Gate is Fun and Problematic

Gate is an Anime adapted from Light Novels in 2015 and 2016 that aired as two 12 episode seasons but really feels more like one 24 episode season.  It's a show I enjoyed even though it's political messaging is very messed up.

Breadtube is constantly criticizing shows and movies with premises like this of not being critical of Colonialism and modern post WW2 Imperialism enough, they criticize stories trying to be critical of those things but falling short because they are starting from a Liberal rather then truly Leftist perspective.  Gate however is what it looks like when this kind of behavior is actually unapologetically lionized.

The story is written so that every intervention that takes place is justified.  But all those justifications are exactly what modern Democracy espousing Empires try to paint their interventions as being.

It's also such an idealized take on modern Soldiers in general, making clear to the audience that not a single one is partaking in this other world's native sex workers.  

There's a lot in this show that's good, lots of individual characters I like and some interesting world building, more interesting then most generic Isekai of the last decade.  And just look at this Screenshot.

I love the fact that I can show this to people and then explain how we know from earlier episodes that each of these Bas@$$ Lady Knights is a Fujoshi.

I think the Main Character of this show would have came off much better if they'd allowed him to be more like Captain Kirk.  What do I mean by that?  Once I watched a handful of episodes of the Original Star Trek with my Dad, and we observed how most of this set of episodes happened to follow a similar pattern where Kirk is unable to get a quick response from Starfleet so he has to make a decision to act in a way that could prove controversial, but then after things are resolved they finally get a response from Starfleet giving him permission to do what he already did.

Gate however keeps taking the opposite route, where our protagonist is basically given unofficial permission to go beyond the official limits of his orders in advance so the SDF can have the excuse they need to intervene further.  This approach besides just making the "good" side as a whole look a lot shadier then the writers intended also makes the MC less of a Maverick then they intended.

What really bugs me is the use of Rise of the Valkyries, I suspect that Zack Snyder's critics accuse him of in Watchmen not understanding the Irony in how Apocalypse Now used that song, but he absolutely did.  Gate however I don't think properly understood it, because I suspect a lot of people in Japan have only seen that movie through references to it in other movies and especially don't have the context for how it's a satire on Birth of a Nation's use of that song.

Update April 2023: Gate's Pilot and the 3 episode test.

Gate was a big part of YGG's How to Tell a Bad Anime from just one episode video, and even though that has little relevance to the original premise of this post I have thoughts on it and I don't want to make another post specifically about Gate.

The premise of the Gate part of the video is that Gate's pilot is bad and the rest of the show is still bad in the same ways and does nothing to retroactively fix anything.  However there is one reason to be bugged by the pilot that she actually failed to mention.

I did not realize our main character was already a trained SDF solider before all this happened, I thought we were supposed to believe he knew exactly what do during this Fantasy invasion because of what he learned playing Fantasy Games, and then got sorta drafted because of his actions in this battle.  But several episodes later it becomes clear he was already a solider.

Maybe it's my fault, maybe the shirt he's wearing which I didn't notice the first time was supposed to tell us that, but other characters he interacts with didn't pick up on that either.  And so much of YGG's criticisms of the Pilot are that it tells rather then shows or does both which she consider redundant (Goodfellas shows right after telling in the exact same way as these scenes she complains about all the time).  But for this piece of information the show does the opposite and only shows.  On some level maybe I was supposed to pick up on it because of the fact that he knows what to do, but this Genre of Anime absolutely would do what I assumed was going on so I was not inclined to consider that.  In both Anime and western media I'm frankly not used to Solider characters who aren't telling people they're Soldiers every chance they get.

A lot of YGG's criticism of the pilot is it's structural incoherence and that definitely becomes less of a problem.  Or at least to whatever extent it still is a there it's less of once one's actually gotten into it.

YGG is correct that it's mainly the Premise that often takes 3 episodes to figure out, or in Gate's case the premise wasn't unclear in the Pilot but a lot of the meat of how it will function takes time to clarify.  I'm however the opposite of YGG in that I'm more interested in watching a flawed show with a premise that interests me then a perfectly executed show with a premise that doesn't.

So she talked about how the only reason someone would like the rest of the show but not the pilot is if they're into it for a specific character who didn't show up yet, as if that's irrelevant.  And yes it is irrelevant to the actual quality of the writing or animation.  But that doesn't change the basic point that most of what's "Fun and Problematic" about Gate isn't in the Pilot yet and therefore you are potentially missing out if you dismiss it based on the Pilot alone.

I think YGG's least valid criticism is her simply hating that the SFD beats the mediaeval army so easily.  Yes that technically does play into my criticisms, but I do not inherently have a problem with stories where the Protagonists are not actually challenged by the Antagonists physically, I think there are interesting stories to tell with that premise and Gate does sometimes kind of tell some.  YGG mentions some old Japanese movie where a time isekaied SDF unit gets totally beaten by Sengoku era Samurai tactics.  But that's not better, that's just the other side of the same coin, one panders to people who want to believe Sengoku era Samurai are the most awesome warriors ever while Gate panders to people who want to believe the modern SDF are the most awesome warriors ever.

Willow, finally a good Live Action Western Fantasy show

First I should explain that I'm new to this franchise as a whole, I watched both the original 88 movie and the first three episodes of the new Disney+ show today.

The original Willow is a satisfying charming 80s Fantasy film.  What's neat about it is while a lot of the influence Tolkien has had on the Fantasy Genre has been through LOTR and later the Silmarilion, Willow feels like George Lucas's take on The Hobbit with a little Narnia inspiration as well.

The new show however has proven to endear me personally even more.  After the late summer and early fall of 2022 being largely HOTD and ROP discourse, this show came along and frankly blew both out of the water.  It also easily beats all the SW shows Disney gave us this year.

HOTD is fine, it's what I'd expect from a GOT prequel, but GOT type shows are of limited appeal to me.  ROP I enjoyed plenty of, but I also hate how much it basically felt like a post GOT fantasy show wearing LOTR cosplay.

I made two posts in the last two years about why Fantasy Anime has generally been more appealing to me then any Western Fantasy shows of the last decade, one on how they look and one on the kinds of stories they tell.  Willow is finally a Fantasy Show taking the right approach to both those issues.

And comparison to Fantasy Anime isn't the only reason to recommend the show to Anime fans, Kit has a very Bifauxnen appeal, and her being canonically Gay seems to be where they're going, so it's something Yuri fans may like as well.

I'll be following the show every Wednesday till it's done.

Spin-Off shows waiting for seaosn 2 to bring in older characters

This is a Strategy for Spin Off building that I've noticed the existence of recently in fairly recent stuff, maybe it always existed?

But some people don't like it, or they don't like the second half of it.

Obviously I feel like I have to start with The Mandalorian since that's the first time I noticed this approach being a thing, but it may not actually be chronologically first one this post covers.  I've come to hate talking about Star Wars in the current climate of the internet, but sometimes it's unavoidable.

The Mandalorian season 1 features no characters we already knew, not even minor characters, it's always featuring Star Wars stuff, but while introducing new characters and usually new locations.  Season 2 then has Mando meet characters from Clone Wars and even the Original Trilogy.

This approach worked because if Mando was sharing screen time with older legacy characters right from the start their shadow could have made it difficult for him or the other new characters to make their mark.  But once they're established it's then cool to see these new characters we've come to like meet other characters we like.

But now I have to address what I said above.  There is a certain type of aggressively anti-fanservice fan among those who make YouTube Videos that liked the independence of season 1 and felt season 2's bringing in the older characters was chickening out on that.  And I feel like you're not really a Star Wars fan if you're so damn hostile to seeing Star Wars characters in a Star Wars show.  I'm a fan of Star Wars because it has characters I like, not vauge late 70s Sci-Fi aesthetics.

Mando season 2 is still principally about Mando, none of the other characters detract from that but are  there to serve Mando and Grogu's story.  But JustWrite in his Andor video said season 2 was still good but it feels like the story was built around enabling all these cameos and crossovers.  And I say so what, every story is written to do what the writers want it to do, which may or may not also be what the fans want.

I have mixed feelings on Andor, I feel it is not remotely the bold and brave political manifesto so many shallow online leftists are pretending it is, but I did enjoy it more then I expected to, which is frankly at all.  However JustWrite's praise of the show's avoidance of Fan Service, even noting the lack of Aliens, I can't agree with.  Because for me that just makes this story feel like any other shallow YA Dystopia from the early 2010s barely even wearing Star Wars clothing.

I suspect Andor when it gets a season 2 will also follow the formula I'm talking about here.  Now it's technically not because it's main/title character is a prior established character, but Cassian Andor in Rogue One was such a bland blank slate generic cishet male hardened solider archetype that this show was effectively building a new character.  In a way it hurts Andor's status as a prequel to a prequel as I'm wondering where this personality is going to disappear to, but whatever.  Now that he's signed up to the Rebellion I predict season 2 will inevitably bring in more characters we've seen before, even if they're mostly characters from prior Disney Star Wars, both Solo and Obi-Won featured Proto Rebel groups who could play a role, and most of the cast of Rebels have Live Action actors now thanks to Ahsoka.  I hope Disney has the guts to bring back CGI Leia and Tarkin.

But it's time to finally move this discussion outside of Star Wars.

Disney had actually done this before with Milo Murphy's Law, in season 1 it's connections to Phineas and Ferb are just occasional in-jokes until the very end, then they do the big crossover and former P&F characters become a more regular presence in season 2.  And it worked out great, I'm still annoyed at the lack of a 3rd season.

I was in fact already noticing this about Mando years ago and back when Pennyworth only had 1 season I was hoping it'd do the same.  But it's a Batman prequel way to far in the past to really feature any more then who they did and where the show did wind up going is mostly fine, I feel it's underrated in fact, it's a better fictional depiction of Fascism then any Star Wars has ever been.

But I'm mostly a Weeb now and so the rest of this post shall be about Anime.

The principal Anime example of this approach is Lostorage incited Wixoss.   For the first 9 episodes I didn't even think it was actually in continuity with the original Mari Okada written Wixoss saga with it's very different rules and everything.  Episode 10 however establishes that one of the most minor notable characters in this show is also one of the most minor notable characters from Selector infected Wixoss.  But it's a subplot that doesn't really impact the resolution.

That show's second season Lostorage conflated Wixoss is then about bringing the Lostorage cast and the original cast together.  So I entered it very hyped and do like it over all, but I don't feel like I can praise it's execution of this approach as much.  Now the thing is in the rules of good writing people like JustWrite base their career on this season 2 crossover may well qualify as more "organic" then Mandalorian Season 2, but Organic vs Contrived is not a dichotomy that concerns me.

I first of all simply feel that basically doubling the cast of this show for season 2 kind of made it need more then just 12 episodes.  This is after all the first show where the rules for the new version of the Selector Battles aren't even partially set up in the first episode.

Now the character who was very minor in all previous shows becoming the Main Character for the Avenger Assembling is itself probably the best part of how they approached it, and this character being a Kuudere of sorts makes her very appealing to me personally.

But I also can't help but feel like I'd have preferred the only additional OG Wixoss character to be added was Akira Aoi, or at least gave her a lot more of the focus.  Akira was the only major character of the original who's story felt incomplete, plus her specific history with the character serving as the glue connecting these stories fits perfectly.  But instead Conflated winds up effectively regressing her Spread development and using her mostly as a punching bag, very mean-spiritedly.  I like Akira and one of the things I like about Anime is it not being as Hostile by default to her personality type as western Nerd media often is. Conflated's opinion of Akira seems like what a western Nerd's would be, and it's shockingly not the only time Conflated does something that feels more western.

There is a plotline in the latter half where the villain manipulates the main protagonists of the prior shows into fighting each other, and it so annoyingly reminds me of how every DC or Marvel Superhero crossover has to feature them fighting each other for some dumb reason first.  And I know this probably isn't the only Anime to do this, it's maybe even in Anime I've watched before, but in a show that I'm thinking of as tangentially related to the Magical Girl Genre it feels wrong.  As a fan of both Batman and Superman I understand why those characters would sometimes come to blows, but as fan of these Anime protagonists and others like them I know them jumping into a fight without even trying to talk first is really out of character.  And the thing is this franchise has built in reasons for people who aren't enemies to still battle each other, they didn't need to do this trope to get this fan service, they chose to.

But I also feel Conflated should not have included Yuzuki if they were going to be afraid to even acknowledge the existence of Kazuki.  My personal headcannon for what happens after the end of Spread/Destructed is a Yuzuki/Kazuki/Hanayo threesome.  This show wants to neither confirm or contradict any shippers on that triangle to appease them while not grossing out whatever normie audience the show has.  But to me Yuzuki simply isn't Yuzuki if that is never on her mind.

Basically the difference between Conflated and Mando season 2 is that Mando didn't turn the entire Original Trilogy Cast into new main cast members.

There is actually a third Wixoss show now but I haven't watched it yet, I will probably give it a try eventually.

Another Anime that does this to a lesser extent is Magia Record.  The original Madoka cast have a handful of cameos in season 1, but season 2 is where they team up with the new cast, and then they're mostly out again for season 3.  Magia Record was fine but I'd already talked about why Madoka EU stories the way they tend to be handled have a limited appeal to me.

Update February 2023: Season two of House of the Dragon can't do this in terms of specific characters, but in a sense the Starks finally entering the drama will have a similar effect.  Having no Starks in season 1 is part of what helped it establish it's own identity, but now that the Dance has started the North is going to have to play some role.

Update April 2025: After watching more of Zeta Gundam I noticed it kinda fits, the first Cour is mostly focused on the new characters but then in the second Cour in brings in Amuro.

It also hit me recently how what I'm talking about happens to fit how the Kishotenketsu story structure is sometimes defined.  The Ki is the original story that creates the universe, the Sho is the Sequel or Sequels that develop it more still following.  The Ten is a new story in the same universe following mostly new characters introducing new aspects of it.  And then the Ketsu is the Crossover.

One issue with Kishotenketsu discourse is the translation of Ten as twist, it's not really wrong but the fact that so many westerners learning about it first and foremost think of a Plot Twist like "I am your father" or an M Night Shyamalan film.  But the point of Ten is more that it's introducing something new, a change to the status quo or a new perspective or indeed it could function as the story temporary staring a different cast of characters.

This changes my perspective on the Lostorage Wixoss situation, a lot of my criticisms remain but I now understand more why they didn't feel the Lostorage character needed equally as many seasons on their own.

Another update on my Anime watching

To pick up from where we left off, I finished both Lycoris Recoil and Engage Kiss and gave both very high scores.  LycoReco is the kind of show that I think is better off not getting a second season while for Engage Kiss I'm very curious to see where they could go next.

All of the fall shows I was following I either dropped or put on hold for now.  Call of The Night I simply lost interest in  Spy x Family's Joke was starting to run thin but maybe I'll return when I can binge the rest of the season, Beast Tamers is still fun but I just don't feel like continuing it right now.   Taming The Final Boss however is the one I'm most disappointed in, it was good till episode 4, but durring Episode 4 they clearly rushed to the ending of the first Light Novel when in fact I feel this should have been fleshed to 6 or 7 episodes per LN like Haruhi.  Then in Episode 5 the new arc just instantly lost my attention.

However I've started a new show, Boochi The Rock which I"m actually watching Subbed, it's adorable and fun.

There are three Falls I am still waiting for Dubs for.  Two of them I have no doubt will be dubbed.  Detective Conan: Hanazara The Culprit has been picked up by Netflix and they dub everything they get, and there's no way the new mainline Gundam show won't be dubbed.  So the only real question mark is Akiba Maid Wars, I feel like there is still time for Sentai to decide to Dub it, but if they haven't by the end of the year then I'll try just watching it Subbed in January or maybe even right before New Years.  [Update: Sentai has announced an AMW Dub, we just don't know when exactly it'l start.]

But I also have stuff outside the seasonal docket to mention.  I already posted on the first SAO Progressive movie.  Before October was over I watched Housing Complex C and will going forward be adding it to my Halloween Anime Recommendations.  I have also now seen both already released Princess Principal: Crown Handler movies and the shorts that came with them, but I don't think I'll be able to properly form an opinion on them till they're complete.

Rumbling Hearts and Comic Party are both older shows I got into recently that I've already commented on in recent posts, and I highly recommend them.  Which reminds me I should link to my Mastadon account, I've talked about those shows and some others a lot there, last I checked the tags seemingly the only person talking about them there.

https://c.im/@KuudereKun

@KuudereKun@c.im

I've also watched a bunch of Galaxy Angel and Kodocha which are both good Comedy Anime, and I watched all of the original Nurse Withc Komugi which was awesome.

I've also done some retro Pokemon Rewatching and finally watched all of the Twilight Wings shorts on the PokemonTV App which I'd regrettably ignored when they came out.

I also rewatched both seasons of Selector _____ Wixoss and think I'm maybe finally ready to just watch the rest of that franchise Subbed.

SAO: Progressive - Aria of a Starless Night, Retcons stuff

I finally got to see Sword Art Online the Movie: Progressive - Aria of a Starless Night now that it's up on Crunchyroll English Dub included.  And in execution it's very good, has most of what makes SAO fun and none of it's most egregious problems.  The issues I have with the movie are only as someone already somewhat of a fan of prior SAO content and wouldn't be relevant to someone watching it as a stand alone or choosing to start their SAO experience here, if that's you then the rest of this post really isn't relevant and I say you should go ahead and dive in, it's a better first impression for Normies then most of the original first season is.

And the principal new character of the film Misumi/Mito is good, I like her and her story in this movie.

There are two types of Retcons.  One is the kind that reinterprets or recontextualizes old events in a way that is not actually absolutely a contradiction, and when they fix continuity problems rather them causing them this kind I tend to be fine with or even like.  Mito's very existence can be considered this kind, she explains the paradox of how Asuna both never really played an MMO before and yet so quickly becomes one of the highest ranked players, she had a Beta Tester Mentor even before she met Kirito.

But sadly this movie also has the more conventionally bad kind of retcon, the kind that is definitely changing what happened.

First is how Asuna and Kirito's first meeting is moved up, and then what was their original first meeting is expanded on.  Some fleshing out of that specific scene could have been fine, but I really always liked that Asuna and Kirto's Meet Cute wasn't predicated on him saving her.

Now this next bit may be a misunderstanding, but it seems like they've also went and implied the Sachi/Moonlit Black Cats incident already happened on the first floor in this new canon.  If true that really does annoy me, to whatever extent I was interested in seeing more of Kirito in the Progressive Movies it was seeing Kirito between episodes 2 and 3, seeing more of how he was before that trauma became such a defining part of him.

But the thing is in general I wanted minimal Kirito in these movies, the premise of the series I already knew going in is a Light Novel/Movie for each floor which based on the original timeline means there should be more movies then the Infinity Saga of the MCU before we reach what Asuna was doing at the time of Episode 3. And the other part of the premise was that it's Asuna as the main/pov character now, which means the new material should be stuff Kirto wouldn't have been privy to, especially when retelling events we'd already seen.

And the way the original series presented things, Kirito and Asuna do first meet in episode 2 at the end of the first floor but most of the romantic development starts in episode 8 with episodes 5-6 being of debatable relevance.  In the original SAO Light Novel it jumps from the events of episode 2 to episode 8, everything in 3-7 is short stories published later.  So there is prior precedent for Reki Kawahara deciding to add interactions between Kirito and Asuna in between, but what happens in 5-7 is still consistent conceptually with them not being regular partners yet but only occasional acquaintances.

So the ending of this movie basically amending the ending of the second episode of the show so that Asuna and Kirito are still part of a party going into Floor 2 really bugs me.  I wanted the Progressive movies to be Asuna with maybe occasional cameos from Kirito.  More stories about Kirito and Asuna as a power couple there is plenty of room for at much latter points on the timeline.

I'm now caught up on Titans

Clearly there are others who enjoy this show, you don't get 4 seasons on brand recognition alone, but they aren't the people making YouTube videos on it.

I talked about the first 2 seasons of the show on this blog previously giving them probably one of the most glowing reviews they'd had.  Now originally when I tried following season 3 as it aired I got frustrated, I got annoyed at them doing mostly Batman stuff instead of using more villains from the Teen Titans comics.

But just recently I decided to give it another chance, and it's fine, once we got into the latter half of the season Raven and Donna's returns made things a lot more enjoyable.  And also once they started getting into the head of this take on Scarecrow I decided that this is a pretty decent interpretation of the character, different from what we've seen before but still distinctly Scarecrow.

Season 4 is 4 episodes in and doing actual Titans storylines again, so the show is back on track.

This show is far form perfect, it is again far from what I would write, but I still maintain that it captures the Spirit of the Titans Comics I love better then the more universally praised mid 00s Cartoon.

A lot of the Credit for that goes to the Actors, the Actresses they got for both Raven and Donna embody the characters as I've always thought of them perfectly.  And most everyone else does a good job too.  

The show has real Heart to it, it flexes it's Edgy Muscles constantly but as someone who's watched Fate/Zero multiple times this show's darkness is child's play to me.

Party like it's Ninteen Ninty Nine

The previous post on this blog was about early 2000s Anime, but I technically mentioned a couple that are really from 1999, To Heart, Steel Angel Kurumi and the starts of Johto Era Pokemon and One Peice.  When you take stuff back to it's source material even more of what I mentioned there has it's roots in 1999, Comic Party's original Video Game and a lot of stuff based on weekly Shonen Manga that got animated in 2000.

At face value To Heart seems difficult to justify as relevant to the early 2000s at all, it's a single cour show that was done halfway through 99 and based on source material from 97, the others at least had active continuations.  But first of all it's directly relevant to Comic Party, I'd dare say it's almsot required viewing for Comic Party in the same way Haruhi is required viewing for Lucky Star.  But it's also simply that when I look at To Heart I kind of still see 90s style Animation but I more see how much of 2000s and even still 20tens and 2020s Anime is built on foundation that To Heart laid.  And it getting sequels in the mid 2000s proves it was at least in Japan consistently still popular all through the time in-between.

But those shows aren't the only examples of how much Anime in 1999 feels like the 2000s started early, Excel Saga, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, Corrector Yui, Ojimajo Doremi, Hunter x Hunter, Digimon Adventure, The Big O, and Turn A Gundam are all interesting examples of shows that started airing in 99 and ended in 2000.  And then for Detecive Conan January of 1999 was the Anime introduction of Ai Hiabara in episode 129 (136-139 of the international numbering).  And on the subject of Source Material for future Anime, Kanon came out in 99 launching Key and adding the next layer to the foundations laid by To Heart.

For the sake of organizing our memories we like to try to define drastic changes in culture as correlating to decades of the Gregorian Calendar, but 1999 sticks out to me as an interesting case study in how culture isn't actually paying attention to calendars when it changes.

As someone who used to be more interested in following Music then I am now, I've always noticed how 1999 was the year Eminem, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore and Jessica Simpson all became stars, all of them are now mostly more famous for stuff they did in the 2000s not to mention how much people who started their careers later were influenced by them.

In the world of Video Games the Sega Dreamcast and Sonic Adventure were released in late 98 but reached the U.S. in 99 thus starting the Sixth Generation of the Console wars.

Pro Wrestling at first glance doesn't seems like it fits what I'm talking but rather the opposite, the first year and a half of 2000s Wrestling feels like the end of 90s era Wrestling.  However I feel like mid 99 was a sever drop in quality for both WWF and WCW, I know I'm nearly alone in this, most pretend WCW stopped being good as soon as Sting vs Hogan was botched and the WWF stayed impeccable till the Invasion storyline was botched, but for me everything I dislike about post Attitude Era wrestling really did start happening in 99.  And of those that so amusingly both Anti Vince Russo people and Pro Vince Russo people will connect the quality drop  that happened in 99 to which company Russo worked for changing, but for me the problems on both sides started a couple months before that, it started in the Summer, October marked a noticeable change in WCW but not so much WWF.

In the world of Western Superhero Comics, the Batman No Man's Land storyline is definitely the beginning of what early 2000s Batman Comics were like, as well as The Titans run that started in 99.  And in the world of adaptations of Superhero Comics Batman Beyond and Spiderman Unlimited changed things.  Sonic Underground feels like it's of a similar zeitgeist to those shows.

When it comes to Theatrically released movies from 1999 there are three that I mainly recall, the first Star Wars Prequel, the first Stephen Sommers Mummy movie and the first Pokémon movie.  Again all three were first not lasts.

In Japan the first Pokémon movie was in 98, but in the U.S. the franchise as a whole made it's debut in late 98 and I'm pretty sure it didn't catch my attention till it was 99 already.