The issue of Superheroes killing Bad Guys

There has traditionally been a pretty harsh dichotomy to how this issue is approached.  Either they are super strictly determined never to kill even in scenarios where no real Jury would convict a real person of Murder.  Or you have the Punisher and Rorshach who exclusively kill because they have given up any hope that criminals can be reformed.  Some reasonable middle ground is rarely taken.

There was a time when marvel Comics official policy was that Captain America never even killed anyone when he was fighting in WWII.  Yes they were so determined to keep his hands free of Blood they wouldn't even admit he killed f----in Nazis on the battle field.  Meanwhile in Steven Spielberg and George Lucas's universe.

In real life actual Law Enforcement is traditionally taught to always shoot to kill and never any less.  Maybe that is part of the problem our society currently faces and I would fully support a movie saying it's wrong that we train Cops that way.  But pretending Superheroes can do their job with the polar opposite policy is not the answer to that problem.

Linkara says he views Superheroes as like modern Knights Errants which is why he brings up the movie Camelot sometimes when talking about Superhero comics.  And that's cool and all, but even the Romanticized Arthurian version of what Knights were had no absurd blanket rule against killing the enemy, they were soldiers fighting in wars.

That's part of why I found the MCU so refreshing.  Because right from the start they were willing to acknowledge that if a Billionaire is gonna fly a f-----in Gundam to Afghanistan to stop a warlord from massacring a village, he's gonna have to kill some people.

What I find so ironic about all this talk of why the DCEU and MCU are so different, is that what really bothers people was Zach Snyder applying the MCU policy on killing bad guys to DC's Big Two.  But also unlike Marvel let this change in approach actually be thematically relevant, while Marvel was just hoping people simply wouldn't notice that Iron Man blew up a clearly maned Tank right in the trailer.

And I get it, people are used to these two characters in particular being usually uncompromising on this issue.  And some even like the irony of DC's Dark Superhero being the one who's strictest on his no kill policy (except when he's not).

But even as I do prefer Batman to stick to his No Killing and No Guns policy much more strictly then either Snyder or Miller's Batman does.  I am pretty baffled by how easily fans accept the "If I kill this unrepentant mass murderer who keeps escaping and killing more people then I'll become just like him" argument he makes in stories like Under The Red Hood.  That logic is pretty stupid.

The killing Batman does in BvS can be put in a few different categories.  First of all the nightmare Future Vision kind of shouldn't count, the whole point was everything about that was his worst nightmare including becoming a literal solider (Snyder films tend to paint the military as a necessary evil at best).  And in terms of him being reckless in scenes like car chases, let's stop pretending Nolan's Batman wasn't also pretty darn reckless.  And likewise with the disposal of KGBeast, I find it funny how a scene ripped directly from most Nerds favorite Batman Comic is treated as a huge betrayal of the character but "I don't have to save you" wasn't.

The branding is what's truly most controversial, with some acting like this makes Batman worse then The Punisher.  And to be honest even I think that plot-line could have been handled better, but not how you might expect.  And I'm even gonna set aside the Lex was actually behind the branded criminals dying in prison aspect which wasn't made clear enough in the theatrical cut.

First of all it is, even in the theatrical cut, presented as something Bruce just started doing, with that news paper we're shown being seemingly even Alfred's first time hearing about it.  Yet some people act like this Batman has been doing it for 20 years.

Secondly, the only person we ever see branded was a Sex Trafficker.  Those kinds of criminals tend to get that treatment in prison anyway.  It's almost as if the only purpose the Branding really serves is to give people, particularly Clark, a reason to blame Batman for it even though that would probably have been that guy's fate in prison regardless.

I think it'd have been interesting if the Brand was intended to have the opposite effect, like the Mark of Cain, saying "I don't want this guy getting off that easy so if you kill him you answer to the Bat".  But then that one is killed how he is because he was transferred to Metropolis and Clark simply wouldn't know the full context at first.  And maybe that was the original plan before the script got revised, who knows.

But my point is in the final product it is far more worth criticizing as a plot contrivance then as the worst violation of the No Kill rule any version of Batman's ever committed.

What really bugs me though is how the same people so offended by Snyder's two films also think Wonder Woman was DC finally getting it right, finally depicting a Heroic Superhero.  When in fact Wonder Woman is far more of a killer then the title characters in either Snyder film, and the killing itself far more condoned by the narrative.

In BvS we're supposed to view Batman as going too far, and he does abandon this dark path for a more optimistic outlook at the end (so Angry Joe saying "it'll be weird if he's not killing in Justice League" was always stupid of him).  And in Man of Steel Clark was trying not to Kill Zod, seriously I'm surprised no one's yet made a "Superman should've killed Zod sooner" argument.  But even if he couldn't have killed Zod sooner then when he had him in that Sleeper hold, he was still at that point pleading with him, he was trying not to have to kill him even though it was always inevitable.

Meanwhile Wonder Woman's mission was an assassination mission from the start and no one cares, she even kills the wrong person the first time, and nobody cares.

Is it because we see Wonder Woman as being in a literal war?  Even though the character Superman killed is called GENERAL Zod and he'd basically declared war on the planet.  But they're not in period piece cosplay so we don't register it as a "real" war.  Frankly I see it as pure hypocrisy to be okay with the Amazons killing Germans invading their island but not Superman killing someone only he could stop on a genocidal rampage.

Of course all the way back in 2005 the OMAC Project/Infinite Crisis story-line brought up a lot of talk on how Wonder Woman's no kill rule had "always" been less strict then Batman or Superman's, and so she was naturally the one to put in the situation of killing Maxwell Lord.  But to me that is the sad irony of how these characters have changed since the 40s.

In their earliest golden age appearances neither Batman or Superman had any hesitation to kill, Superman was modeled after Samson by his Jewish creators remember.  It was Wonder Woman alone who had a more pacifist policy right from her introduction, Marston wanted to reject the more violent and "Masculine" approach of most superhero comics.  So Wonder Woman preferred to reform her enemies EVEN when they were literally Nazis like Paula Von Gunther (though due to Marston's Racism I doubt we saw equivalent stories of Japanese villains being reformed).

You see Marston would not qualify as a Feminist according to Tumblr Feminists calling modern Anti-Feminists idiots who can't read the dictionary.  Because he did not view the genders as equal but unapologetically preached female superiority.  So among other things he held the problematic view that violence is inherently Masculine.  He'd frankly be disgusted to learn that by the 2000s his Amazons were being depicted as basically female Klingons.

Marston's ideology had a lot of issues, but what I do like about it as a Pacifist and a Feminist (and a Non Monogamist) I feel is embodied in a much better more refined way by the Magical Girl genre in Anime and Manga.  As much I did enjoy 2017's Wonder Woman, it'll never be the ideal depiction of Diana to me, to me Diana should be the West's Sailor Moon and Yuki Yuna.  DC has Big Barda to be their muscular sword wielding warrior woman.

What I'm saying is I like Snyder taking a more realistic approach to Violence in Superhero stories.  As opposed to Nolan wanting to kill off half his villains but also wanting to pretend he kept the No Kill rule intact.

Look, I'm writing this as someone who is firmly against the Death Penalty and strongly Anti-War. But those morals of mine relate to why in real life I disapprove of Vigilantes in the first place, even if they had a no kill rule.  So rooting for Batman already requires me to set aside my real world ethics when watching this fictional setting.

When Subverting Expectations becomes Expected.

Individually none of the subverted expectations in The Last Jedi are ones I couldn't have been fine with.  A couple kinda bother me ideologically but I'm someone who's fine with Zach Snyder's Superman, there is plenty I can look past.

People forget some fans were wanting Rey's parents to be nobodies all along.  I personally argued early in 2016 that she's not a Skywalker by blood, I could have gone either way on her having some other lineage.  And I'm fine with how The Last Jedi made this reveal, the suggestion of some that they should have "shown not told" naturally irritates me, this is exactly the kind of situation where "showing" would ruin the fact that it's supposed to be an intimate character development between her and Kylo.

The only pet theory I had that got nixed was Snoke being Plageius (which I still think is what Abrams intended, they've admitted Johnson ignored the original plans).  But even there I'm ultimately fine with actually seeing a Dark Side apprentice overthrow his master finally.

And I could go on and on about how many other twists in this movie I could have been fine with if they were executed better.

The issue is the movie really transparently started to feel like subverting for the sake of subverting.  And as I'd said before, if that was being done for the sake of leading to a radically new Status Quo for the Galaxy even that could have been fine, but instead all this "not the Star Wars you were expecting" just leaves everything right back where Episode IV started, a rebellion massively outnumbered by an overwhelming Empire.

Digibro made a video about some Anime getting Lazy with it's Meta.  And I don't entirely agree with that video, I enjoy plenty of Meta Digi would call lazy.  But what I like that he doesn't is stuff that celebrates genre conventions, if you're gonna try to make fans of those conventions feel ashamed of themselves for liking them, it better be serving a message like Sucker Punch, not simply shallow status quo reinforcing trite like TLJ.

The Last Jedi is a very well directed movie, and for that reason I'm sure I'll get some enjoyment from re-watching it when I finally get around to doing that.  But good directing doesn't save weak writing.

In plenty of contexts I'm fine with things seemingly insulting their own fans, because sometimes a segment of the fanbase deserves to be insulted.  So I'm fine with what Geoff Johns did with Superboy Prime in Infinite Crisis, and I loved in The Force Awakens reading Kylo Ren as an allegory for Prequel haters.

But like End of Evangelion, The Last Jedi feels like it wanted to insult all Star Wars fans, (even the ones who are still defending it).  Original Trilogy fans, Prequel Trilogy fans, old EU fans, new EU fans, and especially The Force Awakens fans.  I still stand by what I said before, that the most important thing the New Trilogy needs to do is bring in new fans.  And TFA was already doing that, TLJ needed to expand on what TFA started in a satisfying way, instead it got so obsessed with doing the unexpected that it become totally expected.

In Avengers Infinity War the narrative expectations of the MCU are also subverted every step of the way.  But it serves a thematic purpose this time because the ending it's building to is also not conventional.

Here is a video on TLJ that kinda helps clarify some of my point.
Star Wars The Last Jedi What Went Wrong.

Anime Weekly Updates, Omer 50: Pentecost Day!!!

Well, this will be the last of these following the Omer gimmick.

For once I don't have a lot to say about Magical Girl Site, it was weird this week but still entertaining.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes spent the last few weeks giving us some backstory on our main rivals as well some world building and politics.

Episode 4 had me thinking of Trump with the speculative analysis of why people gave power to the first Emperor. But in Episode 5 all of the sudden it's the current head of the Republic who seems like Trump with a blatant KKK allegory doing his dirty work.

I suppose the original idea was to be evocative of Hitler and Mussolini or maybe Napoleon III. I always found it interesting how in George Lucas audio commentaries for the Prequels he preferred to talk about Napoleon III. Recently I listened to the Revolutions podcast's episode of Napoleon III's election and it was quite interesting.

Stein;s Gate 0 is also still pretty interesting.  Looks like they want to repeat the slow build of the first show.

I've decided to put Last Period and Comic Girls on hold for now.  They're still fun shows, but I think I'd rather wait to binge for when I finish them.

Katana Maidens second core is picking up, yet another fun role for Monica Rail this year.

For Hugtto PreCure I think I ought to give an over all review to the Lulu arc.

It's a type of story-line we see in anime a lot.  But this was a pretty well executed version I feel.  I was unsure at first I'd be able to keep with the show past the first core, but this has kept me glued.

Some Superman fans are exactly like Fundamentalist Christians.

I was listening to Jesus Christ Superstar again this morning, imagining an Anime adaptation of it with Jesus being an Anime Girl who looks kinda like Eiko Magami.  When something occurred to me.

A lot of the people hating on Zach Snyder's take on Superman engage in this weird double speak where they hate that Snyder seemingly plays up the Jesus metaphor again, yet at the same time hate him for not making Superman "without sin" by their standards.  And I realized that some Superman fans are exactly like the kinds of Christians who are so deeply offended by stuff like Jesus Christ Superstar and The Last Temptation of Christ.

Chalcedonian, Miasyphite and Nestorian Christians are all supposed to believe in the full Humanity of Christ, but any depiction that emphasizes the Humanity many get uncomfortable with for not being sinless by their standards.  Likewise true Superman fans are supposed to know that Superman's real name is Clark Kent not Kal-El, and we're constantly annoyed by people who say "Superman's a boring character because he's too perfect", but will then turn around and hate any depiction of Superman where he isn't perfect from day one.

KyleKallgrenBHH's video on Superman literally says that he's offended by Man of Steel for making Superman less godlike.  He unambiguously says he cares about the Deity of Superman more then the Humanity of Superman.  I've addressed that video once already.

I have my own issues with Snyder's take on Superman.  Likewise I don't disagree that the Jesus Christ Superstar depiction of Jesus is a little problematic Biblically.  But that doesn't prevent me from loving them each as highly entertaining works of Art that at least try to explore aspects of these Characters that many others are afraid too.

P. S.:  In a hypothetical production of JCS where all the characters are DCU characters, Herod should be The Joker, just imagine Mark Hamil singing that song.

The Film Noir's influence, style or substance?

This is NOT me seeking to engage in a Style vs Substance debate about which is better or more important.  This is about how when labeling something as either an ancestor or descendant of the Film Noir movies of the 40s, the superficial cosmetic aesthetics is all most people are really looking at.

What I mean by defining the Film Noir superficially is largely a matter of time period.  A notion that something can't be a true Film Noir unless it's set in the 40s, or some weird fantastical hybrid of the 40s and some modern and/or futuristic setting (like Cyber Punk), or at least feature people weirdly pretending it's the 40s, though that's mainly a thing in parodies.

In my opinion, a Sub Genre or even specific franchise only needs to be in it's original time period if it was a period piece originally, and maybe not even always when it is.  I've read articles trying to argue why old Pulp Heroes can't work in a modern setting, but the truth is the reason they faded into relative obscurity while the Comic Book Superheros who were inspired by them have thrived is that Pulps didn't change with the times the way Comics did.

The 40s Film Noirs worked at the time because they were about the present, they only became exotic period pieces to us watching them later.  They were often adapted from source material, some of which was written all the way back in the 20s like the earliest Hammett stories.  Bogart's The Maltese Falcon which is one of 3 or 4 different films I've seen refereed to as the first Film Noir, wasn't even the first adaptation of that novel, one was made a full decade before.  And plenty of those novels were drawing on even older literature. But the movies still adapted them as contemporary.

But most of what are considered descendants of the Film Noir are not then contemporary stories dealing with contemporary versions of the same themes and issues, but movies trying to appeal to Nostalgia for 40s Film Noirs.

Mother's Basement suggested that you need to watch Roman Polanski's Chinatown to understand the Film Noir genre, well sorry but no I haven't seen that movie and I never will and I understand the genre just fine.  But in Geek culture what has really filtered one's perception of the Film Noir is Blade Runner, another movie I haven't seen myself yet but this one I do want to see when I can.

I praised Pretty Little Liars's Shadow Play as the best Noir Episode of a TV show I've seen, but it did that so well because the show was kind of always a modern Noir.  The Egyptian is I feel a very good Film Noir set in Ancient Egypt.  I can't say I feel The Wolverine was that good at trying to feel like a modern Film Noir, but it is still the only FoX-Men movie I particularly like.

On YouTube Filmmaker IQ did a video called Origins of Film Noir which was an interesting informative video.

But when it comes to talking about foreign influences on this presumably American genre, it only discussed German Expressionism, and not you know the country who's language provides the name of the genre and some of it's distinctive tropes, France.  Fortunately I have my own posts on the French roots of the genre, The French History of The Femme Fatale and The Mysteries of Gotham.

I can't help but wonder how often failures to understand this genre come from a desire to see it as more uniquely American then it actually is.  I can assure you that the term "Femme Fatale" is not gratuitous French, it was a French literary term before any Americans associated it with our urban crime stories.  For example La Femme Fatale was the name of a few french silent films that are sadly probably lost.

One thing I do like about that Filmmaker IQ video is the collection of clips from later films influenced by Film Noir, and in that area it escapes what I'm talking about here a bit by including films like The Dark Knight.  Batman89 may look more like it wants to be a Film Noir, but The Dark Knight has more of the substance.

And that makes me want to some day make my own collection of Anime clips that I feel have a Noir influence. Of course talking about Anime and this genre is something that tends to trigger Razorfist, he has some pretty interesting videos about film Noirs.  But his understanding on the genre has been criticized, like in this video.

I have expressed my general disagreement with Show Don't Tell already.  But it definitely shows ignorance of the Film Noir genre to say they are show don't tell.  Film Noirs were like Shakespeare in that they were basically all dialogue driven.  They thrived on the notion that what you'd don't see can be more impact-full then what you do.  So Razorfist saying certain movies fail to be Film Noir like because they didn't adhere to "show don't tell" really ruins his credibility on the genre in my eyes.

Back to Anime, number 1, I also recommend that video responding to Razorfist for it's section on Akira's relationship to Blade Runner.

My absolute favorite Anime of all time is one called Noir which was made by Studio Bee Train.  Perhaps Noir is more of a nephew then a descendant of American Film Noir, since it's more direct inspirations were French films like Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita and Leon.  But the fact remains it's appeal to me has a lot to do with how it's like a true modern Film Noir.  I already talked about that a bit in yesterday's Sakuga post.

Witch Hunter Robin also has some nice Film Noir elements here and there, but I hesitate to call the show as a whole one.

Kara No Kyoukai is a very atmospheric urban mystery saga.

Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine is a period piece, but it's set in the 60s.

Naturally there is a lot of overlap between what I'd consider to be an Anime Noir and what Anime I think is a good model for how to do Batman in Anime.  Which reminds me, Batman Ninja sucks.

Sakuga is ruining Anime.

That title is a bit of an attention grabbing exaggeration.  What I really mean is, Sakuga fixation is ruining Anime criticism.

Obviously Sakuga is a tool that should be used.  And if they ever make a Superman Anime I'd want to see some Sakuga flying and battle scenes, as well as him evading missiles in an Inato Circus.

But I'm tired of lack of Sakuga being an inherent criticism. And I'm also tired of Sakuga scenes being considered inherently good animation even if the art being Sakugaed is ugly as sin, like with Pokemon Sun and Moon.  I don't care how much motion that show has, if the character designs we're looking at are literally vaguely humanoid blobs of vomit, moving crap is still crap.

Remember that fraking Evangelion was a limited Animation show, and so I bet if Digibro re-watched it in the mindset he's been in lately he would now hate it.  I'm far from Evangelion's biggest fan, but I do like Supereyepatchwolf's defense of the elevator scene.

And on a related note, I'm tired of characters going "off model" being a criticism.  This is animation, I want to see things you can't do in real life, and in live action actors can't go off model.

The Pedantic Romantic has a pretty good informative video called Eromanga-Sensai: One Year Later.  What interests me here is how she talks about episode 22 of Fate/Apocrypha as having inherently better Animation because it had more "work" put into it.  I was enjoying Fate/Apocrypha from the start, and this episode while not bad was distracting to me with how different it was from the way the show was usually animated.

And I wasn't alone, this sentiment was also all over the KissAnime comments section for the episode (Subbed version).  You can say it makes those commenters look stupid since many thought this episode was cheaper when it seems the opposite was true.  But the fact remains this attempt to change things for one episode to impress the Sakuga fanatics just annoyed the people who already liked what they were doing.  And I would simply say that Expensive Animation people thought was cheap was a waste of money.

Here is one particular comment I found interesting.

Alex Jesse • 15 days ago

they tried to make fluent fights by decreasing details and adding frames, it worked with the effects of noble phantasms and explosions, while everything else looked like a failed attempt at copying studio Trigger!!

I'm not an expert on any of this, I just know my reaction to the episode was that it felt out of place.

My only criticism of Kyoto Animation recently is that I think they definitely over do the Sakuga, especially if it's just a High School show like Euphonium.  At one time Digi would have been inclined to agree, in his video Can Anime be too Pretty for it's own Good.  But lately he seems to have sold his soul to the Sakugists.

Make no mistake, I'm as annoyed by outright using Stills when there is no justification for it as much as the next guy.  But I also feel there isn't enough respect for the interesting things you can do with Animation that would never qualify as Sakuga.

Take these clips from episodes 4 and 5 of the criminally underrated Witch Hunter Robin.  Unfortunately since I don't know how to torrent I can't quite show you the highest quality versions of these.

As someone who does need glasses in real life, I can tell you we do play around with them like that sometimes.  And to my limited knowledge this is the only time I've seen that depicted in a work of fiction, in any medium.  It might be impossible to do in Live Action, I'm not sure you can recreate it putting Glasses in front of a camera.

And then there is a my absolute favorite Anime, Noir.  I feel like the tone and vibe of that show would be ruined by extensive use of Skauga (I don't even know if I can say the show has no Sakuga, but like all Bee Train Shows it's commonly accused of being amateurish and cheap for not looking like Akira).  To me it's animated in the perfect way to make it like an Anime version of a modern Film Noir (a topic I'll be returning to in a future post), the stillness of the show complements it.  Maybe it's that way partly because of a lack of Budget, but guess what, the same was true of many actual Film Noirs which people forget were mostly B movies.

That's not to say there isn't an equally valid way to capture a Film Noir feel using good Sakuga, Kara No Kyoukai is great at that.  But Noir took the route that worked for it and it worked perfectly.

And I think saying the show's Animation had no effort put into it would be offensive in light of this clip from episode 13.  Again the version provided here unfortunately doesn't look nearly as good as it does on my DVD, much less the newer BluRay release I still haven't gotten.

I'm sure it's not Sakuga since not everything is moving, but just showing cloths and hair blowing in the wind takes a lot of work when they could have just used stills again here (I will admit Noir is guilty of the Stills sin in at least it's first episode).

Sakuga is good, but it's not the only thing that matters.

Update May 24th: So I got a response on Reddit that suggests I'm defining Sakuga wrong.  Well blame the Anime critics I'm reacting to, particularity Digibro, for that.  They're the ones gushing over Sakuka while making it sound like it's just a matter of motion.

Update February 2023: I didn't even choose good sources for those Noir and Witch Hunter Robin clips, those shows are in fact in remastered 16:9 on Crunchyroll now.

The Executive Meddling Bogey Man.

Technically Sam Raimi was the first to get to direct the third film of his Comic Book Superhero movie franchise.  But he might as well not have, he was forced to include two characters he didn't want to in Spider-Man 3, Gwen Stacey and Venom.

In fact Christopher Nolan was the first to direct a full "Trilogy" in this genre, and really is still the only one.  The MCU has let few even do two films.  Even their once worshiped Joss Whedon wasn't allowed to stay for the third film.  Meanwhile Snyder may be a credited director for three movies, but he had full artistic control of none of them and for the last quit part way through due to a personal tragedy.

Justice League and Suicide Squad are films being looked at as examples of dreaded executive meddling interfering with Directorial Artistic vision and ruining what the movie could have been.  And every time that happens a lot of fanboys go "why won't they realize meddling never turns out well?".

But there are plenty of films that went wrong for the opposite reason, because the Director had so much clout that he had no leash on him.  Peter Jackson's King Kong and the Hobbit movies are films where I myself agree, Jackson needed a leash.  However I'll disagree when it comes to say Batman Returns, I still love that movie.

This is a nuanced issue that I feel many want to over simplify.

I'll say this, if you're one of many right now saying the MCU deserves it's massive success, and their films of the last 2 or 3 years are mostly their best yet.  Then you don't think Executive Meddling is inherently bad, so stop pretending pure Directorial vision matters to you.  I have enjoyed all the MCU films so far, but I do wish Rangnorock had actually been a Thor movie and not GOTG 2.5.

Frankly we would have had a DCU sooner if Nolan hadn't become a god DC didn't want to piss off.  The Dark Knight Rises killed the ability for Nolan's franchise to ever lead into a Shared Universe, because he explicitly didn't want that.  As a stand alone film I love The Dark Knight Rises, it's perfect.  But it's not how The Dark Knight should have been followed up.

Whether or not Executive Meddling ruins something depends on what the conflicting visions are.

When a Director wants no leash on their creative control, they should stick to creating original properties, or Public Domain ones.  If you're agreeing to direct a property for a Studio that owns it and has a vested interest in it's popularity beyond when you'll be done with it.  You don't get to just do whatever you want.

For me there still is no ideal Superman movie.

For Batman, The Dark Knight was perfect enough that I could have been happy never getting another Batman film.  But Superman hasn't been so lucky.

I'm saying this even though I have ultimately settled on a relatively positive opinion of Batman V Superman.  That film's takes on Batman and Superman are valid takes.  They're not the takes I prefer, but frankly they are closer to what I prefer then either Christopher Reeve or Michael Keaton.

We still don't have an ideal Superman movie, but Man of Steel is to my tastes much better then any of the Donner films, and the best characterization of Superman on the big screen so far is what we got in Justice League.

On YouTube, TheFear97, Twin Perfect and iamthatroby have some good video essays defending Snyder's Superman movies.  I know most in the Video Essay genre love to beat up on Snyder's films, from Folding Ideas to KyleKallgrenBHH to FilmJoy, all people who've done some other work I really like.  So I wanted to point out that an alternate perspective does exist.

I don't have a problem with people disliking Man of Steel and BvS, but I have a problem with people saying things about those films that are provably false.  Like that Clark never smiles, or never does anything Heroic, or never tries to take the fight away from populated areas.

I don't even think there is a truly great Animated Superman movie.  Brainiac Unbound is the best Aniamted Superman movie so far, and Allstar Superman is a good love letter to the Silver Age Superman.  But nothing like Mask of The Phantasm is for Batman.

As far as Superman on TV goes, I like what we got in the first two episodes of season 2 of Supergirl.  I have a complex relationship with Smallville, the first 3 seasons I think were perfect, season 4 remained pretty close with bringing Lois in too soon being the main issues, but regardless Commencement was the show's best episode, it was great.

The best adaptations of Superman stories that involve acting however I think are the BBC radio dramas.  I wasn't fond of the Trail of Superman, but The Adventures of Superman which adapted John Byrne's Man of Steel miniseries, and then their adaptation of The Death and Return of Superman, are pretty darn great.

We now have two Batman Animes.  So it's a shame there seems to be no interest in doing an official Superman Anime.  Superman's been an influence on Anime, the Fleischer shorts influenced the Grandfather of Anime, in fact the second one in particular may be why the Mecha Genre exists.  And it's not a coincidence that Tetsuo puts on a Red Cape in Akira.

A long time ago, before I was that into Anime, I heard a claim that some 80s Japanese Cartoon was about a character who's Superman and Wonder Woman's daughter in the future which they somehow got away with even though it wasn't done with DC's approval.  I never remembered what it's name was.  Lately my mind wandered to that subject again and so I googled it, and it was an Anime called Project A-Ko, a movie I'd just recently heard Digibro mention a few times since he and May did a commentary for it.  Apparently it too has been a very influential Anime.

So I watched the movie and it was a pretty fun, I could see it being the premise of one of those old Silver Age Imaginary Stories, except for what's uniquely Anime about it, which is arguably everything.  I also watched the Dub which I think was pretty good, sometimes it sounds silly but the movie itself is silly.

The character of B-Ko we are at one point told has a rich father, and then she starts creating Mechs and stuff.  I immediately thought, that must be Lex Luther's daughter.  But I knew this movie came out in 86, when the CEO Lex was just introduced in the Comics, it felt unlikely that could have influenced something in Japan that quickly pre-Internet.  And yet the nature of their rivalry had me thinking she must be the Luther in this scenario.

Then after finishing the movie I read on Wikipedia that she's supposed to be Tony Stark's daughter.  That took me by surprise, this is over 20 years before the MCU, why was Iron Man of all people the Marvel character they wanted to incorporate?

But I then watched the movie a second time along with Digi&May's commentary, this time Subbed.  And now I'm definitely seeing the Tony Stark in her.  It makes sense one would confuse an Iron Man based character with Lex when in a Superman context.  Because Tony Stark basically is Lex Luthor as a good guy.  I know the CEO Lex was originally compared to The Kingpin, but as time goes on fans came to prefer a Lex who can be both the Billionaire and the Mad Scientist at the same time, and that makes him into Tony Stark.

So this is basically a Fan Fiction about Superman & Wonder Woman and Iron Man having daughters who are Lesbians fighting over the same girl.  That actually got Animated.

Maybe next Disney will buy out Warner and then the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Cinematic Universe can merge together and create a live action Project A-Ko adaptation with cameos from Henry Cavil, Gal Gadot and Robert Downy Jr.

BTW, there was also a Wonder Woman anime in 1978 according to My Anime List.

Update: Apparently the Wonder Woman cartoon I mentioned above is actually South Korean, she looks like Wonder Woman but they make her an Alien.   I've found it online but not with Subs.

The MCU Formula

What the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been doing well that most people seem to think others haven't been for the last 2-5 years or so.  Is the ability to provide over the top Escapist Popcorn movie fun, while also having Heart and Thematic resonance.  Other films seem to be trying to pull off what Marvel is but failing.

I can't entirely disagree, but my takes on these movies are more complicated.

Some people want to say Star Wars is being handled the same way the MCU films are because of both being Disney.  Yet ironically my overall reactions to the Disney Star Wars films so far (I won't be seeing Solo theatrically) have been the same as for the last three DC films.  Very high praise upon first leaving the theater, but the more I think about it the more what's disappointing about it sinks in.

I'm starting to feel like 2008 was an important transitional year in Cinema.  But do you know what 2008 movie anticipated the MCU formula in advance?  It's not the actual MCU films made that year, it took awhile for the MCU to find it's footing and Josh Whedon was important to how it did so.  Iron Man I did the and still do think of as Batman Begins light.

It was Speed Racer, yes that film that mostly flopped at the time but has a lot of loyal fans now.  It anticipated the MCU formula by being more like a Comic Book then the Comic Book movies of that year.  And guess what, Speed Racer is how it is because it's an Anime adapted by fans of Anime.

That's the thing, in American Cinema it may be only the MCU that's been pulling this off recently. But Anime has always been good at it. Like the Nanoha franchise, the first two seasons are like MCU films but double the length.  I feel like maybe Reflection has succeeded at being similar, but due to the language barrier I may need to watch it a few more times to know for sure.  As well as seeing Detonation which I probably won't be able to till a year from now.

But even getting into something more controversial to speak highly of.  Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale is basically an MCU film, in both formula and execution.  And I see it as purely hypocrisy to think that movie is trash but the MCU films deserve their success.

I've been enjoying the MCU films.  However they aren't the formula I want all films or Anime to have.  And so I enjoyed Jurassic World far more.  And now that I've seen Batman V Superman a third time I think I can firmly say my overall opinion of it is a positive one, I think in time it'll be vindicated by History.

Now Avengers Infinity War has broken from the standard MCU formula a bit.  And that factors into why I like it the best so far.  And there is Anime I could easily compare it too, Thanos motivation makes him like a lot of Anime Anti-Villains.

About the ending of Infinity War.

I'm not falling in love with NEW Movies as easilly as I used to.

That I have been watching and liking so much Anime kind of makes up for that.  But as someone who choose to at the start of 2017 brag about how easy I am to please, I don't like that I haven't truly been able to be that enthusiastic about the Blockbuster movies I've watched.

Infinity War has possibly broken this trend.  So many past movies I've raved about on this Blog after first watching them I was already starting to sour on by this point since seeing it, whether I admitted that publicly or not.  So that I still feel the same as what I said about that movie two weeks ago, maybe even appreciating some aspects more, is important.  Before that the last Live Action film that I kept loving as much as when I first saw it in the theater was Jurassic World.

Even Wonder Woman, which because of my Feminism I actively refused to say anything negative about while it was still fresh because we needed a Female lead Superhero film to be a hit.  The truth is it didn't take me long to realize that I think it's in the same place Superman The Movie and Batman 89 were, good enough that it'll be treated as perfect as long as there isn't another take on Wonder Woman to compare it to, but once there is, the conversation about it will change.

One factor might be I haven't been rewatching stuff as much I used to (that's true for both Anime and western Cinema).  Becoming a regular Anime follower has caused me to have a lot more to watch then I used to.  And in terms of Films, I used to make a point to always give a film I liked a second theatrical viewing.  But now with ticket prices going up while I have had a lot less money, I don't think I've done a repeat theatrical viewing since before I started this Blog.   There was a time when I would never fail to see a Comic Book Superhero film in theaters, but in 2017 I skipped out on all the Marvel movies till home video.

The Dark Knight I saw 10 times before 2008 was over, 6 times in theaters and 4 on DVD.  For the next few years I wouldn't go more then 6 months without watching it.  But Batman V Superman I've still only seen twice and those viewings were not of the same edit.  Maybe if during the gestation period of my opinion on The Dark Knight I allowed myself to go over a month only thinking about it without watching it again my mind would have poked more holes in it.

Digibro likes to say the re-watch is the real watch of something.  In fact he's specifically said it can take till the third viewing to be certain what your opinion is, that the second viewing you'll notice more flaws then you did the first time but then the third viewing be back to loving it as much as the first.  That describes my relationship with The Force Awakens somewhat, I certainly enjoyed my third viewing of it more then I did the second.

But why have I watched TFA more times then BvS? When I care about that franchise less to start with and ultimately feel like I probably like BvS more?  Something about BvS has been making me afraid of coming to terms with it.

The lack of repeat viewings can't be the only explanation however.  Cause I still only watched 2008's Speed Racer twice when I first saw it last year and I still love it and honestly think it might be able to compete with The Dark Knight as my favorite western movie period, being perhaps the opposite side of the same coin.

Now some of you might say "dude it's because you like things so much you watch it more" even though I kind of already addressed that. Even with the Anime I've been watching, a decade ago something I enjoyed as much as I did In Another World With My Smartphone or Princess Principle I have have watched 3 or even 4 times by now.  But I simply have less viewing time available.

None of my issues with Batman V Superman are of it as a stand alone film. The complexity of my relationship with that film is on a purely Meta level.  (I'll be talking more about this in future posts.)  As a complete film and a work of Art I still think it's the best the DCEU has made and will probably stand the test of time better then most MCU films.  I predict 20 years from now the general perceptions of it and Captain America: Civil War will have swapped places.

This post may make good context for a number of upcoming posts I want to make about DC and MCU films, and films in general that have come out since the start of 2015.  But those posts will be less personal exploration and more like actual points.

It might be this is a natural consequence of getting so into Anime, the Anime I've watched has raised my standards and perhaps spoiled me to even the best of what America has to offer.  Both for escapist popcorn fun and for deep philosophically challenging tragedies. After all some of what I may have to say about Infinity War in the near future is about comparing it to Anime.

Update:  Since first posting this I have seen Batman V Superman a third time.  Some of the Jump scares and explosions still make me Jump even though I knew they were coming.  That's something that's never happened with my home viewings of any MCU films.

Magical Girl Site, Transgender Representation and The Batman Question.

For the second week in a row Magical Girl Site is the only show I really want to comment on.  But I'm still enjoying all the shows I'm currently watching.

I mentioned in my Astolfo post how I don't use the term "Trap" to describe characters who are actually Trasngender.  The only problem with making that hard distinction is Japanese media doesn't always use the same terminology we use in the west, so it's not always clear what the writers are going for.  For example I'm still not sure what we're supposed to think of Ruka in Steins;Gate, I like that in the new series they seem more comfortable with their gender identity, but I'm still unsure what it's supposed to be.

Episode 7 of Magical Girl Site has introduced the character of Kiyoharu Suirenji.  Going off what we see in this episode alone I would have to conclude she is a Trans woman and not merely a Crossdresser because of her using the girl's bathroom and that being an issue.  I don't think a CisMale Crossdresser would use the girl's bathroom.  However her seemingly not objecting to others calling her a boy complicates the matter, but it could be she's just someone who doesn't want to get confrontational about it.  But I also could have missed something there since I'm watching it Subbed because there is no Dub.

In the episode's MAL forum one user who's read the Manga says the character is definitely a Trans woman.  That user is defending using the proper terminology to refer to her.  However there is at least one user there being very blatantly Transphobic.

Most of what we see of the character in the episode I like.  However we are given a glimpse of the character having a dark side, with her saying she'll get revenge in the distant future.  Now this is a Dark Magical Girl show where most characters have something dark about them.  But I'm still recovering from the disappointment of my favorite Western TV show of all time, Pretty Little Liars blowing it with it's handling of this issue.

People sometimes ask whether bad representation is better then no representation.  It is interesting that if this show had never brought the issue up I would probably have never singled it out to criticize for lack of Trans representation.  But as soon as they provide some representation it doesn't take long for me to start being on edge about her possibly being mishandled.  I'd been praising the show for it's unsanitized depiction of Bullying, I should then be thrilled to see that theme expand to showing the bullying Trans Women endure.  But instead I'm worried about the implications of this character either turning evil or dying.

But I now realize that, yeah, I should be criticizing Magical Girl shows for failing to include trans representation (and even Sailor Moon fails to include any true Trans representation, the Starlights were simply a gender bending gimmick).  They frequently try to have very diverse casts allowing many different kinds of girls to be magical girls, representing many different forms of the adolescent female experience in Japan.  I think we're long overdue for a Trans Magical Girl and it's unfortunate that the Dark Magical Girl Genre which people are backlashing against now was the first to do it.

This subject happened to be on my mind already before I saw episode 7.  You may have noticed I posted about a Batman movie that features The Riddler yesterday.  Well Batman and The Riddler being on my mind reminded me that back when I spent a lot of time trying to imagine what kinds of Batman films I'd make if I could, I had came up with a concept that re-imagined The Riddler as a Trans Woman.  But then decided that I wasn't comfortable casting a Trans character as a villain in our current climate.

Homosexual representation in media has reached the point where you can have Gay villains without it automatically reinforcing the same harmful stereotypes that used to keep Gays as only villains or tragic victims in American fiction.  But Trans representation, especially for Trans Women, has not, as clearly shown by what happened with Pretty Little Liars.  I absolutely believe the writers of that show had the best of intentions, they wanted to say Transphobia is the ultimate cause of the tragedy, but regardless Charlotte being the only Trans representation the show had left the LGBT community who at one point loved the show feeling deeply betrayed.

Ironically this Trans Woman Riddler idea had developed in my mind before season 6 of PLL happened.  And yet my vision for The Riddler was influenced by PLL before the Trans Woman aspect was a part of it.  PLL started airing back when some Batfans were still hoping The Riddler would be in the third Nolan Batfilm.  And I from day one immediately felt how -A operated on PLL was a good reference point for how to "Nolanize" The Riddler.

So in hindsight Charlotte DiLaurentis kind of resembles the Trans Woman Riddler concept I'd been thinking of.  And how that whole controversy helped shape how I think about this issue was a factor in why I dropped the idea.  Still my envisioned backstory for her (which I don't entirely remember) was far from identical.  And of course I also regardless of the character's gender or ethnic identity prefer The Riddler to not be a murderer.  It would be admittedly hard to keep that in tact when making The Riddler the main antagonist of a big budget Hollywood blockbuster, but I do think it's workable. So in that sense my Riddler was closer to Mona then Charlotte.

But now I can't help but wonder if outright abandoning it was simply the Cowards way out (Realistically I'll probably never get to make a Batman film anyway, but this is all hypothetical).  For example if I have good guys in the movie who are also Trans that could certainly help make it salvageable.

Part of what was so harmful about the Charlotte story-line was caused by the need for it to be a twist, that the character who turned out to be "Charles" had been posing as a Cis Woman.  And that's the main problem with my initial concept here.  The starting premise before any Gender issues factored into it was allowing a Batman movie that's actually a Mystery/Detective story by having us not know who The Riddler is going in as opposed to who's cast as The Riddler being the centerpiece of how it's marketed.  But I now realize that the concept can be reworked so that whatever name She is using before the reveal she can still be openly Trans.  The thing is I'm kind of killing that mystery aspect for future use by giving it all away publicly now.  Only way it could work for someone who'd read this post is if multiple Trans Women are in it.  Oh wait, that happens to also help keep her from being the only representation.

The YouTube Channel FilmJoy did a video last year called The Batman Question which I watched today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwzE2J7bo0c&t
It was about the idea of allowing more then just CisHet White Men to play Batman and other major Batman characters.  Janelle Monae was a choice brought up a lot, and she responded that she'd rather play The Joker.

And that reminded me how members of Batman's Rouges Gallery are Pop Culture Icons and that almost every Actor wants an opportunity to play one.  And I personally would cast an actual Trans Woman to play the role (The Pedantic Romantic could make a good Riddler).  So perhaps we shouldn't exclude the Trans Community from being able to play those roles out of fear of how it can go wrong.  The Riddler is often viewed as Batman's smartest nemesis, his greatest intellectual threat.

After all Eartha Kitt wasn't counterproductive for Black Women.  KyleKallgrenBHH in his recent video on The Watermelon Woman talks about how for a long time Black Women weren't allowed to be Sex Symbols in America.  So in that context one getting to play the greatest Sex Symbol of American Pop Culture was downright revolutionary.  And so in today's climate maybe Catwoman should be the first Bat Rouge to consider allowing to be a Trans woman?

You may ask, why was it that my mind went there for The Riddler first?

Another question you may ask is, how would I handle naming this Trans woman reinterpretation of Edward Nygma?

Well the answers to those questions are kind of the same.

When I started thinking about what I'd do for a Nolanesque Riddler story.  I first decided "The Riddler" should be a name given to them probably by the media.  They would identify themselves in their messages as simply -?  Again influenced by -A on PLL.

Then I first started thinking about the character's Gender as I was playing around with the inherent pun of E. Nygma, and the idea entered my head to use the name.....

....... Annie Nygma......................

And from there I thought first just of making The Riddler a woman, an idea which technically had been done before at least by Cosplayers.  But I also thought about having her use multiple names and for the sake of Nolan style realism not having any Nygma name be her birth name.  Then I heard of this Edward Nashton name that had emerged as an alternate name for The Riddler, I don't know who used it first but I heard of it via The Riddler Blogs, a fan film project derivative of The Joker Blogs.

And then I thought about how Trans men and Trans women naturally tend to change their names from what they were given at birth.  And so the idea popped in there to have Edward Nashton be the name assigned at birth, and Annie Nygma the name she chose when she accepted her Gender Identity, because she was into Riddles and Puzzles.

I'm not Trans, I can't actually relate to these issues.  So I simply don't know what the right answer is.  Perhaps it's a good idea for me to put this idea out there and let someone who is Trans use it for their own Fanwork if they see value in it.

Part of the reason I was ashamed of this for awhile is it didn't originate much from a place of caring about representation.  I've always been a believer in Trans rights, but it was in recent years I've become much more sensitive to this and other Social Justice issues.

The more recent ideas I've come up with for characters who are Trans have been making them heroes.  Like the idea of the Vordenberg who Carmilla had a romance with being a Trans woman.  Or my desire to tell a story about Lancelot as a Trans woman (using the name Lanzelet), as well as Perceval as a Trans man.  And my idea for a fictionalized French Revolution shared cinematic universe involved using Chevalier d'Éon in the Captain America/Wonder Woman/King Kong role as the one who's origin story film is set in a previous era.  And interpreting d'Eon as a Noble Honorable and Heroic Trans woman, not doing weirder ideas like the Anime about her and Fate Grand Order do.  The only Fantastical aspect will be keeping the character young in the 1790s.  And I have my unique reason for interpreting Judas Maccabeus as Transgender.

Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and The Bold

Is a very good and very fun Animated movie I highly recommend.

I'm a fan of both Dark Batman and Fun Batman, in theory I ultimately like Dark Batman more.  But lately it seems like it's only the people making Fun Batman who know how to get it right.  Basically once Nolan left the films things went downhill for the Dark Knight.

For Dark Batman we've had at best the misguided Snyder-Affleck take, entertaining but uninspired animated movies that awkwardly mix up Morrison's Batman and New52 Batman missing the point of what worked about both, a botched adaptation of the massively overrated Killing Joke, and most recently the horribly insulting Gotham By Gaslight adaptation.

But for Fun Batman we have the underrated Batman Unlimited films, the perfect Adam West and Burt Ward animated movies, and now this wonderful film.  It shouldn't be inherently easier to get this version right, as reactions to the Shumacher films show there are ways to make jokes out of these characters that simply saying "It's like the Silver Age" doesn't forgive.  I've become much more accepting of those two films over the years, but even I still say they are not as well done as what these actual Cartoons have done in recent years.

My preference for the Dark Knight is what we had in the Comics of the first half of the 2000s and very late 90s, so my personal advice would be for people to use those Comics as their blueprint, there are things from this era I dislike, but mostly that's what I'm nostalgic for.  I don't want Batman to be like that from the start however, I want him to be like the O'Niel or Bronze Age Batman (or BTAS and Begins) to start with, but to become hardened by years of losing allies and seemingly failing to make any real progress in his mission.  And after that period I do like Morrison's vision for bringing him back from that dark edge.

It's become trendy for the kinds of Batman fans who are hosting Podcasts to reject the Batman I like the most.  The takes on Batman that Michael Bailey and the Knigthcast podcast prefer are part of how I view the Dark Knight's biography.  But mostly what offends me is when My Batman is talked about as if he's the same as Frank Miller's Batman.  My Batman at even his Darkest point in War Games and the OMAC Project is not nearly as unstable as the DKR Batman, and he's certainly nothing like THE GODDAMN BATMAN or The Fixer.

Back to the main topic.  What I mainly want to talk here is an observation that is inherently a spoiler.  So if you haven't seen the movie and are planning to, don't read the rest.

Anime Weekly Updates, Omer 36: Magical Girl Site and Bullying

I don't have anything to say about the Anime I've watched this week.  Just be aware that I'm still following all the same shows I was last week.

What I do want to do is briefly comment again on why I'm enjoying Magical Girl Site.

Gigguk in his Spring 2017 Anime video was very dismissive of the show.  Talking about it like how over the top the bullying is makes it so he can't take it seriously.

As someone who actually did experience bullying in School, and knows full well many others had it worse then I did.  It's the watered down treatment of bullying in most High School fiction like Mean Girls I can't take seriously.  To the point where I'd rather they not address it at all if they're not gonna go all the way with it.

The reason so many people out there are so dismissive of Bullying, the reason they can get away with saying people need to just "Man up" and take it or stand up for themselves.  Is because they don't know what it's actually like, that it's unending unrelenting psychological torture.

One of the many reasons it saddens me that IMDB's message boards are gone is because of it's board for the 2003 lifetime movie Odd Girl Out.  It was filled with comments from people who experienced bullying in school saying this was the one movie that depicted it right.  The one time someone tried to start a thread saying they found it unrealistic it got countless responses from people testifying to how very realistic it was.  So I hate that all of that documentation is gone.

Now my solution to this problem isn't the same as others speaking out about it would propose.  I think we simply shouldn't have a Public School System, or at least not in the form it is now.  When you take humans who aren't fully developed away from their parents for half their waking hours and put them into a microcosm of society, these problems are inevitable.  For most of human history we understood that this was not a good idea.

This is a post about Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works

I only know the story via the UFOtable Anime (as Dubbed by Aniplex), but what I have to say is applicable to the Visual Novel as well, and probably the I'm sure horribly condensed Studio Deen movie.

This post revolves around a major Spoiler.  The story is well known enough that it should be like spoiling that Samus is female, but Anime is niche so I don't want to risk it.

So only read on if you know all the major Spoilers of the Unlimited Blade Works route.

Infinity War feels like an Event Comic

I like Event Comics, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, and Superman Our Worlds At War are among my favorite Comic Book stories.  I don't like how they've become overused, how it feels like there are no breaks between them now.  But they are a concept I can get behind and at least a few have been executed really well.  I want to read more of the ones I haven't gotten to yet, from Final Crisis to the ones the 90s had.

They are one aspect of what I love about Comics I figured would never get translated to film, not even in Animation.  And it amazes me that the world of Live Action Superhero films tried it and succeeded at it before any Animated project did.

I was never really buying that what The Avengers film was doing was so difficult.  In terms of the kind of narrative it is, it had absolutely been done before, we'd had movies about Superhero teams before, and X-Men was just as star studded.  And we'd seen them plenty in Animation.  The Avengers was only different in that they were a team of characters from prior movies, but we'd also had crossover films before.

I scoffed and still scoff at the idea that Civil War proved you needed the emotional investment of the prior movies to make a Versus film work.  I remain of the opposite mindset, a Verses story is only acceptable to me when it's how they meet.  And so for all my issues with Batman V Superman I still maintain it to be a better Verses movie.

But the unique feeling of an Event Comic, especially one that felt built up to for years as Infinite Crisis did in 2005, is what you truly can't do without a Shared Universe.

Cause you see I've never read a Justice League or Teen Titans comic truly caring if the continuity between the team and solo stories lined up, it's nice when they do and some such references exist.  But all you need to do is look at is Dick Grayson's love life to see that those respective writings teams weren't actually on the same page.  And so that's why the animated ones worked just fine as stand alone films.

It's the event Comics that when handled well feel like everything in many prior comic story-lines were building up to it in some way or another.  Both the solos and the team ups.  Bringing together events from different corners of the universe, and in a sense different genres.  And that is where Infinity War has truly justified the MCU.  I don't agree with everything in today's Mother's Basement video, but it's still a good break down.  Thanos Is the Protagonist - How Infinity War Works.

It juggles it's cast well, has interactions between established characters I never would have thought of, like Bucky and Rocket.  And while the story was scattered for much of it, everything was basically brought together by the end.

The good Event comics are ones where the basic story absolutely does work with only the actual limited series.  But reading the tie-in comics can still feel like they add to it in meaningful yet not required ways and isn't just an excuse to put the event's name on the cover.  And that is the one aspect Infinity War can't really have an equivalent for.  Some might compare what's going on in the TV shows that I don't watch anymore, but at the end of the day even they will be events set before or after it, not another angle on during it like Teen Titans Life and Death is for Infinite Crisis.

But that's the only factor really missing, yes it's scale is still smaller compared to any true Crisis, but the other DC events I've read are on the same scale as Infinity War or below it.

That's the weird thing, in terms of Comics I'm mainly a DC fan, but am loving this MCU film for evoking similar feelings in me as some of my favorite DC Comics.

What is similar to that is the lead in story-lines.  Of the many that lead into Infinite Crisis, I feel only Identity Crisis and OMAC Project even come close to being required reading, they make a good trilogy.  But others add it, like Villains United, the entire Geoff Johns Teen Titans run, the Powergirl and Supergirl story-lines (the latter spinning out of Superman/Batman: Public Enemies), JLA Crisis of Conscience, Superman: Sacrifice.  And that's just stuff I took an interest in, fans of other DC comics from 2003-2005 could list many more.  (I left out a lot of Batverse stuff that also comes out of War Games which is it's own can of worms I have complicated feelings on.)

The other thing I like about having a proper shared universe are what I call not the small things but the medium things.  Things that are less then a full team up but more then a mere throw away reference or brief cameo.  These things are why Spiderman Homecoming worked, the one aspect of Spiderman as a teenage Superhero missing from the pre MCU films was him a teenage Superhero in a world with adult Superheroes.  That's the role Tony Stark plays in it.  And the one reason something like a Tim Drake Robin solo film I figured could never be made was that his comics rarely have Batman gone eternity, they are solo adventures but still of an active sidekick.  And I assumed you can't have a movie with Batman that isn't going to be Batman.  But Spiderman Homecoming tells me that maybe they can make a Robin movie work some day, with Ben Affleck having the same amount of screen time as RDJr did here.

The true sign of the MCU's victory over DC is that certain DC fans like myself feel like what I want from DC is being provided by Marvel.

Anime Weekly Updates, Omer 29: Spring has truely arrived.

Well this last week wound up being fairly busy.

It's been a little over a week actually, so I've seen two episodes of Hugtto Precure, and I'm definitely enjoying this Lulu arc so far.

The second core of Katana Maidens got off to a pretty interesting start.  If the second Core can top the first Core this will probably be the show of the year.

Episode two of Legend of The Galactic Heroes was pretty good, what I thought was happening at the end of episode 1 turns out to be wrong because I had TLJ on the brain.  Still I do think this may turn out to be better Star Wars then the actual Star Wars we've been getting.

Steins;Gate 0 had a pretty good start.  The Dub actually had Monica Rail speaking Japanese which sounded strangely awesome.  And for the time being I'm optimistic that they'll be handling Ruka's gender identity better now.

I also started and caught up on both Comic Girls and Last Period.  They're both pretty fun shows.

Episode 5 of the Fate/ Cooking show also dropped, this one focused a lot on Sakura.  I think I've developed a Purple Hair fetish.

And then Magical Girl Site had a pretty tense and eventful episode 5.

I haven't spent as much time watching older shows as I wanted to, though I did finish Amagi Brilliant Park.  But I'll fix that in due time.

I've decided I am gonna wait on Full Metal Panic.

Over all I'd say this Spring Season is gonna be pretty good.

Infinity War has reignited my excitement for Superhero movies.

It's difficult to explain my feelings here.  Since on an individual basis I have generally been liking the Phase Three MCU films the best so far, and yet at the same time was kind of tiring of them as a whole.

But I really wanted the DC Cinematic Universe to be better as someone who's more of a DC fan.  And so when I wound up feeling disillusioned with Batman V Superman it began a slow fading out of my interest in the genre.  And it helped that my discovery of Anime gave me something to fill that void.

It would never have been completely gone, as Batman in particular is my oldest Fandom and and for a long time this genre was the center piece of my Geekdom.  But the last three DC movies were all ones I left the theaters with initially high praise for but that I slowly soured on.  And that it's been basically the same with the new Star Wars movies had me feeling that I may have only Anime to rely on.

But Infinity War was amazing, it managed to truly feel like a Crisis level Event done on the Big Screen in Live Action with Live Actors.

And the knowledge that Donna Troy will be coming to the Titans show they're making also livens me up.

So my investment in this genre is renewed.  Anime is still gonna gonna be what this Blog talks about the most.  But I no longer feel like it was going to inevitably become an Anime only blog.

SaGa Frontier deserves some credit in the History of Female Representation in Video Games.

First off, yes it is still problematic that out of 7 main protagonists only 2 are women while 4 are men, it is good that the Robot seems to be defined gender neutrally.

What I like however is that the main supporting characters for the female leads are also women.  It annoys me how in movies like Rogue One the progress made by having a female lead is undermined by her still being given all men as her supporting cast.

First I should back up and provide some context.

SaGa Frontier has a unique premise among JRPGs, each protagonist has a completely different story, but they are all taking place in the same world, visiting the same cities on the same map and having largely the same side-quests.  It's an interesting premise I'd like to see more of.

Aselus story is probably the most blatantly Feminist, the main villain is quite literally a Feudal Patriarch.  And she is canonically Gay, it's not just subtext.

Emelia's two main supporting party members are Annie and Best Girl Liza.  This story is definitely about straight women however, though I'm sure it's inspired just as much Femslash fan fiction.

I can see being annoyed at how much Emelia's story is about her Boyfriend, being framed for his murder and then once out of prison being motivated by wanting to find the real killer and get revenge.  Thing is, that's a pretty common story for Male protagonists, in Film Noirs and Neo-Noirs, their wife or girlfriend is killed and they're framed for it.  So I found it interesting to see a woman get that story for a change.

There is a lot more to these stories, but I've decided I don't want to spoil too much.

I haven't actually played this game yet, I'm going off Let's Plays here.  But I think I might be able to handle it better then most RPGs.  Like Mario RPG it doesn't have random encounters, it looks kinda like Mario RPG in a lot of ways really.  It also looks beautiful and has wonderful Music.