Let's Play Pokemon Violet, Part 3: Crystal Modes and Class 1-A

A bit of a longer couple of sessions for me this time around, though it's mostly just exploration. I did walk around more in the... it's not exactly 'wild area', isn't it? It's literally just the open world. I haven't gotten the opportunity to meet any particularly new Pokemon since then. But most of my exploration this time around is more about the central Mesagoza City. 

Nemona fight me again with her Sprigatito and her Pawmi, and she shows off this generation's equivalent to Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, Dynamax/Gigantamax... which is... Terastrallization! It's a combination of terra and crystallization, I think. Astral might be in it? Regardless, compared to the previous three, I've gone on record in saying that it looks the most phoned-in and probably the most stupid-looking generational gimmick. And, yes, I'm comparing it to the one where the trainer has to do a little dance before activating the super-move; or to the one where Pokemon just go big. 

Anyway, from what I gather, each Pokemon has a 'Tera Type' that determines what type they will become when they Terastrallize, and that is going to be something that certain event or raid Pokemon have unique versions of. It's like how some Pokemon specimens can arbitrarily access the Gigantamax forms, while some can only go Dynamax. It's just a way to force even more sub-unique variants of the Pokemon. Like this Flying-Tera-Type balloon Pikachu that I get from the mystery gift for playing this game pretty early. 

Anyway, the resulting Terastrallization just makes the Pokemon glow with a crystal-like texture, then a big-ass ugly-ass thing just sprouts out of their head. For Pawmi's case, it's a big-ass lightbulb. He doesn't get to do anything, though, because Pooper the Paldean Wooper Mud Shots it to death. 

...if you can't tell, I really don't think much about Terastrallization. Sorry for the old man rant. I will say one thing, though. At least it doesn't look as obnoxious as Dynamax does, and in essence I do kinda feel like it's a bit of a cross between Z-Moves and Dynamax since it relies more on just making a move get some extra STAB.

Nemona motor-mouths about how she's going to help me get my hands on a Tera Orb or whatever the plot device is to allow me to Terastrallize. So at least we're not going to drag our feet getting this ability in-game, at least... something that, again, thanks to my indifference, I'm very happy to just get over and done with. I do find it rather... interesting that it's all but spelled out that Nemona's pulling some strings and using her clout to give us access to this super-rare ability.

Which, again, leaves me to access Mesagoza City. It's a big campus-town, and there's a whole lot of NPC's and shops. It's probably the biggest town in a 3D Pokemon game by volume, though content-wise... I'm not sure if it's just because I haven't reached the university at this point, or if it's just a big, spread-out sequence of generic NPC's and shops? There is also a disappointing lack of side-quests and random events like traders or whatever, which does make all the random NPC's feel especially hollow. 

I do like the shops, though. It's all basically just variations of the ice cream shop I met in Los Platos; with food that give you temporary effects. But there are cafes, all-you-can-eat grills, seafood restaurants, fake Subway stores... a lot of great artwork for the food, too, which makes me hungry. In the main square before we walk up the big staircase that leads to the giant Hogwarts-esque campus are a bunch of clothing store, each specializing in a specific part of the player character's outfit. Hats, glasses, bags, socks, shoes... I do want some regular clothes to replace since all four of the uniform presets are kinda dorky-looking, but no such luck yet. 

The music for Mesagoza is pretty nice. There's a point with a giant staircase that leads me to be able to walk around the rooftops, and I can jump off and break my fall with Rotom. That's cute!

At this point I'm also able to call a cab -- similar to the Corviknight taxis from Sword/Shield -- to fast travel to certain 

And as I walk up the gigantic staircase that Nemona keeps pointing out to be 'legendary' and 'tiring' (and it looks tiring), I get to see a girl with a big-ass fluffy jacket and a cute Eevee bag get harassed by our villains. Team Star! Who are hooligans that are very persuasive at trying to fill their quota and harassing people to join them. Shy, quiet girl with Todoroki hair isn't taking any of their shit, and I'm also unaware of who these people are.

The first grunt tosses out a Shroodle at me, who gets dunked immediately. Nemona comes in and... gets pissed that I'm battling with people other than her, since she'll battle with me anytime, anywhere... yeah, you're very possessive about this specific thing, aren't you, Nemona? The Team Star grunts are a bit terrified of her, and would rather take their chances with me. Anyway, she gives me the Tera-Crystal-Orb-Item whatchamacallit, and I Terastrallize my Fuecoco, who gains a big-ass candle on his head. A glittery, glassy ember that blows up the Yungoos. 

Team Star's even dorkier than previous evil teams, and to be honest I really do hope that they actually do act a bit more hooligan-ish. I do like them making a star symbol with their arms, and their catchphrase of 'hasta la vistar', but... otherwise, they just feel like brats instead of an actual evil team. Which I guess fits with the school setting!

What is a banger is the Team Star theme, which is awesome! Shame that they lasted so short since we fight them for, what, half a minute? Bah.

Anyway, I climb up the stairs. The music for the city gets a lot more enthusiastic as I do so, which is a nice touch! 

There is a brief conversation with Director Clavell, where he tells me that I'm apparently not supposed to fight and deal with the Team Star hooligans myself. There's school staff to take care of them. It's a neat sense of realism that I've been seeing in a lot more media where... yeah, it's cool to have your protagonists be in school and whatnot. You still really don't want to encourage them to pick fights with hooligans, even if the characters in the work of fiction will still be confronting them. Or something like that.

Anyway, I get sorted to class 1-A. Some real strong My Hero Academia energy here, though Todoroki-haired girl (she's called Penny, according to Clavell) isn't in 1-A. Our homeroom teacher is Mr. Jacq, a guy with a whole lot of purple outfit to him. He's pretty chill-looking and I can see him hanging out with, like, Professor Kukui or something. There are a bunch of classes available to take, and he's apparently a biology teacher? We get a map shown to us afterwards, with options showing the locations I can visit. Class 1A, Staff Room, Cafeteria... very Persona 5, actually! 

So I do what any student will do, and go off to the cafeteria. Pretty nice, small map that is a nice change considering how large the main Uva Academy or the Mesagoza city maps are. There's a lot of cute little conversations going on in the background, including a cute one where there's a Rotom hanging out next to a microwave and one of the cooks talks about Heat Rotom. 

Hanging out in the cafeteria is Arven, the mysterious guy that gave me Miraidon's ball. He apparently normally wouldn't come to school, which... only in fantasy schools does that not get you expelled. He talks about how he's normally about the picnic life, but now he wants my help for his dream. He wants to look for something called a Herba Mystica, but to do so he has to go into areas where there are Titan Pokemon. (Not to be confused with Alpha Pokemon, or Totem Pokemon, or Gigantamax Pokemon) There are five titans for me to meet -- the False Dragon (Charizard???), Quaking Earth, Open Sky, Lurking Steel and Stony Cliff.

Arven even shows off like a book about one such Titan Pokemon, which is a gigantic Donphan of unusual size and... I love the sketch-like artwork of Donphan that makes him look so much more threatening. The 'wheel' part of Donphan ends up looking like it's a detached piece, the horns look bloodsoaked and its feet look more like Dialga's feet than Donphan's. There's a very strong 'notes of doomed explorers' vibe to this thing (apparently people got mortally wounded by this giant elephant!), and it's actually kind of a fun little mood-setter. 

This sets up the Path of Legends... quest chain? Is this what it is? I was informed a bit that there's going to be multiple questlines to go through not too dissimilar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and it's up to me what to choose. I just thought it was all going to revolve around the gym challenge, but I guess there's others to do!

As I leave the cafeteria, some lady called Cassiopeia hacked my Rotom-phone. Rotom Phones can be hacked? She talks about Team Star, noting that they are a group of troublemakers formed by academy students a while back, and she wants to recruit me to go for Operation Starfall to disband them. I don't quite get a questline startup as I did with Arven and Nemona later on, but it's an interesting part as I think I'm just being given a whole bunch of quests at this point in time. 

Interestingly, Director Clavell walks up to me and tells me to keep my voice down when I'm making phone calls in school, because he wouldn't want anyone to overhear any suspicious, sensitive personal information. He then mumbles a bit about Team Star. So is he actually somehow connected to Team Star or something? It's weird that the director would be saying it, but he did tell Nemona and myself to not bother with Team Star and leave it to the school staff.

Anyway, I go into the staff room where I get to see a lady in an impeccable suit and a gigantic hair talk to Nemona. Also spread across the staff room are a bunch of teachers with unique or quasi-unique models, so I'm going to assume that this is a bit of a cameo of the teachers I'll be meeting in the future. The lady leaves, and Nemona introduces this lady as La Primera. Apparently students can reach the 'Champion' rank, but La Primera is the champion-among-champions, I guess? I have to clear all eight Pokemon gyms in the region, before going through the Champion Assessment. 

Very cool way to handle the gym challenge, actually, and just like Sword/Shield having the football league cup thing going on, it does make the gym challenge a bit more... interesting, so to say. 

As the promotional materials have kind of promised, all eight gyms are available to challenge from the get-go, and Nemona just instantly gives me a list of the eight cities with the eight gyms. Medali with Normal, Cascarrafa with Water, Cortondo with Bug, Alfornada with Fairy, Montenevera with Ghost, Glaseado with Ice, Levincia with Electric and Artazon with Grass. One of the gym leaders have a strong Giovanni energy, with his head turned away from us. 

Appropriately, this challenge/quest chain is called Victory Road. Cute.

I then get called to the Director's Office, and Clavell wants to have a serious discussion with one of his friends. Which, of course, is Professor Futurepants himself, Professor Turo, his impeccable facial hair and his bizarre Tron spacesuit. Yeah, he's future-themed all right, and he's hanging out in Area Zero, the great crater of Paldea. We previously heard about Area Zero from Arven when he was talking about the Titan Pokemon, and... I just love the visual imagery of an ominous crater with a tiny little scientific base to the side. It has very strong Burning Crusade vibes to it for all my World of Warcraft homies out there. 

Also, I'm going to say it's rather obvious that Area Zero is going to be the Eternatus equivalent as the plot device that's causing everything weird in Paldea, except properly foreshadowed in the story itself. Miraidon, in his adorable four-legged-dragon mode, pops out of the Pokeball, and seems to recognize Professor Turo. And a bit bamboozled by the fact that he's a face on the screen. Turo tells us that he was the previous owner of Miraidon, tells me to take care of it while Miraidon fully regains his capabilities for mobility. 

I mean, I guess that's another sidequest, too? Restore the cover legendary to full health? It is a very interesting way, again, to make the cover legendary have a major presence in the story and make him feel like a companion instead of this guy that shows up at the end. Sun/Moon did it best by having Nebby be an NPC that hangs around us, but it's not really the same when we see him as a Cosmog and later as a Solgaleo/Lunala, right? Sword/Shield tried another method where Zacian/Zamazenta shows up briefly in the prequel and later shows up in the third act to support us, but that's not really the same, is it? 

Anyway, Miraidon obviously comes from Area Zero, and both Turo and Clavell have some ominous, suspicious connection with each other with Clavell ominously going 'did you really do it, Turo?'

Nemona brings me to my dorm room, and we talk a bit about living in school. It's a fancy-ass dorm room with a kitchen and everything! I do wonder if I'll be able to customize my dorm room like a Ruby/Sapphire secret base or something?

Rather bizarrely, then, we have a time-skip! I guess I was supposed to take those maths and biology classes before I talked to Arven and Nemona, then? I was a bit worried that I was going to miss some of these content, but I guess this isn't Persona 5, and I didn't just permanently miss some content. 

Anyway, I go to the schoolyard where my whole batch is assembled before Clavell, who talks about the 'treasure hunt' independent learning. It's a very vague, almost One Piece-y spiel about how everyone can find their own treasure to deepen their understanding of the world. I do appreciate the showcase of different parts of the land of Paldea, though, and I guess it's another one of the main story quests -- our term project or whatever. It's neat, and there's a huge sequence of people heading out with their... Cyclizars? Apparently Cyclizar is literally a budget version of Miraidon and Koraidon! I wonder, then, if Miraidon and Koraidon are to Cyclizar what Diancie is to the Carbinks? Two species that are connected to each other, but they can't evolve into each other in-game?

Clavell, again, warns against any of the students travelling near the Great Crater of Paldea, which is illegal and super-dangerous. Hmm, is he hiding something? I've watched enough anime to kinda get that vibe off of Clavell. 

Afterwards, a short scene later shows Nemona, Arven and even Cassiopeia (in her hacked Rotom Phone) fight over me and asking me to do this or that quest chain first. It's at this point that Cassiopiea gives me the five bases of Team Star, each of which represents a type (Fairy, Fire, Dark, Fighting, Poison) and I do realize that the 8 gyms, 5 titans and 5 stars end up representing the full type circle. I didn't even realize that! Good show, Nintendo. 

Also, in response to the mention to a sandwich in the dialogue, Miraidon pops up and gets super excited and subsequently disappointed. Miraidon is now unlocked! Miraidon is basically a half-transformer in this mode, with his lizard legs unfurled and untucked when he's standing still, but then retracting it flush against its body as I drive around and the thigh-thrusters unleashes some exhaust to push me along. It's very nice to let me move around the large overworld. Miraidon is also able to jump by pressing B, unleashing the power of lizard legs. I still am not the biggest fan of Miraidon, but since clearly the game does want me to basically have my huge exploration tool (the Bicycle equivalent) be a Pokemon, I am a fan of how it's integrated into gameplay, if it makes sense. And for all my bitching of the design of Miraidon and Koraidon, they look a whole sight better than the Galar Bike. 

And, well... I'm not going to any of these major quests yet, though I personally would probably go for either the gym challenge or the titan quest personally. No, the gigantic school hall is open to me -- I still haven't explored the entrance hall and its ginormous grand library, I haven't taken the biology/math/battle classes available to me, and apparently there are like around twelve new areas in the school that is open to me. Not sure what I'll do next, but I sure have a lot of options!

Random Notes

• I've finally taken a look at the map as a whole and it does have a very interesting layout! It's probably one of my favourite layouts in any RPG game where you get introduced to a big, central 'base' area early on and you slowly branch out all around you and explore the world. 
  
• When I fight the second grunt in front of the school, the first grunt goes through a cheerleading animation. That's cute. 
  
• More random older Pokemon I met outside the city! Sunkern! Surskit!
• I didn't have too much of a problem with frames dropping in this game, but boy those students in 1-A waving their legs when Jacq introduces me to the class really was noticeable. 
• Not exactly connected to Pokemon, but I also bought Persona 5 Royal. I do plan to play it after Pokemon, but it's a long-ass game and it's going to be the subject of the next huge 'Reviewing Monsters' segment over the next year -- the way I did Final Fantasy 7 and 13 before. 
• In Scarlet, instead of Professor Turo, I would've gotten Professor Sada, who's a cavewoman with a labcoat. 
• Clavell's office has a neat showcase of the Scarlet/Violet aesthetic. He's got a bunch of displays of old fossils and rocks, but the other half of his office has some state-of-the-art fancy lab equipment. 

Let's Play Pokemon Violet, Part 2: Motorbike Dragon vs. Hellhound

So last we left off, I was on a cliff overlooking a fallen Miraidon. The cutscenes later on make it a lot more clear that we've got certain... modes, if you will, to this legendary Pokemon. It's somewhat similar to how Zekrom, Reshiram, Solgaleo and Lunala all have 'modes'... if you call having parts of your body shine a bit brighter as a 'mode change', anyway. With Miraidon, it's a bit more obvious since a lot of the yellow lightning parts are actually retracted. The tail, the giant lightning-bolt eyebrow-horn things, and the fact that it's walking around on all fours like a robot dragon instead of hovering the way it does in the cover art. 

And... well, I definitely am happy that I picked Miraidon for one particular fact -- its eyes are digital. Or, well, made out of dots. I'm not the biggest fan of the questionable decision of integrating the region's gimmick of a motorbike companion Pokemon and have its throat be a giant wheel, but at least for the future-themed Miraidon it looks a lot more... understandable that this dragon has Transformer parts. Its Scarlet counterpart Koraidon just looks utterly messy, with cool primal feathers and head-whips, but a goddamn wheel lodged in its throat.

Anyway, my character falls off the cliff and nearly breaks a bone, if not for a hilarious yet ridiculous animated cutscene where the Rotom phone flies up, and I can use the floating little electric gremlin to break my fall. Okay!

I give the wounded Miraidon Mom's Sandwich, which is in my key items, and this legendary purple cyborg dragon likes it so much that it powers back up, and basically beckons me to follow it into the nearby cave, the Inlet Grotto. Nemona ends up seeing me and Miraidon walk into it from the top of the grotto, and we basically make our way through it. 

There are a couple of Yungoos wandering around this area, but a Houndoom is part of the background overlooking us. And then in a cutscene, like an entire horde of Houndours show up! There's like, ten or twelve or so, which is actually a fair amount more than I thought the Switch could render, especially considering Sword/Shield. Also, unlike Sword/Shield's alleged 'improvements' to the 3DS models, it's particularly obvious with Houndour and Houndoom how they actually did actually take time to render fur texture on these doggies as compared to how they looked in previous 3D games. 

Miraidon helps to scare a bunch of the Houndours away, but then Houndoom shows up with the horde again. The level 40 Houndoom faces off against my poor level 9 Fuecoco, and obviously I get one-shotted with... is it Roar that Houndoom did? That'd explain why Fuecoco returns to my Pokeball, actually. 

Miraidon charges in and knocks the Houndoom away with its tail, and when I get cornered by three Houndours, it just picks me up like a sack of potatoes and flies up out of the cave to meet Nemona. Very cool cutscene, and, yeah, sure it's pre-rendered and everything, but it really does surprise me just how much the main legendary is being integrated into the story this early on. It's something that Pokemon has definitely been doing in recent generations, but with how hands-off Arceus was in Legends: Arceus and how Zacian/Zamazenta just had a brief prologue role before disappearing, they really don't have the personal connection that this game's story is building with Miraidon. 

Miraidon collapses and reverts to its unpowered state again, and Nemona apparently compares Miraidon to a Pokemon like a 'Cyclizar'... is that a legendary or a non-legendary one? I actually am having loads of fun not knowing everything about a Pokemon game for once!

We then walk up and meet a guy called Arven, who Nemona identifies as the son of the Pokemon Professor Poco. Arven has... cute eyelashes and fancy hair. He's a bit pissed off at being constantly remembered as 'the professor's kid', and of course he's also enrolled in my school. He's apparently related to Miraidon in some way, gets flustered because Miraidon's not in its true form (which is, of course, the cover form) and fights me with a Skwovet to determine if I'm worthy to be Miraidon's trainer. 

...and he just gives me Miraidon's Pokeball right after that, though Miraidon doesn't actually join my party. He's just... treated as a key item, I guess? 

Nemona brings me up to the lighttower to show off the city of Mesagoza where the gigantic, castle-like Uva Academy is at, before pointing out a typical first town, Los Platos. 

And the route there has trainers! A couple of Youngsters, and... it's such a bizarre inversion to the typical Pokemon game, but it kind of makes sense that this would be how they get around the problem of a trainer walking up to you in a 3D game and freezing you in place. No, in Paldea, you walk up to the trainer and talk to them! I'm the one with the "!" on top of my head now, I suppose! That's pretty cute. 

Also, I can walk around a lot more here, with routes that feel a lot more expansive in-between towns. Sorry, XY, Sun/Moon and 75% of Sword/Shield. This is what a 3D Pokemon route is supposed to be. Lots of familiar faces, with Psyducks, Buizels and Azurills populating the nearby rivers, and Igglybuffs and Hoppips wandering around. After wandering out of town a bit more, I find some Pichus and Bonslys -- a bit surprising since they were so fucking rare in Legends Arceus. But there are a lot of new faces, too!

Like... Pawmi! An Electric-type Pokemon that I feel is the Pika-clone of the generation. It's got pads that constantly discharges forepaws, which is why they are large! Then there is the bread dog Fidough, which is a Fairy-type. I'm not the biggest fan of either of these designs, but they're pretty competent early-route Pokemon. Mostly I'm just kinda happy to get a Pawmi after trying to find it in the first route in the game. Fidough might stay, though. He's a good boy. 

I also get to meet the waddling Paldean Wooper, a Ground/Poison Pokemon. And... man, it's such a simple but obvious change, making Wooper a lot more mud-based compared to its previous self, but I think Paldean Wooper might be one of my favourite regional variants ever? The axolotl antennae now forming crossbones is a great little detail, too. Which means, if you're keeping track, I do have a full party of Fuecoco, Tarountula, Paldean Wooper ("Pooper"!), Lechonk, Fidough and Pawmi, all Paldean Pokemon. 

Then I walk up to Los Platos, where Nemona introduces me to the new Pokemon Center, which takes the place of a massive stand with three booths. A Pokemart, a Pokemon Center, and a TM machine. The TM's are created out of all these loot I've been taking from the fallen Pokemon, and Nemona gives me a whole bunch of new loot, too. I don't think I really care about TM's until we get to the Flamethrowers and Ice Beams, but it's a nice little way to integrate a loot system without going through a 'craft most of your items' way that Legends: Arceus had. Getting the TM's in the overworld basically unlocks the 'recipe' into making more of them in the PC, which is interesting. There're also two currencies. Regular Poke-dollars and League Points? Okay.

There's also the Union Square, which I don't think I can do anything with without an online subscription. And I'm not interested in running around with people in my world anyway to be honest, so.

The people of Paldea are, evidently, a lot more secure in keeping their houses. All the doors to the buildings here are locked, and I can't just wily-nily get into everyone's houses and raid them for useful items. 

I also started experimenting a bit more with the buttons on the Switch. "R" just sends my lead Pokemon out to battle and auto-battle the enemies out there, though I think it's just an instant fight to basically hard-farm for EXP, and the tutorial page does all but confirm that the level difference is what's going to determine this. "Y" brings up my Pokedex and Minimap, "X" is the typical Pokemon party menu with the bag and save option there too. "B" gets me to crouch and slide. I can move the camera around fully with the right joystick.

The arrow buttons are a bit more interesting. Top arrow just gives me a set amount of random emotes/poses I can do which I assume matters more in multiplayer. The right arrow is notices (which does nothing) and the left arrow... is clothes! I don't need to go to a damned boutique to change my clothes anymore! I get a bunch of basic outfits, like the spring/summer/autumn/winter uniform, as well as the option to ditch the ugly hat and to wear some glasses. That's neat. The bottom arrow is a camera mode, including a selfie option. Okay, that's kinda funny, I guess. 

I walk around Los Platos, mostly, and... there's a bunch of typical NPC's, and there's an ice cream store that sells ice creams... including TERIYAKI ice cream. What the fuck? These give certain effects I think comparable to the O-Powers in XY, but they are expensive so no ice cream for me yet. 

Now Pawmi and Fidough are both Pokemon that are a bit more heavily featured in some of the trailers. I confess I don't remember much about them, but they're at least vaguely familiar. Wandering on the other side of town, I found my second new Paldea Pokemon... Shroodle! A Poison/Normal... rat-thing? Uh... the game calls it a 'toxic mouse', but its anatomy... I guess it looks like a mouse if you squint? It apparently paints markings around its nest with poisonous liquid. So poison piss! Okay! I don't really care for Lechonk, so Shroodle replaces it. 

Anyway, I'm supposed to head to the university, but I'm having way too much fun just.. wandering around and fighting and taking in the sights. Very neat, and I'm basically catching any new species I come across. Yeah, even moreso than Legends Arceus, this is going to be a game where I really run around and wander around and just catch Pokemon and gather items and ignore the story for days at a time, I see...

Random Notes:

• There have been some complaints about graphical performance, and... the only times I really noticed was the town, where the walking NPC's in the background do... suddenly turn jittery if I walk a certain distance away from them. 
• At one point Nemona gets baffled at Miraidon breaking a giant rock, asking what move that is. Gee, I don't know... Rock Smash, I guess? 
  
• By dint of being such an open-world with exploration as the main focus, I do appreciate that the leveling isn't that drastic and that the experience point gain has been severely nerfed, in order to facilitate you not progressing too fast with auto-battling. 
• Nurse Joy, or whatever Paldean Nurse Joy is called, is the typical J-RPG 'I will give you a hint where to go next', since this is an open-world game. 
• Not part of the normal buttons, but like all 3DS games, spinning around the movement stick gets my character to pirouette in place. 
• I pick the Winter Uniform. I just wanted something with long pants, and the Spring Uniform has those suspenders that make me look like an extra-dork with the glasses. The jacket in the winter uniform is neat. 
• The Pokedex all having unique images and being structured like a CD/book-shelf did catch me a bit off-guard when I first saw it, but it is an interesting aesthetic if nothing else. 
• It is kind of a jarring experience from Legends Arceus to go back to a game where I just have to catch a Pokemon once and potentially be done with it for the rest of the game if I don't want to use it at all. 
• There is a pond with Surskit, but it's a bit too deep and I just have to quickly scramble out of the water if I drop into the pond, and I can't throw Pooper that far. So... no Surskit for me yet. 

One Piece 1067 Review: The Iron Giant

One Piece, Chapter 1067: Punk Records

This is going to be a shorter chapter, mostly because... well, a lot of it is just confirmation and exploration of things that the fandom have been speculating and guessing from the previous chapters. We get an explanation of the nature of Vegapunk and his satellites, as well as why his brain/head is ginormously huge. Vegapunk ate the gloriously punny Nomi Nomi no Mi, the Brain-Brain Fruit, which allows him perfect recall and storage of knowledge to complement his already intelligent mentality. 

There is a brief discussion about Vegapunk wanting to make some sort of terrifying Neon Genesis Evangelion 'all minds as one' mentality with his Punk Records -- which houses his now hangar-sized brain -- and how all the satellite bodies and even this current body are all connected to the true brain with antenna signals. There's a brief discussion of a very common topic in science-related manga, with Vegapunk wanting the progression of science with his mind-fusion hivemind idea just to gain and share information, while Jinbe points out that forcing everyone to share the same mindspace will lead to trouble with all the different ideologies in the world. Unregulated internet, after all, just leads to a lot of trolling and hate speech instead of this uber-idealized sharing of information Vegapunk proposes.

Bonney pulls out her lightsaber and tries to murder Vegapunk, but we get the revelation that it's defective... because it attracts insects, which causes Bonney to faint. We also get the confirmation to the years-long brick joke that Vegapunk considers Momonosuke's artificial devil fruit to be a failure solely because of the colour, 

Much more interesting is the talk about the ancient robot, which apparently attacked Mary Geoise not 900 years ago (which is the Void Century, and also when the robot was built), but rather... 200 years ago. A lot more recent! Apparently, it reached up to Mary Geoise and allegedly ran out of power before it could cause too much damage. But obviously that sound like a bit of a fabrication. The giant robot was taken and hidden by scientists of the time to Egghead, and passed down from scientist to scientist without the World Government's knowledge. 

Interestingly, 200 years ago... as Robin pointed out, the event that happened there was the World Government accepting the Fishman Island into their ranks, finally considering fishmen as sentient beings instead of fishes. It's always a bit of an oddity why the jackass World Government would do this, and whether the Fishmen sicced the Iron Giant and intimidated the World Government, or if the Fishmen saved the World Government... it's going to be an interesting story. Climbing the Red Line, of course, is also reminiscent of what Fischer Tiger did. Shaka points out to Team Robin that he couldn't replicate the power source of the Iron Giant, which ties to the power source discussion from the previous chapter. 

The real Vegapunk talks about how he's done a terrible thing to Bonney, then asks Luffy if he could bring him away from Egghead. CP-0 has killed one of the Sea Beasts cyborgs, and is asking for permission to dock... something that Shaka denies with full knowledge that this would lead to a battle. Interestingly, Lilith was ready to hand over the Straw Hats, and I wonder if this will lead to Lilith siding with the World Government? I also like the brief acknowledgement that a lot of the Straw Hats do remember Rob Lucci and have strong opinions against him.

In Kamabakka, the original Kuma starts moving. Lindbergh is apparently working on Kuma and we get to see just how much of a cyborg he is, with metal pipes and shit connected to his heart. And he's moving. I wonder what the trigger for this is. Is Vegapunk recalling him? Or did he hear Lucci's offhanded remark about eliminating Bonney on sight from the Seraphim-Kuma? Are all the Kumas connected? 

Mostly setup chapter, but a neat, fun one. 

Random Notes:

• The cover story is still continuing! I thought it's over! Judge doesn't remember Caesar Clown at all and prepares to fight him. 
• So Vegapunk's giant head is thanks to the Nomi Nomi no Mi. RIP Long-Head race theories, I guess. 
• A very funny joke with Vegapunk talking about 'clones' and Luffy immediately goes "holy shit, you're a ninja!?"
• The giant robot chamber was actually hidden. Luffy and co. just stumbled onto it because they are idiots. 
• The Kuma Seraphim now has the right white hair, when in its first appearance it was miscoloured as black. 

Let's Play Pokemon Violet, Part 1: Welcome to Paldea

So it's another year, and another Pokemon generation! Hey, I actually completed Legends: Arceus in time! I was rather worried that I wasn't going to actually be able to finish that game before Scarlet and Violet came out, thanks to a lot of real-life events getting in the way, but I did finish Arceus and had a decent gap between the end of that game and the start of this one. 

So yeah, as usual, this is going to be my typical text-based rambling playthrough as I go through Pokemon Violet.

I pre-ordered my game and got it on the day of worldwide release, which is 18th November, so yeah, I'm excited! I didn't really get too much into the game, but these first episodes tend to ramble on and on anyway. 

I have been wholly and entirely unspoiled about anything about this game other than the very first trailer. Which means that other than the starters, the cover legendaries, some early-promotional Pokemon and that one Diglett regional variant that became a meme, I know absolutely nothing about this game. I can guess from the design of the version-exclusive professors and legendaries that Scarlet is themed in the past and Violet is themed in the future, or something along those lines? I was always going to choose Violet because I like purple more, but the legendary does look a lot neater to me. 

Anyway, the beginning of the game! We start off in character creation and... it is admittedly a bit more advanced than the previous game? But I really never cared too much about character customizatoin, least of all in a Pokemon game. I one of the more bitch-basic haircuts, dye my hair brown, and kind of go on to just play the game. I mean, most of the time the character isn't going to do much in terms of expression, and I'm not really the type of player who fusses over eye shape or mouth shape. 

I'm apparently a new transfer student that is enrolled into Paldea's Uva Academy, and... I could describe it scene-by-scene, but I do want to get this out by tonight so it's basically just a university promotional video. Very cool-looking showcase of all the activities done at a Pokemon school as Director Clavell and his little suit with Premier Balls gives the typical 'world of Pokemon' speech, restructured as a welcoming video for any prospective students. Very neat -- and even in this opening montage, we get to see a couple of new Pokemon. There's a weird orange Pikachu-clone-looking species that Clavell shows off to us in the intro, and we get to see a Muk fight against a jet-black regional variant (presumably) of Tauros. 

Uva Academy is basically here to help teach about Pokemon, with a lot of battle and learning activities and... a bunch of neat easter eggs in the background like one of the classes teaching kids about the difference between standard Kantonian Raichu versus the regional variant, Alolan Raichu. 

Then we cut to... a jet Pokemon? Which I think is Miraidon, the Violet version mascot, who's flying around like a jet? Is Miraidon a Transformer? Its eyes sure look digital, but it doesn't look like the serpent-with-wheels-on-the-underside-of-the-neck like the cover art. Is sure flies all throughout the region of Paldea, and we get to take a look at a bunch of other Pokemon -- including a herd of the aforementioned black regional Tauros, some green parrot Pokemon, a flock of flamingoes, and I think another bird Pokemon? Things kind of go quickly, and Miraidon passes through a bunch of windmills and whatnot before crash-landing. 

Cut to the title screen, and my character wakes up at his home, which... as usual in these 3D games, the initial environments are always a labour of love from the designers despite the fact that you get out of it as soon as possible. Some neat details, like the Hoppip avse, a Skwovet plushie and a Croagunk ball, stickers of Applin, Hattenna and Driflooon, CD albums featuring an emo Chewtle... and a whole lot of  artwork, each of which has a name. Paldea Mama is an art connoisseur, I see!

Anyway, thanks to a mix-up with the enrollment documents, Director Clavell of Uva Academy actually show up to give up said documents. Unlike Pokemon's usual standards, there's actually an animation of Clavell handing over the bag, instead of the item handover being off-screen! I am actually impressed at this otherwise rather unnecessary but much appreciated detail. 

Which of course leads to the starter Pokemon choice. I think these Pokemon games really realize that dragging out the starter Pokemon choice any longer than two or three minutes is kind of unintuitive, and Clavell just lobs Sprigatito the weed cat, Quaxly the pompadour duck, and Fuecoco the pac-man dinosaur crocodile thing.

I've always known that I didn't really vibe with Quaxly at all, so it's always down to either Sprigatito, who seems to be a pretty safe design, and Fuecoco and his ridiculous goofy energy. And... for a while, I've never really committed to either one. I think this is probably the first Pokemon region where I didn't have an immediate favourite? 

But here's the thing. Clavell actually tells me to walk with the Pokemon as I go from my house to my rival's house, and... and it's kind of a great way not just to showcase the Pokemon-walking-alongside-you feature of this generation, but also to, y'know, actually show off the starters. And sure, this is typical starting town location -- the idea is that Cabo Poco is a town with a lot of gardens -- but it really is charming to see these guys just waddle and toddle around. Obviously, the Power of Science guy is there in the starter town. Some things can never be changed in Pokemon and this is one of them. 

Very interestingly, after Mama gives me the newest model of the Rotom Phone (we're in the smartphone generation, unfortunately, as much as I yearn for the PDA Pokedexes of the past...) and the UI now has a damn minimap! It's a huge improvement that really does sell how Pokemon is finally trying to embrace 3D worlds. 

A lot of the story at this point is pretty... basic? It's charming, don't get me wrong, but it does feel like something we've seen before in Pokemon games. Clavell is just a pretty kind mentor, and our rival/neighbour/student council president is Nemona and her cool Nube gauntlet-glove thing. There's a pretty cool little detail about how Nemona does have a regular team she usually battles with, but she's deigning to raise one of the starters in order to have the experience of growing alongside me as a rival. 

Nemona has very strong 'friendly Kenpachi' energy, I feel, being a battle freak whose every second sentence goes back to battling. I think I like her a bit more than Hop, for sure. 

And I was around 50/50 about picking Sprigatito, but... Fuecoco actually did kind of steal my heart in the brief five minutes that I ran around with him. Especially that brief animated cutscene where Quaxly's posing with his pompadour and Sprigatito's making some flower petals... while Fuecoco accidentally burns a berry! And as the three of them line up, Quaxly just gives Fuecoco a withering glare that causes the goober to drop the burnt berry in slight disappointment. So... yeah, I really do ended up getting my heart stolen by this fire crocodile.

...how is this a fire crocodile? He looks more like a Pacman Dinosaur. 

Whatever the case, I did end up picking Fuecoco, and... for now, I'm not nicknaming them, unlike my normal playthroughs. I'm still not too familiar with the new Pokemon names since I followed exactly nothing of the pre-release news, and I would like to familiarize myself with these newer Pokemon. I would definitely rename them later, though. 

After the requisite rival battle (Nemona picks Sprigatito, the weaker starter to mine), I wander to her mansion of a house. She has a swarm of Pachirisus, a Chansey, a Gible and a Goomy. And a whole bunch of staff. Some sort of rich lady, I see! And she's got paintings of her own, including my faovurite -- a rather abstractized version of Greninja using Water Shuriken.

Mama gives me a sandwich (which falls into my key items), some potions, and downloads the... Pokedex app? Okay? The characters talk about how in the past, people used to use pen and paper to record Pokedex entries, a cute little nod to Legends Arceus. The Pokedex entry recording is rather interesting. There's like, a 'book' volume being slotted into place? That's interesting. 

Nemona gives me a Pokemon capturing tutorial with a Lechonk, the Normal-type piggy that's all around the promotional artwork. From the context, this is our 'Rattata' or 'Zigzagoon' or 'Skwovet', the early-route... well, I can't call it the early rodent, since it's a pig this time! Don't particularly care about Lechonk, but I did find it cute that Lechonk spurns all but the finest of foods, and the scent it has repels Bug Pokemon. That's a neat subversion to the filthy mucky pigs.

And I get my first encounter with a Pokemon that I... instantly fall in love with. I mean, Fuecoco's cute and all, but TAROUNTULA. It's an adorable spider that hangs on trees, and wraps its abdomen with a literal ball of yarn created from its string. It's got a sad grandpa face and itty-bitty tripod legs that it scuttles around.

This is our early bug. This is our early bug, and it's MINE. I NEED THIS IN MY PARTY. THIS IS MY SPIDER BUDS. 

Okay, yeah, if nothing else, Paldea's given me at least one Pokemon that I really like! This is a good day. 

The open-world is pretty similar to Legends Arceus but not at all identical. It's a lot more traditional, just that the encounters feel a bit more randomized and the tall grass hides the smaller Pokemon like Tarountula, Scatterbug and Fletchling a bit more neatly. There's also an auto-battle function if I toss Fuecoco out, where he'd instantly chomp and burn the Hoppips and Scatterbugs in the way. I love, as with Sword/Shield and Sun/Moon, the great mixture of old and new Pokemon. 

There's also the weird brown... rat... mole... thing that Clavell showed off in the World of Pokemon segment, but despite me being on top of the radar I really can't find where it is. Oh well. 

Anyway, as Nemona get all excited about catching Pokemon (she's great at battling, not catching), a weird, mysterious cry that's most likely Miraidon ends up getting our attention near the lighthouse. That's where I'm stopping off for today, since I'm spending my night just testing out the controls and reading through the Pokedex entries and trying to catch that weird orange fat bunny-rat guy that keeps showing up in my minimap!

 

Random Notes:

• Monster reviews are going very slow because they take a lot of energy to produce. Obviously Pokemon ones will be always priority on this blog. Reviewing the human characters for Legends: Arceus might be delayed a bit because of the fact that there really are a lot of them.
• The uniforms for the academies differ across versions, including the pants of our main character, as well as Clavell and Nemona's outfits. 
• No, I'm not going to do any online content. I still find the fact that you have to pay $4 for a monthly online subscription in addition to paying for the already-expensive Switch cartridge to be absolutely nonsensical. It did really make a lot of the farming in Pokemon Shield feel rather bland to me, yes, but I've always felt like the online features in this series should always be optional instead of shoehorned down our throats.
• In these first couple of parts I'll just be using official artwork, but I'll try to do some screencaps with my Switch. 
• I also bought Persona 5 Royal, and I'll be playing it concurrently with Pokemon Violet. A bit too much for me to let's play both series at once, but I have been looking forward to this game being released on either the Switch or PC (where I game on) for literally years now.
• While I have so far not been spoiled about any of the new designs, a friend did tell me that knowing my personal preferences, I dodged a bullet not picking Sprigatito? I'm not sure the context of that comment, but okay, I have a chompy crocosaurus. 
• Fletchling's dex entry mentions a Pokemon called a Squawkabilly that they fight for territory over, so I assume it's the regional early-route bird!

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War E05 Review: not this weAk

Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 5: Wrath As A Lightning

Another pretty fun episode! This episode basically encapsulates three huge moments from the manga's version of the Wandenreich invasion -- the titular 'wrath as a lightning' with Sasakibe's sendoff, Byakuya's defeat at the hands of As Nodt, as well as Kenpachi's brief but very badass moment. We also wrap up the Hueco Mundo storyline, but that bit always did feel a bit more like an epilogue even in the manga. And instead of going scene-by-scene, because we actually do jump around a lot in this episode I think I'll go subplot-by-subplot.

Ichigo is still trapped in Quilge Opie's 'Jail', and really is unable to do anything but unleash Getsuga Tenshos impotently. It is a factor of the anime format, but I did find that one of the most impactful panels in the manga -- with Ichigo hearing all the Shinigami screaming and dying because of the communications device being connected to his spirit-flip-phone -- to feel a bit less of an oomph in anime format. Yeah, there is still voice acting but it's like... maybe four, five overlapping voices as compared to the claustrophobic full-page spread of voice bubbles in the background. Bit of a shame. 

Also, Quilge Opie, after ranting about how he is "J of the Jail", gets bisected by a mysterious new arrival... which I'm going to spoil here. It's Grimmjow. The secret was drawn out forever in the manga and it was never really worth it. They still keep his identity a secret, but I'm going to say that anyone that's watched the older manga could probably guess that it's big ol' cat-man. 

Speaking of the communications network, we also get a couple ofshort scene of Akon, Rin and Hiyosu in the 12th Division base... when a mind-controlled Jidanbo shows up and starts beating people up. Like Grimmjow, the identity of 'keh keh Quincy' isn't made known for much longer, and... we still don't get to see Pepe Waccabrada's face, but at least we get more than a shoe with pointy-toes, and we get to see his distinctive staff. Neat!

Then let us go through the Byakuya/As Nodt scene yet, because a good chunk of it does happen after the Hueco Mundo subplot is over. As Nodt finally displays his power of fear, and... we get Guinness World Record holder Matsuoka Yoshitsugu as the voice of As Nodt. And... boy, there's a great balance between As Nodt being creepily emotionless but also absolutely enjoying this. As Nodt is such a sick fuck, and... again, I did get pretty sick of his fear monologues in the manga during the rematch, but this sequence of As Nodt just playing with Byakuya like a cat playing with a mouse, noting that his fear abilities strike an experienced warrior like Byakuya much more he's someone that thought that he's conquered fear is pretty damn creepy. A lot of the monologue flow a lot better with As Nodt's creepy voice narrating how it's terrifying to consider every single aspect of what do to in a battle, how it's easy to think that you've conquered a fear with a cause when what As Nodt does is to create a source-less 'true' fear...

And there are the images from the manga all translated beautifully (or terrifyingly) into animation. Like Byakuya seeing the face of Rukia just slough off into a rotten corpse, or the mass of crawling insects consuming Byakuya. But I do think that the most unsettling thing about As Nodt's encounter with Byakuya is just how frantic Byakuya is when he charged in and swung his sword like a lunatic, bereft of all the stoicness we associate with the character. 

And then, of course, As Nodt shows off that he's probably one of the few Sternritter to actually use the Bankai he stole, unleashing Senbonzakura Kageyoshi upon Byakuya. And... man, seeing this scene animated is much more cruel in the anime, yeah? There's a scene of Byakuya toppling after the blood bursts out of him. And then after a brief clash between Renji and As Nodt, Byakuya stands up again... then As Nodt just shoots stream after stream after stream of cherry blossoms at Byakuya's face. 

An addition to this scene that thankfully fixes one of the rather questionable parts of the manga was Rukia running back to try and aid Byakuya. We actually see her attacker, and it's another Sternritter -- Meninas McAllon. In the manga, this attacker is never really made known and it just feels like Rukia just got taken out by a nobody. 

Anyway, Byakuya just got eviscerated as he gets pounded and cratered onto a wall painted black with his blood. Poor Renji is about to go Bankai himself, but in Renji's case this time around I actually understand how emotional and panicked the poor dude is. ...and then Mask De Masculine dropkicks him like halfway through the Seireitei, which just feels needlessly cruel. 

And... again, it is a pretty dark moment, yeah? Byakuya, one of the most favourite characters and one of the most powerful members of the Gotei 13, torn up and seemingly killed. The two people most precious to him, Rukia and Renji, lie beaten on the ground. His sword shatters, and he apologizes to them. Now admittedly... yeah, this was done more for shock value than anything, but I really do think that the final arc would've actually been so much more shocking if they were allowed to kill off characters like Byakuya and Kira here. 

Still, the same emotions that the desperation in the manga had is still reflected here. Where 'Yhwach' and Jugram Haschwalth are wandering around, we get Zaraki Kenpachi walking up like a goddamn boss, dropping the bodies of three Sternritters he just killed... not off-screen this time! Now the explanation is word-for-word from the manga, but we do actually get to see how Kenpachi murderize "The Roar" Jerome Guizbatt, "The Question" Berenice Gabrielli and "The Yourself" Loyd Lloyd. Some additional bits of brutality as Kenpachi bisects Jerome down sideways, and literally tear out Berenice's throat! 

And then the last leg of the episode is basically, well, the Yamamoto/Sasakibe sequence. We get to see Sasakibe's killer, "The Overkill" Driscoll Berci, who is beating up Hisagi Shuhei. Driscoll boasts about killing Sasakibe in the previous encounter, and creates a gigantic spear-sized arrow that he's about to chuck at Shuhei and murder him... but then Genryusai Shigekuni motherfuckin' Yamamoto jumps in, casually slaps aside the gigantic arrow, and calmly walks up towards Driscoll... who then gloats about how he's going to use Yamamoto's vice-captain's Bankai to kill him. 

We get a great, silent surprised reaction from Yamamoto before the screen goes black and we just get to see the kanji for "Bankai: Koko Gonryo Rikyu".

And then we get a full flashback. It is interesting that they cut out Byakuya's eulogy about Sasakibe during his funeral, but replacing it with actual scenes about Sasakibe and Yamamoto? This sequence felt very truncated in the manga, and it was bogged down by the neat (if, in the manga, a bit pacing-disruptive) talk about the change from Eijisai to Jujisai to Genryusai. The flashback is expanded in all the right places. We get to see young Sasakibe wanting to become Yamamoto's right-hand man, then mastering Bankai in under a month...

And, I think, the most important part is that we actually get to see Sasakibe unleash his own Koko Gonryo Rikyu, which is different, interestingly, from how Driscoll Berci uses it. The lightning that Driscoll uses in the present day is purple, whereas Sasakibe's true Bankai is gloriously yellow. (Senbonzakura Kageyoshi also becomes a bit more purple, but it's hard to tell unless you're screencapping As Nodt's usage and Byakuya's usage side by side)

Sasakibe also shows us how Koko Gonryo Rikyu is supposed to be used, with him gathering the lightning pillars at the tip of his rapier, before charing forwards engulfed by an aura of lightning. It's something similar to Wild Charge from Pokemon, and... and it did explain a question I had in the manga. How does summoning a thunderstorm cause a single clean scar on Yamamoto's forehead? It also gives a neat explanation and showcase on how the Quincies are just taking the Bankai and treating them like blunt instruments instead of using them properly. Because, well, Driscoll is just dropping lightning bolt after lightning bolt on Yamamoto, who takes it on like a boss. 

And then he just walks up to Driscoll calmly, with only his captain's cloak being burned by the lightning blasts... and talks about how Sasakibe must be angry in the afterlife, because his Bankai that he spent years perfecting... WAS NOT THIS WEAK!

Yeah, this is a very cool moment, especially since current anime and how they animate flames just hits different. From all the duller colours and the purples of Driscoll's perversion of Sasakibe's Bankai, we suddenly cut away to the absolutely insane blazing flames of Ryujin Jakka as a gigantic curtain erupts and burns Driscoll away to bones, and those bones get turned into ashes, and those ashes get turned to dust. 

Great voice acting by Yamamoto's new voice actor, too, and the episode (mostly) ends on a pretty cool sequence as all the other soldiers of the Gotei 13 start to stand back up, reinvigorated by the flames and Reiatsu of the Captain-Commander. A lot of pretty cool lines from the other Shinigami while Yamamoto just rockets around like goddamn Superman... and then the credits roll. 

Of course, that's not quite the end! This episode features a Marvel-style post-credits scene, showing "Yhwach" holding Kenpachi by the neck after defeating him off-screen. Neat place to cliffhang the episode on, with both Kenpachi's earlier scene and Yamamoto's own scene both being very triumphant on the good guys' side. Yamamoto lands right behind Yhwach and speaks his name for the first time for the audience.

Pretty good episode, overall! The changes in this episode aren't exactly new scenes like the Uryu ones, but there is a surprisingly large amount of changes that really do add to how the action scenes flow, as well as how the chess-moving of characters across the board feel a lot more smoother.  

Random Notes:

• I always did find it pretty fun that in the midst of a goddamn Quincy invasion, Kurotsuchi Mayuri still has time to mutter under his breath about how Akon is using the communications network without permission. 
  
• Actually, considering how Pepe's powers are revealed to work later on in the story, Jidanbo being glassy-eyed and quiet is kind of an inconsistency, isn't it? Not the first one we see in this arc, for sure. 
• Matsuoka Yoshitsugu, As Nodt's voice, among his insane list of roles, had also voiced Kirito, Yukihira Soma, Petelgeuse Romanee-Conti, Hashibira Inosuke and many others. 
• The narrative reason is that Renji is going to be relevant later on, of course, but I do really love that Mask De Masculine's city-long dropkick leads to an admonishment from As Nodt, because Mask had no idea Renji even had a Bankai and As just basically sighs (as best as a psychotic fear-demon can) that Mask should really pay attention to the briefing.
• Apparently Bernice Gabrielli is a man. Who knew? Not me!
• Among Byakuya's flashbacks is a shot of the anime-only Kuchiki Koga from the Zanpakuto Rebellion arc. I think? I never watched the Bleach filler. But allegedly, that arc was the one that Tite Kubo supplied the most artwork and direction to, so maybe it is canon? 
• "Quincies use only bows and arrows!" Well, Quilge or someone did say that it's an archaic point of view, but Driscoll definitely used an arrow. A big-ass one. 
• I did gloss over it, but it is really nice that Yamamoto respects that Sasakibe is extremely uncomfortable about being the reason that Yamamoto's name is changed, and adopts a completely different name (based on the tree on his courtyard) to honour Sasakibe's wish. 
• In the manga, I've always thought Yamamoto was actively hunting down Sasakibe's killer, which was why it took him so long to properly join the battle. But here he actually seems surprised when Driscoll makes the proclamation. So I guess he was just shaken by the invasion and Sasakibe's death, then, just standing in his ransacked barracks?

One Piece 1066 Review: Big Brain Time

One Piece, Chapter 1066: The Will of Ohara

Even more major lore in this chapter, though I did find certain aspects of this particular chapter a bit more... disagreeable, I think? It's not as bad as some of the lows in Wano. Robin takes center stage this chapter because, unexpectedly, Vegapunk is actually connected to the Library of Ohara! We get a brief enigmatic discussion about a 'machine being produced somewhere' originally built in the Void Century. I don't think we get any real clarification about that. 

But Shaka-punk gives a brief recap about the Void Century, and it's nice because not all the Straw Hats there are probably aware of it. We get Shaka basically setting down on paper that there was a war between the Ancient Kingdom and the 20 Kingdoms, which became the World Government. I'm pretty sure the fandom had pieced this bit of information, but I'm not sure if it had been specifically confirmed in the manga itself or not. There's also a comedy moment with Usopp panicking as he realizes that anyone who learns this information will be eliminated by the World Government. 

I do really like that Robin was initially very suspicious -- rightfully so -- about Vegapunk's intentions, being evasive and stuff. Shaka does note that the government had basically admitted that the Ancient Kingdom's existence is true by their actions on Ohara. Also, Shaka notes that Vegapunk's status as a government dog doesn't protect him from being eliminated if he speaks up about the Ancient Kingdom... which might be another reason that Lucci is arriving to murder all the Vegapunks. 

Robin gets progressively panicked as Shaka recaps her backstory and that of Ohara... and I absolutely love that we're getting a lot of Robin after she had basically been reduced to 'archaeology exposition chick'. We get the rather surprising revelatoin that Vegapunk and Professor Clover were friends in life, and that Clover used to go around becoming like an archaeology-pirate or whatever, and founded Ohara after looking all over the world for information. 

But then Vegapunk -- the original Vegapunk -- arrived on Ohara several months after the Buster Call to pay his respects to Clover, but ends up finding that gigantic lake filled with books .Which is all dramatic and heartwarming and cute and all to find out that the knowledge that the Ohara historians fought so long to preserve ended up being actually protected. But... I don't know. We don't actually get a reason or explanation for this. Did the marines/government agents not care about the books? Or think that they could be harbouring something important? I did remember fuzzily that the reason that the excuse the government gave so that Ohara got firebombed to oblivion was because they were allegedly researching ancient weapons or things that could wipe out the world. And I really find it hard to buy that Akainu or the Gorosei's CP-9 minions would just leave a very conspicuous lake filled with books there for months.

We get a brief recap of the Ohara flashback, leading to a very emotional panel of Robin crying. Love that all the Straw Hats immediately get angry and defensive around Robin, telling Vegapunk that he's going to get some for making Robin cry. Vegapunk then recaps when he arrived on Ohara... and his original body is finally something we see. It is... uh... it's the dorkiest looking design out of all the now-revealed seven Vegapunk designs. I guess there is something cutely One Piece about 'oh, the smartest guy has a super-long head to fit his giant brain' and that does fit the comical nature of the manga's character designs, but... man, that Eggman mustache and the gigantic tongue always permanently out just makes it hard for me to look at Vegapunk and not go 'yuck, disgusting'. 

Vegapunk sees a bunch of giants -- the very giants that are part of Hajrudin's pirate crew, I believe -- scoop up the books under the direction of a bandaged giant. Which isn't hard to guess to realize that, well, it's Jaguar D. Saul, who survived his Ice Time Capsule attack... and... yeah, it's Aokiji. Aokiji is a good guy. And it is foreshadowed in the 'Time Capsule' nature of the attack. So it's not completely bullshit like Kin'emon's survival in the Wano arc, or Pound or Pell or whoever, but... I just sigh and find it rather unnecessary for Saul to survive like this. It's a much, much less egregious one compared to other fake-out deaths, but still.

Oh, also we get to meet Dragon. He doesn't have the tattoos yet, and he is the leader of the 'Freedom Fighters', a pre-Revolutionary group. It's more characterization for Dragon than we've ever gotten in the entire story for sure! There's a bit of an argument between the two about Vegapunk not joining Dragon's military army, but Vegapunk needed the government's funding. Vegapunk also tells Dragon that there are many reasonable people within the Marines, and it's not just the entire organization that's evil. Dragon also used to be very anti-war, but it was the very sight of Ohara that caused him to found the Revolutinoaries with Kuma and Ivankov. 

Shaka then reveals that he carries the whole legacy of Ohara in his brain after memorizing it, and essentially all but confirms Saul's survival. And... okay, I bitched about Saul's revival, but man, that panel with Robin's smile and tears running down her face? That's a wonderful panel. I just find it a great moment for Robin. 

The final couple of pages has Vegapunk (or 'Stella' Vegapunk) show up in the present day, after a teleporter or some shit caused him to phase into the robot in front of Team Luffy. Vegapunk recognizes Luffy and Bonney, and a bit more importantly, he no longer has a giant brain. I'm going to assume that we are working off of cartoon logic and Vegapunk divided his brain up into his satellite bodies, reducing it to his current... apple-top... hat-thing. Okay, then?

Lots of great moments. Not a huge fan of Vegapunk's design, or of Saul's survival. But I absolutely love the unexpected revelation of Ohara, the Revolutinoaries and Vegapunk all being connected to each other!

Random Notes:

• The cover story has the Germa 66 seemingly return to their snail-boats. I guess this means that the Germa's cover story is close to over, then? 
• I talk about Robin's happy-crying face, but that brief shot of her panicked face when Shaka talks about her origins as a Demon Child is also a very great art. So is her crying face as she ends up remembering the tragedy of her backstory. 
• In addition to referencing Punk Hazard, Veagapunk's ship having PH on it is a sneaky reference to pH. 
• Clover broke out of prison ten times. That's far more impressive than Kaido, who had super-strength so it's not that special, you know what I mean? 
• There has been a lot of speculation about characters like Vice-Admiral Strawberry or Fukurokuju being part of a 'long-head tribe' in conjunction with the long-arm and long-leg tribes. The aliens from Enel's cover story also had long heads! Stella-Vegapunk might be one of those!
• Vegapunk is 43 years old in the Ohara flashback, putting him at around 60-ish in the present day. I had this idea that Vegapunk was like a super-old person, but I guess he's not that old, all things considered. 
• Among the Straw Hats' reaction, I love that Sanji is completely bamboozled that the weirdo Ivankov is actually a Revolutionary bigshot. 
• Apparently, Stella Vegapunk's design is based on like, a specific meme-edit of the Albert Einstein photo with his tongue hanging out where the forehead got stretched out. 

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War E04: invAsion

Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 4: Kill the Shadow

Far more of an action-packed episode than the previous couple of episodes, though the past couple of episodes were admittedly mostly setup! This episode had around three-fourths of its runtime focused in the Soul Society. Which is fun! Man, I have a lot of problems with the Wandenreich arc, and this episode does have one of the more eye-rolling plot holes in the early parts of this arc, but... honestly, Bleach has always been about the smaller moments of high-octane action. I will still call out the 'idiot ball' when we get there, but still. 

We open up with Haschwalth splitting the discount Aizen (the 13th Division 6th-seat Kajomaru Hidetomo) in half after dryly mocking how he's shifted the demands from fighting to trying to get Haschwalth to stop. It's actually somehow a bit more explicit than the manga, I feel, where here we actually see the glasses and face get slashed in the middle, and then the shadow explicitly being split in half at the middle before his blood becomes the title card. 

We do get a couple of early confrontations between the captains and the Sternritter, and... I do wonder if any of these will at least get brief extensions in the anime? Rose and NaNaNa Najahkoop confront each other and Rose laments Kira's apparent death and vows serious, serious harm. There's also a pretty cool scene of a single nameless shinigami who sees the rest of his fellow soldiers get absolutely impaled and die screaming with As Nodt's flying thorns, and the rest of his teammates escape, and he's yelling about how the Gotei 13 are supposed to give their lives... and then Renji shows up with Zabimaru like a goddamn superhero. Also fun is the confrontation between Komamura and Bambietta -- Bambietta has the funniest comeback about how 'they let a dog be captain, man you guys must be understaffed!' We get brief shots of other matchups. Shuhei vs. Driscoll Berci, Kyoraku vs Robert Accutrone, Soi Fon vs. BG-9, Hitsugaya vs. Cang Du... 

But the focus of this whole sequence are, of course, the four captains whose Bankai get stolen, with special focus to the Renji and Byakuya fight against As Nodt and, very briefly, MASK DE MASCULINE. A lot of the dialogue of the other captains about using Bankai and swearing bloody vengeance against the Quincies are all just condensed into lines that Byakuya says, but that's okay. A lot of the battle at this point is just Byakuya and Renji's discussion, some more examples of the Blut Vene ability as As Nodt and Byakuya try and gauge each other's defenses... and the anime team really flexing at how the computer-aided animation of Senbonzakura's sakura petals now look. There is a very cool sequence of Byakuya unleashing a torrent of sakura petals that seemed to have absolutely ravaged As Nodt's head... only for him to reveal Blut Vene on his eyes to block one of Senbonzakura's petals. That's so cool! 

Also, in a very, very stark contrast to how As Nodt would be later on in this arc, I absolutely love -- and find it far, far creepier -- that As Nodt is completely silent throughout this whole encounter. His arrogant shrugging, facial expressions, and that 'creepy smiling' eyes... man, As Nodt is a much more effective 'the Fear' when he doesn't speak a word!

And, of course, we get the rather... questionable decision of four of our captains immediately deciding to go Bankai, while poor Kurotsuchi Mayuri has just finished decoding that the Quincies are stealing Bankai instead of sealing them. There's a nice, very subtle anime addition of Mayuri taking readings and investigating Sasakibe's sword Gonryomaru, realizing that the Bankai contained within is gone. 

What is interesting in the anime, though, is the fact that we actually see the captains at least try to fight with alternate means. And just like Bazz-B's Burner Finger getting a bit of an early appearance compared to when the specifics of his powers are revealed in the manga, we get to see Bambietta kicking a Reishi bomb towards Komamura, then Komamura slicing the bomb and the halves exploding. Soi Fon tries to use Suzumebachi's two-hit-kill against BG9 and finds out that it doesn't work (is it because of Blut Vene, or because BG9 is a robot?) before BG9 whips and draws blood from her. Hitsugaya freezes Cang Du's arm, and in a very cool sequence, Cang Du just speed-blitzes Hitsugaya and uses the iron underneath the frozen arm to parry Hitsugaya so badly he gets bashed into a wall. Really great that we get hints at Bambi's Explode powers and Cang's Iron powers before they get highlighted later on, making it less of an ass-pull why they didn't use these powers earlier. 

All of these are extended and helps to at least give a bit of a reason to why all the captains decide to use Bankai all at once. But... I don't know. I understand that there's not much they could do without severely changing what happened canonically in the manga, but still, I do have umbrage at why they all decide to use Bankai all at once. To wit, here are several reasons I can think of:

• No one tries to use Kido. We've had a lot of showcases of Captains using Kido before as alternate means, and Byakuya at the very least would be super proficient at using it as we saw in his fight against Zommari. 
• Soi Fon doesn't try to use Shunko, another non-Zanpakuto related ability. I know she's not as good as Yoruichi, but still. 
• Byakuya and later on Kyoraku notes that someone will have to be a 'sacrifice' so Mayuri could understand what's going on. Fair enough. But shouldn't you guys designate someone to be that sacrifice? Like, just a single captain -- maybe Soi Fon, who hates her Bankai -- use it and no one else does so?
• For Byakuya and Renji specifically, Byakuya goes 'observe the fight, and when my Bankai is sealed, use yours to defeat him'. There's the assumption that As Nodt can only seal a single Bankai at a time, which is flawed. But even then, wouldn't it be smarter to use the weaker Renji's Bankai as the sacrifice, and then Byakuya can use Senbonzakura Kageyoshi to defeat As?

I do think that this is particularly egregious for Byakuya and Soi Fon in particular. I get that throughout the entire series, Hitsugaya and Komamura go Bankai at the slightest provocation, but Byakuya is a lot smarter than that, and as I mentioned above, Soi Fon isn't someone who likes to use her Bankai. 

But, of course, the four of them do go Bankai. We sadly don't get all four captains yell 'BANKAI' all at once, but we do get to see all four of them activate and call out the names of their Bankai and... I'm sorry, I just kind of geek out at hearing all of these. Everyone's favourite Bankai, Senbonzakura Kageyoshi, of course, gets animated beautifully. 

And the subsequent Bankai-sealing by the Sternritter is also done rather beautifully, too, particularly the showcase of Jakuho Raikoben and Kokujo Tengen Myo'o being absolutely disintegrated as the medallions absorb them. (Actually, is this a version of Sklaverei?) The other captains are informed with Matsumoto activating a Kido spell, they're all shocked, and then we get a fun inversion of Bleach monologuing tropes because it's Kyoraku that monologues... and then Robert Accutrone just charges in and shoots Kyoraku point-blank, blowing off the man's hat. And then Robert goes into his Vollstandig form, Grimaniel, and shoots out Kyoraku's right eyeball. 

It's a pretty short, quick scene, but I actually do really like this confrontation between Kyoraku and Robert! Shame it didn't really get a follow up later on, but what a great, fast-paced scene! 

Akon ends up contacting Ichigo -- and the anime does cut out a whole lot of explanation on how Akon manages to track Ichigo's substitute badge and all that jazz -- and ends up calling Urahara. There's an interesting bit of dark trolling as Urahara starts off with a cheerful "moshi-moshi, how are things doing over there?" before Akon realizes that Urahara and Ichigo are dealing with the same threat as each other, and then Urahara throws the same question back at Akon again. 

The focus of the scene is still in Urahara's conversation with Akon, but we get a fun sequence of Ichigo still fighting Quilge Opie who gets more and more frustrated that he can't steal Ichigo's Bankai, while Ichigo just keeps Getsuga Tenshou-ing the dude. There's a fun bit where Ichigo asks Quilge why they're stealing/sealing Bankai, then Quilge doing the smart thing and shutting up... but then Ichigo mocks Quilge for being afraid of Bankai and Quilge going all berserk and screaming about how the Wandenreich fears nothing...

...then he gets a hole blown through him by Urahara! That's fucking hilarious. Apparently when Quilge's all hamming shit up, he got so agitated that he dropped his Blut Vene ability.

As Ichigo runs through the Garganta, Urahara starts giving some exposition about the data he's been collecting about Quincy abilities. Vollstandig, Blut Arterie, Blut Vene, Bankai-stealing... but Urahara, for once, got outsmarted because Quilge isn't dead yet! He uses the power of the Jail to seal away the opening of the Garganta gateway, and wrap Ichigo up in a jail-bubble. And there's a surprisingly shocking scene of Chad with several holes blown through his arm and stomach in Hueco Mundo, which I didn't remember at all!

Pretty fun episode, overall. The action feels pretty smooth, and while I'm still not the biggest fan of how the 'Bankai stealing-vs-sealing' stuff is going on, at least the action in the scene and the animation and voice-acting and everything feels pretty damn great. 

Random Notes:

• 
  Yes, it is "Äs Nödt", technically, but it's a bit hard for me to type in his name like that all the time.
• No new Uryu/Ryuken scenes this time around, but considering how much more action-packed and focused on Bankai stuff this episode is, it's understandable. 
• NaNaNa, Bambietta and As Nodt all get the pink title cards in this episode.
• The anime adds an extra scene of a Hell Butterfly landing on Rose's shoulder and relaying the casualty report of Kira to him. The manga does have a scene of Rose receiving the message, but it was telepathic. 
• The manga has Rose alternate between referring to his guitar as just his guitar, and as the specific model -- the Gibson Flying V. Here all of Rose's lines are changed to just 'guitar', which ends up making some of the dialogue between him and NaNaNa a bit repetitive.
• Who did Ukitake fight? We get to see the hints of black hair. Is it Askin Nakk Le Vaar? I don't think the manga ever made the identity of Ukitake's opponent clear. 
• It is pretty dumb that Mask De Masculine gets taken out by Byakuya dropping him down a floor. He can't just fly or jump or climb back up? But then it is Mask. He probably got distracted by a butterfly or something.
• Okay, the animation team really likes that scene of Bambietta kicking a Reishi ball towards Komamura, yes? It's not just me? 
• It is interesting that from Histugaya's reaction, he doesn't seem to be able to contact to Hyorinmaru... but it can't be that the Sternritter seal the Zanpakuto spirits, because the captains can still utilize the Shikai.
• The removal of censorship in Bleach TYBW is the most evident in scenes of characters massacring nameless goons. Bambietta literally butchering some Gotei 13 guards in this episode, and also Apacci and Mila-Rose killing the Soldats in the previous episode. 
• NaNaNa talking about defeating Rose within 'five minutes' is also in the manga, and I wonder if this was meant to be a hint about his 'Underbelly' powers? Not that it's going to really matter down the line, but still.