Kamen Rider Saber 34 + Movie Review: How To Write A Villain

Kamen Rider Saber, Movie + Episodes 34

Okay, so before I watch episode 34, turns out that something that happened in last year's winter film is relevant here, so have a sneaky little extra review here where I talk about the movie as well!

Kamen Rider Saber: The Phoenix Swordsman and the Book of Ruin

My original review for this movie was standalone and was very... vitriolic. I guess I was just feeling particularly grumpy when I woke up to review this the first time around? I didn't post it on this blog, and deleted it. The thing is, though... most of my opinions about this movie more or less still stands. 

The thing is, most anime movies or standalone movies for franchises aimed at children tend to have a very bland formula that you can basically apply and swap out the specific pronouns with the characters from the show. A new villain shows up, and he wants to bring ruin and devastation with the world with a spooky plot device! Usually the villain has some vague connection to the lore, but nothing too deep! The good guys show up, find out the villain's backstory, the side characters fight the villain's lieutenants while the main character deliver a big inspirational speech and take down the big bad. New movie-exclusive forms tend to also show up. 

The thing is, "Phoenix Swordsman and the Book of Ruin" is billed as a 'short film', and it has a runtime of 20 minutes. I'm too lazy to count how long the opening song runs, but I think this episode might be barely longer than a regular episode of Saber? And I know -- this is because of the pandemic. 'Phoenix Swordsman' basically replaces the 20-minute Super Sentai movie that tends to get double-billed with the longer one-hour Kamen Rider movie (we'll eventually cover the Zero-One movie), presumably because the cast of Saber is easier to film with in a corona-safe environment or something?

Still, it really feels like this was put together at the last minute. The movie starts off with Bacht (sometimes translated as Bahato, played by Kamen Rider Amazon Alpha) showing up out of nowhere and talking about how everything will return to the void. We get literally three or four lines from Tassel yelling at how "Bacht was sealed in a book, he's a forbidden swordsman, we're doomed if he's not stopped!" and that off-handed remark is basically all we get about Bacht's backstory in the movie. 

And the rest of the 15 minute runtime of the short movie is basically showing all the Swordsmen (the wiki identifies this movie as taking place between episodes 10 and 11) show up and fight against generic goons. Saber at least has a pretty diverse cast, and it's nice to see Espada again, but ultimately it's just Touma fighting Bacht and yelling at him a lot about how humanity is good and stuff, while Bacht says generic 'the world deserves to be destroyed because power is the root of conflict' stuff. The action scenes are pretty all-right when it's not a CGI fest like the finale, and Bacht has the more-interesting-on-paper ability to revive. Ultimately Touma's great emotions summons a couple extra dragons and transforms him into Emotional Dragon, the movie-exclusive form, and the dragons seal Bacht back into the book. 

And honestly... again, I don't want to be too harsh on this. It's hard to quickly make a movie during a pandemic, and from the sounds of it, it seems like the Saber movie was pretty last-minute. But it also does end up feeling like they did the bare bones of what's required for them to call it a full story, and there's honestly nothing interesting about Kamen Rider Falchion other than the casting gag that he's basically an egg-less PG-13 version of Takayama Jin from Amazons. Ultimately, this movie is kind of skippable. 

_______________________________

Episode 34: Wake Up, Immortal Swordsman

Of course, things change with episode 34, when Bacht actually shows up in the show! Not as a guest-star like the many different Gaim movie villain or as a flashback like the Build movie villain, but, it seems, as a recurring secondary character that'll be with us for more or less the long haul. And with more time to flesh out Bacht's character, I actually end up finding that I like him a fair bit more than I did in the movie!

Master Logos sends Durendal and Sabela out to hunt down Touma and his friends as per usual, but then he pulls out a book and summons Bacht. And unlike the movie, it seems that Bacht's resurrection or unsealing or whatever is complete since he doesn't have the weird fish-scale tattoos that he has in the movie. Master Logos talks about how he seeks the world's destruction, and Bacht, being the fight-happy lunatic that he is, eagerly accepts. 

Meanwhile, continuing the trend of Touma fighting everyone he's buddies with at least once, Touma fights Yuuri on the side of the street in an attempt to trigger the same book-glowing reaction that breached the universes and showed Luna to him last episode. This is just something that gets them isolated so Bacht can show up and fight them. We get a brief flashback to the movie and honestly, people who didn't watch the movie really didn't miss anything about Bacht's backstory. This episode alone brings a bit more depth to Bacht beyond 'the world is fucked, time to blow up the world' generic rantings by revealing that Bacht knows Yuuri from the past, and he's pretty pissed off at him. 

Bacht transforms into Kamen Rider Falchion in a frankly far, far cooler shot than he had in the movie, and we get a fight between Falchion and the duo of Saber and Saikou. In the distance, Reika watches the master's 'hunting dog' and all these episodes have really been building up that Reika's starting to question what Master Logos's logic is in all this. Falchion shows off his power to nullify the powers of other sacred swords with his Unsigned Blade -- I legitimately don't remember if this was something we know from the movie or not, because frankly I'm a bit too tired to go back and rewatch the movie again. But the book Mei is holding glows, and Saber suddenly gets the power to knock Falchion back, and he walks off laughing about how Touma is 'the chosen one'. Oh, and another rift showing Luna shows up again, but once more Touma can't get his old friend out. 

Yuuri gives us the backstory about Bacht, and, well, this really makes me be interested in Bacht more than Tassel's thirty-second exposition dump! Not just because we take the time to see his backstory, but because it ties into one of our protagonists as well. Turns out that Yuuri and Bacht are in the same ancient order of knights a thousand years in the past. There was a third member of their group, but the third member got seduced with power, killed Bacht's family and drove Bacht into despair. Pretty simple and frankly generic backstory, but that bit alone suddenly adds so much more depth to why Bacht is so hell-bent on his view that 'power corrupts, humans desire power, therefore humans are corrupt and the world must be destroyed' credo. We also get the revelation that Yuuri is the one who sealed Bacht up in the past after seeing his friend go absolutely lunatic. And suddenly the upcoming buildup to a confrontation ends up making this so much more interesting than 'hey, let's get the movie villain back in the show'. 

And, hey, Yuuri himself, who has been driven by this vague, vapid sense of 'humanity is interesting' also suddenly gains a bit more emotional and thematic depth. He has been through the same thing, being part of a group of friends who fell apart due to treachery. This even explains his lack of hope for humanity when he first shows up, and gives so much more weight when he tells Touma to 'trust your friends'. 

Underneath the toku bridge, Rintarou is looking for Ren, but ends up finding Durendal. Rintarou turns into his brand new final form and faces off against Durendal and for his credit, Rintarou's actually winning the fight, it seems, using a backwards ice blast to counter Durendal's one-note Kaiji Erasure tricks. Falchion shows up and starts fighting everyone, going for Durendal first because he has calls him 'master's rabid hunting dog'. Durendal runs away while Blades fights Falchion in the toku warehouse. Blades actually beats him, too, blowing Falchion up with a finisher... but Falchion just uses his phoenix powers to re-manifest behind Blades and beat him down. 

Touma, Mei and Yuuri show up to stop Bacht from killing Rintarou. Kento also shows up, and both Kento and Bacht tell Touma that he can't save the world. Yuuri gets angry at Kento for not believing in his comrade, and Bacht gets angry at Yuuri for talking about comradeship after cutting him down in the past, to which Yuuri counters that he is now putting his faith in humanity once more. I do like this sequence -- Bacht and Yuuri's relationship isn't exactly a parallel to Touma and Kento's, but the fact that it's not a direct parallel actually makes it like it so much more. Everyone transforms and fights each other, and in the process Yuuri gets hit by both Falchion and Calibur's finishing moves and gets sealed up by Kento, disappearing into his sword. 

And then Falchion unleashes yet another finishing phoenix blast thing at the stunned Touma, but Kento jumps in and tanks the blow. He really doesn't want Touma to die, but fuck everyone else, I guess? They chase Falchion off while Reika uses her smoke powers to steal Yuuri's sword and books. I'm not the biggest fan of Kento's emo phase, but at least I have a bit more faith that the writers are doing something with him. The episode ends with Falchion leaving after Touma and Kento team up... and then Luna shows up in the flesh! Cliffhanger!

Honestly, I found myself really not caring for the Luna storyline, which I felt has been dragged on for too long and my feeling is mostly just indifference at this point. But it's also pretty neat to finally get some payoff and conclusions, and bringing Bacht back went from me going 'oh, man, this is just going to be yet another character tossed into an overcrowded show' into 'they took the one-note flat movie villain and suddenly made him and a secondary protagonist so much more intriguing'. Pretty cool that they did that!

Movie Review: Kamen Rider J

Kamen Rider J [1994]

A year after the attempted reboot with Kamen Rider ZO, they decided to do another movie, and this one, Kamen Rider J, is probably the one that's most memorable to modern audiences. Because of the three in-between stepchildren of the Kamen Riders, Kamen Rider J is the one with the most memorable gimmick, and one that is prominently used anytime there's a huge "let's show off all our Kamen Riders here" movie... J is the one that becomes a giant. He never gets a line and he never really does anything important in any of the movies, usually just the source of a quick huge impressive scene (most memorably for me in the Gaim Showa-vs-Heisei movies; and in two Decade-centric movies). 

But he has a movie of his own, another 40+ minute affair like his predecessor (and doppelganger), Kamen Rider ZO. And watching the two movies back-to-back it's kind of interesting. ZO is definitely the more solid movie, with a more tighter and solid plot, but said plot is so repetitive in terms of a Kamen Rider show. Whereas J's storyline is... it's interesting. It's certainly not a new concept, and I'm pretty sure I've seen this a lot in like, Doraemon or whatever, but I don't think Kamen Rider has actually done anything with a heavy 'save the nature' theme, huh? Which is actually kind of surprising, considering how you'd think that would be an easy well to draw from. But oh well.

In addition to starring the big J himself (J stands for Jumbo, apparently, according to the creators), Kamen Rider J is notable for starring Sentai alumnus Yuta Mochizuki, otherwise known as Geki, Tyranno Ranger of Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger fame. Oh, and having one of the monsters be called Agito, which, let me tell you, is kind of surreal to see and hear. 

The approach to this movie is basically the opposite of ZO, with not a whole ton of mystery or exposition. The bad guys show up, monologue, kidnap the obligatory child-in-distress and the whole 48-hour movie is just Kamen Rider J fighting against a little series of miniboss kaijin enemies before finally fighting the main villain. The introduction is quick -- the Fog Empire are aliens on an alien ship looking for food (they're apparently responsible for the dinosaur extinction by eating the dinosaurs millions of years ago), for some reason they decide to kidnap Kouji Segawa's little sister Kana and go through a very elaborate ritual to feed her to the children of the Fog Mother. Kouji himself is an environmentalist taking photographs to investigate pollution of a random lake. Kouji gets murdered by the three goons Agito, Zuu and Garai... but almost as quickly, gets resurrected by a bunch of 'Earth Spirits', who handwave their existence and infuse Kouji with the powers of Kamen Rider J. Oh, and he also gets a talking grasshopper friend called Berry. Which... uh... yeah. 

No time to think about the bizarreness of everything, because Kouji gets tossed straight into non-stop battles with very brief cutscenes to dead animals and pollution, and Fog Mother being a generic evil monster! The first fight with Agito (hee) is probably the highlight, although part of it might just be because I do like the Agito suit. It's got a Godzilla monster vibe to it. He then gets kidnapped by Zuu, who dies anticlimactically, then fights Garai while Kana nearly gets herself fed to a bunch of (actually very cool looking) nasty alien worm-bugs. There's a pretty random bit where Kamen Rider J gets beaten by a bunch of flesh-wall props, but then the power of the earth and nature (tm) pull off a deus ex machina, and allow Kamen Rider to go gigantic, save Kana and beat the shit out of Fog Mother's true form, which is a giant mountain-sized spaceship. 

And you know what? The actual Ultraman/Sentai giant monsters duking it out is actually quite neat, and there's always the novelty of Kamen Rider never actually having something like this before. No complaints here, the exploding prop buildings are pretty neat, and while Kamen Rider J doing a little "J" pose with his fingers after his transformation and finishers is a bit lame, it's at least something that makes him stand out compared to his doppelganger ZO. (The two suits actually have different accents side-by-side, but honestly, considering how these guys never really had much of an exposure, it's easy to handwave them as looking near-identical). It's just real hard to say anything much because this is just a single, standalone project. 

Ultimately, though, there's some... neat concepts here. The giant form, obviously, as is the idea of a straight up alien empire as an enemy... both concepts that are admittedly cribbed and used a lot in other tokusatsu shows like Ultraman and Sentai. But, again, even if the movie itself is pretty thin in terms of depth and characterization, it sort of succeeds in being just a simple one-off tokusatsu movie? Both the three mid-Showa, mid-Heisei riders are honestly kind of quaint and part of me really wished that someone could've done more with them in subsequent entries, but at the same time there's also so little material around them that the producers probably thought 'why bother'? At least Toei likes ZO, J and Shin enough to count them among the 'main riders', so even if they don't do a lot, at least they keep showing up in random movie here and there. This movie is... well, it's not a bad 45 minutes to spend; I've certainly watched much worse tokusatsu than this. 

Kamen Rider Saber E32-33 Review: Glorious Hair

Kamen Rider Saber, Episodes 32-33

Episode 32: My Thoughts, Crystallized

Unlike 30 and 31, these two episodes aren't exactly packaged as a two-parter. In fact, had this episode happened a bit earlier in the show, I would probably call this something like a 'mid-season' episode or something. Though I dunno, maybe I just like Kamen Rider Blades more than I realized?

Anyway, Master Logos and Storius are basically buddies at this point, and they decide to properly mount an assault on Northern Base. Master Logos apparently has a magic arrow that he launches halfway across the globe, disabling the magical barrier that has been protecting Northern Base all this while. And to that I say okay? We get a very cool sequence of the Shindai siblings showing up and fighting against the remaining swordsmen that can still transform. Meanwhile, Storious and Zooius (who gets a fancy new black-and-red repainted suit) sneak into another part of Northern Base while using the Shindai siblings as a distraction. 

The cast split up and fight the threats. We get a very cool double-henshin between Sabela and Durendal as they walk down the stairs on either side of Northern Base, and they face off against Saber and Saikou. Meanwhile, super-Zooius just beats up poor Ogami before he gets a chance to transform, and faces off against Rintarou. All the while, Storius slinks around to steal stuff. I do like the little bit of Touma arguing with the Shindai siblings, who are basically fanatics who will never believe that Master Logos is anything but justice. Eventually the battle devolves into just Durendal facing off against Saber and Saikou, and the entirety of their side of the battle is basically just Touma figuring out how Durendal's time powers work. 

And... and maybe it's because I've watched/read at least three different time powers in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, so I'm a bit underwhelmed? Durendal's Kaiji Erasure thing is sort of like a Za Warudo imitation. But it's not even about the time-stopping powers, which is still pretty cool; it's the fact that Touma sort of just gets the power to overcome it and 'see' into the stopped time for... no adequate reason? Okay, sure. It makes for a fight that's different, at least, extending beyond the honestly repetitive clash-clash-clash-giant-CGI-attack. The fight is paced reasonably well, and we get something interesting on Durendal -- Master Logos recalls the siblings back, but Durendal gives into his bloodlust and almost kills Yuuri before he gets teleported back to Southern Base. 

The rest of the fights sort of trade enemies. Buster holds off Zooius but eventually gets pummeled off-screen, while Rintarou goes off to rescue Sophia, Mei and Dashinji from Sabela. Sabela also stole the books and the sealed swords -- this is all something that happens offscreen, and I didn't realize until writing this review that she did that. Anyway, all this builds up to Rintarou facing off against super-Zooius, and it sort of acts as an epilogue to his character arc over the past couple of episodes, where he gives an inspiring speech about how his power and pride as a swordsman is to protect people who are dear to him. Rintarou's speech transforms the magical book powering Northern Base into yet another power-up, but this one is a cool one! Tategami Hyoujuu Senki (Blizzard Beasts Chronicles) is all white and he's got a massive Super Saiyan 3 mane of hair... which I found utterly ridiculous at first, but actually ends up being pretty cool in motion.  

The rest of the action scene basically shows off the new form, with Rintarou going through the four sub-forms -- the 'mane' transforms into wings at one point and into a shark underwater, and... it's a huge CGI sequence that I felt was reasonably all right? It's better than all the other huge CGI-background scenes, anyway. It's still rather noticeable, but the suit actors move through the snowy setting relatively quickly. Zooius gets killed with CGI ice, so that's two of the Megiddo boys down. Zooius gets to at least get a final line before blowing up, unlike poor Legiel. Rintarou gets a brief moment of "I have avenged my master" sequence, before the episode draws into a close. 

Interestingly, it seems we're setting up for a Reika defection, because when she went around stealing Buster's sword, she sees Zooius walking around and clearly is starting to slowly think that Master Logos might actually be hiding things from them. I hope she, too, gets a character arc of her own. We get a brief bit of Reika trying to discuss this with her much more fanatical brother in 33, so yeah, this seems to be where we're headed. Interesting!

Overall, episode 32 is a pretty action-heavy episode. It does kind of build up on the Rintarou/Zooius rivalry explored in the previous two episodes, and since we're slowly thinning out the characters by killing off the Megiddo and essentially reducing Ogami and Daishinji into non-transforming supporting characters, I guess we're getting that buildup to the finale. 

____________________________________________

Episode 33: Still, the Future Can Change

So after the relatively Megiddo-centric past couple of episodes, this one is more tied to the swordsman drama. Yuuri gives a bit of a long speech about his good friend Tassel/Viktor, who is currently regenerating his body after Master Logos beat him up a couple episodes back. I frankly feel like they could've (and should've) done more with Tassel, considering how much he appears in the show but really haven't done anything. 

This episode, interestingly, is partially a Ren-centric one. Ren is probably the secondary character most shunted to the side, because unlike practically everyone else, he doesn't even get a proper episode during the whole 'Touma wins everyone over to his side' part of the show. He's currently eating ramen while fending off attacks from Desast, who just follows him around like a more malicious version of Momotaros. 

Touma and buddies go off to recruit not just Ren, but also Kento. And after the rest of the supporting cast gets waylaid by hijinks, Touma and Kento sit under a tree and just talk. It's apparently a significant tree to their shared childhood friendship, which we finally explore a bit more -- it's honestly something I am not really invested in at this point; but it's nice to get some clarification nonetheless. Typical of these sort of flashbacks, there's a fight before the huge tragedy that caused Luna to be sucked into the magical vortex. And there's a reason why Touma really holds promises in high regard because there was a promise he made with Luna as a kid. 

We also get the utterly random bombshell that Sophia is an artificial lifeform that Master Logos created based on Luna. Which isn't really followed up in this episode, honestly kind of comes out of nowhere, and all I have to say to that is a big huge shrug. I mean, sure, why not. 

We then get a bunch of fight scenes! Master Logos shows up in front of Touma and Kento, and Touma finally recognizes him as that weirdo that helped him out forever ago before the Primitive Dragon arc, and he gives his motive rant. And... and I'm not expecting something particularly profound, but Master Logos's reason is honestly pretty generic. He wants to recreate the world to have fun torturing people and shit. Quoting him, "I will replace the songs of birds in the morning with human screams". Okay, you lunatic. We get Saber and Calibur teaming up to fight Logos, who spouts ominous stuff about how Luna was 'sacrificed' by Kento's dad. Logos also pulls out Buster's stolen sword out and dual-wields it to fight our boys. And we get a brief scene where the portal to the Wonder-World is opened and we see poor Luna still trapped there yelling for Touma. 

Meanwhile, Sabela goes off to get ren's sword,  and we get the two of them fighting under the Tokusatsu Bridge. Rather predictably, Sabela beats Ren handily. Desast jumps in to help out, but because Sabela can transform into a massive fog-pest form, she actually is holding her own and manages to push Ren and Desast back until Rintarou shows up and transforms into his brand-new blizzard form to drive Sabela away. Poor Ren gets even more confused to see Rintarou protect him, and slinks away, talking about how he's going to 'get stronger' and defeat Desast with his own hands. It's kind of interesting. I guess they're building Ren up to be an unstable potential antagonist in the future?

Touma and Kento almost make up, but Kento's darkest future is apparently one where Touma dies, and he refuses to work with Touma in order to prevent this future. Meanwhile, Logos is pulling out the 'Book of Destruction' in response to seeing Luna, and... I dunno. There are so many plot device books (I think Storious finds one at the end of 32, too)! Overall, this one was a bit messy, but I certainly welcome the focus on Kento and Ren, who have kind of been neglected over the past batch of episodes. 

Random Notes:

• The weird Quincy-esque arrow of light that Master Logos used at the beginning of episode 32 is probably the most egregiously weird CGI I've seen in this show for a while. There are other moments during the Blades/Zooius battle, but those move quickly and are in motion. We have a couple of rather close shots to the magic arrow. 
• We get small moments with some characters reacting to their little portrait drawings in an over-the-top way, and... and I don't get it? It's not like the drawings are bad at all. They're cute and well-drawn!
• They don't really do much with either of them, but Sabela still has one of the best-looking transformations and my favourite toy gimmick voice lines, while Durendal has the coolest suit and King Crimson powers. 
• Seriously, though, we basically get a single line from poor Daishinji about how 'she took them all!' It's odd that we don't get to see this scene, or even more of a comment afterwards by Daishinji since he really loves swords and stuff.  We did see Sabela pillaging Buster's sword, though.
• Mei and Daishinji have a very adorable clapping moment after Rintarou's transformation into his Tategami form. Mei is so enthusiastic, while Daishinji seems so absent-minded. 
• Is "Long Get" a pun on "long cat"? I am almost tempted to just call it the Long Get form. 
• ...didn't Ren get his sword sealed by Kento during the clip show episode? Did I miss something? Or am I just mis-remembering things?

Kamen Rider Saber E30-31 Review: Rintarou's Therapy

Kamen Rider Saber, Episodes 30-31

I have been slacking, huh? I'm sorry, I just haven't got the time to really watch the episodes. I'm up to 32, I think, but there are apparently a bunch of extra episodes and a couple of movies both from Saber and Zero-One. And I'm not sure why... the series is just not really clicking with me, I guess. 

Episode 30: Bonded, Even When Apart

After last episode shows off that Master Logos has became a card-carrying villain who doesn't care much for subtlety, we get almost all of our good guy cast gathered together in the base. It's nice to have that Rintarou moment of him apologizing and everyone else just palling around him and going 'don't worry we're your family'. That's very nice. We also get a bit of exposition from Yuri and Sophia about the Sword of Time and the Book of Knowledge. 

Sophia and Buster go off to recruit the other Kamen Riders that haven't joined their little group, but a Megiddo appears and the episode doesn't really try to hide that this is actually Mei, transformed into the Cat Megiddo. We get a two-vs-one between Saber and Blades against the Cat, but she's transformed other humans into like talismans that she wears all over her body. Zooius also shows up and fights them a bit, before they escape. 

The crux of the conflict here is that the Cat Megiddo is preying on Rintarou's inadequacies specifically, mocking him and lying to him about how Mei thinks he's useless and can't save anyone. The combination of the whole Master Logos ordeal and seeing Mei get turned into a Megiddo really makes poor Rintarou snap. He's low-key the best-realized character in the show, isn't he? He keeps seeing Touma succeed and get better and better power-ups and successes as a swordsman, while he sticks true to his convictions and don't necessarily see himself succeed cleanly. 

We get a brief sub-plot of Ogami trying to recruit Ren, who has made a weirdo-friend-slash-hanger-on in Desast, who basically plays the tempter role. Ren, who is confused and yells at Ogami that he's wants to 'think about it on his own', pushes Ogami away and buggers off. I hope he gets an episode to himself soon -- I see what they're doing with the character, but he gets so little screentime that I really can't say I care. 

Rintarou charges in and fights Zooius and Megiddo Mei on his own, while the Megiddo mocks Rintarou about his failures. Kento watches from afar and says a bunch of ominous stuff about how their death is 'necessary' and the future is set and stuff. But Touma shows up and helps out. We get a pretty extended fight, but ultimately Touma decides to not slash Mei to free her from being a Megiddo and knocks Zooius away from delivering a killing blow on the unarmed Rintarou. Rintarou is understandably pissed at that, since his goal is basically 'save Mei, my life doesn't matter'. It's pretty self-destructive, and I enjoyed all the drama. 

______________________________________

Episode 31: Believing in Strength, Strength Believed In

We pick up after 30, with Rintarou till angry that Touma chose to save him over Mei, and he's just utterly crushed at everything going on around him. The guy just has terrible self-esteem and breaks down, begging that Touma at least tell him straight-up that Rintarou's holding him back. He just cries that he's lost a lot of the things precious in his life, and he doesn't want to add Mei to that list. He storms off after Touma says something about "I also feel fear", but we're interrupted by the attack of the Cat Megiddo. 

We get Saber fighting off against the Cat Megiddo, and Zooius also shows up and mocks Touma and Mei for their faith in Rintarou. Touma himself is pretty obviously 100% in believing that Rintarou would show up no matter what. And he does. Despite how badass Elemental Dragon has been in its debut episodes, turns out that Zooius and the Cat Megiddo can easily overpower it, until, of course, Rintarou does show up and save them. 

The episode honestly plays out as you expect it to be... but it's still very neat to watch. We get an interesting second act where Rintarou is still utterly confused about everything, and asks Touma to fight him in a duel. It's pretty short, and Rintarou learns about Touma's duel. It's just kind of jarring to see the two of them lying on the ground after their duel and after Rintarou figures his feelings out, and then we cut to Mei half-dead on the ground. Then we get a set-up as they confront Zooius and the Cat Megiddo. The fight scene is pretty neat, and Rintarou basically uses the power of friendship (tm) to believe in his friends (tm) and fight for them. Touma purifies the Cat Megiddo and saves Mei while Rintarou holds back Zooius. Zooius doesn't actually die, and gets saved by Storious. 

The episode ends with some ominous Master Logos foreshadowing, some Kento 'they can change the future?' (tm) confusion, while Mei reveals that she made a bunch of little tiny caricature portraits of everyone (which I bet is going to be a collectible item they sell on Bandai Premium or something). 

Ultimately... I think this two-parter is just a bit too over-wrought? I feel like the stakes are a bit artificial and there were a couple of points where I wonder why Saber couldn't just use his special glowing Rekka blade to get Mei out of there a bit more quickly. But the Rule of Drama is pretty strong in this episode, and I honestly didn't really care because of the pretty good Rintarou drama. And it's something that's been building up over the past couple of episodes. It's just that... well, at the end of episode 31 it's basically ticking off a whole ton of shonen manga tropes that just made me eye-roll a bit. And they're not done poorly at all! It's just that the episodes themselves are a bit too predictable. They're a neat watch, though. 

Random Notes:

• I had almost done a review for the 'Presidents Special' crossover between Zero-One's Kamen Rider Thouser and Ex-Aid's God Kami Dan Kuroto, but it's... it's really a whole bunch of nothing? It's a two parter that kind of goes nowhere, but I absolutely love seeing Dan Kuroto absolutely ham shit up and chew the scenery in ways that no other toku actor can. It was fun to watch, even if the conclusion is bizarre and out of nowhere. 
• All the forms in Saber kind of really blur together to me. While typing episode 30's review, it took me a long, long while of trying to think up of the name before finally remembering that it's called 'Elemental Dragon' and 'King Lion Dai Senki'.
• I still don't entirely get why Touma didn't go with Rintarou in 30 and why he showed up late? The drama's all right, so I'm willing to overlook that. 
• It's technically "Book of All Knowledge and All Power", but that's a bit of a mouthful. 
• Zooius's actor knows parkour, and you can tell because he does a couple of unnecessary but absolutely awesome backflips while talking to Mei.
• Did we really need that nasty zoom-in to Logos's saliva-filled mouth at the end of 31?

One Piece 1011-1013 Review: Mood Swings

One Piece, Chapters 1011-1013

It feels like it's been a while since I actually talked about the manga! In case you guys missed it, I also did a watch-through of the first dozen or so episodes of the Wano arc. I'm not sure how regular that will be, or how long subsequent 'watch-through' segments of the One Piece anime is going to be on this blog (the filler arc bits were stuff I watched over the past half-year or so). I'm not really regularly watching stuff, so it could be anywhere from days to weeks to months in-between it. Anyway...

Chapter 1011: The Code of Sweet Beans

A lot of these chapters are mostly action-based. This one starts off with Big Mom showing off her new cloud homie Hera, and she unleashes a pretty huge electric blow on Kid and Killer called 'Fulgora'. Basically everything here sets up the one-on-one fight between Luffy and Kaido. Big Mom beats up Kid and Killer and falls down into the lower floors, Law teleports Zoro down, and even Zeus gets freed from his cage and flies off. We do get a couple of blows between Luffy and Kaido, which is neat, but for the most part it only takes up around half a page or so. 

Then we get something fun! Particularly fun since I just saw him in the anime. Basil Hawkins shows up, and his Straw Face monster form now has octopus tentacle legs! We haven't seen more than half of the Tobiroppo fights, but here we have another fight being set up -- Killer vs. Hawkins. Again, these fights going on in the background between the Tobiroppo and the Straw Hats, or the Scabbards and their various enemies... I have a feeling that the anime will have a field day padding out episodes with these fights. I find Hawkins to be pretty cool and probably one of my favourite Supernovas, so it's nice to see what he's all about. 

Tama, Usopp and Nami are riding on poor Komachiyo while a wounded Page One hangs on to the back and we get a genuinely funny sequence of Usopp and Nami trying to just beat the shit out of Page One by using their weapons like clubs. Usopp gets to show off some new weapons -- literally Pineco from Pokemon! Exploding pine-cone grenades! We also have the brief off-hand confirmation that Tama's kibi-dango only affects SMILE users and not true Zoan users. 

Of course, while they are planning to go to the main hall and have Tama issue an order to all her newfound minions, we get interrupted by good ol' Big Mom. And... well, Big Mom is kind of the epitome of mood swings, and we get the payoff (?) of the whole amnesia sub-plot. Which is still the lowest point of the Wano arc for me, but all right. Big Mom still remembers everything that happens while she had amnesia, and she wastes no time in being nice to Tama... but when Tama tells her that Okobore Town was razed to the ground for helping the samurai, Big Mom gets pissed and one-shots Page One with a Conqueror's Haki punch because how dare the Beasts Pirates hurt the people that were nice to her. 

And I remembered that this chapter apparently blew up online because everyone thought that 'Big Mom was joining the good guys' and it was an ass-pull... but I've re-read the Whole Cake Island recently, and one thing that I can tell you about Charlotte Linlin? She's, uh... what's a nice way to put it? She's unstable. There's an internal logic that Big Mom follows in her behaviours and motivations, and that's basically a weird 'if you're nice to me, I'm nice to you' relationship that she has with almost everyone in her life, and a 'if you betray me, I will kill you' reverse. So what happens to Big Mom here is... it's kind of annoying since I will admit that a part of me also wants a straight-up brawl between the Yonko and all the Supernova, and we did kind of get that... but at the same time, I think Big Mom's actions in these chapters do make sense for the character. It's not my favourite parts of the story, but I don't mind it so much. 

______________________

Chapter 1012: Itch

We start off with a bit more of a set-up, with Kiku and Izo talking about their separation, and a brief discussion with Kawamatsu about what to do with Wano once the borders are opened. It's a nice little moment to acknowledge Kiku and Izo being separated for decades -- their original reunion was kind of short. We then get the Scabbards splitting up, and it's even more set-up for fights. Kin'emon and Kiku go off to hunt down and put Kanjuro down for good, which is always something that I wanted. Kanjuro's original 'death' was very anticlimactic, which is why I was most convinced that he was still alive.

Meanwhile, Nekomamushi goes off with Shisillian to go off and avenge Pedro, because Nekomamushi (who arrived late to the battle) doesn't even know Pedro's fate. So it's Nekomamushi versus Perospero, following up on Perospero's brief off-screen fight against Carrot and Wanda. Okay, sure! Also being set up is Yamato, who also has an 'itch' to fight, and goes off with a Momonosuke decoy to ostensibly assist Luffy in the rooftop. It's pretty interesting that Momonosuke's... ability of either Observation Haki or Voice of All Things (or maybe they're both the same thing) basically allows him to have a sense not only on who is fighting on the rooftop, but how strong they are. While Yamato heads off, Momonosuke basically sits down to read Oden's journal. 

Speaking of set-ups, Law had apparently hopped down and dropped Zoro in front of Sanji (who's been wandering around doing nothing since the Black Maria encounter, I guess), who proceeded to wrap him up in bandages and lug him around like a giant cross. It's actually kind of funny and I definitely laughed out loud at it, I'm not going to lie. They met with Izo and Kawamatsu, and head off to the performance floor, so I guess maybe they'll take over fighting Queen and King?

(Also, where is Denjiro? I don't think we've seen him since... since the Orochi encounter? In all the chaos with so many characters running around, I wouldn't put it past One Piece to slyly move Denjiro somewhere without showing it to the audience).

The final couple of pages go back to the Big Mom encounter, where Big Mom and Ulti face off against each other. I actually do like that we almost immediately quash any 'Straw Hat/Big Mom' team-up by having Big Mom threaten Nami and Usopp almost immediately, and we get some fun comedic moments of Nami trying to ally herself with either one of the heavier hitters and getting rejected immediately by them. Ulti headbutts poor Komachiyo and slaps poor Tama, and we get the final panel where we're led to believe that it's going to be Big Mom one-shotting another Tobiroppo... but it's Nami! Using her thunderbolts to zap Ulti! So yeah, Nami's pissed off and she's foregoing escape to beat the shit out of Ulti. I actually feel like this one is slightly clunkier compared to 1011 or 1013 overall.

______________________

Chapter 1013: Anarchy in the B.M.

Ulti, unlike her brother, just refuses to stay down and keeps getting up. She gets hit with a Tornado Tempo by Nami almost immediately after getting up, and the Big Mom uses a combination attack between her three homies to unleash a MASER CANNON! Not only is it obviously a homage to the Maser Cannons from the Godzilla franchise, and being a badass huge combination attack, it's also a pun on 'maser' and how the English word 'mother' is romanized in katakana. That's cute. Ulti has a hole blasted through her and I think she's down. 

But then Big Mom basically, well, continues to be kind of a loon. She helped to take out Ulti because she beat up Tama, but Big Mom is also completely oblivious to everything going on around them. Usopp and Nami are trying to get Tama to a doctor, because she's a little kid that got slapped by a dinosaur woman. Big Mom at one point just plucks Tama out of Usopp's grasp and is all like 'are you okay?', and when Tama gets up to run with Nami and Usopp, Big Mom's reaction is to 'are you betraying me? I will have to kill you then!' And I do like that -- Big Mom has been shown to be absolutely eccentric and extremely sensitive to betrayal and abandonment, even to her own flesh-and-blood children. So yeah, while she would totally defend her own 'friends', we've seen her turn on them at a dime at any perceived betrayals.

Speaking of perceived betrayals, apparently this also involves failure, because a significant portion of this chapter surrounds Zeus! We've seen little chibi Zeus run around in the past couple of chapters trying his best to get back to Big Mom, but now not only has Big Mom shown off her brand-new cloud homie Hera, Hera is also much better received by Prometheus and Napoleon, who talk about their great synergy and teamwork and stuff. (Apparently Prometheus wants a girlfriend; that's the request he makes). We get some really good faces from Zeus in page 7, that's adorable. 

When Zeus makes his presence known, Big Mom just disparages Zeus, and tells Hera to straight-up eat Zeus. And I honestly wouldn't think that I would ever care about these Homies, but on the other hand the sight of Hera chomping down on Zeus while he cries and begs for mercy, as Nami straight-up ignores Zeus initially and gives him the cold shoulder... man I feel bad for the cloud. And for someone who's been mocking One Piece's very low body counts, I actually feel bad and don't want Zeus to die. (He won't.)

Zeus cries and begs forgiveness from Nami, and gives this whole speech about how he's all alone in the world, how Nami was nice to him, and even if it won't earn his forgiveness, he's going to betray Big Mom for the first and last time. Big Mom just grabs Zeus with her hand and rips Zeus's soul out, and feeds both cloud and soul to Hera. Nami tosses some black weather balls towards them but Hera seems to eat everything -- though it's kind of obvious that the black balls and part of the Clima-tact being chomped down by Hera is a way out for Zeus to survive -- either he's going to zap Hera after being empowered from the inside, or he'll survive in a weakened form to be a power-up to Nami like basically everyone had theorized. 

The chapter ends with Kid showing up and grabbing Big Mom's face and smashing her into the ground with a massive metal arm. So I guess all this Big Mom mood-swings and O-Tama business is going to be put on hold temporarily while we have a fight. It's cool, I kind of really do want to see Kid do more.

And then we have the final two pages of the chapter, which sees Luffy, eyes white and beaten up, falling off the side of Onigashima while Kaido does his crying thing and laments not slicing Luffy's head off so he has proof to kill all the hope of his allies. I do like this. The suddenness of Luffy's defeat is actually something I welcome wholeheartedly, especially since One Piece has been relatively good at not following the formulaic 'main hero struggles at first, gains power-up and immediately wins' trope that I never really liked. 

And Luffy unlocking the weaponized Conqueror's Haki like five minutes before theoretically beating Kaidou down is one of those Shonen battle manga tropes that I really, really dislike. Training with it several days before beating down an enemy? That I can buy. But unlocking and understanding it after taking a bit of a beating? That's a bit too similar to Luffy learning future sight during the Katakuri fight, and that's one battle that I argue wasn't entirely a victory. So yeah, I don't think I ever subscribed to the 'Luffy beats Kaido after learning how to use advanced Conqueror's Haki' theory, but man 1010 really did make us think and have some hope, huh?

I do like this. A lot of people have been questioning whether the Wano arc will still follow the 'five act' sequence, since act three needed to end in a 'big tragedy' and everyone's asking where that tragedy is. This would work, right? The main character getting Ryu'o, learning a new facet of Conqueror's Haki, even showing up to fight Kaido with four other Supernovas... and still losing. I do like this, and this makes the fact that the Kaido fight taking place before a lot of the other one-on-one fights are even touched upon a bit more sensible. 

Of course I'm not saying that the good guys won't win, because they will. One Piece is still a shonen manga. But the fact that it's going through some effort to subvert the obvious formula and make the fandom hyped about 'oh, maybe this will be it, this will be how Luffy beats Kaido' and then twisting it around? That is fun, and I am extremely hyped up to see what comes next. Even the Big Mom stuff is pretty interesting even if it's still probably one of my least favourite aspects of the arc. 

Reviewing Monsters - Genshin Impact, Part 1

Okay, this one is a bit different! I tend to review monsters that are a bit more tied to 'bigger' games, or to Mons-collecting games. But a friend of mine strong-armed me into playing the mobile game Genshin Impact. I haven't really played too much into it and it does feel like Breath of the Wild combined with a typical online J-RPG/MMORPG system. The world seems charming enough even if it's relatively trope-y (the 'waifu collection' bit is actually nowhere as bad as some other games I've seen), so while it's not my usual fare as far as video games go, I guess I'll talk about the monsters I meet in this game as I go through it? It's certainly a lot more than just the 'waifu collecting game' that it was derided at when the game was launched. If nothing else, how many RPG's out there have a setting based on China? Not a lot, and I appreciate it. 

The plot of the game is relatively pretty basic, as far as RPG's go. I'm sure it'll get a bit more interesting later on, but so far it relies mostly on charm to rope me in. The main character is one of a pair of twins who got magically cubed by some mysterious evil goddess, and my power was stripped from me. Your opposite-gender sibling got kidnapped with magical cubes! After waking up in a different world, you meet a weird floating pixie-girl Paimon, who then proceeds to give you a tutorial of the world of Teyvat. Teyvat itself has seven elements, each ruled by one of The Seven, and I guess eventually I'm going to have to recruit all seven of them to gain my lost power.  

(Also, this is a gacha game, so to regain the most power I have to gamble and get the strong party members. I am told that the game is still perfectly playable -- at least the story and single-player segments -- without spending any money, though)

I'm a couple of days weeks into the game (in order to meet enough of a variety of monsters to actually make an article) and the story honestly isn't that deep so far, although to be fair I'm still in the 'Prologue' town, Mondstadt. The main story mostly deals with the backstory revolving a giant, mighty dragon that terrorizes the region, and we sort of alternate between having 'loyalty missions' with the other collectible characters and doing daily quests. So far it's honestly nothing new and Mondstadt itself is a pretty basic fantasy setting, but the charm, exploration and music are pretty great. And it's a Chinese-made game, and both the Chinese and Japanese voices are pretty great! I'm actually quite pumped to get into Liyue, the China-based segment of the game. 

Unlike most of my 'monster review' segments, I'm not going to exhaustively go into every single variation and enemy sub-type if I don't have anything interesting to say. I am also most certainly not going to go through 'elite enemies' like what I did with Diablo 2 and some of my other reviews, otherwise this would be a huge, dry list instead of me talking about monsters. I'm also going to toss in a couple of fun little non-enemy creatures in here, too. At the time of writing, I'm basically more or less done with the 'prologue' story in the Mondstadt region, although I've snuck a bit into the neighbouring region of Liyue. 

Anyway, without further ado...

Hydro Slime

There is a 'pokedex' of sorts in the game, so I can tell more or less how many enemies there are in the game. In addition to being a mobile game, it is still relatively new and growing, so I'm sure that more enemies will be added into the game eventually. And, well, having multiple elements does mean that it's an excuse for good ol' palette swaps! Which I don't blame the game for, honestly. And for at least the slimes, I'll go through all of the different elemental types. 

And honestly, what's there to say about slimes? Pretty basic enemy concept, particularly in J-RPGs (though this isn't strictly one, Genshin is made by a Chinese company despite the anime aesthetic). Hydro Slimes are honestly the most basic type of slime, being made out of water. The Large Hydro Slime is the same thing, but with horns. The Archive feature in the game actually gives some lore entries, explaining that the slimes are created by the high concentration of elemental energy (Hydro = water, if it's not obvious) and despite the fact that these guys are made out of water, enterprising survivalists that attempted to stash them into bottles and drink them are harmed by the sheer concentration of Hydro energy. It doesn't really come up anywhere beyond the little bits of writing in the game, but I like these sort of world-building. 

Pyro Slime

The fire (or, rather, Pyro) variant of Slimes are a straight-up palette swap of the Hydro Slimes, they just added fire patterns. Again, without going in-depth about how the elements react with each other (there's a list of different elemental combinations that I honestly haven't memorized at all) they're basically just rolling balls of... slimy fire? Magma? Liquid fire? Interestingly, though, the Pyro Slimes also see use by the Hilichurls (more on them later) who actually learn to weaponize them! Almost all the slimes basically have the same attack pattern of bouncing and hitting you. Basic RPG slime stuff! I think them adding Slimes is also so that they can be an 'universal' enemy that can show up basically almost anywhere in the overworld or any given dungeon without us really questioning it too much. 

Cryo Slime

Not a complete palette swap! The Cryo Slime, representing the element of ice, are a bit more elaborate. The regular-sized Cryo Slimes have little 'hats' or 'hair' of snow and little ice ccrystals around their head, while the Large Cryo Slime has a straight-up spiky horned helmet made out of crystalized ice. Apparently, the Dawn Winery (ran by one of the main characters) uses Cryo Slimes as medieval refrigerators in the basement of their winery. That's fun! I also like the little detail in the bestiary that notes that the Large Cryo Slime's helmet is created by freezing water vapour, and the fact that it can simply freeze the surface of any body of water means that Cryo Slimes can just move around wherever they want to.

Electro Slime

The only Slime variant (so far) that has more than just a regular and Large variant, the Electro Slime has an additional third type, the Mutant Electro Slime! It's yellow! Visually, I think this is my favourite of the Slimes for how different it looks. Most of these electric elementals in RPG games just go for a chaotic balls of lightning, but I like that the Electro Slime's design is actually pretty muted. And the dark purple colours are great! I think my favourite parts are the the cable or lightbulb-like antennae and the unnatural Tron lines, which communicate that they're an electric monster without resorting to any over-the-top lightning effects. 

Apparently, they specifically represent the difference in electric potentials in the ground, which is surprisingly more scientific-sounding than 'this is just a coalescence of elemental energy'. The technology of Teyvat is in a typical middle-age fantasy setting, but the lore archives note that people are looking into harnessing the Electro Slimes as an energy source. Fear the Electro Slime industrialization!

The Mutant Electro Slime can essentially create networks of electric currents between itself and the regular purple Electro Slimes, because they're of different charges. It's a fun little mechanic that kind of makes sense in-universe, and I love that they put in some thought into explaining the existence of a differently-coloured variant; I don't think anyone would complain too much if the game designers just tossed in some extra palette swaps, but the fact that they actually sat down and wrote a small paragraph about why the Mutant Electro Slime is different is much appreciated. 

Anemo Slime

'Anemo' actually refers to the element of air, and I wonder why they didn't just go with 'aero' or 'wind'? The Chinese dialogue most certainly simply say the word for wind. I guess they just wanted to be fancy, although I was a bit bamboozled early in the game because I thought 'anemo' just referred to this universe's term for elements. Without spoiling too much about the setting or the story (which I only know what's told to me up to the prologue chapters) the first region you adventure in, Mondstadt, is the realm of Barbatos, the god of wind anemo. The first four Slimes I went through here are more common and show up a lot more in dungeons and the overworld, while the next three are more often associated with the overworld. 

They've got cute colours and have cute little cloud tattoos and tiny little disconnected wings. Again, it all plays to the cute-and-harmless-looking charm of an RPG slime monster. These guys actually behave pretty differently, inflating themselves like balloons to float around, which at the same time also makes them extra-vulnerable. Basically, whenever they float into the sky, any attack will one-shot-kill them, regardless of the health they have. I do have some questions, thogh -- are they still comprised of some sort of liquid matter, since they are still 'slimes'? Or are they literal balloons? Also, though I didn't realize this until a couple of weeks after writing this article, some quests show that the people of Mondstadt use Anemo Slimes as essentially hot air balloons, which we have to escort on some quests.

Geo Slime

Our next Slime (and element) is the Geo Slime, which is a bit more common in the second region I can visit, Liyue. Liyue's element is Geo, and there's a high-level mountain that's Cryo, so the population of monsters and variations of other enemies also change to fit. The Geo element is basically earth and rock, and you'd think that would make the Geo (and Dendro) Slimes the most commonly found enemies, but I think the other five are far more common. Or maybe that's just my gaming experience. These guys actually remind me of a rockier version of Botamon from Digimon. Love the chunky rock horns, and I like that the Large Geo Slime sort of has a helmet vibe going on, but otherwise I think the Geo Slime is probably my least favourite if I had to rank the slimes. 

Dendro Slime
At least I know what 'Dendro' means immediately! It's the 'plant' element! Dendro as a type is the least represented in the game, and at the time of writing there isn't even a playable Dendro-type character. The Dendro slimes are pretty cool, looking like cute plant-bulb monsters in the vein of Oddish or Tanemon. I do like that the colouration on their bodies make them look like giant tap-roots. The Large Dendro Slime, of course, has a huge flower on top of its body.

The Dendro slimes also have a pretty unique behaviour in that they're almost always hidden underground, and panic when they see you come near them. From how they're animated, it looks like their attacking is less as a territorial response like the other enemies in the game, and more of a panicked bump as they relocate themselves. Without a dedicated fire pyro-element character to burn the ground, they are very, very hard to kill, which is a fun little mechanic. The archive lore hypothesizes that it might actually be parasitized by a special plant that forces it to do behaviour more elaborate than what you'd expect from a slime!

Hilichurl

Okay, that's all the Slimes! And now we go to the other big, common enemy type, and the Hilichurls aren't quite as interesting as the Slimes. Have I mentioned that Genshin Impact draws a lot from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? Because it does. The Hilichurls essentially fill in the role of the tribal humanoid enemy that is filled by Bokoblins in Breath of the Wild and by goblins or orcs in other RPG's. The Hilichurls are all right? Anyone who's read my previous 'reviewing monsters' segments would know that I tend to not really be big on the enemy trope that's just 'humanoid enemy'. They're necessary in an RPG, for sure, and... as far as things go, they aren't terrible? They sure are humanoids with giant furs on their shoulders who live in tribal huts and have actually pretty cool-looking masks. Actually, those masks are easily the coolest part about their design -- it makes them look so much cooler compared to if they just had regular angry snarling goblin faces. And, I bet, a lot easier to render for the game engine too. 

The lore archive note that they have lost their 'intellect and spirituality', come from 'another world' and that they have 'no history or civilization' so it's okay to kill them en masse! Which is completely bullshit, since we see many, many times that they have huts and some sort of civilization going on. Several NPC's and questlines even make it explicit that the Hilichurls have their own language and culture, and there are hints in some of the item descriptions and in-game books that the Hilichurls might be humans from another civilization transformed by a curse or something. The original Chinese name for the race translates to 'Mountain People', so I guess they're supposed to be some sort of mountain yao guai or something? It's interesting, and considering how the Hilichurls are easily the most common enemy you have to slaughter en masse in this game, I wonder if we'll get something more about them or if those bits are just background lore. 

Also, there's so many variations of these guys! The selection I show here isn't even half of the Hilichurls currently in-game. In addition to the regular Hilichurls we've got those with clubs, those with clubs and shields, those with a 'berserker' behaviour, 'grenadiers' that lob pyro or cryo slimes at you, and 'shooters' that wield crossbows. I haven't seen every single variation, but suffice to say that there are obvious empty spaces for '[insert element] Hilichurl Shooter' in my monster-dex. For the shooters specifically, the game explicitly mentions that the Hilichurls are not smart enough to build crossbows, and the game all bout outright states that an organization (which we will talk about later) is supplying these aggressive goblin-men with crossbows. Not just crossbows, too, but also ones that can launch elemental bolts! Of course, the Hilichurls aren't smart enough to actually be archers, which explains why the AI for the Hilichurl Shooters are particularly dumb; they just stand in place and shoot and never reposition themselves. 

I actually do like that they've got a neat little variation thing going on for the elemental variants. Not all Hilichurl subtypes have all elements, but the Shooter in particular comes in regular, Pyro, Cryo and Electro versions. I love that all the Pyro-themed Hilichurl have a different colour palette with red manes, a lava-like mask (face?) and fire-shaped tattoos, the ice ones have a pretty cool snowflake tattoo at the center of their face, and the Electro ones look like some sort of cool gold-and-purple thundercloud warrior.

Mitachurl
Zelda's Bokoblins have big buddy friends in the Moblins, so the Hilichurls have Mitachurls. Which I suppose are supposed to be read as might-a-churl? As in they're mighty? They sure are bigger and look more impressive. The masks actually have creepy humanoid eyes instead of just being featureless, and the demon horns do make them look extra-neat! The two variants I've encountered are the 'Wooden Shieldwall' and 'Blazing Axe', representing the Dendro and Pyro elements. Which means that there are definitely a bunch of other variants (which I haven't looked at) in the wiki. Apparently, if a Hilichurl eats enough meat or simply grow strong enough, they spontaneously evolve into a mighty Mitachurl? So is it meant to be 'meat-a-churl'? In practice they're honestly not that much more dangerous, just more annoying to take down. 

Samachurl

And then there are these guys, who I guess are the shamans of the group. They're my favourite 'churls! They're tiny guys with masks that have a singular angry eye... or is that a mouth? There are eye markings on the top of their mask-face. Whatever the case, they are tiny little spellcasters wielding oversized staves. I've actually met all the Samachurl variants! At the time of writing, the wiki lists five types -- representing Cryo, Hydro, Dendro, Anemo and Geo. They all have different oversized staves, each with a unique design! I love those oversized staves! These three are my favourites, with the Cryo one having the horned skull of some beast, the Hydro one having octopus tentacles, and the Dendro ones having wings made up of leaves. All of them are noted to be pretty old, and have been gifted with the ability to command elements. They most certainly add a lot of spice to the fights, since the Hilichurls and Mitachurls are honestly pretty straightforward. Easily my favourite -churl.

At the time of writing (the 1.5 version of the game), there are currently 24 entries in the 'Hilichurl' segment in the archive, counting Mitachurl and Samachurl variants, but as more and more areas are released I can totally see them releasing new models to fill up the missing slots for the elemental versions of the Hilichurl Shooter or Hilichurl Grenadier or the Samachurl or Mitachurls that don't have an element yet. As my friends tell me, we're about to come up on an Electro region, so maybe we'll slowly fill up the variant dex as we go through the seven regions of Teyvat... a nice little justification for intrducing new enemies without having too many models for a mobile game. 

Unusual Hilichurl

A bit of an interesting one, 'Unusual Hilichurl' here is an 'easter egg' enemy found once a day in (currently) ten possible locations all over the map, and he drops some extra-rare loot. It's a Hilichurl with a bunch of bling, and a magical sub-space briefcase from where he pulls out cabbages or dolls to lob at your character if you decide to beat him up for his loot. I debated whether to put him here, but this guy is apparently an author avatar for one of the main creators of the game, and I find it kinda cute? The fact that he jumps back inside of his magical briefcase when you defeat him is kind of interesting. Not what I would think a game would incorporate a 'treasure goblin' for sure. 

Abyss Mages

Part of a mysterious organization that menaces our heroes, the Abyss Order is noted to be the one responsible for arming the Hilichurls with crossbows. They're behind half of the mysterious evil things happening in Mondstadt, and they're capable of speech! I guess they're the 'Wizzrobe' of the game, if we're using Breath of the Wild terms, though I would say that the Abyss Mages are significantly different enough in terms of gameplay and how they interact with the world. There's a significant amount of lore about their origin story that are pretty spoiler-heavy for the main story, apparently, from what I've been told, but so far they're just evil floating demon-wizards with creepy modulated voices. I do really like the porcelain-esque bird masks, and I love that jackass reclining pose that they do inside their shield-bubbles. 

I had thought that the Abyss Mages are just humans with owl masks and furry ponchos, but they're explicitly identified as 'Abyss creatures' coming from a region called the Abyss. These Mages are the lowest rung of these Abyss creatures, which are apparently scheming to bring about the end of days or something, but since I'm still pretty early on in the story they're mostly just acting as the villains-of-the-sidequest. They all use their respective elements to make shields and attack with their staves. They're significantly far more annoying than the Churls and Slimes for sure thanks to their elemental bubble-shields. Probably the most annoying enemy type I've met? Other than noting that the designs are all very solid, I really don't have much to say here.

Whopperflower

And now we're moving into a bit of the rarer enemies. The Whopperflower is more of a rare common enemy than actually being a boss, though! Looking more like a Pokemon than a flower, the Whopperflower is identified as a 'mimetic plant monster'. It hides under the ground with only its leaves poking out, and then it jumps out and attacks you. I love the little bug-eyes on its onion head, and I like that the petals under the bulb-head give the impression of mantis arms or some sort of harlequin collar. It's hard to notice it when you're fighting it, but the Whopperflower's body is a bit more intricate, and the full model shown in the archive gives an almost elaborate caterpillar-esque vibe to it?

I do like this guy a lot. Currently there are only two variants, the Cryo and Pyro, though I've only met the Pyro version once. They hide and masquerade as harvestable plants, and then jump out and shoot snowflakes at you. The lore hints that they actually are the 'adult' version of two elemental plants that you can harvest... either that, or they're just mutated by ley-line elemental energy or some such. Mechanically they are honestly kind of simple, but these sort of enemy variants really help to make the world feel like a larger place. 

The Fatui Agents

The Fatui are a group of agents sent by the country of Snezhnaya, and alongside the Abyss Order, the Fatui is built up as basically one of the primary antagonists. They're first introduced as a group of delegates who essentially try to escalate the situation from a political standpoint, but eventually degrade into just being an ever-present enemy whose agent is behind every other side-quest. They dress in dark purple and wear Persona 5 masks, clearly they're going to be anime villains! There's a bunch of '???' in my archive right now so I'm going to assume that there's going to be a bunch more of them later on. So far I've met two -- the Fatui Pyro Agent is a very cool ninja-man with a cool mask that wouldn't look out of place in Star Wars. Judging by his name, I'm going to assume that at some point I'll fight other element-flavoured versions of him. The one agent I've fought could turn invisible and summon shadow clones. Typical ninja stuff! I think I won't meet them until later on, but the organization of the Fatui seem to have some Espada style heirarchy going on -- we meet #8 of their organization in a cutscene. Honestly, though, even the goons look badass enough that they could easily be among the roster of playable characters that you could get in the game, design-wise. 

The purple hoodie girl is the Fatui Electro Cicin Mage, who has a pretty cool fashion sense. Purple and black just go well together -- it's cliched, sure, but it's always a cool colour set! Really like that hoodie with giant horns, the poofy sleeves and the Cyclops visor she has, the coolest thing about her is that she runs around carrying a purple lantern with which she commands her army of Electro Cicins. There's a bunch of these Cicin Mages wandering around the overworld, and they can teleport and shoot lightning and summon Cicins to fight for them. What's a Cicin, you say? 

Electro Cicin

Literally meaning 'Firefly' in the original Chinese, the Cicin are categorized as part of the 'mystical beasts'. They look more like weird fantasy bats more than any sort of insect, though. I love the Final Fantasy black mage style eyes-in-the-black-void head they've got going on, and I love their colours. On their own they'd just be the obligatory annoying flying bat enemy, but I do really like how they're associated with a summoner enemy that endlessly summon them! Interestingly, while pretty rare, 'wild' Cicin most certainly do exist. Interestingly, those that are summoned by Cicin Mages will vanish when you slay their summoner.

Eye of the Storm

I guess these are minibosses! The Wiki identifies them as 'Elite Enemies'. The Eyes of the Storm show up a bunch of times in the overworld, and the archive classifies the Eyes as part of the 'elementals' alongside Slimes. I actually like the idea that this living elemental monster is just a swirling mass of wind. More often than not most RPG's fall into the D&D/WoW-inspired trope of making all elementals have a vaguely humanoid or genie-like shape, but I always like the trope of elements forming into a form that fits their element better. The 'Eye of the Storm' is also such a cool and thematic name, except instead of being the calm center of a cyclone, this Eye of the Storm is an eye-shaped mass of Anemo energy that swirls around when the ley-lines in the Mondstadt area are blocked. And, again, remember that Mondstadt is the area associated with the element of Anemo! In addition to general wind-blasting attacks, the Eye of the Storm can also use a vaccuum-style effect to draw your characters in. Though like any self-respecting RPG boss, the Eye of the Storm will periodically crash down to the ground right in the range of your weapons. Pretty cool!

Ruin Guard

It's a giant robot! Is there a word for these sort of architecture, of these golem-style fantasy robots? Something-punk, probably. A bunch of these show up in ruins and dungeons as bosses, and they're basically, well, golems or eidolons that stick around in ruins to protect them from pesky treasure hunters and adventurers. I love the default picture in the archive, where the Ruin Guard is dormant and inactive and a bunch of birds and plants have taken to grow on it. (Genshin has a bunch of birds, dogs, cats and assorted animals in a separate bestiary, but we won't talk about them here) Interestingly, the Archive says that the research done show that the Ruin Guards and the ruins that they stalk aren't even from the same time period, with several thousand years between the dating of the robots and the ruins. I'm not sure if it'll be relevant and be explored later on, or if it's just a neat background to make the robots creepier. Without spoiling too much for one of the story quests, turns out that the Ruin Guards' civilization predate a lot of the ruins, but the programming for these robotic guardians make them seek out other ruins and stick around to guard them. A pretty interesting backstory that I feel adds a fair bit to them to differentiate them from, say, Breath of the Wild's Guardians or Elder Scrolls' Dwemer automata. 

I do like that the robot's 'head' is just another mass of symbols, sort of like the Hilichurls, but look a bit more closely and the 'chest' of the Ruin Guard has what looks like eyes and markings resembling fangs. There's a 'face' there, that's pretty cute. The Ruin Guards are pretty tough, and they mostly use a combination of their long arms that can spin around and whack your characters... and the fucking heat seeking missiles it will shoot from its back. There are six of them! It's pretty cool! Anyway, a pretty cool fantasy-pun golem-eidolon-guardian-robot thing. It's a trope that I don't think I've ever really loved as much as, say, elementals or giant insect monsters or carnivorous plants, but I've always appreciated ancient robotic golems in fantasy games.  

Cryo Regisvine

I've only fought one of these guys, at the end of one of the quest chains given by the wandering cook Xiangling. it sure is a giant flower! And, hey, I did say that I like giant plant monsters! The existence of a 'Regisvine' is hinted in the Whopperflower's archive entry, because a sufficiently old Whopperflower will grow into one of these. I also do like that aspect, when one of the bosses is related to one of the common enemies. The Regisvine is a Whopperflower mutated by the sheer amount of Cryo energy flowing through ley-lines, and it basically has a huge ice-covered eye with four massive petals, and two vine-arms ending in stabby icicles. Oh, and it's pretty huge, towering over your human characters! 

This one has the 'Cryo' prefix, so I'm going to assume that there are other elemental types. There's a bunch of mini-phases to the fight, but it's honestly not quite as complex as it seems. The Regisvine just thrashes around and periodically shoots out ice beams or icicle waves, and sometimes a weak point shows up around its main flower head. The Regisvine, as I would later discover, is one of the permanent farm-able bosses that respawn every day and I can find and kill to farm for materials. 

Stormterror

The catalyst and focus of the main storyline of the Mondstadt Prologue chapter is the great dragon Stormterror, who shows up in the earliest questlines and ends up being the big bad dungeon boss. The actual fight is vaguely Zelda-esque and mostly involves you jumping around and avoiding his wind blasts while hitting him when he gets close. The story behind him and the human characters that revolve around him is pretty neat, though, and without summarizing the entire prologue segment of Genshin's story mode, it does add a bit of gravitas to the boss fight. There's nothing particularly new that I haven't seen in other fantasy works, but it is done and told well, and did make the Stormterror fight feel a lot cooler than if he was just some random dragon in a lair that we attack and kill. I do like that the design of the wind dragon is pretty non-standard! It's not a regular European dragon, and I love how its head is a fun, almost bird-like cranium. Its legs and tails are also very bird-like, and considering this is the wind dragon, I guess the bird theme is very much expected. 

I will have to note just how beautiful those wings are, though, which look alien and yet fits with the whole vibe of a more bird or fuzzy-dinosaur look that Stormterror is going for... and the fact that I took a look at Stormterror from the top and instantly know that it's based on the Glaucus sea slugs. Or at least it really reminds me of one of those, with two sets of elaborate limbs that spread out, as well as the colours. I do like him. He's a pretty cool dragon!

Treasure Hoarders

Probably the most boring enemy type are the 'Treasure Hoarders', and I had excluded these guys in the first draft of this article. I've never been really impressed with 'human bandit' type enemies, and these guys are essentially that with a slight Indiana-Jones-temple-looter flavour tossed in. These guys mostly only show up as minor antagonists in some of the character or daily quests, and sort of hang around the ruins in the overworld... but they're pretty forgettable. They come in around a dozen variants, which mostly involves several flavours of potion-chucking potioneers, and generic enemies that swap out the weapon they use. Some just punch you in the face, and the Gravedigger (my favourite) uses a shovel. Otherwise, though, they're just generic human enemies. Neat that they exist, but when the other human enemies in this game dress up like the Fatui, these guys really got the short end of the stick. 

Seelie

Not enemies this time! These little critters are called 'Xian Ling' (a concept involving the interaction of man and god in Chinese culture) in the original version and translated rather interestingly as 'Seelie' (a reference to the Seelie courts of the fey from Scottish folklore), these glowing blue fairies are one of the many things that make exploration of the cliffs and grasslands a bit more fun. There's a lot of stuff to do in the overworld and they all contribute to your eventual progression. Sometimes, you catch a glimpse of these ethereal, glowing ghostly wisps in the trees or above a ruin, and you need you reach them and follow them as they float around and lead you to a treasure chest or an altar or something. It's pretty cool! The Wiki identifies them as looking like Cliones ('sea angels', another type of sea slug). And, y'know what? I didn't even realize it since they're partially wreathed in a blue halo, but they're definitely based on upright cliones! There's no reason for these nature spirits to look like an aquatic nudibranch, but there's really honestly no reason for them not to look like sea slugs either. 

There isn't much lore about the Seelie (or maybe I'll find out more, who knows, I'm like, barely into the game), but loading screens hint that the Seelie are remnants of a bygone race that once had beautiful forms and great wisdom, but are reduced to simply guiding individuals instead of mankind as a whole. Interesting! I'm honestly perfectly happy to never find any more information about these ephemeral spirits, and just treat them as just part of the odd, mystical side of Teyvat.

Crystalfly

Classified as 'wildlife' alongside a lot of other typical fantasy-game ambient animals like dogs, cats, fish, crabs, birds et cetera, the Crystalfly is, so far, the only fantasy wildlife that don't try to kill you. They look like more elaborate butterflies (and share a body model with them), but with a crystal instead of a regular buggy body. The Anemo variant of the Crystalfly are identified as 'pure elemental lifeforms', so I'm going to assume that there are other-elemental versions of the Crystalfly in the world. They're also pretty big, around the size of a bird, and can transform into wind to escape if you spook them. Pretty cool, I like these things that exist just to add a bit more lore into the world. 

________________________________

...and that's about it! The article ran a bit longer than I expected, but here goes for my first batch of Genshin Impact monsters. Currently I'm mostly exploring the Mondstadt region and I have so much more to work through. It's a more charming world than I expected and... and honestly, I really do wish that they do a bit more enemy variation. But I'm still in the first big zone, and the game is growing. It's a game that I honestly didn't expect to enjoy at all, but the story and surprisingly very fun single-player experience certainly won me over. I'm not sure if I'll be quite as into it as my friends are, and I most likely wouldn't care for min-maxing it. But I am most certainly willing to stick around to see the story mode through!