#when starting with season 16 I kinda just thought that was the regular pace of the show so I was used to the absurdity

[boyapologist]

decided to finish an svu episode to put myself to sleep but it ended up being the accident episode and now I'm traumatized

[vacation-grif]

What kinda feelings?

A LOT, ACTUALLY. Like I said before, the RTNY group was telling me to skip it because it wasn’t a good season, and I want to express how much I wanted to just form my own opinion, only to end up agreeing with them in the end. Let me break this down as best as I can now that I am on my PC. I mean no disrespect to the director and writer, as well as the cast and crew. Honestly, I’m worried that my opinion makes me feel like a boomer at this point.

First off, if anyone was going to tell me that I’m going to have headaches over bright flashing lights and colors over a Red vs Blue series, I wouldn’t have believed you. As I said before, they should’ve just called this “Red vs Blue: Epilepsy Warning THE M0VIE”. I understand that they are using the Unreal Engine, because my god the graphics on this is INSANE. But everything is...too bright. TOO. BRIGHT. Everything has a lens flare no matter where the camera turns, and with the high paced action, all the lights and colors, it HURTS.

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Next, this is a fully CG-animated season. We haven’t had one like that in SUCH a long time, and this is the first in the 20-ish years of Red vs BLue. When I was a kid who didn’t have a cellphone, I could only imagine what Red vs Blue was like when my best friend would play it over our landline on a weeknight before we would go to school the next day. And I would come over and be like, HOLY SHIT. IS THIS FUCKING HALO?! So imagine my excitement when after 8 years of Red vs Blue using Halo 1 to Halo 3 assets, you see a Warthog just crash through the walls of Valhalla, something you’d never see in a Halo game. A fully animated scene of Grif running over Washington (hell yeah), and an angry Washington outside of his game model just climbing onto the hood of the car and shooting at Grif through the windshield at pointblank range. Then cut to episode 10 of the same season, Tex makes her triumphant return, fully animated instead of her Halo 3 game model. And in the last two episodes of the season, you get OUR VERY FIRST FREELANCER VS FREELANCER FIGHT. You find out this was the work of the late Monty Oum (rest in peace), and until Season 10, Red vs Blue was THE HIGHEST POINT OF YOUR FUCKING LIFE.

Then we go to Season 12 where the animation post Oum (he was working on RWBY at this point but iirc this was just before he died) was choppy at best and didn’t feel right until Season 13, where within the one year the animation team REALLY stepped up. And this actually carries over into Season 17, Singularity, where it became more animation and less game effects, or rather it was balanced. It wasn’t extravegant like Oum’s works, but given that these are the Simtroopers, some Freelancers, some Mercs, and time gods, it felt par for the course. It felt right.

We cut now to these upgraded graphics, which felt like when you were playing on your Xbox 360 and you jsut FUCKING SHOT into the Xbox One. It was, as you would say, unreal (lol). But it felt...off. The first two episodes, the entire action didn’t feel like what you spent 16 seasons watching. It felt like a whole another beast entirely. With the use of super powers, you would think oh the Freelancers had that! Yes, but those were all suit enhancements. These...didn’t feel like it. Zero’s and Phase’s teleportation didn’t feel like something that Fragmented AI can control. Shatter Squad’s at least felt more at home. 

The models themselves were a bit off too. Choppy at best, but understandable given that they were using the Unreal Engine. But you notice that they do a lot of hand on hip pushed out to the side type of thing a lot? Everyone does it. Except Raymond, West, and the big dude. Like the SASSY STANCE. Also, there was way too much power stance. Where if your feet were shoulder width apart, it was a bit wider, and also the pelvis was out a little more. A bit weird. Finally, everyone has an ass. Everyone. Even West. West has an ass, it was like, everyone was dummy thicc and the clap of their ass cheeks was alerting Viper.

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Next, voice acting. I...absoultely could not stand the voice acting. It was completely over the top, overdramatic, over exaggerated. Granted, I’m a singer, a perform, but I’m not exactly a good actor myself in the few shows I’ve actually done. It felt like watching an anime. When you wtach something with dialogue of your own language, you can tell when you feel something is to over the top. If you watch something of a language you don’t speak, it’ll go over your head, unless you start to speak that language, and you speak to people who speak that language, then you start to pick up what is regular speaking and what is acting. When an anime gets dubbed, most times, the voice actors tend to over dramatacize in the same way the Japanese due, and some times it works, most times it doesn’t. This is because the Japanese way of acting comes from kabuki theater. When English dubbers do that with this weird over emphasized emotions, it is extremely offputting.

In some places, the voice acting is poorly done. Jen Brown’s performance from just getting out of a hospital to giving an expositional lecture about the new cast in literally 5 seconds of time was...off. Carolina should’ve had more time to recover, especailly after losing Washington, one of her closest surrogate family, she felt...a little too calm and normal. Not like the Carolina who was hesitant but trying her best to be a whole better person (see the Paradox Arc, S15-17). It was jsut quick shift, and now she’s making snarky remarks in that Jen Brown voice she does (my god step on me please) and also being a mother hen. Also, she really calls Washington David way more this season than she ever did before that.

Fiona’s performance was shaky at best in my opinion, I don’t know her very well outside of what everyone says. All I know is that sometimes, the way she emphasizes some of her lines don’t fit the situation very well. I think East/Phase was a lot better done than One imo. But she was mostly angry and competitive.

Raymond is the textbook definition of what I hate about taking a character’s role and making it their entire personality. Think of it like watching Power Rangers, and all of their roles is just defined by the shit they say. Jason is the jock, Kimberly is the pretty girl, Trini is......I’m not gonna lie, I don’t...know what to classify Trini, Zack was the cool guy, and Billy was the nerd (Tommy was Jock II also the rebel/loner). Raymond reminded me a lot like Billy, where Billy was defined by being so smart, half of his dialogue was just look at me, i’m fucking smart, let me use all of these big words. Half of Raymond’s dialogue was, look at me, i’m the tech guy, I’m nerdy and loveable, it felt like it was too over the top of trying to stand out. By the end of the season, after East’s big reveal, I started to like him a lot more because he knew what was more at stake. I want to say that my initial impression of him was immature at best.

West was too stiff. Just.. Too stiff. I get he’s old. But show some emotion, please.

Why am I emphasizing on this more? When you listen to the dialogue of RvB, and then you listen at this, even with the return cast of Carolina, Washington, and Tucker, the direction was different. I think it’s because of the new medium with Zero being all super animated like an action, where RvB was just a bunch of net videos that you’re gonna laugh at with well timed jokes. It was super casual, but also super real. Geoff and Gus and everyone else aren’t big actors or anything, but that’s what made it feel real. That’s what made RvB feel like its own thing.

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In terms of writing, I get that this is RvB meets FnF (Fast and Furious). But I honestly feel that it doens’t belong. The story of Shatter Squad vs Viper would have been a lot better if it didn’t have the RvB name tacked on. It’s such a cool concept, but given what RvB was before, the tonal shift is jsut too great, especially when you only have 3 of the previous cast returning.

Speaking of, what happened to Tucker?! What happened to the guy who became a leader? Responsible? Not as arrogant? Maybe playfully arrogant at best, but not stroking his ego? What happened to HIS SWORD? Did they forget how Tucker’s sword works? That it only works IF HE DIES? Tucker didn’t die, and yet Phase was able to use his sword (which by the way is now hers). One of the earliest stories/gags of RvB and they just...retconned it and threw it away! Also, Tucker’s voice acting did NOT match the scene at all. It’s like watching a video game that was localized from Japanese, and the dubbers spoke too fast before the character could finish. Tucker moves outside of his dialogue and there is this weird seconds of silence. That...that was just a BAD return for him.

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My final thought is that, if RvB Zero is not...the RvB I grew up with. Maybe the jokes are dated, but the memories of what RvB was is still real. This just...doesn’t feel like RvB anymore. This should have just been it’s own show, it’s own story, replace Wash and Carolina and Tucker with new characters, it just wasn’t their place to be in this.

The only thing I liked about this? I’m glad Danielle (I’m assuming this is how you would spell her name) didn’t go AWOL and returned to the team. I actually really liked her the most next to Axel. She was done dirty, but she still held on to that one bond she had as East that Zero didn’t give her as Phase.

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I know this is probably not a great opinion, and I really hope that Rooster Teeth finds the ground they want this series to go in. Sometimes, you have to try new things, or else staying stagnant will make it go stale. It’s all about trial and error. I don’t know how everyone else feels about Zero, how the new audience and the old audience feels. RvB as a whole wasn’t perfect. They had their down moments. But when you feel that way for an entire season...it’s a problem.

[otakween]

07-Ghost - The World (Part. 2)

Episodes 11-20 of the 07-Ghost radio show. I’m really enjoying listening to this. It makes me want to investigate which other anime have radio shows. The only other one I know of is Zetsubou Sensei. Pretty funny that the lesser known shows would be popular enough to be on the radio. Links below for anyone who wants to listen (raw Japanese only). 

Episode 11

This episode kind of feels like the beginning of a new season because they got a new opening and ending theme. They’re nice to listen to but not something I would want to download or anything. They have a cheesy mid-2000s vibe to them (gee, I wonder why?) This episode was cute because they had Hakuren’s VA as a guest. It’s fun to imagine Teito, Hakuren, and Mikage all hanging out together since that never happened in the series. 

This time around they discussed “what would you do if X happened to your best friend” scenarios and read a lot of fan mail. As usual Mikage’s VA lost every game lol. I think Jun (Hakuren’s VA) said at one point that he thinks of Mitsuki (Teito’s VA) as an “ikemen” looool. I just googled her name and she does look really androgynous. 

Episode 12

More of the same, more teasing of Namikawa (one of the fanmails was just asking if he got bad grades in school lol). This time around the beginning conversation was about “who would make a good brother, sister, mom, etc. in the 07 Ghost universe?” It kinda bugs me how surface-level and basic their answers are. They never really mention side characters or manga-only characters so they really only have a tiny amount of people to shuffle through again and again. On the other hand, Namikawa never read the manga so...

They played two games: “which thing is smaller?” and what’s in “Pandora’s box?” Saiga flat out said she didn’t want to do the second game lol. She’s getting bored with the formula. I do think the show is stronger when they’re just chit-chatting or bouncing ideas off listener mail, but the games are easier to understand language-wise so it’s good to have a mix of the two. 

Episode 13 

This episode had Kuroyuri’s VA on as a guest which was a nice change of pace. They discussed grades again (you can tell a lot of the listeners are very young based on the listener mail) and played shiritori using dialogue from 07 Ghost. I feel like they’re getting pretty creative with the games they come up with. 

This episode and the previous one had a lot of ads at the end for 07 Ghost content (DVDs, drama CDs, manga, etc.) They mention the “upcoming live event” which I’m guessing is the same one that was released on DVD. Are live anime events still a common thing? I know the Tales of series has an annual festival so I guess they must be. -sigh- why can’t I live in Japan :( 

Episode 14

This episode was fun to listen to, Namikawa and Saiga crack each other up a lot and have great chemistry. I feel like I’m enjoying this radio show more than I enjoyed the entire series? Loool 

Anyway, in this episode they spent a long time talking about and giving each other nicknames (they settled on “Wada” for Namikawa and “Ouji” for Saiga). Namikawa got roasted by the listeners a bunch, as usual, and they had a “dad joke” competition. Two listeners wrote in about their worries, one was worried about his sore neck and the other’s husband was mad at her for spending too much on anime (lol). I guess this episode came out around the mid-point of the anime’s broadcast because they referenced the Frau dolls and the weird noises they make, which was funny. 

I think I need to listen to more Japanese podcasts cuz this is fun and great practice. If anyone has any reccs, please let me know! 

Episode 15

Sho Hayami (Ayanami’s VA) returns!! His voice is sooo dreeeammy. One of the listener mail’s mentioned his fan club and I totally get it lol. I would join if I could. Anyway, this episode was cute. They talked about their first crushes (Hayami’s was a boy!) and played a game where they had to read some exposition from 07 Ghost and pick out what was wrong about it. Honestly, I struggled to understand that part because fantasy world vocabulary is tricky. Namikawa lost as he always does and his punishment was that he had to talk like a baby for the rest of the episode. He did a really good job lol. 

They did a “last supper” segment again where they ate pudding (flan) with soy sauce, which apparently is supposed to taste like sea urchin...ew. 

Episode 16

This episode was decent, a little meandering lol. They had Hyuuga’s VA on as a guest and he seemed surprisingly shy compared to the character he plays. He was very quiet and didn’t contribute much to the conversation. I was a little nervous when he lost one of the games they played and had to speak “rabbit language” (basically adding “pyon” or “usa” to the end of every sentence) for the rest of the episode, but that actually was exactly what was needed to spice up his debut lol. His awkwardness plus the vocal tic was pretty hilarious. 

This episode took place after the live event because they had some fan mail about it. One girl went with her mom which is so cute (I can imagine dragging my parents to something like that lol). They discussed what it would like to be a twin and played a game where they had to read a bunch of tricky words (mostly katakana) really fast. It sounded really hard! I kinda wish I had the script so I could try for myself. I really like reading katakana 

Episode 17

This episode felt really short, the nico nico video is only 38 minutes long! Castor’s VA guest starred this time and was way more energetic than Hyuuga’s VA in the last episode. He was hamming it up a lot. They discussed sleeping positions and played a game where they got a list of 3 07 Ghost characters and had to figure out what they all had in common. I had fun playing along (although I didn’t do very well lol). Namikawa lost and had to use “zamasu” language? I’m not really sure what that is. 

At the end of the episode they read some listener mail and gave love confession advice lol. Almost made it a third of a way through the show! 

Episode 18

A nice, simple no-guest episode. This time around they discussed what pets would suit them and played family feud basically (and failed miserably). Saiga and Namikawa both got “punished” for failing the game and had to speak like the opposite gender. They both really struggled to do so lol. Masculine/feminine speech is so weird to me. I’m sure English has some, subtle version of this, but if someone told me to “talk like a guy” I wouldn’t know what to do. (Lower my voice? Say “bro” a lot?) It’s always interesting when other languages have a quirk that there’s no real English equivalent for.

This episode felt kind of lazy. They spent most of it just chit-chatting and didn’t seem like they wanted to do the regular corner. They ended up running out of time for the final fan letter reading. I’m not complaining really, it was just noticeably less professional than some other episodes. 

Episode 19

Not gonna lie, the Japanese was a little tricky for me in this one. Haruse’s VA made his show debut and I didn’t recognize his voice at all lol. Haruse barely talks in the show so I was like “???” They asked him what kind of character Haruse is and he was like “...nice?” Lol poor Haruse. Not much to say about him anime-wise. 

This definitely felt like a “we’re running out of ideas” episode. The game they played was really weird. Basically it was “what do you do when X natural disaster occurs?” with 07 ghost characters illustrating what to do vs. what not to do. Haruse’s VA lost and his punishment was to speak in broken Japanese (like annoying foreigner characters do in anime). It was really obnoxious lol. The episode ended with a “Last supper” segment but I had trouble following what they were eating :/ Almost to episode 20!

Episode 20

Another Hyuuga episode, although I felt like he didn’t talk as much this time. These episodes are really starting to blend together. This one was recorded in October so they discussed autumn and things they like/dislike about it. Practically every fan letter was about Namikawa (either bullying or praising him). I finally understand the “Wada” joke (namikaWA DAisuke), it took me a few episodes.

Unfortunately I didn’t really understand much of this episode, especially the game they played. It sounded like they had to pick a symbol to represent a character from 07 Ghost, but I’m not sure if that’s the gist of it. Namikawa lost as usual and his punishment was to speak like an old man. I thought he did a great job! Sometimes I forget I’m listening to voice actors instead of regular radio hosts. It makes sense that all of their punishments would be impressions related. 

[flynnspeaks]

Flynn Marathons Doctor Who, Part 16

(I got way behind on posting these writeups at the end of S6, so I’ll be finishing these up and posting them every couple days over the next two weeks. I’m currently on S12 so I have a lot of writing to catch up on)

Finishing up Season 6 and the Troughton era:

The Seeds of Death: Resolutely ok, but honestly really rough to sit through. More than any other story this is the one that feels padded at six episodes, because it’s not as if there are obvious extraneous bits as much as it is everything seems to take forever to happen.

Which is really odd because the first episode takes no time at all to set everything up and get us in on the action--heck, the Ice Warriors attack well before the Doctor even arrives, where in other stories that attack might not take until the second episode. But once you’re passed that, the story does this weird stop-and-start thing where it’ll take ages to do one simple task and then breeze right through the next few. And it’s super engaging and enjoyable in the latter, and really goddamn rough in the former.

Another issue is how threadbare the human elements are--the characters are all nice and well-thought-out, but the conflict boils down to more of the same that was in “The Ice Warriors”, but instead of developing interestingly as the story progresses it just starts at one place and stays there. Eldred and Radnor basically make up at the start of episode 2 and spend the rest of the story as colorful plot devices, and while Fewsham’s arc is nice it doesn’t really carry the story as well as it should.

Which leaves us with the basic plot, which is just...I mean, the story really doesn’t seem to be about much of anything, it’s just Ice Warriors invading earth--and sure, it looks cool and the bits where the Warriors are on earth are really well-shot, but it’s ultimately just “Web of Fear” but with Martians instead of Yeti and a touch of “Fury from the Deep” thrown in.

Like, the story honestly isn’t bad. But the pacing issues and lack of any real depth keep it from being that much of a big deal in the end.

The Space Pirates: So, uh....why do people hate this one?

Like, I can see reasons for disliking it, sure--the first episode is a trainwreck, and much of the story’s enjoyment depends on how much you like Milo Clancey (and I actually do, but totally understand why people wouldn’t), but...bottom 10 all time bad? Second-worst Troughton story? Not by a mile.

Honestly, I thought the episode was pretty good--definitely the “Reign of Terror” for Robert Holmes, in that it’s a first (second) go for a writer that would get much more polished, but Holmes is a far better writer than Spooner was, and you see a lot of his strengths here, with well-textured characters, some interesting twists and turns, and a more grounded story interested in bureaucracy and its effects on people.

I think it’s clever how the story plays with the identity of the Space Pirate leader--you go a solid couple episodes thinking it’s Clancey, and once they give you a scene that clearly indicates Madeleine is behind the scene Holmes introduces Caven, throwing us off-guard for when it’s revealed at the end of the episode that Madaleine and Caven are working together. The story is also good about throwing us new things each episode--particularly in Ep. 5 when the thread of Madaleine’s father comes into place--as well as playing with character motivations and loyalties, with Madaleine turning on Caven and Dervish being conflicted in following him.

Honestly, this was pretty damn good. Probably the biggest shock of this watchthrough was finding this eminently more watchable than “Seeds of Death”, reconstructions and all, instead of being the interminably boring trainwreck people hyped it up. This wins my vote for most underrated Troughton, hands-down.

The War Games: Uh.

Holy shit.

No, really, holy shit. Remember when I said “Mind Robber” was my favorite Troughton and favorite Doctor Who story outright? Yeah, no, I take it back, it’s this. This is just an absolutely astounding story--ten episodes of basically non-stop rising action and topping it off with a finale that by now has overshadowed the serial entirely but must’ve been mindblowing for the few that watched it when it aired.

I kinda can’t get over how good this story is. A ten-episode serial about war is not inherently a recipe for success but so much about this works. I suspect a lot of it is you get the inherent strengths of Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks working together--from Hulke you get well-developed and nuanced characters, a fleshed-out world and very little wasted time, from Dicks you get wonderful pacing, effortless and functional plotting--just the both of them working together turns out to be the best possible scenario for a script.

One of the things that really helps the story is how well-drawn every character is, even the minor ones, and how the story will come back to them in later stretches to lend the whole thing a great sense of unity. And in addition to the characters, the overall story is so good at constantly giving you new ideas and new complications so you never feel the length of 10 episodes. First you think it’s World War I, then you think aliens are manipulating the war, then you find out there’s multiple wars, and that there’s a society of aliens taking control of them, and by the time they introduce the resistance you’re just giddy with the imagination of the storytelling. And that’s not even touching the parts everyone talks about--the brilliance of the Time Lord reveal, the fantastic performances and direction, how brutal but fitting Jamie and Zoe’s goodbyes are, how on fire Troughton is in his last regular performance in the role...just, top to bottom this is a barnstormer of a story.

A big part of what makes the story so special for me is I watched this with a very close friend who had seen a lot of clips of classic Who but not a full serial. I had started this episode and just went “Ok, we have to watch this episode, it’s so good”. We absolutely did not intend to watch the entire thing in one go...but we did, and the first episode of “Spearhead” immediately afterwards to boot. It’s just so captivating a story, and I will always have fond memories of watching the story in a dark room, our faces illuminated only by the light of the TV, and every now and then looking over to her to see her grinning broadly and whispering “this is so cool”.

It really fucking is. My favorite Doctor Who story by a mile.

[murasaki-murasame]

Episode 22 of Tokyo Ghoul :re continues to be Real Dang Neato [tm], and ironically enough somewhat slow, but in a good way.

Anyway, detailed thoughts under the cut, plus spoilers for the whole series.

As I figured, this episode covered the rest of volume 15, which means the next two episodes will be dedicated to adapting all of volume 16 to wrap things up. Which I think is a very comfortable way to pace things out.

In general the whole Dragon arc thus far feels very faithful to the manga, even if it’s not completely 1:1. The cuts and changes they’ve been making are very minor compared to the ones made earlier this season. Not that I’ve disliked any of the choices the writers have made in how they’ve adapted this season. It’s just interesting to note.

I’ve always liked the whole dream sequence with Kaneki and Rize, but I think it works a lot better here in the anime. Not because it’s different in any substantial way, but just because in the anime it’s much more clear that we’re in the final arc, and that this is pretty much the big conclusive final talk between these two. In the manga, we had no real idea that we were so close to the end, so we didn’t really think to view this scene in that way, and so by the time the story actually ended it felt like they never got a proper resolution together. But that’s basically what this scene is, and the point gets across a lot clearer here when we know that there’s only two episodes left.

The whole talk about how Kaneki’s responsible for slaughtering all these people really hammers in how basically everything about Kaneki’s character arc just takes the idea of depression to it’s absolute extreme, through the lens of the horror genre. On the one hand, it does still end up making this awkward conflict where it feels like Kaneki’s emotional response to the situation doesn’t really match the actual, physical reality of ‘he’s literally become a kaiji monster that destroyed Tokyo’, but it makes more sense when you just think about the ideas and feelings that are meant to be represented through that. That’s basically how the whole story has gone from the very start, but I’ve always felt that the whole Dragon thing in particular was where it got really hard to suspend my disbelief and separate the literal reality of what’s going on in the story from what Ishida’s trying to say about Kaneki’s character through it.

Funnily enough they cut out some of the parts that spelled out Rize’s role in Dragon, but I think I’m OK with that for the most part, since those scenes in the manga always felt kinda clumsy. In particular, the part with Rize explicitly commenting on how her kagune was split up across all the Oggai always made me confused about whether or not we were meant to interpret Rize in that scene as just being a regular hallucination, or some actual, literal aspect of Rize as a person who knows about her whole situation. So I kinda like that in this version she just comes across more as the same old hallucination she’s always been. And to be honest there’s no real way to spin the whole topic of Rize’s involvement in Dragon that doesn’t feel weird and contrived and hard to understand, so it’s probably for the best that the anime’s not really trying in the first place.

I had a feeling that they’d basically cut out like 90% of the chapter where Touka digs Kaneki out of Dragon, and that’s what they did. It works totally fine this way, and just gets straight to the point. One of the reasons why I always felt that it’d be easy to adapt this arc was because of chapters like that, which could easily be cut down without losing much.

I don’t think that the stuff in the Mutsuki-Urie conversation with Urie telling Mutsuki to go tell Kaneki about what he did happened in the manga, so I wonder if that’ll go anywhere at all. It’d be nice to get some sort of actual reconciliation between them. It always kinda bugged me that we never got one in the manga.

I know there were some people who were worried that the anime wouldn’t show Kaneki’s giant wing kagune, but they did, so that’s nice. I have a feeling people are gonna complain about it being all glowy and rainbow-y, but I think it looks neat.

I guess I should talk about the whole Kaneki-Hide reunion scene, but there’s not really much to say. It’s basically just 1:1 with the manga. It’s kinda disappointing, but I still think it makes enough sense that the anime isn’t even bothering to do much with Hide at all. I still feel like Ishida had a lot of ideas for his character that he had to scrap for one reason or another, which is why there’s so many loose ends and unanswered questions related to him in the manga. In a perfect world, it’d be nice to get a version of the story that actually follows through on all of those things, but I can’t blame the anime for taking the simpler route of not even bringing those questions and loose ends up in the first place, even if it really just further highlights how weird and unnecessary Hide’s role in :re feels. I have a feeling that a lot of anime-only people are gonna think it’s just the anime’s fault, but it’s really not. Even in the manga it was just kinda infuriating how Ishida handled him in this arc, and how little attention he got.

I’m not really sure yet how I feel about the fact that Kaneki seemed to be fully aware of how he was the one to cause Hide’s facial injuries, even though that hasn’t come up at all in the anime. I think I’m leaning toward preferring the way that it treats it as a bit of a mystery that the audience can fill in on their own time, if only because I still really really hate how it was originally brought up in the manga in the Cochlea arc. At least this way we can make up our own version of events that aligns more neatly with what actually happened in the first series. Kaneki still comes across as being uncomfortably blase about the whole thing, but the manga was so much worse about that.

Anyway, pettiness over Ishida’s bad writing aside, I’m excited to see how the anime wraps itself up over the next two episodes. As I said, the rest of the anime will just be covering the final volume of the manga, so even though the final volume is really big, I think it’ll work fine. It’s VERY action-heavy, so I’m expecting it to go by smoothly enough. It looks like the next episode will basically cover the Uta-Yomo and Amon-Donato fights, and end with Kaneki confronting Furuta, but it also looks like we’ll probably see Ayato join up with everyone, and we’ll probably get some exposition about the underground city and stuff. Which I still kinda wish the anime would have just ignored entirely, but oh well.

[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

What We Learned: St. Louis Blues bungle another player decision

(Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.)

On Friday afternoon, the St. Louis Blues extended Patrik Berglund for five years and $3.85 million.

It goes without saying that it’s easy to get your mind stuck in the past a little bit, when $3.85 million was a pretty good-sized amount of money in the NHL’s cap structure. These days it’s only a little more than 5 percent of the total cap, so it’s not a killer or anything.

But this deal in particular also isn’t a good idea.

For one thing, there’s the term. Five years for what will be a 29-year-old middle-six forward who netted 137 points in his previous 327 games before the season started — about 34 per 82 games — doesn’t seem like a good investment.

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And he’s on pace for less than that this year, by the way. He has 17-7-24 in 60 games, which puts him at about 33 points. To be fair, it will be his first time clearing 30 points since 2013-14. Which, hey wait a second, why do you give that guy five years and a $150,000 raise on his current deal?

Well, you’ll never ever guess what happened. From Feb. 4-11, Berglund scored six goals in five games, including a hat trick at Montreal. So it turns out GM Doug Armstrong bought about as high as he possibly could on a player who’s fifth in 5-on-5 ice time on his team and drives possession a little bit, but whose primary production falls somewhere between that of Kyle Brodziak and the ghost of Alex Steen’s career.

Again, the money isn’t totally horrible but there’s also no need whatsoever to give out this contract. A raise is unjustifiable, but it’s minimal. The term is unconscionable. And it’s not the first time Armstrong has shown little to no understanding of how to evaluate his own players.

Look at the other big issue facing the Blues right now: The will-they-won’t-they with Kevin Shattenkirk. Trade him? Keep him? It’s been going on for years now. And while everyone has been praising Alex Pietrangelo to the heavens, he has consistently been the third-best defenseman on this team for two years now, behind both Colton Parayko and Shattenkirk. Why the hurry to offload a guy who drives your offense that much? He leads the Blues ‘D’ in primary points per 60 minutes across all situations the last two seasons, and by a sizable margin: The gap between Shattenkirk and Parayko is roughly equivalent to the gap between Parayko and Jay Bouwmeester.

Well, part of the reason for the do-si-do with Shattenkirk is obviously money, because he’s reportedly rejecting six years and $7 million AAV offers left, right, and center from potential suitors. The Blues don’t really have the cap space to make that work because Parayko needs a new contract this summer as well.

After the new Berglund deal, the Blues have about $8.5 million in cap space for next season with 18 players signed. Parayko needs a new deal, which should consume a huge chunk of that space. So yeah, you can argue Shattenkirk just got squeezed out by the flat cap.

But you know what would help them afford Shattenkirk — who in fact is fourth in the League in all-situations points per 60 over the past two seasons, behind only Burns, Hedman, and Hamilton — going forward?

If the middle of their lineup wasn’t glutted with wastes of money like Berglund.

After all, it wasn’t so long ago that the Blues gave Alex Steen, a fine player at the time, a huge new contract because he scored 24 goals in the first 34 games of the 2013-14 season. His career high to that point had been 24, rather coincidentally. What the Blues got in the three years over which that contract spanned has been the definition of diminishing returns: 24-40-64 the first year (very good!), 17-35-52 the second (also pretty good!), and then this year just12-27-39, and without the possession numbers that always made that contract stronger getting worse.

And they extended him for basically the same money and three more years before this season even started. That’s beginning to look like rather a bad investment in terms of on-ice value delivered per dollar, especially because Steen is almost 33 even before the new deal starts and has missed time in each of the past three seasons.

According to Corsica’s Similarity Calculator, the player Steen’s current season looks like most across all current statistical categories is Chuck Kobasew in 2007-08. (For the record, Berglund’s current closest comparable is last year’s version of Nick Bjugstad.) If people don’t like how Steen’s $5.8 million AAV looks now, wait until he’s 36 and still making $5.75 million.

And I mean, you can do this all day with the Blues roster. When I initially said I didn’t like the Berglund extension, a lot of Blues fans were quick to point of that it’s not as bad as having Jori Lehtera signed for two more seasons at $4.7 million. In point of fact, both deals can be ill-advised simultaneously. Lehtera signed that deal when he was coming off a 14-30-44 season as he broke into the NHL at age 27. Only on Feb. 16 did he surpass his goal production from that first season, netting his 16th in 132 games against the Canucks.

Armstrong, it seems, always wants to buy as high as possible but is never really content with the few bargains he’s put on his roster. After all, look at the Blues goaltending debacle this season that cost a legendary coach his job; it’s easily avoidable if Armstrong sticks with Brian Elliott, who did nothing but deliver sterling performances for the Blues (.925 in 181 games).

Elliott was perceived as not-good-enough in 2014, so Armstrong brought in Ryan Miller, who imploded hilariously (.903 in 19 games in the regular season, .897 in six in the postseason) and was never going to stick around even if he hadn’t. Then Armstrong got Martin Brodeur (.899 in seven appearances) because he thought Elliott wasn’t good enough. Then Armstrong decided he would platoon Elliott (.930 in 42 games last season) with Allen (.920 in 47), and it worked pretty well even if the wrong guy was the 1b. And when it came time to make a decision, he traded Elliott to Calgary, only to see the goalie sign for $2.5 million against the cap.

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So when it comes to the Blues, you can expect one thing above all others: Armstrong will not properly assess your quality before deciding how to deal with your contract situation. That seems like something to which you can set your watch.

It also seems like a big problem for the team going forward.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: Seems like potentially a lot to give up for Patrick Eaves, but he’s a good player and they needed a lot of help in attack.

Arizona Coyotes: They should trade Shane Doan but they never ever will.

Boston Bruins: Don Sweeney is a damn genius. He’s gonna stand pat at the deadline. Incredible job preservation. If you don’t make moves and you’re in “evaluation mode” you keep your job even longer! You can tell my man went to Harvard.

Buffalo Sabres: A loss to the Avs, even coming out of the bye week, still isn’t in any way excusable.

Calgary Flames: They really ought to take him up on this.

Carolina Hurricanes: Bad take on a team that is clearly improving sharply.

Chicago: Tomas Jurco will really fit in with this team’s culture; like Jonathan Toews, he’s been sacrificing offense to play defense so much this year and that’s why he doesn’t have literally any points.

Colorado Avalanche: This is me doing the thinking guy emoji.

Columbus Blue Jackets: John Tortorella is such a good coach. He told his team to score a lot of goals after the bye week and not allow any. That’s just smart.

Dallas Stars: Love games with built-in excuses.

Detroit Red Wings: Their GM. Next question.

Edmonton Oilers: Yeah the Oilers should definitely trade for this unbelievable defenseman who probably isn’t actually on the market.

Florida Panthers: Is that… no it couldn’t be. It’s depth scoring? For the Panthers?

Los Angeles Kings: Watch this team go on a run and everyone says it’s because Quick is the best goalie alive.

Minnesota Wild: Zoinks am I getting sick of hearing about the bye like it’s haunting an abandoned amusement park that four teens and a talking dog have to go investigate.

Montreal Canadiens: Not sure if you guys have heard, but they like it when the Habs coach speaks a little language we all know and love that is called French.

Nashville Predators: These are my good boys.

New Jersey Devils: It took an OT loss to the Rangers to tell you this?

New York Islanders: I’m crying over here.

New York Rangers: If it only costs you a first and JT Miller to get Kevin Shattenkirk, that’s a trade you make every time.

Ottawa Senators: This is my son.

Not much scares @ErikKarlsson65 but this guy did….???? @DAlfredsson11 pic.twitter.com/Fe4lXTOtY7

— Jesper Parnevik (@JesperParnevik) February 25, 2017

Philadelphia Flyers: Get this guy out of the damn league already.

Pittsburgh Penguins: Honestly, Crosby is having an incredible season. Feels like we’re not talking about that enough.

San Jose Sharks: Yup. Correct take here.

St. Louis Blues: Shattenkirk can’t win.

Tampa Bay Lightning: So much about the Lightning’s recent success boils down to Jonathan Drouin playing in video game mode.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Now that’s a good American boy.

Vancouver Canucks: Why do the Canucks stink “all of a sudden?” Oh yeah, the uh… mumps.

Vegas Golden Knights: How much of “being busy” is just George McPhee sitting around in his office frowning at a computer?

Washington Capitals: Shoutout to Barry Trotz in advance because I will probably forget about that whole “700 wins” thing when it actually happens.

Winnipeg Jets: The future is kinda bright in Winnipeg, which is what happens when you never make the playoffs.

Play of the Weekend

In the immortal words of Larry David, this 2nd period goal by @FlaPanthers prospect @punanen5 was pretty… pretty… pretty good. #SCTop10 pic.twitter.com/Cbn0YjlqET

— Denver Hockey (@DU_Hockey) February 26, 2017

Henrik Borgstrom is a Panthers prospect.

Gold Star Award

The real stars of the League are the live penguins at the outdoor game. I want to hug and kiss them all.

Minus of the Weekend

Deleted Ducks tweet was a gif of Kesler knocking Carter down with one punch. pic.twitter.com/aPm69YyUvF

— Platinum Seat Ghosts (@3rdPeriodSuits) February 25, 2017

The Ducks tweeting that one-punch on Jeff Carter like “haha this was so cool” is a pretty good illustration of how fighting in hockey and anyone who likes it are so stupid.

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Year

User “SHANNYPLAN” is a guy who I have no idea what city he’s from at all. No idea. Impossible to tell.

Wayne Simmonds

for

James VanRiemsdyk Andreas Johnsson 1st 2017 (cond) or 2nd

Signoff

C

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

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