As I said the goal of Anime Weekly Updates was mainly to do this for 2018 and I don’t think I’ll be continuing it in 2019. Also for Winter 2019 I think I might wait a month or so before checking out the new shows, I think part of why I enjoyed Winter 2017 so much was that when I started it even the Simuldubs already had a handful of episodes each to binge.
On Friday I finally watched Pokemon The Power Of Us. It was pretty good, I think this alternate continuity film series will do better now that it’s not condensing much of an 80 episode saga. Though I do wish Ash had more Pokemon.
I think it took longer than any other film for us to see any Pokemon on screen, about 3 minutes. I’m sure in Japan it was preceded by an amazing world of Pokemons segment and/or a Pikachu Short. But it’s interesting that the Pre-Title screen segment wasn’t really about the Legendaries of this film at all but just introducing one of our new main human characters.
This female lead was pretty fun, I quite enjoyed her. When she referred to her sibling as “Little Brother” I was quite shocked. I want more Oneechans in Anime.
The film’s tie in to the new game is by prominently featuring an Eevee (since Pikachu is always there) and that worked out great, for being one of the most popular Pokemon it’s surprising it took this long for Eevee to get a lead role in a movie.
It looks like a defining feature of this alternate timeline series is going to be having a flashback where a Pokemon actually dies. I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of that decision, but it works in the story better this time then it did in the first film.
I’m not going to this early on make any definitive statement on how I’d rank it. I’ll just say it didn’t disappoint.
I also decided to finish Ms Vampire Who Lives In My Neighborhood, just binged the last three episodes. It was a pretty satisfying show.
Turns out both the Slime Incarnation simuldub and Hugtto!PreCure took New Years off.
This is going to be my last blog post of 2018, so see ya in 2019 and Happy New Year.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Thursday, December 27, 2018
A Certain Magical Index is awesome
This week's Slime Incarnation and Hugtto!PreCure were still pretty good.
And I just watched episodes 7-9 of Index season 3, Dubbed of course.
I talked a lot on Twitter about Index and Railgun when I first got into them last November, I love em and season 3 is not disappointing.
The Raildex franchise is another Anime example of what I was talking about liking from Anime in "We don't Trade Lives", I wish I was already familiar with it when I wrote that.
This franchise is also I think likely to be Linkara's favorite Anime if he ever watched it. I'm similar to Linkara in a lot of ways, as a fellow Teen Titans fan and having a similar history with Power Rangers and Pokemon. But I'm also aware of where we're different, we'll never see eye to eye on Snyder's Superman films or Identity Crisis. So Index/Railgun is not quite my favorite Anime franchise but I suspect it could become Linkara's.
It really is the perfect Anime to get an old school Western Nerd like I used to be into Anime in a similar way to Code Geass which played a big role in getting me into Anime.
And I just watched episodes 7-9 of Index season 3, Dubbed of course.
I talked a lot on Twitter about Index and Railgun when I first got into them last November, I love em and season 3 is not disappointing.
The Raildex franchise is another Anime example of what I was talking about liking from Anime in "We don't Trade Lives", I wish I was already familiar with it when I wrote that.
This franchise is also I think likely to be Linkara's favorite Anime if he ever watched it. I'm similar to Linkara in a lot of ways, as a fellow Teen Titans fan and having a similar history with Power Rangers and Pokemon. But I'm also aware of where we're different, we'll never see eye to eye on Snyder's Superman films or Identity Crisis. So Index/Railgun is not quite my favorite Anime franchise but I suspect it could become Linkara's.
It really is the perfect Anime to get an old school Western Nerd like I used to be into Anime in a similar way to Code Geass which played a big role in getting me into Anime.
Monday, December 24, 2018
The Dark Knight is a decade old now
I should have done this post closer to the actual anniversary, but I wasn't in the right mindset for Batman during the Summer.
I remember being on IMDB's TDK board back in 2008, and while the movie was all the rage at that time, some people wanted to insist it wouldn't stand the test of time the way Batman 89 and Nicholson's Joker already had. Well here we are a decade later and the Video Essay genre that has emerged on YouTube over the last four years has been largely built on this film being a go to example on how to do a Superhero film and a great villain right.
Ironically, it's myself who'd adamantly declared the movie the Greatest of All Time back then, who has toned down my rhetoric a bit. It's still the best Batman film, Ledger is still the best Joker and Gary Oldman still the best Gordon. But I now think Ben Affleck is a better Bruce Wayne then Cristian Bale, and it has some competition for the title of my favorite movie now, and none were films that came out years later. One was from the same year, Speed Racer, which I didn't see till more recently, and another is Miyazaki's Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind. And while the 3rd Pokemon movie was one I was already familiar with in 2008, I've recently come to consider it possibly on TDK's level.
However none of that means I've completely turned on the film, it's probably still my favorite Superhero movie, certainly the best example of how to do a dark one. It'll firmly stay in my Top 10 films for awhile.
My first YouTube Video was predicated on 10 years after TDK, so perhaps I should bring it up again here. It was my idea but edited for me by solyentbrak1.
I remember being on IMDB's TDK board back in 2008, and while the movie was all the rage at that time, some people wanted to insist it wouldn't stand the test of time the way Batman 89 and Nicholson's Joker already had. Well here we are a decade later and the Video Essay genre that has emerged on YouTube over the last four years has been largely built on this film being a go to example on how to do a Superhero film and a great villain right.
Ironically, it's myself who'd adamantly declared the movie the Greatest of All Time back then, who has toned down my rhetoric a bit. It's still the best Batman film, Ledger is still the best Joker and Gary Oldman still the best Gordon. But I now think Ben Affleck is a better Bruce Wayne then Cristian Bale, and it has some competition for the title of my favorite movie now, and none were films that came out years later. One was from the same year, Speed Racer, which I didn't see till more recently, and another is Miyazaki's Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind. And while the 3rd Pokemon movie was one I was already familiar with in 2008, I've recently come to consider it possibly on TDK's level.
However none of that means I've completely turned on the film, it's probably still my favorite Superhero movie, certainly the best example of how to do a dark one. It'll firmly stay in my Top 10 films for awhile.
My first YouTube Video was predicated on 10 years after TDK, so perhaps I should bring it up again here. It was my idea but edited for me by solyentbrak1.
Sunday, December 23, 2018
The Wolverine, a Western Comic Book Superhero film for Weebs
The Wolverine is so far the only of the FoX-Men movies I really like, though I haven't seen the Deadpool movies yet. To me even the first two X-Men films are overrated and I kind of flat out hate Logan.
The Wolverine isn't perfect, all the Jean Grey stuff was just a distraction thrown in to tie into a movie most people forgot about. And I could go on about how Yukio's ability doesn't make sense as a Mutant power, and how I further feel "you're technically dead if your heart stops for a few seconds" shouldn't count towards paranormal premonitions, yet it constantly does when a fictional story needs it to. But all things considered it's a good Superhero film.
What's interesting is how it relates to my history as an Otaku. I've been on this blog defining my deep dive into Anime as beginning in 2014, and I didn't truly become an Otaku till some point in 2016. But I remember when this movie came out in Summer 2013 already knowing enough about one particular aspect of Anime to immediately recognize a possible allusion to Class S in the relationship between Yukio and Mariko, and I have indeed shipped them ever since, I think I'd mentioned it on Tumblr at the time.
Still, I re-watched the film recently and how much more I "know" about Japan now definitely added to the experience, the film's use of Honorifics and Sibling terminology, the Pachinco Parlor and the Love Hotel, all things I notice now that I didn't really notice back then.
I have never read the original Comic Story-line about Wolverine in Japan, I might in the future. But it's interesting how even the role that plays in my ability to enjoy this film more then most Nerds relates to how my lack of Manga and Light Novel reading helps me enjoy Anime. I'm not constantly looking for changes to complain about, just enjoying the film for how it works as a film. For plenty of other Western Superhero franchises I do know enough about the source material to care somewhat, but the X-Men have never mattered that much to me.
The Wolverine isn't perfect, all the Jean Grey stuff was just a distraction thrown in to tie into a movie most people forgot about. And I could go on about how Yukio's ability doesn't make sense as a Mutant power, and how I further feel "you're technically dead if your heart stops for a few seconds" shouldn't count towards paranormal premonitions, yet it constantly does when a fictional story needs it to. But all things considered it's a good Superhero film.
What's interesting is how it relates to my history as an Otaku. I've been on this blog defining my deep dive into Anime as beginning in 2014, and I didn't truly become an Otaku till some point in 2016. But I remember when this movie came out in Summer 2013 already knowing enough about one particular aspect of Anime to immediately recognize a possible allusion to Class S in the relationship between Yukio and Mariko, and I have indeed shipped them ever since, I think I'd mentioned it on Tumblr at the time.
Still, I re-watched the film recently and how much more I "know" about Japan now definitely added to the experience, the film's use of Honorifics and Sibling terminology, the Pachinco Parlor and the Love Hotel, all things I notice now that I didn't really notice back then.
I have never read the original Comic Story-line about Wolverine in Japan, I might in the future. But it's interesting how even the role that plays in my ability to enjoy this film more then most Nerds relates to how my lack of Manga and Light Novel reading helps me enjoy Anime. I'm not constantly looking for changes to complain about, just enjoying the film for how it works as a film. For plenty of other Western Superhero franchises I do know enough about the source material to care somewhat, but the X-Men have never mattered that much to me.
Friday, December 21, 2018
Anime Weekly Update, back from the Hospital again
I had to go the Hospital again, but I'm doing much better now.
I caught up on both the Slime Incarnation Simuldub and Huggto!PreCure, they're both still pretty good shows.
I decided to put Ms Vampire on hold for now.
I caught up on both the Slime Incarnation Simuldub and Huggto!PreCure, they're both still pretty good shows.
I decided to put Ms Vampire on hold for now.
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Noir Snow
If something can count as a good quasi Christmas episode just from featuring Snowy weather (Western TV tends to pretend it only Snows at Christmas and New Years even though in my experience Winter is only just starting then) then the Sixth Episode of my personal favorite Anime, Noir, makes a pretty good one. It’s an episode titled simply Snow.
It’s not quite as cheerful and uplifting as what I’d generally prefer to promote at Christmas time, but it’s not typical Dark and Edgy Anti-Christmas Nihilism either.
It’s not quite as cheerful and uplifting as what I’d generally prefer to promote at Christmas time, but it’s not typical Dark and Edgy Anti-Christmas Nihilism either.
Friday, December 14, 2018
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s is the best Christmas Anime
My personal tradition of watching Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s dubbed on Thanksgiving (preceded by season one on the same day or the day before) started mainly as a fluke, since it happened to be on Thanksgiving of 2016 I first decided to dive in and watch Nanoha. By the time I contemplated making it a tradition a few weeks later I’d kinda forgotten that A’s actually takes place at Christmas time, making it a more logical tradition for a month later. I think the movie remake left the Christmas part out of it which further affected how I remembered the story over the course of 2017.
But it does still fit because of how we tend to traditionally view the Christmas season as starting with Thanksgiving, hence Santa at the end of the Macy's Parade.
Things didn’t go quite according to plan for 2018, since it turned out to not be so easy to get myself into the right mindset for watching Nanoha when I’d a little before gotten into A Certain Magical Index and it’s spin off. There is a lot of natural overlap between the appeal of these two shows, but Nanoha’s overall tone is a bit more mellow so jumping back and forth between them isn’t easy.
If I had to call any Anime the perfect Holiday Season Anime, it’d be Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s. It’s about family and like all great Magical Girl shows it’s highly optimistic in-spite of the darkness present. It really is the perfect melodrama.
I'm not a big fan of the strictest definition of a Christmas movie, I'm more a fan of movies that happen to take place at Christmas time, where in theory it didn't need to be, but being Christmas still adds to the film thematically and emotionally. Batman Returns is my favorite example of such a film, Die Hard is okay, The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe kind of counts as one of these (the weird thing is the centerpiece of that story is actually about Easter), I still haven't seen any Shane Black Christmas films.
Basically Batman Returns is my favorite Christmas movie, and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's is the Batman Returns of Anime in terms of how it relates to Christmas.
But it does still fit because of how we tend to traditionally view the Christmas season as starting with Thanksgiving, hence Santa at the end of the Macy's Parade.
Things didn’t go quite according to plan for 2018, since it turned out to not be so easy to get myself into the right mindset for watching Nanoha when I’d a little before gotten into A Certain Magical Index and it’s spin off. There is a lot of natural overlap between the appeal of these two shows, but Nanoha’s overall tone is a bit more mellow so jumping back and forth between them isn’t easy.
If I had to call any Anime the perfect Holiday Season Anime, it’d be Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s. It’s about family and like all great Magical Girl shows it’s highly optimistic in-spite of the darkness present. It really is the perfect melodrama.
I'm not a big fan of the strictest definition of a Christmas movie, I'm more a fan of movies that happen to take place at Christmas time, where in theory it didn't need to be, but being Christmas still adds to the film thematically and emotionally. Batman Returns is my favorite example of such a film, Die Hard is okay, The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe kind of counts as one of these (the weird thing is the centerpiece of that story is actually about Easter), I still haven't seen any Shane Black Christmas films.
Basically Batman Returns is my favorite Christmas movie, and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's is the Batman Returns of Anime in terms of how it relates to Christmas.
I was hospitalized for a week.
That messed up my plans for both 12 days of Anime Christmas and Anime Weekly Updates.
Two posts for the "12 days of" project were already written and are still coming.
Then I think I'd decided following my last Anime Weekly update before all this started was that I was likely to wait till December's over to binge all the December episodes of IndexIII.
I don't think I'll be saying anything about my catch up on what I missed last week, just know they're the shows I'd been following.
Two posts for the "12 days of" project were already written and are still coming.
Then I think I'd decided following my last Anime Weekly update before all this started was that I was likely to wait till December's over to binge all the December episodes of IndexIII.
I don't think I'll be saying anything about my catch up on what I missed last week, just know they're the shows I'd been following.
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Hanukkah Anime Weekly Update
Episode 6 of A Certain Magical Index III was pretty good, it finished off an arc so maybe I’ll wait a couple weeks before starting the next one.
Episode 9 of Ms Vampire was a lot of fun.
Episode 12 of Food/Stay Night was a Christmas episode which was nice, maybe it’ll worthy of a deeper break down later in the month. Turns out the show will have a 13th Episode, so it won’t be finished before the year ends.
Episode 42 of Hugtto!PreCure was pretty emotional but satisfying in the end.
Episode 7 of That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime was dope.
If I make a post looking back on 2018 it’ll probably be after new years. As is it looks like my last post of 2018 will be the last Anime Weekly Update. I started this project at the beginning of 2018 planning to do it for the year with no guarantee of continuing it next year. And I think I’ll stick with that, and in 2019 just do posts on current Anime I’m watching whenever something hits me. To many of these posts felt forced and often saying nothing more than “well, I watched this week’s episodes”.
Episode 9 of Ms Vampire was a lot of fun.
Episode 12 of Food/Stay Night was a Christmas episode which was nice, maybe it’ll worthy of a deeper break down later in the month. Turns out the show will have a 13th Episode, so it won’t be finished before the year ends.
Episode 42 of Hugtto!PreCure was pretty emotional but satisfying in the end.
Episode 7 of That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime was dope.
If I make a post looking back on 2018 it’ll probably be after new years. As is it looks like my last post of 2018 will be the last Anime Weekly Update. I started this project at the beginning of 2018 planning to do it for the year with no guarantee of continuing it next year. And I think I’ll stick with that, and in 2019 just do posts on current Anime I’m watching whenever something hits me. To many of these posts felt forced and often saying nothing more than “well, I watched this week’s episodes”.
Saturday, December 1, 2018
12 Days of Anime Christmas
I’m not planning to play by the rules of any existing 12 Days of Anime project like the one Zeria is taking part in. But I will try to post something on this blog that is at least tangentially related to both Anime and Christmas for the 14th through 25th of December 2018. Some of them may wind up being pretty weak posts, but I will try. I may also decide to do something on YouTube for at least one of them, but if so it’ll get a blog post promoting it.
Zeria’s project of sharing Anime related stories from earlier in the year doesn’t suit me at all. Generally I’ve been trying to post about such experiences when they happened. If I look back on the year that’ll be for New Years. But doing some sort of Anime Christmas extravaganza does intrigue me.
I don’t know how much Christmas related stuff I’ll be doing on my other blogs, I think I’ll try to mostly get them done before this project starts. I have at least one planned for the Prophecy Blog where I continue to defend my firm belief against mainstream modern convention that Jesus probably was born in December or early January on the 25th of Kislev aka the first day of Hanukkah. You should also keep an eye on my Tumblr where I’ll try to copy/paste there some older Christmas related posts.
I did already post on on the Shepherds in Winter issue.
https://midseventiethweekrapture.blogspot.com/2018/12/shepherds-in-winter.html
Update, Christmas is also Relevant to Universal Salvation.
https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2018/12/robin-parry-on-universal-salvation-in.html
Zeria’s project of sharing Anime related stories from earlier in the year doesn’t suit me at all. Generally I’ve been trying to post about such experiences when they happened. If I look back on the year that’ll be for New Years. But doing some sort of Anime Christmas extravaganza does intrigue me.
I don’t know how much Christmas related stuff I’ll be doing on my other blogs, I think I’ll try to mostly get them done before this project starts. I have at least one planned for the Prophecy Blog where I continue to defend my firm belief against mainstream modern convention that Jesus probably was born in December or early January on the 25th of Kislev aka the first day of Hanukkah. You should also keep an eye on my Tumblr where I’ll try to copy/paste there some older Christmas related posts.
I did already post on on the Shepherds in Winter issue.
https://midseventiethweekrapture.blogspot.com/2018/12/shepherds-in-winter.html
Update, Christmas is also Relevant to Universal Salvation.
https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2018/12/robin-parry-on-universal-salvation-in.html
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Week 47 Update
Ms Vampire Who Lives In My Neighborhood episode 8 was a pretty solid episode.
My tolerance of Ulysses: Jeanne d’Arc and The Alchemist Knight is growing thin, episode 5 was quiet fixated on Rape and Purity.
Well I’ve watched all of A Certain Magical Index season 1 and 2 as well as A Certain Scientific Railgun season 1 and 2, dubbed of course. And now I’ve started A Certain Magical Index III having watched the Dubs of the first 5 episodes by the end of Saturday November 24th. It’s been awhile since I did such a massive Binge project, it was quite a rewarding experience.
Hugtto!PreCure episode 41 was pretty good.
I finally got to see Heaven’s Feel Presage Flower now that the Dub is available. I made some Tweets about it.
https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir/status/1066985506821627904
Episode 6 of Slime Incarnation was great.
My tolerance of Ulysses: Jeanne d’Arc and The Alchemist Knight is growing thin, episode 5 was quiet fixated on Rape and Purity.
Well I’ve watched all of A Certain Magical Index season 1 and 2 as well as A Certain Scientific Railgun season 1 and 2, dubbed of course. And now I’ve started A Certain Magical Index III having watched the Dubs of the first 5 episodes by the end of Saturday November 24th. It’s been awhile since I did such a massive Binge project, it was quite a rewarding experience.
Hugtto!PreCure episode 41 was pretty good.
I finally got to see Heaven’s Feel Presage Flower now that the Dub is available. I made some Tweets about it.
https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir/status/1066985506821627904
Episode 6 of Slime Incarnation was great.
Monday, November 19, 2018
Anime Weekly Updates, a Thankful Season
Ulysses: Jeanne d’Arc and the Alchemist Knight episode 4 was…. Damn I’m really conflicted on this show. If it wasn’t about Jeanne but rather a made up fantasy world I’d be a lot less critical about certain things.
Ms Vampire who Lives in my Neighbourhood I referred to as the only show I’m consistently enjoying this season. It’s really more like it’s the only show that isn’t mildly bothering me at any points. It's CGDCT appeal still can’t compete with the greats of the Genre just yet. Episode 7 was pretty decent, I’m glad the Beach Episode routine didn’t go on too long.
The above statement was about specifically Fall shows and obviously doesn’t include Hugtto!PreCure which has been awesome, episode 40 was quite fun as it finally clarified a lot of things.
In the meantime I also decided to watch A Certain Magical Index which is proving to be a pretty interesting show.
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime episode 4 was pretty good, so I’ve got two Fall shows I’m mostly enjoying.
This coming Wednesday I'm planning on watching season one of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha dubbed, and then on Thanksgiving I'll do A's.
Ms Vampire who Lives in my Neighbourhood I referred to as the only show I’m consistently enjoying this season. It’s really more like it’s the only show that isn’t mildly bothering me at any points. It's CGDCT appeal still can’t compete with the greats of the Genre just yet. Episode 7 was pretty decent, I’m glad the Beach Episode routine didn’t go on too long.
The above statement was about specifically Fall shows and obviously doesn’t include Hugtto!PreCure which has been awesome, episode 40 was quite fun as it finally clarified a lot of things.
In the meantime I also decided to watch A Certain Magical Index which is proving to be a pretty interesting show.
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime episode 4 was pretty good, so I’ve got two Fall shows I’m mostly enjoying.
This coming Wednesday I'm planning on watching season one of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha dubbed, and then on Thanksgiving I'll do A's.
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Pokemon is my Generation's Star Wars
I'd expressed this on twitter a couple months ago, before I even looked and saw that Pokemon has indeed surpassed Star Wars as the highest grossing franchise of all time.
I was born October 31st 1985, though the average age of people Nostalgic for early Pokemon are 4-7 years younger then me, there are plenty who are a little older then me as well.
When I look back on the things I'm nostalgic for from the same era, they're all stuff I still love, but only Pokemon has become truly ubiquitous. And only Pokemon is pretty much incapable of letting me down.
There was a time after the initial craze ended when it seemed like those of us still into it were a pretty niche group. And yet Pokemon provided Trope names on TVTropes. Then in 2016 with Pokemon Go was a resurgence that hasn't fully died down yet, and with Detective Pikachu coming soon it may well blow up bigger then ever.
My relationship with Pokemon has often been pretty off and on again. This year it definitely helped me through a rough patch.
Detective Pikachu has quickly become the 2019 movie I'm most excited for. Yeah Star Wars and the MCU are both ending an era of sorts, and I'm optimistic that Battle Angel Alita will be a game changer. But I haven't gotten to experience Pokemon on the big screen at all since 2000. And while I was skeptical of the ability to make Pokemon work in Live Action, that Trailer has made me realize that this is something I've wanted to see for nearly 20 years now.
The last time I thought a movie had the potential to make me as hyped as The Dark Knight made me was Batman V Superman which let me down. But DC had let me down before, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company never have. I've always known only the Nintendo Fanboy in me could top my status as a Batmaniac, but I used to think it'd take a (seemingly unlikely to ever happen) Live Action Zelda to translate that to a Big Screen experience. But now I realize that Pokemon may well have slowly but surely come to mean more to me then Mario and Zelda combined.
I was born October 31st 1985, though the average age of people Nostalgic for early Pokemon are 4-7 years younger then me, there are plenty who are a little older then me as well.
When I look back on the things I'm nostalgic for from the same era, they're all stuff I still love, but only Pokemon has become truly ubiquitous. And only Pokemon is pretty much incapable of letting me down.
There was a time after the initial craze ended when it seemed like those of us still into it were a pretty niche group. And yet Pokemon provided Trope names on TVTropes. Then in 2016 with Pokemon Go was a resurgence that hasn't fully died down yet, and with Detective Pikachu coming soon it may well blow up bigger then ever.
My relationship with Pokemon has often been pretty off and on again. This year it definitely helped me through a rough patch.
Detective Pikachu has quickly become the 2019 movie I'm most excited for. Yeah Star Wars and the MCU are both ending an era of sorts, and I'm optimistic that Battle Angel Alita will be a game changer. But I haven't gotten to experience Pokemon on the big screen at all since 2000. And while I was skeptical of the ability to make Pokemon work in Live Action, that Trailer has made me realize that this is something I've wanted to see for nearly 20 years now.
The last time I thought a movie had the potential to make me as hyped as The Dark Knight made me was Batman V Superman which let me down. But DC had let me down before, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company never have. I've always known only the Nintendo Fanboy in me could top my status as a Batmaniac, but I used to think it'd take a (seemingly unlikely to ever happen) Live Action Zelda to translate that to a Big Screen experience. But now I realize that Pokemon may well have slowly but surely come to mean more to me then Mario and Zelda combined.
Monday, November 12, 2018
Anime Weekly Update: Deep into November.
Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-San aka Ms. Vampire Who Lives in My Neighborhood’s episode 5 introduced our two secondary characters to each other, and had some fun with Curry and Garlic.
Wow, great job Conception, it didn’t take long at all for episode 2 to ruin what I found interesting about it.
I was late in getting to Release The Spyce episode 4, and eventually decided to maybe just wait and watch episodes 4 and 5 back to back. But the thing is now that the plot is picking up I feel like I may need to wait for the Dub because I’m not following the episode much at all.
Episode 11 of Attack on Titan Season 3 was an informative episode.
The Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime episode 3 was great.
Ulysses: Jeanne d’Arc and the Alchemist Knight episode 3 had some good stuff, but….
I’m all for Anime that takes some part of history and flips a bunch of the genders. But in the case of Jeanne what’s interesting about her story has a lot to do with it being unusual at the time for women to take such roles. And then you add in the other fairly common mistake sin how to fictionalize Jeanne and I mostly wind up wishing this was just a made up fantasy world.
Ms. Vampire episode 6 was fun.
Episode 12 of season 3 of Attack on Titan was okay. Apparently MAL is choosing to organize season 3 of AoT into two seasons.
Hugtto!PreCure episode 39 was a pretty good shake up.
I saw the Detective Pikachu trailer and it was awesome, this film’s gonna rock. I love that they used that song from the first Super Smash Bros trailer.
Slime Isekai episode 4 was pretty good, this show is pretty solid so far.
Wow, great job Conception, it didn’t take long at all for episode 2 to ruin what I found interesting about it.
I was late in getting to Release The Spyce episode 4, and eventually decided to maybe just wait and watch episodes 4 and 5 back to back. But the thing is now that the plot is picking up I feel like I may need to wait for the Dub because I’m not following the episode much at all.
Episode 11 of Attack on Titan Season 3 was an informative episode.
The Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime episode 3 was great.
Ulysses: Jeanne d’Arc and the Alchemist Knight episode 3 had some good stuff, but….
I’m all for Anime that takes some part of history and flips a bunch of the genders. But in the case of Jeanne what’s interesting about her story has a lot to do with it being unusual at the time for women to take such roles. And then you add in the other fairly common mistake sin how to fictionalize Jeanne and I mostly wind up wishing this was just a made up fantasy world.
Ms. Vampire episode 6 was fun.
Episode 12 of season 3 of Attack on Titan was okay. Apparently MAL is choosing to organize season 3 of AoT into two seasons.
Hugtto!PreCure episode 39 was a pretty good shake up.
I saw the Detective Pikachu trailer and it was awesome, this film’s gonna rock. I love that they used that song from the first Super Smash Bros trailer.
Slime Isekai episode 4 was pretty good, this show is pretty solid so far.
Saturday, November 10, 2018
Being the worst Pokemon Movie is like being the poorest Billionaire
Looking back at the Top 5 Pokemon Movies post I made not too long ago, I already feel like my rankings have changed. I don't think I can keep I Choose You in the top 5 after all, and it's certainly not actually better then Destiny Deoxys.
It's still a good movie, but I'm not sure how well the experiment always payed off. When I watched it a second time I was loving it just as much as the first time right up until we first saw Charmander. But from that point on it definitely started hitting me how these condensed versions of the Butterfree and Charizard arcs don't really work.
Spell of the Unown will always be number 1, Latios and Latias is 2.
Thing is there are people on YouTube making lists of their 5 or 10 worst Pokemon movies. But it's pretty rare that I can call any Anime related to Pokemon bad, Origins was not exactly what I wanted but it was fun.
A number of people, like Anime America on YouTube think the Hoopa movie is sooo very bad. Sorry but I had a lot of fun with it.
The least of the Theatrically released films in my opinion is still Jirachi, but now that I'm over my initial reaction to it I can see that it's still fine.
For me, the only Pokemon Anime that flat out makes me upset in Mastermind of the Mirage Pokemon, and I blame it's failure fully on the involvement of Westerners helping write it. But even it has it's defenders.
Pokemon simply has an inherently winning formula, as long as you get it, it's pretty easy to do well.
And so it's not any Disney sabotaging DC conspiracy theories that make me disregard Rotten Tomatoes, it's the fact that no Pokemon movie gets over 30% on the site.
Too many professional critics, especially in the west, simply can't respect what Pokemon is going for, and when it's your job you don't get to just not review something. So they got lots of negative reviews for being exactly what they're supposed to be, consequence free fun.
And Rotten Tomatoes marks all reviews as either Rotten or Fresh, no middle ground. And there have been reports of reviews being labeled Rotten by the site that ultimately said more good then bad, reviews that would be a 6 on an out of 10 system like MAL's.
So those two factors together mean a site like Rotten Tomatoes is incapable of telling the truth about Pokemon movies, which is that they pretty much never fail.
All I want is for them to be fun, I want scenes that are irrelevant to the plot that are just the Pokemon being cute and having fun. And I want the characters to simply be likeable, every movie doesn't need to be some vital new character arc for Ash. And every theatrical Pokemon film does at least that, and some manage to do more.
There are some popular Pokemon movies I'm not as hot on as most fans seem to be, the Lucario film didn't quite connect with me, and in-spite of my unique Nostalgia for them I can't label either of the first two a favorite. But I would never call them bad movies.
So that's why you'll never see a top 5 worst Pokemon movie list from me, not unless a slew of unlikely failures happen in the future. If you're willing to accept each movie on it's own terms you can never really go wrong.
It's still a good movie, but I'm not sure how well the experiment always payed off. When I watched it a second time I was loving it just as much as the first time right up until we first saw Charmander. But from that point on it definitely started hitting me how these condensed versions of the Butterfree and Charizard arcs don't really work.
Spell of the Unown will always be number 1, Latios and Latias is 2.
Thing is there are people on YouTube making lists of their 5 or 10 worst Pokemon movies. But it's pretty rare that I can call any Anime related to Pokemon bad, Origins was not exactly what I wanted but it was fun.
A number of people, like Anime America on YouTube think the Hoopa movie is sooo very bad. Sorry but I had a lot of fun with it.
The least of the Theatrically released films in my opinion is still Jirachi, but now that I'm over my initial reaction to it I can see that it's still fine.
For me, the only Pokemon Anime that flat out makes me upset in Mastermind of the Mirage Pokemon, and I blame it's failure fully on the involvement of Westerners helping write it. But even it has it's defenders.
Pokemon simply has an inherently winning formula, as long as you get it, it's pretty easy to do well.
And so it's not any Disney sabotaging DC conspiracy theories that make me disregard Rotten Tomatoes, it's the fact that no Pokemon movie gets over 30% on the site.
Too many professional critics, especially in the west, simply can't respect what Pokemon is going for, and when it's your job you don't get to just not review something. So they got lots of negative reviews for being exactly what they're supposed to be, consequence free fun.
And Rotten Tomatoes marks all reviews as either Rotten or Fresh, no middle ground. And there have been reports of reviews being labeled Rotten by the site that ultimately said more good then bad, reviews that would be a 6 on an out of 10 system like MAL's.
So those two factors together mean a site like Rotten Tomatoes is incapable of telling the truth about Pokemon movies, which is that they pretty much never fail.
All I want is for them to be fun, I want scenes that are irrelevant to the plot that are just the Pokemon being cute and having fun. And I want the characters to simply be likeable, every movie doesn't need to be some vital new character arc for Ash. And every theatrical Pokemon film does at least that, and some manage to do more.
There are some popular Pokemon movies I'm not as hot on as most fans seem to be, the Lucario film didn't quite connect with me, and in-spite of my unique Nostalgia for them I can't label either of the first two a favorite. But I would never call them bad movies.
So that's why you'll never see a top 5 worst Pokemon movie list from me, not unless a slew of unlikely failures happen in the future. If you're willing to accept each movie on it's own terms you can never really go wrong.
Friday, November 9, 2018
"We don't trade lives".
I'm going to say something controversial, I hope no one has to die to undo the Snap in Avengers 4. I hope they truly follow through on Cap's declaration of "We don't trade lives".
I watched a Video Essay Criticizing Antman and The Wasp for how they didn't follow thorough on their "tough choice". This is like the Bathos issue in how my disagreement with common MCU criticisms are directly related to how much I love Anime. Both the Magical Girl genre and what Digibro calls the "Otaku Hero's Journey" are predicated on saying "screw that crap, we will save everyone and make sure no one has to die no matter how much you insist that's impossible". From Steins;Gate to Prisma Illya to No Game No Life. I'm divided on how much Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha As fits this.
Now Antman and The Wasp still isn't as good as those Anime, it does feel a little like the resolution just sorta happened. Thing is I also feel this "tough choice" was unearned to begin with, Laurence Fisbourne had no real reason to believe his plan would work anyway, yet this Video Essayist acts like it was such a real tense dilemma ruined because no one actually had to die. In-spite of that nit pick however I did enjoy the movie, it was fun, my Mom watched it 4 times in 3 days.
This Video Essay also talked about how "Sacrifice" is a long standing tradition of the Superhero Genre. Well I'm like Linkara in that I'm tired of every Event (which there are 5 of every year now) needing to kill a few people off to have real "stakes". I'm a Christian who Believes in Universal Salvation, Jesus Sacrificed Himself to save all Human Beings, even the ones who killed Him, and He Will Succeed. And yes His Sacrifice was real because he still has the Wounds, that's the difference between His Resurrection and ours.
My Love of Anime has to do with how often the fiction of these modern Japanese Secular Shintoists comes closer to the True Gospel then what the Western Church has been saying for over a Thousand Years.
Another YouTube video I watched said Tony has to die because his story arc is over. And that really annoys me, why does having no more story to tell have to equal death? Why can't he just finally retire and start a family with Pepper?
I think there should be a Sacrifice but not one that's a truly permanent death. I suspect our heroes will have to regather the Infinity Stones, and thus someone will have to be Sacrificed for the Soul Stone. I think that should be Cap leaving the mantle of Captain America to Bucky for awhile. But like Gamora he'll still be alive in the Soul Stone, maybe his going in will also let Gamora out. Either way the potential to get him out in the future will be in place.
I'm not super optimistic about this however. You see I reject the notion that Killing a popular character is the brave route, maybe it was in Comics in the 70s. But Western media criticism is so obsessed with the notion of "consequences" and "equivalent exchange" that I know the Critics would never forgive Avengers 4 for actually having the Guts to do what I'm suggesting.
Infinity War's dark route was a bold move in the context of the general MCU tone leading up to it, but responding to it with a complete reversal would in fact be ten times bolder.
Meanwhile there is nothing brave about killing off Tony Stark when no more solo films staring him are likely to be made anyway.
I watched a Video Essay Criticizing Antman and The Wasp for how they didn't follow thorough on their "tough choice". This is like the Bathos issue in how my disagreement with common MCU criticisms are directly related to how much I love Anime. Both the Magical Girl genre and what Digibro calls the "Otaku Hero's Journey" are predicated on saying "screw that crap, we will save everyone and make sure no one has to die no matter how much you insist that's impossible". From Steins;Gate to Prisma Illya to No Game No Life. I'm divided on how much Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha As fits this.
Now Antman and The Wasp still isn't as good as those Anime, it does feel a little like the resolution just sorta happened. Thing is I also feel this "tough choice" was unearned to begin with, Laurence Fisbourne had no real reason to believe his plan would work anyway, yet this Video Essayist acts like it was such a real tense dilemma ruined because no one actually had to die. In-spite of that nit pick however I did enjoy the movie, it was fun, my Mom watched it 4 times in 3 days.
This Video Essay also talked about how "Sacrifice" is a long standing tradition of the Superhero Genre. Well I'm like Linkara in that I'm tired of every Event (which there are 5 of every year now) needing to kill a few people off to have real "stakes". I'm a Christian who Believes in Universal Salvation, Jesus Sacrificed Himself to save all Human Beings, even the ones who killed Him, and He Will Succeed. And yes His Sacrifice was real because he still has the Wounds, that's the difference between His Resurrection and ours.
My Love of Anime has to do with how often the fiction of these modern Japanese Secular Shintoists comes closer to the True Gospel then what the Western Church has been saying for over a Thousand Years.
Another YouTube video I watched said Tony has to die because his story arc is over. And that really annoys me, why does having no more story to tell have to equal death? Why can't he just finally retire and start a family with Pepper?
I think there should be a Sacrifice but not one that's a truly permanent death. I suspect our heroes will have to regather the Infinity Stones, and thus someone will have to be Sacrificed for the Soul Stone. I think that should be Cap leaving the mantle of Captain America to Bucky for awhile. But like Gamora he'll still be alive in the Soul Stone, maybe his going in will also let Gamora out. Either way the potential to get him out in the future will be in place.
I'm not super optimistic about this however. You see I reject the notion that Killing a popular character is the brave route, maybe it was in Comics in the 70s. But Western media criticism is so obsessed with the notion of "consequences" and "equivalent exchange" that I know the Critics would never forgive Avengers 4 for actually having the Guts to do what I'm suggesting.
Infinity War's dark route was a bold move in the context of the general MCU tone leading up to it, but responding to it with a complete reversal would in fact be ten times bolder.
Meanwhile there is nothing brave about killing off Tony Stark when no more solo films staring him are likely to be made anyway.
Saturday, November 3, 2018
Dubbing Old Anime
It used to be the most current Anime wasn't the only stuff getting Dubbed, in fact in the mid 2000s probably most of what you'd see on the New Release shelf was stuff that was at least 5 years old in Japan.
A pretty large percentage, maybe even the majority, of 90s Anime that has a Dub wasn't Dubbed while it was still the 90s. Not even all of Sailor Moon, the Cloverway Dub of S started airing in 2000. From Gundam Wing to Wedding Peach, a lot of Anime that's 90s in Japan is really 00s Nostalgia for Western Otaku. Heck even some 80s OVAs got Dubbed in the 2000s.
The market has changed since then, and while I love that a dozen shows are getting Simuldubbed every season, that does mean less resources for finding time to Dub old Gems that got passed over at the time.
It's still fairly normal for something that doesn't get Simuldubbed to take like two years to get a Dub. But once something is three years old it seems like there is no hope. Stuff from early this decade like Dog Days and Daybreak Illusion already feel like if they're not Dubbed already they never will be. Re:Creators was big enough that it'll probably get a Dub in 2019, but if it doesn't by the end of that year then it probably won't.
Viz Media is still doing their Redub of Sailor Moon, but that's it as far as dubbing Old Anime goes. I'm mostly not gonna be requesting Redubs however, I'm fine with even the Dubs of Utena and Higurashi and when it comes to Pokemon I'm the biggest 4Kids apologist you'll ever meet. Sailor Moon was the one that needed a do over for the sake of HaruMi and Zoiscite. Now that that's being taken care of any time spent dubbing Classics into English should be devoted to works that have no existing English audio track.
I feel like it ought to be possible to make room for more old Dubs. As a pretty big Dub enthusiast I don't really think JoJo is worth spending money to Dub, people only really like JoJo for the Memes of how the Japanese Actors sound. So maybe Funimation should give up on that and find some skipped over classic instead?
I don't hate on Sentai Dubs the way many do, but their one attempt at a Simuldub I watched didn't turn out well, maybe they inherently do better Dubbing stuff after the fact and so maybe they should give up on Simuldubs and and try to Dub some of the old stuff they have access to, like Gunbuster or classic LOTGH, or Kampfer.
And maybe this is another place Netflix could be our savior, since they want to only do Binge releases, maybe they should stop hogging the rights to recent shows and zero in on some classics. Stranger Things shows their target audience includes a lot of people looking for Nostalgia trips.
I'm willing to watch stuff Subbed, but I do so fairly rarely (besides PreCure which I've given up any hope on getting Dubbed in a reasonable manner), I sometimes wonder if I might have mild undiagnosed Dyslexia or ADD since it's sometimes flat out hard to follow when I have to read while I'm watching it. Which is why I probably can't get into Monogatari either way, as it was originally Animated it's constantly throwing text on the screen, I watched the first 3 or 4 episodes and have no idea what was going on. For whatever reason I tend to do best with Cute Girls doing Cute Things shows.
So there are so many old Anime that interest me, where the lack of a Dub has certainly delayed my impulse to dive in. (Meanwhile most stuff I've enjoyed Subbed I want to hear what my favorite Dub VAs could do with it.) And there are still a lot of people less willing to watch stuff Subbed then I am, lots of people who could be potential fans of great not yet Dubbed classics.
There is a lot of stuff that is still long over due for a Dub. Rose of Versailles still having no English Dub is a travesty,(meanwhile from what I hear it's French Dub could use a do over). Not to mention the Green Jacket Lupin III series, and what's left of Red Jacket, and the TV specials that were skipped over like Episode 0.
Now that Dubbers have gained more faith in Yuri titles, how about Strawberry Panic and Yuru Yuri? And with Traps being more a trend then ever maybe Stop! Hibari-Kun.
And with the Magical Girl Market growing I'd say it's about time Saint Tail and Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne and the rest of the Nanoha franchise got dubbed, as well as the Pretty Sammy shows since Tenchi still has a fan-base. And whoever has that Dub that was made for Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pichi, please drop it on Crunchyroll, it's literally free money.
Also Aniplex, for the love of God dub Kara No Kyoukai.
Well those are some examples of what I personally wanna see. Feel free to comment with what you wanna see get Dubbed.
A pretty large percentage, maybe even the majority, of 90s Anime that has a Dub wasn't Dubbed while it was still the 90s. Not even all of Sailor Moon, the Cloverway Dub of S started airing in 2000. From Gundam Wing to Wedding Peach, a lot of Anime that's 90s in Japan is really 00s Nostalgia for Western Otaku. Heck even some 80s OVAs got Dubbed in the 2000s.
The market has changed since then, and while I love that a dozen shows are getting Simuldubbed every season, that does mean less resources for finding time to Dub old Gems that got passed over at the time.
It's still fairly normal for something that doesn't get Simuldubbed to take like two years to get a Dub. But once something is three years old it seems like there is no hope. Stuff from early this decade like Dog Days and Daybreak Illusion already feel like if they're not Dubbed already they never will be. Re:Creators was big enough that it'll probably get a Dub in 2019, but if it doesn't by the end of that year then it probably won't.
Viz Media is still doing their Redub of Sailor Moon, but that's it as far as dubbing Old Anime goes. I'm mostly not gonna be requesting Redubs however, I'm fine with even the Dubs of Utena and Higurashi and when it comes to Pokemon I'm the biggest 4Kids apologist you'll ever meet. Sailor Moon was the one that needed a do over for the sake of HaruMi and Zoiscite. Now that that's being taken care of any time spent dubbing Classics into English should be devoted to works that have no existing English audio track.
I feel like it ought to be possible to make room for more old Dubs. As a pretty big Dub enthusiast I don't really think JoJo is worth spending money to Dub, people only really like JoJo for the Memes of how the Japanese Actors sound. So maybe Funimation should give up on that and find some skipped over classic instead?
I don't hate on Sentai Dubs the way many do, but their one attempt at a Simuldub I watched didn't turn out well, maybe they inherently do better Dubbing stuff after the fact and so maybe they should give up on Simuldubs and and try to Dub some of the old stuff they have access to, like Gunbuster or classic LOTGH, or Kampfer.
And maybe this is another place Netflix could be our savior, since they want to only do Binge releases, maybe they should stop hogging the rights to recent shows and zero in on some classics. Stranger Things shows their target audience includes a lot of people looking for Nostalgia trips.
I'm willing to watch stuff Subbed, but I do so fairly rarely (besides PreCure which I've given up any hope on getting Dubbed in a reasonable manner), I sometimes wonder if I might have mild undiagnosed Dyslexia or ADD since it's sometimes flat out hard to follow when I have to read while I'm watching it. Which is why I probably can't get into Monogatari either way, as it was originally Animated it's constantly throwing text on the screen, I watched the first 3 or 4 episodes and have no idea what was going on. For whatever reason I tend to do best with Cute Girls doing Cute Things shows.
So there are so many old Anime that interest me, where the lack of a Dub has certainly delayed my impulse to dive in. (Meanwhile most stuff I've enjoyed Subbed I want to hear what my favorite Dub VAs could do with it.) And there are still a lot of people less willing to watch stuff Subbed then I am, lots of people who could be potential fans of great not yet Dubbed classics.
There is a lot of stuff that is still long over due for a Dub. Rose of Versailles still having no English Dub is a travesty,(meanwhile from what I hear it's French Dub could use a do over). Not to mention the Green Jacket Lupin III series, and what's left of Red Jacket, and the TV specials that were skipped over like Episode 0.
Now that Dubbers have gained more faith in Yuri titles, how about Strawberry Panic and Yuru Yuri? And with Traps being more a trend then ever maybe Stop! Hibari-Kun.
And with the Magical Girl Market growing I'd say it's about time Saint Tail and Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne and the rest of the Nanoha franchise got dubbed, as well as the Pretty Sammy shows since Tenchi still has a fan-base. And whoever has that Dub that was made for Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pichi, please drop it on Crunchyroll, it's literally free money.
Also Aniplex, for the love of God dub Kara No Kyoukai.
Well those are some examples of what I personally wanna see. Feel free to comment with what you wanna see get Dubbed.
Thursday, November 1, 2018
Anime Weekly Update: October becomes November
Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-San aka Ms. Vampire Who Lives in My Neighborhood’s episode 4 introduced a new Vampire, and it was pretty fun.
Episode 10 of Attack On Titan season 3 was a moody episode.
Episode 2 of That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime was decent.
That was the last of the new Anime I watched in October, then November began.
I watched the first episode of Conception, dubbed, not right when it dropped, I waited a bit deciding if I wanted to try it. I watched it hoping it might be another show to be surprising free of the Fanservice I dislike in-spite of its premise, and for the first episode I’d say it was. I did a post last year explaining how what I mean by Anime Fanservice isn't anything you could fap to, but actually pretty all stuff I don’t desire to fap to.
The people not being kind to this first episode come from two angles. You got the Anime Feminist review that is all “what an obvious male fantasy” while I’m noticing that the male lead was arguably objectified more then the girls. And then the more Meme driven Gigguk who’s all “why be about Sex if it isn’t an actual Hentai”, but I don’t enjoy a lot of Hentai because I want to see people make love rather than mindless humping.
Episode 11 of Food/Stay Night focused on Archer for a change, which was fun.
Ulysses: Jeanne d’Arc and The Alchemist Knight episode 2 was……. So the gimmick for this Anime take on Jeanne d’Arc is that she’s basically Wolverine.
I think I might like it.
Episode 10 of Attack On Titan season 3 was a moody episode.
Episode 2 of That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime was decent.
That was the last of the new Anime I watched in October, then November began.
I watched the first episode of Conception, dubbed, not right when it dropped, I waited a bit deciding if I wanted to try it. I watched it hoping it might be another show to be surprising free of the Fanservice I dislike in-spite of its premise, and for the first episode I’d say it was. I did a post last year explaining how what I mean by Anime Fanservice isn't anything you could fap to, but actually pretty all stuff I don’t desire to fap to.
The people not being kind to this first episode come from two angles. You got the Anime Feminist review that is all “what an obvious male fantasy” while I’m noticing that the male lead was arguably objectified more then the girls. And then the more Meme driven Gigguk who’s all “why be about Sex if it isn’t an actual Hentai”, but I don’t enjoy a lot of Hentai because I want to see people make love rather than mindless humping.
Episode 11 of Food/Stay Night focused on Archer for a change, which was fun.
Ulysses: Jeanne d’Arc and The Alchemist Knight episode 2 was……. So the gimmick for this Anime take on Jeanne d’Arc is that she’s basically Wolverine.
I think I might like it.
The Legend of Zelda RPG
There have already been some Zelda fan games that are role playing games. But these are some ideas on the subject of Zelda as an RPG I’ve had for awhile now that it’s time I shared.
One is that Final Fantasy Mystic Quest could easily be turned into a Zelda RPG with a simple patch, not even a full hack. Just turn the MC into Link, the Dark King into Ganon and Pheobe into Zelda and the mysterious old man into the Owl. Kylie could then be viewed as a variant of the Marin/Malon/Cremia/Romani archetype, and then Reuben could be a Goron and Tristam a Sheikah.
But more ambitious than that is the idea of doing an SNES Rom Hack/Homebrew that is basically A Link To The Past remade as an RPG with Final Fantasy elements, and with narrative influences from later Zelda games as well as various Manga adaptations of ALttP.
HP will now stand for Heart Points rather than Hit Points. And there will now be two Magic Meters, Light Magic and Dark Magic. Potions will be classified by colors, three can be bought in standard shops, Red Potions which recover HP, Yellow Potions recover Light Magic and Blue Potions recover Dark Magic. There will be places you can go (mainly the Potion shop on ALttP's map) to have two potions mixed together for one potion that has the effect of both. Creating Green Potions to recover both Magic Meters, Purple to recover HP and Dark Magic, and Orange to recover HP and Light Magic.
But the only Item that can restore all three at once is the very expensive Lon Lon Milk. Lon Lon Ranch will be placed on the Map in the area south of Link’s House but north of the flooded ruins. It’s Dark World equivalent will be a Colosseum.
Mages won’t quite be the only party members who can use Magic, but they have by far the best affinity for it. However only two characters can use both Light and Dark Magic, The Warrior/Knight and the Red Mage.
I intend to create a party with a total of 9, but only 5 can be in battle at once. Some of them may be found in side quests and not quite required to join your party to beat the game.
The Master Sword can only be wielded by the Warrior/Knight, but besides that all other Swords are the one weapon class everyone can use. For example The Bow and Arrow can be used only by the Rito, Sheikah and Gerudo. The Hammer can only be used by the Goron. The Magic Rods and Staffs only by Mages. One of the main differences between the Gerudo and Sheikah functionally is the Sheikah have Light Magic affinity and the Gerudo Dark magic affinity.
The Main character is Link or Linkle depending on the gender you choose, who is the Warrior/Knight class. Zelda is the Red Mage, she is the first to join your party in the early game but the last to permanently join it.
Impa as a Sheikah will serve as the Ninja class. She’ll be the first to permanently join your party once you reach Kakariko village. Second will be Lana the Light Mage.
Ganti will be the name of a Gerudo who’ll join you as the party’s Thief. Roam will be the Rito.
A Goron and Zora can also join the party, I don’t have names for them yet and am still working on what their unique features would be.
Cia is the Dark Mage. Only three party members won’t be available till you have full access to The Dark World. Cia, Roam, and Zelda.
In this version Ganon only has the Triforce of Power.
The quest for the three Pendants will be replaced by a Quest for the Triforce of Courage. The Eastern Palace will contain a relic needed to open the Desert Palace, there you obtain the key to the Tower of Hera where the Triforce of Courage is.
For the Dark World quest the Seven Maidens are replaced with the Triforce of Wisdom being split into 8 pieces, one of which is with Zelda on Turtle Rock. Seven of them are in versions of the Dark World Dungeons where you found the Maidens in the original game, but one you’ll have to get by winning a Gauntlet at the Colosseum. In this version Blind will disguise himself as Zelda instead of a random Maiden.
One is that Final Fantasy Mystic Quest could easily be turned into a Zelda RPG with a simple patch, not even a full hack. Just turn the MC into Link, the Dark King into Ganon and Pheobe into Zelda and the mysterious old man into the Owl. Kylie could then be viewed as a variant of the Marin/Malon/Cremia/Romani archetype, and then Reuben could be a Goron and Tristam a Sheikah.
But more ambitious than that is the idea of doing an SNES Rom Hack/Homebrew that is basically A Link To The Past remade as an RPG with Final Fantasy elements, and with narrative influences from later Zelda games as well as various Manga adaptations of ALttP.
HP will now stand for Heart Points rather than Hit Points. And there will now be two Magic Meters, Light Magic and Dark Magic. Potions will be classified by colors, three can be bought in standard shops, Red Potions which recover HP, Yellow Potions recover Light Magic and Blue Potions recover Dark Magic. There will be places you can go (mainly the Potion shop on ALttP's map) to have two potions mixed together for one potion that has the effect of both. Creating Green Potions to recover both Magic Meters, Purple to recover HP and Dark Magic, and Orange to recover HP and Light Magic.
But the only Item that can restore all three at once is the very expensive Lon Lon Milk. Lon Lon Ranch will be placed on the Map in the area south of Link’s House but north of the flooded ruins. It’s Dark World equivalent will be a Colosseum.
Mages won’t quite be the only party members who can use Magic, but they have by far the best affinity for it. However only two characters can use both Light and Dark Magic, The Warrior/Knight and the Red Mage.
I intend to create a party with a total of 9, but only 5 can be in battle at once. Some of them may be found in side quests and not quite required to join your party to beat the game.
The Master Sword can only be wielded by the Warrior/Knight, but besides that all other Swords are the one weapon class everyone can use. For example The Bow and Arrow can be used only by the Rito, Sheikah and Gerudo. The Hammer can only be used by the Goron. The Magic Rods and Staffs only by Mages. One of the main differences between the Gerudo and Sheikah functionally is the Sheikah have Light Magic affinity and the Gerudo Dark magic affinity.
The Main character is Link or Linkle depending on the gender you choose, who is the Warrior/Knight class. Zelda is the Red Mage, she is the first to join your party in the early game but the last to permanently join it.
Impa as a Sheikah will serve as the Ninja class. She’ll be the first to permanently join your party once you reach Kakariko village. Second will be Lana the Light Mage.
Ganti will be the name of a Gerudo who’ll join you as the party’s Thief. Roam will be the Rito.
A Goron and Zora can also join the party, I don’t have names for them yet and am still working on what their unique features would be.
Cia is the Dark Mage. Only three party members won’t be available till you have full access to The Dark World. Cia, Roam, and Zelda.
In this version Ganon only has the Triforce of Power.
The quest for the three Pendants will be replaced by a Quest for the Triforce of Courage. The Eastern Palace will contain a relic needed to open the Desert Palace, there you obtain the key to the Tower of Hera where the Triforce of Courage is.
For the Dark World quest the Seven Maidens are replaced with the Triforce of Wisdom being split into 8 pieces, one of which is with Zelda on Turtle Rock. Seven of them are in versions of the Dark World Dungeons where you found the Maidens in the original game, but one you’ll have to get by winning a Gauntlet at the Colosseum. In this version Blind will disguise himself as Zelda instead of a random Maiden.
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Today I'm officially Thirty and Three Years Old.
Since I was born on the 31st of October 1985.
The last year of my life on the Internet has been an eventful one. I've made more real connections on Twitter then I ever had before thanks to joining some Rabbit Streams.
Last October if you asked which of my many fandoms I was excited for looking to future the answer would be a lot different then it is right now. But the one constant had been Anime. I've revisited Pokemon in recent months and realized that it is the Star Wars of my generation, though perhaps more so people 5-10 years younger then me. I spent June delving deeper into my Magical Girl fandom, and have done some more of that since.
On my other Blogs things have been interesting as well. While I spent all of 2017 believing in Universal Salvation, I think I've truly delved into that more in 2018 then I had any year prior. Discovering more and more nuances of Scripture that make it incomprehensible how most in the West don't see it. So if you're at all interested be sure to check out...
SolaScipturaChristianLiberty.BlogSpot.Com
The Comparative Mythology Blog has gotten a decent start, though slower then I initially hoped.
Things have been weird on the Prophecy Blog, since I'm growing increasingly open to a non Pre-Millennial view. But if I ever crossed that line it will be unusual since it will still include a Physical Bodily Resurrection of The Dead.
Looking forward, I hope to have more nerdy fun, and hopefully make my art some day.
The last year of my life on the Internet has been an eventful one. I've made more real connections on Twitter then I ever had before thanks to joining some Rabbit Streams.
Last October if you asked which of my many fandoms I was excited for looking to future the answer would be a lot different then it is right now. But the one constant had been Anime. I've revisited Pokemon in recent months and realized that it is the Star Wars of my generation, though perhaps more so people 5-10 years younger then me. I spent June delving deeper into my Magical Girl fandom, and have done some more of that since.
On my other Blogs things have been interesting as well. While I spent all of 2017 believing in Universal Salvation, I think I've truly delved into that more in 2018 then I had any year prior. Discovering more and more nuances of Scripture that make it incomprehensible how most in the West don't see it. So if you're at all interested be sure to check out...
SolaScipturaChristianLiberty.BlogSpot.Com
The Comparative Mythology Blog has gotten a decent start, though slower then I initially hoped.
Things have been weird on the Prophecy Blog, since I'm growing increasingly open to a non Pre-Millennial view. But if I ever crossed that line it will be unusual since it will still include a Physical Bodily Resurrection of The Dead.
Looking forward, I hope to have more nerdy fun, and hopefully make my art some day.
Monday, October 29, 2018
A Sequel to Why I Like Prequels
Way back in April of 2015, when I was optimistic about the prospect of Disney making Star Wars movies, I made a post called Why I Like Prequels. Where I explained that I like Prequels more then Sequels because Prequels don't have the option of doing the most shocking thing possible just for shock value.
Now here we are in a post The Last Jedi world and I've looked back on that post and realized
A Star Wars Sequel has become a perfect embodiment of why I felt that way. With the main praise it gets from it's fans being "it subverted expectations" and yet plenty have shown how that doesn't make something good. I did two Blog posts about that.
Subverting Expectations is not a substitute for actual imagination.
When Subverting Expectations becomes totally Expected.
But this YouTube video explains things better then I could.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiXk6mEM_tU
How To Subvert Expectations Correctly (Last Jedi/Infinity War Analysis).
I don't want to keep making posts about how much I dislike The Last Jedi, since I don't want to become what I hate, as someone who spent over a decade being frustrated by Prequel haters who just couldn't let it go. But I do want to make clear why I don't fit into your little stereotypes about the kinds of people who hate The Last Jedi.
Three years ago, in October of 2015, before The Force Awakens came out, I made a post called If Rey isn't a Jedi I will be let down. In fact I felt that if an Episode VII-IX Trilogy is ever made the new Jedi in training should be a Woman before the Disney buy out even happened. I'm an Anime fan who mostly loves Anime about Female heroes, from Magical Girls to Girls With Guns. I want a Gundam series where a teenage girl is put in the Amuro Ray role. Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind is my favorite Anime Movie because it does Rey's story arc better then either Abrams or Johnson have. I've even decided to start calling Project A-Ko my favorite Superman movie. Buffy The Vampire Slayer was my favorite TV show for a long time, now my favorite Western TV show is Pretty Little Liars. I was also into Xena a long time ago.
I'm the last person on the Internet who's gonna dislike a movie because it put a Woman in a traditionally male Action Hero role. If I only see two movies theatrically in 2019, one of them will probably be Battle Angel Alita.
A few months ago at about the same time two people made videos about how people should stop complaining about Plot Holes so much (one was noticed way more then the other). And the basic premise of both I totally agree with. But a number of details I disagree with, mainly their both defending the Holdo and Poe story-line.
My problem with that part of the film is not that I think it's a Plot Hole. I have such a negative view of the Military that I can totally buy a General or Admiral would be that stupid. My issue with this story-line is it's moral.
First of all, if you're actually going to defend Holdo. I'm not saying she needed to tell Poe the plan, the issue is the refusal to assure him there was a plan, which any smart general should know is vital to assure people of to uphold morale. If she'd said, "we have a plan but there are security concerns so it's being kept on a need to know basis", they could have still done the rest of the story-line, with Poe being offended at not being trusted and maybe convincing himself she's lying about there being a plan. That would make the narrative that this was about his Male Ego much more believable.
My problem however is the moral in the end was very pro Authoritarian since it comes down as saying Holdo was 100% right and Poe 100% wrong. Am I saying I wanted it to take the exact opposite stance? No! People keep saying they want this new Trilogy to be more nuanced, so how about they are both wrong? You can still have your shocking moment where Leia shoots Poe, but then have her scold Holdo also. And it's still being Feminist since you'd have it be Leia to set everything right.
Too many people on both sides think there is something Feminist about the decision to fully take Holdo's side. But I know my take on all this would be the same if you switched their Genders, it's TheMarySue.com people who I suspect would be saying the opposite if the narrative condemned a female Ace Pilot who just got condemned for daring to question a male authority figure who blatantly disrespected her. BTW we can also look at it as Holdo being a White authority figure and Poe a POC.
The truth is, the film didn't care about the moral implications of any of this, they just thought it'd be fun to have a Mutiny within our Rebel alliance since that worked so often on the BSG remake (I consider The Oath to be it's best episode). My issue with this storyline's execution is that Male or Female I don't ever want Star Wars taking a Pro-Authoritarian stance.
There is plenty I liked about this movie, I just showed how a few tweaks would make me more fine with the Holdo story-line. The Score was great, the Cinematography was great, the acting was pretty good. And you'll certainly never see me agreeing with the anti-Bathos whiners. But the obsession with Subverting things for the sake it ruined all of that.
I will certainly give this movie more credit then most Prequel Haters ever give those movies.
And that leads us to the final straw-man, that TLJ Haters are just blinded by Nostalgia. And maybe I should be more willing to concede this one since again I'm self aware of my own risk of becoming what I hate in this regard. The problem is, why was this reasoning to not like new SW movies never really brought up till TLJ? What bugs me is this excuse for why people don't like TLJ being thrown around by people who hate on the Prequels like Patrick Willems. Do you think SW fans weren't old enough to start getting like that yet in the Prequel era? Well guess what my age right now is close to that of a 77 SW fan in 99. I'm someone who's SW Nostalgia is for the Prequels not the OT.
I'm someone who has a history of being fine with the often controversial new installments of things I'm Nostalgic for. Batman and Pokemon are far more important to me then any SW films have ever been. And I've defended Snyder's take on Batman as well as what Anime America calls the worst Pokemon movie. And while some Batman material has pissed me off, none have done so in a way that lingers with me like The Last Jedi.
I will watch Episode IX when it comes out, in theaters if I can. I've invested too much of my life into the concept of Star Wars some day being a Trilogy of Trilogies to not be there when the Skywalker Saga ends. But that will probably be the last time for a long time I see a Star Wars film theatrically unless some drastic change happens.
I will try to keep this the last time I talk about SW on this blog till we start getting real news about Episode IX. And even then I will try to just speculate on that up coming movie and not think about my dislike of TLJ.
Now here we are in a post The Last Jedi world and I've looked back on that post and realized
A Star Wars Sequel has become a perfect embodiment of why I felt that way. With the main praise it gets from it's fans being "it subverted expectations" and yet plenty have shown how that doesn't make something good. I did two Blog posts about that.
Subverting Expectations is not a substitute for actual imagination.
When Subverting Expectations becomes totally Expected.
But this YouTube video explains things better then I could.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiXk6mEM_tU
How To Subvert Expectations Correctly (Last Jedi/Infinity War Analysis).
I don't want to keep making posts about how much I dislike The Last Jedi, since I don't want to become what I hate, as someone who spent over a decade being frustrated by Prequel haters who just couldn't let it go. But I do want to make clear why I don't fit into your little stereotypes about the kinds of people who hate The Last Jedi.
Three years ago, in October of 2015, before The Force Awakens came out, I made a post called If Rey isn't a Jedi I will be let down. In fact I felt that if an Episode VII-IX Trilogy is ever made the new Jedi in training should be a Woman before the Disney buy out even happened. I'm an Anime fan who mostly loves Anime about Female heroes, from Magical Girls to Girls With Guns. I want a Gundam series where a teenage girl is put in the Amuro Ray role. Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind is my favorite Anime Movie because it does Rey's story arc better then either Abrams or Johnson have. I've even decided to start calling Project A-Ko my favorite Superman movie. Buffy The Vampire Slayer was my favorite TV show for a long time, now my favorite Western TV show is Pretty Little Liars. I was also into Xena a long time ago.
I'm the last person on the Internet who's gonna dislike a movie because it put a Woman in a traditionally male Action Hero role. If I only see two movies theatrically in 2019, one of them will probably be Battle Angel Alita.
A few months ago at about the same time two people made videos about how people should stop complaining about Plot Holes so much (one was noticed way more then the other). And the basic premise of both I totally agree with. But a number of details I disagree with, mainly their both defending the Holdo and Poe story-line.
My problem with that part of the film is not that I think it's a Plot Hole. I have such a negative view of the Military that I can totally buy a General or Admiral would be that stupid. My issue with this story-line is it's moral.
First of all, if you're actually going to defend Holdo. I'm not saying she needed to tell Poe the plan, the issue is the refusal to assure him there was a plan, which any smart general should know is vital to assure people of to uphold morale. If she'd said, "we have a plan but there are security concerns so it's being kept on a need to know basis", they could have still done the rest of the story-line, with Poe being offended at not being trusted and maybe convincing himself she's lying about there being a plan. That would make the narrative that this was about his Male Ego much more believable.
My problem however is the moral in the end was very pro Authoritarian since it comes down as saying Holdo was 100% right and Poe 100% wrong. Am I saying I wanted it to take the exact opposite stance? No! People keep saying they want this new Trilogy to be more nuanced, so how about they are both wrong? You can still have your shocking moment where Leia shoots Poe, but then have her scold Holdo also. And it's still being Feminist since you'd have it be Leia to set everything right.
Too many people on both sides think there is something Feminist about the decision to fully take Holdo's side. But I know my take on all this would be the same if you switched their Genders, it's TheMarySue.com people who I suspect would be saying the opposite if the narrative condemned a female Ace Pilot who just got condemned for daring to question a male authority figure who blatantly disrespected her. BTW we can also look at it as Holdo being a White authority figure and Poe a POC.
The truth is, the film didn't care about the moral implications of any of this, they just thought it'd be fun to have a Mutiny within our Rebel alliance since that worked so often on the BSG remake (I consider The Oath to be it's best episode). My issue with this storyline's execution is that Male or Female I don't ever want Star Wars taking a Pro-Authoritarian stance.
There is plenty I liked about this movie, I just showed how a few tweaks would make me more fine with the Holdo story-line. The Score was great, the Cinematography was great, the acting was pretty good. And you'll certainly never see me agreeing with the anti-Bathos whiners. But the obsession with Subverting things for the sake it ruined all of that.
I will certainly give this movie more credit then most Prequel Haters ever give those movies.
And that leads us to the final straw-man, that TLJ Haters are just blinded by Nostalgia. And maybe I should be more willing to concede this one since again I'm self aware of my own risk of becoming what I hate in this regard. The problem is, why was this reasoning to not like new SW movies never really brought up till TLJ? What bugs me is this excuse for why people don't like TLJ being thrown around by people who hate on the Prequels like Patrick Willems. Do you think SW fans weren't old enough to start getting like that yet in the Prequel era? Well guess what my age right now is close to that of a 77 SW fan in 99. I'm someone who's SW Nostalgia is for the Prequels not the OT.
I'm someone who has a history of being fine with the often controversial new installments of things I'm Nostalgic for. Batman and Pokemon are far more important to me then any SW films have ever been. And I've defended Snyder's take on Batman as well as what Anime America calls the worst Pokemon movie. And while some Batman material has pissed me off, none have done so in a way that lingers with me like The Last Jedi.
I will watch Episode IX when it comes out, in theaters if I can. I've invested too much of my life into the concept of Star Wars some day being a Trilogy of Trilogies to not be there when the Skywalker Saga ends. But that will probably be the last time for a long time I see a Star Wars film theatrically unless some drastic change happens.
I will try to keep this the last time I talk about SW on this blog till we start getting real news about Episode IX. And even then I will try to just speculate on that up coming movie and not think about my dislike of TLJ.
Friday, October 26, 2018
Update on the availability of my Halloween Anime Recs
Last October I gave a top 5 list.
http://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2017/10/mithrandirs-halloween-anime.html
And then talked about some others.
http://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2017/10/halloween-anime-viewing-update.html
Back then Witch Hunter Robin was not a show legally viewable online, but right now it's on FUNimation and VRV. Vampire Princess Miyu still can't be legally streamed anywhere however.
When They Cry season 1 is still on HIDIVE but now also on Hulu and Yahoo. Kai and Rei are still only on HIDIVE however. Fortunately Hellsing and School Live are both still on Crunchroll so can be viewed for free.
https://because.moe is a good site for checking what shows can be legally streamed online. Though it doesn't seem to include official YouTube Uploads, like the official Pokemon Channel has for Pokemon Origins and Generations (episode 10 of Generations is a good Halloween episode).
The 80s Frankenstein movie still can't be streamed anywhere, but searching for it brought a couple shows with Frankenstein in the name I didn't know about to my attention.
Also on Crunyroll you can watch the currently airing Ms Vampire who Lives in my Neighborhood, though it's only Subbed. I haven't checked out Zombieland Saga yet, I've heard good things but my interest in Zombies is limited.
http://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2017/10/mithrandirs-halloween-anime.html
And then talked about some others.
http://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2017/10/halloween-anime-viewing-update.html
Back then Witch Hunter Robin was not a show legally viewable online, but right now it's on FUNimation and VRV. Vampire Princess Miyu still can't be legally streamed anywhere however.
When They Cry season 1 is still on HIDIVE but now also on Hulu and Yahoo. Kai and Rei are still only on HIDIVE however. Fortunately Hellsing and School Live are both still on Crunchroll so can be viewed for free.
https://because.moe is a good site for checking what shows can be legally streamed online. Though it doesn't seem to include official YouTube Uploads, like the official Pokemon Channel has for Pokemon Origins and Generations (episode 10 of Generations is a good Halloween episode).
The 80s Frankenstein movie still can't be streamed anywhere, but searching for it brought a couple shows with Frankenstein in the name I didn't know about to my attention.
Also on Crunyroll you can watch the currently airing Ms Vampire who Lives in my Neighborhood, though it's only Subbed. I haven't checked out Zombieland Saga yet, I've heard good things but my interest in Zombies is limited.
Fall Simuldubs have started, but I'm only following 2 so far.
Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-San aka Ms. Vampire Who Lives in My Neighborhood’s third episode was good, very specifically reminded me of Lucky Star. Also I hath nick named this show Moe The Vampire Layer.
Release The Spyce episode 3 featured a character who reminded me of a character from Project A-Ko.
Well I can officially say I feel no obligation to continue commenting on SAO Alicization.
The thing about Attack on Titan season 3 is that it’s reminded me of themes I enjoyed from Game of Thrones and the Battlestar Galactica remake at the same time. Episode 9 has continued that. I think it’s been worth the wait.
Hugtto!PreCure episode 37 had some cool moments, but I’m a little disappointed the big crossover event was only a two parter.
The Time I Got Reincarnated as A Slime’s Simuldub started, and it’s first episode was pretty good. I’m still not gonna watch Goblin Slayer though.
Ulysses: Jeanne d’Arc and the Alchemist Knight first episode was pretty compelling. From what I read in the comments it’s taken a page from Fate’s play book.
Release The Spyce episode 3 featured a character who reminded me of a character from Project A-Ko.
Well I can officially say I feel no obligation to continue commenting on SAO Alicization.
The thing about Attack on Titan season 3 is that it’s reminded me of themes I enjoyed from Game of Thrones and the Battlestar Galactica remake at the same time. Episode 9 has continued that. I think it’s been worth the wait.
Hugtto!PreCure episode 37 had some cool moments, but I’m a little disappointed the big crossover event was only a two parter.
The Time I Got Reincarnated as A Slime’s Simuldub started, and it’s first episode was pretty good. I’m still not gonna watch Goblin Slayer though.
Ulysses: Jeanne d’Arc and the Alchemist Knight first episode was pretty compelling. From what I read in the comments it’s taken a page from Fate’s play book.
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
My taste in Anime isn't what you would expect of someone my age.
I'm 4 years older then Bennet The Sage the host of the Anime Abandon YouTube series. He's basically the poster child on YouTube for the generation of Anime fans who view the 90s and very early 2000s as the Golden Age of Anime based on their personal nostalgia. He started Anime Abandon in 2011 with a brief rant about how he can't enjoy current Anime at all, yet I've defined that same year as when my personal golden age of Anime began and I'm 4 years his Senpai.
About half the Anime I've watched came out in that year or since, and likewise half the shows I've given a 10 out of 10. And only about 60 of the over 300 Anime I've completed came out before the year 2000. Only one of the rotating group of Anime that I have marked as a Favorite on MAL is pre-2000 (Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind) though one other is part of a franchise that started before then (The 3rd Pokemon Movie).
My taste in Pokemon reflects my age, I have a small part of myself that can relate to the original 151 purests, and my top two movies are ones that still had Misty in-spite my not liking Misty herself very much. However I've found value in every era of Pokemon.
It also shows my age that I can remember seeing the DiC Dub of Sailor Moon on American TV before it was ever on Toonami. And that I rather casually watched the Namek through Cell sagas of DBZ when they originally aired on Toonami. And during the 2000s I occasionally got into things like Noir and Witch Hunter Robin and Code Geass and Gundam 00 and Death Note. And then took an interest in Lupin III when I first got into BlackCoatPress in 2012.
But besides a few other random things that was about the extent of my interest in Anime prior to 2014. But in that year I took an interest in the Sailor Moon revival, and that lead to me watching Madoka and Utena on Hulu, which lead to me watching Rose of Versailles and Gankutsuou and more. But it wasn't till 2016 I started actually paying attention to anything currently airing.
Every other Nerdy interest of mine somewhat reflects my age, though I've never been someone hating what's current for not being exactly like what I grew up on. But when it comes to Pro-Wrestling I'm primarily Nostalgic for the Attitude era, when it comes to Video Games I like 8 and 16 Bit the best, and when it comes to DC Comics I idealize the Crisis To Crisis era for the most part. If you asked me what Saturday Morning kids Cartoon shows I fondly remember, I'd say Garfield and Friends, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Rugrats, and of course Pokemon. Buffy The Vampire Slayer was once my favorite TV show, and I have some Power Rangers Nostalgia.
So why is it that my taste in Anime seems like that of someone 10-15 years younger then me?
There are some non Anime recent stuff I've liked. Pretty Little Liars is now my favorite western TV show. Phineas and Ferb is a more recent kid's cartoon I enjoyed a lot. But even those were on the way out when the Anime fixation kicked into high gear.
Is there maybe a reason why having that particular taste in western media of the 90s would lead to preferring the last decade when it comes to Anime? After all the people who were full Otaku then probably felt a disconnect with American media similar to what I feel now. Is there some weird way in which Japan and America's sensibilities have swapped?
About half the Anime I've watched came out in that year or since, and likewise half the shows I've given a 10 out of 10. And only about 60 of the over 300 Anime I've completed came out before the year 2000. Only one of the rotating group of Anime that I have marked as a Favorite on MAL is pre-2000 (Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind) though one other is part of a franchise that started before then (The 3rd Pokemon Movie).
My taste in Pokemon reflects my age, I have a small part of myself that can relate to the original 151 purests, and my top two movies are ones that still had Misty in-spite my not liking Misty herself very much. However I've found value in every era of Pokemon.
It also shows my age that I can remember seeing the DiC Dub of Sailor Moon on American TV before it was ever on Toonami. And that I rather casually watched the Namek through Cell sagas of DBZ when they originally aired on Toonami. And during the 2000s I occasionally got into things like Noir and Witch Hunter Robin and Code Geass and Gundam 00 and Death Note. And then took an interest in Lupin III when I first got into BlackCoatPress in 2012.
But besides a few other random things that was about the extent of my interest in Anime prior to 2014. But in that year I took an interest in the Sailor Moon revival, and that lead to me watching Madoka and Utena on Hulu, which lead to me watching Rose of Versailles and Gankutsuou and more. But it wasn't till 2016 I started actually paying attention to anything currently airing.
Every other Nerdy interest of mine somewhat reflects my age, though I've never been someone hating what's current for not being exactly like what I grew up on. But when it comes to Pro-Wrestling I'm primarily Nostalgic for the Attitude era, when it comes to Video Games I like 8 and 16 Bit the best, and when it comes to DC Comics I idealize the Crisis To Crisis era for the most part. If you asked me what Saturday Morning kids Cartoon shows I fondly remember, I'd say Garfield and Friends, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Rugrats, and of course Pokemon. Buffy The Vampire Slayer was once my favorite TV show, and I have some Power Rangers Nostalgia.
So why is it that my taste in Anime seems like that of someone 10-15 years younger then me?
There are some non Anime recent stuff I've liked. Pretty Little Liars is now my favorite western TV show. Phineas and Ferb is a more recent kid's cartoon I enjoyed a lot. But even those were on the way out when the Anime fixation kicked into high gear.
Is there maybe a reason why having that particular taste in western media of the 90s would lead to preferring the last decade when it comes to Anime? After all the people who were full Otaku then probably felt a disconnect with American media similar to what I feel now. Is there some weird way in which Japan and America's sensibilities have swapped?
Tuesday, October 16, 2018
Ya know what's really wrong with this "you can't make a Superman movie like a Batman movie" nonsense?
I did a post on this topic way back in 2015. That was back before BvS came out, now my relationship to that film has become much more complicated but I remain ultimately a defender. That post was about the Comic Book precedent for specific stuff, this is about something deeper.
The problem with the way people are saying "you can't make a Superman movie like a Batman movie" the way these Snyder haters are is that they're saying it in a way that implies doing the opposite would be equally wrong. And yet it's clearly not, even according these same people.
Batman stories that are not dark and in fact pretty light have been incredibly popular and successful. From the Adam West Batman, to Batman: The Brave and The Bold to the Lego Batman movie and Batman Unlimited. And I should remind people Batman Forever was until 2008 the second highest grossing Batman movie. Not to mention that the comics themselves were consistently kid friendly for 30 years from 1940 to 1970. And along side Denny O'Niel and Frank Robbins work there was plenty of goofy Batman stuff still being made in the Bronze Age thanks to writers like Bob Haney.
There was a time when these not Dark takes on Batman were considered inherently offensive by many loud fans, insisting being not dark was the reason Batman and Robin failed. But the success of the Brave and the Bold cartoon has largely marginalized that mentality. And now the people whining "that's not my Batman" are saying it about him killing or using guns, or being too paranoid, and these people will with a straight face say Batman and Robin is a better film then Batman V Superman. Today the Bright Knight is considered equally as valid as the Dark Knight.
So no, saying "you can't make Superman like Batman" isn't sufficient reason to say a darker (emphasis on "er" since I don't actually consider Snyder's vision that dark) take on Superman is inherently wrong.
Since the Golden Age comics are the justification for saying Batman was Dark originally, here's something I'd like to point out, the very earliest Siegel and Shuster Superman stories had the same tone as the earliest Batman stories. Those stories dealt with very real issues of the time, and their Superman did not have any kind of no kill rule, they modeled him after Samson remember. And also frankly those early Batman stories weren't actually as Dark as they're made out to be, stuff happens that seems like gritty subject matter on paper, but it's actually treated about the same as the Silver Age treated it's subject matter. Don't judge a book by it's cover, the most popular Golden Age cover to Dark Batman Fanboys was on the inside a pretty ridiculous story.
And I think it's more valid to use the original creators vision as an argument for how to do Superman then it is Batman because originally Batman was a cash grab derivative character. Superman was a passion project of struggling artists who's run away success was why Batman was created to begin with.
But even if it was true that from their inception Superman was the shining hopeful one and Batman the utterly dark one. Why should a light take on a dark character be considered inherently more acceptable then a dark take on a light character?
If the objection is fear that parents and kids will assume something is okay for them based on the brand name alone. That again goes the same both ways, in fact making a kids show from a property that's dark in origin should be worse, because even as a kid I was interested in things like continuity, so yes if you show your kids a 70s Godzilla movie they might wind up asking to see the original Godzilla movie.
The fact is, lots of kids grow up to desire seeing the fiction from their childhood grow up with them. There has been a backlash against Dark Magical Girl shows kind of comparable to what we're seeing with Man of Steel's rejection. But the thing is Gundam was a darker and grittier take on a genre that had previously been consistently for children also. And thus that backlash has not been nearly so seemingly universal.
For me, the show from my childhood that I sometimes turn to precisely because I can count on it to be optimistic and fairly consequence free is Pokemon. But sometimes I myself imagine what a truly darker take on that premise could be like. It's of course already had moments that can be dark in the same way a Disney cartoon can sometimes get dark. But at the end of the day, no, I don't want it to get any darker then the darkest moments of the first 5 movies. However if a Dark and Gritty Pokemon movie becomes inevitable, I'll either not watch it, or give it a chance and not re-watch it if it fails to engage me. I'm not gonna go around saying "that's not my Pokemon" or "they ruined my childhood". My problem with Mystery of the Mirage Pokemon is not that it's arguably dark, it's that it failed to even try to be entertaining. Meaning I'd compare it to Superman Returns before I would Man of Steel.
The difference between Superman and the Magical Girl Warrior genre is not that one is a single character and the other an entire genre, Superman has produced more content then some entire sub genres. The main reason I find the people whining about Dark Magical Girls so annoying is that there is no shortage of the traditional stuff still coming out for them. We still have nearly 50 episodes of PreCure every year (that alone dwarfs the amount of Dark Magical Girl content we get each year) and two movies, plus during this time we've had a Sailor Moon revival, a Cardcaptor Sakura revival, and new stuff like Twin Angel Break and Hina Logic. And then there is stuff that tries to find a balance between these two extremes, Symphogear, Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya, and we've had new installments of the Nanoha franchise.
The problem with Superman is DC's been failing to give the traditionalists what they want anywhere. The Comics will often forget that Clark Kent is a thing, in Animation he stopped getting solo projects for a long time after MOS came out until they finally decided to take a second shot at the Death of Superman, I love that story-line but shouldn't we actually show this Superman alive first? And in Video Games it's primarily been Injustice.
The Supergirl TV show was the best the Michael Baily type Superman fans have gotten, being a mix of early Post-Crisis and Donnerverse sensibilities. But Superman himself only occasionally shows up on that. And I don't know if it's still good, I stopped following DC TV shows early in it's second season.
So I think there might have been much more acceptance of Snyder's Superman if we'd had an Animated Superman TV show in the vain of Batman: Brave and The Bold, maybe give that show's Superman a spin off. As for me, I still judge Snyder's films on their own merits, and issues aside I think it is a valid take on Superman. Here's a good video essay I watched recently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKI0UO5U7qo
If your objection to the title of this post is that, "those light takes on Batman aren't exactly the same thing as a Superman story" then you've invalidated this as an argument against MOS in the first place. No MOS is not exactly like a Batman movie either, BvS gave us some scenes of what a Snyder directed Batman movie would be like, and there was nothing like that in Man of Steel.
The problem with the way people are saying "you can't make a Superman movie like a Batman movie" the way these Snyder haters are is that they're saying it in a way that implies doing the opposite would be equally wrong. And yet it's clearly not, even according these same people.
Batman stories that are not dark and in fact pretty light have been incredibly popular and successful. From the Adam West Batman, to Batman: The Brave and The Bold to the Lego Batman movie and Batman Unlimited. And I should remind people Batman Forever was until 2008 the second highest grossing Batman movie. Not to mention that the comics themselves were consistently kid friendly for 30 years from 1940 to 1970. And along side Denny O'Niel and Frank Robbins work there was plenty of goofy Batman stuff still being made in the Bronze Age thanks to writers like Bob Haney.
There was a time when these not Dark takes on Batman were considered inherently offensive by many loud fans, insisting being not dark was the reason Batman and Robin failed. But the success of the Brave and the Bold cartoon has largely marginalized that mentality. And now the people whining "that's not my Batman" are saying it about him killing or using guns, or being too paranoid, and these people will with a straight face say Batman and Robin is a better film then Batman V Superman. Today the Bright Knight is considered equally as valid as the Dark Knight.
So no, saying "you can't make Superman like Batman" isn't sufficient reason to say a darker (emphasis on "er" since I don't actually consider Snyder's vision that dark) take on Superman is inherently wrong.
Since the Golden Age comics are the justification for saying Batman was Dark originally, here's something I'd like to point out, the very earliest Siegel and Shuster Superman stories had the same tone as the earliest Batman stories. Those stories dealt with very real issues of the time, and their Superman did not have any kind of no kill rule, they modeled him after Samson remember. And also frankly those early Batman stories weren't actually as Dark as they're made out to be, stuff happens that seems like gritty subject matter on paper, but it's actually treated about the same as the Silver Age treated it's subject matter. Don't judge a book by it's cover, the most popular Golden Age cover to Dark Batman Fanboys was on the inside a pretty ridiculous story.
And I think it's more valid to use the original creators vision as an argument for how to do Superman then it is Batman because originally Batman was a cash grab derivative character. Superman was a passion project of struggling artists who's run away success was why Batman was created to begin with.
But even if it was true that from their inception Superman was the shining hopeful one and Batman the utterly dark one. Why should a light take on a dark character be considered inherently more acceptable then a dark take on a light character?
If the objection is fear that parents and kids will assume something is okay for them based on the brand name alone. That again goes the same both ways, in fact making a kids show from a property that's dark in origin should be worse, because even as a kid I was interested in things like continuity, so yes if you show your kids a 70s Godzilla movie they might wind up asking to see the original Godzilla movie.
The fact is, lots of kids grow up to desire seeing the fiction from their childhood grow up with them. There has been a backlash against Dark Magical Girl shows kind of comparable to what we're seeing with Man of Steel's rejection. But the thing is Gundam was a darker and grittier take on a genre that had previously been consistently for children also. And thus that backlash has not been nearly so seemingly universal.
For me, the show from my childhood that I sometimes turn to precisely because I can count on it to be optimistic and fairly consequence free is Pokemon. But sometimes I myself imagine what a truly darker take on that premise could be like. It's of course already had moments that can be dark in the same way a Disney cartoon can sometimes get dark. But at the end of the day, no, I don't want it to get any darker then the darkest moments of the first 5 movies. However if a Dark and Gritty Pokemon movie becomes inevitable, I'll either not watch it, or give it a chance and not re-watch it if it fails to engage me. I'm not gonna go around saying "that's not my Pokemon" or "they ruined my childhood". My problem with Mystery of the Mirage Pokemon is not that it's arguably dark, it's that it failed to even try to be entertaining. Meaning I'd compare it to Superman Returns before I would Man of Steel.
The difference between Superman and the Magical Girl Warrior genre is not that one is a single character and the other an entire genre, Superman has produced more content then some entire sub genres. The main reason I find the people whining about Dark Magical Girls so annoying is that there is no shortage of the traditional stuff still coming out for them. We still have nearly 50 episodes of PreCure every year (that alone dwarfs the amount of Dark Magical Girl content we get each year) and two movies, plus during this time we've had a Sailor Moon revival, a Cardcaptor Sakura revival, and new stuff like Twin Angel Break and Hina Logic. And then there is stuff that tries to find a balance between these two extremes, Symphogear, Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya, and we've had new installments of the Nanoha franchise.
The problem with Superman is DC's been failing to give the traditionalists what they want anywhere. The Comics will often forget that Clark Kent is a thing, in Animation he stopped getting solo projects for a long time after MOS came out until they finally decided to take a second shot at the Death of Superman, I love that story-line but shouldn't we actually show this Superman alive first? And in Video Games it's primarily been Injustice.
The Supergirl TV show was the best the Michael Baily type Superman fans have gotten, being a mix of early Post-Crisis and Donnerverse sensibilities. But Superman himself only occasionally shows up on that. And I don't know if it's still good, I stopped following DC TV shows early in it's second season.
So I think there might have been much more acceptance of Snyder's Superman if we'd had an Animated Superman TV show in the vain of Batman: Brave and The Bold, maybe give that show's Superman a spin off. As for me, I still judge Snyder's films on their own merits, and issues aside I think it is a valid take on Superman. Here's a good video essay I watched recently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKI0UO5U7qo
If your objection to the title of this post is that, "those light takes on Batman aren't exactly the same thing as a Superman story" then you've invalidated this as an argument against MOS in the first place. No MOS is not exactly like a Batman movie either, BvS gave us some scenes of what a Snyder directed Batman movie would be like, and there was nothing like that in Man of Steel.
Monday, October 15, 2018
Anime Weekly Update: Summer is finished, now Fall can fully begin.
Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-San aka Ms. Vampire Who Lives in My Neighborhood’s second episode was also a lot of fun. I have decent hopes for this one. Perhaps a good shorthand for it would be Ms. Vampire.
Episode 8 of Attack On Titan season 3 was pretty good again, this is dwarfing the entertainment value of season 2.
Something I wasn’t aware of last week, the official episode description for the pilot of Release The Spyce began with “The Spyce must flow” in the English version at least. So they definitely know what they’re doing.
Episode 2 was a pretty good follow up, it explained some more about how this world works.
Now to talk about SAO Alicization. Because of the double length premier I have no idea if this episode I just watched will ultimately be numbered as 2 or 3, but it’s title was The Demon Tree.
I thought Alicization was getting a full year because it’s an arc that spanned like 7 Novels. But I’m now starting to suspect that it won’t actually do much more than a usual SAO arc and they’re just really stretching it out. I know that Digibro accuses all SAO sequel arcs of having slow starts, but you see I don’t mind a slow start to a certain extent. Three episodes into Alfheim and Gun Gale I felt definitely gave me an engaging set up to what we were starting. Here I feel like I’ve just watched three different pilots to three different shows.
I don’t think I can get used to Kirito’s Japanese VA. For one thing while both VAs I’m pretty sure are older then Kirito’s actual age, the Japanese one does not sound like a Young Adult at all, in this episode especially if I heard that voice in a Hentai I’d assume it’s the rapist teacher who’s about to NTR a character Kirito’s age.
Bryce Papenbrook might be easy to write off as the generic Senian Harem king with a Hero complex Dub voice. But while Eren, Shiro and Kirito all clearly have the same English voice I can still clearly tell them apart. Kirito is the most mentally stable of this Triumvirate and Bryce thus plays him in a much more subdued way.
Episode 36 of Hugtto!PreCure was crossover madness. Not a lot for me to chew on with the four teams I care about the most being missing. But next week is looking to be quite a treat. Which reminds me, I've been meaning to do a blog post on how the first three PreCure Allstar movies were better crossover films then the first Avengers movie.
Steins;Gate 0 had a pretty dope ending. I’ll give the show a 9.
Episode 8 of Attack On Titan season 3 was pretty good again, this is dwarfing the entertainment value of season 2.
Something I wasn’t aware of last week, the official episode description for the pilot of Release The Spyce began with “The Spyce must flow” in the English version at least. So they definitely know what they’re doing.
Episode 2 was a pretty good follow up, it explained some more about how this world works.
Now to talk about SAO Alicization. Because of the double length premier I have no idea if this episode I just watched will ultimately be numbered as 2 or 3, but it’s title was The Demon Tree.
I thought Alicization was getting a full year because it’s an arc that spanned like 7 Novels. But I’m now starting to suspect that it won’t actually do much more than a usual SAO arc and they’re just really stretching it out. I know that Digibro accuses all SAO sequel arcs of having slow starts, but you see I don’t mind a slow start to a certain extent. Three episodes into Alfheim and Gun Gale I felt definitely gave me an engaging set up to what we were starting. Here I feel like I’ve just watched three different pilots to three different shows.
I don’t think I can get used to Kirito’s Japanese VA. For one thing while both VAs I’m pretty sure are older then Kirito’s actual age, the Japanese one does not sound like a Young Adult at all, in this episode especially if I heard that voice in a Hentai I’d assume it’s the rapist teacher who’s about to NTR a character Kirito’s age.
Bryce Papenbrook might be easy to write off as the generic Senian Harem king with a Hero complex Dub voice. But while Eren, Shiro and Kirito all clearly have the same English voice I can still clearly tell them apart. Kirito is the most mentally stable of this Triumvirate and Bryce thus plays him in a much more subdued way.
Episode 36 of Hugtto!PreCure was crossover madness. Not a lot for me to chew on with the four teams I care about the most being missing. But next week is looking to be quite a treat. Which reminds me, I've been meaning to do a blog post on how the first three PreCure Allstar movies were better crossover films then the first Avengers movie.
Steins;Gate 0 had a pretty dope ending. I’ll give the show a 9.
Thursday, October 11, 2018
My advice to Universal for reviving it's Monster franchise
I did a post about my thoughts on where the Dark Universe could go last year called The Temptation of Frankenstein. Now it seems like the Dark Universe is clearly dead. So I have some new advice that complements that advice pretty well actually.
My advice for how to start a New Universal Monsters Shared Cinematic Universe is..... don't.
You don't need to start one, just make new movies in continuity with the classic 30s and 40s films.
I know you're concerned it won't be comparable to Marvel if it isn't pre-planned from the start, and those old monster movies don't have a flawlessly consistent continuity. But the MCU does have continuity issues of it's own.
Universal should take advantage of the fact that they already have a popular shared Cinematic Universe. Don't listen to the people who say DC failed cause it didn't start with Origin stories, DC's issues are deeper then that. Plenty of fans are tired of Origin films.
"But won't following the canon of the 30s and 40s movies hinder the ability to make things more diverse?" No it won't, I'm saying make new stories bringing that canon into the present. There is still room for new characters including new Monsters.
You can actually address the fact that Lucy was never dealt with in Universal's Dracula movie. And fix the issue of Karloff's monster being able to survive the end of Bride but not the titular Bride. And you can bring back Dracula's Daughter and explore her psychology including Bisexuality even deeper. And this time cast actual Coptic actors to play the Egyptians in the Mummy movies including Kharis and/or Imhotep under those bandages.
I would be fine with having a new character be the Werewolf of this saga. Lawrence Talbot is the one character where, in the same continuity, I'd have trouble with an actor other then Lon Chaney Jr. playing him. Let Talbot keep his happy ending from House of Dracula. The guy who wrote The Wolfman was an immigrant fleeing the Nazis and that influenced him allegorically. So in a modern setting have the new Werewolf be Mexican.
This is kind of the same advice I'd give Toho now that they've announced plans to make an MCU style shared Universe after Legendary finishes theirs in 2020. Don't start from scratch, Shin Godzilla was special but for the most part I liked them always at least keeping the original Gojira as canon. But now I'd say go further then that and outright revive the Sowa Universe. Or if you don't want to bring back a fully heroic Godzilla, make Godzilla Vs Mothra the break off point.
My advice for how to start a New Universal Monsters Shared Cinematic Universe is..... don't.
You don't need to start one, just make new movies in continuity with the classic 30s and 40s films.
I know you're concerned it won't be comparable to Marvel if it isn't pre-planned from the start, and those old monster movies don't have a flawlessly consistent continuity. But the MCU does have continuity issues of it's own.
Universal should take advantage of the fact that they already have a popular shared Cinematic Universe. Don't listen to the people who say DC failed cause it didn't start with Origin stories, DC's issues are deeper then that. Plenty of fans are tired of Origin films.
"But won't following the canon of the 30s and 40s movies hinder the ability to make things more diverse?" No it won't, I'm saying make new stories bringing that canon into the present. There is still room for new characters including new Monsters.
You can actually address the fact that Lucy was never dealt with in Universal's Dracula movie. And fix the issue of Karloff's monster being able to survive the end of Bride but not the titular Bride. And you can bring back Dracula's Daughter and explore her psychology including Bisexuality even deeper. And this time cast actual Coptic actors to play the Egyptians in the Mummy movies including Kharis and/or Imhotep under those bandages.
I would be fine with having a new character be the Werewolf of this saga. Lawrence Talbot is the one character where, in the same continuity, I'd have trouble with an actor other then Lon Chaney Jr. playing him. Let Talbot keep his happy ending from House of Dracula. The guy who wrote The Wolfman was an immigrant fleeing the Nazis and that influenced him allegorically. So in a modern setting have the new Werewolf be Mexican.
This is kind of the same advice I'd give Toho now that they've announced plans to make an MCU style shared Universe after Legendary finishes theirs in 2020. Don't start from scratch, Shin Godzilla was special but for the most part I liked them always at least keeping the original Gojira as canon. But now I'd say go further then that and outright revive the Sowa Universe. Or if you don't want to bring back a fully heroic Godzilla, make Godzilla Vs Mothra the break off point.
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
I've watched Shin Godzilla twice
Both subbed and dubbed. I watched the Dub first with my family since they can't really watch stuff subbed like I can, and watching something subbed is easier for me if I've seen it before. I then watched the Sub. I'll get to comparing them later, first a more general review.
It's good, I liked it and highly recommend it.
As many know, Godzilla was originally just an English pronunciation of Gojira, to the Japanese it never was a theophoric name. Though they've been aware of the implications of the English pronunciation long enough to use it to mock the 98 Godzilla in Final Wars in 2004. This movie chose to flat out make that a a theme putting it right in the title, Shin is another way to say Kami, the Japanese Kanji commonly translated god/God.
This movie was directed by someone most known for directing Anime, most famously Neon Genesis Evangelion, some of the music was ripped right from Evangelion. The Godzilla franchise was arguably an influence on the first episode of Evangelion to begin with, so it all kind of fits together. And I think that's part of why they went with letting FUNimation localize it (the Dub has some VAs in common with the Rebuild of Evangelion films).
Also two of the female characters in this film seemed like Anime Girls, which is why I think they're much better written then we usually get from female characters in Godzilla films. Both Ogashiro and Ms. Patterson were pretty cool characters.
I don't really want to say much about the Fukushima commentary since Pause and Select did a great video on it, and Digibro and Tommy Oliver discussed it. I hope the guy who does Dark Corners will consider doing a video on it as a follow up to his video about Gojira being a truly unique film.
And as a Pokemaniac I love how the Atomic Breath is basically Hyper Beam now.
I'm disappointed to learn that there won't be a direct sequel to this, the next Japanese LA Godzilla will be a another MCU style Shared Universe experiment. I would have liked to see a sequel exploring the Humanoid Godzilla offspring and perhaps also continuing the Shin theme more by having actual cults worshiping Godzilla.
As a major enthusiast of Anime Dubs, I'm also well aware LA dubbing is different. With campy movies like most Godzilla films or Italian Sword and Sandal films that obviously dubbed awkwardness can add to their charm, but this is a serious Gojira film like the original and the 84 film. You should watch this movie in Japanese if you're at all able, but I know some people can't handle watching stuff Subbed at all and I understand that.
That said, this Dub was good, Erwin Schmit as Hideki Akasaka worked very well. Maybe it's just cause I've developed a unique fondness for the VAs FUNimation usually uses. But they know this is a serious film they're dubbing, they did take it seriously.
And the character of Kayoko Ann Patterson kind of does inherently work better in the Dub. Her backstory says she should know English better then she does Japanese, her father's a US Senator, she says she's not good with Honorifics and she intends to be President some day. But her Japanese actress can't sell that, when she's speaking English she obviously sounds like she has no idea what she's saying. It's a shame this one issue hinders her performance because she seems like a perfectly fine actress otherwise. Her Dub actress is really obviously Kirisu of Steins;Gate and frankly that choice worked perfectly, I just learned she's also Mikasa Ackerman of Attack on Titan, I didn't even know they were the same, I'm impressed.
As far as the translation goes, the exact wording is different but the Subtitles and Dub are always saying basically the same thing. If I wanted to get nit picky with it both have examples where I'd say the other seems more natural. I of course am not qualified to judge the accuracy of either.
So whichever way you prefer to watch your Godzilla films, this one will be enjoyable.
It's good, I liked it and highly recommend it.
As many know, Godzilla was originally just an English pronunciation of Gojira, to the Japanese it never was a theophoric name. Though they've been aware of the implications of the English pronunciation long enough to use it to mock the 98 Godzilla in Final Wars in 2004. This movie chose to flat out make that a a theme putting it right in the title, Shin is another way to say Kami, the Japanese Kanji commonly translated god/God.
This movie was directed by someone most known for directing Anime, most famously Neon Genesis Evangelion, some of the music was ripped right from Evangelion. The Godzilla franchise was arguably an influence on the first episode of Evangelion to begin with, so it all kind of fits together. And I think that's part of why they went with letting FUNimation localize it (the Dub has some VAs in common with the Rebuild of Evangelion films).
Also two of the female characters in this film seemed like Anime Girls, which is why I think they're much better written then we usually get from female characters in Godzilla films. Both Ogashiro and Ms. Patterson were pretty cool characters.
I don't really want to say much about the Fukushima commentary since Pause and Select did a great video on it, and Digibro and Tommy Oliver discussed it. I hope the guy who does Dark Corners will consider doing a video on it as a follow up to his video about Gojira being a truly unique film.
And as a Pokemaniac I love how the Atomic Breath is basically Hyper Beam now.
I'm disappointed to learn that there won't be a direct sequel to this, the next Japanese LA Godzilla will be a another MCU style Shared Universe experiment. I would have liked to see a sequel exploring the Humanoid Godzilla offspring and perhaps also continuing the Shin theme more by having actual cults worshiping Godzilla.
As a major enthusiast of Anime Dubs, I'm also well aware LA dubbing is different. With campy movies like most Godzilla films or Italian Sword and Sandal films that obviously dubbed awkwardness can add to their charm, but this is a serious Gojira film like the original and the 84 film. You should watch this movie in Japanese if you're at all able, but I know some people can't handle watching stuff Subbed at all and I understand that.
That said, this Dub was good, Erwin Schmit as Hideki Akasaka worked very well. Maybe it's just cause I've developed a unique fondness for the VAs FUNimation usually uses. But they know this is a serious film they're dubbing, they did take it seriously.
And the character of Kayoko Ann Patterson kind of does inherently work better in the Dub. Her backstory says she should know English better then she does Japanese, her father's a US Senator, she says she's not good with Honorifics and she intends to be President some day. But her Japanese actress can't sell that, when she's speaking English she obviously sounds like she has no idea what she's saying. It's a shame this one issue hinders her performance because she seems like a perfectly fine actress otherwise. Her Dub actress is really obviously Kirisu of Steins;Gate and frankly that choice worked perfectly, I just learned she's also Mikasa Ackerman of Attack on Titan, I didn't even know they were the same, I'm impressed.
As far as the translation goes, the exact wording is different but the Subtitles and Dub are always saying basically the same thing. If I wanted to get nit picky with it both have examples where I'd say the other seems more natural. I of course am not qualified to judge the accuracy of either.
So whichever way you prefer to watch your Godzilla films, this one will be enjoyable.
Monday, October 8, 2018
October's first Weekly Anime Update
Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-San aka Ms. Vampire Who Lives in My Neighborhood had a perfectly adorable pilot. There was a period where Vampire based fiction was a top obsession of mine, I started this blog when that phase was winding down. I wish I could have seen this show and Tsukihime back then.
I know I said last week I was gonna include Slime and Goblin Slayer in the simuldubs I was gonna watch. But with both I’ve since heard a lot of things about them being Dark and Gritty in ways I prefer my Isekai to not be. So I probably simply won’t try them after all.
The first episode of Release The Spyce was fun. Since I first heard of it I’d been joking about the title making me think of Dune. But it turns out the titular Spyce does kind of the do the same thing Melange does.
Attack On Titan season 3 episode 7 was pretty darn good again, season 3 is easily proving to be way better than season 2 was.
The premier of Sword Art Online: Alicization was 47 minutes, I suspect MAL will ultimately classify it as two episodes. The first half was not too exciting but has me curious. The Gun Gale Online segment was fun, I had no idea how much I wanted to see Sylica manning a machine gun. It seems like they might be planning to play even more into the Gnostic themes I’ve been meaning to write a blog post on. This is my first time watching this cast with their Japanese VAs, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to get used to them.
Hugtto!PreCure episode 35 was okay.
Steins;Gate 0 episode 22 was very good, I’m quite excited to see the ending now.
I know I said last week I was gonna include Slime and Goblin Slayer in the simuldubs I was gonna watch. But with both I’ve since heard a lot of things about them being Dark and Gritty in ways I prefer my Isekai to not be. So I probably simply won’t try them after all.
The first episode of Release The Spyce was fun. Since I first heard of it I’d been joking about the title making me think of Dune. But it turns out the titular Spyce does kind of the do the same thing Melange does.
Attack On Titan season 3 episode 7 was pretty darn good again, season 3 is easily proving to be way better than season 2 was.
The premier of Sword Art Online: Alicization was 47 minutes, I suspect MAL will ultimately classify it as two episodes. The first half was not too exciting but has me curious. The Gun Gale Online segment was fun, I had no idea how much I wanted to see Sylica manning a machine gun. It seems like they might be planning to play even more into the Gnostic themes I’ve been meaning to write a blog post on. This is my first time watching this cast with their Japanese VAs, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to get used to them.
Hugtto!PreCure episode 35 was okay.
Steins;Gate 0 episode 22 was very good, I’m quite excited to see the ending now.
Tuesday, October 2, 2018
An update on my Black Coat Press and Tales of The Shadowmen interests
Been a while since I said much specifically on that subject. It'll be awhile before I can contribute to the Tales of The Shadowmen anthology series since the story ideas I've been having lately haven't been on that subject, Anime has taken over my imagination. And of course I always have trouble getting my stories actually written down anyway, having an explicit deadline helped motivate me when I was writing TOTS stories.
I also feel bad that I still haven't finished The Companions of Silence, I bought the book early this year and started it, I like it as much as I do most Paul Feval stuff, but my mind has been fixating on other things. This February The White Wolf is being released, it has had English versions before but they're rare and hard to find. I hope they follow that up with The She Wolf.
I spent a good deal of time last year recommending Princess Principal to fellow Shadowmen fans. It's set in an alternate Steam Punk version of Victorian England, but a lot of it's themes feel more appropriate for post-Revolutionary France. But regardless plenty of the French novels we like used Britain as a setting, from The Mysteries of London to the last three Rocambole novels to John Devil.
I bring it up again now because it's Dub has finally dropped. Now I haven't watched said Dub yet, I know from the trailer they actually went with British Accents which is a decision I'm actually rather skeptical of. Noir's Dub worked great without any accents, I love Anime dub VAs but accents aren't their strong suite. Still I will give a shot eventually.
The show is legally streaming on both HIDIVE and Amazon Prime, I think only HIDIVE has the Dub but I'm unsure, it may be you need to buy the DVDs for the full Dub. Either way neither can be streamed for free, they are not making it easy for me to show this show to outsiders.
Something else about Princess Principal is I feel the episodes should be watched in Chronological order.
2, 3, 5, 4, 9, 1, 7, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12
A lot happens in Anime that reminds me of my Francophilic tendencies. This coming Fall Season will have yet another Anime version of Jeanne d'Arc in a show that's also about Alchemy. We also had more Lupin III Anime this year, I won't be watching Part V till it's Dub airs however, which based on the time-frame for Part IV I suspect will be next year. All the main Lupin III shows are on Crunchyroll Subbed right now, but suddenly The Woman Called Fujiko Mine isn't streaming anywhere.
Thanks to Hulu dropping most of what it had, Rose of Versailles and Revolutionary Girl Utena can't be legally streamed anywhere now either. That's really frustrating.
Lastly I want to talk about an observation I made about Pokemon Heroes: Latios & Latias, the Fifth Pokemon movie. This observation can only be fully understood by others who have read Knightshade (Brian Stableford's translation of Paul Feval's Le Chevalier Ténèbre), including it's introduction and afterward material.
I feel that Annie and Oakley can be thematically compared to the Ténèbre Brothers. They are called sisters in material I've read though I don't recall that being explicitly stated in the Dub. Oakley is definitely Avarice. Calling Annie "Lust" may be a bit more of a stretch since it's a kid's movie and all, but she is very vain and likes pretty shiny things, and is officially described as the prettier one. This parallel is most likely a coincidence, but I enjoy making parallels between the works of this semi forgotten author and modern Nerd media.
I also feel bad that I still haven't finished The Companions of Silence, I bought the book early this year and started it, I like it as much as I do most Paul Feval stuff, but my mind has been fixating on other things. This February The White Wolf is being released, it has had English versions before but they're rare and hard to find. I hope they follow that up with The She Wolf.
I spent a good deal of time last year recommending Princess Principal to fellow Shadowmen fans. It's set in an alternate Steam Punk version of Victorian England, but a lot of it's themes feel more appropriate for post-Revolutionary France. But regardless plenty of the French novels we like used Britain as a setting, from The Mysteries of London to the last three Rocambole novels to John Devil.
I bring it up again now because it's Dub has finally dropped. Now I haven't watched said Dub yet, I know from the trailer they actually went with British Accents which is a decision I'm actually rather skeptical of. Noir's Dub worked great without any accents, I love Anime dub VAs but accents aren't their strong suite. Still I will give a shot eventually.
The show is legally streaming on both HIDIVE and Amazon Prime, I think only HIDIVE has the Dub but I'm unsure, it may be you need to buy the DVDs for the full Dub. Either way neither can be streamed for free, they are not making it easy for me to show this show to outsiders.
Something else about Princess Principal is I feel the episodes should be watched in Chronological order.
2, 3, 5, 4, 9, 1, 7, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12
A lot happens in Anime that reminds me of my Francophilic tendencies. This coming Fall Season will have yet another Anime version of Jeanne d'Arc in a show that's also about Alchemy. We also had more Lupin III Anime this year, I won't be watching Part V till it's Dub airs however, which based on the time-frame for Part IV I suspect will be next year. All the main Lupin III shows are on Crunchyroll Subbed right now, but suddenly The Woman Called Fujiko Mine isn't streaming anywhere.
Thanks to Hulu dropping most of what it had, Rose of Versailles and Revolutionary Girl Utena can't be legally streamed anywhere now either. That's really frustrating.
Lastly I want to talk about an observation I made about Pokemon Heroes: Latios & Latias, the Fifth Pokemon movie. This observation can only be fully understood by others who have read Knightshade (Brian Stableford's translation of Paul Feval's Le Chevalier Ténèbre), including it's introduction and afterward material.
I feel that Annie and Oakley can be thematically compared to the Ténèbre Brothers. They are called sisters in material I've read though I don't recall that being explicitly stated in the Dub. Oakley is definitely Avarice. Calling Annie "Lust" may be a bit more of a stretch since it's a kid's movie and all, but she is very vain and likes pretty shiny things, and is officially described as the prettier one. This parallel is most likely a coincidence, but I enjoy making parallels between the works of this semi forgotten author and modern Nerd media.
Monday, October 1, 2018
Anime Weekly Update, Summer Ends and Halloween Season Begins
Besides the currently airing shows I’ve been mainly watching old Pokemon Stuff still. Sometimes joining one of the TwitchPresents streams which were covering Master Quest this last week and are now starting the Advance Generation, sometimes watching old Pokemon Chronicles and Diamond and Pearl episodes on my favorite non legit site. And also revisiting various movies.
Happy Sugar Life had a fairly unsatisfying ending, they didn’t quite go all the way either way with the different routes they could have gone. I gave the show an 8 on MAL for now, I may change my mind later.
Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight has also ended. This show started out great but got pretty dull, really losing me with the pointless time loop twist, and in time I mostly felt like I was forcing myself to finish it, and maybe I wouldn't have if the Summer had more shows I really got into. It gave us a happier ending then Ikuhara usually does so that’s a plus, but not enough to make up for how dull it got.
And of course in the last episode they decided to get really on the nose with the meta commentary they were never actually making.
Attack On Titan season 3 episode 6 was pretty good, lots of interesting reveals of the show’s lore that I’d been waiting for. I know a lot of people are gonna see revealing the Royal/Noble bloodlines to have some secret magical powers as endorsing a Feudal worldview regardless of if it’s depicting them as depraved and corrupt. But maybe it makes more sense to look at it as the families with special powers are the ones who naturally would have taken power in the distant past in a fantasy setting, like the Targaryen’s ability to control Dragons on Game of Thrones.
Episode 34 of Hugtto!PreCure was pretty amusing. I was late in seeing episode 33 or I probably would have commented on it in last week’s update, with that episode I think the show might have gotten its groove back.
Episode 10 of Food/Stay Night was fun as usual.
Episode 21 of Steins;Gate 0 was awesome, this is what we’ve been waiting for.
Looks like my Anime of the year is still likely to be Katana Maidens.
For the coming Fall Season, the FUNimation Simuldubs I’m likely to try are That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime, Goblin Slayer, Ulysses: Jeanne D’Arc and The Alchemist Knight, and maybe a few others when I learn more about them. Sentai/HiDive is doing Release The Spyce, I’ll wait till the Dub starts this time and then if I don’t like the voices I can just catch up on the Sub. SAO season 3 I may try to follow Subbed since I know it’s Dub will take awhile, there are other shows I may try like that Vampire Yuri one.
And of course I’ll be continuing AoT 3 and what’s left of Steins;Gate 0.
For October I was earlier in the year planning to do some project related to Horror Anime, but due to certain events in my life I’m not in the mood for anything too dark right now. So my Halloween Anime recommendations remain the same as they were last year in my Top 5 post and the follow up. I did make a new Higurashi post on another blog.
http://mithrandironmythology.blogspot.com/2018/10/this-is-post-about-higurashiwhen-they.html
Update: Okay apparently I was mistaken about which show Sentai is simuldubbing. I guess I'll have to sub Release The Spyce.
Happy Sugar Life had a fairly unsatisfying ending, they didn’t quite go all the way either way with the different routes they could have gone. I gave the show an 8 on MAL for now, I may change my mind later.
Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight has also ended. This show started out great but got pretty dull, really losing me with the pointless time loop twist, and in time I mostly felt like I was forcing myself to finish it, and maybe I wouldn't have if the Summer had more shows I really got into. It gave us a happier ending then Ikuhara usually does so that’s a plus, but not enough to make up for how dull it got.
And of course in the last episode they decided to get really on the nose with the meta commentary they were never actually making.
Attack On Titan season 3 episode 6 was pretty good, lots of interesting reveals of the show’s lore that I’d been waiting for. I know a lot of people are gonna see revealing the Royal/Noble bloodlines to have some secret magical powers as endorsing a Feudal worldview regardless of if it’s depicting them as depraved and corrupt. But maybe it makes more sense to look at it as the families with special powers are the ones who naturally would have taken power in the distant past in a fantasy setting, like the Targaryen’s ability to control Dragons on Game of Thrones.
Episode 34 of Hugtto!PreCure was pretty amusing. I was late in seeing episode 33 or I probably would have commented on it in last week’s update, with that episode I think the show might have gotten its groove back.
Episode 10 of Food/Stay Night was fun as usual.
Episode 21 of Steins;Gate 0 was awesome, this is what we’ve been waiting for.
Looks like my Anime of the year is still likely to be Katana Maidens.
For the coming Fall Season, the FUNimation Simuldubs I’m likely to try are That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime, Goblin Slayer, Ulysses: Jeanne D’Arc and The Alchemist Knight, and maybe a few others when I learn more about them. Sentai/HiDive is doing Release The Spyce, I’ll wait till the Dub starts this time and then if I don’t like the voices I can just catch up on the Sub. SAO season 3 I may try to follow Subbed since I know it’s Dub will take awhile, there are other shows I may try like that Vampire Yuri one.
And of course I’ll be continuing AoT 3 and what’s left of Steins;Gate 0.
For October I was earlier in the year planning to do some project related to Horror Anime, but due to certain events in my life I’m not in the mood for anything too dark right now. So my Halloween Anime recommendations remain the same as they were last year in my Top 5 post and the follow up. I did make a new Higurashi post on another blog.
http://mithrandironmythology.blogspot.com/2018/10/this-is-post-about-higurashiwhen-they.html
Update: Okay apparently I was mistaken about which show Sentai is simuldubbing. I guess I'll have to sub Release The Spyce.
Saturday, September 29, 2018
Pokemon of The Great Houses of Westeros
Back in the early years of Game of Thrones dominating pop culture I made a thread on a Message Board, I think it was VGF, that I can't find anymore, where I equated the various Sigils of the Houses of Westeros with various Pokemon.
I tried to remake it from scratch and I'm pretty sure I've remembered what I chose for everyone but Martell which is kind of the hardest to chose one for anyway, heck maybe I just left them out originally, they probably hadn't appeared properly on the show yet when I made it.
This was made back during the Black and White era, but since I never got into those games I had pretty much limited myself to the first 4 generations. The responses I remember getting most objected to Charizard for Targaryen with people saying it should be Hydreigon. Once I learned about the Blackfyre rebellion I figured Hydreigon would be good for the Blackfyres. But now I would instead chose Mega Charizard X for the Blackfyre Sigil.
The reason I think some preferred Hydreigon for the Targaryens is because it's three headed. But in universe the Dragons associated with the Targaryens are not literally multi-headed creatures, the three heads of the Sigil represent there being three Dragons involved in the founding of the Targaryen Dynasty, one ridden by Aegon The First and the other two by his sisters who Ayra Stark talked about in season 2.
The most important thing about the Targaryen Dragons is that they breath fire (they are the Fire of the Song of Fire and Ice), meaning really no actual Dragon type Pokemon fits the bill. The Dragon type in Pokemon is based on Eastern notions of what a Dragon is, which is why it combines with the Water type more often then fire. But to the Western perception Charizard has always been the only true Dragon in the Pokemon universe. (The Biblical Leviathan I can't find a Pokemon to equate with since it's uniquely both Fire Breathing and a Sea serpent, if a hacker gave Fire type attacks to Gyarados you'd then have how I picture Leviathan).
I gave myself a rule against using Legendaries, which was most limiting for the Greyjoys since their Sigil is literally of the god they worship, The Drowned god, who is often compared to Cthulhu, which based on what I've said about Pokemon before can lead one to equating it with Kyogre. However one thing that people forget is Cthulhu would not be a Water Type, the Water is imprisoning him. But that distinction isn't part of how the Drowned god is described, so yeah the Ironborn are basically the Team Aqua of Westeros. At any rate I decided on Octillery for the Greyjoys.
I had initially chosen Stantler for Baratheon, but have now decided Swashbuck can work equally as well.
Choosing Persian for Lannister was one of the easiest. While today there are more Lion like Pokemon to chose from, Persian is still best because Pay Day is a good allegory for $h!ting gold.
Targaryen = Charizard
Stark = Mightyena
Lannister = Persian
Baratheon = Stantler or Swashbuck
Tyrel = Sunflora
Arryn = Pidgeot
Tully = Magikarp
Martell = Castform (Sunny Form) or Solrock
Greyjoy = Octillery
Blackfyre = Mega Charizard X
I tried to remake it from scratch and I'm pretty sure I've remembered what I chose for everyone but Martell which is kind of the hardest to chose one for anyway, heck maybe I just left them out originally, they probably hadn't appeared properly on the show yet when I made it.
This was made back during the Black and White era, but since I never got into those games I had pretty much limited myself to the first 4 generations. The responses I remember getting most objected to Charizard for Targaryen with people saying it should be Hydreigon. Once I learned about the Blackfyre rebellion I figured Hydreigon would be good for the Blackfyres. But now I would instead chose Mega Charizard X for the Blackfyre Sigil.
The reason I think some preferred Hydreigon for the Targaryens is because it's three headed. But in universe the Dragons associated with the Targaryens are not literally multi-headed creatures, the three heads of the Sigil represent there being three Dragons involved in the founding of the Targaryen Dynasty, one ridden by Aegon The First and the other two by his sisters who Ayra Stark talked about in season 2.
The most important thing about the Targaryen Dragons is that they breath fire (they are the Fire of the Song of Fire and Ice), meaning really no actual Dragon type Pokemon fits the bill. The Dragon type in Pokemon is based on Eastern notions of what a Dragon is, which is why it combines with the Water type more often then fire. But to the Western perception Charizard has always been the only true Dragon in the Pokemon universe. (The Biblical Leviathan I can't find a Pokemon to equate with since it's uniquely both Fire Breathing and a Sea serpent, if a hacker gave Fire type attacks to Gyarados you'd then have how I picture Leviathan).
I gave myself a rule against using Legendaries, which was most limiting for the Greyjoys since their Sigil is literally of the god they worship, The Drowned god, who is often compared to Cthulhu, which based on what I've said about Pokemon before can lead one to equating it with Kyogre. However one thing that people forget is Cthulhu would not be a Water Type, the Water is imprisoning him. But that distinction isn't part of how the Drowned god is described, so yeah the Ironborn are basically the Team Aqua of Westeros. At any rate I decided on Octillery for the Greyjoys.
I had initially chosen Stantler for Baratheon, but have now decided Swashbuck can work equally as well.
Choosing Persian for Lannister was one of the easiest. While today there are more Lion like Pokemon to chose from, Persian is still best because Pay Day is a good allegory for $h!ting gold.
Targaryen = Charizard
Stark = Mightyena
Lannister = Persian
Baratheon = Stantler or Swashbuck
Tyrel = Sunflora
Arryn = Pidgeot
Tully = Magikarp
Martell = Castform (Sunny Form) or Solrock
Greyjoy = Octillery
Blackfyre = Mega Charizard X
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
I want to defend Pokemon localization.
I've read a lot of stuff on the Dogasu's Backpack website. It's a great site if you want to see all the differences between the American and Japanese versions of the early season of the Anime documented. However I can't always agree with their opinions on the matter.
People like Dogasu are often people who were already Otaku before Pokemon came to the West, which they say as much when talking about the Polygon episode. So my perspective is different, I'm a part of a generation who grew up on the 4Kids Dub of Pokemon, for whom Pokemon, Sailor Moon and DBZ were our first exposure to Japanimation. Pokemon was I think the first one I knew wasn't an American Cartoon because I was a Nintendo fan first and so knew all about the N coming from Japan.
For most westerners this month is the 20th Anniversary of Pokemon not back when GO launched, though I personally was a year late, my 20th Anniversary with the franchise will be a year from now. Literally the first episodes of the series I saw the day they first aired on Kids WB were Clarify Tales and Battle for The Badge on September 25th 1999. So I certainly can't relate to already being aware of Pocket Monsters before Sting fought Hollywood Hogan at Starcade.
The first thing I want to point out is Nintendo made the decision to change various names for localization just as they do for all their other franchises. In North America the Anime started a few weeks before the games were released, but I'm certain the Games localization was much longer in the making. So like when people mock the Ninja Gym Leader's name being changed from one Japanese name to a different one, know that Nintendo not 4Kids should be given the Credit/Blame for that. Other Nintendo franchises don't have such a vocal crowd of Japanese purists because they never made such a mark in the Anime community.
Now de Nipponizing a game who's map directly mimics Kanto can seem more inherently wrong then one named after an Italian Plumber, or a Tolkeneisque Fantasy. But lots of creatures in the Mario games had Japanese names originally. And at the end of the day Pokemon Kanto isn't real world Kanto anymore then Westeros is England, Tokyo for example is split into two separate cities one of which is walled off. And the Anime never cared about following the Games map to begin with, having our heroes encounter lots of non Japanese places. So really when Purists talk like the show is literally set in Japan I can't help but roll my eyes. Thing is I'm sometimes unsure how serious Dogasu is being in the outrage they express, a good example is the Hollywood rant when discussing Mewoth's origin story episode, they can't possibly really be that offended by adding the word California?
Also one thing many people overlook is most of the Censorship decisions were made by the network/distributor, Warner Bros, not 4Kids. They decide which episodes to skips because they had to much gun-play or fake boobs.
A lot of Dogasu's complaints are things about Anime dubs in general, that Cartoon Cipher and Explanation Point have been doing YouTube videos on. Mother's Basement also has a video defending 4Kids.
I am also unusual in that I love Pun based Humor, every single Pun associated with the 4Kids Dub of Pokemon I love.
Every time Kami is translated something other then "god" people talk about it like it's more censorship. When it comes to the discussion of "God" in the First Movie I agree. However I also know many actual linguists think it's problematic when Kami is nearly universally translated as "god". Yes the word is used of the Judeo-Christian God as well as Beings analogous to the Olympians. But it's also used of spirits more analogous to the Nymphs. The Pokemon Anime at some points used Kami even of the first Gen's Legendary Birds, but in my opinion no Legendaries are truly godlike, even in the Polytheistic sense, till the third Generation.
Much of the crux of hating on the Pokemon Dub revolves around the first two movies. I don't quite care about Pokemon 2000 enough talk about it. But I have a lot to say about the first movie, since it is the only one I have seen in Japanese.
First of all, Dogasu's page on Mewtwo Strikes back actually confuses me on if they're under the common misconception that the Ambertwo sequence was originally part of the movie in Japan. It's consistency added to the film in Japan for all TV broadcasts and Home Video releases, but as Bulbapedia makes clear it was not in the original theatrical release. And that I'm pretty sure is why it wasn't in the American release, 4Kids clearly wasn't afraid to Dub it since they did for the Mewtwo Returns DVD. But the fact that this sequence would consistently be in any bootleged Fansub has caused people like the late Jewario when he joined Suede and Linkara's review to think it was part of the original release.
A similar issue exists with Hypno's Naptime, the Dogasu page on that is unaware that originally in Japan it flashed back to the Beach Episode, but rebroadcasts changed it, 4Kids was given the original, they didn't change anything.
Dogasu is under the impression that in the Dub Mewtwo remembers Ambertwo. I think this is because of the "was it all just a dream" line. But I always saw that as being Mewtwo having vague memories of the life of the Mew he was cloned from.
Now I agree that the more nuanced dialog script of the original Japanese is better, and I would not oppose a Redub someday following it more closely.
But the thing is, the impression I got of Mewtwo's character when I first watched the film in 1999 was not that different from how people like Dogasu describe Japanese Mewtwo. Yet these massive critics of the 4Kids Dub act like they turned Mewtwo into a mustache twirling Super Villain. Watching a Dub with the intent of over-analyzing every difference kind of hurts the ability to just experience what a Normie sees watching it. And in the rest of the franchise this is by no means the only time Dub haters describe a Dub character as one note simply for not being identical to what they wanted. Marina in Legend of Thunder is described as having "no redeeming qualities" in the Dub which I find odd since she has no qualities I dislike.
Now let's talk about the anti-violence message. I find the notion that there is some inherent hypocrisy here really aggravating, ya know Linkara's "NOT LIKE THIS" meme. The fighting in that scene IS different from normal Pokemon battles, the same way a sanctioned refereed Boxing Match is different form two people trying to kill each other in a back alley. The Japanese was not trying to give that specific moral at this time, but I still do not consider it out of place, it certainly doesn't take away form the all life matters message.
Now Dogasu says this distinction I just discussed is implied in something Nurse Joy says but is then thrown out by some lines Brock and Misty say. No, what Brock and Misty say don't overrule what Joy said, they are meant to be understood in the context of what Joy explained. Honestly at this point it's like how Atheists grasp at straws to say The Bible contradicts itself.
Now I agree the execution of this in the Dub is cheesy and ham handed. But that's kinda how a lot of dialogue in this franchise is in any language.
However my biggest area of disagreement with Dogasu is on the score. When I did watch Mewtwo Strikes Back in Japanese, I found the score rather bland and underwhelming. And I'm not the only person who feels that way, here are some comments from a YouTube upload of The Birth of Mewtwo from the Dub score.
Mewtwo's theme from the Dub Score is to me an iconic Theme on par with Danny Elfman's Batman theme or John Williams Superman theme. In later movies (from the 4th through the B&W era the scores mostly weren't changed for the Dubs) the Music does get better. But Dogasu talks about the Japanese scores of these movies like they're on par with the Music in a Ghibli film or Star Wars, but they really aren't. What I enjoyed most musically in Pokemon Heroes is stuff Yuki Kajiura does better in the Soundtrack for Noir.
Now the Music in the Dub of the First movie can be split into two categories. The praise in those YouTube comments is for the Score. While those who'd laugh at the idea of defending the Dub's music are probably mainly thinking of the Pop Soundtrack. The Pop Soundtrack only intrudes on the film when Brother my Brother plays, mostly they're used in the Pikachu's Vacation short and the end credits.
The Britney Spears song never made it into the film at all. Soda Pop is the only song of her's I've ever listed to that isn't a Music Video, solely because of it's association with Pokemon. It wasn't recorded for the movie like most clearly were since it was on her album released earlier in the year, and doesn't seem to fit at all. But I in my overreaching nerdiness like to point out that in the Games you can buy a Soda Pop from the Vending Machine on the roof of the Celadon Department store, it costs 200 Yen. Basically I do kinda like the song and so feel compelled to justify it's association with Pokemon.
People like Dogasu are often people who were already Otaku before Pokemon came to the West, which they say as much when talking about the Polygon episode. So my perspective is different, I'm a part of a generation who grew up on the 4Kids Dub of Pokemon, for whom Pokemon, Sailor Moon and DBZ were our first exposure to Japanimation. Pokemon was I think the first one I knew wasn't an American Cartoon because I was a Nintendo fan first and so knew all about the N coming from Japan.
For most westerners this month is the 20th Anniversary of Pokemon not back when GO launched, though I personally was a year late, my 20th Anniversary with the franchise will be a year from now. Literally the first episodes of the series I saw the day they first aired on Kids WB were Clarify Tales and Battle for The Badge on September 25th 1999. So I certainly can't relate to already being aware of Pocket Monsters before Sting fought Hollywood Hogan at Starcade.
The first thing I want to point out is Nintendo made the decision to change various names for localization just as they do for all their other franchises. In North America the Anime started a few weeks before the games were released, but I'm certain the Games localization was much longer in the making. So like when people mock the Ninja Gym Leader's name being changed from one Japanese name to a different one, know that Nintendo not 4Kids should be given the Credit/Blame for that. Other Nintendo franchises don't have such a vocal crowd of Japanese purists because they never made such a mark in the Anime community.
Now de Nipponizing a game who's map directly mimics Kanto can seem more inherently wrong then one named after an Italian Plumber, or a Tolkeneisque Fantasy. But lots of creatures in the Mario games had Japanese names originally. And at the end of the day Pokemon Kanto isn't real world Kanto anymore then Westeros is England, Tokyo for example is split into two separate cities one of which is walled off. And the Anime never cared about following the Games map to begin with, having our heroes encounter lots of non Japanese places. So really when Purists talk like the show is literally set in Japan I can't help but roll my eyes. Thing is I'm sometimes unsure how serious Dogasu is being in the outrage they express, a good example is the Hollywood rant when discussing Mewoth's origin story episode, they can't possibly really be that offended by adding the word California?
Also one thing many people overlook is most of the Censorship decisions were made by the network/distributor, Warner Bros, not 4Kids. They decide which episodes to skips because they had to much gun-play or fake boobs.
A lot of Dogasu's complaints are things about Anime dubs in general, that Cartoon Cipher and Explanation Point have been doing YouTube videos on. Mother's Basement also has a video defending 4Kids.
I am also unusual in that I love Pun based Humor, every single Pun associated with the 4Kids Dub of Pokemon I love.
Every time Kami is translated something other then "god" people talk about it like it's more censorship. When it comes to the discussion of "God" in the First Movie I agree. However I also know many actual linguists think it's problematic when Kami is nearly universally translated as "god". Yes the word is used of the Judeo-Christian God as well as Beings analogous to the Olympians. But it's also used of spirits more analogous to the Nymphs. The Pokemon Anime at some points used Kami even of the first Gen's Legendary Birds, but in my opinion no Legendaries are truly godlike, even in the Polytheistic sense, till the third Generation.
Much of the crux of hating on the Pokemon Dub revolves around the first two movies. I don't quite care about Pokemon 2000 enough talk about it. But I have a lot to say about the first movie, since it is the only one I have seen in Japanese.
First of all, Dogasu's page on Mewtwo Strikes back actually confuses me on if they're under the common misconception that the Ambertwo sequence was originally part of the movie in Japan. It's consistency added to the film in Japan for all TV broadcasts and Home Video releases, but as Bulbapedia makes clear it was not in the original theatrical release. And that I'm pretty sure is why it wasn't in the American release, 4Kids clearly wasn't afraid to Dub it since they did for the Mewtwo Returns DVD. But the fact that this sequence would consistently be in any bootleged Fansub has caused people like the late Jewario when he joined Suede and Linkara's review to think it was part of the original release.
A similar issue exists with Hypno's Naptime, the Dogasu page on that is unaware that originally in Japan it flashed back to the Beach Episode, but rebroadcasts changed it, 4Kids was given the original, they didn't change anything.
Dogasu is under the impression that in the Dub Mewtwo remembers Ambertwo. I think this is because of the "was it all just a dream" line. But I always saw that as being Mewtwo having vague memories of the life of the Mew he was cloned from.
Now I agree that the more nuanced dialog script of the original Japanese is better, and I would not oppose a Redub someday following it more closely.
But the thing is, the impression I got of Mewtwo's character when I first watched the film in 1999 was not that different from how people like Dogasu describe Japanese Mewtwo. Yet these massive critics of the 4Kids Dub act like they turned Mewtwo into a mustache twirling Super Villain. Watching a Dub with the intent of over-analyzing every difference kind of hurts the ability to just experience what a Normie sees watching it. And in the rest of the franchise this is by no means the only time Dub haters describe a Dub character as one note simply for not being identical to what they wanted. Marina in Legend of Thunder is described as having "no redeeming qualities" in the Dub which I find odd since she has no qualities I dislike.
Now let's talk about the anti-violence message. I find the notion that there is some inherent hypocrisy here really aggravating, ya know Linkara's "NOT LIKE THIS" meme. The fighting in that scene IS different from normal Pokemon battles, the same way a sanctioned refereed Boxing Match is different form two people trying to kill each other in a back alley. The Japanese was not trying to give that specific moral at this time, but I still do not consider it out of place, it certainly doesn't take away form the all life matters message.
Now Dogasu says this distinction I just discussed is implied in something Nurse Joy says but is then thrown out by some lines Brock and Misty say. No, what Brock and Misty say don't overrule what Joy said, they are meant to be understood in the context of what Joy explained. Honestly at this point it's like how Atheists grasp at straws to say The Bible contradicts itself.
Now I agree the execution of this in the Dub is cheesy and ham handed. But that's kinda how a lot of dialogue in this franchise is in any language.
However my biggest area of disagreement with Dogasu is on the score. When I did watch Mewtwo Strikes Back in Japanese, I found the score rather bland and underwhelming. And I'm not the only person who feels that way, here are some comments from a YouTube upload of The Birth of Mewtwo from the Dub score.
Now the Music in the Dub of the First movie can be split into two categories. The praise in those YouTube comments is for the Score. While those who'd laugh at the idea of defending the Dub's music are probably mainly thinking of the Pop Soundtrack. The Pop Soundtrack only intrudes on the film when Brother my Brother plays, mostly they're used in the Pikachu's Vacation short and the end credits.
The Britney Spears song never made it into the film at all. Soda Pop is the only song of her's I've ever listed to that isn't a Music Video, solely because of it's association with Pokemon. It wasn't recorded for the movie like most clearly were since it was on her album released earlier in the year, and doesn't seem to fit at all. But I in my overreaching nerdiness like to point out that in the Games you can buy a Soda Pop from the Vending Machine on the roof of the Celadon Department store, it costs 200 Yen. Basically I do kinda like the song and so feel compelled to justify it's association with Pokemon.
Monday, September 24, 2018
Autumn approaches, Anime Weekly Update
Overlord III with episode 8 is definitely losing me. This darker direction is not what I need right now.
Happy Sugar Life episode 11 was a good episode.
Revue Starlight episode 11 was rather dull.
Attack on Titan season 3 episode 5 was awesome, it reminded me of Battlestar Galactica, the 2000s version.
Steins;Gate 0 episode 20 was pretty good, I’m hyped for the coming episodes.
I’ve dropped Ragnarok and also decided to put Overlord III on hold for the time being.
Lately the Anime I’ve been watching in my spare time have all been Pokemon stuff. Though I still have no desire to really get into Sun and Moon. At any rate I’ll be watching even more Pokemon in the time to come. I think it’s proven to be pretty good for my mindset. Also some Pokemon related content on YouTube, stuff from Suede and Linkara, some Abridged material, and so on.
I'm not sure to what extent I'll be continuing this Anime Weekly Updates project. Next week the two Subs I've followed for the Summer will end so I'll likely try to give some final thoughts on them.
Happy Sugar Life episode 11 was a good episode.
Revue Starlight episode 11 was rather dull.
Attack on Titan season 3 episode 5 was awesome, it reminded me of Battlestar Galactica, the 2000s version.
Steins;Gate 0 episode 20 was pretty good, I’m hyped for the coming episodes.
I’ve dropped Ragnarok and also decided to put Overlord III on hold for the time being.
Lately the Anime I’ve been watching in my spare time have all been Pokemon stuff. Though I still have no desire to really get into Sun and Moon. At any rate I’ll be watching even more Pokemon in the time to come. I think it’s proven to be pretty good for my mindset. Also some Pokemon related content on YouTube, stuff from Suede and Linkara, some Abridged material, and so on.
I'm not sure to what extent I'll be continuing this Anime Weekly Updates project. Next week the two Subs I've followed for the Summer will end so I'll likely try to give some final thoughts on them.
Friday, September 21, 2018
My Top 5 Favorite Pokemon Movies
After I give this list I'm going to talk a bit more about my thoughts on the Pokémon films in general.
This list is of specifically the theatrically released films (in Japan each annual film was theatrically released). I should mention that there are three that exist now I haven't seen as of writing this. The most recent movie from the Summer of 2018 which isn't available in the West yet. But also the first two Black and White generation films, which are actually often counted as different versions of the same film.
There is only one theatrical Pokémon movie I consider bad, and I sometimes think even that I might be kinder to if I saw it again more recently. So don't think a film failing to make this list is some horrible indictment.
I will avoid spoilers and that's part of why these won't exactly be the most informative mini-reviews.
5. Destiny Deoxys.
This movie I to some extent wouldn't describe much differently then most films that didn't make the list. You can say it makes the list by being a near perfect execution of the standard Pokémon film formula. It has a fun interesting setting, lots of material some critics would call "filler" or "padding" but that I love since it's just having fun with the Pokémon which is the real point of these cartoons to begin with. A story that is solid but by no means ground breaking. And an exciting climax.
4. Pokémon: I Choose You.
I only just recently saw this movie, and I'm as shocked as anyone else to see such a recent film make the list. It broke with the usual pattern of these films, but not at the expense of giving me what I came for. There are some flaws but those mostly just hold it back from breaking the top 2.
It's an alternate continuity of the Anime that re-imagines Ash's early journey. Many people who are nostalgic for the original Indigo League Anime are not gonna like making Ash competent from the start, but after the pilot of Pokémon Origins I like finally seeing an Anime version of Red who doesn't start his adventure seemingly brain dead.
Also I like Verity. I would kind of preferred this role being given to someone with Leaf's character design and a Squirtle, or heck just Dawn if they insisted on a Piplup and Sinnoh references. But as one of the few first generation Pokémon fans who hasn't forgotten that Misty was a horribly unlikable character I love seeing her retconned out.
I see that some people are saying "these new companions are serving the same function as Brock and Misty anyway so what was the point?" I find that stupid, Verity has nothing in common with Misty besides being female and seemingly a preference for water types. But she is not a Tsundere and has a dynamic with Ash that is much more comparable to May and Dawn, however her backstory is distinct from any of them. Sorrel is like Brock in being the more knowledgeable veteran, but that's it.
Apparently the 2018 film is a sequel still in this new continuity. So I'll see when the time comes if it shakes up this list.
3. Pokémon Ranger and The Temple of The Sea.
I love this movie, it gives a spotlight to May who I really like, something Dawn never got in her generation's films.
I like how it's clearly influenced by Pirates of the Caribbean, coming out in Japan the same year as the second POTC film and in America the same year as the third. Jack Walker is basically a more unambiguously heroic version of Jack Sparrow, and the villain is basically Barbossa. And it's premise is like that of a POTC film, which is in turn basically an Indiana Jones premise but on the high seas. But to me it's more re-watchable then an actual POTC film because I like Pokémon more then I do Johnny Depp.
2. Pokémon Heroes: Latios and Latias.
I have a lot of personal nostalgia for this one, I never got to see it in theaters but I recall renting it frequently from Family Video back in the day.
The Master Quest theme is my second favorite Pokémon theme song topped only by the original. I can't help but wonder how much that's because of it being in this film where it was used wonderfully to a Water Pokémon race through the canals of Poke Venice.
Speaking of which, I love this setting, it's beautifully designed and brilliantly utilized.
I also love Annie and Oakley. Pokémon films I think are generally at their best when they have no villain, or are just fun villains like these (a slightly more competent version of Jesse and James). Pure evil villains don't suit this franchise well, (not the Anime version anyway), and the complex character studies are better done by the show where they can draw it out more, not that the show usually does that well either.
In a way this film as the fifth of them sets the standard formula of most that follow it. But still makes one move that Pokémon movies rarely make.
1. Pokémon The 3rd Movie: Spell of The Unown.
This movie being number one was an easy decision and probably not a surprise to anyone. It's not just great compared to other Pokémon movies, it truly is my second favorite Anime Film period topped only by Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind, and no that's not the only Miyazaki film I've seen. In fact it's better then any Western Animated film I've seen as well. I'm convinced this helped inspire Frozen which I consider my favorite western animated film.
The Pokémon battle during the theme song is the best of them I think, introducing the character of Lisa who in-spite of having such a small role managed to become one of my personal favorite characters in the entire Pokémon franchise.
This is also one of my go to examples for how you can have a great Fantasy/Adventure story with no villain.
I really don't wanna say much more cause I don't wanna spoil it. Maybe I'll write something more in-depth about it in the future. The gist is if you want to show a Pokémon movie to someone who's not already into Pokémon as a concept, choose this one.
On Pokémon Movies in general.
As I said above, most Pokémon movies are good, they satisfy the main thing I look for in them and rarely do anything to piss me off. The only theatrically released one I've ever called bad is Jirachi The Wish Maker, and even that I might have been too hard on, I've still only seen it once.
I qualified "theatrically released" above a few times. There are three Pokémon TV Specials long enough to maybe count as a movie. Legend of Thunder is I feel on par with the average Pokémon film, and if you want to enjoy a Pokémon project with no Ash I'd recommend it. The worst animated Pokémon project I've ever seen is by far Mastermind of The Mirage Pokémon, it was so uninspired and dumb I simply don't know what they were thinking.
However Mewtwo Returns is a personal favorite of mine. Would it break my top 5 if I didn't specify theatrical? Probably not, well it would have before I saw I Choose You. The reviews of it on YouTube are all pretty negative, (there is much more variety in opinions on the theatrical films with even the 3rd having detractors in Digi & May). I don't care about those criticisms however. It delivered what I wanted, Giovanni finally being front and center, and in addition gave me another of my absolute favorite characters in Domino aka The Black Tulip, another perfect example of what Pokémon villains should be like. I also think it used Jessie, James and Mewoth better then any theatrical films (though I do love their Greek Chorus style contributions to the 3rd film). As a stand alone film it's not gonna hold up as well as Mewtwo Strikes Back, but for me personally it's much more fun and re-watchable.
That my preferences tend towards the first two generations shows a bit of a Nostalgia bias. And yet the only movies I actually saw in Theaters were the first two and they didn't make the list. They are both good films, and perhaps by traditional critical standards hold up better then any but the 3rd. But I found the first movie a little underwhelming and felt 2000 was trying too hard to be epic. However they do have major Nostalgia value for me, and Mewtwo Returns shouldn't be watched without the context of the first film.
For the series I kind of have just as much Nostalgia for Diamond and Pearl as I do the Advanced Generation, so how come none of their movies made the list? Well I did thoroughly enjoy the entire Trilogy, while the last one was forgettable but inoffensive. It largely comes down to Dawn, my personal favorite of all the PokeGirls, never getting the spotlight the way May did.
I've looked at the opinions on the films given by people who haven't followed the Anime since before Misty left but gone through all the movies. And they seem to observe that the Advance Generation films demonstrate May's character better, they seem to get her character from them and as one who's seen enough of the series their perception is pretty accurate, while they don't feel like they know Dawn's character at all. And yet at the same time the Diamond and Pearl movies actually treated Ash and Dawn as equals in a way no other generation's films have. And this is a factor is why Dawn has kind of always been the only one I ever really shipped with Ash. Though Verity has maybe changed that a bit. I think most people who call Dawn the most boring of the PokeGirls are judging her off only the movies.
The Kalos generation only got three movies, all of them I saw basically just as recently as I Choose You. I found them all pretty average for Pokémon films. I suspect that Serena fans feel just as shortchanged as Dawn's fans. The most interesting observation I have about them is how in the last of them the 5th Gen Mythical Pokémon added was Megearna which happens to be the most logical choice since her Lore with the blatant Nikola Tesla analogue allowed Clemont's gimmick to fit into a movie's themes for once. (It's kinda funny though that in the Games the Volcano is the one associated with Poke France while the Metropolis homage is the one associated with Poke Hawaii.) I also think that one was among the better ones at utilizing Team Rocket. A number of people seem to hate the Hoopa movie the most, yes it's kind of the most ridiculously overblown of them, but it was Fan Service that I enjoyed.
So in summary, most Pokémon movies are good, but some are better enough to be worth noting.
This list is of specifically the theatrically released films (in Japan each annual film was theatrically released). I should mention that there are three that exist now I haven't seen as of writing this. The most recent movie from the Summer of 2018 which isn't available in the West yet. But also the first two Black and White generation films, which are actually often counted as different versions of the same film.
There is only one theatrical Pokémon movie I consider bad, and I sometimes think even that I might be kinder to if I saw it again more recently. So don't think a film failing to make this list is some horrible indictment.
I will avoid spoilers and that's part of why these won't exactly be the most informative mini-reviews.
5. Destiny Deoxys.
This movie I to some extent wouldn't describe much differently then most films that didn't make the list. You can say it makes the list by being a near perfect execution of the standard Pokémon film formula. It has a fun interesting setting, lots of material some critics would call "filler" or "padding" but that I love since it's just having fun with the Pokémon which is the real point of these cartoons to begin with. A story that is solid but by no means ground breaking. And an exciting climax.
4. Pokémon: I Choose You.
I only just recently saw this movie, and I'm as shocked as anyone else to see such a recent film make the list. It broke with the usual pattern of these films, but not at the expense of giving me what I came for. There are some flaws but those mostly just hold it back from breaking the top 2.
It's an alternate continuity of the Anime that re-imagines Ash's early journey. Many people who are nostalgic for the original Indigo League Anime are not gonna like making Ash competent from the start, but after the pilot of Pokémon Origins I like finally seeing an Anime version of Red who doesn't start his adventure seemingly brain dead.
Also I like Verity. I would kind of preferred this role being given to someone with Leaf's character design and a Squirtle, or heck just Dawn if they insisted on a Piplup and Sinnoh references. But as one of the few first generation Pokémon fans who hasn't forgotten that Misty was a horribly unlikable character I love seeing her retconned out.
I see that some people are saying "these new companions are serving the same function as Brock and Misty anyway so what was the point?" I find that stupid, Verity has nothing in common with Misty besides being female and seemingly a preference for water types. But she is not a Tsundere and has a dynamic with Ash that is much more comparable to May and Dawn, however her backstory is distinct from any of them. Sorrel is like Brock in being the more knowledgeable veteran, but that's it.
Apparently the 2018 film is a sequel still in this new continuity. So I'll see when the time comes if it shakes up this list.
3. Pokémon Ranger and The Temple of The Sea.
I love this movie, it gives a spotlight to May who I really like, something Dawn never got in her generation's films.
I like how it's clearly influenced by Pirates of the Caribbean, coming out in Japan the same year as the second POTC film and in America the same year as the third. Jack Walker is basically a more unambiguously heroic version of Jack Sparrow, and the villain is basically Barbossa. And it's premise is like that of a POTC film, which is in turn basically an Indiana Jones premise but on the high seas. But to me it's more re-watchable then an actual POTC film because I like Pokémon more then I do Johnny Depp.
2. Pokémon Heroes: Latios and Latias.
I have a lot of personal nostalgia for this one, I never got to see it in theaters but I recall renting it frequently from Family Video back in the day.
The Master Quest theme is my second favorite Pokémon theme song topped only by the original. I can't help but wonder how much that's because of it being in this film where it was used wonderfully to a Water Pokémon race through the canals of Poke Venice.
Speaking of which, I love this setting, it's beautifully designed and brilliantly utilized.
I also love Annie and Oakley. Pokémon films I think are generally at their best when they have no villain, or are just fun villains like these (a slightly more competent version of Jesse and James). Pure evil villains don't suit this franchise well, (not the Anime version anyway), and the complex character studies are better done by the show where they can draw it out more, not that the show usually does that well either.
In a way this film as the fifth of them sets the standard formula of most that follow it. But still makes one move that Pokémon movies rarely make.
1. Pokémon The 3rd Movie: Spell of The Unown.
This movie being number one was an easy decision and probably not a surprise to anyone. It's not just great compared to other Pokémon movies, it truly is my second favorite Anime Film period topped only by Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind, and no that's not the only Miyazaki film I've seen. In fact it's better then any Western Animated film I've seen as well. I'm convinced this helped inspire Frozen which I consider my favorite western animated film.
The Pokémon battle during the theme song is the best of them I think, introducing the character of Lisa who in-spite of having such a small role managed to become one of my personal favorite characters in the entire Pokémon franchise.
This is also one of my go to examples for how you can have a great Fantasy/Adventure story with no villain.
I really don't wanna say much more cause I don't wanna spoil it. Maybe I'll write something more in-depth about it in the future. The gist is if you want to show a Pokémon movie to someone who's not already into Pokémon as a concept, choose this one.
On Pokémon Movies in general.
As I said above, most Pokémon movies are good, they satisfy the main thing I look for in them and rarely do anything to piss me off. The only theatrically released one I've ever called bad is Jirachi The Wish Maker, and even that I might have been too hard on, I've still only seen it once.
I qualified "theatrically released" above a few times. There are three Pokémon TV Specials long enough to maybe count as a movie. Legend of Thunder is I feel on par with the average Pokémon film, and if you want to enjoy a Pokémon project with no Ash I'd recommend it. The worst animated Pokémon project I've ever seen is by far Mastermind of The Mirage Pokémon, it was so uninspired and dumb I simply don't know what they were thinking.
However Mewtwo Returns is a personal favorite of mine. Would it break my top 5 if I didn't specify theatrical? Probably not, well it would have before I saw I Choose You. The reviews of it on YouTube are all pretty negative, (there is much more variety in opinions on the theatrical films with even the 3rd having detractors in Digi & May). I don't care about those criticisms however. It delivered what I wanted, Giovanni finally being front and center, and in addition gave me another of my absolute favorite characters in Domino aka The Black Tulip, another perfect example of what Pokémon villains should be like. I also think it used Jessie, James and Mewoth better then any theatrical films (though I do love their Greek Chorus style contributions to the 3rd film). As a stand alone film it's not gonna hold up as well as Mewtwo Strikes Back, but for me personally it's much more fun and re-watchable.
That my preferences tend towards the first two generations shows a bit of a Nostalgia bias. And yet the only movies I actually saw in Theaters were the first two and they didn't make the list. They are both good films, and perhaps by traditional critical standards hold up better then any but the 3rd. But I found the first movie a little underwhelming and felt 2000 was trying too hard to be epic. However they do have major Nostalgia value for me, and Mewtwo Returns shouldn't be watched without the context of the first film.
For the series I kind of have just as much Nostalgia for Diamond and Pearl as I do the Advanced Generation, so how come none of their movies made the list? Well I did thoroughly enjoy the entire Trilogy, while the last one was forgettable but inoffensive. It largely comes down to Dawn, my personal favorite of all the PokeGirls, never getting the spotlight the way May did.
I've looked at the opinions on the films given by people who haven't followed the Anime since before Misty left but gone through all the movies. And they seem to observe that the Advance Generation films demonstrate May's character better, they seem to get her character from them and as one who's seen enough of the series their perception is pretty accurate, while they don't feel like they know Dawn's character at all. And yet at the same time the Diamond and Pearl movies actually treated Ash and Dawn as equals in a way no other generation's films have. And this is a factor is why Dawn has kind of always been the only one I ever really shipped with Ash. Though Verity has maybe changed that a bit. I think most people who call Dawn the most boring of the PokeGirls are judging her off only the movies.
The Kalos generation only got three movies, all of them I saw basically just as recently as I Choose You. I found them all pretty average for Pokémon films. I suspect that Serena fans feel just as shortchanged as Dawn's fans. The most interesting observation I have about them is how in the last of them the 5th Gen Mythical Pokémon added was Megearna which happens to be the most logical choice since her Lore with the blatant Nikola Tesla analogue allowed Clemont's gimmick to fit into a movie's themes for once. (It's kinda funny though that in the Games the Volcano is the one associated with Poke France while the Metropolis homage is the one associated with Poke Hawaii.) I also think that one was among the better ones at utilizing Team Rocket. A number of people seem to hate the Hoopa movie the most, yes it's kind of the most ridiculously overblown of them, but it was Fan Service that I enjoyed.
So in summary, most Pokémon movies are good, but some are better enough to be worth noting.
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