camacan-ninjago

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I caved and watched all the leaked S3P2 episodes, and not even a day after I finish them Ninjago drops the dang teaser.

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I was today years old when I learnt that Netflix have just deleted the Oni Triology off the platform in Ireland

.....

*screams into the void*

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Seasons Tier List

I didn't feel like going to sleep so I decided to do my personal ranking of all Ninjago seasons so far:

(Long Post incoming)

Pilots: Pretty good, as an intro to the show they hold up fairly well. They set up the main plot and character motivations and lay the foundation for the found family that eventually spawns. A little cringe now and don't compare at all to the later seasons, but it's cool

Rise of the Snakes: Again, decent. I like the way each ninja had a focus episode one after the other, I really wish it could've be applied to other seasons. There's a few duds in there but most of the filler is actually fun. The final few episodes are great, and obviously nostalgia is there. (Meant to put it higher than the pilots but we'll ignore that pls)

Legacy of the Green Ninja: I'll be honest, I forgot half of the stuff that happens in this season. The Darkleys episode is the only filler episode I really like. The latter half of the season is better, but stakes don't feel high enough for what's supposed to be the final battle till Nya gets captured. I'll watch it for the memes and the final battle, but that's it.

Rebooted: I have fond memories of this season, since it was the first one I properly sat down and watched. There's a lot of cool ideas and themes at play here that just weren't fully executed for me. As bad as the love triangle is, it gave us a bit of a look at Jay's insecurity issues, wish they narrowed in on that rather than the fight. I liked the idea of tech gone wrong in a world where we hadn't seen much tech that didn't involve magic at that point. Evil Wu and ninja in space weren't explored enough, and I don't love the fact that the Overlord is the villian again.

Tournament of Elements: God this season was fun. I'm a sucker for reality competition type settings, and seeing more Elemental Masters was enough to hook me. Love Chen and all his wacky shenanigans, loved the Sensei Garmadon story and his sacrifice. The competition itself was more interesting than the snake stuff, but I loved the tension that was brought. Fixing the relationship between Jay and Cole was God's work, and the Skailor story was just fun.

Possession: Don't hate me for this but I don't get all the hype around season 5. The character work is great in this season and the aesthetics and tone is on point, but something about it just doesn't spark my attention as much. Morro's backstory is good, but I feel like he was a bit....flat? He was like a song that has a cool intro and outro but a monotone chorus; I like him for his history and ending, not for anything interesting he does in the season. But the Nya storyline and Ghost Cole were absolutely perfect.

Skybound: This used to be my favourite season (I'm a hard-core Jaya shipper). And although I have come to see the cracks in the writing and the misogyny towards Nya in years since, I still love the vibes this season gave. Most of the other ninja don't have much of a storyline, but I kinda live for it. Jay being almost like a chosen one, the only one with a wish to stop Nadakhan suits him. I love the villian dynamic between the two, Nadakhan is charming but genuinely threatening and scary. The overall themes of wishing vs acting are very sweet. And of course the Jaya stuff gets together well in the end.

Day of the Departed: Confession time; I've never actually seen it *audience gasps*. I just never saw it on tv, it's not on Netflix in Ireland so I completely missed it in my rewatch. I have a rough understanding of what happens in it but....yeah, I can't really rank it if I've no basis for it so 🤷‍♀️

Hands of Time: Yawn. I genuinely struggle to find things I enjoy about this season. I also can't find as many obvious faults unlike some seasons, so that just shows you how little I care about it. Krux and Acronix are very one-dimesional to me, and I wasn't that captivated by the Smith family reunion. Next

Sons of Garmadon: Easily my favourite season of all time, I've revisited so often and never gotten bored. Everything from the tone, the character arcs, the plot, the animation is just superb. I didn't see this until I rejoined the fandom back in Covid, so I was in awe at how much the show had improved. And the bleak ending is such a change of pace, it's a real "oh shit" moment

Hunted: Similar to SoG, it's so well put together and a great followup from it. I don't care for the hunters as villians as much as I did with Garmadon, but Faith was a great addition to the cast. Having the ninjas give teen Wu the life lessons he gave to them over the years was an inspired choice. And the resistance arc was amazing. This season is what got me to love dystopian fiction.

March of the Oni: Yeah...it's cool. I think I like it in the context of the tribute to the WilFilm era and the entire 10 seasons of Ninjago as a whole than as an actual season. The Cole death fakeout was a bit cheap, but otherwise it was a sweet sendoff to the WilFilm era.

Forbidden Spinjitzu: So this season was unintentionally the thing that got me back into Ninjago. My brother and I stumbled across it on Netflix one day and put it on, thinking it was a spinoff or reboot. Let's just say I was wildly confused and slightly horrofied. But once I went back and watched the Oni Triology, I didn't hate it as much. Ik many believe the Ice Chapter is better than the Fire Chapter, but for me their pretty even. I didn't love the cringy humour and dumb filler of Fire Chapter, and I found the Ice Chapter kinda boring. As a whole though, its not that bad. The animation is great and I enjoyed Aspheera as a villian.

Prime Empire: I grew up with Lego videogames, so this season is really fun for me. I like how it felt sort of low stakes and more of an adventure (that is until people's lives actual started running out). I think this is the only season that made the 11 minute episodes work, feeling like watching a Lets Play of a game. Jay as a leader was cool, and while I think Unagami was underdeveloped, I kinda like that it didn't take a big character arc for Jay to win, rather just trusting his expertise and relating to the villian on a personal level. It is a little cringe at times, but otherwise a chill season.

Master of the Mountain: As much as I loved Cole's story and the worldbuilding around Shintaro, the short episodes really break the pacing for me. I wasn't a big fan of Wu's plotline (if you're going to write about an old man feeling his mortality and age, maybe don't make it as goofy) but it meant he was paired with Cole, which was a great choice. Skull Sorcerer was a meh villian, but I loved Vania, as well as the stuff with the Munce and Geckle. And the art was incredible.

The Island: ehhhh.....This didn't really do anything for me. It set up the lore behind Seabound, but that's about it. I didn't really care about the rest of it, but there were a few funny moments ig.

Seabound: Great worldbuilding, great character arc for Nya (finally adressing the impact of Mya's return, even if years late, was needed). I didn't mind Kalmaar as a villian, a little flat but he felt like a genuine threat. The art is fabulous and the ending broke me. But it felt a little slow at times for my taste.

Crystallised: Not even gonna bother discussing this. Nope, next.

DR S1: Wow this was a cool season. Art was great, the plot was intriguing and did wonders for the worldbuilding. Arin and Sora are amazing additions, I was worried I wouldn't like them but they're very well-developed and nuances. All the other ninja are great too, each of their returns had my going crazy lol. Part 1 drags a little, but its quickly made up for.

DR S2: Ninjago with a continous narrative across seasons?! Unheard of, I love it. I love how dark it went, and the topics brought up in it feel very real and grounded in reality. Didn't think Ninjago could do allegories well, but they did it. Part 1 had me on the edge of my seat, I could feel the tension and horror so vividly. Part 2 was everything I loved about Tournament of Elements but better. Arin's story was tragic but so understandable, Lloyd is finally adressing his anxiety (we've being saying it for years) and Sora comes into her own.

DR S3: Haven't seen any of it yet, can't rank it (tho I'm assuming it'll be S tier once I do)

So in conclusion, Ninjago is at its peak right now, fuck off Crystallised, and I've probably pissed a lot of people off...whoops

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Ooh I like Morro as Tiresias too (tho I can't really connect Mason Olshavanky's Tiresias to Morro, moreso the canon Tiresias)

But snatch away my friend, anything for that sweet sweet angst 😂

EPIC X NINJAGO AU Idea!!!

So on my first post for this idea… Someone said that Harumi would be good as Circe. And!! I agree!!! I had a hard time envisioning Circe, so Harumi was a really smart idea!!

But having to think about this.

Harumi would do a LOT better as Calypso.

But!! Akita could be a good Circe?!!!

Considering since Circe’s a witch and has a connection to pigs… Akita would be a good choice!

Akita’s from the never realm, and she’s a formling… Kindaaaa like a witch. Not to mention!!! She’s not entirely trusting at first, instead she does what SHE wants. She doesn’t listen to Lloyd when he tells her to back down, she’s so focused on getting revenge.

Then, there’s also the fact of her kissing Lloyd when he was about to leave through the portal!!!

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God I LOVEEE this idea!! Besides the fact that Kai Monstrosity reminds me so much of Epic Odysseus, it's just fits Ninjago.

Honestly, I really envision Zane as Tiresias (cos yknow, dead) and the fact that they both have far more knowledge than anyone else about...I'd everything in general.

But yeah this is a super cool idea, hope you do great things with it!

EPIC X NINJAGO AU Idea!!!

So on my first post for this idea… Someone said that Harumi would be good as Circe. And!! I agree!!! I had a hard time envisioning Circe, so Harumi was a really smart idea!!

But having to think about this.

Harumi would do a LOT better as Calypso.

But!! Akita could be a good Circe?!!!

Considering since Circe’s a witch and has a connection to pigs… Akita would be a good choice!

Akita’s from the never realm, and she’s a formling… Kindaaaa like a witch. Not to mention!!! She’s not entirely trusting at first, instead she does what SHE wants. She doesn’t listen to Lloyd when he tells her to back down, she’s so focused on getting revenge.

Then, there’s also the fact of her kissing Lloyd when he was about to leave through the portal!!!

[camacan-ninjago]

I did a little digging, and I found some old tweets.

The first comes from Crusty783's review of season 2. He included a screenshot of a reply he got from Doc Wyatt when he asked about the Cole/Wu storyline:

We also have a later tweet from Doc elaborating on this:

If I had to guess, that storyline is going to connect to how the Merge happened, why Wu seemingly let it happen, and possibly who Raz's master is (something about the lighting associated with Raz's master- the bright yellow light-reminds me of spirit Wu).

It’s been an entire season and a half (thirty episodes!!!!!!) and we still don’t know what quest Wu sent Cole on during S1B. Like idk, We get there when we get there but does anyone else remember if Doc Wyatt specified an episode batch for when we’d find out or not? I know he implied very heavily, if not outright confirming, that we’d learn more about the transition of Smoke from Ash to Cinder (What a nonsensical sentence out of context!) in S2B, only for that to not happen at all. And I believe when he said this it would’ve been far enough into production that the scripts should’ve been finalized and most of the animation done so I don’t think we can so easily say the scene got cut. So idk.

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Honestly, I think this could be said about Ninjago as a whole, with some debate. While the pilots to Rebooted have the most nostalgic appeal to them, they would generally be considered weaker in comparison to later seasons. Then there's the Golden Era (minus season 7 and maybe 6 depending on who you ask) and the Oni Triology, widely considered the peak of Ninjago. And finally the Wildbrain Era, which although having some amazing hits in its time and revolutionised the show in its animation, is widely considered to have the worst pacing and writing of the whole show.

I think that with every show, there's going to be some teething issues in the beginning, a period of hits as it gets into it's stride, before running into issues as the story wears thin. Most shows however, don't have nearly as many cases of this as Ninjago. You could argue for instance that the pilots and Rebooted are the weaker out of the OG era, likewise with the 11 minute era. But the beauty of Ninjago for me is how it always finds a way to shake up the game. Whenever the show has worn thin, they've brought in changes that have developed the show into something fresh and exciting again.

I think Ninjago is one of the best examples of how to preserve a long-running franchise and bring in new audiences at every turn.

The 11 minute era of ninjago in a retrospective sense is interesting to think about the beginning and ending seasons of it are incredibly MIXED bags and are generally considered some of the weakest if not worst of the show. Then in the middle of it is just like, solid gold, one of the best back to back season runs ever? idk that's very uncommon for shows in my opinion

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Someone had better give the writers a GODDAMM RAISE cause holy crap are they feeding us

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This has probably been pointed out already, but do you guys remember when a fan mentioned that Nya had never told Jay she loved him, leading to the animators adding a shot over Nya mouthing "I love you" before her sacrifice in Seabound?

Well I watched Dragons Rising season 2 recently, and I realised:

When Nya told Jay she loved him after her fight, it was the first time we've seen her directly telling him, to his face, that she is in love with him. And he responds with "I'll always hate you".

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So I just stumbled my way back into the Ninjago cult, so.....hi!

I'm probably gonna spam post a bunch of random thoughts I have so....come along for that, if you want.

Feel free to ask any questions or whatever (can you tell I have no idea what I'm doing?)