#was she mentioned literally once in the entire series and then basically retconned out? yes. am i still obsessed with her? also yes.

[n-a-gindustries]

obsessed with the concept of bertie having a sister. sorry.

[hirazuki]

Ooo I'm curious about your hot takes on the Inuyasha reboot after reading your tags 👀

Ahaha, where to start XD Idk if they are hot takes, but here are my thoughts in bullet point form for coherency, I couldn’t figure out how else to organize them. Under a cut, as usual, because it got lengthy... as usual :D

We are 13 episodes in, and I still have no idea wtf is going on or what the series is actually about. And yes, I’m aware that we didn’t know of Naraku’s existence or of the overarching plot until at least episode 16 of that series either and Inuyasha was still very episodic in nature at that early point too, but here’s the thing: Inuyasha did not build upon a pre-existing series. For better or for worse, Yashahime has certain expectations to live up to that the original anime didn’t, by virtue of its being a sequel. Unfair? Maybe, but tough; that’s what happens when you make a sequel. Additionally, despite us not knowing The Main Plot™ of Inuyasha until later, the basic framework for it was laid out clearly by... episode 2? I think? Find and collect the Shikon Jewel shards. Boom, done. Were there distractions or fillers? Sure, but you never got the sense that the characters simply up and forgot about the shards. Even in fillers, the shards often made some kind of appearance. With Yashahime, there’s like three potential storylines going on: 1. The most obvious: most of our main cast from the OG is missing; where are they? Apparently no one in-story cares! :D Inuyasha, who’s that lol. I’m all for a sequel focusing on the new generation with cameos of the old crew; after all, they already had their own series. But this is like... no one cares about them? No one talks about them? And the more characters go about not mentioning them, the stronger their absence is felt. Like, for instance, Kaede knows Moroha is InuKag’s daughter. Moroha grew up on her own, doesn’t know her parents. Kaede doesn’t mention them to Moroha, doesn’t even spare a passing thought about them for the audience’s benefit, Moroha doesn’t ask. Kagome’s family in the present day meet Moroha, recognize her as Kagome’s daughter and... say nothing??? Souta shows Towa Kagome and Inuyasha’s old photos, but doesn’t say a word to Moroha?! Like. It makes no sense. By people not even acknowledging their existence, it makes the fact that they are nowhere to be found even weirder. Also the new gen girls don’t care about their parents or finding out who they were/are... like, okay, it would maybe be in character for one or two of them, but all three don’t give a fuck??? 2. Kirinmaru/the rainbow pearls: Idk how familiar you are with the story, but similar deal with Naraku and the shards here. Kirinmaru is being set up as the villain, still a mysterious figure; our new gen trio is supposed to collect the rainbow pearls that... some of his henchmen have? Or he is after them? Or is that Riku? Unclear. ANYWAY the new gen girls often forget all about the pearls’ existence :D 3. Setsuna’s memories: Setsuna’s dreams have been stolen by the dream butterfly and they need to get them back, because without her dreams she has no memories and is unable to sleep. Cool! Finally a solid, easy-to-follow plot line! Except wait! Towa, who supposedly made it her goal to get Setsuna’s sleep back, forgets all about it! All the time! Like, none of them make an effort to look into this other than being like “oh yeah, know anything about the dream butterfly?” to random folks every now and then. The Inugang back in the day was putting some grad school level research towards their goals, just saying. It just feels like everything’s all wishy-washy and there’s nothing really solid tying the series together. People just remember shit exists when it’s convenient.

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Character development is MIA. I’m not expecting ground-breaking char dev in 13 episodes (though I do know 12 episode series that were phenomenal in that regard), but like... I do expect the series to focus on building the dynamics between the main three characters. So far, the series is more focused on teasing the audience with glimpses and promises of the OG cast instead. The creators are using nostalgia and bait (esp of a certain pairing) to drive interest in the series, rather than developing the new characters as fully-fledged characters for their own sakes. 

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Moroha is was the only thing I actually liked about the series. She is a little spitfire and you can somehow instantly see both Inuyasha and Kagome in her, while she also remains very uniquely herself; I have never seen such a successfully developed main pairing child in any series. She featured quite prominently in the first few episodes -- and unlike both her parents, she’s got a great memory and knowledge of lore -- where she balanced funny moments with badass fighting moments and being the token supernatural encyclopedia. It was great! And then... they’ve like... forgotten her. She’s been left behind so many times by the twins. She’s the butt of every joke. She’s become the type of comic relief that’s, well, insulting. More like a buffoon than anything else. And it’s basically all for the sake of giving the floor to Towa :/

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Setsuna is okay. Not offensive, but unremarkable. She’s got her dad’s personality but like way toned down due to her different growing up circumstances, which is nice, but like... I feel she isn’t given any room to grow or breathe or anything. She’s also basically there as a device to enhance Towa’s development.

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Towa... oy. I tried to like her, I really did, but she just doesn’t work for me. They set her up having a very Kurosaki Ichigo type deal with beating up bullies and getting into trouble at school and shit -- I’m fine with that. That’s cool. Esp if it’s linked to not feeling like she fits in bc she’s a hanyou? Awesome. Except once she travels back in time to the feudal era it’s all “Oh killing is bad you shouldn’t kill people” and “even though they attacked me I can’t possibly hurt them” and “you need to empathize and talk things out” and “friendship is magic” and shit. It feels like she had a personality transplant, it literally makes no sense. Her design is totally nonsensical too -- out of everyone at her school, she’s the only one dressed in a bright white suit? Do protags not wear the school uniform? Someone should tell Kagome lmao. She’s a pro at hand to hand, and she can absorb demons’ powers and fling them back at them like a personified Tessaiga, and she has a lightsaber sword, and she’s immune to miasma, and -- like... you get it. It’s too much. It’s way too OP for the type of universe that Inuyasha/Yashahime is set in. She’s hanyou for fuck’s sake; remember all the training Inuyasha had to go through? When he couldn’t lift his sword? When his sword attacked him? Sango, Miroku, Kagome, even Sesshomaru all had trouble with their weapons and had to work to become stronger. But Towa? Nope. Towa is straight out of the Yas Queen/Girl Boss manual, so she gets a free pass on everything.

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UGH they are doing the VLD/bad writing thing where things happen (like, BIG THINGS) and none of the characters actually react to them. Or stuff happens and there are no consequences. No one ever talks about anything. It’s wild.

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Everyone has amnesia!! :D People either don’t know or don’t remember anything or anyone. People who absolutely should know things all of a sudden magically don’t know them. Like, Kohaku -- traveled with an undead priestess, spent years in the company of demons, traveled with Sesshomaru... and yet had NO CLUE that Setsuna is Sesshomaru’s daughter or that she is hanyou, despite her living and working with his team of demon slayers all this time. Like... how, man. How. And Kaede! Don’t get me started. Since when does she perpetuate random demon-boogeyman type stories as facts? Demon children will kill each other in the nest so that only the strongest one will survive, therefore Setsuna must have killed Towa when they were infants. O_O What are they, sharks? Has she been hanging out with Kisame? Wtf?? And she’s speaking about Sess’s kids as though she doesn’t know him or anything about him, when she has had Rin under her roof all these years. It just makes. no. sense.

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Things that happened in the original series are happening again now! Because that’s the best we’ve got, recycled plot elements wooo! No, but really, characters that died or things that were resolved in Inuyasha keep coming back. Why? What was the purpose of bringing back Kinka and Ginka? To have a foil for Towa and Setsuna as twins? Someone please tell Sunrise they can just create new characters. Like, it’s one thing to have call backs to the original or cameos, references, whatever. But like... this is entire (dead) characters and interactions.

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No one knows how long it’s been since the original series ended. Fans initially heard 20 years from promo material, then “over 15″ and “10 years since” in-series regarding two different events, and now in a future episode summary we’ve gotten 18 years since Hosenki II gave Inuyasha the black pearl. But like, which black pearl? Because the one in Inuyasha’s eye doesn’t exist anymore, but Hosenki II had told Inuyasha that it would take 100 years for him to produce one. So, are we retconning that or where the fuck did it come from? Also, this doesn’t help one bit, it just confuses things even more. Back to the point, though, we have no coherent timeline or real frame of reference whatsoever, and I’m betting it’s in large part to keep the mystery of who is Sesshomaru’s wife going, as it keeps Rin’s age very vague. Everything is vague and mysterious in Yashahime, to the point where no one knows what’s going on, in fandom or in-story even. It’s kinda like how too much plot twist/shock reveal ruins a story, too much mystery does the same. It’s insane that both shippers and antis of that ship can lay equal claim that the “18 years since” announcement works in their favor.

tl;dr: Idk man, Yashahime is a clusterfuck of a series. Even if the mother of Sess’s twins is either of the characters I ship him with, I will still not like the series. There’s no saving this writing. Every episode feels like this:

[extreme-technicality]

does talking to an anon help about ninjago help? cuz I'm down

DHDKCKGSC YES IT DOES THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR OFFERING YOUR SERVICES

Okay now that I know I won’t be clogging people’s dashes buckle the fuck in my dude and I should stress that I literally would not be talking about this as much as I will be if I didn’t genuinely enjoy the show. I’m gonna go season by season and just Rant

S1 has the serpentine as the bbeg and like, as far as villains go they’re p lit. They’re early enough that they haven’t been done to hell, things are fresh, the characters and dynamics are being fleshed out, and all in all s1 is a pretty solid season. There’s some fuckery that gets brought up re: how the FUCK aging works and what the actual timeline of Ninjago is and how Wu and Garmadon fit into that timeline, fuckery that LITERALLY NEVER GETS RESOLVED IN A SATISFYING WAY BC ITS REVEALED IN A LATER SEASON (s8, dw we’ll get there lmao) THAT THE ONLY REASON THE FIRST SPINJITSU MASTER, WU, AND GARMADON LIVED AS LONG AS THEY DID IS CUZ THEYRE BASICALLY DEMIGODS AND ITS IMPLIED THAT LLOYD WILL ALSO LIVE FOR A LONG ASS TIME WHICH MEANS ONE DAY HES GONNA OUTLIVE ALL HIS FRIENDS AND EVERYONE HE EVER LOVED WHICH IS A FUN THING TO THINK ABOUT AT NIGHT But anyway I digress, s1 also coincidentally introduces Lloyd (he wasn’t in the pilot episodes that set up the rest of the series) and the existence of Evil Dad Garmadon.

S2 is where Garmadon starts acting a lot more Evil and a lot less Dad. He’s the main antagonist for that season, and I actually read somewhere that the show was originally slated to end after s2 which high key explains the fuckery of literally every single season after this lmaooooo. Much like s1, I really can’t find much to complain about, the first two seasons are pretty decent as far as I can remember

Season. Fucking. Three. Where the fuck do I start??? I hate season three for entirely personal reasons revolving around the STUPID GODDAMN ROMANCE WRITING. okay lemme back up and explain a thing first so, Jay is dating Nya and they’re fine, they’re going steady, aND THEN????? THE BEGINNING OF THE SEASON INTRODUCES BULLSHIT LOVE TRIANGLE FUCKERY FOR ZERO GODDAMN REASON, BITCH I HATE LOVE TRIANGLES AND I HATE THEM EVEN MORE WHEN THEYRE DONE FOR NO GODDAMN REASON!!! AND THEN. AS IF THAT WERENT ENOUGH. THEY SHOEHORNED A ROBOT ROMANCE BETWEEN ZANE AND PIXAL AND I KNOW I RANTED ABOUT THIS A LITTLE BIT WHEN I WAS ACTUALLY WATCHING BUT I DIDNT GO INTO ENOUGH DETAIL!!!! THEY MADE THE OTHER NINJA OOC IN ORDER TO PROP UP THEIR SHIP!!!!!! AND AT ONE POINT ZANE GOES “its like we were…made for each other” AND I HAD TO FUCUCJDHVE I HAD TO SCREAM INTO A PILLOW BRO, IM SO TIRED!!!! NO THE FUCK YOU WERENT!!!!!! YOU WERE MADE FOR YOU AND PIXAL WAS MADE FOR PIXAL AND IF YALLS WANNA BANG BOLTS THATS FINE BUT DONT IMPLY THAT EITHER OF YOU WERE MADE INCOMPLETE!!!! THATS AN INSULT TO YOUR MAKERS AND YOURSELVES, MOVE ON, PLEASE AND THANK YOU. anyway that season also killed Zane (for the first time, but not the last) (spoiler alert lmao) and like, not to be an emotional little shit but I did cry a bit at his funeral.

S4 is honestly one of my favorites, even though the romance crimes continue (the love triangle bullshit is continuing and honestly I maintain that Cole, Nya, and Jay should all have gotten together and in my personal canon they DID, and also Kai has a forced romance) the VILLAIN makes up for it imo. He’s campy!! He’s funny!! He’s a clown!! He’s serious enough that if he says “I’m gonna kill you” HE MEANS IT and that’s so fucking refreshing!!!! S4 is honestly 8/10 just for the villain alone, don’t like that it retconned the SHIT out of the elemental masters and how many different elements there are TO master but eh, it’s ninjago, shit is stupid.

S5 was…interesting? OH WAIT I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT S3 INTRODUCED A GARMADON WHO WAS A LOT LESS EVIL AND A LOT MORE DAD, HONESTLY I THOUGHT IT TOOK A LOT OF THE FLAVOR OUT BUT THATS JUST ME LMAOOO. anyway s5 killed Garmadon, and I was a little sad cuz I like him okay??? I just think he’s NEAT, he’s got big dad energy, he was teaching Lloyd some shit that just got DROPPED and literally was never brought up again which is honestly a theme in Ninjago. Ninjago drinking game: take a shot every time they introduce a plot point or ability and drop it at or before the end of the season. WHICH THEY ALSO DID IN S5 WITH A DIFFERENT POWER ACTUALLY, so all the ninja are masters of Spinjitsu right, well s5 introduced the concept of Airjitsu which only Spinjitsu masters can learn and it lets them FLY and they used that for seasons 5 and 6 and then they nEVER BROUGHT IT UP AGAIN EVEN THOUGH IT WOULDVE COME IN HANDY FOR S E V E R A L DIFFERENT SITUATIONS ACROSS THE SEASONS, ONE OF THEM WOULD BE FALLING TO THEIR DOOM AND MY ASS WOULD BE YELLING “YOU CAN FLY, DUMBASS” - anyway, they do that again later lmao it’s fine. But what’s low key NOT fine is they made Nya the WATER NINJA!!! Like I’m not mad she has powers, except I kinda am, she was doing just fine as Samurai X and honestly the only reason she has super special ninja powers is for plot reasons. Also Cole got turned into a ghost, but by s7 he’s????? No longer a ghost????????? And that’s NEVER addressed or reasoned away, so like. Cool lmao

S6 didn’t happen. Like, canonically, s6 ends with wish fuckery that undoes the entire season and none of the characters remember anything that happened except Jay and Nya because S6 is the season where they get back together so they remember all those events for???? Feelings reasons?????? Unclear, moving on. The actual bbeg for S6 was a djinn with a vaguely Spanish accent, and to this DAY I don’t know why they made him have a SPANISH accent. Djinn are Arabic, not Spanish!! They’re not central or South American, either!!!! Your villain design makes no sense, do better

S7 had MORE time fuckery, and retconned what happened to Kai and Nya’s parents and hmmmhmhmhmhmhm that makes me Upsetti Spaghetti :3 not just the retconning, but the fact that they LITERALLY brought them back oNLY TO NEVER MENTION THEM AGAIN!!!!!! LITERALLY!!!!!!!! Okay so at the VERY very beginning, like pilot episodes beginning, Kai talks about their dad like he died/left fairly recently, BUT s7 contradicts that and claims that both of their parents were essentially abducted when Kai and Nya were little kids, which makes me question what in the fresh fuck two little kids were doing for all those years alone. SETTING THAT ASIDE FOR A HOT SECOND, their parents were also apparently good friends of Wu’s and old war buddies (from the Serpentine wars, which is YET ANOTHER bit of the timeline that doesn’t quite add up but honestly I could make a whole other post about that shit). But if they were such good fucking friends, why didn’t Wu check in every now and again??? What the fuck was Wu doing that was so fucking important that he couldn’t have been assed to visit his friends ONCE in like TEN MOTHERFUCKING YEARS and realize “oh shit, they’re not here and there are two tiny children running around unsupervised…My Kids Now : )” LIKE????? WU YOU LOW KEY SHOULDA LOOKED OUT FOR YOUR FRIENDS’ KIDS BETTER, THEY COULDA DIED BRO!!! Uhhhh the time fuckery also results in Wu getting yeeted ahead in time a bit and the ninja gotta find him

Season. Eight. I have…mixed feelings about this one. The beginning absolutely SLAUGHTERED me, and not in a “this is so fucking funny” way. No, the beginning made me feel like I was being flayed alive with just about every episode because Ninjago was back on its forced romance bullshit and this time it was Lloyd’s turn on the chopping block. That hurt my soul cuz like, look at that mans color scheme, he’s CLEARLY alloaro, why are you forcing romance on my aro man, why would you hurt me like that, BUT ALSO BECAUSE HE AND THE GIRL HE WAS BEING SET UP WITH HAD A LITTLE HEART TO HEART REALLY EARLY ON AND IT WAS THE MOST QUEER CODED SHIT!!!! IT DEADASS READ AS A CONVERSATION BETWEEN AN OUT AND PROUD QUEER AND A CLOSETED QUEER AND THEY MADE!!! IT!!!!! STRAIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!! The only thing that kept me watching at first was wanting to find Wu, and then I started enjoying myself once Cole found a plot-relevant baby and had fatherhood thrust upon him. Everything went from “ehhhhh” to “holy shit this FUCKS” once it was revealed that Rumi (Lloyd’s love interest) wAS PLAYING HIM THE WHOLE TIME AND WAS EVIL AND HAD AN EVIL GIRLFRIEND!!!!!! LITERALLY IMPROVED EVERYTHING ABOUT THE SEASON FOR ME, I COULD EVEN FORGIVE THE WHOLE “let’s resurrect Garmadon, but as evil as possible” BULLSHIT!!!!!!

S9 is a continuation of s8, Garmadon is back and 1000% Evil, 10% Dad, but none of the Dad energies is directed at Lloyd - it’s all directed at Rumi, and honestly I could write a whole ass post on just RUMI cuz that’s honestly my DAUGHTER and I LOVE HER and I’m MAD SHE DIES AT THE END OF THIS SEASON!!!! SHE DESERVED THERAPY AND TO LIVE WITH HER GF AND MAYBE SOME CRIME. AS A TREAT. RUMI DESERVED BETTER AND LOW KEY IM GONNA WRITE A FIC ABOUT IT, BUT ANYWAY WHERE WAS I

Ah right, so s9 has the four major Ninja stuck in the original dimension with no way home, while Lloyd has no powers (cuz he almost died last season) and has to somehow lead a resistance against Garmadon (who has taken control of Ninjago City and is working on the rest of Ninjago). Actually, s9 is pretty cool. Like, the end of s8 and into s9 are low key my favorite episodes, and I kinda wanna rewatch them now -

S10 is a FUN one. Garmadon got got last season, but he didn’t DIE, so he’s in cold storage and now there’s Another Threat and he’s the only one who knows wtf they’re up against so they let him out and he works with them. The funny part is, he is still Very Much Evil and doesn’t quite Get emotions like he did when he was, uh, human lmao, sO HE WOKE UP EVERY DAY DURING THAT SEASON AND DECIDED TO CAUSE PROBLEMS ON PURPOSE. IT WAS THE FUNNIEST FUCKING SHIT. 1000000/10 MY FAVORITE GARMADON, he ended that season by literally fucking off into Ninjago and they never decided to track him down 😭😭😭😭😭and I’m so SAD about it dude

S11 has another Serpentine as the bbeg, though in the setup to that they retconned how the fucking Serpentine tribes and history work??? I think???? Also Wu was a good 150% angrier and generally Done with the ninja’s shit, which was honestly refreshing tho I’m not quite sure I liked what the refreshed view was, but whatever lmao. S11 also had the ninja get yeeted to the dimension farthest from Ninjago, and honestly - okay, so they didn’t all go at the same TIME, Zane left about a week or two before the others did but there was time dilation fuckery afoot which I’m not too mad about cuz low key it makes sense. What I AM mad about is that they didn’t play the angst up to its full POTENTIAL!!!!!! Zane was EVIL in the other dimension!!!! Okay so I’m Ninjago he was only gone for maybe a week or two, but DECADES had passed in the other one, and all that time Zane was alone and disconnected from everyone he knew and loved, with a staff that boosted his power while slowly corrupting him and Turning Him Evil to help him, and like???? The thought of Zane trying to find a way home, trying to get SOME sort of message back, while he has to use the staff more and more to help him survive the long, lonely decades, so that by the time his family DOES show up its too late??? BRO. B R O. THAT JUST HITS DIFFERENT, BUT NINJAGO DIDNT DO THAT!!! THEY MADE HIM EVIL DUE TO MEMORY WIPE!!!!!! MEMORY WIPE IS BABY SHIT COMPARED TO A LONG, SLOW CORRUPTION!!!!!!

S12 was alright. It went into Cole’s mom, touched on some of the adventures she had had, threatened another forced romance (this time on poor Cole, just leave my mans ALONE) but thankfully didn’t follow through this time, introduced cool new powers that honestly hasn’t been elaborated on since that’s the most recent season I think lmao

Anyway thanks for reading and letting me rant!!!! I have,,So Much More I could talk about, PLEASE ask me about Rumi, some of my headcanons re: Garmadon and Wu’s dynamic, the Serpentine, my top five times they butchered Kai’s character for Plot Reasons, or anything else I brought up here that you want me to elaborate on!!!

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Episode 1 Review, Part I: Welcome to Maljardin

{ YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 }

{ Synopses: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

{ Screencaps }

What to write about the pilot? How should I begin the introduction to the first real post on this blog? I don’t wish to write a detailed synopsis, because other people have already done so, and I feel neither the need nor the desire to comment on everything in this episode (or, indeed, in any episode). Also, funnier writers than I have already written detailed reviews of it, and I don’t feel I can compete with them, especially if I focus too hard on trying to be funny. So this will be a different kind of review series, focusing on analysis of what I think is important/interesting instead of recapping everything. And I promise that my other posts won’t be as long as this one. There’s just a lot to cover in this first post.

One of the main questions that I intend to explore in this post series is what makes a TV show “bad.” Obviously, this is purely subjective, and most of what I write will be my silly personal opinion, but we are dealing with a show that many people consider “bad” and that, arguably, is “bad” by most mainstream TV watchers’ standards nowadays. Today, we live in an era where TV dramas have increasingly higher budgets and production values, where viewers expect realistic acting and special effects, where streaming and binge-watching are increasingly the norm, and where making a single continuity error or retcon will inspire scorn from your entire fanbase (and God forbid one of the actors forgets to throw out their Starbucks cup). TV today is almost the polar opposite of TV in 1969, when shows were much lower budget, special effect failures were far more acceptable, and streaming on demand probably sounded more absurd than using science to bring a frozen woman’s body back to life. As such, people today expect different things from television from the soap opera viewers of fifty years ago, and are quick to dismiss a show as bad.

I agree that continuity errors and retcons are signs of mediocre writing, but do high production values and good special effects really matter? Is realistic acting necessary for drama, or can drama be just as effective with artificial, stylized, hammy or campy acting? How do we separate a genuinely bad show from one that is merely dated, or that has a few minor problems? If you ask me, the answer lies in the writing and the effectiveness of the acting--and it is the writing that will be the primary focus of this blog.

The pilot, like the 43 episodes that follow, was written by Ian Martin, an actor-turned-writer for soap operas and later Gothic romance and horror. He is most famous for writing over two hundred episodes of CBS Radio Mystery Theater in the 1970s. (While I only recently discovered CBSRMT and therefore haven’t listened to most of the episodes yet, I can say that those of his that I’ve listened to are very good. I particularly recommend “And Death Makes Even Steven” and “Time and Again.”) For the plot of Strange Paradise, Martin seems to have drawn on his own life experiences: namely, the tragic early death of his first wife, the actress Inge Adams. According to Curt Ladnier, “Though no one can claim to know what was going through Ian Martin’s mind as he wrote the scripts laying the groundwork for Strange Paradise‘s basic plot, it’s not hard to conceive he may have felt some familiarity with the story of a man who lost the love of his life to an untimely death.” His grief shines through every speech that he has Jean Paul give to Erica. Indeed, his episodes have far more heart in them than later Maljardin episodes or Desmond Hall, and most of my favorite episodes were his work. They also have a lot of snarky humor and better dialogue than most of the later episodes, so, if you imagine a sliding scale going from “good” to “slightly so-bad-it’s-good” to “David Wells,” most would be on the “good” side. (Most of Desmond Hall, in contrast, is decidedly on the other--which is a given, considering that David Wells plays a prominent role in that arc, and most of the time he’s hilariously bad.)

This is not to say that Martin’s writing is perfect. Some of his episodes drag and he is not exactly subtle about many things. He has characters (especially Raxl) repeat themselves perhaps more than is necessary. Also, many of his episodes contain a certain subplot that I find boring and pointless and that the show could have done without. (More on all these things when we get to them.) The early Maljardin episodes are not masterpieces, but they’re a hell of a lot better than most of what came after. And it’s clear that Martin was trying to do its own thing, rather than copy off Dark Shadows.

So, anyway, enough about Ian Martin and onto my thoughts about Episode 1, which is what you presumably came here for:

The obligatory first-episode title card screencap

The show opens on the fictional Caribbean island of Maljardin, which roughly translates to “garden of evil.” Jardin is French for “garden” and mal for “evil (noun).” Mal can also be used as an adverb to mean “badly,” but it is not an adjective. “Evil (adjective) garden” would be Mauvaisjardin, which doesn’t sound half as cool. The exterior shots are of Casa Loma, a mansion in Toronto surrounded by trees that look nothing like anything in the Caribbean, but I can forgive them because the Château de Maljardin is awesome both inside and out. I would say I want to live on Maljardin, but I don’t like the heat and I’m sure the air conditioning costs for the château are extravagant--and, although they never mention it on the show, you know that filthy rich and frequently overdressed Jean Paul Desmond would have had air conditioning installed.

Jean Paul Desmond (Colin Fox) is the master of Maljardin and he is grieving the death of his wife Erica (Lara Cochrane), whose body he is preparing to freeze in order to bring her back to life at some point in the future. Erica has apparently only just died, and he is already having his servant Quito (Kurt Schiegl) carry huge blocks of dry ice--with his bare hands (WTF?)--to line her coffin. Jean Paul must have spent a while preparing for this, and one wonders how far in advance he had to decide to do this, especially since he has already arranged for the Cryonics Society to professionally freeze her and they state in the first episode that he does not have a phone on his island. I’ve watched this episode three times and, each time I watch it, the whole situation seems a little more suspicious. But maybe he and/or Dr. Menkin (Joe Austin) predicted her death far in advance and planned accordingly? Surely a man as besotted with his wife as Jean Paul couldn’t have murdered her, right?

I love the scene where he makes his grand entrance carrying Erica. It's so extra. He's so extra.

I’m not speculating about all this because I don’t like Jean Paul, but rather because of certain clues in the narrative that might reflect a once-planned plot twist that writers after Martin ignored. (The keyword is might; I have no evidence that Martin was planning one, but one can always speculate.) In fact, I adore Jean Paul. His actor, Colin Fox, is the main reason why I’m obsessed with this show and can’t stop watching it. I have a huge crush on him thanks to this show, even bigger than my previous #1 crush, which was on King Henri III of France. Jean Paul is exactly my type: super-tall (he looks about 6′6″/2 meters), dark, handsome (more so when he’s not brooding), graceful, elegant, and very, very extra. He also has a beautiful voice, and I love listening to him talk. Yes, I know I’m attracted to him for mostly superficial reasons, but Jean Paul’s a fictional character, so does it matter? There are only a few problems with him, most notably some megalomaniacal tendencies:

I suppose, though, that it’s inevitable to become somewhat of a megalomaniac when you own not just an isolated private island, but “a brokerage house, a department store, three newspapers, a football franchise, motion picture and television interests, and real estate holdings,” to quote another character. Jean Paul thinks that he can bring Erica back to life by spending millions of dollars on cryonics, which other characters--most notably his housekeeper Raxl (Cosette Lee)--insist is playing God. Only one other character approves, and he even applauds him for it:

This is Jacques Eloi des Mondes, Jean Paul’s identical ancestor from the 17th century and my favorite character on this show. His surname literally means “of the worlds,” which I think is an awesome name for a character in an urban fantasy/horror series. According to Raxl, who is highly knowledgeable about both the des Mondes family history and the supernatural, Jacques Eloi des Mondes was THE DEVIL. (It is never clear whether she means this literally or figuratively.) He is also, in my not-so-humble opinion, the single hottest male character in the history of television. No exceptions. If you gave me the choice between Jacques and the entire cast of every other show in existence, I would choose him. He is charming, charismatic, seductive, and hilarious, at least in Ian Martin’s episodes. Most of the writers after Martin, however, ignore his superficial charm and focus instead on his evil, which Martin mostly only hints at. Anyway, Jacques talks through this portrait--a surprisingly good one compared to other “period” portraits from other shows and movies--which glows when his spirit talks to Jean Paul in this episode and which disappears when he (mild spoiler alert)

possesses him.

Jean Paul realizes that he and Jacques have a lot in common, including both having lost their wives at a young age. It is implied that he may even be a reincarnation of Jacques, who calls him “the man you are, the man you might have been,” before making him have a flashback to Jacques’ wedding reception three hundred years earlier. I will cover the flashback in another post, because, despite being only a minute and a half long, there is a lot to unpack and I want to critique the costumes in addition to analyzing the content. But I will say this now: Martin has Jacques mention “the cliff heights at sunset” in a rather ominous way, followed by a glance at the camera that suggests a much darker intent than just showing them to his bride:

This is the face of a very handsome man who is contemplating murder.

After this flashback, Jean Paul finds a glass of brandy in his hand that wasn’t there before: something which only Debby Graham’s synopsis mentions, but which is the first of many instances of Jacques literally making him drink. Jacques offers to resurrect Erica in return for Jean Paul setting him free, which involves finding his effigy in the crypt in the basement and removing a silver pin from its head. Jean Paul does this in a scene interspersed with clips of a singer performing a bad cover of “That Old Black Magic” (somewhere between slightly so-bad-it’s-good and David Wells on the sliding scale), and, as soon as he removes the pin from the doll’s head, Raxl freaks out because she senses what has just happened:

Jacques: *bows* “Bonjour!” *smirks as show cuts to brief shot of blank portrait* “The voodoo spell is broken.” *taps on doll’s head with pin* “I no longer have any need for you. Now...”

Raxl: "YOU DEVIL OUT OF HELL! OH! YOU FOOL! HOW DID YOU EVER BREAK THE SPELL THAT BOUND YOU TO-" *stops in archway and gasps*

Jacques: *in both Jean Paul’’s body and clothes now* "Why, what's the matter with you, Raxl?"

Jacques Eloi des Mondes, THE DEVIL, has possessed Jean Paul and is loose on Maljardin! And the episode ends shortly after.

While not one of the best episodes, the pilot is definitely interesting. The acting is somewhat campy and cheesy, especially in the flashback and in all of Raxl’s scenes, so this episode is definitely so bad it’s good. If you have read any of the synopses I linked to earlier in this article, it will be obvious that I didn’t write about everyone and everything in this episode (notably, I didn’t cover Alison and Dan’s scenes), but that is out of a desire to focus on Jean Paul and Jacques rather than a lack of interest. I do wonder, though: is this the first time that Jacques has spoken to Jean Paul? And just what is the true, original story behind Erica’s death?

{ <-- Previous: Introduction   ||   Next: Episode 1, Part II --> }

[ktley1986]

My husband isn’t nerdy, at all.  Which is okay because I happen to be nerdy enough for both of us-I love comics, video games, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Battlestar Galactica, etc.  I love all of it, mainly because I happen to know a lot about history and world events and the main theme of history is that people are super shitty to each other, all the time, usually without very good reason.  And once you know that, sometimes the only way to stay sane is to find solace in imaginary worlds-maybe that’s not always the healthiest thing, but at least if someone is cruel in one of those worlds they usually get a satisfying comeuppance, which sadly, rarely happens in the real world.   Now that we’re all suitably depressed, Mike and I were watching The Phantom Menace the other day and he made the grave error in judgement to remark that he “didn’t remember this movie being that bad.  People like it when it came out!” I mean, is that technically true? Yes.  I definitely enjoyed these movies when they came out as a teenager (I was also afflicted with a debilitating crush on Hayden Christensen, which has since died a death of natural causes) and I will stand by that, because I didn’t know any better.  Now with the benefit of experience and foresight I realize the serious damage done to the Star Wars universe and the overwhelmingly potential of what could have been.  Because it’s fresh in my mind after having given an impromptu mini-lecture to my husband earlier, I will explain my problems with Episodes 1-3 of the Star Wars film franchise. The whole Space Jesus thing You know what I’m talking about-the fact that Anakin Skywalker doesn’t have a dad, but is basically just the product of the Force and his long suffering, cipher of a mother figure.  That doesn’t even kind of make sense and it’s so lazy and shitty as to be actually insulting.  Let’s also remember that he’ll eventually become Darth Vader, the ultimate bad guy (and if you’re currently feeling the soft and fuzzies for him, remember he did kill a whole temple full of children.)  He’s such a special snowflake, he’s totally selfless, he’s the most amazing pod racer or whatever, he’s basically Valentina from Season 9 of Drag Race, and she turned out crazy too.  He just needs to compare himself to Selena to make the transformation complete.

Obi Wan to Anakin, honestly.

My problem with that is this could have been a much more interesting story, in the hands of someone who gave a shit about storytelling or the emotional arc of a character.  What if he was just a regular person, who had a dad and a mother who wasn’t window dressing for made up emotional issues later, but maybe he was kind of a reckless dick, then they could have made a more interesting story about how some people aren’t fit to have power, even if they are technically proficient.  It could have been an interesting twist on the idea that all Jedi are totally perfect peace keeping good guys, but what if he was able to convince them he was, but in reality, he was actually a dick?  At least that would make more sense later when he in fact does turn out to be a dick.   The whole Jango/Boba Fett story arc Famously George Lucas had this whole series written out back in the 70’s but the studio was only interested in making episodes 4-6, since the storyline was more cohesive.  I believe that’s true, and I even believe that a lot of the nonsense he put into the first 3 episodes was present in those early drafts, but I can’t be expected to believe that the basis for the clones was Jango Fett, and that his clone son would grow up to be Boba Fett, kick ass bounty hunter extraordinaire.  I get that Boba Fett was a wildly popular character, despite having zero lines as far as I can recall, and getting knocked into the pit of Sarlacc to be digested slowly over a thousand years, he’s my brother’s favorite character, so by default one of mine too, but honestly?  This is endemic of a wider problem in the first three movies in my opinion which is shoe-horning in fan favorite characters rather than making new and interesting ones which serve the story.  Why the everloving fuck is young Anakin making his dirt farmer slave mom a protocol droid?  Does she have a lot of use for translations of over 6 million forms of communication?  Lucas just wanted to take what worked from the original movies and force it into the new ones, although to be fair his stab at original characters did give us Jar Jar Binks, so maybe it’s a good call after all.   Darth Vader’s reasoning for becoming Darth Vader This is where it really hits home for me how much cooler this story could have been-the transformation into one of the most iconic villains of all time was just so lame in these movies.  For one thing, the romance between Padme and Anakin is painful and embarrassing, and this is coming from someone with a fairly comprehensive crush on Anakin.  So much cringe though, seriously.  But making it about him thinking that his wife might potentially die, is just stupid, especially because he ends up choking the fuck out of her.  Again, this is where the story could have been served by establishing him as a bit of a dick from the beginning, instead of a heroic space Jesus type character.  I mean, I am very much in love with my husband, probably irrationally so, but it would take a lot more than the premonition that he might, maybe, potentially die to make me murder an entire Jedi Temple full of younglings. And I don’t even like kids.  And then he just hates Obi Wan for not letting him live his best life or whatever, I mean they could have gone the route of him thinking there was a relationship between him and Padme, although I find the whole turning into an evil warlord over a lady to be one of the tired-est tropes on the planet.  It could have been so much better! Midi-chlorians Just no. So much politics and talk about trade negotiations. Oy! I get that George Lucas doesn’t really get how to write strong female characters, and I guess it’s kind of flattering that he thinks women’s strength is in the political arena, but man I do not give a fuck about trade embargos in the real world, so I definitely don’t give a fuck about trade negotiations in space.  I watched these movies for the first time as a young person and I could not have told you one thing about why the Nemoidians were doing, or what exactly was going on in the space Senate.  The beauty of the original trilogy is that things were simple, motivations were clear and no one had to put anything to a vote.

I don’t think the whole thing is awful-Darth Maul is pretty sick, General Grievous is cool, Christopher Lee is always a welcome addition to any movie, now that I’m older I can definitely appreciate young Ewan McGregor

I need to resolve my feelings about bearded Ewan McGregor

Now I’ve stalled out. Huh.  I know there are probably parts of it that are redeemable, but I can’t remember any, and I can’t be bothered to actually watch it again.  My point being is that it could have been so much better, if they were interested in telling a great story instead of making millions of dollars in merch.  Does anyone else remember all the merch associated with this, you couldn’t even buy a bag of chips without Jar Jar Binks dumb face looking at you.  While this isn’t something I would normally say, but I’m glad that Disney has the reins now, and they’ve already made some great Star Wars movies, sans mention of midi-chlorians which personally leaves me excited again to visit a galaxy far, far away.

My Epic Retcon of Darth Vader’s Backstory

Okay, so he’s just a normal kid, who has a mother AND a father, both of which are fleshed out characters, and he gets selected for Jedi training in a normal, non-mystical space Jesus way.  He turns out to be super great, a special snowflake, blah blah but then (plot twist!) he falls in love with another Jedi, and they have a clandestine affair until she gets pregnant with their baby.  Now, we all know Jedi aren’t supposed to have attachments blah blah, but they never explore what happens if you did, so it could be an interesting way to explore that idea.  So, the female Jedi (which really shouldn’t we get some female Jedis by now? Seriously?) refuses to tell the council who the father is, and she gets banished, without Anakin being aware of it until it’s already over.  She dies in childbirth, totally not the Jedi’s fault, but Anakin doesn’t know that, and that’s why her children are taken away and given to other families.  Anakin either finds out that Obi Wan took his children and that’s why they have their big battle where Obi chops his legs off and roasts the rest of him once he realizes that Anakin is the father and he’s so pissed at this point that he is going to try to kill him.  See, I literally just pulled that out of nowhere and managed to shoe horn a lady Jedi (which this series badly needs, come on!) and no mention of midi-chlorians! Is it a perfect story, no, but does it contain no mention of trade negotiations and Jar Jar binks, yes!

[lightdark18-blog]

How to Fix RWBY Volume 4

I can’t bring myself to say I hate this volume. But I can’t bring myself to say it was fantastic either. After the drama of V3, it felt good to relax a little bit on the plot and attempt to balance world-building and character development to set up for later, bigger events in the story. However, as it much as it seems like I’m playing a broken record by saying this, the idea of segmenting all of Team RWBY’s individual subplots in a relatively short show like RWBY may work on paper, but it requires very fast pacing and extremely powerful scenes, something which this volume seemed to lack. Thus, I will talk about how V4 could have been improved to give it much better character development and an overall more exciting narrative.

Disclaimers: I will be structuring my arguments into individual sections in the following order: Team RNJR, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Oscar, Team WTCH, and Other Improvements. You can scroll down to whichever one you’d like, or you could read the whole thing. I will be talking about everything, including the finale, so if you haven’t finished the volume, you might want to do that. Spoilers will be flying. I won’t be touching World of Remnant, because that isn’t really part of the story as it is exposition (personally, I think it’s stupid that Miles and Kerry need to resort to exposition episodes rather than working the exposition directly into the plot, but whatever). Also, I won’t be addressing ship concerns. I mean, Renora is canon this volume, what more do you want?

Thus, without further ado, let’s begin this shitpost!

Team RNJR:

Explain why the team walked rather than taking trains. It’s great that all of Team RWBY will reunite at Mistral, and I will praise the volume for its pacing in this regard. However, the fact remains that RNJR could have gotten there much faster had they taken a train like Oscar did. Would it cut out a lot of RNJR’s tension this volume? Yes, unless you have Tyrian hijack the train, forcing RNJR to flee (maybe jump off the train, I don’t know) and walk the rest of the way. This would not account for 6 to 8 months’ worth of travel, but that flaw hurts the entire volume more than RNJR itself.

Ren talks too much. I’m a writer. It is very hard to write character development for a silent character, but it can be done. It just takes skill and delicate dialogue crafting. I don’t think Miles and Kerry understand this, and I have a few reasons why In Volume 3, Ren was relevant in the first couple episodes, where he would make constant remarks about Nora’s vomit comment in Episode 1, take an active part in JNPR’s strategies before their Episode 2 fight, and make sarcastic remarks when Jaune was strategizing (Jaune: “Ren, take out the sniper!”, Ren: “Sure, why not?”) All of this feels out of character. Fast forward to V4, where Ren becomes relevant, and they constantly have him give commentary on fights, argues with Nora about the team name, talks to a dying villager, etc. I’m not saying that silent characters don’t interact with people (I’m an introvert, so I know this for a fact), but Ren’s place in the story felt extremely deviant from the first to volumes. At the end of the day, once Kuroyuri comes, the sudden care and outbursts that Ren has towards the Nuckelavee and his home village should have been a drastic character change that the audience would have noticed and praised, but Ren’s overbearing role in the volume just ruins the impact of the character change.

Making Jaune the strategist is fine. Stealing time away from Ruby is not. Many people have already commented on this, so I’ll be brief. Jaune is on a good path to becoming the paladin of this show: the Lawful Good character that starts off shit-tier, but grows through his many experiences to become one of the show’s greatest characters. Think Donnel from Fire Emblem: Awakening. I’m excited for this change, and I’m even fine with his skepticism towards Qrow and how Pyrrha had to choose her role as a maiden. However, Ruby takes a back seat to all this development. Miles and Kerry keep her optimistic, naïve attitude for the sake of consistency, but at the expense of giving her development. Had she not read aloud her letter to Yang, I think Jaune would have had more lines than Ruby. And if there is anything that any story should NEVER do, it is keep attention away from the hero of the story. If Ruby is the main character, make her act like it. Have her learn new battle strategies. Make her use her new electricity and fire bullets more. Rewrite the fights to force Ruby to fight alone at times. Have her give feedback on what she thought of Tyrian, or Salem. Have her give feedback on Kuroyuri. ANYTHING to give Ruby more relevance this volume than just dragging her along for the ride. I hope that V5 goes better for giving Ruby screen time, because this volume did not.

Don’t drop Pyrrha’s attempt at communicating. Episode 2 felt strong in the regard that Pyrrha was attempting to communicate with Ruby (somehow), and I felt that this would come in handy in the finale fight. Guess what? It didn’t. Not once was it ever relevant again. And all it did was wake Ruby up to see Jaune training, which felt like a much better way to put Pyrrha in the volume. I like to think that Pyrrha turning into dust reflects how Ul in Fairy Tail became water, and communicated with Ultear on Tenrou Island by showing her memories (sorry to all who haven’t watched Fairy Tail because you won’t get this at all). Pyrrha’s soul is still alive somewhere in a dust form, and is attempting to tell Ruby something. If you want to use this, save it for a later volume. I guarantee that because RWBY has such a large gap between seasons, only hardcore fans will remember any of Pyrrha’s communication come V5.

Give the Bandits a role. I never saw one bandit this entire volume (no, I don’t count Raven). This would have been a PERFECT time to introduce them, especially since they were mentioned in Episode 2 after they attacked Shion Village. Nope. However, I do have a good way on how to introduce them in a later point (see Yang).

Give us Jaune’s semblance. Seriously. The new sword felt extremely underwhelming. I would rather see his semblance than a sword sheath that gives his sword a little extra cutting power (which never even proved that relevant in the Nuckelavee fight).

Explain why Tyrian is interested in Jaune. Is it because of Pyrrha? Is it because of his character? Is it because he could be the paladin that kills Salem at the end of the show, only for Raven to be revealed as the show’s final antagonist (look, that’s just my theory)? Beats me, because Jaune nor Tyrian (when he’s crying like a bitch to Salem) never bring it up again.

Shame how a stupid reaction shot allowed Qrow to be poisoned. When I was watching the Qrow vs. Tyrian fight, I had very little problems with it. Right up until Qrow cut the wooden board that was going to crush Ruby (a clever instance of his bad luck semblance). Let me explain my reaction:

Qrow: *cuts board*

Me: K.

Ruby: *smiles at Qrow*

Me: You realize that there’s a psychotic scorpion Faunus that could literally poison any of you since you’re both low on aura, right? Maybe you ought to turn back to hi-

Qrow: *smiles at Ruby*

Me: DUDE WTF YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE FIGHTI-

Qrow: Aaah! *gets stung*

Me: *insert Michael Rage Quit dialogue here*

Explain how Ruby was able to cut off Tyrian’s stinger. So, Tyrian’s stinger could block Nora’s fully-charged hammer, Ruby’s scope bullets (even without him seeing their trajectory), and various other attacks, but all Ruby has to do is shoot him while his guard is down? Is this that “don’t let your guard down” BS that Goku suffered from in Resurrection F? Is Aura like Nen in Hunter x Hunter, and you have to force it to a specific point to block, else your limb is coming off? It makes no sense, even if Tyrian screaming “You BITCH!” is hilarious.

Tyrian should have been captured. I’ll talk later about how Monty warned against team fighting, and how RT refuses to follow his advice by choreographing bad teamwork fights, but why didn’t Ren and Nora, maybe even Ruby, go after him? He was low on aura. He could have been captured and questioned. Hell, some RWDE critics preferred that the Tyrian fight occur in a forest so Tyrian could have legitimately gotten away. Why not that?

The Relics are DUMB. D. U. M. B. Welp, Miles and Kerry just retconned Torchwick stealing all the dust again in V2, didn’t they? I was 100% sure at the end of V3 that Salem’s plan was to amount enough dust to infuse it into her body and become some sort of Dust God (which falls in line with the dust exposition in Volumes 1 and 2), and terror through attacking the schools was the only way to eliminate any threats in her way. Nope. Now we have out-of-place Relic bullshit that I’m certain Miles and Kerry just pulled out of their asses after Monty died and the holes in the story he planned began to surface. Shane’s letter suggested to me that RT wanted to take RWBY in their own direction, and retconning even the basic exposition of the OPENING EPISODE of the series just feels desperate. Stop taking our attention away from Dust, Aura, Semblance, and any of the other unique elements that make up the story. If you want to make a mythology, put in in place either at the beginning of the story, or in line with the past exposition. Miles and Kerry did neither. What’s next? By the end of the summer, a comet will arrive and give the Maidens unbelievable strength, and Salem plans to manipulate them to finish the war once and for all?

Explain why Qrow is a teacher. Qrow’s semblance is fine…except for the fact that V1, E1 stated that Qrow was a teacher. Why would Qrow be a teacher if he instigates bad luck onto his students? Wouldn’t he get like a 1.0 on RateMyProfessor? Or is this just another retcon?

“Don’t you know, you never split the party?” I don’t have too much of an argument for this, for RNJR splitting up to both Kuroyuri and Mistral sounds okay, but doesn’t that make both parties extremely vulnerable to large-scale Grimm attacks? Thank the two gods the Nuckelavee needed to wait for the plot to bring RNJR back together before it attacked, else we could be having one or two more Pyrrha’s on our hands.

Everything about Kuroyuri is fine, but it’s in the wrong volume. I like the Kuroyuri mini-arc, as well as Ren and Nora’s development, but let’s be honest. This volume is supposed about Team RWBY’s development. Cut Kuroyuri from this volume and give more screen time to Weiss, Yang, Blake, or literally anyone else. Kuroyuri isn’t far from Mistral, so it might’ve worked better as a mid-season finale for V5. Maybe. Eh.

Mistral airships giving RNJR a lift is just plot-convenient BS. “Lol bro we saw da smoke n we thot someone wus smoking weed and we wnted to buy a few grams”. At least that would have been kind of funny. But no. Mistral helicopters should not have been able to see the Grimm smoke, and immediately drop everything to show up at Kuroyuri, where they rescue COMPLETE STRANGERS to invite them to the kingdom. BS.

 Weiss:

Explain Whitley and Weiss’ mother. Contrary to popular opinion, I like Jacques. He is certainly the “Rich Asshole Type A: the Overprotective/Abusive Father” character, but at least his devotion to maintain his rich and comfortable lifestyle falls in line with the absolute power dynamic that Atlas was established to have (I could even talk about how this reflects real-world politics right now, but I won’t). Whitley never felt necessary to introduce to the plot: all he did was go down on Jacques or criticize Weiss. I have a good way on how to make him relevant on a later point. Also, Weiss’ mother was mentioned once, “drinking in the garden”. You know what the powerful girl vs. refrained mother conflict reminds me of? Kallen from Code Geass. Did that show handle the conflict well? Yes. Could RWBY handle it well? Probably. Did it even try? No.

Explain Klein. Not a big issue, but what is up with Klein’s different personalities? Is this a reference to Launch from Dragon Ball with his sneezing, or does he have legitimate dissociative identity disorder? Considering that Klein probably won’t ever be relevant again, I don’t think we’ll get the answer, even though I wish we could. If J. Michael Tatum was hired to play a butler, his most famous role in his career (Sebastian from Black Butler), make him interesting.

Weiss’ song was beautiful, but I still have a couple issues. First, Casey Lee singing as Weiss just looks and sounds off. I know they didn’t have much choice, but maybe they could have had Kara Eberle sing it and heavily edit her vocals. Or maybe she has a naturally beautiful singing voice, I don’t know. Also, this song tends to have even less subtle lyrics than most of the RWBY songs so far. This is entirely a “daddy issue” song. Make it a bit more powerful by showing some of Weiss’ positive personality traits in the lyrics.

Henry Marigold’s role in the story is just too unclear. When you give a character a first and last name, HE/SHE SHOULD BE RELEVANT. Miles and Kerry did not follow through on this with the minor characters of Volume 3, and I doubt they will ever mention Henry again. Then again, that’s fine, even though he could’ve represented the youthful perception of Atlas’ place in the world that reflects the ego of Atlas’ parental and corporate figures which Weiss is precisely trying to fight in her character arc. But hey, what do I know?

This whole “rich people are snobs” shtick is just cliché. It makes logical sense for Atlas to have this mindset (absolute power corrupts absolutely), but it’s too cliché to consider interesting. Give it a twist. Maybe they want to gain control of the kingdom defenses in the rest of Remnant by using Veil and the Fall of Beacon as an excuse to supply better defenses.

Weiss’ rebellion feels weak, as well as her anticlimactic Summoning. Weiss summons a boar about to murder Rich Asshole Type B: the Complete Bitch? Ironwood ex machina, and Weiss never mentions her feelings about her uncontrollable summoning. Jacques locks her in her room and strips her of her heiress title? Cry for 5 seconds, and rebel by messing up the room. Weiss training to regain her skills as a Huntress and protect the friends she holds dear? Master her summoning by creating the knight in the White Trailer on a much smaller scale, and have it accomplish absolutely nothing except break a window (which was a result of the summoning, not the knight breaking the window itself). Some of my friends wanted her to summon a Nevermore, which would’ve been cool. But no.

Jacques should have noticed, or heard about, Weiss breaking the window. Surely someone from the garden must have seen or heard the window breaking, and informed Jacques about it. Wouldn’t that have actually given Jacques a role in preventing Weiss’ escape? Wouldn’t Klein be one of the last people to see or hear the window breaking?

Weiss fleeing Atlas should have been completely rewritten. Weiss should have just ridden the Knight, smash through the garden, grab her mother (yes, more Code Geass references), and hop on a ship to Mistral, while using her rapier to summon and prevent any attacks by the Atlas military. But if this isn’t plausible, this is another option. Flee with Klein as usual, but after she locks Ironwood and Jacques in, Ironwood should break the door down (he’s a freaking metal man, he should be able to do it), and Jacques should alert the entire estate to find the sabotager. He should find Weiss’s room empty, and alert Whitley. Then, in the library, reveal that Whitley is a Hunter. Have him incapacitate Klein and fight Weiss, with her fleeing on the airship. Let me explain why this is good in the next point.

Give us foreshadowing into whether Jacques or Whitley will be relevant in V5, for they’re on a time limit. Ironwood has basically given Atlas an ultimatum: Atlas borders will be closing at the start of next week. This means that if any character from Atlas in V4 is to be relevant in a later volume, they need to leave. NOW. Jacques probably won’t so he can run the company, but Whitley, who could now be revealed to be a Hunter, can legitimately go after and stop Weiss at Mistral. Or have Whitley inherit the company immediately and have Jacques go after Weiss. Make someone important.

 Blake:

Explain what Blake was doing for the last 6-8 months. So, six to eight months after the Fall of Beacon, Blake just NOW decides to go to Menagerie? What was she doing throughout all that time? Hiding? Contemplating? Getting her new outfit? Explain.

Sun following Blake is really OOC. Alright, let me get this out of the way right now. The FNDM is blowing this way out of proportion, especially once you factor in Black Sun and Bumblebee shippers. It is certainly out of character for Sun to follow Blake silently, and he should have just been open about it to find out why she fled Ruby and Yang in the first place, but it isn’t THAT big of a deal. End of story.

COMPLETELY change Blake’s family arc. Volume 2 convinced me that Blake was born into the White Fang, grew up in the streets, and had little actual freedom until she ran away from Adam in the Black Trailer. Therefore, giving Blake a family who is practically royalty in Menagerie is retconning at its finest. Plus, what does it prove? That Blake regrets her time in the White Fang after leaving her family like a child? Says more about her than it does the morality, or immorality, of the White Fang, which is exactly what Blake wants to challenge in V5. Have her find that her family is dead. Find some old friends of hers that left the White Fang. Put the good side of the White Fang front and center to make me care more about her fighting Adam. She has two grudges against Adam now: ruining the White Fang’s moral high ground, and disARMing Yang. Give me a better reason to see her fighting these grudges instead of “it sounds okay to the audience”. Blake proving that the Faunus are equal citizens is one of the show’s strongest potential plot points, so capitalize on it.

This Sun comic relief isn’t comical. Not much else you can do except avoid the cringy writing. Sun’s “just hanging around” pun and breaking in to Blake’s conversation with her dad are two good examples.

I get that Adam is too far away from Menagerie to be relevant in this volume, but Ilia is pointless. Who is Ilia? Why do I care? Why can’t we give Adam some screen time to see him going to Menagerie or Mistral? Is Ilia even that important? Was she an old friend of Blake that used to support the morally good White Fang? If so, why did she stop? If not, why is she relevant? Miles and Kerry, please make us care if you are introducing her so late in the volume.

Sun’s heart wound was dropped too quickly. Seriously, is Aura like Nen in Hunter x Hunter? Sun should not have run out of Aura, unless his multiple copies consumed all of it, which didn’t seem clear. Besides, even if I accepted the wound, Blake’s reaction to Sun’s potential death was honestly too good to waste on a wound that doesn’t even seem that bad in the long run. Unless Sun’s wound hurts his fighting in V5, it seems pointless.

Yang:

Yang’s PTSD is very underdeveloped. I was fine with Yang’s broken glass and nightmare-induced PTSD right up until the show dropped it entirely once she put the arm on. That is not how PTSD works. It should continue to haunt her for years, maybe even until she dies (hopefully not during the show, I love Yang too much). Keep her having PTSD symptoms with the arm on. Hell, especially with the arm constantly reminding her of Adam.

If Port and Oobleck are in this volume, we should learn more about the other teams. Do…none of the other characters in V3 matter? If Port and Oobleck matter to Taiyang, and Glenda is shown to be constantly working, then what about Team CFVY? Or the rest of Team SSSN? Or Team CRDL? Or, literally anyone else? Show us what they are doing, albeit briefly. The more they continue to not be relevant in the show, the more I believe that the tournament was a waste of time.

Yang gets used to the robot arm too quickly. Qrow is voiced by this random guy named Vic Mignogna, who, I don’t know, just happened to voice this character called Edward Elric in Fullmetal Alchemist and Brotherhood, one of the greatest anime franchises of all time. And, not that this is related or anything, Edward just happened to have his arm lost and got a mechanical arm that took him a year to master, which was far shorter than the expected length for a normal person. It involves sensitive nerve connections to allow alchemy to be performed. So, how can Yang master it in a matter of weeks, if that? I know that they are two different universes, and I am not educated on robotic arms in the real world, but it should take more than a few weeks to master.

Stop beating around the bush with Raven. So, Raven leads the bandits. Cool. She has family issues. Fine. So, why doesn’t the show capitalize on this? If Yang finds Raven, then what? What does that mean for both if they interact? I feel like the only reason that Yang chose Ruby over Raven was because she realized that her immediate family matters more, which invalidates Raven’s role in the show completely. And before you say “but she is against Salem”, there is nothing that she has physically done to perform this goal, besides forcing Neo to flee. If you want to give Raven a role, give her a more concrete role independent of her mommy issues with Yang.

The show needs to earn “Armed and Ready” with a climactic Yang fight with some Grimm or bandits or rogue White Fang members. “Armed and Ready” is easily the best song that the Williams family has ever done (that opening guitar is downright orgasmic), but Yang has done nothing to fight her PTSD besides training with Taiyang. That does not convince me that she is ready to kick Adam’s ass. Give her a fight towards the end of the volume and have it be the finale fight rather than RNJR vs. the Nuckelavee. Fight some Grimm as a metaphor for overcoming her negative emotions while simultaneously still harboring her PTSD. Have her fight some bandits to introduce them to the story. Have her fight some White Fang members to prove her change in strength since Volume 2. Bonus points if you have her drive on her motorcycle while fighting (just so I can make an AMV with some Initial D themes, probably Running in the 90s).

 Oscar:

Cut out his scene in Episode 1. That scene communicates to the audience that Oscar is related to Salem’s antics (by waking up from a nightmare after the opening scene) and he works on a farm. You want to know what does that? The very next scene he is in a few episodes later. Save some money and cut his first scene.

Give us some of Oscar’s own backstory, or individual character. If you introduce a character only for the sake of keeping a previous character relevant, it doesn’t make me sympathize with the new character. The ending scene with Oscar receiving Ozpin’s cane from Qrow sounds promising to give Oscar some development, but not giving him a backstory or why he works on a farm, or even why he just leaves so easily to head to Mistral. He is obviously the Dorothy character in the show (to keep the Wizard of Oz character metaphors going), and Dorothy had a backstory, however brief it was. Give Oscar one.

Ozpin/Oscar is driving the plot now. None of that. When Qrow is asked what Team RNJR should do now that they know about the relics, he literally responds with “I don’t know”. If that doesn’t sum up how irrelevant Ruby is, I don’t know what will. To put icing on the cake, Qrow says that they should put their faith in Ozpin to make up a plan. That means that even if Ruby dies, the only disadvantage that the characters have is that they lose the silver-eyed Super Saiyan (sorry Yang, but Ruby fits that bill better). I’ll talk about the Silver Eyes later, but my point is that Ozpin, regardless if he is the elder, should not drive the plot now. Otherwise, Oscar should be the main character. If he is the Dorothy of this show, that possibility is not too far off, unfortunately.

 Team WTCH:

Give Mercury and Emerald more screentime. They were the ENTIRE REASON that Cinder could execute the Fall of Beacon. Now, Miles and Kerry have introduced new villains so fast that there is no time to give Emerald and Mercury any relevance. Emerald is merely a translator, and Mercury does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Have them go out and fight Team RWBY or RNJR. Hell, maybe even have them fight Yang in that hypothetical finale I talked about earlier. After all, Yang does have a grudge against both, even if she doesn’t know it yet.

Flesh out the other villains beside Tyrian and Cinder. They’re obviously being saved for later volumes, which is fine, by introducing them in Episode 1 only for each to have one or two more appearances in the rest of the volume feels out of place.

Make Tyrian cold rather than crazy. He’s a scorpion. Not a monkey (that’s Sun’s specialty). People pointed out that he sits like L from Death Note in his opening scene in the dining room (I think that’s what it is), and L was extremely cold and calculating. Make him like that. I’ll take intimidating cold villain over batshit crazy villain any day.

Explain about what happened at Beacon when Ruby unleashed the Silver Eyes. I have many questions. First, how did Cinder get out of there? Did Salem rescue her after she was frozen, or was she never frozen at all and just lost her eye? If not, why did the Grimm Dragon freeze (or is this just some sort of Portal talk in Fullmetal Alchemist where he takes something precious from each person, Cinder her eye that sees her future, and the dragon its ability to fly)? Why has Ruby never mentioned her silver eyes in the ENTIRE volume? Can she induce it under extreme pressure like the Avatar State, but it comes with a horrible cost? Or are Miles and Kerry just retconning all of it until a later volume, when whatever is relevant will just show up? I was looking forward to finding out exactly what happened to Cinder and Beacon, as well as Ruby wrestling with her new abilities. The former was only half developed, and the latter was never mentioned.

Explain why Team WTCH is only now acting 6-8 months after the Fall of Beacon. Tyrian has been looking for the Spring Maiden, and Cinder is undergoing treatment, but what has everyone else been doing? Reading Ninjas in Love alone in their rooms?

Is Cinder…afraid of Tyrian? If so, go into it more. Seeing Tyrian going insane against the Beowulf just felt satisfying to watch (albeit terrifying and stupid since the Beowulf should have disintegrated into dust after the first few stabs). However, Cinder being terrified by Tyrian’s reaction felt even more interesting to see. Maybe Cinder should have had a short PTSD-like flashback to an event from her past.

 General Improvements:

Stop hiring so many professional voice actors. Look, I love Funimation. I love Team Four Star. But hiring so many professional voice actors to voice both one-shot and major characters just comes across as corporate money-hogging. RT should have more confidence in its own voice cast, not to mention that the voice acting feels wildly inconsistent, putting professionals on the same level as amateurs. I was fine when they nabbed Vic for Qrow, but this is just pandering.

Improve the fight scenes with Monty’s advice. Remember when Monty said that “you should utilize motion in a way that doesn’t waste movement?” Tell that to the animators that love to swing Crescent Rose around pointlessly during Ruby’s fight scenes. Don’t believe me? Check Episode 7 when she climbs to the rooftop to set up her scope against Tyrian. Also, remember when Monty said that “in team fights, get rid of as many people as quickly as possible?” RT should’ve taken his advice, for Team RNJR vs. Tyrian in Episode 6 was complete garbage, where everyone was standing around too much while Tyrian was fighting 1v1 or 1v2 instead of 1v4. Don’t believe me? Nora got hit with Ruby’s bullet, and stood there for 20 SECONDS while no one did anything else to distract Tyrian from Nora’s charging. I’m not saying that the fight scenes were overall bad in this volume (Qrow vs. Tyrian is my favorite fight in Volume 4 just how Qrow vs. Winter was in Volume 3), but they still need work. No one will be able to animate like Monty, but flash animation can always improve, and “keep moving forward”.

Give the Williams family more songs. The RWBY V4 soundtrack will be good. I guarantee it. I just wish we could have a couple more songs.

Keeping Pyrrha and Glynda in Poser but the rest of the show in Maya just looks awkward. I know it would cost more money to convert both Pyrrha’s recording and Glynda fixing the building on Yang’s TV from Poser Pro to Maya, but it would just look better. Plus, I really want to see Pyrrha’s new model in Maya. Maybe they’re just keeping it once Pyrrha comes back in a later volume (a man can dream, right?).

The show needs to make up its mind about religion. Qrow in V3: “Not many people are super religious these days.”

Captain in V4 E3: “By the gods!” (nice foreshadowing btw)

Qrow: *proceeds to talk about an entire religious mythology that will take the forefront of RWBY’s main conflict*

Me: wut

The sexual references are starting. And I hate them. Blake’s dad calling her clothing too revealing, and Nora telling Ren not to look up her skirt. Unless you’re Evangelion and subverting common fan-service tropes, you don’t have the right to being them into RWBY, especially since Monty was very avid in Volume 1 interviews about shying away from showing the girls in upskirt/sexual scenarios.

Talk about the moon. Qrow looked up at the moon during his talk with RNJR about the relics. Might want to explain why after four volumes of complete silence about it.

Where’s Neo? Is she alive? Dead? Relevant? Irrelevant? Why didn’t she fight Yang in my hypothetical finale? Has she been looking for Torchwick, not knowing that he’s dead? A mute character like her just has too many interesting scenarios for her to be completely dropped.

And that’s it. Thank you to all those who have sat through this 5,400-word post. In the end, there were many things I liked about Volume 4, like how the Nuckelavee was terrifying, and how Qrow’s poisoning was handled, with everyone on the edge of their seats on whether Qrow would die. I just wish it lived up to all the hype that we gave it. Oh well. Cheers to a good Volume 5 in Mistral, the most Omashu-looking city I’ve ever seen (when will this show stop ripping off of Avatar).

[maneaterwithtail]

The politics are the cough. the disease is flooding to chase the trend of personal brand building. Events and confusing communities and arguably the arrangement of the direct market itself. No simplicity and lots of expense with shakeup one after the other.

And some transparently business or out of story disrupting existing (in humans versus mutants)

Starting Marvel, as an example, is harder than figuring out where to come in on the Fate series. I mention this because Comics are often compared to manga and yet however convoluted in silly may get for the most part you buy one collection, or let's not kid ourselves pirate, or wait until an animated adaptation comes out realize that it's pretty much faithful, go back to the core comic and so long as you start from the beginning you can follow to the end. Even if it's based off of a visual novel chances are everything will progress from beginning to end. It's usually when that models messed up with that something becomes destructive and difficult to follow or deal.

Unlike with manga where if you're having trouble following where to start with, like the Fate series, you can at least enjoy the latest Nasu verse offering. especially if you can turn your brain off and just engage with one example. Or if you don't want to deal with that you can just go to an entirely different property from a similar publisher that scratches a similar itch.

Like the premise of America Chavez buts I think she did it wrong? Well it's not like you can just switch over to Champions because that's a mess as well along with Miles Morales Spider-Man and ms. Marvel or spider woman.

it's expensive, patchy, filled with all sorts of weird continuity that you end up having to buy just to start. As such only the dedicated fanbase could possibly tolerate it but that also is exclusive in the sense that it's so to them with a history that it feels kind of off-putting.

I like the comicsgate comics I have heard of. I can also understand why we try to move away from that. Such as very obvious p*** tracing. And so on. Yes supposed diversity has basically led to a similar story of we're here now we're going to f*** the status quo too strongly relating to the audience or the author's pandering.

But it's not just they're going to have a trans person in an announcement. Which is a pretty major character trait I imagine that they want to talk about that or include it in the announcement.

the discontinuity does not help you build upsetting characters characterization and Circumstance. This is what I mean you're following themes story and events building to something then a new author will come in and he or she will wreck all that up so that they can go in an entirely different direction. Okay maybe you don't like the homosexual overtones of Eddie Brock and Venom. Maybe you want to stick it to all the slash shippers on Tumblr. But they've been the people who been following the comic and there's been a multi-year build up with sleeper, Eddie Brock and Venom's son.

going no now Eddy has a son he doesn't know about. oh and he was in the car that killed a child and him and Venom hate each other? Basically says f*** that other story we're going back to this story because I liked it better when I was young and I like it this way. And this kind of hostility is constant with every Changing of the Guard which can happen almost every two to three years. This keeps happening right when things are starting to get good or conclusion is reached. this undermines any death any major event or twist especially when it's in the headlines as if it's going to be meaningful

we can't even engaged in the illusion that someone has a plan charting something out when it feels like it's always fly by the seat of the pants the slightest whim can blow off the direction. We know in our conscious nothing that happens matters or at the very least when things end and we don't move on to something else then realize that there was a change but it seems seamless. Or at the very least it's a damn good seem that makes a very likeable and unique and distinct quilt. Again comparing and contrasting with manga

basically constantly ragging on the Politics as if that's what's causing the problem as opposed to Poor practices is off. yeah the customer service is definitely a no-go. But let's not kid ourselves Fanboys started it

I can straight up say that if you had a book that was straight up gay. like it starred the gay couple that once was Rescued by Captain America including his childhood hero And they were joined by the gender-bending exiled courtesan. you know those girls that always hang around in the background of Thor comics and everybody talks about winching and all that stuff? What if we actually focus on one of them and we threw in some mythological deviant queerness with the idea that men who practiced a certain form of Witchcraft had to be ladies. Now in practice this often meant anything from cross-dressing to performing ceremonies with a freaking dildo. But this is Comics so instead I can just go with the idea that after he uses magic so much he can turn or does turn into a lady. At first it's inadvertent but then he Masters the power so much that can transform into any lady. So he can go from weak little nerdy witch man to a Vanir (super durable pretty strong) or she giant.

It gets even more so when apparently he can change not just to a generic woman but any specific one. so he can literally clone an individual lady alive or dead. If she's dead you can act as a vessel for her soul so effectively while he might be booted deep within he can resurrect anyone's female loved one. Until changes back. The Twist is that while he won a beauty contest to be one of Odin's many many side pieces due to the politics and sociology of the time and the setup Odin didn't like admitting that they were both men or equals. Now the crossdressing courtesan isnt necessarily the nicest person. In fact the number one thing that characterizes him is that he hates the alpha male warrior culture or at least what he perceives of the negatives of it of Asgard. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he provides a good alternative. This will be a total retcon. not only would this make Odin effectively bisexual -although it's long since established that it seems like he's banged about so much he has had a child with everyone but his wife- but the idea that Loki and Thor grew up exposed to this weird gender-bending courtesan who tried to compete with the affections of their Queen Mother just so that that way he could get ahead and hated showing the absolute loyalty and Devotion to Asgard seeking glory in battle and death as opposed to conniving Gatling favor and trolling for booty while having to serve drinks for the Warriors that came by and were celebrated in the castle Hall.

Probably make up all sorts of relationships with other lesser-known Danny's that haven't been as much part of Marvel Thor but are important or at least well-known for the tradition. I would also shamelessly ripoff @gumon and her take on Norse mythology. With giants that just naturally produce children whether male or female. anyway ignoring all the continuity just so I could bring in the mythology that I want I would have it so that he was ultimately exiled because he got set up on a failure assignment. He got assigned to the Blue Mountain the traveling planet or set of rocks now that was the home of one of the Warriors Three the blue guy well the guy who wears blue and looks kind of like Angus Khan

The entire point of this is to get a different eye view of the Marvel Universe. What was it like to be one of those disposable pin-up girls. What is the gay population in gay culture and gay people been doing and light of the world that's been invaded from the ground been in a Perpetual fight with remnants of terrorists from World War II. And of course how they've been in for you property and making their lives and how are they responding to the fact that New York finally recognizes their marriage and of course life in the Twilight years as a gay couple that's constantly facing mortality. Also with the usual hey I'm an immortal mystical being who's having to relearn how to be human after having lived a life with a God's but neither being loyal to them nor a particular loyal to my own people. Along with the issues of the shapeshifter gender Dynamics and identity and all other sort of things. Pretty damn gay book. But I read it

Kids like imitating what they see so ripping the idea that someone's going to take some of the more iconic X-Men looks and style themselves after them when they know that their mutant doesn't seem wrong. I like the idea that we're going to open with someone who manages an online community for mutants. I like the idea of Trailblazer I like the ladies thick and I like the fact that she has a more utility power that she's going to have to work with and around hopefully being clever though that backpack does run the risk of becoming the Omnitrix and having the solution for every problem that you need.

Basically I like the children of the atom a bit more than the whole lineup of the new Warriors. I think people really should give the characters a chance so if you're turned off by yet another set of incest siblings in Marvel ya no problem or argument here.