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unkemptcastiel · 3 years

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SPN Finale

I try to limit w/ank on this blog so in the midst of reblogging posts that share my discontentment for the series ending, I don't want to end this show on sole negativity, because it means so much to me. So I'm gonna sum up my feelings on the ending, good and bad. Then I’m going to try to focus on having fun, reblogging memes and reliving good memories with the show and the fandom.

Good:

As far as the show has communicated, everyone is happy. Dean, Sam, Bobby, Rufus, John & Mary, Cas, all apparently happy. Yay!

I like that heaven's walls were taken down. That's something that never felt right to me and seemed indicative of heaven's problems in general- like the fact that everything was so harshly ordered to the point of isolating humans in farces of happiness-bubbles of recreated memories, that all just felt a bit fake and like a symptom of the larger problem of how angels viewed and treated humans. So I'm happy they changed that! :)

I like Betty as new Death.

OH I also liked the brief re-intro of the two archangels. It may have been a little wasted, (but this is the positivity section!) but it was a dynamic I wanted to see for ages. Also lucifer calling michael a cuck: Amazing.

I'm glad Jack didn't die. He's my son and I love him.

Also the thing with the dog & chuck.. pure comedy gold. Amazing.

Confusing:

I'm a little confused what happens to the dimensional "repeat" characters, like.. are there two bobby's chilling next door to each other in heaven, of bobby and apocalypse-world bobby? It's not a huge issue it just wasn't really addressed.

I'm also wondering if angels are basically extinct now? Like Cas is apparently ok but last we heard there were like 7 whole angels left. How's that goin. Hello?

I'm assuming hell is operating per usual? It's been a while since we've seen Rowena but I think she's still running things. A little unsure of where the balance lies between heaven and hell just due to how decimated the angels are.

I'm assuming Jody, and Alex, and Claire and all them are good? Would've liked a check-in of some sort on the recurring characters tbh. There was a lot of me and my friend asking "... So what happened to them?" about side characters who we never really got any goodbye for.

Also same with Amara being kinda written off.

Speaking of, was the woman Sam ended up with Eileen?? It was unclear to me. If not, I wish they would've mentioned her; she's a character I care about a lot.

Bad (Let’s say “Critique”):

The shows writing has dipped each season imo, and this season often felt particularly hollow. I'm not quite sure how to better communicate it beyond... The way it was shot, the dialogue, every behind-the-scenes choice just felt... Off. It was very off-putting, all season for me.

The "Destiel" thing: I’m sorry, it still felt queerbaiting. I'm queer myself but I've never personally really shipped destiel, nor any ship amongst the main trio. So, while not being very invested in a romantic form of Dean+Cas's relationship, I still felt that the confession was used more as a last-minute ploy to attract queer fans who may have since left the show, or in some attempt to make everyone happy, make it ambiguous so both queer and het fans wouldn't feel like their understanding of dean & cas was infringed on. I understand that, from a show-ending perspective, especially from a show that owes so much to its fans, that they'd want to please everybody. Unfortunately, queer representation is still lacking enough that anything outside of clear, unambiguous GAY that no one could argue is anything else, is still sort of regressive and potentially harmful to the LGBTQ+ community. So it ended up feeling like a throw-away, last-minute-gays but still semi-hetero cop-out situation, sadly. (I also think the release of the script was very deliberate in stressing that Dean cannot reciprocate whatever feelings Cas has. It communicated to me "MAYBE a non-human character could be ambiguously-maybe-queer but one of the two leads? Absolutely not.")

On that note --perhaps as a result of the confession scene-- the boys' relationship with Cas felt really weird in the end. For someone they've known and fought with for 12 years, the idea that they wouldn't even look for a way to save him ... It felt OOC, painting Dean and Sam as kind of heartless. I also feel that having Cas saved off-screen and never reappearing on-screen was generally.. a little disrespectful to Misha. His performance of Castiel literally changed the show for the rest of its run (if you're unaware, he was supposed to have a few episodes in s4 and that's it. His performance floored fans so much that he was signed on as a recurring character and eventual series main). So treating him as an afterthought felt callous, both in-show-universe and out here in the real world, show business-wise.

I don't care that Dean was killed by "a nail." I don't care lol. As long as the character didn't die of dysentery or something it doesn't read as stupid or humiliating, imo. I saw it and was like "ye shit happens." And Sam left to live a normal life- Good! My boy’s happy.

My primary issue with how Dean & Sam's lives and deaths went was this:

They make the entire show seem pointless.

To explain: the way that Sam and Dean's lives were going before the events of the pilot were: Dean is hunting primarily on his own, Sam is lined up to live a normal and happy life and eventually start a family of his own. It is discussed many times early-seasons that Dean expects to die early, due to the dangers of hunting, even though it is revealed that he also deeply wants a safe and happy life, he feels it is unattainable. Sam loves his family, but just wants out, and is getting to have that.

Usually in fiction, if an arc is set up then change is to occur to resolve the arc in a new and hopefully better place than it was originally. 15x20 however, looked at s1 Dean and Sam and said "Yep you guessed it exactly right." In-universe, their lives were on these paths once Sam left and went to college, which was a pre-pilot event. The "inciting incident" of the show, which acts as the pilot and which causes the rest of the show to happen in the first place, is Sam leaving his path for normality and returning to hunting. By ending this show with Dean dying on a hunt like he always expected, and Sam leaving to live a normal life with a family like he always originally planned: this arc is negated. We’re basically put right back in a pre-pilot spn world.

This ending was all already lined up to happen pre-pilot. This was ALREADY going to be their lives before the show ever started in 2005-- as a result, the show's events were just a bunch of messiness and conflict in the middle; but spn still ended for the boys the way it would have if basically all the events of the show 2005-2020 just never happened.

So it makes the show seem superfluous, and to me as a viewer it felt insulting because it felt like we ended right where we started, or we went backwards, and it implied that it was a waste of time to even watch the show if it was always going to end the same no matter what events transpired in between. THAT'S what upset me by this ending.

tl;dr: The show's writing felt rushed, confused, and emotionally hollow. As such, we didn't get to see much on the many side characters we care about, which was disappointing. The disappearance of Cas made him seem insignificant and the way each brother's life went was exactly as they were going before the events of the pilot, thus their lives were filled with extra needless pain and turmoil before ending the way they always expected, making the entirety of the show's events and its existence seem useless. Because I loved these characters and invested near a decade into them, this feels insulting to me on the characters' behalf, and on my own behalf as a viewer. That's my issue with the 15x20 ending.

However, I still take more positivity out of this show as a whole than negativity. I’m grateful it even existed in the first place, and that is what I want to try to focus on. 15x20 is one episode. Are there more episodes I dislike? Sure. But they are still a minority in a show that will hold my love for.. the forseeable future. So to every fan, those who disliked the ending and those who loved it, you’re valid, I’m glad I got to know some of you, &

#15x20 #supernatural #finale #spn spoilers #review #positivity #negativity #critique

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magicplanetanime · 5 years

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Let’s Watch HeartCatch Pretty Cure, Episode 1

I fully admit, I am a recent convert to the Pretty Cure cause. It’s not like I was never interested--I’ve loved magical girls since I first saw Sailor Moon as a kid--but it never quite seemed like the right time. I eventually picked up the currently airing Star Twinkle Precure at the start of its run, and I’ve been loving it! It’s a great series, and I highly recommend it.

It is also not what this blog is going to be about for the forseeable future. I’ve decided to take the plunge into the 49-episode Heartcatch Precure, and I will be using my blog over the coming weeks (and months?) to liveblog the experience.

I was interested in Heartcatch Precure for several reasons. Mostly the art style, and some whisperings I’d heard about one of the main characters. Nothing really prepared me for how the series starts though. To provide some context, Star Twinkle, the only Precure series I’m really familiar with, starts on a pretty lighthearted note. So I was really not expecting what I got out of the first scene here.

Because Heartcatch starts with someone dying.

Episode I - “I’ll Change! I’ll Show You I Can Change!!”

I took my first screencap 14 seconds into Heartcatch, and I say that without shame. The show looks absolutely gorgeous--even moreso in motion, I may end up forcing myself to figure out the arcane art of the gif recorder to fully convey what’s going on here visually. I expect this to drop off at some point, anime are often prettiest in their earliest and last episodes after all, but still, it’s one hell* of an introduction.

This introductory sequence captures a battle between the mysterious, beautiful Cure Moonlight, and what is presumably her evil counterpart. I knew nothing about any of these people watching this sequence and it was absolutely enthralling. The art strikes me as kind of Utena-influenced? I may be drawing off of a limited knowledge pool, though.

Moonlight is killed by her assailant, and the lone Precure’s last wish is that her fairies find successors worthy of succeeding where she failed.

No joke, this is a gutsy way to start a show aimed at kids. Children have capacity for the full spectrum of human emotion, and I do appreciate when a kid’s series treats them with the respect they deserve. Is it still for girls in gradeschool? Sure, but, right off the bat, Heartcatch seems genuinely interested in telling a story in the heroic tradition.

All this before we’re even introduced to our actual protagonist. Who was dreaming the scene we just saw.

I have a deep, genuine love of mahou shoujo protagonists. In my mind, none have ever done anything wrong. But this girl? This girl’s extra great, I can tell. Look at that character design! She’s so round!

Before we can learn much else, this girl (who we’ll shortly learn is named Tsubomi Hanasaki) arrives at the end of a roadtrip, and at her grandma’s house. Cut to OP.

The OP is very pretty as well, and seems to not-quite-spoil quite a few things. I want to give a nod to the fansubbers here (if you’re going to yell at me for piracy you should quick google “Precure, watch legally, English” and see how far you get) for the lovely subtitling done with the OP song.

Cut back to the episode and after a brief title card thanking the show’s sponsors (the only one I recognized was Yamaha, I suppose this was prior to the Precure brand’s partnership with McDonald’s) we get the long and short of Tsubomi’s backstory.

More importantly, we learn something that’s kind of surprising. I’ll let Tsubomi speak for herself here.

The general rule of thumb in magical girl series (including many of the other Precure shows), the character associated with colors like red, pink, and magenta is the brash, energetic one. Tsubomi being reserved is an interesting flip of that trope, she seems rather bookish, and is prone to embarassing herself. There’s a really funny bit just after this where she spots a 4-leaf clover in a flowerbed and asks it to grant her wish that she become more outgoing and friendly. Then she realizes she’s doing this in front of a bunch of people on her way to school, and, flustered, hurriedly scurries off.

Tsubomi introduces herself to her class. Trying to put on a bold face but failing, and then, after writing her name in a barely-legible size on the blackboard, this happens.

And that’ll be our second protagonist. This is Erika Kurumi, who is charming in her own way, and if I can confess, the main reason I became interested in this series, for reasons we won’t get to for several more episodes if I had to guess.

Tsubomi is a very relatable lead, but Erika even in these few introductory minutes, seems like a character a lot of young girls would identify with too. I know this was sometimes me as a young’n.

Random aside here, their teacher is quite nice too, and also pretty easy on the eyes in a soft butch sorta way. Is this how I know I’m getting old? Being attracted to anime characters’ teachers?

In any case, the (unintentional?) teasing leaves poor Tsubomi a little flustered. Though she quickly recovers when her class seem genuinely happy to get to know her.

Then it turns out that the only free seat in the classroom is next to Erika, to which Tsubomi’s reaction is, well, I’m not sure I could fish up an apt adjective for this particular splash screen.

The two have some lovely interactions during class. Including the shot that’s currently serving as my banner over on Anilist, but mostly, they banter, and the classic “clashing personalities” device is really put to good effect here. It’s almost a given that they’ll become close friends later on--possibly quite soon--but for now, you definitely get why they wouldn’t jive with each other.

10 minutes--goodness, we’re only that far in and I’ve already said so much--into the episode, we get to the main conflict. Namely, well, once again, a screencap summarizes it better than I could.

Erika is the last remaining member of the school’s fashion club, and needs someone else to join it. She attempts to recruit Tsubomi, who isn’t having it. Something of a rift having sprung between the two, they end up walking the same way home.

Like, all the same way home.

In a delightful convenience of plot, Erika and Tsubomi are neighbors.

A surprisingly pumpin’ pop-rock track swells in the soundtrack as Erika drags Tsubomi next door, promising to help her with the personal change she so desires. Erika’s the daughter of fashion designers, and it shows.

Still, despite her little smile here Tsubomi stands up for herself and tells Erika to basically cut it out. We’re also briefly introduced to Erika’s older sister Momo, who lightly scolds her younger sibling. As sisters do.

Erika, realizing she’s caused an issue, has something of a temper tantrum after Tsubomi leaves. All this miniature kid-drama, charming as it is, is enough to make you briefly forget that you’re watching a magical girl show, and a series as esteemed as Precure can’t have that, now can it?

Smash cut to these little ones.

These are the fairies that Cure Moonlight was beseeching in the intro. There’s no telling at this point how many years later on we are, but the evil Desert Apostles seem to still be at work, and the fairies seek out one Cure Flower, to alert her to their presence.

Below, Tsubomi is hanging out in a field, getting some fresh air after the earlier awkwardness and musing on the recurring dreams she has about Moonlight.

I think dear reader, that we all know the answer to that question.

The fairies, in distress and fleeing from the Desert Apostles, promptly do something they could not get away with on a similarly age-targeted show on American television, and hide by jumping down Tsubomi’s shirt. Which leads to a pretty dang weird segment where Tsubomi hides the fairies from this lady.

By….well, you can see the picture. This manages to be reasonably funny and only a little uncomfortably weird.

The Desert Apostle lady comes across Erika, sulking in a nearby park, and we get an immediate demonstration of how the whole “sad person-->monster for the protagonists to fight” flowchart works in Heartcatch. It is to the show’s credit that despite not really “showing” anything (remember: kids’ show), the transformation from person into a flower manages to look *incredibly* uncomfortable. Erika shouting her lungs out doesn’t help.

And about here, any even mildly-seasoned watcher of mahou shoujo series will know, is where things start to pop off.

To her credit, Tsubomi does try diplomacy.

But it doesn’t really take.

So we’ve got Tsubomi and the fairies being pursued by a vengeful, possessed, mustard-colored muppet doll. Something we learn is called a Desertian. Bonus points: being powered by Erika’s “flower of the heart” means that she yells half-coherent jealous nonsense about her sister.

As far as starter monsters go, this is a pretty effective one! It draws on an inner life of a character we already know a bit about, so the struggles that she faces that are reflected in the dolls ramblings make sense. There’s also some exposition here about heart flowers being separated from their hosts weakening the Great Heart Tree, the thing Cure Moonlight was defending in the opening scene.

Tsubomi promptly outdoes several anime airing at the time of this writing, and takes a brave stance against magically-induced slavery.

And then, the magic starts.

There’s some brief beating around the bush in a bit of the self-effacery that’s become common in the genre, but thankfully just enough to be charming and silly instead of over-the-top and forced.

But Tsubomi has the right idea.

And it’s here that I thank god for both youtube and the Pretty Cure fans that have gone before me, because there is nothing that needs to be seen in motion more than magical girl transformation sequences.

youtube

There is no one cooler than a magical girl who’s just transformed for the first time, and I firmly believe that in my maiden’s heart of hearts.

With Tsubomi’s first transformation into Cure Blossom, the episode ends, on quite the cliffhangar! I’m sure both Blossom and our pal Erika will be alright in the long run, but goodness, talk about a great first impression!

I didn’t really expect to devote this much text to just one episode but it was so impressive it was impossible not to. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the series.

I doubt all my posts will be this long, and I intend to combine multiple episodes into a single post in the future. Especially when we get to filler, since it’s hard to fill almost an entire day’s worth of video footage without putting in at least a few time-killers. Still, I’m loving this so far.

Tsubomi is a great protagonist. As someone who was also pretty shy and bookish in middle school, I really feel like a lot of girls must’ve really looked up to her. It’s a hard thing to measure, but I wonder just how many little girls she helped be just a bit more confident in their daily lives?

Such lofty musings aside, I’m excited to get to the next episode. Until then, you can peruse the promotionals after the final cut here. See you soon!

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If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy my other anime-related writing. I have a weekly anime column at The Geek Girl Authority, and write occasional full-series reviews for Anilist.

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I can also be found on Twitter.

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*I don’t think many actual kids use tumblr, but I will attempt to keep swearing to a meaningful minimum, just in case~

#heartcatch #precure #pretty cure #heartcatch pretty cure #Heartcatch Precure

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