One Piece 775: Backstory. MANLY Backstory.

One Piece, Chapter 775: To Lucy Anne, With Love

Pretty good chapter, though compared to the last one with the rather uninteresting Tontatta stuff anything's going to be an improvement. We get a bit of the Tontattas and some tsundere moments or whatever on Leo's part... and Leo is apparently the one that's being an oblivious little dick while Mancherie is just a normal, kind person who gets normally offended to Leo's insulting remarks. Jora's still alive, and thinks to herself how she needs to tell Doflamingo about what's happening, and apparently Mancherie's Heal Heal Fruit is able to 'restore' in addition to heal, and Doflamingo is planning to use it on the Smile Factory if it's destroyed. But restoration apparently takes chunks out of Mancherie's life, which isn't nice.

Despite my general disdain for anything Tontatta related, I guess I like Mancherie? She's kinda cute and she's got an interesting fruit.

We cut away to Franky and Senor Pink's fight, the last (and manliest) of the fights not involving the Executives. And it's been going on for quite a while, kind of an on-off battle thing with Franky and Senor Pink that never gets resolved. And they kind of lampshade it, how Senor Pink's constant swimming suplex attack (named Nyan Nyan Suplex, apparently) has been done so many times, like 30 times in a row, and Franky has never dodged it. Kind of a lampshade on just how many times we've seen that, isn't it? But apparently whether it be Franky's punches or Senor Pink's suplexes, neither one of them is going to dodge because that wouldn't be the manly thing to do.  That's kind of hilarious, actually. Franky talks about how his 'Strong Style' means that he'll take on Senor Pink's attacks head on because his opponent is as manly as him.

Y'know, even if they fight with nipple lights and diaper bombs.

Franky talks about how he's going to protect the Tontatta, and Senor Pink goes on about how he's going to make the next attack his last. He tells Franky to take his strongest attack, and swims really fast towards Franky -- which is apparently why he's randomly standing so far away. Senor Pink charges at Franky while swimming, and swims up a building straight into the sky. While in mid-air, Senor Pink kind of mutters about how he's closer to Lucy Anne (or Lucian as some has translated her name) and his son Gimlett, before focusing on the fight. Senor Pink reveals that Franky's back is still flesh, and drops down in his ultimate Nyan Nyan Suplex attack, which is named 'Baby Buster'.

Franky, of course, gets up and that lower-right panel of his eyes and mouth glowing with Terminator robot fire is pretty scary yet awesome at the same time. Senor Pink just stands there as Franky unleashes 'Franky Iron Boxing', which is basically a shit-ton of punches.

And then we get a flashback for Senor Pink... which is one of the most fucking sad backstories in One Piece history. Like, ever. Apparently back when he's still a smartly-dressed gentleman, Senor Pink fell in love with this woman, Lucy Anne, who hated pirates, so Senor Pink (who is, of course, a pirate) lied and said he was a banker. They eventually get married, have a kid, and all that... and naturally, Senor Pink is still off doing pirate stuff while working. And one day Senor Pink comes back home to be told that Gimlett's dead thanks to a fever, and when Lucy Anne tried to contact the bank, the little ruse is discovered.

Lucy Anne runs out into a stormy night in anger and the next page shows her in a vegetable state, apparently caught under a landslide during the storm. That would be horrible enough in and of itself, how Senor Pink is just crying and being all sad and stuff, but at one point he brings in their dead son's bonnet and fools around with it, wearing it and making him look like Gimlett... and the vegetative Lucy Anne smiles a bit. And ever since that happened, Senor Pink began dressing like a baby, with the bonnet and the sucker and the diaper. We see a bit of the doctors, the people in the street, Diamante, Trebol and a bunch of people who call him a pervert all react to his new fashion, but he doesn't give a shit, simply because this getup gets his vegetative wife to smile for him.

That is fucking sad. Also makes Senor Pink's ridiculousness feel absolutely sad. Like Baby 5, I'm pretty sure that if I ever read the Dressrosa arc their antics won't feel as ridiculous and random as they initially did. Man, Senor Pink.

Of course, Senor Pink in the present day falls down, and Franky wins... no surprise there, but that backstory kind of made me really feel for Senor Pink. Franky wipes away Pink's tears and promises to drink with him the next time they meet each other while he advances on the factory... well, after so long of having Franky and Pink's fight be interrupted and/or just shown glimpses of, it's kind of a pretty satisfying conclusion.

One Piece's on a hiatus next week (and there aren't any cover stories this chapter) and we're going to enter the final stages of the arc. Zoro vs Pica. Kyros, Robin and Rebecca vs Diamante. Luffy vs Bellamy. Law vs Doflamingo. And Trebol's somewhere in that fight too. Also interested to see how Fujitora and Sabo and their respective factions react to the whole thing. Not to mention the whole CP-0 and Big Mom things that's been kind of placed way in the sidelines.

Toriko 310 Review: Ball Bells

Toriko, Chapter 310: Gong

So the chapter starts off with Kaka explaining that there is this Monkey Festival where the stronger monkeys of the continent will challenge Bambina for the title of the Monkey King, and naturally, since this is a Shonen manga, Toriko's group arrive just right around the time that the Monkey Festival is about to happen. But even with the fact that it's apparently serious business, Kaka notes that Bambina will still be playing, giving them kind of an edge. Apparently this year's contest is Monkey Wrestling, which explains the ring last chapter.

We get a bit of Coco recovering from Bambina hitting his knees from behind, and they note that Bambina is fully rested whereas all of them have their energy sapped by the 100G Mountain's immense gravity as well as the training they've done non-stop. Toriko notes that their strength is around half of their optimal strength, and kind of decides to go right for Bambina's balls right from the get-go.

Bambina jumps into the ring and apparently his monkey balls also function as a bell, and is known as the Bell of Pair. Because when you're writing a comic about attempting to steal the balls of a super-powerful monkey god, you also make the balls a musical instrument with rejuvenating powers. That's the natural, logical course of action.

They've been kind of revitalized, stamina-wise at least, by the sound of Bambina's balls clanging together. Somehow. Which at least means that they might be able to extract Pair without having to chop them off Bambina, which is nice. I would pity Bambina if they chop off his balls. If they can. They note how this sound can fill their stomach, Zebra talks about how his sounds destroy stuff, and Toriko asks their animal companions to kind of stand down and stuff.

The Four Kings and Bambina get into the ring, and Toriko kind of explains the rules. They're taking on Bambina four on one, but, like, there's only going to be one person in the ring. And unlike wrestling there's no tap-outs, referees or falls... so it's not exactly wrestling but whatever. Kind of confusing and that might be the result of bad translation, but whatever. Sani talks about how he wants to go first, and he does. After a bit of atmospheric description, the battle actually starts and Bambina moves so fast he throws Sani off the ring and into these bands that are apparently really really strong. Zebra walks in and stops Bambina from preparing his lariat by locking the monkey's arms, and as the rubber bounces Sani back, Sani manages to punch Bambina straight in the gut.

Well, that's certainly interesting even if a 'wrestling match... except for all these wrestling rules' thing kind of wierds me out. Also the fact that, y'know, Bambina's fucking testicles are their target. I cannot decide if this is the epitome of Japanese ridiculous humour or the epitome of Japanese strangeness and I decide that it's both absolutely hilarious and unsettling at the same time. Interested to see more, to see if they can at least prove to be a fight against Bambina. I'm pretty sure that punch ain't going to really hurt him.

The Flash S1E11 Review: Evil Hearing Aids

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 11: The Sound and the Fury

Well, that's another awesome episode. I wasn't really too familiar with the Pied Piper as a character -- I know he exists, I know he's a cool anti-hero/anti-villain dude in the comics, I know he's gay, I know his powers... but I'm not acquainted with the character all that much. And as the villain of the episode, he's awesome. It's an awesome episode, really, combining both the 'villain of the week/moral of the week' formula with the whole big Reverse-Flash plot. I certainly was not expecting all the whole Harrison Wells stuff being part of Pied Piper's backstory.

I mean, the Flash still does a fair amount of things in this episode, but it's safe to say that Harrison Wells and Pied Piper (a.k.a. Hartley Rathaway) stole the show. Let's go with Piper first... I'm quite happy to see him be a badass villain. They openly talk about how he's gay, how his father disowned him for coming out (which we saw a bit of last episode when Captain Cold robbed his dear old folks) but other than an off-hand comment about being escorted with men wearing leather, never in this episode did the Pied Piper act like a stereotypically camp gay person, which is a good thing. He's pretty cool, in fact, with his being a gigantic douchebag and being a chessmaster.

I also like how this one villain isn't someone new that Team Flash encounters like practically every other villain out there, but rather a blast from the past. And they simply never mentioned Hartley before simply because 'he was mostly a jerk, but sometimes he's a dick'. And he is! We saw that he's awesome in both chessmastering, he was basically Harrison Wells' second-in-command back in the day, but he is also a gigantic prick. He insults Cisco simply for showing up with a Keep Calm shirt, he dicks around and makes jokes about Ronnie's death in front of Caitlin, slaps Caitlin, he basically treats Cisco like shit and tries to kill Flash just to spite Harrison Wells.

He's kind of a psychopath, but hey, he's got reasons and stuff, so he isn't entirely unsympathetic. Still a gigantic fuckwad, though. I do like his design, keeping the iconic green hood from the comics, even if he hasn't gotten a flute yet and relies on these two metallic gauntlets on his arms to launch sonic waves at stuff which can break stuff. His sonic waves can apparently also move cars in the air and toss them down a dam, because, uh... physics I guess. He's also rendered deaf by the particle explosion, and requires what Cisco dubs to be 'evil hearing aids' to stop a ringing pain going off in his ears, which is kind of a cool concept to tie to the whole sound thing.

Overall he's a petty little shit who's playing a big chess game with Wells, and I do like the little bait and switch. We think that Rathaway knows about the whole Reverse-Flash secret and Wells tried to get him silenced or something, but no. The big secret is that, y'know, Wells had Rathaway fired because Rathaway warned Wells about the possibility of the accelerator blowing up. Which is a fair thing to get angry about, but Rathaway kind of crossed the line after he tried to kill Barry even after Wells had admitted his sin in front of everybody.

I thought some of the sonic waves didn't look so good, actually, though I bet animated those sound waves can't be as easy as the glowing zap lines of Captain Cold and Heat Wave's guns. It's still nice enough to not distract, though, especially in the later scenes.

Rathaway also has a little rivalry going on with Cisco, basically refusing to acknowledge Cisco's worth and getting into verbal fights with Cisco several times. Which I thought was kind of nicely done, and Wells consoling Cisco about how he is the heart of the team, while a bit cheesy, was nice. Rathaway also drops the big bomb on Cisco, though, promising him at the end of the episode that Cisco will let him out because he knows all about Ronnie. Dun dun dunnn! Also didn't expect all this to tie into the Firestorm plot, which is a nice way to make everything connected without turning it into a clusterfuck.

Granted there is the big, gaping plot hole on why they placed Rathaway in their metahuman jail block instead of, y'know, handing him over to the police. I mean, the police arrested Captain Cold and Heat Wave last episode, so why the fuck did they leave Rathaway to Team Flash? He's definitely not a metahuman, people can definitely charge him for resisting arrest and blowing shit up with sonic beams... and he's definitely someone who is pretty likely to figure out a way to break out of that prison.

That's something that really bugged me. And he ended up in the STAR Labs prison not once but twice.

Harrison Wells gets the brunt of the characterization, though! He gets some 'it's nice to be a hero' moments and some cryptic 'oh, yes indeed, we need to document this for the future' lines that, y'know... he also gets a fair bit of characterization that at times makes me doubt that he's actually the same Reverse-Flash that's been going around killing people's mothers and shit. But if there was ever any doubt that Harrison Wells is the Reverse-Flash, he actually gets on his feet and zips around in super-speed, leaving behind red lightning. More on his speed and whatnot later on, but Wells does shine pretty well in this episode. He is certainly humanized more than the heartless chessmaster, and from acknowledging his sins to the public and his friends, admitting his pride (or, y'know, most-likely-deliberate sabotage of the particle accelerator) and generally being taken down off his pedestal is pretty well-written. It's definitely Wells' time to shine this episode.

And that's without all the fun Reverse-Flash stuff. Harrison Wells has super-speed, yes, and he is the Reverse-Flash, yes, but when he ran out of his little Gideon safe chamber, he basically falls down because his legs are vibrating badly, which means that there is something... odd with his speed. Rathaway isn't a secret keeper for Wells' alter ego, however, and we learn at the end of the episode as Wells speaks to Gideon the AI that he is apparently absorbing his speed from the weird robot chest-claw thing... from the Speed Force, which finally is named. Wells notes that he can only absorb around 35% and his speed is fluctuating, which actually gives somewhat of a reason for why he likes to run off from his fights with Flash other than, y'know, plot necessity. And it seems that his 'endgame' is attempting to permanently drain Barry Allen's speed. Or something.

Also, he says 'I failed this city' in his apology speech, which, thanks to Arrow, is absolutely fucking hilarious and I laughed so hard at that one.

Cisco also gets a fair bit of screen time this time around, dealing with his self-worth issues and constantly being put down by Rathaway back then and now, and I do like how he gets really serious when shit gets down, and how Wells later reassures him that the fact that he has empathy and humour isn't a bad thing. It's a pretty fun episode and I do like how the secondary characters are slowly getting fleshed out. Caitlin... I don't think she does anything notable beyond general Caitlin stuff, but next episode's probably going to be a Firestorm one so we might see her do stuff.

The sudden alternation of languages that Rathaway uses to talk to the STAR Labs people (Latin when talking with Wells, Spanish with Cisco and French with Caitlin) is kind of a nice touch to show just how accomplished Rathaway is in things other than physics... and how much of a dickwad he is.

There is a B-plot of Iris getting a job as a reporter, finally, which is her comic book counterpart's job. And there's the twist that the bosses basically don't give a shit about her if she can't pull out her Flash connections and get a Flash story and how her superiors are being a dick to her... which is kind of being somewhat similar to Agent Carter's plot but more subtle. Wells does throw her a bone, which is nice, and I suspect the Flash will be talking to her very very soon, and maybe she'll have to choose between being known as 'that reporter who's only something because she knows the Flash' and being an actual, legit, reporter, which could be an interesting thing to explore.

Joe doesn't do much other than fooling around with Barry's explanation of sound shattering glass, and later having that 'aw' moment with how Barry tells him he can't be replaced (which IMO kind of came out of nowhere) but he's apparently conducting his own investigation of Wells alongside Eddie Thawne (who very may well be an accomplice, but likelier to be a red herring). He does laugh at everything from Cisco's description of Rathaway to Barry's little glass-shattering experiment and he's funny. I like him.

Barry himself... again, other than his interactions being the good guy while talking to Wells and Joe and the rest, I don't think there's anything particularly notable that he does.

Oh, and the Royal Flush Gang reappears! Which is always fun. It's the second appearance of the gang in the CW show's continuity, and this time they're a trio of motorcycle riding thieves or something wearing helmets with card markings they may or may not be the same group with the ones that showed up in Arrow. If they aren't, it is kind of fitting considering how there's like a gajillion different incarnations of the Royal Flush Gang in the DC comics... but it's likely that they are. Which is cool. I like the idea of a Royal Flush Gang hanging around. And the way Flash took them down was funny.

Overall a pretty solid episode, and I'm highly interested to see what's to come. Reverse-Flash, Firestorm, Pied Piper... so many things are going on, and I'm definitely looking forward to the mysteries being unraveled little by little.

Gotham S1E13 Review: Gray Morality

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 13: Welcome Back, Jim Gordon

After the big, explosive last episode, we return to more mundane detective/gangster stuff, with around two big plotlines and a couple absolutely unrelated smaller things going on at the same time. It's actually a pretty fun episode, albeit one that could've had a faster pacing. It's not really that big of a complain in my opinion, though.

The main plot is Gordon confronting Arnold Flass, who DC veterans would recognize as the shitty cop from the Year One comics who Jim Gordon beats up and brings down for being corrupt. Also Gordon's comic-book first partner. And basically the same thing happens here albeit without Gordon beating up Flass in the woods. Though even without prior comic book knowledge, the show doesn't really try to cover up the fact that Flass is a gigantic scumbag who has everyone in his pockets. And the whole drug bust thing isn't really the big interest, though the scene where Jim Gordon just marches up to Flass and arrests him in front of everyone is pretty awesome. We also see how much of a goddamn asshole Flass was, with the victim who he killed being extremely likable. It's a pretty generic 'I'm a good guy, I have a great relationship with my wife, I'm honest oh no I'm dead and here's my grieving family and it's sad' poor victim, but that doesn't make it any less effective.

The thing that makes it more interesting than just some generic police plot is the fact that Gordon, at his wits end with no one really willing to help (he tried Bullock, Essen, and attempting to apprehend Delaware twice) he seeks help from Penguin... and Penguin's second-in-command, Gabriel, basically waterboards Delaware's wife and tortures her to get information out of Delaware. And the scene at the end with Delaware basically begging and broken in front of Gordon and pleading for him to leave his wife and kids alone... it's pretty jarring to see how such a gigantic douchebag like Delaware has been broken down by Gordon's one mistake of trusting his friend, Penguin.

Granted Penguin himself is doing it all in good interest, and he does genuinely want to be friends with Gordon... he just doesn't particularly care how he does it. All the talk about favours and drinking and stuff... A good chunk of the episode is Penguin inviting his slightly-cuccoo mother to Fish Mooney's club, which is pretty much going to be revamped by the Penguin into the Iceberg Lounge in all but name. We get some rather 'eh' moments with Gertrude, and I truly expected Gertrude to be caught in the crossfire between Penguin and Fish... but no, that doesn't happen.

Fish, well... she spends the first third of the episode being dragged into this torture chamber run by this dude called Bob who only manages to slap her once and put her head into a bag. Butch manages to break free and beat Bob up before he could smash Fish's kneecaps, and rescues her... and Fish wants to kill Penguin first before skipping town, which is fair enough, since Penguin is just spending an entire minute's worth of screentime getting drunk and being kind of hilarious (even if that scene ran on for a bit too long). Fish cuts him off before he can name it the Iceberg Lounge, but instead of doing the smart thing and shooting him right there or beating him to death with the baseball bat, Fish forces Penguin to kiss her shoes, and even has an angry shouty-conversation with him for a bit, allowing Mr. Zsasz and his three weird gothic henchwomen to show up and rescue Penguin. Who's a bit more awesome this episode, even when he's still getting beat.

Also Fish brings up the 'umbrella boy' thing, which I totally forgot was a thing. I guess Oswald will start embracing all the things that used to be jeerings to him. He's already embraced the Penguin nickname, after all.

Butch manages to kill one of Zsasz's henchwomen, and Zsasz goes around and gets to make creepy faces and I am definitely liking this incarnation of Zsasz. Butch manages to get Fish to safety and stays behind for a heroic sacrifice... but Zsasz shoots Butch in the knee and I think brings Butch back to torture. Butch is kind of awesome for a minor character this episode, what with his loyalty and everything.

Also, Falcone should've really left Zsasz around near the torture house so Butch couldn't get away.

At the end of the episode Bullock helps Fish escape and get to a ship out of Gotham, but Fish promises vengeance and asks Bullock to help her find Butch, and it's nice to see that Bullock still has his own grayer areas which makes him a bit more complex than just Gordon's ever-snarking partner. I also do like how Bullock and Essen knows all the ins and outs of the corruption, and doesn't really tell Gordon that unless it's relevant because, y'know, Gordon is a crazy warpath of justice and naivete.

That's about it for the two main plots, and time to move to the side-plots. We've got Eddie Nygma doing his Riddler stints, getting shouted at by Bullock... and giving Kringle a non-riddle poem. Of course he gets absolutely humiliated by Kringle's generic-jock friends who discover the poem, but Kringle herself seems to... not mind Nygma's letter enough to apologize for her friends' behaviour, though she still obviously doesn't care much for Nygma himself. Which is nice and all, but I still do think it takes a bit too much screentime. Nygma's scenes while not interacting with Kringle is kind of hilarious, including his gigantic smile when Gordon is arresting Flass.

Also, using a giant magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers to separate onions from his spaghetti or whatever? You know you can just ask the takeout to not include the onions?

The other side-plot involves Bruce Wayne going around looking for Selina, and it takes up, again, a fair bit too much of screen-time. We get the little handwave that Alfred took Bruce to Switzerland or something for a while which was why he wasn't around last episode, but he's going around looking for Selina, wanting to give her a snowglobe. He finds Ivy instead, who's still being creepy (but at least seems to have gotten better) and Ivy asks $20 from him to deliver a message to Selina. And, Selina, of course, being the tough-girl-but-fragile-inside messed up girl that she is, basically tells Bruce to fuck off and lies to him about seeing the Wayne killers. She probably doesn't have real friends and is totally freaked out at the prospect of someone who acts so nicely but in her head is doing it to get something out of her. And thus, Bruce Wayne has smashed a snowglobe and learned what heartbreak is for the first time. I don't... particularly care, I guess?

Relatively great episode, even if Falcone is kind of an idiot for putting Fish in the rather-incompetent Bob's hands, and the slow side-plots... but I must admit, the show does have a couple of tense moments. Fish's torture (even if I don't exactly like Fish), the scene where the witness dude is obviously going to be murdered, the scenes with Penguin fooling around with his mother and I expect Fish to come in and gun her down... The next episode is THE FEARSOME DR CRANE and being a big Scarecrow fan I'm either going to love that episode to bits or bitch all about it.

Nanatsu no Taizai 112 Review: Gowther and Brainwashing

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 112: Existence and Proof

We pick up from the Gowther plot last chapter, and we first open with Diane and Elizabeth just talking about love and King and Meliodas, which is actually appropriate to the rest of the chapter how all these lovey-dovey stuff going on in Diane's head ties in to the whole Gowther thing. They run into Zeal, though, who thankfully isn't murdered... but is basically mind-raped or mind-wiped by Gowther. Diane brings Zeal to Gowther for help, who happen to be nearby, and they find out that even Guila has forgotten who Zeal is, talking about how Gowther is the only family she needs.

Diane puts two and two together and Gowther unashamedly admits that he has, indeed, manipulated their memories. Gowther begins talking about how his relationship with Guila has no need of a little brother, how what he desires is a 'heart' that can process and comprehend feelings and all that.

We get a bit of Merlin and Meliodas, where Meliodas asks Merlin to return to him what she took ten years ago, but in predictable manga fashion we get interrupted by Hawk, who's basically high on whatever was in the drugs that Gowther threw away, which is apparently 'Spiritual Power Equalizing Medicine'. Merlin is still smiling and everything, but acknowledges that shit just got real.

Gowther goes on and talks about camaraderie and friendship and stuff, and when Guila interrupts Gowther puts her to sleep because, hey, he's a freaking sociopath. Gowther has observed how Meliodas' power had increased when fighting Ban due to love, and vice versa, since both of them were fighting for Elizabeth and Elaine respectively, which kind of makes sense that they introduced power levels, if only to make Gowther's mathematical observations make sense to a robot. Or whatever the fuck Gowther is.

Gowther took the opportunity of healing Guila (though he did heal her) to study emotion, and replaced Guila's inferiority complex with fabricated memories of basically being a Holy Knight by her own power and basically being Gowther's childhood friend turned wife. Basically Tsukishima's power from Bleach, but not stupidly overpowered. Gowther claims that it is a flawless treatment, which got Diane to absolutely go berserk in anger because you shouldn't just go around manipulating people's memories. And I do like how in the span of two pages Gowther delivers an argument about how Guila is much happier now with false memories compared to the hurtful truth, and it's way more effective than what Obito has yapped about for the past two, three years. The comparison between the true and false memories do seem jarring, and I do see that there aren't any clear-cut answer. Gowther's solution would actually be good if it didn't involve, y'know, mind-raping her to forget her own beloved little brother.

And Diane says that, about how their feelings are important, but Gowther simply does his computer thing and goes on about how their relationship does not need the existence of a little brother. Gowther is freaking creepy. Diane tells Elizabeth to summon Meliodas and Merlin, and Gowther launches one of his emotion arrows but Diane moves in to fight Gowther, while summoning an earth pillar to block Gowther's arrow. Gowther summons his Sacred Treasure, the Twin Bow Harlot, and uses the skill Blackout, which is pretty cool. We see a lot of black moving out from him and engulfing basically everything. Diane survives, and Gowther explains that it's going to place anyone with a power lower than 400 in suspension, which includes Elizabeth, unfortunately. Which is a cool ability.

Gowther talks about how memory is just information, and the true mystery is emotion, and Diane roars about how even though her memory has been erased, she can get them back because of the strong emotions associated with her memory. Or something more flowery than that. And then she summons a shit-ton of pillars and apparently we're going to see Diane and Gowther have a gigantic throw-down in the middle of the town!

Well, this is going to be interesting. Definitely looking forward to what is next.

Fairy Tail 417 Review: Wordless

Fairy Tail Chapter 417: Traveling Alone II

Finally, after the Tartaros arc we get a breath of fresh air and indeed it's a well-needed one. This week has two Fairy Tail chapters: a comedy-omake chapter '416.5' with a lot of fanservice and Natsu heating up a sauna so ghost-Mavis can feel the warmth and all that which I don't think I need to do a full review of.

This chapter is just a sweet, wordless chapter in vein of that one Gildarts chapter way back in the Grand Magic Games arc... which is one of the best and most emotional and cute chapter in Fairy Tail since ever. And, of course, it starts Gildarts bumping into the wandering Natsu and Happy, and they have fun for a bit before Natsu apparently tells Gildarts about Igneel's death, which I thought was done absolutely well without dialogue and just relying on the art. The art is particularly well done in this chapter, and I do like how we're actually somewhat dealing with Igneel's death instead of just raging roars and whatnot.

Also, Natsu challenges Gildarts to a battle and for a moment it seemed that Natsu managed to knock Gildarts all the way back which is bullshit, but apparently Gildarts is just holding back because the moment some weird thing out of Toriko gulps Natsu down we get an absolutely horrifying panel of Gildarts' face and he, uh, punches a mountain to destroy it. Gildarts is awesome. And I do like how Natsu is just shell-shocked and went 'nononononono'. I thought that was hilarious.

There's a bit of Gildarts gushing over Cana as well, and there's a bit of them taking each other's bag by mistake which sort of fell flat on me.

But all in all it's a Fairy Tail chapter that I really enjoyed from the beginning to the end despite being, y'know, wordless and shit, which is something that hasn't happened for quite a while. Hopefully next chapter will give us a more interesting filler arc or something to help pass the time between the one and a half year or whenever it is that Natsu says he's going to be away.

Arrow S3E10 Review: Team Arrow Without Arrow

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 10: Left Behind

Not quite a huge, eventful episode like the Flash or Gotham episodes this week, but still, after some time without Arrow we finally return to see the aftermath of Oliver Queen's apparent death (spoiler alert: he will return) and most of the episode deals pretty poignantly with Felicity, Diggle and Roy, especially Felicity, simply just breaking down from the pressure of maintaining Star City without Oliver. It's kind of a slower chapter compared to the last one, with several plot threads running along at once -- the rise of a new villain, Merlyn's attempts to do whatever the hell he is planning, moving along the Hong Kong flashback plot with Oliver and Maseo going after Alpha, Felicity basically just falling apart, and Laurel finally donning the Canary garb.

I do like how the episode doesn't bullshit too much about Oliver being dead... to the audience, at least. Felicity, Diggle and the rest reacted pretty badly to the news of Oliver dying, but us, the audience, are greeted with numerous shots of a hooded figure dragging Oliver's corpse away from the cliff. It's actually in trailers and the two main contenders being speculated for the role are Merlyn or Maseo, and the episode reveals that it is, in fact, Maseo. And at the end of the episode Maseo recruits the help of the apparently-still-alive Tatsu to bring Oliver Queen straight back into the land of the living. Not sure how they did that. Lazarus Pit, perhaps? Whatever.

Felicity gets a lot of spotlight here, what with her breaking down, but I think this episode John Diggle and Roy Harper ends up really standing out, since Diggle in particular hasn't really done jack shit this season and to be honest Roy hasn't been doing much other than replacing Sarah as Oliver's backup. Diggle even dons the Arrow costume for the opening shot! It's apparently way too tight for him, though. I do like how they're just going on with the fight and it's a nice change of pace to see the two of them working together and beating people up and stuff like that. They're fun. We get a lot of cool Roy acrobatics... the action scenes in this episode were pretty awesome.

Felicity shows a lot more of the emotional side of things as she initially refuses to believe that Oliver is dead, and the show kind of tells us that it's only been 3 days so we're a bit behind the Flash in the timeline and this places this episode in December 2014. Felicity is just so... broken, I guess. She tries so hard to function both among Team Arrow and in Ray's company, but she ends up just breaking down. There was that scene where she just breaks down in front of Ray and telling him that she can't help him 'commit suicide', and she kind of fucked up the whole operation against Brick by calling in the cops and leading to their escape.

Ray is still fun even if I think he gets a bit too much screentime. He's continuing to work on the Atom suit, namely the gauntlet, though it's a bit too close to Iron Man scenes for my tastes. There are some troubles with chips and whatnot (and Felicity is refusing to help) and I do like the scene when he basically uncharacteristically tells Felicity to not pull the 'this is what Anna would've wanted' card. Which is definitely something a lot more fictional characters need to do, because using dead people you don't know as justification for emotionally manipulating other people, as good as your intentions are? That's disrespectful.

Meanwhile, we seem to have the rise of yet another major villain, Brick (a.k.a. Daniel Brickwell), who is one of the few DC villains that uniquely belongs to Green Arrow. I admit I'm completely unfamiliar with Brick himself and thought that he's just a big mafia boss dude, but there is apparently more than meets the eye to Brick. Not only is the guy playing him pretty charismatic and hammy... and hammy is good... he does feel threatening and when Diggle shot him in the head, apparently he has really hard skin or something going on. Mirakuru? A metahuman from Central City? He's building up an army of criminals with a grudge against Team Arrow by tearing down the legal system and destroying evidences and whatnot and, well, I'm not exactly paying much attention to all the legal stuff being waved around, but I guess Brick is going to be an arc villain similar to Brother Blood in season two.

And as much as I dislike Laurel, I must admit her build-up to taking up the mantle of the Canary (or rather, the Black Canary) is done pretty well. I do like how she's the one who keeps hanging on to hope that Oliver will return as one by one Felicity and Diggle's resolves are broken down by how ineffective they are. Though if we don't know Oliver will be coming back, I'm sure Laurel's crusade will be another in a series of self-destructive decisions. But she's apparently going to take the mantle of Black Canary at least for now, and she finally dons her costume... which, while still being black form-fitting leather, is actually different from Sarah's. Only the mask and the wig are shared. She kicks ass in one scene and I do like how she's playing it smart with Sarah's Canary Cry grenade things now.

Shame she kind of ruined her big entrance by not saying 'I'm the Canary' but some silly 'I'm the justice you cannot run from' or some cheesy thing like that.

Merlyn was pretty awesome in this episode too, stealing every scene he comes in. His sparring and constant manipulation of Thea's emotions, showing up in the Arrow Cave to deliver the bad news and everything... though I did feel that he moved from one place to another was way too fast with little to no transition. He basically moves back and forth from the Arrow Cave to Nanda Parbat and back with not much interlude in between. And for whatever reason he wants Thea to leave Star City and never return (which was what Thea said in season 2's finale, but, y'know...)

Thea was pretty strong in the few scenes she showed up in, and that scene with Roy where she's just so scared about what's happened to Ollie and asks Roy to ask the Arrow for help... that was heartbreaking for the two of them. And I do like how Thea, while still clueless about Oliver's alter ego, is at least not stupid enough to let Arsenal get past him.

The flashback side of the plot was pretty fun, with Amanda Waller being a gigantic chessmaster as always, and both Maseo and Oliver really wanting to mount a rescue for Tatsu while knowing the importance of placing priorities. I do like how Oliver helping Maseo out by placing a tracer on one of China White's goons ended up earning him the life debt, and the two scenes are placed pretty well next to each other. Oliver still has some problem killing people, and it's interesting what's going to happen in between Hong Kong and the start of season one that turns Oliver from the reluctant assassin that he is here and the cold-blooded killer he will become. I also do like how this allows Oliver to still have a presence in the episode while being almost entirely absent in the present-day scenes.

Also, interestingly, both Maseo and Tatsu survive Hong Kong in the present day (and Maseo isn't a gender-swapped version of Katana like many people speculated), but they are living apart. And Katana's comic-book backstory involved the deaths of her entire family. So maybe something bad is going to befall their son?

It's a pretty strong episode, if not particularly a spectacular one. But for a more emtion-oriented episode with several nice action scenes, it's one that lets the supporting cast shine. Granted I thought the pacing could've been better as Merlyn seemed to be a pretty quick way just to get the plot from points A to B, and the flashbacks do take up a fair too much of the episode's runtime, but in my opinion it's still a pretty solid episode.

Toriko 309 Review: Games with Bambina

Toriko, Chapter 309: A Second Moment

It's kind of a filler-y chapter that progresses the plot, if you get what I mean. We start off with more 'Bambina is super-crazy' stuff by telling us that when Bambina goes for a sleep he basically launches himself all the way up through the stratosphere and whatnot to take a nap in basically fucking space, because, eh, why not?

The Four Kings react to the boxing ring randomly placed in the middle of Bambina's mountain, before Bambina himself falls down next to them. Bambina, of course, wakes up, and Toriko goes 'don't blink!' and we get a repeat of the games Bambina played with the a couple chapters back. And, of course, thanks to Enbu, the individual cells are able to react fast enough. Which is nice and all, but I thought it took a bit too long to portray. (Also how the fuck did Coco's poison doll manage to materialize so freaking fast the first time around?)

But Zebra and Coco both survive their game, while Toriko arm-wrestles Bambina to a tie by basically materializing his inner demon. And then Sani goes all 'I found ya' over the whole 'hide and seek' thing, and Bambina is kind of surprised to see Sani behind him... or maybe it's the three other giant animals hanging around behind Sani. It could be either one.

Toriko talks about how a normal human can't play with a tiger without getting mauled, but tells Bambina that they are here to play, and asks him what he wants to play next. Bambina kind of smiles, but suddenly a gigantic procession of ugly-ass monkeys show up. Apparently the ring is meant for a festival, and the monkeys want to see Bambina fight in a serious match.

Well, so much for diplomacy. It's not a bad chapter, but I can't say I liked it all that much. None of the manga this week really impressed me, to be honest... though I think Toriko is my favourite out of the three. Which is strange because I don't have a lot to say about it, but it's not an annoying chapter and it kind of progresses the main plot little by little, so there's that. I guess we're going to have a showdown between the Four Kings and Bambina after all, though it could be Bambina just being happy to have playmates that he doesn't want to fight them or something.

One PIece 774: Pointless Tontatta

One Piece Chapter 774: Leo, the Tontatta Troop Leader

Remember how I said in the last chapter how we should be wrapping things up now with the big fights? Of course we fucking don't, and we cut away to the most filler-worthy and least interesting of everything that's going on in Dressrosa right now: the Tontatta rescuing their princess and apparently Jora's still up and about. I just find that I don't really care all that much.

The cover story has Jinbe scolding Wadatsumi, and I guess in another couple of chapters the cover story will finally be done?

The chapter starts of kind of strongly, with Diamante facing off against Robin, Rebecca and Kyros. Robin notes how Diamante is handicapping them too much, presumably with the flowing ground, but Diamante is apparently confident that he has the upper hand against the three people there. Apparently Robin isn't going to get in the way of Kyros' vendetta, promising to protect Rebecca while Kyros takes down Diamante. Which is... acceptable, I guess, but I wanted to see Robin fight...

We cut away to random soldiers who are taking Gladius' unconscious body away, and Bartolomeo, instead of, y'know, barrier-ing them to death, just lets them leave. Why, Bartolomeo? Why aren't you doing any of your crazy ultra-violent things? Jeez.

Sadly, we cut away to the Tontatta, who are being contacted by Viola. Viola has seen that Jora has taken ahold of Princess Mancherie and apparently wants to force the little Tontatta to make use of her abilities... because of course she has one. It's apparently the Heal Heal Fruit, which kind of makes sense that they want to lock her up... though wouldn't it be more practical to kill her and have the fruit respawn? Eh, whatever.

Leo and the Rhinoceros Beetle Tontatta are charging through the pirate mooks, while Jora is doing her annoying thing of saying -zamasu at the end of everything and going all 'who are you calling Boa Hancock?' and all that. We get our first look at Mancherie, who of course is just a little girl and all that who doesn't want to fight. Jora orders Mancherie to use the powers of the Heal-Heal Fruit on the defeated executives... Machvise, Dellinger, Lao G and Sugar. How did Dellinger get there so fast? Also, no one gives a shit about poor Buffalo, apparently.

Jora also notes that Mancherie was the one responsible for Sugar's recovery earlier. But Mancherie has discovered (somehow) that, gasp, the Donquixote Pirates jailing her up are bad people! Jora and the others are stricken by her cuteness before Jora kind of... tries to twist Mancherie's head off or something, but that causes her to cry and her tears apparently revive a random mook.

Viola tells Leo that Jora is basically PG-torturing Mancherie to get the tears out, and Leo is, of course, just being all heroic and shit and I don't care about the damn Tontatta. We get Usopp freaking out over the idea of Sugar getting resurrected, which is kind of funny sort of, but then there's a drawn-out sequence of people screaming for Leo to help, Jora squeezing the tears out, and Kabu knocking the unconscious bodies of the other executives away with 'Beetle Upper'. Kind of boring, honestly.

Leo uses his stitch-stitch fruit, which I honsetly totally forgot he had, to stitch everyone of the wounded to Jora, and pulls their bodies as projectiles to squash Jora flat in 'Auto-Couture: Patchwork'. It's kind of an interesting attack if I cared about Leo, and we get a heroic moment where Leo catches Mancherie and jokes about her weight... well, I still don't care about the Tontatta. What about that bee Devil Fruit girl Tontatta? Where did she disappear off to? Also, Leo's Stitch-Stitch fruit is kind of a shitty version of Doflamingo's String-String Fruit, isn't it?

Bah. I don't care. The Tontatta is dealt with in as well as they possibly could've been, and I really wished this was dealt with far earlier in this arc. It's kind of even more pointless than the lesser executives being taken out, and I'm just antsy to get to the good parts of the climax.

Gotham S1E12 Review: Electrocutioner vs Maroni; Fish vs Falcone

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 12: What the Little Bird Told Him

After a wobbly past few episodes, Gotham proves that when it comes to Big Events, it can pull it off pretty well. It's kind of like Agents of Shield in that aspect, actually. Anyway, the big thing this time is two-fold. Fish finally makes his move against Don Falcone, while the Electrocutioner takes the battle against Don Maroni. Meanwhile, Gordon is tasked to take down the Electrocutioner with his career at stake. Also, the Penguin.

I'm going to talk about the Fish/Falcone bits first because those are more interesting to me. After being built up for half the season, Fish's BIG MOVE turns out to be pretty... pathetic, actually. After her rather smart manipulation of people during that armoury job, her masterstroke apparently involves her just forcibly kidnapping Lisa and forcing Falcone to step down. Really, Fish? I expected more from you. Though I did like the little speech that Fish gives about Falcone being weak and this way at least he can be happy... I kind of believe that, somewhat.

Lisa is... well, she obviously is starting to like Don Falcone's treatment of her, and how much of a gentleman Falcone is that she keeps asking Fish to not really hurt Falcone. And it's obvious that Falcone doesn't really have that much of a beef with Lisa personally.

But Falcone, despite actually looking like kind of a weak old has-been earlier who only has Zsasz and Penguin truly supporting him, ends up gaining a fire at the end of the episode. We get him wistfully remarking about how nice it would be to actually retire, about how Fish might have actually deserved her spot and whatnot... and then he fucking chokes Lisa to death, which was the most surprising scene period in Gotham. I did not expect that, and that was a brutal yet awesome twist. Falcone's turned pretty awesome by trusting Penguin's words enough to at least have his forces stationed as backup, while he confirms Lisa's betrayal himself by looking into her eyes or some shit like that. And, man, that choke-to-death? That was brutal. And freaking sad, somewhat.

To her credit, Fish tries to move in but she really can't do much.

So Fish and Butch are being kept alive because Falcone apparently has plans, but I don't see them surviving really long considering just how absolutely angry Falcone was for them desecrating the memory of his mother.

Victor Zsasz also makes a reappearance, being his usual creepy self, and that alone really makes him fun. He's hella loyal to Falcone, though, shutting up quickly after suggesting that he can take out Fish's entire crew by himself. And I absolutely believe him, that crazy psychopath.

The Penguin... he's been having a pathetic series of scenes lately, hasn't he? Last episode he was a massive butt monkey that's a stark contrast to his normal planning, and all he did in this episode to ensure Fish's downfall (which I had thought to be some elaborate, well-thought-out-plan) ends up being him just telling Falcone at the right time... which I guess was when Fish and Lisa make their move, I suppose? Granted it does make some sense with Falcone probably going to be obstinate and distrustful of Penguin if the kidnapping hadn't gone down, but when I watched the episode it was kind of confusing.

Penguin shows up first in this episode at a big lunch session with the Maronis, at which point Falcone orders him to come back. Going off with the excuse of his sick mother, he ends up getting zapped by the Electrocutioner, and apparently being shocked into unconsciousness by a gajillion volts of electricity causes him to randomly go into spasms and shout that he's working for Falcone right in front of Maroni. And then he gets lugged around like trash, gets confronted by Maroni, and then gets electrocuted again. He's all smug at the end of the episode but unlike his previous appearances there's nothing that he did that's particularly noteworthy in his normal massively planned-out playing-people-against-each-other schtick. It's a shame, really. I expected Penguin to do more than just rat Lisa to Falcone at the right time...

Though I guess all that's well ends well? For Penguin, at least. Fish, not so much. Lisa? Definitely not.

Maroni kind of looks like a moron. Not only is he just being subservient to Gordon telling him to go into custody, Maroni realises that Penguin is working for Falcone, but doesn't let him off with any more than a stern talking-to. Granted I'm going to assume Penguin made a deal with him, but really? Well, I guess we know why Maroni's name sounds a lot like 'moron'. He's being a big funny ham, though, and him just swaggering in the police station was fun.

We also meet Commissioner Loeb, who appears to be a corrupt stern bastard. He gets head-to-head with Gordon, but Gordon manages to push the right buttons to give him one last chance to get reinstated. Gordon was kind of awesome in how he just refuses to back down, but he's kind of outshone by Bullock, who is just so damned hilarious the entire episode. He's basically dragged into Loeb's deal without doing anything wrong, and Gordon doesn't even have a proper plan. He's hilarious, he's pissed off at Gordon yet kind of impressed by him at the same time. Bullock's just fun all around.

The Electrocutioner dresses up in kind of a nice little getup with some kind of crazy electrocution gauntlet and machinery strapped onto his person, and actually gets called the Electrocutioner several times on-screen. Also, he's apparently not Jack Gruber, but Jack Budchinsky, so he's definitely related to the comic Electrocutioner. And apparently he wants to get into Arkham Asylum to observe stuff or something? Eh, dude's kind of crazy. And I like him! Electrocutioner is just such a massive ham. He's basically out for blood for his four partners that screwed him over. He lobotomized one and forced him two write 'I shall not betray my friends' over and over like a vegetable, and is out for Maroni, which leads him into the path of our heroes.

We get some actually awesome scenes that would feel right at home in a more sci-fi heavy show like Agents of Shield or the Flash, with the Electrocutioner zapping up the entire building, launching weird Transformer electricty-bombs and even somehow using electrical whips to swipe off Gordon's gun. Somehow. And, naturally, since he's the Electrocutioner he gets taken out in the most anticlimactic way possible, by Gordon pouring a cup of water on his gizmo, at which point he just blinks and goes 'oh' with such a hilarious expression on his face.

That was freaking awesome and hilarious. And absolutely appropriate for the Electrocutioner. Apparently being taken out like a bitch in less than two seconds is something that runs in the family.

Amygdala is just a thug, and is apparently Aaron Denzig instead of Aaron Helzinger, but for all intents and purposes is basically the same dude, which is 'dumb muscle without a moral sense'. He gets taken out quite quickly, but I liked that someone remembers he exists.

There was also a lot more Riddler than normal, though it wasn't as grating as his previous large screentime. He gets to be useful and helpful for a good chunk of it, introducing the rubber boots, and the scene where he creeps on Kringle ran for a bit too long. We get people calling him a weirdo and a creep and he seems definitely bothered by it, so we may get to see the Riddler's descent into darkness sooner than later, I suppose? (The cupcake riddle made absolutely no sense, though)

At the end of the episode Gordon gets his job back, which is fun and good even if that kind of makes the mid-season cliffhanger of Gordon being deported into Arkham pointless since it's resolved in less than two episodes. Beyond putting Gordon into conflict with the higher-ups, at least.

And I guess there is Barbara's scene. She goes home to her parents, who I'm sure aren't pleasant people despite looking pleasant right now. Or they may be. Either way my sympathy for Barbara will still be non-existent and I still don't give two shits about her.

But I'm not going to go into a five-paragraph rant about that bitch, and leave this review on a happy note. It was a good one, if slightly uneven.

The Flash S1E10 Review: I really love this show

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 10: Revenge of the Rogues

Yeah, that was quite a long wait for the Flash. It's back, though, and, man, what an episode to return to! We get the reappearance of Captain Cold, my favourite character in the series, and he's brought his buddy Heat Wave. And, well, mother of hells, they do make the two of them really feel like their comic book counterparts. Heat Wave in particular. And not only that, we also get a few more intriguing details about the whole Firestorm thing, which is apparently F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. and is related to one Martin Stein and one Jason Rusch. There's also some foreshadowing for future characters, as well as a wee bit on Iris, Eddie and Wells.

Of course, being a Flash episode there's bound to be a moral, though again this is executed rather beautifully even if they do spend a wee bit too much time on it at the climatic battle. The moral this time is basically 'going faster is not always the answer' and indeed Barry is obsessed with outspeeding the Reverse-Flash at the beginning of the episode and it's only by slowing down that he and Wells manage to outwit the Rogues. Barry is still in tiptop shape, doing general Barry stuff, and I do like how he tries to make priorities and put the Reverse-Flash over the Rogues, and that ends up costing the policemen pretty dearly.

There are some cool sequences like the opening battle with that crazy sci-fi attack drone, which is a lot more beautiful than what I would expect from a throwaway opening sequence. And we get a massively awesome battle of Flash just zipping around while tongues of flame and ice beams shoot around. It's just random beams of light moving around a screen and Barry's obviously going to win, but for whatever reason I was just smiling all throughout the battle and felt just so freaking happy that they're just doing this comic book thing without any pretense of being overtly gritty or realistic. Also, those are quite well-done fire blasts and ice beams and whatnot.

And, of course, thanks to Captain Cold and Heat Wave, the Flash is now revealed to the entire world. Yay! Also he gets called the Scarlet Speedster, which is a nice nod to the comics as well.

Captain Cold and Heat Wave are just hamming it up this episode and they are freaking glorious. New arrival Heat Wave has gotten a more urbanized version of his classic costume, though he still keeps the goggles and the heat gun is a lot more faithful than I expected it would be. There's the weird little fuel tank just hanging out there, and the triangle-shaped barrel... and Heat Wave is as much a pyromaniac that has a love-hate relationship with Captain Cold as his comic book counterpart. We get some sequences of him just looking into matches and infernos and saying about how it's beautiful and everything, we've got that scene that shows that he has burn scars all over his body and he rants about how being burnt has freed what he really is... it's a nice depiction of pyromania that highlights all the psychopathic tendencies yet doesn't go too overboard.

Also, I do like Heat Wave being portrayed as a dumb thug, yet not one that's brainless. He's ready to face off against Cold during that terse moment in the base, he's ready to call Cold out when they were just baiting the Flash by robbing the exotic car expo, and has that moment where he talks to Cold and thinks about what to do before burning the painting...

Also Heat Wave is just a big ham, isn't he? "I don't understand why they call you cops the heat. I AM THE HEAT!" That scene just cracks me up.

Captain Cold also brings more awesome to the table with his micro-managing and his anger at Heat Wave for losing control, but he definitely respects and appreciates Heat Wave a lot more than the random thugs he killed (and spared) in his debut episode. I do like Cold. It's more of the same compared to the last episode with the added obsession with taking down the Flash... as well as the subtle parallel to how Barry himself is obsessed at taking down the Reverse-Flash. Cold is a pretty cool villain, if you'll pardon the pun, and plays off Heat Wave extremely well. I still think Heat Wave stole the show this time around, but Cold is still very very awesome. Not really much to say about Cold, really, other than the fact that he is still freaking awesome.

Also, even if they get captured by the police at the end of the episode, we know it's not going to last as they're broken out almost immediately by Cold's sister, Lisa Snart... otherwise known as the supervillain Golden Glider. We don't get to see most of her, just her hand, but that is truly unexpected! I was honestly expecting Pied Piper to come to the rescue considering how he's everywhere in the trailers and his parents had a cameo in this episode, but no! Plus, I'd think the show would introduce the other 'main' members, Mirror Master and the second Weather Wizard. But Golden Glider is cool.

Also, Pied Piper's parents, the Rathaways, make an appearance as the rich upper-class people who Cold and Heat Wave steal that painting from. The father rejects a call from his son Hartwell Rathaway and claims that he doesn't have a son anymore, and I'm going out on a limb to say that it's because of his, y'know, gay-ness. We'll see. Pied Piper's slated to appear in the next episode or something and I certainly want to see him. MORE ROGUES!

There were a couple of B-plot running alongside the main Rogues plot, most of it focusing on Caitlin finding out more about Firestorm before being captured by Cold. I honestly expected Captain Cold to leave behind an ice grenade that'll kickstart the whole Killer Frost thing, but I guess we can take our time with that.

Anyway, in an attempt to research Firestorm, Caitlin and Barry both discover that 'Firestorm' is, in fact, an acronym for 'Fusion, Ignition, Research Experiment and Science of Transmutation Originating RNA and Molecular Structures'. We get a quick explanation from the two of them regarding Firestorm's nuclear powers, and it's nice to see that they're not just dumbing Firestorm down into what's basically the Human Torch and is actually acknowledging the geekiness of Firestorm's chemistry textbook powers.


Caitlin tracks down the author of the paper, Jason Rusch (Firestorm II in the comics), and after a bit confronts him about the Firestorm project. Rusch explains that his professor, one Martin Stein (hint, hint) has gone missing after the funding for the Firestorm project was shut down and he apparently received help from an unknown benefactor. Well, I know Stein and Ronnie are going to be Firestorm and there are going to be some weird personality stuff involved, but throwing in what I'm assuming to be Wells into the fray... plus the whole conspiracy thing... it certainly makes me get all excited for the Firestorm. This is an excellent take on the character's origin, keeping it extremely faithful yet making me so interested in it.

Caitlin herself, for her credit, isn't afraid to stare down Heat Wave, though I can't help but think that the whole bomb situation ends up being too much of a distraction especially with the constant cutting back and forth between the Flash/Cold/Heat Wave triple battle.

Wells is still being a kind mentor, in a fashion, despite the reveal to the audience that he is the, or a, Reverse-Flash. He almost stands up in the opening sequence to rescue Barry from that one missile (which is yet another cool sequence) and gets some rather ominous lines in the episode, though he lightens the mood up by acknowledging some of Cisco's nicknames like Captain Cold and the Reverse-Flash.

Cisco does his nicknaming thing, of course, coming up with Heat Wave (of course), and name-drops Ghostbusters and crossing-the-streams, but he actually gets a pretty cool moment when he demonstrates the anti-Cold riot shields and gives that speech about making up for their past mistakes. Surprisingly mature there, Cisco.

Eddie gets over the fact that the Flash tries to murder him a couple episodes back, and manages to save Barry by blocking him with Cisco's riot shield for the few crucial seconds for Barry to get up and speed them to safety. I guess most is forgiven between the two of them? They get a cool shot together while arresting the Rogues. Granted I'm not quite sure why Barry doesn't just zip towards the Rogues and tear the guns away from them in super-speed, but I guess we can't have a cool fight if that happens.

Iris gets a couple of harmless scenes where she's preparing to move out and Barry later makes peace with the fact that Iris and Eddie are going to be together, and there are a couple of touching scenes between Iris and Barry, as well as Iris and Joe. And apparently Barry moves back into Joe's house to at least keep his foster father figure company.


Man, this episode was awesome. I like it so much. It's such a comic-book show, it's got such nice characters, and it has pretty great self-contained pacing while still building up to larger things.

Nanatsu no Taizai 111 Review: The Sin of Lust

Nanatsu no Taizai Chapter 111: A Man's Say

Pretty fun chapter, though it's another in a series of sub-plots that pile up on each other. It doesn't feel messy in the slightest, though, and instead makes me feel really excited for most, if not all, of the plotlines being introduced. We explore a bit of the previously-introduced plot threads like the Ban/King/Jericho camping trip to the Great Fairy's Tree, as well as Meliodas sensing the resurrection of the Demon Clan, and we finally bring the whole Gowther mystery into the forefront.

We first start off with King confronting Jericho, telling her it's not a good idea for her to stick around the Great Fairy Forest too long, but Jericho basically has gone completely head-over-heels over Ban, basically going all 'where he goes, I will go'. And when King drops the big question on Jericho, she acts flustered for a moment before being all cocky and going 'I'll make him show interest because I've got more to offer than a dead brat'... which is kind of sweet out of context, but borderline disturbing because the only reason she cares about Ban is the constant undressing that Ban does to her.

Ban shows up right behind her, and... strips her. For no good reason. King even lampshades that the stripping is why Jericho's got this 'strange attachment' for Ban, though Ban himself doesn't understand. Pretty sure he's got a one-minded romance mentality for Elaine anyway, so Jericho? You're definitely out of luck, because Ban doesn't seem to be the type to move on. You're also kind of creepy.

Ban talks to King and tells him that he's going to go around searching for a way to bring Elaine back to life, because apparently he's not really thinking of listening to the Goddess Clan Horn or whatever the hell is talking through that. Ban also warns them to get out of the forest because the fairies are only behaving as long as Ban is still around. Jericho, obviously, follows Ban, and King's attempts to get Ban to return get coldly rebuffed with him not wanting to return to the Seven Sins... guilt over him attacking Meliodas probably has something to do with that, too.

Ban then seems to mock King for a bit, before we get a little flashback of how before they set off, Diane was all 'when you go away, I get so lonely I could die' when King heads off. No clue why King chose to believe Ban now, but he gets all red and realizes Diane has regained her old memories. Romance confirmed?

We cut away from Ban and King before any further decisions are made, however, to Gowther and Merlin. Gowther eats some weird cube-shaped medication from Merlin, who gives him quite a number of the tablets, and talks about something along the lines of eating it every day for his 'armour's sake', and we all know there is something mysterious that the armour is doing on Gowther and he's been without it for some time.

Diane interrupts the meeting, freaking out about King disappearing, while Hawk just eyeballs Gowther's medication. Gowther goes away, and spits out the medicine and throws the rest of it away... well, what are you planning, you weird robot-thing? Gowther meets Meliodas, and Meliodas wants to have them pack up to go to Camelot... but Gowther refuses, talking about how unless it's an order, he doesn't want to leave since it's his 'will'. Gowther then heads home with Guila, which kind of puzzles Meliodas.

Hawk, of course, gorges himself on the medicine that Gowther throws away. Time will tell if those drugs will have an effect on Hawk, though I'm sure the author will not miss a moment to make Hawk suffer comically.

There's a bit where Elizabeth kind of avoids contact with Meliodas, but that's not at all interesting compared to Meliodas finally confronting Merlin. He wants to get back what was stolen from him ten years ago when he was driven out of the kingdom, and Meliodas reveals to Merlin that the guys that not-Dreyfus unleashed last chapter are the 'Ten Commandments', who are apparently the most elite force under the Demon King himself. This freaks Merlin out so much that her telekinesis magic thing goes haywire and everything in her lab-room gets levitated and spins around in a storm. The two of them then prepare to 'delve into the real issue'.

(Presumably the Ten Commandments have already blown up a small town or two by the time all these stuff goes down)

Gowther and Guila continue to be lovey-dovey, and Guila's brother Zeal shows up, wanting to talk to Guila and he looks pretty scared... and then the last panel is Gowther walking up towards a terrified Zeal with a serene look on his face and energy forming in his fingers, and says about how if Zeal wants to talk, he can always talk to Gowther...

Man, Gowther has snapped. Whether he's basically gone out of control, has mind-wiped Guila or actually is trying to hold on to his lover Guila in an extremely yandere way. And considering how emotionless he normally is, it's not too far-fetched to say that he's so socially obstute that when he does fall in love he takes it to the extreme. And perhaps Merlin's medication is suppressing Gowther's lust or something. It's certainly a fun direction to take Gowther in, even if it's a creepy one, and I'm really curious to see if Guila is going to get in the way between Gowther and Zeal and, well, basically everything about their relationship. It's so weird. Maybe he's just a robot trying to define his own 'will' and 'existence' by acting so much like a human, and those tablets are supposed to suppress his emotions, the most extreme of which is love and/or lust?

Also want to see more of the Meliodas/Merlin conversation and the whole Ten Commandments thing, but for the moment I am really curious about just what the fuck Gowther, the Goat's Sin of Lust, exactly is. He's been one of the most mysterious characters since his introduction and I really want some answers.

Fairy Tail 416 Review: Etherious, Not Evil

Fairy Tail, Chapter 416: Tartaros Arc [Last Chapter]

We get a wrap-up chapter for the Tartaros arc, which was... all right. I don't particularly care all that much about a fair bit of the developments here, but there are certainly things I did not expect to happen, chief among them the disbandment of Fairy Tail and Natsu heading off for a one-year journey with only Happy. Though I doubt too much of the status quo would change after this since this is, after all, Fairy Tail, I am interested to see if they can subvert my expectations and actually make it into a meaningful twist.

E.N.D. being 'Etherious Natsu Dragneel', though? That wasn't too much of a surprise considering I and like everyone else with access to the internet has figured out that E.N.D. was 'Evil Natsu Dragneel' or something along those lines for, like, the past year or so. It's pretty blindingly obvious what with E.N.D. being a fire demon, the backstory given by Mard Geer and Zeref going on and on about how Natsu is going to be the one to kill him.

We get a bit of recap of the casualties of the battle, and both Mirajane and Makarov note that they are not going to rebuild the guild again. Makarov talks about it going to be the end of the era, and after we cut away to everyone else, later on Makarov meets up with Doranbolt, who has erased everyone's memories about Lumen Histoire. Makarov then tells Doranbolt that he's going to relieve him of his duties, and reveals that Doranbolt is, in fact, a Fairy Tail member, and was a double agent within the council in the first place, with self-memory-erasure being the reason why he was so crazy back in Tenrou Island. It's a bit of a convoluted retcon thing going on, though this does explain why Tenrou Island accepted him so readily. Doranbolt freaks out for a bit, but finally accepts it... just as Makarov says that Fairy Tail will disband.

Not quite a big shock for me personally as it would probably be for others, but eh, I don't think the Fairy Tail members are going to really split apart. They're still going to gather in small groups and will still be allies or something, and the manga sure as hell isn't going to be renamed 'Blue Pegasus' or something.

We get snippets of the other characters. Elfman is too ashamed to face the others after his partial brainwashing thing. We get a bit of Laxus waking up and hugging the Raijinshu and talking about how he's pathetic and wasn't able to protect those important to him and whatnot. We get Cancer restoring Wendy's hair to its original length. Pantherlily and Charle, as well as Gajeel and Levy, are paired up and are just hanging out and talking abut stuff. Juvia walks up to Gray, who has buried his father next to his mother, and kind of gets all teary-eyed about having been responsible for indirectly killing Silver, and after nearly bursting out Gray finally ends up crying to Juvia's boobs. I thought this one was well done, finished in two or three pages and being just the right length to feel dramatic without Fairy Tail's usual giant overblown speeches. I do like it.

We get a bit of Erza reliving her torture in the Tower of Heaven, and apparently being tortured while naked by that octopus demon had brought them up... can't blame her, considering the whole armour thing was kind of a mental crutch to compensate from her childhood insecurities or some shit like that. Jellal shows up in a totally unnecessary two-page spread talking about how he'll be the darkness while Erza and the rest are going to be the light. Real good job being the darkness, you stupid author's pet. Where were you when all the shit with Face and Tartaros went down? We last saw him recruiting the Oracios Seis like, last fucking year and I thought they were going to show up somewhere down the line, but no. Bah. Whatever. I really, really hope Jellal does something cool in the future and not just tease of interesting stuff without really delivering much payoff.

Sabertooth welcomes Sting, Rogue and fucking Minerva back, of course, and because this is Fairy Tail they welcome Minerva with big smiles and shit despite Minerva doing absolutely jack shit to redeem herself. Among all of Fairy Tail's sudden redemption stories, none is as completely random and poorly written as Minerva's, and I absolutely hate to see this stupid bitch be welcomed back like this. Everyone else were treated with suspicion initially -- Gajeel and Juvia in particular had to earn the trust of the others until fairly late into the series, Ultear and Meredy had entire chapters devoted to them, Jellal had his whole memory loss thing and Flare had an entire arc of slowly defrosting from the psychopath that she is. Minerva? All her reasoning is 'my father abused me so now I am a crazy power seeker and somehow you all forgive me now'. This is fucking stupid. There is no point in Minerva's "redemption" that makes sense.

Natsu and Happy, meanwhile, are taking all the money from their ramshackle house, and leaves behind a letter for Lucy, which she later finds after the obligatory 'are you in my room' comedy scene. Natsu and Happy are apparently going off for training for a year, leaving Lucy behind, and she runs out and cries and does the Lucy stuff. We get mugshots of everyone (including Doranbolt's hilarious shocked expression) as Natsu does a proclamation while Makarov tells his brats to 'fly free'. And then Zeref talks about the whole E.N.D. thing.

(What happened to Franmalth?)

The next chapter is 'Solitary Journey', so I'm going to assume we'll get a couple of smaller arcs featuring Natsu, which I am totally cool with. The Tartaros arc was an attempt at being something gigantic and it had a really strong opening with Jackal killing the council, the manhunt for the remaining council members and Laxus being taken out by one of the Kyuukimon, before having a lot of distractions in the middle (the whole Jellal subplot that really went nowhere) and dragging on and on and on with the Kyukimon. There were some nice-ish battles, with Wendy's fight against Ezel and Gray's fight against Silver (plot twist dance overdose notwithstanding) being the highlights. Juvia's battle against Keith, the Strausses taking out Sayla and Gajeel's fight against Torafusa aren't bad either, and Mard Geer was at least entertaining.

But for all the good fights, the Tartaros arc was plagued with random distractions that ran for a while before dispersing without much impact, like Aquarius' sacrifice, the whole Spirt King vs Mard Geer fight, Sting and Rogue's arrival, Lumen Histoire, Jiemma's subsequent arrival and disposal, everything about Hades' reappearance... they just all end up falling flat, with Acnologia and Igneel being the only real thing that meant anything, and that was mostly offscreen and eschwed any proper characterization for Igneel in favour for a generic, overlong fight of Natsu and Gray against Mard Geer. Add everything about the 'nine minutes' idiocy and Kyouka's horrible, overtly-long and stupid fight against Erza, and Minerva's equally-stupid redemption. There were some grating moments too, like Happy's stupid comedy victory against Jackal that felt massively groan-worthy, Natsu and Gajeel punching each other stupidly, Tempesta's second stupid death. Plus Jiemma, Franmalth and especially Kyouka are all defeated by a friendship speech...

Also, the damn thing is really, really long for really very little payoff. Thankfully it managed to limp into a somewhat serviceable ending by revealing a lot about the Etherious and Zeref's backstory, as well as finally answering the whole 'where did the dragons go' mystery, albeit one that wasn't really that satisfynig of an answer... but overall the Tartaros arc is decidedly a step down from anything Fairy Tail had done before.

Well, whatever the case that's all done and dusted, and I'm looking forward to what's to come in the future. It's a decent closure to this overlong arc, and frankly it feels extremely welcome in a cathartic way. Hopefully Natsu won't be too irritating in the subsequent arcs to come.

Gotham S1E11 Review: Leslie Thompkins! Amygdala! Electrocutioner!

Gotham, Season 1, Episode 11: Rogues' Gallery

There are many things in this episode that I can easily divide into the good and the bad. Rarely have I been so divisive with an episode before, where I really like the inclusion of some things, and just don't give a fuck about everything else.

I dunno. I've been cranky lately.

Anyway, the biggest thing for me here is the introduction of longtime Batman supporting character, Dr. Leslie Thompkins, which is actually a pretty sensible choice to include in Gotham which I never really thought of before. She's pretty likable, even if her personality is the generic 'likable person in a sea of assholes'. Granted, her personality never really grew beyond that in the comics I've read, but I don't mind having Leslie around. She's got a fair amount of scenes, but I don't think there are anything particularly noteworthy. I could rant about how she should be the age of Alfred instead of looking as young as Gordon, but honestly that doesn't bother me too much.

Jack Gruber, the only smart and sane inmate in Arkham Asylum, of course, escapes to survive another day. I do like Jack Gruber, who, as the internet informs me, is meant to be a new incarnation of the Electrocutioner. He's an extremely minor Batman villain who shows up to die in Arkham City. Gruber is definitely a different Electrocutioner from the one in Arkham City (who's named Lester Budchinsky or something like that), and goes around with a pair of gigantic electric gauntlets and shocking people around. This Electrocutioner is a soft-spoken dapper psychopath who goes around doing electroshock experiments on Arkham inmates to bend them to his will. It's a rather interesting villain and one that I think has almost as much staying power as Zsasz or Penguin does.

Of course, the other theory is that he's possibly going to become the Joker in the future because his name is Jack and he's crazy and being built up as a villain. Yeah no.

The third comic-book character in this episode is one that I am extremely happy to realize without having to look up, which is another minor Batman villain, Amygdala. Known only by his first name Aaron in the episode, Amygdala here is shown in a relatively faithful depiction as a really mentally ill man who is unable to tell lies or have a proper moral compass, so he follows the orders of anyone who seems smart... which happens to be Gruber, here.

I'm also a rather big fan of the scene where Bullock just storms in all swaggering to help out his buddy, arresting that asshole head warden or whatever and generally being so happy to help Gordon out. Bullock is fun.

That's about all the really good things I like about this episode, though. It's an atmospheric one, setting up the Arkham Asylum and what seems to be a recurring villain, but at the same time it's so padded out. The whole cop show routine of Gordon trying to figure out what's going on, who's the killer and interviewing the crazy inmates and failing, and the supervisor being a gigantic obstructive douchebag... It's just really boring and it just drags on and on and I am entirely bored in any scene that doesn't have Bullock or Gruber in it. Did we really need that extended sequence of them doing that stupid play in the beginning?

Props to portraying the insane inmates as actually insane instead of just angry prisoners, though.

And we cut off to a lot of other scenes, because so much is going on yet nothing of significance is really happening. We have a little B-plot where the Penguin fucks up and spends the episode in jail, we've got Fish slowly inching her plot for domination forwards, we've got Fish's second-in-command Butch wrestling with his loyalty to a close friend or to Fish, we've got Selina helping out Poison Ivy, we've got the grand return of Barbara who proves to nestle straight back into "alpha bitch" territory, plus the stupid romance with Renee...

There's just too much going on, but nothing really does happen beyond the introductions and the setup. The main Gordon/Arkham plot is basically just a glorified filler episode that really is padded out, with some cryptic hints to whoever is really running the city and has a lot of agendas, of course. And a lot of the people introduced in this episode on the Arkham side ended up being red herrings. The black supervisor jerkass dude who 'knows stuff' ends up getting killed by Gruber at the end of the episode, and the not-Leslie nurse who at first seemed to be the villain-of-the-episode gets trampled right after the big reveal. (There really was no tension to that reveal, though, since Leslie is a lot more obviously a good guy even without prior comic knowledge.)

Also, how in the flying fuck can an inmate pose as a nurse without anyone realizing it? Even the boss, as much as a jerk he is in trying to get Gordon fired, would have thought that the moment someone gets lobotomized the first suspect would be her. It took a long while of Bullock grilling him that he finally relents. Jeez.

Though I guess this is Arkham Asylum.

Anyway, the other characters... Penguin started off well, with the whole 'I'm the Penguin', seemingly having embraced his identity... and then spends the entire episode waffling and generally being submissive and having fucked up, getting torn apart verbally by Bullock and later by Maroni, which is kind of jarring considering just how entertaining and how much of a 'I have a plan' he has been these past few episodes. And I just don't see the point of everything, beyond driving a rift between Penguin and Maroni, which really could've been done far more elegantly. It really begs to question if this is going to mean something down the line, or if it's just showing Penguin for the sake of showing Penguin... in which case it's the first time in the series that it falls really flat on its face.

The Fish/Butch angle was kind of obvious. I mean, it's done kind of well and Butch does get some personality, which I like. Butch has to choose between his close friend Whatshisface and his loyalty to Fish... except if, y'know, it isn't so blindingly obvious what Butch's answer is going to be. Felt kind of dragged out, but nowhere as much as all the other B-plots in this episode.

I did like how Selina is nice enough to help out the dying Poison Ivy despite Selina being scared shitless of Ivy last episode... but knowing Ivy's backstory, Selina really should've known better than to bring her to Gordon's apartment to recover. Ivy's really playing the creepy child card really well, and I guess she's going to have a personal vendetta against Gordon somehow despite being a scrawny little girl? She seems to have discovered the identity of the house's owner anyway. Also we totally needed that ten seconds of the camera panning on a shot of Selina perching on the balcony. Because that's totally necessary.

Ivy is, apparently, a vegan when she was a child. I find this darkly hilarious.

And, of course, there is Barbara, who really needs some goddamned therapy. Firstly she's a gigantic bitch to Renee simply for her trying to look out for her best interests. Secondly, she's a gigantic bitch who refuses to address all her problems like a mature woman. Thirdly, she apparently cannot tell a ten-year-old girl's voice from what I assume to be her thinking that it's Gordon's new girlfriend. (Also, damn hypocrite if she gets pissed if Gordon moved on when she left him to sleep with Renee in the same night). Fourthly? She's a gigantic bitch.

Technically it's a pretty serviceable episode, sufficiently engaging enough, but it's so padded out and the general premise is kind of boring at times and that kind of eclipses all the good vibes I would've otherwise gotten. I get the same feel that I did from the Agent Carter pilot where beyond a couple specific points, I just can't bring myself to care about much that's going on.

Or maybe I'm just sleepy. Eh.

Agent Carter Episode 1 Review: 'whelmed

Agent Carter, Pilot: Now is Not the End

As a testament to the fact that one shouldn't read reviews before watching or reading something, I was absolutely freaking underwhelmed with Agent Carter's pilot episode, despite all the rave reviews it's received. It's actually a pretty okay pilot, certainly a stronger one than, say, Gotham's pilot... but I just can't bring myself to really care.

I don't particularly care about Agent Carter as a character even before I watched the pilot, and indeed I find it really, really hard to care about any of Captain America's supporting cast that were introduced in his first movie. Partly because they're all too dead to matter in the present day, and being set as a period piece isn't really impressive for me. And that's really a problem that a lot of 'Zero' stories done in manga have, or even some parts of Arrow or Gotham. I don't particularly care for some random plot introduced that doesn't have a bearing on the present-day plot. And, y'know, a lot of things have already revealed to have happened. We know Hydra will infiltrate SHIELD, we know Carter will marry someone, we know Howard Stark will end up getting murdered by Hydra, we know his name will be cleared, we know Peggy Carter won't die anywhere throughout the show, et cetera, et cetera.

Overall the pilot was... beautifully produced, I have to give them that. It's got all the post-WWII atmosphere or whatever going on and it's just that, y'know, I don't really fucking care. All the sexism will probably appeal to a lot of feminists out there, how Carter is going to step over all the sexism that is rampant in that period, but I thought the show is just being so unsubtle with the sexism, like the completely needless, distracting and cringe-inducing scene of Carter threatening to rip out a random douchebag jerk's brachial artery for being a misogynist... which is all nice and well, but does it have a place in the episode? I'm all for a strong female lead and sexual equality, of course, but there is a line between portraying sexism and being really, really painfully obvious about it.

I'm not going to get into a major debate about feminists or sexism or whatever. All for gender equality. But I certainly dislike just how painfully anvillicious this aspect of the show is, and at points it takes away from Carter's character and the whole spy plot, and it kind of signs something that's pretty m'eh if half of Carter's personality is going to be just her showing that she can be competent in spite of being in a men-dominated workplace. Era-oriented realism aside, that's kind of... eh, I dunno. It's a gigantic can of worms I'd prefer not to open.

There's also the 'ladies' matters' excuse that Carter gives the male agents, and the reactions from the male agents were quite funny. I guess sex ed weren't that great back then?

It's not my major complaint, though. There is a big plot going on about how Carter is going to go around and gather all the 'bad babies' that has been stolen from Howard Stark's vault, and she comes into contact with this mysterious organization Leviathan who apparently makes its members be mute so they can talk through some weird mechanical translator thing. All the while Carter has to work with Edwin Jarvis, Howard Stark's butler, who is freaking hilarious. Both Carter and Jarvis are strong personalities on their own to make me like the episode a lot more than Gotham's pilot, and Jarvis in particular is rather fun for his constant henpecked trying-to-hide-the-spy-life-from-his-wife antics.

There's that moment where it's kind of sad that Carter's roommate got killed off-screen, which I thought was a pretty jarring turn from the rest of the episode, which was pretty well done.

Pacing wise they could've done better. I thought the typewriter thing that the Levianthan dude did to communicate with his superiors is kind of a cool concept, but after they take the time to clickety-clack through every single line being talked back and forth you'd think they would trim it down a bit. Also thought Peggy infiltrating the casino was dragged on a fair bit as well.

There were also some nice little shout-outs to other Marvel movies, like the Vita rays, the entire concept of Jarvis, Anton Vanko showing up, and some other stuff too.

The supporting cast is... well, they don't do much other than Jarvis or Stark, since it's the first episode, but we've got the competent boss of the SSR, the sexist misogynist douchebag, and the nice crippled dude who stands up for Carter. I don't know if any of them are people in the comics since I'm not a big Marvel comics geek, so I don't particularly care.

But overall I just can't really bring myself to care about Agent Carter's show. I mean, more power to the people who do, since it's a beautifully crafted show and I'm sure it'll appeal a lot to people who like period pieces and whatnot, and it's cool we're getting a show starring a woman... but, y'know, a lot of stuff make me just don't really care about this show enough to follow it regularly.

There's just too much things that are just random generic stuff. It's like Agents of Shield with its generic evil sci-fi technology organization, only they swapped out 'Centipede' with 'Leviathan' and super-cyborg-implants with neon orange globe-bombs. There really isn't much promise of anything really superhero-y like Agents of Shield or the Flash, and... well, I dunno. It doesn't feel like something I would really like. It's a solid pilot, and I just, y'know, don't particularly care. I will probably give episodes two and three a shot, but I don't particularly care about Agent Carter or indeed anything in the setting of the show enough -- the post-WWII era, the founding of SHIELD, the whole premise of yet another big evil organization -- to feel guilty about not following the show at all. I dunno. I'm not hating on the show just because it has rave reviews or whatever. It's just that I'm pretty underwhelmed unless some big game-changer superheroes or whatever gets in play.

It's like... I watch Arrow and the Flash because they are adaptations of comic book superheroes, and I didn't even care about the Flash enough to check it out until the second or third episodes before it became my all-time favourite superhero TV show, and the only reason I watched Arrow was because of Deathstroke. And Agents of Shield, as much as I like it, is an unevenly paced show... but it stars Coulson, someone I care about, and runs in the background of a movie series I really adore. Gotham, for being such a bland show, is, y'know, about Batman characters.

Agent Carter? I don't care about her as a character. Not because she's a woman, because I will watch the shit about a show starring Catwoman or Black Widow or Wonder Woman or Mockingbird or Starfire or the Wasp or any of the many female superheroes out there. I don't care about Agent Carter specifically, nor do I care about Howard Stark or Edwin Jarvis. Or the Post-WWII setting. I just... don't. And the pilot isn't really impressive enough to budge me off my indifference. If I'm really bored, I'll probably watch the next episodes. Apparently there are only going to be eight? It's really hard to care about just some random plot that happened in the past that can be resolved in under eight episodes.

TL;DR... it's cool that this show exists. It's awesome that a woman is finally being a main character in a TV show. Good that we're addressing sexism. It's a beautiful pilot. It's just that... the entire premise and setting of the show just doesn't click together with me enough to bring me to care. More power for all of you who do, though, 'cause it's a well-done show and I liked what I saw.

Toriko 308 Review: What the Fuck is Pair?

Toriko, Chapter 308: Progressing at Full Power

This new chapter is a bit of a break from the rather m'eh Enbu training and cuts off to, well, everyone else. We start off with some random guy getting all happy about seeing those weird eyeball things being served, about how such delicious ingredients from the Gourmet World. Apparently Octo-chan has been going back and forth and delivering ingredients from the Gourmet World to the Human World.

We then cut to Mansam, who is eating Air... I really, really need to get used to Mansam having hair like Ichiryu, because I kept forgetting that Mansam looks like that now. He's got his left hand transformed into an Appetite Devil arm or whatever, and he notes how the deliciousness of Air has awakened the demon within him. Well, we never exactly knew that Mansam had a demon within him and he was pretty freaking damn scary and strong without one, but I guess, well, if Toriko and his buddies are going to be stronger, Mansam better well be. I like Mansam. I like seeing him.

Mansam notes how among the many chefs they had sent to the Gourmet World, some might awaken the Appetite Demons or whatever within them. And we get a huge panel of a good chunk of the supporting cast -- Lady Chiyo, Livebearer, Match, Chin Chin Chin, Zonge (of course), Yuda the millimeter guy, Tyran, Melk the Second, Takimaru and... Aimaru, I think? Also the bearded chef with a monocle whose name I forgot. (Looking it up, it's Damala Sky the 13th, apparently)

Also, Rin has apparently gone off to the Gourmet World as well, and hilariously mistakes Zonge for a demon. They've met up with the Daruma Monk and the others, and discuss Teppei for a bit. They note that the rainbow created by Heracles is going to disappear soon, but Nono can apparently create ice that will substitute as a bridge. A bridge that large, though? Also, in addition to Nono, other chefs like Wabutora and Chiru are hanging around. Chin Chin and the Daruma Monk talk about how Buranchi (or Brunch or whatever, I'm more used to typing Buranchi) has apparently gone to the Bishokukai, and, well, damn your ambiguous words, Daruma Monk!

No, Buranchi hasn't defected. He's apparently bringing Air to Midora at Toriko's request because of cryptic reasons. Maybe they're going to team up to beat NEO and the Nitro? The Bishokukai has made their base in the Umiyama, a mountain made out of sea because Toriko operates on batshit crazy logic. Buranchi is just zipping around as a thunderbolt, and kind of notes to himself just how intimidating the entrance is and his plan to split Midora's head into two is a bit far-fetched.

But we don't see Buranchi's meeting with Midora, since we cut away to Gourmet Planet which we saw a bit of before. And apparently the Blue Nitro has gotten their hands on the Air that Teppei stole. Mohawk Nitro and Earrings Nitro talk about how great the flavour of Air is, and how surprised they are that a human child can bring it to its 100% level of flavour, which is something they have no idea how to do. Joie (or Joa, or Zombie!Frohze) talks about how she has sent their men to 'handle' the matter of the boy, though Teppei clearly did a shitty job about it if Komatsu can survive without a heart for several days now. She also notes that Komatsu might have learned to prepare Air from seeing that one Nitro cookbook, so the Blue Nitro apparently doesn't know of that particular book's contents?

She also says that she will personally go and oversee the retrieval of Air, but Mohawk Nitro tells her not to rush and do it all at once during the Solar Eclipse. Earrings Nitro is all cryptic, wondering about 'this planet's full course' and all that, but someone called Pair has returned, and it's apparently the Nitro with the tribal skirt and the long hair that Toriko and Komatsu met on that cloud land with vegetables! Well, it's been a while since we saw him. So either his name is coincidentally Pair, which means he is either named after monkey balls or vice versa... or the Blue Nitros are the food manifested or some crazy shit?

Either way, Pair the Nitro shares a name with a baboon's balls.

They recall how Pair has met with Acacia before, which we know of, and note that while Toriko and Komatsu are a good pair, they won't be able to defeat the Monkey King. We cut over to the Four Kings who are just thinking generic badass stuff and doing this badass walk, and demanding the Monkey King to show himself... and is instead greeted by a boxing ring. Well I guess Bambina wants to throw the fuck down!

Overall it's an okay chapter to return to after a while, and it's a nice break from all the Bambina stuff which has been kind of mediocre for a while. Looking forward to finally going back to Bambina, and the little flashback to see what the IGO and NEO organizations are working on, respectively, is certainly a treat from the constant focus on Toriko's group.