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ultraericthered · 11 months

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Star Driver - To The Guy Who Didn’t Get It

It seems like whole decades have gone by since the early 2010s and it makes me feel so old, yet I tend to forget how somewhat different the online fandom/social media scene was compared to now, especially in regards to critiques of then-still running shows done on blogs. And I happened upon one on Blogger (Anyone remember that blogging site? Does anyone still use it?) by an anime reviewer who blogged his thoughts on different anime episodes after they’d aired. And back then in 2010-2011, Star Driver was one such anime.

To say he wasn’t a fan would be almost understating it given the scathing remarks he blogged about it on a weekly basis. While obviously his thoughts and feelings on it and mine could not differ more, I understand that people have different tastes and that’s perfectly acceptable and right even. ...But y’know the saying that goes “you’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts and logic?” If your argument for or against something is based in illogical fallacies and disregard for objectivity and truth, even the sort of objective truth in regards to what’s groundded in what is canonical to works of fiction, it’s not a good argument and deserves to be torn apart. It doesn’t help that this blogger was that sort of pseduo-critic anime snob who had some ideas about how good storytelling, character writing, worldbuilding, and overall execution of a made-for-TV animated series should look like that I don’t think has aged very well on today’s online world. So even though it was years ago and on a whole ‘nother site, I just HAVE to rip this hater a new one here!

On Episode 1:

...wait, what the Hell is going on in this show? It's only episode one and I already feel mired in things that I don't understand, a sense of confusion that only feels all the more jarring after the sudden change in gears from comedy school setting to giant robots and people with masks jabbering about Cybodys. I'm sure this sense of confusion is kind of the point, and that all will be explained in due course, but I can't help but feel that this plunge into "the science bit" was a little too sudden - had it come at the very start of the episode it might have worked, but in jerking us out of our previous sedate reverie it just feels wrong.

In Which Anime Blogger Complains About The Entire Effing Point. The series is meant to hook you in here because you’re sent reeling from what’s going on, because you’re confused and don’t understand what’s being talked about and what’s being done, because of the tonal whiplash and clashing between two types of shows that leads to such insane high octane action and unashamed campiness. There is no “kind of” about it, it is absolutely the point. I swear that this came up elsewhere on the blog but this blogger was not familiar with the creators other works, mainly Revolutionary Girl Utena, and it constantly shows. If Star Driver, right out the gate, is How Not To Make An Anime, then Utena should’ve tanked and never recieved all the glowing critical praise it’s gotten over the years because it did all the exact same stuff with its storytelling and presentation. And he thinks the show needed to lead with the Cybodies and the Crux in order to let the viewer know that this wasn’t just some high school romcom anime and that we’d be in for some weird and exciting mecha stuff? Not only is that unimaginative and belittling of the audience’s intelligence, patience, and attention spans, but it misses that one of the earliest spoken lines was Wako saying “I smell a boy I don’t know”. The guarantee of silly weirdness was already given to us right there, we didn’t need to see the costumes and robots yet.

On Episode 2:

we finally come to what I'm guessing might well be our weekly dose of action, as Takuto and his Cybody Tauburn find themselves under attack by opponents looking for revenge, and of course the opportunity to get their more accomplished foe well and truly out of the way. While it looks for a moment as though they might succeed, in typical giant robot anime fashion Takuto steps things up a gear when he needs it most and wins the day once again. Hurrah! Again he shows he’s not watched Utena or any of the Sailor Moon shows, where this sort of usual “weekly dose of action” formula was common. And yes, that’s exactly how it goes. You figured it out!

On Episode 3:

On the other hand, it still feels like we're quite some way from understanding exactly what's going on, and I can't decided whether this is a good thing or not - it's certainly leaving me hungry to know more, but by the same token I feel like I need more information to actually settle into enjoying this show or otherwise.

“Can’t decided?” And no, it’s totally a good thing. If you’re spoonfed way too much information too soon, you coming to see the grand design of the series as it unfolds before your eyes and understanding it better wouldn’t be nearly so rewarding. The best stories give you only the most basic, general and digestible information right at the start, then more pieces of information come at you in gradual doses, big and small, so that the huge perspective-altering bomb drops of later on can come in naturally and feel earned. And once you have all the information and context behind everything, going back and looking over those earlier parts of the story that you’d first viewed through a lens of not knowing all information and context will make you see so much of what you’d seen and heard before in a new light.

Well, we're now three episodes in, and Star Driver remains little more than a pile of nonsense that doesn't know what it wants to be in terms of its plot. One minute it's a high school comedy, the next its some kind of harem show, then it's a drama of sorts before we move to the week's admittedly impressive action scenes where we get to watch some big robots fighting... now with added swords! I keep telling myself that there's something big, clever and more intricate in terms of the show's story just around the corner but I'm beginning to wonder - Star Driver is increasingly looking like some kind of "robot fight of the week" anime with little else to say for itself to the point of being wilfully obtuse.

Star Driver knew exactly what it wanted to be in terms of plot, what conclusions it wanted to reach, and how it wanted to reach them - this dude is the one who didn’t know. The high school comedy, harem and fanservice antics, and human drama aspects of the show are all core parts of the show’s identity when on the island outside of Zero Time and are pieces moving in tandem with one another to service not only the mecha anime action-adventure spectacle but the larger narrative, character arcs, and fundamental core themes. The “big, clever and more intricate something” was always right there, thinly veiled behind the campy, stupid, ridiculous “robot fights of the week” show, as that’s the sort of thing Igarashi likes to do.

A commenter on this blog also had this to say:

Seriously, at this point we can dispense with the rest of the show and just fast forward to the part where that caged girl starts singing. :)

Uh, no we can’t, because if we skipped the island stuff and only took in the Star Driver/Cybody shenanigans in Zero Time, everything the story culminates in by the grand finale, and the two arc finales before that, would have no meaning to us, as such meaning was only found in the parts of the show set within Southern Cross Island daily life.

On Episode 5:

I thought that perhaps the previous episode of Star Driver was paving the way for a slight shift in the show's formula and way of doing things... but no, I was wrong, as episode five proves to be another rinse and repeat affair which introduces a character, ties them in to the Glittering Crux brigade and then finishes with a Zero Time battle between said character against Takuto.

I can actually see his point here, at least. It’s rather strange that “Meaning Of The Mandrake” was placed after “Wako’s Song” rather than before it, ‘cause if it had been the other way around, the latter four episodes of the first arc would feel like they had more momentum of importance compared to the first four. The third arc had a similar issue in terms of where they placed the backstory episode - the middle arc (”Innocent Blue Chapter”) is the only one where they nailed the contents and the pacing pretty much perfectly.

Even though we're five episodes in now, I still can't figure out just what Star Driver wants to be (if it even knows itself) - last week's episode seemed set to shake things up a little before this instalment brought us back to the same old episode layout while playing its plot mostly for comic value, right up to our school nurse being defeated while she's checking Takuto out. Okay, that moment was pretty funny (and there were a few other giggles to be had from this episode), but I have to admit that it wasn't what I signed up to Star Driver for and it needs to do a whole lot more if it isn't going to join the rather considerable pile of forgettable mecha series that decorates the world of anime like some elephant's graveyard.

Yes, Star Driver knows what it is and what it wanted to be, this is a “you” problem here, Mr. Blogger. The fact that it does offer such big shakeups every three episodes or sometimes every other episode shows that Ikuhara and co. were well aware of what they were doing and how they wanted to play their cards. And oh, the sheer dumb of those later statements. If you “didn’t sign up to Star Driver” for all the goofy stuff that define it as Star Driver, maybe you should’ve thought twice about signing up for Star Driver! And if by even that point your impression of Star Driver was that it could wind up “forgettable” if it didn’t push for being more than what it was at the start, I just don’t know what to tell you. Youv’e got such a terrible attention span.

On Episode 6:

At last, this feels like a real step forward for Star Driver, away from its sometimes frivolous characters and plot progression towards what feels like a more solid footing.

Yes. That was the whole point. That was the whole PLAN. NIMROD!

On Episode 8:

Herein lies the major problem with Star Driver as it continues on its merry way - no matter what happens to the major characters within the show and no matter what developments emerge, it seems like the series is Hell-bent on keeping its episode format intact. This makes for a tiring and predictable viewing experience where we know exactly what's coming, but we still have to sit and wait for most of the episode for it to happen. This wouldn't be so bad if the build-up to the giant robot scraps were packed to the rafters with fascinating drama and character development, but this is rarely the case, instead leaving us with some rather overblown stuff that doesn't have any real impact. Sugata's plight should have made for a huge amount of potential, yet here we are with that part of the story seemingly resolved and yet virtually nothing was made of it. No matter how much I want to like Star Driver (and those fight sequences really are increasingly impressive), it just seems to disappoint me every time I try to give it another chance.

Once again, see Utena, which did the exact same thing of “Episode Format Status Quo Is God, But Not Necessarily An All-Mighty God”. That show had an entire midsection story arc where the conclusion was that its main villain and events were wiped from having ever existed and from the minds of other characters, as though the whole arc that spanned several episodes straight never happened - that’s something that should be decried as a giant time waster and a Filler Arc, but the effects of what happened in it and where it left our characters mattered greatly to the events to follow. A series doesn’t have to break its status quo and throw game-changing, character-effecting, crucially timed, urgently paced, high stakes developments at us every other episode in order to have narrative depth, character development, and plot progression. Sometimes, this way is good enough, where you have the gist of what the show’s all about and know what to expect and what you might predict, but may still be surprised, enthralled, and delighted by the execution and might even find you weren’t as ready for what you end up seeing as you thought you were going into the episode, meaning it’s NOT always a “tiring and predictable” experience, as you won’t always know EXACTLY what you’re in for in terms of the whens, hows, and whys of what gets played out in the story being told. During my rewatch, I noticed a lot of the good, juicy bits of drama and character development that were seeded into those breather periods on the island away from the Crux’s lair and out of Zero Time, and Sugata’s plight was far from resolved by Episode 8 - it simply was transitioned from one point to the next, as oftentimes when things reach an “end”, it’s actually just a phasing out of something that comes with a phasing in of something else semi-connected. The Adventure Of Life Goes On and all that.

If Star Driver was disappointing him, it’s because he set himself up for such disappointment first rather than go with the anime’s flow.

On Episode 10:

Star Driver has become dull and predictable, and there certainly wasn't anything on show this episode to change that. We're now even at the point where those previously spectacular mecha battles feel run of the mill, leaving us with little to look forward to each week. Something needs to break Star Driver out of its over-used mould, but at the moment I simply can't see anything capable of doing that.

Predictable, yeah. Dull? Hell no, hardly! And “I can’t see anything capable of doing that.” The You twins were RIGHT F**KING THERE!

On Episode 11:

So, another episode of Star Driver has passed, and I'm still utterly bored with its predictable layout and the knowledge that Takuto will always win his battle at the end of the episode one way or another. Even outside of the action, the whole story surrounding "Simone" felt horribly forced whilst proving to be equally dull in its own right. I'm seriously starting to think that this series is entirely beyond redemption now, but can I really drop a show after sinking almost six hours into it?

If he was so “utterly bored” of this show, what was he doing still writing these posts on it? Takuto having to win all of his battles at the end one way or another is a feature rather than a bug, and does not necessarily break immersion or enjoyment - a lot of the oldest comic books and action-adventure TV serials, the sort of stuff that inspired Star Wars, were like this, where the hero is allowed to be put in peril and leave the audience going “Oh no! How will they get out of this one?” without there being any hint of a doubt that they will indeed “get out of this one” in the end so that they can go on to their next thrilling adventure, rinse and repeat. It’s not super dramatic because it’s not made to be - it’s made to be FUN. It’s good old fashioned escapism and entertainment. If that’s not one’s cup of tea, then they ought to stop drinking it for no reason but to prove that they can.

On Episode 12:

While the comedy for this episode of Star Driver was far sharper than anything we've seen from the show of late, that's really all it has going for it as per usual - it got a few laughs, but was otherwise as dull and lifeless as ever. There are brief hints of movement courtesy of Kanako meeting and conversing with Mizuno, but considering we're effectively at the half-way point of this series it would be nice to see something other than the odd glacial snippet of plot progression. I too like to throw around words like “dull” and “lifeless” and “boring” and “tepid” and “predictable” and “frivolous” and “forgttable” and even “utterly” without really thinking about whether or not I’m applying them to anything that actually truly matches the meanings of those words but if they make me sound like a real critic who knows what the fuck he’s talking about then I use them, I R super smart! Again, the Black Rose arc from Utena’s midsection deserves mention here.

On Episode 13:

I really have nothing new to say about Star Driver now - it's utterly dull and lifeless, and the plot of this particular episode was plain to see within the first five minutes of the episode, making Takuto's eventual victory even more of a foregone conclusion then it was already. With no peril, danger or intense action to this show's name, what is the point exactly?

There it is again - “Dull and lifeless!” And in this episode’s case, it’s a Breather Episode and an actually well-placed one at that. I also described already what the point of the show is - to entertain and be fun, sincere and wholesome and even compelling to any who actually engage with it. It’s not a bad show, you’re just mean and joyless.

On Episode 14:

That said, I do have to point out that pretty much everything that was good about the second half of this episode was blatantly stolen from Evangelion (and more specifically its recent movies), but if pinching cool visual concepts and ideas from that series makes Star Driver better than I say go for it.

A mecha anime gets mind screwy and throws in some psychological and existential angst coupled with visual horrors? “Blatantly stolen” from Evangelion rather than just influenced by it! Overall, this episode hasn't left me with renewed confidence that this series has a clue what it's doing or what its end-game is, but it's at least managed to find a little more potential and promise to keep me watching for the time being. If only it hadn't taken so long to do so...

You’d had to have completely missed the underlining purpose of this episode to come to that conclusion. Everything about the Ayingott project and what Marino was doing as Vanishing Age’s substitute leader was thoroughly schemed out by Head and Ivrogne in order to move things to the next phase, which itself ties back around to earlier set-up with Sugata and Samekh, and what’s truly motivating Ivrogne in her actions. The series’ end-game is a clear picture that comes together like a great big picture puzzle whose pieces you weren’t even looking at ‘cause you were too busy whining about the series!

On Episode 15:

What's this? An episode of Star Driver that doesn't follow the exact same pattern of nearly every other episode that came before it almost to the second Stop the presses! After moaning about it for so many weeks, simply breaking out of Star Driver's cycle of drama -> Zero Time -> Takuto wins feels like a breath of fresh air which left me watching the clock and thinking "however are they going to fit a pointless Cybody battle into this episode?". Well, thankfully they didn't, instead giving the rest of the plot some much-needed room to breathe - something it did reasonably proficiently with plenty of angst and drama to lean on whilst also shifting the positions of a few key pieces on the show's chess board, most notably Sugata and our "mysterious" (or not so mysterious) painter aside from Mizuno herself.

Yeah, even this asshat couldn’t not give these episodes their due.

only to enter some kind of Endless Eight-esque state where every time she leaves she simply wakes up and has to start all over again - a situation which leaves her a nervous and bawling wreck in a ferry terminal car park after numerous iterations (again, much like most viewers of Endless Eight after a few episodes).

Including this here because it’s actually pretty damn funny. This alone wasn't enough to make Star Driver suddenly seem like a far more compelling series, but following on from last week's more focused offering the signs of improvement are certainly there to be seen. It has a way to go, but at last there's light at the end of the tunnel of mediocrity from which this show desperately needs to escape over the coming weeks.

If it wasn’t, then maybe it honestly didn’t even need to be? What it did for me was make these episodes themselves, and retroactively every episode that featured and slowly advanced the arc of the You twins, far more compelling in and of themselves. The remainder of the show could’ve tanked and it wouldn’t change how great this section was.

On Episode 16:

This leaves me with an episode that I'm rather torn about - the revelations and story built around Mizuno turned out to be quite a nice twist in the tale (although they arguably weren't used to their fullest extent) and the Zero Time section this week was absolutely stunning even by this show's standards, while the Glittering Crux finally reaching their so-called Third Phase after blathering on about it for several months is as much of a relief as it is a sign of some tougher competition for Takuto. Set against that, the whole flashback element into Takuto's past for this episode felt clumsy and bolted on, leading in to a sudden upgrade to Tauburn's powers that was boringly predictable but unavoidably so.

Fair point. I can see why the action grinding to a halt just to give us some backstory that ties directly in with Takuto’s big finisher of that day might feel off for some viewers and take them out of the whole moment, but I personally liked it and will have stuff to say on it later.

Thus, I don't know what to make of it all - certain elements of the series have moved in some decidedly interesting new directions while others look to be stuck in a rut. Overall I suppose that's an improvement, but it still isn't enough to turn Star Driver into a good series at this juncture, let alone a great one.

See what I said before about these Mizuno arc episodes. And to me, Star Driver was always a good series, and these episodes, plus Episode 20 and the final two, just solified it into a great one.

On Episode 17:

Just as it seemed as it Star Driver had broken free of its repetitive episode conventions, it looks like the announcement of third phase combat last time around has seen a return to the tried and far from trusted episode layout of weeks gone by - high school hijinks, Glittering Crux meeting, big battle where Takuto wins via some previously unknown/unexpected deus ex machina.

“This show...is still Star Driver! WHY IS IT STILL STAR DRIVER?!?”

On Episode 18:

I remain both bored and unimpressed with Star Driver again at present - every time is looks set to do something to come out of its coma of predictability, it somehow manages to ruin the whole thing. For what is supposedly an anime about Cybodies which could change the entire world as we know it if the Glittering Crux Brigade succeeds, there's still no tension or drama in anything we see - battles are finished with the equivalent of a flick of the wrist, and more time is spent on school life shenanigans than any form of character building or plot development. Perhaps someone should get the Madoka Magica team onto a mecha series when they're done with that show? By all accounts they could do a far better job than this effort which seems to borrow from numerous other similar series whilst completely missing the point of what makes those shows great.

Oh my God, this dude.... The anime is not “about” the Cybodies and the stakes of what should happen if Zero Time was broken and they were all active outside of it again. It literally ends with Zero Time broken yet doesn’t make anything more of it than what’s needed for the immediate focus of the final action. This is called “missing the forest for the trees.” There are some shows, even shows with giant robot fights, that are not made to ride and die on the sort of “tension and drama” that this blogger pines for. And in fact, a lot of the character building and slow-burn plot development to set up the next big advancements are in those smaller, so-called “school life shananigans” that he thinks shouldn’t be allowed in a mecha anime. The reference to Madoka here is important because it’s such an apples-to-oranges comparison; Madoka is a anime with plot and character drama that’s very tightly written, and drama and stakes that escalate by the episode, because it was a 12 episode one cours anime where continous serialized storytelling was necessary and breathing room a no-go. Star Driver, meanwhile...is not that. And how ironic that he said that last part when he himself was missing what made this show great because he was too hung up on his own preferences and expectations, likely influenced by other shows!

On Episode 19:

That aside, I felt that the whole "body snatching" aspect of this episode was rather a wasted opportunity - not much was done with a scenario that was ripe with potential, and Kou and Madoka were both so useless in their body switching roles that they frittered away the chance to cause some genuine chaos far outside simply messing with Wako's head.

Another valid, legitimate criticism. Those are more relieving to come by on this blog than outlier episodes are to come by on Star Driver!

On Episode 20:

After frittering away so many (read: almost all) of its episodes, it's nice to see things finally building in an interesting direction at this late stage - although I can't quite get my head around Takuto's parentage at this juncture (is Tokio really that old?), we did learn some significant information about the man at the helm of the Glittering Crux Brigade, finally see a fire (or at least a slightly damp match) lit under Takuto's feelings for Wako, and perhaps most important we got a Zero Time battle that was interesting for almost thirty whole seconds, which is a new record on my watch. With next week's episode also promising to continue in the right direction, can Star Driver pull out a decent ending to this tepid series? It won't be enough to save it from the halls of anime mediocrity, but regardless of that I sure hope it does so that my hours of watching this series don't prove to be in vain.

Tokio’s First Phase slowed his physical aging, which is why he still appears to be college aged at most. Oh, and more throwing in big sounding critic words/ “Tepid”? “Mediocrity”? By whose measure?

On Episode 21:

Not for the first time with this series, Star Driver hits upon something interesting only to render it utterly dull and useless with its staunch refusal to add any kind of peril to proceedings. In this case, we were finally faced with a conflict where someone absolutely had to die, no questions ask or no chance to sidestep this brutal truth... until the episode pulls out a deus ex machina so it can all end without anyone getting hurt. What. The. Fuck. Star. Driver. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why everyone is raving about Puella Magi Madoka Magica and the world it's woven where everything has serious and realistic consequences; this is also why nobody gives two flying monkeys about Star Driver any more. The sooner this show finishes and puts us all out of its abjectly mediocre misery the better.

I cannot with this doofus and his vocabulary. Here’s where the Madoka thing comes back (ironic since that’s the name of the character in question who didn’t get offed), and for one thing, it aged poorly given how Mami and Kyoko, two characters who we saw absolutely definitely die on-screen just come back to life at the end which sort of negates the weight of their deaths (though Sayaka doesn’t for some reason?), the serious consequences at the very end of the series were so mired in the fantastical that you can’t really call it “realistic”, and then after that initial series, everyone came back and a whole freaking Madoka multiverse was established, so it’s not exactly a super grounded, gritty, true-to-life anime experience. And second of all, it exposes how limited this person’s scope of what can pass for a solid, enjoyable, satisfying series with good storytelling even is. If a series isn’t like a steadily building, super tense, dark, bleak, violent and suspenseful “Anyone Can Die At Any Point” affair like Game Of Thrones, or even a one cours quickie filled with darkness and edge, thrills, chills, kills, shocking plot developments, mindblowing and/or soul-crushing reveals, and constant bordering-on-torture-porn misery and despair at every turn every week like Madoka, then it’s just garbage to someone like this. It’s so sad to me.

On Episode 22:

Mark, who is played by Takuto and really doesn't do anything interesting at all aside from getting to kiss Wako at the end of the entire ordeal. Which is, to be fair, a pretty awesome thing to do.

Another moment where even a first class fool can see reason.

Above all though, much of this episode is really just about hammering home the current state of Wako's heart when it comes to choosing between Sugata and Takuto, as though the end of last week's episode didn't make that entirely clear and we needed to sit through all of this to explain things. The state of Wako’s heart at the moment wasn’t about “choosing between Sugata and Takuto”, as she was starting to realize more and more after her birthday that she felt equal love for them both. The real drama that was being shaped here was the idea that Sugata could possibly renounce what his heart was feeling for Wako in favor of finally embracing and using Samekh’s power, which is the future that Keito was offering him and hoping that he would take.

I probably wouldn't be so harsh on this episode if it were ensconced within the first half of Star Driver, but with only three episodes to go the series still seems intent on pissing away what little time it has left on incredibly dull and forced plot devices in the hope of somehow seeming "deep" that really add very little to either the show or its characters. I know that Star Driver is a lost cause now, but there's still so much I want to like about it that even at this juncture I get frustrated by its inability to do anything worthy of note with its setting and the individuals within them. Goodness knows it has enough intriguing, likeable or downright cool characters to play with, so how we ended up with this tepid and clumsy cluster-fuck of a series is becoming increasingly mind-boggling.

You know why that entire paragraph got bolded. Take it away, Luke!

EXCEPT for “Goodness knows it has enough intriguing, likeable or downright cool characters to play with” - those words were right.

On Episode 23:

But what's this? A major plot twist involving Sugata? Wow, I never saw that one coming at all.

A good plot twist is one that makes logical internal sense within the narrative and character-based framework and advances the story in an interesting direction, not just one that you don’t see coming. I mean, he even goes on to say this and thus sound contradictory:

Okay, so Sugata's defection does make things a bit more interesting for the final couple of episodes, and it does also fit in better with the evolving relationship dynamic between the remaining maidens, Sugata, and Takuto.

However, that doesn't make this anything less than another clumsy implemented slice of utter mediocrity where Zero Time also means Zero Excitement and Zero Peril. Nothing has grabbed or surprised me even at this late stage of the game, meaning that the only real excitement I have left is the thought that in a couple of weeks I'll finally be done with this tepid series - fingers crossed it doesn't get licensed in the UK so that I have to watch it all over again though.

“UTTER mediOCRITY!” “Where’s teh EXCITEMENT and PERIL?” “This is most tepid series! TEPID, I SAY!” And of course he’s British!

On Episode 24:

Even a show as largely dull and tepid as Star Driver can't screw up its penultimate episode on account of being too dull... although episode twenty-four certainly tries its best at doing just that before the sheer weight of interesting stuff available to the series finally forces its way through.

And I don’t know what else I expected from YOUR penultimate effort!

Okay, I have to confess, the end of this week's episode of Star Driver was pretty damn cool - once I'd suppressed my laughter at the sheer stupidity of nobody recognising any Glittering Crux member until they remove their mask and go "hey, guess who?!", there were some awesome visuals on show and everything seems set up right to deliver a finale free from all the fluff and nonsense that the series has drowned in up to this point. The fact that it took half the episode to get to this "good bit" remains a blatant reminder of everything that's wrong with Star Driver, but at least for once it seems set to actually deliver on its potential - if only it hadn't left it so late to do so.

I’m starting to suspect this dude might actually end up liking Star Driver: The Movie better than Star Driver: The Show, as it gives him basically what he’s asking for in terms of cutting down on the “fluff and nonsense” and hitting off all the “good bits” of lore and drama and fighting action with marked high stakes and twists and turns and all that PLOT PLOT PLOT!, even when said “good bits” would feel hollow and stripped of all deeper meaning due to what was missed out on with the “building block bits” of the high school and island community content that are there to give you an actual connection to the characters, the setting, and the going ons. Again, reading this feels alien in an age where shows “cut too short” and having a lack of breathers and “filler episodes” is more bemoaned than celebrated.

On Episode 25:

It's taken half a year, but we finally we get the episode of Star Driver everyone had been crying out for from the very start.

................................. This fucking guy just went and said that “the episode of Star Driver everyone (read: he) had been crying out for from the very start”....was at the very end, as in the final episode, the episode that by its very nature had to be built towards and earned by a whole series worth of episodes leading up to it.

Crowning Achievement Of Dumb right there. Who thinks like this? That an action-based and character-driven serialized TV series has to lead with a series finale-worth of material from the offset in order to be deemed good? What is even the point of such a show if it can play not just its full hand but its full deck of cards right from the off-set? This is ludicrous and exposes what an impatient child this guy was. He had zero deep understanding of shit he was talking about!

Okay, it still has an utterly stupid plot (Head's motivations and actions come straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon, and Takuto's decision-making isn't much better), but it had lots of awesome action and visual spectacle to make up for that lack of coherency.

That was the whole idea. That was his character, that he was like a damaged piece of art where underneath the deep, detailed, beautiful and enticing surface, at his core were some very simplistic ideas and desires. A seflish, petty, ultimately hollow and lacking man pretending to be a boy pretending to be a man and wanted to be a boy again.

Having seen this example of what Star Driver could have been all about somehow only serves to make the rest of the series all the more disappointing - if only the series had this level of tension and peril written into it from the very start, then we might have been able to forgive the ridiculous dei ex machina that turned up on a regular basis and the distracting slice of life shenanigans that would have served better as a spin-off series in its own right.

Again, ASS. BACKWARDS. It is only because Star Driver was about so much more than the surface level space tech lore and mecha action, because it did not carry itself with this level of tension and peril written into most of its regular proceedings, that this grand finale ends up feeling as grand as it does and carrying such a staggering amount of high quality to it, the quality it feels was built, reached, and earned rather than taken for granted. And if there was anything you found to be “distracting” in the slice of life shenanigans segments, it came from you rather than from the show, which was laying its heart and soul bare in all of those moments, offering up all the smaller pieces that were to be joined together to show you the bigger picture whole of the story, but your mind and your gaze turned away from it.

In terms of wasted potential, this Star Driver must rank at the top of the tree for the last year, and one line in this final episode really said it all: an exclamation of "this battle meant something". At the show's own admission it took twenty-five episodes to have a meaningful battle in a series built around such action sequences - I rest my case.

Twenty-four episodes of a show built around (but not necessarily super focused on or all about) mech battle action sequences were all stocking up its energy and budget as it built up to the Big One, the one that would be so meaningful that it’d retroactively justify and give validity to all the smaller steps taken towards it, at the very end. This sounds perfectly reasonable, yet this guy puts it as though it’s a serious flaw. Absolutely obtuse, illiterate, unimaginative buffoon.

There were also some choice comments I had to pick out:

There was so much potential depth in SD's universe... the Cybodies, the Entropeople, the Seals... and none of it was really explored that much in depth.

Almost as if those things were never actually made to be the focal points of the story, and that the greater depth lied elsewhere?

Not to mention the lack of focus on the characters. A lot of times it feels like they're there just for the sake of being there (i.e. the lesbians).

The characters who needed to be focused on and earn the shits given about them got their focus, though it’s true that some in this cast got very short-changed, the Vanishing Age lackeys especially.

Star Driver isn't meant to have a complex plot or anything, it's meant to be mindless entertainment. People are raving about it anyway, so I don't quite understand that part o.o

I am with the spirit of this post but not the letter. Star Driver’s plot, unlike Utena’s overarching storyline, is not especially complex, its events easy to follow and dictated by certain patterns that make it pretty predictable and its primary purpose is to entertain - to please, to thrill, to amuse and even to arouse. But to call all that “mindless?” Nah, that is giving it way too little credit. I’ve seen it in its entirety more than enough times to say with certainty that there’s a great deal of cleverness, brilliance and meaning behind this camptastic joyride.

Now here’s the blogger again with some imput on his own:

although it's also interesting that both of those posts are suggesting that "people don't get it" without really explaining what we're missing beyond having not seen Utena.

I’d not seen Utena in full by the time I watched Star Driver and I was able to get it just fine, so he’s right, it really is no excuse.

I comprehend the reason for the repetitive way each episode is framed, but to be frank that framing wouldn't be a problem if the show actually had worthwhile content within that frame - witness the reaction to Madoka's early episodes which were similarly repetitive in terms of their layout compared to Star Driver. I'm also pretty sure I "get" all of the allusions the series is trying to present, but unfortunately they're all tired old concepts that aren't remedied by dressing it up in some snazzy outfits.

It’s a purely subjective matter. If the content doesn’t seem worth your while, then OK, don’t engage. It’s not going to be the same for everyone. And yet again with the Madoka reference, even when in that show’s case it only had two episodes worth of standard formulaic Magical Girl layout before someone’s head got bitten off in Episode 3, so it was never interested in playing things straight and sincere the way Star Driver was. Deeper allusions within repetitious framework are just kind of Igarashi and Enokido’s whole thing, same as Ikuhara.

What really holes Star Driver below the water is that for all of its allusion, big set pieces and attempts to build a compelling character-driven narrative, there's absolutely zero tension in Zero Time - arguably any tension disappeared the moment we were told that Takuto dying would mean "game over". We know what's going to happen every single week, and that's where Star Driver makes the jump from "too deep for people to understand" to "dull". There is shed loads of potential in Star Driver, but by this juncture it's been entirely frittered away to the point where I doubt watching a couple of other series will suddenly help it much or cause some kind of "eureka" moment.

He’s argued this ad nauseum and it’s still not holding water. Stories where the hero overcomes their obstacles and “saves the day” on the regular don’t automatically lack tension just because we’re not biting our nails with suspense or even anticipation over who might die at any given moment or itching to see the status quo upended by some destructive instance of successful evildoing that the hero fails to stop. Sometimes, Saturday Morning Cartoon flavor works and is not “dull.”

Lastly, this is who he was responding to, who has some refreshingly solid, well thought out, well understood and very agreeable things to say on the matter. As such, I’ve bolded the ones that hit the best.

I generally enjoy reading your blog posts, and you have interesting thoughts on different shows but really it seems there are things you don't comprehend about Star Driver.

What I mean by saying that you don’t ‘comprehend’ aspects of Star Driver is not that it’s ‘too deep’ but more from a narrative perspective. You’re right in saying that the posts don’t explicitly explain what people are missing. But the emphasis is that ‘plot isn’t the point’ in Star Driver, it’s more about the allusions / symbolism / themes / characters. So if people focus on the former opposed to the latter, they’re ‘missing the point’. And it’s the case that most people relate/understand to traditional narrative. In Star Driver, the audience makes out the story for themselves using the allusions / symbolism / themes / characters rather than an unfolding plot and this is where people get lost, ie don’t understand therefore don’t like it. That’s cool. This way of storytelling isn’t for everybody.

I suppose it bothers me when criticisms like yours are based on a traditional narrative as opposed to the jigsaw puzzle way of Star Driver.

I’ll elaborate. Themes / symbolism / allusions / characters are the devices used for the audience to create their own overall understanding as opposed to an unfolding plot granting them this understanding. Generally speaking, this is how it was done in Utena, hence the comparison in the links.

In a conventional narrative we have conflict/tension/resolution (simplified form). Star Driver doesn’t utilise this as stated above. From your posts I gather that the lack of tension is your major dislike, and what I’m saying (and what the links are basically pointing out) is that Star Driver isn’t designed to have conventional narrative/plot (ie tension). This is why it doesn’t resonate with many people. This is what is meant by ‘not getting’ Star Driver.

Basically in Star Driver, there isn’t a straightforward pan of events that involve conflict/resolution or build tension to ‘tell’ us the story. But rather it’s the allusions/symbolism/themes AND how the characters work within these that ‘build’ the story.

I will use your example above of the lack of content within the repetition. Within the repetition we are given clues to characters’ motives. No, they’re not big world changing reveals. But using these clues (such as reactions, dialogue) and combining them with whatever symbolism is floating around, the audience is able to build the story. Star Driver requires the audience to be cluey and build, rather being given the story. Specific example this episode: Kanako notes that Wako was angry at Madoka for flirting with Takuto in Zero Time. This is a hint that Wako is leaning towards Takuto. Combine this with a frame last ep which shows Wako carrying Takuto’s watch (opposed to Sugata’s knife) reinforces this. The ‘story’ point here is that Wako has chosen Takuto, so the audience wonders how Sugata will react to this. Yes the audience will need to use various clues to work this out.

That is how ‘story’ is told in Star Driver. Putting together the puzzle. It requires the audience to be active and build it. Which is not for everyone. Which is perfectly fine.

It’s not that Star Driver is ‘too deep to understand’. It’s that the storytelling method of Star Driver doesn’t resonate with a mainstream audience. I just wanted to enlighten you to other ways of thinking about it because for me, criticising Star Driver using traditional narrative as your frame of reference (as you are doing), doesn’t hold water.

All of that. Beautifully put. This is the link they put out there too :https://revolemina.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/notes-on-star-driver/

Related: a more recent blogging of Star Driver from “Wrong Every Time”, who ironically seems to get it much more right than this guy. https://wrongeverytime.com/tag/star-driver/

And another great one!: https://randomc.net/category/star-driver/

Bottom line of this post: this person had no love for Star Driver to begin with; that’s why he couldn’t see its actual greatness.

#Star Driver #anime #opinion #criticism #defense #hatedumb #elitism #stupidity #misaimed fandom #completely missing the point

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connan-l · 1 year

Text

unafraid

Fandom: Ciconia: When They Cry

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Sujatha/Rukhshana

Summary: Suparna’s training session is cancelled for the day because of a sudden storm, which Sujatha is absolutely not scared of, and that might or might not creates tensions with her girlfriend.

[Femslash February 2023 Day 3: Storm]

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Link on Archive of Our Own

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Notes: Hi here’s your annual Ciconia FemFeb fic from me! Yes you’ll get one until Ryukishi finally decide to release Phase 2. Anyway this is very late but it’s meant to be for Day 3: Storm, from those prompts.

I don’t know why, but at first I didn’t want to write any Sujatha/Rukhshana piece for FemFeb; not because I don’t like them but for some reason I really wanted to write a proper one-shot for them and not something based on a random prompt. But technically speaking they’re still one of the most obvious F/F ships of the VN so far, so I thought they were just the next obvious choice, especially given I’d already done Lingji/Aysha and Valentina/Maricarmen before. So yeah it’s just a small cute fluffy thing without a lot of substance.

Given it’s going to mark the third year since I’ve last read the VN I admit I forgot a lot of stuff about the characters, so I really don’t feel confident in how I characterized them here. Especially Rukhshana. (And I know it *seems* like Phase 1 implied she was a CPP as well like Miyao, but we don’t know much about that yet so I didn’t want to touch on the topic). So I hope they don’t feel too off.

Also, it’s a small detail in the fic but — if you’re like me and haven’t played the game in a while, I feel the need to mention that COU is the one country that has ‘traditional’ families; so I’m assuming Sujatha, Rukhshana and Andry probably have ‘normal’ parents like Lingji & co.

Now on a small caveat I have that made me hesitate while writing this fic: I realized that, obviously we don’t know anything about whether or not Sujatha is religious, but as she is from India and that we’re told the COU is very traditional, IF she is religious then she would probably follow one of the many Hinduism faiths; however, on the other hand, given Rukhshana is from Saudi Arabia and is clearly wearing a hijab, she has to be Muslim. Queerness aside, I know interfaith relationships can be a bit of touchy topic in Islam; some might tolerate it and others do not (one of my non-Muslim cousin dated a Muslim woman for three years, but he had to convert when they got married), and it would be especially so for a Saudi girl given ‘dating’ in the Western sense in general is frowned upon over there. Not sure how things would be in Ciconia’s futuristic, post-World War III universe, but it did seem to imply Saudi Arabia is still very traditional similarly to how it is in our world because of how they mention there were issues with Rukhshana, as a girl, joining the team while there was a boy in it. The VN is very scarce when it comes to giving details about the religious/cultural practices of the characters (hell even the hijabi girls are never actually called ‘Muslims’ in-universe), so I can’t say how pious Rukhshana must be or how important it would be for her to only get together with someone who’s Muslim. So the way I see it in this fic, is that she must probably be respectful of the faith and wouldn’t marry a non-Muslim person usually, but she can give herself some leeway if this is with someone she really loves (and that the other person can potentially convert)? (And well, Muslim communities exists in India too so I suppose you can headcanon Sujatha as such as well). I dunno, maybe I’m just overthinking about it; and of course like I said this is just a short fluff piece and not some exploration of any of these topics anyway lol, but I am not Muslim myself, so I’d understand if any actual Muslim people don’t like it or take issue with this.

All this aside, there’s no spoilers (except for like, the start of Phase 1 I guess) or content warnings except for the inevitable vague mentions of war/child soldiers.

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Sujatha was absolutely not scared.

She had sworn to herself, from a very young age, to never become a person who got scared.

Fear was only meant for the common people. Fear was for normal girls; ones who didn’t have any responsibility, who weren’t soldiers, who weren’t part of the elite of the COU India Aerial Augmented Infantry, leader of Suparna.

Sujatha was anything but a normal girl — had worked very, very hard to not be one; so it was only natural she wouldn’t be scared.

And, most of the time, she did a good job at suppressing the feeling, even when it threatened to bubble up at the surface in the pit of her stomach.

Right now, however, as she heard the news that their training for the day was going to be exceptionally canceled because of some weather turmoils, the wave of anxiety started to overwhelm her in a way she didn’t think she could easily appease.

“What a pain,” Andry declared, letting himself fall all over a nearby couch. “What are we supposed to do now? They warned us at the last minute, so it’s not like we can quickly make other plans.”

Rukhshana made a weak noise of agreement buried under her black hijab. “Maybe… maybe we could play a game together? Until noon, at least…”

“Guess so,” the boy replied, but he didn’t seem very enthusiastic at the prospect. Then again, Andry never seemed very enthusiastic about most things. Everything seemed to pass through him like water; which could be both a relief and frustrating, depending on the situation.

“What do you think, Sujatha?”

“Huh? U-Um…” Sujatha’s eyes darted towards the dark sky, full of threatening gray clouds, trying not to fidget. “S-Sure. Probably.”

At this, both Rukhshana and Andry stared at her as if she was a ghost. They exchanged a brief, skeptical look with each other, before the boy straightened up and arched an eyebrow in Suparna’s leader’s direction.

“You sure?”

Sujatha frowned, feeling as if she was missing something obvious or was left out of an inside joke between her two teammates. Which, unfortunately, happened often.

“Of course I’m sure,” she responded sharply. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“W-Well…” Rukhi bit her lip, looking up at her hesitantly and wriggling her hands like she did whenever she felt unsure of herself. “It’s… not really like you to say something like this…”

“What?”

“Rukhi’s right,” Andry added. “Usually, you would’ve gone all ‘Who have time for games, you lazy scoundrels! If you only think about playing, we’ll end up the weakest of all Gauntlets Knights!’ and then Rukhi would have freaked out mentally over it, or something.”

Sujatha puffed out her chest in an irritated manner and glared at her teammate. “I do not sound like that.”

“But… you are acting weird, aren’t you?”

Rukhshana took a step towards her, and while Sujatha was about to snap back at her that she was imagining things, her mouth shut up instantly the moment she saw her eyes.

The other girl was looking at her with a concerned gaze, the one she took when she was genuinely worried about her; and instantly Sujatha felt herself softening against her will and guilt clogged up her throat. Had she really done that bad of a job to hide her anxiety?

“You’ve… been odd for a while now,” Rukhi continued. “And… it’s been worse since our training was officially canceled… I know you always think training is important, but�� Is there… something else?”

Rukhshana stopped right in front of Sujatha, catching her off-guard, and her eyes staring straight into hers instantly pinned her into place. She gently reached out to her, her fingertips cupping her cheek in a tender, intimate gesture; and Sujatha flushed bright red, froze, then panicked.

“Th-There’s nothing else!” She exclaimed, snapping Rukhshana’s hand away and glaring at the other two teenagers. “But you’re right! You’d better find another way to exercise or study if you have nothing else better to do!”

She turned around before almost running away from the room; which still didn’t prevent her from hearing Andry snorting from behind and Rukhshana squeak and grumbling to herself ‘What’s this, she’s the one who said it was okay for us to play!’

Sujatha paid it no mind. She headed to her bedchambers, her face still feeling hot and her chest about to explode because of embarrassment.

She couldn’t believe how… open Rukhshana was with her in public, sometimes. Well, in private as well.

The two of them had been dating for about three months now, but everything still felt very new and surreal to her. No one knew, of course, with the exception of Andry — who had somehow grilled them only a week afterwards — and it did bring in some new challenges to navigate, but so far Sujatha didn’t regret it. She didn’t, but… she had to admit sometimes it felt a bit too… overwhelming, and she wasn’t always sure how to act towards Rukhi as a result (not that she knew how to handle her before, though).

She sighed, closing the door behind her, and let herself fell on her bed.

Rukhshana was going to be so angry for snapping at her like that, she knew. And maybe she deserved it, too. That… hadn’t been really fair from her, after all. She probably should go apologize before things get worse.

She might not look like it, but Rukhi was a pretty grudgeful person; and if she felt wronged, she was absolutely not going to let it slide. She could stop talking to Sujatha for months because of something like this — and the simple idea made Sujatha’s stomach turns into knots, even more so than it already was.

She knew she was the one who had to apologize, and that she had to do it now, but she couldn’t bring herself to get out of her bed.

The gray sky and future storm that loomed over outside seemed to have drained her entire energy. She wasn’t sure how long she stayed like that, but the moment she heard the ripple of the rain on her window’s glass she tensed, then hurriedly buried herself under the blanket, as if this could protect her from the foreseeing tempest.

Sujatha wasn’t scared — she just… didn’t like the rain. And gray skies and clouds. And the dark. And thunders.

And it was absolutely not because she was scared that when she was a child she would stay hidden that way under the blanket back in her hometown in Hanumangarh, and that she would spends hours praying to Indra that the sky could finally light up.

She definitely never came to her parents for comfort, because Sujatha wasn’t destined to be a normal girl and not-normal girls were never scared.

So she also definitely didn’t jump when she heard a timid little knock at her door.

“Uh… S-Sujatha…?”

The voice on the other side was barely audible, especially with her ears camouflaged by the blanket and the heavy sound of the rain that seemed to get more and more violent as the minutes passed by — but of course Sujatha still recognized her.

She’d recognized her girlfriend’s voice everywhere.

“R-Rukhi?”

She distinguished some grumbling from the door, which confirmed her visitor’s identity and at the same time furthered her confusion.

She’d never thought Rukhshana would ever come to see her first. After what had happened earlier, she would’ve been way too mad for that.

“Um… I… I wanted to… uh, check on you…” Rukhi’s voice let out hesitantly. “Can I… come in?”

Sujatha bit her lip. Her heart screamed Yes please, her mind yelled back God no. Sujatha wasn’t scared, but she still refused to let anyone see her… like that.

Even Rukhshana. Maybe especially Rukhshana.

“No,” she finally declared, with a voice a little too shaky.

There was a sigh. And then the door opened anyway.

Sujatha almost jumped off the bed.

“I just said no!”

“I know,” Rukhshana said, glaring at her. “But it was one of your ‘no’ that actually meant ‘yes, please, I need you horribly.’”

Her frame was hallowed of light from the corridor’s luminosity, and Sujatha could see she was still wearing her hijab, albeit another, more casual one along with a long, dark dress.

She clenched her jaw, glared at her girlfriend, flushed, and then threw the blanket over her head yet again. Damn her.

She couldn’t see her, but Sujatha was pretty sure Rukhi rolled her eyes at this. There was a few footsteps sounds, then the mattress moved, tilted under an additional new weight.

“So. Can I stay?”

“A bit too late for that now,” Sujatha mumbled, and the more this situation kept on the more she felt ridiculous. She acted just like a child — completely unbefitting of her.

“Yes.”

And then they fell into an awkward, deep-seated silence for what felt like an eternity.

“Why…” Sujatha started, succumbing to the discomforting tension, before hesitating. “Why are you here, anyway? I thought you wouldn’t…”

“Talk to you for a while? Yes. I didn’t want to. But…” She sighed. “Andry convinced me it was better to not be stubborn, for once.”

That made sense. Andry seemed to be the only other person Rukhshana actually genuinely listened to.

“But he agreed you owe me an apology.”

Well, she supposed that was true. All three of them were on the same page, for once.

“…I’m sorry… for snapping at you… It wasn’t your fault.”

“That’s fine. I forgive you. But… you’ll have to tell me why you did it.” Of course, only silence met her and Rukhi grumbled. “Come on. Why are you acting like this since this morning? What’s going on? You know you can talk to me.”

And Sujatha knew she could. She knew. She just wasn’t…

Well. She wasn’t used to it. Talk, and be open, and be… be scared. That wasn’t a thing she’d been taught. Not even to someone she, apparently, loved.

Sujatha buried her face into her knees, debating what to do with this overflow of contradictory feelings, when it seemed the sky decided to answer for her.

A booming, deafening thunder ripped the room apart, bathing the place in a wide splash of white light. Sujatha then lost all self-control and dignity and actually screamed, her heart stopping and her breath getting caught in her throat. A couple of smaller, other thunders outside left her a trembling, weeping mess under the blanket, rolled into a ball as if she was hoping to disappear.

For a while, the room stayed quiet except for the sound of the rain, but then finally Rukhi raised a small, doubtful voice:

“W-Wait… Could it be… that you’re scared of the thunder?”

Sujatha made no attempt to try to answer this. She didn’t think Rukhi needed and answer, anyway, as even a three years old could have come up with one.

And then the next second she was greeted with loud, unadulterated laughters.

“Oh no! That’s what this was all about! You’re scared of the thunder!”

“D-Don’t laugh! I’m not—”

Sujatha flushed red as she tried to disentangle herself from the blanket to glare at the other girl; but then another thunder resonated behind her, and she shrieked. Rukhshana gave her a smug look, raising an eyebrow.

And stared.

“…F-Fine,” Sujatha admitted, before hiding her head into her knees. “Maybe… Maybe I’m…”

She felt like someone was tearing out her teeth one by one, having to make such a statement. It would have probably hurt less if it had actually been the case.

Vulnerability was the worst, most humiliating thing in the world. She would rather die than appear weak to anyone, least of all Rukhshana.

Least of all Rukhshana, but…

But, maybe, at the same time, if she had to choose just one person who could see this side of her… then Rukhshana would be the one.

“Maybe… I am… a little scared…”

She wasn’t sure what to expect from her teammate, friend, lover. Maybe some teasing mockery and more laughters; that sounded like something Rukhshana would do, because she sure loved to tease her.

Instead, she felt something warm and soft on her back; a hand, she quickly realized, and when she raised her head, she was meet by a pair of soft, kind violet eyes that shined in the dim room.

“You are so ridiculous,” Rukhi said, but there was only fondness in her voice for once. “You know you got me and Andry actually worried here, right? If it was just about something so silly then you could’ve just told us. We’re your comrades.”

Of course she couldn’t have just told them, and of course it wasn’t just something silly; no matter how ‘ridiculous’ it seemed, it was still a weakness to Sujatha, and she could never let any weakness be seen to anyone. Well, except for now, it seemed.

“We’re all afraid of something. What’s the point of being friends if we can’t rely on each other to parry our weaknesses?”

Sujatha didn’t feel like fighting on the topic, so she just looked away, escaping Rukhi’s dark, deep eyes. Maybe the other girl knew it was a pointless argument to have at the moment, because she just shook her head before sitting right next to her girlfriend, their shoulders brushing. She pulled the blanket and covered up both of their heads with it.

When Sujatha looked at Rukhshana again, her face was only inches away from her own, her breath on her lips.

“Don’t be scared,” Rukhi said, smiling. “I’ll stay with you for the entirety of the storm. Okay?”

Rukhi extended her hand toward Sujatha, and while the former muttered a small ‘Idiot,’ she grasped it without a second thought. Rukhshana then leaned in and pressed her lips to hers, giving a gentle, comforting kiss as she was oft to do.

Sujatha let herself melt into her lover’s embrace, hiding her head into the corner of her shoulder, retracting into her arms every time a thunder shattered their peace.

And here, hidden under the blanket, away from the storm and from the whole world with only Rukhshana’s heartbeat and warmth for company, she didn’t feel so scared anymore.

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moviemunchies · 2 years

Photo

I thought it’d be good to rewatch Jurassic World for when the next movie comes out. In theory I’d watch Fallen Kingdom again but I don’t have time for that. I got other things to do. So just this one, because I hadn’t seen it since it was in theaters.

Jurassic World starts in an interesting place: the park is open, it’s wildly successful. Problem is that the owners of Jurassic World are worried that people find dinosaurs too tame now, and so they opt to use genetic engineering to create a hybrid dinosaur, the Indominus Rex. As you can predict, the monster escapes and begins causing havoc in the park, and so the park’s staff has to figure out a way to contain the situation and keep people safe while not getting eaten.

So about this movie…it’s, um…

[folds hands]

It’s kind of pretty dumb. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fantastic popcorn flick because of it, and I am very happy that I got to see it in theaters. It’s the kind of movie you enjoy seeing and have a lot of fun with while you’re watching, but there’s a lot being juggled and I don’t think most of it really works, or is very smart. It’s AWESOME, or at least a lot of it is, but it’s also pretty dumb.

Let’s excuse that they managed to actually open this park after everything that’s already happened–yeah, that’s dumb, but that’s a believable kind of dumb, the different kind of dumb then what I’m talking about.

Let’s start with the overstuffed aspect: there are four main characters we’re following, who all have got a lot going on. Like first off, we’ve got these two boys, Zach and Gray, the brothers, who don’t always get along but are on this vacation together. In theory, they’re meant to be with their aunt Claire, but she’s running the park and doesn’t have the time. They’re given a babysitter, Zara, who they ditch the first chance they get. But also their parents are getting divorced. But ALSO Zach has a girlfriend but he keeps checking out every girl he sees while standing in line in Jurassic World.

That’s kind of a lot? And the only things that really get resolved from that are their relationship with Claire (kind of?? They like Owen better) and that they get along with each other better, bonding over the experience of trying to not die in the park.

That’s not getting into InGen has Owen training raptors to prove it can be done, so that they can create a genetic super-dino that’s officially a new attraction but actually so that they can market dinosaurs to the military as weapons? And Owen’s relationship with the raptors is its own subplot.

As well as Owen and Claire’s relationship! Which is, like, they used to date, but she was too uptight, or something? And given that the movie seems to be pushing that Claire needs to spend time with her nephews, and her development is accepting her family, some audience members read the movie as saying she needs to stop being a career woman so she can get with the guy and hence, a very sexist character arc. It doesn’t help that she’s wearing heels the entire movie. I don’t think that was the intention, but it seems a series of missteps on someone’s part to not think of that reaction.

Thing I need to throw out there: Katie McGrath was done dirty in this movie. I remember seeing this movie, and also in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, both of which utterly waste her. She’s a great actress, and she’s in this movie to be the boys’ babysitter and then die horribly. In a weirdly mean-spirited way, usually reserved for massive douchebags in these kinds of movies? It’s jarring how horrible, drawn-out, and humiliating her death is.

There’s also a ridiculous amount of product placement in this movie. And I understand that the movie takes place in an active resort and theme park, which obviously would have restaurants and the like there. So I didn’t mind much, but it is kind of a lot and it’s fairly noticeable.

Overall though, I think the main thing that sticks with me is this: what is this movie really about? The original Jurassic Park movie is about how trying to harness and control nature, especially nature that you don’t understand, is a flawed endeavor that’s going to end disastrously. It tones down the book’s themes of how greedy douchebags are going to cut corners in their pursuit of profit, but it at least had that serious ‘controlling nature’ theme. But this movie feels like it doesn’t understand that, because the park apparently works under competent management. It’s just that they make a hybrid dinosaur.

And while you can read the ‘made a hybrid dinosaur’ as ‘trying to control nature’ we find out that the reason it was made was because, after seeing that training raptors was potentially possible, someone decided that it’d be cool to try to make dinosaurs for military applications. So it doesn’t read as ‘Trying to control nature is BAD’ as much as ‘The military is made up of short-sighted douchebags who will always screw up a good thing by building and keeping an obviously unstable serial killer dinosaur!’

That’s kind of a far cry from what the original movie is about. Plus, the idea that humans and dinosaurs CAN bond is an interesting one, if not really utilized all the well in this movie. I’d have liked to have seen how the zookeepers of Jurassic World interact with other species.

So it all leads to a final fight which is dumb, because it’s just the “good” dinosaurs fighting the evil one. But you know what? I still love it. I love that final fight. Because no matter how dumb it is, it is objectively five times as AWESOME as it is dumb. Watching dinosaurs duke it out on the big screen is always going to be a fun time, and it is well worth paying to see this movie just for that.

That’s far from the only really cool scene in this movie. That’s just the best one, and thankfully it’s saved for the climax.

If you want to see cool dinosaur action, or a sort of loud monster movie where you don’t have to think too much, then Jurassic World will do the trick. If you’re really hoping for something as smart or meaningful as the original… welp, this movie’s not going to do it for you. You might get mad, in fact, because it’s a pretty dumb movie.

#Jurassic World #Movie Munchies #reviews #Jurassic Park

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notesofarichlycolorednight · 12 days

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s2ep17 frozer

i think i'm just gonna list the things i liked and didn't like

i don't like how persistent and insistent adrien/chat noir is for ladybug. again, i really think it's a very scary and dangerous pattern to teach children. obviously anyone of anyone gender should respect the person they like and their boundaries, but esp teaching young boys that they need to respect young girls's boundaries and bodily autonomy (whether either of them stay that way later in life).

i did however think plagg's sad face in adrien's bag was very funny.

the creator is trying to reignite the race war between chinese ppl and japanese ppl fr /j

i'm annoyed that, like with master fu decoding the grimore, or the fact that kim swims and has a a close friend who's crushing on me, we don't get any hints that kagami fences with adrien until this episode. bc last we saw, she had been defeated and then akumatized.

i thought marinette chatting with her friends was a cute little scene, but it's kind of soured by the fact that 1) all they talk about is adrien (so it doesn't pass the bechdel test) and 2) her friends don't even listen to her when she says she thinks they're just meant to be friends

honestly, yknow, i just didn't like this episode. which is not surprise. i just didn't like the set-up or the premise. again, i think under a better writing team and creator, the love square could work. i might still be annoyed with it, but maybe i would be less annoyed if it was actually done well on a technical level.

but i don't feel any stakes or miscommunication drama. all i see is a teen boy not respecting his partner's boundaries and who doesn't listen to marinette, and a teen girl who is unable to speak to her crush at all, and barely listens to him, either. like that's just. idk basic? and it feels dumb.

once again the pacing was absolutely shot because they had to spend half the episode setting up the love square, and the introduced love interest rivals. so what does that make that? if it's a love square, and luka is connected to mareintte, and kagami is connected to adrien,,,like some sort of creature i guess. the square is the face and the off-shoots are like. ears or smth. but anyway the fact that they wasted half the episode introducing and setting up the love creature means they had to rush through everything else.

instead of like. using other episodes to establish that beforehand.

someone in a server i'm in, after reading some of my posts on this, commented that this show is like french rwby and they were so on the money with that one. like all i can think about is hbomb commenting about how they could've set up so many new characters through naturalistic storytelling and instead decided to spend half their season on a prom arc.

ml is like that but like for everything. ondine makes a brief appearance in frightingale and suddenly we're supposed to know that she and kim are so close that she confesses her love to him??? the leap the audience has to make!!!

i also just was annoyed at both marinette and adrien the whole episode bc of how they acted at the skating rink. but i won't go into that here bc i think it's more personal than an actual critique. could it have been written better, absolutely. but i don't think i would've liked it all the same.

i do feel bad for luka. it's very weird they made him the way he is. why introduce him as a potential love rival when 1) adrien isn't going to pay attention bc he will always want ladybug and 2) luka isn't even going to fight for marinette? where's the drama in that?

that does remind me tho, i did want to complain about the fact that adrien doesn't listen to kagami. like she says something and he completely ignores her! she tells him it's not his technique, and 5 seconds later, he goes, "it must be my technique." like my dude. maybe if you like. actually listened to the girls who talk to you, you'd have better chances understanding them.

and it goes the same for marinette, too. luka asks if she wants to ride the subway back together and marinette completely ignores him in favor of watching adrien leave. she doesn't even indicate she heard him. and then what does she do? nothing! she just stutters and stumbles and it goes nowhere!!

also can i just say the fact that she was like, "let's bring the whole gang next time" and then instead of listing their classmates, who have been shown to hang out together--they went to the goddamn movies last time--she lists the two they were just with, and alya and nino. which, funnily enough, pairs them off quite nicely. /sarcasm

tl;dr what is this romance doing in my superhero show lol

also now that i've started ice skating, the fact that both luka and kagami can do those moves on ice indicates way, way more practice than you would think. there's no way, based on their comments to the skating coach, that they would be able to skate that well if they did not get consistent practice. luka especially bc he lifts marinette!! adrien and marinette too. i've seen inexperienced ppl and first-timers, they are not that steady, nor that confident. even when they're with more experienced skaters. they move slow, they hang close to the wall. that was so unrealistic lmao. don't give ppl false ideas about how easy ice skating is man.

finally, this man couldn't get ppl skating?? in paris, france?? france, where adam siao him fa is from????? hello???

#chirp.txt #chirp.ml

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regarding-stories · 1 year

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Tropes, I guess (things happening a lot in light novels, anima, and manga)

Just a random assortment of things that recur a lot in anime, but also in light novels and manga. Mind you, I'm pretty late to this game, but these are the ones that quickly keep piling up.

Shrine Maidens

While watching A Couple of Cuckoos I did wonder where I had seen another character that is a shrine maiden. For Gingitsune: Messenger Fox of the Gods it was an obvious necessity for the plot, so that wasn't it. That took me back a few years to my first encounter with Steins;gate, the shrine "maiden." (Lukako's gender is only one of these interesting tidbits that make Steins;Gate stand out. Just watch the anime. I love it.)

While shrines are a part of Japanese culture, the Japanese aren't very religious (I hear) and hence shrines typically feature for the visit on the New Year (including receiving fortunes). As far as I can see, shrines are tended by families and shrine maidens are portrayed as children that work and learn the trade early.

Double-Ds

It's hard to miss. In order to be a love interest, the girl often is quite well-endowed. Boys regularly obsess about the formidable frontend of fiery females, comment about it - or the lack thereof.

Gratuitous look at the locker room? A Couple of Cuckoos has you covered to remind you about Hiro's and Erika's assets. So does Ruka's original sweater entrance in Rent-a-Girlfriend. The artist creating the inserts for Sword Art Online openly admits "upsizing" little sister Suguha when designing her look. Then there are the top-heavy insanities of Cautious Hero.

Sometimes male protagonists obsess (Jobless Reincarnation, Rent-a-Girlfriend), sometimes they are completely oblivious (Quintessential Quintuplets), or some middle ground. Don't worry, though, the camera will ensure that you see what the protagonist doesn't.

Visits to the theme park, arcade...

I get it. Tokyo is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. But I still give bonus points to Sword Art Online for featuring a date happening in the gardens of the Imperial Palace. Because nature. The artificiality of date activities is keenly reflected in the artificiality of the spots. Sad.

Odd, though. Karaoke isn't that heavily represented. Rent-a-Girlfriend features it mostly as a workplace. Aggretsuko has it, but also for plot reasons. Maybe it's more associated with what drinking age adults do?

Drinking

And not just drinking. Drinking like you want to die. When it's on, it's on. It's not a pleasant pub chat with beers. It's for getting pissed. Apparently, if you want to enjoy your alcohol, maybe go out for eating instead?

Understandably less featured when focusing on younger people, with an odd emphasis on "I'm not old enough yet." Age 19, no no. Age 20, binge up!

Overcoming inhibitions through alcohol seems to be a major Japanese cultural theme, like the idea of telling your boss your opinion while drunk, and drinking often seems to follow cultural rules that sometimes seem a bit odd to the outsider.

Shower (and bath scenes)

I really wanted a GIF of an Asuna shower scene to illustrate this one, but I found none... Asuna gets shower scenes even if the book doesn't have one (strictly speaking). In a callback to "Double Ds" section above, the character also keeps getting curvier - definitely when compared to what she was originally conceived to look like (illustrated by the author). Why am I calling out the Sword Art Online Progressive movie, specifically? Because Asuna is 15 at this point.

Shower and bath scenes are obviously primarily meant for the male part of the audience (or anyone who enjoys such), it's fan service over and over. Rent-a-Girlfriend definitely likes showing off its main love interest deliberating things while having a shower when she doesn't actively feature in her Katsuya's fantasy sequences. But there's a charm to Katsuya's fantasies, as they hit home how many men think. The shower scenes, however, do not.

We encounter our female protagonists covered in nothing but foam, their own luscious long hair, or "peeking out" of conveniently opaque water. In some cases, like the Quintessential Quintuplets scene with Itsuki at the baths in her grandfather's inn, basically nothing is left to the imagination.

Until I watched My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU I wasn't sure there was a series that didn't showcase its heroine like that. (Damn, that show is good.)

Forced apologies

(I really couldn't find an image for this one.)

Apologies feature a lot in anime, bowing your head, teary-eyed saying you're sorry, prostrating yourself on the floor - that's standard fare. And shows of gratitude borrowing the humble language.

What sticks out, however, and always gets to me, is the forced apology where somebody bows down to apologize for somebody else and forces that person's head down as well. There's so much encoded in that scene, usually.

In Romantic Killer, his asshole dad forces Tsukasa to apologize for being a burden, something that does not even reflect the real dynamic between him and Anzu. In A Couple of Cuckoos Erika forces Nagi to apologize with her to Hiro's mother in order to initiate her plan to soften that mother's stance on arranged betrothals. In Quintessential Quintuplets, we see Takebayashi (?) do this to her childhood friend Futaro - as an apology to some of the quintuplets, no less.

Forced apologies feature power, control, humiliation, and social convention in one tight package. They establish one person as superior, whether through status or rank, or by implying that they have the (more) appropriate assessment of the situation. When Tsukasa is made to apologize, his dad forces his view of the situation on him, expressing how much he lacks in understanding his son's anxiety. When Erika plays the "fiancé card" that allows her to do this to Nagi, she probably knows this creates an opening with Hiro's traditional mom to actually talk. In Quintessential Quintuplets, I can only assume that Takebayashi stirs the pot by making this a show of "I know him longer (and hence better)" regarding Futaro, but the scene still mystifies me.

Regardless of intention, this implies that one person has rights regarding the other, and supposedly the better sense. It's very intrusive and powerful.

Little sister has the (legal) hots for Onii-chan

I wouldn't exactly call this commonplace, but seeing it happen twice still counts for a lot. This is not a "hot stepsister" situation. The people involved grew up thinking of each other as blood-related brother and sister until one event reveals they are not.

Suguha from Sword Art Online discovers that she's Kirito's cousin while he is trapped within the deadly game. She then develops feelings for him - twice in fact. In one case to the actual physical person she sees day to day, and in the other case to the virtual person Kirito she meets in Alfheim Online - and both times she's doomed to fail right from the start. (In the end, everybody knows. Or at least the endearing Girls' Ops manga set in ALO suggests so.)

Sachi from A Couple of Cuckoos always had a bit of a big brother thing, but when Nagi and Erika are betrothed she learns that they were never blood-related to begin with. She then immediately begins to become jealous about Nagi's crush on (and his dates with) Hiro. It doesn't help that Nagi's biological father from the Amano family suggests she could also marry Nagi to bring the two families together.

Whereas Suguha's crush is something that might be conceivably happen.... maybe.... A Couple of Cuckoos definitely takes things in a weird direction just for establishing a third heroine with basically no chances whatsoever. Yikes.

Notable for the great lengths of contrived circumstances established to make this happen, while carefully skirting the legal definition of incest.

My friend/grandson/brother is trash, but...

Seems to be a Japanese thing. I mean, a best bud or family member talking favorably of somebody to a love interest - that could happen everywhere. But somehow this whole thing in Japan seems to start with declaring that that person is unworthy scum, buuuuut....

When Klein starts such a speech to Asuna about Kirito I was still surprised. By the time it happened twice (best friend Kibe and his Katsuya's grandma) in Rent-a-Girlfriend I definitely had picked up on the pattern. Little sister about older brother. Etc.

Always ends in declaring that the respective individual is unworthy of someone except that he's really a good person. Way to go.

Boys that fall on girls

Nowhere more parallel world physics are involved than in leading to the inevitable scene where a couple of not-yet-involved people end up on the ground with one of them basically almost pinning the other person down. Everybody blushes, the sudden closeness has its effect, somebody may avert their gaze - and in some cases there's even a swift kick to the unmentionables.

Outright staple in Rent-a-Girlfriend where you can use it to track the "progress" Katsuya and Chizuru are making, but present across the board. Almost hilariously double-inverted in My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU when this happens in the end by the still-young teacher falling on top of Hachiman.

As a scene this is a convenient staple to bridge the carefully maintained distance that keeps the Japanese out of each other's space unless they ride a subway.

Hilarious for the great lengths that are sometimes employed this happens. Watch the camera and motions carefully how they are arranged to hide the fact it is physically impossible. When Chizuru leans over the railing and Katsuya pulls her back by the hips (eventually) they both stumble but he still ends up on her, inspite of both stumbling backwards and him pulling. Bugs Bunny has nothing on it!

#anime tropes

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sokkastyles · 3 years

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Abused kids are often not aware of or have trouble regulating their own emotions but tend to, conversely, be hyper aware of and tapped into the emotions of others. This is a survival mechanism in people who grow up with an abusive parent, because any sudden changes in the mood of the parent could indicate danger. See the scenes of Zuko when he is with Ozai, particularly in "The Awakening" and in the flashback to the war meeting in "The Phoenix King," when Zuko carefully measures his responses to his father's praise, because even accepting praise is dangerous and could be a trap.

Although Zuko is often oblivious in social interactions, he actually shows a pretty keen insight when it comes to mediating and understanding what the others need once he joins the gaang. He figures out that the loss of his firebending is connected to his change of coat, he helps Aang overcome his fear of fire at the same time he overcomes his own mental blocks with regard to his element, and he realizes that Sokka will go on a foolhardy mission to rescue his father no matter how much Zuko warns him that it's dangerous, so he resolves to go with him. Particularly in "The Southern Raiders" he pretty astutely figures out that the source of Katara's anger was her unresolved feelings about her mother's murder, and knew how to help her. He also shows keen insight into what Katara needs. Aang, though he means well, responds to Katara with moralizing that just makes her angrier and more determined to go her own way. Zuko offers her the means and lets her lead the way, and defends her to Aang after Katara had made it clear she did not agree with Aang. Zuko, in fact, gets angry at Aang on Katara's behalf, and interestingly, Katara, the person who regularly told off anyone who ever said a bad word to Aang and who, a few episodes ago, threatened to kill Zuko himself if he ever hurt Aang, says nothing in response to Zuko’s sarcastic words to Aang, only thanks Aang for understanding in a tone that implies that she doesn’t think Aang understands at all.

Zuko also seems to be aware of the tension between Katara and Aang at the end of the episode, as he purposefully leaves Katara on Ember Island and goes to speak to Aang himself about what happened when they confronted Yon Rha. This implies not only that Zuko knew Katara needed space to process her feelings, but that he knew that Aang and Katara would need time away from each other after the angry way they parted, and it also implies that Zuko wanted to explain Katara's perspective to Aang, fearing that Aang would misunderstand. Aang actually misunderstands anyway, wrongly assuming that Katara had forgiven Yon Rha, and Katara angrily tells him that she will never forgive her mother's murderer, but does forgive Zuko.

Zuko tells Aang that he was right about Katara, although that is contradicted by what Katara just said and the events of the episode. I know some people theorize that this was a result of a lack of unity in the writing, but I also don't think it's out of character for Zuko to say this, even though he also ultimately disagrees with Aang's stance on violence. Zuko is again playing a mediator role and playing both sides a bit, because the episode positions him between Aang and Katara, but he also leaves Aang with a challenge to his moral absolutism.

So I don't think it's a stretch to assume that in the very next episode, Zuko was also picking up on some tension between Aang and Katara when he sat between them. I'm not sure he knows about Aang's romantic feelings for Katara - although he would when he hears his actor on stage call Katara "the Avatar's girl" and sees Aang nod. But he does seem to pick up on Aang's irritation being about more than just a taken seat, as he responds with unprompted anger. Zuko also takes note of Aang’s increasing anger throughout the play, with a concerned expression on his face.

Remember what I said about abused kids being hypersensitive to the changing moods of others? It might be that, or Zuko might be feeling anxious about his role in the play and feeling like he doesn’t deserve forgiveness, or it might be that Zuko is hyper aware of the conflict between Katara and Aang carried over from the last episode to this one.

Actually, this shot is particularly interesting because the rest of the gaang is laughing at the portrayal of Toph, including Katara, until Toph shows that she’s pleased by the play’s portrayal of her. Then we see Katara frown, her attention shifting to Aang.

Katara is unhappy that her attempt to get even with Toph backfired, then when she notices Aang as the camera pans to her left, she looks even more unhappy. Then we see the shot above of Zuko looking at Aang with clear concern over the situation. I’m pretty sure that Zuko is aware that something is going on between Katara and Aang at this point. Especially since Aang’s anger at being played by a girl (which is made worse by Toph’s happiness at being played by a boy) is linked to his insecurity about his relationship with Katara, and the play keeps making jokes about it, meant for us to feel sorry for Aang for being put in the “little brother” zone.

I think Zuko was generally anxious going into the play. You can see when they walk in that he has his hood pulled up, to hide his face, because he's aware there's a chance someone will recognize him. So even before the play starts, with its incriminating and humiliating portrayal of him, he is probably already on alert and wants to draw as little attention to himself as possible. Aang's outburst is the kind of thing that would draw attention, and Zuko tries to minimize the attention by insisting that Aang just sit next to him. Zuko also reacts with defensive anger, as he is wont to do when he is anxious or upset, which of course would have the opposite effect from drawing attention away from them. But Aang acquiesces in frustration, and Katara, interestingly, notices the dispute, but just like when Zuko defended her to Aang in "The Southern Raiders," says nothing. Katara also is facing away, fidgety, and looks unhappy while the confrontation is going on. This is also consistent with (and probably contributed to) the way Katara reacts to Aang’s pushiness and accusations later on.

Zuko spends much of the back part of season three physically close to Katara, which is a visual way for the animators to show how close they have grown. It’s not necessarily an indication of romantic Zutara, although there is nothing wrong with interpreting it that way, and I find it hilarious how threatened some people are by shippers gushing over the idea that he wanted to sit next to her, particularly in this episode because this episode actually intentionally plays up the “love triangle” for the purposes of getting the audience to sympathize with Aang and root for him to “get the girl.” Regardless of whether we interpret it in a romantic context, I think it is a good indication of how Zuko feels about Katara once he has gotten her forgiveness. Given Zuko’s social ineptitude, it would make sense that he would be likely to want to stick close to the people he felt closest to, especially in situations where he is surrounded by potentially hostile strangers. Witness his behavior in “The Beach,” where he spent most of the time awkwardly glued to Mai’s side and it was when he was separated from Mai at the party that he ran into trouble with the other partygoers, who make fun of him. That might explain why Zuko, although he comes from the opposite direction when they enter the theater as everyone else does, walks all the way down the end of the aisle to sit next to Katara.

It might also explain why he wants to sit in between Katara and Aang, as these are the two people who he now feels closest to. It also is very likely that he is subconsciously picking up on the tension between Katara and Aang, which comes to a head later in this very episode. It’s worth noting that Zuko is often positioned physically between Katara and Aang throughout this episode, which is meant to communicate to the audience Aang’s anxiety over Katara not returning his feelings (and Zuko plays an indirect part in that, or at least, his stage actor does).

Zuko is also positioned narratively between Aang and Katara as a mediator and comfort to Katara after her fight with Aang in the very next episode, “The Phoenix King,” in which Zuko tells Katara to let Aang figure things out for himself when he runs away after yelling at Katara.

So no, I don’t think the deliberate positioning of Zuko in between Aang and Katara is a coincidence, nor is it “lol Zuko is clueless!” I’m actually very tired of seeing people talk about how clueless Zuko is, especially since a lot of his reactions come from trauma. Even if Zuko didn’t pick up on Aang’s romantic feelings towards Katara he very obviously picks up on and reacts to and interacts with the dynamic between them. And it’s very telling that certain fans will complain about the “infantilization” of Zuko when it’s traits that make him seem sympathetic, but then talk about a traumatized abuse survivor as if they’re completely incompetent.

#zuko #katara #zutara #anti kataang #atla meta #abuse cw #the ember island players #the southern raiders #the phoenix king

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knpjpr · 3 years

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weekend | myg smut

📱synopsis: "weekends are always boring for you, filled with intense amount of screentime, the only excitement you get is from watching your favorite camboy, but what if he lives next door?"

character analysis: yoongi is soft when it comes to you, he can't help it. seeing the small look you give him sets his stomach a blaze, even so making it harder to resist you.

->genre: smut

->pairing: camboy!yoongi x neighbor!reader

->word count: 2.1k (unedited)

->warnings: mutual masturbation, unprotected sex (wrap it up smh), yoongi's a tease and kinda a lil shit, swearing

masterlist

“Fuck”

You said, breathing out a raspy sigh. Watching your favorite cam boy since 1 in the morning, you had been cooped up in the comforts of your bed, the warmth from your sheets surrounding you. It was the weekend, so filled with nothing but ultimate boredom, you might as well spice it up.

He had a very popular following considering the fact he was a huge tease to his audience.

He constantly looked over to the screen, always making you blush under his gaze. Even if he wasn’t directly looking at you, you could still feel the intensity that was behind those brown orbs.

“Do you guys want to switch up on something?” He said softly, your heartbeat fastened to the way he smirked. His room was clearly shown with the way his set up showed, seeing his dark grey walls that ran down to the floor. The corner of his bed was just in sight, but was blocked by his figure that sat effortlessly in front of the camera.

Watching ever so closely, you noticed as he reached down to his legs. The camera facing his lower abdomen, showcasing all of his movements.

You could feel the butterflies in your stomach as you saw his hand glide over the semi-hard bulge that sat in his pants.

“Damn, he really likes to tease.” You said with a heavy breath, obviously flustered with the slow movements from the man behind the screen.

Almost close to unzipping his pants, he laughed, his laugh ringing through your ears as he turned the camera up to meet his face.

“Sorry pretties, I’m not doing that tonight.” His words make you internally pout as you look up towards the corner of your screen, seeing how his views had multiplied to up to five thousand watching.

You were quite jealous, not liking how other girls or boys were drooling over him. You didn’t know this man personally, but with the way he made your stomach churn with need, you didn’t need to know him on an everyday basis.

With a smirk Yoongi was saying his goodbyes for the night, making you even more frustrated.

Twenty minutes passed and you turned off your phone , your attention was instantly drawn to the next door neighbor, a loud bang against the wall. You grew curious, wanting to know if they were okay.

Getting up from your bed, you headed out of your apartment, walking over to the door to the right.

You knocked a few times before it was opened, the door creaking open before showcasing who owned the next door apartment. Eyes growing ten times more in shock as you made eyes with the neighbor.

“Can I help you?” Yoongi asks, raising his eyebrow as you look over his body. His hair is wet, obviously indicating he was fresh out of the shower. Loose clothes covering his body; simple grey sweatpants that hung loosely around his waist, and a plain white t-shirt. His figure resting against the doorframe, a long stare on his face making him look more fuckable.

“I, uh came to see if you were alright..I heard a bang.” You couldn’t think straight, the sound of your heartbeat ringing loudly in your ears, as you could feel your skin crawl in nervousness.

Multiple nights of sexually pent up frustration, and it was all caused and owed to the owner of apartment 213, the man who lived right next door.

“Oh, the shampoo bottle fell hard in the shower, but it’s all okay.” Your sight wouldn’t leave his lips, watching as they pulled off each other with every word he spoke out lowly.

Yoongi didn’t know what was your problem, but the shy demeanor that you showcased made his pride go through the roof. Licking his lips, he pushed his hand through his hair, showing off his forehead as he looked down at you.

“Would you like to come in?” He spoke out slowly, the words sending straight to go in between your legs as you could feel the intense stare he had on you.

Who would you be to reject? Nodding your head lowly, he laughs out shortly, the real sound of his laugh making your heart squeeze, it was cute.

He’s grabbing your hand, guiding you to the kitchen as he’s stepping towards the cupboards. Standing at the island, you watch as he’s turning to you, holding up a cup. “Want something to drink? I haven’t gone grocery shopping, so I don’t know what I have..” His face is showing off an embarrassed tint of red on his cheeks, making you internally coo, shaking your head to his offer.

He placed down the cup, making his way over to sit beside you at the kitchen island, turning his stool over to fully face you. “I’m surprised, I can’t believe I’ve never met you before.” He places a frown on his face, which makes your heart flutter even more.

You still couldn’t believe this, Min Yoongi was sitting inches away from you, the man you had been watching for quite a few months. Nights of always imagining what could conspire when you finally could meet him, and he lived next door all this time.

Eyes watching your every move, he studied you, your frowning eyebrows showing him that you were in an intense thought, which he had found very intriguing. He wasn’t going to lie, when he made first eye contact with you, he was very much into you. Your face was enough to turn him on, and now that you weren’t that away from him, he contemplated straight up asking you if he could do more than just talk.

“Pardon me if I come off a little forward,” He starts talking again, taking your attention as you watch the way he starts to move closer into your personal space. His body smelling of strawberries, most likely from his body wash, but even so, you loved the smell of it.

“Can I kiss you?” That four word sentence could almost kill a person. The words replaying in your head as you had to comprehend what the fuck he just asked you.

He didn’t need an answer, the way you had been looking at him the whole time was answer enough. Grabbing a hold of your t-shirt and pulling you closer, your body now in between his legs.

He didn’t want to scare you, slowly placing his hand to the small of your back as he moved his face to move closer to yours. You didn’t know what to do at the moment. You wanted this truly, wanting more than ever to be under him, feeling him close.

Without any more thought, your lips are connected, your body instantly melting the minute his lips make contact with yours.

It was a mess, but you loved every second of it, his lips fitting perfectly in the space that yours didn’t. His hands holding a strong hold on your hips, the feel of his rings scraping against your shorts.

He’s stopping, pulling away with a huff as his lips are now red and wanting to be back with yours. But he’s stopping himself, making sure you want to take this to the next step. And you were ready, already moving back so he could step off the stool and lead you into his bedroom.

“Are you sure you want this, it’s a hundred percent okay if you don’t.” He’s not leaving his sight off of you, your mind going to answer you always had ready.

You were shocked, never thinking that you would be in the room you had simply seen behind the screen. You’re focused on the surroundings, not noticing how Yoongi is already pulling off his shirt and tossing it into the clothes bin he had beside his dresser.

“Yes, I’m okay, I want this.”

All at once, he’s grabbing onto you, pulling you back into his lips, his scent engulfing you once again. On impulse, you are placing your hands into his hair as he is leading you to the bed. Back hitting the soft sheets, as he’s pulling away again, his body placed over yours.

Without any more time wasted, he’s cupping your breast through your shirt. Fingers reaching down to the hem of your shirt as he’s pulling it over your head. He only sees it fit for you to be just as naked as him. The lace of your bra makes him lick his lips in anticipation.

He wants to savor this moment, sitting back which makes you frown in confusion. He laughs at your face, unzipping his pants and rolling the rest off his hips. “Go on, pull those off.” His tone is more serious this time, softness still on his features as he points towards your waist. Your fingers lock with the bands of your panties and shorts, pulling them down and shifting them off the bed.

You shudder at the feeling of the air nipping your skin, your legs closed and shielding Yoongi’s gaze on the one thing he wanted to see. “Open. Slowly.” He says, not needing to abbreviate more as you could understand what he meant fully. Legs opening at a slow pace enough to show your pussy that had pooled with wetness.

“Fuck that was hot.” He said as he wrapped his hand around the base of his cock, locking eyes with you as he was already hard, his touch making him almost shudder. “Touch yourself baby. I want to watch.” That statement was enough to see the green light in a traffic jam, your hand sliding between your legs as he watched with hooded eyes.

Fingers gliding your entrance, you could already feel the slick that slipped out, making you gasp out to the immediate touch. You were extremely horny, and it wasn’t hard for Yoongi to see that.

Slipping two fingers in, the sound of your moan triggered Yoongi, making him groan as he slipped his hands down the base at a rhythmic pace, his tip leaking pre-cum.

Walls pushing against your fingers as you push in and out, your stomach fluttering with pleasure as Yoongi watches, not being able to pull his sight away.

You had fantasized about this moment, thought of all the pleasure he could give you, but to have him watch you fuck yourself was just the icing on the cake.

Soon enough you could feel your edge pooling in your stomach, legs shaking as you watched his hand travel up and down on the shaft of his cock.

“Ugh fuck, I’m close.” He groaned from his place on the edge of the bed, as you fight the urge to cum right then and there. But a few strokes he’s cumming indicating that you could cum too, your back arching as your high hits your stomach.

He’s watching you still as you calm down, moving to be over your body again, but this time Yoongi has a fucked out expression as he’s taking his cock in his hands again. “Can I fuck you?” He didn’t have to ask, your legs already opened and beckoned him to give you a release, but you're nodding your head. He takes that as an answer, slipping his tip to slip past your folds as you gasp out louder. The feeling is addicting, his lip caught between his teeth as your walls sink down onto him.

He starts to move slowly, letting you adjust to the size of his cock, watching your face as you sink into the sheets more.You’re just as tight as he thought you would be, your walls squeezing his cock with every thrust into.

He’d never fucked someone that has had him this horny, this needy, and he wanted to go further with every thrust of his hips. Your throat hurts and gasps with every bump of your g-spot. His back warm and red as your nails scrape hard with every slap of his skin.

His hands make home everywhere around your body, synced moans that drip with sex as he’s balls deep in your cunt.

The same fluttering feeling is plaguing your stomach as his grunts pick up pace, indicating that he’s just as close as you are. His grip tightening as his stomach is on fire with needed pleasure, your fucked out face plaguing his mind.

“Fuck, I’m about to cum..” He grunts out loud, heavy breaths as his bottom lip bleeds with the hard pressure of his teeth.

Your lips grip harder around him as he stuffs his cock far in your pussy, not lasting any more time before he’s cumming inside.

Deep breaths is all you and him could produce when he’s slipping to the other side of the bed, the both of you out of energy.

“You know..I never got your name..” He speaks out with a tangled voice, the statement making you breathlessly laugh as you look over at him.

“It’s Yn..” He sits there for a moment, not saying a word before he’s resting his body on his side to face you fully, a stupid grin placed on his face as he looks over your body.

“Well Yn..want to make this weekend less boring?

318 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 2 years

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Go Team Venture! A Venture Bros Retrospective: Season 2

Welcome back all you happy people! I’m Jake, I review stuff and this is part 2 of my look back at one of my faviorite shows of all time, The Venture Bros!

To be honest... i’m both jazzed and nervous going into this one. The jazzed comes from you fine people. TONS of you, or at least 30 something liked or reblogged the season 1 review, meaning a lot of you not only took the time to read the thing but some of you liked it enough to spread it around. While I was going to do this regardless of how many people actually read it, it truly warms my heart to know not only that the series still has so many fans but that so many of you like my take on things.

The nervous part is now I have an audience both living up to the first part now i’m getting into the even better parts of the show, and my own expectations. Not only that I have my own fans who may be either checking out the show or following along with these. But even with some nerves i’m jazzed to get back to the world of team venture again.

For those of you just joining us and wanting to catch up

LINK TO PART 1 HERE

So before I get into season 2 proper under the cut like last time let’s dive into the production stuff: These will be shorter going forward as obviously the production for a show in progress is less strenous then birthing an entire series, but ther’es still a lot of intresting insights here and there.

With season 2 Jackson and Doc had breifly moved on to other stuff while waiting for the pickup, which took a while, which Jackson understood, saying in the book that the show being half hour, a bit more expensive and story based, all things adult swim wasn’t doing at the time and even the last one is excedingly rare nowadays, while Doc felt that meant they wouldn’t. And given so many other shows had gotten shot down after one season despite being as brilliant like Clone High (which is only coming back NOW because it’s creators are hugely succesful, not that it shouldn’t have way sooner), so his pessmisim was understandable.. but ultimately unwarranted. The execs picked it up, Doc shrugged and said “here we go again”, and off they went.

The execs also had one request I mentioned last time, and suprisingly for an executive mandate it wasn’t something superflous and stupid like “Add more of the harry potter magic school”, “add two idiot male sidekicks because the lead is *gasp* a girl” or “don’t do this episode based on Labyrinth because kids don’t like muppets even though we owns the muppets”.

In fact it was something Jackson and Doc fully agreed with: Hank and Dean needed to be actual characters, an actual part of things with more fleshed out personalities instead of two dipshits off to the side getting up to their knees in their own stupidity. So while this created the new challenge of having to make plots for them and account for them instead of shoving them off to the side if it was convient, it was MORE than worth the trade off. We’ll get more into the boys later.

The only thing the network, aka Adult Swim head Mike Lazlow , didn’t really like was all the nerdy references and historical stuff, stuff they thought would turn away viewers.. but instead was inviting them in droves. Keep in mind, as Doc puts it himself this was before the nerdy cultural revolution that would take place a few years after this season aired: nerd refrences weren’t as common as they are now nor as celebrated. Thankfully they didn’t outright kill them and the rising raitings next season as well as a growing and vocal fanbase showed the guys made the right call.

The only other major change was background. Jackson HATED the more simplified backgrounds for season 1 and thus changed styles slightly, getting to a middle place before next season where he’d be able to reinvent everything to his liking.

So with that the stage is set for season 2 as the twos writing really gelled and they learned to write together more, coming together before each script and thus leading to a far more tonally consistent show. So join me under the cut to see what that show looks like!

Seasonal Stylings

Season 2 is a weird beast. It’s for the most part, far more put together: now the world’s set up, the characters have firmly settled into who they are and the main cast is set for the most part and treated as such: The boys, as outlined above, are now actual main cast members instead of goofy side characters, and the Monarch’s side of things are likewise now fully recognized and appricated as main cast members instead of a convient writing crutch to get out of making a new villain. He, Dr. Girlfriend and 21 will remain main characters for the rest of the series and 24 will remain one.. .for about another season before he goes to the mourge. The series knows whose important for the most part. The only wrinkle compared to later seasons left is that Dr. O is treated as a main character, and while I wish he had kept as that he’ll be shuffled into the recurring cast after this and outright demoted in importance in seasons 5-7. But I do get it: his magic stuff clashes heavily with the science and superhero stuff the rest of the cast get up to, so he wasn’t as easy to thread in and it would’ve been tricky making a THIRD branch of the cast with the Order of the Triad, so it was easier to juts have him pop in like anyone else.

The weird part comes in the fact that despite firing on all cyllenders, as 8 of the episodes are straight up all-time classics and 2 are stil enjoyable if not as good, three of the episodes stick out as the show still going through growing pains. Episodes with horrible bits that shouldn't of been included at all, a character that never really fit what the show became, and a plot that was good on paper but in practice didn’t play to any of the shows strengths. These three episodes show that while the show had grown a lot it still had some things to work out, some characters to shuffle out of the way so they woudln’t pop up again, that sorta thing. It also contains the one episode where neither jackson or doc were involved.. but that’s ALSO really good, but it shows how the show would become soley their propperty: the reason there hasn’t been spinoffs in comics or in outright other shows is simply because the two are nervous to hand it off to anyone else. Given the work is wholly reflective and built by two people.. it’s understandable. If also a problem in one or two areas we’ll get to.

So that’s really what season 2 is: it’s both the show firing on all cyllenders as the gap both gave them TONS Of ideas and still figuring a thing or two out. Next season isn’t without flaws either, we’ll get to them, but they come more from story choices than simply not knowing what their doing.

There’s one last thing to talk about here and that’s the biggest and best addition to the series this season: Season Long Mon-Arcs. While the most season 1 had for one was “doc has fetus dreams that lead to a better twin brother who tired to kill him but their good now”, from this season on each season has a story arc.... and the main one of the season almost always follows the Monarch and in two cases Gary as he gets one in both season 4 and season 5. It’s what’s happening with the monarch’s little family that usually dictates the focus of the season and always spills over onto our heroes lap as naturally when you hyper fixate on killing a guy your whole life, your life changes are going to be his life changes wether he wants them or not. That’s not to say there aren’t other arcs, my faviorites are the ones Hank and Dean go through from season 4 onward as they grow as people, but the monarch ones are the shows core and out of the characters while he changes the least his situation changes the most from season to season and what he’s going through is a good indicator of what season your in. We’ll get more into these arcs in the character sections so...

Roll Call:

Since I gave them a good lead in and it’s their first big arc, Team Monarch gets to take point for this one.

First up is the Big M himself. While the rest of his cast gets fleshed out a lot, the Monarch is mostly left the same, but we get to see him in a far more pathetic place. And yes ther’es a more pathetic place than constnatly stalking a man who is more annoyed with your schtick than declaring vengance or seeing you as his sworn enemy. At the start he’s in prison, trying to break out with a bunch of half baked villians from a white suprmacist bit of white noise (Which as Monarch puts it kinda undercuts the white supremacist schtick when youc an’t see his skin and it comes out more blue), and Mr. Monday, whose the callender man if he never took hannibal lecter classes. And they all turn on his ass thanks to Phantom Li mb, with King Gorilla only helping our hero because he sees how much he truly loves Dr. Girlfriend.

So Monarch’s forced to rebuild, as at the start his only henchman left are 21 and 24, the only people left who geninely care about him and missed him. Though while he still treats them like crap it does change their importance: he leans on them more from here and they slowly grow from just his henchman to his only friends who just happen to also be guys he pays to wear costumes for him. He brings them along on most escapades and trusts them enough to go recurting. Granted that backfires horribly the first time but given the Monarch has a full team again by mid-season, it works. His orignizatoin is still a wreck without Dr. Girlfriend managing it, but it would be non existant without his two best boys on the case.

He spends the rest of the season doing his usual schtick of hunting dr. venture or pining for Dr. Girlfriend; he tries winning her back at first, but fails horribly: the best he can do is demand her back, which fails since he can’t reisist having his men arch dr venture when he falls into their lap, or try and make her jealous with a horribly gone blind date that just pisses her off instead. All he does is prove to her he’s the same, insecure jealous ass who can’t pick her over his arching dr. venture or see her as an equal in their relationship. The most he can do for a while is just pick up a prostitue, have her act like dr girlfriend and send her through a horrible murder gauntlet becaue the writers wanted to remind the audience the monarch is a bad person.... and did so by traumtizing an innocent sex worker who just wanted a paid job instead of you know, anything else that didn’t involve using a woman in peril as a punchilne just because of her job. As a wise mike once said “I support sex workers uninozing their services” so this joke really dosen’t land anymore and relaly never did.

He only gets her back with some help from Dr. Henry Killinger, who uses an elaborate setup to get him his #2 and girlfriend back, and does so the only way thta would work: by giving Dr. G his diary, showing how much the guy truly loves and misses her beneath the sneering layers of super villiany and how lost he’s been. That he truly DOES care.. he’s just a fuckwit at showing it and she knew that going in. Some sneaking around behind phantom limb’s back later, this wears off a bit until Malcom Proposes.... and does the biggest step of giving up dr. venture for her. Given how he seems to often love his brother more than his future wife, that.. that says a lot. It says he loves her more than arching dr. venture. And while he’ll struggle with NOT doing so, including some slip ups, he does do his best to actually honor his promise and form here while thei rmarrige encouters issues.. he’s more honest with her and puts her before work. He dosen’t grow much but he grows enough they can care about each other.

Shiela herself gets a ton of fleshing out: Seperated from the monarch, she’s now queen etherea again and we get some valuable shading to her that makes her one fo the series best characters and one of the strongest female characters in adult animatoin: she starts out defind by the men in her life.. but this season makes clear she’s her own woman. She’s badass, instnatly leading a rescue mission when she thinks Phantom Limb’s been kidnapped using hank and dean, and easily breaking into the cocoon and taking out it’s far more competnet at the time enforcers with only a pre-badass 21 for backup.. which is to say single handed. She’s also fleshed out as to have had her own attempted solo career as lady au pair, and been a serial number 2

We also see with her love life that while she’s good at being second in command.. she dosen’t take shit form her partners: As I said she rejects Malcom till he geninely tries to change and slowly grows bored of phantom limb not because the plot says so or because of some bullshit about being fickcle: she grows tired of him because he’s a pompus, self important jackass who puts no real heart or craft into his villany anymore (instead selling paintings), and who treats her like a sexy lamp instead of the person she is. She’s with him because he seemed to value her.. and sours on him because he truly dosen’t and leaves him because Malcom did the one thing LImb never did... made a geninuine effort to change for her. It was her choice all the way, even if it was a tad rushed, but hey they had 13 episodes and just got to plotting season long arcs. They’d get better.

Finally we have 21 and 24 who also get fleshed out as we see who they are outside of being henchman: 24 naturally, like me, is a pudgy geek who sells what of his stuff he can online and lives with his mom, and 21 is a mixure of ray ramno and jerry seinfield and is as handsome as that sounds. The two do.. okay without him but it’s very clear Gary loves being a henchman and the life and turns a support group to quit the life into a rallying cry to beco me villians and two seconds of talking with 24 get both missing their old boss. The two love this stupid career they picked and 21′s repsonse to getting it back is to break into a hilarous and awesome entrance sequence. to him this is his best life: being a goddamn henchman and someday his own supervillian. He may not be the best but he’s happy and that’s what counts to our boy and for 24.. it’s a fun paycheck what can he say and he gets to hang out with his best buddy every day. The two are very much a double comedy act, the optimstic and nerdy 21 and the more realistic and pesmistic 24, the kind you see often especially in this show, and outside it as seen as recently as smiling friends. But they work because their just so damn funny and likeable and relatable you can’t help but enjoy them.

So now it’s time to go team venture.. starting with Doc.

Yeah Doc sadly hasn’t changed much, only gaining scraps of the tragic depth that will make him tolerable later. For most of the season he’s a bullying dickhead, taking out his crap on his boys, Orpheous, Brock and Billy. The latter is only for one episode but he and White treat him SO shittly in the span of said episode, and in only maybe 2-3 minutes of it at that, that it gets on here. He’s a chore to be around a lot of the time and there’s not one episode in the season where he’s not a complete dick at some point. He can be a FUNNY dick sometimes, and those examples help ballance it out.. but the series sometimes struggles to make him symapthetic or tolerable, with some episodes really having him ramp up being a shit head to levels that make them hard to watch, with “I Know Why the Cage Bird Kills” being the standout as he outright accuses poor Dr. O of trying to seduce him.. and also claims the guys a predatory homsexual because of course he belives that hurtful myth

Rusty Sucks Sup...

Not yet, we’ll add that one at the episode capsule. Thankfully like with the boys thin characterizations, the guys realized they can’t go on forever just having him be shitty without any depth or development, and tackle the problem head on next season in his very first episode.

Onto Brock.. whose also insufferable at times himself but who does grow a LOT this season. In season 1 while he loved the boys.. it was also clear he was mildly unsatisfied in the roll as nanny and cooly detached from anything but them. This season.. he’s settled in. He and Doc are closer now, being more like friends. Brock will still ignore doc but now it’s less brushing him off as a possible friend, and more simply ignoring Doc when he’s letting his ego or inherent selfishness get in the way of the right call. He goes over his head in “20 Years to Midnight” and let’s JJ help, ignoring Doc’s protests because he knows Doc ONLY wants to do this alone out of ego and there isn’t time for that when the world is at stake. The other time is just plain priorites: Doc wants Brock to come back and guard him while the boys are in danger in “Victor. Echo. November.” and tries to fir ehim for.. not doing that so he can save the boys. And as we see Brock getting there in time is the ONLY thing that keeps Phantom Limb from killing them. Granted with the clone thing I do get on some level putting his own life above them.. but at the same time Triana was shaken up enough by the boys death ONCE and Kim dosen’t deserve that, nor do the boys deserve to die while Rusty is stable and can call for more help via his watch and as shown by the stinger DID make it. Brock’s positon as the only real adult on the compound is solidified here. He’s a good parent to the boys, his deep connection with hank fully formed here while still willing to endulge dean from time to time.

We also get insight into why he is the way he is: we meet his mentor and one of the shows funnest characters Col Hunter Gathers, aka Hutner S Thompson if he were also nick fury, who honed Brock into a weapon and gave him his slightly sexist “no women’ code and his far more understandable “no children “ code. We see why he is the way he is and see he has rules and standards.

His best episode and biggest character development comes in ‘Viva Los Muertos!”. In it Doc creates a venturestien out of dead henchman.. and Venturestiens fear of brock because Brock killed him leads to guilt. Brock not only remembers the guy but relaizes he didn’t HAVE to. It’s one thing to kill a guy threatning the family: they attack the ventures, they know the risks. But grabbing a fleeing guy just to kill him.. that really eats at Brock. is he really that much of a monster?

So he goes to Dr. O whose having a party where their all taking a spirtual journey via hallucongens and in doing so Brock almost realizes we’re all one.. before a vision of hunter tells him their not, Brock is a weapon an da gun dosen’t feel bad it just kills. Brock goes into a blood frenzy.. but only kills two guys who were threatning the boys. But it’s what happens AFTER the frenzy that’s the most poignant. Brock makes amends with his victim. He could’ve just followed hunter and ignored his guilt and kept killing just to kill or followed the hallunation dolphin and became aa man of peace.. but instead he becomes who he is. He kills.. but to protect his kids and make a better world. He dosen’t kill someone who isn’t trying to fight him back. Sure he still has some levels to go in maturity, but it’s a marked change from the hair trigger killing machine he was last season: he now sees that killing isn’t waht he is, but a tool to be used when necessary.

That said.. Brock sucks a LOT of this season. We’ll count those up later, but it’s all around one “trait” of his...: Brock sampson in season 2.. is DEEPLY transphobic.

But that dosne’t REMOTELY make it okay and the creators really should’ve known better than to make brock this much of a creep. But yeah he thinks Dr. Girlfriend is trans.. and as such calls her a man, is derogtory to her partners and says really henious shit about her. To the Monarch’s credit he just brushes it off as Brock being jealous or being a dick, as he should, and like any decent human being dosen’t care if she is trans and dosen’t ask because that’s not something you ask a person nor an answer that matters. But Brock’s treatment of the very idea a woman is trans and treating her like some sort of frankenstines monster because of it is just gross and while it’s played clearly as Brock being an ass, Phantom limb shocks him for it.. the framing isn’t great as the show goes out of i’ts way to say that “yeah she’s NOT though”. Which is stupid. It dosen’t matter if she is or isn’t, a trans woman isn’t a punchline.

The show and Brock’s transphobia dosen’t end there though as Brock’s reaction to Hunter having a sex change... is played off as a joke, with “oh get it they became a woman to avoid being killed ain’t that wacky” which for starters

But yeah.. the show’s treatment of trans people isn’t great. While this was 2004 and next season does away with the dr. girlfriend joke entirely, firmly confirming she isn’t trans to put an end to it and having a great bit in season 4 mocking hanks’.. warped understanding of how trans and gay people work. (Which works since hank is inncoent and his only source of info on this would be either a blatnat transphobe or a moron whose also likely transphobic)

youtube

Only vid I could find with it but it’s at the top so it works out. Point is they got better.. but I still wisht hey’d included an actual trans character at some point, as well as you know.. not done any of this crap in the first place but still. Hutner KINDA is but it’s hard to tell their gender identity. He may just be a man who wants boobs, which is fine, good for him. We truly dont’ know because they didn’t care to tell you. I love the show wholeheartdly, but I won’t ignore when it fucks up and ti’s treatment of trans people is i’ts greatest fuckup and while I doubt the movie will fix this.... I have a small hope it just might in the final hour. A small one but sometimes the biggest wonders are the tiniest.

As i’ve been building to the boys get the biggest changes this season and for the better. While their still very much a two pack of dofuses who primarily hang out in the same plots at this point in the show, they now play off each other diffrently.

As Jackson put it he wanted the two to be a touch more relalistic in how they interacted with each other; as such instead of hank being a big brother bully he more playfully ribs his brother while Dean isn’t afraid to call out his brother’s stupidity or lunacy once in a while. More importantly though there’s a real sense of love and camradery from the two. Sharing a brain has been replaced with the two loving and supporting one another and boosting each other up: Hank tries to stop dean from being forced married to Baron Underbehit and Dean is concerned when hank gets a massive crush on Mol and takes down his posters. There’s a warm, lived in feeling to their interactoins now, as two people who know each other best and are there for each other the most. Doc may be their on paper dad and brock may be their real dad but in terms of accepting and supporting one another the two are unmatched.. and it’s the last time things will be this perfect for them as next season Hank slowly drifts from his brother thanks to getting a new friend and from then on the pull apart will go stronger and stronger till, as I said they have entirely seperate plots. It’s honestly sad knowing where their relationship ends for now and seeing them so happy and working together so greatly and knowing Dean will pine for these treasured days of youth only a few years and 5 seasons from now.

We also get one of the shows most important reveals thanks to their deaths: Their clones. They SHOULD be 19 by now but are instead both 16 at the start of the season due to dying constantly, with a handy death montage. In a move that I STILL swear inspiried the krakoa era of x-men doc keeps back up “slugs” of them , grown chronolgically to give it a realistic limittation (he only has so many and once their used up that’s it and making new ones would mean starting over, and witht heir memories backed up on an old computer bank, which itself is a nice hint that like most things in the compound, Doc didn’t make this. It also explains why they don’t remember their deaths or certain things: the backups only go back so far much like when a mutant is restored from deaths nowadays so Doc’s never had to tell them. And while horrific.. it also shows deep down.. Doc does care. Sure he’s a shitty enough parent his boys die constantly, but his life would be easier if they died. No one would’ve known early on he COULD do this, Brock only found out through working with them. Pre-Brock no one else likely would’ve cared. He’d have more money, more resources and more freedom... yet despite how it seems like a no brainer he’d just let them stay dead.. he dosen’t. He brings them back and keeps them in the dark both out of love. He knows they can’t handle the truth, and as we see at this point in their characters learning puts them in a “see your own clone coma” and only doc lying that the clones were a hidden birthday present saves them. He brings them back because no matter how stupid or disapointing he finds them.. their his sons, he loves them and he’s going to bring them back no matter how many times it takes because he won’t loose them due to fate or his own stupidity. For all I give Doc shit this season, and I should he sucks, I can say this reveal puts him in a diffrent light. It dosen’t excuse his abuse, he’s still an ass.. but it shows some part of him does care, the same part that mentors dean this season. Their his boys, no matter how many times he has to rescue them from death’s icy grip.

As for their evolution as individuals, it’s best to start with the Bat. Hank has changed the most, going from a 50s idea of what a jock is to a boistrous froot loop who gladly charges into danger despite having no idea what he’s doing. The seeds were there last season, but they sprout here, and as a result hank gets up to shenanigans or says something quotable almost every episode.

And of course it’s impossible to talk about Hank’s growth as a character or his shenanigans without the apex of both, The Bat. Aka Hank putting on his 60′s made batman costume, putting on a gravely voice and thinking that makes him batman. It’s one of the funniest bits the shows ever done, from the fact Hank dresses as batman EVERY year ruining his dad’s group costume, to hank’s woes about getting his tounge caught in his mask slit but not being able to stop himself.

To his only acomplishment being tripping over himself. And this batman obession becomes one of the most integral parts of hanks character: costume or no he geninely thinks his destiny is to BECOME some version of batman.. and as shown on his college essay later he has multiple options in mind. It codifies Hank as a lunatic who thinks he’s the cool teen hero learning the ropes till he becomes brock in a batman costume some day instead of a lovable dipstick who has the survival instinct of the tick without the invulnerability. To him his world is batman and not a messed up version of the same good guy on bad guy violence and it’s awesome because of that and thus he must be batman.

Another key development is Hank discovers girls. Oh sure he had crushes before, but seeing Moltov not only gives him his first one on a real person but codifies that he likes athetlic , kick ass women. It goes poorly sure, but it shows hank likes girls not just for being pretty but for being talented. He’s utterly thrilled when his blind date Kim comes off as a supervillian due to her outfit. Granted said date shows he also has no game if hilaroius so, from wanting dean to tell them he jumped trash cans to calling himself hankanator, even in love he has suicidal overconfidence, though he gets that from his old man so it’s not too suprising. Hank has fully emerged as the delightful ball of crazy I love and relate to and i’m here fo rit.

Dean meanwhile has grown into the ball of light anxietys and unabashed geekery I also relate to. He’s now firmly the sentivie one, having no stigma the time had abotu wearing a dress for a play, putting on said play to woo his crush, and trying to give her a corsage.. that brock tosses because he sucks. He may have an antiquitated idea of how to woo girls but he has a chivlarous charm, being less incel “m’lady” and more geninely doing things like pulling out chairs or corsages because he’s geninely sweet and also was raised in a timewarp of a house/compound so he’s a few decades behind. He’s the most likekly to panic but also the most entusastic about mysteries, the area hank needs to drag him to earth on, and the most well read. He’s a good kid who the world’s about to take over i’ts knee and break... starting with his hallucination, which tells us he’s NOT happyw ith the boy adventuer lifestyle and keeps himself in deep denial over it, which like hanks drive to be batman, will become his own driving force: to be normal and escape the life his dad set out for him.. ironically just like his dad.

We also have his crush on Triana which is both adorable.. and doomed. This season underlines their very diffrent people: Triana, while a future witch, is normal, staying out, doing light drugs like beer or pot, she’s a normal kid whose dad just happens to dress like dracula and has dr. strange’s job. Dean isn’t: he was born in a timewarp, has overly romantic notions and is painfully awkward, to the point a sex talk horrifies the shit out of him. Then again Doc gave said sex talk and just seeing the visuals of that horirfied me, I can’t imagine what horrors that poor boys ears were witness too. The two were never going to work and Triana hasn’t flat out rejected him because it’s awkward: dean’s her friend. She likely sees nothing romantic there but she does clearly like the guy and sympathize with him. He won’t go incel on her.... that she’s aware of... but being around him would be extra awkward, so she’s saving shooting him down for when it’s absolutely necessary. She goes out with him because it’d help her dad with rent, though I think part of her does see a LITTLE intrest in him, just not enough to actually return his affections.

Speaking of Doctor O he’s a main character this season, appearing in more episodes than not and having not only two spotlight episodes, being one of the main focuses of escape from the house of mummies and I know why the caged bird kills, as well as THE main focus of fallen arches and having a prominent subplot in the finale two parter. We get more shading.. and see that while more succesfful and likeable than doc he still has his own failures: he constnatly mindwipes his daughter to not let her know her closet is the gate way to the necropolis instead of let her process it naturally like a decent human being, and more tellingly.. he has no friends currenlty at the start of the season. Doc hates the guy and barely tolerates him despite O being nothing but kind, and his only friends outside of him he hasn’t seen in some time. This changes with the founding of the order of the triad, bringing back his two closest friends in jefferson twilightt and the alchemist, both friends who are glad to hang out with him and battle a supervillian within reason. While Al won’t mince words with Orpheus, he’ll still be there for the guy while Jefferson.. just likes both and is a good friend. It gives the poor guy a bone after so much abuse from doc: people who may take the piss out of him but will be there when he needs them. And he also gets an arch that’s a combination of dormmamu, pyro and deadman so that’s neat.

We also get a lot of JJ this season, and some focus next season. So while he won’t be important for long let’s talk about him: JJ is doc’s shadow: he’s doc without the trauma.. but with his own obstacles as he’s phsycially disabled, having a short stature thanks to being not fully baked and a prostethic robot arm. Yet despite this.. he takes it in stride. He’s confident in who he is, proud of his disalblity and succesffully builds what little of his dad’s former empire he’s given into his own. He shows that while Rusty has trauma and stuff holding him back.. Rusty himself is holding him back just as much. Doc’s own greed, selfishness and bitterness keep him from being happy. JJ has EVERY reason to be bitter: not getting to know his dad, having a brother who actively hates him, being stuck in a warped body.. but he chooses instead to be the best he can be. It’s why rusty hate shim: JJ is rusty without the baggage of his trauamtic past or the self hatred and is thus the succesor the world wante dhim to be to jonas. And he’d gladly help rusty, share in the glory.. but Rusty is so bitter he refuses it.

THis contrast is best shown in Sally impossible. Doc turned her down because he’s a dickhead and didn’t want to be “tied down”. She was a tad clingy sure, but he could’ve at least gotten her otu of a bad situatoin. JJ however sees sally as what she is: a loving vibrant woman held back by an abusuive controlling husband who just needs to get out. The two connect as well as he and Rusty did, the playing field is even: she was jut as into rusty as she is into JJ.. but JJ actually values her, helps her escape Impossible, and by the end of the season the last we see them their happy with Sally, Ned and Rocket all seeing JJ off on a mission. JJ accpets people and things as they are and as such is happy while Rusty can’t accept his life or his boys and thus is miserable.

Finally we have one of the only times a season of the show had an overarching big bad: Phantom Limb. He’s a change of pace too as for the first time the threat’s to the monarch and not doc. Sure doc ends up in the crosshairs twice.. but the first time was entirely to teach the monarch a lesson and the second time Team Venture just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and were never the target. He’s the first villian in the show whose target is entirely one of the other bad guys.

And he works as the perfect evil...er mirrior of the monarch. He’s an ambitious ladder climber who gave up regular arching while the Monarch can’t even fathom the thought: to him arching is his life and killing dr venture is his dream. Limb is traditionally cool, Monarch is geeky cool, a huge dork sure but a badass who knows his stuff. And we also see them both loose shielia due to their own jackassery: Monarch called her a slut for god’s sakes and couldn’t put his arching on the back burner or act like an adult in trying to win her back, nad only did when he gave up the other great love of his life for her and made a commitment, proposing. Limb saw her as a sexy lamp to own and her input as unecessary. It’s why ultimately.. Shielia and Malcom belong together: he needs someone to keep him from spending his life savings on a cocoon and focus on something other than killing an aging asshole in a remote compound and she needs the excitment and passion he has.

Limb also proves to be just as petty and vengeful and stupid when pressed, deciding to try and overthrow the guild instead of.. just Dr. Girlfriend go, kidnapping her instead of you kknow again, giving the fuck up. And just as Monarch’s inablility to give up his obessions keeps him low on the totem poll and hurts him... LImb going so far ends the season with no dick, no arm, and the world after him. Good luck asshole see you for a cameo and then not for a season!

EPISODE BREAKDOWNS

Adding a new catagorey with Deanrific. While Dean dosen’t merit one every episode he’s in like hank from this point on.. the boy still has his moments and is still my boy so i’m honoring those.

14. Powerless in the Face of Death

Summary: Doc returns from a dead son sabatical to find a contract job from his brother to build a teleporter.. that naturally ends with doc jammed in a wall. Meanwhile Dr. O tries to revivie the boys and instead finds out a horrible truth while The Monarch attempts to escape prison and his former henchman attempt to deal with the scariest thing of all: A normal life. My Thoughts: Powerless is a decent season opener. The everybody’s free montage is great and while the lisecned music cost them quite a bit apparently it was worth every penny and is one of only two times the show got to use it and it made BOTH times instant classics. The main plot with Doc is ehhh for the first half as he ruins two mens lives and effs up a job from his brother while pushing the guy away. It’s nothing really funny or engaging character wise. Just doc being a dick which we’ve seen before. We’d get better interactions with JJ in a few episodes too so even the novelty of thi sbeing the first time dosen’t really spare them.

That said the stuff with Dr. Orpheous is fantastic: his conversatoin with Triana is heartbreaking as she’s utterly terrified something will go wrong and shows that even if she seems to keep them at arms length.. she cares abotu the boys. THey were her friends and the idea of her dad bringing them back as zombies shatters her. Thankfully he’s good at this... but it gives us a nice misdirect.

And thus brings us to the best moment of the episode: the clone reveal. It’s brilliant stuff, to the point that, I must reiterate a major reboot of an entire line of comics has used a similar idea, death being not an issue for characters, to great dramatic effect with all the questions and problems that brings.

Venture Bros will use the effects of it for dramatic stuff later and Orpheous is a bit horrified, but here it’s mostly for comedy. The deaths start out just horrifying but most of them are just so over the top and cartoonishly stupid, from the boys firing arrows at each other, to hank dropping off a roof, to dean having a cigarette causing further disaster to my faviorite “gas leak, the silent killer”. It’s good, gory fun black comedy. The twist also changes up the game: will the boys die again? will they ever find out? are there any clones left? what happens if they run out? and outside of the first, which never happened while there was clones, we do get answers to these and they are fantastic. It’s a great storytelling engine that fits the characters too as after a season with them audiences could buy they’d be that stupid and their lives that dangerous this would happen a lot.

The Monarch plot is okay. The ending part of it is good and the scene with him and his heist crew is great. The prison rape joke also suprisingly works as the rape isn’t the end of the joke, but just the fact that not only he can’t rape the monarch but brought him to his own cell. It’s so over the top it’s impossible to take seriously and that’s why it works. Most rape jokes VERY much do not. Still a fine enough plot to get us to the next phase of things.

Overall this kicks off a trend with the show: The season openers are okay, but as Jackson and Doc admit themselves the season really dosen’t get going till the next episode once all the table setting is done. Episode 1 is usually picking up all the pieces from the last season. As such while they aren’t bad, this episode really isn’t, they often aren’t as fun as the episode right after, as by then the pieces are mostly in place and they can just play with them. The first episode is okay, the second episode is an all time great. They manage to shake it by the last two seasons due to the new setting being really fun to set up in season 6 and season 7 having one of the series crowning achivments in the Morphic Trilogy to start it off. But before that these episodes really aren’t my faviorites but aren’t bad either, usually still being good.. but just on the way to something truly great.

Best Moment: Three words: Clone death montage Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: Four in a row bringing us up to 31. Kicking his brother out, firing hector, firing swifty despite the former being a friend and the latter being brain damaged, and being a dick to orpheous, not getting the guy’s seriously shell shocked after the reveal he just dropped on the poor guy. Questions For Later: The cloning banks are on a film feed.. almost like their way older than the 80s, when the boys were born and when Doc woudl’ve made them. Hmmm. First Appearance: Mr. Monday, Tiny Eagle, White Noise, and King Gorilla

15. Hate Floats

Summary: It’s the boys birthday.. again! So Doc takes Dean for his first “Speedsuit” while Brock gets Hank. But soon things go from birthday fun to true danger as a returned monarch happens by to try and win back his ex and a combination of new minions, escalators and brock sampson quickly results in Doc stuck aboard the cocoon forced to team up with the monarch to surivvie his new minons, Phantom LImb and Brock reluctantly teaming up and Dr. Girlfriend taking charge of the boys. My Thoughts: Proving my point, hate floats is an all time classic. While it still moves some pieces slightly, reawakening the boys after they were absent last ep because they were still baking and bringing 21 and 24 back to the cocoon, both of those things happen quick and the real meat of the episode is a chaotic melee at the mall and a bunch of stellar jokes. Had the season not ended on as high a note as it did, this one would’ve been a shoe in for the super good award. That said this one’s still a contender for my remade best of list coming at the end of this retrospective, as I feel the other was made on memories and what not while this will be made on me having freshly rewatched every single episode over the span of a few months, and thus be be intresting to compare. Anyways this episode itself is just.. packed with great moments: the Monarch’s superman monologue, the opening which just fully solidfies Gary as one of my favorites, Dean’s dreadful outing to get a speed suit as well as Doc’s obession with “speed suits” in general, hank throwing the football, the entire bit with Phantom LImb and Brock.. I could go on just citing how fucking hilarous this episode is. There’s not much depth to it beyond that, but sometimes all you need is to just throw these idiots in a room and let them play off each other. Which really is this show in a nutshell, god bless it. Best Moment: As you can guess a hard choice, but in the end like last time it goes to the most iconic one: 21′s getting ready while singing mars bringer of war. It’s one of the moments that define this show, that’s easy to show to a friend and go “that’s what this show is, a bunch of dorks playing dress up.. who also happen to actually be doing the thing their dressing up as”. I am sad we never see lady again.. it makes sense but she’s such a good girl. I wish they’d taken her with them. You just know the monarch would complain then gladly dress up the dog in an outfit and call her henchman good girl. Someone.. please draw that. Anyone reading this? I”ll give you a free review. Promise.

Sucky Sampson: 9. Surprisingly just brock. While Doc pressuring dean into following in his footsteps will be an issue later at this point he has no real reason to guess Dean isn’t jumping at the bit too. But yeah as I mentioned brock has a transphobic streak and that comes out here. Phantom Limb rightfully shocks his ass for it. This Didn't Age Well: Again having one of your main characters and voice of reason.. be a transphobic dickhead. The gangbangers are mildly questionable but are so cartoony it’s hard to find them actually racist, especially sicne they aren’t all one race. Hanktastic: Hank , in full bloom, gets a few choices and him throwing a nerf football at the guy nearly won.. but him gunning Brock’s car while shouting “i’m a driver!” over and over... that’s just so precious. Dean and Shielia getting annoyed at it after he’s clearly said it about 40 times also rules. Deanarific: New-ish addition here, as I did go back and add it for season 1, but for the first true addition we have the one that inspried this category in the first place, Dean’s reaction to his speedsuit “I look like Santa’s Janitor”. It’s stuff like this why my secondary boy had to get his own section. Hank may DEMAND one but dean still requires one.

16. Asassinanny 911

Summary: Brock needs to leave again, this time to hunt down his old mentors, so while Brock’s playing james bond and having flashbacks, Mol steps in to try and train our heroes so she can have brock to herself, causing hank to develop a crush on her and then try to kill his dad while on boot toxins. As you do. My Thoughts: This is one of three episodes I went into the season dreading. Though given last season had the episodes I dreaded ending up decent with two exceptions, I was a bit more optimistic. And while 2/3 were better than I remembered they still arne’t really great and this one is drug down by some questionable ideas.

Let’s get those out of the way first: first off Brock hits it off with a woman on the island Hunter is hiding on.. who only speaks in some jarbbled click language they made up.

Like I get the show sometimes having a person of color played by Doc or Jackson. While they shodulv’e known better this is a practice that lasted way longer than it should’ve in general in animation and they DID honestly try to have people of color voice people of color when they could afford it. But the show had a decent but still shoestring budget. But this? This is just bad. Even for the TIME having an ingendous person speak some garbled nonsense for parody purposes is bad. They shoudl feel bad. I love these guys but as should be obvious I will call them out when they screwed up bad even for the time.

Speaking of which Hunter’s sex change. The sex change itself.. is a grey area as it’s hard to tell what Hutner identitifes as. He’s PROBABLY nonbinary, but I can’t be sure. But the way ti’s treated isn’t and they shoudl’ve known better. Using it for a cheap chinatown refrence is stupid, and Brock’s rage is uncomfortable as ever. As is him checking for a vagina. Just..

God I missed you bud. Okay so the rest of the ep isn’t bad. The parts with Mol.. actually made me like her. It gave her an actual motive, wanting brock to herself despite being the worst thing for him, and her training the ventures was mostly entertaining. It’s the first steps to hank being a badass. I also like Hank’s crush on her. As Jackson put it they wanted to establish he had his own tastes in women. Dean literally fell for the girl next door, so naturally hank prefers althetic women, first literal athletes and then a murder woman. The kill dad fantasy is also hilariously fucked up and on the whole the crush is adorable... and even the near patricide is understandable. It’s rusty after all. The brock flashbacks are also great and help show us to a point why he’s this way. Overall an episode that would be great.. had they not fucked it up with transphobia and racisim. And I can’t say that often which is why it sticks out so bad. THere’s a lot of unetiotnal transphobia baked into the series, but this stuff just.. bleh. Bleh bleh bleh. Best Moment: Hank trying to explain his new feelings to dean “It’s hard being the older brother” “By like four minutes!” “Well maybe in four minutes you’ll understand..” Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: To quote Dante Hicks: 37! And not in a row but 6 is still a record. Let’s see here... hitting on Mol despite both her and brock having a CLEARLY complicated relationship and her being his employee temporarily, him questioning mol’s competence based on her gender, him saying “rusty calls dibs”, him being mad Orpheous is intrested in her and trying to shoo him away even if Byron honestly has a way better shot because he’s not a jackass, him calling mol one of brock’s “hussies” and him grounding hank even though hank attacked him on boot tranquilizers and Mol likely TOLD HIM this. I mean yes hank tried to kill him, I get that but again it’s rusty.

Sucky Sampson: 11. More transphobia! And yes that’s worth double you suck points. Hanktastic:The aformentioned best moment. Just Hank’s whole vibe there. It’s wonderful. Deanarific: Questions For Later: How did Brock and Mol first meet? Why is Gathers on the Run? Both will be answered eventually, though the former had an answer they just took several seasons to finally fit it in. This Didn’t Age Well:..... Duh. Also the use of a certain type of burial ground though THAT one’s more just them being clueless white idiots. Not entirely okay but it happens. First Appearance: Hunter Gathers, Kim

17. Escape to the House of Mummies Part II

Summary: The second part of a thrilling Egyptian adventure! While Brock and the boys get lost in time, Doc has a dick measuring contest with Orpheus after Dr. O gets tired of Doc being a huge asshole to him about his job. Naturally it’s over shrinking. My Thoughts: Back to the classics and this one just has a fun premise: one half is what Doc and Jackson describe as the kind of thing that happens when we aren’t watching. The adventures we only get see mentioned that are more standard adventure show fair instead of the deconstructive ones we see more often. Though fitting the show we only see bits and pieces of it with no coherent story as our heroes travel through time, teaming up with, Freud, Calligula, and...

Who.. naturally is troubled thanks to Brock. Along the way Hank makes a new friend in Mummy Mum Muggy, dean looses his torso and Brock gets poe in a headlock and has to split him open like a tauntaun. It was a clear opportunity for the guys to just go absolutely fucking nuts for once with no rhyme or reason and they enjoyed it. I wish we’d gotten another one like this.. not an annual thing but like.. one more.

The subplot is also great as it shades in both Rusty and Byron’s characters. Byron FINALLY stands up to the guy, fed up Rusty sees him nothing more as a party magician and gets into a contest with him over. This results in two great plots as both try to master shrinking.

On Rusty’s end he thinks he has it in the bag with his gun.. but Orpheous isn’t nearly as stupid as Rusty thinks, and thus knows he not only had a method but he sold it to Pete and Billy back in tag sale. Granted we saw him not sell it to them, but given this is doc they likely just offered him a bit more and he caved. So he tries outright stealing it because he’s rusty and he always had to try the most self destructive and half assed method first instead of just.. calling his only friends who’d be glad to help. For a price but even then i’m pretty sure they only charged because he broke in. Great line from Billy though “You’ve come to steal our brilliant secrets. You’ve been foiled, we have none”. This segment is hit and miss as the two bullying billy just isn’t funny, especially since their no less pathetic and frankly masturbating in weird ways and being a virigin aren’t nearly as much of a punchline as they used to be. Billy just isn’t enough of a dick to make this funny. There are some funny things here or there though so there’s that. But the real meat is the end of it when Billy shows he looks up to Rusty.. and tha tmaybe the guy isn’t as lost as he seems. He wasn’t just a boy adventuerer, he was the best.

Byron’s part is great though as we first see while mostly a good dad.. he makes mistakes. in this case casually mindwipping triana instead of letting her know abotu her closet being the doorway to the necropolis. or moving it into his own damn room. He’s still nowhere near as bad as Rusty but it’s not great and the real reason to this we find out later makes him look even worse.

That said he gets compupance in the form of the master. Oh boy the Master. The Master is sadly underused after a while since Dr. O is but when he shows up he’s fantastic, voiced by VA legend John Benjamin, who at the time had just gotten off utter classic Home Movies. Seriously check it out, it’s on HBO Max, ti is fantastic. Anyways he’s unsuprisingly good as the mysterious cosmic entity who takes up various forms. While his belittling orpheous was supposed to just humble his student, this being both a talent of johns and so hilarious it became a part of the master, as did shapeshifting to teach lessons.. while also getting off in this case licking his own balls. “I can taste my own genitals. It’s.. a condrum”. He has so many great moments while also filling us in O’s wife left because he didn’t make time fo rher and triana dosne’t respect him... which isn’t true. While she clearly lies she does love her dad, but hey not the point he was trying to make.

As a result both men are humbled and come to an understanding... and the mummies thing is’nt resolved but it’s better that way.

Best Moment: A LOT of contenders for this one. This might be the hardest choice of the series thus far... but Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 41. He mocks billy’s virginity, mocks the guy CHOKING, mocks his masturbation habits when it was an honest mistake, mocks orpheous an dforgets his kids. You can kinda see at this point, where he’s almost to his previous score of 25 in the span of 4 episodes, and only one of which he got poitns for, why he was insufferable this season. Hanktastic: Naming his mummy Mummy Mum Muggy. It’s just such a throughly stupid throughly hank name. And accidently knocking the poor guys top head off to Brock’s classic reaction of “this is getting stupid!” Deanarific: Dean’s “I wouldn’t worry about it” ... and the pan over to him being held by mummy mum muggy. Classic. Questions For Later: Why O keeps mindwiping his daughter, Dr. O’s divorce becomes important later too. Vitlaly. See you in March for that one.... but not really there’s still several episodes to go. First Appearance:The Master

18. 20 Years To Midnight

Summary: An old tape from Jonas sends our heroes on a globetrotting quest to assemble one of the old bastards inventions before midnight with JJ’s help, but obstacles stand in their way: a comaed col gentleman, a drugged out johnny quest, an egotistical rematch with professor impossible, and a grand galactic high inquistor blaring IGNORE ME!. My Thoughts: One of my all time favorites and it did not disappoint the fourth time around. While the plotting in the last act slips slightly, this is a fun romp with TONS of call backs, great new introductions in Johnny and the GGHI (who I wish hadn’t died this episode. ) There’s tons of funny bits, great character stuff and one hell of a climax involving turning a stretchy man into a windwock and an alien shooting the inquistior in the face before being kind of a dick. All in all fantastic stuff. It also finally gives poor sally a happy ending. I talked a lot about jj and her earlier so I don’t have much else to say so IGNORE ME! The returns of the pirate captain and professor impossible were also great as was col gentlemans list of toys he wishes he’d had when hew as a lad. For me it’s th ejapanese muscle tower dragon ball playset. I bet that things like.. hundreds of dollars.

Best Moment: Kinda a cheat but EVERY moment with the Grand Galactic Inquisitor though if I HAVE ot pick one it’d be “You can read my mind!?” “IGNORE ME!” Beat “Yes I can”. Just the idea of this watcher type character who wants everyone to ignore him and shouts in this creaky old voice was brilliant and I wish another one would show up sometime. Or a whole crowd. That’d be great. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 44. 1 for trying to get around JJ instead of swallowing his pride when the worlds at stake and a THREE POINTER for how he treats Sally. Good fucking christ. Even for him this is evil. Maniuplatuing her with NO intention of actually helping her and planning to leave AGAIN. The last one is muted by her meeting JJ sure but he would’ve left even if she hadn’t and we know it. Him using this poor, abused woman who desperatley needs to escape her husband is vile. Even with the time limit he has better options and it’s for a plan that was doomed to fail. His callign the herculoids hippies for not fighting in nam dosen’t count because he was 10 and his dad sucks. Deanarific: Dean’s “You wear them well” when hank admits he’s tired of kerchefs. What a supportive young lad. Questions For Later: We get the setup for JJ and Sally’s romance. First Appearance: Rocket Impossible

19. Victor. Echo. November

Summary: It’s Double Date Night Baby! Dean finally gets a date with Triana... but has to share it with Hank and Triana’s friend kim. Meanwhile at the same restraunt, Phantom Limb and Shiliea have a double date/guild contract signing with the monarch that goes terribly thanks to the Monarch’s date running away sobbing, Shiliea walking away pissed thanks to Limb calling a hit on the ventures just to get one over on the monarch. Now Doc struggles to surivvie as Brock struggles to get to the boys before Limb. Also 21 and 24 are there and this all started because Doc wanted to do a rusty venture to Dolly Parton. Go fig.

My Thoughts: Two all out hits in a row showing just how great this season was when it got going. But it’s one that just works on premise: our heroes going on their first date and getting in danger thanks to the villians having a bad double date.

This also brings us to Kim, Triana’s detached weird besty who gets courted for supervilliany then vanishes because Jackson and Doc had no real plans for her.. and fans thought they did and in a show with almost no female characters at this point, wanted another one. Granted Doc thinks for some reason it’s just because in his words he “drew her too hot” despite.. you know.. teenager.

I don’t think he realized how creepy that came off. Granted i’m also not 100% sure there aren’t some creepy guys in the audience who weren’t teenagers who wanted to bang a teenage character, but stilll. phrasing man.

But still I feel Kim was popular for more than that: she had a dry wit, was a newbie in supervilliany something we only see once later and with a character we all justifably hate. She also gave Triana a life and character outside of the boys. The issue was fans kept demanding her back and being stubborn contrarian assholes sometimes, I can relate, the guys lashed out by writing her off as going to florida and becoming borna gain just to say “there that’s where she went stop asking” instead of you know.. developing her. I get not watning ot develop a character JUST because of fan demand, you have to draw a line. But wasting a good character just because you can’t think of anything and dont wanna try..

So yeah wasting kim, even if she didn’t join the guild was bad. I feel it would’ve been intresting to have another outside angle on the boys. But everything else about this episode fucking rocks. From the introduction of the stanza, to Brock getting extra naked to feed on fear and the gags that result (”Nice ass sampson”) to Doc weirdly assuming best little whorehouse is in texas is a porno... though he did cheat himself it is a damn good musical.. especially this part.

The date unsuprisingly is my faviorite part. From Triana being barely phased by the boys weirdness to Kim’s introduction to it to of course the boys. Now fully formed their banter is great, with Hank requesting dean tell the girls how he jumped a bunch of on fire trash cans and Dean dryly responding with “I’m not doing any of that”, and Dean needling hank for calling himself hankanator. We also of course have Hank wanting to dress up as batman and setting his junk on fire because he’s hank. If his first date didn’t involve a crotch fire i’d of been suprised. I”m more surprised Dean made it through without literally shitting nickles.. because as Doc put it THAT’S the dumb kind of idea they go with instead of what you want. If it’s the dumbest idea they’ll put it. Yet we still haven’t had that episode yet. Let dean shit nickles cowards!

Finally we have Phantom Limb whose shown to be petty, ruthlesss and have no clear origin.. for a season. We’ll get to that next season but it did lead to easily my faviorite reactoin image

A great punchilne to a classic episode. P.S. Brass Balls on the monarchs for not only snarking to brock but telling the guy “nice ass sampson” he has no fear that one.

Best Moment: “nice ass sampson” was close, but let’s face it: Hank pelvic thrusting/swinging on a handryer before it sets his junk on fire.. that won. See i’m a man who needs his nut shots to actually have craft behind them. If you just hit a man in the strawberry basket, that does nothing.. but if you say call doing it that, make it as part of a game the other guy never signed up for but will gladly return in front of a dignitary with no shame while his gnome friend waxes on the elgance of ball tag, or set a young man’s crotch on fire due to a hand drier.. then you have my attention. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 45. Trying to fire Brock.. for going after the boys. I explained earlier why this was such a dick move, and it is. And what I didn’t think of when writing the first bit: going after limb FIXES THE PROBLEM. God damn rusty you suck. Sucky Sampson: Throwing the corsage dean brought for Triana out. You.. you do get this girl KNOWS dean right and would likely be mildly weirded out but flattered by it. Right? And that maybe giving your date a gift is you know just a nice thing normal people do. As is chair pulling as long as it’s meant to be kind and not some kind of power move. That said telling hank not to use the word score... that’s fair. 12. And as you can tell by the fact Brock is still this low despite his double score transphobia why maybe I have this: Doc sucking is just as inevitible as hank being great. Hanktastic: Hank’s batman thing sneaking up again was close as was the best winning crotch fire.. but I have to give it to him wanting Dean to tell peopl ehe wants to fonzie trashcans. That that’s his idea of how to impress women. God bless this boy. Deanarific: The Corsage. Such a good boy. Questions For Later: Billy and Phantom Limb’s origin story. Again.. next season/month. First Appearance: Kim. And yes i’m adding her just to spite them, two can play that game.

20. Love-Bheits

Summary: Hank is the Bat, This Episode Sucks Otherwise do I REALLY have to say more... I do?

Okay on way from a costume party the Ventures get kidnapped by Baron Underbeit who tries to marry Dean. Our heroes have to save Dean from child marriage while Hank is the bat. My Thoughts: This episode I dreaded and as you can tell it .. it did not do MUCH better on rewatch. It’s not the worst of the season and in saying that you can probably guess which one I DO think it is, and you’d be right, but it has it’s moments. Brock spinning two impaled henchman right round baby right round, him finding a lump during a testicular interigoation and of course the bat. Good gravy the bat. Giving hank not only an obessoin with batman but the insane thought he is some degree of batman is fucking amazing and one of the shows best choices in it’s storied history. Hank’s struggles with his mask, ruining of their group costumes, saying he’s the bat durin ga plane crash, minon wedgie and stumbling.. it alll works so fucking well. It elevates what would otherwise be a terrible episdoe to “eh watchable”

And it is bad... and it’s because as I tangented last time and will again, I do not like Baron Underbeit. he’s a flat character who does not fit the show and this ep is the guys realizing it, with Jackson TRYING and failing to make him work.. and having the guy thrown out of his country so he dosen’t have the resources to be relevant anymore, so they don’t HAVE to. He’s a level of over the top that would work fine in another cartoon but just dosen’t. He just has nothing to him in a cartoon where everyone feels lik ea real person.. even his cancer prone minon feels more real. He’s just an uninteresting 3rd rate dr. doom who dosen’t parody doom in any fun ways.

And of course there’s the gay panic aspect of this episode which unlike the transphobia the guys apologized for. Having Dean marry a man be the issue and not you know, statuotry with a creepy guy who will kill dean once he finds out he’s not a woman, the two sterotypically gay servants, A GAY MARRIAGE BAN SAVING OUR HEROES. Granted Underland probably overturned that but still why just.. why the fuck did you why.

This episode is just a boring slog when it’s not with the bat or the ocasoinal clever gag. It’s not as bad as I remembered but it’s not GOOD. Best Moment: I believe I said the Bat. All of it. Again know it’s minorly cheating. I also once named a channel after mishearing doc saying tinman, thinking he said tinman and the bat. He did not. Still kinda works but not really. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 46. Not wanting to help the rebllion escape in any way shape or form. I get you were just kinda sucked into this but fuck you. on the bright side Rusty managed to not match his previous score in the span of half a season so... there? Hanktastic: One more time for those in the back: The Bat. Questions For Later: Where did Underbeht go after this/ I could care less.. but sadly I know... see you in season 4 werner. No one asked for this. First Apperance: The Bat. Honestly I may change best moment to the bat award as it’s our first grand slam winner. or at least put his name in it. Give me a sec

21. Fallen Arches

Summary: Dr. O finally has his arch and reassmbles his old team for the interview process.. on the compound. Doc gets jealous of the attention and tries to compete with his walking eye, while Dean and Hank keep triana entertained, 21, 24 and Sheila all compete for the arching position with Dr. O and The Monarch.... sends a sex worker through a death maze and tatoos a minotaur on his back because he’s going through a lot. My Thoughts: This was a needed palette clensar, sandwitched between the two worst episodes of the season. And it’s yet another seasonal highlight because i’ve said classic too much. This is also our second Tagsale ep, another bout of a bunch of the cast gathering at the compound, in this case a hoard of mid-tier supervillians, a reforged superteam and a walking eye. You gotta have a walking eye. Add in a classic hank and dean messaround and you have pure gold even before you get to a subplot of 21 trying to turn double dare outfits and a name with no proper context how he’s using it and the monarch’s gloriously pasty ass and minotaur tattoo he painted on himself for a red dragon refrence. Because of course he did. Fun fact, I didn’t realize it was something he scribbled on like many fans, because Jackson and Doc forgot that The Monarch is the kind of crazy that he would get that tatoo just for a bit and people would assume that even if it wore off a bit in the shower. I wish they’d just ran with it and had him keep it. But this episode is just pure fire outside of one bit. So let’s get that out of the way: the treatment of sex workers is eh. They MEANT for this to be something terrible Monarch does to make him look worse, that’s fair, but it’s still another example of a hooker being treated as disposable.. even if this one went thorugh an acid lake and lived. So while I don’t fault jackson for this, it still kinda sucks. That said everything else?

We have Rusty giving a horrifying sex talk, Dean rocking a dress, that nerdy fish guy who gives us the great discussion abotu blacluas (I don’t know what the pc term for it is!). Really while all of team venture gets great stuff it’s justifably Dr. O himself who steals the show with two of the shows best additions: The Alchemist and Jefferson Twilight. Blade and.. some sort of monk based on an obscure movie refrence instead of an obscure marvel one. Well played. The two add a LOT to dr. o. While he was fine before, playing off as Doc’s friend and the only other sensible adult in the compound, as well as the only one who still enjoys this superhero supervillian stuff, Al adds a perfect foil: willing to cut his friend down and call this all stupid like doc.. but unlike doc he actually LIKES byron, is willing to play along when it suits him, and actually gives a shit about the world. He’s also casually and delightfully gay, getting one of the best lines summing that up “This is so gay.. and I say that as a man who literally sleeps with men”. As you can also tell Al is one of my faviorites and Dana Snyder does a fucking killer job. Jefferson is also a nice straight man to both, being a bit off in his thinking from time to time but being the only non-wizard of the trio, he’s a bit more grounded and hialrously and venturetasticaly specified.. despite the fact wielding swords works on anyone not just vampires and he should realize how badass that is. It’s why I love the comics version of hawkeye: he’s a guy with a bow and arrow, if some of them tricked going up against things 80 times above what his weight class should be and making it his weight class. The three just have fun banter, great chemistry and overall are awesome, elevating this episode from pretty good to all time great, attempted hooker murder or no.

Best Moment: A lot of contenders but the winner and champion is as always my boy (After triana disappears in a cloud of fire) Hank: Aw dude you accidently killed your girlfriend! Dean: She was my girlfriend? Hank: Probably.. until you killed her. Dean: Aw. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 48. Excluding hank from the sex talk, when he DEFINTELY needs it, and mocking dean for not knowing these things.. even though rusty culd’ve given it to him WAY earlier so i’ts on him especailly given how sheltered the boys are. Hanktastic: The exchange under best. Deanarific: Dean putting on whatever the fuck Lady Windermere’s Fair is for Triana. It’s adorably stupid as a way to woo her but the fact he has no shame about wearing a dress despite having a 60′s or 70′s mindset and not the mondern one that thankfully and rightfully dosen’t give a shit and rocks that thing says a lot about my boy. First Appearance: The Alchemist, Jefferson Twilight, Torid, Sgt. Hatred (Cameo), The Soverign (Head Mode)

22. Guess Who’s Coming To State Dinner? (Pissed in Gods Eye Winner)

Summary:

Fine fine fucking fine... the ventures go to the white house. Doc fucks up. Brock has a rival and gets sexually harassed, Manstrong is back thankfully for the last time. Lincoln is there. This episode fucking blows My Thoughts: I could leave it at this episode fucking blows.. but that’s not relaly enough. This is the worst episode in the series. Jackson tried to rework an idea Ben Edlund had> it didn’t work. This episode is a boring, plodding mess. The idea is good: the ventures visit the captial as guests after Bud Manstrong saves the gargantua one and Rusty’s attempt to sell one of his things and an old enemy of brock’s now working secret service complicate things while Lincoln’s ghost shows up and is the only tolerable thing in the episode. This episode is the lowest the series ever sank, being boring with only a few good bits and a horny clinton parody that was a half assed attempted at being bipartisan that ended up dated instead.. .though that’s something Jackson fully cops to as well as the episode not working. It’s just not good. And it implies Hank and Dean experimented which while probable is not something we EVER needed to hear. The stuff with Manstrong’s mom hitting on brock ALSO really sucks as he’s being sexually harassed for laughs when it’s really just creepy and has a creepy undercurrent of “get it it’s funny because brock DOSEN’T want to fuck her this time!” that just.. no. Manstrong also just sucks. While I agree with the guys there’s something to his boyscout nature and his actor tries... there’s just nothing funny to the character. He’s a sexually repressed moron. He dosen’t really fit into the show or the cast and thus never showed up again after this and even not liking him watch his mom berate him only makes it worse. it’s like kicking a puppy what the hell lady. Just a waste.

Best Moment: Hank’s solution to things, something so funny I had to pause the goddamn episode and laugh hard. When Lincoln realizes he can posses things resembling him and use those to get through the door, hanks solution? Hank: I’ve got it, we make a gun made of pennies! Lincoln: Exactly.. no wait that’s insane. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 49 We’re close to 50 but his mocking Lincoln fo rnot earning his wings is a dick move... and leads to lincoln revealing Rusty jerked it a LOT in the lincoln bedroom as a teen. Which.. I didn’t need to know what the fuck is wrong with you show. Masturbation shouldn’t be stigmatized but I still dont’ want to know about that. Hanktastic: Gun made of pennies. Questions For Later: What happened with gargantua’s remains suprisingly becomes important in season 7. After all the problem light hasn’t had it’s chekovs gun fired.. just yet.

23. I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills

Summary: Dr. Venture is haunted by an Oni, the boys get kidnapped by their alleged mom leading Brock to team up with HELPER to save them, and Dr. Killinger and his magic murder bag taking over the cocoon leads to 21 seeking outside help: Dr. Girlfriend. My Thoughts: This one is.. okay. It’s just a bit unfocused as it has 4 plots going on at once and while 3/4 converge well, only the Monarch one KINDA lands. The Monarch getting some compitent help works both because he’s been a mess.. and Because Dr. Killinger is just fucking amazing, from his demeanor to his magic murder bag to him turning out NOT to be staging a cou or anything sinister.. he just wants to help two lost lovers reunite, cracking through Monarch’s lairs of selfishness to get them to reunite. Granted reuniting doc and myra was an awful idea but hey, still better than the actual kissinger. Plus 21 gets some more case making that , as much as the idea of killing 24 was just jackson floating the dumbest idea and doc saying why not, necessary. 24 isn’t a bad character and they rock.. but Gary got to grow without him and always had it in him to carry things himself while 24, while great.. never really had much more to him than henchman and realist who sounds like ray ramno. He’s great but seeing where Gary goes without him.. getting rid of him was the righ call ine ned end.

The rest again is just kinda forgetable: i feel b ad for the boys with myra (and making it so hatred molested the boys was a decisoin they shoduln’t of done and still used him but that’s for later likely so i won’t rant about it just yet), Brock and Helper is fun and Doc and O is uncomfortbale givne doc accuses the guy of being a predatory homosexual, GENINELY insulting his friend and showing himself as a gay panicing asshole at the same time. Overall not bad, but forgetable despite introducing a lot of stuff. Best Moment: Dr. O happily surrounded by cats. It’s why I went outside mantis eye experiment for this one. I had to “They smell my cat! Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 52. His 50th anniversary issue is naturally a double as he accuses his friend of being gay which is bad for both making it like gays are predatory and for assuming his friend would be a predatory asshole regradless of orentatoin. He apologizes but just the fact he would. and the almost best moment winning “so I fucked her okay” thing with myra.. as well as lying about her being associated with them.. which makes it way easier for her to come back into the boys lives later. See you in April moira! Hanktastic: When moira says “your safe now boys” his response is suprisingly perfect “no we’re not”. Deanarific: Dean’s careful driving before the abudction Questions For Later: If moira is the boys mom or not. Answers in April! First Appearance: Moira Brandish and Dr. Henry Killinger

24. Viva Los Muertos!

Summary:

Doc pisses in gods eye again and he dosen’t blink this time, so Venturestein is born! While Doc tries to prepare his creation for the workfoce and then the army, Brock grapples with murder guilt for the first time and the boys grapple with a degraded mystery inc whose met them before.

My Thoughts:This episode is unique in two regards. The first is that it’s the only time i’ll probably be watching an ep with my good friend @jess-the-vampire who I watch a lot of stuff with and go to for help on shows she knows well. This is not one of those cases. She hasn’t watched venture bros outside of two episodes i’ve shown her and both were because their scooby doo adjacent. She liked this one for the record, wasn’t as hot on ghosts of the sargasso but didn’t hate it or anything. But I had to given we watch a LOT of scooby doo together. Anyways the main anomaly here is the writer: Ben Edlund, mentor to Doc and Chris who they’d tried to get to write a script , and both times he had to bail to go work on other things. This time he did’nt and the result is awesome. This never happened again and I don’t feel it’s out of selfishness or gatekeeping or such bullshit: Doc and Jackson `do praise the animators designers and other people on the show, and there have been a lot given many have to leave for steadier work or between seasons. They aren’t selfish bastards.. but Venture Bros is very much there work. It’s essentially a long running indie spoof comic that’s somehow aired on television. Same team, same spotty schedule, same charm.

The show is purely THEM and there’s no shame in that. Sometimes the creator writes every episode, and honestly the guys pioneered that idea in animation of having one guy write most if not all episodes. Well two guys but still point is I get why they do it and while it has it’s disadvantages, I can’t fault it. Ben was asked because he’s their own personal jesus just as much as these two wonderous weridos are mine in some ways. He’s someone they could trust to keep it in their tone, to get how their stupid brains work. He only hasn’t again because motherfucker busy. But their pickiness paid off as his episode is a dream. Both plots are great: Doc taking another piss in gods eye and making a frankenstine is just fantastic and venturestien is awesome and i’m glad he came back in season 5. See you in april too buddy! But as I outlined in brock’s section, it really has some great character stuff for brock.. and some fun stuff at orpheus party, mostly the head guy talking about how he fucked a dolphin aporpos of nothing. The real star though are the Grovy Gang. Mystery Inc but based on various serial killres with Ted, voiced by Chris of Course, being the standout. Jess noted just how he SOUNDS like fred in tone. The rest are fine but are seperated from how their gang counterparts actually behave. But Fred Bundy here just perfectly has the originals milquetoast nature.. while casually using the same tone he talks about dracula factories in to talk about putting a woman in a box or strangling a guy with a bike chain. He’s a great character and while his death was OH SO FUCKING SATISFYING, he shall be missed.

I also like the clever misdirect: the boys see the clones and you think “okay now they know”.. only for the series to swerve, with Doc just barely managing to find a way out of having to tell the truth.. one that will backfire horribly come next season but still.

Overall another shining moment for the series as it approached it’s final victory lap for the season. And given I havne’t given out super good yet and all but said it earllier, you know who wins.

Best Moment: Ted is great but he’s not exactly a moment, so I have to go with the whole dolphin conversation “Hot Dolphin!” Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 56. For his response to creating life being to try and sell him into slavery, a double for wanting brock to just.. go out and murder random people to fill his venturestien quota and one more for wanting to disconect some slugs to meet said demand. Hanktastic: Hank clearly having given venturestien a batman mask. While he naturally has multiples and we’ll see the mask again, it’s a sweet gesture.

Questions For Later: The fact there’s tapes Jonas made in the learning beds for third world labor, showing he not only created them but used them for other stuff.. and given the beds are used for the cloning progress, to help feed the banks it’s anothe rlarge hint rusty didn’t create cloning. Also the questoin of where venturestien went. Again see you in april buddy! First Appearance: Venturestein

25. Showdown at Cremation Creek Part 1 (Super Good Award Co-Winner)

Summary: The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend reunite, with the Monarch finally making the commitment she needs by proposing. Problem is one condition of that is to stop arching dr. venture.. just as the minons get a lucky break and caputre them so to save face the Monarch invites them to the wedding. As Hank makes a forever friend in 21 and Dean gets trapped in the engine room due to 24′s stupidity, Brock handles the guest list and Doc tries to hit on the bride after realizing she’s his almost hookup from last season. All the while the Phantom Limb seethes and prepares hsi vengance. Oh and the order of the triad go through some growing pains that involve bringing a Nien Nub to life because of course they do. My Thoughts: Others were consider but in the end the best.. was the last. The final two eps of the season collectively win the super good award as both parts are great on their own and I tend to in any project I do consider two parters as one big thing. As such this one easily won: it’s packed with comedy gold, great character moments nad ends one of the shows best seasons on a hell of a high. If it wasn’t for season 4 this would be my faviorite season ender of the bunch. But it’s pretty close.

Thankfully I don’t have to talk about both parts all at once since while I do consider them one thing for choosing a best episode, I’m giving both seperate entries for awards and stuff. To be fair to the other eps and because I can pack in more great shit from both episodes if each gets a turn.

Part one is packed with great moments, the proposal itself, Limb’s creepy intimdation most dangerous game shooting gallery, but it really gets going once the ventures get loose in the cocoon. As a result we get bunches of great moments we normally don’t get: one of the shows best duos, 21 and hank is forged as the two are on the same weird wavelength and all it takes is two seconds of hank posteruing how to make 21′s collectiables into action figures for the two to start playing together and for 21 to giv ehank an old costume, leading to his second alter ego: Russian Badguyovich. Also gets the poor guy plopped near his assaulter. God Hatred is a lot in this one and they rightfully switched from brendan small whose great but makes the guy extra creepy to jackson who does just the right amount.

21 being fed up with dean is fine, but Doc’s sleezy hitting on the bride is the main attaction. From his half assed attempts to pick her up in her room with her being just so done with him not getting it was for a job (though she did pitty him a little, that’ snot the same as attraction) though the real highlight is him quoting jesse’s girl.. and The Monarch’s annoyance when he notices. Throw in 21 and 24 signing, killinger officaiting and david bowie (kinda) giving the bride away and this would be great without a part 2... but Phantom Limb strikes and we’re hit with a cliffhanger.

The Triad stuff is also great as it shows Al has priorites. he’s fine with the costumed game but wants to do big sweeping things.. not daily fights with some idiot. It’s why he dosen’t take that seriously: he may be a jovial guy who throws out quips, but he wants to actually help people. But when the ventures ar eind anger he’s perfectly fine both due to the big scope nad the actual peril and rallies. Also them making fucking Nien Nub is the perfect final star wars refrence before they had to restrain themselves. From Al wantin got kill him with a shovel to the fact the guy just.. sticks around for two episodes till his plaincrash death. It’s s so fucking stupid I love it.

Best Moment: Hank figuring out how to play with 21′s stuff.. and 21 slowly going along with it was oh so close, as was one of my faviorite lines eve r”holy shit I thought we dreamnt that part!”.. but I gotta give it to doc reciting jesse’s girl. The delivery is perfect and the Monarch’s response is equally perfect. Doc’s trying to be suave but comes off as stupid as ever. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 58, double points for hitting on the bride on her wedding day. Sucky Sampson: Let’s say 15 since I lost count and this is HOPEFULLY his final case of being a transphobic dick and frankly it’s gotten tiring at this point.. and it was exausting to begin with. Hanktastic: Hank figuring out how to play action figures with 24′s stuff. Despite knowing the names the boy comes up with a scenario right away.. and 21 rightfully goes with it. Deanarific: Dean being facinated by the cocoon. So precious. I really feel bad knowing he’s in fo r a lot. First Appearance: Soverign Bowie (Since he’s treated as David BOwie but isn’t actually him it’s easier to split the diffrence), Iggy Pop, Klaus Nomi, Sgt. Hatred (Proper debut), Princess Tinyfeet, Truckules, Russian Badguyovich

26. Showdown at Cremation Creek Part 2 (Co Super Good Award Winner)

Summary: The Wedding of the Decade gets crashed and it’s up to Brock, the Henchman, and David Fucking Bowie to save her from her clingy ex. Meanwhile Dean goes through a fantasy story of his own imaginging/gas leak hallucination and the order of the triad tries to figure out how to work the X1. My Thoughts: As I said these two parts are both awesome, and while the first part is more casual comedy and setup this one is the rare all cyllnders action piece from the show. They rarely do this but the guys bring it for epic final battles and this one sets a series standard. While still fitting as we dont’ see bowie vs limb (sadly) but we see Brock leading the minons, Bowie punching out iggy pop, and Dean’s never ending gas leak, which shows he not only gets those around him, seeing Billy as a helpful mentor, pete as a cyncial ass and his dad as his biggest critic, while also showing he wishes triana were more aprochable, showing how they just may not work out. They do not. It’s pure greatness and I wish I had more to say but I don’t. I will say.. this episode got me into bowie as a teen. So I eternally thank the show for that. Especially for oh you pretty things. Such a great song give it a listen. Best Moment: Bowie again, with both showing up in iggy’s cigarettes as well as his one liner “Make way for the homo superior!” Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: Ends with an even 60, both for snarking the monarch on a fucking rescue mission and for chiding brock for missing dean.. while he was leading a fucking assault. And he was trying to save ALL their lives. Also sets a high score at 35 prickish moments. Will he beat it? probbaly not but he’ll certaintly. Hanktastic: “Why must you be the screen door on my submarine” , with a close second being “it’s like dracula vs yoda down there!” Deanarific:The entire fucking fantasy sequence. So amazing. Questions For Later: Monarch I’m... which is never properly answered, something the guys cop to and apologize for. Also the fate of phantom limb. While he’ll pop up for a cameo at the start of next season, we won’t find out till march. Final Thoughts:

This season, while not without i’ts incredible lows, was great and I can’t wait to dive into the next one... and I plan too sooner as I got behind binging this one and especially if I end up doing season 4 in one big ball, i’m going to NEED to get ahead. But this season solidfied why I loved the show so much and catching an episode or two of this go tme curious.. but it’d take watching the next season as it came out that got me hooked for life. So join me next time to revisit it as we flash back a lot, go to daycamp, and the ventures are changed forever.

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#the venture bros #hank venture #dean venture #rusty venture #the monarch #brock sampson #dr girlfriend #henchman 21 #phantom limb #dr byron orpheus #triana orpheus #the alchemist #ba da!#adult swim #cartoon network #adult animation

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