#just an example of how the word appeal in animation can be hiding other implications | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

project-paranoia · 3 years

Text

Live Watch: Guardian Episode One, Part One

It's Guardian! The show that got me interested in this genre! I love spooky things and I love mysteries and fantasy! I simply adore it so much! When I can't sleep I just put on a playlist of Guardian in the background. I was aware of censorship before - every country has some version of it, but to some degree this was my first deep dive into how it might effect a piece of media. Guardian is exceptionally acted and incredibly written, as well as suffering from obvious dubs where the dubbing voice actor sounds nothing like the previous actor and odd cuts that are disrupted. In some ways it's the little drama that could fighting its way past their studio going bankrupt while they were filming, reshoots, and being taken down and altered several times.

In some ways Guardian's struggle fits the spirit and aesthetic of the show. Worn in like an old pair of jeans but still making an effort. Putting emphasis where things count and hoping the kindness of the universe will make allowances for the rest. Attention to detail where the story really matters. It has the charm of a community production put on out of love with actors and crew who would not be anywhere else in the world for any amount of money. That feeling of love comes through, and whether or not I'm barely literate I have so many words to share.

Part of why I love it as well is it has that feeling of 80s and 90s fantasy, like Moomin, Xena or Condor Heroes. Everything feels lived in, nothing's been spit shined except for Shen Wei's suits. It's an old city street of a show, it has history and character built in.

*After all that I don't know that I have a tonne to say about the intro. It's very good but it's also full of spoilers. I think having the intro song be in English does make a difference in making it appealing to English speaking audiences as well as standing out as different and interesting, which the show is. Speaking of Spoilers! Spoilers below!

* The obligatory beginning narration is beautifully animated, I have another post that will be done some time before the heat-death of the universe talking about the fascinating world building options. Unlike some Make It SciFi plots, this one has legs and implications.

* Remakes rarely are able to meet the original on equal ground - and I struggle to believe the actors would Fit as well - but part of me really wants to have a chance to have the Dixingren worldbuilding really leaned into. The writing is good enough we get implication but no real follow through. I want fifty episodes of how Dixing functions, give me more pseudo-science behind the mutations, what are the biological differences. I'm hungry for more!

* I love the cameos of later characters, and the way there was some effort to be discrete with spoilers.

* It's Ya Boy! I love Shen Wei. With that music cue and that sinister turn around they really set him up as dubious. I wish they went with something a little different with the intro so his character wasn't spoiled. The writing, directing, and acting was so good and spoiling who Shen Wei is kind of took the teeth out of that.

* Also cheers to the costume designer who outfitted Zhu Yilong so well and made him look jacked with the fit of those clothes.

* Also you can tell this is a real university because the staff has to sit in tiny student chairs. I'm not joking, please be warned if you're going into academia. Unless you have tenure life is An Adventure - and even then.

* Also shout out to Shen Wei's Prized Cabbage and the Queen of our hearts, Li Qian. Why is this actress not in more things? She has such an expressive and lovely face and she really goes all the way in with her acting. I respect an artist that acts from their chest. Also that windbreaker, white skirt combo is chic and fun all at once, it draws the eye and makes her melt into the background all at once - perfect for the character. I love her so much.

* Here's another one of Shen Wei's coats, it's a lovely color for him but it also is so thin that it looks like it crinkled up just from being worn.

* I'm being distracted by details and missing plot stuff.

* Story of my life.

* I love Li Qian hovering along behind Shen Wei like a duckling following their mother. A) Mood and B) it quietly informs their dynamic. Shen Wei has like one person he can trust but no one he can really confide in and it's the same for Li Qian. A ship will find a port in a storm and Shen Wei has Big Da-ge Energy. My fanfic heart hopes they found comfort in the pseudo familial relationship with each other while it lasted.

* Even in episode one we receive foreshadowing, we love and respect some excellent writing. For those of you who missed it - Professor Ouyang is talking about Lin Jing who I love partially because he's so outrageous large but has the total opposite of intimidating energy.

* What did they feed you Lin Jing? He is so tall and wide, but they do a lot with camera work to try to make him not quite as big. Side note, I would really love to see the actor who plays Lin Jing (Liu Minting) both in more dramas but more specifically in a role where he was like a minister or scholar - someone intellectual. I think the combination of being such a big gentleman and also someone who like plots or plans would be really dynamic if it was written well.

* Also I like the exchange where without a word Professor Ouyang indicates he has one last thing to say, it's private and that he would like Shen Wei to ask Li Qian to leave. That's What You Can Do With Good Actors!

* Li Qian is just so pretty and the actress emotes so well!

* Shen Wei totally understanding what's going on with this shady research immediately and wanting to stay as far away as possible. We see one of the first examples of him being aggressively polite to remove himself from a situation.

* "i'M jUST aN oRDINARY sCHOLAR." No one buys it Shen Wei.

* Angy Thinking Face

* One thing the show is really good at is using establishing shots really well so you always know where everything is and everything is going

* Guo Changcheng, all around good boy and angel. We stan a nervous legend

* Zhou Yunlan Arriving. Why is everyone on this show an Absolute Legend

* Guo Changcheng protecting himself with his certificate is too cute. This young man is trying his best and I support him.

* Also that coat is Young, Pure, Stylish; I love it

* Zhao Yunlan, what's wrong with you? You are amazing!

* His irreverent style and disregard of usual policy makes him fit in really well with his band of misfits and special cases

* Guo Changcheng's OO face is too good, elastic face

* Da Qing my love!

* Jin Ling, I think he has an all seeing eye on his hoodie thing. Illuminati Confirmed.

* Also they filmed the shots so well, so you always know where everyone is in relation to everyone else

* Our Prized Cabbage! I love her!

* Great handheld work: shaky and unhinged, but not migraine inducing

* Foreshadowing in the form of a shadow and reaching for the necklace

* Da Qing's cat behaviours. I really want behind the scenes of the actor discussing how cat was he going to cat

* We get our first real example of how Zhao Yunlan doesn't feel safe emoting negatively and so he uses a super sunny mask to hide his feelings, except with Da Qing who he lets his anger show with because he trusts him.

* I'm not even halfway through and I've written so much, peace and blessings to the readers of this.

* Zhao Yunlan's swagger, after his childhood having a little power must feel comforting and good

* I love how Da Qing is talking as a cat less than a meter from the medical examiner. Does the examiner not care or does he know? Is he deaf?

* Harassing Guo Changcheng is the new team sport

* Zhao Yunlan Realises Something Music

* Also, Lollipop Measurement

* It's nice to see Zhao Yunlan just being himself with Da Qing, he's able to really be honest and genuine with him

* Slow Look Moment

* This moment is so fascinating! Shen Wei doesn't know what's going on yet. He just sees an old friend who winces when he sees him and disappears. We mostly see things from Zhao Yunlan's point of view, but from Shen Wei's perspective this is a first part of just some Odd and Confusing Happenings

* This cat though! I love him!

* The delicate way they’re both feeling each other out. This must be so confusing and startling for Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan is trying to figure out if this teacher is going to bust him or what.

* He forgot to let go, way to set off Zhao Yunlan’s suspicions

* “Mark Stewart” Is he though? Who picked out that English name?

* Li Qian! I love her and I love that striped blouse. Fashion. Got to look good when you’re resisting a mental break. *Also she hears a meow and looks around at eye level, I love that for her.

* Zhao Yunlan! You can’t take pictures of young ladies without their permission. What is wrong with you!

* I love Da Qing’s very cat attitude of I Will Have Vengeance for These Wrongs

* Two for one! Shen Wei meets two faces from his past.

* Also, I get a little frustrated about people making a big deal about the 10,000 years versus 1,000 years age thing with Da Qing. a) He has amnesia and b) the thousand years refers to the amount of time needed to cultivate to a certain stage in Chinese mythology - usually by absorbing energy from the sun, moon, or depending on the animal other sources.

* I feel so bad for Shen Wei, who knows what he thinks. Were his friends brainwashed? Did they forget? Can they not say for some reason? What is happening?

This review is getting a little long, so join in tomorrow for Part Two~~!

#Guardian #watchthrough

11 notes · View notes

abjectaspiringfailure · 5 years

Text

Words of Advice - Eto's parallels with Amon, Touka, Kurona, Kaneki, and Suzuya

I wanted to take a look at both Eto’s conversation with the twins and Amon’s conversation with Suzuya in the same arc. That is, what Eto and Amon were saying to both the twins and Suzuya, and why they were saying it. Furthermore, I want to address that what Eto says to the twins is something we’ve all seen before with Amon and Touka’s past conversations with Kaneki.

(TG 98, 25, 3)

While Amon’s similarities with Suzuya are well known, Eto’s similarities with the twins, but specifically Kurona, is something I think isn’t noted enough. I also wanted to include an analysis of both Kurona and Suzuya respectively in this analysis - and what Eto’s and Amon’s words to them both meant.

(TG 97)

The first time Eto meets the twins directly is in Kanou’s lab. She runs off when Aogiri meets Anti-Aogiri, but she’s not really trying to escape here. If she did, she could easily outrun them and they’d never find her, as evidenced by her later usage of her superior agility to evade them and make them lose sight of her. Instead, Eto gets just far away enough from the battle where her conversation with the twins won’t be disturbed, and then waits for them to meet up with her. Eto says a lot of things to the twins, but what are her opening and closing interactions with her pertaining to?

(TG 98)

Her opening is taunting them. Specifically, in regards to the fact that they have small kagunes. Now, what’s her closing interaction with them? The last question she asks them is “what does a ‘former human’ think about eating humans?” Note that she puts “become a ghoul” and “former human” in quotes - that’ll be important later.

The twins themselves are no longer able to eat normal food. They are forced now to eat what ghouls eat - other people, be they humans or ghouls. Eto’s words to the twins here are actually similar to the same words said to Kaneki by both Amon and Touka earlier in the manga, with some interesting contrasts. To get into what Eto’s actually saying here, we should compare those situations, and contrast the twins eagerness to be ghouls with Kaneki’s hesistance.

(TG 100, 5)

Notably, Kaneki and the twins are (at first glance) seemingly complete inversions of this state of being. Kaneki had literally no choice in the manner of his ghoul conversion, where as the twins chose to give up their humanity. He was attacked by Rize, and Kanou used his as a convenient test subject, his first experiment using Rize, as preparation for the twins ghoulification. He laments leaving the perceived safety of the human world, and preceived entering into the violent and turbulent world of ghouls.

This is partially because Kaneki hadn’t realized the omnipresent cohabitation status of ghouls among humans. While Kaneki lived a rough childhood, thanks to Hide, he was protected from the harsh realities of his world. But this is especially so especially so with regards to ghouls.

(TG 7)

So when he becomes a ghoul, that’s what ends up becoming among the most shocking things to him in a series of shocking revelations. That the ghouls were always there, this violence and mayhem was always within walking distance, it’s just only now becoming tangible to him. His denials of being a ghoul, and his persistence to claim he’s human, are understandable. First impressions are important, and Kaneki’s first impression, his first few face-to-face encounters with what he acknowledges as ghouls, are incredibly violent.

His predation by Rize, followed by Touka’s killing of a man right in front of him, then his own stumbling upon a freshly killed human by an unknown ghoul when expecting to find a nice home cooked style meal, then watching Nishki kill that ghoul and threaten to kill him, and then topping it off with Nishki being fought off by Touka. Kaneki’s outburst towards Touka makes sense in that regard. His only reprieve from this violence was Yoshimura’s brief offering of food up until that point.

(TG 8)

The idea that he, a person that never engaged in violent acts in his life, would be forced to do battle with other ghouls just to survive is a horrifying prospect. His fears are shown to have a strong basis in reality, and he almost loses his life along with Hide’s later on when he fights Nishki. It’s only because of his willingness to do anything for Hide, and the immense innate power of Rize’s kagune, that he survives his first battle. Even then, this almost backfires, and he needs to be bailed out by Touka before he ends up eating Hide.

(TG 95)

But the twins are completely different. They were there to witness the deaths of their parents at the hands of a ghoul. After this, they were brought into the CCG to become ghoul investigators, as many orphaned by ghouls did.

(TG 102)

So they were brought up with the experience of the horror ghouls could inflict against their loved ones, in an environment that taught the dehumanization of ghouls, and found themselves surrounded by others who were in the same predicament. Instead of receiving proper mental health treatment and counseling, they’re turned into weapons against ghouls. Amon’s speech here is likely meant to represent a microcosm of what they’re taught in the institution. Ghouls are just monsters. Ghouls kill everyone they can. They ruined your life - now they’re going to ruin others. Unless they’re stopped. By you, of course.

If a firsthand experience with a ghoul killing your family when you’re a child is the only experience you ever had, Amon’s speech sounds like a nice ideal. Amon, a man they greatly respect, lays it out so simply here. A very black and white justice for a black and white world. You save the world by focusing on getting rid of the bad people.

(TG;re 66)

Reducing the “enemy” to a vague and easy identifiable “other”, rather than acknowledging their existence as anything other than evil, makes things so much simpler. Everything, all of it, it’s their fault. It’s a comfort, in a sense, because it’s easier than thinking about the implications of one’s actions and making choices of your own. And if you start by putting this idea into the mind of children, they’re easier to influence because they lack experience in the world to tell them otherwise. However, this type of thinking can easily backfire. For example, if someone else is aware of it, and is willing to use the same tactics to subvert this programming.

(TG 102)

The twins’ encounter of Suzuya, which we’ll be going into more detail later, likely factored into their disillusionment with the CCG to some extent. From their point of view, the CCG knew that Suzuya was killing animals and was dangerous, but they didn’t care. They knew he was being a “problem child” but they let him roam around free. Instead, they saw the CCG as merely gossiping about Suzuya towards other students. But that’s nothing compared to what Kanou shows them.

(TG;re 93)

Kanou comes into their lives and shows them this new truth. Presented with this new reality, with such overwhelming evidence, they instantly turn on the CCG and humanity. Because when you remove nuance, it’s easy to turn on the “other”. Many times in Tokyo Ghoul, a character changes their entire life outlook by realizing that things aren’t always as they appear. Sometimes, this works out. Other times, such as here? It does not. Because there is no real attempt at understanding at any level, because Kanou really didn’t want them to understand. Kanou wanted them to learn the lesson he wanted them to learn, in the way that most suited his agenda.

(TG;re 93)

Just as Kaneki was sheltered from the world of ghouls, they were sheltered from the world of humanity. They were told a simple truth - humans good, ghouls bad. So if ghouls aren’t the problem, humanity then becomes the problem. The CCG becomes worse than ghouls. After all, they’re the ones who are really distorting the world.

Kanou’s usage of their parents, and his usurpation of the role of guardian figure in their life can’t be understated in how important it was in his manipulations of the twins.

(TG 102)

Their idea of a good afterlife is an afterlife where everyone meets their parents. Placing emphasis on family, blood or otherwise, is common in Tokyo Ghoul. But for the twins, it’s probably one of their defining features. And its understandable. Their childhood before the tragedy was happy, they were well loved, and they always had one another.

(TG;re 93)

So when Kanou comes in and appeals to them with a new justice, when he appeals to clearing the disgrace of their parents, of course they jump in on for ghoulification. Kanou’s making an appeal in the light of the idea that he’s their father’s fellow researcher, that he is on the same path as their father was. He was a collaborator like their father was, and he is now having the same crisis of consciousness he once did. But now, unlike then, they have a means to fix it, and stop further tragedies.

If you actually take a step back to think about what Kanou’s proposing to the twins here, it makes no sense from a logical perspective. Turning into ghouls doesn’t somehow bring back their parents. It doesn’t stop the immoral ghoulification experiments, because they’re literally undergoing the ghoulification experiments.

(TG 102)

The twins dismissal of Suzuya as just a pseudofriend of justice is, in a sense, a rebuke towards the CCG they once aspired to join. Kanou took advantage of that mental blindspots the twins had. The idea that the world was simple black and white from years of propaganda and horrible trauma. He appealed to the idea that they were special, that there was something only they could do, as Amon and the Academy instructors did. He became the parental figure of their life, using the nostalgia of their old home and wonderful life to win them over. All because he wanted some experimental test subjects.

(TG 98)

Which is exactly what Eto says here.

Kanou never revealed his overarching plan. He never explained how ghoulification surgeries would fix the “distortion of the world”. So of course this was never going to work out for the twins. He never really planned it to, and they trusted him in full. This isn’t the twins fault, here, Kanou never should have manipulated them in this manner. They were indoctrinated and emotionally unstable children that he took advantage of. Kanou manipulated them into the same situation that Kaneki ended up in - and he made them complicit with his own actions.

(TG 98)

Eto tells the twins have no one they can rely on but one another with this statement. They’re just two ghouls, with no ghoul family or friends, and no place in the human world. They’re not as extraordinary as they think they are, as evidenced by her effortlessly dancing around them. They’re cocky, and understandably so, given their constantly reinforced “unique” status for most of their life, but that’s not enough to cut it. There’s more here, but we’ll focus on that part for now.

Because if all you have to rely on is one another, that means you have to protect one another, right? They need to stop trusting others, put up barriers between themselves and the outside world, because others are just hurting them. Which brings us back to her closing statements, which are reminiscent of Touka’s and Amon’s own words to Kaneki.

(TG 98, 3)

Touka’s questioning towards Kaneki highlights another similarity between the twins and Kaneki - what they’re eating, and what they’re no longer eating. Both Eto and Touka question the twins and Kaneki respectively about what food tastes like, but like above, the contrasts are obvious.

(TG 3)

In Kaneki’s case, he never considered what it was like to be a ghoul. He just considered that type of life hell after becoming a ghoul for a few weeks - he says this to the face of another ghoul who had just helped him not too long ago, without even considering their feelings. He’s begging Touka for help while telling her that her entire existence is horrible. Her blatant dismissal and belittling of him, while asking her own pointed questions on how easy it is to live as a human compared to a ghoul are meant to voice her own frustrations at this situation.

(TG 25)

Kaneki didn’t have a choice to become like this, but neither did Touka. Touka didn’t ask to be born at all, let alone be born a ghoul. She simply is a ghoul. No more, no less. Touka didn’t decide that she wanted to eat humans - Touka simply is forced to eat humans.

(TG;re 63)

The twins chose to undergo a procedure that they believed would change their entire species. They chose to give up the comforts of the human world - its relative safety and security - for the troubled and dangerous life of a ghoul. They, like Kaneki, didn’t actually consider what it meant to be a ghoul. Choosing a body which, as Eto would later describe it herself in ;re, as being otherwise only acquired as being “born wrong”. A body that leaves one alone.

(TG 98, 25)

Amon’s questioning of Kaneki here about the number of innocent people ghouls kill and eat is misplaced for Kaneki, obviously, but it’s less so if he were to be saying it about other ghouls. Like Kurona and Nashiro. Eto’s questioning here is very piercing to the twins, because the twins weren’t really thinking about the consequences or logic behind their transformation. The twins chose to become the very thing they were originally training to fight against. They chose to opt into the world of ghouls, with nothing but themselves to rely on, simply because Kanou told them it was the right thing to do.

(TG 98)

Eto’s saying these things to them, but they have no recourse against her. They can’t physically stop her, because her agility is many times greater than their own. They were smart enough to figure these things out on their own, but Kanou went out of his way to influence them. To warp the CCG’s own propaganda for his own usage, giving them a new (but ultimately familiar) sense of purpose. That’s why this reaction is so strong here. Nothing Eto says here to the twins are things they couldn’t figure out on their own, or, on some level, already know to be true.

“Baby kagunes”

“How many people have you killed?”

“What does a former human think about eating humans?”

Eto chooses to focus on the twins’ small kagunes and closes on their eating of other humans because she criticizing them for eating humans, and not cannibalizing other ghouls. Because if they were cannibalizing other ghouls, they wouldn’t have small kagunes, they wouldn’t be as weak as they are, and they would know the taste of other ghouls, and not humans. She makes her point clear by effortlessly dancing around them.

TG 98, 64

It’s not a coincidence that Kaneki mentions cannibalism in this very chapter, right after Eto’s confrontation with the twins, referencing and taking on the mannerism and logic of Yamori while doing so. Cannibalism is the secret to Kaneki’s strength, and is the reason he is able to become as strong as he is as fast as he does. This is incredibly relevant to Kurona’s and Nashiro’s stories. Kaneki is compared to the twins multiple times in this arc, but as we later learn from Kurona, Kanou was always comparing the twins to Kaneki.

TG;re 109

As we later learn in ;re during the laboratory raid, he makes his obsession with Kaneki clear to the twins. He declares Kaneki a success and berates the twins as failures because Kaneki is far more powerful than the twins. While Eto opens and closes with the twins lack of ghoul cannibalization, the meat of her interactions with the twins is that Kanou is just using them.

Right after Eto’s confrontation with the twins and Kanou’s confrontation with Kanou, the CCG arrives. Both of the twins and Kaneki get into battles against Suzuya and Shinohara respectively.

TG 98, 101

The twins completely ignore Eto’s warnings about their lack of strength and skill, and that they can’t rely on Kanou. In fact, they fall into the same pitfalls against Suzuya that they do against Eto minutes earlier. Just like how Eto dances around the twins signaling her superior power, Suzuya does the same. It’s clear the difference in their skills and abilities is there, but the twins are disregarding that fact - they still believe their own power and skill, due to how exceptional it is, will carry them through. There just isn’t enough time for them to properly process the information, and Suzuya and the CCG are enemies that arrive conveniently enough for them to ignore the revelations.

For Kaneki’s part, Kaneki’s… just kinda lost it, of course, because he’s overworked. So, lets compare these two fights. The parallels are immediately apparent. Kaneki and Shinohara are the “seniors”, while the twins and Suzuya are the “juniors”.

TG 101

Both Kaneki and Shinohara use kakujas, be it through their own or through their quinques. The twins and Suzuya, meanwhile, fight with just kagunes and regular quinques. The point is communicated rather easily - the seniors are more powerful than the juniors. However, there is some foreshadowing of who will win their respected fights evident even before the battle, and it’s actually kinda clever.

Adapting to environments and growing is key to success in life, and especially battle. Both Kaneki and Suzuya have “ugraded” over their “baseline equipment” using Yamori, cannibalizing him in the literal (Kaneki) and metaphorical (Suzuya) sense. This puts them a step above the twins and Shinohara, who are using the same “equipment” and level of training as they do in their first canonical fights in the manga.

During the course of the battle, both Kaneki and Shiro take nearly the exact same wound.

TG 104, 103

A blow right to the kakuhou. Kaneki even takes this wound from a bikaku type quinque of similar power rating, wielded by a more experienced, stronger investigator, who has had their strength enhanced even further by a kakuja quinque. By all rights, Kaneki should be the one who dies. His injury is far worse. But as anyone who’s reading this should know, he doesn’t. He goes on to defeat Shinohara.

TG 105, 103

Meanwhile, Kurona is forced to flee from a victorious Suzuya. Kurona banks her hopes on Kanou - her “father” - saving her sister. But of course, he doesn’t. He tells Kuro to discard Shiro just as he told Kuro to discard Madam A. He’s entirely callused, and his response of “We can just have you make new friends!” may as well be worse than mockery. He doesn’t even make an attempt to save Nashiro, or put in the effort to alleviate her suffering, or console Kurona.

TG 105, 107

And the reasoning for why Shiro’s injuries were irrecoverable is simple - because Kuro and Shiro only had one kakuhou due to their lack of cannibalization. When her only kakuhou was too damaged, she was unable to repair it. She was unable to heal the injuries Suzuya inflicted on her. Kaneki, meanwhile, had multiple kakuhou, and by taking a bite out of Shinohara was able to fully heal his wounds.

TG 99

Her lack of cannibalization leads to her lack of power. She loses her fight against Suzuya, and subsequently, she banks her hopes on Kanou saving her sister. But Kanou doesn’t save her sister, because Kanou doesn’t actually care about Kuro or Shiro. Kanou merely saw the twins as a means to an end - and failures to that end. He had hoped that killing their emotions would, in some way, increase their power past Kaneki’s.

TG 98, 62

Eto’s comments about Kanou buying their home meaning nothing? Her comments about how her parents were the only ones who truly loved them? These are mimicking Kaneki’s own thoughts on his situation with his aunt. Kaneki’s conclusions, based on his analysis of his aunt’s actions, is similar to Eto’s judgements on Kanou. That this is the last thing that Eto says to the twins before she starts bringing up the fact that they’re just eating humans, is again, meant to stress they can only rely on each other. That they need to put barriers between themselves and others, while making themselves as strong as possible.

TG 89, 92

That Kanou would turn on the twins is actually foreshadowed well in advance.

Kanou is remorseless (something he himself admits), and entirely dedicated to his goal. To him, there is nothing he will not sacrifice. He actively encouraged Kuro to abandon Madam A the moment she becomes inconvenient to protect. He speaks only of Kaneki with his daughters and laments the failures of his floppy that has rejected Rize’s kakouhou. His doing so with Nashiro right next to him is meant to foreshadow the treatment Kanou himself will put Nashiro through. Of course he would abandon Shiro at the drop of a hat, just as he abandoned the floppy when it went on the “Taro route”, just as he abandoned Madam A.

However, this doesn’t make Eto’s methods of communicating what she did correct. A more proper method to communicate a warning is shown just chapters later.

TG 107, 101

Because Amon’s warning to Suzuya is similar to Eto’s warning to the twins. Amon warns him not to split up from Shinohara, and not to be so calloused about Shinohara’s life, because he’ll regret that. Amon actually showed concern for Suzuya earlier during the battle, he’s just only getting the chance to voice it to him now.

TG 100, 107

And just like the twins, Suzuya brushes it off. But the difference between the two situations is rather clear cut. Suzuya has more time to think about his situation, and he’s being told this information from an ally, not an enemy. Come to the 20th Ward battle, and Suzuya does exactly what the twins did: ignore the warning given.

TG 134, 101

He decides to engage Kuzen while alone, just as he did the twins. And just as he did the twins, he confidently proclaimed that he was going to take something from his opponent, only to have something taken from him. Against an even stronger opponent. Suzuya attempts to use the same strategy he used against weaker opponents whom he had the advantage over, against a stronger opponent who had the advantage over him.

TG 134, TG 102

Suzuya’s leg injury is not as simple of a patch job as it is his stomach wound. It’s a far more debilitating of an injury that removes him from the battle. Much like Kurona, he treats his wound as if it’s not a big deal. Kurona saying “she can heal” and Suzuya saying “it doesn’t hurt” foreshadowing what happens to both Nashiro and Shinohara. Because Nashiro doesn’t heal, and Shinohara does hurt.

So of course when Eto shows up, he’s in perhaps the worst possible position. While the entrance became synonymous with Eto later on for much of the fandom, it didn’t originate with her.

TG 135, 136, 60

For example, we see a similar event with Suzuya earlier on. Both Eto and Suzuya end up breaking blockades of overly confident opponents, leading to their allied forces subsequently making the charge in the ensuring chaos.

TG 136,141, 60, 77

Followed right after by the overconfident forces dismaying that their plans were foiled. Both sides mention one of their more important fighters, both of whom were incapacitated by Kaneki, who defeated them in their kagune derived states, and defeated them in their kakuja derived states. Both Ayato and Takizawa, the ones who brought attention to their lost ally, end up being taken by Noro and make their next on screen appearances with Aogiri Tree. Both of the characters Kaneki defeats but refuses to kill end up leaving Aogiri Tree, and end up fighting against it either metaphorically (Yamori as a quinque) or literally (Amon as a One Eyed Ghoul).

TG 54, 49

When they’re introduced into the Aogiri arc, they are very similar. Both are small and childlike in stature and mannerisms. The stitching on Suzuya’s arms and legs makes the appearance comparable to Eto’s bandaged arms and legs. The stitches on her hoodie lining up roughly where Suzuya’s are; the stitches on his neck, on her scarf. Even his hair has the same type of general as Eto’s hood, and her own hair when she pulls it back. The character design of these two character elicits immediate visual comparisons to how similar they are.

TG 135

That’s the reason that special attention is brought to Suzuya and Shinohara when she makes her entrance. So of course, now Suzuya is the on the receiving end of the type of pain he inflicted on Kurona and Shiro.

TG 107

Because Eto was watching the entire engagement on the monitors. She saw Suzuya’s response to Amon, and she saw Suzuya’s fight. And while she’s seeming to talk about Amon here, she’s actually not. Or rather, she’s talking about who Amon was talking about - Suzuya. There’s a reason why the chapter Eto begins torturing Shinohara has a flashback that directly parallels the Yasuhisa twins when Suzuya began torturing them. Eto’s reaction is in response to this chapter, as Suzuya’s reaction is a response to the twins reaction earlier. There is a reason why Eto isolates Shinohara and tortures him specifically, rather than anyone else.

TG 137, 103

The flashback immediately opens with Suzuya being told he has his new quinque Sasori (Skorpion as most people know it now), which is the name of the chapter wherein Suzuya tortures the twins. Shinohara tells him to use his knives for the good for others, but instead he uses them for himself. Shinohara’s comments about humans breaking is mimicked by Suzuya about breaking ghouls. Suzuya’s comments about not caring about people he doesn’t like and wanting them to die coalesces into gleeful torturing the twins physically and psychologically, forcing them to watch one another as he makes them die.

TG 137, 102

He was actually ecstatic to jump at the chance to do so. Suzuya wanted to kill the twins ever since they saw him the night he encountered Tokage and was framed for the murder of the animals by the staff. He thought the twins hated him the entire time since the academy. The irony is that they actually didn’t. The hatred, up until this point in time, was entirely one sided on Suzuya’s part.

TG 102

Kurona and Nashiro actually stuck up for Suzuya, despite his eccentricities. Despite seeing him crushing ants all day and avoiding class, things that would normally be red flags for others. They didn’t actually think badly of him, and they doubted he’d be capable of killing cats and dogs like the staff member attempted to imply. They didn’t even care about his past of being raised by a ghoul. This only changed when they saw him that night, but they still didn’t hate him. Even when they met in the lab, Kurona didn’t seem to be angry at Suzuya, so much as take his employment as confirmation of Kanou’s words about the corruption of the CCG.

That is, until he tortured her as he made Nashiro watch. Then made her watch as he killed Nashiro, mocking her all the while, taunting her all the while. The thing is, this was logically what was going to happen here.

TG 103, 122

The very same tactics that Suzuya learned under Big Madam are being employed here against other children who have been manipulated by a parental authority figure. Note that when Suzuya says “after 46 more times, please die” he’d already hit Kurona six times. The total number of hits (51) is the same as the number of seconds he was hung by meat hooks in his flashback to his treatment by Big Madam. What Suzuya is doing here is acting out the trauma inflicted upon him as closely as he can. This is entirely the fault of the person who decided that Suzuya needs not be brought into psychiatric care, but sent out to fight against other children as a soldier. That person being, of course, Shinohara.

TG 122

Shinohara knew exactly what he was doing here. He was warned, rather explicitly, that Suzuya had incredibly dangerous tendencies. Suzuya needed severe psychiatric help, not having his skills for torture and murder further fostered and turned on other children in the form of Kuro and Shiro. Shinohara rightfully recognizes that Suzuya is a victim, but then proceeds to overturn the decision to keep him out of the CCG’s academy.

Note that the discussion wasn’t about punishing Suzuya for being forced to kill for Big Madam. The discussion was about the CCG’s standard operating procedure of turning victims of ghouls into indoctrinated soldiers. Suzuya was deemed to mentally unstable to become a CCG investigator due to his violent tendencies. This is what leads to Suzuya being framed by the CCG Academy for killing animals. This is what leads Suzuya to assault a police officer and physically maim him. This is what leads to his hatred and downward spiral against Kurona and Nashiro.

Shinohara had every warning sign even before the twins. After the assault on the police officer, Shinohara says this:

TG 137

Had Suzuya not reacted as he did, he wouldn’t have triggered Eto’s reaction here. What Shinohara tells Suzuya is that if he gets angry at someone, he should act out that anger on him. But Suzuya didn’t, and took out that anger on the twins. Now as Suzuya promised, Shinohara suffers the same fate as Nashiro. That’s why this scene pops up during Eto’s torture of Shinohara.

TG 137

Eto’s not just referring to Suzuya and Shinohara here. She’s referring to Suzuya and Kurona.

TG 143, 107

Because at the end of their respective battles, both Suzuya and Kurona end up in similar states. Both of our two survivors take their respective partners to doctors. Both of the doctors tell them that there’s no real chance of survival here for Nashiro and Shinohara respectively.

TG 110

Amon’s words to Suzuya at Kanou’s lab weren’t empty. He was speaking from his own experiences. After all, Amon’s partner at the time is Akira because he lost Kureo, a mentor figure to him, as Shinohara was to Suzuya.

Because when Kureo Mado split up from Amon, that was when Kureo Mado needed him the most. When Amon’s talking to Suzuya here, this is what he’s thinking of. The loss of his mentor - the loss he wants Suzuya to avoid. Suzuya doesn’t take Amon seriously, because Suzuya’s not in a position to understand. He struggles to understand why anyone care about death, because people die all the time. And technically speaking, he’s correct. But empathy is what makes people care about the death of others.

TG 28, 137

Suzuya empathized with Shinohara - and as Amon said, Suzuya regretted his rash decisions. In the end, both Amon and Suzuya ended up sharing the same loss.

Amon’s focus for Suzuya was on staying with the mentor figure and family you care for because you should fear losing the ones you love. Eto, meanwhile, focuses on increasing personal power and putting barriers between oneself and those around you.

This is not the only character that Eto interacts with whom she does this with.

(TG 114)

The subtext of this scene is that Eto was encouraging Hinami to cannibalize, as she cannibalized at her age, even if Hinami doesn’t realize it at the time. Because the “worries” Hinami has are related to her weakness, and the fastest way for a ghoul to grow in strength is to cannibalize. Eto’s own struggles against a Mado Senior are what got both Hinami and Eto on the CCG’s radar, at least publicly.

(TG;re 43)

This is also made explicit with her confrontation against Kanae (which is another discussion entirely in and of itself which is too big to cover in this post or honestly, even one post). Eto has an obsession with the power gained through cannibalization. This is part of Eto’s complex, brought on by her own personal insecurities.

(TG 62, TG;re 3, TG;re 73)

Characters having complexes is brought up multiple times throughout both Tokyo Ghoul and Tokyo Ghoul;re. The above three are notable examples and just plainly explained. For this I’m only going to briefly touch on these examples to explain the point. That is, how it shows in their actions. We could go more in depth with just his complexes, but for now, we’ll keep it simple, and I’ll make another more in depth post later.

(TG’re 83, TG 139, TG 138, TG;re 74, TG;re 65)

Arima’s obsession with eyes is a result of losing his own eyesight, which is caused by his ghoul parent DNA causing artificially fast aging in his otherwise human body. He takes out his anger by engaging in extreme sadism towards ghouls. Specifically, for this complex, he goes for the eyes, but especially ghouls’ left eyes whenever the opportunity presents itself. When looking straight at someone, it’s like looking at yourself in the mirror; the image is flipped. Your right eye looks into their left eye, and vice verse. He’s gauging out his own weak eye that he sees in others. He’s resentful of their eyes.

There’s more to Arima than that, of course, but I’m using this to demonstrate Ishida’s usage of complexes to assist in explaining or elaborating upon character action, which he bakes into his characterization. Eto’s obsession with cannibalization hints at a similar, but obviously different, obsession with kakuja power.

(TG;re 61)

Eto’s loss against Kuriowa was a wake up call about her own weakness, that she was nowhere near as powerful as she thought she was. Despite her statement here that she tried to win through quantity, she still didn’t stop increasing her own strength and continued to cannibalize.

(TG 136, TG;re 61)

It’s pretty evident in her kakuja when she was 14 versus her kakuja when she was 24. Eto never stopped acquiring personal power, even if she gained an army.

TG;re 86,

I’ve brought this up in other posts I made, but all implications are that Arima treated Eto as his own Quinque before he decided on Kaneki. The stance Eto takes while Arima looms over her is no different than the stance Kaneki makes for a reason - because Eto and Arima weren’t equals. Their walking side by side is even preceded, in the chapter before, by Haise walking side by side with Arima.

(TG;re 86, 85)

It’s the same thing, just from a different perspective. Even everything Eto says to Kaneki is the exact same thing that Akira tells him in the first chapter of ;re. Even Kaneki’s stance with the Qs behind him communicates the same general image, and the same general message. “You must either surpass Arima and create One Eyed Ghouls more powerful than him to create hope for Ghouls/CCG”.

TG;re 86, 1

This is highly relevant to the discussion at hand - because Arima rather explicitly uses a mother figure to manipulate Haise to his own ends in Akira. This is meant to communicate that Arima’s involvement with regards to Ghoulification programs of both Aogiri and the CCG. This makes sense, of course. Arima is the One Eyed King; he’d want as many One Eyed Ghouls on the board as he could get.

TG;re 15

Arima is deferred to by Yoshitoki of all people with regards to whether or not Urie’s frame opening should be allowed. This is meant to indicate that Arima is directly involved and highly influential in the Qs program. This makes sense on multiple levels - if your goal is to create investigators that surpass Arima, Arima’s approval makes sense. He’s the best gauge of his own strength. Yoshitoki also defers to Arima on multiple occassions throughout the manga and trusts him greatly, such as thinking of him on Rushima, or discussing Furuta with him.

Urie’s curiosity is meant to lampshade the importance of this scene, which when taken into account his reveal as the One Eyed King, takes on a new meaning. It’s because of Arima’s recommendation that Urie be allowed to undergo the frame opening procedure that leads Urie down a dark path that leads him to lose control of himself and go completely berserk on multiple occassions.

TG 98, TG;re 45

I bring this up because the way that Eto describes the twins as being used as Kanou isn’t that far off from the way Arima manipulates Haise in ;re using Akira. In fact, it is literally the same thing. Arima picked up on the trauma of Kaneki’s childhood and his abuse at the hands of his mother leading to his deference to authority figures and mother figures in particular, especially those who are willing to use corporal punishment (eg Akira Mado). Akira also looks past his “killing” of Amon to literally embrace him. This information is also introduced during Eto’s torture of Kanae to indicate the relation of those two events - but again, that will be an entirely different post.

Eto is not speaking about Kanou’s manipulations and the twins without reasoning - she’s speaking about this from her own experiences. Eto wasn’t strong enough on her own to defeat V or defend herself and what she cared for, so she ended up under the thumb of Arima. Eto’s first appearance as a One Eyed Ghoul also shows she has “merely” an ordinary kagune, and this appearance is implied to be shortly after Noroi’s death.

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, in Eto’s first chronological appearance as the One Eyed Owl, she doesn’t have a kakuja, and it’s a direct parallel to Touka and Hinami’s experiences with Kasuka Mado.

TG;re 66

It’s actually explicit that a strong impetus for Eto’s rebellion was, in fact, the loss of Noroi. Because her mother was dead before she could remember, and she says she’s unable to accept Furuta’s premise about “peace” as the one on the receiving end of that “peace”. Most likely, given how these situations played out, Eto wasn’t cannibalizing ghouls until after Noroi’s death. In fact, it’s actually rather likely she wasn’t eating like a ghoul at all.

TG 98

This explains why Eto is putting “become a ghoul” and “former human” in quotes here; because this doesn’t logically make any sense for her to do so for the twins. They did not quote-unquote become ghouls and they were not quote-unquote former humans, they became ghouls and they are former humans. Eto’s quotation marks here only make any form of logical sense if she’s talking about somebody else; and the only logical person here for her to be talking about aside from them is herself.

So her main thrust in all of her discussions with other ghouls is that they should be cannibalizing, that they need to enhance their ghoul power, because otherwise they’re weak. And if you’re weak, you’ll lose what you value. You’ll be alone. Someone will manipulate you. Keep strong, because only your parents will love you, and push others away, because they’ll just use you.

Eto targeted the twins because she could relate to them. They made a similar choice to what she made, choosing to “become a ghoul” and becoming “former humans”. Their situation with Kanou was what she saw as analogous to her situation with Arima. Arima and Kanou even end their stories the same way.

TG;re 82, 149

Because both Arima and Kanou decide to kill themselves in front of their adopted child after they got what they wanted. Arima wanted a One Eyed Ghoul that could beat him, and Kanou wanted the Washuu’s secrets exposed. Both decided that their final act would be to exert power over their adopted children - Arima depriving Kaneki of his decision to have both of them live, and Kanou depriving Kurona of her revenge. Neither Arima or Kanou ever really cared much about the damage that their deaths would cause. There is far more to the situation than that, far more, but for this post, we’ll stop it there.

In the end, both Eto’s and Amon’s words, and Suzuya’s and Eto’s subsequent actions giving meaning to those words, inform most of the character development Kurona and Suzuya undergo in ;re. The varying ideologies of Amon and Eto inform both Suzuya and Kurona greatly. This is very noticeable in Kurona.

TG;re 53, 56, 81, 87

As one of the characters Kurona takes on the most is, in fact, Eto. But Eto’s advice fails Kurona, because Eto herself never managed to successfully manage her own issues. Eto’s advice no longer has the proper context and came too late for Kurona to properly use it. Nashiro had already died, and her cannibalization which allowed her the strength to overpower Suzuya was rendered meaningless because she was already alone, just as Eto is alone. Pushing others away is a dangerous game even if you’re not already alone - and Kurona has no one.

TG;re 80, 87

Amon’s advice to Suzuya, meanwhile, is still highly relevant to his situation. Suzuya manages to change himself so substantially by his experiences in TG, that by TG;re, he’s seen in a different light. His subordinates follow him, not because they’re his subordinates, but because he genuinely cares about those around him. He’s a completely different person. Physical strength and acknowledging the reality of your situation are, of course, important. But no amount of strength can allow you victory if you are well and truly alone. Quantity is a quality in its own right - and while there are no certainties in life, as these situations show, they do help tip the scales in ones favor.

TG 107, 106

This is foreshadowed by Kaneki’s interactions with Amon and Banjou in Tokyo Ghoul. Does Kaneki manage to defeat Shinohara in battle? Yes. But Kaneki’s goals are not related to being the strongest and killing Shinohara - his goal is to avoid loneliness, and protect the ones he loves. Kaneki’s become strong and developed a kakuja through his cannibalization - but his isolation and loneliness are killing him metaphorically and physically. Kaneki is individually stronger than any one person of the CCG members he fights at the Kanou lab raid, but he ends up losing his fight against Suzuya and Amon because he is alone, worn down, and uncertain.

Kurona and Suzuya are quite alike in that their situations were negatively impacted by the bad decisions of both humans and ghouls. However, the differences between them stem from the differences between humans and ghouls in the world of Tokyo Ghoul. Suzuya is afforded the protections and safety of the human world - while Kurona is not. She’s alone, fighting both humans and ghouls alike.

You can’t save anyone if you, yourself, are not saved. Amon was “saved” by his friends, as Suzuya was by his family (his squad). Note that “saved” is not the same as “flawless” - both Suzuya and Amon have immense flaws that make them so appealing as characters, things that they address through confronting their emotions and theirselves. Eto is someone who, as I mentioned earlier, has too many issues of her own to give as good of advice as Amon.

TG;re Volume 5 Black Goat bonus

Eto is, of course, aware of her own short comings. She sees herself as inherently toxic and believes everything she touches dies - like her mother, or Noroi. This is communicated partly through her novels and their negative endings for characters. Her using such a harsh tone with the twins and others (such as when she later pushes Hinami away after initially showing her kindness), as opposed to Amon’s friendly tone with Suzuya and others, is meant to keep them away from herself.

There’s more I’d like to discuss about all of these characters, but I’ll just leave it at here for now. I feel like I can always add more and I haven’t really been putting out any content recently.

#tokyo ghoul #tg meta #Eto Yoshimura #kurona yasuhisa #juuzou suzuya #kotarou amon #Ken Kaneki #Touka Kirishima #Arima Kishou #akihiro kanou #yukinori shinohara #Nashiro Yasuhisa

56 notes · View notes

aabaker1 · 5 years

Text

Just finished Harvey Girls season 2

First spoiler-free Version. Season two of Harvey Street Kids or Harvey Girls Forever call it what you want, was...uneven. The season started and ended in good places, but there was a block of three episodes towards the middle that just fell flat. Good new characters, though only a few of them got developed. And I am really hesitant about the cliffhanger, it could easily go wrong in a lot of ways.

Okay time for the full rundown after the break.

Hoo boy this series had some highs and lows. I’ll break down by episode and then final thoughts.

Raiders of the Lost Park:

Okay does anyone else notice that the episode titles Netflix presents aren’t always the same as the ones on the title card? It’s not that big a deal, but come on, it’s Dreamworks and Netflix. A little consistency would be appreciated.

Nice way to start the series. This was a risky move, introducing brand new characters was one thing, but giving Audrey and Melvin, two established characters, brand new siblings? That was taking a risk. If I had to complain about something the tension and strife Dot caused in the season 1 finale was brushed aside way too quickly, but that’s a nit pick at most.

Dottie Rocket/Weekend at Audrey’s:

Good Dot episode, nice to see her obsessive compulsiveness get the better of her sometimes. But, Dot sill came back down to Earth in the end, even if it took a sugar-induced hallucination to do it.

Digital pets kicking the bucket, sigh, I can relate. But Audrey was just a bit out of character here. Not her recklessness, but her attempts at covering up. Audrey is not the type of person to hide mistakes, get frustrated by them, sure, but not hide them. Okay, she didn’t want to disappoint Lotta, but Audrey just doesn’t have that kind of deception in her.

Boy Story/ Puzzle, Puzzle, Toil and trouble.

And this is what I meant by character development. It’s nice to see that even the Bloogie Boys have limits, and legitimately like more than stereotypical boy hobbies. Also, nice touch remembering Dot and Pinkeye are friends.

Frufru, getting character development? Didn’t we already do this in season one? Okay, I know, people don’t just change overnight. But, for being so eager to be recognized for her brains, Frufru was a bit too quick to cheat. Though nice callback to Audrey Parkour. And I seriously don’t want to know why there’s an old well full of butter, that is just leads to several nasty implications.

Treasure of the Sierra Harvey/ Babies Day in:

And the character development continues, this time for TIny. Also not all old toys are dangerous. The treasure trove of old toys idea has been done before, but this wasn’t a bad example. Though I thought for sure Tiny was going to leave his action figure behind in the storm drain.

And a nice way to show that Lotta’s compassion can get out of hand some times. Also nice way to show that raccoons aren’t always jerks. Just gonna say it now, ninja pajamas, just ninja pajamas. Also, Dot, running bare-foot, outside, in the park? What kind of bizzaro world is this?

The Lice Storm/ Mission Impossibow:

This one kinda fell flat for me. Audrey over reacting is expected enough, but everyone going along with it, including Dot, that was a bit too far. But, the big letdown was the Harvey Avenue Kids. Okay we’ve seen them before in season one, but this was there chance to shine. And most of them came off as background filler, just like before. Penny was the only one who got any kind of development. But, she and bald Audrey did just enough to save this ep for me.

Decent episode and it shows Dot’s possible great weakness. She’s creative, but in a scientific, A, to B, to C kind of way. Imagining fantasy scenarios on the spot is just not in here wheelhouse, props to her stepping outside of her comfort zone. Bow initiated the plot here, but didn’t get a lot of character development. But, I’m okay with that. The Bow doesn’t really need development. She’s the bow, the weird kid who does her own thing, sometimes you don’t need to add more to make something good. My only complaint is that there just wasn’t enough of her this season, but I guess there can be too much of a good thing. Did I mention Bow’s my favorite character? Could you tell?

Fandom Menace/Moby Dot:

This one was a meh for me. It didn’t do Lotta any favor. I know she’s the trusting type, but she’s not dumb and certainly not the type to willfully delude herself. I think this was a bit of a miss step. Thankfully they didn’t do the cliche of scamming Zoe out of the ticket she sold. Lotta’s online appeal did fit her character and kudos to Crush4you to being stand up guys and respecting their fans like that.

The Cheer Hunter: Dot’s entertainment:

And more character development in an unexpected direction. So far Zoe’s two appearances had her solidly in the antagonist role, but here we she she’s actually a person, not just a stereotype. Also Maria feeling generally dissed by Zoe fast-tracking Lotta felt genuine. It’s nice to see them do plots that don’t involve someone getting their comeuppance. And everybody coming together to cheer Lotta up was a perfect touch. Also, Dot and Stu being completely (whatever) to the whole situation was funny as hell.

And once again we have Dot at her Obsessive Compulsive best. She discovers a new side to herself and like Dot, naturally takes this to the extreme. Also, nice to get a glimpse of how Dot’s brain works. Also, Fluffy’s still around, what? You do remember that was just a rat covered in garbage can fuzz, right?

I wanna Crush Your Hand:

And this is where the dip in the season started. I’m just going to say it now, I’m not the target demo for boy bands, not by a long shot. But, that wasn’t the problem I had with this episode. No the main problem was Lotta’s obsession taking up the whole spotlight. It felt like Audrey and Dot just got shoved into the background. Plus this episode just dragged. I’ve gotta say it, I think the two stories an ep format works best for this series. The double-length story just doesn’t fit, here.

Beyond Thunder Dot: Ten things I hate about Ew:

And this is where the season hit the valley for me. Seriously, you’re doing the “Let’s shove the environmental message down kids throats” Thing in 2019? I thought that went out of fashion in the 2010s. But, the most galling thing for me was all that character developing they were doing came to a complete halt. Frufru’s character development? Nah, let’s just turn her into a low rent Captain Planet villain. And since when did Dot get that preachy? I’m sorry but this got so painful for me I had to stop the ep and walk away. Ten things I hate about Ew might have been a decent episode, I don’t know. And I never will if I have to sit through this outdated, anvilicious garbage to get to it.

Something’s Glotta Give/Afernoon Contrite:

I think the main thing with this story is it made no sense to me. I thought Gerald and Lotta got together in season one, now Lucretia’s trying to hook them up, what?

This is where the season started to pick back up for me. It’s nice to see that even after the previous character development Melvin can still be Melvin. It’s nice to see that Lotta tries to fix things, even if she did it by accident, but naive Lotta is back and I just don’t know how I feel about that. Still seeing Melvin get a bit more character growth saved this one.

Can’t Hardly Wait/Bring it Prawn:

Ah that’s more like it. This touches my fanfic-writing heart. It’s nice to see Lucretia stretching her active imagination. It’s also nice to see the Audrey Girls and Tiny encouraging her self confidence. Plus in short order we got return of Audrey the Destroyer, Sci-Fi Dot and Lotta Moon, what’s not to love?

Thank you! Thank you for showing that cartoon siblings can do more than just fight with each other. This almost makes up for the environmental debacle, almost. In one fell swoop we see Maria and Melvin get along and Zoe and Audrey put their differences aside and work together for a common cause. Bonus points seeing Zoe stick up for Audrey. Audrey may be an annoying twerp, but she’s Zoe’s annoying twerp, damn it! Also, anyone else imagine buff Zoe and Audrey when Dot kept saying aabs.

Hover, may I board with danger/free Gilly:

And here’s Stu’s character development. Stu always seemed the odd man out. While Zoe and Maria have Audrey and Melvin to play off of, Stu was just sort of there. Now we see his too cool for school attitude is really a front for him being sensitive and a little insecure, that’s a nice touch. Also Audrey gets to grow as a person. First she was just legit conning Stu for time on the hover board, which was really just a Segway without the handles, but then she genuinely gets into the contact juggling. And one of her plans actually works for once, what? Also, what is up with Bobby this season, last season he was the older kid who doled out sage advice and could be a little jerkish sometimes. Now this season the sage advice stuff is all but gone and we just get the jerk, everyone else gets character development, but Bobby actually backslides a bit, guess they had to cut corners somewhere.

Finally a payoff to the running gag of Audrey’s goldfish issues. Nice to see that finally wrapped up. But, was it strictly necessary to give the animals voices? Okay, I admit it wasn’t so bad for Bobby the skunk, but every freaking animal? Yeesh, I mean there is such a thing as subtlety.

That thing you Dot!/Where the streets have no games:

You know, at first I thought I was going to hate bring Chevron back, didn’t she and Dot make peace back in season one? But, then I found that I really didn’t hate it. Dot used the wrong word. Chevron is not a frenemy, she’s a competitor and that may actually be a good thing. Dot and Chevron are very similar, they like to take hobbies to the absolute extreme and there’s nothing wrong with that. They two drive each other to succeed. In fact if they didn’t have each other they probably wouldn’t do half as much as they do. And Kudos bring Penny back and giving her a voice, she’s going to be the lead Harvey Avenue kid, I just feel it.

And here we are, okay, I’ll go through ep first before getting to the diamond-studded elephant in the room. Nice commentary on mobile games and how their designed to addict you. And yeah they really are just excuses to gather data. Also, nice touch Lotta and Audrey being the only ones who weren’t suckered in. Sadly Dot’s obsessive compulsive tendencies made her an easy target. But, then we go into that cliffhanger. Yeesh, that cliffhanger.

Finale Thoughts:

I’ll just say it. I know they were going to pull Richie in at some point. But to quote the Bow, not this way. The entire idea behind Richie Rich is that in spite of being the richest kid on Earth, Richie was a normal, average kid, who just wanted to make friends and have fun. He was never portrayed as being snobbish, sheltered or clueless.

Only now it’s clear Richie set up the mobile game and the contest to try to figure out how kids have fun. Not only is being clueless, he’s using money to try to solve his problems, which Richie never did.

And worse it’s predictable. I can tell where this story is going. The Harvey girls together maxed out the fun-o-meter, so Richie’s going to take them off to his estate to be his new friends and the Harvey Girls are going to bring him down to Earth.

But, they shouldn’t have to. Richie has always been portrayed as already being down to Earth. Now they’re going out of their way to portray Richie as a clueless rich kid who doesn’t understand how the real world works, and that is just wrong. That’s not Richie. Although nice touch with the Irona reference.

But, there’s something that worries me even more. Now that you’ve pulled the pin on Richie, where do you go with him from here, does he become a regular? I hate to say it, but I hope not.

You have to remember, that by default, Richie is the biggest presence in the room. If you over use him he could quickly over shadow Audrey and the others, in fact, he already has once before.

I’m taking about Harvey Comics. For over ten years, Audrey, Lotta, Dot and their friends ruled Harvey comics. Then Richie, Wendy and Casper came along. And within a few short years Audrey and company were all but forgotten. I just hope to go they have enough sense not to try to make this the Richie Rich show. I think they do. I think they understand a way to use Richie right and they already done it in the same episode, with Chevron.

Chevron is a big personality, so they don’t overuse her. So far she’s shown up once a season and that’s just right for her. It’s all she needs. If she were on regularly she’d drown the others out too much. But, this way when she shows up it’s a big deal. I think that’s the perfect approach to take with Richie, less is more. Just don’t turn him into a clueless rich kids, please?

#harvey-street-kids #Harvey-Girls-Forever

4 notes · View notes

ariibees · 5 years

Text

A Short Review and Analysis of Cybersecurity Themes and Examples Presented in the Emoji Movie

Please realize that I wrote this in 30 minutes as a class assignment. It is a pure, messy, unedited stream-of-consciousness. :D

The plot of this movie is well-described as a combination of the The Lego Movie and Inside Out. The main character is an emoji who, instead of performing his task of acting as the emoji type he appears as, switches between multiple emoji types. After destroying part of a necessary operating console to use the emoji bar in text messages, he and another emoji sneak into other app to visit a hacker to reprogram him to conform to societal norms. They then spend most of the movie attempting to move to Dropbox for plot purposes while anti-virus bots chase after them and the phone is at an increased risk of being factory reset. The main character is then captured and sent for a public execution, just before which the antagonist is stopped and the risk of a phone reset remedied. There is also a side-plot which involves two emojis dealing with marital problems under the stress of their son becoming a criminal and running from the board’s ruling and another side-plot in which two children must face communication issues in resolving their own emotions in regards to the other.

The most important takeaway from this specific movie is the unfortunate prevalence of marketing in the media created as cheap and blatant cash-grabs, seen commonly in a number of studios. These films may be based around a specific pre-existing toy or product to sell (an example of this would be The Lego Movie, or many video game movies such as the Angry Birds movie) or cash in on a pre-existing franchise (such as in many of the newer animated adaptations of Dr. Seuss stories). This movie’s plot and major themes may be tied back into the topics discussed in class through the major point of cybermarketing, as this movie (which features several prominent games and online services) was heavily advertised online using its appeal of a common object (emojis), popular music, bright coloration, and well-known games and services to draw in viewers.

This movie also, albeit briefly and somewhat inconsistently, touches on problems with online anonymity, communication issues arising in young teenagers, and the unreliability and poor education on the increased prevalence of interconnectivity, the internet of things, and the internet as a whole. One example of the problems with online anonymity and communication is in an earlier scene in which two of the main characters discuss how social media such as Facebook has led to an oversharing of personal details and a degradation of genuine reactions and real-life interactions. Other scenes include those with “troll” characters who deliberately use their perceived untouchability to verbally harass other characters. It also shows how the internet can often provide entertainment without much value, in which several characters are trapped by the draw of cat videos on Youtube. More directly related to the real-life effects, the human character who owns the phone that the film mostly takes place within has proportionately little screen time and is shown to be constantly hampered by his phone while still being unable to exist without it (having it on his desk during class, being unable to express his emotions without the use of emojis, the teacher being forced to relate to emojis to explain the concept of hieroglyphics, several students being so distracted by their phones that they walk right into each other, and malfunctions in phones having tangible real-world associated negative social effects). One app is also disguised as another out of distrust for authority figures who may look through the phone. Further communication (and privacy) issues can also be seen when the main characters are attempting to guess a password. In order to guess the password, they read over the main character’s email trash, finding what is framed as a romantic letter that was never sent (but was really just copied song lyrics instead of original writing) and using the intended recipient of the email as the password, showing the need for better education supporting secure passwords. (On a related note, the following scene shows the characters walking into the supposedly secure Dropbox but an “anti-virus bot” is then later able to break through the firewall and directly steal content out of the cloud.) another scene earlier on in the film similarly touches on how quickly common objects can be made irrelevant or mostly lacking value as emoticons are seen as frail and incapable of properly communicating in the same way that emojis can, with emoticons barely able to express words at all. Better education could also be used in scenes which attempt to draw upon existing concepts but are incorrectly executed (such as in which a character unplugs his phone during a factory reset but everything magically reappears; another character sees during this scene an odd emoji and is immediately infatuated and does not question its unordinary nature or pursue how it was created).

As a final note, this movie shows the inescapability and concern associated with illegal activities on the internet, mostly surrounding hacking, the usage of “bots”, and other concerns. Firstly, one of the main protagonists is considered a “hacker,” one of a presumably illegal group who uses a wristband to remain constantly connected to information on the phone. She is shown to supposedly have the ability to access anything unsecured, using this information to gain access to secured areas (she lists off a large amount of data she has already collected on the person whose accounts they are attempting to infiltrate) while also having supposedly removed an emoji from the phone’s system itself. This can show the amount of access that hackers can gain over nearby systems they can connect to and how unprotected but seemingly unconcerning information (such as -- as was given in the film -- preferences for food, animals, and people) can be used to profile a potential victim of hacking. Next, the usage of “bots” (formally considered anti-virus bots by the main antagonist) shows the unreliability of automation, remote work, and the ability to remove harmful content. In a fairly early scene, these bots appear to deliberately ignore a number of viruses in the area, instead focusing on a differing assigned target, showing how even normally-functional systems can be manipulated to ignore their original function. Later, one of these bots is given an “illegal upgrade” by the system supervisor in order to extend its capabilities, appearing much less concerned towards data damage or deletion and instead only attempting to destroy its target with increased ability, representing mistrust and concern in how seemingly “beneficial” but shady add-ons can oftentimes corrupt or further damage a system (earlier anti-virus bots deleted viruses and spam, while the illegally-upgraded bot was considered to be particularly ruthless and harm the continued psyche and job-mentality of other vital working emojis). In addition, the illegal upgrade is presented as being a part of the phone already, with a custom storage pedestal built into the texting app, showing how oftentimes harmful or illegal add-ons can appear to be normal and a part of the system on first glance. As for the last note on other internet concerns, a number of other anthropomorphized concepts are seen in various scenes, including viruses, trojan horses, people who pirate content (music is one example given in the film), spam emails, and internet trolls. The most prominent case of this is spam, in which one of the main characters is almost immediately roped into signing up for an offered service; additionally, internet trolls are seen to have a damaging effect on another character’s feelings of self-worth in regards to how their friends treat them.

Altogether, this made me more aware by seeing how this film highlights several problems with the internet and how we use it in modern society, as well as the general issue of how marketing is aimed to maximize profits.

A few additional thoughts from about an hour after writing:

The hacker character’s design includes a black hat, possibly a nod to her being a black hat hacker (while a “good guy,” she is first found in a shy bar and her main goal is to hack her way past a firewall to access the cloud.) Her name, Jailbreak, also refers to her actions in regards to the phone. Part of her character arc also includes a reveal of her “true” and previously unknown identity, relating to the anonymity of a hacker attacking a system and how the person behind the screen is oftentimes unknown.

Pirates, viruses, internet trolls, spam, and trojan horses all exist on the same plane of existence in the movie, being a possible nod to the clear lasting impacts that each of these may have on the websites they are present on, whether they are a portion of code or a person affecting someone else.

In fact, the entire scene with the bar is made to reinforce the dangers of certain areas online, characters even pointing out how it is hidden from authority figures and parents because they would not want their child to be using it. It shows how easy it is to be sucked into problems dealing with online threats and how viruses can easily avoid anti-virus software that is comprehensive and secure.

The bar also has each of these character using similar models or character designs to reinforce the fact that while torrenting and such may seem to lack much danger, many of these files could be hiding viruses within them.

Bonus reply after I posted this on our class forum:

“Great analysis (10/10); you explored many of the movie's implications and allusions in detail. I have not seen the movie, but from your discussion the movie seems to be somewhat humorous and full of references to modern technology, but without much psychological or philosophical depth. Some of the movie's scenes, as you described, can have benefit; the scene with the individual that was able to find a user's password by looking at a love letter both emphasizes the importance of creating a hard-to-guess password, and also relates to the forum post a few weeks ago about the data that can be gleaned by going through someone's trash (PII in trash cans may lead to the discovery of passwords). Overall, the movie sounds like it could be superficially interesting and possibly funny, but without real significance, so I would give it a 6/10.”

#text post #ariibees #cybersecurity

0 notes