Reviewing Monsters: Devil May Cry V, Enemies

Note: This article was originally written in November 2021, but rewritten in 2024 after I actually played the game. 

It took me almost three years to do it, but I finally played Devil May Cry V after reviewing its bestiary all the way back in pandemic times. A vast majority of the text here would just be a rehash of what I wrote before, but I decided that there was enough content for me to add after my playthrough that I could rewrite and repost this as essentially a brand-new article. 

Devil May Cry V is the fifth installment of the Devil May Cry franchise, and it's admittedly the conclusion of the saga of two of the main characters -- the brothers Dante and Vergil -- that spanned multiple games. The game does provide a helpful recap of the games and the ancillary tie-in material to get you caught up to speed, but the game itself is honestly not bad at kind of keeping itself self-contained and keeping most of the exposition within the cutscenes of the games itself. You'll be too busy experimenting with the combos of the wacky weaponry and attacks (one of the character uses a fucking Cyberpunk motorbike that transforms into dual chainsaw gauntlets) that all you need to know is "demons bad". 

It also has one of the most badass soundtracks I've ever heard in a video game in quite a while, and there's just a great sense of pleasure listening to tracks like Devil Trigger, Crimson Cloud and Bury the Light while you murder demons. 

As usual with these games, I'm going to first cover the normal monsters, and we'll go to the bosses in a separate article. 

Empusa

"Demonic Insect"

'Empusa' draws its name from a type of shape-shifting phantom from Greek mythology; normally depicted in popular media as some sort of variant on another Greek monster, the Harpy. In Devil May Cry V, they are the most basic of enemies; the footsoldiers of the gigantic Qliphoth Hell-Tree that has sprouted in Not-London Red Grave City. To give a very basic explanation of the premise of the game, a gigantic tree from hell, the Qliphoth, has grown in Red Grave City and these demons are crawling out of it. It's a gigantic tree that also serves as the setting of around 70% of the game, while the other 30% involves you fighting in a hollowed-out city where the Qliphoth's blood-vessel-like roots have taken over. 

And I think that's why they picked 'insectoid' as the basis of the most basic enemies for the Qliphoth demons, it fits the idea that this giant, foul hell-tree is infested with little insects of its own. I love this, and not just because I love bugs, but I feel like it's such a different concept to use humanoid bugs instead of generic skeleton, zombie or imp enemies. 

I didn't think too much of the Empusa beyond 'cool, bug monsters!' until I actually sat down and looked at the model for a bit longer. They have weird wings that aren't quite bird-like, and gangly limbs that would fit more with an insectoid body-plan, but they're otherwise 'humanoid bugs', right? Not quite. Look at those faces! From a distance (and when you're controlling a demon hunter butchering them by the dozens with cyborg rocket arms) they just look like they have a giant wasp head, except fleshier. But the two giant 'fly eyes' are actually just bulbous fleshy growths, and you can see that the 'nostrils' of the face are actually the empty eye sockets of the human skull. The rest of the human skull's anatomy is still there, with its cheeks grotesquely stretched out into a wide bug mouth. Very creative, very creepy! It gives the impression of a bug head that have 'grown out' of this human skull, and that might very well be the case. 

It's a bit harder to realize, but the two blood-red 'bug eyes' are actually attached to two additional human faces that face the left and right of the composite head. We never get a conclusive origin for these guys, but I could totally see the Empusa being created from the fusion of multiple human bodies or souls or corpses that got merged together by the Qliphoth. 

It's very heavily implied that the Empusa go around collecting blood to feed to the giant blood-tree that is the Qliphoth, and you do encounter some of the basic Empusa with engorged abdomen filled with red blood. It's kind of like honeypot ants, famous for their swelled-up abdomens filled with nectar that they share with their colony members with trophallaxis, but instead of feeding other members of their hive, these guys feed their 'host' plant!

They really went hard for this basic enemy, and I honestly still find the Empusas probably the most creative design in the entire game. 

Green Empusa

"Airborne Evil"

It does help that we do have some variants for the basic enemy! It makes extra sense for a colony of bug demons based on ants.

The Green Empusa here gives the vibes of a housefly, with the two 'side-skulls' being more clearly demarcated, and textured like a fly's compound eyes. It's also a bit easier to see the the two separate 'fly eyes' as being chunks of people's skulls, yeah? The Green Empusa also has a swollen, pustulent abdomen, as well as sickly-looking giant butterfly wings. The Green Empusa will always be flying around, and while they can spit poison at your characters, their main role is to spit 'healing nectar' onto their fellow Empusae. I always like it when a video game monster's healing abilities are explained in some way, instead of it being 'just because'. There's a fair bit of honeypot ant inspiration to these guys, too, which also gets a bit clearer with the rest of the Empusa family. 

Red Empusa

"Bloodgorged Scavenger"

The Red Empusa are a bit of an interesting case! They're a bit of a 'rare enemy', because they won't actually fight you. They actually try to escape! Unlike regular Empusae, their abdomen is so swollen by the crystallized blood (or 'red orbs') that they can't even fight, and they're just running to scuttle away and get those blood back to the Qliphoth. 

Again, it's very much based on honeypot ants and their specialized worker ants, where some of them have their abdomen so bloated with nutrition, and their only purpose is to be a walking honey-storage to disgorge them out to the young in the nest. I do find this to be interesting -- some regular Empusa do have bloated abdomen, but not to this degree. And this Red Empusa's wings seem to have degenerated and even its head seems to be riddled with crystallized blood. 

Empusa Queen

"Vermin Empress"

I actually wasn't sure that I'm looking at until I found the 'face' of this thing -- it's the same 'screaming skull with two giant Predator mouthparts' that the lesser Empusae have, but the Queen's body is shaped more like a monstrous praying mantis or a lobster. It's a lot more threatening looking, and much larger than its emaciated minions. The Empusa Queen kind of serves as a miniboss of sorts. The official art makes it a bit harder to see, but the Queen has a massive carapace that runs down its dorsal part, and a series of purple petals around her skull-head that makes it look like some sort of twisted, natural crown. It does really look impressive as a bug enemy. 

The entire Empusae race literally just exist to serve the Qliphoth as collector ants, so instead of the 'baby factories' that most hive queen enemies tend to be lumped into in video games,  these ladies act more as elite combatants. Very cool design, really what I'm thinking of when you say a 'demon insect from hell'. The Empusa Queen is a berserker in combat, getting super-crazy if she sucks enough blood, and will happily slice through any demon in her way to get to you -- even shown in the first cutscene that an Empusa Queen menaces our heroes. Hey, worker ants are disposable, after all!

Qliphoth Roots

"Blood-Slicked Vegetation"

So let me talk about the Qliphoth first, which is a giant hell-tree that sprouts out in Red Grave City, killing almost all of its inhabitants. This tree is gigantic, literally reaching into the stratosphere when it's fully blooming, and the vessels running around this titanic tree are filled with blood -- way too much to have came from just the inhabitants of a single city, so I have to assume that a significant portion of it came from hell itself. It's later revealed that the entire tree is just a method to synthesize the Qliphoth Fruit, which comes once every 1000 years and grants power... at the cost of a fuckton of blood. 

The roots of these tree tendrils stab and drain blood from unfortunate humans, and as you walk around the bombed-out ruins of Red Grave City, you get to see the drained-out husks of escaping humans that crumble upon the touch. The roots or vines themselves are engorged with blood, and they serve as static enemies in many parts of the game. A group of roots around a pulsating core acts as the tutorial stage boss, but the Qliphoth roots show up so many times in the game that it's hard for me to think of it as the boss. 

Pyrobat

"Winged Deception"

They could've just made Pyrobat a photorealistic bat, but they made an effort to make this feel like a 'demon bat'! The wings are pretty standard as far as demonic bat-wings go, but the body is like, something straight out of Alien. I love how exaggerated they make the large wings of a bat, looking positively demonic as it sprouts of this Gigersque, almost serpentine main body. I'm not entirely sure what's going on with the face, but I do know that there are a lot of bat types with weird faces. I guess this is hell's equivalent of a leaf-nosed bat? Really cool ridged ears and face design, and I love that it looks so weird. 

In combat the Pyrobats aren't the most impressive, basically the only real thing that makes it special is that it's always flying. 

Hellbat

"Insanity Ablaze"

A more powerful version of the Pyrobat is the Hellbat, whose 'combustion chamber' is on its spine, so it's consistently on fire. The general anatomy is around the same with the Pyrobat, but without the spikes on its shoulders. It's got a face like a molten human skull, that's quite grisly; and you can almost see the skeletal structure on its body. 

A bit surprising is when you knock down a Hellbat from the sky, where its abdomen will start to cartoonishly swell up like a tumour before exploding. A rather typical video game enemy thing to do, but I still find it rather well-animated and pretty nasty.

Hell Caina

"Cleaving Vanguard"

We now start with the three 'Hells', which are humanoid enemies. The Hell Cainas are actually the easiest to take down in my experience, and are basically the 'demonic minion' trope you'd expect from this game. Their design is pretty basic and a lot less impressive than the Empusa and Antenora, being a shambling skeleton dude with a giant scythe. Again, like the Antenora's butcher knives, the scythe at least looks very impressive. 

According to the lore, the Hell Cainas normally can only appear in the mortal plane by possessing dolls or lumps of clay, though none of these actually come into play in the game. Presumably, with the Qliphoth tree growing and destroying cities, the Caina can bypass all that and just menace humans.  

Hell Antenora

"Brutal Berserker"

Both the Caina and Antenora are named after a section of the hell-river Cocytus from Dante's Divine Comedy, the Hell Antenora is our basic humanoid enemy -- a bit tougher than the Caina, and a bit harder to stagger. The giant butcher knives are a very distinct visual identity, and I really like those. Interestingly, while the Antenora are stronger than the Cainas, the lore implies that the Antenoras are lower down the rung than the Cainas, who torture them to madness. 

The design isn't really anything to write home about in a demon-slaying game. The Antenora is hunchbacked, has rags around his face, and wields ratty-looking butcher knives. Apparently the Antenoras are demons that got tortured by the Cainas (our next entry), and if you knock them down, they'll enter a berserker state where the weird purple veins (?) in their torso glow and they don't care about who they slash in their way to get to us. Interestingly, the humanoid enemies like the Antenora are actually programmed to attack certain enemies such as the Empusa Queen above or the Behemoth. I really do wish we got to learn a bit more about these demons of hell, but in DMC V they're mostly just window-dressing. 

Hell Judecca

"Demon Horde Commander"

Also named after another segment of Cocytus, the Hell Judecca are humanoid enemies that like to attack from a distance with those glorious scythe-claws.

A pretty cool design -- it's a bit hard to tell, but the Judecca's upper torso is less of a proper torso and more of a mass of random bones held together by the mass of purple... veins? I assume everything tendril-like in this game are veins. It's got a lot of 'blood vessel' imagery. These veins basically writhe around the Judecca's torso and block most of your ranged attacks. Most importantly, the veins trail out like arms and end up in gigantic burning scythe-blades, which leads to a very impressive-looking and badass visuals. They can also teleport around the battlefield a bit, and if you leave them too long they'll summon Cainas and Antenoras. 

Sadly, other than some snarky commentary from one of the supporting characters ("how does this even work?") we don't get too many details on what they are -- are they multiple demons or dead souls clumped together? Is the true Judecca the blood-vessels puppeteering the body? 

Riot

"Brutal Instinct"

I like this guy a lot! So far, we've got bats, bugs and generic zombie-humanoid-demons. The Riots fill in the niche of an animalistic, reptilian demon-spawn role. I love the Starcraft Basilisk-esque mouth, as well as the gloriously goofy blue tongue.

Again, a humanoid lizard isn't the most novel thing in these games, but I really like the Riot. The skin stretching across the skull, and the lower jaw that splits apart, and how long those claws are, really does make the Riot look cool without being too badass. They're simple enemies that jump around and leap across the map to attack you, but I do like how they look. 

Chaos

"Barbed Discord"

These guys show up a bit later in the game, and are basically a stronger version of the Riot. It's got gigantic bone-blades running down its spine, like what a child's attempts of mixing up a stegosaurus and a velociraptor would look like. It's got a very creepy snake-like head with mean-looking fangs. It's a bit hard to see when it's spinning around and stuff, but those hollow eyes and the giant, slender needle-like fangs are really very cool. Being a demon, the Chaos doesn't need to follow the law of physics and are able to roll up into what's basically a demonic organic buzzsaw wheel and spin around the battlefield. 

In maybe my favourite 'enemy intro' segment of the game ever, Dante sees one of these brutal spinning demons... and just uses the high-speed blades to shave his chin. The characters are beyond the scope of this review, but the wacky-woohoo-pizza-man is definitely my favourite of the three (or four in New Game +) playable characters. 

In addition to spinning around, the Chaos can also spit out globs of neurotoxin from sacs in its chest, which it reverts to if your character manages to smash all of the spine-blades that it uses to spin. 

Fury

"Breakneck Predator"

Appearing much later in the game, I actually forgot the Fury was in the game at all until I looked at a list of enemies. It's honestly pretty cool-looking, even if I do like it less than its two lesser siblings, Riot and Chaos. The Fury is a more human-like-proportioned lizard demon, with giant blood-red Wolverine claws and a scale arrangement that looks almost like samurai armour. This less primal look does admittedly feel like they're less 'my taste' than the Riot and the Chaos, but I have to still admit that it looks pretty cool. 

The in-game lore theorizes that the Fury became evolved into a reptile version of the Predator because of its desire to kill faster, somehow developing space-time-warping abilities by its sheer desire to kill. That's commitment! In-game, the Fury is actually a fair bit trickier than most enemies, having multiple attack patterns of teleporting around the player to try and get an assassin's strike in -- and really skilled players (of which I'm not) would be able to abuse some counter mechanics to break the Fury just as it's about to deal a stealth strike. 

Scudo Angelo

"Dark Knight Soldier"

First showing up as the minions of a boss, the Scudo Angelo are apparently created to mimic an entity called the Black Angel, by 'transubstantiating' an unwilling human into demon flesh. I do like how weird the armour of these guys look, looking organic without being obviously made up of flesh. I'm not sure what they look like. Bone? Coral? Chitin? None of those answers really work. I like the very humanoid face just sitting all irritated in the middle of the shield, which also implies that the weapons of these Scudo Angelo guys are also 'transubstantiated' human flesh. 

I don't have a whole ton to say about the Scudo Angelo; these Angelo guys are a reference to a series of enemies in the previous games but they don't actually show up all that much in this one. The lore of them being a mass-produced version of the Black Angel, Nero Angelo, is cool, I guess.

Proto Angelo

"Fractured Commander"

The 'boss' of the Scudos are the Proto Angelos. The first Proto Angelo you face is actually a boss of the level, flanked by four Scudo goons, and you fight him on a theater stage that breaks off and slides down the side of an impossibly long cliff of the Qliphoth-fucked terrain. That fight against five eyeless demon knights on a sliding theater stage was very memorable. 

Proto Angelo himself? Eh. The Proto Angelo basically has the same lore as the Scudo Angelos, only that he's the commander and has a cape and a two-handed sword. I've said most of what I can say about this enemy with the Scudo. It does have a pretty cool face design, I must say. 

Death Scissors

"Shears of Annihilation"

We're done with the three 'families' of common enemies, and almost every one else are basically one-offs. I really did feel like we probably could've used a couple more enemy types, if we're being honest -- maybe weaker versions of Malphas or King Cerberus, to mention the bosses, but I do like a lot of the wackjobs that we get here!

The Death Scissors here is a classic enemy, one of the few returning enemies from previous DMC games (which I may review at some point in this site, but that was what I said in 2021). The design is pretty simple, a ragged black cloak-ghost with a porcelain mask for a face, and a skeletal-mannequin pair of hands holding a big fuck-off pair of shears. In addition to obviously trying to use these giant scissors to cut you up, the Death Scissors can also fly through walls, and one of the first Death Scissors you meet actually come out of a painting drawn of it. It's also got a pretty creepy cackling laugh. 

The Death Scissors are a bit trickier to defeat if you're just being a button-masher -- attacking it head-on just breaks the scissors, causing it to wield the remaining blade like a giant sword or scythe. But at some point, their masks will grow red as it contorts in anger (and porcelain masks with blood-tears are always creepy), and any shot at the mask will instantly kill the Death Scissors. Very interestingly and creepily, despite their cloaked shadowy bodies being invulnerable to damage, once they're destroyed you get to see a glimpse of a mannequin-like 'true' body dissolving as the Death Scissors die. 

Baphomet

"Elusive Incantor"

Baphomet here is... okay, I guess. Basically almost all of the enemies in this game get up in your face to attack you, and the ones that don't go invisible or use a shield to get up in your face to attack you. Baphomet here (named after a common demon name) is one of the few that attack from a distance, being magic wielders that shoot ice magic and create shields. It's honestly one of the more boring designs of the enemies in this game. Some nice texturing to create this emaciated, wretched goat-man, but otherwise I find Baphomet honestly kind of forgettable. 

According to developer notes, three were apparently plants to connect the Baphomet enemy to the brutish 'Goat Clan' demon enemies from Devil May Cry 2, but that's not even mentioned in the in-game texts. Boo!

Behemoth

"Unstoppable Appetite"

Unlike Baphomet up there, the last three on this page are pretty wacky! The Behemoth are these two-legged beasts of gluttony that is so hungry that they eat their own fellow demons. The other demons have even taken to chaining up this guy's mouth. It just lumbers around like a sad hippo, trying its best to knock enemies around while its tail and mouth are chained up.

Of course, since it's a video game enemy, the mouth-chains inevitably get broken and it extends its two giant massive tongue-feet and starts to try and eat you. Since the Behemoth is utterly indiscriminate, you can even ride them for a while and direct them to eat other demons in your way. It's hilarious, actually. The gameplay of DMC-V is quite chaotic, but if you do slow down and try and see what's going on, when a Behemoth's chains get broken the other intelligent demons will actually panic and try to attack the Behemoth!

Once you get a better look at the Behemoth in motion, it doesn't look too exotic. It's just a weird crocodilian monster with some parts swapped around. But it's a very fun design. I love how the tongues are so bulbous and act more like an extra set of legs. I love the texturing of his utterly nasty set of teeth, which look like they can really fuck up any body parts that get shoved in front of it. 

Lusachia

"Chorus of Malediction"

Ooo, a cool one. I had to double-check that this isn't actually a boss! The Lusachia is just an amorphous mass of screaming mouths attached to rocky or moss-like growths, with two hands and a tail jutting out of this massive... amalgamation of flesh. Apparently, the Lusachia evolved to have multiple mouths just so that it can cast more magical incantations, while the rest of its limbs have atrophied. I mean, sure! I guess it fits some kind of twisted logic. The more mouths you have, the more magic spells you can speak, right? Doesn't matter if you turn into a lump of flesh and mouths, all you need is more mouths so that you can mouth while you mouth! 

The Lusachia is basically a better version of a Baphomet, able to cast a whole ton of different spells due to its many, many mouths. It can teleport and also summon garden-variety stuff like fire, ice and lightning spells, but also 'malefice', a spell that takes a bit longer to cast but is extremely damaging to your characters. Neat!

Nobody

"Abnormal Avatar"

Um what? Yeah, this one looks like someone's nightmare transcribed into a monster. Look at this thing. Just look at it! It's a mishmash of ribcages with legs arranged like a spider-being. And there's a golden mask with a 'tongue' of flesh on either side of this vaguely dog-like body. Jutting out from its center is a meaty, nasty arm that picks up... a green smiling face-mask? The in-universe characters themselves are baffled at what Nobodies are, with Nico's entry theorizing that they are 'half-formed, like they broke out of the egg too early'. The Nobodies in DMC V are actually toned down from their original DMC 1 appearances, which look even more insane!

They will do a happy dance while they're not fighting, which adds to the creepiness. These things are apparently intelligent. Oh, and those detached eyeballs in the picture? That's the Nobody's ranged attack, where it can grow additional eyeballs ('decomposed organs', according to the first game's bestiary) that the hand will pluck and rip out of the body and chuck at you like bombs. What?! The Nobody's attack patterns change as it changes masks. It's got one mask for melee attacks, another for ranged attacks, and its most dangerous 'berserk' state causes it to grow larger and wild. All the masks are creepy in their own way -- the brass mask, the wildly grinning green mask, and the mass of madness that is the berserk state. 

That arm that juts out of the center of the body is also such a weird anatomical choice, and I really appreciate how fucked-up it looks. As many characters in the game notes, it's actually deceptively strong, with the Nobody being one of the few non-boss enemies able to actually grapple with the main characters and win. 

Pretty creepy design, and a stand-out compared to the rest of the bestiary, and a great one to end off this 'common enemies' page. Like the Proto Angelo, you actually fight a bunch of Nobodies as a boss at the end of a stage before they show up as rare enemies in subsequent ones. 

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This was fun to do! We'll go over the bosses next week. When I finish the game myself, I might go back and re-edit this article with some additional blurbs on how I feel about facing these enemies myself. 

Jujutsu Kaisen S01E01-03

Things are very likely to be super-busy for the next couple of months, but I do have some backup content to tide you over -- these were actually written in November-December ish, but I never had the chance to finish writing the reviews until recently. 

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So yeah, I'm watching the Jujutsu Kaisen anime, and... I was debating on whether doing this per episode, like how I handled JoJo and Bleach, or do a multi-episode review like how I handled One Piece and My Hero Academia. And I think I'll try multiple episodes at once for the first season. Again, I think my reviewing technique really stems on how much I have to say per-episode, and how much is just me reacting to it.

Now I have read the manga. I'm somewhat familiar with what goes on, and I think I last left off at somewhere around the very early chapter 100's? But I'm definitely not caught up to it. Anyway, it's been a manga that's been pretty hyped-up, and with good reviews for the anime, I do want to watch it a bit. 

Since the first season is 24 episodes, I'll do three episodes instead of five per 'review'. Again, to those that haven't seen my One Piece and MHA anime content, this is less of a review, and more of a reaction, if that makes sense? We'll see how I feel once I finish this and maybe go on to season 2. 

Also note that I have much less encyclopedic knowledge about JJK than I do One Piece, My Hero Academia or JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. This is technically just my first 're-read'!

Episode 1:

• I do really like the anime's version of the in medias res opening, with Yuji already bound with seals and shit while Gojo Satoru sits like a dork on a chair and taunts him about a secret execution. 
• Reordering the scenes to put Yuji's argument with his grandpa, which is nice and heartwarming and establishes his good heart; as well as Megumi's investigation earlier on, does help to make the first anime scenes feel a lot more... oomph compared to seeing Yuji's school life.
• Also love the double-take as Yuji closes and re-opens the wooden doors.
• The club is, of course, an occult research club with ouija boards. The council president is weaker than a clione! I know that's a Phione!
• I also love the very deadpan and rapid-fire tick explanation. That's fun,
• I really do find the world-building and the occult occurrences around the rugby field to be a pretty interesting hook for a more... episodic anime or video game! I don't really remember the occult research club being all that relevant after this opening arc, but it is nice to see Yuji's civilian life. There's a very... old-school shonen vibe of the very energetic coach rewriting Yuji's club application so they can win some a competition prize for the school. 
• I have very low opinions on schools that force high school students to compete insanely in sports to the exclusion of their other school activities, so I really was rooting for Yuji's stated desire in the occult club to win out. Even if he's just there to be a 'ghost member', it's his own choice and doing it as a favour to the two senpais.
• And, of course, the reason being that he wants to visit his sick grandpa is an even better reason to play hooky on after-school clubs.
• Also, love that grandpa really just wants Yuji to enjoy his school life instead of wasting time in the hospital. 
• There's also a neat way to tie in the typical heroic 'save people at all costs' mentality when grandpa tells Yuji to try and surround himself with as many people before he dies... and he just straight-up dies after having that friendly argument with Yuji. Great moment, though. You really can tell from the dialogue and facial expressions that the two are a good family.
• I also love that this manga very quickly notes that a good death isn't anything to fear. It's something to get sad about. But being murdered or devoured by demons is definitely something to fear.
• 
  Megumi explaining about curses to a very skeptical Yuji is pretty funny, and... considering how Yuji spends most of his free time with the occult club, you can really understand why he didn't take it particularly seriously. 
• I also really do like the little world-building aspect of using a cursed object to ward off curses, but these cursed objects end up getting stronger and stronger over time. The visualization of a spider and a centipede also works pretty well. 
  
• Okay, I really do like the... bizarre and different-looking curses, and the iconic one that swims around the soil that Megumi meets while scouting the school is iconic... but special mention has to go to the pillbug-looking thing that snaps shut around the guy senpai's head. 
• GYOKUKEN! I love the idea of using little hand gestures to summon spirits. 
• I really do like the ominous wailing OST as Yuji thinks about just what he's afraid of. 
  
• Yeah, the way the flesh-mass curse demon thing is holding the female senpai, versus how it's just nom-nom-nomming the male senpai is... uh... rather disturbing. Thankfully Yuji comes in with a rider kick and punches the flesh-curse monster right in the face. Er, one of the faces, anyway.
• I love that once the hostages and the cursed object is out of the way, Megumi just one-shots and blows up the curse, and then while he's doing some exposition with Yuji, his shikigami dogs are just eating some munchies in the background. 
• And then suddenly the big curse from the beginning of the episode shows up and attacks! I do love that this happens with like 4 or 5 minutes to go, which lulls the audience into thinking this might just be exposition instead of fighting an enemy. 
• And Yuji swallows a finger. Man, the real miracle is how it doesn't get lodged in his throat. 
• Oh, I love that the curses bleed literal curses, as in negative words. 
• ...and Yuji eats the finger, and gets possessed by Sukuna. It's really interesting that unlike many of its other shonen brethren that feature a superpowered 'berserk powerful' state, this is a manga where we learn the origin of said berserk state in literally the first chapter. 

Episode 2:

• I do really love that Gojo's first technical appearance is to show up, carrying some shopping, and just casually taking pictures of Megumi to show the other students. 
• I do love just how even Gojo is caught off-guard when Yuji explains that, yes, he ate the curse. 
• "Don't worry, I'm the strongest." God, the sheer confidence radiating off of Gojo.
• We don't know the sheer strength of Sukuna yet at this point, since all we have to go are the original nameless curses, but damn, the sheer jackassery on Gojo to just casually sit on Sukuna and then toss him around while joking about showing off. Also, another very smooth action sequence. 
• Yeah, that lariat-style punch leading to a gigantic explosion shockwave that sends Sukuna flying is pretty cool!
• "This guy actually went to buy souvenirs! When people are dying!" But it's not souvenirs, because it's actually a train snack for Gojo.
  
• I do like the black shadow-ink things that Sukuna summons. 
• Also find it rather hilarious that Sukuna-Yuji's got a second pair of eyes right below his eyes, on his cheek.
• Again, despite the huge "Naruto/Sasuke" vibes coming from Yuji and Megumi, I do really like that Megumi does really want Yuji to not be executed.
• 
  And that's where we go back to the in medias res prologue, where apparently the past episode (and the first four minutes of this one) is Gojo casually telling the story to Yuji as he's supposed to get executed. 
• I also do like the little 'deal' about executing Yuji after he eats all twenty fingers of Sukuna -- when it's really kinda clear that Gojo's using a loophole with the 'elders' to keep Yuji alive. 
• Pretty cool premise -- Yuji is a vessel able of handling Sukuna taking over his body due to his... resilience of will or something, and curses die when the vessel they're bonded to die; hence the time limit to his execution. 
• It's a rather creepy sequence as Gojo pulls no punches and tells Yuji in front of the crematorium that finding a corpse that's 'merely' been torn apart is one of the most common things that happen when dealing with Curses.
• I do find it rather interesting that this setting has a 'high school' in addition to the general organization. I'm not sure why I found it so surprising, a lot of other shonen anime also have schools? Anyway, Tokyo Jujutsu High School is apparently just one of two Jujutsu high schools.
• Gojo notes that Ryomen-Sukuna is an actual mythological figure with four arms and two faces... but in the JJK world, Sukuna is a human that has grown to be the 'King of Curses'. 
• Principal Masamichi Yaga apparently spends most of his time making little dolls. Nice that it's not just a cute quirk, but a cute power. 
• Yeah, that kappa doll's face is creepy as shit before it jumps and attacks Yuji. 
• I love that one of the first things out of Yuji's mouth is "I like girls that look like Jennifer Lawrence!"
• I do also like that the secret test of character is to really dig out what Yuji truly feels, even if it's something relatively selfish and simple as 'I don't want to regret the way I lived', which translates to 'I don't want to feel guilty while enjoying myself'. Again, I do think it's a nice message that the 'grandpa's dying wish' excuse doesn't actually cut it because Yaga doesn't want Yuji to, at any point, die cursing grandpa. 

Episode 3:

• I do really like just how much Nobara is all about that 'I'm finally in a big city!' life. It's a neat little character quirk to latch on... and ends up being pretty relevant to the theme of Nobara being actually a bit too arrogant in her little 'pond' and with her limited experience. And then it ties to her being absolutely pissed off at her own village for driving Saori out. Pretty good flow for the introduction of her personality and backstory!
• Jujutsu High uniforms can be customized upon order, hence the red hoodie on Yuji's uniform. Apparently it's Gojo that randomly decided to customize it, because, uhh... I guess Gojo just wants the main character to stand out, I guess.
  
• ROOK
• "He looks like a potato. Definitely the type to eat his own boogers as a kid." 
• I really don't understand how Nobara went from 'he's a high-and-mighty type' to 'sets seagulls on fire'.
• I absolutely love, by the way, how Megumi and Nobara can both settle into the 'only sane man in a group of kids'. Particularly when Nobara and Yuji get absolutely excited and happy about sightseeing in Tokyo and starts rattling off basically every tourist spot there. 
• Yeah, Nobara, hearing that someone swallowed a mummified, petrified finger is definitely going to bring up 'that is so unsanitary, wtf'. 
• I do like that it's not cemeteries that actually bring about curses in this setting, but rather the association that humanity has with curses. It also flows in very well into Gojo's explanation later that curses are associated with the amount of people around, and this makes city-curses much more dangerous than countryside ones. 
• Absolutely love that Gojo makes Megumi sit this one out, just to make sure if Noabra is just the right type of crazy, so to speak, to be involved in all the nonsense of curse-exorcism. The actual episode itself is honestly relatively simple, more of a showcase for Nobara as a character (as well as the 'city curses are on a higher level of difficulty') than anything about the cursed location itself, but it's fine. 
• I do like that Yuji is taking the 'mission' like a little kid, pressing himself against walls and pretending to be like a spy on mission, while Nobara just doesn't give a shit. 
• The weird crab-centaur creature is a typical fantasy monster, but its distorted human-molerat faec and the fact that it keeps repeating about 'needing receipts' is really what gives the curse an extra layer of creepiness.
• The mannequin monster is just a mannequin with a bunch of human-looking eyeballs, but mannequins are already creepy on its own. 
• And the hostage-taking curse is this... evil Lorax, I guess? Not impressive, but I guess that's the whole point of this curse. It's a low-grade-whatever, and is supposed to just be a loser. 
  
• Very smooth animation of Nobara hitting the two nails mid-air with her hammer, sending them shooting forwards like arrows or bullets in a way that's physically actually very much impossible. 
• Oh yeah. The shot of Nobara with the blue energy flowing out of the nail, before she nails down the voodoo doll and causes giant metal nail-spikes to burst out of Evil Lorax Curse? Man, Nobara's got some of the coolest visuals of anything in this series. 
• Nobara has some great expressions when she delivers her motive rant to Yuji. The animation team clearly had a lot of fun with her. Her 'apology', the later hamming it up about sushi with Yuji...
  
• "I've said my thanks, now we're even. NYEEEEH!"
• Nice creepy ending with the little news report explaining the "Cursed Womb" and then declaring ominously that one of the three students dispatched there died. Cool preview!

One Piece Anime, Wano Arc: Episodes 1082-1085

And finally... we close off the Wano arc! These episode review/reactions are really understandably a lot less robust than the actual action scenes, but I really did want to end off my Wano watch-through with a completed version. It's been a fun ride, even if it went probably a whole dang year longer than how I thought it would go. 

Episode 1082:

• You know what? Normally I'd complain about the filler scenes, but Tama and Chopper reacting to Nami and Usopp playing with the little carnival game is pretty adorable. 
• It's all admittedly just slashing (and some typical Wano-arc 'cubing' on Denjiro's part) but it is pretty cool seeing the Akazaya samurai fighting against Groot. I mean, Ryokugyu. 
• It lasted a couple of chapters in the manga, but I really do like that the anime gave Raizo and his fireball jutsu a bit more of an oomph in the anime, as does Ryokugyu pretending briefly to be hurt before ranting about how admirals wouldn't have such an obvious weakness. 
• Jack the half-fishman helped them hunt for the underwater Poneglyph. But I do wonder how that works, since we saw that Jack's still weakened underwater. I guess they tied a rope to him while he shambled in pain?
• I really don't have much to say about the Robin, Law and Sukiyaki scene. It's paced perfectly, but even in the source material it's mostly just exposition. 
• Killer eating noodles through the holes in his mask is always a gloriously fun little detail. I don't actually remember when he first does this (I think it's the meeting with Hawkins and Apoo?) but that's hilarious. 
• 
  Momonosuke giving this whole big speech about how the people of Wano need to protect Wano gets a great bit where the music swells up... and cuts off pathetically when his fireballs refuse to come out.
• It's still one of the more poorly-handled retcons even with the added pacing of the anime, but at least there's still a bit of a foreshadowing to Yamato being inspired by Momo's words. 
  
• Okay, to be fair, Momonosuke's Boro Breath is pretty badass. The DBZ sound effects and the giant flames and all the seemingly-desperate buildup of the wooden vines about to pierce him and all. They do a lot of great angles with how Momonosuke's constantly shooting this stream of flames without having the proper ability or training to control the blast. 
• The half-formed mouthless Aramaki as he resurrects from the seed is pretty creepy. 
• Oh fuck yeah, Shanks. That's a badass animation, though if you don't know it's supposed to be pure Haki (which takes a while before Ryokugyu confirms it), you'd be forgiven for thinking that Shanks shoots literal, directed red lightning. Or Omega Beams or something for all you DC fans out there.
• Man, Ryokugyu's a chump. 

Episode 1083:

• I do actually like the little nod that the other Akazaya members allowed the two most grievously wounded -- Kin'emon and Kuki -- to heal in the city and enjoy the victory. 
• Ah, dessiccated Raizou and Shinobu. The music does imply that this would be a bit more serious, and honestly I really wouldn't have minded if Shinobu or Raizou are just in a coma for the forseeable future or something... but it'd really put a dampener on Momonosuke's victory and their exit. So. 
• O-Tsuru's survival is given a bit more of an extended scene, though her 'badly burned' face is basically just an eyepatch.  
• Yeah, this is the 'no one's following the Straw Hats' episode, huh? Carrot's moment is still a bit random and jarring, though obviously not as abrupt as Yamato's. Her being absent for the last 30 episodes or so probably helped.
• I love that we get another '10000000 IQ Kin'emon' moment as he thinks to himself about his surprise that Tenguyama is Sukiyaki. And, of course, the glorious reply that Kawamatsu, Kiku and Denjiro all already figured it out. 
• I love the reactions that our heroes have towards Robin's revelation about Pluton. The fandom are all excited about it, but Franky's more baffled than horrified, while Luffy and Chopper are more like 'oh, that thing Franky talked about in Enies' Lobby'. Brook doesn't even know what's going on, even when more serious characters like Jinbe and Sanji acknowledge it. 
• Ah, yes, Caribou overhearing about Pluton in Wano. I forgot about that. I really kind of forget about Caribou a lot. Which I suppose is Oda's whole point. 
• I also really like the brief scene of Momonosuke having to channel his inner 'badass shogun' and going 'good.' 'mm.' 'yes.' to all of the people around him, while his heart wants to party with the Straw Hats and his samurai, and he breaks character almost immediately when he's out of earshot. 
• It is really cruel for the writers to put Yamato in the same list of names as the rest of the Straw Hats...
• Love the little petty argument between Luffy, Kid and Law. Man, poor Kid and Law... the best part is the little smirk that Law, all pretending to be super-mature and shit, makes when he says 'what are you, kids?'
• "I'm a Yonko, but I lost a raffle!"
• I absolutely love how Luffy's reaction to the Cross Guild poster... probably mirrors us fans, who take a look at Buggy, and then our mind registers Mihawk and Crocodile, and the "Cross Guild" name.
• I also love that Law, in all seriousness, goes, 'what a formidable Emperor, he has Hawk-Eyes and Crocodile under his control.'
• There is a bit of a zoom-in onto Law as he walks away, which Robin takes note about, right around the time Kid and Luffy argue about the man with the burned scar. I don't know if this is just the anime taking some liberties, or if the burn-scar man is actually straight-up connected to Law. 

Episode 1084:

• And this episode takes place as a little bit of a closure for some minor plot points, and even gets to cheat about screentime too by reusing footage from Wano's first act. Luffy goes to visit the remnants of Oden's castle that Kaido blew up with his gigantic Blast Breath, and gets to see a vision of Oden.
• Then the rest of the Akazaya Samurai show up to pay their respects. All their dialogue are honestly pretty generic and they just have quiet, solemn reactions... but it's really very nice and acknowledging Oden, who despite being dead is such a huge presence in the Wano arc, is much appreciated. 
• We also get to see Carrot saying goodbye and getting all teary-eyed as she talks to Nami and Chopper specifically, and that's another scene that I felt was lacking in the source material even if Oda did intend to phase Carrot out. 
• And the most important scene here? Zoro visiting graves. He doesn't actually know Pedro all that well, I don't think, but pouring a drink of sake in front of Yasuie and Pedro's graves, and being all solemn with his swords and sake cups is very nice and appreciated. Having Toko show up to her father's grave, and letting Hiyori and Zoro share a brief moment to share a personal farewell, is also a nice touch.
• While there are some obvious shipping elements to it, I really don't think Zoro cares all that much about women to see Hiyori in that way. 
• I absolutely love Zoro going "you can't have it back!" in regards to Enma.
• Zoro gets to reflect on his own comparison to Oden, on how Kaido was able to sense Oden's will on the sword, and vows to get stronger to be worthier of Enma. That's pretty nice. 
• I would've really liked another scene with him laying Shusui on Ryuma's grave, but that's just nitpicking; and Yasuie, Pedro and Oden are more narratively important anyway. 
• Franky and the angry carpenter boss get a rather weird farewell, but I like it. Usopp getting the material to make the flag (which I 100% forgot about) is also cute.
• Sanji also gets to properly sell some of his Sangoro Soba from earlier on in the arc, which is nicely appreciated. He gets to hang out with the one geisha with Chuuji the rat. That's kind of nice! 
• Seeing O-Tsuru give out some oshiruko to the villagers rebuilding Kuri is also a nice scene, again, even if it's pretty simple. I think with how much the arc has been building up to it, seeing Luffy and Tama eat the red bean soup is very cute. Having Luffy and Tama actually say goodbye, and Luffy being a good big brother to Tama is adorable. 
  
• A nice little scene is Chopper giving Bepo the sulong rumble balls, which is a nice foreshadowing to... well, to what would be a tragic scene later on. 

Episode 1085:

• We end the arc with an episode that starts with someone singing in the traditional Japanese opera style. Love it. 
• What I love more? Seeing the Wano characters drawn in traditional Japanese art style. Obviously it doesn't work that well for the Minks, but I really like how the humans end up. 
  
• Yeah, Yamato deciding to stay in Wano... still really comes out very abruptly. There's that very brief scene of foreshadowing during the Aramaki fight, but I really wished 1084 gave us like a scene of Yamato meditating about Oden or something.
• Love the little 'eeeh' that Chopper makes when Law brushes him off. 
• Yeah, Momonosuke at least got a nice little speech to send him off from Luffy. I do find him breaking down in tears and begging for big brother Luffy to stay is very nice. Honestly, the execution of Momonosuke is a wonderful way of taking a character I truly despised when he first showed up in Punk Hazard into someone I actually care about. 
• Usopp getting a flag ready and giving it to Momonosuke, and telling Momonosuke to fly that flag over Wano... yeah, I actually forgot this scene from the source material, but having this to basically let Luffy slowly show that he's a proper Yonko? I don't know if it's intentional or just for narrative's sake, but the fact that Kid and Law never tried to be an Emperor in terms of claiming the territory (friendly-wise or otherwise) is probably an indication as to why they ultimately would drop out of the race. 
• Seeing Luffy call Momonosuke his 'little brother' hits extra hard considering how we know what Luffy actually means since he's already adopted two elder brothers before. 
  
• Yeah, Luffy acknowledging Kin'emon, Momonosuke and Yamato as honourary Straw Hats... it's a nice moment. 
• Love the little chibi Yamato going 'surpass me?' in the midst of a dramatic scene where Momonosuke wants to surpass Kozuki Oden. 
• Oh, I love how we get a whole scene to showing how the Straw Hat crew are happy to use the proper, official port... and one taunt from Kid and not only Luffy, but even Law gets ticked off and decides to go the yolo way. God bless these three morons. 
• Okay, and as Wano closes with the song detailing the defeat of the tormentors of the land, with the badass music going to a crescendo, Momonosuke walking back into the city, the curtains close... and it's the end of Wano.

Echo S01E04 Review: The King Is Back

Echo, Season 1, Episode 4: Taloa

So after three episodes of meandering around, having Maya meet random people from her hometown and do what's essentially just side-quests on her mission of vengeance against Kingpin, we finally have the confrontation with Kingpin. 

And... a lot of great material in this episode for sure. It's just that it does admittedly come a bit too little, too late. Even if they needed an episode to recap the events of Hawkeye and Daredevil, I really felt like the second and third episodes could've been merged together, and the contents of this episode and the final one could've been spread across three episodes. It's just that I really do feel that Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin is one of the best actors to grace the Marvel product in general, and he's rather underutilized. 

Now don't get me wrong, though, he literally steals every single scene he's in. We start off with a scene alluded briefly in some flashbacks, with a young Maya already under Fisk's care. Some random ice-cream vendor taunts Maya about her deafness, causing Wilson Fisk, as always, to lose it. He leaves Maya in the limousine, goes out, drags the jackass into an alley and starts to beat the shit out of the guy, leaving his white suit bloody and splattered in blood. It's very consistent with the Kingpin we saw in Daredevil, specifically reminding me of the scene where he crushes one of his business partner's skull with a car door for interrupting a dinner with his girlfriend.

Kingpin still wants to avoid letting his adoptive niece see the worst of it, however, asking his driver to bring him a new suit... only for little Maya to already be there, and instead of being horrified, goes in and kicks the injured man. 

We then have a brief scene in 2021, before some of the scenes we see in Echo episode 1, where Fisk tells Maya that she can go into the field. After Maya leaves, a random lady that interprets sign language is brutally executed by Kingpin's men. 

This is shown to us in episode 4 instead of episode 1 because we need some sympathy for Kingpin's relationship as Maya's adoptive uncle, since all the recap we've seen about their relationship have only highlighted the toxic parts where Kingpin really is just raising Maya as a glorified attack dog. And... is it too little, too late? Kingpin's dynamic with Maya is sorely under-utilized. I get that the previous three episodes are trying heavily to tie in Maya to her hometown, but I really do feel like it didn't do quite a good job at showing any conflict Maya may have towards her abusive parental figure. 

Which, I suppose, is kind of the point? Kingpin is kind of shown as entirely and utterly toxic and gaslighting, which... makes a lot of the attempts at drama kind of fall flat. It is entertaining to see Kingpin so sure of himself and his hold over Maya, but as an audience there was no real way that Maya was ever going to be swayed, so the scene kind of felt a bit flat. There was an interesting bit that parallels the killed-interpreter bit because Kingpin forces Maya to wear a contact lens that allows for Fisk's words to be translated into sign language immediately without an in-between... which Maya very quickly calls bullshit because Fisk could've just learned sign language. 

(With Daredevil showing that Fisk is versatile enough to learn multiple other languages, this is another subtle way for Fisk to show that he doesn't care enough about Maya, and also having their conversation be reliant on a gift from Fisk is another way to control her). 

Fisk keeps claiming that all he wants is a dinner with Maya, and to end hostilities and for Maya to come back with him to New York... which is kind of oblique on what it entails. I guess Kingpin wants Maya to be his top assassin again? Maya interprets it as Kingpin wanting her to be a "Queenpin", but Uncle Henry quickly tells Maya how stupid that mentality is. 

We then have a brief detour as two large recurring plot threads are finally addressed -- Maya's refusal to meet her grandmother Chula; as well as the constant flashbacks to her ancestors. And the resolution... isn't the most exciting thing out there. I think part of it is because Chula hasn't really been a character so much as she's been a caricature of an obsessive grudge herself. Which I would appreciate if Maya actually learns from Chula, but while Maya acknowledges how toxic Chula's behaviour was; how her excuse of "I hated your dad, not you" doesn't make Chula abandon Maya any less... it's not really covered at all how this could've paralleled Maya's own grudge against the Kingpin. 

Oh, and the visions are something that's kind of passed down, and we get a whole flashback when Chula gave birth to Maya's mother, a difficult birth that caused her to be brought into the forest with her sisters, and these ancestors gave her strength to do so. It really doesn't explain much, honestly, and for how much it's been built up it doesn't really give me any real revelation beyond 'okay, sure, that happens'. Maybe part of it is because the show didn't really build up Chula all that much, making me not invested in her character? Eh. 

We return back to Maya and Kingpin at the hotel. Maya has a gun now, but doesn't shoot Kingpin. Kingpin tries to gaslight Maya again, telling her that he views her as his daughter, and then brings out the hammer that he used to kill his father, something we saw in the Daredevil show. It's fucked up as Kingpin reveals this to Maya (who never knew that Kingpin killed his own father) but Kingpin talks a lot about how killing his father allowed him to move forward in his life. He hands the hammer to Maya, wanting her to use it on him (???) but... she refuses. 

Again, the buildup to this is just confusing other than Maya has to take the obvious route, and I really wished that there was more framing to why Maya does the things she does. Hell, I don't even know, really, what Kingpin's endgame with giving that hammer to Maya is. But in the next morning, Maya decides to obviously not go with Kingpin, and Kingpin throws a tantrum in his private jet. 

It's... it's really confusing, and sitting down to put all this to figurative paper, I realize just how little things happened. The Kingpin stuff is fun because at least there's tension going on, but at the penultimate episode and for something that's exploring multiple storylines that are built up all season long, there's sadly not much that holds interest. The Kingpin/Maya stuff doesn't flow well and I'm left confused why the two characters do what they do... and while the earlier scene is pretty good, it kind of goes haywire near the end. The confrontation between Maya and Chula feels muted, and the explanation about her visions really does tell us nothing much. Again, it's kind of a shame. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Wilson Fisk's backstory and the circumstances of his dad's death from Daredevil's first season is brought up, with the hammer that he killed his father with being shown to Maya. 
• Maya witnessing a parental figure committing violence is actually taken from Daredevil's backstory, where he saw his dad commit violence when forced to do debt collection for the Kingpin's organization. 

One Piece 1111 Review: Home Run

One Piece, Chapter 1111: The Sun's Shield

The chapter starts off with St. Marcus Mars, the big bad monster bird, bursting through the Frontier Dome and just coiling into scene. It's Jinbe that reacts first to this, actually panicking at the sheer power radiating off of the Gorosei. And, mind you, Jinbe has been very dismissive of Big Mom before. 

And, rather impressively, Rob Lucci stands back up, all bloodied and cut up, but still willing to fight. Jinbe actually has to wrestle Zoro back to sanity, launches a Fishman Karate move to blast the surroundings, before he zooms off with Zoro in tow. This... this sequence really felt like a bit of a blue-ball, and I really did feel like just as Luffy/Kizaru was a bit truncated here and there, I kind of wanted something a bit more expansive in terms of this fight. But for what it's worth, it is inconclusive. I would still say that Zoro won the fight since he doesn't seem to be too injured, but I think people were expecting a one-shot or something. 

But screw that noise, what's cool is Marcus Mars, this giant demon bird, looming over Rob Lucci and demanding to know the location of York. This has some real strong 'legendary bird Pokemon' vibes, honestly, and that's a pretty cool panel. Lucci delivers a report with the efficiency of a 8.30 a.m. boardroom meeting, just rattling off everything about his foes, their locations, their numbers, their motivations, even the timeline. 

Mars praises Lucci... but it's made very abundantly clear that he views Lucci as being useful the way I would view the tablet that I'm writing this review on. It's nice that my tablet is working the way it should, but I'm not going out of the way to help it the way I would an actual human being. 

And while Mars praises Lucci, Lucci calls out and asks for a request -- spare his partner Kaku. Mars does reply, but it's such a badass villain line. "It's hard to spare a single insect when you're exterminating the hive."

Yeah, I do have the feeling that while it's a lot more abrupt that Kizaru's more gradual buildup, Rob Lucci might defect sooner rather than later. It's also really worth noting that we still haven't gotten a proper payoff for the "CP-9 Independent Report" cover story, which, I keep reminding people, ended with Lucci refusing to serve the government during the timeskip era. 

We get a short scene of Dorry and Brogy being all happy at being reunited with Luffy, and... I actually really like the subsequent lines of dialogue. We do start off with Dorry and Brogy fanboying a bit about Luffy's newfound Sun God status. Luffy is literally a god to these guys! Luffy, obviously, doesn't give a shit about it, but while Dorry and Brogy acknowledge it, they also state that their reason of showing up here is because it's Luffy, their buddy, not because he is the incarnation of the Sun God they worship. 

Dorry pulls out a damn warhorn and blows into it, signalling the retreat for the Giant Warriors. As one last bit of figurative middle finge, I absolutely love the comment made by one of the nameless Giant Warrior minions saying that it's not even worth the time to pillage Marine vessels since they don't have loot. 

Topman Warcury, Godhead of Justice and All Things Pork, decide to blow a warhorn of his own... and unleashes a booming, gigantic Conqueror's Haki infused scream that knocks out some random Marines in the ships nearby. In one of the more fun Gear Fifth moment, it knocks off all of Luffy's features other than his pants. This includes his scars, and there's a panel of him holding his chest scar and his face scar and pasting them back like stickers. 

Topman then, uh... spins around in the air and then slams down and clashes against Dorry and Brogy. Interestingly, his tusks turn into blades, which seems to be yet another 'weird' power, perhaps similar to Saturn's people-holding ability? Dorry and Brogy block it with a combo attack called Sun Shield Svalinn. This is also when Dorry and Brogy talk back to Topman, saying that they're helping Luffy for the simple reason that they're his buddies.  

They then bash Topman away with an attack called 'Split Skylda', knocking the piggy down. Saturn finally decides to attack again, unleashing a stream of poison bullet spits. 

And in the span of time that the high-pressure bullet spit-bombs were launched, Luffy recognizes what they are, and in one of the most Tom & Jerry moments, he grabs a tree, uses his teeth as a grinder to turn the palm tree into a fucking giant baseball bat, gets a paintbrush and a bucket to paint it black, gets a baseball cap, and whacks the bullets back towards the Gorosei. 

Remember when people were freaking out that Luffy can 'materialize' a pair of goggles? Apparently he's now capable of moving at the Speed of Comedy. The bullets get launched back towards the Gorosei, creating several miniature mushroom clouds and Luffy freaks out at this. I'm not sure if it's his toon force powers that turned the bullets destructive, or if Saturn has different kinds of poison? 

And as the three Gorosei glorp back and regenerate from the damage (Ju Peter's there, after being MIA the entire chapter), Luffy and the giants escape. Interestingly, the giants note that they've never heard of a race or ability that can grant people regeneration or immortality powers. 

We get a shot of all the different groups running towards the Giants' ship, but interestingly, Bonney and Franky's group are blocked by three Vice Admirals -- Pomsky (the otter guy), Red King (the chins guy) and Guillotine (who has a blade on his head). Franky, do something. You don't get any big lore moments in the Vegapunk arc, but at least take down one of the minor antagonists, man. 

Mars has found York, who's freaking out at the sight of the demon bird. Meanwhile, the other Marines gather around Kizaru and try and get him up, but he's just literally so emotionally damaged that he can't do so. It's a very interesting character journey we've had for the Admiral with the most unclear motivations, and knowing that he's killed Vegapunk seems to have affected him deeply. I am curious to see where this all leads at the end of the day. 

Also, the Iron Giant is finally moving. The Marines spot it, and it's mumbling 'forgive me, Joy Boy', but, uh... I have to confess that I don't really care all that much about this particular side-plot when everything else is so much more chaotic and fun. 

Random Notes:

• Leading up to this chapter, a lot of people have been hyping themselves up for 'Chapter 1111 is going to be the Zoro chapter' because of some number reasoning or other, and I'm actually happy that we get none of it. I thought that while it's cool whenever the numbers happen to land this way or that, it was kind of obvious at some points in the story when Oda is rushing or stretching things out to hit a 'milestone' number that's a mutiple of 50.
• Lucci surviving isn't the most out-there idea, and I don't even mind the fact that Rob Lucci and Zoro is around the same level of fighter. It's just that the portrayal jumps from "Luffy all but one-shots Lucci" to a mostly-offscreen fight against Zoro that I think makes the portrayal of Lucci's relative power level feel a bit off. 
• It does make you wonder just why Rob Lucci is able to identify Mars's itsumade demon bird form as his superior. Does he know what the Gorosei's beast modes look like? Is it just the voice?
• Interestingly, Dorry and Brogy don't actually recognize the Gorosei other than being "World Government big-shots", but it is understandable considering they're stuck in Little Garden for a while... and even discounting that, I don't think our two giant Viking warlords particularly care about reading the newspaper. 
• Small Hattori cameo! He gets to flap-flap around and gaze upon the wonder of the biggest bird of all. 
• Sanji apparently did an offscreen debriefing of Dorry and Brogy, telling them to tell Luffy about the retreat plan. 
• For what it's worth, Luffy is also intent on retreating, actually telling Dorry and Brogy that their main priority is to run. Which is surprisingly goal-oriented for Luffy, most of all Gear Fifth Luffy.
• Topman's piggy form has two pairs of tusks. Oink-oink. 
• Topman's Conqueror Haki is basically a confirmation that, yes, the Gorosei have Haki. I do really like this speculation game where the Gorosei is shown to be so different that we're spending some time trying to figure out what of the powers we normally take for granted in One Piece actually apply to them. 
• Svalinn in Nordic mythology is a giant shield placed in front of the sun by the Aesir gods to protect the world from the heat radiating from it. Skylda is a Nordic word meaning 'duty'. 
• The '56' on Luffy's baseball bat and helmet can be read as "Go-mu'. Also, apparently baseball exists in the One Piece world. 
• Is that how you make a black blade? Get someone with Sun God powers to produce bullshit magic paint buckets and paint your weapon? The more you know! 
• We're going on a rather massive 3-week break, but I'm super-busy in April so it lines up rather well for me. 

Echo S01E03 Review: The Most Incompetent Kidnappers

Echo, Season 1, Episode 3: Tuklo

Another all right episode, I suppose, though just like episode 2, "Tuklo" follows a relatively formulaic narrative as far as these superhero stories go. We get some flashbacks to the ancient Native Americans to open up the episode, and this ancestor of Maya ends up getting some flashback cuts when we get an action sequence in the climax of the episode. Which... I'm not sure how much I like this. On one hand, I do appreciate the attempt to incorporate moments in the history of the Choctaw people into Echo, and the way Echo handles it jumps from one point in history to the next. But on the other hand... unlike Kamala Khan's great-grandparents, I am really not attached to the Lighthorsemen of this episode or the sports-players of the previous ones. I don't even know if they have names. 

I do like the quasi silent-movie format of the flashback, which fits into the themes of our mute protagonist. 

The present-day storyline continues to proceed a bit more, as the dude that witnesses the warehouse blowing up, Zane, gets to be the villain of the week. Doing kind of double-duty with him is Vickie, the shifty bowling alley jackass who was clearly going to betray Uncle Henry. Through some unfortunate moments of inconvenient ancestral flashbacking, Maya gets herself clocked in her head and captured by Vickie and his two bumbling civilians-turned-kidnapper minions whose name I really didn't bother to remember. 

And... I really do feel like this setup does kind of come out of nowhere, just to set up the 'kidnapping' storyline. Vickie and his goons also tie up Uncle Henry, and the unexpected arrival of Bonnie, out in search of any information of Maya, keeps ruining Vickie's grand master plan. They manage to get the drop on Bonnie and toss her into the same room with Maya, where we get the confrontation between the two cousins. Which... goes about as well as you'd expect, with a lot of "why didn't you call me?" and "you wouldn't understand" being thrown here and there. It's executed well for what's otherwise a rather generic script, it's just that I really do think that we really should've seen a bit more of adult Bonnie for me to be invested in this confrontation.

I do find the attempts at humour with Vickie and his bumbling kidnappers to be fun enough, as Henry lampshades how stupid Vickie is being. Zane and a small army of goons show up to essentialy take over the operation, and Vickie really thinks he has some kind of bargaining power as he tries to force Zane to pay him upfront. Couple the additional trouble of Maya McGyver-ing a nail gun out of spare parts and killing one of his associates, and Vickie panics and gets his stupid ass shot by Zane. Zane also chews the scenery a fair bit, though kind of shuts up when the action happens which I thought was a bit of a shame. 

We do get an action scene that I think is meant to recall the wacky toy factory fight in Hawkeye, and I do like the visuals of Maya using random arcade machines to beat the shit out of the goons. It still feels like a step-down from the Netflix shows, though at least unlike the Daredevil fight from episode 1, this one was a bit more colourful to watch. 

However, the fight gets to a stop because Zane has Bonnie on gunpoint. He's about to shoot Maya in the head when a call comes in, spooking Zane enough to leave with all of his men. Henry quickly wises up and realizes this is the Kingpin, and while Maya is initially skeptical, Henry ends up wanting to support Maya all the way. Maya and Bonnie part ways rather begrudgingly, with no real resolution. 

While all of this is going on, we do get brief cutaways to the elders in Maya's family, with Chula confronting Skully and getting into a good-natured argument about Maya's return. Skully tries to get Chula to make up with her granddaughter, and at the end of the episode when Maya comes back, he acts as the cool grandpa and tries to do the same with Maya. Maya ends the episode with a gleaming, golden armour for her prosthetic leg, which Skully wants her to show of as it represents the pride of a Choctaw warrior. 

And finally, at the end of it all, Maya goes off and drives around with her bike... and when she reaches home, Kingpin is right there, all suited up with an eyepatch. Boom, cliffhanger. 

And... again, it's an okay episode. It is a huge step-up from a lot of the more frustrating recent Marvel TV projects (Secret Invasion in particular) but that's not a huge bar to clear, and as I mentioned in the review... a lot of the things that happen here are pretty basic stuff in a superhero story. We still have a couple more episodes to go so I won't bitch too much, but the pacing is really quite slow to progress any of the storylines -- whether it's Maya reconnecting with her family, the mysterious ancestral powers (the glowing hands do not make a return in this episode), or if Maya's going to feel any sort of guilt for bringing her war to her town. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• In the comic run Phoenix Song: Echo, Maya goes through a journey through her ancestors, meeting one of them, who is the only female member of the Lighthorsemen, a tribal mounted police force that enforced tribal laws within Choctaw territory in the 1850's. 
• Zane is an adaptation of Teodor Zarco, the leader of the Black Knife Cartel, and was a minor antagonist in the 2017 Bullseye comic run. In earlier drafts, Zane kept his comic-book counterpart's name. 

Gotta Review 'Em All - Abilities [Generation VI]

Similar to the amount of new species and moves added in this generation, Pokemon did scale down a lot on adding new concepts due to the sheer amount of work 3D-fying the entire game's bestiary and animations and attacks into the 3D engine.

We've also kind of hit critical mass for the amount of 'generic' abilities over Generations III through V, and from this point on, the abilities are going to mostly be taken up by those that fit a Pokemon's specific form-changing gimmick (like Aegislash's Stance Change, the one that springs to mind immediately) or tied to some super mode -- a lot of the abilities here are ones tied to Mega Evolution. Speaking of which... Mega Evolution in this game does owe a lot to the specific super forms gaining access to game-breaking abilities that they wouldn't otherwise have, some of which we covered previously. 

Anyway, with less than 30 abilities to talk about, this should be a quick one!

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We'll talk about the handful of 'generic' abilities first that are added here, some of which seem to be to fill in a niche or to plug up certain Pokemon that don't already have two 'base' abilities. 

• Competitive (Kachiki/Determined Spirit) Competitive is basically the Special Attack version of Defiant, and it boosts the Special Attack stat when the user is debuffed. Again, just like Defiant, it's flavoured as the Pokemon with the ability being so pissed-off and so determined or competitive that they're instead invigorated to battle more despite getting an advantage. 
• Cheek Pouch (Ho Bukuro/Cheek Pouch) Originally shared between the Bunnelby line and Dedenne, this was later given to a bunch of other rodent Pokemon. It's the trope of a hamster having a lot of food in its cheek pouches, and it... restores extra HP when the Pokemon eats a berry. Yeah, not very useful, and at this point we've had so many berry synergy abilities that are kinda pointless that I really wished that the berries themselves were a bit more relevant, you know?
• Stance Change (Batoru Suichi/Battle Switch) Speaking of abilities that make or break a gimmick, Aegislash's entire existence hinges on Stance Change, since using an offensive attack causes it to go into its 'sword mode', and using King's Shield or other defensive moves has it go into its 'shield mode, swapping its insane stat pool accordingly. A very flavourful ability, and one that I appreciate actually worked so well!
• Fur Coat (Fa Koto/Fur Coat) An insanely useful ability on paper. Fur Coat just halves all physical-category damage. That's a lot! That's a whole lot! ...and it's the signature ability of Furfrou, who has neither the typing nor the movepool nor the stat pool to make use of this. I get the idea, though, that some dogs (like mine!) are approximately 50% fur by volume. Now I'm not sure that dog fur can really halve the damage from a Mega Punch or a Body Slam, but the idea is fun. Fur Coat seems like it's begging to be given to a Mega Evolution or something, but so far the only Pokemon that has been allowe to have it is Alolan Persian. 

• Tough Claws (Katai Tsume/Tough Claws) We get a boost to the category of moves that 'make direct contact'. This is going to be something that sounds like a broken record to me, but a lot of these abilities are what maeks or breaks Mega Evolutions, due to the sheer synergy that some abiltiies (even some Generation V ones, which I alluded in that review) have with a Pokemon's moveset. Tough Claws is naturally learned by the Binacle line, but it's also the ability gained by three different Mega Evolutions -- Mega Metagross, Mega Charizard X and Mega Aerodactyl, making all of them into powerful physical powerhouses. 
• Strong Jaw (Ganjo Ago/Strong Jaw) This one, meanwhile, works as a counterpart to Iron Fist, boosting 'biting' moves like Crunch, Bite, and all the elemental fang moves. This was originally shared by the Tyrunt line and Mega Sharpedo, though I guess they realized that it's not quite as powerful as Tough Claws and began distributing it to a lot of newer Pokemon. I appreciate that Drednaw, the snapping turtle, gets this as its default ability!
• Mega Launcher (Mega Rancha/Mega Launcher) Speaking of which, Mega Launcher is an ability shared between the Clauncher line and Mega Blastoise, and it powers up the moves of 'hado' moves. Which raises a lot of problems in other languages, since in Japanese these hado moves haven't been translated as consistently as they could've been. For most of them, they've been translated as 'Pulse' (Dark Pulse, Water Pulse) but then we've Hadodan, translated as Aura Sphere. Oops! A small but fun little translation hijinks!

• Grass Pelt (Kusa no Kegawa/Grass Pelt) This one is the Skiddo line's signature (and hidden!) ability, which is one that plays with the newly-introduced 'terrain' mechanic in Generation VI. I've always found that the terrains were a bit of an underwhelming addition to the game, but I also felt that up until Generation IX, there really just isn't much interplay that benefited from it. Grass Pelt boosts the Defense stats of Skiddo/Gogoat, which is... so... boring for such an exclusive ability.
• Symbiosis (Kyosei/Symbiosis) This was originally the signature and hidden ability for the Flabebe line, and later learned by Oranguru. And... it's a bit more useful than Grass Pelt, though still niche. Despite a very cool-sounding name, Symbiosis activates when an allied Pokemon uses up their held item (a berry or a gem, usually), and then they will give their own item to the non-item-holding Pokemon. Again, very gimmicky. 
• Gooey (Numenume/Gooey-Gooey) The signature hidden Ability (how many times am I going to say this?) of the Goomy line, Gooey is actually a lot more interesting than the previous couple ones! Gooey causes contact with it to have their speed reduced as they are caked in the slimy goo of the Goomy line. It's later also given to Wiglett, and... I really did wish that they go back and revise some of the other older Pokemon like Gastrodon to also have this ability, honestly!

• Gale Wings (Hayate no Tsubasa/Wind Wings) Yet another hidden signature ability, this one is famous, nay, infamous for breaking the Generation VI meta. Now I don't care about the metagame, but Generation VI was the only time that I've done it and that's entirely because of Gale Wings. This was given to the innocuous-looking Fletchling line, and the effect seems rather simple. Gives priority to Flying-type moves. Not bad, right? Talonflame's alreay fast, and this gives it an extra edge to launch even more Flying-type moves. Except Talonflame is fast, hits hard, can deliver one hell of a Brave Bird... but the healing move Roost is also considered a Flying-type move. So you get a Pokemon that's almost always guaranteed to hit first, hit hard, and can heal up the recoil damage. This got so bad that Gale Wings was nerfed in the subsequent generation to only work if the HP is full, keeping Talonflame stronger than the average regional bird but not making it able to heal so much in an average battle. 
• Parental Bond (Oyako Ai/Family Love) The other one that broke the meta was Mega Kangaskhan's Parental Bond. The gimmick behind Mega Kangaskhan is simple. Baby Khan has grown up and has hopped out of mama's pouch, and it now mimics its mother, hitting for a second time... except, guess what, in a very strict turn-based battle, hitting twice in a single turn is massive. Parental Bond originally causes the child to hit for half of the damage that mama does, but that's still impressively powerful coupled with priority moves like Fake Out and Sucker Punch, or with the insane Power-Up Punch, where each strike counts as a trigge for the buff. This got nerfed in the next generation into the child dealing 25% damage, but then Mega Evolution kind of got quietly shuffled off to the side in subsequent generations. 

• Refrigerate (Furizu Sukin/Freeze Skin) We've now got a trio of '-ate' moves that changes Normal-type moves to strike with as a certain type instead, with an extra power boost to boot. This is the much more useful variation of Normalize, Delcatty's underwhelming signature ability. In the original Japanese, all of these moves are given 'Skin' as a suffix. Refrigerate turns all Normal-type attacks into Ice-type, and is shared between the Amaura line and Mega Glalie.  
• Pixilate (Feari Sukin/Fairy Skin) Pixilate, meanwhile, does the same thing to Fairy-types, and is shared between Sylveon (as a hidden ability), Mega Gardevoir and Mega Altaria. A lot of these mega-evolution abilities are shared between one new Pokemon and a mega-evolution, huh. 
• Aerilate (Sukai Sukin/Sky Skin) And finally, Aerilate is shared between Mega Salamence and Mega Pinsir. Again, I do really appreciaet that this really does fit into how Mega Salamence's whole story is that it's finally able to achieve its dreams as a Bagon of flying!

• Aroma Veil (Aroma Beru/Aroma Veil) We've got three 'veil' moves, and they all basically protect your side of the battlefield from certain effects. Aroma Veil was originally the signature hidden ability of the Spritzee line, and protects its allies from effects that restrict moves -- like Disable, Encore, Cursed Body, Taunt, and a couple of others. This was later given to other sweet-smelling Pokemon like Alcremie and Oinkologne. 
• Flower Veil (Furawa Beru/Flower Veil) And this one is Flabebe's signature ability, only shared with Comfey. Both are Fairy-types that look like they should be Grass-type but aren't. Flower Veil basically protects their Grass-type allies from getting their stats lowered. Cute. 
• Sweet Veil (Suito Beru/Sweet Veil) Sweet Veil, meanwhile, prevents allies from falling asleep, and it's Swirlix's signature line. I find this to be the most flavourful of the three, because have you ever seen a little kid after you feed them a gigantic pile of cotton candy? God, good luck tucking them into bed afterwards! 

• Magician (Majishan/Magician) Now we've got the three signature hidden abilities of the Kalos starter Pokemon! I think this is the first generation that the starters receive brand-new hidden abilities tailored for them? Magician is the Fennekin line's hidden ability, and it... it steals the held item of the enemy when it uses a move. So basically a free Thief effect, which... again, I think I've expressed that a lot of these abilities that interact with held items do just end up being rather underwhelming at the end of the day. This ability was given to fellow cheeky bastards Klefki and Hoopa later on. 
• Bulletproof (Bodan/Bulletproof) This one is the original signature ability of Chesnaught, and later given to some other 'armoured' Pokemon... and unlike Mega Launcher above, this one is a bit hard because it halves damage from moves that have 'bullet', 'bomb', 'ball' or 'cannon' in its Japanese names. This is simple if the translation is done literally (as with Egg Bomb or Seed Bomb), but sometimes the English translation isn't literal, and going back to our old friend Aura Sphere... yeah. Hadodan is 'wave bomb', and it's a move affected by Bulletproof. So is Acid Spray (acid bomb), Focus Blast (fighting spirit bomb), Rock Wrecker (rock cannon), and a couple of others. Oops! It is pretty flavourful for a Pokemon designed around shields, for sure. 
• Protean (Hengen Jizai/Protean) And this one is another super-meta ability, belonging to Nintendo's favourite child in this generation, Greninja. Protean is basically what Porygon, Arceus and Kecleon wished they could be with their transformation abilities, because Protean instantly transforms the Pokemon's entire type into whatever move they're using. It doesn't just grant same-type attack bonus, but also notoriously makes it really hard for the opponent to hit Greninja with whatever weakness he has. Frogs aren't even able to change their skin all that much, though I guess it's something along the lines of their adaptability? Or perhaps it's that trope popularized by Naruto of ninjas being elemental wielders. This was another ability that was utterly nullified, only being able to activate once every switch-in. 

• Dark Aura (Daku Ora/Dark Aura) and Fairy Aura (Feari Ora/Fairy Aura) And finally we close this off with a trio of abilities held by the mascot legendary trios of the Generation VI games. Dark Aura belongs to Yveltal and Fairy Aura to Xerneas respectively, the mascots and main plot devices of Pokemon XY. The auras power up the Dark and Fairy type attacks respectively of every Pokemon on the battlefield, including themselves. Simple, but neat. 
• Aura Break (Ora Bureiku/Aura Break) And just like how Rayquaza comes in to smack Groudon and Kyogre into shutting up, Zygarde comes in to smack Xerneas and Yveltal into behaving. It's a shame that we never actually see this in-game, since we never got Pokemon Z and Zygarde's biggest role in the game is in the Alola ones, but Aura Break basically has Zygarde using his role as the 'keeper of the land' and 'breaking' the auras of both Yveltal and Xerneas. Not only does Aura Break nullify those abilities, it inverts them, causing a reduction in the Dark and Fairy-type attacks respectively. 

• Primordial Sea (Hajimari no Umi/Sea of the Beginning) The other Generation VI paired game are Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. Where Kyogre and Groudon originally were the sole bearers of Drizzle and Drought, the abilities that summoned rain and harsh sunlight, it's been cheapened with many regular Pokemon having access to it. Primordial Sea basically is an upgraded version of Drizzle, causing Primal Kyogr to summon Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain straight-up nullifies all Fire-type moves since it's super-heavy, and because it's being summoned by a Pokemon that can warp the weather, any other weather-causing ability or move will fail to activate. Except, of course... 
• Desolate Land (Owari no Daichi/Land of the End) Desolate Land, Primal Groudon's ability, can overwrite Primordial Sea and vice versa. Primal Groudon's harsh sunlight gets transformed into extremely harsh sunlight. This nullifies Water-type moves, which is particularly important! Primal Kyogre just nullifies Fire, which it already resists, but Primal Groudon is Fire/Ground, making it 4x weak to Water! Nullifying the entire type and taking it out of the equation is extremely insane!
• Delta Stream (Deruta Sutorimu/Delta Stream) And where original Rayquaza shuts down Drought and Drizzle with Air Lock, Mega Rayquaza gets Delta Stream, which can eliminate the previous two mega-weather abilities. Original Rayquaza doesn't get anything that benefits it, though, and Delta Stream has an additional ability that basically nullifies the super-effectiveness of moves that would be super-effective against Flying-types, basically helping Mega Rayquaza survive hits from Ice-type moves.