Livewire is an unfortunate relic of the pre-Pokemon world

Livewire is an electricity based DC Comics Superman villain who debuted as part of the DCAU in an episode of Superman The Animated Series that first aired on September 13th 1997.

It is a well known scientific fact that water conducts electricity.  But apparently there didn't used to be any set expectations for what that fact would mean for an electricity based superpowered being in a game of elemental rock paper scissors.

In the episode that introduced Livewire Superman ultimately defeats her using water.  The month in which that episode aired is exactly a year before the Pokémon franchise made it's American debut.  In Pokémon's system water based attacks are ineffective against Electric Type Pokémon.

Pokémon has became I'm willing to say equal to Superman in pop cultural importance, in fact I'm very willing to say it's had a larger impact then the DCAU specifically.  Meanwhile Livewire is a somewhat niche character even within Superman and DCAU fandoms, while one of Pokémon's Electric based characters is it's Mascot.  

So Pokémon's interpretation of how electricity based super powers should relate to water has become the standard even for people who haven't consumed any Pokémon media directly.

And yet whenever Livewire is reintroduced into a new version of the DCU, they feel compelled to keep the rules of that 97 cartoon.  So even when she showed up on the Supergirl show in the fall of 2015 she's again defeated by water and thus everyone watching who didn't know the rules for this character were set before Pokémon was a phenomenon reacted with "wow they really didn't do their research".

And look popularity contests aside the science is on Pokémon's side here, Electric Eels live in the water, it's not a weakness for them.  Livewire has been depicted as having the ablity to become pure electricity which I think makes the idea of water harming her even more absurd.

Livewire became a popular enough character to be a Canon immigrant because of her personality, I don't think anyone is really nostalgic enough for that detail of her debut episode to complain if DC decided to conform her to the modern rules standardized by Pokémon.

Finishing Spring Anime 2020

Episode 13 of Tower of God, it’s first season finale was great.  Did anyone else think the Music was sounding a little like “Sweet Dreams are made of these” at times?

Rachel is great character, she’s complex and a very specific type of Femme Fatale. I love when the seduction is purely emotional and not sexual at all.

I’ll definitely watch season 2 when it comes out.

I’ve decided I’m probably not gonna watch Weathering With You, I liked Your Name but I don’t feel like I like Shinkai enough to watch his movies just for being his.

Episode 16 of Railgun T starts with a new OP, so it seems like this is formally where the next Arc starts.  It looks like it’s gonna be a combination of Inception and Pokemon Go.

Follow my Anime viewing in real time at these links..
https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir
https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir
Also here is the introductory post for this series.
https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html

I think more Sailor Moon fans need to check out other Magical Girl Warrior Anime

Back during the era of Nolan's Batman movies it was in certain places online like IMDB message boards very popular to express the opinion that Robin's existence is inherently bad for Batman.  That Batman should be a loner and throwing in this kid sidekick only dumbs the stories down.

I was always agaisnt that mentality, and today most major voices in the internet Western Comic Book Nerd community reject that as really narrow minded and know that you're really not much of a Batman fan at all if you completely reject such a large portion of what the Batman mythos are.

As someone who remembers all of that while currently being a Millennial Otaku in an era where our current Nostalgia cycle has brought a number of old 90s Anime back into public conciseness.  I feel like the Anime equivalent of that is the prevalence of Sailor Moon fans who wish Tuxedo Mask didn't exist, that position is nearly unanimous among the guests on the Sailor Business podcast.

I actually have more sympathy for this position even though it's less supportable (Tuxedo Mask was there from issue #1 unlike Robin) because my own preferences for female lead Anime and Superhero stories are often similar, I'm a Yuri Fanatic who likes watching Anime where it's possible to pretend males don't even exist in that fictional world.  But when it comes to Sailor Moon my position is Mamoru/Darrien is just as essential as Lois Lane is to Superman, or Mary Jane to Spiderman, or Iris West to Barry Allen, or Sif to Thor.

Now talking about Tuxedo Mask is complicated by how the 90s Anime handled him very differently.  This may shock some people to learn, but there are Sailor Moon Manga purists who hate everything about the 90s Anime, but this subject may often be where they'd start their rants.  He's in High School not Collage in the Manga (and in Japan the age difference between middle school and high school is smaller then it is here, they are in fact only 2-3 years apart) Mamoru isn't constantly a jerk to her early on, Usagi isn't nearly as childish and Tuxedo Mask actually contributes more.

That element also fits the Robin comparison, the rejection of Robin was partly from how for a long time the mainstream public perception of Robin was mostly Burt Ward and Chris O'Donnell.  And indeed I think the best western Comic Book analogy for those Manga purists who hate the Anime are people who still hate the Adam West and Shumacker takes on Batman.  Those of us who have read Robin(s) as written by for example Chuck Dixon or Marv Wolfman know the concept can be taken seriously.

However some people don't like Mamoru even in the Manga, or heck some even find him worse in the Manga.  These people simply hate the idea of tuning in to a show about a Superheroine (or "Female Superhero" as the CW's Supergirl pilot kept insisting on saying) where she is also constantly being rescued.  Now most of those "rescues" range from cheer-leading her to adding a little minor assist like female love interests of male superhero also frequently get to contribute, and the final climax of the original story-line is her saving him.  But these fans want male love interests to contribute 0% to their Superheroine stories.

Thing is that apparent contradiction is not a bug but a feature, it is kind of the entire premise of Sailor Moon.  Film Flux did a video on the Sailor Moon Manga that helped me to clarify this.  Superhero stories are at their core wish fulfillment fantasies, and like it or not many young girls fantasize both about being a Superhero and being a Damsel rescued by a handsome Prince (and some young boys have the same fantasies).  While most Mangaka might have written two completely separate stories to express those fantasies Naoko Takeuchi said Frak It and did both simultaneously, she wrote a story where an average Japanese school girl gets to be both Snow White and Wonder Woman at the same time.  The premise of Sailor Moon is foundationally about having your cake and eating it too.

Now you don't have to also be into that, my point is that this Prince Charming isn't something that's part of the story because of executive meddling.  (If anything it's having other Girls helping her that was, Takeuchi's original vision was a solo Super-heroine, it was Toei that wanted a team so they could sell more toys.) And so if you fundamentally don't like that, you kind of don't like the premise of Sailor Moon.

The reason why in America Sailor Moon is popular with many people who actually share only half of Takeuchi's fantasy is because on mid 90s American television she was the only Superheroine we had to choose from at all.

Thing is it's now possible for Americans to watch almost any Anime they want to, and the sub-genre Sailor Moon spawned has evolved to provide plenty of shows that can better provide what these Sailor Moon fans actually want.  I think there are plenty of people who might actually like the rest of the genre more but have still only seen Sailor Moon because they've never searched for Anime beyond what airs on Toonami, or because they're assuming them to be Sailor Moon knock offs with no actual creativity.  But the truth is even the ones most similar to Sailor Moon are still just as distinct as Green Arrow is from Batman.

All or at least most Pretty Cure seasons have no Tuxedo Mask analogue, a few have Het love interests who are civilians, like Peter Parker crushing on Liz Allan or Mary Jane in the Raimi films, but most don't even have that.  Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna Is A Hero and Symphogear provide no Het romance for the main character at all.  Pretty Sammy and Nanoha also work, and Prisma Illya is....... not a good one to start with.

Corrector Yui doesn't seem to have a Tuxedo Mask figure from what I've seen so far, on Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne there is one kinda but he's a rival thief.  On Saint Tail the love interest is the guy trying to catch her, so it's like Batman and Catwoman but if Catwoman was stealing things because God wanted her to do it???? I'm still not sure what that show's premise actually is.  In Galaxy Fraulein Yuna there is a Tuxedo Mask but she's a woman, so those of you who enjoy having your sexuality confused by the Takerazuka style Mamoru in the new Musicals might enjoy that.

Even Wedding Peach is distinct on this issue since the person who could be called the Tuxedo Mask of the show is not the title character's love interest.

So I'm hoping once these Sailor Moon fans can get their no Tuxedo Mask Magical Girl fix elsewhere they can be open to appreciating Mamoru once they've seem him portrayed correctly on Crystal( just make sure you're watching the BluRay rips) or even the Live Action show PGSM.  I also still recommend that Sailor Moon Fan Film from 2016.

Augustus Month 2020 begins

Well I’ve finally gotten to episode 12 of Tower of God. 

Bam and Rachel were actually a percentage of this episode’s runtime.  I think it’s interesting how that moment dominates the discussion of this show’s gender politics when we also have the Princesses of Jihad teaming up against an enforcer of their literal Patriarch.

As far as what Rachel did goes, we won’t really get an explanation till next week which is the season finale.

The final episode of The 8th Son was also pretty decent.  I’ve alluded to the perhaps unintentional similarities to King David before, but when viewed as a re-imagining of David’s basic story in a different context I think it holds up better than that NBC TV show Kings from over a decade ago.

Hamefura was a fun show with a fun ending.

With Railgun T I may decide to just wait till it’s all dubbed and binge the later half of the season.  But it also seems possible Railgun T will be the only thing I want to watch once Tower of God finishes at all. 

None of the new Summer shows interest me, and I will wait for the Dubs for the new seasons of SAO and ReZero no matter how long they take.  So this tag could wind up taking another break.

Anime 2020 really heats up

Follow my Anime viewing in real time at these links..
https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir
https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir
Also here is the introductory post for this series.
https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html

Tower of God Episode 11 was very good, I can’t wait till next week.

The 8th Son Episode 11 was also interesting.  The comparison I made to David previously might prove rather apt, but not a 1 to 1 allegory.

Episodes 14 and 15 of Railgun T both became available at the same time.  They are the proper end of the Daihasei Festival arc though it’s mostly epilogue, and it was pretty fun.  Episode 16 might be more epilogue too who knows.  I have already been informed that Railgun T won’t have an Anime original filler arc, so I just have to hope the next Manga arc can be satisfying in a similar way.

Hamefura Episode 11 was very dramatic.

Reveal scenes are lame when it is being revealed only to the Audience.

Obviously this excludes exposition and world building where the audience has to be informed of what the people in the story already know.  But none of that is ever presented as a shocking reveal scene.

There are occasionally "reveals" where it is only the audience learning something we didn't already know and any characters who didn't already know this still don't.  Those reveal scenes are no longer interesting on a re-watch.

In fact a lot of my favorite reveal scenes are ones where the audience already knew the relevant information and it's only characters in the story learning something new.  Like scenes where the Superhero we're following reveals their true identity to someone.

This relates to my advocacy for watching the 6 Star Wars movies in chronological order.  If you think that scene in Empire Strikes Back is somehow pointless if the audience already knows Vader is Anakin then you didn't get what the scene is actually about at all, it's about Luke learning that information and his reaction to it.

This issue is never a deal breaker.  In fact because I like in scenes where the characters learn something for the audience to not be distracted by being equally suprised then revealing it to the audience early to set that up can work out fine.  That's why I tolerate how PLL season 3 handled the Toby working with Mona story-line.  PLL gets away with breaking a lot of my rules actually.

Sometimes a very long running show, I mean shows so drawn out it takes them 30 episodes to cover what PLL covered in 10, will try to spice up the show by revealing something to the audience but no one in the story not even the people most effected by the reveal in question.

In season 1 of Sailor Moon the audience obviously always knew that Mamoru/Darrien was Tuxedo Mask whether the show was treating that as known information or not.  And this is further complicated by how what I'm about to talk about was the case only in the 90s Anime version of the story.  But a certain episode reveals that Mamoru doesn't know he's Tuxedo Mask, it's like a split personality or something.  But this is "revealed" only to the audience.  And the thing is that particular issue is resolved before anyone else ever learned who Tuxedo Mask was, so it kind of never actually went anywhere.

Then Sailor Moon R has a few episodes that are trying not to feel like filler episodes, and yet the only even slight change to the status quo is in how much the audience is supposed to know.

Basically reveals that reveal things only to the audience give the impression of a change to the status quo that really isn't a change at all.  Even if some of these seemed cool the first time, on a re-watch where you the viewer already know everything, they are complete duds.  

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a show known for it's twists.  However in each case the point where this "dark secret" is revealed to the audience is also when some character in the show first learned it. To me it is those characters learning this information and reacting to it that actually makes those scenes good scenes that hold up even on repeat viewings where I already know everything.

And that's why as I've said before it annoys me that Madoka spin offs are always creating new twists instead of just letting the dark secrets the universe was originally built on continue to drive the drama, I wanna see how different characters would react differently to the same information.  Surprising the audience is not what actually made Madoka a good show.

Spring 2020 Anime Decalogue

I tried and dropped Japan Sinks.  It’s artstyle is the antithesis of what I watch Anime for and the subject matter kind of is too.

The 8th Son episode 10 brought some intrigue into the show.

Tower of God episode 10 was interesting.  Once again my ability to talk about this is filtered through my being spoiled about what will happen in episode 12, but I still know virtually nothing about the actual context.  Was it something Rachel was already planning to do at this time or is it largely the result of future circumstances?  Since this was a Death Game premise to start with I kind of feel like it’s only worthy of the way so many reacted if it was already the plan, if she knew that was coming during this crying apology scene then that is a pretty deep cut.

Hamefura episode 10 was good.

Follow my Anime viewing in real time at these links..
https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir
https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir
Also here is the introductory post for this series.
https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html