One Piece 789 Review: Pointless

One Piece, Chapter 789: Lucy

It is rare that a One Piece chapter manages to contain less content than a Bleach chapter. Bleach's always the one that's content to deliver big spreads just showing someone's face or just a big scenery shot, whereas One Piece usually likes to use smaller panels so we get more content per page. And normally One Piece does deliver a fair bit more content than Bleach. And I wouldn't call this week's Bleach chapter content-packed either... and this chapter still manages to feel even more hollow than that.

Already bad enough that the big Luffy and Doflamingo fight is interrupted by an entire chapter devoted to the stupid montage of people pushing the Birdcage -- and just people pushing it and not doing anything interesting. Already bad enough that we're not focusing on Doflamingo, or Law, or Sabo and Burgess or anything interesting. Already bad enough that the Dressrosa Arc has this ADD problem of cutting to Viola and Riku every single fight so they can commentate on things we can see with our eyes.

But no, we waste another chapter on... pushing the Birdcage again. And Doflamingo dicking around with Rebecca and Viola. And that stupid idiot Gatz delivering another speech about how oh Luffy is awesome and will save us all. I honestly want to try to describe this chapter more, but I can't. There literally isn't anything interesting in it until the last one or two pages. It's just a montage of people shouting 'push push push', those that are healed falling down because time's up, Viola and Rebecca crying (we know it's just a setup so Luffy will save them so there's no sense of threat) and fucking Gatz recapping everything because we totally need to know what Luffy did in the arena.

Doflamingo stabs Gatz through the chest with a string thing because fuck Gatz, while Law teleports Luffy and swaps him with Viola in the very last moment so Rebecca won't be forced to kill Viola.

Why can't Luffy recovering happen at the end of last chapter?

This was pretty pointless.

Agents of SHIELD S02E19 Review: RIP Bus

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 19: The Dirty Half Dozen

Bit of a shorter review this time around because, well, I've kind of caught up with SHIELD's finale -- great stuff, even if some parts of the plot feels needlessly convoluted just to get from point A to point B. I'll talk about episode 19 first, though. See, this episode has to build up to Age of Ultron since the movie apparently takes place in between this episode and the next... but there is absolutely no mention made of SHIELD in Age of Ultron, and when the Helicarrier showed up in Age of Ultron, Nick Fury and Maria Hill were the ones behind it, not Coulson or Gonzales or whoever. While that's understandable since you can't expect moviegoers to be keeping up with every single TV show pumped up by Marvel, the show needs to take up the slack to explain what the hell's going on with our SHIELD characters while all this is going on. It's not quite as elegantly done as the first season's Winter Soldier era episodes where we deal with all the fallout of an international organization falling apart because there's another organization inside of it, but it's still quite good.

Coulson surrenders and after a good, nice talk with Gonzales, manages to convince both SHIELDs to put aside their differences and go and beat up Hydra, this time around being led by dr. List, who moviegoers will remember as Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker's second-in-command who got one-shotted by Iron Man. List has a significantly more sizable role in Agents of SHIELD, having showed up several times before as Strucker's intermediary, and he does serve as a fun little 'boss' here even if it's obvious that he won't get taken out. List does manage to hurt Deathlok and Lincoln quite a bit with torture and experimentation and whatnot, and kind of effectively brings the rather overpowered Deathlok out of play from any Inhuman hijinks in the future.

We get mentions of even more experiments in a base some distance away -- of course, can't use the Age of Ultron set -- and more allusions to the Twins volunteering for experiments with a certain something, but the main focus of this episode is still SHIELD coming in to rescue Deathlok and Lincoln. And I do like how despite all this supposedly building up to Age of Ultron, the focus of the episode is still on the two SHIELDs and the whole Inhuman deal, which is really how crossovers should be handled. The whole List gathering metahumans thing, the whole Theta Protocol thing, they're significant parts of the plot, yes, but they're not the main thing.

Skye gets to use her Quake powers, which is awesome. She shows that she's no slouch without her powers in a pretty awesome action sequence, but when push comes to shove she can just point at the people who pisses her off and BOOM quake wave. (That experssion on Ward's face is priceless) Also the results of controlling her power certainly shows, because not only can she use her powers to fling people around, she also uses it as an impromptu pacemaker to restart Lincoln's heart.

A good chunk of the episode has Coulson and May disagree about the whole 'hiding Theta Protocol' thing, and May's quite a bit more pissed off that Coulson is meeting with her ex-husband... which is a bit annoying because May should really be above petty things like that. And they do clash a bit when Coulson reveals that he has a mission-within-a-mission when he starts hacking into Hydra computers while supposedly on a rescue mission. Of course, Coulson's endgame is apparently locating Loki's Scepter, effectively turning this whole Coulson-has-an-agenda arc to be a gigantic prequel to kickstart the plot of Age of Ultron, which is awesome. Not quite that big of a distraction because the whole Coulson-keeping-secrets thing will certainly factor into future episodes, but it's still a great tie-in. Apparently Coulson has been working with Nick Fury and Maria Hill all this time -- which is a nice foreshadowing to anyone who haven't seen the movie yet.

Coulson does have a point about May though -- she did keep secrets regarding Coulson's resurrection a secret from him, and they're in a bloody spy organization. Some secrets are per the course.

Theta Protocol is pretty definitely the Helicarrier that showed up out of nowhere in Age of Ultron, which kind of makes sense. I also do like the little cameo of Coulson reporting in to Maria Hill and telling her to bring in the Avengers, which is a nice little wham line. The little touch of Raina getting a vision of Ultron's assault on the world is pretty awesome. And having watched episode 20, I must say that beyond the minimal information required to know about the movie, the plot still moves pretty well.

Ward's little return is a bit iffy, I must admit. Still not quite sold just why he needs to be around so much other than the fact that he use to be part of the main cast and this episode's title needs to gather the original six main characters together. It is a bit hilarious to see practically everyone telling Ward to fuck off and die, although Ward's subsequent 'I'm never wrong' rebuttal is kind of annoying. He ends up escaping in all the chaos when the Hydra base was bombed, but calls Coulson to say that he's leaving Agent 33 in their care because SHIELD will be a healthier environment for 33 to recover.

It's all sweet and shit, but we know just how great an actor Grant Ward is -- I equally don't buy the whole 'I'm sorry I ruined this dynamic we have' bullshit. So I'm sure Agent 33 has some agenda up her sleeve.

Also, Bakshi turns out to just be improvising really well, even if it kind of costed Deathlok a fair chunk of his parts and Lincoln kind of died. Bakshi's still under Ward's control, enough for him to protect Ward from Simmons who's hellbent on killing Ward. Of course Bakshi ended up dying with that disintegration bomb, poor fucker, and this leads to Ward being all 'I'm disappointed in you'.

Simmons is... kind of unlikable, isn't she? Sure, she's not being all prissy and passive-agressive to Fitz and they're actually getting along quite well now (and Fitz randomly is back to normal now how?) but suddenly deciding to go off and lob a disintegration bomb at Ward, well, that's a bit much, isn't it? I don't particularly hate Simmons as much when she's in her ultra-passive-agressive mode, but her characterization has been all over the place ever since she returned from her double agent thing.

Fitz gets an adorable moment where he tries so hard to brag about killing Ward in front of Simmons. Little did he know Simmons is thinking on a far darker path beyond just punching Ward really hard in the face...

Gonzales is still playing the 'good-aligned villain' role rather well, I must say. I do like the little compromises he makes with Coulson, how he's angling for a win-win solution for Real SHIELD whilst not being overlty harmful and putting the whole 'take down Hydra' mission as the main priority as opposed to undermining Coulson's authority. Of course, he totally got played when Coulson opens the Toolbox only to reveal that Fury's going to come back for it, but he's still fun nonetheless. We still have no idea what the mysterious cargo abroad the Illiad is that made Gonzales decide to play ball with Coulson, but I bet it's something Inhuman-related that'll play into the finale. Or just a generic doomsday weapon.

Deathlok doesn't really get to do much, really, beyond being the likable character in distress. Again, he's taken out of the picture because they don't have spare cyborg legs and eyes lying around, so he will be out of the picture for the forseeable future which is a nice way to write out a guest star from the finale. Both Lincoln and Deathlok really look like they're going to do a superhero team-up to get out of the Hydra base, but no, they get knocked out with gas and nearly damn well killed.

Raina is all being mysterious and shit, talking about her visions, and has apparently managed to convince Gordon to listen to her. She's more of a plot device than a character, though she's starting to move from 'crazy manipulative bitch with vague intentions' to... well, basically the same thing, but thornier. She wants to take over Jiaying's leadership! That won't end well, I bet. Cal of all people (who is growing to be more and more likable now that he's acting as Devil's Advocate to the Inhumans) points out how stupid it is to trust a known deceiver like Raina and how not everything she ways may be real visions.

Speaking of Cal and Jiaying, they've kind of bonded over Skye pretty quickly, which is a bit odd because last episode Jiaying was all for dumping Cal off in the middle of nowhere. Cal's just happy to have a voice on the table, though, and he is quite charming when he's not being psychopathically obsessed with his daughter. Cal does let it slip that Skye is Jiaying's daughter, though, so that might cause friction for Jiaying's leadership over the Inhumans which might be an interesting angle to pursue.

Don't think that the likes of Lincoln, Gordon, Bobbi, Hunter and Mack actually did much this episode honestly beyond being their usual selves. Hunter and Mack kind of made up over the whole kidnapping thing, though Hunter is still pissed off at Bobbi. And 33 is more a plot device at the moment than developing as a character beyond 'really likes Ward'.

The Bus got blown up! That was sad. Why you got to do that to the Bus?

One Piece 788 Review: How to Ruin a Grand Finale

One Piece, Chapter 788: How I Fight

You know, I was truly hyped for the Luffy vs Doflamingo battle in ways you would not believe. Despite all my misgivings about the Dressrosa arc -- of which there are many -- it certainly delivers in making a truly effective villain out of Doflmaingo, a truly effective sympathetic character out of Law and a pretty awesome Shonen manga beatdown between Luffy and Doflamingo. And the previous few chapters is pretty awesome with Luffy activating Gear Fourth and Sabo fighting Bartolomeo. Granted there was the odd interruption by Birdcage, and the odd decision to reintroduce Gatz the MC as if he matters, and the constant cutting back and forth to Violet and King Riku.

So Luffy needs a couple of chapters to recover from his Gear Fourth. So naturally we focus on Sabo fighting Burgess, right? That's the big thing that happened last chapter, that's the most interesting thing going on... oh, no, wait, we're focusing on Doflamingo just walking through the city and transforming everything into strings and fighting these nobodies from the gladiator that get taken out really early -- people like the shaman mummy and the pyromancer and those dudes. Well, not quite ideal, but it's at least action-packed... oh, wait, it lasts only for a single page? Bummer.

We get a bit of Law using Room to teleport down to where Gatz and Luffy is and apparently offering his help to, uh, babysit Luffy? Well, at least he's going to be participating in the finale.

But the rest of this chapter? Good lord, it's truly trite and did not need to happen. Birdcage itself really shouldn't be dragged out this long and it certainly doesn't deserve an entire chapter to itself showing every single god damned character pushing against the Birdcage. We could've established all of that in scenes from previous chapters, but no, we get this super-long montage that's just a gigantic tumour interrupting what could've otherwise been a really epic finale to this bloated arc.

We get some nice scenes, granted. We've got the gladiators pushing Bartolomeo's barrier (Chinjao pushing horizontally with his head and Elizabello shouting KIIIIING was funny). And we get some explanation about Mansherry's powers, which materialize in the form of dandelions that drop down from the sky as she gets ferried around by one of the bug Zoan Tontatta. Mansherry's healing apparently only lasts for a few minutes before injuries revert to normal, making her nowhere as overpowered as she initially seemed and serves as a nice limiter whilst still making her really useful. We get a glorious short scene of Usopp going all 'SILENCE HEATHENS!' and random people going all 'do not anger god any further!'

But all that -- did they need to happen in the middle of the finale instead of Sabo fighting Burgess? Or some token resistance against Doflamingo? We get Rebecca monologuing for a bit and then Viola taking off her clothes to engage Doflamingo -- yeah, like you're going to do jack shit. For all the times you've wasted space and interrupted fights, Viola, I am totally hoping Doflamingo strangles you.

And then we get the truly eyeroll-inducing scenes in Team Franky and Team Zoro where it's just showing their faces going all PUUUUUSH before we cut to a two-page splash page of everyone shouting PUUUUUSH and did we really need all this bullshit. Basically the rest of the chapter proceeds the same. Oh, look, Fujitora's helping out. That's fine, get back to the action. Oh look, people reacting. Birdcage stopping for a moment.

I DON'T GIVE A FUCK

Get back to the actual things that matter. Sabo versus Burgess. Luffy versus Doflamingo. Hell, spending an entire chapter showing Viola getting herself massacred by Doflamingo would be a sight better than this.

The Flash Episodes 20-23 Capsule Review/Spoiler Talks

Well, I've caught up with the Flash last week, just didn't have the time to give each Flash episode the gigantic reviews they deserve. So let's make this short reaction of every episode because I watched the finale and I was so stoked. It isn't quite the perfect finale, but it is an awesome ending to one of my favourite shows ever.

Spoiler alert to anyone who hasn't watched the Flash episodes 20 through 23, of course.

Episode 20, the Trap: This is the big 'oh shit we're entering the home stretch' episode with Barry and company discovering about Harrison Wells' true identity and attempting to confront him with it. Cisco uses his dream thingamagig (which woun't be explained until the finale) to figure out how Harrison Wells will react... only for it to be revealed that Harrison Wells, or rather, Eobard Thawne as it's more appropriate to refer to him now, has been watching them all along. So this episode that's set up to be the trap for Harrison Wells ended up being a trap that Wells set up for Team Flash, which is pretty awesome and I totally didn't see that coming. Using Everyman as a decoy (and something that eagle-eyed viewers will notice since Everyman-Wells does everything with his left hand) is a pretty awesome twist, because I thought Wells will just shake off the bullet wound, not be revealed as an impostor. Eobard-Wells is a gigantic ham now that he doesn't have to pretend to be good anymore, and he kidnaps Eddie for his vague plans.

We also get some nice little nods to stuff all over DC comics in the future newspaper (including some foreshadowing for the Legends of Tomorrow show, which has an awesome trailer) and some nice intrigue about GIDEON being created by a future Barry. I also like the realism of Cisco being unable to fuck with technology several hundred years ahead of his time because, really, that's the realistic thing. Also apparently Barry did something to Eobard in the future that's so unforgiveable that he went back in time just to kill Barry, and later kill his mother, in order to get revenge... though even until the end of the season we don't find out what, exactly, this is.

Episode 21, Grodd Lives: My reaction to this episode flip-flops between HOLY SHIT GRODD IS AWESOME and 'why do we have such a gigantic focus on the Iris plot'. Iris' rage at Barry and everone else is justified because beyond the flimsy excuse of it's-for-her-safety there is really no reason to keep Iris in the dark when everyone else and their mother knows that Barry Allen is the Flash. So yes, her rage is justified when she figures out Flash's identity (by the most random event imaginable, mind you) and yes, I would take her side instead of Joe's and Barry's, but three episodes to the finale and this is when you focus on 'Iris discovers Barry is Flash'? To top it off, we had to have Barry recovering from Grodd's telepathic attack to involve the cheesiest do-it-for-the-girl speech ever. I just don't like the big focus on this whole thing, especially with Eobard being such a dick and waving the whole 'Iris West-Allen' in Eddie's face just to be a dick.

Of course, all that is kind of offset by the awesomeness of Grodd. He looks pretty awesome, this giant telepathic gorilla, and he does feel like a threat. Everything he does from the initial Jurassic Park demon-in-the-shadows scene, the 'Grodd hate banana' joke, the chilling scene with Joe and the gun, Grodd just refusing to be taken down by anything -- the telepathic blockers, the supersonic punch -- and just being this unbeatable monster is pretty awesome. Wade Eiling's return, albeit traumatized and forced into an alliance with Barry, is handled pretty well too with the little fake-out that Grodd may have taken control some random Z-lister villain-of-the-week to do his bidding. Grodd is just awesome, and I cannot believe this show just adapted a goddamn telepathic gorilla into a live-action show and plays it so straight. Grodd's apparently just buying time while Eobard is doing his scientific... schemes or whatever, and it apparently involves the particle accelerator which neatly ties it together. I kind of thought Grodd was kind of wasted because he could've easily been Reverse-Flash's second in command and had a more active role between menacing Team Flash this once, but damn if he isn't effective. Grodd is awesome, he isn't taken down and just taken out of the picture and I can see him being a really big threat down the line.

Episode 22, Rogue Air: The premise of this episode is pretty awesome, with Barry caught in a dilemma of whether to rescue these psychopathic metahumans from being killed when the particle accelerator explodes. And there being a set time for the particle accelerator to activate is kind of a convenient thing, because it allows the whole other-villains thing to happen. It's really a bit weird for Eobard not to do a damn thing after running away, though, simply waiting until the particle accelerator activates, but whatever. This episode is chock-full of awesome. There's a bit of an anticlimatic end to the Eddie situation and we still get a 'we break up because I have seen the future' which is annoying, but again, it's offset by the sheer amount of awesomeness in this episode.

Captain Cold is a smooth motherfucker, showing that while he does have a code of honour (he saves Flash by killing Deathbolt) he isn't above backstabbing and deceiving people to get what he wants. Cold gets a lot of really awesome lines and moments in this episode. Just awesome all around. And we finally get some of the lesser villains getting their moments -- Mist, Weather Wizard and especially Rainbow Raider are given time to actually interact and shine, though I imagine anyone who didn't watch Arrow will be confused as to where Deathbolt showed up from. Not even a 'hey Ray dropped this off the other day' line from Cisco or whatever. That scene where everyone just explodes with powers as Deathbolt launches lasers and Weather Wizard summons thunderbolts and the Mist just, well, mists around... it's pretty awesome itself with all the displays of the powers, and while it doesn't come into play in the finale, every single one of the metahumans other than poor Deathbolt breaks free and are at large, with hints of a partnership between Cold and Wizard... we're just one Mirror Master short of having the classic Rogues ensemble!

Also random continuity nods like Lian Yu and Captain Boomerang? Yay. Hopefully the moronic Suicide Squad embargo that cost us Deadshot and Harley Quinn doesn't make us lose Captain Boomerang as well.

And that ending? With Firestorm coming down from the sky and Green Arrow coming down with that loud twaaaaang as the music builds up? My face was light up like Eobard's was in gleeful anticipation of the fight that's to come. And it comes and holy fuck does it deliver. I honestly expected it to be a cliffhanger and the finale to be your standard 'heroes take down big bad once and for all', but no, this... this prototype Justice League just lays the smackdown onto the Reverse-Flash within five minutes. And it's five of the happiest minutes you'll ever find me in. It's pure awesome as these three heroes work together to defeat the Reverse-Flash, a gigantic threat that can take down the strongest one of them (Barry) easily, and there's no guarantee that the three of them combined can take him out. That's the sense of threat that Loki and Ultron failed to deliver in the Avengers movies, and indeed in those movies neither of the Big Bad Villains ever engaged more than two Avenger at one time and came victorious on top. Reverse-Flash was effectively fighting everyone at once, and the show makes a really good job of making Reverse-Flash be awesome while still not overpowering him. Arrow gets some nice moments to shine with speed-disabling nanites (and I do like how the arrows manage to find their mark because no matter how fast you are, you can't dodge what you don't see coming). It also shows just how dangerous Reverse-Flash is. Even without his intelligence and superior speed to Barry, he's also a pretty awesome hand-to-hand combatant that gave Oliver a bit of a run for his money, which basically means that Barry and his one boxing lesson is kind of fucked up. And they totally beat Reverse-Flash! That was freaking awesome.

Episode 23, Fast Enough: Fuck the cliffhanger ending with the giant time storm, we know that's not going to stick. But it's a wonderful, wonderful ending. We don't get answers to every single question -- we don't know Eobard Thawne's origin story, we don't know what the Future!Barry time travelling back is doing while fighting Eobard Thawne... and unlike what we guessed ever since we saw that scene, it's not Barry at the end of this episode travelling back and fighting Eobard Thawne in the past. No, Flashpoint didn't happen either, which is awesome. But we do get some really awesome closures to a lot of plot arcs. Eddie in particular goes out with an awesome bang. He's been this dogged nice guy throughout Flash, and the show pulls no punches in making him feel like shit. But he says 'fuck the future', proposes to Iris... and then pulls another 'fuck the future' as he shoots himself in the chest and wipes Eobard out of existence. Granted that time paradox was probably the cause of the gigantic timestorm at the end of the episode, but still.

Also, we also get confirmation that Cisco is indeed a metahuman -- Vibe, though he hasn't quite named himself yet -- except instead of earthquake powers, he gets his secondary New 52 powers, which is the ability to see through dimensions. Or in this case, the ability to remember splinter timelines he's experienced. A pretty awesome but simple explanation for the whole 'Cisco remembers the splinter timeline' thing that is otherwise stupid.

We get a couple of heartbreaking scenes as Barry waffles between going back to the past and changing everything -- thereby breaking all the dynamics he's made so far -- and the conversation with Joe about losing a parent to save another... the two of them clearly consider each other father and son, and it's heartbreaking when they said goodbye to each other before Barry goes through the crazy time loop. But more heartbreaking is the moment where Barry goes to the past not to change it, but to have some closure with his mother, to comfort his mother while she died and generally just telling her that everything's going to be fine. It's fucking sad I cried.

Granted Eobard's plan doesn't really make that much sense. Have Barry create a temporal hole which he'll use to escape to the future and reclaim his life, while Barry changes the past by... beating up past-Eobard? Wouldn't that invalidate everything, also creating a temporal paradox by erasing Harrison Wells' contributions to the timeline? Eh. Eobard, you're crazy. It's a good thing Barry punches through you and your time sphere. Also he actually does care about Cisco. Cisco kind of doesn't give a fuck, since, y'know, stabbing someone through the heart with a vibrating hand tends to have that kind of effect.

Also Jay Garrick's hat! WOOOOOO! Apparently Eobard didn't make himself an enemy of just a single Flash. We also get several hints to the Legends of Tomorrow show which I'll talk about some time later, with Rip Hunter and the Time Sphere being mentioned, as well as parts of the trailer seen by Barry as he runs through the Speed Force. We also see the Flash museum, Barry in jail, and most importantly KILLER FROST and Caitlin is totally rocking that look.

The ending isn't quite as action-packed as I expected it to be and it's more of a crazy emotional rollercoaster not just for Barry but for, well, basically everyone involved. Martin Stein steals every scene he shows up in, we get a shit-ton of nice nods to future installments of Flash and Legends of Tomorrow. It wraps up a lot of plot threads, yet still leaving some of the larger ones open. And while the Big Bad is taken out of the picture, I have no doubt that Reverse-Flash will come back, either by Rip Hunter fixing that big hole in the timeline, or some wacky time hijinks happening.

Still whatever the case holy fuck that was an awesome ending.

Naruto 703 Review: Cute little ten-tails baby

Naruto Gaiden, Chapter 3: Chance Meeting, Part 1

The author has taken to calling the Naruto Gaiden chapters '700+3' and whatnot, but I'm not going to. Naruto goes off on his own, knowing that he's missing on the packed lunch Boruto is bringing for him. Dude is the fastest ninja in the world, can't he just zip back, talk to his son for a bit, before zipping straight out? Seriously, these scenarios only work in sitcoms set in apartments, not in a world where ninjas run around transforming into giant energy beings shooting out nuclear bombs.

Sarada and Chouchou are like 'we're going to go off to follow Naruto' when Boruto and Mitsuki show up and they argue a bit about the packed lunch. Chouchou is still annoyingly delusional about love and is just annoying in general. Sarada is kind of projecting her own parental issues of, y'know, not knowing where her father is and who her mother is... and Boruto even calls her out on that. But the all important packed lunch is given to her.

Meanwhile they're being watched by this thing that's a cross between the Ten-Tails, a squirrel and a pokemon. It's got the Ten-Tails' Sharinnegan thing, and the same weird wooden mouth. Whatever that is, all it's missing is the weird single ear to look like the Ten-Tails' grotesque... second? Third? Whichever form that has that weird eye-mouth-ear thing.

Onion-Head is apparently called Uchiha Shin, so there goes my running joke. Hood-Man orders Shin to bring Sarada to him, and we see that he's not Orochimaru... he's got an implanted Sharingan with dark-coloured conjunctiva, but instead of implanting it nicely like every other sane people in this ninja world, Hood-Man has taken into stabbing the corners of his eye with little Hellraiser stake things.

He's totally Shishui, isn't he? Random dude that suddenly got prominence in the chapters of a recent game that the author apparently wrote himself, his eyes have apparently been replaced, we never see Shishui's death specifically in either the manga or the game, and an obsession with Itachi... yeah, totally calling it.

Naruto, despite not wanting to wait for his own kid, realizes that Sarada and Chouchou are chasing him and heads back. Man, Naruto, you're a shit father. Shin, of course, confronts Sarada and Chouchou and the two have some generic back and forth. Shin then places a scroll on the ground and calmly pulls out this gigantic shuriken on a chain while Chouchou makes eyeroll-inducing vaguely love-related ditzy remarks.

Sarada launches some kunais at Shin, and Chouchou moves in with a Bubun Baika no Jutsu, but Shin just does some ninja hopping around while playing with his chain, and moves in to kill the expendable Chouchou... but of course, Naruto goes in to save them and goes all 'ah, you're the dude with the Sharingan'.

Overall not a bad chapter, really, it just has this really weird focus on the really soap-opera-like condition of Sarada and Chouchou and Boruto and all sorts of parental issues and whatnot. It's certainly nice themes to explore and I certainly prefer this to the bogged-down bullshit of a mess that was Naruto's quote-unquote grand finale, but, y'know, the tone of this series in general feels more like a drama-comedy thing instead of an action-packed shonen.

Still not quite impressed with Sarada as a lead, though she's grown from 'irritating' to 'inoffensive', though that might just because she's paired up with a more annoying character. The whole Uchiha mystery is not boring, at least, though Shin doesn't really look like much of a threat, especially not to Naruto. Though since Naruto is like overpowered as hell I don't think short of introducing a threat equal to the likes of Madara or Kaguya anything's going to be a threat, and I've had my fill of those kind of 'shrug off every attack' villains. So.

One Piece 787 Review: Wrong Focus

One Piece, Chapter 787: Four Minutes Before

You know, this isn't anywhere as bad as the Bleach chapter this week, but it's still kind of m'eh. Mostly because of the ADHD focus on all these random people and happenings and minor plot points that I couldn't really give a shit about. The main focus should have been Sabo versus Burgess and maybe Doflamingo just stringing everyone to death, but no. We jump around all the other random people so much and it's just distracting. Someone pointed out to me how One Piece arcs always have a time limit thing going on, and that's true... and by this point it's just kind of repetitive and, more annoyingly, freaking distracting.

Anyway the chapter starts off with people reacting to Sabo and the fact that oh my god Luffy's brother is second in command of the Revolutionaries. Sabo is trying to keep it cool like "oh, you guys killed Ace and really that's not your fault, he chose his own path" but his face is pretty visibly pissed off as fuck.

We get a rather unnecessary page of Burgess and Gatz just realizing that oh Sabo took the Mera Mera fruit and how Sabo was the 'Lucy' in the finals and did we really need that? Also Sabo and Luffy mispronounce Gatz's name and really, the whole Gatz thing in itself is a gigantic distraction that didn't really need to happen. Would've been fine if this arc hasn't already been bogged down with so many characters, but it is.

Burgess does this 'Galleon Lariat' that slices a building (and fire-form Sabo) in half. Sabo then rematerializes, hits Burgess in the side -- the art makes it look like he's attacking his armpit -- and does a combination of Ace's Fire Fist and his own Dragon Claw attack in the ridiculously long-winded "Flaming Dragon Claw Fist: Fire Flame Dragon King" which probably sounded a lot cooler in Japanese.

It's honestly a bit boring since as I mentioned in my Fairy Tail reviews punching people while your fist is on fire is boring. If Sabo didn't already been pre-established with having hard-finger powers and isn't combining skills, I would've similarly called foul. Burgess gets blown the fuck away and Sabo just zooms in to continue fighting, talking about how Blackbeard's crew is hunting Devil Fruits and shit.

And that's the last we see of these two dudes for this chapter because what the fuck One Piece. You tease us with such wonderful matchups -- Sanji vs Doflamingo, Sabo vs Fujitora, Zoro vs Fujitora, Sabo vs Burgess -- and only show us a tiny glimpse of those fights. Clearly seeing Sabo and Burgess fight needs to take a backseat to the umpteenth time of showing us that the random minor characters from the Colloseum can fight Doflamingo's mooks.

We get Gatz and Luffy talking about Sabo for a page -- again, didn't really need to happen -- and then a pretty awesome page of all the gladiators being left bloodied and presumably dead with the city being transformed into some kind of string-tendril monster while Doflamingo just walks through the bloodstained streets all calm and shit. Yeah, he's hurt, but he's pissed off as hell.

The next page has the random civilians -- the one running away from the Central Street battles and the ones running away from the Birdcge -- all running into each other and being all 'fuck where do we run'. Again, not the focus we want. We have Zoro Busoshoku Haki-ing his swords and trying to push the Birdcage back and calling the samurai goddamn pussies for not helping out. Then we have Franky and the little Tontatta pushing the Seastone factory to block the Birdcage elsewhere. Interesting but did we really need these plot threads? It's overcrowding the more interesting shit.

The next page is the random Doflamingo mooks shooting random civilians. So important. And the next page is a two-page splash of Bartolomeo, Don Chinjao, Kyros and the rest of the gladiators we care about (the ones we don't have been turned into Doflamingo fodder) beating the fuck out of the random mooks. Apparently Mancherie has healed the badly wounded ones like Hajrudin and Dagama. Beyond me playing 'how many minor characters I can name', which is always fun, none of this needed to happen.

The last two-page spread is Doflamingo pushing the Birdcage even faster to draw out Luffy and everyone reacting to it -- including Law, all ominous and shit, and Fujitora with blinking things above him whatever that is. We see that the Birdcage will close in 3 minutes, while Luffy needs 4 minutes to recharge.

I honestly cannot give a fuck about the whole oh-no-Birdcage-will-kill-everyone thing. It's a pretty awesome concept when it first started out, but now we spend so much time with Birdcage that it's pretty annoying. Why can't the four minutes time while Luffy recharges be spent with just seeing Burgess and Sabo fight, while Zoro and the rest blocking the birdcage just take up a couple of pages as a montage?

I mean, Gear Fourth and whatnot was really cool, but other than that awesome page of Doflamingo murdering everyone and Sabo doing that fire dragon claw thing on Burgess this chapter really feels like filler.

Agents of SHIELD S2E18 Review: Let Everyone Fight

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2, Episode 18: The Frenemy of My Enemy

Everyone has their own agenda and it comes to a head in this episode! Definitely a lot more elegantly done than the three-way between SHIELD, Whitehall and Cal earlier in this season. It’s a relatively solid episode, with every party getting some decent screentime before everything comes to a head in that apartment where Skye, Lincoln, Cal, Deathlok, Coulson, Ward, Hunter, 33 and Bakshi throw down and fight each other with their own agendas while Real-SHIELD watches.

A good chunk of the episode, those dealing with the Inhumans plot, has Skye convincing Jiaying and Gordon to let her bring Cal to their ‘home’ and try to get him to mellow out to the idea of being left out of the Inhuman society. It’s clear that Skye has grown somewhat attached to Cal – he is trying to be a good father, as fucked up as his mind is – and at the very least she wants to stop Cal from going all Hulk in a populated area. There are some great (and really fun) scenes of Cal just happy trying to bond with his daughter, and the rather crushed look on his face when Skye basically tells him they need to move on science fairs and ice cream stands and whatnot… and the angry-and-disappointed look when he realizes that the Inhumans have been wanting to dump him like a stray dog. Skye, obviously, not as much as Jiaying and the others, but poor Cal. Skye also gets some nice scenes as she tries to hang out with Cal and actually seems to enjoy herself somewhat, and truly does look heartbroken when Lincoln shows up and Cal looks pissed off.

There’s also a nice little nod to Skye’s comic-book counterpart, Daisy Johnson (a.k.a. Quake), when Skye sees Cal’s original name: Calvin Johnson. Skye says her original birth name, Daisy Johnson, out loud and seems to like it, while Cal notes he changed his last name to something more sinister when he’s on the run. Comic book readers know it’s a sly nod to Cal’s comic book counterpart, Calvin Zabo.

We also get a short scene of Jiaying not really buying into the whole ‘clairvoyant’ thing with Raina, considering such an ability was unheard of before, but Gordon points out that his ability was the first of his kind too. Jiaying also doesn’t particularly care what happens if Cal goes all Mr. Hyde in a populated area, because they’re Inhumans and they only care about Inhumans. Professor X, these people aren’t.

Meanwhile, Coulson, Hunter and Deathlok have rendezvoused with Fitz, and we get some vague skipping around answers when Fitz asks Deathlok where his upgrades come from. Coulson you sly bastard! Coulson’s plan to locate Skye and bring down Hydra involves him kind of trying to recruit Ward, since Ward knows Hydra. And it’s kind of a risky gamble – Hydra is tracking down metahumans, one of which is Gordon the teleporter, who Coulson knew had abducted Skye, so why not bring down Hydra? There’s some nice tie-ins with Age of Ultron as well. We’ve known Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker is involved as this background mastermind for Hydra for quite some time, and we know he’s gathering metahumans (the Maximoff twins, for one) and dr List, his majordomo, does make an appearance in this episode as a major villain. And he’s apparently been tracking Gordon’s teleportation for quite some time.

List showed up before on a prior Agents of SHIELD before, and while he doesn’t really do much but be a generic evil superior officer, I do like the little expansion of roles for List and by extension Strucker, considering the rather… pitiful appearance they had in Age of Ultron. I also like how they’ve actually been targeting Inhumans while hunting metahumans, as shown by them experimenting on Ethan, the poor Inhuman boy we saw a couple episodes back going camping. Well, so much for the Inhuman society being a safe haven!

But first, Ward. Ward is all lovey-dovey with 33 now, and actually shows up to the meeting when they corner and take 33 hostage. Do like how royally pissed off Fitz is at Ward, and I do like how Coulson manages to win Ward over by putting him through Tahiti to wipe his memories clean… and Ward pretending to accept just to get SHIELD off his ass. Ward’s plan is to use Sunil Bakshi, who they brainwashed, to pretend to hook up with dr List and get them the information they need. Meanwhile Bakshi seems to be improvising and shows Deathlok as a ‘gift’, causing a bit of a tense situation between Coulson’s people and Ward’s people. Of course by the end of this episode Bakshi actually reveals himself to be actually a traitor, so good for Bakshi!

Ward himself is kind of… disappointing, really. He falls in line relatively quickly and while he definitely has a thing or two up his sleeve, he seems way too cooperative with Coulson to be true, especially at the end where he seems to have gone to being a full ally. There must be something more going on with the sick monster that is Grant Ward, and I want to see that explored. 33, or Kara, as she wants to be called now, really wants to leave all her lives behind and just be Kara. She’s been in contact with her mother, which is nice, and based on some lines between her and Ward, they kind of seem to just want to settle down. 33 and Hunter working together and covering each other’s back during the firefight against Hydra is kind of nice, too, showing that whatever 33 has became, she’s not dishonourable.

Deathlok asking 33 whether she has more of those face-changing stuff is hilarious. Deathlok himself is the subject of some nice little deadpan jokes about him being a SHIELD agent… with rockets in his arm.

Simmons, meanwhile, is pissed about May bringing Bobbi into the fold, and especially when the crime of taking the Toolbox is pinned on Fitz. May herself is kind of shaping up to be the middle ground between Coulson and RealSHIELD, which is fine. She does have her reasons to distrust Coulson, especially since Theta Protocol seems to be draining a shit-ton of resources. On the other hand, Bobbi is starting to doubt RealSHIELD’s priorities considering they’re hunting for the otherwise-harmless Coulson while Hydra is allowed to run rampant. Mack is still being a bit of a dick, though not as much as previous episodes.

And when Hydra attacks the building, hunting for Gordon, I do like just how confused and disjointed everyone is. Lincoln fights Deathlok because they don’t know each other – and poor Deathlok just having no idea how to fight someone who shoots electricity out of his hands. Cal just wants to have a day with his daughter and gets pissed off and starts beating the ever loving hell out of Hydra agents. Coulson and Ward teaming up and just beating up Hydra people. And Bakshi? Throwing a grenade at Deathlok and Lincoln after they tire each other out. Hydra definitely won, getting not only a valuable member back in Bakshi, but also capturing two metahumans.

Gordon warps Skye (and Cal, accidentally) out of the whole conflict, while Coulson accidentally gets caught on camera hanging out with Ward by Real-SHIELD hacking into Deathlok’s eye. Oops, there goes May’s loyalty! It’s interesting and all sorts of fun situations that the characters are brought into, and while this episode is kind of slow-paced in the beginning, everything suddenly goes straight to hell in the last ten minutes or so. It’s definitely an episode to get our adrenaline pumped for the next episode, and with season two reaching its finale, well… I’ve really been liking season two a lot, you know? It’s got a rather terrible start, but these past few episodes had been really good. Hopefully the next few episodes don’t lose the momentum, and Age of Ultron’s premiere in between some of the episodes would be handled as well as Winter Soldier’s debut in the middle of season one.