Let's Play Legends Arceus, Part 8: Coastlands Cavorting

So between part 7 and part 8, I did a lot of running around, completing Pokedex tasks and evolving a bunch of my Pokemon. I do like that the nature of the Pokedex tasks does make it easy for me to pick the game up for like a five-minute playtime and then put it down immediately after and feel like I've accomplished something? I also did a lot of nose-searching with good old Ursaluna in order to look for  a couple of specific evolution items. I wasn't able to find the Black Peat needed to evolve my Alpha Ursaring just yet -- and I also needed to do it in the view of the full moon. It's... these Pokemon evolution methods are getting more and more obscure! How was I really supposed to know? Especially since this game, more than the previous main series games, is kind of pretty stacked in terms of items. 

I did find a bunch of Old Verses, though, and it seems like it tells me more of not just the Dialga/Palkia lore, but also about specifically the ten nobles and the ancient hero that fought against... something? It sounds like something out of a fantasy anime or RPG. It's different, but I like it a lot... especially how the ten nobles or their descendants actually play a role in the main story of Legends Arceus. 

At least evolving Scyther into Kleavor was actually hinted at by that tiny cowboy hat kid Lian, who talks about how Scyther evolves with a specific stone. It's the Black Augurite, which drops from Gravelers... so yeah, Manterror the Scyther has finally evolved into the mighty Bug/Rock Kleavor. He learns Stone Axe, which basically has him swing both of his axes in a single direction. Still not the biggest fan of Kleavor's face especially from the front, but from the profile... I'm really starting to appreciate Kleavor's design a bit more. Especially now that I realized that he's got those tiny (now-redundant?) wings from his time as Scyther. I certainly can appreciate that it shares its body design with Scyther a lot more with the 3D model for sure. 

I also bought a full set of red suit-and-tie. Doesn't feel right running around in medieval-era times with a full dapper gentleman's suit, and I'll probably go back to the ronin hat later on, but it's neat to have options. 

Anyway, running around the Cobalt Coastlands have made me really cognizant of something... man, the Pokemon in the Coastlands, especially the left side, are really very hostile. I was kind of thrown off by the Spheals and Glameows being so skittish... but the Skorupi and that big scary Alpha Drapion are really everywhere. I'm not quite sure of the logic of scorpions scuttling around a beachside? Don't they like more humid, damp locales? There are also Machop and Machoke on the beaches, flexing and doing their thing. I guess wrestling belts and bodybuilding pants existed all the way back in medieval-era Japan?

Going to where the main story tells me to, I get accosted by so many Alpha Pokemon. There is a big-ass Octillery, and then a big-ass Purugly, and like three different species of fully-evolved moth Pokemon trying to murder me on my way to the tip of the coast. Running through this gauntlet is pretty damn fun, honestly, in a way that I really haven't felt for a long time in Pokemon. 

There's also a Vulpix, a bunch more Stantlers, and some poor schmuck who got his stuff stolen by Aipoms. As someone who's dealt with a lot of monkeys IRL, yeah, never keep your eye off things when you see a monkey near you. 

Palina is the warden mentioned before by Irida, and she is a nice young woman with... with... what is that on her neck? A big-ass scuba goggles that covers her face? Is that what that is? I'm not sure which character she is supposed to be in reference to. I can't think of any. Regardless, though, she's got two Hisuian Growlithes, in differing sizes, and she greets me warmly.

Palina tells me that the previous lord of the Coastlands, presumably a Hisuian Arcanine, died after being swallowed by the waves, in an attempt to rescue its young pup. It's a rather typical trope, of course, when Palina asks me which of the two pups is the young child of the Lord Pokemon -- obviously, it's the smaller, weaker-looking one. Palina, however, kind of refuses to let the skittish young child have the responsibilities of lordship (whatever it entails to a rock dog-tiger) before it is ready. Which... it is nice, I suppose. She tells me that I need the aid of a Basculegion to apss through the ocean and get to Firespit Island. 

And... this huge two-pincer coast really doesn't correspond to any part of modern-day Sinnoh (and I don't think it's the post-game area either), but the only smaller island I can see in the modern-day map is the Pokemon League island, which I suppose could be Firespit Island. Palina also mentions about how a lightning bolt has zapped Firespit Island, so clearly something is rampaging there. 

There's also a pretty neat little line of religious questioning about whether Almighty Sinnoh is angry -- the Diamond and Pearl clans have made up and exist in peace, sure, but is Almighty Sinnoh is angry that half of the humans in Hisui are worshipping the 'wrong' image of it? I really didn't expect Pokemon to have, of all things, a discussion about different interpretations of the same god, but here we are. 

Volo also shows at around this point to give some explicit exposition about the 10 noble pokemon and the ancient hero, who apparently went against Almighty Sinnoh and fought him -- which was what clued me in to what the Old Verses are talking about. 

In order to tame Basculegion, I need to meet up with Iscan, a guy from the Diamond Clan who lives in a small hut. He is an extremely nervous man, which is kinda hilarious considering that... well, he's not like, Alex Louis Armstrong ripped, but he's pretty big. He says that I need to make Basculegion's favourite snack in order to tame it, but I need to catch a Dusclops. In order to Dark Pulse the snack. Becuase that's what you do to feed a giant sea-bass empowered with the souls of its dead comrades, I guess.

Except Iscan is so fucking terrified of Dusclops (or "dust bops") that he refuses to even say Dusclops' name, and says that I have 'nerves of titanium' in that I didn't flinch at the mention of Dusclops. Again, I find it so cool that all of these older species of Pokemon are given little roles in the story. I felt that a lot of the main-series games find it hard to give more than a handful of Pokemon except for the legendaries any sort of spotlight, but I really do feel that games like Ranger and Legends Arceus really do a great job at making these creatures feel like they're part of the world. 

Anyway, off I go to Deadwood Haunt, and I spent way longer than I cared to trying to stubbornly wait out the clock until it is 'night' and the Dusclops-es and the Duskulls spawn. There are a lot of far more aggressive Drifloons and Drifblims, though, and... well, let's just say that my own Drifblim is murdering a lot of other ghost-types. 

After a less-comedic-than-I-would've-liked moment where Dusclops Dark Pulses a pile of... of... of whatever the hell that is, Palina and her Growlithes show up. There's some Romeo and Juliet stuff between Iscan and Palina, who apparently are in a relationship but can't be seen together. Iscan summons the great Basculegion with his flute, and he eats the Dark Pulsed feed without too much of a drama. Basculegion also gives me the water plate. 

Palina explains that Iscan and Basculegion had saved her life and the Growlithe's during the incident where the Hisuian Arcanine died, I think, and now Palina's kind of having to deal with her own refusal to get the Growlithe into the lord position before it is ready... as well as her forbidden, cross-clan love with Iscan. 

...and then the Miss Fortune Sisters attack! The oldest sister unleashes a Gengar that kidnaps the bigger Growlithe and I guess using Shadow Sneak allowed it to move undetected before we could react? They want to turn Growlithe 'big and strong' and they retreat to Firespit Island. Again, there's some cutscene-incompetence on our part, but it was pretty cool and the cutscene angles they used for Gengar was also pretty cool. Iscan panics because he's never had to battle before, and tells us that he will catch up. I think it'll also lead to some character development for Palina and the smaller Growlithe?

Anyway, we get to ride around with Basculegion through the oceans, and Basculegion can jump! I like this guy. Obviously, though, I don't go puppy-saving immediately and roam around the ocean. Remoraids and Hisuian Qwilfishes are extremely aggressive, while Mantines and Mantykes are a bit more chill. A lot of new exploration to be done for sure! 

I mostly just go around the first area -- the Obsidian Fieldlands -- and go around lobbing Pokeballs at Magikarps as I swim around with Basculegion and just appreciate the other parts of the area that was previously locked behind the giant rivers. Lots of Magikarps -- including a hilarious Alpha Magikarp that apparently still can only do just Splash. That's hilarious. I did also find a random guy in one of the islands that wants me to show him a Scyther, which required a back-and-forth to the 'box'. There's also an island with an Alpha Infernape hanging out with a bunch of Aipoms... so since I met Alpha Torterra in the Mirelands, I'm assuming an Alpha Empoleon is somewhere in the Coastlands. 

I'm also a bit more well-equipped for the space-time rifts in the Fieldlands, although the inventory space will always be a bit of a limiting factor for me. This time around, the ones that appear from the rifts include Ursarings, Lickitungs, Eevees, Haunters, Gengars and regular Johto Sneasels. The Eevees are most certainly welcome since I'm going to need like a half-dozen of them to complete the dex, and I'm going to assume that just like the Porygons, the Johtonian Sneasels come from the future as well.

Also, while battling in the water, Legends Arceus finally solves a minor immersion problem I had with the 3DS games and Sword/Shield where any Pokemon just... floats above the ocean. Apparently in the past, I just bring conveniently-sized floating wooden mini-boats for my Pokemon to stand on, which is just genius. I love it. In the process, my Goomy also finally evolves into Hisuian Sliggoo, which looks adorable. Look at those tiny itty-bitty hands holding on to the edges of the opening to its shell! 

Current Party: Hootle (Dedicueye); Manterror (Kleavor); Cremation (Shiny Rapidash); Loonatic (Drifblim); Bartholomew (Alpha Ursaring); Uzumaki (Hisuian Sliggoo)

Kamen Rider Revice E37 Review: Martyr's Requiem

Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 37: Inevitable Fierce Battle! The Decisive Demon Recapturing Mission! 

Okay, an... interesting episode. Apparently between the Kamen Rider Aguilera debut and this episode, we've had a bit of a short timeskip as our Kamen Riders are going around beating up Deadmens? Or, well, Giff Juniors, I guess, since those are really the only things we see. There's a bit of a propaganda stuff with Director Akaishi pretending that he's survived the attack by Gifu, and he's resurrected and healed by the power and grace of the great demon lord... it's a lot more childish than what's believable, but I suppose the essence of the scene works for the younger members of the audience? He's basically making it an excuse to give out propaganda about how, yeah, the Kamen Riders are completely helpless against the powers of Gifu and humanity must not antagonize the demon lord. 

A good chunk of this episode finally pays off all the character work built up for Daiji, who's still employed as part of Fenix and he's arguing with Akaishi about their views on 'protecting huamnity'. Akaishi also essentially holds Daiji hostage, using his ability to release demons and attack civilians to essentially force Daiji to listen to his orders. 

Meanwhile, there's also a subplot of Weekend trying to hack into Fenix's broadcasts and tell humanity that there's hope, although I think people would take them seriously if they're not making ridiculous pretentious poses. Totally in-character for Weekend to do, admittedly. 

The main Ikki plot has him, Weekend, the Karizakis and the other allied riders to figure out a plan to properly beat up Gifu, based on that one clue they got from the monsterified Akemi last episode. Honestly, most of the good-guys scenes are pretty standard, except for the scene where they talk to Daiji in Happy Spa. I do really like, by the way, how this episode shows that the three siblings separating and working on their own to fight Gifu was originally treated with them still being cordial and happy with each other... but Daiji's isolation, his constant 'trauma conga' (to borrow a TVTropes term) and his exposure to so much of Akaishi's bullshit has caused him to become way more than a little pessimistic. 

Daiji's rhetoric is even believable -- he doesn't want to submit to Gifu, but he wants peace to be shattered even less. He doesn't want people to die, and he thinks that Ikki's "might've" and "maybes" are half-assed, risky ways. Again, I've seen a lot of Kamen Rider shows where one of the good riders turn to be evil for half a season or whatever, and there really isn't an adequately explained reason for that. Daiji's pretty good! 

There's a nice little scene of George Karizaki going to Karizaki senior's grave and thinking to himself how things would've been easier if his father was actually dead... before he shows up at Weekend's base and gives Ikki an upgraded Barid Rex Vistamp, solving their problem on how to freeze monster Akemi and bring her back for cellular extraction. 

Jumping ahead a little, George and Karizaki Sr. get a pretty great moment as the two finally confront each other -- I think the timing of this episode coincides with when the Vail web-series has concluded streaming in real life? Karizaki Senior confesses how he let his 'inner demons' get the better of him, leading to his creation of Kamen Rider Vail, and Karizaki Senior shows George his scars. I do really like that George gets angry at his father because all the 'justice' and 'greater good' rhetoric doesn't sit right with him, and he's not the only one with 'scars that won't heal'. 

There's also a very cool scene transition that the episode doesn't really call too much attention to -- we get Ikki, Sakura, Hana, Hikaru and the rest of the Weekend-allied characters being all 'yeah, we're going to do this together' with a fistbump, and then we cut to Daiji alone, facing against an army of Giff Juniors, transforming into his Holy Wing form while the shadows are shrouded around him... pretty great thematic cutaway. (We also cut away from George saying about 'scars' to another shot of Daiji battling alone without any dialogue. 

We get Ikki and Sakura confronting Akaishi, who sics monster-Akemi and the True Giffterian at them. The True Giffterian can regenerate from anything Sakura or Ikki can do to him. Hana and Hikaru meanwhile just spend their screentime in this episode fighting some mooks in the surface -- basically just a showcase of the two new suits, really. Ultimately, Ikki is fighting Akemi with the Barid Rex form, intent on freezing her and bringing her to Weekend. Akemi's body herself is disintegrating... and, well, it's pretty tragic stuff.

But even more tragic is that Daiji's actually being summoned by Akaishi right after he's overwhelmed with battle, and he sees Ikki fighting and seemingly about to kill monsterified Akemi. However, as Daiji is making his way towards his siblings, Ikki and Vice are distracted by the arrival of the Giffterian (who beat Sakura), and the frozen Akemi gets dealt a mortal wound by Akaishi who teleports in. It's a surprisingly brutal death for a supporting character -- especially with how basically all the Rider shows since Neo-Heisei (except maybe Gaim) have been pretty... tame in terms of character death. 

Daiji shows up to see Ikki with his hands on a convulsing Akemi, and fights Ikki off just in time for Akemi to die. The dying Akemi, too, also ends up speaking something ominous that really doesn't explain who her real killer is, instead saying something about righteousness and loneliness. She dies and disintegrates while Daiji looks on, and Ikki, Vice and Sakura just looks on in horror... and Daiji and Ikki are about to fight. Hiromi shows up and interrupts them; end scene. 

What a great cliffhanger, huh? I really do think over the past couple of episodes we've built up Daiji's desperation very well, his growing corruption and manipulation from Akaishi, and the situation actually happens so fast that we don't get the oft-derided Faiz reason of 'my god, just talk to each other' response from the audience. There literally isn't any time to talk and while Daiji's obviously wrong, you can totally see how the events around him essentially pigeonholed him into doing what he did. Pretty good stuff. 

Random Notes:

• It's so weird that the show really thinks that Hikaru is a character that's equivalent to Aguilera. He's been such a non-entity throughout the show that I really can't take the fact that he's one of the secondary group of riders in this show seriously. Hell, I genuinely do care for his dad more than I do him. 
• Considering every single attack in this franchise is named, it's kinda silly that Vice thinks that he still needs to make up a fancy attack name for his attacks.
• Apparently Akaishi released all the demons from the mandatory stamping thing we briefly alluded to in the previous episode? I really do wish that these are given a bit more focus, because I barely realized that the two incidents are connected until I did my rewatch for this review.
• Akemi's monster form is called the "Giffdemons", kind of a silly name.  
• I'm not sure if the Barid Rex form is actually a new, altered form or if it's just the same thing as usual? I kinda want to say it's the same form, but we do get an elaborate transformation for them?

My Hero Academia, Season 3, Episodes 8-11

Part 2 of my coverage of season 3 of My Hero Academia. Last we left off, we were at the end of the summer camp arc and Bakugou got kidnapped by the baddies! 

Again, my regular disclaimer: This is more of a 'reaction'  and my commentary as I watch this season in animated format for the first time instead of a review. Also keep in mind that at the time of writing this review I have been caught up to the manga, although I'll try not to spoil too much of it in case someone's reading this as they watch the show itself. 

Episode 8:

• I actually do really like that the story takes through the time of explaining a good chunk of the present characters' motivations and how they view this act of... well, vigilantism, basically. It's an honestly rather interestingly complex discussion about whether they should trust the pros to handle it or if they should take matters into their own hands, and while we wouldn't have a story if Midoriya and company didn't go out to save Bakugo, it's nice that some of the cast actually present counterarguments. 
• Also, Iida's role as being the class prefect and his conflict about the earlier Stain arc, and seeing Midoriya and the others 'make the same mistakes [he] did'... Iida kind of faded into the background after this set of arcs, but it's some really good character growth for him, huh?
• The whole 'hysterical strength' thing does deconstruct this series' Plus Ultra motto and how it could really fuck your body up something fierce, huh? 
• GANG ORCA! I love Gang Orca.
• Okay, I absolutely love that after nearly three-fourths of the episode of serious discussion about whether they should or should not save Bakugo, we get the hilarious comedic moment of Midoriya and the others dressing up as """"thugs"""". Especially funny is Midoriya going "OIII KORRRAA!" and Kirishima trying to coach him, while Iida says 'a lady with a large rack over there' in the stiffest way possible. 
• I also love that this whole thing is kind of just because Yaoyorozu wanted to shop in the clearance sale store. 

Episode 9:

• I remembered reading this part of the story when it was serialized in the manga and everyone and their mother was speculating whether Bakugo would be 'villainized' like Sasuke was during the final arc of pre-timeskip Naruto. The thing is, though, I am very, very thankful that they didn't. It made sense for Sasuke to be hunting stronger and more powerful jutsu during that period of time for the character, but while Bakugo is obsessed with victory and power, he never once struck me as someone who would join the villains just because of that. 
• It is kind of boring and somewhat recap-y, but I do like the reporter-vs-teacher scene. It's something that I feel is rather unique to a more grounded-in-modern-society setting, and does add a fair amount of world-building to the whole reputation ruining agenda of the Villain Alliance. 
• Great moment for Aizawa, too, for showing faith in Bakugo's heroism. To a smaller scale, while Best Jeanist bemoans Bakugo's attitude, he also very quickly comes to the conclusion that Bakugo would be resisting the villains' attempt to brainwashing. 
• And, of course, the press conference is also meant to be a distraction to hide the fact that All Might, Endeavor and everyone else is attacking on the very same day.
• It is kind of silly that Midoriya and Kirishima had to climb on their buddies' shoulders and use night-vision scopes, something that someone with a different set of quirks (like Shoji or Jiro) wouldn't find too much trouble in doing. 
• "Hello, this is Pizza-La, Kamino branch." -beat- "SUMAAAAAASH!"
• I absolutely love how the assault team actually do function like an elite group of pros, quickly matching each and every one of Shigaraki's moves, like sending Mt. Lady after the Nomu factory or having Gran Torino quickly take out Dabi or casually revealing that they now know everyone's identities. Really, if AFO didn't show up, the heroes would've probably won. 
• Damn, Kamui Woods, you're not like, in the top ten heroes or anything, but you totally managed to lock down the Villain Alliance pretty quickly.
• Dabi got instantly knocked out by Gran Torino, while Endeavor spends most of the raid guarding the perimeter. I guess that's reason enough why the two don't meet each other. 
• "You underestimated a young man's soul, the diligent investigations of the police... AND OUR ANGER." God damn, All Might. 
• Edge Shot totally just shot Kurogiri through the chest by turning into a needle! Hardcore! I'm not sure how the hell you can 'rearrange his organs' to make him sleep. Pretty sure any kind of organ rearranging would make someone, y'know, fucking dead. 
• That expression of anguish on All Might's face when Bakugo gets teleported away literally next to him... man, poor Toshinori. 
• Some great usage of the 'two minutes ago, elsewhere...' trope, by the way. In the summer camp arc, it's just meant to showcase the different fights happening simultaneously. Here, we get to see what happened to the team that got sent to deal with the Nomu Factory. 
• All For One showing up, talking about stealing Ragdoll's quirk and how he's spent through a lot of his stocked-up quirks, while ominous Latin chanting plays in the background... damn, that's a pretty cool first impression. 

Episode 10:

• Poor Kamui Woods just sounds and looks so devastated when he apologizes. A nice reminder that among the pros, he's the newcomer -- though, of course, no one actually blames him. 
• I do like that while he's a right asshat, Endeavor's professional enough to tell All Might to 'hurry up and go'. While tossing in a couple of insults, naturally, but he could've been much worse is all I'm saying. 
• Okay, so there's a reason Mt. Lady, Gang Orca and Tiger survived that blast from All For One. Best Jeanist, you're pretty damn cool. I mean, AFO blew a hole through you before you could attack him with your jean fibers, but still, at least he saved the others. 
• Oh, I get it. "Do it over as many times as you need to" is meant to be another part of Shigaraki's video game comparisons. 
• I do like that while we focus on Midoriya psyching himself up to move, the art actually shows  Iida and Momo restraining Todoroki and Kirishima as well. Small moments like these remind us that everyone is trying to be a hero.
• That said, while I do appreciate the need for them to flashback to the various arguments against them jumping in to help... it's a lot less dignified when Iida has those fake mustaches on. 
• That is a pretty over the top giant explosion Bakugo makes to get away from the Villain Alliance and a ridiculous distance before he grabs Kirishima's hands... and I don't care, it looks cool as balls. 
• I do really like the fact that while they go for the 'friendship saves' trope, the story acknowledges that there's still too much bad blood between Bakugo and Midoriya, and that it's Kirishima that's Bakugo's buddy at this point. 
• MOUNT LADY DOES SOMETHING BADASS! I mean, she got her face bashed by a magnetism-fired Mr. Compress, but for someone who was initially introduced as the epitome of a glory hound hero, good job, Mt. Lady!
• (I totally didn't catch the 'Shimura Tenko' and 'Shimura Nana' connection this early on back when I was reading this in manga format.)
• I really don't have too much to say about this episode, it's just All For One being a badass before he fights with All Might; while Team Midoriya rescues Bakugo. Lots of great action moments, and I love AFO's little listing of all the quirks he's using... and that badass boast and punch by All Might near the end. Pretty great episode all around. 

Episode 11:

• 
  Young Toshinori telling Nana Shimura that he wants to be the pillar of peace in a flashback... man, I was so sure All Might was going to suffer the Mentor Death Syndrome(tm) in this fight back then!
• I like that it's Nana that taught Toshinori the whole 'heroes must smile' thing... and it all ties to All Might's whole "origin" and the reason he can go Plus Ultra. 
• I do like that the students just... just escape after their little stunt at the end of episode 10. It's just kind of a shame that poor Momo didn't actually do anything in their little combo move to save Bakugo. 
• Between AFO appearing as a very caring mentor to Shigaraki and his teammates, and then mocking Nana to provoke a reaction out of All Might, man, AFO is a pretty great master manipulator, huh?
• So how many people died when All For One literally blew up what the reporter described as 'half of Kamino Ward'?
• I do like the public reaction to All Might fighting All For One and how they're just so... detached from it, y'know? Until they realize that All Might needs to win, and they start to cheer out of desperation rather than faith, and then we get Gran Torino's speech narrating as we see a montage of everyone cheering on the symbol of peace... god damn, the music in this episode is also pretty damn well-done. 
• I also love that it's an actual plot point that All For One forces All Might to reveal his true, withered form -- something that was treated as a running gag all throughout the first two seasons. 
• Also, damn, voice actor Miyake Kenta is going Plus Ultra himself in episodes 10-11. That scream after he realizes Shigaraki is Nana's grandson? So painful. 
• I completely forgot that Endeavor, Edgeshot, Kamui and Tiger actually show up to help! His bit is kind of small, but after knowing the full story behind the Todoroki family, his "what is that pitiful back?!" towards the man he respects as a rival is actually surprisingly poignant. 
• Jeez, that is a big ass cyborg arm that All For One created. 
• Jeez, that is a badass clash of lightning and blood and weird-ass spatial distortion effects as the two giant fists crash onto each other. What an intense clash! What fun fight! Absolutely love just how much mileage the anime team got out of All Might's glowing blue pupils, and the symbolism with the fire flickering out...
• I love that the single most badass thing that All Might did, he did in his 'true' form, the ugly, disheveled and, to use AFO's description, 'unsightly' form.
• "That's because my back wasn't in it! Farewell, All For One! ...UNITED STATES OF! SMAAAAAASH!"
• God damn that was a beautiful finish. I just went back and rewatched that scene. And again in English dub. Hoo! Intense. I absolutely love that All Might's normally goofy fanfare theme plays like a goddamn victory march as he buffs back up and raises his fist one last time. 
• "...next... it's your turn." Yeah, okay, I was going to continue until episode 13 or 14 originally, but I feel like this is the perfect place to stop. 

Let's Play Legends Arceus, Part 7: Hisuian Side Quests

More side-quests!

Kamado did tell me to wander around, so I did. I leave behind a Psyduck to help expand the fields in order to give me a larger mushroom harvest. An old man has adopted an Eevee for his daughter and he wants to spoil the Eevee with food. The saga of Tao Hua and the general store vendor Choy (who looks like Platinum's Charon with a more athletic build) continues as Tao Hua continues to be a jerk to him. The photography guy wants me to hunt down a Duskull, and Anthe the fashion lady wants to see the two different types of Shellos. 

There's a guy called Zeke, asking help from the Survey Corps... that can't be a coincidence, can it? That's totally an Attack on Titan reference, isn't it?

Beauregard's partner has also finally evolved into Dustox. Glorious! I love Dustox, and I love this background story where this random guard has finally accepted his little partner buddy.

Arezu, meanwhile... has actually settled in Jubilife City! She has talked to the elderly barber lady, who lets her stay as her apprentice/successor. Arezu did foreshadow this by talking about how her 'special skill' is giving haircuts. It's a bit of a scattershot development going from being a red herring villain to a well-meaning but suspicious wildcard and now to a barber lady, but okay, Arezu. You're pretty fun. 

I finally figured out the space-time rift. I have to wait inside it, and then a bunch of weird-ass items and pokemon appear in it! There are weird stuff like Nuggets and Ice Stones and Blue Shards that fill up my inventory quickly, while very hostile Drifblims and Gastlies and Floatzels and rarer Pokemon like Loppunys and Flareons and Porygons of all things appear. I guess Porygons appear from the future? Did these space-time rifts cause a time paradox that sent a digital duck organism to a period of time before computers were even invented? Does Arceus the creator god even care, considering he gave me a goddamn smartphone?

The aggressiveness of the creatures in the space-time rifts do cause me to have to bug out after a while, though, lest I black out and lose these special items I gathered. I've gotten pretty good at running the shit away on the back of my Wyrdeer!

Exploring around the Mirelands (it's a large area, huh?) I also come across a little patch of land that is almost exclusively conquered by... Pachirisu? I mean, I guess Pachirisu comes from Sinnoh, and I guess it's cool that we get a special area for it. Having an Alpha Pachirisu right after I face the likes of Alpha Hippowdon, Ursaring and Rhyhorn is kind of... hilarious. Catching a Pachirusu also ends up unlocking a little side-quest where one of the random Galaxy team members asks me to show him how a Pachirisu can fight... by only fighting him with a Pachirisu and nothing else. Well, I'll have to train up one of the Pachirisus I have captured, but... hmm! Is this an in-joke to that one Pachirisu that won the real-life world tournament?

A bit further on from where the Pachirisu are hanging out is an area populated by Petilils -- it makes sense that the overworld area whose Noble Pokemon is a Liligant would have Petilil as possible encounters, huh? I capture a couple of Petilils (who are very skittish) although I'm not sure if I'm going to use one. Hisuian Liligant is cool, but I already have a Grass/Fighting Hisuian Pokemon in my party. 

Running around with Ursaluna, I also come across some 'Old Verses' in addition to the regular loot. The one I got, Old Verse 1, seems to be talking about Dialga and Palkia creating the world? Once there were two and all that? Again, it's a lot of collectible quests. I do like getting my money's worth out of an exploration game, let me put it that way. 

At the tip of that landmass, though, is a small lake populated with Goomy. GOOMYGOOMYGOOMY, and at the center of that little lake is an Alpha Hisuian Sliggoo... who looks so much cooler than the static images of him that I've seen online. It curls up into its wheel-shaped shell and zips around trying to slam onto me and unleashes what I think is a Hydro Pump. I didn't manage to catch the Alpha Sliggoo, but I did catch a couple of Goomy. I think I like these snails enough to use one in my party!

...and then my party got absolutely wiped out in an attempt to capture an Alpha Torterra, who is around 20-30 levels higher than my party. Interestingly, I don't 'black out' when all my Pokemon are knocked out. I just... I just run the hell for my life on top of Wyrdeer, while all of my Pokemon are crossed out. Seems like I will only black out if I'm actually physically knocked out. 

Some of the sidequests I was able to complete almost immediately. There is a lady who wants to see the full Pokedex entry on Roselia and got surprised that the species is actually poisonous. There's another person who wants a certain type of vines for its fragrance, and it turns out that the vines come from Tangela specifically... I wouldn't really think of Tangela as a particularly fragrant Pokemon, but here we go. Another sidequest is me finding a missing locket or whatever that's fallen into an Alpha Hippowdon swamp. It's kind of cute, honestly, that most of the Pokemon species has a little side-quest tied to them. It's nothing too substantial, but it's really nice that old and new Pokemon like Tangela, Cascoon, Roselia and a bunch of others got a bit more spotlight.

With Loonatic the Drifblim having evolved, I've gone back to Zusi and learned a bunch of extra moves on her too, adding Icy Wind (a much-needed Ice-type move!) to my repertoire and swapping out Hex for Shadow Ball. 

A quest in Jubilife City's medical department has the Nurse Joy looking lady (from her hairstyle, though, she's a ringer for Mira, that little girl with a Kadabra from Platinum!) ask for a Croagunk, because she wants to distill Croagunk's poison to create a medication for the back pain of that one guy who got attacked by... a Shinx? Or was it the Noble Kleavor? Whatever the case, I give her one of the many Croagunks I have captured, and she muses about how maybe in the future we'll have a facility or a building where we can cure Pokemon alongside other Pokemon. Hmmm, maybe like a CENTER for Pokemon, yes?

There's a sidequest in the Bogbound Camp where a random guy wants to water a Sudowoodo, thinking that it's a tree, and asks me to Water Pulse him... before the Sudowoodo attacks. That's kind of a funny quest -- if only it wasn't completely raining at the time, which kind of spoiled the joke that Sudowoodo got soaked by my Psyduck. 

I end up finding the Psyduck medicine in Jubilife City's medical department, and... and it's actually kind of yet another great little nod to previous Pokemon games. I really do love it when things like this end up becoming a bit of a callback -- the lady that gave me the Secret Medicine hails from Johto, and this calls back to that very long fetch quest where you have to go back and forth between Cianwood and Olivine to cure Jasmine's Ampharos. The Secret Medicine cures the three Psyduck and they're all happy and no longer holding their heads, though the hut they're in... doesn't actually contain the Unown A as I had thought it would be. That's another quest done, regardless.

I eventually find Wanda, though it's nothing really special. She's just... randomly in one part of the Mirelands, apparently having a worse sense of direction than Roronoa Zoro. She even walks in the opposite direction from where I pointed the village out to her. Silly Wanda. 

A lady who wants a certain type of herb is also shocked to find out that it came from Petilil's head, and now refuses to use said herb because she doesn't want to hurt little itty-bitty Petilil.

At some point I did talk to Kamado, who tells me that the next big area is the Cobalt Coastlands. It's apparently a location where the Noble Pokemon had passed away (holy crap they acknowledged death!). Irida and Kamado tell me that there are strange shadowy figures where the Noble Pokemon used to dwell, and I'm supposed to go and investigate the alleged 'ghost' attacking people in Firespit Island. Is there a ghost Pokemon that's new? I don't remember? Irida can't tolerate the desecration of her 'late lord's seat', so... okay, then. 

That little cowboy hat kid that took care of Kleavor also shows up, and talks about how the warden in Cobalt Coastlands is kind of unpopular even among the Pearl Clan. He gives me some exposition about evolutionary stones, while also hinting at a specific stone that contains the power of creation of the Almighty Sinnoh... maybe it's the Adamant/Lustrous Orb? Or something new?

From the map, the Cobalt Coastlands seems to be where Sunnyshore City is, basically all the part of Sinnoh that leads upwards to that waterway that leads to the Pokemon League in Sinnoh. I think that little island with the Pokemon League is the Firespit Island? I played too much of Platinum back in the day. 

Anyway, arriving at the Cobalt Coastlands, it's... it's pretty neat! It's kind of like a little beachside vacation. Irida talks to me about the two wardens in the Coastlands -- Iscan from the Diamond Clan, and our focus for this 'arc', Palina. After a brief battle where Irida tries to gang up on my newly-evolved Decidueye with a Glaceon and an Eevee, she talks a bit about Palina. Of course, she says that while giving some appropriate dialogue about space and how small she is within space. 

Again, it's something that I felt really helps with the world-building sense of this game. Palina basically hasn't moved on from the death of the previous Noble Pokemon she was in charge of, and hasn't gone and selected or raised that Lord's child. Palina also is Irida's childhood friend and they used to compete for the position of the leader of the clan. Just like Calaba in the previous area, it is kind of built up that we're going to have to deal with Palina's personal problems in order to proceed. 

I've only ran around parts of the Coastlands, but it does feature a bunch of repeat Pokemon like Floatzel, Tangela and Golduck... but also a bunch of others that are pretty fancy! Trash Cloak Burmy, Mothim, Aipom, Chatot, Glameow... hell, even a random level 34 Togepi that's just wandering around. I think that's the rare encounter? I used enough Togekisses in my Generation IV playthroughs, but it's neat to see one. Glameows, in particular, are very skittish and I finally have some use out of the Smoke Bombs. Feather Balls are useful, too. 

My casual runaround in the Coastlands did cause me to compelte a couple of quests. The Pop Pods (which are... pressurized sponges, I think?) allow me to prevent part two of the drama between Tao Hua and Choy, and gives me the recipe for... Scatter Bangs? Cyllene also gives me the recipe for Ultra Balls for reaching six stars. Also, one of the random NPC's who wanted to see a Pokemon with a tail like a spring (I thought it was Spoink!) ended up being happy to see the Glameow... before the Glameow, like all cats, scratched the shit out of his face. Oh, cats. 

My Ponyta also evolved into Rapidash, finally, after getting some leftover experience points after I killed an Alpha Golduck. I like the soft lavender purple on shiny Rapidash, but honestly, I think I still prefer shiny Ponya's baby blues.

Current Party: Hootle (Decidueye), Loonatic (Drifblim), Uzumaki (Goomy), Cremation (Shiny Rapidash), Manterror (Scyther), Bartholomew (Alpha Ursaring)

Ms. Marvel S01E01 Review: Fangirls Unite

Ms. Marvel, Season 1, Episode 1: Generation Why

That was certainly different! To be honest, I didn't even realize that Ms. Marvel was out because I was under the impression that Disney+ was alternating between Marvel and Star Wars project, so I thought that we were going to have the first season of Obi-Wan Kenobi finish before we get Ms. Marvel. 

And... and I've been aware of Ms. Marvel for quite a while now. As part of Marvel's "All-New, All-Different" soft-reboot-rebrand thing, Kamala Khan has probably been the one 'legacy' character that was universally accepted by almost everyone. There were a lot of characters that debuted alongside her, but I think most people agreed that Kamala Khan not only benefited from being a great jumping-on point for new readers, she was also sufficiently different enough from her hero Captain Marvel that it's not just "X-hero, but [insert ethnicity]". It really does help that the early issues of Ms. Marvel's 2014 comic-book run was genuinely fun, too.

And her first episode is... it's authentic, at least? It doesn't really quite have the same bombastic feel as Moon Knight's first episode, but that's not really fair because they're not really in the same genre. Ms. Marvel takes its time to introduce us to geeky Kamala Khan, who lives in a very conservative Muslim family with strict parents, barely has any friends at school (the Peter Parker parallels are definitely there) and struggles because she's way too much of a daydreamer who fantasizes about more creative stuff instead of being stuck in the humdrum of schoolwork and college applications and the like. It's something that most people can relate with, albeit delightfully seeped in the Pakistani-Muslim culture that is core to the character's identity. 

Kamala is introduced to us retelling the events of Avengers: Endgame through her own YouTube channel, and we get to see that she's a massive dork and fangirl of Captain Marvel, she writes ten-part fanfiction (only ten parts? Amateur!) and has secretly been harbouring a grand plan of... winning the Captain Marvel cosplay competition in AvengerCon.

...and for the most part of this first episode, it's pretty... pretty slow, really. There are some super-powered action in the last five or ten minutes or so because Kamala's grandmother's bangle ends up giving her superpower, but otherwise the episode is content to just focus on Kamala and her supporting cast -- her strict mother Muneeba, her less-strict father Yusuf, her brother Aamir, her best friend Bruno -- plus spending scenes just exploring the family dynamics and the somewhat-suffocating culture around her. As anyone who's lived as part of an ethnic diaspora would know, yeah, this really is what the younger generation feels. Lump it in with Kamala herself being kind of a social outcast at school, having to deal with alpha-bitch-and-closet-Captain-Marvel-fangirl Zoe Zimmer, as well as her well-meaning but demanding teachers, we do really set up a pretty well-done introduction to Kamala and her supporting cast.

A good chunk of this episode is basically just everyone around Kamala telling her to focus on herself and her future, like a good little girl that her parents raised her up to be. And I feel like the show (and the comic it's based on) does a wonderful job at showing just how well-meaning Kamala's parents are, yet how much Kamala feels constricted living with them. Of course, her one deed of rebellion -- running away from home to join the world's first-ever AvengersCon -- ends up giving her far more than she bargained for as she went from a mere cosplayer to... to discovering that the random bangle she found in her attic actually granted her superpowers.

Kamala causes her own crisis and resolves it pretty quickly when her powers activated and caused some large props to break free, almost injuring her classmate Zoe in the process, and she and Bruno proceed to skeedadle from the convention. While her mother gives Kamala an amazingly well-acted dressing down, Kamala realizes that she has access to potentially 'cosmic' powers.

(There's also a mid-credits scene where we get Agent Cleary from Spider-Man: No Way Home, representing the organization Damage Control, who is going to investigate this new emergence of superpowers)

And... and from a comic-book-geek standpoint, they admittedly change a lot of details about Kamala Khan's actual powers. She creates Green Lantern energy constructs now instead of having Mr. Fantastic/Plastic Man stretchy-powers, and instead of being an Inhuman, she gets her power from a mysterious bangle. I... I honestly do genuinely think that the 'Inhuman' side of Kamala's story really isn't super-relevant to her story? It's like that argument on whether Spider-Man's webs comes from web-cartridges or organically created by the spider-bite. It doesn't really bother me in that sense, I guess, and as someone who's read her comics before, Kamala's appeal has always been her character instead of her powers. 

I haven't watched ahead and I might sound a bit like an apologist, but I do wonder if the change to the source of her powers coming from her bangles is going to tie in to the fact that there is a great focus on Kamala's own heritage as she struggles with it, getting visibly irritated at the micro-aggressions when people mispronounce her name, but also getting pissed off when more traditional aspects of it -- like aunties gossiping about how dare a woman would rather travel the world instead of getting married... but at some points also accidentally yelling at how 'humiliating' it is -- a messy web of small things throughout the episode that also overlap a lot with her overprotective parents. 

And I think more than any other Disney+ show except maybe Falcon and the Winter Soldier, this episode does a pretty great job at showing what the world of the MCU is like after Endgame. Merchandise about the Avengers and the Guardians, YouTube channels speculating on whether Thor is secretly a gamer or not, cosplayers (some vastly misrepresenting who they are supposed to be), Scott Lang making a podcast, speculation by the masses about who this mysterious 'cosmic hero' Captain Marvel that shows up, fights in a war and disappears... all very fun stuff, and the general convention vibe feels a lot more authentic and to-the-point for a superhero show compared to Hawkeye's LARP sequence.

Anyway, it's a pretty strong episode. It's very slow, though, and I can understand that people who come in expecting a more bombastic first episode like Moon Knight or Hawkeye might be a bit more disappointed since Ms. Marvel is a bit more by-the-books as far as superhero origins go. But they do a lot of great, stylish things like integrating Bruno and Kamala's texting into the neon lights and road signs in the background, and... I don't know, I just really do enjoy the idea of a fangirl as a main character, I guess? I really do enjoy the awkward-parents-trying-to-be-hip phase of Kamala's parents trying their best to hang out with Kamala with their Big-Hulk-Little-Hulk cringe act. Although I will admit that I kind of zoned out during the actual process of Kamala and Bruno escaping from home to go to AvengersCon. It is a slow but definitely well-done opening act for the show.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• 
  So many continuity nods to other superheroes -- mainly those in the MCU movies. Kamala gives us an abridged and very Captain-Marvel-biased depiction of the final battle of Avengers: Endgame, and "AvengersCon" gives us cosplayers and artwork of basically everyone who showed up in Endgame.
• Among the artwork in AvengersCon, there's a drawing of Captain America with emphasis on his butt, a nod to the "America's Ass" joke from Endgame. 
• A running gag in his debut movie, in a documentary about Star-Lord, his codename is parsed as "Star-Boy", referencing how no one ever remembers his codename in the two Guardians movies.
• Kamala's Youtube video notes cheekily about a topic on how "Thor is secretly a gamer", which he actually is in Avengers: Endgame.
• Also among Kamala's video, a cockatiel is prominently seen. This, plus a neon sign saying "Edison Electronics" when Kamala is up on the roof, refers to Kamala's first villain in her comic run -- The Inventor, an imperfect bird-man clone of Thomas Edison... who I'm pretty sure isn't going to be adapted into this season.  
• AvengersCon is held in Camp Lehigh, a prominent location in Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I guess they rebuilt it after Hydra blew it up.
• The whole idea of Kamala's powers activating in a convention is a reference in the recent PS4 Avengers game, which heavily features Kamala Khan as well. 
• The mid-credits scene character is Agent Cleary, first seen in Spider-Man: No Way Home, a member of Damage Control.
• In the closing credits, one of the 'Trust a Bro' vans from Hawkeye show up. 
• Kamala covering her butt with a sash is a nod on how the comic-book version of Carol Danvers prominently has a sash around her waist, something she only wore in her brief Endgame appearance. 
• Zoe's cosplay, while clearly inaccurate to the MCU's Captain Marvel, is a mixture of various Carol Danvers looks in the comics -- she has the blue-and-red colours of the modern look that the MCU version borrows from, but her bare legs is taken from Carol's time as Ms. Marvel.
• "Generation Why" is the title of an issue of Kamala's original 2015 comic run.
• A reference to Kamala falling into the Hudson River is a reference to how Kamala's first superhero act is to rescue Zoe from drowning in that river. 
• Gabe Wilson, Kamala's guidance counselor, is named after Kamala's real-life co-creator G. Willow Wilson. The plaque outside of the high school feature other writers and artists from the comics. 

Let's Play Legends Arceus, Part 6: Dancing Queen

So I decided to kind of go through a chunk of the story again this time around... mostly because I stumbled upon Arezu wounded on the ground without even bothering to use the intended Ursaluna mechanic. Arezu is bemoaning how she's kind of screwed up... and then Warden Calaba shows up and thanks Arezu. There's a whole bit of back-and-forth, but the gist of it is that Arezu wasn't actually evil and it's all a red herring -- it was the berserking Noble Lilligant's spores that drove Ursaluna angry, and it isn't anything particularly nefarious on Arezu's end. Hell, Arezu was actually trying to gather balms to deal with the frenzied Lilligant and Ursaluna situation herself before she fell and wounded her ankle!

(Arezu is also the warden of the Noble Lilligant, which... I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned in this playthrough. The game kind of glosses over it before this point, to be fair.)

The leader of the Diamond Clan, Adaman, shows up and even admits that it's partially his fault, since he has caused a situation where one of his clan members views him as kind of unreliable. Calaba also apologizes, because I think she kind of recognizes that her bullish pigheadedness is why Diamond/Pearl relations in this area has been pretty strained.

The Lilligant fight takes place on the northernmost part of the Crimson Mirelands, and it really does strike me just how much of the Mirelands I haven't even explored. It's a huge area! And we're not even talking about the Lake Valor/Verity/Acuity areas that are obviously locked behind this game's equivalent of Surf either. There's a whole segment filled with Rhyhorns (who are appropriately super aggressive), a place where it alternates between Roselias and Murkrows as the time changes, another Combee hive-tree-thing, Lickitungs just hanging around, an area with Teddiursa called 'Ursa's ring' (ha!), Skuntanks shooting flamethrowers out of their tail...

Oh, and Sudowoodo. Who walks around waving their stupid-ass fake hands, but then when they see me they just... freeze in place. Nevermind that the trees in this game are relatively realistic and Sudowoodo looks so out of place here. Man, that's kinda hilarious. 

At this point, my Drifloon evolves into Drifblim, and I also go around evolving a lot of the Pokemon in my box as well. I got a bunch all evolved up -- Kadabra, Kirlia, Monferno, Beautifly, Bibarel -- just to get the resarch tasks done. I also faced off against the Alpha Tangrowth during my many, many exploration runs, and I caught it -- the alpha Pokemon are a bit bigger than normal and I think have access to at least one unique move that it can't learn normally, but I'm not too interested in using them, to be honest, not unless there is one of the newer species original to this game. I also got an Alpha Ursaring... can that evolve into an Alpha Ursaluna?

The Lilligant boss fight proceeds relatively similarly to the Kleavor one, although the Lady of the Ridge doesn't have quite as epic of an entrance. She does come in with a massive bank of fog, before twirling in her ballerina dance, and... and it's actually quite a bit harder to dodge than Kleavor since Lilligant dances around and hops around and creates gigantic shockwave pulses that I have to time to dodge. I also only battle Lilligant like, once as opposed to the four times that I got to 'stun' Kleavor through battling, which means that this really does feel like a much more elaborate Zelda-style boss fight. 

Of course, unlike Kleavor, Lilligant fares much worse against my team, which is a bit closer to her in level and her Energy Balls really aren't super-effective against much of my team. Last time I fought Kleavor, his Rock-type attacks counter nearly half of my team. I think I just hung on Drifblim for both times I fought Lilligant, and while Mystic Fire isn't strong enough to OHKO Lilligant, Drifblim never really came close to dying. 

The expected things that happen after a Noble/Alpha boss fight happens. Lilligant gets purified with a golden light, she hands me over the Meadow Plate, and we get an acknowledgement from Arezu, Adaman and Calaba. Pretty neat stuff. 

I overall really do like Lilligant, and I wonder if they set up this redesign specifically with the idea of her twirling and dancing around as a 'tempo' boss fight in mind? I'm still not sure whether I like it more compared to her base Unovan form, but the simple fact that Lilligant, one of the more forgettable representatives of Generation V, has got an extra form alone is pretty cool. 

Right after the Lilligant battle, my starter Hootle finally gets the chance to evolve, and... and you know what? Hisuian Decidueye looks pretty cool. I didn't even think about it when I got the kasa-style straw hat, but I match with my owl! Decidueye immediately gains access to his signature Triple Arrow move, as well as two of the better moves in his movepool -- Leaf Blade and Aura Sphere. It's completely coincidental that my starter leveled up after the Lilligant fight, but huzzah for that!

I passed through Diamond Village but didn't actually enter it before the Lilligant battle. It's a bunch of more traditional-looking tents around a huge obelisk-like stone on the ground, and it's of course coloured blue. A bunch of the Diamond Village people give some lines about how they're not happy about the idea of Jubilife people using Pokeballs and stuff, and... and these are generic NPC's who aren't going to matter much to the story, but it's always great to add to the world-building, y'know? 

In a fun Easter Egg, the houses of the Diamond Clan have ancient-Japanese-drawing-style portraits of Magma Team Leader Maxie and Unova's champion Alder of all people. Okay, WTF?

I'm not as well-versed in Diamond/Pearl's music as I would like, but the Diamond Village's background music is definitely a tune I've heard before. Speaking of callbacks, the one sidequest I got from the Diamond Settlement is a lady who's looking for medicine to cure the headaches of her three Psyducks... who are blocking the door to one of the huts. Poor Psyducks! I need to get them some Acetaminophen!

Also, while wandering around the Mirelands, I come across the campsite of the Miss Fortune Sisters, and there's a 'D' Unown just hanging around there doing nothing. Not attacking, not moving, not fleeing, just... there. That's one out of 25 'Golden Skulltula' style collectibles down! I haven't really gotten into deciphering the riddles since I haven't even gotten all of the overworld areas unlocked yet, but I'm assuming the 'A' Unown is going to be in that hut that the Psyducks block. I found the 'M' Unown inside of a log next to Ursaluna's arena. 

Also, I completed Parasect's pokedex entry at this point, and apparently, specimens of Parasects without the mushroom lie motionless. So there are versions of these creatures without the mushrooms... which would make them... corpses, then? Spooky! Could this be a Bug/Ghost regional variant in the future? Parasect just fascinates me. 

Returning to the village, we get a cute scene where Beni is a bit smug over the fact that his potato mochi has helped to save the day. Okay, Beni, you get to be smug this one time. Cyllene ranks me up to rank 5 after the huge amount of new species that I've captured in the Mirelands, and Kamado congratulates me... although the conversation with him does take an interesting turn because he starts talking about how the golden lightning corrupting these Noble Pokemon come from the same space-time rift as I do... and then he talks about how he will do anything to preserve the peace of Jubilife City. We do see that he's the kind of guy that views Jubilife's neutrality to be one of the most important values he holds, and he's still kind of scared of Pokemon as 'terrifying creatures', so that tracks. 

He's not harsh, though, because the next day, he brings me over to Prologue Beach to welcome the new batch of newcomers from... from off Hisui. New settlers, I guess, who heard about how people and Pokemon are living together in Jubilife City. Kamado does tell me to walk around town to see how I have 'changed things', and... I guess he means to tell me that we get more Pokemon and people living together now? On the other hand, Kamdo does give us some rather... ominous lines about how he is a bit... unsure about the state of things. "You still find love for these creatures in your heart. I suppose that is a necessary quality for a member of the Survey Corps", he says. Hmm! That's not ominous at all!

Kamado then continues to talk about options like questioning 'whether we wish to live alongside them or not', and noting that as leader of the Galaxy Team, he is 'prepared to make harsh decisions in the future'. The conversation does end in a relatively positive fashion, but it's honestly a rather realistic situation to take -- not everyone can get instantly turned around from the running line of "Pokemon are terrifying creatures" to "we love Pokemon!" For Kamado, it seems like he has gone from seeing them as a nuisance to something that Jubilife City can use. I honestly really do like this gradual change, and whether Kamado ends up developing into an ally or something a bit more sinister... he could be the main villain for all I know. I'm completely unspoiled about this!

Anyway, a lot of side-quests trigger at this point, and Kamado unlocks the third overworld area, so that's where we'll go next. 

Current Party: Hootle (Decidueye), Sparky (Luxray), Chopin (Kricketune), Cremation (Ponyta), Loonatic (Drifblim), Jet (Floatzel)

One Piece 1052 Review: Death, Flowercopters and Baths

One Piece, Chapter 1052: New Morning

So... yeah, I do still have a lot of opinions about how Wano ended. Still sorting through them. I'm not of the opinion that I was extremely disappointed about a huge amount of it -- but there were definitely parts of this arc that felt inadequate. I think I've ranted about them enough in some of my previous reviews, and now that the dust is settled, I felt like... well, there were certainly ways that the fall of Kaido could've been done a bit better. It's not a bad ending at all, though. Wano just ran on for so long that everyone went just a bit too wild with speculation -- it's just that with the exception of Gear Fifth, the arc does end in more or less the most obvious and straightforward way possible. Thankfully, though, as with most major One Piece arcs, after the end of a major arc we're going to get a couple of arcs of craziness, and while 1052 is still in 'tidy-up' mode, we're not focusing the whole chapter on a specific part (i.e. Momonosuke's status as the new shogun) and we're just jumping all over. 

Starting off in Mariegeoise (I'll never get used to that spelling) we get the Gorosei discussing how, yeah, it's impossible for them to cover up the fact that two Yonko has fallen. This chapter seem to be ticking off a bunch of plot points that we're wondering about, and we get to see that Zunesha has... disappeared after Momonosuke's talk with her in the previous chapter. It's something that I feel will be explored in depth in subsequent chapters -- what Zunesha knows about Joy Boy, what Zunesha talked to Momonosuke about, and the meaning of Momonosuke closing the borders. Right now we do have kind of an answer to that -- that Momonosuke not opening the borders causes the World Government ship to be unable to invade.

...admittedly, I thought that the giant volcano, would've played to it, and the idea that 'oh, the World Government could just invade if Wano opens its borders' is a bit questionable... but oh well. 

There is a bit of a hilarious moment where the surviving CP-0 agent, the one with lines on his mask and a flower neck-thing, is all panicking when the Gorosei asks him "well, we can't invade Wano and Nika awakened... but we could get Nico Robin brought to us, right?" Man, that CP-0 guy looks like he knows he's in hot water and he's really considering his options and what he can do. The transponder snail ends up getting hijacked by another person, though, a mysterious person who claims he or she is 'heading there'. It's heavily implied that this is Ryokugyu at the end of the chapter, but I do wonder.

Speaking of Robin, the fact that they bring her up does lead me to pay special attention to the fact that... Robin does not appear at all in this chapter. I personally do feel that it's a fake-out for the simple fact that everyone is partying in contrast to when Robin got kidnapped pre-timeskip or when Sanji left during the Zou arc. People obsess a bit about pre-timeskip and post-timeskip parallels, but I really do feel like sometimes people look way too much into things. 

We do get a bit of a closure to a pair of under-utilized secondary characters that I don't think we were going to get. Drake is just laying there wounded as he meets Hawkins -- Drake getting defeated off-screen is still pretty damn unfortunate -- but the two then discuss about how Hawkins' cards should've told him that he was going to be safe. Hawkins then talks about how he didn't have the pride to stick with Kid back when Kaido first attacked them... and now, he has enough pride to not 'come back crawling to Kid'. It's... it's a bit interesting, and it does flesh out Hawkins a bit more. We do get a revelation (in actual opposition to what the anime says!) that Hawkins reveals that the 1%-fate-man was actually himself. 

And then he slumps to the ground as he bleeds out of his back. And... normally I wouldn't say that he's dead, but he is an antagonist, we do get a pretty neat wrap-up of his (yes, under-utilized) character and... this chapter also kills two other characters? Even if Hawkins ends up being relevant in the future I don't think it's going to be a particularly big role. Bit of a shame, since I really did enjoy his Devil Fruit and he was actually my second-favourite Supernova introduced in Sabaody. It is a nice enough end, though.

Speaking of Hawkins, we really still don't get any definite conclusion on what happened to Big Mom, Kaido, King, Queen, the Tobiroppo and the other villains. I'm sure they're not dead, but it is interesting that the manga is still keeping their fates ambiguous for now. 

We get a couple more pages of the citizens of Wano reacting after a week since the Onigashima raid. A nice callback to the beginning of Wano is a new teacher teaching in Sarahebi's class, and teaching the kids of the actual real history about Oden and reverting their Orochi-heavy propaganda.... which... I'll just quote Doflamingo that 'the victors write history'. Yes, as third-person readers we know that the Oden stuff is actually the unadulterated truth, but this is an interesting commentary on how history and propaganda actually does work IRL. 

In Ringo, we get Kin'emon and Kawamatsu hanging out on the 'eternal shrine' of Ryuma, and they talk about how they're going to put Oden to rest there, surrounded with all of his fallen allies -- Yasuie, Ashura Doji and Izo. Marco also shows up to mourn his fallen ally, and talks melancholically about how another good friend of his has passed on. 

(Also, good boy Onimaru gets a bit of a cameo! Good boy, that Onimaru!)

And... well, at least we do finish Wano with some character death. Admittedly, Ashura Doji and Izo aren't particularly well-developed characters. Out of the Nine Scabbards, Ashura Doji probably had one very strong moment, which was the moment of him showing the graves of all the people who died during the twenty years... before really not contributing all that much to the story. It's just that... his death was also kind of... not that great of a death? He jumps on a bomb and kind of just fizzles out in that chapter named after him, and everyone wasn't sure if he died because it's a bomb instead of an epic moment (i.e. when Kaido stabbed Kin'emon, or when he bashed all nine Scabbards to the ground on the roof). Izo... Izo died to an offscreen fight, but he at least had a pretty badass pre-asskicking one-liner and he got to presumably kill Maha or whoever that CP-0 guy is called. It's just that... I don't know. I am definitely very happy that we're not doing the Fairy Tail move of having everyone survive after getting grievous wounds throughout a supposed war arc, but it is kind of vexing that the actual deaths happen in conflicts that felt a lot more ambiguous. 

We then cut to the Flower Capital, where Luffy and Zoro finally wakes up after sleeping for a while. No real severe backlash from Gear Fifth or Zoro meeting the grim reaper, although the former might be just damage that accumulates to the end of the story, while the latter might be addressed later? It would be really lame if the reaper thing isn't at least addressed a bit. 

Anyway, Luffy and Zoro eat meat and drink booze, Momonosuke summons them for a banquet, and there's a funny joke of none of them recognizing Momonosuke after his age-up. We get the joke that the fandom kind of speculated was going to happen -- of adult Momonosuke trying to do the boob-thing with Nami and getting bashed because of it. Sanji and Brook get the most hilarious shit-eating grins on their faces that Momo has lost his 'privilege'. 

We also get a cute little moment of Yamato showing up and putting a plate on Momonosuke's head to make him mimic Oden, and throughout the chapter everyone's been pointing out how 'sturdy' Momo's body is. 

Speaking of which, it is played up as a lead-in to the hot springs scene, but Nami and Jinbe explain that people of Wano have a custom of having prayers, giving up certain things until their prayers are answered by the gods. Yamato gave up eating and bathing until Luffy and Zoro recovered. Now it is a cute little thing, but with how jam-packed this chapter is, it's admittedly a weird bit of world-building to be snuck in here... unless you remember that Admiral Ryokugyu is first shown to us and told that he hasn't eaten for years. Is he from Wano, then, and is he holding a vigil for something?

We also get a resolution to Sanji's suicide pact with Zoro, and it's just played up as a joke. And... I think I'm fine with that. I would've preferred to see a version of this conflict where it's played up for drama and for angst and all that, but I do like that Sanji's 'no longer myself' character arc is resolved on his own without any input from outside sources. 

And then we have the huge bath scene, and good god the amount of confused people online is hilarious. Yamato joins the guys' bath, while Kiku takes a bath with the women's side. It's really kind of hilarious to see the sheer amount of drama this ended up causing online, but of course it does.

We cut to the port to see Usopp and Franky have missed out on the bathing to work on the ships, and Franky also offhandedly rebuilt the Franky Shogun. I expected an upgrade to BF-39, but... okay. Bepo and Killer are amazed at the giant robot, while the Kid and Law pirate crews are discussing about how information is going to leak. And just like he's been waiting for his opportunity to do something, Apoo (who is somehow alive and uninjured) shows up with a bunch of papers, all but confirming that he was the one leaking information to the world. I guess that is the reason why Oda needed to keep him around and conscious to the end? I don't know, I feel like having him actually be taken out and wounded by Zoro or Drake or whoever would've still worked. 

We don't quite get bounties this chapter yet, and that's kind of a cliffhanger, but Apoo talks about how he's got all the new bounties... and the new 'Emperors of the Sea'.

And then the last two panels show some goober with an Admiral jacket and a plant sticking out of his back helicoptering along to Wano... and this is Ryokugyu, arguing with Akainu over the den-den mushi as he has entered Wano, and Akainu is all angry and tells Ryokugyu that he's not to do anything unnecessary lots of speculation  about Ryokugyu's role and motivations, why he (apparently) felt the need to hack into CP-0's communique, the association with his 'vigil' and that of the newly-introduced Wano custom... all we can agree is that he's a plant-based Devil Fruit user, right?

Anyway, a pretty damn great chapter. Lots of laughs, lots of callbacks, a lot of really hype-building for the next chapter and the next arc, and it's kind of interesting to really discuss how this arc has handled death. And there's that whole Robin issue to think about, too.... 

Random Notes:

• Oda's going to take a break for one month after chapter 1053 to plan out for the 'final saga'. It does mean no One Piece for a month, but I'm actually going to be pretty busy for July, so it actually worked out pretty good for my schedule!
• The cover page has Caesar Clown (still with his 'Gangster Gastino' hair) encounter the Germa siblings. Apparently he failed to get away. Caesar, you nincompoop, you could turn into gas. How... how difficult was it to get away? No, seriously.
• Hiyori totally drop-kicks Momonosuke, although both of them as an adult. It's a joke that we all expected to happen. 
• There's also an off-handed joke about Hiyori totally taking advantage of the situation and constantly giving the unconscious Zoro and Luffy baths. Sanji got super offended at that. 
• Ryokugyu with that helicopter flower really does give me Doraemon vibes. If you know, you know.
• Kiku still is missing one arm. With her wearing a kimono for most of her scenes and being bandaged up in the bath scene, it took me a while to realize that. 
• Inbi, the Satan-looking Number, despite last seen fighting with Apoo, is apparently happy enough to hang out with him and carry him around. 
• Along with Robin being MIA, Inuarashi is also not around. I think Denjiro and Raizo are also MIA?