Fairy Tail 458 Review: Marginally Less Stupid

Fairy Tail, Chapter 458: Morning Star

Okay, so they sorta expanded on Erza taking out Ajeel instead of just 'she gets a random power up from nowhere and slashes the enemy once in a generic Anime Swordsman Character pose'. I mean, Ajeel still gets beat like that, but there's at least some logic going on instead of Erza just pulling friendship powerups up her ass.

Erza fights Ajeel with a water sword -- which IMO is a gigantic missed opportunity to have Juvia, the woman who is made up of water, to show up and help out -- to harden Ajeel's sand, and uses some wind sword to scatter the sand. It's still kinda bullshitty, but since Erza is winning using actual proper magical weapons instead of just friendship powerups, it's marginally better, I guess. 

We get a pointlessly protracted sequence of every single person reacting to Ajeel's Sand World technique, which definitely went on three pages longer than it should. Ajeel does some weird sand tornado thing, chokes Erza and confirms that his magic can suck out other people's magic (which I honestly don't care about, really). Ajeel has a generic 'call me a god' speech, Erza has that same sequence where she gets asphyxiated before delivering a thankfully shorter speech of 'my guild is friendship and will never surrender' spiel she usually does. She dons this 'Morning Star' armor, which lights her up and allows Bisca to shoot at her location with Jupiter...

Fucking convenient that the full brunt hits Ajeel and not Erza, and she has enough time to do her Anime Sword Slash attack... but it's definitely better. We've got Erza being assisted in taking down this enemy, she's not just using friendship power ups, Bisca and Jupiter has been foreshadowed in previous chapters...

Still pretty freaking boring, though, since it's relatively generic attacks that really don't do anything interesting beyond giant sandstorm and sword slashes, but at least it doesn't hurt my brain reading it.

Boku no Hero Academia 64 Review: Chemistry, bitch!

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 64: Challenges Assigned

A decent chapter, this. We see Momo and Todoroki work together, making use of Aizawa's wounds back from the USJ attack, taking the time that Aizawa blinks for Todoroki to recreate the Giant Ice Ridge (which looks awesome) that he did during the competition. Aizawa absolutely approves of this taking advantage of his weakness, and takes a guarding stance to block them from escaping out of the town.

Using the giant ice wall to strategize, Momo shits out a ton of tape from her cleavage (of course. Not her arms or exposed parts, but she had to pull her absolute cleavage costume to shoot out all the tape) and it's apparently her own spin on Aizawa's super-awesome bandage rope thing. Momo's also even considering limiting damage since they're in a residential area, and she tells her plan to Todoroki.

Aizawa sees two figures under hoods running out, and he notes that if he can't directly see the target, he can't seal their powers -- a detail I don't know. Huh. Aizawa binds the two hooded figures together, but they're just mannequins. Momo's prepared with some kind of weird catapult and, uh... her hand misses from pulling the trigger. Which is a bit stupid, honestly. But Aizawa jumps back, and Momo's second try launches a lot of the created ribbon-bandage-rope things at Aizawa. Todoroki shoots heat along the ground -- something that Aizawa notes doesn't make sense, but apparently Momo makes use of that brain of hers to think up of something awesome. The stuff Momo made is laced with Nitinol alloy, something which when exposed to heat will return to its original shape at once... which means all the rope flying around Aizawa wraps around him immediately.

That's... actually pretty fucking awesome! Also it can't be something Momo thought of before, since the plan specifically requires a heat-changing ally like Todoroki to be around. Good stuff, girl.

And Aizawa actually admits defeat and gets himself cuffed, and Momo calls Aizawa out on making it too easy, jumping away at the moment that Momo faltered. Aizawa gives this reasoning how Todoroki was still concealed by cloth and might attack any time with ice, and Momo's all emotional and stuff. Aizawa closes his eyes, and Heal Girl notes that Aizawa's a softy... of course, like his very first appearance where he's all "ah yeah I bluffed about the expulsion thing" I bet he's lying about being true-and-blue captured by the trap.

This is announced throughout the rest of the examination fields. Mineta is panicking, because tape-dude Sero has fallen asleep (so that's what Midnight's pheromone thing does? I didn't  know whetherwe knew that or not). Present Mic is just SHOUTING FOR THE HELL (that's what his power does?), which is a bad match for 'earphone jack' Kyouka for obvious reasons, Stone-man Kouda is all sweaty and stuff, noting how his power of summoning animals is useless since they'll get scared away. Present Mic's expression in that last panel, though. All Might, meanwhile... he praises Midoriya and Bakugou for having joined forces to face the enemy, but he stands triumphant over the battered boys saying how that's a mere pre-requisite for the examination.

Will the two make a comeback? Honestly don't think so. Show us more Midnight and Ectoplasm! I want to see Mineta fight Midnight and I want to see Tokoyami and Tsuyu fight Ectoplasm. Seeing the principal do whatever it is he does might be cool too.

Toriko 344 Review: Naked Ichiryu

Toriko, Chapter 344: To The Back World

Ah, good. We're continuing the flashback. Don Slime just kind of trolls the human chefs a bit, and tells Asarudy to open a gateway to the back channel, well, specifically to the Kitchen of Eternity, where they're apparently sending lines of tied-up slaves, including Chako, into dark wailing flames made of the souls of the damned. Also, apparently where they're cooking Acacia's full course. We get a map of Blue Grill, too, which is nice.

And then we get to see Komatsu and Masked Hobo go on the 'Train to the Underworld' which is running on a track above a sea made of the souls of the damned (it's a common theme in this fucking giant shell, innit) and Masked Hobo talks about how the scary thing isn't just death, and points out a group of masked people that are drinking in a bar because of multiple revivals... though honestly just hanging out in a bar and drinking for all eternity isn't the worst fate I could imagine. Komatsu gives a speech about how he's met people who looked like monsters but have great lives and whatnot, and how Masked Hobo hasn't given up all hope since he tried to save Chako.

But what was the weird sequence where he tried to vomit out a soul or whatever into Komatsu's mouth?

We then cut to this squid-lady Meyl who's like the squid and girl version of Sani who talks about how gross everything is and is just complaining about everything. Chako gets stopped by a masked woman (totally his mom) before stepping into the flames made of the souls of the damned. Then the Food Spirits from last chapter start pouring out of a door (presumably to the Back Channel), though this time around I don't see Tommyrod's food spirit. I recognize some of the others from last chapter, though.

But Don Slime and the others show up through Asarudy's Warp Road, and Don Slime is just all stretchy and scary and just, uh... used Conqueror's Haki or whatever to fucking vaporize all the food spirits. Um... mega kill? Jiji and Don Slime note how the food spirits seem different, how they don't seem like they're coming out to revive, but seemed to be running from something -- maybe Moon ate something funny, Jiji said, and it confirms that the Black Hole Whale's, well, black hole leads straight into the Back Channel. A highway to hell shaped like a black hole shaped like a whale shaped like a moon. Yay Toriko for being fucking insane.

Also he could just be talking about the meatball from Neo.

Jiji talks about the door and the chefs (especially Chiyo) are intrigued, talking about how their senses of duty are piqued by everything regarding that gate, and Jiji starts to talk about their goal -- and we see an entire page of naked Ichiryu seemingly floating around in the 'meat' soup thing that squid girl was talking about before. Komatsu gets off the train and before him stands a woman with Starjun-Midora hair.... Frohze's soul? The mysterious food spirit lady that attacked Kaka? I have no idea who this is, and am too tired to look it up. Mea culpa.

A bit oddly-paced, that's for sure, especially with the random introduction of an entirely superfluous bit character. But overall good stuff, good stuff... it's just that all three chapters this week -- Bleach, One Piece and Toriko -- aren't bad, they're just kind of... underwhelming, I guess? They're all good, solid chapters, but they're just kinda 'get from point A to point B' type of chapters, if you know what I mean.

One Piece 804 Review: DEATH! Really.

One Piece, Chapter 804: Adventure in the Country on the Back of an Elephant

It's a bit of a fun, light-hearted chapter with your general dose of One Piece wackiness. There were some scenes that didn't really work well -- like Kin'emon and Kanjurou just not having the time to dodge the falling monkey-ninja because they're like playing peek-a-boo randomly. That joke fell flat on its face. But the synchronized head-tilt, Robin's fun morbid thoughts, and absolutely everything about the poor sad-faced dragon (dubbed 'Ryunosuke' here) painting and how pathetic it looks, and how the scene seems to be treated as some kind of heroic, tearjerking last stand as it tries its best for all of one page to bring the Straw Hat Crew to the top of Zou, all the while Robin cheering him on and doing some really fun stuff like gasping and thinking how it's adorable it is.

Then it fades back into a painting and Robin actually freaking sheds some tears as we get his image set against a sunset. It's told with small panels so while it feels like it took some time (and probably would take some time in the anime) it doesn't feel protracted and long like that a similar joke told by Bleach or Fairy Tail would be.

And Law and Zoro just doesn't give a fuck and walks away all heartlessly, while Robin is planting flowers on Ryunosuke's grave. :(

Death! Who expected death this early on in this arc? Man, One Piece is entering dark times and shit.

Also, there's Raidou the ninja, who's apparently the thing that fell down from the top of the elephant. And also, a monkey. And he hit Kanjurou and Kin'emon and knocked them both down but they're apparently fine because they can shout at Luffy and the others. I don't particularly care about Kin'emon and everything around Wano country and all that jazz. I felt he had way overstayed his welcome for someone that's so one-dimensional, and while I don't hate him, I'm indifferent to him at best and annoyed by him at worst.

Zou itself is your general crazy anime country with whale-shaped trees and whatnot, but there are signs of battle -- we saw Team 'Human Eyebrow' (ha, good one, Zoro) fight Kaidou's people here, so no wonder. But as the Straw Hats explore the deserted town, they get attacked by Carrot, this little girl with bunny ears and bunny claw-glove things, who goes straight for Zoro. She avoids Zoro's slash and can hit hard enough to not get her hand sliced up by Zoro's blade... and quite possibly have lightning powers as well?

Carrot notes how the 'lesser Mink' has walked straight through the gates and probably took out Bariete. But before the fight with Zoro can get violent, Carrot gets interrupted by a familiar boob -- er, clothes. Well, she's dressed in Nami's clothes -- the bikini top and the black pants, but she's this weird fox or dog-person. She comes in riding this gigantic boar thing and tells Carrot that they need to deal with intruders in the whale forest. Her hair does sorta kinda look like Nami's but I don't think she's Nami -- or maybe Nami got a Zoan devil fruit? I dunno. The fact that she doesn't recognize Luffy and the others makes me think it's not Nami, since even if she's changed I would think that she would still behave like Nami, and we just got an arc where people were transformed and lose their memories, so I don't think we'll get a rehash of it again so soon.

We'll see. Do like the chapter, but I don't think it's anything particularly special.

Nanatsu no Taizai 146: Kind of an asspull, honestly

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 146: Farewell, My Beloved Thief

Well, cutting straight to the chase -- Ban survives. Which is a good thing. And he still proves his OP status by actually crushing the hearts of both Galan and Merascylla, which actually hurt them really bad. Granted it's combined with the effects of the power-stealing ability from last week, but I think Ban is the only person short of DemonPower!Meliodas and the Knights of the Azure Whoever that were able to actually touch the Ten Commandments.

But the way that Ban survives -- Zhivago's spirit coming in off-screen last chapter and being the one that Galan eats... felt really half-assed and came out of nowhere. I mean, it's not entirely an ass-pull since Zhivago really needs to have some kind of narrative purpose other than just being this one father figure that shows up just to die, and I guess there's some poetic redemption for Zhivago for abandoning Ban so long ago, but I still dislike it. Felt really came out of nowhere.

Other than that, though, the execution was wonderful. Ban's farewell with Zhivago was well done, the tension as Elaine and Jericho looks at Ban's lifeless body, and the full page art as Ban moves into action again... and Ban is still nowhere close to taking down even one of the Ten Commandments, since they are really tough cookies. He fell down after running away with Elaine and Jericho, whereas Galan, even with his heart crushed and his power sapped, still had enough strength to Zanbarazan an entire town to nothing. RIP random town.

And the two of them, y'know, got straight back up, and we're counting on chronic loser Jericho to get Ban and Elaine out of there. So, uh, yeah, Oslo and King, you two better get here quickly. Just Oslo will do, actually, he can just portal the three of them away. 

Overall it's not, well... horrible. I just don't like how the explanation for Ban's survival was handled since it really felt asspully. Nothing much to say beyond that, honestly. 

Fairy Tail 457: What did I say

Fairy Tail, Chapter 457: Battle of the Naked

The absurd title is honestly the only thing I liked about this chapter, really.

For what it's worth, annoying gratuitous fetish fanservice bathtub scene aside, the Brandish-Lucy scene was... not good, but it was something, at least. The scene where Lucy was ready to fucking shiv Brandish was great, as was the revelation that Brandish knew Lucy's mother... but the sheer emphasis to all your standard anime fanservice bathroom scenes, and the amount of screentime that the annoying midget fucktard got... that was annoying. At the end of the sequence we've got Cana coming in and Lucy with an Aries equip, ready to face off against Brandish. That's really the only noteworthy scene in this chapter.

The second half has everything I kept saying happens all the time and has been done to death and is absolutely boring: Ajeel's magic, despite all the buildup, randomly gets overpowered (they had the decency to throw in this Wind God Armor as an explanation, at least), and at the end of the episode Erza just one-shots the dude with a big slash. Also, protracted sequence of Natsu delivering a big punch to a villain, who immediately gets taken out.

At least we didn't get a friendship speech or a 'for Fairy Tail!' thrown in. But really. Having Bakyll and that other skinny dude taken out like trash, I don't mind. But see what I told you? Erza one shotting one of the strongest people with no reason after being put into a tight spot? No fucking tension at all. I mean, it's not quite as bad as the Avatar arc, but that's like saying something is better than dog vomit. No tension, no struggle, and absolutely fucking devoid of any kind of interest whatsoever. I'm not even disappointed since I already expected this level of bullshit from Fairy Tail, but hey. There is still some form of enjoyment watching a derailed train crash and burn, yeah? Honestly, when bullshit like this get like seven spin-off comics when actually good comics get stuff like rushed endings and whatnot... yeah, fuck this.

Toriko 343 Review: RIP Moon. No, not that Moon.

Toriko, Chapter 343: Direct Attack Don

Man, a weird chapter, this is. What's comforting is the addition of flashbacks. After doing a bit of a research and discussion, it might not actually be rushing through the manga's main plot and abandoning the whole seven-foods-of-Acacia arc series, but just inserting a lot more content into the Another arc, and adding so much content kind of means all the cooking competition stuff has to be pushed aside in favour of the (IMO far more interesting) Neo and Blue Nitro and Acacia things. A normal Toriko arc generally runs for 20-25 chapters, really, and us spending a wee bit too much time in building up Blue Grill, plus the slight jumping the gun with all the Kings and Neo and Acacia and whatnot leaves not much room in the 20-25 chapter format to conclude the Blue Grill stuff. And I guess part of it is indeed due to the slight waning interest thanks to the crapshit anime and the lack of the main character and whatnot during the whole Blue Grill stuff. 

But it is some weird-ass pacing. We've got the first half of the chapter with Don Slime's full form, which looks like he's covered in seaweed with like ten octopus leg things as a lower body, doing some Bambina level shit. He just jumps off the surface of the black ocean into the Moon (the one orbiting the Earth, not the Whale King) and then jumps off of it, absolutely destroying the Moon in the process, just to shoot downwards to battle Acacia!Neo, who's eating on some shit. Don Slime looks absolutely fucking nuts, and if nothing he does look cool and batshit crazy, as with everything that's going on in Toriko.

Toriko and Komatsu can feel the impact from Neo and Don Slime clashing together, and Komatsu randomly says that they've spent decades in Blue Grill. That's about all that happens with the present-day cast, though.

But apparently, yeah, Team Komatsu spent decades within Blue Grill. Where one hour passed when Toriko, Sani, Zebra and Coco split up at Area 6, apparently two days have already passed inside the giant shell. 

We see back when they first arrived, where the Saiseya Pukin (the lady with four arms) is researching Yun Yun, and apparently safety beasts emit some kind of unique space zone thing that emits an aura of non-appetite, comparable to how carnivores would feel when they see vegetation, possibly not dissimilar to the Warp Kitchen that Joa and Condor used before, so it's definitely foreshadowed before. And apparently Blue Grill the giant mollusc also causes time dilation within it. 

Then we see Moon (the Whale King Moon, this time) living up to its name as the Black Hole Whale, and its front has just opened up into a black hole and it's, like, sucking in the entire population of the sea or some shit like that. We still have no idea just how big Moon is compared to anything. It's felt in the Grill Stadium, where apparently we skipped through four of the matches (Condor Window's survival is oddly still unexplained) and we're in the midst of the final match between Chiru and Asarudy.

Random masked people report to Don Sime (in his funny midget state) about how a shit-ton of food spirits have shown up, and how Whale King Moon is on the move, basically causing an entire region of sea to disappear. Don Slime mentions how food is being discharged from the 'White Hole', which we have no idea what the fuck. Is it the secret Illuminati conspiracy thing they are making in Blue Grill? The stuff Neo is building? Something else? Whatever the case, Don Slime starts to have streaks run through his body and stops the cooking competition.

In the northernmost part of Blue Grill, a two-page splash of Food Spirits show up -- including, right in the forefront on the right side of the page, Tommyrod's appetite demon. The dude with the butt-chin and the creepy hollow eyes. We know Tommyrod's still stuck within Sani's Satan Hair, locked in all eternity within, uh, hair, but maybe his apetite demon got sent back into being independent or something? Regardless, the food spirits all look pretty suitably horrifying. Like this one dude next to Tommyrod's demon that's like a blob with a wide grin and a head filled with fucking fingers. 

Then Don Slime tells the humans how they're going to the Kitchen of Eternity... to resurrect Ichiryu, the strongest man and the only one to gain Don Slime's respect. Well. I do hope we're getting more and more flashbacks to explain what the fuck is going on, because I really do want to know. 

Boku no Hero Academia 63 Review: How to chuck grenades at teachers

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 63: Yaoyorozu - Rising

We get a short 'slo-mo' sequence of Midoriya pulling the trigger from Bakugou's grenade gauntlet thing as we get a little quasi-flashback to their conversation while discussing the plan. Bakugou's apparently the one to note how his normal explosions won't do shit and was the one who came up with the 'maximum explosion, zero-distance' plan. Midoriya unleashes all the explosive sweat thing contained within the grenade gauntlet to rather impressively FABOOM All Might in the face, noting how much it hurt his shoulders to use the grenade gauntlets (poor dude can't catch a break, can he?) and the two of them bugger off. 

All Might note that it's a nice compromise between fighting and fleeing, and they even made use of their old lessons to firing it towards the already-destroyed parts of the town... and despite Midoriya being burdened with envy, pursuit and antipathy, whereas Bakugou's burdened with fear, denial and pride. They drew a little blood from All Might (or maybe it's just his time running out?) but he notes that while there's no way their relationship will resolve so soon, this battle will be a great leap to fixing things in the future...

Before we zoom in on All Might's scary rapeface how he says he's going to get serious.

We cut away to the Momo-Todoroki team, and Momo is just shedding out these fun little Russian dolls -- constantly creating stuff like what Todoroki told her to do. Momo kind of talks a bit about her self-esteem issues, how she always followed the lead of others and how when it comes to her standing on her own she fails, citing the human cavalry battle and the 1v1 against Tokoyami, respectively, which is cool that these past events are actually developing characterization for the others as well.

Aizawa Spider-Mans down from the overhead cables all scary like and attacks Todoroki, easily snaring him within his ribbon-bandage-scarf things, then dropping caltrops on the ground to immobilize Todoroki should he break out with fire and ice. Aizawa points out how he's not like Stain -- he knows all their quirks and have devised counterstrategies, and points out how Todoroki didn't discuss things out with Momo despite keeping her safety as a priority.

Momo is just fucked up, panicking over what to do, over what she should do, but Aizawa just, once more, Spider-Mans into fray with those fucking bandages of his. Aizawa's ten levels of awesome, yeah? He immediately points out her lack of self-confidence while trying to string her up, but apparently Aizawa allows her to use her quirk one time to get free, while reflecting how Momo is just trying to run back to rescue Todoroki, no doubt because she wants to leave the decision making to him. Aizawa notes that it's probably because of her young age (15 years old, even though that absolute cleavage states otherwise) but his role in this is as a 'villain', not a teacher. 

Momo goes up to where Todoroki's strung up like a pinata, and Todoroki himself reflects on his actions, and just shouts at Momo to do whatever she is planning to do... and brings up yet another thing from the past. Momo had two votes for the class president election (which was like chapter seven or some shit) and Todoroki was the one who voted for her. Momo's expression afterwards is absolutely awesome. The art in this series, tho!

Momo then lobs the Russian dolls up at the incoming Aizawa... and apparently they contain fucking flashbang grenades within them. Yeah, Momo, I think mentioning that you were creating flashbang grenades to your partner is something you really don't need permission to do. But cool stuff. Aizawa's not down, but Momo does make use of the time she bought to get Todoroki down from being strung up. Good stuff, Momo. I am absolutely liking the character growth all these guys are having, and I sincerely hope the manga doesn't take the Naruto route and render all his classmates reduced to nothing more than one-note extras. But I have faith in this manga. 

The Flash S02E02 Review: Jay's nice hat

The Flash, Season 2, Episode 2: Flash of Two Worlds

Whoo boy, where to start? I knew this season was going to introduce Jay Garrick, Earth-2 and multiverses, but I don't believe just how upfront is is being with, well, practically everything. We even have Martin Stein doing an explanation that seemed right at home in a comic book with Earth-1 and Earth-2 straight-up being named and the Multiverse being named. It's just a shame that like last episode the general plot is still pretty episodic, though this episode deals with a lot more introdumps and whatnot, so what can you do.

But honestly what is the biggest appeal of this episode is the introduction of Earth-2's Flash (a.k.a. Flash I for comic book geeks), Jay Garrick. Or the Crimson Comet to Barry's Scarlet Speedster, as this episode actually references. And this episode, oh, what a comic book-y episode this feels, and one that actually makes sense even to someone new to the greater DC comics universe. There's a bit of an annoying 'Barry refuses to trust Jay' moment for the first half of the episode, and it's honestly getting a bit old that Anti-Social Barry is a subplot we've reused twice in this season now, but the comparisons that Barry makes to Harrison Wells actually kinda-sorta makes sense and he gets over it quickly.

Jay Garrick himself, while not as old as his comics counterpart (he's young enough for Caitlin and Iris to be happy to look at) is still older than Barry and feels great in his place as a mentor. Really getting comic book vibes from their interaction. We get Jay and Stein giving us some information about the multiverse, and some backstory about Earth-2. And this season's apparent main villain, Zoom.

Stein explains Earth-2 as an alternate version of Earth-1, where it's still got basically the same amount of people, but they take different paths -- Jay Garrick becomes Flash instead of Barry Allen, Al Rothstein becomes Atom Smasher instead of being some nobody, et cetera. And one of Jay's main villains there is Zoom, which seems to take some visual cues from the comics' Black Flash, Zoom and the Rival, among others. Zoom is basically a black-costume blue-lightning version of Barry's (not Jay's, interestingly enough) costume, but a screaming writhing mass of shadows where a face should be. And when Team Barry opened up the multiverse portal at the end of season one, Zoom and Jay were engaged in mortal combat -- explaining Jay's helmet showing up during last season's finale which he gets back in this episode.

Also I bet Earth-2's where Ronnie Raymond was sent to. 

Zoom's apparently got this obsession about being the only speedster and has an awesome, demonic guttural voice. And he can apparently freely travel between the 52 (I see what you did there, showmakers) portals to travel between Earth-1 and Earth-2, and he's just using the metahumans of Earth-2, in this case the villain Sand Demon, to get them to kill Barry Allen.

Why can't he kill Barry himself? Why can't Jay Garrick use his speed in Earth-1 beyond rule of drama? No idea.

And, yes, the fact that Jay Garrick doesn't have his speed is kind of a bummer, but I guess it makes sense for the more experienced Flash not to be able to do much otherwise he can just finish up the entire plot of this season by himself. He gets to dress up in his costume, though which is awesome. Again as with everything in superhero-TV-land, it's darker than it should, but hey I'd take something that's a darker version of the comic book design than Daredevil's fugly bullshit he got in his show.

Sand Demon's a pretty standard psycho villain with, y'know, sand powers. He's a minor Firestorm villain in the comics, and we get some mishap with the Earth-1 counterpart of Sand Demon. Barry and Jay team up to beat him, with the costumed Jay showing up to distract Sand Demon (which honestly is a bad tactical move but we see Jay in costume so yay) while Barry rescues the hostage Patty Spivot... and Jay teaches Barry to manipulate the lightning and lob it at Sand Demon to turn him into Glass Shards. Which is the standard way to deal with any sand-powered enemies in superhero comics. I can't remember if Barry can actually launch lightning in the comics, but it's a power that makes sense with the Speed Force and everything, so yay for that!

We get a shit-ton of comic book references here, including something called War of the Americas (I assume it's DC's version of WWII which involved superheroes and shit) that Jay's father participated in. Jay's origin story with lightning striking him while he's researching hard water is basically 100% his comic book origin story. And, of course, there's Jay and Barry recreating the iconic 'Flash of Two Worlds' cover that's apparently the very first Earth-1/Earth-2 crossover story, like, ever. So it's appropriate that the first adaptation of the DC Multiverse also features the two Flashes. 

Jay's awesome. Barry's awesome. That's all I can say.

Cisco gets some nice moments here bonding with professor Stein, who's permanently in "geek out over crazy science stuff" mode which is absolutely a blast to see. Cisco himself is trying to channel his Vibe powers (he namedrops the word 'Vibe' when he describes his powers) by touching the sand particles from Earth-2 Sand Demon, so I guess he's learning to channel his see-through-spacetime powers? He's freaked out by it, though, and for whatever reason wants to keep it secret even though, y'know, there's no harm in telling it to the others, so okay.

A sub-plot running throughout this episode is Patty Spivot, the newly introduced character who's desperate to join Joe's anti-metahuman task force... and the show's really trying too hard to shove her down our throat. She's great at detective work, and she gets along well with Barry, and she did her own investigation and tracked down Eddie Slick before Joe, and she is everywhere and she's got a tragic backstory and... she does get her ass handed to her by Sand Demon (no idea why he thinks kidnapping Patty instead of Joe will work better) and I honestly don't like her all that much. I don't hate her, but she is rather on-the-nose. Hopefully future episodes will tone her down.

Easter Egg time! We get a TV screen with a crossover from Arrow where Green Arrow is making a proclamation to Starling City and whatnot. I haven't watched Arrow yet! Thankfully it's not as spoilery as the crossovers in season one.

We get another DC Easter Egg. Sand Demon hides out in Woodrue plants or whatever. Jason Woodrue is the DC comic-book Floronic Man, who is basically a plant-man dude. You might know him as the asshole scientist that is involved in Poison Ivy's backstory (and killed by her) in Batman and Robin. 

To close this off... we also get a triple cliffhanger this episode! We've got Joe being visited by his wife, who is apparently estranged from him... so that's where Wally West will show up from! Huh. Martin Stein also randomly faints while giving an introdump, so we might get that Ronnie-in-Earth-2 thing addressed fairly quickly. And finally, we have our shot at Earth-2, which looks more comic-book-y than the realistic Earth-1, and apparently in that universe Harrison Wells is alive and well looking as sinister as fuck. Now the question is, is this Earth-2's Harrison Wells, or did our Eobard Thawne take over the position of that dude's Harrison Wells when he disappeared within dimensions and shit in the season one finale? And how will he factor into the plot of this season? So many questions.

Overall... it's a good episode. And while the first two episodes of season two doesn't exactly impress as much as the first season's episodes, they are still good episodes and I may be biased due to my little fangasm over multiversal stuff but hey. 

Daredevil S01E06 Review: Bull's Eye

Daredevil, Season 1, Episode 6: Condemned

Welp, I kind of hoped this episode was better trimmed. As it was, the talking scenes in the first half of the episode took way too much time, in particular the random emergency first-aid scene with Matt and Vladimir which is just filler... but it was all worth it for the confrontation between Daredevil and the Kingpin at the end... how can a conversation between two men with walkie-talkies be so awesome? That scene was perfectly scripted, and Kingpin's plan with framing Daredevil and just outlining how he just has to tell part of the truth and the public will believe him is awesome. Again, add that to 'Kingpin is Malcolm Merlyn done right'. I don't like comparing different shows, but he is! This is a far more effective and believable way to make the hero be absolutely reviled by the public, and that is by having a mysterious sniper (hint hint) shoot a random cop in front of TV and have his own dirty cops execute the poor policeman Daredevil took hostage.

Episode's tense, with the hostage thing being the main clincher as we see how much of a puppetmaster Fisk is and how much respect Daredevil gains from people like Fisk and Vladimir. Vladimir also gives some nice little 'you can't win without killing the head' type of speech. And it's absolutely well-done, especially the little heroic sacrifice Vladimir does at the end. And the speech! From one man who wants to save the city by running around in a mask, to a man who wants to save the city by uniting the gangs and extirpating the rogue elements like the Russian gang. We see various points, illustrated by Vladimir and Fisk himself, just how out of his depth Daredevil is, how Fisk is playing at a scale that matters, and I absolutely love how the show handled Fisk and the dramatic tension when the two of them just speaks.

There's also some subtle maneuvering where Kingpin actually offs the policemen who weren't completely on his pocket. Sullivan, who Daredevil himself detected isn't a dirty cop, gets a knife through his neck courtesy of Kingpin's dirty cops just to pin another murder on Daredevil, and Blake... well, Blake's in Kingpin's pocket, really (wasn't he one of the cops that killed the Russian informant?), but, well, named characters that die build so much drama. Also, Sergei the torturer gets shot dead because fuck Sergei I guess.

The little buildup of Daredevil and Vladimir from hatred enemies to grudging allies is well done -- but I wished the episode doesn't just focus so much on the two trading insults and whatnot. But then again you have to end the episode on the note of Daredevil escaping and Vladimir holding off the corrupt SWAT team, so what can you do. Vladimir has gotten a metric fuckton of characterization this episode, pity he doesn't stay long enough.

Ben Urich's also relatively interesting, and like Daredevil the dude's out of his depth as he tries so hard to find the story and gets blocked by Kingpin's TV reporter army... though it's interesting that neither Fisk nor Wesley think it's feasible to kill Urich simply because of his connections to the newspaper company he works for.

I like how Fisk and Wesley have to think about respecting the other members of their organization (Madame Gao in this case). Too often has the head of an evil organization just treated as a end-all-be-all type of figure, and this fits absolutely well with the whole gang wars theme of Daredevil. 

The other characters in the show... Claire has a nice little scene where she is in turmoil with herself whether to help give Daredevil instructions to rescue Vladimir, the man who had her beat up... though other than that she just does her nurse thing and love interest thing and is honestly uninteresting. Foggy and Karen are likewise reduced to screentime-grubbers as a good chunk of their screentime is just commenting on stuff we already know. Nothing overtly harmful, though, since their characters are still relatively decent. 

Also, to close it off, apparently Bullseye got a cameo this episode as the faceless sniper who shot that officer Blake dude, because there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it playing card in his rifle bag. As Daredevil's number-two nemesis, well, it's nice that they gave the dude something to do so early on, though it's to my knowledge he's not actually appeared in the show per se, so yeah.

Nanatsu no Taizai 144-145 Review: Ban OP

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 144: That Man [Greed]; Chapter 145: A Beautiful Soul

Double chapters of Taizai! Which is awesome, and also the reason why this review is relatively late. Chapter 144 just basically focuses on Ban beating the fuck out of Galan and Merascylla by robbing their powers and generally having Wolverine regenerative powers, the former a thing that I forgot to consider last chapter, and it's awesome to see the Ten Commandments get their asses handed to them by a power and a situation that makes sense, not just "a bunch of people beat Fraudrin up whoops" like we got a while back. But chapter 145 immediately turns this around as we remember that the damn commandments have more powers than just physical strength and a gimmick or two, and after a bit of more badassery we have Merascylla display her powers and, uh, just basically push Ban's soul right out of his body, and it ends up with a long flashback and Galan chomping down on Ban's soul... 

I'm quite certain that Ban's not going to die, considering that Taizai has proved itself to be a manga where very few people die (sadly). He's going to be inconvenienced and maybe hang out within Galan, or King or Elaine or whomever can probably do something. But it's still a pretty awesome moment for Ban, both as a character and as a freaking badass. 

Well, anyway, the art in this chapter -- especially with Ban and Galan doing all their acrobatic slashing and cutting and whatnot -- are top-notch. From how Galan bifurcated Ban straight off the bat and sliced up the mountain too, to Galan just roaring in race still pissed that Meliodas beat him down... top notch art. We again get some re-establishment that the demons are nowhere near full power yet, and after recovering from the initial slice Ban just introduces him as Ban the Undead and just dodges all of Merascylla's dark tendrils and even manages to knock Merascylla back, though she doesn't really look hurt.

Galan apparently plays a lot of video games and the panel where he just reverse-punches Ban's head apart is another awesome panel. And I do like just how surprised Galan is at Ban recovering his head, and both Merascylla and Galan take the time to stop and discuss this. They note how magic disappears once the person dies, and that makes Ban absolutely different. 

Galan then goes all 'well, I'll let you hit me with any one attack' all cheerful and everything, while Merascylla is just all 'you're going to get yourself seriously hurt one day' though Galan is just curious and after all, they're two to Ban's one, what harm could it do? Galan also establishes that he is Galan of the [truth], and he will never go back on his word. Ban is grinning and shit as he activates Hunter Fest, which draws the physical powers of Galan, Merascylla, Jericho and it appears even some of the townsfolk. I actually forgot Ban could steal physical power and the the demons are nothing but physical powers at this point. 

Ban's slightly buffer and just does this absolutely satisfying kick to Galan's stomach. I mean, you could argue that Galan got nerfed, but on the other hand Ban is just using Galan's own strength against him. And, again, Galan's nowhere at full strength yet. Ban whacks Galan in the chin and sends him tumbling away, before proceeding to smack Merascylla though she just wraps herself in her shadow ball thing. We get a nice little sequence of physical attacks between Galan and Ban -- and this is Ban with just a bunch of random nunchucks and not his sacred treasure, so...

Both Galan and Merascylla note how Galan's movements have became closer, and Merascylla instantly realizes that Ban just stole their strength -- a highly effective move for a giant mass of physical strength like Galan. Merascylla also mentions something about Balor's Demon Eye (tut, tut, that Merlin, keeping secrets from everyone...) and we get a nice page full of Buff!Ban as Merascylla note that Ban's power may exceed even Galan's physically.

It picks up next chapter as Galan continues to fight Ban, holding up but still losing as Ban delivers some pretty solid hits. Merascylla is all observant and is like 'why don't you steal more power? Drain Galan until he's helpless before finishing him off'. And while I do enjoy the camaraderie between Galan and Merascylla, she does have a point -- and Merascylla concludes that since Ban doesn't look like the warrior-pride type, his body must have a threshold of power it can absorb. Which is great. I've never thought about it before! Noting that Ban is losing breath, Merascylla also notes that Ban's powers have a finite duration as well. 

This ticks Ban off so he charges at Merascylla, but Merascylla's shadows just engulfs Ban in a 'Gloom Cocoon', basically something similar to Tosen's Bankai from Bleach, where Ban can't see the enemy and is just trapped in a space of darkness. Merascylla isn't just going to drain Ban's magic power dry since there's the matter of his immortal regeneration, but she notes that she is Merascylla of [Faith]. So these Ten Commandments are just going to be extremely loosely based on the biblical commandments, and just facets resembling said commandments. 

Merascylla notes how every being has faith in something. In a god, in family, in a sword, something like that, but people also loose their faith easily at any sign of adversity, so under Merascylla's Commandment, anyone who is faithless will have their eyes burnt out. Something similar to Galan's lies, I guess. And we see this man who refuses to acknowledge the zombie of his lover get his eyes burnt out since he lost faith in their love... which is pretty fucking sadistic considering, y'know, zombies.

Ban despite Elaine's yandere behaviour, Ban's faith in Elaine never wavered from a moment which is like a gajillion times more heartwarming that I would put it. And Ban's soul is absolutely pure... but Merascylla points out that Ban's soul is nowhere as immortal as Ban's body. Merascylla then directly attacks Ban's soul... we know the demons acn rip out people's souls if they are in close enough vicinity, but I've never expected it to be, y'know, actually weaponized. Merascylla's cocoon thing breaks apart and Merascylla just pushes Ban's soul out of his mouth.

Merascylla's shadow tendrils shoot up as Ban's soul tries to escape into the sky... and we get four pages filled with flashbacks to people who were kind to Ban which is honestly a bit of an overkill, real death or no.

We get a short cutaway to Meliodas (and Hendricksen, dressed in waiter clothes) sensing that something is wrong.

Merascylla's tendrils can't hold onto Ban's soul, so Galan just hops up, grabs it and chomps down. I mean, Galan hasn't swallowed yet so there's a chance that King would show up and whack Galan with Chastiefol and cause Galan to spit Ban's soul out, and, again, I don't think Ban would die right this moment, but it's definitely an awesome chapter in all aspects. Action, villain monologue, characterization, power balance, handling threatening villains while still keeping your heroes badass... it's something I was worried would happen to the Commandments, but thankfully so far it hasn't. Good show. Looking forward to 146.

Fairy Tail 456 Review: Seen enough hentai to know where this is going

Fairy Tail, Chapter 456: Order

Not quite as fun as the last chapter since we open up with a rather boring 'Natsu fire-punches someone and other characters comment on how fucking awesome Natsu is' that has been regurgitated to us ad nauseam throughout this manga, but at least Bakyll (or however the fuck you pronounce his name) is totally fine, and while the manga tries to play it up by having Happy extend the joke to a whole page, it is kinda cool for Natsu to actually worry about magic consumption.

We get a bit of Charle, Wendy and Gajeel doing the things they always do, before Kalim attacks Gajeel, and Kalim's attacks apparently involves, uh, shooting black stuff that explodes. Then we get Gray, Juvia, Elfman and Lisanna doing the things they usually do in quick succession. Mirajane uses Satan Soul... Sayla. Which, I admit, is pretty cool. I'm not quite sure how Take Over works, really. Does Mirajane absorb Sayla herself instead of just essences of her power? Because Elfman and Lisanna goes all 'if she hadn't saved Sayla, she would've died.'

Well, at least Mirajane is weaponizing Sayla and her Macro mind-controlling abilities because, y'know, Sayla tried to have Elfman suicide bomb everyone there and is complicit in torturing Mirajane herself. It's nowhere as bad or poorly-handled as Minerva's "redemption". Mirajane takes out the whole swarm of Yu-Gi-Oh cosplayers, but Mr. Adjucator and some of the mooks around him is unaffected. So Mirajane vs. Adjucator, whatever his name is? Or, well, the Strauss siblings, Gray and Juvia against the Adjucator. 

Erza is still trapped in the sandstorm tornado with her magic not responding, and that's the only scene we see her in. Still unconvinced that Erza won't Marysue her way out of this, though.

Then we get this absolutely eyeball-roll inducing scene between Warren, Max and Mavis that's just, well... it's not a friendship speech, and I guess the minor characters get something to do, but it's just such a weak, drawn-out scene. Warren basically is in a state of shock because, well, who can blame the dude, he's a minor character with a non-offensive magic. Max crushes his family jewels, does some "we're all scared but we must fight" speech, a gajillion times better than a friendship speech. Then Warren gives Max an anal stab with a broom, er, um.

Warren's big conviction moment just involves him, um, asking Bisca how much longer till Jupiter can shoot. That's absolutely anticlimatic. But I literally can't give two shits about Warren so why not.

Then we get to see Brandish and Lucy in their bathroom and, um... Brandish is basically super-passive-aggressively telling Lucy to strip and get into the bathtub with her. Because, er, hentai lesbian sex, I assume? Brandish notes how she can just reduce the entire town into a tiny prick and just step on it, and the only reason why she hasn't done it is because she wants that hot lesbian sexxings, I guess? Tasteless jokes aside this would be considerably a metric fuckton more creepy if it was a dude in the bathtub telling Lucy to strip and join him, but since it's Brandish it's just 'oooh fanservice'. And, well, it's just rather blah other than the fact that I actually do like Brandish a bit so yay for more Brandish, I guess? 

Boku no Hero Academia 62 Review: Deku VS Baron Killsplosion - Dawn of Justice

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 62: Bakugou Katsuki - the Origin

Oh, hey, look! Popularity poll. Done in an even more tongue-in-cheek way than other mangas, pointing out the fact that freaking Naruto gets a vote (with Hatsume and Eijirou even parodying Naruto's catchphrase of dattebayo). Also, Midoriya's shoe, absolutely cheerful, also gets a vote. Poor Mineta only got 18th place, and I do like how we actually zoom in on his rather dejected face. Poor dude! The standings has, in order, Midoriya (of course), Todoroki, Bakugou, Uraraka, All Might, Tsuyu, Tokoyami, Iida, Kaminari and Aizawa. Good job, Tokoyami, climbing up so high in the rankings! I knew you could do it, and you're totally rocking that poncho and scarf look. Kaminari also rose higher than I expected, and I honestly thought someone like Mineta or Momo would be in before Kaminari -- though Momo herself is 11th place. But Kaminari's cool. I don't particularly like him more than the others, but he's cool nonetheless.

Ahem, back to the chapter review. We pick off from last chapter, with All Might proclaiming "Collateral damage to the city? Who gives a fuck?" which, I think, is a term that people call 'precision F-strike'. Yeah, this All Might is a villain, and he is definitely putting his heart and soul in not being jolly and that art on the page two-three spread with All Might just charging in, and the subsequent 'burn half your life away by staring at you' shot of his eye... the art in this manga is absolutely powerful. 

Bakugou, rage idiot that he is, tries to stun All Might, using this 'Stun Grenade' attack... but All Might just grabs Bakugou in the face. Bakugou, however, for his credit, is planning to get close and just launches a barrage of explosions at All Might. All Might does go 'ow ow' for a moment, but that's just his innate goofiness, though props to Bakugou for having balls. Dude doesn't have brains since All Might just manhandles the kid even more, evidently unhurt, but he certainly has balls. All Might just zips in to cut away Midoriya, and the zoom-in to that wonderfully shaded closeup to his face with scary eyes... well, it's only marred (or arguably enhanced) by the eternally-fixated cheery grin that All Might has.

Midoriya remembers Stain, reflexively goes Full Cowl, and leaps into the air... and fucks up Bakugou, who is grenade-launching himself. All Might just scratches his head as we cut away to the healing lady who actually provides some pretty good analysis on why the two is faltering, and I wouldn't be surprised if she turns out to be the one assigning the scores when the teachers eventually take down the students. Midoriya's panicking is because of undue excess of admiration, but she can't figure out what makes Bakugou so flustered and impatient (and a raging douchehole) despite possessing a metric ton of talent.

Bakugou goes "I will win, because that's what a hero does." But whatever they are trying to discuss gets interrupted as All Might goes in with a fucking guardrail to pin Midoriya to the ground, and punches Bakugou straight in the gut. Yes, he is pretty obviously holding back, but that panel with Bakugou going goggly-eyed and later vomiting is absolutely well done. A painful love tap to ensure that Bakugou doesn't just, well, think that he can killsplode everything.

And we get an unexpected flashback to Bakugou's past, where he's just adorably fanboying over All Might, excitedly waving his hands and head and admiring All Might's strength and the fact that he always wins. 

This is juxtaposed with present-day All Might towering over Bakugou, noting that Bakugou is frustrated at Midoriya's sudden growth, but compares Bakugou's lack of growth to how a game character at level 50 will grow at a slower pace compared to a character at level 1. Good explanation, All Might. He evidently plays Pokemon. All Might tries to give a speech about how Bakugou doesn't need to nurture his strength but other things, while Midoriya tries to get up from the guardrail noting that while he hates Bakugou, he always admires Bakugou's desire to emerge victorious. But Bakugou, spitting vomit and everything, goes 'if I have to borrow that bitchass's strength, I'd rather lose'. All Might looms over Bakugou all sinister and shadowed and good lord the art here. He goes all 'don't regret this', we see Bakugou's face being punched...

Before we cut away to Midoriya speed-punching Bakugou away from All Might's punch, shouting "don't say you would rather lose... you of all people!" Midoriya runs away, carrying Bakugou, ignoring Bakugou's protests, and notes that while he himself has no idea how to beat All Might or run from him, there is no way they should just give up. Midoriya reminds Bakugou that he is the kid that never gives up on winning, and I do like this about their dynamic. As much as an asshat that Bakugou is, Midoriya always admires Bakugou for his sheer tenacity and raw talent. And as powerful as Bakugou is, he's also frighteningly self-conscious about the others around him and has a bit of an inferiority complex even though he could arguably be called superior.

We cut back to a flashback where Bakugou beat up a bunch of older kids who bullied him... and we see more hints of a society filled with metahumans, like this kid with Spock ears, this kid with bat wings, and, uh, this kid with poop on his shirt with the words FUN. Okay. And despite rubbing away his tears, Bakugou keeps saying how the number one hero will always win, so his stubbornness can manifeste in a positive way. 

All Might, obviously letting the kids have a headstart even as he goes all 'I let my guard down' and 'man these things are heavy' tries to cut Midoriya and Bakugou off at the exit gate, but Bakugou comes in all screaming, doing big explosive stuff while commenting how pissed off he is at having to work with Midoriya (that expression sells it)... and apparently Midoriya has snuck up behind All Might equipped with one of Bakugou's grenade gauntlets, and pulls off the pin! And... I forget what those grenade gauntlets do. More explosions, I'd wager.

Highly doubt that even this combination attack is going to put a dent on All Might -- maybe the all-important anime cliche of landing a scratch on a powerful mentor, but that's it. But while this is nowhere as epic as Todoroki Shouto: the Origin, this does show a really important turning point in Bakugou's growth as a character and as a person. And I absolutely love the dynamic between Bakugou and Midoriya! It's great. 

Agents of SHIELD S03E02 Review: Ancient Space Sand

Agents of SHIELD, Season 3, Episode 2: Purpose in the Machine

Well, that was quick! I was expecting more buildup, more angst, more mystery, more 'let's see how much we can break Fitz's mental state', more oblique foreshadowing. Granted having the team rescue Simmons within two episodes into the season is a bit odd since Simmons being eaten by the monolith was the big out-there cliffhanger at the end of season two... but seeing how underwhelming the Fitz-Simmons plot that ran for the first half of season two ended up being, I did like the sudden twist and bone that Joss Whedon and the other creators of this show threw at us, since I honestly believed that this will end in a depressing note with either Fitz returning after that "so close yet so far" moment with Simmons, or with both Fitz and Simmons stuck in, uh, hell-planet.

But no, this episode focuses on them just trying to get Simmons back, recruiting Elliot Randolph -- better known as the Asgardian stranded on Earth, who has been MIA since season one -- in trying to figure this Kree Monolith shit out. And we actually get some payoff instead of just having things be obliquely be about alien symbols and alien blood and whatnot, which is definitely something that feels good. It's still sorta depressing since, y'know, Simmons seems to be pretty traumatized from her ordeal, but I think Fitz will take a damaged Simmons compared to a dead Simmons.

Elliot Randolph is absolutely on point, snarking along and basically every word out of his mouth is comedy gold. And that's in-between just casually going 'I've been here three thousand years ago' or lifting prison bars and blaming it on Coulson. And we do get a whole lot of nice smaller character moments for Skye, Mack, Bobbi and Andrew, who's set up shop in the new SHIELD base. It's nice, and none of them are really essential, but it does build character and I do like how the story just lets these characters breathe a little. Some people in the net pointed out that this episode felt so fuzzily different because, well, it is. We still have a main objective and a main plot (investigate the Kree portal to the hell planet thing) and rescuing Simmons is definitely engaging, but it doesn't involve the big Hydra plot nor does it involve a big drawn-out fight in the end. And while I truly appreciate fight scenes, sometimes an episode can work absolutely fine without them. This is one of those episodes.

Fitz, however, steals the show moreso than Randolph ever could, and all the build-up to him just refusing to give up from getting Simmons back... we've got some backstory about how people from the past have already been experimenting with the Kree Monolith and trying to understand where the portal goes, but all of it honestly pales in the face of Fitz's absolutely beautiful performance throughout this episode. From his single-minded obsession, to his desperate screams, to that look of utter despair near the end when he realizes his friends are reeling him in when he's just a hand's length away from Simmons, and the sheer look of bliss at the end... I honestly thought it was going to be a standard bait-and-switch, where Fitz and Simmons are just a couple of seconds away from being reunited, but the writers need to drag things out and push Simmons' rescue, to, like, the mid-season (and the viewers can probably see just what Simmons was running away from last episode) but am definitely glad that she got rescued here.

I thought the episode went on a bit too long trying to explain the pseudo-science goobledeygonk about the gothic Kree monolith portal resonator thing, and I honestly tuned the entire thing out, but hey. Also, Skye (Daisy, whatever) gets to show off more of her powers, and more importantly, far more finer control over what frequency she chooses to emit. Which is cool.

We've got a couple B-plots running along, too, the ones I'm most happy about involving the two core members of the team we didn't see last episode -- Ward and May. Grant Ward is rebuilding a new Hydra, weeding off the older, fatter generation of Hydra in favour of newer like-minded fanatics. We get a bait-and-switch as this scary black dude seems to be Ward's second in command as he mucks around crazily with that dude's car, before the rich kid that Ward 'kidnapped' ended up beating the black dude presumably to death. From the sheer fun of Ward unleashing a swarm of rats to get rid of bikini babes, to Ward showboating and kung-fu-ing an entire boat's worth of people (with a hilarious 'eh, I've got a gun' when someone actually manages to land a hit on him)... to the darker undertones of him breaking down the rich boy, revealed to be Werner von Strucker, son of Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. i do like Werner from what little we saw of him, and I do certainly hope he can be far more entertaining than the underwhelming Wolfgang von Strucker from Age of Ultron.

Ward is definitely channeling his mentor John Garrett here, though, being nonchalant and matter-of-fact, playing up that dark mentor angle while eating nachos or whatever. And by the end of this episode Werner seems to be on board with Ward's Hydra, stalking May's ex-husband Andrew.

May, meanwhile, apparently broke up with Andrew in the interim, and is actually just taking time off playing golf with her father, who busted his hip. And just like May herself and her mother, MayPapa is an absolute badass, easily reading her daughter and talking about spy shit casually. Also, talking about little May figure skating, which is all sorts of adorable. By the end of this episode, though, Hunter, in his little crusade against Ward, manages to recruit May (in no small part thanks to MayPapa) to infiltrate Hydra and bring Ward down from the inside.

Overall the May stuff doesn't really do much other than showing some character stuff and the sheer absurdity of May in a normal life, and the Ward stuff truly felt like a distraction until the revelation that he's just fucking around trying to brainwash Werner von Strucker.

From a more geeky standpoint, Skye/Daisy is still not referred to by her comicbook superhero codename, Quake. Despite Mack having a good opportunity to use it as a nickname, he opts to call her 'Tremors' again because, eh, Mack's an idiot. We also get the term 'Secret Warriors' name-dropped by Skye when she and Mack are discussing their nonexistent superhuman team. I don't think we get any explanation to what the death hell planet really is, though, again, I'm not that well-informed about Marvel comics.

It's overall a pretty solid episode. Other than the strong performances put in by Fitz and Randolph, there's nothing that's absolutely spectacular, certainly... though there's always the rather trope-defying twist of rescuing Simmons this early, which is definitely not a bad thing.

Agents of SHIELD S03E01: Fish Oil Gives You Powers

Agents of SHIELD, Season 3, Episode 1: Laws of Nature

Well that was certainly a way to start off the season! Where the Flash opted for a slower, more gradual build, Agents of SHIELD just went for straight explosions and action scenes. I do think I prefer this particular season premiere episode, though that's hardly a point docked off the Flash... with Joss Whedon no longer distracted in directing overcrowded Marvel movie sequels, he's clearly put in a lot more work for Agents of SHIELD's second season finale, and this third season is looking to be really, really good.

The opening sequence was great, with the panning view from the remnants of the chrysalis to the burning city, to this newly-awakened Inhuman, Jose "Joey" Gutierrez, running around melting all the metal around him while mysterious military people are gunning after him... and he gets rescued by Skye -- going by the name Daisy now -- showing off her newfound control over her Quake powers and strides in all superhero-like. We see that the new SHIELD, in the timeskip, has definitely put their house in order and it was a greatly scripted opening even with the sheer ridiculousness of a giant elevator box thing with rockets went down to retrieve Joey.

Also, fish oil gives you metal melting powers.

We also see SHIELD's new replacement to the Bus, which is Zephyr-One, looking pretty badass. Yeah, they definitely got a budget increase for CGI! Again, this opening scene is really strong, making me happy that they're not wasting this second (well, third, technically) chance they have to redeem themselves after the crappy first half of season two.

We get to see Skye (well, she prefers to call herself Daisy now but like Coulson I'm going to have a hard time moving on from her old name) play the 'I went through this shit too' role to Joey, explaining stuff about the Inhumans and Terrigenesis, helping to recap the stuff to viewers without feeling too tacked on. It kinda feels a bit like the X-Men mutant homosexuality metaphor, sort of (Joey's character is actually gay, which helps it out a bit) but Skye makes a distinction since you actually change. Regardless of metaphors they are still strong scenes.

On the geeky side, we get confirmation that the Terrigen mist is the only one hiding in seafood and whatnot, and the metal harmful to humans is still sitting at the bottom of the ocean. It doesn't really take up that much space, and we cut back and forth to the other characters too.

Most of this episode is centered on SHIELD trying to figure out who's kidnapping the Inhumans, with a B-plot running of Fitz going on a big search for clues, something I'll cover later. But there's this mysterious military organization apparently hunting Inhumans, something that Coulson and Hunter manage to track down throughout the episode. And I do like the little bait-and-switch we got, with Rosalind (the leader of this op team) overseeing what seems to be scientists dissecting the metahumans, and with the various incarnations of Hydra having a boner for dissecting powered people, that is what we assume... until the confrontation between Coulson and Rosalind came and Rosalind reveals that she's only found corpses and she thought Coulson was the one behind all the killing. Nope, not Hydra.

Apparently this mysterious organization is called the ATCU, basically President Ellis (who makes an unexpected return from Iron Man 3) creates a new tactical team to combat metahumans because the Avengers and SHIELD aren't enough. Rosalind certainly seems to be calling the shots, though, and while Coulson does get away under her nose -- in no small part thanks to pulling out the gag-hand trick out of Joker's book -- she certainly seems like somewhat of a threat. What I'm worried about is that we've already kind of done this 'knight templar military organization' thing before with General Talbott and Robert Gonzales, so we might be retreading old ground... but they do feel relatively fresh enough that I don't mind.

Also, the return of the President, talking about keeping these superhumans in check? Yeah, totally not a build-up to Civil War and the registration act.

Meanwhile, SkyeDaisy's attempts to make a new team of Secret Warriors is kind of put on hold because dr. Garner, y'know, does psychological assessments and that's bothersome. I mean, it's not like Skye is emotionally unstable when she first came out as an Inhuman oh wait. But Skye (yeah referring to her as Daisy's not going to work for me, at least not for the moment) is adamant on making this work, so she and Mack goes off to find Lincoln, who's working as a doctor and wants nothing to do with the Inhumans. As in traditional superhero setting, no one who wants to go back and live a normal life ever gets it, so naturally the moment that Lincoln, Skye and Mack discuss about Lincoln helping to train Joey to control his powers, the mysterious third party that has been killing Inhumans show up.

It's this new dude Lash, and he sorta kinda looks like Blackheart from the Marvel comics. Lash goes unnamed other than in solicitations and just looks like this scary dreadlocked beast-man thing that can apparently just create giant holes and doors and walls on stuff. He's just going around hunting Inhumans, and is apparently strong enough to shrug off the combined blasts of Lincoln's lightning and Skye's quake powers, as well as Mack's bullets. We don't get to see much of him before he's driven away, but Lincoln's Inhuman status has been outed and he's on the run from ATCU and presumably Lash as well.

And all while we cut back and forth between the other not-so-prominent characters in this episode. We get nice scenes of Coulson talking to both Skye and Bobbi; Coulson snarking about his new cybernetic arm (cool effects on that, too); the odd little friendship of Bobbi being buddies with Fitz (who I don't think she even had a scene with last season); Bobbi herself recovering and having some unresolved tension with Hunter (which is honestly getting old); Skye and Mack talking to Joey; Coulson's scene with Rosalind... Bobbi's temporarily relegated to a support role with the science team owing to her injury from the end of season 2, though honestly the tension with Hunter is easily the weakest point in this episode... though thankfully it's about a marriage proposal instead of a rehash of season two again. Hunter's going off to create a taskforce to hunt down Grant Ward and put him in the ground, so it's nice to see SHIELD being active on hunting down Hydra.

May is, by the way, still on holiday. Well.

Also, let's talk about Mack for a bit. I've made my dislike for Mack rather clear throughout the second season, only sorta growing to like him near the end when he starts making sense and helping Skye out. Here he seems to have gotten over his racist xenophobia, and his anger to Lincoln is less about him being a half-alien and more because he lightning-blasted some of Mack's buddies during last season's finale. He's certainly happy to hang around with Skye and near Joey, even if he's just kinda being a dick with his sarcasm. I... tolerate him, I guess. That shotgun-ax line was definitely fun, though.

Fitz, meanwhile, is just being a boss and just travelling around hunting down archaeological clues about the monolith, going up to a radical group in Middle East and just owning that confrontation by fooling them with splinter bombs (a nice callback to their usages in season two) before smoothly walking out with that parchment he needs. Yeah, confidence? Uselessness? All abandoned, apparently, and while I don't think time can just fix brain damage like that, brain-damaged-stuttering-friendzoned-Fitz was handled absolutely shittily in season two and I'd rather have an unexplained recovery than them going through that whole shit again. Definitely jarring, but I like it.

Also, I do love how we don't spend the entire premiere having Fitz trying to figure out what happens to Simmons, and just straight up jumps into what the characters are doing about the cliffhanger instead of re-iterating the cliffhanger. Gotham and its stupid batcave can learn a thing or two from this.

Of course, it ends up being for naught since inside this mysterious parchment was a single Hebrew word meaning death, and we get a heartfelt scene between Coulson and a desperate Fitz, as Coulson logically tells Fitz to move on and kind of talks about how they need to contact Simmons's family and whatnot. And we get a nice, carnal scene as Fitz, bereft of all hope, just shotgun-blasts the monolith's casing and just tries to probably kill himself or get himself to where Simmons is... but the monolith is just being a troll and him shouting and hitting the monolith is pretty raw and well-done.

And finally we cut off to the end of the episode, where Simmons is running around with torn-up clothes on some weird desert land that's apparently in space. So yeah, the monolith is a portal. Is it one of the Asgardian realms? Or is 'death' literal and we're actually exploring Marvel's hell? I mean, Lash does kinda-sorta look like Blackheart... or is it just some random Kree-related planet? Simmons is alive, though, and while I have no clue about Marvel comics beyond the most basic, I guess it'll be entertaining to see how this all ties together.

Speaking of things tying together, we get some nice little subtle nods to the Marvel movies. Not as blatant as Agent of SHIELD likes to be in the past, but we did get Sokovia (from Age of Ultron) mentioned several times, and President Ellis' speech does mention events that correspond to Avengers, Age of Ultron and Thor: The Dark World. Plus Coulson and Fitz briefly mention Pym particles (from Ant-Man) as one of the possible things that might happen to Simmons.

Overall? Extremely strong opening episode. It introduces the new status quo, shows off some impressive stuff especially for Skye-Daisy and Fitz, and introduces a bunch of new characters. The ATCU, more Inhumans, Lash the hunter... overall definitely a great episode. Looking forward to more. Definitely loving this new superhero-themed angle we're having, too. Like the Flash, Agents of SHIELD is shaping up to having a pretty strong season. Definitely optimistic.

Also, yeah, it's great that Skye is using her name Daisy in the show which does raise a lot of nice implications about her character growth, how she's changed over two seasons, how she's accepted her Inhuman self and how she's the incarnation of the Marvel comics character Quake... but she's always going to be Skye to me and like Coulson, knowing the lady as Skye for two years or whatever isn't something I can just switch overnight.

The Flash S02E01 Review: Atom Smashers

The Flash, Season 2, Episode 1: The Man Who Saved Central City

I don't think I need to re-state my love for the Flash and how absolutely great its first season was. Moreso than Agents of SHIELD, Arrow, Gotham, Daredevil and so many other superhero TV series out right now, the Flash has been the one I absolutely love everything about. So the very moment season two premiered, I watched the first episode. And with the absolutely smashing finale we got that wrapped up the Flash's new, revised origin story (and likely to be the definite one for me) we start off the second season with a modest, more character-driven stuff while all around us hints are being dropped about what direction the second season is taking. And while this first episode may have been unnecessarily slow at times, it has absolutely done its job perfectly to hype things up for this season, introducing all the new big players while still being insanely vague about it, this episode's villain showcases that we're not just going to have variations of energy beams and the special effects are going to be more elaborate... and so on.

Spoilers from here on out, so be warned.

We start off with an absolutely fun (and slightly over-the-top hammy) scene of the Flash and Firestorm fighting Captain Cold and Heat Wave, every single one of them having a blast and eating the scene up. A great way to start the episode... and we get a bit of a celebration time... until Eddie shows up. And you think that whatever Barry did in the season finale against the wormhole revised some things in the timeline... and then Wells shows up. And despite the Flash being generally more optimistic than its sister show, it's not afraid to make its casualties permanent.

We've had a six month time skip, and we see that things have relatively changed. We get a short flashback to what happened after the big wormhole thing -- after Flash stabilizes it by running around, Firestorm combines and shoots up, using the nuclear force from them separating to close the wormhole. Except Ronnie apparently is consumed by it and Martin Stein is the only one to make it out alive. Now anyone who knows anything about superhero fiction knows that being consumed by a portal with no body shown basically is tantamount to survival. Add that to knowing that Firestorm will be a main character in Legends of Tomorrow... so Ronnie, likely, isn't dead. Maybe he's just reduced to a mental voice in Martin's head, in a neat little reversal of their comic-book dynamic (sometimes) but whatever the case we have not seen the last of Ronnie.

It's kind of a poorly handled death, and the lack of screentime given to his "death" in the flashback and only the shortest of reaction scenes from Caitlin kind of basically sells it as 'yeah we know he's coming back', so it's kind of a weak point there.

His death affected the group dynamic, though, as Barry has grown morose and doing his best to channel his Oliver Queen and trying to work alone without playing it up too much. Caitlin is coping with grief and has gone over to work at Mercury labs. Cisco is working with Joe and developing anti-metahuman weapons for the police, which is awesome. And Central City's apparently left somewhat in tatters, with Barry actually zipping in and out of some old haunts -- like Jitters Coffee -- and helping to rebuild. 

But in a nice contrast to how Arrow is viewed in his hometown, the Flash enjoys a shit-ton of popularity even while he's in his brooding phase, with the city celebrating a Flash Day, no doubt building up to having stuff like the Flash Museum. We do spend a rather inordinate amount of time for Barry to brood about not deserving the glory (which I guess sort of segues into the flashback to Ronnie's "death" rather well, but it does take a bit too much screentime) before eventually showing up.

And, of course, have a metahuman battle! After a short mystery about finding the dead body of Al Rothstein very early on in this episode, he shows up dressed in Atom Smasher garb to gatecrash Flash Day, all angry and shit. Now DC comic geeks know Atom Smasher as a B-lister hero associated with the Justice Society, but right here he's just a villainous angry metahuman. The effects for Atom Smasher, with his mass-increasing size, looks a bit odd at times but it certainly does illustrate him stretching to a larger height and mass pretty well. The effects of his helmet-mask opening and closing is also absolutely cool. We get some nice little demonstration of Cisco and Joe's new "Boot" weapon, and some hints of Cisco's power of being able to see through dimensions, but ultimately the fight ends up inconclusive because we need to save the beatdown for the third act.

The rest of the episode has a 'get the gang back together into a team' with Iris and Cisco spearheading the effort to get Barry to open up and basically re-recruit everyone back to STAR Labs. I'm not exactly sure why Barry is pushing everyone away other than Ronnie's death -- which would affect Caitlin more than Barry you'd think. But everyone eventually gets together. And the scenes are definitely written well and aren't grating, but I'm just left with the feeling if all of this is necessary and if some of it couldn't be trimmed out.

And Wells-Thawne has left one last, final gift to Barry at the end of his death. Barry is given STAR Labs itself, as well as a USB drive, which has Harrison Wells unexpectedly confess to the murder of Nora Allen, delivering some damning evidence... before telling Barry, cryptically, that he will never be happy even if he gets what he want. It's a nice moment that carries vibes of both 'awww he does care' and 'what sadistic thing is he planning' that Harrison Wells had to him before he went all hammy villain, and is pretty well done.  "You'll never be truly happy, Barry Allen. Trust me. I know you."

And Henry Allen gets released! And, uh, immediately just decides to leave to figure out his life and knows that the city needs Barry more as a superhero. We know Henry's actor isn't a regular, and he's really not going to do anything exciting to the team, and he has been more genre savvy about superheroes and whatnot.... and while a strange direction for the show to take beyond possibly real-life actor issues, it still delivers a pretty strong scene between Barry and Henry. Again, it just takes a bit too much time with all these moments when I'm expecting something more adrenaline-driven for a first episode.

The chase for Atom Smasher is pretty simple. They figure out something about his metahuman powers -- he absorbs radiation to survive -- someone comes up with his comic book codename (Martin Stein this time, earning a hug from Cisco)... except Barry, while being a bit of a hardass, tries to take on him alone and fails. They try together, and succeed in taking Atom Smasher out. Which is pretty simple, and pretty entertaining.

Then comes the big reveal -- the Al Rothstein body that they found in the beginning of the episode? It wasn't Atom Smasher pre-change, or if he has some weird duplicating powers or whatever. The Atom Smasher that Barry fought wants to 'go home', and this mysterious 'Zoom' dude promises to take him home if he kills Barry. So, yeah, alternate universes confirmed, and it seems like the portal was what brought Atom Smasher (Earth-2's Al Rothstein) here. And he killed this universe's Al Rothstein. Honestly I'm pleased that I didn't think of Atom Smasher being a dimensional jumper even though I know Earth-2's going to be a thing, and I just thought that the weird Al Rothstein corpse thing was just part of this version of Atom Smasher's powers. It's a great little twist, and the fact that they bring it up a couple of times without making it too obvious is definitely a plus.

Of course, you could nitpick and remember that Harrison Wells listed Al Rothstein as one of the people 'killed' by the explosion of his reactor way back in episode 5 or 6 or whatever, but hey, apparently this universe's Al Rothstein survived long enough for him to get killed by his universe-hopping counterpart.

And, of course, the ending has the new big player show up -- Jay Garrick, a.k.a. Earth-2's Flash, a.k.a. Flash I, for comic-book readers. Whose helmet we saw randomly show up in season one's finale. And Zoom, a blackened figure with blue lightning, shows up in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment when Cisco sees through space and time to see him talking to Atom Smasher. Yeah, that was a lot faster than I expected them to show up, but I am certainly glad we're hopping into the Zoom and Earth-2 plot almost immediately.

Uh... what else? New suit has a new symbol like everyone expected. No big deal there. Flash's Bat-signal ripoff is kinda dumb, but dumb in a charming way. 

So overall? The main plot of getting the gang back together felt a bit tacky. It's a series of pretty powerful scenes... except that it doesn't really make sense that Barry is the one being emo and driving everyone away when by rights it should be Caitlin and Iris that are mourning Ronnie and Eddie. And Barry being a bit of a dick during his second fight with Atom Smasher kind of came out of nowhere. But honestly the scenes are pretty well-scripted and well-done, and despite some odd directions that the show takes -- like Henry immediately going off the show -- it still holds up pretty well, and I'm willing to overlook the large amount of padding in this episode and see it for what it is: building up the bigger picture.

Also, freaking Jay Garrick.

Toriko 342 Review: We're Skipping Stuff :(

Toriko, Chapter 342: Toriko, Switch On

Don't really have much to say about this week's Toriko. I've been saying it since we cut away from the cooking competition and the whole secret city of conspiracies of Blue Grill to suddenly just showing all the eight areas, all the eight kings, all the eight ingredients, the NEO, the Acacia, the Midora, the Teppei, the everything... it's clear something is going on behind the scenes in Toriko and it either is being told to just skip through all these possibly-formulaic arcs, or just wants to rush to an ending for whatever reason. And that's fucking depressing, since there's so much more that they could do in the individual areas! Although on the other hand I am kinda-sorta glad that we're not going to be dragging things out the way One Piece and Bleach did in the past year of arcs, and if Toriko's ending is going to be rush I'd rather it be on its own terms.

We get a short flashback to Toriko hunting down Komatsu during the timeskip period, and apparently wild beasts and whatnot avoid him because he's emitting his appetite demon troll aura and his smell is like super-awesome that he can smell things from the world and basically has a Komatsu radar. Midora also notes that the sheer amount of drive within Toriko would mean if the two of them did battle, not even Midora would come out unscathed. Starjun notes how the Toriko in the present day is undoubtedly the same power level that Midora saw before, and Toriko just tells Starjun and the Battle Wolf that he could smell what's going on throughout the world -- Acacia's full course all ripening -- and "God" is going to appear near them.

The Battle Wolf has a short monologue about how Toriko's heartbeat and awakening two years ago was what they all felt, and Toriko goes all "you're just the number two Battle Wolf. Come out, king." and out steps Wolf King Guinness, who is black-coloured and rather gigantic. Nowhere as large as Heracles or Mother Snake or Sky Deer, but still, pretty big, easily dwarfing Toriko and Numero Dos Lobos.

We get the two of them facing off each other with some honestly rather generic narration, before they get switched on by appetite and Toriko does a demon-punch straight to Guinness' face. And Toriko does this double entrende filled line that "the one that always flips my switch is... Komatsu!"

Komatsu calls Toriko, and we get a two-page spread showing the results of the Blue Grill arc. They apparently cooked "Another"... and what the fuck happened? Komatsu's got long hair. Yun Yun the penguin is gigantic. Warden Love is back, I think. Picnic Bomber, Asarudy and the rest of the masked chefs have their masks off and are smiling -- including Condor Window, who we last saw being eaten by the souls of the damned. And most importantly, a gigantic bearded figure that looks sorta-kinda like that Ganishka Emperor dude from Berserk. And he's apparently Don Slime's true form, and he calls himself a natural disaster filled with malice.

So, yeah, Don Slime versus Acacia Neo incoming?

Also sucks that we skipped through all that. Maybe we'll get a montage in the next chapter? Whatever. I'm not really happy about skipping stuff, but I can't say I'm particularly super-offended either. Goes without saying, though, that I'm not super-happy (though not exactly super-upset, just indifferent) that Toriko can somehow be on the level of Guinness after, well, not doing much, really, even though he stood jack shit of a chance against Bambina and Heracles (it was teamwork, Bambina dicking around and demon materialization that took the kings out) and now he gets this power-up to fight Guinness... simply because he is focusing his smell. That's weird.

Also there better be a big flashback next chapter, is all I'm saying. Just too tired to get pissed at this chapter. But I do think that I am. It's weird. Eh. 

One Piece 803 Review: Of Dragons, Clowns and Demon Sheriffs

One Piece, Chapter 803: Climbing the Elephant

This chapter's title is certainly appropriate. Luffy's crew does jack shit in this chapter other than climbing that elephant, which takes place in two scenes at the beginning and the end of this chapter. The Barto Club ship dock next to the Thousand Sunny, and apparently Bartolomeo is just going off to go on his way and not interrupt his senpai's "holy pilgrimage". Bartolomeo does this tearful goodbye and pledges to be a good subordinate and whatnot and honestly I expected him to be far more dramatic than this -- if he leaves Luffy at all. Luffy does remember part of his name, so Bartolomeo can die happy I guess. Anyway it's exit stage left for the Barto Club, easily my favourite among the new characters introduced in the Dressrosa arc.

Kanjuro conjures up this, uh, really sad-looking pigfaced dragon thing who tries its best to climb up the giant elephant's leg all shivering and shit. Everyone thinks it is pathetic... except for Nico Robin! How adorable, Robin! It's cute indeed.

The last two pages of this chapter just shows that Team Luffy, Law and the Samurai are just climbing up Zo's leg, and both Kin'emon and Kanjurou promises to tell everything (a two-year old mystery no one cares about, honestly) about the samurai and their backstory and all that bullshit, but their main priority is meeting up with Momonosuke and their third comrade... Raizo the Ninja. Samurais and Ninjas working together? Pirates and Ninjas woring together? MADNESS!

Everyone goes all "eh, he's a ninja?" expression that the Straw-Hat males make whenever mechas and robots come up... and hilariously this includes Law. Who's just turning around with the rest of the Straw Hats all >:( and shit.  Something flies down towards Luffy and that's the cliffhanger, but who the fuck cares?

We visit three dudes who we have not seen since the timeskip, one of whom I don't think ever got a proper scene.

We see the Revolutionary Army Base "Baltigo", and we get formally introduced, finally, to Monkey D. Dragon, looking badass as fuck. And the Revolutionary Army's, well, revolution is going on pretty well, in no small part to the Donquixote Army's downfall. But Dragon mentions that the Cipher Pol is growing in strength over the years, and tells his troops not to be careful. Koala confirms that it was the Revolutionaries who took the weapons from Dressrosa, and apparently Dressrosan weapons are made up of some special kind of Wine Steel or Liq-Ore depending on the translation, though that gets glossed over. 

Dragon asks about Robin -- apparently the fake Robin's capture in Shabaody is 'news', nice little callback -- and curiously Dragon doesn't really care about news of Luffy despite being the boy's father. Although I guess Dragon just doesn't know Luffy as well as he does Robin. Which is a shame. Though he does mention that Sabo (who's training with his Mera Mera no Mi) has told him everything, so maybe he just doesn't like repetition. Dragon then tells Koala to gather the leaders of the Revolutionary Army together, to which Koala responds that they're gathering a bunch of weirdoes. Well, we know Emporio Ivankov and Bartholomew Kuma are, well, hilariously weird, but I'm just curious to see just what the top brass of the Revolutionary Army is like. We can't have everyone be cool motherfuckers like Monkey D. Dragon, after all.

Do we know any of the other members of the Revolutionary Army? Wouldn't it be cool if, oh, Crocodile or Rayleigh or whoever is revealed to be a member of the Revolutionary Army? Don't think it's likely, though.

We then cut away to two Blackbeard log-ships! Again, despite the fact that his presence is everywhere ever since the timeskip, we've never seen Blackbeard or his crew, Burgess aside, since the Marineford Wars. Man, all these dudes we haven't seen in a while coming out of the woodwork! We see Shiliew and Lafitte getting a call from Burgess. Apparently they went to retrieve Burgess in Dressrosa, but the dude isn't around. Shiliew "of the rain" is one of the fleet commanders of the Blackbeard Pirates, specifically the second fleet. "Demon Sheriff" Lafitte is the leader of the fifth fleet.

Burgess is in kind of a shit state, and while Lafitte and Shiliew are just being cool and rather down to business, Burgess just asks them to come get him -- there are lots of weapons, though no one knows where he is. Burgess tells Lafitte and Shiliew to follow his vivre card there, since he's snuck on board the weapon smuggles and followed the Revolutionaries back to Baltigo! Well. Blackbeard Pirates versus the Revolutionaries?

We cut away to the final point of interest in this chapter, "Star Clown" Buggy, who is based in Kalai Bali Island. Buggy is dressed in some long-flowing big cape that I assume he's using the Bara-Bara no Mi to make himself look bigger. Apparently Buggy's running some big pirate dispatch business, and with Doflamingo taken out of the picture, Buggy's pirates are the alternative since all the people fighting the wars need manpower and Buggy's army is all up for the task. 

Behind Buggy, his commanders -- Alvida, Mr. 3, Fat Mohji, Cabahji and the lion who's wearing clothes and shit -- are just eating and whatnot, and they inform Buggy that Hajrudin and the four other giants with him are quitting. Well, that's a surprise! So Hajrudin was working for Buggy? Well. Buggy really wouldn't want to know why Hajrudin quit, that's for sure. It's a fun little scene.

Man, we're just doing nothing these past few chapters except re-establish the setting of the new arc, a giant zombie elephant island... and just cutting back and forth between some characters who we haven't seen in a long time, and some new players... getting reintroduced to the sheer scale of One Piece after the rather messily-paced Dressrosa is absolutely welcome. Hopefully whatever big war we have will be more Marineford and less Dressrosa. Overall pretty fun chapter. We see the Blackbeard Pirates and how they operate. We get our first dose of Monkey D. Dragon and I love him. 

Nanatsu no Taizai 143 Review: Man, Poor Jericho

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 143: Scream of the Guardian Saint

I've never liked Jericho that much. I don't actively hate her, but she's the fun B-list character who's only use to the plot is to be a sidekick (to Guilla earlier, and now Ban) and butt-monkey. And her unrequited love for Ban has been a gigantic riot to just have fun with, but holy shit, the feels for her in this chapter! As predicted, Elaine goes all yandere and attacks both Ban and Jericho, while Jericho rants on and on about "that lunatic just slashed your throat!" and Ban is all like "no harm no foul, uh... Elaine calm down". And I do like the sheer calmness that Ban has on his face and words when he confronts Elaine when she's just tossing Jericho around with wind.

Then Elaine the psycho bitch (as Jericho so eloquently puts it) just starts wind-hacking Ban apart and ranting about how she was the one who wanted to go on a journey and live with Ban and shit. Ban's reaction is a slightly-pissed "what's happened to you, Elaine?" but Elaine is just wind-slicing through everything and Jericho charges in, first just calling Elaine names like psycho-bitch and wand-up-her-ass princess. Elaine is just doing all her twisted troll logic about how Jericho had it coming because she forced Ban to stop Elaine.

But Jericho manages to pin Elaine down. Ban is all like "stop, Jericho, Elaine isn't herself!" but Jericho confronts Elaine with words, and, man, I really do feel bad for Jericho. It's hard to describe this scene without transcribing Jericho and Elaine's conversation, but Jericho basically just confronts Elaine whether she loves Ban at all -- mind-controlled or not. Elaine of course goes I do I do I do and Jericho replies with the loudest, most anguished-looking "AND I LOVE HIM TOO!" Jericho and Elaine get to some basic sniping with how 'I will not give him over to you' and 'Ban won't ever love you. Ban realizes Elaine is controlled, but Jericho just goes into this awesome rant. First, she just rants about how someone with tits and ass suits Ban better than some short washboard-chested girl (damn girl, shots were fired) and rants about how Ban saved his life... before continuing to shout about how she would never, ever cause any kind of suffering to the man she loves...

"And yet... somehow Ban... he just can't go on without you..."

And Jericho just rants that drunk or asleep or fighting or whatever, the only thing that can consume Ban's mind is Elaine and how to revive Elaine and how Ban's just thrown away everything just to get Elaine back. And Jericho just confronts Elaine with "If you really love Ban half as much as you say you do, then how could you let yourself be manipulated this easily?"

Fucking powerful scene and speech and no I don't care if it doesn't make sense for Elaine not to just whirlwind-slice Jericho up right there and how it's a bit of a bad Aesop since Ban really likes to strip Jericho's clothes and whatnot...

But it got through, and Elaine, despite attacking Jericho with a half-assed tornado, basically asks someone to stop her.

And Ban hugs Elaine. "I will come steal you away some day. I promised you that. You're mine for all eternity." Man, the feels! Ban continues to talk to Elaine (while we cut away to a hilarious shot of Jericho saying "well, fuck me") about how he'll steal away all the skeletons in her closet and whatnot... before Elaine faints.

And we get a monologue about how the "Law of Grudge Revival" only amplifies the feelings of regret and affection and rage, and with those feelings suppressed, the Grudge cannot hold them back to life. And, well, shit, the Ten Commandments are here! Way to fucking segue from all this interesting Ban stuff back to the Ten Commandments! Apparently it's rare for anyone to resist the Law of Grudge Revival. No one has any idea what's going on but Elaine is dying, Jericho is scared, and Ban is fucking pissed.

Ban leaves Elaine to Jericho, and is ready to fight not one, but two members of the Ten Commandments alone -- despite him being barely as powerful as pre-power-up Meliodas who got his ass handed to him by Galan alone.

And now, we have Galan and Merascylla (that's her name, I forgot last chapter), ready to throw down with Ban. Galan is of the <Truth>, which we know, but Merascylla is of <Faith>. I'm not quite sure which of the ten biblical commandments that corresponds to, and her grudge anger power thing also doesn't really correspond to any of the biblical commandments. Eh, we'll see, I guess.

Holy shit, the feels! And the hype! But mostly the feels! Taizai is definitely the strongest chapter for this week's weekend trio. And this really is how you handle an admittedly one-sided love triangle. And how you do a talk-no-jutsu. This chapter is awesome.