Gotham S02E15 Review: Riddles

Gotham, Season 2, Episode 15: Mad Grey Dawn

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, and Barbara Kean wakes up just because.

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

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

Pokemon Go!

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

Ten months later, I am one of those retards.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well played, Nintendo, well, played.

Gotham S02E14 Review: Batman Doesn't Kill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pokemon Sun & Moon: New Hawaiian Pokemon!

Generation VII and the Hawaii-inspired Alola region brings about a bunch of new Pokemon, and I sincerely hope we get a lot more than the handful we got in Generation VI. Pokemon XY certainly has the excuse of having to develop 3D models for the previous five generations' worth of Pokemon, so it has that excuse. But man, Sun and Moon better introduce a lot more! And, well, since the initial starter/legendary mascot reveal we've got around 13 new Pokemon to talk about, so I'm gonna talk about them and my first impressions of them.

This'll be a relatively quick post about my impression. Serebii is your greatest resource for up-to-date Pokemon news, so I won't really repeat what is said there, just my impressions and expectations of the little buggers that are released.

• "Iwanko": One of the two Pokemon here that, as the moment of writing, hasn't had its English name revealed yet. Iwanko is a cute puppy Pokemon, which is cool. We've had lots and lots of dog Pokemon before, but there's a fair amount of dog breeds to choose from so it's nice to have these early-route dudes. Except, well, Iwanko is a pure Rock-type, not Normal like what you would expect from a dog Pokemon. Curious. Is there some Hawaiian myth about rock dogs or whatever? Eh. This thing probably evolves, but damn if he isn't a cute little puppy.
• "Nekkoala": Yes, yes, koalas are an Australian animal. But here we have a koala Pokemon anyway. It's... well, a koala. Holding a cute little tree stump. And apparently it has a unique ability where the only status it can have is Sleep? That's an... insanely awesome ability, actually. A Pokemon that can't be burnt or paralyzed would be great in competitive and gameplay, so I sincerely hope that Nekkoala has a nice moveset and/or evolution so he isn't an underwhelming thing like Furfou from the previous generation.
• Pikipek: Oh, man, it took us 20 years to get to a woodpecker Pokemon! Pikipek is an adorable little woodpecker bird. He's the Route 1 bird of this generation, and, well, he's a Normal/Flying type. He's the dude we got a early sneak-peek of during the very first announcement trailer of Sun & Moon. It's adorable! You generally can't go wrong with the first-route three-stage bird Pokemon anyway, 'cause birds are cool creatures. 
• Yungoos: Look at this angry motherfucker! Yungoos is a mongoose, a far more realistic (and grrr so angry) one than Zangoose. He's a Normal-type, but I did like the lore that Yungoos is apparently an invasive species, just like real-life mongooses sometimes are. He's, well, a rodent. I don't think I've ever actually used an early-route rodent in gameplay other than for HM slaves, beyond a Raticate that I thought all sorts of crazy shit to just for laughs. I don't hate him, at least. 
• Grubbin: Who's a cute little maggot-grub? You are! Grubbin is a squishy little maggot with the hugestest pincers and the cutest eyes ever. I find bug Pokemon cute, and I dislike Pikachu clones. Sue me. Grubbin looks to be the Caterpie/Weedle/Wurmple of the region, the three-part bug-type with a cocoon second stage.
• Charjabug: Apparently the cocoon stage of Grubbin? It's not exactly confirmed, but the design cues like the two pincer things seem to imply that it's related to Grubbin. It's definitely related to Vikavolt. Grubbin is... a box. And a Bug/Electric type. He's a boxy battery, I guess? He's not the best-looking evolution out there, but you don't keep your Silcoons and Metapods more than two levels anyway, because...
• Vikavolt: HELL YEA. Vikavolt looks like a boss. He just looks so awesome. Just this sleek dark-blue and yellow spiky murder-beetle with a gigantic taser-prong-shaped pincers. He's just so sleek and spiky and, holy shit, I think Vikavolt is my favourite Generation VII Pokemon so far. His art doesn't make him look that impressive, but man, his 3D model in the trailer does make Vikavolt look great. I love bugs (as long as they're not in my room) and I've always had a big appreciation for the early-route bugs, carrying Butterfrees and Beedrills and Dustoxes all the way to the Elite Four, and I've had a Scolipede in one of my Generation V games as well. And, man, Vikavolt just looks so badass. He's a Bug/Electric, too, which shares a typing with Galvantula, one of my all-time faves. 
• Drampa: Drampa, the dragon grandpa, is a Normal/Dragon dual-type... did we not already go through all these 'let's slap Normal to random things' phase with Pyroar and Heliolisk in Generation VI? Drampa looks kind of derpy, kind of a very stylized oriental dragon thing. It's... ehhh. Whatever. I think it looks like a standalone Pokemon, though I could be wrong and he might evolve into the Pokemon equivalent of badass anime grandpas. I don't know. I just don't care enough.
• Bruxish: Oh, man, what an ugly thing! Bruxish is based on a triggerfish, and being a gigantic aquatic life geek as a kid, I'm so happy that all these more obscure marine life are getting turned into Pokemon after a sore lack of marine life in Generation V and VI. Bruxish is a Water-Psychic, and, well, after my little geek-out over the triggerfish Pokemon is done... man, Bruxish is a very ugly thing, isn't she? She looks like a six-year old got into her mother's makeup table and, well, this is the result. Maybe she'll evolve into something cool? I dunno.
• Cutiefly: Cutiefly is a Bug/Fairy, and, well, what do you expect a Bug/Fairy to look like? Cutiefly is cute. And she's a horsefly. She's just adowable and I want one to buzz buzz in my team and drop moons down on dragons. I hope she evolves into the most elegant wasp-fly thing ever.
• Togedemaru: Wow, Pachirisu got fat. Yeah, he might have a cool Electric/Steel type, but Magneton he ain't. Togedemaru is the ugliest of the Pikachu clones, honestly -- he's literally a ball with a face, stubby limbs and a lighting bolt glued to its butt. At least with the likes of Bruxish you get where they are going with the concept. Togedemaru is just really bland-looking, and while I've never been fans of Pikachu clones (except Emolga, who's the coolest of the clones) Togedemaru just looks the most banal of them all.  
• Tapu Koko: A Pokemon with a space in his name? HERESY! Tapu Koko is this Tiki-looking thing that just screams 'Hawaiian', and... he looks cool! He's got a cool cohesive orange/yellow/black colour scheme, he looks like this insane Tiki chicken god, with two giant shoulder-things that seem to come together to hide his main body, and these scythe arms... He looks weird and awesome. I like Tapu Koko. He's Electric/Fairy and he's apparently a guardian of the island? So maybe he's a set of four Legendaries or something? 

Game of Thrones S06E10 Review: Boom Boom Things Blow Up

Game of Thrones, Season 6, Episode 10: The Winds of Winter

Holy god, this episode! This article went through like three or four iterations before I finally decided to post this version, and is probably the reason why the Shonen Jump chapters are delayed by a couple of days. But, hey, there is a lot for me to talk about in this episode. It's the final episode of the season (and the year), and we're definitely going to the conclusion of this mammoth of a series, Game of Thrones, with two more seasons' worth of material to deal with the final coming of the forces of winter. This episode? Man, I thought Battle of the Bastards would be the big event of this season, but no. We get a gigantic shake-up of the figurative chessboard of Westeros, bringing us to bear a new War of the Five Kings (and Queens). Every single player in the game is moved around, with characters gathered around several very influential people: Cersei Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow, plus there's the Lich King Night's King coming down with his army of undead and winter itself, as well as Balon Greyjoy somewhere in the mix.

And this episode, I think, features the highest body toll for named and major characters in any Game of Thrones episode, which is definitely a big shakeup.

Let's talk about King's Landing, and let's talk about the music of this episode, because, holy shit. Game of Thrones has always had an exceptional score, with the orchestral renditions of its spine-tingling opening theme being one of my all-time favourite soundtracks from any TV series or movie ever. And the composer and musicians really proved their worth because for the first, oh, ten minutes or so of the episode there wasn't even dialogue, just powerful music building up as we show the main players of King's Landing -- Cersei Lannister, Tommen Lannister, the High Sparrow, Margeary Tyrell, Loras Tyrell, Grand Maester Pycelle, Qyburn, the Mountain, Lancel Lannister, Mace Tyrell, Kevan Lannister... and we know that this trial is going to decide something.

Of course, the show hasn't really been that subtle about hiding the fact that Cersei is hiding a cache of wildfire as her endgame. We've got the little stealth-peek of wildfire explosions in Bran's vision waaaay back when (though only the geekiest of Game of Thrones fans will catch that), we've got Tyrion last episode bringing up Jaime stopping Aerys from burning King's Landing, and we've got hints of Qyburn finding 'much more' than what the rumours said there were. Of course it's still great fun to see it being enacted. And Cersei's plan is honestly simple yet extremely elegant. It boils down to 'kill every enemy in my way', and we get her dressing up in one of the most gorgeous dresses the show has ever given us.

We get to see the many-pronged attack at Cersei's enemies, with Grand Maester Pycelle being lured away by Varys's former birds to an ambush by Qyburn, happening alongside Lancel Lannister being led to an underground location by another 'bird', the immovable Mountain stopping Tommen from exiting his room, and the scenes as everyone else witnesses the trial of Loras Tyrell. This all ended in a brute master stroke as Cersei just literally blows everyone up, and the sheer audacity of what Cersei just did is absolutely insane. When the dust and flames settles, this leaves a gigantic crater in the middle of King's Landing, absolutely every single one of Cersei's enemies in the city dead, Tommen jumping down to his death and Cersei Lannister as the first Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

Let's walk through the scenes one by one.

I honestly wished Pycelle had more scenes in the series. We've got a very awesome deleted scene between Pycelle and Tywin from season... three or four that is one of the deleted scenes that really would've made the series so much better -- surely they could've taken out one of the Theon torture scenes and replaced it with this? Jeez. But Pycelle has been shoved increasingly to the background that I don't think he had more than two lines throughout the entirety of this season and we really could've had a scene or two with Pycelle more overtly antagonizing Cersei, showing that her enemy isn't just the Faith Militant. But oh well. Pycelle meets his end, being stabbed to death by a (supposedly) apologetic Qyburn and an army of psychotic children. Who really do look psychotic! And Pycelle's death is absolutely horrific. Honestly he might be a gigantic asshat of a politician -- and the episode tries to give us a little shorthand, showing him still fucking random prostitutes and refusing to pay them -- but he doesn't deserve this brutal of a death.

Lancel Lannister definitely deserves, though. He's the High Sparrow's biggest flunky, and he was led and crippled by one of Qyburn's little birds. And it's a great scene as the realization of the wildfire barrels set in, and his crippled self just tries to crawl to stop the candles from burning down and igniting the wildfire. It's a tense scene, and a well-shot one, because as much as everyone probably hates Lancel, I don't think anyone really wants to see Margeary, Loras and the other non-Sparrows blow up. But even if Lancel managed to reach the candle, really, there were others, and he couldn't have taken them all out. Lancel got a long, agonizing pre-death scene and it's a great one. Fuck Lancel! 

While all this is going on, we get to see Loras's trial, and honestly Loras is just so divorced from the far more carefree character we saw earlier in the series, being left a mere shell of a man. Margeary apparently made a deal with the High Sparrow (which he seemed eager to honour, but he does seem to have broken a prior deal) that Loras will be allowed to go home to Highgarden if he would admit to all his sins, and presumably in exchange for the High Sparrow having more agency behind the throne. We get to see an absolutely horrific scene as Loras just breaks down crying and forcing himself to spit out the words 'traitor Renly Baratheon' and as he's helplessly branded by the Faith Militant while Mace Tyrell has to be physically restrained. Man, poor Mace. Really wished we had more Mace scenes.

And the High Sparrow is just so secure in the protection of his little army of fanatics. I mean, yeah, I guess he's expecting Cersei to charge in with Lannister knights and the Mountain, not to freaking blow everything up with fire bombs. We get Margeary's act breaking down pretty quickly as she gets absolutely fed up -- Cersei and Tommen not showing up is indicative of something wrong, and I do love Margeary confronting the High Sparrow, first privately, then outright calling him out with a line that goes along the lines of 'forget about your damn gods and think for a minute' once she starts to figure out what's going on. Kudos to Margeary for building up a sneaky long-term plan, but it tragically just didn't come to fruition thanks to Cersei's bombs. 

Alas, RIP Margeary Tyrell and Loras Tyrell, which is a shame. Margeary is easily one of my favourite characters of the series and I wanted to see her do so much more instead of pretending to be brainwashed and all, not just to see her fall as one fallen enemy along so many others of Cersei's... but I guess this is Game of Thrones. At least Margeary and Loras died holding each other, so bitterly close to freedom. Also joining the dead killed by Cersei's wildfire explosion are every influential person in King's Landing that showed up to watch the queen's trial... including Mace Tyrell and Kevan Lannister (the latter not getting a line). Mace might be bumbling, but he's still a member of the Small Council, and Kevan definitely is antagonistic towards Cersei. This also means that, well, no one is left in King's Landing to challenge Cersei's rule.

I also like the little touch that even up to the end, the High Sparrow's personal hubris is so much that even when everyone realized that Margeary is telling the truth, he still orders his little sparrows to stop everyone from going out -- even though Margeary is simply telling them to evacuate and postpone the trial, pointing out all the logics in her argument. Alas, the High Sparrow doesn't have that much sense in him, and up until the walls start to rumble he's still stern in wanting to go through with the trial. I did love the fact that the show doesn't fall into the very easy way of portraying the High Sparrow as an outright hypocrite of his religion -- it's a very common and easy way to paint religious antagonists as outright evil. Oh, the antagonistic pastor/priest/clergyman happens to be a pedophile or a secret sadist! No, up until the end, the High Sparrow is true to his faith -- he's just a fanatic about it. And that's just some masterful writing.

The majority of the CGI budget this season went to last episode with the giant armies and the long scene of Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal burning the Mereenese fleet, but we get an equally awesome one of the wildfire absolutely ripping the High Sept apart, vaporizing the High Sparrow into a burning skeleton and showing an absolutely insanely awesome imagery of the High Sept erupting in green flame. The later scenes of Jaime seeing a literal burning crater in the middle of King's Landing is great as well, but we'll talk about Jaime later. 

Let's, instead, return to King's Landing, where we cut to Cersei tormenting another one of her antagonists in King's Landing, Septa "Shame" Unella. She chains up this nun to a table, waterboards her with wine (wineboarding?) and starts blatantly telling her all about her sins, admitting freely to every single one of them, before telling Unella that she killed every single Sparrow and blew up the Sept, and then leaves Unella to the tender mercies of the Mountain, telling her that she will not die 'easily'. We get some absolutely chilling lines courtesy of Cersei, telling Unella how she understands doing things because she likes doing it, and how she doesn't really blame Unella for enjoying inflicting pain. And that's the best motive rant of any villain ever. Cersei just does things... because she likes them.

Of course, King Tommen, the naive fool that he is, has been prevented from leaving his room by the Mountain, so it's obvious that when the Great Sept explodes, he knows his mother has something to do with it. We end up with Tommen removing his crown before falling out of the window. And it's tragic, really. Tommen really wanted to be a good king to his people, listening to Margeary, compromising to the church and not using his kingly powers to bully the way that Joffrey did. We see him as foolish for cooperating with the High Sparrow and through his inaction and spinelessness caused harm to Cersei, Jaime and Margeary, the last two definitely being symathetic protagonists and Cersei being a villainous main character whose villainy is apparent, even moreso, in this episode.

You see, many characters like the High Sparrow mention that despite the many, many horrible things that Cersei Lannister did, she truly loves her children and that is the most, if not only, redeeming things about the woman. But when she is presented with the dead body of Tommen, she does not freak out or break down the way she did when Joffrey or Myrcella died. She just looks at Tommen's (offscreen) ruined face, basically did a shrug and tells Qyburn to burn Tommen so he can be buried where the bodies of Tywin, Joffrey, Myrcella and Robert are -- in the ashes of the Sept. Maybe she's just flown off the deep end? Maybe she just thinks Tommen dead to her after foiling her attempts to win via trial by combat? Whatever the case, Cersei Lannister is so unstable now, and she is even more unpredictable than before. Previously her plans has been to do what's best for Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen, but now without her children to rein her in, she's full-blown became the first Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and the technical rightful ruler at the moment until someone throws her off the chair.

Now let's be honest. Who expected Tommen to die like that? I expected Tommen to die, but I had expected something more tragic, like Tommen showing up in the Great Sept anyway and perishing as an unfortunate side effect of Cersei's wildfire bomb. Or killed when Daenerys attacks King's Landing. Or killed by... well, literally anyone else except for him jumping to his own death. So good job, Game of Thrones, for making a character with the biggest death flag on his head still have a pretty surprising death. 

We get to see Cersei and Jaime exchange glances when Cersei is coronated, and Jaime... looks disapproving. Considering the fact that he finds the idea of burning the city and killing innocents to abhorrent that he kills the king he is sworn to protect... and the fact that Cersei and Tyrion are probably the only people he trusts with the knowledge of the wildfire caches... yeah. Jaime's probably not going to be 100% onboard with Cersei. Especially with Tommen now dead in partial thanks to Cersei. 

We've got all sorts of great events in the episode other than King's Landing -- which takes up slightly less than half of the airing time... and, yeah, I talked a lot about it already. Whoops. The real big meat of everything, really, is Bran's flashback. We get a short scene of Benjen "Coldhands" Stark dropping Bran and Meera off near a Weirwood tree, before telling us the very important information that the undead cannot pass through the Wall. Which is new information, so it begs to wonder just why are we worried that the undead will spill over and murder everyone in Westeros in the first place... presumably there's more magical intricacies at work, because we've seen that the White Walkers did end up bypassing the barriers around the Three Eyed Raven's tree...

But more importantly, we get the freaking confirmation as to why it takes Winter forever to come. 

Benjen buggers off to murder some undead and gain some ranks in his Death Knight class, while Bran finally gives us what we've been asking for a while now -- the conclusion to the Tower of Joy scene. And boy oh boy, L + R = J has finally been confirmed! We (and Bran) get to see Lyanna Stark dying in childbirth, talking to Ned in her last breath and telling him that Robert cannot know of the existence of Lyanna's son. The show all but outright confirms this by cutting away from the baby's face to Jon Snow's face in the present.

L + R = J, the theory that Jon Snow is not the bastard child of Ned Stark but instead the secret lovechild between Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, passed over to Ned and raised as a bastard to protect him from the Targaryen purge, is finally confirmed after so many long years of theorizing. And the amazing thing is, the hints are there even in the very first novel. I could go in depth because I've actually read the first book, but the article's long enough as it is.

From an in-universe standpoint I don't think it really matters all that much that Jon Snow is technically Jon Targaryen (or whatever the hell his actual birth name is, we don't get to hear it), because, well, only Bran knows and despite him being the new Three-Eyed Raven, he's technically still just the crippled Stark kid and no one's really going to buy his story all that much. But it might lead to some really interesting developments when Daenerys finally arrives in Westeros.

Jon himself gets some vindication, but let's go slow first. We get some long-awaited payoffs as Davos confronts Lady Melisandre with the burnt stag toy that belonged to Shireen which we saw Davos discovering last episode, and, well, as awesome as Melisandre was for resurrecting Jon, she also, y'know, burnt poor little Shireen at the stake and Davos just has this absolutely awesome scene as he just breaks down talking about the fact that Shireen is like a daughter to him and he demands the right to execute Melisandre. Melisandre tries to give a 'the Lord of Light wills it' bullshit excuse, but considering that neither Thoros nor the Red Priestess on Daenerys's side burns children no one really buys it. Jon isn't Ned Stark, though, and we see that he's slightly more willing to compromise. One good deed does not wash out the bad, but neither does the bad wash out the good, and Melisandre is exiled from Winterfell. That's not as bloody as I expected, but we do need to get Melisandre out of the picture, because, well, having the means to resurrect someone being readily available makes it hard to be threatened when Jon (or really anyone from his side) is put in danger, which was one of the biggest problems last episode -- I don't really buy that Jon's ever in any threat because from a writing standpoint it's absolutely stupid to bring Jon back from the dead to kill him off four episodes later. 

We get a powerful meeting between Sansa Stark and Littlefinger, who's the creepiest motherfucker ever, who makes it clear, even more so, that he wants Sansa -- despite crushing on her mother. Fuck, man, you're creepy as all hell, and after the bullshit you put Sansa through and all the sense of paranoia you instilled in Sansa's head, really the only reason he's still around in Winterfell is the fact that Sansa's not stupid enough to turn away the manpower of the Knights of the Vale. Littlefinger's got an awesome speech about wanting to sit on the Iron Throne with Sansa by his side, but, eesh, fuck off, Littlefinger. I'm legitimately curious to see what he's going to do in the future, though, because more than anyone else he's the wildcard of the game. He's still hanging around in Winterfell, but Sansa has an awesome scene where she makes it clear that she has had enough of Littlefinger's bullshit, and her side, forevermore, will be with her family -- bastard or no.

Also despite all of Littlefinger's disgusting brand of creepiness I would like to point out that he probably hates Jon because, well, Catelyn hates Jon (right up until her last days during the war) and it's a sick sense of trying to do what Catelyn wants to do or something. Really, Ned, you would've made Jon's childhood so much better if you told just Catelyn who Jon's mother really is, but hey, that's Ned. Honourable to a fault.

We get an absolutely sweet scene between Sansa and Jon with Sansa addressing the fact that she didn't tell Jon about the Knights of the Vale -- something that I wanted addressed, and she basically admits that it's a misstep on her part. We don't really get any drama from the two of them, though, with Jon telling Sansa that, well, they have to trust and stick with each other. And it's heartwarming, especially as a semi-book reader, because Sansa and Jon have not been the friendliest among the Stark kids, and to see them hanging out, closer than ever, with both Sansa and Jon telling each other that the other has more right to be the ruler of Winterfell -- especially right around the scenes of Sansa telling Littlefinger to fuck off -- is awesome and absolutely heartwarming. 

Oh, and Winter is Here!

Jon has an awesome snarky line about how 'father always said it's going to come', while Sansa has this bemused smile as she tells Jon that, because, well, even without the whiteravens from the Citadel, it's obvious to the Northerners with the snow freaking falling down around them. 

We get a scene, then, with the Northmen and Wildlings and the Knights of the Vale all assembled, and we get this wonderful scene as this little ten-year-old girl, Lyanna Mormont, just calls every single house lord shit for having pledged themselves to the Stark name and suffering from the Bolton regime and yet not responding to the calls, shaming all of them, including Lord Glover, who we saw being a bit of a twat to the Starks when they called for aid. And they had this scene where they apologized for being shit, but Jon forgives them. Again, Robb or Ned would probably execute them -- the way that Robb actually executed the Karstark patriarch for disobeying him during the war -- and this show of mercy earned Jon the apparent eternal loyalties of everyone in the room bar Littlefinger.

Lyanna declares Jon Snow the new King in the North, earning the approval of, well, everyone in the North. Hopefully Jon and Sansa can avoid the atrocities that befell their brother.

That's not all! We still have four scenes to go. In the Twins, we get a short party between Jaime Lannister and Walder Frey, and as a testament to how shit the Freys are, Jaime lists just how utterly incompetent Walder is when the latter tries to buddy up to him, noting that despite his 'I win without fighting, fuck honour' schtick, Walder really... isn't all that, because Jaime notes that 'if we have to ride up to take back the things we gave you, why do we need you at all?' Jaime may be the Kingslayer, but he doesn't think much about Walder -- in fact, Jaime, Bronn and all the Lannister men are wearing armour during the feast, which is a nice little subtle nod to how distrustworthy the Freys are.

Throughout this scene, there's this little serving girl who gets a brief focus shot here and there, but you don't really pay attention to right up until she shows up to talk to Walder Frey alone, giving him a cake and going all 'but your sons are right here!' because, well, the serving girl apparently cut up Black Walder and Lame Lothar -- the two main Frey children -- and cooked them in a cake, before ripping off her face and revealing herself to be Arya Stark, now empowered with the skills of the faceless assassins, before she delivers a very chilling line to Walder Frey about how the last face he'll see is a smiling Stark, and proceeds to slit Walder Frey's throat in the same way that Catelyn Stark died. Does it make sense that Arya knows just how Catelyn died and manages to pull off the same method of killing Walder? No. Does it make it any less cool? Nope! Yeah, all the Braavos nonsense finally has some payoff, because, well, Arya Stark is an assassin ready to bring Stark justice, and finally, Walder Frey dies, which made me just so happy.

And the beautiful part? Right up until Arya removes her face, I honestly thought that the serving girl was sent by Jaime to get rid of Walder or to warn Walder of his incompetence or something. Last we saw Arya, she's just leaving the House of Black and White, but hey, it's a gigantic surprise, and we can presume that the Braavos scenes took place over a shorter period of time to allow Arya time to travel back to Westeros. Arya, you're a badass. You're awesome.

Before we get to the Eastern side of things, I would acknowledge that Sam and Gilly arrive in the Citadel. There is this big, awesome CGI library that's actually extremely breathtaking, but I don't care about Sam and Gilly arriving on a library when so much more is happening.

In Dorne, we have Olenna Tyrell, the Queen of Thorns, showing up to meet up with Ellaria Sand and the Sand Snakes, and Olenna is more hungry for vengeance than distraught. Ellaria tries to strike up an alliance, but even while grieving Olenna is so full of sass, telling the three Sand Snakes to shut the fuck up before they open their mouth and say some stupid C-movie one-liner, which is hilarious. Olenna also doesn't think that much of Ellaria, not until Ellaria offers vengeance for all that the Lannisters have taken from them. And the mastermind between this meeting, and the promise of stronger allies?

No other than the Spider, Varys himself. And, well, shit, it even actually makes sense, because Daenerys and her Horde needs somewhere to dock, and both Dorne and Highgarden are in the way from Westeros's easternmost coast right to King's Landing. And while it's just good fortune that Varys happened to be around during the big explosion that killed the Tyrells (and Olenna is just as awesome as Margeary and seeing her get more scenes in the next two seasons is more than welcome), Varys's "secret mission" being to get Dorne on Daenerys's side is very sensible.

In Mereen, Daenerys finally fucking sails to Westeros after six seasons, but not before telling Daario to stay behind in Mereen to stop any more uprising shit from happening. Daario Neharis never really worked as a character. He's an interesting face and a quirky character to contrast with the likes of Jorah Mormont, but as of late he hasn't really done much other than to trade dialogue off of, and he doesn't even work to be Daenerys's new lover and Daenerys even acknowledges that -- he doesn't feel a thing telling Daario away, but maybe it's just her forcing herself to feel nothing. Can't help but feel bad for poor Daario, because the dude clearly feels hurt by the rejection, but hey. What can you do -- you're going to compete screentime with the likes of Tyrion and Varys and Olenna among Daenerys's court, and honestly you don't stand a chance.

What's touching, though, is the interaction between Daenerys and Tyrion. The two have been through so much, and it's easy to mark the two of them as two of the absolute A-list main characters of the series. And while we don't get to see much interaction between the two, the few that we did does make it pretty clear that Tyrion respects Daenerys a great deal, and vice versa. Daenerys has forged a Hand badge and makes Tyrion the halfman her Hand, a gesture that touched Tyrion so much it actually drove him to tears. For someone who was practically kidnapped to Essos by Varys and noted how his job is only to 'drink and to know things' several episodes ago, to see Tyrion finally be acknowledged for his skills and not treated as the last possible resource is wonderful.

Anyway, we see Daenerys's gigantic fleet, comprised of the Ironborn ships let by Theon and Yara Greyjoy, as well as the Martells from Dorne and the Tyrells from Highgarden that Varys has secured an alliance with. She has three gigantic full-sized dragons that are easily the size of a warship. She has a horde of Dothraki raiders and horses riding on those ships, not to mention Grey Worm and an army of Unsullied. She has Tyrion and Varys, two of the most intelligent schemers of Westeros. And she's coming to King's Landing. Fuck winter, Daenerys is coming! And, yeah, it's six seasons overdue.

Man, I have to wait a year for season seven? Shit!

One Piece 830 Review: Big Mom's Fish Daughter

One Piece, Chapter 830: He Who Gets Bet On

That flashback early in the chapter with Jinbe telling everyone in Fishman Island that he's going to quit Big Mom's pirates and join Luffy is honestly not that necessary, neither is the montage of the random fishmen all going 'yeah, Jinbe, you rock, follow your own dreams for once'. It's a cool, heartwarming moment, though. We also get a bit with Aladdin Aladine, who apparently has married one of Big Mom's children, and the other Fishmen note that if Jinbe leaves the crew and brings Big Mom's wrath upon the Fishmen, it'll put Aladine in an awkward situation.

Aladine is married to Charlotte Praline, who's a hammerhead shark mermaid and a pretty cool-looking design at that. Despite everyone being scared shitless of Praline (and the readers probably being surprised that Big Mom got it on with a Fishman) she makes it clear that she's totally in love with Aladine and will probably side with Aladine if it comes to it... but she's also scary enough. She's Big Mom's daughter, after all, and she notes that Jinbe isn't the first person to leave, but no one has survived uttering such words before.

We cut back to the present day, in Whole Cake Island, where the other children of Big Mom are dealing with Moscato, the son whose 'years' were eaten by Big Mom last week. Two of Big Mom's children, Mont D'or and this big melting dude, as well as weird shadowy blob creatures, are cleaning things up, not leaving behind a 'single second'. What this means about Big Mom's powers, I don't know.

Big Mom and Jinbe are in Big Mom's chateau, and Big Mom eats her sentient cake buddies, and is actually a lot more reasonable (as far as a psychotic monster can be reasonable) than I thought she would be. Big Mom notes that being pirates, living freely and leaving her is Jinbe's own call... but because Big Mom loses such a valuable resource, it's fair that Jinbe loses something valuable as well, and Big Mom brings in a roulette with heads and limbs on it. Jinbe's not going to die, so maybe we'll have one of his arms or legs chopped off? It's a pirate setting, after all.

We get Pedro's backstory while the Straw Hats deal with a bunch of monster ants (a reusal of the model from One Piece: Strong World) and Pedro is a former pirate that fell in battle near Whole Cake Island, who went around trying to find poneglyphs. Pedro offers his services in stealing Big Mom's poneglyph for Luffy, because that's going to be useful to Luffy in the future. Brook is all mysterious and shit, laughing about Luffy 'being born with this kind of fate'. Oh, Brook, you mysterious undead pervert, you. I really want a long Brook arc exploring all the cryptic shit he's been saying all throughout the Zou arc. 

The final two-page spread happens after a quick timeskip where the Straw Hats reach Whole Cake Island, and they see someone on the coast. Jinbe? Sanji? Who will it be? It's overall a pretty decent setup chapter, with clearly the meat of the chapter being the Jinbe scenes. It's honestly a bit anticlimatic for Jinbe to join up after so, so long and I think it would've been better if the Straw Hats actually met Jinbe first (armless/legless) before we see the flashback to the events that led to Jinbe's defection. Would've had better pacing that way, I think. But oh well.

Pokemon Top Tens: Least Favourite Pokemon (Gen I-VI)

With 721 various creatures from six generations, and around at least a hundred more in the upcoming new generation VII, to say that there is a lot of Pokemon is an understatement. Obviously, despite all the awesome-looking and cute-looking monsters out there, they can't all be winners. Some of the lesser ones get by simply because they are boring or useless, but some are just... well, I hate them for various reasons. And despite being a big Pokemon fan who has gone through hating the new generation before embracing it wholeheartedly, there are several Pokemon who I still find irredeemable and honestly the world will be better off with them out of the way. And no, I don't count things like Zubat or Geodude in this list simply because you encounter a lot of them. Geodude's kind of dumb, but I've always loved the Zubat line (even if Golbat is kinda gross) ever since their debut. (Crobat is awesome! I've had him in my party as a main fighter in at least four different playthroughs.) I don't think the likes of  the Muk line, the Scraggy line or the Diglett line are all that dumb either. Oversimplistic, perhaps, but they're not that bad. And I certainly don't hate Vanilluxe -- he looks weird as hell, but he's hardly the worst thing out there. Or Stunfisk, who I actually thought is cute in that derpy-idiot sort of way. Or the baby Pokemon or the Pikachu clones, who at least have the decency to be cute. Nah, the ones on this list don't make it there simply because they're useless in battle. They really need to do something more to upset me than that.

But first, some honourable mentions of things that I dislike but don't hate quite enough to put on this list, mostly due to simply looking dumb and stupid. Though visual appearances alone isn't quite enough to make me hate something, it's enough to make me dislike it whenever it crops up... Beeheyem. Aromatisse. Beartric. Smeargle. Tyrogue. The entire Klink line. Clefairy. Lickilicky. Rhyperior. Electivire. Meloetta. White-Kyurem and Black-Kyurem. Probopass. Diggersby. (Those last two at least are meant to be ugly)

So, anyway, with that out of the way, here's my top ten least favourites, from the one I dislike the least to the one I want to shoot in the head with a shotgun fifteen times if I see it in real life.
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10. Garbodor: Okay, okay, it's easy to hate on Garbodor. For one, he's introduced in Generation V, which was at that time much-maligned by the community and the fanbase. While the hate towards Generation V had ultimately simmered down and it ended up being a very worthy entry into the Pokemon franchise, there's no denying that Generation V's sheer quantity of new Pokemon introduced -- with none of the previous four generations appearing in Generation V initially, and with all-too-obvious replacements for classic favourites -- meant that there were a lot of misses as much as there were hits. I could probably write an entire article about the good and bad things about Generation V, and maybe one of these days I'll do a 'best and worst of this Generation' list. But Garbodor and Vanniluxe are usually what everyone points to as proof that Generation V ran out of ideas. Lol look at the ice cream Pokemon and the garbage trash Pokemon!

Well, I don't hate on the idea of garbage being sentient. Golems made of refuse has always been a part of numerous fantasy lore and ultimately one of the biggest inspirations for Pokemon are fantasies of all sorts. And the Trubbish/Garbodor line kind of made sense, considering Generation I starred two evolutionary lines of pure-Poison types based on pollution -- Grimer/Muk and Koffing/Weezing, representing liquid pollution and air pollution respectively. Garbodor and Trubbish were born of land pollution. And, well, really, why do I dislike Garbodor so, when I really like Muk and Koffing? Muk is just a pile of purple goop!

Well, Garbodor is just... ugly as all hell. You can quote me on saying that I think Trubbish is cute the way things like Dunsparce and Stunfisk and Aipom can be considered cute. Trubbish is a nice, simple design! It's a tied-up trash bag that waddles along with its trash feet and arms that are made up of waste. Garbodor? Garbodor's just ugly. From the ripped-up trash bag to its bwaaaa mouth to his asymmetrical tentacle-arms that just out from different heights, to his weird toilet-roll fingers, to his big fat belly that looks more like dirty ice-cream than actual refuse... Garbodor just sits on that awkward place where he would've looked better if he was designed more to make his 'walking landfill' concept more apparent, or if he was designed simpler to make him look less ugly.

Plus, Garbodors are hella annoying to fight, in addition to being ugly. Some poison types have had a history of being annoying tanky shits that have a move or two that can hit particularly hard -- Muk, Weezing, Skuntank -- but Garbodor is just annoying, standing there and launching all sorts of gunk and sludge your way. Not enough of a threat to really consider using, but annoying enough to take a fairly long time to murder.

Man, that was a lot of words for a pile of walking garbage.

9. Patrat: Okay, this one is simple enough. Each generation needs a resident weak rodent-thing in the early routes. We went from cute ones like Sentret and Zigzagoon, to sorta-realistic ones like Rattata, to doofy ones like Bidoof... and then there's this dude. Patrat is just ugly as sin. He looks like he's either hyper-caffeinated or possessed by a demon from the ninth circle of hell, and he just stares at you with that annoying-ass expression. We already had a meerkat (admittedly a very stylized meerkat) in Sentret and Furret, but Patrat? Patrat has the combination of being ugly, being utterly everywhere in the early routes, being utterly useless (especially compared to Lillipup and Purrloin, both also early-route Pokemon in Generation V that look far better and evolve into far more tolerable creatures), yet being an absolute pain in the ass to fight. Being an early-game route fodder, Patrat is not particularly powerful, but try fighting one of these fuckers. Want to attack him? Good luck with him spamming Sand Attack. Oh, your attack lands? Of course it's on the turn it uses Detect. Happen to find one of these at a higher level? Well, Hypnosis and Mean Look and fuck you. It evolves into Watchog, which is useless and ugly... but nowhere as ugly as Patrat.

8. Ambipom: Generation IV introduced a lot of new evolutions (and I do mean a lot) to earlier Generation Pokemon that required a real buff to even be relevant, a problem that plagued the cast of Generation II so much that it practically crippled the Pokemon of that Generation. While a lot of the new evolutions in Generation IV were pretty awesome, there were a lot of classic designs that were utterly ruined, like Rhyperior and Electivire, who looked ugly as fuck. Or there were designs that made an already dumb design look even dumber. Tangrowth, Probopass and Lickilicky fall in this category. But none of them made it onto the list. None except Ambipom.

Aipom is a fairly inoffensive creature. Based on monkeys whose tail acted as a third arm, it's a funny and dumb-looking thing that you don't really think much of. It had a pretty major role as Gold's main Pokemon in Pokemon Adventures, but other than that it isn't a very memorable creature. Well, giving it an evolution should fix it, right? And Ambipom's concept is decent. Give the monkey with a tail-arm... a second tail-arm! Except that's not all that they changed. The tail-fingers turned oddly pointy and the tail-arm became spherical like a cow's udder. Ambipom has this annoying weird... thing on his nose, and what the hell is that haircut? The random bug antennae and the stupid Rock Lee bowl cut just made the ugly-but-cute Aipom look... like a total doofus. It tries way too hard to add things onto the design like those ass-tufts and nose-thing and the Rock Lee haircut that it ends up being one of the most ridiculously moronic things. And, yeah, this thing annoys me a lot more than the fucking garbage bag.

And what really annoys me? Ambipom really likes to show up in Wi-Fi battles, with STAB Technician-boosted Fake Outs dealing a crapton of damage before it does a bunch of weird shit to screw my team. All the while it's smiling like a damned douchehole.


7. Gurdurr: I have no problem with Timburr, who is just your generic ambiguous-humanoid-animal Pokemon, or Conkeldurr, who looks sort of badass with those two giant pillars. Yes, the entire line are obvious copy-pastes of the Machop/Machoke/Machamp line, except with construction workers instead of wrestlers. No, they won't win the top ten creative designs of Generation V, but there are worse designs, and occupational-based Pokemon has been around since forever. But Gurdurr? In addition to having a head that looks like an afro-shaped tumour, an inexplicable clown-nose which is made more prominent here since Gurdurr's head is round, a weirdly tiny waist and giant blobs of muscle-arms that look deformed as hell? And those weird pink... things... are those supposed to be veins? Then what are the weird lifesaver things on his armpits? And who in Nintendo really thought 'Gurdurr' was a good enough name, like, seriously? This thing is utterly stupid on so many levels. It's just ugly, it doesn't make sense, and there isn't any kind of cultural explanation to why a construction worker would look like this deformed Physics-defying broccoli-headed dude.

6. Hypno: Hypno was a totally forgettable Pokemon from Generation I. He was the Psychic-type that scrubs who couldn't manage to catch an Abra would raise, because he's ultimately a poor man's Alakazam. Plus, y'know, Alakazam is just so much cooler. Hypno is just this weird cat-man with a giant nose and a random neck-fluff and a pendulum. The fact that his design makes him look like a totally naked man doesn't help to make him cooler than Alakazam either.

And it really got worse when you realize that, hey, Hypno's lore all kind of reference pedophilia, or at least child kidnapping. While the concept of using hypnotism to put 'prey' to sleep so he can eat his dreams is a decent concept for a C-list creature, at least two of Hypno's in-game Pokedex entries reference him kidnapping children, and there are at least several other secondary guidebooks or whatever that reference this. And Hypno's most prominent role in the main series games? Attack a secluded, terrified child in Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen. Man, if the player character hadn't gotten to her rescue in time... Her dialogue before the player rescued her was that Hypno 'kept scaring her', meaning that it's not just doing it out of a sense of territoriality, but actually relishing in the poor little girl's fear. The fact that he looks, like, y'know, a freaking naked man with those shifty eyes doesn't help either. It's no surprise Hypno is a subject of many creepy-pastas and Pokemon-based horror stories and the most disturbing Rule 34 shit ever, because look at this fucker! It's not only stupid, it's also borderline offensive.

5. Jynx: Do I have to go on a rant about Jynx? Really, it's a given that Jynx is on everyone's 'top ten least faovurite Pokemon list'. And that's without going to the controversies either -- yeah, she could just be an innocent mistake on Japan's part in adapting Ganguro fashion style in a way that ends up looking like Blackface, but even without the racism undertones Jynx is already a stupid design. How does ugly-ass things like Jynx and Hypno beat out Heracross and Scizor in being part of the original 151, I have no idea and I don't understand. Jynx is just weird. You can argue all you want that she's based on any one of many Japanese myths, but I bet none of them look like this ugly hooker thing. The fact that there is no real apparent origin for Jynx, unlike many of the other Pokemon based on Japanese mythology, is further proof of this ugly thing's misguided creation. Look at her! Look at that ugly-ass face, those random boobs in full view, and just... just... ew. Other humanoid Pokemon are generally based on an occupation or two, or at least look part-animal. Jynx is just a fat black lady without legs. She's easily one of the most stupid designs out there, but since Nintendo is quite understandably cutting back on using Jynx at all -- usually putting her much less-offensive pre-evolution Smoochum as the ones that trainers in-game use -- it hasn't really annoyed me as much as these next four.

4. Unown: Unown! Man, back when I was a kid and Generation II was the newest thing, Unown looked cool. What was the mystery behind all these things? The Ruins of Alph were accessible as early as the second gym, and to unleash the Unown you had to unlock some kind of hieroglyphic puzzle. It's pretty cool, and the suspense of unleashing some ancient things locked away by a series of cryptic clues is a very great concept in any adventure game. But other than the thrill of unlocking and beating the puzzles that annoy them, Unown end up... being lackluster as all hell. They only know one move, Hidden Power, which is a lot less impressive than it sounds. They can't learn any kind of TM's, not even Psychic-type attacks, and this makes them the unambiguously weakest and most useless Pokemon ever. Unown came in 26 shapes corresponding to the alphabet, and the Pokedex and lore hint that each Unown has their own powers. The third Movie introduced Unown as some kind of extra-dimensional Lovecraftian alien things that arrive in a hivemind swarm that react to a person's emotions and have utterly insane reality-warping powers. In-game? An unevolved Magikarp's better.

We have gone several generations since Generation II, and after several punctuation mark Unowns were added into the game in Generation III, the only real purpose of the Unown seems to be nothing but to add an annoying side-quest for you to catch 26 of these ugly eyeballs that end up giving you no function other than to spell out profanities in your Pokeboxes. The concept is really cool, but the fact that we've waited close to twenty years with jack shit of a payoff on this particular story means that, well, Unown ends up being just shit. Just give them more moves or, hell, some actual lore significance other than just having their mysteries hinted at and never explored. Or just give us an amalgamation evolution or some shit like that. They're just a giant disappointment.

3. The Elemental Monkeys: Okay, technically these are a set of six Pokemon, but I hate the Elemental Monkeys from Generation V with a passion. They were quite prominent. The first gym leader in Pokemon Black & White uses one of them depending on your starter. Some random girl gives you an abandoned monkey because no one in their right mind would want to train one of these ugly shits. It's one of the main partner Pokemon in the Black & White cartoon.


Why do I hate these guys? Well, simply it's because they're just so damned uncreative. Previous elemental trios or duos like the starters or the Eeveelutions or legendary trios at least vary their looks. These are just identical designs just with differently shaped fur... and it's not like we haven't done this concept before either. The Chimchar line is a far, far more well-realized and far cooler fire monkey line than Simisear can ever hope to be. Hell, even Ambipom looks so much better than these three idiots. Simisage is the only one out of the bunch that even looks decent at all, with that weird punk look to him, but Simisear and Simipour are just ugly as sin. Simisear looks like an anvil just dropped on him and he's just recovering it all Looney-Tunes style. And look at him! He just looks derpy and ugly as all hell. Simipour has the worst hairdo in all of anime, needs to find some pants and just looks ugly in general. And the Pans? The Pans are just uncreative, ugly shits.

To top it off, none of these three are even any good in combat. They are just annoying-looking shits with annoying cries, ugly designs and just there to pad out the Unova Pokedex even more... when, really, Unova already has enough good material to work with even without adding these shameful ugly shits into it.

2. Throh & Sawk: Speaking of senseless padding in the Unova Pokedex... man, what are these two ugly shits? Not only are they flagrantly ripping off Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan, which really won't stand out as something necessary for a good Generation to rip off, they also look stupid as hell. Why are their bodies crystalline? Are they rock type? Nope. Why are they randomly wearing karate-judo training outfits? Why do they have these weird black growths on their face? Why do their faces look so ugly? They just look so ugly, with so little thought going into their conception. Oh, hey, let's make a karate and a judo based Pokemon! Nah, no need to really put too much thought into them. Just slap a training suit on, give them different colours and deform them as much as humanly possible. And give them a bunch of random, annoying Fighting moves to make them a pain. Oh, and let's give one of them Sturdy, because it makes so much sense! Hariyama barely made it off the honourable mentions for being ugly, but he's a far better-realized Pokemon based on Judo. And the names? Ugh. Pokemon likes its puns, but 'Throh' and 'Sawk' really hit the bottom of the barrel. I honestly groan and hate these things every single time they show up, and I honestly would rather these two fade off into obscurity and never be used ever again.


1. Bouffalant: My least favourite Pokemon is also from Generation V, which really makes me look like I am just dripping hatred for the generation. I'm not! I love Generation V. It had some of the best and most creative Pokemon designs out there, and I can wax lyrical about how a lot of Pokemon in Generation V finally found a nice balance between complexity and simplicity. But in-between all the Pokemon of Generation V there is this big pile of bull shit. Bouffalant is a rare Normal-type Pokemon based on a bull (buffalo, bull, whatever) that hits like a gigantic truck and is rare to find. GUESS WHAT? We had Tauros. Tauros was not the most creative of Pokemon, being a glorified rampaging bull with three tails and a bunch of extra dots on its head, but Bouffalant? Look at this utterly ugly piece of shit! Who thinks about putting an afro on a cow and go 'hmm, yeah, that's like, the coolest thing ever!' And those stupid rings on its horns, what the hell? Tauros was already uncreative enough by slapping two extra tails, but Bouffalant slaps on an afro and calls it a day. It looks stupid, it really looks like an April's Fools Joke, and... and it still hits like a truck! A stupid-looking truck.

Bouffalant is one of the signature Pokemon of Generation V's true champion, Alder... but honestly I want to ignore that and just consider Alder's champion as his Volcarona. Or, hell, his Vanniluxe, which is a helluva less ugly than this half-assed design. The fact that, oh, I dunno, he's actually pretty powerful and can wipe out unprepared teams thanks to being a tank of a Normal-type isn't a joke. And being wiped out by the champion's afro-cow is certainly a lot more annoying and irritating than losing to, say, a Dragonite or a Garchomp or a Volcarona or a Gardevoir. Fuck this cow. Fuck it. Fuck every single time I encountered it. He also sometimes shows up in like Wi-Fi battles or whatever and, oh, it's just ugly, it's actually powerful and there's no way in hell I am happy after being beaten by this misbegotten conglomeration of laziness and bad ideas.

...

So, um, yeah. Top ten least favourite Pokemon! I cursed a lot more than I thought I would. (Fuck Bouffalant) Next top ten list will be a lot less curse-y.