Kamen Rider Revice 26-27 Review: Holy Holy Holy

Kamen Rider Revice, Episodes 26-27:

Episode 26: Showdown! Farewell!? The End of Darkness and Light

After the whole revelation of the previous episode talking about how the Igarashis are technically 'descendants of Gifu', this two-parter focuses on Daiji. Daiji's been relegated to being kind of a secondary character, but... but I really do like this. One of the bigger problems that some of the more crowded Kamen Rider shows have is that all the 'secondary' riders often get reduced to being just extra bodies in a fight, so I'm definitely happy that we're getting a fair amount of character focus. 

For Daiji, it's the return of Kagerou for a while -- after his arc, Kagerou has been almost absent other than appearing briefly to save Sakura a couple episodes back. Kagerou confronts Daiji in a mirror and talks about how he's gotten stronger thanks to Gifu himself getting stronger, and essentially claims that he can fight Daiji for dominance over their body. Vice is also slowly getting a bit more influence as well, although Vice's just going into seizures instead of trying to take over Ikki's body. 

Kagerou actually does take over Daiji's body, goes to George's lab and steals the awkwardly-named TwoSiDriver. George actually refuses to give it to Kagerou, but Director "Obviously Evil" Akaishi shows up, gives a whole speech about survival of the fittest and how this is to stimulate Daiji's growth, and essentially forces George to give the Driver to Kagerou. 

We do also get a whole lot of backstory about Genta (or 'Junpei') and his past as the lab experiment of the secret military research organization Noah... and it's all well and good. It's just that it's kind of... irrelevant to these two episodes. Some really neat way of contextualizing how Genta, Buu-san and Karizaki Sr. fit into all this, although at the time when I was writing this, they haven't really been super relevant to the actual show's plotline itself. 

But the far more interesting storyline is the fight in The Tokusatsu Warehouse(tm). I think this is where Ren and Desast had their fight in Saber? And a couple of other pretty significant fights in Build, too. Kagerou uses the power of the TwoSiDriver to split him and Daiji apart, and essentially demands that they fight each other. As George mentioned earlier, a side-effect of the TwoSiDriver is that it's going to permanently erase either the Live or Evil side of the coin. We get the fight between Kamen Riders Live and Evil and... I don't really have all that much to commentate here, but that's not a bad thing necessarily. It's just a fight, Daiji still tries to broker peace while Kagerou is a bit too obviously being a flat villain. Enough for the audience to realize that he's probably being a softie, but not enough so that it's believable for Daiji to finally be serious. Ultimately we get to see that Kagerou's actually grown a bit weaker, and this is... kind of a way for him to go out with dignity while helping out Daiji. 

While all of this is going on, Aguilera confronts Sakura and demands she tell her how to be stronger. (Get new transformation trinkets, Aguilera, it works for the heroes) Again, it's pretty short and relatively standard, but I do really like the relationship between Sakura and Aguilera, their little slap-slap-almost-kiss rivalry going on. Sakura essentially tells Aguilera to find her own purpose and fight for her own sake.

Ikki and George also arrive to see the two Daijis fight, but Ikki refuses to step in, saying that this is something for Daiji to figure out himself. Of course, we need to get the main character to fight, so Olteca and Vail show up, turn into Kamen Rider Demons, and we get Ikki fighting him. It's cool, Olteca has an Anomalocaris Vistamp that gives him X-23 claws and everything, but obviously the big dramatic moment still comes from the Live-vs-Evil stuff.

Hell, they even go so far as give Kagerou a special shattered Evil helmet! I always love it when these normally-pristine Kamen Rider suits actually get damaged in the fight itself. Ultimately Daiji reluctantly becomes 'ruthless' enough to beat Kagerou, who disappears while giving Daiji his 'Holy Wing' Vistamp... and you know what? I absolutely love the transformation sequence here. It's kind of one of those over-the-top CGI effect transformations, sure, but... but I really like it? I don't know. It could just be wings to fly, wings to fly, wings to fly is so catchy, it could just be the epic music and moment from the Daiji/Kagerou moment, but it is probably one of my favourite final form debuts in a while. 

Episode 27: Stop It! Tyrant's Rampage and Violent Runaway

Obviously, this episode starts off with a rather typical 'new toy beats up the old toy' sequence, and it is pretty damn cathartic to see Holy Live beat the shit out of Demons-Olteca. Olteca runs off with his tail between his legs, but Vail tells the assembled cast something that the audience could already surmise -- that all the demons they've been beating is empowering Gifu, and with Gifu, all other demons. 

And, well, Vice immediately flips out at that, in that he transforms into Jack Revice and starts rampaging. Even poor little Lovekov is bashing her head against the wall when Sakura transforms! Jeanne and Holy Live end up fighting the berserking Revice, although they're rather obviously holding back so as not to hurt their big brother. 

After the requisite rider kick beating Jack Revice down, Vice ends up apologizing... but Ikki refuses to come out, leaving their body controlled by Vice (i.e. the human actor with cartoon devil horns) for this conversation. Then Mama Yukimi shows up and we have a nice, heartwarming little moment of them hugging it out, and Yukimi apologizing for keeping the secret of Kamen Rider Vail for so long... and then Sakura's dipshit Weekend classmate shows up and straight-up just tasers Ikki in the gut. It's both so shocking and hilarious at the same time. 

While Ikki is chained up in Weekend's dungeon, we get a rather neat moment of Ikki and Vice talking it out, with Ikki being surprisingly mature about it while Vice is wracked with guilt over the potential responsibility of causing Ikki to disappear. Again, nothing particularly groundbreaking, but very well-paced and executed. Ushijima Tasuke, the 'dad' of the cover family... is very entertaining. He's the sort of fanatical, hammy character that makes the exposition of Weekend's goals and Fenix's evilness pretty entertaining instead of it just being a recap, and there's a specific moment where he confronts Daiji that's pretty well-done.

Ultimately this whole sequence is just a way to catch everyone up -- Yukimi meets Karizaki senior, and Sakura realizes from her earlier confrontation with Aguilera that her 'purpose might be staring you in the face'. I'm not sure just how this applies to her joining Weekend, but I guess she's always been the sibling that doubted Fenix the most. Again, I do like this. Sakura's development and her eventual decision to come and seek out Weekend is a bit fraught and emotionally messy, but that fits with the mentality of a teenager who does feel a bit overwhelmed with her two older siblings, y'know?

Akaishi and Olteca meet each other, and Olteca basically realizes that with Gifu near revival, Akaishi and Gifu really have no need for Olteca anymore. We jump into an Olteca flashback, showing that he's... he's sort of a more sociopathic version of Death Note's Light Yagami, where he's so super-smart as a kid, but this just causes all the adults to shun him. Having a jackass of an abusive father doesn't help his mental state either. And, well, this is kind of juxtaposed with Akaishi himself also kind of 'using' Olteca in a way. 

Gifu itself (himself?) also starts to wake up, unleashing giant red tendrils that start eating random Fenix soldiers that are guarding the statue. Coffin. Thing. Olteca also goes into a random park and starts to stamp a whole bunch of civilians with the Gifu stamp, which... which we know just basically murders them all. As if the stamping and potential Gifterian-fication isn't enough, the Gifu statue itself shows up in the sky and starts eating the dead civilians with his tentacles. 

The three Igarashi siblings show up, and we get Live and Jeanne beating the hell out of the Gifterians. Olteca mocks the heroes for the futility of their fight, although, again, it rings a bit hollow since he's the one killing them. Ikki, however, is still chained up in Weekend's basement... but Vice ends up going berserk thanks to Gifu's awakening. As Gifu's power overwhelms Daiji and Sakura, we get a neat little confrontation between Olteca and Daiji, with Olteca ranting about how power and happiness can't be obtained without sacrificing other people, 

This episode ends up with all the players gathered in that forest -- the possessed Ikki-Vice Jack Revice shows up and starts rampaging. Aguilera shows up and begs Gifu, wondering about her original purpose of being the perfect Gifu vessel. Sakura and Daiji just want to rescue their brother above all... but this time, the double rider kick doesn't take. Again, this feels like a mid-season finale! And while Revice most certainly hasn't been perfectly paced, I really did enjoy these episodes a whole lot. 

Random Notes:

• When I first watched through this batch of episodes I wondered where the Anomalocaris Vistamp came from. Olteca removed it from the Driver, apparently, when Vail returned to the Demons Driver, so... Vail made it? I guess?
• In one of the 'whoa wtf' moments that's actually also simultaneously pretty cool, Fenix sets up like twelve machineguns in the Gifu chamber and opens fire at him. It really doesn't add anything major to the story, but I do find it fun. 
• We get a brief scene of Buu-san showing up and telling Ikki that he's going to take care of Papa and Mama Igarashi. I do really like this. It's a common trope -- that the recurring background character turns out to be competent -- but there are ways where it could be done right and there are ways that it could be eye-rolling. Buu-san is definitely the former. 
• Genta's real name is 'Shiranami Junpei', by the way. To know more about his backstory beyond that Buu-san and Karizaki Sr. tells us, there's the four-part mini-series Kamen Rider Vail!
• The Deadman cult is also apparently created from the remnants of Noah, which is something I completely missed the first time I watched this episode. 
• Wings to fly, wings to fly, wings to fly~ WING UP HOLY UP! WIND! WING! WINNING! Holy holy holy holy holeeeeee!
• Sakura randomly eating a giant onigiri is hilarious.
• So why doesn't Olteca rampage around a bit more and stamp a lot more people? If you have an instant-kill device like that to create Giffterians...  I guess it could be tied to Gifu's current power, but still. 
• I do like that while Holy Live does get beaten up basically shortly after his debut, he's also being beaten up by Gifu himself, i.e. the literal source of all demonic powers in the setting. He trounces Olteca and manages to beat Jack Revice with Jeanne's help in the beginning of the episode. 

Kamen Rider Revice 24-25 Review: Goddam George

Kamen Rider Revice, Episodes 24-25:

Episode 24: Bring Back Dr. Karizaki! Inverse Operation!

We continue the whole Ikki/Vice switching storyline, and... and it's okay? I don't really care for the slapstick gags of Vice trying to take over Ikki's job, or how George claims Ikki will die of hunger as a ghost, but they don't irritate me either. I guess it's to give us a bit of a sense of time since we're also taking some time to show that Gifu is nearing his resurrection and that some other characters like Sakura and George are taking some time to collect their thoughts. George has taken to investigating a bit about Papa Genta, and in a relatively long bathing scene, George brings up a couple of oddities that finally ties in to the bizarre "he has no heart!" X-ray scene from forever ago. At least this twist has been foreshadowed, even if Genta hasn't really done anything? 

Olteca and Aguilera continue their not-quite-partnership, though it's pretty clear that Aguilera isn't particularly happy with the arrangement. The demon within the Demons Driver is also seemingly on the same page with Olteca, and their evil plot for the two-parter is kidnapping George. And... and George himself kind of becomes the focus of this two-parter. I'm of two minds about this one, really. On one hand, I really do like the focus on George and that we're actually acknowledging just how shifty it is. On the other hand... beyond acknowledging it and Vice deciding to trust George at the end of episode 25, we... really don't get too much out of it? George decides to not be as much of a dick, I guess? But I suppose having an instant cure to the shadiness that George had when he gifted the clearly-dangerous Demons Driver to Hiromi would cheapen his 'sins', so to speak. 

I really do find it interesting that Vice is the one who's completely unwilling to trust George throughout this two-parter, while Ikki is the voice that trusts him. It boils down the conflict into something simple, but... but I really felt like George hasn't really "earned" this blind trust from Ikki, y'know? I felt like we're kind of missing a catalyst, unlike how Sakura or Hiromi's stronger moments had been throughout the show. 

Speaking of Sakura, she's meeting with George's dad, Karizaki Masumi. Apparently, the Rolling Vistamp was supposed to stop Vice from going berserk, but ends up with an unexpected soul-swapping side-effect. George meets Sakura and her Weekend friend, but before any real conclusion could be had, Olteca shows up, we get an action scene with a Giffterian, and George gets kidnapped by Olteca. George continues his whole 'I do this For Science!' nonsense, agreeing to help boost up Olteca while also warning the villain that the process of upgrading the Demons Driver would also alert Fenix to their location. 

I do like the little argument that Sakura, Vice and Ikki has about whether to trust George or not, and I feel like Ikki does a pretty great compromise -- agreeing to not do George's plan until Vice is completely satisfied, but also that they still have to save George from the Deadmans. We get an action scene as Olteca transforms into Kamen Rider Demons and fights Jeanne, and then Vice and Ikki kind of talk it out? Again, Ikki's speech about how George allowed them to become Kamen Rider Revice is a neat point and all, and George turns out to not have betrayed them and sabotaged the Demons Driver, but I also really do think it's not impactful enough. The moment is more about Ikki and Vice trusting each other more than George proving himself, and... I dunno. It just kind of feels off thanks to that. 

Anyway, Vice and Ikki swap places, he transforms into Jack Revice. I think he shows off a bizarre power for the first time of drawing some elemental symbols in the air and they transform into CGI blasts? Was Jack Revice able to do that before? Olteca gets bamboozled by George sabotaging his driver, allowing Jeanne and Revice to beat him and send him running away. We close off this episode with the revelation that Vice is now able to manifest in Ikki's body Kamen Rider Den-O style, represented by Ikki's actor wearing two tiny cartoonish horn accessories.

Episode 25: Revive! Vail!? Memories of The Igarashi Family

The enigmatic demon inside the Demons Driver finally makes his identity known as 'Vail', and ends up exploding out of the driver and leaving Olteca behind. This is apparently caused by George's tampering with the Demons Driver. George, meanwhile, is focusing on how he can split Ikki and Vice back to their original state, and we get an adorable mini-flashback of a young George... and even the little child actor says 'goddamn'! That's glorious! George gets some inspiration from a little children's science book about fossils or whatever, and decides to investigate Ikki's past... finding out about a mysterious incident with the Igarashi spa and a fire in their past.

Meanwhile, in the midst of Ikki/Vice civilian hijinks, Sakura and Daiji discuss about their 'secret'. I do like that Sakura was briefly panicked, thinking that Daiji has caught on to the fact that she's affiliated with Weekend, but Daiji's just discussing about how Kagerou's been acting up as Gifu's resurrection draws near. 

George tries to talk to the Igarashis about this mysterious bathhouse fire, but gets waylaid by Olteca, Aguilera and a couple of Giffterians. We get a triple-transformation and our heroes very easily beat up the Giffterians... but as they have been for the past couple of episodes, they explode into motes of light that get absorbed by Gifu. Only instead of merely being ominous, when it pulsates, all of the demons -- Vice, Lovekov and Kagerou -- all start to pulsate with Gifu. 

As the villains are about to take down the Igarashis, suddenly someone wearing a repainted Demons Driver show up -- it's Papa Genta! Except instead of the cringe-comedy wacko happy-go-lucky dad we're familiar with, Genta is all cold and calculating. Turns out that he's been controlled by the demon Vail, and he emotionlessly transform with the Kabuto Vistamp into Kamen Rider Vail. Kamen Rider Vail shows off some typical 'first debut overpowering' attacks by absolutely beating the shit out of two Giffterians who kind of show out of nowhere. In one of the cooler moves, Vail grabs one of the Giffterians by their Alien-esque head ridges and just squeezes it until it explodes. 

Olteca and Aguilera book it, but Vail doesn't seem to care for the Igarashi siblings at all, going straight to try and murder them. He recognizes Ikki and calls him 'boy', and after Ikki's earlier comment about how he remembers nothing about the fire, it's clear that some sort of memory suppression is going on here. There's a neat moment of Daiji and Sakura trying to protect Ikki even when not transformed, but, of course, Genta takes over the body just in time, forcibly undoing the transformation before passing out. Buu-san of all people turn out to be in the conspiracy, and helps to recover Genta. I really do like this, by the way. That all these seemingly-pointless recurring characters turn out to be somewhat significant in the greater scheme of things.

The shock of meeting Vail has jogged Ikki's memory, and he gives some exposition to Sakura, Daiji and George about the mysterious Igarashi fire. It's honestly a pretty interestingly interwoven backstory that feels kind of organic. There's a fair amount of little hints about how the Igarashi siblings were special (they can transform with no side-effects, unlike Hiromi) and all, and the handwave about contracts and memory loss does help to somewhat smooth over why Ikki and Vice never mentioned any of these in the past. We get the revelation that Kamen Rider Vail, at one point, rampaged and set Happy Spa on fire, and very nearly killed little Ikki. That was when Vice manifested for the first time, helping to beat Vail while also suppressing Ikki's traumatic memories of the incident. George also ties in some backstory too, noting about how Karikazi Senior and Genta were part of a government organization that initially uncovered Gifu and then tried to reverse-engineer Gifu's powers, instead creating the Vail Driver and Kamen Rider Vail instead. We get the explanation that Genta is a special being -- his heart had been laced with Gifu DNA by Karizaki Senior in order to save his life, which is why he's able to transform into Kamen Rider Vail. 

Ultimately, it's a bit sudden, but I do appreciate that this is all given to us at this point to really shake up the story a bit more than just fighting Deadmen and Gifu minions. Not every hero needs to have an elaborate backstory, but I do kind of like that it's the parents that are involved in this. Genta, in particular, is basically just a mixture of the original Kamen Rider Ichigo backstory with Kamen Rider Kuuga's 'ancient hidden demon' power source, isn't it? Ultimately, I did like this revelation a fair bit. While it's a bit clunky and awkward, I did appreciate how this episode basically ties in all the disparate plot threads of Revice -- Fenix, Happy Spa and Gifu -- into one. 

Random Notes:

• I tried to think of a funny Orphnoch 'drinking heart' joke for Genta, but couldn't think up of a good one. 
• I guess the whole 'Vice going berserk' was why Jack Revice behaved like Hazard Build or PuToTyranno? 
• Sakura's Weekend friend is called Ushijima Hikaru. He really doesn't leave much of an impression, does he?
• I really like how George says 'daddy' all the time. But more than that, I really like that his immediate reaction to anything bizarre is just a loud 'GODDAAAAAAAMN!'
• I don't exactly remember if one of the other Kamen Rider shows did it before, but I do like the little spin-around of Ikki and Vice switching places. I think it's a shot lifted from the opening.
• If Vail isn't in the Demons Driver, would it still be functional?
• Episode 24 and 25 has scenes of Olteca forcibly turning cultists into Giffterians and Aguilera is clearly upset about that, actually trying to stop Olteca in 25. It's a couple of neat little showcases of how Aguilera is slowly defrosting and presumably going to join our heroes in the near future.
• Where Vice spasms and Kagerou presumably tries to take over, Lovekov's little 'berserking' just consists of her ramming against Jeanne ineffectually. Bless you, mascot character.  
• I really like Kamen Rider Vail's design, by the way. The insect-elytra cape only on one arm, and the design of the side-profile of a beetle running up from one arm all the way to the horn jutting out the side of the face; and the side of the beetle motif on Vail's mouth becoming some kind of gas mask... it's such an unconventional, asymmetric design. 

Moon Knight S01E04 Review: Journey to the Center of the Mind

Moon Knight, Season 1, Episode 4: The Tomb

This one is an interesting episode, I feel, and one that I think is an episode a lot of my friends pointed to in saying how Moon Knight works better as a binge show. After the exposition-heavy episodes 2 and 3, "The Tomb" spends around half its runtime basically just... decompressing. There's a lot of neat panoramic shots of the Egyptian desert, a bunch of Indiana Jones style ruin spelunking and some honestly eye-rolling love triangle between Marc, Steven and Layla. It's neat television, but it's nowhere as engaging as the previous three episodes, y'know? And I don't really think I'm missing much by handwaving a lot of the first half of the episode. Oscar Isaac and May Calamawy are competent and engaging enough actors that the scenes never quite get boring, but they're also not as gripping as the previous episodes, you know what I mean?

Admittedly, the mummy stalking Layla in that ridge is suitably creepy, and I got some laughs out of Marc shoving around in Alexander the Great's mummy mouth, and I suppose if you're engaged with the Steven/Layla shipping you might be more invested, but I wasn't, so I was actually twiddling my thumbs a bit throughout the first half. For the writers' credit, though, there's really not much Moon Knight superhero activities you can do when Marc/Steven can't actually transform into Moon Knight at the moment. 

(After the Loki/Sylvie alternate-timeline-doppelganger stuff, now we have a love triangle involving two different parts of a split personality. Man, they're just trying to have as many weird-ass romance relationships as possible in the MCU canon, huh?)

I was definitely far, far more interested with the drama revolving around the revelation of how Marc Spector was involved in the death of Layla's father. Layla has been a constant presence throughout these episodes, but beyond being a competent fighter-slash-archaeologist I really didn't find her particularly engaging at all. So it's absolutely nice to have some drama unrelated to the weird split-personality romance. It's, again, pretty basic as far as these things go -- but it's pretty fun stuff. A lot of the themes in these Moon Knight episodes and the general dynamic between Layla and Marc revolve around how much secrets Marc has been keeping from Layla (so much that the 'Steven Grant' persona seems to be born out of honesty, as the show lampshades) and Marc keeping such a large and crucial information from his wife does give us some interesting drama. I also do like Arthur Harrow's minimal but impactful role in pushing Layla basically over the edge and getting her to confront Marc.

And then Marc gets shot and dies!

And then wakes up in an asylum!

All this imagery in the asylum segment brings me a lot of fond memories of Legion's excellent first season, which... which goes all out with the bizarreness and the trippiness of the concept. And honestly, after so many different superhero comics, shows and manga, this isn't particularly weird for me personally, but I did really love the balls on the show for basically diverting half the episode to running around in this... whatever this asylum is. 

Now obviously the superhero show about a superhero isn't going to have the twist that everything is all in a mental patient's mind all along. But the fact that Marc and Steven have been struggling so much with their mental issues throughout the season does really make it somewhat plausible -- in-universe -- for Marc to be dreaming all of this. Layla is the pretty nurse that takes care of him, Harrow is the well-meaning but strict doctor that 'shot' him up with anesthetics, Steven Grant is based on the persona of a bombastic Indiana-Jones-style movie, the Egyptian references are thanks to the hospital's decor, 'Moon Knight' looks like an action figure Marc is holding, he's bound to his wheelchair the same way that Steven finds himself bound to his bed...

It all really fits well into the mind-screwy themes of Moon Knight the character, and I absolutely love that the episode doesn't drag it out too long before revealing that, yeah, this asylum is... some sort of trippy dimension. As Marc runs out of "Doctor Harrow" and his office, chased by the orderlies that are played by the same actors that played Harrow's cultists in previous episodes, he stumbles into a sarcophagus and releases Steven Grant, allowing both Moon Knight personalities to interact. Joyous!

Which means that this 'asylum' is either a representation of Marc's mind (a la Crazy Jane's mind-world in Doom Patrol) or how he interprets the Egyptian afterlife. A lot of intentionally confusing stuff are thrown at us all at once -- including the showcase of the third sarcophagus with ominous rattling noises, which is totally the blackout persona that killed the cultists without Marc or Steven knowing in episode 2. Khonshu? Jake Lockley? Someone else? We'll find out. In the meantime, it's great seeing the two personalities get to interact with each other this much. 

And then the episode ends with the glorious gag of something ominous approaching them, and it's the hippo-headed goddess Taweret... voiced with the sweetest voice ever while both Steven and Marc scream their heads off. End scene. 

And... and it all hinges upon the revelations that we'll be having in episode 5 (which at the moment I haven't watched) but I do really like this. It's such an unconventional way to 'twist' the show beyond just Egyptian gods, split personalities and vigilante fighting. I actually did find the first half of the episode relatively dull if we're being honest, but the twist -- even though no one in the audience believes that Marc will permanently die from the gunshot or that this is all in a mental patient's mind -- was executed pretty well. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Less of a Marvel easter egg, but more of a mythology easter egg -- the hippo-headed lady is most assuredly Taweret, Egyptian goddess of childbirth and fertility.
• Layla's comic-book counterpart, Marlene Alraune, had a similar backstory to Layla where her father was an archaeologist that was killed due to some altercation that involves a mercenary group that Marc Spector was part of. I'm not sure if they're going to be adapting Raoul Bushman into this season or saving it for later Moon Knight outings, though. 

One Piece 1047 Review: Countdown to the Finale!

One Piece, Chapter 1047: The Sky Over the Capital

We have been spoiled over the past couple of chapters, huh? And this one reverts a bit back to a setup chapter, which... is kind of unfortunate since it's kind of stuck between two break weeks. It's all right, though -- as you guys could see, I'm enjoying the Wano anime immensely, and we're about to hit Roof Piece soon in this week's episode, apparently! I'm so excited!

So this chapter begins with Momonosuke focus and... and we've been going back and forth to Momonosuke for quite some time ever since he became a dragon. And... and I think in the next couple of chapters we'll have a proper payoff to all of this? We get to see a flashback to the past where even before jumping through time, Momonosuke was bawling his eyes out because 'he's a child', while Kin'emon is in tears begging Momonosuke for a chance to 'die as samurai'. Again, I'm pretty sure all these themes aboutj 'dying as a samurai' or 'living to struggle another day' that has been brought up by the Scabbards, Kaido,  Usopp and Yamato will all come to a head in the next couple of chapters. 

The actual Luffy-vs-Kaido fight this time around honestly kind of feels more of the same, although to be fair nothing's ever going to top the insanity of chapters 1045 and 1046. The main thing here, of course, is Luffy just casually being able to rubberify even lightning itself, grabbing one and chucking it at Kaido like he's goddamn Zeus. He also vaults around a lightning bolt like it's a pillar at one point when Kaido whacks him around. 

There's an interesting bit of dialogue where Kaido confirms that Gol D. Roger doesn't have a Devil Fruit and yet somehow manages to conquer the ocean, and Kaido claims that Haki is everything -- which I suppose is true since Wano has been an arc all about Haki -- Ryuo and Conqueror Haki infusion and all that. I guess there's a contrast to how Luffy fought Kaido in his base form earlier in 'Roof Piece', doing Haki infusion without transforming? While now he's transformed into Gear Fifth but isn't actively infusing Haki or something?

I also really like that Kaido isn't just... immediately overwhelmed. There's still a goddamn fight even with Gear Fifth. Kaido still manages to speed-rush Luffy and bash his head in while shit-talking him. He unleashes an attack called "Destroyer of Death Thunder Bagua" -- another attack named after a Buddhist deity, this time specifically Daiitoku/Yamantaka. Luffy gets whacked around and there's a fun panel where he rubberifies Kaido's chest and tries to drag him along with him as he gets thrown into the skies. Kaido unleashes some Demolition Gust attacks and highlights that Luffy is still vulnerable to slashing attacks -- and we actually get to see him bleed. So yeah, there are still ways to hurt even the Sun God, then. Again, I really like this. As cathartic it is to see some shonen anime protagonists basically be invincible, that's just... just kinda boring when you know the hero can just effortlessly curbstomp the enemy, y'know?

Just like the Momonosuke bit earlier, we actually get another shot of the people in the Flower Capital. It's... it's something that we've seen time and time again throughout the arc, a constant reminder that, hey, these people are celebrating in their once-a-year festival and they have no idea that there's a literal war in a floating island above their heads. We get to see them finally letting the candle-balloons into the sky as they celebrate the dead. I did really think that we do cut to these people in the capital a bit too much over the arc, but it is important to highlight this, since it's finally building up to the entire citizenship of Wano finally, finally witnessing Luffy and Momonosuke fight Kaido in the skies. 

Likewise, we get a short scene of Hyogoro and the other samurai reaffirming how they are 'ready to die' and all that. Again, not super crucial, just a bit more buildup. I really do like that there's the themes of sacrifice and death consistently throughout this arc, something that I felt was kind of lacking during the Dressrosa arc's equivalent to this where everyone's just yelling at Luffy to save them without too much of a unifying theme.

And then Orochi... gets his nail knocked off loose, and he's looming over Hiyori. Not going to lie, I am kinda pissed off against this, but I guess that's just because I was really invested in Hiyori killing Orochi? But that is a cool panel of him transforming into serpent Orochi wreathed in fire (and notably he only has one visible head now) and Denjirou has been MIA for literally the entire year, so it's kinda telegraphed that this is going to be his big moment. Oh well.

The chapter ends with seemingly what's telegraphed to be The (tm) Final Blow, with Luffy creating a gigantic fist similar to that King King King Kong Gun from the Stampede movie, a giant fist that oversizes even Onigashima itself, and yelling at Momonosuke to move the island. With everything essentially set up for all the final parts of the arc to finally move, we're fully into the endgame -- I'm going to assume the writer is shooting for a 1050 ending? Pretty cool stuff, I'm eagerly awaiting Wano's conclusion for sure. 

Random Notes:

• Yeah, that fucker Kanjurou's among the crying Scabbards next to Kin'emon. Fuck him!
• Luffy lobbing lightning at Kaido is called "Gomu Gomu Lightning", which... yeah, he has trouble coming up with new attack names apparently last chapter, so I suppose he's just keeping it simple. I guess even Luffy has to do some research to look for an appropriate obscure firearm. 
• Speaking of attack names, I did some research into the "Wisdom Kings" or Myo'o deities. There's a subset among them called the 'Five Guardian Kings', and so far Kaido's used attacks named after four of them -- Kosanze Ragnaraku (after Gozanze); Gundari Ryuseigun (after Gundali); Kongo Kabura (after Kongoyasha) and this Daiitoku Raimei Hakke (after Daiitoku). 
• The fifth missing one is Fudo Myoo, or Acalanātha, who represents the center while the other fourth represents the four cardinal directions. So I guess whatever Kaido's final attack is going to be is going to be named after him. 
• Once I get caught up with the One Piece anime, it'll be kind of free-for-all on what I watch. I'm either going to catch up on My Hero Academia, do one of the superhero TV shows, or maybe do a single-season watch-through of... either Demon Slayer or Jujutsu Kaisen. Both shows that had received great animes, but also ones I'm more familiar with from the manga. It really depends on my mood. 

One Piece Anime: Wano Arc, Episodes 1005-1010

Even more Wano goodness! I'm actually almost caught up with where the anime is, huh?

Episode 1005

• New opening! This one's called PAINT. I think I like 'Over the Top' more, but I really do like the animation for this one.
• I know we still have the entirety of Roof Piece and the 1v1 after this, but man, it's so satisfying to see Kaido's eyes twitch as his wound splurts with blood. I also feel like his dragon form's animation was super smooth in this episode, or is that just me?
• Not a whole ton to say about this one, honestly -- it's just a pretty decent adaptation of the Ice Oni sequence, albeit with a couple expected extended scenes -- like Zoro recognizing one of the nameless samurai he met before as one of the Ice Oni, or the other Straw Hats giving more exposition on why the plague is so evil. There's nothing particularly wrong with the Ice Oni sub-plot, I just really don't have much to say about it. 
• Luffy and Sanji fighting Briscola is extended a bit to make the 'why did the gorilla grow like that' joke a bit funnier. 
• Okay, I'm guessing a lot of the Flower Capital celebration scenes will be used over and over again in the many times we cut back there, but those are some pretty shots for sure. The anime also makes it a point to give short lines to the secondary characters like the carpenter that employed Franky or that one grandma from Okobore town and stuff, making it feel a bit less abstract. 
• ...clearly, Ashura Doji's the only one of the Scabbards with a brain. Everyone was straight-up celebrating that Kaido's fallen! I get it, it's for dramatic effect for when Kaido actually wakes up and starts breathing out wind sickles, but come on. 
• Kaido chomping at the moon and devouring the image of Oden is a very cool one. 

Episode 1006

• I've been reading the Wano arc for years now and I've only realized when watching this episode that it's called the 'right brain tower'. Because the island is a giant skull.
• Yeah, okay, Yamato/Momo/Shinobu scenes are starting to kinda grate -- Shinobu's fake ninja walls are kinda neat, I guess, but otherwise...
• "THIS IS FOR KILLING PAY-TAN!!!" God, I love Ulti. What a goober.
• I remember the rhino-centaur, the four-armed stag beetle guy, crab-lady and hedgehog guy from Sasaki's armoured squadron. I think turtle-centaur guy was in the manga, too. But... but was that fucking guy whose had is attached to a... a train? With tank treads? What the fuck is that guy?
• The fight with the turtle-centaur-Viking is a bit more extended here for sure. Man, poor Shinobu. I really feel bad for her.
• Yamato taking down the turtle centaur is given way more animation budget than it deserves. Not that I'm complaining, holy shit. 
• Jigoku Biwa just straight-up capping people in the heads. The headshots actually explode in blood! Honestly, I am kind of surprised. 
• "Why didn't you mention Black Leg?!" is still kind of an understated joke here, though I guess it works better like that?
• Yes. Hamlet and Fourtricks' debut is actually set up like a badass monologue before we get to see how ridiculous they are. I approve. I don't know what my mind expected them to sound like, but... but this is most certainly not it. 
• So Kaido just... just watches while Kin'emon and Izo cauterize Kiku's wound? It's a scene that happens in the manga, too, but it's different to see the aftermath of it in one panel and to actually see the whole scene with a giant dragon coiling in the background. 

Episode 1007

• Make some noise. Queen's spontaneous rapping is pretty entertaining, if I say so myself. 
• They're not like, suddenly as memorable as the Scabbards or Tobi Roppo or anything, but I do like that the yakuza bosses actually have a bit of a presence in the anime so when Ohmasa gets infected I'm like 'oh yeah, that guy with the whiskers' instead of going 'who?'
• QUEEEEEEEN PRESENTS! GAME TIME! 
• I absolutely love that Apoo's moment of realization that Queen fucked him up is accompanied with a reprise of Queen's Zoom Zoom Zoom Zoom song. 
• Yeah, Sulong Nekomamushi and Inuarashi look so much cooler with their glowing Super Saiyan attacks in the anime. 
• That poor porcupine gifter! I actually feel bad for him. 

Episode 1008

• We actually see Marco vs. Big Mom! It's just Marco blocking a Prometheus attack and stuff, but... but yeah, I didn't know I needed that. Marco's blue flame actually managed to overwhelm Prometheus! Poor Prometheus got knocked down with X's on his eyes. 
• Big Mom has Zeus around her other arm as a knuckleduster. I don't understand why she doesn't just beat the shit out of Marco instead of telling Perospero to shoot Marco with a candy arrow. 
• Okay, I don't like Apoo, but respect to him -- he actually managed to block Drake and Zoro with his tonfas for quite a bit. 
• "Pay-tan, I'm sorry, I apologize!" "Don't call me Pay-tan!'
• The anime makes it a bit more clear that the thing that causes Usopp and Nami to stand back and stop running is Page One and Ulti talking about how the King of Pirates is going to be Kaido. It's a stupid move on their part, but respect on them standing their ground for Luffy. 
• They play out Brook being infected (harmlessly) by the ice oni virus with some glorious overacting from Brook's voice-actor. I love it. We have the most hilarious remix of Bink's Sake winding down after Brook does his monologue. 
• The Ulti "vs" Usopp and Nami fight is extended a bit more, and I do really like it. There are some really cool sequences like Ulti busting up that hot spring rock formation, or Nami and Usopp at least unleashing some attacks on Ulti, and the anime prolonging Ulti's beatdown on the two Straw Hats... I've always thought Nami refusing to sell out Luffy even with a lie is one of the low-key strongest moments of the Onigashima Raid, and I appreciate that it's actually given almost half an episode to play out. 
• The flashback to Luffy's first meeting with Nami during the fucking Buggy arc -- 'the resolve to put your life on the line'... whichever member of the anime staff realized that it's the perfect line to put in here, you deserve a raise. 
• Amazing voice-acting from Nami's voice actor, too, really selling someone who's scared as shit but refusing to sell out Lluffy. 
• Okay, the comedy bit with Ulti hugging Page One's spinosaur snout while dripping corrosive acid is actually kinda funny. 
• Oh yeah, the X-ray to Usopp's skull will never not make me recoil a bit inside. 

Episode 1009

• It really is a moment that's followed up with poor Carrot's off-screen defeat, but I very much appreciate the anime extending this moment for Carrot and Wanda taking out Perospero temporarily with their Sulong forms. Focusing on Carrot's grief, as well as a bit of a conflict that lampshades that they were supposed to join the rooftop raid against Kaido...
• It's still kind of a weird transition, though, with Big Mom going 'shoot him, Perospero!' to 'well lol this seems to be your problem, have fun fighting these angry women'. Like, she doesn't even do the simple thing of snapping Marco's neck and just kind of... buggers off into the castle. 
• Carrot's transformation into Sulong under the Wano animation team is clean. 
• "A dog shouldn't eat a dragon! It goes against the natural order of things!"
• I love that Nami gets to turn the tables on Usopp's running gag of throwing his voice to get her into trouble. 
• "It's a good thing that I'm okay!" God bless you, Nami. 
• Wait, do real riot shields have those holes for gun rifles to poke out through?
• Yamato showing off her fangs is given a lot more emphasis and an actual foreshadowing to the specific nature of her powers. That's cool! 
• Narikabura!

Episode 1010

• Okay, the heartbeats or whatever forming words in the prologue for Law to represent Rocinante's words is something I didn't expect... but is an absolutely cool visual effect. 
• I'm also a huge fan of the static distortion effect on the entire screen whenever Kid uses his magnet powers. That's very cool. 
• Poker's apparently in the manga. I don't remember him at all! Kid really didn't have the time or power to one-shot him? Really?
• This is like the third time we see Nekomamushi and Inuarashi lose their Sulong forms after Kaido blocks their attack. I know some amount of animation reuse is to be expected, but jeez. 
• Kin'emon remembering their escape, leaving Oden in that pot to die, adds extra weight to what's otherwise just him being bashed in the face.
• It's also still mostly offscreen, just like how it was in the manga, but at least the animation team didn't skimp on showing Kaido himself, exuding purple energy blasts as he beats the shit out of the other Scabbards to the ground off-screen. 
• ...is this sequence the first time Zoro even met Big Mom? The anime actually has an extra shot of the two of them locking eyes for a bit. 
• Zoro getting sick of all the 'games' gets an extra oomph due to the sheer difference in the vibes of the rooftop scene and the intensity of the voice-acting and background music... as opposed to Queen and his rambunctious background music and wacky rapping and stuff. Giving us a scene of Zoro reacting and realizing all of this as the world becomes grayscale all around him is also extremely powerful. 
• Zoro cutting down Apoo is... holy fuck, the glint in his eyes, the music building up, slowly cutting down random ice oni, and the simple one-shot... still badass as all hell. I absolutely love how Apoo completely misreads Zoro's absolute I'm-done-with-this-shit phase as some 'hey, he's a honour-over-reason type!'
• That brief aura of random green angry lions before Zoro strikes is beautiful. So is the... however the hell that motion-lines zoom-in to Zoro's face and sword, the smoke exploding from impact, before he one-shots Apoo. Oh, and also the scene going to Apoo's POV for a moment before his glasses -- and our screen -- cracks. 
• I love that Sanji being fooled by the 'woman in distress' trick is given some Observation Haki effects.

Moon Knight S01E03 Review: Gods of Egypt

Moon Knight, Season 1, Episode 3: The Friendly Type

Another interesting episode where this one's also pretty exposition-heavy, but in completely different ways. Episode 2 focused on telling us about Marc and Steven's Dissociative Identity Disorder; the identity of Khonshu; plus a little bit about Layla and Harrow. Here, our primary focus is the Egyptian gods and how they work in the Marvel universe. 

With Marc Spector at the helm of the mind, he goes around beating the hell out of Ammit cultists. And where Marc was a somewhat sinister presence haunting panicked Steven Grant's mind last episode, this episode Steven Grant becomes Marc's personal Jiminy Cricket, telling him through reflections how he shouldn't be going around murderizing people. Except a literal skull-headed mummy god with the best sarcastic voice ever is constantly telling Marc to do exactly that. 

The rooftop battle is particularly great, and I do love the implication that there's a third personality that neither Marc nor Steven are aware of that ended up causing the violence in one of their blanks. That's not the mystery for this episode to solve, though. 

Also, this episode really made me appreciate what a riot Khonshu is. Sure, his CGI isn't particularly convincing in the daytime scenes (that floating skull works best when half-shadowed) but I really love F. Murray Abraham's vocal performance, bringing along a simultaneously dry wit and the required menace for Moon Knight's mystical mentor. 

The relatively large setpiece in this episode involves a meeting of the Ennead gods -- or at least five of them. The Egyptian gods have taken a vow of noninvolvement with humanity, but they are still willing to judge the affairs of their gods. It's... it's honestly pretty typical as far as these scenes go, and while it is admittedly a bit underwhelming compared to major-budget MCU movies, it's miles better than the Shou-Lao we didn't get for Netflix's Iron Fist. Admittedly, as much as I love lore-bomb scenes like these, the Ennead trial scene does feel a bit clunky and somewhat forced. It doesn't distract me all that much, but compared to how well-done Moon Knight has been delivering its exposition, it does admittedly feel a bit weaker. There's a fair amount of awkward 'as you know' to explain Khonshu's relation to the other gods; shouldn't it be better shown as Steven or Marc discovering these facts themselves?

(If the show hasn't already made you realize that Harrow's a villain with his casual murdering of people for sins they haven't committed, then shoving Marc's mental illness as a reason to dismiss every point he's making should make it clear that, yes, Harrow's a dickbag)

Anyway, the trial ends up finding Harrow not guilty for anything. It's just an excuse to show that Khonshu can piss off the other gods by manipulating celestial signs like solar eclipses, and for Hathor to give our heroes the next clue in their Indiana Jones style clue-hunting globe-trotting mission, which sends them off to hunt down the mummy of Senfu. 

We do get some fun scenes between Layla and Marc. Layla notes how terrible Marc is at both archaeology and trying to blend into the Egyptian populace, and I do like that all throughout the episode, in the guise of playing it up as a bit of a 'shut up, nerd' between Marc, Khonshu and Steven, the fact that Steven's a huge Egyptian archaeology buff ends up becoming important in the final act of this episode. It's a neat way to make Steven a necessary component of the team, so to speak, instead of just reducing him to a wet blanket. 

Layla brings Marc to the rich criminal/collector Anton Mogart (played by the late Gaspard Ulliel, to whom this episode is dedicated to) who chews the scenery pretty well. This scene does drag on a bit long, but I do appreciate Marc stubbornly trying to do things his way and demanding that Steven tell him what to do when Steven himself would've solved the riddle a lot faster. Of course, the tables are turned when Steven morphs into Mr. Knight during the fight and tries his whole non-violence schtick with the trained cultists... and gets speared three times for his trouble. That's some black comedy that I actually find hilarious. 

I didn't quite like this fight scene quite as much as I did Mr. Knight's first debut and his later transformation to Moon Knight in episode 2, although actually having stakes with Anton Mogart technically being a named antagonist and having Layla run around in the background beating up Mogart's main bodyguard does make this a bit more eventful... though I will never not find that scene of Marc hardening his cape to deflect the bullets back at his attackers not awesome. 

(There's also Harrow dropping casual revelations about how Marc apparently killed Layla's father -- something Marc denies later on but obviously going to be an important aspect of the plot going forwards)

After that battle is over and Harrow is back with his cultists at Ammit's Tomb (I'm not sure what happened to Mogart, I guess he just rides off?), we get a pretty cool sequence where Marc finally lets Steven Grant out, and he figures out that the mummy sarcophagus is actually a constellation map. And in a neat callback to the earlier eclipse, Khonshu ends up reversing the sky in a pretty cool way to incorporate sci-fi and magic together. "I remember that night. I remember every night." Khonshu claims, before helping Moon Knight to essentially rewind time to show the position of the skies and therefore, Ammit's Tomb. This honestly pretty cool moment is juxtaposed with the other five Ennead gods sealing Khonshu in stone, robbing our poor multi-minded hero from their pigeon companion. 

Overall, it's admittedly a lot slower than the first two episodes, and the exposition a bit more clunky, but... again, I still really enjoyed this episode a lot. The pacing is a bit off, perhaps, but I've seen worse, and overall I feel like some degree of exposition is definitely needed considering the rather esoteric subjects we are dealing with here relative to most of Marvel's usual output. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• The avatars of the Egyptian gods Horus, Isis, Tefnut and Yatzil appear here. Among the other gateways is a cat-themed one -- one of the most famous Egyptian gods associated with cats is Bast, but in the Marvel universe (and especially the MCU), Bast is very much associated with the Black Panther. 
• When Anton Mogart gets hit by Moon Knight, midnight clock bells are distinctly heard. Mogart's comic-book supervillain name is the Midnight Man. 

Kamen Rider Revice E22-23 Review: Comedy Duo

Kamen Rider Revice, Episodes 22-23:

Episode 22: Slam-Bang Kuki Kaidan

After the huge status quo shaking episode 21, we... take a break by having a wacky-hijinks two-parter. These two episodes kind of highlight how everyone's sort of... dealing with their own problem? Kagerou and Vice are acting up in their own ways -- albeit a bit more non-maliciously in Vice's case. Aguilera seems just lost and shoos poor Julio away while she's trying to figure herself out. There's a neat little showcase of how our heroes don't quite forgive George just yet, although they're nice enough to take into account that George is paying respects to his allegedly-deceased dad on the one-year anniversary of his death. We also get some scenes in the middle of the movie of Daiji and the lady-doctor kind of mourning Hiromi's death, which I thought was pretty nice. 

Aguilera ends up meeting Olteca and teaming up with him, and I do like that the show makes it kind of clear that Aguilera drove away Julio to essentially protect him. Julio ends up working in the Happy Spa and hanging out there, because... he just doesn't have anywhere to go? 

But all this ends up being secondary to the two-parter's plot to show up, and... it's typical tokusatsu fare. People from a certain occupation show up as they're being terrorized by monsters, and our occupation-of-the-week is a comedy duo. Very Aruto ja nai to. I miss Kamen Rider Zero-One. 

...I don't really have much to say about the actual sequence of them investigating the comedy duo. There are some expected gags, there is the obligatory red herrings, and both Ikki and Vice are energetic enough to work for the cringe-comedy. They're no Hiden Aruto, of course, but Aruto stands on a different pinnacle of comedy. I guess I just really don't quite care for the guest star comedians to be really invested in the story? 

The action scene has our heroes fight against some retooled Deadman suits -- a hammerhead shark and a regular elephant. After a showcase of some of the other forms, this ends up being the showcase of the Zero-One based Neo Batta form, which... okay, the fact that Vice has halves of Zero-One's mask as gauntlets is really distracting. We even get a Zero-One style final finisher subtitle. We get to see more Vice spasming as Gifu continues his resurrection. And then Ikki gets his next upgrade item, the Rolling Vistamp... from someone that's definitely not George. George himself gets absolutely bamboozled when he sees that item being used later on. 

As we continue our investigation and we get the third-act fight against the Deadmans, Vice conitnues going into convulsions and Ikki uses the Rolling Vistamp... and they transform into a brand-new form... the first form where they kind of combine, leading to "Jack Revice". And... it's a pretty cool form! I always love these evil, 'Hazard Build' esque darker forms, and I do like the sheer brutality as all sorts of ink just splatters all over the place. And, of course, when Jack revice de-henshins, he turns into Vice instead of Ikki.

Episode 23: Vice Takes Over... Betrayal After All?

...we have established that Vice isn't evil at all, though, so despite the brutality that we saw Jack Revice unleash upon the Deadmans, we know that Ikki himself isn't really in danger. It's played up more for gags, though I do like that there's a bit of seriousness with Daiji being concerned about Vice taking over the body. Again, we do get some pretty fun sequences of Ikki being the ghost talking to Vice, but Vice ends up seemingly going into rampage and buggering off. 

As Vice-Ikki buggers off, this all essentially leads to George realizing that there's a third party being in contact with the Igarashis. And, well, the Weekend family ends up coming to Happy Spa in their civilian guises, and essentially leak intel to them. Daiji and Sakura end up fighting Olteca and Aguilera... and I do like the little bits of Aguilera being actually happy that Julio is basically being taken after by Sakura. Olteca-Demons is still basically overpowering everyone, knocking around poor Daiji and Sakura. Kagerou ends up manifesting to protect Sakura from Olteca, or, ostensibly, to protect Sakura's curry-making skills. It's a nice little return of Kamen Rider Evil, while also building up the fact that the demons are essentially getting a bit stronger as Gifu gets more powerful. 

Their little discussion about how Julio is being thrown aside 'on purpose' gets Daiji thinking and realizing that Vice is basically doing the same thing, and Vice is basically protecting Ikki from Fenix. All this 'everything we do is protecting those that is precious to us' ends up being the clue for the rest of the comedy duo plot-of-the-week, because the contract holder turns out to be the lady that's a huge fan of the constantly-failing comedy duo team, wanting to get rid of their competition to protect their reputation and employment. With Vice back to his goofy self, we get him destroying the two deadmans and the contract holder is arrested, but Vice still remains in control of their shared body. 

The episode ends with Sakura confronting Weekend, coming to the right conclusion that they're the ones behind the Rolling Vistamp, and that they are trying to do something. Sakura ends up coming face to face with Weekend's leader... a masked man with a black-and-white Deathstroke mask who introduces himself as "Karizaki". 

Ultimately... not the strongest two-parter, I feel. I really do like the debut of Jack Revice, but I guess a combination of the rather bland, formulaic plot-of-the-week does make this two-parter feel a bit weaker. I also felt like Vice 'going on a rampage' felt a bit forced and episode 23 kind of drags on a bit thanks to that. I did really like Jack Revice going on a rampage at the end of 22, and Kagerou/Evil's unexpected return in 23, but ultimately it's clear that this is just a bit of a breather while we build up both Weekend and the demons going a bit crazy. 

Random Notes:

• The Kuki Kaidan is an actual Japanese stand-up comedy duo. I am completely unaware of who they are, though, and I feel like their presence doesn't really add too much to this two-parter. 
• Episode 22 has a brief showcase of George giving Ikki the "Neo Batta" stamp, which apparently debuted in the Beyond Generations movie. We even get a brief shot of 'future fossil Kari-chan', which I assume will show up in that movie.
• In retrospect, episode 22 showing George talk about his dead dad is kind of a dead giveaway that said dead dad would actually appear in the show, huh? For whatever reason, I thought that Deathstroke-mask Karizaki is a clone or some sort of future time-traveling George Karizaki. 
• The shadowed mannequins where Olteca and Aguilera meet is kind of simple, but pretty creepy. I approve. 
• I don't quite get the gag for the 'rolling' vistamp. There's normally some sort of pun involved in these things. 
• "Hashtag Nice Vice!"

Moon Knight S01E02 Review: Get Out of My Head

Moon Knight, Season 1, Episode 2: Summon the Suit

The second episode of Moon Knight is a bit slower compared to the very excellent first episode, but amidst way too many reviews warning that 'the series goes downhill after the first episode', I found this to be... perfectly respectable? I suppose I perhaps have a much higher tolerance for sub-par superhero shows after literal years of reviewing so many of them, but I did really enjoy this episode of Moon Knight. Perhaps not quite as much as the first one, which had the great allure of basically being a horror story. Episodes 2 and 3 onwards start to unravel the mystery behind the horror, the little man behind the giant floating head, and that might cause some viewers to feel like some of the magic is gone. 

But not me -- I know full well what we're getting into when we're getting into Moon Knight. Egyptian gods and multiple identities and instant suit transformations leading to crescent-moon-a-rangs being used as weapon. 

A lot of 'Summon the Suit' builds up on what's already established in episode 1, and sees how poor, beleaguered sweet gift-shop-guy Steven Grant deals with the strange 'dream' of the first episode where he transforms into a badass hooded magic-mummy vigilante. After the expected comedic routine of Steven Grant showing the museum staff of... absolutely nothing, because the anubis-jackal CGI monster was apparently invisible to us normal mortals. Steven Grant gets laid off, and the poor, confused bloke ends up stumbling into more and more signs of Marc Spector's double-life -- including finding the scarab plot device and having certain conversations with Marc Spector, who starts giving the audience a fair amount of exposition about their true nature -- that they're the avatar of the Egyptian god Khonshu. The multiple-personality thing is something that Steven shouldn't even be aware of, but now he's in control and he's not too willing to listen to the untrustworthy, potentially-psychopathic alter ego Marc. 

Now admittedly, I went into this already knowing this 'twist', if you could even call it that. But I suppose slowly peeling off the layers of the onions and showing us not just the multiple personalities but also the concept behind Moon Knight's powers... and, a bit more interestingly for someone who's already well-vested into the character's "gimmick", the actual events that had happened in this particular adaptation. 

So as Steven Grant runs around being pursued by a very irate Khonshu (the show makes the best use of Khonshu's CGI model in dark corridors or in brief shots where he's just ominously in the background), he ends up running into Marc Spector's wife Layla El-Faouly, who's none too happy that Marc has basically ghosted her for months. Layla thinks "Steven" is just Marc really getting into a role, and Steven himself is basically super-confused about everything and barely realizing the whole 'another personality takes control of my body every now and then' thing, and... and I feel like the whole Layla scene does a pretty good job at giving us both backstory and also letting the multiple-personality thing take some time to sink to the audience. 

The Ammit (we're apparently using this spelling instead of 'Ammut') Cult ends up taking Steven Grant to see Arthur Harrow again. And other than some hilarious butchering of the Mandarin language, Harrow's apparently built up a small community and shows what an utopia it is -- something that really speaks to poor, confused Steven Grant. The fact that all this 'god' nonsense, Marc Spector's obvious streak of violence and mean ol' Khonshu making creepy ominous winds are really confusing Steven Grant. It's a bit slow-paced, but I did really like that Harrow's pulling out the charismatic cult leader side of things to try and essentially seduce poor, gullible Steven Grant to his side. Harrow also claims that he was Khonshu's previous 'avatar', in the middle of expositing about Ammit's goal of judging all the guilty before they have done their sin.

The whole 'killing babies' thing, and the fact that Harrow doesn't have an argument for it, ends up causing Steven Grant to finally realize that the guy walking around with glass in his shoe soles is bad news -- that, and Marc, Khonshu and Layla all screaming at him to 'summon the suit'. Ultimately, Harrow sics another jackal demon-thing at Steven Grant again, and we get some very, very cool action scenes.

And... okay, the invisible doggo demon is pretty neat (and, I wager, saves the studio some CGI) but definitely my favourite part is the seamless transition from Steven Grant to Mr. Knight -- I did find it really hilarious that they decided to adapt suave Mr. Knight as the Moon Knight suit when summoned by Grant. And then when Steven "Mr. Knight" Grant gets a bit too overwhelmed, we get the very Tokustatsu-esque transformation as Moon Knight's bandages wrap around him as Marc Spector takes control. We get some very cool shots, too -- though two back-to-back shots of Moon Knight running in front of the moon might be too much -- and the debut of the moonarangs. 

This leads to what seems to be an ongoing season-long conflict -- Marc Spector essentially takes full control of the body in the way that Steven has been doing so throughout this episode, and shoves Steven into the locker. Khonshu also proves to be a lot more of a jackass than he initially seemed, because he's essentially holding Marc hostage by threatening to use Layla as the next avatar. And then the episode ends with Marc/Steven in Egypt. 

Again... none of these episodes would have worked all that well without Oscar Isaac's amazing performance, and how he effortlessly shows off his multiple personalities even in-suit as Mr./Moon Knight. Admittedly, Marc Spector's super-duper cool, but come on -- Steven Grant's over-the-top Bri'ish accent as he swaggers around with his newfound Mr. Knight super-strength? You can't tell me that's not at least a little bit funny! "Psycho Colonel Sanders" indeed, and my absolute favourite -- "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee; my name's Steven, with a VEE!"

Multiple-personality superheroes isn't something that's brand-new -- Doom Patrol's Crazy Jane is perhaps one of my favourite, but James McAvoy's character in Split as well as the titular Legion were also amazing -- but how engaging the main actor is would definitely make or break the show. And as someone who had to carry two pretty slow-paced episode essentially on the back of his acting prowess, I should say that, yeah, Poe Dameron and Apocalypse were absolutely poor showcases of what Oscar Isaac's true acting range could be. Enjoying this a whole ton for sure. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• While not named such, Steven Grant's Moon Knight suit is the "Mr. Knight" persona from the comics. 
• Marc Spector's profile number starts with 1975, the year the character debuted. A bus has the numbers "WBN 0032", which is Werewolf by Night #32, the specific issue Moon Knight first showed up. 
• Global Repatriation Council ads -- first seen in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier -- show up in the buses.
• Harrow mentions that he used to be Khonshu's "Fist of Vengeance", which was a moniker Moon Knight took when he was temporarily wielding Ghost Rider powers. 

One Piece Anime: Wano Arc, Episodes 1001-1004

More One Piece! More Wano commentary!

Episode 1001:

• I've always felt like the Tobi Roppo vs. Queen drama felt like an afterthought -- no, an afterthought to an afterthought in the manga. Like... was it something that had to be drastically scaled down to reach chapter 1000 in the manga? But the anime has a bit more freedom to do more with it, actually showing Drake's monologues and some intrigue between Hawkins and Drake. Drake trying to get a feel of Hawkins' loyalty and getting him to turn on the Beasts Pirates, as well as Who's Who trying to manipulate Drake to help him fight Queen. It's definitely a sequence of events that felt super truncated in the manga, and I do like that the anime staff actually allowed it to breathe a lot more in the anime. 
• The anime also explicitly notes that the "1%" line that Hawkins is reading in his tarot card actually refers to Drake, because he got roped into a fake 'hey, let's betray the boss' scenario between Who's Who and Queen. 
• It is kind of interesting, I feel, that despite the constantly-bickering dynamic between King and Queen, Queen actually acknowledges King as 'sounding like a leader'. 
• One thing that I do appreciate is the anime giving the four yakuza bosses from Udon prisons and the ninjas under Fukurokuju a bit more screentime. I'm a huge One Piece geek and even I don't know their names, but them and this one He-Man looking samurai do get to recur a fair bit in the background. 
• Okay, I like it, sure, but was it necessary to have a two-minute flashback to the Oars fight? Especially since we already had one in episode 998 or 999? 
• That is a pretty Boundman transformation as Luffy beats down Number #5. 
• That Kong Gun + Excalibur combo attack on Number #5 and the purple Number is way too pretty for what's ultimately an insignificant enemy takedown. 
• You'd think giving the Numbers uniquely coloured skin would make me be able to remember which is which, but I'm sorry.

Episode 1002:

• I love that all the other Straw Hats are suspicious at Drake, and the first words out of Sanji's mouth are "he's the pervert that peeked at Nami and Robin!' Brook, immediately, reacts with "that's unforgiveable!"
• Nami: "Don't try to pass off your nosebleed as something cool!"
• I still love that Zoro, Jinbe and Franky all call out Luffy simultaneously for being an overly-trusting idiot. 
• Ulti's antics and fake-tantrums are approximately 50% more hilarious now that we actually see her rolling and the floor and shit. 
• Usopp impersonating Nami as the 'lizard exterminator' to rile up Ulti is approximately 110% more hilarious with voice acting and constant zoom-ins to Nami's face. 
• Page One is just the punching bag of the Tobbi Roppo, isn't he? That's a pretty cool Usopp scene, too, launching a smoke bomb seed into his mouth. 
• NIGERUNDAYOOOO
• Zoro is actually fighting with Drake to discern his motivations. It is notable that back in pre-timeskip days, Zoro was the one that's the most distrusting of Robin. 
• I love that the thing that makes Zoro decide to tolerate Drake is that they're both part of the Scratchmen Apoo hate club.
  

Episode 1003:

• They really do drag out the Ice Oni scenes, huh? I really don't care for the Ice Oni virus, but at least it's a decent plotline running in the background of this raid. Which is more than I can say about Big Mom's amnesia...
• Those cheeky Toei bastards, having Shinobu say that Yamato 'can't be Oden-sama' while the camera zooms in on her boobs...
• They do some zoom-in comparisons between Yamato and Oden, which... I really don't think goes anywhere? I know Yamato and Momonosuke become buddies after this, but still...
• Shishillian totally got to take out that one broccoli-haired flesh-skinned Number.
• Jack gets to stomp around in his cute mammoth elephant form. I like elephants. He really does kind of go down like a punk, though -- Neko and Inu speed-blitzing him and dealing the eye-slash and cutting off his tusk doesn't even look anywhere as impressive as their initial Sulong transformation. 
• It is badass to give Jack-vs-Neko/Inu an actual episode to play out, but between this and the previous episodes where we get to see the Minks fight the Beasts Pirates... it does really show that the Scabbards and Kaido are just... kind of literally just standing around. 
• That is an angry Carrot face when she realizes that Perospero is around. 
• I love Perospero's flailing around when he realizes that... oh shit, Big Mom did form an alliance with Kaido even though he's been doing his best to attack Kaido's forces. Ah, the Big Mom pirates and their incompetence... never change. 
• It's still so strange and weirdly heartwarming to see that Kaido's actually protective of Jack and even explicitly spends time to defend Jack's honour and tell him that he did a good job. Kaido's such a... weird character, isn't he? I really do want to see that flashback to know what exactly makes him tick. 
• I still really do like how unexpected Marco's speech about 'remnants' and freedom is. 
• God damn, Kin'emon. "I didn't even think about [dodging]", before the badass flame rend attack, and actually slicing the underside of Kaido's eye. The Blast Breath in this particular scene had some Dragon Ball Z exaggeration too in its impact of blowing up the ocean behind them. 
• ...did Kin'emon learn Flame Rend specifically to counter Kaido?

Episode 1004:

• Yamato chasing Shinobu and Momonosuke get extended a fair bit in the previous episode and this one, and... and it's starting to get a bit annoying at around this episode. I get that they're trying to play up Shinobu's cautiousness and Momo realizing that there's something different about Yamato, but... eh?
• I did really like that one glowing-eyes psycho face Yamato makes in this episode, though.
• I did say it when I reviewed this manga chapter a while back, but I just know that Black Maria's singing and the scene cutting to her and then back to the Scabbards fighting Kaido in the rooftop would be so good in the anime. It is pretty damn badass and framed pretty well. There's this one shot of a shadowed Kaido coiling in front of a blood moon? That one's a beautiful shot. Then there's the zoom-in to a glow around everyone's eyes as the shamisen music gets faster and faster...
  
• Absolutely love the juxtaposition between one of Black Maria's strings snapping and the Scabbards unsheathing their blades.
• Kin'emon kicks a piece of rubble to avoid being eaten by Kaido. Mid-air. Before proceeding to freaking run up Kaido's back to attack his head. We all know it's not going to be him that takes down Kaido, but by god I love that the manga and anime really hammer home that the Scabbards are giving it their all. 
• When did Kaido's Boro Breaths turn from fire to... to freaking Hyper Beams from Pokemon? I'm not complaining, it looks so much more over-the-top and cooler this way. 
• Getting a flashback of Oden teaching Kin'emon the Oden-style Nitoryu while he reflects on his journey of being a tagalong and now he's inheriting one of the badass-est sword styles ever? That's a good flashback right there. It's mixed between old and new animation, and we even get a comedic bit of the Scabbards bickering over Kin'emon's little fantasy of being the sole inheritor of the art. 
• Kawamatsu does have a good point, though -- Raizo uses shuriken, he has no need for the Oden Nitoryu. 
• The anime adds this scene of all the Scabbards getting up while arguing about which oden topping is the best -- something that the anime's version of the Oden flashbacks really emphasized as a running joke. It makes this scene extra memorable, I think. 
• ...why the fuck hasn't Raizo used his Devil Fruit more? No, why doesn't he even use it in his big moment against Fukurokuju? I mean, standing in fire is cool and all, but you'd think that his uniquely powered Devil Fruit would actually be the basis of his huge moment. 
• Is Kaido really the only person we've seen actually be injured on-screen with a Boro Breath? Via Raizo's scroll? I think almost every other time he tried to use that attack, it's dodged or deflected or cut or merely destroyed terrain. 
• I remembered when I reviewed this chapter and I think I complained that some of the attacks are just 'well, it's just a regular slash, but they added a name in front of it so it's automatically cooler'. NOT SO FOR THE ANIME! I really, really feel like the Scabbards fighting Kaido is one of the coolest parts of the raid because of how technically hopeless they are. It's no Roof Piece, but by god, they're giving it their all. And the anime makes it badass. 
• Look at Nekomamushi's absolutely badass Super Saiyan spinning tornado thing sending out shockwaves while he glows bright blue, before creating a giant grinning cat face made out of flames and causing a fuckton of slashes in the screen that culminates in the mother of all uppercuts. So much more of a "Crimson Cat Dance" for sure. 
• Kawamatsu's Kappa-style River of Sea gives us a badass still shot as the green explosions and the shockwave from the slash explodes out, before Kawamatsu lands in the foreground while Kaido bleeds a little. 
• Okay, Inuarashi's Canine Scourge, Kiku's Fallen Snow Scythes and Izo's Slicing Rounds are a bit less elaborate, but they're at least extended more than the single panels that they were in the manga. 
• Ashura Doji does a fire blade swing and Denjiro does a lightning blade swing that culminate in a huge X-cross that slam onto Kaido's cheeks.
• RAIZO OF THE FUCKING MIST, still one of the coolest and most unexpected feats ever, just rolls up a Boro Breath, summons giant-ass scrolls as long as Kaido's body, and returns the blast back to Kaido. "I'll give it back to you. Boro Breath: Restoration!" That explosion looked painful!
• Then we get Kin'emon's little narration, berating their weakness, berating themselves and cursing how they were nothing before Oden found them, and how they would at least die as Oden's samurai... as the animation causes him to explode into sakura petals and then Kin'emon unsheathes his second sword. 
• Then we get the high-quality animation as Kin'emon, Denjiro, Ashura Doji and Inuarashi all strike the Oden Nitoryu pose. A giant spectral image of Oden appears behind them. We get amazing animation of Ryuo being applied as flashes of their pain and suffering flash in the foreground... 
• Just to add more spice, Kaido unleashes a bunch of smaller fireballs, but like four meteors, the four Scabbards burst out of the smoke and charge towards Kaido...
• Kin'emon cuts a fireball; Neko, Kiku and Izo launch ranged attacks at Kaido to distract him...
• Kin'emon cuts a Boro Breath with a glowing blue Flame Rend, blowing it apart in a beam clash that would make Dragon Ball Z proud...
• A ghostly Oden speaks to Kaido as he remembers his final conversation, before we go back to the four Scabbards. ODEN NITORYU! TOGEN TOTSUKAAAA! It culminates in the blood-red sword slashes combining into the twin swords of a giant spectral Oden made out of flames.
• The slash hits Kaido, the kanji flash across the screen... and we get the appropriate slow-motion shot of the dragon being wounded. Oden's image fades into sakura petals, we get the closing 'to be continued' without the usual drums. End scene. 

..if you can't tell, I really liked this episode, so this is where we'll end for now. I... the Scabbards fighting Kaido have a special place in my heart due to how well done it is even in the manga. As the audience, we know it's hopeless. From a storytelling perspective and even a power-scaling perspective, the Scabbards won't be able to kill Kaido. But the story has taken the sheer time to really develop the sufferings and the struggles of these Scabbards as a whole, to develop their status as ghosts avenging their dead lord... and honestly, shit, they really gave it their best shot in this episode, really throwing everything they can. It's not enough, of course. But One Piece could have just had Kaido instantly curb-stomp them like how Crocodile curb-stomped Pell and Chaka in less than a minute. They fill the role of the 'secondary protagonists that get beaten down to set the villain up for the main hero', sure, but... but god damn, are they giving Kaido a run for their money. The amazing voice-acting and animations really do work, too, really selling the rage and pent-up frustration and desperation these samurai have. Really great stuff. Now excuse me, brb, rewatching 1004. 

Kamen Rider Revice E21 Review: The Deadly Cliff

Kamen Rider Revice, Episodes 21: Lay Down My Life, Entrust My Feelings

This one technically closes out a three-week-long Hiromi-centric string of episodes, and the next one is back to regularly-scheduled two-parters, so you guys are getting a single episode this time around. And... and for the most part, I kind of like the concept of giving Hiromi a whole arc to deal with his whole 'transformation device is tearing away at his life' thing. It's just that, on both counts, the climaxes for both of Hiromi's story kind of drops the ball. Last episode I complained about how utterly simple the idea of 'oh hey let's just kick the belt off' is, and spoiling the ending of this one... Hiromi dies by falling off a cliff. It's so transparently done that he's not really dead and is just gone for like, a handful of episodes. But even Saber had the decency to have Kento be sealed in the Shadow Realm or whatever to make his death at least believable in-universe. It's especially jarring because of how we've been having gravestones and civilians being killed to turn into Gifterians over the past couple of episodes, so this particularly transparent way of not killing off Hiromi just kind of feels like they were obligated to pull another Lazer/Rogue/Jin/Espada almost-mid-season 'death that will be reverted'. 

The focus of episode 21 revolves around the mystery about the 'demon' within the Demon Driver, while Olteca is seemingly captured but basically pulls a Loki in... well, literally pretending to be captured abroad a Helicarrier. There's something pretty well-done, I feel, with the Igarashi brothers confronting George about him foisting the dangerous Demons Driver on Hiromi. For his credit, George does apologize for it, but I do kind of like that we're not going back from the fact that George is doing some shady things in the name of the greater good. 

But then our heroes are distracted by Director Akaishi and George talking about the mysterious Gifu statue, and we get to see that Vice, naturally, has some convulsions being near such a font of powerful demonic energy. This is contrasted with Sakura's story running concurrently. 

And I suppose the Sakura B-plot was foreshadowed quite a while back of the mysterious basement in Sakura's classmate's house, and turns out that Weirdo Stalker Guy is actually part of another different organization called 'Weekend'. Since the show's been dropping pretty heavy hints that Fenix is not what it seems, it's clear that Weekend's going to be the slightly more morally-right shadowy organization. Sakura's been the one that's the most detached from Fenix, since she got her driver from a different source, and, well, we basically meet the faces behind the Liberal Driver now... it's just that, well, Weekend comes off as pretty unlikable and flat from the get-go. For all of Fenix's faults, at least George and Akaishi are hamming stuff up. There's admittedly a pretty neat sequence where Weekend does a pretty cult-y thing of making Sakura feel like she's kinda obligated to join them, which I thought was creepily nice. 

Sakura ends up going to the Deadman base, beats up Aguilera with a simple finisher -- which felt abrupt, and I love that it's actually part of the show's story since Sakura notes that Aguilera's Queen Bee form is much weaker than how she remembered it to be. Sakura and Ikki have a conversation about it, but turns out... everyone's been duped, because the real Gifu stamp was with Olteca all along. 

Hiromi actually resigns, though we don't really spend that much time with him in the first half of the episode. He very nearly beats the shit out of George, but I do like the implication that he's realized that he simply can't continue being a Kamen Rider without a repeat of the climax of the previous episode. He ends up bumping into Akaishi and finding out that he's evil all along. Akaishi and Olteca... just use the real Gifu stamp and cause a swarm of minions to rampage around the helicarrier, forcing Hiromi and Daiji to scramble and stop it from crashing and killing everyone.

Apparently Olteca's whole plan is to get to the Demons Driver and gain access to the demon within it. Olteca transforms into Kamen Rider Demons, and basically overpowers poor Daiji -- the implication being that Olteca's Deadman body is more suitable for the driver. There's a pretty funny/cool scene where Olteca just uses the mogura genomix to send out a blast to knock down Ikki and Sakura before they can transform. 

This all leads to an epic last stand as an untransformed Hiromi unflinchingly shoots Olteca-Demons with a gun, with no way to transform. Olteca punches poor Hiromi, before fighting against Revi, Vice and Jeanne... and Hiromi dies telling everyone else to watch out for Fenix before Olteca blows him away from the cliff in a gigantic cloud of dust. Again... the idea of it is good. Even with Hiromi's relatively minimal role in this episode, I felt like the idea that even after retiring from being a Kamen Rider, Hiromi still wants to be a hero and that's ultimately a nice message... (I really do think that we should definitely have had a lot more Hiromi scenes this episode, but since this is immediately after a Hiromi-centric two-parter, I'll take it) but the execution? And especially honestly how rather unimpressive the cliff-explosion was? Yeah, not a huge fan. 

The episode then continues with an admittedly pretty fun sequence of Demons-Olteca using his spiderwebs like whips to fend off Jeanne and Barid Rex Revi/Vice, but Olteca uses a Scorpion/Batta transformation to do a rider kick that knocks all three out in one go. It's no Sting Dystopia, but it's pretty neat. As Gifu continues to pulsate, we get to see not only Vice but also Genta (???) reacting to the pulsations... and Sakura goes off to join Weekend. 

And... again, this feels like such a huge, epic moment, shouldn't it? The introduction of a new faction, one of the major antagonists steals one of the secondary drivers, said secondary character apparently dies... but I don't know. I like the story beats a fair bit, but the whole Hiromi-fake-cliff-death sequence just really rubbed me the wrong way. 

Random Notes:

• I breeze through the Weekend plot, but Sakura does get a pretty great extended scene beating down some costumed Weekend minions without even transforming. 
• I love that after casually beating the shit out of a half-dozen spies, Sakura's reaction to Weekend is "but it's a weekday?"
• Daiji, Ikki and Sakura are basically in a sliding scale of trusting Fenix to Weekend in that order. Still, the show does a really great job at emphasizing how the Igarashis love their family a lot that I don't even buy Daiji betraying the Igarashis out to Fenix at this point in the show. 
• I know it's his catchphrase, but "I will lay down my life to land this ship" is pretty forced. 
  
• To be fair, Sakura initially rejecting Weekend's offer, only to find out that despite their obvious sketchiness, they do have some valid points and ultimately goes back to talk to them after seeing how terribly things went for the good guys in this episode... I do like that.