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asphodelical · 2 years

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The Great Anime Rewatch of 2022 - Symphogear Edition

Senki Zesshou Symphogear seasons 1-5

First watched: original airdates, 2012-2019 Rewatched: July 2022

Original ratings: 8, 8, 7, 6, 7 New ratings: 7, 5, 8, 5, 7

Everyone has a favorite bad anime, and Symphogear is mine.

Symphogear - A glorious mess that feels like a love letter to an overabundance of other series and tropes. It’s like a twelve year old writing for the first time and combining everything they’ve ever liked into one story. It’s so enthusiastic and sincere in its presentation that I can’t help but get swept up in its ridiculousness.

Symphogear G - So many improvements from season one: costume design, transformation sequences, and animation. With Symphogear-wielding antagonists, the fights were more interesting, too. The caveat is that G gets too lost in its plot and takes itself too seriously. Half of the time is spent from the antagonists’ POV, which is a bold effort for a show like this. But the antagonists aren’t interesting and are really dull to watch. Their sections absolutely drag. I found myself way less entertained than season one, hence the score dip.

I think the aspect of G I enjoyed most was the growing relationship between Tsubasa and Chris. (Though the writers would shift gears in favor of Tsubasa and Maria from GX onwards.)

Symphogear GX - GX is the season of checks and balances. It’s where the series taps into its strengths, and shows that it has learned from its mistakes. It swaps the overly complex story elements of G in favor of a simpler narrative that’s very reminiscent of Nanoha A’s. It ditches the annoying hammy villains (Dr. Ver why are you here again) for one with much more care put into her. The Autoscorers suck, but Carol’s one of the best antagonists in the franchise. The bar wasn’t that high to begin with, though.

Perhaps the best thing about GX is that it challenges and develops its main cast. Hibiki finally shows traits that make her feel more like a real person: her possessiveness over Gungnir, and her resentment towards her father. Shirabe, Maria and Kirika faced consequences for the actions last season, and aren’t just automatically thrown into the fray. They have to earn it. Everyone’s gear is destroyed at some point, followed by a cool upgrade. Chris’ desire to protect the kids leads her to almost attacking them. For a show that’s as wildly under-thought as Symphogear, I appreciate these choices. The addition of more duets and group songs was also a great choice.

Symphogear AXZ - I remembered basically nothing about this season going into it. The transformation sequences are slightly modified versions of GX’s. The Gear users start using new abilities that we never actually see them acquire. (I.E. Chris can use a bow and arrow, and Shirabe has yoyos.) Its tone is also most similar to GX, which I think is a good thing.

On the downside: Hibiki has been completely reverted to her usual flawless self, lacking the emotional nuance she had in GX. Her relationship with Miku is still the same as ever and one of the least compelling parts of the franchise. Tsubasa also felt very removed from AXZ, and her family conflict was the most isolated character arc. A severe lack of imagination also plagues Chris, as they keep finding ways to bring up new trauma from her past. Please, let this girl live and move on.

As for the villains? Props for making them have a different dynamic than all previous villain groups we’ve had so far. Saint Germain is a parallel to Carol, but worse. Her other two friends are nothing more than archetypes who are….there, along with the ripped male alchemist who’s half of the time. The writers don’t feel committed to these villains; it feels like they couldn’t decide whether they wanted them to be serious (Carole) or ridiculous (Fine, Dr. Ver). In the end, they settled for a weird and unsatisfying middle ground, and it doesn’t work.

AXZ was one of the weaker seasons. I wasn’t engaged, nor entertained much at all. One of the highlights for me was the unexpected duet between Tsubasa and Shirabe. And I miss Genjuurou actually doing things. He’s too strong to be an active player.

Symphogear XV - I also remembered nothing going into the final season. So, did the final season stick the landing? We’ll get there. First. let’s talk about everything else.

The transformation sequences have reached their final form and are more dynamic than ever—combining visual elements from all previous seasons. After being completely denied of a concert sequence in AXZ, it comes back with a vengeance in episode two. Another element that comes back swinging is Tsubasa’s character. The writers got tired of making Chris their biggest source of trauma, and decided to dump it all on Tsubasa. It wasn’t my favorite choice. At least they finally made Miku relevant again, for the first time since G, and finally had Genjuurou fight again.

Symphogear’s villains have always been one of its most inconsistent aspects. But in terms of making the villains feel like they genuinely care about one another, this is the one that succeeds the most. (Even more so than Maria, Shirabe and Kirika in G because they were hindered by Natassja and Dr. Ver.) XV takes the time to give the villainous trio scenes that show how much they care about each other. Another thing they’ve got going for them is that they’re outsmarting the heroines.

The choice to really bring back the political aspect of it dragged it down, just like it did in G. There’s a lot of info dumping. On the plus side, it brings back story beats and characters from prior seasons, makes them relevant again, and incorporates them into the plot.

And the ending? Well, it’s no my favorite Symphogear climax honestly. It felt like there was something missing, and it never achieved the heights of prior seasons. The epilogue only serviced three characters: Tsubasa, Hibiki and Miku. So that felt a little disappointing as well. XV was still one of the better seasons though.

Each season of Symphogear is a wild ride from beginning to end. From a technical narrative standpoint, it’s hardly the smartest tool in the shed—Overly simplistic concepts, poor worldbuilding and dull politics abound. The different songs don’t have specific functions (defense, offense, support). Most of the songs began to blend in with each other from season three onwards, especially Kirika’s and Hibiki’s. (Blame Elements Garden for that.) Chris and Tsubasa got the strongest songs, though. The thing that I will always appreciate Symphogear for is that never loses its unbridled enthusiasm, sincerity, and the absolute love it has for its characters. On a final note: Kanade deserved better, and Ogawa an unsung hero. Amen.

#anime

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dribs-and-drabbles · 2 years

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The weekend series roundup - Sunday edition

What Zabb Man ep 4:

Shy Punn is cute. And Baifern is potentially calling Poon her brother already (unless it's just in the "P'Poon" way...but it seemed from Tian's reaction to reading the card it's more than just an older male friend 'P'). But I do not like Amy at all. Oh what a missed opportunity to have a fantastic female friend character (because I imagine that actress is amazing and she's just wasted as this annoying faen fatale). I wonder if they're going to make her and Taywich into a couple by the end. I hope not...but...I also don't care.

I LOVE Pirada though. She's my MVP. This moment was fabulous, not only because Tian handled the miscommunication with Punn and cut Amy down straight away (unlike other shows - I'm side-eyeing a few airing a the moment) but the show is also calling out this very over-used and dull trope!

And I thought the hand hold and long stare between Punn and Tian was great - a beautiful moment of 'here look at me, feel me, believe me in my openness and honesty'. But what was not great was again people entering a kitchen and going to handle food without washing their hands first. Anyway, the end was sweet - with Tian's honest desperation - it kind of softens the awkwardness of the boss/employee power imbalance (along with Punn's determination to enter the cooking contest against his Tian's wishes).

Oh and I also noticed last ep that Punn's house is same as Tuaphee's in Dear Doctor I'm coming for Soul - more location sharing!

Cupid's Last Wish ep 6:

I am so confused about Win/Lin's aunt and uncle - I thought they were married but it seems they're brother/sister...and the monk is another actual brother (they used P'chai rather than just 'P'). And I don't see why Lin wouldn't know about looking after the cows since she also grew up on the farm...I guess it's to have the observation that 'Lin' isn't acting herself...but it just implies that because she's a girl she didn't learn about these things and I just 🙄

And then Korn picking 'Lin' up and carrying her away from yelling at her aunt and uncle...and well, first, I think Win has a right to yell (ok so there's an element of youngsters should show respect to elders but they nearly killed an animal because they got involved and didn't know what they were doing)...but I just think, would Korn have picked up Win like that if he was in his own body? Or actually just let Win yell...? So, can we stop manhandling women?

*sigh* I still don't understand why Win is SO upset that Korn co-owns the farm. It makes him/them stronger against the aunt and uncle...who he dislikes. So, why is he pitting himself against everyone? Win just sounds ungrateful and greedy and yet he's accusing Korn of greed. He's losing my sympathy tbh. And we discover that Korn does have an explanation for Win...but just won't say yet!

It had better be a good reason and not that he's just waiting till Win is back in his body to confess his feelings. Because now Win is going to doubt Korn's affections and it's going to set them back again 🙄 If they actually just asked each other what they want to know then it would be easy. I'd rather that and have other outside antagonistic things in the story...because it can be done. Pat and Pran in Bad Buddy were experts at nipping things in the bud (they would communicate and handle an issue within one or two episodes) and it was so refreshing to see tension being created in other ways. It 👏🏼 can 👏🏼 be 👏🏼 done! 👏🏼

Characters NOT talking to each other is boring.

#what zabb man #what zabb man ep 4 #cupid's last wish #cupid's last wish ep 6 #gmmtv cupid's last wish #I think these are getting too long #I should keep it shorter next week!#bad buddy #dear doctor I'm coming for soul #<- since I mentioned them #I ranted a bit with cupid's last wish #but mix really acted his socks off again #as did jan. they were both fantastic #so I don't hate the show...I just have opinions about how it could have been better 😂#I'd stop watching if I really disliked something #because I *really* don't have the time to be watching and posting about 8 shows at the moment #I realise I didn't write about Teng and Mayom...#but I need to see how their storyline is going to go first

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nexyra · 3 years

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James Ironwood, for character ask? 👀

Aaaa thank you so much for the ask ♡ More rambling incoming !! Sorry for the wait btw, I've been both pretty busy and tired ;;

If you hate James Ironwood and don't wanna hear one good thing about him tap out now please ღ

My fav ship(s) for the character

I am not a super big shipper when it comes to James, but there are still some I like more than others soo here goes :

I think Ironwitch is a pretty good one. It's not necessarily a ship I'd search content for but I think these two would work well together ! Glynda is stern and honest and a no-nonsense kind of woman. She has the strenght to stand up to James when he slips or gets too stubborn when faced with the high stakes. At the same time, we've been shown that she cares for him and she knows he's only trying to do what's best for people. She has faith in him but also the ability to stand at his side as an equal. She seems to be the more steadfast of Ozpin's circle : loyal, you know you can trust her, and she will not crumble. This is the kind of personnality that I think James both admire and feel safe with. And the other way around, I think James is a good match for Glynda too. On a day to day basis, he's serious enough to not annoy here, but he's also a softie in some aspects and that's a nice combination to smooth out Glynda's edges.

Ironqrow is a completely different dynamic. The "we're annoying each other" dynamic is not one I'm particularly interested in usually xD But these two certainly had strong & interesting moments so it's a pretty valid ship !! Despite how they might butt heads because of the difference in their upbringing they (prior to V8) clearly trusted each other with their life. Even if Qrow jokes about shooting himself if he had to be one of James' man, when everything goes to shit there is no doubt in his mind that James wasn't responsible. Similarly, while James talks of shooting Qrow for his misbehaviour, when push comes to shove and we meet a tired Ironwood, run ragged by the pressure he's under... the only thing he does is hug him and reiterates how glad he is to see him. So again, they clearly have a lot of faith and trust in the other, and that's solid ground for a relationship.

My least favorite ship(s) for the character

Same spiel as always, shipping kids and adults is a big no from me; so any ships between Ironwood and RWBYJNOR can qualify here. That said, among the less uncomfortable ones, here are those I don't really like

This one is again because I love their relationship but platonically only, I'm talking of Winter Soldier. The reading I like best is not that Ironwood is Winter's Jacques 2.0, nor that he groomed her; but that he was an important father figure in her life. Protective and caring, who tried to help her escape with what he knew. I don't see James recruiting Winter as a way to gain a strong ally. But rather that Winter wanted to detach herself from her family name, and make something worthwhile of herself all on her own. And that the military is what Ironwood knows and understand, so naturally it's a career he'd see as a good path. Just like Winter then proposed it to Weiss. I like to think they care about each other a LOT and they're their own tight family in between the lines, even if professionalism might throw a wrench into it. For short I love them together but not romantically please =)

I don't know if there's a ship name for this, but Salem x James Ironwood would be a big nope from me too... In general, let's just assume I ship Salem with nobody because abuse.

My fav & least fav platonic relationship(s) for the character

Fav platonic relationship would be (have been because we dont talk about V8?) with Winter. Fooor the reasons I've explained above I suppose x) I (again) love the trust they had in one another and the quiet support.

There was also his relationship with Oscar that I really liked during V7, although it has been soured a bit by the (valid) reading from some people that Ironwood sought out Ozpin a lot through Oscar, and given his identity issues it is not ground for a greatly healthy relationship. Their interactions were still very intersting though ♡ I consider Oscar to be the kid who went at trying to appease James' fear or make him reconsider his decisions the best way. There was true understanding and hope for a working relationship here. I do feel that Oscar put in more work than James however (emotionally) and I wish there had been pay-back instead of a gunshot.

For my least fav relationship ? Probably Robyn or Watts ? Robyn was always very antagonistic toward Ironwood since their priorities are so different. And I overall just don't really like her after V7 so there are very few relationships with her I'm interested in (the exception is her ship with Fiona I think it's cute). Meanwhile, Watts is just a petty asshole hell bent on ruining Ironwood because he didn't pick his project. I'm not very interested in hate relationships, and since theirs wasn't deeply explored anyway, it's even more the case here. Their fight was great though, one of my favorite RWBY fights !

My favorite thing about the character

Well this was completely proven wrong by V8 buuut as of V7 I liked that he was a deconstruction of the military general (dictator) trope. Sooo you can guess how i feel about V8 X) In general among RWBY, several of my fav are fav BECAUSE they look like one trope but also have key differences that from the get go make the character stray away from said trope. For example I'm not a fan of the princess tsundere archetype at all, but I loooved Weiss in V1 BECAUSE she was extra-willing to listen and change her mind, and you could very easily tell that it was her upbringing speaking more than herself in most occasions.

Similarly, I wasn't a big fan of Ironwood before V7. I didn't hate him you know and he wasn't lower than most characters in my Tier list but I also didn't particularly care. But you know what ? I've aaaalways had a really soft spot for the "angsty angry traumatized teen". And RWBY made the mistake of extending that soft spot to "tired adults trying their best" (only to repeatedly beat them up/make them villains after making me care about them but what can you do uh)

Soo in general, I loved that Ironwood was trying so hard. I loved that he was tired and in over his head but learning and listening and trying to do good and be better despite his fears. I liked that he told his entourage about Salem and was loyal. I liked that he cared about helping the people above his own image and the way people perceived him. I liked that you could tell this was a terrible situation all around, and his decisions WERE questionnable but we could SEE that he meant WELL and was genuinely trying so hard despite how scared and tired he was.

My biggest criticism for the character

Well this won't be a surprise but in general I just wished he had stayed a morally grey character we were allowed to feel for instead of a cartoon black villain. I didn't need James to be THE Hero or anything like this despite some accusations levelled at those who like him. Him becoming one of RWBY's antagonist is honestly fine by me ! It is interesting. But I'd have preferred they kept him ambiguous and trying in his own way. (And smart because V8 Ironwood was dumb af)

I can be a tad overprotective of his character since he's just... so despised, so I think that I have inadvertently distanced myself from any of his flaws... somehow like "people are already yelling all of them so I don't need to add to this shit show" you know ? skjfkd But I KNOW he has them and it would still have been good to develop his flaws, just... not like that

But yea I'd have liked it if V8 Ironwood DID diverge from RWBYJNORQ and became an antagonist but not an iredeemable villain. LIKE,, we redeemed Hazel and Emerald and IRONWOOD is where the writers draw the line by saying "nope this one is rotten" ?? What ?

When was their writing at the peak according to me (ex : best season)

V7 definitely ! Ironwood carried V7 so hard haha. His character was fleshed out and given nuance and made to struggle and evolve and I loved him in that volume.

A song I think fits them & why

Hunger • Monsters & Men Human • Rag'n'Bone Man Way down we go • Kaleo Beekeeper • Keaton Henson Thistle and weeds • Mumford and Sons Castle of Glass • Linkin Park It's all so incredibly loud • Glass Animals

A headcanon to make up about them

His metal parts impact his metabolism so Ironwood is terrible at holding his alcohool and very little manages to knock him out. He's a workaholic. His low tolerence for alcohool is a great tool whn friends need to put him to sleep.

His joints crack and hurt in the cold, his metal parts as well and they are an hassle in the sand. James like to keep his room temperature warmer than the average atlasian because of this, otherwise he has to spend 30 min every morning simply unwiding muscles to move around efficiently.

He's not a good singer but has a nice low voice for telling stories. If he had kids, he'd probably avoid lullabies but compensate with bedtimes stories.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

As always, I'm kind of reflecting along the way as I write this, and one thing I'm thinking right now is... Doesn't it take away from the atlas arc message ITSELF to just pile up so many "standard bad guy" stuff on Ironwood ? Like, I wanna ask... why do we hate him ? Is he an antagonist because he lets fear get the best of him ? Because he's a classist who doesn't care about Mantle like some fans argue ? Because he's too stubborn and wants to be THE hero ? Because he doesn't listen to others ? Because he abandonned Mantle ? Because he kills peopke left and right ? Because he wanted to bomb a city ? I think you might see where I'm going with this : his status as villain is kind of messy. V8 just kept piling-up flaws and villainous actions onto Ironwood with no concern for whether this was a lenght he would go to (using the certainty that he would go to any lenghts to enact his plans), ,or whether these were one of the initial flaws/failings that led to his "fall" as an antagonist. What lesson is Ironwood supposed to learn ? Personally the very first time I yelled at my screen "No ! Why would the writers choose that ?" is when Ironwood shot Oscar. When answering criticism against medias, many people tend to look at it only through the lense of "well it makes sense in universe" or as if there were no other ways for the story to devolve. But at the end of the way, everything in a story is a choice from the writer even if it is influenced by the characters' personnalities. If I took the scene where Ironwood shoots Oscar, someone might tell me "he's crippled by his PTSD, he COULD do this." Maybe, that's a reading I can somewhat understand at least. But the writers have the power to NOT put his character in such a position. When I saw the wreck that was V7 finale, I ranted to my bestfriend about it and at no point did i say "why did Ironwood do that", I said "why did the writers make him shoot Oscar, the only point narratively would be to make irredeemable" Aaaand that's what they went for and I obviously didn't care for it. So if I had to rewrite it; I would have kept Ironwood's "mistakes" more focused. If he's wrong because he wants to abandon Mantle, because he's (understandably) scared and doesn't want to take risks; then stay focused on that. It's what makes RWBY leave, and out of all his V8 actions that's really the only thing RWBY needed to tell the whole world he wasn't an ally anymore apparently. - Don't make him shoot Oscar point blank, instead Oscar can simply fall because he flinches away from Ironwood's outburst; and a distraught/guilty Ironwood can decide that he doesn't have the time or capacity to help because of the tense situation. (Killing and not saving someone don't hold the same moral weight at all). - Don't make him kill people left and right or bomb cities, maintain the flaw of Ironwood struggling with his PTSD and his fear and not being able to take risks. - Don't paint him as a black villain, and eventually write V8 in such a way that RWBYJNORQ show taking risks might lead to a bigger victory, which was the volume's theme anyway. For example, following Oscar's destruction of the whale, a growth can occur that would bring back together the two anti-Salem factions : Oscar's risk put Atlas out of harm's way, which leads to Ironwood seeing that maybe there WAS a way to save Mantle as well as Atlas despite Salem's presence and he might have jumped the gun too quickly because of his fears. I'm not sure, I haven't thought about this extensively honestly but I hope you see what I mean. I think it would have been more focused & more in-character to focus Ironwood's failings on his fear; and the fact that he cares for the people and the greater good sometimes at the cost of the individuals. The idea that by sacrificing individuals too much you forget the people you're fighting for in the first place, could have been interesting to dig deeper into. Keep to the idea that Ironwood is somewhat disensitized to the individuals suffering for the sake of the greater good, instead of making him just

callous & uncaring.

My guess for their MBTI/Enneagram

I think pre-V8 Ironwood was an unconventionnal ENFJ. Aka, the type of character no one would type ENFJ because they go by stereotypes and Fe stereotypes are just enneagram 2 everywhere (aka nice, kind, helpful) whereas Ironwood has an enneagram tritype very common among xxTJs so that's what he looks/behaves like, but the way he thinks (what's best for the people, ethical values derived from an Atlasian upbringing) align more with Fe cognitively I think I'm going with ENFJ 6w5 1w2 3w4

Starting from V8 though, Ironwood veered clearly into ENTJ territory (types aren't supposed to change but I wouldn't say RWBY is the most consistent media when it comes to characters' personnalities)

One aspect that I think would be nice to delve deeper into ?

I understand why they didn't care to, but it'd have been interesting to get a few backstory hints for Ironwood. How did he lose half his body ? How did Oz recruit him ? Or some pieces about his upbringing ?

#rwby #james ironwood #james ironwood canoncrit #rwby thoughts #rwby rewrite #rwde #ask me stuff #enneagram #mbti #v7 spoilers #v8 spoilers #pro james ironwood

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tuiyla · 4 years

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So I finally watched The Owl House

I wish I’d do this with every show I watch but it seems like only a lucky few get the She-Ra style rant of love treatment. Well, I finally watched The Owl House after my dash having been flooded for the past couple of weeks and I have some thoughts. Slight spoilers below.

First off, I love the whole vibe. I had a faint idea that this show would be about magic but I didn’t know much before watching - except for one thing, we’ll get back to that. The way it builds its world and deals with magic, though, is so refreshing. And I just have to mention here that I laughed out loud at all the Harry Potter jabs, they were hilarious. I expect we’ll learn much more about magic and its users as the show goes on but as far as the first season goes the introduction was really solid. It strikes the right balance between leaving things to the imagination but being more than “wave wand and magic happens”. It’s colourful, it’s creative, and I even like the ovens and school tracks, despite knowing that the story is about not conforming to those. It makes the Boiling Isles unique and make me want to learn more about the world even beyond the characters and the main plot.

TOH also presents a world that’s much more macabre than I was expecting from the Disney Channel, not that that’s a bad thing. I found myself thinking of Adventure Time at certain points and pondering, at scary moments, how kids would react. I think kids love this, though, and besides, nothing can be more scarring than Courage the Cowardly Dog was. It’s not that terrifying, of course, just daring enough to stand out. Overall the show has what I would classify as more of a Cartoon Network vibe than a Disney Channel one, but I admittedly haven’t really been following many Disney shows. In any case, I dig it. I dig the weird creatures and the beautiful backgrounds and I appreciate how alive the Boiling Isles feel. It doesn’t take long for TOH to immerse you in its world so I’m for one am hooked.

I make a big deal of loving the world itself because rarely does it happen that world-building stands out to me so soon in a series. I do love carefully constructed fantasy worlds but for the most part I’m more interested in the characters themselves. Here, I’d say it’s close to being a 50-50, which is something that even Avatar can’t say with its elemental masterclass in world-building (which is mostly because the character depth there is unrivaled but still). So yeah, kudos to The Owl House for achieving this. From Luz’s glyph magic to the covens and the titans, I’m excited to explore this world more.

Now, the characters. The real meat of any story. Starting with Luz, I have seen some criticism that she’s a generic hero so far, the “I’m a weirdo”, heart of gold, upbeat variety. I don’t think this makes her bland, though I do admit that being told over and over again that she’s weird makes me less engaged, even she’s also shown to be weird. I like the message of her arc and that the chosen one trope was deconstructed almost right away. I like that she’s relentlessly enthusiastic and kind to people and I like that she doesn’t have to get more bitter in order to get development. Instead, she learns from her mistakes but keeps being herself and brings her unique spirit to the Boiling Isles. We need protagonists like Luz, not just because she’s latina and bisexual but because her learning process doesn’t involve cynicism. Sure, there is a lot she needs to learn but her heart is presented as an asset and a sort of source of magic. I’m excited to see where her story goes, for sure.

I’m gonna write briefly about the other characters before I get to my favourite one. Eda is super cool and I quickly got over the fact that she’s not Beatrice Horseman, lol. She embodies such a youthful energy but the show also allows her to be a middle-aged woman comfortable in her own body - well, owl curse notwithstanding. Also, her relationship with Lilith is one of my favourite parts of the whole show. Eda subverts so many of the mentor’s traditional tropes and I’m here for it. I kinda thought she was the villain based on her design and when I didn’t know anything about the show but hey, happy she’s not.

I don’t think I’d even seen a picture of King before starting to watch the series and at first I thought I’d get tired of him real quick. He’s the type of character who can get really annoying instead of endearing really fast if he’s not given any depth or charm, both by way of writing and voice acting. Luckily, I ended up liking King and his antics. His design is indeed adorable and Alex Hirsch is a genius. The only time I felt like he went too far was, perhaps surprisingly, in the book writing episode, “Sense and Insensitivity”, but even there going too far was the point. So yeah, King’s also great, there’s much potential in his backstory and general character.

Alright so really quickly, other characters: Willow and Gus are generic best friend characters and though they already have other things going on, I expect more development as the series progresses. I like that Willow is actually super powerful, just not in the way people expected her to and Gus is clearly also talented despite being younger. I’d be happy to see more of the other kids, get more familiar with Hexside. Edric and Emira are fun characters but they were really shitty in their first episode so I was kind of surprised they weren’t more of a nuisance to Amity later on. I’m all for supportive siblings so I wouldn’t mind a good relationship between the three but I feel like it’s more complicated than that with the Blights.

Finally, I also have to mention that Hooty is... well, quite something, isn’t he. Much like with King, I thought he’d be much more annoying but somehow the show is self-aware enough that it makes Hooty tolerable. I’m almost always torn between feeling sorry for him and being thoroughly weirded out, and I think that’s the intention? It’s fitting that he’s the titular character as he embodies the tone of The Owl House well in my eyes. He’s there for the comedy but there’s just enough there to hint at something more. Very bizarre, strong CN vibes, here for it.

Now that I’ve written a paragraph more about Hooty than I expected to, let’s talk about Amity. Listen, no other character stood a chance to be my favourite as soon as I learned Mae Whitman voiced Amity. That woman gave me Katara so now I have a quasi Pavlovian response to her voice. I’d also say that I knew more about Amity going into the show than I did about any other aspect of TOH. I heard somewhere that she started out as an antagonist, I knew her parents were abusive, and the reason the show blew up on my dash and my general online bubble is the Grom episode. Lucikly I only saw stills of Lumity beneath the crescent moon but the pure Sapphic energy of that was enough to gay migrate me to this show. I’d like to note it here though that The Owl House is a good show in and of itself, the queer rep is just a nice extra. I’m gonna spend the next couple hundred words going on about Amity and her crush on Luz but I don’t value only that. The Gay Migration is great and rep is great but I’m also grateful to have a solid show behind it. That being said.

I’m a total dyke for Amity Blight. I was very biased before even being introduced to her character but I genuinely find her to be fascinating and she has great potential. She’s developing quite quickly, like much of The Owl House, but an arc not being stretched out for several seasons before getting a rushed conclusion is refreshing. The progress hits all the beats and the only note I have is that I want more. She starts out as a generic bully but the opportunity to be more is there from the beginning. We find out early on that she used to be friends with Willow, we see that she works hard and values honest work. When she becomes Luz’s rival, it doesn’t last long before Amity shows that she’s open to new perspectives. That’s not to defend or even justify her earlier and nastier moments, Amity was rude to both Luz and Willow. But through all that, she becomes a complex character who does bad things but isn’t a bad person and grows when she gets the space to. I think that’s neat.

Luz’s decision to befriend her might be cartoon logic but as someone who subscribes to the “kill them with kindness” ideology, I can totally relate. Amity’s softer side doesn’t take long to show and “Lost in Language” is such a great episode to show how complex people can be. Again, I was already biased when it came to Amity but she’s consistently shown to be capable of self-reflection and growth when others give her the chance. I think her past and potential future friendship with Willow is a great way to explore many different topics and I’m trusting the show to do it justice. I also can’t wait to meet the rest of the Blights, if only to get me some angst and further develop Amity. I half expected Grom to take the form of her parents. Too dark for Disney? Well, we don’t know Amity’s dynamic with her parents, exactly, but there’s so much subtext and potential. I love what we’ve already seen from her but I’d also say that she has one of the greatest potentials in the show.

Another way in which this potential manifests is Lumity, of course. Again, they’re developing quite quickly but that doesn’t mean it’s rushed. I’d love to explore Amity’s crush more and what Luz means to her. The Grom episode surpassed all expectations, still and gifs don’t do the stunning dance sequence justice. The animation is so smooth, the colours are amazing, the music is on point and the Sapphic vibes complete the picture. Poetic cinema, truly. Molly Ostertag and Noelle Stevenson are really out there giving wlw animation fans everything we ever wanted, huh. It also warms my heart that the crush is made very clear, not just by Luz’s name being on the note but by the delightful gay disaster that is Amity in “Wing It Like Witches”. I never thought I’d ever see such a relatable useless lesbian in animation so kudos to Dana Terrace and the whole crew. Wow, how far we’ve come.

So yeah, Amity is a funky little lesbian and I’m a 100% here for her gay disaster moments, but I also love where Lumity is going thematically. They’re great as foils and I’m hoping that they won’t get together at the very end. Look, I love me some Bubbline, Korrasami and Catradora, but it’s time a wlw relationship had the chance to exist onscreen and not only in the last episode. The Owl House has a great chance to do that. I know the creators don’t want romance to be the main focus and I respect that, I think the world they created deserves to showcased and explored to its full potential. Lumity could be a great subplot though, as representation on the one hand and as a thematically interesting dynamic on the other. Plus, Luz and Amity are just cute and sometimes, it’s as simple as that. Oh, and also the whole Little Miss Perfect thing? One of the best fandom discoveries I’ve made in a long while. Not only is the song truly perfect for Amity, I love that Joriah Kwamé went on to write Ordinary as well. This right here is why fandom is beautiful.

I think that’s about it for season 1 initial thoughts. The moral can be a bit on the nose at times, especially in the early episodes but the show is ultimately for kids and I appreciate its message. Interesting world and magic system, good characters, great potential for later seasons, just a well put together show that I’m really glad I started watching. I’m kind of sorry I didn’t keep up with season 1 as it was coming out but I would not have been able to wait between episodes. The pacing is good overall, deffo moves fast but I wouldn’t call it rushed, and the “filler” episodes still add something to the story. I’m not sure if I would still feel like the show moves at a fast pace if I hadn’t binged it but in any case it isn’t rushed, the necessary beats are all there and have time to sit. I’m going to watch as it comes out from now on so hopefully season 2 will arrive early next year.

Oh, and: I’m very new to the fandom, barely just found out about Little Miss Perfect, so any and all tidbits, fun facts, and fic recommendations are welcome. Also if you just want to chat my inbox is always open!

#the owl house #toh #amity blight #lumity #luz noceda #my thoughts #down another rabbit hole i go

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falconstarfall · 4 years

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Grrm made Sansa arya's foil in agot. Look how they like different things in that book. But he uses Sansa to prop up Arya n made Arya underdog. Jeyne Sansa's friend said Arya horse face implies that jeyne is bad n Arya is good for not mean to her bcoz jeyne is below station to Arya. He continuously using Sansa n jeyne to prop up Arya.

I’m taking the liberty of answering these together, so as not to spam people too much. I think two are from the same anon anyway, so I hope that’s okay.

My short answer is that yes, I think it’s perfectly clear that he did that. GRRM does seem to have a preference for the classic fantasy warrior-tomboy-princess-trope that I think is the reason why he makes readers sympathize with Arya at the expence of Sansa. But I also think it’s a mistake when people (*cough* antis) take this to mean that Sansa is a villain, or just insignificant and only in the story to support Arya’s arc.

GRRM indisputably starts out by POV trapping Sansa. She is also the only Stark POV that doesn’t get any Winterfell chapters. No interactions with siblings other than Arya (how about Bran who she seems to have been closer to? Or Robb, her much admired older brother?) to soften Arya’s biased description of her. And in her chapters with Arya - who is supposed to have the reader’s sympathy - he always seems to write Sansa as being in the wrong.

We don’t get insight into Sansa’s anticipation and fears about leaving Winterfell, or how anxious she is to give a good impression and please the people that are going to control her future - GRRM doesn’t spell this out, but just leaves it to the reader to figure out (or not figure out) that she must be feeling all these things (and this is how we get such enlightened takes as “Sansa doesn’t have any insecurities or self esteem issues, because she knows she is beautiful”). I think the one thing the show did better in regards to Sansa (and Ned’s character too) was showing that Ned was actually aware of the predicament Arya’s fight with Joffrey had put Sansa in.

GRRM doesn’t just use Sansa to set her up against Arya, though. He also uses her very deliberately to move some of his POV characters to where he needs them. I won’t get too much into this, but Sansa going to Cersei wasn’t necessary for Ned’s downfall. It was, however, a method to get both Sansa and Arya where he wanted them - a way that seemed more realistic than Ned just being so oblivious that he didn’t even try to get them out of KL at all. And GRRM spends a significant part of Sansa’s chapters on building up her motivations for this to happen.

I think that when antis talk about how Sansa is a foil for Arya, what they really mean is that this is the thing that defines her character, and that the only reason she is in the story at all is to be pitted against Arya and eventually loose. It clearly isn’t.

Even as early as AGoT, GRRM does put some effort into Sansa’s character development, especially towards the end. He shows the reader her courage in begging for her father’s life. 11 years old, and in a room full of hostile people. You think Arya is brave for fighting? This might be a different kind of bravery, but no less valid! He also shows us her anger and spite when she contemplates killing Joffrey.

And the thing is: GRRM always knew that there were going to be more books in the series. Sansa certainly seems to have grown on him more once he began developing her more a sympathetic character. But even early in AGoT it seems clear to me that he is laying the foundations for developing Sansa further (as a sympathetic POV character) in the following books.

Sansa clearly wasn’t meant to come across to the reader as the most sympathetic in AGoT. But least sympathetic among the four Stark children POV’s is actually a pretty high bar. If GRRM had really intended Sansa to be just the mean girl archetype - the evil step sister to Arya’s Cinderella that fandom seems to think she is - he could have easily written her that way. But then he didn’t.

There are so many examples of how GRRM - even when he is pitting Sansa against Arya or having her accidentally spill Ned’s plan to Cersei - is always giving the reader amble explanations to why this is happening. Explanations that have nothing to do with Sansa being mean or selfish. Let’s look at the following:

He could have written her being antagonistic with Arya in Arya I. But he didn’t. He made it into a textbook example of the POV trap instead. Sansa is nice to Beth, answers Arya’s (pretty rude) comments politely, tries to deflect. The only thing she does that can be perceived as... not so nice is call Jon out on his jealousy. The rest is all happening in Arya’s head.

He could have written Sansa trying to force Arya to “conform to patriarchy” the way antis say. Instead he gave us Sansa acting out the septa’s orders, rather annoyed and sure she is going to fail. And he showed us how the Septa is putting down Arya in front of Sansa to give the reader a very clear reason to why Sansa is thinking about Arya the way she is.

GRRM could easily have had Sansa be mean to Arya before Lady died. But he didn’t include Sansa when Arya thougt about Jeyne calling her “Horseface” (I’m still not sure about why he changed this later). Instead he used Lady as a catalyst to make their relationship worse, and the only textual examples we have of Sansa being antagonistic with Arya happened after Lady’s death when she was traumatized by the loss of her bonded “spirit animal”, and couldn’t bear to place the blame where it belonged.

GRRM put a lot of work into Sansa’s motivations for going to Cersei for help to stay in King’s Landing. Already in Sansa I we see how Sansa doesn’t understand that Ned isn’t correcting Arya the way her mother surely would have. We see how she loves life in King’s Landing, the tourney, going to court. We also see Ned wording his orders to Sansa in a way that never lets her know that there is any danger to them. We get the final - from Sansa’s POV - of Arya being allowed the things she wants, while Sansa is denied.

If GRRM meant for Sansa to be an antagonist in AGoT, I have to call Death of the Author, because that wasn’t what he wrote.

I think this is why antis are so focused on twisting GRRM’s words into meaning that he created Sansa as a villain (which is a word he never used about her himself - I think the worst he ever said was that she was “the least sympathetic”).

It’s hard to guess at GRRM’s original intentions with Sansa, because he is always deliberately vague when answering questions. But I have to say that if there had been no “original outline” where Sansa died, it would never have occured to me that he didn’t always intend to develop her in the way he did.

“But the outline!” The one about which GRRM said he was just making shit up to feed his publisher? At what point in the process was this written? Must have been pretty early, because already AGoT seems to deviate from it. Furthermore I’ve never really been able to grasp how people got villain!Sansa from that outline? Choosing her child over her family seems to me more like a tragic character that the readers would be supposed to sympathize with.

“GRRM said he came up with Sansa to create conflict!” I’ve never seen the actual quote where he said this. I have read it here, where it seems like someone is paraphrasing what GRRM said. The word “villain” (or “foil” for that matter) isn’t mentioned. To me it sounds like him describing how he was trying to create the Starks as a family with a realistic dynamic, not that he intended one particular child to be the instigating source of all discord.

GRRM might have overestimated his readers, especially the part of them that are used to reading more simplistic, tropey YA, but I think it’s a mistake to conclude that him POV trapping Sansa and using her as a tool to push the plot along in AGoT means that he didn’t already intend to develop her further at this point.

Of course it doesn’t really matter what he originally intended at all, so I can only assume the antis’ obsession with this is caused by a hope that if they can establish that Sansa was originally intended to end up evil and/or insignificant, then that must still be his intention. Nothing GRRM has said seems to indicate this. The show ending certainly didn’t indicate this. And isn’t that more important than what he said about how he developed his characters before he wrote them, or how he introduced Sansa in the first book?

#sansa stark #anti sansa antis #anti arya stans #anti arya stark #i seem to be calling her a fantasy trope a lot lately #i better elaborate a bit on that at some point #anyway grrm is a sexist old guy too #so no wonder if sansa wasn’t the first to catch his liking #i consider it rather a victory that she seems to have grown on him anyway #anonymous

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meggannn · 4 years

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other misc thoughts about hzd that i just got around to typing up

i saw a comment thread on reddit where the op was curious if HZD was meant to be a warning against becoming too reliant on technology.... for example, whenever aloy loses her focus, she panics the way that we might if we lost our phone; she often has a single-minded obsession with the thing. but i don’t think that’s entirely true, that HZD is meant to be simply “technology = bad.” even in the game’s past, technology was not intrinsically “bad.” elisabet created green technology that helped save the planet from during the clawback decade, for example. and technology is literally saving the planet again! so, i wonder if this series will be going in a direction that pushes green technology, or a balance between technology and nature, and living more off the land the way aloy does?

i mean really i think it’s pretty obvious that the ultimate villain is not technology. the plot of this game is how capitalism, war profiteering, ego, and lack of scientific ethics and oversight will be — are — humanity’s biggest threats. i think this game honestly wraps up some of the most important problems we will be dealing with in the 21st century into one neat, awful package. the faro plague is what happens when corporations put money over literally everything else. FAS threw all their chips into green technology when elisabet sobeck worked there because it was financially profitable to do so. they threw all their money at military “peacekeeping” robots as soon as green tech wasn’t the big thing anymore.

i did notice that blue light = friendly robot, and red light = antagonistic robot. that’s not particularly revolutionary, but was is interesting is that the focus’s lights, as well as all of the bunkers and the technology in them, are purple. i assume this was intentional. (what i’m less sure about is why all the daemonic machines are tinted purple, too. did they just run out of colors that looked creepy?)

i think a cryogenically frozen ted faro is probably bordering on stereotypically scifi villain trope, but honestly.... i think there’s like a 50/50 chance that it happened and he will be making an appearance in the sequels in person, lmfao. like i actually believe it of him. the egyptian theme is way too big to be ignored. faro = pharaoh obviously, and then there’s all of the biggest military bots having an egypt theme (horus/scarab/kopesh), and then it turns out his underground bunker was called “thebes.” like, the dude is just ozymandias from watchmen: rich dude having a secret bunker in thebes that he tells no one about to go and live the rest of his life down there in isolation while thinking about his Big Crimes in which millions were killed for which he takes absolutely no responsibility. (also i’m still trying to figure out what the meaning behind giving elisabet the last name of sobeck, if there is any... sobeck was the god of a lot of things, including apparently being a protective force with apotropaic qualities, but iirc he is normally portrayed as being animalistic and aggressive, perhaps because his animal portrayal is the crocodile.)

one thing i’m still thinking about is that to get ted to fund ZD, elisabet threatened to tell the military “the true source of the glitch.” what did that mean? it has to be something more than just “ted’s company fucked up,” because like.... the existence of the killer robots decimating the earth is enough to prove that. the source of the glitch had to be REALLY bad—enough for her to know ted would never want it becoming public, even knowing everyone on the planet was about to die.

it REALLY bothers me that they went with “minerva” instead of “athena.” like i read that the team just preferred the name “minerva” and i do agree it’s a sexy name, and without it, you’d have i think four “a” names for the sub-systems (aether, athena, apollo, artemis) but it still annoys me, lol

my original theory on sylens is that he has some sort of disability or otherwise health concern that prevents him from facing enemies head-on? which could why he prefers to sneak around and/or stay back and let aloy do all the work.... i think he would do that anyway, it’s just his personality, but i thought for the longest time that the blue veins in his skin were like, some sort of vital fluids necessary for him to live. but then i did the frozen wilds dlc and realized that all banuk shamans have the blue veins...... so idk anymore lol

i am torn about if i want them to add romances in this game. i think if they’re gonna do it, do it in the second game or not at all, because it would be weird to just have it in game three. but i’m not convinced this game needs it, personally... though it would be nice to have a few “flirt back” options lmao i think that just might not be who aloy is

have more thoughts on race/racism in hzd but.... will post those thoughts later

while i’m here i need everyone to read this post-canon fic anthropotheism by @arthurpenhaligons which is literally one of the most stunning things i’ve ever read and i still need to write up my review for that

#horizon zero dawn #horizon stuff

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the-i-in-lie · 3 years

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Vietnamese Moana: A Raya And The Last Dragon Review (Spoilers)*

I get what they were going for. I really do.

Here's the thing, on concept alone, this movie's really good. As I implied in the title, it feels like Moana with a Vietnamese (I think) coat of paint, but:

Moana wasn't the most original thing in the world either, it was just really good at executing relatively tired tropes.

Raya And The Last Dragon has a much more vibrant, alive world than Moana, although I could be misremembering.

Speaking of that world, it might be my favorite part of the movie. From the lively markets of Talon, to Fang subverting the evil empire cliche by being expansionist out of need, to even the elaborate prayer Raya makes towards the beginning, it truly feels like this isn't a world just made for a ninety minute movie.**

The animation's really cool too. I mean, 3D has come a long way since the original Toy Story. The textures, like hair, skin, cloth, metal and fur, are downright beautiful. I also love the paper-like 2D animation at the beginning. The human designs are really nice as well, although about as expected for modern Disney.

Note that I said "human", because the dragons honestly look more like colorful ferrets than reptiles (them being mustelids explains the odor comment...). Anyways, this is a good transition to my first major problem with the movie: the dragons. Well, the one specific dragon we see throughout the movie (too tired to look up how to spell her name).

Anyways, I'm very sick and tired of the hyped up magical creature is a comic relief thing. Her jokes are anachronistic (school projects??? really??? as that asshole who never contributes to group projects i am offended), they come fast and don't stop, and her raspy as hell voice doesn't help matters. When she's being serious, she's fine, but in her first scene I was convinced I was gonna hate this movie based on her alone.

And that's just one example of a pretty serious tone problem. Hunchback of Notre Dame bad? No, but in terms of how much it ruins the goddamn movie, not that far behind. The con baby from Talon is another great example. I get what the joke is, the city's so crime ridden even the babies are scammers. It's all so...Penguins of Madagascar-y. Ugh.

Speaking of Talon and crime, Raya's assumptions about that nation are never truly proven wrong, and to me that was a missed opportunity. They did it for Fang, why not have Talon's representative (btw I really like how Raya picks up companions from each nation, clever) be an honest, down on their luck market stall owner? They go to buy something, Raya's convinced she's ripping her off, and she somehow proves her honesty.

Why this tangent? Well, the movie's actual theme (trust, apparently) is very, very poorly implemented. The scene where the antagonist (antagonist is strictly the character opposed to the protagonist, which is why there are villain protagonists but never villain heroes) is trusted with the gem pieces is really nice, but trust is the wrong word for the concept.

Raya trusting her is what made this happen in the first place! Maybe it could've been about forgiveness, or belief (and actually been able to communicate that without icky implications). Maybe, like I described in the alternate Talon, it could've been about how prejudice breeds mistrust.

After Mulan 2020 though, I don't think Disney wants to take a stand against racism, lest it upset Winnie the Pooh.

Some other points I'd go in depth on if I wasn't heccin tired

Raya and the antagonist girl (again, idk her name) had a really strong rivalry that was enjoyable to watch.

Despite an annoying introduction, the shrimp kid was great

I want whatever that dog/armadillo hybrid is

The mom says to her daughter towards the end (don't remember exactly when) that what happens is "out of her control" and I thought she was legit gonna try and murder Raya and crew but she just turns to stone???

I saw this trailer before the movie of a 3D remake/sequel/midquel to Spirit: Stallion if the Cimarron and fuck you Dreamworks for doing that

Shout out to Raya's dad for actually being a good dad in animation. Low bar, but still, dads deserve better.

The short film before the movie was cute

Also I want a straw hat now

tl;dr: You know how Emperor's New Groove was originally gonna be this epic called Kingdome of the Sun? I feel like some executive saw the draft for Raya and the Last Dragon, decided "hey, it worked for Emperor's New Groove, let's do it here because kids don't like epic fantasy!". Kuzco still reigns supreme.

Rating: wasted potential/10

(I know I already posted a mini review, however I got home from the theater and talked to my dad about it on the way there, so I have more detailed thoughts now)

**and the inevitable TV series/sequel/short film

#raya and the last dragon #movie review #long ass post #disney #fuck you disney

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annalyticall · 4 years

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Anime Newbie in her Twenties Ranks her First 10 Anime

With the recommendations of my sister @ging-ler and friends, I started watching anime just over a year ago and within that time I’ve watched a total of 10 - some clocking in at almost 200 episodes and some with only 12. I told myself a while ago that once I had finished 10 anime shows I would rank them like some Anime Newbie WatchMojo list, so, here we are. Really this is just an excuse to force more of my unwarranted opinions onto unwilling followers.

I should also preface this by saying I don’t think any of the anime I watched this year was bad, and I enjoyed a lot about every show even if I ranked some low. However, the top three anime on my list are the ones I would recommend to anyone following me even if they don’t watch anime.

10. Death Note

Despite absolutely loathing the “protagonist” since episode one, I really enjoyed the first half of Death Note! The story was intriguing with all of its wild twist and turns and I found myself immediately invested in what was going to happen next. Unfortunately, after the death of who I thought was by far the best character, the show seems to go off the rails as it introduces new characters and contrived plot devices in the second half that were frankly hard for me to care about at that point. The ending was satisfying but I forced myself to sit through a lot of painful meandering to get there.

9. Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop was the first anime I watched as suggested to me by @mcsherrybr. The smooth and jazzy art, atmosphere, animation, action, and music were all a lot of fun, as were the lovable ragtag group of misfits that made up the main cast. I enjoyed myself a lot while watching this western/sci-fi melding pot of a show, and I only ranked it so low because the last few episodes were a huge disappointment to my found-family-trope-loving heart.

8. Violet Evergarden

Violet Evergarden, following the story of a child soldier learning to love, is absolutely beautiful to look at and listen to. The music in this anime is, for me, THE best music from any show on this list. This is also the only anime that made me sob several times while watching it. The collection of short episodic stories that explore the deep facets of human love and connection are incredibly resonant and will stay with me for a long time. However, the strength of the small story arcs made the rushed overarching war story and finale weaker in comparison. Similarly, the memorable characters introduced in the one-off side plots were more interesting to me than the cast of rather bland reoccurring supporting characters. While I will remember a lot of great individual moments, I can’t seem to remember a single character’s name besides Violet’s, but that might also be due to being one of the shorter entries at only 12 episodes.

7. Hunter x Hunter (2011)

Going from one of the shortest anime on this list to the longest, Hunter x Hunter was an great and engrossing story during the entirety of its 160+ episodes. It’s colorful and playful, but can also be very dark and at times even heart-wrenching. Because it contains so many distinct arcs, there is a wide variety characters and stories to get attached to, and some, like the Chimera Ant Arc, I even cried over. But this also left me with issues regarding the pacing. The show has great action and introspective moments but will often drag with long drawn-out pauses between fights to explain simple concepts (though I understand that’s a common trope in old shonen anime in general). The world-building is rich but also caught me off guard with some strange ideas, and admittedly not all of them I liked. Some eccentric characters and concepts rubbed me the wrong way and ended up hindering my enjoyment of the show. Overall though, it was a lot of fun and I left with a few more endearing favorite characters, like Leorio and Killua.

6. Erased

Also a 12 episode anime, Erased was amazingly impactful for how short it was. Even as I followed the unfolding murder mystery, I was also touched by the meaningful themes and kind-hearted characters I met along the way. The already-strong story is accentuated with great symbolism, art, and music. The only problem I had was with the mystery itself; I was able to tell who the true killer was within the first 4 episodes, which didn’t lend itself well to suspense and I spent the remaining episodes frustrated that the main characters couldn’t see some obvious clues.This is a minor problem, though, since the finale has less to do with mystery and more about the morals and resolution of themes that I felt was satisfying.

5. Demon Slayer

Demon Slayer is gorgeous. The stunning art style, fluid animation, and breath-taking music are all valid reasons to watch it, but the main character Tanjiro and his unwavering devotion to find a cure for his sister-turned-demon Nezuko are the reasons to stay. Tanjiro is unbelievably gentle as he shows even the evil demons he has to slay a hard-fought kindness, and it’s those tender moments between all of the amazing action sequences that really elevate this show for me. The issues I have lie with the rest of the cast. While I love some supporting characters, like the pig-headed Inosuke and the stoic Giyuu, others have very niche personalities that can get annoying if they’re on screen for too long, which they definitely tend to be. Still, the bond between Tanjiro and Nezuko is so strong that it gets me through even those dragging scenes.

And it’s written by a woman!

4. My Hero Academia

Hey so this might come as a shock for anyone who’s followed me for a while: My Hero Academia is not my favorite anime! I do love it a lot - it’s the only anime on this list that has inspired me to read the manga, write fic, and buy merch. There are so many lovable characters and exciting arcs in this show that there is bound to be something for everyone to enjoy, both inside and outside of canon. It’s a wonderfully paced and animated deconstruction of the superhero genre and besides its deeper themes and commentary, there’s also just a lot of endearing teenage goofin’ to be had, and the show balances the tone of these two almost-equally engaging aspects of the story fairly well.

The downside, for me, is the show’s sexualization of female characters, especially the teenagers. With the likes of pervy fellow classmate Mineta, it’s a flaw that’s hard to avoid and takes up an unfortunate amount of screen time. There are in-universe characters that protest against this behavior, and the female characters are still well-written for the most part, but that doesn’t make up for the canon material including it at all. It’s not a huge part of the show but it’s present enough that it really knocks the ranking down for me.

3. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Out of my top 5, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is the only one that is complete. Because of that, I can tentatively say that so far, it is the best completed story on this list. From beginning to end, the pacing was perfect - the action never dragged, the characters were never unnecessary, and the plot twists were never unearned. I found myself more invested than I thought I would ever be for the large cast of characters, and everything, including its ending, was satisfying to watch. The animation is fluid and lent itself well to the most impactful scenes, especially involving the flame alchemist Roy Mustang. It’s also written by a woman! Really, the only nitpicks I have were with tonal problems - serious moments would sometimes be ruined by too much slapstick or visual gags.

As I mentioned before, my Top 3 are shows I would recommend to anyone who’s unfamiliar with anime simply because they’re good solid stories with almost no distracting anime tropes. This is a good place to start.

2. The Promised Neverland

The Promised Neverland is deceiving; on the surface it looks like a sweet show about a bunch of adorable kids playing together in the spacious green backyard of their quaint orphanage. Once you finish the first episode, however, you will quickly discover that there is definitely something more sinister lurking under the surface. This show is an expertly executed dark horror/thriller that always had me on the edge of my seat. The cute aesthetic never distracts from the suspense, in fact, it adds to the discomfort when the horrific visuals and expressions are contrasted against the character designs. I loved all of the characters, including the antagonist, who manages to be just as sympathetic as she is menacing. The sound design and music are also beautiful and adds so much to the rich atmosphere. I am definitely excited to see where this series will go!

1. Mob Psycho 100

ONE, the creator of Mob Psycho 100, said the single word he used for the concept for the series was “kindness”. Kindness shines through so much of this story following the life of Mob, a super-psychic kid that just wants to fit in, and I adore every second of it. While many shonen anime stories force the child protagonist to get stronger, become more powerful, and fight in battles against hostile adults, Mob Psycho 100 says “that’s stupid. Kids shouldn’t have to be traumatized by immature power-hungry adults. The only strength that anyone should pursue is strength of character, motivated by self-love and love for others.” And it says it with the most beautiful animation I have EVER seen in a show. The simplistic character designs mean the animators can have as much creative freedom as they like with expressions and movement, and they absolutely use that freedom. Humor is a large part of this mostly-comedy anime, but it makes the serious and introspective scenes so much more important when they do happen. The shifts between these two tones never feel awkward or imbalanced.

Mob Psycho 100 has inspired me to become more experimental and joy-seeking with my art, as well as just become a better person in my own life, which I can’t say for many other anime or many other pieces of media period. Even though a Season 3 hasn’t been officially announced yet, I can still safely say Mob Psycho 100 will forever hold a special place in my heart.

#Well I did it i ranked all the anime i've seen #now to watch naruto lol

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eldritch-elrics · 3 years

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this summer, me and my brother watched four whole shows. at long last, here is my comprehensive review of all of them!

in the order we watched them, these shows were:

avatar the last airbender (ATLA)

mob psycho 100 (MP100)

demon slayer / kimetsu no yaiba (KNY)

fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood (FMAB)

they were all very very good!

i’m not going to try to rank them, but, as is probably obvious by the state of my blog, my favorite was FMAB :) if i had to pick a least favorite, then, it would probably be KNY—not by any fault of its own, but just because it didn’t appeal to me quite as much as the others. still a very good show!

i will review each show by:

giving a quick plot-based pitch discussing the show’s hook or appeal

discussing one element that i believe it does better than any other show on this list—in other words, a quality that i think it stands out for

discussing one element that didn’t appeal to me or that i had issues with—a criticism

putting forth my favorite character and favorite episode or arc, just for funsies

including various other commentary. mostly positive, as, again, i did really like all of these!

(i’ve tried to make this whole thing free of specific spoilers, but if you’re planning on watching any of these shows and want to go in more-or-less blind, it might be best not to read this.)

first of all, i’d just like to discuss all four of these shows as a whole! it was definitely interesting watching one after another and noting similarities between them.

all of them have siblings in them! which is, perhaps, fitting, as i watched them with my brother

two include a pair of siblings in which one has powers and one doesn’t (at least at first), and part of the narrative involves getting better at using those powers (ATLA, MP100)

two include a narrative centered around a pair of siblings and something tragic that happens to them, resulting in the older one being traumatized and forced to train to become a soldier, and the younger one turning into something (arguably) inhuman. the protagonist’s major goal is to return his younger sibling to the way they were before (KNY, FMAB)

ATLA and FMAB are both fantasy political dramas, which is rapidly becoming a favorite genre of mine

most of these are historical, or historically inspired in some way, which is interesting!

all of these shows are really really good at character building. all the main characters are interesting and complex, and the relationships between those characters are similarly nuanced and very well written. they make you really care about both the protagonists and the side characters!

avatar: the last airbender

pitch: as the ever-growing imperial force of the fire nation threatens the earth and water nations, a kid from the long-lost air nation turns up and it turns out he can control all four elements and he has to save the world and all that. sorry i tried to write this pitch like five times and realized that well at this point i think everyone reading this will know the plot of avatar

stands out for: avatar has possibly the best worldbuilding i have ever seen in a show—it takes the time to introduce us to so many places and aspects of its world, both explicitly and subtly. the main highlight of this is the magic system. by creating a magic system based in body movement, the process of using magic and learning to use/control it better becomes immediately obvious to the viewer. combine that with the philosophy behind each type of bending and the way that characters take bending inspiration from types different than their own, and you’ve got a system that is complex, flexible, believable, internally consistent, and just plain fun! it makes action sequences a blast. i especially liked the moments when bending was stretched to its limits in totally logical ways (metalbending, bloodbending). not to mention the way that bending is seamlessly integrated into the world of avatar! the example that comes to mind is the earthbending-powered transport system of omashu. a whole essay could be written on that topic alone!

criticism: i know this is a sentiment shared by many people, but the first season was kind of boring to me. some of the humor and the plots felt hit-or-miss. of course, it needed to take that time to establish the world, and it does a great job of doing that. it just didn’t hook me until the second season.

favorite character: i love toph she’s so much fun :) iroh is a close second! and zuko is great, too, of course

favorite arc: i loved ba sing se a ton, especially the episode when they get there and everything feels off. it felt so resonant with real life, in a very fun way. there’s a reason “there is no war in ba sing se” is a meme…

other commentary: what can i say? it’s a classic for a damn good reason. the plot is tight, and it does a great job raising tension and introducing new elements and twists. i also love the care put into the antagonists, especially azula, who has a fascinating arc.

mob psycho 100

pitch: a middle schooler and a charismatic con artist team up to smite ghosts using extrasensory powers. thing is, only the middle schooler actually has ESP, and it happens to be really, really powerful. can he navigate the difficult world of middle school while also getting a better grip on his powers—and his bottled-up emotions?

stands out for: the way that MP100 uses animation is excellent. it takes a little getting used to but it’s just so fun, combining all sorts of different techniques to create an experience rich with drama and emotion. it’s playfully exaggerated and self-parodying, adding to the show’s fantastic sense of humor as well as its truly emotional moments.

criticism: the way that ESP works makes suspension of disbelief tricky. it’s a great feat to introduce a character who is essentially all-powerful and still make them interesting (even in fight scenes), but at times (especially the second season finale) it felt like a magic system with too much breadth and too few limitations. this might just be my bias for hard magic systems talking, though.

favorite character: other than mob and reigen? probably teru. he’s loads of fun AND all the season 1 episodes he’s in slap hard

favorite episode: the one where the girl asks mob out on a date as a dare.. it’s super cute

other commentary: thank you mp100 for being the leftist propaganda we all deserve <3

in all seriousness though, this show is a blast!! it does a great job switching between silly and serious in the blink of an eye. i also really appreciate the way that it balances comically huge stakes with much smaller, more personal stories. for example, the conflict between mob and reigen in season 2 is especially well-done. in general the emotions just feel so real? characters whose emotions tie into their powers are an excellent trope, and mob is a wonderful protagonist who exemplifies this really well.

finally, on a more critical note—there are so many characters in this show! and it feels like only a handful are fleshed out? however, this may be due to the fact that it’s not an adaptation of the entire manga (which i haven’t read). there’s a lot more to go! more characters to dive into! so i probably shouldn’t try to critique it in the same way as a finished work.

demon slayer / kimetsu no yaiba

pitch: demons kill a boy’s family and turn his sister into a demon, so he decides to try and figure out a way to turn his sister back into a human. what follows is a demon-killing adventure that’s in equal parts harrowing, poignant, and hilarious.

stands out for: there’s not much i can say about this other than “please just take a look” but the art and design is phenomenal. it does a much better job of integrating 2D and 3D than a lot of other animated series, and overall it is just so so pretty! all the character designs are complex, memorable, and fit the characters perfectly. the color choices are interesting and satisfying. i also really like the sound design? not often that i notice that in a show. i’ve watched so many KNY amvs by now lol it’s just amazing animation

criticism: the narration style leans too heavily towards tell instead of show. this is mostly an issue with the first few episodes, but i got super annoyed by how much the show would narrate every single one of tanjirou’s thoughts instead of letting us infer those thoughts through his actions and reactions—the latter, i think, would have been more emotionally impactful. sometimes silence speaks louder than words! tanjirou was also not the world’s most compelling protagonist in my opinion, though i think that mostly has to do with my own tastes.

favorite character: *holds up zenitsu* I Just Think He’s Neat. i actually kind of lost it when he first used his powers, like… damn i love characters with weird relationships with their magic like that. i also think the narrative about how having a solid foundation is sometimes more important than knowing a ton of different moves was really powerful. and he’s just funny! pathetic boy i love him

favorite arc: really just the whole spider arc. fucked up man… i love it. they pulled off that last twist so well, and all the family stuff was so weird and complex and emotional…

other commentary: it’s just a really solid and very well-written show! the team of tanjirou, zenitsu, and inosuke is so much fun… bro bonding :) i also quite like the horror elements; it’s fucked up but in a good way. finally, this is very specific, but the demon that can alter buildings/rooms through drumbeats? appealed to me very much. it’s a cool and unique power!

fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood

pitch: two kids do some fucked up alchemy and end up getting parts of their body stolen by god. now they’re on a quest to get their bodies back, but find themselves wrapped up in crazy government conspiracies and alchemy more powerful than they ever could’ve imagined…

stands out for: plot. by this i mean less overall concept (though the overall concept is pretty great too), and more that the pacing and progression of the story is extraordinarily tight. for the most part (the first few episodes are a little weak but i’ll let it slide), it does an excellent job establishing its premise and building on it logically, adding layers and layers that extend naturally from what we already know. everything has a reason for happening; everything is revealed in good time and all the twists are super satisfying. there’s great balance between exciting moments and quiet moments. it’s just very good at being a story!

(fun fact: i’m reading the manga right now and so far it’s even better paced than the show, which is super interesting! it’s especially good at how it lays out pieces of the backstory and then fills everything in later in a really satisfying way.)

criticism: this is incredibly specific but it’s what comes to mind as something that bothered me: winry’s character arc was really disappointing. for most of the series she’s a pretty strong character, but in the end it feels like she gets pushed aside, defined only by her relationship with ed. what happened to her wanting to take action more? that was a specific desire she expressed—wanting to be less passive! since she’s such an important character, i wish she could have had more presence in the last season other than as a sounding board for the elric bros’ emotions. (even though her one scene in the last episode was really good and emotional…)

favorite character: other than the elric bros, absolutely ling. he fits into multiple of my favorite character archetypes (fun, silly, bastard, gets possessed…) and he’s just overall a delight. plus his relationship with greed is really really good. bro bonding at its peak!! (my other favorite is pride. i will not say why because spoilers. but if you know me.. you know)

favorite episode: this is really really hard to choose but i’m gonna go with envy’s death because. holy shit.

other commentary: i’m a really big fan of the complex and nuanced way in which FMAB breaks down militaristic, imperial regimes from the inside. many of the characters have done awful things, and the story forces them to grapple with that and accept that all they can do now is be better in the future. the moral complexity is just really good! characters with flaws—we love to see it!

finally, parts of this story seem so so catered to Me Specifically that it’s no wonder i got so into it. like just the entire premise? the way that so much of the conflict is built out of identity crisis and exploring the nature of consciousness and human vs inhuman? beautiful. i love ed and al so much

if you made it all the way to the end, thank you so much for reading!! glad to have finally gotten this done (3 months late…) and put all my thoughts down. i hope this inspires someone to try watching one of the shows i discussed!

#avatar the last airbender #mob psycho 100 #kimetsu no yaiba #fullmetal alchemist #my post #long post #then for my own tagging purposes..#atla #mp100 #kny #fmab #i really hope some people read this! i put a lot of thought into it

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theteapotofdoom · 4 years

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Hello hello! You mentioned in one of your posts you don't like how the geniuses are represented in bungou stray dogs. So i was wondering if you would like to share more on that thought and how do you think that can be improved. Hope you are safe and healthy!!!

Hello! Thank you, I hope you’re safe and healthy too!

Yeah of course! I kind of quickly went over my issues in the post you mentioned, but I can try to explain it better!

Before we get into it, a disclaimer: Asagiri is a fantastic writer. Bungou Stray Dogs is an amazing story, I absolutely love his writing in the manga and in the few novels I’ve read. His plots and characters are great, complex and full of details. I absolutely love Bungou Stray Dogs, and I’m not trying to give him tips on how to improve his story. It’s just that, as an aspiring writer myself, I like I need to stay critical of my favourite stories and whenever I realise that some elements are frustrating me or rubbing me in the wrong way, I like to try to understand why. I also want to say this is probably more a matter of personnel taste rather than an actual flaw in the story. Dazai is the most popular BSD character, so obviously, the majority of people really love how Asagiri is writing him and that’s absolutely fine. The best I can do here is to try to analyse why I don’t like always it and maybe what would make me like it more.

Also as another disclaimer, I’m not completely up to date with everything the manga and I haven’t read all of the novels, so it’s possible that I’m genuinely just missing some elements to really appreciate the way Asagiri writes Dazai’s genius abilities. But I still think I have a right to discuss it because most of my criticisms are related to the anime and to the movie and to the parts of the manga that I did read.

(I know that the question is about “geniuses” in the story, but I will actually focus on Dazai here because he is the main offender and he is the one I think about whenever I talk about “geniuses” in BSD. Fyodor does some of these things too but not as much. Also, I tend to give Fyodor a pass with most of these things because 1) he hasn’t been in the story for as long as Dazai has, he still feels like a relatively new character to me so I’m not compeltely used to him and I’m still mostly impressed when he does some of his “genius” tricks things 2) he is a villain/antagonist so no matter how much he keeps outsmarting everyone I know that he will (probably) ultimately be defeated one way or another so he is allowed to get more wins.)

Okay, so like I said before, very broadly my main issue is that Dazai never fails and always plans everything to the point where it feels more like plot armour than actual intelligence to me. Right off the bat, this might be more of personal preference, but I rarely like the “all according to keikaku” to trope (there’s a reason it turned into a meme). It can be well done and in a satisfying way, but I often get frustrated when something crazy happens and all hope seems lost and a character says “actually, this was part of my plan all along” because it can often feel like a Deus Ex Machina. Dazai does that a lot, and I think it annoys me twice as much with him because Dazai has a bad history of emotional manipulation with almost everyone he ever met, so whenever it’s revealed that he actually had a plan in motion from the beginning and just didn’t tell anyone about it, I can’t help but think “so ... you literally used everyone like pawns?” It’s not necessarily a bad thing storywise, it could actually be interesting if it was framed as Dazai relapsing in his toxic mafia ways even though he keeps trying to be a better person. I would actually love that! But more often than not, it’s framed as an amazing badass moment with everyone being really impressed and in awe (or at least that’s how I read it).

It also gives off the bad impression that Dazai can never fail. The first time that this kind of thing happens I’m genuinely impressed, but if it keeps happening again and again and again, I stop worrying about Dazai because I’m just assuming that he has a plan to save the day. And you could make the argument that I should never be worried about Dazai in the first place because he is one of the main characters and so he will probably be okay until the very end of the story, but there are some great stories out there who can make you worry about the protagonist even if you know they’re going to be okay. With Dazai, no matter what happens to him, I never worry because no matter how bad things seem to get, he just never ever fails. And it’s important for characters to fail because that’s often when character growth and development happen. That’s also what makes us appreciate a character’s intelligence.

Like I said in the previous post, I think that the best way to show your reader how smart a character is, is to show how they bounce back and react when things don’t work out for them. That’s something that the first arc of The Promised Neverland does almost perfectly. I use this example because I started watching BSD when the TPN anime began airing and so I watched the two shows almost side by side. The main kids of TNP are all supposed to be some form of geniuses in their own ways, they are way smarter than average and are extremely good at tactics, strategy, chess and all that good stuff. The whole show is about the silent mind games between them and the antagonist who is also a genius in their own right, and we see the kids failing A LOT. Without going in too many details or spoilers, we see them planning some things meticulously for days, weeks, months, and then the whole thing crashes down in a matter of seconds because their adversary was smarter than them. Sometimes it’s just small stepback that pushes them to rethink the entire thing, but sometimes it’s a huge blow that makes them think that everything is lost. And the fun part is to see them react to these defeats, to see how they learn from their mistakes and analyse the problem and come up with a solution. That’s what makes me go “holy shit, these kids are so smart!!!”

I never get that feeling with Dazai, because I never really see Dazai fail. There are a few times where I THINK that he failed, and I get really excited for a minute thinking “Oooh damn!!! He didn’t see this coming, this is so exciting, I wonder how he is going to adapt and bounce back!!! I wonder if he going to have some self-introspection and some growth!!! I wonder if he’s gonna have TO ASK FOR HELP which would be huge for him!!!” But no. Actually, he knew everything that was going to happen and this “failure” was actually part of his plan. So ... I guess that he doesn’t have to learn anything and doesn’t have to face consequences for his actions and I don’t have to worry about him.

I’m laying it on thick right now to make my point, it’s not always exactly like that. But to give you an example, the biggest offender here is the Dead Apple movie. I have a complicated relationship with Dead Apple because I think that the beginning and the first half are genuinely fantastic, with a very strong premise, wonderful character interactions, an intriguing mystery, and some great action scenes. Brilliant. But ... the second half and the climax are a big mess. Kind of a fun mess at some point I will admit, and the animation is still good and all of the Aku/Atsu/Kyouka character moments are still really strong. But I don’t think I'm the first one to say that climax and resolution are incomprehensible. You could put a gun to my head asking to explain to you Shibuzawa’s motivation, how he did what he did, what he wanted, how come all the abilities turned into a giant dragon, why Fyodor wasn’t affected, how they fixed everything in the end, and would probably take the bullet. Again, still fun, and I’m just glad to see Aku, Atsu and Kyouka kicking ass. But now I’m supposed to believe that DAZAI HAD PLANNED THIS ENTIRE MESS FROM THE VERY BEGINNING?

This really took me out of the movie. It was especially frustrating for me because I was ecstatic about Dazai getting stabbed only a few minutes before that climax. Don’t worry, I still care about Dazai, it wasn’t because I wanted him to die or anything! But I was so happy to see him fail! I was so happy to see him being outsmarted by two other people! I was so happy to see him surprised and worried and out of his element! I was so happy to see things not go his way for once!!! It made Dazai feel more real, more human, and more vulnerable! It made Fyodor feel more dangerous, like an actual worthy adversary who had played him like a fiddle! I was thinking that MAYBE just maybe, he would need the help of Atsushi, Aku, Kyouka and the ADA to succeed! I was thinking that it was going to be a character moment for him, where he would realise that he can’t do everything on his own and that if he had told the ADA what was going to happen and what was his plan, things would have worked out better! Hahahahaha ... oh what a clown I was ...

Because nope! Turned out that this all part of Dazai’s plan from the very beginning. He knew that Fyodor would betray him, he knew he would get stabbed, he knew everything that Fyodor and Shibuzawa would do after stabbing him, he knew that all the abilities would turn into a huge dragon (somehow????) and he knew how to stop it. Look, I’m sure that things are explained better in the manga or the novel, and I’m sure that many fans could tell me exactly how he knew all that. But to me, it didn’t feel like Dazai being smart, it felt like he was blessed with the author’s clairvoyance.

This whole post feels a little messy. I hope that managed to explain what I didn’t like about how Dazai’s genius is portrayed in the story. Dazai RARELY fails which means 1) I’m never actually worried about him even when shit hits the fan 2) I’m not impressed with his intelligence because it’s so infallible that it feels more like Asagir knowing his plot than Dazai actually figuring things out before anyone else 3) if he never fails, I never get to see him grow and learn and change, and so it’s ultimately always the same thing over and over again.

As to how I would improve it ... I mean, just have him fail sometimes you know? Have him fail for real, not as part of an even greater plan. I remember getting excited yet again when Fydor shot him in season 3 but I just got bamboozled yet again. Dazai is literally in jail right now, but I can’t bring myself to care because I just know that it’s all part of a bigger plan and that when he’ll go out he will give us the good all “just as I had planned from the beginning”. I mean, maybe not, who knows, I would LOVE to be surprised by Asagiri on this one! But yeah, the “all according to Keikaku” route seems more likely.

Also, I’m hesitant to bring this up because I genuinely don’t know if I’m supposed to take it seriously or not but ... the scene with Dazai and Fyodor speaking in a made-up language in prison kind of represents everything I dislike about the genius Dazai trope. Again, maybe I’m reading the scene completely wrong, but to me, it really comes off as “Ooooh look these two are SO SUPERIORLY SMART that no one can understand what they’re saying!!!” and that’s my point. Not to go back to TPN, but I’m impressed with the kids because although I could never come up with the plans they come up with, whenever they explain the plans I actually understand them and even think “wow, that makes so much sense” and that’s what makes it impressive and clever to me. But yeah, like I said, with this specific scene I think I might have genuinely missed what Asagiri was actually trying to do, so I don’t want to dwell on it too much.

So yeah, have Dazai fail every once in a while. I know that Asagiri can write Dazai failing because he has done it before. With Oda.

Not to get hyperbolic on main, but the Oda arc/flashback is kind of a masterpiece in my eyes. That’s Asagiri at his best, showing us what an incredibly talented writer he is. There are many reasons why this arc is so good, but one of the main reasons (in my eyes) is that Dazai fails to save Oda. And this is what has prompted the biggest chance in his character so far.

Dazai and Oda’s relationship was incredible because Oda was the (1) person that Dazai couldn’t read or manipulate and that’s kind of why Dazai couldn’t save him. Dazai is a genius, but with all of his cleverness and tactics and schemes, he couldn’t save the person that he loved the most. And that’s good writing, that’s good drama! That’s a good situation to put Dazai in! Oda wasn’t wrapped around Dazai’s little finger unlike so many other characters in the story, it was kind of the other way around. And it wasn’t because Oda was smarter than Dazai, Oda was actually a very simple man, and that’s what made it all so interesting. I easily get frustrated with Dazai these days, but his relationship with Oda is one of the main elements that will always bring me back to him no matter what.

Of course, I’m not saying that we need to see something as massive as this all the time. Dazai’s failure to save Oda should probably stay unique in the story because it’s such a strong catalyser. This is what prompted the biggest (and arguably only) change in Dazai so far, we don’t need to see something as big again before a while. But like ... small little failures you know? Dazai not being able to read somehow as well as he thought. Dazai miscalculating something. Dazai actually needing someone’s help (and not just as a tool in his plan).

There are small moments like this in the story mind you, I just wish that there were more. One I really like is during the first half of the Azur King arc. Dazai and Kunikida are each fighting different guys across a warehouse, and it becomes apparent that Dazai can’t defeat his adversary who doesn’t have an ability for him to nullify and is more of a fighter (which Dazai is not), while Kunikida can’t defeat the ability user fighting him. They both realise that they can’t win their fight, quickly assess the situation, find each other in the space, realise that they need to switch adversaries if they want to win, and they do it. AND THAT’S IT. Just Dazai realising that he couldn’t defeat this guy on his own, quickly assessing his options, bouncing back immediately with Kunikida’s help, and saving the day just like that. On a micro-scale, this is what I would like to see more of. Like I said, you have a bunch of small moments like this one in the story and I really appreciate them, but I just wish we could have more of that or at least to have these moments when it matters more.

Okay, so I think that’s mostly it? I hope that everything was clear and that my arguments felt reasonable. Like I said, this might all be a matter of personnel preferences and that’s fine with me. I love Bungou Stray Dogs with all my heart, but there a lot of times where Dazai’s capacity to get away with absolutely everything is genuinely harming my enjoyment for the story. And you know, maybe everything that I’m criticizing here is actually on purpose! In this post, I talked a lot about how Dazai never failing meant that he never need to grow, learn, and change his ways, but I can actually accept that Asagiri is doing this on purpose. I know that part of Dazai’s characterisation is that he doesn’t feel like a human, and so maybe Asagiri is purposely trying to portray him as “inhuman” as possible, and maybe that’s why I feel like I never see him grow or change because he is supposed to be this superior, almost otherworldly and constant presence in the story. Or maybe Asagiri is trying to show us that, despite his best efforts, Dazai will never be able to truly change his ways from Port Mafia and will always remain a detached manipulating person. I don’t really like that option, but maybe that’s the case, who knows? That would be interesting. (I actually think that Dazai is still more motivated by the promise that he made to Oda than by any genuine desire to be a good person, but that’s a whole other subject). All of this would arguably explain what I personally see as a lack of growth, but it still doesn’t help me to believe that Dazai is actually all that smart. Like I keep saying, people saying “it was part of my plan” whenever shit hits the fan is not impressive to me, but people quickly adapting to failures and immediately coming up with new solutions based on what they learned is.

But at the end of the day, this is Asagiri’s story and I would never even dream of telling him what to do with his characters. He is a great writer, and no matter how much I complain about Dazai sometimes, I still trust every decision he makes because I believe that he knows where he is going with him and with the story.

This post was very long and a little messy, I feel like I repeated myself quite a lot, but I hope it was still interesting!

#bungou stray dogs #long post #bsd #dazai osamu #osamu dazai

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ranma-rewatch · 3 years

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Episode 23: Enter Mousse! The Fist of the White Swan

*yawn* Wow, I finally got some good sleep. Back to the Ranma Rewatch, then. Hey there, long time no see, going to try and get back on track. This week we’re still in the middle of the season 2’s opening story arc, and another main character shall be introduced to us. Will I like him better than I did ten years ago? Only way to find out is to look at the next paragraph, from when I’ve watched the episode.

This episode raised my hopes and then gently lowered them a little, but on the whole I’m happier than I thought I would have been.

The story starts with Akane taking Ranma to see Dr. Tofu, under the assumption that as someone with lots of experience with Chinese medicine, he’d be able to fix what Cologne did to Ranma. Sadly, the technique used is something only a master could do, far outside of his wheelhouse. However, there is one thing he could do.

To counteract the Full Body Cat Tongue, Tofu hits a different pressure point in Ranma, one named after old men from Tokyo. Why? Because apparently they’re well known for being able to stand even the most scalding heat in their baths, and this technique gives the user that same ability. Sure enough, it let’s Ranma return to his uncursed state, but there’s a catch. Kasumi calls, turning Dr. Tofu into a bumbler before he can give the warning, so Ranma and Akane just head to school.

After class, Akane harangues Ranma into taking her out for food, which their classmates immediately notice has a lot of romantic energy to it. Then Shampoo and Cologne appear, amazed that Ranma somehow found a way around the elderly amazon’s strategy, but Cologne seems sure anyway that this won’t be an issue.

But wait! Out of nowhere, someone new appears. His name is Mousse, and he’s a man from the amazon village who has been in love with Shampoo since they were kids. He has terrible eyesight, so bad that he frequently mistakes people for the love of his life, and after a series of confusions he learns that Shampoo is dead set on marrying Ranma.

Mousse attacks Ranma, and challenges him to a manly duel for Shampoo. But she refuses that, so instead makes the duel over Akane for seemingly no reason, which Ranma agrees to. Oh, and he’s known for using ‘dark magic’ which is in practice more sleight of hand and weapon-based techniques.

That evening, Akane is doing what she frequently does when pissed off, namely training in the dojo. Ranma shows up, clearly aware he really stepped in it and wanting to make amends by making it clear there’s no way he’s going to lose to Mousse.

But Akane makes it clear that isn’t why she’s mad. The reason she’s upset is that she doesn’t belong to Ranma, and she won’t belong to Mousse. She’s her own person, and this duel doesn’t respect that. Hell, if he loses that’s fine with her, she’ll just beat up Mousse herself. The entire family shows up, interpreting this as kind of a romantic confession to Ranma.

The next morning, it Dr. Tofu calls and gives the warning he’d meant to tell them earlier: the technique he used is a one-use, so if Ranma gets splashed, he’s stuck again. Akane only finds this out after Ranma takes a dip in the pond while sparring with his dad, and they all freak out over what he’s going to do. Why none of them think to just tell Mousse that Ranma has a Jusenkyo curse, I have no clue.

Someone, Cologne probably, turned the match into a huge spectacle, with food carts and seating around the arena and everything, there’s a huge crowd. Ranma’s late, but that’s only because he made a disguise to hide his cursed body. He clowns around a little at first, having prepared a bunch of lame magic tricks, but then ‘does a trick’ by ‘turning into a girl’, giving him an excuse for how he looks.

Mousse buys it, but he’s angry that Ranma’s not taking it seriously. He takes of his...robe? Tunic? Whatever, either way he’s buff as hell under there, and an attack from his barbed footwear ruins the front of Ranma’s stage assistant outfit, bearing his boobies to everyone. This causes a bunch of men in the audience to storm the fighting area so they can sexually assault Ranma and then I paused Hulu and stared at my computer screen for three full minutes before continuing the episode.

*sigh* Anyway, the Kuno siblings show up, interfere with the fight, Mousse gets deadly series, then Akane reminds Ranma he can use his new technique in battle, which he does to win. Then a bunch of his admirers crowd Ranma, and Akane is annoyed. Done.

Let me get into the stuff I found really interesting with this episode, to start with.

The first half was honestly just really enjoyable. Akane and Ranma had a really good chemistry going on, it reminded me a lot of the episode where Shampoo first showed up. There was a casual closeness to them, still tempered with occasional arguments, that was just cute.

I also liked that they thought to try asking Dr. Tofu for help, since his expertise has helped so often in the past. Making it clear this was a problem he could only barely help out with, and only one time, sold how Cologne and what she’s done to Ranma isn’t something that’s going to be solved easily.

What was a bit odd in that scene was we actually got to see the curse take effect, as Ranma’s torso changed, something I’m fairly sure we’ve never gotten that much detail on. It’s usually either off-screen or a cutaway. But I like we saw it with the curse turning him back to his uncursed form, since it emphasized this was Ranma regaining the body that felt right to him.

I’ve talked about this before, but I also couldn’t help noticing throughout this episode the weird dichotomy in who uses Ranma’s preferred pronouns and who doesn’t. Akane, Shampoo, and Cologne all call Ranma ‘he’ even when he’s in a feminine form, but Akane’s siblings call him ‘she’ instead.

The dojo scene was also a treat for me. I just kind of love how it put the focus on how this whole arrangement devalues Akane. Both the engagement from their parents and the terms of this duel take away her say in what she does with her life, and she isn’t having it. It almost sounded like she was comforting Ranma, taking a burden off his shoulders, when she told him he didn’t have to stress over the fight because she’d be fine either way. I am here for Akane stressing her independence and making it clear that no matter what happens in the fight, she is her own person.

That was a lot of nice stuff, but sadly the second half of the episode didn’t really carry it through. It wasn’t terrible, but the fight wasn’t really anything special, and the whole bit with the guys storming Ranma...yeah. Didn’t care for that. But hey! It’s finally time to do another Character Spotlight!

Unlike Cologne, who I am still holding off on doing a Spotlight for since I don’t feel like we’ve gotten to really see enough of her yet, this one episode basically gave us most of what we need to know about Mousse, so let’s just do it.

In terms of voice acting, his English performer is Brad Swaile. He’s done quite a few things, but he’s most well known for being the voice of Light in Death Note, which is quite a funny comparison. Both characters have huge egos, that’s to be sure, but Light is usually taken seriously, while at least in the dub Mousse is basically just a joke the entire time. Swaile plays him very comedically, which does fit the generally goofy tone of his character.

It is in contrast, however, to his original Japanese voice actor, Toshihiko Seki. Like a lot of the seiyuu, he has done a million things, but of particular note are his roles as Legato Bluesummers from Trigun, another anime I love quite a bit, and as the Japanese Dub actor for the Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who. Honestly, finding out the Japanese dub castings is a treat every time I do a Spotlight. But anyway, Seki largely plays Mousse more seriously, as a confident warrior, only going for comedy with how over-the-top some of his attacks get, considering how silly they are. I’m going to tentatively say this is another performance I think works than the dub, which is fairly rare for me as far as anime go.

So, who exactly is Mousse? Well, like I said before, Mousse is Shampoo’s childhood friend, and the first member of their tribe we’ve met who is a guy. His character motivation is literally just that he wants to be with Shampoo, and will beat up/kill Ranma to get her. Pretty simple.

What makes him silly is the combination of his terrible eyesight, a fairly common trope that now that I think about it is kinda ableist, and how he fights. He’s a master of hidden weapons, but more often than not the items he’s fighting with are silly things, like a toilet or a yoyo. Combined with his high self-confidence, and Mousse is fairly Kuno-like, only quite a bit sillier.

Only enough though, he’s more similar to Kodachi than to Tatewaki. Why? Well, because he’s deadly. Of all of Ranma’s primary rivals/reoccurring antagonists, Mousse is easily the one most ready to kill, not unlike Shampoo. When he gets serious, he trades in the silly weapons for genuinely dangerous weapons. He started choking Ranma with his bare hands in their first encounter, then tried doing it again with rope not long afterwards. Ryoga might talk a lot about killing Ranma, but Mousse has done a lot more to actually attempt that.

All of that said, I’m pretty ambivalent on Mousse. I don’t hate him, but of all of Ranma’s primary rivals, he’s easily the most boring. He doesn’t have the je ne sais quoi of Ryoga or the pompous elitism of Kuno, he’s just a deadly joke character who’s obsessed with Shampoo. Maybe my opinions will change over the course of the rewatch, but for right now I’m still pretty meh on him.

But you know what I’m not meh on? This episode! Even with the weaker second half, the first ten minutes or so were good enough that I’m overall pretty sunny on it. Listen, I’m an easy mark, give me some Ranma/Akane fuel and some decent drama, and I’m happy. I’ll put this in the top half of episodes so far between the ending of the fight between Ranma and Kodachi and the climax to Shampoo’s introductory arc.

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 19: Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 23: Enter Mousse! The Fist of the White Swan

Episode 17: I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye

Episode 20: You Really Do Hate Cats!

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 22: Behold! The 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire' Technique

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 21: This Ol' Gal's the Leader of the Amazon Tribe!

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?

But once again, this arc still! Isn’t! Done! No, the end of the Phoenix Pill Arc, if you want to call it that, comes next week with “Cool Runnings! The Race of the Snowmen". Most of my memories of this episode come from a YouTuber I used to follow hating on it, but I’m ready to give it a fair shot. See you then!

#episode 23 #Enter Mousse! The Fist of the White Swan #ranma 1/2 #ranma saotome #akane tendo #mousse #anime analysis #anime rewatch

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fromzerotoeuphoria · 4 years

Text

me watching Free!

a journaling of my thoughts & reactions while watching the anime Free!

✧ ✧ ✧

(reposted from old blog, July 22, 2020)

7/14/20, 4:21 AM

Okayyyy. So, I saw this anime on a list of anime similar to Haikyuu!! and then I also started seeing people referencing it in different comments/posts online regarding Haikyuu!! and other sports anime. I kinda wanna check it out, of course not going into it really comparing it to Haikyuu!! I’ll try not to…I’d want to give it a fair shot. I may watch the first ep, may not. I’m really tired and I have to go out tomorrow and my eyes are killing me (plus I still need to catch up with Ahiru No Sora and Full Metal Alchemist and a whole lot of other anime).

✧

7/14/20, 11:32PM

So last night I ended up watching eps 1-3 and honestly, I’m enjoying the anime so far. I haven’t really connected with any of the characters yet, but overall I’m enjoying myself (I think because I’m too hung up on my Karasuno boys right now, ah well). Also, a plus: the main girl isn’t annoying, lol. I actually like her a lot, which isn’t common for me and anime girls. But Gou/Kou? isn’t a trope-filled anime girl, she’s not overly shy or timid or clumsy or any of those annoying traits that are supposed to somehow be “endearing”. She’s a normal, relatable girl (and dang she’s gorgeous too!)

Also, I really like how the antagonist Rin was a super good friend to the main gang in the past: he was the upbeat, positive kid and a good sport who charmed everyone and pushed Haru to swim in a relay with him when they were kids. But his personality has taken a HUGE turn, and at first it rubbed me the wrong way because the 180 didn’t make sense. Then it was explained a little (some trouble when he moved to Australia?) and it actually is understandable:

Rin’s dream is to be an Olympic swimmer, and Haru is just naturally super gifted at swimming. When Rin came for a visit from his special swimming school in Australia during middle school, it killed him that despite all that time devoted to training, he still couldn’t beat Haru. And that caused the rift between the two friend and caused Haru to quit competitive swimming because he thought he hurt Rin—it also caused a change in Rin’s attitude. I like this backstory, it makes the dynamic between the protagonist and antagonist much more interesting.

Anyways, I actually want to watch a few more eps now (even tho I’m exhausted) as a kind of “feel good” wind down. Idk if I’m gonna get into this anime as much as I did Haikyuu, and maybe not even as much as I am into ANS or Fire Force, but we’ll see. The other sports anime have a large cast which gives you many options and opportunities to fall in love with characters, but Free! only has like 4 guys on their swim team…and one of them is a lil annoying :P So, we’ll see, it may just be a “wind down” anime that i don’t get emotionally /mentally invested in but still enjoy. Or i could become totally bored with it, or i could fall head over heels for these characters like I did with Haikyuu. Probs not the latter, if there was that possibility I think there’d be a lot more people in love with this anime and these characters than what I’ve seen so far on the internet. But again, we’ll see.

✧

7/15/20 6:10AM

Umm okay YEAH WOW THAT LAST EPISODE WAS BEAUTIFUL OMG. Yeah I know, I know, I haven’t been journaling but I just decided to keep watching episode after episode and I got SO sucked into the relationship between Rin and Haru (as well as Rin and Mako/Nagisa) and UGH I LOVE THEIR BROMANCE and ELEMENTARY SCHOOL RIN IS LITERALLY BEST BOY.

Like honestly, the drama of the fractured friendship between Rin and the others—but especially Haru—was one of the main things that drove me to keep watching ep after ep until i finally was like, “Eh, might a well just watch ’til ep 12.” I was feeling all kinds of emotions lol, like being MAJORLY PISSED at Rei in ep 11 for butting into the guys’ history (but it’s ok he’s forgiven after letting Rin swim in his place in ep 12) to completely losing my mind when Haru and Rin reconciled. Anyways, yeahhhh soooooo I care about these boys now XD Not as much as I do Karasuno or anything like that, but I do feel things for Rin x Haru primarily, and then Makoto. I’m interested in seeing how the next season goes now that Rin is friends with the boys again. ~ EDIT 12:14PM – Okay earlier I was very exhausted (I literally binged-watched freakin NINE episodes, omg) and wasn’t as coherent as usual, so I didn’t really capture all my thoughts and feelings. I’m still rather tired, but I did want to say that I TOTALLY had a Rin-Haru-ship moment in the last episode: the entire time I’ve been absolutely adoring Rin’s friendship with the boys in elementary school; he was the shining star in their friendship. I wanted that again for the guys because elementary-school Rin was so wonderful, and he was a perfect foil to Haru’s personality. I absolutely loved how quiet, aloof Haru stubbornly tried to be disinterested in Rin but couldn’t stay away because Rin was so dynamic and charismatic (I mean, when Haru found out Rin ran home after swim practice, Haru determinedly started doing the same). Rin drove Haru, though Haru didn’t realize until after the relay race. And in return, years later in high school when the two raced at Rin’s new school that night, it was Haru who unknowingly made Rin rediscover his love for swimming after he had quit all those years ago (omg I really do love this anime TT_TT).

So throughout the episodes there’s all this underlying care that Rin shows for not only Haru but also Makoto as well, and vice versa. It was intriguing and magnetic and made me totally invested in seeing these guys reconcile. So when Rin faltered in the 100m race because he was so distracted by the emotional turmoil he felt about not racing with Haru and the others in the relay race, I was SO FOR IT because I wanted to see him distressed about the other guys—that showed that he really cared so deeply about them that it threw off his game. And when Rin not only made last place but was visibly heaving and couldn’t pull himself out of the water, I was even more like “AHHHKLAJDKJASLKLSAD!!!” and then when Haru was so overcome with concern and immediately shot out of his seat to go find Rin without a word I WAS LIVINGGGG OMG and then on top of that when he heard Rin say that he had quit swimming in the past and should’ve stayed quit and Haru stood there in shock and having war flashbacks to his and Rin’s falling out in middle school and Haru basically collapsed against a wall in devastation of losing Rin yet again and possibly forever EVERYONE I WAS SOARING AND LIVING AND UGH IT WAS JUST SHKLSKFSKSSKDKJF THAT WAS EVERYTHING!!!!!

And then Haru finally explicitly says that all he wanted was to swim with Rin again and ugh I’m just WOW that episode was EVERYTHING, like literally that episode alone bumped this anime up so many levels for me and now my investment is so much more piqued than it was before (and I was binging this thing). I mean, they hinted at Haru wanting to just swim with Rin again in an earlier episode when Rin beat Haru at freestyle and said, “Now I’ll never have to swim with you again” and Haru was visibly shaken up at those words. He literally told Makoto that his freakin world went black when Rin said that like…AKDJFKHAJSKJD??!?!?!

UGH I love Haru and Rin’s relationship so much 😩. If adult Rin is anything like elementary-school Rin still…I may have found my bias ;) I haven’t seen nice adult Rin yet so we’ll see in Season 2.

Anyways, yeah. SIGH. WOW. Episode 12 took me by surprise with the switch-up and I was LIVINGGGG for it. WOW. I am SO HAPPY it happened and that the four of them are friends again. I honestly couldn’t have imagined a better ending ^_^

#free!#me watching #anime journaling #free! live watch #me watching anime #me watching free!#free! iwatobi swim club

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 4 years

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When it comes to brother and sister on TV, they always make the girl bad or crazy. (Claudia, Azula, Morgana, Sharpay) I never see (that I remember) that they put the sister as the good one and the brother as the bad.

I’ve kind of noticed that too. Like even kids’ shows; Candice from Phineas and Ferb is more of an antagonist. Dee Dee from Dexter’s lab. Though those two aren’t evil so much as ‘the annoying sister’ trope. But even if they aren’t evil and serve as the lovable annoying sibling, they still serve as antagonists as they cause problems for the brother who is the main character. Another good example is Sarah from Ed Edd and Eddy.

I know a lot of shows where you have two nice sisters or two nice brothers. I’ve also seen ones where both of the siblings are protagonists like Jack and Annie from The Magic Treehouse (way back when) or Dipper and Mable from Gravity Falls. And of course Sokka and Katara and LoK’s air siblings. Or the siblings from Spiderwick, The Incredibles, and Simpsons.

Bu now that I think about it, I can’t quiet think of any evil brother, good sister pairs. Not off of the top of my head as I can with the above few categories. I think that the best I can think of right now is Baatar Jr. running of with Kuvira but he only has one sister and several other good brothers. The most solid example I have of an evil brother/good sister would be Daenerys and her brother, but even that is moot because from what I hear, Daenerys goes bad.

I tried to prove myself wrong by searching it on TV tropes and even then I either wasn’t familiar with the show or the ‘Big Brother Bully’ trope applied to brother vs brother. Funnily enough, it also listed the ‘inverted’ version quite a bit (meaning listed a sister bullying a brother and Azula was 2nd on the list) like I was seeing more examples of sister bullying brother that I didn’t think of. I got to the end of the Western Animation and I actually didn’t even find one example of brother bullying a sister from a cartoon that I recognized. It was literally entirely brother bullying brother or sister bullying brother. Like maybe someone else can search that tab and find one they recognize.

The best thing I found was under literature; Morfin Gaunt was as horrible to his sister as Marvolo was, standing by and laughing as she was abused. He gleefully told their father about her crush on a Muggle, despite knowing what he would do to her if he knew. But these guys aren’t really central to the plot.

My other really solid example is also under lit; Edmund to Lucy in The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. Looking under lit actually had a lot more of the mean brothers/nice sisters, though I haven’t read a lot of them. But your ask specifically refers to TV so...again, this doesn’t count.

I’m gonna be honest, I came into this ask ready to refute it but the my own memory and my brief search of TV Tropes doesn’t lie. I think that the conclusion I draw from this is that TV does tend to show mean sisters and nice brothers while lit has more of a variety. So I guess that’s another point for lit over TV.

That said, if anyone has any examples of mean brothers vs nice sisters in TV feel free to respond with them! I’d love to see some solid examples!

I won’t really dive into the possible implications of that because that’s part of a much bigger debate and it’s not the kind of debate I have the energy for atm.

#tv tropes #Avatar The Last Airbender #idk how else to tag this

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joyofcrime-elinorhigh · 4 years

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Hello everybody, my name is JoyofCrimeArt, and legacy can be an fascinating thing in regard to animation. Since cartoons are made with the intent of being seen years or even decades after they're created, it can be interesting to see how the general consensus people have about a series can change over time. One day you can be on top of the world, and your series is loved by critics and audiences alike. But then, something happens. Sometimes it's a specific episode. Other times a season. Maybe it's a controversy within the fandom. But whatever it is, something happens that causes peoples opinions to turn. And suddenly your show has gone from being universally praised to becoming much more divisive. And when something like that happens, it can be hard to recover. It happened to Steven Universe. It happened to Rick and Morty. And it happened to Star vs. the Forces of Evil.

Created by Daron Nefcy, Star vs. The Forces of Evil premiered on the Disney Channel and Disney XD in 2015, and quickly became one of the hot cartoons that everybody was talking about. It makes sense, as it came outright around the time where more continuity based fantasy series were really starting to take off, so it's natural that it became a hit. While the series was generally well regarded upon its debut, as time went on the series became much more of a "love it or hate it" type of show. And while that's not too uncommon for any show that amounts a large flowing, what makes Star vs. so interesting is that it seems like nobody can seemingly agree when the show got bad, if it did at all. Some people say the quality dipped after the first season. Others say the third. Some say the fourth. Others say that the show was good until the finale. And some say that the show was solid throughout. This divide among fans is why I feel confident calling Star vs. The Forces of Evil one of the most divisive shows of the 2010's, even if the debate around it isn't nearly volatile as other series. But now that the series has ran its course I have to ask, does it hold up? Did the show really go down hill, or is the hate undeserved? That's what I'm here to find out.

I feel like I'm in an interesting place to talk about this series because, while I tend to try to keep up with all the big name animated show coming out, I actually didn't watch most of Star as it was running. I watched the first season until my family cut cable right before the finale of season one (You know, around the time people started to care about the show.) And only caught up with the show in the last year or so while doing research for my "Top 30 Cartoons of the Decade" list. So I went into the series mostly blind with the exception of a few spoilers. I just felt like this was important to point out as I feel it may have an effect on my view of the show.

Also, while I usually try to go spoiler free when I do a general overview of a series, for this review I may have to go into some spoiler territory. Since this series features an ever changing status quo, as well as a lot of major characters who aren't introduced until late in the series' run, doing this review completely spoiler free would be difficult. So I'm going to be doing this review under the assumption that anybody reading this has already seen the show, and are just curious to hear my take on it, or don't care about being spoiled. So if you wanna go in blind I suggest you sign out now.

But to everyone else, let's dive in and talk about Star vs. the Forces of Evil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hJ5ecrpp8k

Star vs. The Forces of Evil stars (He, get it. I'm funny.) Star Butterfly. A princess from the dimension of Mewni who, upon her fourteenth birthday is given a wand of unbelievable magical power. However, after causing nothing but trouble with her new found powers in her world her parents decide to ship her off to Earth, where she can be somebody else's problem. There she befriends a human boy named Marco Diaz and the series mainly follow these two as they go on all sorts of magical adventures as they battle all sorts of evil monsters and ne'er-do-well who want to take the wand and use its power for themselves. Or at least that's how the series goes at first. As the series goes on it begins to focus more on the world building, as Star and Marco discover that the kingdom of Mewni isn't as great as they first believed, and are forced to battle political corruption, conspiracy within the royal family, and the generation spanning systemic racism against monster kind.

The best place to start when talking about the show are the characters. Lets start with the main leads.

We got Star, your typical fun-loving, ditzy, hyperactive action girl. Which seems to be a common trend in Disney Channel cartoons now that I think about it. But she does enough to stand on her own. She's a fun character, and an overall good lead for the series. I admit that her bratty nature and general stupidity could turn some people off, and there are times where it can get a little annoying, but I never minded it all that much. I think that's kinda suppose to be the point of her character. She's a royal, and spent her whole life with a silver spoon in her mouth. So it makes sense she would be a bit selfish and be unaware of the world around her. And she does improve over the course of the series, as she begins to take her job as a princess more seriously and spends much of the series actively fighting against monster prejudice. Though I'd be lying if some of these less desirable elements of her character don't continue to pop up every now and again, even later in the series and especially in the last couple of episodes. Also she's kinda a sociopath. Like especially early on in the show there are like...a lot of casualties to Star's antics. I'm kinda surprised Disney let them get away with that.

Also, can I just say that I am sick and tired of people asking "When is Disney going to include their first LGBTQ+ princess, completely ignoring the fact that Star is bisexual as fu*k. Like, come on now!

Marco is also a good lead. He's a neurotic, responsible, karate student who often acts as the straight man to Star's antics. However, I like the fact that he's not a total stick in the mud. Sure he's more cautious than Star is but he's still capable of getting in on the adventures as well. He comes across as a realistic teen with his own set of flaws. Namely his insecure nature and general social awkwardness. I also like that due to his expertise with karate he's able to hold his own in a fight even without magic. He always feels like Star's equal and never like a sidekick. He and Star have a great dynamic in general, and the two play off each other well. They contrast with each other and It feels like the two really cover each other's flaws. And it's kinda refreshing seeing two characters who are so different manage to genuinely get along with each other.

But of course, we also have the forces of evil that the shows title so clearly mentioned. Each season focuses on a different villain, and something that I really like is how all four major villains are introduced relatively early on. So the show doesn't suffer from that "Dragon Ball Z" type thing where it's like "Haha! I know you just defeated the villain, but now's there's an even BIGGER villain who we just haven't happened to mention until now!" They've always around in the world, and many of them even start out as joke villains only to become more serious later down the line. And they manage to do that in a way that feels very believable.

The best example of this is the shows first villain, Ludo. Who upon introduction is portrayed as a completely comedic villain who Star could easily take in a fight. But things change when a new more serious villain, Toffee, usurps him as the season one antagonist. Stealing his castle and army in the process. Come season two and Ludo is left alone, having lost everything, and is forced to toughen up in order to get back what he once had. He builds a new army, stronger than his first. He finds a new castle to form his base in, and becomes a genuine threat to our cast. Scrappy underdogs villains who lost everything might be one of my favorite tropes in fiction. Other examples of this trope used effectively would be Peridot in Steven Universe and Jamack in Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeast. However, while those shows use this trope as an opportunity to have these villains go through a redemption arc, Star goes the other way and uses it as an opportunity to make a character become more of a threat. That said, he never loses the comedic charm that made his fun to watch in the first place. Part of me honestly kinda wish that Ludo stayed the main villain of season two, instead of being usurped Toffee yet again. That said, the episode "Princess Quasar Caterpillar and the Magic Bell" does a good job giving his arc a satisfying conclusion.

Speaking of antagonist, let's talk about Tom Lucitor. Star's demon ex-boyfriend. While not a season spanning villain like Ludo or Toffee, he has several appearances early on as a recurring antagonist only to go down the more traditional "redemption arc" route later on. And I just want to say upfront, Tom is one of my favorite characters. Not in the show, but in fiction in general. It would of been so easy to make Tom your generic "toxic boyfriend" arch-type but even early on it's made clear that even though he's an antagonist, he isn't pure evil. His love for Star is genuine, but the problem is that he hasn't earned it. He tries to improve himself and become a better person but his own anger issues and jealousy keeps getting in the way. Specifically jealousy of Marco because he seems him as a romantic threat. But as time goes on, he does become better. He learns that he and Marco have a lot in common and eventually accepts that he can't make Star love him, and lets her have her space. And that, ironically, causes Star to becoming willing to open up to him again. They become friends and eventually get back together. But what I like is that while he has gone through efforts to improve and work through his problems, they still persist throughout the series. He's still very insecure and is looking for constant approval from Star. He still is jealous of how close Star and Marco are even though he has become friends with both of them. And it's shown several time that Tom tends to put his own problems above the problems of others. It shows that even though he wants to change and is willing to change, that doesn't mean that change come easy. It takes time and can be a long process. These are realistic character flaws that make Tom such a more complex and relatable character in my eyes. I relate a lot to Tom with his desire and constant struggle to improve as a person, and I feel like it's a struggle that's easy for a lot of people to relate to. Also...he's just such an edgy dork. He's...he is good boi.

Another fantastic character is Eclipsa. Introduced about halfway into the series, Eclipsa was a former Queen of Mewni who was imprisoned in crystal due to dabbling in dark magic and for running away from her arranged marriage and marring the King of the Monster, Globgor. The show builds up mentions of Eclipsa early on, with characters talking about how evil and dangerous she was. Eventually she becomes free from her prison (cause lets be real, whenever there's a villain sealed away somewhere you KNOW they're going to get out.) But surprisingly, when we see her she actually doesn't seem that evil. She's polite, kind, and is even willing to go through the proper legal channels to prove that she isn't as bad as people say she is. She is an excellent example of a morally ambiguous character cause for the first several episodes we the audience don't really know if she is actually a good person who's just been judged too harshly by society or if she is actually evil and this is all an act. As even as the show goes on and it becomes clear that Eclipsa is a good person at heart they still manage to keep the audience guessing. Much like Star, Eclipsa can be kinda selfish and impulsive, making her a bit of a loose cannon. Despite the shows title "Star vs. The Forces of Evil" Eclipsa goes to emulate one of the shows major themes. That life isn't that black and white.

The show deals a lot with shades of gray when it comes to its characters, as all characters have there own motives and backstories and relations with each other that can make them either allies or enemies depending on the circumstances. An example of this is the Magical High Commission, a group that monitors magic across all the dimensions. throughout the series it is shown that they stand on the side of Mewni. So in season two when Mewni is being conquered by Ludo and Toffee they're good guys. But just like most most people in Mewni they hate monsters and believe that Eclipsa is evil. Making them antagonist in seasons three and four. Their motives stay the same, but their role in the series changes.

However despite my praise not all the characters are great. In fact the show can be kinda hit or miss with their cast. The characters that are great are really great, but then you get characters like...

(Art by JelloApocolypse)

You know what, I have to be honest. I kinda like Pony Head. I know a lot of people say she's annoying and selfish and contributes next to nothing to the plot...and they're right. But I also just kinda like her. I think what makes her more bearable to me is that she's kinda disliked in-universe. Even Star, who is Pony Head's best friend, often times get sick of her crap. Real talk though, can we all agree that Pony Head is basically just a discount Lumpy Space Princess from Adventure Time? Like, they're nearly the exact same character.

A character who I don't like as much though is Glossaryck, the magical spirit guide that lives in Star's spell book. I never really got his deal. Sometimes it seems like he likes Star and genuinely wants to help her become a better magic user, while other times it doesn't seem like he really cares. He dies in the beginning of season three only to come back a few episodes later acting like a wild animal and yelling "Globgor" over and over again without any explanation as to how or why. Than at the end of season three it's revealed that it was all an act and he was fine the whole time. Like...why? We later learn that is a highly recognized historical figure in Mewni. Why is he yelling his name? And why does nobody question why he's doing this? I can buy that Star and Marco might not know who Globgor is but most everybody else seems to. I keep expecting that moment for his motivations to click. Where it's revealed how everything he's done was all an elaborate ploy to help Star or something, but it never really happens. Though my opinion of him does slightly increase in season four, but that's just because Keith David took over the role of voice actor. And adding Keith David can make anything better.

Some characters can even change in quality between seasons. Janna is this edgy punk girl who joins the main cast in season two as a new friend to Star and Marco. I liked her well enough in season two even if some of her more abrasive elements could be somewhat obnoxious. She's more or less absent for most of season three. Then come season four she returns and I found her more annoying. I don't know if her character got worse or if it was just the fact that her character didn't work as well in later episodes after the show had become more dramatic. But near the end of the season, they give her some long overdue character growth. Not a lot, but some. And I found myself liking her more.

There are other characters in the series as well, and they tend to vary. Star's mom, Moon is a BAMF and I like Buff Frog a lot. Jacki and Kelly are fine characters, though I admit there's not that much to them outside of being love interests for Marco, though they still have there own personalities. King River's kinda annoying but I've seen worse examples of the "dumb dad" trope and Alan Tudyk gives a great performance.

And since I don't have time to go over my thoughts on EVER character in this series, I'll do what ever online review does when they don't have time for nuance. Create a tier list!

If It's not apparent by now, the characters in this show run the gambit. With the best ones being some of my favorite characters of all time, and the worse one's just being generally annoying. However, if there's one thing that this show excels at is not painting things as black and white. No character is evil without a reason and all the heroic characters have un-heroic flaws to their characters with unique motivations that make sense for their characters. (For the most part anyway.)

The shows animation is also really good. Featuring thick outlines and a lot of nice coloring on the characters. (Even if some of the background colors can be a bit drab at times.) Most of the first season is done in flash, but it's good flash, which does well to accentuate the character expressions and the fluid action scenes. Part way through season one though the show's animation changes to more traditional animation. I think there is a bit of a divide on which style people consider to be better, but I personally prefer the look of the later seasons. The bouncy look of the early season one episodes look good, but I don't know how well that would of worked in the more dramatic and somber moments that happen later on.

I also appreciate the world building. The first two seasons are set mostly on Earth in the town of Echo Creek, but the last two seasons changes things up and focus much more on Mewni, allowing us to explore both settings. I know some people don't like the change as it resulted in several of the characters introduced earlier being written out of the show but I never really minded that. I think Mewni and the cast of characters who inhabit it are on the whole more interesting than the people of Echo Creek. (I mean does anybody really miss Sensei Brantley?) Plus the change in setting allows us to get a bit of a role reversal with Marco being the fish out of water, and Star having to show him how her world operates. And even if you do prefer the Earth setting we still cut back to it on occasion. And when you add it all up the total series runtime between the two setting is fairly evenly.

I like how characters can kinda come and go in this series, as it shows that the world doesn't revolve around Star and Marco. And it allows the writers to see which characters people gravitate to and focus on them while keeping less interesting characters out of the way. It also allows for character arcs to actually have conclusions, without the need for them to be drawn out just for the sake of keeping characters around longer.

Let's talk about themes for a moment. Specifically the main theme of prejudice and systemic racism in the show. It's handled...okay. It's kinda standard stuff and it doesn't go super complex on the issue, but for what it is it works though. That being said the show can be a bit confusing in terms of what counts as "monsters" and what are just regular races in this world. Which can make the metaphor a little muddled. I get that the idea is that there is no difference, and that monsters are only deemed as bad as an excuse for mewmans to justify their mistreatment of them, but it can still be confusing as to who's oppressed and who isn't and to what extent. I feel it would be even more confusing for a younger children watching who might not understand all the nuances of this stuff. However, the way the show tackles this isn't bad either. And the fact that the show tackles this element at all is admirable.

But who cares about systemic racism! That's not the real reason people are watching this show! We all know that everybody is really here for the shipping!

Yeah, as the series went on the shipping seems to become a much more major element within the series. So much so that to many the increased focus on the shipping is often cited as one of the main elements that caused the show to go down hill. However I never really minded it. I mean Star vs. has always been a bit of a love letter to the shojo/magical girl genre and romance is a very important element to those types of shows. So it makes sense that it would be used here. And I think it's used pretty well here overall. These are just kids struggling through these types of feelings for the first time, So it makes a lot of the stupid decisions that they make feel a lot more believable. But if this kind of thing isn't your cup of tea, it might end up bothering you. Because they do devote a good amount of time on it.

But you're probably wondering, who do I ship? Am I team Starco or team TomStar? And honestly, while shipping has never been something I've ever gotten too invested in, if I had to pick I would probably have to say team Starco. Which may be surprising as I previously went on and on about how Tom was one of my favorite characters of all time. But this is the way I see it. Tom's whole arc is about learning how to get over his jealousy and controlling nature regarding his relationship with Star. And it's shown that even after he's dating Star, and has everything he thought he wanted, he still couldn't fully get over his hangups. Even though he loves Star and Star loves him, it's clear that the relationship still isn't exactly the most healthy. And it's clear that they are going in different directions in their lives. Tom knows what he wants. To be with Star. But Star doesn't know what she wants. Not all relationships have to end because one person does something wrong or because one of the parties involved is a bad person. Sometimes two people just aren't compatible in that kind of way. And seeing Tom be the one to break up with Star shows just how far he's come as a character. Plus, like I said earlier, Star and Marco have great chemistry. And I do genuinely see them working as a romantic couple, beyond the fact that there the two main leads.

Besides, StarTom is technically incest so....

*record scratch!*

Oh wait, you didn't know about that.? Yeah, according to the official "Star vs. the Forces of Evil Magic Book of Spells" Star's Great Great Great Grandmother Rhina Butterfly was in a relationship with John Roachley, a second cousin to the Lucitor's. Now granted that would mean that Star and Tom aren't THAT related. But still. Incest none the less. Not that it even matters anyway since all of the Mewmans are descended from like five random people!

Seriously, this is some Ishigami Village levels of incest we got going on here.

But despite how heated the flames wars can be, I think we can all agree that Tomco is the best ship anyway. Like come on now.

So yeah, even the shipping elements didn't bother me. To be completely honest, while the show did have some problems here or there, I found myself enjoying the show well into the fourth season. But I knew it was coming. Since I was watching the show months after the series had concluded, I had heard things about the finale. A finale that figuratively "cleaved" the fan base. But in order to talk about the finale we have to go a few episodes back and talk about the episodes leading up to it. Obviously spoilers ahead.

To briefly recap, at this point in the series Eclipsa had become Queen of Mewni along with her husband Globgor after Star relinquished the crown to her. And many of the Mewmans are upset by Eclipsa's new "pro-monster" policies had left to live with the former Queen Moon. Meanwhile Mina Loveberry, a legendary monster fighter from generations far gone, had begun building up an army to invade Eclipsa's castle and take Mewni back from the monsters. A lot of people I hear don't like Mina as a final villain, but honestly I was surprised by how threatening they were able to make her despite how goofy she is. And her backstory about basically being a magically altered super solider driven to the point of insanity really helped to make her sympathetic. (Like I said, in this show everyone is painted with shades of gray. Even genocidal lunatics.) She invades with a Solarian Knight, a giant magic powered mech and it takes all of our heroes working together to barely defeat it. Until it is revealed that it was only one of many. It's an amazing twist that really leaves you wondering "How are or heroes going to get out of this one." Up to this point I was digging this final arc. But that's when I finally got to it.

To me, the moment where Star vs. the Forces of Evil got bad was the moment it was revealed that Moon was working with Mina to reclaim the thrown from Eclipsa.

It just doesn't fit Moons's character to do this. While it is shown throughout the season that Moon does not agree with Eclipsa more extreme policies, It was still shown that while Moon may be against Star's decision to give the crown to Eclipsa, she acknowledges that since Star was queen at the time and was within her right as queen to decide what was best for the kingdom. And in previous episodes she seemed generally happy not having the responsibility that comes with being queen anymore. But now she suddenly wants her kingdom back? If she wanted it back, all she had to do was say so from the start. At the start of the season most Mewmans still hate Eclipsa. It would not be that hard to stage a coup if she really wanted, especially since the magic high commission and all of Mewni would be on her side. Why would she work with Mina, who Moon knows is insane and racist even by Moons standard? Sure Moon and Eclipsa definitely don't see eye to eye on a lot of things but Moon still wouldn't want her dead, and Moon knows that Mina wants to kill her. I know she thought she could control Mina's army but that's still a big risk. It seems uncharacteristically reckless for a character as intelligent as Moon to make these choices.

So then, after it turns out that Moon can't control Mina's army, our heroes are basically screwed and are forced to hide out in a special tavern located at the edge of the universe to wait things out while Mina begins rounding up all the monsters in Mewni. They are all trying to figure out a plan on how to possibly defeat Mina's army when Star suddenly goes on a rant about how magic is bad. And this idea had been brought up a few times in the series, but overall had never really been portrayed as a major aspect. But suddenly the show treats this as if it's all the magics fault, and that everything would be better if it was gone. And that's when Star comes up with the genius plan to use go to the magic dimension to destroy all the magic. Thus making Mina's forces useless. And while I admit that yes, they are very much been pushed to a wall here, this has to be one of the most overkill ideas they could of possibly think of!

Now, I've seen a lot of people online saying that by doing this, Star would be committing mass murder on a multiverse scale, potentially destroying many universes. And I think that is a bit of a reach. From what we see in the series, it seems to me at least that magic is kinda a rare thing in the universe. That's why so many villains are trying to steal the magic wand away from Star. And I see very little implying that there are whole universes that are reliant on magic outside of Mewni. THAT SAID THOUGH, this would result in the deaths of a lot of innocent people. But Star really only seems concerned with the fact that once magic is destroyed, all people who come from parallel universes will return to their home universe, meaning she won't be able to stay with Marco. Which makes Star seem beyond selfish and generally pretty horrible.

Hekapoo, one of the high commission members, despite being made of magic and knowing that she will die from this, is totally on board for this plan because plot. And our heroes travel to the magic dimension to destroy all the magic. Which they do. Defeating Mina's forces and leaving her powerless. She still manages to escape however because nobody decides to actually, you know, try to arrest the person who just committed a political coup and nearly whipped out an entire race. They just let her walk off, because she's powerless now. I mean what's the worse she could possibly do, right?

So yeah, Mina is defeated, but everybody is sent back to their home dimensions. But somehow, through the power of love I guess, the universes of Earth and Mewni begin to merge. Thus allowing Star and Marco to be together. Happy ending, I guess? I don't know. Like Star and Marco being together is treated as a good thing. But we also see humans screaming as there world have now been overrun by monsters. Is this suppose to be a joke? A bittersweet ending? I'm not really sure.

In concept the idea of a universe merge is actually a pretty interesting idea. As it feels like a natural progression of the shows themes of racial tolerance and mutual understanding. Now that we've gotten semi-tolerance between monsters and mewmans we could now have an arc about trying to bridge the cultural gaps between the humans and the mewmans. Plus it would be a good way to appease both the people who enjoyed the earlier seasons focus on Echo Creek, and fans of the later seasons who preferred the stories set on Mewni. It's not a bad idea, but it needed to A.) be set up better and B.) needed more time to be fleshed out. I get that it's designed to be a sequel hook, but it's not like this is something that the series had been building up to to the point where we the audience can put together what happens next. As is, it's just weird.

So yeah, the last couple of episodes of Star vs. where a total mess. It's fitting that the finale to Star happened to come out the same day as the finale of Game of Thrones. While I'm not going to act like there weren't some parts I liked or some good ideas sprinkled throughout, this finale was pretty bad. How do you have a show that preaches acceptance and equality and end it with a genocide?! But hey, genocidal problems call for genocidal solutions am I right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ufmrn7BCuA

My God, It's Dragon Ball Super all over again.

And the worse part is that the series didn't have to end this way. Cause the show actually had a pretty good episode about half way through the season, "Cornonation" which would of acted as a great series finale! With the series ending with Eclipsa as Queen and ruling with Globgor by her side, with the mewmans finally accepting monster kind. You'd have to change a few things, like rap up Mina's plot and put Star and Marco together, but other than that it could of really worked. Admirably it may end up feeling more like a finale for Mewne as oppose to a finale for Star but it would thematically fit with the message of the series. Or if you really wanna keep this finale more in tack just don't have Star destroy the magic. Just have Star, Moon, and Eclipsa go off and do the one thing the three of them had never tried doing. Working together. And have them defeat Mina the old fashion way. They even allude to this idea in the tavern episode before Star goes on her whole "We gotta destroy the magic" kick.

It is a bit ironic to think that a show that's whole message is about unity could end up being so divisive with it audience. I genuinely believe that had the show ended on a better note, people would look back on the show more fondly. Despite the flaws. To the people who don't like Star vs. The Forces of Evil, I can understand where you are coming from. Even if you ignore the finale there are things to not like. A lot of things aren't very well explained and the show has its fair bit of plot holes. The series can be repetitive with its frequent shipping and "racism is bad" episodes. And some of the characters can be a bit annoying, including our main lead at times.

That being said though, I have to say, I can't bring myself to hate this show.

I don't know what it is, but I just found myself getting really invested into this series. Maybe it was due to me hearing so much bad things about the later seasons that I had low expectations, and while that may be part of it I don't think that's the whole reason. When you watch as many cartoons as I have, and for as long as I have, it becomes harder for things to impress you. Sometimes it can feel like your just checking shows off of a box, which is something that I've been trying to improve upon. But watching this show, it brought me back to the way I felt back in the early 2010's when I first started getting into these types of series. For all of Star's flaws, and trust me there are many flaws, it felt like it was doing something unique. Like it was in it's own little world that wasn't quiet Adventure Time and not quiet Steven Universe. And the series stuck with me after I finished watching it, which is surprisingly kinda rare. It's why I became interested in doing this review in the first place.

Star vs. the Forces of Evil is a flawed show. Very flawed. But I'd rather have a flawed show that's unique than a perfect show that's something I've seen a million times. And while I may not be a fan of how it ended, I don't think that should completely take away from all the good that this show has to offer. This show isn't going to be for everybody, and If you somehow made it this far into the review without seeing the show than I hope I've said enough to help you figure out if this show is right for you. But for me, despite everything, the series still has it's magic.

What did you think of Star vs. the Forces of Evil? I really genuinely want to know on this one. Did it go downhill and if so than when? Leave those thoughts in the comments down bellow. Please fav, follow, and comment if you liked the review. And have a great day.

#Star vs The Forces of Evil

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