#I don’t remember that much about the plot except that one character’s balls explode because he had gay sex

[meat-loving-meat]

Songmaster is so interesting to me because it’s absolutely DRIPPING with queer desire despite being written by notorious homophobe Orson Scott Card. It was one of those novels I read as a confused tween who was extremely interested in anything queer (but who couldn’t yet understand the source of that fascination), and it truly left twelve-year-old me completely baffled.

I had no idea what to make of it—it was the first novel I read that devoted more than a sentence to the actual act of gay sex, yet at the same time the narrative seemed morally opposed to any kind of sexual desire? Characters who expressed any sexuality at all were often executed, tortured, castrated, and even pushed to suicide. It was violent, it was bleak, and it seemed to revel in exploring the ways that imbalances of power manifest sexually (everything is about sex etc. etc.). At age twelve I kind of just shrugged and moved on with life—some books were just weird—but now I’m really tempted to give it a reread because what the actual fuck was going on in that novel

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S5 Ep 20: Pharaoh’s Cool New Trick

Digging my way through quite a pile of commission work (funny how these things only come all at once or not at all), nearing the light at the end of the tunnel, was looking forward to some free time to catch up on my many little side projects when I was asked to take off for a weekend to do some cat-sitting to which I would NEVER say no to a cat, so like...Rip this blog I guess, we only update like once a week nowadays, but what do you do?

That’s right, play Puzzles and Dragons! The only phone game worth paying any attention to! Where they just released Pegasus on their Yugioh Collab and he looks pretty great!

So I’m just gonna take a second for some art appreciation, because the Puzzles and Dragons art team is just A++++ honestly, and yes, I did pull 13 times to get a Pegasus in my monster box, and yes, he is a completely insane team leader that is absolutely broken when paired with Yugi (the numbers are so satisfying) but...look at him. He looks so good!

(also I finally got Joey Wheeler, and so now my gatcha cravings are settled. And, don’t worry, I play this game so much that I was there during Christmas when they offered like a bajillion stones for free so I didn’t actually use real money on this.)

Now PAD also released a Weevil and Rex, and I don’t know why, and neither does the art team because they still look pretty good but in comparison to all the mains, they sure do looks like just some shorty guys in some casuals.

though I gotta admit, I want to learn how the hell this art team does swooshy effects, because man, that would make my art so much better to just have flames violently exploding out of all my art. Why am I not doing that more often? I have the technology.

anyway, I didn’t bother trying to pull them. Maybe I’ll accidentally pull them when they eventually release a Duke Devlin. (also, RIP to the fact that Roland will probably never be in Puzzles and Dragons but like...I can only send them so many polite letters covered in stickers pretending I’m some 10 year old child and writing in my broken Hiragana “Roland in PAD?”. Thems the breaks. (They also might not remember who Roland is.))

Shoutouts to the card that Weevil is holding that is censoring this nipple on the booby spider, PS.

So because this is not actually a Puzzles and Dragons blog, and it’s been ten eons since I regularly updated so I could remember episode to episode...where the hell were we?

That’s right, we’re on an island now. This show’s wonderful obsession with evil islands (and spoiler, this is one of the few Yugioh Islands that doesn’t explode at the end. Mostly because Kaiba isn’t here to do it or this place would be cinder)

(read more island stuff under the cut)

Anyway, after announcing “hey guys! Screw islands!” Yugi immediately collapses and without any warning.

Apparently the armor is a big ol parasite, which is something that Yugi is so used to at this point that he refuses to admit that this is a problem. Just normal Muto stuff, refusing to tell anyone that he has a serious illness going on underneath that giant mass of hair.

(the sailor moon vibes coming off this weird orb energy)

Sort of feels like a call back to S1 when Yugi was clearly possessed and everyone else was like “He acting weird to you?” except it’s S5 and everyone has learned to never trust Yugi when he says he’s fine and they are responding like he is about to die. Which is correct.

Outside of the cave falls this scroll that is...glowing, I guess. So they open it up and get a bunch of hieroglyphs that give them the “riddle of light” and like youknow...it’s riddle stuff.

They’re doing this riddle for “wings.” And it’s like...everyone’s monster here has a set of wings or an ability to fly. Every single monster except for I dunno, flaming swordsman? Hell, Yugi himself had two sets of wings when he fused with Dark Magician (which was weird, and I still don’t like to think about what technically was going on there.) But we have to go and get ourselves even more wings.

Weirdly, Joey turns to Tea and does something that in any other show would be completely normal. He was like “you want to stay here with Yugi, don’t you?” and it was the first time Joey has ever actually addressed the fact that Tea and Yugi are close. Uncharted territory. I was amazed at the amount of casual shipping that is happening here. It’s almost like a normal ass relationship.

So the boys decide to go off, and be boys and tackle this themselves. And they shouldn’t have, because Tea is smart for this group, and also has the only healing spell.

Like if you’re playing D+D you wouldn’t typically leave your only healer behind. Just saying.

Also like...Grandpa Muto went with them? I guess he’d have to since he’s the translator but also...kind of weird to leave your grandson dying in a cave, but maybe that’s just the Muto lifestyle.

Do not be fooled by my caps, no one has addressed the Bakura in the puzzle for 3 seasons. I’m starting to think this show will never address the Bakura in the puzzle. Which honestly, that would be hilarious if they made a big deal out of that plot point and then couldn’t use it in the end.

And speaking of plot points that kind of come out of nowhere and don’t make full sense with the continuity of the show--Joey has regressed back to the 4th grade.

Hey show? What?

So like if you love Joey, this is not the arc for you, because this arc he is reduced to a Himbo and nothing else. Straight up didn’t know what an echo is, but is very strong and pretty, I guess.

This inevitably happens with any TV show becuase different people make different parts, and I’ve brought up before that sometimes it feels like some teams only have loose post-it notes of what any character should be like at any given point (ESPECIALLY with Seto Kaiba’s timeline) but like...

...Personally I’m mot so fond of this interpretation of Joey, kind of ignores Joey’s best traits, and makes Tristan look way too smart in comparison (and like I always pinned Tristan to be the Himbo of the group, but maybe it’s because they give Tristan so little else to do?)

And like don’t get me wrong, Joey’s a dumbass a lot of the time and needs to get corrected by his pals...but...to the point he doesn’t know what an echo is? He’s a dumbass in a High School student sort of way, youknow?

Anyway, they get down to this big ravine, and they have to destroy this stone while the light passes over it. Kind of feels like a Breath of the Wild shrine quest, actually. In fact, I think Breath of the Wild recycled the shadow/sunlight pathing quest like 4 or 5 times. (I love Breath of the Wild to death but boy did they run out of ideas at the end there.)

They have to fight a glass monster and it’s kind of like...do you know the game Balls 3D? probably not, but it looked like a bunch of random shapes stuck together like a 90′s animation. They basically went to war with shapes.

Pure Himbo energy, has several pokemon, but punches for his pokemon instead of using them. A power move if I ever saw one.

Youknow that would make pokemon a lot more interesting if you could like throw out your pikachu, and then choose to just physically run up to your opponents Eevee and sock it in the jaw. Raise of hands--I know you all would love a version of pokemon like that. Let Ash Ketchum punch a Ratata.

Bro has informed me that Ash does do something like this in the anime. But I’m not talking about the anime, I’m talking about the video game. Give me the option to physically combat my rival. This is what I want, Pokemon.

They discover a way to break the monolith, and the show thinks we’re like actually 7 years old (because the show is Y7, although I forget because it deals with so many dark themes) so the show is going to hold on to this puzzle for a while...just to fill time. And it’s fine because we gotta switch over to Pharaoh anyway.

Yami has this dream again. He attempts to fuse with Dark magician to overcome the dream, but alas, he is still not strong enough.

Yugi wakes up in this murky cave while Tea is out washing out like...some rag? (he’s also still got a rag, so I guess multiple rags were required for how sweaty Yugi is.)

Yugi says “I feel like I’m a new man!” a lot in this episode, and every time he calls himself a man like he’s some sort of adult it’s very funny to me.

And then this plot lore dropped.

I mean I guess inevitably it had to happen...

But man, end of an era. It was freakin hilarious while it lasted: that Pharaoh refused to read ancient Egyptian because it’s like 2002 and he is a High Schooler living in Japan and he actually doesn’t WANT to resolve the mystery of the puzzle. Maybe the people who made this arc don’t know about how in S2 and S3, the fact Pharaoh couldn’t read Marik’s back tatt was like...a really big issue. He couldn’t read the God card, he couldn’t even read that massive tablet that read “HEY PHARAOH THIS IS LITERALLY YOU”. KAIBA had to tell him how to read the God card for him. Freakin Seto “Magic is a lie” Kaiba had to tell him how to use the God Card because Pharaoh couldn’t read it.

But like...Pharaoh finally gave in at some point after the world was devoured by the Leviathan, and before Kaiba finished building Kaibaland (which was already built in S1 but wtv)

The timelines on this show have always been a mishmash...but this one is just like...

...show are you trying to convince me that at any point in this show after season Zero, Pharaoh had any idea what he was doing? Did he sap that brain energy straight out of Joey Wheeler so he could do this?

Wow.

(secretly hoping he forgets how to read Egyptian after this arc is over and the show goes back to the other development team)

Pharaohs reasoning is that, if this is the riddle of the light.....

....then where is the riddle of darkness????????????

and when Tea was like “Pharaoh that is not even remotely logic. Omg it’s so bright outside, lets go back to gross cave.” and Pharaoh was like “Tea! You got it!” and she was like “What the hell are you talking about?”

Not gonna lie, I saw the Orichalcos green, and I got concerned.

Anyway, Yugi gets very frustrated and was like “ugh, lets go save em. They’re gonna die (again.)” and marches down there as if he didn’t pass out an hour ago.

And he fuses with Dark Magician again while everyone else (including his grandpa) was like “Yugi are you freakin kidding me? The suit freakin kills you omg! Tea you had one freakin job!”

And then we get the plot twist that...I mean it makes sense but it was choreographed in a confusing way.

And out of no where this guy shows up again:

So this mysterious man shows up and says “If you don’t succeed you have to live here forever” which...nice...that would probably save the world a lot of problems if Yami got locked away and took his OP puzzle with him. And then this man also says “if you do succeed you become VERY POWERFUL” and Yami was like. “...”

This whole episode had a theme to it, where Tristan and Joey were trying to prove that they could do things on their own and without Yugi’s help. And honestly...felt a little bit misplaced. Yami’s the same guy who murdered Yugi last season with the Orichalcos so like...

...I mean he is probably more reliable than Tristan who once died and turned into a robot monkey for 10ish episodes.

and then they flew into a glowing door.

Folks, this was wild to look at.

This is wild.

And at this point I closed Photoshop and thought I was done. But then I looked at my timeline on the video and was like...wait...there’s more?

and I’m really glad I kept watching because it went back to Alex, who...is apparently just still at those steps in this haunted ass Pyramid.

Now we’re watching Yugioh.

I forgot for a second when they turned Joey into a Himbo and made Pharaoh literate, but we’re back. I mean...

...look at the liner art on this adult man.

So...I posit the question...has Alex spent the last 2-3 episodes doing nothing but applying eyeliner to his face in the dark? Because he absolutely has. And honestly, the vibe of being in a spooky haunted pyramid with barely any light, just applying eyeliner down the edge of your face...that’s a Yugioh vibe, if I ever saw one.

This arc is wild. Anyway, next episode we do even more fetch quests and riddles? Just going to guess now that we probably will.

(and for those new here, this is a link so you can read them from the top. Which, since we’re in S5, means you got like...hours of Yugioh content to read through. Enjoy the rewards of my weird hobby.)

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[cherry-valentine]

Fall 2020 Anime Season:

Golden Kamuy Season 3 is, so far, just as good as the first two seasons. For anyone unfamiliar with the show, it follows a former soldier called “Immortal Sugimoto” (nicknamed so for his tendency to survive a lot of shit that would kill most people) and a young Ainu (the Japanese equivalent of Native Americans) girl as they search Northern Japan (and even parts of Russia) for hidden Ainu gold. The story is pretty wild, with threats coming from the wildlife and the harsh, snowy conditions as often as from mercenaries, assassins, and various other human dangers. The cast has expanded enough that we have several separate groups of cool, well-written characters roaming about (and they’ve shuffled a bit from season two, making their interactions very interesting). Sugimoto remains one of my favorite anime protagonists. He’s one of the more brutal, violent main characters I’ve seen, but, strangely, also one of the nicest. He’s kind to innocents (both people and animals) but will slaughter his enemies without hesitation. He’s also pretty funny. Then again, almost every character is subject to the show’s weird but endearing humor. It’s very hard to dislike any character, even the ones who are quite cruel. The show is also notable for having a lot of homoerotic subtext. The beefy, handsome men sure do love taking their clothes off and wrestling. Like, taking it ALL off. Multiple times per season. Yeah. Watch this show, everybody.

Ikebukuro West Gate Park is a new show this season that I was initially interested in because it reminded me of Durarara!! in that it’s set in Ikebukuro and features color gangs. That’s where the similarities end, however. Whereas Durarara!! had tons of supernatural elements and just plain craziness, IWGP is more realistic by comparison. The show follows Makoto, a seemingly normal guy who seems to function in a sort of “odd jobs” type of role for a color gang called the G Boys. While they’re a gang, they don’t seem like criminals or thugs, or even delinquents. They really feel more like a club, held together by their respect for the leader referred to as King. So far the series seems to be episodic in nature, with most stand-alone episodes focusing on some sort of social issue, from drug addiction to immigration. It’s interesting to see these issues presented in such a sympathetic light, viewed through the lens of Tokyo’s youth. The art is nice, with varied character designs and animation that’s just good enough that you don’t notice the problems very often. The music is a highlight, with my favorite opening theme of the season and one of the better ending themes.

Magatsu Wahrheit is a show I was very iffy on at first. It has a lot of things working against it. It’s based on a video game I’ve never heard of, the opening theme is one of the cheapest, most unimpressive things I’ve ever seen (note: it does improve a few episodes in!), and the series overall has a low budget feel (though nowhere near as bad as Gibiate from last season). But the story is actually very interesting and very well written. The basic premise is that Young Man A (I’m not remembering these weird names, sorry) works as a delivery truck driver in your usual “modern fantasy” setting (kingdoms and monsters and other medieval fantasy trappings alongside trucks and cars and advanced science laboratories). When he’s loading up his deliveries, Young Man B, a fresh recruit in the kingdom’s military and general goody-two-shoes, randomly offers to help Young Man A load his truck. Young Man B spots some boxes off to the side and, assuming they were part of the load, puts them into the truck while Young Man A is talking to his boss. These boxes turn out to be illegal weapons being smuggled by a group of... freedom fighters? I guess? This, in turn, drags Young Man A into a shit storm of trouble when the illegal weapons are discovered in his truck. It also leads directly to tragedy for Young Man B as well, setting them both on wildly different but similarly dangerous paths. The whole idea that a simple act of kindness for a stranger sets off such a terrible series of events is pretty engaging. As it stands in the show right now, Young Man A is the more compelling character. He’s just a truck driver. He’s a coward who runs from danger and wants no part of any of this. But at the same time, he can be surprisingly brave at times (usually when a child is in danger). In a twist on the usual trope, these spurts of bravery are rarely rewarded. At least twice, his decision to act has led to heartbreaking tragedy. So far Young Man B is your typical “idealistic youth realizing the military isn’t comprised entirely of nice people” type of character. As such, he’s just not as interesting. He hasn’t had as much screen time though, so hopefully he’ll grow as a character. I guess it says a lot that I’ve written so much about the show, and almost all of it is about the plot. But the plot is really the only remarkable thing about it. In this case, that’s enough.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is, well, a bit of a trainwreck. And I’m not necessarily talking about the quality of the show. Let me explain: The show was marketed as a remake of the 2006 anime, which was one of my all-time favorite series. I was pretty excited about it. Lots of new fans who had never watched the original started this one. The first episode was okay. I wasn’t crazy about how shiny everything looked (I realize the original’s visuals are a bit dated now but at least they were unique, this new one looks like pretty much every harem anime from the past five years) but the story seemed to be doing good and I looooooved the use of the original opening theme song as the closer. Then episode two dropped, and the fandom basically exploded. The first few minutes of episode two reveal that this is not a remake, but a sequel! Shock! At first, I was impressed by this little bit of manipulation. It felt exciting to realize the truth. But then it dawned on me (and the rest of the fandom) that new viewers who came to watch this were screwed over. Those first few minutes of episode two spoil some very important things from the original series (we’re talking major spoilers here), and it’s going to ruin a lot of plot points for those who never watched the original and now want to go back and watch it first. So here’s a PSA: If you’re new to Higurashi and want to try this new series, DON’T unless you’re okay with watching a sequel that spoils the original.

Okay, so now let’s talk about this new series/sequel. First, the good points: The ending theme is GORGEOUS. Just... go watch it. Soak it up. The opening isn’t bad but I can’t help comparing it to the far superior original opening. Aside from the overly shiny and generic character designs, the rest of the visuals are pretty great. The scenery in particular is very nice. In terms of story, I like the idea of beginning each new “arc” by staying close to the original story, then throwing in some pretty wild deviations that make them end in completely different ways because a character that lived through the original is trying to make subtle changes (that so far have ended up turning out very badly). When it comes to the bad points, one in particular sticks out: It’s not scary! The original had some truly unsettling moments, and so far this one hasn’t even been creepy. It’s had some moments that obviously tried to be scary but have failed miserably. For example, the early scenes with Rena in the original were actually terrifying. But I felt none of the intensity or creepiness in this sequel. Still, it’s nice to see these characters again and to see how this story deviates as someone tries desperately to change the outcomes.

Haikyuu!! has another new season and... I don’t really know what to say about it. I’ve talked about this show several times now. Looks like this season is going to focus primarily on one long match, a concept I’m not crazy about. They also made the baffling decision to cut in with a full episode about a rival team’s match right in the middle of showing the match with the main team. I mean I love seeing more of the rival teams but it felt disjointed to do it this way. Still yet, it’s a fun and energetic show full of great characters and easily understood volley ball matches.

Jujutsu Kaisen is probably the most hyped up new show this season, and I would say it definitely deserves that hype. It’s a pretty familiar shounen fighting anime setup: A teenage boy acquires special powers and joins a school to train so that he can use those powers for good. However, following that formula does little to negate just how fun and well-done this series is. A lot of people have compared it to Naruto (the protagonist is a vessel for a powerful entity, he joins a trio of characters with a more serious and moody black-haired boy and a chick, and they have a badass teacher with silver hair who keeps his face partially covered). So sure, it’s like Naruto... except it’s much better than Naruto in every conceivable way. The animation and fight choreography are consistently fantastic. The main character is not the least bit annoying. The only chick in the group (there are more cool ladies in the story, just not in this group!) is a badass in her own right and her story and motivations have absolutely nothing to do with romantic interest in any of the guys. Even the teacher character is incredibly fun. The music is great, with my favorite ending theme of the season. You know it’s an excellent ending theme when people start making different versions of it using characters from other shows. It’s so, well, fun. A word I keep using here, because that’s the first word that comes to mind when I’m watching this series.

Talentless Nana is one of those shows that’s going to be difficult for me to talk about without spoiling a very cool surprise. This surprise comes at the end of episode one (basically, the show makes you think it’s about something, but turns out it’s about something completely different). So if you want to really enjoy that surprise, stop reading this and go watch episode one before coming back. If you’ve already watched it or don’t mind having the surprise spoiled, here we go: The first episode sets up the series to be a cheap Boku no Hero Academia knock-off. We have a school of “talented” (super powered) kids training to use their powers to save humanity from (so far) unseen monsters referred to as “the enemies of humanity”. We are told one boy has no “talent” or special power and he’s ridiculed for this. There’s a new transfer student named Nana, a super sweet and cheerful girl with pink hair who has the ability to read minds. There’s also another transfer student, a sullen and quiet boy named Kyouya who hasn’t disclosed what his “talent” is. With that setup, I think a lot of people were ready to dismiss it as “BNHA, but not as good”. But then, a few minutes before the first episode ends, we’re hit with the twist that reveals what this show is really about: Nana is the one with no “talent”. She lied about being able to read minds (the boy we thought had no talent did actually have one). She’s a totally normal human being, and she has been sent to infiltrate the school and kill off the students, the true “enemies of humanity” (called so because their powers make them incredibly dangerous). Thus, the show is about a normal human girl using only her wits and skill in manipulation to kill off super-powered individuals. Watching her work is an absolute delight. She is ruthless and incredibly intelligent, but she does have one major problem: the other transfer student Kyouya, who is at least as smart as she is and is suspicious of her right off the bat. But since he’s not sure she’s up to no good, he can’t really act on his suspicions. Nana in turn knows he suspects her, so she has to be careful around him. As a result, the two become “friends”, constantly watching and outmaneuvering each other. In this way, the series reminds me of the early, best parts of Death Note, with the mental sparring between Light and L. But the most fun you’ll have with this show is watching Nana come up with ways to deal with each new “talent” she comes across, from the ability to time travel to necromancy, all while having no special power of her own. The art is nice, a bit generic, nothing too fancy. The music is great, with one of the better opening themes this season.

Moriarty the Patriot focuses on the classic Sherlock antagonist Professor Moriarty. Let me get this out of the way first: I know next to nothing about Sherlock. I haven’t even watched any of the various tv shows about him. What I know of the character basically comes from mentions of him in Detective Conan. So I’m coming into this series with no preconceived notions about these characters and no other versions to compare them to. Anyway, Moriarty as a series is about class warfare. Moriarty as a character pretty much embodies the phrase “eat the rich”. If you’re familiar with the phrase and understand its meaning, you’ll probably like this show. Moriarty works as a professor, but his side job is as a “Crime Consultant”. He helps the poor lower classes get revenge on the cruel nobles and elites who have wronged them. This revenge most often involves murder. There’s something refreshing about how unapologetic it is. In most anime, the hero tries to find other ways to punish evil than by actually killing them, or there’s some lesson involved about how revenge isn’t the answer or how killing someone who wronged you makes you as bad as them. In this series, there’s absolutely none of that. People get their revenge and, so far as I’ve watched, seem to be living much happier lives afterwards. In this way the show totally avoids being preachy. The art is gorgeous, with classy character designs and lovely backgrounds. There’s a certain lushness to it. The music is very nice as well (particularly that poppy ending theme). The only downside is that this has probably ruined me for watching other versions of these characters now. I mean, once you see them as sexy anime pretty boys, it’s hard to see them as anything else.

Carry Over Shows From Previous Seasons:

Black Clover

Best of Season:

Best New Show: Jujutsu Kaisen

Best Opening Theme: Ikebukuro West Gate Park

Best Ending Theme: Jujutsu Kaisen

Best New Male Character: Moriarty (Moriarty the Patriot)

Best New Female Character: Nana (Talentless Nana)

[bloomingundertheshadows]

This my longer ranting post about this whole fwb storyline. If you’re in the mood for a rambling rant, this is your one stop shop. 

I feel like this fwb is irrationally irritating me. I am not really sure why, but something about this plot like actually makes me angry. I know that at least part of it is because they’re making it abundantly clear that they have no real narrative purpose for Nico, and I’ve really reached my tolerance for plot lines that do not add anything interesting to the show (I’m looking at you Teddy-Owen-Tom nonsense). 

I think the other part of this that bothers me is that I feel like I was, at least somewhat purposely, duped into believing one thing about this couple only to have it go another direction entirely. I feel like I was lead to believe this was a) going to be characters that got some development and b) that we were actually looking at a meaningful relationship here. I’ve said it before that they really went kind of hype on this couple and I feel like they dropped that ball in 16B. Season 15 clearly set up character growth and conflicts for this couple, and then idek know what happened to that thought in Season 16.  And I don’t mind there being more complexities/drama from a relationship. Let’s all remember the season 1 bombshell of Derek being married. However, I feel like this storyline is almost like what would have happened if at the end of Season 1, Meredith told Derek she loved him and he was like “You know, despite the fact our relationship has been building the entire season, I think I would just like some sex.” 

Now, I know there are some valid arguments that Nico’s behavior isn’t new. And if this was Season 15 or even 16A, I would agree. The issue is that being an emotionless corpse was a Season 15 plot point that the final episode very clearly indicated would be an issue that was being actively resolve (hence complaint a) Let’s not forget that Nico was the one to come and apologize. And then we went through 16A essentially like it never happened until Justin Chambers left the show and then in literally the course of an episode he was like “actually nah, all those nice things I did for you were a lie.” The show more or less hit pause on that issue for more than half a season, and at that point I don’t think you just get to resume like nothing ever happened. Maybe it was their intent to have this seem like a natural progression from the end of Season 15, but they spent half of season 16 making them a very cute and stable couple; they made their bed, and they’re refusing to lie in it. We’re acting like Nico didn’t seem to want to make an effort about being better about you know not exploding at his partners under stress or being a completely emotionless moose. 

I’d argue that they actually could have gotten away with this whole storyline, except for one key fact: they refuse to give Nico any actual story. The devils advocate might argue that we’re seeing all these relationship problems arise right when Levi moved in with Nico. Could this be because moving in together was just too much of a commitment and it freaked him out? We’ll never know because no one can be bothered to give this poor character some screen time to turn him into more than a story-beat on the planning board. And I know some people have picked up the fact Nico’s probably lying when he said he’s fine, and you know what? If the writers actually do something with that, I will applaud them. But we’re 2 seasons into these characters, and the sliver of character growth fro Nico in Season 15 was chucked out the window in favor of whatever that closet scene was. 

If anything I think this storyline irritates me because it’s a culmination of every issue I’ve had with the writing of these two characters for over a season, and nobody has taken any steps to fix it. The weird bombshell about Nico not being out to his parents was dropped, Levi’s mom might as well have moved to France, and I feel like the writers just recon something when it no longer fits the current storyline. If I felt there was some endgame lesson to be learned from this plot or if I trusted the writers enough to make something meaningful out of this clownery, maybe I would feel differently. But I have spent enough time making mountains from molehills when it comes to the writing, and somehow I don’t foresee any big changes. They had the chance to dig into something meaty in 16B when Levi moved in. I mean commitment issues/Nico secretly maybe not actually being out could have fueled them for at least a season (and I know COVID changes things, so I am willing to concede a little). 

And look, yea, these two def have some of the more notable sex scenes in the last two seasons, but there is just a point where I’m like...is this really what we’ve reduced ourselves to? Previous storylines focused on confidence and compassion, and we’ve reduced ourselves to ‘tee-hee sneaking into supply closets to have sex with my emotionally repressed ex.’ Like really? These characters have 2 minutes of screen time, and we’ve chosen this path? After all that hype you raised about Levi’s coming out and Nico being the first gay male surgeon? This is what you’ve done?????????? Why. Also, why is the most lines Alex Landi’s getting centered around saying what an ass his character is? Like come on, guys. Could we not pull a season 6 gallavich here? 

[duhragonball]

Frieza for the character ask, please. I want to know if there's something you like!

Give me a character and I will answer:

Why I like them: I tend to divide all of Dragon Ball canon into two sections: the part that’s about Dragon Balls, and the part that’s about Super Saiyans, with DBZ Episode 66 as the dividing line.   And Frieza’s original run as the main villain (Episodes 44-120) straddles that line.  

He’s basically a bridge between those two themes.    He starts off as a villain gathering the Dragon Balls to extend his rule, much like Emperor Pilaf or Commander Red, but he’s so insanely powerful that it almost doesn’t matter if he makes his wish or not.    The only thing that gives him pause is the possibility of a Saiyan uprising, except there’s only a handful of them left in the universe, which means the only way they could threaten him would be if one of them suddenly became the strongest Saiyan in a millennium.

My favorite aspect of Dragon Ball is that it keeps raising the stakes.   Vegeta was presented as the ultimate threat, and then it turned out that his boss is the strongest guy in the universe.   And he’s treated accordingly.    It takes forever to defeat him, mostly because it’s a lot safer to sneak around and avoid the guy, and when a final confrontation happens, no one has the necessary power to finish him off.  

Somewhat understandably, a lot of fans think of him as the Final Boss of the Dragon Ball mythos.  Goku becomes a legendary warrior to defeat the strongest guy in the universe.   How do you top that?    A lot of fans think that it was a mistake to try, and I’m pretty sure that’s where a lot of this “Toiryama wanted to quit after the Frieza Saga” mythology came from.  What they’re really saying is: “I think Toriyama should have quit after the Frieza Saga, and I assume he agrees with me, because I respect him so much, which must mean someone forced him to continue.”

But I think that’s bunk, because Toriyama’s best work was built on Frieza’s vaporized corpse.    How can you keep a martial arts epic going when the hero is stronger than the strongest person in the universe?   Toriyama took that as a challenge.    The androids could be stronger than Frieza because they hadn’t been built yet when Frieza was riding high.   Cell and Trunks could be stronger than Frieza because they’re from the future.  The Supreme Kai and Dabura were stronger than Frieza, but they don’t count because they’re from other realms beyond the “normal” universe.   Majin Buu could be stronger than Frieza because he’s from the distant past.   He’s been hidden away in storage for so long that no one remembers him.    Same deal with Beerus literally sleeping through all of Dragon Ball and DBZ.    And guys like Jiren and Hit are from whole separate universes.   All Toriyama had to do was avoid introducing some ultra-powerful character who had been active during Frieza’s lifetime.     The only one that springs to mind if Cooler, although he admits in Movie 5 that Frieza had an edge over him throughout their rivalry.   

So I like Frieza for being that big milestone character.   Guys like Cell and Majin Buu wouldn’t work as well without a Frieza to set them up as extraordinary challengers.  

Why I don’t: The problem with Frieza is that his importance to the franchise has led to him becoming overrated.  He’s got this 70-episode run as the main villain, but he spends most of it sitting in that goofy chair and literally refusing to do anything, even while his soldiers keep messing up.   When he finally does take matters into his own hands, he holds back, apparently because he wants to torture his opponents as much as possible before finishing them.  

People give Goku a lot of shit for showing mercy to his enemies, but no one ever seems to notice how Frieza could have wiped out Goku a hundred times over and just... didn’t.    At least when Goku does it, you can say it’s because he’s too nice, but what’s Frieza’s excuse?  There’s a lot of big long chunks of the Frieza Saga where literally nothing happens because the good guys are too weak and Frieza’s in no particular hurry to end it.  

By contrast, you have villains like Buu, who really don’t waste time like that.    He started killing people and while he wasn’t in any particular hurry, he didn’t drag it out either.   In less than 48 hours, he destroyed the whole planet.   That’s service.   

I cannot stress enough how Cell is the superior villain compared to Frieza.  The only lull in his run was when he declared a truce to allow his enemies to prepare for the Cell Games, and they were free to attack him during that time if they wanted.    And there was a point to that.   Cell had no particular agenda, so he decided to arrange a rematch with the Earth’s fighters.  

But when Frieza wastes time, it’s for plot reasons.   He’s just really lazy and unmotivated, or maybe he’s just incompetent.    But the wider fandom sees this jackass and goes “RARRR BEST VILLIN 5EVAR!”  Nah, he sucks. 

Favorite episode (scene if movie):   For my money, the coolest thing Frieza did was when he came back as a cyborg.    He kept trying to declare victory in his fight with Goku on Namek, even after cutting himself in half, and then Namek explodes on him and he still won’t let it go.   His dad finds him and after a long convalescence he decides to go to Earth and fight Goku all over again.   

What makes it so awesome is that the cyborg parts are a silent testament to how monumentally stupid that idea is.   All this guy had going for him was his top spot on all the power level charts, and now he’s lost that and he has no idea how to get along without it.  

And this is why I hate the idea of bringing him back from the dead, because there’s nowhere left to take this character.    He lost on Namek, and Episode 119-120 was just his last-ditch effort to defy reality.    He doesn’t know how to survive in a world where he’s not the top dog, and he doesn’t survive, that’s the end of that story.    Bringing him back just repeats the lesson, only without the cool cyborg parts to remind us that this never works.

Favorite season/movie: I guess Frieza Saga by default.  It’s got some great moments in it, but it gets really thin in places. 

Favorite line: “Peace?  I... will... never... know peaaaace!”  Or words to that effect.   Whatever bluster he shouted at Goku when he tried to take that last shot at him before Namek exploded.

Favorite outfit: The cyborg look.

OTP: I guess he has the hots for Yamcha, so let’s go with that.

Brotp: Yeah, right.

Head Canon: Between the lore in the Bardock TV special and “Dragon Ball Minus”, I get the impression that Frieza is concerned with legends in general, not just the one about the Super Saiyan.    I say this because in “Father of Goku”, he sent Bardock’s crew to conquer Kanassa, and the only apparent reason for this was because of the rumors of their psychic abilities.   Frieza was likewise intrigued by the Namekian regeneration ability.    I think in at least one translation he expresses some envy of Nail’s power, implying that he would want to find some way to acquire it for himself. 

What I’m getting at is that Frieza’s so powerful that the only things he has to worry about are things that may not even exist.    The Kanassans were probably no threat to him, but he may have considered that they could be, so he wiped them out before it could come to that.   Or maybe his staff discovered a tale of the Kanassan planet being the source of their powers, so he decided he needed to control that planet before his enemies could use it against him.   

Same deal with the Saiyans.   in DB Minus, I got the impression that he’s got a whole team of researchers who check up on local folklore.   Maybe they do this everywhere he goes, and he uses this intel to decide which planets live or die.  

Unpopular opinion: Frieza’s main contribution to the Dragon Ball franchise was to provide useful genetic material for the creation of Cell, the true best villain.  

A wish:  Hit and Majin Buu kill his ass and Grand Zeno, Great Priest, and Shaggy Blanco all hold a press conference announcing that he’s dead forever and can never come back, no matter what.    He gets sent to the same turbo super hell they have in Supernatural.   

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen:  Please don’t do any team ups with old villains and have Cell take orders from Frieza.   That sucks and it shouldn’t happen.  

5 words to best describe them: Final form is a corpse.

My nickname for them: LOWARD FUREEZA.

[raccoon-wizard]

Two and Half Assholes

An entire one person (shout out to @jumpfiend) expressed their wish for me to write an angry essay about the long dead show Two and Half Men (2003-2015) and all the problems it has. Allow me to start by saying that I am by no means a professional critic and I have never really written an in-depth review of anything. But I have a lot of feelings that I need to get out about this shitshow, otherwise my head is gonna explode next time my father insists on watching it.

Just a warning, this is a very long post.

What is Two and Half Men about?

If I tried to write my own summary here, I would probably end up tearing it to shreds already. Instead, I’m going to borrow the annotation from IMDB.com: “A hedonistic jingle writer's free-wheeling life comes to an abrupt halt when his brother and 10-year-old nephew move into his beachfront house.”

That doesn’t really say much, does it now. Luckily, the same site also provides us with a wide range of plot (hahahah “plot”) summaries written by users. This one tells us a little more: “The Harper brothers Charlie and Alan are almost opposites but form a great team. They have little in common except their dislike for their mundane, maternally cold and domineering mother, Evelyn. Alan, a compulsively neat chiropractor and control-freak, is thrown out by his manipulative wife Judith who nevertheless gets him to pay for everything and do most jobs in the house. Charlie is a freelance jingle composer and irresistible Casanova who lives in a luxurious beach-house and rarely gets up before noon. Charlie "temporarily" allows Alan and his son Jake, a food-obsessed, lazy kid who shuttles between his parents, to move in with them after Alan's separation/divorce. The sitcom revolves around their conflicting lifestyles, raising Jake (who has the efficient, caring dad while having a ball with his fun-loving sugar uncle who teaches him boyish things), and bantering with Evelyn and various other friends and family. Other fairly regular characters include Charlie's cleaning lady Berta and his rich, self-confessed stalker neighbor Rose who often sneaks in to spy on Charlie.”

Now that’s much better. It gives us quite a decent picture of the show’s ensemble. At least for the starter episodes, this is pretty much what it is. But as the show progresses, we see that the characters have a little bit more depth to them. But not that much. 

Let’s start with Charlie Harper, the “freelance jingle composer and irresistible Casanova who lives in a luxurious beach-house and rarely gets up before noon” portrayed by Charlie Sheen. (Is that man still a thing?) I think we can get a lot by taking apart this brief description of him. Freelance jingle composer pretty much means that he has a grand piano in his house and we can occasionally see him playing it while trying to put together words for a commercial for some random product. And that’s it. He has a few other musician friends who are just as big of assholes as he is, but we’ll get to that later. Other than that, we don’t really see him working at all. I think there is one episode about him writing kids’ songs because his girlfriend’s kid likes them. And one about him getting an award?? I don’t know man. The second part of that statement is a much more prominent “personality” trait of Charlie’s. In nearly every episode, we see him “dating” (meaning shagging and then dumping) another woman. I have mentioned in my initial post that this show is misogynistic. Don’t worry, I will also get into that later. For now I’m going to say that Charlie treats all these women absolutely disgustingly and we’re supposed to laugh at that. On the rare occasions we see him in a long term relationship (which happens twice I think? I’m not sure now), we get the stereotypical ball and chain bullshit. The woman takes all his freedom and tries to make him better. While I hate that trope with burning passion, I have to admit that in this case, she does have a solid point. Charlie is a pathetic excuse of a man who has to count on his good looks (questionable) and his riches. By the way, where did he even get them? Does composing jingles really make that much money? Is he that good of a gambler? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen another episode addressing the fact that the answer to both of these questions is no. Where the hell did this luxurious beach-house come from??? So many questions about a show that deserves so little.

Surprisingly, Charlie is the better one out of the two brothers. At the start, we really do feel sorry for Alan. His wife (who is a HORRIBLE person by the way) kicks him out and manipulates him into still paying for everything and doing many things for her around the house. Who wouldn’t feel bad for someone like this? He moves in with Charlie “for the time being”. Soon, we realise that he is not leaving the house anytime soon. He becomes a disgusting leech, a truly pathetic excuse of a man. And he doesn’t even bother hiding it. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to feel sorry for him or laugh at him, but either case doesn’t really work if you spend at least ten seconds thinking about it. How are we supposed to sympathise with a man that lives off of others and barely lifts a finger to change it? The worst part is, the show presents it as something completely normal. We don’t really see Alan’s actions turning against him, do we? Most of the time, whatever shit he does, works just fine for him. 

Another prominent character is Alan’s son, Jake, who grows up throughout the series. A fat little boy, not exactly bright. A spoiled brat (if it’s the fault of Alan or Judith is questionable) that has everything handed to him, as Charlie points out in one episode. It’s another bad personality trait that we’re supposed to find funny. And at first, we kind of do. But once again, as the show progresses, it gets worse. Jake becomes the oldest kid in his class because he fails so many times. He only gets to start middle school because “he’s too big for the desks in his class now”. A bit of a watered down Dudley Dursley now that I think about it. It feels that the older Jake gets, the dumber he is. He eventually joins the military because he is too daft to realise. (If I remember correctly, that was done only so Jake’s actor could leave the show because he pretty much realised how bad it was.)

The main reason why I hate this show so much, however, is its way of handling female characters. There’s a few prominent ones - the aforementioned Judith, Alan’s ex wife, a cold hearted manipulative bitch, that also follows the trope of “I’m breaking up with you because I’m a lesbian” for a while, but then it’s never addressed again, not even once. Then we have Alan and Charlie’s mother, Evelyn, also a cold hearted bitch lacking any motherly instincts whatsoever that the men blame for how they turned out. Honestly, I can kind of see it. There’s Rose, Charlie’s neighbour whom he had slept with once and who’s been obsessed with him ever since, following him pretty much wherever he goes and inappropriately visiting him, usually in order to chase any woman that gets close to him away. We have Berta, Charlie’s housekeeper that I would like to believe is there to show the differences between different classes, as she has a large family to take care of, fending of her daughters’ admirers and dealing with drug and alcohol issues. But at this point we all know she’s only there so we can laugh at her struggles and the witty remarks she likes to make. 

A special category of women in this show are the lovers and girlfriends. All of them end up either leaving the men for someone better (good for them tbh), or getting left by them. But remember, we’re supposed to always be siding with the men. The women are there for us to laugh at and hate. Rose the stalker? The only reason Charlie never gets rid of her is so we can laugh as she appears unexpected on his balcony over and over again. Are her apparent mental health issues ever addressed? Maybe once, but as a joke. You know, the classic ha ha ha ha look an insane person that’s hilarious. Judith the ex wife and her flock of weird friends (that Charlie converts)? Look, evil wives hating men, ha ha ha ha. Better run away from there, men, or they’ll eat you alive! Ha ha ha ha. Judith wanting support from friends and claiming she deserves to be happy is played off as something we scoff at. Chelsea, Charlie’s girlfriend and fiancée? The ball and chain thing, similarly to Judith, but not nearly as manipulative - this one we can see really means well and wants to help Charlie, but he’s a Man™ and cannot handle that, despite claiming to love her very dearly. Lindsay, Alan’s on again, off again girlfriend? Oof. Where to even start with that one. As most of the characters (save for maybe Judith), she starts off decent, despite her inexplicable desire for Alan. (Seriously though what in the world is up with that.) Also, now that I mentioned Alan’s weird sex appeal (not to me but to the female characters of the show, ew), what the hell was up with Judith wanting to suddenly fuck him again and HIM ENDING UP BEING THE FATHER OF HER DAUGHTER???? Was that the point when the writers just said “you know what, fuck this” or?

Some additional things the men on the show did to women:

Infidelity. Aka “ha ha ha many women want man what a lucky bastard he gets to fuck many women ha ha ha oh no he’s been caught ha ha ha funny”.

Infidelity with their friends/family members. I’m pretty sure this happened multiple times. One of the male protagonists gets a girlfriend. Girlfriend has an attractive daughter. Man sleeps with daughter. Girlfriend is mad. Man claims that it is actually a compliment to her because the daughter is just a younger version of her. Man gets upset when girlfriend disagrees. Poor man, girlfriend mean :(((

Another thing I would like to point out is the show’s dumbass approach to sexuality and gender. It’s the age old, straight men bullshit that lesbians = hot, gay men = ew. We see that throughout the whole thing a bunch of times. Alan ends up marrying Walden (whom I will talk about as well) so they can scam an adoption agency. That’s just wrong, man. That’s awful. And regarding gender, the way this shitshow handles trans people is disgusting. I can currently only think of one instance of this, but I have a feeling it happened multiple times, but with Charlie and Alan. They meet a woman, flirt, sleep together, all fun and games. But for some god forsaken reason, after all is done, the woman decides to be like “yeah by the way I used to be a dude” and?? Why?? First of, why would any trans person want to tell anyone their deadname and other things after successfully transitioning? I’m a cis woman, but this really makes no sense to me. Please correct me if I’m wrong on this one, but if you’ve spent years trying to pass as whatever gender you identify with, transitioned, you wouldn’t exactly go around sleeping with people and afterwards telling them about it, would you? And second of all, the entire reason why these characters appear are so we can be like “eww he slept with someone who used to have a penis eww” and laugh as they have a small crisis because of it. Just. Why?? I am aware that this is a thing other shows do/have done as well, but it really bothers me. And even when the guy decides to roll with it, all we get are those jokes that the woman is “more manly” than him. I remember vividly Alan hooking up with a trans lady and briefly dating her, only so we can see her pick a fight with a man, pay for their food and shit and Alan being flustered because he feels like less of a man. Again, please correct me if I’m wrong since my knowledge of gender is limited, but I’m about 97 % sure this is not how it works.

One would have thought that most of this would end after Charlie’s death. His place is taken by Walden Schmidt, portrayed by the angel that is Ashton Kutcher, a “billionaire internet entrepreneur who has recently been divorced and is now suicidal” (wiki). Before I dig in to how it actually got worse, let’s talk about Walden for a while. He really is a nice change. Walden is a genuinely good character, we see him working super hard and treating women well and just being great. I actually like him. The problem the show has when it comes to him is treating his suicidal-ness as just another little joke. Ha ha ha man wants to die man weak. Funny. But as we get over this part (rather quickly tbh), things involving Walden get actually good (besides the part where he sleeps with Alan’s mother). We do see some annoyingly familiar divorce related things, but in contrast to Alan, we see Walden actually get back on his own two feet. 

Alan will forever be my biggest issue with this show. I don’t know if he gets worse or if it’s just the contrast with Walden that makes it seem that way, but he becomes a bigger and bigger parasite, exploiting Walden’s kindness, becoming a lover to his, at that point, former girlfriend Lindsay and somehow exploiting her current boyfriend? He just goes haywire is what I’m trying to say.

I’m not saying that people like that don’t exist. We see it every day, the rich playboys, the pathetic incels. They are everywhere and we totally should talk about them. But not like this. We shouldn’t feel like we should sympathise with them, we shouldn’t hate those that try to criticise them, or those who want to get rid of them. We shouldn’t laugh when they hurt people around them. Men shouldn’t want to relate to them. Characters like this should be presented as something we should avoid becoming.

“What’s your problem? It’s just something I watch to unwind,” my father scoffs at me as I complain about yet another evening we all have to spend listening to the nonsense Two and Half Men brings us. Yea, maybe for you. Maybe you know better than to treat people around you, especially women, like they’re just something you can play around with and then throw into the sewers. Maybe you give everyone equal respect. (No he doesn’t, by the way.) But you know, with the way this TV channel plays this show over and over and over and over again (five episodes a day, every day, and the second they get to the end, they just start over), there’s probably a number of young people who don’t realise how wrong it is and take what’s said there as something to live by. Maybe they’ll think that it’s okay to use people to their advantage. Maybe they’ll think like a rich entitled middle aged straight white man. That’s my problem. Even though the show ended five years ago, it still lives on our televisions and it still gives us wrong examples on how to live our lives. That’s why I hate the show. Not just the awful writing and “plot” holes. It’s the way it treats people and presents it as something that’s totally fine. 

[jippy-kandi]

Digimon Adventure tri. – Complete Series Review (English Dub)

Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna revitalised my waning interest in Digimon. So much so that I felt like rewatching tri. – but, seeing as I’ve never seen the English dub of it, I decided that would be my “rewatch”! I grew up with the English dub of Digimon, so I have a very soft spot for it. I still think the original Japanese version is far superior, but the English dub really was my childhood.

Under the cut are brief thoughts on the English voice actors, and then a lot more thoughts on the series – or, rather, just what came to mind as I was rewatching the movies. As it turns out . . . most of that was just my intense dislike for certain parts of Matt and Tai’s characterisation.

Note: I do mention Kizuna quite a bit in comparison to tri., but I don’t spoil anything (except for two lines that don’t impact the plot). I don’t think my Kizuna mentions will spoil your enjoyment of the film if you haven’t seen it.

English Voice Actors

Joshua Seth as Tai: PERFECT. He’s definitive Tai to me and he was amazing from the first movie to the last. All my dreams came true, etc. I was disappointed he didn’t return in Revenge of Diaboromon (where his replacement sounded like Joe . . .), but was happy at least Michael Reisz returned for that movie as Matt. But for tri. it was the opposite: Seth returned, but Reisz didn’t. :(

Vic Mignogna as Matt: MY EARS, THEY BLEED. He’s the actual reason I put off watching the English dub of tri. for years. I was so excited about the English dub, but then the very first promo clip of it with Matt speaking was released and I . . . it was truly horrific. He turned me off completely. And as soon as he spoke in Reunion, I had to stop the movie. BUT I EVENTUALLY SOLDIERED ON. OMG. He’s so terrible as Matt. There are a few lines he delivers that are . . . OK . . . but, mostly, he was a major miscast. I really hope Michael Reisz comes back for the probable Kizuna dub. I don’t care if they think he doesn’t have a low enough voice for adult Matt – he IS Matt to most Digimon fans worldwide. BRING HIM BACK.

Colleen O’Shaughnessey as Sora: PERFECT. Absolutely loved her, definitive Sora right here. Well, OK, I might love original Japanese kid Sora just a tiny bit more, lol. But she’s almost as great! I really wish I could’ve heard her conversing with Michael Reisz. :(

Philece Sampler as Mimi: PERFECT. It’s Mimi grown up, I’ve got no complaints, it doesn’t get better than this.

Mona Marshall as Izzy: PERFECT. Though isn’t it odd that a woman still voices him? Lol. I really appreciated that four of the old voice actors reprised their roles. I think it really helped with the nostalgia. I just wish all of them had returned.

Robbie Daymond as Joe: He was really good as Joe, but . . . he would’ve made an excellent Matt. Seriously. Every time he spoke, I kept thinking, “WHY DID THEY NOT CAST YOU AS MATT?” He just had to lose a bit of the “pathetic, nerd” effect in his voice and he would’ve made an AMAZING Matt. The voice director had no idea what he was doing.

Johnny Yong Bosch as T.K.: He made an excellent T.K., so I definitely approve. However . . . he also would’ve made an excellent Matt, if he aged his voice up a bit more. The English dub literally had TWO voice actors (T.K. and Joe’s) who could’ve voiced Matt better, but instead went for Vic Mignogna!? Seriously, what a fail. The only positive is that Matt and T.K. did sound like brothers . . . with T.K. having the far better voice.

Tara Sands as Kari: She was . . . OK. Sometimes she sounded way too old, though. She was decent enough . . . but her old voice actress was a lot better. Still, she wasn’t nearly as bad as Matt. *cough*

Cristina Vee as Meiko: Wow, her voice really annoyed me in the first two movies. But I think that’s because she was being all shy and wet blanket-y. She’s . . . OK in the end, I guess. Nothing special.

Cherami Leigh as Maki (“Hime”): I actually thought she was the most talented voice actor in the series. Her voice suited the character the most as well. I was super impressed with her. A+

Doug Erholtz as Daigo: He . . . sounds like an older version of 02 T.K., because that’s who he used to voice. It was odd when Daigo would talk with Matt, because I kept thinking Matt was talking to future T.K.. But he was fine as Daigo, I guess. (Off-topic: Japanese Daigo is voicing Japanese reboot Yamato . . . what is with Daigo and the Takaishidas!?)

Digimon Adventure tri.

I watched the tri. movies over a week. I wrote down my initial thoughts after each viewing, and then came back and expanded on them later. Because I didn’t want this post to be TOO long (even though . . . it is), I kept it mostly to my issues with the series instead of listing the things I liked. If you want, you can read my initial thoughts (including positive things) on each movie as they were originally released here. Below are my most “pressing” thoughts on a rewatch.

Chapter 1: Reunion

I still have major issues with Matt and Tai’s role-reversal in tri.. I think what annoys me the most is when a show asserts something that is simply not true. Tai saying Matt hasn’t changed at all (YES HE HAS, HE CHANGED INTO YOU AND YOU CHANGED INTO HIM). It’s one thing to just have that happen – but for a show to be obnoxious enough to SAY A LINE that is asserting something ridiculous just to put it into existence is irritating. “Matt hasn’t changed one bit.” = “Matt’s in-character because we say so, all right?” Annoying.

Matt was super aggressive and it really annoyed me. If you want to be very black and white, you’d say, “well he was pretty aggressive in Adventure”. But you’d be ignoring that he was only aggressive in Adventure in REACTION to someone else. Someone else HAD to set him off – usually Tai was pissing him off in some way, making an insensitive remark, etc.. But Tai ACTS first. Matt REACTS. But in tri., Tai does nothing and Matt just goes at him. That’s a loose cannon – and yes, there is a difference between having someone push your buttons and exploding, and . . . just . . . exploding.

Consider this example from Adventure: Matt puts up with Joe’s shit (really DemiDevimon) in the diner for a LONG time before exploding at him. Because that’s Matt. He’s an introvert who holds shit in before exploding, giving people a lot of chances and hoping it’ll work out. He doesn’t just explode unnaturally and often like in tri., as though it’s second nature to him (when it really isn’t). I really disliked how tri. devolved his character to that of the typical “brute” of the group (JUST to be Tai’s foil too, which made it even more annoying).

And, even though I haven’t seen the first season in YEARS, I still remember the “digimon graves” scene very clearly and how it characterised Matt and Tai perfectly (it summed up their ENTIRE characterisation – how their characters operated differently – in the first season). There are other scenes that present the same thing, but I think it’s THE definitive scene you need to know to have an issue with the “wrong” parts of Tai and Matt’s characterisation in tri..

They role-reversed that shit and it annoys me so much because Matt is so much more empathetic than Tai, but tri. turns him into an aggressive frat boy in Reunion and makes him lose all his perspective and observational skills -- which Adventure showed us he had a TONNE of (one of the things about him that made him my favourite character, and thus why it annoyed me SO much that they ignored this aspect of him completely to make him a “tsundere brute 9000”).

Basically, tri. got rid of the layers that made Matt and Tai who they were, and instead added “new layers” to them that MADE THEM INTO EACH OTHER. And then had the balls to ACT LIKE THEY’VE ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY – for Matt, anyway, where they had Tai explicitly state that he never changed (WTF? Not only is that obviously A LIE, but it’s also asserting that MATT DIDN’T GROW AT ALL). For Tai, he was “growing” . . . into Matt – where Matt himself had an issue with his friend being like him in the past. Yeah, seriously. What a mess.

I don’t often think characters are “out of character” (in any series – writers usually have a good grasp on their characters) – but I definitely did here.

As I once joked to a friend:

Adventure told me all the ways Taichi was going to top Yamato.

And tri. told me all the ways Yamato was going to top Taichi.

Score: 5/10.

Chapter 2: Determimation

So . . . let’s talk about the “meeting scene” where Matt gets angry that Joe never turned up because studying is more important to him, and Tai shuts him down and defends Joe by saying he has his reasons . . .

I disliked this scene a lot because I felt like, as in the first episode, their roles were 100% reversed. TAI would’ve gotten angry at Joe for not turning up (Tai prioritizes ACTION over inaction/emotions/everything else) and MATT would have defended Joe for not turning up to a digimon meeting, because he has more empathy for people and is more understanding than Tai.

I strongly felt this way the very first time I saw Determination – and I still strongly feel this way about it now. The scene was a COMPLETE role-reversal and thus why I had issues with it.

Well, guess what?

In KIZUNA a similar scene happens. After a digimon fight in the movie, TAICHI says something like “only four of us showed up!?” (read: HE HAS THE ISSUE) and YAMATO defends everyone who didn’t show up (saying something like they all have their own lives).

Oh shit, was that Tai prioritisng ACTION over inaction and personal responsibilities (EXACTLY like how he was in season one)?

Oh shit, was that Yamato BEING EMPATHETIC AND UNDERSTANDING to others (EXACTLY like how he was in season one)?

THIS EXCHANGE IN KIZUNA WAS SO IN-CHARACTER THAT I NEVER THOUGHT ANYTHING OF IT.

I only remembered it when confronted again with the “meeting scene” in Determination – BECAUSE IT WAS THE REVERSE OF THE SCENE IN KIZUNA.

The Kizuna scene is just how the characters are in Adventure/02. Tai expects people to just fight, while Matt is empathetic. (HELLO AS WELL, DIGIMON GRAVES SCENE IN SEASON ONE.)

Seriously, tri. is really annoying with the Matt and Tai role-reversal. It’s my personal biggest criticism of the series because the characters are what I care about the most in Digimon, so if you’re going to switch them up – that shit is going to annoy me. No matter how bad a story is, at least do right by the characters and keep them in-character.

And I know the (very few) people who loved Matt and Tai’s role-reversal in tri. use the excuse of “tri. showing the characters growing” . . . But, man, I really can’t get behind that. Like, no, tri. just decided to switch Matt and Tai’s roles to serve their chosen plot (which is Tai growing up and becoming more ~mature – and I get it, it’s a GREAT theme to explore . . . but it shouldn’t have happened at the expense of BOTH their characterisations).

What “growth” is it when Matt is empathetic at 11, a frat boy arsehole at 17, and back to being empathetic at 22? What “growth” is it when Tai has always been a capable leader at 11 (because he KNOWS his priorities – which is WHY HE’S THE LEADER), suddenly frozen at 17 to an exhausting extent that even Matt never reached, and back to being the same capable leader with the SAME priorities at 22 that he had at 11? Yeah, that’s not growth. That’s mischaracterisation in one series.

Why do I have such an issue with this? Because it’s something that is FUNDAMENTAL to a person. You switch this ONE thing up and, suddenly, the person is operating as an entirely different person. Matt isn’t being Matt. Tai isn’t being Tai. It’s fundamental to WHO THEY ARE, and when you fuck with it, you’re essentially presenting an entirely different person. Matt doesn’t operate like that. Tai doesn’t operate like that. And it’s so obvious that the issue is with the WRITERS either not fully grasping their characters and/or just deliberately forcing it to fit their chosen plot (at the expense of the characters).

Anyway, I just feel really justified that tri. did Matt and Tai so wrong. Kizuna is BRILLIANT for any Taichi and Yamato fan who love the characters as they are in Adventure/02. I highly recommend it if you actually want to see the characters represented as they are in Adventure/02. Kizuna does NOT come across as fanfiction, which I think tri. really, really does (especially in the first two movies). I never once thought, watching Kizuna, that the characters were reinterpretations by a fanfiction author with Toei Animation funding – which is what I regularly thought in tri..

Score: 6/10.

Chapter 3: Confession

OK, this is a very slight thing (a brief line that was meant for laughs), but I’m on a roll regarding this issue, so why not? I’ll take another opportunity to get my point across.

T.K. says that fighting is Matt’s thing . . . yeah, no. Again, I dislike how tri. took ONE aspect of Matt’s character (how he fights with Tai a lot in Adventure) and EXAGGERATED THE HELL OUT OF IT. (The exaggeration here is that the line is supposed to summarise Matt as super aggressive in the entire series.) In tri., he is a tsundere brute with a capital T. And it reduces him to such a simple person, taking no considerations for his entire character. Matt in tri. seemed to have a permanent scowl on his face, like he was always grumpy. Chill, tri., Matt actually isn’t all that grumpy.

Go back and watch Adventure and 02. Matt is actually pretty laid-back – until someone ticks him off. But it has always been about EMOTIONS with Matt, NOT random acts of aggression. I wish the tri. writers knew the subtleties and nuances of Matt’s character better and didn’t just TURN HIM INTO TAI to be “new” Tai (OLD MATT’S) foil. Thank god Kizuna put things back to the way they were. Seriously, when you watch Kizuna, you REALLY feel like Toei went from:

Adventure -> 02 -> JUMPED STRAIGHT OVER TRI. WITH MATT AND TAI’S JARRING CHARACTERISATION -> Kizuna.

Anyway, that line was in a scene meant for laughs, so . . . it’s fine I guess. (I still judge the writers.) The only real con of the movie is that Meiko comes across as a wet blanket who doesn’t deserve the sympathy from the other characters (but somehow . . . just gets it). This is the writing in the previous movies being terrible, because they never showed us convincingly why the Chosen Children would actually accept and care about Meiko so much.

On a positive . . . this is the movie that made me fall in love with T.K.. It’s also – by far – the best written movie in the series and, personally, my favourite Digimon movie ever. So thanks, tri..

Score: 8.5/10.

Chapter 4: Loss

Yokomon being a bitch to Sora and no one else is still so incredibly forced and defies logic. I don’t think anyone can argue with this. But, other than this major bad writing flaw . . . the film was surprisingly pretty good. It probably has the best pacing of all the tri. films, too. I don’t think I even looked at how much time I had left of the movie to go (which I constantly did for Reunion and Determination, because . . . zzzzzzz).

I’m pretty torn about whether it was as good as Kizuna. I think . . . it was? But only because ALL of the characters were in it.

Let me put it another way: I think Kizuna is actually the slightly better film, but because Kizuna only really had TWO main characters, it makes its score go down a bit -- to match Loss’ score, which actually is slightly “worse”. But the fact that Loss has ALL the characters in it, lifts it up a bit to be pretty on par with Kizuna to me.

But Kizuna has more of an emotional punch, so, I would say Kizuna edges it out . . . just. Loss also has more flaws than Kizuna. But, overall, Loss was a pretty good film. Well done, tri., you’re on a roll! (And then . . . you stopped abruptly, lol.)

My favourite exchange:

Izzy: “Matt and Tai are best friends.” Matt: “No we’re not!”

Score: 7/10.

Chapter 5: Coexistence

Lots of Meichi . . . and Meiko being the best she’s ever been (or ever going to be). This is the only movie she didn’t come across as a useless wet blanket. And I did really like the Meichi heart-to-heart because it was actually well written. Do I ship Meichi though? No, I don’t think so. Even though they “connected” in this movie, it still seems a bit too forced and abrupt to me and it just wasn’t enough. Plus, I really don’t know why Tai would be attracted to her . . . I think he’d be attracted to girls like Mimi.

There’s a quick scene where Matt refuses to talk to his mum on the phone. My heart, it aches. Why couldn’t tri. show him ACCEPTING the phone call? That would’ve been a neat personal growth thing for Matt, coming off of Adventure, you know? I guess they just prefer him being closed off to his mum for life . . . it’s realistic, but still sad.

I really liked Matt yelling in emotional frustration because Meicoomon needs to be sacrificed (at Tai’s insistence). That’s the first time tri. got the Matt/Tai roles right so far? Oh . . . it’s because Tai’s storyline (his “character growth”) is FINALLY starting to get resolved. You know, him reverting back to the way he always was and being the capable leader who can call shots like that? Yeah. So when their roles go back to normal, everything MAKES SENSE again.

Wow, isn’t that incredible, tri.? That the characters now seem authentic and “right” now that you’ve decided to SWITCH THEIR ROLES BACK? Amazing.

But Matt putting Tai’s goggles around his neck = ICONIC.

That’s his brief consolation prize for being the ACTUAL leader for four and a half movies. Fuck you, tri..

But my issue with Tai’s storyline – other than the effects it had on Matt and Tai’s characterisation – also has to do with bad writing from more of a writer’s perspective (in that perhaps the average viewer wouldn’t have a problem with it).

I hate “undeserving” leaders in fiction (see: Luther from The Umbrella Academy).

Let me explain.

My favourite leaders in fiction (the best leaders I’ve ever seen) are Taichi from Adventure, Leonardo from Nickelodeon’s TMNT, and Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead. Why?

Because the writing showed you through actions why those characters were the most capable at being the leader. It doesn’t just point a finger at one character and go, “There! Leader! Always!”

Good writing shows you why a character is a good leader through their actions.

Bad writing just “designates” one character as the leader (just because the title “belongs” to them), and no matter their actions, they will always be regarded as the leader simply because the writer wanted that character to be the leader.

And tri. unfortunately does the latter. For most of the series, tri. shows Matt as the most capable leader – but because Tai is simply DESIGNATED the leader (that is, no matter what happens, Tai IS THE CHOSEN LEADER just because he’s the main character) – the series needed to get Tai back to his leadership mantle that has his name permanently etched on it.

I hate that.

And this isn’t a “Matt should’ve been the leader because he’s my favourite character” thing. It really isn’t. I personally never cared about Matt being the leader, because Adventure showed me that Matt was too emotional to be the leader. And he is. In fact, someone tagged me in a post a few months back where they quoted something I’d never seen before: it was Koushirou in the Digimon Adventure novels POINT BLANK telling Yamato that he was too emotional to be the leader. I laughed, because I love it when the series justifies my opinions in actual dialogue.

Anyway, I've always thought that Matt is too emotional to be the leader and never cared that he isn’t the leader. However . . . tri. told me in the first four and a half movies that Matt is NOT too emotional to be the leader. In fact, tri. told me that Matt’s perfectly capable of being the leader – and MORE capable of it than Tai was in those first four movies.

So, my issue is, if you’re going to show me that Matt is the better leader, then . . . MAKE HIM THE LEADER? You don’t “need” Tai to be the leader; he was utterly useless for the first four and a half movies.

But oh, that’s right; because Tai is the DESIGNATED LEADER, no matter what is shown (ie. Matt being the better leader), tri. has to revert back to Tai being the capable leader.

That’s bad, forced writing.

You should NEVER give the audience the impression that someone is the leader “just because” that title belongs to them in the series. Remember, SHOW ME the actual leader through their actions (ie. that is Matt in tri.) instead of just shoving it down my throat that there is “one true leader” that the writing must get back to, regardless of how incapable that person was.

Matt constantly tries to wake Tai the fuck up to lead in tri., but . . . Why? Matt is doing a perfectly good job of being the leader. There is NO need for Tai to step up and be the leader if he isn’t capable of it. If you can’t lead, STEP DOWN. The leader should never come across as being “designated” – they should always come across as the leader through their actions. And in tri.’s case, that was Matt.

Of course, we can’t have Matt be the leader when Tai is the main character of Digimon, can we?

But my stance is, if that is the case, tri. never should have showed us Matt was better at leading than Tai in the first place. Because it comes across to viewers as Tai just being the “designated leader” simply because the writing said so . . . and that, as stated, is bad writing.

My point is: the role-reversal never should have happened.

(And it’s only when Tai disappears that we suddenly get shown that Matt wouldn’t lead as well, so that we now think -- at the end of the series -- that Tai needs to make a heroic return and be the leader, despite it being shown earlier that he was useless . . . Yeah, fuck you, tri..)

Score: 6.5/10.

Chapter 6: Future

I’m still not here for Matt “learning a lesson” from Tai. Again, the writing for this is extremely bad and contradictory.

So, basically, Matt “realises” what Tai’s perspective is (his entire issue in the first movie) and NOW understands it . . .

Except, you know, the perspective Tai had was ALWAYS Matt’s perspective BEFORE tri. started. They just role-reversed their perspectives, so you have a REALLY BAD situation where Matt realises HIS OWN PAST PERSPECTIVE . . . is the lesson he “finally” learnt at the end of tri..

Matt changed into Tai (although tri. insists that MATT NEVER CHANGED AT ALL), but throughout the course of the series – THROUGH TAI’S EXAMPLE OF BEING MORE LIKE MATT HIMSELF – Matt realises his old views (Tai’s CURRENT views) made sense, and . . . acknowledges that Tai has a point/understands what Tai means now.

That’s Matt’s “character growth” by being Tai’s foil – being taught a lesson from Tai that Matt himself has always known.

Seriously, tri.?

It’s so incredibly lame and contradictory and just incredibly bad writing.

My biggest issue with tri. (if you hadn’t noticed) was the role-reversal of Matt and Tai. Other people can justify it all they want, but it was close to character assassination to me. Matt was 80% Matt, and Tai was . . . like, 50% Tai. Yeah, I disliked Tai for half the series.

An easy “litmus test”: If tri. had simply reversed Matt and Tai’s roles – so Matt is the one super concerned about collateral damage to the point where he freezes up, and Tai is the one being aggressive and insists Matt stops acting like a pussy – no one would’ve batted an eyelid. Because that would’ve been 100% in-character and make the most sense of what those two characters would’ve done in that predicament.

But, of course, because Tai’s the actual main character of Digimon, and this collateral damage dilemma (which is a good idea to explore, mind you) was their chosen issue, they forced it onto Tai – which also affected Matt as his foil. And thus, a lot of people had issues with what it did to Tai and Matt’s characterisation. Again, thank god Kizuna righted tri.’s wrong.

Also, I have to bring this up even though I’m sure everyone and their pet fish has complained about this: The whole 02 thing is insanely bad writing. They “went missing a long time ago” and Tai and co. DIDN’T NOTICE OR CARE? Like, seriously tri., it’s not that hard to come up with a better way to get them out of the series. It’s incredibly stupid that Tai was having issues with collateral damage potentially killing strangers, while his OLD FRIENDS were missing the entire time and they had no idea where they were, but then to suddenly CARE that they were finally found in the last movie?

Just, the logic, there is none. “Oh, we forgot about them completely . . . but, now that you mention it, we’re super glad they’re safe!” Seriously. You’re asking too much of the audience to make up excuses for you. I personally don’t care about the 02 kids at all, but the handling of it was definitely one of the biggest fails in tri.. They could have written them out A LOT better.

It’s also jarring when, in Kizuna, the 02 kids are back in the fold like they’ve never left. Tri. makes it seem as though they lost touch/aren’t close friends, because they hardly care and their reactions to “Ken” makes it seem as though he’s almost a stranger to them. But Kizuna feels as thought it comes STRAIGHT after 02, because it feels like they’ve always been a tight group (read: it really feels like Kizuna ignored tri. completely).

Score: 5.5/10.

Final Thoughts

I did it! I finished rewatching tri. (technically my first viewing of the English dub)! YAY!

I mostly still feel the same way about the series on a rewatch that I originally did. I think the biggest change of opinion for me was that I liked Maki a lot more than I did when I was just watching it in the instalments with months between films. I’m pretty sure it’s because I didn’t know her character at all as I was seeing it all for the first time, so it’s easy to be quick to judge -- but now that I knew her entire character arc, I actually got to appreciate her. But her storyline still could’ve ended A LOT better – but that’s really my only criticism of it. She was a great character.

I think it would’ve been a lot better to configure Maki into “Meiko” and have her infiltrate the Chosen Children and be a villain “from the inside”. I don’t think Meiko should have existed at all, and I think the reason tri. didn’t “hit” for most fans stems from the existence of such a poor character as Meiko being central to the plot (and thus having all of the terribly written things that happen in tri., happen in tri. . . .)

I think tri. was going to get a sequel but, because it wasn’t as well-received as they’d hoped (lots of criticisms of it . . .), they dropped it and made Kizuna instead. I really think that’s what happened.

I’m glad though because I LOVED Yamato in Kizuna. He was straight from Adventure/02. He was completely in-character in Kizuna and STILL managed to show the audience that HE HAD GROWN. See tri., it’s really not that hard to do.

Sometimes, it’s hard to put into words what exactly is “wrong” with a character. (Though I tried to explain it . . .) Sometimes, you just have to “see” a character and the “vibe” they give off isn’t quite that of the character you know.

That’s what happened with Tai and Matt’s characters in tri. for me. But the “vibe” of their characters in Kizuna came across as 100% authentically them, straight from Adventure/02, BUT GROWN UP.

You just “know” the characters when you see them. It’s the little nuances in their characterisations, lines of dialogue, their actions and reactions, and you just recognise the characters as them. And that’s from knowing who they are from past series (Adventure/02). Kizuna got Yamato and Taichi 100% right.

I’m going to put 17-year-old tri. Matt down to teenage hormones. Sora was withholding sex from him and so he had a huge amount of pent-up aggression. Yeah. *cough*

I am glad tri. exists though, because I got to see Matt at 11, 14, 17 and 22. And that’s amazing.

Best Characters

Matt (despite having issues with 20% of him, he still ultimately came across as the “star” of tri. to me), T.K. and . . . *gasp* Maki. Yeah. Seriously, she was actually one of the best written characters. Such a shame about how tri. chose to close her story.

Honourable Mentions

Mimi and Sora. Izzy and Joe. (Everyone but the Yagami siblings? Lmao)

Worst Character

Meiko. By a long shot. I honestly have no idea how anyone could like her (and are not just indifferent to her) . . . but I think, like, three people do.

Scores / Ranking

Chapter 1: Reunion – 5/10. Terrible. Chapter 2: Determination – 6/10. OK. Chapter 3: Confession – 8.5/10. Excellent. Chapter 4: Loss – 7/10. Good. Chapter 5: Coexistence – 6.5/10. Good-ish. Chapter 6: Future – 5.5/10. Terrible.

I had more issues with the bad writing decisions in Future than Reunion, but a lot more happens in Future, while Reunion is just boring. So . . . I guess Future is better than Reunion – but just. My ranking of the films now (best to worst):

Chapter 3: Confession Chapter 4: Loss Chapter 5: Coexistence Chapter 2: Determination Chapter 6: Future Chapter 1: Reunion

Conclusion

Overall, Digimon Adventure tri. is a pretty average series. I liked it enough, but there were giant leaps in logic and small, sometimes huge, bad writing decisions that could’ve been avoided or done a lot better with very little effort. The quality of a series depends on ALL the parts working: having good characters, good storytelling, stellar attention to detail, great adherence to logic so that the audience aren’t taken out of the experience. This is where tri. fails, because if you have a lot of those moments, it really does lower the quality of your story to your audience, who will get tired of constantly having to suspend their disbelief.

But, despite all of its flaws, tri. did give us the best Digimon movie ever made (Confession), so . . . Yay? I’ll take it.

If you were to directly compare Adventure and tri., I think you would say that tri. had better writing overall. And I would agree. But comparing them directly isn’t fair. Why? Because Adventure was made for kids, and tri. was made for adults. And here’s the thing:

Digimon Adventure is an excellent children’s series.

Digimon Adventure tri. is an average adult series.

Sure, a lot of dumb things happen in Adventure, but you can give it a pass because it’s a “kids show”. Overall, it was still an excellent series for kids, so much so that parts of it still holds up even when you view it as an adult with better critical thinking. That’s amazing.

Tri. is the better written series when directly compared but, well, it had to be. Its writing was better because it was aimed at adults, which naturally just lifts the ceiling that Adventure had to be aware of from being aimed at kids. But tri.’s many instances of bad writing isn’t as easily forgivable, as it is aimed at adults, so when it’s dumb . . . it’s just really dumb.

So, even though tri. is technically better written overall, I still think Adventure is actually the better series. How is that possible? Well, if someone asked you to recommend a good children’s show, you’d definitely say, “Digimon Adventure”. But if someone asked you to recommend a good series, you would NOT say, “Digimon Adventure tri.” At least, I wouldn’t.

And that’s it! Well done if you’ve made it to the end. I don’t think I will ever write about tri. again. See you in the next post about the Digimon Adventure: 2020 reboot series. :)

[fae-fucker]

Zenith: Chapter 56-59

Chapter 56

We’re in Andi’s POV. She’s angsting, as usual, about how she’s a bad person and all that stuff, but now that she and Valen have exchanged apologies and everyone else is partying down, she will allow herself to get wasted and dance for real, which is significant because she only pretends to dance. With ghosts. Yeah, remember that bit? I wish I didn’t.

Andi finds herself looking for Dex Dogtective and thinking about how they used to bone good, but she’s acting all tsundere about it:

The two of them together were like Griss and Rigna. They just didn’t mix well.

We still don’t know what Griss and Rigna is, and I bet we never will! I’m assuming it’s some sort of booze, in which case ... I mean I’m no expert but some specific types of Earth booze go together. We don’t exactly know the effects of neither Griss nor Rigna or how they interact in the same system to have this comparison make sense to us.

But sure, uuh, deep sci-fi worldbuilding, I guess.

Andi asks Valen if he’s ready and that this isn’t one of their military balls and they can just “live,” and Valen is like “how does one live” and Andi’s like “lets find out together” and it’s very deep, trust me, I promise.

They see the Unified Systems flag and Valen makes a comment about “them” not deserving to be on the flag. Andi assumes he’s talking about the Olen System, where Xen Pterra is, and we get yet another exposition dump about how Xen Pterra was running out of resources and attacked the other systems for not helping. Which, and forgive me if I’ve said this before, doesn’t make any sense? Wars are expensive, resources spent in armed conflict could have been used to help out the planet instead. I dunno if Shinsay are trying to make a Statement about people in power caring more about warfare than their own populations, but I’d be very surprised if they went that route and didn’t play this as straight as they seem to be. 

Shinsay introduce yet another type of booze. Andi and Valen drink it. It’s good shit. They go dancing.

She felt weightless.

Like a starship made of glass.

... but with metal shields that pop out when it needs extra protection. See, this metaphor could’ve been good if any thought went into it beyond “does this make me sound deep?”

Chapter 57

Dex is already tipsy and he’s thinking about how hot Andi is in ... interesting terms.

Andi, with her “stab you in the balls and laugh at you as you scream” eyes.

I ... What?

Pro tip: When having a character describe someone they find desirable and you want to convey that to the reader, avoid using the word “balls” anywhere in that description.

Just some advice<3 xoxo love u

Anyway, Dex watches Andi have fun with Valen and the crew and decides he wants in on that. He approaches Andi and it’s all supposedly very sexy. He notes that she’s drunk and he’s also tipsy I guess but even though she’s “not thinking straight” his “body” wants this so they go in for a smooch when

DUN DUN DUUN

Something explodes and the chapter ends.

Riveting.

Chapter 58

The Xen Pterrans are attacking. Lon gets instantly wounded because drama. Dex pulls Andi to the ground and covers her with his body. It would’ve been exciting and/or touching if I cared. Alas.

Chapter 59

We’re in Valen’s POV. He’s having flashbacks to his torture. He’s about to get shot by a Xen Pterran when:

“No!” Valen shouted. “No! Not me!” He closed his eyes and waited for the shot. But instead, a body brushed past his. Valen opened his eyes, and the soldier was gone.

Valen tries to hide and sees Andi and the rest of the crew being all badass. He’s starting to have a severe flashback and is about to lose his grip on reality when Andi snaps him out of it with a smack to the head (don’t do this IRL) and says they have to run. Valen sees the Xen Pterran ships overhead (???) and the crest on them (?????), which is the Solis family crest. It reminds him of Nor and we get this:

A queen of death and darkness, seated upon a throne of the galaxy’s bones.

I didn’t italicize this because this entire sentence was italicized in the book. No idea why. To make it more epic, I guess?

This post is a bit on the short side because the chapters are on the short side and nothing really happens in them despite there being plenty of potential for interesting character development, so I figured I’d take this opportunity to make some observations.

The multiple POV shit is so, so bad, if you guys hadn’t noticed. I’m sparing you a lot of trouble by recapping with minimal quotes. So why don’t I think it works here?

To pull off good multiple POVs, you need strong character voices. Dex is the only character who has anything close to a character voice at all, which isn’t saying much. Lira would be next, then Andi/Nor, whose narrations sound almost identical and I’m pretty sure that’s not intentional, and then we have Valen, who has literally nothing going for him. When all of the characters sound the same and make similar observations using similar thought processes about the same events, there’s no reason for them to have their own POV.

The POV flipping takes you out of the action. I understand that Shinsay are trying to show us how the same event affects different characters, but they forget that they’re showing the same event over and over, though we don’t stay long enough with any of the characters for us to actually see how they’re affected. It ends up becoming a disjointed mess of different people describing the same event. This is not necessary and doesn’t add anything to the story, rather it removes any well-needed tension and excitement by breaking up the action.

Building off the last point, we don’t stay long enough with anyone to really get a good feel for who they are as people. We just jump around fanfic-like from different heads just so Shinsay can have their OCs jerk each other off about how cool their moves are. It’s extremely pointless. Multiple POVs isn’t just about getting a new angle on the same cool action shot the hero does, it’s about getting us closer to the character whose head we’re in.

Back on the topic of the “plot”: Did nobody, like, look up, at this festival? How would the Xen Pterran fleet already be not only in position, but close enough to the surface where Valen can see their crests? Did nobody notice the strange ships hovering above their heads? On a planet that supposedly doesn’t have a significant starfleet? Surely that’d be something people would find at least alarming?

Also, why did Xen Pterra attack the one planet that posed no threat to them in a military sense? It sounds like my question answers itself but think about it. Now Arcardia, which is famously military, will have time to prepare and launch a counter-attack. Surely you’d want to focus your surprise attack on the strongest opponent to hopefully take them out of the fight quickly and then pick off the rest? Or, in this case, hope to brainwash them into submission and then use their resources on the other allies? If I remember correctly, this was supposed to be a “test run” to see if Zenith works, but is that really a risk they can take by alerting the enemy to their new cool superweapon?

Well, except I’m pretty sure Arcardia doesn’t launch any counter-attack and barely even prepares for war at all, so I guess I’m expecting too much of ... well, all of it. 

Really need to stop doing that.

When will I learn!

[admittedlynotspartacus]

“Game of Thrones” Season VII: Episode 6 - The Enthralling Power of Complete Idiocy

WARNING: SPOILERS for the latest episode below, so if you haven’t seen it and don’t know yet who dies, who fucks who, and how much of a fucking shitshow it was, turn back now. Also Ballers is coming back. Does anybody watch that?

BEYOND THE WALL

So in case you forgot, the Avengers are still trying to carry out this worst plan ever to bag a wight and show it to Cersei, even though she has never displayed any capability for rational thought. Also Tormund wants to fuck Gendry?

Basically the whole first half of this beyond the wall shit is like speed dating between the weirdest pairs of people. Like, first we have Gendry and The Dude, and Gendry’s just like -

But the Dude is all -

Then it’s J-Snow and Jorah, and like for some reason J-Snow chooses this moment - you know, the one where they’re about to stumble upon an entire zombie army - to be like, “Yo dude, my sword is your dad’s. You should have it.”

Jorah doesn’t take it though, which is good because they’re about to fight zombies. Also in this scene, there are a bunch of Redshirts, which I know, is like totally not a Game of Thrones thing, but there they are anyway.

WINTERFELL

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the newest staff writer at Game of Thrones, who penned all the scenes in Winterfell this week.

Because Arya, who went from -

to -

is now just full on -

And Sansa’s making like everybody who spent last week on Facebook trying to explain to people why gee I dunno WHITE SUPREMACISTS ARE WRONG, just like -

BEYOND THE WALL

More snow. More speed dating. This time with the Hound and Tormund, who’s like -

Then, the Hound uses the word “Dick”

And Tormund has, like, never heard it, he’s so used to using the word “cock” or something, and then D&D literally write this exchange.

Tormund: Dick? I like it. The Hound: I bet you do. Tormund: Nope. It’s pussy for me.

Finally, they come to the arrowhead mountain the Hound saw in the flames.

And The Dude is like, “Are you sure?” And I’m kinda like, “Wait a minute. Aren’t you the guy who’s supposed to know about the flames? Why is the Hound suddenly so wise to it all?”

DRAGONSTONE

P-Dinky (remember him? He used to be a character) is having a fireside chat with D-Baby. He’s basically trying to put Varys’ advice into effect.

But D-Baby just gets real paranoid.

It doesn’t go well.

BEYOND THE WALL

Meanwhile, the Avengers stumble into this total whiteout storm, and they see some like weird animal thing in the distance. It kinda looks like a polar bear until we just see it’s got the zombie eyes. And Gendry’s like, “Do bears have blue eyes?”

Anyway, the bear comes charging at all the Avengers and we’re like, “Oh my God, this is it! One of them is gonna fucking die right now!” But then it just like mauls a redshirt.

Naturally all the Avengers are freaked out. So they literally do this -

And then it’s just like BEAR ATTACK OH MY GOD IT TOTALLY GOT ONE OF OUR BOYS oh wait no it’s just another redshirt.

And then it’s just on. The Dude and Beric turn on their fire swords like -

And down goes somebody else WAS IT THE HOUND nope, redshirt. Finally, it does just fucking maul The Dude though like -

And you really just think it’s gonna go on forever until Jorah stabs it with like the tiniest knife and it... dies...? 

The Dude is fucked up, but instead of being like -

He’s like -

But he’s still alive, because he’s not a redshirt.

WINTERFELL

Sansa’s panicking like -

Until Littlefinger seems to say, “You should have Brienne kill her.” And Sansa seems weirdly chill with it, until she sends Brienne in her stead to King’s Landing immediately after.

BEYOND THE WALL

The Dude is walking again, because there are no consequences to anything anymore, not even getting mauled by a bear. So now’s as good a time as any for the Avengers to run into the zombies. But like just a few. Who are marching around like -

So naturally because they’re crazy, the Avengers just fucking attack. And Jorah’s getting choked, and Gendry’s like “Bang bang Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” until J-Snow is just like -

And this is the part where we learn that when you kill a White Walker, all the zombies that got turned by that dude just like shut down.

But for some reason there was like a rogue zombie chilling with this group? 

Like he got lost or maybe one of his best zombie friends got turned by this White Walker and he wanted to hang out with him? I dunno, but like - they need a zombie and he’s here.

And they’re trying to restrain it but it’s basically just being all -

Until they just cover its mouth and put a bag over its head. Like, I guess that works. But it doesn’t solve the problem of the giant AVALANCHE that’s coming! And then J-Snow tells Gendry to run back to Eastwatch to send a raven to Daenerys. And Gendry’s like, ‘I’m not going!” But J-Snow is like, “You’re the fastest.”

And then. The Avengers. Book it. Right into this like frozen lake arena which is just BEGGING to be the locale for a crazy action setpiece. And they’re like running over the ice, and the zombies are just like surrounding them. And meanwhile, J-Snow is running pretty fast. Like, I don’t know if Gendry can top this speed.

Oh, yeah, also another Redshirt dies. Like, so many Redshirts die that I’m running out of Redshirt GIFs. Luckily this Redshirt’s death triggers ALL the ice around the Avengers to break so the zombies can’t get to them.

Meanwhile, Gendry is RUNNING!

Like, he packed his Reeboks. 

Or like some time has passed. Who knows. It’s morning now and the zombies are just chilling waiting for the lake to freeze again. And the Avengers are in the middle like -

Honestly, there’s a moment where it kinda looks like the Hound was snuggling with J-Snow. But if he was feeling warm and fuzzy, that all goes away when he kicks the zombie they’ve captured and it makes all the other zombies go -

Also, there are SO MANY zombies surrounding them. Like there’s the main level and then there’s literally a mezzanine. Oh yeah, also The Dude is dead. So naturally Beric Dondarrion is like -

Except like, “I’m gonna burn your body, Jack. I’m gonna burn your body.” Anyway, things are looking pretty dire at this moment, and J-Snow is like, “Daenerys is our only chance.” To which Beric replies -

And he doesn’t mean Princess Leia either. He’s talking about killing the Night King, who I’m gonna start calling the Night Queen just because. So Her Majesty is perched on a mountain nearby just like -

While somebody is banging on a piano all -

DRAGONSTONE

D-Baby is once again not listening to P-Dinky, except this time she’s wearing a very fashion-forward white coat-dress-thing. 

BEYOND THE WALL

Speaking of not making good decisions, the Hound is stir-crazy and throwing rocks at the zombies. Which is all fun and games until the zombies realize that the lake is frozen and they can fucking attack. But instead of running they all kinda runway walk toward the Avengers like -

Which is good, because it means the Avengers can pick them off one by one. Which is what they do. Also, there’s a sick violin thing happening under this part. It’s actually going pretty well. Like, they only lose one more redshirt.

I’M OUT OF REDSHIRT GIFS.

Anyway, soon it gets out of hand and the zombies are swarming, at which point J-Snow yells, “FALL BACK!” And I’m kinda just like -

Also strike that. Two more redshirts. Anyway, it gets all too much and slow-mo and everyone seems like they’re gonna die, it’s very -

But then, of course, the dragons are here, and D-Baby is just wiping out zombies like -

And she starts loading everyone onto Drogon like he’s a fucking taxicab.

And it really seems like everyone’s gonna make it out alive, until The Night Queen is just like, “Bring me my fucking javelin.” And lemme tell you, that little amulet thing she’s wearing around her neck MUST be a gold medal from her track and field days because she’s just like -

and D-Baby’s crying and like fuck I’M CRYING and there’s just blood gushing everywhere like -

And the dragon’s all-

But there is NO time to be sad, because the Queen is loading another fucking javelin and J-Snow’s just like “GO!” Until he gets mauled and falls into the water. And D-Baby’s like, “I want that D but I don’t want my dragon to die!” So off she goes.

Guys. This episode still isn’t fucking over. Because the camera lingers on J-Snow’s sword and I totally thought it was just gonna cut to black, but he climbs out of the water.

And it totally seems like the zombies are gonna fuck him up, when suddenly somebody rides in on a horse waving a fire ball. And I’m literally just like, “At this point, it can be only one person.”

Beyonce.

It’s not. It’s Benjen, who gives J-Snow his horse and then goes to the zombies like -

WINTERFELL

Phew. Sansa is sneaking around in Arya’s room when she finds her sister’s stash of creepy face masks, because apparently Arya just keeps that under her bed. Also the one face def looks like a Trump mask.

Anyway, Arya’s acting like a total creep being like, “These are my faces. I went to drama school and now -”

It’s too goddamn much.

DAENERYS’ SHIP

Forgive me, but it did feel like there was legit sexual tension between J-Snow and D-Baby in this scene. So much so that J-Snow calls her “Dany.”

If we remember, that’s what her rapey creep brother used to call her, so you know - par for the course for weird incest relationship we’re all actively rooting for. 

BEYOND THE WALL

The White Walker somehow got a bunch of chains (we’re really just pulling shit out of our asses now) and are heaving like -

And out comes the dragon. And the Night Queen just struts toward it like -

Like truly. She takes her time. And she lays her hand on the dragon like -

And sure enough, we linger on the dragon’s eye.

And we linger.

And we linger.

Until it’s just like -

Except it’ blue. Because it’s a zombie now, get it?

BODY COUNT: 9 (RIP White Walker Lieutenant, The Dude, the Dragon - was it Viserion? and 6 Redshirts) BOOB COUNT: None (is it time to retire this?) EPISODE GRADE: C+

SER POUNCE’S STRAY THOUGHTS

If somebody mentions bending the knee one more time, my head will explode.

This episode just really felt like Thrones going completely off the rails on every level. They have no time to make sense of all the plot developments that are happening, so we’re just getting random events trotted out that feel artificial. There is a world where Arya becoming a mistrusting vengeful person makes sense, but the jump was so drastic. It felt like Arya became an entirely different character overnight.

In all the chaos, I totally forgot that Cleganebowl could totally still be on.

The Daenerys scene is once more setting up the inevitable splitting of Tyrion and her. I think this has been handled pretty well, although what do we think about Tyrion making so many poor decisions? Back in Season 2, he was so slick with every plan and now he’s made several (including the one about trying to meet with Cersei) that seem unfounded in any logic, particularly when he’s the most logical of the characters.

D&D have pointed out in interviews the circle-like patterns the White Walkers make throughout the series. The overhead shot of the Avengers standoff with the polar bear = a continuation of this circle motif.

“I just got bit by a dead bear.” Same, dude. Same.

Sansa says, “Jon is not here. I haven’t heard from him in weeks.” That seems like a dick move, Jon.

“You’re faster without the hammer,” says Tormund. As if he’s seen him run both with and without the hammer. Did I miss an episode where Gendry is like an incredible long distance runner?

Confused as to why Sansa is being summoned to King’s Landing. Isn’t this just about presenting the wight to Cersei? What does Sansa have to do with this?

Regarding Pod, “He has become a competent swordsman.” False.

All this said, it does seem like Sansa has a trick up her sleeve. 

I’m also confused about killing the wights. I thought they had to burn to die, but it seemed like sword wounds and shit did them in this week. Can anyone confirm?

The dragon death did hit me, but do we know which dragon it was? The Internet says Viserion, but D&D don’t seem to even know in their after-episode interview. They just keep calling it “the dragon.”

The javelin thing was ridiculous. I know it, you know it, everybody knows it.

Yes, the Arya scene was crazy. But her offering the knife to Sansa - that’s gotta mean something, yeah?

Where’s Bran? Where’s Theon? Where’s Euron? Where’s Grey Worm? WTF is going to happen next week?

What is the show trying to make us feel with this Daenerys-Jon Snow love story? She’s his aunt, and we know this, but we want it (hell, I even want it). I feel like it’d be interesting to subvert our rooting for this, since we are always grossed out by Jaime and Cersei. Or maybe I’m looking for nuance where there isn’t any. It feels weird regardless.

So it seems like the dragon will help them bring down the Wall next episode. If that’s true, I wonder how it would be if we didn’t see its resurrection.

What did you guys think of this episode? As you can tell from the title, I was enthralled while watching it, but looking back feel like nothing that happened makes any sense at all. The Game of Thrones world has always been one subverting conventional fantasy tropes, i.e. the heroes cornered by the zombies in the middle of a frozen lake don’t heroically escape, they die. And as for that javelin, it exists solely because D&D needed the Night King to take down a dragon. 

Basically if you watched the first episode of Game of Thrones and then you watched this one, you’d think you were watching two completely different shows.

NEXT WEEK: Barack is back, Sansa makes some sort of decision, and literally every major character meets in King’s Landing.

[bonerhitler]

Death in (shonen) Anime

We all know the jokes about Krillin's many deaths in Dragon Ball Z I'm sure. But lets take a more expansive look into the attitudes towards death that many anime series, some out of date shonen in specific, have. So to start off lets delve a bit further than Dragon Ball Z.

It's an age-old trick of any fictional series to kill a character only to reveal later on that they're secretly alive. Whether it's the eternally non-secret that Racer-X is actually Speed Racer's presumed dead brother, or the question of whether or not the Green Goblin really is dead or if that's just another guy pretending to be him. On many levels it's easy to understand why a creator wouldn't want to just permanently get rid of a character they might like, or be tempted to give in to fan demand to bring back a deceased character as happened most famously with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. But what does it mean for the tone of a story when this starts happening more than once, what happens to the consequences and emotional investment of a narrative when death as a potential outcome becomes nothing?

Dragon Ball, and Dragon Ball Z as an extension, tend to be the prime example of this. For most of its run the only people who died were villains or side characters. However the titular dragon balls tend to just hang over the subject up until Goku promises to bring a kid's dad back to life and follows through. We see that death is easily thwarted but at the same time there do seem to be some limits to the power of wishes as there were efforts to keep the body intact and the dragon balls have a year between uses. Then Krillin dies.

It's a pretty big surprise when you're reading or watching for the first time, you don't really expect Dragon Ball to get that serious but here's the main character's best friend dead and a quest for revenge begins. Except it's not just revenge, is it? Because the main stated goal of the arc is the revive Krillin. Throughout the course of the arc Master Roshi and other characters die, even the Dragon from the dragon balls dies and things seem pretty dire. But then Goku just talks to god and what do you know, he can just make more. Everyone is brought back and at once, death has no meaning in this world. Dragon balls can just bring people back as they see fit, the dragon balls can be remade and there are no consequences.

Cue Dragon Ball Z. This one opens with Goku dying, which isn't a big deal because everyone knows they can just bring him back to life. There is no tension until piccolo dies and whoops, turns out if he dies the dragon balls die too. But it's okay, there are more in space. Turns out those ones give you three wishes too. What I'm getting at here is that, that first moment where Krillin died in the original Dragon Ball? That was a serious turn for the series. It had emotional weight and impact, right until the characters turn around and remember they can just bring him back to life. It's even less of an issue when Goku dies, despite him being the main protagonist, because gathering the Dragon Balls is an absolute non-issue by the time Z happens. Finding out there are more dragon balls in space that give more wishes just further saturates the issue - death has no meaning in this universe now. How can any viewer feel worried about whether or not Goku will win a fight if we know he'll just come back within a year? Even if you can only come back once with each set of Dragon Balls, apparently anyone can just make a new set on another planet. So there's no emotional investment in the show after a while, you're just watching an immortal shirtless ape-man laserbeam a weird looking alien to death on occasion.

So now that I've laid out the crux of this issue, what about other series? How do other popular big name series handle this subject? Well, it's a mixed bag. Take Naruto for example. Death was mostly permanent in that series for the first half, but in the later half dead characters just came back thanks to ninja magic and every meaningful character development and arc just started to unravel bit by bit. Even one major antagonist who had spent the whole series being slowly punished for being evil before dying, just kind of pops up as good as new and receives little more than a raised eyebrow before being shrugged off under the spectacle of zombie ghost ninja wars. Bleach had a strange problem where no one but middling antagonists ever seemed to die. By the end the only a handful of notable protagonists had died, easily less than five. In both series case death once again has very little meaning. In the former, everyone dies but comes back and dies again so it's the dragon ball issue all over again. There were so many ghosts, zombies and ambiguously sentient memories/illusions just kind of showing up so often in Naruto that the only real answer to whether or not a character was dead, was “probably?”. Bleach on the other hand, the answer was a firm “No” if they were part of the main cast. No one of popular note died in bleach and it once again took the stakes out of the fights, and interest drains quickly when that happens. The whole series became predictable in its forumla of losses, victories and how no matter what happened the protagonist would gain some new power to win at the last minute. But none of the main cast would die of course, no matter how often the author would leave that on a cliffhanger. So you knew any time they, or any of the other popular characters, were in a fight they would come out relatively unharmed and generally undamaged.

Then there's One Piece. One piece stands out from the crowd because it doesn't feature a lot of death. Most deaths occur as a show of a villain's power or malevolence, the heroes them selves almost always leave the antagonists alive after a fight. This doesn't stem from some prudish attempt at being child-friendly or anything, in fact One Piece touches on many darker themes than many of its former peers ever did, rather because the author understands the impact death can have on a work and that too much of it can weaken the impact of a well done scene. To that end, in the middle of the series it hits a turning point where a massive battle takes out and in rapid succession two important and beloved characters die. It shocked the readers to say the least, these things didn't happen in One Piece! But it did, and unlike Dragon Ball Z and other series, these characters weren't coming back and the impact of their death could still be felt through the series in later arcs. It also left a hanging axe over other characters. Even if it's unlikely that the main character will die, the fact that the author was willing to kill such loved characters without warning leaves the rest of them on shaky ground. Unlike other series, One Piece's deaths are few and far between, whether it's a background character giving drive to a smaller arc, or one of the main cast. And that is all the difference in the world between this and the series previously talked about.

For a moment, however, lets talk about the deaths themselves. Typically speaking I find you can break a death in a shonen series down into one of the following three categories.

A. Deaths for the villain's sake. These are deaths which usually serve to show how evil or strong a villain is. Rarely they're the deaths that motivate a villain to become what they are. These are deaths like Krillin and most of the Dragon Ball cast, really. Their only real purpose within the narrative is to make the antagonist of the current arc seem stronger, because they're usually supposed to be a major game-changer of a villain such as a series or season finale villain.

B. Deaths for the hero's sake.

These tend to be heroic sacrifices that give the hero more time to complete their goals, such as charging up a spirit bomb or escaping an exploding building. Sometimes it's Goku dying so he can come back stronger and fight the stronger villains.

C. Deaths for the plot's sake.

These are deaths that are, at the time at least, largely irrelevant to anyone but the narrative at hand. A conveniently dead soldier here, crashed jet fighter there. Maybe it's just an assassination that sets off the whole arc, but generally doesn't directly tie in to either the protagonist or antagonist.

In most of the series I listed above, deaths are generally in the villain category. In Bleach the only time a protagonist dies at all is when the series introduces a bunch of new characters only to have the new godly villain kill them all one by one. It comes across as very shallow and disingenuous when the only time your characters die is to make another one look better.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that One Piece is good, and most shonen series are very bad when it comes to giving death any kind of consequence or value. But if you're into a million ambiguously dead ninja or immortal god-teens then I guess Naruto and Bleach might be your thing.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z Movie 15: Resurrection F

“Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F” premiered on April 18, 2015.    Notably, it had a U.S. theatrical release only a few months later, in August.   Movie 14 got a U.S. theatrical release, but it took a lot longer, and fans didn’t really have any reason to expect that much.   In 2013, we were just waiting for Funimation to release it on home video.     But I think it says a lot about how successful Movie 14 was.    Not only did the sequel get made only a couple of years later, but the big shots in Japan who run all this stuff finally realized that there’s an international audience just as eager to pay for this stuff.   I want to say the Broly movie got released in the U.S. even faster, but I’d have to look it up.     And from what I understand, the Broly movie did even bigger business than Movies 14 and 15, so I think it’s safe to say that if they keep making more of these, we can count on a speedy localization.

Do we have Fox to thank for this?   I mean, would any of this Dragon Ball revival have happened if “Dragon Ball Evolution” hadn’t bombed so badly?    I mean, let’s say they did a good job and made DBE really kick ass, like the Thor movies.   By now they probably would have made a nice little trilogy, starring a mostly whitewashed cast.   Maybe the third one would be looked down upon, or they’d try to do a reboot like with the X-Men franchise, and people would write pointless thinkpiece articles asking stupid questions about “Dragon Ball fatigue”.    Teenage Justin Chatwick stans would be blogging things like “OMG Did you know there was a Dragon Ball Evolution cartoon?!?!?”   Maybe those live action movies would be better than Dragon Ball Super, but they’d probably also mark the end of the franchise.   At least with things as they are, there’s no telling how much more Dragon Ball content we might be getting in the 20′s.

Gee, Toei, how come your mom lets you have two logos at the start of the movie?

I just found this out last night, but Res F has the distinction of being the first movie where Toriyama wrote the actual screenplay, as opposed to just coming up with the plot and story, as in Movie 14.  I’m a fan of Toriyama’s work, obviously, but I’m don’t subscribe to the idea that anything he does is pure gold and everyone else who contributes to this franchise is ruining it somehow.   There are GT apologists who would try to argue that GT was more legitimate because Toriyama had some vague influence on the production, and he drew SSJ4 Goku once, so that means it’s magically awesome.  It just doesn’t work.    Movie 14 is better than Movie 15, and I don’t think that’s because one screenplay was better than the other, but the point is that you can’t just add more Toriyama labor and guarantee a superior product.

So there’s three big problems I have with this movie, and when I rewatched it this morning, my opinion hasn’t budged since 2015.  

First, the sole premise of this movie is that Frieza comes back to menace the good guys again.  That’s a bad move, period.   I find Frieza overrated to begin with, and they’ve already done handful of Frieza comebacks before this movie was ever conceived.    Even if it was a good idea, it’s so obvious that it’s barely worth doing.   When the DBS: Broly movie was first announced, I was worried that they were making the same mistake again, but then it turned out they had a bold twist on the character to justify the effort.   And that’s what it takes.   If you do something obvious and predictable, if you repeat an idea you’ve already used before, then you’d better have some sort of big twist to make it fresh.   Movie 15 does not have this.    It does an admirable job in spite of that flaw, but it’s a pretty serious flaw. 

Second, the visuals are bland and unimpressive.    The point of this movie is that Goku and Frieza are going to have a rematch of their epic showdown on Namek.    I just went back in my archives and pulled up a still from the Frieza Saga, and it looks ten times cooler than anything in the movie.   They were fighting on an exploding planet, surrounded by red skies, lightning, molten lava, and tornadoes.     Movie 15 boasts the same guys, supposedly more powerful than ever, but they fight like they’re in a video game, and the background is just this dismal cloudy sky.   They had 23 years to figure out how to raise the stakes, and all they could come up with was making Frieza yellow and Goku blue.  

Third, everyone acts like an idiot in this movie.  Like I said, we’ve done this dance before, but everyone just repeats the same mistakes and forgets that characters can do things that they’ve done in the past.   Sometimes I can’t tell whether it’s an honest flub, or a deliberate callback to classic DBZ.   All I know is that I remember how it went the first time, and you’d think the characters would too, since they lived it.   

Now, in spite of those issues, this film does a pretty decent job working with what it has.    It’s not nearly as bad as Movies 10 and 11, which commit these same three sins and puts the main characters on the sidelines.   But it’s a step down from Movie 14, and around the same time, Dragon Ball Super was starting up on Japanese TV, and that show was just adapting the movies for the first 32 episodes, so I was pretty displeased with the state of the franchise in 2015.

All right, let’s get started.    The movie opens in hell, which is pretty interesting, because up until now we’ve only ever seen Toei’s version of DBZ Hell.   There’s a lot of inconsistencies, like whether or not you get to keep your physical body, and whether or not hell is even that bad a place to be.   Since Toriyama wrote this thing, I have to assume this is his official version of DBZ’s Hell.    Conveniently, we find that it’s got plenty of layers to it, including a scary looking realm full of bats, an ocean full of Pokemon fish, and underneath all of that we have an idyllic meadow with pink trees.   

This is where Frieza’s being kept, and he just has to hang from the tree in some sort of testicle-looking thing.  There’s angels and fairies and a stuffed animal marching band, and it’s pretty cute, but I can see where you’d get sick of it after a while.

And Frieza’s been here for a while.    This movie is set in the year Age 779, and Frieza was killed by Future Trunks in Age 764, so he’s on Year Fifteen of his infinity-year sentence.   Has he been stuck in this particular torment for the entire time?   Who knows?   I don’t know much about Japanese afterlife mythology, but my understanding is that it’s like an even more complex version of Dante’s Inferno, where there’s all these different ordeals you have to suffer through for extraordinarily long periods of time.    Maybe they let him out part of the time so he can get beat up by Pikkon and watch Goku beat Majin Buu.  

One touch I appreciate is that he’s still in his Mecha-Frieza form.   Does it make sense for him to retain his cybernetic parts when Trunks chopped him up into so many pieces?    I don’t know, but Mecha-Frieza is my favorite Frieza, so I like the nod to that moment.  

Meanwhile, Frieza’s private army somehow still exists after all these years.  This movie calls it the “Frieza Force”, which I’m not too wild about, but I’ll run with it.   I think it’s kind of stupid to keep calling it that so long after Frieza’s death, but maybe it’s a bluff to anyone who doesn’t know Frieza’s dead.    At this point, all they have left is the name.   One of Frieza’s administrators, Sorbet, has taken charge of the whole thing, and I guess he’s done a fairly impressive job if he’s kept it going this long, but all he’s really accomplished is to oversee the slow dissolution of Frieza’s holdings.  

Funimation made a lot out of the idea of Frieza as an emperor, suggesting he was a head of state and the planets he conquered were part of a vast interstellar nation.   I think in the dub there was a comment about how the Frieza Force used to control like 70% of the known universe, but none of that’s in the Japanese version.   The original premise of Frieza is that he just has a bunch of guys fighting his battles for him, and he buys and sells planets to finance all the wine and spaceships he goes through.   I rather prefer that sort of aimlessness about his organization.    If he were like a Roman Caesar, you could at least balance out his brutality with the semblance of authority he brings to his conquests.    A Pax Friezae, if you will.  But he’s not Diocletian, he’s a trust fund baby who just happens to be nigh invulnerable.   He never cared what happened to anyone else, or how things would run after he was gone.   

Anyway, Sorbet just doesn’t have the manpower to hold their territory, and all he can do is pull his soldiers out when uprisings get too intense.    His only recourse is to wish Frieza back to life with the Dragon Balls, except he can’t find the Namekians’ new homeworld.    There’s Dragon Balls on Earth, except that’s where all the Super Saiyans live, so it’s dangerous.   But today, he’s decided there’s no other way.    To be on the safe side, he leads an away team with just himself and his aid, Tagoma.   That way there’s less chance of them being noticed by the ki-sensitive fighters on the planet.  

Sigh... this is why I hate the fucking Frieza Force right here.  It’s the same old spaceships, same old uniforms, same old plans.  Their shuttlecraft just looks like their regular ship, only smaller.    Frieza’s been dead for fifteen years, and after all this time, their biggest idea is to try to bring back LOWARD FUREEEZA SAWMA.  If that was such a hot idea, then why did he get killed in the first place?

What annoys me is that there’s probably an interesting explanation for Sorbet’s strategy.   You’d think he would be happier with Frieza gone.   He runs this whole outfit, and even if their domain is smaller than it was under Frieza, it belongs to him, so he’s richer and more powerful than he’s ever been.   But maybe he just can’t appreciate that, and he liked it better when he was a middle-manager for a big shot like Frieza.   But that never gets explored in the movie.   Sorbet just acts like he’s wishing back Frieza because he’s supposed to.  

Anyway, it would be risky to try to go through Bulma to get the Dragon Balls, but Emperor Pilaf has a Dragon Radar of his own, so they strongarm him instead.   I wonder where he got that thing.   General Copper from the Red Ribbon Army had one that was never seen again, so maybe they stole it from him?  

Meanwhile, here’s baby Pan.    I thought Pan’s appearance in these later movies conflicted with the final three episodes of DBZ, but maybe not.   The dub said she was three, but the subs said she was four.   And those last three episodes took place in Age 784, while this movie shows her being newly born in Age 779, just five years earlier.    So Pan could still be four years old when she fought Wild Tiger, and her birthday just hadn’t come along yet.   

Anyway, Piccolo’s keeping an eye on her while her parents are shopping.   

Then the sky gets dark, and Gohan and Piccolo know that someone’s wishing on the Dragon Balls, but they don’t know who or why.   Oh, by the way, there’s a big statue of Mr. Satan here, and that’s his only appearance in this movie.  

So Sorbet makes his big wish to have a resurrection... of F.   Which stands for “Frieza.”

Just like the title of this cartoon!

But Shenron explains that it would be kind of dumb to do that.   This was the thing I never understood when this movie was first announced.    During the Frieza Saga, Shenron was used to wish back everyone killed by Frieza and his men, and Kami said that this would only work for those who had died within the past year.     The implication being that Shenron can’t revive people who have been dead for a really long time. 

But Toriyama seems to have taken that into account here.   Shenron explains that he can revive Frieza, even after fifteen years, but he can’t restore all the damage to his body.

This leads to a quick flashback of Trunks killing him way back when.   I’m glad they included this, since it’s worth explaining just how Frieza died in the first place.  Trunks chopped him into pieces, then blasted the pieces.    Apparently, after all this time, Shenron can only undo the blasting and the dying, but not the chopping.  

However, the medical technology used by the Frieza Force has advanced somewhat since the Namek Saga, so Tagoma believes they could finish the job of putting Frieza back together.   Sorbet decides it’s worth a shot, so we’re off to the races.

So Shenron plats along, and a bunch of Frieza chunks fall to the ground.    I like the sound effects they make when they land.   

Creepily, the pieces try to gather together again.   I don’t know if this is Shenron’s power trying and failing to complete the resurrection, of if this is some function of Mecha-Frieza’s cybernetics.     Either way, it doesn’t work.

But the pieces are all still alive, which is siiiick.    Frieza’s eye even opens and looks at them, suggesting that he’s somehow still conscious in this state.    See, this movie still has some cool stuff in it.

Then Shenron asks Sorbet what he wants for his second wish, and Sorbet had no idea that he would get more than one.    He considers wishing back King Cold, but before he can decide...

... Shu wishes for cash, and gets it.    Sorbet’s angry about this, but he has to hurry up and return to the ship before the Z-Fighters find him.    The funny thing is that Shenron leaves after this second wish is granted, but in the Dragon Ball Super version, he grants a third wish, and Mai uses that one too.   This is why I’ve spent the last 16 years confused over whether Buu-era Shenron grants two wishes or three.   Apparently, the deal is that it’s three, unless you use one to wish a lot of people back to life at the same time.    Then it’s two.    So did Toriyama goof, or was the wish to bring back Frieza hard enough that it counts as two wishes?    It doesn’t matter much, since Movies 10, 13, and 14 all played fast and loose with Shenron as well.

So now they have to load all the Frieza chunks into a big garbage can and haul them back to their ship.  

They almost forget a piece, but Pilaf saves it for them.   I wonder what would have happened if they left that eye behind?

So then they heal the pieces in their medical machine.  I don’t know how this was supposed to work, but I assume they needed someone to stitch the pieces together, then they loaded him in the tank for a while, and then they had to take him out again, dress him up in his uniform, and put him back in to cure a while longer.   Also, they have Japanese punk band Maximum the Hormone playing on the stereo the whole time they do this.

“F” is a pretty good song, and I’m glad they put it in this movie, but I’d probably like it more if I liked Frieza more.    The story goes that Akira Toriyama heard this song, probably because the band wrote it as a tribute to his character, and the song inspired him to create the story in this movie.   

Anyway, Frieza breaks out of the tank and splashes green crap everywhere because he’s such a drama queen.   

Sorbet explains everything that’s happened, and Frieza seems mostly bemused by it all.   He’s displeased that he had to wait in hell for so long, but at least he’s out.    Sorbet mentions that they plan to wish back King Cold next, but Frieza tells them not to bother, since he apparently doesn’t like his dad that much.   This should be the tip to these idiots that this scheme will get them all killed.   

Frieza kills a guy just to see how his skills are holding up, and he declares his intent to take revenge on the two Super Saiyans who defeated him.   Remember, he still owes Goku for beating him up on Namek, but Trunks killed him before he could get to that point.    And that’s my main problem with all of this.   We already did a Frieza comeback, and it was Mecha-Frieza invading Earth in the Trunks Saga.    He miraculously survived Namek, his soldiers spent months putting him back together, and then the very first thing he wanted to do was go to Earth and kill Super Saiyans.   Does any of this sound familiar? 

Besides that episode, we had several other stories that repeated the same theme.    Movies 5 and 6 were basically the same idea, but with Frieza’s brother as a stand-in for Frieza himself.    Episode 195 of the anime had Frieza come back as part of a revolut in hell.    Movie 12 had Frieza come back, only to get killed again by Gohan.     Dragon Ball GT had Frieza come back and fight Goku.     I think Toriyama’s attitude is that he didn’t write those stories, so they don’t count, but it doesn’t change the fact that the audience still saw all of those.    By the time this movie came along, “Frieza comes back for revenge” had been done several times.   

Tagoma points out that maybe we shouldn’t rush back to Earth and get wiped out in a hopeless battle.   Again.     He suggests that it might be wiser to focus on rebuilding the Frieza Force, but Frieza kills him for his impudence, along with several other flunkies who just happened to be nearby.

At least Frieza has a reason for wanting to start with revenge.  As far as he’s concerned, the Frieza Force can’t rebuild to its former glory, not if they have to hide from the Super Saiyans the whole time.    Sorbet points out that Goku’s even stronger than he was before, citing his defeat of Majin Buu.   Amazingly, Frieza’s heard of Majin Buu, since his father once told him that he should never mess with Buu or Beerus.  

But this doesn’t worry Frieza much.  He figured Goku would become stronger, and he thinks he can as well.   Frieza was born with this unnaturally incredible power that he has, so he’s never needed to train or improve his strength.   But now, he thinks that if he does train, he can surpass Goku after about four months.   This is basically the Dragon Ball equivalent of “Why doesn’t Bluto eat some spinach and beat the hell out of Popeye?”

Here’s what blows my mind.   In the subs, Frieza estimates that he’ll reach a power level of 1.3 million.   I’m amazed that they’d even cite a power level this late in the franchise, let alone a number that low.   Frieza claimed to be at one million in his second form, so I think everyone agrees that we passed 1,300,000 a long time ago.     Hell, there aren’t any scouters able to measure that high anyway.    

Seriously, is this official canon?  It has to be right?   Toriyama wrote that line himself.   Is he saying eveyone from Second-form Frieza to Golden Frieza ranges from 1 million to 1.3 million?  So like, Perfect Cell would be 1.1 million, I guess, and Majin Buu’s 1.2?    That’s wild.   I kind of like it.  

What I don’t like is that it’s a little convenient that Frieza can catch up to Goku so easily.   It took Gokue fifteen years to reach the level he’s at in this movie, and Frieza manages to tie him in just four months?   If it was that easy, why didn’t he just do pushups for a week before he came to Earth the last time?   He could have wiped out Trunks in an instant.

Moving on, a few months later, Jaco the Intergalactic Patrolman arrives on Earth to warn Bulma that Frieza is coming to Earth with a thousand soldiers.   

I won’t get into Jaco’s whole deal, because I still haven’t read his manga yet, but baiscally he was friends with Bulma’s older sister back in the day, and Tights told him that Bulma knows the Super Saiyan who beat Frieza.     The problem is that Goku and Vegeta aren’t on Earth right now, because they’re training with Whis on Beerus’ world.   Bulma can contact Whis by holding up delicious food and calling out to him, but she doesn’t know if he’s listening.   Also, Jaco waited until an hour before Frieza’s arrival to say anything, so now Bulma has to scramble to alert the others.  

Here’s some bank robbers.    I like this bit, because in the dub, they say “We’re as rich as rich guys!”

There’s just one problem...

Krillin’s a cop.

Then Bulma calls him and tells him the bad news.    I feel like somewhere in the dub, Krillin observed that Majin Buu and Gohan could at least buy them some time, but then it turned out Buu was asleep the whole time, which was why he didn’t show up in this movie.    I must be thinking of the DBS version.     This is why I’m not big on Buu as a good guy, by the way.    They have this insanely powerful good guy on their team, and then they never do anything with him.   He slept through this crisis and the Tournament of Power, and I didn’t see him in the Broly movie either.  

Anyway, Frieza killed Krillin the last time they met, but Krillin’s got big brass balls, so the first thing he does is suit up to fight his punk ass.  18 offers to go in his place, but he wants her to protect their kid while he’s gone.  

Also, he asks her to shave his head, so he’ll look even cooler for this.

To be honest, I liked Krillin’s hairstyle in this movie, but yeah, bald Krillin is the way to go.   

As he flies off into the face of certain doom, his big brass balls clanking as he goes, 18 thinks about how cool he is.   Get you a lady who admires you half as much as 18 admires Krillin.

As Frieza returns to Earth, he goes over some details with Sorbet.    In particular, no one could find the Super Saiyan who actually killed Frieza, and Sorbet speculates that he may have moved to some other planet or died while Frieza was in hell.    Of course we know that Future Trunks returned to his own timeline, but Frieza doesn’t and never will.   This loose end doesn’t seem to bother him much, and I don’t think that makes sense.    Yes, from a dramatic standpoint, he ought to be more concerned about avenging his loss to Goku, but Trunks was the one to kill him, and I feel like Frieza doesn’t spend nearly enough time in this movie thinking about his own mortality.  

Sorbet points out that even if Frieza kills Goku, he could just be wished back to life like Frieza was, right?  But Frieza plans to destroy the Earth along with Goku, thereby eliminating the Dragon Balls and Earth’s hell.  For some reason, Frieza seems to think that Earth has it’s own particular version of hell, and the only reason he ended up in that meadow of fairies is because he happened to die on that planet.    So I guess he thinks that if he blows up the Earth, that hell will cease to exist as well?   How does he know that?   

Is that why he’s not worried about dying again?  Does he think if he dies someplace else, he’ll end up in a more favorable afterlife?   What happens if you die in outer space?    What sort of hell is Tagoma in right now?

At any rate, Frieza thinks he has all the angles worked out, and he checks to make sure Sorbet is prepared for his “emergency plan” in case things don’t work out.   This is as close as we ever get to any sort of character development for Frieza here.    The last time he went to Earth, he didn’t have a plan B, and now he does.   

Meanwhile, Goku is training with Vegeta and Whis, just as Bulma said.    Recall that Whis is even stronger than Beerus, who dominated the boys in the last movie.    So Whis can fight them both at once without any trouble at all.

But their training wakes up Beerus, so they have to explain how they pay Whis for his lessons with tasty food from Earth.   Beerus is annoyed that Whis would eat this stuff without him but he’s awake now, so he can have some of the pizza they brought over.    

Meanwhile, Frieza’s ship lands on Earth, and a bunch of his goons come out.   

Then he blows up North City, which he calls his way of saying hello.  

So it’s up to the Z-Fighters to hold the line until Goku and Vegeta check Whis’s voice mail.   Unfortunately, they’re kind of light on guys.   We have Piccolo, Tien, and Krillin, and Gohan’s here, but he hasn’t kept up with his training.   That’s why he wore a tracksuit to this party, because he couldn’t find his gi after all this time.  Tien told Chiaotzu and Yamcha to stay out of it, since this fight would be too much for them.    Okay, but why?   Frieza will blow up the Earth if he wins, so what difference does it make if they stay out of this?    At least if they show up they can help.   

On the other hand, Krillin brought Master Roshi along,   He can’t even fly!   Somehow, everyone involved in making this show decided that Roshi is cooler than Yamcha, which is stone cold, 100% false.   Master Roshi belongs in jail, and it doesn’t even need to be a fancy jail with a roof because he can’t fly out anyway.

Then Bulma shows up with Jaco to tell the others that she couldn’t raise Goku and Vegeta.   Also, she wants Jaco to help, even though he only planned to pass along the message and GTFO.     Bulma trash-talks Frieza, because she figures they still have the upper hand.   After all, Gohan’s strong enough to kill Frieza, right?   But Gohan explains to her that Frieza’s much stronger than he was 15 years ago, so none of them stand a chance this time around.

She asks Frieza to wait for Goku, so he agrees to hold off for ten more seconds, and then he sics his army on the Z-Fighters.   I bet she wishes she had told Goten and Trunks about this rumble.  

People talk about this part as the highlight of the movie, and it’s definitely one of the better parts.   It’s certainly fresher,since we normally don’t see six or seven guys battling a whole army like this.   Also, I like the approach of limiting the cast to a manageable number.   I think it’s tactically unwise to leave Yamcha, Gotenks, Buu, and Chiaotzu out of this battle, but leaving them out of the movie is worth it, if it gives Tien a chance to shine for a moment.    I’m not saying I like Tien better than the others, but we’re in a situation now where they can’t all share the spotlight, so if we have to pick one, let’s make that decision and run with it, and hope Yamcha gets a turn in a later film.

The problem I have with a fight like this is that they have all these extras floating around in the background of almost every scene, so it’s like Piccolo will do some cool spot with five or six bad guys, while fifty more just sort of stand there and watch.    The only explanation I can come up with is that the Z-Fighters are moving so fast that most of the bad guys simply cannot react fast enough to keep up.

For example, you have this scene, where Gohan zips through a whole bunch of guys and takes them all out while they look like they’re standing still.    Also, it’s pointed out several times that the Frieza Force isn’t nearly as strong or as well-disciplined as they used to be.    Hell, the next movie makes a plot point out of how hard it is for them to recruit good fighters.

Even Jaco makes these guys look like geeks, and he’s a comic relief guy.   

But he’s clever, like when he tricks the bad guys into getting eaten by a giant fish.   How did he know this thing lived on Earth? 

At this point, Sisami enters the battle, and he’s at least strong enough to give Piccolo a hard time.

Also, his shorts are a size too small, but his slutty uniform is his only distinguishing feature, really.

But Gohan steps in and turns Super Saiyan to take him out.   Not sure that was a smart play, since they’re trying to buy time for Goku to arrive.    A drawn out battle with Piccolo might have been just the thing they needed.   But I suspect this scene was intended to introduce the Super Saiyan concept to the audience.

To wit, Sorbet is horrified by how easily his best warrior went down, but Frieza isn’t surprised at all, since he’s the only one on his side who’s seen Super Saiyans in action.    He didn’t know Gohan could turn into one, but it’s the same diff.

This blue guy tries to apologize to Frieza for their defeat, but Frieza blows them all up.   I’m just pointing him out because this guy was voiced by Team Four Star’s Scott Frrerichs, which still blows my mind to this day.  Also, for some reason, I thought he played Sisima--Shisami, Sashimi... the red horny guy. 

Everyone agrees that they stand no chance against Frieza as he is now, and Frieza takes out Gohan first just to emphasize the point.   I guess this is his meta-revenge for Movie 12.

Piccolo has to use a ki technique to restart Gohan’s heart, and a senzu bean helas him after that, but they only have one left, so that won’t last them much longer.

Finally, Whis checks his messages and Goku and Vegeta hear about Frieza.    Whis can take them back to Earth, but it’s a 35-minute trip, so it’s up to Goku’s Instant Transmission.   

All right, let’s get on with this.    Frieza insists that he’s learned from their last fight, and he starts out with his “final” form, except it’s not his final form anymore, because he has a new one, so right off we see that he really hasn’t learned anything.     He wants Goku to turn Super Saiyan, but Goku doesn’t need to, and they fight like this for a while.  Does this really make sense.    Frieza came here for revenge, so why is he bothering to play-fight like this?   

Eventually Vegeta gets so bored with this part of the battle that he jumps in and starts attacking Goku.   Frieza mistakes this for a show of loyalty to him, but in fact Vegeta’s just sick of Goku milking his turn.  

They agree to put all their cards on the table, so Goku reveals his strongest form, which he calls a combination of classic Super Saiyan and the Super Saiyan God form he used in the last movie.    This eventually came to be known as “Super Saiyan Blue”, because duh, but for marketing purposes it’s still officially called “Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan” or “SSGSS” for short.   I have no idea who thought that was a good name for this.   

So Frieza shows Goku his new form, which is just his “final” form with a different color scheme.   He says he “settled” on this color, implying that he could have made it look different if he wanted to.     I like that idea, because it goes along with my contention that the Xenoverse games should let you customize transforms along with your character.   If you want your guy to turn into a Super Saiyan Purple, you should be able to, or if you want your Frieza Race guy to have a Crimson form instead of Golden, you should get to have that too.

On the other hand, this is fucking stupid.     It’s the same fight from 1990, except the characters are different colors.   This is the sort of thing critics make fun of DBZ for, and Toriyama did it unironically.   I mean, I get it, Super Saiyan 3 is just SSJ1 with longer hair and no eyebrows, but it’s the way the character is used in the story that sells the form as being more powerful.    

The problem here is that both guys have new forms at the same time and they’re supposed to be stronger than almost every other character we’ve seen before.  And yet this fight doesn’t look all that different from what they were doing a few minutes ago, before they transformed.   

On top of that, we have these really shitty CGI animations that look like they were taken out of a PS3 game.   I mean that literally, because when I watched this movie, I noticed it right away, because the way the characters move looks exactly like they do in the games I play all the time.  I didn’t mind it so much on the first viewing, but now that I’m looking at screencaps of it, it just looks really awkward and bad.    It’s fine in the games, because it’s interactive, and I can control what’s happening.    But in a movie, it doesn’t work at all, because Goku has this blank expression on his face the whole time.   Also, there’s no physics on the tails of his belt.    He’s rushing Frieza here but they’re just hanging at his hip like he’s standing still.

Seriously, who thought this was a good idea?   These shots aren’t even that long, and they don’t look that complicated, so I don’t understand why they didn’t just go ahead and use traditional animation.    I mean, the Frieza soldiers from earlier were rendered this way too, and I get that, because there were literally a thousand of them, and they wanted to have hordes of them milling about in the background.   but this is the main hero and villain in the forefront of the action.    If the entire movie looked like this, I wouldn’t have a problem with it at all, really.     It’s a “contract with the audience” thing.   If the whole movie is CGI or 2D animation, we can accept the visuals we’re given,  but once you start switching media unexpectedly, it becomes very jarring.

Then Beerus and Whis finally arrive to collect the dessert Bulma offered them.    Wait, he said it would take 35 minutes to get here.  Have Goku and Frieza been fighting for 35 minutes?

I get the joke here, that you’ve got this interplanetary grudge match playing out nearby, and these two dorks are more interested in eating ice cream, but it sort of undermines what little tension there was to this story.   When Res F was first announced, lots of fans joked that Frieza would find himself completely outmatched by the Z-Fighters.    Goten could kill him by himself.   But Toriyama introduced Golden Frieza to get around that, which means at this point, Frieza has leapfrogged Cell and Majin Buu to become the strongest villain again, to the point where he might rival Beerus if he put his mind to it.   Frieza’s a big deal again, except there doesn’t seem to be much concern over it.    Everyone seems confident that Goku can handle it, and if he can’t then Vegeta can, and if things really got out of hand, Whis could kill everyone in one hit. 

At one point, Frieza finally notices Beerus and asks him if he’s going to interfere in the battle, but Beerus insists that he’s just here for dessert, and he’s totally neutral in this.  

And Frieza seems to think he’s winning, but then Goku informs him that this Golden Frieza form has a weakness.    Frieza was so thrilled to have the new form that he rushed to Earth as soon as he discovered it, but he hasn’t learned to regulate his power at this level, so he’s going to tire out in a few minutes.   Goku should know, because he ran into the same problem with Super Saiyan 3 a few years back, and the same thing happened to Frieza when he fought at 100% of his full power because FRIEZA HASN’T LEARNED A DAMN THING SINCE THE LAST TIME THEY FOUGHT.    This movie is just so dumb.   The fact that Goku has to explain this to him again is absurd. 

Frieza thinks Goku’s bluffing, but this time the CGI battle shifts into Goku’s favor, and Frieza can’t hit the block button fast enough or break Goku’s combos.   

Then they fight underwater, which is just as murky and grey as the sky, only there’s bubbles down here.

Finally, we reach the point where Frieza’s punches don’t even work, and Goku pokes him in the tittly and punches him.

So Goku tells him to get out of here, just like he did on Namek, and Frieza throws a fit, just like he did on Namek.   This fight is the worst.  I mean, it’s not Gohan vs. Dabura levels of bad, but at least Gohan and Dabura did original stuff while they were shitting the bed.

Then Frieza signals Sorbet while he’s crying, and Sorbet shoots Goku with a ray gun to take him out of the fight.  

And this is dumb too, because it’s the same mistake Goku made on Namek, twice.   Only this time, Frieza actually got the drop on him, which is dumb because he’s basically doing the same thing Piccolo did to Goku at the 23rd World Tournamnet.   Whis even warned Goku about this overconfidence earlier in the movie.  I mean, it was forteshadowing, which ought to be okay, except when everything else in this movie is a retread of Frieza’s other appearances, foreshadowing is kind of a bad move. 

But Goku’s not the only dumbass in this movie.    Frieza decides not to kill Goku while he has the chance, and instead invites Vegeta to do it for him.   He even offers to make Vegeta his second-in-command, although his entire Frieza Force is dead except for Sorbet.   Geets declines, which isn’t exactly a shock, since he’s hated Frieza for destroying Planet Vegeta.   You know, the thing that happened forty-odd years ago that Frieza probably should considered before asking Vegeta to rejoin his team?

Instead, Vegeta tells Krillin to give Goku a senzu bean, and when Frieza tries to stop him, Vegeta deflects his attack so that it kills Sorbet instead.  

In return, Vegeta demands to take over the fight, now that we’ve come to his favorite part, the “Frieza-murdering” part.   Frieza mocks him for thinking he stands a chance, but Vegeta turns Super Saiyan Blue himself, and now Frieza realizes he’s totally screwed.    I guess he figured Goku would be this strong, but he never imagined he’d have to fight Vegeta at the same level at the same time.  

This is my favorite part of the movie, where Vegeta informs him that he learned to go Super Saiyan shortly after Frieza’s death.   Then again, why didn’t Frieza know about any of this?    Sorbet had been spying on the Earth for years, and he seemed to know just about everything else about what was going on.   Why didn’t he tell Frieza that Vegeta was living on Earth and that he was about as strong as Goku?   “Hey, look, I know you think you can handle Goku with this Golden form, but just understand that you’ll probably be fighting Vegeta at the same time, and he’ll be about the same level.”

For that matter, why did Frieza invade without checking to make sure Goku was on the planet first?  

So it looks like everything’s coming up Vegeta in this movie, although this part of the fight is anticlimactic, becuase Goku had already softned Frieza up for him. 

But then it turns out that Vegeta swallowed a bottle of idiot pills too, because when Frieza’s Golden Form wears off, he gets desperate and blows up the Earth to escape.  You know, just like he did on Namek.  At least I can sort of excuse Vegeta for this, because he wasn’t there the last time Frieza pulled this trick, except that Vegeta should have seen it coming, because he pulled the same stunt himself when he first came to Earth.

So yeah, the Earth explodes, again, which just makes the Dragon Ball Wiki that much harder to read, because they count both explosions as dates of death for every character.    Goten died in Age 774 and Age 779 and whenever else he would have died naturally.  

But all the main characters who were watching he fight are okay, because they were standing next to Beerus and Whis, who made a force field to protect them.    Vegeta’s dead, though, because he suffocated when the planet blew.   On the other hand, Frieza would have survived, because he doesn’t need air.    On top of that, he took out the Dragon Balls, so there’s no way to undo this with a wish.   

Then Whis reminds Goku that he has the power to rewind time by three minutes.   Yeah, I forgot about this.  Earlier, when Beerus woke up from his nap, Whis mentions how Beerus has a nasty habit of destroying things accidentally, so Whis has the power to rewind time and undo it if Beerus does anything especially stupid.  

So now Goku has a chance to kill Frieza properly, which he should have just done in the first place.   

KILLER QUEEN DAISAN NO BAKUDEN BITES THE DUST

So Frieza’s dead again... until they bring him back for the Tournament of Power, because for some reason fans want him to keep coming back for more of this crap.

Vegeta is understandably upset, because he thinks Goku just jumped in for no reason, but he calms down once he finds out Frieza was about to blow up the planet.

Bulma promises a big feast for Whis and Beerus for helping them, but she adds that it’ll have to wait for them to wish back everyone who died when Frieza destroyed North City.   Well, that’ll take six months, because the Dragon Balls haven’t reset since the last wish, right?

Then Goku proposes that he can Vegeta actually practice working together, in case they need to really join forces next time.   Vegeta’s like “nuts to that” and Goku’s like “same here”, so at least they have that much common ground.  

The end credits are accompanied by “Z no Chikai” or “Oath of Z”, by Momoiro Clover Z.    This song rules, and it’s really much better than Movie 15 deserves.   

In the post credits sequence, Frieza finds himself right back where he started, and the angels and fairies welcome him back to hell.    Looks like Tagoma had the right idea after all, huh?

And I guess that about sums it up.   I feel like this movie wasted an opportunity to do something truly interesting with Frieza.     You have a guy who was invincible, then he got killed and spent 15 years in hell, only to get wished back to life by his desperate troops.    This could have been a chance for him to ponder his own mortality and the futility of power and revenge.   What good does it really do to kill Goku when they both know what awaits them on the other side?   What difference does it make to escape the afterlife when you know you’ll just have to go back eventually?    You could try to have Frieza answer those questions and have him become a much more desperate and complex villain.   Instead, Toriyama just went right back to what he had already written in the Trunks Saga.  

Sadly, this looks like the final entry under the Dragon Ball Z brand.    Now that Dragon Ball Super is a thing, it looks like any new Dragon Ball stories, like the new Broly movie, will be produced under the DBS branding.    I kind of wish DBZ could have closed out on a better note than this.   

On the other hand, that Broly movie was a lot better, and even if it was officially titled “Dragon Ball Super: Broly”, I find that it’s hard for the Z to drop out of the public lexicon.   When I went to see it in January, the theater had it listed as “Dragon Ball Z: Super Broly.”  Old habits die hard, I guess.    Maybe one of these years, we’ll see the end of the Z, but not yet.