One Piece 1033 Review: Cursed Swords

One Piece, Chapter 1033: Shimotsuki Kozaburo

An interesting chapter, although probably the revelations done here isn't something that would be particularly groundbreaking for anyone who's been following the supplementary One Piece materials like the SBS and the databooks. "Not going to cover this in the manga" my ass!

The chapter mostly focuses on the Zoro/King fight, and King kind of is mocking Zoro over him being 'killed by his own sword' because Enma is drawing away his Haki while he's in a live-and-death situation. We also get to see another ability that the chapter implies to be from King's Lunarian heritage -- where Zoro stabs him in the gut and it instead causes a huge explosion that engulfs Zoro. So that BDSM gear isn't just for show? Queen takes the scene after this to basically confirm what the readers have already guessed -- King is a Lunarian, and his race used to be considered as gods before they were wiped out. Following this manga weekly, it's probably not immediately obvious that this is just the community's theorizing and not actually confirmed within the story itself. 

We get a very badass panel of Zoro doing Lion Song Requiem (or whichever translation for Shi Shishi Sonson you prefer), but King just does his stupid Tempura Udon face-pull-beam attack again, seemingly unscathed by Zoro's attack. Enma chooses that time to draw Zoro's Haki again, causing him to get blown away by the shockwave that also demolished a huge chunk of Onigashima's rocks. 

Zoro goes to grab his falling swords, and we get some flashbacks to previous chapters relevant to Sandai Kitetsu and Wado Ichimonji -- when Zoro received Sandai Kitetsu from the Loguetown seller, and met its crafter; and when he begged to get Wado Ichimonji from Kuina's father. Zoro finally realizes something -- the oddity of how a swordsmith from Wano ended up in Shimotsuki Village. 

And as Zoro falls down from a barrage of wing attacks by King, Zoro flashes back to the whole 'sunnacchi' conversation he had with Momonosuke, and a proper flashback to how Shimotsuki Kozaburo, Kuina's grandfather, was actually an illegal escaper from Wano. We get to see little Zoro talking to 'Old Geezer', and... and again, the impact of this whole sequence is slightly lessened by the fact that Oda has actually outright said most of these in an SBS.

But Kuzaburo's words about swords is definitely going to be something that's going to be relevant to the fight going onwards -- Kozaburo talks about how swords exist only to cut people down, to take lives, and it's a swordsman's job to 'tame' the sword. Kozaburo talks about how 'cursed swords' is a bit of a misnomer, it's just the fact that the sword is serving its purpose exceptionally well. It's at this point that Zoro remembers Kozaburo's words about swords and their desire for taking lives, and how Kozabura's magnum opus is Enma -- God of the Underworld. 

As Zoro puts together all of these scattered information in his head, Zoro realizes that Enma is basically testing him -- testing his worthiness to 'tame' Enma. We've kind of seen this before, with Shisui initially being a bit of a 'problem child'. Zoro notes that Enma isn't acting out of malice, but it's just that Zoro's not living up to Enma's standards, because Oden was able to wield Enma while so much Haki was pouring out of him. And then Zoro resolves that he's going to go all out with all his Haki -- unleashing another blast of Conqueror's Haki that takes out all the random Beast Pirate goons trying to butt in. Pretty badass sequence, and the final panel with Zoro and his three swords facing off against King is also him showing that he can use that Conqueror coating thing that Luffy does? 

Overall, not much progressed in terms of the actual fight, but I feel like between the sword lore and a reaffirmation of Zoro's goals, we get a whole lot of content here. Again, it's character moments like these that really make people actually care for the characters in the first place, and I most certainly appreciate anything that gives Zoro more depth than just 'looks cool, kills fools'. Pretty cool chapter all around. 

Kamen Rider Revice E11 Review: Sakura Awakens

Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 11: Why Does the Invincible Sakura Need Power?

I think I really don't have that much time to watch television episodes nowadays, so I'm not going to try and force myself to "I need to watch two to four episodes in one sitting just to get a review article" out of it. In the next year I think this might be how I do things with TV? We'll see. I intended on having entire seasonal reviews for some of the CW superhero shows as well, but that might take some time as I figure things out IRL. I do have some articles that are slated for December, but turns out that I have a lot of stuff to do these next couple of months. It'll be interesting. 

We start off this episode (and arc, I think?) with a fun little montage of our heroes fighting a bunch of Deadmen in different locales, and apparently we've got a set of ten stamps all collected and stuff. Meanwhile, Olteca goes off to scout a 'saviour' type guy with a flat mask who talks about anarchic equality and stuff... but that's clearly just going to be a villain-of-the-week, so I'm much less invested in him than I am Aguilera scouting for Sakura. 

And it's interesting. Sakura's huge motivation is for her family to remain whole, as well as what she's going to use her karate powers for... something that Sakura's mother rather innocently tosses out, noting that her power is useless if she's going to be irresponsible like skipping class and stuff. Of course, Sakura being a teenager, brushes off everything with 'lay off, I'm fine'. Things are not fine, though, when Sakura gets a rider belt mailed to her. The show hasn't been giving Sakura that much of a spotlight, since it's all about Ikki and Daiji in the past couple of episodes, but it's an interesting easy shortcut for her to match up with all the problems that's tearing her family apart. 

She gets distracted in her karate classes, seeing visions of Aguilera and failing to watch her power... and ends up seeing that the assistant instructor in the karate dojo has a Vistamp in her bag. Sakura follows her and sees her palling around with Olteca to rob a bank, but, of course, she's got the reason that she's stealing money for her son's surgery. Aguilera quite literally beats Sakura and tosses her around, before mocking her that simply saying that she wants to save people is easy, but useless when Sakura has not enough power. Aguilera wants to trick Sakura into joining the Deadmans so she could have the power she wants. 

Meanwhile, Ikki and Daiji fight a big pink tentacle Deadman robbing a bank. They do a double rider kick and a double transformation, always neat to see, and they fight a constantly-regenerating pink Deadman that turns out to be a planarian! Those are very, very cool animals! Ikki and Daiji's fight has Revice showing off their Megalodon and Brachiosaur forms, while Kamen Rider Live gets to do some finishers while he's kind of baffled at his older brother's sheer energy. We get the CGI Brachio-remix form which... uh... it's not as stupid-looking as the others?

Sakura ends up following assistant instructor Oomori around and finds out her reason for working with the Deadmen -- she needs money for her son's surgery. She tells this to her family, bringing up the fact that Oomori needs this for her son... while Daiji is just kind of against using the Vistamps or allying with the Deadmen for anything evil, while their mom is just rather understandably angry that her daughter just got beaten up. Again, monsters are running around blowing up buildings and tensions are high, so the conversation that results -- Daiji and Mama Igarashi telling Sakura to stay at home because she doesn't have enough power -- is kind of a natural progression. Oh, if only they knew Sakura has been struggling with her powerlessness, right? 

Sakura's internal flashbacks to other people telling her about her powerlessness ends up awakening her own internal demon, and... again, just like Daiji's own envy towards his brother, I feel like this was done and executed pretty damn well. 

Turns out that Oomori is being essentially influenced by the host of the Planarian Deadman -- the shady cult influencer in the beginning -- who sends her to attack the only doctor capable of performing her son's surgery... except she's being duped into attacking a radiographer, and in desperation as Fenix comes in to arrest her, she enters the Phase Two contract and transforms into Planarian-Phase-Two. It's an interesting bit where the cult leader basically modifies the demon contract to make Oomori enter a contract with his Planaria demon... pretty neat stuff, and it keeps the Planaria cult leader for a subsequent episode.

Ikki and Daiji just go in to fight the powerful Phase Two Deadman, of course, because what else can they do? But we've seen how Sakura is always more focused on the emotions of the smaller people, and she ends up transforming into Kamen Rider Jeanne with the Cobra Vistamp to stop Oomori herself... except her transformation doesn't actually happen, her belt fails, and Ikki ends up taking the blow to protect her. 

It's obviously just the first part of a two-parter, but it's a really fun one! Daiji is pretty great and Ikki is fun, but I really do hope that the Sakura arc doesn't rely too much on a completely-evil demon half, and we actually see her struggle with her own inner conflicts. Pretty fun episode all around. 

Random Notes:

• George has an off-handed remark about how doing a remix form before he calibrates the Vistamp could be dangerous. Actual foreshadowing, perhaps? 
• Kamen Rider Demons shows off another genomix, this time using Ikki's Condor Vistamp. He grows a pair of purple wings that reminds me of Jin from Zero-One. I guess they are sharing Vistamps, which shouldn't be surprising, really. 
• The monsters that are quickly defeated in the opening montage are reused monsters from Lupinranger vs. Patranger. I actually watched that show! I don't remember these specific Ganglers, though, unfortunately. It's been a while. 
• The Deadman is a Planarian! That's one of the more obscure animals and I really do like it. The phase one version if particularly cool, I think, with the pink stuff just looking like a slipshod wrapping (or is it the true body of the creature coiled up into a mass?) with a bunch of creepy golden masks strewn about its body.
• As of this episode, it's actually not certain whether it's Aguilera or George who sends the Justice Driver to Sakura. 

One Piece 1032 Review: Pteranodons Hunted Like This

One Piece, Chapter 1032: Oden's Beloved Blade

A pretty fun chapter, I think, after the Sanji stuff in the previous chapter. This one deals more with the plot threads that have been going around in the background and giving them a bit more prominence. Marco and Izo witness and fly off to investigate the giant fire-demon that Kanjurou made, and... I think that Izou might get something to do? I've been talking about how Denjiro hasn't had anything relevant to do, but so is Izo. 

Meanwhile, the Yamato/Apoo/Drake/Numbers group basically clash with the Robin/Brook/CP0 group... because the latter just quite literally fell out of the upper floors into them. It's interesting to note that Fuga has a centaur-like lower body like a horse? And he's friendly with Yamato? There's an almost-hilarious bit where the CP0 agents seems to be caught up in the descending Kazenbou and it would be a hilarious but anticlimactic end if they just got caught up in a different attack and get burned alive. 

But of course, they get back up. And I haven't really been paying too much attention to the CP0 members as individuals, but I guess 'hairy mask with octopus mouth' and 'two mismatched eyes mask' dudes are guys that we really have to start paying attention to. In particular, the shorter, mismatched-eyes scar-masked CP0 guy seems to be the one that's most... aggressive, I guess? 

Interestingly, because Brook and Robin landed on Fuga and Fuga's just sort of running along, CP0 ends up facing off against Drake and Apoo. Their beef with Drake is simple enough -- they don't actually call the organization by name, but they clearly recognize him as part of SWORD and they want to get rid of him. Apoo, meanwhile, does the rather stupid thing of threatening to sell incriminating pictures of CP0 to Big News Morgans... I'm convinced that Apoo's just basically the Starscream of the One Piece universe. He gets stabbed in the neck for his trouble... 

except he actually gets back up because Apoo, as goofy as he looks, still knows Armament Haki. He does a 'boom' to protect Drake from a Shigan, and there we have the team-up. I guess Drake trusts Apoo's revenge-driven motivation now.  I do really want to see the story make good use of Apoo beyond just being a Kaidou lackey, so I'm actually happy to see him do something. Doubtful that Drake and Apoo are going to be able to beat CP0, but... I don't know. Maybe? It's kind of something that I wasn't expecting, because I was expecting a Robin/Brook-vs-CP0 moment, but maybe Drake and Apoo get something interesting to do here.

(I initially through Robin and Brook are stuck on Fuga's head, but they apparently jump off and are separated from CP0 by the Kazenbou's flames).

The second half of the chapter deals with Zoro vs. King, and... uh... I guess Queen and Sasaki aren't the only ones who are weird. Because dinosaurs in the One Piece world are just fucking weird, I guess. King is able to, uh... pull the crest of his pteranodon beast mode and launch a force out of it. Like a weird slingshot. Zoro describes it a a 'laser beam', and I absolutely love that this attack, in the original Japanese, is called "Tempura Udon". All of King's attacks end with 'don', because Pteranodon.

And it's different when it's someone like Queen and Sasaki, who are goobers, who claim shit like Triceratops Helicopters or whatever the hell Brachoicoilus is are somethings that dinosaurs do, but King has been so serious. And I absolutely like that King gets actually angry when Zoro things that being 'on fire' is also something that Pteranodons do -- the audience have basically already pieced together that it's part of King's Lunarian race, but Zoro doesn't know that yet. Zoro actually feels like he's having severe problems with fighting King, though the whole "he just got up from fighting two Yonko" thing is probably one of the biggest reasons why. Pretty interesting, it's been a long while since Zoro actually feels like he's exerting effort in his fights. He's throwing out his Black Rope Dragon Twisters and 360 Pound Phoenix and they're barely hitting King, but King's wings are so powerful and tough that Zoro's having trouble knocking him out of the sky. 

And then Zoro hears the music of a shamisen, and Enma seems to extract Haki from him. Simultaneously, Orochi hears the same music to see Hiyori, in her Komurasaki getup, play the same instrument. I have been wanting either Hiyori or Denjiro to be the one to end Orochi since they have some of the biggest narrative reasons to, so this is more of a 'oh, finally' moment than a big twist. But the big twist is definitely whatever relation Hiyori has to Enma suddenly behaving like that... I've never been someone who cares a lot about the whole 'cursed sword' or generally the sword stuff in One Piece, but this might actually be something genuinely exciting. 

Kamen Rider Revice E09-10: Evil vs. Vice

Kamen Rider Revice, Episodes 9-10

Been a while since I did any Revice watching. Catching up slowly! I do plan to maybe cover a second Kamen Rider show next year, but we'll see how my schedule holds up. 

Episode 9: Runaway Kagero! Igarashi Brothers... Collapse!?

Last time we left off, Kamen Rider Evil's identity as Daiji's demon Kagerou is exposed to Ikki and his family, and these two episodes essentially wrap it up. Still kind of felt like they could've played out the angst of the Igarashis finding out that Daiji's evil, but the angst at this point becomes 'how do we get him back' and 'how did this happen'. The parents are being kind of supportive and encouraging to Ikki, telling him to get Daiji back... but throughout these two episodes and the previous one, we are neatly building up to Sakura in the background with sullen looks. 

The dilemma here is that Fenix's commander Wakabayashi is dispatching Ikki to eliminate Daiji, and... and who knows what George is thinking? He claims to be 'pushing things along' and acts all wacky and stuff, and we do get a bit of an explanation in episode 10, but I think he just wants to see cool Kamen Riders emerge. The reluctant Ikki is contrasted by the (cool but kind of one-dimensional) Hiromi, who's pretty enthusiastic in his desire to eliminate Kamen Rider Evil. I do like that Hiromi doesn't actually gloat in his desire for vengeance or whatever, though -- it would've been so easy to write him that way, but he's pretty chill and even apologetic about it.

We then get a whole lot of action scenes, and Ikki's clearly very conflicted -- so much that Vice basically had to say 'Daiji, Daiji!' a lot of times to try and bug him so that he gets his head in the game. We get the frankly rather low-key debut of the Gaim-based kamakiri/praying mantis form... as usual, I did enjoy the action up until they did the terribly-CGI'd 'remix' form. 

Far more interesting is the conversations that Kagerou and Daiji have in their minds, with Kagerou reiterating that he was born from Daiji's inner desires -- whether he wants to admit it or not, there is a lot of jealousy brewing inside him towards Ikki. 

Later on in the episode, Sakura confronts Ikki and gives another point-of-view, being absolutely livid that all these people are trying to force one of her older brothers to kill the other one. I do really like how Sakura's putting her foot down about all this -- it's interesting that despite Ikki's confidence and cockiness in the previous couple of episodes, this situation has really shook him up so much. Sakura also gets introspective about how she had wanted to 'get stronger', but is seeing how strength is kind of tearing her family apart. 

Ikki's own monologues with Vice (and the completely unnecessary flashback to Daiji getting lost as a kid) is kind of well-acted, too -- the emotions going through poor Ikki's head isn't articulated super-properly, but I do appreciate it. In this situatoin, someone would have a mixture of different emotions running through their head. The third act gives us Ikki versus Kagerou, and Kagerou basically taunts Ikki -- very successfully, too -- and talks about how Ikki's success and never really realizing that Daiji is jealous is why Kagerou festered so much within Daiji's heart. 

...of course, while all of this is well done, it's also kind of rendered moot since Kagerou is a demon hijacking Daiji, and regardless of whether Daiji's frustrations are valid or not, the first priority here is to beat out the possessing demon. And so we end this episode with Revice going Kamakiri again to beat the shit out of Kagerou. 

___________________________ 

Episode 10: Older and Younger Brother, Believing Heart

The cliffhanger from episode 9 is resolved by Kagerou pretending to be Daiji for a bit, causing Ikki to hold back his finisher kick and tumble to the side. Kamen Rider Demons shows up, does his own finisher (which fails to do anything) before zipping off with Ikki. 

Sakura calls Hiromi's talk about 'we need to consider Daiji gone', and gets super pissed off that all this Kamen Rider business has thrown her family into chaos, fucking up Ikki's mental state and causing them to consider killing Daiji off. Sakura gives the very, very understandable comment of "what's the point of saving other people's families if your family is the price for it?" She storms off in a huff, and ends up later meeting -- and getting beaten up by Aguilera, who seems to want to use Sakura as her next 'sacrifice', so to speak. I'm not sure how her discontent at the whole situation regarding her brothers and Fenix is going to translate into being easily corrupted, but the next couple of episodes are probably going to explain it. 

Vice, meanwhile, ends up talking to Ikki in the hot springs, and in the guide of being a playful goofs, ends up dropping some heavy questions to Ikki. He tells Ikki that despite his constant statement of believing in Daiji, he clearly didn't, and has been focusing about how this all relates to himself. Of course, there's the plot convenience of Vice reassuring Ikki that, hey, Daiji's still alive, still exists and is still fighting in Kagerou's mind. That's... kind of a cheat, but this is a Sunday morning superhero show for kids. With Ikki's determination and faith in the real Daiji restored, the rest of the episode is just essentially a 10-minute confrontation. 

Kagerou unleashes the three Brachio Deadmen, and they face off against Kamen Rider Demons and Vice. Meanwhile, Ikki faces off against Kagerou one-on-one. Kagerou talks a lot about how it's Daiji's weakness and hatred that sustains him, but I guess Ikki basically ignores all of it. Ikki gives a big speech, apologizing to Daiji for not realizing how strong he really is... a point that I felt is underscored by the completely unnecessary flashback to Daiji being lost as a kid, and... kind of underscored by the fact that Daiji's just cooped up in Kagerou's mind all this time? I felt like this huge moment could've been done better. 

But Ikki's speech causes Daiji to start attacking Kagerou from inside, while Ikki transforms into the Zi-O based Brachio form. They do a Brachio Stamping Finish to blow up Kagerou... and this restores Daiji. Daiji ends up reversing his driver (which is apparently what George is after all this time) and transforms into Kamen Rider Live -- which I actually wasn't spoiled on. Kind of interesting that Daiji has a 'good' form. Daiji blows up the fused Brachio Deadman. Things seem to have a happy ending as the Daiji stuff is wrapped up. 

Not... not the biggest fan of how the arc ended. It's kind of the simplest and least interesting thing that I felt they could've taken this arc, but the fact that everyone already knows that Daiji's mind is still intact within Kagerou does kind of sap a lot of tension on whether Ikki, Hiromoi, Sakura and the others have to angst about whether Kagerou has consumed Daiji entirely or not. Not the biggest fan of the resolutoin either, or maybe it's just me not getting how the whole lost-in-the-mountains flashback ends up feeding into the Ikki/Daiji dichotomy? It's well acted and the acting is earnest, though, and I really did feel pretty invested in the storyline -- it's just that they probably could've had better buildup and arranging the plot points. 

Random Notes:

• Demons is kind of in the background fighting the Brachios and is honestly kind of just there for the action scenes. A good narrative tool, but he's kind of irrelevant to these episodes? We get to see the debut of his 'Mogura Arm', which reminds me a lot of Kamen Rider Birth. 
• Apparently he's 'bawling like a baby' in his mind in episode 10? I'm... not sure what to make of it. 
• Kagero essentially holds a crew of small-time swindlers hostage and uses them as the source of the three Brachio Deadmen that rampage as the goons for this two-parter. It's... it's neat that we have this sub-plot, I guess? The antagonistic focus is so much on Kagero and Daiji that I kind of forgot that this sub-plot existed until I rewatched the episode for the review, to be honest. 
• Where did the Mogura Vistamp show up? I don't pay too much attention to where each plot device is tossed around, but unless I missed something, I don't think we ever had a Mogura Deadman, did we?
• They look very nice, but neither the Kamakiri nor Brachio forms really do anything special or homage-y. I guess the Kamakiri form uses swords like Gaim, but that's about it. 
• The core Deadmans are mostly just in their base complaining about Kagerou, other than Aguilera's little stunt in episode 10. 
• I gloss over it a bit, but that Kagerou monologue at the end of episode 9? With how Daiji finally found a place to shine, and Ikki had to show up there and essentially usurp his spotlight? You really do feel for poor Daiji, don't you?
• I guess I'm just growing a bit old, but I really am deadpanning towards a lot of Vice's antics. The hashtag stuff in episode 9, or the little skit he did in the beginning of 10 really did nothing for me.
• Oh, okay, 'Live' is 'Evil' backwards. I got it. I got it now. 
• So I guess they heard everyone's comments about the Kamen Riders not doing any 'riding' in the show itself, and is committed to showing Ikki and his bicycle? If they can't film motorbikes, bicycles are the next best thing, I guess? 
• Because episode 10 features the debut of Kamen Rider Live, Evil's transformation in that episode is suddenly accompanied by a giant CGI bat that envelops him. 

Reviewing Monsters: The Legend of Zelda - Minish Cap, Part 2

The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap

Part two of my coverage of Minish Cap enemies. Originally meant to be a single article, I cut it into two articles because of length. 

Ghini: We start this half of the article off with yet another returning enemy -- good ol' Ghinis! Ghinis are still one-eyed spherical ghosts that stick their tongues out at you. In an attack that I don't remember seeing in games prior to this, Ghinis will wrap Link with their tail and lick Link. Okay, sure!

Gibdo: Gibdos make their apperance here, and I like how the Gibdo in the Minish Cap really does look like someone in a cheap Halloween's costume, with those sausage fingers poking out of the bandages as it moves threateningly towards us. While Zelda has never been the most realistic game out there, it does make TMC Gibdo look a bit more different. As with traditional 2D Gibdos, burning off their bandages will turn them into Stalfos... which begs the question, though, where did the flesh in the fingers come from? 

Door Mimic: Ah, more mimics! They pretend to be gateways that are locked by small keys, but when Link approaches them the door sections slam down on Link, before retracting back up with a chain. I found this so hilarious, and felt a lot more elaborate than the traditional 2D Door Mimics, which are just... doors. 

Rock Chuchu: Another Chuchu variant! It's the Red Chuchu who has a layer of rock that surrounds their head like a helmet. They don't actually have any lava powers, but the imagery definitely evocates something volcanic! While they don't actually need a specific item to defeat, their rock helmet are susceptible to Link's "Pot-splitter" sword technique. 

Wisp: These are basically Bubbles from the traditional games, but have been named as 'Wisps' here both in the Japanese and the English versions. They're skulls with little flaming balls that float around, and will 'curse' Link to be unable to hold his sword, similar to Majora's Mask Bubbles. Nothing too interesting to otherwise say about this, though. 

Cloud Piranha: One new area that the franchise first explored here is the Cloud Tops, where Link travels to a realm above the clouds. This was years before Skyward Sword made a whole game out of it! And apparently, the clouds are infested with Cloud Piranhas! They're fishes with a metallic covering over their upper body -- and in Jaws style, their fins show above the surface before they jump and try to bite Link. Nothing in its anatomy tells us why it's living in the clouds, or how they swim in the clouds. In a fun bit, Link can trick them into jumping out and falling off of the clouds themselves, presumably causing a massive shock that an angry, chomping sky-fish fell down from the sky.

Lakitu: This one is definitely a Mario enemy, although it does make sense why the Lakitu show up in the Cloud Tops. They sure are spherical blob dudes hanging on clouds that launch lightning bolts at Link! They hide within their clouds if Link gets too close, so he needs to snipe them from afar with ranged weapons. I tend to not have much to say about these sort of 'hey, it sure is a blob' style of enemies. 

Bombarossa: Are these Mario enemies, too? They might be? They're more hazards than anything, being very angry and threatening-looking floating bombs with two huge spikes on the sides of their heads. They show up mostly in the Cloud Top areas. It's honestly kind of a shame that in all of the sky or cloud-themed areas in Minish Cap, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, we don't really get a whole ton of sky-themed enemies. 

 

Ice Wizzrobe & Fire Wizzrobe: Variants of the Wizzrobe enemy that utilize their specific enemies. I do like that their Gandalf hats actually change depending on their element -- Ice Wizzrobes's hats are frozen over, whereas Fire Wizzrobe has a small bonfire in place of a hat. Minish Cap doesn't quite utilize fire or ice gimmicks like some other Zelda games do, so the two elemental Wizzrobes' effects basically affect speed -- Ice Wizzrobes freeze Link in place, while Fire Wizzrobes will cause Link to get so hot that his speed increases, which is an interesting debuff. 

Minibosses:

Madderpillar: We're entering the realm of the mini-bosses and bosses now, and we'll be listing all the minibosses in rough order first! While I do still think that the Minish-sized enemies are severely under-represented, there are at least an almost-even split between regular-sized bosses and Minish-sized bosses. The Madderpillar is our first miniboss, and it's... it's a huge cartoon caterpillar with extremely large snake-like eyes, and a huge Caterpie-esque nose that shoots out string at you. As the miniboss of the Deepwood Temple, the way to beat the Madderpillar is more or less similar to other worm bosses in 2D games, though Link needs to first hit the Madderpillar's clown nose first before hitting the heart that appears on the other end of the Madderpillar's body. Madderpillars will later constantly show up as minibosses in other Minish dungeons.

Big Blue Chuchu: An upgrade over the very first dungeon boss (who we'll cover later), the Big Blue Chuchu is a regular-sized Blue Chuchu fought as a Minish. Again, this is the sort that I want! The Chuchus are adorable and laughably easy to defeat as a big ol' Hylian, but when you're tiny they suddenly become bosses! Not a whole ton to say about this one, it's basically a repeat of the Big Green Chuchu fight below (which we'll cover there) except this big blue boy intermittently emits electricity. 

Dark Nut: The Dark Nuts (parsed as two words only in this game) show up several times both as dungeon and overworld minibosses, and there are two variants -- a greenish-metallic one and a white-and-red one. Being broad-shouldered and having a cape, these Dark Nuts, once more, take cues from their Wind Waker counterpart. I don't really have too much to say about the Dark Nut, though -- they're pretty standard humanoid enemies that hit a bit harder and have shields, but they're not really all that interesting to talk about. Which is a shame because...

Ball and Chain Soldier: ...every other miniboss afterwards are humanoid enemies. I suppose there's a neat theme that all the recurring enemies are elite minibosses, but it also leaves me very little to talk about. Good ol' Ball and Chain Soldier is such a classic in 2D games that I don't mind it showing up here. 

Red Dark Nut: Oh, hey, it's the Dark Nut again, but it's red! In addition to its fancier shield, the fight against reddy here is a bit more complicated because he can knock you off of the platform, just like the ALTTP Moldorm boss. Otherwise, eh. All these humanoid minibosses will show up in the final dungeon, which I suppose is a nice touch. 

Black Knight: Also basically a Dark Nut with black armour, this one is just straight-up called 'Black Knight', and he shows up with two Red Dark Nuts as the penultimate enemy of the game. It sure is a knight!

Bosses:

Big Green Chuchu: With that out of the way, we get the bosses! The boss of Deepwood Temple, as spoiled by Big Blue Chuchu up there... is a Big Green Chuchu! Again, you've been spending time as a regular-sized human beating up Chuchus with impunity, but when you're the size of Thumbelina they suddenly become a threat! Again, I really love the manic-looking eyes and huge dumb grin of the Wind Waker variant of the Chuchus. The fight here is kind of funny -- Link uses the Gust Jar to keep blowing on the Chuchu's lower body, causing its top-heavy head to fall over and exposing its noggin to Link. 

Gleerok: The boss of the Cave of Flames, Gleerok here is an interesting one! Its name is a pun on the original Legend of Zelda boss Gleeok (who's a three-headed dragon) but in practice, Gleerok resembles Trinexx or Turtle-Rock more, being a giant turtle with a rocky shell and a serpentine head. Gleerok lives inside a lava pool, though, and I really like the contrast between its pale white-and-blue serpentine head and the massive volcano it's got on its back. 

An interesting mechanic here is that you need to flip the Gleerok's lava shell off and around, exposing the yellow bit on its shell for you to beat. Being a lava boss, Gleerok can also cause the lava pools around him to expand and contract during the fight. Not too interesting as a fight, but definitely a very pretty and well-themed boss. 

Mazaal: An interesting one! Mazaal backstory is that it's actually a weapon constructed by the Wind Tribe to repel enemies. It's a vaguely Aztec-inspired robotic head and (not seen in this figurine) two giant arms, making it look like a variant of Ocarina's Bongo Bongo of sorts. The head and arms are detached from each other, and Link needs to hit the weak points on the arms to cause the head to fall down, and then hit the head to properly damage Mazaal by shrinking down and going into that robotic mouth. 

And when we are shrunken down, we actually get to see Mazaal's... 'true' form? I think? Or maybe it's the equivalent to antibodies? It's a huge angry floating eyeball with a robotic hat and two pincers. This mini-Mazaal will be the one that boots Link out of Mazaal to continue the human-sized fight. Later on, Mazaal gains the ability to shoot shrinking beams as well. A bit of a weird one, but pretty unique!

Big Octorok: Just like the Big Chuchus, the Big Octorok is a regular Octorok you fight in the Minish dungeon of Temple of Dropletes -- though this Octorok has some flowers and plants overgrown on its body. Big Octorok ends up swallowing the plot device called Water Element, allowing it to control ice and freeze itself and the area around it to protect itself from Link's attack. The bulb of the flower ends up being the weak point Link needs to beat up, which begs the question... is it part of this Octorok's anatomy? Or is it some sort of symbiotic or parasitic plant, which is why hitting it causes the Octorok to take damage? I think between the ice powers and the ability to suck Link does make Big Octorok a lot more interesting than it actually is. 

Gyorg Pair: Oh man, yeah, I remember these guys. The Gyorg Pair has nothing to really do with Majora's Mask's Gyorg, other than being fishes. The Gyorg Pair are a pair of giant manta rays that live in the clouds, acting as the dual boss of the Palace of Winds. The female Gyorg is a giant, airplane-sized one with eight eyes, while the male one is the smaller one that flies around the female with four eyes spread across its body. Real manta rays don't actually have this extreme degree of sexual dimorphism, and it resembles anglerfishes more than anything. 

The fight involves trying to solve a puzzle with the Gyorgs' eyes which open and close intermittently, but the simple fact that the Gyorgs are flying over the skies of Hyrule and the fight involves Link jumping back and forth mid-air from the larger female onto the smaller male does make the Gyorg Pair fight a lot more dynamic and memorable than it is. 

Vaati: My original writeup for this was a lot longer and I realized I'm just elaborating on how the boss fight goes and Vaati's many sorcerer-style atttacks. That's not really what this article is all about! I'm supposed to be reviewing monsters! Vaati, the final boss of the game, is fought in multiple forms, because of course a Zelda boss has multiple forms. The first form is Vaati Reborn, which is... it's a pretty generic evil J-RPG humanoid overlord. The interesting bit about this fight is Vaati is almost invulnerable, but a swarm of tiny eyeball-creatures that float around him causes the giant eyeball on his cloak to open. Wonder if this is supposed to represent anything, or if it's just a neat game mechanic? 

The second form is Vaati Transfigured, which still looks somewhat solid with tiny bat wings and a giant pair of horns. Just like before, the lesser eyeballs (shown here) are the weakness. I do like that the final boss form is a giant eyeball instead of a humanoid for sure! Vaati's final form is Vaati's Wrath, where apparently his form has been so destroyed that he's not even a solid sphere anymore but rather an amorphous mass of fog. This form is especially based on Dethl/Nightmare from Link's Awakening, being a giant eyeball with orbs trailing behind him and sometimes forming claws -- though the figurine doesn't show the long claw-hands. The arms have little Minish doors that Link needs to sneak into. 

Anyway, I always never have too much to talk about these final form enemies in a J-RPG game, since they always felt pretty... samey to me? They certainly look imposing, and in Vaati's case I appreciate that the final form is the giant amorphous demon-blob instead of the tired trope of a humanoid demon king or whatnot, but Vaati himself is kind of a very flat character so I can't really get excited for him. 

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Anyway, that's Minish Cap done! As I mentioned before, it's visually one of my favourite Zelda games. I'll be doing a bunch more Zelda in the near future -- I've never done A Link Between Worlds either, and I'm about halfway through Skyward Sword and will be excited to talk about that. I'll probably do a bunch of other shorter games in the near future as well, maybe I'll do a Metroid one? The problem with Metroid is that I've never actually completed a Metroid game other than Metroid Prime 3... depending on how I feel, I might start one of the Final Fantasy games in the near future as well. We'll see. 

At some point late next year I'll probably do either Final Fantasy IX or XII, depending on which one I like to play more. Things are going to probably slow down quite a bit in the first couple of months next year, but the reviewing monster segments will probably still update rather periodically. 

Movie Review: The Punisher (2004)

The Punisher (2004)

So, yeah, this is a movie that I've never watched. A good chunk of what I know of the Punisher comes from the Netflix show, comic-book crossovers, video-games and the Punisher: MAX subline of Marvel comics, all of which tended to revolve around a similar concept. And as I sort of combed through older movies, I ended up coming across this. 2004's The Punisher is a movie I've never watched before, and it's the second attempt to bring the Punisher into a live-action setting after the 1989 Dolph Lundgren movie (which I also have to track down). 

And... it's an all right movie? This movie is apparently a mixed bag, combining, as Wikipedia tells me, the "The Punisher: Year One" and "Welcome Back, Frank" storylines. And this movie is a bit of a mixed bag. It runs over 2 hours, but the story is essentially a proof-of-concept of the Punisher. And it's not terrible -- it's a pretty solid showcase of the Punisher character concept. And yet it flip-flops from between being a vigilante superhero and an old-school gangster movie, and I feel that sort of imbalance does make it kind of a wobbly movie depending on what you signed up the movie to watch. It is accessible enough for anyone going in expecting just a good ol' shoot-out gangster movie, though, so I feel like it's all right. And we do get a bunch of neat comic-book nods with a lot of mileage out of the skull-face chest armour and 'the Russian', a colourful thug lifted straight out of comic books, so that's pretty fun.

The cast is... all right. The biggest pleasure for me is, of course, John Travolta as main villain Howard Saint, although Thomas Jane as Frank Castle and Rebecca Romjin (Mystique!) as Joan are pretty great, too. It's just that for the most part, Frank Castle is just a brooding angry man on a mission. And that sure is true for the character of Frank Castle, but without a particularly interesting storyline to carry the 2-hour-plus movie, it's not super-duper interesting to watch. Frank does admittedly get a couple of moments of great vulnerability in this movie -- his near-suicide at the end is amazing, and there's a neat little plotline where Frank opens up to his quirky neighbours, but ultimately, there's just something off. We've got some fun violent scenes of Frank stabbing some dude with a dagger from under the chin, or him creating an over-the-top display of his skull insignia out of exploding cars (how long did he set that up?) but then a good chunk of the movie is a lot more down-to-earth. That bit of disconnect is kind of bizarre. 

Unfortunately, I feel like the movie ends up being a bit too long and the story being way too linear. We spend some time at the beginning establishing Frank Castle as the best undercover cop ever, gone off to retire with his big family. Unfortunately, his last mission ends up causing the death of the son of mafia boss Howard Saint, who in turn wiped out Frank's entire family (not just his wife and kids) in the process. This one... went a bit too long, I feel, and as much as it's necessary for us to emphatize with Frank's Punisher routine, I feel like the Netflix show's way of implying it and revealing it bit-by-bit as we follow the Punisher is the superior choice. 

And the main meat of the story? Frank's investigation into the workings of Howard Saint's organization, from his wife to his gay second-in-command (which is a subplot that's kinda yeeesh viewed now) to a bunch of other generic minions feels like it belongs in a video game instead of a movie, and none of the characters are developed particularly well. John Travolta's Howard Saint and Will Patton's Quentin Glass are pretty fun as mafia character caricatures, but ultimately they're very one-dimensional. The way that Frank takes them down, when we do get to seeing the action scenes, are still thrilling as an action movie... but I feel like the buildup to Frank's creation of the situation to have Howard Saint self-destruct and kill his wife and right-hand man feels like it's perhaps dragged a bit too long. The neighbours... they're all right in principle. A bunch of quirky guys and a hot girl that Frank befriends and gets him to come in touch with his humanity, but ultimately they're just there. 

Still, I did enjoy watching this movie. It feels like it honestly just needs a push either in gritty realism or comic-book over-the-top violence to really make it a great movie... but it's still a pretty solid watch, I feel. 

One Piece 1031 Review: Payoff

One Piece, Chapter 1031: Warrior of Science

Okay, this is a good one. It still doesn't wash off the stink of the whole Kin'emon surviving in the most anticlimactic way from the previous chapter, but we finally get some payoff to some of the character build-up that we've been teased so much all throughout the series. 

And it's all about Sanji. Sanji's been a character that's... been taken in an interesting way. Any discussion about Sanji inevitably brings in the comparison with the more straightforward no-nonsense name-taking enemy-killing badass Zoro, because the fandom and the manga itself has this notion of Zoro-vs-Sanji ingrained within them. I've never really cared all that much about the rivalry, because I can appreciate both types of characters -- the one-note action hero that broods and makes badass one-liners is as cool of a character as a hero that angsts about morality and choice and gets to be comedic every now and then. And while I've criticized Whole Cake Island as a whole; Sanji's portrayal and all the character development we got out of him is still one of the highlights of that story. 

So yeah, it's definitely fun to see some payoff to the fact that Sanji's entire post-timeskip career has been nothing but him doubting himself, his self-worth, and generally being arguably portrayed as far less impressive than his fellow 'wing of the pirate king'. No one ever outright compares them side-by-side other than their constant gag about bounties, but the fandom has been pretty vocal that Zoro's huge moments have been joining Luffy in fighting two Yonko... while Sanji's huge moment was baking a cake. Even in this arc, we've had so many fake-outs with who Sanji's going to fight, and the Black Maria moment that was so controversial among the fandom (which I'd argue is actually a good moment if you stop and look at it... but, again, the comparison here is with The Roof, so). 

So I'm going to start off this review/recap with the final five or six pages of the chapter. Sanji is being yelled at by a bunch of geisha, who are all gathered around a bleeding lady. One of the geisha yell at Sanji, noting that he was the only one there, and that whatever transpired, a geisha got injured so badly that she's bleeding. And Sanji is even more conflicted about the transformation going on with his body, remembering just how utterly disgusted about the idea of someone beating a woman -- comparing it to one of the worst things that his vile robotic brothers did. Sanji himself claims to have no memory of the specific moment, but the fact that the woman was looking at him with fear is enough for him. 

A great little visual nod that I missed during my first readthrough is that all throughout the sequence, Sanji's been so transformed by the Raid Suit that his eyebrows is actually curled the other way, now, just like his brothers. Just look at the comparison between Sanji's face and the close-up to the Germa 66 flashback!

And we get a very cool badass moment as Sanji faces off against Queen. It's not about the fact that he hit the geisha, I think -- not really. It's more about the fact that he's potentially turning into the same sort of monster like Ichiji, Niji and Yonji. Even the potential of turning into something like his brothers scares Sanji so much. I love the monologue that happens immediately afterwards -- him asking Luffy in his mind whether he'd prefer a mindless killing machine at an order, or a weak, flawed flesh-and-blood man who turns into a helpless wreck whenever he faces a woman.

It's such a great moment, I feel, that Sanji actually does recognize his weakness. That he recognizes that he is, in some way, a huge liability thanks to his emotions. Sure, I'd argue that him being willing to call on his allies for help -- like Robin during the Black Maria sequence -- is positive character development in a way... but Sanji could also view his emotions as a liability. He was incapacitated by nosebleeds during New Fishman Island -- and while I don't want to do comparisons, Zoro was slicing up Hody Jones and nearly ended the arc prematurely. His whole family business and sentimentality and lack of communication is what led to our heroes being detoured into the whole Whole Cake Island thing, and he took so long to figure his shit out that he even fought Luffy.

And yet. And yet, despite all this, despite the potential of becoming a useful tool to the King of the Pirates, Sanji made a decision -- and as he pulls out his Raid Suit can, he crushes it in front of Queen. Whatever happens, it's not worth losing his emotions, his true sense of self, losing who he really is. A genuinely amazing moment, and I feel like it's a pretty well-done payoff to Sanji's own flip-flopping throughout the post-timeskip era. 

(Of course, we get 'farewell, women's bath' tossed into Sanji's monologue, which is hilarious)

But that's not all! Sanji calls Zoro with a transponder snail that he snuck into Zoro's clothes, and he gives Zoro a pretty cool line. Sanji tells Zoro how they're going to win -- a fact that neither of them even argues for a moment -- but asks Zoro that if he's not in his right mind after all this, he wants Zoro to kill Sanji. There's a great bit of bro-bonding moment where Zoro acknowledges how out of place the request is, but realizes how serious Sanji must be to make such a request, and promises to end Sanji if he should change. Such a great moment for the two. 

And we get the implication of Sanji being able to use Stealth Black's invisibility technique even without the raid suit... by using Hell's Memories, that one move from New Fishman Island that he learned while under Ivankov's tutelage and we never really get to see afterwards. Is that how he activates his Raid Suit powers, now? Very interested to see how this ends, and I kind of want to see Sanji fight Queen in the next chapter. 

There's some other stuff going in here too. A lot of people think that a handful of pages of Law and Kid doing a combo attack is going to get rid of a character like Big Mom, but awakening or no awakening, I've never seen that as the definitive end of Big Mom -- more of a showcase of what the Supernovas can do with their awakening. I do like that we just casually get the name of Kid's devil fruit here (it's been previously revealed in a databook or something) and I love Law trying to so casually fish for information about Kid's power. 

Big Mom is ripping the souls out of random Beast Pirate goons, and even notes that he's ripping a year out of his own lifespan, transforming and growing bigger and scarier. It's a pretty cool power boost, and Big Mom notes that she's not felt this kind of pain in decades. A genuinely pretty cool moment for another character who hasn't gotten the best showcase in the past couple dozen chapters -- Big mom actually feels threatening again, and I'm a huge fan of that. 

Even more interesting is that singular page we get of Brook and Robin fending off CP0. The Mink musketeers who got royally beaten up by Kaido and Jack are trying to hold them off, but Robin identifies the mask-wearing members of CP0 as the most elite. Are we going to get a proper Brook fight, then? Interesting!

We also get Apoo vs Drake, which is a bit more of a minor sequence. Drake gives a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure style recap of the peculiarities of Apoo's devil fruit (it's also based on Apoo's sight) and point-blank refuses the alliance with Apoo. I do like Apoo trying to get Yamato to join up and basically just being a massive backstabber that tries to gain allies, but Yamato also really doesn't give two shits. We get some fights as Yamato is out of the loop in regards to Drake's defection, but ultimately it ends up with Apoo and the Numbers chasing Yamato, and Drake chasing Apoo. Eh is my response; Apoo's fun but not that interesting, and I really could care less about the Numbers. 

Reviewing Monsters: The Legend of Zelda - Minish Cap, Part 1

The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap

"Minish" as in "mini", get it? Low-key another one of my favourite Zelda games in terms of aesthetic, Minish Cap was released for the Game Boy Advanced, and the twelfth entry in the series. In this version of Hyrule, Link has to save Hyrule from the clutches of the evil lord Vaati who released monsters into Hyrule and turned Princess Zelda into a statue. Link finds allies in a talking hat called Ezlo, who can shrink Link down into the size of the legendary Picori people -- a fairy-like lilliputian race that can only be seen by children. 

So yeah, that's the gimmick of this game -- some parts of the game feature Link as he's 'shrunk down', so you go full Ant-Man against enemies like spiders and rats and whatnot. More interestingly for me, though, Minish Cap is a 2D Zelda game that doesn't just take inspiration from the previous 2D games, but also the 3D games.

I swore I did a review of this game's monsters years ago, but apparently I haven't! And since Skyward Sword is taking much longer than I expected to complete, I'll do this first. 

Business Scrub: The first 'enemy' we meet is the Business Scrub, basically a 2D-ized version of the Deku Scrubs from Ocarina/Majora. It's not the first time the races that originated in Ocarina of Time was represented in 2D form; I'm pretty sure the Oracle games I've never played had Gorons and whatnot, but it's the 2D GBA-era art-style that really makes me adore this game. I don't think I have too much to say about the Business Scrub that I haven't said before. They only really shoot their Deku Nut projectiles at you in your very first encounter, as a tutorial for shield-blocking. 

Octorok: A lot of the classic 2D enemies return and, as far as these basic enemies go, there's not a whole ton that changed. Octoroks are still land-dwelling octopi that crawl around and shoot rocks at you. The blue ones are a bit more powerful and show up later on in the game. 

Crow & Takkuri: The Crows (blue) are another returning enemy from 2D games. But the Takkuri (red ones) come from Majora's Mask, but are not deformed here and are just red-coloured crows. Again, they behave mostly similarly to their previous 2D counterparts, hiding around in trees and divebombing Link. The Takkuri, like their Majora's Mask counterpart, will knock rupees off of Link, and at one point steal a plot-relevant item. 

Chuchu: Easily the most memorable design from Minish Cap to me are their adorable Chuchus. I think these are taken from Wind Waker's design specifically? I never played Wind Waker. Cylindrical, oblong slime buddies with two googly eyes and a slit mouth, this design of the Chuchu is easily the cutest and the most 'original' in my opinion.

Since I'm showing the collectible 'figurines' in-game, I'll talk about the three variants all at once. The Green Chuchu are the cutest and the ones that show up the earliest in the game. Red Chuchu show up a bit later, and are able to burrow underground and attack Link from there. Blue Chuchu are able to surround themselves with electricity, making them immune to physical attacks and forcing you to shoot them with arrows or boomerangs. In typical RPG-slime enemy fashion, we get a bunch of 'elite' Chuchus. 

Acro-Bandit: A new enemy now! This was years before 'Despicable Me' and their highly-profitable Minions came out, so the resemblance is actually a bit of a hilarious coincidence. The Acro-bandits are... moles, I guess? Stylized moles that pop up and climb up on each other. Link needs to shield-bash them to topple the tall formation, and must kill all five in one go -- otherwise the survivors will burrow down and pop up as a quintet once more. Do they just have a store of Acro-Bandits deep underground, or do they just regenerate their buddies like some sort of twisted symbiote? Kind of reminds me of the Hokkubokku from previous games, although the Acro-Bandits are a bit cuter. 

Sluggula: I think this is our first 'mini' enemy? The Sluggula in this game, therefore, are just literal regular slugs that Link meets when shrunken. This means that TMC Sluggulas look a lot more mundane than the more mutated vibe of ALTTP's Sluggulas. They're simple enemies, but sometimes they hide on the ceilings of rooms to drop down and try to ambush Link. Despite being snails, the animation with a Sluggula's death involves Link flipping them over and only a second strike to their unprotected underbelly will kill them. It's a slug boy! 

Puffstool: Another enemy that Link encounters while minish-sized is the Puffstool, which... it's just a Super Mario Bros Goomba! With the walnut anatomy changed into mushroom anatomy! They waddle around, jump up and down to spread mushroom spores around, and initially they're just utterly invulnerable until Link gets the 'Gust Jar' item to blow away their spores. Again, just like the Sluggulas, these are just regular mushroom-sized monsters that just happen to be sentient. 

Mulldozer: Yet another Minish-sized enemy, these guys kind of resemble Bombchus? Bombchus crossed with ladybugs? Whatever they are, they are simple bugs that charge around a lot, trying to ram onto Link. Pretty simple enemy -- the blue variant shows up later and is stronger. They're new, but I really don't have too much to say about this one. 

Pesto: These ones are a bit cooler!  They're weird fly-looking bugs that only have a single eyeball, but have markings behind them that give the impression of a housefly's two characteristically large compound eyes. It's a bit hard to realize, but the Pestos actually have a vaguely bipedal body, looking like a cartoon insect. The blue ones, as usual, are the stronger variant, and they will lift up rocks and toss them at you. I like them, but I also vaguely remember them to be very, very irritating. 

Spiny Beetle: Back to the 'regular size' enemies are the Spiny Beetles (not actually beetles in the original Japanese). As usual, they hide under grass bushes (stronger ones hide under rocks), and are vulnerable only after you remove their camouflage. There's an actual face with lips underneath, which makes it look a lot less beetle-esque compared to its previous counterparts. 

Keese: Another classic 2D Zelda enemy are the Keese. They're bats, they behave like bats, and they still look as simplified as their counterparts in the GBC games. Not much to say here, it sure is a classic. 

Peahat: I'm doing this in the order that we roughly encounter in the game, if you guys are wondering. And the Peahats are... they're kind of interesting! They're still plants that helicopter all around the screen with their flower-petals, but in addition to sharing the Ocarina/Majora Peahat's lower spike-blades, the Peahats in Minish Cap actually have a 'face' similar to the Deku Scrubs! They don't actually shoot anything out of the projetile-looking mouths, but it's so interesting considering how Peahats have almost always been portrayed as just faceless flying plants. 

In combat, the Peahats have a bunch of vulnerabilities. The weaker and more predictable red Peahats can be taken out with the Gust Jar (you blow the poor flying plants around) or by slicing their helicopter-petals with the Boomerang. The stronger blue Peahats are heavier and immune to the Gust Jar, and you need to use arrows.

Tektite: An interesting one, though, is the Tektite. They certainly look more angular and insectoid compared to the 'fleshy eyeball with bug legs' look from most other 2D games, but they're not quite the very buggy monster from Ocarina either. I know a lot of this does seem like me just comparing the monsters to their appearances from other games, but that's what happens when the bestiary is comprised of almost 70% returning monsters. Not that I'm complaining, though -- the opposite is exactly my biggest complaint about Breath of the Wild, which exorcised so much of the 'classic' bestiary that it didn't really feel like Hyrule anymore. Anyway, Tektites still jump around; blue ones are more powerful, as usual. 

Keaton: Now this is interesting! I don't remember any other monster called 'Keatons' other than the helpful kitsune-inspired fox spirits from Majora's Mask. But here, Keatons take the place of enemies like the Goriya or Zazak as a beast-man that runs around and poke you with their swords. Other than the ability shared with the Takkuri of knocking rupees off of you, though, I don't think there's anything special to them other than the fact that they're fox-men bandits. Which, by the way, is cool! We've never really had fox-men before, and new variations of monsters most certainly bring

Helmasaur: Another one that resembles their previous 2D appearances, I do really like that the added pixels allow them to really hammer home that the Helmasaurs have a lance-shaped helmet to pierce you with. Also makes it a bit more obvious that it's an ambiguous-looking blob-creature, because the original Japanese name had nothing to do with dinosaurs at all. As usual, you need a specific item to knock off the mask -- the Gust Jar again, in this case, since this game lacks the traditional Hookshot. 

Spiny Chuchu: Our first Chuchu variant, the Spiny Chuchu (and a lot of the recent monsters above him) first appear in Mt. Crenel. The Spiny Chuchu is... well, he's got the regular Chuchu body shape, but he's spiky! Like a barbed metal ball! The Spiny Chuchu needs to be stunned with a bomb to stop it from transforming into a spiky ball, exposing his vulnerability. A lot of these variants on a regular monster archetype don't really ever reoccur, which, I feel, makes games that take the time to focus on a certain archetype and explore them something I appreciate a fair bit. 

Bob-omb: This one is a Mario enemy or something, isn't it? I remember that it showed up in Link's Awakening. Not much to say, it sure is a bomb that walks and can blow up on you. 

Spiked Beetle: Yet another returning enemy that functions mostly the same, Spiked Beetles are, well, Mario mushrooms with spikes and chubby hands. They also have eyeballs encased in the darkness of their shell, which is a visual I like. The Spiked Beetle have never really been all that memorable among 2D Zelda enemies to me, but I definitely go 'oh yeah, these guys' whenever they show up. 

Rupee Like: The actual Like Likes don't actually show up until a fair bit later in the game! But they make their debut in Four Swords; and Minish Cap, being a quasi-prequel to that game, also features Rupee Likes. It's a very, very fun concept -- the Rupee Like hides its entire body underground, only exposing its anglerfish-esque lure, which, of course, is the most valuable thing any self-respecting RPG game player can find -- money! And then it pops up, strangles Link like the gross, ambiguous, fleshy creature that it is, and steals Link's money instead. I love this. It honestly feels like a believable adaptation in a made-up fantasy monster!

 

Rollobite: A cool if simple one! Rollobites are basically giant pillbug beetles, but with a single cyclopean eye because of Zelda logic. A fun thing about them is that they're actually necessary for you to progress through the game -- they curl up into indestructible balls and you need to pick them up and use them to plug up holes and stuff. 

Despite what you think, though, Rollobites are actually enemies fought by Link in regular human-sized form. (One of my biggest complaints about Minish Cap is that the 'shrinking' gimmick was never realized as well as any of the other games' respective gimmicks, basically amounting to a couple of dedicated maps but minimally incorporated elsewhere.)

Baby Cuccoo: Regular Cuccoos still do their basic Zelda 'beat it up and it will summon an Indestructible Cuccoo Revenge Swarm of Ultimate Doom' thing, but Baby Cuccoos actually end up as actual enemies in this game, menacing Link in his Minish form. You can't kill or even hurt them! This is actually what I was talking about in terms of making things interesting -- there are two bosses that are 'regular enemies, but even more dangerous because they're giants'. How cool would it be to have giant versions of like, Tektites or Spiny Beetles or Rollobites or Like Likes as bosses? Or even as stage hazards?  

Moblins: Coming in 'Spear' and 'Bow' variants, and each coming in red and blue variants, the Moblins show up here in their muscle-bound pig-men appearance from Wind Waker. The line between all the 'blins have really been kind of blurred to me, but while my mental image of them have always been fat, stocky pig-men, I do like just how much more threatening the broad-shouldered Wind Waker Moblins looked. Not a whole ton to say here, a fair amount of them show up -- particularly in areas related to the main villain Vaati. 

Beetle: A returning enemy from Link's Awakening! The Beetles have a bit of a gimmick -- they will sometimes pop up when Link uses his sword to cut grass and grapple Link, causing him to be unable to use any items. An annoyance while exploring the overworld, but could be deadly if you happen to be fighting Moblins or Peahats or whatever. 

Rope: It's actually kind of surprising how relatively late Ropes show up, considering they are one of the first enemies seen in the original game, or in ALTTP. Anyway, they're fast snakes! They look identical to the regular shape of 2D Ropes! Not much else to say. 

Eyegore: A bit more wider and pillar-like than the traditional ALTTP Eyegore, these versions are static and unable to move other than to rotate around, and scattered across the Castor Wilds. They actually function more like traps more than enemies (and we don't cover traps here), but Link needes to sometimes kill them to open pathways. Not a whole ton to say here, you need to shoot arrows multiple times into its giant eyeball. 

Leever: Another staple, and another one that's just a more-defined version of its previous 2D appearances. They pop up out of the ground and spin around trying to stab you. Not a whole ton to say; as usual the blue ones show up later as a more powerful variant. 

Armos: Yet another returning enemy, and looking almost identical to the very original The Legend of Zelda Armoses. They're hopping statutes with spears, shields and singular eyeballs... the twist here is that sometimes, to activate them, Link needs to turn into Minish size to push a button inside their head. Very happy to see all these classic enemies back, but I don't have a ton to say. 

Stalfos: The two variants of good ol' Stalfos actually behave somewhat differently. The Blue Stalfos are the weaker ones, and they jump into the air and try to catch Link similar to a Tektite. Because this game really likes the Gust Jar gimmick, Link can suck their skulls in, and then launch them back to shatter the rest of the Stalfos's body. The red version doesn't do the jumping thing, but instead spins around like a goddamn Beyblade and launch spare bones at Link. Neat!

Spark: These bastards! The only 'trap' that seems to have any sort of personality are the Sparks, previously called 'Anti-Fairies' in the localizations of Link's Awakening. I like the smarmy faces that these floating, glowing traps have. 

Wallmaster & Floormaster: Based on their Wind Waker appearance, I really do like how the Wallmasters and Floormasters look in this game. Giant shadowy hands that are bordered by a glowing, eldritch energy? It looks so much more... wrong compared to just a giant disembodied fleshy hand. The Wallmasters fall down from the ceiling and grab Link and deposit them in the beginning of dungeons; whereas the Floormasters bob around on the floor. The Floormasters will still deposit Link in the beginning of the dungeons, but you can murder them with arrows first. 

Moldorm: Okay, the Moldorms have gotten a bit of a revamp. Normally they have two giant googly eyes on their head, but I guess they're trying to make the Moldorms in Minish Cap look a bit more biologically weird? Which is why instead of having a head that's just a hamburger with googly eyes, Minish Cap Moldorm has a sunken-in groove with a singular eyeball in the middle of it. I guess those yellow tips are supposed to be mandibles as well? Significantly less cute than the ALTTP/LA Moldorm! But still very recognizably a Moldorm. 

Also, this specific creature is called 'Tail' in the original Japanese. Keep that in mind in a bit. 

Wizzrobe: They're green, and interestingly, look a lot more lankier compared to traditional 2D Wizzrobes, which are either fat wizard-men or have really poofy robes. Minish Cap Wizzrobes are green and look more like evil versions of Gandalf. They still maintain the great visual of the two glowing eyes under the shadow of their hat, which I really do like. Functioning as a bit of a pseudo-mini-boss in these games, the Wizzrobes appear in groups, and they can teleport around the room. 

Like Like: Here's good ol' Like Like! It looks like how it usually looks, but like the Rupee Like, this incarnation of the gross undulating monster can hide underground and jump up to ambush Link. As usual, they eat shields!

Golden Tektite, Golden Octorok & Golden Rope: Special golden enemies that drop a ton of rupees after you kill them, they are stronger versions of their 'basic' counterparts, but are encountered only after certain collectible Kinstones are triggered by you. Not a whole ton to say, other than that. Neat little inclusion, though!

Moldworm: And here we go with 'Moldworm'! Or, well, the original Moldorm from The Legend of Zelda! The original Moldworm/Moldworm is just a giant earthworm with no other features, and later on most of the enemies in the franchise called 'Tail' ends up borrowing the English name 'Moldorm' to connect the bestiaries with the previous games. Which raises a problem when both of them show up in the same game!

Anyway, Moldworm here are just literally earthworms that Link encounters as a Minish. They're not quite your regular earthworms, though, since they have giant, gaping mouths with surprisingly supple lips. They will actually eat Link, shit Link out from their backsides, and the worm-poop would cause all those Pesto enemies to get more attracted to Link and attack him more. I mean, yes, that's how earthworms move through the ground, but I like the sheer hilarity that this enemy essentially eats and shits you out and that's somehow one of the more deadly things. 

Scissors Beetle: Another Minish-sized enemy, the Scissors Beetle look pretty cool mostly because they look colourful. Golden body, red legs, blue pincers... pretty cool! They also act as kinda pseudo-minibosses in some locations. Despite their name, they can detach their pincers and launch them like a boomerang! Real beetles can't do that! The pincers also function like shields when they're attached to the beetle itself, so Link has to wait for the detachable boomerang horns to be launched at him before he beats up the beetle. Weird!

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I think that's a nice place to cut it short, right? I'll have part two out soon, where we cover the rest of the bestiary and all the bosses!