#that animator has gotta be the mvp of the whole entire series

[sneezypeasy]

^ Okay, who the hell animated Mai in that one scene in The Boiling Rock? Whoever it was deserves a raise. They managed to portray Mai's sense of dejection, an epiphany that Zuko's position is both honourable and achievable, a sudden disillusionment with the war effort, a newfound conviction to take a political (not just a personal) stand against Azula, her parents and Ozai all in the span of three seconds and without even changing her facial expression or having any lines of dialogue to work with!

The other writers/animators needed three whole seasons to depict Zuko's infamous redemption arc. Pathetic.

Whoever animated Mai probably could have speedrunned the entire show in one episode. Woulda saved a ton of money in hiring voice actors storyboarders etc. Give 'em a pay rise, hell better give them an academy award, a beer, a statue in Republic City, a medal, a gift basket, a gobby, you name it dude. What a ripper c*** ❤️

[eri-cheri]

Now that we have reached the last chapter of the year. It is time to do a 2020 roll call of what I like to call, “State of the Shippers”:

1. IzuOcha. Status: Placated.

-IzuOcha’s could celebrate several cute tidbits throughout the year. Mini moments as they say.

Anime Highlights: The OVA’s came in clutch with moments for shippers all around and IzuOcha is no exception. We got a cute tidbit where Izuku and Ochako bumped into each other and were flustered.

Manga Highlights: Christmas kept on giving to this fandom as the AM doll Izuku gave Ochako made many appearances. A cute fist bump between the two was also exchanged and Mina was right there bouncing with y’all.

Heroes Rising: Izuku super man carried Ochako to safety. And was Angy she was injured. Fans could enjoy the small Lois Lane moment.

Troubling Signs?: Ochako said “I would like to be excluded from this narrative” when it comes to her feelings for Deku. She’s a hero damnit! So if they are in for something, probably won’t be while they are still in school.

II. DabiHawks. Status: Yikes.

- Dabi and Hawk’s very public breakup set this fandom in disarray but also kind of disayay?

Anime Highlights: None yet. This fandom was cruelly cock blocked by Bones. Sorry DabiHawks stans.

Manga Highlights: Where to begin, my goodness. With these fans, I guess the good and the bad is a plus in this homoerotic double agent relationship. We have the notion that Dabi may have known Hawks when they were kids, which may be a positive? Hori sure loves his childhood friends. Other than that. The GIRLS WERE FIGHTIN’. Hawks is now permanently scarred by Dabi and I don’t think it was kinky folks. Tokoyami inserted himself in the middle to White Knight Hawks, Dabi broke up with him via YT expose and overall, shippers could anguish in the absolute MESS that this ship endured this year. But I’m sure that’s part of the appeal. So...yay?

Heroes Rising: They were both in it.

Troubling Signs?: The entire relationship is a troubling sign which again, is part of the appeal. Maybe Hawks will cuddle up with Dabi’s father after the war. That’s troubling! Speaking of...

III. EndHawks. Status: Yearning and Burning.

-If there’s one thing Endeavor couldn’t stop worrying about, it was his hot (in more ways than one) new side piece who probably should have looked at the fine print when signing a contract to be a recurring guest star on “Keeping up with the Todoroki’s”.

Anime Highlights: A fateful meeting finally in high definition for all our eyes to see! Hawks’s unwavering support of his biggest hero was endearing to watch and their shenanigans together spurred the anime onlies to finally jump on the biggest May-December ship in the series.

Manga Highlights: Endeavor’s admiration and concern for Hawks seeped through the pages as we entered our most exciting arc in the manga yet. Fate split these two up yet entwined their downfall together. And that Fate’s name was Dabi...or should I say ⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️ or should I just say Touya!

Heroes Rising: “Don’t bite my head off, Endeavor.” Geez, can you flirt a little less loud Hawks?

Troubling Signs?: They say never meet your heroes and Hawks is in for a rude awakening. We shall see just how deep his admiration runs or if Endeavor’s past will split our dynamic duo up for good.

IV: TodoDeku. Status: “Precious”

-Shoto’s “Midoriya is in Danger” radar was highlighted in both manga and anime. 4th User’s quirk, who?

Anime Highlights: “Midoriya hasn’t returned yet.” “Where’s Midoriya?” “Midoriya! Grab my hand!” “Have some of my Soba Midoriya.” Shoto gets it. His emotional support friend is a danger magnet. TodoDeku’s also enjoyed tiny tidbits in the OVA such as a hand grabbing scene. Gotta hold tight to those crumbs.

Manga Highlights: Two Words. “Precious Friend.” Deku comes in w/o arms or legs fighting for Shoto and Shoto’s honor. These two spent the entire year worried sick about each other, and going against all odds to save each other. Precious Friends indeed. TDDK fans ate.

Heroes Rising: Shoto kicks some dog ass and then faints thinking of Deku (and Bakugo but shh. Let the shippers rejoice.) On the bright side, we have a 3rd movie coming featuring “The Three Musketeers” so shippers of TdDk can HOLD TIGHT to what’s to come.

Troubling Signs?: Shoto still doesn’t know about OFA and he’s gonna have LOTS of questions after this arc. Will Deku finally tell him? If not, it could make or break the ship.

V. TodoBaku. Status: “Shining through the city with a little funk and soul.”

-Who knew the greatest comedy duo we needed was Shoto and his hot headed “friend” or not friend? It still remains unclear to Shoto. Regardless, these two had a fun year.

Anime Highlights: “I wanna see your cute face”, disco dancing, and more fun in the provisional license training. Plus the OVA added some cute moments between the two such as Bakugo staying behind to save Todoroki during a dangerous excercise and his adorable plan neatly animated for us. I’d say TodoBaku’s really were resurgent and energized this year!

Manga Highlights: Shoto, that is not how you properly Catch a Kacchan, I’m sorry. But at least you did it you mad lad. As with Deku, Shoto spent the year worried sick about Bakugo. While the anime let us have our fun, these two were suffering in the manga.

Heroes Rising: Again, Shoto put a dog down and then fainted with Bakugo on his mind (and Deku but we ignore that. Shush.) TodoBaku’s have the 3rd movie to look forward to which is bound to have some amazing content!

Troubling Signs?: They have a lot of trauma to deal with. And a lot of Deku to worry about. I also imagine Shoto will be hurt about being left out of the OFA secret. We shall see what 2021 has to offer.

VI. KiriMina. Status: Unbreakable.

-Changing your hairstyle to match the gal who inspired you in middle school? Sorry y’all but if Mina were a guy, I’d say that’s gay af.

Anime Highlights: We got that backstory Bois. Red Riot’s origin might as well make him be called Pink Riot. Again with Hori and the childhood friends though I wouldn’t exactly call them friends. They just went to the same middle school but Kirishima was highly influenced by Mina’s Chivalrous spirit! A ship is born!

Manga Highlights: The influence is mutual! Mina creates a move based on Kirishima’s unbreakable and we all let out a collective “awwww”. Also in the war arc, we got Kirishima making sure Mina’s chivalrous spirit shines through right into Gigantomachia’s mouth! KiriMina may just be the unsung MVP’s of this arc.

Heroes Rising: They were in it.

Troubling Signs?: I can’t think of a single one. KiriMina’s can enjoy a peaceful sailing.

VII: KiriBaku. Status: Crumb Collectors.

-2020 was an uneventful year for KiriBaku but Bones made sure there were crumbs aplenty! Thank God for OVA’s!

Anime Highlights: KiriBaku’s did thrive in one episode! Kirishima reflects on the sludge incident and evolves his quirk based on inspiring words from Bakugo! Hooray! KiriBaku’s can thrive in their blossoming friendship. The OVA also has Kirishima (and Kaminari but shh) once again following Bakugo’s lead when it comes to the training excercise. How can you not? He’s so manly!

Manga Highlights: Not gonna lie. There is nothing much here this year. I did find a teeny tiny flake in Aizawa’s flashback. Kirishima and Bakugo are sitting next to each other. Oh! And at the hot pot gathering, Bakugo sits next to Kirishima! Eat your crumbs KiriBaku’s! There’s always next year!

Heroes Rising: Kirishima hangs with a lazy Bakugo and delivers the most hilarious line in the whole movie. “Silly Bakugo, there won’t be villains here!” Hahah... Silly Bakugo. Oh you~ KiriBaku’s can inhale the fact that those two sure love to hover around each other!

Troubling Signs?: With great crumbs come little responsiblity. No trouble if there’s no content! 🤔

VIII: KamiJirou. Status: Singing their hearts out 🎶

-If there’s any ship that’s coming close to canonization, I think this is it, folks! “Think of the person most important to you!” Can’t argue with Midnight!

Anime Highlights: Kaminari does non stop encouraging of Jirou and her hobbies! He works super hard to learn guitar for her sake! We love a king who can encourage his queen!

Manga Highlights: Kaminari thinks of the most important person to him and surprise! It’s Jirou! All of the feels can commence.

Heroes Rising: They were in it!

Troubling Signs?: Kaminari does love his women. And men. Kaminari overall is a huge flirt. But Jirou appears to have his heart strings. ❤️

IX: BakuDeku. Status: Rising. 👑

-Alternative Statuses include Winning, Thriving, Soaring. It’s just been non stop content this year. 2020 is truly the year for BakuDeku. The shippers can rejoice.

Anime Highlights: Three words. Be. My. Cane. The OVA’s helped fan the flames of the BkDk hearts with a surprise! Deku tops! Not only that, we got a lovely shoulder tap of encouragement in the canon material. While in season 4, Deku’s primary focus was Eri. Bakugo and Deku still had their moments to be hella gay.

Manga Highlights: Where do I even begin? I guess we’ll just cut to the chase with Bakugo Katsuki: Rising. We finally saw Bakugo’s true feelings manifest for Deku and if getting stabbed for him isn’t the ultimate showing of love, then idk what is. BakuDeku’s rounded out the year with the Volume 29 cover AND the volume 29 cover drafts to eat at our heart strings. Overall, their relationship got the spotlight in the manga this year. And we’re bound to start 2021 with a dramatic confrontation. Hand holding seems to be the key with these two and it didn’t stop with Heroes Rising...speaking of.

Heroes Rising: The entire movie. Like....yeah. That’s it. [OP, your bias is showing. You have to be SPECIFIC.] {But random criticizer in my head, if I lay out the entire plot of the movie, my post will be too long} [OP....] UGHHHH Okay okay. The POPSICLE MELTING. THE HAND HOLDING. THE CHARACTER DESIGNS OF WHAT MIGHT AS WELL BE THEIR LOVE CHILDREN. Did I mention? “It’s fine if it’s you?” CAUSE YEAH. Oh and All Might randomly officiating their wedding in their heads like idk. Isn’t it just simpler if I say the whole movie??!

Troubling Signs?: Well these two’s relationship is extremely delicate and while it has non stop soared this year, Deku might not take too kindly to Bakugo almost dying for him. Will they stop pushing each other away? Time will tell.

That’s all for this year folks! Happy Shipping and good luck to everyone next year!

[marnie1964]

Karate Kid/Cobra Kai survey

i'm gonna consider myself tagged

It’s the year 2021 and you’re obsessed with The Karate Kid. How are you feeling?: an unexpected turn of events but it's passing the quarantine, i guess!

Did you grow up with TKK or are you new to the series?:  to be completely honest, i don't really like the movies? i didn't vibe with them as a kid and when i went back and tried to watch them this year i couldn't make it all the way through.* i think they're well crafted movies, but i've never liked relatable young boy wish fulfillment (i couldn't even get thru harry potter as a kid), and i think the first one is guilty of burying the lede twice over with regards to mr. miyagi and later the relationship between kreese and johnny. and lucky me--these are exactly the areas that cobra kai delivers on.

*except for the third one, which imo is a camp masterpiece and also genuinely heartbreaking. it's the only one that allows daniel to be an genuine pain in the ass. i think i've finally figured out what the target audience for cobra kai is: people who's favorite karate kid movie was tkk3 (me).

We gotta do the basics. Favorite character: johnny! what is a man but a miserable pile of bruce springsteen lyrics? or aimee mann lyrics? or mountain goats lyrics? or otis redding lyrics? or--fuck, have americans ever written songs about anyone else? i have an unreal amount of good will towards this man and his late-life struggle for recuperation. he's the heart of the show both in terms of his relationships with other characters and in terms of zabka's chemistry with the other actors.

my deep dark double secret fave is kreese. he makes me feel real anger in a way that's usually reserved for characters in vince gilligan shows. i'm a bit obsessed with him and his preoccupation with johnny and later johnny's teenaged son (I Have Thoughts). the show does a great job of making what he did to johnny--and all the years and years and years of fallout from that--feel really real, which makes him one of the most viscerally despicable villains i've ever come across . it's unironically among the best portrayals of domestic abuse i've seen, may god have mercy on our souls. the decision to pop out from behind a fucking cardboard cutout of himself to scare daniel in tkk3 was also a hilarious galaxy brain move. aspirational stuff.

also--shout out to daniel-san. the writers really had to work their asses off to make him into a character that appeals to me, and i think they did a great job of it. he's a cringey tool who's capable of displaying a surprising amount of integrity under the right circumstances! he's tom wambsgans! he's pete campbell! he's wonderful i love him!

Favorite ship:  johnny & daniel (what if mysterious skin was a sports comedy??)

Underrated character: the True and Correct answer to this question can only be aisha, although i don't think she was actually underrated by anyone besides the writers. chozen is also lowkey my favorite katate child because c'mon, he had everything (spear fights! ziplines! teen death matches! formfitting disco-era polyester button down shirts worn with gold chains!)

Underrated ship (don’t say therapy, lol):  uhhhh... the only teen couple that could have been interesting is tory/aisha. they were cute together and their friendship rang true to me. it's that thing where you're the new girl and you're conventionally attractive, but on the inside you know you're a freak so you immediately gravitate towards the most obvious female outsider. i lived it, bay-bey!

i also think there are interesting things to explore with carmen and johnny's relationship. i don't know if the writers are even aware of it (i lean towards no b/c men amirite) but the entire premise of carmen's character is that she chose to live in poverty to protect herself and her son from a bad man with power. she's thereby the exact opposite of johnny's mother, who (at least by his understanding) married hollywood film producer shmarvey shmeinstein to provide her son with a better life. so, there's a lot to unpack in his attraction to her. also they're super hot hur hur i like sexy nurse thing hur hur.

Wax On, Wax Off or Sweep the Leg?: i can't look directly at it, but sweep the leg. zabka what the fuck man.

Which of Daniel’s dumb little outfits is your favorite?:  i don't think i've seen anyone mention this one yet, but the football jersey with the sweatpants. it makes him look so small and huggable, i wanna pick him up and set him on my shelf or something.

Character from the films you most want to return, who’s not Terry Silver: bring back ali's lesbian girl gang!!! or else--dutch. he was funny and iconic, i loved his exaggerated offended reaction to everything daniel said or did in tkk. also, i'm tacky so i'm a sucker for aggressively bleach blonde hair. the SCANDALIZED wasp couple standing behind ali and johnny in the spaghetti scene will also do. or terry's secretary (an mvp--i believe the original actress has passed away so in my heart of hearts she's portrayed by j. smith-cameron).

Scene that lives in your head rent-free: the whole character development speed run that johnny does from sweep the leg to crying while handing daniel the trophy to getting strangled in the parking lot by his beloved teacher. i'm especially transfixed by that last bit--what's the thought process of a man who decides to publicly execute his teenage student via strangulation? why did none of the many bystanders call the police? johnny is the real kitty genovese, prison for everyone.

from the cobra kai series proper: daniel's decision to greet johnny with a big hug after not seeing him for 35 years and never actually being friends with him (I Have Thoughts), the heinously creepy scene where johnny is repeating the cobra kai mantra for miguel and his entire disposition completely changes (demonic possession shit), and johnny's tiny go-ahead-and-kill-my-abuser nod (his face is so stoney after being so animated at dinner) coupled with daniel's shaky little sign of relief (macchio is really the cutest when he looks scared).

it goes without saying that every johnny & miguel scene lives rent free in my HEART.

Will Anthony LaRusso ever be relevant?: anthony becomes relevant for one (1) episode next season when amanda and daniel finally get around to putting him up for adoption.

You live in The Valley and are forced into the karate gang war.  Which dojo do you join?:  i enter the cobra kai dojo decked out in all of my snake-themed clothing and jewelry (it's a lot). i approach kreese and explain to him that the open mouth of a snake, viewed head-on, is a yonic symbol. i am permanently banned from the cobra kai dojo.

(seriously though, assuming i'm a teen in this scenario i think i would have vibed with tory/miguel/aisha. dimitri and sam would have driven high school me up the fucking wall though. the cobra kai style looks like more fun/better exercise. do i also genuinely believe most young girls could actually benefit from someone yelling no mercy down their neck? maybe so 💖)

What’s your training montage song?:  50ft queenie - pj harvey (it takes place in the alison bechdel feminist karate dojo ofc)

It’s the crossover event of the century! Which TV show are you combining with Cobra Kai for an hour-long Saturday night special?: it's a full episode flashback to the time johnny got arrested in albuquerque, new mexico. johnny's court-appointed attorney is a weirdly hot babe who seems like a super straight laced killjoy at first, but soon reveals herself to be an unhinged woman. one thing leads to another, and johnny winds up in bed with her and her loser husband. there are lots of great themes about punitive justice, people's ability to change for the better (and worse), and what makes someone "good" or "bad" to begin with, but mostly it's just really hot sex. the husband tries to sell johnny a prepaid cellphone and johnny tell's him that cellphones are never gonna catch on, cause who want's to be bothered by people all the time like that?

better call saul. it's a better call saul crossover ep.

(fwiw think that greg 'hbo succession' hirsch should also be terry's cousin greg on the non-roy side. think about it--the roys are small people, but cousin greg is really tall?? and who else is really tall, and a blue eyed brunette to boot? terry silver. it all adds up! this never becomes relevant to the plot, in any case, i'm just considering it canon until the writers come to my house and explicitly tell me i'm wrong.)

Tagging: anyone who's interested 😘

[cartoon-savant]

Netflix’s Carmen Sandiego Season 3 Watch Ramblings

So I already said my crack theories prior to this post for Season 3 of Carmen Sandiego before release/watching, so now here are my thoughts on what went down. Spoilers, of course.

- First off, I always love when villains have personality outside of just being evil/the bad guy or doing evil things. Like last season when they were just doing a meeting at the diner. I loved their Halloween fun time shenanigans. Also The Cleaners seem to be having fun with the dress-up.

- So I didn’t know that Season 3 was only five episodes. Guess we reached that point in the Netflix animated series where they cut a season in half to cut down hiatus time and/or stretch the series out. Also, have I missed that opening music and all. It’s so good.

- A little on the nose with the new VILE headquarters but sometimes you gotta do it up classic villain style.

- Carmen still has some PTSD when dealing with Coach Brunt. Like there seems to recoil when she becomes directly confronted with her and I guess that will always be there since she always saw her as a mother figure.

- I did believe Julia would be sidelined someway after everything Season 2, I just didn’t think she would do it herself so forcefully. With The Chief becoming embittered to Carmen after the hack she was less receptive to Julia’s analysis of her activities. She had a whole backup career ready to go and everything. Though unlike Chase she gets to come back whenever due to being a valuable agent. Bringing in Chase was less for his skills and really more for his persistence and knack for always getting close to Carmen.

Side Note: I just love that throughout Season 2 Chase was out of action and little to no mention of him from Carmen whenever she runs into Julia. We get the flip Season 3 and every chance she gets Carmen makes note of Julia’s absence and preference to her in a situation, even after Stockholm and the ACME hack she seems to still trust Julia to do her right.

-So most likely events in Season 4 will have her new job site be the spot for a new caper. Seeing her separated from ACME will probably have Carmen constantly interact with Julia like with Graham when the chance arrives. Though when ACME/VILE gets wind of this in some form it may just complicate things for everyone.

- I wonder if we’ll get new agents besides Spinkick and Flytrap or just for this and next season before new VILE operatives start showing up. Though, with Roundabout no longer being their man on the inside who could pass around “Get Out Of Jail Free” cards to VILE when someone gets arrested, we’ll probably start seeing more one-off agents so they can have ACME start getting wins and possibly making Devineaux look better. VILE lost a major safety net so now they’ll walk a very dangerous high wire. Also Chase’s experience in Season 2 has raised his perception well. If the pieces lay before him he’ll connect the dots. The gears started turning to him thinking that maybe La Femme Rouge is not the person he thought and Julia was right.

- Speaking of agents, Mime Bomb is still MVP for VILE isn’t he? Like even on missions he is a part of that fail it never seems to be on him for the failure. He does his part perfectly, putting up with everyone else’s antics on either side. Watch Mime Bomb never get caught by the end of this series, no longer VILE and just out in the world. Or the moment he gets put out of commission everything just starts to go way south fast for VILE operatives. Also, does this mean Neal The Eel is mind wiped the next time we see him or was Graham really that unlucky with his failure and capture?

- Zack and Ivy seem to be toned down this season. Well, Ivy at least. She feels like her humor factor is being given more finesse so she can still be funny but not obnoxiously so. Zack gets less of a jokester back and forth with her because of it and becomes the funny guy to her straight man. So his antics get toned down to a degree and they show more personality outside of being constant comedy relief or having a showcase episode.

- Player didn’t really get to stand out much this season. Shadow san always get to be at his best and even got an episode for him. So with VILE introducing their own elite hacker in The Troll Season 4 might give Player some great moments to shine as a character.

- Looks like Graham gets to be brought in to meet ACME and whether the mind wipe also left him as a sleeper agent or not I can’t wait to find out. But before that I wonder how ACME will approach him and how he and ACME will speak of their activities with Carmen.

- All in all, when seasons get split like this they sometimes feel more like build up to the next season and this left me wanting more because of how short it felt. Like it was a long Halloween special. There was a building overarching plot but not big enough of a payoff that the season finale couldn’t have happened at any time during the season and Roundabout being defeated and outed as a VILE agent so quickly probably feels better together with Season 4 and its plot. A good season, but just shy of feeling entirely like filler. Depends even more on how key points are brought up next season.

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE SERIES: My Favorite One Piece Arc with Daniel Barnes

  I love One Piece and I love talking to people who love One Piece. And with the series going on 23 years now, there is a whole lot to talk about. As the series is about to publish its 1000th chapter, a true feat in and of itself, we thought we should reflect upon the high-seas adventure and sit down with some notable names in the One Piece fan community and chat about the arcs they found to be especially important, or just ones they really, really liked.

  Welcome to the next article in the series "My Favorite One Piece Arc!"

  My next guest in this series is Daniel Barnes, writer for the Aggretsuko comic, and his original graphic novel The Black Mage. For my chat with him, he chose the Marineford arc, in which Luffy drops into a World Government headquarters in a desperate race against time to save his "brother" Ace from execution.

  A note on spoilers: If you haven't seen the Marineford arc yet, this interview does contain major plot points. Watch the Marineford arc starting RIGHT HERE if you'd like to catch up or rewatch!

    Dan Dockery: Let’s say that for some reason, I get to the end of Impel Down, just before Luffy & Co. drop into Marineford, and I’m like “I’m done. This is it. I can’t handle any more One Piece.” In one sentence, what do you tell me to keep me going?

  Daniel Barnes: Why are you stopping before you reach the payoff of everything you’ve read so far?

  I like that! How long have you been into One Piece?

  When I first started consuming One Piece in earnest, ironically enough, I was in the Navy at the time. It was 2014, and up until that point, my only exposure had been the 4Kids dub on FoxBox.

    Nice. I love a good FoxBox reference. Was it recommended to you? Because I know that, when a lot of people start One Piece, it’s like “FINE. I’ll watch One Piece. You’ve convinced me.”

  I don’t consume anime as voraciously as I did back then. Back then, I was an anime vacuum, but I was also in this weird spot where I was semi-depressed. But someone told me, “You gotta try One Piece, it’s the best.” And my first reaction was “Umm, the art style’s kinda weird, though.” But they told me “You’ll get over it,” and the thing that made me finally take that leap was Gurren Lagann, which also had an unusual art style and then became one of my favorite things ever. So I figured I should at least give it a shot. 

  That’s something I’ve heard a few times. Because in other big series like Naruto and Bleach, the character designs are much more proportionate and straightforward. And I felt the same way...until I watched it, and realized the art style is PERFECT for what it is. So, Marineford is pretty much the halfway point of the series, with characters returning from all over the place. Were there any that you were excited to see come back?

  There’s a few of them. I always love it when Mihawk shows up, but I think the big one is Whitebeard. Because up until this point, he’s just sitting around and you know he’s a big deal but you’re always wondering why he’s a big deal. And then you find out in Marineford. I enjoy seeing characters that are kind of defined as the “power ceiling” in an anime universe get to do stuff, and it was cool to see him make the entire world quake.

    I think I called it in an article a “Be Quiet, The Parents Are Talking” character. You’ll go through Luffy getting new power-ups and increasingly strong villains and these seemingly insurmountable admirals with their elemental powers and then Whitebeard comes in, and he’s leaps and bounds above everyone. And like you said, for the most part, he’s just sitting down beforehand.

  Yeah, he’s sitting down drinking a giant gourd of sake. His name is Whitebeard, but he doesn’t have a beard. Got a real Hulk Hogan vibe to him. Who is this guy? But then you finally see him after all this time, and that’s the magic of One Piece. You see all of these things over the years and you wonder what part they’ll play and then it finally hits you and their role and strength becomes clear. 

  Marineford, obviously, is all built around Ace. And what you get out of the arc probably depends on how much you enjoy Ace’s character. How did you feel about him? Did it make you emotional at all? I know he has the one scene with Garp where they talk about finding your purpose in life, and that really got to me, even though I’m not the biggest fan of Ace.

  Okay, I think Ace looks cool and I think he has good powers, but I didn’t really care that much when he died. I didn’t really know him enough. 

    Were there any characters that you did get attached to or like a lot in Marineford? I know you said you liked Whitebeard and Mihawk, but who was your Marineford MVP? Who shines brightest among all those crazy diamonds?

  Okay, so the cop-out answer is probably Luffy. He’s one of the weakest characters there and he manages to survive and he plays such a big role by rallying everyone despite being constantly outmatched. So, objectively, Luffy. But maybe I give it to Coby, because Coby stands his ground against Akainu. He gives you hope that maybe the Marines can change their ways one day and when he refuses to move in front of an Admiral, I thought that was a real stand-out, awesome moment. 

  So Ace dies, Whitebeard just wrecks Akainu and throws him into a pit, and then, out of nowhere, Blackbeard shows up. Whitebeard beats up Blackbeard and Blackbeard’s forces kill Whitebeard. What do you think about Blackbeard as a villain? Because he’s so unlikeable. He’s underhanded, he whines whenever he gets hurt, he’s super pompous. He has cool powers, but there’s nothing cool about who he is. 

  He’s super interesting, to me. He has a mystery around him with his two Devil Fruit powers, and he doesn’t really fit into any shonen villain stereotype. He’s an inverse of Luffy, but not in all of the super obvious ways. When you first see him in Jaya, you see him start with basically nothing, and you watch him work through the system and the powers that be, just like Luffy. They’re both trying to achieve the same thing and reach the same goal. But Blackbeard’s methods are different. 

    Yeah, Luffy will punch you in the face, while Blackbeard will stab you in the back.

  And getting to see that evolution is great, because they easily could’ve just said, boom, here’s the next big bad guy and given him to you without context. But it’s like I said about One Piece earlier, where it shows you stuff over time and gets you to look forward to what will happen with it later. That’s Blackbeard’s whole appeal. 

  You talked earlier about Coby standing up to Akainu, ready to die for his beliefs. And then Shanks comes and stops the war. How did you feel about that? Because we’re all still waiting to see what his deal is (which as you said is a big part of the continuing appeal of One Piece,) but were you hyped to see him show up?

  I thought it was cool, because One Piece has done a good job of establishing him as an awesome guy. He’s a lot like Zero from Mega Man X, where he shows up at the beginning, they imply how powerful he is, they make the main character want to be as strong as him, and then they take him away and only show him sparingly. So whenever Shanks drops by, he's been handled so well that you’re just on the edge of your seat wondering what he’s gonna do.

    So, after the war is over, Jimbei has to remind Luffy that he still has things worth fighting for. And then, the timeskip. Were you aware that a timeskip was coming?

  Oh yeah. It’s kind of hard to exist on social media and not get a bunch of these little hints about what’s gonna happen. But that was my goal with One Piece for a little while: I’m gonna get to the timeskip. I have to get there. It’s coming, I know it’s coming, I don’t know when it’s coming, but I just have to reach it. 

  There are so many big moments in this arc, but looking back at it, are there any moments that stand out as prime One Piece to you? 

  The obvious one, for me, is when Luffy goes Third Gear and punches the giant out of the way. That’s so cool and such quintessential One Piece. A giant on an arena made of ice and a rubbery kid inflates his fist to make it huge and knocks him around. It’s so weird and it works. 

  ONE PIECE LIGHTNING ROUND!

  Favorite One Piece character?

  Usopp.

  Favorite One Piece villain?

  Crocodile.

  Favorite One Piece arc?

  Sabaody Archipelago.

  Which Devil Fruit would you eat if you had the choice? 

  Bellamy’s Spring Spring fruit. 

  If you had to live on any island in the One Piece universe, which would you choose?

  Does the Gran Tesoro from the Film: Gold movie count? That one’s pretty dope.

  Favorite One Piece fight?

  Luffy vs Blueno, when he first reveals the Second Gear.

  One Piece moment that made you cry the hardest?

  When the Franky Gang beats up Usopp and Nami finds him and Usopp is like “I’m useless. I can’t do anything.” Whenever Usopp gets beaten up, his nose gets all crooked and he loses teeth. There’s so many cartoon-ey visual indicators for Usopp in pain. It got me.

  One Piece moment that made you cheer the loudest?

  When Luffy punches the Celestial Dragon in the face. It’s so cathartic. 

      Stay tuned for the next installment of "My Favorite One Piece Arc" as we speak with One Piece Podcast Co-Host and storyboard artist Steve Yurko about his favorite One Piece arc: Baratie!!

      Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features.

By: Daniel Dockery

[littlemisssquiggles]

Dragonic Musings: So…I have officially finished The Dragon Prince Book 3…

…And, I have no words. Like I’m incapable of forming coherent sentences right now. So, if you all would pardon me, I’m just going to share some screenshots from scenes that stood out most to me and screech my opinion of them in the most bluntest of fashions:

Ahem:

First and foremost, to all the people who urged me to watch this season til the end for more Rayllum:

WELL HOT DAMN! YOU GUYS...YOU GUYS WEREN’T JOKING! THIS MOMENT. THIS MOMENT RIGHT HERE. I THINK....THIS HAS GOT TO BE ONE OF THE BEST LOVE CONFESSION MOMENTS I’VE SEEN IN ANIMATED SERIES. YES I KNOW I SAID THIS ABOUT THE RAYLLUM FIRST OFFICIAL KISSY-KISS MOMENT FROM CH5 BUT...NAH! I THINK THIS MOMENT STOLE IT.

DON’T GET ME WRONG, ADMITTEDLY I WILL SAY THAT I LOVED THE RAYLLUM MOMENT FROM CH5 ALOT BETTER. BUT STILL...THIS WAS...THIS WAS JUST....

....I DON’T EVEN KNOW. IT’S BEAUTIFUL GUYS! NOTHING ELSE BUT THAT.

CALLUM STRAIGHT UP SPROUTED WANGS AND TURNED INTO A BIRD MAN FUELED BY HIS LOVE FOR RAYLA....AS CHEESY AS THAT SOUNDS, I’M EATING IT UP! AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT’S EVEN MORE INSANE?

THIS JUST MADE ME THINK BACK TO WHERE RAYLA AND CALLUM STARTED? REMEMBER WHEN RAYLA TRIED TO KILL CALLUM BACK IN BOOK 1?

REMEMBER WHEN CALLUM TOLD RAYLA THAT HE AND HER WEREN’T QUOTE, UNQUOTE, “THERE YET” BACK IN BOOK 2.

NOW LOOK AT THEM!

SERIOUSLY LOOK AT THEM!

STARTED FROM THE BOTTOM AND NOW WE HERE...UP ON CLOUD NINE!

WHEN WE RAYLLUMS STANS SAY THAT THIS SHIP SOARED, PEOPLE ARE GOING TO THINK WE’RE JOKING UNTIL WE SHOW THEM THE IMAGES!

RAYLLUM DIDN’T JUST SAILED, THEY FREAKING SOARED!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH THESE TWO!

MY RAYLLUM SHIPPING HEART! I CAN’T BELIEVE WONDERSTORM DID IT. I CAN’T BELIEVE AARON EHAZ AND JUSTIN RICHMOND DID IT ALONGWITH THEIR WRITING TEAM.

THEY WROTE A LOVE STORY THAT TOOK PLACE OVER THE SPAN OF THREE WHOLE SEASONS---9 EPISODES A POP TOTALLY IN 27 EPISODES. THEY WROTE A ROMANCE BETWEEN TWO CHARACTERS WHO’VE ONLY KNOW EACH OTHER FOR 27 EPISODES AND MANAGED TO MAKE THE PROGRESSION OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP AND EVENTUAL LOVE FEEL...NATURAL AND NOT...FORCED AT ALL. FREAKING AMAZING MAN! 

AND IT’S NOT JUST THEM. IT’S NOT JUST RAYLLUM

SOOOOO AMAYA AND THE SUN KNIGHT ELF....

THEY ARE A COUPLE RIGHT? OR AM I TRIPPING BALLS NOW? CAUSE...I SHIP IT. WHY NOT? I THOUGHT THEIR INTERACTIONS WERE SO CUTE >U< NOT TO MENTION THAT I LOVE STRAWBERRY GREN’S LIL SMILE OF APPROVAL AT AMAYA AND HER NEW ELF GIRLFRIEND. IT’S SO WHOLESOME.

GOSH I LOVE THIS SHOW.

NEXT UP....

ZYM WAS SOOOOO GOOD IN THESE LAST FEW EPISODES.

IT ACTUALLY LOVE HOW THEY TREATED ZYM MEETING HIS MOM FOR THE FIRST TIME. CALL ME WEIRD HERE BUT THERE WAS SOMETHING ALMOST HUMAN TO HOW IT WAS APPROACHED.

IT REMINDED OF THOSE SCENARIOS WHERE ADOPTED CHILDREN WHO HAVE TO MEET THEIR REAL PARENTS FOR THE FIRST TIME ARE HANDLED AND I LIKE HOW THE DRAGON WRITERS CHOSE THIS APPROACH FOR ZYM. IT FELT...REAL AND I LIKED IT ALOT. PLUS...

NOT TO MEME THIS MOMENT HERE BUT I’M GONNA TELL MY KIDS THAT ZYM’S MOM IS MUH QUEEN!

ZYM’S MOM IS SO PRETTY AND I LOVE HER VOICE. SPEAKING OFF...DOES THIS MEAN THAT AT SOME POINT ZYM IS GOING TO LEARN HOW TO TALK? 

CAUSE I’VE NOTICED THAT SINCE THE START OF THIS SEASON, THE DRAGONS---AT LEAST THE ONES WHO HAVE BEEN MONARCHS CAN TALK. SO WHAT IS THAT? IS IT THAT ALL DRAGONS CAN TALK IF THEY CHOOSE TOO OR...IS IT ONLY THE MONARCH ONES? I’M ASSUMING IT’S THE MONARCH ONES. EITHER WAY, I’M INTERESTED TO SEE WHAT ZYM IS GOING TO SOUND LIKE WHEN HE GROWS OLDER. WHILE I’LL MISS HIS LITTLE PUPPY DOG SOUNDS, IT’D BE SWEET TO SEE ZYM ACTUALLY TALK. MAYBE EZRAN CAN TEACH HIM TO TALK 8D THAT’D BE SWEET

OVERALL, THIS FINALE WAS REALLY REALLY GOOD. THIS SEASON WAS REALLY, REALLY GOOD. IT MAKES ME FEEL LIKE REWATCHED THE WHOLE SERIES FROM THE FIRST BOOK. I’LL PROBABLY DO THAT FOR THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS. BUT FOR NOW, I THINK I’M JUST GONNA GO BACK AND REWATCH THE RAYLLUM MOMENT FROM CH5 INSTEAD CAUSE...I’M SORRY I REALLLLLLLLY LOVED THAT SCENE.

BUT BEFORE I DO. I GOT TWO MORE THINGS I WANNA SCREECH ABOUT.

Not to be a Darth Vader or anything but....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! CLAUDIA WHYYYYYYYYYYY!

WHY! I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU! I MEAN...IN A WEIRD WAY, I GET IT. AND IN AN EVEN WEIRDER WAY I....KIND OF LIKE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CLAUDIA AND VIREN. IT REMINDED ME OF OZAI AND AZULA FROM AVATAR BUT...ALOT MORE....SYMPATHETIC, FOR LACK OF A BETTER TERM.

I GET THAT VIREN IS A VILLAIN BUT WHAT I LOVE ABOUT HOW THE DRAGON PRINCE HAS PORTRAYED HIM IS THAT...VIREN DOESN’T FEEL LIKE AN ENTIRELY EVIL PERSON. HE HAS SOME GOOD IN HIM AND IT COMES IN THE FORM OF HIS LOVE FOR CLAUDIA. YOU CAN TELL THAT CLAUDS IS VIREN’S PRIDE AND JOY. I WISH HE HAS SAVED SOME OF THAT LOVE SOREN BUT....THIS WAS THE CONFLICT.

VIREN IS A VILLAIN BUT...HIS CHARACTER IS WRITTEN SO WELL AND SO GREY THAT YOU AS THE AUDIENCE FEEL CONFLICTED. EVEN NOW AFTER HE’S DONE A SHIT TON OF EVIL STUFF, I STILL FEEL SYMPATHETIC FOR HIM BECAUSE OF HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS CLAUDIA.

I FEEL SO BAD FOR SOREN AND CLAUDIA. THEY WERE THE KIDS MAN AND IT SUCKED SO BAD THAT THEY HAD TO BE BROKEN APART ESPECIALLY AFTER SEASON TWO’S REVELATION ABOUT THEM.

BUT AT THE SAME TIME, I AM SO SOOOOOOOOO PROUD OF SOREN! SOREN WAS THE FREAKING MVP OF THIS SEASON.

I KNOW I GUSHED MOSTLY ABOUT RAYLLUM BUT SOREN AND ALSO EZRAN AS WELL WERE THE CHARACTERS WHOSE DEVELOPMENT STOOD OUT MOST TO ME. DON’T GET ME WRONG. EVERY CHARACTER SHINED THIS SEASON AND IT WAS HARD TO REALLY PICK FAVOURITES. BUT IF I HAD TO, EZ AND SOREN. ESPECIALLY SOREN. 

SO PROUD OF HIM.

THAT BEING SAID. I AM AT THE END OF BOOK 3 FOR TDP. FUNNY, WITH THE WAY HOW THIS SEASON ENDED, I WAS STARTING TO THINK THAT THIS WAS IT. I FIGURED THIS WAS THE END OF THE DRAGON PRINCE. UNTIL...

...DRAGON PRINCE BOOK 4....WHEN?

CLEARLY THIS IS A TEASER FOR WHAT’S NEXT TO COME FOR THE SERIES. EVEN THOUGH A SEASON FOUR HASN’T OFFICIALLY BEEN ANNOUNCED. OVERALL, I’M READY. THE STORY NEEDS TO CONTINUE AND WHAT I’M CURIOUS ABOUT IS WHAT ELSE IS THERE FOR TDP TO UNFOLD.

I MEAN, WE STILL HAVE MORE OF XADIA TO EXPLORE. WE STILL HAVE MORE ELF SPECIES TO ENCOUNTER. WE STILL HAVE TO GET RUNAAN BACK FROM VIREN AND REUNITE HIM WITH HIS HUSBANDO.

MORE IMPORTANTLY...AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO FEELS AS IF VIREN ALSO HAS RAYLA’S PARENTS TOO?

I KNOW RAYLA SAID THEY WERE BANISHED BUT...I CAN’T REMEMBER IF THEY WERE CONFIRMED TO STILL BE ALIVE?

I KNOW RAYLA SAID THAT RUNAAN AND TINKER (HIS REAL NAME ESCAPES ME RIGHT NOW, SORRY) RAISED HER AFTER WHAT HAPPENED TO HER PARENTS. BUT...ARE RAYLA’S PARENTS ALIVE? DID VIREN CAPTURE THEM LIKE RUNAAN?

Overall---okay I’m done screeching now----but OVERALL, this was another great season. I might even go as far to say that Season 3 is TDP’s BEST SEASON yet. I REALLY REALLY LOVED this season and I’m looking forward to rewatching it again in my recap of the whole series.

I feel as if this is the end of an Arc. Zym has been returned to his mother but the threat of Aaravos still looms on the horizon. So I think it’s safe to say that the Ozymondias Arc of the Dragon Prince story is complete and what’s next will probably be the Aaravos Arc. Another three seasons perhaps?

Either way, I’m excited to see what’s next for TDP. Words cannot describe how much I LOVE this series with its amazing story and AMAZINGLY WELL-WRITTEN CHARACTERS. I can’t wait to see what comes for the next arc. Looking forward to it when it comes out. In the meantime, that’s all I gotta say.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019) 

[langwrites]

Lang Plays Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I’m playing them in this order: Blue Lions, Black Eagles, Church of Seiros, and then Golden Deer. (I organized them by how likely it is to have a true final boss who is actually as relevant to the lore as the opening cutscene. And also because I thoroughly spoiled myself about that.)

So, after sinking what the game tells me was eighty hours into a single playthrough, here’s my thoughts on the first thing I tackled.

Spoilers below the cut.

Very Early Game (Blue Lions):

It’s the Fire Emblem Dad! (I played Path of Radiance. I’ve seen this dude before.)

Hi Claude. Sorry, I’m gonna steal every single one of your peers I can catch. Same to you, Edelgard.

Dimitri is so awkward it’s almost palpable.

Aww, Ashe and Annette are adorable. Mercedes has that dead anime mom hairstyle that sets my teeth on edge, but she’s super nice. It’ll take me longer to warm up to the boys, I think.

Felix is the token “I MUST BECOME STRONGER” myrmidon character. Gotta have at least one per game, apparently.

Sylvain = Sain. Token womanizer cavalier. His support list is pretty odd, though.

Dedue = the guy who done punch things. And he *has* to punch things, because he’s slow as hell and his speed growth isn’t great.

What the fuck is that strength growth, Dimitri. What the fuck is that Charm growth.

I was so close to making him my team’s designated Dancer unit, you guys.

Beleth is gonna be their teacher and somehow I don’t imagine this going super well.

Pre-Timeskip School Life:

Once again, I regret not being able to support with characters who’ve firmly attached themselves to the other two houses. (Which is only like three people in my “gotta catch ‘em all” playthrough, but whatever.)

But I can support all the recruitables, which is...something that took me a long while to do.

The first person I stole for the Blue Lions was Caspar. The first person who straight-up joined was Flayn. Yay, auxiliary punchers and auxiliary-auxiliary healers!

Ashe, your adoptive father really didn’t need to die. You were right. It was all bad all the way down.

Flayn gets kidnapped and I fuck around for a month raising everyone else’s supports and realizing Seteth’s too distraught to train my Lance level. Dangit.

I missed the opportunity to support with Leonie entirely because her personality put me off for the first few in-game months, and it turns out you can only start her support chain while Jeralt is alive.

Dammit. Now I’ve gotta train with lances.

What’s-his-fuck over at the village sure did do a thing, didn’t he. And if he hadn’t dropped his disguise just then he could have gotten away with it.

Their scheme would’ve failed faster if anybody around this fucking monastery could apply logic to shapeshifter shenanigans.

Seriously, no one should have trusted Monica.

You vanish over the course of a year, and come back with your personality totally inverted.

Tomas/Solon had just demonstrated what it looks like when these dickbags drop cover, and then everyone subsequently failed to make the correct deduction. If they hadn’t, Jeralt would’ve lived.

Dad-stabbing: A theme of Fire Emblem games. Seriously. Check out the huge list of dead dads (which goes all the way back to the first game in the series.)

Also dead moms, but for some reason moms are less prominent in the series as a whole.

For the purposes of this analysis, we are also including every single boss who had kids. Which isn’t most of them, but god damn there are still a lot of dead dads.

Dorotheaaaaaa be my frieeeeeeend

Yoinked Linhardt after finally showering him in enough gifts to get his sleepy ass to sign transfer papers.

Swiped Marianne, Bernadetta, Petra, Ignatz, Alois (kinda), Shamir (sorta), Manuela (iffy), Hanneman (yoink), Catherine (see previous), Hilda (how), Lorenz (woop woop), and Leonie (sigh).

The Death Knight remains, for the moment, unpillaged for his Dark Seal drops. This time it was an accident: I killed everyone else in the room except for him and a priest/mage, but then that last dude squared up with Felix and died.

All the points I poured into their associated skills and their supports, however, left one big gap:

DAMMIT FERDINAND, I’M TRYING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE. WHY DO YOU CARE SO MUCH ABOUT HEAVY ARMOR. RAPHAEL JOINED UP DESPITE THAT.

(I got a B-rank support with him and he popped into my office to say he was transferring, nbd. Ferdinand’s B-rank is locked until after the timeskip.)

tl;dr: The only recruitable character I missed was Ferdinand.

Seteth and Gilbert don’t do shit until post-timeskip and Rhea isn’t playable, so w/e.

As soon as I say that, Seteth and Flayn have a paralogue. It’s a beach level. I hate beach levels and desert levels. Seteth gets to be MVP because he’s the only jerk who can fly.

They have a little speech after the paralogue level that reveals that they’re actually father and daughter, not siblings. And the whole story of this little subplot basically confirms that they’re dragons.

Neither of them transform over the course of the game, and that’s okay.

Ruh-roh, Raggy. Let’s see who’s really under the Flame Emperor’s mask--

“AND I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT TOO, IF NOT FOR--oh wait teleportation exists. BYE!”

Dimitri proceeds to thoroughly lose any chill he ever pretended to have, and I’m 99% sure the villain in question isn’t actually old enough to have caused the Tragedy of Duscur. Unless the biographies in the notes were lying.

Now, the backup dancers over there sure as shit are, but logical reasoning has its time and place.

Whatever. Time for stabbing.

WE ALREADY KNOW THESE PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF MAKING THEMSELVES LOOK LIKE ANYONE, MASKS TOTALLY UNNECESSARY. THE VICTIM ONLY HAS TO DISAPPEAR FOR A WHILE.

WHY AREN’T WE CHECKING THAT AS A BASIC PRECAUTION.

THERE HAVE BEEN THREE OF THESE CREEPS ALREADY.

Their name is too long and I should call them Morlocks.

But seriously, check for infiltrators.

What passes for strategy around here: Take Paladin Dimitri, plunk his overleveled ass down on a corner where all the enemies’ targeting reticles converge, and wait five minutes for all the counterkill animations to play out.

If I wanna try the same with Sylvain, he needs to be backed up by at least Annette and probably Felix. Maybe even Mercedes if she’s not already busy slinging Physics around.

Dimitri’s fine with just sitting around with a forged Steel Lance and poking holes in everything.

Beleth can do the same, but is much more reliant on dodging and not just facetanking axes.

The little “no damage!” sound effect is still very satisfying. Yes, game, my Defense/Resistance has escaped the bounds of your damage curve.

Dorothea became my Dancer unit, because despite Dimitri having twenty-eight Charm to her nineteen, he begged me not to and also is better sitting on a corner and killing everything.

Huh, the monastery is sure being invad--you know, Edelgard, if it wasn’t already really obvious that your faction is basically the “villain route” in Samurai Warriors parlance, using giant mop-headed demonic beasts as shock troops would probably give it away to observers. If they weren’t already running away in abject terror.

The principle from How to Train Your Dragon still applies: A downed dragon is a dead dragon. If Rhea didn’t want to basically get mobbed, she should’ve stayed in the air and acted as flying artillery for the Knights of Seiros with her mouth laser. She could’ve sat on top of a wall and fired with relative impunity.

Sure, some demonic beasts can fly, but there weren’t any in that cutscene and the flying ones have, mechanically, one less health meter than the landbound ones.

Also, they’re pushovers.

And there’s the washed-out creep brigade! They look like the Grimleal, but with more feathers and less of a tan.

...And there goes Beleth, off to have a five-year nap.

Welp.

Post Timeskip:

Oh good, it’s been five years. Beleth, I hate to break it to you, but you’re probably at least slightly dragon at this point. Check your ears if you have a chance.

Tiki canonically napped for like 99% of her three thousand years in Awakening, ironically enough, so it’s not like dragon-people are exactly early risers.

Poor rando gets asked “what year is it” like that question is ever used outside of fiction. Beleth doesn’t read time travel books, I take it.

“oh you probably shouldn’t go to the monastery, it’s like super haunted and shit”

“sorry what was that i couldn’t hear you over the sound of me climbing up to the monastery”

Eyyyy, it’s a lance-wielding pirate.

...Hi, Dimitri. Where’d your macaroni hair go.

You know, it’s not surprising that Dimitri would think Beleth was a hallucination. He spent a lot of time yelling at his inner demons even pre-timeskip, after taking a couple of severe psychological shocks.

But he absolutely should have walked into her and been surprised when he knocked them both on their asses.

He’s been spending the last five years stabbing people, hasn’t he.

Yep.

He looks like he fell out of Game of Thrones.

Blue Lions! Rah rah something team chant. Rah rah Rasputin, lover of the Russian queen~

None of you people trained any of your skills. In five years. Dimitri you were a paladin. Did you eat your horse.

You are all getting sent to boot camp.

Hi, Gilbert. Why are you playable now all of a sudden. Why is your speed a fucking two.

THIS IS WHY MIKLAN HANDED YOU YOUR ASS.

Once again, the “plunk Dimitri’s overleveled ass down on a corner and watch people die” plan is still a valid strategy. I still don’t know where he gets all this strength (and charm). Like, goddamn.

Annette got cornered for like five turns because I was too cowardly to put her in range of a Brawler.

Then she killed him with a critical Fire.

So, I guess Felix’s remarks about Dimitri’s issues make some sense now, but he should still stop making them. I know he’s a tsundere par excellence, but still.

STop TalKing AboUT KilLing PeoPle

Warning: Sympathetic Boss Approaching.

Look, most “sympathetic” bosses in Fire Emblem kinda fall flat. The better ones are placed in the way of the player characters while they’re in the middle of a low point in the emotional arc and get utterly wrecked in a flurry of misdirected fury. Sometimes the characters even feel bad about it afterward. The worst ones are the ones who are just utterly devoted to someone who’s earned everyone’s ire by being a utter fucking asshole.

Good: Mustafa from Awakening and Shiharam from Path of Radiance. Good people forced into bad situations. Or just cornered. Henry talked up the former long after he got a Chrom to the face, and the latter was probably the best-written of the “aw, I wish I didn’t have to kill him” bosses I’ve run across.

Bad: Levail from Radiant Dawn. There is no getting around the fact that General Zelgius was a bad dude. Levail holding him up as a paragon of knightliness and swearing to serve him out of sheer admiration did not make him even marginally better.

We sure did kill Caspar’s uncle, didn’t we. I’m sure that won’t come back to bite us square in the ass. Not after he had that “this guy is a person who cares about stuff” cutscene to remind us of his pixel humanity.

I’m sure it’s fine.

Bwoop, bwoop, everyone say hello to Ferdinand and Lorenz! And say goodbye to Ferdinand, because he didn’t allow himself to be recruited pre-timeskip, isn’t recruitable post-timeskip, and then I had Felix kill him with Thoron.

Lorenz can rejoin us, though. He doesn’t count as an enemy commander once he’s been smacked down to 0 hp.

HI, DEDUE. WHY ARE YOU ONLY LEVEL TWENTY. GET IN THE BACKLINES AND DON’T TALK TO ME UNTIL YOU CAN ACTUALLY DAMAGE ANYTHING.

(Seriously, tho, I was waiting for Dedue to come back for two reasons. One: I did that paralogue of his way back in Part One and he did not get to die after all that. Two: Part of Dimitri’s epic slide into “spear-wielding mountain man who runs around killing people with his bare hands” had to do with Dedue “dying” during the timeskip. That jackass cracked a smile for the first time in ingame years thanks to the world’s punchiest bodyguard coming back alive.)

(Fortress Knight is still the worst class.)

I totally didn’t pay any attention to what, if anything, actually separated Master classes from Advanced classes other than my inability to get my hands on Master Seals. So Ashe is a Bow Knight now, while Felix made it to Mortal Savant (wtf is that name and why is the class model basically a samurai) and I spent a very long time level-grinding Sylvain’s Reason skill to make him a Dark Knight. I aimed for Gremory with all my spellcaster girls, but I admit to not really paying attention to specifics.

(I ended up with five Gremories: Annette, Flayn, Mercedes, Lysithea, and Dorothea. Bernadetta became a Bow Knight and Marianne promoted eventually to a Holy Knight. Dorothea also ended up taking Mortal Savant, which she didn’t ever use.)

(Seteth became a Wyvern Lord and Dedue eventually made it to Warrior.)

(Byleth qualified for Mortal Savant and used it precisely no times.)

(It became pretty clear that I just threw Master Seals at people whenever the possibility of promoting them came up.)

(Certification is a weird system.)

I stopped paying a ton of attention to supports around the time I realized that Ferdinand wasn’t going to be recruited no matter what I did in the final month before Shit Went Down.

Then I started paying attention again like two chapters from endgame, because I remembered some A-ranked supports meant that the characters could get paired endings.

I also stopped ignoring Cyril and started using him as an adjutant, though his stats never quite caught up to Seteth (also known as the only instructor unit I ever consistently used).

Cornelia is absolutely a Morlock plant. That is a face she just made, even in flashback.

I wish we could've seen Dimitri’s now-dead uncle, if only because I’m curious. Also, what did Edelgard’s mom/Dimitri’s stepmom look like?

Why is there always a fire level. I saw it earlier thanks to doing Ingrid and Dorothea’s paralogue, but it’s a Fire Emblem stock level type and I hate it.

Okay, yeah, this area totally got nuked. Magitech nukes, but still. It’s still on fire centuries later? Why??

Felix’s dad is a Holy Knight. Why do I have to keep his ass alive on a field when half the enemies are barely Advanced classes, never mind Master classes.

Oh right, because I want the exp for myself.

Rodrigue is possibly the single person here who can make Dimitri’s murder-bender change direction even slightly. He also gets along with his actual son so much worse than that. He’s like Annette’s dad, but with actual verbal confrontations.

There’s Caspar’s not-exactly-forgotten aunt, here to “secretly” avenge her dead brother. Dude, could you say something about that?

Three levels later: I thought we were done with the dad-stabbing. 

Felix has officially lost Too Many People in pursuit of keeping Dimitri alive. As has everyone else, frankly.

In other routes, Dimitri absolutely runs his campaign off a cliff.

Here, he turns his life around. More or less. Gotta make the choice to get better.

Time to take back the Kingdom’s capital, like we’ve not been doing for four chapters now. Finally.

Cornelia is absolutely a Morlock plant. This is like the fourth character who supposedly did a complete characterization 180 after a period of being actually useful to other people. Goodbye, civil engineer we never knew.

I think the only infiltrator who did things properly was Solon, but he still dropped his disguise for no good reason early in the game. That operatic level of drama is not a trait that helps him survive a month later. Just goes to show that the Morlocks don’t have more than one type of good judgment at a time, I guess.

I know I’m supposed to avoid the giant doom robots, but...

No, it turns out I can just have Dimitri and Beleth stand in the middle of the killzone and destroy them for fun and profit.

Ding dong the witch is dead.

Welp, time to go save the Alliance, which is getting schooled by the Empire.

HI CLAUDE.

I MISSED YOU AND YOUR FAITH IN HUMANITY. And specifically in Dimitri, for some reason? I think he kinda stabbed your soldiers a lot the last time you two met, but feel free to keep being the Best Character.

Your bodyguards are top-notch, man. One of them got hit with anything over the course of the entire battle.

Your general Judith, however, necessitates Flayn using ALL of her Rescue spells just to keep her alive.

I still had to send Ashe to keep a Falcon Knight off you, but no big.

And also had to send Hilda and Petra to kill the Asshole Reinforcements to nick their stuff.

Dimitri sat there and dodge-tanked all of Arundel’s attempts to kill him until the team killed everybody else. Then Dimitri poked him and he died. Dimitri OHKOs everything except monsters now, and that’s only because they have multiple health meters.

And then Claude fucks off to become king somewhere else. Okay then. It was a nice speech, though.

Killing the Death Knight for fun and profit and now Mercedes is crying. Shit.

Doesn’t this place get vaporized in every other route?

Did killing so many Morlocks by accident lock us out of seeing an intercontinental ballistic missile?

(And it is by accident, because this route is like the only one where the Morlocks are incidentals instead of the main problem, partly due to Dimitri’s tunnel vision and partly just because they don’t drop their disguises upon death.)

Well, I guess it’s time to confront Edelgard.

It’s completely valid of her to look at the guy who was threatening to rip her head off with his bare hands and hang it from the gates of the Empire’s capital a little while ago, and then go “Yeah, diplomacy’s shot.” That Dimitri stopped being quite so all-consumingly homicidal a bit ago is not actually reason to try throwing herself on anyone’s mercy. I feel kinda bad for her, since she’s been pushed into this corner and her ace-in-the-hole allies are basically decapitated, and I stole all her potential friends back during the school phase of the game.

Also, sunk cost fallacy.

Still walloped the entire roster of the second-to-last level, down to killing Hubert with Lysithea. Hilda and Cyril killed all the bird demons.

On the final level, which starts immediately after the previous one, three characters got totally destroyed by the sheer number of mages floating around: Dimitri (whose Avoid finally failed him four times in a row), Hilda (same), and Dedue (thirded). Seteth miraculously survived taking 68 points of damage from a single attack, and then later went on to take Edelgard’s last health bar off with a crit.

Weirdly, Beleth’s Avoid was just fine. Finally let her use the Sublime Sword of the Creator and she killed most of the Gremories that took out Dimitri and Hilda.

And everybody we could save per plot constraints got to live! (Except Ferdinand.)

I’m willing to save him on subsequent routes because killing him made Dorothea sad.

Next time: Lang plays the route that screws over most of these people in service of killing the God-Pope.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 007: Costumes and Comforting White Rice

Previously on BnHA: Aizawa had everyone do fitness tests. Turns out superpowered children are very talented. Deku broke his finger.

Today on BnHA: COSTUMES. AND A GUY NAMED LUNCH RUSH

Notes: As always, all comments not prefaced by an ETA are my unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 11 now, so any ETAs will reflect that.

so the title is “costume change”, ooh I’m intrigued

All Might is helpfully rehashing the shit that just went down in the last chapter in case we missed it or weren’t paying attention

basically “Deku fucked up his finger but it was actually somehow the coolest thing ever”

right away Izuku is still crying his gritted-teeth pain!tears, so the unbroken streak continues!

aw Ocha is really happy that he did well and now won’t get expelled

I think Bakugou is broken

[waves a hand in front of his face] you okay there pal. deep breaths. it’s going to be all right

and now he’s fucking launching himself at Deku, presumably with the intent to beat the living shit out of him, oh dear

but teacher’s not having that shit

OH MY GOD AN ACTUAL EXPLANATION FOR THE MAGIC SCARF

YEEES THIS IS HOW WE DO THINGS IN GROWN-UP MANGA! WE EXPLAIN OUR PLOT HOLES LIKE ADULTS

THIS IS SUCH A FUCKING RUSH GUYS

also these panels are hilarious

voop

god bless, the logical explanations for everything just keep on coming. now EH is explaining that the reason he always looks so fucking shake-and-baked is because he has to maintain eye contact in order for his powers to work. I love this, it explains so much. the goggles, the eye drops, the creepy intense staring. and it’s such a good handicap for what would otherwise be an insanely OP quirk

just. thank you jesus. thank you oprah winfrey. thank you tom cruise

do you know, so far I haven’t had a single plot thing to complain about in this entire manga series. (except maybe the whole “surrounding community somehow doesn’t notice the beach cleanup happening right under their noses for ten entire months” thing.) can they possibly keep this up?

“is your finger okay?” “yeah.” NO

HGUMNANAA A FLASHBACKKKKKK A BAKUDEKU FLASHBACK. HOLD ME. I NEED TO SIT DOWN

they’re so cute they’re so fucking cute. Izuku following him around fanboying about quirks. Baku saying Deku’s probably won’t be as cool as his. trampsing along through the woods catching bugs. using the nicknames

and now Baku is FREAKING THE FUCK OUT because he’s been the special one all this time and now Izu finally has a quirk too. like, he seems pissed off, but also strangely threatened. like he’s really nervous that Deku might all of a sudden outshine him. once again, I am speculating if there are possibly secret self-esteem issues. I know it’s too early to be theorizing and I’m just going to look like an idiot but I CAN’T HELP IT. Deku is so good and pure and kind and smart, like he has everything going for him, but because he didn’t have a quirk, Bakugou could always rest assured that he was still better! but now DEKU HAS A FUCKING QUIRK. that’s like the ONE thing he solidly had on him and now the gap is narrowing by the minute. hmm. hmmmmmmmmm

disclaimer, he’s probably just an asshole and I’m projecting character development onto him that doesn’t exist sob I know

BUT MAYBE NOT?????

anyway we’ve apparently seen all we needed to see of these tests, because Deku sums up the rest of it in a couple of summary bubbles. “after this we finished up and I hung in there but it sucked”

yay now the results. which sad son of a bitch gets kicked out I wonder. it’s occurred to me that it might not be anyone and EH might just have been fucking with them, but you never know

HAHAHA

[SLAMS HAND ON TABLE]

NOT TO TOOT MY OWN HORN BUT I CALLED IT AND I’M A FUCKING GENIUS. [drinks a glass of water too fast and chokes]

this motherfucker is such a troll

Izuku appears to be phasing into another dimension from the shock of this news. meanwhile this smug-looking girl with a ponytail standing next to him is all like “I already fucking knew”

you know what, smug ponytail girl, ANYONE can say that AFTER the big reveal. the real MVPs are the ones who saw it coming a whole entire page before it actually happened, so you can shove it okay

and now Eraser Head is saying “we’re done here”? but I want to see the rankings, damn it

(ETA: funny how in the anime he shows the rankings first thing and THEN all the rest of this goes down. somehow he’s an even bigger troll there.)

and he finally takes pity on Izuku and sends him to the nurse’s office. you really shouldn’t need a teacher’s permission to go see the nurse, but I guess it’s the thought that counts

and there we go! rankings. so Izu’s all the way down at the bottom. and surprisingly Bakugou is not quite at the top? AND WHAT’S THIS?

THIS IS A NAME I RECOGNIZE. THAT’S DISCOUNT ZUKO BY GEORGE 8D

please be introduced soon, I’m excited to meet you

no idea who that person is at the very top. but hey good for them

hey guys. guess who ships All Might/Aizawa ever since their rivalish history was established in the previous chapter. [points to self]

so this is good stuff

look at this shade being thrown back and forth. or rather, EH throwing shade and AM struggling to throw it back but he’s too much of a straight arrow for it to really work lmao. “april fool’s day was over a week ago”

also oh shit last year he threw out the whole damn bunch. those guys must have SUCKED

oh my god now All Might is smugly confirming that EH likes Izuku too

hey guys here’s a closeup of All Might’s reaction to this:

you like krabby patties don’t you squidward

my boy Izuku out here accumulating mentors like... something... that accumulates a lot

that’s right, he has TWO whole mentors. what a legend

I got really confused for a second when the following panel said Izu was going home after the first day. even though I know it’s not a boarding school, I somehow tricked myself into thinking it was for a sec

oh hey it’s Iida. he wants to know how Deku’s finger is

lol he didn’t remember being healed last time. thank you for that, information bubble

I’m serious, it’s not essential information but it helps the series to remain consistent with itself, and it shows that the mangaka so far is remembering even minor details like this, and I’m honestly really impressed

Horikoshi Kouhei is the author. just looked it up. I gotta remember that. Good job so far Horikoshi-sensei. also he’s apparently younger than me?? nice to know that some of us millennials are out there crushing it at least

oh snap Recovery Girl cautions him that if he keeps getting hurt he’ll eventually run out of stamina and die. wtf. is “stamina” really a finite resource like that? can’t he just get a good night’s sleep and replenish that shit

I’m genuinely wondering how long him not being able to control his powers is going to be an issue then. I’m starting to think not that long. at first I thought it would be a very slow process, because if he got too strong too quickly it would be bad for the story. but on further reflection, it’s really the other way around. there’s only so many times he can be the only guy without any powers and trying to figure out what to do before that shit gets really old. basically right now he’s TOO nerfed

“I thought Iida was scary but he’s actually just super-serious.” he’s very nice for a 40-year-old trying to hang out with a bunch of teenagers. I’m sure you two will be good friends

Ochako!

Iida’s calling her “Infinity Girl” since she threw the ball so high it registered as “infinity meters” on Aizawa’s scale. I wonder if this name will stick, cuz I like it

haha Ochako doesn’t know Izuku’s actual first name and calls him Deku. he was listed as “Izuku” on the results board, though. you could hardly fail to notice that, since he was in last place. she just wants to call him by the cute nickname. fucking sly move there

hmm apparently he doesn’t like the name Deku? or he’s just trying to play it cool with the Girl He Likes

(ETA: now I know the whole sad story of “Deku” and its various meanings. I wonder just how much work Horikoshi put into selecting this name and its kanji)

like he said, he fucking loves that name

“it’s like the Copernican Revolution” hahaha what. a quick Google search confirms that this was the whole shift from people thinking the sun revolved around the earth to realizing it was the other way around. I completely fail to understand what this has to do with the situation of Deku letting Ocha call him “Deku” because she thinks it’s cute. this metaphor is beyond my fucking grasp

(ETA: I must have been tired or something because it’s obviously just that he’s done a 180 from hating the name to embracing it. still a weird analogy but whatever.)

ohhhhhh here come the feels ready or not

SHIELDS UP. IT’S THE PURE, GENTLE HAPPINESS OF A BLOSSOMING SHOUNEN FRIENDSHIP. THE PROTAGONIST’S FIRST FRIENDS EVER. NO, I MUST BE STRONG, DAMN IT. DAMN ITT

oh what the fresh hell, All Might

first the training!! ten months! grueling!! then the entrance exam!! fighting a bunch of giant robots! not having the slightest clue about how to actually use his brand new powers! then the first day of school!! you think you’re finally safe, but NO we’re going to have a trial that may possibly expel you! but he somehow makes it past that too! surely he’s in the clear NOW, right? he has to be?? but nooo, the SECOND day of school, THAT’S when tHE REAL FUCKING TEST BEGINS, FUCK

WHAT THE FUCK IS THE THIRD DAY GOING TO BE. THE END OF THE WORLD?

lmao Mic teaching them English

lmaaaaao everyone is bored out of their fucking minds except fucking Izuku, that FUCKING NERD

the school chef is a sentient humanoid vacuum cleaner named Lunch Rush

nice try with that gimmick there Lunch Rush, but you’re no Best Fucking Jeanist

“the white rice is comforting, so I go with that!” fucking damn, Deku. maybe try branching out just a little

by the way, Izu is narrating all of this like it’s already an established routine, but isn’t it still just the second day? or was All Might just talking out of his ass before about that “real test”

omg

it’s All Might’s class. don’t tell me this was what he was talking about when he was going on about the “real test” fjksj

PROFESSOR LOCKHART. PROFESSOR GILDEROY LOCKHART IS THAT YOU

yet again they talk about how differently he’s drawn sob I can’t

everyone: [turns and winks at the camera] WE KNOW WE’RE CARTOOOONS

what is this pose

gri gri gri

“today’s activity is [holds up a card that says BATTLE] BATTLE”

UNIFOOOOOOORMS

I MEAN COSTUMES

YEEEES. I’VE SEEN DEKU’S COSTUME IN TUMBLR POSTS. I WANT TO SEE HIM WEAR IT YES PLEASE

HERE WE GO

-- PFFFFFFT

Bakugou looks... I’ll let you know when I stop laughing

Ochako looks like your standard Marvel heroine really but the two little buttons on her chest give it an extra dash of cuteness

Iida looks like a fucking super sentai with that helmet

Yuri on Ice, Mickey Mouse, Kermit the Frog, and Tall Guy with Pterodactyl Arms look fine, I guess

do not fucking tell me the chapter’s going to end before we actually see Izuku

...

the chapter ended before we actually saw Izuku

I’m going to kick you you stupid chapter

there isn’t even a bonus character bio at the end, it’s just a thing about all of Horikoshi’s assistants. good for them, I guess, I know they work fucking hard and they’re doing a good job so far

guess what I’m going to do. “read the next chapter.” yep

[danmacrae]

Silly 90s Intro Blab: A Thing To Skim Through On The Toilet

Hello! I’m semi-tolerable nuisance Dan MacRae! Why am I shouting at you? Not sure! Sorry, I’ll take it down a notch.

Instead of learning how to pleasure a woman or how to unlock the mysteries of grooming, I have devoted my life to TV nonsense. Blessed YouTube presence RwDt09 has been collecting these amazing compilations of era (and sometimes season) specific TV intros and they are my everything. Imagine having a child that didn’t suck? That’s the feeling RwDt09′s videos put in my heart.

I've been obsessively rewatching this collection of mostly forgotten early '90s TV intros. The bulk of these shows died a quick death and feel like the product of whatever drugs TV execs take. (Probably something snorted from one of those awesome McDonalds coffee straws they ditched in like 2002.) Because I'm a handsome pin-up hunk of the year, I wrote some dumb blurbs about the first few shows and have some stray thoughts on the rest. This appeals to no one but me AND I APOLOGIZE TO NO ONE!

In the immortal words of John Lennon, let’s get biz-zay!

DINOSAURS: I’m at a point in my life where I can acknowledge that Dinosaurs sucked. It’s incredibly freeing. Christ, this is like that stupid-ass Norman Lear show where dogs did social commentary BUT WITH HENSON PUPPETS! I hope Baby Sinclair was stomped to death and eaten as pudding before the extinction series finale. (Yes, that happened.) The intro isn’t bad, mind you. You get the lumbering theme song and Earl gets stuck in a door CUZ LAFFS! TIMES SURE HAVEN’T CHANGED HO HO HO! God I hate these fucking dinosaurs.

Intro MVP: It’s not a stellar pack, but we get a bit of Robbie Sinclair who census data has shown led to a variety of surprising sexual awakenings for youths at the time.

SCORCH: A 1300-year-old dragon named Scorch visits the 1990s on a budget that looks not far removed from Skank on The Ben Stiller Show. The song will make you want to barricade your sex organs from a world where you can bring children into a world with THAT CAWAZZZY SCORCH! The theme song really is a special brand of irritating and Scorch looks like a malformed Deviant Art dildo with a vaguely religious bent.

Intro MVP: Probably John O’Hurley for not actually appearing in the intro. (Even with O’Hurley’s weird résumé.)

FISH POLICE: Not to be confused with the (ARF! ARF! ARF!) Dog Police, Fish Police and Family Dog are shows I know almost exclusively from being mentioned as examples of the crappy post-Simpsons primetime animation gold rush. Fish Police actually looks good animation-wise, but it’s pretty clear you’re gonna be sledgehammered with endless “COULD YOU IMAGINE FISH DOING THESE OLD TROPES? DO WE NEED TO CALL A SEARCH PARTY FOR YOUR SIDES? ARE THEY SPLITTING ALREADY?” jokes. Congrats dipshits, you made a cinema-touched precursor to Frankie & George. You dummies. Also there’s the tone of casual racism UNDER THE SEA so do with that what you will. DID YOU SEE CHINATOWN? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT SHIT?

Intro MVP: Thank goodness they specified who John Ritter voices so we could all bask in Inspector Gil as a character name. Fuck you, Fish Police.

CAPITOL CRITTERS: Christ, this looks UNWATCHABLE. Like walk into oncoming traffic as an alternative unwatchable. Capitol Critters centers around an animated mouse named Max (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris) witnesses his family being murdered in Nebraska and moves to D.C. and wait what the fuck is going on with those roaches? (Racism, mostly.) Who thought this was a good idea to invest time, money and animator joint damage in? Stephen Bochco, baby! I have a perverse curiosity to see an episode but after 90 seconds I know I'd be dying to eat a fucking gun instead of suffering through any more of Capitol Critters.

Intro MVP: Gotta be Bochco. Also, EAT SHIT BOCHCO!

And now a really tiny blab about the rest. Watch this clip package, ya goofs!

FAMILY DOG: Folks were fucking horny for Spielberg TV shit in the 90s, ditto Tim Burton too and that's how an Amazing Stories, uh, story was morphed into a shitball TV series that Brad Bird wanted no part of. Also, I have no idea how to explain things like the CBS StereoSound chyron to anyone born after Clinton left office.

THE CRITIC: Nice to see you, Jay Sherman! This is a lovely intro and you likely know that already. I've done a few rewatches of The Critic (not the web series season, though) and I say the show definitely holds up and is far from a duketastrophe. That said, some of the parody film clips that got raves at the time are kinda creaky in hindsight.

CHARLIE HOOVER: Can I say something? Fuck Sam Kinison. Hmm... That's a bit harsh. I guess I just don't get him on any level. The only thing he's done that I've ever found all that funny was when he said he wished Andrew Dice Clay die of stomach cancer from the inside out, like Bette Davis. Kinison's not my cup of tea is what I'm getting at. In Charlie Hoover (GET IT HURF HURF), Kinison is a foot high loudmouth in a long coat that's getting 40-year-old square Tim Matheson where he needs to be in life.

A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN: Or... "Betty Spaghetti's Here Which Is All The Star Power You Need!"

HARDBALL: A League Of Their Own had a fun, feel good intro with all the corny touches of ol' timey baseball. Hardball tries to sell you on Joe Rogan: Baseball Fella and the vague scent of urinal troughs.

GOOD GRIEF: Howie Mandel golfs in a cemetery and it's not particularly clear if he's just fucking around on strangers graves for fun. (Alternate Theory: Those graves belong to the family from Bobby's World. All the Generics!)

THE FANELLI BOYS: If enjoy broad Italian-American stereotypes to the point of falling down laughing at the sight of a pizza box, you'll love The Fanelli Boys! Joe Pantoliano and Christopher Meloni both star.

SOMETHING WILDER: Something Wilder was the sort of show where I wished Gene Wilder well and still kept 5000 miles away from watching it. Also, Wilder's face on that house is CHILLING.

DUDLEY: Embrace the luxury hotel elevator elegance of Dudley! Does it feature Dudley Moore make a series of faces where he seems surprised by everything? You better believe it. This was also where Max Wright got work in-between taking abuse from a cat eating alien and Norm Macdonald.

CAROL & COMPANY: It's a bit Carol Takes On in the intro with Carol Burnett in assorted costumes and that's alright because everyone does the assorted costumes intro thing. Tickets to the show are blown across America and get in the hands of whatever Orphan Black Carol happens to be in the area.

THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW: This is an extremely 90s sort of intro that feels like something more upscale soft rock stations did in TV ads at the time too. Richard Kind directs a bit of paper at someone midway through.

DREXELL'S CLASS: One of more storied entries in the Dabney Coleman being an asshole catalogue. The first intro features Dabney, ol' Drex himself, just hanging around in class being hot shit and occasionally mimicking a flying dinosaur. The second intro is a more traditional clip collection highlighted by a young Brittany Murphy (WHO WAS MURDERED! FACT! REMINDER!) and Coleman in a wild 8 ball jacket. Rembrandt off Sliders also makes an appearance.

TEECH: If this intro looks exactly like a sitcom where a Cool Black Music Instructor™ teaches Prep School bad boys in Bush Sr era America that's because it is exactly that sort of sitcom. Maggie Han deserves better.

THE ROYAL FAMILY: It seems extra cruel to take Redd Foxx's popcorn away considering he'd be dead before the fifth episode even aired. Della Reese is in this, die-hard Della fans.

ROC: This intro works perfectly. We get Charles S. Dutton, Ella Joyce and an easy to digest Jerry Lawson theme song. (En Vogue would do the theme later.) It’d be nice if they could get Edgar Allan Poe wagging a finger at seafood or something else in the background to push that Baltimore thing even more, but I still wish this intro from 25+ year old Fox comedy all the best in its future endeavours.

BREWSTER PLACE: Speaking of good intros, Brewster Place is a first rate brand of TV welcome. Brenda Pressley is the MVP of the intro over Oprah Winfrey which might explain why Brenda Pressley has been missing since 1992. (I know she’s on The Path. Just play along.)

SUNDAY BEST: The intro equivalent of getting someone to throw shit at a wall, we get an early 90s NBC grab bag of fuck it whatever shots of TVs and TV dinners with poor Carl Reiner trotted out partway through.

AMERICAN CHRONICLES: Mark Frost and David Lynch paired for a documentary series in the early ‘90s on Fox because Fox was like fucking UHF at the time. The industrial strength creepy opening doesn’t include any shots of narrator Richard Dreyfuss turning towards the camera and that’s a damn shame.

AMERICAN DETECTIVES: If you get horny for stressed out real-life detectives, this will send your undergarments to Mars! Lots of mustaches here. A whole Safeway bag’s worth. Some real rural gas station rock going on with that theme tune.

FBI: THE UNTOLD STORIES: The tone of this entire intro is: “Hey kid, wanna see a dead body? Or twenty?” Creepy music blasting over Jackie Kennedy on the back of JFK’s death limo and Wayne Williams heading to trial equals primetime party fun!

ENCOUNTERS: THE HIDDEN TRUTH: Suck it, Sightings! Encounters is leading a new dawn for crackpot horseshit to eat Bugles to! I appreciate the shameless X-Files knockoff intro thing Fox is doing (cuz it’s their show) that comes complete with head shop blanket alien head popping up midway through.

STEPHEN KING’S GOLDEN YEARS: Essentially Garth Marenghi's Darkplace with one hell of a music rights win tacked on.

TRIBECA: This opening reminds me an awful lot of terrible movies I was bullied into watching on VHS at a friend’s house.

WIOU: One thing I like in a TV intro is when something fun happens with the title onscreen. It’s a minor thing, but the way those WIOU letters turn into view? HOOCHIE MAMA! Eight is Enough’s Dick Van Patten does a fantastic job of conveying that being a weatherfellow is tough work.

GABRIEL’S FIRE: I will never for the life of me understand how the early ‘90s could not sustain a James Earl Jones fronted program titled Gabriel’s Fire. Those worlds are supposed to meld beautifully.

PROS & CONS: Gabriel’s Fire would morph into the more lighthearted Pros & Cons which symbolized its new form by laying it on thick with the Video Toaster touches. Instead of James Earl Jones peering at you from the darkness, this go-around it’s a lot of smiles and silly moments with Richard Crenna.

BURKE’S LAW: Hearing “it’s Burke’s Law” at the start of that intro is like when “Do you smell what The Rock’s cooking?” would play before Dwayne Johnson would wander down a ramp to kick Triple H in the stomach. In this case, it’s to get you fired up that Gene Barry’s back on television. This particular episode promises Dom DeLuise and Tawny Kitaen together at last!

MAX MONROE: LOOSE CANNON: If you only see one intro for a Shadoe Stevens vehicle that transitions from a Donut Hole shot to an extended leer at a lady’s bum, make it this one!

TEQUILA AND BONETTI: The creators of Tequila and Bonetti know that if you want folks to get on board for an L.A. dramedy about a New York cop and streetwise police partner dog, you should kick things off by trying to make you feel sorry for this asshole who “accidentally” murdered a kid. Seriously, that’s the route Tequila and Bonetti goes with this fucking insane opening that begins with newspaper headlines screaming “COP KILLS 12 YR OLD” while he cradles a black girl in her arms and then BOOM! we’re spun around to JACK SCALIA GRINNING AROUND WACKY LOS ANGELES AND ALL ITS CRAZY CHARACTERS LIKE A DOG THAT JUMPS THROUGH A FUCKING WINDOW WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE? THIS IS LIKE IF SOMEONE STROKED OFF THE HANNITY VIEWING AND KEPT WHAT WAS SPURTED OUT ONSCREEN! It’s just a really, really, really bad intro.

[waddlesdpig]

The Lego Movie Franchise Retrospective ( Or how to build Masterpieces)

The following is a opinionated review on the “ Lego Movie” franchise as a whole, spoilers and bad jokes ahead.

Its kinda crazy if we’re being honest here, in the five years since it’s creation the “ Lego Movie “ franchise has made close to a billion dollars domestically and probably more than that total internationally. All for what is essentially a series of really long commercials, albeit very entertaining and ( mostly) heartfelt commercials. No matter how you look at it however, these films on a whole have been a grand success worthy of artistic recognition ( WB has left chat).

This trend of profitably praised pictures seems sure to continue, with the soon to be released fourth installment in the “ Lego Movie” franchise “ The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.” 

( A sentence as redundant as me writing reviews on Tumblr.)

As a lover of the original “ Lego Movie” this sequel comes like the missing brick in my Lego heart set that i didn’t know existed. In that same breath however, i can’t help but feel anxious over how the movie will turn out. Early reviews have skewed favorably for the film and yet there is a disturbing trend in the Lego franchise that one cannot ignore. Each Lego Movie has had diminishing returns in terms of quality ever since the first. 

Don’t get me wrong, the animation, production, and voice work for has been ( mostly) top notch for every installment. No when i mean quality, i’m talking about the strength of each films script and the way they are constructed. This problem is far more reaching than the common “ It wasn’t as funny as the first” comment one might make concerning the latter two Lego movies. Although i would be remiss to suggest that the humor isn’t itself a issue. 

“ The Lego Movie” is filled to the brim with weird wacky comedy that still holds up five years later, but is coupled with satisfying storytelling that complements the silliness. Out of everything that could have been taken away from that original film the sequential Lego flicks focus is firmly placed on the hijinks and shenanigans. Much like a child who stacks his Legos as high as he can without any regard to building a solid foundation, Lego Batman ( to a lesser extent) and Ninjago lives or dies on the strength of it’s humor, often times tumbling because of that fact. So to help illustrate my point i would like to go back to the beginning and exam why each film worked or failed.

THE LEGO MOVIE

Out of all the things this film is praised for, the animation, the comedy, the amazing cast, i hardly ever hear anyone talking the story structure. While nothing shakespearean, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller masterfully employ the monomyth ( or hero’s journey) to lay the emotional foundation for the film, using it quite literally to a T’. 

After setting the movies conflict into motion with the “ Piece of Resistance” and the “Krangle” we flash forward 8 1/2, enter Emmet Brickowski, your average abnormally normal citizen of Lego City Bricksburg where everything is honky dory. Following him throughout his day we come to find that Emmet is so average that he has fallen into the background of the collective consciousness of those around him. Only by chance does he comes across the Piece of Resistance literally calling him to adventure.

Now melded with the piece of legend, Emmet now bears the name “ The Special” which he is hesitant to hear at first, as he faces persecution from Lord Business forces, who is H’ E’ double hockey sticks’ bent on gluing the entire universe into place. 

Through shenanigans he teams up with local DJ Wyldstyle, warms up to the idea of being, and i quote “ the most important, most talented, most interesting, most extraordinary, mostest most person in the universe.” The two escape from his capturers and crosses the threshold, by also literally crossing into another realm. 

Duding it up in the Old West, Emmet’s lie is exposed like me on Omegle, earning him the disdain of his would be love interest. Trying to decipher next with the piece, the duo finds the wizard Virtuvius ( MVP of the film) who after finding out Emmet’s quandary determines to mentor him to be a Masterbuilder. 

More shenanigans, Batman shows up, Emmet experiences cuckolding with Bat’s and Sty’s blockholding, ( seriously this is supposed to be a family film for krangle’s sake!) they all take a road trip to cloud coo coo land, group meets “ OC do not steal” and the other Masterbuilders to come up with a plan to take down Lord Business and stop his TAKOS! Surprise surprise Bad Cop rolls up to the club and the Masterbuilders aren’t ready to jam so they get sent to the slam. Emmet and crew manage to escape only by hiding in this absolute masterpiece. 

Now beaten and bruised Emmet rallies the troops, and together as a team they set to enter the dragon’s lair that is Lord Business office building. ( Nightmare of college dropouts and unpaid interns everywhere) The story comes to a head as Virtuvius loses his, the piece of resistance is thrown into the abyss that is my grandma’s purse, all the masterbuilders are captured and Lord Business has set up an overly elaborate death trap to get these dang kids off his lawn. In this moment of despair the ghost of Virtuvius appears before Emmet assuring him that cat posters hold the secrets of the universe. Motivated Emmet bids a tearful farewell as he sacrifices himself to save the other Masterbuilders.

On the other side of the abyss, Emmet haves an out of body experience and has a face to face with the pink sausaged-eagle-squid creatures that serve as the lands God’s. It is here that he finally becomes equipped with the Ultimate Treasure: believing in yourself! Now ready to face the odds Emmet is sent Homeward Bound back to the Lego world. 

He returns, Reborn as a Masterbuilder. Emmet confronts Lord Business and stops him by extending him his hand ( claw-grip thing?) in friendship, helping Lordy realize that he doesn’t have to be bad and that in reality we are all the Special. The two reconcile and the story wraps up with the world at peace until the immediate sequel bait.

There’s a reason many a tale uses this storytelling device, when done properly it works to enact growth and change in the protagonist, resulting in a compelling and satisfying character arc. The Lego Movie not content to rely on this alone also explores “ The Chosen One” trope, as well as themes about creativity vs conformity. There is quite a surprising amount of depth once you start deconstructing this film brick by brick, something that would be sorely missed in it’s spiritual sequels.

THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE

Without a doubt there is a lot to like about “ The Lego Batman Movie,” they managed to kick the already amazing animation up to 11, on a whole it is a very funny movie ( giving birth to probably one of my favorite scenes ever. Kazow!), and it joyfully revels in the Batman mythos and world. In addition to that, it’s story tackles a very interesting premise not often explored with the Caped Crusader. Yet in my mind, there is a distinct issue which holds the film back from being as solid as Batman’s ninepack, this being pacing in the third act.

Batman is one of the rare characters in pop culture that require almost no real introduction, as it can be assumed that most will in one way or another have some basic idea of his mythos. Using this to their advantage, the people filming choose to focus on a intrinsic part of the Dark Knight, that of lose and fear of losing. Building on “ The Lego Movie” interpretation of the character, we have here a extremely egotistical, selfish Batman who exhibits these qualities in order to close himself from anymore emotional pain. 

This is plainly stated in the first act by Alfred, “ Master Bruce, you live on an island figuratively, and literally.” It’s the same reason why he can’t admit to Joker being his greatest enemy, because even if the relationship is hateful in nature, it is still a connection to another person. So Batman’s gotta learn to open himself to others, great! A good premise and character arc that the film executes fairly well, up until the beginning of the third act.

See throughout the story we see Batman nudged and guided into becoming a better person by those around him, particularly Alfred and Barbara in the first act. Come the second act, Batman has stubbornly enacted his own plan to stop the seemingly harmless Joker, after succeeding he is berated by Barbara “ You can't be a hero if you only care about yourself.” Batman’s plan backfires giving Joker the means to unleash every villain from your local bar’s trivia night. As such Fatman rectify his mistakes by teaming up with his loves ones to make wrongs right. 

Though hesitant to the idea at first, Bats warms up to his new superhero buddies only for him to push them away as soon as he realizes their importance to him. This is where the problem of pacing really begins to show itself. After sending away the Bat-lites, Batman immediately confronts Joker, only for the Joker to recapitulate something that was just clearly shown to the audience “ I'm not your greatest enemy. Your greatest enemy is you.” 

Joker then banishes Batman to the doom dimension where he is greeted by a literal judge of right and wrong, who then plays a highlight reel showing just how big a betty batty’s been. The thing to note is this all occurs within a span of five minutes, stopping the story completely just to point at something that’s already solidly established in the story.

The real shame is that all this guilt dog-piling undercuts a great moment. In the doom dimension Bat’s gets a peek of the situation to find his friends returning to help him, there he sees Robin emulating Batman’s reckless attitude, and it is there where he is finally able to recognize the harm he’s bringing to others with his selfish actions. A moment i feel could’ve been the emotional pillar of the movie if it had been better builded towards and executed.

To be fair the movie from then on picks back up rather quickly, Batman learns his lesson, forms the “ savi-cide squad,” and in the end is able to save Lego Gotham by literally making connections with others and bringing everyone closer to each other. Capping what is undeniably, despite it’s flaws, a very fun movie. If only i could say the same about the last film here…

THE LEGO NINJAGO

The Lego Ninjago movie was always going to be in a peculiar situation, it’s branding and world aren’t well enough established in the minds of the average movie goer to solely create a story based on in-world lore. Nor is it enough of a clean slate that one could be free to do whatever it wanted if the story ala “ The Lego Movie.” And as such it creates this disjointed hodgepodge of elements borrowed from the two previous entries. This particularly can be seen through the journey of the protagonist Lloyd.

By the time the movie chooses to introduced Lloyd we are already informed that he as the Green Ninja along with the others have already time and again defeated and repelled the big bad Garmadon. In a way Lloyd as already undergone his own hero’s journey, meaning they’ve already skipped any satisfaction that could be gained from seeing a powerless boy becoming a hero and vanquishing that which threatens his home.

Bah whatever, origin stories are overdone and boring. Who’s with me?! Let’s get right into the good stuff. And to the films credit it does just that, right off the bat we are introduced to what will be the main conflict of the story, Lloyd and his relationship with his father. However here too “ The Lego Ninjago” movie stumbles. Lloyd as a character is defined solely by this conflict. During nearly the entire first act you will rarely find a scene, or piece of dialogue featuring Lloyd that will not involve Garmadon or the fact that he is Lloyd’s father in one way or another. 

But hey he’s also the leader of the Ninjas and does a great job of, uh, telling people what to do? Now let’s quickly compare how the “ Lego Batman Movie” handle this. In the opening moments of that film we spend time with Batman before the grand conflict is set into motion, we see he’s egotistical, a showboat, selfish and willfully ignorant to any flaws he might have. Having established his personality, ( what a notion) the story is able to show how that feeds into his fear letting people back in and colors his character arc for the film.

With the “ Lego Ninjago” movie failing to this, it leaves Lloyd as just sort of a blank slate with daddy issues. It’s probably why they have him from the start with a fully assembled team of fun personalities to bounce off of and carry the load of protaganizing, oh wait. Oh boy, we got Flame Fella the spiky hair one, Dirt Dude who is essentially Flame Fella, Wa Wa Womah ( she’s the water element cause she’s so good at retaining water), and the only two with any semblance of personality Jay and Zane. 

Without trying to disrespect fans of the original series, you know where they actually mattered, the other Ninjas here are little more than filler. Functionally they have no real role in the story except to bolster Lloyd’s in-world importance by making him leader, as well as holding him responsible after he unwittingly unleashes destruction upon Ninjago. Towards the start of the third act, our blockhead Ninjas haphazardly realize that all they to do was believe and only now is there any hint of development for the group. Way too little, way too late to have any significant impact on the story. 

Leaving us with the “ Father/Son” plot to essentially carry the whole film. To the movie’s credit it does a serviceable job in accomplishing this. While far from masterful, there is some satisfaction in two opposing fractions learn to work together and eventually reconcile. However even here the film fails to execute on this idea.  After spending the entirety of the second act building up this relationship between the two, Garmadon literally asks Lloyd to join him and rule the galaxy together. Green bean rejects the offer because what else would you expect him to do, and Gar once again pushes his son away from him. Less than five minutes later, the climax of the movie ends with Lloyd talking to his dad through a cat and the two finally reconcile as family.  

In this way “ The Lego Ninjago Movie” fizzles out, leaving a lackluster ending and Jackie Chan to close out an already underwhelming story. 

Finally some more miscellaneous criticisms. 

They reuse a lot of shots in the first act, Lloyd’s dragon cannon being of the more obvious examples. 

There isn’t as much effort to establish “ Ninjago” as a Lego world, often times you see Lego structures mixed with what is supposed to be natural foliage. This is a huge issue in the second act as the majority of the scenery is composed of non-Lego elements. And the stuff that isn’t Lego’s don’t look to hot, the water effects being the biggest offender in this case.  

Jackie Chan as Master Wu is probably the weakest performance in the movie, i don’t know if it’s  because of the voice director or because Jackie just wasn’t feeling the powah.

The movie’s live action intro and outro is just bad. 

But hey Garmadon has a “ Shark-Shooter” gun! 8/10 movie

CLOSING THOUGHTS

In conclusion, the thing that worries me most from the last two movies is the lack of thought and care into execution that the original “Lego Movie” had in spades. Pacing, strong character work for the whole cast, attention to story structure, all of these things have been mostly stepped on in favor of cramming as much hijinks as possible. And as a result leads to painful lackluster conclusions that try to be heartwarming but fail due to poor build up. 

As much as i sound like a negative nancy right now, with “ The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” being helmed by the dynamic duo which created the first, i am confidant that this will be a return to form for the Lego franchise. 

Thanks for reading this monstrous mess.