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Little Mermaid (2023) review

So I thought about blocking this review out, or simply not dropping it until later, but like… My dudes. This movie came out in freaking 1989. You’ve already seen it. Maybe not specific parts of this movie, but the beats are almost identical to the point where there’s literally no reason to not drop this.

So first off, the movie opens with introducing Eric on a boat. The only notable thing in this scene is taking note of what’s not in it. Mainly the fact that the sailors aren’t singing. It’s not a memorable song in any way, but you all know this song. The absence of it is jarring and begins the first major problem with this movie and pacing, which I’ll get into later.

Then, we introduce Triton and his six mermaid daughters. Now, you might have seen promo images released maybe a month before the movie came out featuring Ariel’s six sisters. They’re all different races (one is blonde, another Asian, another is a darker black than Ariel, etc). The sisters are introduced as being minor goddesses of each ocean. Which was a plot point that people report had been dropped from the original movie. However, literally none of this is important, and this is dropped almost as soon as it’s brought up. It would have been something interesting to explore, but no. Triton always was the king of the oceans, but this is a role that is straight-up explained in the new movie, rather than something that you kind of read-between-the-lines. Also noteworthy in this scene is something that’s not present: music. Again, we’ll get back to this point later.

The introduction of Ariel herself played out exactly as it did in the original. Shipwreck. Shark. Chase. It added nothing to the movie, but it also took nothing away from it.

Also, as jarring as Flounder’s initial character images were, I have to say that I think that I prefer him vs if they’d had a straight-up CGI flounder. That is to say, directly copied from reality, ala the Lion King remake. He’s cartoon-y enough that I kind of didn’t mind him after considering his character. But I’ll get more into his actual characterization and role in the movie probably after my beat review.

After this, we have the introduction of Scuttle who is voiced by Aquafina. The realization that this is who had been cast sent a pit of dread into both my husband and myself. This was probably not going to go well, and we ended up being right later on. Scuttle is still some kind of sea-bird (I’m not enough of a birder to identify the proper species, if there even was one to begin with????), but this is important for the scene that follows. In the original, Ariel leans her forearms on a large rock that seems to be Scuttle’s homebase. In this, Scuttle literally dives under the water for probably about 5 minutes to explain the concept of a dinglehopper to Ariel. Yes, birds can dive under the water to catch fish, but holy cow, Batman! They can’t actually breathe underwater!

I’m pretty sure that there was a scene between Ariel and Triton after this, but it was unremarkable that I can’t exactly remember. Then, Ariel goes to her cave of human trinkets, where we have the movie’s first musical number. Now granted, it’s probably the number one song that everybody thinks about when they think of the music from Little Mermaid. But at the same time, we’re now a good… I want to say 30 minutes into this movie. It’s been literally the first musical number, and they’re opening on a giant show stopper like this? The pacing of this movie felt so awkward and forced, and this was the first prime example of this happening.

Following this is Ariel being drawn to the surface by the fireworks being set off for Eric’s birthday. She hops into a lifeboat to watch the dancing crew. The camera goes to Ariel’s perspective to show that she can really only see the crew from their knees down. This might not seem significant right now, but put a pin into this, because I will be discussing this movie’s lack of foot fetish themes later. (Yes, this is important, as much as I loathe to admit.)

The storm happens. The only noteworthy addition to this scene is that there’s a bit when Max jumps into the water, and Ariel helps guide him over to the lifeboat, where the crew help get him up. (Does the dog die? No he does not.)

Following this is Ariel taking Eric to the shore. She leans her head against his chest to check that he’s alright. Which removed a minor joke from the movie of Scuttle telling Ariel that he thought the heartbeat could be heard in the feet. Which is one of those foot fetish moments that I mentioned earlier. In a movie with themes about legs and feet, the removal of this scene felt rather jarring.

Following the crew showing up to find Eric, Ariel does have her iconic “Part of Your World” splash on the nearby rocks. The writers might not be imaginative, but they’re also not stupid.

In the original, the statue of Eric was unveiled as a birthday gift to the prince. However in this, the statue kind of exists without any sort of explanation. Ariel never has a moment of actually finding it and mooning over Eric’s stone face, the way that she did in the original. Is it actually of Eric, or was it simply a random statue being carried on the ship? I can’t even say with certainty either way.

Random aside (and I’m not even sure that this is the correct scene order, but I don’t care), but when Triton asked Sebastian to keep an eye on Ariel, he mentioned that Sebastian was his majordomo. Which is a pretty far cry from the music director role he was in in the original. BUT, as Sebastian left this meeting, he complained that he was supposed to be a royal adviser. Which is a not exactly a majordomo.

Following this is the Under the Sea moment. Ariel actually joins in this number, almost in a sarcastic way which was honestly kind of fun. BUT… This also means that Ariel has to be there for the final reprise. In the original, she’d gotten a message from a seahorse about the Eric statue, and had left halfway through the number. So in this, when Sebastian looks around for Ariel and she’s not there, I literally said out loud “She literally left five seconds ago. Try harder in looking for her!”

Then there’s a scene where Ariel’s six sisters are shown cleaning up the mess Eric’s ship left. They complain about all of the damage that’s been done by the ship, and say something along the lines of “It’ll take 1000 years for the coral to recover”. Ariel chides them, and says that it’s not as if the humans intended to crash. She then flees, and her sisters allude to the idea that Ariel is in love with a boy, which is making her irrational.

Following this is Triton’s tantrum in Ariel’s curio-cave. And while I do have notes about his behavior, it’s got nothing to do with my commentary about the differences between this movie and the original. I feel like that probably deserves its own. The entire scene was pretty on-par with the original though, so… Yeah. It happened.

Up until this point, there had been a couple of scenes that kind of introduced the concept of Ursula. Much like how in the original, the concept of the sisters representing the oceans was scrapped, so to was the idea that Ursula was Triton’s sister. This one outright stated as much. Although, I have to say… I thought that it was bad the idea that this obviously not white man could somehow father 7 daughters of wildly varying ethnicities was bad. But it’s got nothing on Triton’s and Ursula’s parents creating first a man who is half fish, and then a woman who is half squid. Yes, they’re magic, but at the same time… HOW.

Anyway, so Ursula had been spying on Ariel via her pet eels, Flotsam and Jetsam. So while I felt like the introduction to Ursula’s character itself was more dragged out, the actual point upon which Ariel met Ursula was pretty much the same. The only real difference was that when Ursula used her magic through Flotsam and Jetsam to talk to Ariel, to get her to leave the cave and come see her… Ursula introduced herself and Ariel said “The sea witch?” “The sea wi-?” Like Ursula had legit not heard that this is what people in the city thought about her. It was legit one of the funniest moments in the movie… Which is telling, because the comedy moments were so sparse in this remake.

So Ariel goes to Ursula’s evil cave of evil, but there’s a few notable but tiny differences. When she goes in, she is grabbed by something. But it’s not the “unfortunate souls” who are trying to stop her from making a huge mistake. And during the actual musical number, they intentionally left out a few key moments. One of them with Ursula explaining: This one longing to be thinner That one wants to get the girl And do I help them? Yes, indeed And then goes on to explain: Now it's happened once or twice Someone couldn't pay the price And I'm afraid I had to rake 'em 'cross the coals If you’ll remember during this number, Ursula went to her cauldron and made little figures to demonstrate exactly what she meant. Tiny figures of a man and a woman who became attractive, and fell in love with each other. But then after they failed to make their payment, they were turned into worms. This was completely absent in this movie, leaving their fate more than a little ambiguous at best. This is the thing that I’ve been talking about this entire time: this movie doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Everybody has seen the original one. We know what the consequences are if Ariel fails to get that kiss in 3 days time. Only that there are consequences to non-payment.

The other missing moment is Ursula explaining to Ariel that she won’t have her voice, and Ariel questioning how she’s supposed to get this kiss. Then Ursula saying “You’ll have your looks. Your pretty face. And you must not forget the importance of BODY LANGUAGE”. The last part which is accompanied by a rather sensual wiggle on Ursula’s part. Maybe Disney thought that this was too mature for children, despite Little Mermaid remaining a classic children’s movie for 30+ years now.

In fact, as I sit and write up this review, I’m struggling to remember Ariel questioning literally anything at all during this scene. Ursula sang a a little, and the next thing we know, voice is gone. She’s human now.

It’s also worth nothing that after Ariel left, Ursula made a comment along the lines of that she’d added a bit extra to the spell to make Ariel forget that she needed to kiss Eric within 3 days. She wanted Ariel back down there, no matter what. But we’ll circle back to this in a bit.

We pause briefly in Ariel’s story to do this movie’s signature movie: a half-assed attempt to bring life to random background characters. The character who is introduced now is not somebody who was ever in the original. And maybe that’s a good thing, maybe not. But like everything else, I think that it could have been interesting to explore this, but the movie literally never let any of this happen.

For you see, Eric did not suddenly poof into being one day. Like everybody else, he has parents. Who are the king and queen. Shocking, I know. As I said, they were never even mentioned in the first movie. They must exist somewhere, but they aren’t even in the castle where he lived.

It was briefly mentioned while Eric was still on the ship that he was adopted. This will be important for later. It’s also mentioned that his father, the king, is dead. Will also be important.

Now back home, he greets his mother, who is upset about her son’s most recent misadventures on the water. She comments that 6 different ships have been lost while returning to their island home. Eric’s defense is that he must update their island home, and connect it to the outside world. Which is a fairly worthy cause, I think that we can agree upon. But the queen chides him, saying that the vials of vaccinations that were on the ship he’d been on are not doing anybody any good since they’re currently at the bottom of the ocean. She also makes a point to say “The god of the sea does not favor us.” Which made me think that it was her way of kind of fast-tracking her approval of a relationship between the granddaughter of the god of the sea and her son. She’s also kind of upset that Eric keeps talking about this mysterious woman who’d saved him from the shipwreck. He’s obsessed with finding her, thinking that she might be in some kind of trouble or something. This is obviously worrisome behavior for anybody, and forget a literal crowned prince.

Now, going back to an earlier pin I had you put in place, the queen is notably black. Which in itself isn’t a problem. Her race has little to do with the actual plot. But Eric himself is pretty much an exact cast from how he was in the original animated version. White skin, black hair, cheek dimples. He’s a dreamboat. He’s also WHITE. This movie is shown to take place somewhere in the Caribbean, possibly in Jamaica or Barbados. The movie does little to hide this fact, giving all of the islanders heavy accents, casting a lot of black people as the villagers and castle servants, and even at one point showing somebody playing a steel drum. So with all of the talk about why Ariel needed to be race-bent, and the movie going out of their way to introduce Eric’s mother as being black… Why in the world is Eric white? At this point, him being black would have made more sense. It’s also never explained where Eric came from, or why he was adopted by the royal family.

Circling back to the point Eric had brought up to his mother about needing to bring the island up to date, it’s also worth noting that the queen, Eric himself, and Grimsby were all wearing most decidedly mid 19th century EUROPEAN fashions. Fashions that they wouldn’t have been able to get unless somebody from Europe had come to the island. On a ship. The same could also be said of their castle itself, the silverware, the plates, etc. HOWEVER, all of the random villagers were wearing more traditional Caribbean clothing. So unless the island itself is simply that out of touch, and this movie is supposed to take place a lot later, literally nothing about this makes a lick of sense.

The final point that I need to make about Eric is his title as a prince. As I mentioned, Eric had off-handedly dropped the fact to the viewers that his father, the king, was dead. Yet for some reason, he still maintains his title of prince, rather than taking on the title of king. Now, it is possible that the title was granted to him via his mother (who was the actual ruler, rather than the father), but that’s also not lining up with anything ever done in history. I’ll use the British monarchy as an example, since not only is it familiar, but it’s also a perfect example of what it is that I’m talking about. Queen Elizabeth was the actual ruler. She married Philip. Whom I’m sure everybody would agree upon was titled PRINCE Philip, rather than king. This is because the male consort is always a prince, but the female one is always a queen. (No, I’m uncertain of why. You’d have to deep-dive on that by yourself. Sorry.) So even if the queen had been the actual ruler, her husband wouldn’t have been titled as the king. There’s literally no reason why Eric wasn’t the king already in this movie, other than the fact that he’s supposed to be a prince. (As usual, I know too much about certain things to ever actually enjoy them. {Yes, I am a delight at parties; why do you ask?})

There was also an Eric solo song sometime before Ariel showed up. And while I didn’t hate the idea of him having his own song to kind of explain his feelings about the shipwreck and subsequent saving, the song itself was so unremarkable. I literally forgot it the second it was over.

Going back to Ariel, she swims up to the surface after having been given human legs… and human lungs. Upon reaching there, she’s accidentally scooped up in a fisherman’s net. Which I did actually enjoy a lot more than her making it to the beach, and Eric happening upon her.

It’s at this point that Scuttle shows up, and does the “Something is different about you…” moment. However, much like the scene with Eric and Ariel on the shore after the storm, this movie fails to deep-dive into the foot fetish moment. Part of me wondered if it had been difficult to keep the actress properly covered so that she could wiggle her toes for the CGI bird, but mostly I’m annoyed. Because a major theme of this movie is Ariel getting those feet, so a foot fetish makes an awful lot of sense. But no. The moment is completely and utterly missed.

Back on land, some of the villagers tell the fisherman that he should take Ariel up to the castle; that they’ll know what to do with her up there. However, the literal only reason why none of the villagers themselves offered to take Ariel on seemed to be simply because the plot demanded that Eric and Ariel meet.

As Ariel is taken into the castle and the housekeeper (?) decides what to do with her, we’re subjected to another solo song from Ariel. However, since Ariel has obviously lost her voice, this entire thing comes off as more like… her inner monologue? It’s like they didn’t know how to properly express literally anything unless it was done via song. I thought that this song completely bogged down the movie, and took up way too much time. The entire thing could have and should have been glossed over, but no. We have to turn it into a montage, dammit!

Eric only meets Ariel after she’s had her bath and is more or less dressed. Again, noting that Ariel is dressed in corset, bloomers, a proper English dress (which is suitable for the hot, island weather) and boots. While her outfit mimics the outfit she wore in the original cartoon, it’s at odds with how all of the villagers are dressed. Eric had rushed to the room to see Ariel after the servants told him about her arrival, but was disappointed to find out that this girl can’t talk; she can’t possibly be the young woman who’d rescued him.

Ariel is told to rest after that, and Sebastian makes his way to her. He finds out that Ursula had made Ariel forget about the 3-day kiss business, but we’ll circle back to that shortly. The only reason why he and Flounder know about this is because the two of them had followed Ariel to Ursula’s cave, and overheard most of the Poor Unfortunate Souls business.

After this is pretty much the only new scene that added something of value to the movie. Ariel wakes up from her nap and decides to go exploring. She finds a library full of trinkets, as rich people often have. As she’s looking around, Eric comes in and comments that nobody but him comes in anymore. Despite my enjoyment of this scene overall, there’s this really long bit where there’s this carved mermaid figurine that Ariel had picked up, and he’s like “Oh, my little mermaid!” It was super awkward, and went on for much longer than it should have. After that, Eric happily showed Ariel some maps. He makes a comment that there’s some unexplored/uncharted areas still out there, which makes me think that the timeline for this is back in the 1800’s. As I said, the royal clothing choices were interesting and poorly thought out. Grimsby comes in, and Eric says that he’d like to show Ariel around the town tomorrow. Grimsby tells Eric that he had previously ordered all of the carriages be sent out in search of his mysterious shipwreck hero. And that Eric is to remain at home until he feels better.

Eric insists, so off they go in the morning. With a little nod and wink from Grimsby. There was also a few seconds where Grimsby was standing by the head housekeeper, and I thought that we might get a subplot romance between the two of them. But we literally never saw the housekeeper after that scene. Alas.

The scene with Eric and Ariel kept to the same general beats, while somehow expanding upon it. I both loved and hated this. Loved it because it was nice to see the two of them actually bonding and spending quality time together. Hated it because it lasted too long, and only served to pad out a movie that was already like 90 minutes in at this point.

However, thanks to Ursula making Ariel forget about the curse business, the set up for Kiss the Girl needed to be more forced. Scuttle stole Eric’s hat, and dropped it into a really convenient rowboat. Where this boat came from, I haven’t the foggiest. It is an island, but it seems kind of silly to have a boat on a lagoon when you could simply go out onto the actual ocean.

Once the two of them are out there, Sebastian says that they need to set the mood without actually alerting Ariel as to what’s going on. Pin this, will circle back in one second. Scuttle then tries to set the mood herself, and I thought that it was funny how the movie actually switched to Eric’s view to hear what that sounded like in his ears. That is to say… a local seabird making an unholy ruckus around dusk.

Sebastian then sets up the song in the same was as the original. But then he starts to sing, which seems to be completely at odds with what he’d literally said a minute earlier! At one point, Scuttle, Flounder, and Sebastian are sitting on the end of the boat oar, doing the refrain from the song. If either human had literally turned their head a fraction of an inch, they would have seen it. The scene made completely and utterly no sense whatsoever. And made me wonder why they even bothered by having Ariel forget anyway.

The two of them row out from under the canopy of trees, where Eric begins to show Ariel some of the different constellations. He tries to ask for her name at this point, and makes a few random stabs in the dark with common names like Catherine and Elizabeth. She points up towards Aries, which Eric had shown her a second earlier, cuts him off as he says Ari- and kind of makes a gesture until he stumbles upon the name Ariel. Which I thought was a much better way of having him figure out her name than having Sebastian whisper in his ear. Which never made much sense to me.

After Flotsam and Jetsam overturn the boat, Ursula decides that she has to do something to ensure that Ariel fails. She starts throwing ingredients around, all of which her tentacles try to offer their own help. In a way that kind of felt like it was supposed to be a joke, but never quite got that far. Eventually, Ursula is all “Oh, there it is!” and then turns herself into a human, where she goes and meets Eric.

The next morning, Scuttle wakes Ariel up by flying into her room and rapping about how she’d heard some gossip about Eric proposing to somebody later that day. The only thing worse than finding out that Scuttle is voiced by Aquafina is finding out (the hard way) that Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a song for Aquafina to rap. The entire thing continues to fill me with so much rage, I’m not sure that I can even properly express my anger over this scene.

After Ariel finds out the devastating news that Eric isn’t going to marry her, Scuttle then discovers Ursula’s deception. Again, this scene is almost word-for-word from the original. Except that she doesn’t do it in SONG. So it’s disappointing. What’s worse is the realization that instead of getting Ursula’s “I’m so evil” song, we got the Scuttle/Sebastian rap.

There’s also a scene of Ariel sitting and moping on a rock. And we get yet another “silent” song from her. It’s a reprise of Part of Your World, which I don’t mind on the surface. But I felt like yet another song done in this “silent” style was too much. Especially because we hadn’t been inside of Ariel’s head, and there’d been no more singing by her up until this point.

As Eric’s engagement party goes forward, his mother seems kind of happy over her son’s upcoming engagement. To a girl that Eric claims to have only officially met literally a few hours earlier. Yes, Eric has been brainwashed by Ursula. But at no point does she say “Hold up, something ain’t right here.” Maybe obsessive and compulsive behavior is normal for her son. But at the same time, this isn’t him looking for some random girl; this is marriage. And it’s not simply any marriage, but the future queen of this island nation.

When she eagerly offered up an heirloom family ring for Eric to use, did I start to wonder why Disney had bothered with her character at all. She felt like a cardboard cutout of an actual person. Aside from her introductory scene, she never once expressed any actual opinions. She cheerfully went along with whatever was happening in any given scene.

Not too long after this, Scuttle comes up and takes the ring that Eric is holding. This causes Ariel to show up and tackle Vanessa/Ursula to the ground. Not only were there guards, but also plenty of party-goers who had come to celebrate the engagement between Eric and Vanessa. However, the only thing that stopped a single one of them from pulling this unknown girl off from the would-be queen was… the plot demanded their inaction. None of it makes any sense, especially as the two women were literally rolling around on the ground like puppies.

But, Ariel smashed the shell that contained her voice. And for one moment, a glowing orb hung suspended in the air as her voice was piped in. At this point, people were frozen in place simply because… what the hell is going on? What is that thing?

It goes back into Ariel, who is finally able to talk once more. Eric realizes that she’s actually the woman who saved him, and the two of them are about to kiss. But it’s too late… the sun is setting. (Which was never given at the drop-dead timeline by Ursula in this movie. Only in the original. So it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.) Ariel turns back into a mermaid, much to the horror of everybody gathered there for the engagement. Ursula then transforms back into herself, takes Ariel, and dives off a cliff. (Which the fall would have probably killed them, but whatever.)

As the final battle progressed, the entire thing felt rather… phoned in. The characters had long since grown beyond who they were from the original movie, but the writing itself seemed to be intent on keeping to the original beats of the cartoon. The scene that the movie had been building up to this entire time was decidedly underwhelming and not exciting at all. Even if I hadn’t known what was going to happen, I doubt that I would have cared much. That’s how bored I was with the entire thing. It didn’t help that this probably happened around the 2 hour mark.

Probably about a day after the big battle, Triton decides to turn Ariel into a human. I’ve always felt like the scene of Ariel rising from the ocean in that sparkly, silver dress was as iconic as the splash on the rocks. But I guess the costume budget was spent on those 19th century dresses. So the only thing Ariel is wearing is the same dress she’d been wearing the entire time… Which is now dirty and wet from having been dragged through the ocean in the fight with Ursula.

After this, the two of them get married. And again, Eric’s mother seems to be perfectly cool with her son marrying a girl he met like 4 days earlier. Granted, at least she knows that maybe good fortune would follow Eric and Ariel as they set out for a sea honeymoon, but still. Four days.

As the two of them get into a rowboat to go out to the big ship, every single merfolk citizen shows up to see their princess off. They climb up onto rocks, but also get into the fishing boats of the villagers, who had come to see their prince off. And for some reason, everybody is oddly chill with probably several dozen merfolk showing up. Despite the fact that this is the first time that even the audience has seen any of these characters.

All in all, this movie was only like a quarter of a step above both the Lion King and the Beauty and the Beast remake. That is to say that Disney had little to offer by way of new content to this. They never once allowed the characters to actually evolve and grow organically beyond the pre-set beats from the original movie. Everything felt half-assed. For sure, questionable casting and costuming decisions were made.

Two last parting thoughts: First being, in case you hadn’t noticed, but I barely mentioned Flounder in this review. He was in a large chunk of the underwater scenes, and showed up from time to time when Ariel was on land. But he also didn’t exactly say or do much that added anything of actual value to the plot. He existed, and that’s about all I can say for his character.

The second which is something that I should have squeezed into my super huge aside about Eric, but I forgot, and then the longer I put it off, the weirder it seemed to try and squeeze it in… But regardless of Eric’s biological status as the queen’s son, he’s still the heir and next in line for the throne. The queen lamented about how he could go out onto the seas when it was known to be dangerous… Yet somehow still let him do so, anyway. If he actually was any kind of ruler, he would have delegated the shit out of reaching out to other countries to “bring the island into modern times”. Like yes, go on your honeymoon. But at the same time, don’t force Eric to go and make treaties with other countries for supplies and news.

Also also, my husband reminded me that they completely removed the Sebastian/cook scene. Which was sorely missed… Not only because it was my favorite scene, but also because this movie was so completely devoid of all and any humor.

TLDR: yet another lackluster live action remake from Disney. They have learned nothing from this, however. Disney will re-offend. Up next appears to be live action Lilo and Stitch??? And possibly Moana?????

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Don't think I've seen them all together in one big video like this before

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Evil (2019) Season 1 Review

Trigger warning: This review discusses things like religious-based treatments, mistreatment of the mentally ill, rape, and a lot of other things that might be distressing to some. Reader discretion is advised.

Evil is a series I randomly stumbled across that kind of reminds me a lot of X-Files, if they were dealing with Satan instead of aliens.

The premise of the show revolves around Kristen Bouchard, a psychologist, who is asked to consult for the Catholic church on a number of investigations. These mainly revolve around determining if somebody is suffering from some sort of mental illness, or if the situation requires more of a Godly intervention.

The idea of the show is something that is utterly fascinating to me, having a casual interest in psychology and the way that the human mind works. When you mix in the elements of organized religion, I feel like this show was practically made for me.

Often times, the question came up of “Is this woman actually possessed by a demon?” However, since the main narrator of the story was largely Kristen, the answer would usually be something like “No, she has schizophrenia.”

However, it was beyond frustrating to me that the church went out of their way to hire Kristen to consult for them. Yet, when they called her in on an exorcism that was already three days underway, and Kristen pronounced the woman of having delusions that were made worse by the church priest feeding into it by exorcising her... They completely and utterly refused to listen to her. The woman needed medical help, she needed to be under the care of a doctor. Not literally strapped to her bed, having holy water sprinkled on her, while a priest said “May the power of Christ compel you!”

As I'm thinking about this, I'm wondering why the show never brought up the concept of why it is that the church continues to do such barbaric practices well into the 21st century. Modern medicine, even mental health understanding, has improved to the point where we no longer lock women up for “hysteria”. So why is it that things like exorcisms continue to not only exist, but to be openly and frequently practiced?

I was happy with the subplot in an episode of one of the ladies who had been exorcised who was later admitted to a mental health facility... sued the church because of her mistreatment. However, Kristen helped the church lawyer by dismantling the field of psychology and discrediting the woman's doctor. Like yes, mental health isn't some exact science. And people who went through a psychotic break should be observed constantly. That's on the doctor for not putting her onto suicide watch, and by all means, go after him. But I feel like the real crime here is– going back to the previous paragraph– the thought of barbaric church rituals being performed in the 21st century.

However, this isn't simply just a coin with psychology on one side and religion on the other. It's actually a triangle, with psychology, religion... and environmental causes. David represents the church, Kristen represents psychology, and Ben represents environmental. And I thought that it was an interesting take on it, too. Are you hearing strange noises? Is it a ghost? A demon? Don't be silly, those things don't exist; your washing machine is a little broken, but I fixed it for you.

I really enjoyed Ben's character. Kristen was a skeptic, a former Catholic, but you could tell that there were still parts of her that believed, if only a little bit. But Ben? “Have we tried checking for asbestos?” Although I kind of wish that less time had been spent on his subplot with some ghost hunters, and a weird relationship with one of the female ghost hunters... Nothing quite like getting hot and heavy with a girl, and then she tells you that her arm is possessed by the spirit of her dead sister. I wish more time had been spent with his sister, because the show left it open when the family was being harassed by the “haunted” Alexa device. But nope. The stupid ghost hunters are somehow more important.

Initially, I thought that David's visions of “god” would have lead somewhere interesting. Instead, it turned into a bizarre “Da Vinci Code” level of nonsense that ended up being way too strange for me. In the end, there were a lot of things that aren't going to make me tune into the second season of this, but the thing that completely and utterly made me close the last episode of the season was the way that all of the “universe mysteries” unfolded in that last episode.

He says that he once had a “vision from god”, but after that, his visions were nothing but him tripping on... I'm honestly not sure what it is, only he seeped it like tea. At first, they seemed harmless enough, aside from his casual drug use. But I just about lost it when he pulled up the Da Vinci panting, cropped the orb out, and placed it on over the map of the eastern United States. He pulled these images off from google, and they just HAPPENED to fit onto the map PERFECTLY such that the dots aligned with three major cities. I love a good puzzle as much as the next person, but this was asking for us to stretch things way too far.

When you add in his next vision, of the mathematical diagram, as well as his strange hospital drug fueled vision of the prophet... And then how they all came together to point to the really random fertility clinic at the end. I was just kind of like “I see what they're going for. But I'm not sure that it really works out.” (I must note that I've never seen or read “Da Vinci Code”, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's better than this hogwash.)

Now, it was all of that that made me finally decide to rage quit the series. But there were other things along the way that had me pondering if I shouldn't give it up before I got to the season finale. It was largely the Leland subplot, which later morphed into the relationship Leland had with Kristen's mother.

Leland is another psychologist, only one that Kristen is soon to discover is a complete and utter sociopath. He openly jokes about ensuring that a young boy be sentenced to prison, where he will be sure to be raped. He wants to overturn various criminal convictions, to free the guilty and imprison the innocent, simply because he can. He becomes obsessed with Kristen, and goes so far as to seek Kristen's divorced mother out and romance her.

[Image description: Regina George from “Mean Girls”, as played by Rachel McAdams. She’s saying to Cadie “Why are you so obsessed with me?”]

Maybe some other people would have found Leland's subplot interesting. But I honestly found him to be really rather one note. I found myself, more often than not, skipping past scenes with him in it, even when he began to woo Kristen's mother, just to get back to the actual plot. I hate to say this, but Leland was nothing more than an annoying hindrance, and his dumb plans to undermine whatever Kristen was doing almost never worked out.

In fact, one of them was kind of funny, in a sad sort of way. He found a lonely incel at a cafe, and used psychology to brainwash the boy into becoming an angry incel with a bunch of guns. However, the boy ended up accidentally shooting and killing himself just before he was supposed to go and shoot up a church group David was going to be leading. As Leland read about the accident on the news, as well as the arsenal that the police had uncovered, he flipped a table. But even his table-flipping skills were really lame.

Overall, this was an interesting series that delved into the psychology behind religion, as well as dangerous, outdated religious practices. But it was bogged down with the writer's desire to become the next Dan Brown, and with useless subplots that went nowhere.

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

Maiko-san Chi no Makanai-san Episode 1 Review

In an effort to entertain myself after having finished both Criminal Minds and Lucifer in short order, I decided that I'd randomly select an anime from a streaming website, and just start watching. (Not reviewed are the half dozen or so animes that I started but turned off halfway through, for obvious reasons.)

My only rule was that the listed number of episodes needed to be under 100. I'm okay to commit to a series if it's going to be long, but I'm not going to spend forever watching 100+ episodes just to catch up. (Looking at you, fucking One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach.)

Maiko-san Chi no Makanai-san is a cute, slice-of-life anime that follows the lives of Kiyo and Sumire, who are both around 16 years old and came to work in Kyoto in a Maiko House. Kiyo as the live-in cook, and Sumire as a maiko. Maiko are geisha in training.

Traditionally, anime tend to focus on having smaller issues in every episode, and those build up towards the overall plot of either the season or the series. However, in Maiko-san Chi no Makanai-san, the episode was broken down into three smaller stories as they followed the misadventures of Kiyo. Despite the fact that Sumire is also supposed to be a main character, she almost seemed sidelined in her story, and the narration focused more on Kiyo.

Kiyo is insanely supportive of her friend. Especially when Sumire announces that she's going to make her debut soon. However, her support quickly gives way to worry, along with the Maiko mother, if only because Sumire isn't eating, and barely seems to be sleeping. She makes a pudding dessert for her friend to celebrate the news of her debut, but Sumire never returns. Sumire constantly tells Kiyo “Oh, I'll eat breakfast!” and come breakfast time, tells her “Oh, I need to hurry to my lessons!” And so on.

The end of each little mini-episode is punctuated with Kiyo and Sumire sitting down together in the kitchen and discussing the “dish du jour” that was featured in the mini-episode.

Overall, I thought that this anime was cute. It had really adorable artwork that was borderline gorgeous in certain scenes. The casual, day-to-day plot was interesting. What I loved the most about this was how informative of life in Japan, cooking, and being a maiko that this was.

That being said, I'm not sure if any of that is enough to interest me in watching episode two. I'm not usually interested in slice-of-life stuff, and the lack of an overarching plot is also not my thing.

But it really says a lot that I was able to get through even just the first episode of this. Especially after so many other anime couldn't even make it 15 minutes.

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

Titans Season 2

So I wouldn't exactly say that Titans season 2 was bad, exactly. But I felt like it kind of meandered through a bunch of different plot points without actually seeming to go anywhere?

And I was thinking about the constant “five years ago” backstory episodes, and I was like “But they make sense”. So it's not like things felt... unnecessary, by any means. However, I felt like the plot kind of zig-zagged around a lot different points, zipped back to a couple different backstory episodes, rerouted back to the present for something completely different, and then... somehow managed to wind up at episode thirteen (the last of the season).

We left off in season one with Rachel's demon father literally being brought to the human world, and all hope seemingly lost.

However, the entire subplot of resolving this barely lasted for five minutes, when all way said and done. Most of the first episode was just these darker timelines in which every one of Rachel's new-found friends and adoptive family sunk into evil ways. But not to worry, because Rachel was able to just talk to them and remind them of how much she means to them.

And then she stopped her father. Somehow. I can't swear that Princess Celestia didn't show up and preach about the power of friendship.

It was such a huge build-up in the first season, and the fact that it was resolved so quickly in the first episode of season two is honestly the first of many let-downs, I felt.

Following this, Dick is adamant that he take the new kids to San Francisco, where, with Bruce's permission, he's going to start up the Titans again.

Back in the day, it was Robin, Hawk and Dove, Wondergirl, and Aqualad. You might remember that we've met all of these characters from the first season... except for Aqualad.

And if you're wondering if he died... bingo. You win a prize of a depressing episode in which we're introduced to his character and his budding romance with Donna Troy... only to have him be murdered by a man named Slade Wilson.

This asshole was the entire reason why the original Titans broke up. See, following Aqualad's murder, Dick got it into his head that he could befriend Slade's son, Jericho. And the others were on board with this, because their friend was killed. But when they actually got to know Jericho, they all felt bad.

Until they find out that Jericho has “body snatching” powers, and can “possess” other people so long as he has initial eye-contact with them. And then suddenly, they tell him everything and even make him an official member of the team.

And that's all fine and dandy, but Slade is upset over this and murders his son. Because reasons.

And all of these memories suddenly being brought to the surface because of Slade's reappearance cause a break in Dick's already fragile psyche and he starts to have intense hallucinations in which Bruce Wayne follows him around and offers advice. It got old after a while.

Eventually, it reached a point with Dick this season that he went out and punched a security guard at the airport just so that he could be locked in jail. And this subplot dragged on forever, and never seemed to actually go anywhere.

But eventually, Dick made nice with the suit maker who seems to supply all of the suits for all of the heroes. Bruce had already designed the Nightwing costume for Dick, although this didn't make an appearance until the final episode.

Kori does have a lot of interesting developments this season, but a lot of them are seemingly being put on the backburner for the next season. She goes off for a while to help Donna do crime-stopping stuff, and ends up getting “kidnapped” by a guard from her homeplanet... Who also is a former lover of hers. He tells her that it's time to go home and rule, but Kori decides to go to California and help Rachel instead.

Eventually, her lover is taken over by her sister, Blackfire's mind-controlling jelly-thing, and Kori ends up needing to kill him in order to help stop her sister.

And then... that's it. Kori's duties are literally never brought up again for the rest of the season. Or the fact that Blackfire killed her entire family and seemingly started some sort of war on the planet. Kori can't even be bothered to tell Blackfire that she would prefer to stay on earth. Just... okay, this is a thing that's happening. BUT TITANS. Ugh.

There is a little teaser of Blackfire taking over some random lady at the very end of the last episode. But, as I said. Season three material.

Hank and Dawn... exist. That's pretty much the only thing that I can say about their characters this season. They simultaniously don't want to do crime-fighting anymore, yet refuse to actually walk away. Hank eventually pushes Dawn away to the point where he suggests that they should break up. And then he goes off the deep-end and starts doing hard-core drugs.

Anything that happened with them this entire season could have literally been cut out, and I doubt that the overall plot would have changed much.

I feel like the same could probably go for Donna as well. Although she had two exciting parts. One with her lover dying. Which... felt weird and forced and I honestly couldn't care either way about Aqualad's relationship with Wondergirl.

And then Donna herself died. Which was just so random and seemingly out of the blue. Especially because they'd just gone done taking down a mind-controlled Superboy (I will get to him in a second), and she had a full-powered fight with him. And then she'd killed by a ferris wheel falling on her.

And then Rachel says that she's going to go with the other ladies and probably learn how to better control her powers for next season. I don't know, and at that point, it all just seemed like characters moving around without having any actual motive.

And then there's Jason Todd. His plot basically revolves around Slade giving Jason PTSD, and then Jason fucking Slade's daughter, Rose.

When the season started, and it became clear that Jason was going to be on the team as the official Robin (leaving Dick to take over the role as Nightwing), I had really hoped for some decent character development from him. But instead, all we get is thirsty asshole with daddy and authority issues. Moving on.

And speaking of Rose... I felt like her character was given the proverbial shaft. She has an interesting character of being the daughter of a villain, but wanting to break away from her father after coming to understand a few things about found family.

She realized that she had healing powers, and told her father. He then trained her, and used her to further his own goals. Meaning to get vengeance on the Titans for using Jericho to get to him. But after having spent some time with Jason, Rose decides not to have anything to do with her father at all.

In the end, Rose and Nightwing team up and take down Slade. Which is something that the original Titans said that they'd struggled with “the first time around”. So how is it that “circus boy” and “girl who can heal herself” can do what actual super-powered Wondergirl, with the help of Robin, Hawk, and Dove failed to do?

All in all, the take down of Slade coupled with the destruction of Rachel's father is leaving a sour taste in my mouth. Don't get all excited over things like the build-up of villains, because the show will probably let you down in this regard.

And then there's Rachel. So much time in the first season was devoted to building up her character and everything, that it was honestly kind of disappointing that she seemed to take a back-seat in the second season. There was too much going on.

On top of a pointless side story where Rachel ran away from Donna and beat up some girl's father. It went nowhere, none of this was explained, and it was almost like the development of Donna, Dawn, and Hank.

Finally, the introduction of Superboy. For those not familiar with DC lore, Superboy is a science experiment to basically make an mpreg baby between Lex Luthor and Superman. He's got all of Superman's powers, and all of Lex's intelligence. However, the thing that comes out from the CADMUS lab is as innocent as a newborn baby... which makes him insanely dangerous.

There was a really long and honestly kind of tedious episode where he escaped from the lab with Krypto the Superdog, and how the project lead came to find him.

And then he went off and saved Jason from falling to his death, thanks to Slade. Only to be shot with kryptonite bullets for his trouble.

When Connor wakes up from this shooting, it's to find that Gar is the only one remaining at Titan's Tower, the others having taken off because of REASONS. However, Gar is certain that teaching Connor how to do proper hero stuff, that it'll make the other Titans want to come back. But circles around to Connor's innocence, he goes off and attacks a bunch of police officers.

This results in CADMUS breaking into Titan's Tower. Once the leader sees what Gar can do, they take him, too.

They then brainwash both of them to follow orders without objection. For Gar, this means transforming into a tiger whenever classical music is played, and killing anybody who is nearby.

This comes to a head after the others have taken down Slade. Gar attacks a street carnival, and Superboy is sent in to “stop” him. However, all of this was a ploy of CADMUS in order to convince people to buy Superboy for millions of dollars.

Rachel is somehow able to un-brainwash Gar simply through THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP. And Dick is able to get to Connor again, using nothing but talking. AND THEN EVERYBODY SANG AND THERE WERE MAGICAL BIRDS AND A UNICORN SHOWED UP. /sarcasm

Overall, this season wasn't bad. It was trying REALLY hard to be good, I felt. But I also felt like it was trying to do too much in just thirteen episodes.

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

Elle: A Modern Cinderella Tale

Backstory: I actually kind of liked this one: her parents died six months earlier in a plane crash, as they were flying out to watch her in an open audition scholarship for Berkley. And then she was taken in by their close friend, whom Elle referred to as her “uncle”. Having an uncle rather than the standard evil step-mother was an insanely nice change of pace. Furthermore, it's hard to label Uncle Allen as being “evil”. He was more of a neutral element. He had a business to run, so the things he was asking of Elle seemed almost reasonable in comparison.

15/15

Evilness of... Let's call them rivals: Again, this movie presented a nice change of pace. In the last several that I've watched, the step-sisters were more stupid than actually evil to the point where the plot needed to “outsource” any actual evilness to a third party. Here, they just completely and utterly did away with the actual step-sister plot, and just had them being straight-up mean girls. There were also three of them, members of a “bubble-gum pop group” called Sensation. Then, a fourth mean girl was added to the picture, a knock-off female Justin Beiber who had gained fame through youtube... but still waters run deep, and there was a lot more to “Candy Cane” than meets the eye. (I don't want to spoil the ending because it was good, but let's just say: you are probably right to question her accent.)

(Also, I cannot get over the stage name she picked out. It makes her sound like a stripper.)

15/15

Whatever applies: There wasn't really anything special about Elle hooking up with Ty, in this regard. I felt like she earned his attention simply by being talented. However, I can't hate this movie for not leaving it out, but I also can't ignore the fact that this was supposed to be Cinderella...

5/15

Relationship: I did like that Elle got Ty's attention simply because of her talent, and then held it there for being smart and funny. But, the entire movie took place over the span of like a week. He barely knew Elle, so I felt it was a little weird that he was so obsessed with her.

That being said, I enjoyed the part where Candy Cane (I STILL CANNOT TAKE THAT GODDAMNED STAGE NAME SERIOUSLY) found all of Elle's “shrine to Ty” and put it on display for everybody, but then Ty called her out for her bullshit and said that it was a nasty thing to do. Similar things have happened in other movies, but I don't think that I've ever seen one where the love interest stood up for the main character.

10/15

Plot: When this movie started, I thought that it was just going to be something like the one where she auditioned to be the singer, but her step-mom blackmailed her into being the actual talent behind her step-sister's pretty face. However, this movie honestly kind of surprised me.

Was it still awkward as anything to watch? You bet. I'm still scratching my head over why Elle thought that the best course of action would be to just go along with “Sure, I'm Candy Cane” thing, which only just caused more problems, not only for her, but also for Ty in the end. I mean, it worked out in the end, but still. Don't lie about stuff like that, because it never ends well!

Furthermore, I enjoyed the fact that Uncle Allen owned the recording studio, and let Elle work there. Unlike the past several movies that I saw, I didn't get the feeling like Elle was being forced to work there to pay off some sort of unknown debt. She was working there because she legit wanted to be in the music industry, and her uncle happened to own the business. That being said, it was baffling that her uncle was always “too busy” to listen to his own ward. Somebody that he KNEW was good, because he helped raise her. There was even a flash-back of him remembering everybody sitting around and listening to Elle singing. IT WAS EVEN THE SAME SONG SHE ACCIDENTALLY RECORDED SENSATION'S HIT OVER, AND HOW DID HE NOT KNOW THAT IT WAS HER IN THE RECORDING?!

Also, I felt like the relationship between the friend and the barista was... kind of awkward and forced, and like it had been thrown in at the last minute. This is largely because we couldn't have our precious protagonist soil her hands by uncovering the dirt on Candy Cane, so somebody else had to do it. And nobody else gave a shit about Elle enough to the point where they would do something like that.

20/30

Misc: The acting in this felt really forced and stiff, like they were “phoning it in”. Also, there was something stuck in the main character's teeth during her conversation with Kit at the coffee shop, where Kit convinced Elle to go to the party. It was really, REALLY distracting. I know that this movie was low-budget, but can you not tell the poor girl to brush her teeth?

0/10

Total score: 65/100. A cheesy yet fun modern-day Cinderella with surprising depths.

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

A Cinderella Story: If the Shoe Fits

Backstory: This is for sure one of the more unique backstories: Her father was a race driver, who taught Tessa about cars and auto-repair since “before she could walk”. So like... points for trying. But the reason why this score is so low will be discussed in the plot section.

5/15

Evilness of step-family: I feel like this is some trend in Cinderella movies where the writers have confused “locking Cinderella in her room” with... “Maybe I can just pretend like I'm my daughter and clearly nobody else is going to fucking notice that I'm a 40+ year old lady and not 16”.

These people were not even remotely “evil” by anybody's definition. They were just stupid.

And a STRONG argument could probably be made for the mental state of the step-mother in this movie. She carried... Well, the movie called it “taxidermy”, but it looked like a special-order stuffed toy. She carried a stuffed dog around, dressed it up, and not only would she talk to the thing, but she would also make it “reply”. For sure somebody who is not sound of mind.

Also, why was the step-mom so obsessed with Bella? Like can you even imagine what would have happened if Bella wasn't Tessa, but just an actual person? I would have called the police.

5/15

Whatever the fuck that was (because let's be honest: this goddamned movie was a motherfucking mess): So Tessa for sure had a friend who was more of the standard “fairy godmother” kind of trope, if only because she was a make-up artist. Who transformed Tessa into “Bella Snow”.

And I'm not going to deny that I've seen some talented make-up artists who can transform people's (or their own) faces into somebody who looks completely different.

But fam. Putting on a blonde wig and some lip-gloss does not magically make Tessa look like a different person. It was literally just Hannah Montana with the same level of stupidity.

Furthermore, there was some stage “magic”. And I know what most of you are probably thinking. Some smoke and a rip-away dress, and the actress comes out and she's in a ball gown and it's MAGIC. But no. Despite the fact that this was a movie that was set in the real world, with the exact same laws of physics that everybody else subscribes to (willingly or not)... Actual magic occurred on that stage in the very end. She was her “Cinderella ballgown” dress, but then she'd crawled through the air-ducts after having gotten stuck. She was dirty, her hair was a mess, and her dress was also in poor shape. But one puff of smoke later, and she's suddenly wearing a completely different dress, she's not only cleaned up, but also wearing make-up, her hair is completely straightened in and in a completely different style, and she's randomly wearing a tiara. All in the span of... let's say five seconds? It doesn't add up.

5/15

Relationship: Their relationship honestly felt kind of forced. It didn't help that this movie couldn't decide on a plot, so it kind of picked like three of them all at once. He was randomly attracted to “Bella” at first, simply because she was apparently the only girl at the talent competition who had any ounce of actual talent.

Then, he had a weird relationship with Tessa simply because... she was helping him fix his motorcycle. Well, I say “helping”, like she wasn't doing 100% of the actual work. And I have no idea why he even had a motorbike at all. Or why he couldn't have just taken it in to an actual mechanic if it was that broken?

And the ending was so stupid, too. The entire movie, they were like “Yeah, he's got a girlfriend, and it's this not!Paris Hilton girl, the daughter of the man who owns the hotel.” And he took video calls from said girlfriend and sure acted like they were in a romantic relationship.

But at the very end of the movie, he just randomly said to his manager “She's not my girlfriend. I don't even like her all that much.” I felt like it kind of came out of nowhere, and only just because the movie was ending and didn't actually want to pay the actress to come on set and say lines.

Overall, their relationship felt superficial, and they likely would have broken up in a week after they literally rode off into the sunset together. (I SHIT YOU NOT, THAT IS LITERALLY HOW THIS MOVIE ENDED.)

5/15

Plot: Oh boy. This movie had a plot. Actually, no, scratch that. This movie had too many plots going on, and it was super confused what kind of plot that it wanted to have in the first place.

Tessa is a mechanic. Sure, yeah. I actually kind of love this! It's feminist and she's a strong indep- what do you mean that she blindly follows her step-mother around and does everything that she says and does with zero motivation to do that? No, I'm serious. When my boyfriend and I were discussing this movie later, we were like: she must be at least 16 to have a job. Furthermore, in the other modern-day Cinderella movies, Cinderella at least had some reason WHY she was sticking around. Mommy is going to pay for school. Mommy is blackmailing me. Here? There's literally no reason why Tessa should do a damned thing that her mom says. She not only has a job, but it's a SKILLED job. She can literally spend the rest of her life working on cars, and could probably live fairly okay on that pay. There's no reason why Tessa should follow her mom around and pretend like a grown adult talking to a stuffed toy is normal.

And then the movie also wanted to be a movie about putting on a stage production. Which... Okay. Sure. I love me some meta. Except... that this ain't it. I don't think that a single one of the writers have actually ever put on a stage production in their lives. I'm willing to accepted highly choreographed “spontaneous” dance numbers... But what I'm not willing to accept is that they held an open casting call via a talent show in order to fill the role for a stage musical. A talent competition, in which some of the talents included things like magic. And I'm not saying that stage magic isn't interesting, but like... There is little overlap between “sawing girl in half” in comparison to “doing ballet and singing an operetta about how oppressed you are because you're Cinderella”. Furthermore, this entire movie took place in the span of an entire week. A WEEK. YOU DO NOT CAST FOR A PLAY ON MONDAY AND THEN HAVE OPENING NIGHT THAT FRIDAY.

Furthermore, there was more than simply just learning lines. There was also rehearsing... Which was made even harder because Tessa kept switching back and forth between being Tessa to fix Reed's motorcycle, and being Bella, the star of the show. All the while Reed who was supposed to be the prince was literally never on the stage the entire fucking time. When the fuck did anybody actually get in any rehearsal time with all of that nonsense going on?

Overall, this movie felt like it was stitched together from a couple of different ideas, and then the director picked up the very first draft and decided that it was good enough.

5/30

Misc: Let's say that Tessa actually is 16, which is the only reasonable explanation as to why she'd just go along with her step-mother's dumb idea to turn Tessa into a servant. First off, no hotel would just... have a random bed in a laundry storage area. Furthermore, nobody in their right mind would be like “Obviously, you can let your kid sleep here. This seems goddamned normal. I'M NOT GOING TO CALL THE POLICE ABOUT THIS OR TELL MY MANAGER OR ANYTHING. HAHAHA, NOPE.” Like what the fuck is wrong with you?

0/10

Final Score: 25/100. This movie had no idea what it was doing and should have never been made. PLEASE SEE ME AFTER CLASS.

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

A Cinderella Story: Once Upon A Song

Cinderella's Backstory: Super vague and unclear for the longest time. And even when it was mentioned, it was only mentioned exactly once that Katie's dad had married the step-mom and died. That's it. And it was literally never brought up again. Granted, I usually don't mind if a movie is too hung up over things like “when she was 5 she...” But come on. This is Cinderella we're talking about here. I want a little something more here!

5/15

Evilness of the step-family: For the longest time in this movie, I wasn't sure that the family was even related to the main character. I just thought that she worked for them as a maid or something. I mean, she literally lived in a little shack at the edge of the property. (It was a NICE shack, but come on.)

However, I feel like this movie gets bonus points for a couple of things: Kate only has one evil step-sister... and she had either a half-brother, or a step-brother. I'm not quite sure, and this was never explained.

The little boy was a terror, but it was played up more along the lines of “he's a little boy; little boys do nonsense like that.” In the end, the little brother ended up helping Katie out. And it was honestly a super refreshing change. More of this, please!

That being said... The step-mother just seemed like a complete and utter dumbass, with seasoning of “country hick who wanted to be famous but she really fucking sucked at it.” And then dragged her daughter into the plot, even though the daughter was only like half on board.

I did like that Katie and her step-sister had a nice conversation towards the end. Like their relationship felt real, rather than some awkward EBUL EBUL EBUL thing like in a lot of these modern-day AUs.

15/15

Whatever applies: As far as... anything in this movie, I felt like it was sort of lacking in this department. As far as the dance goes, Katie's friend did give her the outfit. So I thought that we'd see more involvement with the friend. But then... that was kind of it, as far as the “magic” goes.

It's been a couple of hours since watching this movie, and I'm already struggling to think of the other point that I'd made a mental note of for this category. Which, honestly, speaks volumes about this movie, I feel.

1/15

Relationship to love interest: The romance in this one seemed almost like a second thought. I felt like the movie should have just skipped the romantic aspect all together and just focused on Katie trying to stop her step-sister from stealing all of her glory.

As it was, they had like one conversation, and Katie was like “I'M GOING TO SING HIM A LOVE SONG. AND THEN, IT HAS TO BE IN SECRET.” There was no point to any of it other than to hammer in the Cinderella “mystery girl at ball” aspect of the movie. So it was honestly kind of frustrating. (It also didn't help that... Those masks were fucking sheer. Unlike in some of the other recent movies where they're wearing ball masks, these face veils... No excuses, dude. Zero.)

And it REALLY didn't help that this movie took place over the span of like a week.

6/15

Plot: Do you remember the Cinderella movie that I just did with Selena Gomez? Wikipedia says that this movie was a “sequel” to that. Although, even if I hadn't known that, I would have watched this one and been like “isn't this just the one with them dancing, but then they changed up the plot a little and had them be singing instead of dancing?”

That being said, I felt like this movie tried a lot harder than the Selena Gomez movie to be different than a lot of other Cinderella movies of the same sub-genre. However, I'll repeat with some of the stuff I said in response to Selena Gomez and Hillary Duff: just because they tried doesn't mean that I think that they did it WELL. By any means.

I think that my biggest problem with the plot of this movie was trying to convince the music industry son/love interest that the step-sister could sing by having her lip-sync for the actually talented Katie. Like... how long do you think that any of that would last? Probably about five minutes, when they first get her into the studio and she can't produce anything that sounds remotely good. And guess what happened at the music competition when the brother unplugged the microphone? (I also have no idea why people just willingly went along with Katie suddenly running onto the stage after all of that, but that seems like sprinkles in comparison to the rest of the plot...)

20/30

Misc: The school dance was randomly Bollywood themed. Which I felt was kind of... culturally appropriation-y. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the friend distracted the step-mother by engaging her into a well-rehearsed Bollywood dance scene that went on for waaaaay too long.

And the worst part about the Bollywood dance scene is that it was NOT the worst part of the movie. Which I feel speaks volumes about the movie.

There was also an “Indian meditation guru” in the movie. And at first, I was like “Okay, sure. I'll see where this goes.” But when he turned out to be “Tony from Jersey”, I laughed so hard.

Also also, that is not at all how writing music fucking works. You don't just pick up a guitar and start singing a poem. You can work for hours to find the right chords and notes that fit.

6/10

Total Score: 53/100. Yet another cringe-inducing Disney direct to Disney channel Cinderella movie high school AU. This one featuring singing!

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

Another Cinderella Story (2008) (AKA the one with Selena Gomez)

Cinderella's backstory: Going off from the actual plot, this one was at least trying to be somewhat unique. However, Mary's actual backstory was quickly brushed aside in like the first five-some minutes: her mom was a back-up dancer to the pop-star, and when she died, the pop-star decided to take her in. That's literally it.

5/15

Evilness of the adoptive-family (because they weren't related, just adopted): I actually really liked the adoptive mother, played by Jane Lynch. She's really funny, and I enjoyed that she was a parody of washed-up pop-stars.

She was kind of evil, but at the same time... I don't really know much about adoption or child services or anything like that, but you'd think that they would? Check up on the child? I don't know why Mary was putting up with that. Like yeah, this strange lady took her in, but god, at what cost?

The step-sisters on the other hand... they really bugged me. Because they weren't evil, they were just STUPID.

Also... The movie never said how long that the sisters had been taking dance classes for. But considering that they were in a class with the obligatory ex-girlfriend of the love interest, you'd think that they'd be at a similar level, instead of being so physically embarrassing to others while “dancing”.

10/15

I'm going to call it the power of friendship: I liked Mary's friend, and felt like she actually cared for Mary and what happened to her. Especially the part where friend thought that the love interest was sneaking around with both Mary and also Natalia.

That being said, I felt like friend driving an orange van and calling it “the pumpkin” was a little too forced. Especially when it broke down the night of the school dance (I cannot call that a “ball”, because it's a fucking high school).

I also liked this friend better than the one from the Hillary Duff Cinderella. This one was a girl, and she also got a love interest in the end. The other movie... he was a weird incel.

10/15

Relationship to love interest: Not only did they actually have a relationship, but they also had something in common besides the simple “I'm sexually attracted to you”! So I feel like this gets some major points for that fact alone.

That being said... this entire movie took place over the span of like...??? A week? It's better than some of the time-frames in other movies (Looking at you, Ella Enchanted!), but it's still not amazing, either.

Also, I felt like it was kind of shitty that he gave the dance competition prize to Mary, who everybody could see was obviously his girlfriend. He should have given it to one of the actual contestants, and then gone on a tour with Mary instead. (Granted, there were probably other school reps and agents there, who gave the other dancers a foot in the door after the competition. But still. Seems kind of shitty to only offer the prize to his girlfriend.)

7/15

Plot: The first thing that I want to say is that this movie tried a lot harder to be more individual and unique than a lot of other movies. So I've got to give it props for that. However, just because it tried didn't mean that it succeeded.

After all, the love interest figured out who the mystery dancer at the school dance was by the end of the second act, so??? The Cinderella part was essentially over by then. And then the plot just turned into a weird dance competition thing. And it's not that I would hate the idea of a dance competition it's just... we come in expecting Cinderella simply from the title alone. And yet... Cinderella is over for the entire second half of the movie.

The drama between the love interest, his ex-girlfriend, and Mary seeing them together in his house seemed artificial and like it had kind of been thrown in at the last second to pad out the movie.

15/30

Misc: My boyfriend could not get over how completely and utterly artificial that Selena Gomez's face looked to the point where he even pulled his phone out during the movie to look up if she's had work done. It was really annoying, and I don't think that I would have noticed except that he was so freaking obsessed with it.

Selena, you were pretty before, and I feel like Hollywood pressured you into getting a nose job when you were 16! Hollywood fucking sucks.

This doesn't have anything to do with the actual movie, but just Hollywood in general. But, I also don't have anything else to add here, so...

Edit from like 15 minutes in the future: I finally thought of something weird to add! The love interest screaming “MARY!” at the competition. I know that Mary isn't as common of a name as it once had been, but I still feel like screaming Mary in California would result in a bunch of unrelated Hispanic girls rushing towards the stage. Lol

5/15

Total score: 52/100. A weird dance competition movie with the backstory of Cinderella thrown in for seasoning.

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

A Cinderella Story (2004) (AKA the one with Hillary Duff)

Backstory: Probably one of the most uninspired and unoriginal backstories you can possibly imagine. Single dad raising his daughter in California. Insert step-mother + step-sisters. Cue father's death.

5/15

Evilness of step-family: The step-sisters were more annoying and stupid than anything. I don't think that they necessarily added anything to the plot, other than to bog it down with even more stupid characters. If I'd been writing this, I would have made the sisters be the sexy cheerleaders who wanted to hook up with... whatever the love interest's name is. (I've forgotten, and I honestly could not care less at this point.)

However, the mother is the one who makes up for most of the evil points. She forces Sam to work at the diner with the insistence that she'll be paying for Sam's time at Princeton. However, when Sam's acceptance letter shows up, dear old mummsie not only hides it, but also somehow comes up with a rejection letter? She treats Sam like dirt over and over, but for some reason, Sam continues to stay and take all of this miserable abuse.

5/15

Support at the diner: This is what I'm calling in place of the fairy god-mother. The diner employees were probably the best part of this movie, which is sad, considering that they weren't even there all that much. But they seemed to love and unconditionally support Sam, no matter what she said that she wanted to do. And I loved at the end when the step-mom was throwing her weight around, and Sam quit, so everybody else working there said that they quit, too.

However, as far as the “magic” system goes, I still felt like there was really something...??? Missing? From even this? Like I said, this was the best part of the movie, but even then, it still wasn't amazing.

10/15

Relationship with love interest: I did like that Sam and whats-his-face did have a relationship going before anything even got started. Granted, it was online through a message board. But they did seem to know that the other went to the same high school as them.

But Mr. Love interest's character started to go down-hill at the ball scene. She shows up in this tiny mask. The ex-girlfriend knew instantly who she was, but like...??? Was the dude face-blind or something? Exactly how stupid do you have to be?

There was an especially cringey part where he came into the diner, and they were talking about their true selves. And she pointedly told him “It's me! I'm the one in the mask! I'm the one you've been looking for.” But... the reference kind of just flew straight over his head.

I don't think for a second that this boy is Princeton material, but whatever.

I did enjoy at the end how he left the big game in order to find Sam in the crowd. It was nice, and it kind of solved all of his problems all at the same time: over-bearing dad, jealous ex-girlfriend, and current love interest. But I felt like up until that point... he sure didn't do a whole lot to stop his jealous ex from publicly mocking Sam at the weird pep-rally.

10/15

Plot: Do you like high school AUs? Hahaha, no, I'm not quite sure that I know anybody who actually enjoys them, either. But either way, this movie is basically “What if Cinderella was a high school AU?” The plot was pretty cut-and-paste from every other Cinderella movie, which I feel really impacts my score in general.

In the third act of the movie, the plot finally moved away from a traditional Cinderella story... and tried so hard to tell us that the writers had once seen Bring It On. They were lying it on insanely thick with the cheerleaders, and especially ones who were in the same color uniform as the cheerleaders in Bring It On.

Overall, this movie was awkward and actually painful to watch at times.

15/30

Misc: The logic in this movie was insanely baffling. The step-mom didn't appear to have any sort of job, but she lived in some sort of nice-ish house in California? My boyfriend looked up house prices after we finished the movie, and a house around the same age as the house he lives in cost a quarter of a million dollars. The only source of income is apparently only the diner. That being said, we saw on a couple different occasions the step-mom coming to the diner just long enough to take all of the money from the till. And she mentioned on a couple of different instances that she liked to get plastic surgery, and that she was going to use the money from the diner to get more liposuction. Plus, all four girls in the family had cars. The math... it's just not adding up!

Furthermore, the existence of the father's will. I don't know much about will laws, but that thing Sam found looked insanely official. They probably would have had copies sitting around some legal office somewhere, that would have been drug out as soon as her dad died. I don't know why nobody did that, except to bring in some last-minute win for Sam.

That being said... even when Sam had sold the cars of her step-mother and step-sisters, she said that she was going to use the money to go to Princeton. Which had been her plan all along. But in the final scenes, she says that she restored her father's diner to what it had once been like. Bitch, where is all of this goddamned money coming from?

ALSO ALSO... The sign at the diner. When it crashed because Sam's friend bumped the pole with his dad's car. That would have resulted not only in a hefty lawsuit from the friend's father... but also likely resulting in stiff penalties from the city for having an unsafe environment. And you cannot tell me that the other employees (who actually worked at the diner) didn't have a long list of things that were going without being fixed, but the mom couldn't be bothered because she had to get a new nose-job. This is evident in the scene when the guitar fell off the wall. There's no legal way that that diner would have remained open just from the brief glimpse that this movie offered us.

I can overlook a few flaws of logic for the sake of a plot. But this movie kept offering us more and more nonsense and none of it was remotely adding up. So in the end, I feel like it broke my brain...

0/10

Total score: 45/100. A cringe-inducing high school AU set on a backdrop of Cinderella. Starring Hillary Duff.

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

After The Ball

Backstory: While I will admit that this movie does take a sharp turn from standard Cinderella movies, I also have to consider the fact that this is set in modern times. So while it's not the standard “mother died, father remarried devil spawn” of all of the other movies... it is kind of exactly the same. Kate left home to study at university, only to be somehow drawn back into the fold of her family. It is kind of original, but not at the same time. All while somehow still falling into “dead mother, evil stepmother” cliches.

5/15

Evilness of step-family: Boy, they were sure evil. They tried to thwart Kate at every turn, even if they didn't know that it was Kate or not. But... I think that my main problem with Kate's step-mother is just: what is her motivation? She was dead set on leaking all of the designs from her husband's fashion house and driving it into the ground, but why? She was in bed with Kassel's main competition, but at the same time, she only seemed to view him in the same sort of loveless way that she did Mr. Kassel.

10/15

Whatever applies (because I don't have a name for this): This is a story set in the real world, in modern times. There was no magic. Kate did have a godmother that she was staying with (and I might argue a godfather), but they were just people. They offered Kate suggestions, but she's the one who took them. The “magic” of the story was honestly kind of lacking, but at the same time, Kate's kind of kooky auntie was one of the better parts of the movie.

6/15

Relationship to love interest: I like that Daniel and Kate did have a relationship going before all of it got started, and that they had a common interest (fashion). The timeline is a little hazy, but at least the entire thing didn't unfold in the span of a week.

My main problem with Daniel's role in the movie is more: why didn't Kate tell him about her plans? Or the random gay guy whose name I cannot recall. They were becoming her friends. And it was obvious later in the movie when Nate convinced Daniel to call Kate that Daniel obviously missed having Kate around. I felt like the decision to not have Daniel know until later was for the sake of creating drama, and thus introduces one of my least favorite tropes: runs on miscommunication.

Also, something weird that wasn't quite “queer-bating”, if only because the audience knew the entire time that Nate was simply Kate with bad prosthetic and a crappy wig.

Also, this movie had two scenes where Daniel put a shoe on Kate. When they started to do the second one, I wanted to scream out “why was the first one included if you were only going to do it twice?”

10/15

Plot: I like the idea of this plot a lot more than the actual movie turned out to be. As mentioned, a lot of the conflict could have been avoided if Kate had just told her friends at the fashion house what she was doing.

It was also kind of frustrating to me that the dad didn't seem to care too much about what was going on in his business. It seemed as though he had once been really passionate about fashion, but had since stopped giving a shit. When we're introduced to the story, half of the building is unoccupied. Daniel takes Kate through the empty production rooms, and says that they stopped running some time ago.

And as I also mentioned, there was zero motivation from the step-mom aside from “hur-dur AM EBUL”.

I knew going into the movie that it was going to be cringey as anything, and it didn't disappoint on the embarrassment factor. However, it wasn't nearly half as bad as I had thought. It just... wasn't good, either.

15/30

Misc: It seemed like the production spent all of their budget on the big fashion items, and forgot to get a decent cross-dressing costume for Kate. It was so bad. Why.

5/10

Final score: 51/100. A cringe-inducing, Cinderella-themed rom-com that was short on laughs, but big on fashion budget, even if nobody actually wore 90% of it.

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

Ella Enchanted

Backstory: The only thing that differs from a traditional Cinderella story is the fact that Ella was given the “gift” of obedience. And in her formative years, it did play a huge part, and it is central to the plot. But Ella's actual backstory is pretty cut-and-paste from traditional Cinderella stories, beyond this.

8/15

Evilness of Step-Family: Ella's step-mother and two step-sisters are quite evil. But they aren't central towards the actual movement of the plot. Instead, I feel like they're more schoolyard bullies, rather than some big, central evil. They aren't without point in the story, as one of the sisters makes Ella steal shoes, which gets Ella arrested. Later, the older sister is a foil to the budding romance between Prince Char and Ella.

10/15

Magic: This entire movie is set in a world where magic not only exists, but they seem to just accept it in the way that we accept cars and airplanes. Ogres, elves, and trolls are predominately featured throughout the movie, alongside the more traditional fairy. The magic itself was central to the plot of Ella's “gift” of obedience. The magical world that they lived in was also pretty great, but I'll touch more on it under the “Plot” section.

I also enjoyed how the “fairy godmother” wasn't so much as helping Ella, either when she gave Ella the “gift” of obedience, but also in sending Ella to the ball. It was a nice change of pace of the fairy who shows up out of some kindness of her own heart.

15/15

Relationship to the prince: Yes, Ella did have a relationship with Prince Char outside of her just showing up at the ball. I also liked the aspect that she wasn't a big Prince Char fan. (Which was an amusing side-story with the Prince Char fangirls.) But, the timeline of the romance says that they really only knew each other for about two days. He met her for like five minutes. Then, he saved her from the ogres, and they went to Giant-world, where they became friends, and shared their first kiss. When they returned to the castle, Char told his uncle that he was going to ask Ella to marry him. And I feel like that abrupt sort of love does get this knocked a few points off.

However, there's also a weird theme of consent in this movie, and I felt like it somehow made this movie oddly feminist, seemingly without trying. Everybody in Ella's life just ordered her around, even if they were unaware of her “gift”. But Char seemed to be the only one who added “if you want” to the things he asked of Ella, which seemed to heavily weigh on Ella's decision to let herself fall for him.

12/15

Plot: Overall, I liked the story for this. It was trying something different with Cinderella, whereas I feel like a lot of other movies feel the need to go down a check-list of cliches. And while this followed the basic Cinderella set-up, I honestly had no idea where it would go.

That being said, I felt like there were a lot of plot holes that remained unanswered. Mainly being the way that everybody reacted towards Ella's “gift”. She was supposed to be best friends with Areida since they were in grade-school, but Areida hadn't put together any sort of explanation to explain why Ella behaved the way she did. And Char didn't seem to pick up on it, either. However, the step-sister figured it out after only a little bit? And the writing seemed to want to portray both of the step-sisters as moronic ditzes.

Also, something that really bugged me during the interactions between Ella and her step-family was that Mandy stood by and watched, but did nothing to help Ella. Even though Mandy was present with Ella's mom when Ella was given the “gift”. She could have answered the door, but she did nothing. So I was confused over why not.

Overall, this movie subverted expectations well while simultaneously remaining inside the confines of the “Cinderella story cliches”. Everything was cliched, but as I mentioned, I had no idea where the story might actually take me.

25/30

Misc: This movie was cheesy as hell, and it never wanted you to forget it. Unlike a lot of other movies that try to shy away from how campy that it is, this one fully embraced the bad CGI, the overly apparent metaphors, and how this is 100% a fairy-tale.

10/10.

Total Score: 80/100

It was a pretty good Cinderella movie, but glaring plot-holes leave a lot to be desired. An overall fun movie that never lets you forget that this is supposed to be FUN.

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

Let’s Rate Every Single Cinderella Movie Ever

I personally want to blame this on the quarantine (which is been placed back in effect in Arizona because we are collectively stupid here), but the truth is that this has been bouncing around in my mind for some time now.

Let's rate all of the Cinderella movies! And before anybody asks, yes. I probably won't actually watch every single Cinderella movie. Mainly because I'll get so sick of Cinderella that I'll just give up. But also because... movies that the internet suggests for me are sometimes hard to find.

Anyway, I'll be scoring based off of these six criteria:

Cinderella's backstory: how unique that it is, in comparison to other Cinderella movies. In a score out of 15

Evilness of the step-family: Because it wouldn't be Cinderella without some evil step-family. In a score out of 15.

Magic/Whatever applies: Again, a huge feature of the Cinderella story is the magic. However, I can't just label it as being “magic” if her fairy godmother is actually just a rich auntie who takes a shine to her or whatever. So... whatever applies. In a score out of 15.

Relationship to the royal family: Again, another huge part of the Cinderella story is obviously the prince. (Or princess... I want to find the lesbian Cinderella!!) But I hate the stories where they have one dance and then he decides that she's the love of his life. In a score out of 15.

Plot: Obviously, I don't care so much if her step-sisters are the best evil step-sisters that I've ever seen if the plot is stupid or awful. This score is the highest, out of 30.

Misc: Anything else not covered in the other categories. In a score out of 10.

All categories will be combined for a final score, a grade if you will.

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

Nostalgia Rewatch: Yu Yu Hakusho S02E10

With the enemy team having “cornered” team Yusuke on the ring, it seems almost as though our heroes are almost all out of options. They relentlessly push team Yusuke back again and again, without giving them a single second to go on the offensive. All while they're chanting “kill... kill... kill” over and over.

Genkai knows that Kuwabara and Yusuke can't see the attacks, so it's up to her to tell them how to dodge and move. She eventually takes an attack in order to save Yusuke, even if it means that she's painfully thrown into the surrounding wall. Oof.

After she goes down, Kuwabara starts to try and reason with the better natures of their opponents. He says that he knows that they're good people, because he saw that vision in his sleep the night before. However, Dr. Scrotum-Chin just keeps laughing about the entire thing. Botan tells Kuwabara to take the fight more seriously, but he repeats about the dream that he had, and says he knows that they're good people.

And as he's listening to this, Yusuke almost comes to the conclusion that they really need to stop the doctor in order to stop their opponents. Almost, but not quite there.

Genkai then re-enters the ring just in time to save Yusuke yet again. Her full-head mask falls off from her earlier blow, and everybody sees what she really looks like. She's young and beautiful... heavy emphasis on the beautiful. It's Genaki, but she's probably only a few years older than Yusuke and Kuwabara right now... for some reason. Everybody is shocked, because they thought that they knew who it was... but who is this?

Just then, one of the other members of the team, who had been out fighting with Kurama and Hiei, randomly falls from the sky. Followed by the robot, and then Kurama and Hiei themselves. (No, they hadn't been mentioned up until this point. I'm just as surprised as everybody on the show...) Kurama and Hiei give Kuwabara, Yusuke, and Genkai the TLDR version of what the viewers already knew: their opponents are being controlled by the doctor.

But this leads to a weird conversation between the doctor, Yusuke, and Kuwabara. He doesn't give a shit what happens to his current three “experiments”, because he just wants to use the members of team Yusuke as his next ones. They try to attack the doctor, but the opponents simply step in and active “bodyguard mode” to protect him. Kurama and Hiei want to jump in to help, but Koto stops them and says that the rules are only “three on three”.

The doctor then goes into evil monologue mode... which would be one thing if we hadn't heard this info at least five times this episode alone! But, he says that if you take the weird pumps off from the three victims, then they will die. So either way, it's a lose/lose situation for them.

But Kuwabara is convinced that the three of them aren't nearly half as brainwashed as the doctor would like to think. After all, they reached out to Kuwabara in his sleep, and he's still convinced that it's a cry for help. This is followed up by the dumbass decision to just stand there and take all of their hits. He tries to reason with them again, but the only thing that it gets him is beat up and tossed outside the ring. Genkai later says to Botan that it's like they intentionally missed all of Kuwabara's organs.

Yusuke then turns back to the three of them, and is more than a little surprised to see that they're all crying blood. Their chant of “kill... kill... kill” suddenly turns into “kill us, please”.

Yusuke's spirit energy suddenly spikes enough that he can see all of the spirit attacks, where he couldn't before. He finally starts to go on the offensive, and Koto reports about it like it had been an act of Yusuke's. Dr. Scrotum-Chin is just surprised by this, and is floored to find out that the change in Yusuke has resulted in a drastic drop in percentage that they'd actually win. Insanely drastic.

Genkai rejoins the ring, and again repeats that there's no way to save them. Yusuke says that he'll harden his heart, and starts to fire his spirit gun before the episode ends.

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

Nostalgia Rewatch: Yu Yu Hakusho S02E9

Early the next morning, Kuwabara wakes from a nightmare, panting. He later tries to tell Yusuke about it over breakfast, but Yusuke laughs and says he doesn't want to hear about Kuwabara's stupid dream. Kuwabara huffs with irritation, but then asks where Kurama and Hiei are. Yusuke says he doesn't know, much to Kuwabara's further irritation. But Yusuke assures him that they both know the two, and that they wouldn't just run off like that.

The three of them head down to the stadium, where they run into Koenma in his adult form. Yusuke doesn't recognize him until he congratulates them on their win the other day. He goes on to say that he takes this form whenever he's in the human realm. Anyway, Koenma tells Yusuke that the spirit egg he had been carrying when he was a ghost has been kept safe in the spirit realm all this time. And now, it's about ready to hatch. Whatever might come out would probably end up being helpful to Yusuke during the tournament. Yusuke is excited about that, at least. Koenma goes on to ask if Yusuke has been training hard, and Yusuke confirms that he's been working on “spirit wave” with  Genkai before they start to walk away. Koenma is kind of annoyed that Yusuke doesn't know the “secret technique” just yet, but figured that this tournament is a good way for Yusuke to grow as a fighter.

They continue out to the stadium where there's only three fighters on the other team, plus Dr. Scrotum. (I'll get to where the other two fighters are in a moment.) As they stand and look at one another from across the arena, Kuwabara says that this is what his dream was about.

We're then subjected to a random flashback. A martial arts teacher who took in orphaned boys is sick, but the surgery to cure him is too expensive for his “sons” to get the funds so quickly. The sensei is content to just die, even though it would make his sons sad. But then, Dr. Scrotum shows up, and is like “I'll cure the man for free! ...But I'm going to want you and you and you to experiment on.” And, those three students are now being controlled by Dr. Scrotum.

Koto calls the teams to come forward, and asks them how they want to fight. Dr. Scrotum suggests a three-on-three battle, which Team Yusuke agrees to. Dr. Scrotum then starts to yammer about how he wants the team's corpses if they win, that he wants to experiment on them, he'll build them new brains... blah-blah-blah. I don't really care, considering that we all know Team Yusuke will come out on top at the end of this! However, Dr. Scrotum is so certain of a win, and says the chances of his team winning are very high. Genkai then proposes a 3-way battle between all of them at once. After some weird calculations that don't make sense, Dr. Scrotum comes to the decision that Team Yusuke has a 0.05% chance of winning that fight, so he agrees to it.

Before the fight starts, Genkai says that she knows those fighters, and gives them the TLDR version of what happened to them. Kuwabara makes a passing remark about it. Up in the stadium, the girls are watching again. Shizuru says to the others about how much hate she feels from the three opponents. Not towards the team, but...

The fight starts, and one of the guys (who aren't even named, so it doesn't matter) starts to fly towards our three heroes. Genkai tells them to jump out of the way, which they do just in time as the guy shatters half of the arena. After that, there's honestly just a lot of running and dodging by team Yusuke, and they aren't given a chance to even go on the offensive. Botan eventually gets up and leaves because she can't watch.

And just what are Kurama and Hiei doing this whole time, might you ask? Hiei was walking through the forest, when he runs into Kurama. As they start to head towards the stadium or the hotel (who knows), they're approached by two demons. They're the missing two members of Team Scrotum. Kurama makes quick work of one demon...

But then the other pulls out a remote control, and summons a robot, which he says Dr. Scrotum made. It extends its arms, like an oversized pipe snake and tries to grab them. Hiei tries to attack the arm going after him with his sword, but it doesn't make much of a dent. The demon laughs about the entire thing.

Hiei lands on his injured arm, and collapses, but this allows the robot to slam Hiei into a tree. Kurama then leads the other arm around so that it'll attack the arm holding Hiei. It creates quite a dent in the side of the other arm before it slams into Kurama. There's a lot of dust, and Hiei is worried about his friend. But something isn't quite right, because the demon can no longer control the robot. When the dust clears, we see that Kurama wound his vine inside the robot and damaged it to the point where it would stop working.

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

Nostalgia Rewatch: Yu Yu Hakusho S02E8

The next day, Yusuke is kind of upset to find out that he can't even summon enough spirit energy to fire a single spirit gun blast. As he's trying to “train” in the woods, Kuwabara finds him and asks why they aren't doing anything, like having a team meeting. He apparently doesn't know where the others are, and is kind of upset over the entire thing.

Meanwhile, Hiei is on some rocks by the sea. He apparently has lost most of his ability to use his right hand, and it's insanely upsetting-slash-frustrating for him.

Kurama is in the stadium, watching some of the other fights. We catch the tail end of a fight between one of the other teams. As we watch, a man rips the head off of one of his opponents, and tossed it to a pile of other heads. Koto calls the match in favor of the one team, if only because the score is 3-0. One of the members of the other team is relieved, but the team captain is apparently not. The team leader, who is a mad scientist who looks like he has a scrotum for a chin, only just laughs. Then, three members of his team first cut off the Minotaur-demon's arms, and then slice his head off. Koto is horrified over the entire thing. As the team is leaving, Kurama watches them and thinks two things: those members of the team are humans, but he thinks that the doctor is controlling them with demon energy, and that they're not there of their own free will.

Meanwhile, Koenma's assistant gets back with food, and complains about the long line for the stand. Koenma chews him out, and says that the match is already over!

Yusuke is continuing his training in the forest, when he's attacked by a rugby ball of death, that shatters a stone he had been doing a training handstand on. (You know, a training handstand. You can only do it with one finger!) A demon comes out, and says that he's eager to face Yusuke, and how about a little context of power right now? My balls vs your spirit gun. But Yusuke still can't fire his gun, so he's forced to dodge, only to discover that the demon-energy infused balls (I guess?) seek other people's demon energies. He's only spared when another member of the demon's team shows up and slams an ax into the ball. The rugby demon is upset, and still wants to attack Yusuke, but the team leader instead just coldly murders his teammate, and then leaves.

Kuwabara had watched the entire thing from the trees, and comments about the entire thing. He then asks why Yusuke didn't fire his gun, and is horrified when Yusuke tells him what's going on. As he's explaining that he's never been able to not fire it before, Genkai shows up and says that the technique Yusuke used in his fight yesterday was advanced, and he probably shouldn't have used it. However, Genkai's voice is odd, and Kuwabara asks Yusuke about it, because he thought that it was Genkai. But Yusuke is confused over the entire thing, too, because he thought that it was Genkai??? Genkai tells him not to use his spirit gun, and makes a weird, passing remark about Hiei's current inability to use his arm.

While that's going on, Botan asks Keiko why she doesn't want to see Yusuke. She says she would only 1) distract him and 2) demand that he stop. She'd rather be a silent supporter for a while. Shizuru shows up with juice for the three of them, which they enjoy together.

Later, Yusuke and Kuwabara go back to the stadium to watch some matches. Koto announces that the first round of fighting is almost over. However, there is an uneven number of teams, which doesn't seem like good planning... or is it? The last team is to fight the winners of last year's tournament. Which just happens to be Team Toguro.

However, only Toguro himself shows up, and says that the rest of his team is busy. But, he will be more than able to take on the five team members alone. This is the team of the demon who stopped the rugby guy from hurting Yusuke. One of the team members is a huge sumo-demon, who cracks the earth with each stomp of his foot. Toguro says that he'll use 45% of his power for this fight, and then kills the four unnamed team members. He then goes to face off against the team leader, and decapitates him easily. So much for that, then. Koto announces that the eighth and final team for the tournament will be Team Toguro. He and Yusuke then exchange glances from where Yusuke sits in the stadium.

Later, Kuwabara complains that they're paired up against the crazy scientist team next.