One Piece 788 Review: How to Ruin a Grand Finale

One Piece, Chapter 788: How I Fight

You know, I was truly hyped for the Luffy vs Doflamingo battle in ways you would not believe. Despite all my misgivings about the Dressrosa arc -- of which there are many -- it certainly delivers in making a truly effective villain out of Doflmaingo, a truly effective sympathetic character out of Law and a pretty awesome Shonen manga beatdown between Luffy and Doflamingo. And the previous few chapters is pretty awesome with Luffy activating Gear Fourth and Sabo fighting Bartolomeo. Granted there was the odd interruption by Birdcage, and the odd decision to reintroduce Gatz the MC as if he matters, and the constant cutting back and forth to Violet and King Riku.

So Luffy needs a couple of chapters to recover from his Gear Fourth. So naturally we focus on Sabo fighting Burgess, right? That's the big thing that happened last chapter, that's the most interesting thing going on... oh, no, wait, we're focusing on Doflamingo just walking through the city and transforming everything into strings and fighting these nobodies from the gladiator that get taken out really early -- people like the shaman mummy and the pyromancer and those dudes. Well, not quite ideal, but it's at least action-packed... oh, wait, it lasts only for a single page? Bummer.

We get a bit of Law using Room to teleport down to where Gatz and Luffy is and apparently offering his help to, uh, babysit Luffy? Well, at least he's going to be participating in the finale.

But the rest of this chapter? Good lord, it's truly trite and did not need to happen. Birdcage itself really shouldn't be dragged out this long and it certainly doesn't deserve an entire chapter to itself showing every single god damned character pushing against the Birdcage. We could've established all of that in scenes from previous chapters, but no, we get this super-long montage that's just a gigantic tumour interrupting what could've otherwise been a really epic finale to this bloated arc.

We get some nice scenes, granted. We've got the gladiators pushing Bartolomeo's barrier (Chinjao pushing horizontally with his head and Elizabello shouting KIIIIING was funny). And we get some explanation about Mansherry's powers, which materialize in the form of dandelions that drop down from the sky as she gets ferried around by one of the bug Zoan Tontatta. Mansherry's healing apparently only lasts for a few minutes before injuries revert to normal, making her nowhere as overpowered as she initially seemed and serves as a nice limiter whilst still making her really useful. We get a glorious short scene of Usopp going all 'SILENCE HEATHENS!' and random people going all 'do not anger god any further!'

But all that -- did they need to happen in the middle of the finale instead of Sabo fighting Burgess? Or some token resistance against Doflamingo? We get Rebecca monologuing for a bit and then Viola taking off her clothes to engage Doflamingo -- yeah, like you're going to do jack shit. For all the times you've wasted space and interrupted fights, Viola, I am totally hoping Doflamingo strangles you.

And then we get the truly eyeroll-inducing scenes in Team Franky and Team Zoro where it's just showing their faces going all PUUUUUSH before we cut to a two-page splash page of everyone shouting PUUUUUSH and did we really need all this bullshit. Basically the rest of the chapter proceeds the same. Oh, look, Fujitora's helping out. That's fine, get back to the action. Oh look, people reacting. Birdcage stopping for a moment.

I DON'T GIVE A FUCK

Get back to the actual things that matter. Sabo versus Burgess. Luffy versus Doflamingo. Hell, spending an entire chapter showing Viola getting herself massacred by Doflamingo would be a sight better than this.

Nanatsu no Taizai 126.5 Review: Diane's Backstory

Nanatsu no Taizai Special: The Young Girl and A Dream That Was Never Meant to Be

We get a Diane backstory! And... it's not really that interesting, I'm kind of sorry. King, Ban and Escanor's little flashback stories all had stuff that correspond to the present day stuff like the dynamic between King and Ban, plus Escanor's unrevealed powers, and while this backstory does reveal a fair amount of the giant clan dynamics and what Diane did after he met King the first time, it's kind of really predictable and doesn't really hold much surprises in store.

Diane and this little chubby giant girl, Dolores, are part of a giant clan under this super-awesome giantess warchief Matrona, who was the mysterious woman Diane used as an alter-ego back when she was shrunk to human size. The giants have this proud-warrior-race Viking mindset that the only thing to do in life is to fight to get an honourable death in the battlefield, and they're being used by humans as mercenaries, and the giants are more than willing to fight their own kind, not being bothered by killing their own kind because, hey, the other dude got an honourable death.

Diane herself calls bullshit on this, noting how this will only serve to drive the giant race into extinction while furthering humankind, though she herself doesn't hate humans that much since she apparently has been throwing humans into a river instead of killing them. Matrona is a bit of a drill sergeant and is pretty verbally abusive to both Diane and Dolores, who all the other giants of Megadozer kind of view as disappointments due to, y'know, not liking war.

We get a little reference to Hellbram's death at the hands of humans, and we get a conversation about how Diane and Dolores don't really like their situation in a cycle of war and fighting. We see Diane and Dolores training to use their Creation powers, with Dolores barely being able to keep a tiny rock afloat while Diane is able to lift what's basically a small mountain and it still standing even after Diane was distracted by Matrona punching Dolores in the gut. They practice Heavy Metal, but a single punch from Matrona dispells Dolores's Heavy Metal (she sucks) while Diane survives a barrage of punches before finally coughing up blood. Also apparently if they want to get out of the warrior life, they have to birth a warrior child to take their place.

Matrona plans to mould the potential within Diane so she gets to be the strongest of all the giants, and while this is good in the eyes of the other giants, Diane kind of goes away. Dolores is kind of like 'no one's going to accept us giants' and so Diane leaves alone, where we get a recap of when she met Meliodas the first time... though she doesn't immediately join up with Meliodas after hearing about the whole 'I accept anyone into my team', but actually returns to Megadozer first to bring Dolores...

Who, like all 'likable family member or friend who shows up in an origin flashback' manga characters, dies. Off-screen. Diane punches Matrona, who delivers an allmighty comeback that sends her falling. Matrona is like 'save your anger for the next battle', and Diane is all like 'fighting is only meaningful to protect someone' and Matrona is like 'you're not a human or a fairy, fuck off with your non-giant ideas'. Diane cries herself to sleep, thinking of Meliodas and kind of assigning the remnants of the memories with King to Meliodas, which is kind of sweet.

However, it's still a massive distraction. I'm going to assume next chapter we'll either pick up with the present-day Diane plot and have Diane remember King for good and that'll wrap up the Gowther plot and we can move on with the Seven Sins fighting the Ten Commandments. My money is on Matrona having already died in the meantime (maybe in a second part to this flashback, though I hardly think it's necessary), or at least present to give one of the Ten Commandments a fair fight.

Overall it's not a bad chapter! It's really solid, some nice character work for Diane and a lot of worldbuilding, I just am not that interested especially after all the teasing about the Ten Commandments because dammit I want to get to them.

Boku no Hero Academia 43 Review: Anticlimatic Final Battle?

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 43: Todoroki vs. Bakugou

Well, that was unexpected! And sort of anticlimatic, but in a good way. The chapter starts off pretty cool, just like any awesome manga battle. We've got Bakugou doing explosive stuff and Todoroki doing a lot of cool ice tricks, and the art really helps in making the movements feel fluid and dynamic. Todoroki's ice wall thing, Bakugou spinning around with his explosions, that kind of stuff. We've got Bakugou screaming about how he's going to beat everyone, how he's going to stand above Midoriya, how he's not going to lose to some half-assed fight if Todoroki doesn't have his full heart in it.

And I do like what they did with Todoroki here, and how much more... realistic it is. Yes, he's got that little mind-opener from Midoriya's speech earlier about accepting who he is and fighting fully with both sides of his powers, but unlike most shonen characters, Todoroki doesn't do a complete 180... at least not immediately. He's still uncomfortable with his fire side especially with Endeavor being such a dickwad and the whole 'traumatized as a child' thing. And he's still kind of unsure in general.

And while he did ignite his fire side near the end of the fight, he extinguishes it before Bakugou's big super attack, and gets knocked out of bounds which is really sudden -- traditionally these shonen tournament battles generally last more than one chapter, and this does feel like your everyday epic shonen battle where the two badass characters are just shouting their motivations and doing cool but small things with their power. Bakugou's howitzer attack would seem to be the first in a series of awesome named attacks, but no -- Todoroki is just taken out immediately.

And it's anticlimatic, but also great from a character standpoint. Bakugou in particular is fucking furious because he's denied the chance to prove his strength and worth above a full-power Todoroki (plus Midoriya managed to elicit the response of Torodoki's fire side)... though whether he wants to prove it to the world or to himself that he's not useless, well... or if it's just a simple matter of pride. I do like Bakugou, he's a lot more complex than your generic bully character. And Todoroki's certainly still confused and whatnot about his powers and whether to use his fire side.

These main characters are starting to get really interesting, and while the tournament is over with Bakugou as the winner, I'm still curious where we're going to go from here. Will Stain the Hero Slayer attack the stadium? Something along those lines? Though I'm certainly more curious about how Bakugou, Todoroki and Midoriya will deal with their respective situations.

Not really much to say about it, but it's a great battle, and even though not much really happened here, it's still a great chapter to read through. 

The Flash Episodes 20-23 Capsule Review/Spoiler Talks

Well, I've caught up with the Flash last week, just didn't have the time to give each Flash episode the gigantic reviews they deserve. So let's make this short reaction of every episode because I watched the finale and I was so stoked. It isn't quite the perfect finale, but it is an awesome ending to one of my favourite shows ever.

Spoiler alert to anyone who hasn't watched the Flash episodes 20 through 23, of course.

Episode 20, the Trap: This is the big 'oh shit we're entering the home stretch' episode with Barry and company discovering about Harrison Wells' true identity and attempting to confront him with it. Cisco uses his dream thingamagig (which woun't be explained until the finale) to figure out how Harrison Wells will react... only for it to be revealed that Harrison Wells, or rather, Eobard Thawne as it's more appropriate to refer to him now, has been watching them all along. So this episode that's set up to be the trap for Harrison Wells ended up being a trap that Wells set up for Team Flash, which is pretty awesome and I totally didn't see that coming. Using Everyman as a decoy (and something that eagle-eyed viewers will notice since Everyman-Wells does everything with his left hand) is a pretty awesome twist, because I thought Wells will just shake off the bullet wound, not be revealed as an impostor. Eobard-Wells is a gigantic ham now that he doesn't have to pretend to be good anymore, and he kidnaps Eddie for his vague plans.

We also get some nice little nods to stuff all over DC comics in the future newspaper (including some foreshadowing for the Legends of Tomorrow show, which has an awesome trailer) and some nice intrigue about GIDEON being created by a future Barry. I also like the realism of Cisco being unable to fuck with technology several hundred years ahead of his time because, really, that's the realistic thing. Also apparently Barry did something to Eobard in the future that's so unforgiveable that he went back in time just to kill Barry, and later kill his mother, in order to get revenge... though even until the end of the season we don't find out what, exactly, this is.

Episode 21, Grodd Lives: My reaction to this episode flip-flops between HOLY SHIT GRODD IS AWESOME and 'why do we have such a gigantic focus on the Iris plot'. Iris' rage at Barry and everone else is justified because beyond the flimsy excuse of it's-for-her-safety there is really no reason to keep Iris in the dark when everyone else and their mother knows that Barry Allen is the Flash. So yes, her rage is justified when she figures out Flash's identity (by the most random event imaginable, mind you) and yes, I would take her side instead of Joe's and Barry's, but three episodes to the finale and this is when you focus on 'Iris discovers Barry is Flash'? To top it off, we had to have Barry recovering from Grodd's telepathic attack to involve the cheesiest do-it-for-the-girl speech ever. I just don't like the big focus on this whole thing, especially with Eobard being such a dick and waving the whole 'Iris West-Allen' in Eddie's face just to be a dick.

Of course, all that is kind of offset by the awesomeness of Grodd. He looks pretty awesome, this giant telepathic gorilla, and he does feel like a threat. Everything he does from the initial Jurassic Park demon-in-the-shadows scene, the 'Grodd hate banana' joke, the chilling scene with Joe and the gun, Grodd just refusing to be taken down by anything -- the telepathic blockers, the supersonic punch -- and just being this unbeatable monster is pretty awesome. Wade Eiling's return, albeit traumatized and forced into an alliance with Barry, is handled pretty well too with the little fake-out that Grodd may have taken control some random Z-lister villain-of-the-week to do his bidding. Grodd is just awesome, and I cannot believe this show just adapted a goddamn telepathic gorilla into a live-action show and plays it so straight. Grodd's apparently just buying time while Eobard is doing his scientific... schemes or whatever, and it apparently involves the particle accelerator which neatly ties it together. I kind of thought Grodd was kind of wasted because he could've easily been Reverse-Flash's second in command and had a more active role between menacing Team Flash this once, but damn if he isn't effective. Grodd is awesome, he isn't taken down and just taken out of the picture and I can see him being a really big threat down the line.

Episode 22, Rogue Air: The premise of this episode is pretty awesome, with Barry caught in a dilemma of whether to rescue these psychopathic metahumans from being killed when the particle accelerator explodes. And there being a set time for the particle accelerator to activate is kind of a convenient thing, because it allows the whole other-villains thing to happen. It's really a bit weird for Eobard not to do a damn thing after running away, though, simply waiting until the particle accelerator activates, but whatever. This episode is chock-full of awesome. There's a bit of an anticlimatic end to the Eddie situation and we still get a 'we break up because I have seen the future' which is annoying, but again, it's offset by the sheer amount of awesomeness in this episode.

Captain Cold is a smooth motherfucker, showing that while he does have a code of honour (he saves Flash by killing Deathbolt) he isn't above backstabbing and deceiving people to get what he wants. Cold gets a lot of really awesome lines and moments in this episode. Just awesome all around. And we finally get some of the lesser villains getting their moments -- Mist, Weather Wizard and especially Rainbow Raider are given time to actually interact and shine, though I imagine anyone who didn't watch Arrow will be confused as to where Deathbolt showed up from. Not even a 'hey Ray dropped this off the other day' line from Cisco or whatever. That scene where everyone just explodes with powers as Deathbolt launches lasers and Weather Wizard summons thunderbolts and the Mist just, well, mists around... it's pretty awesome itself with all the displays of the powers, and while it doesn't come into play in the finale, every single one of the metahumans other than poor Deathbolt breaks free and are at large, with hints of a partnership between Cold and Wizard... we're just one Mirror Master short of having the classic Rogues ensemble!

Also random continuity nods like Lian Yu and Captain Boomerang? Yay. Hopefully the moronic Suicide Squad embargo that cost us Deadshot and Harley Quinn doesn't make us lose Captain Boomerang as well.

And that ending? With Firestorm coming down from the sky and Green Arrow coming down with that loud twaaaaang as the music builds up? My face was light up like Eobard's was in gleeful anticipation of the fight that's to come. And it comes and holy fuck does it deliver. I honestly expected it to be a cliffhanger and the finale to be your standard 'heroes take down big bad once and for all', but no, this... this prototype Justice League just lays the smackdown onto the Reverse-Flash within five minutes. And it's five of the happiest minutes you'll ever find me in. It's pure awesome as these three heroes work together to defeat the Reverse-Flash, a gigantic threat that can take down the strongest one of them (Barry) easily, and there's no guarantee that the three of them combined can take him out. That's the sense of threat that Loki and Ultron failed to deliver in the Avengers movies, and indeed in those movies neither of the Big Bad Villains ever engaged more than two Avenger at one time and came victorious on top. Reverse-Flash was effectively fighting everyone at once, and the show makes a really good job of making Reverse-Flash be awesome while still not overpowering him. Arrow gets some nice moments to shine with speed-disabling nanites (and I do like how the arrows manage to find their mark because no matter how fast you are, you can't dodge what you don't see coming). It also shows just how dangerous Reverse-Flash is. Even without his intelligence and superior speed to Barry, he's also a pretty awesome hand-to-hand combatant that gave Oliver a bit of a run for his money, which basically means that Barry and his one boxing lesson is kind of fucked up. And they totally beat Reverse-Flash! That was freaking awesome.

Episode 23, Fast Enough: Fuck the cliffhanger ending with the giant time storm, we know that's not going to stick. But it's a wonderful, wonderful ending. We don't get answers to every single question -- we don't know Eobard Thawne's origin story, we don't know what the Future!Barry time travelling back is doing while fighting Eobard Thawne... and unlike what we guessed ever since we saw that scene, it's not Barry at the end of this episode travelling back and fighting Eobard Thawne in the past. No, Flashpoint didn't happen either, which is awesome. But we do get some really awesome closures to a lot of plot arcs. Eddie in particular goes out with an awesome bang. He's been this dogged nice guy throughout Flash, and the show pulls no punches in making him feel like shit. But he says 'fuck the future', proposes to Iris... and then pulls another 'fuck the future' as he shoots himself in the chest and wipes Eobard out of existence. Granted that time paradox was probably the cause of the gigantic timestorm at the end of the episode, but still.

Also, we also get confirmation that Cisco is indeed a metahuman -- Vibe, though he hasn't quite named himself yet -- except instead of earthquake powers, he gets his secondary New 52 powers, which is the ability to see through dimensions. Or in this case, the ability to remember splinter timelines he's experienced. A pretty awesome but simple explanation for the whole 'Cisco remembers the splinter timeline' thing that is otherwise stupid.

We get a couple of heartbreaking scenes as Barry waffles between going back to the past and changing everything -- thereby breaking all the dynamics he's made so far -- and the conversation with Joe about losing a parent to save another... the two of them clearly consider each other father and son, and it's heartbreaking when they said goodbye to each other before Barry goes through the crazy time loop. But more heartbreaking is the moment where Barry goes to the past not to change it, but to have some closure with his mother, to comfort his mother while she died and generally just telling her that everything's going to be fine. It's fucking sad I cried.

Granted Eobard's plan doesn't really make that much sense. Have Barry create a temporal hole which he'll use to escape to the future and reclaim his life, while Barry changes the past by... beating up past-Eobard? Wouldn't that invalidate everything, also creating a temporal paradox by erasing Harrison Wells' contributions to the timeline? Eh. Eobard, you're crazy. It's a good thing Barry punches through you and your time sphere. Also he actually does care about Cisco. Cisco kind of doesn't give a fuck, since, y'know, stabbing someone through the heart with a vibrating hand tends to have that kind of effect.

Also Jay Garrick's hat! WOOOOOO! Apparently Eobard didn't make himself an enemy of just a single Flash. We also get several hints to the Legends of Tomorrow show which I'll talk about some time later, with Rip Hunter and the Time Sphere being mentioned, as well as parts of the trailer seen by Barry as he runs through the Speed Force. We also see the Flash museum, Barry in jail, and most importantly KILLER FROST and Caitlin is totally rocking that look.

The ending isn't quite as action-packed as I expected it to be and it's more of a crazy emotional rollercoaster not just for Barry but for, well, basically everyone involved. Martin Stein steals every scene he shows up in, we get a shit-ton of nice nods to future installments of Flash and Legends of Tomorrow. It wraps up a lot of plot threads, yet still leaving some of the larger ones open. And while the Big Bad is taken out of the picture, I have no doubt that Reverse-Flash will come back, either by Rip Hunter fixing that big hole in the timeline, or some wacky time hijinks happening.

Still whatever the case holy fuck that was an awesome ending.

Fairy Tail 437 Review: Bullshit

Fairy Tail, Chapter 437: Magnolia

Wow, that was totally fucking pointless. Not just this chapter, because it totally is. There's absolutely nothing, really, to talk about, other than generic 'oh it's so nostalgic' and emo 'oh I thought we're all broken up' lines from Lucy, when, y'know, it still doesn't feel nostalgic at all. If Fairy Tail actually went on a break for a year, or even a month or whatever in real-time, yes, you have an excuse to pull all the nostalgia bullshit. But I'm still in the point of view that none of this 'gather everyone' arc has happened.

Because, really, other than the Zeref chapter which is very stand-alone, what the fuck did we get from this arc? Natsu got stronger so he can one-shot random villains that don't mean a thing and have close to no motivations? Lucy can use random equips that doesn't really make her any less of a joke? Carla can change into a human?

No one goes through any charater development, too! Natsu growing emotionally due to Igneel's death? Nope. Gray going through some character moments due to his father's death? Nope, the going-to-extremes bit is just an act. Lucy and Juvia respectively going through depression? Nope, they're respectively doing their single-joke personality routines by the next chapter. Did we get anything beyond generic 'oh look at how awesome Natsu is'? Nope. Again, Zeref chapter aside, we didn't even get backstory or any kind of worldbuilding that makes sense. We could've had this be this long arc and have some explanation behind Devil Slaying Magic or Dragon Slaying Magic or some shit like that. But no.

The big "Frosch dies in some vague dragon-related plot-relevant plot"? Totally chucked down the drain with a single panel joke of Gray going 'oh Frosch so kawaii'. Not that the manga has ever shown any sign of actually giving a fuck about following up on that plot thread until the recent Avatar chapters, but still.

Everything gets resetted into status quo. Wendy joins the guild that has her best friend, except not really. Gajeel and friends join the Council as these hunters, except not really. Gray turns evil, except not really. Gray and Juvia are living together, except not really. Hell, even physical changes -- Natsu's long hair, Sting being fat -- are all retconned out. So what was the fucking point?

No, before you argue, I don't want Fairy Tail to completely change, but what was the point of skipping a year, splitting the guild apart and then going through a long round of recruiting them all while one-shotting a bunch of filler, non-threatening villains in the way? It's filler, except instead of episodes made to fill up a season while the manga catches up to the anime, it's the manga just pumping out the most generic 'friendship is the awesome' plots to sell two extra tankobons.

And Fairy Tail wasn't always like that. Sure, friendship speeches and Natsu beating the main villain with a single powerful blow has always been a shonen thing, but usually in most arcs we get something new. We get villains that actually felt like a threat. We get backstories for some of the lesser characters -- Elfman and Mirajane being developed slowly across multiple arcs, Cana getting a surprising amount of backstory in the Tenrou Island arc, Lucy dealing with her father's death during the timeskip, Freed's little moment of guilt over brutalizing Lucy and Cana and allowing them to pass... but no.

I could go on at length about how utterly annoying the Tartaros arc was, but that at least had the feel of actually progressing something. About telling a story with villains that pose somewhat of a threat. Of some actual story being told without feeling like a goddamned waste of time. Because that's what this entire 'gather everyone' arc has been. You want to tell a story about Sabertooth or Lamia Scale or Gajeel or Gray or Juvia or Wendy? Then fucking tell a story about them, don't just do Shonen Manga Stock Plot #1 while transplanting the characters into those roles without giving them anything significant to do beyond generic friendship speeches and launching attacks. It's a goddamned waste of time.

This chapter goes through a flashback, another flashback and a ridiculous roll call of every single C-lister Fairy Tail member who isn't going to do jack shit in the manga like Nab and Alzack and Jet and Droy and whatever. And Gajeel rejoins the guild for no reason beyond status quo is god -- why would he? He's a jackass and was totally on a power trip last chapter. Add that to the list of shit that doesn't make sense.

Y'know, ever since Makarov randomly disbanded the guild for reasons. Why the fuck did everyone leave if the guild means so much to them? Why did they make such a big deal out of it? 'Everyone left', Lucy said. Why, if friendship was so precious to them? Why did they leave now, when seven years ago during the whole Tenrou Island shebang they didn't? Makes no sense. Beyond being the basis of a gigantic filler arc, I mean.

And you know what? Fairy Tail's got enough of filler arcs. It's got the anime's filler arcs, obviously -- the few I've watched having infinitely better quality than this Avatar bullshit, of course -- and it's got not one, not two, but four spin-offs. These kind of generic friendshippy stuff has already been covered ad nauseam in those spin-offs, but at least in Fairy Tail Zero or Ice Trail or Blue Mistral or whatever it's starring another character, it's telling a story of their past or some stuff like that. It's just bad storytelling and pacing all around.

Yeah I don't care anymore. So much for the Zeref-Acnologia fight. So much for Lumen Histoire or Fairy Tail's dark secrets or whatever. With this manga following up on the future Rogue prophecy (that admittedly I don't particularly care about) with a joke of a conclusion, I don't think any of them will be resolved satisfactorily. It's like, well, nothing, really, has been resolved satisfactorily.

I would say something along the lines of 'at least we got that over with', but at this point I just don't care anymore. Fairy Tail has ceased to be bad like the Tartaros arc or like Naruto's exhaustively long-winded Ten-Tails arc, or Bleach's general meandering about currently. It's bogged down to just regurgitating the same basic crap over and over again, and I don't really have faith that it's going to be any better over time.

Boku no Hero Academia 42 Review: The Hero Slayer

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 42: And Now the Finals

We start off with Bakugou fighting Tokoyami, explosion against shadow-bird (poor shadow bird is crying as the explosion hits him!). Bakugou is just relentlessly shooting out explosions that forces Tokoyami on the defensive, and the 'gallery of people defeated by Tokoyami' (hee) is confused why. Uraraka notes how the light from the explosion is nullifying Tokoyami's shadows, and how Tokoyami letting his weakness slip made Bakugou aware of it. And we get a couple of pages of cool jumping around and shadow attacks before Bakugou gets behind Tokoyami and Stun Grenades him. Tokoyami gets taken out by Bakugou and is forced to surrender. Bakugou kind of mocks Tokoyami about revealing his weakness.

Though I'm sure Tokoyami is screwed either way since knowing about his weakness or not, I'm sure Bakugou's still going to do his well patented trick of 'shoot explosions and MORE explosions'.

We get reactions from a lot of people, which is nice, but Iida gets a call from his mother, informing him of his brother's death (or mortal injury) from last chapter. Well, poor Iida.

We then get a full page of the Hero Slayer, Stain, just hanging out perched on a rooftop and he looks cool in that crazy-ragged-psycho-samurai look. He's just ranting about how society is hypocritic and how everyone thinks they're heroes. He sounds like Ultron in my head. Black Mist shows up behind him and apparently recruits Stain to their little group with, uh... Handy McHand whose real name I forgot. 

We get Todoroki thinking about what Midoriya said, when Bakugou stumbles into the wrong waiting room. He gets pissed off at Todoroki for ignoring him, and calls him a half-and-half bastard. Todoroki notes how Midoriya said that, and how Midoriya likes bringing other people's problems into the open... and asks Bakugou, who is hid childhood 'friend', if he's always been like this. Bakugou gets pissed off as he remembers stuff, and then kicks the table. He doesn't give a fuck about anyone or anyone's feelings, he just wants Todoroki to fight him at full strength and he'll make Midoriya bow when he's at the top.

So that's the finals -- a kid with some extreme parental issues that's still struggling with his identity, and a hot-headed psychopath of a bully who has deep-seated issues about being pitied upon.

Yeah, looking forward to the next chapter, definitely.

Nanatsu no Taizai 125 Review: Frikkin Drama

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 125: Where the Memory Leads

Of all the things that are running across Nanatsu no Taizai right now -- the Ten Commandments being unbeatable badasses, finding Escanor, the Fairy King thing, Hendricksen -- we now focus on the fact that Gowther has randomly caused amnesia on Diane just to find out what emotions is. Yeah, it's a ridiculously cliched fantasy romance trope, and we could see this coming a mile away since Gowther's initial rampage. Did we really need this? No, not really. And equally I would hate for it to be built up and be resolved in two chapters, but at the same time I hate dragging it along. Would've been better if everything about this didn't just happen.

Well, this is Nanatsu no Taizai so it's at least tying in with the greater picture. The amnesiac Diane is heading off to the giant clan's home, Megadozer, and Diane needs to get through Edinburgh to get to Megadozer so she might run into the Ten Commandments. And we might find out something about this mysterious Matrona, the woman whose identity Diane assumed during the tournament. So we might be getting another Diane backstory soon, but really couldn't we have had the Diane backstory without all these unnecessary drama in the way? Gowther does get some personality -- most of it by being a gigantic heartless fuckwad -- but it's a gigantic distraction.

Not really much to say about this chapter, really, since very little happened beyond establishing that Diane's amnesia gets worse over time. King beats the fuck out of Gowther with his creepy teddy bear, but other than that most of the chapter is just them trying to figure out Diane's amnesia and whatnot, and just King getting pissed off at Gowther.

I really don't have much to say about this chapter, really. It's not bad or hollow like Bleach was, there are conversations and whatnot but I just can't really think of much to say.

Naruto 703 Review: Cute little ten-tails baby

Naruto Gaiden, Chapter 3: Chance Meeting, Part 1

The author has taken to calling the Naruto Gaiden chapters '700+3' and whatnot, but I'm not going to. Naruto goes off on his own, knowing that he's missing on the packed lunch Boruto is bringing for him. Dude is the fastest ninja in the world, can't he just zip back, talk to his son for a bit, before zipping straight out? Seriously, these scenarios only work in sitcoms set in apartments, not in a world where ninjas run around transforming into giant energy beings shooting out nuclear bombs.

Sarada and Chouchou are like 'we're going to go off to follow Naruto' when Boruto and Mitsuki show up and they argue a bit about the packed lunch. Chouchou is still annoyingly delusional about love and is just annoying in general. Sarada is kind of projecting her own parental issues of, y'know, not knowing where her father is and who her mother is... and Boruto even calls her out on that. But the all important packed lunch is given to her.

Meanwhile they're being watched by this thing that's a cross between the Ten-Tails, a squirrel and a pokemon. It's got the Ten-Tails' Sharinnegan thing, and the same weird wooden mouth. Whatever that is, all it's missing is the weird single ear to look like the Ten-Tails' grotesque... second? Third? Whichever form that has that weird eye-mouth-ear thing.

Onion-Head is apparently called Uchiha Shin, so there goes my running joke. Hood-Man orders Shin to bring Sarada to him, and we see that he's not Orochimaru... he's got an implanted Sharingan with dark-coloured conjunctiva, but instead of implanting it nicely like every other sane people in this ninja world, Hood-Man has taken into stabbing the corners of his eye with little Hellraiser stake things.

He's totally Shishui, isn't he? Random dude that suddenly got prominence in the chapters of a recent game that the author apparently wrote himself, his eyes have apparently been replaced, we never see Shishui's death specifically in either the manga or the game, and an obsession with Itachi... yeah, totally calling it.

Naruto, despite not wanting to wait for his own kid, realizes that Sarada and Chouchou are chasing him and heads back. Man, Naruto, you're a shit father. Shin, of course, confronts Sarada and Chouchou and the two have some generic back and forth. Shin then places a scroll on the ground and calmly pulls out this gigantic shuriken on a chain while Chouchou makes eyeroll-inducing vaguely love-related ditzy remarks.

Sarada launches some kunais at Shin, and Chouchou moves in with a Bubun Baika no Jutsu, but Shin just does some ninja hopping around while playing with his chain, and moves in to kill the expendable Chouchou... but of course, Naruto goes in to save them and goes all 'ah, you're the dude with the Sharingan'.

Overall not a bad chapter, really, it just has this really weird focus on the really soap-opera-like condition of Sarada and Chouchou and Boruto and all sorts of parental issues and whatnot. It's certainly nice themes to explore and I certainly prefer this to the bogged-down bullshit of a mess that was Naruto's quote-unquote grand finale, but, y'know, the tone of this series in general feels more like a drama-comedy thing instead of an action-packed shonen.

Still not quite impressed with Sarada as a lead, though she's grown from 'irritating' to 'inoffensive', though that might just because she's paired up with a more annoying character. The whole Uchiha mystery is not boring, at least, though Shin doesn't really look like much of a threat, especially not to Naruto. Though since Naruto is like overpowered as hell I don't think short of introducing a threat equal to the likes of Madara or Kaguya anything's going to be a threat, and I've had my fill of those kind of 'shrug off every attack' villains. So.

Toriko 324 Review: Dividing up the cast

Toriko, Chapter 324: Smiling Departure

This chapter is mostly a between-arcs regrouping. Kaka disappears last chapter, but Kuribo the pot artisan, a.k.a. Zero Biotope's spy within NEO, shows up with his lispy accent and talks about how food spirits can't die twice. We get a bit of a recap on Kuribo's status, and he explains that NEO's time limit until the Gourmet Solar Eclipse's completion is one month. After a funny bit where Komatsu asks for Kuribo's autograph, Kuribo explains how NEO has already constructed a spaceship with which to leave earth.

Kuribo then explains that Acacia, being the one that ended the Gourmet Wars, has actually given 'God' to powerful and wealthy people and control these powerful people and get money from them. Of course, 'Divine Taste' probably helped it out a bit. Which is awesome how this super-nice fellow that's been built up to be the big mentor and the big good guy is revealed to be... well, a gigantic evil chessmaster! Also, alive!

Toriko rambles, talking about how the world could be destroyed by the monster within Acacia awakening, or simply by being cooked... and if it's the monster awakening, then all they have to do is stop it. It will awaken, of course, because this is a manga, but that's beside the point. Apparently Acacia's fish dish, Another, is particularly vital in the revival of the beast within Acacia. Yuda points out how impossible it is to collect the full course within a month, to which Zebra responds that all they have to do is split up and gather all the ingredients simultaneously.

Which is cool, as long as we actually, y'know, show the different groups getting the different ingredients because I want to see.

(Also, Yuda, I know it's your catchphrase but, no, you can't measure time in millimeters)

Komatsu talks about how Another is located in the World of the Food Spirits, and indeed Mappy did say how there's a door that only souls can enter. The ghosts of the ancient civilization talk about how living people need Pair to enter this food spirit world... but for living people to get out they need luck and cooking skill. Komatsu, realizing how this basically describes him, and decides to go off on his own despite all the protests and the flashbacks to him being saved. Mind you, apparently there are these Gourmet Cell Monsters trying to revive themselves in the food spirit world apparently so it won't be just a big cooking contest.

They decide to let Komatsu go since strength is useless in the Spirit World and only cooking skill is needed to cook 'spirit food', whatever that is. Coco points out how it would be useless for them to continue without a skilled chef, but apparently the Golden Food Hermit, Jiji, is conveniently located in Area 6. Apparently Jiji was the one who recorded cooking methods in that notebook that Komatsu found in the Gourmet Pyramid before.

Guemon and Malee will deliver food to the human world with the monkeys and Denshark Mk. II (which looks like a robot and apparently grew a temper after eating Pair), though they briefly considered using the poop cloud. Toriko mentions someone he needs to give the real Pair to, so he's going to bring it with him... Guemon seems kind of suspicious, so maybe Toriko didn't quite tell everyone about his deal with Midora?

Toriko and the others board the next camping beast, the Turtloon, which is a gigantic hot air turtle balloon. All the other chefs are coming along with them.

Then randomly one of the ghosts starts talking about how the murals caused the collapse because the Blue Nitro's entry caused the monkeys to think that Kaka betrayed them and the monkeys went all Planet of the Apes, I guess. After a brief teary farewell, we cut away to...

Bambina, dragging something (Zonge?) across an empty field... and is confronted by Terry, Kiss and Quinn. Well, are they going to train with Bambina? Holy shit, that's awesome! Didn't see this coming.

Meanwhile Toriko and the rest goes off to Area 6, the continent of the sea. Wonder what the Eight King member there will be? We've still got two unknown members of the kings, and none of the ones we know (horse, monkey, wolf, snake, crow and dragon) fits someone who would rule over the oceans. Interested to see what it will be, what Another will be, how they're going to enter the world of food spirits, how Brunch and Starjun will factor into it and generally just, y'know, stuff.

Fairy Tail 436 Review: Natsu Dragneel's Origin

Fairy Tail, Chapter 436: Memoirs

We take a break from the bullshit "let's recruit every single character from Fairy Tail again just to waste 100 chapters and see how many times we can pull the one-shot-a-villain-that's-not-threatening-while-vomiting-a-repeat-of-a-friendship-speech-and-act-like-it's-a-big-accomplishment" arc into something that's... actually good! Again, still kind of cliched with the brothers thing, but it's actually well told here.

We start off in a flashback of little Zeref studying in some Greek-esque mage school and apparently he's written a paper regarding, y'know, human life and death. Of course everyone around him tells him how brilliant he is, how much of a genius he is... but don't fuck with life and death because Anclesam the god of life and death will curse him.

Present-day Zeref talks about how he once had a younger brother who died, which was the impetus of his research of life and death. We re-enter the flashback where kid-Zeref gives a lecture about how gathering 2.7 million units of magic power, some R-System, standing for revive, will be complete. I don't think there's been any R-System in the Fairy Tail manga unless I'm misremembering or if it's referring to the 'sacrifice lots of people to Zeref' thing that Arlock tried to do in the previous arc.

Zeref's teacher confronts him, again, about the taboo subject and the fact that he's using human life as a sacrifice for his methods. Zeref tries to defend himself, talking about life and death and whatnot but the response is just 'god have mercy on this demon child'. Some time later, Zeref spends his time researching Eclipse, the doorway to the past, so that's a neat tie-in to the Eclipse arc at least. However, Zeref's teacher realizes that all he's trying to do is to revive his dead brother either by necromancy or time travel, and so the board has expelled him. Well, tough luck, Zeref.

Of course, there's nothing that's stopping Zeref from continuing his research outside the academy beyond maybe resources, but Zeref's teacher gets to be an unnecessarily asshole and continues to assert how HE WILL NEVER BE BROUGHT TO LIFE and Zeref goes crazy and his death magic finally activates and kills everyone present.

Apparently Anclesam the god we never heard before cursed Zeref and that's the reason for his odd death magic. It's a bit stupid, since Zeref's death magic has been built up for some time with some implications that Mavis was involved in it, but it's not even Zeref fucking with forbidden magic and getting transformed by it... he just got emotionally pissed off, and then this random god puts a curse on him.

That's actually kind of stupid, but still, backstory is backstory.

We get a repeat of Zeref's backstory and how he's immortal and his weird curse that depends on how much he values life, which I'm fine with since it fits into the narrative of Zeref just talking out loud. He creates demons to kill him, and we get a panel filled with the previous Zeref demons -- all these skulls and demonic faces and whatnot, and in the middle is little Franmalth the mushroom being happy as fuck. Whatever happened to Franmalth?

But the Etherious (made up of ether or magic itself) aren't able to kill Zeref, so Zeref created E.N.D., Etherious Natsu Dragneel, as his final work. Zeref then reveals that Natsu is his younger brother, or at least created from his younger brother's body. And he has created this final demon to kill him... plus, y'know, the whole resurrection thing going on.

Oh this is so going to end with a friendship speech.

You know it will.

But let's not look to the future, and kind of appreciate how unexpected this twist is how, well... suitable it is, I guess. We never had anything that contradicted this reveal before, and I'm surprised considering how badly Fairy Tail likes to handle revelations. Zeref promises more stories about Mavis and Igneel, but he wants to meet with another person.

Zeref meets this dude with long hair and dark skin in a cave and apparently they agreed to meet. Who could it be? Visually he resembled, oh, I dunno. Tempesta? Zancrow? But no, a two-page spread reveals him in full glory... and he is Acnologia.

See, Fairy Tail? And Bleach? This is the kind of stuff that deserves a two-page spread. An epic reveal. Not some freaking victory shout or just random scenery blowing up.

Zeref talks about how Acnologia hungers for destruction yet eats to little, and how unfathomable his motives are. Acnologia questions Zeref's own motives, and Zeref says about how he's been lost, and he's always wondered whether he should help the humans destroy Acnologia or vice versa, and has realized that he's destined to fight both humans and Acnologia... and tells Acnologia that he's been waiting for someone who can truly stand up to him in a fight, and Zeref intends to do just that.

Well, that wasn't like a SUPER awesome chapter, but I must admit this is the best Fairy Tail chapter I've read in a long time -- not that the competition were great, mind you. But it's a nice little backstory for Zeref with some nice revleations behind Natsu and Zeref, plus some buildup for the next arc -- Acnologia and Zeref are going to fight! And Acnologia looks cool. Yeah, let's just have these two dudes fight instead of following Natsu trek the countryside looking for, oh, I dunno, Bickslow or Lisanna or whoever.

Fairy Tail 435 Review: Well that was completely pointless.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 435: Victory Shout

I could do this in tandem with 436, but I feel like it deserves its own post. Because of how utterly stupid this entire arc has been. It shares Bleach's slow pacing, but without actually progressing the plot since it's just retreading the same ground as every filler arc out there. There's no real world-building, and when there is it's comes out of nowhere like giant war gods and whatnot. There's no sense of threat to the enemies since even when they're built up to be an old super-powerful enemy or worshippers of Zeref or a giant army or a titanic war god anyone from Fairy Tail can just one-shot them.

And this chapter? The first page is just mugshots of everyone reacting because we don't have enough of them. The next two pages are mugshots of the villains and generic mooks going all 'oh my god impossible so badass'. The fourth page is just a full page of Natsu being badass. Again, all the badassery is lost on me because of how utterly mind-numbingly predictable and formulaic this arc has been even moreso than anything.

Robot and Puppet Guy who are somehow still hanging around (didn't Natsu one-shot the robot already?) gets taken out quickly by Gajeel and Panther Lily who places everyone under arrest. Again, takes a long time with giant panels. Lucy meets Levy and that takes up a couple of pages of them just yapping their mouths off. We get two pages of 'comedy' as Natsu mistakes Gajeel for his twin brother, Warrod showing up for a visual gag, people disbelieving that Gajeel actually became a councilman, and a truly unnecessary page of Gajeel putting everyone 'under arrest' as a joke.

Then Gajeel threatens Gray with arrest, Erza whacks Gajeel, does an Erza-is-a-ditz thing, some random flashback panels and of course everything Gray does is forgiven even by Juvia who was mentally broken by the fact that they left her behind without telling her anything because reasons. We get a page of the Fairy Tail people being all 'yay we won we awesome' and a two-page spread of them in a victory shout because it's so necessary wow so dramatic it deserves two entire pages 

It's so unbelievably cheesy and cliched. It would be fine on chapter, like 20 or something but this is 435 and we should really be in big arcs and not this random bunch of weak villains.

We get a page of Sting and Rogue just arriving and just being terrified. Sorry, dudes. You guys are trapped in a manga where you have no hope of being badasses because Fairy Tail soaks up all the plot relevance.

We then get four pages where Frosch has somehow gone down and Natsu is all like "OH MY GOD GRAY IS GOING TO KILL FROSCH" which, y'know, didn't make a goddamn lick of sense in the first place. But of course Gray hugs Frosch and he's cute and everyone is all making jokes and shit because what is the point of foreshadowing? It's built up during the Grand Magic Games arc how Frosch's death a year later will kickstart something awful and vaguely dragon-related and this arc goes all 'Gray is evil and will kill Frosch and make Rogue become evil!' And while no one's going to buy that that's going to happen, we're just... handwaving it away. All the buildup (not that I want to see Frosch die cause he's like, kawaii and shit) and foreshadowing over several years real-time, to be handwaved away like the joke it is. 

Man, it's freaking stupid. If you're not going to do anything with it, why even include it? Why even include the fact about Gray killing Frosch early on in this arc? Why not just leave Frosch's death hanging open for something more relevant?

Why am I even expecting any good plotline management in Fairy Tail even?

Granted the next chapter is surprisingly good, but I don't really have, y'know, hope that anything out of Fairy Tail's going to be anything more than decent.

One Piece 787 Review: Wrong Focus

One Piece, Chapter 787: Four Minutes Before

You know, this isn't anywhere as bad as the Bleach chapter this week, but it's still kind of m'eh. Mostly because of the ADHD focus on all these random people and happenings and minor plot points that I couldn't really give a shit about. The main focus should have been Sabo versus Burgess and maybe Doflamingo just stringing everyone to death, but no. We jump around all the other random people so much and it's just distracting. Someone pointed out to me how One Piece arcs always have a time limit thing going on, and that's true... and by this point it's just kind of repetitive and, more annoyingly, freaking distracting.

Anyway the chapter starts off with people reacting to Sabo and the fact that oh my god Luffy's brother is second in command of the Revolutionaries. Sabo is trying to keep it cool like "oh, you guys killed Ace and really that's not your fault, he chose his own path" but his face is pretty visibly pissed off as fuck.

We get a rather unnecessary page of Burgess and Gatz just realizing that oh Sabo took the Mera Mera fruit and how Sabo was the 'Lucy' in the finals and did we really need that? Also Sabo and Luffy mispronounce Gatz's name and really, the whole Gatz thing in itself is a gigantic distraction that didn't really need to happen. Would've been fine if this arc hasn't already been bogged down with so many characters, but it is.

Burgess does this 'Galleon Lariat' that slices a building (and fire-form Sabo) in half. Sabo then rematerializes, hits Burgess in the side -- the art makes it look like he's attacking his armpit -- and does a combination of Ace's Fire Fist and his own Dragon Claw attack in the ridiculously long-winded "Flaming Dragon Claw Fist: Fire Flame Dragon King" which probably sounded a lot cooler in Japanese.

It's honestly a bit boring since as I mentioned in my Fairy Tail reviews punching people while your fist is on fire is boring. If Sabo didn't already been pre-established with having hard-finger powers and isn't combining skills, I would've similarly called foul. Burgess gets blown the fuck away and Sabo just zooms in to continue fighting, talking about how Blackbeard's crew is hunting Devil Fruits and shit.

And that's the last we see of these two dudes for this chapter because what the fuck One Piece. You tease us with such wonderful matchups -- Sanji vs Doflamingo, Sabo vs Fujitora, Zoro vs Fujitora, Sabo vs Burgess -- and only show us a tiny glimpse of those fights. Clearly seeing Sabo and Burgess fight needs to take a backseat to the umpteenth time of showing us that the random minor characters from the Colloseum can fight Doflamingo's mooks.

We get Gatz and Luffy talking about Sabo for a page -- again, didn't really need to happen -- and then a pretty awesome page of all the gladiators being left bloodied and presumably dead with the city being transformed into some kind of string-tendril monster while Doflamingo just walks through the bloodstained streets all calm and shit. Yeah, he's hurt, but he's pissed off as hell.

The next page has the random civilians -- the one running away from the Central Street battles and the ones running away from the Birdcge -- all running into each other and being all 'fuck where do we run'. Again, not the focus we want. We have Zoro Busoshoku Haki-ing his swords and trying to push the Birdcage back and calling the samurai goddamn pussies for not helping out. Then we have Franky and the little Tontatta pushing the Seastone factory to block the Birdcage elsewhere. Interesting but did we really need these plot threads? It's overcrowding the more interesting shit.

The next page is the random Doflamingo mooks shooting random civilians. So important. And the next page is a two-page splash of Bartolomeo, Don Chinjao, Kyros and the rest of the gladiators we care about (the ones we don't have been turned into Doflamingo fodder) beating the fuck out of the random mooks. Apparently Mancherie has healed the badly wounded ones like Hajrudin and Dagama. Beyond me playing 'how many minor characters I can name', which is always fun, none of this needed to happen.

The last two-page spread is Doflamingo pushing the Birdcage even faster to draw out Luffy and everyone reacting to it -- including Law, all ominous and shit, and Fujitora with blinking things above him whatever that is. We see that the Birdcage will close in 3 minutes, while Luffy needs 4 minutes to recharge.

I honestly cannot give a fuck about the whole oh-no-Birdcage-will-kill-everyone thing. It's a pretty awesome concept when it first started out, but now we spend so much time with Birdcage that it's pretty annoying. Why can't the four minutes time while Luffy recharges be spent with just seeing Burgess and Sabo fight, while Zoro and the rest blocking the birdcage just take up a couple of pages as a montage?

I mean, Gear Fourth and whatnot was really cool, but other than that awesome page of Doflamingo murdering everyone and Sabo doing that fire dragon claw thing on Burgess this chapter really feels like filler.

Agents of SHIELD S2E18 Review: Let Everyone Fight

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 18: The Frenemy of My Enemy

Everyone has their own agenda and it comes to a head in this episode! Definitely a lot more elegantly done than the three-way between SHIELD, Whitehall and Cal earlier in this season. It’s a relatively solid episode, with every party getting some decent screentime before everything comes to a head in that apartment where Skye, Lincoln, Cal, Deathlok, Coulson, Ward, Hunter, 33 and Bakshi throw down and fight each other with their own agendas while Real-SHIELD watches.

A good chunk of the episode, those dealing with the Inhumans plot, has Skye convincing Jiaying and Gordon to let her bring Cal to their ‘home’ and try to get him to mellow out to the idea of being left out of the Inhuman society. It’s clear that Skye has grown somewhat attached to Cal – he is trying to be a good father, as fucked up as his mind is – and at the very least she wants to stop Cal from going all Hulk in a populated area. There are some great (and really fun) scenes of Cal just happy trying to bond with his daughter, and the rather crushed look on his face when Skye basically tells him they need to move on science fairs and ice cream stands and whatnot… and the angry-and-disappointed look when he realizes that the Inhumans have been wanting to dump him like a stray dog. Skye, obviously, not as much as Jiaying and the others, but poor Cal. Skye also gets some nice scenes as she tries to hang out with Cal and actually seems to enjoy herself somewhat, and truly does look heartbroken when Lincoln shows up and Cal looks pissed off.

There’s also a nice little nod to Skye’s comic-book counterpart, Daisy Johnson (a.k.a. Quake), when Skye sees Cal’s original name: Calvin Johnson. Skye says her original birth name, Daisy Johnson, out loud and seems to like it, while Cal notes he changed his last name to something more sinister when he’s on the run. Comic book readers know it’s a sly nod to Cal’s comic book counterpart, Calvin Zabo.

We also get a short scene of Jiaying not really buying into the whole ‘clairvoyant’ thing with Raina, considering such an ability was unheard of before, but Gordon points out that his ability was the first of his kind too. Jiaying also doesn’t particularly care what happens if Cal goes all Mr. Hyde in a populated area, because they’re Inhumans and they only care about Inhumans. Professor X, these people aren’t.

Meanwhile, Coulson, Hunter and Deathlok have rendezvoused with Fitz, and we get some vague skipping around answers when Fitz asks Deathlok where his upgrades come from. Coulson you sly bastard! Coulson’s plan to locate Skye and bring down Hydra involves him kind of trying to recruit Ward, since Ward knows Hydra. And it’s kind of a risky gamble – Hydra is tracking down metahumans, one of which is Gordon the teleporter, who Coulson knew had abducted Skye, so why not bring down Hydra? There’s some nice tie-ins with Age of Ultron as well. We’ve known Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker is involved as this background mastermind for Hydra for quite some time, and we know he’s gathering metahumans (the Maximoff twins, for one) and dr List, his majordomo, does make an appearance in this episode as a major villain. And he’s apparently been tracking Gordon’s teleportation for quite some time.

List showed up before on a prior Agents of SHIELD before, and while he doesn’t really do much but be a generic evil superior officer, I do like the little expansion of roles for List and by extension Strucker, considering the rather… pitiful appearance they had in Age of Ultron. I also like how they’ve actually been targeting Inhumans while hunting metahumans, as shown by them experimenting on Ethan, the poor Inhuman boy we saw a couple episodes back going camping. Well, so much for the Inhuman society being a safe haven!

But first, Ward. Ward is all lovey-dovey with 33 now, and actually shows up to the meeting when they corner and take 33 hostage. Do like how royally pissed off Fitz is at Ward, and I do like how Coulson manages to win Ward over by putting him through Tahiti to wipe his memories clean… and Ward pretending to accept just to get SHIELD off his ass. Ward’s plan is to use Sunil Bakshi, who they brainwashed, to pretend to hook up with dr List and get them the information they need. Meanwhile Bakshi seems to be improvising and shows Deathlok as a ‘gift’, causing a bit of a tense situation between Coulson’s people and Ward’s people. Of course by the end of this episode Bakshi actually reveals himself to be actually a traitor, so good for Bakshi!

Ward himself is kind of… disappointing, really. He falls in line relatively quickly and while he definitely has a thing or two up his sleeve, he seems way too cooperative with Coulson to be true, especially at the end where he seems to have gone to being a full ally. There must be something more going on with the sick monster that is Grant Ward, and I want to see that explored. 33, or Kara, as she wants to be called now, really wants to leave all her lives behind and just be Kara. She’s been in contact with her mother, which is nice, and based on some lines between her and Ward, they kind of seem to just want to settle down. 33 and Hunter working together and covering each other’s back during the firefight against Hydra is kind of nice, too, showing that whatever 33 has became, she’s not dishonourable.

Deathlok asking 33 whether she has more of those face-changing stuff is hilarious. Deathlok himself is the subject of some nice little deadpan jokes about him being a SHIELD agent… with rockets in his arm.

Simmons, meanwhile, is pissed about May bringing Bobbi into the fold, and especially when the crime of taking the Toolbox is pinned on Fitz. May herself is kind of shaping up to be the middle ground between Coulson and RealSHIELD, which is fine. She does have her reasons to distrust Coulson, especially since Theta Protocol seems to be draining a shit-ton of resources. On the other hand, Bobbi is starting to doubt RealSHIELD’s priorities considering they’re hunting for the otherwise-harmless Coulson while Hydra is allowed to run rampant. Mack is still being a bit of a dick, though not as much as previous episodes.

And when Hydra attacks the building, hunting for Gordon, I do like just how confused and disjointed everyone is. Lincoln fights Deathlok because they don’t know each other – and poor Deathlok just having no idea how to fight someone who shoots electricity out of his hands. Cal just wants to have a day with his daughter and gets pissed off and starts beating the ever loving hell out of Hydra agents. Coulson and Ward teaming up and just beating up Hydra people. And Bakshi? Throwing a grenade at Deathlok and Lincoln after they tire each other out. Hydra definitely won, getting not only a valuable member back in Bakshi, but also capturing two metahumans.

Gordon warps Skye (and Cal, accidentally) out of the whole conflict, while Coulson accidentally gets caught on camera hanging out with Ward by Real-SHIELD hacking into Deathlok’s eye. Oops, there goes May’s loyalty! It’s interesting and all sorts of fun situations that the characters are brought into, and while this episode is kind of slow-paced in the beginning, everything suddenly goes straight to hell in the last ten minutes or so. It’s definitely an episode to get our adrenaline pumped for the next episode, and with season two reaching its finale, well… I’ve really been liking season two a lot, you know? It’s got a rather terrible start, but these past few episodes had been really good. Hopefully the next few episodes don’t lose the momentum, and Age of Ultron’s premiere in between some of the episodes would be handled as well as Winter Soldier’s debut in the middle of season one.

Toriko 323 Review: Fucking Answers!

Toriko, Chapter 323: The Truth of the Nitro

Kaka explains that Earth has been constantly being cooked ever since the Gourmet Cells arrived on the planet several million years ago. I mean, we know that the Gourmet Cells have expanded and, like, changed the Earth since Coco realized it back before the timeskip, but now Kaka explains stuff with more clarity. And apparently things like ice ages, volcanic eruptions and the Gourmet Solar Eclipse are just methods to bring out the Earth's full flavour. Coco then remembers the energy he saw back when he was fighting with Grinpatch underground, and notes that that is the 'good taste' of the world itself, being amplified by the Gourmet Cells.

Kaka estimates that the planet is still expanding because of the Gourmet Cells, being 659 times the size of its original area, and some of the cooks compare it to yeast fermenting bread. And Kaka explains that every few hundred years, part of the 'good taste of the Earth' ferments and comes out into the surface, becoming one of the Eight Ingredients in Acacia's full course... or the full course of the world.

Toriko asks who has been cooking the world for so long, and Kaka explains that it's the Blue Nitro, the Gourmet Nobles, and their slaves, the Red Nitro. Toriko is surprised that the Nitro have existed that long, and Match asks a question we've all been itching to ask. What the fuck is a Nitro? Kaka explains that the Nitro are 'Monster Trolls' born out of gourmet cells, and Nitro, well... it's a play on Japanese words. 'Ni' as in two, and 'tro' as in troll. Kaka says that Nitro either means two kinds of trolls, or trolls with two legs. And the Nitro are monsters born out of appetite.

Toriko then asks what we're all thinking after reading that page of explanation... are the Nitro similar to the gourmet demons within Toriko and the others? Yes, Kaka says, despite Toriko and company calling them demons or oni. So the Nitro are basically the appetite demons. Toriko asks if the monsters within everyone are divided into two types, red and blue... but Kaka doesn't know. Nor does she know if there are only two types of Nitro. Well, considering at least Toriko has two sides to his Appetite Demon and arguably Sani does too, I'd say it's a safe guess for now.

Livebearer asks if the only reason the Nitro are cooking the world is to eat it... and Kaka mentions that there is another reason. She and the other members of the Three Chefs -- Chichi and Jiji -- all betrayed the Blue Nitro because of that reason. Chichi, you ditz, you're a freaking rebel. Jiji looks weird and old and shit and we never saw him before. Of course, Kaka doesn't explain the actual goal of the Blue Nitro, and opens with a backstory and since it's a manga she gets interrupted before telling us the main information. But we do get a bit of the backstory, which is interesting.... and Acacia looks sinister and shit.

Anyway, the one that brought the Blue Nitro's goal to the surface was Acacia, and we get confrimation that each Blue Nitro has a codename that is the same with the ingredient they're in charge of. And we know that Acacia met up with Pair, a.k.a. the Nitro that Toriko met waaaay back when in the sky gardens. We get a reiteration of how the previous Monkey King had drank all the Pair that gushed out of the earth, and how Pair-the-Nitro, in an attempt to obtain Pair-the-ingredient, had failed to eat another beat of equivalent level. The dying Pair had a chance meeting with Acacia, himself wounded by a Sandoriko flower. They attacked each other, and that's how they obtained Pair-the-ingredient. Well, that backstory about how previously they needed to eat each other gets to become a factor sooner than I thought.

But Pair the Nitro was made aware of the Gourmet Cell Demon lurking within Acacia's body when he ate part of him. Kaka talks a bit about how the Nitro don't know where they come from beyond the fact that they are vessels for Gourmet Cells, how the appetite trolls or demons inhabit 'vehicles' (either Nitro or human) to eat and eat delicious ingredients, and if their vehicle or host dies, the appetite trolls will become food spirits and wait for a time to revive. And the Blue Nitro's main goal? To revive the monster within Acacia, and they've been readying delicious ingredients for that purpose. Why revive the monter within Acacia?

We don't know, because Kaka, despite being a food spirit, gets stabbed straight through the chest... by this mysterious thing with long flowing white hair and scary eyes and sharp teeth. I thought for a moment that she is Joa's demon form, but no. Acacia, perhaps? But mystery person speaks about how the Food Spirit has spoken too much, and just kind of disappears since they can't be touched. Mystery Person does welcome them to the next area to obtain Acacia's fish dish, "Another", at the Kitchen of Food Spirits. Well, I guess we're setting off for another area to rescue an ally stabbed through the chest. Deja vu, anyone? Also I'm guessing this is the 'place where only spirits can enter' that was foreshadowed by Mappy way back before.

All the revelations are pretty satisfying this time around, though. And of course I stil have lots of questions, but finally we get some actual answers and it feels good. Definitely was not expecting answers regarding the Blue Nitro and appetite demons and whatnot, but damn.

One Piece 786 Review: Luffy Falls, Sabo fights Burgress

One Piece, Chapter 786: Gatz

Well, this chapter was pretty good. I'm not sure I like using even more minor characters to kind of lengthen out the fight instead of bringing in pre-established ones like Don Chinjao and Hajrudin and the others, but it seems that they're not really going to be worth a damn thing. But I do like how the climax played out. Luffy falls, temporarily at least, so it isn't a too-easy victory for him and from the looks of it Luffy may not be the one to deal the final blow to the enemy in this arc, which is definitely a welcomebreath especially since I wanted Law to be the one to do it. And we finally bring in Sabo and Jesus Burgress, two characters who have kind of been just a hanging knife waiting to do something.

We start off with people reacting to the bouncing Luffy having beaten Doflamingo, apparently, and just cheering. Some people have weird misconceptions that Luffy is some giant or whatever, which is kind of funny. We get Viola reporting it to King Riku (of course), but both Luffy and Law realizes that Birdcage hasn't disappeared, which is what everyone thought would happen. Luffy Geppo's up to where Doflamingo is and is about to launch yet another attack... but suddenly he just falls out, mid-flight, because Gear Fourth has hit its time limit. Luffy falls to the ground, exhausted...

And we cut to Jesus Burgress! He just hops down all happy and shit, planning to kill the weakened Luffy and steal his Gomu Gomu no Mi. Apparently he's just been waiting in the sidelines to steal Devil Fruits, the bastard. Burgress jumps down from the highest levels and just lands on the ground near Luffy. Random citizens all get scared and shit and it seems like we're going to have Burgress fight a weakened Luffy... when the giant moutain suddenly cracks apart in an awesome two-page spread because Doflamingo is still alive. Well, so much for Gear Fourth! It was awesome, but Doflamingo isn't taken out that easily. Did... not expect Doflamingo to stil be in fighting shape, honestly.

I mean, I kind of thought Luffy and the rest of the good guys will have to deal with Burgress, CP-0 and/or Fujitora after beating Doflamingo, but Doflamingo is still in the game. Luffy keeps falling while Doflamingo is just smirking... and then this random dude, Gatz, the MC during the colloseum fight, shows up and helps Luffy up and says some generic inspiring things. Really... would be more of an emotional 'yeaaah' moment if it was one of the more prominent people we actually know about who he helped out, but whatever. Luffy wants ten minutes so he can recover his Haki and launch one final attack.

Doflamingo floats down, while Gatz and the gathered gladiators all charge Doflamingo, wanting to buy ten minutes. Spoiler alert? They'll probably fail until actual named characters show up. I mean, some of these guys are named (the dude with a leopard hoodie is definitely named, I remember him being taken out in the arena), but they're the ones that, like, get a couple of panels before the actual characters like Cavendish or Chinjao or Bartolomeo beat them up. Basically everyone who hasn't already joined up with Luffy now does. And as they charge Doflamingo, well, Jesus Burgress, giant of a man that he is, charges through a building and gets ready to stab Luffy with a knife... and gets kicked in the face by Sabo.

Now hopefully Sabo's fight with Burgress is a lot more climatic than his 'let's fight for three pages and get resolved by talking' fight against Fujitora. This chapter is more of a get-from-point-A-to-point-B chapter, but having Doflamingo still alive and having Sabo and Jesus Burgress participate in the finale is certainly awesome. All these parties with their own agendas clashing and shit... just a shame that the guys holding Doflamingo back isn't, like, actual people. Would rather have Zoro or Franky or Bartolomeo or some of the other actual characters instead of a bunch of generics be the one that fight Doflamingo.

I guess Luffy's still going to deal the finishing blow to Doflamingo after this 'ten minutes' thing. Maybe with a Gear Fifth? He seemed pretty sure that his next attack can one-shot Doflamingo. Or maybe with an awakened devil fruit ability?

Agents of SHIELD S2E17 Review: The Origin of May

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 17: Melinda

I’ve made it clear in my capsule review that I really liked this episode. Agents of SHIELD has been widely criticized because of its way-too-many plot threads and poor handling of them… and it’s definitely not an unfounded criticism. But as I mentioned before, sometimes all the plot threads just come along together nicely and creates a pretty focused episode like this one. Now whether this quality will stick for future episodes is a different matter entirely, but for now it’s a great episode.

Episode 17 puts the spotlight back on Melinda May, who I’ve been complaining about being left out of the spotlight throughout season two. And not only does it deliver a pretty awesome backstory about May, it also somehow ties in to the current situation regarding the Inhumans (and Skye’s little situation with her mother) as well as the whole Real SHIELD internal civil war. Plus May’s loyalties and her being angry that Coulson left her out of the loop regarding this mysterious Theta Protocol. Now whether Theta Protocol is going to be explained well is not this episode’s fault, but for the moment it’s just this wonderful little episode telling the story of May both in the past and present. All these plot threads clicking together and working together like a smooth machine? A rare sight in TV shows overburdened with multiple plot lines, and especially in Agents of SHIELD itself.

For an episode that’s for the most part just talking and flashbacks, it sure works in dividing the characters even further, developing bonds between characters and just… telling stories about these characters. We get to see Skye bond with her mother, and the revelation and the little emotional scene worked really well. Not that this emotional moment sacrifices progress, of course – we see Skye training to control her powers, first by causing an avalanche at a hopefully unpopulated mountain, and later finer control by trying to vibrate those wine glasses.

And I do like just how much Jiaying wants to hug Skye and go ‘I’m your mommy’ but tries to hold back right up until the moment when she can’t hold back any longer. Jiaying just breaking down and apologizing for moving on and not trying harder to find her daughter? Man, this episode really loves tugging at our heartstrings. Skye’s ranting about family problems is also well done, as is the final scene when Jiaying finally convinces Skye to have one dinner with Cal. And that look on Cal’s face when he tells Skye this whole story about her birth – and it’s a nice moment since Skye and Jiaying are playing along with it even though Skye already heard the story before. Cal, despite all his dickery and villainy before, really wants to desperately have his family back and you can’t really help but feel some sympathy for him.

Of course Gordon being a gigantic douchebag to the poor fellow helps to give him some sympathy.  

But overall, all the scenes with Skye do hit all the right emotional buttons and kudos to the show for that. I’m really into Skye’s character now after being iffy about her being the Mary Sue of the team for a good part of season one, but so far she’s been really good.

Also it’s kind of great to tie in the whole ‘Skye’s family has a dinner’ thing with Raina. She’s been ranting throughout this episode and the previous about seeing dreams about her being tormented while Skye gets to have a dinner with her family. Gordon makes it clear that her physical transformation is not her Inhuman ability – one Inhuman only gets one, which ties into the flashback, incidentally – and by the end of this episode, Lincoln realizes that Raina’s power is to see into the future… a clairvoyant, if you will, which is fucking ironic considering the events of the first season.

Of course, though, the main focus of this episode is May and not Skye. Though it ties in really well with Jiaying not being able to reveal that Skye is her daughter considering a mother-daughter Inhuman team has caused a gigantic incident… an incident that, as it turns out, involves May and her obtaining the ‘Cavalry’ nickname. And the whole Cavalry incident has been teased all throughout the first season as this big badass thing that May did, and now that we see it in clarity it’s brutal. There’s also a stark contrast between May at the beginning of the flashback and at the end, where she’s just this cheerful married woman in the beginning. She’s planning on having a baby with her loving husband, she’s borrowing walkmen from other agents, laughing and generally being, well, not a robot. It’s a nice, stark contrast to the May of the present who, well, is a robot. I also like how Bahrain was mentioned a couple episodes ago by May’s husband and the previous episode by Gonzalez, showing that this episode is at least planned for a while.

Anyway, while on the hunt for this metahuman called Eva Belyakov (who was established early on to have super-strength, cluing in to the fact that the whole mental madness thing isn’t her fault). Coulson and May’s attempts to defuse the metahuman situation, of course, went south as Eva Belyakov apparently recruits a small army of local thugs and takes several people – including an agent and a little girl – hostage. A small SHIELD army that went in also basically disappears like a goddamn horror show, and May, of course, has to go in alone without backup thanks to red tape.

And after May broke into the facility that ate all the other agents, she quickly discovers that they’ve been mind-controlled or zombiefied or what-have-you, going all ‘we want your rage’ or some shit like that. It’s a bit surreal, and May fighting Eva Belyakov with her super strength and her chandelier flail… only to discover that it’s the little girl, Katya Belyakov, who is the real threat, able to brainwash and leech emotions off anyone she touches. And Katya? Poor Katya apparently went through the Terrigenesis mist before she was ready, and basically lost her mind. She alternates between being pretty fucking scary and just being confused, and she was the one responsible for killing all the ‘hostiles’ simply at a whim. Kudos to the child actress who played Katya, you really worked on looking fucking terrifying. The moments leading up to May mercykilling Katya is tense and emotionally charged, and the scenes of May just crying after being forced to kill Katya and everyone else misinterpreting the fact that May just rescued all the SHIELD agents present by killing all the threats? Man, that’s tragic. And we see her basically transformed into a paper-stamping shell that we see her in early in Agents of SHIELD’s pilot. May, why you make all the feels?

There are some little nice nods to things we know previously in the story. May really hates her hand being touched after the events of Bahrain (even by her own husband), which caused Coulson to know Agent 33 was not May back when she first impersonated her. May wanting a child before might also explain why she’s so protective of Skye.

Also like the little continuity nod of Coulson introducing himself as part of the Strategic Homeland blah blah thing because this happened before the first Iron Man movie. And Coulson describing the Avengers Initiative as ‘gathering Earth’s mightiest, to see if they can be heroes’.

It’s pretty damned effective storytelling, and makes it relatively clear that while they might not have recognized the Inhumans, they’ve been around since always. Who knows, maybe some of the unexplained metahumans – Scorch or Blackout or whoever else didn’t get a backstory – are Inhumans as well?

In the present day, Simmons reveals her plan to May and is kind of disappointed that May has betrayed their little Team Coulson by bringing it to Bobbi… because May herself has grown suspicious of Coulson keeping a secret from her. Namely, this mysterious Theta Protocol (which we heard about a jack total of once when Coulson told one of the Koenigs about it), which is draining a shit-ton of resources and has been going for quite some time. And, well, being kept a secret from May. No doubt Coulson isn’t, y’know, evil, but it’s going to be interesting to see just why Coulson kept this a secret from his trusted confidant and just how this will unfold in regards to May. She seems to be of the point of view of ‘uncover it, see Coulson’s reasoning’ though she does seem relatively pissed that Coulson left her out of the loop. It does make Real SHIELD somewhat more sympathetic because Coulson was really hiding that big of a secret, though it still doesn’t excuse Gonzalez’s behaviour.

Fitz, meanwhile, manages to contact Hunter and Coulson by the end of the episode, wanting to hang out with them and give them the Toolbox and stuff, with Hunter promising some hijinks by telling Fitz to escape with the aid of some hand dryers or whatever.

But overall the May stuff was great, the Skye stuff was great, all plotlines linking together was great… this may be my favourite Agents of SHIELD episode for a long, long time.

The Flash S1E19 Review: Gearing up for the finale

The Flash, Season 1, Episode 19: Who is Harrison Wells?

It’s a pretty awesome episode as we gear up for Flash’s season finale. I can’t lie, Flash’s season finale has me more hyped up than Age of Ultron, or the finales of either Arrow or Agents of SHIELD. And this one is awesome! It’s primarily a villain-of-the-week episode starring DC Mystique – I mean Everyman – and it’s a bit of a riot as our heroes have to deal with someone who can pretend to be members of the main cast, but we’ll talk about that in a bit. Last episode was about bringing Cisco and Caitlin on the same page regarding Harrison Wells, but this episode was more about gaining their trust – especially Caitlin’s – regarding Barry’s suspicions of Harrison Wells. And having an enemy that can masquerade into anyone in plain sight as the villain of the week? There’s some thematic appropriateness there.

And while Everyman doesn’t really get much development as a character (he robs banks!) he does manage to pose enough of a threat to the cast by impersonating them, and framing Eddie for the murder of two policemen. And I do like how Everyman pretended to be a little girl in that scene when Iris and Caitlin and managed to escape by pretending to be a kidnapped girl. That was some nice usage of abilities there. We get to see some nice ramifications of the law getting confused by all these fancy metahuman powers, and it’s always fun to see Team Flash trying to figure out what Everyman’s power is and its limits – will he copy Barry’s speed when he touches him? All that stuff. And it’s absolutely hilarious when Everyman copies Barry Allen and impersonates him and interacts with Caitlin. Everyman misreading the situation and kissing Caitlin? Bloody freaking hilarious. (Of course, Caitlin does reciprocate that second kiss…) I am also a fan of Barry and Eddie making fun of Everyman’s real name – Hannibal Bates. No wonder the kid turned out evil!

Of course Everyman doesn’t get that much of a personality by the end and it appears that he’s actually forgotten who his original identity was. Kind of creepy. And, naturally, it fits thematically with Eobard Thawne adopting the face and identity of Harrison Wells. How much of the kindly Harrison Wells we know is an act, and how much of it is really Eobard Thawne’s personality showing? It’s one of those rare times that a villain of the week fits with the overreaching theme of the episode instead of just being ‘oh look it’s this dude from the comics’ like the Bug-Eyed Bandit or Deathbolt or Murmur.

(Kind of a bit convenient that Everyman was a leftie, though, isn’t it?)

This episode also co-starts Quentin Lance and Laurel Lance from the Arrow show. Not quite sure when in the Arrow timeline this plays out beyond, say, episode 19, maybe? I’m not quite caught up on Arrow just yet. But they are great guest stars, and again I do like how Quentin and Laurel appearing in this show doesn’t really have that much ramifications on Arrow’s show beyond Laurel getting some new equipment and Quentin getting a bit of an epiphany. There isn’t a plot thread that gets resolved in the Flash and leaves people only watching Arrow hanging or anything like that.

Anyway, Laurel only shows up to talk to Cisco, and there’s a bit of Cisco fanboying over the fact that he’s talking to the Black Canary (yep, they’re calling her that on-screen now, not sure if they did so before). Laurel gets Cisco to build a ‘Canary Cry’ weapon, which was what everyone thought was going to happen sooner or later – Black Canary in the comics had the ability to create a sonic scream from her vocal chords. And Cisco did have experience with sonics, what with the encounter with Pied Piper a while back. So Cisco creates this little necklace he actually calls the Canary Cry so Laurel can actually pack some punch. Nice way to intro that ‘power’, and I did like the fact that Cisco’s payment was a photograph with her in costume.

Joe and Quentin working together to investigate a case actually makes thematic sense within this episode, since Joe has to consult with Quentin to dig up bodies and whatnot, and they do get a little bit about daughters and secrets. Quentin has a rift because his daughter kept a secret from him, while Joe is keeping a secret from his daughter. There’s a nice sense of irony that Quentin might be considering to actually give in and make up with Laurel because Joe managed to get through to him… and Joe? Joe doesn’t try to make it up to Iris despite seeing just how keeping secrets can ruin a father-daughter relationship. Not in this episode, anyway.

Oh, also, Joe and Cisco find the real Harrison Wells’ body buried not far away from the site of the car crash. I understand Eobard Thawne was depowered and he didn’t really have much time several years back when the accident happened, but couldn’t he have zoomed in, relocated the body somewhere in the twenty years between the accident and the present day? That’s weird.

Eddie gets a fair amount of screentime here too, notably the moment when he and Barry are just hanging out being policeman and just being awkward while investigating Everyman’s “grandmother”. I don’t really care that much about him being passive-aggressive with Iris and vice versa, but I do like how cool and collected he is when he gets imprisoned, how he’s level-headed enough to tell Barry to clear his name properly (and he did, by catching Everyman doing his shit on camera) and realize that Barry might be projecting his daddy-in-jail issues. Also I do like the ‘let me tell the truth… partly, anyway’ moment where Eddie tells Iris that he’s working with the Flash. Not quite the whole truth… but the truth. I imagine Iris will explode at everyone when the real truth gets revealed.

I do like how Caitlin didn’t just trust Barry straight from the get-go. Cisco had been recruited to helping Joe investigate the death of Nora Allen several times, and he had that weird timey-wimey vision to boot. Caitlin? Unlike that doctor from last episode, she didn’t know Harrison Wells from before. Eobard-Harrison is the only Harrison Wells she knows, and he had been a mentor, a father-figure, she knew Wells before she knew Barry and someone who helped her get Ronnie back. Granted by the end of the episode she gets damning evidence, but I do like her moments of doubt throughout this episode

Also, at the end of the episode, the big stinger scene is Team Barry finding Eobard-Wells’ room, complete with Reverse-Flash costume and that news report about Flash and the Crisis! That was unexpected of them to run across the room so abruptly… I expected them to do so next episode, or as part of an episode’s major plot. Fun! Can’t wait to see the next episode. And the next. All the way up to the finale.

Arrow S3E20 Review: Lazarus Pit Fuck Yeah

Arrow, Season 3, Episode 20: The Fallen

Okay, that was a weird episode. Some good, some bad. Let’s talk about the bad first and just how weirdly convoluted season three’s arc has been. Let’s not touch the whole Malcolm Merlyn drugging Thea to get her to kill Sara to manipulate Oliver to fight Ra’s to remove both parties from being a thorn in his side, because if Malcolm’s endgame is to live in peace with Thea, that’s just monumentally stupid. But just how crazily coincidental that Ra’s Al Ghul knows just how to stab Thea Queen so that it’s fatal (we see her actually flatlining) but enough so that when brought to the hospital (he wouldn’t have any idea when Oliver would get there) she survives… but is in a coma so Oliver will have to seek the help of the Lazarus Pit? Ra’s has been kind of awesome in forcing Oliver Queen to take his place as the new Demon’s Head, by forcing his hand after engineering Captain Lance’s giant manhunt and the subsequent destruction of Arrow’s reputation in Starling City, but this is just kind of convoluted and coincidental.

Also while I do adore the comic-book usage of the Lazarus Pit and Thea Queen jumping out like a demon possessed, I would’ve liked for Thea to either be psychotic for a while and not… so specifically amnesiac to forget about Oliver but only until the end of the episode. What the hell was up with that? That portion is just weird, especially since Thea regains all her memory by the end. What was all the talk with ‘she’ll be a changed person’? Granted I would hate for amnesia to be a complication especially after all of Thea’s growth throughout this season, but this just seems unnecessary.

The Lazarus Pit being actually used in a live-action setting just makes me happy, though.

It’s a good thing we went from Thea being in a coma (not actually dead, mind you) straight to her resurrection and not beating around the bush about it. We get some really effective emotional punches in the gut courtesy of Malcolm Merlyn and Oliver Queen, and then we go straight to Nanda Parbat to dip Thea in the Lazarus Pit in exchange for Oliver finally joining the League of Assassins.

Malcolm Merlyn joins Team Arrow in their little run into Nanda Parbat, and is kind of just taking orders first from Oliver and later from Felicity when she forces him to help find a way out of Nanda Parbat. Maseo also gets a nice scene with Diggle, and Maseo confirms that -gasp- Akio is dead. It is a really effective counter to Diggle’s “you’re a coward you should’ve joined the good guys” speech because, no, John Diggle, new parent, does not understand how the death of a child can affect a person. Maseo of course shows up to help Team Arrow escape in the end, but it’s kind of naught since Oliver decides to stay anyway.

Maseo offers his life to Ra’s Al Ghul who is pissed that three of his men were killed, but the fact that Maseo (or ‘Saraab’) is willing to offer his life as penance convinces Ra’s that the mistake was because of ‘Maseo’ and not ‘Saraab’. And I think a theme going forwards with Oliver being part of the League of Assassins is the separation of identities between ‘Oliver Queen’ and ‘the Arrow’, or as Ra’s calls him, Al Sah-him. Which is actually a clever way of having Oliver eventually adopt ‘Green Arrow’ as opposed to just the Arrow.

Also, Felicity finally breaks up with Ray Palmer kind of randomly – it’s kind of poorly handled and rather sudden in my opinion. And Felicity gets into a speech with Ra’s Al Ghul of all people who tells a story about how he was forced to leave his wife and two children without saying goodbye when he ascended into the title a hundred years ago, and how the opportunity he’s given Oliver to say goodbye to his family and loved ones is a lot better than the ones he didn’t get. It’s a surprising little backstory we get to this version of Ra’s Al Ghul, who I’m liking more and more other than his weird chessmastery.

He’s apparently fathered a son and a daughter with his wife prior to becoming Ra’s Al Ghul. It may be a reference to Talia Al Ghul, but considering the fact that Ra’s left them behind and they most likely didn’t take dips in the Lazarus Pit, I don’t think it’s the case. Or, well, Ra’s may have fabricated the whole sob story just to make his machinations feel like a mercy gesture to Felicity and have her come to terms with it and not pressure Oliver too much.

That said, while I’ve always disliked the whole ‘Ra’s Al Ghul is immortal because it’s a name passed down through several powerful men’, I do like that Arrow at the very least keeps the whole Lazarus Pit thing and he gets to live for a hundred years, so he is the Ra’s Al Ghul, even if having precursors is necessary to make sense of the ‘Ra’s wants a heir’ thing.

Felicity, of course, ends up having a sex scene with Oliver – the first time they do the deed on-screen, if I’m not mistaken. Though while it’s a nice little romantic scene, whatever is in that strange drink they found in Ra’s Al Ghul’s room, it must’ve addled their brains a bit. Really, Felicity, your big plan is to drug one of your strongest fighters and then expect Diggle and Malcolm to think up of a plan to get them out of the fortress, carrying one unconscious man and one amnesiac girl? Whatever the case, Oliver stops them from bringing them away, gets a sad goodbye scene and dons the kickass League outfit.

It really would’ve had more impact if the second half of this episode has been about exploring Oliver’s goodbyes instead of the completely unnecessary ‘let’s kidnap Oliver and escape with the jet’ sideplot. There’s just been some odd pacing in this episode, with the Felicity romance being jerked this way and that, Thea being reduced to a plot device after having a big character presence previously and some really odd plotting from Ra’s part. But we finally got Oliver into the black suit, so hopefully we get to see some interesting stuff from it.

Also Oliver gets branded with the three-pronged arrow that the show’s arrow symbol has evolved into this season, which is nice in a meta sense.

Oh, and flashback plot. Right. It’s just a couple of great action scenes as Oliver, Maseo and Tatsu attack Shrieve’s men. Nice to see Tatsu adopt the whole ‘Katana’ thing and stabbing people left and right, though the ‘if you don’t help other people you’re just a shell’ thing being repeated for Maseo in the flashabck and present is kind of on-the-nose. Team Oliver steals the vaccine, though I’m not sure if they got it to Akio in time. At the end of the episode, the Alpha-Omega virus canister gets smashed and that’s a big cliffhanger. It’s sorta interesting and fun to watch, though again the whole Hong Kong plot is just a big distraction and would’ve worked a lot better as a two-parter or three-parter of itself.

Eh, overall it's a bit of a toss-up as an episode. I’m just happy to see the Lazarus Pit used at all.