#Maybe the subtitles were wrong or they are trolling us?

[cosmothealien358]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

Y’all don’t understand- I saw the spoilers and I’m hanging onto every last hope that LEGO canonizes this despite what was (probably) confirmed in the captions. Cole being queer is actually so important tho. It makes so much sense for his character. Man’s popped up on screen in 2011 and has been covered in rainbows ever since. I could write an essay on the obvious queercoding of his character since season 1, and with Geo, it’s one agonizing step closer to switching from subtext to text. This would be a bigger step for LEGO than having queer background characters or pride stickers, but it would mean so much to its queer audience. And, again, it fits Cole, especially with his current relationship with Geo.

Please LEGO just do it, it’d be so easy, just one kiss or one scene. PLEASE.

[fuckyeaharthuriana]

Top arthurian tv shows in preference order (26 entries)

Now that “Cursed” is in the game, I decided to re-order my favorite tv shows!

This was my god tier/not good shows list:

So welcome to the slighty updated list, now with Cursed, and small explanations

GOD TIER

01. The Legend of King Arthur (BBC): BEST arthurian show ever. It is the closest to Malory. It has a scheming, pleasant, smart Morgana who still manages to be sympathetic (I was rooting for her), some very nice scheming Mordred, some heartbreaking scenes, and I cried because of Bors, so be warned. The show goes a bit quickly for some parts because it tries to tell the whole story from baby Arthur to his death, so some characters end up becoming secondary (ex. Gawain or Lancelot and Guinevere and their love, which I didn’t mind too much).

02. Kaamelott: This tv show is amazingly heartbreaking? It starts slow, mostly comedic sketches (and I am not even sure the first seasons are subtitled), but continues quite strongly by adding more and more drama. I’d suggest starting from season 4 if you are here for the plot more than the comedy! The main character is Arthur, who plays the role of the classic straight man in comedy, at least at the beginning, but ends up on a character development journey that I loved to pieces.

03. Arthur et les enfants de la Table Ronde: this animated series is absolutely adorable (and I am slowly making subtitles here). The story revolves around young Arthur (only a few know of his destiny) and his friends: princess Guinevere, Gawain, Morgana and Tristan. Mordred and Morgause are also in the show as the classic mayhem villains, and Uther is the king... and pretty awful for a kids show! Every episode is lovely.

04. The Adventures of Sir Lancelot: I am probably biased, because this was one of my first arthurian tv shows, but this is a great fun family show with episodic stories where Lancelot just saves the day! There is nothing too deep (not even the Lancelot and Guinevere story), but each episode is fun and independent from the others.

TOP TIER

05. Camelot (Starz): This show had the misfortune of coming out at the wrong time, as I believe it would be much more successful nowadays, so it is only one season. The story set up a great Morgana, both pleasant, sympathetic and ambitious, trying to kill the less charismatic Arthur (who is probably the weak point of the show). Other great characters are peppered around (a great Merlin, interesting Igraine, adorable Kay, interesting Gawain), but the show spends a little too much time on the Guinevere-Arthur-Guinevere’s husband triangle and it drags the show down. Still, all the scenes with Morgana were gold!

06. The Mists of Avalon: A good miniseries of a less good book. The miniseries ends up making Guinevere slightly more sympathetic, which helped a lot, and cutting some of the plot related to paganism vs Christianity (which also helped). The story is the classic (classic because Mists of Avalon made it popular!) Morgana’s journey, from her childhood to Arthur’s death, with some interesting wrapping up of Arthur’s destiny and Morgana desperately trying to fix things.

07. The Adventures of Sir Galahad: A very old fun show which is more like a very long movie (one single story over different episodes, I think 7? If I remember correctly?). The old age is quite prominent (the way the show handles the continuous “Galahad is in trouble... Galahad manages to escape!”), but it is still good content for the Galahad fans! Furthermore, there is a lot of Mordred too. Basically, Galahad has to guard Excalibur for a night, when the sword disappears, and Galahad has to look for it.

08. The Boy Merlin: A very underrated show, maybe because it is quite short, but this is pretty good. It’s just a season of young child Merlin growing up with his adoptive family (his mother had to give him away) and his grandmother teaching him magic. It is quite wholesome, so expect the fluffiest adorable family and young Merlin slowly learning about his own destiny and future (lady of the lake also makes an appearance).

09. Cursed (Netflix): A new tv show about Nimue (hopefully it will have a season 2) deciding to stand up and fight for her people (the fay) with the use of a mythical Sword. The Sword (cursed sword) concept is quite interesting and I greatly enjoyed that, Nimue is a bit bland as a character, but the show has some great secondary characters like Morgana, Arthur and other spoilery characters and all of them have their personal arc, as well. Also kudos for having the first queer character in a tv show with a wlw Morgana!

10. Prince Valiant (animated series): An animated series about Prince Valiant and how he arrived at King Arthur’s court to reclaim his own kingdom and name. This show is quite good, with some interesting arcs and doesn’t chicken out from rounding up the secondary characters, in particular Guinevere, Gawain and Merlin.

MID TIER

11. Arthur of the Britons: This show follows the adventures of Arthur and his adoptive brother Kay, in a very historical settings. Don’t expect medieval castles or knightly armors, but a Celtic village and Arthur going on different adventures to help his clan or fight Saxons (or compete with Kay, who is an amazing character in this show). Sadly, Ector, Arthur and Kay are the only arthurian characters in the whole show. 

12. Trollhunters: An animated series with three main parts (part 3: Wizards is coming out soon). The arthurian themes are secondary but will probably increase with the new season, and, in general, the show is quite enjoyable. It tells the adventures of human Jim Lake who is chosen to become a trollhunter and goes on various adventures to help “the good trolls” and defeat the villains, alongside his friends. Morgana is one of the main villains of the series, and Merlin instead works with Jim (but the show is not as black and white as it seems, and Merlin is definitely not a great character). 

13. The Librarians: This is another ancillary arthurian show, just like Trollhunters. It is based on the movies but focuses on new characters so you won’t need to watch the movies. It follows the adventures of a group of people (found family trope!) who have to protect The Library, a place that keeps all magical artifacts. Galahad is one of these people and a main character, and absolutely one of the best parts of the show. Morgana and Lancelot also make an appearance.

14. Fate/Apocrypha: an anime in the Fate universe, but can be watched independently from the others as this is an AU story. It follows the adventures of a group of characters who summons Servants (historical and mythical figures) to help them in a ritual war to find the Holy Grail. While the show is set in modern times, there are arthurian characters among these summoned Servants and Mordred is one of them. Mordred is a great character here and it is interesting to see the father/son relationship he develops with the guy who summoned him. Plus, there are some arthurian flashbacks from Mordred’s times!

15. King Arthur (anime): I haven’t finished this anime yet (and I am slowly subtitleing it) but I love it! It flattens out a lot of arthurian plot points, and ends up mixing them up together to get a classic “Arthur goes on a quest with his arhturian friends” story. Arthur leaves to save his kingdom after finding out he is Uther’s son, and various arthurian characters join him (ex. Tristan, Percival, Lancelot). The Arthur and Lancelot relationship is particularly interesting as Arthur initially dislikes Lancelot, as he thinks Lancelot’s family caused Uther’s demise. The second season of the show ends up.... weirdly, with Arthur joining new non arthurian characters to have some more adventures, so I won’t subtitle that part.

16. Merlin (1998 miniseries): A miniseries about Merlin, from his childhood to Arthur’s death. While extremely popular, and with some amazing actors and actresses, I cannot say I am a big fan. The story has some good points (there are some prophecies that really wrap up the plot quite nicely at the end, plus the concept of gods kept alive by worship is interesting), but the story in some parts is accelerated to get to the point, and.... all female characters seem obsessed by beauty, which was annoying. I have to say, my main point of dislike was actually how female characters are good (Nimue) and subservient, or not good and vain (Morgana, Guinevere, Mab).

LOW TIER

17. Merlin (BBC): This is probably at the same level of Merlin 1998 for me. While the story starts with mixing up arthurian character to give us an interesting begin point, and show us the journey that would lead to Arthur and Guinevere as king and queen, the show seems to forget its initial premise. Instead of a character journey we have “character points”. For example, we start with Morgana being all about justice, then we have Morgana evil, just like that she forgets all her previous characterization. Furthermore, the show doesn’t let the main relationship of the show (Arthur and Merlin) grow and the two ends up stuck in the same dynamic till the end, because the show was too chicken to actually turn Arthur into a good king and change the status quo (he remains anti magic for all the 5 years of his kindgom, while the prophecy said he would create a great kingdom??). Still, on the good side, the episodes are pretty comedic and light, Guinevere actually has a character arc, and the scenery is always beautiful.

18. Stargate SG-1 (arthurian seasons): Vary vaguely arthurian, just a couple of characters and names. Still, the show is fun if you enjoy sci fi, and you can directly start from season 7 (I think that’s where the new team comes in and where the arthurian seasons start). Still, don’t expect a lot of arthuriana.

19. Sir Gadabout: Okay, this is actually funny. This is a parody about a goofy knight called Sir Gadabout, in King Arthur’s court. The reason why it is so low is because I was a bit disappointed by the lack of arthurian themes and characters (I remember only Guinevere and Arthur), and the dvds were also hard to find.

20. Fate Zero: I actually enjoyed this Fate series more than the original Fate Stay Night, and Arthur (Saber) is a bit more of a character here than the Fate Stay Night anime. Still, minimal arthuriana.

21. King Arthur’s Disasters: Comedy/parody animated series about Arthur ending up in various troubles trying to impress Guinevere, who is a bit of a sexist stereotype.

22. Seven Deadly Sins: A four seasons anime (with the new season coming out soon) about mythical knights considered both terrible villains and monsters, but clearly misunderstood by history. These knights are partially arthurian, as there is Meliodas (Tristan’s father), Ban (Lancelot’s father) and Merlin (a woman, in this show). Arthur also makes an appearance as the king of a nearby kingdom and Merlin’s friend and protegee. The show is fun and light, but even for an anime the sexism is high (Meliodas is a horrible protagonist).

SHIT TIER

23. Fate Stay Night: The original Fate anime where Saber (Arthur) is summoned as a servant to fight in the modern war for the Holy Grail. She is the only arthurian character.

24. Once Upon a Time (only the arthurian episodes): The arthurian season of Once Upon a Time was a disappointment full of plot holes, forgotten storylines and villain Arthur.

25. Merlin’s Apprentice (miniseries, sequel of the 1998 one): Nah. Please.

26. Alias the Jester (animated series): this is barely arthurian. Watching it was a mistake.

[medea10]

My Review of Interspecies Reviewers

End of January…um, 2020

“Grrr…this day was a crap show! The republicans rat-fucked our country and Brexit fucking happened. I’m gonna write some scripts and call it a night. Let me just check Twitter one last time before I…

Huh?

FUNimation drops newly-added anime, Interspecies Reviewers?

This smells scandalous, I must watch!”

It’s very, very, VERY rare that an anime licensor drops an anime that’s currently airing in Japan and doing it weeks after announcing a full release (no pun intended), plus a friggin’ English dub. And where there’s controversy, I will be there to sniff it out…eventually. I think I can squeeze one more anime to watch on a week-by-week basis. Hell, I shoved Domestic Girlfriend in at last minute in 2019 right in the middle of moving to a different state. I think I can handle a little anime like this. What could possibly go wr…?!

*one week later*

Oh fluffies! This escalated quickly!

So…Interspecies Reviewers is about a human name Stunk and an elf named Zel. They go around to brothels, spend some time with the ladies of the evening known as Succu-girls (because these girls suck you), and review their “encounter” with them for a tavern full of curious males. Stunk and Zel want to go around and conquer as many species, discovering all new kinks and fetishes, fondle all kinds of jiggly-bits and naughty bits from cow-girls, cat-girls, skeleton girls, succubis, fire salamanders girls, elves, fairies, slimes, demons, bird-maidens, cyclops, and oh-so many others. This is a vast world and there’s only so many brothels these men can tackle at a time.

Oh yeah, there’s also an angel named Crim. Stunk and Zel saved Crim, but Crim can’t go back to Heaven since his halo is busted. Although now, I doubt if he’ll ever get entry back into Heaven after being defiled by a cat-woman. I mean who among us haven’t lost our virginity to a cat-eared girl on a whim?

*ahem*

R.I.P. Crim’s virginity

So there you have it! A human, an elf, and an angel walk into a brothel and…that’s the anime!

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUUUUUU…..UH-OH: The sub was fine and I’m gonna leave it there with the subtitle version. As for the dub…What dub? There’s no dub! Dubs are just a myth here! Like I said before, FUNimation DID have this series. Emphasis on “DID”! They released the first 3 episodes in their normal week-by-week fashion, no worries there. They promised an English dub and released one episode dubbed, sounds about right! But then one night, they just drop this series!

Funimation on Jan. 31: After careful consideration, we determined that this series falls outside of our standards. We have the utmost respect for our creators so rather than substantially alter the content, we felt taking it down was the most respectful choice.

*sighs*

BOI!

Did you, FUNimation? Or was it Sony pulling the strings? But I’m getting ahead of myself here. A wide variety of things could have sprung this on! One reason could be that the voice actors felt uncomfortable with the material. I know some voice actors from FUNimation are a little skeptical here and if they voice something that’s borderline Hentai or IS HENTAI, they’ll use an alias name so that no one would be the wiser. I know it’s a job and money’s on the table here, but people are people. They have morals and boundaries! Not everyone can have the bravery to voice act in a Hentai like Dan Green (he totally did, you should look it up).

Another theory, Sony and/or FUNimation were being cautious and don’t want to air something so extreme in the naughty department. But if that were the case, how do you account for your full releases of High School DxD, Panty & Stocking, Conception, Keijo!!!!!!!!, Shimoneta, My Girlfriend is a Gal, and A Sister is All You Need? Then again, these animes were made and released prior to Sony buying FUNimation. But as of recent, FUNimation is streaming works from Aniplex of America that are kinda questionable. Where I’m going with this is that weeks after dropping Interspecies Reviewers, they add shows like Nisemonogatari AND Eromanga Sensei to their site. Ahem! Guys, where were those “STANDARDS” you were talking about earlier? Eromanga Sensei is downright illegal! Then again, none of these titles really reached full-blown bestiality like this series does! I mean, Sentai Filmworks happily released Monster Musume and that was borderline bestiality. But whatever, you guys do you!

Then again, no series has gone the distance by having several sex scenes per episode with the uncensored version going beyond the boundary quite like this.

Yeah…in this “woke AF” time we’re living in, if an anime doesn’t have an advisory stated at the beginning of an episode with lewd or controversial scenes, people lose their shit. Hence, Goblin Slayer’s debut and that one Sword Art Online episode! Whatever the case, now that FUNimation dropped this series, I don’t expect it to get picked up by any other licensor and it’ll probably remain in license limbo forever. There were a few voice actors set up to be in this anime including Monica Rial, Brittney Karbowski, and Amber Lee Connors. Only one episode was dubbed and good luck finding it now! But after this, I doubt these folks would ever finish what they started. And that’s a shame, because FUNimation voice actors have a knack for turning an anime dirty. Especially if you hire Monica Rial or Jamie Marchi (or both)!

I know every season, there’s a fight between American licensors in what animes they’re going to grab and show to their subscribers. FUNimation really could have taken a few extra minutes to do a little research on this one before jumping in a pool where the water is replaced by naked half-species chicks. For fuck’s sake, there’s a manga to this! Although, I’ve heard that the manga doesn’t even go this far! So this is disproving my rant! Let me just finish by saying that FUNimation really fucked up here. You could have streamed the series censored, have an age confirmation to watch the uncensored version, and then release that later down the line! But dropping Interspecies Reviewers has unleashed a fury of pissed off viewers who ended up trolling MyAnimeList and other websites. Yeah, thanks a lot! Those were some idiotic days on the internet! With all of that said, here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

*Stunk is played by Junji Majima (known for Ryuji on Toradora, Ryuunousuke on Assassination Classroom, Kimihito on Monster Musume, Nikaido on Shugo Chara, Racer on Fairy Tail, and Kouhei on Oreimo)

*Zel is played by Yuusuke Kobayashi (known for Subaru on ReZero, Tanukichi on Shimoneta, Arthur on Fire Force, and Marui on Food Wars)

*Crim is played by Miyu Tomita

FAVORITE CHARACTER: God bless this boy, I love Crim.

I know he’s got the short end of the stick in a lot of these reviews. But there’s nothing short about his stick if you get what I’m saying.

Yeah, I said it.

SHIPPING: DO STD’S EXIST IN THIS FUCKING WORLD?!

Look, all you need to know is that real love is not gonna happen in this franchise and just fuck it! Literally!

Actually, I really think the boys have a special place in their hearts for Meidri. I’m only basing this on episode 6 where the boys go to the Golem brothel to “Build-a-Bitch” and out of all the figures, ladies, and ways to build a bitch, their little Halfling friend builds a golem replica of Meidri. Maybe it’s because she’s familiar or they’re curious in case they end up having sex with Meidri in the future or if the Halfling has a thing for Meidri! I just know all four boys ended up fucking a golem in the likeness of Meidri AND gave it a great score.

But aside from that, there’s really nothing more to say except Stunk has a thing for that 500 year old fairy and Zel has a thing for a 60+ year old human.

IT’S FUN TO STAY AT THE…: It’s obvious that Japan has a thing for music made outside of the country. Especially those made in America (and England)! Recent examples are animes like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Eden of the East, and A Silent Voice actually using songs from groups like The Bangles, Oasis, and The Who. THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE TIMES!

The OP song for this series is literally Y.M.C.A. except about getting your dick up to fuck!

And you know what? That was another missed fucking opportunity for FUNimation! This song could have gotten an English dub. Normally I despise it when English companies give an English dub to perfectly good opening and endings from Japan. But this would have been the ONE exception. GOD! Only in my dreams!

OH THIS IS WRONG: I don’t mean aspects of this anime! I’ve gotten used to the sex scenes and the shock factor of watching actual hentai at this point. Surprisingly, the one thing that got my feathers ruffled is at the end of some of the episodes where we get a small segment from a gentleman named Professor Ookina or Professor Poke if you will.

LOOK AT THIS FUCKING MAN!

Pokemon, why haven’t you sued yet? This is a sexual version of Professor Oak’s end-of-the-episode lectures. Unshou Ishizuka’s probably rolling over in his grave either from laughter, disgust, or that he didn’t live long enough to voice this colorful character. I haven’t settled on which to believe in!

ENDING: The last few episodes we saw a few interesting storylines. For one, we’ve got one brothel where all four adventurers gave the ladies a unanimous 10/10. Spend three days with the clones of a powerful woman and just all-around perfect scores. That is just unheard of! Even in the anime reviewing community, a perfect anime doesn’t exist. So stop trying to turn Interspecies Reviewers into the next Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. OKAY?! Not gonna happen! Just stop it! Stop it.

Then we had a gentleman who has generously been giving previous ladies of the evening perfect scores. This dude loves the ladies and sees the positives in all of them giving them all a perfect score. And I guess that does bring up a good point here.

Different strokes for different blokes! Not everyone is going to have the same taste as you. Stunk might have a thing for 500-year old fairies while Zel finds her old and disgusting. Zel might have a thing for Mitsue while Stunk finds banging 60-year old human whores repulsive. That’s where reviewers come in. They say the good and the bad when it comes to reviewing (insert profession here). In the case of this series, the boys have different tastes and when going to a foreign brothel, some of the ladies customs might confuse and weird out the boys. But in most cases, they had fun (except that afternoon watching girls laid eggs). So I’m glad Stunk and Zel found fault with the dude who gives 10/10’s like candy.

The final episode felt a little nostalgic as we revisit a race we haven’t seen since episode 2. Stunk and Zel find a business card for a demon brothel. They WERE supposed to go over and review the demon girls...

...but got side-tracked by the big-tit cowgirls.

Better late than never, but at least the demon brothel got some decent reviews by the boys. Good since demons are rated quite low in what men want to bang.

Then, the boys celebrate New Years by hitting up a good brothel to start the New Year off right. You know, start it off with a bang! It’s just that a lot of the popular brothels and Stunk’s regular hangouts are all booked up for the night. Lot of horny John’s on New Years! So the boys end up in a dream eater brothel. These girls take on the form of their dream succu-girl and believe it or not, the reviewers were very pleased. Almost like a pleasant dream!

Now conclusion wise, we really didn’t get Crim’s halo fixed nor did we go to Heaven to see Zel and Stunk get it on with some freaky angels. Instead, we get the same intro we got in episode one, reminding us that there are a barrage of brothels out there in this world and a bunch of succu-girls ready to suck your dicks off. And as long as we have succu-girls and brothels, there will always be reviewers like Stunk, Zel, and Crim to bust a nut! And I think Stunk is now going to visit his father’s harem now. Yeah, his old man has a harem. So there’s that! Too bad we’re not going to see that story.

I got to say…this wasn’t all that bad. In fact, I really liked this anime. And I’m usually rough on borderline-Hentai programs (and not in the good way). I am impressed at the creative way these men review these ladies and the brothels they work in. As an anime reviewer, I have to admire this. To take it all in with how these guys approach something such as having a one-night stand with a succu-girl! Each episode was a new experience with a new lady, sometimes two new brothels in the same episode. After their nights with a succu-girl, their reviews…actually, it’s best to watch it instead of taking my word for it.

NOW THEN! This is by no means on Top-Tier levels of Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. So you people on MyAnimeList better knock it the fuck off! Yes, FUNimation dropped the ball by dropping this series when they’ve clearly licensed and dubbed WORSE. But owning them this way is just going to come off as weird when we look back at this years later and laugh. On top of which, FUNimation wasn’t the only one that dropped Interspecies Reviewers. Amazon Prime and at least three television stations in Japan dropped this series in the middle of its run.

Oh good God this was a fun and bizarre ride and it was fun while it lasted. Come on y’all, face the facts. There is no way this anime is ever gonna get a second season unless they absolutely censor the fuck out of it over in Japan. Look at all the Japanese channels that dropped this series not even halfway into the run! The best I’m hoping for is an OVA release. That way they can show us all the sex and nipples they want. But a season two? You’d have a better chance getting a Haruhi Suzumiya continuation! Yeah, I said it and I ain’t taking it back! Despite it not being available anywhere in the states, I advise my anime friends and followers to at least give this a chance (as long as you’re not grossed out by sexual discourse).

...

Medea, aren’t you going to give a number score like the Interspecies Reviewer lads?

*sighs*

I truly hate giving a number score. But for once in my written reviews, I’ll do it just this once.

If you would like to watch this series legally here in the states, you are shit out of luck unless you’re from Australia or Japan.

And once again…

R.I.P. Crim’s virginity!

[sanguinarysanguinity]

You made that amazing vid, Something Good, and know so much about various Holmes adaptations. What less-known adaptations would you recommend for watching and where to find them?

Oh, gosh, so much of this is a matter of personal taste! For myself, I like a competent, capable Watson, a Holmes that feels human joys and frailities, and a strong, affectionate relationship between them. So, things I love that deserve a bigger following:

Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson (1979-1980), starring Geoffrey Whitehead and Donald Pickering, is one of my two favorite discoveries from making the vid. Holmes is reserved but warm-hearted (and excellent with children!), and Watson is strong and active, with much to contribute to the partnership. (There’s a little bit of a through-line where Watson teaches himself Holmes’ methods, getting better and better at it as the series progresses.) Furthermore, the Holmes-and-Watson dynamic is lovely, with lots of affectionate, teasing banter. (In fact, Holmes can barely stop trolling Watson for long enough to solve a case!) Honestly, this is my comfort adaptation, the one I’m mostly like to put on when I’m blue or anxious and want to feel better. 

(Also, Holmes and Watson wear eyeliner, and who doesn’t need a Holmes or Watson in eyeliner?)?

If I understand its history correctly, it never aired in the UK or the US (and thus is far better known in Italy and Germany than among anglophones); further, it was tied up in a rights battle for yonks, so the only DVD release that I know of is dual-language German. But if you can tolerate somewhat-deteriorated VHS rips, most of it is available on YouTube. (Try this playlist, or this one.) I love it well enough that I gave myself the German DVD for a birthday present: it’s region-free, so it’ll play on both US and UK machines.

名探偵ホームズ | Sherlock Hound (1984-1985). Charming and sweet and silly (omg, Moriarty and his over-the-top mecha!), this is my other big favorite from making the vid. This is Japanese anime (the original six episodes were directed by Miyazaki, before the project got tied up in a rights battle and he moved on to the other things), set in a steampunk universe where everyone is a dog. (Except for Moriarty, who is a wolf.) Hound himself is hands-down one of my very favorite Holmeses: courteous, warm-hearted, human in his frailities, passionate in his defense of his clients, and with a child-like joy in his calling. Watson is fierce and growly and stubborn but also very warm-hearted, and the two of them are smitten with each other. (And both of them with Mrs. Hudson. Everyone loves Mrs. Hudson: even Moriarty!) Moriarty is ridonk over-the-top and I adore him: a brilliant inventor but a sad disaster at criminal masterminding. If you want more info, I have a longer post on Dreamwidth about why I love it, complete with links to various moments in the series.

If you’re in the US, the whole thing is available on the studio’s YouTube channel, although they have the episode order wrong and a few eps misnamed: start with “The Four Signatures” and continue to “The Mazalin Stone,” then you’re fine with playlist-order thereafter. Outside of the US I have no idea how to lay hands on it, sorry.

If you do subtitles, there are three Russian adaptations that are well worth your time: 

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson (1979-1986) aka “Russian Holmes” 

My Dearly Beloved Detective (1986), and 

Sherlock Holmes (2013) aka “New Russian Holmes”. 

The original Russian Holmes (1979-1986) is much like the Jeremy Brett Granada series in its loving regard for canon, and is similarly well-respected. Livanov and Solomin are a charming Holmes and Watson, and I honestly like their Reichenbach better than Granada’s. I find it a little slowly-paced overall, but if you’ve finished Granada and want something similar but with its own take, this is a solid choice.

My Dearly Beloved Detective is… gosh… a female-centric tragi-comic satire, maybe? It’s a bizarre little film, but I am fond of it. Its premise: all of England, much taken with Conan Doyle’s stories, cried out for a Holmes and Watson of their very own, and Shirley and Jane were hired to fulfill the need; unfortunately, Scotland Yard is jealous of Shirley’s and Jane’s success, and conspire to take them down. The film has as devoted a femslash following as you might expect, but I don’t think it will spoil too much if I warn you that nearly all the fic is pining or fix-it or both.

New Russian Holmes is a subversion of the original Russian series, where instead of a romantic fog-and-gaslight Victorian London, we get something much more gritty and Dickensian. I adore this series’ willingness to get down into the muck and wrestle with Holmes canon, but a lot of people hate it for that very same reason, so ymmv. I will say, however, that Panin is one of the very best Watsons running, and anyone who disagrees is categorically wrong. 

All three of these (and more besides!) can be found via @spiritcc, who is part of a fan-driven subtitling team that has heroically provided English subtitles to a variety of Russian Holmes adaptations. Masterpost for video and subtitles here.

Mystery Queen (2017) is a Korean drama that was released too late for us to use in the vid, but ugggggghhhhh it hurts me that it’s not in there. Holmes is an adorable, sweet, scythingly sharp housewife who is studying in secret against her family’s wishes to become a police detective; Watson is the highly-decorated police detective that she ends up collaborating with. I cannot convey how much I adored the first season: on the one hand, emotionally complex cases that ripped my heart out; on the other, fanservice slathered on with a goddamned trowel. (In the first episode, Holmes and Watson went from meet-cute to Three Garridebs in seven minutes flat.) I just. I mean. It’s a hard-fought Holmes-and-Watson relationship, but good god I love them each and together, and by series’ end either one would walk through fire for the other. I haven’t watched season two yet, but I have high hopes for it.

You can watch it with English subtitles on Vicki.com: Season 1 and Season 2.

And that’s my starter list of favorite lesser-known Holmes things – I hope you find something here you like! If there’s a specific kind of thing you’re looking for, let me know and I’ll try to make you a rec – this fandom is large enough that there’s a Holmes and Watson for nearly any taste. ;-)

[lightsandlostbells]

Skam España, S1 episode 1 reaction

Aka how to troll the part of your audience that’s seen this story seven times.

Sorry this is late, but it took me longer to write this because there were a lot of changes, and that means more to talk about! Skam España surprised me at how much it diverged from the source material. It’s hitting the same beats, of course, but it felt much more like a remix of the original than a remake, if you follow me. 

Thanks to everyone who subs and uploads clips and other content for the non-Spanish audience! You are the best for taking the time to do that for the fandom.

Episode 1

Intro 

So this wasn’t in a clip, but it was included at the beginning of the full episode. We get the iconic intro speech, except this time it’s from Eva. And not Eva reading Jonas’ words, it seems, but Eva herself talking about teenagers presenting a happy appearance that masks their insecurities and loneliness. It’s very fitting for her character and taps into some areas that directly affect her, such as wanting to be liked but not knowing how, struggling with her studies, and not knowing who she is. I’m glad she got to give this speech. 

And actually, I think it’s important that she didn’t give this speech within a clip itself, to an audience of her boyfriend. It’s like she’s talking to us and only us, the audience, and no one in her life knows what she’s thinking or the full extent of her insecurities.

Clip 1 - And now for something completely different

Spanish Jonas (Jorge) doesn’t get his opening monologue but he does get the first words, though they’re very casual, about diving in the pool.

There’s some obvious framing here with Eva and Jorge sitting together on one side across from Lucas on his own, setting up their third wheel dynamic.

Jorge and Lucas tease Eva, like in the original, but it’s very much a good-natured thing, not something that makes her uncomfortable or feel bad. However, I do think you can read into the dialogue - Eva not knowing how to dive in head first is like her lacking confidence or not being able to take initiative.

We get a focus on Lucas’ uncomfortable face as loud smacking kissy sounds play. I’m always mixed on when the remakes focus a lot of the Isak’s discomfort with Eva/Jonas, because it seems to give too much away. A longing look is OK, maybe, but a moment that wouldn’t be noted from Eva’s POV seems too much. Still, that was a nice way to shoot it, and Lucas gets in some nice facial expressions. And at least there’s ambiguity as to why Lucas is not here for it. At this stage it doesn’t mean he likes Jorge; he could like Eva, or he could just feel bored with his friends making out or lonely that they’re paired off, without having romantic feelings for either of them.

Random detail but I love all the dirt and grass on Jorge’s pants when he gets up. 

This is a cute bit of dialogue between Eva and Jorge with him predicting her future. I don’t think this is the case but I would loooove if Spanish P-Chris was Jorge’s height and had curly hair, just for his prediction to happen, just not in the way Jorge means.

I would also love if the money and house on the beach ended up being references to the school trip.

Eva’s future dog being named Nymeria is a reference to Arya’s direwolf from Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire.

This closing image is VERY different. In the other versions of the opening clip Eva ends up alone, setting up her isolation and loneliness. In this one, we close on her and Jorge together, kissing and being intimate, after he’s told her that he’ll be there for her.

Actually, I want to talk about what all the changes in the opening could mean for the season. Hopefully the show takes these changes into account and goes somewhere with them, rather than developing relationships and clips differently but ending up in the same place just because, you know?

So here’s what’s different in the first clip:

Jorge doesn’t have any of that air of condescension that Jonas did, and he and Lucas banter with Eva in a friendly way without any serious insults. (I mean I guess she could be really bothered by them poking fun at her lack of diving ability but lmao, that’s not the same as poking fun at her grades or intelligence.)

We haven’t seen Ingrid or Sara yet and don’t get a hint as to the friction between Eva and them. We do learn that Eva worries about the first day of school but like … there could be literally any reason for that at this point. 

We didn’t hear anything about Jorge hanging out or going to Elias’ and there’s no clip later that night where he’s being shady about his whereabouts. 

Jorge is extremely kind and supportive, telling Eva that he’ll be with her if there are any problems. But we know that he won’t be able to fulfill this promise, so it’ll feel like an extra slap in the face when he disappoints.

Clip 2 - First day of school

Eva is alone this time… and a lot of people walking into the school are in pairs, including two girls swinging their hands together. Sure is a great reminder of how you lost your BFF.

We do get the Ingrid slow-mo death glare in this clip. “Jungle” by X Ambassadors and Jamie N Commons is a good song choice, on the nose, but Eva does feel like she’s heading into the jungle. High school as dangerous terrain is a common but well-deserved trope, like in Mean Girls with the wildlife comparisons played for humor.

Lol and Jorge notices Ingrid (Inés) and her pals, too, then goes back to kissing Eva.

So Lucas interrupts them making out, but he’s with some other boys! Are they setting up the boy squad this early? Is one of them supposed to be Elias? They seem like kind of a cute, doofy squad.

You can tell Eva feels increasingly left out as the boys are wrapped up in a discussion that doesn’t involve her, they’re talking more to Jorge than her and mostly not even looking at her when they tell the story. Although not gonna lie, the story the boys are telling seems kind of inoffensive, not isolating or uncomfortable in itself. I think it’s mostly that she doesn’t have a squad like this herself and has to hang around her boyfriend’s.

And Lucas goes over to her to talk and specifically asks her to the show on Friday, awwww. Unless you think he did it to stir up shit since Jorge forgot to tell her about the show.

Because Jorge forgot to tell her about it, Eva probably won’t be able to get a ticket. So it’s not that Eva invites him somewhere first (like in the original), it’s that he’s already got a thing and that she’s excluded from it. She says she’s cool with it but of course it’s just another small way she’s left out.

Eva ends up outside of the conversation, literally. The boys turn away from her and get engrossed in their own stuff. I was wondering how this was going to go because in the first clip, Jorge was so supportive and she and Lucas seemed tight, and it made a point of showing her together and not being alone. But lmao, teenage boys are maybe not great at living up to their promises.

There was another post about this, but there was a weird zoom on Eva at the end of this clip that felt like someone’s finger slipped on the camera or something. Felt like it needed another take. I hope it was a weird but intentional choice rather than sloppiness. 

Clip 3 - Mystery girl

Eva is sitting alone and SHIT, we see the Sana character walk by! Hajar Brown, her actress, is awesome. She features in her own Skam homage, please watch (this version has English subtitles). I’m really happy that she can be part of this project.

It seems that Spanish Sana (Amira) is wearing hijab for the first time, which was mentioned in the show synopsis. The other girl says Amira didn’t wear it last year. It’ll be interesting if we hear more from Amira herself on this development.

Also, did we ever hear people openly talking badly like this about Sana so early in the show? Because obviously we had Vilde running her mouth, and similarly ignorant comments from people like the biology teacher, but until S4 I don’t think we ever witnessed random students gossiping about her like this. I might just be blanking on some of the OG moments, but here we get to see Amira react directly to random hurtful comments.

And of course there’s Lara.

I was really thrown by this clip because it seems very soon to introduce the Noora. As we all know, she makes a more dramatic entrance later on. And yet they have this character wearing Noora’s signature red lipstick, in an extremely Noora-ish outfit, come in and sit next to Eva in a scene very similar to Noora and Eva in episode 3 of OG S1 (and most of the remakes). Except … this character says she’s Lara. From the press release, Skam España’s Noora is supposed to be called, well … Nora. I was so confused. I clearly heard her introduce herself as “Lara” but I figured I was just hearing wrong and somehow she said Nora?

Anyway, Skam Spain fucked with everyone’s expectations by introducing a Noora expy, with the same personal style, with a scene similar to one of Noora’s first, only not to make her the Noora … just to throw everyone off? Because honestly, I applaud them if this is the case. Keeping everyone on their toes.

My guess so far is that she might be Sara, or a Sara equivalent. She might befriend Inés and end up shunning Eva because she hears all about what a bad friend Eva is.

Anyway, Lara makes an impression right away for Eva, talking a lot about herself.  She’s certainly not shy, and she’s got an interest in theater and photography. She seems a bit humble-braggy, like her GPA is so good that she can do whatever she wants! She seems to have the confidence Eva lacks. If she’s unsure of herself, it’s because she wants too much.

And then Lucas comes in to talk about school elections, setting us up for the Vilde and the russ equivalent of this show. He doesn’t get her name right but he clearly means Viri. Viri is the only one running for president so better just hand off the position to the person who wants it.

Eva checks out Lara, like all Evas do with Nooras, but lmao, this ain’t Noora.

Clip 4 - Eva at home

Eva is doing homework when she gets the urge to check Instagram and ends up scrolling through Inés’ pics wistfully.

Eva’s mom says she’s going to the hospital so I assume she’s a doctor/nurse/medical professional? If she’s working shifts that conflict with Eva’s schedule, that makes sense as to how Eva could be left alone and have a distant relationship with her mom.

Eva gets a little smile on her face when she views Lara’s profile.

Did Eva actually hit the follow button for Lara or not? I couldn’t tell.

Tbh it’s pretty interesting to see the difference in the Evas’ rooms across remakes. For instance, Spanish Eva has pretty light and sparkles and the word LOVE suspended above her bed, whereas in the Dutch remake, Dutch Eva sleeps under the word FUCK.

So this is clearly taking on Eva’s friending Noora saga, but Lara ain’t Noora, so again, what’s going on? What if Lara’s IG reveals her as a huge weirdo and Eva realizes she doesn’t want to be friends with her?

Skam Spain is trolling everyone and I love it. 

Clip 5 - Hello Viri and ALEJANDROOOOOO

Eva is sitting alone in front of the windowsill and skimming through Instagram when Lara shows up! She’s happy to see Eva because she doesn’t know where her next class is. Eva is obviously overjoyed to see her and volunteers to show her where the classroom is. Eva is positively beaming at her. Like she’s in loooooove. But Eva barely gets a second of Lara’s attention before Elvira, aka Viri, aka Spanish Vilde runs up and introduces herself as the class president.

Lara’s outfit seems noticeably less Noora-ish this time around.

Lara shoots Eva a look when Viri is talking, and I don’t know what to make of it. Annoyed at Viri’s attitude? Annoyed that Viri interrupted her moment with Eva? Not annoyed, just trying to check out Eva? IDK, man.

Viri is super grateful that she’s been elected (even though everyone just voted for her because she wanted the job) and is eager to get activities rolling and to get people involved. Lara semi-cuts Viri off from her excited ramble.

We pull back on Viri and get a wide shot … I don’t really know why.

Viri says she’s new, so I guess she doesn’t know Cris that well, which is a big change. Vilde and Chris have always been friends, Chris is the one who’s been her friend all along, but Cris isn’t tagging along with Viri on her quest to recruit more people as in the other versions of this scene. I wonder how they met?

Viri calls Cris “the pretty one” and while I think Ina/original Chris is beautiful, Chris has never been framed as an attractive character in canon so I’m wondering what they’re going to do with this. Cris is also surrounded by people so she seems like a popular, well-liked person. It makes you wonder how she got roped into hanging with the weird girls in school.

Lara says she’s in if Eva is, and Eva agrees. WHAT ARE YOU DOING SKAM SPAIN. You got your Noora in my Lara??? Except Noora only agreed to go to the russ meeting when Sana did. For Lara, it’s Eva she needs to also go. On that note, Lara sure seems into Eva. And Eva agrees because she wants to spend time with Lara...

Viri’s mom is having a meeting, or “meeting,” so maybe they’re going with the same backstory for her as Vilde.

She cuts herself off as she notices William - Alejandro - through the window, and like, if they had named this character Alejandro but not played Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro” at some point, I would have felt cheated. I feel like they could have timed or edited the scene better to make it funnier, but I did still appreciate the effort.

I saw people upset that this William looks like an embryo but I’m fine with it. I can completely get why he would be considered a cute boy on campus among these 16/17-year-olds.

Please note Viri’s facial expressions as she takes him in. It looks like she’s glitching. 

She’s so turned on by Alejandro that she’s grabbing Eva’s leg.

LOL at Alejandro looking straight at the camera just to smolder. Wow. I’m imagining that this is just a thing he does on purpose, walk around Blue Steeling into invisible cameras.

Is it just me or does he look a bit like Mikael from the original show? Just … floppier?

Clip 6 - Damn, Inés 

I think that’s Amira walking across the screen out of focus at the start.

Eva walks up to see Inés hanging out with some girls, the reluctance on her face. And then she sees Lara with them, and the despair crosses her face. Fuuuuuck, this budding friendship is over before it really started. (WAS I RIGHT? I knewwwww it! Lara is going to get turned off by hearing Inés tell her side of the story, and she won’t want to be Eva’s friend. Then the girl squad will step up.)

Getting mild Darlene from Mr. Robot vibes from Inés. Except less unkempt. 

Eva going up and talking to Inés in broad daylight, at school, totally sober? Brave, very brave.

We get a closeup of Inés’ face when Eva talks to her so it can sink in that whatever happened with them didn’t hurt only Eva - it’s Eva who seems to be at fault. It’s POV breakage that we maybe didn’t need consider the rest of the scene also establishes that Inés is really hurt by what Eva did, but it did help show Inés as more vulnerable.

Ouch. Inés is right to be pissed (as we know her reasons) but she’s ice cold to Eva, especially with making her repeat that Eva will never be around her again. That is really harsh, worse than any “your eye makeup makes you look like a slut” comments. 

Clip 7 - Interrupted by dancing dudes

Cris is seen leaving the school ahead of Eva and Jorge. I like that they’re planting the major characters around the school, casually showing them going about their lives. I mean maybe they were just filming other scenes that day and used all of the actors they had on set, lmao, but it feels realistic.

Jorge meets Eva and seems supportive, she’s not alone walking out of school this time. But she spies Inés again outside, there’s eye contact, and Eva is clearly upset over what happened earlier. Even Jorge notices.

She doesn’t want to open up to him, he keeps asking her to open up, and just when it seems like she might tell him, he gets a notification of his friends being goofballs and watches them on his phone.

Jorge promises to be all Eva’s tomorrow, and lol somehow I think it’s a promise made to be broken.

Clip 8 - Sad blue-tinted lonely Friday clip

Eva is hanging out in her kitchen heating up food in her not-leaving-the-house attire, alone, not doing anything on Friday night. She gets a text from Jorge and looks at all the fun her boyfriend and his friends are having at their concert.

She watches it fondly and sends him some texts back, then goes back to that solitary microwave life.

Viri sends a message asking if someone can host the end of the year trip meeting. Eva goes back to munching. But we know what she’s really hungry for ... is friendship. 😎

Clip 9 - Goddammit Jorge

Eva is on the sidelines watching Jorge play football. You know, not that you can’t support your significant other, but being a teenage girl and watching your boyfriend be active while you sit there watching is maybe not the most fun activity? Let’s be honest, would a lot of these teenage boys sit and watch their girlfriends play a game together, one that wasn’t like an “official” game for school or anything, and cheer them on while not participating themselves? Girls are expected to support their boyfriends’ activities in a way that frankly is not reciprocal.

Lucas comes up behind the bleachers, wearing sunglasses and doing this face that would probably be meme-worthy if it were more in focus. Like he actually does that peer over the top of the sunglasses look. And I was like, lmao, why is the fuck is he doing that, but then I realized he was probably checking out Jorge.

Jorge comes up to Eva all drenched with water and sweat so you know Lucas is taking advantage of his sunglasses to peep that manly sight.

It sure didn’t take long for Jorge to go back on his promise. Jorge makes a comment about wanting to go home and sleep, Eva says they were supposed to hang out today, he’s like “well I’m going to play video games with the boys, but you can come if you want.” Lmao this is uncharitable but I’m imagining he means “you can come and watch” not “you can come and participate.”  

She suggests they go out together and he’s like, nah, do that shit yourself. Wow, so supportive. And yet a realistic depiction of dating high school boys. He tells her she’ll make a bunch of friends soon and forget all about him, which is sweet, except if you think that later, in the tradition of past Jonases, he’s going to get all miffed about the school trip and be passive-aggressive to Eva about her activities and friends? Less sweet.

I just want to mention that Lucas is oh so casually lying there and soaking in all of this dialogue. Noticing that Jorge is ditching Eva. Not saying a word, but you know. Absorbing this information, in case it’s pertinent.

Jorge asks Lucas if Eva is a good catch, for reassurance, and he pauses before commenting on her hat. Well, he can’t exactly say he doesn’t know, can he?

Jorge and Eva kiss before Jorge gets called back to his game, and Lucas asks Eva what Jorge tastes like, L O L. She answers sweat. We see Eva, deflated now that Jorge has bailed (like “I came to watch you and put on this hat and now you don’t even want to hang out?”) while right beside her, Lucas has … a look. That sweat comment will fuel his fantasies, don’t lie. 

I mean I’m going to be honest, my attention was focused on Lucas instead of Eva at the end, since I was trying to see if he had a ~meaningful look.

Clip 10 - Class trip meeting

This is pretty easily inferred since Eva is desperate to be social but she volunteered her house off screen via text message.

Viri is super hyped about this meeting even though it’s apparently only going to be her, Eva, Cris, and Cris’ friend. She thinks more people will want to come to their meetings once their project gets off the ground. I think she is concerned about popularity, but not gonna lie, I’m getting less “social climber” vibes from her and more “type-A overachiever.” But I guess she could be both!

Ding dong! Who’s at the door? Why it’s Cris, and she brought Amira! Good God, the way the smile drops off Viri’s face when she sees a Muslim is in her presence. She greets Amira and all, but Viri looks like she’s been told her puppy got run over.

She backtracks from Mallorca, and when Amira asks why, Viri’s like, well it’s all beach. Holy shit, Viri, have you never seen Muslims on a beach? Cris is “just like wear a burkini,” Amira says she’ll get one, and even Cris seems to have a moment where she has to backtrack. It’s like she mentioned the burkini as a joke but didn’t take it seriously. Amira clearly is a bit exasperated by this turn of conversation. Like it’s othering to her, she has to hold these people’s hands. 

See I’m really curious about the nature of this trip, because when you say “school trip” I’m coming from my own experience, and I think of like a trip with adult chaperones, guided activities and tours, strict supervision. Partying and sex do happen, but it’s not a free-for-all where the students are running around on their own. What Viri is describing seems more like a casual beach trip? How much independence would the students have? Obviously this is a different culture than my own (and a lot of the strict chaperoning on US school trips comes from wanting to curb underage drinking, which wouldn’t be a problem here) and I’m not familiar with how Spanish schools operate these kinds of excursions, but I’m trying to figure out what are Viri’s plans for this trip.

@skammovistarplus explains some context behind the trip in this post.

Viri gets happy about her trip again and starts talking about it, and she very obviously looks back and forth from Cris to Eva as she talks about it, not making eye contact with Amira. The camera in this part of the scene is pulled back so we can see just how excluded and distant Amira is from this conversation, almost like we’re in her shoes.

Amira talks a lot of sense and says more people should get involved in trip planning. I mean, yeah, otherwise just plan a trip among yourselves and leave the school out of it? Seems easier. 

The doorbell rings again, Eva thinks it’s Lara, but when she opens the door it’s …. Nora! Also wearing red lipstick.

Amira gave Nora the address so they’re already acquainted. That’s a change, Nora joining the group because of Amira. Noora said she wanted to get to know Sana better, but Eva was also the one who got her acquainted with the other girls.

This clip cuts off right at Nora’s introduction, and I can’t help but laugh at the context? It’s kind of dramatic, though less in the full episode. Like if I knew nothing about this show, I’d be like … is this supposed to be some twin shenanigans??? Is one of them the good twin and the other the bad twin? Lara and Nora? But I guess this moment is for the existing Skam fans. It’s …. Nora! The one you thought was Nora was emphatically not Nora! Plot twist!

This was the least gay Noora introduction, though.

Clip 11 - More meeting

There was a post about the clips and problems with the length and timing and I completely agree that posting multiple shorter clips is not good. If they keep doing this, it will minimize emotional investment - we won’t be able to sink into a scene without them cutting it off at a certain point. I guess Viri and Amira have been arguing for like an hour which I’m sure was enjoyable to witness for the other girls.

Viri is getting cringy, like I thought she did an OK job of Tracy Flicking it up but she’s getting OTT in a theater kid kind of way. Stress will do that to you.

So I guess a Mr Wonderful notebook is just a brand of notebook with cheesy motivational sayings, and Viri talks like that earnestly, lmao.

Amira thinks they need cool girls to be at the meeting, like Inés. Eva is affected by this. Nora seems to notice.

Nora is from Madison, Wisconsin, holy shit. As a Midwesterner I am rolling on the floor.

I have been to Madison, Wisconsin. It’s a very nice city! I love Wisconsin! I recommend visiting the cheese castle! But it’s just funny that Nora the cool girl is from a place that’s as mundane as Wisconsin. Like there’s that storyline from Love Actually where the awkward guy thinks he can get laid in America just by having a British accent, so he books a ticket to America, to a “fantastic place” called Wisconsin. That’s the joke. It’s supposed to be funny because it’s Wisconsin.

Hajar Brown does a good job as Amira, I like her. She points out that they’re all losers who have nothing better to do on Saturday so they’re at this meeting. Viri says they’re not weird, they’re unique, and Cris asks what about twins, and Nora seems to laugh at herself. SEE WHAT I MEAN ABOUT HER AND LARA BEING TWINS… the secret will come out.

Why is Cris here, anyway? I get why the other four would be weirdos and hanging out together - Eva has been shunned, Viri is a racist Hermione, Amira is Muslim, and Nora is the new girl in town - but Cris seems, frankly, not a lot like original Chris and appeared to have some other friends in our first glimpse of her.  What’s her deal?

Nora asks why the cool girls would want to come to them and Amira’s like, well, you’re very pretty, Nora. Eva, you could be pretty if you wore some makeup. L M A O. I think Amira was saying that to fuck with Viri, since she gave her a considering look before moving on to Eva, and Viri looked offended, but lol, as if the four who are supposed to flirt aren’t all pretty, skinny, conventionally attractive girls. (I mean, I hate debates over which characters are the best looking, I just don’t give a shit, but if you ask me, Nora is not noticeably prettier than the other girls. Tbh I kinda didn’t like that they changed it to Nora from Eva since, if they follow the rest of the show, Noora was so singled out for being special and attractive among the girls anyway.) 

Viri is beside herself with rage at how this meeting turned out.

Lara never showed so presumably she heard all about Eva’s history from Inés. She also leaves the trip group chat later.

Clip 12 - Eva spies Jorge

Eva is guiding Nora to her bus an hour later. Nora questions whether there will be another meeting and Eva says she supposes not because they don’t have anything in common. Nora says nay, they’re the weirdos at school. It’s cute.

I was about to ask what was the point of this scene since, other than a moment between Eva and Nora, it’s not adding much, but then “Jungle” kicks in again, a bus goes by, and Eva sees Jorge on that bus. Looking like he is talking to a girl. Who may be Inés. Eva realizes she’s been duped! Dramaaaaaa!

That does appear to be the same shiny backpack that Inés had earlier in the episode.

General Comments:

Regardless of execution, in a lot of ways this is what I want from a Skam remake? If I can’t have brand new stories and characters, I’d like to see remixes of the scenes with new dialogue and focus. Very little of the dialogue was taken straight from Skam, iconic moments were left out, new plot elements were introduced. So it makes me want to keep watching to see what else they do.

Unless Skam Spain has a different contract than the other remakes, so far it’s ripping holes in the idea that the remakes were required to be exactly the same as the original.

They sure crammed three episodes into one. I will give them credit, though, it didn’t feel rushed for the most part. I think the girls’ meeting suffered the most since we basically had to meet a bunch of characters at once (only Viri had really been introduced), whereas in the original we’d gotten a solid scene with all of the girls by the time of the meeting and had an inkling as to their personalities. However, the Jorge stuff and Inés and the other elements felt fine, pacing-wise. I love S1′s beginning episodes and things like the cabin episode, but they can easily be condensed if needed.

There was controversy over Chris being skinny in this version, and just to go over that - this isn’t the first version of Skam that’s had a thinner Chris, Druck and Skam Austin had Chrises who weren’t fat, Skam NL does too. I think Skam España got the most flack for this because the Chrises in Druck and Skam Austin were WOC, and while race and body size are two different areas of representation, those characters were still members of an underrepresented group. Skam NL has a thinner white Chris, but it also has the first Noora who’s a WOC so the girl squad has additional diversity besides the Sana character. So I think it’s a combo of everyone being thin + everyone other than Amira being white that made Skam España get criticism in particular.

I do think it is disappointing that all the main girls appear to be thin, because overall I think the various Skams have done a decent job of showing girls with a variety of shapes - not just in terms of skinny or fat, but even the “thin” characters often have different body types than are often seen on TV. And I hope there are more POC in the cast later. That’s all I really want to say about it at the time. 

I mentioned this in my Skam NL recap, too, but I think so many characters are called Lucas because it’s a religious name that can be used for symbolism, like Isak.

I feel like some of the more technical aspects are off, like camerawork/editing, and the acting overall is mixed, but it does feel like a down-to-earth low-budget production that cast actual teenagers and that’s my jam, so I am very willing to cut it some slack in this regard.

Some highlights of social media: Lucas posting a shit-stirring #TBT post with him, Eva, and Inés, that’s pretty cold, dude. Eva and Lucas taking turns third wheeling in it group photos.

@skammovistarplus is writing some awesome posts detailing some of the cultural aspects in the clips, go check it out!

I’m not Spanish so if I misunderstand something, feel free to let me know!

Thank you for reading!

[yeonchi]

Dub Logistics Part 30: Redemption and Reflection (Retirement Speech Part 2)

“The dub-sub debate and fan base infighting will never end until fans are willing to put aside their differences and unite as one.”

Well everyone, we’ve reached the last instalment of Dub Logistics. I can’t believe how fast the time has gone, but given everything that has happened along the way, I think it’s for the best. Let’s make this final hurrah count.

Before I begin the second part of my retirement speech, I’m going to inform you on what will be happening. Firstly, as I stated in Part 22, I’ll be hiding the links to the Koei Warriors Rant Series and Dub Logistics pages from my Tumblr page at the end of the year; do note that they will still be accessible from the links.

Secondly, The Dub Hater’s Guide to Dual Audio is being discontinued because I want to clean up my cloud drives. Since the guide was just made of arguments and quotes from my rants anyway, I’ve published the arguments from the final version of the guide into Part 25 of the Koei Warriors Rant Series.

Thirdly, I will continue to run the English Dubbed Game News page out of gratitude for the fans I’ve made over the years. Please continue to send me your tipoffs regarding games that have been dubbed or subbed and remember that the page’s post archive is there for your convenient reference.

This year’s Dub Logistics instalments have been a return to the lighter style of discussion (with minimal research) that I intended to make this series since the first few instalments in 2016. Following the events of the debate and feud in 2017, I wanted to end my English dub rants on a lighter note without causing any more dramas.

In Part 29, the first part of my retirement speech, I stated how my experiences with dubbing and subtitles made me a hypocrite. Combined with my reflections of the past few years (in terms of the English dub rants), I’ll be showing my haters and naysayers how their hate, vitriol and trolling was very misguided.

When I started making English dub rants in August 2014, my main focus was on the Koei Warriors games until I started expanding my focus to localised Japanese games and anime in general. Given the reasons that inspired me to start the Koei Warriors Rant Series (see Part 29), some people would assume that I didn’t want to read the subtitles or that I hated the Japanese voices (or some other bullshit reason) when that was entirely not the case; in actuality, I was actually looking forward to hearing the English voice actors reprise their roles in later Koei Warriors games, something that Koei Tecmo has wilfully neglected for a long time now.

My fans have commended me at times for making good points, which is something that I always appreciate. On the other hand, however, I find a majority of the haters and naysayers I’ve encountered are unable to discuss the topic rationally or show compassion for those affected by corporate greed. Some of them have resorted to petty insults to bask in the delusion that they are always right without including evidence to support their points or even trying to make an argument at all.

My views and opinions regarding the dub-sub debate have been shaped over the years through researching articles and weighing the opinions of fans. When writing my posts, I make sure to include links to any site I use for research so that people can see where I got my facts from. If I become aware that something I’ve written is incorrect, then I would acknowledge this and correct it, otherwise I would assume that what I said is correct. If people question the validity of my research, even when it is clearly there, then I suspect that they are just trying to find an excuse to say that I am wrong (see Part 24). I’ve fallen into that trap a couple of times, but now, haters and naysayers need to stop looking for excuses to validate their flawed viewpoints to me and accept that my research is there; you just need to look.

Over the years, I feel that the Dub Logistics series and the #NoDubNoBuy page (also known as English dubs in Japanese games or no buy, now known as English Dubbed Game News) have strayed away from their original purposes. In late-2014, I began screencapping the comments of dub haters and reposting them in an effort to criticise their flawed viewpoints and vitriol, but I guess I met my match when the people on the other side of the feud came along and even then, they were just trolling people who disagreed with them in the name of virtue-signalling. After the feud ended, I realised that I became no better than an SJW or a troll, so I started my plans to change the #NoDubNoBuy page to what it is now (keeping in mind that I had plans to do that a little while before then).

This may surprise some of you, but I was never really a supporter of #NoDubNoBuy despite the page name; in fact, I wrote Parts 33 and 34 of the Koei Warriors Rant Series to criticise the so-called “movement” (and I say so-called because it never really took off) along with its supporters and opposers. Like I said in Part 29 (the first part of the retirement speech), if you have supported me and you consider me a hypocrite because of this, then maybe you weren’t really supporting me at all.

In Part 22 of Dub Logistics, I listed my reasons as to why I wanted to retire my English dub rants. To briefly recap, there was the feud, I lost interest in the fight (along with Koei Warriors games and video games altogether) because of commitments, I started to burn out because I found myself repeating points I made in the past and I started to become out of touch with the current situation (but there is a chance that the haters could be wrong).

Additionally, I’ve learnt a bit about logical fallacies this year and after further research, cognitive biases. I can’t help but think that I’ve likely committed a few of these fallacies and biases (just as my haters and naysayers may have) and as such, I don’t think I can continue talking about dubbing and localisation knowing that I’ll probably commit another one.

My loss of interest in fighting for dubbed games (with dual audio options) mostly stems from the fact that Koei Tecmo have been dubbing less and less games they localise per year (in turn, they have also been publishing and localising more and more games per year). I understand the reasons why this has been happening, but up to now, they have not taken into consideration the dub fans (including myself) who would have liked to hear their favourite Koei Warriors characters in English or my suggestions on how to do so, such as crowdfunding systems (ludicrous though it may be).

I’ve put up with this disgrace for over three years, but Dynasty Warriors 9 was the last straw - when I found out it was dubbed by another studio due to the SAG-AFTRA voice actors’ strike, I felt that the characters in the game were no longer the characters that I remembered and appreciated. Granted, there have been other things that people have criticised in DW9, but given my perspective, the voices were my main concern for this game.

Maybe blaming Insp.Chin, former community manager for Koei Tecmo Europe, entirely for the lack of English dubbing in their localised games was somewhat misguided; I can’t help but think that his role has made him a scapegoat for fan outrage and I took the bait. Other departments are certainly to blame for this and other disgraces to their fans, but until Koei Tecmo properly recognises what harm they have done to their Western fans (particularly dub fans), I wish good luck to the current and future community managers in their jobs - you’re all going to need it.

At this point, I’ve accepted that gaming companies like Koei Tecmo are no better than politicians, so they can do what they want for all I care. If you still believe that they listen to their fans, then you need to wake up to yourself sooner or later because one day, they will do something you won’t like and nothing you say or do will make them change their decision. It’s been happening for a while now with AAA game publishers, so how long will it be until all gaming companies, niche or not, fall into this trap?

Given the increasing prevalence of games being localised without English voices over the years, there are some people who would say that English dubbing is becoming a rarity. Sadly, I would have to disagree. On the English Dubbed Game News page, I usually post about newly released games (with some classics from time to time) and while keeping a constant archive of these posts in the post archive spreadsheet, I’ve been noticing that just over half of the games I’ve posted about have been dubbed. Maybe I’m just cherrypicking or maybe this figure will change in the future, but for the time being, I can agree with the observation that the dubbing of localised games depends on game type, budget, time and scale.

Over the years, there have been a few fans who have inspired me to keep fighting on, but in particular, there were a few people who inspired me to start the Koei Warriors Rant Series back when we were posting on the old Koei Facebook page (I may have mentioned their names previously). Unfortunately, the “original group”, as I like to call them, have dropped out in various ways - a couple of them stopped following me, another one is busy looking after his family and I fear that another one may have committed suicide because of his depression.

With regards to the last one, I’ve had him as a Facebook friend since I started the rants and at times, he would talk about how his life, his family and the world have been causing him stress; he even posted about committing suicide a few times. When he deactivated his account in September 2017, I feared the worst; a few months later, I messaged the remaining person, the “family man”, and he said that he hasn’t even seen him on PSN either. Even one of his other friends made a post recently wondering where he is. Given everything that has happened recently, in real life or on the internet, I think the world was too much for him and at the very least, I hope he is in a better place.

Look, maybe I was wrong to presume that everyone would read or agree with my rants, or that something significant would happen as a result of them, but the fact that I, at the very least, tried to reach out to Koei Tecmo and other Japanese gaming companies along with their fans, cannot be denied. I acknowledge that the first rant only got the attention it did because a few people (with bigger followings than me) shared it and called out the extreme language used in it. While people not caring may not entirely be part of the problem, people actually pointing out that people are not caring are just as much a part of the problem as sub fans and dub haters because this is basically an ad-hominem attack that does not contribute to the argument in any way. The ridicule and virtue-signalling from the feud mostly revolved around this point along with the ignorant generalisation that all localised Japanese games were subbed.

I’ve tried to see myself as a pacifist between dub fans, sub fans and Japanese gaming companies, but over the years, I realised that some people are too ignorant and unenlightened to even let people have their own preferences or civilly disagree with them. For one, the feud could have been prevented if the people on the other side of it either politely declined without saying any more or had bothered to understand the situation more. We should be criticising the gaming companies about how they have let their fans turn against each other instead of fuelling the fire ourselves.

The idea of “entitlement” gets thrown around a lot these days, particularly in gaming. I find that people who call dub fans out for being “entitled” when they complain about their favourite game not being dubbed are just making up excuses to defend the publisher’s decisions or not participate in civilised debate. That could also be applied to other things in gaming fanbases as well. There are two sides to “entitlement” and as far as we are concerned, we should be only worrying about getting a decent product that (hopefully) caters to all; that’s the kind of “entitlement” I’m talking about.

This is kind of a stretch, but I’m going to propose a theory based on this Jonathan Pie video which was released following the 2016 US presidential election:

The theory is that maybe Koei Tecmo and other Japanese gaming companies are only localising games with English subtitles because their fans don’t know how to debate properly. This isn’t surprising given how long the dub-sub debate has gone on for, but maybe if dub fans and sub fans can at least learn how to discuss and debate respectfully, then the companies may start listening to us. To quote Pie’s video, being offended doesn’t work anymore and throwing insults doesn’t work anymore.

To be honest, I’m kind of glad that my rants haven’t been picked up by anyone “important”, like journalists or YouTubers. The arguments and motivations of dub fans are taken out of context and twisted quite often by opinion-neutrals to fit their views; who knows what they would say about me? Besides this, I’ve caused more than enough drama already out of good intentions and if you’ve been following the recent celebrity and internet dramas, you’ll probably know that fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I’m also kind of glad that I don’t have any white-knights fervently defending me with vitriol because I don’t think that is the way my fans should behave and God knows what would happen if I did actually have white-knights.

There are a lot of people who think they know everything about the dub-sub debate, including why some games or animes aren’t dubbed or subbed. Given this, I would rather hear these reasons coming from a representative of the game developers, specifically someone who is in charge of localisation, translation and dubbing instead of someone who only gets their “facts” from other people’s comments. Granted, I am in this category myself, but at the risk of sounding hypocritical, I’m pretty much the closest person you can get without all the political-style bullshit coming from the developers and publishers. The views and opinions of fans are all that anyone will ever hear about this issue unless someone credible does a “word of God” thing at some point in the future.

So what are my intentions from here on out? Well, for starters, I’m retiring this series and my English dub rants for good (given that nothing major comes up for me to talk about). As for what is going to be happening, refer to the three things I listed at the top of this post.

Following Tumblr’s announcement of their NSFW ban, a lot of people have been inclined to believe that Tumblr is dying. What this will mean for my blogs as a whole is a whole different topic altogether, but for now, what will this mean for my rants?

Well, unfortunately, I regret to announce that in the event that Tumblr closes down (for good), I have no intention to back up my rants or any other post relating to English dubs, video game localisation, Dynasty Warriors or the Koei Warriors series, including any posts from the feud. Ever since I started my rants in 2014, the content of this main blog has mostly been around those things, so if any of my other stuff goes down with them, then so be it.

When some people think of Tumblr, they think of it as an echo chamber for fanboys and fangirls in all the different fandoms, or a safe space for triggered SJWs “representing” various social causes. Given my actions over the years, I’m starting to think that I’m falling into this stereotypical cliché, but again, I’m glad that in the end, I’m not as bad as an SJW. I’m not perfect, but no one else is perfect either.

Up to now, I’m basically the only person who cares about this topic enough to do research for two series of rants; most people get shut down or stop bothering after one post. I don’t want to encourage people to ignorantly follow in my footsteps without understanding everything, particularly because I’ve been beating a dead horse for quite a while now. Whether or not you believe this to be the case, there is a chance that there are still a small number of people who have been inspired by my rants enough to want to imitate my methods. Last year, I used this next video as an interjectory statement for a particular hater who thought they knew everything about me and could take me down with petty actions. This time around, I want this video to be a piece of advice for those wannabes who think they can be like me, because the last few years for me (in terms of these rants) weren’t as easy as they seemed.

The situation I am in is based on compassion and empathy, as I’ve watched and played a lot of dubbed and subtitled works in the past. Even though my current tastes in TV shows basically require me to watch them with subtitles, I can understand why dub fans would want English dubs in some animes and games and vice versa for sub fans. It is rare to find people in the same boat as myself because a majority of commenters I’ve encountered are either ignorant, short-sighted or just unable to understand the bigger picture behind things.

The dub-sub debate has been overblown to the point that it still manages to get overblown now and again. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; we don’t need to be arguing about which voice preference is better. Instead, we need to learn to appreciate and respect both sides of the coin while also supporting those who don’t even get an opportunity to choose what voice they want in their favourite game or anime. If an irrational hypocrite like me can feel compassion for both dub fans and sub fans alike, you can too.

If there is anything I may have missed over the years, then let it be known for the record that I would have liked to write more about those things, but it is a shame that various circumstances have led to me making the decision to move on.

Given that these English dub rants have been a major part of my content since late-2014, it is up to you to decide whether you want to continue following me as I continue to post content that fits with my current interests.

This is not a victory for the sub fans, dub haters or opinion-neutral naysayers, nor is it a defeat for dub fans; this is me announcing my retirement. Once again, a big thank you goes to my fans and dedicated fans for their support. As some people would say, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

[tomeandflickcorner]

Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure

I’m actually approaching these next two reviews with a sense of trepidation.  While I remember loving the Ewok movies as a kid, it’s been years since I last saw them.  I think the last time I watched them prior to this moment was in the early 90s when they’d air on television.  So I have absolutely no idea how they’re going to hold up now, or how they’ll come across to my adult brain.  Before I begin, I am aware that the Wiki page states this movie is supposed to take place before Return of the Jedi.  But something happens in the movie that makes me feel as if it makes more sense for the events in this film to have occurred after Return of the Jedi rather than before.  I’ll explain what I mean when we get to the scene in question.

The movie begins with a prologue of sorts, with a mother and father searching for their missing children.  Throughout the movie, it becomes apparent that this family of four, the Towani family, were traveling somewhere in their star cruiser, but something went wrong and they crash landed on the moon of Endor. Because they didn’t know where they were, they could hardly send a transmission for help, so they were pretty much stuck there until they could get the ship repaired.  But on the night the movie opens, the two children, 14-year-old Mace and 5-year-old Cindel, have apparently wandered off, despite their parents’ instructions to stay near the star cruiser.  While the parents, Catarine and Jeremitt, are out looking for them, they are ambushed by a giant troll-like being called the Gorax.  The Gorax ends up capturing Catarine and Jeremitt for reasons that are not made clear.  Did the Gorax plan on eating them?  Did he just want to keep them as human pets?  It’s never really addressed.

But anyway, the movie then cuts to the star players of the movie- the Ewoks.  Specifically Wicket and his family, which consists of his father, Deej, his mother, Shoudu, his two older brothers, Weechee and Widdle, and his baby sister, Winda.   (Incidentally, you might recognize Widdle as one of the two Ewoks who hijacked the Walker with Chewbacca during the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi.)  On this day, Weechee and Widdle have also gone missing.  So Deej decides to go off looking for them, utilizing a hang glider to search the forest.

So, remember how one of the biggest issues with The Star Wars Holiday Special (not the only issue, but one of the biggest) was the fact that they were mostly focusing on a family of Wookiees and didn’t give us any subtitles, expecting us to just figure out what was happening on our own?  Well, in this TV movie, they did learn their lesson.  Sort of.  While they don’t give us subtitles in this one, either, we did get a narrator. Yeah, they got Burl Ives, who you might remember from the Rankin Bass version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (among other things), to narrate this movie. Unfortunately, this really doesn’t work to the movie’s advantage.  There are times when it feels as if the Narrator is talking down to the audience. And at first, the use of a narrator makes the movie seem more like a nature documentary on Ewoks rather than a plot-driven movie.

Deej eventually locates his wayward sons. They were apparently climbing a rocky cliff but got stuck halfway up.  After Deej helps them get out of their predicament, the three Ewoks start making their way back to their village.  But first, they have to make a detour.  While he was gliding over the forest on his hang glider, Deej saw something glittering in the sunlight through the forest canopy, so he decides to take his sons with him to investigate what it was.  And that’s how they discover the crashed star cruiser.  They step inside to investigate their discovery, and thus end up finding Cindel hiding behind a panel.  Not sure if we’re supposed to conclude she made it back to the star cruiser after her parents ran into the Gorax or if she’d been there all along and the parents just didn’t look hard enough.  Either way, Cindel, being 5-years-old, instantly decides the Ewoks are friends based on how cute they were.  Her brother, Mace, on the other hand, is less trusting of the little teddy bear Aliens.  Instead, he charges in and aims his blaster at them, stating that they might be the beings who took their parents.  I’m guessing it’s been a few days since the events of the movie prologue. Eventually, the Ewoks take the two kids back with them to their village.  Though they take Mace back by tying him up and carrying him.  Rather similar to how they initially treated Han, Luke, Chewbacca and R2 in Return of the Jedi.  The Ewoks must really not like human males.  That, or they just don’t like the hostile ones.

Now, I gotta pause to talk about the two kids. There’s no sense in denying that neither of these two give a good performance, even by child actor standards. In fact, with the kid who plays Cindel, Aubree Miller, this was her first acting role.  And believe me, it shows.  But I can forgive her for that because, again, she’s only 5-years-old. Mace, on the other hand?  I don’t think he’s even trying sometimes.  There are some points in his performance when he seems to think all you need to do to convey emotion is to shout your lines. Also, I sometimes get the feeling that the movie was trying to make Mace a discount Luke Skywalker.  Sure, he shows no indication of being Force Sensitive, but his costume throughout the movie bears a strong resemblance to Luke’s X-Wing pilot outfit.  Even his haircut seems similar to Luke’s.

When they get back to the Ewok Village, it soon becomes apparent that Cindel is sick with a fever.  Fortunately, Deej and his wife, Shoudu, are able to give Cindel some medicine that helps her, but when Cindel is still ill in the morning, they have to go out and gather more medicine for her.  To get the key ingredient for the medicine, they have to travel to this tree in the middle of the forest.  Because this specific tree emits a special kind of fluid that the Ewoks have used to treat their ailments for eons.  (I wonder if this is the Tree of Life they mentioned in The Star Wars Holiday Special.)

It’s at this point where we first start to see how much of a dingbat Mace is.  While the Ewoks are harvesting the tree’s curative sap for Cindel’s medicine, Mace spots a large hole in a nearby hollow tree.  And there appears to be some kind of cute little fuzzy critter inside this hole. For some reason, Mace decides to go over and stick his hand into the hole in order to get this critter.  Yes, I know Mace is supposed to be 14 in this movie, but at the same time, he’s presumably grown up in the Star Wars universe. You’d think he’d know better than to go about touching random fauna like this.  The moment he reaches inside, a larger creature ends up biting down, latching onto his hand.  Apparently this creature is a predatory animal called a Temptor.  The fuzzy creature Mace saw was part of the creature’s tongue.  I guess this creature is a bit like an alligator snapping turtle, in the sense that it lures prey to come closer with their tongue.   So the Ewoks have to drop what they’re doing to come to his rescue.

Despite Mace’s stupidity, the Ewoks are able to gather up enough tree fluid to manufacture more medicine for Cindel. The following morning, the medicine seems to have done the trick, as Cindel is feeling all better.  And right away, she develops an instant friendship with Wicket, possibly because they’re supposedly around the same age.

Also, it’s here that I noticed something a bit off-putting about the movie.  This is supposed to take place in the Star Wars universe, in a galaxy far, far away.   So can someone please explain to me how the Ewoks share their home with animals commonly seen on Earth?  I’m not kidding, here.  By this point in the movie, we’ve seen the Ewoks have ponies, goats, rabbits and ferrets.  Is this movie is suggesting that those particular species are actually native to the moon of Endor and somehow ended up on Earth as an invasive species?  I mean, the events of the Star Wars films are supposed to have happened a long, long time ago.  So maybe, by the time then became now, the native people of the Star Wars universe somehow found their way here to the Milky Way and ended up colonizing Earth, bringing with them an assortment of critters that we now associate with our planet.  I guess that’s as good of an explanation as any.

Anyway, Cindel starts trying to communicate with Wicket about how they ended up on the moon of Endor, explaining how their star cruiser crashed.  Out of nowhere, Wicket starts repeating Cindel’s statements in comprehensible English. Or Basic, to use the Star Wars terminology.  Yep, this movie shows Wicket starting to develop the ability to speak Basic.  By the time the sequel, The Battle for Endor, comes along, he is able to speak Basic fluently.  And that is why I take issue with this movie supposedly taking place before Return of the Jedi and therefore think it makes more sense to set this movie after the Original Trilogy ends.  Because if this did take place before Episode 6, then there is no reason why Wicket wouldn’t have been able to actually engage in a conversation with Leia.  Or why the other Ewoks seemed to be so hostile to Luke and Han upon seeing them.  If they’d already met Mace and Cindel by that point, then they must have noticed the fact that Han, Luke and Leia were from the same species.

Because of her newfound friendship with Wicket, Cindel suggests to Mace that the Ewoks could help them find their parents. Mace, however, isn’t convinced, dismissing the Ewoks as animals.  Which is weird, because he must have realized by this point that the Ewoks are sentient beings.  And, being from the Star Wars universe, he should be at least somewhat familiar with non-humanoid Aliens.  Regardless, Mace decides to take Cindel and sneak away in the middle of the night so they could continue the search for their parents.  Which was really stupid on his part.  Once again, they’re on a planetary moon they’re not familiar with and therefore don’t know what nocturnal fauna there might be.  But that’s what Mace decides to do.

After traveling for a bit, Cindel insists that they’re lost and she can’t walk any further, so Mace sets up camp, building a campfire to keep warm.  As they’re sitting around, they start to discuss their parents, and whether or not they’re dead.  Mace then starts to confide in Cindel how he wishes he’d been a better son.  I guess the implication is that Mace sometimes misbehaved.  And it’s possible that this is basically him saying that he shouldn’t have wandered off the night Jeremitt and Catarine went missing.

At that moment, this wolf-boar creature suddenly appears and starts to chase the two kids, forcing them to take refuge inside a hollow tree for the night.   When morning comes, we see the Ewok family had managed to track them down, as they are trying to fight off the wolf-boar.   And there’s no denying the stop-motion effect they used with the wolf-boar did not stand up against the test of time, as it looks really dated.  Nowhere near as good as the Rancor.  Yes, I know this movie was made on a considerably smaller budget, but even so.  Eventually, the wolf-boar is brought down by a well-aimed poison dart from Wicket. And, when they get a close look at the dead wolf-boar, they see he’s wearing a collar. Meaning he belonged to someone.  But what really catches Mace and Cindel’s attention is the fact that their father’s Life Monitor is stuck to the collar.  Life Monitors, from what I gather, are a type of bracelet that you can wear, which is used by groups of people to keep track on the life status of everyone else wearing the bracelet.  Since Jeremitt’s Life Monitor states he’s alive, the children have a renewed hope that they’ll find their mother and father.  

But before they can hope to reunite with their parents, Mace and Cindel have to figure out where the wolf-boar came from. Because knowing that would most likely help determine where the parents are.  To help Mace and Cindel, the Ewok family take them to Logray, the village shaman, in the hopes that he could help determine the parents’ location. Thankfully, Logray can help them. Because he has some kind of magical spinning top thing that can enable you to observe things in other locations. That’s right, magic now exists in the Star Wars universe.  Even though it’s never mentioned at any other point in the Star Wars media.  Though I guess it’s possible what the Ewoks call magic is actually the Force.  Does this mean Ewoks can be Force Sensitive, too?  Anyway, Logrey’s magic top helps them learn that the missing parents are prisoners of the Gorax.  Upon seeing the danger her parents are in, Cindel begs Deej to help them rescue them. After some hesitation, on account of the fact that the Gorax lives in a Forbidden Fortress that no Ewok has ever returned from, Deej ultimately decides to accompany Mace and Cindel on their quest to rescue their parents.  And his three sons, Weechee, Widdle and Wicket also volunteer to go along.  

Here, we do get a rather nicely acted scene, considering the actors are wearing Ewok costumes.  During the night, we see Shodu mournfully looking around at her family while everyone is sleeping.  It is clear that she is fearful about the safety of her family and is terrified that she might not see her husband or sons again.  After all, the Gorax is suppoed to be very dangerous.  Eventually, Deej wakes up to comfort her, even though he is probably equally as scared.  I don’t know why, but there’s just something about this scene that I really appreciated.

When morning comes, we finally get to the whole caravan thing this movie’s title promised us, as Deej, Weechee, Widdle, Wicket, Mace and Cindel prepare to leave on their journey to the Gorax’s lair in order to rescue Mace and Cindel’s parents.  And it only took four days in the show’s timeline for the actual plot to begin.  Before they leave, Logrey performs some sacred Ewok ritual, in which each of the travelers are given a special totem.  According to the Narrator, these totems were all once owned by the Legendary Ewok Warriors.  (Shame we couldn’t get more clarification on who these Legendary Warriors were.)  The first three totems are all basically feathered headdresses, with each one supposedly representing a different attribute. Deej gets the White Wings of Hope, Weechee, the oldest son, gets the Red Wings of Courage and Widdle gets the Blue Wings of Strength.  The other totems have a bit more variety, however.  For instance, Wicket is presented with a magical walking stick and Cindel receives a candle that’s called the Candle of Pure Light.  As for Mace, his totem is a rock.  But because Mace is a twat, he dismisses the rock as useless and purposely drops it as they leave Logrey’s hut.  While I understand why he might not see the significance of a rock on this journey, it’s not as if Cindel’s candle or Wicket’s walking stick had an obvious significance at this point.  And at least a rock is somewhat useful.  What did Deej and the two oldest Ewok sons get?  Feathered headdresses.  While I’m sure they are ceremonially significant to the Ewok culture, they’re not going to be of much use in a fight with the Gorax.  Anyway, the last two totems in the ceremony that Logrey performs are an ivory tooth and a crystal.  Deej brings these last two totems with them in order to present them to two other Ewoks, in the hopes that they will join them on their quest.  With the totems all gathered up, they all set off. Though, since Cindel and Wicket are the youngest ones there, they are allowed to ride in a special tent-like compartment strapped to a horse’s back.

The first Ewok the group end up seeking out is Chukha-Trok, who I gather is a renowned Ewok warrior who works as a woodcutter, considering how the movie introduces him.  He ends up felling a tree that just narrowly misses Cindel.  Which immediately puts Chukha-Trok on Mace’s bad side.  So Mace isn’t pleased when Deej offers Chujha-Trok the Ivory Tooth, offering the Ewok woodcutter a place in their company.  At first, however, Chukha-Trok doesn’t seem willing to go, until Mace starts insinuating that he’s not a real warrior.  Which obviously is a huge insult to Chukha-Trok’s pride.  This leads to Mace challenging Chukha-Trok to an ax-throwing contest.  A contest that Chukha-Trok quickly wins.  As a result, Mace begins to respect Chukha-Trok, and he asks him to help them find their parents. This time, Chukha-Trok decides to join the caravan. I do have to give Mace a bit of credit here, to be honest.  While his transition from being dismissive of Chukha-Trok to respecting him as a brave warrior might have occurred a bit too quickly, this was obviously the movie’s attempt at giving him some character development.

Next, they visit Kaink, an Ewok Priestess and the only female apart from Cindel.  Her totem is, of course, the Crystal.  Kaink agrees to join, on one condition- the children have to pass some kind of magical test.  But this test is not exactly clear.  Kaink places the Crystal totem in Mace’s hands and it transforms into a lizard, which he drops in shock.  Then, when Cindel picks the lizard up, it transforms into a mouse.  Apparently, this is enough to convince Kaink to join the rescue mission.  But it’s not clear what this magic test was.  The crystal becomes a lizard and then the lizard turns into a mouse?  So what?  What was this supposed to convey?  The all-knowing Narrator is completely silent on the matter, offering no explanation.  So if anyone from the die-hard Star Wars fan base can offer any insight on what this was, I would love to hear it.

Of course, that’s not the only time the Narrator fails to explain things.  At some point, the group stops to rest and Mace notices a nearby lake.  For some reason, the sight of his reflection in the water makes him curious and he tries to touch the lake.  The moment his finger makes contact with the surface of the lake, he’s instantly trapped beneath the water.  When Cindel sees her brother is in trouble, she calls the other Ewoks to help. They try to extend a rope or a tree branch for Mace to grab so they could pull him out, but the rope and branch are also zapped into the lake the instant they touch the water.  But Wicket has the magic Walking Stick he got from Logrey. Only that is able to successfully penetrate the surface of the water, enabling them to successfully pull Mace out. Like with the magic test Kaink performed, we’re not given any clarification on what this lake was, or why it trapped anyone and anything that came in contact with the surface of the lake beneath the water.  It’s just something the movie included to add some tension.  And to give Wicket’s Walking Stick some significance.

Speaking of scenes that only exist to provide tension, we then get a scene when the Ewoks are getting ready to continue on. Wicket is swinging around on a tree branch, but when he’s told the others are about to leave, he abruptly lets go, which ends up scaring the horse carrying Cindel, prompting the horse to bolt.   So Chukha-Trok has to chase after the runaway horse and keep Cindel from getting hurt.  Once that crisis is averted, they can continue on their way.

When night falls, the Ewoks end up setting up camp. Out of nowhere, there are a bunch of fairy like creatures flitting around.  These creatures are apparently called Wisties, and I guess they were featured in the animated TV show, Ewoks, at some point, but since I only remember watching one episode of that show, I couldn’t say for certain.   The Wisties end up catching the attention of Mace and the other Ewoks.  Well, all except for Widdle, who steps outside his tent, looks around for a second and then decides to go back to bed.  Needless to say, it’s at this point that I found myself really liking Widdle.  Anyway, when Cindel comes out of her tent to see what’s going on, the Wisties start to flit around the Candle of Pure Light, which she just happened to be carrying at the time.  Noticing their interest in the candle, Cindel places it on the ground, and the Wisties, I guess, get absorbed into the candle and merge into Izrina, the Queen of the Wisties.  Once again, we get no explanation as to what just happened, but Queen Izrina ends up joining Mace, Cindel and the Ewoks on their quest.

At long last, after crossing the Desert of Salma (because there’s now a desert on this forest moon), they reach the mountains where the Gorax is supposed to live.  But the entrance is hidden from view.  That’s when Kaink gestures to Mace, pantomiming him to use the rock he got from Logray.  Mace sheepishly admits he threw the rock away, much to Chukha-Trok’s exasperation. Fortunately, Wicket then reveals he’d picked up the rock after Mace dropped it.  When Mace thankfully takes his rock back, he finds out that it’s actually hollow and that something is inside the rock.  He throws it to the ground, revealing this arrowhead.  The arrowhead, as if pulled by a magnet, slides across the ground and slips under a particular stone on the base of the mountain. Which indicates that this is where the entrance is.  Mace ends up using his blaster to blow up the stone blocking the entrance.  Okay, who gave this 14-year-old kid a blaster so powerful, it can blow up a stone?  And if they had blasters with this much capability, why didn’t they ever utilize it during the Original Trilogy?

So they enter the cave, and it’s decided that Widdle, Wicket and Cindel should hang back, on account of them being the youngest members of the caravan.  Widdle in particular isn’t happy about being left behind, but he still abides by the group’s decision.  As such, Deej, Weechee, Chukha-Trok, Kaink and Mace continue on while Widdle and Wicket keep Cindel company.

Deej’s group soon come to this seemingly bottomless chasm. Taking note of what is so obviously a spider web stretching across the crevasse, Mace decides to use the web as a bridge, and they start to cross. But as they neglected to observe, where there’s a spider web, there’s most likely a spider.  Sure enough, a spider attacks them.  Mace strikes back at the spider with a knife, and the spider falls into the abyss.  But as Mace and the Ewoks are crossing the divide on the spider web, another spider appears and stars to attack  Deej.  This time, it’s Kaink who comes to the rescue, as she uses her Crystal totem to hypnotize the spider, resulting in that one to fall into the pit as well.  Meanwhile, we see a third spider has found his way to where Cindel, Wicket and Widdle were waiting.  This third spider is quickly dealt with thanks to Wicket and Widdle, though.

Eventually, Mace and the Ewoks find the lair of the Gorax, where they see the parents trapped in a cage suspended from the ceiling. But the Gorax is also there, currently eating something.  Weechee, partially inadvertently, ends up luring the Gorax out of his lair, allowing the others the chance to free Catarine and Jeremitt.   The rescue attempt involves using the Gorax’s ax as a catapult and providing the parents a rope to climb down on.  But while the rescue is still being carried out, the Gorax, having lost interest in Weechee, returns.  So everyone has to make a run for it.  But Chukha-Trok stays behind to face the Gorax, repeatedly striking at the Gorax’s leg with his ax, despite Mace’s attempts at urging him away.  

At that moment, Queen Izrina remembers she’s involved in the movie.  She’s been hanging out in Mace’s pocket this whole time.  At Mace’s request, she flies at the Gorax and disorients the giant by darting around his head.  As the Gorax is flaying around, he ends up hitting the sides of his lair, causing a bunch of rocks to fall.  Chukha-Trok ends up getting hit by the falling rocks, much to Mace’s shock and horror. Mace runs out to try and help the fallen Ewok, but Chukha-Trok was too gravely injured by the falling rocks and ends up dying in Mace’s arms.  Before he dies, Chukha-Trok ends up giving his ax to Mace, which was probably meant to indicate that the two have come full-circle in their relationship and now consider each other as friends.   Mace momentarily grieves his friend’s death, but, due in part to the sub-par acting, he gets over it relatively quickly, and he hurries off to rejoin the others.

Meanwhile, the Gorax is trying to go after the other Ewoks, but Catarine and Jeremitt and the Ewoks team up to create a makeshift trip-wire that they use against the Gorax.  This almost results in the Gorax to fall into the bottomless pit, but he lands just short of the edge, so he doesn’t fall.  It takes the combined efforts of Kaink, who uses her Crystal totem to drop a stalactite onto the Gorax’s head, and Catarine, wielding Mace’s blaster, before the Gorax falls into the crevice to his apparent death.

At this point, the movie seems to be wrapping up. Mace, rejoining the others at this moment, embraces his parents before showing Deej Chukha-Trok’s ax, explaining the warrior’s sacrifice.  And then, Cindel appears on the other side of the chasm with Wicket and Widdle.  And she’s overjoyed to see her parents safe, and vice versa.  However, it turns out the Gorax still has a few hit points left, as he reappears at this point, trying to climb back out of the pit, right in front of Cindel.  When the Gorax tries to grab Cindel, Mace jumps into action and throws Chukha-Trok’s ax at the Gorax.  The ax lands home in the Gorax’s back, forcing him to fall into the abyss once again.  This time, the Gorax is defeated for real.  So Cindel is safe, and the Towani family can be properly reunited at last.

The Towani family then travels back the Ewok village with the Ewoks.  After Mace bids goodbye to Queen Izrina, thanking her for her help, he rejoins the celebration going on.  Because it’s not just the Towani family that’s been safely reunited, but the Ewok family as well.  And because of the friendship between the two families, I guess, Deej gives the White Wings of Hope to Cindel.  The movie ends with the Narrator delivering one of the cheesiest closing lines ever. About how the movie’s protagonists all learned what they already knew- that courage, loyalty and love were the strongest forces in the universe.

So that was the first Ewok movie.  While I can see why I liked it as a kid, now that I’m an adult, I realize that a lot of this movie didn’t make a lot of sense. Obviously, Kid Me was a lot more accepting of stuff.  Not only that, it dawned on me how this movie might actually be seen as boring.  For the most part, it’s just these two kids interacting and walking around with some Ewoks.  In fact, I think it’s safe to say that if you threw Lord of the Rings and Care Bears into a blender and mixed them together, this is pretty much what you’d end up with.  But at the same time, this movie is clearly meant for kids.  And it must have kept enough kids entertained back in the 80s, because a sequel was released the following year.  Check back next week for my review on that one.

(Click here to go back to the directory)

[keep-on-trying]

Hikari’s Role in Digimon Adventure Tri Part 5: Kyousei

Because someone has to talk about this! I just finished rewatching Kyousei, and guess what I noticed? She is not shafted at ALL! She had a great deal of good moments from her, she’s never spoken as much in previous movies as she is here, and like I’ve said already, her role is far from over! Now let’s start looking at her moments in here! Super, super long post ahead, with tons of spoilers, so i’m gonna use a cut! If you haven’t seen Kyousei yet, enter the cut content at your own risk!

Hikari being able to sense Digital World detesting them

We know very well from Adventure and 02 that Hikari’s always been a very sensitive person, and that she’s always had this weird connection to Digital World. It’s affecting her a great deal here, it can be heard from her voice. There’s this sort of pessimist sound in this dialogue, and from someone who’s quite a closed-up but honest person? It’s quite heavy. It’s hard for me to explain what I feel about this dialogue, but it just feels so her. Takeru asks her next what she means by all this, but we’re then skipped to Daigo and Hackmon. We’ll return to this later in the movie thou, so keep on reading!

Hikari’s dialogue at the fire with Meiko

You know what? A lot of people seem to think this scene is meant for Meiko, and partly it is. But honestly, this is where we see the optimistic side of Hikari, and I love her dialogue here a great, great deal. Her dialogue is so pure, and it’s why I love Hikari so so much. And it doesn’t end here, it continues.

I love Hikari a great deal guys. She’s so pure. She’s such a good person. All of that above is said by Hikari! She’s shining here so much! And the music, oh god I want to buy this movie series OST the minute it comes for sale, if it ever does. It’s that good. And look how everyone is smiling at Hikari’s pep-talk to Meiko at this moment.

But y’know, this only just now occured to me, but she could be refering to her own experience with the Dark Ocean in 02. Don’t give in to a weak heart, friends by your side... this is something she herself learned when she was drawn to Dark Ocean, and managed to get herself out of there with the help of Takeru and Miyako. With the help of her friends.

Hikari’s talk about the Digital World desesting them when Takeru asks her again

There’s quite a long pause here before Hikari says the following:

Takeru’s face. It was sort of my face too.

During this dialogue I was feeling really sad for Hikari. How would you feel when you’re able to sense the world around you telling you to “get out, we don’t want you here”. I love how Tailmon reacts to it thou.

The Digimons may have been rebooted and don’t remember the experience they had before current events, but they still have learned to care a great great deal of our chosen children. Other digimons join her here too, hugging and nuzzling their own partners.

Takeru’s look here is definitely a worried one. He if anyone knows when Hikari is trying to hide something. Taichi doesn’t seem too convinced in that screenshot either, thou after this everyone is smiling with Hikari.

But ohmygod the dialogue doesn’t end here! There’s a moment with Koushiro talking about how Hikari’s feelings aren’t wrong, and that there’s definitely something wrong with the Digital World they’re in right now.

Everyone is looking at Hikari with surprised faces, not really understanding what Hikari is saying. Or they do, but don’t want to face it.

Seriously, being such a sensitive person must be hard for Hikari. There’s another pause on dialogue when Takeru finally opens up.

Then Taichi steps in. Darn it, Taichi has such great dialogue in this movie as well.

And y’know, it makes sense for Taichi to have these dialogues, since he means so much to Hikari (I may talk about it later unless someone beats me to it). But this bothers me. Why are they a nuisance now. Because they’re a group of grown-up kids that can think for themselves? Were it Homestasis or Yggdrasil who threw them out of there soon after this, just... god damn it.

Hikari with Jou when they’re at the school

This moment is very small, but I love it still.

Jou dear, that’s not something you’re supposed to say-

I don’t know if Hikari used the -san instead of -senpai on purpose, but she’s the one who told him to shut it. It’s small, but I love it. Jou keeps on being amazing in Tri as well, haha!

Hikari cares about Meiko!

When Meiko learns that Homestasis has ordered Meicoomon to be eliminated, she sort of goes on depressed-mode.

Hikari is the first to react, and this actually happens a lot in the movie. Next up is Taichi telling Meiko that Meicoomon needs her right now. Meicoomon desires Meiko with her. After that, Hikari’s line is something I find so sweet.

This becomes the theme of the movie itself. Meiko starts trying to be Meicoomon’s hope from this moment on. Tries to find out what the hope is. And Hikari is the one that helped her to get there.

As a side note, this all happened in the first half of the movie. All of this dialogue. And we’re far from done.

The Dialogue between Sora, Mimi and Hikari

Just look at what Hikari says next.

Somehow I feel like she’s referencing some past event. Maybe the Vamdemon saga in Adventure, or Oikawa Arc in 02. I’m not entirely sure yet. But this is such a big line from her.

Even Takeru notices that Hikari is feeling down. And this is where he does what @50cyg pointed out in this post. Takeru is such an awesome kid in Tri, cheering on Hikari and trolling on his brother. My Takari Shipper ass is happy.

The Spooky Story scene is one of my favourite scenes in the whole series so far, but since this post is about Hikari, I’ll skip talking about it for now. I’ll just mention that Takeru so did that to cheer Hikari up, and I adore him for that.

Taichi’s talk with his mother on the phone

Wait what? Taichi? Wasn’t this supposed to focus on Hikari? Well, this scene may be focused on Taichi, but I feel it’s very important for Hikari as well.

This whole conversation hurts when you start thinking about what happens at the end. That’s why I’m including it. It holds a great importance to Hikari’s scene at the end. She was there next to Taichi to hear this conversation. Or, I think she heard. I know I’m sometimes able to hear someone speak from phone to someone else clearly from Hikari’s distance. Anyway.

Meiko’s dialogue about Meicoomon’s rampaging

I honestly don’t know what to call this scene. But just, it may be Meiko-focused scene, but just look!

Meiko tells Meicoomon to blame her, and then!

Hikari turns to her after she said that! She’s genuinily worried for Meiko. I’m not sure if she feels she’s relating to her pain, or what is, but like, she’s reacting to it.

She’s feeling something. She reacted same way when Taichi talked about not being able to do anything in Soushitsu.

Hikari fighting againsts Homeostasis

The absolute highlight! I freaking love this scene, because it’s the first time Hikari’s shown to resist a digimon god!

That’s Homeostasis’ line. Next up comes our badass Hikari.

How is she doing this? Is she finally resisting Homeostasis because she’s not feeling the same way with the digimon god anymore?

Why do I see people pointing out there being sacrifices in past series on this line here? That is not the point here! She doesn’t want to see any more sacrifices.

I... I have a feeling this is where Hikari’s conflict actually begins! This is where this gets god damn creepy as well!

What in the flying pluckmons is Not-Gennai doing inside Hikari’s mind? What the hell is going on??? And he’s smiling in creepy way!? Did he want this conflict between Hikari and Homeostasis to happen? Someone, get him out of there!

Bonus scene:

Good Taichi, take care of her! Sora too. Takeru as well <333 My Takari shipper ass please stay still. Also sibling relationship lover is happy.

“Please, kill Mei-chan“

I didn’t really know how to call this scene, but Hikari’s reactions are important! Very!

Hikari is telling Meicoomon to stop! She wants Meiko to stop suffering, that’s how she is feeling here! And when Meiko tells the chosen children to kill Meicoomon instead, guess who reacts first.

Yes, Hikari does. She’s bound on not letting there be any more deaths, and when Meiko says that, she’s not happy. She doesn’t want to do it.

Remember how Hikari said earlier that she believes each side of partners being each others hope? Well...

Looks like Meiko’s answer of hope is killing Meicoomon. I’m dead certain it’s not the answer Hikari was looking for when she said that line.

Then Taichi drops the line. He’s willing to help Meiko do her answer of hope. It’s huge for Taichi. Hikari reacts to this too, She’s clearly not feeling it. Her voice doesn’t want to accept what she just heard. And the next scene!

Screenshots don’t do any justice because Hikari reacts by body language! She’s squeezing Nyaromon after hearing her brother say that. She’s not accepting her brother say that! Remember how she was hesitant on killing digimon back in 02 as well? That talk between Taichi and Hikari? She’s never been ok with sacrifices nor killing Digimon.

Taichi’s supposed death

This is big. This is absolutely big. If you’re here still reading this, congratz! And wow :D But here we go. Remember, whenever the subtitle says Taichi with Hikari, she actually says Onii-chan, Big brother.

There’s a weird spark happening to Hikari’s feet at this scene.

She’s slowly walking towards the scene where Taichi supposedly died.

This is the line from the PV. You can hear her slowly breaking.

What does she mean? I was thinking that maybe this is related to her mom telling Taichi to take care of her. Does she feel lost without Taichi? Remember how in 02 episode 13, Hikari told Takeru that Taichi was by her side whenever Dark Ocean was calling her. Maybe that’s what she’s saying? Or something similar, I don’t know what so say I’m too shocked at this till.

Then it begins. Her Crest of light lights up on her forehead. I’m not sure why it’s in the forehead. But I believe it’s a sign of evolution. Her crest has always been the symbol of the light happening while evolution with digimon happen.

...There’s a spark on Nyaromon ohmygod no god please no.

I still don’t know what to call that... thing surronding her. Is it the infection? Koushiro’s laptop seems to imply so, but... what the hell is going on?

Yamato’s reaction is important! So very important! I don’t know why but it reminds me of Vamdemon saga when he was taking care of Hikari when Taichi was heading to the base. It’s not a reference to it, but I’m sure Yamato feels like he should be protecting Hikari now as well, with Taichi gone. But let’s continue.

She’s getting it all over her body.

Takeru is dead worried.

It’s now on her face! This is so creepy!

This right here seems to imply this being the infection but... is it? Or... I’ll come back to this later, because it’s hella creepy.

Anyway, Takeru runs towards Hikari. Then this happens.

The infection starts flying out of her...

Takeru is startled.

Nyaromon collapses on this, and then...

She’s loosing conciousness.

All of that weird stuff is gathering on Nyaromon. Takeru is definitely spooked. After some spooky animation...

Enter Ophanimon: Falldown Mode. She looks quite scary and beautiful at the same time.

And then! Here’s the creepy stuff again!

GET THE HELL OUT OF HER YOU CREEPER! Is he inside Hikari? Was that code whatever this Not-Gennai is entering Hikari and then releasing the hatred inside Hikari to dark-evolve Nyaromon? They are in the Digital World at that moment after all.

We then have everyone running towards Hikari, Takeru talking these lines. Then we have more creepy stuff when Ophanimon and Raguelmon are... well, I’ll call it airdancing.

Hikari... are you ok? Of course she’s not, her brother just died in front of her and she just unleashed a dark-evolution. Althou...

Does unleashing this compare to anything we’ve seen before in Digimon? This thing creeps the hell out of me. And the creepiness continues.

Is Not-Gennai talking through Hikari? What is happening? You guys have no idea how much I screamed and gasped when I rewatched this scene.

Quick side note, after that creepy Ophanicrackmon goes to human world, is this the Dark Ocean appearing in Human World as well?? It looks like it to me, but I’m not entirely certain.

...I haven’t seen Digimon Savers for years but, didn’t Yggdrasil try destroying the human world there as well? It was with Royal Knights. Hikari, look what you’ve unleashed! Is this that cruel fate the summary was talking about?

Of course, Hikari right now is in full-on emotional lockdown, not reacting to anything. Takeru is holding her, and she’s definitely not using her body at that moment. Something snapped inside her when Taichi died.

And that’s all of her moments!

God damn it, writing this took me 4 hours. And if you made it this far, I’m amazed. And I’m sorry for such a long, long rambling! But, as I said before, I adore Hikari dearly, and I felt the need to write this because seriously, she shined, and she wasn’t shafted aside at all.

On top of that, because she sort of unleashed this, this is what I believe being her conflict that she needs to face. She unleashed a dark creature. She no longer represents the light. She needs to have a role in next movie of some kind, otherwise he conflict stays undone.

...I hope I didn’t forget anything. But, thank you for reading. This was Aleira, signing off! ♥

[xtremedespair3d]

Anime Winter 2019 Final Impressions + Plans for Spring 2019

(I’ve seen Screen Rant and Crunchyroll using this shot as a thumbnail for news posts when the second trailer dropped, so I might as well use it too 😂)

The very first anime season of the year ends and we’re moving on to the next one, and it appears that this season is going to be the best one yet, before I discuss why with what shows I’m going to watch, let’s go back to the Winter season to rank every show I watched this season!

(Just don’t expect to see Kaguya-sama on this post, I haven’t really watched it at all, sorry. (but I will binge it eventually))

1.- Mob Psycho 100 II: Mob Psycho 100 continues to be a sakuga wonder and powerful storylines, I always thought the first season would be much more memorable for me, but I think this season definitely tops the character development and plotlines.

As for the sakuga wonder, this proves why Mob Psycho 100 is being held at better hands unlike One Punch Man, it went from Madhouse to JC Staff which is utterly disappointing, but Mob Psycho 100 being adapted by Bones and continuing to work on it is the best thing the series ever has.

I still haven’t read the manga but I can probably tell this is not the series finale, I wonder if there could still be a third and final season so it can adapt the final volumes of the manga, since it has ended recently, that third season would come in a quicker time, maybe like a year, a year and a half, or two, I don’t know, but it’s not impossible for that to happen anytime soon.

10/10 - Rank: S++ - 100% - AOTS #1.

2.- Kemurikusa: This all-new reboot has completely lived up to my expectations and it delivered some neat changes to the original and some big surprises.

Part of my experience was a bit dragged by the uncultured assholes that is 4chan with “Kemono Friends 2″ is better and such (Since it’s 4chan, some of them could be trolls, some of them could tell the truth, can’t really tell for sure), but it didn’t completely ruin my enjoyment of Kemurikusa, this is no big deal. And then there’s also the janky animation, but it’s Tatsuki’s quirk, so I’m not completely bothered by that and let him have it.

There are still some plot holes around the universe and everything else that raises questions after witnessing certain moments, but I think it’s best to leave things as it is, I wouldn’t expect Tatsuki to answer every single question, or even touch the world again.

I wonder what's next for Tatsuki now that Kemurikusa is finished when it comes to a new TV project, another remake of his classics or a completely original series? He would probably continue doing shorts for now. Either way, I totally need more Tatsuki TV projects since Kemono Friends. But for now, I would expect to see shorts being posted by parts on Twitter and then the full compilation on YouTube and NicoNico.

I almost forgot, I needed to address something: For the longest time I’ve been hyping up to watch the original 30 minute series before watching this reboot, I realized that you don’t really need to watch the original, but you should at least acknowledge its existence. But if you want to compare this to the original that badly, then you do need to watch the original. (We’re back in square one lol)

And for all the haters, please read this thread, and when you finish doing so, apologize and go take the L, conche tu madre, thank you.

10/10 - Rank: S++ - 100% - AOTS #2.

UPDATE - April 4th: Okay, a week after the finale’s release (Wednesday), Tatsuki out of the blue released a brand new 12.1 short video! (So far it raises so many questions)

I genuinely did not expect to see more Kemurikusa content, sequels even, but this is quite a surprise. I don’t know how long this is going to be but I’m sure it could be a weekly release. Anyways, this is really neat.

Smiley Riku is best Riku.

3.- The Promised Neverland: This was a pretty solid adaptation and the suspense has kept me on the edge of my seat constantly.

I’m so happy to see that a second season got announced for 2020. I wonder if it’s going to be a My Hero Academia situation, where it started with 13 episodes (in TPN’s case, it was 12 episodes long) and later seasons have two-cours.

9/10 - Rank: S - 95%

4.- BanG Dream! season 2: The first season heavily focused on building Poppin’ Party, this season features all of the bands and some episodes were focused on each band, which I was really interested, definitely looking forward to the 3rd season in Fall. (which I genuinely forgot it was coming out too)

Speaking of season 3, I recently researched that Rokka is a member of RAISE A SUILEN, and I wonder if S3 might get a storyline with Rokka becoming a member of RAS.

This looks way better than Monster Strike, I like that the characters have more like shading/lighting than being pure cell-shaded anime-like, but my common complaint with Sanzigen, or maybe even CG anime in general, is that they tend to make some background characters completely hand drawn which doesn’t blend well with the CG characters, it’s just horribly noticeably bad and inconsistent. You can add hand drawn effects and such, but for the love of god, never do hand drawn background characters and even main characters in flashbacks. (like Lay and Tae)

The third season was originaly going to come out on Fall but it got delayed to Winter 2020, which is a bummer, it could have been like BBK/BRNK three years ago but time is always needed.

9/10 - Rank: S - 96% - AOTS #4

5.- Ikki Tousen: Western Wolves: After spending an entire week binging everything Ikki Tousen, I couldn’t wait to see what Western Wolves had in store given on what I last saw with Extravaganza Epoch (even though I kind of forgot already), with 3 episodes for 3 months, this was a solid series with good fan service.

I hope I won’t wait for another 5 years or so for another series.

8.5/10 - Rank: A+ - 88%

6.- Kakegurui XX: Now I’m worried if this was a worthy follow-up given MAPPA’s track record of making crappy second seasons, best example being Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul.

Occasionally I was less motivated to watch an episode when it came out raw and rewatch that episode with subtitles by whatever group and sometimes I also felt like this series was way over-the-top than I previously felt like the first season

Anyways, I thought it was a decent follow-up.

7.5/10 - Rank: A- - 76%

7.- Manaria Friends: Decent series, but the most important thing I want to talk about is, this was supposed to come out on April 1st, 2016, but it got on hold a month prior its release. Since CygamesPictures was founded in 2016, perhaps they took the series and reworked into what it is now, after 3 years of reproduction and release, I wonder if it was even worth the wait. I’m also surprised the show is 15 minutes long, I’m not sure if this was part of the original version, but it’s that kind of short.

For some strange reason, I wish any footage of the original version of Manaria Friends would be leaked somewhere. 😁

Now with Manaria Friends released, and with the upcoming Princess Connect! Re:Dive anime series (and maybe they even took Granblue Fantasy: The Animation (that’s right, it’s confirmed that it’ll get a second season) away from A-1, that’s my theory), let’s see what does CygamesPictures have in store when it comes to anime based on their IP and maybe even original projects of their own (which has gotten me more curious since I’m an original anime fanboy).

Also, the show’s English title is called “Mysteria Friends” for some reason. (Well, not really “for some reason”, there’s definitely a reason why, but I’m not that big of a Rage of Bahamut person)

I never knew the show was going to be 10 episodes long, since it premiered late in January, I thought it would run for 12 episodes which it could be in April, which is way late to the Anime Winter 2019 closing party, but closing the series at episode 10 feels like a good time.

7/10 - Rank: A- - 74%

8.- Boogiepop wa Waranai: Not much to comment on this one, and I haven’t really read the LNs, but this one seems interesting. The only thing I’m not a fan of is its own style of character designs, it just looks weird and doesn’t really respect much to the original artist’s style, which lead to this whole thing with this Twitter rants and Kadokawa apologizing for the miscommunication (Can’t stop talking about this), so I guess the damage control wasn’t worth it to get used to the anime’s designs. At least the animation and visuals look good, though.

7/10 - Rank: B - 70%

9.- Lupin the 3rd: Goodbye Partner: After Part 5, I didn’t expect a new OVA special would appear right away, it’s a self-contained OVA special, it doesn’t have anything to do with Part 5 at all, though.

The only thing I’m super dissatisfied is that in 37 minutes, it seems like there was a huge skip, we jump to a crazy situation right away, after a conflict Lupin and Goemon had with Jigen minutes prior, we see that they’re working together again, like, what? It’s just feels so random...

7/10 - Rank: B+ - 72%

10.- Mini Toji: This franchise continues to give less of an impact in my life and to consider it to be on the range that of Kancolle and Touken Ranbu (you know, those games I always joke about that Toji no Miko is their baby), one year later after the base anime series, they decided to make a short spin-off series, I couldn’t turn down the offer to watch it, I was curious on what’s it going to be, and the show overall is alright, it is funny at times and I had some laughs but it’s not too hilarious.

As for the chibi style, it just looks so weird. Seeing the image below which I found in 4chan when episode 8 came out just makes me wish they could have chose this style instead of the one from Mini Toji because the current style just looks so wrong.

And there’s also the most painful, if not, the worst running gag ever, Kaoru is always getting mission jobs from her boss, every episode we see her tired and it makes me feel super bad for her, let her rest, let her suffering end. ;_;

Not to mention the show has a very sluggish pace, everything happens so fast I don’t even have time to understand or even laugh at what the fuck is going on. For a 3 minute short series, the best thing they could have gone is make a shorter opening or don’t feature an OP at all, just feature a title card to open the show and that’s it. Or maybe they could have extended the run time to 7 minutes (a la Sugoiyo!! Masaru-san) so I can enjoy the pace better.

Unlike Manaria Friends, I did know but then I forgot this series was 11 episodes long, but at the same time it threw me off thinking there could be an 11th episode but then I realized episode 0 counts.

6/10 - 60% - Rank: C-

And now... time for the top 3 worst anime of the season!

11.- W’z: I’ve probably never paid a lot of attention to the trailers (and even vaguely remember it), I thought it would be a stand-alone and different kind of series with a lot more music themed or something, but when the series premiered, it revealed itself as a sequel to Hand Shakers... THAT’S RIGHT, A SEQUEL TO HAND SHAKERS NOBODY ASKED FOR.

Despite being surprised that W’z is a sequel to Hand Shakers, I’ve grown to really like the series overall in a short amount of time, it makes me like Hand Shakers more than I previously could.

In like 3 or even 4 episodes, I couldn’t stop fanboying out constantly seeing the characters from Hand Shakers who look so grown up after the 10 year time jump after the series happened.

I mentioned that I thought that W’z was self contained, there are some moments and characters that are barely self-contained because the plot is all heavily linked to Hand Shakers (not that I’m complaining, though). I genuinely didn’t care much for the new characters, except Yukiya because he’s the adopted son of Break and Bind (Real names: Reijiro and Yukine Araki, respectively) , and he’s the McGuffin for accessibility to the Ziggurat to find Nagaoka and Mayumi. The one character I was the least satisfied for their lack of development was Midori, at first he’s had a couple of interesting moments, but the rest he barely appeared in the series and only in the previews, but in episode 9, they finally gave him plenty of screentime and even dropped some good info bombs on what the Ziggurat can do and stuff, so that redeemed my feelings on the character.

Another complaint would be the DJ Nielsen character, he’s got interesting motives and he’s the one who gave Reijiro baby Yukiya in a flashback, but his rapper-kind of voice can be so annoying. He and CHU2 from BanG Dream S2 would make a great team, or maybe a contest on who speaks the worst. (SPOILER ALERT: It’s a draw, they’re both so bad in different levels)

Then we get to episode 10 where the most important thing is that NAGAOKA AND MAYUMI FINALLY SHOWED UP. It actually took so long for them to appear because there was like a lot of stuff in the way, but whatever, I was so happy to see them... albeit with a caveat. Since the goal was to get Nagaoka and Mayumi out of the Ziggurat, it turns out that the duo themselves can’t get out because they want to live a normal life and Nagaoka was sick, as Mayumi said. It’s a little sad and it sucks that they can’t get out, but at least Mayumi had a phone call with Koyori after all.

I thought episode 12 with a Midori/Seba episode (it wasn’t an episode dedicated to those two) and to be on par with Hand Shakers with the 12 episode total, but I’m glad there was a 13th episode to have a good conclusion, and boy, this episode delivered some good surprises: The biggest moment is where Nagaoka told Yukiya how much he has grown and then Yukiya himself straight-up called him “Dad”, like three episodes prior, I had theorized that Yukiya would be Nagaoka and Mayumi’s true biological son but I backed off because I thought it would be disturbing (maybe not really, Mayumi must be old after the 10 year gap and she and Koyori don’t look like they have aged at all), BUT IN REALITY, HE REALLY IS, GOHANDS THE FUCKING MADMEN. The second thing I was happy to see was Makihara, at long last the man finally shows up, he always narrated the first few episodes and I couldn’t stop saying “Show yourself, Makihara!” or something and then there were a couple of namedrops, they took so long but maybe they wanted to save Makihara’s appearance in the flesh for last.

This may not be the biggest deal, but since every single character from Hand Shakers appeared in W’z all grown up and such, the one thing I really wasn’t happy with is the absence of Hibiki and Kodama. Sure, they both got namedropped once (though Kodama was namedropped twice) and mentioned their current careers (Kodama being a singer and actress and Hibiki being a costume designer) but I never got to see them at all, maybe they weren’t the most popular amongst GoHands’ staff. They weren’t my bigger favorites of the Hand Shakers cast (and I don’t mean it in a negative way) but seeing them how they have aged would have been really worth it, come on, GoHands!

Despite the hideous visuals GoHands has grown to have in recent years, I really liked W’z, it makes me like Hand Shakers more than I previously could. If I really liked the show so much, then why it’s in the top 3 of my worst anime of the season? Well, mainly for the aforementioned hideous visuals, while they don’t bother me much, it’s for the sake of people who can’t stomatch it. (Says the guy who put Kemurikusa on second place and gave it a 10/10, Rank: S++, 100%).

Like Kemurikusa, W’z also has a couple of plot holes, which I don’t really expect they could get answered that much, but some parts certainly raise a lot of questions, most notable, this Composer character, we never got to see who was this Composer Senri and Hana worked with. (They both don’t have in common, but they both made me ask questions about the plot and lore.)

Regardless on how you feel about the visuals nowadays, I still want GoHands to continue doing projects, one day they’ll return to their former glory with good visuals like the K franchise and they’ll win their old fans back, but the more important thing is that I still want to see them creating interesting stories.

I’d like to see more stuff taken place in the Hand Shakers universe, just don’t make sequels with every 10 year gap because I don’t want to see all the characters from Hand Shakers and W’z grow really old and die, prequels would be fine to explore more on the Akutagawa/Okuike families and/or fill the 10 year gap between said series. If GoHands decides to make completely different IP that’s not set in the Hand Shakers universe, being its own self-contained universe, I would be totalyl fine too. (I previously thought W’z was a self-contained series before it premiered after all.)

You can call me a lunatic or tell me I’m high, and say whatever you want about Hand Shakers/W’z, I’ve grown to like the franchise and I got the balls to tolerate the visuals unlike you. Besides, It’s not about the visuals anymore, it’s about enjoying the story a lot more.

By the way, I made this meme ages ago and I’m so proud of it. 😂

5/10 - Rank: C - 52% - (AOTS #5 :^) ).

12.- Virtualsan - Looking: This got announced and released a trailer simultaneously out of nowhere, but when I saw the trailer (though it was focused at introducing the main VTubers) and the opening preview, I always thought the show was going to look half-assed, and indeed it did. And speaking of the opening, this series should have been hand-drawn so it would have been cooler to see the VTubers that way.

The bigger problem is that there’s no Kizuna AI at all, which many people aren’t happy with, I’m not worried too much since I like seeing the other VTubers (people should at least watch other kinds of VTubers, not just Kizuna AI alone). Even if Kizuna AI sings the first opening theme, it won’t make up for the fact that she’s completely absent. (At least try to learn to like other VTubers the same way you have your many normal YouTubers/Let’s Players you like, you dumb fucks)

The weirdest selling point of this show, Hideaki Anno was involved in the series. Yes, you read that right, the very same guy who did Evangelion and Shin Godzilla. No wonder why there’s this one sketch where we see the main cast dressed as the girl school uniforms from EVA.

The title of the show, Virtualsan - Looking has given a lot more meaning as I kept watching, it turns out that it’s actually referred to the VTuber Baacharu always watching, he always pops up at the very start of every episode and he’s a recurring star in “Listen Sister!” (forgot the name already, oops) where he always get thrown by Tokino Sora in order to confess to Sister Claire herself [Tokino]. Then he occasionally appears at this Siro segment where some VTubers take a seat and Siro gives a lot of trivia about different topics (then Baacharu became the last guest to star in this segment). It all makes sense now, but for some reason the subtitles called Baacharu “Virtual”.

Speaking of localization, for some reason Crunchyroll decided to license the series a week after its release, but guess what? The episode release schedule was behind, they simulcast the previous episode before the new one aired in Japan, that is until with episodes 5 or 6 which made things even.

There’s no real reason for me to hate this series, I quite enjoyed it and had a lot of laughs throughout the series but the half-assed special effects and stuff are not for the faint of Western audiences’ heart.

Though, I gotta say, this has the potential to spawn more genuine VTuber anime, I’m really optimistic to see more of them in the future.

4.5/10 - Rank: D+ - 48%

13.- Kemono Friends 2: *sigh* Oh boy, trying to write a series review on this one is going to be really tough, but to make it short, it’s as expected, Kemono Friends 2 is a soulless cash grab of a show, a shadow of its former self, definitely the WORST of the season. There’s just so many problems the show has:

Recycled storyline from the first season with a new human character nobody asked for.

Boring ass opening theme song that isn’t memorable and isn’t singable like WELCOME TO YOUKOSO JAPARI PARK.

Having two characters who serve the Raccoon and Fennec-type of roles. (despite having them featured in the OP numerous times and started to appear on episode 10)

Ceruleans look like unfinished CG mess compared to every character and heck, even the Ceruleans from the first season.

Occasionally inconsistent framerate from character movements, most of the time is a bit slow but there are a few times that it goes really fast.

Completely wiped out Serval’s memories of the events from the first season

etc.

Let’s go part by part:

The biggest crime of this season is of course not following the To Be Continued teased at the end of the first season and they decided to soft-reboot the series with a totally new human character, Kyururu.

Then, enter Armadillo and Pangolin, two characters who are looking for Kyururu for reasons [that is from the beginning of the series, later it was explained why they did it, it was to bring Kyururu to Domestic Dog], sound familiar? That’s because their roles are very like Raccoon and Fennec from the first season... when Raccoon and Fennec ALWAYS appeared in the opening (and then finally appeared on episode 10).

Speaking of the opening, the theme is a boring jazz earrape and it’s certainly not memorable or even singable as the first season’s opening, WELCOME TO YOUKOSO JAPARI PARK, those days are over.

I mostly didn’t even care for literally every character in the series. However, there are characters I do care, Kaban-chan (which I’ll discuss about her in a bit) of course, I will always care for Kaban-chan, and Domestic Dog, she’s the one Friend I’d definitely protecc because she’s a doggo and I feel bad for her in episode 8. The characters I’d definitely least protecc are Kyururu, nobody asked for a brand new human to take the Kaban-chan role, and Serval, because she doesn’t remember shit about the first season, they kind of ruined her character.

Serval was the worst change that has ever happened to her, as I stated, they basically wiped out all of her memories of the first season (or so it seems). Caracal told Serval that she had traveled with a human before and there was a small flash with Kaban-chan’s silhouette, this is one of the many things this season broke my heart very badly.

As for Caracal, the chemistry between her and Serval this season didn’t absolutely work here. Her character is depicted kind of a tsundere compared to her Welcome to Japari Park version which, gotta be honest, I definitely prefer the Welcome to Japari Park version and voice way better than the Kemono Friends 2 one. Without disrespecting the VA way too much, her voice for Caracal didn’t work for the character.

Rewatched a small portion of the first season, despite Serval having the same VA, she sounds a little different in Kemono Friends 2.

Speaking of Welcome to Japari Park, there’s the finale coming up in two weeks, so I hope it has a better conclusion than Kemono Friends 2 (which I’ll talk about later).

Now... let’s talk about Kaban-chan! If Serval wasn’t that of a poorly written character enough, Kaban-chan has definitely suffered the most! At the end of episode 5, a paper plane with a flame on its tip was flying out of nowhere, just to drive the Beast away, I heard a voice and IT WAS KABAN-CHAN!!! I was so happy that she finally appeared and I was eager to see more of her in the next episode, then the next week came and... she had plenty of screentime but... SHE DIDN’T DO SHIT! SHE DIDN’T DO A LOT OF SHIT, LIKE, SHE COULD HAVE INTERACTED WITH KYURURU A LOT MORE ABOUT WHAT DOES SHE WANT AND EVERYTHING, I CANNOT FORGIVE THIS EVER!

Well, it’s not like I wanted her with Serval to be like “Hey, Serval! Do you remember me?”, I understand she had her reasons and she must have been aware on Serval’s memory or something, but at the same time, she didn’t do a lot, though later in the episode, it was more focused on Kyururu talking to the owls about the origin of the Ceruleums, Kyururu theorized that the Ceruleans must have been spawned from the sea, and they all decide to test this out, which I don’t really blame too much that it turned out that way because they need to focus more on the overarching story of Kyururu’s search for her house, but come on...

At the end of the episode, Kaban says goodbye to the main trio, but most importantly, to Serval, as she asked Caracal to take care of her, she was downright sad.This episode was completely unsatisfying that I went so far to make a review out of it.

But that’s not the end of Kaban-chan, as she did appear in the final episodes, which I’ll talk about them in a bit...

But I gotta say, I really dig Kaban-chan’s new design. She has indeed grown up given by her height and her matured voice. 👌

There’s something I haven’t discussed very often and that is the NicoNico ratings. I haven’t seen these very often but I’ve seen two screenshots of two random episodes of the ratings, and guess what? Japan definitely voted for the “I didn’t like it.” option! Here’s a screenshot of episode 6:

This is the exact same episode with the underwhelming reunion with Kaban-chan, it deserved it.

This is very funny because, two years ago, Pop Team Epic also a lot of dislike ratings, but it’s not because PTE is bad bad, I think it’s because it’s a kuso anime and people would follow the gag that it sucks or something, but in the case of Kemono Friends 2, it’s plain bad.

Moving on, episode 9 came by, the PPP episode, and there was no Crunchyroll-Hime cameo from the first season, wow, the disrespect. Then we get to see Crested Ibis again! Though she was not a main Friend of the episode (as it is a PPP-centered episode), she has become more of a minor role, just doing auditions, she even name dropped Alpaca.

Next we’ve come to the one episode where Armadillo and Pangolin finally captured Kyururu and brought to her master, the master appeared to be a Friend called Domestic Dog. She started talking to Kyururu that she has finally met a human after a long time, she brings Kyururu to her house and OH MY GOD, SHE MADE DOG SOUNDS, DEFINITELY PROTECC, I’M BEING SERIOUS, PROTECC.

Then comes the scene where Doggo was protecting Kyururu from the Beast, the moment I saw her full of scratches and dirt, my god, I cannot unsee that, that was horrifying.

(Yes, I couldn’t resist bringing John Wick jokes)

Then when doggo let go of Kyururu, to come back to her friends, I felt so bad for her. I saw a comment on Crunchyroll where someone said “Oh no, she’s Seymour from Futurama” and things couldn’t be any more painful.

Right at the end of the episode, these two Friends from a promotional poster I saw a while before the series premiered finally showed up.

They’re purpose was to give Kyururu some sort of existential crisis (well, not that much) by asking her if her house really exists, why did she made her drawings, etc.

Now we’re finally in episode 10 where Raccoon and Fennec finally appear after being in the OP literally every episode ever (Maybe I was asking for meaning or pay-off way too much), then KABAN-CHAN REAPPEARS and that time she was hella serious because she, the professor and her assistant, found out that there were Ceruleans being spawned from Kyururu’s drawings. Kyururu then made a drawing of literally every Friend she has met, including Pigeon which she just met but wanted to include her, and that immediately screamed maximum danger, as I thought there would be a huge army of Ceruleans shaped like the Friends, this is where things got interesting.

Episode 11, comes this war of Friends vs Ceruleans shaped like them, blah blah blah...

Episode 12 came and NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT THE ENDING!

THE ENDING, I.... TAKE A LOOK AT THIS!

Then there’s the post-credits scene:

My face during the very end:

................................................................................................................................................................................................can somebody explain to me what the fuck just happened?

That Kaban-chan and Serval scene........ how could they do this to me.... and I don’t mean it in a good way.... Then that drawing with Mirai and two other Japari Park workers...................

THEY JUST MADE KABAN-CHAN SUFFER!!! ;_;

AND THEN THAT JAPARI PARK FRIENDS DRAWING, WHO ARE THE OTHER TWO WORKERS, MIRAI GETS TO CAMEO, EVERYTHING AAAAAAAAAAAAA

FUCK... THAT!!!

Sure, these moments should bring hype and I should be happy that they did this, the Kaban-chan and Serval scene and the drawing, but it won’t work for me, Kemono Friends 2 tries really hard to redeem itself with hype-worthy moments like these, they just won’t make up for this irredeemable garbage.

Now, I wasn’t a douche on watching the entire series, there are some moments that I found genuinely interesting, had some laughs and made me smile (probably out of confusion, I have problems smiling even on inappropiate shit), the models perfectly capture Mine Yoshizaki’s art style, but without disrespecting Tatsuki, at the same time the models feel lifeless compared to the first season’s.

One thing I don’t understand about the designs is that I’ve seen people in 4chan blaming Tomason for the lazy designs and stuff, or something like that because I’ve seen them use “they” and I don’t really think they’re referring to Yoshizaki, they must have been really referring to Tomason, and that’s not true, Mine Yoshizaki does all of the Friends’ designs, and please don’t call some of them lazy, don’t disservice the man.

Then there are also the next episode previews made by Kikuchi Milo featuring the characters from the first season. Because of Crested Ibis’ minor appearance in episode 9, now I kind of wish the Friends from the first season to show up in the series, not just the next episode previews.

There were also two ED themes, which I find it bizarre that a one-cour series changes theme songs.

We never got to learn more about the Beast character though, she was like an underdeveloped Friend and she behaved more like a genuine tiger animal or something, we never get to learn her origin, or even her race.

Boy, this review turned out way better than I expected, I had a lot of fun writing about this soulless pile of trash. I hope the Welcome to Japari Park finale will help me forget this shit, let’s see how it would build up to the first season of Kemono Friends given that it’s a prequel and this is really old footage, I’m sure there must be how the future of the series got set up or something.

This might have been the most brutal anime review I’ve ever written but it’s the truth.

Watch Kemono Friends 3 get announced but inb4 it could be an adaptation of the mobile/arcade game of the same name instead of following the anime’s overarching story.

Though I think if Kemono Friends 3 happens, it could still be a continuation of the anime's story and it has nothing to do with the mobile/arcade game of the same name. It could be a similar situation with Welcome to Japari Park where there's a manga and a short series and they're both totally unrelated.

To conclude this series review, let me just say this:

Kemono Friends 2 is the Pacific Rim: Uprising of anime.

0/10 - Rank: E - 0% 🔥 🔥 🔥  Hail Hydra (or in this case Hail Kadokawa) No Tatsuki, No Tanoshii

Fuck you, Kadokawa. 🖕

Fall 2018 ongoing:

At last, ongoing anime from the previous season, I wasn’t having this streak lately and it was about time I had it.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind: JoJo Part 5 continues to be strong. There’s not much to add but I got some small things to say: When I’m 4chan threads, seeing screenshots of Part 4 makes me realize that Part 4 is the WORST looking and poorly produced part out of all the rest, thankfully Part 5 looks way better.

Since I was so accostumed on how the characters sound like in All Star Battle and Eyes of Heaven, the new voices have definitely grown on me now.

Also, how does King Crimson work?

Ace Attorney season 2: I genuinely had this post written with JoJo as the only ongoing Fall 2018 anime alone and somehow I have forgotten about Ace Attorney despite still watching the series. I feel like I enjoyed the Bridge to the Turnabout episodes a lot more.

I felt like this second season has genuinely given me a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth unlike the first season, which it definitely lead me to drop the series, but I didn’t drop it completely, I have picked it up again around episode 10 because I felt bad.

Now, let’s start talking about the Spring season, and why is this going to be the best anime season yet? Well...

1.- Kimestu no Yaiba - April 6: I’M SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS ONE! Ahem, well, to tell you the truth, I just love being wowed by Ufotable’s fantastic visuals. I’m definitely checking this one blindly, I feel like this is something I should read the manga because I’m starting to feel like it could be an unfaithful narrative mess, and it’s already making me sad. But is Ufotable the type of studio to go off the rails and completely butcher the story? (Probably God Eater as people say but I don’t really see what’s with the hate and why is it offensively bad, I played God Eater Burst long afterwards, though. Call me an Ufotable stan if you want, but I really don’t see any problem with God Eater even when I binged it years ago, aside from a bit of animation hiccups (probably the/my first with (modern) Ufotable having a bit of hiccups) but I don’t mind it, I just enjoyed the way it is; people are gonna tell me this too and I’d be like totally disagreeing their opinions, refusing to seek the reality; I’d love to rush my ass off and read the manga like I did with One Punch Man, My Hero Academia and Monster Musume but I’m just so lazy to do it now, and I can’t read manga with over 100 chapters long.)

I always watch a lot of anime without even reading the manga first, even I don’t read JoJo (Even though I know some of the biggest spoilers from every part through the games) and Mob Psycho 100, but for some reason Kimetsu no Yaiba feels like a huge deal for me, I wish I couldn’t let the opportunity of reading the manga first go to waste, yet, I’m here about to watch the anime. I wish I could have realized this sooner.

Anyways, enough of that insane talk and wouldn’t boost hype confidence, I’m still going to enjoy it regardless how the story goes and the music might be something worth praising because the composers are fucking Yuki Kajiura and Go Shiina, animation and visuals are no surprise worth of praise , I’m just ready to watch Ufotable’s next big TV project since Katsugeki: Touken Ranbu. (yes, there was 2018′s Emiya-san chi no Kyou no Gohan but it was a monthly series and each episode was 12 minutes long, so it’s not kind of a big deal; then there’s also the Heaven’s Feel movie trilogy (loved the second movie (even though I’m an anime only, I’m legit scared of Gavin and other kinds of elitists now; even though he unfollowed me)), but like I said, TV project)

As of March 27th, I read some news that Ufotable is under investigation over tax evasion and now I’ve grown way concerned than I was. It may not affect the releases of Kimetsu no Yaiba and even Fate/Stay Night Heaven’s Feel III but I just don’t want to see Ufotable close. After Kimetsu no Yaiba come out, let’s see how Ufotable will do.

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Quick update, I HAVE read the first three chapters, it’s relatively solid and given on the scenes I’ve seen in the trailers, I do believe Ufotable is going to make a pretty good job on adapting the series faithfully narratively.

But most importantly so far, I hope Ufotable will do justice this panel! Which I had posted this on my Kemono Friends 2 series review.

Bones disappointed me with the anime version of Mina’s “NO WAY” scene from My Hero Academia, and I hope Ufotable won’t do the same, I want a perfect recreation of that Tanjiro face.

Here’s the comparison below:

Anime:

Manga:

Do you agree on this? (If you don’t, it’s fine, don’t worry about it)

UPDATE - April 13th:

UFOTABLE, YOU FUCKING BLEW IT!!! GET BANKRUPT!!!

I changed my mind about Bones with the Mina “NO WAY!” part, it actually looks faithfully recreated, UNLIKE UFOTABLE.

(Alright, I gotta stop updating this post constantly with what’s happening right now)

RELATED: What will Ufotable’s final release be?

2.- One Punch Man season 2 - April 2nd: I’ve said this before and I will say it again, I’m NOT expecting OPM S2 to be any good and I’m NOT looking forward to it, even if I say that, I’m still going to watch it, regardless, but I’m not very hopeful for the visuals (Man, all I ever care about in anime is the visuals, I don’t give a crap of the story, I just want good animation!).

Since the release date is revealed to be April 2nd, which is Tuesday, I’m going to miss the good old One Punch Man Sundays when the first season came out, but Tuesdays are a good day for anime, so it’s worth it.

Well, I wrote that sentence literally like a day or two, and a new visual got revealed, it looks clean but it’s already not gonna look like that, very S1-like, given the first teaser trailer released. That aside, Viz Media confirmed that it will be premiered on April 9th on Hulu (RIP Daisuki.net), which that’s on Saturday, so that’s close on the good old OPM Sundays 4 years ago.

Actually, I’m pretty split on that information, in one hand, the official Twitter account tweeted the visual with the April 2nd release, but in the other, Viz Media tweeted that it comes out in the 9th and calls it “the same day as Japan” and “ Details and availability regarding the April 2nd special programming in our territory are currently unavailable.”, I’m so confused.

(Sorry, this post has been in progress for the entire Winter season and I’m writing stuff I was currently experiencing at the time)

March 18th, the second trailer dropped and somehow I’m kind of alright with it, still not super impressed but at least it’s kind of something. But the biggest let-down is the new opening theme by JAM Project revealed in the trailer which it’s not as great as THE HERO. I’m a bigger fan of the way THE HERO is, I’m probably the more upbeat type of person, and with this? I don’t want something calm, I wanted a more action packed song! I hadn't payed a lot of attention to the editing of the trailer with the black screens, but yeah, it's so bad.

The more I think about the trailer and seeing people’s reactions, I’m starting to think it’s really looking like absolute ass than I previously mentioned, so I couldn’t agree more. But hey, at least I love seeing some of the jokes and memes related to the trailer.

I thought I had to wait until AnimeJapan to drop the trailer but they decided to do it now.

I now understand what’s with the April 2nd and April 9th releases. The April 2nd release is going to be more like an special of sorts and next week is when the series for real starts. It’s the same issue I had with Kemono Friends 2, but that was unpredictable at the time, so with One Punch Man, I can totally wait for next week. (At the time of posting this, the day has come)

3.- Attack on Titan season 3 second cour - April 28th: It’s seriously been like annoyingly forever after the first cour ended in Fall 2018, but I’m finally it’s going to continue.

I still don’t know what took so long, but whatever.

4.- Isekai Quartet - April 9th: From what I see now, this is going to be more like a show with different isekai projects focused as sketches or something, I randomly thought it would be a crossover but apparently it’s not the case. Regardless, I’m still going to watch and enjoy the way it is.

By the time I saw its announcement, I immediately went to binge Re:Zero, I have seen Youjo Senki, Overlord and Kono Suba, so I needed to watch Re:Zero so I can be complete or something.

Since I write this post as time goes on, the trailer for Isekai Quartet has released and indeed it is a crossover like I wanted!

5.- Girls’ Frontline comedy anime short - ???: It appears that we’re getting our first Girls’ Frontline anime and it’s a comedy which it’s even cooler.

The trailer was first revealed on a BiliBili livestream on January for Chinese audiences, then a few days later, there was another livestream taken place in VTuber Nekomiya Hinata’s channel for Japanese audiences, where they showed off the same trailer but one frame of new footage and then there’s a new trailer for another Girls’ Frontline anime, that’s right, we don’t have just one, but two different Girls’ Frontline comedy anime, this one’s focused on the AR Team and 404, and the other one has a variety of T-Dolls featured, but the former is the bigger focus here.

What I find rather surprising about this short anime is that ever since they showed the trailer on said livestreams, there’s no official upload of the trailer, not a whole lot of news sites reported about this, and not even a full release date after two months. I thought there would be more information on AnimeJapan 2019 but there was nothing in sight.

So I guess I’ll have to wait until April to see if this will indeed come out, it could be a surprise release not everyone is going to notice or it might be delayed to Summer. Nevertheless, I’m excited to see this one, and the other one too but I prefer this one with the AR Team and 404 the most.

By the way, thanks for tagging me twice on these Girls’ Frontline anime, Moetron. I’m happy that I let you know these trailers exist. Here, have this powerful image of G11 meditating.

6.- Fruits Basket remake - April 5th: I never watched the original Fruits Basket and I’ve been seeing a lot of announcements about returning English voice actors and stuff, I dunno why but I’m thinking the remake could be overhyped with all this stuff, but I’m sure it’s still going to be enjoyable for the people who read the manga, who watched the original anime series and newcomers alike.

Speaking of the manga, I wondered why is there a need for a remake now, one of my friends told me that there could be an actual ending of the series since the original anime prematuredly ended when the manga was still going at the time, so I believe the remake might add the manga’s ending or something, I don’t know anything about it but it sounds like a likely thing to happen.

7.- Miru Tights - May 11th: There isn’t much to comment on this one, but it’s interesting because it’s basically Yom the anime. Yep, the man of the thights is getting an anime. Who would knew one day this would happen? Also, it comes out on May 11th, it’s kind of an unusual date even for a web series.

8.- 四月一日さん家の (Watanuki-san Chi No) - April 19th: After Virtual-san wa Miteiru, it seems like the anime industry wouldn’t give up on start making anime with VTubers now.

Unlike Virtual-san wa Miteiru, this one’s not really classified as “anime”, it’s more like a drama as its official Twitter account says or something. Well, at least this show stars Tokino Sora as one of the three leads, so it’ll be interesting. Though I’m not sure anyone would really like to torrent this but at the same time it’d be a waste not to.

9.- Bungou Stray Dogs season 3 - April 12th: I’ve watched the first two seasons of the show in December 2017, then watched the movie in my cinema with my older sister on her birthday, I’m definitely quite a fan of the series, not completely hardcore as I need to read the manga, but I’m fine for now. Anyways, I’m glad there’s a third season happening and can’t wait to see it.

There was originally going to be a Chiitan anime this Spring but it got delayed to Summer. And yeah, you read that right, a Chiitan anime.

HONORABLE MENTION (Since that just happened): Pop Team Epic special: I genuinely forgot a special was going to occur on April 1st (being April Fools), but I’m glad I watched it and still loved it like the base series and now I want season 2.

Thanks for reading this post, this must have been the longest post I’ve ever made yet for so many reasons. What’s your most anticipated anime of the season?

Twitter: @HKomaeda.