Agent Carter S02E06-S02E07 Review: The Widow vs the Madame

Agent Carter, Season 2, Epsiode 6: Life of the Party

These two episodes came at around the same time, and I actually did a rough-bones review of it when it came out... so let me finish writing it, a good month after the episodes actually premiered. Whoops. By this point the second season has ended, and I'll be reviewing the rest of the episodes in the near future, before moving on to Daredevil's season two.

Anyway, this two-parter focuses more on Team Peggy recruiting Dottie Underwood, a.k.a. Black Widow I, back into the fold to combat the larger threat, Whitney Frost. It's all entertaining spy stuff, and it very much raises the stakes for the second half of the season. Agent Carter's second season has one of the most solid first halves, and Whitney Frost has been built up to be this interesting and formidable villain. So like any good work of fiction, they pit last season's villain against this new big bad. Except, y'know, Dottie's a rather colourful character herself, where she's got this... unhealthy, explicitly-ship-inducing interest in Peggy Carter, which is part of the reason why she's interested in helping.

At least they lampshade what a stupid and reckless idea it was to bring Dottie into the fold beyond 'let's do this for, uh, reasons' like they often do in Arrow, and Peggy's abdomen-impalement injury is a good enough reason as any. Plus there's the Suicide Squad collar on top of it all. And it is fun to have Jarvis and Dottie interact and try their level best to outsnark each other in that gala... even if we have some rather irritating-yet-funny Peggy-Sousa drama shoved in the middle of it all.

But really, Whitney Frost is still one of the most awesome characters in this season, easily outshining Dottie. Chadwick and the Council try to set up a trap for Whitney, and when she realizes she was betrayed by Chadwick, well, she uses her black-goop powers to eat Chadwick and half the council, who I have given up hope on being relevant in any way to the story. Vernon Masters is one of those spared, and he did get a bunch of buildup with Thompson throughout the episode so it's nice to have him grow somewhat as a character instead of just Corrupt FBI Man.

Thompson continues to be annoying, though at least he's showing visible reluctance at cooperating with Vernon. In his line of work, what can you do? He seems to be having some conflicts of interest as he overhears some sensitive stuff that Vernon and the other council members are saying, and I'm 100% sure he'll be redeemed at the end mostly because, y'know, we went through the 'is Thompson evil or just a dick' bit already.

It's a great episode, though. It moves the plot along, it's got this fun little moments both in the planning and execution of the plan, it proves that the main character can sit out most of the action while the secondaries have a time to shine, and Whitney Frost continues to be a fun and unique villain in the MCU.

Agent Carter, Season 2, Epsiode 7: Monsters

This episode followed up the previous one as a pretty strong installment, and brings Dottie and Frost facing off against each other. Dottie gets herself captured by Frost's forces, and I do like the scene where she gives these gory descriptions about the tortures she suffers daily to Vernon. There's definitely a nice callback (call-forward, in-universe) to the Avengers movie where Black Widow was being tied down to a chair and being absolutely nonchalant about torture. And then Frost comes in with her Zero Matter powers and puts the fear of god into Dottie. Because, y'know, metahuman powers are a bit more scary than something that you've grown desensitized to over the years. The image of the black goop running across Dottie really isn't that horrifying that I buy her breaking immediately, but Dottie's reactions certainly sells it.

Peggy, of course, does show a wee bit of attachment for Dottie (let the shipping bells ring) by refusing to blow the Suicide Squad necklace up, and there's a nice bit of ethical debate between the members of the team on just what action to take -- use the necklace to attempt to blow up Frost, while almost certainly killing Dottie who lest we forget is an assassin and a murderer -- or, um, do nothing. I would definitely blow up that necklace, but that's why I'm not a paragon of justice and ideals like Peggy Carter.

Dottie's status as a rogue agent gets solidified when Vernon enforces the fact that the Soviet will never accept her again, but her betrayal of the SSR this episode (and her subsequent murder-escape at the end of this) solidifies that she's not going onto the side of the angels either. She escapes to return another day, though unless she charges in like a wild card in the finale... not in this season, I think.

This episode is definitely a bit brought down by the rather odd love triangle between Peggy, Wilkes and Sousa, but at least the show (and Jarvis) is not beyond lampshading it, and Peggy herself seemed flabbergasted at the amount of attention she's been getting. Wilkes, I think, still is being somewhat forced into the plot. He still is more plot device than character, really, be it being Mr. Intangible or being Love Interest #2. Yeah, he gets to turn half-corporeal within Howard Stark's machine, and he gets fought over and kidnapped by Frost, but I still don't really care all that much about him to care that he's been kidnapped.

Also, Joseph "Blackwing" Manfredi has basically taken up spot as Whitney Frost's number two, driven by old love for her, and, well, Manfredi is a lot hammier, funnier and far more entertaining than Chadwick.

Sousa gets beaten up by Vernon's people. Thompson works with Vernon's people. I don't care either way -- I've grown somewhat attached to the two of them over the course of 20 episodes or however long Agent Carter has been, but they really haven't done much this time around.

Anna gets a whole lot of screentime here, though, and it's a great development from her scenes in previous episodes where she worries about Jarvis. Her conversation with Jarvis and her newfound concerns about the sheer reality of Jarvis' escapades with Agent Carter is a nice touch, and something that's wonderfully done -- Anna is both supportive and rightfully worried at the same time. Usually in superhero shows people generally lean way too much on either camp, almost to the exclusion of the other, but Anna strikes the perfect balance between the two. Of course, she immediately gets shot in the gut at the end of the episode because, uh, that's what works of fiction do. They make you get attached to minor characters and then they kill them off.

The jury's still out on whether Anna dies, but it's certainly a big escalating point in the story, and Anna certainly is disposable enough (unlike Peggy or Howard, who are both almost certainly alive by the time present-day MCU rolls around, or Jarvis, who will survive long enough to meet Kid!Tony) and would definitely strike a blow to the team. Hell, Jarvis's expressions of horror and panic alone made me well up a little -- James D'Arcy is a really great actor, I must say.

It's your requisite 'darkest moment' part of the plot, with Wilkes kidnapped, Anna possibly dead, the SSR team really reaching nowhere, Frost getting the lead, Vernon's people beating up Sousa, Thompson working with Vernon and Dottie escaping. It's not overdone, though, and if nothing it certainly makes the wait for the next episode a lot more exciting, if only to see if Anna survives.

Fairy Tail 478-479 Review: Fuck This Manga

Fairy Tail, Chapter 478: Stealth & 479: Greatest Respect

This might actually be the shittiest fight in all of Fairy Tail. I mean 'Because She's Erza' was pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel for intelligence, but Kyouka and Erza's first parts were at the very least... entertaining, even if the pacing, the insertion of the fight relative to the plot arc, and the resolution were all garbage.

This fight? Wow, it's utterly surreal how horrible Fairy Tail has became. This fight is probably going to be what I point when I have to show an example of a shitty part of Fairy Tail. 458? It just makes an utter mockery of this villain Jacob, who was built up to be this assassin with powerful space-time magic in spite of his weird-ass pedophile-stubble face. The fight even starts off somewhat interestingly, even if the idea of 'oh my god he's moving so fast/he's teleporting' has been done with both Cobra and, y'know, the very fight before this with Dimaria. 

And then, uh, Jacob 'tortures' Natsu by forcing him to... look at Lucy's clothes while she is naked. Yeah. "Torture". And Jacob himself apparently is like eight years old or something because he's shutting his eyes shut and being 'omg boobs'. Um. Yeah. And they literally make him flustered, and then kick him in the face. Why? Why do this to your villain, when he's supposed to be built up to be a threat, to be at least a plot device? Any dignity he might've had is utterly gone now, short of, oh, killing a character in the next chapter, but yeah, like that's going to happen. Also, really? Boobs randomly? You have your villain force someone to... look at a naked woman, but you yourself can't even handle it? Even the Harem Jutsu in Naruto's big climax against Kaguya at least was meant to be a 'WTF are you doing' tactic in-universe, not... something... utterly stupid like this.

The next chapter even has Zeref talking to his troops about how many of the Spriggan 12 has fallen, showing how shit the group turned out to be. Jacob's easily the shittiest of them all, though. Jacob is all like "I am going to start killing your guildmates!" Um, yeah, you utter waste of a character, actually do it. He gets distracted when Lucy says that Brandish is trapped there, and just stands there like a moron as we get this utterly long-winded explanation while Gemini copies that... pervert rapist lackey of Brandish's, with an explanation that Gemini can't copy powerful opponents. 

So, yeah, apparently Jacob is such an utterly shit character that the magic of Brandish's lackey whose name no one probably remembers can disable it. Where was the 'OMG the Spriggan 12 is in a whole other level' bullshit. Everyone Jacob kidnaps is brought back because he's such a shitty spatial-magic wizard, apparently. Also, well, everyone who's not ever going to participate in a fight, ever.

Also I have no idea what happened when Happy suddenly popped up in the middle of Jacob's ninja hand sign. Was that supposed to be funny? Was that somehow supposed to be a punchline? What the utter fuck?

Makarov punches Jacob. Then Makarov throws Natsu. He can call it whatever Blazing Destruction God King Dragon Fire Fist or whatever, it's just a punch. And then we have an entire page going 'this is Natsu! This is Fairy Tail!' as if it's some kind of big-ass accomplishment to punch someone who's an utter nincompoop. Yeah. That is indeed Fairy Tail. What it really is, well, is the literary equivalent of a regurgitated bunch of vomit that botches up any kind of gravitas or any sort of dignity that this last arc might have by an utter disregard of respect for its own characters and utter stagnation of any character development and a simple lack of creativity in its fighting scenes.

I feel a little more stupid reviewing or even reading this manga regularly, and I have so much more interesting things to review. So effective immediately, uh, fuck this manga, I guess. 

Nanatsu no Taizai 164-167 Review: Tournaments and Amnesiac Giants

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 164: Those Who Will Never Surrender

I have been neglecting Nanatsu no Taizai for a while, but mostly because it's not really been that interesting. Fighting tournaments can either be really engaging or really boring depending on the fights involved. Chapter 164 was one of those boring ones.

Oh, sure, there's that bit that everyone guessed where the losers will get killed/captured/harvested or whatever, and it seems like they just fall into a hole so we can be worried for, oh, Griamore or Arthur or whichever of the supporting characters that will inevitably lose their match. This chapter, though, is mostly just facing Meliodas and Ban off against... the two stupid bird demons. And while it is hilarious to see Ban and Meliodas literally ignore the demons and accidentally deal damage to them by simply... being in the way... to see it stretched out over an entire chapter and to have the two of them argue about tits and asses is just... y'know... I dunno. Crass, I guess. Not that I'm opposed to a discussion about tits and asses, mind you... it just stretched out way too long for my tastes.

Meanwhile, speaking of tits, King has found himself stuck between Diane's tits while facing off against the Gloxinia and Dolor golem things.

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 165: Odd Couple

The chapter starts off with Diane trying to protect the 'little kid' King by hiding her in her boobs, while Dolor talks about fate and causality and some Berserk-Lite thing about how despite Gloxinia's desires, fate has given their avatars appropriate opponents. We get some comedy as King tries to convince Diane that he can be a badass (while trying not to bleed out via nosebleeding) and that he's the Fairy King and whatnot, while the Gloxinia Servant is doing some vine things and the Dolor Golem is just Machamp-ing it all over the place.

King (and the readers, I bet) notice the resemblance that the Gloxinia Servant has to... uh... that fairy spellcaster that tried to mulch Ban into fertilizer, whatsherface. Gerald? I dunno. King shows off some badassery with Chastiefol's Increase, Pillow and Guardian forms, breaking free off the root vine things and managing to hold off the Dolor Golem. Gloxinia and Dolor increase their avatars' powers to 'full strength' (which I assume is still a fraction of the demons themselves) while King tries this awkward confession to Diane about how despite her having amnesia he's going to tell her something...

Except Chastiefol gets his head knocked off, and the avatars' power-up knocks Diane around... until King goes Bankai. Well, spirit spear release or whatever. And it seems that every single one of Chastiefol's forms has a released version. For Guardian, it actually turns into this humongous muscle plush bear that doesn't look silly. Again, probably ixnay on the comedy a bit -- which I thought took way too much of the fight proportionally. This one had some really cool action scenes in it that made it superior than the Ban/Meliodas one, though.

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 166: Strange Fruit

Gloxinia is impressed with King's ability, and so am I -- Bankai Guardian just withstands every punch that the Dolor Golem delivers and actually knocks him the fuck through the ground and down the rock finger pillar thing. Gloxinia tries to strangle Diane to death with vines, but Chastiefol's Bankai Increase form... well, it's still a bunch of knives. But cooler-looking. And I assume more powerful and more numerous. Everyone notes how much of a toll it's taking on King, though, and while Gloxinia gloats about how plants can reform and blah blah blah, it's apparently part of King's plan to get the Gloxinia Avatar to reform far away so he can summon the spirit lance form and just atom bomb the fuck out of the Gloxinia Avatar.

Gloxinia admits defeat, but the Dolor Golem digs up and knocks both King and later Diane back -- and Diane puts herself in the way of an impact meant for King. It's nice that despite the amnesia, Diane's bond with King is actually developing anew and while it's dragged on like a geriatric snail and it's lost its momentum like twenty chapters ago, we might get a decent resolution to the stupid Gowther induces amnesia to find the meaning of love arc.

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapter 167: Precious in You

Diane is definitely interested to the relationship that she and King had before the whole memory loss thing, but decides that she also needs to be a badass. She summons her golems, Fillet and Sirloin, but those get absolutely one-shotted by the Dolor Golem. King tells Diane that Golems need a specific form to take to realize their full potential -- feelings from the bottom of her heart and all that. Would be nice if this wasn't randomly pulled out of the ass, but it at least gives 'Friendship Power-up' an actually sensible reason instead of, well, some other mangas I would rather not name.

Diane summons golem versions of Matrona, Elizabeth, Meliodas, King and an adorable little Hawk. We get a short 'aww' moment where King's just happy to be made into a golem. And then golem fight! Golem-Elizabeth does some awesome kung fu tricks but gets shattered. Golem-Meliodas does some hits too, but also gets shattered. Golem-Matrona and the adorable Golem-Hawk bouncing around manages to crack Dolor's Golem a bit, but they too get shattered. Of course King's Golem is the one to deal the killing blow, punching through Dolor Golem's body with that derp-ass expression on his face.  And, well, victory. I thought the Diane/King fight could've been done in, well, two chapters instead of three, but this just felt long. Not really drawn-out (I reserve that for the stupid amnesia subplot) but it just felt like a lengthier fight than it should.

Not bad, though.

Boku no Hero Academia 83-84: Stupid Ideas & Rescue Missions

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 83: Defeat

It's a bit of a recovery chapter, opening with the awesome 'WE LOST' narration. We get a bit of a recap that makes it known that despite the arrival of other help and the defeat of at least three villains, both teachers and students were injured, Bakugou and the crazy-eyed Pussy Cat's locations are unknown -- with a large amount of the latter's blood found at the scene. I mean, Chainsaw Noumu was carrying around a smashed Pussy Cat helmet thing, so she might just be dead and the manga is not mentioning it because it's too gruesome... or, y'know, it's the standard 'missing guy turns out to be working with the villains' switcheroo. 

We've got a bit of a media backlash, and the teachers of Yuuei are discussing this. All Might naturally blames himself, and there's this short scene where Presenter Mic mentions the possibility of a traitor among their midst -- the other heroes agree that while it's not out of the question (the principal even lampshades that even he himself is not out of suspicion) there is no concrete evidence either way and it would do no good to suspect each other. Though Mic does mention that only the teachers and Pussy Cats know the location of the lodge... and one of the Pussy Cats are conspicuously missing... Tsukauchi the policeman contacts All Might with some information that some people might've seen the the villain bar, so All Might's gonna deliver some pain.

Midoriya wakes up in the hospital with some wince-inducing descriptions about how he remembered nothing of the ordeal but pain, a note from his ever-suffering mother. The rest of Class 1A come to visit, except for three (Jirou, Hagakure and Yaoyorozu) who are injured and Bakugou, of course. Midoriya, of course, blames himself with all the 'my hands could've reached him if I was strong enough' speech, but Kirishima and Todoroki apparently overheard Yaoyorozu telling about the tracker she placed on Chainsaw Noumu to All Might. All Might notes the character development since the mid-term exams, which is nice.

Iida calls bullshit on them trying to go off and rescue Bakugou on their own, but Kirishima talks about how as a man, as a hero, they can't let this slide. Kirishima offers Midoriya a chance to reach Bakugou -- though probably telling someone with all his limbs in casts that 'your hands can reach him' isn't the best choice of words. Sides are being drawn, though, as Tsuyu and Kaminari agree with Iida... are we getting Captain Kirishima: Civil War here? #TeamKirishima or #TeamIida?

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 84: From Iida to Midoriya

We get a bit of a recap as Todoroki explains in detail that they can't be sure that the villains won't kill Bakugou eventually. Shouji (who actually points out that he understands how Todoroki feels, being unable to save Bakugou himself), Tokoyami (who's kinda bummed at being rescued all the time), Tsuyu (who's really against breaking the rules) and Aoyama (who's weird) also agree with Iida, and honestly it is the logical thing to do. It's the same argument we make every time in fiction like Naruto or Harry Potter where there is a larger governing bodies of teachers who also happen to be ninjas/wizards/superheroes that are far more competent and powerful that they could leave things to...

But, y'know, you gotta be a hero and all that. It's nice that the majority is in favour of the far more logical thing to do, which is to leave things to the pros. 

While Kirishima's all like "we'll be waiting for you since you're the most frustrated of all", the doctor that handles Midoriya tells him how his injuries are absolutely severe and I think that's one of the best things that this manga does -- it makes the descriptions and depictions of Midoriya's injuries whenever he uses One For All really, really excruciating. 'Firecrackers going off in your bones'? The doctor also notes that while bones and muscles might recover, his ligaments are getting torn up and Midoriya can at most do that amount of injury two or three more times. Or, y'know, learn to control it like what he was trying to do in the training camp and with Grand Tourino. Except, again, real life is gonna be a bitch and it's forcing him into combat again to rescue Bakugou in the very near future.

We get the obligatory thank you note from Kouta, which seemed to motivate Midoriya enough to meet up with Kirishima and Todoroki. Yaoyorozu shows up with the tracker, but so does Iida... who makes it clear that he's not trying to be Prefect Percy Weasley, but is just trying to stop Midoriya and company from making the same mistakes he made during the Stain arc. And, again, a nice, organic and concrete evidence of character development -- it's moments like this that really gives me faith that Boku no Hero Academia might just be a really, really good long-running manga that doesn't lose steam and just goes stagnant and repeats the same one or two character traits for each character (RE: Naruto, Bleach, Fairy Tail). Iida delivers a really good and deserved punch to Midoriya's face. He's got a really good point -- Yuuei and the students are under deep political shit, and Iida himself has suffered seeing his brother Ingenium get totally fucked up and permanently disabled. 

Todoroki and Kirishima then tell Iida that, well, they're just going to do a stealthy grab-and-go covert mission without combat (sh'yeah right that's going to happen). Yaoyorozu notes that she is coming with them as a failsafe to prevent combat, Midoriya gives a 'we need to save him' speech, and Iida decides to come with the same reason as Yaoyorozu.

Meanwhile the adult heroes are actually doing something -- the top four heroes All Might, Endeavour, Edge Shot (who is this spike-haired ninja we've never seen before) and Best Jeanist (this weird fucker is #4?) are also assembled.

Also meanwhile, the Villain Alliance are trying to recruit Bakugou with a simple 'join us'. To which Bakugou replies also simply 'spare me your shit and die'.

Yeah, a confrontation is coming!

We... also get a bonus chapter, 'Tsuyu's Ribbit Diary'. Apparently Tsuyu's this awkward kid back in school who has to take care of her two siblings in between studying to be a hero, so she didn't really made a lot of friends other than this snake-girl (who in spite of having a snake head has human teeth which is weird) stalker lady. Who she's friends with. A short little character building moment that really doesn't mean much. But I like Tsuyu. She's funny.

Legends of Tomorrow S01E08 Review: Cliche Storm

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1, Episode 8: Night of the Hawks

Sometimes I have the feeling that this show could be so much better if it didn't try so hard to homage different periods in time and actually just tell a good time-travel superhero story. See, Legends of Tomorrow has a good concept, has a pretty good and already well-established cast, a fun script and a fuckton of CGI action goodness. The biggest problem, really, is that it treats its audience like idiots sometimes by just taking utterly daft and stupid decisions in their episode-to-episode plotting -- like their refusal to put Vandal Savage in a cage until they can deal with him and/or going back in time to Egypt prior to the time that he met Rip. Plus, again, insert rant about how the constant speeches about not changing the timeline because it's important ends up being redundant because guess what, they're fucking up the timeline every single episode. 

Like this one. While I can argue up a defense for most of the previous episodes, even that ADHD-driven Cold War Russia era two-parter, Night of the Hawks is one that is really, really hard to defend. It tries to steer the plot back in the direction of Vandal Savage after two filler episodes (post-apocalyptic Star City and Star Trek Space Pirates) but it feels even more like a filler than the actual filler episodes. 

They tackle the multiple social -isms of the fifties in this episode, and racism, sexism and anti-LGBT form the root of the several subplots that run throughout this episode. While they don't quite sink as low as Supergirl-level of whack-your-head-with-an-anvil level of unsubtlety, it's pretty unentertaining to watch, especially when they repeat 'hey, the fifties are bad for mixed-race couples, girls and gays' for the fourth time. It's not that portraying these events are bad at all, no -- more power to shows that tackle these kind of issues, but other than Jax standing up to racist bullies and some golden lines from Sara, the rest are handled rather... not badly, but just bland. Ray and Kendra haven't been the best-acted or the most interesting characters in the bunch, and the attempts to force them to a 'oh look we're totally married except we aren't' situation ends up being absolutely banal. Likewise, Sara's attempts to flirt with a woman in the fifties ended up feeling absolutely forced, not to mention an utter dick move to Sara's actual lover, Nyssa, who, by the way, is still pining for Sara back in 2016. All I'm saying is, y'know, when tackling social injustice as a topic, make it at least somewhat interesting instead of it feeling like an obligation.

The plot of this episode homages old horror films, which Jax pointed out and lampshaded at least twice. A small American town that looks peaceful, until the murders start happening. The main plot, really, is that Savage discovers another Nth Metal meteor, and ends up using it (and the guise of the local nice doctor) to create the CWverse iteration of the Manhawks, these insane bestial Hawkman/Hawkgirl knockoffs. Which ended up falling flat. I mean, yeah, the Manhawks were decent, scary-looking antagonists, and the random plot twist of Savage being Ray and Kendra's friendly neighbourhood creep is surprising, but they don't do much with it other than the same old song and dance of them trying to stab Savage with the knife, fail, knock him out of the window and then escape.

Plus, y'know, the subplots aren't even good. Ray and Kendra playing house ends up feeling like a big distraction, because, y'know, it is one. Sara and Jax's respective love interests are generic girls-of-the-week who have your generic sickeningly-sweet personality, with the teenage girl being at least somewhat relevant to the plot. Nurse Hottie doesn't have that excuse, and, again, is just another unneeded distraction. Though honestly the episode does wonders at not really delivering anything at all so it's probably just as well.

It's just flat. And dull. And you think they would give a wee bit more focus to the Nth Metal or whatever, but not even Savage himself made the episode's plot really compelling -- why was he playing mad scientist at all? Learning about the meteors? Building an army like the Russian Firestorms? It's never made clear, and he feels like just a flat, bland supervillain. Oh, monsters, ho hum. There isn't really even a big mystery regarding local monsters or whatever, so they're not even doing the homage right. The fact that they turned Jax into a Manhawk is immaterial -- of all the people in the crew, they're not going to take out the one that fusion-dances with another member, and certainly not so soon after Heat Wave leaves the show.

Oh, and Captain Cold totally didn't murder Heat Wave, yeah? As much as Jax tries to call him a murderer (and eat his own words) and everyone pretends Cold killed Heat Wave, but honestly does anyone believes that?

I think, from the title, this episode is meant to give Kendra some spotlight after being woefully underutilized beyond being yet another Berserker Girl (which we had tons of)... and... um... I honestly can't think of anything she does in this episode that develops her character. Her chemistry with Ray is laughably bad, and is it that much of an achievement that she's (gasp) actually competent and brave enough to try and dupe Vandal Savage to stab him? She's been fighting Vandal Savage since episode one with a goddamned mace, I think it's honestly disservice to the character that it's treated as this big character development, when it's not.

Thankfully, at the end Chronos shows up, says 'fuck you all' and shoots up the Waverider. We get an explanation to why Firestorm never does anything even though he/they is/are the most overpowered member of the team -- they'll blow the ship up if they merge inside it. And the Waverider ends up taking off leaving three of the team stranded in 1950. Hopefully this will lead to something better-executed, and hopefully Chronos himself grows a personality.

Overall, easily the weakest (and hopefully the only really bad) episode of Legends of Tomorrow so far.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice -- Pint-Sized Review

So I watched Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I've been... unhappy with how WB has been shoehorning their way and generally fucking things over with the people making the DC TV shows, especially when all they really have under their belt is one half-decent movie (Man of Steel, which, while I think is a decent to good movie, isn't all that) and a highly overrated trilogy (Dark Knight is undoubtedly one of the best superhero movies, but the other two are definitely subpar in my books).

But that rant about embargoes or whatever are for another day. Despite all my complaints, Batman versus Superman... how can I not watch this, I ask you? And, well, it was a good movie. Not great, mind you -- it doesn't stand up to the lofty heights of superhero goodness set by the likes of The Dark Knight or Captain America: The Winter Soldier... but it's definitely an above-average movie.

I'm tired, and I'm behind on all the manga reviews and I'd rather spend my evening watching superheroes punch each other in my Teevee shows rather than typing a big analysis. But hey, we can do it in a short form!

Slight spoilers, but I won't go into details.

The Bat Bad:
Let's criticize the movie first, because hot damn there are some really deserving criticisms that the movie has.

• Pacing is a bit choppy. It was pretty solid for the first part of the movie, and then in the last third kind of went off the rails. All the great motivations that were established in the beginning that we're hungry for some payoff ended up being resolved in one of the most 'what'-inducing ways possible. 'Why did you say that name?!' indeed.
• Naked Doomsday was stupid. (Doomsday isn't a spoiler, right? He was in every trailer). Good thing he sprouted those bone spikes and stuff, but it took five minutes before he did that.
• Introducing two important characters from the comics and then killing them off. What in the actual hell? That pissed me off more than anything.
• Superman isn't exactly bad in this movie, and I still kinda liked him a bit, but it's hard to feel sympathy for him when he bolts off to brood in the icy mountains and see visions when as the movie points out, people want some answers. He's also a lot less sympathetic and relateable than Bruce in the second half, at least until Luthor reveals his trump card.
• They tried homaging way too many important storylines and I get it... but that one bit that homages Injustice and Crisis on Infinite Earths was one homage too many. It's a brave attempt at tying in to a larger plotline spanning multiple movies, but I think they really should've just saved it since it didn't do anything this movie other than making fanboys freak out (To be fair, I did) and just leave the 'bigger universe' thing hanging around the 'there are metahumans among us' instead of making all these prophetic dreams and visions and whatnot. It's not a particularly big problem, though.
• Didn't like the Knightmare scene. It means nothing to you guys who haven't watched the movie. But I didn't like it.



Batman: Hush is one of my all-time favourite comics as a kid
solely for making this fight happen

• The ending was kind of telegraphed and honestly somewhat disappointing. No one's going to believe that SPOILER EVENT will really stick that long, but at this point in the DC universe there really isn't a really justifiable reason to reverse it.

The Good:

• Holy mother of fuck the action scenes in this movie just kind of puts practically every other superhero melee fight in movies to shame. Hell, even Michael Bay's Transformers street-battle things are put to shame with the Batmobile vehicular battle in this movie. The Batmobile scene? That is going to be rewatched a gajillion times. Batman fighting like thirty people in the factory? That was impressive as all hell and I'm surprised to be impressed by a hand-to-hand combat scene. Batman versus Superman, and the Trinity versus Doomsday, was... great, and I would watch them again, but didn't really hold a candle to Batman's Batmobile rampage or his one-man army moment against KGBeast's troops.
• Many people, including myself, was unconvinced that Ben Affleck was right for the Batman role. I was far more convinced when the first trailers showed up, but with the advent of this movie I will, with no hesitation, detract every single disparaging comment I have made about Ben Affleck's suitability as Batman. Because, mother of fucks, he is an awesome Batman. He's got a better bat-growl than Bale, he's got all the awesome action scenes, he portrays a slightly-unhinged and more violent Batman which I'm surprisingly okay with. Pretty sure like half of the goons in the batmobile battle died due to collateral damage, but damn. Ben Affleck makes a great Bruce Wayne, a great Batman, and, well, I'm already (and always will be) on #TeamBatman but Ben Affleck's performance just makes it all the more easier. 
• The Batsuit looks beautiful on-screen with the proper shadowy CGI embellishments. It looked silly in stills and whatnot, but that's why it's an unfinished product, I guess.
• Can we agree that Wonder Woman is one of the best parts of the movie? Because she is. Diana's origins is shrouded in enough mystery to make us hunger for more, but they let enough through to allow us to understand that she's not just a deus ex machina -- her immortality and awesomeness and the fact that she's a metahuman (well, demigoddess) is apparent. And, well, she kicks ass! I'm 99% sure she dealt the most damage to Doomsday in that fight.
• The DC Trinity stand together in life-action form against Doomsday. How in the fuck can I not be excited? I was excited when it was Green Arrow, the Flash and Firestorm back while watching the Flash. And being that both Bruce and Diana really sold me off on their performances... yeah. I was squeeing like a little kid. 
• Luthor! Lex Luthor was the only part of the movie that I wasn't exactly sure about. I have faith in Jesse Eisenberg as an actor, but the trailers seemed to play Luthor up as this crazy manchild. Thankfully he got to show more of his superiority complex, and again while scripting could've been better, he definitely is a proper Luthor, and far truer to the more complex character in the comics as opposed to the 'mwa ha ha ha evil mastermind megalomaniac' that he's been in most Superman movies prior to this. Shame he didn't get his hair shaved earlier in the movie for the more classic Luthor look, but there was a period (which involved the Doomsday arc, funnily enough) where Luthor had curly hair.
• Slight spoilers! The fact that Luthor takes hostages and whatnot makes Superman and Batman going for a deathmatch all the more sensible. The fact that Luthor has been subtly manipulating Bruce by guilt-tripping him and whatnot also made that far more sensible. The SPOILER EVENT also probably didn't help Bruce's mentality either, and I actually liked the rants that Bruce and Luthor makes earlier about how no one manages Superman and he answers to no one. It's a well-written bit -- shame there's a lack of payoff later on.
• The Justice League hints made me smile. All the oblique references to SPOILER also makes me happy. Obviously my favourite among the new cinematic Leaguers is Aquaman, played by Jason Momoa (a.k.a. the mighty Khal Drogo himself) which, holy shit, is just seventy balls of pure undiluted manly awesomeness in his short bit in the movie. 
• Assuming we all know Batman's origin story and just saving the big murder scene as a quick retelling in the opening is great. Showing off the scariness of Batman as this wraithlike figure seen from the eyes of scared policeman is also horrifying, up to par to the best of the Nolan movies. 
• Perry White is a jackass in this movie, and I loved it. Far truer to his comic book counterpart. 
• The opening scene with Bruce Wayne driving through Metropolis while the city is being torn apart. Seeing how the little people are running, reacting to buildings getting blown up with Kryptonian punch-impacts and eye laser blasts is just nothing short of scary. It's something that's probably given like two or three reaction shots in most superhero movies, but playing it out as a proper ten-minute sequence is pretty grand.

So yeah. I definitely enjoyed the movie. Again, the ending could've been paced better, the scripting could've been tighter and we could've had gotten some proper payoff on some of the more philosophical/political questions raised earlier in the movie. I also wished that some people like Mercy and Alfred got to do more, but damn it, this image on the right is why I watched the movie and it did not disappoint on that aspect. The rest of the movie is pretty messy, though.

Toriko 363-364 Review: Dead Slime

Toriko, Chapter 363: Don, Serious

Well, here's the inevitable 'Don Slime loses to the big bad villain Neo-Acacia' set of chapters. That's not to say that it's not interesting, of course, but then it's kind of obvious that Don Slime's not going to be the one that takes down Neo. Despite the couple of chapters given to Don Slime in recent times, again, we don't really get much breathing room to really get a proper feel of Don Slime as a proper character instead of a plot device. Don't get me wrong, I still like the big dude, and he is awesome going in and being all "I AM DISASTER!" and shit, but really the rushed feel of the Blue Grill arc and the madness that follows really doesn't lend too much attachment to Don Slime.

Despite the fork/knife thing that Don Slime summoned in a previous chapter, he seems to have abandoned it in favour of manipulating natural disasters. Lightning blasts, Tornadoes, spikes to use as graters, mouth kamehamehas, and in possibly one of the awesomest attacks in all of manga, he flexes his muscles and sprouts a motherfucking meteor swarm.

And, of course, Neo doesn't give a fuck. He eats his own arm to regenerate it, and it's super-obvious from the get-go that he's eating Don Slime's big energy attacks. We get a moment where it seemed like Don Slime's falling into despair and whatnot, but power of determination and he summons a little ball....

Toriko, Chapter 364: The Theory

... which turns out to be a weaponized star. Because that's what a super-powerful colony of squid bacteria does -- create a condensed star. And Don Slime blows it up. And Neo, of course, eats it. Don Slime is reduced to his original cute form. We get this long and honestly rather pointless flashback of Don Slime trying to get the spirit of Ichiryu to come back. There's this superlong talk about evolution and appetite being the catalyst of evolution and whatnot, but honestly it's nothing we've never heard before. Is Ichiryu coming back? That flashback isn't exactly clear, but eh. Again, wrong place, wrong time. Would've worked really well if they placed this flashback and the flashback when Don first met Ichiryu way before this arc happened, during the whole 'let's revive Ichiryu' thing.

And then Neo-Acacia eats Don Slime. He can eat Don Slime's body without problems, and then Pair the Nitro shows up, telling Don Slime that, well, he came from a 'different' place. Acacia-Neo just wants to eat God the dish, and he tells Pair the Nitro to hurry the fuck up. Pair just... well, directs Acacia-Neo to... where Jirou is single-handedly fucking up all the Blue Nitros.

Now Jirou vs. Neo? That would actually be awesome, because Jirou's a long-running character with established badassery. Not that I hate Don Slime, mind you, but he just seems so obviously set up to be this uber-strong character that's going to take a fall so Toriko and company can show up and be the hero. Oh well. It was a nice end for Don Slime. I liked him when he lasted.

Overall this set of chapters are both disappointing yet awesome at the same time.

The Walking Dead S02E11 Review: Jiminy Cricket

The Walking Dead, Season 2, Episode 11: Judge, Jury and Executioner

Well, there goes one of the main cast! Dale dies, and it's extremely sudden. Of course, this episode spends so much on Dale and the moral and ethical implications of whether to kill Randall or not. I felt that it went on for a fair bit too long -- not that I minded seeing Dale, but I really wished that he wasn't too preachy so the big heartfelt and tearful speech he gave at the end about how they had to hold on to their humanity would be more impactful instead of a regurgitation. 

I mean, yeah, that scene with Daryl was decent, showing two characters that seldom interacted, and Dale talking to Shane believing in the potential that even Shane can change his mind was well-acted, but those kinda were superfluous to the big 'gather everyone in the room' scene. Dale was great in that scene, though, and it gave people like Carol and Glenn something to do, expressing their opinions and whatnot. It's a great scene, and certainly stronger than all the talking scenes elsewhere in this episode.

That said, though, Dale's death was random, sudden, and shocking for it. Is the death impactful? Not really, it felt random and out of nowhere. Was it shocking? Was it realistic? Probably so. Dale going off in a huff and ending up getting attacked by a walker -- and Dale is nowhere as powerful physically as the likes of Rick, Shane, Daryl or even Glenn. And, well, it's definitely sad. Dale was basically in tears when he left the group, going all "this group is broken" to Daryl, echoing their earlier conversation, and basically losing faith with the people he trusted, like Rick and Glenn, to not only side with him, but actually do the decent thing. And he died thinking that his friends have fallen from their humanity, not ever getting the chance of knowing that, hey, they ended up not killing Randall, even if it's only because Carl nosed in.

And it's a shame, really, how it really felt like he was going to make it. He didn't get bitten, and it's not until the end when the zombie tears poor Dale's guts out. It's a horrifying way as he just lay there gasping in pain, barely coherent as Andrea and Rick are just shouting for help, how easily the nicest guy in the show ends up dying for... not good reason. It's not even Shane going crazy and gunning Dale down like I thought he would. Dale going off and dying isn't even the direct consequence of Rick making a wrong choice or whatever. It's just sudden, and brutal. I mean, yes, Carl didn't kill the river zombie and that was the one that jumped Dale, but... yeah, honestly Carl could've told the adults that, y'know, there's a fucking zombie in the supposedly safe farm area.

Worth mentioning that Daryl certainly has grown to be a team player, so the bit with hallucinatory Merle ends up not panning out that much. While interrogating Randall he referred to Rick, Glenn and Hershel as 'my boys', he obeys Rick's orders unquestioningly whether it's to kill Randall or to drag him back, and his parting words to Dale as he aims his gun at the poor man's head to mercy-kill Dale is just sad. Also he's absolutely enraged when he hears about the story from Randall that his group raped a bunch of kids in front of their father.

Carl goes around and acts like a stupid, unsupervised kid... which, while horribly irritating, was at least done in a realistic manner. He's been through a gigantic ordeal, and of course he's going to try to ape his parents. He wants to try to kill a zombie like daddy, which is why he stole a gun and goes around looking for a walker. Throwing rocks to antagonize it and nearly getting bitten is dumb, though. The moment you see a walker, you should just, y'know, shoot the fucker in the head. Jumping around and trying to see the prisoner for himself... Being utterly rude to Carol is realistic, though I'm surprised Carol didn't just slap the rude fuck. The conversation with Rick was a bit weak, though Carl showing up at the end to stop Rick from executing Randall was... somewhat decent, showing that there's still a sliver of humanity left in Rick, even if that sliver is only so that his son doesn't see it. 

Thing is, kids need to make mistakes to learn from them. And shoving them all at once -- Carl learning about guns, Randall, the zombie and watching Rick about to execute someone and cheering him on -- is certainly easier to stomach than to have Annoying Carl be a constant presence over several episodes. And the kid losing hope of a better afterlife and whatnot would be a decent parallel to Dale's preaching about losing humanity.

Though honestly with all the antics that he's done, and with Lori not doing much other than laundry and cooking -- as she points out last episode -- it's just bad parenting to let Carl wander off so far into the forest.

There were a couple of scenes that felt off, though. Daryl torturing Randall felt rather unnecessary, and it should've really been done early on last episode if you want it at all. And vilifying Randall's buddies by telling us that they raped a bunch of teenage girls in front of their father seems to be a cheap way to make us root for Shane killing Randall so these fuckers don't get anywhere near the female characters we know and love. Granted, the debate ends up being gray -- Randall could be productive (like Daryl!) or he could escape, he could be an asset if they ever run across the Rape Gang, or he could rat the farm out to the Rape Gang. And besides, if they keep him prisoner, how long will they do that for? What about resources? If they let him off, he's going to definitely wander off back to his old camp. All that stuff.

Overall, though, the main meat is still the debate over whether to kill Randall's life. It's certainly gripping, and filled with a lot of great ideas, though I suspect if this was on repeat, it would definitely be a weaker episode thanks to how repetitive Dale felt. Watching it merely once makes for a decent entry. Shame Dale, y'know, died, so we didn't really get more of him. Without the conscience of the group, though, how long will they stick together remains to be seen. 

One Piece 820 Review: Endgame Options

One Piece, Chapter 820: Cat and Dog Have A History

Well, let's try to catch up on last week's manga reviews. Lord knows I've a crapton of outstanding ones. This chapter of One Piece doesn't really pick up on the big cliffhanger last episode that Jack was going to shoot Zou the giant elephant with cannons and shit -- in fact, the chapter ends exactly the same way, except this time Luffy and buddies are aware of the attack... which kind of ruins the momentum somewhat. Oh well. We get a crapton of information!

Also, last week's cover chapter had Franky snow-robo town that he hung out in during the timeskip, and this week's cover chapter had those tribal people that Chopper hung out with. Damned if I remember what any of them are called, though -- I mean, it's not like they're actual properly important characters like Dracule Mihawk or Emporio Ivankov.

This chapter starts off with some 'oh, you know so-and-so too, who is connected to Gol D. Roger's crew? How quaint!' in regards to Shanks, Tom, Rayleigh and Crocus. I did love that moment where Nekomamushi is all like 'oh, yeah, Crocus was looking for this one pirate crew' and Brook just interrupts him with a very deadpan and hilarious 'that would be me. We all died.' We also get some confirmation that while Inuarashi and Nekomamushi did sail with Roger's crew (in the capacity of crew boys a la KidBuggy/KidShanks), they did not reach Raftel. What they did, though, was also sail alongside Whitebeard's crew in the Moby Dick.

Nami interrupts this bit of interconnecting with a question. What about that pre-established thing where the New World has three Log Pose routes which will converge at a point that we assumed was Raftel? Inuarashi reveals, that, well, it's not that the writer forgot about this plot point -- it's just that, well, the Straw Hats had, unbeknownst even to themselves, found a shortcut. The island at the end of the Log Pose route is supposed to reveal the existence of the Road Poneglyphs... which our heroes have learned about throughout the Zou arc. Plot progression and introdump in the same arc! At a first glance this might be similar to how Toriko is bullrushing through some of its subplots, but it's actually far better here -- the audience is far, far more invested in things like Big Mom, Sanji, Kaido, Jack, Wanokuni, the Shogun, Whitebeard Jr, Blackbeard, the Revolutionaries et cetera to really care about this bit of a plotline that everyone kinda forgot after Dressrosa, so yeah, it's a good thing that they didn't ignore it, but rather elegantly sidestepped it for a far more interesting option -- and, yes it's a fetch quest, but it's a fetch quest that involves the Yonkou.

Also, apparently Nekomamushi and Inuarashi is looking for an old acquaintance of theirs, Marco the Phoenix, a.k.a. Whitebeard's second in command. Luffy and the audience is made aware of a gigantic war that happened during the timeskip during the remnants of the Whitebeard pirates and the Blackbeard pirates, known as the Payback War... in which the big names like Marco went missing. Evidently the Whitebeard remnants are not completely destroyed, since we see Whitebeard Jr going around hunting for them, but apparently the ones that matter like Marco and Jozu and Vista are missing. The existence of a Payback War makes complete sense, because, y'know, Marco and company seem to be as hot-blooded as Ace and the rest are, so it wouldn't really make sense for them to let Blackbeard just run around becoming a Yonkou after he killed Whitebeard. 

We get some rather needless dialogue where Luffy brings... well, basically the ones that didn't go to Dressrosa off to save Sanji, which is cool. Zoro, Usopp, Franky and Robin (rather oddly since poneglyphs are involved in Big Mom's end) elect to go off with Law and the samurai to Wano. There was an annoying scene where Luffy seemed to want to defer to Kin'emon... don't ask permission from him, those are your crew members!

Then Jack attacks, of course. We get Luffy hearing the voice of someone (the elephant, no doubt). Also another point of discussion which may just be a joke is that Momonosuke claims to have met Roger himself. Everyone dismisses it as Momo making a stupid joke because of his age, but, y'know, One Piece. 

The Walking Dead S02E10 Review: For Want of a Wrench

The Walking Dead, Season 2, Episode 10: 18 Miles Out

Yeah, at this point I've kinda watched season two up to its end, but I'm just taking my time writing these reviews. I'm going to review this series at least until the end of season two -- we'll see if I continue reviewing it. It's not getting that much views, and it's far more interesting to review manga and superhero TV shows anyway for me. Not that Walking Dead isn't bad per se, I'm really enjoying it and I'm probably going to watch it up until season 6, but, well, I dunno if I'm going to continue to continue reviewing it episode by episode. I've got a lot on my plate and I'd rather continue talking about something I'm far more passionate and interested about.

Anyway, episode ten. It would be a far, far stronger episode if we didn't get the random in medias res opening that showed Shane, Rick and Randall being attacked by a swarm of zombies. It definitely dilutes the tension of the episode because we know whatever the hell happens, a zombie swarm is going to come around and we're going to see Shane in a buss and Randall crawling towards a knife. 

This episode is very neatly divided into two sub-plots. The one at the farm is, as ever, less interesting. We basically single out ever other person in the farm other than Andrea, Lori, Beth and Maggie sort of. Beth is suicidal, and we get an argument between the pro-life Lori and pro-choice Beth. There's some stupidity in the argument as Beth goes with the method of experimentation -- let Beth kill herself to see whether she really wants to kill herself -- and the fact that it actually worked instead of, y'know, Beth fucking bleeding to death... yeah, that bit was silly. I thought something along the lines of Andrea locking the two of them in the room, goading Beth to make a choice, and Beth not being able to do it would make for a far more impactful scene. Otherwise that suicide scene ended up really doing nothing for me. Also stupid is Maggie leaving Andrea to watch Beth. Seriously, Maggie? I thought you were far smarter than that.

What's far more interesting is Lori's argument with Andrea. The bit where Lori basically tells Andrea to go back and wash clothes, because 'the men have been working hard' -- yeah, T-Dog is totally a big fighter -- is obviously kind of shitty for her. Yes, Andrea's been kinda mopey since forever, she's borderline suicidal and maybe she shouldn't have left Beth and Mr. Knife to sort things out. But the thing is, Andrea's proven herself with a gun, even if it's just in front of Shane. She's not a burden to the group any more than Carol or T-Dog are. Andrea's counter-argument, mocking Lori for crashing her car, and then being absolutely (and rightfully) angry that Lori can afford to say everything's going to get better because her husband and child 'returned to life', and how she miraculously survived said car crash when Andrea lost her sister... that's some powerful moment.

But it's definitely the losing plot, because as interesting as it is, the Shane/Rick bit took priority.

We seem to have had a bit of a timeskip, considering Randall's all healed up -- enough to be limp-running away from the zombies anyway from what I thought was an amputated leg. We go straight to Shane and Rick confronting the fact that leaving Randall alive might bring his entire group down upon the farm. We get Shane and Rick confronting the revelation that Rick knew all along that Shane and Lori were fucking while he was 'dead'. The two fight it out, and there's not much to say about it other than it's brilliant. Shane's logical and pragmatic in most things, of course. He's just not really diplomatic, he's got insane tunnel-vision, and he's got this insane bit of entitlement where he thinks Lori and Carl 'belongs' to him or some bullshit like that. Whereas Rick is too much of an idealist, but he's the nice guy that's trying to do right by everyone. 

And then, y'know, the decision on whether to kill Randall turns to a fight involving a thrown wrench, and a swarm of zombie attacks! We get some awesome moments like that bit with the zombies dogpiling Rick and him shooting through one's mouth to aim at a different one, we've got Shane holding off an entire horde with a school bus's door... and really there's no predicting what's going to happen when Rick decides to bugger off with Randall. Considering Shane just tried to kill him, it could very well be the straw that breaks the camel's back and Rick decides to leave Shane at the mercy of the zombies (and Shane might survive even then) but considering this is Rick, who's perfectly willing to let loose someone who tried to kill him last episode... and, y'know, Rick ended up helping Shane with that utterly awesome car-vs-zombie action.

So yeah, Shane and Rick's conflict is great this episode. The suicide subplot is entirely uneven and went in all directions and didn't really feel satisfying, though, which brings this episode down somewhat. 

The Walking Dead S02E09 Review: Apocalyptic Amputation

The Walking Dead, Season 2, Episode 9: Triggerfinger

A bit of an uneven episode. The first half of this episode as just pure adrenaline, whether it was Lori's struggles with the car window zombie (who had a spectacular makeup job, by the way), or the tense shoot-off between Team Rick with the buddies of the two bar douchebags. Of course they're going to avenge their dead buddies, wouldn't you? One of them ends up falling and eaten by walkers, and the other is left behind with a spike stabbed through his leg, and Rick and Hershel, nice people that they are, amputated Randall, blindfolded him and brought him back to the farm. Stupidity? Yeah, as Shane pointed out, it's stupid to think that this won't end well for the rest of their small community.

We get some rather human moments as Glenn is just panicky and froze up at one point during the action, Hershel just going all 'too hell with it' and slicing the dude's leg off, Shane telling a determined Lori that 'Rick is back' in order to stop the pregnant woman from going all Resident Evil single-player mode... and then Shane just had to keep talking on and on and insisting that Lori and Shane had a 'thing' despite solid rebuffs from Lori. And their affair isn't even a secret anymore to Rick, so Shane doesn't have that wall to hide behind. And as Lori notes to Rick, and how Shane doesn't give a shit about Dale or Hershel, and how Shane lied to her this episode... Shane is unstable. He's the only pragmatic one in the group, but he's a borderline psychopath and he needs to go. This, plus the whole Randall thing, seems to be building up to a decent conflict. We'll see where this goes from there.

Daryl and Carol have a bit of an argument that's just honestly whatever. Glenn also had an idiotic argument with Maggie. Blaming the girl's love confession for you freezing up? Man, Glenn, and before this you were cool.

A bit of a shorter review, but then there really isn't much to say. A couple of action scenes (shot in the dark which is realistic and all but makes telling the action kinda hard at times) that resolve themselves, while building up for potentially larger ones. 

Fairy Tail 477 Review: Boring

Fairy Tail, Chapter 477: Transport

Did we not have a villain who appeared to kill off a character without a trace when it's apparently just space-time magic? Right, we just had that. In Brandish. Except she got converted into good in the most convoluted, anti-climatic and inane ways ever. So this 'assassin' Jacob Lessio dude ends up doing... basically the same thing. He causes the entire guild (after a repeat of the 'base camp' scene we had a while back) to disappear, and then attacks Mavis. Could we have had a montage of the minor characters at least attempting a fight instead of them just standing around like cheerleaders? Maybe have Makarov attempt a token resistance with one of his supposedly-awesome spells like Fairy Law? No? Okay.

Then Lucy, Happy and Natsu shows up, with an oh-so-badass-if-we-weren't-already-expecting-it dramatic entry with lines-that-probably-sounds-dramatic-to-a-five-year-old-but-really-isn't that takes up two pages needlessly courtesy of Mr. Main Character. We get an utterly long-winded explanation of how Lucy, Happy and Natsu escaped Jacob's magic, with Horologium -- a nice callback to the Hades fight if they didn't take five pages to explain it. 

Why doesn't Jacob use his super-powerful disappearing magic on Natsu and Lucy? I mean, maybe he can't use it on Mavis because she's a ghost. Maybe Mavis can get some screentime where she can actually be useful. But no, we're just going to get a stupid fight. Jacob will put Lucy into danger, Lucy will cry, Natsu will be all 'you've angered Lucy/THIS IS FAIRY TAIL/I am all fired up/friendship/all of the above' and punch Jacob really, really hard. But no one will die, because this is fucking Fairy Tail. 

So yeah, Jacob isn't even an interesting villain design-wise (like Walricht) or power-wise (like DiMaria) and he's fighting Natsu who'll win every fight with a punch and an inane friendship speech so I can't even manage to work up an iota of interest for this fight. 

Legends of Tomorrow S01E07 Review: The IQ of Meat

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1, Episode 7: Marooned

I honestly didn't think that Legends of Tomorrow would have time for too much filler episodes, but we had two in a row. Last episode just had a really cool cameo and backstory with the whole future Arrow thing. This one is just, well, Team Legends fighting Space Pirates in something that felt like it is one of the most basic filler plot in Star Trek or whatever.

The whole pirate takeover plot is really quite boring and basic. Jon Valor is a hammy enough villain and it had a sense of fun futuristic sci-fi feel that the previous 'time travelers in the past' couldn't quite muster, but again it's very basic. Add that to the still-irritating-but-not-quite-painful attempts at giving Ray and Kendra a romance (which actually panned out this episode?) is a very distracting and time consuming side plot.

It's just a little springboard to give Rip Hunter some backstory, though I am unconvinced that we needed a whole episode for this and couldn't have fit this in place of the high school teen drama on a spaceship we had last episode. Rip's backstory is interesting, of course. We see that his wife, Miranda, used to be a Time Master as well, and their affair led to Miranda sacrificing her career in the name of love. It helps to build Miranda up as an actual person we care about instead of her just being 'Rip's wife. Who died.' and nothing else. 

The other big focus is on Heat Wave, who I don't think would really get this much focus, but we build up on the friction between Rory and Snart that we got last episode. It doesn't matter, really, that the trigger for their conflict is really trivial -- Rory's just dumb enough to want to hang out with the biker gang of the future -- but Snart punching Rory at the end of the last episode, and how Snart overrode their original 'we're in it for the money' for Snart warming up to heroism and saving the world... Rory taking some time away from Snart really helped to kinda flesh the conflict out a bit, and it's Rip's stupid speech about how Rory's only brought along because he and Snart were a package deal and the 'IQ of meat' line finally tipped the scales.

I mean, it's not like Captain Cold and Heat Wave are joined at the hip -- we've seen Cold work with only his sister or with random goons in the Flash several times -- but it's a damning line that finally broke Heat Wave. And I really liked how we are never really sure whether Mick Rory has just gone to the dark side or is just doing some pretending-to-be-a-bad-guy-to-get-an-advantage thing to doublecross the pirates... and up to that moment when Heat Wave shows up on the Waverider with an army of pirates I was still half-expecting Heat Wave and Captain Cold to share a knowing nod and be all like 'yeah we just pulled a fast one over them' and then take out the goons. But no.

I am, of course, unconvinced that Captain Cold would kill Heat Wave, but it's a nice little cliffhanger and we don't find out what happened to poor Rory until next episode. 

We get some nice moments with Stein wanting to be space ranger (and actually beating a pirate goon the fuck up off-screen) and Sara sharing to Snart about the feeling of having died once, but overall the focus is still on Rip and the Rogues. There's a nice little speech as Cold tells Sara about his first meeting with Mick Rory as well. 

Also I kinda liked the free-for-all action scene on the corridors of the Waverider and Acheron in the climax. It's just a fun romp of an action scenes.

Alas, with Rip being the catalyst for Mick Rory's turn, and how he's just the biggest idiot in charging straight into the Acheron while everyone smells a trap, and for the umpteenth time separates Jax and Stein and renders Firestorm inert for a really good chunk of the episode, and generally is incompetent -- it's Stein and Gideon that really saved them all from being taken out by the pirates. Add that to several questionable decisions from past episodes, and I honestly think that this version of Rip Hunter might not be all that he's cracked up to be. 

It's still quite in the middling grounds, where I really like the good parts of the episode (Snart, Rory, Rip's backstory, the action scenes) but the weaker parts (filler villains, Rip's incompetence, weak romance scenes, inconsistent time travel rules) still dominate the episode enough to make this not quite as good as it could've been. 

The DC Easter-Egg Column:

A couple fun and real obscure ones that I had to do some research in this episode:

• Eve Baxter, the Time Master that Team Legends rescues, shares her last name with Bonnie Baxter from the comics, who is Rip Hunter's love interest as opposed to Miranda Coburn in this continuity. 
• Jon Valor is otherwise known as the 'Black Pirate' in the DC comics, is an actual seafaring pirate from the 16th Century (as opposed to a space time pirate) who was involved in a couple of time-travel capers and his ghost would be a supporting character for one of the many Starmen. His comic-book counterpart is a fair bit more heroic than his live-action version.
• The code phrases that Rip uses to give Gideon commands are all based on Superman enemies (because Brandon Routh), and Rip also implies very strongly that these are actual threats out there. 'Imperiex Onslaught' is a reference to Imperiex and the Our Worlds at War crossover event. Kanjar Ro, likewise, is an alien villain that tangles with Superman a lot of times.
• The comic book that Stein reads, Rick Starr, is a somewhat obscure and old DC comic who I don't think is a part of the main universe.
• Acheron, the name of Eve's timeship, is the name of one of the rivers of hell from Greek mythology, but since we're talking about DC comics, Acheron is a minor demon enemy that fought Nightwing one time.

Boku no Hero Academia 82: Gambit Pileup

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 82: Round and Round and Round

What a fucking tense chapter! The first half dials back the time to when one of Dabi's clones attacks the remedial kids, and he fought Vlad/Blood -- who has blood manipulation powers as everyone guessed. Aizawa, fresh from meeting up with Midoriya and Kouta a while back, helps to beat Dabi's clone up, and we get some nice little introdumps about the motivation of the Villain Alliance to fuck up society's trust in the superhero community. 

We then have a really fun and well-choreographed free-for-all as Dabi launches a blast of fire at Midoriya, Todoroki and Shouji, while Twice the cloning man is just saying all sorts of weird contradictory things, weird fellow that he is. Touga is all BDSM blood-love with Midoriya and wants to cut him up, Twice fights Todoroki with some weird tape thing and gets absolutely outclassed with ice creation. 

Mr. Compress recovers and is all suave and shit, and then Shouji reveals that, hey, Compress has been protecting his right pocket and Shouji has in the confusion recovered the Bakugou and Tokoyami spheres! Except... well, Black Mist shows up, and everyone (including Chainsaw Noumu) retreats. Mr. Compress takes off his mask to gloat that he's hidden the real spheres in his mouth all along! What a great little trick!

Which... is the wrong move, because SUDDEN LASER BLAST! Belly Button Laser hits Mr. Compress straight in the face, thus making him awesomely and utterly relevant to the plot with this dynamic surprise attack. Midoriya, Shouji and Todoroki jump to grab the two compressed heroes, and I do like how Midoriya's injuries basically incapacitate him. It's a nice, tense, dramatic moment where you really don't know if Bakugou's going to be rescued or captured, and it really could go either way, something that a lot of other mangas (Bleach and Fairy Tail are two of the greatest offenders among my regular reviews) fail to conjure up anymore. It's tense. And Dabi ends up grabbing Bakugou, de-compressing him and pulling him into the darkness by the neck, as Bakugou tells Deku to stay back.

Abduction successful! Now, a lot of people are calling out how this is a Sasuke situation... but really, Sasuke and Bakugou are two very different characters. Sure, they are both jackass talented rival characters compared to the main great-hidden-potential-but-need-to-work-hard main character, but their motivations for turning to the dark side (possibly, in Bakugou's case) are extremely different. Sasuke has always been dark, focusing on obtaining vengeance for the death of his clan since day one, and his focus has always been about getting stronger to get power to defeat Itachi, and eventually he gets seduced by the dark forces of Orochimaru and whatnot. Whereas Bakugou? He's a gigantic jackass and a tool, but he's through and through a heroic character, and if he actually turns into a villain because of this it would be brainwashing and mind-raping as opposed to a more machiavellian corruption and playing to a person's emotional and moral weaknesses.

We'll see how this progresses. Overall, though, it's a great little mini-arc, and I am definitely excited to see the villains that we've gotten little hints of like Dabi or Touga or Mr. Compress get a more dedicated arc or screentime. 

Toriko 362 Review: Random Plot Points

Toriko, Chapter 362: 

It's not that this chapter is bad in the strictest sense. It's still exciting, nicely built up and is a fun little worldbuilding moment... but considering how much of Acacia's Full Course and the Gourmet World themes have been completely cut out -- like I ranted last chapter we don't even get a cursory tasting scene for Atom, Earth and News -- but some utterly random and newly-introduced plot points like Ootake, Starjun's brohood with Toriko and this stupid shellfish oni thing gets a crap more screentime. I mean, who the fuck even gives a fuck about Ootake? Brunch showing up is fun because Brunch is nice, but Ootake wants to nose himself into the plot and I don't care about him. He gets half a chapter to rant about how he wants to have delicious and whatnot and bullshit and Atom, Earth, News and their respective areas don't even get a panel? I call bullshit on that.

The golden can contains this weird Ougai, which looks like the thing on Slowbro's tail, which apparently wakes up the third winged oni within Toriko's body. Which makes jack shit sense because in no part of the previous 361 chapters have the existence of this Ougai, the fact that the demon can be woken up by a particular ingredient or whatever the fuck this plot development does not make sense.

Cool that Toriko's third demon is waking up, but really, you need to have this stupid Ougai for that instead of, oh, using the actually plot-relevant-but-cut-out dishes of Acacia's full course? Like, you had four of them. And frankly it's insulting that we had an entire arc for Another, but Toriko just chooses this random stupid-looking deus ex machina of a fish dish over it.

Coco, Sunny and Zebra put their respective Acacia Dish to their own full courses, which I really don't care about because what the fuck are they even? We don't even know what they are beyond cursory descriptions. So, yeah, I literally don't care!

Also Don Slime apparently killed Acacia Neo. Yeah, it's not going to stand, knowing Shonen manga conventions. 

One Piece 819 Review: Jack is Back

One Piece, Chapter 819: Momonosuke Heir to the Kouzuki Clan

A huge chunk of the chapter is just telling us how the Minks and the Samurai want to fight back against Kaidou and the Shogun (who is either working together or forced to work for Kaidou). We get this moment where Luffy and Momonosuke forms an alliance, with Momonosuke finally growing out of the 'kid prince crybaby' theme that he's been portrayed as for a while. Don't care for Momo that much, but it's a nice scene nonetheless. Also, another big ally for Luffy.

I do love how throughout all this Law is miffed at how everyone just assumes he's going to help out with the big Pirate-Mink-Ninja alliance. 

Luffy's main priority at the point is still saving Sanji from Big Mom, though, so it's nice that that particular plot point -- which I'm frankly more interested in compared to all the Mink and Wanokuni stuff, simply because of how out of focus Sanji has been over the past year -- is being addressed.

And then Jack shows up with a massive fleet, Sheepshead is flayed apparently, and he just wants to launch a barrage to kill the giant elephant Zou itself. Well, we're going to deal with Jack sooner than I thought, after all! And here I was, thinking that Zou is just going to be an introdump and flashback arc... and, well, as awesome as Jack has been built up, it wouldn't be too remiss to have him fall to the newly-minted Pirate-Ninja-Mink alliance right now, especially with a good amount of powerhouses on the island right now -- if nothing else, Luffy, Zoro and Law would give Jack a fair amount of run for his money.

The only real bad thing from this chapter is that in dealing with Jack -- which I hope takes a while -- we're delaying Sanji's arc. But it's not a delay I really have a problem with.

The Walking Dead S02E08 Review: Bar Fight

The Walking Dead, Season 2, Episode 8: Nebraska

Definitely a slower episode than before, but despite this episode reverting back to being in "Talking Dead" form, it's a far stronger episode than the pre-barn ones. We get a fair amount of character moment as everyone just breaks down. Hershel has gone full broken as he just heads off to town and goes drinking and just utterly gives up hope in a nice broken speech. Carol likewise gives up hope, but goes around ripping apart the Cherokee roses. Carl is just sad but notes the necessity of Rick's actions. Daryl just sulks and refuses to help. Beth goes into a coma because fuck you that's why. Andrea and T-Dog don't like what they did, but recognize the necessity of it.

We get the requisite 'nope, the idealists are wrong' scene with Beth being attacked by her zombie mother, we get a funeral, we get Shane getting totally angry at a grieving Hershel for apparently keeping zombie!Sophia a secret and then at Rick for not seeing sense. Again, Shane does make good arguments but to answer his question -- he acts like such a gigantic ass to everyone that it's hard to get behind him. Charisma is as important as wisdom sometimes, in D&D terms. Dale, for one, is totally against Shane and I think a confrontation between the two with the gun on Shane's hands instead of Dale's won't be far off.

We also get a long discussion of hopelessness, an extension of Lori's "why we shouldn't bring a new lief into this crapshit world" argument a while back. It's a valid enough response, since, well, what are they going to do? There really isn't an objective, with there being no cure, no real sanctuary, zombies everywhere, people dying left and right, and even necessities like food, fuel and medicine will run out in time.

I am still confused of the timeline of events of episode one... how did Sophia have all the time to drop her doll, hide in that house that Daryl found, leave all her tracks, get bitten, have the time to get a fever and transform into a zombie, wrangled by Otis into the barn... all in the scope of time of the first episode? And honestly how did Maggie, Beth and whoever else was feeding crippled chickens not notice that their little zombie farm has a new addition -- a little girl, too, which would be quite distinct among a bunch of adults?

With that plot thread closed and buried (literally), though, what's next? I don't care that much about Beth's fever because, well, I don't even know she had a name until this episode. Lori went and got herself in a car accident which came out of nowhere and is utterly dumb -- Rick and Glenn were already going into town to bring Hershel back, is another voice really going to matter? Must be all the pregnancy hormones.

The main scene in this episode is the encounter with the two doucheholes that showed up in the bar. We get even more hope-dashing as Fort Benning is overrun with 'lamebrains', and after some discussion about the rumours on safe places, they decide they want to go with Team Rick back to the farm and generally be unpleasant. It's hard to really fault them for wanting to go all the way to survive, but pointing a gun? Good thing Rick has cowboy skills, and murders the two of them. In cold blood? In self-defense? It's definitely scarier and far more brutal than killing the barn zombies. Would Hershel drive Rick off the farm too in addition to insisting Shane leave?

Overall it's more talky scenes, but at least we have something different beyond "should we continue the search for Sophia".

Legends of Tomorrow S01E06 Review: Post Apocalyptic Bars, Bearded Green Arrow & High School Love Life

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1, Episode 6: Star City 2046

Trying to get back into superhero shows! Let's catch up with these shows one by one. Legends of Tomorrow first, then Flash, Arrow and Agent Carter in that order.

The previous five episodes of Legends of Tomorrow have been sorely rooted in set pieces in the past, and this is the first episode to really explore the sci-fi time travel timey wimey concept and strand our heroes in Star City of 2046. There has been a crapton of DC-comics themed apocalyptic future stories featuring a successor to one of DC's big names. The Dark Knight Returns and Batman Beyond are probably two of the most well-known ones, though I know there are a lot more out there. And that's not to mention people who travel from the future to the past like your Reverse-Flashes and Abra Kadabras. So it's really exciting to have this episode travel to the future, a nice change of pace from the 'let's try our best not to change the past' vibe we've been having throughout the past five episodes. Even if the show and Team Legends flagrantly disobey and detonate nuclear bombs here and there.

The black Green Arrow that appeared in the final scene of the previous episode is, as everyone expected, the CW-universe version of Connor Hawke, a.k.a. Green Arrow II, who took up the mantle of Green Arrow after Oliver's death (disappearance here). Now beyond the fact that Connor is the successor to the Green Arrow name, he really has not much in common with his comic-book counterpart. This version of Connor Hawke is really John Diggle Jr, a character which in present-day Arrow hasn't existed yet unless Lyla is (or will be) pregnant with a second baby we don't know of. Diggle Sr has apparently perished, and a gigantic uprising led by a new Deathstroke -- Grant Wilson, Slade Wilson's son -- basically tore down Star City into, well, a post-apocalyptic gang-ruled wasteland. We get hints of what happened, with some hints telling us that John Diggle died in the battle, Oliver's identity was outed and the Arrowcave attacked by an army, a repeat of the whole Mirakuru soldier uprising but far more successful...

Neither Connor nor Grant really had a chance to really shine with so many characters thrown into the mix, including an old, one-armed (but finally bearded!) Oliver Queen. Connor's got a couple of interesting lines, but is mostly a good-hearted if rather bland successor. He's likeable and that's about what you expect from the limited screentime the dude's got. Grant Wilson is basically, well, a generic psychopathic villain, who, while entertaining enough as a standalone villain, isn't really up to par with Arrow's Slade Wilson. It's your standard 'recruit the retired hero' affair with Oliver Queen, and Sara gets the spotlight as she chooses to fight for this future despite Rip insisting that this future is only a 'possible' one. 

I think that the shop's disregard of the whole 'damage to the timeline' thing is one of the biggest weakness, story-telling wise. It's all well and good and dramatic to, say, leave behind the Russian prison after killing the metahuman scientist and blowing up what amounts to a nuclear bomb, but are you seriously telling me that didn't leave a gigantic impact on history when episode two demonstrates that the innocuous act of talking to young Martin Stein for ten minutes very nearly annulled Stein's wedding had Rip Hunter not intervened?

And Rip somehow insisting that this particular future is not set in stone and hasn't settled down or whatever yet just sounds hollow in the face of Rip's own crusade to reverse the future where Vandal Savage kills his family. It's just odd... which futures are set in stone, and which aren't? I wished they took some time to really think out the rules of time travel and altering the timeline, instead of just bending the rules as they see fit. 

Another weakness of this episode, really, is how little Connor, Old!Oliver and Grant's relationships are established. We get hints here and there, but we don't really see them develop. I wished we had cut the inanely long and pointless high school drama on a spaceship bullshit with Jax, Ray, Kendra and Stein. While it's adorable to see Stein flip out thanks to his mental connection with Jax, and Stein absolutely failing to be an intel-gathering wingman... does anyone really want to see this as opposed to some development on this interesting future-Arrow setting in 2046? It's the same complaints I had with the Earth-2 two-parter from the Flash, except that we're almost certain to get some more information about Earth-2. Not so regarding this future Star City. 

And it's not like placing Jax, Ray and Kendra in a romantic triangle works at all. It isn't as random or egregious as Jay/Caitlin from the Flash, but romance only works if it's a natural extension of the characters' relationships, and there is none of that here. There is no prior romantic or attraction relationship between Jax and Kendra, or Ray and Kendra, unless you count Ray running around in Kendra's bloodstream zapping chunks of daggers as romantic. And the fact that Cisco is not mentioned, and several other characters acknowledge that Kendra is fresh off Carter's death turns this whole plot point into a tasteless affair.

Honestly, Ray's a big missed opportunity. You'd think he would be as emotional as Sara in seeing future Star City fucked up like it was, but he's far more concerned about the stupid high school plotline.

Meanwhile, while Sara is dealing throughout the episode with her 'I NEED TO SAVE MY FRIENDS DESPITE THIS BEING THE FUTURE' plotline which is... serviceable, if a bit dumb, Rip goes on with yet another variation of 'okay I'm done with you selfish fellows who don't listen to proper orders' and threatens to leave Sara stranded in 2046... despite him tottering about the importance of not messing with the timeline. Yeah.

Captain Cold and Heat Wave provide some much-needed fun. I thought Heat Wave randomly really, really wanting to be the gang boss of a motorcycle gang in a post-apocalyptic city is a bit odd and came out of nowhere, and it really could've used some buildup how much Heat Wave loved the anarchy and chaos that has enveloped future Star City... but the resulting drama, where Heat Wave gives in to his baser instinct whereas Captain Cold tries and fails to justify his newfound heroism with excuses of striking big and pride and whatnot is certainly entertaining. It's nice to see Heat Wave being developed as a character, and more importantly, to see Captain Cold and Heat Wave have a wedge driven in between them in ways that I don't think have received page-time in the comics. 

On the other side, though, it's a nice little break from the over-arching Vandal Savage plot, and neither Savage nor Chronos make an appearance here. The crisis is wholly limited to the future Arrow story, and it already feels lacking without having even more elements tacked onto it. Despite all my rantings, this episode is honestly really quite entertaining to watch, and once you get over the fact that Legends of Tomorrow prefers to sacrifice big logic questions regarding time travel in favour of a more entertaining episode-by-episode plot, it's a far more enjoyable show. As it is, it's a really fun trip-to-the-future in regards to the Arrow show, whilst expanding several characters -- most namely the Rogues. 

The DC Easter Egg Column:

Well, naturally there's a couple of Easter Eggs in this future Star City, and like the Earth-2 episodes it's easier to list them instead of awkwardly working them into prose.

• Connor Hawke, in the comics, was actually the son of Oliver Queen, who took up the mantle of Green Arrow after Oliver's death. While Oliver does have a son in Arrow, the show has chosen to take a different route with Oliver's son being a successor of the Green Arrow mantle.
• Grant Wilson is the name of one of Slade's sons from the comics, otherwise known as the first villain to bear the name Ravager, which, like Grant Wilson here, dons a predominantly gray variant of Slade's Deathstroke costume. (The Arrowverse already had a version of Ravager with Isabel Rochev in Arrow's second season) Grant Wilson is honestly short-lived and died really quickly in one of the earlier issues of the first Teen Titans comic, and was more of a plot device to drive Slade and his other children on. 
• Oliver Queen missing an arm is reminiscent of what Future Oliver Queen looks like in The Dark Knight Returns. In the comics, present-day Roy Harper also has lost an arm courtesy of the villain Prometheus and replaced it with a bionic one. 
• Mick quotes Heath Ledger's Joker in his "I want to see the world burn" line. 
• A little internal reference is that Grant Wilson was defeated in the same way that Slade did at the climax of Arrow's second season -- with a bola arrow. 

Fairy Tail 475-476 Review: God Slayers Earn Their Keep

Fairy Tail, Chapter 475: Dimaria Chronos Yesta

Double review! I didn't care about 475 enough to review it last week, so let me just review the whole fight between the lolicons and weird time god lady.

A bit of a mollification as Fairy Tail backtracks from the revelation that Ultear is back alive... to that Ultear is just a temporal image thing created when Dimaria stopped time. Because of some weird timey-wimey magic that allows Ultear to project herself into the time when time is stopped or some shit okay this isn't going to be explained properly so whatever the fuck. Apparently she can't do anything but allow Wendy and Chelia (or Sherria or whatever the fuck she's called) to move, though, so she's not really upstaging them. Which is good. 

Dimaria blows away the Loli Duo and then assumes Take Over: God Soul... which is a stronger form of the Take Over skill we're familiar with, except that it uses the whole 'god' concept which has been a ginormous failure of a concept ever since God Slayers have been introduced and have done jack shit to explain what they are and what they do. This alone makes Dimaria a gajillion times better than the other Spriggan members we've seen before... shame that Dimaria has less personality than the Cuatro Cerberus people no one ever remembers the name of, since she literally just blabbers on and on about how TIME IS MY SPACE and how despite having the power to control time she goes around ripping people's clothes off. 

It would be something if we knew that the god of time Chronos actually existed prior to this, y'know. If there was a time-using magician who drew their power from Chronos or something. It would certainly make this big revelation of her power far more... well, impactful than just something I don't give a shit about. She shoots Charle in the gut, but honestly who gives a shit about Charle, and who the fuck really thinks Charle's going to die? This is Fairy Tail, come on. We then have a shittily-repeated 'oh no our ally is wounded and is totally going to die! Let's pose with grim faces! The enemy will acknowledge the look in our faces!' which is done in the most formulaic and lifeless way possible. And then Ultear offers a power-up: Third Origin, which allows them extreme power to defeat Dimaria in exchange for never again using magic.

It would help, y'know, if Dimaria had actually done something with her scary Take Over God Soul instead of just creating a big explosion in the ground and then shooting Charle in the gut with a pitiful laser beam. Show the Loli Girls actually getting overwhelmed, show some actual creative usage of time magic, some weird reversal or fast-forwarding or fucking-up of time... nope. Big explosion. Laser blast. Oh no enemy is too powerful must use secret spell. Yeah, despite all the potential, Dimaria's going to just be yet another in a series of disappointing villains.

Fairy Tail, Chapter 476: Farewell to the Mage Girls

Ultear does this big explanation of Third Origin while Dimaria in her weird Tron form is just standing there. Doing nothing. We literally get a panel of Dimaria just fucking standing there. We get two pages full of the most anal 'no me, you too precious' dialogue. It's not even heartwarming or sappy to read, it's just fucking bland. For a moment Wendy seems to receive Third Origin and starts pummeling away (what, you don't even try to use Dragon Force?) Dimaria does some boring pain and laser spells that honestly doesn't set her apart from any other Fairy Tail villain out there.

And then Chelia apparently was the true receiver of the Third Origin thing, which is actually refreshing. I mean, it's obvious that Fairy Tail is too much of a chicken to actually deal any lasting harm on one of the core cast, so it's nice and actually sensible to send Chelia, who, lest we forget is a God Slayer, on the God-Soul enemy. We naturally get a bunch of 'I fight for friendship!' banality thrown here and there, and gratuitous boob shots. Some random flashbacks, some blah dialogue... it would have more impact if we actually knew who Chelia was as a character beyond 'wind god slayer' and 'Wendy clone who's buddies with Wendy', and I honestly don't give a shit that she's losing her magic.

But she does this big god slaying feather tornado thing and takes out Dimaria. Chelia and Ultear say some sappy things. All in all, though, other than the slipshod handling of dialogue and power-ups, it's still one of the more entertaining (and I say entertaining in a loose sense) fights of the Spriggan arc so far (discounting Acnologia's surprise appearance) mostly because the Fairy Tail members didn't dominate the entire fight, and we actually see some effort thrown in. Even if said effort takes the form of hackneyed and overtly forced plot devices.

Boku no Hero Academia 81 Review: Big Insane Chainsaw Man

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 81: Critical Emergency Situation

The magician dude, who apparently is called Mr. Compress, has captured Tokoyami and Bakugou, and gives this big spiel about how ideals shouldn't be forced on people who don't believe in them. Which is a fair sentiment, except, y'know, when those 'ideals' are 'I am allowed to kidnap and brainwash other people', it's not something that should be allowed to exist in society. Mr. Compress just tries to escape and he tells all the other villains -- we see that Muscular (which is apparently his literal name), Kylo Ren and Moonfish are all still knocked out -- that the target is captured.

We get Aoyama, mr. belly-button-laser-kid, hiding in the bushes next to where Dabi and the clone dude are hanging around talking about rendezvous points... and he's there with his weird smile with a passed-out Kyouka and Hagakure, and very nearly got himself discovered. Man, Aoyama is fucking weird.

Apparently there's a Noumu that's this big fucking multi-armed insane thing with fucking chainsaws and drills all over. It's insane and cool looking. It's apparently somehow tailored to only obey Dabi's orders, which is a bit weird since Shigaraki, y'know, kinda hates Dabi, but oh well. Chainsaw Noumu is chasing a wounded Yayaorozu and this B-class kid Awase who I don't think we've seen before in a significant manner. Chainsaw the Noumu is holding the broken helmet of that one Pussycat that's been MIA since the battle started, Ragdoll or whoever, so, uh, casualty, maybe? First death of the series? Chainsaw Noumu receives the order from Dabi to retreat, retracts his arms, and Yayaorozu sends Awase off to slap a tracking device or something onto Noumu -- Awase conveniently has a welding quirk. Good on Yayaorozu on her fast thinking, a nice little development after the whole exam arc.

Meanwhile, Tiger's quirk is apparently an Elongated-Man-style stretchy body, and he's got Magne bound in place. Spinner is locked down by Mandalay (?)... but then Black Mist (Kurogiri, technically, but Black Mist is cooler and easier to remember) apparently shows up. Man, Black Mist is awesome. 

Uraraka and Tsuyu do a little combo to launch Shouji, Todoroki and the extremely wounded Midoriya through the air, upon which they do this awesome superhero landing atop Mr. Compress. Of course, while the landing alone might've taken out Compress (and likely Midoriya, poor kid), Dabi, Touga and Twice are still there. And, well, the three of them are still fresh and ready for battle. And we know for a fact that Noumu is heading there. 

Um, yeah. They really need to spring Tokoyami and Bakugou to even the scales, or just, y'know, hope for backup.