Stuff I Did While Quarantined

So it's been a while since I did one of these, huh? And while it varies from country to country, most of the world is starting to cautiously, slowly move out of all of the chaos that has been brought by the Coronavirus quarantine stuff. And, well, thank goodness for all of the different avenues of entertainment that is available on the fingertips. Could you imagine if this quarantine happened without us having access to the internet? I kept myself mostly busy with reading, watching and writing, although not all of the things that I read and watch really ended up giving me much to talk about here. So I'm just sort of going to do a little ramble about the other stuff that I've watched, read or played during the quarantine. And also talk about the future of reviews on this blog, I guess.
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We'll go through 'reading' first, because, well, I read through a bunch of stuff. Manga-wise it's a bit thin, but I did catch up to at least May's chapters of My Hero Academia. I'm not sure why the manga is kind of losing me, though. I guess while the concept of the whole Hawks/double-agent/mega-injustice-league stuff is genuinely interesting, the execution is not so much? Or maybe I've just absolutely had it with 'who's the traitor' plotlines stretched across so many months.

Other manga that I read included the entirety of Demon Slayer (thank you, very well-animated anime adaptation), plus, thanks to some recommendations, a bunch of rom-coms that I really did enjoy a lot -- Kaguya-sama: Love is War (very on-point comedy) and The Devil is a Part-Timer. 

I did go through a bunch of physical books I've been planning to read for a while. I finally finished the second book of A Song of Fire and Ice, Clash of Kings. It's always pretty interesting, having seen the show, to look at some of the foreshadowing that takes place in the books but are completely absent in the show. The earlier seasons do try and mirror most of the books more faithfully, which means that there's not a lot of new content for me to read here, but it's always nice to read the books that inspired the TV show.

I also went through a bunch of World of Warcraft novels. I read through Night of the Dragon, which is a sequel to Day of the Dragon, one of the very first actual novels I read, and it was a pretty fun read. Being a lot more aware about the WoW game franchise as a whole, it's neat to actually have a 'face' to put the names like Rhonin, Sinestra, Veressa and the rest to, y'know? Back in the day, all I had was the book's cover to really imagine what some of these characters looked like. I'm also currently around halfway through Before the Storm, the prologue-novel to the Battle for Azeroth expansion. It's pretty neat. I'm also starting on my huge War of the Ancients collected edition, which is sure a big book. I've always disliked that this storyline injected time-travelers for honestly no real reason other than to tie it to the present-day characters, and I felt like the book perhaps would've flowed better without it, but oh well.

Comic-book wise, I've been combing through a bunch of TPB's I have at my home from gifts or whatever that I simply didn't have time to read before. I blazed through the two later TPB's for the Knightfall saga, and it's... it's neat stuff, but Jean-Paul Valley as angry emo Batman sort of lost its steam after the first huge TPB centering around his fight with Bane. The publishers and writers also jump back and forth on whether they want Jean-Paul to actually be super-violent and all Punisher-like, or for him to actually be heroic-but-conflicted, and that leads to the eventual conflict feeling very much lukewarm.

Without any real order, I've also been blazing through a bunch of Marvel comics TPB's that I have borrowed from people, mostly X-Men stuff because I'm a huge X-Men fan... but most of my exposure to X-Men came from the cartoon, the 80's Claremont run, the movies and general Marvel comics exposure like crossovers and video games and stuff. I went through the first two huge TPB's of the original Age of Apocalypse, which is... neat? It's always fun to see these alternate-universe dystopia stuff, but I did feel like while they had a lot of good concepts, it's always kind of jarring whenever these crossovers basically jump around from different title to different title, and reading it in TPB format basically means that you swap protagonists very, very rapidly and it doesn't really end up feeling like a properly cohesive story.

I also read the highly-acclaimed House of X/Powers of X TPB, a ten-parter that reboots the X-Men... and I really adore some of the stuff done here, like the concept of Moira's new mutant powers as she basically reincarnates herself and gets to relive different lives where she allies herself with different major mutant figures and it all leads to the mutants being fucked by Sentinels in the far future. And I do like the idea of Krakoa as a mutant nation (granted, they've done this a bunch of times before, haven't they?) but the bizarre portrayal of most of the mutants basically existing in a weird cult-like euphoria doesn't sit well with me. I enjoyed the read, still, but I do think that it's over-hyped.

I read the 2018 run of Guardians of the Galaxy. It's pretty cool! I don't really have much to say about it, I enjoyed my read through it and I feel like it does a good balance of using the characters popularized by the MCU movies and assorted MCU-related material as well as other less prominent characters. I also read through the Silver Surfer: Black miniseries, which tied into this one somewhat. It's also pretty neat; the writing and the monologues really made it a lot of fun to read and I'm someone who usually finds these sort of 'god-like entity' comic books tedious. But this one isn't. 

Speaking of more cosmic stuff, I read a couple of parts of the Annihilation storyline, mostly the main Annihilation TPB, the prologue and the Ronan tie-in issues. It's nice to really get a feel of how these characters were before a lot of the post-Guardians of the Galaxy movie turned them to basically be MCU clones! Ronan in particular is really great as a Judge Dredd-esque 'I will return the Kree into what they were even though they rejected me'; Drax as a single-minded hunter to get revenge on Thanos... Annihilus himself is probably the weakest part of that storyline, being kind of a generic doomsday villain, but it's actually not a bad space-opera huge crossover story. 

I read Avengers vs. X-Men, too, which is the Phoenix Five one, and... the art sure is pretty, but I do think that there's a significant case of Civil War syndrome where Cyclops and Captain America (especially Cap) ended up getting a significant injection of unreasonable jackassness, which took me out of the story a bit. The heroes end up acting sort of like villains, and while Cyclops and the Phoenix Five at least had the excuse of being mind-controlled by the Phoenix. I feel like the story was concluded relatively well, even if the huge 'death' at the end does feel extremely lukewarm. Less interesting was the much shorter and IMO less entertaining Inhumans vs. X-Men, and... wow, I see why the Inhumans apparently get such a bad rap among many fans I talk to. A few select Inhumans aside, the conflict really doesn't portray the Inhumans in a particularly good light, huh?

I also read Earth X... which was pretty heavy stuff, and another one that puts the Inhumans in a lot more morally-ambiguous light. This one is a lot better than IvX, and the huge, huge plot twist at the end regarding this alternate-universe Earth and the Celestials is genuinely well-done. Actually a pretty highly-recommended one from me!

I read through the first Marvel Zombies TPB too. It was... eh. Pretty basic Elseworlds stuff, neat but unmemorable. Also read through the 2009 Dark Avengers storyline, which wasn't terrible but really does felt like it could've been spaced out just a bit more in terms of pacing; a common complaint that I do have with a lot of these newer comics. It really does feel like the writer wanted to tell a Goblin-and-Sentry story, but was sort of pigeonholed into writing for an ensemble cast. The Siege bit that followed afterwards is something I read too, but that was mostly just pretty much regular crossover stuff that I enjoyed but honestly didn't care much for. 

I also read the first two TPBs of the relatively newer run of Immortal Hulk... and that was really awesome. It's really hard to describe that run, but between treating it the Hulk more as an undying force of nature, the surprisingly well-written spiritual/mystical monologues, and the fact that we actually get to see the Hulk interact and be creepy and anti-heroic but not outright an asshole... I think this might be my favourite incarnation of comic-book Hulk. Oh, and the writing's pretty great, too -- all the monologues, particularly when the story starts to really get on the way at psycho-analyzing the various Hulks... as someone who barely has any knowledge of the previous Hulks, it's actually pretty cool to actually get to see a lot of development that's surprisingly easy for even a more casual fan like me to access. 

I read both Cosmic Ghost Rider TPBs ("Baby Thanos Must Die" and "Cosmic Ghost Rider Destroys the Marvel History") which is pretty fun since it's a bit of a more tongue-in-cheek take on the concept of Frank Castle in the future being transformed into a god-like being and then getting thrown back into the past... although in the first TPB, the character really doesn't feel like an old Frank Castle and more like a Deadpool wannabe? These two are probably my favourite reads in this batch of comics, though, mostly due to the tongue-in-cheek tone.

I also read a bunch of Secret Wars (2015) stuff -- the full Secret Wars TPB, plus a bunch of the Battleworlds stuff like Ghost Racers; Attilan Rising; Thors; Marvel Zombies; Age of Ultron vs. Marvel Zombies; Red Skull. By and by, I think that I've never been the biggest fan of these huge Crisis-style crossovers, but I kind of appreciate that most of the main story is relatively contained to like a handful of characters trying to figure out Dr. Doom's brand new world. It does feel kind of odd that the huge "end of the 616 and Ultimate worlds" crossover is so dependent on just hanging around an alternate universe, but oh well. A lot of fun zaniness happened here, and my favourite is probably the random Casablanca-inspired Attilan Rising or the various Thors of the multiverse acting in what is essentially a cop drama. 

Some of the others are neat, but I don't have much to say. Venom (2019) and the accompanying Absolute Carnage is a neat little jaunt, but I'm not the biggest fan of the more cosmic stuff. The writing is great and like Hulk it's definitely a fun, concerted effort to bring the character in new directions. X-Men (2019) is well written but I'm extremely not a huge fan of the Krakoa stuff and it's a testament to the writing that it still held my attention. Ghost Rider (2019) and Dr. Strange: Damnation are all nice reads but nothing too spectacular. World War Hulk was... interesting, but everyone's kind of a dick and I'm not a fan of that. 

I also dipped my toes into the Ultimate universe. And... okay, without trying to be mean, holy shit these series had all of the tropes that I dislike about the 2000-era comic books, and holy shit they tried to be 'mature' at the cost of turning everyone in the story kind of unlikable. I read through the first two "Ultimates" titles and hoo boy, so many of the heroes are downright unlikable and are so bizarrely distilled from their mainstream/616 counterparts. Hulk and Giant-Man gets turned into essentially villains, Black Widow is a straight-up psychopath, random people die just for the sake of drama, and throughout it all Captain America is a completely unlikable jerkwad acting like the most cranky, self-righteous old man ever. I'm also not sure about the story just pussyfooting around whether Thor is a mental patient with delusions of grandeur or actually a god (because norse gods are so lame and unrealistic or something) but they actually have Asgard in this continuity so okay, sure. There are a lot of unmistakably good parts that would come to influence the MCU as far as a pragmatic adaptation of the Avengers go... but man, I did not enjoy reading through these. Despite the comics' intent, the Ultimates end up actually do becoming America's secret super black ops team and are so obsessed about their reputation, and it's really hard for me to root for any of them. Except for maybe Thor.

Ultimate Spider-Man is a lot better, but the story is pretty decompressed, huh? It at least is very faithful to how Spider-Man and his cast should be. Sure, there are a bunch of reinventions of the characters and the setting, but I really do get the feeling that the writer actually likes Spider-Man and is just trying to reinvent the franchise in a more accessible way. It's nowhere as terrible as Ultimates was, although the pacing is pretty slow and I'd be pissed if I read it from a month-to-month basis. I also read through the Ultimate Galactus Trilogy, which comprises "Ultimate Nightmare", "Ultimate Secret" and "Ultimate Extinction". It's basically what Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is based on, sans X-Men and Avengers Ultimates crossover... and it's not terrible? There are a bunch of changes that made me frown and go 'why though' and a lot of the writing and jokes didn't age well... but it's not terrible. It's just different. I didn't mind this one. 

I do plan to dip my toes into some of the better-reviewed "new wave" Marvel characters. I liked Gwenpool, and I've heard nice things about the Kamala Khan Ms. Mavel, Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider, Miles Morales Spider-Man and Spider-Gwen stuff. 

Movies-wise, thanks to having to interact with family all the time we've decided to go through a lot of movies. And one of the undertakings we did was to watch through all of the James Bond movies. I'm not sure if I'll ever do reviews of them on this site, because that's a lot of movies and a lot of rather outdated values in them, but for the most part I know the best ones that I liked among them -- From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Living Daylights, Goldeneye, Casino Royale and Skyfall. Plus Moonraker for hilarity's sake. Not a whole ton to say, James Bond movies vary a lot in quality and tone and it's pretty interesting that the reception to these movies vary wildly, with some people liking the camp, some people disliking it, and some people wanting super-serious stuff. I really find myself in the middle. I don't care for campy nonsense and over-the-top Q gadgets as long as the movie itself is pretty solid, and likewise, I don't particularly think turning James Bond into John Wick is necessarily a right way to make the movie suddenly 'mature'. I've also watched through the first two Austin Powers movies, which are parodies of the Bond spy genre, and they're decently funny.

As far as other movies go... I watched a bunch of the newer Fast and Furious movies, which... they're basically making it the new James-Bond-meets-superhero-movies-but-with-cars, yeah? Particularly the latest one, Hobbs & Shaw, which literally features a super-soldier straight out of Marvel comics. I had intended to rewatch all of the MCU movies, but haven't really managed to progress much after the first phase. It's something I intend to eventually do on this blog, though maybe not in the near future. I watched that movie 'Underwater', too, which is an interesting twist on Alien but with Cthulhu? It's an interesting concept but I'm not sure if the execution is all that great. The movie itself is solid, I suppose. I watched the Kingdom live-action adaptation. It's a'ight, very faithful to the manga, and it's fun to see Yoshizawa Ryo of Kamen Rider Fourze fame act as the Emperor of China.

I also watched Justice League Dark: Apokolips War... and really wasn't prepared for what it was. I kind of expected another Constantine-centric fest similar to the first Justice League Dark animated movie. Turns out it's some 'huge crisis at the end of the universe' style bit where everyone dies. There are some interesting focus characters here (mostly Superman, Constantine, Robin and Raven) that draw from previous DCAUOM movies... but ultimately, it's kind of a mish-mash of various random aspects of previous DC movies, and honestly more of an excuse to torch-and-burn the continuity. I don't really have a whole lot of attachment to these versions of the characters, but it's honestly still kind of depressing. It's sort of a stealth Flashpoint movie, and that's how the movie ultimately ends. For what it's worth, the animation and voice acting is decent, and what little we get of the dwindling cast is decent as far as these things go, but I really didn't care for the movie all that much.

I brought the game a while back, so I finally had the time to finally finish Warcraft III: Reforged. And it's a pretty good remaster, just perhaps not for the price it's asking. The graphics are fantastic, the models are amazing (they have individual models for each of the 'repaint' creeps, which is surprising) but ultimately I think the biggest complaints from the game's detractors is that it's mostly a fresh coat of paint on what's basically the same game. And while I don't necessarily want them to change any of the existing levels, adding parts to it -- like what they did in the Dalaran and Stratholme levels -- would be much more appreciated. Hell, I had expected them to throw in some actual new content, too -- maybe adapting Warcraft I and II very loosely in a special campaign, or the period of time between Warcraft III and World of Warcraft vanilla? I still won't complain too much, it's a playthrough that I really did enjoy, although I haven't really played Warcraft III in over ten years.

As you can probably tell by my revamped Breath of the Wild monster review thing, I've been playing through Breath of the Wild. It's a game that I have a lot of conflicting opinions on. On one hand, it's an amazing RPG game and exploration game. On the other hand, I'm still of the opinion that it doesn't feel quite like how a Zelda game has been geared to fit in my head. Part of it is my just getting old, and part of it is the fact that the BOTW world is so wide and so dependent on you having adequate in-game resources that it makes exploration and finding the best parts of the game so frustrating without a guide. Still, I did go through a lot of the DLC content (which I bought like two years ago) and a lot of sidequests that I never did. I cleaned up most of the side-quests, memory missions and the Ballad of the Champions DLC. And while I'm probably going to eventually finish most of the shrine quests (not the shrines themselves, though) and the Trial of the Sword, I probably wouldn't aim for anywhere near 100% completion.

Other games I've been playing on-and-off include Metroid: Samus Returns on the 3DS, the remake of Metroid II. It's fun to just play a game that's just 'kill enemy, move on to next level', and the fact that this works on old-school brutal Nintendo mentality where there aren't exactly a lot of convenient save spots and checkpoints makes it actually surprisingly difficult and fun. I sped-run through Batman: Arkham Origins, which was great. I've also been playing a bit through my Witcher 2 save file. Apparently I last saved at the beginning of Chapter 3, thinking that it would be as expansive as the first two chapters. Turns out I was wrong, since it took me like two or three sittings to finish the third chapter and that's including looking up a guide to see if I missed any side-quests. Turns out the final chapter of Witcher 2 is indeed that short. So I guess I'll be tuning into The Witcher 3, the big bad motherfucker game that apparently 'defined the genre' after it released. I have heard loads of good things about Witcher 3 so I'm excited to get started on that.

I did purchase the Pokemon Sword DLC, but I haven't played it a whole ton as of yet. Do expect more Isle of Armor playthrough, though I really don't find a whole ton to really say about the expansion. The story of the expansion is pretty short and if you power through it you could finish it in an hour or two, and the Isle of Armor itself is charming but ultimately I do feel like it's just kind of a proof of concept of a Wild Area that's a bit more intricate than the 'two huge grasslands separated by a road' that the original Wild Area in mainland Galar is. Seeing a lot of new Pokemon in the Wild Area is nice, but at the same time it does feel like kind of the bare minimum of content you need for a DLC, and I suspect a good amount of development time just went into the environments and revamping the 3DS models to the high definition of the Switch models in preparation for generation nine.

I also played through the Ashes of Outland single-player adventure in Hearthstone, which is... pretty simple. At least it's a solid story unlike Galakrond's Awakening, although it's kind of short and the focus on almost entirely Hearthstone-original characters does end up making the story feel kind of just... there. I dunno, I feel like they could've done a bit better in making the fight against the Rusted Legion last longer than two or three fights. Really loved the Felstorm Hurricane level or whatever it's called, though.

Being a huge D&D geek, of course I've heard and listened to the Critical Role, the original high-profile D&D youtube/podcast thing. It's amazing, and I've finally caught up to the last-aired episode of the second campaign, finished the epilogue special editions of the first campaign, and watched a bunch of their wacky one-offs. Also another great D&D podcast is the Unexpectables, which I also caught up to during the quarantine. Both are very fun and have amazing characters, and I really do like putting them on the background while I deal with housework and stuff.

And... television. I've finally finished up the ersatz episodes of Kamen Rider Blade and Kamen Rider Ryuki I haven't watched, and blazed through the first 30 episodes of Kamen Rider Agito. Planning to finish up Agito sooner or later, and this basically means that I've watched through almost the entirety of the Heisei era, with only the second half of Agito and Kuuga (I can't find good subs anywhere, although I'll be looking) left. I've also watched the two newest Sentai shows, namely Lupinranger vs. Patranger and Ryuusoulger.  LuPat was pretty fun and probably the one I like better, although it does feel very static and the ending is kind of underwhelming. Ryuusoulger was also very fun and bubbly, but I just really didn't really care all that much for the plot. That's more thanks to the actual vibe of Sentai itself than anything, though. I'm not sure if I'll be committing and sitting down and reviewing all of these in-depth, so I'll just acknowledge that I've watched them, is all.


I also watched the first season of the Harley Quinn cartoon in a single sitting. I attempted to do reviews for this, but ultimately all I ended up doing is going "I really like this joke, that joke was also funny, and hey that's a neat easter egg, I can't believe they made this joke, ha ha swearing". It's really great, though, the humour and writing is pretty on-point and the more adult swearing is pretty neatly contrasted with the charming take on most of the characters and the very tongue-in-cheek tone of the jokes. I'm a huge fan, and while I don't really have a whole lot to say, just note that I really like this show.

Over the past couple of months, even before quarantine, I've also watched a bunch of TV shows on-and-off. I watched through a bunch of the older One Piece movies, I've watched the first season of 'That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime' (which is Overlord but with a far more wholesome plot and a lot less edge), the first season of 'Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba' (very solid animation, very solid soundtrack, very solid vibe and the story's very decent -- I'm told the manga gets into high gear in the arcs after the anime stopped), Netflix's Witcher adaptation (a great adaptation of the novels I did and the vibe of the video games), most of the second season of Star Trek: The New Generation (the first season is kind of an embarrassment, but the second season is very decent, particularly episodes 10 and 11). I'm planning to finish the anime for Kaguya-sama in the next month. And I plan to learn the story of Persona 5 via the anime adaptation; since I don't have a PS4 to play and it's not out on PC, that's about the best way for me to experience it, I feel. 

Also, superhero shows. As you can tell, I watched a lot of them and have reviewed all of them on this blog, but the ones that are probably incoming in the next couple of weeks as I wrap up the seasons would be the final season of Jessica Jones. I'm not probably going to review all of the superhero shows I watch anymore -- I'm a huge enough of a geek that I'm likely to watch them all, but probably not really talk about them all. I'm around halfway through Titans season two, and maybe this is the month I finally finish Doom Patrol? I'm not sure if I'll ever review Doom Patrol, though. It's a very hard show to really review.

Other projects I've been doing? As I may or may not have said in that one review that I posted last week I've actually finished my reviews of the 2011 Hunter x Hunter anime all the way to almost the last episodes of the Chimera Ant arc, but I'm proof-reading them and will probably release them incrementally in the next couple of months.

Doing this blog a lot in quarantine does also make me realize that I'm probably going to cut down on the quantity of posts. Not to say that I will be writing less, but I feel like I'm actually posting a far better article when I don't just bum-rush and try and do thing per-episode. I feel like I get a lot more comfortable reviewing things like two or three episodes in one go, particularly for less content-heavy episodes like, oh, Kamen Rider episodes or Pokemon episodes. Not that there's anything wrong with them, but sometimes you just don't have a whole ton to say about a single episode and the review ends up becoming a summary, and I feel like these couple past months really allowed me to practice doing more succinct reviews.

With 'Reviewing Monsters', I have finished up drafts for all the Digimon released until early 2020, although I'm going to want to proof-read them a bit. I'm taking a bit of a break from D&D and taking it slow. I do think looking forward I'll be focusing mostly on 5E material instead of jumping around from one version to the next, because it's a bit more organized, I feel, what with the D&D Beyond site and all. I do expect a couple more extra Reviewing Monsters articles about Legend of Zelda, Magic: The Gathering and a couple of Pokemon human characters to pop up soon.

That's about it, I guess. It's been a long while of doing nothing but trying to entertain myself at home.

Titans S02E09 Review: Deathstroke's Vengeance

Titans, Season 2, Episode 9: Atonement

So, uh... an interesting episode? It feels like more of a 'what happens after a huge climactic moment' catch-up episode, except the climactic moment is apparently just Dick telling the previous episode's events to the gathered Titans, almost all of whom leave the tower in disgust thanks to various levels of betrayal that they feel from Dick. And, sure, it's thematic and stuff, but on the other hand I do really feel that this episode underscores just how little we actually see of many of the present-day cast members and that honestly leads me to shrugging when some of them leave. Like... Rose really doesn't have any sort of real bond with the rest of the cast; Gar's larger role in this episode is more than he had over the past eight episodes; Kory, while better than the previous episode, is also pretty detached from the rest of the cast. 

And... there are some neat, decent moments here, but also some that just ultimately made me shrug and go 'yeah, I get the gist, can we move on?' Gar getting some actual spotlight as he does a Star-Trek-inspired log as he watches over the Tower, the comatose Conner and just plays video games is an interesting one but one that ultimately didn't have a whole lot of real oomph beyond giving poor Ryan Potter something to do. Conner's little walk and trying to really comprehend how to do this superheroing thing with Gar is adorably and predictably disastrous, but ultimately that doesn't really feel as epic as the episode wants it to be. 

And... I dunno. I feel like a lot of the characters could've done more? Rachel, Donna, Jason and especially Rose sort of disappear from the plot after leaving Dick behind (Rachel also leaves Donna behind), and I genuinely do feel like they probably could've highlighted at least Rose's response to Dick's role in her brother's death a bit more. Instead, we choose to highlight Hank and Dawn, who... uh... goes singing in a small town pub in which they instantly get recognized, and Hank decides their relationship is toxic and drives off. Also, Kory ends up being embroiled in a B-plot with Faddei, who gets mind-controlled by some parasite courtesy of her sister Blackfire, who staged a coup d'etat in Tamaran, seemingly killed the parents, kills Faddei and blows up Starfire's ship. I really want to say that I'm invested in this B-plot, I really want to, but while it's a bit more exciting than Gar's Star Trek logs, it's also so far removed from anything that's going on in this season that it's really hard to care. 

The writing, at least, is relatively well-done for Dick, whose guilt leads him to try and seek forgiveness and absolution from Adeline... who absolutely refuses to grant him anything of the sort. Deathstroke also shows up and gives a grand speech about taking from Dick the same family that he took from Slade, and basically drives and condemns Dick to leave the Titans forever and ever knowing that the team and family is fractured. It's a great take, and this mourning, vengeful and utterly spiteful daddy Slade is a very interesting take on the character that makes him no less manipulative and scary, but a lot more tragic. Ultimately, Dick ends up having a bit of a breakdown at the airport, refusing to leave America and ends up beating up random beat cops and getting arrested for his troubles. Which... okay? Sure. 

Again, the episode itself isn't bad or terrible, it's just perhaps a display of the endemic problem in this season -- the show has a lot of characters, but at least one-third of its total screentime is devoted to flashbacks, more than half of the characters jockey and struggle for screentime, and while the show does a great job at fleshing out Dick, Slade and the backstory of Titans 1.0... it perhaps needs a bit more push in the right direction in terms of everything else. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Blackfire, a.k.a. Princess Komand'r, makes her debut in this episode. Starfire's psychotic sister, Blackfire was born without the innate powers of flight that the other Tamaraneans have, causing her to grow up with an immense inferiority complex and bitterness towards her sister and the rest of her family, and ultimately would cause her to commit multiple plays for power at the cost of her family.

Kamen Rider Zero-One E39 Review: The Price of Redemption

Kamen Rider Zero-One, Episode 39: This Conclusion, Unpredictable 

I believe in my previous episode reviews, I've ranted enough about how Thouser's redemption arc really needed to be handled delicately for it to be believable. And this episode sort of... starts with it. It's still honestly nowhere as ideal as I would've want it to (to be fair, what I feel would satisfy me is Gai either dead or in jail) but on the other hand, the idea that people can change is a nice one to pursue, and a lot of the sentiment done on the part of our main good guys in this episode is more of a 'shut up and try to make amends, we'll talk about absolution later'. And I feel like that's a good way to do things. Gai keeps apologizing in most of his scenes, and for the most part, at least Aruto, Fuwa and Yua aren't willing to immediately forget Gai's crimes and sins. That's good. I'm still going to withhold judgement until we get to see Gai's ultimate fate, in case they pull a (pre-epilogue) Dan Kuroto or a (post-epilogue) Evolt, but at the very least the show reminds us that, no, we're not going to pretend that Gai was mind-controlled or anything, and the in-universe characters, including Gai himself, knows that he's going to have to stand for his crimes at some point. That's neat.

And... most of the episode is just kind of the new status quo. The opening action scene with Zero-One and Thouser fighting against the Ark is pretty cool, especially with the opening theme playing in the background. There's a pretty cool bit where Ark-Zero 3D-prints a small floating swarm of Shot Risers in the air, while Aruto and Gai block with their own respective CGI shields. At one point in the fight, Gai tries to steal Ark's data with a Jack-rise, but then turns out the Ark steals Gai's data instead? All of the animal tokens seem to go into the Ark, and I really wish we had something more concrete about what these dang animal data are meant to be. But a barrage of named attacks and finishers ends up forcing the Ark's true blob form to leave Jin's body and fly away. It's the first time the Ark's actually been on the back-foot, and that's kind of neat.

And the rest of the episode is kind of a lull, honestly, and one that's needed because of how abrupt Gai's heel-face-turn would be to most audience members. Gai apologizes first to Aruto, but despite all of the talks about how he totally loves Hiden Intelligence all this time, and how he knows the AI is his friend... Izu and Aruto point out that 'there are some things that words can't forgive', talking about the shit Gai put Yua and Fuwa through, and also for the original corruption of the Ark. We kind of gloss all of the implied deaths that the Humagears and Raiders combined have caused... but that's honestly kind of standard operating procedure for Kamen Rider shows nowadays. Gai later on apologizes to Yua and Fuwa, with a fun scene where Thouser-the-robot-dog forces Gai to apologize sincerely and Gai has to promise the dog and tell him to not cry. And he bows down straight down with his head on the ground... and, well, I do like that while Yua and Fuwa don't complicate matters, they also say that forgiveness won't come immediately -- and they can start by making AIMS an independent organization so they have a say in what they risk their life for. Neat! Gai also later on apologizes to the Horseshoe Crab Bros, Ono and Eida. Again, neat.

We also get a bit of a talk about Aruto wanting to make an upgrade to Zero-One, which was only created with Metsubojinrai.net in mind and the Ark gaining Kamen Rider powers was never in consideration. I feel this rings hollow considering how Shining Assault and Metal Cluster were basically forms that the cast pulled out of nowhere as well, but okay, sure, we need an excuse for Aruto to surpass Hiden Intelligence's original designs and stuff. It's a bit weird that Aruto is actually trying to be a technician and everything (he's never shown that he understands the technical aspects of these Kamen Rider suits) but okay, sure. It gives him an arc and an oomph behind the upcoming final form.

Meanwhile, things happen in the Metsubojinrai.net base, and Ikazuchi seems to re-achieve Singularity (?) and gets a flashback to his original life as Space-Bro Raiden. He shows up in Hiden Ltd and... I really don't care all that much for Ikazuchi if we're being honest, but this episode does attempt to really give him a fair bit more screentime that he's cheated out of in his first outing. Granted, a lot of his jokes as Raiden kind of fall flat for me (the 'quickly, man' scene). Aruto is quick to believe that it's really Raiden, but poor, scared Jin is far, far more suspicious.

The actual gambit isn't anything super-interesting. The Ark attacks a different facility, and Gai realizes this after realizing the reason that the Ark stole his data... but I dunno. I guess I just shrug? As Aruto, Izu, Jin and Raiden walk down the dam, they get attacked by Naki and Ark-in-Horobi, and apparently Ark was basically using Ikazuchi's singularity to trick them into coming there, then the Ark jumps hosts into Ikazuchi and turns him into the next Ark-Zero. Gai realizes a bit too late that the Ark's goal is the Zero-One Driver itself, which would allow the Ark to access Satellite Zea. The fight scene between Aruto and Ark-Zero is... it's all right. There are some neat CGI moments, but ultimately an All Extinction attack and a bunch of Force powers causes Aruto to fall bleeding onto the ground in his human form, and then the Ark steals the Zero-One Driver and beams up to the Zea cyber-space and starts corrupting it with his goop. The episode ends with a pretty cool cliffhanger, with Ark proclaiming that 'no one can stop [him]', and Aruto tries to struggle with his perfect-comeback catchphrase before passing out.

Ultimately a bit of a slower episode. The focus is just moving things in place, and setting up the debut of Kamen Rider Zero-One's next form next episode. And, well, I feel like a good chunk of this episode basically focuses on the cast reacting and basically acknowledging Gai's attempted redemption while still keeping a wary eye at him. It's all right, but nothing particularly special. 

Random Notes: 

• I know this show is meant to ultimately be a toy advertising platform, but hoo boy they really go ham with trying to advertise that robot dog, huh? To the point that we get unnecessary closeups to him during fight scenes, which I felt were easily the most obnoxious parts of this episode -- having the dog henpeck Gai is one thing, but having the dang thing zip around and follow the fight in the first half of the episode felt like it's dragging on a cute joke from the previous episode into something that happens for way too long. 
• It's not the first time we've seen it, but Aruto dual-wielding his chunky swords will never not be cool. 
• The barrage of attacks that actually beat Ark-Zero temporarily is Jacking Break, Final Strash, Thousand Destruction, Metal Rising Impact.
• Izu tells Gai that you need to bow at least 90 degrees to show 'maximum penitence'. Okay, Izu. 
• Aruto takes the rant to make a dig about Gai's 1000% catchphrase. Gai can't even raise a comment at that because he's trying to apologize, which I thought was funny. 
• Naki is still a super-loyal stooge to Ark in this episode. That can't be all we're getting out of Naki, right? Naki's big role is basically holding Jin hostage in this episode and preventing him from transforming in the final fight. 
• At one point in the final fight, Ark-Zero uses a copy of the Thousand Jacker, summoning a giant black CGI shark to chomp chomp chomp on Aruto. 

Deathstroke - Knights and Dragons E01 Review

CW Seed: Deathstroke: Knights and Dragons, Part 1

Well, that's... different. CW Seed announced a Deathstroke mini-series a while back and I genuinely completely forgot that it exists until part one has been out for a while. And it's a multi-part series, too, which is... interesting. Unlike the previous CW Seed projects, though, this was just an animated project that's mostly standalone, and isn't meant to tie in to the CW live-action continuity the way that Vixen and The Ray did. And unlike Constantine: City of Demons, there was no way this one could be handwaved as taking place with slightly different details in CW's backstory considering we know basically everything about the live action Deathstroke.

And... it's relatively well-animated for an animated DC project that's not one of those once-a-year movies that I really need to start getting caught up with. And for a while, I thought it was just going to be a 35-minute episode that serves as Deathstroke's origin story and basically tell about the tragedy of how he ended up causing his son Joseph to become mute. With an added bit of the titular 'knights and dragons' because Slade likes to tell his little son Joseph a storybook about knights and dragons. And a lot of the beats of the first ten or so minutes fits Deathstroke's origins in New Teen Titans, albeit, of course, minus any sort of involvement with the Titans (or Grant Wilson, fuck 'im I guess), and with a significant amount of moral backbone in this incarnation. Which I suppose the animated series kind of needs to make us really root for Deathstroke. Sure, he's a mass murderer, a mercenary and stuff, but he's got a code of honour, and he kills, like, despots and refuses to work with the bigger evil. That's certainly an injection of adaptation-based goodness, because his comic counterpart certainly didn't, and he's basically the Punisher in this one, isn't it? Just with an added amount of super-soldier serum running through his blood.

This movie is also surprisingly more violent, at least as violent as you can get with the art style. Slade goes around decapitating people and there's a scene where the first act villain, the Jackal, brutalizes and breaks Adeline's bones one by one. We go through the beats of Slade's comic-book backstory, where he became a super-soldier after volunteering in an army experiment, and lied to his wife that he's a legitimate businessman while actually going around being a mercenary... and things get caught up to him when his enemies, in this case HIVE, end up kidnapping Joseph and held him hostage. We get a fun injection of super-villain goodness with the costumed armoured supervillain Jackal serving as Slade's attempted recruiter, while longtime DC comics character Bronze Tiger ends up fighting Slade as a minion of HIVE.

Of course, as good as Deathstroke is, he wasn't fast enough to save Joseph, and ends up leaving him maimed and mute in shame... until a couple of years later when HIVE resurfaces under the leadership of the HIVE Queen, and Adeline asks Slade to bring their kid back. We get a bit of intermission with Slade fighting with a cyborg-ified Bronze Tiger in a war-torn country, with Bronze Tiger essentially portrayed as a far more mercantile and soulless version of a mercenary, fighting both sides of a civil war. After getting what he needs from Bronze Tiger, Deathstroke goes off to rescue his son from the HIVE's island lair.

And... and after immediately surrendering to Lady Shiva (who Slade respects because she's the best martial artist in the DC universe) Slade is brought before the HIVE Queen, who shows off Joseph, a.k.a. "Jericho", as this powerful mutant with vaguely-defined psychic and telekinetic powers in a cage, intending to use him as a weapon. Slade ends up rescuing Joseph and cutting his way out of the HIVE base, and I genuinely thought that this was going to be the end of the episode, with Slade and Joseph escaping home-free from the HIVE base as sort of a self-contained first chapter.

Not so, because the episode pulls the rug out from under us and ends up promising what could be a very interesting take on the Deathstroke mythos. Turns out that the HIVE Queen is Slade's bastard daughter Rose Wilson (it was kind of foreshadowed early on, but I genuinely didn't think Rose would be involved in this series, or at least not as the HIVE leader) and Rose basically talked to Joseph/Jericho about basically working together, and Jericho's pretty willing to help HIVE turn the guns on Deathstroke, who gets shot up and dropped into the ocean at the end of this episode. He's probably fine because this is 'part one' and also this version of Deathstroke's got the Wolverine-level healing factor, but it's still an interesting take. I'm not the biggest fan of diverging this wildly from the comic-book inspiration for just shock value, but this one is done relatively well. I'm not entirely sure if I agree with the addition of the code of morals to Deathstroke, though, having him actually be ruthless in everything other than family would make Joseph's turn to evil a lot more believable, I feel. It's a decent little special, and if nothing else, I am looking forward to see what comes next from this series.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The relative outline of the first part of this episode is taken from Deathstroke, Adeline and Jericho's backstory, taken from the pages of New Teen Titans, where Slade was transformed into a super-soldier from a military experiment, became a mercenary while lying to his family about settling down, and later being just a moment too late in stopping his rivals (the Jackal gang instead of a supervillain called the Jackal) from slitting his son's throat and causing him mute. The rest of the story diverges wildly from there on, though, as is the specifics of Jericho's powers. 
• In New Teen Titans, HIVE and their hexagon-based bases employed Deathstroke as their mercenary hitman multiple times, although their relationship was always business-like.
• Acting as the Alfred to Deathstroke's Batman, Billy Wintergreen's MI6 background also came from the comics. Him being black is shared with his live-action incarnation in Titans, however. 
• Rose Wilson, the bastard daughter of Deathstroke, was introduced in the pages of the 90's Deathstroke mini-series, but she tends to be associated more as part of the then-current incarnation of the Teen Titans instead of being associated with a villainous team. 
• Bronze Tiger (Ben Turner) and Lady Shiva (Sandra Wu-San) are two antagonists in DC comics that tend to be associated with various teams. Neither have been actually involved with HIVE in the comics, however, but rather with the League of Assassins. Bronze Tiger's primarily associated with Suicide Squad stories, while Lady Shiva is nominally a Batman antagonist. We've talked about all these characters multiple times on this blog before as they appeared in Arrow and Young Justice. 
• The fight between Deathstroke and Bronze Tiger takes place in the fictional war-torn nation of Kasnia, originating from the DCAU Justice League cartoon series. 

Movie Review: Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer [2007]

The year was 2007, two years after the first live-action Fantastic Four movie hit the theaters. And 2007 was around the time where superhero sequels end up sort of being pretty looked down upon. Spider-Man 3 debuted in the same year, and X-Men: The Last Stand the year before, and while I certainly found things to enjoy in both of them, they were... problematic movies at best. Throw in the fact that the following year, 2008, had two of arguably the best superhero movies of all time that redefined not just superhero movies but cinema in general (Iron Man and Dark Knight), and the poor, poor Fantastic Four sequel that came out in 2007 sort of just petered out as an underperforming disappointment that caused Fox to stop making Fantastic Four movies for nearly a decade before they splurged out that hideous abomination that is the 2015 Fant4stic movie. And Rise of the Silver Surfer is certainly a better movie than the 2015 movie, but what isn't?

Still, I did really enjoy this movie back when I watched it in the cinema in 2007. It was mindless summer blockbuster, and it was a pretty decent introduction to the Silver Surfer, one of the few 'cosmic' Marvel characters to make it to the big screen before the MCU dipped its toes into the likes of Thanos. Having reading a bunch of Silver Surfer centric stories in the recent months, I ended up booting my old DVD of Rise of the Silver Surfer, and watched through it. 

And... and it's not that bad? At least the first half isn't that terrible. It was pretty decent build-up, with the Silver Surfer, an enigmatic (and honestly, well-portrayed; the CGI for the Surfer and his effect stands up reasonably well) alien on a surfboard that zips around and causes strange global weather changes and creates gigantic sinkholes in different parts of the Earth. 

Meanwhile, the titular Fantastic Four... are having to deal with a marriage. And while it's kind of eye-rolling for the plot to be "ohh the woman wants the marriage to go on and gets upset when the man puts superheroing above their emotional marriage", it's actually not portrayed as terribly as I remember it to be. The marriage angst lasts for a couple of conversations, and Sue's more upset about Reed lying to her than the actual principle of putting superheroing above marriage, and she jumps into action as fast as her compatriots. 

The interaction with our bargain-bin Nick Fury, General Hager, is even a neat storyline for what's otherwise a one-note government flunky. Hager's got a neat ex-rivals dynamic with Reed Richards that ends up in that nice "shut up, you need our help, show my friends some respect" speech in the jungle. And for the first half of the movie, the mystery is built up well -- it's a generic superhero story, but it's executed relatively well. The initial surprie fight against the Silver Surfer in the city, the later trap with the random sci-fi goobledeygonk, the realization that the military might be torturing poor Silver Surfer... and the fact that the Surfer isn't the threat, but a herald to a planet-devouring monster called Gah Lak Tus Galactus...

Unlike most reviewers, I even welcome the addition of previous movie's big bad, Doctor Doom, as this untrustowrthy ally they had to be buddies with thanks to the government's insistence. At least for the first couple of scenes. Doom getting put on his ass when he thinks his paltry electric blasts can match up to the space surfing alien is fun, and his dynamic with Reed as unwilling allies is nice to watch. But when the inevitable betrayal happens and we spend nearly half an hour just dealing with Dr. Doom on a surfboard... the movie sort of falls apart. The CGI fight is neat for a while, but then you realize the writers really didn't have any idea what to do with Doom and at this point he's just a cackling megalomaniac that loses any of the charm he might have when he's prancing around pre-board.  

And that's where the movie falls apart, I think. We get this neat little buildup to the Galactus storyline, but Galactus shows up waaaay too late to the story to have an impact. The Silver Surfer's story is neat, but it also loses steam near the end where the Surfer is reduced first into an exposition machine, then as a deus ex machina to resolve Galactus while Doom ends up stealing the screentime. There's also the whole "all your powers combined" bit where the Fantastic Four start switching powers thanks to the Silver Surfer's ambiguous powers in the first act of the movie, leading to Johnny Storm gaining the powers of all four Fantastic Four members, which is kind of a bit too kooky. Doom gets knocked out after a long CGI fight, and the surfboard returned to the Surfer. And then, of course, the infamous giant cloud o' doom scene as Galactus turns out to just be a massive mass of burning clouds that Silver Surfer just flies in and kills in a suicide bomb scene after discovering humanity or whatever. It just happens really rapidly, such an anti-climax, and even back in 2007 then I always thought it was particularly silly that the way they beat Galactus was within two minutes of him arriving on Earth. Sure, Galactus is the sort of enemy that tends to get defeated thanks to some plot device, but at least make our heroes work for it, y'know? 

Overall, the movie's... it's entertaining enough, I suppose, if you grab some popcorn and sort of turn your brain off. But the rather disappointing CGI-fest that closes out the movie's final act really ends up not resolving much of the set-up that was done reasonably well in the first half. As much as I enjoy McMahon's hamminess, I'd cut out most of Doom's scenes in the second half and replaced it with more Silver Surfer stuff. Or, alternatively, cut out Galactus and save him for a third movie if you really want to focus on Doom and Surfer as the primary focus of the movie. The end result ends up being pretty disjointed as a result. 

The acting is relatively well-done for the most part, with Doug Jones (Silver Surfer), Ioan Gruffurd (Reed) and Michael Chiklis (Ben) being the easy highlights of the movie. Julian McMahon's Dr. Doom is fun but ends up taking a bit too much of the screentime and is reduced to generic Saturday morning villain once he gets the surfboard, while the pre-Captain-America Chris Evans is always charming as Johnny Storm, but I found his scenes kind of grating in this one, with a random shoehorned tsundere military captain love interest that was completely unnecessary to the story. Jessica Alba's Sue Storm... yeah, she reportedly hated being on this movie and it kind of shows. She does a decent job in that it didn't take me out of the movie, but she's clearly the weak link among the primary cast. Which is kind of a shame, since this movie actually gave her a lot more to do with her being the one that first befriends the Surfer. 

Anyway... it's a decent flick, I suppose, despite all its warts. It's around slightly-below-average, but I would be lying if I said I didn't at least enjoy some of the fun superhero action scenes. 

Titans S02E07-08 Review: A Poisonous Robin

Titans, Season 2, Episode 7: Bruce Wayne; Episode 8: Jericho

Episode 7: Bruce Wayne

Episode 7, "Bruce Wayne", is a very, very interesting one. What I originally thought was going to be the obligatory Batman guest star episode with Bruce Wayne showing up to give some important advice... doesn't actually star the real Bruce Wayne himself. Instead, we get the glorious Iain Glen... as Dick's imagination of Bruce Wayne, mocking and judging every single thing he does with some particularly hilarious choice words that the real Bruce Wayne (probably) wouldn't make, basically combining both the angel and the devil on Dick's shoulder into one sarcastic package. And it's pretty fun! As always, Dick ends up being the focus of this episode, and, unless something changes drastically in the next couple of episodes, his old sins and his guilt is going to be the focus of the season. Part of me really don't like it when stories sort of fall back into using a very dramaticized version of real-life mental disorders just to make a funky, unique episode... but on the other hand, these sort of episodes are almost always a delight to watch. And it's in no small part due to Glen's performance as Bruce Wayne, and between actually helpful advice, constantly talking about how everyone gets the amount of years since the flashback era wrong, or when he makes a gag about how Dick's superpower is knowing his cell phone; he's a delight to watch. Ultimately, Ghost-Bruce tells Dick that he needs to confess the truth to someone about the sins that only he (and Slade) know about. 

Granted, though, other than that... the episode is mostly just catch-up, and your mileage may vary whether seeing Ghost-Bruce talk shit to Dick is enough to carry the entire episode. Sure, there are some obligatory catch-up moments. Jason is having some PTSD and anger issues coping with his hostage situation; most of the old guard Titans are still not happy about Dick's recent decisions... and, well, the plot of the episode is mostly just Dick bouncing around talking to random secondary characters until it leads him to Wintergreen. Again, the fact that Bruce is commenting on Dick's behaviour is fun, but ultimately it doesn't really make for the most engaging episode of Titans.

The B-plot with Eve deciding to fuck LexCorp, free Krypto and eventually rendezvous with the Titans and help them cure Conner (via a combination of Kory's Starfire powers and Rachel using her soul-self to keep it from blowing up the building) is pretty neat. It's nice to see Eve have some character development, but ultimately it's... it's just there. 

Something that's perhaps a bit more depressing is the fact that Rose's attempt to befriend and flirt with Jason ends up in disaster because... Jason borrows Dick's records and Jericho's record is among the collection? Poor Jason. Also, Hank, Dawn, Rachel and Donna all find some sensitive micro-aggression beverages and photographs all over, and they sort of immediately assume that it's Jason that's being a douche... and Jason goes off to almost toss himself off of the rooftop because he thinks that he's "poisonous", corrupts everything and no one can help him. It's utterly depressing and I really wished that the buildup to this was actually done better -- I feel like Hank and company blaming Jason for it feels particularly immature and abrupt. And seeing poor Jason completely frazzled ends up with Dick confessing to Jason his crime of 'killing' Jericho, which is the next episode. 

The huge revelation is that apparently Deathstroke is the one sneaking around leaving beers and sodas and drawing angry goth crosses on Raven's room is... mostly unintentionally hilarious, I feel, and the fact that his huge plan is to have the other Titans be douchebags to Jason, and the immediate jump to Jason being suicidal feel very awkwardly handled. I dunno. I feel like if done properly this one could've been a home run, but instead it's just kind of a mediocre episode. 

___________________________

Episode 8: Jericho

And just like the previous episode, the second completely-flashback episode in Titans season two is kind of... it could've been better, really. Again, one of my bigger problems is perhaps just how the season handles pacing, because it's pretty inconsistent with multiple episodes just taking a huge, huge break from the main cast. Whether it's the two flashback episodes or the Conner spotlight episode, it does make the main cast (particularly Rose and Conner, who really didn't do anything after their respective debuts) feel kind of neglected. The thing is, though, the revelations about the specifics that only Dick and Slade knows is... pretty interesting.  We last left off the flashback with Dick meeting the cheerful, non-superhero Jericho in a records store, and turns out that in this disastrous first conflict against Deathstroke, the original Titans might've been a lot less forthright than they could've been. 

And it's... it's kind of interesting, really, to see how much they waver between wanting to use Jericho as a tool to get back at his dad and how much of them are uncomfortable with the prospect. The revenge-seeking Donna and the "be Batman" Dick are the biggest proponents for utilizing Jericho, but the show can't make its heroes too shady so at around the halfway mark they all decide to come clean to Jericho. 

A good part of the episode is mostly just exposition to the audience, and admittedly as someone who knows Deathstroke's backstory inside and out multiple times, it's perhaps not the biggest revelation... but it's still a pretty fun, compelling retelling of the dynamic that Deathstroke has with his son, who is completely removed from any shady stuff that Deathstroke does. They cut ties long ago... but then Jericho shows off his mutant body-jumping powers, the Titans decide to give all the information, and Jericho gets it in his head to help the Titans out and eventually has to choose between Dick and Slade. 

And... and honestly? Slade does have a point. Sure, the Titans are right to be angry at Slade after Aqualad's murder (and Slade brutally beats down Donna in this episode, and also kills her Amazonian museum curator mentor), but as Slade points out... they're basically just weaponizing Jericho in a way that's not too dissimilar from how Slade was worried the government people would treat his mutant son. And, yeah, they did eventually reveal everything to Jericho and didn't force him to do anything, but there's no small part of emotional manipulation in how and when they revealed the information to poor Jericho. 

The fight between Deathstroke and Robin is particularly nice to watch here; I feel like Titans is just a lot more comfortable with showing martial arts melees than trying to incorporate superpowers into a fight scene. The brief one-on-one scuffle between Donna Troy and Deathstroke earlier on is also pretty well-done. The fight in the church is set up pretty well (even if it's pretty obvious), and while Robin and Deathstroke are embroiled in fighting, Jericho ends up taking a killing blow from Slade and dies trying to protect Dick. It's a tragic, shitty death that could definitely be prevented if they had communicated better, and it's the huge event that both gnaws at Dick's conscience and also the event that caused the dissolution of the original Titans. 

And... you know what? This one is actually a very solid one. I wasn't too taken in with the episode the first time I watched it, probably mostly because a lot of the Slade/Jericho information are stuff I already know from prior comic-book knowledge, but incorporating it and making the Jericho situation feel pretty ambiguous, feeding into Slade's self-righteousness and Dick's guilt while not vilifying the Titans is a neat, delicate balance. It could've been done better, I feel, but it is still very solid.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Bruce Wayne does the Batusi dance with the burlesque dancers, the infamous dance that Adam West's Batman did in the first episode of the 60's Batman TV series. 
• In the comics, Rose did flirt a lot with a Robin, specifically the third Robin, Tim Drake, actually sneaking into his room in an attempt to get intimate (albeit she was drunk at the time). 
• "Jericho" condenses a lot of Deathstroke's backstory in the New Teen Titans comics, having Slade be transformed into a super-soldier by a military experiment; him having a son with body-possessing powers; Jericho/Joey being wounded and rendered mute after having his throat slit when Slade refuses to tell his rivals some information; and Slade's ex-wife Adeleine forcing Slade to go away from his son. 
• That said, "Jericho" seems to be the given name of Slade's son instead of his superhero name, and while he does have superpowers, this incarnation of Jericho never actually donned a superhero suit and didn't know about his dad's supervillain tendencies until joining the Titans. 
• Comics Jericho displayed his power in the comics by taking over a body of a Teen Titan (Nightwing instead of Hawk in the comics) and making him dance. 
• While the circumstances are wildly different, both this Jericho and his comics counterpart were killed via Slade stabbing him with a sword. 
• Wintergreen was the best man at Slade's wedding in the New Teen Titans comics. 

Marvel's Jessica Jones S03E12-13 Review: Vigilante Justice

Marvel's Jessica Jones, Season 3, Episode 12: A Lotta Worms; Episode 13: Everything

Episode 12: AKA A Lotta Worms

So yeah, last episode's exploration that 'killing villains isn't the right thing to do, even though they did horrible things' was a very well-done one, but it really doesn't end up solving the fact that Sallinger knows how to blackmail and game the system, and that he brutally tortured and killed Trish Walker's mom. And it's not that I don't get the arguments that Jessica makes for vigilantes not taking life and death to their own hands. But I have to admit that Gregory Sallinger has been such a literal piece of shit and such a gigantic smug psychopath that I cheered a bit when Trish actually does end up catching up to him, scared shitless, in that elevator, and beating him to death literally to a pulp. Honestly, the tragedy here is less about Sallinger dying because seriously, fuck that guy, but more of Trish Walker herself descending into villainy.

I do feel that while I did enjoy this season and I did enjoy Sallinger (more than most, anyway), he is still a problematic villain in that the show doesn't really quite sell him as the terrifying chessmaster that Jessica treats him as. There were many points where it felt like the only reason he's succeeding is the writers ended up writing Jessica as a dum-dum in the episode, or general plot armour. He did end up sticking around for perhaps a bit too long without too much to show for it, and I honestly wished that maybe the show could've perhaps fit a bit more of the "I kill fools" parts of the Foolkiller moniker, which I felt would've at least given us a more consistent motivation to Sallinger's rants. When he was alternating between emotionally detached and ranting about 'fairness' and 'showing your truth' monologues before, when Sallinger ends up being forcibly protected by Jessica in this episode, he ends up with a dry wit in the vein of someone like Lost's Ben Linus or Kilgrave from earlier this season, and while it's entertaining to see the actor ham it up, it's another mark of Sallinger's not-quite-consistent writing.

With Jessica exonerated from being suspected as Nussbaumer's killer and good ol' morality-radar Erik on Jessica's side, they end up wanting to protect Sallinger from Trish less because they wanted to protect the serial killer, and more because it's a battle for Trish's soul and Erik talks about how Trish's soul is becoming dark and stuff. And... I dunno, I felt like that's perhaps a bit too much? The fact that Trish's descent to antiheroism and potential villainy is actually told next to a person whose superpower is literally "I can tell if you are good or evil" and properly quantify the 'good' and 'evil' within you feels like backwards to the message that the show is trying to hammer home that Trish's black-and-white worldview is naive.

After fighting off Trish's attempt at killing Sallinger by tossing her to another building, Jessica basically tries to take Sallinger down legally, but ultimately it's just dragging Sallinger around town while Sallinger continues to be smug and confident that Jessica will totally protect him. Hogarth ends up being scared shitless of cray-cray Hellcat and isn't able to provide help. Later on, while pretending to beat up Sallinger in his apartment (and also multi-tasking and destroying the hidden camera) Jessica causes enough of a distraction for Malcolm and Erik to sedate Trish and, uh, tie her with chains in her apartment.

Malcolm and Trish are left in the apartment and they start talking about 'balancing the scales', something that both characters have struggled with all season long. The problem, though, is the fact that the argument ends up with Malcolm talking about what a scumbag boyfriend he is to Zaya because he lied to her and destroyed her self-esteem and also cheated on his girlfriend, and asked Trish whether he deserved to die for that, because he might've "destroyed lives"... and then Trish's response is a long and genuinely sad story about domestic abuse and whatever happened to Mr. Walker -- Mr. Walker beat up Dorothy a lot but Dorothy was too proud to go to the police, and at one point Trish used the blood from her bleeding mother, rubbed it on her own face and ran to the neighbour and made them call the police and caused Mr. Walker to be arrested. Trish's argument for "what I did was wrong, but also right" is interesting and layered, but then Malcolm goes into an argument about the ends justifying the means and how Trish will become 'the evil'... and I dunno. If Malcolm actually did some more terrible shit or used the Hogarth/Kith event as an example, maybe the argument would feel a bit more poignant, but this little argument end up falling flat and ends up just highlighting how shitty Trish's childhood is.

Also, when Jessica reached home, turns out that her whiskey is drugged by Sallinger, because of course Sallinger is a lunatic who ties Jessica up and goes into his "tell me your truth" routine, and Sallinger ends up giving a summary of the show's premise -- how Jessica's antagonistic and anti-people deal is a fake act, and deep down she wants to find purpose in being a proper superhero. But then Jessica ends up ranting about Dorothy, telling Sallinger that Dorothy lived in the truth, that she was sometimes cruel, but she owned it all and Sallinger killed her anyways with some fucked-up logic to justify that he's not a simple murderer who likes to murder. Sallinger ends up going into a rant about how he's actually delivering 'punishment' and showing the truth... but turns out that it's all an act to catch Sallinger's confession on camera, Jessica was faking being drugged, and Erik was even in the other room waiting as backup. And while I do feel like this sequence does feel abrupt, it does feel like the obvious conclusion. Jessica outsmarts Sallinger on his own game, confronts him with the fact that his psychopathic justifications are all hypocrisy, and with Costa's help and some extra bits of evidence, manages to send Sallinger into jail. And, hell, Trish even admits that she might be wrong, and reconciles with Jessica.

...except, of course, just like that random doorman, Trish's co-star Grace ends up making small talk about how people like Sallinger are scum and would be better off dead and he could probably game the legal system, which sends Trish Walker into full angry Hellcat mode again. And, to be fair, Sallinger did manage to call Jessica to taunt about how he had extra plans to 'test' Jessica eventually or some shit. But of course, Sallinger ends up being scared shitless as he's brought up the elevator and gets absolutely murdered by Hellcat. And he honestly had it coming... but, again, the cost was Trish's "soul", for lack of a better term, and it ends up setting up the next episode. Good riddance to Sallinger, though, he's an asshole.

Interestingly, the previous two seasons of Jessica Jones focused on whether or not Jessica would kill the main villain, with her deciding to kill Kilgrave, her deciding to spare Karl Malus (and freeing herself of the guilt), and also not killing Alissa. Here, the decision that Trish makes is essentially an interesting twist in that Trish is far, far more brutal than Jessica did, plus the whole fact that they actually had other options and Trish refuses to admit it. 

I feel like the problem with this episode is that it's kind of inconsistent, and Trish vacillating between the extremes feel kind of... not the most well-written and well-paced thing. Rachael Taylor is amazing in her scenes for sure, but I felt like the pacing in this episode was off, and that perhaps there was one too many scenes of her seemingly accepting that Sallinger going to jail was for the best. I've also already discussed the weaknesses of the writing around Sallinger so I won't repeat myself, but while, again, it's not a terrible season or episode, it definitely could've been a lot stronger.
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Episode 13: AKA Everything

And so we have this final episode of Marvel's Jessica Jones, and, indeed, the final episode ever for the quintet of Marvel Netflix shows. And... and it's actually a far, far better outing than it would if the season just ended with Gregory Sallinger being arrested, so definite kudos for the show-writers for setting up this more epic and emotionally charged showdown between Jessica Jones and her sister-gone-crazy. With everyone from Jessica to Hogarth to Detective Costa agreeing that Hellcat needs to be stopped, that's basically the crux of the episode. We also start off this episode with a delightful cameo from Luke Cage, and bringing up his own evil brother Willis, Luke notes that sometimes the right thing to do is also the hardest thing to do. His position as a new crime boss notwithstanding, Luke basically makes a deal with Jessica that they will trust each other to take the other one down if they should 'go too far'. And I do like it. Luke Cage's second season does end with the rather sour note that's certainly meant to be a cliffhanger before the whole cancellation, but this meeting ends up far more positively, showing that, hey, presumably, in the background of this world, Jessica would eventually drag Luke back if he ever actually became full-on villainous instead of just hanging around to keep the crime in check. That's a neat little coda to Luke Cage, meaning that for the most part, we do have all of the Netflix superheroes in a relatively good spot.

We get a neat little confrontation in Trish's apartment, where Trish talks about how it was worth it, how she's protecting the people Sallinger might kill in the future (fair), but she refuse to turn herself in because she needs to maintain her cover and protect people and she can't do it from behind bars. Erik, a.k.a. our convenient morality sensor, even shows up to grab Trish and he bleeds out from his eyes, confirming to the audience and Jessica that Trish has gone off the deep end. And it's something similar to her denial earlier in the season about the murder of Jessica's mom last season. There's an interesting bit here where Erik's power of morality has been one of the benchmarks that Trish ends up using to make sure that Nussbaumer and Montero deserved to die, and if said powers turn against him? Trish pretends to submit and escape, intent on continuing to be the Hellcat, protector of justice.

And this is where the huge Hogarth storyline comes in, and I honestly really do felt like this was a bit of a distraction... but it is a pretty interesting distraction. Hogarth reveals that she's dying to Kith, and right just as they are reconciling, Trish demands to know details about Dmitri Patseras, Hogarth's assignment to her. Partly to impress Kith and partly because she's scared shitless of Trish, Hogarth sics Trish on Patseras and Trish naturally beats him absolutely bloody... right in front of his little girl who Patseras desperately tries to protect. Not everyone can be easy targets of 'yeah they most probably deserve to die' like Sallinger.

We later get a bit of a stand-off as the episode moves pretty quickly, with Hogarth setting herself as bait by threatening to reveal Hellcat's identity. However, Kith shows up at the moment that they're trying to spring the trap, and we get this fun little bit of hostage situation and 'what can you give me' bit as Jessica and Trish yell to win the opportunistic Hogarth to their side, and to protect Kith from being held hostage, Hogarth shoots Jessica in the leg and arranges for Trish to be shipped out of the USA. Also, after this bit, Jessica finally makes what Trish calls the 'ultimate sacrifice' and publicly outs Hellcat as Trish Walker, forcing Hogarth to ship Trish out via a coffin smuggling route. Okay, sure. All of this moves very, very quickly.

And then we get the brutal showdown because Hogarth ends up calling Jessica, and we get the sister fight in the smugglers' hangar. Jessica gives this speech that she had tried to excuse this because of what Sallinger did to them, or a side-effect of the Hellcat powers... but Trish always had that self-righteous resolve (unlike someone like Frank Castle, Trish really thinks that what she's doing is the best thing) all along, something that has been evident throughout this season's early part when they're dealing with the fallout of Alissa's death. And her denial remained even as she charges Jessica, aiming for her chest with her knife and yelling about how she's willing to do 'what it takes' for her vaunted justice. Jessica ends up allowing her arm to be stabbed and clonks Trish in the head... and we get a pretty great scene as Costa reads out Trish's long, long list of crimes that she ends up dumbfounded and realize that "I'm the bad guy". Great scene. Trish ends up willingly be shipped off to the metahuman prison of the Raft, and we get a great scene of the two sisters just looking at each other as Trish is being shipped away, sharing an understanding nod as they are separated.

Of course, before the actual final ending of the episode and the series, we do get a bunch of wrap-up scenes. At some point in this episode Malcolm and Zaya broke up (oh well) and Brianna is also there sort of and I don't really care, but ultimately Jessica leaves Alias Investigations for Malcolm. Erik shows up with the revelation that New York hails Jessica as a 'bona fide hero', but Jessica rejects any further involvement with Erik. Erik, meanwhile, gets sent off to The Bar where he and Costa sort of become a bit of a fun crime-fighting duo. And as the final Hogarth scene seems to lead to Kith actually accepting Hogarth because of some of the heroics she did in this episode, turns out that Kith's not a moron, and Kith leaves Hogarth with the pretty unkind words that she's a manipulative bitch that caused almost everything that fucked her over, leaving Hogarth a bitter, lonely woman, and that's a fitting end for Hogarth, I feel.

And the final scene is Jessica, cutting ties with almost everyone in town, having handed over her P.I. job to Malcolm and having no real family left, buggers off to Mexico... before we get the glorious vocal cameo of Killgrave as the scene becomes cast in purple light, and Killgrave mocks Jessica about how she's right to give in, to give up, how it's someone else's job now... and that it enough to cause Jessica Jones to turn around, not run away from the superhero life and finally embrace it. And this sort of 'and the adventure continues, they are superheroes' doesn't serve as just the perfect send-off for Jessica Jones, but to Daredevil, Luke Cage, the Punisher and Iron Fist and their cast as well -- the Netflix Marvel saga might be over, but they have had a good run and this is a pretty well-done, if bittersweet, ending to the whole shebang. Ultimately, this was not a perfect season -- very few really ended up honestly living up to the near-perfect first seasons of Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Punisher -- but it's still a pretty solid season, and wrapping up such a long part of Marvel's live-action history since 2015, it's a honestly pretty solid run.

One Piece 983-985 Review: Yamato

One Piece, Chapters 983-985

Chapter 983: Thunder

A bit of a more cluttered chapter, this one, jumping around and checking in on various people. There is Perospero apparently ascending the fountain and making his way towards Onigashima on his giant candy slug. There's a bit with Usopp and Chopper stuck in the 'torso' version of the Franky-tank, and they're sort of just running around in a headless, armless Franky-Shogun. Sanji is apparently off-screen looking for ladies, while Nami's group is being pursued by Prometheus and Big Mom. Zoro and Kid are fighting some gifters. Meanwhile... Orochi announces the crucifixion and the fact that, hey, Kouzuki Momonosuke actually exists. 

Lots of things that are happening, but none are ultimately very interesting. I feel like this is one of those chapters in the manga that are there to give the anime some interesting 'filler' scenes to expand over the course of one or two episodes. Like, okay, maybe the brief scene of Kid beating up Kaido's goons would be longer, and maybe Zoro fighting the bug trio could be one-third of an episode all on its own... stuff like that. Things like the Sanji/Page One fight that was off-screen in the manga but an entire episode in the anime. Ultimately, it does feel like some of the developments -- like Big Mom changing targets from Usopp/Chopper to Nami's squad feels very abrupt. 

The majority of the chapter is probably the first 1-v-1 fight we've actually had in a long while, albeit it's perhaps one that doesn't have a satisfying conclusion. One of the Flying Six, Ulti, headbutts Luffy and there's a huge clash of Haki. And we learn that Ulti's devil fruit is that of the Pachycephalosaurus, the 'headbutt' dinosaur, one of the cooler dinosaurs that have always sadly remained 'second tier'. It's basically a reflection of Ulti's hard-headedness, huh? Also, basically a confirmation that all of the Flying Six probably have dinosaur themed devil fruits.

In any case, Ulti and Page One apparently got pretty spooked by the clash with Luffy and transformed immediately, but Luffy also moves very quickly, doing a cool horn-grab maneuver to spin Ulti into the air, before Elephant-Gun punching Page One right in his jaw. And it's not like Luffy is entirely in danger for his life or anything, but he's certainly acknowledging that fighting the two of them would require a bit more out of him, and he was going to go into Gear Fourth when faced with Ulti's full dinosaur form. 

And then Thunder Bagua out of nowhere, and this person with kimono robes and a Hannya mask just takes out Ulti in one blow. It's apparently Yamato, the son of Kaidou, and after all the build-up to the character... turns out that he just picks Luffy up like a baby and runs away. Luffy senses no hostility from Yamato, and Yamato claims to have been waiting for Luffy for a long, long time...

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Chapter 984: My Bible

I do like that the chapter does spend some time making sure to tell us that while Page One and Ulti are certainly injured by the fight with Yamato and Luffy, they're also not entirely pushovers either and are quick to jump back up and go back to the hunt again. I'm not someone who really cares about power rankings, and certainly I'm not about to start to for One Piece of all things, but it does manage to sort of illustrate how Luffy and Yamato are definitely gunning for the higher-ups in the Kaidou/Big Mom alliance while the likes of Ulti, being strong enough to withstand blows from Luffy, would probably be a good challenge for some of the weaker Straw Hats or samurai. That's mostly the extent of their involvement here, because Luffy and Yamato gets a brief scuffle and a Red-Hawk attack ends up collapsing part of the castle and blocking Page One's pursuit. 

One of the other major parts of this chapter is Orochi announcing the execution of Momonosuke, and Orochi smugly proclaims how Toki is totally a witch able to send people into the future. And since the majority of the population of Wano doesn't know about devil fruits (and the Toki Toki no Mi is pretty exotic in terms of powers) most of the goons down there are merely laughing and mocking Orochi. We get a hilarious scene of Jinbe and Robin hamming it up as members of the Beast Pirates all talking about 'yeah bro, totally', and we briefly get to see other members of the huge alliance (including the grandpa) just kind of enduring it until the time comes to attack. That's a really cool set of scenes, actually. 

Of course, it's interrupted by Kaidou and his Headliners, and I really do like the composition of that two-page spread of Kaidou and his main henchmen basically just upstaging Orochi. He is pretty dismissive about the 'execution of the brat' that he doesn't think is lively enough, and the fact that Kaidou's arrival is greeted with great cheering while Orochi's arrival is greeted with 'lol what a paranoid loon', plus just how much Kaidou and his goons loom and take up the two-page spread compared to Orochi and Fukurokuju... it's pretty neat. 

Trafalgar Law and the samurai on the submarine teleport onto Onigashima (although the rest of the Heart Pirates remains in the submarine) and they end up in Onigashima and rendezvouses not only with Marco, but also Nekomamushi (he has a gatling gun arm) and Izo. There's a reunion, and it's pretty nice and all, but it's not anything particularly long. 

The final part of the chapter, of course, is what got everyone and their mother losing their minds for the past couple of weeks. Yamato is a woman! Sort of. Yamato is biologically a woman but she (he?) wants to be Oden. Both Kaidou and Yamato refer to Yamato with male pronouns throughout not only this chapter, but also every chapter before and after it. Again, similarly to Kiku, it's a bit of a tricky subject to broach, but for the most part, the consensus is that we're going to use the pronouns that Yamato himself seems to prefer, so 'he', I guess. More eloquent people than me have put it into words.

Yamato tells Luffy that he's apparently been around since Oden's execution 20 years ago, ended up being a gigantic fan of Oden, and got super-duper touched by Oden's speech back then. He found Oden's journal, turned into an even bigger fan, and decided to carry on Oden's will. And, well, he's biologically female, but decided to call himself a man because, well, isn't Kozuki Oden a man, too? So yeah, we've got Kaidou's self-styled Kozuki Oden, Yamato. Oh yeah, and just to pile the bombshells on each other, he also knows Ace! And that little bait-and-switch to not only fool the in-universe characters but also the fandom certainly really, really worked. A great chapter and a great revelation for sure. 

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Chapter 985: New Onigashima Project

The chapter starts off with a confrontation that I didn't think was going to happen until much later, but here we go anyway. Kanjurou against most of the Scabbards! Kanjurou shows up with a headless knight drawn with his paintbrush powers, as well as a small army of Gifters, and we get Kanjurou gloating about how he totally beat the shit out of Momonosuke for daring to wound him during the escape bit, as well as the execution. After a bit of gloating, we get our first fight between Kiku and Kanjurou. Kiku is donning a very cool samurai armour. The two of them clash and apparently Kiku can cut someone's soul and the wound would remain all the way to the afterlife. The other Scabbards also fight, and apparently where Nekomamushi's got a gatling gun arm, Inuarashi's got a peg-leg sword. 

Meanwhile, as for Luffy and Yamato? Yamato makes quick work of the obligatory "X for next Straw Hat" that follows any remotely likable character, because she actually asks Luffy to bring him onto the ship because Luffy is Ace's brother. It's also kind of interesting that Yamato sort of immediately admits that Luffy might be 'more Oden' than him, because he's apparently shackled since he was eight years old and can't go out to sea and see the world? Okay? Apparently those are exploding cuffs, and Yamato is scared of them? I dunno, though. The conversation feels weird and I feel like Yamato is hiding something, because the response to Luffy's simple offer of taking off the chains gets cut off. I'm not sure if there's something more. Is there a Devil Fruit power that the chains are suppressing or something?

The interruption, of course, is Kaidou talking about how the Marines are growing arrogant with their SSG and their Shichibukai abolition, but they're going to go on the offensive not only with the Kaidou/Big Mom alliance, but also the fact that they're going after the Ultimate Weapons! Finally, after a decade of the Ultimate Weapons not really being brought up, they're back in the story. The question is... which one? Also, they're going to gun for the One Piece immediately, which gets everyone all hyped up about the endgame of the story and stuff. 

Big Mom (or 'O-Lin') also shows up with a huge triumphant entry, apparently having herself a small army of Yokai. Apparently Big Mom defeated Nami and Carrot handily off-screen to grab Zeus back, although Big Mom doesn't kill either of them? I dunno, I guess it would be too unbelievable for all of the weaker Straw Hat members to continually escape Big Mom in the harem building, but on the other hand it's also kinda weird that everyone's just basically getting themselves spared by Big Mom. 

And as everyone is hyped... Kaidou makes yet another announcement. Wano is a natural fortress that the marines can't really reach easily, and Kaidou basically wants to make a nation of pirates. Orochi objects because that's his territory... but Kaidou very easily beheads Orochi with a sword in a surprisingly graphic manner. There's blood and everything! And... holy shit, it sure is a shocking moment. Keeping aside any sort of narrative counter-arguments, though, I don't think that this is it for Orochi for the simple reason that One Piece, even among other Shonen Jump manga, has always been pretty... tame in terms of violence. Even its deaths tended to happen either partly off-screen, silhouetted, or involving an explosion. Any sort of dismemberment tended to be limited to things like Logia users or someone who'll show up all fine later on.

And not to mention, from a narrative point of view... as neat as it is that Orochi gets killed by the true evil power in Wano, the fact that there's no sort of resolution between the samurai, Hiyori or Momonosuke against Orochi feels very, very odd and shallow. And there's the oddity of introducing a character with a devil fruit but not having the character use it at all. But it's still a pretty badass moment nonetheless, and Kaidou essentially causes everyone there that used to be loyal to Orochi to be converted to his side. Kaidou does a huge talk about how there'll be New Onigashima, a pirate kingdom... and his son Yamato is the one that'll rule it. And then we cut to, uh... Yamato and Luffy charging at Kaidou all angry and stuff. Yamato wants to bonk Kaidou in the head, and Luffy wants to save Momonosuke. 

And 985 is a pretty huge hype chapter for sure! Orochi dies (for now), Kaidou gives the grand big villain plan, and we get to learn more about Yamato. And... and I actually like him a whole lot. Right now the biggest contenders for being part of the Straw Hat crew, I believe, is Carrot for the simple fact that she hung out the main cast for so damn long. And a lot of argument has been made for Momonosuke as well, if you subscribe to the theory that when the arc is done it's Hiyori that becomes the leader of Wano. But I dunno. Yamato has been a lot likable and pretty dang popular, and he really wants to get on board? We'll see. I really wasn't sure at all about Yamato before, but so far he has proven to be pretty likable! 

Random Notes:

• Yamato wears a Hannya mask, yet another nod to Japanese theater, and the mask itself portrays the souls of women who have became a demon out of obsession or jealousy. The mask itself is designed so that it looks like a fierce, angry demon from the front, but when angled downwards, the mask appears to be sorrowful and crying, and it's meant to cite the complexities of human emotion. 
• I mostly know about the Hannya from the character Momotaros in Kamen Rider Den-O, but even One Piece have had a character inspired by the Hannya mask -- Impel Down's Hannyabal. 
• Yamato's robes are also Shinto priestess robes (which I didn't recognize) which is also yet another subtle clue of Yamato's gender.
• Granted, in popular culture Hannya masks aren't exclusively worn by women anymore, which is also part of the huge fake-out here. 
• Big Mom's Homies in Wano, instead of being fairy-tale inspired, are all taken from Japanese yokai! Specifically, tsukumogami, or items that have gained sentience and soul of their own. Most prominently seen would be the Kasa-obake, Chochin-obake and Bakezori. (Umbrella ghost, paper lantern ghost and ghost sandal respectively). 985 gives us a bunch more, although I can't identify most of the newer ones beyond the Biwa-bokuboku, the Biwa (Japanese lute) yokai. The Biwa yokai comes with its own sentient Biwa pick! In addition, among some of the notable ones include a creepy little doll girl, what looks like a sheet ghost, a mass of hair with a face, and a living candle.
• Cover story! In 983 and 984, we get, of course, the expected meeting between Capone and the Lola/Chiffon twins with Pound. It's basically what everyone expects and, I guess, it's the end of this cover story? As usual, it honestly ran on for a bit too long. With everything that happens in these three chapters, suffice to say that I don't really care about the cover story. 
• Perospero does only have like one brief scene in 983, but on the other hand it's really, really neat that even Big Mom's real motivations in this arc is a bit of a mystery to even her children. Perospero clearly doesn't give a shit about an alliance and just wants to make the Big Mom Pirates reign supreme. I guess this is eventually foreshadowing some sort of split down the middle with Big Mom's family who approve of the alliance and those who don't?
• Among the cool gifters seen facing Zoro are a trio of pretty iconic insects often found in Japanese pop culture -- a giant four-armed man with stag beetle horns jutting out of his back; a regular-sized man with four arms and a rhinoceros beetle horn; and a lady with mantis scythe-arms. They apparently all used to be pirate captains, too. 
• Marco heads off because he sees a 'strange shadow at sea', which I can only take to mean Perospero? We might be having a Marco-v-Perospero fight, but considering Perospero's fluctuating allegiances I wouldn't actually be surprised if Marco somehow gets it in Perospero's mind to help them out until he can divine what Big Mom's playing at. 
• During Oden's execution... there is someone with a kimono pattern that actually looks remarkably similar to what Yamato is wearing right now!
• Part of what I think is the main themes of Wano would be 'girls can too be great warriors', so an alternate take on this might be less of Yamato being essentially trans and more, later on, characters like Yamato and Hiyori walking around in impunity as women in positions of power, and, if you believe the Kiku-is-a-woman-pretending-to-be-a-crossdresser-man theory, her, too. Between the 'sit pretty at the home base' attitude the samurai have towards Hiyori and Zoro's old master's attitude towards women, that, I feel, might actually be a theme in Wano as a whole. We'll see, though. Either way is fine with me. 
• Kaidou might respect his child's preferred pronouns, calling Yamato his 'son' consistently throughout the series, but at the same time he beats up Yamato a lot, apparently. Okay.
• Izo uses a gun, which is something I completely forgot about!
• One of the big theories about Orochi's potential survival is that maybe it's part of his Yamata-no-Orochi fruit powers. We've seen that the Orochi heads when he transforms all have different personalities, so maybe Kaidou just killed merely one out of several personalities? It's certainly not going to grow new heads, the hydra an orochi isn't. Or it could just be something as simple as a Kanjurou ink clone.