Cartoon Corner- My Little Pony Friendship is Magic (Season 6)

I don’t have much to say on the lowpoints this season, so lets knock this one out right away and move on to what’s working.

2017 Gaming Retrospective

So… to hell with it.  I hadn’t originally planned to put much game-based content on here, but y’know, if you’re going to have an archive for wasted ink, why selectively omit a bunch of it?

Star Wars- The Last Jedi

This is less a blog entry and more a cross-post for people who want my thoughts on the movie unfiltered.  In other words, this is where the SPOILERS are.  So like... you're gonna see it, it's Star Wars, I do like it overall.  On with the show.

Cartoon Corner- Hellsing Ultimate

Hellsing Ultimate, despite being adapted by the same people from the same material, is a lot of things that the earlier Hellsing really wasn’t.

It’s horror porn, gore porn, gun porn, and occasionally just porn.  It’s an indulgent, fantastical mess, that always demands your attention except when it’s clearly just playing with itself.  You do have to give it a minute once in a while.

Cartoon Corner- Anastasia

Let’s return to Don Bluth, in this, his final surrender.

Cartoon Corner- My Little Pony The Movie

For this one, I feel the need to issue a reminder: these are not really reviews and are much more interested in discussing why a work is the way it is (and, on occasion, delving into picking out themes and very very rarely what is probably actual critical analysis, although that’s rare and amateur at best), both in terms of analyzing emotional response and in looking for evidence of production history within the work because we are in fact nerds here and trivia is fun.

See, I don’t know how to feel about this one, and I’m gonna have to discuss in detail a critical plot point of the movie to figure it out.  Sorry folks, I don’t have an easy up/down is this worth watching note this time.

Hellsing

A bit of production history for this one.  Hellsing is adapted from a manga of the same name… but specifically the first two volumes (with a smattering of material and notes from later I suspect).  Said manga ended up being 10 volumes.  So essentially in 2001 they produced about 6 episodes based on the existing material followed by an addition 7 including whatever nuggets Hirano deigned to give them with a more or less original story.

The Little Prince

I usually take more to the ends of films than the beginning.  So it's taking a bit to process how to talk about this one: an utterly striking start that really carries through the rest of the piece.

Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme

After a long absence, let’s pull another Lionsgate Marvel flick out of the case.
Much like the last one I don’t have a whole lot nice to say.

Cartoon Corner- My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Magical Movie Night

Hasbro had a wonderful problem this year:  they have an actual Friendship is Magic movie coming out this fall, which will probably make all the money (mostly because I can’t imagine it really cost much to make), but they already only do stuff for the alternate continuity once a year, so gotta do something for that to keep the doll line robust.  Thus we have Magical Movie Night, billed as a collection of short day-to-day adventures for our two legged friends.

Yeah that’s not quite what they did.

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders

I have to admit upfront that I just did not have any strong reaction to this one.  So retroactively I guess I’m glad I didn’t try to do it immediately after Adam West passed.  Be sorta a crummy thing to do wouldn’t it?

Cartoon Corner- Alice in Wonderland

We live in a world Alice created.  The Internet is the entire world, right?

Cartoon Corner- Despicable Me 3

Yes yes, I know, I’ll go back and cover Minions eventually.

Cartoon Corner- Bolt

So this is a new one for us, a Disney film from the dark times, before Princess and the Frog.

Cartoon Corner- South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

Cartoon Corner- My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Legend of Everfree

Originally posted at the DL November 2016

I feel utterly out of practice on this.  But hey.  Fuck it.  Music time!

Cartoon Corner- Star Wars: Rebels (Season 2)

Originally posted at the DL September 2016

Well that escalated.

Cartoon Corner- Kubo and the Two Strings

Originally posted at the DL August 2016

Everything about this has such personality.  The puppets, the characters, the cast, the nature of the tale and the form gods and magic take.  It has this distinct feel of authenticity, in a way I don't think I've gotten out of many stories over the years, while still being unmistakably itself.

Cartoon Corner- Sausage Party

Originally posted at the DL August 2016

In which Alan Menkin did the opening song number.

Cartoon Corner- Batman: The Killing Joke

Originally posted at the DL August 2016

Cartoon Corner- Bob's Burgers (Season 1)

Originally posted at the DL August 2016

So I'm used to H. Jon Benjamin as Archer.  It's pretty amazing how he can use almost the same voice yet be so distinctly two characters.  And that's almost all down to how sharp this show is.  They don't really do anything in terms of visual gags or the like (anuses notwithstanding) but they still managed to just crack me up a few times each episode.  It's kinda stands out to me actually, they make this work entirely on the strength of the scripts and the actors.  I'm not sure anything else I've been doing lately has the confidence to do that.

Cartoon Corner- Hotel Transylvania

Originally posted at the DL August 2016

I should probably start with the negative here.  Y'know all those old, tired nagging wife tropes where dudes hang out and bitch about how tired they are and how weird having kids is and just seem completely beaten down by not being able to hang out and do irresponsible bachelor stuff forever?  Yeah there's a lot of that here and it's annoying and distracting.

Cartoon Corner- The Pirates of Dark Water

Originally posted at the DL August 2016

You can definitely tell this is a Hanna-Barbara production.  The use of color, their signature animation saving techniques, and the basic construction of the main party fit their particular quirks.

Cartoon Corner- My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Season 5)

Originally posted July 2016

Last season unexpectedly went full DBZ.  This season instead has cultists and full throttle time travel fuckery.  Handled well though; the emphasis is on how terrible of an idea it is.  Similarly while it's noteworthy for being unusual in the context of the show, it's not really a standout episode in other respects.

Cartoon Corner- Finding Dory

Originally posted at the DL July 2016

Just keep swimming

Cartoon Corner- Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Originally posted at the DL May 2016

Ahh man.  This movie.  Let's talk the technical bits first.  There are very few movies animated with the level of detail the toons in Roger Rabbit are.  A recurring fact I bring up when we revisit Disney is their tendency to sink ridiculous time and effort into things the average viewer won't notice.
The film industry refers to this as the Roger Rabbit Effect, because they bloody well should name it after this movie.

Cartoon Corner- Millenium Actress

Originally posted at the DL May 2016

Y'know, I feel like Kon is just showing off in this one in a way the other movies of his I've seen don't.

Cartoon Corner- Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation

Originally posted at the DL May 2016

I knew I'd seen this at the point after they cut it up for syndication, but only really remembered one of the plot threads.  This was only partially true: a couple of the smaller stories I remembered just fine, but thought they were independent episodes.

Cartoon Corner- Fantasia

Originally posted at the DL April 2016

Oh god what have I done.

Cartoon Corner- Tokyo Godfathers

Originally posted at the DL April 2016

To this day this movie amuses me on a conceptual level.  Probably the greatest Christmas Miracle movie ever made comes from a Japanese man who, so far as I can tell, was not among the ~2% or so of Japanese folks who adhere to any variation of that faith.  Satoshi Kon's fingerprints are all over the movie in terms of visual design and story focus, but the actual story told here stands out a lot from the rest of his work and the degree it resembles western works (apparently it borders on adaptation of a John Wayne western, although I'm not familiar with that film) and the less-than-ubiquitous-in-Japan Christian faith is a bit uncanny.

Cartoon Corner- Futurama: Bender's Big Score

In a way, sometimes I wish Futurama hadn’t gotten that Comedy Central revival.

Cartoon Corner- Robin Hood

This seems to be considered one of the weaker films by Disney itself, based on how it’s generally marketed, released, and priced.  I can kinda see it.

Cartoon Corner- An American Tail

Originally posted at the DL April 2016

... oh yeah, this is more or less a musical.

Cartoon Corner- Prince of Egypt

Originally posted at the DL March 2016

Cartoon Corner- Teen Titans (Season 2)

Originally posted at the DL March 2016

Let's go ahead and knock this one out.

Cartoon Corner- Zootopia

Originally posted at the DL March 2016

God, how is there anything BUT Zootopia porn left on the internet.  This is the second furriest thing I've ever seen.

Cartoon Corner- Thor: Tales of Asgard

Originally posted at the DL March 2016

Hmm, so this is only our second of these direct to video Marvel things?  Well then.

Cartoon Corner- The Slayers Next

Originally posted at the DL February 2016

OP2 (Give a Reason)- The single best remembered song in Slayers, and with good reason.  The intensity of it builds in a way that gets you to follow one rhythm just before it ramps again, and it's almost impossible not to move along with it.  There's also this very real sense of incredibly sincere emotion to it that I just don't.... quite know how to explain.  We're moving to Megumi's rhythm, but she's really baring her soul here, y'know?

Cartoon Corner- Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Originally posted at the DL February 2016

So this finally happened.

Cartoon Corner- Summer Wars

Originally posted at the DL February 2016

At heart, Summer Wars is a very simple movie.  In the sense that it tends to be straightforward or obvious, and telegraphs heavily.

Which is good.  It's good to remember that simple things can be amazing.  That straightforward or obvious isn't the same thing as stupid.  That making something easy to follow and accessible doesn't make it somehow less.

Cartoon Corner- Ratatouille

Originally posted at the DL January 2016

Y'know how when you know a lot about a subject stories about it usually become hard to watch because it turns out writers don't usually know shit about shit and get everything wrong?

Yeah Ratatouille isn't that movie.

Cartoon Corner- Kung-Fu Panda

Originally posted at the DL January 2016

My biggest thought here is the movie wants to sound way more profound than it can actually back up.  I suppose that might just be a consequence of being a the sort of kung-fu movie that it is, but yeah.  It wants to be philosophical and inspiring and generally rings hollow.  There's a few things going wrong here I think.

Cartoon Corner- Chicken Run

I’m having trouble finding a reaction to this one.

Cartoon Corner- Batman and Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero

Originally posted at the DL January 2016

Basically a two-parter padded out to the length of a three-parter.

Well that was easy.

Cartoon Corner- Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Originally posted at the DL January 2016

In some ways this is a bundle of ideas that doesn't quite tie itself together.  Bruce's former lover loses her family and goes down the dark path he himself oh so narrowly avoids.  A new Batman-like villain squares off between Bats and the Joker in a tragic three way.  Bruce's crusade to protect the knight almost ended before it truly began.

Cartoon Corner- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Season 2)

Originally posted at the DL January 2016

A lot of this season feels like background noise to me.  There's a seeming reluctance to put the main characters in the same place too much, so they're having to juggle a lot of plotlines all at once to keep everyone in the loop as it were, and I think the show overall suffers for it.

Cartoon Corner- Wall-E

Originally posted at the DL January 2011

The Best Pixar Movie.

Cartoon Corner- The Sword in the Stone

Let’s talk about Winnie the Pooh.

Cartoon Corner- Tangled

Originally posted at the DL December 2015

Something about the opening needs comment but I can't figure out what I want to say.  Having Flynn narrate it doesn't quite work for me, I think because they go in a slightly different direction with him in the movie itself where the melodrama feels a bit off I think.  Still, making the sun a prominent motif throughout the movie was a good move and helps keep things fairly cohesive in its way.

Cartoon Corner- The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Originally posted at the DL December 2015

The Write-up of Disney's 34th Animated Feature.

Cartoon Corner- The Iron Giant

Originally posted at the DL December 2015

I feel like there's two movies here.  The core narrative of Hogarth and how he sparks the Giant's growth, and the story related by subtext and knowing the historical context of the setting (which is also the story of about 15 minutes of runtime riiight before the climax but anyways).  There's a lot of density here for this sort of film, but I'd probably blame that on Brad Bird.  But actually I feel like I missed huge chunks of the film the last time I went through it because there's a couple bits I don't actually remember.  Hogarth's rundown to Dean of his life in particular.  Sorta like "oh, they DO explain why the kid is so offbeat and likes hanging out with a beatnik, okay".

Cartoon Corner- Star Trek: The Animated Series

Originally posted at the DL December 2015

If I were being lazy I could probably just post this:

Cartoon Corner- Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods

Originally posted at the DL December 2015

So the release of The Force Awakens has of course generated a lot of talk about Star Wars, and on comment I've run into, phrased differently in various places, is the prequels being basically the unchained id of George Lucas.  One dude made every creative decision and had full rights to do whatever the fuck he wanted, and it's fascinating to pick apart even the very very flawed products of that effort and see how he ticks.

The Good Dinosaur

Originally posted at the DL December 2015

Hey so this movie is not one where you just kinda know everything about it going in.  At least I didn't.  I knew something something there's dinosaurs and a little toddler thing and yeah that's what we got.

Cartoon Corner- Star Wars: Ewoks

Originally posted at the DL December 2015

With my last breath, I blame Grefter.

Cartoon Corner- Slayers Excellent

Originally posted at the DL December 2015

ED-E (Never Die)- Such a low key song.  It's bloody weird, because I strongly associate Slayers vocals with bombast as suited to Megami singing more or less in-character as Lina.  within that it's pretty enjoyable, but doesn't stand out at all.  Probably the weakest vocal so far.

Cartoon Corner- Slayers Special

Originally posted at the DL December 2015

Box calls this Slayers: The Book of Spells, but it's labelled as Special in the actual OVA.  'sides, any Slayers fan material I run across always, always uses the Japanese terms so.

Cartoon Corner- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Season 1)

Originally posted at the DL December 2015

Let's knock this one out right away.

Cartoon Corner- Hercules

Originally posted at the DL December 2015

I've always had some love for this one, and I don't know why.  Let's see if we can figure it out by the time we're back from the songs!

Cartoon Corner- Star Driver

So this show was pitched to me as basically fusing Utena with Gurren Lagann.  Which is certainly true, it wears both of those influences on its sleeves.  Of course, those are both all-time classics that redefined their genres and one of them is probably my favorite show full stop, so I mean… I don’t want to pretend Star Driver lives up to those.

Cartoon Corner- Lilo & Stitch

Originally posted at the DL December 2015

Lilo & Stitch falls in a strange era of Disney, where the Renaissance was clearly over but they had no idea what to actually do yet.  So we got several fairly offbeat films.  They all are pretty different in tone and, what stood out on this watch-through, art styles.  In this case, everything feels very... round.  I think to some extent this might be a stylistic choice rather than a change in art style, because it means that Stitch looks extremely distinct from every other alien; he's pointy and dangerous, they're soft from years of bureaucracy.  Still, even the humans move in a very circular way, and of course the character designs themselves are a bit different from the norm since it's not a pack of white people.

Cartoon Corner- The Slayers

Originally posted at the DL December 2015

Actually, before anything else, we gotta do this.  It's Slayers man.

Cartoon Corner- Wreck-It Ralph

Originally posted at the DL November 2015

*squeeee* omygodohmygod PIXAR IS DOING SOMETHING THAT FEELS LIKE PIXAR AND NOT LOW RENT DISNEY

Cartoon Corner- The Incredibles

Originally posted at the DL November 2015

Or the Fantastic Four and Watchmen had a baby.

Spectacular Spider-Man (Season 1)

Originally posted at the DL November 2015

Cartoon Corner- The Little Mermaid

Originally posted at the DL November 2015

Oh this movie.  Let's just get to the songs first.

Cartoon Corner- How to Train Your Dragon 2

Originally posted at the DL November 2015

God, is this really our first Dreamworks film?

Cartoon Corner- Aladdin

Originally posted at the DL October 2015

Oh I come from a... hold up.

Cartoon Corner- My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Friendship Games

Originally posted at the DL October 2015

What's this... oh yeah.

MUSICAL OF NON-DISNEY ORIGINS.

Cartoon Corner- Mulan

Originally posted at the DL October 2015

Pre-viewing looking up of titles suggests there's fewer songs in this than average for Disney of the era, so we may have to intersperse singing with other analysis.  Let's find out!

Cartoon Corner- The Nightmare Before Christmas

Originally posted at the DL October 2015

What's this?

Cartoon Corner- Over the Garden Wall

Originally posted at the DL September 2015

So it's not often you see cartoons that feel designed to win awards, but I think this one is.  Turns out I'm pretty okay with that.

Cartoon Corner- Superman: Doomsday

Originally posted at the DL September 2015

Probably the last one of these for a while (mostly since there's only one more in the set of "DC Animated films packed in with appropriate comic" and Justice League WAR doesn't look that good, and I really think covering All-Star Superman would be hella redundant).  Which is good because god I feel like there's hardly ever anything to say with them.

Cartoon Corner- Wonder Woman

Originally posted at the DL September 2015

Cartoon Corner- My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Season 2)

Originally posted at the DL September 2015

So this might be my favorite season?  Would not have called that.  Main contributing factors:

Cartoon Corner- Despicable Me 2

Unlike a lot of sequels I can think of, this really feels like a sequel: it’s entirely about the fallout from events in the previous movie and how this impacts the lives of the characters.

Cartoon Corner- Star Wars Rebels (Season 1)

Modified from posts made at the DL September/October 2015

So it is easy to forget that I know like all of the things about Star Wars.  Okay not so much now because I haven't been keeping up with the new wave of novels but anyway I go into this knowing nothing about Clone Wars (which Rebels is fundamentally a sequel/successor series to).  Except nothing from Clone Wars is really necessary for me because like hell I don't recognize a Jedi Holocron or obvious Force-sensitive luck when I see it.  And there's certainly a large amount of pandering for the sort of audience that would actually get stuff like that, and a lot of the set pieces are very note for note with previous Star Wars media.

Cartoon Corner- Beauty and the Beast

Originally posted at the DL September 2015

It's that time again.

Cartoon Corner- Redline

Originally posted at the DL September 2015

So I actually made a short comment about this the first time I saw it.

"This movie is such a pet project.  These dudes gave no fucks if the movie was salable.  They made what they wanted to.  I just wish I had more levels in animation geek, there is so much going on in this movie and I would love to be able to analyze more of what's going on with it.

No mistake though, this is a thoroughly entertaining movie on its own merits.  Just, everything under the hood has me intrigued but I just don't have the background to dig in."

Cartoon Corner- Aria: The Animation

Originally posted at the DL September 2015.

ara ara~

Cartoon Corner: The Great Mouse Detective

This is a strange movie sometimes.  Mostly one or two scenes feel like the rest of the movie had no idea they were there.

Cartoon Corner- Dungeons & Dragons

Originally posted at the DL September 2015

Welcome to the Time Warp.

Cartoon Corner- Moana

I realized once I was in the theater for Moana a flaw to the whole music format- I really need to write as I watch the movie to do this.  Sooooo yeah, I’ve been waiting for the blu-ray to work on it.  Hopefully I can remember my original impressions for various bits in addition to all the song material.

Cartoon Corner- My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Season 1)

Originally posted at the DL August 2015

I used to wonder what friendship could be.

Cartoon Corner- The Princess and the Frog

Originally posted at the DL August 2015

Here we are, the launch of the current era of Disney.  Because the last time around was a lot of fun for me, we're going to make this a regular element of Disney Musicals (well and if anything else is a proper musical they'll get that treatment too but if they exist I don't know them)

Cartoon Corner- Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths

Originally posted at the DL August 2015

This one is a bit of a review in two parts.

Cartoon Corner- Big Hero 6

Originally posted at the DL August 2015

So apparently the internet has decided there's this huge rivalry between this movie and Frozen.  Which uh sure you do that dudes.

Cartoon Corner- Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

Originally posted at the DL August 2015

There are two very distinct parts to this film.  We'll be talking about them separately.

Cartoon Corner- Despicable Me

Consciously or unconsciously, Illumination drew a lot of inspiration from Shrek here.  Take an obvious villain, put a known comedian behind them, make the whole thing a surface-level subversion of the expectations for children’s movies while deep down reaffirming most of the same basic tropes.  They both even end on essentially a fourth wall shattering cast-wide dance party.  While Shrek is a different animal at heart (for starters it’s a full on parody), those similarities definitely color how I’m looking at the movie as a whole.

Cartoon Corner- Batman the Animated Series (Volume 2)

Originally posted at the DL August 2015

The main standout feature of this set is it actually has Robin in a majority of episodes.  We'll come back to that.

Cartoon Corner- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

This is composed of three shorts made over the course of several years, which is easy to tell if you’re on the lookout for it (the animation quality and character models visibly change between the segments), but I think the in-between material adds a lot to the experience, so we’ll cover this as one movie.

Cartoon Corner- Adventure Time (Season 5)

Originally posted at the DL August 2015

So I meant to sit down and watch the intervening seasons again before this one came out; I knew I was going to watch it right away since due to my lackluster internets I can only be as up to date on the show as the DVD releases.  Oops.  This also means though that I'm going to be talking about this season as though all those other ones are something you're familiar with.  But more than that, a lot of my thoughts on the season have little to do with the highlight episodes and a lot to do with the progression of the show to this point, so I'm going to knock those out first before moving on.

Cartoon Corner- Frozen

Originally posted at the DL August 2015

Well let's start with the obvious.

Cartoon Corner- Planet Hulk

Originally posted at the DL July 2015

Cartoon Corner- Superman the Animated Series (Volume 1)

Originally posted at the DL July 2015

Hello again D.. wait.

oh?  Good, good.

Cartoon Corner- Young Justice

Originally posted at the DL July 2015

Usually these sorts of shows are either a) awesome or b) uneven.  Young Justice presents us a new overall quality to assign our superhero action shows, muddled.  From start to finish, this season has a very consistent feel of trying to do things that play against its strengths and weaken what the show could have been.

Cartoon Corner- Brave

Originally posted at the DL July 2015
...

Cartoon Corner- Teen Titans (Season 1)

Originally posted at the DL July 2015

Hello again D- ah, wait, sorry.  For some reason this series gives Bruce Timm a producer credit but does not, in fact, adopt the DCAU canon.  Weird.

Cartoon Corner- Tiny Toon Adventures (Season 1, Volume 1)

Originally posted at the DL June 2015

I have seen the face of God, and yea it was good.

Pictured: God

Cartoon Corner- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [2012] (Season 1)

Originally posted at the DL June 2015

Strange show.  There's a reasonable amount of competent writing, reasonable level of continuity, and it's pretty clear watching the show that... whoever is doing most of this are big fans of the original cartoon who are determined to bring as much of its characters, concepts, etc as possible without sacrificing credibility to this show.  But... for most of the season's run there's just no emotional resonance to it whatsoever for me.  I watched like 19 episodes in and had any meaningful response (that is, something besides "eh", "'salright", or "that wasn't very good") to ONE episodes in that time (The Gauntlet, ie "the turtles fail their objective and then Shredder stomps the lot of them out of nowhere").

Cartoon Corner- Inside Out

Originally posted at the DL June 2015

*squeeee* omygodohmygod PIXAR IS DOING SOMETHING THAT FEELS LIKE PIXAR AND NOT LOW RENT DISNEY

Cartoon Corner- Avatar the Last Airbender (Book 3: Fire)

Originally posted at the DL June 2015

So last time we noted that Book 2 was probably the most consistent part of Avatar.  This phrasing was always meant to preface that I was going to call Book 3 the best season.  I have since decided I may have been in error; while Book 2 undeniably is better at having a consistent narrative running through the entire season, the weaker episodes of Book 3 are considerably less weak upon reviewing than my memory credited them.  And as such the season as a whole is quite incredible because you have a pretty good beginning followed by, starting a Day of Black Sun, basically the most amazing run of television we've yet covered.

Nothing can possibly go wrong (Part 3: The Rest)

So funny thing.  When I started this… god, was that 3 weeks and change ago?  I had figured I’d talk about the cross section of Immigration and Welfare.  But y’know what, basically all things Immigration related come down to a fact and knowledge gap.  Unless you’re in a step by step dialog with someone, the conversation needed to sway them on the matter looks incredibly lopsided and strawman-ish, because basically you have to posit every response, then say

“Why do you believe that?”

Cartoon Corner- Mike Judge's Beavis and Butthead (Volume 4/Season 8)

Originally posted at the DL June 2015

hehheh hehheh

Cartoon Corner- Avatar: The Last Airbender (Book 2: Earth)

Originally posted at the DL May 2015

"It's time to ask yourself the big questions.  Who are you, and what do you want!"

Cartoon Corner- Daria: Is It College Yet?

Originally posted at the DL May 2015

You're standing on my neck.*

Cartoon Corner- Daria (Season 5)

Originally posted at the DL May 2015

Yeah this is my favorite season.  The hatemail from Daria fandom will be arriving any day I'm sure.

Cartoon Corner- Daria: Is It Fall Yet?

Originally posted at the DL May 2015

Alternately titled "8 or whatever short tales about Lawndale".  Because there isn't really a plot here, but a series of character vignettes.

Cartoon Corner- Daria (Season 4)

Originally posted at the DL May 2015

If I'm wrong please correct.

Also the theme of this season.

Cartoon Corner- Daria (Season 3)

Originally posted at the DL May 2015

I have to be direct.

Cartoon Corner- The Lego Batman Movie

The movie Joel Schumacher was trying the make but lacked the talent to pull off.

Before we go further, I should probably emphasize a few things since this is both the first new post I’ve done in months and also the first time I’ve covered anything new since expanding to the blogspace.  These are largely written on the assumption you’re familiar with the work in question.  Less review and more editorial or retrospective.

Which is to say: be warned that I do tend to talk about specific scenes or plot resolutions if they help me explain a particular observation or emphasize the theme or atmosphere of the thing.  If you’re here for the thumbs up/down, it’s good, go watch.

Cartoon Corner- Avatar the Last Airbender (Book 1: Water)

Originally posted at the DL May 2015

Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked...

Cartoon Corner- Daria (Season 2)

Originally posted at the DL May 2015

Mmm.  So the thrust of season 2 is setting the stage for the deconstruction of Daria's worldview.  The previous set was largely establishing who she and her family were, while her we're slowly fleshing out the closest supporting cast members (Brittany, Kevin, Jodie, the Fashion Club, the teachers).  Which in turn slowly puts to lie the cynicism that makes up Daria's headspace, because these disparate people are on the whole decent folk who consider he a friend, despite Daria's unwillingness to give them any credit.  Most of the focus episodes for her crush on Trent are in this season as well, showing the first major chink in her armor (along with The New Kid, which is basically that whole subplot condensed into an episode).  Add to that Gifted, where Daria sees the far extreme of herself and how it's no better than anything else, and a shocking number of pieces are in play for big shifts in the show.

Cartoon Corner- Daria (Season 1)

Originally posted at the DL May 2015

Hurray for clear season markers on the full series set of like 60 episodes.

Cartoon Corner- Adventure Time (Season 1)

Originally posted May 2015 at the DL

So Season 1 doesn't really have much rhyme or reason to the way it's arranged (it's there, but ignoreable, I should say), and is focused on basically establishing the identities of the main cast.  So instead we're going to talk about the question presented: why do people like this show.

Cartoon Corner- Batman: The Brave and the Bold (Season 1)

Originally posted at the DL April 2015

So the show has been billed as basically the Silver Age with modern VA work.  Far as I know they more or less deliver on that.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Season 4)

Originally posted at the DL April 2015

Season 4, ie the one that pissed off the fanboys with Princesses.  But fuck those guys.  So instead, Season 4!  ie the one where the show fully shifts into predominantly continuity based storytelling with occasional slice of life rather than the other way around.  While for this show it was either that or start focusing way more on non-main characters at this stage in the game, it is nice to see such transitions.  The other major distinguishing mark of this season is that when it decided to go shonen, it went full on Dragon Ball Z which is honestly pretty amazing, but that's just me.

Cartoon Corner- Justice League Unlimited (Season 1)

Originally posted at the DL April 2015

I basically go by sets for these breakdowns, so JLU Season 1 encompasses what the internet tells me is actually two seasons, which DOES fit with how the season shakes down.  I gave definite consideration to following that just to give myself a second best episode vote, buuut I guess I should just follow the pattern I have.

Cartoon Corner- My Little Pony Equestria Girls

Originally posted at the DL April 2015

And so we come to My Little Barbie.

Nothing can possibly go wrong (Part 2- Guns)

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Much has been made of the exact wording and even the punctuation of this sentence.  But that doesn't mean too much- that's how lawyers work, the exact wording of a thing is the material of your trade there.

Cartoon Corner- My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks

Originally posted at the DL April 2015

Hello my little barbie.  But we'll save that rant for the original EQ.  Anyway, welcome again to Canterlot High, Equestria's dumping ground for dangerous magical beings who we're totally pretty sure will lose their magic in human land.  But hey, if we had a magic mirror to another realm we'd probably dump nuclear waste into it, so "mostly non magical land that will de-power our magical foes" is relatively responsible.

Cartoon Corner- Justice League (Season 2)

Originally posted at the DL April 2015

Helloooooooo DCAU.  The true question here for me is, is this peak DCAU, or will it instead go to JLU Season 1, because it's a nuanced and difficult question.  One I'll probably have to come back to after a healthy rewatch of JLU 1, despite having seen that a lot more times than the Justice League seasons.  Anywho, episodes in this season, excepting one set, fall into two basic categories: great and SUPER great.  As always in DCAU works, we come back to continuity.  We start off resolving lingering plot threads from Superman TAS, draw heavily from extant continuity from the last season of this show, feature the last appearance (in production order) of The Joker, and retroactively have the two parter that sets the foundation for ALL of JLU but we'll get to that in due time.

Cartoon Corner- My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Season 3)

Originally posted at the DL April 2015

So short season is short.  I get the sense in this one they were essentially trying to change the format of the show from one-shots that acknowledge continuity to ongoing continuity-driven storytelling, so the shortness of the season was them finding a balance they liked.  Or they had to steal the budget of this season for the first Equestria Girls.  One of the two.

Cartoon Corner- The Legend of Korra (Book 4: Balance)

Originally posted at the DL April 2015
Best season of Korra.

Cartoon Corner- Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (Season 2)

Originally Posted at the DL April 2015

The season has a major downside which I want to address first.  While the really overt "oh this team member is off in another country today" nods in season 1 were kinda distracting, they also tended to be, y'know, just for a couple episodes.  Season 2 has, variously, Cap, Hank Pym, Thor, and Hulk disappear for 10-13 episode stretches.  ie half the damn season.  Now while they do provide story justifications for all these, in a show whose primary appeal was team dynamic spending essentially the entire season with the team missing at least one major member is pretty lousy.  Cap being gone by itself is fine, it's setting up a long-term plot they pull a lot of drama from, and watching Skrull!Cap's attempts to emulate the original kept the overall team dynamic from breaking down too much.  The others are less workable.  I know Hank's thing is being an empty husk of a human being but you could have... y'know, not put that in this continuity.  Something more productive than "spend 20 consecutive episodes sulking" over the whole Ultron thing could have been thought of. Thor and EMH Hulk are my favorite characters in the lineup so just having less of them in general is sad times.

Justice League (Season 1)

Originally Posted at the DL March 2015

Hello again DCAU.  So Justice League plays differently from any other DCAU entry, due to all episodes (well, except the Christmas one, but that's next season) being a multi-parter.  Kinda a feel of always trying to be epic.  Although with the premise of the show, a certain amount of that is needed.  Logically speaking, every enemy has to be so threatening that Superman cannot beat them alone, which automatically sets the bar high.  By and large they get that part right even if other stuff sometimes goes wrong.

Nothing can possibly go wrong (Part 1- Abortion)

So I try to make a conscious effort into tricking Facebook and other feeds into seeing the bulk of my list. I mean, I intentionally keep the circle small y'know? And half of the people on it are dead or near-dead accounts best as I can tell.

So I've found that my feed mostly doesn't have what you'd call Movement Conservatives- that is, the sorts of folks who toe the Republican Party line on economics, foreign policy, the shebang. Instead, you can boil down Republican support to four main issues.

Cartoon Corner- Batman the Animated Series (Season 3/The Adventures of Batman and Robin)

Originally posted at the DL March 2015

So everyone knows Batman:TAS.  Season 3 is a bit tame overall, although in part I think it's because the later DCAU got considerably more sophisticated than Batman really had a chance to.  That said at least in this season you can really see why they decided to go with the revised animation style in later shows and the last season of this one.  There's a lot of off model moments, especially with more kinetic characters, that don't happen much in later stuff like Batman Beyond.

Cartoon Corner- Avengers: Earth's Mightest Heroes (Season 1)

Originally Posted at the DL March 2015

Probably the biggest takeaway from EMH is that it's uneven as fuck.  There is quite a lot of good stuff going on in this show, with a rock solid cast dynamic and in particular an especially nice take on the Hulk, as well as being the only adaptation I'm aware of that features Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne so prominently.  At the same time there's a lot of relative duds in the episode lineup too.  The five introductory episodes are... just not terribly interesting, much focused on name-dropping elements for future use without being terribly interesting in how they do it.  The Cap episode, having an actual plot rather than being all "Named villain!  Important quest object!  SHIELD!", is alright but nothing too great.  After that point they kinda alternate between small arcs for a major villain to fight, and single episodes that are adding up to the season ending conflict.  Those are fairly split on quality; Kang and Ultron are pretty good episodes, while the Leader's Gamma World bits can go jump in a hole.  The Masters of Evil episodes range from 'please don't tell me we are playing this storyline so straight' (Everything's Wonderful) to 'wheeeeee' (Masters of Evil), although the final payoff is about right.

So there's this song in Avenue Q...

There's a story that's been on my mind since... well, roughly November 10th, let's be real. Nothing I find interesting happens much in my daily life, and I hate posting links or memes unless I can add further context to them, so if I post at all it will tend to be related to political philosophy.

But, story time.