Kamen Rider Revice E47 Review: Juuga Rising

Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 47: Karizaki's Rebellion, The Price of Transformation 

So it really is interesting where the show is going in its final batch of three or four episodes. With Giff being taken out (IMO in a rather lackluster manner) we still need an antagonist and I don't think Olteca is really going to be impressing anyone, but we do have George being built up to fill in the shoes. Driven mad by his dad's death and the lack of closure he has with his dad, we get George moping on a rooftop before talking about a 'cleansing'. 

And George does do a cleansing. With manic hair and a fancy new golden driver, we get to see him having apparently taken out an entire corridor's worth of generic Demons Troopers or whatever the hell those guys are. All they're literally good for is to job harder than Hiromi ever did, so, uh, good job guys, you guys all got maybe-killed by George. 

The major drama on the good guys' side while all of this is going on is Ikki's memory loss getting more and more, going from something simple and stupid like not remembering the dominos that he used to set up with Genta. It's a lot more understandable and dramatic to have us just focus on the memory loss instead of the weird 'Ikki disappears from pictures' nonsense that this was initially shown to us as. And this far into the show, with so much focus on how much the Igarashi family is a close-knit unit that will sacrifice so much for each other, it's actually a very sad moment. 

We seem to have a bit of a closure for other characters as well, except, of course, we know it's not going to last with George rampaging. Hana says goodbye to Sakura, intending on going to prison (I suppose) for her crimes as Aguilera. Hiromi and Hikaru are tidying up the stuff in Weekend which I guess is disbanding... and the as Hana leaves and goes off on her own, she gets confronted by George and gets the shit beaten out of her. Tamaki comes to protect her but gets beaten even faster .

And... as much as we, the audience, like Hana and Tamaki, it's kind of still understandable for someone who's trying to 'get rid' the world of demons or whatever to go for her, as the former Aguilera and Julio. It's not right, of course, but you can understand George Karizaki going for them. George just speed-blitzes Kamen Rider Aguilera and I don't think Tamaki even got to transform, before he rants about how he's going to wipe out all remnants of Giff for the sake of peace, and that the other riders don't belong in a peaceful world. However, the rest of his dialogue -- talking about he has a rider system 'made by humans, for humans', really does indicate what his true goals are, which is to surpass the demon-based drivers that Masumi Karizaki made. 

As Ikki and Vice arrives, George gives a rant about how he's going to eliminate all the Kamen Rider system, and he summons all the animals of Ikki's original batch of animals. It would be a bit more impressive if we hadn't seen Vulcan Stampede or whatever one of Fuwa's powered-up forms in Zero-One is, but it's still very colourful, and the transformation is neat. So we get the arrival of Kamen Rider Juuga. 

And... and a brand new super-powerful rider antagonist is good enough to be a coda of an arc, especially one that's already established as a character like George. And George sure uses the powers of Juuga to overpower Vice, and later on in the episode, the entire Igarashi squadron. But the real kicker here really is them trying to rehabilitate/stop George, as well as Ikki losing more and more memories as the episode goes on. I do like that our heroes do try alternate ways to do so, with Vice alone transforming in the first fight against George... but then we get the absolutely amazingly (and heartbreakingly) acted scene of Ikki walking up to Genta and Yukimi and going "I'm sorry, our bath opens from 3 pm)... and yes, Ikki's memory loss has gone so far that he's forgotten his parents. 

And it's not quite similar to dementia or other equivalent conditions that many families have to deal with, but it's a surprisingly heavy topic to tackle. Vice's guilt, Genta trying to put a strong front and comforting Vice, Yukimi breaking down regardless... and then the conversation between Ikki, Sakura and Daiji in the park bench, because I didn't even realize that the two younger Igarashi siblings didn't even know about the memory loss problem... hell, even Kagero gets a pretty good moment, pointing out that this is the price to pay for dealing with demons, but also trying to focus the siblings' anger towards George. I absolutely love that Vice, Sakura and Daiji are taking the initiative and basically being 'busybodies' for once, forcing Ikki to not continue to be self-destructive. 

The Igarashis confront George and they're about to do what George theoretically want by handing over all the drivers and vistamps. Except, of course, George's so-called noble desire isn't really what he wanted in the first place -- he wants to prove his superiority to his daddy in actual combat. Ikki's earnest begging for George to leave his family in peace causes him to absolutely break down and while it's not the prettiest thing to watch, I do have to give it to George's actor for really nailing his insanity and his terrible coping mechanism towards grief. 

We get Juuga fighting against Vice, Live/Evil and Jeanne, but Juuga uses the power of glowing CGI animal limbs to beat the shit out of the younger Igarashi siblings. And damn, it looked like it hurt. And yeah. This? Memory loss or whatever, I absolutely believe that this triggers Ikki a whole damn lot. The episode ends with a cliffhanger as Ikki prepares to transform. 

And... and I don't know. For my bitching of taking things too quickly with Giff's defeat last episode, I would actually praise this episode for being fast-paced? The problem, I think, is that George's motivations and insanity were already built up relatively well even with the limited number of episodes between Masumi's death and George becoming Juuga. Meanwhile, Giff spent so much time as a silent statue and when he starts ranting it's basically a watered-down, less-hammy version of what Akaishi's been spouting. And the Ikki amnesia stuff ends up being really powerful too, huh? A pretty great episode all around. 

Random Notes: 

• Vice shows up in the bathhouse and starts rattling off basically the major arcs of the past 46 episodes, and I was so worried we're getting a recap episode. 
• Also one of the episodic victims that's a fake-Youtube comedian or some shit shows up for a bit role in the middle of the episode. 
• Kamen Rider Juuga, besides the obvious name, does have the colour palette of Ultimate Kuuga, albeit with the design style that would fit right at home in Build or Zi-O. 
• I am kind of disappointed that George actually does have a unique henshin pose instead of just copying Kamen Rider #1 or Kuuga or Zero-One or someone. 
• There is a short scene snuck in-between the amnesiac Ikki scenes of Hiromi attacking George on a building at night. It's just a bit too short for me to mention in the episode, though, because other than asking George what his game is, Hiromi just... walks away?
  
• Hiromi finding Julio/Hikaru and Hana's drivers -- which are explicitly made by Masumi -- on his grave is also a pretty powerful scene, though. 
• It really is kind of a shame that Invincible Jeanne and Evilyty-Live debuted in a very busy episode and had to share their spotlights, and now they both get jobbed pretty quickly by Juuga. 

Let's Play Legends Arceus, Part 17: Trial of the Lake Gremlins

Well, I'm a simple man, so my order of the lakes that I visit is based on which area I went to first. So Lake Verity in the Fieldlands is first, and at the beginning of each lake Volo gives me a bit of a little exposition on the history of the lake. Lake Verity, apparently, used to be a volcano that left a crater which created Lake Verity. And... considering the shape, it does look like a caldera, doesn't it? We also get a bit of a talk about Mesprit, the Pokemon that represents emotion and brought it to humanity. 

The isekai Arc-Phone given to me by Arceus himself in that strange rift between time-space activates, and... and I love the confused expressions on Irida and Volo's face as I use my plot device to interact with the stone at the center of the lake and create a cavern entrance. 

Irida and I walk into the lake at the center of the cave, and instead of Mesprit, instead... a big-ass snail sits in the middle of the cave. Specifically, an alpha version of a Hisuian Goodra. Oh, I get it. All the new forms that isn't a noble or a ride Pokemon ends up becoming the 'bosses' in these Lake mini-dungeons! That's kind of neat to give those species some spotlight. Of course, I have a Goodra of my own in my party, and it became a slow grind-fest of Dragon Pulsing each other. The enemy Goodra has the benefit of Shelter, but my Goodra has the benefit of a trainer with 20 hyper potions. 

After beating up Mesprit's snail guard, the mesmerizing sprite himself shows up, and we get a completely different font as Mesprit communicates telepathically. "Your emotions... share them with me..." and there's a hilarious response option of 'not a chance'. Mesprit asks me a bunch of questions, and I don't think this is a sequence where there are wrong answers? Or I guess the wrong answers would be if I denied any sort of emotions -- the feelings that I felt when I got isekai'd into the land, the feeling of bonding with Pokemon for the first time, mingling with Hisui's clans, the feeling when that punk-ass bitch Kamado banished me (I felt bitter is the appropriate response) and after that little emotion quiz, Mesprit gives me... Mesprit's Plume! Which doesn't look like any sort of plume. In fact, what part of Mesprit even is a plume? It looks like a weird envelope. 

Volo and Irida have some choice words after we regroup in the Ancient Retreat. Volo talks about how he's so interested in the past and he wants to know where he comes from, whereas Cogita gives a bunch of ominous talk about how the mind is connected to the world -- 'without the mind, if the rift were to widen and the very world to end, would we even know it'? And how the true nature of creation can only be perceived with someone's mind. Basically, yeah, it's really emphasizing what the original Diamond/Pearl games were limited in doing with their capabilities at the time. The concept of 'emotions, willpower and knowledge' giving context to the wide universe created by time and space is explored a lot better here. I'm pretty sure there's some metaphysical theory about the universe existing because of the presence of things that observe them, but Cogita just handwaves it as myths being creepy and incomprehensible. 

Cogita also doesn't have much respect for Volo, constantly shooting him down as someone who just goes off to gawk at ruins. 

Speaking of ruins, the second lake I go to is Lake Valor in the Mirelands, which according to Volo is carved out in the midst of a Pokemon battle. Groudon and Kyogre, did you guys fuck up this land too?The guardian here is Azelf, of course, who represents the strength of willpower in humanity's heart. The arc-phone does its thing again and I do wonder if there isn't a version of this cutscene that's a bit shorter since we've seen it before? I love that Irida comments on the oddity of having columns within the cave.

And, of course, another Hisuian evolution is here -- an Overqwil. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my own Overqwil to fight it. My Decidueye dies to a Poison Barrage because I forgot that Grass is weak to Poison, but my Kleavor makes short work of the Overqwil afterwards.

Azelf, the azure elf, pops up and also communicates with my mind, and asks me to show him 'unyielding will'. Again, these trials that actually fit with the motivations and themes of the three Lake Guardians have made their themes far, far more memorable than anything that the original Sinnoh games, the manga, or the anime ever did. Azelf's trial actually represents will, since I'm supposed to do the balm-throwing minigame but Azelf is literally impossible to hit since he teleports around. It's just a game mechanic, but I absolutely love thematic game mechanics like this! 

The fact that Azelf keeps mocking me, trying to test my willpower? "Will you abandon this folly?" "It seems you best give up." "You struggle in vain, will you yet press on?" It really does feel like a higher being trying to truly test my willpower. There isn't a way to actually give up, though, and Azelf eventually lets himself get hit by one of the magical balms that appeared out of nowhere. Thus impressed, Azelf gives me his... fang? Wait, what fang? Azelf, you don't even have teeth! I don't... okay. Pokemon anatomy is weird. At least it's more sensible for Azelf to have fangs somewhere within that mouth instead of the featherless Mesprit having a plume? And what, did Azelf just reach into that little gnome mouth of his and rip out an incisor or some shit? Damn, Azelf, you're cold-blooded. 

Volo questions why the Lake Guardians don't just give us the Red Chain immediately, but Irida points out that this is just a test to see if whoever is seeking out the Red Chain is worthy. Volo drops a line about how 'who knows what would happen if it would fall into the wrong hands'... yeah, Cyrus totally tried to chain up the gods of space and time that one time in the future. And the way Volo says it and theorizes about other uses of the Red Chain really does make it look like Volo and Cogita, or both, are shaping up to take over the Red Chain to fuck things up. 

We return to Cogita, and Volo gives us an update from the Gingko Guild about how things in Jubilife Village are a bit tense. They've glimpsed a Pokemon (Arceus? Giratina?) on the other side of the rift, and there's some very cool Digimon Tamers vibes to it. Kamado has raised a force not to survey the Pokemon but to subdue it, so they're going full gunship diplomacy with an eldritch god. Yes, Kamado. I've seen the caliber of the guards in your village, they use Dustoxes and Mr. Mimes. They will totally be able to withstand a Hyper Beam from Arceus, surely. 

Also, interestingly, Cogita mentions how Volo has started referring to the Gingko Guild as 'one of those merchants', as if he's not one of them. 

But then we're off to Lake Acuity! After accidentally stumbling on some dude from Alola whose Alolan Vulpixes are playing hide-and-seek in the snowy Alabaster Icelands, I head off to Lake Acuity near Snowpoint Temple. Volo tells us that Lake Acuity, despite being on top of the mountains, actually contains seawater, and no one knows if it's a fluke of geography or if it's connected to some sort of underwater tunnels. Kyogre, Manaphy, one of you aquatic legendary water guys, I'm blaming you all. 

Lake Acuity, of course, is protected by Uxie, the pixie of knowledge, and the one that stands in my way within the temple is, of course, good old Hisuian Zoroark. My own Zoroark is a bit too low-leveled to one-hit-KO the alpha Pokemon and its enhanced stats, but the Bitter Malice did damage the enemy Zoroark enough for my Decidueye to Shadow Claw it to death. We do get a bit more context to this specific Zoroark, with Irida (whose tribe lives in the Icelands!) identifying this Alpha Zoroark as the dread Baneful Fox. 

Uxie shows up after I beat up his pet ghost-fox, and Uxie tests my knowledge... with a riddle, of course. That's definitely in-brand, and, again, I love just how the designers of Legends Arceus actually treated Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf as actually representing their concepts. That's always been something I found very lacking with the Lake Guardians, and after almost 10 years since the fourth generation, these three have finally became distinct in my mind instead of just 'the yellow one, the blue one, and the pink one'. 

The riddle is pretty cute, too, telling me to list the number of eyes of five Pokemon (Combee, Zubat, Unown, Magneton, Dusclops) that doesn't have two eyes, and I thought I'm supposed to add them up! Turns out I just have to list them in order. It's fun, there's only a single riddle, and Uxie deems me smart enough to give me Uxie's Claw. Again, did Uxie rip off one of its fingernails? None of those chibi fairy limbs really look like they have any sort of claws or fingernails anyway. 

...also, man, the Lake Guardians really felt like they should've been retconned to being Psychic/Fairy in Generation VI, huh? They have such a strong ephemeral vibe to it. And while being connected to emotions and willpower and all does fit with the Psychic side, I really do feel like from a flavour standpoint they would've worked better as part-Fairies. 

With all three anatomical parts of the Lake Guardians on my possession, I head off to eh Shrouded Ruins, which has more glyphs of Pokemon. I recognize Palkia and... Regigigas... is that Basuclegion? If I didn't know that this was a Sinnoh game, I would've guessed Xerneas or Raikou for some of the other glyphs. Volo talks about bringing the worlds of human and Pokemon together, which is a bit ominous, while Cogita somehow arrives with the aid of a 'rather remarkable Pokemon' which I'm going to assume is one of the many, many Sinnoh legendaries. Heatran? Or maybe that new Enamorus legendary?

Cogita talks about the Red Chain, which is a divine instrument that can bind the whole world. She scoffs at the idea that the Red Chain could be forged by mortal hands, and at that point the three fairies pop up again, finally creating the Red Chain. Which looks like a circular necklace made of interlocking gemstones. 

Cogita is happy to put aside the burden of several generations, while Volo talks about how Kamado is going full-on Leeroy Jenkins and plans to lead his army up Mt. Coronet itself. 

Which leads to a fun scene as I rush back to Jubilife City, running past a bamboozled Akari (who's replaced the regular guard). We arrive too late to stop Kamado from heading off and getting himself killed trying to judo-toss god, but I meet up with Cyllene. Cyllene is all tsundere about helping me, talking about how Abra vanished on its own accord and totally inconvenienced her without her orders. Cyllene then proceeds to abuse her authority as Jubilife City's de-facto leader, reinstates me into the Survey Corps, and tasks me, Akari and Laventon to deal with Kamado. Irida's also equally pissed off, and finally pulls her weight as leader of the Pearl Clan, intent on stopping Kamado as well. In a rather cute scene, some random kid shows up and gives me a Max Revive, being happy that I'm helping out despite being banished from the village.

We head off to the Coronet Mountains, where we get a little surprise cameo from Melli, who offers to be... moral support. You know what, Melli? That's good enough from you. Your battle capabilities with your Skuntank and your Zubat are kind of embarrassing, so yeah, you stay here with the rest of the base camp (which moved to the Electrode shrine) while I stop Kamado.

...and that's where I'll stop off for now, because that's actually a fair amount of content. Most of it is just trials and dialogue (though I did do a couple of space-time rifts in-between meeting the Lake Guardians). It's been really super fun to see that Pokemon is embracing a bit more of its world-building. This is something that I felt Sun/Moon did amazingly well, and Sinnoh/Hisui with its many legendaries really is the perfect location to have a much more... RPG-esque fantasy worldbuilding. Pretty fun stuff, I appreciate them utilizing these Lake Guardians well so much. Next up, presumably we finally meet Arceus!

One Piece 1058 Review: Bounties!

One Piece, Chapter 1058: New Emperors

A bit of a slower chapter, but it is a bounty chapter. Now I don't really get as excited about bounty chapters as much as the fandom does, but it is always interesting just how exciting a chapter can be just by dropping a bunch of bounties. I think it's the fact that, with the exception of Mihawk, that these bounties are just bounty increase reveals instead of unknown bounty reveals. That's totally a me problem, though, and I totally know just how much the fandom flipped over this.

I do really think chapters like this are necessary, though. The anime adds a lot of these extra scenes of the Straw Hats interacting with each other, and I understand it's the medium... but scenes of seeing the group dynamic -- and this is all the members of the crew -- does really help to sell that the Straw Hat Crew are an actual crew instead of just a bunch of random protagonists. Yeah, most of the revelation happens with scenes like these that I won't really list every one of them out, but seeing Jinbe react to Nami's angry aura with "woah, Conqueror's Haki" or Luffy being tossed in a cage or the angry dynamic between Zoro and Sanji over numbers... it's pretty fun. I've missed that.

Anyway, going quickly through the bounties... Chopper still has the joke bounty of 1000 berries, Nami has 366 million, Brook has 383 million, Franky has 394 million and God Usopp has 500 million. It's a gigantic leap for most of these guys, and there's something interesting in seeing that Franky's bounty poster is... of the Thousand Sunny? I mean, I guess it's an extension of the Franky Shogun joke, and I wonder if this is foreshadowing of something Franky will do with the Sunny eventually?

Robin gets a wonderful and much-deserved raise to 930 million, which she really probably already deserves in the first place thanks to her ability to read Poneglyphs and being on a pirate crew. Considering World Government priorities, she really should've been higher a longer time ago. The Monster Quartet has Sanji at 1.03 billion berries, while Jinbe and Zoro get 1.1 and slightly more than 1.1 billion respectively. And... Jinbe being a former Shichibukai does make sense, and I've always seen bounties as something that's representative more of reputation and infamy more than power level anyway. It is hilarious that instead of being higher than both Sanji and Zoro or lower than both of them, that Jinbe ends up being in the middle. And so close to Zoro, too! Man, Zoro's going to lord this over Sanji for the next couple of years and it's great.

The rest of the chapter is checking in at the other Yonko, and... we go to "Empty Bluffs Island" or Karai Bari Island or whatever it's called, and... turns out that while the fandom was mostly right at figuring out that Crocodile and Mihawk are the ones really calling the shots of Cross Guild, it's nowhere as harmonious as people think it is. Buggy absolutely got thrashed by the two actually competent villains, and... it's interesting how fun this whole scene is. Just the sheer awesomeness of seeing Mihawk and Crocodile back, seeing Galdino, Daz Bones, Alvida, Cabaji and Mohji in the background... the comedy with everything involving Buggy and his fan club making everything worse for him... 

Basically, we get a couple of flashbacks explaining what went on, but basically Crocodile recruited Mihawk for his whole bounty-on-marines stuff, and the two apparently bond over their mutual distrust of anyone other than them. Mihawk was apparently just so tired of effortlessly wiping out Marines that he wants to move and ends up accepting Crocodile's offer. But when Crocodile comes in to help Buggy wipe out the Marines there, it wasn't because Crocodile wanted to recruit Buggy or anything. No, he wanted to collect his debts. Buggy owes Crocodile money, and Crocodile was basically two steps away from selling Buggy to slavery until Buggy offers his printing services and network. And, of course, Buggy's idiotic fanboys have already done the poster that highlights Buggy's prominence. Mihawk gives Crocodile the idea of using Buggy as basically a scapegoat should things go south, and let him be the fake figurehead. 

Pretty fun stuff. Always great to see Buggy essentially fail higher and higher, and I'm a huge, huge unashamed Crocodile fanboy, so seeing him be so relevant is pretty great. 

And, of course, we get bounties for them, with good ol' Brannew falling for all of Buggy's nonsense. Citing his pedigree and the misconstrued news of Crocodile rushing to Buggy's aid was how they set him up as a Yonko. And... well, we get the bounties for the Cross Guild members. Crocodile has 1.965 billion, Buggy has 3.189 billion (which is more than Luffy!) and, more interestingly than the Bombastic Clown himself is Mihawk, who has 3.59 billion... one of the few characters that are not Yonko but have the bounty of one, and also probably the only time that a subordinate character's bounty is higher than their captain? Alleged or not? Interesting. 

We close the chapter at the Kamabakka Queendom, where we see Ivankov and Koala welcome the Revolutionary commanders. Kuma is also back there, completely robotic and being all 'as you command beep boop'. Dragon isn't happy at all about Sabo killing random kings. And then Sabo (or someone that's allegedly Sabo) calls Dragon, we cut off at a cliffhanger. But I really don't care all that much about the Revolutionaries, more about their implication to the story... it's just interesting to see what they'll do, what they did do in the Reverie, and what they and the wiretapping Marines are going to do in the future.

Pretty solid chapter. I think I didn't have such a strong reaction because bounties are nice but not something I get uber-excited about, and I kind of figured out the Crocodile/Mihawk/Buggy situation already by kind of over-analyzing the Buggy is a Yonko chapter a bit too much. Pretty neat stuff all around, I hope we get something interesting with the Revolutionaries next chapter.

Random Notes:

• Cover story has Caesar Clown rescuing the Germa siblings and asking for them to be allowed to escape. Now the problem is, how did Mr. Perfect Future-Sight Katakuri not realize what's happening?
• Robin patted the News Coo, that's nice of her. 
• Okay, Chopper not getting a higher bounty despite a Marine, X-Drake, being there to see Chopper transform into Monster Point? Yeah, Brannew's just dumb, I guess. 
• To put things into perspective, Nami, the lowest non-Chopper bounty on the Straw Hats, outranks the bounties of all the Supernovas, pre-timeskip. 
• I love that Mr. 3's namecard already lists him as 'Crocodile's henchman'. What a sneaky bastard, I've always loved Galdino. 
• Honestly, my (and many other fans') idea was that Crocodile and Mihawk already forced out the 'Buggy is the leader of the Cross Guild' narrative intentionally to make Buggy their fall guy, instead of using it as a handwave after Buggy's men spread misinformation all around the world. 
• Mihawk's epithet is "Marine Hunter" and that cannot be any more perfect. 
• Mihawk is also identified as someone that has better sword skills than Shanks, and of course the fandom is up in arms picking out every single interpretation of that line. It really is simple, isn't it? Mihawk is better than Shanks in swordfighting, Shanks is better in everything else. 
• Okay, that one panel with Crocodile spearing random Marines on the ship is cool as hell. Does he have Armament Haki in that shot, you think? He probably should, right? 

Let's Play Legends Arceus, Part 16: Banished From The Village

So after completing most of the side-quests in the previous part, I decided to finally proceed with the story. I have a new batch of like, three or four side-quests from Laventon's blackboard, but I don't think I'm going to complete them until after all this madness happens. And, well, madness it is! Again, it's typical story-writing, but I feel like Legends Arceus did a great enough job building up these characters that it does feel like, hey, characters like Laventon, Akari, Adaman and Irida all accepting me as their comrade and companion, that I have a place in the Jubilife City of Hisui even if we never figure out how to undo the space-time rift... it's all fuzzy feelings and all that, you know? 

But I suppose the game does give us a hint by having that mustachioed punk Kamado keep talking about how "some people in the village might still be suspicious about you falling out of the sky". Turns out, those 'some people' is him! 

After the requisite potato mochi party and sleeping in my house, I wake up and walk out to a massive sound of explosion, and... the whole damn skies are red and purple and splotchy! Oh no, did the Anti-Monitor cause some more Crisis of the Infinite variation? No, it's just the Space-Time Rift above Mt. Coronet going haywire. The game directs me to Kamado almost immediately, who's also talking to Adaman and Irida. 

And Kamado... isn't the most flattering at basically pointing fingers and accusing me of causing the space-time rift from causing all the scary red skies. And Kamado's very flimsy argument basically boils down to "you fell out of the sky, you damn isekai brat" and "the same day you appeared, the lightning bolt from the rift struck Lord Kleavor". Okay, that last part does probably have some sort of connection, but as Irida points out, Kamado's being utterly unreasonable by asking me to prove a negative, to prove that I'm not connected to the nobles going wild and the skies going red. I actually do appreciate both Adaman and Irida backing me up and pointing out how Kamado's being a paranoid dipshit here. 

Kamado orders Cyllene to walk me out of the village because I am banished now. Apparently I should take solace that I'm not "in chains"... yeah, no, I have a giant mud-bear, a vengeful ghost fox and a metal snail-dragon in my party. I highly doubt that anything your jerk village has a prison is going to be able to hold me. Who's gonna stop me, that punk with a Dustox?

Cyllene is all business and cold-hearted, but somehow that's a lot nicer than Kamado. She's proceeding with banishing me, yes, and there's a cool sequence of her walking me through the village as the villagers gossip at me. Cyllene is stern and all, but as I'm tossed out into the Obsidian Fieldlands (the travel function is locked at this point) Cyllene makes it clear that she's on my side in all but name. She uses the excuse that banishing me is her responsibility, but ends up saying some... well, as kind of words as she can manage, I suppose. She points out that orders are orders, but all but says that she disagrees with Kamado. Isn't it interesting that the Professor Rowan analogue turns out to be antagonistic, while the Cyrus analogue turns out to be an ally?

Professor Laventon and Akari also join me and Cyllene in going to the Fieldlands, and Laventon is about to roll up and challenge Kamado's ruling, but Cyllene stops him from doing anything too harsh, because Laventon shouldn't cause any problems for me by being banished as well. That's nice. I also love that a very irritated Akari points out that the only reason I went out to quell the nobles was because Kamado's orders were to do so in the first place so that I can earn Team Galaxy's trust.

One of my favourite lines here is Laventon going "this is utterly intolerable - and might I add, absurdly unscientific! As a man of science, I must fight such illogical thinking tooth and nail!" Yes, Laventon, because dimensional rifts, isekai protagonists and the skies turning red-and-green could be explained by science. 

After some discussion about what I should do (Irida and Adaman went back to their respective settlements) my allies tell me to go see Lian, Lord Kleavor's warden. So at this point I'm just locked into the Obsidian Fieldlands, which is bathed in creepy extradimensional red light. Cyllene has a very heartwarming "Don't die out there. That's an order." line, and also a cool line about "in this life, you will meet with both admiration and abuse from others. How others choose to view you is a choice only they can make. You cannot make it for them. All that truly matters is that you hold firm to your own values." And... okay, yeah, I get that, Kamado is making his choice, but I'm going to solve this space-time rift problem, then come back with my shiny fire horse and burn that stupid mustache off his untrusting face. 

...and after all that dramatic stuff and plot-relevant stuff, I find Wanda being besieged by three Paras screaming her head off because she didn't want to sprout mushrooms. Well, nothing like a wacky side-quest to lighten the mood, I suppose. She went to hunt some mushrooms, but the mushrooms ended up hunting her!

In a pretty cool little bit of detail, Laventon, Akari and Cyllene actually disappear from the camp after you go around. Couple that with the eerie distorted music, and the game does try its best to make us feel alone and abandoned!

Anyway, the game leads us to talk to the two wardens in this area. Lian, with his little cowboy hat, is a bit pissed off, but at least unlike before he's not outright antagonistic of my attempts to subvert Almighty Sinnoh... but he's unable to help. I go off to look for Mai, who has some poetry of choice to toss my way, and kind of recaps my predicament. But she talks about how the Diamond Clan villagers are politically unable to help out, for fear of causing a war with the Galaxy Team. Her advice of "time solves all things" really doesn't help, though at least she's keeping to brand. 

I do also really appreciate the zoom-in to my character's desperate face for allies as he talks to Mai and Lian. It's expected that the game's emphasizing the 'you're all alone' part of this, though. I also really like the short scene of my character looking at a Shinx that cheers me up, before it runs off to play with its Luxio parents. 

And the next ally to talk to me is... Volo! He knows the importance of staying abreast of all the latest news, apparently, and notes how I have been abandoned by Diamond, Pearl and Galaxy. Volo then leads me to a place where he can stash me off in secret, and... it's not actually the Gingko Guild Headquarters, but a brand-new area called the Ancient Retreat. By the location of it in the map (it's slightly Northeast of Mt. Coronet) I think it's meant to be the Hisuian version of Celestic Town? The little town where Cynthia's grandmother resides? 

And oh, hey, what a coincidence, someone who looks to be Cynthia's ancestor does live here, in this mysterious location where there's just a single tent filled with herbs. A fancy lady with a very gothic-looking elegant dress, drinking tea (the tea set, regrettably, are not Sinistea and Polteageist) and she seems to be related to Volo. This is Mistress Cogita, who seems to be aware of a lot of the myths in Sinnoh. She does talk about a 'duty' that she has to fulfill after a long time, and recognizes me as an isekai protagonist lost between time and space. Her role is apparently a guide to help me prevent the great disaster and... I'm going to assume she's the nameless Ancient Hero that all these myths have been talking about? Or at the very least, connected to the Ancient Hero?

Either case, Cogita tells me a bunch of information that I already could deduce. But then I'm a huge Pokemon lore-geek so it's nice for any first-comers to get someone to lay it all out -- Almighty Sinnoh lives within another realm away from ours, and that Sinnoh (or, well, Arceus) is beyond mere 'time' and 'space', but rather both together. I do really like how Cogita just mocks the Diamond and Pearl Clans trying to insist that their worldview is greater, when both are expanses that are equally as important in the creation of the universe.

Then Cogita goes straight into telling me of the three great lakes of Hisui -- Lake Verity, Valor and Acuity, and tells me to seek the three Pokemon that embodies the aspects of the human mind... and tells me to create the Red Chain. Hey, gotta work in the legendaries in some way, yeah? It is actually really nice that the script of this game really does tie in together the themes of time, space and human emotion/will/spirit a lot better than the Generation IV games did. 

Also, interestingly, there are some arguments as to what the Red Chain will do. Cogita says that the Red Chain is meant to bind the world together, and Volo seems to be confused since he thinks it's supposed to close the rift. Cogita keeps shutting down Volo's 'doubts', which does kinda make me feel like one of them is going to oppose me? Cogita also notes that she's just passing down the 'old words', and how true they are, she really doesn't know. She just straight-up mocks her ancestors! That's hilarious. 

And then suddenly Cyllene's Abra shows up!

She shows up with a letter addressed to me, and Abra's basically going to take the place of the Pokemon pasture service, allowing me to swap out my team as needed. A great way to actually tie up a little possible gameplay/story conflict, while also giving Cyllene an adorable "helping but not really" plausible deniability! 

Speaking of allies, Adaman and Irida have returned after reassuring their people, and they note that they can't directly undermine Kamado's orders otherwise relations would grow really strained. Honestly, I actually appreciate them showing up -- I thought it'd just be Volo and maybe Cyllene, Laventon and Akari and that's it. The two clan leaders note that they want to help without drawing attention, so it'll just be one of them. And... I don't know. Adaman was the one with the better first impression, but he's kinda just... fallen off? He's never became unlikable, but I guess beyond putting Melli in his place, I didn't really forge a connection with him. Irida has this whole backstory of her conflict at being a leader at such a young age in the Cobalt Coastlands chapter. And besides, Palkia's always the superior Generation IV mascot over Dialga. 

Adaman takes this in stride, telling us that he's going to take the 'tough job' of keeping an eye on Kamado, and that this is totally a sign that I trust him. Right! Sure, Adaman, whatever keeps you and your multi-coloured hair asleep at night. 

So yeah. That's basically a pretty long cutscene, and I guess next up I'll be looking around the three Hisui Lakes and their pixie guardians. Glad to see that they're integrating the guardians of the lakes into the main story, and not just leave all the legendaries to the post-game! Anyway, Volo's relevance and a brand-new character appearing is frankly a bit unexpected, but it's a lot of fun!

Kamen Rider Revice E45-46 Review: The Fall of Giff

Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 45: Never-ending Nightmare, the Protectors and the Protected; Episode 46: Courage to Face Each Other... What Should You Really Protect?

A double episode review today, because after all the madness with Vail, Daiji, Giff and Karizaki, we're finally sort of simmering down to a rather chill two-parter. 

Episode 45 starts off with the reaffirmation that Giff is, for the time being, considered sealed up in his dimension. Meanwhile, the remnants of Fenix are rushing in and ends up arresting Olteca? Who survives the cocoon? I... I really don't know what they're going to do with Olteca this late in the story, or if he really is compelling enough to bring back especially since we're probably still going to have to deal with Giff. But the cocoon that exploded turns into a swarm of insects that starts infecting random people and turning them into demons. 

Also, our Igarashi demons are acting weird -- Lovekov has a huge gash that slowly grows on her back, while Vice is hearing voices. We get some action scenes from all our Kamen Riders as the demons keep multiplying. Lovekov ends up becoming the unexpected focus of these episodes as Sakura just keeps her out of the battle and forces her to be benched and not do anything -- I didn't realize it the first time, but being benched and having the rest of her team refuse to let her do anything is the reason Sakura ended up becoming Kamen Rider in the first place, no? Speaking of someone who's pissed at being benched, we get Tamaki, who's basically the guy they leave in the base to do nothing. It really is bizarre that they never give us a reason why they don't just give him one of the mass-produced drivers? He was Julio before, the Wolf Deadman, so...

Karizaki meanwhile gets a brief ominous scene, dropping Masumi's Deathstroke mask on his gravestone, telling him to piss off because he's done 'relying on [him]' and refuses to 'dance on the palm of [his] hand'.

The final act of this episode ends up being Vice essentially being possessed by Giff and used as a mouthpiece, but... beyond some rather generic evil bad guy speeches, it really doesn't go anywhere? We get the reuse of some suits (like Aguilera and Olteca's old monster forms) and all our heroes get to fight them. Giff ends up proving to be a bit too much for our heroes with Vice under his control, however. This cliffhanger lasts all of 20 seconds in the next episode, as Giff just uses Vice as a mouthpiece to give the Igarashi brothers some 'join me or die' choice before letting him go. 

Vice apologizes for being mind-controlled, but what ends up being highlighted here is that Ikki's amnesia is growing so heavily that he even forgets hot baths, something that's been pretty crucial to his life. It's actually something that's finally a bit more shocking, and... and I don't know. Maybe if we just focus on memories and not have the bizarre 'Ikki gets erased from pictures' visuals, this would've been much easier to follow and digest? Anyway, Ikki sure is amnesiac! Kagero also points out that the pocket dimension is Giff's body itself, similar to the stomach, and that they need to attack that part as well. 

Sakura and Lovekov are arguing, but Hana ends up walking up to them and telling Sakura that they're both liabilities -- as long as Sakura refuses to properly listen to Lovekov. It's... it's not the most exciting storyline, to be honest, but it is enough to tide us over through these two episodes. Sakura finally realizes that, yeah, she needs some time to deal with Lovekov, leaving Ikki, Vice, Daiji and Kagero to deal with Giff with their 'attack Giff in his extradimensional belly' plan. We have some action scenes between the brothres against the Deadman puppets. Sakura admits to Lovekov that she has been a bit too overprotective of Lovekov in contrast to her brothers and their demons, and turns out Lovekov's scar is just a sign of her growth? Okay. 

Oh, also Hikaru, who's still hospitalized, finally hands over the Over Demons driver to Tamaki, which... again, it's nice and all, but doesn't quite have the same oomph as the previous couple of episodes. We do have Tamaki repeating what Hana said in episode 45, though, saying that what he's doing isn't just driven by his desire to protect Hana, but to also repent for his sins. 

Sakura also shows up, does a badass pose, and combines with Lovekov to transform into her final form -- Invincible Jeanne. She sure as spiky dreadlocks! We do at least get a two-parter explaining it, even if it's nowhere as epic as many other final forms. But at least Jeanne got a final form? She sure does spin around with her cape-whips and blow up a bunch of goons, but the primary focus is still Ikki fighting Giff so Sakura's final form debut really does feel kind of like a side-note. 

Oh yeah, while all of this is going on, Vice ends up being tossed into Giff's extradimensional stomach and starts conversing and later attacking the Giff statue within. It's... it's whatever, really. Between the rather bland and repetitive dialogue and Vice just being a dork throughout it all, it's not particularly engaging. Ikki and Vice do a simultaneous finisher after doing some sending of their transformation vistamp back and forth, we get the Igarashi siblings going "some humans need to face their demons", how "we humans need to grow and change through our mistakes"  and as they all beat up the elite Deadmen, And... it's a cool speech and all, but, again, this episode is a bit too unfocused for me to really care. 

The Igarashi siblings and Vice do a quadruple rider kick and blow up Giff's body in the air, and... and I guess this is the proper end of Giff? I can't believe I'm saying this, but this does feel kind of rushed and underwhelming. I don't know. Everything seems rather perfunctory as far as having a 'twist' to defeating Giff, giving Sakura a final form, giving Lovekov and Tamaki some characterization and building up Karizaki's madness. I don't think these two episodes are bad necessarily, it's just probably suffering from trying to do too much while not doing enough? Too many of the fight scenes in these two episodes do kind of feel generic, and with Giff reduced to having like, less than five lines and all of them being a repetition of 'humanity must die', he really isn't that interesting. Oh well, on to the final arc, I suppose. 

Random Notes: 

• Karizaki, meanwhile, is in an almost-robotic state, just focusing on his research and not caring about why Giffard Rex's powers aren't working on Giff since his research 'takes priority' and that Ikki and family would probably 'pull a miracle' or some shit. Yeah, someone's not dealing with Masumi's death in a healthy way... and the final episode has him loom over a driver as a shadow curls up behind him. A decent enough buildup for episode 47, I suppose, without shoving him too much in our face. 
• It is nice that Hana doesn't try to brush off her time as Aguilera as being something she has repented for, and explicitly notes to Olteca that she is going to do her time after she helped deal with all the loose ends. That's definitely something that's necessary, I feel. 
• Episode 45 has a brief scene of Karizaki helping the Igarashis clean up, but just refusing to acknowledge any conversations relating to Masumi. Poor guy isn't taking it well, is he?
• I know the mass-produced riders aren't going to be useful at all, but man, the mass-produced Demons are probably the most useless ones out of all mass-produced riders. 
• Also rather randomly, Hiromi shows up with a Hawkeye bow that he got from Karizaki to rescue Daiji from one enemy. That's... that's literally his frankly underwhelming contribution to the fight. Should've just let him take over Tamaki's 'base control' role. 

Kamen Rider Revice E44 Review: Fallen Angel

Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 44: Lay Down My Body and Soul, The Whereabouts of the Decision 

And here we finally have the conclusion to the Evil Daiji arc. Or, well, Confused And Convinced Of His Own Justice But Is Actually Just Refusing To Admit His Mistakes Daiji arc.  

After instantly resolving the cliffhanger last episode by having Giff kidnap Vice instead, Daiji continues on his emo way to walk off and leave his family members in the dust. Vice is held hostage within Giff's realm, and... Olteca is just floating around in a bubble. Right, he exists. In-between the good guys discussing what to do with Daiji, Daiji himself actually shows up at Happy Spa... to say his goodbyes to his mother. But Ikki interrupts his little act and finally demands a final confrontation. 

Ikki does the typical 'can your family be happy without you' speech, but Daiji just refuse to move out of the way, and Ikki and Daiji both transform. After a bit, Sakura joins in too but gets taken out rather quickly. Kind of a shame that Sakura does get to miss in most of the action, but I guess she's present physically? 

Giff meanwhile speaks to Vice -- I think the first time we actually hear Giff speak instead of having his minions interpret for us. Giff's plan is... he wants to preserve humanity since humanity can make demons, but humanity would destroy itself if it evolves too fast, so it's keeping evolution in check? Okay, that... that's an interesting enough twist on the regular demon lord plot, I guess? Giff then goes on to say that the Igarashis are special since they can coexist with their demons, leading Giff to want to 'keep' them around. It's... it's a variation of the recent Akaishi plot, but okay, sure, I guess we need a reason to explain why Giff doesn't murder everyone instantly. 

Ikki and Vice resonating causes Vice to get dragged out of the Giff-realm and pop up in the real world, while Hiromi gets his 'I will lay down my life' catchphrase told off by George, who gives him a new driver. Giff almost forges a contract with Daiji, who thinks that somehow taking Akaishi's place, Giff can spare humanity? We get Revi and Vice fighting against Giff, while Hiromi arrives with a new catchphrase -- "I will devote my life to helping you change". Hiromi finally turns into Demons once more after nearly two dozen episodes. Daiji throws Hiromi's old catchphrase in his face, but he tells Daiji off, saying that he's sworn off that phrase. We get a rather cool fight between Live and Demons, and the two men confront each other in their untransformed state. 

And while it is surprising that Ikki isn't the one to finally talk Daiji down, it is a great nod to Hiromi and Daiji's dynamic earlier in the series, and hey, Hiromi of all people would understand forgiving his own past self -- since he forgave both George and his old self-destructive mindset. Hiromi tells Daiji that it's okay to start over. Hiromi collapses, Giff beats Ikki and Vice... and Daiji, finally, the blockhead, admits tearfully that he also wants to change but has no idea what to do. 

And at that point, his transformation device becomes black and Kagero re-manifests. Again, I still don't like how Kagero is integrated, but I absolutely love the subsequent black-and-white 'fallen angel' form, actually called 'Perfect Live' instead of the bizarre 'Evilyty' term the belt likes to yell out. That Daiji's 'perfect' form is actually him acknowledging all of his sins and mistakes, and that it's okay to not pretend to be super-holy all the time and embrace his weaknesses. 

Embracing that he's now willing to apologize and fight with his family, Daiji apologizes to Hiromi and Sakura, before helping Revi and Vice attack Giff. Daiji thinks up of a way to seal Giff back up in his realm, which... is honestly kind of out of nowhere, but it looks cool to see Revice and Live finally working together again. It does happen a bit quickly and, just like Akaishi's first 'death', I'm sure Giff will come back again. The main focus of this episode isn't Giff, after all, it's Daiji's redemption. 

The B-plot for this episode is interesting, in that it showcases Karizaki Senior's death... and doesn't actually resolve it in the way that a Kamen Rider episode traditionally would. We get multiple scenes of Karizaki Senior on his deathbed, with characters like Hana or Hiromi talking to him and trying to get a resolution between him and George. George, however, remains cold and indifferent, talking about how his main job is about tuning a driver and he doesn't have time for a 'dying senior citizen'. In a typical show, George would have the time to finally meet Karizaki Senior right before his death and resolve his conflict, but... but this episode plays with it wonderfully by having Karizaki Senior actually pass away moments before George shows up to deign to finally give peace a chance. It's beautifully sad, and while the primary focus of the episode is the Daiji drama, this serves as a rather melancholic contrast where the Karizaki family just... just didn't actually manage to find the closure that the Igarashis did. Where George goes 'daddy?' with a dumbfounded expression, the scenes immediately before and after it is Daiji reuniting happily with his family. 

Anyway, other than the questionable and obviously not-going-to-stick way that they defeat Giff, basically a pretty damn great episode all around. 

Random Notes:

• Hikaru is just out of the fight and collapses in the beginning of the episode. I didn't think much of it, but he ends up being out of commission for the next couple of episodes. I guess that Anomalocaris vistamp took much more out of him than I thought! There's a nice, brief scene of him holding Ushijima's glasses.
• Okay, it is a smart move getting Vice out of the way between the Daiji/Ikki scenes. I like Vice, but his antics would definitely take something away from these initial confrontation. 
• Yea, Giff just casually blows up a city. Not quite as impressive as Evolt creating a black hole to suck up the governmental building, but okay, sure. 
• It absolutely is great to see that after treating Hiromi as basically a disposable test lab rat, George decides to see value in Hiromi as a person and force him to abandon his 'lay down my life' catchphrase.
• The way that Daiji and Kagero initially transforms into Perfect Live -- which I'm sure will be truncated in subsequent appearances -- has Kagero do the stamping thing on Daiji's belt, then he briefly transforms into Kamen Rider Evil before getting absorbed and forming one half of Live's black-and-white angel wings before they envelop Daiji and turn him into Perfect Live.  
• Okay, damn, I've always liked the Holy Live suit, but adding those sleek black lines really does look cool. 
• I get that Hiromi's body is weak and he probably got quite injured from that finisher trade with Daiji, but really? Sakura's not joining in the final battle? For a show that's normally been amazing at including Sakura in major scenes, it's a bit of a disappointment. 
• Oh yeah, Olteca's bubble falls out of the Giff portal. That's random. 

Let's Play Legends Arceus, Part 15: Ghost Fox Hunting

So a little birdie told me that if I report the Avalugg questline to Kamado, it's going to essentially lock me into the endgame. So I've been spending the past couple of days just... just casually trying to complete the Pokedex and complete as many of the older sidequests as possible. Mostly, I really, really wanted a Hisuian Zorua. I genuinely thought that a Zoroark was going to be one of the Noble Pokemon, since Hisuian Zoroark has been so prominently featured in so much of Legends Arceus' promotional material!

But nope, Zorua is just... a really, really rare encounter in several spots in the Alabaster Icelands. So as I just jump around the five big maps, I also try to complete research tasks for some more Pokemon. Throughout everything written here, I worked on getting Infernape and Espeon's entry full; and getting research tasks for the Turtwig and Piplup lines and evolving them into Torterra and Empoleon. I also raised a Togetic all the way into being a Togekiss, taking care only to evolve these rare Pokemon only after I got research tasks out of them. 

Ultimately, I found a Zorua after murdering a whole ton of Bergmites and Misdreavuses in one of the ice tunnels in the Icelands, and I captured him immediately. I call him Enma, after the god of the underworld and that one sword from One Piece. 

And as I trained up Zorua, I finally found Brice (is he a reference to Pryce?) and finally set up the second camp in the Alabaster Icelands... after I basically finished everything the main plot wants me to do there. I give Brice a random level 5 Ponyta, too, since he's a bit too cold in this tundra. 

And after that, I kinda... just jumped from map to map, looking for Cherrim for that one damn early-game quest. I finally broke down and looked up a guide, and apparently Cherrim will only spawn from blue trees that shake, so I just alternated between every single area to look for a Cherrim. In doing so, I found out that the 'Fabled Grove' is actually a meeting place for Clefairies and Clefables at night, and it's actually genuinely surprising to me because it really should have been obvious with the 'fable' name, but also I didn't expect the Clefairy line to show up in Hisui since I don't think they showed up in the Sinnoh games. It is pretty nicely eerie and magical to see the Clefairy just hop around and sometimes I think create illusions? Or maybe I'm just really bad at throwing pokeballs when a Smoke Bomb is active. 

Also, in one of the time-rifts, I find not a futuristic Pokemon like Porygon or the modern Johtonian Sneasel, but Shieldon and Cranidos! ...of course this is how they're going to introduce the prehistoric Pokemon. That's genuinely so cool! I think I'm in a comfortable enough level to survive running around in a space-time rift until I have exhausted the time limit, though I also have to pick my battles properly.

Another interesting thing is that one of the Gingko Guild members sells me a strange mechanical wardrobe... and it's a Rotom-style refrigerator! Where the fuck did you find a refrigerator in medieval-era Japan, Volo's boss? I guess it fell out of the space-time rift, and somehow Rotom is able to possess it? It's still kind of odd that Rotoms exist before televisions are (presumably) invented, but I guess anything that doesn't gel perfectly we can really just blame the space-time rifts. This finally does add a piece of furniture to my otherwise barren house, though, which I thought was cute. 

There's a bunch of outbreaks that I had fun in. It's interesting how there are Pokemon that are just kinda passive, like the Sudowoodo, which makes the outbreak a bit easier to handle. Then there's the Eevee outbreak where all the little foxes will just scatter to the winds. And then there are outbreaks like Heracross, where the damn beetles will gang up on me, sometimes four at once, to try and murder me. 

My exploration also yields me a bunch of Old Verses and Unown, although I haven't really even started to properly looking for them. None of the Old Verses, I think, connect to each other and are just a collection of old weird myths? There's also some carvings in the Snowpoint Temple and I looked a bit more closely on it -- there are symbols of at least Cresselia and Heatran there, which... I don't know if all the Sinnoh legendaries are going to make an appearance here? 

All the wandering around in the Icelands ended up with me stumbling into an Unown in a hidden rock smash tunnel in that one cave in Mt. Coronet. There's another one just on one of the outcroppings near the Eternal Ice, and another one on top of a strange rock in the Icelands' waterfall. Pretty neat, and I absolutely love that, just like the Koroks, any slightly-weird place will for sure have Unowns or Spiritomb wisps around. 

I also finally turned in a bunch of side-quests. There's a Pearl Settlement lady who is Bergmite's number one fan, and she wants to see the dex entry for Bergmite (which I already completed). She's like, pretending badly to know all the information or some shit, and I don't find her particularly funny. 

Another quest that I hadn't completed is the Nosepass request. This one, unlike the Bergmite one, actually makes use of Nosepass's uniqueness and has the lady that request it actually use Nosepass as a compass to navigate the dark cave. It's not much, but this is the kind of flavour that makes some of the non-spotlighted Pokemon much more memorable. If only there's something like that for poor Bergmite, who himself is already kind of boring...

There's also another balloon minigame, except this time it's like a triathlon nonsense. Remember how I said Braviary's controls are not so good, but it's okay since it's just used for exploration? This is one of the most miserable minigames I've played in a Pokemon game. Fuck this one. I just got my 30 balloons popped since the switching between ride Pokemon is a bit clunky, and dipped out. 

Oh, and I also found Wanda in a random Coronet Mountain cliff, just... just by accident. Wasn't even looking for the lady! She's so happy because a Crobat blew her away and she couldn't get up. There's a cute moment where she's all like 'oh, I am relying on you, why couldn't you be in my corps' or whatever. She's going to probably get lost in the Icelands one more time, isn't she? ...except she gets lost in the Fieldlands again? Okay? That's weird. I haven't actually completed this side of the quest.

Eventually, I did find a Cherrim and thankfully it's guaranteed that startled Pokemon from berry trees will fight. I just chuck an ultra ball at it the first chance I got, because shit, I ain't going through this hell of looking for Cherrim in the trees. I spent a lot of the time doing all of these other quests just spamming Cherrim's research mission, which is to do things in agile moves since I can't bloody well defeat or catch more Cherrims if I can't find more than one. The quest itself ends anticlimactically when the random farmer guy just goes 'oh, okay, so Cherrim has two forms neat'.

...if nothing else, Cherrim, you have utterly and successfully made yourself memorable in my brain, though not perhaps for the best reason. 

Another sidequest I completed is the Tao Hua/Choy storyline. Which... turns out that the 'treasure' that was stolen from him was his granddaughter. So all of this nonsense is just a family spat over an overprotective dad who doesn't like his son-in-law. Okay. The Tao Hua stuff really have a bit too much dialogue baked into it, but I did like that we do have a running storyline in the background. 

With the power of Exp Candies, I manage to raise up a Pachirisu to level 35 and use it to beat up the Ursaring in that one quest in the first area that I've kind of ignored because Pachirisu really isn't that good for battling. Although now that I type this sentence, I think I realize that I probably should've made use of the move tutor to teach it Thunderbolt or something. Oh well. 

The missing Eevee quest also gets solved when I realized that I'm not supposed to be looking for Eevee, but one of its evolutions. The only real hint is that the old man who owned the Eevee talked about the Galaxy Corps base, and I didn't really think that the Umbreon that Sanqua had was anything but an easter egg to Gold & Silver's Karen! Turns out that the Eevee just evolved on its own -- probably out of happiness from the muffins the old man keeps giving it, and the old man ends up parting with the evolution stone he set aside for Eevee. That's cute. 

While all of this is going on and I'm just trying to fill up the 'capture' and 'defeat' quotas for a lot of the more common species, I also start to evolve a lot of my Pokemon, especially those with unique new forms. Bergmite and Rufflet are easy; they are already at relatively high level so it's easy to turn them into Hisuian Avalugg and Hisuian Braviary. Avalugg... just isn't that good thanks to getting so much x4 damage from everything, but he's cool and that's all that matters. I don't care enough about Braviary to use him, but Avalugg is probably going to get raised a bit more. 

Some of the Hisuian forms are a bit tricky. Hisuian Voltorb evolves into Hisuian Electrode... not by the Thunder Stone, but by the Leaf Stone. That's cute! And Hisuian Sneasel evolves into Sneasler by Razor Claw... but in the day, instead of in the night like Weavile! That's... okay, that's interesting. I really still don't like the look of Sneasler and his fursuit-looking design, but Electrode will fall into the same category as Avalugg and Arcanine where "I'll raise them to be substitutes when I want something different". 

Basculin evolving into Basculegion takes a bit more work, though, because the way that you do that is to accumulate almost 500 HP in terms of recoil damage. Poor, poor Basculin, you literally have to hurt the poor fish to turn him into a ghost. Hisuian Basculin's new signature move, Wave Crash, is basically Water-type Take Down and that helps, but it's still kind of annoying that I have to keep healing up poor Basculin. With how often I've been using the red-accented ride Basculin, it was a bit jarring to see mine evolve into the variation with white accents.

And finally, my Hisuian Zorua evolves into Hisuian Zoroark. I love everything about this design. It just looks so wild with the in-game 3D model. It's blood-soaked hair, its edgy, exposed-dying muscles look... and the fact that I already like Zoroark in the first place! Instead of Night Daze, Hisuian Zoroark's signature move is Bitter Malice, which might freeze the enemy Pokemon and deals more damage if the enemy has a status condition. That's kind of fucking metal, it's inflicting the same ice-cold conditions that murdered it and its young on the enemy! 

Honestly, while the dex entries are certainly morbid, I really do feel like it's such a great combination of tropes between the mysterious icy-mountain demons, travelers who die and succumb to the cold, and Zoroark's original already very aggressive protectiveness of its young, now twisted into something that's surprisingly a lot more brutal than its Dark-type counterparts in Unova. 

Looking at my pokedex, I think I've encountered most of the non-legendary Pokemon? I'm still missing actually capturing some of them. Haven't met a Pikachu yet, I'm missing a couple of the Eeveelutions, obviously Spiritomb, some of the baby forms, and... and unless there is another overworld area (I highly doubt it!) my Pokedex ends at Lucario. That sounds about right, I feel, before we move into the endgame. I am an ninth-star with Cyellene, I believe? I haven't turned in my pokedex research for a while.

Current Party: Hootle (Hisuian Decidueye), Manterror (Kleavor), Enma (Hisuian Zoroark), Bartholomew (Ursaluna), Geth (Basculegion), Uzumaki (Hisuian Goodra)

Ms. Marvel S01E06 Review: Home Alone

Ms. Marvel, Season 1, Episode 6: No Normal

And we close off the first season of Ms. Marvel with them trying to mish-mash every ignored plot point together. It's... it's not the worst superhero TV show seasonal ending I've ever seen, but I still maintain that the show's pretty much focused all of its effort on building up Kamala's community in the first two episodes, and then the Khan family's history in episdoes 4-5. That leaves a lot of the rest of the show to be rather... underbaked, and when we go from the heavily dramatic scenes in the previous two episodes and into the glitzy, wacky-youth stuff in Jersey City and Kamala's high school, it kind of feels rather forced. Or jarring, at least. The fact that all the fancy integration of thoughts and instant messaging all but disappeared in the past three episodes and return in this one also feels rather jarring. 

But, again, the show is still carried by the strength of its characters and their actors. For all the faults of this episode, Kamala Khan herself and most of her supporting cast are still extremely likable. We get to see Kamala break the news to her family -- and in typical Asian family fashion, that damned smartphone speaker means that ammi told abbu and abbu's speaker told everyone else in the house. That's nice, and the fact that big bro Aamir sticks around for the climax is much appreciated. The callback to the first episode with Muneeba and Yusuf telling Kamala that they trust her -- a stark contrast to their attitude to Kamala sneaking out for AvengerCon -- is nice, too. 

We also get this whole episode as essentially Ms. Marvel's first proper superheroing as a superhero, complete with a brand-new costume that Muneeba made for her, and it's pretty triumphantly done. Again, just like what I felt with Daredevil's first season, I'm never a big fan when a superhero TV show stretches out the superhero costume reveal, but at least Ms. Marvel does it well. There really is nothing overly unexpected with the proceedings, it's just nice to see. And we even get Kamala's catchphrase 'embiggen' tossed in there. 

It's just that, just like Najma last episode, the antagonists in this episode are very much underwhelming. There's a distinct similarity to Falcon and the Winter Soldier, I think, when most of the story of what they're trying to tell has dried up at the penultimate episode, and what's left is just the big superhero costume and identity debut. And that's okay. Both shows handled it well, but it also leaves the feeling that maybe with a bit of story editing and ironing, it could've been done better. 

Agent Deever is just super gung-ho and super racist and just a flat caricature of your typical anti-superhero cop ever, refuses to compromise or respect other cultures, and she leads an army of faceless Damage Control goons on something that her partner Agent Cleary didn't authorize. Between Cleary's constantly being the 'good cop' in this situation, her blatant triggerhappiness and her constant refusal to take off her shoes in a place of worship, she really is written to be as flat as possible and while it's certainly on purpose, it does make her unbelievably dull. 

Kamran, meanwhile, is having trouble controling his powers, causing crystals to pop up wherever he touches, and Bruno brings him on the run. We get to visit some of the places and side-characters we've met all throughout the series, including a return to the mosque and the return of characters like Nakia and Sheikh Abdullah. We get a fun scene of the community banding together to help Kamran and Bruno escape, before they meet up with Kamala Khan, decked out in full Ms. Marvel costume and running across the buildings of Jersey City. 

Then we lead into the high school scene, and... and it's okay? It's not my type of humour, but I get where they're going for. I do like that they didn't drag out the make-up between Kamala and Nakia. Aamir shows up because he's been shadowing his little sister, and Zoe Zimmer randomly shows up because she's apparently figured out both Kamala's identity and also has been in the empty school to do her TikToks. And then they basically do all Home Alone on the Damage Control agents on a rather extended scene of running around the school and using things like the science lab and a disco ball to bully the highly ineffective Damage Control troops. Again, a bit jarring considering how super-serious the past two episodes have been, and I guess the humour just didn't particularly land for me? Anyway, they slow down the highly ineffective soldiers that are supposed to be good enough to deal with metahumans (SHIELD they ain't) while Zoe uses the power of social media and TikTok to summon the entire community there. 

Reality ensues (although not as quickly) as Bruno, Aamir, Nakia and Zoe all eventually get arrested by the Damage Control, but because Kamala keeps dragging out the revelation that Najma's dead, Kamran ends up going ballistic and starts using his yellow crystal Noor powers to attack Damage Control while Kamala uses her own powers to try and combat Kamran's. Unlike Najma last episode, though, Kamala talking to Kamran and managing to calm him down makes sense. We've spent enough time with Kamran to know he's not bad, the fact that he's in grief makes sense, and he's clearly good enough friends with Kamala that their shared bond makes it believable for Kamala to talk him down in under a minute. 

Oh, and we get Kamala embiggenning, tossing cars and giant sci-fi cannons around, and creating a forcefield and stuff. It's... it's not super impressive as far as MCU standards go, admittedly, but it's still superhero fun. We get the harrowing moment when Deever actually orders her agents to shoot a teenager and damn, it must be terrifying to be Muneeba and Yusuf in the crowd at that moment. Thankfully, Ms. Marvel has embiggening powers. Anyway, Kamala stalls enough to get Kamran out to safety to where Red Dagger is waiting for him in the harbour, while the community (including the local police and even Agent Cleary in Damage Control's office) all block the way of Deever's goons and protect Kamala. Pretty cheesy, but pretty sweet and fits the tone of the show. 

And then we get a couple of wrap-ups, which I felt was, again, handled much, much better than the action climax because at the end of the day, Ms. Marvel was a show that's much more about the characters. We get a TikTok montage of the Jersey City community appreciating their new local hero, which is nice. We get the nice scene of Yusuf hanging out with Kamala on the rooftop of their house, where we get the payoff to one of Muneeba's friends in Karachi remarking that 'Kamala' is not a typical Pakistani name -- as with the genesis of the character's name in real life, Yusuf says that 'kamal' means wonder in Urdu... or 'marvel'. And then he name drops that Kamala Khan is always their little 'Ms. Marvel'. There we have a superhero name!

After a recreation of one of Ms. Marvel's most iconic comic-book covers, we get Kamala, Nakia and Bruno meeting each other, and in a massive swerve to comic-book fans, Bruno tells Kamala that her Noor-controlling powers isn't just because of her djinn heritage (since Aamir and the rest of her family can't do it) or the bangle... and that there's something unique about Kamala Khan. Something like... a mutation. 

We even get the fucking 90's X-Men cartoon theme playing. 

So yeah. I guess this is MCU finally admitting that, yeah, mutants are the real profitable way here. I guess their attempts to shoehorn the Inhumans down the fandom's throat has finally led them to shrugging and turn Ms. Marvel -- a.k.a. the most and arguably only notable Inhuman outside the original royal family -- into a mutant.

We don't take too much time to dwell on it because Kamala just waves it aside as 'another label', but is that why there has been no hints of Lockjaw or any of the Inhuman stuff? It was an interesting swerve to make her seemingly fully-magical, powered by a bangle or her djinn heritage, but it is a very, very interesting direction they're taking by making Kamala Khan a mutant in the MCU. 

But her mutant heritage isn't probably going to be anywhere on the radar anytime soon, because the mid-credits scene seems to be a scene from The Marvels, with Kamala Khan randomly switching places with a very confused Captain Marvel. 

Anyway, that has been a ride. It's a real shame that Ms. Marvel does remain the least well-performing among the Disney+ shows. It does have some glaring flaws, but honestly? Honestly, I really do enjoy my time through it. It's just kind of a shame -- I think maybe with one extra episode or maybe some cut characters (like the extra Clandestines or the Red Dagger mentor) and some time to develop the side-characters and antagonists, the show could've been much better. But it's definitely fun!

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• The post-credits scene, seemingly taken from The Marvels, shows Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel switching places? Or something? Carol Danvers sure shows up in Kamala's room for sure. 
• Kamala says her comic-book catchphrase 'Embiggen', which she usually says when she goes ham on stretching and expanding her body parts.
• 'No Normal', the title of this episode, is the title of Kamala Khan's first trade paperback. 
• In stark contrast to her Inhuman heritage in the comics, Bruno identifies Kamala's ability to use the bangle as being part of a "mutation", which, of course, means that MCU Kamala Khan is a mutant instead of an Inhuman... something that probably raises a lot of waves in the community considering Kamala is widely considered to be one of the only few well-written Inhuman characters during the period of time when Marvel Comics was trying to push Mutants out with Inhumans. 
• When Bruno says that Kamala's powers are due to a 'mutation', a riff of the theme song of the 90's X-Men: The Animated Series (complete with 90's guitar!) plays. 
• Kamala Khan's co-creator G. Willow Wilson appears among the TikTok montage at the tail end of the episode.
• One of the final scenes of the episode is Ms. Marvel sitting on top of a street light overlooking Jersey City, recreating the now-iconic cover for Ms. Marvel #5. 
• Nakia yells out that they're going off to get some Shawarma, a cuisine that has become iconic thanks to its usage as a joke in The Avengers. 

Ms. Marvel S01E05 Review: The Flashback One

Ms. Marvel, Season 1, Episode 5: Time and Again

Okay, questionable disintegration CGI aside, this one is a pretty good episode. Again, I'm not someone that has a particularly high bar in terms of how good CGI looks -- and in fact just roll my eyes at people who constantly bitch about sub-par CGI. (I don't mind Kamala's crystal powers either, unlike half the internet) But I have to admit that the effects of the Clandestines disintegrating into rock and showing pearly-white skeletons within? Now you could chalk that up to different djinn morphology, but nah. In this case, I do have to admit that for the first time in a long, long while, I went 'well, that's just dumb looking'. 

Anyway, I got that out of my system, so let me talk about the rest of the episode. Which is pretty spectacular! Ms. Marvel is strongest, I have said in my previous episode reviews, when it focuses on the stories it wants to tell. In this case, it's definitely the story of the Khan family. And honestly, with the benefit of having watched the next episode, I do really think that this episode offers a much more compelling season finale.

The episode does take around a third of its runtime just giving us the story of Kamala's great-grandmother Aisha, the djinn who found love in a human, the crippled Hasan. The show does a pretty great job at showing us how their love blossomed, and how everything got screwed up by all the political events happening in pre-Partition India. I am readily someone who's not well-versed in that part of history -- in fact, it's only after this show that I've began reading up about it. It's all the British's fault, really, but it's also depressing to see everything happen frm the eye-level of the common folk. The cultural context is very well done, I am sure, but what's done beautifully is how much the theme of family shines through it all. Aisha has left behind her original djinn family and found love with Hasan and baby Sana. And so much of both the present-day Kamala and Sana's motivations are all driven by their own family. It's something that's so lovingly done and feels just so authentic. 

Now it is arguable just how effective spending nearly 20 minutes on Hasan and Aisha, since it doesn't have Kamala in these scenes, and Aisha's death at the end is already set in stone. Perhaps those could be trimmed down a little, or to include a bit more Najma in order to build up this poor, under-developed antagonist and make what she does in the climax a bit more believable. 

But the story about loss and the discussion of finding your own history and all that? That works out amazingly. Yes, the show could have done with a bit more of a superhero comic-book explanation on how Kamala actually traveled in time beyond 'djinn bangle powers' -- and Aisha imparting the bangle to protect baby Sana. Especially since time travel was treated as kind of a big deal in the MCU's primary movies. But presumably Kamala also gets to see the same events being told about Aisha and Hasan that the audience does, and when we cut back to our main heroine, she does seem to feel the same oomph given by the backstory that we did. 

And as Kamala gets transported back in time to 1942, amidst the bustling and confused people on that fateful train station, as Aisha gets stabbed by Najma for her supposed treachery, Kamala puts things into full circle by being the trail of stars that little Sana sees which leads her back to Hasan. The bangle and the mantra of 'what you seek is seeking you' ends up bringing Kamala to the past, allowing her to save her grandmother. 

And then we cut to the present, with the whole space-time rift between our dimension and the djinn's home dimension (is that why Kamala was able to travel to the past?) and we get to see that the veil... is apparently destructive. Oh, hey, Bruno and Kamala's warning about doing some research before broaching the interdimensional borders turns out to be true after all! Fariha, the only Clandestine member left* other than Najma excitedly reaches out towards the way to her home and gets disintegrated in the aforementioned bad CGI death. 

*I am genuinely not sure what happened to the two men, did they die in the action scene last episode? The wikis all list them as deceased...

Kamala uses her crystal forcefield powers to try and contain the veil, while Red Dagger evacuates the civilians. All that's left is Kamala and Najma, and Kamala gives an impassioned speech -- that she has robbed Aisha of her family, and she shouldn't do the same thing to Kamran. Iman Vellani's acting and delivery is good and all, but here's the problem... I just really don't care about Najma as a character. The Khan family, Kamran, Bruno, Nakia? Them, the show does a spectacular job of making me care for them. Najma's just... she's just kind of there. I do feel like the flashback could've devoted a bit more time between Aisha and Najma to build Najma up without compromising on what we got. 

But when Najma end up going "yes I have made a mistake", it feels flat for me. She really does remind me of the Flag-Smashers from Falcon and the Winter Soldier in that the prompt to write them and their backstory is pretty good. In Najma's case, she's someone so obsessed with a single goal that she forgets all about her family, the exact opposite of Kamala's situation. Even when Fariha disintegrates before her eyes, even when she has to leave her son behind, even when she stabs Aisha to death, Najma is only consumed with a single goal. To return to her dimension. That is interesting, right? You could write a whole show just about Najma, even. But we barely know the woman, so when she does her anime-villain death-and-redemption moment, I just shrug. She dies helping Kamala close the rift with her undisclosed powers (again, another complaint is that they could've given these djinn some actual powers) and dies, but the glowing power flies halfway across the world and infects Kamran because we still need some plot for the final episode.

Oh, and Kamran, confused with how the powers has found him (a twisted mirror to how the bangle's powers found Kamala), goes to find Bruno, and as the two of them try and figure things out one of Damage Control's Mysterio drones blows up the house. Oh no!

But it's hard to get mad about how the next episode goes when this episode does end up concluding what I felt has been the most well-done conflict, which is Kamala hiding her superhero identity from her family. Muneeba and Sana, with the joys of the amazingly-delivered line of "spyware for parents", arrive in the alley just to see the back-end of Kamala and Najma's confrontation. 

It's a sweet, sweet and amazingly acted moment between the three actresses as they bond over the fact that, hey, Kamala Khan is that 'light girl', and that everything nani Sana has been saying, all of her crazy theories... are actually true. Kamala gives her nani that photograph from 1942, and we get to see this old family matriarch just crumble as she basically goes back to when she was a scared little child looking for her parents. It's beautiful. And Muneeba? Muneeba, after so long of trying to be the one sane person in her family to try and hold her mother's crazy theories and her daughter's strange escapades, finally manages to understand everything that's going on and they finally bond.

And, hey, as underbaked as his character was, it was nice that the show does treat Red Dagger's exit with some dignity. I was a bit too hard on him last episode and while he won't be anywhere close to being the most memorable thing from this show, having the guest star get a good exit is pretty nice. Kamala even gets Red Dagger's red face-scarf, which magically becomes much longer than it looks on Kareem's face. I guess that became her sash when her costume becomes complete?

Anyway, despite my misgivings with the handling of Najma's character, this episode and the previous one are easily two of the strongest ones in Ms. Marvel. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• A rather obvious one, but when Muneeba picks up Kamala's mangled necklace, it is twisted into the 'S' lightning bolt symbol associated with Ms. Marvel.