again, Studio SHAFT and Akiyuki Shinbo make the directing in this show look like an absolute pile of garbage when compared to the strange, trippy, yet alluring visual direction put into even the most normal of SHAFT shows. At the very least Hand Shakers had the common decency to go all out with its visual style even if the end result looked like ass.

That isn’t to say that 18if does incorporate some weird directing techniques such as the windowed talking and the decapitation. However, they are too few and far between to be considered an artistic style whilst simultaneously not actually being in service of anything in particular. If anything, it makes the boring parts of the show look worse by comparison. It doesn’t help that this show is horribly paced and practically screams to be over within the first half.

I would talk about the character animation. If there was anything. Of course, that is to be expected from a show of this caliber.

Finally, the actual story of this show is as bad as its visual direction. Our MC is trapped within a dream world with the task of finding his way out and helping others in the process. There, he meets a strange girl and a talking cat scientist (The only tolerable character in the show). He thus fights a witch who has what may be the most cliched and boring backstory of all time before helping her ‘wake up’ I guess. If you can’t tell I’m having a hard time summoning excitement for this show. 

Our plucky protagonist is of course the most cookie cutter, do-it-all nice guy with absolutely nothing interesting in his personality, design, or ethos that we have all come to abhor. Of course her helps that poor girl and of course he has witty banter with the cat guy. It’s almost astonishing how fast he comes to turn with his situation after a bit of exploring. It’s also astonishing how he constantly flip flops between confused kid to quipping ‘couldn’t even care less’ hardass. It’s almost as if the writers didn’t put any actual thought to his character or than the fact that he is the vehicle for their stupid story.

I could on and on about this abomination of a production but for the sake of this post I’m cutting it off here. Don’t watch this show. Just don’t.

Hajimete no Gal

Hajimete no Gal is the newest iteration of the ‘gal girl’ genre that has proliferated in anime and manga over the past couple of years. 

Unfortunately, HnG is no Galko or Gal Gohan. From what the first two episodes tell us about this series is that it is another harem rom-com with the main gimmick being that our MC believes that our main heroine is sluttier than she actually is. What I will give it credit for is having the MC and main girl hook up first and let the development happen later. Even if this type of development is not entirely original or unique in the slightest, there is still a lot of untapped potential from starting off your romance like this. However, it’s rather difficult to appreciate this plot point considering the entire rest of the show surrounding it.

Simply put, Hajimete no Gal is a dumpster fire burning through any semblance of good ideas and potential it could of had. 

What was immediately apparent to me in this show was the absolutely glacial pacing and terrible comedic timing. This first 23 min episode felt like an absolute eternity as scenes drag out much longer than the actual content of the scene allows for. By content, I mean the “humor” and the “erotica” that this show has lovingly offered to us.

HnG is painfully unfunny. Jokes stretch out much longer than is ever necessary. When you thought it was over, the characters will go on to even further explain the joke and run it into the ground. Most of the humor revolves around how disgusting of human beings the main boys are. I’ll touch on them a bit later. Needless to say, HnG recycles the same three gags and ideas in order to kill time until the ED. The strange lack of an OST in most scenes serves to make the humor weird and awkward and not in a way that was intentional or funny.

The “fanservice” of HnG is also abysmal. These fantasies not only drag on like everything else in the show, but these scenes also do the bare minimum for their intention. This show has the subtlety of a falling road roller. It thinks that just throwing tits in ass in your face is enough. And not just tits and ass. But uncomfortably close pantyshots and boobshots that do little in the way of arousal given how little the audience can actually see.

 Abject sluttiness is certainly hot for some people, but the fact that these are just fantasies also remove any element of tangible human connection to the main girl that would actually warrant special attention and attraction as the show tries to force down my throat. Outside of the dreams, HnG makes sure to place special focus on more pantyshots and boobshots as if the audience will find any of it special or arousing.

The characters in this show are boring at best and offensively bad at worst. Our MC is a wet fart whose soul purpose in life is to get laid as fast as possible. Understandable if wasn’t for the fact that he is so completely passive in his actions that he lacks any semblance of a personality outside of his libido. What more could you have expected of a lazy audience surrogate.

His friends are perhaps the worst of group of obligatory MC friends I’ve ever seen. These lovely gentlemen have literally one gag associated with each of their characters that becomes immediately old the millisecond they begin speaking. This wouldn’t be so terrible if it weren’t for the fact that they occupy so much screen time and speaking lines that by the halfway point I was already wishing for death. 

Our main girl (or should I say ‘gal’) is probably going to become a more endearing character than what this show deserves. However, it’s unlikely that she will ever reach the status of ‘good’ let alone ‘Galko’ tier given what this show has shown me. It is almost completely likely that she will end up as the pure maiden with the heart of gold that this show makes apparent in its premise alone.

Special shout out to the harem members showed off in the first episode that will inevitably lose as tradition dictates. So don;t get too attached.

The animation being featured in this show is mediocre to just bad. Set design and background art is bland school and city design whilst the colors are nothing special. The character art and animation is sub-par. It all looks terrible. As already mentioned, HnG rarely incorporates a backing track making the overall atmosphere and tone of the show strange and unappealing.

After all this shit I’ve talked about Hajimete no Gal, I can’t say 100% say its a complete lost cause yet. The second episode actually had jokes. It had jokes! Three exactly. Exactly three jokes that had good comedic timing and made me smile a bit. A good improvement over the zero jokes the first episode had. I will begrudgingly maintain that HnG can become a halfway decent rom-com if it actually starts exploring the romantic elements of its premise starting literally right now.

But if you aren’t an M like me, I would suggest giving this show a pass for the time being.

In Another World with my Smartphone

If there is one thing I appreciate about this show, it is how brazenly this show embraces all of the tired and universally despised elements of the isekai genre and how it rolls it all into one show.

The absolute worst thing that I can say about this show is how completely dull and boring the thing is. It immediately abandons the central conceit of the show: the smartphone and instead just has the MC be broken OP in every stat from the start. The show then just proceeds to be the worst and most egregious stereotype of all isekais to date. 

The MC has the most basic template personality of all time. The girls are nothing more than generic anime girls taken directly from a concept art page.

The animation and music is below average. This entire show is completely below average. The only positive that I can give this show is that it is not offensively bad. It didn’t make me want to kill myself like 18if and HnG did.

I think that it is in your best interest to just skip this show.

Knight’s and Magic

Knight’s and Magic packs what seems to be three entire episodes of content in a single episode. I think that it is a bit unfair to put Knight’s and Magic on the same playing field as the other three shows in this list. However, I still believe that this is still a completely lackluster series on the whole.

I actually quite liked the opening scene set in the real world. There was interesting shot composition and aspect ratio tricks. It also served to effectively characterize the MC and the type of person he is non verbally.

However, the rest of the episode goes on to have our disturbingly obsessive MC be put into the mind of a normal child (What the hell happened to this child’s actual soul anyway?) and then go on to be the most brilliant son of a bitch who ever lived. The show fast forwards through his child’s entire training and introduces the friends and rivals he meets via narrator. I can’t fault the show for trying to get past all the boring set up for the show, but it still feels rushed and unnatural. Thankfully, it seems that this show is going to be slowing down as indicated by the end of the first episode.

I also somewhat appreciate how the MC doesn’t have any innate talent other than his autistic obsession with mecha and his ability to hyper focus on studying and learning magic. He is clearly supposed to be the smart character who can outwit his opponent. That being said, our MC is not all that interesting on his own outside of his capacity to learn and do cool shit. The other characters aren’t anything interesting either.

The animation is O.K but not particularly unique or that interesting. If Knight’s and Magic is your type of show, I would recommend at least trying to check it out. However, I can’t in good conscience give it a bonified recommendation. 

I think that will conclude the series of the Summer Anime 2017 Preview. Look forward to more anime and manga posts in the future. Thanks for reading!