Gotham S02E19 Review: To Create Azrael

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 19: Azrael

Holy shit, this episode is insane, and I love it for all the wrong reasons. If Azrael was not so much fun, I might have gone on a rant for disrupting the more cohesive storylines of the Wayne Enterprises thing, or whatever, but man. Hugo Strange and Gallavan Azrael's moment at the beginning, where Strange basically takes a risk and tries to implant a 'story' into Azrael's head is pretty insane, but it works! And Azrael basically thinks he's imported from some feudal era and with such utterly insane medieval lines it's definitely a giant hoot just watching it all go down.

Not Red X.

Azrael gets handed a sword, gets fed stories which the original Theo Gallavan knew from the book of St. Dumas, and goes off to murder Gordon. It's a bit wacky and I'm confused why Hugo Strange doesn't use Mr. Freeze again... but hey, I guess he wants to try out his new toy. And Azrael is just crazy awesome. He's dressed up in this caped suit of armour that brushes off all bullets, and that scene where he just scrambles up the side of the building, and later assaults the police department in a dark parallel to Batman's tactics when ambushing criminals. Except, y'know, Azrael kills. It's a very tense scene as Azrael murders like a half-dozen policemen, then charges Barnes up on the rooftop. And such a madman like Azrael simply cannot be bargained with... though his face when his sword of ultra-awesome destiny snaps in the middle of the battle... oh, it's a riot. As Peabody mentions earlier: "Generations? That sword was forged yesterday."

Though literally everyone from Oswald to Tabitha saw that Azrael is (was) Theo Gallavan right after Gordon throws him off the roof in front of a live news report, so it's bound to be an interesting next episode. Barnes gets stabbed by the sword, and we all know it's a matter of time before he bites the bucket, and being killed by a zombie superhuman is no a shameful way to go out.

What an utterly crazy episode, though! Hugo Strange brings a man back from the dead, convinces the dead man that he's his father and that he's the incarnation of the holy angelic knight Azrael, and sends him off in a suit of armour and a sword to murder a policeman investigating his shady dealings. It's utterly insane and hilarious, but damn if it isn't entertaining.

The rest of the episode wasn't half-bad either, with Nygma finally embracing Riddlerness and starts trying to throw his weight around. He tries to sweet-talk Hugo Strange to letting him help out with his Gordon problem, and later manages to get the help of other inmates like the kleptomaniac and the cannibal to acquire certain objects to help him investigate... which ends up coming to fruition as he finds the secret elevator to the basement of horrors. It's a bit odd that he's posturing about knowing how to deal with all these crazy people in front of the actual doctor, but I think Hugo Strange just finds Nygma's little struggle amusing.

That bit with little Bruce seeing a caped figure clamber up and escaping from a superior number of men probably inspired the little future Batman. And his frustrations about how the law and the police regulations aren't getting things done... yeah, granted, if this wasn't Bruce Wayne, he might be delving into Punisher-level territory. And I think I just give the little kid a lot of leeway simply for being Batman. And Gordon finally confronting Bruce that killing people in cold blood just isn't the right play.

Oh and there's a Mad Hatter reference around halfway through the episode as Hugo Strange goes off to create more colourful personalities.

Overall, an absolutely insane episode. I must watch more! I shall have more of this insane version of Azrael. Yeah, all you people who told me to continue watching Gotham... this bit of comic-book insanity was awesome and worth it. It doesn't particularly make a lot of sense, no, but hey, if I wanted a normal cop show I wouldn't be watching Gotham. Scenes where Gordon broods and whatnot are very boring, and this? This was entertaining as all hell, and it doesn't even have to be actually bad to do it. Time for this show to embrace lunacy and I can't be happier for it.

One Piece 834 Review: Calling Out Caesar's Bullshit

One Piece, Chapter 834: My Dream

We cut away from the Sanji family drama to the overreaching Big Mom stuff. We did get a bit with Sanji kind of regretting letting his guard down and getting those bomb wristlets latched onto his hands... yeah, poor dude. 

We get a bit of Brook and Pedro going through the streets, listening to the propaganda about Jinbe, who apparently chickened out of his deal and begged Big Mom to spare him? Brook (and we, the readers) doubt Jinbe would do something like that, so either he was forced to do something like that or this is just some One Piece-styled ham-fisted propaganda and character assassination. But they come across Pudding, still trapped with Big Mom's people and told to choose clothes and whatever, being supervised by Baron Tamago.

Who, for someone who looks like Dr. Eggman's cousin, has a very creepy face. Brook and Pedro discover that, yeah, the good Baron konws everything about what the Straw Hats have been doing, and that Team Luffy is trapped in the seductive forest. There's a bit of a moment where the Baron ponders what to do with his old partner Pekoms...

Who is being held at gunpoint by Capone Bege. Bege is married to Charlotte Chiffon, and they have... a rather ugly son that's basically Bege's face pasted onto a baby. No idea why they corner Pekoms and shoot him and drop him into shark-infested waters... Pekoms told Bege not to underestimate Big Mom, so they're presumably doing something behind Big Mom's back, but what, exactly? Kind of curious. 

We get a short scene at the end at the seductive woods or whatever with Luffy finding multiple copies of Nami, Chopper, Sanji and Carrot, none of which I'm sure is the real thing. Don't care, really, about this bit.

The bulk of the chapter focuses on Caesar Clown meeting Big Mom, and being scared shitless. Big Mom reveals her big desire... for a drug to gigantify her family so they can eat at the same table. Honestly, if Big Mom wasn't so murderously psychotic it would be heartwarming. It also explains the giant kids in Punk Hazard, which doesn't make sense considering Caesar Clown's main plan back then was to create artificial devil fruits and gas weapons. Good planning there, and holy shit, Punk Hazard was like two, three years ago!

Caesar attempts to blame Luffy and go 'my research is all gone, I can't do anything please forgive me', which is total horseshit because he couldn't do the gigantification on anything but children, and not without side effects... but Big Mom, in a bit of a gesture of fair kindness on her part (as far as Big Mom can be kind) gives Caesar a fully functional lab and instructions to try and replicate the drug. Oh Caesar, you slimy shit, of course Big Mom has resources to creating a lab. 

Also we get references to Caesar basically hiring hookers from a Girl's Ship. They snuck that in pretty hilariously, I think.

So Caesar Clown is now at the mercies of Charlotte Perospero, the Minister of Candy and eater of the Lick-Lick Fruit... who is a creepy dude. Sanji left Caesar's heart at the hands of the Big Mom Pirates, and this ends up in Perospero's hands, so, um, yeah, Caesar's in trouble. Not sure where we're going with Caesar Clown, to be honest, and I'm surprised that he's lasted this long in the series... so much that some people were actually considering the gigantic douchebag for Next Straw Hat(tm). But nah. I don't think so. Curious where we're going anyway with Caesar, though.

Gotham S02E18 Review: The Batcomputer's Secrets

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 18: Pinewood

Oh, this episode is pretty neat! It's very focused into its plot, just like last episode was focused with the Nygma plot. I honestly never cared all that much for the Wayne killer plot, and thought it would be over for the moment after Matches Malone's death. But, nah, Bruce wants to go all the way up and find out who ordered the hit, and the investigation into this mysterious Pinewood facility with the help of Alfred and the now-civilian Gordon is pretty well-done, tying in all the myriad plot points the show has quite nicely.

Their little crusade has them encounter a lady with a hawk's talon as an arm, one Karen Jennings (who isn't based on any of Batman's many colourful characters, surprisingly), who tells them all about Pinewood. She doesn't give us much, but Team Bruce are at least on the same page as the viewers here, knowing that Wayne Enterprises is dealing with some insane human experimentation. While Karen doesn't survive the outing thanks to Mr. Freeze coming in and literally shattering her, at the end of the episode Lucius Fox manages to piece together that the Philosopher is actually Hugo Strange. So now, the problem, is how to take down Hugo Strange.

Bruce also finally puts to rest a point of conflict that's been bothering his insufferable ass throughout the series. Does Thomas Wayne know about all the atrocities that Wayne Enterprises did? Turns out, he did not, and he tried to stop people like Strange from abusing his company. I did like that bit at the end where Karen reveals that Thomas Wayne cared for her and only saw a scared little girl instead of how everyone else viewed her as a monster.

Bruce's moment of horror and reflection in the manor after Karen's death is also pretty sobering. Throughout this all Bruce has been quite insufferable and focused on himself, only caring about finding out information about who killed his parents. It's like that scene where he just blurts out his identity to Cupcake and got Alfred beaten up all to shit. Here he has to reflect on the fact that, hey, him self-smugly demanding answers from Karen Jennings, as important as those answers might be, has indirectly led to her death. And, well, probably actually be more sensible in his little crusade from now on instead of just being an insufferable kid. He only gets away with it, because, y'know, he's the future Batman.

Oh, there's a bit with Barbara in the beginning, where Gordon is looking for the Lady (an interesting villain broker who showed up earlier this season), and ends up apparently betraying Gordon to the Lady and is all psychotic and whatnot... but turns out it's just a ruse to fool the Lady and get the Philosopher's name. I bet Barbara will continue to be crazy, and at least Gordon knows that too, staying the hell away from the lady as much as he can. Barbara's insanity is a bit more subdued,  but her hamminess is still fun. Though honestly I'm a bit annoyed that her motivation is, once more, to get Gordon to love her again. I guess that's insanity for you. At least they didn't go through the same thing that they did with Oswald, though. Barbara is always crazy throughout this episode, working through what's going on in her own twisted mind, but she's simply moved on her focus from killing Gordon to making Gordon love her again.

Oh, meanwhile, in Arkham, Hugo Strange and Ms Peabody (who I really like having around as Hugo's voice of sanity, even if I never commented on her before) finally reanimates a test subject... who proceeds to massacre a chunk of the Arkham staff. It's Theo Galavan, all insane... and he apparently thinks himself to be Azrael. Ah, finally. You can't have the Order of St. Dumas and not introduce the most iconic part of that bit of DC lore. If Galavan turns out to be Azrael, it's nothing like what the character should be, but hey, it's something. So long as he doesn't do what he did before... Gallavan is very effective as a villain you hate, but he's not the type of charismatic villain like Oswald, Nygma, Strange or Falcone who you wouldn't mind returning again.

Not sure what Strange's big plan is other than to do things for the science, but I don't honestly care. Hugo Strange is awesomely hilarious enough on his own, and while his little penchant on releasing inmates like Oswald and Barbara just to see what the fuck will happen is questionable, the fact that Ms Peabody questions it in-show means that it's probably a strange (heh) character quirk of his which may be relevant to his eventual downfall.

Overall, a nicely done episode. It's not particularly great, but it was fun enough and decent enough to watch. 

Anime Review: One Piece - Heart of Gold

One Piece - Heart of Gold

One Piece's newest movie, Film: Gold,  has been advertised like crazy for the past... oh... twelve or so chapters. I'm not yet able to watch the movie proper yet, but someone gave me the link for the anime prequel tie-in thing, which was apparently made with movie-level animation? I dunno. I've only watched two other One Piece movies, the insertable-into-canon Strong World and the ambiguously-insertable-into-canon Film Z. Both were fun flicks, with Film Z offering some really great insights at the post-timeskip world that we haven't exactly seen in the manga. But let's talk about Heart of Gold.

It takes place in-between the Dressrosa and Zou arcs, which... honestly is a tight fit, considering the leap from Dressrosa to Zou is only like a week or two in-universe. But hey, whatever.

Heart of Gold honestly plays out like a very generic filler chapter or episode of manga, the type that Naruto or One Piece likes to churn out while the manga catches up to the anime. It's got a bunch of villains, a wacky supporting character of the week, a vague storyline that tries to be unique, and a sappy moral lesson at the end. In this case, we've got these 200-year-old immortals (well, stalled-aging) father and daughter, Olga and Acier, who's part of a missing civilization, Alchemi, and have access to a super-duper-awesome treasure, Pure Gold. Which is a gold that can grant immortality.

And it starts of semi-promising, with a member of the CP0 transporting the mysterious bratty little girl Olga, before the villains of the week, led by Mad Treasure and his (actually pretty damn cool) Chain Chain Fruit. But it kinda goes downhill after that, because everything that happens ends up being more or less generic. Olga befriends the Straw Hats, the villains catch up, they end up going into the wacky locale of the stomach of a gigantic anglerfish.

Mad Treasure captures the weaker Straw Hats (and apparently forces Nami and Robin into fetish belly dancer outfits) and enslaves them with slave collar chains, and the paranoid, self-serving Olga ends up going with Mad Treasure, but Luffy's gesture touches her so she ends up helping the Straw Hats in the end. Luffy, Zoro and Sanji engage the main commanders of the bad guys, there's a very generic "NAKAMAAAAA" speech that sounds like it came out of Fairy Tail... and... yeah. I'm not overly impressed with this one as a story. 

As a tie-in it doesn't even really do it well, because as I got it all the movie ends up doing is to introduce the giant cat dude that's a subordinate of the main villain of the movie, and to give the Straw Hats the vivre card to go to the casino island. 

I dunno. The fights were pretty as all hell, though, and two of the villains, Mad Treasure and Psycho P, are hamming it up like there's no tomorrow, so they're entertaining to watch. Their powers are pretty cool -- fighting with chains is always cool, and Psycho P's camouflage fruit actually is the kind of bizarre shit you'd expect from One Piece. Plus he raps in Japa-English which is awesome. Bomb Arrow Lady is... I dunno, did she even get a line? And the action scenes with the monster trio fighting the three main villains are gorgeous as all get-out, though Zoro and Sanji basically utterly one-shots their enemies. Zoro just doing his little speech about Buddhism values is awesome, and Sanji's utterly angry rant at having another pervert Devil Fruit taken away from him is hilarious. Chopper gets a short sequence of fighting in his Arm Point (is this an error? I dunno. I like the Arm Point) against some random dinosaur.

But other than that? Honestly I have no idea how this thing lasted one hour and forty minutes, because it certainly didn't have that much content to justify being stretched out that long. The story between Olga and Acier is stretched out for the sake of the mystery, Mad Treasure's connection with Nami ends up being one-note, and the World Government doesn't get to come to play. It is pretty, though, and I just rewatched Luffy fighting Mad Treasure one more time because it's nice to watch.

Hopefully the movie has a less blatantly-filler plot.

One Piece 833 Review: Sanji's Shitty Family

One Piece, Chapter 833: Vinsmoke Judge

This thing didn't upload yesterday (grumble grumble).

Anyway, we learn more about Sanji's family, and they're all jackasses. Yonji did get hit so hard by Sanji off-screen that he needed a hydraulic press to get his face back to normal.

Sanji and Judge fight it out outside the mansion, and Sanji keeps insisting that Judge isn't his father, 

and that he refuses to acknowledge the Vinsmoke family in any way. We get a brief flashback of Sanji being bullied by Yonji and... well, "Ichiji" and "Niiji", I assume. For the lowly crime of cooking food for peasants. I'd call this a bit of a continuity error -- didn't Sanji's love for cooking only stem after meeting Zeff? But whatever. Sanji's family is horrible, and Judge literally just calls him a worthless piece of shit for being unable to defend himself, and seeing no worth in raising him. Reiju just laughs.

Man, what a bunch of twats. No wonder Sanji so adamantly refuses to acknowledge them. Y'know, in addition to the whole 'family of assassins' thing.

In the present, Judge is pissed when Sanji talks all about the whole 'my hands exist for cooking' thing, and Judge uses some weird air rockets on his boots to fly to the sky, and apparently his epithet is 'the Garuda'. Sanji gives some resistance with his Diable Jambe, but Judge ends up getting a bit of the upper hand -- nothing too devastating as far as 'worf' effects go, but he did rough Sanji up a bit. He uses lightning kicks powered by technology, apparently. Sanji isn't too badly hurt, but Judge uses a bunch of human walls to block Sanji's path, before impaling one and launching an electrical blast.

Judge then drops all pretense at even becoming a semi-decent human being and starts calling Sanji worthless again, saying that he refuses to have his sons marry Big Mom's family... except for this dud. And, well, Reiju puts on two of the exploding bomb-bracelets that we saw the Tenryubito use on slaves so long ago on Sanji's hands, with the threat of blowing up his hands should he rebel.

Man, Sanji's family is a bunch of assholes.

Pokemon Top Tens: Best and Worst of Generation I

Yeah, I told you guys I'd be doing this, and with Pokemon Go and the hype surrounding it features only the original 151, there's no better time. It's not going to be a series that happens often, but I love doing top tens, and I love Pokemon -- I've been with the franchise ever since I picked up Pokemon Blue in 1997, and while I had some off periods where I didn't play Pokemon at all (Generation II, and Generations IV-V) I went back and played all the games in all the generations. I love it. It's like an old friend that's always waiting for you to come back. And one of the primary reasons? The Pokemon themselves.

I'm going back to the original 151. Nostalgia blinds us all, but you can't deny that there are some really good designs that capitalize on the simplicity that the Game Boy engine affords, and how much personality that even the crappy sprites from Pokemon Red/Green/Blue showed so much personality even before the anime and manga came along and made them awesome.

Of course, there are some that aren't... all that... awesome. I covered some of them in my Top Ten least favourite Pokemon article, but, hey, here we go, I guess. Keep in mind, Top Ten Favourite lists are subjective, and some of these include ones that I have personal attachment to for personal reasons. So yeah.

Here's the top ten favourites!

With the old-school Red/Blue sprites, just to get the nostalgia factor ramped up. Y'all know how the original 151 look and if you don't just google them. But hey, old-school sprites!

#10: Victreebel
I'm a geek, if my blog hasn't told you enough about me already. But Victreebel (who I always misspell as Victreebell as a kid, which makes sense) has always appealed to me. See, the idea of plants that eat animals is just so weird and mind-boggling as a kid. What kind of abomination of nature does that? Victreebel is based on the pitcher plant, and what Nintendo loves to do is to take obscure yet cool creatures from real life and adapt them into Pokemon. Vileplume is based on the Rafflesia, Paras is based on a parasitic mind-control fungus, stuff like that. Victreebel is based on the carnivorous pitcher plant, and when I first saw Victreebel in the Pokemon Adventures comic -- which I read a ton of as a kid -- having this super creepy colony in the Safari Zone, and just the sheer weirdness and quirkiness of its design, I kind of fell in love. Victreebel also got a lot of showing in the Anime, being one of James' signature Pokemon throughout the length of the Kanto and Johto seasons, always showing up to chomp down on its trainer and letting out the most hilarious EEEEEEE screech ever whenever he shows up.

I love Victreebel, though! I like weird real-life animals and plants, and Victreebel is elegant in its simplicity. All they did was give a pitcher plants eyes, fangs, and a couple of leaves. I dunno. I just loved Victreebel. Any Victreebel I own inevitably never really sees that much fight because in Kanto games I always use Bulbasaur as my starter, but I often have one.

#9: Poliwhirl/Poliwrath
Red from Pokemon Adventures started off with a Poliwhirl, who is honestly a pretty cute design. I can never see how this weird circular thing with eyes, limbs and gloves is based on a frog, but he's cool! I admit my love for Poliwhirl is 100% based on Red's Poliwhirl from the manga, but I have raised a fair amount of Poliwraths throughout my playthroughs of the Kanto and Johto games. It's a bit annoying that the two Pokemon look practically identical, especially in earlier games -- really, the only way to tell is by Poliwrath's angry eyes and his big muscles -- but what're you going to do. Poliwrath's an awesome dude once you get to that stage, with an insane amount of coverage. Water and Fighting is a very cool type combination and I'm a bit miffled that Poliwrath's Gen-VI moveset doesn't have much more Fighting type moves, but my Poliwraths (nearly all of them are called some variation of 'Fuhrer King Bradley') have always been awesome bros that tank hits and take down their opponents. Shame the dude fall short compared to practically almost everything else, but favourites doesn't have to be on the uber tier.

#8: Pikachu/Raichu
Pikachu gets a lot of unfair hatred for being the overexposed mascot all throughout the franchise's 20 years, and spawning a crapton of clones (of which I would say that only Togedemaru, Pichu, Plusle and Minun are actually crap) but I loved the dude! He's mellowed out a lot over the years in the anime and comics, but back in the earliest episodes and mangas Pikachu has always been portrayed as a total dick who refuses to cooperate, and I loved him for that. He's not the most powerful Electric-type in the game, but you get him in the first big area, Viridian Forest, as a supremely rare encounter if you're playing Pokemon Red or Blue, and as the starter in Pokemon Yellow. My Pikachu in Yellow single-handedly took down Brock's Onix with a Double Team/Quick Attack death by a thousand cuts strategy. Yeah, you can get Butterfrees and Mankeys to take down Brock, but I ain't going to do that. No, little me took down Brock with nothing but a Pikachu. I guess a lot of the hate that goes to him is how insanely powerful he seems to be in the anime, taking down Ground-types and legendaries, but really that's the fault of the anime's inconsistent writing with game logic more than any fault of Pikachu's, and I love the little electric bugger for what he is -- a cool rare encounter of a type you don't get options to catch until later in the game. And, yeah, he's a mascot, and the perfect one too. Cool enough for boys, but cute enough for girls. Very few Pokemon can claim to have both, except maybe the starters.


But man, I will always evolve all my Pikachus into Raichus as soon as I can. Raichu's awesome! He's an orange fat jerboa, he's got the most metal-looking whip-tail ending in a lightning bolt, he just looks so much more powerful and durable than PIkachu, and I'm really sad that Raichus don't get the time of the day in the anime thanks to the spotlight on Pikachu. I've got a couple of Raichus that put in the biggest work and I've always imagined my Raichus to move really quickly on the battlefield, lashing out with lightning-empowered whip-tails.

#7: Gyarados
Gyarados is awesome! I'm just sad he's Water/Flying instead of Water/Dragon, but I guess that would be overpowered. See, Gyarados evolves from Magikarp, which is this stupid-looking weakling of a fish you can fish up literally in every body of water who can't do jack shit but Splash -- an attack that literally does nothing. And Magikarp looks derpy as all hell, with modern sprites even highlighting its uselessness by having it flop around like a dead fish -- an indignity that only Magikarp has among every aquatic Pokemon in the game.

But level him up enough -- a surprisingly low threshold of 20 -- and you get this monstrous sea serpent. Gyarados' design is surprisingly intricate for a Generation I Pokemon, with a horrifyingly angry face that encapsulates the rage and ferocity that a Gyarados is wont to have. He's the Atrocious Pokemon, for crying out loud! He's a giant, angry sea serpent, and he truly looks like he can fuck your day up. Gyarados looks impressive, and when you finally get your Magikarp to really go through all this hardwork and finally turn into this leviathan of a beast, man, he's awesome. Granted Gyarados looks a lot more awesome than it actually is -- after evolution Gyarados needs more training to get actually good moves beyond Bite and Dragon Rage, and the slightest electrical shock will turn Gyarados into sea serpent sushi, but damn if he isn't an awesome monster. Properly trained, he can absolutely wreck anything without an Electric move in its path.

Gyarados is generally my go-to water Pokemon in nearly every game I play where I don't pick the water starter, simply because of how awesome he is, and how early you can get him in the game. What a majestic sea serpent.

#6: Articuno
Articuno's generation one sprite looks like an angry chicken, but his appearances in later games and in the anime portray him as this absolutely majestic bird with an icy crown and a great, flowing tail. He's easily my favourite among the three Legendary Birds of Kanto, looking the best (though Zapdos and Moltres are cool designs too, no hating on them) and just looking majestic and regal, exuding the power that a Legendary Pokemon really should exude. And Articuno is the absolute hardest among the three Legendary birds to get. Moltres is literally sitting randomly in Victory Road, while Zapdos' location in the Power Plant is straightforward. Articuno requiers some skill and solving of the Strength/Surf puzzles of Seafoam Islands, easily the most intricate areas of the original Red/Blue game. And is it worth it, to capture this harbinger of winters? Absolutely. These days the Legendary Birds of Kanto don't get a lot of respect for their lackluster movepool and the fact that the game is overloaded with overpowered legnedaries, but these three birds will always have a special place in my heart, and among those three, chief among them will always be Articuno.

And besides, phoenixes and thunderbirds are in practically every RPG ever. Snow birds of majesty? Less common and thus Articuno looks a lot more awesome because of that. There's just a sense of simplicity in Articuno's simple majesty.

Also included is Pokemon Yellow's sprite for Articuno, which has 100% less chicken and 100% more majesty.

#5: Aerodactyl
I've already loved Aerodactyl in 1996 when I first played Pokemon. I loved dinosaurs as a kid -- who doesn't? My favourite dinosaur (pterosaur, dinosaur, shut up) is the pteranodon. And Aerodactyl is a bona fide pteranodon dinosaur, except instead of a beak he's got a gigantic T-Rex head, and a devil tail, and you have to revive him from a fossil! Aerodactyl is an awesome design, I loved him from both the anime and the manga, and, jeez, he's a freaking horrifying-looking dinosaur! It's a shame you don't get Aerodactyl in the original Red/Blue game until Cinnabar Island, and you get a level 15 one... when you probably already have Pidgeots and Fearows as your resident flier. But I love Aerodactyl anyway... a love that was amplified a thousandfold in Generation VI, where Aerodactyl is obtainable as early as the second gym, and he obtained a mega evolution in that game to boot. Now Mega Aerodactyl isn't the most competitive thing, really, and not the best designed one out there, but I absolutely fell in love with Aerodactyl all over again, with my Aerodactyl in Pokemon Y, Amber, possibly seeing more battles than my starter.

And, y'know, Aerodactyl is a freaking murder-dinosaur. Even twenty years down the line Aerodactyl still remains one of my favourite Pokemon, and it's telling that even after several more dinosaur pokemon down the line I still think Aerodactyl is still the coolest among them How can you not love him?

#4: Haunter
Yeah, Haunter isn't a final evolutionary stage like a majority of the Pokemon here, but I spent half of Pokemon Blue with a Haunter instead of a Gengar. I don't have a link cable as a kid. Shut up. But man, Haunter's so much cooler than Gengar! Not that Gengar is a bad design in any means, but Haunter's just so much cooler! From that simple ghostly design, to those disembodied claws, to those horrifying eyes, to that jagged maw full of teeth, Haunter is just so utterly awesome. And despite all that horrifyngness of being a ghost made up of poisonous gas, Haunters are playful enough to pal around, lick your buddies and generally have a good time. Again, I like Gengar as much as the next Pokemon fan, but Haunter's just such a cool, creepy design. There's honestly not much to it, really, but man, I loved Haunter. He was a bomb in several other later-series games I had a Haunter in, too, just wrecking house by shooting Sludge Bombs and Shadow Balls everywhere, and fucking the enemy with Hypnoses and Licks. Nintendo has always been consistently awesome with designing creepy but not over-the-top-horrifying designs for Ghost-type Pokemon, and honestly, considering their first three: Gastly, Haunter and Gengar, you can see that they have been absolutely consistent with it.

#3: Butterfree
What is this? A weak-ass starter bug beating Articuno, Gyarados and Aerodactyl in my top ten list? Well, yeah. As a kid I have had a morbid love-hate relationships with bugs. I really, really am fascinated by them and their utterly bizarre biology, yet put me within two meters of a spider or a wasp and I will scream bloody murder. But I love bugs, still, and bug-type Pokemon are some of my favourites in the game, which is strange considering that they're the weakest. Pokemon's whole original concept was based on bug catching, and it's telling by the amount of Bug-types in the first games. And they're all cool bugs, too! Beedrill, Venomoth, Scyther, Pinsir, Parasect... but my favourite has always been the humble Butterfree. Yes, Scyther and Pinsir are the coolest motherfuckers around, and Beedrill's giant stingers of doom has given me an unhealthy phobias of bees of any kind, but Butterfree is a bro. I'm not sure why I liked Butterfree so much, because Ash's Butterfree in the Anime didn't last very long before being released. But I loved mine. Even in Pokemon Blue where I go with the true-and-tried six year old strategy of 'level up my starter and body everyone in my way', my Butterfree stayed with me throughout most of my journey. Yeah, other people bring Pidgeots with them to the Elite Four from the starter routes (which I admittedly have done a couple of times), but I do it with a Butterfree.

See, evolution is a truly awesome moment in Pokemon, and while your starters are liable to evolve after the first gym, Nintendo has always consistently placed low-level Bug-types in the early routes that evolve twice in quick succession, sort of as a little trial run for far more awesome evolutions down the line. And it makes sense! The caterpillar transforms into a sedentary cocoon and then into its mature butterfly/bee form. But while Beedrill is cool and all, and I've had Beedrills in playthroughs, I have utterly wrecked house with my Butterfree in Blue, Yellow, Crystal, Fire Red, Heart Gold and Y. Basically, any game where I can catch a Caterpie at an early route, I generally will turn it into a Butterfree and have it kick ass. Anyone can sweep the Elite Four with a team filled with Garchomps and Lucarios, but I have gone through several Elite Fours with a humble Butterfree kicking ass with the best of them. Buttefree needs TMs to truly earn his keep -- but man, he can Psychic, he can Giga Drain, he can Sleep Powder... and yeah, he's not competitive by any means, but fuck competitive. The most memorable memories while playing a Pokemon is the utter awesomeness that your team members pull through, and there is a special delight in having this badass monster of a butterfly just wreck house even though it's universally agreed to be one of the weaker Pokemon.

And it's a cool-looking design, too! It's got a creepy bug feel to him without looking too cute the way that other butterfly Pokemon (Beautifly, Vivillon) do, but without looking too monstrous (Volcarona, Venomoth). Butterfree's just a total bro, really.

#2: Mewtwo
There is absolutely no way Mewtwo is not making this list. Who is Mewtwo, you say? How the hell did you get through that wall of text talking about Pokemon and not know about Mewtwo? Jeez.

But honestly. Mewtwo! Advertised as the most powerful Pokemon in existence when his first movie came out, and twenty years after the fact, Mewtwo is still kicking ass with the strongest of them. Mewtwo is the final Pokemon in the original 150 Pokedex (Mew was a 'secret') and boy, he does look cool. I know nothing of Frieza or whatever, but even then he just looks awesome, this weird humanoid-cat monster that looks organic and unnatural at the same time, but not without being overdesigned like a lot of later-generation Pokemon. He's got a weird tube on his neck, a very awesome-looking face, weird ball-tipped-fingers that just scream 'weapon', and, well, Mewtwo's story is part of Red and Blue's overreaching plot. It's never spelled out in the games itself, because the 'main' plot is just your journey to bring down Team Rocket and become the champion, but context clues from Team Rocket facilities describe of them attempting to create the most powerful creature by cloning the mythical Mew, only to have it mutate and become, well, this insanely powerful psychic powerhouse.

Mewtwo has gotten awesome appearances in both the anime in the form of two great movies, and a very important main character in Pokemon Adventures, growing from a plot device and a monstrous juggernaut to a very awesome redemption-seeking character. And the first Pokemon movie really sold the unbeatable-ness of Mewtwo. Birthed from a lab that he promptly destroys upon birth, Mewtwo just looks unnatural, and began wiping the floor with literally every single one of the original 150's best -- Onix? Nidoking and Arcanine? Magneton? A herd of Tauros? Alakazam? Mewtwo literally one-shots them all to submission, and easily takes out anything out heroes send at him, including Ash's mighty Charizard. He goes through a crisis of questioning his moralities (which is beautifully different depending on whether it's the English or Japanese dub, both having great parts to them) all the while being untouchable.

His backstory is awesome, his movie is awesome, his comic appearances are awesome, and his design is awesome. He's easily the most powerful of them all, able to learn all the powerhouse moves from TM's, and being nigh-indestructible in battle. Even with the advent of so many overpowered legendaries powercreeping on the original generation, Mewtwo manages to stay on the upper echelons by sheer virtue of stats and movepool alone, before surpassing even Arceus, the god of Pokemon, with his two Mega Evolutions in Generation VI. Yeah, Mewtwo is the most powerful Pokemon, and he's got the best and most intricate story among all the legendaries. There ain't denying it.

Do we need honourable mentions? I guess so.

Beedrill! Pidgeotto! Sandslash! Koffing! Nidoking! Kadabra! Magneton! Muk! Cloyster! Kingler! Eevee and her evolutions! Scyther! Pinsir! Starmie! Zapdos! Dragonair!

#1: The Starters
A bit of a cop-out? A bit of a cop-out. But I realized that fitting all the starters into the Top Ten would have three out of ten be filled with starters, so I might as well as lump them all together and talk about them at once. If you're going to rank them properly, well, we'll have Blastoise probably below Mewtwo, and number two be Charizard and number one be Venusaur. But, hey, the starters are iconic. The first three Pokemon you get to choose from, you get to choose from three simple and sweet looking buddies that all look cool in their own way, easily embodying their type. You've got the grass-type Bulbasaur, a non-slimy frog with an onion. You've got Charmander, the kinda-dinosaurian lizard with a flame on its tail. You've got Squirtle, a cute tortoise with a squirrel tail. Tortoises are aquatic, right?

And honestly, I love all three lines that I can't make a Top Ten without them. My favourite is undoubtedly Bulbasaur's line -- Venusaur's a fat bastard, but he's my buddy for twenty years, my one and only Kanto starter. I'm not sure why I love him. I think I liked the gradual progression of Bulbasaur growing bigger and his flower slowly sprouting, whereas I was a bit confused why Charmander changes colour to red when turning into a Charmeleon, then back to orange as a Charizard, or why Squirtle sprouts fluffy ears and tail as a Wartortle, before having them disappear. But I love Bulbasaur. He's cute and tough at the same time, and I don't care that Venusaur doesn't look as imposing as Charizard or Blastoise. Venusaur's my bro since 1994, and any time I get to choose between the three Bulbasaur's going to be the pick.

That's not to say the other two are bad by any means, because they're awesome. I played through Blue with Squirtle until the second or third gym before accidentally restarting and going with Bulbasaur all the way, and Blastoise's awesome. He's a turtle with cannons! He looks like he's ready to fuck shit up, and Wartortle's a very cool-looking middle stage. I just don't have as much to say about the Squirtle line like the other two, but I like them.

Charizard gets a lot of flak for being superpopular like Pikachu, but fuck that, Charizard is awesome. Yeah, he's not a dragon until he mega-evolves, and he needs to go on a diet, but back then Charizard is the most awesome thing you could own. He's a freaking fire-breathing dragon with giant wings! He's a dinosaur dragon! And the anime had a field day showing just how utterly badass Charizard is, that really the only limit to Charizard's power is that the dude doesn't obey Ash. Charmeleon is cool as all hell, and I really liked the design of the three.

Really, their big loss is that they're just not Bulbasaur. I really love the Kanto starters. Yeah, part of it is nostalgia, but man, I don't love a set of three starters as much as I do the Kanto ones. They're my first love, the originals, the ones that started it all, the first friends you make in the Pokemon world.
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And here are my top five least favourites of the first generation. It's really hard to come up with this list. Some Pokemon like Goldeen or Farfetch'd or Chansey I simply don't like, but that's simply because they're boring, not because I hate them. And, no, I don't hate Zubat and Geodude simply because there's a lot of them in the wild, nor do I hate Voltorb for self-destructing. But there are a couple that I rather despise.

#5: Lickitung
Taking number five for our top five least favourites is Lickitung, the tongue Pokemon. What and why is this a thing? I've grown numb to Lickitung's existence over the twenty years that he exists, but he's a weird pink... thing... whose only gimmick is that he's got a tongue as long as his body. Is he supposed to be based on a lizard? A fat pink lizard? It looks derpy, and not in a way that the (very similar visually) Slowpoke line does. He just looks confused to be around, with his gross tongue just lolling about. Again, I'm honestly annoyed that a lot of cool Pokemon like Heracross got cut out of the original 151 and had to wait a generation to show up, but badly-designed things like Lickitung snuck in. He's just weird, boring and borderline disturbing with his super long tongue.

#4: Mr. Mime
Yeah, Mr. Mime is in this list. Is it a surprise? Now I never got the pedophile vibes from Mr. Mime, and I have nothing against mimes. But man, what a weird design! Human-shape Pokemons are always a bit weird, because you're capturing them and training them like animals, but I guess it's cool when you have cool-looking things like Machamp, Alakazam or Gardevoir, who look like they stepped out of a fantasy RPG anyway. And then there's Mr. Mime. He's... a fat mime-clown with horns. He's got a cool gimmick of making actual barriers, but that's it... I'm baffled why he exists. Generation IV gave him Mime Jr, a very adorable pre-evolution, and Generation VI made him a Fairy which still does not make sense to me, but Mr. Mime (who isn't always a 'Mr', even) is just weird and has never been relevant. He does get a couple of chapters as Sabrina's Pokemon in Pokemon Adventures, but that doesn't make him cool. You get him in the original games by trading a very rare and hard-to-catch Abra... who can grow up to be the badass powerhouse Alakazam. And you get this idiot, nicknamed 'Marcel', with sub-par stats and an inability to evolve... yeah.

#3: Hypno
Hey, let's make the dream-tapir Pokemon evolve into this weird, disgusting troll with a fur boa and a hypnotism gimmick! Hypno is a lot uglier than Drowzee, but ugliness isn't a sin, not really. I mean, yeah, you need a 'lesser' Psychic type to really sell Alakazam's awesomeness, and there's nothing wrong with being inferior either. But did they have to make Hypno into a child kidnapper with a very wrong feeling with that stupid hypnotism gimmick? Hypno's big contribution to the game lore is to be the creepy-fuck Pokemon that attacked a poor little lost girl in FireRed and LeafGreen, one of the very few instances in the games that a Pokemon is outright violent towards humans instead of being ordered by villains. Yeah, fuck off, sexual predator.

#2: Clefairy
I like Jigglypuff! Jigglypuff is cute. Clefairy? I dunno, not so much. The original sprite is cute enough, I suppose, but I've always disliked the official cartoon or control artworks. I've nothing against the pink cutesy Pokemon -- I prefer cool dragons and insects and shit, but I do admit that thre are a lot of cute pinkums. But Clefairy? She's a pain in the ass to capture, and she doesn't look that cute. I dunno. I just really can't articulate why I dislike Clefairy so much, but I don't like her. I've never trained a Clefairy at all, really, though at least unlike the other five Pokemon on this list Clefairy is somewhat integrated to the plot of the original games, being central to the lore behind Mt. Moon.

#1: Jynx
Yeah. Jynx is my least favourite Generation I Pokemon. Is that even a surprise? I've talked about Jynx at length in a previous article and why I hate her in my least favourite Pokemon article, but man, just check out that Generation I sprite. She even looks confused why she's in the game. What a disgusting thing.

Pokemon GO, Part 2: Stuff this game could do better

Pokemon Go hit the world like a gigantic storm, far eclipsing any popularity the franchise has ever achieved other than perhapsa the initial 90's Pokemania. And whether this simple app has been a good idea or not, or if it's healthy to eclipse the main games so much with this distraction... I don't know. But after having several weeks of Pokemon Go, here are some additional thoughts to my initial review. I still like the game and I still play it a lot, but damn if the game couldn't have done with some improvement.

• A better tutorial: Yeah, the very basics of catching Pokemon and Pokestops are told to you, and I hate games that hold your hand like you're some retarded kid, but I am absolutely baffled by so much of the things that go on in the game. Willow is a shitty professor, really. Absolutely nothing about the battle system is told to us, or how the little radar on the bottom right work, or how the gyms and teams work, nearly nothing about evolution is told to us, and generally the tutorial could've been smoother. Hell, even a little 'Help' FAQ would really help even things over so that I can actually play the damn game without consulting google.
• A better battle system: Not to say that I would want a copy-paste of the main series' turn-based fights, but if they had to do 'spam tapping and kill the enemy faster than they can kill you' Infinity Blade style combat, then implement a proper fighting system with tapping instead of this half-assed thing we got.
• Friends List: I have friends that play Pokemon Go. Trading might be out of the question for the moment, but a friends list, so I can know who's in Team Blue in the local area? Come on. 
• Pokespot distribution: In a sense, yeah, Pokespots distributed in malls and public places is one thing, but it really puts people in more rural areas to be in a disadvantage. I have no Pokespot in the block in my house and while I'm lucky enough to have a couple near where I work, a lot of people really have to travel a fair distance just to get Pokeballs. Speaking of which...
• More ways to get Pokeballs: After you first run out of Pokeballs, you really need to stay around a Pokespot for several hours, waiting for the thing to turn purple and then blue, before you can replenish your stock. And believe me, you run out of Pokeballs really quickly. Really wished some Pokemon dropped a pokeball or two as loot or something.
• More ways to encounter Pokemon: Yeah, part of the game's charm is in its simplicity, but the April Fools' Google trailer had them use the app as a fishing rod to fish in watery areas, and I feel that it would be a far better option to really integrate water areas instead of just having Magikarps and Goldeens pop up wherever.
• More ways to battle: I would love to battle and maybe get some XP with... I dunno. NPC trainers? Lesser NPC gyms? The gang war aspect is awesome, but my 500/600-CP Nidoqueens and Golbats can't even touch the level 1000's that's populating every local gym unless I get a couple of friends to raid them WoW-style. 
• Battery Consumption: Obvious, really. Some notification systems might kind of work. Maybe it works only near pokespots or something?
• Better Servers: Sorry, but the Pokemon Go servers are down. Yeah, fuck that shit.

Gotham S02E17 Review: Game of Thrones, Gotham Edition

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 17: Into the Woods

The episode basically follows Gordon around as he tries to find out who framed him, and it's wrapped up a bit too quickly in this episode... but on the other hand, having it drawn out over like half the season wouldn't work really well either, so yay. The confrontation when Gordon sought out Nygma's help in clearing out the tape... before figuring out that it's Nygma who did the deed, is pretty tense. And the little shoot-out between the two is well done, as is Gordon getting Selina to help out in leading Nygma straight to where he buried Kristen Kringle's body, before causing him to gloat and reveal his plans while Barnes and Bullock are hidden nearby with a small army. It's great stuff. 

Meanwhile, the whole journey is peppered with hilarious moments. Selina half-eating a cookie and looking at everybody going 'what?' when they suggested someone who would sell Gordon out. Bullock going all 'the people of Gotham can eat my socks!' and giving Barnes a figurative middle finger. Nygma's little breakdown as he confronts Gordon about insanity and how if he kills people it's okay, but it's not okay for others. Nygma gets arrested for it, but I do hope it struck a chord deep within Gordon. Yes, the comparison between killing Gallavan to stop him from terrorizing everyone as opposed to Nygma murdering Kringle in a fit of anger is hardly valid, but Nygma noting how Jim Gordon paints every murderer as crazy is a nice moment of observation.

I thought they went with it too quickly considering how pivotal Edward Nygma has been in the show, and how he's been built up into the Riddler for so long, but it's safe to say that we won't see the last of Riddler. It's a shame we won't see him being this crazy double-agent-working-for-himself thing within the GCPD, but he's still glorious nonetheless. Plus, considering how quickly it took for the Nygma and Gordon-in-jail business to get sorted out, we are shown the sobering realization that Gordon lost so much all because Nygma thought Gordon was investigating Kringle's murder. That's harsh, really.

The Bruce/Selina bit living in the streets ended up not really amounting to anything, with their big moment here only to help Gordon out from the streets, while Alfred convinces Bruce to stay in the Wayne Manor so as not to endanger Selina with their quest into the not-Batcomputer with Lucius Fox... and Selina gets pissed off at this perceived dismissal. It's a bit annoying since Bruce and Selina discovering the underbelly of Gotham is far more interesting than the silly not-Batcomputer plot, but since the show really seems to want to go all in with the Wayne plot, I suppose it's time.

Oh, and the Oswald subplot goes to a whole new level of Game of Thrones family feud insanity. To be fair, his stepfamily deserve to die for, y'know, not getting rid of that one glass bottle with like a quarter of the poisoned wine still inside. No, they put it in a cupboard! That's dumb, but at least this bizarre subplot is done and over with. Oswald apparently killed and cooked his step-siblings off-screen, and fed them to his stepmother before killing her. It's an utterly insane manner that... okay, cannibalism? That's just way out there. It's a lot of great hammy acting from Oswald, though!

Oh, and Barbara Kean shows up at Gordon's doorstep. Now how cured is he by Hugo Strange? Or did Strange let her loose with full knowledge that she's still a psychopath? Barbara is fun when she's in full crazy serial killer mode, so I will shrug as they lob this insane motherfucker back into the fold.

All in all, though, while we're seemingly moving the show to focus more on Hugo Strange and the Wayne plot, what with Nygma being moved to an ideal position to be involved with whatever Hugo Strange is doing, it's actually gotten quite interesting, if utterly batshit crazy. And I will take crazy and insane over dull and repetitive, any day.

One Piece 832 Review: The Judge

One Piece, Chapter 832: Germa Kingdom

Team Luffy wander around the forest of seduction or whatever it's called, running around in circles and bumping to the utterly chill 'give me apple juice' buried giant, while the trees, ground and all sorts of psychopathic monsters move around and cause them to be unable to get their bearings. They're attacked by a white rabbit, Randolph the Crane Rider, who Carrot identifies as not being a Mink because he can't use Electro. A Zoan? The real Luffy gets captured by unknown hands, while the fake Luffy eventually reveals himself to be... this creepy, tall hag with a scarred face, Charlotte Brulee, 7th daughter of the Charlotte Family.

Brulee chokes Nami and faces off against her, Chopper and Carrot, and, well, maybe we'll get our first serious Nami fight? Nami hasn't had a serious one-on-one fight since... since ever, really, with the last action she's seen taking out a couple or two of Hody Jones' lieutenants. Which don't really count. Chopper hasn't had much that he did post-timeskip either. I wouldn't mind Chopper and Nami teaming up to take down Brulee.

Meanwhile, we cut away to Germa 66, which is a nation that literally sails across the seas, and their giant snail ships can retract and latch on to this massive contraption that holds up their fort. We see Sanji, and Reiju's trying to get to goad Sanji back into rejoining the family -- a thing that Sanji finds abhorrent. Apparently Sanji easily beat up Yonji off-screen, too. We get to see a portrait of Sanji's father, who apparently caused a coup where he killed four of the North Blue kings. Reiju tries to appeal to Sanji's pervertedness by offering ten maids that will follow any of his royal-blooded command...

And, well, to play the bad cop to Reiju's good cop is big daddy himself, Vinsmoke Jaji. Which is pronounced like 'judge', plus the whole '-ji' part of the name. Judge (it's easier for my brain to type 'judge', so...) has a cool-looking design, though it kinda-sorta reminds me of Endeavour from Boku no Hero Academia a bit. His eyebrows are covered by his helmet! That makes him a lot less harder not to take seriously. Sanji and Judge are fully hostile, and they immediately want to beat each other up. Yeaah, I would definitely like to see that. 

Gotham S02E16 Review: Prison Life & Crazy Rich Folks

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 16: Prisoners

This episode is a bit of a focused episode, showing Jim Gordon's life in prison, how he was at his lowest point and ended up being reinvigorated to seek justice and whatnot. Meanwhile, Oswald continues to deal with his bizarre and surreal sub-plot with a weird gothic family with all the blatantly-obvious evil stepmother tropes.

It's a good episode, if one whose plot and developments could be seen from a mile away. It puts its focus solely on Jim Gordon for the majority of the episode, with short cutaways to Oswald's family drama and Bullock's attempts to help his buddy out. We don't see anything from Arkham (despite the Barbara cliffhanger last episode), we don't see Bruce, Selina or Alfred.

I think it addresses one of the biggest problems about Gotham in these late episodes... really, Jim Gordon himself. No beef with the actor, and I definitely loved the character in the comics, but him killing Theo Gallavan in cold blood instead of bringing Gallavan to trial or at the worst letting someone like Oswald or Bullock do it... has made his character relatively controversial. I mean, I would kill Theo Gallavan -- he was a very effectively-written villain in making us hate him -- but this is Jim Gordon, and he's supposed to be better than that. And as a result, knowing that our hero was actually hiding from the murder of Gallavan and blatantly lying to everyone's faces kind of makes it hard to sympathize with him. Yeah, he's in prison for the wrong murder, but, y'know, he did murder people in a way that's not accountable to the system.

Seeing Gordon getting bullied by prisoners, humbled by being in a prison and transferred to the 'World's End' wing, and having to deal with a warden that's exacting revenge on behalf of ex-commissioner Loeb (a nice little continuity nod there) aren't anything special. But having Bullock come in, and drop the utter bombshell to Gordon that Lee had a miscarriage? Man, you can't not feel bad for Gordon at that point.

(Thankfully, in real life, Lee's actress, who was pregnant was simply taking a maternity leave at that point of the show)

And he becomes a cynic and gets to see this random kid Puck who tries to save him from getting beaten up, and ends up dying of wounds inflicted by other prisoners for standing up for Gordon. Puck is... a pretty blatant plot device that came out of nowhere simply to get Gordon to fight against injustice once more, and I suppose he didn't annoy me quite as much as these characters tend to do... although having him tell Gordon that he's a hero like every second line out of his mouth seems to be a bit too blatant in telling us that Jim Gordon is awesome and you should love him. Which considering his morally ambiguous choices in the final episodes of the Gallavan arc, is kinda iffy for many people at the moment.

Getting Gordon out of Blackgate is just a manner of Bullock calling in all the stops -- a welcome cameo from Carmine Falcone, who set up a bunch of random nameless dudes to help fake Jim Gordon's death and subsequent escape. Puck dies, but no one cares about Puck.

Oh, let's talk about Oswald. I still find it absolutely bizarre that the show lobs him into this utterly baffling subplot of being stuck in this wacky story where he has turned into a submissive yes-man, and he meets his equally crazy biological father. Oh, and Oswald's stepmother and stepsiblings want to kill his father and get those tasty inheritance money. It came out of nowhere and is just utterly random, and really only the strength of Elijah and Oswald's actors really made me not skip these scenes entirely. They're good scenes, twistedly heartwarming like something out of a Tim Burton movie, but it's just weird seeing this in a Gotham episode. Ultimately, though, we don't linger on this for a long time as after mistaking Oswald as someone who will inherit all of Elijah Van Dahl's money Elijah himself is kind of an asshole for apparently planning to give everything to the biological son he knew for like a week instead of to his wife and stepchildren who he knew forever; murder attempts notwithstanding.

Anyway, after an attempt to (hilariously) seduce Oswald, they tried to poison him. Except Elijah drank the poison instead, after a series of heartwarming moments with Oswald. And presumably his nice father's death will spur Oswald back into villainy. It's a bizarre way to get Oswald back into the path of evil, and far more unnecessary since, y'know, bringing him to Arkham to get humbled by Hugo Strange ended up not accomplishing anything at all. But we'll see.

It's a strange episode. There really isn't anything bad in this episode that I could bash and rant on for hours, but it's just weird since everything that happens here is just them trying to backtrack from the oddly random plot developments they just threw at us an episode or two ago, and it's just... I dunno. It's just not very exciting, I suppose, with a lot of what happening in this episode being things that aren't exactly new and fresh.

Gotham S02E15 Review: Riddles

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 15: Mad Grey Dawn

That was kind of a decent episode. It started off rather promising, with Edward Nygma finally doing his first foray as the Riddler. I thought it was going to just be a kind of a filler episode finally exploring this character we've followed for nearly two seasons finally embrace his comic-book costumed counterpart. We've got a fun little old-timey campy plot with robbing paintings and a giant prop bomb. The riddles aren't as moronic as they could've been, and honestly kinda-sorta made sense though why Gordon would immediately think that it's a riddle is kinda a bit of a leap, but hey. Nygma himself also shows a fair amount of shrewdness and planning as he mucks around with crossbars and case files and signatures. It's a fun bit trying to piece together what Nygma is planning... only to find out that, hey, it's not a random distraction riddle-spree, but rather he just plays for keeps and outright frames Jim Gordon for murdering a 'witness' for his murdering Theo Gallavan.

Which, ironically, Gordon did murder, so sucks to be him. The episode ends with Gordon behind bars, with the legal procedurals happening in a montage, and it's a great moment as Edward Nygma, the future Riddler, actually straight-up pulls off a win and deals a damning defeat as he frames Gordon. A great episode for the main plot, and that murder has been something hanging over Gordon's head. While he still is a bit self-sanctimonious for someone who actually did kill Theo Gallavan, it's still fun to see both characters struggle with Gordon having no idea who actually framed him. Nygma steals the show, definitely.

It's great, really, how Nygma's paranoia and gradually seeing Gordon as his rival, someone to outwit before Gordon discovers Kristen Kringle's death, ends up solidifying into him creating this plan to frame Gordon and lob him into Blackgate Penitentiary in order to dissuade him from tracking down Kringle's true fate. Of course, Nygma ends up committing yet another murder to do so, so yeah.

The rest of the plotlines in this episode really didn't hold much of a candle. Hugo Strange is completely absent, and we follow Bruce, Selina and Ivy as they make a plan to steal money from Butch's nephew. It's a bit of a bland and slow-paced B-plot with the moral of it really amounting to Bruce finding out that he can take a insane amount of punishment for a kid with definite masochism undertones that Selina lampshades.

Oswald is a pushover, being bullied by Butch and Tabitha who spares Oswald for insanely stupid reasons (that even the characters in the show lampshade). Pushover Oswald is a boring Oswald, and he randomly meets his alleged father, Elijah Van Dahl, and is accepted to this huge family because... um... reasons. I am not particularly invested, but apparently Van Dahl's actor is the same actor that played Penguin's father in Batman Returns, so yay for that little fun trivia. No idea where they are going with this. Are the Van Dahls legit, or are they just part of Hugo Strange's strange experiment for Penguin?

Oh, and Barbara Kean wakes up just because.

The main plot with Riddler and whatnot is really solid and extremely central to the main plot of Gotham, a rarity with these villain-of-the-week procedural cop shows. Despite my reservations about Edward Nygma since the show's inception, Nygma proves to be a capable and competent enough villain without losing the insane flavour of the Riddler. Good job, showmakers.

Pokemon Go: Get that lazy gamer ass off your chair and walk around

Pokemon Go!

Back when the first Pokemon Go trailer hit the internet from Nintendo in September last year -- or thereabouts -- I laughed. It's a cool concept, integrating the Pokemon capturing system with real life, going around capturing Pokemon on your phone based on GPS and your camera, aiming it at, well, where the Pokemon is and capturing it by flicking pokeballs at it. I thought, 'man, there will be a lot of retards going around following the directions on their phone to capture that Pikachu!'

Ten months later, I am one of those retards.

But, man, how can I not? It's a Pokemon! I honestly wasn't sold with the concept for the game up until I installed it a couple of days ago. I mean, I have captured not just the original 151 Pokemon, but nearly all up to the 721 we got at the end of Generation VI, and when Sun & Moon comes out at the end of this year, I will capture them all. But man, there is just so much fun to be had actually walking around your local neighbourhood, watching the little trainer sprite walk in the neighbourhood with you, and have like a Rattata and a Spearow jump out at you. 

The gameplay itself is comically simple -- walk around, Pokemon comes out, flick pokeballs at it until you catch it. There aren't NPC trainers or Pokemon Centers or Pokemarts. Local important spots like statues and malls are these 'Pokestops' that periodically shit out pokeballs and potions and a random egg or two. It's a very simple game, but it's very charming especially in its simplicity.

And the best part is? The GPS system actually works! The locale around the place I work have a lot of the common Route 1-4 Pokemon because it's a grassy area in a town. I've got Caterpies, Weedles, Rattatas, Spearows, Pidgeys, Doduos, Nidorans, the odd Poliwag or Pinsir or two there. Around my home, which is relatively close to the ocean, I find more water-types like Staryus and Psyducks and Magikarps. Near the wharfs I found Tentacools and Omanytes. It appears that the population is set based on what the local terrain is, and it really motivates you to go around the city. And the algorithm is set so that Pokemon spawn in, well, near-public places which I assume is determined by the locations tagged on the GPS, so you won't find kids wandering into someone's backyard and get kidnapped by Jason Vorhees or some shit like that.

There's these gyms, too, which kind of set it up to be some kind of gang war. You select one of three teams: Blue, Red or Yellow, based on the three legendary birds. #TeamBlue. And then some important locales serve as gyms that you can tag and place a powerful Pokemon in for your team. It's simple, very competitive and, well, when you put random people in the same colour and team you do get to build a sense of friendly rivalry over who gets control of what.

But the best part of it all? The sense of community. See, everyone above the age of ten knows what Pokemon is at this point, otherwise you had one hell of a shitty childhood. Or maybe you just don't like Pokemon and that's fine (you absolute freak) but a majority of the people my age, the 20-30 year old bracket, have at least heard of Pokemon and played a game or two, and nostalgia is as much a selling factor of this game as it is the concept.

I mean, hell, you now get to run around the forests and cities and beaches in search of Pokemon, instead of doing it just from a handheld console! The sprites are 3D and awesome (and, yeah, lifted directly from XY, but not everyone played XY) instead of pixelated and slightly deformed! And the fact that it's released on smartphones -- literally everyone has a smartphone -- instead of the 3DS ensures that this will reach the largest audience that it possibly can.

I've literally bonded with random strangers while checking out Pokemon Go while doing work at my local Starbucks. It's like "Pokemon?" "Pokemon." There's this great sense of community and fun as you talk a bit about this common ground, about what Pokemon you can find, about what Pokemon you have captured. The team rivalry between the three colours help with this, too, because I've gone and gotten together with a bunch of acquaintances from work to try and beat up the local mall's Team Red scrubs and their horrifyingly powerful Pidgeot. 

I really wished there was a bit more to evolution than to spam-capture as many Pokemon as I can, though I recognize that it's needed to foster the gimmick of, well, capturing Pokemon. You evolve Pokemon by capturing many more of their species to get enough 'candy' for their evolution, or to power up their CP to beat up Team Red scrubs. Predictably, Caterpies, Weedles and Pidgeys evolve really quickly. And the sheer awesome power boost you get from evolving a Pokemon is absolutely cool.

It's a shame that there isn't much more interaction between the Pokemon you have captured -- Bob the Bulbasaur, my starter, haven't done jack shit ever since I captured him, and I honestly thought they could've implemented a Poke-Assist type thing that they did with Pokemon Ranger if they want to make the game centered on capturing and not traditional battling. 

And, well, the centering on capturing is indeed awesome. The thrill of finding a random Nidoqueen showing up at the workplace (I guess she's mad we captured all her Nidoran babies) and getting to capture it, or walking down the riverfront and, gadzooks, is that a motherfucking Dratini? Yeah. The thrill of capturing a rare Pokemon is multiplied a hundredfold when you're actually walking down the locations in the flesh instead of, well, going "okay, Goomy spawns in these grass places in this route. Let me go back and forth and catch one."

But, shit, Pokemon Go is awesome. It's not just that the concept is executed brilliantly, but the sense of community it builds and the sheer awesomeness of replicating the Pokemon hunting experience in real life is marvelous. And it's a game that actually requires you to get up and walk around physically (or drive, that works too) to find the Pokemon you want, and it's pretty rewarding too -- you get nothing if you just sit and do nothing, and it's not too demanding because from your home to work, or just waling around the mall, nets you a decent variation of Pokemon.

And the sheer requirement of walking doesn't extend to just encountering Pokemon either. You have to walk to Pokestops to get pokeballs and other resources. You have to walk around to hatch eggs, and to get to gyms. And considering Pokespots are all public areas (good job on the GPS system for executing this near-flawlessly) it definitely encourages you to get that lazy ass off that sofa and actually walk around.

Plus, yeah, by walking around to the riverside, I get to hatch eggs and encounter a motherfucking Dratini. Quite rewarding, I would say.

Happy 20th birthday, Pokemon, you beautiful bastard. This is a wonderful game that invigorates my interest in Pokemon more than anything else, and I cracked open my copies of Pokemon Alpha Sapphire last night and walked around to capture some stuff. Maybe I'll get to finally capturing every single legendary in Alpha Sapphire after all. Oh, and I just got a Shaymin from Nintendo! XY and ORAS has a giveaway of a Legendary Pokemon every month in celebration of the 20th anniversary, and I didn't realize that was happening. I missed out on getting Celebi, Jirachi and Manaphy (no big loss on the first two, having gotten a Celebi from the Pokemon Bank and owning a Jirachi from... somewhere back when I played Gen IV/V), but I got Shaymin, which is cool! In the following months to come, Nintendo will be releasing Victini, Keldeo and Meloetta, which are all event-exclusive Pokemon, so yeah, damn right I'll be getting them all. Victini and Shaymin don't rank among my favourites, but it's definitely awesome to own them. I kinda hate Keldeo and Meloetta but... gotta catch 'em all, right?

Anyway, in honour of Pokemon's 20th Anniversary and to help bring the hype up for Pokemon Sun & Moon, I'll be doing at least one Pokemon Top Ten article every month. Stay tuned!

It's not bad for an idea spawned off an April Fool's joke, yeah? In 2014 Google released this trailer which was literally an April Fool's joke, but they took the concept and ran with it.

Well played, Nintendo, well, played.

Gotham S02E14 Review: Batman Doesn't Kill

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 14: The Ball of Mud and Meanness

I thought this episode was going to have Clayface in it... but nah, it's an episode that focuses on Bruce Wayne. It's a very slow episode that builds up to the final confrontation between Bruce Wayne and Matches Malone, and while that final scene is powerful (and I'll talk about it later in this review) the buildup to it is honestly quite fillerific.

I mean, sure, seeing Alfred have a fight club punch-out with the oddly-named Mutants gang leader (a Dark Knight Returns reference there) Cupcake is kind of entertaining, and also serves to once more teach little Bruce Wayne the value of keeping his fucking mouth shut and stop swaggering around. Jeri the owner of that Joker-themed rave party was an entertaining crazy shit that seemingly wants Bruce and Matches to just meet each other, and again was entertaining enough. Penguin being tortured even more by Hugo Strange with 'Crane formula' (hi Scarecrow!), including that ice cream test, and subsequently being released by Hugo Strange, in a totally illegal move lampshaded by Strange's assistant Peabody, is likewise entertaining, but ultimately all of these are filler. 

Nah, the real meat of this episode is the final five to ten minutes as Bruce confronts Matches Malone. Alone without backup. No Alfred, no Gordon, not even Selina though the little cat burglar does provide Bruce with a gun, no matter how hesitantly. That scene with Matches was great, though, and since Bruce Wayne is the future Batman, there really was no doubt that he's going to spare Matches (though Matches shoots himself in the face shortly after). The way it was done is great, though. Matches Malone starts off introducing himself as this dude who will kill anyone for a price, doesn't care if his client is a child, and will kill women and children but not babies.

And then as Bruce talks to Matches, Matches, well, is just such an empty husk of a man who doesn't really care if he lives or dies. He doesn't even remember that one murder he did two years ago, and had to try really hard to even remember Martha Wayne's pearls, and he sure as hell doesn't remember who hired him. Or if he does, he's not willing to share -- he's got honour to the end, at least. It's a nice, stark reminder that most Batman stories explore. Despite the life-changing experience that it was that turned Bruce Wayne into Batman, the killer of his parents (one Joe Chill, traditionally) is ultimately just a random dude. Who, in this incarnation, doesn't even remember killing Bruce's parents.

It's a powerful scene, and Bruce himself finally resolving not to kill Matches and just walking out of that room, not needing Gordon or anyone else to stop him, was a powerful scene.

So Bruce apparently buggers off to live with Selina in the streets to learn the ways of the street. Um. Okay, makes sense as anything that goes in this show, I guess. Considering how out of touch he is when they were dealing with Cupcake, it's appropriate that he learns a thing or two about not being a snotty rich kid. 

Oh, meanwhile, Gordon asking around about Kristen Kringle (even if he doesn't even suspect Nygma and is just telling Nygma because he seemed concerned) causes Nygma to become paranoid, and he seems to be slowly, ever oh so slowly, growing into Riddler. He's drawing green question marks and considering Gotham doesn't really care to wait for a decade for all these villains to start appearing to menace Batman, we might see the rise of a Gordon-obsessed Riddler in the near future. 

Overall, despite the fillery quality of the episode it's still entertaining and definitely worth it for the big Bruce/Matches confrontation near the end. Not a big fan of Penguin being mindraped by Hugo Strange, though.