One Piece Anime: Wano Arc, Episodes 977-985

Since last time we were a bit shorter because of the Oden flashback, this one's going to be a mite longer in exchange. We're entering action episodes, which means these are going to be much shorter anyway:

Episode 977:

• Back to the present day!
• I do like the attention to detail that it's Ashura Doji that's the first to essentially give up. "Look at the seas and skies! Even heaven has abandoned us!"
• I do really like that the animation and dialogue actually keeps it ambiguous up until Kanjurou's speech who the traitor is. Focusing on Inuarashi last during the panning shot; having Raizou try to get everyone to not fight and point fingers... hell, showing the theater flashback could even point to Kiku since she and Izo used to be performers before they hung out with Oden. 
• Another great delivery vocally, too -- Kin'emon, Kiku and Kanjurou are just yelling hysterically at each other, and then Kanjurou just speaks in this calm, menacing tone. Very simple, but very badass, too. 
• Kin'emon just totally beheaded Kanjuro's ink clone, that's pretty badass.
• Again, loev the attention to deteail i.e. Kanjuro's right and left hand in painting. 
• How good are Momonosuke and Shinobu's ears to actually hear what's going on through the storm and the distance?
• "The sea is for pirates to fight on!"

Episode 978:

• It's completely filler, but the fanboy within me really appreciates the roll call moment for the Straw Hats and their allies.
• We get some extra filler showing the Straw Hats on the beach reacting to the Sunny getting 'blown up'. It's complete fluff, but considering how streamlined the Oden flashback has been, it's understandable that they need some extra leeway. 
• Oh, so that's why Luffy didn't show up in samurai regalia. "I'm a pirate, so I'd rather wear this."
• Thank you, Straw Hats, for recapping all the allies and side-quests that the characters have been doing throughout the arc. 
• More filler in the flying SMILE users getting their attacks repelled by Nami, Robin and Sanji. Which is all fine and good other than the fact that the Scabbards look like nincompoops for not dealing with Kanjuro. On the other hand, Kanjuro also spends the entire episode standing on the beachfront, so...
  
• Holy shit that Zeus animation is pretty. Also pretty is the animation of the Mink musketeers using electro to zap a bunch of cannonballs. 
• Bepo, Shachi and Penguin do something, holy shit! 
• Good god, suddenly the animation went into overdrive when Law tosses that one Beasts Pirate ship into the air. From Luffy stretching all over the ship, to the Boundman/Punk Vise power-up, to Law countershocking the butterfly SMILE...
• Luffy, Law and Kid trying to one-up each other is still one of the comedic highlights of this arc. Between Law's deadpan seriousness compared to the other two, to Luffy going Gear Fourth just to beat up a random boat of mooks just to show off...
• Holy shit calm down Denjiro stop stealing the entire animation budget for your ship-cutting slash

Episode 979:

• I still love that Denjiro just casually has a detachable pompadour. 
• Ah, yes, 5000 IQ Kin'emon. He plays his strategy chess so far in front of the others that he doesn't even realize that he's doing it. I still love the Hato/Tokage stuff and just how baffled Kin'emon is and how none of the other Scabbards believe that it's Kin's plan all along. 
• THERE IS A SAMURAI CREST WITH THE TRIFORCE ON IT!
• This was a lot faster-paced in the manga, but finally, Kawamatsu realizes that someone has to try to beat the shit out of Kanjuro. 

Episode 980:

• One of the less-well-received moments in the manga actually flows much better in here -- Usopp and Chopper react a lot more quickly, and Sanji actually flies up and exchanges some blows against Kanjurou's brush-sword. The ink arrow attack also gets drawn to look much more deadlier and vast compared to its manga counterpart, making Sanji look less like a dork for zipping down and taking the shot for Nami.  
• That said, they do show a lot of shots of the allied troops dodging or hitting the evening shower attack.
• Momonosuke gets a pretty elaborate flashback scene. I'd have called this redundant, except... I kinda really like the little brat now, y'know? And I do feel like it's realistic for him to actually flashback to Oden and Luffy's words in this moment. 
  
• Jinbe's huge water beams look pretty neat. Kind of not as badass as some of the other stuff we see in the arc, but between the voice acting and showing him just utterly demolishing that one cannon-ship, hell yea Jinbe's back. 

Episode 981:

• I do like that the characters who hung out in the Whole Cake Island get close-ups to show how relieved they are that Jinbe's fine. Appropriately, this includes the Sunny! The ship's part of the crew, and all that!
• That's a bit too many flashback scenes -- we basically see every single major Jinbe moment. 
• "Stop it, Kin. There's no point in giving them a plan." Law, you long-suffering man, I pity you. 
• They really play up Law trying to get the samurai off his submarine and the submarine ignoring every single request and just doing the strategy meeting there. It's great comedy.
• I also love the scene where Denjiro (genuinely?) believes Kin'emon has a 5000 IQ brain and made up a terrible plan to throw Kanjuro off, while Raizou is just in the sidelines thinking 'yep, you moron, you have no plan'.
• Also, very realistic and appropriate that it ends up Law that sets up the plan for everyone.
• Again, can't help but fanboy over the extremely extended Straw-Hats-vs-random-goons under the Torii gate. Everyone's attacks even get their own little introduction box! 

Episode 982:

• Good god that's a pretty Red Hawk. 
• STRAW HATS ASSEMBLE! 
• I love that Queen demanding for more oshiruko nets him some J.J. Abrams lens flare glowing eyes. 
• Yamato? What are you doing showing up so early? We don't see Yamato's face yet, but still...
• For the second half of this episode, we get the famous "PRESENTED BY ONIGASHIMA" Queen and Apoo music video, where the whole Queen performance in the manga gets played up all the way to the maximum levels of fun MV ridiculousness that they can get. And they do some pretty cool animation tricks here, too. If there's one thing you need to check out from the Wano arc in the anime, it's this. This moment. 
• zumu zumu zumu zumu zumu zumu zumu zumu
• Ulti is a lot funnier with a voice, let's just say that. "I AM CUTE!" Also, that wasn't the colour schemes I thought Who's Who and Page One would have. 
• The samurai ships bursting through the red waves is a pretty damn awesome shot. 

Episode 983:

• I always did like the fact that Kid's entire crew joins in Killer's fafafafa laughing just to make him feel included. Such a nice little moment.  
• "We will not need return ships." is still pretty boss. 
• Okay, the introduction of the Beast Mode disguise Straw Hats is definitely pretty well-done. 

Episode 984:

• I keep forgetting Orochi's like, large enough to grab a regular woman in his palm. 
• We actually see the scene of Kid and Luffy arguing, with Luffy wanting Kid to follow the samurai's plans, and Zoro going off to drag Luffy back. 
• Okay, I really didn't expect the Festival Hall to be... illuminated like a club. The way it's drawn in the manga makes me think it's always well-lighted, but this definitely makes it look visually much more unique. 
• We get a pretty fun Super Sentai roll call moment with Franky, Usopp and Chopper with the Franky Shogun vehicles. 
• The anime makes it 100% explicit that it's Yamato shadowing Jinbe and Robin. I guess that's just a bit of ambiguity that was kind of... unnecessary to the story, honestly. 
• Ulti is funny. 
• I get that they're villains so they're dumping the oshiruko on the floor, but both Queen and Big Mom really, really like those. It's particularly stupid for those goons to do so. I guess they're just drunk. 
• Random early appearance of Zoro's Conqueror's Haki? I get that the Beasts Pirates mocking the poor villagers is going to trigger Zoro, but while it's a cool moment in a vacuum, I'd much rather have it either be more ambiguous on whether it's really Conqueror's, or just do the manga thing and have it be confirmed mid-battle with Kaido. Odd choice. 

Episode 985:

• So Bao Huang's thing is that she drags out what she's going to say?
• Heat and Wire actually get lines of dialogue here. 
• "I have to calm him down, or he'll screw up the plan!" -proceeds to slice down an entire tower- Zoro, never change. 

Movie Review: The New Mutants

The New Mutants [2020]

Sometimes movies get screwed by the studio that produces it. Sometimes it's a matter of the studio demanding reshoots or that the movie have a certain tone to be marketable. Sometimes an actor or character had to be recasted or written out of a movie. And then sometimes you get the absolute clusterfuck of a movie like The New Mutants, which, through no fault of the people actually making the movie, was delayed so many times. Coming out as a spinoff to several poorly-received sequels (X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix) was bad enough, but when the the Fox/Disney deal came through with the rights for the X-Men reverting back to Disney/Marvel, it also meant that this movie... well, quite literally didn't have a future. Toss in the fact that the movie was delayed a stunning four times due to the pandemic and the contract requiring that the studio release it in theatres, and this being an R-rated superhero movie... and honestly, I'm a huge X-Men fan, and it took me nearly a year since 2020 to actually remember to look up whether this movie has released or not. 

And the result is.... surprisingly average? The movie runs 90 minutes, and it's pretty coherent with what sort of story it wants to tell. Removing my X-Men comic book fanboyism for a minute, I can appreciate that at least the movie felt coherent. A group of young mutants find themselves trapped in a facility that claims itself to be a hospital, but turns out that it's a prison and that there's something sinister happening. Meanwhile, weird shit starts to happen in the facility, caused by the mutant powers of one of the children. Other than the jumpscares (which, surprisingly, there aren't that many of) there really aren't too many surprises about what's going on here -- the major plot twists of the movie is pretty much telegraphed within the first fifteen to twenty minutes of the movie. The doctor is actually evil, the spooky stuff come from Dani's fear-inducing powers, and all the five kids end up working together to fight a bigger evil. 

The movie primarily follows Danielle Moonstar, waking up after the town she lived in is apparently wiped out by a hurricane. She wakes up in the weird asylum-facility surrounded by forcefields, and the other kids in the place are weirdoes. In quick succession, we're introduced to the other New Mutants. Rahne Sinclair is a religious girl that's plagued with guilt after being beaten half to death by the local priest who thinks she's possessed by a demon -- and Rahne later mauls the priest in self-defense. Ilyanna Rasputin is a massive bitch with a little dragon sock-puppet who immediately gets hostile with Dani, and we learn that she's traumatized as a child by what's heavily implied to be sex slavers. Sam Guthrie is a coal-miner's son who accidentally caused an explosion that killed his father; while Roberto da Costa is a rich kid who we later learn accidentally burned his girlfriend to death. 

And the movie is very, very slow paced. There's a quick info-dump about mutants, and then there's the odd mystery of who Dani is and why the facility has a forcefield around it, but, again, the movie is pretty transparent about telegraphing that Dr. Reyes isn't very nice with her solitary confinement cells and clearly contacting some enigmatic master. Meanwhile, the fact that everyone in the asylum starts to have nightmares after Dani is there, and constant showcases of 'psionic power' on Reyes' computer screens, really makes it pretty obvious that it's Dani that's behind the nightmares. 

I do like the concept of what's going on, on paper. We learn bits and bytes of what Rahne, Ilynana, Sam and Roberto are willing to share, but the true depths of their childhood traumas aren't something they face until Dani brings them to life literally -- Rahne gets branded again by the priest that attacked her as a kid, Sam has to relive the day he blew up his dad's coal mine, Roberto gets stalked by the burning zombie corpse of his girlfriend in the pool, and Ilyanna's nightmarish smiley-faced tormentors form some tangible antagonists for most of the finale. 

It's just that... we learn about the traumas these characters suffer in the past, and they kind of open up to each other, but we really don't learn anything about who they are. Dani and Rahne are the only ones with any real semblance of characterization, although it's mostly just their romance, really... all the kids are some variation of generic heroic cipher when not expositioning or reacting to their past traumas. The boys, in particular, feel particularly extraneous and I really didn't get a feel for their characters up to the end of the movie. Ilyanna is perhaps the most entertaining, but that's probably because (unnecessary racist jokes notwithstanding) she actually gets to act out both the role of the alpha bitch of the cast, but also someone more vulnerable. 

The antagonist of the movie are also frustratingly vague. Dr. Reyes doesn't really have that much of a personality beyond being the evil doctor pretending to be nice, but it's pretty obvious that it's all an act. And she doesn't act nearly sinister enough to be either scary or entertaining... and despite all the notes pointing to 'Essex', we don't actually get Mister Sinister in this movie. No, the final 'big bad' is just a monstrous CGI demon bear conjured by Dani, who eats Dr. Reyes and just roars around for the other four New Mutants to use their powers on until Dani wakes up. Beyond the neat showcase of Magik's demon-arm manifesting and maybe Sunspot's first 'flame on', the visuals aren't really all that spectacular either. 

And...  and I feel like the movie could've worked a lot better if it tried to either focus on the young adult growth side, or the psychological horror side, or even just the regular horror side. None of these parts of the movie, I feel, stand out powerfully enough to make New Mutants feel too novel. Heck, the only real novelty of this movie is having a lesbian romance between the two main characters, which, admittedly, is probably the first of its kind we've seen on a theatrical film. But with everything else... I feel like other superhero shows like Legion, Swamp Thing, Constantine or WandaVision does all the psychological or horror stuff so, so much better.

And let's not even get into just how much they change from the comics. I'm not even a particularly huge New Mutants fan, but even I know that they basically cut out one of the main New Mutants, Karma (who is a lesbian in the comics) and just slapped her ethnicity on Rahne (who isn't). Dr. Reyes was also a heroic character in the comics; Dani's powers involved making mirages instead of being a fear-nexus; Magik's backstory had nothing to do with sex slaves; Magik wasn't casually racist; Lockheed wasn't associated with Magik; Sunspot was black... a couple of changes are obviously expected when adapting a work of fiction into the screen, but there were so many odd changes that they made. Toss in the fact that the movie was pretty lukewarm... but at least if you decide to watch this movie, it's a coherent story. 

One Piece 1038-1039 Review: Happy Mother's Day

One Piece, Chapters 1038-1039

A very action-packed pair of chapters! I'm sorry if I haven't been super active on the blog lately. I've been super-busy, and a lot of the articles that I've been posting have been pre-written a while back. Real life's been kind of busy, so I do apologize if some of my posts for the next couple of months will be a bit more sporadic. I have been keeping up with One Piece very much, though, and these two chapters have been causing quite a stir in the community!

Chapter 1038, Kid and Law vs. Big Mom is... it's exactly what it says on the tin. For the last five pages or so. We do start off going to a bunch of other fights first, with one of them being Raizou and Fukurokuju -- who are both on fire! It's kind of interesting since I'm actually in the process of watching the Oden flashback in the anime right now, and one of the moments that stood out to me was that during the Hour of Legends, Raizou actually had a moment of weakness where he complained about the heat and one of his comrades chewed him out for it. And so this is kind of his redemption, I guess, where he's keeping silent even when he is burning if he can take out another enemy. 

We check in with a couple of other characters like Jinbe, Franky and Chopper, but then we get to a scene that baffled everyone. Right after Chopper talks about the risks of the magic Mink drug poses to Zoro, we get Zoro being unable to move, facing off against the goddamn Grim Reaper itself. One Piece has always been a manga that doesn't really have anything overly supernatural -- the most we ever got was Brook coming back from the dead. Which is why this is so interesting and unexpected! Obviously, Zoro's not going to die, but it's kind of interesting to see where we're going to go from him clearly having a near-death experience here. A lot of theories abound, from the 'Grim Reaper' actually being Enma's Bleach-esque Zanpakutou spirit, or that Death itself is enraged at Zoro's blasphemous claim that he'll be king of the underworld, or that the borders between the land of the dead and living are weakening due to the Fire Festival... any of these would honestly be cool to me, and I look forward to seeing what this is. 

Another very interesting scene is Izo, who's apparently injured after having to fight way too many Beasts Pirates mooks than he expected to. And then he meets... CP0! So this is the CP0 fight we're waiting for? After the Drake fight got offscreened, this is something that I'm happy to see. Izo hasn't really done anything on his own throughout the Wano arc (outside of flashbacks, of course) and I do really like this moment a lot. Especially contrasting it with the Usopp/Izo conversation last chapter about sacrifices, and how CP0 is actually willing to ignore Izo and pretend they 'never saw each other' because they're specifically hunting for Nico Robin... yeah. Izo fighting CP0 would be a badass fight for sure. 

We get three pages of Kanjurou's giant Kazenbou demon-blob thing making its way down to the giant arsenal in the basement, where apparently Kaidou just has a bunch of giant Looney Tunes bombs. We get to see Yamato show off some more of her powers, freezing the bombs and whacking away the giant blob with her kanabo. It's... it's something, I guess? I really didn't expect Yamato's huge moment in the arc to be fighting a giant blob. 

And then, of course, we finally cut away to the huge Big Mom vs. Law and Kid fight, which takes place through the back-end of this chapter all the way to the entirety of 1039. Big Mom seemingly takes out Law and Kid, blows away their crew with a lightning attack, and starts talking about how she's getting tired, and how Kaidou is taking his sweet time in the rooftop. 

But then Law attacks with his K-Room again, piercing Big Mom from the bottom all the way to her head, and... well, that panel really looked like it hurt, doesn't it? Big Mom screaming 'no, not that' before Law unleashes a Shock Wille straight to her head? Kid then summons all the metal beams homies that Big Mom brought to life, transforms it to a giant spiky bull called 'Punk Corna Dio' and bashes Big Mom to the floor again. 

Thankfully, that's not all there is to the fight, because 1039, Top Billing, continues on with the fight. There's a hilarious dynamic between Law and Kid, where Law gets pissed off for Kid using his attacks as an 'opening act', making it look like Kid's the winner. It's kind of hilarious, very much so like people arguing about kill-stealing in an online game. I absolutely love moments like this for the normally serious Law, where he gets to crack loose and show his competitive side. We get to see this on the rooftop battle as well. Also a hilarious bit where Law mocks Kid's Punk Corna Dio attack, asking him what animal he's going to make next.

Admittedly, though, Law's attacks really does seem to be more impressive, with what he does in 1039 and how afraid Big Mom is of his Shock Wille in 1038. Big Mom also acknowledges the danger of Law's moves in this chapter, noting how it has damaged her body and even broken her arms. She just uses her soul powers to somehow mend her broken bones? How does that work? She does a variant of the Maser Cannon called the Maser Saber, slashing Kid's giant metal bull. Except, of course, it's just scrap that Kid can magnetize back together.

There's a genuinely badass boast on Big Mom's part here, too, where she gives a boast about how she and the other Emperors have been reigning for decades, before these young upstarts were born, and how she's sunk so many wannabes before. But then Kid just does a pretty cool North/South pole assigning, trapping Big Mom in place for his bull to pierce... but then Big Mom just stands up and rips up the tower Kid sticks her to. That's badass! Big Mom then does an attack called 'Mother's Visit Cannon: 3000 Leagues of Misery' where she... well, she basically makes a Stand, doesn't she? The flames and lightning from Hera and Prometheus just transforms into a ghostly copy that seems to be modeled after a younger Big Mom, and Misery just rampages through the battlefield. 

And then Law! Law drops another tower on top of Big Mom's head with Tact, stabs her in the chest... and Law's sword extends so far out that it pierces all the way to the mainland of Wano itself. That's some Ichimaru Gin shit! There's a very, very cool shot of showing the other fights, like Yamato in the basement and later on the long shot of Momonosuke being baffled at 'where did that crater come from' from the sky. Law does a massive attack called 'Puncture Wille' that causes a massive shockwave that blows up a crater in the bottom of Wano and causes Big Mom to cough up blood. 

In the process, though, Big Mom has wailed on Law with her massive fists, and Law seems to conk out. But, again, Kid ends up delivering the finishing blow, having created a giant railgun and unleashing the mother of all laser beams on Big Mom with the attack called 'Damned Punk', with both Kid and Law yelling about how Big Mom's era is over. 

Very epic fight! I do feel like I enjoyed this a lot more than the Sanji/Queen and Zoro/King fight, if I'm being honest. Admittedly, there is a kind of disappointment on my part because I really don't think Kid and Law had too much of an emotional stake in defeating Big Mom... but it's still a pretty badass ending as well. I think once the arc is over we can go back and discuss whether Big Mom's inclusion in Wano ends up being a huge distraction or not, and if the arc would've been better with her in it less... but... but you know what? I can definitely admit to enjoying a good fight. Pretty fun pair of chapters all around. 

Other Notes:

• The cover story for 1038 shows that Niji and Yonji are actually captured by the Big Mom Pirates and are stuck on one of Mont D'or's books. I'm 99% sure Mont D'or was among the crew seen on the ship that went to Wano, but we do see notably Oven and Pudding among the crowd watching the two captive Germa boys. It's neat, I guess the Germa 66 didn't quite make such a clean escape as we thought they did. 
• One of the funniest random theories about the identity of the Grim Reaper is that it's just Brook trolling Zoro. That would be such a disappointment, but man, I would've really found it funny if it turned out to be the case.
• It is interesting that the other two very climactic moments in Zoro's life -- his fight with Mihawk in the Baratie and the 'nothing happened' moment with Kuma -- the Grim Reaper never showed up. I mean, I guess Zoro did tank blows from Big Mom and Kaidou even before the fight with King, but... I dunno. It's just the presentation, I guess.
• There's a short scene of Momonosuke at the beginning of 1039 where he realizes someone's calling out to him. I'm assuming this is Zunisha, whose random appearance at the end of 1037 or 1036 hasn't been followed-up on yet. 
• Corna means 'horns', and specifically means that hand-sign in heavy metal. It's popularized by Ronnie James Dio. And there's your metal reference!
• Big Mom's '3000 Leagues of Misery' is a reference to an old anime called '3000 Leagues in Search of Mother'. And there's your mama reference!

One Piece Anime: Wano Arc, Episodes 971-976

Bit of a break since I watched 970. Stuff got in the way! Oh well, no time like the present. A bit of a shorter one this time. 

Episode 971:

• I keep forgetting that young Gekko Moriah is just a regular, muscular goth vampire human instead of a giant onion-person with a face. We actually see them clash weapons for a bit, so at leas Moriah gave Kaido a bit of a fight instead of being one-shotted like we all assume he was. 
• The Oden-the-fool scenes work so much better, I think, with the music and singing. Which, of course, makes it a lot more poignant when the song gets that reprise later on. 
• Still really think that Oden could've handled things differently, but I guess he was kind of committed to at least Orochi honouring the five-year promise? 
• Good lord the story really wants us to hate Orochi, doesn't it?
• Using explosions of colour that fill the screen to symbolize the gunshots that killed Hyo's wife and men are pretty tasteful. 
• We do get an extended scene of Oden seeing a vision of losing his family to Orochi and Kaido,  as well as him screaming to the heavens... but it's most certainly effective. 
• Kaido lurking out of the shadows is pretty fucking badass, with the coiling around a mountain and the eye beam and shit. 
• Also awesome? That shot of Oden's blade, showing everyone he's fighting for or avenging, before he runs down and does this amazing single-slash blitz that takes out a bunch of beast pirates at once. 
• So Hiyori does dropkick Momonosuke, as he claims in present day. 

Episode 972:

• One of the bigger expanded episodes; the events of this one was infamous for causing an uproar in the manga-reading community back when it was released. I understood the reasons why (the actual 'Hour of Legends' came later; plus it's a flashback of which we already know the ending of) but not gonna lie -- it's pretty fucking cool to see Oden's samurai fight against Kaido's Beasts Pirates. 
• King with his red gimp suit looks cool. Queen, on the other hand, looks even more like Obelix. 
• The Blast Breath this time around is a lot shorter, but no less pretty. There's one where he just unleashes a short fire breath that Oden slashes after doing a slide down Kaido's body, which is one of the prettiest shots in the entire episode. 
• King fights Denjirou with some kicks and fire-explosions, while everyone just dogpiles Queen. I bet it's really dang interesting because when this episode was released, we had no idea how King fights. 
• Oden totally unleashes a blast of Conqueror's Haki before jumping to face off against Kaido. The actual Oden/Kaido fight is basically what you'd expect from a samurai fighting a serpentine dragno, but it's still pretty damn badass to watch. 
• Kaido can use his beard as a tentacle to grab Oden!
• Goddamn, that Togen Totsuka that made Kaido bleed is so fucking beautiful, with the kanji rapidly coming one after the other. 
• Oden facing off against Kaido and yelling at each other is another pretty scene. 

Episode 973:

• The Hour of Legends! I've spoken a fair amount about this part of the story and it's mostly just a badass adaptation of the same events from the manga. Pretty damn badass!
• The animation team really did a great job making the boiling oil look hot as shit. 
• Bless Shinobu; none of the people in Wano would realize the amount of sacrifice Oden did for Wano if not for her huge speech. (Fukurokuju and his ninjas are complete morons for not stopping her, but the story needed that moment)
• Oden totally tanked that one Blast Breath in the flashback, holy shit, that was badass.
• They did a really damn good job showing just how much of a complete piece of shit Orochi is, don't they? The juxtaposition between his sympathetic backstory and how utterly vile the man is in the present day...
• There's the whole 'unwilling to let a single person die' thing, of course, but I have always interpreted Oden's willingness to suffer like a fool to partially be driven by his realization that the situation in Wano got so bad partially because he left it to sail the world with Roger and Whitebeard. 

Episode 974:

• Part two of the Hour of Legends, and, again, still pretty damn badass. Not a whole ton to say in terms of commentary since it's just the same scenes from the manga with a little extension. 
• Raizou's little moment of shutting up Denjiro and just yelling 'your dream is our dream' is pretty underrated. And to think people back in the day used this as 'proof' that good old Raizou is somehow the traitor! 
• I really must commend just how versatile Orochi's voice actor is -- the voice alternates between being whiny and slimy to suddenly deep and threatening at the drop of a hat and it works so well to make him simultaneously a pussy compared to the likes of Oden and Kaido; but also still a badass villain. 
• Right, ancient Wano closed itself off to protect itself from an 'ancient enemy'. Give us more of these delicious Void Century lore please and thank you. 
• The flashbacks that the Scabbards have to how they first met Oden, complete with old-school film border effects, works pretty damn well. 
• She's 100% dead, but it's surprising that Orochi is so civil with Kaido even after Kaido killed the old Mane-Mane lady. Although I suppose Orochi is a psychopath, so... 
• As I keep mentioning, the fact that Oden's final words are the same lyrics to the song he's been singing as the 'fool lord' really has much, much more of an impact in the anime format.
• Smile on, Oden. 

Episode 975:

• So the '20 year' prophecy is less about Toki's time powers, and more because Oden read the final poneglyph or whatever the hell he discovered with Roger?
• Neko and Inu's fighting is given a bit more focus here, which I feel is pretty necessary since it was pretty off-handed and tucked to the side in the manga. They were pretty pissed off at each other even 20 years later in the Zou arc, after all. 
• Oh, right. The Numbers. They exist, I forgot about them. 
• Toki has massive balls, holding up a sword up to fight Kaido. 
• Knowing Momonosuke's character development later on, this bit actually emphasizing how Momo is just repeating what his mother tells him is actually pretty poignant. He's defiant, sure, but they do a great job showing how Momo isn't actually speaking his own words here. 
• For what it's worth, Toki did say "I'll catch up with you later" to Hiyori. But the whole scene of ripping up Oden's letter really is so well done that I really wouldn't like it if Toki turned out to be alive in the present day somehow. (The anime also makes her death pretty damn obvious)

Episode 976:

• Actually, considering how Denjirou was the one that's pretty unwilling to even accept that Oden's going to die two episodes ago (Raizou had to shut him up) it actually kind of made sense why he takes Oden's death harder than the rest, so much that the rage changed his hair colour and stuff.
• The anime also makes it a bit more obvious that an entire season has passed since Denjiro locked himself up in that shrine, explaining why no one really questions it when Kyoshiro walks into town. 
• Ashura gets a short scene thinking of how the dawn and 20 years are so far away, which does fit with his present-day pessimism. 
• I still think Kawamatsu's story is the saddest out of all the retainers. Poor kappa, out of everyone else, I want him to survive the Wano arc the most. 
• It is kind of obvious in retrospect that the traitor is one of the samurai that jumped from the past upon rewatch, huh. Plus, y'know, the messenger bird. 
• The flashback to Orochi recruiting the traitor is pretty damn cool, too, visually represented as being similar to like one of those black-and-white movies with the dialogue shown on screen as cutting back and forth to hide the traitor's identity. Very great drawing of his facial expressions too,  they look so creepy. 
• What a great showcase of showing all the retainers with glowing eyes to make the audience get confused at which one of the Scabbards is the traitor -- it's honestly one of the scariest thing because of how resolute everyone else in that scene was. 
• I really did like this episode and the manga counterpart to this episode -- really does plug in a lot of the holes and explain a lot of the setup for the things that happen earlier in the Wano arc. 

Reviewing Monsters - Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 1

Pathfinder is a system born during the end of Dungeons & Dragons' 3E/3.5E lifespan, when the ever-popular gaming system ended up doing the controversial jump to 4E in 2002. And so a lot of the older fanbase and creators ended up creating Pathfinder, a very successful role-playing game that ends up both simplifying some aspects of 3.5E D&D and expanding upon other aspects of it. 

Anyway, again, as usual, I'm here to talk about the only Pathfinder books I have, which are the bestiary books from the 1st Edition. A bit of a challenge here is that unliek D&D 5E, Pathfinder doesn't actually keep a repository of their artwork on a convenient webpage, and neither does the fan-wikis have artwork for all of the monsters. So I had to get a bit more creative and do some editing from screenshots and scans of the bestiary online. Again, support all your favourite RPG publishers -- buy the actual real books!

The thing is, the first Bestiary for Pathfinder is actually pretty obviously just an 'import' of a lot of the D&D mainstays. Basically everyone that's not strictly copyrighted under D&D gets a bit of a show here, and depending on how much they change from how they were portrayed in 3.5E and 4E D&D, I'm going to not talk about some of them. So yes, this is going to make one of the few 'reviewing monsters' where I don't exhaustively talk about every single entry. (I'll still quickly recognize the creatures featured in this book near the end, though)

This isn't going to be particularly long, I'm just going to recognize and quickly breeze through this book before we move on to the far more original content in the next couple of books!

Basidirond

We'll start off with one of the creatures in the book I've never talked about before first, and it's the Basidirond! It's from D&D, showing up as a Zuggtmoy tie-in in 3E and included in the 1st edition's Monster Manual II. Again, this book features a lot of D&D monsters. The Basidirond is a wacky fungus creature with multiple vine-feet and it spreads out noxious spores. Its artwork in Pathfinder makes it look more like a walking pitcher plant, though, albeit with a lot more spikes and vines and legs. Its primary ability, as detailed by the book, is a hallucination cloud, which is kinda fun. Real-life carnivorous plants confuse insects with colours and smells, since those are the ways that insects view the world the most, but the Basidirond uses hallucinations since it traps larger prey. I do like this one a lot, though I do approve of any giant plant monster!

Giant Flytrap

I'm just a big fan of giant ambulatory plants, it seems, but D&D has a surprising lack of giant venus flytrap monsters. It's like if the plants aren't humanoid like treants or shambling mounds, do they think that people won't be afraid of it? Pathfinder's Giant Flytrap looks pretty damn boss, though. Not content on just doing the boring Audrey II or Piranha Plant route, we get that glorious lower body, which looks like a mass of discs with smaller venus flytrap leaves, and then a bunch of shambling feet that terminate in icky, squelchy-looking root legs. The bestiary even notes that these Giant Flytraps live in areas with poor soil, which is how real-life venus flytraps evolve in the first place! I do like that apparently the Giant Flytrap's smaller traps still catch small insects, but the large leaves chow down on humans and animals as the primary feeding apparatus or something. I do like the description that the Giant Flytrap basically evolved to be smarter because its prey is smarter. 

Genies: Shaitan

I'm still not entirely sure about just poaching names from other cultures, but I've always found it odd that all the Genies in D&D borrow names from Arabic legends (Djinn, Marid, Ifrit) except for the Earth-elemental one, which is "Dao". So Pathfinder changes the Earth-elemental genie into a Shaitan, which isn't a jinn per se, but evil spirits in Middle-Eastern legends (similar to 'demon' or 'devil'). Some of the monsters in this bestiary really don't have a whole lot of lore, though, and the Shaitans are just noted to be gem-loving elemental spirits of earth. That's some impractical 90's fantasy fanservice armour, but I guess when you're an elemental spirit made out of stone, you can dress however you want. 

Goblin Dog

We'll talk about actual goblins down below, but Goblin Dogs are apparently weird, mangy dogs with the creepy beady eyes and flat nose of a rat. I'm sure if we look hard enough there's probably a dog breed that's as nasty-looking as this? The bestiary notes that these are actually hyper-developed rodent, which... okay, sure. It's basically honestly just to give goblins guard dogs that look as nasty and are as ill-tempered as they are. The goblins actually love these guys to death, and use them as noble mounts, and I'm happy that the goblins and the goblin-dogs have found each other.

Linnorm

Linnorms are one of those 'dragon sub-types' that the early editions of D&D fill up their bestiaries with, but a lot of more modern D&D basically just force dragons into the same old boring European-Dragon "dinosaurs with bat wings" template. That's boring, it's not like those are the only dragons in myth! I'm incensed that modern D&D have basically exorcised the fact that the original Gold Dragon in D&D was originally drawn as a Chinese Dragon. 

Based on the Lindworm, the first Pathfinder bestiary gives us three variants of these flightless, serpentine dragons with only two legs. The Crag and Ice Linnorm are pretty basic looking, but their silhouette look pretty awesome and unique! Love those colours on the Ice Linnorm, the branching tail of the Crag Linnorm, and I love their heads. The winner has to be the Tarn Linnorm with its two diseased-looking heads for sure, though. The lore here notes the Linnorm as a primeval dragon that lives in wild regions untouched by civilization, and are so primal that their bodies have became part of the landscape. Crag Linnorms are apparently so favoured by gods that if they get killed, they will bestow a massive curse upon those that slay them. 

Sea Serpent

I'm surprised regular D&D never considers a sea serpent or a leviathan as part of their basic batch of "Monster Manual I" mainstays. I mean with all the love for classical Greco-Roman and European mythology, you'd think that a sea serpent ranks right up there with things like the gryphon or kraken, but nope! I love Pathfinder's Sea Serpent and its surprisingly large head in proportion to its neck. I love everything about that head, too, from the wide fin-ears to the mass of crustacean-like chitin in the middle of its eyes to its expression. The book emphasizes that despite a lot of sailors dramatizing the sea serpents and noting its connection to prophecy, it's actually just a big hungry animal. But look at that face, it looks like it's kind of intelligent, doesn't it? It's going to sink your ship and it knows what it's doing. Anyway, huge fan of nautical themes in any fantasy, and this is a huge welcome to the bestiary. 

Shoggoth

Our last 'original' monster (at least compared to 3.5E D&D) is the Shoggoth, from Lovecraftian fare! I'm not sure why Pathfinder is allowed to use Lovecraft's monsters -- I know Cthulhu himself shows up in Bestiary IV or V, and there's a couple of Lovecraft tie-in modules, but I'm not sure. Are the Lovecraftian monsters free-use? Anyway, Shoggoth! Not to be confused with the Gibbering Mouther (which also show up here). A mass of black flesh, tendrils, mouths and beady eyes, that picture basically describes what I think of when I think of Shoggoth. The green bit of miasma that the mouths vomit out add a lot to how nasty this giant demon-amoeba looks, too! Pathfinder describes Shoggoth as a 'huge ooze (aquatic)', and I absolutely love the fact that the Shoggoths in the Pathfinder setting is the big scary version of something as humble as a Black Pudding. Shoggoths are rare, living mostly in deep caverns and ocean trenches, but when they emerge they spread madness and destruction. In a nod to the stories that first introduced the Shoggoths, the backstory given in the bestiary notes that the Shoggoths were created aeons past... maybe by Aboleths (if you want a lore-friendly answer) or maybe by something even older. And that these Shoggoths actually broke free from their creators, just like At the Mountains of Madness! 

Now the rest of the 300-page tome are mostly just repeated enemies from D&D, mostly taking from the basic, recurring enemies found in most editions. It's important for a new gaming system that's meant to be "New 3.5E" to have stats about all of our old friends, after all! I'm not going to go too in-depth, just point out a bunch of the interesting ones after the break:

Reviewing Monsters: The Legend of Zelda - Skyward Sword, Part 4

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Part four of the Skyward Sword coverage! This one took a while; I took my sweet, sweet time going through the revisit to Lanayru Desert. So much to explore there, so much neat backtracking once I get the double Clawshots, I had so much fun navigating the mini-dungeons in the Sand Sea... and, well, there aren't too many new enemies, honestly. The areas and environments and dungeons are really cool, but the new enemies really slowed down in the Sand Sea; and by the time we reach the Eldin Volcano and the barrage of bosses that led to the end, nearly all the new enemies have been repaint enemies. It is kind of disappointing, but at least there's still a whole bunch of bosses before the game ends... which is why this particular article took so long to make.

Skyward Sword's still fun! It's just that near the end I feel like the enemy variance petered out. There are enough variants running around and the game isn't afraid to toss some older bosses like the Moldarach randomly in the middle of overworld exploring. It didn't get as bad as Breath of the Wild did as far as enemy variance went, but... still kinda feel like we could've gotten a mite more. 

Dragon: The dragons in Skyward Sword are actually helpful guardians, but what an interesting design! They were clearly going for a 'humanoid dragon' take on the traditional Chinese/Japanese oriental dragon design, but it definitely ends up as something that feels genuinely unique. The very humanoid face on top of a long neck that peters out into a wide body in a kimono? Giant eyebrows that look similar to the giant pair of trailing koi mustaches that the dragons are traditionally drawn with? The one I show here is Faron the water dragon, and we later briefly meet her fire and thunder counterparts, Eldin and Lanayru. A very, very interesting and unique take on dragons, I feel!

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Peahat: The first real 'enemy' we meet is more like a creature that gets an 'enemy info' blurb from Fi, but other than sharing the name of a classic Zelda enemy, the Peahat really doesn't have anything to do with the murderous copter-plants from Ocarina of Time or the 2D games. The Peahat is more of a non-aggressive, passive desert plant that just hangs out in the Lanayru Sand Sea, more of a bizarre part of the environment than an actual foe, to hover into the air and be a convenient anchor for our Clawshots. From what we little we see of it, I do like the fact that we see Peahats hovering with their helicopter flower petals and their massive cactus-like bulb... but also their dormant form, when they're just a flower that is buried in the rocks. Again, it's all just part of the puzzles we need to do to navigate the overworld zone, but it's nice that the Peahat does end up feeling like an actual organism that Link is manipulating instead of a convenient puzzle part. 

Metal Shield Moblin: Unfortunately, with the exception of one enemy, all the common enemies are just 'remixes' of old enemies. We've got the Metal Shield Moblin here, who's tougher than the Wooden Shield Moblin. His shield doesn't break, and Link can parkour-vault over it to hit the Moblin in his bum. Neat escalation, at least he looks pretty different. Really surprised we didn't get another tier of Moblins, though. 

Red Bokoblin Archer: Archers actually get a significant revamp instead of just putting a different weapon in the Bokoblin's hands! I mean, it's still not that extreme, but I'll take what I can get. Look at those felt hats, the sand-scarf and those fancy archery gloves! The archers become especially prominent in the Sandship, a pirate ship dungeon that gives Link the bow. They're pretty basic enemies, but I did like shooting the fools. (Green Bokoblin Archers show up in some caves later on, but I can't find a good render of it. They don't get the fancy clothes that the Red Archer does.)

Water Spume & Cursed Spume: Two more Spume variants show up. The Water Spumes don't even warrant an enemy explanation, because it's met in a bit of an overworld exploration/minigame segment in the Sand Sea (which I won't spoil; it's probably my favourite enivornment in the game) but it sure is a Spume that hangs out in the water. The Cursed Spume lives in the lava of Eldin Volcano and spits 'curses', an infuriating mechanic they brought back from the Bubbles of the 2D games where you can't use any items while under the effects of the curse. Fi identifies this as some generic 'the evil lingering hatred' or some such. 

Dark Keese: At least they did something to make the Dark Keese look visually different! The skeletal wing-bones, tattered ears and wings, and demon-glowing red eyes does make the Dark Keese look so, so much more 'cursed' than the minimal-effort-repaint that's the Cursed Spume. The Dark Keese does exactly the same thing as the Curesd Spume, inflicting the 'curse' status, but look at this badass bat! You actually do feel the curse radiating off of it, don't you? It's an undead skeleton and shit. It's nothing we haven't seen in fantasy before, but it communicates its in-game gimmick so much better than the slightly off-colour Spume. 

Dark Lizalfos: I actually feel like the change of colour and the addition of the head crest does make the Dark Lizalfos actually feel so much more threatening than its green-skinned brethren. Did they redraw the eyes to make them look more threatening, too? Anyway, the Dark Lizalfos is a typical 'different colour, slightly stronger' repaint of the regular green Lizalfos, but it also has a key difference -- it breathes curse energy. And unlike the Spumes and Keese, the Lizalfos is a lot more threatening since it can kung-fu lizard-kick you to death!

Moldorm: Oh, hey! These guys! A little gimmick item we get in the Fire Sanctuary are the Mogma Mitts, which allows Link to burrow down the ground and enter little Bomberman-esque mini-areas. The enemies here are the Moldorms, reimagined from their goofy-looking 2D counterparts into these badass hellgrammite-centipede monsters! The fight is pretty straightforward thanks to the simplicity of the burrowing minigame map. The rear of the Moldorms swell up as the obvious weak point (they remind me kind of like honeypot ants) and Link needs to navigate his way through the unconventional map to sneak behind the Moldorm and beat its weak point. A very faithful update to the classic monster!

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LD-002G Scervo: We're going to minibosses and bosses now. The Sandship is a pirate ship stranded in the past ran by robots, and it's a series of concepts that feels bizarre but gels together surprisingly well. Scervo is a robot pirate, but since he's an immortal, tattered being, he also doubles as the trope of a cursed pirate skeleton. He essentially fights like a Stalfos (except he's a robot) but, again, presentation is everything! Look at his tattered pirate regalia, and his gigantic hook arm. Most importantly, we fight Scervo on a long plank that gets shorter and shorter as the battle progresses. We have to fight and fence and push Scervo all the way to the edge of the plank, making the mutinous pirate 'walk the plank', and, again, that presentation and the general visuals of this robot really does make him my favourite miniboss in the game. They could've just tossed two Shield Moblins in a miniboss room and called it a day, but they didn't, and they made this thematic enemy, and that's pretty amazing. 

Abyssal Leviathan: Tentalus: If the evil pirate captain is the miniboss, then what's the boss of a pirate ship? I just assumed it was going to be a bigger, badder robot. But turns out that since it's a pirate ship, we get attacked by a Kraken! That's unexpected, since almost the entire dungeon takes place within the ship itself. But as we reach the boss room, suddenly giant Kraken tentacles bore into the ship and start wrecking the entire dungeon! And as you run out to the deck, you find that it's not a giant octopus that is fighting you... it's Chibi Cthulhu!

Yeah, I probably would've taken Tentalus a bit more seriously if he didn't look so gosh-darned adorable. Look at those stubby giant tentacles, and that face! That face looks like a friendly buddy from Spore or something. Fi identifies this as an 'abyssal leviathan', a 'tyrant of the ancient seas', but look at this guy. Do you think Tentalus is really capable of being a tyrant? The boss fight itself is pretty fun because Tentalus alternates between hiding underwater and piercing the ship with his giant tentacles, or emerging out in his humanoid form and expose his eyeball to some typical Zelda arrows. Later on, those medusa-hair actually reveal to not be just tentacles, but tentacles with fangs! Not the most impressive boss fight, but arena and the fact that the game plays Tentalus absolutely straight as this ancient aquatic eldritch beast while he looks like a derp makes me really adore him. 

Magmanos: This one is technically the miniboss of the Fire Sanctuary, but we fight several Magmanosi in the dungeon? They alll feel like minibosses in a way. I guess I just got spoiled by how well-integrated Scervo is, I suppose. The Magmanos are giant elemental lava hands that burst out of lava pools in the ground, while Link stands on a grated floor -- it's a fun visual that they use a bunch of times in A Link Between Worlds as well. A neat inversion of the Floormaster/Wallmaster enemies common in the franchise, the Magmanos is less sinister than those two, merely being an invulnerable fiery being of death that you need to drop water on so it solidifies. Not my favourite enemy concept, but it is admittedly a breath of fresh air from the Spumes and Bokoblins. 

Ghirahim, Part II: We've talked about Ghirahim before, and, truthfully, I did think he would've had more of a presence. He did show up as the final boss in the Fire Sanctuary, one of the last 'mundane' dungeons. His fight is basically a souped-up version of his first fight, except he loses his cape and his arms are now black. Okay, One Piece armament Haki. He does have a bunch of fun spinning floating daggers and the fight is probably the most challenging boss fight in the game, but otherwise I don't really have much to say about him as a monster. He's an entertaining antagonist, for sure!

The Imprisoned, Parts II-III: We get a rematch with the Imprisoned again at this point. He grows hands! I... I don't have anything to say about this one. Ghirahim at least is entertaining and genuinely threatening when he shows up. Imprisoned is just there, for a sealed ancient demon of infinite evil, he's actually pretty bland. The best part about the fight is that our bully-turned-ally Groose actually helps out with lobbing bombs at him. 

I'll sneak in the Imprisoned's third fight here too, because, well, it happens basically a short while after we beat the next boss below. It's a bit much, pacing-wise, isn't it? Especially if you've already done most of the side-questing at this point -- but we're not here to talk about game pacing, but about the monsters. Imprisoned's third fight seems to start off similarly to his second fight, but then his final evolution is a giant Evangelion halo that allows the Imprisoned to float straight up and bypassing the whole Link 'fight', which means that you have to do something rather... creative to stop the devastation of all of Hyrule. It's simultaneously pretty cool and awesome, and I'm not going to spoil it here. 

Great Spirit of the Sky: Levias: After dealing with the Imprisoned for the second time, Link goes up to the Thunderhead, a giant swirling vortex of storm clouds... and turns out that the storm clouds aren't natural, and it's caused by this guy, Levias! Levias is a gigantic island-sized whale that swims in the skies, and it's a neat little callback to the classic Wind Fish from Link's Awakening. Levias is actually the guardian spirit of the sky, but as you can see in this image, he's actually infected! The actual image of a giant rocky island whale with a beard that resembles a whale's chin markings is very cool as far as a giant fantasy being goes, but I absolutely love the creativity that went into using the barnacles you often see on giant aquatic creatures as whales as... well, as the places where the giant tendrils ending in eyeballs poke up of. 

The fight is also relatively unique, with Link having to ride on his faithful Loftwing and ram onto the giant eyeballs. It's a bit hard to show scale here with still images, but Link's merely the size of one of those eyeballs! That's not quite all, though, because as you can see, Levias has a giant flattened surface on its head. Pretty weird feature, until you realize it's a battle arena for the actual boss...

Ocular Parasite: Bilocyte! How cool is this? How cool is the fact that Levias is being puppeteered by a giant mind-control tapeworm, which erupts out of his blowhole? Bilocyte is 'merely' a parasite to the titanic Levias, but it towers over Link. Pretty cool design, I love the giant finger-frill things with eyeballs on the edge. The fight with Bilocyte is simple as long as you use the motion controls well to do the classic ol 'ping pong projectile' boss fight mechanic, but I'm just going to reiterate how cool I found Bilocyte. He's a gigant-ass parasitic worm thing that mind-controls a whale!

...at this point, the game doesn't really have any new monsters, but I have to basically do a grand round of all the other areas to do a fetch quest involving the three reginoal dragons, and then enter the final dungeon, the Sky Keep, and then fight the final boss. All of those actually take up about one-fourth of my total gameplay time, but, well, the monster variety basically peters out into these four: 

LD-003D Dreadfuse: A 'remix' of ol' captain Scervo, it's actually a pretty neat-looking variation with a crown and stuff, but it's basically the same thing, if we're being honest. At least they gave him a revamped model instead of using Scervo almost entirely. Dreadfuse is also a pretty cool name. 

Ghirahim, Part III: On one hand, I do enjoy Ghirahim immensely as a recurring villain. He's been a nuisance throughout our journey through the game, and we finally fight him in his final form where he's covered his entire body in Armament Haki with a steel-like substance that makes him super-duper tough. This fight is basically a more badass version of his previous two fights, and I do enjoy that he's the final dungeon boss of the game. I just have kind of ran out of things to say about this guy. 

Demise: ...and turns out, thanks to some time-travel magic shenanigans, this guy, Demise, is the true final boss! Spoilers for a decade-old game, but turns out like this is the original form of the Imprisoned before he was sealed by the goddess, and also the source of the Zelda franchise's recurring villain, Ganon. You can see that he's holding a big fuck-off sword, and that's actually Ghirahim -- just like how Link's companion throughout the game is also a sword spirit. And... he sure is a big demon-lord guy, and his skin is mottled with the same texture that the Imprisoned has, so there's that continuity, but... but I just really can't get myself super-excited for this guy. It's neat that we get to fight the Ultimate Demon Lord or whatever, but I really feel that there's a bit of a disconnect between the two recurring villains we've been fighting and ol' Demise here? He's an all right final demon-god boss design, I suppose -- a bit different from what we're used to in this franchise, but ultimately still not particularly too memorable in the many, many different Zelda bosses. 

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...and that's it for Skyward Sword! This took a bit longer than I thought it would, mostly because it took me longer to play the game than I thought I would. We'll probably be taking a brief break from video game monsters for a while; at least games that I'm playing. I'm currently still going through a bunch of games that don't really have monsters per se -- I still have the first Deus Ex to finish, and I think I need to play through Portal 2 as well. I might do some one-off game monster reviews in the meantime, but over the next year I guess you guys can look forward to 'monster commentary as I play the game' for either Final Fantasy XII or Persona 4, whichever one manages to rope me in more. 

Batman Beyond, Season 3, Episodes 12-13: Beyond

Batman Beyond, Season 3, Episodes 12-13:

Episode 12: Countdown

Okay, I didn't know we had a crossover episode. Especially one that came relatively late into the season. So that shape-shifting robot Zeta from earlier in the show wandered off and got his own spin-off cartoon, which... okay? 'Countdown' basically brings Zeta and his supporting cast in for a little romp in Batman Beyond. Zeta has a brand-new more humanoid robot head, and a new best friend called Ro, as well as a bunch of men-in-black agents hunting him down. It's a pretty standard showcase of a character's side-cast, I guess. 

The plot itself is... it's all right? If we're being honest, it's more of Batman and Ro teaming up instead of Zeta, because Zeta spends almost the entirety of this episode disoriented and walking around all confused with a bomb strapped onto his back. The main villain of this one is Mad Stan, who, despite all odds, graduates from being a recurring gag into an actual main villain in his own episode. In-between ranting about the 'dirty feds' and 'basic human rights' and all that, Mad Stan thinks that him running across the shape-shifting Zeta is the government trying to spy on him, and he straps a bomb onto Zeta and sends the oblivious robot to the department of health.  

Meanwhile, Batman and Ro kind of just... track him down? Agent Bannett and his little squadron of men-in-black government people are also hunting Zeta down, and Batman ends up thinking that they would help. Turns out Mad Stan is right about these 'dirty feds'. Ultimately we get a pretty neat identity-switch with Zeta pretending to be Batman and jumping in the Batmobile, while Terry dresses up as a janitor. Not the biggest fan of this episode, if I'm being honest -- I feel like they really could've made for a bigger event out of this, but it's otherwise all right. 

Episode 13: Unmasked

And here we go with the final episode of Batman Beyond, although it really doesn't feel like a season or series finale -- especially jarring with a title like 'Unmasked', yeah? Thankfully, the show would have a much, much more fitting finale in the episode 'Epilogue' in Justice League Unlimited. Or depending on your watching order, that one Joker movie (which we'll cover on this blog eventually) would also make for a far better season finale. 

'Unmasked' is a flashback episode, with the entirety of the present-day scenes just showing Terry and Max discussing the importance of secret identities. Due to Terry's Batman activities, he blows off poor Dana Tan again. Kinda sucks that this plotline has kinda been built up in season three, how Terry's struggling to juggle his Batman life and it's putting a wrench into his relationship with Dana, but there's no real payoff to that. 

The actual storyline in Batman's flashback is actually surprisingly darker than I expected. When Batman is rescuing a boy trapped in a burning building from a fire, he had to take off his mask to calm the terrified boy down. The villainous Kobra, led by the orange-suited Korba One from season two, just happen to have a memory-reading machine (which they really could've used for a world-domination plan; it couldn't have been worse than Zander's) and they plan to kidnap this boy in order to get Batman's secret identity. 

The actual way that Kobra kidnaps the boy -- by sending a second team disguised as policemen -- is definitely something that actually caught even me off-guard. And just like "Curse of the Kobra", we get a recurring elite Kobra goon with exotic weapons that makes the fight scenes a bit more exciting. Kobra One actually even straight-up almost kills the little boy by snake pit if Batman hadn't shown up, and actually even kills one of his minions whose crime was warning his brother of a Kobra bomb. And then Kobra One, seeing his defeat, proceeds to kill himself by jumping into the snake pit. Considering how sterile cartoons became in the past couple of decades in terms of death, it's actually surprising (and somewhat refreshing) to see scenes like this. Perhaps the darkest part, for me, is that Kobra One's death is all for nothing because little Miguel didn't even really catch Terry's face, and puts in the face of the toy he's obsessed with, Sergeant Sam, in place of it. 

Anyway, it's an all right episode. Again, a bit of an odd way to end the season, but still a pretty solid episode in its own right. Some neat interactions between Terry and Max, and a pretty neat exploration of the superhero secret identity conundrum. The third season does have a bunch of rather solid episodes under its belt, for sure, although I don't think either the second or third season really reached the same high as the first season of Batman Beyond. It's been fun, though! We'll cover the movie a bit later.