Lex Luthor is proving a surprisingly difficult character to get right.

I like James Gunn’s Superman movie.  But I’m a bit annoyed by how over half the discussion of the film is about the film’s Lex Luthor with many saying it has the most perfect understanding of the character, when for me how the film handled Luthor is what I liked the least. 

First of all, as someone who likes the CEO Lex Luthor, it bugs me how many modern takes seem to feel forced to include the CEO element when they really just want to do the Mad Scientist.  This is what the Zach Snyder and James Gunn's takes on Lex Luthor have in common, to them the time as a CEO is just a step in the origin they want to get out of the way as quick as possible.  

I want years, maybe even over a decade of Lex Luthor secure in his CEO position before any type of downfall or prison time happens, that’s what we got in the 80s-90s DC Comics and Superman The Animated Series.  Lois and Clark is an interesting middle ground where I’d ideally want multiple seasons in a TV Series but at least getting a whole 22 episode season is better than only one single movie.  For comparison David Xanatos in the Gargyles Cartoon is a good way to handle things. 

However there is another issue I have with this take on Lex Luthor that would apply whether it’s a CEO or Mad Scientist take on the character.   Which is why I still prefer Batman V Superman’s Lex to this one. 

I dislike the very thing so many people are praising right now.

I don’t want Lex to be single-mindedly obsessed with Superman in the way The Joker is with Batman. He should hate Superman only because he’s in the way, Superman currently takes up a large percentage of his energy, and it can over time become somewhat personal.  But this desire to make destroying Superman the only real goal he actually cares about is something I hate.

Gunn cited Allstar Superman as an inspiration and yeah that comic is largely where this way of characterizing Luthor comes from.  And I honestly don’t mind it so much in that story as its own stand alone Elseworld thing.  But as the primary characterization of Luthor in what’s supposed to now be DC’s main Cinematic Universe, it’s really dull and short sighted. 

In the early history of the CEO Lex Luthor I prefer the way he was written by Marv Wolfram over John Byrne, making him a CEO was Wolfman’s idea in the first place and Byrne it turns out was a Right Wing Conservative so always out of touch with why most Superman fans think Superman’s best enemies are Corporate War Mongers and Slum Lords.  After that I again liked how he was handled in season 1 of Lois and Clark and STAS. I liked Lionel Luthor on Smallville (at least the first 3 seasons) as a glimpse of what a fully developed Lex Luthor could be like. And interestingly enough I liked the take on Luthor in season 2 of The Joker Blogs which is not official but an internet Fan Film project taking off of The Dark Knight universe. 

Ya know what story originally with a non CEO Lex Luthor could easily be rewritten as a CEO Luthor story?  Superman IV The Quest for Peace.  Luthor’s plot in that film could easily lend itself to a corporate War Profiter, and then you could also make him the guy buying the Daily Planet as well. 

Low Church Fantasy

I’ve noticed a trend lately of YouTube videos analyzing how fictional religions in Fantasy settings often don’t feel authentic to how real Regions function, including one focusing specifically on the lack of Schisms. 

So I want to talk about something that perhaps only I care about.

Fantasy religions Aesthetically based on Christianity are always specifically based on High Church Christianity, usually quite specifically Roman Catholicism. More disorganized local spirituality in Fantasy stories are usually more inspired by Animist polytheism like you’d see from Indigenous Tribes of North America or the Sami or local Shintoism. 

This probably has to do with the simplified understanding of Christian History where there is no Protestantism till the Middle Ages are over so therefore it’s assumed Baptist or Quaker inspired communities would be out of place in a Medieval Europe inspired Fantasy Setting.  

However I have seen plenty of Fantasy settings that extend their real word inspirations into the Renaissance, Enlightenment or even Victorian period. Like all those Otome Villainess settings, or really any with a Magic Academy element.

But besides that Medieval Proto-Protestants of different kinds did exist, most relevant here would be the Waldenses/Waldensians. Talking about the Waldenses as Low Church Proto-Protestants is made more controversial than it should be because of how they factor into the imagined revisionist histories proposed by Landmarkists.  I do not believe in the core Doctrine that often lies behind Baptist Successionism theories (that being in the “True Church” requires an unbroken chain of Believers Baptism back to the Disciples), so whether or not there is direct continuity between the Waldenses and 15th Century Anabaptists doesn’t concern me. However I am convinced there is plenty of solid evidence that many Waldenses (they were probably not always all the same) were Credo-Baptists who practiced Congregational Polity. 

There's also the Lollards from English History, some of them were more Low Church then the others, Wycliff himself was certainly not a Credo-Baptist but I think some later Lollards did come to that conclusion.

But also Medieval Europe inspired Fantasy sometimes is unlike real Medieval Europe in more ways then just the Supernatural stuff. Just look at all those Fantasy Anime with Chattel Slavery as part of the setting. So who cares about the precedent, I want Fantasy Baptists. 

George MacDonald was a Congregationalist Minister who was a huge player in the origins of the Fantasy Genre being a cited influence on both C.S. Lewis and Tolkien.  The way Goblins tend to be depicted in Fantasy began with him and he also arguably wrote the first Isekai. Unfortunately his influence was filtered through a Catholic and an Anglican. His position on Church Polity is not the deviation from the Established Church of England MacDonald is most well known for, and indeed Universal Salvation is also something I’d like to see in the Fantasy Genre more often.

The major impact this could have on both the Mechanics and Lore of a Fantasy Setting is the question of Apostolic Succession.  

High Church denominations believe the Spiritual Authority Jesus gave the Apostles is only truly inherited by the Clergy, while Low Church Christians believe strongly in the Priesthood of All Believers.  Today most major Baptist denominations are Secessionist on the question of the Spiritual Gifts meaning they believe the more explicitly supernatural manifestations of that authority don’t really happen anymore. However most Pentecostal and Charismatic denominations are also Low Church in form, and the Quakers have their Inner Light doctrine. 

So you could easily still have your Catholic Church like institution be the one wielding the most political power in Society, seeking to restrict the knowledge and use of Healing Magic (and other forms of what a Final Fantasy player would call White Magic) to the Clergy, even having most Adventurer Guilds refuse to give proper Healer licenses to anyone not properly ordained.  While the Low Church Schismatics are teaching that such powers can be called upon by anyone who has Faith. 

People also criticize how passively Pro Monarchy the Fantasy Genre often seems. Well I’ve written before about how Congregationists were the harbingers of modern Democracy and Socialism, so perhaps having some Low Church Schismatics is also how to bring about a Revolution in a Fantasy World?

Baptists and Quakers also have a long history of opposing Slavery, the Southern Baptist Convention were the exception not the general rule, John Brown was a Congregationalist and Nat Turner a Baptist. A Fantasy story inspired by the history of The Baptist War in Jamaica could be interesting. 

Update May 17th 2026: I've recently learned that contrary to what I'd long assumed contemporary Japan has more Protestants then Catholics. 

This completely recontextualized the matter of why most Anime don't seem to know non Catholic forms of Christianity exist. 

And it means that the people who write the Web novels that become Light Novels that become Manga that become modern Fantasy Anime really should broaden their horizons. Tokyo has Baptists and Presbyterians and a Non Church Movement. They do have a frame of reference for what Low Church Christianity looks like. 

Catholics get more respect because they've been there longer. But so much else in Anime is the product of post Meiji Westernization, it's time Christianity in Anime reflected that too. 

Maybe Fate/Stay Night is supposed to be a little confusing?

I’ve come to an epiphany lately about the nature of Fate/ Watch Order disputes (and perhaps the same applies to other franchises), a lot of it is about which Fate/ project to start with will leave a newcomer the least confused for the shortest amount of time.  Which Anime is quickest to get to some kind of accessible explanation of what the Holy Grail War is and how the Nasuverses’s Magic System works. 

No one is willing to consider that maybe being confused is a deliberate artistic choice, that maybe part of the fun of this entire genre is being thrown into a world you at first don’t understand. People have gotten so invested in hating on J.J. Abrams style Mystery Box story telling that they are overcorrecting into rejecting any kind of story telling that doesn’t spell out as much as possible right away. 

In my last Fate/ Watch order post I’d already softened my past advocacy for starting with Fate/Zero.  What I did say was that even if you want to start with the Studio Deen Anime because it’s the only adaptation we have of the first Route, you still should start with Episode 0 and Episode 1 of UFOTable's Unlimited Blade Works because they are the most faithful adaptation of how the VN starts regardless of Route, then you can start Deen/Stay night with episode 3.

A recent video about Fate/ Watch Orders I stumbled upon, (that I think may be AI at least in it’s Voice Over), specifically said Episode 0 was too confusing, it was a bad place to start because it seemingly expected them to already know all this stuff.  But the original VN also began by being from Rin’s pov over that exact same period of time but probably taking even longer to get to the end of it. That is always how we were meant to be introduced to this world. And I think that was a very bold choice that fans need to start having more artistic respect for. 

Maybe the people who can’t handle being out of the loop for that long simply aren’t this Franchise’s target audience?

Episode 0 of Unlimited Blade Works shouldn't have branded as specifically Unlimited Blade Works, it's 100% before the point of divergence between the routes, and then so is the first 99% of episode 1. 

And honestly thinking about all this has made me care less about Watch Order correctness in the first place.  Maybe recommend your friend to start with whatever Fate/ Anime you think they would like the most. If they’re a Magical Girl fan who doesn’t mind the lewder takes on that genre then have them start with Prisma Illya, it actually was the first Fate/ Thing I watched and I was not confused in any way that made it hard to follow. 

Maybe there is even a kind of person for whom Fate/Apocrypha would be the Fate/ Anime they’d enjoy the most even if they jumped into it with no prior Nasuverse context. 

There are certainly people for whom Lord El Meloi’s Case Files would be the best Genre for them to enter the Nasuverse through. Recommend it to Detective Conan/Magic Kaito fans.

My past advocacy for starting with Fate/Zero was never simply because it was Chronologically first but because as a story bout Adults rather then High Schoolers it will be more accessible for many potential viewers.  And that theory has been vindicated by the vast majority who have watched it first.  The only thing that's come to bother me is when Video Essayists come to conclusions about what the show has to say about Saber's character and ideals when they haven't seen how her story is meant to conclude. 

She Professed Herself Pupil of Gandalf

She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man is a Winter 2022 Isekai Anime that I gave an 8 out of 10.  I’ve watched the entire show twice and some of it more than that, all Dubbed of course.

I’ve talked before about how Tolkien’s influence on the Fantasy Genre is generally more indirect in Japan and especially Anime adjacent media.  So this show beginning with a pretty explicit LOTR reference is in fact uncommon.  The main character clearly based their Gaming character on Gandalf.  But he winds up stuck in a Cute Anime Girl form by the end of the Pilot. 

Now one could view that as a pretty surface level reference, and indeed for the most part the show and its world is clearly based on the typical Dragon Quest inspired JRPG and Record of Lodoss War references the rest of the Isekai genre is, with a brief Magic Academy subplot.  But there is something else in the early part of the show I at least think Tolkien would have appreciated.  

This also fits into the Sub Genre of Isekai where this Fantasy was once a VRMMORPG Video Game that somehow became a real tangible physical material world like Log Horizon and Land of Leadale. 

So there is a question at first as to whether now that adventuring in this world is in fact dangerous if our protagonist will take the risks entailed to help deal with the Crisises it is facing. Or consider this world that began as a mere game worth taking such risks for. It’s not all that explicitly asked but the subtext was clearly there.

There is a scene in episode two where the protagonist stops to look at some flowers, observe how pretty they are and that they smell nice and decides that this beauty is what is worth protecting. It may be just a coincidence but to me that moment is very Tolkien.

Shun in Spider Isekai is NOT a Deconstruction

So I'm A Spider, So What! Is an Anime where I like all the characters, it has a great cast.  It’s currently the first time I’ve ever listed a show’s Title Character as one of my favorites on Anilist (the others I’ve considered are all Spin Offs, so main protagonists who started as supporting characters).  And it’s also now the first time I’ve ever listed any Male character as one of my favorites, much less the male lead.  Those are two different characters in this case. 

In my recent watching of YouTube videos covering this series I’ve seen at least two different people describe Shun as a Deconstruction of the Hero Archetype.  And this just shows how watered down the concept of Deconstruction is in modern Internet Discourse.

I don’t agree with people like Study of Swords that Genre Deconstruction doesn’t exist and can’t be a valid reading of any Anime. I oppose viewing Madoka Magica as a Deconstruction but I do think some Anime can be viewed that way, not this one however. 

It is not unusual at all for a Hero to make mistakes that have consequences, or for them to have spent much of the story unwittingly working for the real villains, or for other characters to chew them out for their Naive Stubbornness.  But in Anime especially, that Naive Stubbornness is often vindicated in the end, and now that I know all the spoilers for what this Anime hasn’t gotten to yet I can say with confidence that is where Shun’s story is headed. No one thinks Frieren is deconstructing Himel because of how the child Demon plot played out.

Kouki’s storyline in Arifureta especially in season 3 would be much more legitimate to describe as a Deconstruction of the typical JRPG Anime designated Hero.  But to me personally it doesn’t come off as an at all meaningful Deconstruction but more having the official Hero fail just to subvert expectations (even though it's exactly what I expected) and make the protagonists look better by comparison.  I enjoy much of Arifureta but I’m not gonna list it as a favorite. 

How inclined one is to read what happens with Shun in the Anime so far as a Deconstruction says more about the viewer than the story.  It tells me you're probably the kind of Nerd who thinks Batman’s No Kill rule is stupid and that Superman is boring and unrelatable. The kind who care a little too much about Aragorn’s “Tax Policy”. 

A lot of this obsession with reading Shun as a Deconstruction is tied to how a certain very vocal kind of Anime Fan simply doesn't like him as a character.  Indeed I maybe should have included him in my prior post about disliked Male Anime Protagonists but I’m glad I didn’t because I now have a more distinct perspective on him I want to share here. 

For what is right now still most of my life I saw myself as a Cis-Het Male, and even after I started seriously questioning my Gender Identity I remained only attracted to Women or at least very Femme Presenting individuals. But in the last couple of years I have come to realize that my orientation may be just as fluid as my identity, that I can be attracted to certain men in a very Androphilic way, or at least certain male Anime Characters. 

So any claim that it’s inexplicable or unbelievable how many girls like Shun will not fly with me because I am attracted to Shun, I like his personality and how he looks (in the Anime the LN art I’ve seen of him isn't the most flattering) and I specifically like him over any of the other Cis-Male characters in this series or most from other series more conventionally considered the Hot Guys of Anime. And I’m attracted to him in a very Feminine way, I don't fantasize about being a Seme bending him over I fantasize about being his Oneesan Mommy Dom (Which is conveniently a role none of the Girls in his canonical Harem fill).

Superman 2025 is a good movie

In terms of feeling like the Superman Comics I'm a fan of it's better then any prior Superman movie in Live Action or Animation for that matter. 

There are small nitpicks I could complain about.  I don't think saying this Superman has been active for only three years is enough time to explain how developed this world seems. 

It does bug me how often modern Superman depictions have Lex be a CEO to start only to get arrested and made into the Mad Scientist. If you want Lex and his role in this world to be an allegory for Elon Musk and the cult of personality surrounding him then he should NOT be an actual legit scientific genius. 

But all of that is more Meta issues then anything about this film as a a stand alone film, which it does work in-spite of also being the launch of a new Universe. 

I'm going to elaborate on some of my thoughts on the early Detective Conan movies.

The first movie, The Time Bombed Sky Scraper is a perfect Cinematic introduction for Conan because of two things.  It has a cold open depicting the end of the average Conan episode is like.  And it's about Shinichi Kudo more then any other film.

Shinichi Kudo is actually the same person as Conan Edogawa and is thus the main protagonist of all these films. But they are treated as separate characters in the credits for convenience in how to credit the Voice Ace actors involved.  But also when you look at these events from the perspective of the people who don't know everything the audience does, Shinichi seems more involved in some cases then others.

This movie features a flashback to a Shinichi case from before he was shrunken, a villain who is in part targeting Shinichi specifically, and the main villain is exposed in the end using Shinichi's voice, something we only see a few other times in the movies and each of those there is still more focus on other guest characters. 

The second movie The Fourteenth Target is the one currently on the TMS YouTube Channel and will be till the 13th.   It's one of my least favorite, it's especially underwhelming compared to the one before the three following it. 

My main issue is that I know in real life the shoot the hostage tactic is in fact not considered a good idea.  But other aspects of the plot do feel uniquely contrived.  

The third film The Last Wizard of The Century I have called the best of them all a number of times. I've considered walking that back slightly, it's definitely a 10/10 on the same level as the two movies following it. 

As someone who's read the classic Arsene Lupin Novels, this feels more like one of those then any Lupin III Anime does.

I also really love how it ends, by which I mean what leads into the credits not the post credits stinger. The way it weaves the remaining threads of the narrative together in a fairly intimate moment with beautiful music scoring it.  It's perhaps one of my favorite endings of any film.

The fourth movie Captured In Her Eyes is to start with one of the films I like to recommend as showing how you make something like a Film Noir without needing to be a period piece or use some fantastical excuse to pretend to be one. 

Now some may feel annoyed at the Amnesia plot rendering Ran not herself for much of the film.  But the pay off at the end is that we get to see her do something important to her character the prior films never got to include.

The fifth film Countdown to Heaven is the third film featuring Haibara Ai but the first that's really about her to any degree and as such makes a good introduction to her character.  But also if you want to slip it chronologically into your watch of the Black Organization collection on Netflix and Crunchyroll it happens between the Reunion with The Black Organization three parter and The Mysterious Passenger. 

So four of the first five films are still ones I consider the highest level of Detective Conan films.  But there are very few I dislike to any degree, they are pretty much all Fun movies.  

The next level would be movies 7-9 and 11, those would be the A Tier if I made a Tier ranking.