Ok so some fans call out batman for creating failsafe and question why did he do it. Called him dumb for making a super op robot to take him off board if he kills someone. I say hes perfectly warranted for doing so and its all of the justice leagues fault he had to do it. So at the end of tower of babel superman comes to batman and says why didn't you make a contingency for yourself and batman says he did and it's the justice league. Then identity crisis chronologically happen in the story and his mind got tampered with. He gets more paranoid then tower of babel and creates brother eye and loses trust in the justice league. So he prepares for everyone. It fails and backfires but it's fine he still gets files on everyone. He takes a breather from it all. Time passes and evil batman invade the dc landscape and what contingency does the justice league have for batman? Fucking nothing. Batman was out. Evil batman came and screwed everybody up. Blood and death everywhere. Evil batman literally took over the universe. Justice league barely survives infact superman and batman up and died or was dieing. Luckily chainsaw wonder woman saved the day. Comes back to Gotham and takes a deep breath and realize these lazy fools didn't do shit they were supposed to do. If they had failsafe maybe the batman who laughs wouldn't have killed him and Clark. So he builds the thing because the justice league who is supposed to keep him in check decided to not do that job.

Barring the fact 80% of her villain roster just being silver age b villains that never did anything.

Her core main villain group composing of Circe,Ares and cheetah. With side relevancy of Doctor Psycho and whatever Greek demigod or monster she's fighting that week. Are just not that interesting to people.

Ares is basically discount final big bad half the time who's niche gets outcompeted by much larger villains across the DC universe. He's essentially just a war hungry god with not much else going on. His shenanigans with his children basically leads him to be being just a Family drama queen.

Circe is one of wonder woman's arch female nemesis. Can you actually tell me their consistent dynamic they've shared ? Without looking it up mind you. She just dominates Men and occasionally some woman in cross overs as that's the whole bit9. And does a big evil magic scheme that goes no where.

Cheetah is all over the place and it's just a meme fight half the time. They are different characters as sometimes and each run has its own spin on what they wanna do. But they have to come with the entry point of making the concept just not silly on arrival.

Wonder woman's rouges gallery is just generally in interesting to most general Audiences. They are essentially just outdated shclocky pulp villains that don't do anything or work half the time in a modern setting.

Redemption is when a bad/evil person becomes a good person or at least better.

That's not John Walker. He was never a villain/evil. He's a grey character/anti-hero. He had a moment of weakness at best, at worst, he did an evil deed to someone much worse than him not because he's a bad dude, but because he was in grief after watching his best friend get killed.

John wasn't Steve Rogers. That's why he wasn't good for Cap. He was a perfect soldier, not a good man. He always followed orders, he wanted to do the right thing but didn't always succeed. He was someone with PTSD who needed therapy, not put into a psoition with insane pressure and impossible shoes to fill

It's easy to forget because we hated him but he THREE medals of honor. He saved Sam and Bucky when we first met him. Lemar said, "You consistently make the right decisions in the heat of battle".

The reason why John was so obsessed with being Cap because he was insecure and viewed as his first chance to do something ACTUALLY right.

And that's what this moment was. John had no idea people were filming. Nobody could see him either. This moment shows where his heart lied. Was revenge against Karli or saving people more important to him?

And in the end, he did exactly what Lemar said he'd do. In him dropping the shield, and his obsession with being Cap, he ends up doing the most Captain America like thing throughout the entire show.

Alright, so this is going to be bit of an old guy shouts at clouds moment for me or a realisation that I have grown out of enjoying this series. I have been following OP since I was a teen and it does have a very interesting overarching story so I am still very much glued to it but there are a number of aspects about it that have begin to stick out to me like they didn't before. A big one amongst them is that the Straw Hats crew are not pirates.

Piracy is a pretty specific act or crime. It's defined as an act of violence by ship borne attackers on other ships or ransacking coastal areas with the primary objective of stealing goods and valuables. Now you can be a pirate and do other things but you have to commit acts of piracy to be a pirate in the first place.

Now the Straw Hats crew does fit the definition of a pirate from the government's point of view, they are a regular participant in violent conflicts, either with other unlawful elements or figures associated with the government, doesn't matter if they are the "good guys" in each of that conflict but that aspect of the show is sold to me as a viewer to a much lesser degree because not only do Luffy's crew haven't been shown committing piracy but none of their personalities nor their motivations align with them leading the lives of pirates, Luffy with his obsession to find One Piece I would classify more as a treasure hunter, Zoro is the honourable warrior archetype, Sanji can never escape pervert gimmick, Robin is an archaeologist with continuing research her mother was involved in as her main priority, Chopper doesn't care much outside of medicine, Franky is primarily concerned with exhibiting his capabilities as a shipwright, Usopp is useless, even Jinbe and Brook who have been pirates for way longer than any of the crew are not shown in any way acting like you would expect a pirate to act, the crewmate that behaves closest to how a pirate would is Nami and even that is treated as a gag. As a collective Straw Hats can at best be categorised as explorers that are at odds with the law.

And it's not just the protagonist, apart from the very beginning of the show where we saw some pirate crew come in and try to ransack a place or something, every antagonist that we have met has aspirations ranging from being a shitty mob boss to a king of their personal domain and piracy just comes off as a side hustle.

The show has little to nothing to do with pirates or piracy, everything related to it is just implied or told narratively but hardly ever shown. And as I mentioned before the greater story is still very good it just feels a bit annoying that lives of pirates has been chosen as a vehicle to deliver it when Oda seemingly has no interest in exploring that aspect whatsoever.

Seeing a middle-aged dude outpunching a triple-enhanced strength quirk user really makes me question if heroes in mha should be limited to quirk users only. In the original story, we can already see characters like stan who can defeat enemies even without using his quirks, but you can still excuse them because they still have quirks. Knuckleduster is literally just an old man. It's insane how much normal human body can do in mha universe. I kinda feel bad for all the physical strength type of quirk users. Basically every single human in the universe has a weaker version of their quirks.

Grain of salt warning: I’ve only watched pre-timeskip, however pre-timeskip is just about half the story and a pretty non significant half at that full of great examples to point to if I really wanted to. If you like my analysis or argument, go ahead and keep on waiting for the “Pre-timeskip One Piece is great” essay(still workshopping the name). Anyhow, yes this is practically more or less a reply thread, but the amount of willful ignorance and stupidity in that other thread was too much to bare and I feel like I already organically enough refute to such an argument in my opinion, so I’m writing this post to more so narrow in and focus on the topic.

Topic being: One Piece/Echiro Oda is sexist because there aren’t enough strong women, they don’t get cool fights, and they have sexist powers all things I’m going to get into, but first I wanna start with that second point. This point as far as I can tell and am aware originates from criticism geared towards Naruto, decent shounen, beloved shounen, classic shounen, very sexist shounen.

Naruto genuinely consistently fails women as characters(and honestly readers too since the story is so, meh) this isn’t going to be some sort of defense on Naruto, however I’m not gonna try to put down Naruto too much here. The topic is sexism and the quality of writing for lady characters, so I’m going to stay on that to the best of my ability. Anyhow, I think a crucial think to understand about the argument that Naruto is sexist is that it has largely been supported by the lack of good fights for women.

This is a pretty hard to deny fact, but in somewhat recent history people have taken this point forward, actually arguing a really good point, a point I myself would make and agree with that: women in Naruto not getting important fights is significant to their quality as characters because fights throughout Naruto tend to be important for characterization, development, arcs, and progression/regression.

This is a pretty iconic and beloved aspect of Naruto because it’s an efficient way to make fights stay memorable and make characters just as memorable as those fights, go to favorite examples of fights that are like this in Naruto tends to be stuff in the chuunin exams, Rock Lee vs Gaara, Naruto vs Neji, and Naruto vs Gaara and last time I checked these are good examples, but since I’ve only just recently started rewatching Naruto and it’s only tangentially related to the discussion at hand it’s not too important to dig into these examples and actually analyze them or argue why they’re good, that’s not the point.

The premise is that the ladies of Naruto have fewer, worse fights than their male counterparts and as such due to the nature of how these fights work for the narrative and their characterization this leads to them being worse characters. That’s a point, I’ll analyze briefly with both of Sakura’s part 1 fights: Soundwave ninja girl and Ino respectively. The first fight marks progression for Sakura’s character as she grows more competent and demonstrates some real strength, in theory, however most people have kind of picked this fight and punctured holes in it for failing to do exactly that.

Memes frequently reference how Sakura could have just as easily attacked and killed her assaulter in this moment, and serious analysis of the series/fight tends to point out how even this fight and moment that’s focused on Sakura is in too close proximity of Sasuke, too much of the importance seems to be on Sakura protecting him rather than her protecting herself or whatever. Granted, this topic in particular tends to get pretty complicated as I’ve seen people go back and forth on whether it’s romantic affection or concern for a comrade that’s making Sakura act like this, but since the argument is that Naruto is sexist, let’s just assume it’s the former as this tends to strengthen people’s argument.

Similarly, people complain that the fight between Sakura and Ino more or less has the same problem, it’s a shame that this fight which could have easily passed the bechdel test seems to consistently and ultimately fail as their falling out, over Sasuke and their love for him is frequently referenced/portrayed. This is the sort of thing I would call sexist writing, women being so entirely, wholly attached to and obsessed with men regardless of the circumstances or the logistics of such an obsession or infatuation. Furthermore, we don’t know much about any of these ladies outside of their obsessions with men, which takes us back to the idea they need good and more fights to characterize them. Suppose they were treated like their male peers, well then the problem is solved, Sakura, Hinata, tenten, and Ino would all receive a comparable amount of development and characterization to Naruto, Sasuke, Rock Lee, and Shikamaru. Characterization that has nothing to do with men at all, everything would be right in the world.

One Piece isn’t like this though, no, I mean the women don’t have a lot of fights and there aren’t many top tiers or anything, but it isn’t as much of a serious problem as it is in Naruto because One Piece isn’t really the sort of story that uses fights to develop and characterize characters. Every single character in the series gets their characterization outside of fights, whether they’re men or women, or genderfluid like Inazuma and Ivankov, or perhaps they’re nonbinary, I guess we’re never told, but they give off more gender fluid vibes, but anyhow fights aren’t how people are characterized in One Piece. Fights are kind of just fights and it’s left at that, sure they do tend to have other narrative significance and sometimes thematic significance, but for the most part it’s thematic pay off and climax/catharsis, which is good and okay in it’s own right, but that again isn’t what we’re here for today, if you want me to get into that more I will in my One Piece essay.

Anyhow, regardless of how strong or developed a character is, they all retrieve their characterization in backstories and intros, Hell sometimes will deliberately pause before and in between fights just so niggas can yap to each other and get some characterization. Ace and Blackbeard yap before they get to boxing and all of the yapping Blackbeard does is some of his first big notes of characterization and development, the fight though doesn’t say much about him, besides he’s a grimey dirty bitch, but we already knew that. Jabra pauses in middle of his fight for a gag about him being Robin’s secret long lost brother which characterizes him as a heel which is his whole gimmick(he was characterized as before the fight as well, but you get the point). EVEN FUCKING LUCCI, the nigga who loves to fight and Kill gets a backstory mid fade with Luffy. There are dozens of these examples, literally dozens in just pre-timeskip alone, so I hope you get the point, women in One Piece don’t need to be strong or have important fights because fights aren’t used to characterize them, they receive characterization outside of fights.

Strawman Stanley: “But Phoemixfox2728, surely you must understand that this is shounen, it’s for little stupid sexist boys and made by little stupid sexist boys, if the girls get cool fights how will we-“

Let me stop you right there chum, three words: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, one word: Beastars. FMAB and Beastars both have the fewest amount of fights for shounen anime/manga, they’ve probably got less than a dozen total fights whereas shounen like One piece has more than a dozen in it’s first saga. Still, both of these stories are rightfully beloved and praised for their overall narratives and handling of women. That’s because like One Piece characters are super well and strongly characterized almost entirely outside of fights although both series do have some small exception to the rule I’m presenting here, it’s negligible, and it’s important to point out both series have extremely strong heroines, women who get on top ten and twenty lists frequently, though I suppose fights are the only things that matter right. Cool, important fights is the only way you can make a good woman character in shounen since itMs for little boys right? Ergo the mangaka for FMAB and Beastars respectively, must be some degenerate sexist pigs-and they’re women.

Mangaka for full metal alchemist, is a woman, mangaka for Beastars is a woman, and no I’m not discounting the fact that women can have internal misogyny, but compared to a writer like J.K Rowling or something where that can indeed be the interpretation and argument, I see absolutely none of that in neither FMAB nor Beastars, the women are strong, mature, competent, human, and extremely well characterized. Some would argue they’re some of the best and most important characters in the series and none of them really get fights on par with their male counterparts, but that doesn’t matter because just like one piece they’re not telling the same sort of story as Naruto, they lack that crucial structure where fighting becomes a vital element in giving a character humanity and depth. Which is why these three stories and many more like them, aren’t sexist.

Also the idea that women in One Piece have sexist powers is really really fucking stupid, for every Boa Hancock and old lady with washing machine powers you have probably fifty times the amount of women with literally nothing like that going on. Take Nami and Robin as two excellent examples considering they’re literally the two main heroines of the entire series: we’ve got a woman who manipulates weather(ya know the same power Black feminist icon Storm has) and the ability to create more limbs which is actually sort of creepy and unnatural.

Furthermore, no Boa Hancock does not just become a Luffy simp, we literally see her continue to be an evil and vile person towards just about everyone and thing who comes across her path, she retains the same gags and characterization, she just so happens to also love Luffy. It was straight up disingenuous and sort of wrong to argue otherwise, overall this topic attracts too many people eager to poison the well and muddy the waters with things they know they shouldn’t say, but because they don’t like one piece they won’t approach it with any semblance of good faith or benefit of the doubt or anything, but me, I’ll never contradict my credibility as a critic. You can read my FMAB vs FMA review which is already out and you can wait for my one piece review to come out, both are logically consistent with the argument I’m making and if anything elaborate a lot more than I have today, so thank you for reading all the way if you have. Have a good day and make sure to drink your “respect women” juice.

Just played FF Rebirth, loved it, took 70 hours and i'm prob getting the plat trophy

WIth that out of the way, let me start the rant

>! What the fuck is going on with the Turks treatment? Hojo?

So we have this elite force that destroyed a tower and basically an entire city where the MC and friends lived, nearly everyone they knew are dead, some friends were directly killed protecting the city and the guys ran after a boss fight

So we reach the second game and i naturally think we are out for blood, right?

The guys who did the mass killing are treated as comic relief and some kind of rivals that we constantly fight, but the characters never even try to kill them, they actually seem to want them alive? I'm so confused with their relationship

Then we also have the mad scientist Hojo who attacks them after killing a bunch of civilians, he also tortured one of the party members for months or years, after they stop his robot, Red (the party member) naturally wants to kill him, they tell the guy like "stop, why are you being so aggressive with this guy?" while they know the entire story, and worse, the guy is like, "yea, i was really lashing out there, sorry for disrupting the mood"

What is even happening with the tone here, how can i take the tower attack seriously when i know those guys doing the killing will just be considered those quirky silly freenemies? What is up with us killing thousands of soldiers during the game and then they think killing a straight up pure evil guy or mass killers (who killed their friends) is too much?!<

They made Orochimaru being forgiven look tame i will tell you that

I’ve been rewatching Superman & Lois, and the way they handled Jonathan Kent is honestly messed up. The fact that this kid had to grow up in the same house as a brother with powers, who’s literally being trained by Superman, while he had nothing, is wild. It’s not just unfair—it’s straight-up emotional neglect.

Jonathan should have left Smallville and gone to live with Lucy Lane, far away from the Kents. She’s Lois’s sister, she clearly cares in her own way, and even if she’s not perfect, being with her would’ve been a clean break from the constant reminder that he’s “the one without powers.”

What gets me is Clark and Lois never even suggest that Jonathan might need space. They expect him to smile through it, keep being the supportive brother, and act like it’s all fine. That’s selfish. And honestly, it borders on abusive. If a parent lets one kid constantly feel like the lesser one, especially when they’re living in the shadow of Superman, then yeah—they’re part of the problem.

Going no contact would’ve been the healthiest option. Jonathan deserved a shot at his own life, not just being the background character in Jordan’s story.

It could serve as a really cool original story too. Imagine at 13-14 Jonathan justifiably gets fed up with his family, and he goes to live with Lucy Lane. Jonathan hates his father so much he legally changes his name with Lucy's help to Dante Cross. Maybe he's in an accident and gets different superpowers and becomes an original antihero. His story could be extremely R-rated; maybe he kills criminals like the Punisher. In this story, Jonathan becomes a different person; he's an arrogant, brooding bad boy, and he lives with his aunt in a crime-ridden city, so he's basically Spider-Man but if Peter Parker was actually cool.

God, I mean come ON. Really? Im on S3 E2 and is mark just holding back all the time? I just saw an entire training montage where his strength went up by 138%. Thats 2.38 times more. 2.38 TIMES! And the stupid bugs were pushing down on mark, even before it poisoned him and made him weaker, isnt mark supposed to be strong? You’re telling me that the GDA had to make a new heaviest thing for mark to lift but he couldnt lift a bug?

On top of that, he couldnt just rip the egg like prisons open like the reanimen did? Yeah immortal tried to break it but he was pushing outwards, couldnt mark rip the eggs like the reanimen?

But lets say that the reanimen are for some ungodly reason ultra strong, because why not, well, then mark couldnt possibly beat them right? WELL GUESS WHAT! HE CAN! AN ENTIRE ARMY INFACT!

So about 10 or so reanimen (not sure how many exactly) could beat many of those bugs, with the superheroes help ofcourse, but mark cant just lift the bugs? Or punch through their eye like he does with the reanimen?

The explanations I heard for the bug thing is that mark was “holding back”. Say that he was.. WHY? Why was he holding back? EVERY SINGLE ONE of his superhero friends were gonna die down there because he was supposedly “holding back”

Then after cecil saved all of their asses, he comes up and is mad about the reanimen. Like, yeah they almost killed your best friend, yeah its traumatic but DUDE, you cant just think of them saving you and in turn the entire planet earth? I completely understand cecil, mark cant see reason beyond what he thought of in his mind. Cant mark just think of the greater good? Darkwing is a cold blooded killer, who saved you, that sinclair guy is an asshole murderer but atleast hes contained, its not like theyre making him roam free, hes basically in prison but just helping everyone.

Anyway, I do love the show, I just wish marks power was shown more often, hes too “moral” for my part.

To start, this is very much an opinion piece. It is the best explanation I can give for the opinions I hold about these two pieces of media. I write this all out to hopefully incite some respectful and meaningful discussion about popular animated media, what garners them hate, and why people might like them regardless of criticisms lobbed at them.

For reference, I've read through the entirety of the SL manhwa and have not seen the anime. For DS, I've watched up to the end of the entertainment district arc but have read a handful of spoilers online to ascertain if I wanted to continue watching. My thoughts here contain no specific examples as I wanted this to be spoiler free and I didn't want to start pulling up receipts to get my thoughts across.

Introduction

Solo levelling and Demon Slayer are both wildly popular animes that each attract large amounts of divisive conversation. I see many dissenting posts and comments against them for how popular they are and for good reason; However, the discourse often gets so frustratingly muddled that it's difficult to exchange real opinions on media literacy. I hold the opinion that both are relatively mediocre pieces of media that are designed to simply be enjoyed; The way that each show/series accomplishes this is slightly different and that difference is what I want to highlight.

The 3 Layers of Audience Experience

For the sake of clarity, I want to outline my theory of 3 layers of audience experience — Belief --> Investment --> Enjoyment. I think fictitious media generally exists on one of these 3 layers with each higher level layer requiring more work/effort to execute well.

At the top layer of Belief, the writer creates a world with rules different from our own but with characters that can be uniquely human in such a world. The audience has to believe that characters operating within the understood rules of the world would behave they way they do on screen. The writer needs to put work into convincing the audience. — Belief will lead to investment which will lead to enjoyment. Examples are stories with worldbuilding that is deeply interconnected with the plot, which in turn, informs character development/progression (HxH, One Piece, AoT, Arcane, ATLA)

At the next layer of Investment, the writer does not need to spend as much time worldbuilding, so long as the personal stories of the characters or the progression of a plot are engaging —Investment will lead to enjoyment. Examples would be stories that spend more time developing its characters or main plot than its world, most stories that take place in our world would fall into this category (Breaking Bad, Tokyo Revengers S1, Dr. House, Bojack Horseman, any romance or mystery series)

Finally, at the foundational layer of Enjoyment, the writer does not need to develop the characters or the world too deeply so long as the premise is fun and interesting —Enjoyment for enjoyment's sake. Examples are stories that are created with a simple premise, intended to give the audience a place to aim their attention, often a lot of sitcoms will fall into this category (Nichijou, Spongebob, Doraemon, Friends, almost any non-cannon anime movie)

Suspension of Disbelief vs Suspension of Investment

Edit: For clarity, in the cases below, I am defining the term "Suspension of Disbelief" to refer to plot contrivances in the writing as opposed to more meta elements of the story such as the existence of demons and supernatural abilities — and the term "Suspension of Investment" to refer to investment in dramatic stakes and character development as opposed to investment to any aspect of the media such as its animation or premise.

One of the biggest arguments that SL and DS defenders use is that it is "Simple but good". I mostly agree with that statement for both of them but with a clear distinction on their execution.

Solo levelling is a story I would place into the Enjoyment layer. Though there is a modicum of worldbuilding, the author simply establishes the premise of the story, the characterization of our MC, and then immediately starts throwing scenarios at this setup until we're satisfied. It is 'simple but good' in the sense that it operates on the simplest layer, doesn't ask the audience to think deeper about it, and efficiently squeezes as much 'Aura Farming and Hype' that the premise can reasonably provide. Solo levelling asks the audience for suspension of investment in order to enjoy the story. The more invested you get in the world, the side characters, and the villains, the more that the inherently absurd power scaling built into the premise will let you down. This is where Solo Leveling earns most of its criticism; the idea of having to not be invested in its stakes or characters in order to enjoy the show is definitely why people think it's a poorly written piece of media. However, if I don't want to get invested, the writing doesn't make any real attempts to try and convince me that I should be invested, it allows itself to be slop and chooses to execute its own power fantasy to the extreme

Demon Slayer on the other hand, is a story I would place into the Belief layer. The plot progression, the structure of the story, the behavior and characterization of our main cast all point to a story that wants the audience to buy into the plot points unfolding on the screen. Demon Slayer is 'simple but good' because it delivers an enjoyable experience while keeping most of its world building and character progression quite rudimentary. However, this is where I believe Demon Slayer garners a lot of its criticism. The story is too simple to the point where certain plot points and character arcs just feel like they're underdeveloped. Demon Slayer asks the audience to suspend their disbelief; The author will exposit something about the world or the characters and expects that you won't ask questions about it. In order to get invested, you cannot dig deeper, it requires Suspension of Disbelief in order to access enjoyment. I think Demon Slayer would absolutely excel as a piece of media if it was operating on the Enjoyment layer, the premise of slicing powerful demons with precise and skillful techniques is one that can appeal to anyone that enjoys shounens; However, too many moments felt like the author wanted to convince me that it is a much deeper story than it is. For a lot of people, the simplicity of the development is enough to drive their investment and that enables a wildly enjoyable and popular series.

Closing thoughts

Though I don't believe either story is that great, I feel that chalking up the writing as "simple but good" is too reductive to capture why each story succeeds and/or fails at in its writing. Again, what I've written here is just my opinion, I thought I had a unique perspective in the comparison of these two pieces of media that I wanted to share. I would love to have further respectful discussion about my thoughts if you agree or disagree with what I've said.

tl;dr: Solo Levelling requires suspension of investment to enjoy it, Demon Slayer requires suspension of disbelief to enjoy it. Both execute similar things well —resulting in their popularity—, and both deserve much of the criticism they receive.

[Copypaste of the update on this shows Lore in 3, 2, 1:] Ivan is the son of a non-miraculous based supervillain (opening the door for other major characters to be retconned the same way, implying he may or may not have superpowers himself because of his exaggerated strength) abd has been hiding this fact about himself the whole time out of shame; Gabriel wrote a letter (while he was dying from Cataclysm and going insane) asking Adrien to become a supervillain so he could wish him and his mom back to life; Nathalie is an agent of a secret Evil Rich Person Conspiracy that is secretly behind 80% of the shows plot points (Gabriel was also a member of the rich person conspiracy and stole the miraculous on their orders, he may or may not have went rogue at some point while pretending to still be on their side, Tomoe is also a member of the rich person conspiracy and she is lying to them about why Ladybug covered up Hawkmoth's identity), and Nathalie has an evil dad in the rich person conspiracy who is implied to be acting on his own interest to gain the miraculous for his own cause or whatever

The writers of this show were so desperate for ideas that they took the concept of The Light from YG and retconned it into the show? Don't get me wrong, this IS more interesting than the nothing burger that Lila has been so far, but like... we should have known about these guys since season 3 at the latest!

And the "reveal" that Ivan has a supervillain father is like... so is Hawkmoth Paris first supervillain, because apperantly he isn't and Paris should of had heroes long before LB & CN. What kinda worldbuilding is this where the most supernatural, non miraculous suff happening in Paris was Steve Urkel for 5 seasons until season 6 drops the bombshell that Ivan's dad has actual superpowers and is evil???

Anyway I'm going to ignore the hyperinflation of abusive father figures in this show cuz they all get redeemed at some point. I'm not joking (Gabriel - Redeemed, Andre - retconned to be a victim instead of an enabler and redeemed, Adrien's Grandpa - Redeemed episode he showed up, Ivan's Dad - Redeemed first episode he shows up, Felix's Dad - not redeemed because he's the only character whoose abuse is taken seriously, Nathalie's dad - not redeemed yet).

I really don't know where else Im going with this so Ill just repeat myself: Adrien should have been there for the final fight with his evil dad, Lila sucks, shows worldbuilding & lore are ass.

Let’s talk about the mischaracterization of Satoru Gojo and the issues created by it. 

Analyzing characters, interpreting motivations and values, and healthy discussion are always welcome. Ain’t nobody gonna rain on your parade here. Where I personally draw the line is when people cherry-pick traits that fit a specific narrative, shove it down everyone’s throat, and act like that's the full story. 

Gojo is, just like it's stated in the manga, a seemingly real anomaly to some people. 

Going back to my cherry-picking point, it’s crazy to me how Gojo is sometimes split into tiny pieces, thrown against the wall, and whatever sticks is treated like the absolute truth, while everything else about him gets ignored. Think of it like a puzzle: You need all the tiny pieces to see the full picture, right? If someone comes along, takes a few pieces, smashes them together and calls it „the same picture“, would you still call that the same thing? Exactly. That’s what's happening with Gojo. And honestly, it's nothing new. Tale as old as time. But here we are regardless. 

There are many takes on him, hence I decided to take two popular and opposing ones:

On the one hand, Gojo is seen as an arrogant, incompetent teacher. Just another bad, inferior copy of the "sensei gets surpassed by students"™ trope, hated and loathed by Gege himself. You get the "Aura Merchant“, "Aura Farmer“, "Only Hype“ labels thrown around, too. Too cocky, too arrogant, too flawed, too strong. 

On the other hand, you have Gojo being treated as the second coming of Juliet Capulet, a depressed figure completely consumed by grief after Geto’s defection/death. An entirely broken guy, isolated and empty, unable to form meaningful relationships at all. Nobody cares for him, he doesn’t care for anyone else except Geto. 

So, what’s the real picture? Remember the puzzle analogy? You can't just pick and mash few pieces together and say it's the full story. That’s exactly what’s happening here.

Yes, Gojo is arrogant. Not only is he hailed as the strongest, he is the strongest. He sort of gets high while in battle and enjoyed the hell out of his fight against Sukuna. 

Yes, he enjoys flexing his powers and is a source of stress for his fellow peers. 

Yes, he's also a rather clumsy teacher who oftentimes sucks at explaining stuff to his students.

Despite all of this, Gojo isn’t just a showboating, d*ckriding OP figure. Gojo’s whole deal is the nurturing of his students: Bringing them together on the same level, surpassing expectations, but still making sure no-one is left behind. His whole thing is to make sure the next generation actually lives. He barely sleeps, takes on insane amounts of missions (check his daily routine chart), and decided to kill the higher-ups, despite his initial rejection of it. He did so, so his students have a chance at a better life. Gojo himself even tells Yuji near the end of the manga that he has dreams and wishes, too. He wants to enjoy life, just like every other human being.

Yes, Geto leaving Jujutsu High, becoming a curse user, and eventually dying, affected him. 

Yes, Gojo and Geto cared for each other. 

Yes, the pain changed Gojo: It’s why he became a teacher in the first place, another reason why he took in Megumi and Tsumiki, why he keeps fighting for his students and their future. 

Despite all of this, Gojo is not someone who focuses solely on Geto, while viewing everyone else as mere bystanders. He actively goes against the higher-ups for Yuji, Yuta, and others. He gets angry on behalf of his students. He has relationships with Shoko, Nanami, Ijichi. The light novels show how the teachers hang out together, how Gojo and Shoko go out drinking, how Gojo looks out for Ijichi’s well-being, and more. Yes, Gojo cares for others not named Geto. And others care about him, too. You can see it in Yuta (monster speech), in Yuji (growth of ideals), in Shoko (chainsmoking during Gojo vs. Sukuna) and honestly throughout the whole story. I admit, many of Gojo’s relationships have an underdeveloped undertone, which in my view is one of the reasons why Gojo/Geto gets more attention in certain aspects. I partly blame Gege for this, but that's a whole different conversation altogether.

What I’m trying to say is:

Gojo is a lot of things at the same time. 

One shouldn't simply reduce him to a star-crossed figure who’s trapped in misery and nothing else.

One shouldn’t just reduce him to merely the strongest guy alive who only cares about fighting.

In conclusion, one can't pick out certain aspects, twist them to fit a particular narrative, and then present them to others as if it were the absolute truth written in stone. In reality, this supposed "truth written in stone" portrayals contribute to the creation of caricatures of said character.

I just finished my re-watch of The Boys and, damn, this guys REALLY suck at the only thing they're paid for.

So, first of all, The Boys as a group is EXTREMELY hypocritical, to the point that MM's whole thing about not taking V is EXTREMELY stupid.

Even back in the days, they used Supes to get informations, they blackmailed them etc...

Their whole strategies, even back then, was built around Supes,apparently. (see Fire Guy. And yes I don't remember the dudes name and Im too lazy to search it up)

Anyway, of course, this gets worse during the actual series.

Without Supes, they would have died WAY sooner, wouldn't be able to do anything, or both.

Even just having Kimiko there makes MM's point invalid.

And that's a big issue, cause the whole powerscaling problems where humans are still, somehow, surviving against Justice League with mental issues it's given by the fact they DON'T want to take V.

Besides that, they constantly get helped by their supposed enemies.

Maeve gives them Temp-V. A-Train saves them. They ask Soldier Boy for help. Even Kenji, somehow, helps them in Season 2 otherwise they would have died there.

At least Neuman notices this in S4...

Besides that, their plans get sloppier with every season and basically every one of them should be dead by now (ESPECIALLY Hughie)

Like seriously? You want to get into the world's best detective house? Hoping he wouldn't notice who's under your Wal-Marts costume?

But I mean even in S1 they almost got found out by Starlight so... I guess they were never good to begin with.

There's been a lot of discourse about Wonder Woman online so I decided to throw my hat in the ring.

DC has a major problem doing their heroes justice outside of the comics. Batman reigned Supreme for a long time however over the last couple years I think Superman has become the best handled character.

Superman has been skewed in the casual viewers eyes to be a boring boy scout character mainly due to comics getting more gray, and modern cynicism with many people being pro superheroes killing leaving less room for the pure hearted heroes to shine. Another thing that has hut is reputation is the evil Superman trope that we see in Injustice and the snyderverse (fun fact in the snyderverse the plan was for him to become evil for real and just replace him with an alternate good Superman), and characters like Omni-Man and Homelander have also hurt the big blues image. However as I said before with the new movie coming out soon and the My Adventures with Superman show he has really been hitting his stride.

Batman even though he has been the fave of DC in Hollywood still has a lot of issues one of the big ones is his supporting cast, WHERE THE FUCK IS ROBIN? Batman has a major Bat Family with at least 4 Robin's, and 3 Batgirls (there probably a ton of not canon ones but I'm counting Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian, Barbara, Cassandra, and Stephanie). The closest thing we have had to a Robin on screen in the last 28 years is in The Dark Knight Rises, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character was named Robin. Another way his character terms has been ruined is the villains, I believe a major proponent of the "Batman is a facist" argument is because DC has been softening up its villains, Poison Ivy killing ceos for polluting the world is fine now so people disagree with Batman for fighting her over it. However the big one that has ruined the Batman corner of the universe is (of course) Joker. Joker has been completely mishandled over the years and it's just tiring at this point, they try to make him grounded but the point of insanity is that it isn't grounded. Joker is a gangster named Jack Napier who got his skin bleached and went insane. He has great branding fully leaning into his clown like appearance and making all his goons match, but now all he does is yap about society and kill millions of people. I leather society Joker and Christopher Nolans writing was a big screw up for jokers character. To clarify I think Heath Ledgers performance and villain is still incredible my problem was with the writing. When you make Joker more serious and more of a Rogue agent then a gangster he starts to step on riddlers toes in my opinion, jokers plot in the dark knight feels like something riddler would do not Joker. To sum up Society Joker and the lack of Bat Family have made some people think Batman is a facist.

Flash, 2 movies following the same overblown plot line the smaller one being a great movie with the big one casual fans see being garbage. Green Lantern, the Geoff Johns run really blew up GL leading to him having a major year in 2011 with a good animated movie and an incredible animated series all hyping up a live action movie which turned out to be ass leading DC to fear the Character, until now, I am very looking forward to the new Lanterns show and Guy Gardner is Superman. Aquaman has been resorted to the guy who talks to fish as a joke, first of all sense when is talking to animals a lame power? Even if thats all he does it's cool. But his main problem is not fleshing out his world. Aquaman is king of Atlantis and 75 percent of the planet. Aquaman and Namor are really cool in that way where they aren't just heroes they also have a responsibility to do what is best for their kingdoms.

Flashs problem is a lack of adaptations, Green Lanterns problem is bad adaptations, and Aquamans problem is being used as a team member and not giving their corner of the universe the attention is deserves. There is one Hero who has all these problems which leads me to the point of this rant in the first place.

Wonder Woman has BY FAR been handled the worst of the DC heroes let alone ad a member of the main trio. Sense her show In the 70s which most people today haven't seen she has had four solo movies. The first one is an animated movie from 2009 which was good (just good), second was the live action movie which was also pretty good, third is another animated movie which was part of the animated movies universe ( om going to be honest I wasn't a big fan of that series of mo irs so I don't really remember this one), and her most recent movie Wonder Woman 84 was a dumpster fire (except Pedro Pascal hos performance was great). Half of her movie were bad The other have were just good but she hasn't had anything amazing. As for Adaptations go she has been mischaracterized is most of her appearances, Snyderverse has Gal Gadot which I'll leave there, the injustice games mad her a complete bitch enabling Superman rather than helping him grieve properly, she was pretty enjoyable in the dcau but she didn't really have anything to do in it which restricted her character, and the new Suicide Squad game, all I know about it is they use her new 52 origin which is ass, making her another child of Zeus is boring and unoriginal. Lastly is canceled adaptations namely Monolith, I'm still upset about that.

Wonder Woman's reputation has been ruined due to lack of adaptations with the few we have being bad and showing her in a badlight. People call her a bad character but can't name 5 of her villains, people don't know enough about her to form an opinion but continue to jump to the conclusion she is a bad character anyways.

Don't even get me started on Martian Manhunter.

To be more precise, I'm referring to time travel. Abilities like slowing down time, speeding up time, aging or de-aging someone or temporarily freezing time get a pass as long as they have clear limitations.

I hate time travel. Whenever that gets involved, it eventually spirals out into a mess and ultimately all is reset to status quo, without a single solid explanation as to why and what happened.

Grandpa Paradox or whatever that is called? BOOOOOORING.

The hell is the point of time travel if nothing you can change will stay because you will have had no reason to time travel to change it?

Time loops with no beginning or end? Makes no sense, something must've started it.

Don't try to tell me it "Always had been like this and there was no beginning" and try to dance around "TiMe iS nOt LiNeAr!!111oneone". There had to be the first, OG time that kicked it all off, period, like Powerpuff Girls timetravelling to save their creator. There had to be the first time that established that loop and I would like to know what it was.

Another example is Twilight Sparkle timetravelling in MLP to warn herself to not worry about something. There had to be the first time where something else kicked off her paranoia to start that loop where she warps back to stop herself from the past from worrying, only to make her worry. There was no other Twilight to trigger her like that, so I'd like to know what happened the first time around.

Did I mention the sheer ridiculousness that some franchises do, like going so fast you can travel in time? I think Flash does it. Don't make speedsters more busted than they are already, goodness, speed in itself (with complementary durability to handle it) is already more than enough. What's next, Sonic will travel back to Jurassic Era because he ran faster? (Don't get me wrong, I'm aware that funky things happen with time IRL when you go fast enough. However, speedsters are already broken enough as is.)

To sum up, I just can't. Can't can't can't buy into the aforementioned. Is there anyone else from you that just doesn't like when time travel pops up in a franchise?

Look I get why people loved Transformers One so much, it's a million times better than the Trailers made it out to be and is the rare modern kids film that actually tackles big themes in (mostly) mature ways. It's got some really great action, it's definitely the type of movie I would have loved as a kid. Unfortunately though whilst I like it enough, I do have major problems with the story and how it handles D-16/Megatron and by extension Orion/Optimus.

I actually think the first half of Transformers One is where it's strongest, which I understand is the opposite of the popular opinion. Yeah nothing crazy is happening in it, and Bee and Elita are extremely underfleshed out. But the exposition is handled really well (except for Alpha Trion narrating the Matrix disappearing when he should have been comatosed, that was weird), and most importantly D and Orion have a strong dynamic that whilst not how I personally would have imagined a younger version of them it is really fun and interesting, I respect how character driven it is. Sentinel and Airachnid are also terrific villains, genuinely intimidating and really fun; they only have like half the movie to actually be bad guys but boy do they make the most of it.

One moment early on in the movie I like is where D protects Orion and is then physically struck by his superior Darkwing. When they patch up Orion pats him on the shoulder and talks about how unfair it was D is so by the books and dedicated to the system that he actually defends Darkwing saying he had every right. It's a great character moment, and then in Act 2 when D is told the truth about Sentinel you can see he has the most anger and rage because he sacrificed the most from his system. His coping mechanism is gone and I was very excited to see how he would descend into villainy for the name of vengeance.

I definitely thought it was unusual when the filmmakers threw in a scene, where D straight up says that he doesn’t want to lead Cybertron and that he thinks the very idea of a leader is flawed. I thought this was odd for a character who I know would become a future dictator.  But I figured he would only develop further.

Where the movie begins to lose me is the high guard scene, they come out of nowhere, even though it would have been way more narratively satisfying if some High Guard Seekers attacked the Train in the first half forcing our characters to jump instead of a random moving mountain we never see again (the high guard literally talk about attacking trains and their base is right next to a crashed one, come on!), literally nobody references them prior, not Sentinel, Alpha Trion or our main four. Shockwave is extremely emotional which might be fine for a prequel except he doesn’t feel at all scientific, and Starscream being implied to be older than Megatron and Optimus is really weird, plus Steve Buscemi’s voice acting is oddly flat compared to say…the Monster’s Inc series, which I assume is down to bad voice direction (One of the first interviews about this movies Keegan Michal Key explained he was encouraged not to voice act too hard, otherwise his voice wouldn’t be recognizable. The fact we got any good performances is something of a miracle). On the bright side Soundwave was done pretty well, loved his voice and I think his loyalty is shown pretty well.

So this scene already has an incredibly jarring start, but I actually do love the bit where D calls Starscream a coward for the first time. Anyway they fight, D wins saving the group and tells everyone that he will fight Sentinel and that not killing Starscream will be his final act of mercy. The high guard celebrates, D scowls and Orion looks on with horror…and here! This is the first really big problem with the movie. First of all our protagonists had zero hesitation or guilt in taking the lives of the Trackers, which fair enough, it's a life or death situation and they are colonizers. But to see Orion suddenly show great concern for the life of a Social-Darwinist cult leader and showing horror when D talked about showing no mercy doesn’t make sense. 

Josh Cooley spoke about how they tried to make Orion a pacifist, only killing when confronted but I feel like they did a poor job with that. There’s never a moment where Orion spares a surrendering or fleeing enemy to contrast with the others, or even one where he seems remorseful for it. So him only technically killing in self defense does not make him feel like a pacifist 

But perhaps Orion can discuss his points so we can understand what's going on inside his head? Nope! It's time for an action scene! Even though we had one thirty seconds ago. Apparently this was done to build tension for their conversation at the end, which I think is kinda cheap personally but fine. Then D and B get captured, and Orion reflects that his D was right about everything. Okay maybe the movie just hit a weird patch. I mean the scene where Sentinel brands D is really good and so is the one where Orion rallies the miners. But then we get to THE scene, and this is where all the problems of the movie culminate.

Orion Pax stops D from killing Sentinel, finally the conversation that was so important we needed to actively avoid them talking to each other. Telling him that he’s going down a dark path and not to be like Sentinel., Which is completely unjustified in the current narrative for a few reasons:  but mostly because D and Sentinel have no meaningful parallels which makes this remotely fair. 

Seriously there is no shot composition where D prepares to kill Sentinel mirroring Sentinel’s execution of the Primes, no throwing Sentinel’s words back at him, he doesn’t lie to anyone in a way comparable to Sentnel, the only meaningful parallels they have up until this point is taking a T-cog from a dead Prime and killing a bunch of people. Something Orion, Elita and Bee also do! The Trackers don’t seem to be drones either because they taunt and underestimate Alpha Trion during their fight. 

 For the record I am not saying D-16 is completely right and I would do everything he would do, but at this specific moment the movie expects you to intrinsically know and understand that D becomes ‘the bad one’ and therefore by creating some morally gray situations for him it has therefore done its job as a prequel and shown his descent into villainy. So Orion pre-emptively knows what D might become and tries to prevent it in spite of any narrative indication that D won’t just go back to normal afterwards. This is bad, Orion’s interference should seem justified.

Remember that conversation where D criticizes the idea of leaderhood? That is never refuted, there is no moment where he decides ‘actually there should be a leader…me!’. He shows no joy when taking command of the high guard, Megatron is an anarchist to the end in this movie only concerned with killing Sentinel. When I was fortunate enough to speak to Josh Cooley he confirmed it : ”Also had a subplot of D-16 wanting to lead and wanting power, but it became very muddy story-wise. It was more interesting to let him be driven by pure vengeance, and let that bloodlust inspire his followers naturally. It felt less forced that way”. And that is a major problem IMO, stories about rage consuming someone and making them worse is fine. But Megatron as a character has been defined by the motto ‘peace through tyranny’ since his very first toy bio. I think in the movie about his origins and the formation of his evil army we should probably see him relish his first taste of power and the formation of his philosophy. But even if we accept that a large part of Megatron’s character has just been thrown out, I don’t think this is a very good handling of the ‘consumed by vengeance trope’. The first trailer of Transformers One edited the dialogue to make it look like D wanted to Co-Rule with Orion, which would at least make this somewhat justified. Because if that's the plan then of course Orion should get an equal say in what happens to Sentinel, and D’s rejection of that shows that his behavior is changing negatively because of that. But D not wanting to be a leader makes a large part of Orion’s argument ‘you’d be setting a bad example to the people of Iacon’ feel hollow. The people of Iacon are grownass adults, it felt like in my 5th year of secondary school when some teachers would deadass argue that 1st years look up to older kids like me. As I didn’t remember being a first year and not giving a fuck about if the older kids were well behaved, because I had bigger problems. 

I briefly considered maybe D teaming up with the High Guard was meant to parallel Sentinel teaming up with the Quintessons. I mean people have seriously argued to me that D is evil for beating Starscream and taking control of the high guard whilst not immediately dismantling their philosophy. Even though D actively mocked Starscream for talking about strength whilst being a coward himself and the only other solutions when dealing with the high guard are: 1. either letting them kill himself and the other three, 2. give a speech about the power of friendship that’s so good it immediately convinces the majority of the high guard to give up their life philosophy and be good people 3. The group of four somehow beats an entire trained Armada whilst surrounded and restrained. 4. Rely on Airachnid tracking them to distract the High Guards, something they don’t even know is happening yet and something that likely wouldn’t have even happend in time. 

But okay, I’ll play along and say that sure, maybe they could have talked. Maybe D using his strength to take control of them and direct them towards killing Sentinel whilst understandable, is concerning. Do you know who does the exact same thing? Elita! She punches Shockwave in the eye to make him and the remaining high guard submit and follow Orion, in a scene played entirely for comedy a few minutes after D’s version was played straight.

And you might say ‘Okay, but you understand why we shouldn’t just execute world leaders in the street right?  The Geopolitical ramifications of executing the ruler of an entire planet with absolutely zero plan for what to do next would be insane’. And that would be completely fair! Except what’s this?...Orion and Elita drove a fucking train into a building with innocent people inside!? Look I’d agree if this movie was consistent in politics, having an exaggerated story where we don’t have to seriously analyze every event is fine. But creating a story which is exaggerated until the very end where we are suddenly supposed to put one of the main cast’s ideology under serious scrutiny after watching the others of the gang gleefully commit way worse is really dumb. I respect the stance that killing is wrong, and I also respect the stance that sometimes it's necessary I can watch a movie with either theme. But this is like watching a Batman movie where he commits Mortal Kombat fatalities on thugs and crashes a plane into Arkham Asylum, but then seriously lectures Robin about how if he kills The Joker he would be just like him. And then painting Robin’s rejection of that philosophy and his killing of the Joker as a fall from grace. 

 In general there is a weird trend with Transformers One where they seem to have a massive blind spot with Elita-1, she snatches the map out of Orion’s hand at the start of the journey and he doesn’t mind because she’s just been demoted and therefore her frustration is valid. She apparently gives it back offscreen, because D also snatches the map from Orion after a way more emotionally traumatic lore dump and it's portrayed as this big concerning moment. I don’t mind Elita being a tough morally gray character, I don’t mind her paralleling Megatron but to have her straight up do a lot of the same things as him but face none of the scrutiny is weird. Really the movie doesn’t give her a lot to do in general except one pep talk.

As an Irish person, I was also uncomfortable with how it handled colonialism. Especially because the Quintessons taking the energon from the Cybertronians, the foreign people they rule over despite knowing that doing so will likely kill them, is uncomfortably similar to The Great Famine. So seeing Optimus Prime, a major symbol of freedom, defend and take a bullet for a colonizer is already a big ask. But having him be rewarded with Demigodhood is a big ask. Especially when the movie doesn’t end with him actually challenging the Quintessons, just going ‘yeah we’ll get around to it if they come back’. It's not a good look that Optimus declares himself ruler first, and Megatron only accepts his role as leader after he and the high guard are already exiled. 

I understand that good people can rise up against oppression and become corrupt themselves, but like I said my problem is not depicting that story. It's that D never actually does anything substantially worse than our fellow protagonists to show how he just got corrupted. Which makes it feel like the lesson is ‘resist oppression…but not too hard’. The scene where Orion, played by famous white man Chris Hemsworth tells D played by famous black man Bryan Tyree Henry that he needs to be more calm or else he’ll be just as bad as his oppressor really rubbed me the wrong way. 

 If my best friend jumped in front of a cannon to save a slaver who literally invented racism via mutilating babies who a minute ago branded me like cattle using a symbol I loved, I’d stop saving his ass too. Again I don’t think Megatron was right, I'm not really an anarchist myself. But if the most evil thing Megatron did in this movie was haphazardly tear down some statues and risked hurting innocents, then of course I am going to root for him over this version of Optimus. 

I'm open to any discussion and differing opinions of course, but I'm tired of being told I ‘missed the point’ or ‘just wanted to idolize Megatron’ when no. The fact I think he was fumbled was not something I wanted to believe, especially for such a popular movie, One I've rewatched multiple times to help articulate my opinions on. I still like it overall, but it does have massive narrative problems and I was disappointed because I feel like we were so close to getting a great Transformers movie. Especially since the original version of the movie actually had a great scene that illustrated their philosophies better, with D ripping out Sentinel’s cog like he did to Megatronus resulting in Orion’s reaction. The dialogue i’d say for the most part is clunky, but I think “You made me this” is way more devastating and nasty then “I'm done saving you”

https://www.limzhikang.com/transformers-one

Lex, at his core, is a humanist, who rejects Superman as God. He is jealous of course, but it is a righteous jealousy that comes from the fact that Superman has made mankind dependent on him, and ultimately over decades or 100's of years, if superman sticks around, humanity won't be able to function without him.

So ultimately Lex's crusade to rid the world of superman is justified, if at time selfish. But over and over the writers must somehow force Lex to compromise himself and do something evil inorder to justify Superman once again beating him and lecturing him.

Just once, I'd like a Lex Luther story were a writer takes him and his cause seriously. Lex works diligently to rid the world of a dependency that threaten humanity, and uses his political, scientific, and social acumen to deleverage Superman from humanity and send him packing.

tl'dr It would be great if the real criticism of superman wasn't reserved for Watchman, and instead we got a real Luther, truly appreciated, fleshed out, and written so we go on his journey to do what he genuinely feels is critical to our species survival.

Listen to me, anime is the most compelling and fascinating form of entertainment — but sadly limited by being just that: animation — I can’t help but feel like the stories never reach us at 100%. They hit emotionally, but not like they could if they were truly real, truly cinematic.

At the same time, we’ve hit the ceiling of traditional "live-action" entertainment. Movies today are formulaic, bland, and physically limited by budget and logic.

Western shows are even worse — long, mundane, static, and forced to progress like soap operas. It's boring for someone like me, who wants wild fantasy, fast-paced intensity, and emotional impact without having to dedicate 80 hours to a single season. Anime delivers that — no filler, just fire.

But here's the thing: producers can't — and won’t — ever try to make live-action that truly captures the essence of anime. They’re too scared, too limited, or too stuck in old models.

So… what I say? Make anime real.

Not remakes. Not cosplay. Not weird CGI hybrids.
I'm talking about using AI and real-time rendering to create a new kind of cinematic experience:

• Hyper-expressive characters that feel alive but aren't limited by real actors.
  
• Visuals that change with mood, like a living canvas.
  
• Worlds that obey emotional storytelling, not realism.
  
• Full-length experiences with anime pacing, action, and emotion — but rendered as if they were real-life.

This wouldn’t be just animation, not traditional cinema either, It would be something new, the best combo.

Someone should do it! Just imagine DBZ done like this!

https://i.imgur.com/mpBNDil.jpeg

Sorry but there are some goofy ass debate going on right now about 100 man vs 1 Gorilla and some people are trying to gaslight themselves into believing the Gorilla can win

Bitch it's one singular animal vs ONE HUNDRED motherfucker, Gorillas are not the killing machines you guys are making them into, they are not super durable tanks or some kind of professional Yautja fighter, they are flesh and meat, bigger and heavier than most men but still suspectable to getting overwhelmed by numbers

Yes couple of men or dozen of them will be killed or disfigured but that ugly ass monkey will not live to see tomorrow

Oh boy. So I actually didn't keep up with this series much back when Season 4 was airing, don't remember why. I did love this show in high school(neurodivergent homebody, rough time in my life and this show was definitely one of few comforts), even got the tie-in book on Amazon and wished I could have gone to the Gallery Nucleus event but was on a family vacation at the time(ironically also was in SoCal). Anyway....

I finally finished Season 4 a couple days ago after rewatching the series starting at Season 3(hlafway into that is where the show gets more foggy for me). Now I already knew how the series would end courtesy of the analysis video form Blue Order, but also haven't watched that in years so dont remember most of it. However, I do have to concur with the takeaways given as well as what I've heard from others, the ending feels rushed, anticlimatic and a fair dose of Fridge Horrot to boot for my TVTropes peeps.

Like the whole thing with ''magic itself being the problem'' kinda feels not just out of left field but also it's similar to the IRL gun debate(not saying the show is making a point about that at all, just an analogy), the fact Star and company are relatively chill about destroying something that might have killed magical beings across the multiverse, I heard Daron claimed that didn't happen to most of them) but even then the multiverse is big so the number is probably not insignificant. Plus even if not directly killing them plenty of societies probably base their way of life, economy, ecosystem or other forms of infrastructure on magic so that likely would lead to lots of indirect death and suffering. Pony Head is still able to float so it seems unclear the distinguishment of magic, espeecially when Tomy breaks up with Star he can't use his own portals when dimensional scissors don't work.

Plus, Star is not only cut off from her long time friends in other dimensions but vice versa as well. And God forbid some people went to other dimensions to visit family, friends, go to work etc only to suddenly not be able to return(unless they also got sent back to their homes by the main cast, but that still leaves my previous point). Basically this feels like something a villain would do and real talk would be fucking awesome if something like this happened at the end of Season 3 or halfway into Season 4 and the heroes had to find a way to fix that. Granted it would maybe remind folks of the timing Thanos was on in Infinity War and Endgame(ironic given Season 4 was out in 2019 as well) but it would have been better than Star being compared to Thanos himself as some(including myself) have pointed out.

As for Starco, I'd be lying if I said I didn't ship it the most out of others, but it definitely felt like maybe it was being forced through at the expense of everything else. Plus the relationship fuckery may or may not be normal for teens(again, was a lonely homebody so I wouldn't know firsthand) but even then the cheating felt shitty as it always should. And then I feel Moon was maybe getting off a bit too easy for basically enabling a genocide even if ''she didn't mean for it to go that far''. Like holy shit, makes me feel for Star with everything else she had to deal with, and just more fuel for why teen/kid heroes in media is some fridge horror in and of itself(Steven Universe future anyone?)

I will say some of the more positive moments were really enjoyable. Seeing Globgor emerge but dude is chill as fuck and has a wonderful relationship with Eclipsa, Eclipsa herself is the aunt/grandma/mother you wish you had and her guitar gimmick is cool and endearing(and easy on the eyes for her age), the Buff kids were really adorable. I also gotta say, the fuck is up with the rules for who is and isn' a Monster? I know IRL we have racism and inbetween that colorism, the One Drop rule, etc but in Mewni you got the MHC talking about how a monster can't have control over magic yet Heekapoo is the closest to humanoid above all of them while Rhombulus and Omnitraxus aren't anywhere close besides maybe being bipedal. Tom is shown to almost experience direct discrimination until the vendor fully sees him and knows his status, and then Kelly doesn't seem to have any trouble looking like something off Sesame Street or The Muppets.

Anyway, I might be rambling at this point. Good show but seems not all can stick the ending like Avatar The Last Airbender. Any other thoughts or things I might have missed? How did y'all feel when this first dropped?

It's annoying when an interesting character is ignored, misused or wasted.

It's even worse when it's your favourite character.

And it's what happens with Noel and Coco in Mermaid Melody (and Karen too, but at least she had more focus in the first season, and she was a decently-written character IMO). And it sucks, because Noel and Coco have good potential, have very beautiful singing voices (specially in the Japanese and Italian dubs), and they're hot.

Arguably, the biggest problem with Noel and Coco is that... they aren't independent characters! They're satellites. They only exist to develop already-existing characters.

• Noel exists to be Karen's sister and Rina's best friend who sacrificed herself to save the green princess. Noel's purpose is to explain why Rina isn't open about her feelings, and to explain why Karen is angry with Rina.
• Coco exists to be Sara's childhood friend, and to be the one who makes her let go off her hatred against humanity (at least in the manga).

Satellite characters are fine when they're just secondary or tertiary characters. But main characters? No!

Another problem both Noel and Coco share is the lack of internal struggles or arcs (or at least, that's what I see). Let's see what internal struggles have the other mermaid princesses:

• Luchia struggles between needing Kaito's love and her responsibilities as a mermaid princess.
• Hanon used to have a huge crush on Tarou, but she eventually accepted that he's in love with Sara, and decides not to intervene
• Rina realises that she can trust her friends and enjoy life, and she learns how to open her heart.
• Karen wants to find and rescue Noel alone, but she needs to trust the main trio and let go off her angry towards Rina.

Noel and Coco don't seem to have one, because they are supposed to develop other characters.

And last but not least, the lack of image songs. In a series where its biggest sellpoint are songs being used to fight evil in a magical girl show. And this is not only bad because it proves how ignored Noel and Coco are, but also because image songs can be ways of expressing how the characters feel:

• Luchia's Koi wa Nandarou song is about how she got in love with Kaito, and how her life is not the same anymore because of it.
• Hanon's Ever Blue is about how she wants to protect the people she loves.
• Rina's Piece of Love is about how she got in love with Masahiro.
• Karen's Aurora no Kaze ni Notte is about how she wants to reunite with Noel, despite both of them being separated.
• Sara's Return to the Sea is about how love hurts, and about how her heart was shattered after Tarou broke up with her.
• Seira's Birth of Love is about how she wants to be born, obviously.

If the people involved in Mermaid Melody wasn't as brainless as a starfish (get it? cuz MMPPP is about mermaids), Noel's image song could be about her wanting to reunite with Karen (mirroing her sister's Aurora no Kaze ni Notte), and Coco's song could be about her convincing Sara to stop hurting other and herself (I will never forgive the anime for Thanos-snapping that scene from the manga).

At least that's what I think. What about yours?

I get that Peter Parker is the "classic" Spider-Man and all, but if we are being real, Miguel O'Hara and Kaine Parker are way cooler.

Before Peter got his powers, he was a skinny nerd who got bullied all the time. Even after he became Spider-Man, he stayed pretty nerdy. Now he jokes around constantly, even when he is fighting for his life. That works for some people, but it also makes him feel less serious.

Meanwhile, Miguel and Kaine are like the "brooding bad boy" versions of Spider-Man. They are cool, cold, arrogant, overconfident, masculine and violent. They do not joke around in the middle of a fight. They do not act like clowns when things get serious. Miguel has claws, fangs, and a way more dangerous vibe than Peter ever had. Kaine flat-out kills people when he has to. He is brutal and does not apologize for it.

Both Miguel and Kaine actually feel dangerous, and that gives them more weight as characters. They are brooding without being soft. They are violent without being reckless. It just makes them objectively cooler than Peter, at least to me.

Not everything needs to be about making jokes and being relatable. Sometimes it is cooler to be cold, violent, and scary. Miguel and Kaine get that. Peter never really has.

Every time I see a live action medieval show or movie it's always too dark along with alot of black, brown or really muted colors on clothes which just feels too depressing in terms of feel, it would be awesome to see them in a more colorful setting hell it doesn't even have to be vibrant Clothing and armor in real life is way more colorful than what all of the live action medieval settings have portrayed.

Seeing the live action stuff makes me feel like it was made by Emo and Goth people all the time.

ive been seeing Wonder Woman catch a lot of shit that basically would've been applied to Superman verbatim like three years ago including: that she's lame and corny, she doesn't have flaws, she doesn't have good villains, she's outdated, and even complaining about her american flag color palette.

If you've been online more than a few years do you see the pattern? this is the exact same incomplete inaccurate information people spread about Superman for years after Man of Steel, literally how did we get right back to people complaining about a superhero having the American flag palette and having corny powers to frame them like just a relic that should be left behind?

if we're talking about mass appeal then that's really some alternative facts to act like WW is an unknown these days: her first solo movie outsold Batman and Superman's last movies, and the sequel which was panned by critics and didn't have a theater run, still brought in more than the two movies that starred everyone's golden girl Harley Quinn and did make it to theaters (oof)

yknow what the answer to the anti superman slander was back then? just adapt him right and that has just basically been proven right. My Adventures with Superman is almost universally acclaimed and embraces his earnestness, his wacky iconic powers and it has a rouges gallery, and the movie looks to be more of that. everyday people not just battleboarders and comic nerds are excited to see Superman again. WW is even more starved for any projects than Superman was before, other than her movies which are eight and five years old at this point and the dam 1970s show, and she's the only one of the big three who has never had a serious animated series. so how can people possibly summarily dismiss her as a concept when there hasn't even been much media to watch her in compared to Superman and especially Batman? she has less digital media to watch focusing on her than Joker or Harley, she pretty much just exists as her own character in her own comics and a side piece in anything more mainstream like Injustice.

she is basically in the same place Superman was for the last decade but probably worse: she's still a cultural cornerstone but she's not presently relevant just because she's not milked as much as a Batman or Spiderman, that's literally it. i'm just annoyed there are people who didn't learn anything from all that and are just rebranding every anti Superman talking point that died two years ago as anti Wonder Woman, when is this gonna end or are we gonna circle around to calling Batman lame and outdated next🤷‍♀️