#and being with toey makes him want to understand himself in that respect a little better

[lafilleestmorte]

I have been thinking about Q.

Falling in love with the person leaving him notes at the cafe throws him completely off balance. It's his final year of high school, his world must revolve around his art and getting into college. But he's sitting thinking about this person he has never met and how natural it feels to love them and how deep this feeling has settled into his chest and how little he knows how to deal with it.

So he leaves. He goes to university. He spends a year making friends, dating around, drinking. His art surrounds him again and if he ignores the memory of that milk frappe boy whom he left behind then he can return to the person he understands. He loathes that he is able to live with having left him behind. He draws and fools around some more. And so the year ends, and, walking into a new semester, he meets Toey.

Q's mentee is. strange. For a fine arts major, he has the most peculiar relationship to art. He doesn't have the faintest clue of the skills that, to q, are simple as breathing. Armed with blunt pencils and a conviction like none other, Toey paints beauty into the world around him

It's like I'm sitting in a vast grassy field, with a gentle breeze under a bright sky. It's like I'm watching a masterpiece of art.

Q recognizes the way he's starting to care about Toey, but he's still trying to learn how to show it. Small gestures, little invitations. Quite moments with just the two of them. He remembers the milk frappe boy and regrets what he didn't do then. But he likes the person Toey is showing him how to be.

You said I didn't take care of you at all, so I'm treating you to some desserts.

It occurs to Q all at once that Toey might just as easily slip away. Because of a love beyond his hands or someone else who gets there faster or his own lack of action. Q refuses to lose the person he loves ever again. He's never been in love with a boy. He doesn't even know if Toey has a reason to like him back. But he doesn't have the time to give thought to his feelings or his fears. He needs to run towards Toey, faster than he himself thought it possible.

So when he finds out the truth, the feeling of betrayal is difficult to describe. The love that he had kept concealed - from everyone and from himself - out on display for all of his friends. A boy who made him want to reach out and hold onto his own genuine feelings, working behind him to catch him off guard.

The boy he has been in love with loves him back. He has always loved him back.

But the person he has been becoming now feels like he might slip away. How easy it would be to let him go. How easily he had left him in pain and silence, two years ago.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball GT 44

✨GT Stands for Glorious Tresses✨

Last time, Dr. Gero and Dr. Mu had two Android 17′s working for them.  Their new version, “Hell Fighter 17″ is currently battling Vegeta, while the original 17 is on his way to lend a hand.  Or he would be if he hadn’t stopped along the way to try to mind-control 18 into joining him. 

I don’t understand this scene, because Original 17 is himself being mind-controlled, which is the only reason he’s cooperating with Dr. Gero, whom he has always resented.  And yet, Gero and Mu never ordered him to recruit 18 this way, so it’s like he’s resisting somehow, except he’s trying to mind-control her, so how does that work?  Anyway, he almost succeeds, until Krillin reminds him that he always hated Gero, and that sort of snaps him out of it.  So 17 kills Krillin in a fit of confusion, and that snaps 18 out it. 

18 runs wild, attacking 17 in an emotional frenzy, but it doesn’t work.  17 then tries to kill Marron as she flees, so 18 takes the blast instead.  She passes out as she reaches over for Krillin’s hand, and tells him she loved him.

I just want to say that, as much as I hate GT’s penchant for making all the main characters dress like they just got out of church, 18 is the only one who managed to pull this look off.  Respect.

Meanwhile, in hell, Cell and Frieza have defeated Goku, not by overpowering him, but by using the (super)natural environment of Hell against him.  There’s some sort of ice trap that can freeze Goku, and that seems to hold him long enough for them to strike a killing blow, but then the ice starts to melt.  According to... some old lady who is never properly introduced to the story, this ice deal only works on dead people.  Since Goku is still alive, he thaws out immediately.

But Cell and Frieza are very much dead, which means it works just fine on the two of them.  And now that Goku’s seen how the ice machine works, he turns it on his enemies, and catches them in their own trap.  Then he accidentally knocks them over, and their bodies shatter. 

This is... kind of cute, but it’s a total waste of Cell and Frieza. Even if only one of them had been in this battle, it would still be a huge waste of that kind of star power, and Toei used both of them.

Meanwhile, General Rildo appears to be the only dead villain still active in the field, and he’s beating up Gohan.  He manages to turn two of Gohan’s limbs into metal, immobilizing him, but before he can finish him off, Uub shows up and takes out Rildo in one hit. 

I suppose this is fitting, since Goku said Rildo’s ki is “even greater than Buu’s”, and Uub now has the full power of Majin Buu, in addition to his own strength, so he ought to be able to pull off a stunt like this.  On the other hand, these dead villains were a total joke.  If heavyweights like Cell and Rildo couldn’t get anywhere, what good were the Red Ribbon guys and Nappa supposed to be? This was just busywork to give the supporting characters something to do.

Giru turns Gohan’s metallized arm and leg back to normal, and they all head off to help Vegeta. 

When they find him, the other 17 arrives, and Gero and Mu explain, rather painstakingly, that the two 17′s will combine to form a super warrior.  For some reason, the good guys just stand there and watch.  In particular, Vegeta seems extremely confused by the entire thing, despite Gero and Mu spelling it out for him. 

Everyone tries to attack 17 (though no one turns Super Saiyan), and 17 just no-sells all their attacks, basically repeating Cell’s whole deal when he became Perfect. 

Then 17 goes on the offensive, and we get this stupid sequences where it’s just still images of him hitting each good guy, but with speed lines animated over it, and they shake the image a little.  It’s the cheapest bullshit ever. 

Then everyone turns Super Saiyan, but it doesn’t make any difference. 

Super 17 uses a new technique called “Flash Bomber” to show the good guys the folly of their resistance.  I seem to remember this being especially cheap in the Xenoverse games. 

But it apparently doesn’t do jack shit, so Vegeta busts out his new move, Final Shine Attack.  It’s just a green, one-handed Final Flash.

And it doesn’t do jack-shit either, so Super 17 just uses Flash Bomber a second time.  This show absolutely sucks dick.  It sucks eggs.  It sucks shit.  It sucks rocks.  It sucks a lemon. 

Meanwhile, Goku appeals to King Yemma, asking to be sent back to Earth, but Yemma can’t do it.  This is stupid, because Goku doesn’t need King Yemma’s help. He can just turn Super Saiyan 4 and use Instant Transmission to go back.

According to Yemma, there is a “great power” at work between the Earth and Otherworld, and it’s interfering with his authority over Hell.  As he says this, we see one of the classic Dragon Balls begin to crack.  So presumably this is tied in with whatever Yemma’s talking about.

Then Piccolo cuts in and asks King Yemma to send him to Hell to help Goku.  Piccolo died in Episode 41, and he’s been sent to Heaven, but he has an idea, and he needs to be in Hell to make it work.  But Yemma refuses, saying that once he’s assigned a soul to the afterlife, he cannot change that assignment, no matter what.  Irritated, Piccolo starts shooting stuff in Heaven, claiming to still be a villain.  That enrages Yemma, so he sends him to Hell after all. 

And now Piccolo has a free hand to try out his idea.  Spoiler alert: It sucks.

✨”Good” “Ideas”, Poorly Executed✨

This whole episode is like a highlight reel of every crappy cliche used in Dragon Ball Z.  Characters standing perfectly still and allowing their enemy to transform.  Characters beating each other up but doing no actual damage, so they just get up and keep fighting anyway, with no sign of injury or fatigue.  Characters winning fights simply because the plot calls for it. 

The thing is, Dragon Ball Z usually did it right.  When Nappa attacked Tien, he didn’t just use a big move and then Tien lay down for a few minutes before getting right back up.  No, Nappa hit Tien and broke off his arm.  So even though Tien got up and kept fighting, there was a clear indication that he had been hurt. 

When Vegeta fought Android 19, he basically let 19 work him over, but none of it hurt him.  This wasn’t done to extend the fight, it was for the sake of getting 19 to try to drain Vegeta’s energy, so that he could rip off his hands and neutralize that ability.  And when Vegeta used his big new technique, it worked. 

When Vegeta used the Final Flash on Cell, it didn’t work, but it did blow off a large chunk of Cell’s body, showing how effective it was.  Cell then grew it all back, and started beating the shit out of Vegeta.  What Vegeta did not do was repeat the Final Flash several more times. 

It’s kind of ridiculous to me that Cell and Frieza spent a considerable amount of time perfecting the Hell Buster Technique, yet never thought to ask whether it would be effective on a live opponent.  I guess they were too busy doing absolutely nothing else. 

It really pisses me off how they remembered Giru’s device for reversing the metalization ray, but they forgot about Goku’s Instant Transmission, which he used repeatedly throughout Episode 40, which wasn’t even that long ago.

✨Is this episode worse than “The Roaming Lake”?✨ 

Yes!  It’s not as awful as Episode 43, but it’s really fucking terrible.

✨Positivity Page✨

It’s not much, but at least we finally got both 17′s merged together so they can stop doing this stupid “we are one” shtick.  I’m not a big fan of Super 17, but at least there’s only one of him.

Also, this will be a lot less confusing for Vegeta. 

✨The Blade Braxton Memorial Haiku*✨

Vegeta versus

Super 17.  Two kids

Spamming ki supers.

[shihalyfie]

Some things to know about the upcoming 02-related movie

As someone who seems to be known for being a 02 metablogger now (and 02 lover in general), and who’s been closely following Kizuna’s development and is generally fond of the movie itself, I figured I’d probably need to address the elephant in the room that is the announcement of the upcoming (unnamed, as of this writing) 02-related movie. This is also especially because I’ve personally been on the record saying that I absolutely did not want a Kizuna sequel. And, well, on top of that, to be a bit blunt about it, a lot of us, especially 02 fans, have a lot of reason to be skeptical of Toei right now given some of the things they’ve done with this series in the past, and 02-related things in particular (trust me, the wound is still extremely fresh), so it says a lot about what it took for me to get even remotely positive about this prospect.

Well, here’s the good news: while I of course still think there’s good reason to be apprehensive, and while I wouldn’t say everyone should be getting their expectations up for it to be guaranteed fantastic (which is something I would say about anything, regardless of whether it even has to do with Digimon or not), I don’t think there’s too much to be panicked about with this movie. Again, it took a lot for the staff to gain my trust in this respect, so it’s not something I say lightly. But if you’re a 02 fan and you’re extremely apprehensive, here are my reasons for feeling this way, and, hopefully, they might make you feel a little better too.

The reason this movie exists to begin with

One of the most striking things about this movie’s reveal was that they’ve literally only just started production on this movie. This was to the point that, at DigiFes, where this was revealed, even the voice actors stated outright that they knew absolutely nothing more than what the audience knew from the trailer. Katayama (Daisuke) only knew anything in the sense that they had him record those few lines for it. So even though it’s been a whole year and a half since Kizuna released to the public, it had only just been decided to make a new movie like this. All of the statements between Kizuna and now stating that there was nothing particularly in the works at the time were completely accurate. Of course, there are obvious hints that they were setting up for this possibility (many, many people noticed the suspiciously favorable position the 02 group was in during Kizuna, and the press releases were carefully worded so that having a movie about “Daisuke and his friends” would allow any statement about Kizuna being “the last adventure of Taichi and his friends” to still be technically truthful), but for all intents and purposes it seems like there had been no actual commitment to making this 02 movie until now, and that they’d at least wanted to gauge the surrounding climate and fanbase reactions for what people were looking for before they decided to go ahead with this.

The obvious reasons as to why this movie exist involve the fact that Daisuke and co. are pretty much the only “out” you can have to continue the Adventure universe without constantly defaulting to Taichi’s group yet again, because at the very least it’d be something that you can’t deny hasn’t exactly had the best representation in recent years. Of course they’re trying to capitalize on this! I’m not going to pretend they aren’t! But producer Kinoshita left a very interesting comment about a particular goal they have with this movie:

This time, the core behind the movie is everyone from 02! Daisuke’s group has their own different kind of charm from Taichi’s, and we want to express that precisely because we’re in the times we’re in right now.

That comment alone has a lot to unpack. (For a frame of reference, Kizuna released in Japan in February 2020; development had already long finished by the time the pandemic first hit, and it was unfortunately one of the first victims of the initial lockdowns because of how bad the timing was.) Acknowledging directly that there’s something different about Daisuke’s group and their dynamic, which makes them especially suited for what we need in “the current times”...hmm, what could that be?

The implied answer is one that many 02 lovers will know very intimately: the 02 group’s particular specialty is in uplifting others and giving each other emotional support. While Adventure had traces of these themes, 02 was the one that went really hard on the themes of dealing with grief and loss, the existential crisis of what to do with oneself in a world placing heavy pressures on you, and how to move on from hardships with the help of others. The fact that the 02 group specializes in this more than anything else is probably one of the most distinguishing factors between them and their seniors, so there’s a very heavy implication here that they understand what distinguishes 02 from Adventure, and what it uniquely would bring to the table in this kind of movie. So this isn’t just “we’re relying on the 02 kids because they’re part of the same universe”; there’s some degree of substantial understanding of what makes 02 as a series unique, and a desire to use this to its fullest extent.

Still don’t believe me? Well, how about this...

This staff really likes 02 a lot

Seki Hiromi, the original producer of Adventure and 02, was involved as a supervisor on Kizuna’s development. Seki was personally involved in the creation of these kids and 02 itself -- she’s the one who noticed the story of the nine-year-old boy skipping grades into Columbia University, the one that formed the basis of 02 itself and eventually came back for Kizuna -- and even personally vetted Kizuna’s script to make sure everyone was in character, gave her thoughts on what the kids would be like in 2010, and was (repeatedly) commented as seeming to love the kids like her own children. As of this writing, it hasn’t been confirmed whether she’s involved on the new movie, but even if she’s not, this means that the staff on Kizuna that is returning all listened closely to those discussions about what the characters are like, straight from the mouth of one of their own creators. The new character song releases had a brief mention in Lounsbery Arthur’s interview that there were apparently extensive discussions with the staff on what the characters should be like at this time, so while Seki’s involvement with that is unknown, at the very least, a lot of conscientious thought seems to be put in at all times into maintaining these characters’ integrity.

Of course, just having an original creator alone on it doesn’t necessarily do it by itself, so here’s another interesting thing: Taguchi Tomohisa, director of both Kizuna and this movie, is also very fond of 02.

I suspect we’ll be hearing more from him as this new movie goes further into development, but Taguchi himself implied that 02 was actually the one he happened to connect with in particular, and when you really think about it, given the circumstances surrounding Kizuna, it’s not actually surprising that a movie trying to be conscientiously aware of 02′s position in the narrative would have someone with a particular fondness for it on its staff. (Reason being: a lot of Adventure fans don’t care much for 02, but you’ll almost never meet a 02 fan who doesn’t also adore Adventure.) The really fun part about this, however, is that Taguchi has repeatedly stated that 02′s first movie, Hurricane Touchdown, is his favorite Digimon movie -- in a climate where everyone else was talking about Adventure. The expected answer for the majority of Adventure fans in terms of “favorite Digimon movie” is almost always Our War Game! by knockout, but no, for Taguchi, it’s Hurricane Touchdown, and not only has he said this, he won’t shut up about it. He’s been saying this since 2019. Even Seki noticed. A whole article got made about this. He brings it up whenever he has a chance to. To top it all off, when a Kizuna event asked everyone present about their favorite characters, and everyone gave Adventure-related answers, Taguchi’s response was instead Terriermon and Daisuke. And I mean, look at Kizuna itself -- its entire plot revolves around having to move on from unhealthy nostalgia, represented by kidnapping people and turning them younger and an antagonist swallowed by their own negative emotions, which, well, is literally the plot of Hurricane Touchdown. (Yeah, that Wallace cameo is very, very likely to be sheer self-indulgence.) And considering that Taguchi said his favorite human character was Daisuke, not Wallace, it means that he understands what Hurricane Touchdown brought out of Daisuke, what his interactions with Wallace meant for both characters, and how Daisuke’s best strengths lie in his ability to support and uplift others.

And, finally, we have Yamatoya, who was responsible for penning both Kizuna’s script (and, thus, being privy to Seki’s corrections) and the bonus drama CD that came with it, on the script, and he personally said that he enjoyed writing for the 02 group because he felt they were important to lightening up the mood of the heavy story Kizuna was becoming. In fact, every comment from this staff about what the 02 group brings to the table in particular has showed a good understanding of what their appeal is -- that they have to be “fun”, that they were “healing in a heavy story”, and Taguchi himself said that he got the impression that the 02 group had more straightforward paths to their epilogue careers (which is interesting, considering that I’ve also personally pointed out that the 02 group seemed to have careers with significantly lower bars than their seniors’ due to their difference in priorities). All of these things are observations you make when you know this group and the importance of the story they came from.

Extend it even further to the rest of the staff members and you’ll find there are a lot of 02 fans on there, including the animation staff, who made some very neat observations about 02 and its finale. Miyahara Takuya is a particularly amusing case, because he seems to love Imperialdramon so much that in the thanks booklet for the deluxe edition for the Blu-ray, he drew a picture of Daisuke and Ken with Imperialdramon Dragon Mode because he didn’t get to be in the movie. (As in, he actually said, point-blank in the caption, that he loves Imperialdramon and wanted to draw him because he wasn’t in the movie.)

Of course, even if you’re trying your best, things may not always work out, so I’m not saying having love for the characters will necessarily guarantee that the product turns out for the best. However, considering that historically a lot of our fears come from the idea of them milking the name value of the characters without really caring about their integrity or understanding what the series was about (especially since a lot of people in the fanbase itself don’t tend to read 02′s nuances very well), I think, at the very least, we don’t need to worry about the staff for this movie not being conscientious, nor the idea that they’re making this movie without understanding or caring about 02.

Furthermore, one thing I appreciate is that they’re actually leading the advertisement with a premise that is distinct from Kizuna’s. Of course, it covers a similar topic of “partnerships”, and it’s very possible it’ll cover the issue of the solution to Kizuna’s problem (especially since the answer was already hinted to have a heavy relationship with 02), but nevertheless, it’s an actual premise that’s not just “Kizuna’s story, but more of it”. It’s an understanding that something 02-related should be allowed to stand on its own rather than just tacking it onto an Adventure-related thing. Beyond that, while I think it’s generally expected that a side story like this should have an original character, I think it’s actually very good this time in particular that there’s a new element/character for the 02 group to interact with; again, as with Hurricane Touchdown and Daisuke, these kids often have the best brought out of them when they’re supporting others, and honestly, because the kids suffered so much in their own narrative, I’m not particularly fond of the idea of seeing them having to go through too much more trauma themselves (it’s a big reason I don’t like the idea of a 02 reboot). So while I’m sure a lot of 02 fans feel a bit antsy that the actual group itself wasn’t advertised first, I actually consider it a positive sign that they have an understanding of what context this group performs best in, and, moreover, well...the last time they unveiled something that was so focused on advertising the return of old characters that it forgot to actually be straightforward about the premise, I don’t think that ended well. So to speak.

In general, the track record is good

It’s easy to just smile and nod at the portrayal of the 02 quartet in Kizuna, because in general everything from them is in-character, but I just want to point out how significant it is that they were portrayed so conscientiously when it is really easy to mess them up. (As I like pointing out very often: even official has not historically been very careful with Daisuke’s character.) There are so many easy pitfalls you could have fallen into and pigeonholed the kids into, but Kizuna absolutely demonstrated the quartet at their best, showing off all the nuances of their character and bringing up all the parts that were most important, especially Daisuke’s best quality being “positivity and cheerfulness” and not all of the other things about him running in circles or having a crush on Hikari-chan. This even goes down to the casting; Katayama Fukujuurou sounds terrifyingly like Kiuchi Reiko in terms of all the little nuances and pitch shifts she had in her performance, and the cast themselves spoke of all the nuances present in their characters as they were studying for their roles. These are things that even fans of the series tend to miss, but the voice actors for the quartet nailed their roles so well that it’s very easy to tell that the direction understood exactly what they were looking for and needed, and casted accordingly. Even those who didn’t care for the movie much had a very hard time disputing the voice casting for the quartet (and this is saying a lot given how much voice actor changes are often a really sore point among Japanese fans).

But while the 02 group had a limited amount of screentime in Kizuna, the staff also had a lot of opportunities to prove themselves with the drama CD and the new character song CDs, and every single aspect of these reflects something that was represented in 02 itself -- again, things that often go over the heads of people who aren’t paying as close attention. The drama CD captures a lot of the essence of the dynamics between the group in only short lines, and all of the statements about the characters in the character song interviews are accurate (and remember: Arthur said directly that there were discussions with the staff about keeping them true to character). On top of that, not only do the lyrics in said songs directly mirror each character’s development from the time of the original Best Partner series, there are also a lot of things in said songs that demonstrate a nuanced understanding of each person’s character and what they got out of the events of 02. Someone with only a surface-level understanding of Ken or Iori’s character might think that Ken should only have a soft song, or that Iori shouldn’t want to do anything ridiculous, but the series goes ahead and gives Ken one of the most passionately emotional rock songs in the batch and Iori outright rap with Armadimon, which are both fitting decisions in light of Ken actually being one of the more emotionally assertive people in this group, and Iori only being stoic because he’s strict with himself and being willing to let loose in certain circumstances (especially after the events of 02).

As of this writing, I don’t know if the new movie is going to be featuring the entire group in a major role, and I’m not sure if I even want it to; as much as I do strongly feel like the group should always work together at all times, one minor personal complaint I had about Kizuna was that it tries to do too much in too little time, and I’m personally fine with this new movie being more Daisuke-centric or something if it means it can just get a nice story on the table (after all, if I wanted something that more evenly represents the entire 02 group, I’d just go back and rewatch a very nice anime series called Digimon Adventure 02). There’s also the very thorny question of what to do about Tokumitsu Yuka, since I don’t personally really like the idea of still dragging her out of retirement like this (but I also wouldn’t want them to awkwardly write around her just for this, and I’m wondering if Sonozaki voicing Tailmon in the reboot would let people accept her as a replacement without much fighting).

Nevertheless, I think Kizuna’s staff has proven more than well enough that they understand the essence of 02 and its characters, so, again, regardless of how it turns out, I at least expect that this can be made with some degree of conscientiousness, and at this point, that’s all I can ask for. I don’t think it’s fair to expect or want this movie to be the second coming of 02, because, again, if we wanted that, I think it’d be better for us to all go back and watch that lovely little 50-episode anime called Digimon Adventure 02. But in terms of being something that can add a little nice thing to the mix, I think, so far, this movie at least has positive signs of turning out that way -- and, remember, think about what I just said about initially being very against this idea; as a diehard 02 fan who has a lot of very picky feelings about how to best represent it, it took a lot for the staff to earn my trust in this sense.

[giuliafc]

Getting Lucky

Ao3 || FFN

After Papillon akumatises the director of the local cinema, our heroes get a stroke of serendipity and have a chance to relax together.

For my friend Etoile-Lead-Sama. Happy birthday, hun!

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by (c) Thomas Astruc, TS1 Bouygues, Disney Channel, Zagtoon, Toei Animation. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Written for the "Snippet July" challenge of the Miraculous Fanworks Discord server @miraculousfanworks AND for LadyNoir July @ladynoirjuly Day 9 — Serendipity/Cinema. Let me know what you think!

oOoOoOoOoOo

Chat Noir was pissed off. Very, very much.

Not only had the stress of his civilian life caught up with him, but the fact that his father and Nathalie had no respect for him being on holiday—HOLIDAY for God's sake—and were filling his days with photoshoot after photoshoot after interview after dubbing session for the Ladybug and Chat Noir movies... It was exhausting, to say the least. Now, the last task was something he had always been happy to do before. However, the writers of the show had recently taken a strange road where his character seemed to be romantically involved with Rena Rouge and, well, he didn't enjoy dubbing those parts. Chat Noir was for his Lady only—maybe Marinette—what was he thinking? His lady only! Anyway, his day was so full he'd barely managed to scrape out a few minutes to join Ladybug in the usual daytime patrol.

Not that it mattered anyway, because his Lady, as usual, was so late that by the time she showed up he'd finished his round and was ready to go home. She looked tired; dark marks under her eyes and a paler complexion than usual. But she also looked relieved that the round of patrol had been dealt with.

Until a loud bang cracked in the distance. They knew that the only being that could produce such a sound was an akuma. The akuma victim was the director of the local cinema. The profits of the new Ladybug movie weren't as good as he'd anticipated (somehow Chat Noir wasn't surprised) and the man was understandably upset. Luckily the fight wasn't too hard on the heroes, because Chat Noir could see that Ladybug was dragging herself around and wasn't concentrating. So when she captured the akuma and released the purified butterfly, Chat Noir put a hand on her shoulder.

"Are you okay, Buginette? You look exhausted."

She took his hand into hers and gave him a grateful look. "Thank you for noticing, Chaton. No, I'm not well, I could really use a break."

She seemed to be ready to say something else, but they both felt a hand on their shoulder and they turned around, looking rather surprised to see the ex-akumatised director of the cinema.

"If the heroes of Paris need a break, especially after they saved the city from my silly self, I can't sit there and do nothing. Please, Ladybug and Chat Noir, there's no better place than the cinema to relax. You can watch the latest Avengers movie. On me."

"I don't think it's a good idea," said Chat Noir, remembering what happened the last time he'd dragged Ladybug to the cinema, just because she didn't want to talk. He shuddered at the memory, but the director was adamant.

"I insist. If you're afraid to be disturbed, don't you worry. The whole screen will be reserved for you. I will air the film at one unscheduled time, only for you two. How does that sound?"

And that's how they found themselves sitting in a completely empty cinema room, one next to the other, juice and milk in one hand, a massive bowl of popcorn in the other, waiting in silence for the film to start. What a fortunate stroke of serendipity.

Ladybug was strangely quiet, so Chat Noir took the occasion to give his Lady a good look. And didn't like what he saw. "Are you not sleeping well, M'lady? You're always the most beautiful woman I know, but I’m concerned about those marks under your eyes."

She was putting more popcorn into her mouth, but stopped at his words and put it back into her bowl, letting out a big sigh. "I could tell you that everything is good, Chaton. But I'm tired of lying. No, I'm not okay. Not at all. I haven't been able to sleep well in the past… month," she said after tapping her fingers on her chin. "I'm worried. All this new responsibility, Su-Han who told me that he's going to breathe down my neck to ensure I don't make mistakes, Papillon's akumas getting scarier, and it's starting to hit close to home… I feel as if Papillon upped his game and we can’t do the same. It's so frustrating!"

He saw how she balled her hands into fists and how she started shaking with anger. Since it hadn't worked the first time he'd tried it, back when he had invited Ladybug to the cinema himself, he hesitated to try the “arm on the shoulder” trick again. This time it worked though, and he pulled Ladybug closer as, despite everything, his lips curled in a happy little smirk.

"You know, I don't really care about the movie. I'm here to listen if you need to vent."

She shook her head. "No, Minou. I don't want to talk about stressful things today. It was lucky that the director accommodated us in a cinema room all for ourselves. And I'm looking forward to watching this movie, even though I'm feline that you're chancing your lucky 'arm' a little bit, Chaton." She giggled at his surprised look—and how could he not be surprised, when his Lady punned not once, but TWICE in the same sentence? She flicked his bell as she continued, "Do you think I'm blind and I haven't noticed your arm on my shoulder? Nice move, by the way, Minou. Second time lucky!"

She giggled again and scooched herself closer, placing her head on his chest and moving his arm to wrap around her firmly. He didn't need to be shown twice—in seconds, he squeezed her to his side. As the film started and he lost himself in the story, he thought that maybe, just for once, he could forget about his frustration and his growing anger. For once they could be just a boy and a girl, in a cinema room, watching a superhero movie. That sounded very much like a date.

And a date sounded good.

------------------------------------------------

Author's Note

Here I am… day 9 is written. I gift this piece to my friend Etoile-Lead-Sama, for her birthday. Have a great day ma belle! Love you to the moon and back ^-^

I hope you all will like the story and will leave me a comment. You know that comments are my bread and butter!

Until (hopefully) tomorrow, bug out!

[marvelheaux]

T’challa’s Outside Daughter (Chapter 6)

T’challa x BlackDaughter!Reader/OC

A/N : Hey guys, I’m terribly sorry of this was rushed and thrown together, but life has been kicking my ass as of lately and I was extremely scatterbrained. But anyways, here’s chapter 6, I hope you enjoy! - Lanna

Description : Zyra is the first born of King T’challa. She moved to the states and grew up with her Single mother with hardly any contact with her father. Queen Mother Ramonda decided that with all the drama and secrets going on, that it's time to bring the family together .

Story Links:

Main Character + Faceclaim

Character List

She met one of her father's  Exes (oneshot)

TOD Prologue , Chp1 , Chp2 , Chp3 , Chp4 , Chp5 

Warnings: Possible Grammar Errors, Angst, Strong Language

Words: 3K

     The lab was busy today, as educational material was being deployed from Wakanda, to both the Wakandan Outreach  Centre in California and the Wakandan Embassy in New York City, back and forth. Shuri was working with her fellow scientists, approving and testing materials, while Zyra decided to lend a hand in assisting in the Air Traffic Control, while some of the staff was on a lunch break.

Pilot one: "Apron it's Q47-452 ready for pushback"

Zyra: "Q47-452 push at your discretion, call ready for taxi"

Pilot one: "452 roger"

Zyra cracked her knuckles and adjusted her earpiece after giving the pilot traffic orders, whilst making notes of who already taxied and who is about to arrive. As she was going through her checklist, she noticed a different jet configuration from the others that just came in.

“SHIT”. She thought to herself. “When am I ever going to get away from him?”

T’challa, controlling his one-manned  jet, coming from a solo mission with the avengers in Switzerland.

T’challa: "Wakanda Molo ngokuhlwa , Q1-1 is out of thirteen six for 1-1 thousand, requesting runway 10."

Zyra: "Q1-1, runway 11, maintain 6 thousand, altimeter 30.05, maintain present heading"

He was slightly taken aback at the rejection of the runway he is accustomed to landing on, which was also reserved for him and the royal family. As he took the coordinates into account, he noticed a strange female voice on the controller, which was unfamiliar because he don't recall a female air traffic controller being on  staff.

T’challa: Eh, may I ask who is controlling the air traffic?

Zyra froze. If she can run away from the air defence command booth, she would. But she had a job to do. She and her father were avoiding each other for the past couple of days since their awkward first time meeting each other in about 12 years. Anxiety crept up on her at a bad time. She potentially have people’s lives in her hands.

“Be professional Be Professional Be Professional.” she thought to herself again and decided to reply in the aviation language.”

“Zulu, Yankee, Romeo, Alpha....Uniform, Delta, Alpha, Kilo, Uniform…….Sir.”

“Oh.”

“Roger that”

T’challa nodded his head in approval and turned off autopilot to follow further landing instructions. He suddenly realised that he has a lot to learn when it comes to his eldest, especially her capabilities. He knew popping back  into her life at such a risky stage of adolescence was not going to be a walk in the park, especially for a girl, but this will be one hell of a ride. And the rejected handshake was an astounding start, unfortunately.

Back in the controls room, it was 2pm, Zyra handed other the controls to the staff who was on a lunch break .

“You look so cute doing the controls” Shuri said. “you look like that girl from the Austin  Powers movie” She was referring to Zyra’s outfit- a turtle neck, long sleeved cropped shirt, tucked into a high waisted flowing skirt with white knee-high boots.

“Thanks mamas! Y’all give me a stylist, to wear these boujie ass clothes in the house, when Wakanda is fucking 80 degrees. Aiight.”

Shuri just laughed along to Zyra’s rant, while they made their way to their quarters, so Zyra can get ready for cheer practice.

“Girl, guess who popped up on the comms when I was in the controls”

“Who?” Shuri cheekily plopped on Zyra’ bed, waiting for her to spill the tea she already tasted.

“His majesty of course.”

Shuri gasped.

“Did he find out it was you? Cause our last female air traffic controller retired a year ago.”

“He asked and I told him! Shyiieet. AND IN AVIATION LANGUAGE TOO! He talking bout summ ‘who’s controllin the air traffic’ ME BITCH! FUCK YOU MEAN!’ “ They both screamed with laughter and high-fiving each other like the partners in crime that they are.

“Oooo mamas! We have to talk about the outfits for the ceremony before you leave for the competition this week”

“Well I-”

As soon as they turned the corner, they ran into the King himself, still dressed in his panther suit. Zyra groaned internally.

“Hey brother! Nice to see you! How was the mission?”

“It was a bit of a challenge but a success” he said handing Shuri some devices, as she makes a run for it.

T’challa looked to his daughter.

“Hi intombazana yakho”

“Molo wam kumkani” Zyra replied awkwardly avoiding eye contact, looking all over the room.

“You don’t have to call me that, eh? I wanted to- “

“HIIII DADDYYYY!” the sound of Sariyah’s voice cut their conversation short. Both Matthew and Sariyah had just came home from school.

She ran into her father’s arms, totally disregarding Zyra’s presence on purpose. This gave Zyra saw the queue to leave the big happy family alone and go about her way. Sariyah smirked at her charms winning over her father once again. Matthew noticed his big sis hurrying out the door.

“Yo Where you going?”

“Practice.” she said dryly to her brother, before bolting out the door.

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T’challa sat up in his bed, relaxing- wearing a fleece coated robe, bedroom slippers and sipping on some peppermint tea, recovering from his winter mission.He used this little downtime to get some R&R before the annual battle for the crown ceremony the next day. As he watched Lord Attuma from Atlantis giving his global warming statement on BBC World News, the door opened swiftly and caught the King’s attention.

“There you are!” Queen Nicolette smiled sweetly when she saw her husband. She crawled into bed, kissing T’challa deeply, before she sat in his lap.

They spoke briefly about the mission in switzerland and other personal ‘married couple’ stuff.

“Are you ready for tomorrow honey?” She said, while playing with the King’s moisturized curls.

“Eh, I think the third time around wouldn’t be such a challenge, plus baba and I need to have some brief words.”

“About Zyra right?”

T’challa eyes wandered off and bit his lip.

“Speaking of Zyra, ah she’s a doll, gorgeous. So sweet and so talented! I always say that she looks

Just.

Like

you.”

T’challa looks at his baby girl cradled in his arms, as she yawns adorably, whilst making cute baby noises.

T’challa shook himself out of his flashback.

Did you know she agreed to be main dancer for the royal family?”

“Really?” T’challa gave an inquisitive look. “We haven’t had main dancer in about 50 years. Not since Princess Gcobisa.”

Princess Gcobisa was the youngest daughter of King Azzuri, and the baby sister of King T’chaka and Prince N’jobu. She was one of the most exciting, ray of sunshine royals in the family. She passed away from a concussion injury during training at the tender age of 18. T’chaka often told T’challa stories about his baby sister, because they were very close and would often say that Zyra reminds him of her, especially for both their love for dance. Hence Zyra’s middle name, Cebisa is close with hers, Gcobisa.

“By the way, how’s communication been working out for you?” Nicolette continued.

“She seems a little tip toey around me, which I understand, at least she’s respectful. What about you?”

“Well….she ran off before I could speak to her when Sariyah and Matthew came home from school...so I guess that’s a start.” T’challa chuckled.

“And she keep addressing me as ‘my king’ , I don’t have formalities with my children.”

“Then TELL HER.”

“I know but you can’t give up on her. Keep trying. That’s your first born, don’t you ever forget that.”

T’challa agreed in silence.

Later that evening…

“ Practice is over! I’m only half way dead..but I did pretty good so” Zyra laughed whilst recording her vlog at practice.

“Look! We got a second package for this weekend’s competition.!”

With short appearances and lots of laughs from her fellow teammates, she started to head home.

“So you’re actually dancing foreal?” Kailee asked her.

“Meh, I’m gonna try summ. I aint no professional doe.”

“My sister gonna dance too, don’t worry about it tho.

They both said their goodbyes and went about their separate ways.

Zyra skipped into the palace with her bare socks on her feet, aided by her personal guard N’ceba.

“Real ass bitch, give a fuck 'bout a nigga”

“Big Birkin bag, hold five, six figures” Zyra rapped the to the song “Act Up” By City Girls, making her way through the palace, with her rose gold solo beats blasting in her ears.

“Stripes on my ass so he call this pussy Tigger”

“Fuckin' on a scammin' ass, rich ass nigga”

“Sa-”

Zyra jumped and cut the rapping short  when she walked into the dining room to find her father, Nicolette and her siblings having dinner.

“Oh hey..Molweni” She gave them an awkward wave.

“Hey hun! How was practice! Come have dinner with us.”

T’challa looked at Zyra nervously, whilst Nicolette gave him the ‘right T’challa?’ look and pinched him on his leg which caused him to slightly jump.

“Ah, Yes, you must be hungry and tired” he cleared his throat.

Zyra thought about it for a moment before making a decision.

“That’s sweet but I’m not really hungry right now, I’ll just eat in my room and watch Netflix, bye!”

She rushed off before T’challa can say anything else.

“She declined food? That’s a first!” Matthew chuckled.

“She’s probably scared of me ...hmmm” Sariyah laughed to herself and continued to eat her food.

“Why would she be scared of you?” T’challa chimed in, looking concerned.

“Why wouldn’t she?”

He side-eyed his youngest, like a white politician asking for the price of vibranium.

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I’m still annoyed about earlier.

I don’t fit into his life.

Not even if I tried.

He moved on with his new family.

Nicolette..she tries to be nice, it seem fake as fuck, but I can’t blame her to be honest. Imagine your husband hiding a child tho...

So does Matthew. He’s cool. As least he wanted to meet me.

Princess.

But Sariyah is such a stuck up bitch...she needs to pipe down before I knock her upside her motherfucking head.

Princess…

What am I even doing here?

Here we go again with the princess shit.

“Wake up my princess!”

“Huh?” Zyra jumped up with her bonnet almost off her head and eyes squinting from the light.

“Good Morning! Your breakfast is ready and the designer’s are ready for your fitting.

She brain did a windows XP start-up and she realised what her attendant was trying to tell her.

“Yeah yeah, I’ll be there in a minute.”

As soon as Bongani left, she plopped right back into bed. She was still sore from cheer practice.

After she freshened up and ate her breakfast, Bongani was giving her a run down about the events that were going to take place at the ceremony and the protocol afterwards, regarding the winner of the battle.

The palace’s glam team worked on her makeup; and  paint designs on her body, did an african style updo and fitted her for her Wakandan ceremonial dance outfit.

She was excited but nervous, she practiced some moves before bed last night and only hope she doesn’t mess up in front of everybody.

As the boats moved along the water, she moved her body to the beat of the drums which orchestrated her natural stage presence. All the other boats with the tribe leaders and dancers joined in. Her astounding talent in dance made the her fellow family members cheer her on and dancing along. She even cheekily dance on N’ceba while she was doing her dora milaje dance. (yemi’s pieces is zyra’s outfit)

“She such an attention whore! Ugh” Sariyah said in Matthew’s ear, and he laughed at her jealousy.

While she was dancing, she spotted someone that would be awkward as hell to cross paths with. Nakia. It’s very weird because it’s literally the same girl that her father used to sleep around with, when her mother was pregnant with her. Also, she happens to be her friend Kailee’s, older sister.

With that, Zyra’s confidence shot up into the air cause she really wanted to show Nakia that  Nakia didn’t want no smoke.

The waterfall celebration was beautiful. So many beautiful black people in a kaleidoscope of colors.T’challa came out and the crowd started chanting his name as he awaited his challenger. He had fought two warriors from Border Tribe and Merchant Tribe and finally one from Mining Tribe. This time he was bigger than M’baku. Built like a Goliath ass nigga.

“Im just letting y’all know that, if we lose, my black ass is taking the first flight back to NY. I’m out this bitch. Period“ Zyra whispered in Shuri’s ear and she giggled.

“You ain’t going nowhere”

“Aite, bet.”

T’challa eventually won the fight but still got his ass beat. He was still the Black Panther & the  King Wakanda.

Amongst the celebration of his win, came Nakia taking over the dance session. Nicolette carefully eyed her out of curiosity.  Zyra was dancing in her own world but saw that Nakia was looking in her direction and the crowd was egging her on. Kailee warned Zyra that she battle the main dancers from every tribe, every year. But she wasn’t bothered by anybody because she’s an athlete, so she’s very competitive. And she wasn't about to let her father’s ex  push her in a corner. So she stepped up.

Nakia kept doing her own thing while her tribe and the audience were cheering her on. Zyra cracked her neck effortlessly as she secured her stance. She looked to the River Tribe crowd of where she saw Kailee and Brandon giving her the thumbs up. Zyra pulled out the dance moves that she have been practicing in the training room for days. With her moves hitting to every solid beat of the drums, even throwing a backflip to an award winning split whilst looking Nakia straight in the eyes, which made the Wakandans clutch their pearls. Showing her flexibility skills with a flawless heel stretch and ended it off with the majorette style death drop. The crowd went wild. The  crowd clearly chose their winner. Zyra knew Nakia can’t top that one. She learned that from her Majorette dance group at Spelman College. She knows that SHE don't know nothing about that.

T’challa looked on clapping for his daughter. He was impressed. But not surprised to say the least. Raechella used to be a professional dancer and a volleyballer in her younger years. Athleticism  definitely runs in the family.

Despite Zyra giving Nakia a shady stare-down and  cocky  hair flip, she decided to extend an olive branch.

Walking up to Nakia , she held out her hand to her.

“Congrats Princess” Nakia says with a bow.

The bow confused Zyra a bit.

Is she mocking me or being respectful?

“thank you.”

Nicolette soon came rushing over with excitement and snatched Zyra  from the conversation ,  which made Nakia  fall back awkwardly .

“oh my gosh!!! I didn't know you had it in you! Did you know your father was watching?”

Who?

“oh ok.”

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“Y’all see this right?”

“Zyra did what she had to do! #PERIOD”

“The fact that Zyra beat her father’s ex in a dance battle is iconic.”

“It’s today’s old that I found out Zyra is african. I heard she got Caribbean fam too!”

“Fuck the dance battle! I was robbed of Zyra challenging her father for the throne. #QueenZyra”

“UGH”

“Zyra this, Zyra that. These idiots don’t get tired?” Sariyah strolled down through black twitter and rolling her eyes at the tweets from the video of Zyra dancing that went viral overnight.

“You don’t get tired hating?” Matthew chimed in as he walked past her open door.

“BOY SHUT UP ! NO ONE IS TALKING TO YOU”

“AND WHY YOU SO DEFENSIVE ABOUT HER ANYWAYS? YOU DON’T KNOW HER! SHE’S A NOBODY MATTHEW!”

Matthew couldn’t believe how his sister was acting. Yeah she is a little boujie and rude at times but she was way too bothered about Zyra being in the house.

“Maybe if you aren’t so jealous, you would get to know her too.”

Sariyah laughed sarcastically.

“Jealous of that thing? She and her mama are clout chasers Matt!”

Matthew didn’t respond to her insults, he just slammed his bedroom door on the way in.

………...

*refer to this fic* At Adam’s house, the gang were hanging out for the impromptu friday game night. Adam and Kailee just finished killing each other about who won monopoly, whilst diving into an interesting story time about Zyra and her encounter with one of her father’s bevy of women he dated over the years. (zyra below)

“Speaking of EXES Zyra…” Chioma laughs while biting into her lemon pepper wing that Zyra wanted to steal.

“Let’s talk about the balls you had dance battling Nakia.”

“I’m not gonna gas you cause you’re my friend, but you killed that shit foreal.” Adam chimed in and kailee started clapping.

“I didn’t know THAT was gonna come out of her!”

“ME NEITHER!”

“YASSS!!”

Zyra cringed uncomfortably and adorably at the slightest compliment. While she is flattered usually, she’s not the biggest fan of praise nor extra attention.

“I’m not gonna lie, I was nervous as fuck, but my momma didn’t raise no pussy.”

“.....”

“I’m not in support of this, but my sister wants to talk to you”

“Ooop” Brandon sipped his drink.

Zyra was shocked.

“Really?”

“I personally think my sister is a hoe, and what she did to your mom was foul but-”

“Did you just call your sister a hoe?”

“Um..she is?? One time, she tried to tell my father about me sneaking out the house to see my boyfriend, and when I told her that he was my man and I don’t fuck other people’s husbands or baby daddy’s, she punched me and we started fighting.”

Everybody in room burst into the laugher.

“Sis was triggered I guess.” Zyra said, trying to recover from laughing so hard.

“In all seriousness...yeah. It’s up to you though.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“...”

“Chioma I know you can’t finish those wings, gimme!”

*SONG FOR THE CHAPTER (YEMI ALADE - YAJI FT SLIMCASE & BRAINEE)

Molo ngokuhlwa- Good Afternoon.

intom

bazana yakho - my daughter

Molo - hi

Wam kumkani - my king

Molweni - good evening

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS CHAPTER? WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING HAPPEN NEXT? COMMENT !! YOUR FEEDBACK MEANS ALOT! AND REBLOG TO SHARE WITH OTHERS IF YOU LIKED THIS CHAPTER. - Lanna xx

Taglist: @mxrvelous-bxrnes @kida114 @royallyprincesslilly @randomassfandomwho @jadesid @deansbbysblog @pananegra @jonsnowisthesexiestbastard @janell-r @zacarakillmonger @omgsuperstarg @skysynclair19 @amethyst09 @sisterwifeudaku @bezzywazhere @letrecek @champagnesugamama @maddiestundentwritergaines @bribrisback @oceanscorazon @mufasathatniggatho @raysunshine78 @queennanayaa @fonville-designs @chaneajoyyy 

[muthaz-rapapa]

A Break Down of All Star Memories: The Good & The Bad

This is ridiculously long so I put everything under the cut.

And I split it into the good and the bad but the good actually outweigh the bad by a lot so no wonder this was the best All Stars movie we’ve had in...wow, 7 years.

On top of that, it really did feel like an anniversary movie and I’m so glad they made that part really count.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD 

Good Points

Story 

Y’know, as much as I loved the DX movies, I admit that their storylines weren’t all that great which is why I suspect Toei tried to change that with New Stage and every other All Stars after. Except when you put new, exclusive characters in the spotlight, you kinda also take (too much) focus away from the Cures, the main reason why I want to watch the crossovers in the first place.

And I can tell they tried to find some equilibrium to that. One where they can develop a conflict and a resolution for said new character while giving the newbie Cures their time to shine. It’s difficult because there are just so many of them that you have to feature, oi. @_@;;;

Not to mention, needing to incorporate those fight scenes and climactic endings...and stupidly nerfing the established Cures to keep them on standby/out of the way until they’re needed for a dramatic entrance later. It’s been pretty formulaic one movie right after the other so by “Minna de Utau”, nothing was interesting anymore.

Then Dream Stars and Super Stars came along with a “smaller” cast but those were also so-so at best because again, it’s hard to break revamp habits and get a coherent flow of events without compromising some things along.

Now we have All Stars Memories and it’s...different.

It’s like any All Stars, the same in many aspects but still...different.

In the good way.

We have a very compelling antagonist this time and the writers did a great job of keeping the mystery about him till the reveal during the latter half of the movie. 

Then there’s Hana/Yell who was absolutely amazing as the central protagonist of this story which I’ll get to in a bit.

Finally, letting Black and White actually share that spotlight with the Hugtto girls. Not as secondary or supporting but, for a while, they were the main characters again. I haven’t even watched their seasons yet but man, did it feel awesome to see them show off their wisdom, experience and badassery as the most senior of all Precure. <3

As for the rest of them, yea, they were nerfed again but it actually makes sense this time because they’ve been turned into babies, for cryin’ out loud, and their Precure memories were taken away.

Naturally, without those memories, they can’t do their Precure stunts.

Very good, Toei. You’re finally learning from your mistakes. *thumbs up*

Anyways, despite them being powerless for most of the movie, we still made the best of their cuteness so all’s good.

Last but not least, the conclusion. For 10 years, 10 years, all the All Stars movies boiled down to almost every Cure transforming to their respective super forms and/or then holding hands together in a circle or something similar to that effect before shooting one gargantuan rainbow-attack at the Big Bad while screaming in unison, “HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!”.

That didn’t happen for Memories and let me say THANK GOD.

If anything, I felt that gently releasing Miden from his suffering was infinitely more impactful than the combined effect of every All Stars group attack in existence.

It was quiet but it moved the heart. And damn it, if it didn’t made you cry as well! No one was immune to tears as they recalled the times they spent with each other. And not one among them wanted to hurt Miden anymore than how hurt he was already. They all sincerely wished, as they made their way up to the top to meet Yell, to set him free.

Which brings me back to what I said in my earlier post, about what this movie is trying to remind us about Precure: you don’t save people by fighting them, you save them with love.

Compassion, not retaliation.

Wow.

Animation

You can immediately tell that Toei spared no expense in making this movie look as fabulous as possible. Whether it’s a fight scene or a light-hearted moment, everything is not only shiny, colorful and bright. It’s polished to the extent that if there was a mistake somewhere, it’s hardly noticeable to even be existent. At least I didn’t notice any flaws while I was watching it.

Moreover, that 3D.

Actually, this should come as no surprise to those who’s seen all the EDs up to this point. They’ve been steadily making improvements in this area for the past few years and there were even times during the movie that I couldn’t tell whether I was still watching 3D or if it switched back to 2D.

They move back and forth between the two formats so smoothly that you literally have to stop paying attention to the story to notice when they make the shift.

It’s so seamless that it left me speechless, to be honest.

Sympathetic, well-written antagonist 

Like I said earlier, Miden is a very interesting adversary in the fact that he’s just as much the victim as he is the “villain”.

Unlike past All Stars villains, he was not motivated by evil or greed. He wasn’t a manifestation of another person’s negative feelings nor was he manipulated or brainwashed into doing bad deeds.

Miden was just an extremely lonely soul who had no way of communicating to people just how much he was suffering because his true form is that of a discarded camera.

And when you learn of his backstory, how the film in the camera was removed because those memories weren’t his to keep. How he spent what felt like ages in the dark being tortured inside out by that hollowness. How eventually he couldn’t take it anymore and turned into a monster in order to find a way flee from that pain. Don’t you feel sorry for him?

I did. I felt so bad for Miden because most people, in their entire lifetime, are lucky enough to never have to experience this sort of thing. Even if your unpleasant memories outnumbered your good ones, at least you have them and can go on to make good ones.

Miden had nothing but a faint recollection that he used to carry someone else’s memories and for years, he could do nothing to change it.

So it’s understandable he’d been driven insane by that.

Also, the fact that his spirit form resembles a teru teru bozu and the significance of the never-ending rain we see when Yell reaches the core of his heart.

Teru teru bozu are believed to have powers to bring good weather (aka make the clouds and rain go away).

But no matter how hard Miden tried to bring the sun back, by stealing other people’s memories and surrounding himself with their brilliance, it still rained non-stop. The darkness still lingered inside him. He may have the light of those memories but the feelings that come with them are not his. They still belong to the owner of those memories. That’s why he’d never be able to fill the void inside him.

It’s not enough to just have. He had to understand what it means to have them as well.

Truly, the portrayal of his character that encompassed all those troubled feelings of his is one of the things that makes this movie so memorable.

The frantic way he moves about, how his eyes creepily open and close like a camera lens and how he even sounds like a deprived ghost starving for something to make him whole again. How you eventually realize he’s more severely unstable (jumping frequently between moods from childishly gleeful to violently angry) than he is outright malicious...

And just how tired and sad he is when we finally learn the full truth about him.

Miden is pretty much a child himself. A very lost child who really needed a hug from someone and for them to tell him it’s alright now and that he no longer has to hurt.

Miden is not human and he may be fictional... but he certainly felt real (bonus for casting Mamoru Miyano to voice him) and in some moments, maybe even realer than an actual person.

Which is why I was so genuinely happy for him when he got his happy ending. I never felt that deeply or related to that deeply about a movie-exclusive character before so I’m glad Miden has the honor of being the first.

Cure Yell/Hana

I’ll admit it, I don’t think I ever officially warmed up to Hana. I’m always wary these days on whether I can accept the genki girl archetype into my good graces and when Hugtto began, Hana was just a little too cartoonish that she threw me a distance away further.

However, throughout this season, I can see the progress she’s made. I saw her grow from simply being optimistic with little to no basis for her confidence (in fact, I believe most of her early cheeriness was just a lot of bravado) into a person who understands that you won’t get what you want right away just by charging into it. In fact, it takes several tries, several trips and falls, maybe even a failure or two before you really find your footing again to press on.

I mean, she’s still the same Hana from the beginning in many respects. Brimming with energy, loud, silly, and prone to exaggerating.

But her development shows how she’s really matured. Before, her reaction to everything always seemed to be “cheer till your throat gets sore!”. 

Nowadays, she takes time to pause and think before leaping (well, in some cases). She’s learned to accept hardship, no matter how hard it is to swallow, while still retaining a strong belief in the future.

And the movie kinda revisits all that development from the show.

Like the part when her entire team gets turned into babies, Hana broke down from all the stress that came with trying to take care of them.

When Precure are fighting, they actually don’t need to think much. They only have to focus on defeating the enemy in front of them.

But this dilemma was new for Hana and much more complicated than beating any enemy. Not even babysitting Hugtan was enough to help prepare her for getting four (ok, three) very fussy toddlers to just stay in one spot.

On top of that, her dearest friends forgot who she was as well and were constantly trying to run away from her because without their memories, Hana was essentially a stranger to them.

It was all too much for Hana to handle and she cracked because she didn’t know what to do. How to change them back, how to get them to remember her, how to stop them from crying. Hana was extremely overwhelmed.

And this scene and the voice acting felt so raw because of how Hana’s hopelessness was portrayed. Even full-fledged adults would tell you how hard this hits home cuz hey, sometimes even they don’t know what to do when the problem get the better of them.

Moreover, like Nagisa said, Hana is still a middle school girl. Despite having magical abilities that enable her to save the day, she’s still a child. You can’t ask the impossible of her. She can’t be a strong heroine every waking moment. She needs a break to deal with her frustration just like anybody else does.

But once she does give herself a moment to cry it out and witnesses the strength of Nagisa and Honoka’s bond, she realizes that just because the current situation is bad doesn’t mean she’s lost anything. She still has her memories of her friends and she still has powers to protect them. And protect them she will cuz that is what Nono Hana would do. The Nono Hana she wants to be.

As long as she still has a future she wants to reach, there’s no hurdle she can’t overcome. There is no reason why she should ever give up.

This is one of the most incredible things about Hana, really. It’s what drew the Hugtto girls to her in the first place and is essentially what won them their memories back and returned them back to her side.

Then there’s the final confrontation with Miden.

Notice how Hana was the the first among the only available Precure at the time to question Miden’s motives for stealing other people’s memories.

Even when Miden mercilessly launched another attack at them after they discovered his true identity, Hana did not lift a finger against him. And when he swallowed everyone whole, she was still trying to figure out what it meant, how painful it was, to have no memories to call your own.

She clung to him, refused to leave his mind even when every other Cure went back to normal and withstood all his resistance to reach the depths of his heart.

In the end, Hana could never understand that emptiness Miden felt because she always had her memories. She never lost them like Miden did.

But if there’s one thing she does know, one thing she can relate to, it’s this: Miden wasn’t satisfied with who he was so he tried his best to become what he wanted to be.

Once she knew that, there was no more reason to fight him. What she needed to do was save him. And that wasn’t by using magic.

It was by easing Miden’s anguish. Hugging him, talking gently with him, sharing with him the warmth he lacked and which she had plenty to give, and letting him know that he can get a second chance. That he can be the Miden wants to be.

Miden can do anything. Miden can be anything.

And she’ll be with him every step of the way.

By now, everybody should understand the reason why Cure Yell was designed like a cheerleader.

It’s not only because Hana shows enthusiastic, outwardly support for the person she’s rooting for but also because when they can’t be at their best, she’ll still be there for them. If you need to cry, she’ll be there to hold you. If you’re in doubt, she’ll try to think of a way out with you. Even if she can’t give you exactly what you’re looking for, she’ll always, always be there for you.

And she’s done a fantastic job at being the heroine she was meant to be.

Good job, Hana. All of us cannot be more proud of how far you’ve come.

Emotional scenes

It’s pointless to describe these moments in words as you really need to watch them to get that resonance echoing throughout your chest and the waterworks flowing.

But this probably being the best All Stars in history (I’m really getting to that point where I can firmly say it is), I think I’m required to list a few. Namely...

Nagisa standing up against Miden, saying all the reasons why he is NOT Yukishiro Honoka and how only Honoka, her Honoka, can be Yukishiro Honoka, and demanding that Miden return the one she loves most in the world.

FutariWa fans, are y’all still alive? 8D

Then of course, Hana saving Miden from his despair.

And the tear-inducing finale.

Again, it’s quiet but profoundly beautiful in a way Precure hasn’t been before.

And you have no soul if you didn’t feel even the least like crying during this part. *sniff*

Insert Song “Rewind Memory” 

This song is beyond awesome and every bit of it pretty much screams “PRECURE!” all the way across the globe.

I mean, lyrics-wise it’s just like a lot of the Precure insert songs before it. Idealistically and generically beautiful with it words. And frankly, when it plays in the movie, you kinda almost don’t hear it with all the action going on.

But the melody and instrumentals? Andand those vocals by the first and most recent Precure OP singers?! The emotions it evokes when you do listen to it by itself?

It’s okay, I’ll cry with you. *hands you a tissue* (;w;)

Baby Precure

Need I say more? I didn’t think so.

Humor

Well, this one’s a given because you can’t make an All Stars entirely dark and sad.

However, I found I was more receptive to the funny bits this time around. Maybe because I really needed a good laugh after all those serious moments? Maybe because it was combined with the cuteness of the babies? 

I dunno but I really enjoyed it, nonetheless. (^ ∀ ^)

Everybody got speaking lines

YEA-HUH.

Everybody.

I mean, not everyone got a full sentence. A lot of them were limited to only one line or even one word and most of it was either yelling out their attacks, their catchphrase (mostly the Pink Cures), their group call, some other Cure’s name, or just a kiai shout.

But yea, EVERY Cure present, for the first time since DX3, spoke at least once in this movie!

Woohoo~! ✽-(ˆ▽ˆ)/✽ ✽\(ˆ▽ˆ)-✽

Interaction among Cures in their civilian forms

Ok, so the last part didn’t have any of them talking with each other but we do see them mingling outside their usual groups and that’s all I can ever ask for.

*sighs happily* I need to go over this again when I do that funny/cute/awesome moments compilation which will also be ridiculously long but hey, can you blame me? This movie is just that good.

ED dance

Dancing and singing in the ending credits are such a staple of the Precure franchise (as much as the fighting elements is, I must add) that any season or movie without them feels wrong somehow.

Perhaps that’s why I didn’t really like Dream Stars or Super Stars outside of the few things I did like in them. Because even if the rest of it is sub-par or even downright awful like Haru no Carnival or Minna de Utau, I can always count on the CGI dancing and singing to be the saving grace for the movie.

Yea, it’s narmy and the songs are cheesy and corny and will give you diabetes and all that stuff but that’s what makes Precure utterly charming.

Without that, it’s just something I want to skip to see if there are any post-credits scene.

?

These are the points I have unsure feelings about. They’re neither good nor bad. They’re just stuck in the middle and I just wanted to get them out for the sake of it.

Panty shots - Granted, I think every Cure is wearing either bloomers or shorts under their skirts anyway but it was so awkward to see it from this angle multiple times during the movie that the silly child inside me was compelled to go “Mommy, look! I can see her undies!”

(;; ^ ▽ ^)

Fourth-wall breaking/Deus Ex Machina (aka Miracle Lights) - Arguably the weakest aspect of every Precure movie in general but since these are primarily aimed at children and the fact that they positively love these gimmicks, I’m not in a position to say anymore than that.

*zips my trap shut* :x

Bad Points

These are just based what I felt were bad. No need to get personal or offended as that was not my intention. These ARE NOT facts, they’re just my opinions.

That one line from Harry - The one where he told Hana to pull herself together when she broke down crying and Nagisa chewed him out for it.

Yea, ok, canon!Harry would NOT say such an insensitive thing like that to any of the girls when they’re down. Harry is NOT that type of guy.

Especially not after he’s been with them for so long so this OOC-ness was quite a shock for me.

I don’t know why the writers seem to hate him but Harry’s always been on the end of somebody’s criticism for the dumbest things. Except this time, it’s not dumb, it’s just plain stupid mis-characterization. 

The fact that Nagisa immediately scolds him right after he says that makes me believe they were just itching to give Nagisa something to say during this situation.

But did you really have to use Harry as a verbal punching bag? Couldn’t you have done it a little more nicely?

Harry’s role was already reduced to being stuck as the talking mascot for 99% of the movie so why you have to write him in a way that would get him bad rep?

Stupid Toei.

Violence against defenseless girls/shock factor - When Miden attacked an untransformed Hana and Nagisa, I really could not believe what I saw with my own two eyes.

I mean, it’s not unbelievable. It’s just that attacking the Cures in their civilian forms rarely ever happens. In fact, I can’t recall a time it ever happened???

So when it happened, I was like “WTF?!!!?!”

ARGH, I’m talking in circles.

But seeing the girls get physically hurt in a way where magic cannot protect or heal them from serious damage afterwards reminded me of when I watched Pocahontas for the first time in theaters. 

That moment when Kocoum got shot? Scared the shit outta me that I couldn’t go anywhere by myself for months. That was the first time I ever saw someone die on screen and it left a scar I could never forget.

So I don’t have to imagine how scary and upsetting it was for the babies when they saw their temporary guardians get blown off their feet right in front of them.

Yea, sure, nobody died here and it triggered Honoka getting her memories back but I’ll always be asking “Did they really have to take it that far?”

...good god, I don’t even want to think how many little kids cried in the theater when they saw this. I hope none of them did. I hope they’re all okay.

...I may be overreacting but I still hope they’re okay.

It’s finished. I’m done. Please don’t let me do this again.

*falls over dead* ◎☆（♯××）┘

[akatokuro]

The Inevitable StS Rewatch, Episodes 26-29

Leo Aiolia is... an angry person, you say? I never would have guessed!

- This whole Aiolia scene is REALLY interesting on a lot of levels and does a lot for his character.

- I love his whole immediate reaction to just hearing that there are deserters on the loose - Sanctuary is a brutal, awful place even without the recent setup of the Pope making things even worse. You are more than likely to get killed if you are a trainee there. It is more than understandable that people would want to escape. But Lia's response is "you fucking morons."

- Well, Lia probably has baggage about people trying to "escape Sancutary" to begin with, but...

- Lia is a decent guy, especially for a Saint, but he's determinedly and deliberately Lawful Neutral as fuck. He jumps in for the deserter babies situation, is clearly stern and unpleased, but then deliberately "softens" to urge the babies to go back. He's not going to be cruel about it, and he's more "merciful" than a lot of Saints would be, but he's also not going to let them go. His preference is resolving this without having to kill anyone, sure - but if it really comes down to it, he's going to uphold Sanctuary Law.

- And then, of course, Lia gets thoroughly disrespected and shittalked to his face by a bunch of Silver fuckwits. Lol at even the trainees calling him "Aiolia-san" vs "Algol-sama." Like, dude... yikes.

- Aiolia is even kind of weirdly meek when protesting, stammering and trailing off and all. You’d never guess this guy is a Gold Saint going from the dynamics in this scene, who could effortlessly squash everyone involved here like a fucking bug.

- And finally, Lia is clearly off-put by the blatant cruelty here, but does he actually do anything about it, whether it's against Algol and Shaina directly or the broader situation? Nah.

- yumetabibito, being the filthy Aiolia-lover she is, went ahead and checked, and this scene didn't exist in the manga, and Toei almost certainly wrote it before the reveal in the manga that Lia is a Gold Saint. It's hard to imagine that it would exist if they had known, because it revolves around Aiolia getting no fucking respect. Presumably, all they had to go off of was that Aiolia cameo from the first chapter, which they seem to have mostly gotten "likes Seiya and Marin?" from. So they’re vaguely trying to align him with them as sort of a sympathetic underdog in Sanctuary.

- But even so... they somehow stumbled into a really good and fitting scene that adds a lot to his character with future context in mind!

- yume and I have talked about, well, okay, Lia gets shit on and bullied for being a traitor's little brother - that's an important part of his characterization and his motives - but where does the hostility towards him really come from? He's clearly well-liked amongst the trainees and the regular soldiers. Among the Golds - okay, yeah, Milo, Deathmask, and Aphrodite would give him shit. (Goddammit, Milo.) But most of the rest of them either don't care or would be sympathetic.

- Getting his face spit on constantly by SILVERS, though, makes a lot of sense and would be even more rage-enducing than getting spit on by his actual peers. Because the Silvers obviously feel "safe". They know that Aiolia can't actually fight back or do anything without validating everything anyone has said about him and his relationship and his brother. He has to take it. And the fact that he just takes it leads to even less respect, with him being seen as a push-over while Aiolia quietly fantasizes about stomping on their broken arms.

- So in that way, it makes sense with the shitty crop of Silvers that around that jerking Leo Aiolia's chain is thought of as actually sort of a fun, twisted game. They get to taunt a fucking GOLD, a "traitor's brother" and wave their dicks around in his face and all the Gold can do is seethe powerlessly.

- tldr; Aiolia is very angry, has always been very angry, and even though it came together like this on accident - scenes like this give a lot of depth and context to that endless, boiling anger to the point that it is really, really fucking funny that it was almost certainly Toei writing out of ignorance of who Aiolia really was. How Aiolia is treated, and how he responds to the situation - both with the deserters themselves and with Algol and Shaina being assholes - says a lot about him.

- Meanwhile, as ridiculous as the [REDACTED] are, I can't help but find the weird sci-fi HQ Saori and the Bronzies have early on charming in a really corny way. I bet Saori really misses leading from this setup compared to that shitty little stone bed and curtain they throw at her when she's at Sanctuary, jesus.

- Man, there really is a lot more SeiShiryuu service than I remembered in these earlier eps. Will never be my ship, tbh - SeiSao is my One True Love - but lmao.

- for some reason saints on a plane always cracks me up no matter how many times i see it

- (note that once again we set up hyouga rushing in to help and then getting there too late to actually do anything. beautiful beautiful failswan)

- every time seiya whines about hitting girls i want there to be a flashback to this bit of him smashing shaina into the cliff face

- Oh for fuck's sake, the Steel fucking S--

- Wait, what was I thinking. What was I talking about. I have no idea. THANK YOU SAORI YOU ARE TRULY THE BEST.

- Shiryuu vs Algol is probably one of the more engaging fights in StS, Gold Saints aside. It's fun to see Shiryuu try to find a workaround to the shield and everything he tries blowing up in his face until he's cornered into jabbing his own eyes out. The sort of contrast between Shiryuu being the Bronzie who has the best chance at actually finding a normal life and a normal happiness with Shunrei, and Shiryuu being the one who keeps throwing himself into getting mauled like this, is probably the most compelling aspect of the character to me.

- One of the things that's also nice about Saint Seiya as a shounen is that it really feels like all of the Bronzies, not just Seiya, are equally crucial members of the team and get their own equally important fights. Like, Shiryuu legitimately gets to star here and save everyone because Seiya fucked it up. I used to like Rurouni Kenshin a lot, but I remember, like, yes - Sanosuke got his "big fight", but it was very much because Kenshin graciously "let" him because he could tell it was important to Sano or whatever. Or in Bleach, where the question of the others in Ichigo's group contributing during Soul Society is basically laughable. Neither really feels like the case in Saint Seiya.

- This is totally where CLAMP got their eye horror fetish from though isn't it. God I still can't believe Saint Seiya is directly responsible for the existence of CLAMP...

- Nothing to really say about the rest of the episode, but I do have to comment:

- Dude, what the FUCK.

- ANY of the Bronzies saying shit like this about Mitsumasa is grotesque, but fucking Ikki actually sort of makes my skin legit crawl. What the fuck, Toei. SOMEONE BRING BACK THE REAL IKKI PLEASE.

- Shunrei is such a good girl. She doesn't deserve this shit, man. What she honestly deserves is the privilege of getting to stab Dohko to death in his sleep--I mean, uh, what?

- THIS WAS COMPLETELY FUCKING UNNECESSARY. WHO THE FUCK SHIPPED THIS ON THE ANIME STAFF I REALLY WANT TO KNOW

- In seriousness, HyoShun is really darling. I love how weirdly attentive Hyouga is to Shun all the time; it's a really charming recurring detail. I IMAGINE SHUN IS CHARMED BY IT TOO. 

- Hyouga's good point is that, despite his bluster, he really is a sweet kid who is 100% sincere all the time. He acts tough but it's not like he's tsun or defensive about showing people - mostly Shun - compassion and concern either.

- lmao and then Ikki ditches these losers I like how after the HyoShun he instantly starts acting a million times more in-character. Did seeing the swan touch your little brother enrage you enough to expel the brainworms at last, Ikki...?

- Saori and Ikki are really good in this scene, though. I love everything about their quick exchange - Ikki being contemptuous and defiant of her, Saori answering without hesitation "HELL YES DO WHAT I SAY" when he asks if she's ordering him around. Both in how cool Saori is, but also her frankly falling back onto really bad habits dealing with the Bronzies when she's sort of panicking and doesn't know what to do. I love the scene of her lamenting about how she couldn't stop Ikki and obviously feeling like a fuckup by herself later, too. I really do appreciate that there is attention given to the arc of Saori learning to be a leader.

- I love Sanctuary openly referring to Saori as their leader, even without knowing she’s Athena, too. Damn right she is!

- Though I do still really think Saori should have been more involved in confronting Ikki when he was still extremely (justifiably) buttmad about everything. The idea of those two having a weird, special understanding about what Saori has to answer for would have been really cool...

- AND THEN SAORI GETS KIDNAPPED BY CROWS. YOU KNOW WE'RE BACK IN CANON, BECAUSE INSTEAD OF EVIL NEFARIOUS BUGS, WE HAVE EVIL NEFARIOUS BIRDS!

- Next time: THE SEISAO APOCALYPSE, MOTHERFUCKERS, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS: THE DESTRUCTION OF SEIYA’S BRAIN

[firebirdsdaughter]

Alright...

... A wee bit more rested, and w/ a better quality video, we are back at it! XD

In no order:

Okay... Seems the Wozes aren’t switching off... Which is vaguely disappointing. I wanted to some day see them fight over the recap.

THAT WAS ABSOLUTELY A FAMILY MOMENT. Sworz is scolding Heure, and he even straight up is like ‘Are you listening to me?’ like a frustrated dad, oh my god. XD

So... What did Mirror¡Shinji just hang out in there mirror world and didn’t get effected by the time alteration, or... What. Not complaining, just curious,

Ah. So this, too, is Decade’s fault.

That look Sworz gave his son there was somewhere between proud and suspicious.

Oooo, infinite mirror trick!

Really? We’re really just gonna... Skip Geiz coming home? Really? *cries in exasperated, friendship-obsessed language*

Well, the boys are still working together well--even if this fight isn’t going great.

I love the parts of these three hanging out discussing things. I just live the Zi-Ot3, okay?

They’re having a sit down to discuss all the multiple timelines and goals of everyone involved, using chess pieces. This is adorable.

Awww. Sougo’s asking what future they want. I think he’s been playing it down, but is genuinely kinda bothered by the ‘Geiz is still gonna kill you’ thing. Partially bc he really wants to think that he can not become Puma Zi-O, rather than the only option being to kill him.

Oh my god, that cute little smile.

Geiz.exe has stopped working. God, Sougo, I get why you’re asking, but you know Geiz is bad at feelings! You’re gonna break him!

I think that also just showed very well that whatever Shiro Woz has said, Geiz is still just getting more conflicted. That was the face of someone who has no idea what they want anymore.

Tsukuyomi to the rescue! She’s well-acquainted w/ Geiz’s problems w/ interpersonal relations.

Aw, look at the babies investigating!

Oooo, editor man looks good!

This is so ‘amateur investigators’ and I LOVE IT.

Geiz ensuring the other two cover their mouths and noses before coming in (also him just using the collar XD). Even if it’s tiny, I love protective Geiz.

Yay! Shinji lives! It’s okay, dude. It’ll be okay. Having watched the ep once I get why you’re upset, but I promise it’s okay.

Also, Ren, come get Shinji. He’s gonna get himself killed again. Does he still owe you money in this timeline?

So here’s my question. Was Shinji actually trying to kill himself bc he thought it might stop his mirror self, or did it just look like that bc he was trying to cover up all reflective surfaces and accidentally trapped himself?

They’re all sitting here. I love this. I love the Zi-Ot3. I LOVE THEM.

Geiz is one of those people where, if punching it doesn’t work, he just punches harder.

I feel like this is a perfect example of his personality and fighting style though. Just, like. Go for it. Just tank right on. Like, oh, this guy reflects attacks? Simplest way to deal with that is just sacrifice myself.

Sougo is like ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea’ and thinking it’s theoretical, but Tsukuyomi literally standing w/ this face like ‘no, Sougo, you don’t understand just yet, he absolutely will do this.’

Sougo’s goofy geometry pyjamas. That is all.

Junichiro does the only acceptable movement for describing Woz’s appearance w/ hand motions.

Why is Sougo shocked by this thing? HE SAW IT LAST EPISODE!

I get that Sougo’s distracted, but does have to walk in the middle of the path and where is everyone?

Sougo can’t think and talk to Kuro Woz at the same time. I will admit, dealing w/ Kuro Woz is a bit much, so...

I LOVE THIS SCENE. Kuro Woz is being Kuro Woz, and Sougo just walks away. YES. Force the asshole to walk after you! Do it!

Also pretty sure he’s bullying Kuro Woz again, and I love it.

My first guess is that the reason the Zi-O II Watch wouldn’t activate was that Sougo was doubting himself? Or something like that?

If you are a Woz, you have no sense of personal space.

Elbow him in the stomach, Sougo!

Kuro Woz is... Really not getting it that Sougo’s not interested in that, is he?

Tsukuyomi expressing concern, very valid concern.

Okay, here’s the thing. Even if he’s not saying ‘only I can do it’ exactly, he’s still very much not suggesting Sougo do it. Like, at all. When he actually tries it, he does it. He knows perfectly well he could die doing it. And if he dies, then Tsukuyomi’s on her own trying to prevent Puma Zi-O (Shiro Woz does not count). And besides, if Sougo dies doing it, that’d be sure to prevent Puma Zi-O, right? But even if it’s not explicitly stated, he’s making an active decision to risk his own life rather than Sougo’s. Have I mentioned I love protective Geiz, even lowkey protective Geiz? Bc I DO.

This is like, another reason why I see him as the ‘protector’ sort of point of the triangle that is the Zi-Ot3. That’s just who he is. He’s the tank, the guardian. Even if he’s not quite noticing it right now, he’s absolutely shifting into being willing to die to protect the other two.

Also, it’s kinda another show that, no matter what else happened, he doesn’t really want Shiro Woz’s future, either. Bc he can’t be the ‘saviour’ or anything if he’s dead from this, ya know?

Tsukuyomi’s like ‘I knew it, you bloody idiot!’ and also pointing out that Sougo was against the idea which causes Geiz to have feelings for a moment bc he’s actually touched Sougo doesn’t want him to die, but also CONFLICTED. XD

I love how both Geiz and Sougo have come to the conclusion that if either one of them stand still in one place for a certain amount of time, either Shiro or Kuro Woz respectively will be somewhere in the vicinity and they can just yell. ^^

Also, I love how he seems to almost always have Tsukuyomi w/ him when he talks to him. It’s like he’s decided he needs a chaperone or something. Reasons vary from funny to sad.

So I guess Geiz is asking what Shiro Woz’s future is like. Apparently... It’s the same? So... No new inventions or anything? I dunno, I find this answer suspicious.

Okay. ‘It’s as if time has stopped.’ This line ratchets the suspicious factor up. It seems simple and sensical enough for the online translator to be right about it, so I’m just gonna take this as what the line basically means for now. But... Remember how a lot of the symbolism in this series has been about ‘restarting clocks’ and stuff like that? In the Build arc, Junichiro had that speech bout how you can only restart your own clock, which Sougo reiterated when meeting Heure. Just this past arc, Hiromu’s father’s watch started moving again at the end. Therefore, I hypothesis that ‘time has stopped’ is not actually a good thing and there is something else going on here.

WHO IS GOOGLES? Seriously, was he Geiz’s brother, his friend... Is that even a guy, I can’t really tell, I shouldn’t be assuming... It’s nice to see their dead body again, I guess, but I need more information here, Toei!

That was not the face of a person I trust. Admittedly, at this point, anyone w/ Woz’s face doesn’t have the face of a person I trust.

Okay, not you in real life, Keisuke, you’re a sweetheart.

See, this makes me think we’re not meant to trust Shiro Woz even more. Geiz only seriously tried to kill Sougo when he knew only about the crimes Sougo committed as Puma Zi-O and nothing about him in the present, when he perceived Sougo as moving toward that path, and when he thought he had no choice (Kasshin showing I think made hims start to wonder if it was even possible, but he got some hope again when Sougo was willing to actually give up and had to be pushed back into it etc.). Shinji, however, is not, whether now or in the future, an active or willing participant in these incidents. It’s like a Yummy, twisting innate wishes out of shape. He’s terrified and upset, and may even have been trying to kill himself to make it stop (not sure though bc this is a kids’ show). When Geiz actually considered things, saw Sougo as the person he was at that moment rather than just as Puma Zi-O, he balked at going through with it. Shiro Woz knows perfectly well this guy is innocent. But he doesn’t hesitate at all. Big red flag. Did any of that make sense? I don’t think that made sense.

Also get away from Shinji you bastard. Ren!

I literally spent this whole episode yelling for Ren to come help Shinji.

No, wait. I’m sorry. Ron.

I mean, I guess Geiz, who looks kinda like how I’d imagine a baby Ron might look, is protecting him, so there’s that.

Ron! Come help Shinji! Ron? RON!

Okay, so... Ryuga was an actual thing in Ryuki? I’m so sorry, it’s been so long since I watched Ryuki.

Heure is absolutely getting revenge on Shiro Woz for the car incident and you know what.... Valid.

Honestly... It’s nice to see someone beat Shiro Woz up a bit for once.

Rider Kick interruptus. All the little hiragana digitise out of existence when Sougo pulls him out of it, that’s a nice effect.

Also I feel like that was slowed down, but I dunno. How fast do you move in a Rider Kick?

Dramatic friendship moments in suit for you viewing experience! XD

I love this, though. These two, I feel like are gonna have a sort of dynamic ‘don’t you dare die on me I’m the only one allowed to kill you’ on Geiz’s side and ‘I’m the king and I didn’t give you leave to die’  on Sougo’s side. XD Like, not necessarily exactly that, I’m being silly w/ the wording, but you get the point. I hope.

Anyway, Sougo is upset that Geiz was risking his life like that, which results in more feelings.

I feel like it might be an important distinction that he uses the Zi-O II Ride Watch not purely in order to gain power and become king or whatever, but in order to save people--most specifically, at the particular moment, a rather self-destructive warrior-type friend. Though the preview does indicate it comes a little late... DX

Geiz is embarrassed. I mean, like I said earlier, there’s a level of this that’s basically him making a choice to risk his own life rather than Sougo's... Or even Shiro Woz (I woulda made Shiro Woz do it).

Sougo is like ‘nope, nope, nope, that’s enough of that.’

So Geiz recognises the Watch? Maybe. He wasn’t there when Kuro Woz dropped it off. Tsukuyomi was, though. Did she not know it? Hm.

I managed to pause it when it looks like Geiz is looking at the camera like he’s on the Office bc Sougo’s power up isn’t working. XD

Also, oh my god. Sougo gets pulled into the mirror world, and Geiz’s immediate response is to rush over and try to follow him/pull him out while yelling (well, yelling ‘Zi-O’ we’re not quite to regular name status yet) worriedly. I LOVE THEM.

I’m assuming everything is backwards, but I couldn’t read kanji in the first place so...

Did Okuno drop his voice an octave for Mirror¡Sougo?

Sougo is initially surprised to see another version of himself, then worries that it’s him from three days in the future again.

Mirror¡Sougo is doing this weird head tilt and it’s so hilarious I just... Can’t.

Sougo makes the unfortunate discovery that not all other versions of you that appear are your friend. I’m sorry, sweetie.

Wow, Mirror¡Sougo just straight punched him.

Okay, I know we all saw it in the preview, but... Mirror¡Sougo does this, like... Really weird walk/motion, and... It just. Has to be seen. I’m serious. HE’S FREAKING WINKING.

Sougo is confused.

Okay, I know this is serious, but it literally looks like he pulled the mirror Ride Watch out of his hair.

Mirror Driver has very weird, distorted voice.

Also WHY IS HE HUNCHING LIKE THAT NO SWEETIE THAT’S BAD FOR YOUR SHOULDERS!

Preview: I saw a translation that said ‘I’ll cut the future’ but the online thing here says ‘create’? Personally, I’d prefer create, but it’s probably ‘cut.’ In other news... If they make a mention that defeating Another Ryuga might be the way to get Sougo out of the mirror world, that would raise Geiz’s ‘sacrifice myself to defeat it’ thing to also being sacrificing himself to save Sougo. And. I love it. ^^ XD <3

Anyway, that’s all for now. Digital macaroons for anyone who read all that. And if you don’t like macaroons... Caramels! Digital caramels.

I’m slightly worried about the little ‘what’s your future like’ convo bc it might indicate Shiro Woz is getting his claw sin between my kids, but pretty much everything else was great. Geiz doesn’t seem to even consider suggesting Sougo try the plan, and Sougo’s genuinely upset when Geiz tries to do it, and at the end, Geiz is upset when Sougo disappears into the mirror world. Tsukuyomi tries to mediate, and do so quite well, is the one who clearly is well-aware that Geiz will absolutely go through w/ the sacrificing himself plan and that he needs dissuading. Looks like she’s unable to stop him next eek, though... And, finally the Zi-Ot3 are investigating together again, and frankly, I just LOVE IT.

How about I subject everyone to my new favourite picture again? (It’s not technically spoilers now, there was a version in the preview for next week)

If you could all the ‘XD’s in this post... You get another hardy handshake.

[iristial]

Some headcanons on how I’d rewrite Sakuya from episode 7 onwards

I've made several posts critiquing Toei's treatment/handling of Sakuya and his relationship with Umika, so I thought I'd like to share how I'd want Sakuya to be written from episode 7 onwards

Have Sakuya interested in Umika…but when Keiichiro asks him if he’s serious, Sakuya says “of course I am!” But what gets him thinking is that he doesn’t really know much about Umika when Tsukasa says that he doesn’t know the girl and asks him to focus on the job

This is hammered in by episode 11, where Umika unknowingly expresses that “lately there’s a guy who’s been bothering me at the bistro where I work” to Sakumi(?), and Sakuya decides to take an effort to learn about Umika as a person while respecting her boundaries, rather than just pushing his feelings onto her

It’s hard to do this at first because being subtle isn’t in Sakuya’s dictionary, but you can see him try. He does small things like asking her what she likes and maybe he expresses a genuine interest in that himself. Umika is surprised but she does come to enjoy his company, even if she’s not interested just yet. There could be occasional moments where Sakuya does get Umika gifts, but after a first few disastrous attempts, he manages to get her something small but she loves it and he secretly thinks that’s really cute, to his senior’s amusement (and approval, since they can see Sakuya is taking Umika’s feelings into question)

They develop a little habit of small talking in a comfortable way, and Umika herself feels bad for having to procure him for information, let alone keeping it secret that she is a Lupinranger

There’s an ironic moment where Sakuya might’ve done a nasty one on Umika during a LuPato fight and when he sees her with the bandage, he worries and even gets all kinds of medicine, saying that he didn’t know which one she’d prefer to use or if she had allergies. This makes the love line a little more convincing since Umika sees that he is serious about her and feels something a little more (for those who do ship Sakuya/Umika :) )

Sakuya himself continues to grow as a junior, learning to accept compliments without letting them take over his head (episode 27(?) should serve as the perfect catalyst for helping him realize maybe receiving compliments aren’t the best way to help him develop + compliments are praise/assurance that you’re doing a good job, rather than as critiques of how one can improve). Even so, it’s still a little hard for him to accept criticism since he is a bean

His passion for the propaganda film is partially due to him wanting attention (not from girls, just ordinary admiration) but he is genuine in wanting to become a protector for the public

He makes mistakes on the battlefield, so to make up for it he starts doing target practice on his own and improves in his sharpshooter skills. He also takes an interest in hand-to-hand combat, so that’s why when he first heard of the Empty Headed Martial Arts Dojo, he thought learning a completely new form of martial arts should assist in their battles against the Gangler. Of course, he gets scammed of his money, but in the end he did mean well, so his seniors do genuinely compliment him for taking the time to do just that

Sakuya understands more about Keiichiro’s harsh nature. Of course, Keiichiro can go far in his scolding but as a senior, he has a lot of experience Sakuya doesn’t have and naturally he can learn from that. Episode 36 helps him hammer in the message that this is how Keiichiro helps juniors to grow because if you’re not tough in the police force in the Sentai world…safe to say, that’s a one-way trip to a world of hurt

Sakuya is also a reminder to Keiichiro that it’s important to be focused and on the job, but that sometimes it’s okay to lighten up

[tokupedia]

Kamen Rider 45th Anniversary File: Kiva

2008

Power Rangers Jungle Fury airs on Jetix and ABC Kids. Due to the writers strike of ‘08-’09, the series was rushed in certain periods of production and had problems behind the scenes.

Ishimori Productions celebrates what would have been Shotaro Ishinomori’s 70th birthday with special museum exhibits, merchandise and events throughout the year.

Kamen Rider returns to multi-series crossovers as Kamen Rider Den-O and Kiva: Climax Deka arrives in theaters.

SAVE THE LIFE! Tomica Hero: Rescue Force, another tokusatsu show made by Takara Tomy, airs. The show features Dairanger actor Keiichi Wada as a villain of the first story arc and Hiroaki Iwanaga aka the future Kamen Rider Birth as Captain Ishiguro/ R5!

Checkered Flag! Engine Sentai Go-Onger premieres on TV. This 32nd Sentai series was environmental and vehicle focused and had sentient vehicles that became the Zords, shrunk to become travel sized or had their “Engine Souls” placed in the transformation trinkets to talk to their partners.

Yes! Pretty Cure 5 concludes and its direct sequel Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo! takes its spot on Sunday morning alongside Kiva and Go-Onger.

Ultra Galaxy Mega Monster Battle: Never Ending Odyssey, a sequel to Ultra Galaxy Mega Monster Battle, airs on Japanese Cable TV.

Superior Ultraman 8 Brothers premieres in theaters and is the most commercially successful Ultraman movie in franchise history. Sadly, this film was also the final bow of Ultraman showrunner Takeshi Yagi, as he retired from the franchise to do freelance work. Yagi worked as a director on Ultraman from the 1990s all the way until Mebius and Ultraseven X.

When asked what part of his drive for things like Kamen Rider was long ago, Shotaro Ishinomori said it was to tell “a kind of horror story” for children that everyone could appreciate. Using bits of darker elements and making frightful imagery appear without going overboard (the best horror uses subtlety and the timing of when and where to make the audience scream.)

With the “a kind of Horror” quote in mind, the next Rider was appropriately horror themed. As for motif...who better to choose than some of the classics?

Kiva’s main 4 forms are loosely based on four of the Universal Movie Monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, The Wolf Man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon! Kiva’s helmet also plays up the Halloween aspect, as according to a Net Movie and several Kamen Rider data file publications, Kiva’s helmet is based on a Jack ‘o Lantern.

Though Kiva is more drama with tragic romance than horror, but its the thought of the motif that counts.

The show also seemingly borrows elements from another famous vampire franchise in terms of music, one whose sorrowful violins make fans cry Bloody Tears. This series utilizes violin orchestral music in conjunction with rock music.

Another factor of music was the idea of creating an exclusive band for the show’s themes, Tetra-Fang! Terta-Fang was a limited rock group created by Avex specifically for the show with the main Rider actor himself Koji Seto as its lead singer.  Tetra-Fang went on tour, sold multiple albums and did a Christmas concert before dissolving after the show ended.

In fact, Music is a recurring element of the series, from the violin that detects evil, the title cards referencing something related to music to some of Kivat’s history lessons on art before the show starts. This is a true symphony of the night.

Another interesting element of this show is it takes place in 2 different time periods. The events of each timeline line up to form the pieces of the puzzle of the show’s story and uncover the mysteries of the present day.

However, Toei also was still riding high on the popularity of Den-O and thus some of that show’s elements carried over into Kiva: a time travel plot at one point, monsters that altered the hero’s personality and changed his stats and a timid hero as the lead.

A minor complaint about this series is what is known as “Final Form Spamming”, as after Kiva unlocks Emperor form, it becomes the only form he uses and the rest are relegated to bit parts or not showing up at all. The behind the scenes reason is more understanding, as the Kiva suit was made with chromed metal parts as well as multiple layers that made the costume heavy.  This is nothing new as the original Godzilla suit from the 1950s weighed 220 lbs and Haruo Nakajima suffered through it for the sake of art (almost killing himself in some cases), but most modern toku productions make a sincere effort to treat their suit actors with respect and ensure their safety and well being.

The Kiva suit strained Seiji Takaiwa’s body and limited his movement making it difficult for him to shoot scenes. So when it came time to create the Emperor form costume, PLEX and Rainbow Zoukei sculpted it so the suit would look incredibly detailed, but light in weight so Seiji could move freely in it. This resulted in Seji being able to do cool action scenes using his full range of motion that the other 4 suits could not achieve.

Another new thing taking the franchise by storm was the detailed and beloved collectible S.H. Figuarts, which served as a successor for the Shouchaku Henshin series toys.

S.H Figuarts got its start with shōnen action shows such as Kamen Rider, but later expanded into the collectible juggernaut monster we know it as today, covering everything from Dragonball Z to Marvel and DC Comics to the WWE.

So now its time to talk of the King of Vampires! Tension Fortissimo!

Real Name: Wataru Kurenai, prince heir and eventually, King of the Fangire Race and a representative of the Heisei Riders. (Circa The Rider War, 2009)

Wataru Kurenai was born in 1986, his father Otoya was a famed violinist/violin maker and his mother was part of a race of monsters called Fangire. Fangires are one of the 13 Demon Races whom like the legends of Vampires they seemingly inspired, feed on the lifeforce of humans.

Since they pose a threat to humans, an organization called The Wonderful Blue Sky had created tech and devices to kill them, with Wataru’s father self-volunteering to aid them. But Otoya fell in love with the Queen of their race Maya and she in turn fell in love with him. Such love was forbidden by the hierarchy of the Fangires and thus she was stripped of her monster powers and title, being cast into exile. Otoya died fighting the Fangire’s King and a few years later afterward, Maya realized being near her son would put him in danger and left him alone with her servant Kivat-bat the Third.

Jump ahead to the year 2008 and Wataru is now a young man who shares his father’s love of music and works as a violin maker/repairman, though he does not get much business. He is an introvert shut-in whose eccentricities, silence around people and bizarre violin varnish experiments scare his neighbors who all call him “Ghost Boy”.

But when one of his father’s violins called the Bloody Rose sounds an alarm to “Fight” a Fangire that is attacking, he becomes a vampire superhero known as Kiva with the help of Kivat and a trio of Monsters who reside in a castle built around a dragon to save the day!

As Wataru learns to trust people more, he grows as a person to the point when we see him again in Decade, he is no longer a shy scared young man and is now an outgoing, confident and serious hero. But even then, he still keeps his gentle and caring personality as he will go out of his way to protect humans.

The story of the series flips back and forth between 1986 (coincidentally, the year before Black would become active) and 2008 to reveal mysteries or thread the plots together.

Powers and Abilities :

Super Vision, Super Fangire Strength, Super jumping power, the ability to create the darkness of night even when it is daytime. Marksmanship, Water manipulation/rain generation and the ability to skate on water in Basshaa form. Enhanced durability and electricity manipulation in Dogga form. Greater super strength in Dogga form and Emperor Form. Feral Senses and sonic blasts in Garulu form. Swordsmanship skill with the Zanvat Sword and Garulu Saber. Possible Telekinesis.

Able to transform into a giant vampire bat dragon. Let me repeat that...A Vampire..Bat.. Dragon. Said vampire bat dragon form has razor sharp claws and the ability to shoot fireballs. His skills as a combatant were weak and clumsy at first but grew drastically over time to the point where he can take on a group of really powerful monsters with little effort and wield the Zanvat Sword even in Kiva form.

His Rider Kick in Emperor form is one of the strongest, as it exerts over 150 tons of force! Also in term of Rider Kicking milestones...he once kicked the Moon!

It’s a beautiful full Kiva out tonight....

In Decade, he could walk upside down on surfaces such as another building that was upside down in the sky. He also demonstrated the ability to control Dimension Walls, or at the very least summon them when needed (that part was never explained). He also can project illusion images such as a view of the multiverse. He also combined his power with the power of his fellow Riders to try to freeze the Earth in place to prevent its destruction until Decade could save reality from total annihilation.

Weaknesses:

Wataru at first has social anxiety and low self-esteem, but this is now gone thanks to support from his friends and family. His greatest weakness is his heritage, as his Fangire half-blood can be “awakened” by an outside force to negate his human instincts and mentality. This makes the Fangire bloodlust inside of him go crazy and he attacks friends and foes alike due to a primal desire to feed. Fortunately, this only happened once and he seems to be in control of himself now as he wants to live as a human.

His other weakness is the DoGaBaKi form, as its fused power is so overwhelming it could kill Wataru if it is not disengaged after 5 minutes. Another weakness is that Wataru can be possessed by an Imagin, as seen in the Den-O and Kiva Movie, or by ghosts.

Yet another is Kivat being his power source, as having a belt powered by a living being is a possible detriment. Kivat once got sick with a cold and Kiva in his base form could not fight at full power due to the bat’s constant sneezing. Kivat could also possibly be captured to prevent Wataru from transforming. Kivat also mentions that if Kiva is defeated, Castle Doran will lose all its power.

Kiva also seems to be unable to swim in his base form due to how heavy his armor is. During his battle with Ixa, he fell into the river and didn’t come up for air, nearly drowning. But that could also just be the Toshiki Inoue trope of Kamen Riders constantly falling in water.

Gear:

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Bloody_Rose

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Kivat-bat_the_3rd

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Kivat_Belt

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Fuestle

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Machine_Kivaa

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Castle_Doran

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Ramon

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Jiro

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Riki_(Kiva)

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Demon_Imperial_Dragon_Tatsulot

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Demon_Imperial_Sword_Zanvat_Sword

Signature Finishers:

Darkness Moon Break: Kiva’s primary Rider Kick. Kiva uses the Wake Up Fuestle which causes the sky to darken and the moon to come out. Kivat flies to unlock the chains on his left boot which reveal a red bat wing-like appendage. Kiva then leaps into the air and crashes into the target. The kick has an impact of 30,000 kg. (roughly 66,138 pounds of force), enough to leave a crater in the shape of Kiva's bat insignia on any surface upon contact. The DoGaBaKi version is stronger as it fuses the power of the 4 forms into one.

Bloody Punch: Standard Rider Punch with a glowing red aura, only seen in Ganbaride and the Battride War series.

Garulu Howling Slash: Rider Slash attack in Garulu Form. The Garulu Saber is bitten by Kivat and then Kiva opens the “mouth” of his mask to put the blade in. He then leaps into the air and falls sideways to do a vertical sword slash.

Basshaa Aqua Tornado: Rider Shooting Finisher for Basshaa Form. Kivat bites the Basshaa Magnum and then a tide pool of water is generated from the water in the air. Kiva raises his weapon skyward and focuses this water into a whirling tornado that the gun absorbs into a pressurized ball of energized water. Kiva fires it and it acts as a seeker missile chasing down the target until it hits. The target freezes and Kiva “pops” it with a touch of his finger.

Dogga Thunder Slap: Rider Thrust finisher. Kivat bites the Dogga Hammer and Kiva generates a storm of lightning and a dark sky. He opens up the ball “hand” part of the Hammer and it generates a wave that paralyzes the target or reveals a cloaked enemy. The Hammer then generates a giant energy construct of itself in the form of a fist that smashes the target. First use of a war hammer weapon in the franchise.

Emperor Moon Break: Emperor Form’s Rider Kick. After the Imperial Slot selects Wake Up Fever, Kiva jumps and energy “fangs” protrude from his feet to strike the target.

Comes in several variants:  

A flying double footed kick where the energy fangs rapidly strike the target’s body until they are flung backwards by a bicycle kick and explode.

A spinning drill kick that uses the fangs as a drill and then slams the target into the ground. This also has a variation seen in the Battride War video games where Kiva flies at a swarm of enemies like a bullet, spinning constantly like a drill to mow them all down.

A flying roundhouse kick where one of the energy fangs slices the body of the target upon impact.

Emperor Howling Slash: Emperor form’s Garulu Rider Slash. After the Imperial Slot selects Garulu Fever, Kiva attaches Tatsulot to the pommel of the Garulu Saber and the tiny dragon uses his fire breath to lift Kiva into the air like a rocket. Kiva then dives using the rocket speed to deliver a powerful downward slash. A variation is that Tatsulot breathes fire to create a flaming blade and the blade of the Garulu Saber ignites, turning the sword into a double edged flame saber. Kiva then channels his inner Sith and hacks the target up... Jedi style.

Emperor Aqua Tornado: Never used in the TV show but it was finally seen in the Kamen Rider Battride War games (starting with the second one). After the Imperial Slot selects Basshaa Fever, Kiva attaches Tatsulot to the muzzle on the Basshaa Magnum. Kiva leaps into the air, then hovers on a tornado of water (which knocks surrounding enemies away), firing a rapid barrage of pressurized balls of water at the target.

Emperor Thunder Slap: The Imperial Slot selects Dogga Fever and Kiiva attaches Tatsulot to the end of the Dogga Hammer’s handle. Tatsulot generates a purple orb of electricity that Kiva hits with the hammer, which paralyzes the target. Kiva then walks up or runs to the target and then when he arrives... Ah HAHAHA!...he smashes it with the HAMMA!

Final Zanvat Slash: Using the Zanvat Fuestle, Kiva slides the Zanvat-bat up and down the Zanvat Sword blade to energize it with a blood red aura. Kiva then repeatedly slashes the target and slides the Zanvat-bat down. Once it hits the crossguard of the blade, the target falls and explodes. This attack is so powerful in some cases it can rip apart kaiju-sized monsters!

DoGaBaKi Emperor Break: A stronger version of the Emperor Moon Break that utilizes the combined power of the Arms Monsters and Emperor form into DoGaBaki Emperor Form. Hyper Battle only.

Enemies:

The Fangires

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Fangires

Fangires are a race of stained glass-themed monsters that are capable of disguising themselves as humans. They are based on the myths of vampires and like their bloodsucking counterparts, they see humans as food.

However, there are several things that make them differ a bit from normal Vampires. First and foremost is they can go out in the daytime and have no aversion to holy images or holy water (one of their ranks even dresses like a priest and resides in an abandoned church). Another is that they can eat things other than human life essence such as regular food, but it is hard for them to wean off such a succulent Soylent diet for long due to their feral predatory instincts (though some have managed to accomplish it). They also are not limited to being bats (though their leader is one), as Fangires come in all sorts of animal species. (There is even a vampire sheep!). Lastly, when they consume a human’s life essence, the victims do not become one of them but rather just die by turning into a clear glass and shattering into pieces.

Despite this, some Fangires are good and don’t want to harm anyone like Wataru who is half Fangire or some of the ones Otoya faced, who convinced a few of them to live peaceful lives, including his would-have-been-wife Maya.

Fangires possess a wide array of powers: from altering the sky to become dark as night to super speed.

The Checkmate Four:

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Checkmate_Four

The Checkmate Four are the powerful elite of the Fangire race, with the King and Queen ruling absolute over their subjects. One of their laws is that a Fangire cannot fall in love with a human and the punishment of this crime is death to the Fangire who commits this sin or the person they are in love with.

Rook, the Lion Fangire, is the enforcer and brute muscle of the group.

Bishop is the enforcer of law for the Fangire race, he is also one of the absolute creepiest villains in all of the franchise...

*Shivers*

The Queen is a bit more sympathetic, coming off more as a neutral/protagonist later on, but she does execute Fangires who were “breaking the law” and was a bit cruel at first as she toys with her foes and others before eliminating them. A new Queen is discovered and appointed long after the old one is exiled in 2008.

The King is the metaphorical Dracula of the Fangire race, a Bat Fangire of immense power that went on a rampage with his brethren to slaughter the other members of the 13 Demon Races for sport. He sees humans as beneath him and is also a sexist jerk who coldly views his mate as nothing but property/a breeding machine and abused her if she defied him. Its unsurprising why she left him for Otoya, as though he was a womanizer, he at least tried to respect women as people in some capacity.

A second King, the son of the first and Maya (thereby Wataru’s half brother) at first follows in his father’s cruelty, but eventually repents and redeems himself and becomes kinder man. He then tries to lead his people alongside his brother so that his race can find an alternative means of consuming energy that will not harm humans.

Keisuke Nago aka Kamen Rider Ixa

“That life you have stolen...Please return it to God!”

The Intercept X Attack system or IXA was a Rider System developed by the Wonderful Blue Sky Organization in the 1980s to kill Fangires. The System was not perfect and had many technical flaws during its early days that endangered its users due to the limitations of tech in that time period. The project kept going despite this and by the 2000s was fully usable without any glitches.

Keisuke Nago became its user and went on a hunt to try and kill Kiva, as he had heard of all the terrible things the previous one did prior in the 80s. After a few brawls and getting his ego bruised and saved by Kiva on occasion, he eventually warms up to Wataru and then the two eventually become BFFs.

753 is a bit overzealous on being a hero of justice, but he does mellow out a bit and means well,

Now that the file is over...it is time to get strong for Justice! Ixa-cise!

[jwb2012]

Recommended Re-write on Maho Girls PreCure

Greetings Fans everywhere while I was on Hall of Anime Fame a guy named Kragito Weibs posted Three ways to make Maho Tsukai Precure a Better Show (or at least Decent Show) so I decided to share it here, Enjoy.

Hi everyone! I don't usually do such posts but because Maho Tsukai Precure has reached a low point for me as the things Toei did for this season make me scratch my head and wonder why the drastic change after the successful Go Princess series? Even before the finale end, my mind was already cracking and wondered what went wrong with this show and thanks to Internet personality, Masako X who did his own views on Dragonball Super. I came up with Three ways to make Maho Tsukai Precure a more better (or at least decent) show. All these ideas are my thoughts and suggestions so if you have better ideas than feel free to write down in the comments.

No 1: Make Mirai and Riko to have opposite personalities. In the original, Mirai was your avenge 14 years old girl who somehow believe in magic thanks to her grandmother. Her character is the typical female lead who is friendly and helpful. But I will rather have Mirai be a non-believer of magic. Hear me out before you start typing in the comments. I will have Mirai to be an outgoing person like Nagisa who love the outdoor. Her grandmother tell her stories of magic however Mirai take it with a pinch of salt. But when she meet Riko for the first time, she couldn't believe the magic stuff at first. However Mirai is a helpful person and aided Riko when she arrived on Earth. (I will explain my changes about her in a moment) Let's said Mirai has the Diamond pendant with her all along as a form of good luck charm and when the two girls were being attacked by Batty for the first time, Mirai rushed in head on like Megumi and her courage awaken the Diamond pendant and she became Cure Miracle for the first time. Instead of using magic spells, Cure Miracle will be more of a melee fighter and infuse magic into her physical attacks. It will definitely caught Batty off guard as magicians in general are more defensive and chant spells from far. Throughout the series, Mirai will be taken to see the Magic world but her attitude is more outgoing. She doesn't really fit in however her fighting style will be a match with any magicians since no one can predict how she battle with melee combat. For Riko, I will give her a more logical reason to come to Earth. In the original, Riko came to Earth to find the Emerald Linkle to make her a better magician and to be on par with Rizu. That's a very selfish desire which I don't understand why her Diamond pendent will make her worthy to be a Precure. Let me rewrite her back story: In this version, Riko and Rizu are students in the Magic school. Rizu is an elite who is loved by her peers and teachers. However Riko is not talented and is a laughing stock in school. Maybe Rizu was involved in some magic spell that went wrong (Due to the Dark Magicians tampering it or Riko's fault) that either got her injured, turned evil or even in a coma. Then Riko wanting to save Rizu, heard about the Linkle Emerald that can grant her wish. Riko also learn about how the Legendary Magician Precures are needed to find the Linkle Emerald and her Diamond pendant led her to Earth to meet Mirai. Riko will be more defensive and cool-headed since she used more magic based attacks. Her character will be similar to her original version in which she tried to use magic to solve her all problems but later realised it make matters worse and Mirai had to teach her that magic is not Omnipotent. Because Mirai is more hot headed, she will butt head with Riko in the initial stages but soon learn they need to work together and later respect each other's character.

No 2: Give the villains (and heroes) more things to do. For this season, Toei dropped to use human victims as the monster of the week but rather using immaterial objects to become the Yokubal. However this lacked any tension as the girls could easily take out the monsters without any consequences. I know this season is also about finding the Linkle stones unlike Go Princess which is taking people's dreams away. Maybe the Dark Magicians are looking for people or objects that possess the Linkle stones that is placed secretly in various people which represents the characteristics of the stones like Ruby represents Lifeforce, Passion and Courage or Aquamarine represents Peace, Communication and Empowerment. It will definitely make a more interesting story rather than searching blindly for the various stones. Make Yamoh or Oruba have their own agenda as they might be seen as weakling in front of the generals but secretly plotting to take over their leaders to prove how superior they are. Oruba did something similar but failed short since he was double crossed by a crafty spider lady and a tough turtle. Dokuroxy should have a more proactive role since he spent the whole time sitting in his throne and giving non verbal commands through Yamoh. Let the battle between Dokuroxy and the Headmaster be more personal since the Headmaster knew it was Kushi all along before the girls stepped in to help. For Desumast will be probably the same as Dokuroxy as he doesn't do anything to let the viewers know what his motives was. We could have Dokuroxy reporting to Desumast as a higher up and when Desumast was defeated, he decided to escalate his plans (since he is struck in space) and ordered his generals to aggressively find the Linkle Emerald or some plot device to break him out in space.

No 3: The Supporting Characters and the Environment. First, Morufun. I will have Morufun to be own by Riko instead of Mirai. Morufun was a gift by Rizu and somehow Rizu was able to send some magic to bring Morufun to life before her "accident" Morufun will have a bossy personality like an older sister but she meant well to Riko. Instead having Jun, Kei and Emily as the only magic students, I will have a class of different characters for Riko and Mirai to interact. We could have a Female classmate who is the typical Ojou Sama who looked down at Riko and Mirai. The smart but shy student, the occult fanboy or fangirl, the cool and handsome Sempai and so on... If Mirai is to become a student in the Magic School, the time flow works differently from Earth. For example, a week in the Magic world is only five minutes on Earth. Otherwise it will be hard for Mirai to explain to her parents on how she spent a week in the Magic World in real time. The headmaster will be more of a lead authority in Magic and he should have a human assistant (Maybe a human Kathy) who can be Mirai and Riko's personal instructor on Magic Combat. The headmaster will still have his cool attitude but when things get tough, he can fight the villains in equal ground. Furthermore, the magic school should have it's own security if it detect any evil forces approaching. (In the original, the villains just come and go to the Magic School like a hotel which is a bad idea) We could also have Riko struck on Earth for the first half and she resort to using magic for every problems. Mirai will have to come up with a lame excuse every time Riko make a blunder which will deftienly be more interesting. After that, the two girls travel to the Magic World and Mirai become the comic relief as she can't believe the things she saw in the Magic World.

I know there are so many ways to improve this series but unfortunately, the series has ended with a sour taste for me. I know I never mention about Kotoha since that require an amount of rewriting to make her character likable in which I can't think at this time around. Anyone want to try rewriting Kotoha to make her likable? That's my three ways to make Maho Tsukai Precure a better or at least a decent show to watch. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, just write in the comments and until then, see you in the next post!

I must agree with Kragito Weibs with this season, This season get's so Batshit, It's kinda hard for me to say that this is for a Stable mind and most of the People in No Magic World are all idiot's and the People in Magic World Ass-holes, Mirai, Liko and even Kotoha, ARE THE ONLY COMPITENT PEOPLE IN THIS ANIME, Plus the Villains are morons, and I'm a little disappointed how the Headmaster was another Blue that becomes a Dumbledore look a like when he loses some of his magic, Personally if I was writing this season as a Cash-in for the Harry Potter Franchise, I'd have the Headmaster turn out to be Harry himself who wanted to make a country for magical folk to live, Plus I know Hermione Granger would make a more suitable Head-Teacher then what we got with Kyoto (God a hate Kyoto) Love you forever Emma Watson, But that's just me.

[shihalyfie]

Daisuke’s characterization in V-Tamer is actually out of character

This is a post rather different from the usual content I do for this blog, and to be honest, I’m a bit hesitant about it, since it’s hard not to make it sound like some kind of scathingly critical negativity about the relevant chapter. It’s not intended that way -- V-Tamer’s crossover chapter with 02 lies firmly in “Bandai-commissioned spinoff” territory with what was most likely very little input from the anime staff, and with these kinds of things, right hand very rarely talks to left hand, and you see it in things like Tag Tamers having major contradictions with the anime despite how ostensibly important it is to 02′s story. Izawa and Yabuno were busy with V-Tamer production, and it’s very likely Toei and Bandai only provided them with very scant details of 02′s base premise (especially since the chapter itself doesn’t refer to any major 02 plot details besides XV-mon’s and Magnamon’s existence). I really do not blame them for not necessarily having thorough awareness of Daisuke and his character arc (especially since he himself is a rather deceptive character), and having to make a lot of assumptions while writing.

In the end, I decided to write this due to personal request from an acquaintance, who pointed out that there are a lot of people out there who like to claim things like "Daisuke got more character development in this single chapter than he did in 02 itself” (which is another manifestation of the constantly repeated fanbase mantra that Daisuke was lacking in that department when he really wasn’t). The thing is, this chapter’s interpretation of Daisuke is so far removed from the character he was even at the start of 02 that this “development” only works by artificially engineering a conflict that shouldn’t have even happened with Daisuke in the first place.

Again: This is not something meant to criticize this chapter as something bad (personally, I do think it’s rather entertaining in its own way) as much as, simply, out of character is still out of character, and I'm mainly just writing this in the hopes of making a case that this version of Daisuke should not be reflected back on the original series.

(Screenshots below are from the DH translation of V-Tamer, and PositronCannon’s 02 subs.)

The issue here is that the whole plot of the chapter itself is based on the idea that Daisuke is the kind of person who likes fighting for the sake of fighting, and has an impulsive urge to charge in aggressively to the point of even looking down on his friends for denying him. Certainly, on the surface, it does seem to match up with Daisuke still having difficulties adjusting to these new kids being his friends at the beginning of the series, and generally having an abrasive, rough-around-the-edges personality, but...

Ah.

The above screenshots are from 02 episode 7, which is a very early episode -- one that clearly takes place before Magnamon’s appearances in Hurricane Touchdown and 02 episode 20-21, and XV-mon’s appearance in 02 episode 22 -- and one that’s still part of Daisuke’s early bout of “shallow” episodes, in which he’s still instinctively lashing out at Takeru due to his perception of having something going on with Hikari. And while he does initially lash out at them for wanting to turn back, the moment everyone else makes a good case for them turning back (especially when their own Digimon run out of energy), he -- rather easily -- grits his teeth and actually calls the retreat himself.

On top of the fact that Daisuke is very capable of pulling back when he practically understands it’s necessary (even if he hates it), some important points need to be made about his behavior here: Daisuke does not push forward on fighting because he likes fighting and attacking things, but because he practically wants to see the Dark Tower destroyed (and the Dark Tower is causing problems for everyone everywhere right now). He hates the Kaiser, and wants to fight everyone under him, because he’s hurting others. Only one episode later, Daisuke vocalizes that he’s even okay with losing a soccer game as long as he gets to play someone who’s inspired kids all over the country and enjoy the match.

The other problem is that it actually implies that Daisuke would be able to do anything without his friends’ approval. Despite Daisuke’s ostensibly rough surface demeanor, he gets strung along easily. It is absurdly easy to shut him down or override his opinions just by being assertive enough. There’s a very good reason why he’s been described as “prevented from doing much in the first half”. Daisuke spends the first half of the series largely unable to make his own decisions because his friends keep making them for him, and part of his character development involves him becoming able to actually put his foot down and do what he wants when it’s something he cares about, which is something that very much does not set in until the second half.

In addition, the implication that Daisuke would be actively belligerent to the point of having the priority of “destroying enemies” instead of “helping others” is very contrary to the whole point of his character arc:

In 02 episode 20, the first time Daisuke does truly put his foot down against the wishes of the others in the group, it’s because seeing Chimeramon destroy so many things hurt him that badly that he hates sitting around and doing nothing. Again: Daisuke is a person who does things because he cares about and wants to protect others, not because he necessarily likes fighting. It’s also important that he makes this statement that he’ll go in “even alone” -- he does not look down on the others or show distaste for them for choosing to recuse, because they’re understandably exhausted, but simply says that he’s frustrated at the idea of giving up this one chance, and doesn’t want to squander it. (It’s also consistent with the way he treats the mortified Ken in 02 episode 48 -- he reminds him that Jogress won’t work if Ken’s not feeling up to it, and says that he’ll do it alone if he has to because something has to be done.)

And speaking of Ken, this trait of Daisuke’s is why that whole character arc of him reaching out to Ken works in the first place! Because, again, Daisuke hated the Kaiser because he was doing horrible things. The moment the Kaiser stopped doing horrible things, Daisuke didn’t feel up to kicking him while he was down, actually urged him to do the first thing he could do to make amends -- “go home” -- and ultimately chose to reach out to him because he thinks in terms of moving on and creating positive things, not for destruction for the sake of destruction. Because Ken seemed to not be hurting anyone anymore, and he’s actually doing something to help, so why not believe in him and let him help?

Again: with the exception of episode 48 (which is just reinforcing something from before), all of these episodes are before XV-mon’s first appearance in 02 episode 22. Daisuke had always been this kind of positive and supportive person from day one; those traits had just not been very easily visible because he was still trying to deal with his initial awkwardness and being rather rough around the edges, but they’re still traits he’d always fundamentally had.

The chapter continues with Daisuke actually looking down on his other friends and protesting angrily against them trying to pull him back. Beyond the fact that (as stated above) the anime’s portrayal of Daisuke would make him very unwilling to fight back against opposition at this point of the series, the idea he’d actually be condescending about his friends is a little...hmm. Because, again, in 02 episode 7:

Daisuke does momentarily lash out at Iori and Takeru in a moment of emotional compromise when he’s stressed over Hikari getting trapped in the Digital World, but he actually takes it back. Incredibly quickly. He apologizes to Iori, and decides to not let Takeru put the blame on himself, even though his emotionally-compromised moment had initially gotten him to instinctively try to pin it on him. (Which is important because, yes, even when Daisuke’s inclined to lash out at Takeru for his perceived existing relationship with Hikari and be jealous of him, he still cares about Takeru himself to the point he doesn’t want him to load himself with the guilt.)

Daisuke’s brashness is portrayed during this early part of 02 as him very, very badly needing validation. This means that going out of his way to push aside the people he calls friends would be the last thing he wants to do, because he actually wants their approval, and for them to like him, and therefore he’s willing to apologize quickly and try to make amends because he plays badly with actual confrontation.

While this line isn’t quite off, it does rather clash with the way Daisuke actually portrays himself, which is that he doesn’t really have this much of an ego. The literal translation of this line is that he calls himself “your cute little junior”, but even the more liberal translation used here doesn’t quite work with Daisuke’s character, since it’s not implied at any point that Daisuke thinks Taichi actually cares about him back the way he adores Taichi.

Again, Daisuke is an extremely deferential person who craves validation, and this is especially in the case of Taichi, who arguably is the one who creates the easiest mood shift in Daisuke for the early parts of the series. Whenever Taichi is nearby, Daisuke immediately becomes deferential and respects literally everything he does.

Observe Daisuke’s very resigned and very deferential facial expressions and attitude in 02 episodes 8 and 10, whenever it comes to Taichi (and note that the third screenshot here also comes from a situation where Daisuke wanted to advocate for pushing forward instead of retreating; it was that easy for Taichi to shut him down). For all it’s worth, Daisuke’s never really shown to have a lot of pride in himself (beyond the occasional joke), and it’s heavily implied that he sees Taichi as so amazing that he’s not even remotely in his league. That’s why it’s such a big deal that Daisuke puts his foot down and protests against what Taichi wants them to do in 02 episode 39, and it’s not even rudely or aggressively (he still uses polite Japanese!) as much as just firmly “I have a friend and I need to help him, I’m sorry.”

During the chapter, Daisuke claims that he doesn’t want to go back and meet his friends, because he doesn’t think they care about him, but, well, again: Daisuke is someone who craves approval. It’s somewhat understandable that he’d maybe have some degree of insecurity that they don’t like him as much as he wants them to, but the series by this point (remember, we’re talking episode 22, given XV-mon’s appearance) makes it very clear that Daisuke is well aware that his friends like him this much, and he has no real grudges against them.

This is one of the reasons it’s so important that 02 had so many scenes of the kids just...bantering in the computer room, or having tons of “free time off hours” that had nothing to do with Digimon fights, because although Daisuke is brash and rough around the edges, otherwise, the group of friends here get along perfectly fine. Once the stress of fighting is removed, these kids are part of each others’ social circle and love hanging out for the sake of hanging out, and even someone as dense as Daisuke should know very well that they do at least like him this much.

And, more importantly, whatever Daisuke might think about what his friends think of him, he himself likes them a lot. He cares about them a lot. Even all the way back in 02 episode 10 and 11, with Miyako and Takeru (whom he ostensibly banters and gets touchy with a lot), he still makes it clear he likes what Miyako’s doing and wants to check on her (without prompting), and later, when he gets in a fight with Takeru, he blames himself for not understanding Takeru’s feelings instead of feeling inclined to blame it on him. (In fact, this so-called hostility with Takeru is really overblown here, because there’s no reason Daisuke should think everyone takes Takeru’s side; when they did get in a fight in 02 episode 11, everyone was more concerned about getting them to calm down than they were about taking sides, because both of them did have a very reasonable position.)

And while Daisuke getting set off by the Takeru and Hikari issue might have been in-character at one point, it’s not for him at this point in the series, because 02 episode 22, the very episode that introduces XV-mon, has him take a completely different view of the situation:

Daisuke had already gotten over a lot of it by this point. The last time he shows any indication of Takeru and Hikari having ~something going on~ to the point he suspects Takeru of being an obstacle is all the way back in episode 17, which oh-so-coincidentally happens to be the same episode where he later learns about the truth of his seniors’ great adventure in 1999, and therefore receives the full context of why Takeru and Hikari knew each other beforehand (which they had been absolutely terrible at elucidating for 17 episodes). By the time we get to this epsode, Daisuke does not hold anything against Takeru himself, and he doesn’t even accuse them of having a thing, just moping that they “get along so well”. He’s not angry about it, he’s sad about it, and it’s heavily implied that he’s really just sad about being third-wheeled more than anything.

It’s also important to realize that this is long past the point where Daisuke would have shown any outright hostility towards Takeru at all. At worst, he maybe scoffs “do whatever you want!”, or ends up a little sad that they’re leaving him out, but he ends up putting this on himself more than he ever lashes out at others about it anymore. The grudge against Takeru had already gone long under the bridge, by this point Takeru is just a friend that he likes reasonably well and is sad to be third wheeled by, and it’s only 13 more episodes before he’ll stop bringing his crush on Hikari into the issue for the rest of the series.

And, remember, Daisuke has always been someone who does things “because other people are being hurt”. He’s not actually that selfish! Whenever people are really in trouble, he goes in to help them -- remember, back in 02 episode 8, he was crushed because Ken turned out to be the Kaiser, and someone indirectly trampling on the dreams of all the soccer-playing kids in the country. Had this been Daisuke from the anime, he probably would have immediately wanted to go back the moment he realized there are people in need and hurt left behind, regardless of his own feelings on his relationship with his friends.

The rest of the chapter is fairly on-the-nose, with Daisuke managing to create a “miracle” through the power of his feelings by remembering what it meant for Taichi to give him his goggles, and for managing to connect to his friends despite them being trapped, with Daisuke and Taichi eventually parting on good terms and Daisuke even getting the honor of doing the victory dance with him. This is why I want to emphasize (I’ll say this in bold) that I do not think this is a “bad” chapter just because it’s not compliant with Daisuke’s anime characterization. Given what the chapter sets out to accomplish, setting up a story of someone who feels neglected by his friends and eventually decides to reach out to them with his own feelings, it’s thematically solid and well-plotted out as a story, and the crossover and thought experiment of how Daisuke would react to an alternate version of Taichi is very entertaining. Plus, Izawa’s writing and Yabuno’s art is charming, and it’s lovely to see the 02 kids in this style.

It’s just, well, the entire premise of this chapter relies on a conflict generated by Daisuke being a character he is very much not. And, again, it’s not something that I can really criticize Izawa and Yabuno for; Daisuke’s quite the deceptive character, and it really doesn’t seem like Toei and Bandai gave them a lot to work with, especially since this chapter only works within a very narrow range of 02′s timeline, between 02 episodes 22 and 25, when V-mon can evolve to Adult but Ken hasn’t formally joined the team yet. (And in fact, I’d generally apply this sort of caveat to things relevant to Daisuke that come from the Bandai side instead of Toei side; too many things out there seem to only really be working with the base details of “Taichi’s junior who has a crush on Hikari” with no regard to the actual nuances of his character.) Personally, it seems that Izawa and Yabuno did their best with what they had to work with, and they even made it a fun chapter while they were at it! -- so I would simply say that it’s probably best to enjoy this chapter without thinking about the lack of canon compliance too hard, but also not to judge the actual anime version of Daisuke too much by this portrayal.

[giuliafc]

Stuck in a Cabin (with you)

Stuck in a Cabin (with you)

Read on: Ao3 || FFN || Wattpad

Summoned to save his Lady's life, Adrien gets stuck with her in a cabin during a blizzard. Identities get revealed, feelings come out...but who's been plotting to kill Marinette? Will the culprit be punished? Read to find the answer :) (Adrienette)

Written by: JuliaFC

Betas: Khanofallorcs, Agrestebug, Etoile-Lead-Sama and genxha. Thank you all so much!

Cover Art credit: Rosehealer02 on Deviantart

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by (c) Thomas Astruc, TS1 Bouygues, Disney Channel, Zagtoon, Toei Animation. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

oOoOoOoOoOo

Chapter 1 — Lila’s plan

Lila sighed looking at the message that had just pinged on her phone.

Mamma: [Sorry, tesoro. I got stuck at work because of the snow, don’t know when I’ll get home tonight. If you want, you can order something. Otherwise dried pasta is in the first cupboard at the side of the hob. I’ll make it up to you. Love you!]

Even after all those years, messages like those left a hollow feeling into her heart. Lila had been moving around a lot in the last few years, because of her mother’s job. She hated her mother’s job. Because of it, Lila had had to leave her grandparents and aunt in Sicily and all her childhood friends. Besides, her mother had been completely absent since she started working at the embassy, sometimes not even coming back home before Lila went to bed. Sometimes she wouldn’t see her for days in a row because when she woke up to go to school, mamma was sleeping and when Lila would go to bed, mamma wouldn’t even have started to come home. Mamma tried to make up for it by filling her days off with a lot of activities they could do together, but that wasn’t enough for Lila. She wanted more. She wanted her mother all for herself, like she had been at home, when papà had been there and mamma hadn’t yet obtained her role at the Italian Embassy.

She had been moved around like a pawn: Vienna for a couple of years, then Berlin, Geneva, Dublin and finally Paris. A lot for a 14 year old girl, having to leave it all behind way too many times.

When she moved to Vienna, she had been bullied quite badly because of her accent and her difficulty speaking the language. She had been ostracised and had spent the better part of two years fighting against stupid kids that she couldn’t even understand very well. Add to the mix the fact that papà ended up having an affair and mamma decided to divorce and leave him, and Lila’s life became even worse, even lonelier.

Luckily her mother had been moved to Berlin, but the situation hadn’t improved for her. Vienna or Berlin, the language was still incomprehensible to her and the kids didn’t like her because she was new, uncool, and because her accent sucked. Because her skin was too olive. Because her hair was too brown, or her eyes too green. They used to make fun of her hairstyle, of her clothes, of anything they could put their hands on. Lila started developing a huge amount of rage, frustration and anger. Plus, she missed her papà terribly, and she couldn’t understand in her mind why her mamma had decided to leave him.

Then she moved to Geneva, and on her first day there she met a girl who ‘acted’ cool. She was a couple of years older than Lila; her name was Charlotte, but she allowed Lila to call her Lottie. She took her under her wing and gave her some very interesting lessons. Lottie was a manipulative wench. She used to be the most popular girl in class because she always knew what to say in order to flatter the interlocutor, twist words around and obtain their favour. Lila was fascinated by her ability and craved to learn how to do the same. She worked for months to copy Lottie’s mannerisms and behaviour.

‘In life, you need to always take the upper hand,’ Lottie told her. ‘Tell people what they want to hear. This will automatically bring them to your side, and when you have them wrapped around your little finger, there’s nothing that they won’t do for you. You just need to keep up the appearances and you’re set for life.

‘Always settle for the best. If you set your eyes on a boy, make sure that he’s the best catch in the whole school. Make sure to understand what he likes and slowly set your trap. Let him fall for you, and you’ll be automatically the most popular gal around.’ Lottie had proved her own advice right easily, and had ended up in a relationship with a pop singer that attended their school. That increased her popularity even more and Lila became much more envious of her.

‘If someone bothers you, destroy them before they can attack you, or as soon as you can after that,’ was Lottie’s last bit of advice.

Lottie taught Lila to act cool, taught her that image was everything. Soon ,they had become like twin sisters and instead of being the bullied one, for once Lila enjoyed the feeling of being the bully. They were L&L’s, and they were respected. Her heart broke the day her mother told her that they were moving again, but she had no choice. Saying goodbye to Lottie was one of the most difficult things she had to do in her still young life.

‘Stay strong, Lil,’ Lottie had told her. ‘Remember, image is everything. Teach those Dubliners how great you are and you won’t have any trouble. And if you do,’ she added with a wink, ‘send me a message and I’ll hop on the first flight!’

That had made her laugh. Lottie acted strong and rich, but Lila knew that in reality she would never have been able to uphold her promise, as she was still too young, and had no money.

Dublin hadn’t been that bad for her. Except the weather. The HORRIBLE Irish weather. She still had nightmares of the torrential rain and the storms. But at least, there was the sea. Lila had missed the sea so much in the last few years. She used to make excuses that she was sick, to skip school, take the DART metropolitan train and get off at Portmarnock, Greystones or Bray (more the first two than the latter, because the sandy beach reminded her more of the shores at home). She would walk on the beach without a care in the world, listening to the sound of the waves crashing on the sand.

She had followed Lottie’s advice and had acted cool as soon as she started in her new school. She had gotten used to lying when she was in Geneva under Lottie’s wing, and now the lies came out more natural than the truth. She had become immediately popular when she started, managing to get into a relationship with the most exclusive guy in the class (she didn’t like him, as he was a twat, so full of himself that you could hear him boasting from a distance, but she didn’t care. He was popular and that was all that mattered. He would never realise that she was only using him). She learned how to trick everybody, making them think that she knew all sorts of actors and celebrities. It was fantastic, she was loved and popular and her life was amazing. She was so upset when her mother was moved once more.

And that’s how she ended up in Paris — again far from her beloved sea. She hated the city, she hated the noise and the frantic way of life. Despite the horrible weather, she had loved Dublin because it was smaller and reminded her more of the small town she was born in. But Paris was massive, full of people, of noise. She couldn’t stand the noise. And she hated all those lights. Ville lumière my foot.

Immediately as she started in Françoise Dupont, she tried to remake the same setting she had carefully created in her previous location. But she found the big obstacle of Marinette Dupain-Cheng. The most annoying girl Lila had ever dealt with. Except Ladybug, obviously. Such a tiny girl, but such a big problem for her, and for her resolution to follow Lottie’s footsteps. From the very beginning, Marinette had never fallen for her lies. From the very beginning, she had tried to unmask her and show to everyone her true colours. From the very beginning, she had been an absolute and utter pest.

Lila had fought back. She wouldn’t make it easy for Marinette to win against her; Lila had soon managed to get every student in the class wrapped around her little finger, as Lottie had taught her. She had hoped that soon Marinette wouldn’t be a problem anymore. But unfortunately, she still was. Even more annoyingly, Adrien, whom she was trying to charm in order to again be the most popular girl in school who dated the most handsome and popular guy, seemed to believe Marinette.

Lila had tried all her tricks. She had tried to bring the whole class to her side, she had tried to even manipulate Adrien’s father and make him think that Marinette was a bad influence on his son. But nothing seemed to have an effect on the blond model, and Lila had gotten desperate. She had finally managed to set up a great trap and had gotten Marinette expelled. However, the joy hadn’t lasted long because Adrien had threatened her and had gotten to the point of making a deal with her so that Marinette would be readmitted to school.

Lila was seething that day, but she had no choice. Losing Adrien’s friendship would have been even more detrimental to her image. It didn’t matter if it was only a fake friendship; it would add to her image, and image was everything, as Lottie said.

The more time passed, the more Lila hated Marinette. She had tried everything she could to make her life miserable, but the young designer somehow always managed to resist. Even getting akumatised and trying to use Hawkmoth’s power against Marinette didn’t work, because Ladybug and Chat Noir would get in the way and protect her. They would try to expose Lila’s lies. She had had to make her lies become bigger and bigger and create more and more imaginative excuses in order to keep up with the popularity she craved. And it was never enough, because Marinette always managed to dismiss her claims and most of the time prove her wrong.

From Lila’s point of view, Marinette was the enemy. She was the sole obstacle left in her path to getting what she wanted, and she would get what she wanted, no matter the cost. In her mind, there was only one path left to take to get rid of her.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng had to DIE.

Finally, she had managed to come up with the perfect plan. The perfect opportunity.

The perfect excuse: a school project. She had cheated the sorting and gotten paired with Alya, and the weather today was giving her even more help. When something is meant to be, it’s meant to be. It had already been a cold winter up to then, but very unusually for Paris, in the last week the temperature had dropped way below zero. In fact, it had dropped so low that it had been declared the coldest winter in history, only topped once in the late 1800’s.

Lila didn’t like the cold. Her family came from a little village on the sea, where it was always warm even in the bad season. Yes, it had been cold from time to time, but the sea warmed the temperature up and made the chill more bearable. Her beautiful sea, which she missed so much after having gotten a taste of it back in Dublin. But there was no sea in Paris, only that stupid river… and no warm weather in the winter, especially not this year.

But that cold weather, for once, wasn’t upsetting her because it was helping her craft her plan; she had faced the freezing temperature that very morning before school, and had set up her trap. She would use the cold to her advantage. And this time, she’d have the perfect alibi, and not even Adrien would suspect of her.

This time Marinette would be gone. Forever.

“Are you all right, Lila?” asked Alya, her face showing genuine concern when Lila dumped her phone on the desk in front of her with a pout.

“Yes, I’m fine. Just another charity event being cancelled this week because of the snow,” she made up. Alya’s frown disappeared and the girl gave her a look full of admiration.

“I don’t know how you do it, Lila, your commitment to charities and people in need is admirable, really.”

Lila gave Alya her best puppy eyed glance. “This city, and especially Ladybug and Chat Noir, have done so much for me with all the times I have been akumatised. It’s only nice to give something back!”

Alya put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re a truly amazing person, Lila. I have been akumatised four times, and I guess half of Paris has been in a way or another, but nobody does all you do to ‘give it back to the community’.” The girl with glasses looked at her door thoughtfully. “But if you’ll excuse me a moment, I need the restroom.”

And that’s when the perfect opportunity arose. Alya’s phone was resting on the desk in front of them. Lila gave a cunning side glance to the brunette who had just stood up and was fixing her glasses on her nose and, with a graceful flick of her finger, she pushed Alya’s phone slightly making it fall to the ground, quickly kicking it with her foot underneath the computer desk so that Alya wouldn’t find it.

“Uh… I’m sure my phone was here a moment ago…” muttered Alya looking at the computer desk and scratching her head. She moved her gaze around superficially, but since she couldn’t see the phone anywhere, she sighed. “Well, never mind. I’ll be right back,” she said, looking at Lila before disappearing from view.

“Take your time,” said Lila, her lips curling in a wide smirk as she picked up the phone from the ground. Things seemed to be going her way this time. The phone was unlocked. Lila’s eyes had a triumphant gleam in them as she looked for a conversation with Marinette.

She quickly peeked to ensure that Alya was still in the restroom and opened the chat with Marinette. Then she typed the message she had been planning all day, clicking send immediately after.

Alya (Lila): [Hey, girl! The girls and I are planning to go to Lac Daumesnil. Fancy doing some ice skating with us?]

She kept eyeing the door of the restroom with concern, but Alya was still there. Soon she saw the three dots of the conversation flashing, meaning that Marinette was answering.

Marinette: [It’s been some time since I went ice skating. Last time was a disaster. Sounds like a good idea, Alya. I will be there in an hour]

Alya (Lila): [Great. Start skating if you get there before us. We’re on our way!]

Marinette: [OK!]

Lila looked at the messages with a smirk and took care of deleting each of them one by one. Alya wasn’t going to find out. It was after she had just deleted the last message that Alya emerged from the restroom and she put the phone down immediately.

Alya frowned at her. “Are you okay, Lila?”

“Yes. I found your phone; it was on the floor here.” She pointed at the side of the desk. “I thought I heard it notify you of something, but there’s no notification, nothing at all.”

Alya looked at her phone with interest. “Oh. Maybe an akuma alert?” She started scrolling through her phone, but she didn’t find anything new. “That’s peculiar, there’s no new announcement.”

“Don’t worry, I must have made a mistake,” said Lila, dismissing the conversation with a gesture of her right hand. “So we were saying, about Napoléon?”

This took Alya’s attention away from her phone and brought her back to concentrating on the project they were working on. Lila smirked — her plan was unfolding well.

Author’s Note:

Hi again! I know, I know, another story. I told you I was going to unload everything I had this weekend. This isn’t finished yet (well, one part is, and in theory it could be left like that, but the second part I thought is worth writing!) so I will update this, the AU and “When Magic Fails” as soon as I can. Hope you liked getting inside Lila’s head. The next chapters are not about her, don’t worry. Or rather, worry, because the next chapters are her plan unfolding. And the title of the next chapter (and the beautiful cover art) is kind of revealing… so, well, I’ll hide again… ^^;

In the next instalment of “Stuck in a cabin (with you)”, “Drowning”:

— “I don’t know, Marinette. This sounds fishy. Why aren’t your friends here yet?”

— “I can’t move, Tikki, I think I have cramps! HELP ME!”

— “Sugarcube! It won’t happen again, not if we can help it, don’t worry!”

Ehrm… I know. Doesn’t sound good, right? ^^ Please subscribe if you’re interested in knowing what is going to happen, so you will know when the next update is!

Last but not least, as usual, if you read this and you’re not part of our wonderful Discord server already, but you enjoy reading, writing and talking about Miraculous, please join our Discord server, Miraculous Fanworks (for people on FFN, discord dot gg slash mlfanworks). See you there soon. Not sure when I will update this story but it won't be too long! Promise!

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (144/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: This story takes place about 1000 years before 66 years after the events of Dragon Ball Z.

  [3 November, Age 762.   Earth.]  

"Luffa!   Can you hear me?   This is Trunks, calling from the Time Nest!"  

"I was wondering when you'd call," Luffa said.   "I was starting to wonder if this earpiece you gave me got damaged while I was fighting Nappa."

"You did fine with him," Trunks said.   "Gohan and Krillin survived, so history is back on course, but your mission isn't over yet.   My father... Vegeta, he's still possessed by that purple energy.    You'll have to help Goku defeat him to finish the job."    

"Help him?" Luffa asked.    She had been standing on a rock formation for several minutes, observing their battle from a respectful distance.  "First of all, Kakarot seems to be doing just fine on his own.   Second, I wouldn't think of dishonoring him by interfering in his battle.     That goes for your father, too.   We may be enemies in this situation, but we're all Saiyans here."    

"Luffa, you don't understand.   Someone already interfered in this battle by altering history.    Our job is to balance the scales and put things back to normal.    I understand that you don't like the idea of double-teaming an opponent, but it's the only way to restore the timeline."

Luffa didn't budge.    Overhead, Son Goku and Vegeta were battling through the air, and their blows sounded like thunderclaps whenever they connected.    

"You weren't kidding about Kakarot's training in the afterlife," Luffa said.    She pulled a chunk of Saibaman out of her pocket and took a bite while she watched.     "He's improved a lot since Raditz.   It looks like he leapfrogged Nappa while he was at it.    And without Nappa to get in the way, your dad shouldn't be too much trouble."

"You're wrong," Trunks said, his voice growing more desperate.     "Luffa, I know how this battle is supposed to play out.    My father has an ace in the hole.    You must have noticed by now.   He's got a tail, but Goku doesn't!"

"So what?" Luffa asked.   "He'd need the light of Earth's full moon to transform into a giant ape, and the sun hasn't even gone down yet!"

"He doesn't need the moon!" Trunks cried, "he can make his own--"

"Wait a minute," Luffa said before he could finish.   "What the hell is he doing up there?"

High above, Vegeta was ranting and raving about how he was willing to destroy the entire planet to win his fight with Goku.   Luffa could sense his energy building, and he brought his hands together on the left side of his chest.   At the same time, she could sense Goku increasing his own ki to prepare a countermeasure.   But this climactic struggle wasn't what had Luffa's attention.    She floated up into the air to get a better look at Vegeta's posture.  

"Luffa, you've got to do something!" Trunks pleaded through the earpiece.   "Goku barely managed to deflect this attack before, but with that dark energy multiplying my father's power, he won't stand a chance!"

But she wasn't listening to him anymore.     All around her, the skies trembled from the intensity of power Goku and Vegeta were preparing to fire at one another, but Luffa paid no attention to this either.   She simply flew straight towards Vegeta, and just as she reached him, he launched his attack.  

"Gallick Gun!" he screamed as he hurled a column of purple light down at the Earth below.   Goku responded in kind with his own energy beam, similar to the Gallick Gun, but clearly distinct.    Luffa ignored him completely.

"Hey!" she shouted at Vegeta.    "Are you making fun of me?!"

"Wh-what?!" Vegeta gasped as he finally noticed her approach.  

Luffa held up her hands to match Vegeta's pose.   "Don't screw with me, you royalist trash!   I never learned how to do the Galick Gun 'properly', and here you are imitating my style!    Right in front of me!"

"That's absurd!" Vegeta growled.    "This technique has been in my family for centuries!   I've never seen you before in my life.   Tch!   Why am I arguing with you at a time like this?   Who the hell are you?"

"Who am I?!   I'm the lady that's gonna tear you out of frame!"

"Begone, woman, before I--!   No!   No!"

It was this distraction that gave Goku the opening he needed.   Luffa sensed a sudden surge of ki energy from below, and Vegeta's Gallick Gun was  overwhelmed.   In mere moments, Vegeta found himself on the defensive, and finally he was engulfed in Goku's bright blue beam, which launched him higher and higher into the atmosphere.

"Damn youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!" Vegeta screamed.

Luffa watched him disappear into the stratosphere and extended the middle fingers of both hands to express her farewells.  

"O... okay?" said Trunks through the earpiece.  "I guess that's one way to do it."    

"So is that it?" Luffa said, finally responding to Trunks.   "Wait, is he supposed to die in this battle?    Were you born before or after this happened?"

"That isn't the problem!" Trunks said.    "He's going to roll off of that Kamehameha wave--"

"Kamayhammy-what?"

"The blast Goku just shot at him!" Trunks said.  

"Hey, don't get mad at me for not knowing all this stuff," Luffa shouted.    "You're the one who wanted me to beat up your dad."

"He's... going... to come back... and transform into a giant ape," Trunks insisted.    "You need to keep Goku alive until the others can help--"

"I keep telling you, he doesn't need any help," Luffa said.    "And neither do I.   After taking a hit like that, Vegeta won't have enough power left to... wait, what is that?"

Luffa's had once been the Legendary Super Saiyan, but her power had been severely limited after an incredible battle on Planet Nagaoka.    She had no idea whether this change was permanent, but she had resolved to carry on at least as far as she could to help Trunks.    But the problem was more than just a loss of power.    Whatever had happened to Luffa had also affected her ki perception as well.   And this was a more dangerous affliction, since she wasn't aware of it.     Vegeta rocketed back to the battlefield like a rogue comet, completely catching her off-guard.    

"You two bastards have pushed me far enough!" Vegeta roared.  "As much as the form disgusts me, I can't think of a better way to finish you than to crush you both as a giant ape!"

Luffa was surprised by his speedy return, but she recovered quickly.     "Nice try, idiot.    It'll be at least an hour before it's dark enough for the moonlight to work, and I can beat you into the ground long before then!"

"Moonlight?"  Goku asked.   Luffa knew little about the man, except that he had lived most of his life on Earth, cut off from Saiyan-kind.   She was beginning to suspect that didn't even know he was a Saiyan until his brother Raditz invaded.

"Oh, yes, you thought you were very clever, Kakarot." Vegeta snarled.   "You destroyed this planet's moon so we wouldn't be able to use it against you.    Too bad for you that I have other ways to transform."  

With that, Vegeta began to yell.   He raised his right hand over his head, and curled his fingers as though grasping at the air.    Then a globe of ki energy appeared in his hand, and he made a fiendish grin.  

"What the hell is he doing?" Luffa asked Trunks.   "He put a big chunk of his  ki into that, but he can't hit us both with one attack.   Is he trying to blow up the planet again?"  

"I already told you--" Trunks tried to explain, but Vegeta beat him to it.  

"Burst open and mix!" Vegeta shouted as he launched the energy ball into the sky.   Luffa expected it to explode, or to fly back down and attack either Goku or herself.    Instead, it diffused into the air, and a curious glow appeared...

"It's artificial moonlight!" Trunks shouted through the earpiece.   "If you look at it, you'll turn into a giant ape!"  

But Luffa already knew.   She could sense Vegeta's power rising as the Oozaru transformation took hold.   Nearby, Goku didn't change at all.   He had no tail, and he also seemed to have no idea what Saiyans could change this way.   As for Luffa herself, she could tell Trunks was still talking, and she could hear Vegeta gloating, but she couldn't make out the words over the pounding rhythm of her own heart.

Real or fake, the light Vegeta had created was all Luffa could see.     She could feel herself beginning to change.    It was that... tightness in her skin, the sensation that always seemed to come just before her body violently expanded in size.    Just like the last time.  

On Nagaoka.    

When her body nearly tore itself apart!

A chill ran through her entire body, and she made a strange noise that might have been described as a wail.   And then, just as she felt the effects of the moonlight taking hold, she shut her eyes tightly and averted her gaze.    She wasn't entirely sure of her actions.   It was like her body was acting without her.   Like dropping a hot potato before feeling the heat.    

"No!" she gasped.    "No!"  

"Luffa, what's happening out there?"  Trunks asked.  

"Nothing!    I'm fine!" Luffa lied.   She reached for the earpiece to remove it, or at least turn it off.   But her hands were trembling too badly for her to get a proper grip.   In her frustration, she fired a small ki blast at the side of her head and fried the device.    She smelled burnt hair and electronics, but not burnt flesh, so she was satisfied that she still had at least some control over herself.  

"It's all in your head, you coward!" she snarled as she tucked her hands under her shoulders.  It didn't help.   She was shaking all over now.   It wasn't just the Golden Ape transformation on Nagaoka that haunted her.    She found herself recalling the Tikosi Hiveworld as well.     There, the insectoid scientists of the Tikosi conducted cruel experiments on her.   One in particular was designed to trigger her Giant Ape transformation, only to cancel it partway.    They would turn her back and forth, or simply leave her suspended between forms.   She thought she had worked past that trauma, but Vegeta had proven otherwise.    

Not far away, she could sense Vegeta chasing after Son Goku.    Trunks had told her that the mission depended on her keeping him alive.     Instead, she found herself running in the other direction, desperate to get control over herself.    As she moved, she fired wildly in the direction of the false moon, but it didn't seem to do any good.     Vegeta's technique was a substitute for a genuine moon.    It only made sense that it couldn't be destroyed as easily as the real thing.   She crouched on the ground and cursed herself for lying down in a fetal position while she took stock of her situation.    

"Shouldn't have blasted my own ear like that," she grumbled between rapid breaths.    "But at least the other one still works.    And I can open my damn eyes as long as I keep my back to that light.    That's easy, right?   So why won't I open my eyes?    Oh, you know why not, dammit!   Dammit!"

She wished that her wife was here.    It had taken so long for her to go to Zatte when these episodes happened, and sometimes Luffa wasn't sure Zatte had been able to help much, but at least it had been better than gutting it out alone, and this was worse than just about any nightmare she'd had.   But Zatte was gone, maybe forever.    Just like Dr. Topsas, and all of her other friends, and her parents, and her son... And it wasn't difficult to blame herself for that situation.     She had been too weak, too afraid, and too unworthy, and so she had lost them all, one by one.    And now Trunks was learning that lesson just like everyone else.  All that mattered about her was the Super Saiyan, and that was over now.    Without that thing, she was nothing special, just a woman teetering on the brink of madness.  

Instinctively, she curled her tail between her legs, and felt its fur in her still-trembling hands.   In her darkest hours, Luffa had taken solace in her tail, both for the Saiyan pride it represented, and for the intensive effort she had put into training it as a child.    From a young age, she had believed that if she could overcome the weakness in her tail, she could rise above any other obstacle.   It was why she had taken such offense at Saiyans like King Rehval, who encouraged their people to amputate their tails.    She could hear Goku's agonized screams, even at this distance.    Vegeta had kept his tail, and it was clear which one of them had made the right decision.    

There was a simple solution to her problem.   Luffa could cut off her tail, here, and now, and then she could fight Vegeta without worrying about the fake moon.  It wouldn't be that difficult.   One sharp twist and it would all be over.   It would hurt, but she had suffered far worse pain in her short lifetime.    It would betray her Saiyan pride, but Luffa didn't have much of that left anymore.    Rehval had shown her just how despicable the Saiyan race could truly be, and Raditz had shown her that there were even lower depths they could sink to.    Was this why Goku and Trunks had no tail?   Had they learned the same painful lesson that Luffa was contemplating now?  

Goku's howls grew louder, and Luffa's fear began to give way to rage.   She wanted Vegeta to pay for this humiliation, and if mutilating herself got the job done, then maybe it was worth it.  And then she heard another scream.    

It was Vegeta.    She could barely sense any power from Goku at all, but he had used what little he had to fire a parting shot.    

"Hah!" she whispered through clenched teeth.    "Kakarot, you dog."

Luffa rose to her feet.    

*******

"My eye!    How dare you!" Vegeta roared.  

At the ape's feet, Goku lay broken and defeated, but still defiant.  

"Heh!    Somethin' for ya to remember me by," he gasped.    

Vegeta raised his massive paw to crush his enemy, but then he cried out in pain once again.    When he turned to see who had attacked him, he couldn't help but laugh.    

"You again!" he chuckled.    "And here I thought you had lost your will to fight, woman!    Maybe you have.   If you transformed yourself the way I have, then you might stand a chance.    But it looks like you've come here to die instead!"

Luffa pointed her hand at him, still keeping her eyes shut.   Her tail waved behind her back.   "I don't need the Oozaru form to beat you down, Vegeta," she said.    "Maybe I'll take out your other eye and finish what Kakarot started."

"You filthy scumbag!" Vegeta snarled.   "You dare to challenge me, but you're too frightened of the moonlight to even open your eyes!     When I'm through with you, I'll make what I did to Kakarot seem quick and painless!"

Luffa waved her hand to encourage him to attack.   "Kill me if you think you can kill me," she said darkly.   "It's your only chance."

He rushed towards her, just as Luffa expected him to.    The fear had not subsided, nor had the trembling in her body, but Luffa still had enough in her to keep the Giant Ape busy.   She dodged his blows, and while she couldn't see which of his eyes was injured, it was easy enough to deduce it from his movements.    Luffa made sure to stay on his blind side and fired as many ki blasts into his flank as she could muster.    

It wasn't about beating him.    She would if she could, but she knew the goal now had to be to stall him.    From Trunks' perspective, this battle was history, and it had already been fought and won without Luffa's involvement.    All she had to do was keep Vegeta too occupied to kill anyone that he wasn't supposed to.   All she had to do was counteract the dark energy that still churned inside of him.    Luffa could sense this on top of his Saiyan power, and she knew that this alien power was her true enemy.      

As she ducked and dodged, she fought to overcome her terror.    It was just like it had been with Nappa.   Each time he hit her, she felt herself getting stronger.   Against Vegeta, she doubted that she could survive many of his attacks, so she focused on mental strength instead.  Each blow he failed to land was a boost for her confidence.    

This was the wisdom she had gained from her tail.    This was why she couldn't cut it off, even now, when it made all the sense in the world.   As a little girl, she had forced herself to overcome her weakness.   Not all at once, like some brazen Super Saiyan smashing her way through entire armies, but one step at a time.    She would survive this Vegeta, and then she would overcome him, and then she would surpass him.     That was the way of her people.   Maybe they had all forgotten, but she still remembered.  

And she always would.

*******

[February 25, Age 850.   Toki Toki City.]

Luffa returned to the Time Nest victorious, but badly hurt.   In the unadulterated history, the fateful battle between Goku and Vegeta was a mismatch to begin with.   Between the dark energy amplifying Vegeta's strength, and Luffa's mysteriously diminished power, restoring the timeline had proven just as tricky.  

"I'm just glad that fat guy with the sword showed up when he did," Luffa grumbled as she wiped the blood off her face.   "Your dad's one stubborn bastard, that's for sure."

"I'm sorry.   I should have retrieved you from the time jump," Trunks said.   He reached out to help Luffa up off the floor.    

She nearly waved him off, but thought better of it and accepted his help.   It wasn't because she wanted it, but she suddenly realized how little she knew about Trunks, or this world he had dragged her into.   Helping him had been almost automatic for her, after years of diving headlong into adventures as a Super Saiyan, but the fight with Vegeta and Nappa had forced her to admit that those days were behind her, at least for the time being.   This new situation called for a more cautious approach.   She wasn't sure she could trust Trunks, but it might work to her favor to get him to think he could trust her.    

"Thanks," she said, hoping that it sounded sincere.  

"It's the least I can do," Trunks said.   "I wish I could join you on these missions, but I need to stay here in case I get a bead on whoever's behind this."  

"Don't worry about me," Luffa said.   "I may look pretty banged up, but I got a lot out of that last scrap just now.    My power isn't back to normal yet, but with a few more fights like that one, and I'll be ready for anything."

"It's not that," Trunks said.    "You were chosen by Shenron, so I know you can handle it.    It's just... well, I wouldn't mind fighting with my father one more time, even if it's on opposite sides."

"I wouldn't know," Luffa mumbled.   She had killed her own father long ago, and found the experience disappointingly anticlimactic.   She wasn't sure if she envied Trunks or pitied him.

He led her out of the Time Vault, but before they could leave the Time Nest, he heard a noise from above, and they looked up to find a large bird soaring in the upper reaches of the Time Nest.   It suddenly occurred to Luffa that the entire structure of this place resembled an enormous birdcage floating in some sort of green cosmic haze.    

Then they heard the click of heels on the cobblestone road that connected the Time Vault to the portal leading to the city, and they looked down to see someone walking towards them.   It was a woman, even shorter than Luffa, with mauve skin and coral pink hair.   Her clothes were similar to Luffa's compression shirt and baggy pants, but over this she wore a purple jacket with a yellow sash tied around the waist.   The cut of the jacket was unusual, as the lower section billowed out around her lower legs, almost like a dress.    The upper section stopped at her torso and wrapped loosely about her arms, exposing her shoulders completely.    Her neck-length hair was styled in a way that revealed her pointed ears and a pair of large yellow gems that hung from her lobes.

"He-loooooo!" she said cheerfully.   As Trunks nervously returned her greeting, she noticed Luffa, and waved to her.    

"Er, this is the Master of the Time Nest," Trunks explained.    "She's the Supreme Kai of Time, and a very important person."

As he said all of this, the Kai stood behind him and began posing and making silly faces.    Luffa had no idea how to take this.  

"Kai," Luffa said.   "I've heard about them before.   They're like the kami, who oversee different planets, right?"

"Sort of," Trunks said.    "Only the Kais are on a level above that.     And the Supreme Kais are higher still.   She manages the flow of time throughout the entire universe, keeping a close eye on history and protecting it."

As he said this, the bird that had been circling above them chose this moment to alight on the Supreme Kai of Time's head.   It was at this moment Luffa noticed that the bird was  about the same size as the Kai.   Before she could ask what the bird was called, the Kai angrily shooed it off of her head and started scolding it like a child.    The bird cooed in reply, and it was impossible to tell if it understood her words or not.  

Luffa looked at Trunks, who seemed even more confused, if such a thing was possible.    

"Well, like I said, she's an important person.  Just trust me..." he said with an awkward chuckle.  

Luffa shrugged and nodded indifferently.    When it became clear that the Kai was no longer paying attention to them, Trunks resumed escorting Luffa to the city.

*******

Luffa's second visit to the hospital was much shorter than the first.   The Namekian healer, Pulmon, rejuvenated her just as quickly as before, and this time she didn't need to sleep.  After her discharge, she and Trunks began to roam the walkways of Toki Toki City

"I'm still waiting to hear back from Admin about your quarters," Trunks said.   "It's probably going to take a while to get you back home.   The Dragon Balls won't reactivate for at least six months, and that's assuming we won't need them for some other crisis."  

"Don't worry about it," Luffa said.   "I... I don't really have any pressing business waiting for me.   Besides, I can always take a spaceship."  

"We, uh, don't really have those here," Trunks said.  

"You can travel through time, but not space?"

"Pretty much," Trunks said.    "The Supreme Kai of Time created Toki Toki City as a base for the Time Patrol.   Most of us are from Earth, and Earth is pretty isolated from the rest of the universe."  

"That's pretty much what Pulmon told me about his own people," Luffa said.   "I was asking him about The Camelian Empire, trying to get a handle on how far it is from Earth, but he said he'd never heard of it."

"The Camelian Empire?" Trunks said.   "I've never heard of it either.   Is that where you're from?"

"No," Luffa said.    "I was born in interstellar space.   Never spent too much time in one place.   I lived on a few planets for a while, but none of them were what you'd call landmarks.   But Camelia's a big deal, with a lot of star systems under their control.   If I knew where that was in relation to Earth, I could get my bearings.    But it's starting to sound like this is a pretty isolated part of the galaxy, or maybe a whole other galaxy."

"We'll get to the bottom of this, Luffa," Trunks said.   "But I appreciate you helping us out in the meantime."

"Don't mention it," Luffa said.    "You've got Saiyan blood yourself.   So you know I'd go stir crazy without some action.   What I don't understand is how even the Saiyans I've been fighting could be so different from the ones I know," Luffa said.  "Nappa claimed that your father was the result of generations of breeding, like he was this ultimate warrior, but he wasn't that strong.   If my ki wasn't all out of whack, I could have taken care of them both without any trouble.   So what was he bragging about?"

"Well, my father was the strongest Saiyan of that era," Trunks said.   "From what I've heard, back on Planet Vegeta--"

"Yeah, Nappa mentioned a Planet named after your old man," Luffa said.    "I've never heard of it.   It's like there was this whole other population of Saiyans completely cut off from mine, with their own kings.   Could this be connected to whoever's been changing history?"

"Hmm... Well, it's not impossible," Trunks said.  "But the temporal incursions we've been seeing are all confined to a fairly recent period, a few decades at most.  I think the enemy would have to go back pretty far to change the Saiyan homeworld.    On the other hand, I've gotta admit, I know a lot more about time travel than Saiyan history.    Wait a minute... of course!"

"What is it?" Luffa asked.    

Trunks drove his left fist against his right palm as he spoke.    "I should have thought of this before," he said.   "We have a research division in the Time Patrol.    One of them could probably clear this up for us.    They might even be able to track down some planets you're familiar with."

"Perfect," Luffa said.    "Where do we find these guys?"

Before Trunks could answer, there was a beeping noise from inside the sleeve of his jacket.    He held up his left hand to reveal a wristwatch communicator.    

"It's the Supreme Kai of Time," Trunks said.   "She must have discovered another change in history."   He touched a button on the face of his watch and said: "This is Trunks.    Go ahead."

"What's the big idea walking out on me while I was dealing with Tokitoki?"  replied the agitated voice on the other end of the call.     "That's extremely disrespectful, you know!"

"I--!   I'm sorry!" Trunks said.   "I just... it seemed like you were busy, and I needed to see to Luffa's injuries and--"

"What sort of example does that set for a new recruit, huh?   Did you even think of that?   Look, just get back here, okay?   I need to show you something!"

"R-right!" Trunks said.    He switched off the transmission and hung his head.   "I need to go," he said with a sigh.  "It sounds like something important.   At least, I hope it is..."

Luffa began to crack her knuckles.   "If it's another mission, that suits me just fine," she said.   "I need to blow off some steam."

"No, if she didn't want me to come alone, she would have said so," Trunks said.  "And this might just be a waste of time.    You can talk to someone at the Research building while I handle this."    He pointed to a box-shaped building in the distance.    "Number 731.   You can't miss it.    Just tell them I sent you.    You can find me at the Time Nest when you're finished."    

With that, he turned and ran, leaving Luffa by herself.   She shrugged, and made her way to the structure.    As she approached, she stared at the large glyphs on its wall and tried to memorize them for future reference.    

*******

The inside of the Time Patrol Research Corps building looked completely different from the high-tech exterior.    The walls were stone and ceramic tile, and the lighting was produced by a series of long tubes that hung from electrical fixtures on the ceiling.   Along the halls were wooden doors with square glass window panes.     As Luffa couldn't read the room numbers or the placards, she simply peeked into each window, looking for an unlocked office with someone inside.    When she finally found one, she couldn't see anyone through the window, but she could hear voices from within.    She took five steps inside, and discovered a man and a woman leaned up against a desk, making out.    

"Whoa!" Luffa said as she averted her gaze.  

"Uh!    Can I help you?" the man blurted out awkwardly.  

"Right!  Yes!" the woman added.   "Can I help you?   Um, also?"  

They were fully dressed, but Luffa was unsettled enough that she held up her arm, as though afraid to look directly at them.    "I... I need a historian?" she said.   "Someone who specializes in Saiyan history, maybe?"  

"Oh!  Um... well I'm a dietitian," the man said.  

"I don't actually work here," the woman said.   "I'm with maintenance.  Here to fix..."

"The wiring."  

"Right!   Yeah, the wiring.    I should... really get back to that."

"Look, I just need to know where your history department is," Luffa said, "and I'll let you get back to... whatever you were doing."

"Dewar's still here, isn't he?" the woman asked.    

"Probably.   He almost never leaves his office.   He's down in the basement.    Room Number 034."  

"Look, let's just assume I can't read," Luffa said.    She didn't particularly want either of them to show her where to go, but she didn't want to waste time either.    

"It's the room with the foil on the window," the man said.  "You can't miss it."  

Luffa muttered a few words of gratitude and shut the door behind her.   Two minutes later, she stood before an identical door in an identical hallway, only this one was underground, and the door had aluminum foil covering the window.   She could hear people talking and laughing inside.    Having lost a good deal of patience, she didn't bother knocking, and simply walked right in.  

She found an alien inside, sitting in an old leather office chair.     He looked mostly humanoid, save for a thick tail that he had threaded between the back of the chair and the seat.   His feet were propped up on a bookshelf.     They looked like the toes of a bird, or some sort of dinosaur.    His hairless head had an odd shape to it, like a nut with a slight point at the top.    And his skin was a pale blue color.     He didn't even notice Luffa's entrance.    His attention was firmly on a small video monitor that was sitting on top of a file cabinet.    

"Ha!  That's what you get, Queen Trowel!   Next time, listen to your advisers instead of cutting out their tongues!   Huh?   Hah?"

He cupped his hand over one of the rimmed holes on the sides of his head and leaned closer to the screen.    "What was that, Your Majesty?   You say there won't be a next time, because Sergeant Prunshir shot you a hundred times?     Ohhhhh!   Who could have seen that coming?    Heh heh heh!"

"Are you Dewar or not?" Luffa asked, startling the alien.  In his excitment, he dropped the box of snacks he was holding.    

"Holy crap," he yelled, gasping at the chest of his tank top.   "Oi, what's the big idea?   The sign on the door says 'Do Not Disturb', doesn't it?    Can't you read?"  

"No, I can't," Luffa said.    

"Oh."   He put his thumb on his chin and considered the door behind Luffa.   "Maybe I should look into a pictogram.    Something with a picture of a guy knocking, because apparently nobody knows how to do that anymore!"  

"Oh, I know how to knock," Luffa said, "I just don't care.   I need a historian.   Trunks sent me here."

"Trunks?!"  he asked.   "Welllllll now, this just got very interesting.   The big shot Time Patrollers don't usually call down here for us little old researchers."   He reached for a holster that was lying haphazardly across his desk, and as he stood up to wrap it around his waist, his tail snaked into one of the desk drawers and produced a pistol.    

"What's the gun for?" Luffa asked.

"What isn't it for?" Dewar said as he held it up and admired the craftsmanship of it.   "I'm nowhere near as strong as Trunks, but I've done a few field missions from time to time.   Never let it be said that Dewar, pride of the Research Corps, can't hold his own in a fight.   But it never hurts to have a little insurance, eh?"

"Pride of the...?   They stuck you in the basement," Luffa grumbled.   "Look, this isn't a field mission, at least not yet.   I just needed to pick your brain for a minute."   She pointed at the monitor he had been watching.    "Maybe you can pull up some images from history, like whatever you're working on here."

"Oh, that?" Dewar said with a chuckle.   He reached out with his tail and pressed the "off" button with the very tip.    "This is just a TV set.  I was watching some old dramas from Ryno VII."  

Luffa put her hand over her face and shook her head.    

"What?" he asked.   "It's an important window into their culture!"  

"I need to talk to someone about Saiyan history," Luffa said.  "Do you know anything about that?"

"Saiyans?    Wellllll now, the plot thickens, eh?   Let me just get my notes and I'll join you both at the Time Nest."  

"No," Luffa said.   "Just you and me.  For now.   I mean... Trunks has a lot going on, right?    No need to pull him away from what he's doing."  

"Hmm, I guess he is a pretty busy guy.    Fine, where's your quarters?"  

"I don't have a room assignment," Luffa said.  "I don't know what the holdup is."  

Dewar threw his hands up.   "Those dopes in Admin!" he said.    "Always taking their sweet time.    Looks like I'll have to bail them out again!"  

Before Luffa could ask what he meant, he reached into the pocket of his jeans and withdrew a  device that looked like a large pen.    He then powered up a computer terminal in the corner, and plugged the pen into an access port on the side.    

"What are you doing?" Luffa asked.  

"Admin goes through all these silly algorithms to assign living quarters," Dewar explained.   "It's all a lot of nonsense.   Somebody tried to rig it to match roommates by blood types, which only slows things down.    Fortunately, I, er, acquired a master access fob a while back.   Oh, I told myself I'd only use it in an emergency, but the bureaucratic wheels turn so damn slow, and there's so many poor souls like yourself who cry out for help.   I can't just leave you on the streets, now can I?    What did you say your name was?"

"Luffa," she groaned.  

"Ah, nice name.   Haven't heard that one before, but very Saiyan.     There we are!   See?  Now this was exactly what I was talking about.   They've got a dozen openings, but they're waiting on results from some personality quiz that you probably didn't even know you were supposed to take!   Wellllll now, I'll just fix that.    Favorite food...?  Cup noodle, of course.    Tree you identify with...?   Redwood sounds good."

"What's a redwood?" Luffa asked.

Dewar shrugged without looking up from his work.    "Never seen one before, but I'm guessing they're red.   And... blood type is XJ3.    A minute to process the data, annnnnnnd...  Bingo!"

He snapped his fingers and looked back to Luffa.    "Piece of cake!   Come on, Luffa, let's take a look at your new home at..."  He looked back at the screen to read the address, and his mood quickly deflated.   "Oh... oh nooo..."

"What is it?" Luffa asked.  

"Er, nothing!   Nothing to worry about!" he said cheerfully.    "I just noticed that you've got a roommate!   Nothing to worry about.   I'm sure you'll get along just fine.    Jayncho's a little anti-social, but once you get to know her, she's a really nice lady!   Heh heh!   Uh... yes."  

He shut off his computer and gestured for Luffa to follow him out of the office.   As she followed, Luffa noticed that he was still carrying his sidearm...

NEXT: Fitting In.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z Movie 12: Fusion Reborn (2/6)

This time around, I’ll try to explain just what Janemba is, exactly, and why he’s a big deal.  But to do that, we have to get through the first ten minutes of this movie, so...

Movie 12 opens at the Grand Kai Planet, then pans to an asteroid orbiting the planet, where there’s a stadium hosting a tournament.    I never really paid attention to it before, but this is a whole other venue than the one used in DBZ 196-199.    If nothing else, this arena has a big green ring.   It looks like it’s made ouf of jade or something.   It’s a really nice touch.

I always assumed that the idea here was to hold a second Otherworld Tournament, since the one from Episodes 196-199 ended without a winner.    Then again, it’s been seven years since that event, so it seems odd that they would have waited so long.   On the other hand, everyone involved is either dead or a Kai, so seven years may not seem like that long a wait.  

King Kai, also known as the North Kai, is feeling really confident, since his top fighter, Goku, dominated the last tournament.   As before, East Kai and South Kai’s camps aren’t doing very well at all.   

But South Kai is still confident, since one of his fighters is still in the semifinals.   The subs refer to him as “Clove”, but I’m pretty sure he’s talking about Frog, or “Frogue” as he’s credited in the Funimation version.

So he and King Kai bicker about who’s gonna win, but Goku beats Frogue with a single kick, and I’m pretty sure the bout was shorter than their argument. 

Meanwhile, Pikkon defeats Aqua, aka Argua, in the other semifinal match.   I guess Aqua must have improved over the past seven years to have made it this far.

So that eliminates the East and South Galaxies from the tournement.    South Kai immediately starts rooting for Pikkon just to spite King Kai.   It’s kind of weird how Pikkon is a West Galaxy guy, but we don’t hear a lot from West Kai in this movie.    Maybe South Kai got the nod because he was actually in the manga, so he’s more “canonical” than the West or East Kais. 

So the final match is Goku vs. Pikkon, in a rematch of their epic match from Episodes 198 and 199.   That ended in a draw when both men touched the ceiling of the arena, and maybe that’s why they switched the venue this time.  

Both men do Respect Knuckles and the match begins.  

What I like about this movie is that this isn’t even the main story, but it totally could have been.  Toei did a five episode arc about the Grand Kai holding a tournament of all these dead fighters.  They could have done a movie that was just a sequel to that arc.   I don’t know how well-received it would have been, but I would have gone for it.    Maybe a new fighter dies and joins this group in the afterlife, and Goku has trouble against him.   Maybe you have Broly escape hell and crash the tournament.  There’s a lot of cool things you can do with this, but you could just have Goku and Pikkon fight some more.

But Movie 12 has even bigger things to get to, so this is just a scene to establish some of the characters.   And that’s how this movie rolls.  You could expand this story into a twenty-or-thirty-episode saga very easily.   

So we move on to King Yemma’s place, which the dub refers to as the “Check-In Station.”   I’m not super-familiar with Japanese mythology concerning the afterlife, but my understanding is that when you die, you go to King Yemma for judgement.     DBZ satirizes this idea by having the dead people’s souls wait in line, and all the oni who work for Yemma are like white collar wage slaves, and King Yemma has a desk with a big rubber stamp to notarize each soul’s fate.

In this particular scene, they’re having a busy day, probably echoing the episodes from the Buu Saga where millions of people were showing up every few minutes while Majin Buu was wiping out the Earth’s population.   Yemma’s basically zipping right through these guys, which I think is meant to be ironic.   I feel like the real King Yemma is supposed to take longer to examine a person’s moral character.  

Anyway, if you get sent to Heaven, you’re escorted to this big aircraft that flies you to a planet somewhere in Otherworld.     We’ll see it later in the Fusion Saga, but the plane was last seen in Episode 195, although Goku used a second, smaller plane to travel to the Grand Kai Planet. 

On the other hand, I’m pretty sure this hole that opens up in the wall is new.   In Episode 195, Goku and King Kai just walked through a doorway.

If you’re condemned to Hell, you have to go through a machine to cleanse your soul of evil.  I was under the impression that hell itself was meant to do that, but this franchise can never make up its mind about how hell works. 

According to Episode 237, when you’re a bad person and you die, you don’t get to keep your body like Goku did, and your soul is eventually purged of memory, and reincarnated as a new life form.    I don’t know how much of that is based on actual Japanese mythology, if any, but at least in DBZ, the idea of hell is not to act as a place of eternal suffering for the wicked.    It’s more like a very long jail sentence, designed to redeem the wicked so that they can proceed onto reincarnation or maybe some other phase of existence.   The suffering is part of the rehabilitation process.

I think that’s why Frieza still had his body in Movie 15, even after so many years in hell.    They let him keep it, but only so he could experience greater torment.   In theory, he would get so worn down that he would come to accept his punishment as the rightful consequence of all his evil deeds, and then his body would dissipate and he would lose his memory and identity.    But Frieza’s such a hateful bitch that he hung in there long enough to get wished back to life.  

On the other hand, these souls are all formless clouds.   It seems like only important characters get to keep their bodies in hell.   That may just be a convenience for the audience, or maybe stronger bad guys can maintain their physical form more easily.   Maybe that’s why they didn’t send Frieza through this machine.    He would have gummed up the works and broken it.    Maybe it’s only used for the not-so-evil souls who are easier to deal with.   Instead of spending 100,000 years climbing the needle mountain, they can just go through the cleansing machine and move on.

Whatever the case, this movie establishes that a machine cleans souls and extracts their evil residue in the form of a dark purple liquid that gets stored in special tanks.  

And they have an oni on duty to keep an eye on things and switch out the tanks when they get full.    But it’s a dull job, and the pay sucks, so he listens to a Walkman and plays air guitar to help pass the time.

But King Yemma’s sending an awful lot of people to hell today.   He’s not even taking a break for lunch.   So that waste tank’s going to fill up quickly.

Okay, I just realized that all of these guys wear tiger-striped clothes, and I think that’s because oni in folklore wear tiger-skins.   They do in Yu Yu Hakusho, and I assume they dress a little more authentically there.    Their version of King Yemma is treated like a bigger deal.    Anyway, one of the older workers scolds the Tank Clerk for slacking off, and threatens him with a pay cut.  

He also points out the rapidly filling tank, and the clerk seems enthusiastic about switching it, but he never actually does.

I really dig this guy’s jacket.   That skull and crossbones looks cool.

But soon enough, there’s an overload on the waste system, and the line breaks.   I guess the oni don’t believe in relief flanges, but maybe spiritual waste is too hazardous to release into the atmosphere.     Well, it’s happening now.

Tank Clerk knows right away that he’s screwed.   He’s worried for his job, and he has no idea what to do about a spill this big.    I think it’s more than just the one tank breaking.    Like, somehow it set off a chain reaction that blew all the other tanks they had sitting nearby.   Man, OSHA would have a field day with this place.   Why is Tank Clerk wearing shorts to work when he’s surrounded by toxic waste?    What good is a fire extinguisher going to do?   Does he have no idea how to respond to this situation?   Who here does?

But then things go from bad to worse, as the spirit waste mutates him into some sort of bizarre creature.  

Yeah, you might want to have a doctor take a look at that.

As soon as King Yemma hears what’s going on, he shits a brick.   Those tanks contained accumulated evil from countless souls that have been through that cleansing machine.    Why didn’t they dispose of any of it?   Can it be destroyed?   Is that Beerus’ job?  Like he just shows up every hundred years and zaps the full tanks into oblivion?   Well, he won’t be invented for another 18 years, so Yemma’s on his own for this one.

As for Tank Clerk, well he looks like this now.   

Then he sits on top of Yemma’s building and... I’m not really sure what this is.   Let’s start over.    So this monster that was once the Tank Clerk only says one word, and that’s “Janemba”, which isn’t even a word, I think.   So everyone calls him that like it’s his name.  

Apparently his power is some sort of reality manipulation?   That’s pretty vague, actually, since manipulating reality implies you can basically do anything, but what else can I call this?   Janemba creates all these huge jellybean-looking crystals, and some of them used to be other objects, but maybe others were created from nothing.    I think he encased Yemma’s palace in a crystal, but it sort of looks like he distorted the building at the same time.

Inside, things look pretty normal, but there’s some crystal formations within the building, and one of the ogres gets encased in it himself.  

Also, Janemba can project his image in different parts of these crystals.    Maybe this is meant to be simple reflections and refractions, but it seems more magical than that.  

Yemma seems to understand what’s going on better than I do, but there’s nothing he can do about it.    Janemba is the result of the tank clerk being possessed by the evil ki in the spirit waste.    This gave him the ability to surround Yemma’s domain with a barrier, and that barrier has suspended Yemma’s control over the boundary between the living world and the afterlife.   The only way to stop it is to defeat Janemba, and Yemma can’t very well do this while he’s trapped in his own stronghold.  

As I think about it, I sort of wonder if it’s not just the spiritual waste and the evil ki it contains that gave Janemba this power.    Maybe it has something to do with the Tank Clerk as well, since he’s an oni.    Alone, he’s just a lowly subordinate of Yemma, but he must have some sort of power in matters of the living and the dead, and maybe all this evil ki amplified that to make him strong enough to thwart King Yemma.

But that only explains “how”.   There’s still the question of “why?”   It’s often pointed out that Janemba is a pretty weak villain because he doesn’t talk and he has no apparent goals or motives.   But I think that’s a common trait with a lot of Dragon Ball villains.  

Pilaf and Piccolo wanted to conquer the world, but I’m pretty sure both guys only said that because that’s such a stock answer.    It’s a vague expression of desire for power and control, but Pilaf can’t even run more than two people at a time, and Piccolo only wanted to rule the world so he could destroy its people and stick it to Kami.   I think you can lump in with that all the bad guys who wanted to be immortal:  Garlic Junior, Frieza, Vegeta.   Lord Slug only wished for youth, but that’s just because he lacked the imagination to wish or immortality.    The ultimate point was just to eliminate any threats to their existing power.  

Then you have guys like Turles and Dr. Wheelo, who only seemed to be interested in acquiring greater power for themselves.  There were hints in Movies 2 and 3 about what those guys would do with their power once they had enough.   Wheelo would probably continue doing evil experiments on the world, and Turtles maybe would have overthrown Frieza, but Turles strikes me as a free spirit, and he only wanted to be strong enough to keep guys like Frieza from hassling him.    For all we know, Dr. Wheelo only wanted Goku’s body because he missed having sex.   

Then you’ve got the revenge squad: Dr. Gero, Cooler, Crane Hermit, Paragus, Broly ‘93, Lord Jaguar, Babidi.   All of these guys wanted blood in exchange for some personal slight that really isn’t worth it.   Well, Jaguar didn’t actually want to kill anyone, but that only makes him an idiot.    You don’t clone an army of bio-warriors unless you want someone dead.  

The point I’m getting at here is that most of these guys have really lousy motivations, and that doesn’t even get into the villains with seemingly no motivations at all. 

Commander Red wanted to be taller, which is so stupid he kept it a secret because he knew it was stupid, and the only guy he told ended up shooting him in the face because of how stupid it was.   

Mercenary Tao was in it for money, even though he famously never paid for anything.  

Tien wanted to kill people because he looked up to killers until they started killing people he liked.

Android 17 and Cell wanted to have fun.   I’d throw 18 into that group, but honestly, I think she just sort of went along with whatever 17 did, which is almost sadder.

Who the hell knows what Bojack wanted?    He got killed before he could really spell it out. 

And then you have Majin Buu, who doesn’t even understand his own motivations.   He thought he only killed people for fun, and then when he decided it was wrong, he stopped, only to transform into another form who wanted to fight, and then another form who killed people for its own sake.

Now these are all really shitty motivations, and yet at the same time a lot of these guys are classic villains.   That’s because the thesis of Dragon Ball is that power without purpose is self-defeating.    Goku uses his strength to improve himself and help others.   The bad guys always try to use their power for selfish reasons, and it always leads to empty achievements.   Conquests they can’t enjoy, endless searches for fulfillment, and pointless scrambling for even greater power.    Any fool with a weapon can murder someone, so what difference does it make to rule the world or be the strongest in the universe if that’s all you know to do with your time?

What’s all of this have to do with Janemba?   Remember, he’s been possessed with evil ki from a multitude of wicked souls.    In other words, he’s got the distilled essence of the same thing that made all those other bad guys tick.    Frieza, King Piccolo, whoever your favorite is, Janemba’s got the same urges times a billion.   And this is what he’s become:

Just some goofy man-child-thing that only knows how to hit people and say his own name.   He’s powerful, sure, but he doesn’t know what to do with all that power.  I think it’s safe to assume he could do a lot more than we see in this movie, but this is as far as his imagination goes.   

And that does resemble Majin Buu in a lot of ways.   Let’s face it, Janemba is clearly a knockoff of Buu.    I don’t think that’s a big shocker from a movie series that gave us such bold ideas as “Evil Goku” and “Frieza’s Brother” and “More Androids.”

But I do think Janemba has a bit more to offer than that, because unlike Buu, we get to witness his origin.    Think about all the souls who went through that spirit cleansing machine.    All of their evil desires were stripped away and concentrated into Janemba.   What was their one common thought, the one sentiment that united them all?  What was the one experience they all shared and would want to avenge?    Here’s a hint:

I submit that Janemba represents the combined loathing of millions of souls towards King Yemma.   But Yemma’s not their enemy; he’s just doing his job.   The universe is designed to have Yemma pass judgement on the dead.    That’s just the way it works.    And once those damned souls pass through the cleanser, they can appreciate that with a newfound clarity.    But the evil residue they left behind?   That stuff is still sore about it.  

And, to a point, I think that spiritual waste can find a kindred spirit in Tank Clerk, since he’s also kind of frustrated with the Way Things Are.   He’d rather goof off and listen to his tunes, but he has to go to work and pay attention to his job.    That’s no one’s fault, that’s just life.   I don’t think Tank Clerk was ever angry about it, but the spirit waste comes from people who were, and when they got mixed together...

... You end up with a monster who’s made it his business to rebel against the natural order of the universe.   He traps King Yemma, but doing so causes dominoes to fall all over creation.    Maybe Janemba understands the consequences of this, or maybe he doesn’t, but he isn’t concerned with consequences.   He’s just lashing out like a child who’s mad that he can’t have his own way.    Well, your own way wrecks things for everyone else, Janemba, as we’ll soon see...

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z Movie 2: The World’s Strongest

Movie time again.    I made it a point to cover each movie in chronological order of when they aired.   In this case, “World’s Strongest” (also known as “The Strongest Guy in the World”) premiered on March 10, 1990, as part of that season’s Toei Cartoon Festival.  I’ve written about this before, but the short version is that Toei would produce specials and run them in movie theaters during periods when kids were off from school.   I think they did three festivals a year.   The point is, a viewer in 1990 could watch Bulma run around in her underwear in episode 39, check this movie out a few days later, and then come back to their TV to watch Bulma in her underwear again in episode 40.  So that’s kind of what I’m trying to replicate here.    It sounds kind of sad and gross when I put it that way, but it’s too late to stop now.

I mentioned this before, but in the manga, Piccolo only has four fingers on each hand, but in the anime, he’s got five, like all the humans do.   Once I noticed this, I started to become more aware of times when Piccolo’s pinky finger would be presented in very subtle ways, almost like the animators were trying to be respectful of the four-fingered design.    This opening shot is a really good example of this.    Piccolo’s pinky finger is the closest one to the viewer, but you still have to squint to find it.  

This isn’t much of a direct sequel to “Dead Zone”, or even the Saiyans Saga, which had just wrapped up before this movie premiered.   Even so, there’s little nods to what has gone before.    Like Movie 1, this one starts with Piccolo training in seclusion by blowing stuff up.   Last movie, it was boulders, but this time it’s glaciers, and it turns out these are much harder to blow up.   Piccolo even mentions that the ice here is so cold that it’s impossible to melt, and even his own awesome power can’t scratch it.  

This reminds me a lot of the filler episode near the end of Dragon Ball, where Goku went to a mountaintop that was supposed to have snow that was so cold that it could turn fire into ice.     Goku went there in short-sleeves, gathered up a big snowball of the stuff, and carried it away in his bare hands, and then it melted in the sunlight.   But it could turn the exhaust from a rocket into an icicle.   Between this and Ghiaccio in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, I’m really starting to wonder if anyone in the anime industry knows how ice works.

Meanwhile, Oolong and Gohan are in the area, looking for the Dragon Balls.   Oolong checked Bulma’s Dragon Radar earlier, and he noticed that some of the Balls were clustering together, which meant that someone else was gathering them to make a wish.   According to his flashback scene, he decided to sieze this opportunity to steal the wish for himself, so he contacted Gohan and here we are.  

Okay, so let’s talk about the continuity here.   As I mentioned when discussing “Dead Zone”, the DBZ movies sort of do their own thing.   They’re not retelling storylines from the anime, nor are they exactly side-stories that could fit in between anime episodes.   In the anime, Piccolo is dead, and Gohan is en route to Namek to find a way to bring him back to life, because the Earth’s Dragon Balls don’t work.   Oolong hasn’t even met Gohan yet, as far as I can tell.   Honestly, I’m not sure that Gohan and Oolong ever meet in DBZ, besides this scene.  

I tend to think of this movie as being set in an alternate world where Gohan and the others managed to wish Piccolo back to life without much difficulty.   In the canon, Gohan, Goku, and Piccolo won’t be reunited on Earth until much later on, so this movie just doesn’t fit into that continuity.   “World’s Strongest” doesn’t know that, and it’s not pretending that it could know that.    It’s just telling a standalone story as best it can.  

What you end up with, then, is a movie that sort of ties into the anime, but not exactly, and you run into oddities like Gohan and Oolong teaming up.  Oolong says he stole the radar while Bulma wasn’t looking, and we see her and Roshi sunbathing, as if she lives with him on his island.   That seems a little off to me, but she did spend a lot of screen-time with him during the Saiyans arc, so I can see where the writers took that for granted.   What I don’t really understand is why Oolong decided that Gohan was the only one he could count on to help him with this caper.   I think the idea is that he wanted someone strong enough to be there in case things got rough, but naive enough that he wouldn’t try to horn in on Oolong’s wish.    But how’d he find Gohan, and how did he avoid Chi-Chi?

Also, there’s a weird quirk with the Dragon Radar, where their mystery guy starts out with four Dragon Balls, an then he has the fifth, sixth, and seventh almost immediately.   It is possible to hide a Dragon Ball from Bulma’s tech, so I’m guessing the dude already had three balls in storage before Oolong noticed him collecting the other four.    What I don’t get is why Oolong didn’t pick up on this.    Oolong’s really lazy, so I’d think that if he saw someone gathering the Dragon Balls all the way up in the arctic, he’d give up immediately, because the wish would be made before he could even get there. 

And that’s exactly what happens.    While Oolong and Gohan are struggling to get up an ice hill, an old man summons Shenron and wishes to have Dr. Uiro “revived”.    I like the way “Uiro” is spelled, but I think I’ll stick to “Wheelo”, since it’s the more phoenitc version Funimation used.  

Okay, so this wish seems a bit confused.  It sounds like this guy is wishing for Dr. Wheelo to be brought back to life, but we’ll later learn that he’s been alive this whole time, but trapped under a bunch of this impenetrable ice. 

So he’s wishing for the ice to be melted, right?   Well, that’s what Shenron ends up doing for him, but that’s not really what he asked for, is it?  This is one thing I like about Shenron.   He’s not a Monkey’s Paw, twisting your wishes into ironic nightmares, or Aladdin’s Genie, trying to find ways to wiggle out of his obligations.    Shenron will tell you if he can’t do something, and he always seems to do what the wisher wants, even if it’s not quite spelled out in the text of the wish.  Dr. Cochin wants Wheelo to be “revived” in the sense that he wants him exhumed from his icy tomb.    He doesn’t want him literally resurrected, and Shenron gets that.  

Anyway, Cochin is pleased with the results, and he promises that he and Wheelo are back in business and someone’s going to pay.

And here’s a shot of Wheelo’s ice fortress thing.

And here’s the title card.

From a distance, Gohan and Oolong see all of this going on.  

Then a Saibaman shows up to eliminate any witnesses.   Gohan runs to save Oolong...

... but the Saibaman has backup, and Piccolo jumps in to save the day.   

He even kills one just like he did when the Z-Fighters fought the real Saibamen in the Saiyans Saga.   I’m pretty sure Cochin’s monsters have nothing to do with Nappa’s Saibamen, but Toei didn’t seem to mind ripping off the design.   Hell, they’re practically gloating about it by doing callbacks like this.  

Then some bigger creatures show up, and a strange beam of light enevelops Piccolo and he disappears.

Oolong and Gohan wake up in an ice... uh... hole?  I’m not sure how they got down here or why they haven’t frozen to death, but they’re basically safe.   Gohan is concerned about Piccolo, but Oolong reminds him that Gohan promised not to tell anyone they were ever here.

Gohan agrees, since he doesn’t want his mom to get mad at him.   You know, I really hate it when kids in stories get pressured into keeping secrets, or they know something important and no one wants to believe them.   Does Oolong honestly think that no one should know about this sinister-looking fortress in the middle of the Arctic?   I don’t know how old he’s supposed to be, but I’ve heard he was nine in his first appearance, which puts him around 21 here.   He’s old enough to know better, is my point.

Back at Gohan’s house, his parents discuss his recent behavior.   Chi-Chi’s worried about him, but Goku’s attitude is “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”    I think this is where Goku’s parenting skills get misconstrued.    Chi-Chi works herself into a lather trying to give Gohan the best possible upbringing, and most of her worries are for nothing, because Gohan is growing up just fine.   Goku understands that--intuitively, if nothing else-- but his conclusion is that we don’t need to worry about it.   People see that attitude an mistake it for complacency or indifference.   That’s not true at all.   If Gohan was truly being a bad kid, Goku would take action.    But he’s not being a bad kid, so he doesn’t need to do anything more than he’s already doing.  

I’ve seen this sort of thing before, where if you’re not as worried about a problem as the person next to you, the person next to you thinks you’re part of the problem.

Of course, the flip side of this is that Chi-Chi rarely ever worries about Gohan getting stronger, because she figures he’s already superhumanly strong for his age anyway.   And if he ever did need to get stronger, Goku would be on top of that, so it literally is not a problem for her.   The difference is that Goku never pushes back much on this.   He complains privately to himself or his friends, but for the most part he backs off and lets Chi-Chi have her way.   I don’t know if that’s because he figures she knows better, or if he trusts Gohan to decide for himself what he wants to do when he’s older.   Again, he’s trying to be flexible for the sake of the family, and I think people misinterpret that flexibility for weakness.  

While they talk, Gohan is in his room studying.   We can hear his parents, but I’m not sure whether Gohan is supposed to be able to hear them or not.  

Then he has this whole nutty daydream, sort of like the one from “Dead Zone”, except he’s not drunk this time.

In the daydream, he casts off his usual clothes and dons the homemade Piccolo suit he debuted in Episode 38.   I always liked this moment, like he’s just so happy to put on his li’l fightin’ pants and show everybody.

Then we see him marching around the world with Piccolo.   The music playing over this scene is “Piccolo-san Daisuki”, sung by Gohan’s voice actress, Masako Nozawa. 

Then he suddenly flashes back to Piccolo sacrificing himself to save Gohan from Nappa.   Okay, so this movie definitely acknowledges the Saiyan Saga as a thing that happened recently, although this is really the only time it comes up.   

Chi-Chi wakes him up and gives him a snack.   She worries about him falling asleep while studying, because she’s always worried about something.

Back at Kame House, Oolong is being punished for breaking the Dragon Radar by being forced to cook dinner.   That seems like a weird punishment, since he’s not a very good cook.   Also, this once again implies that Bulma lives here all the time, and she can’t get dinner anywhere else.    So if Oolong’s already been caught screwing around with the Dragon Radar, why doesn’t he just come clean about what he saw up north?

Outside, a bunch of those Saibamen-knockoffs show up looking for Master Roshi.   They tell him that he’s been summoned by Dr. Wheelo, and Roshi’s never heard of him, so he says no.    When they won’t take “no” for an answer, he clobbers them all with ease.  So they’re not even as strong as real Saibamen.

Then Dr. Cochin reveals himself... well, it’s a pretty small island.    He would have had to have been standing there the whole time, but Roshi still acts surprised when he starts talking.   Cochin asks Roshi to come with him, and Roshi refuses again...

...Until he sees that the bootleg-Saibamen have captured Bulma, so he really has no choice.

This leaves Oolong all alone, and since he recognizes the off-model Saibamen, he knows where they took Roshi and Bulma.   So he finally heads over to Goku’s place to fess up.   At first, Goku isn’t worried, since Roshi is “the god of martial arts” an he “even won the Tenkaichi Tournament.”   So does this mean Goku finally figured out that Jackie Chun was Master Roshi in disguise?   I mean, this movie isn’t canon, so it may not matter, but I’m kind of interested if this is a gaffe or a deliberate thing.

Anyway, Oolong explains where he thinks they’ve gone, and how he knows, and that’s enough to get Goku out of the bath.

I guess Chi-Chi’s only mad at Gohan for fraternizing with Piccolo, which is weird because Gohan wasn’t even trying to find him.   He just showed up.   Goku doesn’t have much to say about this, because he’s more concerned with rescuing Bulma and Roshi.   I’m not sure why Oolong’s story escalates the crisis.   The only new information revealed here is that Roshi’s captor used the Dragon Balls recently, but maybe that’s enough.

So Goku’s off to save the day.   Gohan wants to go with him, but Chi-Chi ain’t having it.    This seems a little strict, but we’ve already seen Gohan wander off to the arctic, so I can understand why Chi-Chi has to be so hard on him.  

I mean look at this.   Goku just left, and Gohan’s already trying to sneak off.    What a little rascal this guy is.

Okay, so this is where the movie starts to get pretty bad.   I remember Team Four Star’s KaiserNeko just gushing about how good Movie 2 is, and I remember thinking: “Wow, Movie 2?   Really?”    I just don’t like it very much, and scenes like this are a big part of the reason why.    Bulma and Roshi are trapped in the villains’ lair.   It’s this huge, dark grey dome, and inside there’s... absolutely nothing?  If the lights are off, why are the characters so well-lit?   Did the background artists just call in sick that day?   

Here’s Dr. Cochin speaking to Roshi from a giant monitor.   It’s a little bit better as backgrounds go, but not much.   Everything in this fortress is grey on black on more grey, with maybe some dark blue for highlights.    Oh, and guess what Roshi and Bulma are wearing today.

Then Cochin releases three creatures to fight Roshi.  Kishime is a green guy who looks more like a henchman from the previous movie.   Misokatsun kind of looks like a fatter, yellow Dodoria, and he has a flexible body like Buyon from the Muscle Tower arc.   Ebifrya looks like he’d be more at home in Turles’ gang in Movie 3, so I guess that makes him look halfway innovative.  

The idea here is to test Roshi’s power by having him fight all three of these guys at once.

And they kick his ass.    Roshi started out okay, but once they triple-teamed him, it was all over.   This concerns Cochin and Wheelo, since they had been under the impression that Master Roshi was the strongest man in the world.   Bulma scoffs at this idea, since Roshi hasn’t been the world’s strongest in a long time.

Bulma finally recognizes Cochin and Wheelo’s names, but she read that both of them were killed fifty years ago, during a “sudden weather shift”, which buried their lab in ice and snow.   

Also, this area is called the “Tsurumai-tsuburi Mountains”, but Imma keep it real with you, chief, ain’t nobody got time to spell that.   Short version is: They two of them did get buried with their lab, but they didn’t die.  Cochin then presents Dr. Wheelo...

And he’s a brain in a life support system.  

Now, this is one of my other big gripes with this movie.    Wheelo’s nothing more than a friggin’ brain.    He’s literally part of the background art.  The only animation in scenes like this is the bubbles coming up from the fluid in his jar.  

This wouldn’t be such a big deal, except this franchise relies a lot on expressive, charismatic villains with big, over the top reaction shots.    Think about all the times we’ve seen King Piccolo or Commander Red or Vegeta flipping out or glaring at someone or smirking when things go their way.    Dr. Wheelo can’t do any of that.    I mean, that’s the point of Dr. Wheelo.   His plan is to transplant his brain into Master Roshi’s body, so of course he has to be a brain in a jar that can’t do anything.    But his limitations are exposed very quickly.   Basically, it’s up to Dr. Cochin to carry the load and express his emotions for him, except Cochin usually has the same goofy look on his face at all times.   

Also, a huge chunk of movie is spent explaining Cochin and Wheelo’s backstory, and yet there’s still a bunch of plot holes that never get addressed.    How did Wheelo’s brain get transferred to the jar?   Cochin did it, which means Cochin was trapped in the lab with him after it was buried in ice.    Okay, but when the movie starts, Cochin was seen outside of the lab, making his wish to Shenron.    So if he could escape, why couldn’t he figure out a way to take Wheelo with him?  

To be sure, it looks like Wheelo’s life support system is embedded in a wall, so maybe there’s ice locking up whatever mechanism would allow Cochin to remove him.   Fair enough, except Cochin wished for the ice to be melted, so Wheelo should be as free as a bird.   Except Cochin didn’t wish for the ice to be melted.   He wanted Wheelo “revived”.   He could have simply wished for Wheelo to be given a new body, one stronger than anyone else on the planet.  There may be a limit to what Shenron could create for Wheelo, but it’d still be a super strong body, and one limber enough to escape the lab through the same passage Dr. Cochin must have used.   

Also, Dr. Wheelo’s brain looks positively enormous.    Was he a normal human?   I guess he could have been one of those pig-men like Oolong.    We really don’t know.   Even so, if his big idea is to put his brain in someone else’s body, it sure doesn’t look like it would fit. 

I’m not alone on this.   When Team Four Star did their Abridged parody of this movie, they played off Cochin as the main villain, with Wheelo as an unwilling participant of his mad schemes.   In the end, Goku and the others used Shenron to give him a new body, and the punchline was that he looked utterly ridiculous.

Moving on, Cochin tells Bulma about a woodland near South City that was suddenly turned into a barren desert three days ago.

Turns out that Cochin and Wheelo were the ones who did that.   I’m not sure if this was before or after they got their lab thawed out, but it seems to me that if they have a weapon capable of this sort of thing, they could have found some other means to free themselves from the ice.    If they even needed freeing, since Cochin could apparently come and go as he pleased.

Wheelo apparently wants to take over the world and remake it in his own image, which is apparently hot pink deserts.    I guess if the whole planet looked like this, it would sort of resemble a giant brain, so maybe it makes sense.

Then Wheelo detects a powerful ki.   So Wheelo knows how to sense ki?   Or does he have a scouter built into his tank?   Kind of convenient either way.

Of course, it’s Goku, and Bulma had just explained to them that he’s the strongest person in the world nowadays.   So this works out for everyone involved.   Goku will either rescue Bulma and Roshi, or he can give up his body to Dr. Wheelo.

I’m confused how Wheelo can sense ki well enough to detect Goku at a distance, but he can’t tell that Goku is far-and-away more powerful than anyone else on Earth.    It’s like they didn’t put a lot of thought into this script.   This movie wastes a lot of time testing the powers of Roshi and Goku, whereas Raditz was able to figure a lot of this out without actually having to fight everybody.

Back at the house, Gohan has snuck off, and Chi-Chi is all worried about him becoming a delinquent.

Wait, is Gohan flying a plane?   By himself? 

Yes, that is exactly what he’s doing.  I mean, it sort of makes sense, because he’s already been to the arctic earlier in the movie, and I know Oolong can’t fly a plane, but Gohan’s five.   What kind of cram school does Chi-Chi have him in, anyway?

So Goku shows up and he’s cold.   Those coats they wore in the Super Broly movie?   That’s character development right there.

Wheelo sics... that big yellow monster on him, and then a bunch of giant balls with knives on them.   Why does he have all this crap to begin with?   Did he spend the last fifty years assembling death traps for a secret base no one could even enter?

Misokatsun gives Goku a little trouble, until Goku uses the Kaio-ken to rip through his elastic body, killing him.  

There’s sparky wires inside him, which suggests that he’s a cyborg or something

Then the other two gang up on him.    The green one has electric tentacles, while the big pink one has cold power.  

They actually seem to beat Goku, until Gohan shows up, followed by Krillin.   This feels a bit off to me, because Krillin hadn’t even been in the movie up to this point.   I guess the later movies pull the same trick, just sort of dumping character in without really introducing them, but here it seems kind of odd.  How did he even know what was going on?

The boys put up a good fight, but then they get overwhelmed...

So Goku resorts to the Kaio-ken  to break out of the ice and save them.   Why didn’t he just do that in the first place?

He clobbers the other two bio-warriors, or whatever you call ‘em, and the three heroes push further into Wheelo’s fortress.   Okay, so here you can actually see some stuff in the background, and it looks like the Endor playset I had as a kid, only with big red globes and laser lights.   Why did Wheelo build any of this?  

Wheelo observes them on the security cameras, I guess.   It’s weird because he seems really pleased when ever Goku beats his traps, but at the same time, he’s rooting for his henchmen to defeat Goku so he can take his body.   He even seemed to want Goku killed for this, and I feel like he would need Goku to be captured alive in order to do the transplant.  

Also, and this is an important point: Goku’s only winning here because of techniques that he knows.    A strong as he is, the bulk of his power depends on ki techniques that he had to learn, like the Kaio-ken and the Kamehameha.    If Wheelo puts his brain in Goku’s body, he won’t have access to those powers because he won’t know how to use them.

Goku finds Bulma, probably because she’s the only visible object in this pitch black room, but there’s force field that keeps him from saving her.

Bulma fills them all in on Dr. Wheelo, and Krillin wonders how he can still be alive like this.

So Cochin explains it again, and I don’t really think it’s that complicated.   Considering everything else they’ve done in this movie, keeping Wheelo’s brain alive seems self-evident.

Also, they spend a lot of time reminding us of how megalomanical they both are.   Cochin seems to worship Wheelo like a god, and he considers any action that furthers his agenda to be just and worthwhile, no matter the cost.    Wheelo wants a body, but not just any body, he wants the best one he can get.  This is an important aspect of their characters, sure, but I feel like the movie keeps harping on this point needlessly.    Of course they’re fanatics.   They’re mad scientists, after all.

Maybe that’s the trouble with this movie.   Villains like Garlic Junior require more setup, because Garlic Junior is literally some creep we’ve never seen before.   Wheelo, on the other hand, is a total cliche.    A bad guy saving his brain in a jar has been done in a bunch of movies and comics.    A villain who steals other people’s bodies is nothing new, and mad scientists who want to destroy the world are nothing new either.   It’s new for the Dragon Ball franchise, though, so maybe Toei thought it needed to be explained more than it did.    But I feel like Japanese audiences would have been familiar with all of this stuff too.  

Then they catch Goku in what I assume was the same energy beam they used to catch Piccolo.    Hey, whatever happened to Piccolo, anyway?

Oh, there he is.

Turns out Piccolo’s been mind-controlled.   When Goku breaks free of the force field thing, he has to fight Piccolo.   Only, that’s kind of a mismatch at this point.   The Saiyans Saga definitely happened in this movie’s continuity, and Goku was much, much stronger than Piccolo by the time it ended.    This is even demonstrated by how Goku overcomes the same traps that Piccolo couldn’t.

Maybe Goku’s holding back because he considers Piccolo a friend, but it seems like he ought to be able to knock him out a lot more easily than this.  

Gohan tries to reason with Piccolo, but he just fires an energy blast at him, so Goku has to deflect it with his own.    Cochin gloats that even the mighty King Piccolo has become another obedient servant of Dr. Wheelo’s.

That pisses Gohan off, and he starts to tap into the hidden rage power we’ve seen him use in the past.

Dr. Wheelo is... surprised?   Happy?   Bemused?   Greaaaat villain design, guys.

Cochin doesn’t realize what Gohan’s doing, so he taunts the boy, which only makes Gohan madder.   Wheelo orders him to stop, but Cochin doesn’t listen, which seems odd, considering how devoted Cochin is to the guy.

He even tells Gohan to go home and suck on his mommy’s teats.   Wooooowwwwwwwwwwww.

Then he shoots a big laser out of his cane.

Then the whole room starts to crack and Wheelo’s brain... glows?   What the hell is going on here?

Krillin takes away Cochin’s cane and demands that he free Bulma, but instead...

Cochin turns his arm into a gun.  Well, okay...

A bunch of the lab falls apart, but this section looks like it’s in good shape.   Piccolo’s mind-control crown shatters too, and I don’t know if that’s because of Gohan’s outburst, or Wheelo’s glowing, or maybe it just got damaged while he was fighting Goku.    Anyway, Piccolo’s pretty confused.

Then Wheelo laughs and he seems pleased that he’ll finally have a chance to fight.   Okay...

Cochin seems pretty upset about this, and as Wheelo does... something... more of the lab breaks apart, and Cochin falls down a hole.

There’s some giant column down here, and it glows bright yellow for some reason...

...and it fries Cochin when he falls too close to it.

This destroys his skin and clothes, revealing a robotic body underneath.   So was he always a robot, or did he put his brain in a robot body?   This movie makes no friggin’ sense.   This is probably the only truly interesting thing about Dr. Cochin, and they kill him off before they can even do anything with it.

Finally Dr. Wheelo reveals that his life support tank is part of a big robot that he can move around in.   So why was it embedded in the wall, then?   Was he stuck?   Did Gohan’s outburst damage the lab enough to release him?    Did Wheelo do this himself and he just didn’t need to do it before?  

Also, woof.    The robot design is pretty good, except it’s color scheme is just black with dark green highlights.   It never feels like we get a good look at this thing, because it’s always in shadow.

I mean, here’s a slightly better view, but ugh.

This wouldn’t be so bad, except the backgrounds are just as dark as Wheelo’s robot body, so you can barely see what he’s doing most of the time.   This shot is okay, but he’s standing still.   

Anyway, he says that if he has Goku’s body, he wouldn’t need this “ugly” one.   So is that what this is all about?    Does he just want to look handsomer?   Because if he thinks Goku is stronger than the body he has right now, then picking a fight with him is a pretty stupid idea.

Piccolo swears to avenge himself, and Wheelo is... angry?   Worried?   Tired?   This guy absolutely sucks.

Roshi, Krillin, and Goku try a triple-Kamehameha on Wheelo, but it doesn’t work.    Hey, good luck figuring out what Wheelo is doing in this shot.

Wheelo uses... some part of his body to hit Master Roshi.   Have I mentioned what a stupid idea it was to have Roshi wear all black for this movie?

Then Dr. Wheelo does...uhhhhh... Yeah, fuck this.   You’re on your own, kids.   

Gohan tries some stunt that involves the Nyoibo, and he reveals that he’s had the Nyoibo stowed under his cape the whole time, but he misses.  

So Goku picks it up and Piccolo saves Gohan.  

Fuck this movie.

Fuck this movie.

Oh, good, Piccolo shot his energy blasts at a piece of asphalt, no wait, that’s Dr. Wheelo.

Ugh...

Finally Goku stops horsing around.   I forgot the exact sequence of events, but he used the Nyoibo to trip Wheelo, probably setting him up for Piccolo to bombard him, and now he’s gonna use Kaio-ken Times Three, like he did against Vegeta.   

In the Big Green Dub, this sequence was hilariously dubbed with the lines “I WANT THE MAGIC STICK!” followed by “NOW I WANT TOTAL POWERRRRRR!”

This shot of Goku’s foot looks cooler than every frame of Dr. Wheelo in this rassum-frassum movie.

Goku charges heroically at... Is that Dr. Wheelo, or a section of the wall?

At some point he manages to tear off one of Wheelo’s lobster claws, but that’s about the only sign of damage I can pick out. 

Then he goes for a Kamehameha to finish the bastard off.

Wheelo counters with his own blast, and for a second he seems to have the upper hand until...

... Goku uses Kaio-ken times four, which jacks up his Kamehameha to the point where it blasts Wheelo into the sky.  

Krillin congratulates Goku for beating him, but Goku says it’s still not over.   “Don’t you remember the Vegeta fight, Krillin?   We’re taking cues from that, remember?   He’ll try that fake moon thing next, and you’ll need to get Yajirobe to cut off his tail.”

Wheelo decides to just blow up the whole planet, I guess using the same super-weapon Cochin was talking about earlier.    I thought he wanted to rule the world, not blow it up, but maybe he figures it’s not worth it if he can’t beat Goku.

So his big power core thing starts glowing again.    Why doesn’t Goku just blow that thing up?  

Instead, he starts setting up a Spirit Bomb, because that’s what he did against Vegeta.

Wheelo is... confused, I guess.  How does he know what Goku’s doing from the ground?

This is one of the better shots of Wheelo, and he still looks terrible.   He’s not even indoors, and Toei still insisted on the murkiest color scheme possible.

One of the artists took pity on me and snuck in this really nice sunset for me.   Toei probably fired him for it.    “This frame is completely unacceptable!   Now the audience knows where the sun is!  You’ve sucked all the mystery out of this film!”

Goku tries to first his Spirit Bomb....

But Wheelo shoots at him first.    He misses by like, several hundred yards, but this is enough to make Goku hold off anyway.  

So Piccolo, Gohan, and Krilln fly up to keep Wheelo busy so Goku can ready his attack.    They get a few decent hits in, except Krillin for some reason.

“Oh, crap!” Krillin says, “I’m in the movie ‘The World’s Strongest!’“

Finally Goku has the Spirit Bomb ready to launch.   This is kind of a big deal, because we never really got to see the technique executed as intended during the Vegeta battle, because Goku got hurt and had to hand off the power to Krillin.  So this movie is notable for showing what might have been.

It deflects Wheelo’s red death laser...

And as it passes by, Gohan and the others can sene the combined energy of all the people in the world.   I like that cocky dude in the cowboy hat.   He has no idea that Goku borrowed a bit of his energy to beat Wheelo, but he’s still confident that it’ll help kick his ass.    Also, the Black lady to the right of him may be the best rendition of a Black person in all of Dragon Ball.   I wish it wasn’t so obscure.   

I was thinking about how the Red Ribbon Army had an officer named Brown, and we never got to see that character, and I tried to imagine what Brown should look like.    I never got very far, but I thought it’d be cool if they had another lady in the RRA, and that lady looks pretty much like what I had in mind.   Haven’t settled on a rank or uniform yet.   She’s a work in progress.

Anyway, the Spirit Bomb hits Wheelo and he finally dies.    “Son Goku!” he shouts.    Remember the face Vegeta made when Goku blew him up with the Spirit Bomb?   Yeah, Wheelo can’t do that.   Good riddance.

For some reason the lab explodes too?   Well, at least it’s not all black and grey, so good.

Everyone’s pretty happy about this victory.    You’d think they’d all be freezing right now, but no one in the anime industry knows how ice works.

Goku spots Piccolo walking away, and thanks him for his help.   Piccolo just says Gohan did a good job, and Gohan’s all “He knows my name!”

The narrator threatens that a new Dr. Wheelo might show up some day, and gosh I really hope not.   At least give his robot suit a flashier paintjob.

Roshi gives Wheelo some credit.   He did say Roshi was the greatest in the world.

And Bulma’s like, “Yeah, the greatest lecher, amirite?”

Then they all laugh, and it’s a little disconcerting.   It wasn’t that funny, guys.

Bulma’s like “No, seriously, Master Roshi belongs in jail.”

And that’s the end.    Thank goodness.

I’m sorry if this was your favorite DBZ movie and I was a little too rough on it, but man, I just don’t care for this one.   The plot just doesn’t make sense, the final battle shamlessly rips off stuff from the Goku/Vegeta battle, and the main villain is barely visible for most of the action.   Wheelo and Cochin don’t add much to the lore of DBZ either.   With Garlic Junior, you got a peek into Kami’s backstory, and Turles offered a hint into what other Saiyan survivors might have been up to after Planet Vegeta was destroyed.   Wheelo’s just as mad scientist from fifty years ago who got snowed in one day.    He has all thes extremely powerful weapons at his disposal, but he blows them all on a mad scheme to beat Goku, specifically because Goku is strong enough to overpower him.    It’s one thing for the baddie to underestimate the hero, but Wheelo wants Goku to be stronger, and then he fights him anyway.

Now, to be fair, it’s got a few good things going for it.   The idea of a mad scientist giving Goku this much trouble is a good one.   At lot of Wheelo’s methods ended up being employed by Dr. Gero a few years later.   So if nothing else, Wheelo serves as a good proof-of-concept for the Androids arc.

There’s also something to be said for the villain’s goal being to exploit Goku personally.    Usually the bad guys don’t even know about Goku, or they only hate Goku and want him dead.   Wheelo sees Goku as raw material for his evil plans.  This didn’t get developed much, but it’s a smart idea.   I kind of wish Wheelo had put his brain in someone else’s body, just to demonstrate that it was possible.   Like, even if he was stuck in Bulma’s body, that’d still be a big improvement over staring at a brain in a jar.    Goku could still fight a giant robot, but at least Wheelo would have a face and hands to act with.

I also dig the idea of opening the movie with the bad guy making a wish.   Cochin’s wish seems kind of pointless in hindsight, but at the very least, he took the Dragon Balls off the board for the rest of the movie.    This way, no one else could make a wish.

This is a pretty action-heavy movie, so if you’re willing to forgive the drawbacks I mentioned earlier, you can at least enjoy all the fights.    Personally, I’d prefer one really good long fight over several smaller, less decisive ones, but diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks. 

There’s a lot of really pretty visuals in this movie.   They’re sort of ancilliary to the main story, and I’m not sure they’re necessarily better than those found in any of the other movies, but they’re worthy of recognition.    I’ll ust post a few down here to close us out with some positivity.