#Even my first watchthrough he was the character I was least interested in
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i cant go to sleep until i release the thoughts so here they are. im sorry if this is a bit more nonsensical or rambleish than my other ones, im very very tired but anyway
this is going to be a bit upsetting for the lovey-dovey sunshine and rainbows crowd but people give red guy and duck WAYY too much credit when it comes to their relationship (or at least how it used to be) like they DID NOT //start out// functional AT. ALL. they used to go together like a car and a tree. and honestly this makes them even more interesting
They’re both insecure in different areas, and they react differently to these insecurities as well. from what ive gathered, red guy dislikes how “odd” he is. he tries to act bitter and uncaring about everything and everyone, either to fit in with the other red things, or to keep himself distracted or distanced from the world hes stuck in. he distances himself from his friends as well. this is a horrible contrast with ducks outward and open love of his friends (despite how horribly he treats them lmao but i digress) duck reveals in the family episode that despite loving himself, he wants other people to love him too. duck is not necessarily insecure in himself, hes the best one after all, but he does feel very lonely. he feels like nobody loves him as much as he loves himself, like the only person he truly has is himself because nobody else is willing to love him. this obviously makes him feel very alone. this is why red guys denial and dismissal of his friends hits ducks insecurities harshly and directly, even if its not intentional.
once i got to the fridge scene during my first watchthrough i was very confused. firstly because i was utterly flabbergasted that they were gay for some reason (i had never even considered it), and secondly because ducks reply caught me off guard. duck is a very full-of-himself character. so why would he be surprised to find out someone likes looking at him? shouldnt he reply with something like “well yeah duh you big stupid idiot im the prettiest and the best etc etc”?? well i understand now why duck reacted that way. he doesnt get many compliments from anyone but himself, probably talking in the mirror. and he ESPECIALLY hadnt gotten many compliments from red guy at this point. red guy denied being his friend very adamantly. EVEN AT HIS FUNERAL. HIS FUNERAL!!! and yes red guy does realize he misses duck eventually, but duck isnt even there to see it, and when he comes back he finds himself literally replaced?? (like.. red guy ur fumbling so hard right now. fumbling straight into a divorce. and ur not even married yet man. but anyway, back on topic)
slowly throughout the series red guy starts being more open, and whether he realizes it or not his whole uncaring act isnt that good to begin with. my favorite small detail during the funeral is that red guy calls the plates “our plates” without even realizing it, right in the middle of denying his best-friendship with duck. like dude who do you think youre fooling other than yourself!?
with all of this considered, despite red guys poor performance of denial, it’s perfectly understandable for duck to be surprised when red guy openly confesses his honest emotions. an up-front confession of feelings is not something red guy ever wants or allows himself to do, so duck was probably confused as hell.
my favorite part of this scene is how red guy is looking away when he says it, still clearly embarrassed but saying it anyway. this is a HUGE deal for his character. it was a character development that had been slowly growing throughout the tv series, and by episode six i think it was as close to completion as its ever been. he does pull the whole “its fine just ignore it” thing with duck earlier in the episode, but he does it more to calm him down in this context. the fridge scene confirms to me that red guy has almost stopped running, not necessarily from the house, but from his friends. he has finally let himself love them. hes finally let himself admit not just to himself, but to duck, that hes important to him.
this is why i think theyre so interesting, because these two characters are cynical assholes. that’s how becky and joe have described them at times. these characters are not the best of people, theyre both messed up people in a messed up and confusing world, so of course they wont be perfect. but thats the beauty of it. they dont want to hurt eachother, so they try their best to change. they try their best to fight against the cruelty of their minds and surroundings and let themselves love eachother even if only for a second, even if in the end it wont really matter
ok im going to sleep now goodnight
#fluffybird#red guy x duck#dhmis#dont hug me im scared#dhmis duck#dhmis fandom#dhmis red guy#duck guy#red guy#duck dhmis#red guy dhmis
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Call of the Night Watchthrough
#1: "Night Flight"
I really like the aesthetics here. They're very dreamlike, the first time he stepped outside I even assumed he was probably lucid dreaming lol.
If only real life looked like this.
#2: "Do You Do LINE?"
This show is really working for me narratively as well. It's mainly exploring the thematics of feeling unfulfilled with life, suddenly realizing that you're lacking a passion, and in a moment of breakthrough, wanting to hold on to that feeling, and that resonates with me strongly.
I really like how the night is used metaphorically with this, how even in this story (or at least they say), feeling unfulfilled is the reason people can't fall asleep, and Kou finds his passion, wanting to fall in love, in the night.
I thought at first that maybe we'd be exploring asexuality with Kou, but it doesn't seem like that anymore, but I really like their dynamic regardless. And I love that he feels like a genuine introvert and not the fake, over-the-top version I hate that anime so often uses.
Again, the aesthetics during the night is just really magical to me. I just mentioned it earlier but it really did remind me of lucid dreaming or going out of body. I constantly find the environment to have a kind of deep blue, gold aesthetic to it in a similar fashion. It works.
#3: "A Lot Came Out"
This show is making me think about if you did let a vampire suck your blood pretty regularly, eventually you'd have too little left. You'd have to regularly fill your body up with more blood at the hospital? That's a hassle. Also, their teacher saying stuff like, get your body used to a healthy sleep schedule now while you still can, cause when you're an adult that's no longer possible, is sadly indicative of Japan's work culture.
#4: "Isn't This a Tight Squeeze?"
I love how this show keeps digging into the messy emotions the characters have in really interesting ways. I never expected the series to be this well-written, but it's not as straightforward as it might seem, and each episode has me reflecting on the characters' actions plenty.
#5: "Well, That's a Problem"
The characters being 14 is a bit young. 16 something would fit better, I think. I'll just ignore it, and it's not a big deal, but, well, just sharing my musings.
Also, I've never been out during night, cause I'm scared of getting mugged, but can't say this anime isn't making me want to try.
#6: "Might as Well Have Fun"
That was my favourite episode so far, I would say. I still think Nazuna might have some nefarious intentions mixed in. Did she really just tell Kou to do the massage cause she was lazy? And some of her teasings has a bit of a cruel streak to it.
Them going to a night pool and Kou not liking it is two-folded, I'd say. On the one hand, it's just sensory overload for the kid, but on the other hand, it shatters the illusuon. The night pool is too adult-like for the adolescent dream he wants to indulge in.
It's still a messy show tho, intentionally so. It could really go anywhere, I'm not sure what thematic end message it'll end up leaning towards, but I'll be here for it and enjoying the ride.
And Kou realizing Shirakwa was just like him was a pretty powerful moment. Character interactions are charming as usual. Yeah, just good all around.
#7: "Reproduce"
I'm wondering if there are mostly just female vampires. Might just happen to be women that are involved in the story, but maybe there are deeper implications behind it with the whole sex and romance themes going on.
Also, I think just last episode I mentioned that Nazuna might have ulterior motives mixed in, and this episode had her vampire friends probing that exact question. Going off her reaction, not so sure, but it's a question that needed to be addressed.
#8: "All of Us"
'm really loving this show, I'm having a hard time thinking of another series that explores introversion in such a resonating manner. That theme fails so often for me.
The introduction of Mahiru, a guy Kou looks up to is funny, cause I remember, in junior high, there was this, and not even in a gay way, but gorgeous, gorgeous guy in my class, who was naturally good at everything ofc and super charming. And I think I was drawn to that.
As a certified introvert, I relate to the experience that while one may not want to fit in, in that manner, you tend to look up to the people that do, either way, cause fitting in, still comes with its benefits.
I just feel like a lot of shows that explore introverts, just have them scoff at everyone unlike them, and usually aren't smart enough to explore why that is, or other sides to it, so I appreciate this show doing so.
#9: "No Fair"
The interesting thing right now is that for Kou to achieve his goal of reveling in his introversion, away from normal society, he has to do something he's not comfortable with, something expected out of the extroverted society, fall in love.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I think the way this show explores introversion resonates with me stronger than anything else I've experienced. When it comes to this particular aspect, it's like it was written for me.
And again, this points back to what the very first episode set up. Which road will the story take? Will he have to conform to society's expectations by falling in love, or will he learn to accept his potential aero characteristics and live as such?
#10: "Enlarge the Peeping-Tom Photos"
A mostly comedy-oriented episode, but it still manages to tackle some complex emotions nonetheless with the whole everyone's ill theme. Another very good episode.
#11: "Do You Know What a Vampire Is?"
If this episode is anything to go by, I'm gonna like this series less when it focuses on the serious canon story parts, and it'll be more my thing when it's more vibes/slice of life. That said, still a good episode. Maybe the best directed one so far tbh.
#12: "My Mom's Out Tonight"
Hey, remember back during episode 1 when I speculated that maybe Kou was on the aeromantic spectrum somewhere? Well, we're picking up that inclination once again, hell yeah.
Maybe because you took the chair?‘
Anyway, that was a fantastic episode. I mentioned last week that I always get worried when SoL's (which let's face it, this show basically is) serious plot takes center stage, cause it often feels so divorced from what the story's been like before, but it's working here.
The reason it's working, (it took me this ep to realize) is because the serious aspects are just looking at the themes from different perspectives, necessary perspectives to deepen the thematics. This is great stuff, but it's centered around the same ideas it's always been about.
Ko embraces the night because it's out of the ordinary, but that does come with the negative aspects as well, and if he wants to embrace this, he has to embrace it all. And I think there were good questions brought up here, why does he want to become a vampire?
Every materialistic desire of yours stems from an internal lack. You want to lose weight because you're not happy with how your body looks, you want money because you want to feel stable, etc.
Maybe what Kou needs here isn't to become a vampire cause that'll give him what he wants, but to look into where that want stems from, and try to fix that instead. Eliminate whatever fear is the cause of it. Loving this show. (And Kou and Nazuna were adorable as usual too).
#13: "Call of the Night"
I really like how Call of the Night is never adamant about Ko going back to school. As if it was just as valid for him to be hanging out with Nazuna and becoming a vampire. That it's not wrong to live outside society's structures if that's what makes you happy.
It's very rare I feel for a show to make an almost kind of argument for that. Some people just won't ever be happy following the norms but will prefer the alternative, and that's okay.
#call of the night#yofukashi no uta#kou yamori#nazuna nanakusa#akira asai#seri kikiyou#kyouko mejiro#watchthrough#9/10
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tell me more about derek hale being your barfo 👀
Oh no Naila, you have opened the floodgates 😱
Posting under a cut so no poor unsuspecting soul has to read my unhinged essay. Also, spoilers inherent for Teen Wolf! (as if anyone in the year 2022 is trying to stay unspoiled for that 😂)
So Derek isn’t a character I’d hate on his own; much like my distaste for Cas, this arose out of fandom issues.
Derek in the show is…fine. He’s the stock mentor figure, but with a twist: he does no mentoring and helps very little. Instead of being kind and patient, he’s abrupt, harsh, often wrong, and obstructs our leads more than actually helping them.
On my first watchthrough, I just found him bland. Not my favorite character, not my most hated, just. He’s…there. K.
I know we can partly blame the writing for this—Jeff Davis wasn’t interested in Derek as a character, he just needed to wring as much werewolf lore (and Tyler Hoechlin abs) as possible out of him. But Hoechlin’s performance doesn’t help any. (Listen, I KNOW he’s actually a good actor. He’s doing great things right now. But on Teen Wolf? Absolutely not. I hate his deadpan delivery and monotone voice. I don’t care if it was a character choice, Hoechlin! Put some inflection into it!)
Basically, Derek is about as interesting to me as a stale cracker. (And I LIKE crackers, especially saltines!)
Then I got into fandom. And hoo boy, so many of us watched different shows. To them, Derek was the most interestingest, handsomest, tragicest, sexiest, characteriest character to ever character on Teen Wolf. He had so much personality, so much hidden depth, his performance was unparalleled, the writers did him so dirty, he’s also clearly closeted which gives him extra fandom points, etc etc.
(I call this Cas!syndrome. Elevation of a character/actor to near god-like status—not out of mere adoration of said character, but out of a need to obscure the 2012-white-boy-ship-frenzy by something resembling actual substance.)
I might as well bring up ships while I’m here—part of my dislike for Derek stems from sterek, my notp of Teen Wolf and lots of fans’ only reason for liking Derek at all.
The two of them are…painfully tryhard together. It was always very obvious after season 1 that they were only paired for fanservice scenes (because humor is Stiles saying something funny, and Derek either looking mad or hitting him for it! Or threatening to hit him, epic romance we have here)
(Let me also say I have no problems with anybody shipping pairings like this, go nuts with abuse, etc etc. It’s all fiction, you know the drill. But peak romance on a high school drama it is not)
This leads to another fatal flaw with Derek’s character. He doesn’t have anyone to bounce off of. He’s the loner.
Let’s be very honest here, Scoot McCool Scott McCall is quite a boring protagonist. No one is pretending he’s the greatest character alive. His writing is cliche, his development forced, his acting…well.
But I was still able to engage with him as a character because of his friendship with Stiles—they have genuine chemistry, their camaraderie is natural, and they feel like actual teen best friends. Just hanging out, being dumb. I was rarely bored by Scott, even if he’s not the most interesting character.
Derek doesn’t have anyone like that. The writers try several things out with him over the seasons—his love/hate relationship with Kate in season 1 was great! For all…two scenes of it. They tried putting him with Isaac and the other betas, but that basically consisted of him telling them plot exposition and being mean to them. Great way to endear us to him.
I seriously thought that’s why they brought back Peter—so they could bounce off each other being snarky. It worked great in the season 2 finale! But alas, after that they rarely used it.
They started pairing him with Chris Argent in the later seasons, which worked okay. But they’re both strong, stoic, serious types. And their history is…fraught, to say the least. Anyway, they both smile about five times in the show between them, and they’re not fun to watch together. (Probably because JR Bourne has the creepiest smile known to man)
Stiles has maybe one scene with Derek every three episodes? And while the two do have some chemistry, I find their scenes painful to watch, especially now. Any humor in them is replaced by 15x18-esque cringe. I know exactly why you paralyzed the two of them right on top of each other, Jeff. And it’s not even funny. Get out of here with your winking and nudging. I hate you.
So…yeah. It’s not like I have any real beef with him, I’m not going to make up reasons why his character was the worst, the secret villain of the series, or anything like that. He’s just a guy I didn’t have any interest in—but after hordes of fans shoving him in my face asking isn’t he the most specialest boy? You better clap for him or I’ll kill everyone in this room I’ve decided that he is the worst, actually, and he can choke.
#thank you for coming to my incoherent ted talk#hope this wasn’t too character bash-y#i didn’t realize i had much to say but i started monologuing to my bathroom mirror and realized i DO have a lot to talk about here#asks#thelegendofwinchester#teen wolf#anti derek hale#i ought to just change your tag to your name naila#if this url is staying :P#but who are we kidding i never update my tags#if anyone changes their url…no they didn’t
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Sending you your boy rolo for character bingo
My son yas!!!
His character is just as interesting as Totsuka's. Rolo never knew love cause since he was at least 5 (going by his appearance in episode 4 and in background panels in the Oz manga) he grew up a an assassin. Lelouch was the first person who was ever kind to him,but he knew this was only temporary. He craved his love and affection to the point that when someone would try to become in between his relationship with his brother he would resort to murder cause he never knew how to cope with feelings of jealousy aside from that. He probably caught on that Lelouch was just using him not too long after he got his memories back cause of how much Lelouch loves Nunnally that he murmurs in his sleep. Rolo didn't care cause the bond they shared while Lelouch's memories were locked away was real to him that it made him feel like a human instead of just a tool. He sacrificed himself even after Lelouch told him how much he hated him and wanted him dead. He was one of the most loyal characters in Code Geass along with Jeremiah and Guilford.
I usually am afraid to say how much I love Rolo outside of the internet cause most of the western fanbase seems to hate him cause he killed Shirley which when they tell me that in my mind I'm like " She is the worst character in the series and one of the worst anime females I ever had the displeasure or watching in general", but my mouth says "He is too cute for me to hate" followed by a nervous laugh and changing topics real fucking quick. I just do not want to draw attention to myself in public or nerd rage over fictional character in front of non anime fans.
Rolo has far too less screen time and wasted potential its been 10+ years and not novel or manga adaption about the geass cult? Also Taniguchi degrading him to just Shirley's murderer and that is why he didn't want to add him to the movies and I was like so you just accidently wrote a deep character? Have you turned senile the pass 10 years? Also the Code Geass committee made him add Rolo so at least we know that some people on the staff still has his back after all this time.
I'm just really happy he is still getting merch sure its always badges or straps, but I think it means he is popular enough to still make a profit off. You don't see much of any other supporting character as much a him.
Also I was depressed while watching R2 it was one of the couple times where I hit rock bottom and was starving myself and crying and feeling helpless a lot. Its just when I saw Rolo smile in the first episode and I was like who is his kid and why do I love him while I do not even know him. So I stay tuned each week to hope he would have some screen time and when he died I was crushed and I wanted to drop the show, but I changed my mind cause I felt like it would be a disservice to Rolo so I watched the rest of the show and the last 4ish episodes were really good. So he kinda gave me something to look forward to and I got out of that current slump and started eating more for a good few months. So in a way he did kinda save my life so he is very special to me and I get personally offended when people mindlessly bash him even though I know that I shouldn't care, but I do.
I used to be a yaoi fan girl at the time so my OTP was in fact Leloch x Rolo, but after I got out of that phase I was like what was wrong with me? I didn't even like the way he treated him in the first place and I still do this day have never done a complete watchthrough of R2 since its first airing back in 2008. My main ships with Rolo are with Nunnally,Gino, and Suzaku. I just find Lelouch's and Rolo's relationship to be very toxic with Lelouch manipulating Rolo and trying to kill him while Rolo would kill anyone who come in his way of his relationship with Lelouch. I guess I just want to bury myself in lighthearted Rolo content and Nunnally and Gino fanart does just that. Rolo x Nunnally will be my OTP of all OTPS no one will take my dead cold ass hands off this ship instead of the writers coming out and officially 100% say they are in fact half or full siblings.
I'm really hoping for Rolo to return in the new series somehow he deserves to come back also the series is the sequel to the movies so he doesn't really need to redeem himself for Shirley's death since she is alive in this universe so come on lets go! bring him back to us!
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Sometimes I still wish Chapter 18 "The Remembered" was just a bad dream I'll wake up from and Final Space will still be good.
#all bringing avocato back does#is retroactively make every oter episode Worse#S1 had infinite rewatchability#Now every episode he's in he just looks too damn punchable#and every episode he's NOT in just reminds me of how close we were to getting somewhere#Every time they mourn him it's for nothing#Even my first watchthrough he was the character I was least interested in#So when he died it was like ''ah well. at least now there'll be more time for quinn then. Right?'' Fucking. WRONG.#I knew. I fucking KNEW if he ever came back the fandom would be just unbearable.#I just didn't think it'd happen in season FUCKING 2#BEFORE they did god damn ANYTHING with Quinn#Olan ''I've been on the internet a long time'' Rogers somehow didn't know this exact shit would happen if he brought him back??#''Oh but Quinn's in S3 more-'' YOU DON'T FUCKING GET IT. to these people it's only just 'The Avocato and Gary show'#it doesn't matter if Quinn gets the whole season they're still just gonna treat her as a background character and it makes me fucking sick.#it SO didn't have to be this way#it's like he just doubled down and decided to handfeed the worst parts of the fanbase and even if S3 is great it won't matter
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Episode 27: P-Chan Explodes! The Icy Fountain of Love!
I’m...kind of sad to be here. We’re at the end of the Martial Arts Figure Skating arc. But all good things must come to an end, and I remember absolutely loving where this one goes. Will that till be the case? I have no clue, so next paragraph you can join me after I’ve rewatched the episode!
Okay so...that was still good. Definitely good. But...we’ll get into it later.
The episode once again picks off where the last left off, with Ranma making an epic declaration of his official relationship status with Akane and how he won’t let Mikado touch her. This tends Akane into a bit of a tizzy, but Mikado and Azusa laugh. It’s revealed that they’re known as more than just the Golden Pair, an unbeatable skating duo. They also have a reputation for splitting up the couples they fight.
They quickly set up their finisher which is made to do just that: the Goodbye Whirl (called the Break-Up Merry-Go-Round in the sub). It’s an absolutely ridiculous move that I love to death: it involves getting one of their opponents to grab the other, and then Azusa grabs one. Mikado lifts her and both opponents all into the area and twirl around as quickly as it can. The move always ends when one of the people in the relationship betrays the other, ending them flying in a bid to save themselves.
But that isn’t how it works this time around. While Akane is begging Ranma to let go of her, so he can be okay, Ranma refuses, making it clear he’s not going to let go. They hold on so long that Azusa gets busy and breaks contact, sending Ranma and Akane flying.
It looks like Akane’s going to be crashing into the rink wall, but Ranma maneuvers to take the damage instead. Akane cries over his seemingly unconscious form, calling him an idiot, when Ranma opens his eyes. It seems like he’s just fine, but just standing up causes him enough pain to make him start crying.
While all of that was going on, Ryoga managed to escape from his bondage and tries to pull off a cunning plan: dousing Ranma with water before jumping in and taking over as Akane’s partner. It only has one hiccup: he grab the wrong “girl”, and ends up throwing Akane out of the ring while taking Ranma in his cursed form as his partner.
The crowd isn’t happy with this change, even if Mikado is all too happy to fight this version of Ranma. They’re not upset about the substitution though, just that their costumes aren’t up to snuff. Luckily, there’s a whole fashion department waiting in the wings, who sweep in and fit the two for new outfits.
That done, it becomes apparent that Ryoga still doesn’t know how to skate, and so he and Ranma are easily taken into the Goodbye Whirl, and no matter what Ranma/Ryoga shippers tell you they don’t have the same bond that Ranma does with Akane. In no time at all, Ryoga socks Ranma in the face to betray him, and we get to see how the move is supposed to work: Azusa ensures the betrayer is smashed into the ice face-first, while Mikado picks up the “damsel in distress” to romance on the rebound.
Of course, this doesn’t really work well with Ranma, but even worse is that Azusa sees the collar on Ryoga’s neck and realizes that he must be Charlotte. This makes Ranma laugh, but sends Ryoga into terror. After all, Akane’s not far away, and he doesn't want her to know he’s actually her pet pig.
When Mikado tries to actually get back into the fight, Azusa smashes him with a mallet, since she doesn’t want Ryoga hurt now that she knows he’s Charlotte. (What a sentence.) The blow is so powerful that it shatters the ice rink, and sends Mikado out of the match on a stretcher. That means Ranma and Ryoga won...except now Ryoga wants to fight Ranma.
As the ice rink goes truly haywire, with water shooting out as geysers and freezing mid-air, they take the fight outside, ultimately going to a nearby pool. Akane follows, trying to get them to stop and demanding to know why they feel the need to keep fighting each other whenever they can. Akane falls into the pool, and when the fighters realize that she can’t swim, they dive down together to save her...with Ryoga realizing mid-jump that the water will activate his curse.
Akane wakes up later, recovering from nearly drowning, to hear that P-Chan helped pull her out of the water. Oh, and Genma in his panda form was adopted by Azusa as another cute animal named “Oscar” and he actually blushes at being called cute. End of storyline.
Let me try a compliment sandwich with this one. To start with, I just adore the chaos of this episode. Like I said before, the Goodbye Whirl is the kind of awesome, silly wonderfulness I come to Ranma 1/2 for in the first place. I love that we get to see it fail against Ranma and Akane, then succeed with him and Ryoga. The fact the fight quickly dissolves from there into utter nonsense, with the rink exploding and the fight going outdoors, it just feels fun and satisfying.
Speaking of satisfying, the fighting in this and the previous episode is all really well done. This is definitely a romantic comedy series, first and foremost, but I love how when they take the time for a martial arts match it can still feel kinetic and fluid and visually stimulating. The ice skating makes it all the more interesting, and just watching something as simple as Mikado circling the rink after being thrown aside is enjoyable.
It’s also a really funny episode. The conflicts between Ranma and Akane, Ranma and Ryoga, Ranma and Mikado, Mikado and Azusa, they all mix and spin and stir into a beautiful concoction, with both barbs and slapstick aplenty to amuse.
Now...into the less fun bits. To start with, as much as I enjoy the Ranma/Akane content in this episode, which yes I’ll talk a bit more about that later, there’s also a bit too much here in terms of jealousy and possessiveness, especially on Ranma’s part. I know it’s kind of a recurring part of the series, but I really dislike jealousy being framed as romantic, because it’s honestly not a healthy emotion and not a sign of a good relationship.
This next complaint is less solid, but it affects my feelings of the episode anyway. I...seem to have massively mis-remembered this episode? For some reason, I have very vivid memories that, once it becomes more Ranma vs Ryoga and the Golden Pair are out of the picture, that they fought on the broken rink.
Like, I can picture them struggling to stay on top of icy platform, with Ryoga especially trying to avoid falling into the water, and Akane interfering and like...what is going on there? Is that from another episode, and I mixed it up with this storyline? Or did my brain just make that up wholesale in the decade since I last saw this show?
Either way, it kind of sucks because...that felt more epic than what did happen? It’s strange to hold it against the show for failing to match the fake memories I made, but I dunno what to tell you, I can’t help being at least a little sad about this.
Okay, done with that stuff, back to what I like. Yes, there’s some tasty content here for my Ranma/Akane loving heart, and I ate it up. It was also nice seeing Ranma actually take damage from someone else’s move. He tends to be so much better than a lot of his opponents that they never really stand a chance of hurting him, but the Goodbye Whirl really came close to downing him.
Before we leave this storyline behind, it’s time to give a little Character Spotlight to the other half of the Golden Pair, Azusa Shiratori! Her Japanese voice actress is Naoko Matsui, and...the only other role I really recognize on her page is Monet from One Piece, but she’s been in a lot of stuff. In English, she’s played by Cathy Weseluck, who is also Shampoo. So check out Shampoo’s spotlight to see what other roles she’s done.
They both play Azusa pretty similarly, high-pitched and cutesy, but I think Cathy might actually play it up a little too much? But maybe that’s just because it’s the language of the two that I actually speak.
I was never a huge fan of Azusa to start with, just because she’s a bit...much. The combination of her high-pitched voice, third-person speak, repetitious dialogue, and extreme cutesiness is all just a lot. It’s just the type of thing that would grate on my nerves in too high doses, and the series tends to use a lot of Azusa when she does appear.
But, so far at least, I’m liking her more on this watchthrough. I still find her whole “naming things French people names and taking them” thing not especially funny, but I love the way she clashes with Mikado. They fight together wonderfully, but she has no problems kicking his ass or making him look like an idiot when she wants to. They’re a great double act.
Which is why it’s kind of odd that, while Mikado only has a few small appearances after this episode, Azusa will be getting more than that. They’re anime-only, but it seems she was popular, with fans, writers, or both, enough to get more screentime. I do wish she’d gotten a single-person move the way Mikado did, but that’s just one more complaint on how the show treats women to put on the stack.
So, this episode sadly didn’t quite live up to my memories of it. That said, it was still a fun mix of fighting and humor, so it’s definitely going to be in my top ten. But where exactly...hmm... I think it comes close to getting into the Top 5, but isn’t quite good enough to beat Shampoo’s introductory episode, sitting right below it and above the episode all about Akane’s haircut. That puts our current ranking at:
Episode 26: Close Call! The Dance of Death... On Ice!
Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’
Episode 25: The Abduction of P-Chan
Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!
Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands
Episode 27: P-Chan Explodes! The Icy Fountain of Love!
Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!
Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around
Episode 19: Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race
Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know
Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!
Episode 23: Enter Mousse! The Fist of the White Swan
Episode 17: I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye
Episode 20: You Really Do Hate Cats!
Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul
Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga
Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!
Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another
Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart
Episode 1: Here’s Ranma
Episode 22: Behold! The 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire' Technique
Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love
Episode 21: This Ol' Gal's the Leader of the Amazon Tribe!
Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'
Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan
Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?
Episode 24: Cool Runnings! The Race of the Snowmen
As much as I’m sad to see this storyline end, we’ve got another one of my favorites coming up! It’s training time, so next week we’re getting some more Ranma vs Ryoga action with "Ranma Trains on Mt. Terror". See you then!
#episode 27#P-Chan Explodes! The Icy Fountain of Love!#ranma saotome#akane tendo#ryoga hibiki#mikado sanzenin#azusa shiratore#ranma 1/2#anime rewatch#anime analysis
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ST: TNG S6 Watchthrough Episodes 14-17
Face of the Enemy: Troi has been kidnapped and forced to look/pose as a Romulan officer. Why? The one responsible isn’t saying, but to say that she’s unhappy would be an understatement. As it turns out, Troi was abducted by a part of the resistance from Unification and they need a Starfleet officer in case their current plan goes south. They even mention Spock… IDK if I can see him approving of an abduction but maybe they just forgot to mention that he disapproved that part… then again I guess it makes logical sense. Eh, whatever. So… this is by far the best Troi episode that they’ve done thus far. She was kidnapped yes, but she is NOT playing the damsel-in-distress. She’s not victimized. She’s not sexualized. She’s not forced into a poorly conceived romance or undergoes anything gross/f*cked up. She has to act the part of a cold-hearted authoritarian among a ship of Romulans and she is freakin’ badass. Especially when she decides that she’s had enough going and thoroughly tells off her kidnapper N’Vek and that he will listen to her. 100% perfection. They even managed to make her empathic abilities useful. Did putting her in the uniform cause this? Did they get it out of their systems in Man of the People? IDK but I am all for it! It was also an awesome look into the Romulans and the going-ons on their ship, something we haven’t really gotten since TOS’ Balance of Terror, and all the Romulans are done very well. N’Vek kidnapped Troi but he did it for his cause and is a great morally grey character, and the female Romulan Commander Toreth is an excellent antagonist. Plus it’s nice to see more of the resistance and to see them within the Romulan ranks. It was an excellent episode and I freakin’ loved it~! Thank you show for giving Troi the badass episode that she deserves (even if it was this late in the show's run), now keep it up! 5/5.
Tapestry: Two Q episodes this season? Hell yes~! So… Picard dies. Welp. Q decides to take this to give Picard an offer: go back in time and undo his greatest regret, the incident that caused his artificial heart that he told Wesley about in Samaritan Snare. Back when he was a hot-blooded rebel who got himself into a fight that got him stabbed in the heart. In doing so, he now has a chance to correct all the wrongs and settle all he regrets in his life since that day. So up to this point, Q’s episodes since Q Who, while still entertaining and interesting, had been more light-hearted. Q still came off as an all-powerful being (Deja Q aside which him not being was the plot point), but his antics had been more comedic or light-hearted in comparison. In this episode, he’s acting like a trickster as per usual, but again more with the purpose to teach Picard a lesson. Why isn’t made very clear aside from maybe he just likes Picard (take that however way you’d like), but it’s nice to see this version of Q again while still utterly stealing the show. Picard got to undo the event… but would it have really turned out any better had it not happened? Would not making mistakes, having regrets, and making all the supposed ‘right’ choices when he should have had truly made a better impact in his present? That’s the funny thing about life, it’s easy to look back and go ‘if I had done this one thing differently, it would have been better’ and te desire to correct it is very powerful. But with mistakes comes the ability to learn. To grow. To mature. You’ll always have guilt and regrets, but you have to accept that this is what you chose and go about your life. Picard is a man full of thrown-away opportunities, pain, and so much more… but it also caused him to become a strong leader, intelligent, a risk-taker, and even with all his faults become a better person in his present day. Now obviously he doesn’t actually die, but he sure as Hell learned the lesson. The life he would have lead would have been unsatisfying, his old regrets replaced with new ones, and been unfulfilling for a man like himself. Now he can truly value the one that he has and the people in it. This was a fantastic episode. It’s crazy how Picard went from one of my least favorites to now one of my absolute favorites. His development and growth from a strict, aloof authoritarian to a much more reasonable father-like figure and much more humbled man and the captain has been excellent, and this episode just helps further that. The only real complaint is there’s not much time devoted to showing how his crew ended up without him, but that’s minor and doesn’t take anything away at all. Very well done~! 5/5.
Birthright: Okay, guess we got a second two-parter… and apparently it crosses over with DS9. Didn’t see that coming. But alrighty, I’m game~!
Part One: So the crew is on Deep Space 9 to assist in repairs of some incident involving the Bajorans and the Cardassians that I guess I’ll find out about when I get to the show. While there Worf is approached by an alien who informs him that his dead father? He may not be dead after all, having been kept in a Romulan prison. Worf doesn’t take it well. He ain’t the only one having daddy issues. While working with DS9‘s CMO Dr. Bashir, Data gets knocked out has a vision of Dr. Soong (a much younger one than in Brothers). Normally Data can’t dream so he’s pretty taken aback by this. So as a first part, this was pretty good. It sets up Worf’s plot well with him deciding to break into the Romulan camp to find out the truth and rescue the Klingons there. Data’s plot is overall nice. He’s never dreamed before so him trying to track down why is very understandable, especiallya after Picard suggests that he quit going through facts and try a more creative outlet to get his answers. So what happened? As it turns out Dr. Soong made it so that when Data reached a certain cognitive point, he would obtaint he ability to dream and he made an AI version of himself to talk to him. I guess he would have explained this to him in Brothers had Lore not shown up/had he not died. It was a really touching moment. Soong’s still not exactly the most ideal parent, but his AI copy seemed legit proud of how far Data’s come. Is it out of ego, legit parental pride, or both? That’s up for you to decide. As this is my first look at Bashir… so far I don’t have too manys torng opinions. he seems to act more liek a Science Officer or Engineer han a CMO, but he is cute and so far liekabe. He’s curious about Data, but doesn’t dehumanize him like Maddox in The Measure of a Man did, if anything he notes Data’s more human-like elements like being able to grow hair than any of the nuts and bolts. He seems pretty well liked from what I’ve seen int he fandom, so I’ll see how that holds when I reach DS9 but I like him so far. I do have some issues, but that more impacts the Overall so I’ll save it for there. So we end with Worf discovering his father’s true fate… and he’s informed by the Klingons there that he’s never leaving the camp. Welp. How will Worf get out of this one in Part 2? We shall see. 4/5.
Part Two: So what the heck is going on? Well, Worf’s father is infact dead, but there were captured Klingons. As they weren’t able to die with honor nor could they return home as it would dishonor their families (Klingons prefer death to capture), they chose to remain in the camp and live out the rest of their lives there. So now Worf is among multiple Klingons, the vast majority of which know nothing about their heritage, culture, and customs and had it outright demonized. To them, the lives they have are the norm and they have no desire to change it. Worf may have been out of touch with Klingons due to being raised on Earth, but at least he can explore it and get in touch with it. The ones in the camp? They can’t do that. They’re essentially in a gilded cage. Yeah, there's the argument that they achieved peace between Klingons and Romulans… by imprisoning said Klingons and demonizing their culture to them with the older Klingons allowing it. Though it seems it’s also because of broken spirits and the dishonor they’d have faced otherwise which is worst than death to them. There’s even one girl, Ba’el, who is half Klingon, half-Romulan… and despite what gets said I don’t get the sense that her parents' union was a fully consensual one. This was pretty good. Worf has found a group that like him were out of touch with their heritage, and he is now able to educate them and guide them. With all that’s happened and his struggle to be a true Klingon and find his way, this was really nice to have. He’s still clinging onto his hatred of Romulans and this episode isn’t going to help it dissipate, but at least it was addressed and Ba’el being upset at being judged due to how she was born was very much justified. Heaven knows that the themes here are still very much relevant in today’s time. Worf’s guidance pays off in the end and at last, they can be free. The younger Klingons have a rough road likely ahead of them since we know that Klingon society isn’t exactly the easiest to get through, but at least they have a chance at freedom. It was a very strong Worf episode and it was great to see~. 4/5.
Overall: Okay, so overall… it’s pretty uneasy. The Worf parts are good.. As I said, it was nice to see him in a position to give guidance to a group even more out of touch than he is. It was very wel done. The issues are mainly with Part One. We have this plot where they go to DS9… and we are barely there. We have Dr. Bashir… and only him. None of the other characters. We don't even see O’Brien despite him having transferred to DS9 at this point. Maybe the actors were busy sot they could only pick one but it kinda makes doing a crossover cheap. Bashir doesn’t even get a lot to do, you could write him out and very little would change. On the upside this means that viewers who haven’t watched DS9 won’t be confused nor would DS9 be required viewing, but it also kind of defeats the purpose of bringing DS9 in. It’s essentially just window dressing. Data’s plot, while nice, is completely dropped in Part Two. It feels like they were required to do a two-parter, didn’t have enough of the Worf plot to fill it out, and came up with the Data dream plot and using DS9 to fill it out. The crew also don’t really do anything in either part. As such, aside from getting Worf into the place he needs to be, Part One feels irrelevant. As such, I can’t give it a perfect rating. It was still good, but as a two-parter Part One bogs it down, but still allows for Part Two to happen. Overall, pretty good. 4/5.
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Year of Yu-Gi-Oh Part II: Toei Adaptation
After the manga comes the anime adaptation known infamously among the fandom as “season zero.”
Aired in 1998, “”season zero”” has no actual season relation to the main series Duel Monster anime. Instead, it as produced and run by Toei Animation, and follows the basic storyline of the first seven volumes of the manga, mostly in a game-of-the-week style format. Like the manga, the story follows Yugi Mutou, a boy who solves the mysterious Millennium Puzzle which awakens a spirit in him that challenges his bullies, enemies, and other opponents to magical games. Unlike the manga, however, the anime version heavily alters many scenes, including the content of the games, their results (few, if any characters actually die from the games, unlike the manga), filler episode plots, and most drastically, the addition of Miho Nosaka, a former oneshot character, as a recurring major character.
But you all already know all of that, probably! So here’s the important stuff: what did I think of my rewatch? Well...
The sad thing is, I seem to recall enjoying this anime a LOT more the first time I watched it. The second watchthrough was...less interesting.
Good stuff first, though. Most of the main voice cast is absolutely stunning. Megumi Ogata as Yugi/Yami Yugi in particular is incredibly strong, and I will never love a Yami Yugi voice more than hers; the soft, unassuming sort of confidence fits and characterizes Yami Yugi in a way that I don’t think any other adaptation of Yami Yugi ever could (sorry, Dan Green).
Also, I really, really love seeing the smaller, visibly young looking Yami Yugi animated in general. Yami Yugi absolutely becomes significantly older looking than Yugi in DM and in the later half of the manga, which makes little sense considering he is using the exact same body as Yugi. I much prefer this younger, cuter Yami Yugi, which, in my opinion, makes his entire schtick far more intimidating. Small, childish looking Yugi Mutou challenging you to a death game? Far more frightening and eerie than loud, brash Dan Green-ified Yami Yugi just shouting at you, imo. Jonouchi and Anzu’s voices really stand out as a personification of their manga characters, as well.
I may be in the minority here, but I also really, really loved Miho’s addition to the main cast. She didn’t fit into every scene, of course, and there were bits where even I felt like her inclusion was forced, but for good chunks of the series, especially in filler episodes, she absolutely shone and stood out as her own character with her own goals and motivations, who was still a part of the group and participated--and even won!!--in many of the group’s challenges. I also just like having another girl in the group, ya know?
Smaller details that I did like: overall color palette aside, I really, REALLY love Yami Yugi’s red eyes, and I continue to describe Yami Yugi with red eyes in every fic I ever include him in. Ryo’s green eyes are also a fave of mine. Also: NO JOHJI!!!! Miho basically replaces him completely in Death-T and wow, that’s honestly an even better idea than to replace him with Honda’s dog!
Now before I move on to the more negative part of this review, lemme leave you with a cute picture of Miho Nosaka:
the rest is under the cut so as to avoid clogging up the dash even more, and so that y’all can avoid my negative bits if ya want.
So, down to business. Why didn’t I really enjoy my rewatch of the Toei adaptation?
1) Pacing. The plot episodes seem to rush themselves along as fast as they can, to try and fit as much from the manga chapter in as possible. Filler episodes, or episodes based on filler chapters, drag out so long that it becomes a slog to get through.
2) Low animation budget. Unfortunately, the limits of the time this anime was produced didn’t help it’s case either. The color palette is a goddamn oversaturated mess, and some of the color choices are truly head-scratching. Seto Kaiba with green hair? Who decided that? Wasn’t he already colored with brown hair on a manga volume prior to this adaptation? Palette aside, action scenes are considerably muted due to lack of budget to fully animate them, resulting in strange cuts and boring shots. A LOT of the charm and intensity that gave a lot of moments in the manga their punch is lost in the adaptation, as Takahashi’s more horror manga-esque style is heavily simplified and stylized to get to the screen. The extra cartoonish coloring also contributes to a lot of the more intense scenes from the manga falling flat.
3) Sound direction. It’s just boring. Only Yami Yugi’s theme stands out, and even that’s not really top of the line. Sound effects are silly and cartoonish, and I’ll be honest, I do not like the OP or ED. And outside of the main cast....? A lot of the voice acting sounds pretty dull and unmemorable.
4) Adaptation changes pt 1. Listen...I’m not here to be all Edgy and say this show was bad because it refused to kill people. But this anime completely pulls its punches when it comes to...everything. As far as I can remember, not a single person actually dies during the series, despite Yami Yugi killing or hospitalizing at least five-six people in the manga. It just hits a lot less hard when all he’s done is given someone an illusion of being burned to death instead of him actually dropping his cigarette butt into the alcohol and lighting himself on fire. For some reason, it just makes everything feel a bit flatter.
5) Adaptation changes pt 2. The games!!! They’re boring!!! The real draw, for me, of the manga was when Yami Yugi used ordinary items in his surroundings to pull together a game. In the anime, he just pops them into a weird, nightmare dimension where weird shit happens and the games never make sense. Not to mention, the anime adds a lot of extra encounters with Kaiba than the manga had, including extra Duel Monsters games. And while Takahashi had little to no rules for the game in the first place, in the anime, when they don’t have a manga script to follow, it is a goddamn free for all. It’s like Calvinball up in here, making up shit left and right, even WORSE than the manga ever did, and it’s...not fun to watch. At all. Not understanding what’s happening just makes me, as a viewer, feel cheated and let down.
6) Adaptation changes pt 3. Due to the nature of the adaptation, a lot of bits and pieces of character arcs were switched around, cut out, or straight up ignored. Mokuba does not go rescue Honda from the blocks game in Death-T. The Jonouchi-Hirutani arc is condensed from its original several chapters span into a single episode. And there are other examples as well, that I think overall do a disservice to the cast and the individual characters.
So, my overall verdict? Unless you are a super die-hard fan of Yu-Gi-Oh, particular DM, I don’t think the anime is worth the time. It’s quirky, funny, and can be fun in places, but overall, it at least wasn’t really worth my second watch.
I’m still stealing Miho for my own purposes, though.
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Dash! (Away from) Ohranger
Well another sentai finished and another review post to be made. Now it may seem like it took me a while to finish Ohranger, it didn't. I think I finished prolly half a year ago. What took me so long is finding the energy to write this post. Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: Chouriki Sentai Ohranger is a bad show, as such i got super bored of thinking about it whenever I tried to write this. Hell the only reason i even sat down to finally finish this was because i’m almost done with my next sentai. And because of this I decided not to put the same kind of effort into this that I did with the Shinkenger post. I doubt it’s the worst sentai out there but at this moment it's easily the worst sentai I’ve watched from beginning to end. And its a shame since I absolutely adore the Ohranger suits, A simple solid color with a white collar lined with a gold circuitry pattern really simple and visually appealing. I have no idea why their visors look like something you’d give to a toddler to teach them shapes but it’s unique and cool to look at.So what to start talking about in particular? Let’s start with what I liked the most and work our way down
Opening
I didn’t really go into the opening of shinkenger last time mainly because I didn’t think I needed to. Shinkenger had an amazing theme that i feel most, if not all, sentai fans have heard at least once. However I don’t think ohranger’s theme is quite as popular so let me give my piece on it.The theme is…. Good? I personally wasn’t super into it, it’s catchy and the lyrics are good. But the chorus sounds a bit weird in the beginning and it loses its charm after a couple of episodes. I didn’t mind listening to it every episode but at the same time I never felt like I would miss much by skipping it. After listening to other openings a bit more I think Ohranger’s problem is it just lacks the oomph and epicness that it needs to get you excited for the show. It fits better for an anime about a dancing contest than it does a show about saving the earth. I did say I liked this part of the show right?
Characters
I don’t really have a lot to say about the villains this time around so I’ll just give quick words about each major villain before moving onto the rangers. Bachus Wrath was probably the worst villain just because of how uninteresting he was, Bomber the great was the best for pretty much the opposite reason he was rude mean and you loved to hate him, and Kaiser Buldont and Multiwa were incestious robots so I don’t think I need to say more than that. Now to the rangers, who are kinda hard to talk about. I’ll get more into this later but a major problem with Ohranger as a whole is that the actual Ohrangers are barely characters in their own show. They were given very little, if any, characterization and they tended to take a backseat to the one off characters in most episodes. Because of this I don’t really wanna talk about the as individuals but rather in 3 categories that I’ve placed each character into
Category 1: Oh yeah, they exist
As much as sentai in general will try to preach about teamwork and try to focus on each member of the team equally it’s hard to deny that most seasons of sentai have a “Main character” of sorts that gets more focus than the rest. Most of the time the main character is the red ranger with few exceptions. Ohranger being one of those exceptions because absolutely no focus was ever put on Ohred. Looking back I can’t recall a single episode where he was the main focus. He was certainly there throughout the show but after watching all 48 episodes I don’t think he ever did anything too important other than choose the other 4 to become Ohrangers and that was it. It feels like they were writing this character, put “TBD” under his personality, and just forgot to determine one for him. The most interesting thing about Ohred is that his actor now owns a Sentai themed bar in japan
At the very least Red was there from episode one, unlike kingranger who made his debut about halfway into the series and had very sporadic appearances throughout the rest of the show. More often than not he would only appear close to the end of an episode to help finish off the monster and then disappear until the next episode, and most of those appearances he was morphed the whole time. I’m not kidding when I say there were certain episodes where I flat out forgot Riki existed until his appearance in that episode. Even now I honestly can’t even remember anything about him or his backstory just because of how little he was actually in the show.
Category 2: a product of the time
From what I’ve read ohranger was meant to be the 19th anniversary of super sentai and as such they brought in many old writers to work on ohranger and that definitely shows in how they wrote the two females of the show. We never really saw much character for either Juuri or Momo, and when we did it always felt kinda…. Primitive I wanna say. What we do know about them feel more like female character stereotypes than actual character traits, like Momo is good with kids, Juuri is good at cooking, Momo was a wimp as a kid, Juuri is on a diet despite already being stick thin, that kind of stuff. I wanna say that’s just how female characters were in the 90’s, but Jetman several years earlier had much better written females in my opinion so I don’t think that’s the case. Momo is really the character that we know the most about only because we get an episode featuring her aunt who gives a small bit of exposition about Momo as a child (Who is also the only family member we meet for any of the ohrangers) but it really isn’t much. I feel like they could’ve been good characters had they been given time to shine, but we’ll get to that later.
Category 3: so close yet so far
And finally we have the two rangers who are closest to me calling good characters; Shouhei (Ohgreen) and Yuuji (Ohblue). What puts them up in likability for me is that despite the fact they got as little character development as the rest,is that not only did they get the most focus episodes but typically episodes focused on them tended to be some of the better episodes in the show. Sure I still know barely anything about them, Shouhei is a boxer, and Yuuji is a bit of a hotshot, but their episodes were at least more fun than the rest. In particular episode 15: “O Friend!! Sleep Hotly!!” A Ohblue focused episode, is by far my favorite episode in the whole show. Even then it's a bittersweet love because I think if more episodes had been written that way Ohranger could’ve been a great show.
Final thoughts
While I don’t want to be too hard on Ohranger since a lot of it’s problems likely extend from having to be rewritten due to unfortunate circumstances, it is very difficult to say anything positive about it. This was one of the most boring shows I’ve ever sat through, and its a shame that it turned out this way. The first 15 or so episodes showed real promise, the premise was a great hook, and the suit and mech designs were top notch. What kills it is just the fact so many episodes decided to put their focus on random one off child characters rather than the main characters. Now I personally don’t mind child characters in sentai in general, and in shows like Carranger and Goseiger I actually like the kid characters since they are recurring consistent characters. But in Ohranger its a new kid every episode and they’re never seen afterwards unless its a two part episode. When other sentais have one off kids in episodes they’re usually used as the driving force that motivates whatever ranger the episode focuses on, but in Ohranger they’re the ones being focused on.
I’d say a good 30 episodes of the show have this problem and it gets so boring after a while since they aren’t even well written, just thinking about the show bores me so much it took me months after finishing the show to finish writing this review. Even the show's finale and the two movies share this issue. One of said movies was the start of the now annual sentai team ups and it gives more screen time to a group of kids than it does the returning Kakurangers. It baffles me why they decided to write it like this because I can’t imagine anyone else found this show interesting. This show has so much wasted potential it saddens me, not much more to say.
This time around it wasn’t hard for me to pick my next sentai watchthrough since I really wanted to watch a better crossover movie. So buckle your seatbelts and look both ways when crossing the road because next time we learn the rules of the road with Gekisou Sentai Carranger.
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Revolutionary Girl Utena Episode 3 Liveblog
Join me this week for episode 3: social anxiety, heteronormativity, authenticity, and schools with way too much goddamned money for their own good.
This one starts again with the fairytale framework, which was missing in episode 2. I’m making a note of this because I’m going to keep track of which episodes have this opening and if there are any similarities between them. inb4 ‘this is the episode where Nanami is introduced and that’s why there’s the fairytale since her episodes tend to have that opening
For this episode, I think it’s a combination of things. One is the somewhat obvious answer that we, as an audience, need to be reminded of this backstory. I think that it also speaks to the themes of this episode, though, in reminding us that Utena’s goal is to become a prince. Of course, as we come to find out, both the flashback and the goal of becoming a prince are false ideals, and the brilliance of this show (as I keep saying) is that it outright tells you this from the start, but in a way that makes you want to take it at face value. We will keep this idea in mind throughout this episode -- everything is precariously constructed, there’s a lot going on behind what we actually see, but we’re cued to take it all so earnestly, at face value.
And here we introduce one of Utena’s major concerns for the first arc: Anthy has no friends! We should give her some friends!
On the questions raised last liveblog about whether to take Chu-chu at face value or not, I think that we should take Anthy’s assertion here fairly literally, and this is one of the few times that I think I’m going to advocate taking anything in this show literally. I think that Chu-chu is her friend.
This exchange is interesting to me
Utena asks Anthy to stop calling her “Utena-sama,” and all of Utena’s fangirls call her that, but Utena writes it off as “a joke.” This scene seems to be calling attention to a weird sense of performance going on here. For the fangirls, it may be a joke on the surface level, but there seems to be something more authentic underneath that, especially considering that they all do it and that it seems to be a recurring thing. Oh, and Wakaba exists, of course. I’m not sure if this is Utena wanting to think that the probable actual thirst of the schoolgirls is a joke, or if it’s seen as a joke on all sides but they’re actually quite parched.
With Anthy, this seems almost inverted. Sure, she’s completely serious about being the Rose Bride. But she has no actual respect for Utena at this point, and while on the surface it may seem like she’s being deferential to her fiancee, deep down, she’s simply performing a surface-level role. It’s much more a “joke” to Anthy than it is to the fangirls.
(On a side note, my browser is flagging “fiancee” [the feminine form] as possibly incorrect spelling when I place “her” in front of it, but if I place “his” in front of it, it doesn’t. I get what it’s doing, but it’s still quite the heteronormative spell checker!)
Speaking of heteronormativity
Throughout this series, especially early on, “normal” and “heteronormative” seem to fully converge. Here, Utena wants to be seen as perfectly feminine (despite her clothing choice and fiancee) and as, more importantly, straight. To her, “normal” means “wants a boy rather than a girl.” Yes, there’s shades of “this whole dueling system is weird and I’d rather have a lover I met in an everyday way than someone I accidentally won in a duel” but I feel like the emphasis is placed on the gender of the love object here, and on Utena fitting into a model of heterosexual femininity.
Of course, no one believes her. At least, I don’t. The way to seem “normal” isn’t to parade around in a so-called “boys” uniform and declare your desire to be a prince. Her actions are seriously at odds with her words here.
And then this asshole shows up.
That hair says otherwise, Touga. That’s major character hair right there.
And Utena provides one of her better reaction faces at what has to be one of the worst pick-up lines in anime history.
[insert joke about Anthy knowing him in the biblical sense]
(Though maybe that joke is more appropriate for the movie, where that’s actually a major plot point)
I wish I could edit out the snippet of video where Touga tries to play with Utena’s hair and she slaps him away and dramatic music plays. Everyone in this series is so extra and I love it.
Oh no! Touga is wearing the ring! We have to go from “this guy is a total fuckboy who deserves to be slapped” to “could this guy be my prince?????” in the span of a few seconds! I guess Utena being the most oblivious character ever is part of her charm, though...
[insert joke about how Touga definitely means it in the biblical sense]
In this Student Council meeting, Miki uses the stopwatch almost right away, after Touga says that Saionji lost again. I think he’s timing when his own line should be. As per last episode, Saionji himself is still not present. Also still no weird antics at the meetings.
Anthy slap count: 3
For those participating in the drinking game ;]
So the latest Anthy rumors are about “what she did to a popular boy” (Saionji), which...middle school rumors often get things wrong, yes, but this is also the role of the Rose Bride. She’s taking on the blame for everything that went wrong, even if Saionji is the one who was an abusive asshole and is now being dramatic and refusing to leave his room.
This does make me think, though...do you know? do you know? Doesn’t that sound like the start of someone about to share some juicy gossip? I wonder how much of the Shadow Girls plays are basically the level of highly allegorical, surrealist rumor, and if we should take them as such?
I am a firm believer in the idea that Nanami is the only other character in this series who has the potential to be a protagonist, only she’s the protagonist of the wrong show (that and she doesn’t interact with the system in the way that Utena does, which is what allows for Utena to make it to the end of the dueling game). (I never said these liveblogs were spoiler-free :P) I think that her introduction here is an indicator of that -- she’s introduced in much the same way as Utena is, only without quite as much pomp and circumstance to her unveiling. There’s a strong visual parallel here, though, and to my memory, the only other character to be given this type of introduction. That is, she’s given the slow tilt up her body, starting at her feet, with the spinning rose frame, much like Utena was. Other characters may have the rose frame, but not that same level of “self-important theme music and the slow reveal of the character” that Nanami is given here. (I know Juri has her very sad theme music mostly used in highly emotional moments, Anthy has theme music but she’s a more major character, Miki sorta has theme music but it’s mostly used in other places...do Touga and Saionji have theme music at all? Do any other side characters have theme music to the level of Nanami? Maybe Nemuro [not Mikage]? It seems as it it plays almost every time there’s something related to her on screen.)
I always go to beat up girls I don’t like with the school’s Forbidden Forest™ in the background.
Actually, I wonder if this is some sort of really weird foreshadowing -- that’s where the dueling arena is, and this is pretty much a cropped (and daylight) version of the shot that opens the Shadow Girl plays for this arc. I’m probably reading too much into it and it’s just a nice, convenient location to get into fights at. You know. In front of the big, ominous forest that all schools have.
The editing and angles in the next scene are nice -- of /course/ Anthy is playing cards with Chu-chu and Utena is just sitting in the corner, stewing. Isn’t this how most friends spend their evenings?
That is exactly the reaction I have to all of the party dresses in this episode.
Utena insisting that Anthy go to the ball and make lots of friends is an interesting moment for me
There’s that fake Anthy smile we all know and love.
I can’t remember my first watchthrough of the series and how I reacted to this particular moment. I wonder how many first-time viewers (who don’t yet realize just how complicated Anthy is) take this response at face-value, and how many realize that Anthy is quite literally obeying orders here, even if Utena didn’t intend it as such?
This scene seems to really align us with Utena’s perspective, though, in wanting Anthy to go and make friends, and having us feel sorry for Anthy for being shy, not for...well, being the Rose Bride and having been abused and tortured her whole life. Utena is trying to make Anthy into that perfectly normal girl that she so desperately wants to be herself, and is coming at this from the perspective of having average problems, not highly symbolic magical problems.
The Shadow Girls play here is a bit obscure. On the surface, it’s about how the ball is just an excuse to catch a man, and how the girls are shameless for wanting to do so, and yet our actors move back and forth between playing the town gossips and actually participating themselves as the prince and princess archetypes. That all seems relatively straightforward -- words not lining up with actions, judging others but having the same desires (even if someone queered by the fact that the prince is one of the same actors as before), setting up what happens between Utena and Anthy as explicitly romantic.
But why are there two dogs? There’s one dog when the SGs are playing the town gossips, and then two dogs when they’re the prince/princess at the ball.
Another question of “just how rich is this school?”: they sure do seem to have a /lot/ of fancy dress parties. No industrial-looking cafeterias or gyms strewn with cheap steamers and girls in JCPenney dresses here. Nah, we have classical music and champagne. I bet the tuxedos the boys are wearing are ones that they own, not even rented.
On the point of the fangirls “joking” about calling her “Utena-sama”: clearly, they’re all /hella/ thirsty. I don’t think they’re joking as much as Utena wants to believe they are.
Yes, Utena. Yes it is.
Besides being one of the best visual representations of social anxiety I’ve ever seen,
this is also something to keep in mind come episode 34. As we get more information about her backstory, this comes to be a surprisingly authentic reliving of trauma for Anthy, and not just a display of anxiety or shyness for its own sake.
I’m actually fascinated by these moments, since they seem to be one of the few places, especially this early on, where we are allowed to see something authentic from Anthy rather than the mask she wears. Of course, we don’t realize it yet. I wonder how much of this is her allowing the mask to come off for a bit, and how much is that her trauma is too difficult at this moment to keep hidden? She does a very good job of hiding it the rest of the time, so it’s interesting that we get this scene. Or is it simply a performance of trauma, and not authentic at all?
Back to shitposting: Yuuko is the only one in the entire goddamned episode who has a passable dress.
I’ve actually looked to see if there’s a fabric that dissolves in alcohol, and the closest I can find is a rare type of rayon that dissolves in a combination of alcohol and...something else, ether maybe? It’s been a while since I’ve looked it up. Still very impractical for a garment, and nothing is going to dissolve that quickly unless that dress was made of rice paper or something.
Though, it’s mostly to give Utena an excuse to act the Prince and save her girlfriend from being humiliated and naked in front of a bunch of strangers.
I love these kinds of early series pranks, though. I feel like as we get further into the series, the whole thing becomes almost like a giant prank somehow (the cars. the cacti. the severe shortage of men wearing shirts.), but all of the problems are very serious and heavy, so it’s interesting to see the early episodes seem to take themselves so seriously and yet all of the problems are things like “someone spilled wine on someone at a party.”
I would do the [insert obligatory joke about how she was wearing the uniform underneath that dress somehow], but that’s not actually what happened here. She’s not in her school uniform. She had her magical girl transformation.
Of course, this is to visually set up the idea that she’s acting as the prince here. But it begs the question: whose powers cause her transformation to happen? Does this solve the mystery of why only Utena seems to get a transformation, no matter who is in possession of the Rose Bride, if those powers are somehow inherent to Utena, not to Anthy? And if so, what would that mean for the framework of the show?
Cosplay goals: make the tablecloth dress actually out of a tablecloth. Is it possible? No. But I can try.
Actually, the quick change seems to be another magical girl transformation, rather than an actual outfit. ~Suspension of disbelief~ is overrated.
And our main ship is established. Now, for the delicately constructed life of these two to come crumbling down over the course of the next 35 episodes once we learn more.
That concludes this week’s liveblog! Congrats if you made it to the end, as usual. Next Sunday (July 2nd) is the scheduled date for our next liveblog.
A quick closing note, since I never actually talk about the next episode bits unless they’re somehow important -- it seems significant that Utena mentions that Miki has only fought one duel before this, but I can discuss that next week. Or, probably, the week after.
#not blog themed#revolutionary girl utena#utena liveblog#utena analysis#long post is long#there's not terribly much serious to say about this episode#but i do try#it's at least 75% shitposting this week though#but there's a few good questions raised
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Final thoughts on the prequel trilogy:
Basically, I don’t hate it. In fact, I think Revenge of the Sith is a good movie. It’s (mostly) well paced, it hits the emotional points, and it does a pretty good job of showing Anakin’s descent into Vader.
Putting the rest of the post behind a cut, because it got loooong
The Phantom Menace is pretty ubiquitously terrible though. Like, except for the podracing sequence and the last maybe 20 minutes, which were actually interesting (exclusively due to the action sequences) it was just so. badly. paced. I had to watch in 10 to 20 minute increments, taking breaks, because otherwise it just was incredibly boring. And I don’t want to rag on a kid who was most likely just doing his best, but the kid’s performance was kind of awful. Except for the moment where he ran back to Shmi when he was supposed to leave with Qui-Gon, I did not believe a minute of his acting. I don’t expect too much from child actors, because they’re kids, but I can’t help but think that they could have found a better kid to play child Anakin. And then, of course, most egregiously, there’s the veritable list of racist, antisemitic, and especially orientalist stereotypes this movie is rife with. It’s like George Lucas took every negative racial and ethnic stereotype he could find to create the aliens. I almost turned the movie off within the first 15 minutes, when it became apparent that only human characters (and droids) would get to speak without American and English accents, while all the alien characters got vaguely Middle Eastern/South and East Asian/South American accents. Watto was such an antisemitic stereotype and was incredibly uncomfortable to watch. Jar Jar Binks was just... I have no words for how annoying I found Jar Jar Binks. I could go on, but this is not an essay on racism in Star Wars, so I won’t. And I have to mention the CGI. Mostly, I get it, it was a new and exciting technology and they wanted to use it, but it was also 90s CGI and it was fucking terrible and obvious. It was really jarring to see what looked like video game sequences in a live action film.
TBH at this point I don’t remember all the details of Attack of the Clones; I just powered through it without writing anything down or stopping to think about it too much, and right now my brain is mostly full of Revenge of the Sith. Mostly what I remember about AotC is that while the pacing was still kinda bad, I appreciated the way the story unfolded. Going into this watchthrough, I knew only the basic shapes of the Star Wars storylines. I vaguely knew that Palpatine was bad and there would be war at some point, but I had no idea of the specifics. For me, at least, AotC did a really good job of muddling up the motivations for war on both sides, and keeping the truth of the extent of Palpatine’s manipulations until the very end. Throughout the movie there was this increasing sense that both sides had only a very vague idea of what they were afraid of and why they were going to war. It wasn’t exactly clear who the separatists were or why they wanted to separate, or even why that would be a bad thing, except that it would lead to war. Maybe this will become clearer if I ever rewatch this movie, but I like that I was left with the impression that the entire Clone War is absolutely pointless in that both sides really just want peace and the only reason they don’t just sit down and talk it out is that Palpatine is being a manipulative evil fuck.
I also have a lot of muddied feelings (a running theme with this post) about the introduction of the Padme/Anakin romance. Honestly, mostly to me it felt creepy and forced, but I have a tendency to see romance as forced so I’m not sure I trust my feelings in that regard. I do feel I’m justified in being creeped out by Anakin’s fixation on Padme, but that’s coherent as I can get about it right now. I don’t think they’re some kind of epic destined love, except for the part where Anakin is unhealthily fixated on Padme and needs all the therapy in the world.
RotS was definitely the best movie of the bunch, and like I said up top, I (mostly) really enjoyed it. I spent the first half being incredibly frustrated with the way the Jedi Council was treating Anakin and giving him absolutely contradictory and unfollowable advice about how to deal with his feelings, which I already wrote a post about, and then I spent the second half of the movie being progressively more horrified, interspersed with eye-rolling at the unnecessary drama of the big final fight. Like, really guys? you’re swinging on cables over a literal lava pit, and you can’t put down your giant lightning swords for a minute just so you can get to safety? And then that all went away very quickly at the conclusion to that fight. I obviously knew where things were going, but I wasn’t prepared for Anakin/Vader being burned alive. I just wasn’t.
Probably the worst part of RotS is the wrap-up. It just went on for so. freaking. long. There were about five points where they could have cut it off and it would have been appropriately dramatic.
I think if I ever do rewatch these movies, it will be so I can listen to the music more carefully. I tried, but at the really important parts I was mostly too busy actually watching the movie to think about what the music was doing. There was definitely some interesting development of the main musical themes, though, and I would like to eventually go back and analyze them.
#i have a lot of feelings about star wars#idk if anybody will ever read this monster but if you do lmk#i would love to talk about all this#overall i don't really think the intense the prequels get is really justified#tpm definitely lived down to expectations#but the others were a whole lot better than i expected#star wars#my post
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ST: TNG S4 Watchthrough Episodes 22-25
Half a Life: Okay Lwaxana, let's see if the fourth time is the charm. So… gonna be honest, this episode just made me uncomfortable with the subject matter. Essentially Lwaxana becomes friendly with a man named Timicin… who is going to commit suicide as part of his culture due to his age. needless to say, I thoroughly am not okay with this. The episode does delve into it like Lwaxana reacts as you would expect and there are points made about how she has no right to interfere in others cultures/personal beliefs and how we treat middle-aged individuals nearing their elder years. But… y’know… a society that dictates that you kill yourself at 60 is… I’m sorry, I just cannot discuss this topic fairly. While I am opinionated, I do try my best to be fair… but I’m just not comfortable enough to discuss this topic in this way because I thoroughly disagree with suicide as acceptable on any level. At least not with how it was done here. That being said, being fair, I can give some praise. First, David Ogden Stiers! Heck yes~! I love his work in various Disney films, and he was excellent here! And on Lwaxana… I liked her here. Not only is her man-chasing ways with a man who is receptive to it so it feels less dumb/annoying/kinda creepy and more charming and legitimately entertaining than when she’s forcing it on Picard, but frankly I was on her side throughout the episode. When suicide is involved, someone should intervene and Timicin shouldn’t have to die just because he’s hit 60 and they don’t want to burden their children with caring for the elderly. My dad died at 54, and I never hesitated in trying to care for him. No one in my family did. But you could see Lwaxana’s pain and grief and when she broke down in the Transporter Room to Troi… God. I may not be the biggest fan of her character, but the poor woman just needs a big hug. In the end, it's really hard for me to tell which side the episode is standing with. it chooses to shoot down the middle with Timicin choosing to go through with it and Lwaxana finally allowing it… but it doens’t feel like we’re supposed to be okay with it. I get it, it’s their planet’s beliefs and whether one should interfere in one's culture or not is a legit question… but when it comes to matters like this I just… IDK. Like I said IDK if I can give this a fair opinion because again, I just don’t agree with the subject matter whatsoever and it just feels utterly wrong. Maybe it’s supposed to, but… yeah. I’m gonna be fair here and shoot down the middle for the rating because I can’t say it’s a poorly done episode and the personal bias may be affecting my judgment… but it is certainly one I am unlikely to revisit. 3/5.
The Host: Crusher’s got a boyfriend, aww~! Too bad that he ends up dead, aww… but it’s okay! Turns out they’re actually a symbiote known as a Trill in a host body and they stick him into Riker in the meantime! Uhh… sure? Is this how it works for Jadzia in DS9? So the symbiote, Odon, is also an Ambassador and still needed, so Riker volunteers to be that host… despite no human ever carrying a Trill before. Needless to say, this not only causes issues for Riker but… well, muddies up Crusher and Odon’s relationship quite a bit. This makes sense, Odon not only mentioning this detail but being a symbiote that goes from body to body can be hard to settle. Crusher does eventually decide to try and make it work despite the awkwardness because she genuinely loves Odon, who is suffering due to Riker’s body just not being suitable. It’s fine, it’s certainly an interesting concept… until we get to the ending. What causes Crusher to break it off with Odon? His new host body suited for them… is a woman’s body. Now she says it’s because she just can’t handle the body hopping and I’m gonna take that as the truth… but the way the episode portrays it, it’s more like she can’t handle the body hopping into a female body despite her saying that’s not it. I know, I know it was the 90’s and again I’m just gonna act like seeing the new body was when the reality was hitting Crusher and she realized that it was just too much too fast. I can buy that. But again, the execution makes it feel… well, there’s no other way to say it, homophobic/biphobic/transphobic. Again 90’s, but still. At least the Trill’s aren’t picky about their gender at least physically, I can respect that. But yeah… needless to say this has quite a few unfortunate implications under a modern lens. Still, it was alright. Considering Jadzia in DS9, I’m looking forward to seeing more about the Trills then. The episode was alright, I just wish that the ending was more open-minded because it really put a damper on my final opinion. It shows that for all its progressiveness, ST still has plenty of prejudices from the real-life eras that they were made in. I’m just glad that we’re at least beginning to improve now. 2/5.
The Mind’s Eye: Geordi has been kidnapped by the Romulans. That sucks… and it gets worst when they conduct a painful mind-control experiment on him. Why? Well, the Enterprise is en route to deal with a Klingon insurrection and have a Klingon ambassador on board. They want Geordi to kill said the ambassador and thus crumble apart from the Federation/Klingon alliance. So yeah, bad. Geordi is a good boy, in romantically hopeless, he didn’t deserve this! Poor guy isn’t even aware of what he’s doing and can’t even sleep properly. It especially got tense there in the end as Data started piecing everything together… just as Geordi is readying to execute the assassination. Thank God that they managed to stop him, but again, poor Geordi. Oh and the fact that there was a Klingon turncoat on board triggering the order… yeah. Looks like Duras wasn’t the only Klingon in ona. Romulan conspiracy. Geordi’s left with implanted memories and the trauma of undergoing a brainwashing that he can’t even remember happening. Another solid episode that continues the threat of the Romulans and this whole RomulanKlingon conspiracy. We’re beuilding up to something, and it’s likely to be explosive. 4/5.
In Theory: A girl named Jenna has a crush on Data, oh my! Data, despite believing that as an android he can’t feel romantic attraction, decides that he’d like to pursue this, even making a romantic program for himself. In other words, it’s The Dauphin 2.0. So first, again with this whole thing about Data being an unfeeling android. Why can’t Data feel romantic attraction? He’s been shown to feel plenty of feelings including some level of affection for Tasa, just because it’s not in the ‘’normal’ way doesn’t make it any less true. Maybe Data is aromantic, but that’s not gonna come up in a 90’s show, which 90’s standards are why this feels so wrong. Data’s curiosity on the subject and deciding to pursue it is fine. He’s new to it and sure studying/emulating what media and books say about romance isn’t always best as the episode does demonstrate. That’s certainly a fine message to express and plenty of people have done/gone through that. There were some fun moments like Data seeking out advice from the others and Worf pretty much threatening Data to treat Jenna, who is part of Security, well or else was also amusing XD But yeah this episode was cute in a few ways, but I just can’t get over that whole ‘Data is emotionless’ thing. The show has shown far more evidence for Data having emotions than lacking them? Maybe Data thinks that he doesn’t, I can believe that, but still. Had they portrayed it simply as Data, being new to love and curious about it, didn’t fully get it/wasn’t ready but was trying to force it anyways and Jenna broke it off because of that instead of using the ‘he was a rebound’ excuse? I’d have been more accepting of that instead of wondering why they even bothered with this plot to begin with. To say that Data can’t feel love and anyone who tries is doomed to failure instead of Data learning to be better over time? Yeah… sorry, not buying it. The Dauphin, despite me not liking how Welsey acted at the end, was standard but still cute. This one though? Sorry, didn’t care for it. But hey, we got Spot again, so that made it worth it! 2/5.
So… aside from the third one, not the best episodes. But hey, everything else this season has still been good. Very least I’ll have plenty to make a Top 5 Best/Worst list for S4 now. Next time is the S4 finale/S5 premiere! Yay~! S4 has been such a fun ride so far! Will the ending end things on a high note and guarantee a strong beginning for S5? We shall see~!
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ST: The Next Generation S3 Watchthrough Episodes 22-25
The Most Toys: Dear TNG writers, I know that the show has been over for about 30 years now and this is therefore redundant to say, but… can you please quit doing bad things to Data?! He doesn’t deserve bad things! So Data gets kidnapped by a manchild/lunatic to add to his ‘collection’. Kinda reminds me of that two-parter in Superman: TAS that introduced Lobo… except Fajo somehow pisses me off even more than the bad guy there. Kinda makes me think of the bad guy from The Squire of Gothos in TOS except somehow more detestable. At least that guy was more or less a spoiled child, Fajo has no excuse. Anyways, Fajo’s obsession with Data comes of as… insanely creepy. It gives me very bad vibes and I was thoroughly uncomfortable. Though at least Data, in his Data way, wasn’t at all complacent and remained as inquisitive as ever, so at least he maintained some sense of agency unlike in say The Schizoid Man. That all said, the episode was good. The crew’s reactions to thinking that Data was dead all made sense and scenes like Geordi and Wesley going through his things and Picard giving an order to Data before remembering that he’s not there anymore… those were heavy. And again as painful as it was to watch, Data at least trying to retain any agency was appreciated especially at the end. I’m glad that he didn’t have to kill, but seeing him finally put Fajo in his place was especially after he killed Varria as callously as he did was extremely gratifying. Another solid episode overall… but again, please let Data have happier things up ahead. 3.5/5.
Sarek: You can only imagine how wide my eyes got when I was going down the episode list and saw this one. I know that Sarek has mixed reception due to the issues between him and Spock and IDK if Discovery is going to change my opinion or not, but I find him to be a very interesting character. Journey to Babel kind of had this sense that he’s a hardass not that different from his son tbh, and those similarities and being displeased with Spock’s life choices made things difficult. but Sarek did still care about him, IDT he’d have gone through the effort of going to Kirk in hopes of recovering Spock’s katra when he had no reason to believe that Spock did the transfer and even outright saying at the end that his logic is more or less impaired when Spock is concerned if he didn’t, and The Voyage Home had him outright finally tell him that he made the right choice and that he was wrong in the way only Vulcans can say things. There was just kind of this feeling that he realized that he had been wrong and regretted it and wanted to make amends… but didn’t know how and it took Spock dying to finally do so. He’s not necessarily a good parent, a lot of Spock’s issues are due to him not understanding his struggles, and yeah more or less disowning him for several years was shitty, but he’s not even close to the worst and he at least tried to make it right and I can respect that. If anything though, Sarek was at least shown to be a capable ambassador and genuinely loved and was good to Amanda. So seeing him in TNG and thankfully still played by Mark Lenard, I was interested to see what they’d do with him and how he’d interact with the new cast. The result?
Sarek, did hiding your heart condition in Journey to Babel teaches you nothing about revealing vital medical information?! Is this just a Vulcan thing?! Anyways, the revelations here were… sad. Sarek has essentially the Vulcan version of Alzheimer’s which is causing him to be unable to control his emotions. Which for a Vulcan… that has to be outright horrific. Not to mention it’s causing rising, unprovoked violent responses from the crew like Crusher outright slapping her own son. To no one’s surprise, Sarek’s the reason why, albeit he’s causing it unintentionally. While Mark Lenard has been excellent as Sarek alll across the board especially in the films, he gets to do a lot more here due to Sarek’s unstable emotional control and he is just fantastic. The whole confrontation with Picard was truly excellent acting from both him and Patrick Stewart. Sarek truly feels unhinged and it is both horrifying and just sad to watch especially to how dignified and composed he was in TOS. The mind-meld with Picard may help in the short-term, but... it’s likely inevitable that he won’t last much longer. My only real complaint is that Spock and Amanda are saved as a brief mention and technically not even by Sarek but by Picard enduring the aftereffects of the mind-meld, though it does reflect Sarek’s mindset/emotions. Seriously Picard-as-Sarek reflecting how much he loved them and regretting not being able to ever truly express it or outright say it… it’s just heart-breaking, thoug it does confirm everything I had already thought so that’s good~ Still, this was a great episode! I’m glad to finally have some Vulcans again, Sarek was very well done, and the entire episode is very well acted especially the previously mentioned confrontation and everything involving the mind-meld especially after when Picard loses it. I know that Spock will show up at some point in TNG so I hope that this episode comes back up because Dear Lord please allow Spock that closure before he has to be sent to AOS. Regardless this was excellent~! Thanks for reaching my expectaitons TNG~! 4.5/5.
Menage a Troi: Oh great, another Lwaxana episode… albeit she actually has my sympathy in this one cause a Ferengi is pursuing her. I might find the woman annoying, but considering what we know of how Ferengi treat women, no one deserves that. So… if anything I am fair or at least try to be, so I will say that Lwaxana is better in this episode. She’s still obnoxious, but with the aforementioned horrid way that Ferengi treats women (seriously the nudity part was an utterly unnecessary show), refusing to be treated as property, and her genuine love and concern for Deanna make her much more likable. She certainly didn’t deserve to be treated the way she did. Troi being sick of being talked down to as a child and her mother butting into her romantic life no matter how well-intentioned instead of just letting her take it at her own pace and when she’s content as she is now is very relatable as well. Look I’ve grown to like Riker/Troi and I’m all for them getting back together… but they should do so if and when they’re ready, not be pushed into that direction. Still overall, didn’t care for this one. It’s better than Lwaxana’s first two episodes, but still makes me uncomfortable in other ways that aren’t funny, and the fact that she’s still pursuing Picard and he gets forced to go along with it at the end (albeit Patrick Stewart getting to go full Shakespearian was the funniest part of the whole episode) still doesn’t sit right with me. The Wesley subplot was also utterly wasted, feeling like it was just shoved in there and he did nothing to deserve promotion to Ensign. Yes, he gave up his chance to go to the Academy when he has his aha moment, but he did barely anything all season or the last two seasons to have earned it, or at least shoving it into this episode made it feel undeserved. Wesley himself is fine as a character, he’s nowhere near as bad as some make him out to be, but the concept of his character is just… not suited for ST. But the was funnier than the past two and Lwaxana has her better traits higlighted such as her intelligence and acting skills. If anything she does genuienly love her daughter and is not a helpless victim. Majel Barrett also owns it, I can respect that. 2.5/5.
Transfiguration: Okay, so we have an injured alien known only as John Doe wo is both amnesic and has some impressive regenererative abilities. He also turns out to have mass power such as powerful healing abilities as his body is udnergoign some kind of rapid change,. Meanwhile, Geordi gets some kid of sudden confidence boost and is finally making progress with his love life. If I’m gonna be honest… I don’t have anything to really say on this one. It was fine, but I don’t really have any thoughts regarding it otherwise. There’s this sense of spirituality in there and the ending makes it feel like religious opression. The Zalkonians killing their own kind who undergo the transformation just to maintian their power… yeah that was… yeah. Anyway, it was fine. I felt bad for John Doe and Crusher was good. All I’ve really got to say for this one. 3/5.
Alright, one more to go! Next time I’ll only be covering two episodes, the S3 finale and the S4 premiere. But they’re the same story so…. I’ve heard good things about this one, so we’ll see if it delivers.
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Star Trek TOS Liveblog: S1E1 - The Cage (Original Pilot)
I didn’t watch this one during the first watchthrough since I assumed it wans’t canon... then. Got to The Menagerie. Oops. But that episode also used a good amount of the pilot’s footage, so I still didn’t feel the need to go and do it. But now with a second watchthrough underway and since Strange New Worlds is filming... well, why not do it now?
It’s Young Spock XD
Nice sweater uniforms.
Gosh Nimoy’s portrayal of Spock is so...different than in series. Obviously they hadn’t figured the character out at this point which is why, but still.
You can see the basis for Kirk and Bones’ relationship was already in existent with Pike and Boyce, except without the strong chemistry with Shatner and Kelley that made it work.
Oh hey paper still exists. Did they ever use that in TOS?
The bridge looks so much... duller. Splash some blue on it at least!
Shiiiiiny liiiiights~
Ah good, the blatant sexism existed even in this! At least the ladies were allowed to wear pants in this one and Number One’s look when Pike talked XD
Wouldn’t it make more sense to leave the Captain on board as the most experienced officer and send the First Officer to lead the landing party? Oh right, woman... and TBF when did Kirk ever do that? Guess by Picard’s time protocols got changed.
...yeah you know they hadn’t figured Spock out yet when he’s openly expressing emotions/smiling. Then again this is young Spock, maybe he hadn’t mastered the control yet.
Ah yes, I’m starting to recognize the sections shown in The Menagerie.
Pike is kind of.. boring. TBF Kirk could have easily ended up this dull if not for Spock and McCoy helping balance it out and Shatner being... Shatner. The bit I’ve seen of Pike in recent material seem good though, so I’m rooting for Anson Mount to make Pike his own~!
Yep, being easily romanced/suckered by women and their love lives in general sucking has GOT to be a pre-requisite to be a Starfleet Captain. That’s my headcanon now and I can’t be proven otherwise~!
Spock’s haircut in this is so cute to me for some reason and IDK why.
While the bridge and the planet look kind of dull, the weird lab are actually looks pretty cool~
Does anyone else think that the Talosians kind of look like the Vians? Are they sister species like the Vulcans and Romulans are? They DID both kidnap humans for experimentation so... hmm...
Number One is freakin’ great. it’s a bummer that they had to drop her cause NBC was against a female in charge and/or forced Roddenberry to pick between her and Spock. But hey Majel Barrett got to be Chapel and SNW is going to give Number One the limelight she deserves~!
Guess now I know where some of the ideas for Shore Leave came from. They even got the princess part down. Pike, if the guy draws a lance, DON’T STAND THERE! RUN FOR IT! SERIOUSLY, IT’LL HURT!
Yeah, they absolutely borrowed from this when they did Shore Leave. Just for wacky hijinks instead of human experimentation.
I was gonna ask why they never bothered using the giant laser again in TOS... but it failed so I guess that’s why. Dang it, giant lasers would have made it better!
Yeah, keep your specimens happy and get the girl a mate... and forcibly imprison others at your guys mercy. This is NOT how matchmaking works guys!
Pony~!
Oh, the Green Alien Girl bit... forgot about that...
Lady, I’m sure that the 23rd Century Medics can help you and your physical condition. There are better options than living in a delusion like this...
And now that I’ve seen the pilot in full... Spock, I love you... but wHY DID YOU DECIDE TO HAVE PIKE PLACED HERE OF ALL PLACES ALL THOSE YEARS LATER?!
Well... that was a thing. I can see the pieces that would make TOS... but yeah it needed work. A LOT of work. But I’m glad that I watched it and I’m very interested to see how SNW is going to handle things.
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ST: TNG S4 Watchthrough Episodes 14-17
Clues: As the title hints, we have a mystery episode. The crew gets knocked out for thirty seconds… or so they think. Things are clearly not adding up like one of Crusher’s experiments having advanced a full day despite having just set it up before the knock out. The only one who can explain is Data, the only one who wasn’t knocked out… but he won’t. Why? Well… I won’t spoil it. Let’s just say that it’s pretty wild. Since I won’t spoil it, I can’t really say a lot about it. But it was an interesting episode as the crew puts together the pieces and them trying to get Data to talk. Data’s not one to lie without a good reason for it, so there has to be a mass reason as to why. And ho boy, did he have a reason alright. Pretty good all in all. 3/5.
First Contact: No, not the movie. So here we have the Enterprise making first contact with a society preparing to go into warp for the first time. Riker went undercover among them… but he got injured and found out as human. Whoops. Seems business as usual, right? Well… we have a bit of a twist. All of this is from the perspective of the Pre-Warp society. We see what the Enterprise’s encounter is like from the POV of the aliens, and it makes this a lot more interesting. Now we know that the crew is good guys and Picard is very much a stickler for the Prime Directive so he won’t allow any interference of the society’s progress… but they don’t. There’s a sense of wonder as well as fear. I mean if what to you is a bunch of futuristic aliens show up out of nowhere, one of them had integrated into your society, they are clearly more highly advanced than you, and start going on about a Federation of planets and the like, how would you react? Some of us may be all for it, others of us would be terrified/paranoid, and some may fall anywhere else in between. Malcor III seems to be on par with regular Earth at the time, maybe a bit more advanced, but ultimateley the events in the episode has them decide not to go forward with space exploraiton and turn down the Federation’s help. At least until they’re more prepared, which they currently aren’t. They do get Riker back, so that’s good~! The different perspective really made this one stand out, the Malcorians coming off as properly concerned about all of this, but overall reasonable about it. Well aside form one guy who is too paranoid over it, but it feels like we got a decent balance of ‘paranoid asshole’, ‘awed by the possibilities’, and ‘concerned but willing to listen’ with the three we see the most. The only issue I have is Riker more or less was potentially ugh… treated inapproprotiatley by an alien-obsessed woman… and it’s treated as a joke. Umm… WTF?! Other than that, good episode~ 4/5.
Galaxy’s Child: Of all the episodes that they decided to follow up on… they picked Boody Trap. Y’know, the one where Geordi made the hologram of one of the Enterprise designers to help solve the Problem of the Week. Now I tried to be nice when I went over that episode since I assumed that it would be a one-off…. but this one has caused me to no longer be able to brush off the episode as such. Look, I love Geordi and I don’t think he means to be this was intentional and the hologram thing was genuinely for work… but this episode portrays him as an utter creep using the Nice Guy card to justify himself. He fell for the hologram of Dr. Brahms and when she arrives on the Enterprise and turns out to be nothing like the hologram, he’s not too happy. But he tries to push it anyways and it’s just…. no. It gets worst when Brahms sees the hologram and I am fair, she had every right to be angered and disturbed by it and Geordi trying to force something between them. It was one thing when it happened as it did during Boody Trap, at least he remained focused on the task there, but here? I just… I know this was the 90’s but… ugh. It just looks utterly horrible now. I guess the point of the episode was that when you fantasize about someone and they don’t match that fantasy, you need to accept it and see them as they are. I don’t feel like Geordi is being necessarily presented as in the right… but it IDT they really saw how the execution makes it ook really wrong and especially now in the wake of the MeToo movement… yeah. It’s not as horrid as certain events in TOS’ The Enemy Within was by any means and it has a relevant message about not expecting your fantasies to be the reality, but other shows have done that much better. So unless there’s another follow-up that I’m unaware of, I have zero interest in revisiting this or Boody Trap ever again and I hope that if they have to give Geordi a failed romance plot (wasn’t he over that by Transfiguration though?), they portray him a Hell of a lot better than here. 2/5.
Night Terrors: So in this episode, the crew finds themselves unable to fall asleep. Specifically, they can’t achieve REM sleep. Aside from Data, who as an android doesn’t need sleep, the only one who can is Troi… but she has nightmares that involve flying and strange messages. Due to the lack of sleep, everyone’s losing it. Emotions are high, several hallucinate, memory lapses, and they are unable to properly do to their jobs. Which gets really bad when the engines won’t work. As someone who has constant insomnia, they all have my sympathy. So I looked it up and apparently lack of REM sleep can indeed cause issues as we saw here. Crazy, huh? Okay, let’s get the obvious out of the way. Yes, the Flying Troi bits were pretty silly. Aside from that… it was fine. For an episode called Night Terrors, it… didn’t really have a lot of terror. The only scenes that legit freaked me out was the covered corpses rising when Crusher was in the morgue and Worf almost killing himself. Even Troi’s nightmares were more silly than scary as previously noted. The rampant paranoia and everyone just… losing the ability to function is legit freaky though. Seriously Worf’s meltdown and Troi having to talk him down�� that was heavy. Otherwise, it’s gone. Could have been better, could have been worst. A fine watch all in all. Also Guinan with the Big Laser Gun? Amazing. Honestly, it was pretty much the female characters solving all th problems in this episode and not losing their minds like pretty much all the male characters (that aren’t Data) did, so good job ladies~! 3.5/5.
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ST: TNG Watchthrough Episodes 17-20.
Home Soil: So from what I’ve read, this would be Gene Roddenberry’s final episode as showrunner before getting replaced by writer Maurice Hurly. I won’t comment on the behind the scenes drama and such that caused it because it was decades ago and not relevant for a First Watchthrough post, but since this is the last I wanted to make note of it. My thoughts? It was okay. This is very much borrowing from the TOS episode Devil in the Dark (the one with the Horta) with the plot being of an alien presence killing humans... but only because the humans were unknowingly causing it harm. It’s done fine enough, not being any better or worst than when TOS did it, but that’s about it. It does executed it a little differently with the events and the alien is FAR less willing to comply than the Horta was at first and ends with the alien backing down, but refusing contact with humans for three centuries, which DOES make it a nice contrast to how Devil in the Dark ended. It’s not great. It’s not horrible. It’s just okay with the biggest criticism being pulling too much from TOS again. Look, I love TOS and so far TNG hasn’t passed it. I outright have a 30 disc Blu-Ray set coming in the next few days of all the TOS material, including TAS and the films. If I want to revisit TOS, I’ll go watch it or read fanfiction or heck, go watch AOS. TNG has remained painfully average or not good at this point because it’s trying to retain what TOS had, despite it being over 20 years later and even the TOS films had changed how it did things compared to the show. Whatever one feels about Roddenberry, his removal I hope helped push TNG away from TOS and let it carve it’s own identity while still honoring what TOS had stood for, and according to history it did. Not sure if we’ll see the quality go up in these final few S1 episodes, but still. Sorry, felt appropriate to finally get this out here. Going back to the episode, it’s perfectly fine and it delivers it’s message well, and hey it’s not always a bad idea to showcase the same themes as the previous incarnation in a spinoff especially fi a relevant one/gets shown to viewers who hadn’t seen that TOS episode. Not the best, not the worst, and that’s not such a bad way to end up. 3/5.
Coming of Age: Alright Wesley, it took a bit but you’re starting to grow on me. So we have Wesley going through a test to get into the Academy while Picard and the crew are dealing with some rough interrogations and Picard being painted as an incompetent captain by the interrogator. They don’t seem that connected, but infact the latter is a test for Picard to determine if e’s ready for a promotion. I like how they bring up Picard’s actions in past continuity that WOULD present him as at least fallible to major error, ignoring certain conditions that caused it to begin with and how he got them out of the situation. Like I said, this was one of Wesley’s better episodes. While doing well with testing, his worry about the psyche test and not knowing his own fear and therefore worried about what the test will unleash upon him is very relatable. Heck his talk with Worf was a really nice scene, especially with Worf outright stating that only fools fear nothing which in turns add more depth and dimensions to the Klingons. The reveal fo his greatest fear, while I wish he had hesitated a little bit more, made perfect sense and he acted as a true Starfleet Officer. Which since this was before Undiscovered Country, is a VERY positive development. Picard guiding a kid who made a stupid decision was also good and shows why he’s a good captain, and his talk to him as well as encouraging a disappointed Wesley at the end was a nice moment to cap the episode off with. As far as Wesley goes, he may still be presented as too competent and intelligent, but he is more likeable and the testing setting allows him to shine like this without, again, affecting the adult characters. Plus text anxiety is super relatable haha. Now of course due to Status Quo is God, Wesley fails, but he takes it well and proved that he will be ready for it in the future. It was a pretty nice episode all in all. Nothing spectacular, but I enjoyed it, neither plot overpowered the other, had a good theme of one’s integrity as a person/doing your best, good use of past continuity, and it really shows the best in characters like Picard, Wesley, and the crew’s loyalty to the former. 4/5.
Heart of Glory: Back in TOS, the Klingons were depicted as war-loving jerks. They weren’t without some depth and episodes like Day of the Dove did attempt to give them a bit more positive limelight, but it wasn’t enough to overpower the one-dimensional characterization. The films were a bit better, Undiscovered Country especialy, but that one hadn’t been made yet and they still stuck with the ruthless characterization, just changed up the makeup to make them look more alien like. It was weird sicne whenever I ddi watch TNG back when that’s all I knew of Star Trek, Worf never came across like a ruthless warmonger but like an honorable warrior which made him stand-out amongst the cast for me (that and because I freakin’ love Michael Dorn due to his animation voice over work, anyone else remember I.M. Weasel? XD). So now we get an episode where Worf gets to interact with other Klingons. I lift a brow at Worf not knowing about most Klingon customs when he seemed perfectly knowledgeable about i in past episodes. Maybe that wad due tot he shift after getting rid of Roddenberry/ IDK, but these kinds of retcons happens sometimes. This was an interesting one for sure. The Klingons are much better presented here than the entirety of TOS, showing more of their culture/customs and compared to Worf, who was raised by humans and therefore not fully in touch with his people and their ways. This is probably one of, if not the first time he’s interacted with his full culture and naturally he’d want to interact with them and learn more now that he has the chance. There’s the themes of one growing in another culture, how they adapt while still trying to be part of that culture, and finding one’s own path. There is the question on why Worf wans’t just returned tot he Klingons as a child and IDK if they address it down the line, but that type of life and struggle with identity/culture clash due to upbringing IS real and VERY relatable. I’m really glad to see the Klingons fleshed out past their TOS depiction and it’s overall respected by the cast, showing how far things have come since Kirk’s time. It fleshes out Worf’s character a great deal and makes him more likable/relatable and giving him a very realistic struggle, and in the end he stands by his beliefs and even gets the respect and offer to serve with Klingons in the future by Klingon Captain K’Nera. Very much glad that I watched this one~ 4/5.
The Arsenal of Freedom: Oh boy, war machines that killed everything! That theme never gets old! I’m not joking, with how modern warfare and technology are growing and being sold for profit, it feels like it just keeps getting more and more relevant. There’s a lot of tension in this one with Yar, Data, and Riker dealing with the arsenal that is intelligent and they’re unable to be beamed up, the ship getting attacked with Geordi in command and the Chief Engineer (they seem to go through a LOT of those this season, guess they couldn’t handle the strain of acting as miracle workers like Scotty) being an asshole to him, and Crusher injured with Picard trying to keep her alive and not get killed. Seriously, I loved Geordi here for being an effective acting commanding officer during a VERY intense situation AND telling off the Chief Engineer without even so much as raising is voice while encouraging the other officers. Badass and admirable. The away team scenes were also good with everyone being plain awesome~ Crusher having to explain to Picard how to treat her injuries while she’s in obvious pain was really good character stuff and Thank God that they avoided indulging in the obvious shipping fodder. I know they’ve hinted a little at Picard/Crusher... but I’m not really interested in it int he romantic sense at least currently. It comes off as a Captain and CMO trusting the other (not quite the same as say... Kirk and McCoy, but the trust is very much strong here plus Picard and Crusher should be allowed to form their own dynamic) and that’s the kind of interaction I live for~! It feels like everyone got a moment to shine, even Troi checking on Geordi’s mental well-being and letting him express some of his nervousness was really nice. And of course the arsenal having destroyed their own creators... like I said, a theme that just seems to grow more and more in relevance. Like I said above, some themes are necessary to repeat, and this one very much qualifies. But yeah this was great for it’s tensions, the characters being all great especially Geordi, and it’s themes (even fi IDK how intentional it was) being a huge reminder of the dangers of modernized warfare/using warfare for profit. It doesn’t go well. 4.5/5.
Okay, it’s late in the season, but we are FINALLY getting somewhere! The characters have truly grown on me and their characterizations are getting better (i.e. Picard is still a serious captain, but is very much warming up and not as cold as he was early on), the stories are steadily improving, and even with what I said about the first one, I really enjoyed this batch of episodes! Only five remain in the season, and the plan is to knock ‘em all out tomorrow. Might take a day or two off before tarting Season 2, but golly I’m finally feeling excited~!
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