#if you watched brotherhood first you had the effect spoiled because of that first episode

[velvet-vox]

THE Yugo defense post.

I am (hopefully) very confident in saying that there are probably a lot of these types of posts lying around, but since the argument has never been truly put to rest even after the show's finale, I feel like it's truly time for someone to give his own two cents again and take a stand against Yugo's haters, because by Osamodas that child cannot catch a break.

(Also I haven't seen season 4 but I know a couple of things about it, but I will focus mostly on 1 to 3 plus The quest for the six Elatrope Dofus).

So I am going to start this post by talking about my own personal character arc in learning to love Yugo, because oh boy, it was a wild and unexpected journey for me. Now, I, personally, am someone who tends to prefer villains and antagonists over heroes and protagonists. That's not uncommon, plenty of people are like that, no, I don't want a spinoff that turns the villain into the protagonist because that would make them less interesting as now we need to learn almost everything about them in order for the story to keep our attention. Therefore, as you can imagine, Nox was my selling ticket for the show. I got the small, almost non existent hype around him and it got me interested. Season 1 ended, it was a banger, but at the time, all I got to think about was Nox and how much I was grieving him. I didn't really think about anything else regarding the season, all I got was him and his arc. I needed a way to overcome the grief, so eventually, I learned that season 2 also had a pretty good villain, so I said "hey, let's use the possible trauma caused by this new baddie to overcome the trauma caused by the previous one" and started watching season 2. Love love love Qilby. And I am going to bring it back up later, but the season 2 finale is the definitive moment where I became invested with Yugo and got deeply interested in him. Eventually, when I watched The quest for the six Elatrope Dofus, I was just deeply in love with him, rooting for him at every turn, and generally, just cheering the guy.

And then.... there it comes season 3. My Iop. I was already spoiled by the fact that season 3 was disappointing, so I kept my expectations as low as possible, but sweet home Alabama I was not prepared at all, if the season had just been bad I would have called it a day, but no, the season is wasted potential at its finest, so many incredible ideas rushed and fumbled, Oropo would have been my favourite villain in the show had he been written better and preplanned, he feels like the Bradford Buzzard of Wakfu and his Brotherhood is its F.O.W.L.

However, while the writing took a nose dive in season 3, I started to realise something that I didn't notice before: damn, I really care about the main cast. Not just Yugo. All of them. This is something that distinguishes Wakfu from other shows: most of the time, writers focus more on making the protagonists immediately likable and interesting, which makes sense, as they are the cornerstone of most stories, but Wakfu differs in the way it endears us to its cast since I didn't feel like the show made a great effort in investing us to the protagonists in the first two episodes, they introduced their personality, quirks, and characteristics, but they didn't show us their struggles beyond Pin Pin's quabble with Rubilax, and this creates the ripple effect later on in the show where you become surprised in your backwards investment of their journey, because that's not how the story started with and yet you can clearly discern their development quite a lot.

And this brings us to Yugo, whose Wakfu untraditional deuteragonism creates a weird case of main character where, the actual season focuses on Tristepan and his journey, but since Sadlygrove is also his own worst enemy with the exception of Dark Vlad, the actual main villain of the season is a foil for Yugo and develops him into a more mature individual.

Which, finally, brings us to the main reason of hatred from some (fake) fans: the villains. The villains in Wakfu tend to be very complex and compelling, while in contrast, Yugo stays mostly static and simple before being confronted with said opponent; then for specific cases of flandarized vitriol, we have:

- Yugo did not try to talk out Nox from his plan nor did he console him, which led to his demise (Pure evil).

- Yugo willingly locked Qilby in the White Dimension again with full knowledge of the reasons why Qilby did what he did (Jerk).

- Yugo accidentally (but not really) created Oropo which caused insane damage to the world of twelve and created all of the problems of the series up to this point (Meh. Still an absentee abusive father).

- Yugo limited himself to locking up the Necromes to starve for eternity rather than killing all of them (Ok).

And I am going to run through each and every single one of them.

- First: Yugo did not know anything about Nox but he killed off Grougaloragran earlier on and his Time Razor just killed Yugo's friend a couple of minutes before their fight, which led Yugo, a child, to his very first fit of rage and did not esitate or waste time to attack Nox, a dangerous murderer who wanted to steal his hat. But when he finally realised what Nox's plan was, he told the Sadida warriors to back off, but since it was already too late for him, Nox left the battlefield of his own volition and ended his life.

- Second: Qilby was a great bastard. A complicated and caring one, but a jerk nonetheless. And yet, Yugo knew and deeply felt that even he didn't deserve to be in the White Dimension, one of the most cruel and gruesome fates any villain could face, but he had no other choice, because if he didn't do that, Qilby would have destroyed the world. And even then, later on in the series the thing that Yugo hated Qilby the most about was not anything that he did, but rather the punishment that he forced Yugo to inflict on him.

- Third: Oropo is just a freak show of a writing mess that I can't even point out how much Yugo is to blame for his condition, at least Yugo feels bad about the Eliotropes, so there, Yugo feels empathy.

- Fourth: Sorry, didn't watch season 4, but again, I assume it was like a binary choice like season 2, Yugo is definitely more of law enforcer despite his carefree nature, he was destined to become King and he just accepts it, in contrast to Amalia's rebelliousness and lack of a forced incoronation (opposite attract each other).

Amalia's going to die one day, and Yugo's going to live for thousands of years and never abolish or question the monarchy. It's sad, but his existence is pretty sad.

As for people claiming that Yugo's an overpowered Gary Sue, I'm sorry but as long as a character faces struggles in any meaningful way then you can't claim that they just break the narrative.

#wakfu yugo #wakfu osamodas #wakfu nox #wakfu qilby #wakfu iop #wakfu oropo #wakfu percedal #wakfu amalia #wakfu season 1 #wakfu season 2 #wakfu season 3 #wakfu season 4 #duckverse #ducktales 2017 #ducktales bradford #bradford buzzard #character analysis

[spoilertv]

#SpoilerTV

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 05 (first part)

(Masterpost) (previous episode) (this episode, second part)

Warning: Spoilers for all 50 episodes of the Untamed

The Pride of Yunmeng 

Waterfall Date

Lan Wangji gets to experience the two extremes of Wei Wuxian’s interpersonal skills within the span of a few seconds. This is even better than his rooftop date with this horrible annoying terribly, terribly attractive boy.

Lan Wangji has come here on a mission to make Wei Wuxian do his homework, which is why he immediately tells him “let’s go to the library” gazes at him silently for several seconds...

...and then lets him adjust his sleeve for him and step allll the way into his personal space. 

Unfortunately Wei Wuxian is about to guess a Lan Clan secret, so Lan Wangji ends the conversation by saying “let’s go to the library” grabbing him by his sexy arm muscle and dragging him off. Did he hold his arm all the way to the library? Even if he didn’t, his “I don’t touch other people” later at the lake is clearly horseshit. I don’t touch other people unless they are named Wei Wuxian and our brothers aren’t watching. 

(more after the cut!)

Apology in the Library

Wei Wuxian splits his library time between actually doing his homework and trying to make friends with Lan Wangji. And he tries really, really hard, starting by sincerely complimenting LWJ’s calligraphy and offering a pretty okay apology for his prior rooftop antics. Lan Wangji tells him to put his leg down but doesn’t tell him to go sit at his own desk. 

Lan Wangji exhibits steely self-control as he resists this look, which would cause anyone else’s robes to spontaneously un-weave themselves into a pile of threads.

When Lan Wangji won’t look at him because he feels his apology was not sincere, Wei Wuxian becomes much more formally apologetic. First he says “sorry” two more times, and he starts prepping Lan Wangji’s ink.  This involves grinding an ink stick against an ink stone with water, to make a pool of ink for the calligrapher to dip their brush into.

This is not Wei Wuxian being annoying and messing with stuff on Lan Wangji’s desk, a la Zhou Yunlan (Guardian). This is an act of service; a genuinely helpful thing to do if you know how to do it properly --which all of these young scholars definitely do--and an action that casts Wei Wuxian in the role of a servant or junior. 

Then Wei Wuxian offers to kneel down (to offer a major formal apology), while giggling like an adorable dumbass. It's unclear if this is sexual innuendo, just being ridiculously unconcerned about dignity, being slightly into abasing himself for this beautiful person, or all of the above. 

After taking a long moment to consider all this, Lan Wangji slowly and deliberately gives Wei Wuxian three seconds of the eye contact he’s been begging for.

Then Lan Wangji spoils the moment by dropping a silence spell on him. 

Wen Can I Have Some Fun?

The Wen siblings hang out and talk about their secret villainy and then fret about how much it sucks to have a chronic health condition, which is pretty relatable TBH.

I know life seems boring now but just wait until you’re an itinerant zombie with nails in your head.

Wen Qing is a devoted older sister just like Jiang Yanli, although with less fainting and more scheming. 

Good kitty.

Porno in the Library

Now, since this next scene ends with Wei Wuxian being a boundary-crossing jerk, let's start by remembering that Lan Wangji has magically gagged Wei Wuxian against his will three times now, as well as hiding his vulnerable family member behind a ward while lying in wait in order to attack him. So, you know. Teenagers in lust. They are both learning what is and isn't okay.  

Lan Wangji steals a long glance at Wei Wuxian while Wei Wuxian is drawing. 

Wei Wuxian is putting the finishing touches on a gift for Lan Wangji. The gift is a portrait of Lan Wangji with flowers in his hair. This boy is SMITTEN. I think he knows it, too; he just doesn’t think it’s a big deal yet. 

Wei Wuxian, who is good at everything, is really fucking good at drawing. 

When Wei Wuxian presents the drawing to Lan Wangji he says “this is my gift for you.”  This is very good-mannered of Wei Wuxian; Lan Wangji had to supervise him for three days, so he is presenting him with a gift to thank him and say farewell.

Lan Wangji completely ignores him, which is really breathtaking, next-level rudeness.

Wei Wuxian isn’t bothered by this, however, and just embellishes the picture with an extra flower or something before offering it again. This time Lan Wangji takes in and is very very very pleased with it, as evidenced by his slightly widening his eyes and how carefully he places the drawing on the far side of his desk.  

Also he gives Wei Wuxian some prolonged eye contact, and engages in what, for him, is playful banter, calling the gift “extremely boring” when Wei Wuxian prompts him to use more words than usual. 

Then Wei Wuxian spoils the moment by pranking him.

Now - let’s look at this erotic-book situation. This is a boundary-crossing prank, yes, but it’s also an invitation to engage in some form of intimacy. For teens who have access to erotic images, looking at them together can be simple naughty fun. Or it can be a way of discovering and bonding over shared sexual identities and interest. Or it can prompt more direct engagement, up to and including having sex with each other.

Lan Wangji’s horrified reaction means that Wei Wuxian has to characterize this as a prank after the fact, but he might very well have intended it as an invitation to get horny together. 

Either way, his response to Lan Wangji’s “shameless” comment is bound to make an impression.

Wei Wuxian is from the clan of "be free" and he just doesn't see why this is a big deal. And now he’s told Lan Wangji it doesn’t have to be a big deal. And through him, the producers are breaking the fourth wall and telling every viewer that this doesn’t have to be a big deal and that they shouldn’t feel ashamed. 

Threats and rudeness and book destruction ensue, and Lan Wangji is left alone in all kinds of emotional disarray, with a bunch of torn up erotica to tape back together throw away.

Boys on the Rocks

Wei Wuxian brags about his prank to Jiang Cheng and bestie Nie Huaisang, telling them that he got Lan Wangji to cuss at him. He’s going to put a notch on his sword handle for this achievement.  

Jiang Cheng is pissed at Wei Wuxian about this, like he’s pissed at him about everything all the time. Possibly he has already started the seedlings of his lifelong jealousy of Lan Wangji.  

Jiang Cheng doesn’t realize that he’s essentially prepared Wei Wuxian to court Lan Wangji by constantly criticizing, hitting, and threatening him. After a decade of Jiang Cheng’s rough style of brotherhood, Lan Wangji’s elegant and refined hostility rolls off of Wei Wuxian like water off a duck’s back. 

Nie Huaisang wants to make sure Wei Wuxian didn't rat him out, but isn't worried about the destroyed book because he has a whole external drive full of porn. 

Several Brain Cells Trio

These guys do make some questionable choices together, but actually they are all really bright and effective in complimentary ways.

Jiang Cheng is growing into a strong future leader - authoritarian and dickish, yes, but also decisive and unflinching. Wei Wuxian is observant of things around him, always ready for combat, and thinks deeply and strategically about events.  Nie Huaisang is a bottomless font of knowledge, sourced from books and from his own observations. 

So when the Wen spy bird shows up, they spot it, drive it away, identify what it is, and understand that it’s a threat and that its presence has political implications.  

They are all goofballs at times, but highly gifted ones.

Doo Doo Doo Lookin Out My Back Ward

Lan Xichen asks Lan Wangji if he’s found out who was sneaking around his the back ward and Lan Wangji hesitates before reluctantly saying “Wei Ying.” 

Ok seriously - nobody calls him Wei Ying. Nobody refers to him in the third person as as Wei Ying. Calling him Wei Gongzi or Wei Wuxian would be totally normal. His own brother calls him Wei Wuxian. And Lan Wangji has only called him Wei Ying to his face when he was angry. 

But now--immediately after the erotica debacle in the library--he is Wei Ying when Lan Wangji is speaking of him privately with his brother. 

By the way, Lan Wangji's shoulders seem super wide in these robes, don't they? I'm not complaining.

Forgettable Disciple #1

Now we meet apparent nobody Su She, who sucks. He wants to take care of the water ghosts himself. 

He is a no-headband disciple which is like - none of the juniors in the later timeframe go without a headband. The guys who got set on fire at the gate had headbands. One of the Lan Rules is “wear a headband.” Is there anyone else who doesn't rate a headband? This is a plot point later when it comes to the ice cave but for now it just seems that he's that one perpetual intern who never gets promoted and never learned embroidery.

Doctor Qing, Medicine Woman

[OP laughed way too hard at her own joke just now.] Wen Qing is helping Jiang Yanli, and Jiang Cheng is super happy to see her. When did he develop this crush? Because it's already in full swing. 

Did Wei Wuxian just sneer when he noticed Jiang Cheng’s crush? Like macking on Lan Wangji is more appropriate than this? 

I love you and I’m going to advocate killing everyone who matters to you

I’m a nosy jerk and I’m going to be your best friend for life, quite literally

Wei Wuxian complains about Wen Qing ignoring him and she gives him the prettiest, loveliest *sigh* death glare ever.

However when she sees that he's a little brother whose sister utterly dotes on him, she starts thinking maybe he's all right. 

For the Yanli-Qing shippers, there is a tiny breadcrumb here, where Yanli says they met by the river bank.  I don't personally ship my personal girlfriend Wen Qing with Jiang Yanli, but I support your ships wherever they may sail.

Continued in Part 2, right here

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #the untamed gifs #the untamed memes #wangxian #the untamed stills #the untamed spoilers #restless rewatch #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #wei wuxian #lan wangji #wen qing #jiang cheng #nie huaisang

[shinystars-stuff]

The Fullmetal Alchemist Live Version Was Amazing

I know I'm late to the trend, but my sudden love for it has came back.

This post is about to be long. I would suggest finding a small snack to eat while reading this.

On that note, let's begin!

Although the movie did not go through every event as or Scar and much, the way they changed the story was quite different.

It was still a horrible moment to watch the death of Hughes and the transformation of Nina and Alexander all over again. Yet the way they resent it was just as good.

Yet people wonder: Hughes died by a photo of a pregnant Gracie. Doesn't that mean Hughes dies before Gracia was born? Sadly yes. The movie wouldn't have the approach for the birth because I believe the events happening was in just only one week.

It's got more of the appropriate touch to it that everything happened in just a week. I may be wrong and there might have been time skips, but I'm sure Gracie was in the 9th month of pregnancy. It could have been two-three weeks. Two-three weeks can become hell in Edward's life.

Anyways, the events that happen are very close to Brotherhood. The fighting scenes were incredible but there are scenes where you noticed actors didn't see the cue on time.

Example: the scene of Riza and Edward working together. The two guards watching over Riza and Edward probably heard the commotion, but their reactions were off timed.

I know the feeling of being unable to catch a cue on time. I've worked a camera before. It was more likely an error from the actors. When you're rolling, especially in something Live, the director has to be far away from the boom-mics in order to not be heard. The camera-man who is on the scene for the actors has to give a sign to the actors for they can start their action. This person also gives signals to other camera-mans to fix their angle or tell them to do an zoom in or out. It would be hard to see a cue and so a sound had to be hard to alert them. I can only think it was a late cue or the actors couldn't see it without looking into the cameras.

Sorry for the long sentence. Back to the movie!

I have to give kudos to the actors! The actors of Edward, Winry, Alphonse, Roy, Hughes, Evny, Lust, Gluttony, Nina, Hughes, and (I don't remember the name but I know it was the person in the original 2003 film of the train hostage episode) did amazingly well as the characters. The actors of Roy and Riza portrayed the emotions of fear, hurt, worry, and despair quite well it became haunting. I would be quite scared too if I saw a million or more mannequin type zombies like Edward did.

Speaking of the mannequin type zombies, holy shit. I know it could have just been mirrored, but if not, how the frick did the company who produced the live version get so wonderful effects?!

With Evny and Lust; darlings, you did amazing! Especially you Gluttony (although you weren't seen much)! Lust portrayed the sass and sexy version just as well from the originals and manga. Envy, you had so much more credibility to be more proud of your ability. You sure got some people to laugh with the pose of your decoy Roy. Yet you're just as cruel when you turned into Gracie to kill Hughes.

Tucker, I hate to say it, but his actor was spot on. Tucker's actor just gave the same horrible and fucked up vibe as the manga and originals did. Honestly, I would've been happy if Alphonse had injured you more. First your wife, then your daughter and her dog.

Alphonse, Edward, Winry. Ya'll are smol pure and adorable teenagers. Although I was upset they made Winry's hair brown, the actors played their roles amazingly well. Especially giving us some moments to laugh and adore.

😏😏

Hughes' actor. I wish I could give you a hug. ☹☹ You suffered as the first character dead. The first and most lovable character.

I already said I didn't remember his name, but, it is a weird coincidence to see you as a villain mastermind. I love how you could keep your act as a calm and good character, but when Edward found your secret, you went a little evil all the while staying calm.

Nina, I wish I could've adopted you. You were adorable. Your dog was probably so fluffy too that you could fall asleep by his side in 2.2. You did not deserve the fate Tucker or the director gave you.

I think I've said enough for one day guys. I just wanna say that this movie is worth watching it. I can't spoil it so much in case some people hasn't watched it. (Hopefully it's still on Netflix...)

Anyways, thanks for reading this!

#fma live action #fma #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood #fullmetal alchemist 2003 #fullmetal alchemist

[aion-rsa]

House of X and Powers of X: Key X-Men Comics to Read

https://ift.tt/306iu50

We picked out some key books from Marvel's history to help you understand the big X-Men reboot.

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House of X and Powers of X have done the unthinkable: they’ve made having an encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel X-Men continuity minutiae an asset. Now I have a reason to talk about Xorn’s brother Xorn who was posing as Magneto pretending to be Xorn OTHER than to make someone go away.

This is, of course, a joke. HoX/PoX is remarkably accessible for anyone with any level of background knowledge of the X-Men, from “I like Hugh Jackman” to “remember the time the Sentinels tried to kill the sun because it was causing mutations?” But there is certainly a lot in here that rewards deeper knowledge. And to help you understand it all, we put together a reading list that might help you see the throughlines from Marvel Comics history that help create the comics sensation revitalizing the X-Men books. 

For this reading guide, we’re not only going to tell you what’s good and why we like it. We’re also going to try and piece together how it fits into what Jonathan Hickman and crew are doing in today’s series. Because of that, we’re slapping a big ol’ SPOILER WARNING here: proceeding beyond this point risks spoiling big twists from the first half of the HoX/PoX epic.

  FOR GENERAL BACKGROUND: X-Men: Grand Design

Ed Piskor is the indie comix guy who, prior to this book, was best known for a webcomic-turned-prestige-series, Hip-Hop Family Tree, which told the story of the origins of the biggest genre in music (it’s fantastic, by the way). His acclaim for that book, where he would quite frequently homage superhero covers, eventually garnered enough attention from Marvel for them to take a risk on him. In a fit of uncharacteristic ambition, they allowed Piskor to rework thirty years and 300 issues of X-Men or X-adjacent comics into one miniseries. The result is absolutely stunning.

There are retcons involved, but Piskor manages to turn several eras of comics history into one coherent narrative. Retcons become plot points, characters move rationally instead of for post-hoc rationales and slow-burn payoffs are seeded even earlier. It’s all done with a distinctly underground style, which is refreshing and appropriate, since this is the era when the X-Men became counterculture iconography. 

In other words, if you need the best X-Men comics history lesson imaginable, this is the book for you.

Pay close attention to: Anything with Moira Mactaggert. The revelation in House of X #2 that current Marvel continuity was the tenth time Moira had been resurrected and that she had been planning for six lives to protect the mutant race casts literally the entirety of X-Men history in a new light. So now any interaction with the Professor or his students, like, say, when she was watching Jean Grey become the Phoenix on Muir Island, has potentially new meaning. Grand Design is particularly valuable here because Piskor started before the planning for Hickman’s relaunch did, so you are reading source material that the rebooter himself was probably working off of.

read more - The Best Episodes of X-Men: The Animated Series

You may also like: For tone and craft, X-Men: Grand Design is unique. Despite countless reboots and cleanups attempted in the almost 50 years the X-Men have been published, nothing to my knowledge has been this comprehensive or accessible. However, if you like the characters and the idea of a modernized, streamlined origin-esque story, Jeff Parker and Roger Cruz’s mid-aughts series, X-Men First Class, which tells new stories with the original team of X-Men, is worth checking out. It’s a lot of fun, certainly a lot more fun than reading the original Silver Age issues themselves.

start with the first volume of X-Men: Grand Design here.

TO UNDERSTAND THE BIG THEMES: Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye 

No, I’m not kidding. I am absolutely recommending an alternate universe Hawkeye miniseries in an article about X-Men comics. 

On his way to destroying it, Jonathan Hickman was given space to play around with the Ultimate Universe, and he used it, writing a Thor miniseries and relaunching the Ultimates. Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye was the third prong of his overall story and it focused on a fictional country - the Southeast Asian Republic - as Hawkeye and a team of SHIELD agents arrive on site to deal with a civil war. We quickly find out that SEAR scientists have created a virus to eliminate the X-gene, and a serum that gives their own people a virus-resistant mutation. A “paradigm shift,” as one of the SEAR officials calls it.

That government unleashes both prongs of the plan and promptly loses control of the situation, setting up SEAR as a mutant haven for people taking their serum and thus one of the three prongs of a global conflict that plays out in Ultimate Comics: Ultimates.

Pay close attention to: The Xorns. Not because they’re anything like the ones who have shown up in HoX/PoX - the ones in House of X have only thus far been glimpsed, and the millennial nihilist icon from Powers of X is a corpse in an alternate timeline (probably).

read more - Pryde of the X-Men: The Animated Series We Almost Got

No, we’re watching the Xorns in Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye because the idea of mutants as resources in a geopolitical struggle seems central to the conflict playing out between the Krakoan mutants and the humans in the X^1 timeline of today’s series. With all the talk of omega mutants and alignments, you should be able to get a very good sense of what is to come in the mutant conflict by reading this.

You may also like: Ultimate Comics: Ultimates, Hickman and eventual Secret Wars collaborator Esad Ribic’s story of what else is going on in the world while SEAR blows up. That story is mainly concerned with SHIELD being woefully outgunned by the mutants on one side, and evil Reed Richards’ Asgard- and Europe- destroying hyper evolved Children. It’s really good.

read Ultimate Comics Hawkeye here.

FOR A SENSE OF THE TONE: “Days of Future Past”

“Days of Future Past” is right smack in the middle of what Piskor covers in Grand Design. So why read it separately? Because I strongly suspect this is the foundational text of what Hickman is trying to do with his story.

This is one of the all-time classic X-Men stories by maybe the most well liked team in the franchise’s history. In the far future of 2013, Sentinels have taken control of the US and are on their way to taking over the world, because they see human existence as the flaw causing mutation that they are programmed to wipe out. So they kill most of the heroes and round up the remaining ones into camps. Wolverine, Rachel Summers (in her first appearance), Katherine Pryde (not long after her debut), Colossus, Storm and Magneto all team up so Rachel can send Kitty’s consciousness back in time, take over her younger body and prevent the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (led by Mystique and Destiny) from killing Senator Robert Kelly, sending the future spiralling towards extinction.

These two issues function as an effective preview of the conflict that HoX/PoX explores. Humans are irrationally afraid of Mutants, who alternate between trying to be left alone and trying to dominate their progenitors. Meanwhile, the robots say “you both suck” and (presumably before falling into the sun in the case of Mothermold) just start killing.

read more: X-Men Movies Watch Order

Furthermore, “Days of Future Past” is precisely the kind of dystopia that PoX is pushing. The X^2 future has lot of Age of Apocalypse trappings, but its central conflict is between mutants trying desperately to survive and robots who hate everything biological trying to destroy everyone. Surprisingly, though Nimrod is closely associated with this dark future, he doesn’t actually appear in these issues. He comes back in time about 50 issues later, from that future but not seen in it. 

Pay close attention to: The mood and milieu of this story are the important factors, but it’s also probably worth keeping an eye on Destiny and Moira Mactaggart here. The mutant precog had one very...pointed...run in with Groundhog Lady in her third life, and they come very close to each other here. This may be fertile territory for a retcon.

You may also like: Uncanny X-Men #208-209. This is Nimrod’s big battle with the X-Men and the Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle, as Rachel Summers lays dying in Central Park. It’s nowhere near the bleak, oppressive tone that “Days of Future Past” has, but you get some sense here of the sheer power that Nimrod has at his disposal. Also, he’s clearly insane, and as far as things you want from your robots, insanity is not high on the list.

read Days of Future Past here.

TO UNDERSTAND THE MAIN VILLAIN: “The Phalanx Covenant”

The X-Men crossover that introduced Generation X, the second wave of mutant students after the New Mutants/X-Force, also seems surprisingly important. Originally presented as an offshoot of the techno-organic space mutant Warlock’s race, the Phalanx are half Borg, half grey goo nightmare. In this story, they invade Earth to assimilate and destroy it, but find that they can’t assimilate mutants, so they start trying to figure out why by kidnapping the X-Men and a group of teens identified as potential students. They fail, of course, but not before planting phalanx eggs around the planet and killing off a character who became inexplicably popular a year and a half later (Blink, who existed in the 616 for a grand total of 20 minutes before dying. She’s great, but I don’t get why she endured and not someone like Synch). 

read more: The Many Different Versions of the X-Men Dark Phoenix Saga

The Phalanx are the hive galaxy in the X^3 future being called down by the Librarian to assimilate humanity, and it looks like (at least in whatever life of Moira’s this is), they’re finally successful. 

Pay close attention to: Husk and M. I went back and forth on whether to prioritize this or the other comics you might like, trying to figure out which is more important to the narrative, and what sold me on The Phalanx Covenant is the fact that Husk and M are part of the X-Men strike force attacking Mothermold in space in House of X. They’re also two of the more plot-relevant members of Generation X during this crossover - Monet is the one who finally breaks them out of captivity, and Husk’s powers are revealed because one shell is infected with TO virus. That doesn’t feel like a coincidence.

You may also like: Annihilation: Conquest. This is the second mid-aughts Marvel Space crossover, the first helmed by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning exclusively, and the one that launched this line of books into what would eventually give us the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. The galaxy is reeling from the events of Annihilation, and as it recovers, the Phalanx take over Hala and the remains of the Kree empire. This series is good, pure Marvel Space fun. It’s the exact moment where I fell in love with this line of books. It’s also very thorough in laying out the mythology and rules of the Phalanx. 

read The Phalanx Covenant here.

TO TAKE A WILD GUESS ON WHAT IS YET TO COME: “The Dark Angel Saga”

This run on Uncanny X-Force, ostensibly a side book full of stabby mutants (and Deathlok) brought together first as Cyclops’ wetworks squad, then held together by Angel’s money, is without a doubt the best X-Men comic of the last 15 years. It’s also brimming with Apocalypse lore, which feels like one of a couple things left deliberately unstated by the events of HoX/PoX. 

The gang finds an Akkaba enclave in the desert, discovering that they’ve resurrected Apocalypse and are training the now six year old kid to be the evolutionary destroyer they believe he’s destined to become. So Fantomex shoots the kid in the head.

read more: The X-Men Movies You Never Saw

What follows is an extended superhero musing on nature vs. nurture, while at the same time the Death Seed Apocalypse planted in Angel’s back to turn him into Archangel takes over Warren’s mind, turning him into the new Apocalypse. The story goes through all the reasons for it and has Warren reassemble his horsemen. It functions essentially as a deep dive into the reasons for Apocalypse’s ascension and the role that he plays in the galactic ecosystem of the Marvel Universe.

That’s noticeably missing from Apocalypse’s scenes in the new series.

Pay close attention to: The Celestial stuff. Apocalypse in Powers of X was a heroic figure, leading a suicide mission against Nimrod and the robots to get Moira information on Nimrod’s emergence so she could stop it in life 10. There’s no mention of the role he was originally created for, one that exists separate from the Moira cycle because it started thousands of years before she was born: to guide evolution on Earth so the Celestials don’t return and destroy it. How that plays into the man-mutant-machine war seems like a clear fit, but also completely unmentioned.

You may also like: Uncanny X-Men vol. 2 #14-17. Even though it takes place during the utterly dreadful A vs. X, Kieron Gillen’s Mr. Sinister story is the definitive recent take on the master genetic manipulator, and he’s DEFINITELY coming.

read The Dark Angel Saga here.

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Feature Jim Dandy

Sep 10, 2019

Marvel

X-Men

Jonathan Hickman

from Books https://ift.tt/2ZPW4sO

#aion-rsa #Books

[recentanimenews]

Why It's So Easy To Fall In Love With JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

If you look at what I've written for Crunchyroll so far, you could assume that I am not a human but rather an android built specifically to spread the good word about One Piece. But you'd be half wrong, as I also enjoy other anime, too. For instance, I recently fell in love with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, a delightfully weird and wonderful show that, at one point, I had written off without even seeing an episode.

"But JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is great!" you say, probably multiple times a day. "Why would you ever consider skipping it?" Sadly, I've been burned by a lot of people's recommendations before. Now, every once in a while, you get an anime recommendation that makes you not only thankful for the new show, but for the friend that suggested it. I would leap in front of a bus to save the guy that once absentmindedly told me "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is pretty cool."

  However, there are plenty of recommendations that just don't hit home for me. It's like when a friend constantly tells you that you need to meet one of their friends. They build up this friend as the second coming of the McRib, a friend that will be breathtakingly compatible with you. And then you meet them and eh, you have a few beers, chuckle at one of their college stories, and you never see them again. And your brain goes back to that first friend, not with a thought of anger, but a thought of "Did they really think that I'd like this new person? Why?"

Anime recommendations can leave a similar aftertaste. Did they really think that I'd enjoy that? And that's why I feared finally starting JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Everyone sold it to me both as the alpha and omega of anime, and also as this indescribably bizarre anime carnival. Their descriptions were cluttered, as if JoJo's Bizarre Adventure defies comedy and punching and art. It's like at the end of an HP Lovecraft story, where the main character has seen the ancient evil of the old god M'gorthh'lu or something, and is left babbling madly for the rest of his days.

That's how people sound when they recommend JoJo's. But, like, in a good way.

    It all seemed too deliberately random, a show so bogged down in its own self-awareness that it could never muster anything sincere or truly exciting--the American Horror Story of shonen shows, if you will. Again, these are all assumptions that I made WITHOUT WATCHING ANY OF IT. I'm awful.

  But I was slowly worn down, mostly by my friend Boris who, through multiple dinners and bar runs and MAGFests, assured me that I would dig JoJo's. So I eventually sat down and put on the first episode of Stardust Crusaders (Don't worry. I've gone back and rewatched it all from the beginning), and a few minutes in, Jotaro Kujo shotguns a beer while reading Weekly Shonen Jump. And I thought "Oh, that's funny. I can relate to that."

  And while, on the surface, the show was just reassuring me that it wasn't the haphazard display of gags that I thought it would be, it was also revealing that underneath the ridiculously broad shoulders, and amazing haircuts, and awesome Stands, and "OH, NO" was an actual heart. I came to realize quickly that while, yes, on the surface, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a parade of costumes and poses that I WISH I could pull off, there's a story about brotherhood and positive masculinity and being open with your emotions running throughout it.

I love shows about men being affectionate friends with each other. Not just rivals or "I'll help YOU get stronger" allies, but dudes that obviously care about each other. Take Josuke and Okuyasu in Diamond is Unbreakable. They begin as enemies, but slowly form a bond that is downright beautiful. Or even Jotaro's relationship with his own grandfather. It's close and wonderful, despite them being near total opposites, personality-wise.

It's why the main antagonist of the first and third arcs, DIO, is so effective. He's flamboyant, and he has a chest that would prevent him from fitting in most elevators. So visually, he's not too different from many of the best JoJo boys. But his relationship with others is one of manipulation and vengeful ambition. He's the mirror image of a JoJo protagonist and that's what makes his defeat so satisfying. He's everything that the JoJo heroes could be if they were awful. It's simple, but it works.

  And it's one of the reasons why the current anime arc, Golden Wind, is so engrossing. Not to spoil anything, but Giorno didn't exactly have the best relationship with a lot of dudes early in his life. He had the potential to end up totally like DIO, but as he finds out more and more about the goodness of humanity as the show goes on, he becomes closer to the guys he hangs out with. Relationships that start antagonistically turn into two men being partners, and eventually trusting friends.

Again, I never thought that I'd see a show like this. I thought I was being recommended a gag reel, something more parody than anything else. But now, five anime arcs (and quite a few manga volumes) in, and I realize that maybe that's one of the best parts about JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. You come for the memes and the references, and you stay for the overarching theme about men learning how to be good to each other.

  The world needs more stories like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. While writing this article, I kept thinking back to Gretchen Felker-Martin's awesome VRV piece about masculine love in Lord of the Rings, and I couldn't help but relate it to JoJo's. Yes, JoJo's is remarkably similar to Lord of the Rings, as both stories are about men uniting to form deep connections during times of darkness and war. Would J.R.R. Tolkien have dug JoJo's? I'm gonna say yes, because I can.

So don't do what I did. Don't be staunch and closed off from your friends and their suggestions. Don't cross your arms and think that you've got this whole anime thing figured out and that you have no need for the polite recommendations of your peers. Because that's what DIO would want. Instead, hug your bros and watch JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It's good, I promise.

 --------------

Daniel Dockery is a writer for the internet. He has a Twitter for all of his thoughts about Pokemon and Spider-Man 3 and for literally nothing else. 

By: [email protected]

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

[csolarstorm]

FMA Live is my third favorite FMA.

It is definitely above average.  Almost everyone is well cast, probably half of the special effects are movie grade, and I personally really love the way they crafted the plot out of the Laboratory 5 arc.  It gets right the one major thing that brought The Last Airbender down: it manages to compress a season worth of FMA into one, coherent plot.

(Ironically like The Last Airbender, it changes the race of the characters, but since it’s from the Japanese movie industry everyone should be able to understand that.  And we wouldn’t have gotten such anime-loyal visuals from Hollywood.)

At least, I appreciate it.  Though, since I grew up with the 2003 version and then liked the 2009 even more, I might not have the same issues about changing the story - I was even excited to see how they would do it.  And I was not disappointed.  Without spoiling much, Shou Tucker has a larger part, taking over the role of some fun but minor characters.  This was an improvement though - after the 2003 anime expanded his role and made him an upside-down-face goat man, I was disappointed when he wasn’t even in more than one episode of Brotherhood.  (He’s not a goat man here though.  But he should have been...)

Even if you didn’t like the movie’s plot, you have to admit they put thought into it.

For instance,

A big thing is made about Lust “losing a life” near the end, and because of this Ed and Mustang realize that Envy is on his last life, allowing Mustang to “kill” him.  (More on that next.)  The Homunculi have never had a measurable amount of “lives” like a video game, but there’s still a limited time their stone can regenerate them, so this is a reasonable change to make for the viewer.

One thing that hooked me about the movie is how it plays with the viewer’s knowledge of FMA canon.  Several times when they seem to change a huge plot point...they somehow bring it back around.  When Hughes drops the picture of his wife, we see Envy as Mustang shoot him.  So my reaction was, why did they have him drop the picture if they weren’t going to show the whole thing?  Well, they actually come back to that.  Mustang actually KILLS ENVY.  I was getting ready to write him out of the possible sequel...but then it turns out there’s a post-credits scene, reserved just for watching his true form scuttle away from the burnt remains.

And Envy’s true form looks JUST like the anime.  In a way, that might be its only flaw.  Pretty much all of the effects and props are done just to mimic the way things looked in the anime as closely as possible.  Al’s armor is probably the best example, with the transmutation effects being good too.  The only issue with this is that all of these designs were made for anime, so they look like a recreation of a cartoon, rather than movie designs.  However, for a fan of the anime, seeing an exact recreation of many of these things is exactly what we want.  So no real problem.

Yeah, the effects aren’t top notch.  The Mannequin Soldiers alternate between being Roger-Rabbit style 3D, and plastic Halloween props on the ground.  But wasn’t it just a privilege to see them in live action at all?  *joke*  Seriously though, it made me happy.  I LOVED IT when they revealed the Mannequin Soldiers. 

To be honest, it was a little weird at first, because this was the first sign to me that they might be trying to wrap up the entire story Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters style.  However, this was tastefully done.  They didn’t blow the entire plot of the anime’s ending just to wrap this movie up, but this moment actually helped the movie feel complete.  They way they are initially revealed reminded me of the white robots from AI (Artificial Intelligence).  It gave that new General character, and the hypothetical conspirators an actual endgame, and it neatly wrapped up the theme of un-tethered scientific experimentation.  And yeah, it did somewhat let the movie at least call-out to the ending of the anime, just in case there is no sequel.

But the approach they took by adding the General character (obviously the bad guy, from a mile away - they put him in the place of the Fuhrer) solved the problem they would have with doing FMA in movie installments.  By pawning off the Mannequin Soldiers on this new character, they managed to break the conspiracy behind Amnetris into digestible pieces to cover in multiple movies.  Now they can cover the actual conspiracy of the series in a sequel.

Honestly, they can even make more Mannequin Soldiers to put back in the ending if they get there.  The only character they can’t work with anymore is Dr. Marcoh.  And while that’s a shame (Killed by the Adaptation, RIP) at the same time, with Envy already in his true form, chances are they’ll go right to the part where Mustang actually fights Envy, and by that time, Scar won’t have any time to travel with Marcoh for twenty episodes before he learns to end the chain of bloodshed, if Scar is even introduced.  However between his interactions with Winry and his nemesis Kimblee, I don’t think he absolutely NEEDS Dr. Marcoh to have satisfying character development for the standards of a movie.

I hope they do a trilogy, and in the second part Scar and Kimblee are both introduced, but it ends with Scar nearly defeating Kimblee but deciding to spare him in order to break the chain, then Pride swoops in and eats Kimblee, and then sometime after, the scene from Envy’s death plays out in the tunnel, thus covering almost all of Scar’s arc in one movie.  But oh, in order for that to work, they’d have to introduce not just Pride, but the other Homunculi, including Sloth - oh, and I hope they go to the North Pole to meet Olivi -

Wait, they don’t care about putting Louis Armstrong in this, do they?  And is there any real reason for them to cover the North Pole arc?  ARE THEY GOING TO CUT OLIVIER ARMSTRONG?  NOOOO --

#Yeah I liked it

[incurableweeabootrash]

Comprehensive list of ‘Safe to Watch’ Anime (W.I.P)

This post is made up of three lists: ‘Safe To Watch’ ‘Almost’, and ‘Blind Reccomendations and Suggestions’.

‘SAFE’ TO WATCH

If memory serves me correctly, these anime are free from overt fanservice or anything that slaps you in the face with how problematic it is. This list will be worked on an added to over time. I’ll only really be focusing on shows that I think are worth a watch

1) Tokyo Mew Mew - Watch subbed due to 4Kids style butchering in the dub. Luckily that doesn’t happen anymore these days in dubs.

2) Little Witch Academia - A series on Netflix that can only be described as The Worst Witch - The Anime. Watch sub or dub depending on your preference.

3) Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Also on Netflix. Probably one of the highest rated anime of all time, and has multiple well-portrayed female characters and even some racial diversity. It’s set in a Europe inspired setting, so I recommend watching dubbed. Although the dub is just great anyway. Skip episode 1 and go straight to episode 2, as the first episode is actually filler and even contains a spoiler.

4) Attack on Titan

5) Love Live! School Idol Project Season 2, and Love Live! The School Idol Movie. Season 1 of Love Live is an ‘ALMOST’, but I’ll get to that in the next list. You shouldn’t skip season 1 though, for story reasons.

6) Digimon Tamers - The most well written of all the Digimon shows, with good character arcs. Can be watched on Amazon Prime.

7) Tokyo Ghoul. Shame about the second season ignoring the manga almost completely though

8) Love, Chunibyo and Other Delusions Season 1 - A story about young teenagers who either went through a phase of believing they had superpowers and were some kind of anime character, or still haven’t outgrown that phase and still like to pretend they have special powers.

There’s no real fanservice in either season, but season 2 has two seperate instances of a very minor homosexual female character being portrayed as a bit weird and deviant. Season 1 is completely clean though, so watch that and decide for yourself whether to keep watching.

9) Cardcaptor Sakura - Same genre as Tokyo Mew Mew. Again watch subbed for the same reason as TMM. It also has subtle portrayals of homosexuality, being a work by CLAMP, and there doesn’t seem anything wrong with it as far as I’m aware. People who are actually queer can have the final say on that though.

10) Strawberry Panic - A show about an all girl’s school where being gay is just the norm. And believe it or not, it’s NOT a porno! Again, people who are actually queer can have the final say on whether the portrayals are okay or not, but from my perspective everyone seems to just be a person who happens to be gay, considering that homosexuality is treated as normal and nothing special in this show.

11) Yuri on Ice

12) Wolf Children - An animated film that’s just really good. The story of a mother raising what are basically werewolves but with complete control over when they can transform. Her challenge is whether to raise them as humans or as wolves.

13) Yona Of The Dawn - Story of a spoiled princess in Ancient Japan who gradually grows into a strong individual. I’ve also been informed that the multitude of men in the cast are also all rather attractive, if that’s a selling point for you xD Yona of the Dawn can be watched on Funimation Now.

14) Madoka Magica - It’s been almost five years since I’ve seen this, but I’m absolutely certain there was no fanservice. I recommend you watch this only after seeing a show like Tokyo Mew Mew/Cardcaptor Sakura, or Sailor Moon, as Madoka Magica is part of the same genre ('Magical Girl’) but expects you to have already seen the classic magical girl shows or at least know a little bit about them. Give it four episodes before you judge it. Trust me, this is the most extreme example of not judging by the first couple of episodes. 15) My Love Story - I mean when a stranger gets arrested for trying to feel a girl on the train and gets promptly punched in the face for basically saying that 'she was asking for it wearing a skirt that short’, you know the writer’s got their head on straight morally. 16) Wandering Son - “ Effeminate fifth grader Shuuichi Nitori is considered by most to be one of the prettiest girls in school, but much to her dismay, she is actually biologically male. Fortunately, Shuuichi has a childhood friend who has similar feelings of discomfort related to gender identity: the lanky tomboy Yoshino Takatsuki, who, though biologically female, does not identify as a girl. These two friends share a similar secret and find solace in one another; however, their lives become even more complicated when they must tread the unfamiliar waters of a new school, attempt to make new friends, and struggle to maintain old ones. Faced with nearly insurmountable odds, they must learn to deal with the harsh realities of growing up, transexuality, relationships, and acceptance. Lauded as a decidedly serious take on gender identity and LGBT struggles, Takako Shimura’s Hourou Musuko is about Shuuichi and Yoshino’s attempts to discover their true selves as they enter puberty, make friends, fall in love, and face some very real and difficult choices.”

More to come

THE 'ALMOST’ LIST

These are shows that are about 95% okay, but have one or two tiny moments or a small aspect about them that are a bit 'ehhh’. Nevertheless, I believe every show on this list is still worth a watch due to them very good for the vast majority of the show regardless.

1) Love Live! School Idol Project Season 1 - Love Live is usually so innocent that it’s practically the Disney/My Little Pony of anime; singing and dancing included. But clearly someone on the writing staff was a little confused and thought they were writing some terrible Adult Swim comedy or something, because this one gag that they clearly thought was so hilarious it had to be included, left everyone including Japanese viewers thinking “What the hell!?”

If I could put the series into Windows Movie Maker and edit out five seconds from episode 2 and about 10 seconds from episode 7 (ESPECIALLY those ten seconds from episode 7) then I’m sure a large majority of the fandom would rejoice. It’s such a tonal whiplash and I’m kind of concerned for the writer who finds this funny. I’ve been told that apparently real high school girls in Japan do that to their friends as a prank or just to piss about, but the difference there is that it’s between friends who trust each other.

…However, there is actually a happy end to this story, as I’ve been told that Japanese viewers actually complained to the people behind the show, and THEY LISTENED! When working on season 2, they clearly listened to fan feedback as Nozomi never did that again. It was so out of place in the show anyway, and so uncomfortably portrayed.

Nevertheless, the other 95% of Love Live is this wonderful colourful, bright, heartwarming show with a great main character and catchy music and it went above all my expectations of it, and I while I wouldn’t normally condone ignoring problematic things, the fact that it’s literally such a tiny tiny amount of the show’s running time, and the fact that the complaints were heard and they learnt their lesson, means that with a well timed fast forward (I might look up the exact times to skip at some point ) you can skip past those two moments and improve your watching experience. I just wish there was a version with it edited out completely. ___________________

2) Death Note - Barely any female characters other than Misa, who may divide opinion on how she’s portayed. However it’s a fantastic watch regardless, and is fanservice free

3) Mirai Nikki/Future Diary - Mao. A bit of a problematic portrayal of a homosexual female as her sexuality seems to be her main character trait. She’s a minor side character though, so it depends how invested you are before she pops up halfway through the show.

There’s also a little brief female nudity, in a Game Of Thrones way that kind of comes across more as 'Look how mature we are!’ which of course has the opposite effect… However it’s never portrayed in a pornographic way from what I remember, and in one case is even used to unnerve/disturb. Opinions will vary though.

The third episode also features a slightly questionable moment where Yuno loses her bikini top in the pool. Now, you don’t see anything and she does hide herself, and in retrospect she probably did that on purpose to get Yuki more interested in her, but the gut reaction is more “um…. please don’t let my parents walk in right now :L”

It’s a bit more of an ask than the others, but the plot to this is so thrilling and twisting that I couldn’t help love it regardless

4) Parasyte: The Maxim

The quickest a show has ever redeemed itself. This show sees the main character’s hand getting taken over by an alien parasite, but the first episode decides that it’d be 'hilarious’ if the parasite hand accidently grabs his friend’s breast when trying to get the hang of controlling it. But a few episodes later, after several days of her being understandably mad at him (although the fact that it was the parasite’s fault and not his complicated it), he apologises (although missing out the part about the alien parasite) and I feel the show does a good job of acknowledging that it’s wrong and in no way supports it. It’s early on right there in the first episode, so once you’re past that it’s clean sailing for the rest of the show

5) Steins;Gate - While some find the first half a bit slow, Steins;Gate becomes phenomenal in the second half. Only problem is that the self-proclaimed mad scientist Okabe Rintaro is more science-smart than social-smart, and there’s a thing he does purely out of shock and scientific curiosity when he finds himself in an alternate timeline where a friend of his may now be a different sex. Needless to say, it’s better to just ask rather than check… He’s told off for it and the characters on screen are understandably shocked, but that’s exactly my reaction as well and this uncomfortable moment is a blight on an otherwise fantastic show

6) Sailor Moon - The classic Magical Girl show that influenced the likes of Tokyo Mew Mew and moved the genre forwards. It also features canonically a canonically gay couple about 150 episodes in. Looking back nowadays though, the Nostalgia Critic said it best (skip to 9:00): https://youtu.be/pa2oHxME-aY I never found it attractive in that way myself, possibly because I could see they were cartoons and not real with the 90s art style the show has, but it still can't be denied that it's a bit awkward with their age

7) Gatchaman Crowds, and Gatchaman Crowds Insight - A superhero show that takes a surprising turn into kind-of deeper social and politcal commentary. It really is fantastic, but some may look at the flamboyant looking character OD and see it as a perpetuation of a stereotype. One the other hand, he’s never actually stated or shown to be gay, just fashionable in his own way and flamboyant. To be honest he actually struck me as pretty awesome for just dressing however he wants, especially when the top hat comes in to the mix. I thought the same about Rui, a character refered to by everyone as male but wears clothes traditionally seen as female, as well as a wig, and looks pretty awesome doing it. Both these characters are never the butt of a joke and are generally just accepted by everyone without being commented on. I will also mention Utsustu, a minor character who sometimes just casually wears a bikini as clothes. But surprisingly there’s no camera close ups of her chest or anything fanservice-y. We view the show through the lens of the very open minded main character Hajime. When Hajime firsts meets Utsustu, she just comments “cute swimsuit!” and asks her where she got it from. To me this gave the impression that, like the main character Hajime, we shoud accept that this is how she sometimes likes to dress, and more power to her if she wants to. Not to mention that there is way more to her character than what she wears. I think the show in general has good elements of celebrating self-expression in these three characters, but I can see why some would disagree.

Often there’s a debate when it comes to localisation and censorship, but with most of the shows above I kind of wish that a censored version was at least available because for people like me they’d be an improvement. But I feel that as long as you acknowledge that a moment is wrong and acknowledge what’s wrong with it and talk about it, you can still enjoy the rest of the show since you won’t be pretending it’s okay and your own morals won’t be influenced by it. Feel free to disagree with me though _______________ BLIND RECOMMENDATIONS 1) Snow White with the Red Hair - Not one I’ve seen myself but was suggested to me for this list 2) Whispered Words. “ Murasame Sumika is popular in the high school for her excellence in the marks and sports. However, she has a secret: she is in love with her classmate Kazama Ushio. Ushio also has a liking to the love between girls, but she hasn’t noticed Sumika’s feelings and has always been refused by other girls.” Apparently a very relatable story for any closeted girl. 3) Samurai Flamenco -” Male model Masayoshi Hazama becomes the superhero Samurai Flamenco and fights crime. “

#anime #anime list #family friendly #fanservice #tokyo mew mew #tokyo ghoul #steins;gate #love live #fullmetal alchemist #brotherhood #attack on titan #death note #parasyte #future diary #mirai nikki #cardcaptor sakura #strawberry panic #Yuri On Ice #wolf children #yona of the dawn #akatsuki no yona #puella magi madoka magica #madoka magica #whispered words #wandering son #My Love Story #samurai flamenco

[storyteller0311]

Best Laid Plans of Men and Monsters...

In a lot of ways, Season 5 is about plans. The making of them, the execution of them, the deviation from them. But it’s not just about plans in Season 5. It’s about plans from long ago, some short-term and some long-term.

And about how those plans – good and bad, successes and failures – become legacies.

Before I delve super deep into this, I’m going to warn you. I have a lot of thoughts. Like SO MANY. And they’ve been percolating since before 5x17. So, while I’m going to try to keep this as organized as possible, I’m not making any promises…

Oliver

“Felicity, before I met you, I had a plan. I had a way that I was gonna be.”

From the moment the Queen’s Gambit sank, Oliver had a plan. First, it was to survive, to honor his father’s sacrifice and to make it back to Starling City alive. Over time, that plan evolved, became more complicated – all before he ever stepped foot back in Starling City at the beginning of Season 1. It was hijacked, for better or worse, by Yao Fei, Shado, Slade, Ivo and Sara, Amanda Waller, Maseo, Amanda Waller (again), Reiter and Taina, Kovar, Anatoly, and finally by Talia. Survival transformed into a quest for justice, a determination to honor his father’s wishes and to save Starling City.

But Oliver’s plan wasn’t the only thing that changed. Oliver changed too. Surviving the sinking of the Queen’s Gambit, watching Sara disappear into the dark ocean, witnessing his father sacrifice himself and another would have been more than enough to change Oliver, to transform the careless and spoiled billionaire. But, for Oliver, that was only the beginning. Survival came at an immense cost. And those costs added up over time to a point where by the time Oliver arrived in Russia, he was having a really hard time seeing the forest through the trees.

No longer just a necessity, killing had become a habit. It had become a way to control situations he was in. And, rebounding off the guilt he felt from killing Vlad and then failing and killing Taina, it was easy to seek vengeance for their deaths by targeting Kovar. And then change became spiral. Oliver’s willingness to do whatever was necessary led him into the Bratva, where murder masqueraded as survival and every-man-for-himself masqueraded as brotherhood. 

It’s ironic that Anatoly questioned Oliver’s deeds in 5x17 when his initiation into the Bratva in many ways was the final step – before Talia – of Oliver’s spiral into darkness. It was the final lesson in kill or be killed, in isolation as the best way to proceed.

So, when Talia finds Oliver, he’s ripe to be molded into a life of dual existence. Oliver’s capacity for killing is legitimized. It’s given a name, an identity where before it co-existed with the light that still lived inside Oliver Queen. Talia is as much to blame for the “monster” as she is for Oliver’s ability to do good as the Arrow. She may have trained him as the hero, but she also gave the “monster” the final push into existence.

But, as we know…best laid plans of men and monsters often go awry.

“…I was in darkness. But with your kindness, your generosity, your compassion, your intelligence, your wit, and your trust, you brought me into the light.”

When Oliver decided to return to Starling by way of Lian Yu he finally felt like he was ready to tackle the promise he had made to his father. Kovar was dead* and Talia had trained him to be a vigilante capable of getting things done and a man who could co-exist with his hooded darkness.

But after so long on an island and acting as a metaphorical island, Oliver forgot that life – family, friends, responsibilities, expectations, etc. – has a way of infiltrating everything you do. He did not return to Star City in a vacuum. And he could not have imagined that the life he was returning to – specifically the people he was closest to – was so closely embroiled in the conspiracy he would come to fight.

Quickly, however, cracks began to appear in Oliver’s darkness and his plan started to deviate. His life as the lone archer ended as first Diggle and then Felicity joined his team. The plan changed. He was still co-existing as two identities, but he’d let others into that life. The darkness – the “monster” – was ever so excruciatingly slowly becoming blurred. Diggle and Felicity challenged Oliver’s Hood identity and all the baggage that came with it.

And then Tommy died. And the plan changed again. Killing as a method of justice, of control was replaced with non-lethal methods. And Oliver’s adherence to that promise was a different way that he maintained control. But the plan kept changing and things got messy. But throughout that journey, two things remained the same:

Oliver never resolved his relationship with the “monster.” He never was able to reconcile his two identities into just one entity, something that Felicity highlighted at the end of Season 4 when she described Oliver as living within a schism. Oliver has been and still is at war with himself. He stopped killing in Season 2, but the two sides still existed. He rode off into the sunset with Felicity in 3x23, but the two sides still existed. He decided to run for Mayor, to do more, to be more in Season 4, but the two sides still existed. Those identities had evolved, the man who embodied them had changed, but they were still there at war with one another.

But, the man  – the one deep, deep down – he hadn’t changed. He was still the man who loved his parents, who loved his sister, who loved his friends, who loved his city. He was still the man who wanted to do right by those he met, to do good.

He was still the man Diggle believed in from the very beginning.

He was still the man Felicity trusted.

“When I first met Oliver…he would ask me to do weird things for him…and when I would ask him why he would come up with these ridiculous excuses and I always knew he was lying but I would help him anyway…because I knew Oliver was a good person with a good heart.”

And in 3x17, Adrian Chase took that man and broke him. He made Oliver forget everything he’s accomplished. He made Oliver forget the light that had transformed his life over the course of five years.

And it made Oliver question his legacy – and the legacy of those Oliver was trying to uphold.

It’s easy to forget after 5 seasons and so much plot that at the crux of Oliver’s mission at the beginning of season 1 was not just one legacy, but three. Oliver’s crusade was as much about living up to the memories of Yao Fei and Shado as it was about keeping his promise to his father.

And Adrian Chase convinced Oliver that the “monster” that Talia had helped create, that had returned to Starling City with a single-minded mission in 2012 hadn’t changed at all. He made him doubt his worthiness.

“The Hood is who you are. You don’t think you deserve it? Fine. Work to become the man who does.”

He made him doubt whether he deserved anything more than darkness.

“…you brought me into the light. You let me know that I deserved it. You were that light.”

Now Oliver will need to battle back from the brink. He has been at his lowest of lows. 

As we know, 3x17 was not Adrian Chase’s endgame. He wanted to break Oliver to the point that Oliver only had 2 choices: resort to attempting to kill Adrian in broad daylight as Oliver Queen. Or see that the only way to eliminate the threat of Prometheus is to kill himself.

Adrian Chase/Prometheus

But just like the deviation of Oliver’s plan over the course of 5 years will be his saving grace, so too will the deviation of Adrian’s plan be his downfall.

Tonight’s episode showed that while Adrian might be ten steps ahead of Oliver and Team Arrow, he couldn’t anticipate EVERYTHING. And while we may eventually learn that Helix is part of his plan and he did plan on Felicity, Adrian, much like Voldemort, has underestimated the lengths that the hero’s friends will go to to save his soul and defeat the villain.

And, furthermore, Adrian Chase himself has possibly forgotten that the very “lesson” he tried to teach Oliver applies directly to him too. When the “monster” is in control, mistakes are made. Because you get lost in the weeds. 

Adrian, by the end of 5x18, has completely given in to his monster. But unlike Oliver, there isn’t a good man underneath his hood. The monster has taken over and overpowered the man completely. 

Felicity

As much as she described Oliver as existing within a schism last year, Felicity is living within one this year too. She is living two identities, trying to be Overwatch and Ghost Fox Goddess at the same time. Felicity will never go DARK dark, because she will always possess that light. She’ll always be the bubbly, babbly genius that serves as one of Team Arrow’s moral compasses. 

But after a year from hell, Ghost Fox Goddess made a resurgence.

Felicity had a plan. She was going to do good, she was a hacktivist. But that plan crumbled when Cooper warped their intentions. 

A plan for a normal life replaced it, but that too changed when Oliver Queen walked into her cubicle and then wound up in the back seat of her car bleeding. And despite the bumps along the way, Felicity’s journey returned to an arc of being able to do good and effect real change in the world in which she lived. 

She had power. She had control.

But those accomplishments and that arguably upward swing came crashing down in Season 4. She was shot, she lost her job, she made a devastating choice regarding Havenrock, her team disintegrated…

The power to effect change waned somewhat, her purpose was minimized, her confidence diminished. Her ability to protect disintegrated. Between Havenrock and Billy, death and destruction had finally touched her in a way it hadn’t before.

Her faith in the way things could be accomplished – had been accomplished – was shattered. She needed a new outlet. She needed her power and her influence back. And Helix has given that to her.

Felicity’s light is still there, her optimism is simmering under the surface…but it has taken a back seat. Now, Felicity is Team Arrow’s realist. She’s the doubter, the cynic.

She has lost patience with taking the time to do everything the absolute right way and is okay with cutting corners to get results faster and better.

We’ve always know Felicity was willing to go to any length to protect her team, particularly Oliver, but she’s never been so careless with her own safety and the consequences to not just her but also those around her. 

This was all extremely clear tonight as Felicity left Team Arrow minus Oliver in the dust to go to Helix. Diggle is trying to be the optimist in 5x18. But Felicity is immediately the realist. She knows Oliver might come around, but she also knows it might be too late by the time he does. 

Felicity knows Oliver. She knows that Chase got inside his head. She could see it immediately. He dressed his own wounds. He won’t let anyone near him. He can’t even look at her. She knows that he has shut completely down. She knows he’s not exaggerating. She knows that he’ll stop at nothing to keep Diggle, etc. from trying to keep Team Arrow going.

She doesn’t have faith that he’s going to come back from this, not in time to defeat Chase. And she is certain that he needs to meet his maker. 

Helix has given Felicity her power back. And she’s going to wield it. Consequences be damned.

Anatoly

I wanted to briefly comment on Anatoly in this episode. 

There was another layer to Anatoly and Oliver’s story tonight that I wasn’t expecting. As much as the Bratva’s present-day appearance in this episode was plot-driven, Anatoly’s presence was more complex. In 5x17, Anatoly questioned Oliver’s dual identity and also questioned where Oliver was headed with the increasing comfort in brutal murder and torture.

But, in 5x18, it became apparent that as much as Adrian Chase is a mirror to Oliver, so is Anatoly. When Oliver left Russia, Anatoly was a good man who had been thrust into a position of power. But, power is corrupting and Anatoly has not fared so well.

Indeed, as Oliver has shed darkness and embraced light over the course of five years, Anatoly has shed his light and embraced more and more darkness. 

He has had to go dark in order to survive, much like Oliver did.

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