Nanatsu no Taizai 189 Review: Double Kill

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 189: The Hero Stands

Can't remember if I reviewed the previous episode of Nanatsu no Taizai. I think I didn't? It's basically just Mama Hawk being awesome as all hell, and then Meliodas returning from the dead quite randomly to save Elizabeth. Which... is honestly a bit anticlimactic. I really wanted to see more of Britannia's resistance against the Ten Commandments while Meliodas stays in purgatory to regain his soul or whatever, this one just drops him in and just has him go through a rather painful-to-read gropey sequence. 

Derriere recovers from having her fucking ribcage bashed in by Meliodas, before charging straight back into battle. Monspiet summons an army of little underlings for Derriere to build up her combo with -- which is pretty ruthless and awesome at the same time -- then punches Mama Hawk and then Hawk (who's eaten some demon flesh last chapter) which is a big misstep, I think. Should've gone straight for Meliodas. Quite impressive for her to take down that giant mountain pig though.

But then Meliodas whacks Derriere down and resets her combo, and they go through a bit of a to-and-fro while Monspiet summons a giant fire dragon thing. Meliodas goes 'trying not to kill you is what the old me would do...' upon which he has this evil thing in his eye and Full Counters Monspiet's giant spell back at both him and Derriere, who are enveloped in the blast while hugging each other.

Oh shit, Meliodas has turned into the Punisher! He's going around executing criminals! Though since these are evil demons bent on eating all of humanity, well, it's hard to honestly relate to them. We'll see if Meliodas's new lack of morals will have any impact on his relationship with Elizabeth.

Fairy Tail 499 Review: Seppuku

Fairy Tail, Chapter 499: Gray & Juvia

Well that would be pretty climactic if anyone with half a brain believes that Juvia is actually, y'know, dead. It's actually a well-written chapter other than the bit of eyeball-roll-inducing moment where they take forever to die. Both Gray and Juvia commit suicide at the same time, and the chain breaks as they both 'die' with blood pooling under their bodies... and then Juvia sends her blood into Gray to make him live. And now Gray's like in full Punisher mode.

Oh, and apparently despite being the big bad guy Zeref doesn't even have countermeasures in place for Natsu? Though honestly, the more we learn about Zeref the less impressive he becomes, to be honest. He just feels like a particularly emo kid. And Invel, despite being the smart guy, hasn't even started to do anything to attempt to defeat Natsu? Man, the Spriggan are idiots.

Hopefully Juvia actually dies. She's one of the few main characters that I actually like, and her death being well-written like this would actually mean something instead of just going 'gray sama [insert bdsm joke] [insert unrequited love joke]' literally in every appearance. But it's Fairy Tail. So Juvia will be back next chapter or the one after that. 

Pokemon M16 Review: Genesect and the Legend Reawakened

Pokemon Movie 16: Genesect and the Legend Reawakened

(Alternately, Pokemon the Movie: Extremespeed Genesect: Mewtwo Awakens)

I've watched every Pokemon movie I can get my hands on except for this one. And there are definitely some that are better than the others -- Pokemon Heroes, Jirachi the Wish-Maker, Lucario and the Mystery of Mew, The Rise of Darkrai being stand-out ones that I particularly like, and the rest being, well, at least decent for a bored hour or two. The plot in the other movies are generally the same... Ash and company befriend the legendary Pokemon of the week (or Lucario and Zoroark, who get their own movies) and fight against a villain. Power of friendship is often used. Sometimes other legendary Pokemon make a cameo. Action scenes! Beautiful scenery based on real-world places! Some weird non-Pokemon gimmick that may take place! Team Rocket being irrelevant and being happy at the end of the movie!

And, well, most of the time these movies are enjoyable. I reviewed the Hoopa movie (M18) a while back in this blog, so I decided, yeah, let's finally break down and watch the most controversial Pokemon movie of all time... Genesect and the Legend Reawakened. 

Even without all the controversy surrounding the random inclusion of a new Mewtwo (more on that later on) it's... it's honestly messy, even for Pokemon standards. There's a bit of a vibe of Destiny Deoxys's plot being thrown in, with Deoxys and the Genesects just being lost (Deoxys looking for his friend, the Genesects looking for a home) while unaware that they are being destructive to people around them, and thus incurring the wrath of other legendary Pokemon (Rayquaza in that movie, Mewtwo in this one). Except... well, it's really hard to relate to the Genesects. Other than the brief 'yeah, humans revived them from fossils' backstory introdump, and the short surfing game with the Douse Drive Genesect, their personalities basically boil down to the shiny red Genesect going "ELIMINATE THE ENEMY" and the nice Genesect going all "I wanna go home" and the three other Genesects just hanging around blasting bug lasers at people. Even with Pokemon's aimed-for-children tone, other movies generally do a decent job of exploring a very basic level of character development for the Pokemon of the week. This movie... doesn't exactly do that. 

There's no real reason that Mewtwo randomly bringing the shiny Genesect all the way to the sky and telling him that the world is beautiful should work, when he's been hellbent on murdering anything that is not a Genesect (and even fired at his own forces at one point). It's a very messy movie even without the Mewtwo controversy, really, and all throughout this movie I'm just confused what the motivations of these Genesect are.

Which is a shame, really. These movies should make you get interested in the Pokemon they star, at least, and it certainly has done wonders with how I feel about some of the newer legendary Pokemon I was initially different with -- Victini, Hoopa and Diancie have definitely graduated from 'Pixie #5, Pixie #7, Pixie #8 into something more distinct that that -- but Genesect was already an awesome concept. An ancient extinct monster bug, revived as a terminator cyborg by humans? And he also has a laser beam attached to his back and he can transform into a flying bug UFO? It takes Mewtwo's backstory (which is lampshaded here as a parallel) and puts a cooler spin on it. Robots are cool. Bugs are cool. Prehistoric animals are cool. Genesect borrows Mewtwo's backstory while replacing the genetic weapon thing with the prehistoric bug with cyborg implants thing... and, man, other than Mewtwo going "we have the same backstory" like twice in the movie, none of this is ever lampshaded. The movie sets it up somewhat decently, but it does nothing to explore the ramifications of being born and finding a place for themselves in a world when they are built as weapons. I'm not expecting something huge that's like self-introspective or shit, but a simple moral like what we got in, hell, the other Pokemon movies would work. Not this... absolutely messy shit.

Yeah, the nice Genesect spends 90% of the movie moping about how she wants to go home and flowers, then takes a hit and apparently dies, except he doesn't because flower. Or something. And then Mewtwo and Genesect flies around the city in the worst zippy-Tron-line action sequence I've ever seen, then the friendship speech happens. There is some background 'oh no the Genesect's nest will blow up the city if left unchecked' subplot, and at one point the random Pokemon had to save the Genesect from burning to death because their nest catches on fire, but it's so devoid of tension and emotion that I'm surprised the script even got approved.

The action scenes are just bad, really. I'm not expecting some live-action level thing from Pokemon, but holy shit, I'd rather watch the movies from a decade ago than this really boring fight. The laser-shooting thing is okay enough, but never has a battle between two legendary Pokemon been so mind-numbingly boring. And the Tron speed-chase throughout the city? Horribly animated and completely pointless. Mega evolution? Completely meaningless. Genesect and Mewtwo just do like a dozen variations of 'let me shoot my beam at you', with no real consequence. With Mewtwo and Mew in the first movie, at least they are having an ideological battle while fighting.

Though kudos on the animation team for making the most badass depiction of String Shot ever, being used to create these gigantic termite mound things. 

Speaking of Mewtwo... even as a brand-new iteration of the character, which we'll swallow for the purpose of this paragraph... she's very bland, isn't she? She comes in, like this Pokemon warrior of justice, a weapon who's found a home, but she ends up just fighting the Genesects anyway. She starts off disliking humans and only helping Pokemon... but ends up being a friend to all humanity for no good reason. No witnessing of Pikachu crying for a dead Ash, just... yeah. That literally just happened. Her motivations is muddy, she's wholly uninteresting, and her way of resolving the fight ends up being very boring. Add that to her super mega evolution form just being super-fast and nothing else -- it's obvious that the Mega Evolution mechanic from the games hasn't been finalized at this point, and the movie's just using the form as a random 'hey look at this new thing' gimmick that none of the characters even bother to lampshade. I dunno. The original Mewtwo wasn't exactly the pinnacle of characterization, but he at least had more personality than this one.

Ash's sidekicks generally get the shaft in this movies -- Max in Jirachi the Wishmaker and May in Temple of the Sea are really the only ones that their appearances haven't been just background fodder -- because the focus is always on Ash and the guest stars, but the movies generally throw them a bone or two, give them a couple of short action scenes in the background or whatever. I don't think Iris even gets a line in this one, and Cilan disappears for half of the movie... it's worse than Hoopa and the Clash of Ages, where the B-team were at least relevant to the plot despite only getting like two minutes of screentime total, doing the ritual while Ash and Hoopa distracted Shadow Hoopa. And you'd think with so much time stolen away from the primary cast, you'd think they can manage a half-decent script with Genesect and Mewtwo.

There was some focus with a Sableye... who ends up being entirely irrelevant to the movie after the 'let's play with Pokemon' sequence, and for whatever reason near the climax there were a couple of scenes devoted to an Eevee? And Eric is kinda there throughout the movie but doesn't do jack shit. Man, this movie's so unfocused, isn't it?

And Ash (or Satoshi, take your pick) is very dumb, yeah? I mean, you can kinda sorta relate to the Genesect for wanting a home, but they did violently drive out the Pokemon living in the Poke-Hill with bug lasers and created this weird giant cocoon nest that suck out the electricity from the city (huh?)... of course the local Pokemon will be angry. It's hard to sympathize with the Genesects at this point. Ash himself doesn't get much to do... again, in these movies we generally get some time devoted to showing Ash befriending the legendary of the week, but other than the short surfing moment, we didn't really get that. Ash himself is very flat in this movie, going all 'you shouldn't fight' half the time, and being ignored by Genesect and Mewtwo... who continue to be absolute bores.

Mad respect to that Persian that almost took down one of the lesser Genesect on its own, and that awesome Feraligatr.... too bad Ash had to ruin everything by going 'durr hurr fighting is bad' and running in the way of the attacks to stop both sides from attacking... yeah, like the three psychotic Genesects would stop You'd think the dude would learn, because the last time he did that he was turned into stone.

Which brings me to the point of Mewtwo. The Pokemon anime kind of works in negative continuity, where continuity is ignored if it's inconvenient for storytelling. Especially in the movies. Which is fine -- but of all this that they have to fuck up, does it have to be Mewtwo? I can buy multiple copies of legendary Pokemon existing, but Mewtwo... like, he's an imperfect clone created in a lab by scientists trying to clone Mew. He is like the only Pokemon that it doesn't really make sense to have two copies of due to his origin, and with the original Mewtwo being such an iconic and beloved character in the franchise, reinventing him as a new character is a very risky gambit...

Especially if you're going to turn up with this half-assed copy of the original. Wow, what a bland character. Maybe if she's a standalone character without being compared to one of the most iconic Pokemon characters... nah, she's still bland. I went into this movie going all 'yeah, let me ignore the fact that Original Mewtwo exists'. But at this point I'm just wondering why they didn't use the original Mewtwo instead. I mean, gender swapping aside, NewMewtwo has exactly the same backstory as the original Mewtwo -- created by humans, looking for purpose, found purpose... except it's so truncated and barely explored -- so why the hell did they change him into a new character? Having the old Mewtwo back and giving him a fine-tuned script would make his speech about how the world is awesome and how he and his little family of clones found a place in the world despite being created in a world that didn't want them would have an actual emotional impact, even if the Genesects themselves as flat as cardboards character-wise.

And honestly, while I wouldn't go on the internet and start going all 'HERESY' and shit, I can't fault the fandom on hating on this new Mewtwo. It's not even a different, fresh take on the character... it's an inferior copy. 

And add that inferior copy of Mewtwo into a script with zero tension, the flattest of supporting characters (why is Eric in the movie?), very bad Ash scenes, very lazy action scenes and making something as interesting as Genesect into a very monotonic and boring plot devices... yeah, no wonder people hate this movie. Without the Mewtwo controversy, this one is easily one of the worst Pokemon movies out there. With it? Man. I really get why people hate this movie. 

Fairy Tail Alvarez Arc Review: Chapter 491-498: Banality

More Alvarez. Except it's a lot worse than the ones before. The Gajeel "death" and Neinhart were at least entertaining. This is just dumb.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 491: Mother and Child.

Gajeel meets Ziera for the most boring 'wacky hijinks' moment. Very, very long introdump which is honestly unnecessary. We got enough context clues, and just plug in "read Fairy Tail Zero for the whole story!" This is unnecessary, and just having her have a line of "hey, I'm Mavis's friend, and I'm a ghost brought to life by Tenrou Island." Because that makes jack shit sense, but okay whatever.

The A-team Fairy Tail members regroup with each other so what was the fucking point of splitting them apart in the first place? At least we didn't have to make an entire arc about it like what we got during post-timeskip. Eileen beats up the soldiers in the palace off-screen and turns Hisui into a mouse then creates a giant eyeball in the sky to see Erza.

The non-A-Team Fairy Tail members are fighting mooks, plus Sun and Luna or whatever Eileen's little loli assassin squad are called. Ziera sends out a telepathic message to everyone from Fairy Tail telling them to gather somewhere, and apparently they're just mindless goldfish that will follow an unfamiliar voice that tells them to do something as long as it involves protecting a Fairy Tail member? Jeez, Fairy Tail members are more brainless than I thought. Couldn't the conversation start with "I am an ally, a founding member of Fairy Tail" or some shit? Sometimes it's hard to take the manga seriously when the author clearly doesn't.

Where is Acnologia in all this? Some dragon of apocalypse of unbeatable power you are, when you don't even react to all of this.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 492: Sisters

Gajeel's voice gets the (already happy to go, honestly) Fairy Tail members going for their location, while Eileen's loli squad does the hentai fanservice pack to Lisanna and Mirajane, with sticky liquid and some bondage. Mirajane transforms into a demon and blows the two of them up, but apparently they are strong. We get a short fight, building up the loli assassins, but Mirajane transforms into an Allegria form... which is her channeling the power of Tartaros's demon fortress. That... actually makes sense, and a new power up -- Mirajane whacks the two dumbasses into the ground face-first in an honestly cool fight scene. Oh, and the loli twins were actually sword with personalities. Then Eileen shows up behind Mirajane. Am I worried about Mirajane? Nah.

We get Yukino and Angel meeting each other, and Yukino recognizes Angel as her sister. Elfman goes whuuuuuh and let's be honest here. Has Elfman ever actually talked to either Yukino or Angel? Does he even care? Is the audience even surprised at all, honestly? Whatever.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 493: Dragneel, the White

More hentai torture fanservice with Eileen tying Mirajane up and using acid to melt her clothes. The author gets off on torture, does he? Torture and prepubescent girls, if all the questionable Wendy/Mavis/Ziera artwork are anything to go by. Between all that he keeps doing to Erza in the Tartaros arc and this one... August and Brandish show up, and August orders and demands Eileen that the Spriggan need to gather at Zeref's side. Apparently Eileen respects August enough, even though their power levels are apparently equal? Eileen is like Erza's mother, so Plot Device Deus Ex Machina flows through her veins, so I bet she's stronger.

August shoots Mirajane in the heart with a magic bullet, dropping her to the ground in what they assumed to be a mercy kill, but of course this doesn't kill her. At no point while reading the chapter did I really thought Mirajane died. I mean, this is a manga that pussied out of killing fucking Bacchus, so yeah. So of course in this very chapter Lisanna discovers Mirajane alive, with the laser bullet being shrunken down to a tiny size by Brandish... who goes with August and Eileen anyway.

Some long speech between Angel and Yukino, about how Angel refuses to be called Yukino's older sister until she atones for her sins? I don't care -- they have been absent from the plot for years now, unless you count Yukino hanging out as Sting's secretary-slash-shipping-fuel as being relevant... but man, this totally came out of nowhere, took up a crapton of space in the whole Eileen Zeref Mavis Mirajane Ziera Gajeel thing.

Rahkeid Dragneel apparently is the final member of the Spriggan 12, he's got a big cross shuriken on his back and he's like a zen Natsu or some shit. His power is apparently to make people have such powerful orgasms they ascend to heaven or something? Rakheid rescues Dimaria, in any case.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 494: The Hill Extending Towards Tomorrow

Mavis meets up with Zeref, but after a brief talk Mavis gets frozen by Invel, a.k.a. every cool-no-nonsense anime dude with glasses. Invel is smart, talking about how Zeref is sentimental and they need to move fast to achieve their goal. Invel lets go of Mavis physically, but restrains her mind with some weird chain things. Zeref lets Mavis see a gigantic army... which we already saw before, and if Sabertooth mooks can beat up these soldiers, well, they mean jack shit. I mean, who is impressed with an army of soldiers who are worth less than paper? In Fairy Tail land even more so than any other fictional world, if you don't have a name and you're generic, you ain't worth jack shit.

The Spriggan 12 are gathered together... and honestly, after how shittily he lost, does anyone even think that Jacob Lessio, Mr. Ultra-Virgin-Never-Saw-A-Boob, is a threat? Fuck, man, Jacob you get my vote as worst villain of all fiction ever. Fuck off. Oh, and Neinhart can conjure the undead spirits of Braddman, Walricht and God Serena, who are shits that have already lost... if he can bring back the image of anything, why don't he just make an army of Zerefs and Eileens? Useless shit, that Neinhart. The other Spriggan are still somewhat entertaining, thankfully. Azir is still crazy and shit, Dimaria hugs Brandish and swears vengeance against Fairy Tail in the name of Brandish... August, Eileen and Rakheid are oh-so-powerful but will totally be defeated with friendship speeches...

Eileen uses her plot device breaking powers to remove Fairy Heart from within Mavis. We get a two-page spread of Zeref and the Spriggan (at least five of whom are non-threats), and we get three long pages of Fairy Tail members waking up that is so necessary to draw and commit to paper.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 495: Hungry as Hell

Five pages of random pep talk of 'yeah we gon take back out guild'. Eight pages of Fairy Tail members using some same old boring skills to take out entire waves of soldiers. What did I tell you, none of these shits matter.

God Serena launches a swarm of Chinese dragons that... blast his own troops? Man, no one gives the troops any respect, least of all me. Serena launches random dragon magic. Natsu eats one, but none of the others even look like they're damaging the Fairy Tail members. Oh, and Gildarts just showed up. God Serena's going to be one-shotted. Yeah. Fuck off, God Serena. You're a shitty excuse of a villain... you clearly are here just to be worfed.

Wow, what a boring-ass chapter.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 496: Forward

Gildarts clashes with God Serena and we have several pages of nonsense talking about how Serena is weaker in zombie form and people reacting to Gildarts' arrival, and Wendy being scared of an army of faceless troops (really, Wendy, where have you been for the last 40 chapters or so? These things are just stuff to help extend the manga longer). Azir shows up and summons a sandstorm and fight Elfman and Lisanna -- wow, what a downgrade! Earlier this arc we needed the entire A-team to take him on. Mirajane shows what an utterly fucking moronic excuse of a villain Jacob is by whacking him in the face -- not even in demon form -- and making him be shit at the sight of cleavage. Rogue and Minerva try to be relevant and engage Braddman and Walricht... yeah, some Fairy Tail member will bail you two out. Angel is kya-kya-ing over the Sabertooth members for no reason.

Gildarts one-shots God Serena in a two-page spread because fuck Serena, he's a shitty villain, we get a two-page spread of the Fairy Tail members running, and then something something Romeo. I don't care?

Fairy Tail, Chapter 497: Winter Mage

Eileen tells Zeref to rid himself of his naivety while she extracts Mavis's Fairy Heart while the poor girl is suffering and immobilized by Invel's magic. Zeref leaves Mavis behind to be tortured by Eileen, though I'm sure force of love and friendship will prevail, because this is Fairy Tail. Eileen tells Neinhart (another shitty member of the Spriggan) to bugger off and fight Erza herself, despite Neinhart himself noting that Historia didn't matter against Erza's power of plot armour. Though he's caught between defying Eileen and fighting Erza, so, yeah, poor dude.

Four pages of random troops being knocked around, a small montage of the lesser Spriggan fools facing off against B-list characters. Natsu's flames get frozen, then Natsu and everyone else other than Gray gets frozen. Invel arrives and blasts Gray with ice... and apparently, y'know, Invel is the only thing keeping Mavis's mind in check and stopping her from escaping or doing anything. So of course, like a human being with a properly functioning brain, he walks out into the battlefield, where there is a chance of him being defeated. Oh, and of course Gray gets to fight another ice mage. How absolutely boring and predictable.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 498: Gray vs Invel

How do you 'freeze and shatter' that which is already frozen? What an utterly dumb line of dialogue. Gray shows off his Ice Devil Slayer magic, Invel shows off his own magic, then goes on this rant about how Gray's heart is tainted by evil and tries to bring him over to the dark side. This is Fairy Tail, so the argument is simple, and the rejection is simple. Zero tension. Natsu breaks out of the fire because plot armour.

Invel chains Gray and Juvia together with a spell that forces them to fight each other to the death, and Invel plans to awake the darkness withing Gray. Juvia's prepared to kill herself. Is anyone actually shocked and filled with tension at anything that's going on here? None of them will die. Or even get seriously injured. Nobody's relationship will even change, which is something that could be put on a line.

Wow, Fairy Tail is definitely entertaining in how moronic the actions of some of the characters take. I'm sorry. Fairy Tail has definitely hit a new low of inanity and banality and repetition. It's became hilarious and readable only to poke fun at. Can't say that I didn't enjoy myself picking these few chapters apart, though.

Weekly Manga Reviews: Toriko 384, One Piece 837, My Hero Academia 104

Fuck my computer for eating up all my reviews. Oh well. This week's chapters aren't all that essential, so let's just lump them all together.

Toriko, Chapter 384:

Some cool fight scenes as Midora finally walks up to Acacia, but fuck, man, they're trying their best to make Acacia as big of a dick as they can, yeah? Not enough that he's manipulating everyone to give him the power of Neo, and he wants to eat everyone, and he's killed Jirou, Bambina and so many others... he also taunts his adoptive son that he cheats on Froese all the time. What a dick, that Acacia. Most of the chapter is just fight scenes and some confirmation that there's some food spirit soul swapping around going on, and apparently Joie is Acacia and Froese's child, brought to life by the cure water? It's honestly the most anticlimactic revelation, just a stating of facts, and the big Joie mystery has gone so stale at this point. Oh well. Midora and Acacia are fighting, that was entertaining enough.

One Piece, Chapter 837:

Luffy and Cracker fight a bit, and Cracker just tanks Gear Third so Luffy has to go to Gear Fourth. Some decent action scenes. Nami fries Brulee with a lightning bolt, and Brulee and Cracker kind of build up the amount of power that Big Mom has, both politically and just the physical power of her crew. Apparently Kidd, Apoo and Urouge has stumbled into Big Mom's territory as well and got royally fucked off and driven away, while Bege chose to serve. Urouge apparently took out and/or killed the fourth candy commander that's on Cracker's level, which is surprising because back during the Supernovas arc Urouge seemed to be one of the less impressive among them. Looking forward to seeing the Supernovas be relevant again, that's for sure. Cracker's probably taken out at the moment... he seems to be quite the disposable villain. Overall quite entertaining, I guess?

Boku no Hero Academia, Chpater 104:

The free-for-all begins, and we get to see the weird powers of some of the other heroes from the other schools. Definitely cool to see the upgraded equipment and skills of the Class 1A students, with Kyouka's sonic boom gauntlet things being a particular highlight. We've got some dude that can retract himself to his lower body, someone who can boomerang things, Shindou You can create super large earthquakes, the hot-blooded dude has cyclone powers and just took out 120 people in one go by sucking up all the balls and launching all of them at a big swarm of examinees... yeah, cyclone dude probably is going to be a relatively large player in the following arcs, methinks. Midoriya has a long internal monologue about feeling excited and whatnot, at which point he's tagged once by the older hot girl from Shiketsu. Good opening to the fight scene, that's for sure.

Fairy Tail Alvarez Arc Review: Chapter 486-490: Deus Ex Eileen and Gajeel's UnDeath.

More Fairy Tail! Do you guys like this? I sure do. It's honestly quite therapeutic to just let off steam and just rant about something that utterly deserves to be bashed.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 486: The Fourth Guest

Oh yeah the titles are counting down. Wow. Such creativity.

Gajeel fights Braddman, who is the coolest-looking yet the most utterly boring member of the Spriggan 12. He doesn't even try to be original, he just has a generic skull motif and blabs a bit about death and even among Fairy Tail villains, it's absolutely clear that the writer was just phoning it in with Braddman. He's just so bland. His powers are just more skulls and whatnot... you know what? We've had these kind of villains in Fairy Tail before. Levy joins the fight, which is something, I guess?

Oh, and the Oracion Seis members show up. Will they ever be relevant, other than to show Angel's minimalist feather bikini? I don't think so. Eileen does some really boring-ass cryptic talk. You're fooling no one, Eileen. You ain't interesting at all. We get a big splash page of Acnologia and Eileen's apparently going to speed up this pathetic excuse of a war and put an end to everything, because who cares about established villain Zeref? I mean, built up for a long time, tragic past with Mavis, secretly Natsu's brother, sent a deathmatch to Acnologia? No? You'd rather have Erza's even-more-boring mother?

Natsu and Lucy have some fun with Brandish's powers that involve poofing up and shrinking down Lucy's boobs. Yay boob jokes yay much wow yay

Fairy Tail, Chapter 487: Three

The negotiation with August takes place. Everyone goes 'oh my god, August's power is insanely higher than Brandish'... which means nothing in Fairytailland, because, hey, remember when Brandish was like untouchable by the main cast and can shrink islands with a snap of her fingers? Yeah. She's a meek subversive personality-less nakamaaaa now. August points out that Brandish has neither been tortured nor defected (she has a stupid idea of loyalty, doesn't she?) and the Spriggan exist to enforce Zeref's will. Yeah, August. I like you. You're a cool sensible villain, not like 'spouts a bunch of dramatic shit and will do plot-breaking shit' Eileen, or the 'rambles on about some vague nonsensical theme' Braddman.

Apparently Braddman channels the power of the Tartaros demons... which honestly isn't that impressive, really. Man, the Tartaros demons were somewhat impressive back when they debuted, but Levy just makes a hole that sucks in the fish Tartaros demon's flood, and none of the explosions and blade slashes or whatever actually did damage. Also apparently Levy has been tanking the magic destruction particles just to save Gajeel... which is kind of romantic and would be romantic if I believed that Gajeel was even in danger. He's not! Even when Levy showed up he was being cool and going 'my lungs are made up of steel' and whatnot.

But what we do get is a pretty cool monologue from Gajeel that makes me at least suspend my disbelief that Levy is dying (she's not. The manga doesn't have the balls to kill off the freaking Tri-mens, let alone a major supporting character like Levy). We get a short flashback of all the shit Gajeel's been through -- holy shit, a flashback in an emotionally relevant place? -- and notes how he doesn't give a shit about looking weak or whatever as long as he can save the woman he loves. Gajeel absorbs the particles and becomes jet-black-iron and beats the fuck out of Braddman. Which would be cool if Braddman was an actual character and not a walking piece of scenery, but hey, Gajeel and Levy got a pretty cool moment.

Of course Braddman tries to self-destruct and take Gajeel with it. Yyyyeaaaah who's buying that? Not me. Would be col, would be something different, would've upped the stakes, would've been a tragic bit for Levy. But nah. Not even for a 'Gajeel will be revived later' story.


Fairy Tail, Chapter 488: Two of Us Forever

We get a rather long moment of Gajeel being sucked into the slowest black hole ever, bolting Levy in place, Levy breaking free with SWORD, Pantherlily holding Levy and stopping her from running, and Gajeel goes all "I used to be a scumbag until I met you, and you taught me something beautiful" or something along those lines. And it would've been great if Gajeel was killed... or, hell, even imprisoned until the end of this arc. Gajeel goes even sappier and we get longer and longer lines of how Gajeel wants to have babies with Levy and whatever and, yeah really should've stopped a few panels ago but I don't really mind this scene, to be honest.

It would've been cool to at least pretend Gajeel was 'dead' so that Acnologia can also pretend, for plot purposes, to be eliminating the remaining dragonslayers. Eileen shows up in front of Acnologia, and the two face down each other.

Brandish talks about how Zeref wants to unleash genocide... you dumb bitch, have you not been paying attention in all of Zeref's pep talks and, like, everything you've been doing? I mean, Fairy Tail has this effect on hot female villains to forget that, hey, they have been absolute degenerate scumbags (maybe Brandish not so much) until they converted. Brandish manages to get August to consider listening to Natsu and Lucy... but in one of Fairy Tail's more clever moments, Brandish suddenly stabs August in the stomach quite brutally, and apparently it is Doranbolt's fault, taking control of Brandish, and destroying any sense of peace, and causing August to enter his weird tattooed super mode thing.

Man, that was actually a good twist. It's utterly stupid for all the members of Fairy Tail to just accept Brandish from the get-go, and it's definitely cold and underhanded to use Brandish and force her to stab her own adopted grandfather like that, but yeah, the war isn't going to be solved by them talking things out. Good show.

Holy shit, a half-decent chapter? What is this?


Fairy Tail, Chapter 489: Universe One

August makes some huge explosion, that, like all Fairy Tail villains, fail to hurt anyone but the terrain. Cana finally manages to Fairy Glitter and break Mavis's naked underage body out of the lachryma, restoring her to her body and to life.

Eileen and Acnologia have a lot of dialogue that doesn't matter, just them going 'wow you strong, but I am stronger.' Eileen is a high enchanter, apparently? They talk for a bit, Acnologia blows up a bit of the land but doesn't go straight for the kill like he did with God Serena? Then Eileen does this long, boring monologue of activating a magic she sent throughout Fiore, we get a needless montage of every character as Eileen unleashes Universe One, a world reconstruction magic.

Yeah, it would have had a lot more impact if Eileen or her power had been foreshadowed. At this point I'm just going 'the fuck's going on and why do I care'.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 489.5: Ft. Stone Age

Bonus chapter starring the Fairy Tail cast reimagined as cavemen. Who are discovering that, hey, men have cocks that become erect if they see boobs. And erect cocks make women get funny feelings and run away. And Lucy is basically tied up and turned into a slave. No, seriously, penile erection and being aroused enough to be erected are actually a plot point referenced multiple times in this bonus chapter. Jeez, Fairy Tail, make porn already if you're so desperate to become fap material.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 490: Fairy Tail Zero

For such a dramatic buildup last chapter, Universe One doesn't rewrite the universe or the timeline or the rules of magic or whatever. It just... teleports random people to random places. Mavis gets a flashback to Fairy Tail Zero, gets some clothes and gets immediately greeted by Zeref. Natsu ends up mounting Lucy with his hand on her boob, naturally. We get a long, long montage of everyone going all 'oh no what is going on, hey there's a friend of mine' that is wholly unnecessary and 100% filler. Also, apparently Fiore is shrunk so the chances of the Alvarez army fighting the Fiore army is higher... BUT THEY WERE FIGHTING JUST NOW! What the hell, writer.

But Zeref and Mavis are next to each other, which at least is a desirable effect of Eileen, who's being used as fanservice as the panels that show nothing but her crotch while she monologues clearly demonstrates.

Oh and Gajeel is alive. Of course. Not even pretending that he's dead. I'm not surprised. And Ziera is back! Because she's so relevant to the story. This girl whose only point is 'Mavis's good friend that died and has been Fight Clubbing the entire time'.

Movie Review: Batman - the Killing Joke

Batman: The Killing Joke

I read the Killing Joke at a relatively young age. I was a big Batman fan back in the day, and I kept wondering how this cheerful Batgirl I see in the cartoons and some of the older comics ended up paralyzed. I mean, Oracle is cool as all hell, but as a kid I wanted all the big 'event' comics, and apparently Barbara was shot in this apparently super-acclaimed comic called the Killing Joke.

Wow, what a fucked-up comic I bought home that day. It was revolutionary in that it was one of the first comics to explore such a dark theme of Batman and Joker's fucked-up relationship, how they revolve around each other, it explores the 'One Bad Day' mentality of the Joker and gives the most iconic (and now kinda definitive) origin of the Joker, it has the shock factor of having Joker go after Gordon in his home, shooting his daughter and then trying to drive him insane. It's far from perfect -- a lot of criticisms can be lobbied at the book, most notably reducing Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, into a weak character who had like four pages of screentime total and crippled without much of a fight, and then literally used as shock value in-universe. And the ending was something that I never liked, even if I grew to appreciate the myriad interpretations it had I always thought the ending deserved something with more... oomph instead of just Batman and Joker laughing.

But man, there were so many themes going on in that comic. The whole 'one bad day can drive a normal man to madness', but people like Gordon (and thus the reader) have the choice to stay sane and strong and uphold the book. Evil people will try to convince themselves that other people are as bad as they are. There's the whole duality between Batman and Joker, their similarities (literally one bad day and the deaths of loved ones by circumstances out of their control fucked the two of them up) and their eternal dance that can only end with one of their death, and humanizing Batman even more here by having him actually offer to help Joker despite all that he's done. Yeah, the story has problems, but it has a lot of other great themes.

But warts and all, it was one of the definitive Batman/Joker stories, and one of the most iconic and pivotal Batman stories of all time. So when DC started making movies based on comic book stories, it's a matter of time before this one made the cut.

THERE IS NO SANITY CLAUSE

The question is, how will they go about it? Even without the brutality and dark comedy of Joker shooting Barbara in her own home, and then stripping her to take photos to torment Gordon (with a bit of rape subtext that has been subject to debate for years and years) the whole point of the Killing Joke was the psychological ramifications of madness and the unending conflict between Batman and the Joker. It isn't something you'd want to air on a Saturday morning for little kids. Plus, the artwork is horrifying... even when drawn in DC Animated's crispier art style.

So when the animation adaptation is announced, I was happy. As much as I have mixed feelings about the original comic book, the simple notion of hearing that Kevin Conroy and Mark fucking Hamill -- the voices of Batman and Joker from Batman: the Animated Series... nay, the definite voices of Batman and Joker period -- will be reprising their roles made me super-excited for this adaptation. And for the most part? Whenever the two are on screen together, holy shit, their voices were music to my ear. And a lot of the iconic scenes from the Killing Joke, from Joker's origin story, to Joker shooting Barbara, to Batman meeting the poser in the asylum with the skin makeup, to faithful reproductions of panels with Joker's hollow sunken eyes, to Batman going on a rampage on the local thugs to look for Joker, to the creepy throne of baby dolls, to the nightmare carnival ride with the weird midget things... so much was reproduced faithfully from the comic, so much lines of dialogue lifted from the comics, that it was beautiful. And hearing one more time Joker's rants that waffle between insane ramblings to jokes to anger at what the world did to it and his desire to prove that normal people are just like him... it's a wonderful script, and, again, it is definitely the reason that Alan Moore's comic is held in high regard.

Of course, the movie should, by rights, be held in high regards, too. Great voice acting, great script, pretty decent animation... it's basically the Killing Joke, just animated and read by Mark Hamill (and oh boy what an excellent job Hamill did with his last work as the Joker) and Kevin Conroy.

Well, so long as you ignore the first one-third of the story, that is.

See, Killing Joke, the movie, adds around... oh... 30-40 minutes of extra screentime of wholly original material. Which expanded on Batgirl's role in the story. Which I was honestly very, very excited about when I heard what was going to happen. The Killing Joke was a pretty short comic, especially compared to other comic books that got turned into movies. And, don't get me wrong, Killing Joke was an excellent Joker story, balancing between his anarchic insanity and some reason for his character's existence... but it was a shit Batgirl story, and it kinda disgusted me because, hey, I'm a Batgirl fan as much as I am a Batman or Joker fan. The fact that this led to Barbara refusing to fall to one bad day and rise up from the ashes as Oracle has allayed a lot of my dislike to her having like three pages in the whole thing, but it is still valid criticism that Barbara Gordon was reduced to nothing but a plot device in the original comic book, reduced to nothing but a plot device as a motivation tool for Batman and Gordon.

If there was one thing that really needed to be changed in the Killing Joke, it was this facet of the story, and trailers showing Batgirl in action beating up thugs made me smile. Yeah, this was the way to go. Expand Batgirl's story, and make it so that when she gets shot, it's not as dehumanizing as it initially was in the comic.

Except... the movie adaptation actually makes it worse.

Sorry if I rant a lot about the Batgirl prologue, but that bit being the only real new material to the movie and the rest being super-faithful to the comics with awesome voice acting, this is the part I really needed to talk about, I think.

See, we get to see a prologue of Batman and Batgirl fighting crime in the beginning... which doesn't really paint Batgirl in a very flattering way. Having Batman's sidekicks be worse than him and get angry because Batman refuses to acknowledge their incompetence is nothing new -- every single member of his little bat-family has been through it. But spending so, so much time focusing on Barbara angsting about 'he loves me, he loves me not' both in and out of cape? That is just weird and adds nothing to the story later on. It just paints Barbara as this lovesick girl, and reduced to a mere two-dimensional love interest -- a different feminist stereotype than damsel in distress and died-to-motivate-the-hero, perhaps, but still a very unflattering one.

And honestly, Batman's relationship with Batgirl has always been that of a surrogate father or uncle. It was Batman's adopted son, Dick, that dated Batgirl, and after having that relationship in mind for years it is honestly jarring and absolutely wrong to see them fuck. There's the age gap, and the weird parental surrogate thing going on, and there's how Batgirl is written... she's so... subordinate to Batman, so eager to earn his respect, yet somehow this translates to sex? Having her biggest priority during her ranting is why Batman doesn't pay attention to her, instead of trying to analyze the Paris's obsession... this felt like something out of a fanfiction instead of something that should be latched on with the quality of scripting that the actual Killing Joke parts got. Honestly, after all the rap that the comic book version of Killing Joke got for its portrayal of Barbara, you'd think this movie would do better.

We get a small subplot of Batgirl having to chase down Paris Franz, who is this crime dude fighting his own uncle, a big kingpin, and having an unhealthy obsession with Batgirl. Like, flirting and using date rape gas and shit. I guess it's meant to be a parallel to Joker and Batman's relationship? And Batgirl beating Paris into a pulp might be a parallel to the whole 'one bad day' allegory? None of this really ends up amounting to anything, though, because Barbara quits being Batgirl, and then her role gets reduced back to how she was in the original comic -- does nothing, gets shot, and stays out of the picture. Oh, yeah, she does get a stinger where she returns as Oracle, but honestly that scene was so unindicative that anyone who doesn't already know who Oracle is won't understand what's going on.

And honestly, does any of the prologue really add anything to the story? Did the dull romance accomplish anything? Did the whole insipid subplot about chasing the creeptastic douchebag Paris mean anything in the long run? None of this adds any weight to the movie, and you're left wondering what was the point of showing Batgirl for the first twenty plus minutes if it's not going to do anything to the movie?

Sigh.

Honestly, I think the first thirty minutes do as much disservice to such a beloved character like Batgirl as shooting her and leaving her like a sacrificial lamb did.

Oh well.

Mark Hamill's Joker is excellent and you should watch the movie for him, if nothing else. It's the definitive Joker, blending the gleeful, cheerful sadism with a slightly darker (but not overboard) take on the character, with certain uncharacteristically lucid moments. And you even get him singing at one point. Yeah, there is a reason when people debate about Ledger vs Leto vs Nicholson vs Cesar, I'll just point at Mark Hamill's Joker.

So yeah. Killing Joke the movie is still a very good Batman and Joker story. But it's an even shittier Batgirl story than the original. Poor kid can't catch a break.


DC Easter Egg Corner:

• The monitor with a montage of pictures of Joker is a treasure trove of this, with scenes from 70+ years' worth of Joker stories... ones I noticed are...
• We get a cameo of Joker with Harley Quinn in her New 52 look. Notably, Harley Quinn's character sprouted to life as a random extra mook in Batman: the Animated Series... of which the voice cast of this movie is from.
• We get a reproduction of Jason Todd's dead face after Joker kills him, though in the comics Jason's death happened after the events of Killing Joke -- the GCPD taking drastic measures against Joker was one of the things that actually led into the events of Death in the Family.
• Laughing fish, which is based on a pretty iconic 70's Joker comic which was later adapted into an Emmy-winning episode of Batman: the Animated Series.
• A reproduction of the cover of Batman #1 (which itself is homaged with the more well-known the Man who Laughs comic), the comic that contains Joker's first appearance, with Joker holding playing cards with Batman, Joker and Robin's faces.
• The first appearance of Cesar Romero's Joker in the old TV series with Joker disguising himself as a clown -- you might also recognize the clown mask as the same one used by Heath Ledger's Joker in the Dark Knight's opening scene.
• Joker on a folding chair at a beach, holding a green can while birds fly around him, is a reproduction of a scene from Tim Burton's Batman, starring Jack Nicholson's Joker.
• An animated adaptation of Heath Ledger's Joker with the green vest and all sitting calmly in a jail cell from the Dark Knight. 
• The Laffco factory is a setting from Batman: The Animated Series, which I'm not sure has appeared in other Batman material.
• One of the few lines not really lifted from the comic during the actual Killing Joke segment was the "I swear to god" "swear to me" line from Batman and a random thug, which is one of the iconic and memetic lines from Batman Begins. Which I'm 99% sure wasn't in the original comic.
• The newspaper clipping that Gordon showed off is a reproduction of the very first comic book cover featuring Bat-man, though with him choke-holding Joker instead of a random mook. I think in the comic this was just a random nondescript comic instead of a reference to Detective Comics #27.

Movie Review: Pokemon M18 - Hoopa and the Clash of Ages

Pokemon Movie 18: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages

I haven't watched a Pokemon movie since... forever! I talk about Pokemon a lot, and last week I finally watched the eighteenth (fucking shit!) movie. Maybe I'll talk about the older movies a little here and there if this one gets a lot of views. Now Pokemon movies (and anime movies in general, really) are honestly not much better from a normal episode of Pokemon in terms of plot and storytelling. It's a bit more grandiose, of course, with a bigger budget, it stars either one of the legendaries of the generation or introduces a new one for the upcoming generation. But as a Pokemon fan, y'know, it's fun to watch them!

And for some of these Event-exclusive Pokemon, the movies are probably going to be where they star in the most until the manga adapts them, because the Event-exclusives aren't involved in the games in any form of sidequest or whatever the way other legendaries are. I really didn't give two shits about Diancie, Hoopa or Volcanion when the hackers found them out. I mean, yeah, I guess it's cool that a couple of unique typings (Hoopa's Ghost/Psychic and Volcanicon is Fire/Water) exist, but up until Diancie got her own movie, damned if I can tell her and Hoopa apart. They're both just the 'new Gen VI legendaries that are little pink floating legless humanoids'. Diancie was the star of the movie before this which I watched in bits and pieces, and she's basically the princess of Carbinks. Which doesn't mean much, really, since Carbink is kind of forgettable, but it's a cool movie with Yveltal and Xerneas, both of whom I absolutely love from the sixth generation. I'll probably watch that movie and the Genesect one soon after this, because I haven't watched either of them in its entirety.

Now this movie stars Hoopa, who is this little prankster based on a genie. There's a cold open where Hoopa's true, ugly ogre-like form pops out of a ring on a random totally-not-Arab village and starts causing some chaos, summoning Groudon, Kyogre, Reshiram, Zekrom and Regigigas and doing battle against them. Then some random bloke seals Hoopa in a little bottle.

Fast-forward to the present day, Ash and company end up encountering Hoopa, now reduced to a tiny little sprite genie thing that you see in the poster, a lot cuter and plushier. Hoopa's basically a little prankster, but his buddies, descendants of the bloke that initially sealed Hoopa, recovers the bottle in a good-natured attempt to restore Hoopa's power... yet instead Hoopa's power sealed in the bottle apparently has become angry and... well, basically it's little Hoopa fighting against the giant angry shadowy Hoopa, and the two just duke it out by summoning legendary Pokemon, which is the whole premise of the movie. A good chunk is just Ash and little!Hoopa running away from Shadow Hoopa's rings and arms-popping-out-of-rings, though, before Lugia gets summoned and fights Shadow Hoopa for a bit, gets teleported to a random ocean, and both Hoopa and Shadow Hoopa then proceeds to summon a ton of legendaries -- a black Rayquaza, Latias and Latios on Ash's side and Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Kyurem, Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre on Shadow Hoopa's side. Shadow Hoopa, conveniently, has mind-control abilities, which makes the movie basically just Ash riding on the Latis and Rayquaza as they exchange beams with the mind-controlled legendaries. 

While the rest of the cast just literally spends the entire movie doing some ritual to recreate Hoopa's sealing jar. I don't think Serena even got more than two lines the entire movie. There's something nice and poetic about Hoopa finally coming to terms with his darker side and embracing it and making peace with it, but it doesn't really make for a truly satisfying plot. The legendaries duking it out is impressively animated and great action scenes, and honestly the Pokemon fanboy in me just geeked out when they start throwing down against each other -- but it all eventually kinda felt one-note as the three aligned with Ash tends to just outrace the Shadow-aligned legendaries. Mega Rayquaza is awesome enough to break off from the party and take on Giratina and later Black Kyurem one-on-one, which is easily the best action scenes of the movie, but other than that...

And after Hoopa finally wins over his darker side because of FRIENDSHIP (which is 100% expected in anime movies, especially one aimed at a younger audience like Pokemon) we get another ten minutes of random useless filler as GIANT SPACE TIME DISTORTION shows up out of nowhere and apparently Palkia, the god of space, can do jack shit against it. It's wholly unnecessary and while it would've been a way for Hoopa to overcome his initial limitations by finally accepting others and being able to go through his rings, Arceus literally deus ex machinas out of literal nowhere. We could've had a dramatic moment where the legendaries involved pool their forces to help free Hoopa, with a friendship 'all is forgiven' moment, or Hoopa himself and his buddies using FRIENDSHIP power... not deus ex Arceus.

It's a rather generic story, though Hoopa's backstory and his unique ring-dimensional-gate powers is unique enough to make it feel different from the other Pokemon movies, and the big legendary throwdown is very entertaining to watch, but strip that away and this movie honestly felt like it really could've been thrown through several script revisions to make it less of a big action scene with an excuse plot to a properly plotted movie that happens to have a great legendary Pokemon showdown in the middle.

Oh well, it at least makes Hoopa into an entity in my head. He didn't annoy me, which is an important distinction when you're a chipper anime character trying to be cute.

My Hero Academia 103 Review: Hunger Games

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 103: The Test

Bit of a setup here where the 1400+ heroes that are applying for the license are literally dropped into a Hunger Games arena with an insane set of terrain, and are told to hit each other with balls that can impact on certain sensors placed on their body. It's like the island exam on Hunter x Hunter too, where only the best can survive and they have to eliminate each other. Midoriya and Aizawa note how this will cause the other schools to target Yuuei because, well, Yuuei's strengths and weaknesses are still fresh in everyone's mind, whereas the others are basically just unknowns. Only 100 people can pass, and I honestly doubt any major 1A characters will fail... though the Yuuei fanboy last chapter and this weird smiley-face dude we meet here from other schools might actually give a fair bit of a challenge. We get a cool shot of Team Midoriya unleashing their powers against the barrage of thrown balls.

We also meet a new character, Ms. Smile or whoever, who is Aizawa's old friend who keeps making jokes about marriage and whatever. Her quirk is to sap people's powers if she can make her laugh or something? She would hang out nicely with the Joker, I think.

Nothing really much to say about this one, really. And considering Bleach had the shittiest finale and One Piece was underwhelming, this is kinda chapter of the week? Huh. 

One Piece 836 Review: Convenient Introdump

One Piece, Chapter 836: The Vivre Card that Lola Gave

Well, that was disappointingly short. We get several pages of just a flashback to catch readers up on Lola -- which, to be honest, has been quite some time since she has been relevant -- so yeah. We also get confirmation that Lola's father, mr juice dude, is called Pound. There's a bit of random internal conflict between Randolph, Brulee and Cracker, all of whom had gathered around... and Randolph's just weird because he kind of disappears from the plot after his re-introduction. There was a weird bit where the tree homies are apparently scared to death (literally to death) by Cracker? We got them introdumping about the whole Vinsmoke thing and the whole 'I've captured your friends' thing to Luffy and Nami, before Brulee transforms... some... things into animals? I honestly didn't follow some of the events and sequences in this chapter. 

Oh, and Nami's vivre card (that definitely belongs to Big Mom) drives the Homies away because it marks her as untouchable. Raise your hand anyone who didn't see this coming the moment Lola was brought back into the story. No one? Good.

Apparently Brulee's mirror doesn't kill the people it traps if it shatters. Also, Cracker can split his arms apart if he knocks on them, so he faces luffy with eight sword arms and a shield made up of a cracker. "Thousand Arms" Cracker has a bounty of 860 million... which is quite high. In comparison, Luffy and Law are both 500 million, Ace was around the 500 million ballpark too, Doflamingo was 350 before the bounty was frozen by the government... But bounties aren't really indicative of strength, because Luffy did a lot of things the government isn't aware of and Doflamingo has had his bounty frozen for a long, long time. So I dunno. Cracker doesn't look like he's going to be a big threat.

Regardless, the fight will be definitely more interesting than this chapter. 

Fairy Tail Alvarez Arc Review: Chapters 480-485: Walking Dead & Shitty Sabertooth

So... Fairy Tail. I said 'fuck it' to the manga around chapter 479, and I binge-watched this bullshit a couple months ago. I'm so happy I didn't have to deal with this on a weekly basis. But apparently my Fairy Tail reviews get consistently high reading hits, so either fans get redirected to my reviews or maybe my ranting is just so entertaining. Either way, well, for the sake of my sanity let's review them in bulk so I don't have to write so much about them.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 480: The Northern Gravestone

Brandish gets locked up and is super-passive and apparently given up about the whole cause she was fighting for not a couple of hours ago, while Fairy Tail cares more about rebuilding their guild in the middle of a war. Priorities, people. Some people talk big about August as the end-all-be-all of magic oooh the readers are so impressed.

Mavis tries to make Cana be relevant again -- though poor lady hasn't been relevant since the revelation that she's Gildarts's daughter, filler arcs aside -- and Mavis talks about how Fairy Heart and her body (ahem) is what Zeref is really after. Mavis gives this long speech about her strategems (that never make sense) now involve removing her body from the lachryma, because that has been obviously what's going to happen the moment we saw Mavis's body frozen in the crystal. Mavis tells Cana to attack her thought projection with Fairy Glitter, and apparently Cana drank one too many beers, because she freaks out at the idea of attacking hologram-ghost Mavis.

Fairy Tail Team B, which is Gajeel, the Strausses and Levy, meet an army of Alvarez soldiers that hold the bodies of Pegasus and Sabertooth members crucified. It would be... something far, far more impactful if any single one of them was dead. Or, y'know, this is shonen, so maybe brainwashed? Imprisoned in their kingdom? Nah, they're just paraded and obviously alive, and the only real harm done to them is that the soldiers are ogling the women -- not even touching. Just ogling. Yeah. These few pages fell absolutely flat at conveying any sense of hatred. I mean, maybe if we had one of the Spriggan stand around mocking Fairy Tail we'd be more pissed, but this is just blah.

Meanwhile, Erza, Jellal and Kagura are assaulted by... Shimon, the long-dead person who's one of the few people in Fairy Tail who stayed dead. Brought to life by one of the Spriggan, Neinhart, and his power of Historia.

This honestly is one of the better chapters in that nothing in it -- Cana's outburst aside -- actually insults my intelligence, and I imagine some people might actually be shocked by the page of the crucified Pegasi and Sabertooth members.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 481: Historia of Corpses

Neinhart reveals that his power, Historia, brings to life emotions from people's hearts... which sounds awesome and shit, but apparently all he can bring back are dead people? Who act and behave like they do? It's kind of like Edo Tensei, I guess, except, y'know, worse. We get to see a couple older faces, though, reminding the audience of a time where Fairy Tail wasn't afraid to kill minor supporting characters, giving the story a sense of weight instead of just showing crucified, slightly dirty, BDSM-fetish Sabertooth people.

We get to see Ikaruga, Kyouka and Azuma fight Erza... and honestly, does anyone find this fight interesting? It's not as bad as some Erza fights, but it's just the bad guys launching attacks at Erza, when you know that the lady is indestructible and protected with so many layers of plot armour. Some, again, tension-less moment of conflict as Kagura debates whether to save Jellal -- even though we've bled the whole Kagura/Jellal thing to death.

More interesting is seeing other dead people come to life -- Ur fighting Gray and Lyon (no Deliora, though? Shame), Zancrow fighting Meredy, Keith fighting Juvia, Ezel fighting Wendy, Hades fighting Laxus... Hades vs Laxus, and Ur vs the ice boys would have been helluva lot more interesting than anything that goes on the Erza side of things, but these are just reduced to just a small montage and nothing else. Oh, and Kagura gives Jellal CPR.

Shippers, take note: CPR is not at all romantic. Have you ever given CPR? No? Have you ever seen CPR? No? It's dirty. It's filled with spit and phlegm and desperation and coughing and pumping ribs and lifeless bodies waggling around. It's not at all romantic.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 482: Vigor

More fighting against the Historia undead, which is somewhat entertaining mostly because it doesn't feature anything I really hated. We get a pretty nice moment with Gray, Lyon and Ur, but the other fights are just a montage of 'I am surprised you are back from the dead!'

We get some banal 'oh no Erza is thrown around and kinda bloodied' which is 100% a repeat of every single fight Erza has been in since anything after Edolas. Oh, and throw in a panty-ass shot while you're in it. And a full-page bondage scene. How can I take Erza seriously when the author doesn't even respect her enough to treat her as an actual character and not a plot-device-slash-fanservice-fuel? We get some bullshit 'Because it's Erza' justification for the spirits just being one-shotted by Erza's Haki. Except Haki doesn't exist here so it's not a logical explanation beyond the author just wants Erza to look badass, but has the plotting sense of a six-year-old boy. This is almost as dumb as the original Erza/Kyouka because-she's-Erza moment, really... just less dumb because I was already expecting Erza to plot armour her way out of this.

Oh yeah and Jellal is angry. And Neinhart is all 'scarlet hair? Oh noes, it's lady Eileen's...' which is absolutely obvious that Erza is related in some way to one of the yet-unnamed Spriggan members. Because apparently only Erza's family have red hair in this world.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 483: Seven Stars

This one is mostly entertaining, if only to see the montage of undead Historia characters being defeated. Jellal goes berserk and is about to summon some meteors and shit. Kagura moves on and slices the fake Simon, and Jellal calls a meteor swarm down, finally landing Grand Chariot and using it to defeat someone for the first time ever.

But not kill Neinhart, that would be insane! I mean, it's not like Jellal is the strongest mage this side of dragonslayers, and it's not like he's gone berserk over seeing his beloved get brutalized, and it's not like we didn't have a couple of chapters focusing on characters who died... no, Neinhart survives magical meteors summoned from the twisting nether? Okay then.

Juvia and Meredy use Meredy's Maguilty Link magic to do Unison Raid to take out Zancrow and Keith -- which actually makes sense, good on the author for finally doing something that makes sense, is not repeated, justifies the return of a non-FT character and doesn't feel shoehorned in! After a slightly-longer-than-needed speech, Gray tells Lyon to grow some balls and start moving forward. Charle gets a very needlessly tear-filled blah blah moment and flies Wendy in to Dragon Force murder Ezel again (Sherria is completely useless without her magic there, isn't she). Laxus gets the most underwhelming rant against Hades and knocks his head in... remember when Hades was cool? This is the second time he's been brought back, and the second time he's been disposed like gum under your shoe. 

Some bullshit Natsu and Makarov arguing, then Brandish reveals that the strongest woman among the Spriggan 12 is Eileen Belserion, the Scarlet Despair. Who is obviously Erza's mother. Also she's wandering around an icy land dressed like a cheap hooker with gigantic floofy hair. I don't like her already.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 484: Monster Six

Yeah, defeat a single member of the Spriggan 12 and then spend half of a chapter celebrating. Good use of page time there, Fairy Tail. Some meaningless dialogue I didn't bother to read. Kagura kisses Erza, which is just meant to be one of those 'oh, those wacky Fairy Tail people' moments that I have absolutely no reaction to. Moving on. Sherria cries, because her magic was the sole casualty of the entire battle. Poor kid. Brandish wants to negotiate with August due to her debt with Lucy, though we had some utterly long bullshit of them talking around and around it. You can be quirky yet be economical, yeah? I mean, other manga can do it. Why waste like three or four pages on this conversation?

Eileen continues to walk and talk to... obnoxious hyperactive anime girl and generic badass ninja girl. Sun and Luna. I mean, I think they have longer names but fuck that, I'd rather memorize the contents of my toothpaste. Eileen is just a boring villain, isn't she? The chapter tries to build up her air of mystery but she's obviously Erza's mother and very very powerful and powered with Deus Ex Machina.

Team Gajeel rescue Sabertooth and whatever. Sting realizes that he is pathetic... which, considering his track record, is not inaccurate. When has Sabertooth ever do anything of importance? Like seriously. They're shit dragonslayers, for all they're built up for they always get one-shotted or soloed by everyone else, and they don't even make good cannon fodder. Meanwhile Team Gajeel faces off against the remaining Spriggan members.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 485: Five Days Worth of Food

Natsu, Lucy and Happy accompany Brandish to negotiate with August. I want to ask what idiot in Fairy Tail would let Natsu of all people accompany a negotiation, but then, y'know, this is Fairy Tail. Doranbolt is treated like a paranoid worrywart for, y'know, actually noting that Brandish is supposed to be a prisoner and whatever nakama bullshit she has with Lucy, she has been their enemy until some hours ago. Only in this retarded world do people do a 180 so quickly, though, so Doranbolt might be better served migrating to a saner manga.

Giant Happy. Which is actually one of Fairy Tail's attempts at jokes that actually got a 'heh' from me. Considering the ratio of hits and misses, though, it's still abysmal.

Oh, Cana and Mavis! Totally forgot they are relevant. Cana proves to be useless in using Fairy Glitter, we get a recap of Ziera from Fairy Tail Zero and a pep talk, some talk about Ziera being in her heart and whatever. Again, it's so long and unwieldy and fuck, one and a half page is enough and would be more impactful. Gajeel and the Strausses blow up a bunch of generic mooks. Yukino slaps Sting for being shit and tells him to grow some balls. The Sabertooth get a "rousing" speech of "badassery". When their badassery involves them just blowing up a bunch of faceless mooks... yeah. Shut up and defeat a Spriggan member or one of their officials, you incompetent fools. Honestly, just an arc ago Sting and Rogue were at least holding Mard Geer back even if they are several pegs below the likes of Natsu. Minerva was a legitimate threat back during the Tartaros arc, and so was Rufus. What are they now? What is the point of having those insane memory make magic and the thirteenth zodiac gate if you're going to be irrelevant fodder?

Anyway, it's not like Sting and Rogue will end up actually avenging the fall of their guild, which would at least make them marginally relevant. Nah, it has to be Gajeel, who takes on the 'Reaper', Braddman, who only ends up killing faceless people. Honestly. The little flashback to Gajeel doing the same thing to Levy, Jet and Droy in the past is a nice touch -- this is how you do meaningful character moments, not... not whatever you did for the past five chapters. But Sabertooth is honestly irrelevant if they're not going to follow up their moment of flat character development with anything.

...

Wow, that was shit, wasn't it? Neinhart's mini-arc had some cool moments but ultimately it was undone by the most underwhelming ERZAAAA climax. Some meaningless repetition of dialogue, Kagura's story was whatever, Brandish as a submissive little defector is utterly uninspiring and banal, and I'm not sure why Sabertooth is in it. I get that the author is trying to tie up some loose ends with lesser characters, but the execution is just so bad when it's Fairy Tail members that's going to fix and take care of everything. 

Gotham S02E22 Review: Stupid Fish & Crybaby Hugo

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 22: Transference

Wow, that was messy. It wasn't the worst finale out there, granted, but it still leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

Mostly due to Fish Mooney, who randomly decides to break out and just take over, complete with horrible acting and horrible lines and ill-defined story-breaking superpowers, turning Hugo Strange into a crying mess... which he proceeds to have as he completely freaks out when he realizes things spins out of his control. It's such a shame, really, considering how fun Hugo Strange has been throughout this season. He ends up getting caught up between the crossfire of Firefly and Mr. Freeze, somehow surviving that no problem, and then just blubbering because the big scary Court of Owls is coming.

It really feels more like a mid-season finale, because half of the episode is spent on Nygma and Hugo interrogating Bruce, Lucius and Gordon about what they know about who really runs the city... which really is a crappy series of scenes. What was the point of the poison gas when you're only going to drop Lucius and Bruce next to Gordon... unsupervised... for no reason? Why move them at all, if you want them to die and disappear? What was the point of using Nygma's scare tactics if Hugo has truth serum? That whole sequence was just dumb, and really even in-universe all it serves to do is probably instill suspicion within the minds of our heroes.

And for Hugo Strange's people to just allow Selina to waltz around because she's Firefly's disciple or some shit? That's also dumb.

And for everyone in the GCPD, including Bullock and Alfred, to not question Clayface's utterly disgracefully horrible acting? That was also dumb. Hilarious, of course, to see the eternally-winking-and-grinning Clayface Gordon, but still.

Oh, and Jim Gordon decides to abandon his city, upon which Hugo Strange's army of monsters has been unleashed, to go off and find Lee. Because that's what you do. Granted, the whole Arkham crisis was averted, but surely at least confirming just what kind of monsters Hugo Strange has unleashed takes precedence? Bah.

Other than the stupid ways that the plot runs over its head to move characters into place -- including bringing in Barbara Kean quite randomly to unmask Clayface -- it's a serviceable finale, with the main plot centering on Team Gordon just surviving the big bomb that Hugo Strange has in the basement, while Strange just wants to escape the wrath of the Court of Owls. Fish is the wildcard that Strange didn't expect, mind-controlling poor Ms. Peabody, and eventually escaping with a full retinue of monsters. The execution is just shit, though, with Hugo Strange being a blubbering mess, Fish reminding me why I despise her character, and the ending just being inconclusive. What happened to Firefly and Mr Freeze? Why didn't Fish kill the Penguin? Where did Fish go?

That shot of blurred monsters being unleashed (was that Jerome-Joker among them?) ending with a cloned Bruce Wayne is creepy and cool, but the rest of the episode was just a big mess, meant more to build up the Court of Owls, the army of monsters and *sigh* Fish fucking Mooney, which really was the one character that should've stayed dead. Seeing Hugo Strange's character arc utterly derailed like this by both the Court and Fish just pisses me off a lot, and to do that in an inconsistently paced episode like this is just inexcusable.

Games and Stuff: New Pokemon! Hearthstone's New Adventure!

No mangas are released this week, and I don't feel like watching anything today, so I'll just talk a bit about Pokemon and Hearthstone! Hearthstone's new adventure, One Night in Karazhan, is out a couple of hours ago. I played through the preview wing and will complete the first wing after writing this post. It's fun! I always loved the Adventure Modes and honestly hope that one day Hearthstone will have a proper campaign mode the way that some other digital card games -- Hex TCG, for one -- have.

But I talked about Hearthstone enough, so let me talk about Pokemon. New trailers and new leaks were released a couple of days back. We get to see the villain team, Team Skull... who just looks like a bunch of punks, really. They honestly didn't impress me at all, and after the honestly disappointing Team Flare from generation VI... but I don't know, I didn't think I would love Team Plasma so much when I first saw their utterly stupid designs. We'll see.

WE ARE LEGION

But between Coro Coro scans and a new trailer, we got to see a lot of new stuff, both new Gen VII Pokemon and Alolan forms. I'm a bit bummed that all the Alolan forms we have are Generation I Pokemon... I definitely want to see some of the newer Generations get the Alolan treatment. Nostalgia is good and all, but Generation VI has put the first Generation in spotlight a bit too much in my opinion... and I'm technically a Genwunner. So. Anyway.

New Alolan Forms:

• Meowth: No Persian announced yet, but Alolan Meowth is basically... regular Meowth, just sassier and with gray fur. He's got a helluva backstory, though, being imported into Alola as a gift for the royalty and then forced to live as peasants after the royalty fell. When did Pokemon hvae such detailed backstories? I don't think ever? Meowth is a pure Dark-type in Alola, which is a very fitting type... Meowth line is one that really, really should've been turned Dark (or partially Dark) a long time ago, and I thought they were going to use the big type revision in Generation VI with adding Fairy to everything to stealthily change Meowth (or at least Persian). But this is fine. I don't care much for Alolan Meowth, though I'm happy a Dark-type Meowth exists.
• Marowak: No Cubone, but Alolan Marowak is a Fire/Ghost, is black in colour, and his bone weapon is lit on both ends like those fire dancers in Hawaii... which actually is pretty awesome on so many counts. The fact that Marowak ends up paying homage to Hawaiian culture without changing too much of the basic design is awesome in and of itself, but the fact that they made it tie in to Marowak's backstory and turned his typing Fire/Ghost? Y'know, Marowak, whose line was most remembered for being the one where 'the kid wears the skull of his dead parent'? And who hangs out in the ghost-infested Pokemon graveyard tower for no reason? Yeah. Alolan Marowak is an actual ghost-type, thus explaining, finally, how all those Cubones are able to have skull-masks even though their Marowak mother is in my party. Alolan Marowak's cool. Fire/Ghost isn't an entirely new typing (though it has been exclusive to Chandelure's line before) but it's a cool one to see. Hell, with Marowak, I think it's the first Alolan form so far that I think outright is better than her original counterpart, and not one that I love both forms equally.



The Marowak that Lavender
Town deserves

• Raichu: I love Raichu and I wish one day that Raichu will finally step out of its pre-evolution's shadow of popularity. An evolution? A mega form? Something? Well, I certainly didn't expect Alolan Raichu, who is Electric/Psychic of all things -- when I saw the design, I thought Raichu would be Electric/Fairy, but no. He's Electric/Psychic. I guess so he can surf on his now-oversized tail in the air? Alolan Raichu looks like a freaking balloon, and not at all impressive, honestly. I mean, props for the effort, but he's the only one of the Alolan Pokemon that I actually don't like. Though he at least has a unique typing (unless I forgot someone) so he's got that going for him, at least. 

New Pokemon:

Hello I'm cute and I will suck out
your life force tee-hee

• Sunabaa & Shirodesuna: We don't have English names for these two yet, but they are Ghost/Ground living sandcastles. Which look like just kind of stupid until you read their backstories... apparently they are the grudges that possess sand and then accumulate the life force of other Pokemon to reproduce... yeah, so basically quite in line with the sinister backstory for other Ghost-type Pokemon like Bannette, Phantump and Chandelure. I don't hate these. Probably won't own them in my party, but I don't hate them? Their concept as ghostly living sand at least sound cool.
• Nuikoguma: Again, another Japanese name... it's Bewear's pre-evolution. Can I say that I absolutely don't care? Because I don't care. It exists, it's not horribly ugly, but I don't care.
• Wishiwashi: Wishiwashi's base form is a very scared looking fish, but apparently somehow it can transform into that giant monstrous form above. It's based on the Moonfishes or whatever that move around in giant schools to scare off predators and whatever. Remember the school from Finding Nemo? Yeah, Wishiwashi basically summons an entire army and takes that giant fish form with a submarine vibe to it... it's really cool-looking, and a pretty nice concept. Whether it'll be usable in battle or will it be a disappointment of a cool concept (Castform, I'm looking at you) we'll see, but I think it's my favourite of this new batch. It's a pure Water type, and I for one love water-types.
• Pyukumuku: A sea cucumber! Man, as someone who lives near the ocean and a big geek in all things relating to marine life, seeing a sea cucumber made into a Pokemon makes me happy. And the fact that they reference sea cucumbers' really gross way of eating and pooping -- through the same orifice -- and their defense mechanism of jettisoning their organs at predators... it's cool! Pyukumuku kinda looks like one of the early-stage Digimon, and this is Pokemon so the organs take the form of a giant inflatable fist balloon, but I like that he exists! Pyukumuku is just a boring pure-water type and his ability (Inside Out) is basically a far more devastating version of Drifblim's Aftermath, but I like that he exists.
• Morelull: This is a cute little skinny mushroom that is a nice contrast to the squatter toadstool-style mushrooms that Pokemon like to use (Paras, Parasect, Foongus, Amoongus), and Morelull is a Grass/Fairy Pokemon that is still a freaking fungus, because she absorbs the life force of anything she plants her roots in. Also she's one of those bioluminescent mushrooms. A lot of people I see on Youtube or forums dismiss Morelull, but I actually like her quite a bit. The fact that she's a slightly more sinister Fairy-type (though still apparently quite friendly and all) is a nice variation of the norm for the type. Morelull is cute, too, come on.

Gotham S02E21 Review: Clayface and the Court of Owls

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 21: A Legion of Horribles

Sometimes I forget that all this Hugo Strange business only runs for half of the season, which is a shame -- done properly as a 20-episode season, there would've been ample time to really explore Hugo Strange and develop the plot threads of characters like Oswald to make them actually relevant to this. As it is, this episode is one big 'put everyone in place for the finale' episode, which honestly isn't all that bad... if things just didn't get lobbed at us hard and fast. After the Azrael-centric episodes prior to this, the show just loses focus and drops everything on us.

Where to begin? First up, the main plot between Bruce Wayne investigating Hugo Strange comes to a head as Bruce Wayne, Lucius Fox and an undercover Jim Gordon heads off into Arkham Asylum to investigate and confront Strange, which leads to some great moments between Bruce and Alfred (after the latter chews out Bruce for being an irresponsible little twat that very well would've gotten Selina killed if she wasn't protected by plot armour) and a great confrontation between Bruce and Hugo.

But then, everything kind of falls apart as the show tries to introduce so many facets to the plot. Hugo Strange is apparently doing everything to serve the Court of Owls, which honestly just came out of nowhere. And that's the main goal of the whole raise an army of the dead thing. Also, Fish Mooney, the character no one wants to see return... returns. And because Hugo grafted some cuttlefish DNA and electroshocks her, she returns with full powers and... can control people with a touch. Fish just returns, delivers a crapton of horribly-written dialogue and just ends up being a big strange part of the episode -- obviously she's not going to usurp Hugo Strange as the main villain, so it's more of a setup piece for season three... which, really, didn't need to happen here. Having Fish return isn't the most exciting thing ever, but it would've served better if this was like the big stinger at the end of the next episode.

Also, there's the question of bringing Fish Mooney back -- she's a horribly annoying character, and while that's effective when she's a villain we're supposed to hate (a'la Theo Gallavan) the show's first season really loves putting her in the spotlight quite undeservedly, spinning off random subplots revolving around her... and I certainly hate that, because honestly who really cares about Fish Mooney?

There's also Hugo's newest creation, Basil Karlo, a.k.a. Clayface... who, in this version, actually only is able to transform his face. Into Jim Gordon's, naturally. Also completely goofy and crazy, and is more a plot device than anything. Also, Selina gets Firefly to stand down and accept her as Firefly's servant... because, uh, Hugo and Peabody just didn't stick around to see Firefly kill the intruder. Because. Um. The confrontation between the two also doesn't have an emotional punch either, which I really had wished we would get from the two former friends.

Bullock is always great stuff, though, with every single scene that he shows up in being hilariously fun, and him having to adapt as the acting commissioner is a great, inspired move to give him something interesting to do.

While Bruce Wayne's bit wasn't honestly that bad, it also felt rushed and dragged out both at the same time, and he finds himself at the tender mercies of Ed Nygma, who seems to have degressed from a slightly-unstable schemer to straight-up batshit crazy. Which is honestly annoying, as entertaining as it is.

Overall, while the episode is inconsistent in juggling its many minor villains (Firefly, Riddler, Ms. Peabody, and now Fish's thrown back into the mix which is entirely unnecessary), we did get a couple of great scenes courtesy of Bruce Wayne. But overall it does lend a sense that this episode really could've been much better executed.

Gotham S02E20 Review: The Butler versus the Angel of Death

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 20: Unleashed

What an insane ending! Azrael continues to be a lot of fun, and even while trying to take this incarnation of the character more seriously by throwing an identity crisis his way, Azrael never stops being this hammy, insane fucker who goes around going all "I require a holy weapon for my quest!" and goes around immune to bullets and shit. There's just something absolutely insanely fun just watching this particular plotline on a previously super-serious and dour television.

No, the plot probably is utterly insane as Hugo Strange's big plan of reviving people from the dead and sending them out doesn't hold water, since Gordon and Bullock almost immediately confronts Hugo Strange about it and only a paper shredder ended up saving him from being arrested. His master plan involves 'eh, Azrael and the cops will probably kill each other anyway'. But Azrael is fun! He brings out other characters like Tabitha Gallavan, Butch and Penguin out from where they have been hiding, and it's a lot of great hamminess going around. The bit with the crypt and Tabitha getting stabbed was hilarious as it just throws away any attempt at a serious drama regarding Theo Gallavan's identity crisis. Tabitha and Theo never really had much going on other than some antagonism so the show absolutely spits on Tabitha's attempts to try and coax out some sibling memories. Stabbed through the gut, you under-developed flat character!

And the Penguin showing up to perform an 'we both want this fucker dead' moment with Butch (Tabitha having killed Gertrude notwithstanding) is a nice, fun moment. Butch hasn't done a damn thing other than being lovesick over Tabitha, and it's fun to see the duo pop up in the end and finish off Azrael.

Azrael's assault on Wayne manor is absolutely awesome. From the prolonged swordfight with Alfred, to Bruce ramming him with a (non-Batmobile) car, to Gordon getting stuck in traffic and arriving late... and then Penguin shows up, umbrella in hand, talking about how you need the right tools for the job. I legit thought that we're going to see the genesis of the Penguin's trick umbrellas... but nope! Butch waddles in with a goddamned bazooka, the background music swells up with some crazy rock beats, and then kaboom! Azrael got blown to bits! And then exit Penguin and Butch after a one-liner as the rock music continues, while Alfred just half-heartedly replies the wave.

Man, that was such an insanely fun ending!

The little sub-plot with Nygma trying to escape out of prison while Bruce convinces Selina to sneak in was nowhere as crazy-fun, but it was decent. Selina gets to sneak in and see what I think is Killer Croc (who I don't think will be allowed on the show because, y'know, Warner Brothers). I do like how Selina is super-motivated to save her buddy Bridget... who has been brainwashed fully into Firefly. The episode ends on the cliffhanger that Firefly just blasted Selina and turned her into roast kitty while Hugo Strange and Peabody watches, but we'll see. (Also Selina changed her hair again into straight blonde.)

Bullock gets a great moment where he stands in for Barnes as the GCPD's leader, with everyone literally just looking at him for instructions. Barnes isn't dead, and apparently neither is Tabitha -- both are just super-wounded in a hospital, which is TV-speak for 'will return in a couple of episodes'. Seriously, Azrael, get a better sword or some shit.

But oh my god, this episode is just a fun episode to watch. I don't think I laughed so hard at an episode before, and it's definitely entertaining. It might not bode well when Gotham actually does get serious as the season nears its end, but man, Gotham really should learn to embrace the insanity that is their source material instead of trying so hard to be glum and pessimistic and 'oh, look at how cleverly and subtly (Read: NOT) we are hinting at the Batman lore hurr hurr' all the time. This is fun stuff. I'm liking this episode for all the wrong reasons, but come on! You can't watch this and not realize how little they take this plotline seriously while still making Azrael badass.

Nanatsu no Taizai 187 Review: Implied Fillicide

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 187: All Ye Evildoers Be Smote

It has been kind of foreshadowed that the Goddess Clan isn't quite the Big Good like they're supposed to be from an in-universe perspective, since the only interaction we've had with the Goddess Clan was when one allegedly told Ban to kill Meliodas, basically... though that arguably could be them just wanting to get rid of all demons as part of a moral myopia. Here, the goddess summoned by Denzel, Nerobasta... is a total bitch!

Nerobasta, possessing Denzel's body, introduces herself as a Divine Lance Corporal, before being surprised at all the demons around her/him, including Derriere of Purity. Nerobasta talks a bit about how some fool must've opened the Ten Commandments' seal, and Deathpierce is ready to actually sacrifice his life to ask for Nerobasta's help... so Denzel's life isn't enough? Man, these goddesses are jackasses. And Nerobasta refuses, despite seemingly being super-disgusted with the demons' existence.

Nerobasta-in-Denzel flies off, and obliterates a Red Demon and a Gray Demon with a single attack called Ark that wraps them in a ball of light that disintegrates them. Monspiet notes that this is some kind of elemental advantage thanks to the goddesses controlling the light element. Derriere shows up, and Nerobasta attacks with Ark... but Derriere blows up the attack with a blast of her own shadows, and Nerobasta attempts to slice Derriere's head off... but her (well, Denzel's sword breaks). And then she goes from being a haughty prideful warrior to someone who monologues about what basically amounts to "okay, let's talk like adults and negotiate" despite being all DIE BY THE JUDGMENT OF GOD moments ago. And it is a very, very long and dense monologue from Nerobasta's part...

Which actually reveals that the goddess clan apparently backstabbed the demon clan in the past in an act that involved the execution of a lot of demon children that were imprisoned by the goddesses. Doubtful that the demons were entirely innocent, but fuck, no wonder Derriere's pissed off as all hell. Nerobasta tries to justify this mass child slaughter as noting that it's an order from her superiors...

So Derriere one-shots her with one slice, ripping off Denzel's upper body into nothingness. She lands and Monspiet notes about how she would be in trouble if this was one of the 'Four Great Angels', before mussing about her hair, which is cute.

Yeah, nice to see the Ten Commandments win! They're badassses but they keep getting beaten up by Escanor and Meliodas and it's nice once in a while to be reminded of just how high the power level of the Ten Commandments really are. 

We get a bit of a recap for King Barta's sake as Gilthunder and the other knights show up to evacuate the royal family and inform them of Denzel's death... upon which Fraudrin/Dreyfus shows up, ready to fuck everyone again. And that's not to mention Derriere and Monspiet are still hanging out outside the broken castle. Plus wasn't Gray Lord hanging out with the group? I kinda forgot.

Man, humanity's fucked. Escanor better get there fast, or there's no way they're making it out of this alive. 

Movie Review: Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad was the DC live-action movie that I was more excited about. I mean, Batman vs Superman's whole concept is awesome as all hell. Batman fighting Superman? Founding of the Justice League? Wonder Woman? It's all great, but the trailers and whatnot don't seem to deliver that much of a good story though I certainly enjoyed myself with the simple novelty of seeing beloved characters bought to live on the big screen.

With Suicide Squad, though, it was a wholly different thing entirely. Putting aside my being pissed off at Warner Brothers taking the piss on the CW-DC-TV-verse by putting a clampdown on all characters remotely related to the Suicide Squad, it's a movie that I have been eager to see come to fruition. I honestly guessed from the cast and trailers that the plot's going to be lifted wholesale from the old cartoon-movie, Assault on Arkham, but that's okay. That's what adaptations do, right?

As it turns out, it was definitely a pleasant surprise that other than some broad strokes (Deadshot and Harley Quinn being the two main Squad members that get the most screentime; Captain Boomerang and a big tough animalistic villain being two prominent members of the team; one of the villains get blown up almost immediately; Batman and Joker being in it) the plot is more about the formation of the Squad itself.

See, a lot is riding on Suicide Squad's shoulders. After Batman versus Superman was panned almost universally by critics -- rightfully so, as I enjoyed myself watching the movie but acknowledge so much problems with its writing that not even an Extended Edition that restores a crapton of cut subplots can save it from being mediocre at best -- Suicide Squad was going to be that break that the DCEU movies needed, that awesome, light-hearted-yet-somewhat-dark movie to finally prove that DC coimcs can compete with Marvel comics' movies. Thus, in addition to competing with BvS and the whole pantheon of Marvel movies, Suicide Squad had to compete with a relatively well-received animated adaptation in the past, and that's not counting the comparisons that will be inevitably drawn between other live-action portrayals of Joker, Katana, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, etc. From how the reviews of this movies were, you'd think this was a total rehash of BvS, except with more jokes crammed in.

That's not exactly fair. This movie isn't a solid 9-out-of-10, but it's definitely a very fun movie, and not entirely the disaster that a lot of reviewers put it out to be.

I think there are three big problems with this movie that make its pacing feel so haphazard, and let me go through them all: pacing, plot and amount of characters. The pacing honestly felt very odd. The first twenty or thirty minutes of the episode was absolutely awesome, with catchy intro calling cards and a listing of random factoids of our heroes (well, villains) while showing them in their element, with Amanda Waller pressuring the government into forming her Task Force X, while going into wacky hijinks with recruiting the squad members. And honestly, any scene with the titular squad just interacting and just being douchebags is hilarious. But around after they got airdropped into the city, things just kind of went kind of downhill and predictable, turning the movie's climax into... well, I won't say that it's as bad as Doomsday from BvS, but it felt honestly kinda boring compared to how the tone of the movie.

Which, part of it, I think is the fault of the plot itself. Amanda Waller losing control of her most powerful metahuman, the Enchantress, and having her create Cthulhoid eye-faced minions out of Midway City's population and create a giant portal to a psychedelic dimension doesn't feel like it should be the plot of a Suicide Squad movie, whose whole point is to go where the government and superheroes cannot go, to do the government's dirty deeds and whatnot and be the blame-able, disposable patsies and scapegoats should they die. The 'scapegoat' bit was brought up a little, but here it just felt kinda off. Yeah, the Suicide Squad was sent in to rescue Amanda Waller from Midway City (the big twist is that it's Waller and not someone else) but the final threat ended up having the Squad face off against the world-eating abomination and blowing the two of them up with C4. Which is still an entertaining enough plot, but it just felt... off compared to the excellent introduction to the movie and the concept of the Suicide Squad itself. Assault on Arkham handles the plot beautifully by having the Squad face off against the Arkham guards and Batman, plus the Joker as a wild card on the other side, which felt like a more appropriate plotline for a disposable black ops team.

How could it have been improved? Well, maybe in the middle of the episode we could've seen the Squad actually operate in several short Black Ops missions. Actual assassinations and taking down metahumans or whatever, and cut out some of the useless 'fight against abominated humans' scenes. It would give the Squad some breathing room and make it more believable for them to develop a bond with each other and make Enchantress's betrayal and her constant 'join me, my comrades' speech more sensible. But I dunno.

The weirdest moment was when the squad has clearly said 'fuck it' and is drinking in that bar, and Rick Flag's shit excuse of a pep talk somehow managed to get the whole squad to go off and fight the Enchantress? Deadshot and his desire to meet his daughter, plus Harley being just that crazy, I can totally buy. And Katana's still a good guy, I suppose? But we get no explanation for why Killer Croc and Diablo end up tagging along, or why Captain Boomerang returns to the team after running away with the beer. A couple of 'yeah, I don't wanna get destroyed with the rest of the world' or something along those lines would've definitely helped out.

Also other than their introduction, they don't feel like villains other than Harley Quinn and maybe Captain Boomerang. A bunch of mercenaries press-ganged into serving the country, sure, but they don't really do much while part of the Squad to really justify the audience understanding why Waller would want them locked up again.

The third problem is the overload of the cast. Don't get me wrong, I loved how they plucked several B-listers and C-listers off the DC villain list and added some of the most obscure villains, one of which I have never heard of before despite being a gigantic DC geek since my childhood. But what they actually did with them... well... the movie, thankfully, wasn't quite the Will Smith and Margot Robbie show, although Deadshot and Harley Quinn do get the biggest roles out of the Squad they don't quite dominate the show and it still feels like a decent ensemble cast... with some of them, anyway. El Diablo (the villain I didn't know existed in the comics) is the breakout star for me, being absolutely awesome with a great personality and a tragic backstory, Waller got a lot of great, dark character moments, and Rick Flag had enough screen time on his part even though I don't care about him. Killer Croc being a brute is expected and I didn't mind, and honestly who expected Slipknot to survive longer than five seconds after being left out of Waller's initial intro? I knew who Slipknot is, he was a very shitty Firestorm villain whose super-skill was... tying a knot really fast. Firestorm is a walking nuclear reactor. Yeah. Slipknot, you shitty supervillain, you.

The biggest misses, I think, were Captain Boomerang and especially Katana. The Captain is built up to be some kind of the third-main Squad member after Deadshot and Harley, with Killer Croc being the quiet brutish muscle and Diablo being a technical pacifist. And Captain Boomerang does get a lot of screentime, and whenever he opens his mouth it's a hilariously-delivered line... but they don't do enough with him. They toned him down from his traditional portrayal as someone with a chronic backstabbing disorder so there isn't the Deadshot-vs-Boomerang rivalry that we see in Assault in Arkham, yet he's still an asshole and a coward, so he isn't a good team player like he is in some incarnations of him among the Rogues... so he ultimately felt very flat. Plus there isn't enough boomerang action scenes and he felt more like a knife nut more than anything.

Katana... I don't know why she's in the movie, honestly. She steals a couple of scenes to herself -- her introduction as Rick Flag's bodyguard and the promise that a (non-metahuman) superhero is going to be watching the Squad's back, and we get to learn a bit about her Soultaker Sword... yet she does absolutely nothing. She goes off with Deadshot and the other criminals to get a drink for no reason despite supposedly being one of the good guys, she has a random moment where she cries and talks to the spirit of her husband, but she's just a huge anomaly and even moreso than Captain Boomerang, because all throughout the movie she's just another fighter, and you can cut out all her scenes and nothing will be missing from the movie. At least with Captain Boomerang we have some fun dynamic between him and the other Squad members. 

Anyway, though, despite all that rambling, I still enjoy this film. It's not going to be the best superhero film ever, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. Personally the debate between the fans of the DC live action movies and Marvel live action movies are a bit silly. I think both sides could afford to take a step back from embracing their tones too wholeheartedly.

I like to go through movies by talking about characters one by one, so let's start with...

Deadshot! I honestly am worried that he's going to be a generic Will Smith character when I saw who they casted for him. I didn't mind the race lift, but I was worried that he'll be turned into a super-heroic character. And while there's definitely a bit more heroic tendencies than you'd expect from Deadshot, it didn't really detract that much. Deadshot's villain backstory (despite the whole 'I don't kill no women and children' thing) is shown in clear detail, how he's a paid mercenary who kills other people and swindles his clients. We get an honestly impressive show with him in the opening, and a rather sad moment as Batman swoops down while he's shopping with his daughter. And Deadshot's attachment to his daughter serves as a cliched but quite effective morality/motivation line throughout the movie. He's definitely the most heroic out of the villains in the Squad, but his constant butting of heads with Rick Flag is portrayed well, even if you end up definitely sympathizing with Deadshot after witnessing Waller's bullshit. His little code of honour among thieves, like refusing to shoot Harley Quinn (well, 'missing' the shot anyway) is pretty cool. I liked this portrayal of Deadshot, that's for sure.

Harley Quinn didn't quite steal the show as I expected she would, but it's definitely a great adaptation of the character. Part of me am a bit pissed off that we didn't have her running around in her original skin-tight jester costume, but I guess the ponytails-shirt-shorts combo is easier for her to move around in? It's nowhere as slutty as a lot of modern portrayals of Harley Quinn are, and for the most part Margot Robbie does deliver a great balance between cheeriness and disturbing psychopathy. Harley gets a couple of flashbacks throughout the movie showing her fucked-up relationship with the Joker (which is actually a bit less darker than the source material). I still think we're missing a scene where we learn just why Harley is so smitten with the Joker when she's working as a psychiatrist, but the flashbacks from the two meeting in Arkham Asylum, to Joker electrocuting Harley, to the moment when Joker got Harley to jump into a vat of ACE acid before eventually jumping in after her, to the sheer moment of joy the two have being the 'king and queen of Gotham', it's a more upbeat version of Harley Quinn's traditional story where she's a victim of domestic abuse and Stockholm Syndrome, because the movie's incarnation of Joker seem to actually care about Harley. Yeah, maybe it's partly driven by possessiveness, but it balances between the twisted nature of their relationship (the electroshock therapy in their earlier meetings) and actual love (Joker being absolutely depressed in the present day and simply hellbent on rescuing Harley).

But Mr. J himself isn't the single driving force between Harley's character arc, because while it's a fair chunk of plot during the second act of the movie, Harley still holds her own as she eventually accepts herself as being part of a team. Despite her big insane moments there are several bits of deeper character moments, like the uncharacteristic bursting of emotion during the bar where she unloads a lot of nasty words on Diablo and telling him to 'own up to your shit' and noting that 'normal' is not an option for them, ever. Which is very heartwrenching when Enchantress does her silly your-greatest-wish illusion thing and Harley's greatest wish is a normal married domestic life with a normal Joker. Harley's quite fun, and has a fair amount of badassery that I normally wouldn't associate with the character but I welcome wholeheartedly.

Let's talk about the Joker first before I move to the rest of the squad. Jared Leto's Joker is prominently featured in the trailers and it seemed that he would be the main antagonist... which he is not! It's really surprising. It's a very disturbing portrayal of Joker, leaning more on the psychopathic side compared to Heath Ledger's anarchy, but thankfully nowhere too over-the-top like how a lot of modern portrayals of the Joker are. Joker's a lot more scary than funny in this one, but it's definitely a fun portrayal of the Joker. He appears a lot in Harley's flashback, before we get to see a small sub-plot of him in the present day feverishly being depressed until he gets a lead on Harley's prison and starts to go and pull all the stops to hunt her down, eventually hijacking a helicopter and rescuing a very glad Harley. Of course, the helicopter containing the Joker gets hit by a blast from the Enchantress's weird magical portal thing and very awkwardly gets rid of the Joker and his henchmen in a huge explosion while Harley falls down... and I honestly am confused... the Joker's involvement in all this certainly could have been played out a little better. For his short amount of screentime, though, Joker definitely stole all the scenes he shows up in, quite naturally, and he shows up in the end to bust Harley Quinn out and presumably set the stage for the two being the big bads of the next Batman film.

I liked the Joker, but I honestly wished the trailers didn't focus nearly 50% of its screentime on the Joker and seemingly build him up as the Big Bad.

The rest of the squad... El Diablo has the best-looking tattoos ever, and he's definitely the most interesting of the squad, and he just might be my favourite among them. Despite his scary name and his fire-shooting powers (other than the rogue Enchantress, Diablo's technically the only one with actual superpowers in the team) when Rick Flag and Waller recruit Diablo for the team, he's a huge pacifist and refuses to fight, and this gets called out several times by the other members of the squad, leading to Deadshot antagonizing the dude at a point in the movie to have him unleash his flames and, yeah, the movie shows off just how absolutely devastating fire-controlling can be. Diablo's later story that reveals just why he wants to go on a road to redemption, how he thinks he's better off dead and whatnot, which resulted in him accidentally burning down his family in a fit of rage, is told very well. It's a bit cliche, of course, but between how he acts and interacts with the other members of the squad I end up caring for him quite a bit. He's the biggest gun that the Squad had in the confrontation between the Suicide Squad and Incubus, and holy shit, unleashing all his flames looked really awesome especially when he transforms into that giant Aztec Ghost Rider thing. Of course, poor Diablo gets to be the only character (Slipknot doesn't count) of the Squad that dies. Which is quite effective, honestly.

Killer Croc looks great, gets introduced in quite a fun way, and he's absolutely fun. A brute like Killer Croc doesn't need a lot of sob stories and backstories, he's just a big crocodile man that goes around ripping abominations apart. Killer Croc gets very little lines, but what little he got were hilarious as all hell. "I'm beautiful." "I like her." "Y'all are just tourists." "Cable." It would've been a bit too much to sneak in a fourth sob story about how Killer Croc is ostracized and driven into being an ultraviolent cannibal due to his skin condition, I think, though they could've easily put it in. I dunno. I just loved Killer Croc, always have had, and I'm so happy he didn't die. He felt like the obvious choice out of the main Squad to bite the dust.

Captain Boomerang, like I mentioned above, only really exists to be the resident douchebag. Harley's crazy, Deadshot wants to assert control, but Captain Boomerang is just a douchebag. They didn't get to do too much with him other than that moment where he seemingly bolted when the neck-bombs are deactivated, but ended up returning for no reason. The Captain proves to be honestly quite average in combat, especially compared to other 'normal but skilled' fighters like Deadshot, Harley and Katana. I dunno. I just felt like he's a missed opportunity.

I talked about Katana already, and Slipknot, poor poor Slipknot, is obviously going to be the random unimportant character that dies ever since the promotional materials revealed the lineup. So yeah, no surprise that he got blown up real good. .

Amanda Waller might not be morbidly obese, but she definitely channels the ruthlessness of her comic book counterpart. While at first she just seems like a more fanatical and severe military leader who wants to fight fire with fire, her demonstration of how she forces Enchantress to do her bidding -- stabbing her disembodied heart to make her obey -- using Rick Flag to gain the trust and love of Enchantress's human host, and threatening to basically put dr. Moon in a drug-induced coma if Rick Flag steps out of line... and, y'know, the whole 'form a team of super-criminals with bombs that will blow their heads off, and blame them for any destruction caused'. It gets even worse from then on, though, when it's revealed that the Squad's first mission is to go into Midway City, where the Enchantress is wreaking havoc, not to stop the threat, but to rescue her.

And the biggest point against her favour? Murdering the entire room filled with her subordinates dead just because they might have learned too much. Waller gets shot down by Enchantress halfway through the movie, gets kinda mind-raped, she gets off scot-free in the only way that Amanda Waller can, basically puts the entire Suicide Squad back under arrest and presumably still under her employ (the ending leaves this ambiguous)... though apparently, y'know, causing a witch to create a magical superweapon and destroy half a city put her in enough trouble to get her to seek help from one Bruce Wayne. That was a weird but fun little stinger with her forming an unholy alliance with the Bat himself, noting with no uncertain terms that she definitely knows of Bruce Wayne's secret nightly excursions.

Rick Flag, mr. soldier boy, is a character I loathed from the comics. He's a pretty generic soldier boy here, the good guy that exists to keep the Squad in line with the help of an Apple Watch that blows up their heads if they step out of line. The movie attempts to give him a bit of a character arc by having him end up disgusted with Waller's bullshit and sympathizing with Deadshot and the others, as well as the weird chemistry-less romance between him and June Moon, but ultimately Flag just felt really flat and more of a plot device than anything.

The main villain of the movie is the Enchantress, which isn't actually part of the Squad as initially advertised. She was supposed to be the first member, and we get a nice little backstory of this slightly-more-obscure DC character, where archaeologist June Moon accidentally unleashes an ancient creepy ghost-witch-spirit that possesses her, and causes her to transform into this absolutely creepy stringy-haired mud-covered glowy-eyed 6000-year-old witch with ambiguous teleportation and magical powers. The initial transformation in front of the bunch of military leaders is horrifying with Enchantress's hand sprouting out and flipping over, and prior to being transformed to her 'proper' form with that eyeball-crest-crown, she just felt like she walked out of a horror movie.

Unfortunately, though, we don't get to explore much about Enchantress's hatred against Amanda Waller for using her. Maybe if we had a couple of scenes showing Waller utilizing the Suicide Squad as an actual black ops team, and have the Enchantress hate being used as a weapon? But no, she's just this destructive demonic force that felt like a generic superhero villain dressed in a bikini, and right up until the end it's odd why the Enchantress felt such a need to toy around with Suicide Squad and attempt to make them her allies. Earlier in the movie we see her teleport, transform into smoke, use telekinetic powers, creating illusions, use her big magical weapon to lightning-bolt military bases and battleships into rubble, yet in the climax she spends half of it dancing in a ritual, before jumping in with two swords and just fighting in melee? She can teleport, but she can't stop the slo-mo bomb bag from being detonated in her weird magical weapon thing?

And of course we need a happy ending with the Enchantress demon dying and June Moon being freed. That felt kinda choppy, really, and I would rather have the climax be June Moon's persona briefly gaining control for the few seconds that the Squad needed to blow up her plot device.

Enchantress frees her brother, the even-lesser-known villain Incubus (who is the only character other than Diablo I'm not aware existed prior to this movie) who... is an oddly-designed CGI character that basically serves as a big brute in the fight against the Suicide Squad. He's got a couple of impressive scenes, and that scene where he just sprouts spiky metal tentacles and stabs the doctor and the security guard in the train station and just falls as a heap of writhing limbs into the train tracks is going to give me nightmares. Shame that his 'true' form looked hilariously bad. 

Oh, and Batman and, surprisingly enough, the Flash, make short appearances! Batman is just this figure in the background that apprehended both Deadshot and Harley Quinn (and is briefly mentioned in Croc's backstory), and we get a cool little car race scene between Batman and Joker. The movie definitely remedies some of the criticism leveled against the merrily-murdering-criminals Batman from BvS, showing him to be compassionate enough to not beat Deadshot to a pulp in front of his own daughter, and immediately diving into the water to fish out Harley Quinn instead of leaving her to drown. Flash gets a short cameo in full costume one-shotting Captain Boomerang in his intro.

Overall? I enjoyed myself in the movie though the third act definitely suffers a lot. The movie definitely had a great cast, but some pacing and plot revisions would've elevated this movie from the 6-7/10 range into the 8's and 9's. And giving Katana and Captain Boomerang something to do, plus using a less flat villain than the Enchantress, definitely would've made them a hell lot more relevant.

But I enjoyed it. It's not great, but it's good fun and better than BvS, that's for sure.

DC Easter Egg Corner:

I'll try not to list all the origins of the supervillains and concepts and stick to the Easter eggs for this one, or we'll be here all week.

• Deadshot's suit-and-hat getup that he was using while out in town with his daughter before Batman arrests him was actually Deadshot's original look in his very first Silver Age appearance, before his second one gave him the look we're familiar with now.
• Harley Quinn's original jester costume from Batman: the Animated Series make several appearances, first in a flashback where she's dancing with the Joker in it (a homage to a famous Alex Ross cover) and second as part of the equipment that was brought out for them. Her mallet, which is her signature weapon in the cartoon and several other adaptations, was briefly picked up and waved around as well. Her "Mister J" and "Puddin" catchphrases also make a return from TAS. 
• Midway City is traditionally the hometown of the superheroes Hawkman and Hawkgirl.
• The ACE Chemicals building is seen several times in the movie, and during her flashback Joker gets Harley to jump into a vat of ACE chemical acid. While not mentioned anywhere in the movie, being dropped into a vat of ACE chemicals is what bleached the Joker's skin and hair in his traditional origin story. The scene where Harley freefalls down into a pool of the goo is inspired by a scene in the New 52 rebooted comics, Joker pushed Harley into a vat of ACE chemicals to bleach her skin. New 52 Joker isn't nice enough to jump in afterwards or give Harley any sort of say in the matter, unlike this movie's Joker. 
• Captain Boomerang fooling Slipknot into escaping just to test out whether the bombs are real is lifted from the original Suicide Squad run where Boomer did exactly the same thing, though Slipknot loses an arm in the comic instead of his head.
• Joker's henchman, Jonny Frost, as well as Harley Quinn posing as a stripper in a bar and causing the death of one of Joker's lieutenant after the Clown Prince of Crime is broken out of jail, are references to the dark one-shot graphic novel Joker.
• Harley Quinn's intro card has the text 'accomplice in the murder of Robin', which references how Joker murdered the second Robin, Jason Todd. Not sure which Robin gets killed in the DC movie universe, but we did see Robin's costume in the batcave in Batman vs Superman. 
• In addition to Batman and Flash's short appearances in the movie, in the dossier that Waller gives to Bruce Wayne we get a brief glimpse of Aquaman. 
• Waller's speech about Superman tearing off the roof of the White House is probably a reference to Superman II, where it was General Zod who did that exact thing.
• The John F. Ostrander building where the Squad goes to rescue Waller is a reference to the author who revamped the Suicide Squad into a black ops team of unwilling villains ran by Waller.
• Actor Ted Whittall, who played Rick Flag in Smallville, shows up as a cameo as a random military dude during Amanda Waller's presentation.