Pokemon of the Week #36: Mareanie & Toxapex [And a little announcement]

#747: Mareanie, the Brutal Star Pokemon & #745: Toxapex, the Brutal Star Pokemon

Let me be honest -- when I first  saw Mareanie and Toxapex in leaked images a couple of days before I got to play Sun/Moon, I thought they looked kinda silly. Partially because of the low-resolution images of the sprites, but because they just looked like... well, silly domes with a little fleshy parasite within. They were kinda like a Ferrothorn-esque design, but less interesting. 

And then I actually saw one in motion in the game, with how cool the tentacles are, and how cool the flaps open and close for Toxapex, and I realize it's meant to represent a crown-of-thorns starfish... and I fell in love with Mareanie and Toxapex. We also got some rather dark backstory behind them, too, with multiple dex entries highlighting how Mareanie and Toxapex prey on Corsola and eat them. Hell, it's even an extended unskippable line of dialogue during the main story of Pokemon Sun/Moon in the Aether Foundation, where Wicke and Hau have a conservation about the cruel side of nature.

And I just kinda love it a lot, yeah? It's a Water/Poison type, obviously, with certain sea urchin facets to Mareanie and Toxapex's design. But it's not just, well, a starfish and they don't do much with it (looking at you, Lumineon). Mareanie and Toxapex is like this cute little main stalk-like body and the 'starfish' ends up being like tentacle hair around it. As Mareanie exolves into Toxapex, the main body becomes tiny and hangs suspended, while the tentacles end up forming kind of like this bulwark and looks so insanely tough. The Ultra Moon dex entry notes that the dome-shaped tentacle allows it to not be disturbed by the ebb and flow of tides, which is a cool detail. It's just a cool-looking design, and one of the standout ones in the seventh generation, I think.

Oh, and James has one in the anime! I haven't watched the seventh generation anime, but any Pokemon that Team Rocket uses tends to be charismatic and lovable.

Dex entries really highlight just how brutal Mareanie and Toxapex are. Mareanie attacks its prey, especially Corsola (which is a 'star banquet' to it), by stabbing it with poison spikes and brutally beating it up with its ten tentacles. And like most starfishes, Mareanie and Toxapex can regenerate their tentacles. Toxapex's poison will leave a person in pain for three days and nights, and after-effects after that. Toxapex's Sun entry is particularly insanely dark. "Toxapex crawls along the ocean floor on its 12 legs. It leaves a trail of Corsola bits scattered in its wake."

And Mareanie is pretty hard to find, too. First, to get Mareanie, you need to fish for Corsola... which has a 1% or 5% chance of appearing, depending on the area. And then you must get the Corsola to not die and call for help... and pray that its call for help is answered by a Mareanie that shows up to chow down on it. I actually spent like a couple of hours when I first tried to catch a Mareanie for a first time, and, well, mostly just because it looks cool.

Mareanie itself doesn't have much in terms of being spectacular in combat. It has balanced stats, and one of its abilities is 'Merciless', that causes all its attacks to become critical if the enemy is poisoned. Water/Poison is a typing everyone is familiar with thanks to Tentacruel, and Toxapex's learnset is pretty generic. Lots of poison-type moves, it learns liquidation at a high level, and a bunch of defensive moves like Recover and Wide Guard. By TMs, it learns a lot more water and ice type moves. 

But man, as Toxapex, that statline is pretty insane. Toxapex is just a bulwark, with a base 152 defense and a base 142 special defense, and it's just a pretty cool defensive beast that manages to be effective in battle by capitalizing on 100% critical hits as long as it can poison the enemy. Toxapex perhaps isn't a meta pick on Pokemon competitive battles (though I know jack-all about Generation VII competitive battles) but I do like it a lot. 

Toxapex and Mareanie are both based on the real-life Crown-of-Thorns Starfish, or Acanthaster planci for all you scientific-minded people out there. Which is actually pretty similar to Toxapex, sans little bulb-head. It really is a weird dome-like creature with tentacles and lots of spikes, and the crown-of-thorns is easily one of the biggest cause of destruction of coral reefs worldwide. 

It's perhaps most common in Australia and currently is trying to consume the Great Barrier Reef, but it's not just localized there as many of them are found in the Indo-Pacific and Hawaiian waters as well. The Crown of Thorns feed on the hard coral and while the extent of the destruction they cause might be over-dramatized by some reports, they do, well, leave a trail of coral bits in their wake. (Remember that while starfish look weirdly static and plant-like, they're still animals that very much move around and eat) Which is, of course, reflected in Pokemon with Toxapex preying on the only coral Pokemon out there, Corsola. 

And, well, the Crown-of-Thorns are pretty poisonous. These starfishes have spines that contain poisons that, when some foolish predator (or unwary human) touches the starfish, the spines will stab into their body and unleash chemicals called saponins into the prey's body. In humans, this will cause pain, bleeding, nausea and tissue swelling that tends to last from hours to weeks. If the spines actually snap off and get embedded in human tissue, surgery will be required. 

So yeah, Toxapex and Mareanie are based on a pretty cool real-life starfish, and in a franchise that perhaps has an over-abundance of water-type creatures, Mareanie and Toxapex adapts a creature with a pretty important impact upon the balance of the sea's ecology... while delivering one of the more memorable and perhaps most cruel creatures in all of the Pokemon franchise.

Also a bit of an announcement... Mareanie and Toxapex will be the final entry of our brief return of Pokemon of the Week. And it's going to be a far more final nail in the coffin... because it's not just going to be a hiatus. While working on these, I realized just how much I've missed talking about Pokemon, and playing both Pokken Tournament and Pokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon has galvanized just the desire to really talk a lot more about it. And if my 'Lore of Hearthstone' series is anything to go by, doing a larger project like that isn't only just feasible, it's probably far more popular than singleton things like this.

So expect 2018 to be the year where I do these... reviews? Commentaries? Whatever you call it on every single Pokemon. We'll probably do like half-generations at a time and talk about evolutionary families as a whole, but I'll go through every single Pokemon in all seven generations, all alternate forms, all mega evolutions and maybe even go to important trainers and the like. I'm definitely super-pumped about the prospect of talking about every Pokemon (although I'm sure the first 151 is going to be a bit of a doozy).

So yeah. Pokemon of the Week is closed with a ribbon, and we're going to head into 2018 with the anticipation of... I've no idea what to call this. "Reviewing Every Pokemon?" Yeah, we'll go with that. 

Boku no Hero Academia 165 Review: It Boils Down to a Fight

Boku no Hero Academia, Chpater 165: Win the Brats' Hearts

I don't actually have much about Team Bakugou's attempts to win over the little brats' hearts. It's well-written, with Bakugou and Inasa's insane hotheadedness being fun to look at and Todoroki just being the sort of introvert that's just not good at all with kids. None of it is repetitive or annoying or bad in any way, but it's just kinda... yeah. I'm not sure if the backstory of the kids' troublesome manners are necessary, and there's a part of me that's disappointed that it all ends up boiling down to a generic 'fight the kids to earn their respect' instead of actually trying to be symbols of peace and hope. It's all well-written, but it kind of pales compared to the far more fascinating conversation between All Might and Endeavour. 

It's the closest we get to Endeavour's mental state and goals, because in the past he's just the 'rival' to All Might and the abusive father to Todoroki, but here he tells All Might that he's always entrusted his goals to Todoroki because he knew that while climbing to the 'number two' spot... the summit that is All Might is way too high for him to reach. Endeavour also notes how he wants to be the 'strongest', not a crowd-pleaser that smiles to the crowd like All Might is. All Might's retort about how the symbol of peace is a light and he just never put too much thought about it and focused on inspiring people most of the time isn't anything new, but All Might noting that his own hero complex caused him to push away those close to him, like his old sidekick Nighteye.... and All Might tells Endeavour that he shouldn't try to mould himself to be All Might, and that Endeavour should be the type of hero he wants to be.

Which is very nice and well-written, because it could all just devolve to an insipid, predictable ham-handed "I don't like to smile!" "But heroes must inspire civilians!" argument and that Endeavour would see the error of his ways from looking at the children's test as they try to inspire the kindergarten brats, but looking at All Might and Endeavour's respective backstories and having these two adults who's been through a lot of emotional turmoil just talk about how Endeavour should aspire to be the hero he wants to be is amazingly done. It's the sort of thing that lesser shonen like Promised Neverland or Fairy Tail completely misses the point about, where they will idealize the main character so much to the exclusion of villifying everyone else's points of view... and here All Might and Endeavour both acknowledge that they've both made fuck-ups and that none of them are 100% right. It's a pretty great message to send home, and this sort of writing that still  manages to remain optimistic without being saccharine is why My Hero Academia is one of the better-written shonen currently running. 

One Piece 890 Review: Praise Brook

One Piece, Chapter 890: Big Mom on Deck

So this chapter is a pretty great one! It focuses on Big Mom's assault on the Thousand Sunny, and while Big Mom doesn't find the cake, she's in full 'you're hiding it!' mentality even though everyone tells her otherwise. Which, I suppose, makes sense for what we know of Big Mom. Her monster-crone design really works, too, by the way. She does still remember her promise to kill Perospero if it turns out to be a lie, and she starts tearing up the Sunny. The ship's pretty battered but it's still holding, it seems.

And both Jinbe and Brook are easily the MVP of the fight, aren't they? Jinbe blocks Big Mom's gigantic flaming Cognac sword swing with a haki-imbued arm he calls 'Shark Skin', and yes, he does get knocked off the ship but the fact that he manages to take the hit without being killed or knocked out is pretty badass in and of itself. We get a cool bit of Chopper using Guard Point to block Big Mom's arm slam, then Jinbe using water manipulation to douse out the fires... and then proceed to use the 'Ougi' of Fishman Karate, a move he calls Vagabond Drill that sends shockwaves through Big Mom's stomach and actually causes him to fall off the boat, and I'm 90% sure this  is the worst that a Straw Hat has came to actually damaging Big Mom.

Big Mom is still weakened by saltwater and it comes to Prometheus and Zeus to zip around and save her, and we get a pretty awesome two-page spread of Big Mom extending Napoleon to slice the ship in half. Nami tries to 'seduce' Zeus again, but he refuses to and seemingly electrocutes Nami into a cartoon skeleton... except it's apparently just Brook. Who's immune to lightning. These sort of 'EEEEEH' gags never end up working for me most of the time, but this is one that made me laugh out loud. 

Brook dicks around for a bit, exchanging taunts with Big Mom... and then suddenly drops his catchphrase: "may I see your panties?" which gets another round of EEEEEEH from characters and readers alike... and then before we know it, Brook's already mid-air behind Big Mom, slamming his blade into its scabbard... and he's apparently already cut Big Mom's footing, slicing Zeus cleanly in half.

I've always, always enjoyed Brook's "you are already dead" samurai iai cuts, but god damn if this isn't badass. And it's foreshadowed and makes sense, too, since Brook knows he can't conceivably cut Big Mom, so he goes for the one thing he can cut -- Big Mom's soul familiars. 

And then Nami unleashes little charge balls to fuck up Zeus's own electrical field, which causes him to explode and electrocute Big Mom. It's a badass combo between Jinbe, Nami and Brook, and it doesn't undersell Big Mom's badassery, since they make it clear that it's a delaying tactic at best. Brook even captures little tiny Zeus and hands him over to Nami, who pulls off a 'you are my servant' gag. And the chase is still on, but by god this is a pretty badass chapter and how 'plot progression filler' should really be handled. Definitely a great chapter to close off 2017's One Piece with.  

Anime/Manga Plans For 2018

Merry Christmas for all of you out there, and we'll be finally stepping into 2018 pretty soon. I'll have the weekly chapter reviews for One Piece, Tokyo Ghoul and My Hero Academia up soon-ish today. And if you've noticed, you'll be seeing that I'm finally doing my overdue reviews for Digimon Adventure: Tri's fifth movie.

So my plans for 2018... I've been through a fair bit of manga burnout in this year, essentially cutting down my regular manga reviews to four of my absolute favourite manga that's still running at the moment (One Piece, MHA, Tokyo Ghoul and Taizai). And Berserk, whenever it pops up since it's a fickle beast. I'm still very much caught up to Shokugeki no Soma and Kingdom, but those are really hard mangas to review and sometimes I just intentionally let it go on for a month or two before reading a couple of chapters at once. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is another one that is very hard for me to review, since there's really not much to actually say.

But next year I do hope to try and get more reviews up in a timely fashion. Clearly the whole 'weekly mass mini-reviews' thing ended up not working out, so I'll try to  just limit it to manga chapters that actually interest people... and if the internet is anything to go by, Black Clover is the new Fairy Tail/Naruto/Bleach in terms of overwhelming popularity and an insanely divided opinion. Last time I left Black Clover, it's around its 60's and no anime's announced yet, and since then I've caught up to around the early 100's. I'll catch up to it this weekend, and we'll review it weekly. It's probably going to be interesting. Boruto is also getting a manga adaptation of the anime, and I'm definitely somewhat interested in reviewing it monthly -- while it ended horribly, I have enough fond memories of the Naruto franchise to at least try and talk about his series.

I also got somewhat caught up with Promised Neverland, which I still think is over-hyped as hell by people but it's more good than bad. I'm not sure if I'll do regular reviews for it, but we'll see.

But perhaps the big anime news is that I'm actually catching up on Dragon Ball Super like a madman. Partially it's because I just binge-watched Dragon Ball Abridged on Youtube and it's easily one of the most amazing things I've seen, and definitely rekindled my love for the franchise that the Buu saga sort of burnt out from me. I've watched through the entirety of the movie-adaptation episodes and I have OPINIONS on how they handled Battle of Gods and Resurrection F in a weekly-anime format, and am starting to get into the 'Universe 6 arc', as people tell me. I am going into all of these absolutely blind, and I think it's a far, far better thing to review than my previous attempts to review things I've already watched in the past. We'll also do a by-arc review doing forwards since it's all a year old or whatever and I won't waste time blathering about every episode when it's old news to everyone, and so I can catch up quickly to the fresh brand-new episodes.

As far as TV goes, I'll catch up to Runaways and Agents of SHIELD next year, while on the superhero cartoon front I have season three of Superman: The Animated Series ready to be proofread and uploaded eventually. I'm also going to focus a bit more on longer gaming articles like Lore of Hearthstone, which is unexpectedly but pleasantly one of the most popular features of the blog.

Digimon Adventures Tri M05 Review: Buildup

Digimon Adventure Tri. Movie #5: Coexistence, Part 1

Oh man, one of the problems with the one-movie-every-six-months format is that it's so, so easy for people to just, y'know, forget about your franchise. And it's a bit harder for people less invested to honestly remember what happened in the last four movies that span multiple years, and not to mention the two decades-old anime TV shows that this is supposed to be a sequel to. And while I've made my peace with Digimon Adventure: Tri being an emotional roller-coaster far more interested with exploring the emotions of the chosen children and not cheap thrill fights... "Coexistence" is particularly bad in making its action scenes absolutely tepid and uninteresting. We'll get to it later when we get to the big all-mega-forms-versus-a-royal-guard scene, but coming off of the fourth movie which had a pretty cool fight between the zombie Mugendramon and Metalseadramon against our heroes, the fifth movie doesn't really have much in lieu of entertaining action scenes at all.

And, well, the fifth movie has the unenviable task of setting up the finale, and it... doesn't actually do that good of a job in doing so, to be honest. We get a crapton of flashbacks that just add extra details to things we already know about, and it's just kinda bland. Almost makes you think some of these really should've been covered in past movies, yeah? 

The movie picks up where the fourth movie left off, with Meicoomon going berserk because of evil Gennai (who's an avatar of Homeostasis, I think?) and rampages throughout the real world. And while the montage of still scenes of seemingly-brainless Datamons, Tankmons and Anomalocarimons descending into the real world is pretty cool... they literally do nothing but stand around. We've seen far more impressive scenes of invading the real world in, hell, all the way back in Digimon Adventures' Vamdemon arc, but 02, Tamers and Data Squad all had pretty great and chilling and epic-feeling 'human world invasion' scenes. But here all we get are still scenes, and quite literally so. The only animation is the completely still image of Datamon hovering down upon the factory, whereas everything else seems to be just scans of an image. 

And there's no sense of urgency, because this movie also ends up wanting to build up to a climax, which... it doesn't really do since the whole real-world invasion thing ends up being kind of pointless. We get kind-of-an-action-scene when the chosen children are attacked by a Drimogemon and a Dokugumon, but we don't even get a token short fight scene like we got with Kuwagamon in the first episode. Hell, neither Dokugumon or Drimogemon or the children Digimon are even animated, and it's, again, just cheap-looking still frames. I know that we're not going to get a full minute fight, but still, there's lazy and there's lazy. It's supposed to tell us that the Digimon World is rejecting the chosen children, but it seemed to be a token, lazy attempt at telling, not showing. And by god, it's a complaint I've been having for the past five movies, but in this one in particular the Digital World just feels so motherfucking hollow and barely a setting with characters. Whatever happened to the villages and the swarms of Numemon and the large settlements of digimon? It's just empty terrain until one or two brainless, dialogue-less enemies pop up, and as someone who rewatched huge chunks of the original anime, it's so disheartening to see what the Digital World is reduced, and we don't even need the huge REBOOT to ruin how the world feels. 

Meiko gets the big emotional focus in this movie, and she's... she honestly kind of feels like a one-note broken record. It's a bit unfair because she doesn't really have that much time to develop and she has to go through the unenviable task of showing her inner conflict (boiling down to the question of "did the powers-that-be make a mistake in making me and Meicoomon partners?") and not be grating. And it kind of is. Meicoomon is feral for the entirety of the movie, and poor Meiko is just so conflicted about her insecurity. We get the revelation that... Meiko and Meicoomon hasn't had the best relationship, but the big revelation that 'Meicoomon caused a lab fire when she went feral in the past' is nowhere as impactful as last movie's Daigo-and-Maki-are-chosen-children bit.

Hackmon and Daigo have a brief scene of exposition, which... essentially recaps the past four movies, and confirms that it's working for the Homeostasis entity. We get another handwave of why the adults are helpless (they literally are, because the world at large are in 'eek, evil digital monsters' mode) and that the kids are honestly just on their own, with Daigo as their ally. Hackmon's only real revelation is that Meicoomon is comprised out of leftover data from Apocalymon, and that Meiko is like a stabilizer or some shit, but other than explaining that Meicoomon probably popped out of that creepy black egg in the intro, there's really not much that this actually adds to the story. 

And their parents, I suppose, but Taichi and Hikari's mom has a very effective scene as she goes from 'oh no my kids are in trouble' before apparently remembering that they hang out routinely with a cyborg dinosaur and a cat angel, and deciding to just make some dinner to offset her mind from her worry.  

Maki continues to rant about how she wants Bakumon and Bakumon and why did Bakumon leave, having a short scene where she randomly pulls out a big-ass rifle. Which disappears in her next scene in part 4. So yeah. Part one of the fifth movie is just a whole lot of 'hopefully we'll get to something better', and a whole lot of bland disappointment. 

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Digimon Adventure Tri, Movie #5: Coexistence, Part 2

This part is a bit rough depending on how invested you are in Meiko's character. I was relatively intrigued by the character, with her working on me as a character I root for and feel like a new addition to the main chosen children, but I definitely am not squee-ing over her. And it's really important that you really are invested in Meiko to enjoy this movie, since she really is the only character with a proper arc throughout the movie. Hikari shares her spot in the poster but honestly? Her development only happens for around five minutes in the final part. We get some scenes where the movie tries to remind us that, hey, Hikari has a habit of being possessed by the digital world's mysterious Homeostasis entity... but we don't actually get a proper character moment or character arc the way that the rest of the chosen children do in each of their feature movies.

Oh, and what fucking happened to the 02 kids? At this point I've just given up hope on seeing them again and I guess we're just handwaving them into 'oh, they'll probably show up fine in an epilogue'. 

There's definitely a lot of parallels to be drawn between Meiko and the rest of the chosen children both in Tri and in their original series, especially Meiko's own character flaws. Keeping it localized to Tri alone, both Meiko and Takeru keep information regarding their partners hidden from everyone else even though it is potentially harmful to the team. Meiko and Sora had to deal with a partner Digimon that appears to hate them (although Biyomon's prissiness is totally different from Meicoomon going feral). And being burdened with a vast insane destiny-shaping responsibility is something that all the kids have dealt with at one point or another. 

The problem is that the writing seems way too intent on emphasizing Meiko's moe-ish tendencies and dialogue to have you (theoretically) go "awww, poor girl, let me give you a hug". But after repeating the same old argument and sob story for like three or four times, only for a different chosen children to pop up and offer a different version of an encouragement speech... I just kind of get it. And it really feels like any tension and goodwill built up from the first part just crumbles and self-destructs in the name of trying to follow the movie format of having a slow buildup for the first half. 

The chosen children end up in the real world, end up having to hide their Digimon in Koshirou's laptop, and get into some brief "you scumbags, you befriend Digimon!" hate speech from cops and random kids, and while it's nice that Taichi's plotline from the first movie is still followed up upon... it's also one of those plotlines that feel insipid and honestly not important, especially in the face of the fact that this is still a sequel to Digimon Adventure and 02, which featured the real world being invaded by Digimon. Multiple times.

Speaking of continuity... aren't the chosen partner Digimon supposed to be post-reboot? I realize that there's only so much screentime to go around, and that they're written flatly in these movies as a generic rambunctious bunch of kids, but Tailmon continues to stay an adult (despite lacking the buildup of abuse and strength as a Vamdemon minion) and no one gets confused or whatever. 

Of course, this part isn't all bad. Daigo and Hackmon's conversation continues, and it is very enlightening as to just what Homeostasis's plans are. Homeostasis wants Meicoomon gone, since she's a rogue element that Homeostasis doesn't need anymore... and it's just throwing the chosen children under the bus, and that includes Daigo. Daigo asks some really good damning questions as to why Homeostasis trusts all this world-bending stuff to human kids in the first place, to which Hackmon doesn't have a real answer. This leads to Daigo being all MVP and rescuing the chosen children from the cops, and hiding them out in their school. 

It doesn't really fix a lot of the problems in the episode, of course. Add that to literally everyone else, both Digimon and children, feeling far more one-note than ever (do Mimi, Joe, Sora or Koshirou even contribute anything to the episode beyond being settling back to their 'airhead', 'geeky big bro', 'nice big sis' and 'geek' respectively for the entire movie?), perhaps best exemplified by Palmon and Agumon, both just parroting the same "I love Mimi even though I don't understand what's going on" and "I'm hungry and I'm simple" over and over. And considering how much work the past movies put in for Biyomon, Tentomon and Gomamon, it's definitely a shame. 

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Digimon Adventure Tri, Movie #5: Coexistence, Part 3

I really wished this series of 'tell scary stories in an apartment' had been shuffled together with the campfire scene from the first and second parts of this movie, for the simple reason that, by god, there's a lot of scenes that are just pretty bland in this one. Yes, it's a showcase of the chosen children's bond, and everyone from the girls to the Digimon chuckling at Yamato being afraid of ghost stories is hilarious... as do the partner digimon wondering if they should 'report' to their partners when they see Taichi and Meiko sitting on a chair together... but did we need so many scenes of just waffling around and honestly doing nothing much? There's such a big lull where there aren't any tension, action, mystery or character development and things just feel repetitive. It's like they know Meiko can't just do a huge 180 and that we need to see her development, but didn't actually manage to come up with anything super-interesting... so they fall back to the simple basics of trying to ship Meiko with Taichi... and to be fair, it's not a bad shippy scene. It's just that it comes after a series of pretty bland scenes already from the scary-story scene to the crying scene and all that, and it makes me kinda feel just so underwhelmed in the way that the Tri movies never feel, even during the bathhouse trip or the school festival in the earlier movies. 

There's definitely a neat sense of how fragile Meiko's mindstate is at this point in time, with the scene where Meiko's frantic apologizing to her father is contrasted against all the other chosen children's far more supportive calls to their parents... and I really wished that the showrunners had more confidence in the previous four movies' writing for Meiko and didn't try to shove her blubbering down our throats so much int his movie. The accent is also a nice little addition, and she's apparently not using her natural accent in front of the other chosen children for fear of being alienated. 

The conversation with Taichi ends up falling flat because Taichi's kind of being a dick to her, but Agumon's simple-mindedness after the other chosen children bullies him into talking to Meiko is a fun little touch. Meiko's just stuck in a huge existential crisis, especially how she feels useless and pointless since she can't even be a 'partner' properly. It's a neat reversal of the general Chosen Children/partner Digimon conundrum. Where Meiko's problem in the earlier movies had been that she'll love Meicoomon no matter what, here her problem is that she wants Meicoomon to accept her despite her poor job of being a proper partner to calm Meicoomon's rampages down (although that's not her fault, really). 

This is perhaps the best writing for Meiko in the entire movie, and I really wished that her scenes in the first two parts has been far more subtle. Thankfully we're in the later half of the movie, which means... action scene! Meicoomon rampages, transforms (or 'mutates', as Hackmon insists) into an armoured... Mega form? Hackmon's evolved form Jesmon finally shows up for a proper battle scene, and he's pretty cool with those sword limbs and all, and the chosen children are stuck  between two very powerful, very hostile Digimon -- Meicoomon being feral and attacking everyone despite being their buddy, whereas Jesmon wants to kill said buddy.

I really appreciate the fact that we use a split-screen for the evolution stock footage instead of going one by one, by the way. We don't actually see much of the fight in this  part, but it's... it's honestly pretty ineptly done, barely more entertaining than whacking toys together, where Jesmon or Meicoomon are only ever shown in the same frame with two or three partner digimon at one time, and it's always a simple one-shot with energy blasts knkocking a partner digimon from standing to falling down. Like, there's a cool sequence of Meicoomon drop-kicking Zudomon, but that's about it as far as action scenes go. 

So yeah, "Coexistence" could've been one of the most powerful storylines for Meiko if it hadn't tried too hard and gone for the quantity-over-quality way. As it is, though, this particular leg of the journey is a neatly strong part, even if it comes slightly too late into the journey to really care about.

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Digimon Adventures Tri, Movie #5: Coexistence, Part 4

We start off with a continuation of the scuffle, where most of the chosen children's digimon finally get a montage digivolution to their ultimate (or mega, for English-speakers) form, but once more the fights and clashes don't actually end up feeling interesting at all. There's like this one cool scene where Meicoomon and Jesmon unleash a string of generic anime explosions, then everything is just cutaways to still scenes of the partner digimon, maybe moving slightly, or blurry clashes of the combatants slamming into each other. There's not even the cool factor of seeing, say, Rosemon or Hou'oumon or Herculeskabuterimon, because we don't actually focus on any of the digimon enough to really even craft a proper action sequence, let alone an entire fight.

The fight gets dragged to the Digital World once more, Alphamon shows up out of nowhere for no real reason other than to remind us that he and Yggdrasil exists, and then everyone else gets knocked out and the fight gets reduced to just Alphamon, Omegamon, Jesmon and Meicoomon. 

Of course, we do get the pretty badass scene of Hikari being possessed by Homeostasis, who enters a generic villain speech of "you foolish children, you cannot defy a god!" But Hikari takes over her body from the possessing entity, in the midst of the other children repeating that they will not abandon a friend. And then in the midst of the battle, Taichi apparently gets killed (they play up the cliffhanger for all it's worth, but he's definitely not)... and Hikari just fucking breaks. 

And Hikari's breaking causing a lot of darkness to creep around her, and causing Nyaramon to dark digivolve into the psychotic-looking Ophanimon Falldown Mode... yeah. Nevermind the fact that Ophanimon Falldown Mode is a pretty fucking creepy-looking evil angel in the first place, the sudden and very graphically unsettling merging with Meicoomon's ultimate form (Raguelmon, as google tells me) ends up in the creation of this utterly hideous abomination called Ordinemon, which... well, 'angelic abomination' is the only thing I can think of. That dark digivolution and fusion is a very cool scene, and apparently it's all under Yggdrassil's calculations all along because this Ordinemon creature is what it was banking on to finally cause the digital world to bleed into the real world. In refusing to play Homeostasis's game, the chosen kids played into furthering Yggdrassil's agenda instead. 

Again, part of it really fall flat because Vamdemon, Apocalymon and Daemon all did similar things in Adventures and 02, but there's just something super disturbing from this gigantic, world-encompassing twisted angel. Again, part of it stems from the underwhelming 'Digimon army' that feels very low-key especially compared to past anime depictions of an invading force.

But this part really tries its best to make up for the spotty and messy character development throughout the movie. There's Hikari, of course, whose hard faith and defiance against Homeostasis gets challenged when her protector and beloved older brother ends up seemingly getting cut down in their bullheaded attempt to rescue Meicoomon from her madness and the two Royal Knights trying to murder her. Hikari's sole notable scene in this movie is her foreshadowing on how she's more in-tune with the digital world compared to the others, and her rejection of Homeostasis's talk about the need of the few and the need of the many is very powerful, but at the same time while she's been through a lot of shit throughout her past battles, losing her brother is something that will break anyone. It's a clever bit where the sibling bond between Taichi and Hikari is one of the best-developed emotional parts throughout the original anime, and Taichi's protectiveness and Hikari's status as being the most protected in both chosen children groups she's in finally causes her to snap.  

Meiko also goes through a pretty great arc in the final battle, and one that I didn't expect that they would go on. The Taichi/Yamato complex ends up being brought up again, and here Meiko finally realizes that all their bullheadedness in defying Homeostasis and attempting to save Meicoomon, while undoubtedly noble and very nakama... is also borderline suicidal. She ends up making the call after wiffling and waffling throughout the past three parts and tells Taichi to kill Meicoomon. It's not an easy decision to make, and I really wish the buildup on Meiko's part included less crisis-of-self-worth and more about can-I-make-the-right-choice... but it's a powerful moment nonetheless.

Yamato is aghast, but Taichi is resolute... which neatly fits with his conversation with Agumon earlier in the movie: do what you gotta do. While everyone else is super-hopeful that Meicoomon can be easily saved and redeemed, all evidence points otherwise -- Meicoomon is just rabid, frothing and attacking indiscriminately, even if there's a gloriously ambiguous moment in the fight where it appears to block an attack that would've struck Meiko.

Of course, before Omegamon has the chance to kill Meicoomon and stop the conflict, Jesmon unleashes this cool-looking 'Un Pour Tous' attack that, while intercepted by Alphamon, still creates a massive fissure that seems to swallow up Taichi and kill him, leaving behind the goggles to absolutely break Hikari as detailed above. Yamato ends up picking up Taichi's goggles and taking charge because, shit, they have to stop the crisis from devolving even further.

Also surprisingly well-written in this part is Daigo, who has the role of a senior and former chosen children. After spending so much of these movies being jerked around by the bureau, by Meiko's father, by Maki and by Hackmon, Daigo still continues to give it his all. In this case, the vague flashbacks to how Daigo used to have adventures with his own partner Bearmon, as well as Maki and Bakumon, puts into perspective how someone else deals with the whole chosen children system. And honestly? Homeostasis' whole modus operandi of picking random kids, pairing them up with specific digimon and sending them off to save the world, discarding them when they're no longer necessary... it's pretty fucked up. Daigo's generation of chosen children ends up suffering a fuckton of emotional damage when their partners were either killed or ascended into detached, immortal guardians of the world. Taichi's generation of chosen children nearly got wiped out when their partners were rebooted two movies ago. The fact that neither Daigo, Maki nor their partners got any sort of happy endings is a neat bit of showcase how we have no guarantee that Meiko or Meicoomon will, either. 

I just kinda wish Homeostasis and Yggdrassil were both better foreshadowed and less weirdly vague in these movies.

And while I'm still fanboying over the creepiness of Ordinemon's design, also equally creepy is Maki's scene where she's just screaming at lurching black shadows in a dark sea, her mind completely snapped the way that Hikari's is, because she can't deal with losing a partner in a mature way that Daigo or Meiko displays here. It's a very mature and adult way of thinking, how sometimes you do just have to accept death and move on, and the failure of doing so can really fuck your mind up. It's just a moral and a story that's delivered in a rather messy way. I still end up liking Coexistence for its last two parts, but I think it's one of the weakest among the Tri movies.  

The Walking Dead S06E14 Review: Denise and Eugene's Big Day

The Walking Dead, Season 6, Episode 14: Twice as Far

So yeah, this episode is a bit of an outlier, but definitely a welcome one. After the previous few episodes focused heavily on the new community at Hilltop and the raid on the Saviours base, as well as Carol's change of heart (which I bought last episode, but not in this one, which we'll talk about later), it's irritating that we're pushing the inevitable Negan revelation even further with what amounts to a filler episode. 

But, man, what a filler episode it was. It reunites the triad of Abraham, Eugene and Rosita, the 'we gotta find a cure' team who has, in my opinion, been the group of characters from Rick's travelling party that blends the most into the background. Well, there's Tara, too, who's honestly a bit of a non-entity who shows up to remind us she exists and does a thing or two, but compared to the likes of Rick, Carl, Daryl, Carol, Maggie and Glenn, or even second-stringers like Gabriel and Sasha, the trio really doesn't get to do much. Rosita gets the worst of the bunch, I think, being a generic badass fighter. Abraham doesn't fare better, only winning out from Rosita due to having badass facial hair and a strange way of articulating his words. Eugene is the most developed among them due to his strange, strange situation of both his robot-speak and the fact that despite being part of Team Rick he's actually a bit of a load. 

Here, we have a bit of a lesser characters' day out. Daryl shows up, of course, but his role is more as the big heavy badass of the team more than anything. After a brief montage of Carol going through daily life and talking to Daryl (who's squarely on the 'kill em all before they kill us' camp), and Morgan apparently building a prison cell in the time he's absent from the Saviours raid (to give Rick 'a choice' in the future), we go to two groups. The first consists of established badasses Rosita and Daryl escorting dr. Denise, who's never been out of Alexandria, on a medicine raid. The second has Abraham and Eugene investigating a factory, from where Eugene plans to manufacture bullets -- a premium and depletable currency as Hilltop shows.

Both Denise and Eugene are characters, who, while having been through hell, just aren't ready. Eugene struggles with killing a relatively benign walker, and gets pissed off at Abraham when he tells Eugene -- perhaps rightly so -- that Abraham's thing is being a badass and Eugene's thing is being a smart dude. Maybe it's the rush from joining the huge Alexandria-vs-zombies bit before the mini-timeskip in this season, or maybe Eugene is just having a bad day, but Abraham leaves Eugene to his own devices.

Meanwhile, Denise ends up trying to talk a big game of at least helping in scavenging in the big world (although it is still a monumentally moronic decision for anyone involved to send their only doctor out into the field, short mission or no short mission) but ends up freaking out when she finds one of those creepy unexplained tableaus that Walking Dead sometimes likes to show us. In this case, instead of a simple walker enemy that she can theoretically kill like Eugene, she finds a crippled corpse, an empty baby's crib, the writings hush hush hush hush written over the wall, and the corpse of a baby drowned in her own blood. On the other hand, she did show that she might actually be able to contribute as a badass in her own right in the future, having her first blood by killing the random zombie in the car to get the cooler. She disobeyed the established badasses, but surprisingly enough it bucks the trend by having Denise survive both her disobeying Daryl and Rosita in both the apothecary and with the car zombie.

Sadly, this is quickly staunched as Denise got one of the more brutal and surprising death via arrow to the head right after she has some personal growth, which is a shame. And I think this is the worst blow that the Saviours did to the Alexandrians -- most, if not all, of the other deaths were caused by the quarry zombies. Denise is easily one of the few remaining Alexandrians who can be feasibly called a character -- Heath is cool but doesn't have much in lieu of a personality; Aaron is also cool but inexplicably seems to have more or less disappeared this season; Spencer is kinda weird and also apparently shacked up with Rosita -- so her death is not without impact, but on the other hand it's another of those deaths that's just done seemingly for shock value, and we don't even get to see her girlfriend Tara's reaction in this episode.

Meanwhile, Eugene, who arguably was far more arrogant and learned near-nothing about overestimating his badassery, survives. He bites Dwight's dick! Dwight, by the way, is the now-scarfaced motherfucker who stole Daryl's crossbow, and also the dude that shot Denise, so maybe he'll be the season's final boss before we inevitably get to Negan? Dwight is a suitable douchebag for the role, for sure, even if he's probably minus his 'D' at this point thanks to Eugene. In Abraham's words, "you know how to bite a dick and I mean that with the utmost respect."

Abraham, Rosita and Daryl manage to kill half of Dwight's group (they outnumbered them, what, three to one?) and I guess Eugene falls more on the likable scale of the spectrum? It would be easy for Eugene to come off as being an annoying twit who's so self-absorbed in improving himself and damn the consequences -- regardless of how awesome his dick-biting skills or distraction skills are, he is far more valuable as a potential manufacturer of ammunition. Ditto for Denise, who can have character growth and stuff but is ultimately far more valuable as the community's healer.

While both Denise and Eugene's stories are actually far, far more enjoyable than I thought possible, Carol's story isn't. The last few episodes have her racking herself with guilt over her arguments with Morgan, the death of the kid she traumatized, and the brutality that she and Maggie inflicted upon the Saviours, and she leaves Alexandria because she... can't stand killing. It's honestly a development that seemed rushed and would've worked better if we actually had a full Carol-centric episode to properly explore this. Why is two short, truncated conversations with Daryl enough to drive her out of the community? It felt abruptly rushed, and honestly one that I disliked. I suppose the timeskip might be a reason enough, but maybe that one post-timeskip episode when Paul tangled with Rick and Daryl, we could've had more focus on Carol instead of leaving her out of two episodes for no real reason if you're planning this big character switch.

Oh, and Abraham and Sasha are now a thing. Which I honestly cannot care less about. We're two episodes from the end of the season, and I guess we'll be moving at a far more breakneck pace from then on?

Nanatsu no Taizai 248 Review: Merlin's Parentage

The Seven Deadly Sins, Chapter 248 Review: Our Choices

Pretty solid chapter. A good chunk of it simply details the relationship between Meliodas and Elizabeth, where Meliodas is ready to destroy the curse that bound them together through reincarnation and stuff, even at the cost of Elizabeth's memory and love for him. We got some very well-written romance and free will conversation that I won't reproduce or discuss too much here. It's well written, it's touching, and definitely doesn't overstay its welcome. Meliodas' line about how he's unable to feel anything even now is perhaps the most touching bit, even if he contradicts it shortly after by saying that he will love Elizabeth, memory or no memory. Their sequence ends with Elizabeth buggering off to try and rejoin the Seven Deadly Sins after blasting Meliodas with some holy druid magic. 

But of course, the big event everyone's talking about is going to be the final scene, where Merlin's true parentage is revealed. She floats up to face Zeldoris, reverts to her loli child form... and reveals her true parentage. Apparently only Meliodas knew, and everyone else including Zeldoris just assumes it's a case of the same name... and that Merlin is the daughter of... the Demon King and the Supreme Goddess. It's definitely a twist I didn't see coming, because almost everyone thought that Merlin was the daughter of a high-ranking demon of sorts I don't think anyone ever called out Merlin as a half-breed goddess and demon child. 

Especially in chapter 243, where Merlin flat-out tells them that her father is the ruler of a kingdom that traveled to purgatory and all that. I suppose she was adopted by mortals, and those two are a case of 'those are my birth parents, not my TRUE parents' thing going on? In any case, though, it definitely really makes Merlin's sheer power and badassery work so much sensibly with what we know of her backstory. We'll see how she actually will interact with Zeldoris and Estarossa, though. 

The Walking Dead S06E13 Review: Escape Game

The Walking Dead, Season 6, Episode 13: The Same Boat

An actually decent episode that focuses almost entirely on Carol and Maggie as they break out of confinement after being captured by a group of Saviours. Building up on the Carol scenes we saw last episode, we get to see a relatively large amount of Carol. Sure, Maggie is around, but she doesn't get much to do character wise other than the brief interrogation scene and being the resident Miss Badass while Carol's struggling with her previous role as the most cynical and heartless among our main cast. How utterly chilling was that scene when Maggie sics that one zombified Saviour onto the leader, Molly, before proceeding to murder her by stabbing her face like five dozen times? Or the cool, clinical way that she tells Carol to finish this and burn the nameless reinforcements alive after tricking them into entering a closed room?

It should, in theory, be repetitive. Last episode showed us Glenn and Heath's own struggles with the ruthless bastards that they have to be in this new world where they are glorified headhunters, but because we see Carol's own moral struggles the episode ends up being far, far more interesting. Add that to the chillingness of 'omg Maggie is pregnant' which Carol quickly reminds us of, and, yeah, it's a bit of a cheap trick to ramp up the tension in the episode but it turns out that pregnant Maggie is still, y'know, Maggie.

Now if only the Saviours other than Paula had much depth to them beyond being one-note caricatures, then we might actually sympathize with Carol's wobbling convictions. On the other hand, make the Saviours too sympathetic and suddenly Maggie and Carol would end up looking like far too villainous. The dude (Donnie?) who Carol shot is an asshole through and through, the reinforcements don't even get more than a couple of lines, Molly is a cold-hearted jackass, and Paula killed her boss early in the apocalypse and openly mocks Carol. Add the fact that they're actually a small cell that's high-strung and don't even have any idea if they can take the eight-man strong Strike Team Rick, and it's honestly small wonder that Paula's cell lasted the entire episode.

Carol's story is pretty amazing. She reverts back to acting like a scared housewife that causes everyone to underestimate her, and her actress delivers this so, so well that you immediately buy into how the Saviours quickly dismiss her as a threat. She's hyperventilating, she's begging for them to spare Maggie, she stammers, the prays with the prayer beads (which she uses to cut her binds when no one's looking)... and it's implied that the montage of her with a hood looking downwards at the ground is her leaving a trail for Daryl to follow.

But at the same time, this isn't the same Carol who's a one-man army that murdered the cannibals in season five. She's starting to have doubts, having her own guilt-addled moments, enough that she freezes up when confronting Paula in the climax. It's not the smoothest transition, I have to admit, and in particular the talk from Paula about not keeping track of her kills seemed to be one of those shove-in-your-face comparisons that doesn't land at all. But as much as the character development isn't 100% well done, it's still doing decent at showing two characters we care about absolutely demolish a Saviour base.

Which leads to the various Saviours talking about how "we're all Negan",  which might imply that 'Negan' is an abstract concept and that the Saviours is an organization without a head to cut off. Of course, I know that Negan is a character in no small part due to knowing who his actor is, but season six's biggest failing is that it's growing increasingly obvious that Negan's going to cameo at the end of this season just like how the Saviours did at the end of last season, except that the Saviours are such a non-threat and so generally abstract that it's going to take a hellluva finale to keep season six from being one of the bigger disappointments of this series.

Pokemon of the Week #35: Crabrawler & Crabominable

#739: Crabrawler, the Boxing Pokemon & #740: Crabominable, the Woolly Crab Pokemon

So, to tie in with Christmas day, we'll try to be festive and talk about... well, an Ice-type! We're still in an Alolan/Hoenn deal going on at the moment, but I kinda wanna take a bit of a break and not do a Pokemon of the Week that had that much content. Originally I was planning to do the Snorunt evolutionary line, but that had like four members (Glalie, Mega Glalie, Froslass) and each is based on a different yokai from Japan which will take waaaaay too long. And I don't feel like talking about the Spheal line. So I went to Alola, looking for any ice-types... and there's a grand total of one in Generation VII, which is Crabominable -- my least favourite Alolan Pokemon. Or ranks up there, anyway. 

I mean, I suppose I could do a feature about Alolan Vulpix or Sandshrew, but eh. We'll do Crabominable and Crabrawler. 

So.... yeah. I'm not the biggest fan of these guys. Mostly Crabominable, really -- Crabrawler is just fine. Crabrawler's pretty cool, even! We'll talk about Crabrawler first, because I don't mind talking a lot about about it. While perhaps the combination of three bright neon colours -- purple, bright blue and yellow -- is a bit too much, and the oficial artwork adds a shade of blue onto one eye which is probably meant to be an eyelid, but the asymmetry adds into how mish-mash Crabrawler looks. And what's up with that weird yellow horn? 

But essentially, I did like Crawbrawler a lot more when I saw him in-game, and he's supposed to be a Pokemon that hides within the colourful berries that fall out of trees. (He also doesn't have a droopy eyelid in the game) And in that sense, Crabrawler's colour scheme, while not the most attractive thing, makes a fair bit of sense. Crabrawler isn't any more obnoxious than, say, Crawdaunt with his big-ass star on his head, and the fact that he seems to adapt three different species of crustaceans -- the coconut crab, the boxing crab and the mantis shrimp -- is pretty cool.

Coconut crabs

I'll talk about the mantis shrimp more if we ever actually get to talk about Clawitzer (hint for a future entry), but it's one of the coolest creatures in the world where thanks to a club-like organ that can be launched towards a prey or a predator with such powerful speed that it heats up the water around them. And indeed, Crabrawler's fists do look like boxing gloves -- essentially romanticized versions of the mantis shrimp's club-claw things. But for the most part, Crabrawler is based on the coconut crab (Birgus latro), which is the largest land-living arthropod in the world... that's a far-too-large variation of hermit crabs. People were confused that Crabrawler isn't water-type, but coconut crabs are actually almost entirely land-dwelling, and while not specifically endemic to Hawaii, it is a very common sight in many other tropical countries. And while it's clearly not as attractive as Crabrawler's colourful purple paint scheme, the real-life coconut crabs do live in a far less colourful world than Alola. Some actually do have a bluish tinge to them, which I picture here, borrowed from Wikipedia. And while they're not exclusive coconut eaters, they can climb up trees to break into coconuts and consume the coconut flesh. Oh, and they're pretty damn big, too!

Boxer crab (yes, those white
things are boxing gloves)

Of course, this is reflected in Crabrawler's lore and behaviour in the game. Crabrawler is found everywhere in Alola -- but not in the grass. He's only found in piles of berries under trees, hiding and feasting on them, and those are the only places you can find Crawbrawlers in.

Obviously, the coconut crab aspect is a good chunk of Crabrawler's lore and background, but let's not forget that the whole concept behind Crabrawler is that he's a fighting-crab. And there is actually a genus of crabs, the Lybia genus, that are commonly known as 'Boxer Crabs' or 'Pom-Pom Crabs'. The little buggers are pretty small, but they pick up sea anemones -- you know, poisonous plant-like creatures? -- and attach them to their claws, and use them as literal boxing gloves. Not just boxing gloves, either, because anemones sting. That's the equivalent to humans taping a taser to a boxing glove, and then going around bopping people in the head. They're even endemic in Hawaii, and Wikipedia tells me that the boxer crab has the local name of 'kumimi pua', the inedible flower crab. Obviously Crabrawler's lore weave more around the more famous coconut crab, but I was definitely delighted by the existence of the boxer crabs that Crabrawler is apparently also based off on. 

Pokedex entries characterize Crabrawlers as a particularly competitive fighter, jabbing and fighting with his claws and, quoting the Sun entry, 'foams in the mouth and faints' when it loses. Also, apparently, when it punches too much, its pincers fall off from overuse, but they can grow back quickly. Crabs who lose their limbs can, after multiple molting, regrow their limbs, so this is an adaptation of a real-world ability but on crack. They also apparently climb coconut trees in Alola (coconuts apparently exist in the Pokemon world?) and sometimes mistakenly climb Exeggutors... which are dragon coconut trees.

Crabrawler is notably used by the first Kahuna you fight, Hala, and is his signature Pokemon. And, well, that's pretty neat, right? As you could probably imagine, Crabrawler's a physical attacker, and he's got pretty thematic abilities like Hyper Cutter and Iron Fist. He mostly has fighting-type moves in his learnset and a bunch of dark and water-types. Overall, he's... well, a pretty cool, if boring crab!

Enter Crabominable. Who's pretty visually ugly. And he's our ice type for this Christmas-themed entry. I mean, just look at the fucker! Look at it. Its design is just a massive mess. He's conceptually based on a yeti crab (more on it later), so they took the 'yeti' pun and make him an actual yeti (but also a crab), because you bring a Crabrawler to the icy Mt. Lanakila, where it will evolve into Crabominable. Location-based evolution has been one of the weirder concepts that I really wished was added more after Generation IV, and we've got Crabrawler to show for it...

But, shit, look at it! I get that it's a Crabrawler that's grown a coat of white yeti fur, but look! Instead of being a neon hodgepodge of yellow, purple and turquoise, it's got white as the main colour, and where Crabrawler is mainly purple with the turquoise and yellow accenting its paint scheme, it's mainly white with random splotches of purple and blue all around its body. And it's got... a purple... bra? And its pincers, instead of looking like pincers, have these weird dog paw-print things, and the lower bit opens and closes like a missile pod? And it still has this absolutely stupid-looking doofus blonde hair? And it's got those... weird chunks of teeth? And the section of his face with eyes looks like a sticker on his face? Wow, this thing just looks absolutely... abominable. 

With many other poorly designed Pokemon, I at least can see what they're going for. The combined Kyurem forms are a mishmash of two already-complex dragons. Garbodor is ugly, but it works as a walking landfill. The elemental monkeys are shit, but they at least work as, y'know, fire and water monkeys. Crabominable is just a horrifying concept that I can't believe made it beyond the doodle stage. It's like someone went "hey, artist guy, draw a yeti boxing crab!" and this is one of the first drafts with the doofiest face ever that was meant as a joke, but somehow got accepted among the new Pokemon, and they made a 3D render for it.

Yeah, I thought that making a Pokemon of the Week article would endear Crabominable to me, but the more I look at it, the more obnoxious the design looks.

Like, jeez. He at least gets a wholly unique Fighting/Ice type, which isn't shared by anyone. He's actually quite decent too once you get past his ugliness, with a base 478 stat total, and a base 132 physical attack. Add that to his attack-enhancing abilities, and his wide range of physical moves... in addition to Ice Punch, Avalanche, Close Combat and Dynamic Punch, he also gets the brand-new signature move of Ice Hammer. He gets a fucking Crabominable-exclusive version of Hammer Arm! How stupid is that?

Yeti crab

And, well, looking at Crabominable's dex entries, it's pretty fucking dumb, too. "It aimed for the top but got lost and ended up on a snowy mountain"? Most of the other dex entries are generic stuff about how awesome his punches are and ho the can destroy avalanches. His Moon entry gives him the only smidgen of interesting information, where apparently in times of desperation, "it can lop off its own pincers and fire them like rockets". 

But it's still pretty dang ugly, though, which kind of makes me stop there. So let me talk about the Kiwa hirsuta, otherwise known as the Yeti Crab, and the only reason this Pokemon exists is because someone thought up of a pun for this Pokemon. There's so many ways to make a Yeti-Crab hybrid cool, but nope. The Kiwa hirsuta is a recently-discovered (2005, according to Wikipedia) species of crab with a white shell and bristles throughout its body that resemble, you guessed it, hair. It's found near deep underwater hydrothermal vents in the Pacific-Antarctic ridge. None of which are actually reflected by Crabominable's design.

(And besides, Abomasnow's just a lot cooler as a yeti pokemon)

And... well, that's about it for Crabominable, really. I have to acknowledge that Hala and Hau both use one, and it looks stupid as all hell every time I go up to the Alolan Elite Four and challenge him and it's just a design that just kind of pisses me off any time I see him. Blah. Still, it's Christmas, and Crabominable does look pretty damn happy even though he looks like an accident, so yay for that. Merry Christmas, you all, and don't let my brief moment of humbuggery in regards to a Pokemon's design ruin any of it for you all. 

Lore of Hearthstone, Episode #10 - The Grand Tournament [Non-Legendaries]

Welcome to the Grand Tournament, the third full expansion for Hearthstone. The Grand Tournament itself is based on the Argent Tournament event in Wrath of the Lich King, an event set up by the Argent Dawn to pit warriors against each other in a jousting and fighting tournament to determine the strongest warriors to go up against the Lich King, with the goal that the less warriors they send against the Lich King, the less bodies the Lich King will have to turn into his undead minions. With the Argent Tournament, there are several raids and instances that represent the challenges in the tournament.

TGT itself is based on a what-if scenario of just what the tournament runners do with the tournament grounds after the Argent Tournament is over... and in true Hearthstone fashion, apparently they just bring as many jousters from as many races as possible to just have fun and make it like the Azeroth Olympics or something.

ABILITIES:

Living Roots: Living Roots is based on the druid spell Entangling Roots, which first appeared as one of the Keeper of the Grove's hero powers in Warcraft III, and again for Balance Druids in World of Warcraft. Entangling Roots, as its name implies, will root an enemy with place with vines that come out of the ground. Saplings are the name of younger Treants in WoW, although unlike hearthstone WoW's Saplings shaer a model with Treants.

Astral Communion: In WoW, Astral Communion is an ability for druids added in Mists of Pandaria, which basically refreshes the druid's powers.

Lock and Load: Lock and Load is a Marksmanship Hunter talent in WoW, but the card is based on the pre-Legion version of Lock and Load, which is a Survival talent that allows the Hunter's next two Explosive Shots to be cast without cooldown or cost.

Powershot: Powershot is a Hunter ability added in Mists of Pandaria and recently removed in Legion, which in WoW deals a large amount of damage to a target, as well as extra damage to enemies between the target and the hunter. The artwork for Powershot depicts the skill being used on Garrosh Hellscream.

Arcane Blast: Arcane Blast is an ability for Arcane Mages in WoW, one of the first spells that arcane mages learn. In WoW Arcane Blasts deals more damage with each successive cast, but drains more mana as well, meaning that spamming Arcane Blast would allow the mage to deal a lot of damage quickly, but not quite efficiently since they burn a lot of mana.

Polymorph: Boar: In World of Warcraft, mages can customize their Polymorph spell with various tomes or glyphs to change the critter that the Polymorph spell turns the target into, ranging from penguins to porcupines to polar bear cubs. Polymorph: Boar is original to Hearthstone, although in Legion the similar "Polymorph: Pig," has recently been addded. Of course, Polymorph: Boar is a reference to Huffer, and the flavour text is a reference to the "Always Huffer"  meme where the then-popular face hunter decks always obtained the charging Huffer when playing Animal Companion.

Competitive Spirit: In WoW, Competitive Spirit isn't a Paladin ability, but rather a Battle Pet ability, which deals damage and increases damage dealt for several rounds.

Enter the Coliseum: No ability called Enter the Coliseum exists in WoW, but presumably the card is a reference to the Crusaders' Coliseum, an arena located at the center of the Argent Tournament Grounds and the location of the two dungeons Trial of the Crusader and Trial of the Champion, which pits adventurers against enemies in, well, a battling tournament. In the Trial of the Champion, adventurers would face off against a smattering of champions that represented the opposing faction, and later will be tested by representatives of the Argent Crusade, Paletress and Eadric, before they are interrupted with the arrival of the Black Knight. In Trial of the Crusader, adventurers would face off against the beasts of Northrend (Gormok, Icehowl, Acidmaw and Dreadscale), then against Wilfred Fizzlebang Lord Jaraxxus, then against more faction champions, then against the Val'kyr twins Eydis and Fjola, and then finally against the mighty Anub'arak (again, also below). Other than the faction champions, all the bosses are represented in The Grand Tournament as legendary cards.

Flash Heal: Flash Heal in WoW is a single-target healing spell learned early on by Priests, healing a large amount of health but consuming more mana than what is ideal for healing.

Shadowfiend: I placed Shadowfiend in the abilities section because in WoW, Shadowfiend is an ability that Shadow and Discipline Priests are able to cast, summoning the titular Shadowfiend to fight on your side for several seconds.

Beneath the Grounds: Beneath the Grounds summons Nerubians, and it is a reference to how Crypt Fiends and Nerubians in Warcraft III and World of Warcraft can hide underground with a burrowing ability, and then jump out to ambush you. Likewise, the nerubians live in the underground city of Azjol-Nerub.

Ancestral Knowledge: Ancestral Knowledge is a shaman talent added in Wrath of the Lich King and subsequently removed in Cataclysm. Ancestral Knowledge will increase the shaman's intellect passively.

Healing Wave: Healing Wave is a Restoration Shaman ability that is slow, but very efficient in the amount of health it heals, more useful when enemies deal low but consistent damage.

Dark Bargain: Dark Bargain is a warlock talent introduced in Mists of Pandaria and recently removed in Legion. Dark Bargain in WoW will prevent damage the warlock takes for 8 seconds, but for the next 8 seconds the warlock will take half of that prevented damage over time. Like Demonfuse, the card art for Dark Bargain depicts a Satyr.

Bash: Bash has been a passive ability for the Warcraft III's Mountain King unit, which passively gives the Mountain King a chance to deal bonus damage and stun the opponent for 2 seconds. Other more powerful creeps also sometimes have the Bash ability. In WoW, Bash is instead a druid ability usable in Bear form (later renamed Mighty Bash and usable by all other forms) that stuns the enemy.

Dire Shapeshift:  Dire Shapeshift is presumably based on Dire Bear Form, a form removed in Cataclysm that used to be simply a more improved version of Bear Form. Dire beasts have been around since Warcraft III and are simply stronger versions of regular beasts of the same type.

Fireblast Rank 2: Fireblast Rank 2 is a reference to the pre-Cataclysm version of spell ranking system, where instead of spells growing more powerful as the player increased in level (as they do now), each spell is available in multiple ranks, which are more powerful versions of the spell they replaced.

Heal: Heal has gone through many iterations in WoW, and currently it is a Holy Priest spell that heals pretty slowly, but is effective mana-wise.

The following spells and hero powers are completely original to Hearthstone: Mulch, Bear Trap, Ball of Spiders, Effigy, Flame Lance, Seal of Champions, Power Word: Glory, Confuse, Convert, Burgle, Elemental Destruction, Demonfuse, Fist of Jaraxxus, Bolster, Ballista Shot, Poisonous Daggers, The Silver Hand, Totemic Slam, Soul Tap and Tank Up. 
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WEAPONS:

King's Defender

Argent Lance: In WoW, the Argent Lance is a lance with the symbol of the Argent Crusade that must be used in several jousting matches in the Argent Coliseum. Obviously, in an expansion about jousting you do need the lance as a weapon, right?

King's Defender: King's Defender is an epic one-handed sword dropped from the Chess Event boss fight in the Karazhan raid, for high-level tanks.

The following weapons are original to Hearthstone: Poisoned Blade and Charged Hammer.
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CHAMPIONS OF THE ALLIANCE & HORDE

A fair amount of the TGT minions are just, well, jousters or minions that are based on a tournament setting, so some are just... well, there. So that I don't repeat myself many, many times, the jousting mechanic was introduced in the Argent Tournament in WoW, acting like a sort of a minigame. The term 'Aspirant', 'Valiant' and 'Champion' are the three ranks you can get, from the lowest to the highest, as you increase your skill in jousting and defeat increasingly powerful foes.


Note that a lot of the minions in TGT just represent jousters and random tournament staff that don't really have much lore behind them, but we can talk a fair bit about the cities and locations that they represent. 

Darnassus Aspirant: Darnassus Aspirant is a jouster that represents the town of Darnassus, the capital city of the night elves located atop the new world tree, Teldrassil. The Darnassus Aspirant is riding a nightsaber, a giant saber-toothed purple-furred cat, which is the night elven racial mount.

Dalaran Aspirant: The Dalaran Aspirant is a jouster representing the magical city of Dalaran, which is initially an Alliance-allied city ran by the mages of the Kirin Tor, but has gradually grown to accept other races from the Horde as well. Dalaran was completely destroyed by Archimonde during the Third War, but has since been rebuilt and turned into a floating city that is mobile and can move to locations of crisis to help out.

Undercity Valiant: The Undercity Valiant is a jouster that represents the Undercity, the Forsaken capital city that is located underneath the catacombs and sewers beneath the fallen human kingdom of Lordaeron. Undercity Valiant's summon quote, "Victory for Sylvanas!" is a quote that forsaken NPCs can say when clicked on in WoW.

Orgrimmar Aspirant: The Orgrimmar Aspirant hails from the orcish and Horde capital city of Orgrimmar, founded after the Third War in the harsh lands of Durotar and the base of Horde activity. As with Wolfrider, the Orgrimmar Aspirant ride a dire wolf, the racial mount for the orcs.

Thunder Bluff Valiant: The Thunder Bluff Valiant is a jouster that represents Thunder Bluff, the capital city of the Tauren, located in Mulgore.

Centaurs (WoW)

Gadgeztan Jouster: Gadgetzan Jouster is a jouster that represents the goblin town of Gadgetzan, located in the desert of Tanaris. We've talked about Gadgetzan before with Gadgetzan Auctioneer, and will do so when we reach Mean Streets of Gadgetzan.

Knight of the Wild: The Knight of the Wild is original to Hearthstone, but he is a centaur that, well, because he's half-man half-horse he just shows up with a lance to a jousting tournament. Centaurs are introduced in Warcraft III and are encountered by Thrall's Horde when they first arrived on Kalimdor. The Tauren and the Centaurs have had a particularly antagonistic relationship, having fought for resources in ages past, and the Horde would clash many times with centaur raiders in both Warcraft III and World of Warcraft, particularly in the areas of Durotar and the Barrens. Centaurs are born out of the unholy union between Zaetar, a Keeper of the Grove, and Princess Theradras, an earth elemental. The centaurs are savage brutes that live to raid and destroy, and are often called the "bastard children of Cenarius" although the term isn't exactly accurate.

Alexstrasza's Champion, Mogor's Champion & Mukla's Champion: These two are original to Hearthstone, although it's worth noting that they're basically representatives of the dragon queen Alexstrasza, Mogor the Ogre and King Mukla respectively. Mogor's Champion is riding a Stegodon, a stegosaur-esque dinosaur, while Mukla's Champion is riding a hippo -- which actually doesn't exist in Azeroth!

Shado-Pan Rider: The Shado-Pan is a secretive organization of pandaren based on ninjas that are dedicated to protecting pandaria, doing battle against the sha and the mantid that threaten the peace of Pandaria. They are the secret police that help to defend Pandaria, which otherwise have no standing army. Led by Taran Zhu, the Shado-Pan was initially founded by Emperor Shaohao in the ancient past, because the Sha that threaten Pandaria are creatures that feed on negative emotions like anger and fear, so the warriors able to battle in Pandaria must kept to a minimum so as to keep the Sha's influence at a mimimum as well. To join the Shado-Pan, one must go through an arduous trial. During Mists of Pandaria the Alliance and the Horde would arrive and bring their conflict to Pandaria, and the mantid would attack Pandaria early than what is normal, causing the sha to run rampant and Shado-pan Monastery to fall to the Sha of Hatred. With the Pandaren joining both Alliance and Horde, the Shado-Pan has been their ally every since in gratitude to their help in restoring Pandaria. The Shado-Pan Rider's summoining quote, "we are the sword in the shadows", is a reference to another name for the Shado-Pan.

Tiny Knight of Evil: The Tiny Knight of Evil is original to Hearthstone, and its name is a reference to an all-gnome guild in WoW called 'Tiny Masters of Evil'. The Tiny Knight of Evil rides a Felhound, marking the Felhound's first appearance in Hearthstone. Felhounds (also known as felstalkers or felbeasts) are first sighted in Warcraft III as savage, four-legged eyeless beasts with a skull-like head, giant horns and tentacle-like hair. Felhounds are able to 'eat' the mana from their prey, and in World of Warcraft Felhounds would be one of the original demons summonable as allies by a Warlock character.

Murkalot (WoW)

Murloc Knight: Murloc Knight is original to Hearthstone, being a murloc that rides around a frog, but his appearance is similar to the pet Murkalot, which is a pet given out in BlizzCon 2013 to World of Warcraft players, and a reference to the Crusader class from Diablo III.

Stablemaster: The term Stablemaster (parsed as Stable Master in WoW) are a title held by multiple NPCs in World of Warcraft. Titles are tend to be found under the name of the character, such as this: Varian Wrynn <King of Stormwind>. Stable Masters are NPCs that allow hunters to stable their inactive pets and make room to tame new ones in their current roster, and also allow players to stable their Battle Pets (a mini-game that's completely separate from the companion pets used by hunters and warlocks). Nearly every major city or settlement has a stable master of some sort. There are multiple stable masters in the Argent Tournament grounds, but none that correspond to being a female dwarf.

Lowly Squire: The Lowly Squire is a more faithful adaptation of the WoW version of the Argent Squire, which we covered in the Classics cards section. Basically while Hearthstone's Argent Squire depicts a generic Argent Crusade paladin, the Lowly Squire depicts the young squire follower that runs around in the Argent Tournament, helping you out.

Argent Watchman

Argent Watchman: The Argent Watchman are members of the Argent Crusade that ride hippogryphs and act as the guards in the Argent Tournament Grounds.

Coliseum Manager: The Coliseum Manager is the title held by Barrett Ramsey, the Argent Coliseum Manager. Barrett is an NPC found in the Argent Tournament's Crusader's Coliseum and is the person that players talk to to begin the dungeon Trial of the Crusader.

Garrison Commander: Garrison Commander is a reference to the garrison game feature introduced to World of Warcraft in the Warlords of Draenor expansion where players would manage their own garrisons in the alternate-universe Draenor, constructing buildings that allow them to obtain specific quests and bonuses, as well as allowing followers and other characters to show up in your garrison (including Ben Brode!). The Commander of the garrison, of course, is the player character. Also to note that the Garrison Commander is holding a King's Defender weapon.


Dragonhawk Rider: We talked a bit about Dragonhawks in the Classics section (here), but here we'll be talking about the Dragonhawk Rider. Dragonhawk Riders are campaign-exclusive units in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, used by Sylvanas's high elven forces in Quel'thalas during the undead campaign where Arthas destroys the high elven city. In the expansion, Frozen Throne, the Dragonhawk Rider, this time featuring blood elves, would be added as a playable airborne unit for the human race, able to create clouds to stop buildings from attacking, and use aerial shackles to bind enemies in the air. The Dragonhawk Riders were used by Kael'thas's blood elves throughout the campaigns of Frozen Throne. In World of Warcraft, Dragonhawks are the flight transportation of choice in blood elven areas and are purchaseable as a mount to Horde-allied characters, which explains why a Goblin is riding it. The quote "I can see my house" is a reference to the quote of the Goblin Zeppelin unit in Warcraft II.

Maiden of the Lake

Maiden of the Lake: The Maiden of the Lake is based on the Maiden of Ashwood Lake questline in Wrath of the Lich King, where Alliance and Horde champions would be tasked as a daily quest to seek out the legendary Maiden, cursed to take the form of a frog, who would grant a legendary and powerful sword if you kiss the frog. When kissed, the Maiden would transform into her original form and give the player the blade Ashwood Brand. The questline is a reference, of course, to the fairytale story Princess and the Frog as well as the legend of King Arthur and Excalibur. The quotes of the Maiden of the Lake is a reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a movie that parodies the legend of King Arthur.

Recruiter: The Recruiter is presumably based on the Argent Recruiter, which are NPCs found in Alliance capital cities to recruit adventurers in assisting the battle against the undead Scourge. Various other NPCs with the title Recruiter, usually asking adventurers to travel and aid the Alliance or Horde campaigns in a certain location, are also often found in cities

Warhorse Trainer: While no specific NPC corresponds to the Warhorse Trainer, various NPCs in WoW do have the rank of riding trainer, allowing you to summon new riding mounts. The card artwork for Warhorse Trainer depicts a blood elf with the mount Thalassian Charger, which is a recoloured version of the golden Charger mount that all other paladins can summon.

Buccaneer: Buccaneers are a rank among the pirates of Azeroth, with the Bloodsail pirates being more formally known as the Bloodsail Buccaneers. Numerous other mobs allied with pirate organizaitons are also called Buccaneers.

Cutpurse: The Cutpurse is a low-level bandit mob found in Elwynn Forest, the human starting zone. The Cutpurse was formerly known as Defias Cutpurse, but after the Defias Brotherhood fell with the death of Edwin VanCleef prior to Cataclysm, the Defias Cutpurses became independent. The artowkr, however, depicts an undead rogue.

Shady Dealer: The 'Shady Dealer' is a title that several NPC vendors have, where they sell illicit products like poisons and other goods that tend to not be carried by other vendors. Among these Shady Dealers, none are actually found in the Argent Tournament. A male gnome shady dealer is the NPC Tynnus Venomsprout found in Ironforge, although Tynnus has no known association with pirates. While there are other Shady Dealers associated with pirates, none are gnomes.

Wyrmrest Temple

Wyrmrest Agent: No specific mob is called Wyrmrest Agent in WoW, but he is an agent of the Wyrmrest Accord. The Wyrmrest Accord is founded in Wrath of the Lich King by the other dragonflights (including the black flight, represented by Nalice... although they would turn tail when the Cataclysm happened) first in order to combat the maddenned aspect of magic, Malygos. Eventually, the blue dragonflight under Malygos would join the Wyrmrest Accord as well. In Cataclysm the return of Deathwing would cause the non-black-dragonflight members of the Wyrmrest Accord to band together against Deathwing's forces, and Wyrmrest Temple would be the site of one of the final battles against Deathwing.

Kodorider: The Kodorider represents a tauren riding a kodo beast, which is the racial mount of the tauren. Kodo Beasts were weaponized by the Horde as mounts in Warcraft III. After assisting the tauren in escorting their beasts of burden throughout the land of Durotar and Mulgore, the Kodo beasts would be ridden by orcs as beasts of war, and Kodo Beasts would be able to temporarily devour an enemy, taking it out of battle and dealing damage until consumed or the kodo beast is slain. The Kodo Beast's main effect in battle was the war drums effect, where the Kodo Beast would emit an aura that increases the attack of allies around it. War Kodo, the token summoned by the Kodorider, shares its name with a kodo beast outfitted with armour used by Horde forces in Ashenvale forest.

The following are all original to Hearthstone, with no associated lore at all: Druid of the Saber, Savage Combatant, Wildwalker, Spellslinger, Brave Archer, Argent Horserider, Armored Horse, Holy Champion, Draenei Totemcarver, Ram Wrangler, Mysterious Challenger, Flame Juggler, Sparring Partner, Fencing Coach, Silent Knight, Master of Ceremonies, Lance Carrier, Tournament Medic, Tournament Attendee, Light's Champion, Saboteur, Grand Crusader, Crowd Favorite, Silver Hand Regent, Clockwork Knight, Master Jouster, Sideshow Spelleater and Pit Fighter. They are all participants in the joust!

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THE SCOURGE!

Boneguard Lieutenant (WoW)

Fallen Hero: The Fallen Hero is a wraith (which we covered in Naxxramas) that is based on the Fallen Hero's Spirit, mobs found in Icecrown. The Fallen Heroes are the spirits of the Alliance and Horde forces that died in the Broken Front, where Horde forces attempted to backstab Alliance forces and the resulting battle killed both sides of the battle. The dead are raised into the Fallen Hero's Spirits by the Scourge, and as a possibly daily quest, the Argent Crusade would send adventurers to put these fallen heroes to rest.

Boneguard Lieutenant: The Boneguard Lieutenant is a mob found in the Court of Bones, death knights riding deathchargers and are the target of a daily quest given by the Argent Tournament. Just like the Hearthstone card, the WoW mob also has red shields circling around it.

The following are original to Hearthstone: Spawn of Shadows and Evil Heckler. Evil Heckler's artwork is recycled from the TCG card art for the necromancer Dalronn the Controller, a boss in the Utgarde Keep dungeon.
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The Kvaldir!

Kvaldir Raider

Well, we're going to talk about the kvaldir, members of the Vrykul race which is introduced in Wrath of the Lich King and became particularly important to the plot in Legion as well. The Vrykul were one of the few creatures created by the Titan Watchers, and were giant warriors of iron. However, when the old gods infected the titanforged races with the Curse of Flesh, the many of the Vrykul became flesh and bone giants. The Vrykul would continue to live, mostly in Northrend, and King Ymiron would demand that the Vrykul children born as disfigured runts to be killed. Many Vrykul mothers refused to do this, however, and instead spirited their children away and sailed to Tirisfal Glades so their children could live there. These runts would become the progenitor of the human race. In an effort to halt the Curse of Flesh, the Vrykul went to a deep slumber.

During Wrath of the Lich King, the Lich King's undead armies swarmed across Northrend and awakened the slumbering Vrykul, who saw the Lich King as a god of death, and worshipped the Lich King and pledged their armies to the Lich King, all save for the clann of Hyldnir, who continued to pledge themselves to the Titans. Most of the Vrykul would fight in arenas for the honour of becoming one of the Lich King's elite servants, the Ymirjar -- undead Vrykul who still retain their independence. Powerful female warriors would be turned into the angelic undead known as Val'kyr. Those that fail these competitions would be turned into the mindless Vargul.

Drottinn Hrothgar

The Kvaldir are a group of undead Vrykul that raid coastal settlements as well as Alliance, Horde and Tuskarr ships and settlements. The Kvaldir are working for the Titan Watcher Helya, who rules over her own realm of death in Helheim. Kvaldir use the power of mists to hide themselves, and pull other Vrykul warriors deep into the realm of Helheim, denying their spirits the chance to be called into the Halls of Valor, in a war between the Titan Keepers Odyn and Helya for Vrykul souls. In Wrath of the Lich King, the ranks of the kvaldir are significantly boosted by vrykul who try to the power of Helya to cure themselves of the Curse of Flesh, only to be themselves transformed into Kvaldir. The Kvaldir returned to Northrend en masse when items from Vrykul graves are robbed. In Legion, when Helya finally became a more active force in the world of Azeroth, armies of Kvaldir worked as Helya's minions.

Kvaldir Raider: Kvaldir Raiders are specific level 63-69 mobs found in the Borean Tundra and the objective of several quests.

Sea Reaver represents Drottinn Hrothgar, the Sea Reaver, a named level 79 Kvaldir that has claimed the location of Hrothgar's Landing from the Tuskarr, and is the subject of a daily mission where adventurers are tasked by the Argent Crusade to challenge the Kvaldir lord and slay him.

The Injured Kvaldir, meanwhile, is completely original to Hearthstone.
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Tuskarr

The Tuskarr are a race of humanoid walrus-people who lives in Northrend. They first appeared in Warcaft III: The Frozen Throne as neutral enemies that can be found in Northrend areas, and would re-appear in WoW in Wrath of the Lich King. Tuskarr are kind-natured and nomadic, although they often face conflict against the Kvaldir and the Gorlocs. Their society revolves around fishing and whaling, as well as breed penguins as farm animals. Due to their similar shamanistic faiths, the Tuskarr of Northrend have befriended the Horde, although they remain neutral and would allow Alliance members to enter their territory as well. The Tuskarr would ask adventurers to aid them in fighting both the Scourge and other threats in Northrend.

All the Tuskarrs are original to Hearthstone, however: Refreshment Vendor, Tuskarr Jouster and Tuskarr Totemic.
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CREATURES OF NORTHREND -- Dragons, Demons and others

DRAGONS

Nexus Drake (WoW)

Coldarra Drake: Coldarra is an island off the west coast of Northrend, and is the base camp of the blue dragonflight and their leader, Malygos, who went crazy and vowed to destroy all mortal magic users during the events of Wrath of the Lich King. While no mob is called Coldarra Drake specifically in WoW, numerous drakes (younger dragons without beards) do appear in Coldarra, serving Malygos and attempting to drive out the mortals.

Twilight Guardian: The Twilight dragonflight is an artificial dragonflight created by the black dragon Sinestra by experimenting with other types of dragon blood, and one of their first appearances was during the Wrath of the Lich King period, where the Argent Tournament took place. No specific mob is called the Twilight Guardian, however, and the WoW mob called Twilight Guardian are orcs and taurens loyal to the Twilight's Hammer Cult.

DEMONS
Wrathguard: Wrathguards are members of the man'ari eredar that serve as bodyguards to higher-ranked members of the Burning Legion. The Wrathguard race was first introduced in the Burning Crusade expansion. While a majority of the eredar are sorcerers  and warlocks, Wrathguard are front-line warriors. They are distinguished from other eredar by their double set of horns, as well as clawed feet as opposed to hooves. A specific mob called the Wrathguard can be found in Hellfire Peninsula in Outland, and in Mists of Pandaria, warlock players are able to upgrade their 'Summon Felguard' spell into 'Summon Wrathguard'.

Dreadsteed

Dreadsteed: The Dreadsteed of Xoroth is, in vanilla WoW, a mount obtained from a very long epic quest chain. In subsequent expansions, summoning the Dreadsteed would be an ability that warlocks can learn from their trainers at level 40. Subsequent expansions would expand on the lore behind the Dreadsteed, giving the race of demonic horses the delightfully punny name of 'nightmare' and adding two variations -- the weaker Felsteed and the mightier Wrathsteed. The Dreadsteeds hail from the planet of Xoroth, a world belonging to the Burning Legion and subjugated by the mighty dreadlord Hel'nurath. The flavour text for Dreadsteed references the Hearthstone fan Crescendo1909, who was fighting cancer during the development and release of the Grand Tournament expansion, but has since thankfully recovered.

The following demons are original variants to Hearthstone: Void Crusher and Fearsome Doomguard. Fearsome Doomguard's name is a reference to Wilfred Fizzlebang's line as he initially summons Jaraxxus into the mortal realm, where he claims that he's summoning a 'fearsome Doomguard'.

OTHERS

King's Elekk: The Elekk are a race of beasts resembling a cross between an elephant and a tapir, with four tusks jutting out of the side of their mouths and two horns. They are the racial mount of the draenei race, and the draenei have domesticated the Elekk during their time in Draenor, where the elekks are also native. When they crashed on Azeroth, the draenei bought the Elekk with them. The wild Elekk left in outland are hunted by Ethereals for their tusks.

Captured Jormungar: Jormungars are gigantic worm/centipede like creatures native to Northrend, having a large body with rows of crystalline spines on either side of it. The jormungar are apparently once the labour beasts of the Nerubian race, but with the nerubians falling to the Scourge, the jormungar has since run amuck as wild beasts of Northrend. They are able to use their teeth to burrow straight through solid rock, and live in broods led by a spawn-mother. They breed very quickly if left unchecked, and thus several NPCs in Northrend would heroes to slay these beasts. The bosses Acidmaw and Dreadscale which get turned into Legendary cards are Jormungars.

Frigid Snobold: Snobolds are a sub-species of the common kobold found in Northrend, and instead of candles, Snobolds carry around a pot with flowers on its head. Snobolds are often found in the company of larger magnataur, apparently thriving from the larger magnataur and also using them as protection. The Snobolds, as always, disrupt mining operations and have done several hit-and-run raids on Horde and Alliance operations. The Snobolds in WoW are led by the shaman Kaganishu.

North Sea Kraken: There are two different creatures called 'kraken' in Azeroth. The first, rare kind, are giant octopus creatures such as the mighty Ozumat -- though these have seemingly been referred to as Leviathans at other times. The octopus-like kraken is what the Hearthstone Year of the Kraken uses. The other type of kraken resemble armoured giant fish-creatures, which is what the North Sea Kraken depicts. These fish-like Kraken are apparently native to Northrend, and are often summoned by the Kvaldir to aid in their raiding although they have been found in the wild. The North Sea Kraken refers to an enemy that is found in Sea Reaver's Run, and the target of a daily quest there. I'm not sure why the North Sea Kraken isn't a beast,  though. It should be.


Magnataur Alpha: The Magnataur are a race of creatures with the lower body and tusks of a mammoth but an upper body resembling a bulky human. Magnataurs were first seen in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne as neutral creeps encountered in Northrend, and a brutal, cannibalistic race. Magnataurs live in prides similar to lions, led by a particular dominant male, which the Magnataur Alpha seems to represent. Various Magnataur has become enemies and bosses over the course of WoW, and at one point the Horde enslaved magnataurs to unleash upon the night elves of Ashenvale, threatening to murder their children otherwise -- one of the crimes that Garrosh Hellscream is tried for.

The following are original to Hearthstone: Totem Golem, which is completely original to Hearthstone, and Ice Rager, a bound water/ice elemental variant that's meant to be a pastiche of Magma Rager.
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