#i also watched a real BUMMER movie today and needed to watch some animated movies and draw smth cute

[buttfrovski]

another one cuz this au is too cute

[hatterstan-shameblog]

Here is the first one

Second :D

And last..he's looking at you 👀💦

ALRIGHT you know WHAT—

There’s…a lot going on here. So much so, that I have decided to create

CONTEXT

for these three images that is

COMPLETELY FAKE

because I think it’ll be a fun writing exercise. kind of a cringe move on my part, but consider: i have fun making up ridiculous lies about characters who don’t exist in real life.

(which is how I’m treating these, by the way. yes, they are pictures of kaneko nobuaki, but for my purposes, they are NOT actually him. they are distinct fictional characters who are not real.)

so if you’re feeling adventurous skip below the cut and watch me break it down:

Image 1: Accidental “Date” Makes Cousin’s Wedding Less Terrible Than Originally Expected

The year is 1999. Your cousin (who you are not particularly close to) is getting married…on a cruise ship. Your mother insists you attend. You insist upon spending 90% of your time sipping margaritas on the deck and flipping through the latest issue of Marie Claire while trying desperately not to think about the fact that you are surrounded by nothing but open ocean.

One of the (very drunk) bridesmaids tries to toss you a beach ball because you have been, and I quote: like, a total bummer this whole time. She misses. It hits the person next to you in the face. Great. Awesome. You think: well now who’s being, like, a total bummer?

Luckily the person who got hit in the face laughs the entire thing off. He says your friends seem…’lively.’ You say that’s pretty rich coming from a guy who looks like a rejected member of ‘The Clash.’ He insists that he left them, not the other way around.

You slip into conversation. You tell him that you’re here for a wedding. He offers his condolences. You accept them. He says he actually likes weddings—something about two people making a life-changing commitment speaks to him on a soul-level. That and the open bar, of course.

You suggest he crash the wedding. He says he’s not sure if he can make it—there’s a shuffleboard tournament that evening that he would just hate to miss, plus the latest issue of Soap Opera Digest is waiting on his bedside table just begging to be opened. You say that’s perfectly understandable, but, if he suddenly finds himself caught up on the latest All My Children gossip, he can meet you back here at four.

Surprise, surprise: he shows up. He’s wearing the same shirt he was before, but buttoned up this time—and with one of the most hideous neckties you’ve ever seen, which he apparently borrowed from the kind old man next door. Instead of complimenting his attire (because it is truly un-compliment-able), you take the opportunity to mention that this is a Titanic-themed wedding. He says that having a Titanic-themed wedding on a cruise ship is “kind of fucked up” and you solemnly agree.

Everyone is very surprised and pleased to see that you’ve brought a date—even the bride, who tells you that you’re “just like Jack and Rose.” You agree, much to her delight…until you say that, if the ship goes down, you also won’t share the door and let him freeze to death in the icy water. He insists he’d be the guy who jumps off the ship and hits his leg on the propellor—that’s his favorite part of the whole movie, and it’d be an honor to re-enact the scene.

The wedding is…a wedding. Vows, toasts, pictures—and you’re sipping champagne through the entire thing. The two of you spend the evening getting completely wasted and telling everyone a different story about just who your ‘mystery date’ is. Highlights include: the captain’s unruly son whose been tasked with following in his father’s sea-faring footsteps; professional cave-diver who discovered a new species of slug and is spending his reward money on a nice vacation; head of marketing who gives all those clever names to the nail polishes at OPI; the guy who folds everyone’s towels into animal shapes.

You end up where you started: on neighboring lounge chairs, with a margarita, and talking to this stranger who has recently crossed into “acquaintance” territory. You chat about how “My Heart Will Go On” is actually a good song, and he promises not to tell anyone that you said that. He also says that this is the best Titanic-themed cruise ship wedding he’s ever been to, and he can’t wait until somebody decides to do Jaws.

Eventually, you both stagger back to your rooms with promises of seeing each other at breakfast. Unfortunately, you have the worst hangover of your life the next morning and even the thought of ‘breakfast’ makes you want to roll over and die, so you don’t manage to stumble out of bed until it’s time to disembark.

You see him at port, and you each offer each other a little wave before going your separate ways. Six weeks later, you get a Polaroid of the two of you together, sitting at the bar and laughing at something that must have been very, very hilarious.

You don’t remember most of what happened that night, but you remember it was not as terrible as it could have been.

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Image 2: Extremely Weird Guy On The Street Has You Questioning Your Sanity

It’s 6:00 in the morning—a truly terrible time to be awake, but a necessary evil. Your flight leaves at 10, and since it’s an international thing, you want to make sure you get there in plenty of time to get to your gate (and maybe sample all the fancy perfumes you can’t afford at one of those high-end stores that are always in airports.)

The streets are mostly empty, save for a few random pedestrians and a handful of passed-out salarymen snoozing on the curb. The sky a rainy gray-blue as the sun tries to rise behind the springtime cloud cover—it’s no doubt going to be another dismal day, as is common during this time of year. Hopefully there’s not too much turbulence on your flight…

You stop at a crosswalk, waiting for the little walking man signal to show up on the light across the way. You’re soon joined by another person—a man in a soft-looking jacket who supplies you with a small “good morning” bob of his head. You respond in kind, throwing in a small smile for good measure. It’s nice that he too understands that it’s entirely too early to be having any kind of conversation, even if it is just a simple verbal greeting between strangers on a street corner.

The light changes, and you both begin your trek across the street. Your fellow walker is faster than you—or, more likely, has longer legs and, ergo, a longer stride than your own—and is nearly halfway across by the time you get your wheeled suitcase over the curb. He seems decent enough. You hope he’s going somewhere nice.

It’s then that you make the mistake of looking up. It would have been much better if you had just continued watching the white painted lines on the road and thinking about how it reminds you of piano keys—and how you hated the six months of piano lessons your parents forced you to take in the first grade.

But no. You noticed someone walking towards you, and you just had to look up.

The first thing you notice is a rainbow tie-dye shirt. The second thing you notice is that the rainbow tie-dye shirt is on a very cheerful looking gentleman, who seemed to be bobbing his head in time with a song only he could hear.

The third thing you notice—and this one’s the real kicker—is the large blue-and-green reptile sitting on his shoulder. It’s bulging eyes are hooded in pleasure as it’s red-pink tongue darts out to eat the green something—maybe a grape or a small piece of melon?—from the rainbow tie-dye man’s hand. It is nothing short of a spectacle, honestly, and you feel a piece of your sanity evaporate.

The rainbow tie-dye man continues on, uncaring of your confused stare at his strange pet. You even turn around to make sure that you weren’t somehow hallucinating, and sure enough, there is definitely some kind of creature draped over this stranger’s shoulder. It’s tail even sways in time with the man’s steps, which is both cute and confusing.

Because it would not do to stand in the middle of the street all day, considering the existence of rainbow tie-dye man and his exotic pet, you do the only thing you can do: turn back around and continue on your journey. You need a coffee. Maybe with an extra shot of espresso, after witnessing whatever the hell that was. Something to set you right again.

“Was that…?”

The other man—the soft-coat long-stride one—is speaking low enough as to not draw attention, but loud enough for you to hear as you make your way towards the sidewalk. His expression reads ‘concerned, but trying not to show it’ which you suppose is the polite and mature way of handling the situation.

“…an iguana? Yeah,” you answer him, “I saw it too.”

The man’s brow furrows. His mouth puckers into a small frown as he considers…well, something.

“…Okay, then,” he concludes, shrugging his shoulders, “Hell of a way to start the day.”

“Yeah.”

And you both continue on your way. He turns left at the next intersection, you turn right—but even though your paths may now be different, you will forever share an unbreakable bond over the fantastical sight you’ve witnessed today.

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Image 3: Near Death Experience At Open Mic Night

You are not a poet.

Well, not professionally, anyways. You’ve been known to dabble in the written word, often scribbling little snippets of rhyme in a notebook over your lunch break or tapping a verse or two into the notes app on your phone. It a kind of outlet, you suppose—a way to keep the creative energy that bubbles inside of you from boiling over.

It’s also worth mentioning that you are not a confident public speaker. Not since that unfortunate incident in the third grade where you forgot the single line you had in the school play and ran off stage, tears streaming down your face and—actually, no, you’re not going to think about that right now. Or ever again, hopefully.

So when your (tipsy) coworkers decide that it’s a good idea to push you onto the stage at the local dive bar’s open mic night—while shouting at you to “read the one about the night-blooming jasmine”—you freeze up. There are at least seven strangers staring at you, expectation rising with every passing second of your inaction. It’s nerve-wracking in the way that the third-grade incident was not, and you gulp against the nervousness that rises in your throat.

Shaking hands scroll frantically through your phone, looking for the requested poem—and after a few agonizing moments, you manage to find it. Your voice cracks rather embarrassingly as you begin to read, trying your damndest to get the words out right so you can slink back to the bar and drown the rest of the night in Chardonnay.

Everything is going well—or, at least, as well as can be expected—until you notice that the room is suddenly feeling very hot. That’s the last coherent thought you have before the room goes dark and everything falls silent.

Next thing you know, you’re staring at the ceiling. A man who you do not know is leaning over you, and his mouth is moving—oh, he’s probably trying to say something to you, but it’s very difficult to tell what he’s saying over the throbbing pain in the back of your head.

You ask him if you’re dead. It’s a possibility after all, that you’ve somehow died and landed yourself in some kind of special public-speaking hell. That’s what this feels like, anyways.

The man says no, you are not dead. You say ‘dammit’ in response. He tries to hold back laughter, offering to help you up by extending his hand. You take it and—ouch, ugh, ew, going from laying to standing is not a fun experience.

You thank him (albeit awkwardly) for helping you up, and he insists that ‘it’s cool.’ Passing out in front of an audience is not even remotely cool, but you nod and thank him again, anyways.

Before you’re able to converse with the helpful stranger any further, your coworkers have come to collect you. You are whisked away by someone from accounting, who offers to escort you home—an offer you gladly accept, very excited to leave the site of your failure behind you.

Safe to say, you never go back to that particular bar again.

[blackbatpurplecat]

Catwoman 80th Anniversary

In 1940, one of the now most popular comic book heroes of all time got his very first solo run. It would become a milestone in comic book history. But he wasn’t the only one who had a chance to shine. In that premiere issue, even TWO of his most famous antagonists would be introduced: The man who laughs and the woman who steals.

That woman was intended to become the love of the hero’s life. The good guy and the naughty girl, the appeal was palpable. However, she wasn’t just a love interest or a generic thief or only another villain in the ever growing gallery of rogues the hero would face over decades to come, no - she was quite the character.

Her first alias was “The Cat” which would ultimately become Catwoman. Selina Kyle, the best thief in the world, a literal cat burglar, a classy seductress and queen of sass. And fans loved her so much that over time, she grew to become just as famous as the hero.

Her story has had its ups and downs. Mostly ups. ;) Going from the pages of the comics to the little and the big screen in the 60s, then she disappeared for a while, then made a comeback. She married the hero and had a child, though that marriage was later rebooted and was followed by a depressing origin story a sexist author made up for her in the 80s.

The 90s then turned out to be her decade! She found herself on the TV screen again, animated this time. She was portrayed by a Golden Globe winner on the big screen again. And she finally got her very own solo run in comics.

Her solo title was successful enough to run for over 20 years, a time in which her development from antagonist to anti-heroine would pan out. She would be a member of several teams, dance on both sides of the law, and even have another child. The screen called her back in form of a movie and a tv show. In one she was a thief with a love for killing, in the other a teenager. And we already know that her movie career will soon continue with two more projects.

In 2016, DC rebooted their entire universe. Catwoman’s origin story was changed, her relationships were lost, her solo run got canceled. No one knew what was real anymore - and fans didn’t like it. Only a year later, a retcon followed in a pathetic attempt to restore a status quo fans were familiar with and approved of. Even her solo run came back and today, in June 2020, we celebrate her 80th anniversary!

Catwoman is my favorite DC character ever. She’s clever, she’s funny, she’s stubborn, she’s classy, she’s confident, she plays by her own rules. When written right, she is such an entertaining character, unpredictable and fun.

In 80 years, there have been countless appearances, so many incarnations and interpretations of her - sure, I didn’t like all of them but you can say there’s something for each one of us. You don’t like her in the 2010s? Check out the 90s. You don’t like her in the 40s? Check out the 80s. There’s a version of Catwoman for many different tastes. She never goes out of fashion.

So to celebrate one of DC’s most famous women, they published a collection of 10 stories in total, written and drawn by people who have had touched her character over the past years.

Did Catwoman 80th Anniversary - Celebrating Eight Decades of Beauty and Burglary do her justice?

Warning: Spoilers!

Let’s check out each story and see what the writers came up with for this very special occasion. Except for one, none of these are meant to be canon, it’s just a collection of shorts meant to emphasise why Catwoman is so good. Something I noticed was that each writer had not picked any Catwoman to write but “their” Catwoman. A nice detail. Consistency, why not? Write what you feel comfortable and familiar with. This can only help with the quality of the stories, right? ... Right? ...

Strap in folks, this is going to be a LOOOOONG post!

Story #1: Skin the Cat by Paul Dini

Selina’s just living her normal life with her cats, occasionally stealing some money and jewels. Hey, a girl’s gotta eat. ;) What catches her attention are news reports about stolen big cats. I’m a cat lover myself and this series of crimes would worry me just as much as it worries Selina. She deduces where in Gotham someone could hide those wild cats, breaks in, and is welcomed by an eerie voice - as well as the taxidermied cats. Fucking bastard... The villain Taxidermist, quelle surprise, is behind the cat murders. He now intends to gas Selina and add her to his cat collection but Selina reveals that she’d already turned off the gas before breaking in. She escapes his long knives and watches as three big cats she had brought with her attack and kill him.

What an intro! A story about Selina’s love for cats and her strategic thinking. I really liked the first half! But once the Taxidermist shows up, it loses itself in drawn out exposition. Selina goes on a long monologue to explain to the reader who the Taxidermist is, how she knew it was him, how she turned off the gas, and how she replaced three of the dead cats with alive ones. I would have preferred to actually SEE her preparations for the face-off in flashback panels instead of having to read it. It didn’t feel natural at all. Also how the fuck did she bring 3 wild cats and switch them for the stuffed ones?! How?! And when?! I’m also quite sad that she didn’t get to save the cats. That was a bummer. So all she basically did was bring 3 big cats to kill a killer.

The art’s gorgeous, nothing else to say here!

6/10

Story #2: Now You See Me by Ann Nocenti

Ann Nocenti’s name immediately made me go uh-oh... Her bad and convoluted writing style made readers drop the Catwoman books which eventually lead to the solo run’s cancelation so you can understand why I was concerned.

So Catwoman is hiding a little pouch in a pigeon loft on a roof while pondering who to sell her stolen goods to - as well as where to vacation afterwards. She then notices a surveillance camera. The scene cuts to two cops on surveillance duty. They’re both bored as hell so when one spots Selina, he quickly distracts his colleague and leaves to find her. He takes the pouch out of the pigeon loft and a fight between him and Catwoman ensues. He reveals that he wants to become her partner. He wants to feed her any intel he can see on his screens so she could steal and sells some goods, and they’d split the money. When Selina refuses, he tries to blackmail her into complying. Selina presses a button on a little device and whatever’s in the pouch the cop sacked, explodes, sending him over the edge. Luckily, he lands on an umbrella Penguin had sent off apparently because we see him in one panel, angered that his plan was foiled. I’m not entirely sure what his “brilliant plan” was supposed to be. Something with gas tanks that were strapped to the umbrella I assume? I have no idea.

This one is missing too much context for my taste. What was in the pouch? Did the explosion kill the guy? What was Penguin doing there? What was his plan? Why did we need the second cop? For a super obvious but unnecessary parallel between Catwoman vs. corrupt cop and random woman vs. random man on one of the surveillance screens? Why give Catwoman so little “screen time” and so little dialogue? Is this short story referencing anything from Nocenti’s awful run and I just forgot? To quote Val Kilmer Batman: “It just raises too many questions.”

The art’s okay, nothing too special.

3/10

Story #3: Helena by Tom King

Oh boy. This is the big one. The one everyone’s been waiting for, I guess. The man who not so long ago had promised us a BatCat wedding just to shove a huge middle finger in our faces, promised us a pregnant Selina this time. I was skeptical of course. Also other readers were convinced he’d just let Selina have a miscarriage. Well, the good news is it wasn’t a miscarriage. The bad news is he almost makes Selina seem like she would have preferred a miscarriage.

The story goes like this: Selina hasn’t been feeling well so instead of going to a doctor like a normal person, Bruce scans her head and checks her vitals and blood (I can only assume because we’re not shown). Selina’s convinced that she’s seriously ill but a gentle, hopeful smile on Bruce’s face reveals the actual truth: She is pregnant. And her first reaction is shock and denial. We cut to BatCat fighting Tweedledum and Tweedledee (I think, you can’t really see them but the two men they knock out look identical). Selina then bends over and says that she’s about to throw up. Followed by a Batbucket joke. I’m getting so tired of all the forced self-awareness, guys. We cut to Catwoman, now sporting a baby bump underneath the skin-tight leather, sitting on a roof. She prepares a glass of wine while telling the baby that it is just like Bruce and it’s such a dick for taking away her freedom. After one sip, she chucks the glass away and curses. We’re then treated to a montage of BatCat fighting several rogues while Selina’s belly grows with each panel until it’s an 8, maybe 9 months along belly. I... I have no words. Except for yes, this was written by a man. BatCat are then standing on a roof and Selina laments that she’s a thief, not a mother, and the baby will derail her life and plans. The scene switches to Bruce and Selina in bed, arguing because she’s in labor. Bruce is ready to roll while Selina is STILL in denial, crying that she’s not a mother, that she’s not a hero or a good and brave person like him. Bruce tells her she didn’t run off so that means she’s a good person and they agree that it’s time to have the baby. Another cut to Selina having to take care of a crying baby Helena, asking why she’s crying when it’s Selina’s turn to stay at home and not Bruce’s. Selina talks to Helena, saying she’s luckier than Selina was because Selina’s mom ran off. She fucking FINALLY says something nice about her own child (”You’re a cute little kitten.”) and wonders what they’re going to do with her. The last page is old Selina and grownup Helena after Bruce’s death. Selina’s complaining about the pretty cemetery while Helena likes it. Her daughter’s ability to not shit on just everything and not be a total killjoy all the time causes Selina to say again that Helena is like Bruce. Upon Helena’s question if she’s anything like her mother, Selina answers that she’s just as stubborn as her. If she wants something, she steals it. Helena asks what she ever stole and Selina delivers the last predictable cliche of the story: “You stole my heart.”

Ugh. King’s Selina is just such a boring read. She’s not charming or interesting or sympathetic. Maybe I’m too used to a fun Selina but this one’s just a drag. A heavily pregnant Catwoman fighting Joker, yeah sure, totally not absolute bullshit. And the way Selina keeps distancing herself from the child inside her? For over 9 months?! Is she going out in that ridiculous catsuit because she wants to cause a miscarriage, is that it? So she doesn’t have to make a decision like abortion, adoption or leaving the baby with Bruce? Her constant cussing over the situation and crying and whining turns the pregnancy of my favorite DC couple into such a depressing ordeal.

The art is very pretty! Thank God.

4/10

Story #4: The Catwoman of Earth by Jeff Parker

After the depressing pregnancy of Catwoman, we switch to the wacky 60s version of her. Catwoman and her henchmen are robbing a science fair when suddenly, a UFO arrives. WTF?! Four aliens and a robot are beamed down to the surface and the group’s leader, an arrogant jock-like guy proclaims that they will take over the planet and enslave humanity. Catwoman angrily stands up to him. Turns out the evil aliens are sexist too when the male one tells Catwoman females have to ask for permission to speak and the female alien in the group unhappily agrees. The jock alien tells the muscly male alien to dispose of Catwoman but she’s not easy to dispose of! She fights off the brawler, she cuts the tentacles off the tentacle alien (someone WILL jerk off to that one panel), dodges the jock’s laser gun, steals the laser gun with her whip, shoots the robot to bits, and lets the police take the males away. The female alien seems much happier now and invites Catwoman to a flight around the world in the UFO. Catwoman suggests a trip to Paris so she can loot the Louvre.

Aliens and Catwoman don’t mix. I didn’t really care for this story. I mean it’s great to see Catwoman in action and taking down four guys on her own but... aliens and Catwoman just don’t mix. It was a bit jarring to me. Also the aliens’ designs weren’t super interesting. They were basically pink elves.

The art is beautiful. Catwoman looks like Julie Newmar and the entire color scheme is very 60s.

4/10

Story #5: A Cat of Nine Tales by Liam Sharp

Catwoman’s caught stealing a diamond necklace by an armed security guard. He seems a bit scared of her but knows it’s his job to stop her. She’s not engaging in a fight - of course not, he has a gun pointed at her! So instead, Catwoman relies on her talking skills. And intimidation skills. She tells the guard that there are 9 ways their situation could play out: 1. The guard lets her tie him up and escape with the necklace. 2. She beats his ass. 3. He kills her. 4. She scratches his eyes out. 5. He slips and gets knocked out. 6. He fires his gun, misses her, and the bullet ricochets until it kills him.  7. They team up. 8. She gives up. 9. She kills him. However, the story ends with the guard fainting because Catwoman’s just so damn scary.

Very short, very simple. Even the art is simple, on one page there are 3 very similar panels with only minor changes. Nothing memorable but not too bad. It shows how Catwoman can take someone out even without touching them. It’s okay.

The art reminds me of a comic from the 80s or maybe 90s. Hard to describe why. Guess you have to see it. Again, it’s okay.

5/10

Story #6: Little Bird by Mindy Newell

Selina learns from a news report that a priceless mezuzah has been found at a flea market. It’s currently at the Jewish Museum of Gotham City and Selina immediately steals it. Later, Batman shows up at her place and asks why she wants the mezuzah. She doesn’t give him much of an answer so he leaves. Pretty pointless scene I would say. A flashback reveals that a young Selina used to live with a Jewish lady. I dunno, I guess she’s a foster mother? And the woman liked Selina so much and considered her family so she gave her that mezuzah to pass it on to her own kids one day (even though Selina doesn’t want kids, is not related to the lady, and isn’t Jewish). Back to the present, Selina’s punishing a client. That prostitute background made an unwanted comeback for this story because Selina’s resisting and denying herself love so she’s “whoring”, to prove to herself how despicable she is. Okay...? There’s an inner turmoil going on, she’s torn between selling the artefact or not. Eventually, she decides to bring the mezuzah back to the lady she used to live with. The lady’s grown old and demented, lives in a home and is at the verge of dying. Selina places an envelop between the lady’s hands and leaves. The home’s director finds the envelop which contains the mezuzah, an official document which basically ensures that the lady will be taken care of before and after her death, and a poetic note from Selina.

My least favorite story out of them all - and that is quite an accomplishment when there are King and Nocenti in the same book! It had that Frank “I’m an insane sexist racist asshole” Miller prostitute bullshit in it and Selina hating herself again. This time, the “whoring” (and this word is not me, it’s from the actual story) is used as a way of self-punishment. Because it’s disgusting and wrong and Selina only does it to torture herself. Dunno if that’s the right message you wanna send here... The Jewish lady was kinda random to me because Selina’s not Jewish and never has been Jewish. This is not a negative point, it’s just so random. And the Batman scene was pointless, I have no idea what purpose it served. Except for showing us Batman pay Selina like a john and having Selina make jokes about “whoring.” Ugh.

The art was great, very clean.

1/10

Story #7: Born to Kiln by Chuck Dixon

Going from my least favorite to my favorite story in this book!

Catwoman knows there’s a diamond in a safe on a boat that is set to leave the harbour in the morning. So she climbs aboard at night to steal the gem. She finds several dead sailors and they’re all covered in mud. Who could have done this? Yes, you guessed right - it’s Clayface! He’s already at the safe, opens it, and retrieves the big stone. Catwoman reveals herself and aims a fire hose at him. Her confidence, however, dies the moment the hose doesn’t work. Clayface swallows the diamond and starts chasing after her. There’s apparently a machine to spray-paint cars on the boat so she lures him inside, activates the paint to blind him, and the hot lamps for the drying process immobilise the big pile of mud. Now that he’s nothing more than hard clay, Catwoman takes a wrench to him and takes the freed diamond.

FINALLY a story I really, really like from beginning to end! First off, IT’S PURPLE CATWOMAN!!! Selina is wearing my favorite costume, the iconic Jim Balent suit from her 90s solo run in this story - and I LOVE IT!!! Yeah, her boobs are quite loose in it and sometimes dangle in strange ways but fuck it! LOL I prefer hanging boobs over a tight corset that should reduce her agility or a back breaking pose anytime! We get sneaky Selina, we get playful Selina, we get over confident Selina who has to think fast and run even faster, and she gets what she wants in the end without killing anyone.

The art is gorgeous! It’s very fluid and alive. I also absolutely adore the cute facial expressions on Kitten’s face, especially when she locks Clayface in. I miss Catwoman being fun. In this, she’s just adorable and not sexualised at all.

8/10

Story #8: Conventional Wisdom by Will Pfeifer

Selina finds herself at a Bat Con and is supposed to give autographs. The whole scenario seems weird and confusing to her, she doesn’t remember how she got there or what is going on. Bruce, Joker, Riddler, and Two-Face being there with her to give autographs is even weirder. And why does no one except for her react to that unconscious, bloody man on the floor?! On her way to her panel, she runs into several cosplayers which is basically only fan service. But you will find the male, dark-skinned version of me at her panel, asking when the fuck she will finally put that 90s suit back on!!! The dialogues keep breaking the fourth wall, pointing out that this story is about to end. One of the panel’s attendees looks like Marvel’s Taskmaster and another is Selina herself in her Catwoman suit. Selina slowly remembers what happened: The Taskmaster dude is Doctor Destiny, she broke into his lair and stole his reality distorter, a little machine she’s been carrying around for the entire story. She smashes the machine to wake up back in the lair and cracks her knuckles, ready to take down Doctor Destiny and his goons.

And it was all a dream! That twist has never been a favorite of mine. Even though it’s not really a twist; you know immediately that it’s a dream. We don’t learn anything new about Selina or see anything Catwoman-y in this. It’s really basically fan service. They wanted Selina to see and interact with real life fans of hers so they made it happen. She also comments on various versions of her costume. It’s cute but kinda forgettable.

The art is good, it’s rare to see light and bright colors in a Catwoman book so it was a nice change. And the cosplayers looked nice. But they could have used different body types to make the fans more diverse and visually appealing.

3/10

Story #9: Addicted to Trouble by Ram V

And here we are, the premiere of the duo that will take over Catwoman’s current solo run from #23 onward. We get a first taste of the writing and art and I must say it’s a good taste.

This short story serves as a continuation of Joelle Jones’ #21 issue where at the end of the arc, Selina and her sister Maggie left Gotham in a purple car. So we see a short recap of how they got the car and where they were headed but unfortunately, the engine dies. They hitchhike to Memphis. Selina’s frustrated that Maggie doesn’t talk to her. They get drunk and start a fight at a bar. The cops show up and arrest them. While sitting in the back of the cop car, the girls start laughing together and steal the car. They leave behind their luggage which only contains stuff they won’t miss - including Selina’s cat funeral dress. They drive back to Gotham, Selina steals food and drinks on the way, and they cuddle on a rooftop overlooking the city. The story cuts to Selina and Leandro, a character I would know if I had continued the Jones run. She tells him she wants to lay low for a while and stay out of trouble. When he asks “Oh? Really?”, Selina throws a naughty smile towards the reader. Yeah yeah, lay low my ass. :D

First off, I have no idea what happened before the road trip, I don’t know why they took it or why Maggie doesn’t talk or what the purpose of all of this was because all they do is get drunk, fight an entire bar, and go back. No idea what that accomplished. And I feel sorry for the car because it was so gorgeous. Anyway, I am happy to say that Ram V has a great writing style! He gave a good voice to Selina, it sounded very natural and like a human would talk, no forced exposition or fake deepness.

The art was good, there were a few expressive faces and the bar fight was well executed.

5/10 (because I don’t know the context)

Story #10: The Art of Picking A Lock by Ed Brubaker

Instead of ending with a transition to the next Catwoman issue (which I would have preferred), the collection offers one more story and it’s written by the man who successfully handled the second half of Selina’s first solo run. He turned her stories more into the film noir direction and gave her sidekicks. The run also gave her a fugly suit and made her have sex with old men and Brubaker wanted to kill her off and have her not know who the father to her unborn child was so... yeah, I’m torn about that guy.

The last story shows us Catwoman breaking into a warehouse full of Joker goons while thinking about the thrill of breaking locks and how she learned how to do it when she was at a juvenile detention center. She beats them all up and demands to know where “he” is. Later, her friend Holly is on a motorcycle chasing after a cab while Catwoman is riding on top of a subway. Both reach Gotham’s harbor. We see that the cab is filled with Joker gas and the driver is laughing maniacally. Holly can’t reach the cab in time and it drives off into the water. Catwoman swings down and jumps after it. She breaks the trunk open and reveals a handcuffed Slam Bradley. Cut to the three back on dry land. Holly chides him for going after Joker alone and not waiting for backup. He admits that it was dumb, then shares intel on where Joker will strike and Selina should tell “her friend.” She says she will and Slam ends the book with the words that he could really use a cigarette. NO, this book was not that good that it would warrant a cigarette at the end!

This short obviously takes place during the second half of the first solo run. We see Catwoman in action, that’s cool. Taking down almost a dozen of armed Joker henchmen, that’s pretty badass! And a woman saves the man damsel in distress at the end, that’s a nice ending as well. However, I don’t care about the costume so the visual appeal wasn’t there and I really don’t care about Slam Bradley so the reveal at the end was pretty ugh to me.

The art is great! It’s like a modernised/smoother version of Darwyn Cooke’s style, the artist Brubaker worked on the Catwoman title in the 00s with. So that gives it a pretty nostalgic feel. 

5/10

In addition to the 10 stories we’ve now covered, there are pages to show off the Catwoman costumes of each decade as well as pinups. The costume pages are designed in the decade’s style (the 40s are black and white, the 60s psychedelic etc). But what I don’t get about the 90s one: It’s purple Catwoman grayed out in the background and gray BTAS Catwoman in color in the foreground - why make the purple outfit gray when you have an already gray outfit?! Just switch them! Also who put together the 70s one, couldn’t they find better costume examples?!

The seven pinups are pretty, unfortunately the majority feature the black outfits. I was surprised that even Tim Sale drew the black costume and not the purple one from his Long Halloween series. We get one of the gray BTAS costume and Jim Balent thankfully gives us BatCat with his purple creation. Nice!

Well, looking back at my personal scores for this collection of stories, Catwoman’s anniversary issue reached a total of 44/100 points in my book. Wow. That’s... not that good.

Most of the stories ranged from average to bad. Nothing spectacular, nothing memorable. There’s a lack of witty dialogue, Catwoman’s rarely fun to watch. In six stories she’s seen fighting, in three she’s seen being chased so I’m missing the variety here. I would assume you can do more with Catwoman than that. She often rather fights instead of using her wits and smarts. And actual cats are only featured in two stories but in one they die and in the other, Selina says she should drown them. -_- 

A collection of 10 new stories was a great idea but celebrating the character this is not. I’m happy that the next writer for Catwoman left a positive impression on me and the story feat. Balent’s Catwoman was a delight. However, the writers didn’t really bring their “A” game for this anniversary issue which is disappointing.

Would I recommend it? Hmmm. It pains me to say: not really, no. You don’t miss much by skipping it. You don’t miss sassy lines or breathtaking art, you don’t miss out on funny scenes or emotional depth. This anniversary issue is merely average and I highly doubt I’ll go back to reread it.

(a huge THANK YOU to everyone who read this entire, way too long post! i highly appreciate it 💜you’re a real trooper!)

[johncenan00dz]

WRESTLING DIARY

August 22, 2018

Another wrestler died today. His name was Chris Champion, I have heard the name before, but don’t really remember seeing him wrestle. I probably saw him at some point in WCW in the early 90s. A few weeks ago Nikolai Volkoff, Brian Christopher, and Brickhouse Brown passed away on the same day I think and then more recently Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart died. He was a big favorite of mine as a kid even though he never really had much of a singles run. That is when I naively routed for underdogs/perennial losers/jobbers like Koko B. Ware and Virgil before I knew any better. We also lost Vader who was a big part of my childhood wrestling watching, the legendary Bruno Sammartino, Johnny Valiant, Paul Jones, Masa Saito, and a few others this year. So many wrestlers have died young and tragically, and I can’t deny that I have been intrigued and fascinated with the stories of wrestling suicides and substance abuse, overdoses, heart attacks, etc. Maybe I am too fixated on death and sad shit in general. Lately I have been feeling panicked on my commute home from work with feelings of dread and imagining walking in my apartment to find my dog dead. I know it is irrational, but it keeps happening and I can’t avoid it. Tonight I cried when I saw an instagram post from a girl that just lost her dog. It was a photoset and one was a video of her crying and telling her dog “I love you” as the dog licked her tears. it was the first time I have cried in a while, and I think I needed it. I felt a sense of relief and just like the dog in the video, my corgi, Stroszek licked mine too. Probably just because they taste good, not because he has real compassion haha.

I was waching the SmackDown Hulu cut while crying. Ironically I find myself crying while watching wrestling more often than one would think. Maybe because it is an emotional psychology based medium or maybe I am just depressed and often filling in my holes with hours of dumb wrestling content trying to avoid thinking about how much I hate myself. I guess I don’t have much to say about SmackDown. It was a solid followup to all the goings on of Summer Slam. Daniel Bryan and his wife are going to have a mixed tag match with The Miz and his wife...and on the show tonight Rusev and his wife Lana had another mixed tag match with Andrade Cien Almas and Selena Vega. I don’t hate mixed tag matches, but they just feel like fluff kind of...like just not super relevant or important, but WWE seems into them lately. Aiden English came and helped Rusev get the win so I guess that was something haha. Becky Lynch and Charlotte had a decent followup confrontation as did AJ Style and Samoa Joe. I’m not sure what is going on with Gallows and Anderson, but they were doing accents and comedy schtick that seemed odd. It’s just funny thinking back to how they were badasses in the Bullet Club in New Japan and now they have a catchphrase calling people nerds and being goofballs. The main event was a no DQ rematch of The New Day vs The Bludgeon Brothers. Pretty entertaining match and The New Day actually won the belts. It looks like Erick Rowan is having surgery which is why they dropped the titles I’m guessing. Kind of a bummer for Rowan and Harper if he is going to be out a while because I felt like they were gaining momentum and had a good thing going. I’ll return to watching early Paul Schrader and Brian De Palma movies until next Monday. Oh wait, I still have NXT to watch and I just learned about this anime from the 80s about a superhero that must win a wrestling tournament to retain his title of prince on some planet. Someone I follow on instagram posted a clip on their story and I messaged them immediately to find out wtf it was lol.  It honestly seems like a vague idea i have kicked around in my head a few times. I was thinking about an animated alien wrestling show with an Adult Swim vibe and format. One of the wrestlers was a toilet and flushed his opponent down the drain. It looks awesome. I am excited about it, but it was really hard to find. I have to use some weird anime site to watch the episodes and they are all fan translated. Actually a lot of the episodes are still in the process of being translated and uploaded apparently. The internet is pretty cool.

[jehanimation]

The Jehanimation Awards: separating the best of 2016′s animated movies from the rest

Between all the political turmoil, the near-relentless stream of high-profile deaths and the release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, it has been widely accepted that 2016 was A Bad Year. As a member of the human race, last year probably was a bit of a disappointment in most respects; look at it as an animation enthusiast, though, and the picture starts to look quite a bit rosier.

In fact, I’m going to go a step farther than that and call 2016 one of the best years for feature animation in recent memory - which is saying a lot given how much the bar has been raised since the 1990s. Since the advent of CGI tore up the rulebook and made it easier for newer studios to compete with Disney on an equal footing, it’s felt like we’ve been constantly on the cusp of a new, more diverse landscape for mainstream animation, allowing a wider range of studios and directors to present wildly different visions in a competitive marketplace, rather than a single company monotonously ruling the roost. Obviously, the conservative and formula-driven nature of the business has meant that potential hasn’t always been realised, but in 2016 we got a glimpse of how that theoretical vision would play out in reality - and it was a pretty exciting thing to behold. I can’t think of many previous years in which so many companies - from the US and elsewhere - were able to produce such a broad spread of high-quality movies for different audiences, resulting in a glut of animated movies occupying the top spots in not only the worldwide box office rankings, but also in lists of the best-reviewed films of the year.

Faced with such an embarrassment of riches, it feels difficult and somewhat reductive to pit them against each other and pick out a small handful as being the best - but that’s just what we do around this time of year anyway, so who am I to argue? Still, my intention here is not to add to the somewhat adversarial sentiments that awards season can sometimes generate; this is simply my personal evaluation of all the new animated movies I got to see in 2016, with my favourites highlighted. Your own mileage will, of course, vary, because such variety is the spice of life; with that said, I’m pretty sure this list is 100% objectively correct, so I’ve no idea why you’d disagree.

Immense thanks go to the wonderful Jamie Carr for the header image and icon for this blog! Go follow her on Twitter at @neurodolphin!

THE NOTABLE OMISSIONS

Before I get into evaluating the best of 2016’s crop, I should probably acknowledge that, contrary to assumption, I am not omniscient, and was therefore unable to see every animated movie that came out last year. There are upsides to this, as it means I missed out on having to watch bargain-bin garbage like Norm of the North or Robinson Crusoe (aka The Wild Life), and was able to judiciously pass on higher-profile but poorly-reviewed efforts like Blue Sky’s Ice Age: Collision Course and Rainmaker Entertainment’s Ratchet & Clank; unfortunately, it also meant not getting to see most of the less widely-screened animated movies from overseas, which is a great shame. I haven’t, for example, been able to see The Red Turtle or My Life as a Zucchini - two of the five nominations for this year’s Best Animated Feature Oscar - nor did I catch the well-reviewed French-Canadian production Ballerina (known in the US as Leap!). I also freely confess to being underexposed to anime, meaning I didn’t see anything from Japan this year - with one important exception, which I’ll come to later. I’ll certainly hope to correct some of these oversights at a later date.

THE ALSO-RANS

The following movies are the films that - for one reason or another - didn’t quite connect with me this year. Some are better than others, but to some degree or another I wouldn’t say they succeeded at what they set out to do.

The Angry Birds Movie

This was probably the weakest animated film I saw last year, which - given its essentially functional mediocrity - reflects pretty well on 2016’s lineup as a whole, even though it doesn’t retroactively make The Angry Birds Movie any more impressive.

I’ve already written a complete review of this film, so I don’t want to waste too much additional time on this one, but looking back I do find it striking just how middling this film was, especially when viewed in the context of everything else that came out after it. It remains deeply frustrating that The Angry Birds Movie actually did a lot of the groundwork necessary to produce a better-than-expected adaptation of a plotless physics-based puzzle game - devising a striking look, hiring great actors and laying the foundation for a potentially interesting thematic discussion on the role of anger in a healthy society - before totally squandering that potential on a script that favours lightweight, rambling and puerile comedy over any opportunity to advance the characters or emotional stakes. It’s a film that lazily follows a bog-standard Shrek-lite formula of cheap pop culture gags, toilet humour and sitcom punchlines, seemingly without realising that said playbook is now several years out of date - which, I suppose, is somewhat fitting for a belated spinoff to a mobile app whose popularity peaked about five years ago.

As I say, there are aspects of The Angry Birds Movie that are slightly better than they needed to be - and I’m willing to accept that it’s not easy to reverse-engineer a script that culminates in birds launching themselves into a pig’s castle via catapult - but I feel less charitable towards it in hindsight having since seen DreamWorks’ Trolls, another brand-derived movie that applied infinitely more honest craft and creativity to its subject matter, and achieved exponentially superior results as a consequence. The fact that Angry Birds was able to utilise its stronger brand recognition and well-timed release window to ultimately outgross Trolls on a worldwide basis just emphasises the point that this isn’t a film in need of my charity, or one worth holding up for any reason other than as an example of the kind of lazy work the rest of the industry has long moved beyond.

The Secret Life of Pets

2016 was a banner year for Illumination Entertainment, as the studio not only made the jump to releasing two films within 12 months for the first time ever, but was also able to turn both into bona fide global smash hits without any reliance on their flagship Despicable Me/Minions franchise. The Secret Life of Pets was the more conventional of the two outings, with its higher box office takings showcasing the strength of the Illumination brand as it exists today; however, the film itself also offers an equally sharp insight into the how much room the studio has to grow.

As I alluded to in my recent post about Illumination, there’s a lot to admire in The Secret Life of Pets, and its great success is no mystery to me. It leans heavily on many of the studio’s established strengths, including a flair for kinetic caricature and imaginative physical comedy, and its bright visual style and design work meant it played a significant role in a broader reawakening of the general public’s love affair with talking animal movies. However, it’s also an unintentional showcase of Illumination at its weakest, particularly in its willingness to foreground shallow slapstick over meaningful story development, and its allergic reluctance to challenge the audience emotionally. That the film’s plot is essentially a beat-for-beat pet-oriented remake of the original Toy Story invites comparisons that do not flatter Illumination’s movie, as The Secret Life of Pets is an infinitely shallower film that passes up several golden opportunities to give its characters proper dimension, resulting in an experience that’s basically sweet-natured and inoffensive, but never comes close to making a lasting impression.

With $875 million grossed worldwide, The Secret Life of Pets was undoubtedly one of the year’s biggest success stories, and represents the start of a franchise with considerable potential mileage; however, the series will require a significant injection of depth, pathos and substance if the resulting series is ever going to be able to aspire to anything more than a vehicle for the episodic and rote delivery of middlebrow gags with a bare minimum of investment.

Kubo and the Two Strings

A passion project by Laika Entertainment’s president and CEO (and sadly forgotten rap legend) Travis Knight, Kubo and the Two Strings didn’t do huge business at the box office, but it’s quickly emerged as one of the critical darlings of the year, and a major awards contender. While I love pretty much everything this hugely admirable piece of work represents, I can’t quite bring myself to extend the same feeling to the film itself as a piece of storytelling.

In fact, I’d probably rate Kubo and the Two Strings as one of the bigger disappointments I experienced last year, which is a real bummer, as I have a deep and unbroken fondness for Laika’s work, dating back to their days in their previous incarnation as Will Vinton Studios. Kubo is in most respects their most ambitious film yet, blending their traditional focus on emotional intimacy and dark atmospherics with an epic fantasy sweep. When it works, it’s absolutely magnificent - their stop motion animation and design work has now evolved to the point where it almost looks indistinguishable from CGI at times, and their grasp of subtle melancholy is as peerless - but there’s a shakiness to the story’s fundamentals that I’m unused to seeing from a studio as famed for their attention to detail as Laika are. The tone lurches wildly from tearjerking grimness to flippant buddy comedy and back again; the actual quest narrative is irritatingly coincidence-driven and never more than vaguely explained, giving the audience little scope to share the journey of discovery; and most damagingly, the script doesn’t seem to know what it wants the lead characters of Monkey and Beetle, setting them up as jovially bickering sidekicks before saddling them with dramatically pivotal backstories that feel overly on-the-nose and don’t mesh with their personalities at all. The result is a film to which I gradually lost my emotional connection as it progressed, which is pretty fatal for a story that ends as intimately as this one does.

Add to that some questionable decisions regarding casting - I won’t harp on this too much, but I will say that it’s weird for a film this conscious about authenticity and tone to pass up the benefits that an Asian cast would provide in that regard, and that none of the actual cast give such indelible performances that they couldn’t have been swapped out - and you get a film ranks as my least favourite Laika movie to date. Admittedly, it’s a difficult category in which to compete, but it’s still a shame not to be able to join in the general chorus of appreciation surrounding a film that generally reflects so much of what I love about animation. I still thoroughly appreciate Laika’s work in almost single-handedly propping up the medium of stop-motion through sheer passion and bloody-mindedness, but for me the narrative elements of Kubo and the Two Strings got away from them - and when you’re making a film specifically designed to celebrate the power of storytelling, that creates a hole in the middle of the movie that no amount of technical splendour can fill.

Finding Dory

The top-grossing animated movie of the year, Pixar’s Finding Dory was always going to be a commercial slam-dunk, given the special place its predecessor Finding Nemo holds in the hearts of many; the big question was whether it was going to be able to measure up to the first movie’s legacy in terms of filmmaking. The answer? Ehhh.

That’s certainly not due to a lack of effort, of course; as I’ve touched upon in my previous post concerning this movie, Finding Dory is not a phoned-in sequel, and you can tell that returning director Andrew Stanton has put thought and consideration into how to expand the self-contained story of Finding Nemo outwards in a way that feels organic. The resulting development of the character of Dory - a mentally impaired protagonist seeking to make peace not only with her own past, but also with herself and the way her condition affects her - is rich with emotional pathos and feels like a natural continuation of Finding Nemo’s key themes, as well as forming a meaningful statement on disability in its own right.

Beyond the oasis of that central storyline, however, Finding Dory enters choppier waters. Dory’s journey may be significant in emotional terms, but dramatically it feels small, with the epic, sweeping journey of the first movie swapped for a claustrophobic single-location setting for the majority of the sequel. That reduced sense of scale isn’t helped by the flimsiness of the supporting cast, populated by half-formed ideas like Hank the octopus (who feels like he has a character-defining backstory lying on a cutting room floor somewhere) or one-note gag characters like Destiny, Bailey, Rudder and Fluke (who never come close to being properly developed). Worst of all, Finding Nemo’s protagonist Marlin is purely along for the ride this time, with very little to do other than complain in a way that becomes grating and unentertaining fairly rapidly. The result is a two-hander where one hand is significantly more developed than the other, which - as Nemo himself would tell you - makes it much harder for Finding Dory to swim in the smooth, straight lines you’d expect from a Pixar film.

That said, I’m not sure exactly what I expect from a Pixar film these days. Finding Dory is far from a bad movie, but it’s a pedestrian effort from a studio that seemed to effortlessly maintain a much higher orbit before the turn of the decade. Finding Dory owes a lot of its success to goodwill left over from those peak years, but the lack of love the movie has received on the awards circuit suggests that at least some of that is starting to run dry. There’s a Dory-style lesson to be learned there: old memories aren’t enough to sustain you forever - you have to be able to form new ones, too.

THE RECOMMENDATIONS

The following movies are the films I saw that didn’t quite make my best-of list, but nevertheless worked well enough to make a positive impression. These aren’t the year’s best animated movies - but they are good ones.

Storks

Storks seemed to come and go without anyone really noticing it happened. I myself missed it at the cinema, and catching up with it many months later, I can sort of understand why; it’s a thoroughly odd duck that doesn’t quite fit with any preconceived notion of what an animated feature would look, sound or play like. The aesthetic splits the difference between big-screen polish and Cartoon Network stylisation; the tone wants to be manic, but grounded; flippant, yet also heartfelt; rambling, but wholly plot-driven.

You know what? For all that, I rather enjoyed Storks, although I’m not sure I’d call it a completely functional film. The first animated movie from live-action comedy director Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Neighbors) is a relentlessly high-energy experience that is inevitably irritating and wearying at times, but feels full of a certain kid-in-a-candy-store enthusiasm for the boundless absurdist possibilities that animation can provide; it is also a movie that understands the importance of having a heart, and keeps it beating in the right place. Ultimately, Storks doesn’t have anything more profound to say than “babies are nice, and finding your family is great”, but it’s sincere about the way it says it, whether that’s through the oddly charming quasi-romantic chemistry between the avian middle manager Junior and scatterbrained teenage orphan Tulip, or through the engaging B-plot of a young boy reconnecting with his workaholic parents as they wait for delivery of a new baby brother. It’s also an understatedly progressive movie in a couple of ways - it’s nice to focus on a mixed-gender comedic pairing where the female member gets to be the zany one for a change, and you even get some pleasantly matter-of-fact representation of LGBT parent couples thrown in towards the end for good measure, albeit in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fashion.

That said, this is also an incredibly ramshackle piece of work, full of non-sequitur narrative detours and extended joke sequences that don’t really land - antagonist Toady, an obnoxious business-bro pigeon, feels like an out-of-control SNL skit in place of an actual character, for example. That’s a weakness that cuts across many parts of the film, in fact; Stoller gives the script more of a mannered, improvisational feel than is strictly good for it, resulting in a whole lot of gag lines that feel purely like punchlines crafted by a writer, rather than effective expressions of character. Nevertheless, on balance, I’m happy that the revamped Warner Animation Group are using their post-The Lego Movie relaunch to establish a distinct identity for themselves, rather than going down the me-too route of their Quest for Camelot days; I think it’s even better that their chosen identity is one that tries to honour the company’s offbeat Looney Tunes legacy, as that’s a style we don’t see often enough in the modern feature animation landscape. Clearly, we’re going to be getting a lot of Lego spinoffs and sequels that uphold a Phil Lord/Chris Miller-flavoured variation of that approach, but that type of comedy is good for more than just endless Lego movies - and so are Warner Bros. In that respect, I’d like for Storks to be the beginning of a more diversified lineup from Warner Bros, not the end, which is why this imperfect little movie just about edged its way into my recommendations category; the quality isn’t always there, but the right spirit is there in spades.

Kung Fu Panda 3

In another year, Kung Fu Panda 3 would have been a much bigger deal than it ended up being. It was a very good animated movie in a year full of them, a talking animal film coming out just as the genre suddenly became ubiquitous, and a high-quality sequel to a franchise that had probably been away from the big screen a few years too long for audiences to still be invested. Heck, even in China - the market where this US-Chinese co-production was clearly ordained to sweep aside all comers - this belated threequel had its thunder stolen, reigning briefly as the region’s highest-grossing animated movie ever before the breakout success of Disney’s Zootopia took the title away after only one month.

All of that is a bit of a shame, because - as I’ve mentioned - Kung Fu Panda 3 is a very good movie, even if it is unquestionably the weakest instalment in the trilogy. It lacks the energetic freshness of the 2008 original and the impressive emotional scope of 2011’s Kung Fu Panda 2, the bracing darkness of which Kung Fu Panda 3 largely backs away from in favour of something a bit cosier and smaller-scale. In that respect, this is very much the Return of the Jedi of this series, with all that entails - right down to being set in a hidden village of cuddly bears - but none of that makes it anything like a bad film. For one thing, it’s absolutely beautiful to look at - one of the most aesthetically gorgeous pieces of animation I’ve seen for a while, with vivid colours, stylised action, stunning 2D sequences and masterful incorporation of the look of Chinese paintings into its visual style. That respectfulness goes beyond the visual elements, though; the first Kung Fu Panda may have been a watershed movie for DreamWorks in adopting a tone of loving pastiche rather than broad spoof, but the sequels have been so reverential to the genre and culture that inspired them that you almost wish they’d dropped the comedy focus altogether and pivoted the series in the direction of full-on anthropomorphic wuxia adventure, with a tone closer to the How to Train Your Dragon movies.

Still, what we’ve got from Kung Fu Panda is pretty great, thanks not only to their embrace of the excitement and philosophies of martial arts cinema, but also to their commitment to strong characterisation of their key players. Po the panda remains a delightful creation, with Jack Black consistently finding and underplaying the notes of earthy wisdom and spiritual growth in a character who could easily have come across as 100% fanboy goofball, and his relationship with the elderly goose Mr Ping - voiced with wonderful warmth and eccentricity by the brilliant James Hong - remains one of the most oddly affecting father-son relationships in animated cinema. The addition of Po’s birth father Li Shan (Bryan Cranston) to that dynamic in Kung Fu Panda 3 is handled maturely, in a way that celebrates unconventional family structures, and that emotional throughline works in tandem with the spiritual concepts of the story to provide a strong foundation. In truth, there’s not all that much going on beyond that, other than colourful action setpieces - once again the supporting cast, including Po’s brothers-in-arms the Furious Five, are left frustratingly underused and underdeveloped - leaving Kung Fu Panda 3 feeling like the slightest entry in the series; nevertheless, it’s still a satisfying, funny adventure that brings the series to a fitting thematic conclusion. In truth, Kung Fu Panda probably is a series whose time has passed; if that’s the case, I’m glad it got to impart a few more words of wisdom before moving on.

Sing

The second and less conventional of Illumination Entertainment’s 2016 efforts, the musical extravaganza Sing may have been the lower-grossing and slightly less well-reviewed of the two outings, but for my money it outdoes The Secret Life of Pets on every level creatively - to the point where I’m wondering if everyone else saw these two movies the wrong way around.

When I call Sing “unconventional”, I’m not really talking about its approach to genre and storytelling, because frankly it really couldn’t be any more conventional in those respects. This is a big, broad, goofy, follow-your-dreams jukebox musical that garnishes the X Factor/American Idol template with a sprig of Muppets-style save-the-theatre backstage drama - you know, in case the overstuffed ensemble cast didn’t already have enough underdogs to root for. Said ensemble, which includes a shy teen elephant with an angel’s voice, an overworked mother pig with dreams of stardom, a young gorilla seeking to escape a life of crime and a punk rock porcupine breaking away from her controlling jerk boyfriend, is packed to bursting with character arcs that you’ll be able to predict with perfect accuracy the moment they begin - or perhaps even before then, if you’ve seen any of the too-numerous trailers for Sing that essentially summarise the entire story beat for beat.

But when judging a movie like this, it’s important to remember that cliche is not inherently a sin - a familiar recipe can still taste fabulous when the ingredients are prepared with care and attention, and so it proves with Sing, a movie that’s made with infinitely more sincerity and ambition than it’s been given credit for. It feels good to be able to praise an Illumination movie for those qualities, and that’s where the “unconventional” aspect comes into play, as this is a film that has clearly benefited from the studio searching outside its usual creative talent pool and taking a punt on Garth Jennings, the likeable British filmmaker responsible for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Son of Rambow. A prolific director of music videos, Jennings is clearly someone with a passion for music that saturates Sing, turning what could have been an empty exercise in celebrity animal karaoke into a genuine celebration of the restorative power of music. That earnestness also bleeds into the characterisation, which - for as formulaic as it unarguably is - is written and performed with enough heart-on-sleeve honesty to paper over many more cracks than Sing actually has. Sure, there are times where it feels like the sheer multitude of characters means certain moments don’t get the focus they need, and there are certainly notes and song choices - particularly the use of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” during a moment of sombre redemption - that will be too on-the-nose for even the most wide-eyed audience member, but beyond that there’s really nothing wrong with this movie at all, to the extent that I’m a little confused every time I see a bad review of it. It’s certainly not perfect, but it’s assembled with such professionalism and such a conscious eagerness to make you happy - especially during its barnstorming, impossibly fleet-footed finale - that it seems churlish to refuse.

Despite what I perceived to be a relative lack of appreciation of its full merits, I’m happy to see that this film did well for itself, and I hope it encourages Illumination to make more movies with this kind of heart behind it. Sing’s emotional stakes may be somewhat prosaic, but they’re big and bold and dominant in a way that prior Illumination movies, with their focus on slapstick silliness, have seemed shy about embracing. In a previous post, I lamented the studio’s inability to produce a truly classic movie up until this point, and expressed a hope that Sing might be a step along the right path; in that respect, it delivered. Sing may not be the first great Illumination movie, but if they keep going in this direction, they may just get there.

THE BEST OF THE YEAR

In descending order, these are my top five animated movies of the year. They may be very different films operating and succeeding on different levels, but in my view these are the films that really encapsulated all the facets of what I love about animated cinema, and exemplify the form’s boundless versatility.

5. Sausage Party

In film criticism, originality is often taken to be a cardinal virtue; we mark films down for adhering to weathered formulas or archetypes, and give credit for the ones that do things we haven’t seen before. When Sausage Party was released last year to rock-solid reviews, many were shocked, but really, they ought not have been that surprised - after all, it’s not often that we get to see what a truly original movie looks like.

On paper, Sausage Party seems transgressive without being all that groundbreaking; after all, we’ve seen crude animated movies for adult audiences before, from Fritz the Cat through to the works of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but there’s something about the way Sausage Party was positioned that made it unique - sure, it was made for a mere $19 million, but this was that rare R-rated animated film that was ordained to compete in the big leagues, rather than breaking out from some underground niche. US-produced adult animations usually accept their status as esoteric oddities, embracing unfashionable visual styles and anti-mainstream sensibilities; Sausage Party rejects that, using modern tools and an aesthetic that credibly approximates the familiar look of its Disney/Pixar contemporaries to mark itself as a film designed to be seen and embraced by the biggest possible audience. Regardless of what you might think of the film itself, the manner of Sausage Party’s release was trailblazing - the first proper attempt by a studio in years to break American adult animation out of its enthusiasts-only ghetto and show that cartoons for older audiences can be appeal on the same level as a live-action movie of the same genre. That Sausage Party went on to gross of nearly $100 million in the US should be seen a massive win for the medium, and will hopefully embolden the industry to further experiment with the kinds of animated stories and visions they’re willing to bankroll in future.

Of course, this victory would feel tainted if Sausage Party had turned out to be exploitative trash, but watching the final film, even hardcore Sausage-sceptics would have to admit it’s a movie that embraces substantive ideas and commits to them, hard. Your mileage is likely to depend on how well you click with the sensibilities of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Superbad, This is the End, The Interview), who’ve made a career on exploring challenging concepts in unabashedly juvenile terms, because this movie represents the apotheosis of their operating model to date; taking the Pixar template of “what if X had feelings?” to its most lurid conclusion, Sausage Party is a deceptively literate spiritual odyssey that confronts sentient food items with the brutal reality of what they were created for, sending them spiralling into existential crisis and surreal voyages of self-actualisation. As a deconstruction and critique of religious thought, it’s intelligent in a number of ways, opting against abrasive confrontationalism in favour of a humanist, pluralist conclusion that encourages people to reject the limits that society places on them and be their authentic selves in a non-judgemental fashion; what’s just as impressive is the way it’s able to explore this essentially benign, moderate message in such relentlessly coarse, taboo-shattering terms, without feeling like it’s working at crossed purposes with itself. This is a film with legitimately interesting things to say about the evils of dogma, the need for respectful discourse, the importance of actualising your sexual identity and the destructiveness of identity-based conflict - and does so almost entirely through the medium of cartoon violence and dick jokes. All of this builds to a jaw-dropping third act of insanely violent, sexualised excess that’s honestly unlike anything I’ve ever seen in a mainstream movie - and yet somehow still feels reverent enough to the spirit of Toy Story that its credentials as a legitimate entry in the same animated adventure genre remain unbroken.

I’m ardent in my admiration for what Sausage Party represents, and I say that with full acceptance of its problems. Its gleeful indulgence of ethnic stereotyping, for example, doesn’t really pay off with a satirical point clever enough to justify it all, while the sheer crudeness of the film - the villain is literally an anthropomorphic douche - is likely to stop a lot of people from connecting. I also need to give acknowledgement to the widespread stories of mistreatment and exploitation of the animation team by production company Nitrogen Studios and co-director Greg Tiernan, which puts that thrifty $19 million budget in a different light; that can’t really be excused, but it also doesn’t invalidate the fact that the resulting film is a valuable, singular piece of pop art that’s worth much more than the sum of its parts. It’s up to you to decide whether knowing how the sausage was made is enough to put you off; all I’m saying is that it’s worth trying, because Sausage Party is both tastier and more nutritious than you might expect.

4. Trolls

One of the main reasons why 2016 ended up such a good year for animation is that, due to some strange quirk of scheduling, many of the major studios ended up releasing two films during the year. I’ve covered Illumination’s pair already, and I’ll be coming to Disney’s duo momentarily; for now, I want to give some much-needed kudos to the oft-criticised DreamWorks, who not only turned out a fine Kung Fu Panda sequel, but also somehow elevated a reboot of the Trolls toy franchise from cultural detritus into a genuinely joyous moviegoing experiences.

I expounded at length quite recently about the many virtues of Mike Mitchell and Walt Dohrn’s cuddly little movie, so I won’t add too much here, other than to say that my admiration for a film that still stands out as a surprise of the most pleasant variety hasn’t dimmed. There’s always a special kind of joy that comes with being blindsided by a great film that comes out of nowhere, and Trolls is the very definition of that: the concept sounded terrible, the early marketing was appalling, and yet the final film is confident, earnest, visually beguiling and bursting with an infectiously guileless goodwill that’s much harder to evoke in a sincere way than Trolls makes it look. Indeed, in a world where Sony Pictures Animation continues to struggle to strike the right tone with its various adaptations of the esteemed Smurfs franchise, DreamWorks deserves applause for nailing the right mix of sweetness and spice on the first attempt at what’s essentially the same concept. That’s not to say Trolls is wholly derivative, though; if the “happy forest friends” setup isn’t exactly groundbreaking, there’s ambition to its lightly-sketched philosophical exploration of the spiritual origins of happiness, while its sharp humour and aesthetic exuberance ensure it never forgets to make you feel the emotion it’s examining. If there’s one lingering disappointment, it’s that more people didn’t notice exactly how impressive this fluffy and genuinely uplifting jukebox musical turned out to be; with its theatrical run topping out at a solid but unspectacular $339.5 million worldwide, Trolls remains one of 2016’s better-kept secrets, a movie that seemed to pass most people by. That’s an unfortunate outcome for a film that I’m willing to list among the best animations of the year, but it does at least preserve its status as a surprise package waiting to be opened, shared and discovered by more people.

I hope, too, that DreamWorks take solace and pride in the quality of the work they put out in 2016. Both Kung Fu Panda 3 and Trolls both ended up as modest rather than overwhelming commercial successes, but there was a solidity and assuredness to both movies that the studio hasn’t always found easy to come by; these are qualities that will serve the company well as it prepares for life under the new ownership of Universal. Of course, DreamWorks will always be DreamWorks, and maybe inconsistency is baked into their DNA: the fact they’re following up such a strong 2016 with a 2017 slate consisting of The Boss Baby and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie seems like a testament to that. But hey, this time last year I was busy writing off Trolls, so what the hell do I know?

3. Moana

It’s weird for me to think about this, but most people born after about 1990 or so probably don’t actually remember a time when Disney were the undisputed kings of feature animation. Ever since Pixar released Toy Story in 1995, they’ve ceased to be the only game in town, and there were times during the mid-2000s when they looked to be drifting into irrelevance; since then, however, they’ve come roaring back, and I feel as though 2016 will be seen in years to come as a point where Walt Disney Animation Studios really reasserted their dominance, even more so than their historic success with Frozen in 2013. I’ve praised Illumination and DreamWorks for the impressive feat of releasing two good movies in the same year, but that pales in comparison to Disney, whose achievement in releasing two potential all-time classics within eight months is little short of a miracle.

Due to its choice of genre, Moana was probably seen as the safe option out of the two movies, but anyone who’s seen it will know that writing it off as just another Disney princess musical is doing the film a massively reductive disservice. Veteran directors Ron Clements and John Musker’s (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Princess and the Frog) first CGI movie feels like a substantial and welcome reinvention not just of their filmmaking approach, but of the “princess movie” template in general. This is a formula that Disney have been committed to tinkering with since the 1990s Disney Renaissance era, but never to such a root-and-branch degree as Moana, which takes only the most essential components of the template - to paraphrase the script itself, the fact that its protagonist “is the daughter of a chief, wears a dress and has an animal sidekick” - and builds a rousingly individualistic seafaring action-adventure with a refreshing perspective. It’s not just the fact that Moana feels different from her predecessors, with her Polynesian origins and stockier build, it’s that she functions differently; unlike any other Disney princess, she’s a swashbuckling hero first and foremost, embarking on a world-saving quest through active choice, rather than stumbling into one as a byproduct of some mission of family duty. On that foundation, Musker and Clements build a film that consistently zags where other Disney movies zig. This is an action-adventure that’s basically without a true villain; where the male lead, the blustering demigod Maui, remains strictly a supporting player, with no hint of unnecessary romantic intrigue; where the main animal sidekick is a scraggly idiot rooster that actively hinders the quest, while the cute, marketable pig stays home.

Of course, different isn’t necessarily better, but it certainly feels like a value-added bonus when your film is already as good as Moana is. Technically, it’s one of Disney’s most accomplished efforts, with astounding water effects and a beautiful oceanic palette, and it benefits from the same sparky dialogue and buddy-comedy chemistry between its leads that’s become a Disney trademark. Musker and Clements seem to have made progress on overcoming the somewhat episodic feel of their previous movies, with more of a sense of coherent driving momentum pushing forward the story, and they’ve certainly come on leaps and bounds in terms of cultural authenticity since the days of, say, Aladdin, with the Pacific Island setting treated with great respect in aesthetic, spiritual and casting terms. Then, of course, there’s Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa’i and Mark Mancina’s compositionally intricate and effortlessly catchy soundtrack, which is probably the finest from Disney since The Lion King - and hell, even The Lion King didn’t have a glam rock David Bowie style parody sung by a giant kleptomaniac crab, so maybe Moana has even that one beaten. It’s not all perfect, though; much as I loved the film, it does have a few pacing problems; the story spends an unusually long time getting Moana to leave her home island of Motunui, only to occasionally feel becalmed once the journey actually gets underway. The open ocean is an evocative setting, but it can also get pretty repetitive, and there are points in Moana where you start to miss the broader ensemble cast and diverse backdrops that we might have gotten if not for all the lonely, endless blue.

None of that was enough to prevent Moana from becoming one of the best and biggest animated movies of the year - though you get the sense that some pundits were expecting a bit more commercially from Disney’s first big princess musical since Frozen. It’s true that Moana’s solid $575 million-and-counting worldwide total doesn’t bear comparison to Frozen’s record-setting $1.27 billion - but then, when you think about it, Moana didn’t really turn out to be all that comparable to Frozen anyway. It’s possible that Moana reinvented so much about what makes a princess movie that it no longer registered as being one in the eyes of the audience - or perhaps it was never really a princess movie in the first place, and scored its own success on its own terms. Princess or not, she is Moana, and that’s good enough for me.

2. Your Name (Kimi no Na wa)

As I mentioned before, I have an unfortunate blind spot when it comes to anime, with my exposure to Japan’s prolific feature output basically limited to Studio Ghibli films and a small handful of others. That’s something I’d like to work on, so I jumped at the chance to see Makoto Shinkai’s blockbusting romance Your Name at the cinema last year as a way of putting that right; what I got was an outstanding and emotionally overwhelming reminder of everything I’ve been missing out on.

Your Name is a difficult movie to categorise - my best attempt would be “supernatural gender/body-swap tragicomedy-drama disaster romance epic”, but even that would be underselling the deft changeability and tonal fluidity of this marvellously-constructed movie, which came within a hair’s breadth of ranking as my favourite of the year. Part of that versatility comes from its mastery of the medium - I know it’s not intended to function as a primer on anime, but it couldn’t have done a better job if it tried, such is its command of everything that defines the format at its best. Here’s a 2D animated film that feels truly modern, that pushes hand-drawn animation to new levels of technical beauty and adventurous stylisation without feeling even slightly retro; here’s an animated film that can speak directly to a teenage and young adult audience, with a pop soundtrack and frank allusion to concepts of sexuality and gender identity, and evoke that lived experience of yearning adolescence in a way that feels sophisticated and universal; here’s an animated film that knows how to bring metaphysical mystery, power and spirituality to its narrative with a light touch, leaving just enough traces of magic to lend an edge of unknowable enormity to the intimate character story we’re being told. These are areas in which the best anime movies uniquely excel, and Shinkai seems to understand implicitly how to leverage these strengths without any of the weaknesses.

But Your Name isn’t designed to be appreciated on a beard-stroking conceptual level; for all its artistic accomplishment, it’s a weepy teenage romance at heart, and you couldn’t ask for one better. Its protagonists - small town girl Mitsuha and Tokyo boy Taki, who mysteriously find themselves intermittently swapping bodies - are enormously likeable leads with whom it’s easy to empathise, whether it’s Mitsuha’s longing to experience life beyond her idyllic but fishbowl-like rural community, or Taki’s increasingly passionate desire to connect directly with the girl who’s literally changing his life from the inside. The latter quest comes to form the driving emotional engine of the film, and writer-director Shinkai does a fine job of creating a palpable closeness between the two characters, whilst at the same time putting them in a situation where every conceivable obstacle - time, space, fate - stand in the way of them ever meeting. If that sounds melodramatic, that’s because it is, but Your Name knows exactly how to sell a brand of epic romance that makes the audience feel like they’re seeing something much more profound than the feelings of two people; that’s partly a function of the gorgeous hyperreality of the visuals, but also a testament to the way Shinkai unfolds the story, expanding what starts out as a light, sweet body-swap fantasy into something larger and more mythic. To say more about how Your Name pivots and pirouettes through different plot ideas and genres would give too much away about a film that benefits greatly from being unpacked at its own pace, so I won’t go further, other than to say it builds to something that’s sweeping, exhilarating and wistful in all the right ways.

If it sounds like I’m giving this movie the hard sell, that’s very much intentional - certainly, Your Name doesn’t need any more of a push in Asia, where it’s been a record-breaking success, but Western audiences seem to be much less aware of it, as evidenced by its surprise omission from this year’s Best Animated Feature Oscar nominees. This may be partly because because the film isn’t actually due to be released in US theatres until April 7th 2017, a stunningly long delay that nevertheless gives me an opportunity to urge any American readers to make sure they catch it on the biggest possible screen. After all, Your Name helped to show me everything I’m missing by not watching enough good anime; the least I can do to return the favour is to make sure nobody misses this one.

1. Zootopia

Nobody who’s followed this blog for any length of time will be shocked by this choice; in fact, nobody who saw the Oscars or pays any attention to the film industry in general will be too surprised, as Disney’s Zootopia has proven a commercial phenomenon, a darling among reviewers and an awards magnet. Inevitably, this means the film has started to attract a few contrarian potshots, but I’m not interested in engaging with that; after all if we can’t take a moment to earnestly celebrate one of the best and bravest films Disney have made in decades, then why do we even watch movies?

I’ve spent a lot of words talking about Zootopia over the last 12 months, and yet it still doesn’t feel like it’s left my system; with its incredible visual design, instantly lovable character chemistry, deft pacing and bubbling comedic energy, it encapsulates pretty much every one of Disney’s traditional strengths, while also excelling in areas where the studio have never traditionally dared to tread. As a piece of worldbuilding, its thoroughness exceeds many science-fiction films - the breathtaking wonder of the first train ride into the city of Zootopia is a Disney moment for the ages, rendered with such immersive intimacy that I’d love to see it retrofitted as a VR experience - while the film’s vaulting thematic ambitions and willingness to delve into challenging social commentary feel like a seismic sea change for a company with a reputation for corporatised artistic conservatism. That I rate Zootopia as the best animated film of an incredibly strong year doesn’t preclude acknowledgement of its imperfections - the police procedural elements are a little oversimplified, it can be episodic at times, the metaphors can sometimes be heavy-handed - but it’s the intelligent, open-hearted generosity of the thematic dialogue it opens up with its audience that makes those concerns feel small. This is a pointed, satirical and often overtly politicised piece of work, addressing deeply divisive issues of prejudice, system bias, internalised privilege and societal identity, and yet it manages to do so in a way that feels pluralistic, universally empowering and non-judgemental - a feat that most adult-oriented media struggles to achieve. It’s a film that educates without lecturing, that shows asks you to find your own answers rather than spoonfeeding you solutions, that shines a light on the problems that society faces but still lets you walk out feeling energised, rather than depressed. That’s difficult for any movie to achieve; for Disney, with almost no experience of making topical satire, to be able to pull this off while still ticking all the boxes of a superlative, adorable and hilarious family adventure is one of the greatest accomplishments in their entire 80-year history of feature animation.

Honestly, if I have any lingering feeling of disappointment about Zootopia, it’s the question of why the message it expressed so eloquently didn’t end up making a bigger impression on those who saw it. That a movie with such an explicitly educational theme of cultural unification and overcoming differences was able to gross more than $1 billion in a year as riven by political division and opprobrium as 2016 is a testament to cinema’s value as a means of escape; unfortunately, it also probably tells us a lot about the cognitive dissonance that prevents people from actually living up to the virtues expressed by the media they enjoy. I started the year wondering whether Zootopia would be as good a movie as we deserve from Disney in 2016; I ended it wondering whether 2016 deserved Zootopia. Nevertheless, I’ll try to hold on the virtues the film embodied, and take heart from the fact that children raised with this heartfelt, articulate and deeply empathetic movie stand a much better chance of learning the right lessons from it than the rest of us did. After all, if a naive rabbit and a jaded fox can learn to overcome prejudice, see things from other perspectives and make the world a better place, maybe there’s hope for the rest of us mammals as well.

[jibbyscorner]

Jibby Travels: Taking the Sunrise Bus, Going Anywhere

𝙒𝙚'𝙧𝙚 𝙜𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙣 𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙬𝙚𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚, 𝙙𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙮! 𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙨, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙮! 𝙆𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙧, 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙤'𝙨 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩!

— Killer Quest! From the musical: The Lightning Thief, The Percy Jackson Musical

"𝘖𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘥 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯

𝘎𝘰𝘪𝘯' 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯

𝘚𝘦𝘦𝘪𝘯' 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯

𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘥 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯... "

— On the Road Again, Willie Nelson

4:00 𝘼𝙈, 𝙄𝙉 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙆𝙄𝙏𝘾𝙃𝙀𝙉

𝗪aking up early in the morning will always be considered as a huge bummer for a night owl person like me, but today is not that day. As I'm rummaging through my kitchen, quietly preparing a coffee for a burst of energy, and casually looking through the kitchen window, I know that I'm going to have a great day, because this day is a moment reserved only for adventures. I've already packed my things such as extra clothes and pocket money. I've already prepared my snacks. And, of course, made sure I have fully recharged my phone. The air is cold and crisp, and while I for one like this weather, I can't help but long for the warm, kind of humid atmosphere me and my classmates are going to feel once we're in our set of destinations. I found myself smiling, really excited because today is the day I'm going on a field trip with my beloved classmates. And I can't wait to witness the beautiful animals and magnificent surroundings we are all fated to encounter in this educational tour. It's going to be a sweaty, but fun day!

5:00 𝘼𝙈, 𝙄𝙉 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘽𝙐𝙎

Around 5 AM me and my brother have managed to arrive in school, just in time for the busses to leave the campus. Thank God! We still made it in time! I went to my batch's bus and hurriedly looked for my assigned seat. I have to be honest, walking down the aisle with the stares of my bus mates pierced through my soul. I was the last one to arrive and it felt really embarrassing. Just a tip, ladies and gents: make sure to arrive early at your meeting spot when traveling with friends!

After that, it was a moment of laughter and storytellings. As I got to my seat, I immediately got in touch with my seat mate. The bus moved in a moderate pace and off we go! We're about to go to our first destination, which is Jest Camp, found on Subic Bay, Freeport Zone. And since it's a long trip, some of my classmates decided to sleep. Road trips are a favorite of mine, and I just stayed awake, listened to calming music, and stared at the bus window. It was, once again, a moment of quietness, and I watched as the sun slowly rises. The golden sun followed us, wherever we went. From dark blue the sky gradually turned bright orange, and at last, morning has officially come. Watching the change happen felt truly calming! It's been a while since I've witness the sun rise.

Around 7:30 AM my classmates finally woke up. We made some stop overs so we can buy snacks at convenience stores or pee on gas station restrooms, and after that our adventure continued. Sightseeing is really fun if you have some friends to talk to, and that is what we did while looking through the magnificent view of fields and mountains.

Right before we reached our destination, we were greeted by the vast expanse of sea. On our side of the bus we can see through the whole encompassing, breathaking view of blue, with waves surfacing on the shore every now and then. It was a beautiful sight, we haven't even arrived at the place but I'm already captivated by the creation of God. You can see birds flying overhead, and I just know that when the windows were open, even with the small polution affecting the area, I would still be able to smell the citrus and salty scent of the ocean breeze. But alas, that is not our destination, and so our bus continued to move forward.

At last, after countless gossiping and vibing with my classmates, we have finally arrived at the Jest camp. It was 9 AM when we arrived, and the sun is slowly rising through over our heads, showering us with mild heat. Preparing our things that we would bring to the venue (which consisted of a hat, umbrella, our wallets, and a bottle of water, all contained in our small bags), we left the bus. On the way there we found some other students from different schools too, and as a polite students of Shining Hope Academy, we smiled at them and waved, building a warm gesture between the both of our group.

8:00 𝘼𝙈, 𝙄𝙉 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙅𝙀𝙎𝙏 𝘾𝘼𝙈𝙋

The entrance already looks exciting. At the gates you would see two pillars supporting two long logs. And in it lies the name of the destination: Jest Camp, lettered in yellow font, with their logo placed in the middle. The air feels fresher here, the fresh trees and grass smell lingering under our noses. The structure is a huge wood house designed with very campy colors and ornaments. The look of the lobby already looks promising, like it's hinting an exciting show inside the venue. There's animal stuffed toys lined on the shelves of their desks, all waiting to be bought as a souvenir by its visitors. On the left side was a bulletin board filled with pictures of its previous explorers, they seem to be smiling, carefully holding different kinds of animals.

Waiting outside built a sense of anticipation. And then finally, we were invited inside to see a show of creatures with the ability of flight.

---

9:00 𝘼𝙈, 𝙄𝙉 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙎𝙃𝙊𝙒 𝙊𝙁 𝘾𝙊𝙐𝙉𝙏𝙇𝙀𝙎𝙎 𝘽𝙄𝙍𝘿𝙎

Magaul Bird Park, the name of our first destination. Basically, it's a show of different kinds of birds. We were all seated in a amphitheater-looking venue, with rows and rows of seats, all leading downward where a flat stage is found with circus-like designs and a curved water pond just on the far left side of the platform. Well, since this is a show of birds, I will not tell you the specific kinds of winged creature who performed in the show. It will ruin the fun! The moment of surprise is their best element, and you better go there without an idea in mind, it will be more exciting that way, I promise.

This I can say though, it was surely an interesting performance. The birds looked like they're having fun, and they're really trained well. It was like watching an animated movie, but this time, they're very much real! It reminded me a lot of the movie Rio, and it was truly a moment in my life to be able to watch an eagle soaring overhead. Plus, we were able to see lots of cute little ducks! They emerged from the curved pool of water, and they look absolutely adorable. I had to resist the urge to go down there and steal one of them. Thankfully, I managed... barely.

At the end we were also taught on how to make kitchen utensils out of a bamboo stick. It was very educational and will surely help you especially if you want to go camping. And we were also introduced to an interesting looking branch of wood. Apparently, it contains a supply of drinkable water! It was then distributed to a handful amount of students so they can try the said wood water. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to taste it, but one of my classmates told us that it tastes like nature.

That was the end of the show. And after that, we had lunch. It was indeed a great way to start our field trip!

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11:30 𝘼𝙈, 𝙄𝙉 𝘼 𝙏𝙊𝙐𝙍 𝙊𝙁 𝘽𝙄𝙍𝘿𝙎 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝘿𝙄𝙁𝙁𝙀𝙍𝙀𝙉𝙏 𝘼𝙉𝙄𝙈𝘼𝙇𝙎

After lunch, we were guided into a tunnel full of birds. A beautiful sound greeted us, their chirping seemingly sounding like the start of a magical song. There were different kinds of them to be found inside the tunnel, there were ducks, a bunch of varieties of small-looking birds (all in different shades of color), and even peacocks! Each of them showcased their colorful feather, their quick flying skills, melodic tweeting... and even their egg. Literally. At the end of the tunnel, we found a freshly laid ostrich egg. One of my friend posed for a picture, looking like he was the one who just laid the egg. The sight made me laugh while we continued on the tour.

The next stop is a room full of different insects. They're not alive, thankfully. I would've been so scared! They were encased in these glass frames, with descriptions found alongside them. There were a bunch of colorful butterflies, with their patterns varying in colors and shapes. There were countless beetles, and other more insects that I can't name. It was definitely a different vibe from our last stop, which is the birds.

We walked through a lot of pathways, and the surrounding has a relaxing vibe in it. There were a lot of trees, and a collection of different eye-catching structures, like the fun-looking bridge, and a tree full of bird cages. This is where you can take your own pictures, and yes, we took a lot of them. Besides, what are photographs, if not captured memories? We took pictures wherever we can, because we know that someday soon we would look at these pictures and see the beautiful sights our eyes had laid upon.

After the tour, our destination in Jest Camp has finally concluded. We went back to our bus to go to the nexr destination, which is Zoobic Safari.

12:30 𝙋𝙈, 𝙄𝙉 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙏𝙄𝙂𝙀𝙍 𝘼𝘿𝙑𝙀𝙉𝙏𝙐𝙍𝙀

The next stop turned out as my most favorite destination. We're headed to Zoobic Safari, found on the same area, in Freeport Zone, Subic Bay. and we're about to go on a covered bus to see some tigers in action! And so that is what we did. Before that, while in the bus, we did our best to change our clothes, it was indeed a hot sunny day, and we were all sweaty. One thing you really need to pack in this trip is a pair of extra clothes, a cap, and even sunblock! You would not like to have a nasty sunburn.

First sight we saw on our next venue is a series of stores. Thousands of different kinds of souvenirs were offered to us in exchange of a considerable amount of cash. But because I'm me, and because it's hot, the store that caught my attention... and my cash, was the milkshake store. I know, it's not a great remembrance, but what can I do? It's indeed hot, and I'm getting really sweaty! Besides, I have to admit, some of the stuff there were really overpriced, it's just not worth it for me.

After the store, we waited for our turn in the tiger experience. We were asked for an extra amount of 20 pesos each so that we can feed the tigers some meat. To be honest, it was quite a bummer, since we thought it was all covered in the expenses we paid before we registered for the field trip. But ah well, moving on!

The extra fee was forgotten when we got to experience the tour. We saw lots of them! Some were walking around the fields, waiting. The meat were provided by the expert tour guides for safety, some were just laying around, and seems to have no care for the world, some were even on a pond, quietly half-submerged under water, maybe because of the heat. When they see the meat being offered to them, they hurriedly went to our bus and ate them with their huge mouth. Their spiky teeth and claws burrowed deep within their gums. It was so awesome. Seeing it in action was something you don't see every day. We screamed when we got sight of them near us, and it was an another level of fun experience. Like I've said, this is my favorite part of our field trip.

After that, it was another tour of animals. Some of my classmates went to an 8D Cinema. But others including me continued on with the tour. Under the burning heat of the afternoon, we walked through different kinds of animals. The air smelled of wilderness, like dirt and trees with hints of animal furs. We saw lions, zebras, horses, turtles, snakes, and goats. Walking through the zoo was interesting, because you get to see many different species of animals. Although I can't help but notice the state of the lions, I still remember their sad figures. They were caged and they look like they want to go out and live on their natural habitat. I have to admit I want to go to the door and free them, but alas, I cannot. We continued on and walked through another section showcasing crocodiles.

The crocodiles look scary, you can also pay some foods to feed on them. I didn't buy one because I was too scared. Some are fast-moving, while some are unmoving at all, frozen like a statue. Speaking of frozen creatures, we also went through a cave of taxidermed animals. It all looks interesting, but at the same time, creepy-looking. They look really alive. The smell of the cave gives a musty scent, like dust and other particles I can't quite name. You might want to have a mask when entering! Maybe it's the effect given by the taxidermy.

After that, it was the end of the trip. We went back to our bus and finally, another roadtrip. This time, it's time to go home.

3:30 𝙋𝙈 𝙩𝙤 7 𝙋𝙈, 𝙄𝙉 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘽𝙐𝙎, 𝙂𝙊𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙃𝙊𝙈𝙀

The moment we got onto the bus, we started munching. It was a long tour, and we got really hungry. After that, some of my classmates slept again, tired because of a long day full of walking and exploring. Even though I only had four hours of sleep that day, I didn't sleep. I wanted to enjoy another sightseeing. And I still have lots of snacks to devour.

An hour later, my classmates woke up. We once again laughed together and sang cheesy songs at the top of our lungs. It was our last field trip, so we had to savor it! After three hours of roadtrip, we finally got to our school. And then... with a great feeling in my heart, we went home.

THOUGHTS

Overall, it was a fun trip! The events that happened that day became memorable for me, especially since I got to experience them with friends. One thing I can say about the venues was that I expected more activities. It was just a long period of walking and walking and walking...

The tiger experience was the best part of the trip. It really made me feel like I'm in another world. Seeing an awesome-looking tiger is indeed unforgettable, it's one of the few things I would want to experience again.

In the end, I still had a big smile on my face when I went home. It was just a memory that I know I would remember every once in a while. For me, what makes the travel worthwhile is when you have good company to travel with. So when going on a trip, be sure to bring some friends along with you! It would be nice to explore the world with someone, especially people who are special to you. Want to go on this trip we just had? Well, then plan it now with your friends! I'm sure you would also have a lot of fun in this one.

Estimated cost of the trip: 2,500 PHP per individual