#also the animation is so cool with the way it switches between a goofy kids anime and something straight out of a dream(nightmare?)scape

[aroacehanzawa]

i didn't realise princess tutu was this meta

#also the animation is so cool with the way it switches between a goofy kids anime and something straight out of a dream(nightmare?)scape

[dorizardthewizard]

Galactik Football season 3 rewatch, eps 1 - 3

Ok I'm finally rewatching s3, thought I'd put up some thoughts like I did for the previous seasons

Episode 1:

Oh boy here we go

Ok right off the bat you can tell the animation isn't motion captured anymore which... yeah it's not as good. But the drop in quality is more noticeable in the 2D animation which was already a bit rough in the earlier seasons

New Micro-Ice voice actor :( No wonder the VA's walked out, the budget for this season was 2 pennies, a shoelace and some gum.

Well since that robo cat was disguised as a real one, I'm guessing there actually are real ones running around?

Corso: This doesn't look good! Sonny: NOT. AT. AAAALL!!

What in the 2000's comedy dialogue

They look so goofy 😭

So like, why are the Snow Kids apparently so much more out of shape and uncoordinated than other teams? Everyone else would have had a break too? You don't HAVE to nerf them just to make them the underdogs again, you know

Why is Mice doing the door to door marketing of his drink himself, he's a rich football superstar now? Also very surprised Mark didn't just say that it sucks

Aaaand season 3 tries to tell us there's suddenly distance between Mei and D'jok with no buildup whatsoever. Mei's already chilling with Sinedd what is this pacing 😭😭😭

Mei joining the Shadows is one thing but skipping the training to chill with Sinedd on a beach... she would never. She cares about the team, not just D'jok. She wouldn't do it like this!

tbf D'jok kind of has a point here – disappearing with no good reason and arriving late to the match is irresponsible at that level of play, but it's played as if he's being controlling over her? And no one else is wondering where she went, they just compliment her fit??

Yeah it's not just the animation, the direction is lacking too in the matches but I don't know enough about cinematography and pacing to describe how exactly

Why are they watching this broadcast about Paradisia during half time, hellooo? Did he hijack their satellites or something??

Ngl the worldbuilding around Paradisia is pretty cool

Mei immediately just switches to the Smog skfsfdks BUT THE PACING IS SO BAD THAT IT'S HILARIOUS

Is that allowed? Wouldn't there be penalties for someone using another flux in the match?? I guess it's a friendly

Aarch: It's possible to experience the Smog, if a player is overwhelmed with extreme anger

OK so this kind of messes with the lore of the Smog... I just don't think it should be so easy to start using another flux where the key is just... the emotion you're feeling? I mean sure, it was implied the Smog feeds off negative emotions and/or strengthens them but... ach there just needed to be more buildup to this!

And you're telling me NO ONE accidentally used the Smog before? Not even Rocket, when he was about to punch Luur after Tia got injured, but Mei does over some love drama we don't even know the cause of???

The Shadows stadium is so cool btw, the crystal like shapes on the ceiling, the emo colours... chef's kiss

Yeah it's annoying that D'jok is just acting the same way he used to because the writers don't know what to do with him, but again we don't know how long Mei has been acting like this and I would get annoyed too, although blaming her for the loss of the game was too much. Then again she's probably distancing herself from the team because of how he's behaving with her but again, I'm left here trying to speculate how their relationship broke apart because it was all in a timeskip! I shouldn't have to do that!!

I'm not against them breaking up, I can see how their characters can clash but... give me some more buildup god damn it!

And Mei joins the Shadows... ngl she slays in the outfit but... OUGHGHHG ALL THIS JUST IN EPISODE ONE

Also ngl I think the new writers just skimmed the past episodes and thought that 'pretty girl would go for the bad boy' was enough justification for Mei and Sinedd to get together which like, ugh. They've had like one interaction! And it wasn't a nice one!! Hoooow did they start getting closer let alone start dating AAARGGGHH

Episode 2:

I just... don't think Mei would leave the team like that! As I said she cares about all of the Snow Kids, she'd at least tell Tia or something before running off like that and leaving them to find out from a freaking TV broadcast!

Aarch: If I had a nickel for every time one of my players ran off without telling me, I'd have- ah forget it it happened again

Hearing Sinedd sounding so pleasant is hilarious, it sounds so forced

Oh wait nevermind Mei did try to send them a message beforehand. It's actually really sweet how she addressed each and every one of them individually... Mei calling Ahito little brother and him burying his face in the pillow 😭😭😭

BUT IT'S STILL TOO SUDDEN AAAAGHHFG

TIME TO GET THE OLD MAN YAOI GOGGLES OUT

Okay I love the new dynamic between Aarch and Artegor now that Artegor's gone to rehab been cured from the Smog. Now Aarch is the one who needs a bit of guidance

Harvey and Sydney!! Robo buddies

Artegor just straight up taking up the practice sessions, who's running the Shadows then?

Also he slayed in this outfit

This drill is a little callback to Micro-Ice's test at the very start of the series, except more badly animated lol

Ahito: You're going to need an instruction manual D'jok! D'jok: Oh really? I know you by heart!

Hmm... foreshadowing for D'jok's "betrayal" later?

Love Artie and Bennett, hilarious how excited they are to “go on vacation”

Aw these kids are so excited to go to a beach, it's so rare for them

This soundtrack on Paradisia is quite pleasant actually, I wish they released the OSTs after season 1. There's this one Netherball soundtrack I love

Sinedd is still an ass so I wonder why Mei is even hanging out with him

Episode 3:

Yay the Wambas!

Mark's favourite hobby is cock-blocking Micro-Ice

The Mice delight joke is getting very old very quickly

Ain't the barman that robot announcer from Netherball??

Yuki's convo with the Elektras... something lgbt is happening here

God this is so funny, I love these goths

Enter Lun-Zia! She confuses me because we've never seen her on the Wambas team and there is like, zero mention of her ever having played with them, plus if she was Aarch would surely know of her already and she's wearing civvies from what I can see so... is she just some rando who happens to be good at football or not?? It seems kind of dumb to get someone like that when you could get a player who's actually used to playing in the big league. Why not just introduce her earlier as a new up-and-coming player in the Wambas team?

Every villain needs a creepy witch lady

Kind of funny that Micro-Ice didn't catch on that Yuki is going to the Elektras when they meet them at the bar, come on he's not dumb. Also why is he acting like Yuki is leaving the SK forever, it's just one tournament (at that point, anyway). Actually I'd say it's a good thing if some of their players get some experience on other teams!

But yeah I feel like they could have built this up more – had her talk to Mark or something beforehand discussing why she feels she should do this, idk just something so it doesn't feel like plot point B needs to happen sooo it's happening now.

Aarch: We're expecting you back after this tournament is over! Yuki: You can count on me!

I feel like this whole team member reshuffling should have been done beforehand with negotiations between teams so none of them get stiffed but whatever

Tia: I'm not so sure I want her in the team either! Rocket: Why? Tia: I have my reasons!

SHE WOULD NOT FUCKING SAY THAT. Why is she already salty that Lun-Zia is joining the team?

D'jok: Nice try, feet girl

IS THAT RACIST??? D'JOK!!

D'jok is mean to new person because they're replacing a former team member, we've already done this plot

Kind of wish we'd seen him develop into actually being a good captain as he only started to get to grips with it at the end of season 2, but here we go

Ok it's veeeery interesting to see Artegor's reaction to Aarch being harsh with D'jok and reminding him that he's going through a rough spot. Wonder how much of that comes from the experience of dealing with Sinedd... Artegor might have a soft spot for D'jok considering that “you'll always be a kid from Akillian” conversation in season 2, oouuughh the parallels between those two angry boys that Artegor probably sees himself in!

I also really wish we got to see more interactions between Artegor and Sinedd after Artegor got his mind cleared, would have been weird for Sinedd to have someone looking out for him all of a sudden

Aww Mice trying to make D'jok feel better, crashing a jet ski with your homie always raises the spirits

Aaaaand mood ruined. Mei moved on fast huh 😭 Damn vulture journalists. I actually kinda feel for him

DON'T GO INTO TINTED WINDOWS VEHICLES WITH WEIRD VILLAIN LOOKING DUDES D'JOK!! D'JOK HE HAS AN EVIL WITCH LADY!!!! D'JOK!!!

#galactik football #my posts #dori watches galactik football

[badbadmovies-blog1]

The Magic of Mika Penniman

Or, why you should watch Stasera Casa Mika

If you don’t currently live in western Europe or eastern Asia, you’ve likely never heard of Mika. You’d be forgiven for this. Despite being a household name in Italian and French speaking countries and a serious force in Korea, China and Japan, Mika is a virtual unknown in the English speaking world. This is a real shame. Mika is a pop star with a message and a countenance and a fandom distinct from any other. His greatest work is his 2 season Italian primetime variety extravaganza, Stasera Casa Mika, but it’s truly impossible to understand the show or its importance without an understanding of the man and the people who love him.

Mika is a man of many places and many languages. He was born in Lebanon, raised in Paris and London, is a fixture of television in France and Italy and keeps homes in Paris, Milan, London and Miami. One of his most immediately impressive talents is his ability to rapidly switch between speaking 3 or 4 languages across just a few sentences. On top of his native French and English and fluent Italian, he also speaks Spanish (moderately) some Arabic, and some Chinese. Search for him on YouTube and you‘ll find hundreds of videos of the man meeting his fans; it’s not uncommon to see him speak to 3 different people in 3 different languages, switching to respond in any language without so much as pausing. He’s tall and certainly handsome, albeit the latter in a non-traditional sense. His hair is curly and voluminous and sometimes completely out of control. His eyes are golden brown with hints of green, his jawline is sharp; yet still he describes his own face as “odd”. The chiseled handsomeness is offset by plump, often flushed cheeks and deep dimples. His smile is wide and bright and his front teeth are crooked. His appearance truly depends on his expression: when neutral or serious he’s solidly what anyone would call sexy. But he’s giggly and good natured, he smiles easily and often, and as soon as he does he shifts from sexy to simply adorable. With the crooked front teeth and plump pink cheeks he sometimes looks something like a bunny or a chipmunk. But still, a beautiful chipmunk.

Mika, serious

Mika, goofy

Even with his beauty it’s his personality that’s earned him so many fans. He’s bubbly and energetic on television and onstage, and while that’s 100% genuine, it’s more one of his moods than an accurate representation of his personality as a whole. There’s another side to him, equally entertaining but very different. Mika was snarky and loud when he first rose to fame at the age of 23 but as he’s aged he’s mellowed and calmed quite a bit. It’s an absolutely lovely transformation to witness if you’ve been following him for some time. Young Mika was hilarious and good hearted but sometimes brash and rude (to be fair, always entertainingly, endearingly, sassily so). The man he is now is pure and gentle. He’s soft-spoken and exceptionally kind. Watching him interact with his fans is like watching the human version of a cup of hot tea.  The man also seems to have stunning talent for feeling a room. He picks up on his fan’s emotions without a word being said. One of the best “Mika picking up on people’s feelings” stories involves him noticing a woman in his audience of thousands crying, and pulling her onstage mostly to hug her. Another fantastic tale tells of him going out of his way to ensure one of his fans felt included in a conversation when another person seemed to be getting all the attention. He told a fan on an airplane that he would meet her at the destination airport baggage claim to take a picture with her, and not only did he make good on that promise, the fan discovered he had no luggage of his own and went to baggage claim exclusively to wait for her. He’s got 2 dogs he dotes on and a penchant for sweater wearing. There’s something about him that just seems inherently huggable.

Mika’s claim to fame is his one of a kind brand of dark bubblegum pop. He pairs cheery, poppy music with dark, sometimes disturbing lyrics. Between the beat and the brisk singing, it’s easy to miss the lyrics entirely and get wrapped up in dancing around; this is the key to the success of formula. You may be thinking that cheerful music and dark lyrics are not unique, but this isn’t Melanie Martinez. Mika doesn’t lean on the darkness of his lyrics, singing to the camera with dramatic pauses to make sure you get it. He just sings, and trusts that his audience is smart enough to understand the point on their own. It’s on you to notice that the cheery song about teenage freedom you’re singing gleefully to on a summer afternoon contains the words “Left here on my own/ I’m gonna hurt myself”.

Mika’s first two albums, Life in Cartoon Motion and The Boy Who Knew Too Much, are about his childhood and adolescence viewed through an abstract lens. Most of the songs are vignettes about imaginary characters in metaphorical and absurd situations, but all of what might first seem like nonsense has meaning. It’s a distanced way to talk about real things, and Mika has plenty of real things to work with. His family was evacuated from Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War in 1983 and his father was held as a hostage in the Gulf War for 8 months when Mika was just 8 years old. Mika suffered badly from dyslexia, did poorly in school (not helped by cruel teachers), and was mercilessly bullied to point of going mute for a while. His music draws on all this inner pain and a talent for empathy to write darkness in a way that feels authentic. It never feels like just an emo aesthetic. His third album, The Origin of Love, diverges from theme for an airier sound and more cheerful lyrics. It’s an album about love in forms both positive and negative, and it feels much warmer and more optimistic than the work that came before. His 4th (and as of this writing, most recent) album, No Place in Heaven, is another departure from his previous work. If Life in Cartoon Motion and The Boy Who Knew Too Much discuss Mika’s life and problems in metaphor and simile, No Place in Heaven is the clear, plain English version, without the euphemistic wordplay. The album discusses Mika’s anxieties, from the trivial to the existential, with detail and without fear. No Place in Heaven is the modern English facing page translation to Life in Cartoon Motion and The Boy Who Knew Too Much’s Shakespearean stanzas. “Good Wife” is about the pain of a gay man in love with his straight friend and speaks his thoughts that he would be a much better partner than his friend’s unkind wife; “All She Wants” is an unflinching description of Mika’s fears that he’s a disappointment to his mother. “L’amour Fait ce Qu’il Veut” is an uncomplicated love song which manages to simultaneously remain unpolitical and make a clear statement by simply using the grammatical gendering system of the French language to assign male pronouns to the entity of love. The musical sound itself is different from his previous music. It’s more singer-songwriter, more guitar-heavy, and less electronic, but the whole thing is still recognizably Mika. This album feels like a catharsis for him. It’s not that he ever seemed sad or depressed, but post No Place in Heaven Mika seems like a new man. He looks healthier and happier than he ever has before. It’s as if a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

Mika’s honest lyrics and cheerful music have attracted a large, exceptionally dedicated and tight-knit fan base. Mika’s fans aren’t fans simply because they enjoy his music. They’re fans because they find comfort in his lyrics and his philosophy. You’ll always find at least some people in any fandom who feel this way, but for Mika fans it’s the rule. Ask any of them why they love Mika or how they discovered him and they’ll tell you a story that describes Mika or his music being there for them at a point in their life when it was most needed.

Mika is deeply important to people. Celebrities have fans, Mika has a flock. His fandom, largely (though not entirely) young and mostly (though not entirely) female, flourishes predominately on Twitter, Instagram, and a dedicated fan forum, where they communicate with each other across time zones and language barriers, often learning parts of languages they otherwise don’t speak. There’s a warmth here, a deep love and concern for each other. These people, most of whom are in some form of school, are spending their spare time learning languages by choice only to understand each other, and Mika, better. Due to Mika’s aforementioned cross-language popularity and success, to be a Mika fan is to be at least partly bi- or tri-lingual.  A short venture into #mikainstagram on Instagram (Mika and his fans have dedicated their own tag based on his Instagram handle, as #Mika is flooded with posts about a coincidentally named anime character) will show you thousands of affectionate posts about Mika, common for any fandom, but they talk about him in the kind of elevated language people normally use to discuss royalty. Even the absolute briefest interactions with his fans prompt deeply emotional responses. Even a smile matters. And it’s sincere - there’s no sarcasm here, no snark, absolutely no “too cool for it” artificial lack of concern. The people who speak about how Mika’s smile changed their life aren’t kidding in the slightest. He genuinely has that power and that kind of energy; it’s unique and almost impossible to understand without being inside it. When he’s part of Q&A sessions (he tends to do at least one a year), he doesn’t get asked nearly as many questions about himself and his music as he gets asked for general life advice. When given the opportunity, Mika’s fans literally bring him their problems, as if to the world’s coolest advice columnist.

All this information is necessary because what Casa Mika is and the effect it has is hard enough to explain on paper alone, and becomes completely impossible to explain without all the context (watching the show, however, will provide all this context pretty immediately whether you’ve ever heard of Mika or not; he really is magic and you’ll pick up on his energy immediately). Mika is a source of wisdom and a protective presence to his fans. He’s trusted and relied on in a way that celebrities rarely are, and he therefore finds himself in a position of power to influence many young people’s lives for the better.

Being a judge on the Italian version of The X Factor launched Mika into household name status in Italy as people who discovered him through his television appearances then discovered his music. Italy has become his strongest market since his time on X factor. Italy also has a long tradition of primetime variety television shows, and 2016 they were ripe for a new one. Mika’s creative wheels happened to be turning, and so Stasera Casa Mika was born.

Casa Mika (almost always referred to in this way, the “Stasera” is generally left off) is a very hard thing to put into words simply due to it being…really hard to put into words, but “variety show” still comes the closest to a concise description. The concept is fairly simple: Mika is your host, inviting you into his home. “Stasera Casa Mika” translates roughly into “Tonight at Mika’s house” in Italian. There are skits, comedy segments, and many musical performances, some starring Mika and some not. In between all this Mika talks to the camera and undergoes a breathtaking number of outfit changes. The first episode opens with Mika driving the tiniest car imaginable and singing to his dogs, and it really only gets warmer and softer from there. He’s got a co-presenter in both seasons. The first, Anglo-Italian actress Sarah Felberbaum, has a presence and warmth that mixes perfectly with Mika’s. They make fantastic presentation partners. Sarah is replaced in the second season by Luciana Littizzetto, who’s a pure gem and brings a whole lot of love and light with her. It works extremely well in the context of the second season.

There’s a whole genre of media that I adore but find it hard to put a name to. For lack of a better term, call it “self-confident”. It’s art that doesn’t care if it’s objectively good or if it has wide appeal. It’s only concerned with being whatever it’s going to be, and trusts that the right audience will find it. Sometimes it turns out objectively good and sometimes it doesn’t, but’s always interesting. Within this genre you’ll find the shamelessly and unabashedly joyful and pure things. Joyful and pure are not en vogue. Media was forcefully sugar coated and inaccurate to real life for so long that a collective decision was made that everything has to be realistic and gritty, that we’ve got no time left for fearless joy. But every now and then you find a movie or show that’s just good and pure and has no qualms about being so.

My personal benchmark for this genre is Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. If you’re a child of anywhere between the early 70s and the late 2000s and you spent time watching American public television, you probably at least occasionally watched Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Hosted by Fred Rogers, a man who can only be accurately described as an angel walking on the face of this undeserving earth, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was a slow paced and kind children’s show which discussed very real and serious problems and current events in grounded and intelligent ways that children could understand. Yet between the much needed and challenging social commentary was a lovely, caring show that wanted nothing from you. It protected you. Fred Rogers ended every episode with a lovely song about how he loves and cares for you, he’s just happy you’re alive. Mister Rogers and his show hold a very special place in the hearts of the people who grew up with them. For those people mere mention of it is bound to start them crying. It stuck with people, and it does to this day.

Casa Mika, to me, feels like a version of Mister Rogers for adults. It manages to be joyful without ignoring problems in life and in the world. Old media was joyful as it pretended that life was always perfect and nothing was ever thorny. Casa Mika is joyful despite the thorniness of general existence. It doesn’t shy away from problems or politics; it just takes them in its joyful stride. It’s sort of like an uplifting emotional movie. You’ll cry but it will still bring you up in the end. Mika talks about human and civil rights, about poverty, about crime, about prisons, and you still come out the other side feeling a whole lot better than you did before.

Most episodes of Casa Mika follow a similar format: Mika opens the show with a pre-filmed skit that leads into the opening number of the show, a large and energetic performance of the show’s theme song. The show itself is a mishmash, with any number of live and pre-filmed skits and performances. Common segments include: Mika driving a taxi, learning how to do a job from someone, traveling Italy meeting talented musicians from unlikely places, musical performances by Mika and others, and interviews with celebrities. Mika ends every episode by climbing into an oversized bed while wearing pajamas, gently bidding goodnight to the audience, and shutting off the studio lights. It’s important to know this show originally went off at 11:30 PM – people really were going to bed; he’s truly bidding his audience goodnight.

Stasera Casa Mika promo photos

The cheerful opening, the calm come-down ending, and the clearly defined structure brings to mind children’s night time television. It brings to mind children’s television in general; it brings to mind Mister Roger’s Neighborhood. And somehow that’s exactly what it is, simply aimed at a very different audience. Casa Mika is Mister Rogers for the 2018 young adult or teenager. It’s darker and slightly cracked. It’s facing the real problems of the world but it’s facing them led by this lovely, protective figure of a man. He’s even got the sweater and sneakers at one point. It’s as if Mister Rogers was painted by Picasso.

It’s important to draw a distinction between the two seasons of Casa Mika. They’re two seasons of the same show but they’re still separate entities in a lot of ways. They’re both uplifting but season one is more purely joyful while season 2 deals more consistently with harder topics. Season 2 introduces Gregory, a large monster who looks like he jumped straight out of Where the Wild Things Are. Gregory is introduced as Mika’s close friend, and It’s made clear in unambiguous language that Gregory suffers from crippling, chronic depression. If you started watching Casa Mika to forget all your problems this show has other plans for you. Mika’s more or less taking care of Gregory, and he explains that he does this because sometimes you have to, and that sometimes the best way to help people is to simply be present. Gregory gets a whole lot of screen time over the course of the season, and every moment he’s on screen is taken as a moment to provide some simple but effective comfort for everyone watching who’s going through a mental illness of some kind or other.

The first season of Casa Mika is free, joyful, loud and pure. The skits and performances are hilarious and uplifting. It’s all one giant party, bringing as much energy as it can straight to your heart. It lifts you out of your problems enough that you feel strong enough to look them in the eye. The second season of Casa Mika gently guides you through those problems, in the kind of way that makes you weep, but it’s a good weeping. It’s a cathartic, detoxifying weeping. Casa Mika came right on the heels of Mika’s newfound lightness after No Place in Heaven, so watching the series feels a bit like joining him on a journey, an emotional experience you’re on together. Much like you, the viewer, Mika takes a season to be truly free and the next to face problems, some of which are quite clearly his own. If you watch the show, the whole show, all 8 episodes, in order, you’ll be taken on a teary eyed trip through Mika’s mind and your own, and all the dark corners of both.

If you go into this show with a feeling that no one cares about you and no idea who Mika is, you’ll come out the other side feeling slightly better because now you know there’s a guy named Mika who cares about you. And like Mika’s music, this somehow manages to feel truly authentic. While there have been a million people and a million celebrities who speak and post and tweet encouragement to mental illness sufferers, Mika is easier to believe. I tend to think it’s in his presentation. His message is less of a blithely optimistic (and often annoying) “THINGS WILL GET BETTER” and more of a soft hug from a friend telling you that yes, things will eventually get better but even more importantly that they still love you while things AREN’T better. Mika focuses on the normalcy and okay-ness of sadness and depression, that there’s nothing to be ashamed of in your struggles. He’s got so many of his own (it’s heavily implied that Gregory is not only a fictional character but an anthropomorphization of Mika’s own mental health struggles) that he’s able to talk about mental health from the perspective of someone who’s not only been there but has developed a philosophy that holds optimism and realism in just the right balance to be comforting but not infuriatingly positive. Like a really good therapist, Mika makes you feel better about the future without making you want to punch him.

It’s all written and presented in such a way that it will only really affect you if you too suffer – if you have no struggles, Casa Mika’s discussion of them won’t bring you down. The show remains uplifting and energetic throughout, and if you take it on without needing any particular catharsis it will simply be one of the best and most entertaining things you’ve ever watched. Mika is like human sunlight, an actual joy on your television. But let’s face it: that’s not the case for most of us. Something about the present is just hard for everyone, and most of us are struggling with something. Maybe you, reader, don’t. And that is FANTASTIC! Now go find a TV and watch Casa Mika, because it will only make you happier. But perhaps you DO suffer from something. Many things. Maybe you’re a little sad or a little afraid. Or maybe it’s worse. Maybe you’re reading this in a bed you don’t feel like you have the energy to get out of. If that’s the case, here is my advice. Join mikafanclub.com . It’s free and easy and all they want is an email. Joining will give you access to their thread of English subtitles. As Casa Mika’s broadcast language is Italian, you’ll probably want them. From that thread you can find watch links for all 8 episodes of Stasera Casa Mika. Watch them. Watch them all, in order. They’re about 3 hours each, so it’s a solid 24 hours of television. I recommend a pace of about half an episode a day. There’s a lot going on and there’s so few of them, so it’s best both to give yourself time to absorb each half episode and to stretch them out as long as you can. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry a lot.

To be clear, I’m not claiming or suggesting that 24 hours of Italian television will cure your depression. But it will put you through something. You’ll be made happier and more introspective in turn. And in the end, the very end, the part where I always end up grossly sobbing, you’ll probably be grossly sobbing too. And it’ll feel like crying out emotional toxins. Like a really intense therapy session, emotionally exhausting but purifying. Sometimes the cure we all need is a little bit of snot running down our faces.

Written by Savannah

Find me on Instagram Twitter Mika Fan Club

Useful links:

Mika Fan Club (site with English subtitles for Casa Mika available after free registration)

Stasera Casa Mika on Rai 2 Season 1 Season 2 (watch for free,no registration required, no strings attached)

Casa Mika season 1 trailer

“Won’t You Be My Neighbor” (documentary film about Mister Rogers) trailer if you aren’t familiar with Mister Rogers

#mika #mika penniman #stasera casa mika #casa mika #rai 2 #tw: depression #mikainstagram #michael holbrook penniman jr #no place in heaven #the boy who knew too much #the origin of love #life in cartoon motion #long/good #all time favorites

[hearts-lover]

My opinion about Kingdom hearts 3

This post contains Spoliar to the Kingdom Hearts 3, if you haven’t played or beaten the game, I recommended you just move on the next post. I also will be talking about the Character, the Game, and the Fandom(mostly about the people who dislike Kairi role in this game) in this post, so if anything I said offended you by any meaning, I’m sorry, but this is ‘Merica where I’m at, so I can’t feel bad about hurting someone feeling even if I just speak a specific group of them or dissing their favorite character. Wow, I haven’t upload a thing in my account for years and now today is the day. oh, as for Kingdom hearts 3; love it. but I do wanna speak my opinion about this So just to get this out of the way, Kingdom hearts 3 have a pacing problem, and I'm pretty sure everyone knows that but I really don’t have any issues with it, granted this is a very annoying issues because as a Kingdom hearts fan, we never had any issues with this kind of stuff, even the previous KH game like Kingdom hearts 0.2 and DDD, but as someone who watches anime being dub and that dub being out of pace is a very common thing and most of the times, the Series Dragon ball Super have suffered the same thing, people simply talking too fast and most of the time they get cut off, making their sentences seem like a waste of breaths, but in Kingdom hearts 3 The pace in there seem so slow until we move away from the Disney and Pixar worlds, the pacing seems okay in my opinion. well besides the “character bring back to life” pacing, but I’ll speak about that soon enough.

but, let talk about the worlds; Olympus - I really didn’t enjoy this world, but that doesn’t mean I hate it. I really like how Sora and the other interact with Herc and Hades and I like how you get to explore and literally goes up to heaven to help Herc and save Zeus. (though I am a bit disappointed that we wouldn’t able to meet the other gods, like Herc Mom)the reason why I didn’t enjoy these worlds it so Empty, even in Zeus home, where if you revisit Olympus and you enter the gate, the first area doesn’t have any heartless until you progress through the area, but that first area is so big, perfect to fight those groups of heartless again like when we first get to that area to help Herc.

Toy Box - One of my favorite world so far, as a fan of the Toy Story series, its really good to see Woody and Buzz interact with Sora and the other, and I like how Buzz choose to keep an eye on Sora, Donald, and Goofy, even though he can be stupid, like the fact he doesn’t believe he is in another world despite the fact he was able to shoot real Lazer, the fact there was no human ANYWHERE even the newest Toy story that was having their grand opening thus there should be Kids and Adults in there EVERYWHERE and the fact that the heartless appear as soon you couldn’t find the other toy or Andy. Idk I just feel like he did all this and be controlled by the darkness, just so Woody can roast Young Xehanort and Sora saying “heart are everywhere” for the 10th times lol

Kingdom Of Corona- My least favorite world, While I do enjoy the interaction between Sora and Rapunzel (make me surprise that nobody in the community ships them since she and Eugene never have like a romance development beside her and Sora. I also hate that when Rapunzel wanted you to swing with her into another area, you locked up into a slow walking and controlling Sora is so annoying, even the festival is confusing, even if I read the tutorial I still mess it all up until I realize that I have to button depend on what color of the circles, but  even then when the dancer group up, how are they expect me to hit the Circles, let alone get a perfect in there if the beat doesn’t even sync (in my opinion that is) plus the world seems a bit too big for me, even with a map, maybe its because the tree and grass look the same thing, but eh.

Monstropolis - once again, one of my favorite world, Mike and Sully even Boo (despite they reuse her voice from the movie) is enjoyable to see and the interact make it seen like their one big family just trying to protect boo, and I wish we get more of that in the Kingdom Hearts series, for now, Sora Donald and Goofy, as well as Sora Riku and Kairi, will have to do. It's also cool to go through the monster factory and see some new stuff we haven’t seen before in the movie, I think that bits are pretty cool alone itself.

The Caribbean - My all times favorite world, as a fan of The Pirate of Caribbean this was a win for me, the Graphic, the world, even chasing the Black Pearl inside the Davy Jone Locker Kept me smiling throughout of the game. I thought the Crab collection is gonna be annoying, but I actually enjoy it, because it's everywhere, so you won’t be lost and worry about trying to find that last one crab. I am dissappointed about the water fight style, I know that we grow up in the previous game that we were able to use 3 combos in the beginning and the waterfight style shouldn’t be different, but I feel like they could’ve done more other than “Bubble, Swing, Swing, Whirlwind” combos

Arendelle - I really don’t understand why many people hate this world, I do understand that Sora doesn’t have NO purpose to be in there beside without realizing that when Sora Compare Elsa and Riku and realize Riku have been pushing him away just to keep him safe (where that is pretty cute.) and half the cutscene doesn’t help you what is going on what happened where its basically forces you to watch the movie, (similar what of Corona dealt with) to understand what is the relationship between Elsa and Anna, and why Elsa think that shes dangerous (Granted, Frozen is the 13th Grossed movie of all times so everyone with their mother must watch the movie, including Tangle) But other than that I enjoy the World, everytime when I see Sora run and able to see the snow actually move unlike what Halloween Town was able to do in KH2 when you get to see Santa, and able to find Olaf Body and his reaction to each body (and the fact that Sora literally grab a ball of poo) was great in my opinion. Also, you guys are very bold to expect “let it go” NOT to be in the game. that like Playing Kingdom hearts and know all of the character and story and expected Master Xehanort to NOT be the main antagonist.

San Fransokyo - Easily, one of the most boring world I had to go through. Sure you get to meet the Big Hero 6 and Sora making up the team names thus acting like a dumb puppy and the boss was interesting, but...that pretty much its. San Fransokyo wasn’t even that interesting until you beat the world, basically, the world is “talk to the person to progress” kind of thing, cause most of the time, once you finish what you had to do, and you have an option to save or buy some stuff, and that it. if you want to move on to the story, talk to Hiro, making me think that they rushed this world mostly than Arendelle and Corona, and when they say this world to be in the game? 2015? to be honest, what a waste of a world.

Now we have done with that, let talk about the Pro and Cons

Pros:

I really enjoy the interaction between Vexen and Demyx, even though it was a one-time thing (sadly) it's really good to see Nobodies from Kh2 talking to the Nobodies from CoM, Kinda remind me of Pinky and the Brain from The Animaniacs

Goofy is still Smarter than anyone in this Universe and I LOVE IT.

I’m glad that in Monstropolis, it takes place after the event of Monster Inc., so we can have more interact between Sully and Mike, I even like when sully say “its time to bring the scare out” I think that alone is a good line.

I have the same ps4 that was announced back on 2012 and I used it when I played KH3, thus I never had a Ps4 pro, but even then, the game feel and look beautiful and I couldn’t stop playing it.

I like the Gummiship section, I like how it gave you a choice if you should go and collect some items, but also give you a choice if you wanna annoyed them, then again, you do have to face the giant boss in that section, but you only get to face 3 of them and depend on how well you are, you’ll be leveling up like crazy at the end of the day, I mean the ship was able Lvl. 26 when I reach to the Keyblade Graveyard.

The magic is powerful and useful to use.

Sora’s Smile special. That's all.

CAPTAIN MOTHER FUCKING JACK SPARROW

Cons:

I didn’t enjoy the reaction command, sure the Keyblade Transformation is useful by itself, but when you have another command that you wanna use but if you hit Triangle before you hit R2 to switch, you’ll waste your finisher just like that. and it also doesn’t help if you just wanna get the treasure but wasted a useful command you been saving.

Master Yin sid alone. I hated him when he claimed Riku as a Keyblade Master, and I hated him just as much. because here a thing he has stated that Sora can’t go with Riku or Mickey until he has the power of awakening, where he didn’t use that until he follows Aqua to find Ventus, this man have the nerve to say that Sora isn’t ready despite the fact that he was able to save 10+ world when he was just 14, granted he did lose his power thank to Xehanort in the events of DDD, but in KH3, he was able to turn into his second form and play similar as his full power as KH2 (when you unlock all his abilities) summon a Pirate ship, A blaster, was able to do his first Keyblade transform after he finishes with Olympus. and Yin sid, have the nerve to say that he needs the power of awakening to support Riku and the King, and yet he was able to save Aqua WHILE NOT BEING A KEYBLADE MASTER AS RIKU AND MICKEY IS ONE and wake up Ventus to after seeing aqua getting hurt without even learning how to even use the power. and uses the same power he doesn’t know how to use to save his friends. Master Yin Sid is a horrible master and nothing will change my mind.

Donald being a bully, I never have seen Donald abuse Sora like this before, maybe it's having to do with Goofy being smarter than anyone in this universe, and I know that Donald personality was supposed to be annoying and him acting annoyed. But remember when Master Yin Sid and Pete stated that Sora was weaker than he was in the previous game, and how its really got into him, and remember Sora was able to save Aqua and Ventus without being a Keyblade master, since Yin Sid is basically saying that Riku was able to learn the Power of awakening thus that what make him Master, similar to Mickey. did you also remember Donald say “Sora needs work” and he says this AFTER he saves Aqua and Ventus, yeah, this Donald isn’t the Donald I know and love in the KH universe?

This game gives us a lot more question than an answer. Like why did Roxas came from the sky where his Vessel suppose to be with Ienzo, how did they able to create Xion if she was a Clone of Sora, why did the old princess heart move on and seek a new princess heart (plus does that mean Kairi isn’t a princess anymore), Shouldn’t Elsa heart be more stronger than a Princess heart since she's a queen. and some that I can’t even word it out.

The pacing, pretty sure you knew about that

The Final boss was...a little disappointed compared to the 1st 2 games of KH

Power level is bullsh*t (I'll be talking about that later)

Now I GOTTA speak my opinion about the Fandom reaction of the game and BOY there is a lot:

Regarding to Kairi:

 I have seen a lot of people both Kairi fan and non-fan usually say about how Kairi character have been downgraded to be a typical Love-interest to Sora (despite the fact that has always been a thing in KH1 and KH2, there literally can’t be any more to hint to these two together) and how she basically basically the Damsel in distress, where I could say the same thing to these “would-be-master” No hates on Riku Mickey or Aqua, but lemme recap, Riku earned the title ”Keyblade Master” after he finished with his Mark of Mastery, after that and him learning more about Aqua, he contain and use an uniform where Yin sid say that it’ll help him when he faces the heartless in realm of darkness, and Mickey confirm that even the weakest heartless can be dangerous in the realm of darkness. and His keyblade was destroyed and mickey’s was badly damaged and wished Yin sid to upgrade the keyblade and make Riku a new one since he left the old one in the darkness, they return there only for mickey to be captured by the heartless, and Riku had to face Aqua and the heartless, (he even working together with his dark self), but even after all of that “HE STILL NEED SORA” I understand that Sora is basically a golden child and have been fighting heartless more time than Riku since he worked with the darkness in KH1, but that doesn’t mean he useless, he can fight, Both Sora and Riku have a Rival and it could be hint that they were using the wooden sword since they were kids, so they must’ve have SOME experience, and since this is the same dude who entitles a Keyblade master, and I know that some of you will say “but you just say that Mickey confirm that the hearless is stronger in the Realm of Darkness” and you’re would be right, if we didn’t have Yin sid and Sora.

Yin sid basically told Sora 2-3 times that He needs the power of Awaken in order to go and help Riku and Mickey, even when Sora/Ventus say that he’ll go and Save Aqua, what did master Yin sid say “You need the Power of awaken” but he didn’t need to, He just needs to follow his heart, and he did, and he found Aqua keyblade and use that to reach to Riku, only for him to use that power to Ventus. after he saves Aqua.

and Sora; remember what Yin sid said (where I won’t repeat myself) and remember Pete say that he is weaker than he remembers, HOW DID HE ABLE TO DEFEAT A KEYBLADE MASTER AFTER COMPLETE 7 WORLDS? Granted, there could be a development where he could be getting stronger in each world he completed, but Yin sid say that the Darkness has Stripped his power and even Pete called him weak, there is no way that he was able to catch up to Riku level where he never lose power in the first place AND able to defeat a Master Keyblader by himself with no help and with no “power of Awaken”

in fact I could even say that both Riku and Mickey is more than a Damsel than Kairi since They have to be Saved by Sora twice where Kairi was being used of being Sora motivation to fight at his fullest, and Master Xehanort stated that he needs 9 clashes between 13 darkness and 7 lights to in order to forge the X-Blade and with Kairi Death being the 9th, she was used to create the X-blade.

and the fact that no-one even comments about these make me REALLY consider for the fandom, but you know my opinion.

Overall, I think Kingdom hearts 3 is a great game with a lot of Nostalgia in it, but I feel like Nomura tried to hard to make KH3 look pretty other than answering story, where there has been other games where you can have an interesting story and Gameplay before KH3 even release.

Overall, Please play this game with a grand of salt (for the people who haven’t play KH3)

#Kingdom hearts 3 #kh3 spoilers #kairi #KH3 review

[recentanimenews]

THE GREAT NARUTO REWATCH Goes New Places in Episodes 155-161!

Welcome to the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! I’m Kevin Matyi and I’ll be your host for this week as we make our way through all 220 episodes of the original Naruto. Last week we went through some filler practically buzzing with action, then started the Curry of Life arc in Episodes 148 - 154. This week, we concluded Curry of Life and had several rapid fire stories involving Naruto in new teams and the Leaf village infiltrated by impersonators in episodes 155 - 161.

This set of episodes continues our wade through the insane amount of filler that pads out the original show before transitioning into Shippuden. However filler isn’t inherently bad. During this week’s episodes, we finally got to watch Naruto take a leadership position and see both how bad he is at being a leader and how much he’s willing to adapt to the new position after realizing his own failings. And that’s without even mentioning the mini-arc that’s basically just a Western movie-style revenge plot with outlaws and bounty hunters. 

This is the first time that Naruto has gone completely away from an arc-based structure to more one-shots and mini-arcs, so let’s see what the Crunchyroll Features team thought about this week’s episodes and Naruto in general.

We started this week with the Kurosuki family trying to kill our main characters with boulders, then using the “Black Tornado jutsu,” also known as a bunch of dudes with claws sitting on each others’ shoulders and spinning really fast. We’ve seen some awesome jutsu and some really silly ones throughout Naruto, what have been some of your most and least favorites?

Paul: I actually liked the absurdity of the “Black Tornado Jutsu”, but I gather that I was supposed to take it seriously, which I absolutely did not. My favorite Jutsu remains Kakashi's Copy Jutsu, because of the many supernatural powers we've seen so far, it seems most emblematic of the shinobi tradition of spying, mind games, and dirty tricks. I also enjoyed Tenten's weapon summoning Jutsu in these episodes, because it was fun to see her work people over with tonfa, a kusarigama, and a quarterstaff.

Joseph: I’m still a big fan of Ino’s Mind Body Switch technique, even though it leaves her vulnerable. The Black Tornado jutsu was just unintentionally hilarious.

Danni: I’m also going to have to go with Tenten’s weapon summoning jutsu as a favorite conceptually because of the cool possibilities that summoning weapons at will creates. As for least favorite, the award easily goes to Sexy Jutsu.

Noelle: Black Tornado Jutsu works in the sense that it’s purely comedic, even if the source material is trying to make it serious. As for favorite jutsu overall, the Raikiri is just so cool to me, even after all this time.

Jared: The worst is easily Sexy Jutsu. Which of course we saw come back up multiple times in this set of episodes. I’d completely forgotten about Tenten’s weapon jutsu and then this set of episodes showed it off again and I saw it in Ultimate Ninja Storm as well this week and it reminded me of how cool it was.

Kara: I’m with everyone else on Sexy Jutsu, but I will give a nod to the Cheesecake Jutsu. As for my favorite, I’m still where I was all the way back in the early episodes with Haku’s ice mirrors.

Carolyn: Black tornado jutsu vaguely reminds me of the really dumb tornado arms in The Flash. That being said, Shikamaru choking somebody out with his creepy awesome shadows is a good one. And still a fan of the bugs.

The first half of this week’s episodes wrapped up the Curry of Life arc. How do you feel about the conclusion to Ranmaru and Raiga’s story, the seemingly miraculous/deadly powers of the Curry of Life, and the arc’s story in general?

Paul: Between the ill-explained properties of the Curry of Life, Rock Lee going full Muppet at one point, and the sheer number of people getting hilarious launched off of cliffs, the conclusion to the Raiga and Ranmaru story arc struck me as total clown shoes. I was pleasantly surprised that they didn't make Ranmaru die tragically, but Karashi's redemption felt far too easy for a guy who is portrayed throughout as a cowardly back-stabber who's also a willing accomplice to a deranged murder-cult.

Joseph: This was hands down one of the worst storylines yet. It was about two or three episodes too long, and the way it used Rock Lee was just annoying. I wouldn’t have minded Raiga as much if he would have stayed down, but by the time round two came around, I was mostly checked out.

Danni: It honestly felt so stupid and nonsensical that it was like I was trying to watch those episodes with a hundred degree fever. Did they just forget that Ranmaru can’t walk there at the end or am I really going crazy???

Noelle: I feel like any sort of philosophy they were trying to impart was lost by the fact that everything ended up being mostly gag. Even the parts that were trying to be firm ended up being gag, and it’s hard to take something seriously when it itself isn’t being serious.

Jared: This really felt like the show is just hammering home the idea of "Here’s the greatest hits from the series thus far." Somebody needs to make a Time Life parody of the filler as “The Greatest Hits of Naruto, But Worse”. I was happy when it was over because this arc just wasn’t good.

Kara: I’m kind of relieved to hear the bizarreness is genuine and not a result of my brain trying to cope with three weeks’ worth of viewing after coming back from vacation. I think the main problem was they tried to double-dip and have the actual Curry of Life be both serious and silly itself. You can’t, buddy. You can’t. The bubbling evil sludge-curry can either be a gag or it can be miraculous. You can’t have it both ways and expect it to work.

Carolyn: I thought the life-saving curry was … kinda dumb. And I had zero emotional investment in Ranmaru and Raiga’s story.

After the Curry of Life, we got a mini-arc and two one-offs that bounced between the extremely serious story of a bounty hunter trying to prove his innocence to the slapstick of some random guys trying to impersonate Guy and Lee. How did you feel about each of these mini-arcs?

Paul: I enjoyed the Wild West-style diversion of the hunt for Gosunkugi, although parts of it felt under-written, such as when they see the giant golden bell and instantly intuit that the bell is Gosunkugi's target. I also liked the practice training mission episode because it showed the Genin passing on their knowledge to the youngest ninja cadets, and I enjoyed the slapstick episode of the Rock Lee / Might Guy impersonators getting hazed by the whole Leaf Village, so overall the filler was more tolerable this week.

Joseph: On the opposite end of the spectrum from the Curry of Life, I actually thought the wild west bounty hunter arc could have used a couple more episodes. It seemed to end kind of abruptly, but overall it was okay. My favorite of the one-offs was the corny Japanese comedy duo stylings of the Rock and Guy impersonators.

Danni: They were all very brief which was very welcome. The longer these filler arcs drag on the more their writing seems to fall apart. It’s hard enough to stay invested in them as is, so their brevity is very welcome. If we really have three more seasons left without any main story, I’m all in on the rest of Naruto just being short, episodic misadventures.

Noelle: Agreeing with everyone else here: short but sweet. Without the manga behind it, it’s hard to come up with lengthy stories, especially lengthy stories on such a last minute basis like most anime end up being. Short but substantial enough episodes really do work in the series’ favor, particularly when they’re trying to pad the runtime.

Jared: The show becoming a western was not something I was at all expecting, but I found it to be alright. Especially since it didn’t overstay its welcome like other parts of the filler have. Imposter Lee and Guy was the right kind of dumb and was good comedy which it feels like we haven’t really had in a while.

Kara: Wild West anything gets a thumbs-up from me, so I was happy. The “Just kidding, I heard everything and actually you’re fine” ending was a bit abrupt but I also don’t know how else they could have tied it up without dragging on. As for the impostor episode? That’s the stuff. It’s actually funny, it’s short and sweet, and it also reminds you just how OP our protagonists are when placed against normies.

Carolyn: The bounty hunter stuff was actually kind of fun for me. I did enjoy that a little and I felt like it was almost a return to the early Naruto episodes in terms of being goofy and comedic in parts. Sorta the same with the Rock and Guy impersonators, I didn’t hate that. But then eventually it became sort of annoying.

The recent filler arcs have all followed the basic formula of “Naruto joins up with another team to go on a mission.” How effective has Naruto interacting with more non-Team 7 characters been as a storytelling tool? Is there anything you want to see happen, while sticking to the same formula?

Paul: Since Sasuke's not around, I think it's good for Naruto to team up with other supporting characters, because it gives the rest of the cast an opportunity to show off their development. The impersonators episode makes me wish I could see Naruto training Taijutsu with Rock Lee and Might Guy for real, because I'm not sure how those three personalities would bounce off one another.

Joseph: I think it opens the opportunity for some interesting team-ups. Plus it’s like… what else are they gonna do? This filler has been somewhat tolerable like Paul said, but it also shows just how mediocre Naruto can be without a strong spine of a narrative behind it.

Danni: I like the idea of sticking him with these other teams because it opens up the possibility of showing some underutilized characters in action, like with Hinata in the bug arc. It hasn’t always worked out that way, but it’s better than the alternative.

Noelle: I think it’s better in theory than execution, but it’s still a fine theory regardless. Due to the large cast, only to get larger, there has to be more to the characters if we’re meant to care about them beyond just a couple of quirks. Even if it’s non-canon, letting Naruto have interactions outside his close circle is needed to make the story more believable.

Jared: It gives all these other characters a good chance to be shown off and see what they’d do with Naruto, but it feels like we’re getting to a point where it’s becoming old. You just expect there to be Naruto and a few others now for every single mission as that’s the only way they can justify doing them. Though they really should just do a "Naruto trains with Guy and Lee" episode for real.

Kara: I really enjoy seeing how the other Hidden Leaf ninja have grown, especially when it comes to their individual skill sets. Plus, let’s be real: Naruto needs to be able to work well with as many different people as possible if he’s sticking with this whole Hokage end goal. So this is good for him in the long run, too.

Carolyn: This is part of why I felt like it was a return to the earlier episodes, as we get to see more of the Hidden Leaf characters. And I am here for it.

By now, I’d hope that we’re all well acquainted with the flow of Naruto’s story, and especially its filler material. Imagine that you were in charge of the show for a few weeks and have been given full creative freedom to take the show in whatever direction you want, except for progressing the story. In a paragraph or two, pitch a Naruto filler arc. Some things to help prompt ideas (you don’t necessarily need to answer all of them):

How long’s the filler (an arc, like the Curry of Life, a short like the bounty hunter story, or a one-off like Naruto leading Team Konohamaru)?

What’s the mission?

What’s the team, and how do you expect them to work off of each other, both in personality and combat?

Is there any connection to the main plot?

Any one-off characters or groups?

Any Mcguffins (weapon, scroll, jutsu, etc. needed to beat the bad guy, but is rendered unusable by the end so that no one ever has a reason to bring it up again)?

Paul: I'd pitch a three episode filler arc where Naruto and company would have to do something non-combat related and outside of their shinobi skill-set. For example, they learn of a legendary oracle whose knowledge of the future would allow them to inquire about Sasuke and Orochimaru. However the only way to get an audience with the oracle is by defeating several other teams in a women's only flower arranging competition, forcing Naruto to disguise his gender and team up with Ino and Sakura. In the end, the oracle would be revealed to be a fraud created as a publicity stunt by a small town trying to revitalize their local economy.

Joseph: My arc would be a three to five-episode story about how Kiba and Akamaru get wind of a small clan of ninja who are attempting to summon creatures like dogs, frogs, and other animals as familiars but are doing so in abusive ways. They’re essentially raising them through Pokémon style battles, so Kiba recruits Naruto, Choji, Ino, Rock Lee, and Sakura to help put an end to it. This gives them an opportunity to split into two teams of three for recon and side battles against rival ninja. When Kiba ends up using Akamaru to win a fight of his own, he learns he might not be so different from the ninja here. Rather than pummelling them all, perhaps he just needs to show them the right way to train their would-be sidekicks.

Danni: One thing I’d really like to know more about is what it was like when Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru were a team, so I think my filler would be a single episode arc of Tsunade recounting a mission they went on together back in the day. It would showcase their teamwork as jonin before they were legendary ninja and the friendship they shared despite the cracks that were starting to show. Their mission would be to investigate a series of gruesome murders in a small village. Their search would lead them to a powerful ninja who has been conducting experiments to reanimate the dead with failed results. What he has managed to create are mindless, malformed husks that the three ninja have to fend off before taking down their master. In the end, of course, Orochimaru ends up stealing the killer’s notes and later refining them.

Noelle: Hm, this is tough! I think what I’d like most is maybe a two-parter or three-parter just focusing on the girls on a mission. They’re around and the fillers seem to be trying to flesh them out more, but I’d like a segment where they’re all working together, and they can all show their strengths. Also, girl bonding besides the usual shonen stuff! I’m not too sure about the details, but something that requires either espionage or brainpower (for Sakura and Ino) with a good mix of combat (for Hinata and Tenten).

Jared: Let’s go with a two episode story since you don’t want it to be too long or too short. Naruto, Sakura, Rock Lee, and Tenten go to a pro wrestling show in the village. Shenanigans happen to where a prominent team gets hurt so Naruto and the gang have to fill in. They face off against a masked champion who’s been running roughshod over everyone. Naruto’s group fights valiantly, while not using their various jutsu, but are ultimately defeated. They go backstage and find the champion unmasked and it turns out it’s Kakashi. It turns out he was on a mission to infiltrate a travelling pro wrestling promotion because there were rumors they had ties to Orochimaru, but then Kakashi was too good and became champion.

Kara: I’m thinking a single episode for mine. Sakura is on the verge of a breakthrough for her latest medical jutsu but can’t seem to crack it. Tsunade assigns her a mission to clear her head, and sends her off with Naruto and Rock Lee to clear a nearby village of an infestation of venomous rodents (the rare something-or-other rat, purple with red glowy eyes, you know). The mission turns into a bout of oneupmanship as Naruto and Lee attempt to outdo each other to impress Sakura, going into more and more dangerous situations at the request of the locals. Once the infestation is cleared, the two are basically worthless between venom and self-inflicted injuries, requiring Sakura to focus up and step up her healing—finally managing to make the jutsu from before work.

Carolyn: FILLER ARCS ARE 3 EPISODES MAXIMUM. Mine would be 1-3 episodes for sure. I think at this point, given how very little the ladies have to do, I’d do something dumb and fun where all the guys get kidnapped or stuck up a tree (dumber is OK for filler) and then the girls all save them through friendship and fierce ninjutsu. Is it forced feminism? Sure. But also kind of earned at this point. Also, there’s no doubt Rock Lee would just be there cheering them all on the whole time because he is the best good boy.

As usual: highs, lows and any honorable/dishonorable mentions.

Paul: My high point was when Konohamaru, Moegi, and Udon totally narc on Naruto for ruining the training mission. I was expecting them to do the typical thing where they lie to Tsunade for his sake and grow closer, but the speed and efficiency with which they (rightfully) throw Naruto under the bus for being a crappy instructor was exquisite. My low point was the conclusion of the Raiga and Ranmaru story-line, where even though there was some nice animation with Rock Lee's drunken boxing, it felt like the writers had completely lost the thread of the narrative. Honorable mention: Sazanami’s katana having a rifle stock instead of a hilt. That was a cute detail.

Joseph: My low point was definitely the Raiga story. They did Rock Lee wrong in the climax, and the whole thing was just not interesting to me at all. High point goes to very fake Rock and Guy.

Danni: My high point was when the Hokage Mt. Rushmore faces all held their noses when the imposters got covered in poop. It got a legitimate laugh out of me. My low point was the entirety of the Raiga/Ranmaru arc. Literally the entire thing.

Noelle: High point I have to say would be the unintentional comedy. It’s not good (at all) but I am the type that laughs at bad movies. This was a gold mine for me. Low point would be whenever they try to play the gag, especially in the curry arc, way too seriously.

Jared: High points would be the ridiculousness of the Lee and Guy imposters, going full western for a few episodes, and also them parodying the OK Corral as an episode title. Low would probably be the end of the Raiga story as it just fell completely flat.

Kara: High point was getting Wild West action in my ninja show. That was a thing of beauty. Honorable mention goes to Sakura’s “encouragement” of the Guy and Lee imposters. 160-odd episodes down the road, I love any reminder that Inner Sakura is just Sakura now. The low point was watching the Curry of Life arc waste a perfectly good Zabuza/Haku parallel on some super-confused gags.

Carolyn: I think my high and low point are both the same. That “hit me with your best snot” pun. I mean ...

COUNTERS: Bowls of Ramen: 1 bowl, 3 cups “I'm Gonna be Hokage!”: 3 Shadow Clones Created: 87 Total so far: Bowls of Ramen: 50 bowls, 9 cups “I'm Gonna be Hokage!”: 55 Shadow Clones Created: 635

And that’s it for this week! Remember that you’re always welcome to watch along with the Rewatch, especially if you’ve never seen the original Naruto! Watch Naruto today!

Here’s our upcoming schedule: - Next week, JOSEPH LUSTER brings us to the Land of Birds! - July 5th, DANNI WILMOTH gets nautical in the Land of the Seas! - July 12th, JARED CLEMONS leads us to the Hidden Village of Star!

  CATCH UP ON THE REWATCH!

Epsiodes 148 - 154: The Forest is Abuzz With Ninjas

Episodes 141-147: Mizuki Strikes Back!

Episodes 134-140: The Climactic Clash

Episodes 127-133: Naruto vs Sasuke

Episodes 120-126: The Sand Siblings Return

Episodes 113-119: Operation Rescue Sasuke

Episodes 106-112: Sasuke Goes Rogue

Episodes 99-105: Trouble in the Land of Tea

Episodes 92-98: Clash of the Sannin

Episodes 85-91: A Life-Changing Decision

Episodes 78-84: The Fall of a Legend

Episodes 71-77: Sands of Sorrow

Episodes 64-70: Crashing the Chunin Exam

Episodes 57-63: Family Feud

Episodes 50-56: Rock Lee Rally

Episodes 43-49: The Gate

Episodes 36-42: Through the Woods

Episodes 29-35: Sakura Unleashed

Episodes 22-28: Chunin Exams Kickoff

Episodes 15-21: Leaving the Land of Waves

Episodes 8-14: Beginners' Battle

Episodes 1-7: I'm Gonna Be the Hokage!

  Thank you for joining us for the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! Have a great weekend, and we'll see you all next time!

  Have anything to say about our thoughts on Episodes 155-161? Let us know in the comments! Don't forget, we're also accepting questions and comments for next week, so don't be shy and feel free to ask away!

    ---- 

Kevin Matyi is a freelance features writer for Crunchyroll. He's been watching anime for as long as he can remember, and his favorite shows tend to be shonen and other action series.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

[tumblunni]

Man, I should get ARMS. I should get a Switch. I knooooow I won’t really play it or even enjoy it but DAMN those characters! It’s just like Overwatch all over again!! Why such good charries and aesthetic and design in genres I don’t enjoy? Hell, this is like a fusion of genres I don’t enjoy, cos it’s like a first person esque fighting game with aiming mechanics, even if you’re shooting your own limbs instead of bullets. Its like OVERSTREETWATCHFIGHTER

But AAAA the great character designs and the great cartoony aesthetic and the great lore from what I’ve seen of it so far?? I LOVE DR COYLE SHE’S SO SCARY BADASS AND ALSO TECHNICALLY A SCIENCE MOM KINDA. I already loved Helix but I like him even more with the unique interactions he gets with her. I’m glad there’s already a slew of fanart of Good Mom Coyle and helix hanging out with the other experiments in a goofy sibling sort of way.

ALSO RANDOMLY: did you know that Helix is the only character that got a change in name between japanese and english? he was just ‘DNA Man’. And I’ve gotta say Helix is a badass name, but I wonder why they bothered changing it when so many other characters are still Something Man and Something Girl?

ANYWAY I just got the soundtrack and I started off with dr coyle’s theme and holy fuck this is some one winged angel shit I LOVE ITTTTTT

Also randomly can I say that I appreciate that Dr Coyle is buff and scary and butch and cool? Kinda a lot of the playable female characters were all about sexyness, and/or girlyness, or have sexy girlyness thrust upon them even if its irrelevant to their character concept. I mean even the relatively neutral concept of a noodle chef woman got “weight: on a diet” as part of her profile, and when the girl with the robot suit got out of her robot suit I was surprised she’s like 18 looking and has a generic body build when I was expecting.. like.. a kid... from how they call her a kid. She’s like an adult that was squished down?? Her head looks so mismatched cos it actually looks young! Everyone has the same body build except when they have more or less boob, and it’s a shame. It just seems weird when the male characters vary so wildly from stick thin to giant hulk things to elastic helix monsters! The hulk equivelant for the girls had to be wearing a mecha suit and then be generic anime body inside! Not that any of those characetrs are bad for being feminine, or that I think the game was problematic about it or anything. It just left me hoping for a charrie like this for the next one that got revealed! And she far exceeded my expectations and really stood out from the entire art style for the ladies so far! (oh and yeah i know the clown lady also breaks the trend, and I was really excited about her at first and thought she looked cool but then everyone made inf/lation fe/tish jokes and it tainted my view of the character. Putting dashes there so tumblr reccommendation doesnt throw pron blogs at me again...)

MAN IM ALREADY GETTING SALTY ABOUT THE FANDOM OF A GAME I DONT PLAY. WTF. but mostly im just HYPE FOR THAT DAMN SONG YOOOO

#blunni thoughts

[recentanimenews]

Jump Force Is A Really Great Game That's Surrounded By Garbage

The "Hey look! My favorite character is beating the crap out of my other favorite character!" genre of video games has been pretty strong lately, with stuff like Injustice 2 and Dragon Ball FighterZ surpassing expectations and draining me of my social life. Jump Force, a fighting game centered around the characters of Weekly Shonen Jump mauling eachother, wants to be added to that pantheon. And why shouldn't it be? It features a bunch of your favorite anime and manga characters all screaming out their attacks as they fight across surprisingly large stages in chaotic combat. I should be holding a copy of Jump Force up on my roof while I scream, shirtless, at my neighbors to come try and challenge their new god. 

  Instead, I'm politely cracking the window and whispering to them that if they have a quick second to maybe give Boruto a try, Because there is a very cool game inside of Jump Force, a game where Jotaro Kujo, Seiya, and Roronoa Zoro team up to stomp on the skulls of Gaara, Blackbeard and that one Dragon Quest dude. That's a game that makes you want to buy a crate of Mountain Dew, steal a country's supply of Doritos, and kick it with your friends like you're in an old school commercial from 1998. That game is in there. It's just tough to find sometimes.

    See, in between all of the combat, Jump Force fills you with questions. For instance, why am I playing as some kind of self-created avatar that's just a Frankenstein'd glob of other anime character features? I don't know anyone who wants to do this, outside of the people that just buy WWE games to say "HAHA. I MADE PICKLE RICK. EAT IT, TRIPLE H." But those games tend to have complex, gratifying character creation systems, while Jump Force gives you a few options and then sets you loose to stand beside Trunks and Naruto in awkward cutscenes that are so vengefully clumsy that you'd swear they were making fun of you.

    Side note: Why do I even have to use this avatar? Why can't I just switch between the characters that people are buying the game for? I got excited to play as Toguro and Gon and Boa Hancock. When I first saw the trailer, I didn't watch Luffy, Goku, Naruto and Light Yagami and think "But where the heck is my favorite Weekly Shonen Jump character....ME?" 

  A bunch of these cutscenes take place in your headquarters, which sadly takes the place of a simple menu in this game. In this abandoned shopping mall-looking area, you run around to accept missions, talk to characters, upgrade stuff, and just kinda look at the goofy designs other players have inflicted on their own avatars. This layout is cool for a bit, until you realize that it's far bigger than it needs to be. I don't want to spend a decent chunk of my time as my dumb avatar, running around, looking desperately for things to do. And while there are things to do, your instructions for them are pretty vague. The Jump Force boss will tell you "Have you communicated with your allies?" and this is code for "Run halfway across the base, stupid, and see what Yusuke's having anxiety about."

  Speaking of the Jump Force boss, the story of Jump Force is almost exactly what you'd expect it to be: an elongated system of unlocking new characters. See, a bunch of them that appear outside of the core Dragon Ball/One Piece/Naruto series have been infected by evil cubes and you have to beat them unconscious to get them on your side. However, it's not a bad story. It's no worse than most Mortal Kombat games, where the plot is pushed along by another person entering the room and saying "Now, YOU will die," or Dragon Ball FighterZ's, where you spent hours pummeling the same Yamcha clone. 

    That said, Jump Force does succeed in a really crucial way, something that's necessary in all of these "Who would win?" simulators: It makes you play as (and love) characters that you never thought you would. I remember, when Injustice 2 came out, I figured that I'd probably stick to Batman and Bane if I could. One week later, I was all about Swamp Thing, Scarecrow, and Wonder Woman. In Dragon Ball FighterZ, my sights were locked on Cell and Vegeta, but I ended up almost totally ignoring them and joining Team Yamcha, Majin Buu and Tien. 

  And when it comes to Jump Force, I was dead set on making Luffy, Toguro and Hisoka my main team. But you know who is AWESOME in Jump Force? Boruto. I don't know if there's a character in the entire game that's more delightful to play as than Naruto's kid. Yusuke is awesome, too, and I looooooove how it feels to squash an opponent with Roronoa Zoro. If you can get used to him, Jotaro Kujo is also very cool, even if that's partially due to the fact that I like to yell "ORAORAORAORA" along with the game. I'm terrible as Yugi, but I just can't stop using him. And if you're able to master Asta, you will rule the world. 

    Another thing that I didn't mind very much was the arena combat. I know that, when I played FighterZ, I thought that all fighting games should either be like FighterZ or just be a different copy of FighterZ that I had lying around the house. But the arena battling works here. There's something really epic about sending your opponent flying and then rushing toward them to deliver another blow. I know that it's not a proper adjective, but the fighting in Jump Force feels very, very anime. The fighting noises and all the copious explosions and earth-shattering moves make you feel like you're controlling the final battle at the end of an intense arc ALL THE TIME, even if you're just having a friendly spar with Sanji. 

  Honestly, the story in Jump Force doesn't really matter in the long run. The labyrinthian headquarters doesn't either. They're just there to get you acquainted with the game and the characters, so that you can jump into Online and Offline battles and settle grudge matches with your friends and people on the internet. So if you can wade through some of Jump Force's clunkier set-ups and finally get down to mashing buttons and yelling about how Sabo could totally win against Ichigo, you'll find something to like here. Jump Force is pretty good, as long as you can forgive the non-fighting stuff that's pretty bad. 

  REVIEW ROUNDUP:

+ The characters are all pretty fun to play as, as long as you don't like playing as Sasuke

+ Combat is fast and chaotic, with a bunch of cool explosions and sweet-looking moves

+ Online matchmaking for ranked matches is very simple

+ ORAORAORAORA

+/- Story is simple, but it's kind of just filler anyway

- The main menu area feels sloppy

- I haaaaaate playing as my avatar, and you probably will, too.

  Are you gonna pick up Jump Force? Who are you gonna play as? Let me know in the comments!

---------------

Daniel Dockery is a Crunchyroll writer/editor that has a Twitter, but more importantly, now has a love for Boruto. 

   Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!