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rantaire · 4 years

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i’ve watched approximately 4 episodes of supernatural but when you live on tumblr for years you are always spn-adjacent. we have no choice but to absorb it by osmosis because it’s just that massive. i feel like i know a lot about the show from fandom, and many of my fandom friends were in it at some point. i also work in entertainment media so i’ve been tracking all the updates in its final year. and i have to say that even after years of disappointments from movies and tv, this one seems particularly egregious?

here’s the thing. there’s so often a divide between the fever-dream of shipping and what we actually get in canon. and we know this. we’re not stupid, or gullible. people in fandom engage with the narrative on a level most critics could never dream.

even though many of us recognize that our beloved ships from giant properties won’t go canon because they are embedded in giant global blockbusters created by megacorporations, in recent years there seems to also be a trend of bad endings that not only work to crush these ships but make for awful storytelling and act dismissive of their own canon. and I’m tired of it.

maybe steve/bucky would never happen, but steve abandoning his traumatized best friend that he’d fought actual wars for in order to go back in time for a woman who moved on with her life without him? crap. star wars not even attempting finnpoe despite the actors’ encouragement, and giving poe a random half-assed love interest because, oh look, a girl? we can be angry about these things, and we can and should demand better and broader representation. if nothing else, at least tell a better story.

why spn’s finale feels so unsettling to me as a non-fan is that even i came to believe the tide might be turning, just a little bit. fandom is more mainstream and recognized than ever. our ships and our transformative works are discussed in big media outlets. actors and creatives acknowledge fic and retweet fanart. actors and creatives acknowledge how vital it is for people to see themselves reflected and represented in media. and it seemed to me, as a sideline observer, that supernatural appreciated its fanbase and understood how important dean and castiel’s relationship was, and how beloved castiel was as a character on his own. to have him not appear in the last episode at all is unconscionable to me, and i have never seen him in an episode! this is how much impact the character had that’s filtered down.

i watched the reactions a few weeks ago of mixed euphoria and dismay after castiel’s love confession and subsequent disappearance into “super hell.” that didn’t seem great, message-wise, but it was a step that felt significant, it meant a lot to many people, and it probably would not have happened without fandom and their tireless cheerleading and enthusiasm. it seemed like maybe they were really building to something.

and so even though i knew in my dead withered critic’s heart of hearts that we wouldn’t be getting a destiel kiss, i thought that spn might be brave enough to give their fans a final gift—a thanks for everything. have dean and cas drive off in that damned car whose name i know because i live on tumblr. end with them smiling at each other. something. i know the pandemic came into play, but other actors appeared, and even castiel’s voice could have been literally phoned in.

instead, from the anger and pain and incredulous memes i’m seeing from people across social media, it appears that what the show delivered was an ending so unfitting it was like a parody of an end. they threw the baby out with the bathwater. it’s incredibly disappointing, and it feels cowardly to me. you don’t have to make a ship canon just to appease fandom. but your fans deserve a better story for their characters after fifteen years.

spn was uniquely positioned because it’s old as balls. most of the people still watching have seen it all and would have been up for anything good. the creatives could have done pretty much whatever they wanted. this isn’t a case of disney or international censors breathing down their neck. instead, they appear to have taken the easy way out of a lackluster finale written by folks who probably high-fived themselves for poignancy and half-assed twists and got paid more money than any of us will ever see for it. that’s boring, and it’s passé, and it didn’t have to be this way.

sometimes a property like she-ra can swoop in and save the day by delivering what fans want most. but she-ra was also made by people who came out of and understood fandom culture and just how much representation means to people. how much emotional investment and time and energy we’ve put into characters and their lives. why they matter. and it should stand as an example of what to do next.

if there’s a takeaway for all of this, it’s that we can’t and shouldn’t trust “mainstream” productions to do anything that we want in terms of representation. even if they’re uniquely positioned. even if they tease. even if they say they understand. even if they say they’ll do better next time. they’ll keep throwing pieces of bones, but they will almost always keep disappointing us. and they’re not even creating good art along the way. i know a dozen spn fic writers who could’ve written a vastly better ending to the show and i’m sure there are thousands.

we need to create the stories we want to see. in fic and fanart and transformative works, yes, but also (and i say this to myself as well), write that book. write that script. draw your graphic novel. film a movie in your backyard tomorrow because it sounds like anything we produce right now will be more inspired and more important to each other than the scraps we get from distant studios who are only vaguely aware that we’re alive and buying their merchandise. and i want to buy your books, watch your scripts, frame your art. i want to be able to invest in the stories we want to see told.

i love what we make for each other, and we should keep doing that, more furiously than ever. and if you want to, if you dream of it, you should push to create on a broader scale. you already know that you’re a better creative than a lot of people who are generating the “hits.” i can’t wait to see what you make. and fuck supernatural’s finale.

#thinking thoughts #supernatural

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dayables · 3 years

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4 and Shin? That's a dark one, but you write him well so I'd trust you with it. If you want something lighter instead, 17 for Shin!

Thank you for asking this! As you can see, I got into a very deep ramble about his life pre-death game and it doesn’t really tie in but I’ve kept it there :) The last few parapraghs are the actual answers ahaha. Play some sad music in those paragrapths because I nearly cried with halloween music in the background. 4) What they would do if they had one month to live. If Shin had one month left to live? We see it in the game kind of. Or at least kind of. Obviously imitating your ‘scary friend’ most likely abuser to try and turn everyone against your biggest threat isn’t going to work in real life.

What the game and his 0.0% score does tell us (or heavily shove in our direction so we infer it) is that Shin is petrified of certain death to the point of desperation.

I do believe/headcanon that he is a very logical person. Almost everything he does is backed up by logic in the death game except for his last moments because screw logic that’s never worked before. (The opposite of Keiji who’s likely very emotional until his potential last moments but this isn’t about him). So the question is, when did Shin’s last moments begin for him? As the player, it’s when it’s that final choice between him and Kanna. To Shin this is likely a very different response. His last moments start the very second he gets told he’s doomed to die. Almost all of Shin’s choices in the game are emotional. Trusting Sara or at least earning her trust is the logical choice here. Making yourself her enemy because you are scared is the emotional one. He just lies to himself on the basis that she’s untrustworthy. Which, you can trick yourself into believing is logical. It triggers a kind of flight or fight response in all our characters when they realise they can die here. All the cast barr Shin choose to fight and try and escape. Shin chooses the flight option here. Nothing he does actually prevents his death in the end. He just runs away from the inevitable doom.

I am once again inferring by comparing him to rest of the cast the death is a deep rooted trauma (and I definitely have thoughts on why). While the concept of death is one that scares everyone, no one seems to revel in it the way Shin does. He is living an incredibly safe life. A free lance programmer (by the sounds of it) which earns an average of £60 an hour. He has a side job at a convenience store (that wasn’t a lie). He doesn’t leave his apartment much meaning he doesn’t have much of a social life. Shin is in a position in life where it’ll be near impossible to hurt him. Obviously he isn’t earning 60 quid an hour, but he has the potential too. Once he’s set up and successful, he’ll be able to die old. Alone, maybe not happy, but old. For a guy likely in his early to mid twenties, things are bound to change but only as much as he lets them. From one person who will happily spend all their life in their own company to another, Shin isn’t going to change that. Not when he’s too scared to let someone past arms width and will avoid doing so. By the time he gets his game together and his skinny self to therapy it’ll likely be too late to make the same connections he has the chance too at his current age. It’s not emotional because even the most introverted of introverts desires a life all alone. It’s a logical one for the fears and life he has. I don’t think that means he isn’t happy. It just thinks there’s a potential that he could have been happier.

For Midori to have gotten as close as he was and no one to pull up the red flags his friends either didn’t care or didn’t exist. Most likely the latter seeing as he is very much in the process of mourning three years after his friends death. He likely wasn’t close enough to his parents to feel he could go to them over something as silly as Midori’s death. In the aftermath, Shin will be confused and muddled. In some ways, he’ll be elevated because he is free, he can move on. In other ways he’ll be lost, devastated and empty. Shin will also have a semblance of independence back. He doesn’t think he shows enough gratitude to his parents for materialistic items. Midori’s abuse was likely emotional or verbal. It probably consisted of vague threats, put downs, anger, power dynamics and a shrug at Shin’s emotions. I’m in no way a professional but after years of this Shin is going to think his emotions are something he should be able to handle himself, something he might not be able to do if he started to repress them in his teens. Shin likely has a warped sense of independence. Instead of being free from others control, he’ll likely think it means he can’t get help and must deal with everything alone.

Being told that his death is round the corner strips two things that he values most away from him. He now has zero control over his life and worse, it ends with him dyeing. Shin would grasp for straws to have that independence back and therefore escape his own death. If he couldn’t get his independence back then he’ll try and avoid the end outcome.

His last month would be a goose chase to avoid death. There’d be a list of everything he has to do. Fuck his jobs, fuck debt he needs to get to the hospital. Get checked up! Make sure he’s well. He’d do it everyday. Does he have enough medicine? Wet wipes, stock up on healthy food, hand sanitizer? Does he have enough hand sanitizer? Make sure his room is squeaky clean, don’t let anyone in, don’t answer the phone. Bolt the windows and live off ramen and debt for the rest of the month. Beanie on, beanie off, what is he going to die from? Has he prevented any possible cause? He’s forgotten to call his parents. That’s fine because he shouldn’t be dyeing anyway. It’s logical. It’s all logical. This is not his fear of death speaking through everything he is doing is logical! Now he just needs to figure out what’s causing this all? How did that person know? Then on the last day. He’d just give up. He’d finally pick up that phone and call his parents. He’d thank them and explain. He’d apologize for the debt because he’s swimming in it then he’d hang up. Shin would then proceed to cry in bed all day and trying to sleep so he just doesn’t wake up. Then, while it’s a tragedy, I think he’d accept it. I don’t think he ever really thought he had a chance but his emotions drove him round and round in circles. Maybe he would regret his whole life and look back on it all. In a none death game scenario Shin seems like a brooder. He doesn’t have Kanna to live for so he has no reason to push forward. I think in the end he’d reach the conclusion his life was pretty pointless. Just as he’d slip from consciousness I imagine he’d think of Midori. Nearly everything we know about Shin seems to revolves about Midori . We, the player, never know him before the guy entered his life. That guy has a big impacts in his life and in a world where that was the only person to leave such a big mark? I think he’d go back to Midori. Especially with nothing to distract him from his mourning.

It’s quite sad really. He lets his fear control him too much. Midori controls him too much and they’re both aware of that fact. But in the short, Shin would try and avoid his death. Hell he’ll likely die of exhaustion or caffeine overdose

His ending in the main game, I think that’s the best way Shin could have gone at that age. Dying for Kanna and letting go of his cynicism.

Ending this off with 17 because I need that jokeness now, after all that.

17) What would they sing at Karaoke?

Everyone expects Shin to like bang out with some Beyonce or something. Maybe one of those silly little disney parodies. Everyone would make a joke about what he should sing because he’s indecisive as hell.

Keiji Kai and all of those mature adults suggest Single Ladies, Mr. Brightside, Fireworks, Wannabe because classic Karoke songs you actually have to be able to sing when Shin 100% can’t? Count them in!

Midori would suggest something embarrassing he knew wouldn’t even be funny to watch. Just painful.

Gin, Sara, Reko and Alice are snickering behind their hands as they suggest Poor Unfourtunate Souls, How Bad Can I Be (Alice ended up doing that one), The oogie boogie song and the price Ali reprise.

When he refuses Sara refuses to let him get away with not being painted as some corny villian and dedicates her singing of Cruella De Vil to him.

Then Kanna taps on his shoulder and tells him what to sing and A: It’s Kanna’s suggestion B: It’s not and a bonus C if he’s drunk: He gets to whack a certain police officer and teacher with a hockey stick.

And my inner theatre Kid shines through as he I say Shin sings Revolting Children and can’t get his letters write, drunk or sober.

‘R e v o t l i n !’ instead of ‘ R E V O L T I N G’

‘S P L L!’ instead of ‘ S P E L’

‘TOO LATE FOR YOU?’ Instead of ‘ 2-L-8-4-U ‘

I kid you not I have knows this song for years and I still struggle. You can not do that spelling rhythm first time.

Also the lines. The lines! We will become a screaming hoard.//Take out your hockey sticks and use it as a sword.// Never again will we be ignored.//We'll find out where the chalk is stored// And draw rude pictures on the board.

It’s such a childish song but it’s so hard. He struggles and struggles and one day he will get it because it’s so simple and why can’t he do it roght! Also, it suits him. Sue me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6PXm34OBP8

#well this is sad #Press F for Shin #I swear i started rambling #IDK man he gives me hermit vibes #Also like karoke #thanks for the ask!#I told myself this'd be a quick write up because the answer is so simple #This is why Im failing English.#I go in rambles like this #Stan Kanna and what she does for Shin #yttd #meta #shin tsukimi #Sou Hiyori

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odos-bucket · 4 years

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I was going to wait until this was finished and post it all at once, but it was starting to get kind of long so I figured I’d cut it up a bit.

(Also fair warning that I don’t know shit about music)

Jaskier hears it for the first time when he’s traveling alone. And, yes, it probably does say something about his character that he hadn’t been paying the music at the tavern any attention until a series of chords came together to make direct reference to his own work. Though reference may have been the wrong word; the difference in key, combined with the cadence of the performer’s voice were more suggestive of a parody.

Which, fine. He has a sense of humor. And there’s still something kind of flattering about it. Once he hears it he can’t not listen. He won’t deny his curiosity. And tuning a sound out is a great deal harder than tuning it in.

What he hears upon giving his attention to the other minstrel makes his blood run cold.

Tales of The White Wolf are told all across the continent now. And he takes no small degree of credit for that. He’s yet to hear any such story that didn’t have its origins with him, or rather he hadn’t until now. Because the story he’s hearing is unlike any he’s ever told, would ever tell.

It’s a story about the Witcher's defeats and losses, his captures and humiliations. Jaskier grinds his teeth as he listens, references to encounters he was present for confirming to him that this isn’t just some slapped together joke.

How dare they.

The voice that had been so unobtrusive for the better part of the past hour quickly becomes grating. The tone it sings in is light and playful. The tune it accompanies is disrespectfully jaunty.

How fucking dare they.

There’s laughter around the room. And it may be related to the music, and it just as easily may not be. But the fact that he has to hear it while the imagery of his lover caged and muzzled is being forced into his mind is too much.

He doesn’t pay attention to what he might knock over, or who he might knock into on his way out of the tavern. He’s shaking when he gets outside, because this can’t be happening. The thought flashes through his mind that he needs to get to Geralt, as if that could somehow do anything to rectify the fact that this is happening.

He rubs hard at his eyes, and takes a shaky breath as he leans against the building’s outer wall. He tries to take a moment to calm himself, he really does. Then, failing that, he goes to wait for the other musician down a nearby side street.

He’s young, and skinny, and not particularly difficult to shove up against the wall when he finally emerges from the pub a half an hour later.

“What the hell was that?!” Jaskier demands, just loud enough to drown out the beginnings of a startled yelp.

The younger bard struggles for only a few seconds, before the entirety of his energy seems to pour into staring intently at Jaskier. The way his eyes go from being narrowed in concentration to suddenly blown wide with something resembling horror makes them look like a pair of rapidly inflating balloons.

“What are you-" by the time his eyelids have pushed back as far as they can go the question dies on his lips. “Oh gods.”

Something about the fear that seeps into his voice and over his face once he realizes who it is who’s pinning him to the wall brings Jaskier a mean spirited sense of satisfaction that he doesn’t feel comfortable examining too closely.

“Look, I just sing what I pick up from whoever’s passing through! It’s all any of us do around here!"

Jaskier backs up enough to examine the other bard, and he is young, sixteen or seventeen maybe. Nothing about him looks particularly road-worn, the way it would if he had gone out to do any of the necessary research for his stories.

Not the writer then.

Still.

“Do you remember who you picked that particular song up from?”

“A traveling bard,” the boy stammered.

“Yes very helpful, thank you.”

“I’m sorry! I wasn’t taking credit for it or anything, no one from the village thinks I write my own songs! I can stop singing it!”

“You will stop singing it. And pass it along to anyone else you know who might have picked it up that it would be in their best interest to stop too.” Jaskier sighs, suddenly exhausted. “…What do you mean you weren’t 'taking credit for it’?”

“I don’t take other people’s music and try to pass it off as my own… But I know some poets don’t want others performing their work either way.”

“Why is this something I should care remotely about?”

The boy’s eyes deflate back into thoughtful slits. He takes a step to the side, circling around the arms reach of space Jaskier has already allowed to grow between them.

“It’s- You don’t want me performing your songs, right?”

“What-" A slow working part of his mind answers the question before his mouth can finish asking it.

Enraged, he consciously wills himself to take another step back, as if that will somehow make the growl rising out of him less terrifying to the virtual child he’s just violently accosted. He runs his his hands through his hair until it stands up on ends. He desperately reaches for something to say that’s not just a string of profanity, and wonders vaguely if this is how Geralt feels all the time.

The youth is on the opposite side of the narrow street from him now, and seems to be weighing the benefits of just taking off at a run. Jaskier would rather he didn’t. But he’s not going to chase after him if he does.

He takes in a deep breath.

“I have neither the energy, the patience, the time, nor truthfully the inclination to so much as begin to approach the depths of how badly you have misunderstood this situation.”

“W-what?” The boy asks.

“I don’t give two shits if you sing my songs!”

“…”

“O-oh,” he finally catches on. “You’re not- So then why-“ he makes some vague gestures.

Jaskier feels his patience fraying.

“I want to know who wrote it,” he snaps. "You clearly have no idea. But if there’s anything you can remember about the performer you picked it up from…”

He can see the effects of his own expectant glare reflecting back from the boy’s eyes.

“He was a man,” he offers meekly. “Older than you, I think, a little bit. He wasn’t anyone of note, local probably. Most of the bards who pass through aren’t from more than a day’s ride away from here.”

“There are quite a lot of settlements within a day’s ride from here.”

“I’m sorry!” By now his voice has risen to a squeak, and there doesn’t seem to be any point in continuing to terrorize him.

Jaskier shoos him away, and leans back to rub at his temples as the sound of hurried footsteps fades farther and farther away.

He doesn’t get a chance to stop thinking about the song before he hears it again. And again. And even in variations, with some details added, or switched out for others. It gets longer. Like it’s being steadily added to from somewhere. Stretching out what already feels like an infinite loop.

Truthfully it isn’t that wide spread. Jaskier may feel like its joke of a melody is surrounding him like an inescapable fortress, but if he were keeping actual track he’d know he hasn’t been coming upon people playing it more than a couple times a week. At the height of its popularity “Toss a Coin” could have easily played two or three times at the same pub on the same night.

The perspective doesn’t make it any better. Not when every time the damn song plays he remembers a cave of vampires, who almost killed him, who did kill more than half of the townspeople with whom he had shared a horrifying week of captivity. By the time he was freed he was soaked and splattered in the blood of at least a dozen other people. What right does somebody think they have to make a joke out of something that still keeps him and scores of others jolting awake in the middle of the night with half formed screams trying to escape their throats?

The things he doesn’t remember he can imagine. He doesn’t want to, probably shouldn’t, but he can, and he does, and then he can’t stop. The lyrics shine new light on certain scars; they’re scars Jaskier hadn’t yet heard the full stories of, and it’s a light he would go blind to turn off. If it’s all as accurate as the parts he can vouch for the authenticity of then he’s learned things he has no right to know, or that he only should have learned from Geralt. The fact that he knows that the raised patch of smooth skin on his back is from a fucking cattle brand feels like a betrayal, he feels like a monster for knowing that without the witcher wanting him to. And the thought of things that even he shouldn’t know being carelessly wafted past the ears of strangers draws a rage out of him that he barely knows what to do with.

He stops to sing everywhere he passes through, whether it makes financial sense or not. He plays, and writes, and tells his stories, and tries with everything he’s worth to drown out the malicious slander. He asks questions wherever he can too. He can threaten and terrify every wayward minstrel he comes across who’s foolish enough to play it, but he won’t even come close to killing the song unless he can cut it off at its source.

#the witcher #geraskier #witcher #geralt of rivia #jaskier #ignore me #my writing

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courage-a-word-of-justice · 3 years

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Sk8 2 - 8 | Kemono Jihen 2 - 3 | Wave!! 2 - 5 | Back Arrow 3 - 6

Sk8 2

What’s with the filter over the recap?

These dance moves are cool (a derpy kind of cool)…but I’m seeing them all with the volume off (due to background noise), so I’ll have to find out what the audio is like later. Update: Rude-Alpha! Someone I actually do know!

I was worried about Truck-kun causing another Isekai Incident ™ there…phew…*wipes sweat off brow*

Is Langa…left-handed, perhaps? Or are left-handers not necessarily better with their left foot?

Langa’s mother’s so funny! It’s rare to see a mother who isn’t dead or just not talked about in anime.

Why is it that parody Sailor Moon transformations always happen with the buffest dudes possible…? That’s why it’s rare to get something like Boueibu, where it takes itself (semi-)seriously.

Lately, the urban aesthetic is cool. HypMic, Akudama, IWGP and now this…

Langa is 17. *takes notes on eligible bachelors, LOL*

“A huge family only embarrasses you.” – *nods*

I see! Although I don’t know anything about skateboarding, I can relate to him when he’s fixing a board up for Langa because I can see it’s Reki using his passion for a friend.

Oh, that’s why they call it Sk8 the Infinity…!

I keep calling it “wiping out” in my head when I watch…I’m no surfer, but I guess I’m more used to surfing lingo.

Hitori piledriver = piledriver by oneself ( I guess…?).

Sk8 3

I’ve never heard of this Takuma Nagatsuka (voice of Miya Chinen). He sounds like Kohei Amasaki…

Hmm…normally skateboarders wear protective gear, right? Couldn’t Langa have gotten some of that (now that I think of it)?

I guess this is also Reki’s pride as a board mechanic on the line here…never saw it that way until I thought about it like that.

I think I remember reading a comment once about Bakugo and Midoriya from BnHA – about how Bakugo seemed sluggish in his progress because he’d been training his Quirk from day 1, while Midoriya was trying to catch up. I think Chinen is in a similar situation.

I think what Chinen has is stability, above all others.

There’s a piece of paper in the back that has “supoort” (sic) written on it.

Chinen’s not…“smiling with his eyes”, you call it. In retail, you learn how to smile with the eyes even when it’s fake.

Kemono Jihen 2

Inari? Like the fox shrine?

So Shiki is a spider-guy and…what is Akira? I’ve heard whispers he’s a yukiotoko, but I don’t know at this point in time.

Kabane’s kinda short, LOL, even in comparison to Akira.

Shiki is definitely Bakugo, Spider Version…LOL.

Oh, BnHA came out in 2014 and Kemono Jihen in 2016 (manga).

Oh, that drip apparatus. I’ve only ever seen it in real life, I think – my dad uses one for his coffee.

Kemono Jihen 3

…hmm, I don’t think I’ve seen much set in Shinjuku. I think there’s Mayonaka Occult Koumuin, part of HypMic…and that might be it.

I laughed at “small meeting room”.

Apparently “biddy bait”, according to Urban Dictionary, is meant to mean “a lure for hot women”. I don’t particularly like Urban Dictionary, because the editors who make these definitions are clearly biased in some way or another while writing their definitions, unlike an actual dictionary.

Aw, come on! Why is it fire from the tail?! Fire from the mouth like a dragon is cooler!

Kabane’s getting ahead of himself! (LOL)

Just noticed Kon’s hoodie has a design that says FOX, but the X is inside the O.

…thank goodness for Shiki’s hand…

Akira’s been a bit of dead weight recently, so I hope he gets developed soon.

Back Arrow 3

I wonder if Shu Bi is asexual and/or aromantic…?

“…inherited the spirit of the former sheriff…” – That’s Atlee’s job…oh wait. It’s about the undies again…

This is fishy…this whole “paradise is beyond the canyon” thing.

Ooh, I get the feeling Shu Bi and Arrow will either come to blows with each other or fight on the same side…

Sk8 4

I wonder if episode 8 will look weird in the titles…? I mean, it will be “Sk8 8”…

I would think Reki’s straightforward emotions would be spiky shapes.

I knew women were something objectified by S, but…Langa, the deuteragonist? That’s new.

It just hit me: This would be so good with a dub…!

*Langa casually eats 10 burgers* - LOL.

“This has gotta be way too late!”

So now an anime character has stolen a motorcycle…LOL.

Back Arrow 4

The title of this episode seems to be “Is Today Yesterday’s Tomorrow?”, the service’s title that I’ve got in front of me is “Does Genius Come When Least Expected?”

This map reminds me of +Anima’s continent.

I seem to remember Boueibu was constructed as half an episode of idle talking, half fighting. Why do I bring this up? Because Back Arrow seems to be constructed similarly, episode-wise.

The reason I like the hot-blooded mech series and not the serious ones…is stupid things (<- I mean that affectionately) like Shu Bi pulling out a phone in a world like this.

What’s with the shot of Elsha’s butt…? I know it seems somewhat justified, considering the position her Briheight’s in…but the leery angle is a bit annoying.

…I keep thinking Bit will get a Briheight one day and he’ll be like Zenitsu – powerful only when he doesn’t know it.

Shin Fusui, right? “Ren Sin” kinda makes sense, given we didn’t know any better, but so does “Ren Shin”…Sin as a first name though…? Anyways, it’s Shin Fusui, Kei Suiitsu, Nen Kasei and Ko Chisen. Their names match their elements.

I never realised how skimpy Kei’s outfit was until she was without her Briheight on the ground…eesh, women and their skimpy outfits in this universe…

Wave!! 2

I’m going to differentiate this anime from the other Wave (Wave, Listen to Me) with 2 exclamation marks…also, I’m not able to mark this episode down until 4 episodes have gone, or until AniList makes a TV entry for this. Update: AniList did eventually make an entry for the TV version (i.e. the version I'm working off) of this anime.

Nalu was playing an invisible ukulele even in the bath, LOL.

I noticed Masaki keeps his corgi between his legs so that the dog doesn’t run away. That’s probably only a thing dog owners do, because I don’t think anyone inexperienced with pets would know if they could do such a thing.

Why do I get the feeling the symbol on one of Masaki’s shoulders is (meant to be) Rip Curl…?

I read some of the 4koma for this series (found on the website) and…Sho’s so cute, envying this ‘warm family”. Nalu still has his ukulele, even at the dining table, LOL.

LOL, random rainbow. Every time I read subs about Masaki extolling surfing, I’m reminded of what I call “translator’s high”. It’s the feeling of working under deadlines and being inspired to churn out a high-quality release.

…well, this is a surfing anime. I should have known this would talk about places that get lots of hot weather and big waves (like Australia) because Joel Parkinson is from Tweed Heads, Sydney.

Who’s Jojo Pardinen?

Why does Masaki call Tanaka “Murphy”?

Wave!! 3

Oh, so that man is Masaki’s dad…Right.

The real spirit of characters is shown after they’re defeated…that’s my thoughts, anyway.

I know what a repechage is…in fact, I learnt about that through the FP and M manga.

Oh! It’s “Nalu”, but written “Naru”.

Wave!! 4

Is there a 3rd place in these competitions?

Wait, so the guy in the pink shirt is Masaki’s dad, but then the Hawaiian shirt dude owns the shop. Am I right on this now…?

There is a magical girl called Sally, IIRC, and the description does match.

LOL, I like how the teacher is so indecisive.

Back Arrow 5

Shu Bi’s so pretty…I had my eyes on him from the beginning and now that’s paying me back tenfold.

I wonder if Shu will ever get a Briheight…? (I wanna see it!)

Back Arrow 6

Pretty boy farms!!! It sounds like abuse in a sense, but it also sounds like a dream (?!)

Bit reminds me of Sousuke (Classicaloid).

Oh, so the funky gold hat-thing with the purple ribbon is what the head diviner wears.

LOL wut…his name is “Bruh”? *tries to hide stupid smirk on face*

Wait, if it’s a pretty boy farm, how do you produce new pretty boys without women…? *scratches head*

Question: What is Gote’s conviction?

Wave!! 5

Kadomatsu (the bamboo), huh? Must be New Year’s. Likewise, the bush warbler (uguisu) means it’s spring.

Sk8 5

Milk, straight from the carton…*sigh* Boys… Update: (This is referring to how guys are typically shown chugging straight from the carton. As you can tell from the comment, I don't particularly like it.)

I like how suddenly, all the barriers come down for these guys, even though Kaoru said at one point they shouldn’t be coming down.

Battle of Ganryujima.

Sk8 6

…this woman Reki has the hots for is going to be a dude…that’s normally how this joke works.

Oh well, that was also a funny moment.

“Dangerous stuff is forbidden.”

Hiromi in a swimsuit is…vaguely disturbing.

Kamata? Y’mean, she has the word for “scythe” in her name and she’s a “mantis woman”? Makes sense.

Even on their day off, the Sk8 crew are fun to be with.

Sk8 7

Whoa! Straight to the OP!

…I’m suddenly scared. What if Langa’s mother gets put in danger…? (Like in Kanon.)

Sk8 8

I want Langa to punch Adam. In the face. Now!

…is Snake…Ainosuke’s butler? I can sort of guess from the hair…and the matching theme [of Adam, Eve and the snake in paradise]…

It is the butler!

#simulcast commentary #sk8 the infinity #Back Arrow #Wave!! Surfing Yappe!#Kemono Jihen #Chesarka watches Back Arrow #Chesarka watches Wave!! Surfing Yappe!#Chesarka watches Kemono Jihen #Chesarka watches Sk8

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abitchforaesthetic · 5 years

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Time for an almost timely review of The Rising of the Shield Hero, aka, Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari.

I was hesitant to watch this show. Back during the start of the winter season, I figured, “Oh boy, another isekai with loli and waifu bait!” and held off. After a few weeks, a friend of mine convinced me to give it a shot, so, here we are.

Fair warning, I will spoil the first episode of the show throughout. Other story spoilers will be held to a minimum and will have a warning before them. If you’re not interested in spoilers at all, check the bottom for the verdict.

Story

This story follows Iwatani Naofumi who was summoned to a fantasy world as one of four “Cardinal Heroes” destined to stop these apocalyptic “Waves” that come in, you guessed it, waves. Each one of these cardinal heroes is equipped with a weapon they can never let go of that has video game-like powers to it. The catch for our fabled hero is that his weapon is a shield. Even more unfortunately for him, the country he was summoned to hates shields. Well, more accurately, they hate the shield hero. Why? We never actually find out, but they hate him.

Throughout the majority of this show, Naofumi is constantly being fucked by one group or another that’s out to get him. As an audience, we get to view Naofumi’s struggle first hand and, ideally, relate to him. Well, how does Shield Hero do in that endeavor?

Not well, I’m afraid. There are three major areas where the story falls flat on its face; Pacing, Foreshadowing, and Integrity.

Pacing: Shield Hero does not know the meaning of consistency with its story telling. I’ll be honest, the first episode (a double length episode) was pretty gripping. It seemed like Shield Hero was going to be challenging traditional isekai story telling. Unfortunately, the very next episode, it started losing any semblance of coherence. Sometimes it takes episodes to get from one place to another, sometimes it takes seconds. Sometimes a curse put on someone’s body takes an entire arc to be cured, sometimes it takes 10 minutes. I get it, stories need to vary the amount of time events take in order to focus on what’s important. Let’s not even get started on that fight with the religious group near the end and the parody of pacing that arc makes. My issue is when Shield Hero breaks its own rules for convenience. Speaking of convenience...

Foreshadowing: Oh boy, this one’s a doozy. Without getting into spoilers, Shield Hero either foreshadows all the way to the last episode without being overbearing (good!) or tries to cram an entire arc’s worth of foreshadowing and emotional buildup into less than 15 minutes (I’m looking at you, episode 15). Unfortunately, Shield Hero often opts for the latter. Time and time again, something in a character’s backstory or the like will be introduced and, within five minutes, that very same thing will be resolved or addressed in the present. There’s nothing inherently wrong with bringing up a character’s past as foreshadowing, but it loses all emotional weight when it’s done and immediately resolved. The most egregious example of this takes place in episode 15 where they butchered the entire character of Raphtalia in 20 minutes. More on that later.

Integrity: There’s an expectation in story telling that the story will follow its own rules. The way in which Shield Hero totally ignores this is through the perspective from which the story is told. In episode one, we’re very closely following Naofumi as he is slandered and falsely accused of a myriad of crimes. When this was done, it was a major shock, as we, like Naofumi, only saw the world through his eyes. When his partner betrays him in episode one, we didn’t see it coming. That was used to great effect in episode one and then never again. From that moment on, every time a major surprise was going to happen, the story shifted to this new character’s perspective and then back to Naofumi, who then saw the surprise. It would be fine if, as in A Song of Ice and Fire, we always followed multiple perspectives and got different information that way. But, in Shield Hero, perspective switches are inconsistent and lazy. They only serve to pad time and take any feeling of tension out of the story.

All in all, the story had numerous inexcusable issues. That’s not even considering that the story has a metric fuckton of plot holes and isn’t finished. In order for the overwhelming amount of story lines to be resolved, we need at least one more season.

Score: 3/10

Animation/Art

When Shield Hero wants to look pretty, it does. Once again, though, it doesn’t always want to. There were many times, especially in the final stretch of episodes, where characters were animated worse than the controversial “Dragon Ball Super” animation from a few years ago. Want to just have a few blobs running that vaguely resemble the main cast? Well, enjoy! There’s a lot of that! That all being said, the show isn’t ugly when attention is paid to the world and characters.

As for the aesthetic of the show, I’m honestly a bit torn. I think it started pretty strong. There was a definite mood to the show that seemed very intentional. In addition, the foggy mental state that Naofumi found himself in was a fantastic touch. The problem was, as the show dragged beyond the admittedly pretty great first arc, everything felt more generic. It honestly seems like Kinema Citrus poured 90% of the budget into the first arc and then were told they actually had 20 episodes left. The aesthetic in particular was one of the biggest casualties after that first arc. It didn’t have a mood anymore and it didn’t have a “feeling”. It just felt like another isekai.

Score: 4/10

Sound/Music

There’s not too much to complain about here, but there also isn’t much to write home about. The music, overall, was fine and, generally speaking, fit the scenes in which it was featured. Personally, I wasn’t too big on the openings and endings for this show, but that’s just my taste. I’m sure many people are. All in all, the music was just average.

As for voice acting, I have a bit more to say. Keep in mind here, I watched it subbed, not dubbed. I have no idea how the dub sounds. That established, the voice acting in the sub wasn’t bad, per se, but it was held back by poor scripts. I’d say the standout voice actors would be Ishikawa Kaito as Naofumi and Sarah Emi Bridcutt (yes, that’s the Japanese voice actor) as bitch Myne. Really excellent performances from these two.

Score: 5.5/10

World

Shield Hero takes place in a fantasy world. While, I think the video game mechanics are blatant pandering toward SAO’s legacy, the lore behind the world had surprising depth and was easily one of the better parts of the show.

Score: 8/10

Characters

Now for the controversy. The characters are simultaneously the weakest and strongest aspects of this show. With the story as inconsistent as it is, the characters have to pull through. Luckily, some of them do. I think the antagonistic figure of bitch Myne was fantastic and she was an awesome character to watch on screen. I also think Naofumi was a great character during the first arc. Naofumi shines when he teeters in a gray area between hero and antihero. I only wish that there was more of a question as to which way he’d fall as the show went on. By the end, he was literally lecturing the other squabbling heroes and acting like an annoyed kindergarten teacher. Speaking of,

The other three heroes. Spear hero had the most screen time of the other three, but he didn’t really do much with it. He was annoyingly played for comedy and could not keep a consistent persona throughout the scene. The sword and bow hero were similarly uninteresting.

Now for the lolis.

Filo. Filo is the best of the three-girl harem Naofumi built up throughout the show. She can be annoying and is often a caricature of “loli girl”, but she was given more depth as the show went on.

Melty. Melty was an entirely unnecessary character. She was the third loli to be added to Naofumi’s harem and was a poor excuse for a tsundere archetype. Absolutely useless character that somehow became even more of a cardboard cutout as the show went on.

Raphtalia. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Look how they massacred my boy raccoon girl. Minor spoilers for why Raphtalia is the worst character in this show ahead. During the first arc, Naofumi finds her as a young “demi-human” who he bought from a slaver. She was mentally broken from the death of her parents and the destruction of her village. The two of them build a genuine connection and help each other come to grips with this world that fucks them over. That was fucking fantastic. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last. During the first arc, Raphtalia quickly “grows up” because demi-humans grow up when they get XP and she’s also with a hero? I don’t even know what poor excuse for a reason that is, but I know why. They were trying to set Raphtalia up as a romantic interest, and they couldn’t do that with a 9 year old. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Now obviously, she’s still a fucking child, she just “grew up fast” so it’s still creepy as hell. But forget that, that’s not why she’s the worst character. Episode 15 is why she’s the worst character. To keep spoilers light, I’ll be vague here. In episode 15, we get a glimpse into Raphtalia’s backstory between the death of her parents and Naofumi finding her. In this backstory, she acts NOTHING like the person we found and it took away all reason for her to be mentally fucked. She witnesses her parents die and her village gets destroyed, and she remains the most positive person around. Then, her village gets redestroyed and she’s enslaved. She STILL is super positive and stays that way for what seems like months. It’s only once she’s transferred away from her prison cell (where she was being tortured and presumably sexually assaulted), that she suddenly gets PTSD. But oh no, it’s not about the last few months of cyclical torture, assault, and imprisonment. It’s from her parents! Now, of course when we met her, it actually was just her parents because we hadn’t gotten to the whole “prison” part yet. This is what I meant by foreshadowing above. Not only did the writers not properly foreshadow the events of episode 15, but the episode fundamentally changed Raphtalia’s character into one with different motivations and a backstory that no longer makes sense for the character we had come to know throughout the entire series. The way the writers butchered this decent character was an absolute fucking disgrace.

Score: 3/10

Overall

Shield Hero has major issues. Most of its issues are, arguably, completely inexcusable and ruin the experience. That being said, there are some redeemable qualities to this show. The world is rich with life and some of the characters can be an absolute pleasure to watch. Plus, assuming a second season is released, so much more depth will be added to the whole idea of “waves” and why all of these characters are in the position that they are. If you’re looking for the next Steins;Gate, look elsewhere. If you’re a fan of the isekai genre and think all the points I brought up won’t bother you, you’ve probably already seen this show. If you haven’t, you would probably really enjoy it. One thing is for certain, this is better than SAO.

Verdict: 4.5/10. Pass unless you love the genre

#the rising of the shield hero #shield hero #tate no yuusha no nariagari #anime review #anime #naofumi iwatani #raphtalia #review

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frederator-studios · 6 years

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Meet Joel Veitch and David P. Shute, Creators of “Kid Arthur”

From the dawning of 2000 AD - when Adobe Systems first pulled Flash from the Software Stone - British animators Joel Veitch and David Shute have crafted absurd and iconic web comedy for their site, Rather Good. They are bricklayers of our Modern Age of Memes; but beyond builders, they are Wizards of the Web, gracing our desktops with such magic as the Spongmonkeys and Punk Kittens Play ‘Fell in Love With a Girl’ by the White Stripes, memes that thrived even in the dark ether of the pre-YouTube web. Frederator is honored to have aided in their maturity into long-form content, heralded by the release of their GO! Cartoon, “Kid Arthur,” which comes in at a whopping 5 minutes and 40 seconds long. Joel, David and I sat about a round table to discuss out-of-control saxophonists, dial-up modems, and wizard cats of great Magick.

So how did you each find your way into animation?

JV: We were both already in animation when we met, weren’t we David? DS: I was fairly newly graduated at the time. I studied animation at Uni - Southampton University - and was doing adverts for a while before I met Joel. JV: I started off more on the web comedy side, and drifted into animation when I began learning Flash in the early 2000s. I soon realized that my heart lay with that more than anything else. I made a couple of things that did alright and it became possible to do it for a living… so yeah, I kind of fell into animation by accident, but loved it once I’d discovered it.

How did you guys meet?

JV: I had an office, which I was sharing with some people, who were making a video which was never released. It was... all copies were ordered destroyed.(they start laughin’) They were doing it for a client! Which turned out to be just so... completely insane. DS: It was a stop motion cartoon, and the idea was to parody something, but it was…. they gave… no I won’t say it, I won’t - (Joel is cracking up) They gave us the brief to be as offensive as possible with it. So me and another animator, we just went to town, made it. It was monstrous. It never got released, and that’s a very good thing. JV: I saw it through production and it blew my mind. Of course it never saw the light of day. But I was so completely overwhelmed by what I had witnessed being made that I asked David to come team up with me, and we’ve been a brothership ever since.

What did you guys first work on together?

JV: I still do a bit, but at the time I was doing a lot of comedy music. So we made a load of animated videos for the songs. For our own projects, that was kind of the bread and butter of what we collaborated on.

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What did the comedy music entail?

JV: Well the not-full-band stuff we did as Rather Good; often just guitar and singing. But I'm also the singer of a 7 piece ska band called 7 Seconds Of Love, and we did live gigs, which was a lot of fun. We still gig, if the events are big enough—but it’s tougher now that some bandmates have moved from London.

Any legendary comedy music gig stories?

JV: If I had to choose one… it’d be the time Chaynsaw climbed the lighting rig.

We all have band names: I’m Stallion Explosion, The Bearslayer is bassist, Chaynsaw is the saxophonist, and so on. One night we were playing at quite a big venue in London; large stage, gallery seating, and there was a huge lighting rig that went all the way to the ceiling. During the song “Ninja”, Chaynsaw flipped out. He took a running jump and flew over the barriers and into the crowd, disappearing in a pile of flailing bodies. He ran through the crowd to the back and began climbing up the scaffolding of the lighting rig like some kind of crazed sax-wielding gibbon. Up and up all the way to the gods, as the crowd went crazy and we wondered whether we were about to witness his death. When he reached the gods, he climbed over onto the balcony and sprinted out of sight. The crowd was going wild. They thought the stunt was part of the show but we had no idea what he was playing at. The song approached Chaynsaw's solo, with no sign of him. I assumed he had run off into the night, probably bellowing "CHAYNSAAAAAW!" and wielding his saxophone. However, just at the exact moment his solo began, he came barrelling out from backstage at full speed, skidded to a halt at the front of the stage and blasted out a storming solo. The crowd went crazy: they thought it was the best bit of showmanship they’d ever seen. But it was a fluke. He'd just run headlong through random passages and stairwells backstage until he’d burst out on to the stage at the exact right moment. It was a triumph. Nobody need ever know that it was a suicidally dangerous lunatic episode. My lips are sealed.

Yes, clearly. So Rather Good’s animations pre-date YouTube?

JV: Oh, pre-YouTube, yeah. You couldn’t really do video in those days because you didn’t have the bandwidth to do it, which was why Flash was so popular. You had to keep projects down to a couple of megabytes, very small files. Everyone was on dial-up modems.

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(Rather Good’s highly educational vid about the history of the world wide web)

Wild. Was your goal to just have fun, or did you have an online audience in mind while making things?

JV: Historically they’ve been a way to entertain ourselves, at least primarily. On the basis that if you’re making something fun, that you enjoy making, then it’s more likely to be interesting and enjoyable out in the world. If you over-analyze it, you end up with something that doesn’t work very well; that’s how bad comedy gets written.

So what was it like, helping to build meme culture from the ground up… rewarding?

JV: Ha, yeah... it’s a fascinating and evolving world, isn’t it? And it’s changing so much and so fast it’s just… it’s almost difficult to put into words, the sheer magnitude of it. DS: You couldn’t really imagine this ecosystem now, 20 years ago. It would sound insane. JV: I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that the big hit was a mini track with a bunch of animated gifs of hamsters. DS: A 4 second loop of a CGI baby dancing... JV: God, and do you remember the crazy frog? DS: Oh God… yeah. JV: (laughing) It’s come a long way, and that’s a good thing. And it’s not just a technological thing is it, there’s really important stuff about the way that it’s opened up… I used to say “democratization of creativity,” which is a slightly overblown way of just saying it’s much easier for people to get stuff out in the world than it used to be. There was a system of gatekeepers in place that was very difficult to get past, until a little before YouTube. That system is bypassed now, it doesn’t really have the power anymore to dictate what makes it onto TV and hence into the popular consciousness. That’s now distributed out into the world. Which is good, although there’s a new dictator now, isn’t there? The algorithms. But that’s a different sort of thing.

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(“We Like the Moon,” an ancient and powerful Rather Good meme. So revered that Quiznos used it to sell subs, in a commercial that you may, like me, vaguely remember as a fever dream from your adolescence)

Our strange new reality. Have you guys done much in the traditional kids space in the UK, with CBBC or CITV or others?

JV: We haven’t done much of anything in kids—most of what we’ve done for telly has been in the adult realm. One of our motivations for “Kid Arthur” and some other projects is getting to focus on character and narrative. Because for a long, long time, we’ve done short form - proper short form, often a minute or less long - and that’s fun, but you don’t get the opportunity to really develop character and story in those. It’s just gags. DS: That’s what’s been so fun about “Kid Arthur”: being able to actually build characters with a relationship between them, and have the space to explore that and the outer world.

So how did you guys come up with “Kid Arthur”?

JV: We’ve both always loved the Arthurian legends, fantasy worlds, Tolkien’s writing. It’s been a big part of our... cultural space, if you know what I mean? It feels like it’s been more ‘everywhere’ than ever in the last couple of years, since The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and Game of Thrones and everything - everybody’s all about swords and dragons these days, which is fun. We’d talk about King Arthur and he’d pop up in conversation a lot, and we thought it’d be hilarious to put him and Mordred as kids in a modern day school.

So is the rest of Arthur and Mordred’s world totally normal, and no one notices that these kids are summoning dragons and crazy shiz?

DS: Absolutely, they’re clueless. JV: It’s too out there for people to process. DS: I think they’re aware on some dim level, but their minds are totally unable to process or comprehend it.

(Poor, sweet, unknowing ‘Miss’)

When did you guys decide to pitch to Frederator, and what stage of development was “Kid Arthur” in?

DS: It was still pretty early on when we pitched it. JV: I met Carrie Miller in London a while ago now, at an animation event. And we talked about how we ought to pitch something to you guys. So we’d been thinking about what we could do with Frederator specifically, and “Kid Arthur” felt like the right fit.

Who do you each relate to the most between Mordred or Arthur?

DS: That’s pretty obvious isn’t it? I’m definitely Arthur. (note: David voices Arthur. Meanwhile, Joel is cracking up) JV: But this is the thing though isn’t it, part of the joy of the character, is that Arthur, he’s a kind of all-conquering heroic warrior, but he’s got Dave’s personality here, you know? He’s kinda like “Sighhhh… oh God. He’s trying to destroy me again, isn’t he”. DS: Yeaaah. JV: And I very much relate to Mordred. (Joel voices Mordred)

Oh gosh, really? How so?

JV: Well, he’s an extension of my own character to a certain extent. I’m not painting a very nice picture of myself there, am I? I mean, he’s not totally evil - he’d be gutted if he ever did destroy Arthur. That’s key to it, isn’t it? DS: Oh yeah. He’d be bereft. JV: Utterly bereft.

Have you guys been developing your ideas for a full series?

DS: We’ve talked about it quite a lot. JV: There’s a whole expanded world that we couldn’t really fit into a 5 minute short, and more characters: Guinevere - DS: Merlin - JV: Merlin as a cat! He’s the most powerful wizard in the universe. But he’s also a cat, so he tends to use his awesome power to do stuff like magic up fish heads. DS: He’s not a super intelligent cat, mind you, just a standard cat. With great magic. JV: And there’s all the knights of the round table, the witches, the Lady of the Lake. There’s this pre-existing structure from legend of all of these quests, and it’s all just ripe to be transplanted into a little town, where it exists slightly below the surface, manifesting in, you know, neighborhood parks and ponds. DS: We really love this idea that Arthur and Mordred’s battle is this ageless, epic struggle between good and evil. It’s been going on in some form or another for thousands of years, and will continue until the apocalypse. So the notion that there’s all these artifacts and characters from this enormous mythology in this modern town, largely unnoticed by everyone else—that’s exciting to us.

How has reading about Arthurian legend played a role in development?

DS: The great thing about Arthurian legend is that there are several classical texts, and they all contradict each other. Even the relationship between Arthur and Mordred shifts around quite a lot. So there’s so much within range that we can play with, and select whatever fits our world best. JV: We realized early on, that with other historical characters - say Henry VIII - there’s a very firm history of who they were, a definite character that you can research. But with these guys... you know, whether or not there was a genuine historical figure who was the genesis of these tales, when you really drill into it, it’s mystic. There’s nothing definite in this history to grab hold to - or be beholden to. The variation is part of the fun of the idea.

How do you guys usually divvy up your work?

DS: We write collaboratively; we get together and bash out words. I take the lead on the art side, things like character designs and boards. Joel more on things like sound and foley, and general managing of projects, and you know, talking to people. I’m far more happy when I’m kind of locked away and not having to talk with anyone. JV: He’s happy to not deal with actual humans.

Do you guys always pitch together, or David do you prefer to sit that out?

DS: We normally get together for that kind of thing. But Joel usually says about 20 words for my 1 word, which is fine with me. JV: We’re pretty evenly split today aren’t we David? DS: Yeah, not so bad.

What are your favorite cartoons?

JV: Battle of the Planets! DS: Yeah, we like the 80s cartoons: Ulysses 31 I really loved as a kid. It was absurdly bleak. A guy and his son drifting through deep space, encountering depressing, frightening worlds… the whole thing was a bit hopeless. Which 8 year old me really enjoyed. JV: There was a show called The Trap Door which was fantastic. Claymation show - I presume that it never aired in the states, which is a shame because it’s wonderful, truly wonderful. And Danger Mouse is a favorite, always great. DS: There’s a couple more grown up things, like Venture Bros. - JV: - Adventure Time! DS: Of course, yeah. JV: And there’s some proper adult animation being made at the moment which is lovely. We both love Archer. And Rick and Morty is obviously what it is, it’s incredible.

Any last thoughts to share with the Frederator audience?

JV: I’d just like to say how grateful we are to Frederator for helping us realize our vision for “Kid Arthur,” and exactly as we envisioned it. Working with a lot of studios can feel like you’re smashing through a brick wall with your face; and you come out of it with a product that isn’t really what you wanted to create in the first place. But “Kid Arthur” has been our baby, and we were paired with an incredible team of people to help us bring it to life. Just thinking about how much we learned from Larry (Huber, the director)... it’s incredible. It has been lovely working with Frederator. DS: Throughout the whole process, it’s been really nice. That’s so rare. JV: I wouldn’t even say rare, David! It’s unique. It’s absolutely unique. So we’re thankful.

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Thanks for the great chat, Joel and David! I’ll be staying abreast of your Rather Good content - especially since I think a lot of it has been swimming around my subconscious mind for years. Excited to see what you guys do next!

- Cooper

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