#WHAT KINDA FRANCHISE CORNERSTONE IS THAT

[allpromarlo]

i'm kinda hoping blazers get messy and trade dame somewhere other than miami idk...

[petr1kov]

i already made a video on the topic so i might be repeating myself, but the release of these recent silent hill projects make it impossible for me to not think about how much this franchise struggles with defining its identity. and for as much as i love silent hill 2, it's kinda its fault for muddying the waters on what a silent hill game was supposed to be 'about', since it is the one game that popularized this notion of the 'therapist town'.

twisted projections of the worst parts of someone's mind have been a cornerstone of the series since the first entry, where we are forced to experience alessa's nightmare, but it's a notably different approach than that of the second game, starting by the fact that it's a deep dive of someone else's mind, not the protagonist's - a formula that repeats itself most notably on silent hill 4, with walter's character being the sources of the projections, and even silent hill 3, where we are split between heather and claudia's versions of the otherworld.

in these games, we spend a good chunk of the game with our player characters as confused spectators of a horror that is connected to them, sure, but bigger than themselves. it is that contrast that made silent hill 2 stand out back when it came out, in fact. finding out that what we were experiencing stemmed from james himself instead of other characters around him was a genuine twist, not the forgone conclusion that it became these days.

in reality, what i believe has always been central to the identity of the silent hill games and that has been sorely neglected on basically every title that has been released after 4 (no doubt because of this belief that silent hill /needs/ to be about a tortured protagonist discovering hidden truths about their lives) is the occult. the genuine surreal supernatural elements that complement the metaphors. the cult and the gods and the otherworld and the psychic powers. and that's something that even silent hill 2, the game most disconnected of this aspect of the series out of the original four, still recognizes and approaches in direct ways. that's what makes maria such an intriguing character, especially on born from a wish, and there's even an ending where james tries to engages directly with elements of the cult of the original game, attempting to perform a ritual of rebirth on mary.

i feel that later silent hill titles feel almost ashamed to engage with these elements directly, preferring to lean heavily on the metaphorical aspects of it in order to downplay the weirdness of the occult in the series, but in doing it that, you end up stripping it of something that's essential to it, that gives the series its distinct flavor and, worse of all, end up with very samey, predictable stories that try and fail to recapture the magic of silent hill 2

[tobiasdrake]

Huh. That's interesting.

Despite being Japanese, Chrono Trigger has a decidedly European aesthetic. It's much like Fullmetal Alchemist in that regard. It features traditional European kingdoms and architecture, with blond-haired European royalty served by plate armored European knights.

Crono's kind of the odd man out, being an up-and-coming Samurai in what is otherwise a very non-Japanese aesthetic. I wonder why the decision was made to go with European imagery over a more Japanese design choice like....

Wait a second. Super Mario Bros takes place in a European-style kingdom, with blond-haired royalty occupying a classic European castle.

...so does The Legend of Zelda, for that matter. And most Final Fantasies. ...Resident Evil flat-out takes place in the United States.

Huh. Kinda weird that a lot of the formative Japanese game franchises from my youth were so... not Japanese in their aesthetic choices.

Like. I know part of it's because they didn't export everything - And not everything they exported clicked with American audiences. There were a lot of games more heavily rooted in Japanese culture, history, and mythology such as Kiki Kaikai, known in the U.S. as Pocky and Rocky. But they weren't a huge hit over here.

So now I'm having thoughts.

Like. Disney gets a lot of flak for pandering to China, and rightfully so from the LGBT community. But they also print money by doing so, and their movies become worldwide phenomena.

These are franchises and iconic games and beloved titles that have stood the test of time. These are some of the iconic cornerstones of classic gaming. And now I have to wonder. Like. Were Nintendo, Square, Capcom, etc. just doing the same thing?

Did these franchises print money by pandering to the West?

[onesunofagun]

With Zelda, I think you gotta acknowledge that-- not from a place of ineptitude or lack of care-- the Devs have always been like:

Which is fine. But also, without throwing out the canon details given in the games themselves, I think you gotta be able to take that as free leave to gather up all the franchise materials and be like:

In both a critical and joyful way.

I think if Zelda makes you feel critical more than not, maybe it's not all that good for you to engage with it. I imagine that there's probably a lot of people like that, who kinda like the vibes or were players in their childhood but don't really want to engage the actual media, who are more comfy in the sub-fandom space of heavily reimagined Zelda fanworks. The way I see that is, they're curating their experience heavily.

I'm a fan of the core and official franchise materials mostly, but from my perspective-- there is a lot of lore to play with, and there are intended and interesting themes all over the place. There are a lot of connections that are there on purpose. There is subtext to find. There are a few overarching tales that do have some masterful craftsmanship behind them and they aren't happy accidents fans make up. These things are canon, they are cornerstones that help make the franchise overall fantastic. I think the Zelda team have been consistently passionate and skilled people throughout most of the franchise who produced excellent works.

But not all things intended are good, and not all good is intended, and sometimes there's unhappy accidents, mishandling, biases, and questionable themes and messaging too. There are intended connections that have negative implications. It also doesn't mean that there hasn't been a decline in quality in certain games or glaring issues in others.

Both can be true.

Being realistic about the issues and talking about them is important, but I think some slide entirely into a habit of accepting really bad faith takes at face value. I think that loses a lot of the usefulness of effective critique-- which isn't supposed to be a solely negative thing, on its own. It goes both ways.

In a franchise that hugely centres itself around player investment and interpretation, while also not prioritising the narrative intention over gameplay experience as a whole because of this, sometimes there are roads that lead nowhere in terms of overall story. This can be both a disappointing thing, and a good one. Because I, as the fan, am invited to fill them in, and sometimes that's also clearly part of the intent-- and I don't see that as me doing some kind of heavy lift. If I felt that way, I probably wouldn't be a fan.

Regardless of whether people appreciate that approach or not, I think it's important when engaging with media that we can identify when this is the case. Like when something is a conscious choice and when it's not. Whether or not something is actually a failure or weakness of structure in the media itself, or if there's a different reason for a feeling of disconnect in reception. Because there's a difference there between dissection of the meta in how something is presented and why and what the result was, versus criticism or deeper analysis of its conception and construction and chosen ingredients.

One examines reception and impact of the final product -- which is a critical part of the discussion in Zelda especially given its larger reliance around the player interpretation-- and the other looks at the mechanics of how it came to be that and why. Those are deeply related, but also very distinct, focuses in these discussions.

I think if I start lovingly pulling apart Zelda, it's important to me that I have a clear idea of which mode I'm in.

Y'know what I mean?

[itsclydebitches]

I ask you because you’re good at articulating your thoughts but why do you like BB? I just wanna know the hype behind this ship, I’ve seen people outside the fandom either say they’re waiting for it to be canon to get into the show or they claim it’s the only good thing about it.

Hey, anon! Ah, getting a lovely compliment about articulating thoughts while I sit here struggling to articulate my thoughts lol.

Okay, I want to start by saying that I personally like Yang/Blake about as much as the majority of the ships I have. Meaning, the 95% of fictional characters I enjoy seeing as a canonical couple and/or imagining as a potential couple, excluding the 5% that I get really, really into. I've got OTPs and I've got casual ships. BB is the latter. Why is this important? Because I think BB has been under an extreme amount of pressure over the years, with that pressure only increasing as time goes on and that... kinda sucks. They represent the growing demand for explicitly queer relationships. They're tied to a webseries and a fandom rather infamous at this point for its heated, controversial content. They're a part of an era where fans are more focused than ever on canonical status, whereas back in the day you just enjoyed ships for the hell of it, regardless of their chances of getting together on screen. It used to be that people unironically adored ships for characters who had never exchanged a single greeting. Nowadays, you need a ten page essay explaining why the ship is supposedly The Best. Blake/Yang is bound up in all of that, resulting in a community that, yeah, hypes things up to an arguably unnecessary degree. We've reached a point where this couple supposedly makes or breaks the entire show; it's either the greatest ship to every grace the small screen, or it's the ruin of the entire franchise. In reality, Blake/Yang is just... a ship. Like any other ship. Some people like it. Some people don't. It should be far more casual than it is. Which isn't to say fans aren't justified in being invested in the politics of the queer relationship — I am — or even just emotionally invested in a ship they really enjoy, but rather that I think the hype is due more to these external factors than the relationship itself. Blake and Yang arguably aren't unique in what makes them an attractive couple. Are they important in terms of that representation for an American webseries? Yes. Are they exceptional in regards to these two character types being shipped by a fandom? Not by a longshot. I could give you hundreds of ships that look just like Blake and Yang.

And that for me is part of the appeal. I like many of the same sorts of things in my ships. One of those is the "opposites attract" setup, where we have the brash party girl coupled with the quieter bookworm. They balance each other in a number of significant ways, from fighting styles to their backgrounds. And, for fic purposes, that balance can also provide great conflict for them to work through, resulting in a stronger couple down the line. Going off of that, I enjoy that they're already partners at the (near) start of the show. The different definitions of "partner" is always fun, but beyond that — and despite the before mentioned shipping of characters who have never interacted — there's a tendency to pair of the duos who have already been paired up by the story. There's a sense of inevitability about it (fate, perhaps?) alongside the practical benefit of them getting a lot of screen time together. There's a reason why Blake/Yang and Ruby/Weiss got popular, with the former arguably surpassing the latter only because of its likelihood of becoming canon. We reached a point where the show is actively pushing Blake/Yang in a way they never did Ruby/Weiss — their coding is far stronger — and that creates a snowball effect: popular ships keep getting more popular the more attention they're paid; you pay the popular stuff more attention. Round and round we go. But I also enjoy their awkward flirting and tender moments, no matter how many problems might be attached to those in the story's context. I like how they tease and push one another — even if, again, the story has largely failed in that regard. They have a lot of good potential, shall we say, which is all a fan ever needs. Whether you're analyzing one of their clearly coded moments, or just running with the balanced color scheme — Yang has purple eyes with Blake wearing purple, Blake has yellow eyes with Yang wearing yellow — there's a lot in the show to connect them together, making the already easy job of shipping even easier.

Blake/Yang is a solid ship. They just also happen to be a ship bearing most of the weight of their show. I've made the comparison before, but it's not unlike Dean/Cas becoming the cornerstone of Supernatural. You reach a point where the story itself is such a mess that the most popular pairing becomes the supposed answer to all these problems: it's either the saving grace, or the reason for the show's destruction. It'll either save RWBY or function as the explanation for its downfall. Yang/Blake is heading more and more in that direction, either built up or torn down to an extreme degree as it tries to bear that weight. But honestly? I don't think it's any better or worse than those hundred other ships I could toss out. Ignoring the f/f rep, they're a pretty classic setup, a dime a dozen, and the important takeaway is that there's nothing wrong with that. There's a reason pairings like Blake/Yang got popular in the first place. Saying "I've seen it before" isn't a bad thing because fans like familiarity. But it simultaneously means they're not the best thing since sliced bread. They're neither the devil nor the angel the RWBY community has made them out to be.

So basically, my own casual enjoyment aside, I don't think the external factors propelling the love/hatred for the ship means the ship itself is actually that astounding or horrific. In a better written show, a less controversial show, setting aside those fans who have Yang/Blake as their first OTP and are pouring all that intense love into it, etc. I think the ship would still be popular... but we wouldn't be in this "it's the only good thing about the show"/"this was the show's downfall" territory. Pretty much every large fandom is going to develop that one, popular ship — just look at how fast Loki/Mobius happened — which shows that Blake/Yang is not unique in regards to getting the majority of a community's attention. It's just that other shows are solid enough to let ships be ships, without expecting any one ship to prove the show's worth. Or herald its downfall.

[madame-fouquet]

2020 Anime Retrospective

With the end of the year here, and all the anime that came with it now behind us, I feel like looking back and reminiscing on it. So, following the style of ANN's own yearly retrospectives, may I present my 2020 anime in review! Enjoy.

Best of the year: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken

    This is actually not the first time Yuasa and his crew of, let's be honest, visionaries have rolled something special out right at the beginning of the year in some weird power move against everything else that has to follow it. They did it back in 2018 with Devilman Crybaby, and then they hit us this year with Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken.     You ever have one of those shows where you're just constantly in awe of everything it does? Where you never found yourself chasing merch or hunting after content based off it online, but you consistently find yourself thinking about it? Yeah, that's what Eizouken did to my brain after I watched it. It was such an earnest love letter to anime and anime production, to animation in general, that I couldn't help but get sucked into its imagination and enthusiasm. The way it was able to so perfectly illustrate that pure, boundless, childlike joy that one can derive from the simple act of creating, I'd be lying if I didn't say that it had a powerful effect on my own desire to continue creating. (Corny as that sounds, it's true.) The sheer amount of love it contains, and the equal amount it puts out into the world make it so I know I am going to be thinking about it again and again for a long long time.

Runner-up: Akudama Drive

    I don't know if it's really quite a matter of my two favorites being opposites, but there are definitely some pretty sharp stylistic and tonal differences between my two top shows this year. Akudama Drive's cocaine-fueled bender of an intro episode made it very clear what it's intentions were and what it wanted us to be prepared for. That doesn't mean I had ANY idea of where it was headed narratively, but I did know I was in for one hell of a ride. And it delivered is spades on that promise.     The twists and turns, no matter how insane, illogical, or steeped in tropes they were, were all such a colorful energetic spectacle that it would be hard to hold anything against the series. Every character was such a force that I didn't really consider any of them a weak point. Yeah, some of them were more or less cardboard cut-outs of antagonistic elements, but when the cardboard cutout looks REALLY FREAKING COOL, it's hard to get too torn up over the details. It's a show that oozes style and knew EXACTLY what it wanted to do and be, and I have to respect that.

Runner-up-up: Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun

    The next few entries aren't really in any sort of order, I actually found it near impossible to sort anything below my top two. Hanako-kun however does hold a bit of a special place for me though because, at least from a stylistic standpoint, it hits so many of my buttons. Just visually this show is the exact kind of thing my younger self would have latched onto immediately, even before knowing anything about the actual content. I suppose not much has really changed though.     I'm absolutely in love with the animation style of Hanako-kun, and I got really lucky that there is an interesting story and delightful cast of characters underneath that visual splendor. Along with the sharp lines, intense colors, and soft characters, I'm also a sucker for contemporary supernatural mysteries. That's a fancy way of saying one of my favorite shows as a kid was The X-files, but both make the point pretty well. The world of Hanako-kun has a lot to offer, and I can only hope it gets a second season so we can continue to delve into it's beautiful and terrifying mysteries.

Runner-up-up: Kaguya-sama: Love is War Season 2

    I know a lot of people will be talking about this one when it comes to “Best of” lists. I know a lot of people were talking about the first season when it reminded us just how funny anime can be back in 2018. Absurd high school comedies (Is that a genre?) could definitely be considered my favorite. Hell, of my top five favorite anime of all time, THREE of them fall under that category. So believe me when I say Kaguya-sama absolutely deserves the deluge of praise it receives. For what describing something as “laugh out loud” is worth, this show had me constantly needing to pause it just so I could finish laughing at whatever ludicrously funny misfortune had just befallen it's cast of lovable morons.     The thing is though, Kaguya-sama understands that you can't just earn love and goodwill on laughs alone, there needs to be a beating heart at the center of all the shenanigans. And when this season had me actually cheering on and feeling sorry for Ishigami of all people, I knew that beating heart was present and accounted for. Look, the cast are all self-centered idiots, but I'll be damned if they aren't also my dear children who I delight in watching slowly grow and become slightly less self-centered idiots.

Runner-up-up: Dorohedoro

    When the Dorohedoro anime was first announced, a lot of my experience was watching a group of people online scream about how they were so pumped that it was finally getting an anime. I had never heard of it before, but the excitement was very real and tangible. And I gotta say, sometimes you need to believe the hype.     I've never been one to shirk a series just because it was CG animation, (Watch ID-0 dammit!) but Dorohedoro makes a strong case for why people shouldn't sleep on something based solely on it's animation. The dirty, grease-encrusted world of Hole is brought to life with plenty of flair and style that, I feel, the CG didn't hold back at all. What I had seen said was that for a long time Dorohedoro was kinda considered “unanimateable” but I think MAPPA did the iconic manga a fair amount of justice. Even if pulpy ultra-violence isn't normally your thing, I still highly recommend giving Dorohedoro a look, it might just end up being a hole worth going down.

Honorable Mention: Show By Rock!! Mashumairesh!!

    I know what you're thinking, but hear me out. The first Show By Rock!! was definitely an indulgence for me. While not something I considered a high level series by any stretch: messy plotting, shallow characters, a weird isekai angle, a lackluster finale, and an even MORE lackluster second season, it still got is hooks into me with its sheer energy and fluffy charm. So despite the, as mentioned, rough second season, I was more than happy to check out the new series in the franchise. And boy was I glad I did.     Mashumairesh!! takes all the heart and sweetness that worked for the first series and dials it up. It then took a hard look at a lot of what DIDN'T work in the first series, and manages to fix most of the issues. Removing the isekai angle and the whole existential threat thing, and just letting the series be a “slice-of-life but in an electric animal filled music world” did wonders for the direction and consistency. Add to that more properly fleshed out characters, and you get a series that is far stronger than it's progenitor.     The next series, Show By Rock!! Stars!!, will be adding back the cast from the first series, and that could very well be a sign that it will be falling back into its old habits, but the presence of the Mahumairesh!! girls gives me hope that it might have a chance of staying the new, far better course.

Worst of the Year: Digimon Adventure:

    This one really hurts to say. What hurt more was how quickly I knew what show I'd be electing for this position. One thing to clarify is that I would not nominate a series that I'd only watched one or two episodes of, that's just not fair. So the award was bound to go to something I had at least dedicated a decent amount of my time too. And in any other year this may have gone to something that was more my “least favorite” or had an ending that disappointed me. But unfortunately I have to be honest and sit here and tell you that the newest entry in the Digimon franchise was easily the worst thing I watched this year.      I have been a long time Digimon fan. Ever since I was but a wee lass watching the original Digimon Adventure premiere on Fox Kids at a family reunion, I have always considered the franchise a sort of cornerstone of my anime fandom. So please understand the excitement I had felt when I found out they were doing a full on remake of that flagship series. Imagine how absolutely pumped I was when the bombastic movie-like premiere of Digimon Adventure: wowed us with everything it delivered, and all the promises of what was to come. And then imagine my disappointment, my despair as the show devolved until it showed us what it really was during the finale of the Fake Tokyo arc.     I would call it a production meltdown, but considering the precedent that got set back in episode 10 during the already shaky Ultimate Evolution arc, has been so clearly informing everything up to the current episodes in the early 30s, I have to be honest with myself and admit: this is what we were going to get all along from day one.     All of the heart that had made the original series so endearing, despite its own flaws, just isn't present here. What you get here is just a non-stop (and I mean non-stop) string of barely related fights with poorly-defined stakes, or sometimes no real stakes at all. It's just one ugly set piece fight after another as the children chase after vaguely implied evils. I think the most damning thing is how much more I could say about just how much this series has let me down. Like I said, this one hurts.

Best Theme-Song of the Year: Night Running (BNA)

     My opinion of BNA as a series is complex. But my opinion of its ED, Night Running, is simple: Its a god-damned bop! I could spend this whole section talking about the artistry of the ED animation itself, its fun and creative use of color, the slight variations for certain episodes, the focus on character, or the fact that it was done by an American animation team. I could even talk about the song's importance to the series as a whole and its place in the narrative. I won't though. The fact of the matter is that even without all that, I STILL probably would've picked Night Running as my best of the year because as a song it is just that much my jam. This is the kind of shit I could listen to on repeat for hours, days, weeks, and still keep coming back to it. Don't get me wrong, Ready To is a damn powerful and catchy tune that goes hard, but at the end of the day, I'm a sucker for a soulful pop tune like Night Running. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWTFfEnMCCc

Best Character: Sayaka Kanamori

    This was actually probably the hardest category for me to decide on. It was stuck hard between Eizoken's Kanamori and Akudama Drive's Doctor. I know those are a powerfully different pair in basically every way, but it was specifically for their startling differences that both characters stuck out to me so much. In the end though, it was the poignant rounding out of, and emotional hooks of Kanamori's character that let her triumph over her delightfully two-dimensional opposition.     Kanamori already had me from episode one. In a show that I wasn't really worried about the usual diversions of anime ingestion like picking a favorite character, Kanamori sealed herself as “Best-girl” from the word go. I have mad respect for a girl who knows what she wants, and has a clear idea of how she's going to go about getting it (See also: Doctor.) But Kanamori was more than a driving desire for success and money. Underneath her unstoppable ambition there was a very real, very relatable driving impetus. She stood apart, and yet still believably vulnerable and invested in the people she associated with. It was always a blast watching her suffer as the only thing keeping the more creative minds on track, and yet she was never reduced to a simple task master; her love and respect for her friends was always clearly visible. I could go on and on about how Kanamori is a nearly perfect character, but I hope I've said enough already without having to resort to senseless rambling.

Best Moment: Howan confesses her feeling to Himeko (Show By Rock!! Mashumairesh!!)

    By the time episode six rolled around, Mashumairesh!! had already shown marked improvements over its progenitor in basically every area. Not only was the story in a better place by focusing on what had worked in the original series, (Ya know the BAND part of this show about bands) but the cast was also doing a good job of standing out from their seniors and feeling more equally rounded out. Where the original series had just kinda been the Cyan show with guest stars, I felt like I had an actual grip on all four of the main girls now.     There were however the usual issues that come with a cute-girls-doing-cute-things series, chief among them the “ambiguously gay member of the group who constantly reacts with clear romantic interest towards the main protagonist but the writing will never actually do anything with those feelings” trope. Retoree had spent the better part of the first two seasons fawning over Cyan only for nothing to come of it and, despite the increased focus on all of the girls this time around, it looked like we were going to get the same old song and dance with Himeko's feelings towards Howan.     But then the climax of episode six hit and, midst a really intense subplot about Himeko's abandonment complex, Howan comes out with a straight up love confession. And I kept waiting for the usual dead-ends these moments always seem to have. The “I love you! I love the girls too! I love the band!” Or a “I love being with you.” and the dreaded, “I love having you as my most precious friend.” But none of that happened. It was a full on heart-felt, “I love you, Himeko. I want to stay with you forever!” I'm just not used to getting that sort of straightforwardness from my silly little band shows, so I was shocked, but also completely overjoyed. And frankly the series just kept getting better from there.     The evolution of their relationship built off that moment, no dreaded resetting of the status quo. I daresay it was on the power of this moment alone that I wanted to include this series in my top five at all. If there was anything I would want other anime to take from Mashumairesh!! it's that it's okay to introduce radical changes to character relationships partway through a season, and it's okay to let characters unequivocally state their feelings for each other. People will respond positively to that earnestness, I promise.

[kitsoa]

KHuX- Three Prong Speculation

I am gonna like level so hard into speculation it’s not even gonna be funny. Because I have three interlocking theories on KHuX that I have speculated about before but never gone over the interconnected nature. A lot of this is re-summarizing the speculation posts but it runs on THREE MAIN IDEAS.

Kingdom Hearts is a self-aware story and MoM is the creator of that story. He is not seeing into the future more so as dictating it. 

Ava, understanding some level of malicious manipulation in her master kills Strelitzia and plants an impostor (to be determined who) to thwart the carefully laid plans of MoM.

Ventus, a victim of the system, grows an immensely suppressed darkness that manifests as a split personality that would later be christened Vanitas. This darkness is a Darkling hybrid that then serves to create discord in the Union Leaders and is the intended spark of the rebirth cycle. 

Okay that’s a lot. Let’s dive in.

This story all about traveling around Disney movies and connecting with characters isn’t all that deep. The face value of the plot kinda explains what I see as it’s underlying plot twist. That it seeks to discuss the merits of stories and characters in our lives. Making friends seems to be the premise but it’s not so much making friends as it is understanding and feeling the impact of fictional entities (all of Sora’s friends are characters we’ve met in other fictional contexts)-- but we are observing it through an inside lens: through fictional denizen Sora and his subsidiaries.

The rising conflict within this shadow premise of Kingdom Hearts then ends up being about the regard of fiction and the impact stories have. Their nature. What they are capable of doing and the reason we should or shouldn’t value their creation. 

Enter. The Master of Masters. 

The Author

The theory goes like this. The Book of Prophecies, depicting the story of the entire KH franchise is written by the Master of Masters. A true claim. The Master of Masters is able to do this through a stable time loop device he plants into the narrative known as the Gazing Eye. Everything that keyblade baring the eye witnesses is view by him temporally jam-packed into his understanding to allow him to write the book in his time. 

...A harder claim to verify. 

See we kinda have to take MoM’s word for it here. Sure eyeballs are used for witnessing things and the breadth of his abilities could very well enchant some eye to transmit that view back into the past but… knowing the limitations of the universe with time travel and how seemingly limited an arbitrary eye in a key view would give him… this plot doesn’t actually make any sense. He either is powerful enough not to need an elaborate proxy, or the proxy isn’t expansive enough to warrant the knowledge he knows. 

So let’s call MoM on his bluff. Let’s say he told a half-truth to Luxu. The Gazing Eye is his eye. But it’s simply a live-feed security camera. It’s his viewpoint of events of kingdom hearts outside of the written word.

Leaving us with the question: How did MoM write the Book of Prophecies?

The short answer: The world they live in is fictional and MoM is the actual author. The Book of Prophecies is a book of predictions but a roadmap, a plan. It is the story of the entire multi-verse. It doesn’t happen because MoM saw it happen. It happened because MoM willed it to happen. 

Alright cool. What’s he trying to do? 

Well, let’s do a quick personality analysis of MoM. Quirky and eccentric. He likes to have fun. He pokes fun at serious people and taunts them. He’s a planner, scheming together elaborate roles and procedures for his Foretellers. And he’s inquisitive. He creates the dream eaters and the keyblades. His study is full of notes and beakers and scientific paraphernalia suggesting that there’s a hunger for knowledge and understanding. 

And he dwells in a fictitious world of his creation?

I turn to the flashbacks from the Cornerstones of Rebirth to re-contextualize this scenario. He paints the Keyblade War as a continuous, endless, conflict that cycles-- but I’m convinced he’s speaking figuratively. What he describes in that scene is the premise of all conflict. What he does, is explain his origin story. A boy surrounded by monsters in human guise. Real evil. The real world. And when he realized that evil he ‘created’ the Keyblade War. He saw it and all conflict as this great battle between good and evil. He formed a lens of understanding through this story. The world of Kingdom Hearts was created to rationalize the existence of real evil. 

Of course, as he matures he grows more aware of this process but the disdain for that real evil still exists. He still wants to stop the cycle he’s perceived as evil’s destruction and good’s unrelenting return. He wants to do this… by emulating the process in his own story. He wants to see if it can be done. It’s his curiosity, and perhaps a sick sense of cynicism that it’s even possible. I get serious, jaded-by-humanity evil god vibes. 

So he creates this story and it’s doomed to fall to darkness. It’s fated to fall to darkness not because he saw its fate but because he said so. And he’s gonna rig the resurrection process perhaps to inspire enough gumption in his creations to fight the inevitable fate that he is putting them in, to see if it can be done at all. He wants to learn from them or have his point proven. 

The plan: make the war happen over and over and over again in this little world he created. Set it up so that all the players in-fight and turn to darkness and betray and lose their way and then make it so there are always designated survivors to repeat the process over again. Then sit back and watch. See if they can defy him. See if their actions can change their fate. 

The Pawn

Ava is his pawn. As I state in this speculation post, Ava goes through the motions following the Master’s orders to orchestrate his designated survivors-- the Dandelions. But it’s in her encounter with Luxu that he tells her ‘there is no traitor.’ He reveals that the conflict between the Foretellers is by the Master’s very design meant to sow the tensions of war and trigger the inevitable destruction they so want to avoid. Her denial causes her to strike and ring the bell, therefore becoming the fictitious traitor and making real the inciting lost page. The Master of Master’s point is proven. Ava, performs her role and brings about the destruction. 

But knowing that the Master has orchestrated the Dandelions, she foresees the cycles repeat. The tension sowed in the very structure of the separate unions, in the recreational battles, in the wiped memories. She sees that if there is nothing done, the union leaders will grow wary of each other, the presence of the Book of Prophecy will behave like the lost page, competition and resentment will form and darkness will grow in the hearts of the Dandelions resulting in the same fate. So Ava sets to change this.

She grants the Book of Prophecies to someone other than the Master’s intended recipient. But it doesn’t stop there. Changing the BoP recipient wouldn’t change the fact that the presence of the imbalance of knowledge would incite tension between unions.

No, she plants an impostor as well. And she does this by killing Strelitzia for the greater good. 

She then hides as Darkness and orchestrates their escape from the dataworld. 

Now we must ask. Is this enough to change the fate of this story? 

Short answer: No. 

Long answer: It doesn’t actually matter because it is human nature to destroy. The Darkness will always exist.

The Plot-device

Because I think there was always going to be a planted element of discourse in the leaders. Something intended to destroy the peace of the Dandelion’s world in a different way. And that-- is the Darklings. The creatures of Darkness behave in a 3rd party way when they are symptoms of the story’s context. Keykids falling to their dark jealousy and rage. The competition and fear of their situation. Darkness is inherent. And the darkness of a powerful chosen (keyblade wielders) is an even greater threat. It is the darkness of humanity that drove MoM to this experiment and ultimately the thing that will keep rearing its head should he not meddle. 

And that is why he chose Ventus as a Union Leader.

As I stated in this post, I think there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that Ven’s personality and the hardships of Daybreak Town’s system have caused him to suppress his Darkness and create what is essentially a split personality. Schrodinger's Darkling. I believe Ven was chosen by MoM to ensure the destruction of the Dandelion’s world. 

His capacity for darkness is foreshadowed and eventually spawns a later series antagonist. Ven is used to talk about that duality and the exclusive factors of both natures so it is fitting that he is capitalizes on that poetic message. Darkness is in every heart, even the kindest. The situation and context of the Daybreak town story created him so he is an unavoidable force. The Darklings serve as a plot device to serve in conflict with the key bearers and play the role of fodder in the Master’s grand experiment. 

Conclusion 

So Ava’s actions continue to make her a pawn to fate as her killing of Strelitzia drives a wedge in the Union Leaders. With his darkness suppressed to the point of bursting, the tension will send Ven over the edge and cause him to incite the Keyblade war with his Darkling split personality. This war will reflect the dark versus light fables of old that we hear the Keyblade War described as. Vanitas-- through Ven will toll the bell to start the war again. Fate will be unavoidable. In that struggle, Ava’s actions will have prompted Brain to seek out the next world. The cycle of rebirth will once again happen because of her plot. It was all orchestrated and the Master of Master’s experiment yields no new results. This god will from this have lost hope in the power of fiction to overcome the constant cycle. 

That is until Sora comes to meet him.

[overcastgames]

Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition: A Review 10 Years Late.

Big Note: This is written from the viewpoint of someone who has never played the base version of Tales of Vesperia. I can’t comment on how the game performed before the additions from the previously Japan-only PS3 version. What I can say is that I have a hard time imagining what the base game must be like, because there are a lot of glaring cuts that would have to be made in order to remove those features. 

The Tales series is one that I have only become a fan of relatively recently. The first one I played was Xillia, and I have jumped around the series a lot since then. As an RPG series, Tales is definitely in my top 3, and because Tales games come out more frequently than in other series, I find myself revisiting the fantasy style worlds of the games more often as well. 

Tales of Vesperia is considered by many to be one of the cornerstones of the tales series. Sitting right up there with the likes of Symphonia, and Abyss. While I have a hard time following that line of thinking, I certainly won’t fault other people for citing this as their personal favorites. Vesperia has a lot going for it, a likeable cast of characters, some really good world building, and nice soundtrack, and the definitive version looks really good on current gen hardware. 

Tales games are generally considered action RPG’s with roots dating back to the origins of action RPG’s. Most of the Tales games are very character driven, with large emphasis being placed on the world, and how the main cast interacts with it. Generally, the build up is to some world altering event, that happens to center around the main group, which is just something you come to expect from JRPG’s. Most, but not all Tales games allow you to choose what you fight, as monsters are seen in the overworld, and not left to random encounters. 

In these aspects, Vesperia is very much what I have come to expect from the Tales franchise. Honestly, there isn’t anything wrong with sticking to a proven formula, especially given that Vesperia was one of the first games in the series to use it, being the first HD game in the series. Unfortunately, Vesperia has some glaring drawbacks that I can’t ignore. 

The combat in Vesperia is some of the weakest I have seen from the franchise. initially the character you play as, in my case Yuri, only gets a 2-3 hit combo, and the effects of this are that it makes combat feel sluggish, you get base artes to work with as well, but there is a pause in between each use, making it hard to feel like you are making any headway in combat. There are ways around this, which come in the form of skills, which you obtain by using weapons with skills attached to them. Every weapon in game has some skill attached to it which can be used for free at first, but with enough experience you can obtain the skill separate from the weapon it is attached to. This may seem like problem solved, but the reality isn’t quite so simple. There are skills that add attacks to your base combo, but each skill requires points to be used outside of their initial weapons, and these combo additions are expensive, in a skill tree with very limited points. This is the same with most of the more useful skills in the game. It can be endlessly frustrating when you find a skill that you really want to use, but can’t because you can’t find enough space for it in you current set.

Combat also gives rise to one of the other big complaints I have with this game, the AI. For the majority of the game, it felt like I was stopping at every shop to refill on items, because the AI only ever used artes, which used up there tp, the equivalent of any mana system. you are very limited in the amount of items you can hold, (15 each) and it seemed like the AI would just use it whenever it felt like it. It’s worth noting that you CAN cancel this with a button press, but you would be doing this every 10 seconds, because AI really want your items. The AI is also kinda dumb. they never used basic attacks, they wouldn’t ever use their overlimit, and as a result, never used any of the higher powered attacks in the game. Another weird quirk is that while some of the party members would use TP restore items when they had almost full TP, characters that had almost none would never use them. Also on the topic of items, being able to use an item on another person is one of those skills so that was fun. Also, my healer (Estelle) would rather use healing items on herself than do her job, so there’s that. 

There are a few difficulty spikes in the game which I think are mostly just up to “git gud” but it can be annoying when you run into a boss 10 levels higher than you, when the base enemies were around your level. 

Another gripe that I have is with the voice acting. I won’t spend too much time harping on this, because I know the general response is that I should have played with the Japanese voices, and this probably isn’t a problem for most people, but the line delivery for the English actors is kinda garbage sometimes. Also, because much of what was in the definitive version was completely new to western audiences, Bamco had to dub new lines of dialogue that didn’t exist in the original dub. The problem with this is that they didn’t even bother to contact some of the original voice actors from the game, and instead used new people. For the main cast this is mostly fine. There is at least one new VA that I am aware of in the group, and he did his job well enough. For some of the plot relevant NPC’s though the changes are definitely noticeable, and sometimes happen within the same scene which can be jarring. Bamco was wrong in this approach, and should feel bad.

I won’t talk about the New Additions too much, because there isn’t much to say. Patty brings an extra story thread to the table, and a wide array of crazy attacks to the party, and Flynn just kind of exists. The DLC costumes were nice, and I did my best to make everyone look as ridiculous as possible by the endgame. 

Vesperia is a good game, and my gripes may not be yours. I had fun, and it really refueled my love for the series. If you are interested, Vesperia is on PS4, Switch, and Xboxone, as well as Steam, with the base version being on Xbox 360.

[sol1056]

the dangers of dabblers

It’s important to remember VLD isn't being run by anyone who loved the original so much they were desperate to do a remake/reboot. This was completely top-down: someone at Dreamworks thought it’d make a popular franchise cornerstone, and of course they’d want to hire some or all of the team that made AtLA/LoK into a pop-culture juggernaut. (It’s worth noting that by S3 a lot of those names had moved on: several directors, and at least two writers.)

Somewhere there’s an interview with the EPs where they admitted they walked into their first DW meetings unable to remember who was the original main character. I think JDS thought it was Sven (Shiro), while LM was certain it was Keith. Or maybe vice-versa. Point is, I doubt either had thought of the series in years, and their vague recollection was sketchy, at best. (And apparently didn’t care enough to freaking google it, either, which says volumes.)

Which means that given it’s the EPs’ role to set the story’s outlines, we have two people aware enough of the original work to instinctively mix it up, just like fanfic would. But at the same time, they lack a strong-enough tie to the original work, which means they don’t feel obligated to slavishly mimic the original, either.

Sometimes that combination goes well. Sometimes, it doesn’t. 

If you’re used to fanfic, you've seen this before: a new writer in the fandom, and you check their stats to find they’ve written fifty, a hundred, or more stories -- but never more than one or two, maybe up to five, in any one fandom. They write and move on -- and to them, your treasured fandom is just one in a long line. They’re not emotionally invested, and they see this as freedom to do whatever they want, without guilt.

Sometimes, a dabbler's stories will give readers a fresh view from a semi-outsider’s perspective. But those cases are successful, imo, because they still respect the fandom; the ones who don't inevitably end up writing interesting premises that devolve into frustrating disasters. The fault lies in their disinterest in playing with care in someone else’s sandbox -- and I don’t mean the original creators. I mean the fandom itself.

The first hint will usually be a certain amount of apathy towards the canonical main character(s). The writer will instead latch onto a secondary or a tertiary character, layering on head canons and tilting canonical events like a funhouse mirror. For readers at least passing familiar with canon, it can be cool to see it from new angles, if sometimes a little disconcerting.  

This is fine, so long as the writer values their chosen replacement protagonist to the same degree they're convincing readers to do so. Without that loyalty, the dabbling writer will have no qualms tossing that character aside to turn their attention elsewhere. If, as a reader, you were willing to emotionally invest in this secondary or tertiary character getting the spotlight -- I’d be quite surprised if you’re all that happy when the writer bastardizes them for plot convenience, assuming they don’t get bored and abruptly drop that character completely.

Unfortunately, when a writer’s just passing through, there’s little point in complaining. They don’t get it. They don’t get the story, they don’t get the characters, and they’re not emotionally invested enough to even try. At best, they’ll be baffled. At worst, they’ll retaliate with outright disgust -- or even malice -- when readers cry foul.

(If you think it wasn’t textbook when the EPs complained bitterly about how the execs ‘made’ them put Shiro back in, then you haven’t been in fandom nearly as long as you think you have.)  

For all the talk of nostalgia goggles, VLD as delivered displays minimal respect for -- and hardly any emotional investment in -- the original. Which, okay, fine: but neither do the EPs display any respect for -- or emotional investment in -- their own version of the story.

And that’s a major problem.

You can see it in how the EPs skipped the basics in character creation: hand-waving character ages, head-canoning their own original characters (seriously?), and failing to provide even simple backstories. Even beginner writers instinctively know the value of nailing down a character's base stats: age, height, weight, race, sexuality, family history. These details inform characterization, and I will never get over my astonishment that the EPs not only skipped this fundamental step, but that they'd be so dismissively nonchalant about having done so.

You can see it in how the EPs are utterly baffled by the popularity of the Keith/Lance ship. For that matter, you can see it in how the EPs sprinkled numerous Allura/Shiro hints in S1/S2, and seem completely ignorant of the effect. Just like with real people, when we're lukewarm about a character, we struggle to see why someone else would care, so we’ll miss major shipping potential. Add in what sounds like a real lack of genre savvy, no wonder the EPs had no clue they’d created some powerful fandom bait.

You can see it in how the EPs will freely torque characters or worldbuilding to push plot or manufacture conflict, even if that requires a character contradict what they’d said only minutes before. Or how the EPs drop character arcs, fail to create compelling stakes, and break internal consistency without even bothering to lampshade. You can see it in how the EPs never follow through on consequences; when you really give a damn about a character, you want those consequences because that heralds growth.

You can see it in how the EPs don’t seem bothered by making Allura beg for a lion, or lingering on her terror, or even just demoting her. Or the fact that they’ve kept racial dogwhistles in the dialogue. A hallmark of emotional investment is empathy with others who feel the same, and the EPs have evinced little empathy for viewers angry and upset over the way Allura’s been reduced to a magical plot device.    

You can see it in how the EPs dismiss the #notmyshiro contingent; they’ve moved from surprise to mild irritation at questions about when the ‘real’ Shiro will come back. Or how they laugh about -- veering close to mocking -- viewers upset by the ‘clone’ issue. If the EPs had any loyalty to the Shiro they’d created, they would’ve known that reaction was coming.

You can see it in how the EPs shrug at marketing material with out-dated or non-canonical information. You can see it in how the EPs don't know or care that the comics ignore -- if not outright contradict -- the story's rules. They're supposed to be running this show, but they act like passive bystanders with no stake in the game. They don't just disavow any authority; they frequently even deny any knowledge. A writer is a gatekeeper of their own story, and the EPs have failed on multiple counts to gatekeep with any diligence.

Now, all that said: it's entirely possible that behind the scenes, none of this is true. It could be the EPs fight daily to have insight into marketing material, or that corporate politics has marginalized them in the creation process for vlogs, comics, toys, or whatever else. It could be that they lie awake at night, agonizing over where the story is going, and wanting to do right by the world they've created. 

If this is true, they're utterly failing to communicate any of that. What we get in their interviews and public appearances are EPs who don't take their story seriously, aren't emotionally invested, and for the most part seem kinda surprised anyone else is.

And truth is, it’s damn hard to care about a story when even the creators don’t.

[tigerlover16-analysis]

Dragon Ball Super: Episode 5 Review

Ok, so, yeah. I'm pretty late with this one and I'm sorry about that. I don't want to get into it too much, but basically things have been kind of hectic since last week, especially the last few days with my dog having a rough time after giving birth. I did have most of this review written for a bit, but then due to a computer screw up most of it got deleted so my enthusiasm to write took a bit of a hit there. I'll start writing the episode 6 review straight away and that should be up on Sunday as scheduled barring any extraneous circumstances.

Anyway, enough wasting time, I've done enough of that. Let's talk about episode 5 of Dragon Ball Super.

The episode picks up where the previous one left off, with Beerus arriving on King Kai's world to meet with Goku. After King Kai's attempts to keep Goku hidden fail, Beerus questions Goku about the identity of the Super Saiyan God. When Goku is unable to give him an answer, Beerus decides to go to Earth to question Vegeta instead, which King Kai worries might lead to Beerus blowing the planet up out of annoyance. But before Beerus can take off, Goku suddenly challenges him to a sparring match.

Episode 5 is a pretty important episode in terms of the Battle of Gods saga and Super as a whole. Though previous episodes had featured brief action scenes, this was the first episode to feature a significant fight between two characters. For a franchise famous for it's action scenes, this makes it a pretty big deal.

Which makes it all the more tragic that they kind of screwed the pooch on it.

Brief history lesson, Dragon Ball Super was announced close to the release of the Resurrection F movie, and was intended to capitalize on the movies hype and serve as a replacement series for Dragon Ball Kai.

And unfortunately, while the series has a more than capable team of animators, writers and other production staff, Toei really rushed the show's pre-production to get it out straight after Kai ended. Some estimate that it only had about two months of pre-production, a far cry from the roughly six months that many ongoing battle Shonen series usually require.

The result was that only the first 3 or 4 episodes were finished before Super started airing properly, and the animators were rushing to get episode 5 and everything after it out on time. Which lead to the fighting portion of episode 5 featuring weak direction, some moments of awkward movement, and a lot of laughably rough art in places.

Yeah... this isn’t even the worst of it.

Naturally this lead to wide-scale mockery across the internet, with many declaring the show a disgrace and the episode to have the worst animation in all of Dragon Ball. Which, I'll discuss that bit in a minute, but needless to say it was truly concerning and did a lot to dampen people's excitement for a new Dragon Ball series. 

Not unfairly, of course. Dragon Ball is one of the biggest and most popular anime franchises of all time and a cornerstone of pop culture. It really deserved a lot better from it's production and visuals than what we were given here.

Especially since, as I've said, the show's animators are more than capable of producing good stuff. A good number of them are veterans from Z, including this episodes supervisor, Naoki Tate, who is probably one of the most talented animators working at Toei (Oh, and side note, I'd like to redact my statement that he was the animation supervisor on episode 2. He worked on the episode, but episode 2 was supervised by Osamu Ishikawa. My bad, I don't know how i screwed that one up).

It's made even more tragic by how Tate got thrown under the bus by a large portion of the fandom, when really it was none of the animators fault how this episode turned out. They only had a few weeks to produce it, and under such pressure the production just fell apart, and yet Tate was lambasted as a hack by much of the fandom for two years thanks to this episode, and things only really started to look up for him after episode 110.

There's not a lot I can say about the animation itself. We have a lot of rough art, with several still shots of characters looking blatantly unfinished. Some of the movement is repetitive and the framing of the fight isn't very exciting.

There's moments of decent animation, I like the way the grass on King Kai's planet is blown clean off by the force of SS3 Goku's punches being blocked by Beerus, and there's a nice bit of fluid movement at one point where Beerus flips over Goku as he tried to land several consecutive hits on him right before Goku blasts a decently rendered kamehameha through King Kai's planet... fluid movement which is unfortunately obscured by a poor post-processed aura effect, which is a recurring issue all throughout Super.

But the decent bits of movement and the consistent art outside of the fighting segment don't really save the bulk of the action from being a let down. I could go a lot more into detail, but I'm not a genius when it comes to talking about the animation process, I prefer talking about writing.

That being said, was this really the worst looking episode in all of Dragon Ball?

... No. No, not at all. There's been worse animated products in Dragon Ball before, and there are worse looking episodes of Super later on (And God, is that depressing to say...). This was a bad looking episode and there's certainly some stuff that's laughable coming from a modern series for one of the most famous and lucrative anime franchises in the world, there's no denying that.

But between the memes and bad press, and the in-betweens people float around as examples of how horrid it looks when anyone who actually understands animation knows that's not how it works, I think people have overblown it's supposed abysmal quality out of proportion a bit.

Now that's not me defending the episodes animation, it is rough and blatantly unfinished in a lot of places, it deserves criticism even if I think it's only fair to be mindful of the conditions the animators themselves were in.

We can certainly be critical of whatever stupid higher ups at Toei decided it was a-okay to rush the series into production so suddenly, especially since it had a horrible ripple effect that left Super with a troubled production right into it's final saga, even though things did improve greatly over time.

But at the same time, I don't think it's really fair to lambast this episode as one of the worst things to ever happen to Dragon Ball as some people did early on, because, honestly outside of those animation issues... the episode is perfectly fine.

Seriously, writing wise this episode was well put together. The interaction between all of the characters at the beginning was perfectly fine, no one was really written badly, and there were a few good jokes. Especially in the dub which improves the dialogue a bit. King Kai's Japanese voice still sounds off, but again, dub fixes that and it's not the end of the world.

And for what the episode was intended to be, it was well constructed writing wise. Having the first encounter and fight between Goku and Beerus extended to a full episode rather than the less than ten minutes scene from the movie was a good move, since we needed a lengthier action scene at this point.

And the way the fight was written was perfectly fine, with Goku trying to fight Beerus as both a super saiyan and then super saiyan 2. The animation and overall bland direction undermines the tension unfortunately, but on paper this wasn't a bad way to go at all. And it does still sell the point of what this encounter was meant to do: Establish that Beerus is so far beyond Goku at even the peak of his current level of power that he can slap him around without anything close to real effort, and thus raise concern for what's going to happen to the earth.

On that note, big props to Sean's voice acting as Goku towards the end there. He really sells Goku's desperation and concern for everyone. With all the complaints about Goku in Super supposedly being a lot less mature and more reckless than before, moments like this show that Goku can in fact take things seriously when he needs to.

Heck, considering he challenged Beerus straight after the God said he might destroy the earth if he was annoyed and he was immediately thinking of ways to beat Beerus after being knocked down, it seems likely that his challenge to fight him was actually an attempt by Goku to keep him from doing any damage and it just looked like him just being careless to King Kai and Gregory. That's how I interpret it anyway.

From a storytelling POV, there's honestly nothing offensive about episode 5, it mostly did what it needed to. Sure, it's mostly just the same stuff we saw in the movie but extended... but hey, it's an adaptation, that's kinda what we should expect. And again, not everyone saw the movie so this isn't as huge an issue as a lot of people think.

If this episode had been graced with better animation, I'd honestly call it good. Maybe not great unless said animation was REALLY good, but really I can't think of anything worth complaining about and it's paced well enough.

It's just that... well, the animation IS a big issue. When your episode is centered around a fight, then that fight needs to be handled well or the whole thing ends up kind of a flop. In an episode that's mostly building up the plot and dialogue heavy, bad or inconsistent animation can be easily ignored so long as the writing is up to par, in my opinion.

Heck, episodes with fights that aren't exceptionally well animated can still be good or even great if the writing and story content is good enough. It helps if both elements are good and working in harmony, but good writing in a story trumps all other aspects.

But this episode? The content we got was alright, but there wasn't really anything exceptional here that particularly makes up for the animation issues, unless you're someone that really, REALLY loves Beerus and enjoys seeing him slap Goku around.

The end result of how this episode turned out is that it's just kind of dull. It has a few good moments, but it kind of drags in the middle because of the subpar animation, and while there's nothing about it outside of the animation that's especially awful (Though if you're an animation student you're likely to be balling your eyes out by the end) it's also not that memorable, at least not for good reasons.

If I'm being fair, I can actually enjoy this episode if I'm in the right mindset, I found it mostly fine AS I was watching it on DVD multiple times in preparation for this review. So I think if you go into it with low expectations, it's somewhat harmless and easy to get through while you're waiting for the next episode, which has more worthwhile content.

That's not a ringing endorsement of course, but for an episode like this it's the best praise I think anyone could give it, really.

I should mention that the Japanese Blu-ray collection for Super did include some handy clean ups for the episode. It doesn't fix most of the movement, the storyboaring or such, but it does clean up a lot of the iffy art so that it looks...

... better. Still not great, and there's plenty of shots that still look off and some that look like they weren't fixed, but the episode is a bit less of an eyesore now so that probably helped my enjoyment a little since it's the Blu-Ray versions the dub airings and DVD collections use. It's more of a quick patchwork job than fixing the issues though, I wish they'd done a bit more, but whatever. Too late to complain now.

Episode 5 is not a good episode. It is a testament to how poorly managed Dragon Ball Super's production was at the beginning, and would unfortunately result in further troubles for the series over the course of it's lifespan, both in animation and writing. The episode could have been pretty good, but ends up as a missed opportunity and is a bit of a red flag for anyone just getting into the show.

I cannot defend Toei's management for rushing the show's production, that was careless and I'm glad there seems to be a restructuring going on right now and that Toei overall seems to be taking better care with future Dragon Ball products, like the upcoming movie. All signs seem to be pointing that we'll be seeing better productions for future Dragon Ball series to come.

That does not make what happened here excusable though. People have a right to complain about the animation and production issues Super faced at this point and further on in the series, and while I don't feel negatively of the show overall, I still feel that things should have turned out better than they did. Episode 5 will always serve as a constant reminder of how things can go wrong behind the scenes of a popular series.

But that said, just because mistakes like this happen doesn't mean it's the end of the world. For all the issues it still faced, Super would still see huge leaps made in improving it's animation and storytelling later on, which would include many of the best looking episodes in the entire Dragon Ball canon. It was, and still is, possible for Toei to learn from the mistakes they made with the series at this point and do better going forward.

And I hope that by the time the next Dragon Ball series rolls around, we'll see a positive result from that. In the end, I suppose failure can have it's benefits as a learning experience.

And by the same token, for all the issues it has with it's visuals, this episode in of itself was far from the worst thing ever and I do not believe it sabotaged the first arc as a whole. It was nothing special and a real mess, but I can look past it in the long run. Though I appreciate if it's flaws are just too great for some people to look past, I can't hate it as a whole package.

My final grade for the original version of the episode in Japanese would be a D. For the somewhat corrected version with the dub, I'll be as generous as I possibly can and give it a C-

Boy, that was a trip. I'm not sure if I feel completely comfortable with how this review came out, but honestly I should have gotten this out a while ago and I just want to be done with it, so I hope you can all forgive me if I didn't get my point across very well or if I just spent too much time badgering on about stupid platitudes. I might come back and edit it in the future after I've gotten the next review done and I've had some more time to clear my thoughts on this one. But for now, hope I gave you something to think about.

[junker-town]

Jacoby Brissett is proving he’s more than just the Colts’ Plan B

Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

Jacoby Brissett has improved by leaps and bounds through three games in Indianapolis.

The last time the Colts went through a full season without Andrew Luck, they went 4-12. That won’t happen in 2019.

Jacoby Brissett’s maturation into an above-average NFL quarterback has kept playoff hope alive early in a year that saw Indianapolis’ franchise cornerstone opt for retirement. Through three games, the fifth-year veteran has emerged as a reliable engine for a team that can still fight its way to the top of the AFC South.

The question now is whether he and the Colts can keep this going. If Sunday’s game against the Falcons is any indication, they’ve got a real shot — and the rest of the division should be worried.

Brissett is making the correct decisions — and throws — a Pro Bowl QB makes

The Colts have built a strong support system around their recently promoted quarterback. Indianapolis’ plan to turn Brissett into a potential franchise passer has been to pump up his confidence and weaken opposing secondaries with short passes before unleashing his big arm downfield into single-coverage situations.

Brissett’s average throw only traveled 5.1 yards downfield through his first two games, a mark that ranked ahead of Jets passers Luke Falk and Sam Darnold and no one else. That was significantly less than he averaged in 2017 in Indianapolis (7.3) while trying to drag a flawed team with few weapons besides Hilton to respectability.

This year, head coach Frank Reich and offensive coordinator Nick Sirianni have decreased Brissett’s downfield workload in order to create easier throws in both short- and long-range situations. It worked like a charm in Week 3 in a 27-24 win over the Falcons.

Brissett took what Atlanta gave him with a long list of short passes to start the game, then exploited the adjustments Dan Quinn made. The Colts quarterback began his afternoon with eight straight completions, most of which ran close to the line of scrimmage and took advantage of holes in the short section in the middle of the field. With the Colts inside the Falcons’ 20 on their second drive of the day, Brissett dropped back for his ninth. Atlanta tried to cover up this weakness by sitting its linebackers in zone coverage in the middle of the field.

That did effectively prevent another 5-yard gain on a quick pass to the middle of the field. It also meant wideout Zach Pascal got passed off to a linebacker in coverage as the cornerback shadowing him stepped up to cut off another short route out of the backfield. That left Pascal all alone for an easy six points:

Pascal’s so wide open that Brissett didn’t have to make a great throw to find the end zone (though his is still pretty good); he just had to make the right decision.

Nine of Brissett’s first 11 completions all traveled five yards from the line of scrimmage or fewer. This is a useful way to build up a passer with only 17 career starts under his belt. It also plays off one of Brissett’s biggest strengths: he can absolutely rifle short passes into tight windows. This is especially helpful in the red zone, as he showed with T.Y. Hilton late in the second quarter Sunday.

Seeing ghosts in the end zone again. #ATLvsIND pic.twitter.com/4fLOeGtor3

— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) September 22, 2019

That goes down in the scorebooks as a rote 4-yard scoring pass, but it needed a grown man throw to get there. Brissett got it done, and those accurate short-range strikes are throws an NFL quarterback needs to make in order to set up bigger opportunities downfield. He has proven he’s capable of sliding passes through those fast-closing lanes when they arise.

Here, his slight underthrow to Hilton keeps his All-Pro wideout’s route from running into double coverage. Brissett trusts his top target enough to adjust to the ball, and the end result is a 26-yard gain ... and a wallop from Ricardo Allen that drew a 15-yard unnecessary roughness call.

Again, a big-league throw from a player who understands what risks he can and can’t take downfield. The outcome of this short-short-short-short-kinda long! performance against the Falcons? A 75 percent completion rate, 310 yards, two touchdowns, and zero turnovers.

That’s a replicable line for a player with the arm strength to launch frozen ropes to either sideline on the run. While he wasn’t infallible against an Atlanta secondary missing top performer Keanu Neal for much of the game — he completed just four of 10 passes that traveled 8+ yards — he was still good enough to push Indianapolis to a 2-1 start while demoralizing the Falcons.

This pushed Indianapolis out to a big early lead. When Atlanta came back to cut that advantage to only three points, Brissett responded with a pair of massive third-down conversions on a 75-yard scoring drive that effectively doomed the Falcons. More importantly, he did so without Hilton in the lineup; the star wideout missed a significant portion of the second half due to a quadricep injury that threatens to pour water on the hottest start of his career.

The Colts’ revamped offense is a major part of this

Two years ago, Brissett was thrown into a brutal situation in his first season as a Colt. He had only 15 days between his trade from the Patriots and his first start with the club. He was then stuck behind one of the league’s worst offensive lines and surrounded by a receiving corps that was effectively Hilton and a handful of fourth/fifth WR types like Donte Moncrief and Chester Rogers.

As a result, the debuting starter was sacked on 10 percent of his dropbacks — a worse sack rate than any other qualifying quarterback in the league in 2017. Though 71.3 percent of his pass attempts were labeled “catchable” by Sports Information Solutions, just 58.8 percent of those passes were completed.

Chris Ballard took over general manager duties before that 2017 season and overhauled both sides of the ball the following year, making life easier for Brissett in the process. The 2018 draft brought two different starters to the offensive line, including rookie All-Pro Quenton Nelson. Prudent drafting also brought in young targets like Parris Campbell, Nyheim Hines, Jordan Wilkins, and Deon Cain. Meanwhile, Eric Ebron, a 2018 free agent, proved to be an explosive addition after a 13-touchdown debut season in Indiana.

In ‘17, 46 percent of Brissett’s passes went to either Hilton or tight end Jack Doyle. Through three games this fall, Hilton and Ebron, the team’s top TE option so far, have made up only 40 percent of his throwing output. Twelve different players have at least one reception this season. 10 players have at least four targets. This ability to share the receiving workload will be crucial should Hilton miss any time due to injury.

Brissett’s sack rate has dropped from 10 to 6.1. His catchable pass rate shot up to 83.6 percent before Week 3’s breakout performance. His passer rating is more than 30 points higher than it was in 2017. These are all numbers that will be vitally important in the Colts’ playoff chase.

There’s still plenty of reason to be wary about Brissett’s strong start. While he was solid in Week 1 against a tough Chargers team, his breakout game came against a Falcons club that’s somehow a lesser sum than all its parts combined. He has yet to take on an opponent who can readily shut down all the short and intermediate routes that open up his passing game and make bigger gains possible. And, as the Raiders have shown, this kind of gameplan is no week-to-week certainty in the NFL.

Brissett was pressed into unexpected duty this fall. While it was nowhere near as abrupt as it was two years ago, it still brought many questions about both the quarterback and his team.

But Indianapolis has given Brissett the tools he lacked in a throwaway 2017 (and a team-friendly contract extension that will keep him in town should he outperform expectations). Now the franchise will get the chance to see if he can keep this pace and establish himself as a worthy successor to Luck. Through three games, he looks like the kind of NFL quarterback who can pilot a team to postseason success. We just need to see what he can do when the degree of difficulty gets turned up a few more notches.

[spicynbachili1]

The Yakuza team could make a pretty rad Chibi-Robo game

The evening membership equal is a Barbie dollhouse

After Star Fox Zero flopped, I feared that Nintendo was going to go away the beloved house shooter collection within the mud. So after I noticed that Star Fox would have a serious cameo in Ubisoft’s Starlink, I used to be pleasantly stunned. It’s a far cry from the sequel followers are asking for, however after I was anticipating the worst for the collection’s future, it gave me a breath of aid. Most likely not as a lot as I first thought, given the kinks outlined in our assessment, but it surely at the least exhibits Nintendo is keen to let different studios experiment with IPs they’ve turn into hesitant to work on themselves.

It’s led me to ponder in regards to the destiny of an much more area of interest however fervently beloved Nintendo IP –and one which I’ve extra of a private historical past with — Skip Ltd.’s Chibi-Robo. Much like Star Fox Zero, it was acknowledged if Chibi-Robo Zip Lash didn’t promote effectively, it is likely to be his final recreation. Zip Lash additionally flopped even tougher than Fox’s final outing, having little to no resemblance to something his followers discovered interesting and charming within the first place. However simply because the Star Fox staff was given a brand new lease on life by Ubisoft (in addition to the SNES Traditional), I am hoping Nintendo might additionally give one other studio a shot at this oft-neglected IP.

But when Chibi-Robo is to return to its unique gameplay type (or at the least one thing new however basically related), most studios would not be keen to sort out its weird area of interest. He’s recognized for his healthful allure (barring the occasional can-butt), exploring a “large” home, doing mundane family duties, scrambling his manner throughout furnishings with varied easy tips, and serving to a forged of lovable weirdos by way of their relatable emotional aspect quests. And generally, extraordinarily bizarre weirdos with bizarre however nonetheless endearing aspect quests. It’s a distinct segment that the majority builders don’t even contact, not to mention make profitable. Naturally, the primary candidate for this job to come back to thoughts was the studio that developed Yakuza, a collection well-known for that transfer the place Kiryu neuters his enemies with a gondola.

Okay, so possibly there’s some kinda sorta excessive tonal dissonance between these two IPs. Disregarding that, Ryu ga Gotoku Studio’s already received plenty of fame in areas parallel to the place Chibi-Robo has endeared its followers. Whereas it’d be a ton extra work to make their design philosophies mesh with Chibi’s method as an alternative of adapt their very own engine in direction of one other franchise (like they did for Fist of the North Star), I’m assured they’re one of many few non-Nintendo builders who might do Chibi-Robo’s idea justice. Actually, infusing Chibi’s chill however bizarre world with their very own model of high-energy hijinks might elevate it to the mainstream success that producer Kensuke Tanabe needs this collection to turn into.

I’m not going to prattle on too lengthy about narrative particulars, however simply in case, minor spoiler warning for each collection? Solely for 2 Yakuza aspect tales and somewhat of the primary Chibi-Robo‘s most important plot.

Although its over-the-top antics are what Yakuza largely advertises itself for, followers of the collection often reward its extra private aspect tales. These are not any much less excessive than its gameplay, starting from role-playing with a dominatrix to faking membership in a weird cult. But they’re grounded in charming and emotional struggles, such because the dominatrix’s need to beat her submissive character or a mom’s need to reconnect along with her daughter that fell into the cult.

Whereas a boy as pure as Chibi would by no means step foot in a BDSM parlor, his video games are recognized for their very own model of wackiness and relatability. As a substitute of episodic aspect tales, Chibi interacts with a forged of characters over the course of his journey, regularly constructing upon every of their sidequests till he lastly attracts them to their conclusions.

The Sandersons from the primary recreation are a unusual bunch with varied hobbies, but it surely regularly turns into obvious how these quirks drive their struggles with escapism and monetary stress, and the way critically problematic they really are. In the meantime, the handfuls of aspect characters Chibi meets include a plethora of over-the-top personalities, but their issues are normally so simple as craving to search out happiness in their very own relationships with different characters or meet different fundamental wants.

Spoiler warning over. Backside line, each of their narrative tendencies are related sufficient that I might see Ryu ga Gotoku Studio simply cook dinner up new tales for the tiny robo buddy.

One other cornerstone of Yakuza’s model is its plethora of fleshed out minigames, lots of that are complemented by their very own aspect tales and mechanics. Whereas they’re non-compulsory, they function an attention-grabbing aspect attraction to get extra out of town setting and its individuals. Chibi-Robo doesn’t have any mini-games that drastically change controls, however it’s price noting the bot does plenty of totally different little issues (pun not meant). He collects trash. He cleans stains. He fetches misplaced gadgets. He gardens. He cooks meals. He performs with individuals. And rather more.

All of those mundane aspect actions are central to his aim of incomes Pleased Factors (which assist improve Chibi), like how the rewards of aspect actions in Yakuza video games are varied gadgets. Non-compulsory as they’re, they’re nonetheless a centerpiece on the coronary heart of their worlds and the development of their recreation mechanics. Evaluating the 2, I’m wondering why the previous shouldn’t have minigames or at the least little controls and regular gameplay mechanics as concerned because the latter? Chibi-Robo Park Patrol already danced with the idea of constructing chores round goofy minigames like dancing with flowers to make them sprout. Fleshing these actions out with extra depth can do plenty of good, particularly once they make up the majority of Chibi’s day.

However we nonetheless have to deal with the polka-dotted elephant within the room — fight. All the things that I’ve simply described solely overlaps with part of what makes Yakuza such a widely known collection. If it weren’t for Yakuza’s frequent beat-em-up gameplay and over-the-top fight types, it may need remained as obscure as Chibi-Robo. Kiryu’s violence works effectively within the context of a person with felony ties who simply needs to assist individuals in want, particularly in a shady city the place harmless individuals get jumped by not-so-innocent individuals each minute. Chibi is a tiny cute robotic designed to assist one small household (and their toys) be happier by fixing their issues, 95% of which might’t be solved with violence. Kiryu and Chibi is likely to be equally altruistic, which shapes lots of their tales and actions, however the former’s most important gameplay and the latter’s nature are usually not an important match.

And but in every of his adventures, Chibi additionally has some type of micro-menace he fights part-time. This fight has by no means been a spotlight of those video games, but it surely exists. In all my time taking part in by way of the GameCube unique, I by no means disliked random Spydorz encounters, nor did I stay up for combating them. They have been simply kinda there, barring a number of sturdy set items that unnerved me and received me within the temper to confront them. I believe Ryu ga Gotoku Studio might make an important recreation with none of that in any respect in the event that they so needed. Even so, I insist it’d be finest in the event that they gave the pint-sized robotic a equally rad fight system of his personal, albeit a considerably toned-down one in comparison with their normal work.

For an journey recreation protagonist, Chibi would not have many strikes to optimize his journey from level A to level B. It may be a little bit of a drag to hold your plug all the way in which throughout the ground to the following room. Usually the best resolution to this might be to simply add quick journey, however since managing time and battery ranges are a few of Chibi-Robo’s most important mechanics, that on-foot journey time is definitely essential to plan your day round. He does have a number of instruments to hurry this journey up, together with a number of precise teleporters. However circumventing these limitations altogether runs counter to the purpose of creating you are feeling like a tiny robotic helper making an attempt your hardest to assist large individuals with larger issues.

I really feel these enemies have been added largely to make that trek from level A to level B simply harmful sufficient to really feel much less tedious. And I believe that helped, however it will assist much more if such encounters felt extra participating themselves. Whereas Zip Lash didn’t fulfill my cravings for motion, an professional at motion video games might take the concept of utilizing Chibi’s plug as a weapon and provides it the polish to turn into one thing very enjoyable. Fight shouldn’t steal the highlight from every part else, however that includes it as an rare pillar supporting the exploration and/or character tales is likely to be sufficient so as to add that mainstream attraction Tanabe was on the lookout for with out eradicating Chibi from his native gameplay method. Plus I’m a sucker for any polished and clear beat-em-up or hack-and-slash gameplay!

Extra thrilling gameplay would assist Nintendo to purchase into the pitch, given what Zip Lash mentioned about their religion within the collection, but it surely’s not what issues most on the coronary heart of Chibi-Robo. What endeared the Gamecube unique to me and its different followers is much less its gameplay and extra its world and writing. That’s a serious motive why Zip Lash, a recreation wholly centered on platforming gameplay on the expense of character interactions, did little to curiosity Chibi-Robo fanatics. It’d be onerous for anyone aside from its unique creators to recreate such an deliberately weird allure. But when anyone can accomplish that, Ryu ga Gotoku Studio’s resume is certified sufficient to present it a shot.

A heartwarming 3D happy-em-up doesn’t precisely want thrilling gameplay to be lovable, and I’m nonetheless a bit heartbroken by Nintendo’s choice on the contrary (not to mention how little Zip Lash thrilled me in my total playthrough). But no matter whether or not Chibi-Robo wants it or not, within the correct palms, I might love a return to the character’s roots together with his personal antics dialed as much as 11. Yakuza’s proven that adrenaline-filled fight or juggling dozens of over-the-top aspect actions doesn’t should be on the expense of heartwarming narratives, and given tweaks that matches his character, I might solely be much more excited for a return to Chibi’s origins with a hand like Rya go Gotoku Studio’s. Perhaps it might even persuade Nintendo that the little man’s received much more potential together with his unique method.

Or possibly I’m simply so hyped for Yakuza Kiwami on PSPlus subsequent month and in addition so determined to revisit Chibi’s roots that I’m stretching my creativeness. That may be it. Disgrace that I solely rented Chibi-Robo as an alternative of shopping for it. I’m wondering how Picture Finder stacks up…?

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from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/the-yakuza-team-could-make-a-pretty-rad-chibi-robo-game/

[renaroo]

Any thoughts on Venus de Milo(tmnt)?

BOY DO I

I wonder if this is related at all to MovieBob’s recent video about her being the worst female character ever because the moment I watched it I wondered if anyone would be asking me about her. 

So. Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation is... a thing that in itself is almost too difficult to explain outside of “you had to be there”, but I’m going to do my best. Because I was there. Oh, man. Was I there. 

While I had VHS tapes of the original ‘80s TMNT cartoon I grew up with and watched religiously, the show stopped airing new episodes before I was born, and stopped resyndication by the time I was four. So while I definitely grew up with them and loved them and read the Archie comics religiously as a kid and watched the original live action movies pretty much every weekend we rented movies from the down the road movie rental store (anyone remember those?), my actual first memories of watching any TMNT show as it aired was the 1998 flop show, Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation. 

In fact, I distinctly remember getting the chicken pox that year and part of the only good thing that came from it was I got to watch episodes of NT:TNM without impediment from my then-one year old sister because they kept her away from me as if I had the plague. 

Which I kinda did, but regardless. 

It was actually just 4 years later, in 2001, that I’d come to build an online presence with TERRIBLE Pokemon, Inuyasha, and Star Fox fanfics that I first started looking up geocities communities for various fandoms and one of those was TMNT. 

If anyone remembers geocities or pre-ff.net fandom lore in the Ninja Turtles circle, here’s how old I am: I, personally, used to talk to the likes of Kali Gargoyle, Azure the Turtle, Kat, Sakan (FREAKfreak), Ame Musashi, Buslady, and Machias -- a statement that I can almost guarantee means absolutely NOTHING to 99.9999% of you.

Now, an interesting thing about the fandom culture just before the 2003 cartoon aired was that there was actually a large contingent of the fandom that were defensive of Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation and thought of it as being only as bad as the current Power Rangers season of the time (which was the one right before Dino Thunder, so I can’t remember which one it was). In fact, people were so on the bandwagon for it, that the geocities community started an online petition -- which at the time was a difficult thing to do because it meant everyone sending a single email chain around and around so everyone can sign it with their online names and then email it to Saban, who owned the rights. The petition was to allow the show to have another season and tie up its loose ends with the (most likely misinformed) opinion that Next Mutation had had better viewership than the Power Rangers season it ran side-by-side with. 

Did it deserve it? With my nostalgia goggles off, having bought the DVDs of the series and watched it within the last four years, can I say Next Mutation and Venus de Milo deserved that type of fandom swelling in support?

...

Um. Noooooo?

Okay, my extensive fandom history aside, I cannot defend The Next Mutation because... it was really bad. Like, made the Shredder a good guy in the pilot and got rid of the most iconic villains for the rest of the series bad. Instead we had the Dragon Lord (eh) and Wick (his servant, again eh), Silver the Gorilla... gangster whose gang came straight out of the (also flop) Dick Tracey movie, and... 

Vam Mi. Who was probably the first indication my parents had that I was into girls. Because. Well shit. I mean. 

A Chinese vampire obsessed with the female of the show and wore tight leather and heeellllooooooooo

Vam Mi is actually the thing I remember the best about the show and I could probably write an essay on defending the storyline “Unchain My Heart” which goddamn if we’d had episodes like that throughout the show and a villain like Vam Mi throughout the show, well it probably would’ve gotten that mythical second sense that would have made sense of the other garbage. 

But I’ve obviously gotten away from your question. Which is about Venus herself. Or, as I prefer to call her (for reason we’ll get into) Mei Peih Chi. 

The reason I’ve had all this build up and quandering about the show itself is because Mei herself is such a product of this series that removing them from each other leaves out how things went so wrong with an idea that came from such an obviously positive place. “Hey, little girls deserve to want to be Ninja Turtles, too!”

Best intentions. Worst executions. 

If you read a lot of my meta, you know that I actually despise the concept of “Mary Sues” and how female characters are carelessly cast aside by people for basically having attributes of any main character. But. Well. Let’s just look at Mei’s character in its context: 

Mei is a fifth turtle who was in the same bowl that fell into the sewers and was mutated along with the turtles (aka, does not have her own unique origin story and was there from the beginning but WE’RE JUST LEARNING ABOUT IT), she was found by a Chinese monk (Chinese, not Japanese which is the ethnicity of the Hamato family of the turtles and Yoshi, sort of glazing over the cultures as being interchangeable), was raised as his daughter in the monastery back in China even though... he seemed to somehow know about the others Turtles and Splinter and inform her where to go after his death in the pilot?, and she -- in a series called Ninja Turtles, was not a ninja but a Shinobi priestess with psychic abilities. 

Oh, and throughout the show they keep bringing up the fact that none of them are blood-related, despite the turtles being brothers being a cornerstone to the franchise since the 80s comics, for the sole purpose of having a love triangle between Raph, Venus, and Leo without it being incest. 

(This hilariously backfired and became the justification for the ever growing T-Cest fandom that shipped the boys together for years afterward by the by)

She is a fish out of water, has zero fun throughout the series, is not as physically strong in a fight as the boys, and is basically the plot equivalent of Deus Ex Machina in the end because Magic > Ninjitsu in a franchise that is completely dependent on the physicality and Ninja-ness of the characters. 

Also. Despite Mei growing up in China, still learning English and Western culture, and having an obvious struggle with mourning the loss of her home in China and her Chinese father, in the goddamn pilot the main guys rename her “Venus de Milo” because she knocked the arms off a statue and they thought it was funny. Because while the guys are named after Renaissance artists, Mei is renamed and for all purposes “Anglicanized” for an art object. Like. It’s difficult to understand who okayed any of this. 

Like. Were they thinking?

Mei, from the start, was kind of a broken character with a gross costume design (turtle boobs turtle boobs what’re you gonna do there’s a turtle with fucking boobs) that still forces girls to see themselves as thin and demure even if they’re bulky, shell having turtles. BECAUSE WE GOTTA HAVE THEM HIPS AND CURVES i guess. 

She’s so loathed by Peter Laird (co-creator of the TMNT) that he made the overly drastic declaration that he’ll never allow there to be female turtles in the franchise again, period. Which I kinda... find extreme. 

Because....

As bad as she is. As problematic as she was. 

.... When I was six, I loved her. 

How could I not love her? She and Vam Mi were the only girls on the whole damn show! (April and Casey didn’t even get cameos). The face value of representation for a long time made me defensive of Mei and of the show because of how it made me feel as a kid.

It’s that Maya Angelou quote personified: “People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.“

I didn’t remember how bad the props and puppetry was until I rewatched the show. I didn’t remember how annoying Venus’ “spot” in the team was as immediate den mother and object to be fought over (like Raph and Leo needed more to fight over really). I didn’t even remember that the show kept pushing for the Turtles to not be a family. 

I remembered having a lot of affection for seeing a female ninja turtle along with the characters I had grown up loving. I mean, seriously, do I have to post that picture again of me as a baby in the scariest Ninja Turtle themed grocery store ride in the history of ever?

So she’s bad. And there needs to be more effort in being progressive and being more inclusive, especially for old properties trying to adapt to the changing times. 

And I’m someone who believes wholeheartedly that any idea can be done well. 

.... Venus was not done well.

But she had her part in making me a lifetime Ninja Turtle fan. A complicated, twisted, only could happen in the late part of the Clinton administration way. 

So I will criticize the hell out of Mei, out of the series, but I’ll always be mindful of how it made a six-year-old Rena excited every Saturday. 

I’ll remember that and the hot vampire in leather. 

[wrestlingisfake]

Wrestle Kingdom 11 preview

This is the 26th annual wrestling show on January 4th in the Tokyo Dome, and the 11th to be called Wrestle Kingdom.  The show airs Wednesday evening at 5pm Japan time, so Americans get to pull an all-nighter Tuesday night and Europe will have to skip work Wednesday morning.  Or you could just watch it on demand on njpwworld.com, whatever.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega - Okada is defending the IWGP heavyweight title, which is essentially the world championship of New Japan Pro Wrestling.  To qualify for this match, Omega won the G1 Climax tournament, becoming the first non-Japanese man to ever do so.

It’s been a big year for Omega, who stepped out of the junior heavyweight division to help fill the void left when AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, Karl Anderson, and Luke Gallows went to WWE.  In short order, Omega turfed out Styles, took over Bullet Club, and then beat Hiroshi Tanahashi for the vacant intercontinental title.  He dropped the belt in a ladder match that really put over Michael Elgin, and then delivered a top-notch performance in the G1.  Omega can’t replace any of the four guys who jumped to WWE, but he has unquestionably filled the role of “main event foreigner” left behind by Styles.  He’s on the rise, and it’s probably time to pull the trigger.

Okada spent most of 2012-2015 under Tanahashi’s shadow, but this year there’s been a clear effort to establish him as THE guy while de-emphasizing Tana.  It’s tough to say that has worked.  There’s still a feeling that Okada is overpushed, especially when you look at how he dropped the title to Tetsuya Naito earlier this year and then quickly regained it in spite of Naito’s obvious popularity.  With that in mind, it’s hard to say whether Okada will go over here, but it’s also hard to say if that’s because putting him over is such a great idea.

Since they’d been in separate weight classes, Omega and Okada hadn’t really crossed paths until this year, and they haven’t wrestled much beyond some tag matches here and there.  So I’m hoping this match will feel fresh and innovative, and that it can hold my attention after five hours of the rest of the card.

It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if Okada retains, but it would be the most boring thing they can do here.  It would be a pretty big moment if Omega climbs all the way to the top of the mountain and captures the title at this, the biggest show in Japan.  I don’t know what Omega as champion would mean, but I’ve seen plenty of Okada as champion and I know that doesn’t turn my crank.  So even though Kenny is bound to be doing annoying “I am a smark nerd heel so I will heel on you now” stuff, I’ll be pulling for him.

Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi - Tanahashi is challenging for the IWGP intercontinental championship.  He was supposed to feud with Omega for this title back in the summer, but an injury sidelined him and Michael Elgin took his place.  Elgin won the belt and eventually lost it to Naito, and now Elgin’s the one who’s hurt.  So I don’t know if this match is about Tana filling in for a planned Naito/Elgin match, or if it’s about finally getting back to that IC title shot he missed a few months ago.

This is far and away the clearest good guy vs. bad guy match on the card.  Tanahashi a beloved hero to all, like WWE wishes John Cena was; Naito is a total jerkwad, the leader of the sinister Los Ingobernables de Japon.  New Japan fans have started to like Naito as a “cool heel,” but I don’t know if that goes as far as turning against Tanahashi.  This could end up having a Cena vs. CM Punk vibe to it.

The best move, I think, would be for Omega and Naito to both go over at this show, and spend 2017 building to a big showdown between them and their respective stables.  (I guess one has to turn face, but I don’t care which.)  I think most American promotions would jump at the chance to do that, but NJPW strikes me as being more conservative with their booking, and more protective of their franchise players.  It would make a big statement to job Tanahashi and Okada on a January 4 show, but it’s not the kind of statement I’d expect.  And since I’m expecting Omega to go over, I’ll predict they play it safe with Tanahashi here.

Katsuyori Shibata vs. Hirooki Goto - Shibata is the defending NEVER openweight champion.  These two seem to always seem to be just a step below the real top guys, so you can think of this as the Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz of New Japan.  They’re always fighting, except sometimes they’re on the same side, and neither of them ever gets ahead long enough to do anything more important.  The main thing these guys have over Dolph and Miz is that they seem like genuine ass-kickers who will beat the fuck out of you, rather than two extras from an 80s movie about challenging the preppies in a sports thing.

I keep thinking they’re about to push Goto any day now, but they always seem to stop short of actually doing it.  So, ennh, Shibata wins.

KUSHIDA vs. Hiromu Takahashi - Kushida had just recaptured the IWGP junior heavyweight title when Takahashi made his high-profile return to New Japan and…uh, licked the belt, so now they gotta fight over it.  Kushida’s a good dude but it’s pretty obvious he’s gotta lose here.  New guy wins.

Tama Tonga & Tanga Roa vs. Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma vs. Toru Yano & Tomohiro Ishii - The Guerillas of Destiny (Tonga & Roa) are defending the IWGP heavyweight tag team championship.  GBH (Makabe/Honma) earned this title shot by winning the 2016 World Tag League tournament.  Yano just sort of wandered back from Pro Wrestling NOAH to add himself to the match, naming Ishii as his partner.

I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen New Japan do a three-way match, so I don’t know if this is like WWE’s triple threat rules (anything goes, first to score a fall wins it all) or if it’s elimination style or gauntlet style or whatever.   I have absolutely no idea why they’d add Yano/Ishii to this match except to book some wacky swerve, but that isn’t really New Japan’s style.  Then again, it’s totally Yano’s style, so maybe.  Certainly if Yano steals a win it sets up months of programs with the other two teams chasing them.  So, uh, sure, Yano and Ishii win the titles.

Kyle O’Reilly vs. Adam Cole - O’Reilly just won the Ring of Honor world title from Cole at Final Battle, so this is the rematch.  I haven’t been keeping up with ROH but I like that this is the continuation of a major program from ROH storylines, rather than just throwing two random guys out there for a midcard match.  Like, the only things I even know about O’Reilly are a) he’s best friends with that hipster guy with the mouthpiece and b) he and Adam Cole want to murder each other.  The last O’Reilly/Cole title match involved thumbtacks, I believe, so hopefully this will be similarly intense.  I always root for the ROH title to change hands at the Tokyo Dome, but I don’t think they put the title on O’Reilly just to move it back after like a month.  O’Reilly wins.

Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson vs. Rocky Romero & Trent Baretta - This is for the IWGP junior heavyweight tag team championship.  Roppongi Vice (Romero & Baretta) issued the challenge for this match right after winning the Junior Tag League tournament, and the Young Bucks (Nick & Matt) accepted.  I think this is about the 47th time these teams have faced each other for these titles, but I can’t remember the last time it was two-on-two.  Usually junior tag title matches end up being clusterfucks with reDragon and Ricochet/Sydal in the mix.

I like RPG Vice because Rocky is a cool dude and Baretta is like his goofball friend that eats McGriddles from Japanese McDonald’s super-early in the morning.  The Bucks are like that guy you know who thinks a joke stops being funny if you keep repeating it but then it turns around and becomes even funnier if you repeat it even more.  I’ve seen enough Bucks matches to know how this one is gonna go.  I’d like for Baretta and Romero to win, but the Bucks have become (for better or worse) a cornerstone of counter-WWE major league wrestling, so it’s like hoping Harlem Heat or the Steiners will beat Hall & Nash.  The title stays with Bullet Club.

Satoshi Kojima & Ricochet & David Finlay vs. EVIL & SANADA & BUSHI vs. Bad Luck Fale & Hangman Page & Yuriko Takahashi vs. YOSHI-HASHI & Will Ospreay & Jado - Kojima’s team is defending the NEVER openweight six-man tag team championship.  The other trios represent the three major stables in New Japan–Evil’s team is from Los Ingobernables de Japon, Fale’s team is from Bullet Club, and Yoshi’s team is from Chaos.  (Jado is replacing Tomohiro Ishii, who was booked for this before being moved to the IWGP tag title match.)

This is a gauntlet match similar to WWE’s “tag team turmoil.”  Two teams have a match, and whichever team wins advances to another match with the third team; whoever wins the second match goes on to a final match against the fourth team.  The winners of the last match will get/keep the championship.  The order of entry in this match hasn’t been announced, except that reportedly the defending champions will enter last, giving them an enormous advantage.

This trios title is kind of a hot potato in New Japan–I get the feeling they don’t like to hot-shot the IWGP championships, but with this one they feel more free to book some crowd-pleasing title changes.  Kojima and Ricochet won the belts back in July with Matt Sydal, but when Sydal was busted for pot they had to vacate and re-capture the championship with David Finlay.  In the process, Finlay got to suddenly step up from a curtain jerker “young boy” to a genuine undercard guy, so that’s kinda neat.  But it’s been about six months with more or less the same team on top, so it’s probably time for a change.

Assuming we get a title change, the outcome may help indicate which stable will be dominant in 2017.   I think there are big things coming for Yoshi and Ospreay, but if Chaos were slated to win I don’t think they’d have swapped Ishii for Jado.  A Bullet Club win could reinforce the idea that Omega is rebuilding the faction, after a couple of years where everyone thought they had run their course.  On the other hand, LIJ is in a position to possibly have all five members holding gold by the end of the night, which would indicate that they’re still the hot new thing and Bullet Club will have to fight to not be yesterday’s news.  I’m liking that last scenario best, so I’ll go with LIJ.

Cody Rhodes vs. Juice Robinson - Cody recently left WWE to begin a whirlwind tour of many wrestling promotions.  As of this show, he’ll be the first man to appear at WWE’s Wrestlemania, PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles, TNA’s Bound for Glory, ROH’s Final Battle, and Wrestle Kingdom in a single year.  Juice, better known to NXT fans as CJ Parker, left WWE a couple of years ago and has been working his way up the card in New Japan.  But he’s still little better than a prelim guy, and that makes him the kind of guy they’d feed to a debuting star.

Both guys have a lot to prove, so this should be interesting.  For one thing, I’m curious to see if Juice’s act holds up when he’s in there with another white guy his size that’s a bigger name than he is.  He stands out among New Japan midcarders, but against Cody he may look more like WWE dark match material.  Cody, meanwhile, is just starting to turn heel as a member of Bullet Club, and it’s not clear what his “American Nightmare” character is going to be, or how it’ll stack up with gimmicks like Dashing Cody, Masked Cody, Mustache Cody, and Stardust.

It’s pretty obvious Cody wins here, but I’m more concerned with both guys showing something on this big of a stage.  Can’t I just bet that all the horses have a good time?

New Japan Rumble - This is part of the pre-show.  It’s a gauntlet match where wrestlers enter at one-minute intervals, similar to WWE’s Royal Rumble except that eliminations occur by pinfall or submission.  This mainly exists to ensure everybody on the roster that isn’t otherwise booked (like Hiroyoshi Tenzan or Yoshitatsu) gets to be on the show, and usually there are some old-timers brought in for surprise appearances.  One time Haku showed up.

One possible wrinkle that could make this interesting is the working relationship between New Japan and Pro Wrestling NOAH.  There are a bunch of New Japan names (like the entire Suzukigun stable) that have been supplementing the NOAH roster for years, but with NOAH recently being sold it’s possible they’re all about to come back.  Also, a lot of the usual NJPW/ROH names (reDragon, the Briscoes, Michael Elgin) are notably absent from the card, so they might pop in here.  In any event, the outcome of the match probably won’t matter beyond whatever comedy spot they think of to blow it off.

Tiger Mask W vs. Tiger the Dark - Another pre-show match, to promote the new Tiger Mask W cartoon.  New Japan has a guy wrestling as Tiger Mask IV in prelim matches, but W is a new iteration of the gimmick.  Similarly, Dark is a modern take on Tiger Mask’s archenemy Black Tiger.  Dave Meltzer believes Kota Ibushi will be playing W (he has before) and Ring of Honor’s ACH will be playing Tiger the Dark, but I assume NJPW isn’t terribly picky who they stick under the masks.

The last time I saw Ibushi wrestling in the Tiger Mask W gimmick, he had a much more realistic mask than previous Tiger Masks, which didn’t look easy to breathe through.  That could affect match quality, but then again they might have tweaked the design a little for this show.  I assume W has to win because he’s a superhero and stuff, but Dark looks pretty tough so ya never know.