So I've discovered that I'm a coward because I wrote a long fucking YouTube comment on a video about Korra (yeah what else) and decided not to post it because it's been over six months and it's in defense of the ending relationship. I realize I've already talked about that here but I already spent too much time writing the comment and I need to put it somewhere. Nobody reads my blog anyway so I can just treat this post as a rebuttal. Maybe that makes it more professional. Anyway, the video was by BlackCriticGuy and here's the link so you have context if you want it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8womOTSkNqU
"Thing is, you're not wrong about their friendship being strong. It's just not on a binary scale, where Friendship /= Romance. I think there are plenty of people who would say that their significant other is their best friend. It's just this mindset in the video that it can't possibly be romantic in any form because it's based on a friendship that frustrates me.
I'm not too judgmental of people who didn't like it or see it coming, one of the bigger problems of the fourth season was rushed writing and Asami on the whole suffered from it (along with several other characters). That said, I don't know why people seem to think they were supposed to have been in love or a relationship the whole season. The way I viewed it, they developed that friendship in the third season very well, and then spent three years apart, during which time Korra was severely depressed and Asami was pretty busy. Suddenly they come back into each others' lives and rekindle that friendship, but there's something different going on and they don't really understand it right away. More importantly they've got an immediate threat on their hands so it's not until Kuvira's dealt with that they're able to sit back and enjoy each other's company, and the first thing they do is slip away to be alone.
The points about the vacations girls take: I honestly thought that you might just be trolling at that point because it sounded ridiculous. But even if I accept that as a common occurence, in a TV show you have to accept that some things are focused on for a reason. It is very weird if Korra and Asami just take a friend's vacation in the spirit world alone together. Thematically it would have been better, if they were going the friend route, to involve the other two friends in the group, end the show with all four on another adventure. The entire mood of the last scene was giving me romantic vibes, I really have struggled to even see how anyone else could miss it. Again, the importance of focusing on their hands and gaze, in a show that means something.
I feel like the points about putting a label on their relationship and asking why the Avatar has to be in a relationship just don't matter. You might as well ask why Aang needed to have a relationship and why could he and Katara just have been close friends? After all, Aang was a monk and if any character could be expected not to engage in romance it would be the 12 year old bald monk. You can ask those questions sure but it doesn't really help the conversation any. You can ask them about any couple. They could have done that but they didn't, the answer is because they wanted Korra to have a relationship.
It bugs me when people try to devalue the relationship or make excuses for why they're only friends. Criticize how its done all you like, it's definitely not written particularly well, but the creators confirmed the relationship as romantic. In my personal opinion it feels like it's just starting, not in full swing and I don't know why more people don't even seem to consider it.
I know this video is six months old and practically no one cares anymore, especially in the wake of Gay Marriage being legalized. I usually like your videos BCG and I think you're a swell guy, but stumbling upon this video just hit my buttons and I felt obligated to retread my defense of Korrasami. I understand where you were coming from but I just felt a bit insulted while watching."
I legitimately do feel like BlackCriticGuy was kind of insulting to people like me in this video. It's not that Korra and Asami weren't good friends or that they always had romantic interactions, but just denying that anything they did together could be romantic in some way just bothers me. The denial that there just wasn't any romantic subtext at all and I'm just reaching to draw a conclusion that just is not substantiated by the show at all, when it's been confirmed by the creators that I'm correct is just crazy and maddening. Hell, claiming that he believes the creators were merely trying to stir up controversy in order to get more exposure is far more guilty of reaching than any Korrasami speculation from season 4. Even at the end of the video when he's saying that it's okay to have different opinion or interpretations just felt like covering himself rather than sincerely believing it.
One point I left out of the comment as well was my exasperation with trying to find ways around Korra and Asami being together romantically. I mean, shippers always go crazy whenever their favorite pairing isn't realized (exaggeration, don't get your pants in a knot) but just the amount of people who suddenly ask why Korra just can't be single or why their can't be just a strong friendship between her and Asami is irritating. Nobody was asking why Aang got in a relationship. Maybe it's just that I don't see it much, but it really does feel like people were just trying to deny a homosexual relationship instead of legitimately wanting Korra single with a friend. Would most of those people still have asked that it she had ended up with Mako? Was anyone asking that in the first season finale when it looked like that might be the end of the series?
Obviously I really enjoy this pairing, enough to spend a few posts writing about it, and it really irks me that people just try to undermine it any way they can. I don't want to be harsh but the fact is that Korrasami is a romantic relationship and trying to deny it is pointless and irritating. Again I say, criticize it if you don't like it, and if you hate it because you're a homophobe at least come out and freaking say it if you're going to talk about it. Write or read fanfiction if you really need an alternate version or something but denying romantic Korrasami is factually wrong. Hopefully the upcoming comic will make it so obvious it can't be denied anymore.
Boy, how embarrassing would it be if this whole issue had settled down already and people had already come to terms with it and I'm just stupidly stoking the embers to a conflict I wish was dealt with? Well, in that hypothetical, there would be no one to read this anyway so it's almost like it couldn't happen.
-Subtle
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Favorite Pokemon by Type
Just to prove that not everything I post on here is inspired by negativity, I think it'll be fun for me to list off my favorite Pokemon. I don't just want to rattle off a bunch of my favorites willy-nilly though, they'd be pretty similar and mostly just consist of my saying how awesome I think they are (and that may end up still being the case here, but I'll try to limit it). Instead, I'm going to list which Pokemon of each type is my favorite and try to give a somewhat detailed explanation of why I like it. The reasons can range from aesthetics to nostalgia to usability in general (though not competitively, I am strictly not a competitive player), and in the case of dual typed Pokemon, I'll try to keep to ones whose second typing isn't a big factor as to why I like it, but sometimes that will happen so sorry if you think another is more deserving. At the very least, I won't list one Pokemon for two different types because that is just cheating. I'll also being avoiding Mega forms because that could just be its own list.
So let's get started with:
Bug - Heracross
I really really hate bugs in real life. So, as a result, I rarely use bug type Pokemon. Though honestly it's not just my real life aversion to them, but just the fact that for a while, bug Pokemon were pretty terrible to use. They tended to get outclassed very early on, leaving them almost not even worth training (except Butterfree in Yellow because how the heck else were you supposed to get past Brock?). Or they were hard to come by, Pinsir and Scyther being later game mons who you either had to frustrate yourself with in the Safari Zone or try winning from the Casino.
Gen 2 was where my favorite bug mon came from though, and I'll be honest, nostalgia is pretty much why he's on the list. Heracross was on my original Gold team and I had caught him pretty early on. I remember using him a lot and he was just a beast. Strong and durable, he didn't fold like a lot of other bug mons in those games, and wasn't ridiculously hard to find like stronger bugs in RBY. He was cool enough that I got over my aversion to bugs, at least in his case, and made him part of my main team, and he's still the best bug in my ever so humble opinion.
Dark - Zoroark
I like the dark type more as a concept than in practice, but I've used my fair share of them over the years. Mightyena was a contender for this spot since, even though it gets outclassed late in the game, I still love that dark canine mon. But White 2 gave me the opportunity to use one mon in particular that stole my heart, and Zoroark is definitely my favorite dark type. With its illusion ability, I had a blast trolling many a trainer into using a weak or ineffective move on my Zoroark, only to then crush them after the disguise dissipated. It looks cool, it has an awesome ability and a pretty good move-pool, It is the coolest dark type pokemon.
Dragon - Salamence
Salamence. I don't need to say more but I will. The dragon type kind of got gypped in terms of cool looking Pokemon for about two generations. Yeah Dragonair looked graceful and I can see why people would like it, but Dragonite just looks kind of odd, all things considered, and for such a powerful type like dragon it just feels off. Gen 3 introduced us to quite a few new dragons though, and Salamence was the best of them. Quadrupedal, big wings, nice fangs and some cool crests on its head, Salamence is an effing dragon in every sense of the word and it's awesome.
Electric - Zebstrika
I'm one of those people who loves Pikachu. It doesn't matter if it's not particularly strong or great, it's cute and its the mascot. I grew up with Pikachu! That said, my favorite electric type is Zebstrika, a Gen 5 pokemon. In my White team, Zebstrika was a boss. It knew electric moves and flame charge, which while not only a different type move I could use in different situations, increased its speed! Zebstrika was a lightning bruiser in a more literal sense of the word. It impressed me so much during my playthrough that it managed to dethrone Pikachu as my favorite electric type. Plus, it's a ZEBRA!
Fairy - Gardevoir
I'll be honest, this one feels like I'm cheating. Since Fairy is a new type I don't have much experience with it. And since this Pokemon I've chosen lost on another type, it just feels like I'm putting it here to give it something instead of a more deserving Fairy. Anyway, Gardevoir has been one of my favorites since it was introduced in Gen 3. I caught a Ralts thinking I'd like a Psychic type during my first playthrough of Ruby and by Thor I did. Fairy type definitely improved Gardevoir though, something I wasn't sure it would. Using both Psychic and Fairy type moves, there was little aside from Steel that can stand in the way of a good Gardevoir and I love having one on my team.
Fighting - Blaziken
Speaking of feeling guilty, my choice for this category also lost out in another typing, but I have more experience with fighting types than fairy so I can safely say that this choice is my favorite of the fighting type. Blaziken is an awesomely designed Pokemon, it hits hard and it hits fast. It's another Gen 3 favorite of mine, there so many good ones introduced back then! It's one of those starters whose second typing is actually a little better than the first, and using Blaziken as a fighter is often a better choice than loading it up with fire type moves, although you keep one or two in case you need them. Blaziken just hits hard and looks awesome while doing it. No other fighting type even comes close.
Fire - Charizard
Now, some might view this choice as unoriginal or overrated. I don't care. Charizard is the coolest Fire type Pokemon ever created. It's a Fire breathing dragon! It has flames coming out of its tail! Its shiny form is black! You will never convince me that Charizard is not the coolest! Now honestly, yes this comes from nostalgia and I'm aware that competitively it doesn't hold up but like I said, I don't care about that stuff. Fire types are my favorite type of Pokemon and Charizard is definitely one of my top three favorite Pokemon in general. I mean... I just don't have the logic to accurately say why I love this big freaking lizard.
Flying - Braviary
Flying is a tough type to choose a favorite for because it gets tacked onto a lot of other types. It's hard to think of a type it hasn't been paired up with, and there may not be one. So choosing for this type means that I have to choose something that I like as a flying mon first and not as another type. That leaves me with a smaller pool, and ultimately my choice is one I'm not very familiar with. Braviary is a Gen 5 mon and my main reason for choosing it is because it looks really really tough. As far as birds go, eagles are pretty scary and coming up against one this big and fierce would make me think twice. I don't really have much more on this one, I just really like the way it looks.
Ghost - Gengar
This type is one I don't use often because shadow ball can be learned by a lot of Pokemon and I have a limited number for my team. That aside, I also don't have much use for this type is because Gengar, my favorite, was pretty much impossible for me to get as a kid, since I didn't have friends to trade with. My affection for Gengar stems from both the anime, where I liked the one episode where Gengar trolled Ash and his friends, and the theory about it and Clefable. Short version, they were created close to the same time, and have similar appearances, so it's theorized the Gengar is Clefable's shadow. Their typing leaves them unable to really hurt one another either, so they're locked in an eternal battle (or something like that). I just think it's a really cool Pokemon and I wish I'd gotten to use it as a kid.
Grass - Grovyle
I am not particularly fond of Grass (it's weak to my favorite type after all), partly because most of its moves are status-affecting moves and I am more of a attack attack attack guy. Gen 3 introduced the move Leaf Blade though, and I really like using it and my favorite Grass type was the first Pokemon I had that used it. Grovyle is on this list mostly because it is super sleek and cool looking. Sceptile, while more powerful I guess, just looks more awkward and goofy. Grovyle's cool though, he's the kind of Pokemon that would wear sunglasses. All this said, it only just beats out Seperior in this spot mainly due to Nostalgia. I've been a fan of Grovyle a lot longer than Serperior, and it remains one of my top favorite Pokemon.
Ground - Groudon
It had to happen sometime. It was unavoidable, but you just gotta play the cards your dealt. Groudon is my favorite ground type Pokemon. Legendary Pokemon just feel sort of cheap to put on one of these. "Oh, you're one of those people, who mindlessly like the Legendaries. You just like whatever's flashiest or powerful. Snob snob condescend ppbbbtthh." So yeah, ground isn't the most exciting of types, and for me I guess it took one with some flash and power to really grab me. Groudon just happens to be the first ground type Pokemon I really liked. This type is another one that gets tacked on to other types, mainly rock, so a lot of those mons embody another type more than ground as well, but Groudon works it. I guess when it comes to the ground type, there's no beating the mon responsible for creating the ground.
Ice - Lapras
Hey look, another type that gets tacked on as a second type. Like grass, ice is weak to my favorite type and so I don't like it much. That's ridiculous, but really my dislike comes from the fact that it's weak to fire, fighting and rock, and the moves can be learned by a lot of other mons. A dedicated ice type mon is not usually going to be on my team unless it's also water. So it's fitting that Lapras takes this spot. Though I haven't used it much, Lapras looks particularly graceful and serene. I loved taking pictures of is in Pokemon Snap, and its ice type moves would be much more effective with its same type bonus than on other mons. Ice Beam and Blizzard, Surf and another move would be enough to make Lapras an addition I'd like to have. Plus it's the surfing animation for the early games, so it's like you've been using it even without using it!
Normal - Lopunny
Like flying, normal gets tacked on with so many other types that for this one I gotta choose a mon that embodies the normal type first and foremost, which once again sort of reduces the pool of candidates, mostly from flying types on the list. My pick for this type is Lopunny. I have to be honest, Lopunny is only on this list because I like it aesthetically. It looks interesting as a big rabbit, neither intimidating of cutesy and has that sort of grace like Gardevoir. I'm not fond of the Normal type because it just rarely produces Pokemon that are worth using. You get some move diversity but at the cost of STAB bonuses and moves that almost all other Pokemon learn. Lopunny is the best of this kind of mediocre type.
Poison - Crobat
Yet another type I don't use often because, like grass, it's based around status affecting moves. Unlike the last choice though I do legitimately like using my pick this time. Crobat is super fast and I remember my time using one it was super reliable. I could always count on it to take down certain types of Pokemon quickly, and you gotta get its friendship high anyway so it's not too surprising that I would grow some legitimate affection for it. If there weren't so many other cool or unique flying type mons out there Crobat would be one Pokemon I'd be using more often.
Psychic - Mewtwo
Fire may be my favorite type, but psychic is definitely the runner up. Gen 1 psychic types were unstoppable and since being nerfed they are still super useful. And there's only one psychic type that illustrates the unstoppable power they can unleash. Mewtwo! Let's face it, at one time or another everyone loved Mewtwo. If you deny it, you're lying to yourself. Mewtwo was, and sometimes still is, the baddest of the bad. Back in the day he was the ultimate challenge for a Pokemon trainer, and would allow you unleash chaos upon your opponents. Even now with all the Pokemon at my fingertips it's so tempting to just put Mewtwo in my party and just go wreck the Elite Four. And yes, I am biased since I loved the first Pokemon movie.
Rock - Tyrantrum
Here we have about the only case where the dual type informs my decision, but that's only part of the reason. Tyrantrum, a Gen 6 TYRANNOSAURUS REX! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH LOVE I HAVE FOR THIS?!?! My favorite dinosaur is a Pokemon! A rock/dragon type! My dinosaur is a dragon!
...Ahem. So yes, that's my favorite rock type. But to be fair, rock types kind of suck. Chances are you're probably going to be taking full advantage of the other type your rock mon is because Rock is so weak. One of my least favorite pokemon is a rock type so that might have made me a little more biased. Moving on.
Steel - Metagross
Steel is a great type for defense, but since I'm almost always more interested in attack I am not particularly good at using steel types. The moves rarely do much damage and it just seems to be a typing that strengthens defense and little else (plus it's weak to fire). I do like Metagross a lot though, and I think it's because it's so rare and powerful. Steven uses one and it's a monster! In OR I liked to duke it out with my Mega Blaziken against his Mega Metagross and just see who would fall first. It was my Blaziken. Anyway, Metagross is one steel Pokemon I would use more... if it wasn't so difficult to obtain and level up. I still like it but yeah, hard to get to use it through most of the game.
Water - Greninja
The last type. This one's tough because there are tons of water types to choose from! It's pretty much mandatory to have one in your party, they have so many strengths and you need to surf in every game so you're gonna have one or a good strategy to get around it. Anyway, Gyarados has been my favorite for a good long while, mainly because again it's a huge frickin' dragon. Even it's vulnerability to electricity couldn't bring me down. However, Gen 6 came around and introduced me to the coolest water type around, cool enough to knock down the epic rage machine that is Gyarados. Greninja is literally a ninja! He is so cool, and I loved using him in my X team. Initially I was pretty disappointed with the Kalos starters because they seemed pretty lame all around, even Froakie wasn't impressing me. But when I saw Greninja I knew that I would be its trainer and it was just so cool! What can I say, sometimes being cool is just better than being awesome.
So that's it for my favorite Pokemon by type. Some of my all time favorites are on this list, but some couldn't make it onto the list so maybe sometime I'll come back to this subject and just spill out what my favorites are in general. I also may make a list of my least favorite Pokemon by type. That'll be harder to do, since some types are filled with terrible Pokemon.
Divided up by Gens, Gen 1 has four on this list, Gen 2 has two, Gen 3 has six, Gen 4 has one, Gen 5 has three and Gen 6 has two. The trend of dragon-like or dinosaur-like Pokemon being ones I really enjoy should be apparent, but surprisingly I've also found I have a great appreciation for Pokemon that have some grace. I don't go for cutesy much, but yeah a nice graceful Pokemon is one I end up admiring. A couple even managed to end up on this list from my using them in the games and finding out just how cool they are. And yes, some of them I like just for the sheer power,
My favorites tend to be based on visuals, but I'm interested in hearing about other peoples' favorites and how they decide them. Whether it's based on appearance, moves, availability, stats or whatever, I find it interesting how people choose which of the hundreds upon hundreds of Pokemon as their favorites.
-Subtle
So let's get started with:
Bug - Heracross
I really really hate bugs in real life. So, as a result, I rarely use bug type Pokemon. Though honestly it's not just my real life aversion to them, but just the fact that for a while, bug Pokemon were pretty terrible to use. They tended to get outclassed very early on, leaving them almost not even worth training (except Butterfree in Yellow because how the heck else were you supposed to get past Brock?). Or they were hard to come by, Pinsir and Scyther being later game mons who you either had to frustrate yourself with in the Safari Zone or try winning from the Casino.
Gen 2 was where my favorite bug mon came from though, and I'll be honest, nostalgia is pretty much why he's on the list. Heracross was on my original Gold team and I had caught him pretty early on. I remember using him a lot and he was just a beast. Strong and durable, he didn't fold like a lot of other bug mons in those games, and wasn't ridiculously hard to find like stronger bugs in RBY. He was cool enough that I got over my aversion to bugs, at least in his case, and made him part of my main team, and he's still the best bug in my ever so humble opinion.
Dark - Zoroark
I like the dark type more as a concept than in practice, but I've used my fair share of them over the years. Mightyena was a contender for this spot since, even though it gets outclassed late in the game, I still love that dark canine mon. But White 2 gave me the opportunity to use one mon in particular that stole my heart, and Zoroark is definitely my favorite dark type. With its illusion ability, I had a blast trolling many a trainer into using a weak or ineffective move on my Zoroark, only to then crush them after the disguise dissipated. It looks cool, it has an awesome ability and a pretty good move-pool, It is the coolest dark type pokemon.
Dragon - Salamence
Salamence. I don't need to say more but I will. The dragon type kind of got gypped in terms of cool looking Pokemon for about two generations. Yeah Dragonair looked graceful and I can see why people would like it, but Dragonite just looks kind of odd, all things considered, and for such a powerful type like dragon it just feels off. Gen 3 introduced us to quite a few new dragons though, and Salamence was the best of them. Quadrupedal, big wings, nice fangs and some cool crests on its head, Salamence is an effing dragon in every sense of the word and it's awesome.
Electric - Zebstrika
I'm one of those people who loves Pikachu. It doesn't matter if it's not particularly strong or great, it's cute and its the mascot. I grew up with Pikachu! That said, my favorite electric type is Zebstrika, a Gen 5 pokemon. In my White team, Zebstrika was a boss. It knew electric moves and flame charge, which while not only a different type move I could use in different situations, increased its speed! Zebstrika was a lightning bruiser in a more literal sense of the word. It impressed me so much during my playthrough that it managed to dethrone Pikachu as my favorite electric type. Plus, it's a ZEBRA!
Fairy - Gardevoir
I'll be honest, this one feels like I'm cheating. Since Fairy is a new type I don't have much experience with it. And since this Pokemon I've chosen lost on another type, it just feels like I'm putting it here to give it something instead of a more deserving Fairy. Anyway, Gardevoir has been one of my favorites since it was introduced in Gen 3. I caught a Ralts thinking I'd like a Psychic type during my first playthrough of Ruby and by Thor I did. Fairy type definitely improved Gardevoir though, something I wasn't sure it would. Using both Psychic and Fairy type moves, there was little aside from Steel that can stand in the way of a good Gardevoir and I love having one on my team.
Fighting - Blaziken
Speaking of feeling guilty, my choice for this category also lost out in another typing, but I have more experience with fighting types than fairy so I can safely say that this choice is my favorite of the fighting type. Blaziken is an awesomely designed Pokemon, it hits hard and it hits fast. It's another Gen 3 favorite of mine, there so many good ones introduced back then! It's one of those starters whose second typing is actually a little better than the first, and using Blaziken as a fighter is often a better choice than loading it up with fire type moves, although you keep one or two in case you need them. Blaziken just hits hard and looks awesome while doing it. No other fighting type even comes close.
Fire - Charizard
Now, some might view this choice as unoriginal or overrated. I don't care. Charizard is the coolest Fire type Pokemon ever created. It's a Fire breathing dragon! It has flames coming out of its tail! Its shiny form is black! You will never convince me that Charizard is not the coolest! Now honestly, yes this comes from nostalgia and I'm aware that competitively it doesn't hold up but like I said, I don't care about that stuff. Fire types are my favorite type of Pokemon and Charizard is definitely one of my top three favorite Pokemon in general. I mean... I just don't have the logic to accurately say why I love this big freaking lizard.
Flying - Braviary
Flying is a tough type to choose a favorite for because it gets tacked onto a lot of other types. It's hard to think of a type it hasn't been paired up with, and there may not be one. So choosing for this type means that I have to choose something that I like as a flying mon first and not as another type. That leaves me with a smaller pool, and ultimately my choice is one I'm not very familiar with. Braviary is a Gen 5 mon and my main reason for choosing it is because it looks really really tough. As far as birds go, eagles are pretty scary and coming up against one this big and fierce would make me think twice. I don't really have much more on this one, I just really like the way it looks.
Ghost - Gengar
This type is one I don't use often because shadow ball can be learned by a lot of Pokemon and I have a limited number for my team. That aside, I also don't have much use for this type is because Gengar, my favorite, was pretty much impossible for me to get as a kid, since I didn't have friends to trade with. My affection for Gengar stems from both the anime, where I liked the one episode where Gengar trolled Ash and his friends, and the theory about it and Clefable. Short version, they were created close to the same time, and have similar appearances, so it's theorized the Gengar is Clefable's shadow. Their typing leaves them unable to really hurt one another either, so they're locked in an eternal battle (or something like that). I just think it's a really cool Pokemon and I wish I'd gotten to use it as a kid.
Grass - Grovyle
I am not particularly fond of Grass (it's weak to my favorite type after all), partly because most of its moves are status-affecting moves and I am more of a attack attack attack guy. Gen 3 introduced the move Leaf Blade though, and I really like using it and my favorite Grass type was the first Pokemon I had that used it. Grovyle is on this list mostly because it is super sleek and cool looking. Sceptile, while more powerful I guess, just looks more awkward and goofy. Grovyle's cool though, he's the kind of Pokemon that would wear sunglasses. All this said, it only just beats out Seperior in this spot mainly due to Nostalgia. I've been a fan of Grovyle a lot longer than Serperior, and it remains one of my top favorite Pokemon.
Ground - Groudon
It had to happen sometime. It was unavoidable, but you just gotta play the cards your dealt. Groudon is my favorite ground type Pokemon. Legendary Pokemon just feel sort of cheap to put on one of these. "Oh, you're one of those people, who mindlessly like the Legendaries. You just like whatever's flashiest or powerful. Snob snob condescend ppbbbtthh." So yeah, ground isn't the most exciting of types, and for me I guess it took one with some flash and power to really grab me. Groudon just happens to be the first ground type Pokemon I really liked. This type is another one that gets tacked on to other types, mainly rock, so a lot of those mons embody another type more than ground as well, but Groudon works it. I guess when it comes to the ground type, there's no beating the mon responsible for creating the ground.
Ice - Lapras
Hey look, another type that gets tacked on as a second type. Like grass, ice is weak to my favorite type and so I don't like it much. That's ridiculous, but really my dislike comes from the fact that it's weak to fire, fighting and rock, and the moves can be learned by a lot of other mons. A dedicated ice type mon is not usually going to be on my team unless it's also water. So it's fitting that Lapras takes this spot. Though I haven't used it much, Lapras looks particularly graceful and serene. I loved taking pictures of is in Pokemon Snap, and its ice type moves would be much more effective with its same type bonus than on other mons. Ice Beam and Blizzard, Surf and another move would be enough to make Lapras an addition I'd like to have. Plus it's the surfing animation for the early games, so it's like you've been using it even without using it!
Normal - Lopunny
Like flying, normal gets tacked on with so many other types that for this one I gotta choose a mon that embodies the normal type first and foremost, which once again sort of reduces the pool of candidates, mostly from flying types on the list. My pick for this type is Lopunny. I have to be honest, Lopunny is only on this list because I like it aesthetically. It looks interesting as a big rabbit, neither intimidating of cutesy and has that sort of grace like Gardevoir. I'm not fond of the Normal type because it just rarely produces Pokemon that are worth using. You get some move diversity but at the cost of STAB bonuses and moves that almost all other Pokemon learn. Lopunny is the best of this kind of mediocre type.
Poison - Crobat
Yet another type I don't use often because, like grass, it's based around status affecting moves. Unlike the last choice though I do legitimately like using my pick this time. Crobat is super fast and I remember my time using one it was super reliable. I could always count on it to take down certain types of Pokemon quickly, and you gotta get its friendship high anyway so it's not too surprising that I would grow some legitimate affection for it. If there weren't so many other cool or unique flying type mons out there Crobat would be one Pokemon I'd be using more often.
Psychic - Mewtwo
Fire may be my favorite type, but psychic is definitely the runner up. Gen 1 psychic types were unstoppable and since being nerfed they are still super useful. And there's only one psychic type that illustrates the unstoppable power they can unleash. Mewtwo! Let's face it, at one time or another everyone loved Mewtwo. If you deny it, you're lying to yourself. Mewtwo was, and sometimes still is, the baddest of the bad. Back in the day he was the ultimate challenge for a Pokemon trainer, and would allow you unleash chaos upon your opponents. Even now with all the Pokemon at my fingertips it's so tempting to just put Mewtwo in my party and just go wreck the Elite Four. And yes, I am biased since I loved the first Pokemon movie.
Rock - Tyrantrum
Here we have about the only case where the dual type informs my decision, but that's only part of the reason. Tyrantrum, a Gen 6 TYRANNOSAURUS REX! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH LOVE I HAVE FOR THIS?!?! My favorite dinosaur is a Pokemon! A rock/dragon type! My dinosaur is a dragon!
...Ahem. So yes, that's my favorite rock type. But to be fair, rock types kind of suck. Chances are you're probably going to be taking full advantage of the other type your rock mon is because Rock is so weak. One of my least favorite pokemon is a rock type so that might have made me a little more biased. Moving on.
Steel - Metagross
Steel is a great type for defense, but since I'm almost always more interested in attack I am not particularly good at using steel types. The moves rarely do much damage and it just seems to be a typing that strengthens defense and little else (plus it's weak to fire). I do like Metagross a lot though, and I think it's because it's so rare and powerful. Steven uses one and it's a monster! In OR I liked to duke it out with my Mega Blaziken against his Mega Metagross and just see who would fall first. It was my Blaziken. Anyway, Metagross is one steel Pokemon I would use more... if it wasn't so difficult to obtain and level up. I still like it but yeah, hard to get to use it through most of the game.
Water - Greninja
The last type. This one's tough because there are tons of water types to choose from! It's pretty much mandatory to have one in your party, they have so many strengths and you need to surf in every game so you're gonna have one or a good strategy to get around it. Anyway, Gyarados has been my favorite for a good long while, mainly because again it's a huge frickin' dragon. Even it's vulnerability to electricity couldn't bring me down. However, Gen 6 came around and introduced me to the coolest water type around, cool enough to knock down the epic rage machine that is Gyarados. Greninja is literally a ninja! He is so cool, and I loved using him in my X team. Initially I was pretty disappointed with the Kalos starters because they seemed pretty lame all around, even Froakie wasn't impressing me. But when I saw Greninja I knew that I would be its trainer and it was just so cool! What can I say, sometimes being cool is just better than being awesome.
So that's it for my favorite Pokemon by type. Some of my all time favorites are on this list, but some couldn't make it onto the list so maybe sometime I'll come back to this subject and just spill out what my favorites are in general. I also may make a list of my least favorite Pokemon by type. That'll be harder to do, since some types are filled with terrible Pokemon.
Divided up by Gens, Gen 1 has four on this list, Gen 2 has two, Gen 3 has six, Gen 4 has one, Gen 5 has three and Gen 6 has two. The trend of dragon-like or dinosaur-like Pokemon being ones I really enjoy should be apparent, but surprisingly I've also found I have a great appreciation for Pokemon that have some grace. I don't go for cutesy much, but yeah a nice graceful Pokemon is one I end up admiring. A couple even managed to end up on this list from my using them in the games and finding out just how cool they are. And yes, some of them I like just for the sheer power,
My favorites tend to be based on visuals, but I'm interested in hearing about other peoples' favorites and how they decide them. Whether it's based on appearance, moves, availability, stats or whatever, I find it interesting how people choose which of the hundreds upon hundreds of Pokemon as their favorites.
-Subtle
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Teen Titans Go!
The cartoon, not the comic.
My opinion of Teen Titans Go! is pretty simple: I hate a lot of things about it but still find some episodes that are moderately enjoyable. If it became cancelled tomorrow I wouldn't shed any tears over it but I find it's usually bearable and sometimes amuses me. It helps that at least the voice actors seem to be having a good time even if the show is kinda crap. Yes, the characters have all been ruined and act very little like how they should, yes Beast Boy, Cyborg and Robin in particular get it the worst, and yes they all have episodes where I hate their guts and make me wish for cancellation.
That said, there is one thing about the show that I absolutely loathe: the freaking titles. "Breakfast Cheese", "Money Grandma", "Smile Bones", etc., all are really terrible! "Breakfast Cheese" I can't even figure out, the title has nothing to do with the episode's plot except for one little throwaway lyric at the end. It doesn't make sense! "Money Grandma" and "Smile Bones" are just made of stupid since they're ignorant phrases Beast Boy (and Cyborg) use instead of the real name/word (George Washington and teeth, respectively) because I guess the writers think it's funny that BB is ignorant.
Not all the titles are bad, I just remember those in particular because they just didn't make sense to me. The latter two just play into the problem of the show as a whole. It's not just a problem of the characters being stupid, it goes beyond that. The show feels very anti-intellectual, with characters reveling in their ignorance. Not to mention all the other horrible messages, which generally get shackled onto Beast Boy and Cyborg. Robin fairs better only when they're busy being the episode's idiots, otherwise it's a safe bet he'll fall into that role. Raven and Starfire generally make it out better in the episodes, but they can be infuriating as well.
There is potential in the show, though yeah that should be obvious since Teen Titans was mega popular a decade ago. The writers/directors/creators/network are just too busy trying to... I honestly don't know what they're trying to do, maybe be funny? The problems are just too big to be mistakes, they are intentional and they get repeated, as though something tells them that this is the right thing to do. The characters are generally too ignorant and mean to like, only occasionally doing something right and making something genuinely amusing.
I'll end this post by listing an episode or two I think work: "Starliar" and "Lady Legasus" are pretty entertaining. Starfire and Raven episodes generally do fair better, I don't know why but maybe because they're girls and the writers are afraid of making unlikable women? Anyway, in both episodes the antagonist is a Titan, but not because they are being too mean. Starfire in the former learns how to lie from Beast Boy in an attempt to spare the other Titan's feelings when she gets invited a party they don't, She does more damage with this action but she thought she would be doing something good. In the latter, Cyborg has donned Raven's cloak and the darkness within it corrupts him into a crabby, mean-spirited person who eventually attacks his friends. His actions weren't his own doing though, he was being influenced by an outside force.
Those episodes do something right by keeping the antagonists sympathetic. Instead of BB and Cyborg being huge jerks like in SOME episodes, Starfire and Cyborg are kept likable because their motivations are understandable. That is how you do this right, by not altering the personality drastically.
Finally, a thought about something in this show that has been in my mind for awhile. In one episode where Robin challenges his friends to go a day without using their powers, they end up doing better than he thought and so he decides to try to cheat to win. He ties a robot of himself to a bomb and puts it at the end of an obstacle course, hoping they'll use their powers and disqualify themselves. None of them do, and they don't make it in time. My problem with this episode came with that resolution. NONE OF THE TITANS WOULD RISK A BET FOR THE LIFE OF THEIR FRIEND! Not one of them even tried using their powers to get to Robin in time, they were going to let him die! That's why the episode fell apart for me. It made Robin go from the most unlikable person in the episode to the most sympathetic. The guy who tried to cheat his way through a bet and lied to his friends, pretending to be dead, is more sympathetic than any of the others. The episode had an easy way of keeping the tone of the show and making it a much better episode.
They should have used their powers and lost the bet. Robin cheats, he wins, his friends are mad at him and he's unlikable like the episode wanted to portray. This is in keeping with the tone of the episode and the overall portrayal of the Titans in this show. Instead the writers tried to outdo themselves in how mean-spirited they could be and everyone in the episode was unlikable. Good going, guys.
Oh wow, okay this turned out way longer than I thought it was going to. I've been bottling up my thoughts about the show for awhile now, it was good to get them out.
-Subtle
My opinion of Teen Titans Go! is pretty simple: I hate a lot of things about it but still find some episodes that are moderately enjoyable. If it became cancelled tomorrow I wouldn't shed any tears over it but I find it's usually bearable and sometimes amuses me. It helps that at least the voice actors seem to be having a good time even if the show is kinda crap. Yes, the characters have all been ruined and act very little like how they should, yes Beast Boy, Cyborg and Robin in particular get it the worst, and yes they all have episodes where I hate their guts and make me wish for cancellation.
That said, there is one thing about the show that I absolutely loathe: the freaking titles. "Breakfast Cheese", "Money Grandma", "Smile Bones", etc., all are really terrible! "Breakfast Cheese" I can't even figure out, the title has nothing to do with the episode's plot except for one little throwaway lyric at the end. It doesn't make sense! "Money Grandma" and "Smile Bones" are just made of stupid since they're ignorant phrases Beast Boy (and Cyborg) use instead of the real name/word (George Washington and teeth, respectively) because I guess the writers think it's funny that BB is ignorant.
Not all the titles are bad, I just remember those in particular because they just didn't make sense to me. The latter two just play into the problem of the show as a whole. It's not just a problem of the characters being stupid, it goes beyond that. The show feels very anti-intellectual, with characters reveling in their ignorance. Not to mention all the other horrible messages, which generally get shackled onto Beast Boy and Cyborg. Robin fairs better only when they're busy being the episode's idiots, otherwise it's a safe bet he'll fall into that role. Raven and Starfire generally make it out better in the episodes, but they can be infuriating as well.
There is potential in the show, though yeah that should be obvious since Teen Titans was mega popular a decade ago. The writers/directors/creators/network are just too busy trying to... I honestly don't know what they're trying to do, maybe be funny? The problems are just too big to be mistakes, they are intentional and they get repeated, as though something tells them that this is the right thing to do. The characters are generally too ignorant and mean to like, only occasionally doing something right and making something genuinely amusing.
I'll end this post by listing an episode or two I think work: "Starliar" and "Lady Legasus" are pretty entertaining. Starfire and Raven episodes generally do fair better, I don't know why but maybe because they're girls and the writers are afraid of making unlikable women? Anyway, in both episodes the antagonist is a Titan, but not because they are being too mean. Starfire in the former learns how to lie from Beast Boy in an attempt to spare the other Titan's feelings when she gets invited a party they don't, She does more damage with this action but she thought she would be doing something good. In the latter, Cyborg has donned Raven's cloak and the darkness within it corrupts him into a crabby, mean-spirited person who eventually attacks his friends. His actions weren't his own doing though, he was being influenced by an outside force.
Those episodes do something right by keeping the antagonists sympathetic. Instead of BB and Cyborg being huge jerks like in SOME episodes, Starfire and Cyborg are kept likable because their motivations are understandable. That is how you do this right, by not altering the personality drastically.
Finally, a thought about something in this show that has been in my mind for awhile. In one episode where Robin challenges his friends to go a day without using their powers, they end up doing better than he thought and so he decides to try to cheat to win. He ties a robot of himself to a bomb and puts it at the end of an obstacle course, hoping they'll use their powers and disqualify themselves. None of them do, and they don't make it in time. My problem with this episode came with that resolution. NONE OF THE TITANS WOULD RISK A BET FOR THE LIFE OF THEIR FRIEND! Not one of them even tried using their powers to get to Robin in time, they were going to let him die! That's why the episode fell apart for me. It made Robin go from the most unlikable person in the episode to the most sympathetic. The guy who tried to cheat his way through a bet and lied to his friends, pretending to be dead, is more sympathetic than any of the others. The episode had an easy way of keeping the tone of the show and making it a much better episode.
They should have used their powers and lost the bet. Robin cheats, he wins, his friends are mad at him and he's unlikable like the episode wanted to portray. This is in keeping with the tone of the episode and the overall portrayal of the Titans in this show. Instead the writers tried to outdo themselves in how mean-spirited they could be and everyone in the episode was unlikable. Good going, guys.
Oh wow, okay this turned out way longer than I thought it was going to. I've been bottling up my thoughts about the show for awhile now, it was good to get them out.
-Subtle
Monday, February 2, 2015
Quick Thought on GamerGate and SJWs
I have never gotten a comment on this blog. I like that, because my opinions are opinions and people on the internet love beating people with opinions down. The status quo might change with this post, depending on who sees it.
Okay, so I mentioned briefly about a month ago that I stay the hell away from GamerGate. I just... I want to be neutral, I don't want to take a side, I want to acknowledge that there are good people on the pro and anti sides. All the hate speech and harassment from GG'ers make it really hard to feel neutral though.
Now let's just stop here real quick. Yes, people get harassed on both sides, there are plenty of awful people everywhere in the world, blah blah blah. My problem is that GG seems to be mostly made up of harassment and misogyny. You can try to explain how it's really about ethics in game journalism all you want, but anytime I see gaters, who are identifying as such, are always spewing harassment and misogyny.
To be fair, the anti-GG side also seems to primarily spew harassment at GG but it's hard to fault them when they seem to be doing it out of a sense of disgust and irritation at the bile that GG spews. I just don't see why GG is still a thing. The image is tainted, I doubt it will ever be thought of by most people who know about it as anything good. This is the problem with GG. I don't care what you say you stand for, all I've seen is hatred. That is why I find it hard to be neutral.
I can't believe there aren't decent people who believe in GG, but the reality is that scum took it and poisoned it and made it impossible for a lot of people to take seriously in any positive light. GG either needs to get some serious, hard policing and cleaning of its image or the decent people need to abandon ship and find other outlets for their cause.
It's at the point where, even if what gets said about the feminist agenda trying to change gaming was true, I'd consider it preferable if it meant the assholes left. But they wouldn't.
This is the kind of shit that makes me wary of ever getting too near to internet gamer culture.
-Subtle
PS- Social Justice Warrior is the worst insult ever. Why would you call someone you're trying to put down something that sounds awesome?
Okay, so I mentioned briefly about a month ago that I stay the hell away from GamerGate. I just... I want to be neutral, I don't want to take a side, I want to acknowledge that there are good people on the pro and anti sides. All the hate speech and harassment from GG'ers make it really hard to feel neutral though.
Now let's just stop here real quick. Yes, people get harassed on both sides, there are plenty of awful people everywhere in the world, blah blah blah. My problem is that GG seems to be mostly made up of harassment and misogyny. You can try to explain how it's really about ethics in game journalism all you want, but anytime I see gaters, who are identifying as such, are always spewing harassment and misogyny.
To be fair, the anti-GG side also seems to primarily spew harassment at GG but it's hard to fault them when they seem to be doing it out of a sense of disgust and irritation at the bile that GG spews. I just don't see why GG is still a thing. The image is tainted, I doubt it will ever be thought of by most people who know about it as anything good. This is the problem with GG. I don't care what you say you stand for, all I've seen is hatred. That is why I find it hard to be neutral.
I can't believe there aren't decent people who believe in GG, but the reality is that scum took it and poisoned it and made it impossible for a lot of people to take seriously in any positive light. GG either needs to get some serious, hard policing and cleaning of its image or the decent people need to abandon ship and find other outlets for their cause.
It's at the point where, even if what gets said about the feminist agenda trying to change gaming was true, I'd consider it preferable if it meant the assholes left. But they wouldn't.
This is the kind of shit that makes me wary of ever getting too near to internet gamer culture.
-Subtle
PS- Social Justice Warrior is the worst insult ever. Why would you call someone you're trying to put down something that sounds awesome?
Monday, January 5, 2015
Follow-up: Why Does Zhurrick Get a Pass?
New Year acknowledgement yay.
Okay, so my last post was about The Legend of Korra and specifically the final canon coupling. I honestly don't care for shipping in most instances: I never cared about the romances in Harry Potter for instance and I only like NaruHina in Naruto because I love Hinata an unbelievable amount and just want her to be happy and I honestly hate how stupid that makes me feel because I don't even care about my friends romantic lives but I want a fictional character to be happy.
So yeah, I don't ship much. In LoK though the finale ended with Korrasami and it honestly made me feel things, things I went into detail over in the last post (or meant to). But not everyone had that reaction and the criticism I see leveled most often that bugs me most about the pairing is that it was too rushed, came out of nowhere or was underdeveloped. Now, fair's fair. I said myself last time that there should have been more development between Korra and Asami and even I in hindsight realize that nothing came off overtly romantic between them until the finale.
I believe that romance can happen in a variety of ways though and I thought that the pairing was great at the end because it was more of a realization than a culmination. Kataang from Avatar: The Last Airbender was a culmination of the development between the two characters, Aang and Katara, over three seasons and 60 episodes (they weren't in one). Korrasami, meanwhile, is not the endgame that Kataang was, it's the beginning of their relationship. Aang and Katara kissed to confirm they were together, Korra and Asami held hands in a moment of realization that they could be together. That's how I interpret the scene anyway.
Now, what's my point in bringing this up again? Well, the title of this post says it all... well, not really, I'll still be going on here. For all the accusations against Korrasami being rushed and out of nowhere, little attention has been paid to the real rushed relationship of the show: Zhu Li and Varrick. The two were introduced in the second season and in addition to the third they had a boss/employee relationship going on. Nothing between them in those two seasons ever made them seem like anything else.
Then suddenly in season 4 episode 5, we get a ship tease moment between them. Note, this is nearly halfway through the season, and the next time we get any moments between them is in episode 11. That's at the end! The next episode Varrick PROPOSES! This is a rushed relationship. This came out of nowhere. Look, I don't hate it. I have no strong feelings about Zhurrick one way or the other. I like Varrick as a character and believe Zhu Li barely has a character. At least Korra and Asami had two seasons of character development becoming closer friends and eventually found romance in it. They didn't propose marriage or even end the show calling each other their girlfriend. It was the start of something new. Yet Zhurrick is allowed a pass for some reason, ending the series with THEIR WEDDING! Seriously!
Argue how vague Korrasami is all you want, but can anyone honestly claim that it was more rushed and out of nowhere than the wedding the show ended on? I really don't want to make this about LGBT issues either, but it reeks of a couple getting a pass because their Hetero and the other being questioned and dismissed because they aren't. And don't even get me started on the claims it was just Fanservice or feminist agenda or progressive for the sake of being progressive. Ugh, see now I'm annoyed and might just have to go look at more Korrasami art. I never look at fanart! This is what I've been reduced to!
I just really hope we get some fucking Korra comics. I need more Korrasami in my life.
-Subtle
Okay, so my last post was about The Legend of Korra and specifically the final canon coupling. I honestly don't care for shipping in most instances: I never cared about the romances in Harry Potter for instance and I only like NaruHina in Naruto because I love Hinata an unbelievable amount and just want her to be happy and I honestly hate how stupid that makes me feel because I don't even care about my friends romantic lives but I want a fictional character to be happy.
So yeah, I don't ship much. In LoK though the finale ended with Korrasami and it honestly made me feel things, things I went into detail over in the last post (or meant to). But not everyone had that reaction and the criticism I see leveled most often that bugs me most about the pairing is that it was too rushed, came out of nowhere or was underdeveloped. Now, fair's fair. I said myself last time that there should have been more development between Korra and Asami and even I in hindsight realize that nothing came off overtly romantic between them until the finale.
I believe that romance can happen in a variety of ways though and I thought that the pairing was great at the end because it was more of a realization than a culmination. Kataang from Avatar: The Last Airbender was a culmination of the development between the two characters, Aang and Katara, over three seasons and 60 episodes (they weren't in one). Korrasami, meanwhile, is not the endgame that Kataang was, it's the beginning of their relationship. Aang and Katara kissed to confirm they were together, Korra and Asami held hands in a moment of realization that they could be together. That's how I interpret the scene anyway.
Now, what's my point in bringing this up again? Well, the title of this post says it all... well, not really, I'll still be going on here. For all the accusations against Korrasami being rushed and out of nowhere, little attention has been paid to the real rushed relationship of the show: Zhu Li and Varrick. The two were introduced in the second season and in addition to the third they had a boss/employee relationship going on. Nothing between them in those two seasons ever made them seem like anything else.
Then suddenly in season 4 episode 5, we get a ship tease moment between them. Note, this is nearly halfway through the season, and the next time we get any moments between them is in episode 11. That's at the end! The next episode Varrick PROPOSES! This is a rushed relationship. This came out of nowhere. Look, I don't hate it. I have no strong feelings about Zhurrick one way or the other. I like Varrick as a character and believe Zhu Li barely has a character. At least Korra and Asami had two seasons of character development becoming closer friends and eventually found romance in it. They didn't propose marriage or even end the show calling each other their girlfriend. It was the start of something new. Yet Zhurrick is allowed a pass for some reason, ending the series with THEIR WEDDING! Seriously!
Argue how vague Korrasami is all you want, but can anyone honestly claim that it was more rushed and out of nowhere than the wedding the show ended on? I really don't want to make this about LGBT issues either, but it reeks of a couple getting a pass because their Hetero and the other being questioned and dismissed because they aren't. And don't even get me started on the claims it was just Fanservice or feminist agenda or progressive for the sake of being progressive. Ugh, see now I'm annoyed and might just have to go look at more Korrasami art. I never look at fanart! This is what I've been reduced to!
I just really hope we get some fucking Korra comics. I need more Korrasami in my life.
-Subtle
Friday, December 19, 2014
The Legend of Korra: Oh my stars I can't believe the series finale y'all
So... I'm glad I don't pay for this space on the internet. A year and half goes by with barely a thought spared for the poor Falsification. Part of it may just be that I've not really seen anything that inspired any passion in me, positive or negative. I mean, I loved Frozen but I didn't feel the need to write about it or anything. I mostly stayed the hell away from GamerGate because I couldn't understand anything with everyone yelling about it. I watched Gravity Falls for the first time a couple of months ago and I like it a lot. Regular Show's most recent episode upset me but still, yeah, didn't feel like writing about it much.
S-S-S-S-S-SPOILERS!!!!!!!
From the title of this post you can then guess what has gotten me out of my year-and-a-half silence: The Legend of Korra ended the series with a lesbian couple. Guys, gals, I can't even deal.
I don't know if I've ever mentioned The Legend of Korra or its prequel series Avatar: The Last Airbender, but they are my favorite shows of all time. Korra mostly benefits from the connection to the previous series, otherwise I think Regular Show or Adventure Time would have topped it, or even something older like Justice League or Nicktoons I grew up with. Still, I think it's one of the best shows to have ever come out, even while I acknowledge that there are plenty of flaws to be found within it.
I'm inclined to blame whatever problems Korra has on Nick. As fans of the show know, in the middle of its third season that aired this summer, Korra was taken off the air and made an online-only show. That was the biggest strike against Korra, others being no advertising for the third season until a week before its premiere and then season four being trotted out around a month after the third season ended. Suffice to say, the show has been screwed by the network. This isn't even the first time it's happened, but it certainly was the biggest middle finger presented.
The series ends with Korra and Asami walking into the spirit world, holding hands and looking into each others eyes. There's subtext, and then there's this middle finger to the censors. It boggles my mind that they actually got away with such an overt LGBT message, and it saddens me as well that this is something to celebrate but I'll take it. Since season 3 began I actually had started to enjoy the possibility of Korra and Asami getting together. They are the best characters out of the four main characters, though with Asami that status is debatable, and Korra finally seemed to have good chemistry with someone other than her airbending master and Zuko's grandson.
I'm not much of a shipper, I generally like canon relationships just fine as long as they're written decently and don't create a romantic plot tumor. I never thought Korra and Asami would end up as an official couple though, and I mostly just enjoyed the possibility and hoped that their friendship would get adequate time in the somewhat rushed narrative the show deals with. I haven't much talked about what aside from shipping I like about Korra, pretty much because it doesn't have much to do with shipping and that's kinda what I've been on about.
Honestly in hindsight Korra seems to be a show constrained by its running time. The creators clearly have ambitious stories to tell but, unlike Avatar: The Last Airbender they didn't have the benefit of years to work on the story and the necesarry amount of episodes to properly tell it. Avatar was penned out years in advance and was given 61 episodes early on to achieve it. Three seasons were adequate to fully explore the story, the characters and rarely felt rushed or constrained. Korra began life as a 12 episode mini-series, and the first season already felt utterly constrained by the episode limit. Nickelodeon, toward the end of the first season's development and way too late to make any changes, ordered an additional 40-something episodes, and not all at once either. The result is that individual seasons are more individual than Avatar's long-flowing narrative. Each one has had to tell a new story in the space of 12-14 episodes, and that is hard to achieve when you have big ambitions and big shoes to fill.
So I don't blame the co-creators of Avatar and Korra for the pacing issues and rushed feeling that Korra sometimes has. They were cramming arcs that probably should have been closer to 20 episodes into a little more than half that amount of time. So Asami got shafted a fair bit in representation and character development throughout the series. Bolin and Mako suffered this to some degree but not nearly as bad, and this is the biggest shame. Avatar was so great in large part because it had fleshed out characters who were so compelling. It was obvious so much work had gone into writing them and delving into what made them tick, and they felt real.
Korra's characters, on the other hand, lost the time to get focus. Avatar could dedicate part of an episode to Iroh celebrating/mourning his dead son's birthday (and his voice actor's death) because the plot was in no rush to finish itself. Korra's plots always felt like they had no room to breathe. The moments we aren't dealing with the plot moving forward can be great moments (Asami reconciling with her father, Korra talking down a new airbender before he tries to kill himself by jumping off a bridge) but they're fewer and farther between than they should be.
All of this is basically leading up to me saying that although I love that Korra and Asami got together, I really wish they had more development as a couple. Not even romantically, just more to show how they grew together, more interactions, scenes that show us how they work together. The few we got were great, but consider Avatar again. All three seasons were littered with the development of Aang and Katara's relationship. Sure Aang was crushing on her pretty hard throughout, but they were also friends. They had tons of time to work off each other and show how they worked together as individuals, not just love interests. Korra and Asami by comparison really lacked that.
This isn't a problem with just the one relationship though, few relationships really got much to work with. Korra and Tenzin probably came out the best, the student and teacher scenes were plentiful. Lin and Su Yin's sister bond was done well, despite a short time together on screen you could really tell they had a history and worked well. Varrick got two decent relationships with Zhu Li and Bolin, but there are precious few others I would say really worked well. This is opposed to the numerous strong relationships that Avatar had: the main four kids all worked insanely well off of each other and accomodated Zuko wonderfully late in the series; Zuko and almost anyone he interacted with actually were super; Azula and her gang were pretty developed together, and the list can go on.
So yes, Korra has flaws, which I blame on Nick pretty solidly. That said, I loved the show and I'm super sad to see it's ended. I really hope the co-creators find something new to work on if they can't return to the world of Avatar, they obviously have a lot of talent and passion for telling stories and they need to continue on in some capacity. I just absolutely love that Korra ended by breaking a bunch of stereotypes and giving a giant middle finger to the people who try to keep this kind of relationship down in children's media. The final shot is wonderful and I really hope that we begin to see more shows take these kinds of risks. A dark-skinned bi/lesbian woman is the lead character in a wonderful animated show that kids can also watch, and that really does make me happy.
-Subtle
S-S-S-S-S-SPOILERS!!!!!!!
From the title of this post you can then guess what has gotten me out of my year-and-a-half silence: The Legend of Korra ended the series with a lesbian couple. Guys, gals, I can't even deal.
I don't know if I've ever mentioned The Legend of Korra or its prequel series Avatar: The Last Airbender, but they are my favorite shows of all time. Korra mostly benefits from the connection to the previous series, otherwise I think Regular Show or Adventure Time would have topped it, or even something older like Justice League or Nicktoons I grew up with. Still, I think it's one of the best shows to have ever come out, even while I acknowledge that there are plenty of flaws to be found within it.
I'm inclined to blame whatever problems Korra has on Nick. As fans of the show know, in the middle of its third season that aired this summer, Korra was taken off the air and made an online-only show. That was the biggest strike against Korra, others being no advertising for the third season until a week before its premiere and then season four being trotted out around a month after the third season ended. Suffice to say, the show has been screwed by the network. This isn't even the first time it's happened, but it certainly was the biggest middle finger presented.
The series ends with Korra and Asami walking into the spirit world, holding hands and looking into each others eyes. There's subtext, and then there's this middle finger to the censors. It boggles my mind that they actually got away with such an overt LGBT message, and it saddens me as well that this is something to celebrate but I'll take it. Since season 3 began I actually had started to enjoy the possibility of Korra and Asami getting together. They are the best characters out of the four main characters, though with Asami that status is debatable, and Korra finally seemed to have good chemistry with someone other than her airbending master and Zuko's grandson.
I'm not much of a shipper, I generally like canon relationships just fine as long as they're written decently and don't create a romantic plot tumor. I never thought Korra and Asami would end up as an official couple though, and I mostly just enjoyed the possibility and hoped that their friendship would get adequate time in the somewhat rushed narrative the show deals with. I haven't much talked about what aside from shipping I like about Korra, pretty much because it doesn't have much to do with shipping and that's kinda what I've been on about.
Honestly in hindsight Korra seems to be a show constrained by its running time. The creators clearly have ambitious stories to tell but, unlike Avatar: The Last Airbender they didn't have the benefit of years to work on the story and the necesarry amount of episodes to properly tell it. Avatar was penned out years in advance and was given 61 episodes early on to achieve it. Three seasons were adequate to fully explore the story, the characters and rarely felt rushed or constrained. Korra began life as a 12 episode mini-series, and the first season already felt utterly constrained by the episode limit. Nickelodeon, toward the end of the first season's development and way too late to make any changes, ordered an additional 40-something episodes, and not all at once either. The result is that individual seasons are more individual than Avatar's long-flowing narrative. Each one has had to tell a new story in the space of 12-14 episodes, and that is hard to achieve when you have big ambitions and big shoes to fill.
So I don't blame the co-creators of Avatar and Korra for the pacing issues and rushed feeling that Korra sometimes has. They were cramming arcs that probably should have been closer to 20 episodes into a little more than half that amount of time. So Asami got shafted a fair bit in representation and character development throughout the series. Bolin and Mako suffered this to some degree but not nearly as bad, and this is the biggest shame. Avatar was so great in large part because it had fleshed out characters who were so compelling. It was obvious so much work had gone into writing them and delving into what made them tick, and they felt real.
Korra's characters, on the other hand, lost the time to get focus. Avatar could dedicate part of an episode to Iroh celebrating/mourning his dead son's birthday (and his voice actor's death) because the plot was in no rush to finish itself. Korra's plots always felt like they had no room to breathe. The moments we aren't dealing with the plot moving forward can be great moments (Asami reconciling with her father, Korra talking down a new airbender before he tries to kill himself by jumping off a bridge) but they're fewer and farther between than they should be.
All of this is basically leading up to me saying that although I love that Korra and Asami got together, I really wish they had more development as a couple. Not even romantically, just more to show how they grew together, more interactions, scenes that show us how they work together. The few we got were great, but consider Avatar again. All three seasons were littered with the development of Aang and Katara's relationship. Sure Aang was crushing on her pretty hard throughout, but they were also friends. They had tons of time to work off each other and show how they worked together as individuals, not just love interests. Korra and Asami by comparison really lacked that.
This isn't a problem with just the one relationship though, few relationships really got much to work with. Korra and Tenzin probably came out the best, the student and teacher scenes were plentiful. Lin and Su Yin's sister bond was done well, despite a short time together on screen you could really tell they had a history and worked well. Varrick got two decent relationships with Zhu Li and Bolin, but there are precious few others I would say really worked well. This is opposed to the numerous strong relationships that Avatar had: the main four kids all worked insanely well off of each other and accomodated Zuko wonderfully late in the series; Zuko and almost anyone he interacted with actually were super; Azula and her gang were pretty developed together, and the list can go on.
So yes, Korra has flaws, which I blame on Nick pretty solidly. That said, I loved the show and I'm super sad to see it's ended. I really hope the co-creators find something new to work on if they can't return to the world of Avatar, they obviously have a lot of talent and passion for telling stories and they need to continue on in some capacity. I just absolutely love that Korra ended by breaking a bunch of stereotypes and giving a giant middle finger to the people who try to keep this kind of relationship down in children's media. The final shot is wonderful and I really hope that we begin to see more shows take these kinds of risks. A dark-skinned bi/lesbian woman is the lead character in a wonderful animated show that kids can also watch, and that really does make me happy.
-Subtle
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts
Imagine your high school days, where you went to class, talked with friends, did normal student things. Now imagine what it might have been like as a war-zone between your class and all the other classes in your year. This is the world of Baka and Test, and it's probably one of the funniest anime's I've seen in awhile. The premise is that in this particular Japanese high school, the students have been placed into classes based on their scores for their entrance exams, ranging from Class A which is the geniuses of the school all the way to Class F, the idiots, losers and overall scum of the earth. The classes have equipment of varying quality: Class A has a luxurious classroom with comfortable chairs, laptops and coffee station; Class F has broken down tables made for Kindergartners in a drafty, dirty classroom.
The twist is that during the school year, a lower-leveled class can declare war on a higher class and if they succeed they can claim their stuff for their own. Of course they don't fight each other physically, instead they have a new state of the art system that allows students to summon an avatar of themselves in a summoning field controlled by a teacher. The strength of the avatar is tied to the student's latest test scores, and the summoning field uses the subject the teacher teaches. So a Math teacher would supervise a battle using the student's math scores. A student loses when their avatar's score becomes zero and they must take a remedial class as punishment. If a lower leveled class looses the war, their equipment gets downgraded as a result, since the higher leveled class wouldn't want to take their stuff.
So the story follows our main character Akihisa Yoshi, the titular baka, in his second year of high school in Class F. Alongside him are: his best friend the brilliant but lazy Yuuji; flat-chested tomboy/tsundere Minami Shimada; pervert ninja, with a camera, Kouta; extremely feminine-looking male Hideyoshi; and the pink haired girl he likes and seems like the typical first girl in the harem Mizuki Himeji. There are also other characters the pop up quite alot, like Shouko (Yuuji's yandere sort-of love interest), Akira Yoshi (Akihisa's very strange elder sister), Aiko (major tease), Iron Man (the craziest teacher ever, he drags students off for the remedial classes and presides over them), Miharu (Minami's lesbian stalker), Kubo (Class-A student with a crush on Akihisa), and even the FFF Inquisition (a bunch of Class F losers who torture guys who get the tiniest bit of affection from girls, since they can't be happy and decided that no one else would be either).
Akihisa is a refreshing sort of main character for a series like this because he's an idiot intentionally and there's really nothing more special about him than that and his sincere good heart. That's not to say he's perfect, like other leads in this kind of show. Akihisa is a major pervert, teases all his friends pretty harshly and when he inevitably gets retribution for his teasing it feels more justified, though still overboard. He wants to do the right thing a lot of the time and for once the fact that he's oblivious to love is justified. His harem is barely existent, only two girls actively show their interest, another is just a kid, one is a shy gay guy, and the last is his own sister, which he is understandably creeped out by. He doesn't realize Minami even likes him at all, since she is rather violent toward him and he primarily thinks of her as another friend, and the girl he does like he doesn't ever try to get with because he feels she deserves better, and that's his driving force throughout the first season at least: trying to improve Mizuki's lot in school with the wars.
Mizuki is fairly bland, though she also feels a bit more nuanced then a character I could normally expect from an anime like this. On the day of the entrance exam Mizuki fell ill and couldn't finish the exam, landing her with 0 points and Class-F. In truth she's Class-A caliber and her grades are on par with the top students in the school. She isn't treated as flawless by the anime either, there's a running gag about how lethal her cooking is and she's quick to join Minami in punishing Akihisa if he so much as looks at another girl. It's just a shame that in the two seasons of the show I've watched we get relatively little insight into her, she's just kind of bland as a result.
Minami is a pretty stereotypical tsundere tomboy; her chest is flat and she gets teased for it, she responds to said teasing by putting Akihisa in incredibly painful wrestling moves, she gets easily embarrassed when her feelings are addressed, etc. She's in Class-F because she's recently moved back from Germany, and while she's picked up speaking the language, she still can't read Kanji worth a damn (I so know that feeling) and thus her only class that she does decently in is Math, which is numbers and something she can understand. Unlike other tsundere characters she's not always hostile, she gets along with everyone, even Akihisa, until he does something really stupid, which is pretty often, but she's not defined by that hostility toward her crush.
Yuuji is the representative of Class-F, so if he gets taken out during a war then it's over. He's brilliant at strategies and tactics but has a tendency to not carry out his own plans at times. His and Akihisa's relationship is very amusing and he really comes off like an older brother of sorts to the group. He has does end up being abused by Shouko, which is something I have a bit of a problem with but I'll discuss that later. When Yuuji does put his mind to it, he has the intellect of at least a Class-B student, which is pretty darn good. He has a tendency to sacrifice Akihisa a lot of the time, tricking him into thinking he's the conerstone of a plan when he was just the distraction.
Hideyoshi is the most fan-serviced character in the show for guys... and he's a guy. There's a lot of great gags over this that I won't spoil here, suffice to say that both Akihisa and Kouta both perv over him like they would a girl, or more so. Aside from being in a somewhat genderless state, Hideyoshi is notable for being an amazing thespian with incredible range, and has the most common sense in the show. Kouta is a ninja pervert, his score in physical education is the single highest score in any subject in the school, outclassing the Class-A students. He always has a camera and is around to snap photos at opportune times and acts a surveilance/tech specialist when the group needs one.
These are the main characters we're with over the course of the series, along with many more minor characters, some of which I've mentioned up above. The series itself pretty often seems to forget about the Avatar system, it's not uncommon to go some episodes with no appearance or battles of any kind. It's also very hyperbolic in nature, on the verge of being satirical. A lot of the abuse dished out by the girls is like this, it's supposed to be over the top and funny how much they hurt the guys for even the most minor infractions. There's also the premise, banding groups of students to help each other do better so they'll get better grades and become stronger to get luxuries other classes have. Then there's a second season premise that takes up a few episodes that's essentially a war between the boys of the second year and the girls/teachers to spy on the girl in the bath. It's a concept that sounds good, a literal war over peeping on girls, but it plays out very dully and it's repetitive.
I have a problem with this show and it's fairly serious, despite it's hyperbolic nature. The abuse that goes on in anime always makes me uncomfortable, but this series dials it up for the sake of comedy and I just can't laugh at it. Sure, the boys fairly often behave in such a way that it makes sense the girls would get angry and "punish" them for it, even though it's not their place to do so. But almost all the time it's disproportionate and a number of those the guys didn't even do anything wrong. I so detest abuse anywhere in media, regardless of who's doing it, and it really concerns me when I see something like that played for comedy when if the genders were reversed it'd be dramatic and the abuser would be a monster. The problem with this anime is that this is almost satirical and laughing off anime that does this kind of stuff seriously. It is over the top, the girls are shown to be kind of crazy when they do it, but the fact is it's still supposed to be funny for the audience. I'm very mixed on what to think about it but it detracts my enjoyment of the series overall.
I don't intend to turn this into a discussion of sexism though, that's for another time and place and probably not by me. Baka and Test is a really interesting anime, it's pretty funny even with the problems I have with it and I would recommend watching it if you're a fan of comedy and especially comedic anime. It's a fun ride for the most part and it even manages to get some decent drama and sentimentality into the mix without making it melodramatic and sappy.
-Subtle
The twist is that during the school year, a lower-leveled class can declare war on a higher class and if they succeed they can claim their stuff for their own. Of course they don't fight each other physically, instead they have a new state of the art system that allows students to summon an avatar of themselves in a summoning field controlled by a teacher. The strength of the avatar is tied to the student's latest test scores, and the summoning field uses the subject the teacher teaches. So a Math teacher would supervise a battle using the student's math scores. A student loses when their avatar's score becomes zero and they must take a remedial class as punishment. If a lower leveled class looses the war, their equipment gets downgraded as a result, since the higher leveled class wouldn't want to take their stuff.
So the story follows our main character Akihisa Yoshi, the titular baka, in his second year of high school in Class F. Alongside him are: his best friend the brilliant but lazy Yuuji; flat-chested tomboy/tsundere Minami Shimada; pervert ninja, with a camera, Kouta; extremely feminine-looking male Hideyoshi; and the pink haired girl he likes and seems like the typical first girl in the harem Mizuki Himeji. There are also other characters the pop up quite alot, like Shouko (Yuuji's yandere sort-of love interest), Akira Yoshi (Akihisa's very strange elder sister), Aiko (major tease), Iron Man (the craziest teacher ever, he drags students off for the remedial classes and presides over them), Miharu (Minami's lesbian stalker), Kubo (Class-A student with a crush on Akihisa), and even the FFF Inquisition (a bunch of Class F losers who torture guys who get the tiniest bit of affection from girls, since they can't be happy and decided that no one else would be either).
Akihisa is a refreshing sort of main character for a series like this because he's an idiot intentionally and there's really nothing more special about him than that and his sincere good heart. That's not to say he's perfect, like other leads in this kind of show. Akihisa is a major pervert, teases all his friends pretty harshly and when he inevitably gets retribution for his teasing it feels more justified, though still overboard. He wants to do the right thing a lot of the time and for once the fact that he's oblivious to love is justified. His harem is barely existent, only two girls actively show their interest, another is just a kid, one is a shy gay guy, and the last is his own sister, which he is understandably creeped out by. He doesn't realize Minami even likes him at all, since she is rather violent toward him and he primarily thinks of her as another friend, and the girl he does like he doesn't ever try to get with because he feels she deserves better, and that's his driving force throughout the first season at least: trying to improve Mizuki's lot in school with the wars.
Mizuki is fairly bland, though she also feels a bit more nuanced then a character I could normally expect from an anime like this. On the day of the entrance exam Mizuki fell ill and couldn't finish the exam, landing her with 0 points and Class-F. In truth she's Class-A caliber and her grades are on par with the top students in the school. She isn't treated as flawless by the anime either, there's a running gag about how lethal her cooking is and she's quick to join Minami in punishing Akihisa if he so much as looks at another girl. It's just a shame that in the two seasons of the show I've watched we get relatively little insight into her, she's just kind of bland as a result.
Minami is a pretty stereotypical tsundere tomboy; her chest is flat and she gets teased for it, she responds to said teasing by putting Akihisa in incredibly painful wrestling moves, she gets easily embarrassed when her feelings are addressed, etc. She's in Class-F because she's recently moved back from Germany, and while she's picked up speaking the language, she still can't read Kanji worth a damn (I so know that feeling) and thus her only class that she does decently in is Math, which is numbers and something she can understand. Unlike other tsundere characters she's not always hostile, she gets along with everyone, even Akihisa, until he does something really stupid, which is pretty often, but she's not defined by that hostility toward her crush.
Yuuji is the representative of Class-F, so if he gets taken out during a war then it's over. He's brilliant at strategies and tactics but has a tendency to not carry out his own plans at times. His and Akihisa's relationship is very amusing and he really comes off like an older brother of sorts to the group. He has does end up being abused by Shouko, which is something I have a bit of a problem with but I'll discuss that later. When Yuuji does put his mind to it, he has the intellect of at least a Class-B student, which is pretty darn good. He has a tendency to sacrifice Akihisa a lot of the time, tricking him into thinking he's the conerstone of a plan when he was just the distraction.
Hideyoshi is the most fan-serviced character in the show for guys... and he's a guy. There's a lot of great gags over this that I won't spoil here, suffice to say that both Akihisa and Kouta both perv over him like they would a girl, or more so. Aside from being in a somewhat genderless state, Hideyoshi is notable for being an amazing thespian with incredible range, and has the most common sense in the show. Kouta is a ninja pervert, his score in physical education is the single highest score in any subject in the school, outclassing the Class-A students. He always has a camera and is around to snap photos at opportune times and acts a surveilance/tech specialist when the group needs one.
These are the main characters we're with over the course of the series, along with many more minor characters, some of which I've mentioned up above. The series itself pretty often seems to forget about the Avatar system, it's not uncommon to go some episodes with no appearance or battles of any kind. It's also very hyperbolic in nature, on the verge of being satirical. A lot of the abuse dished out by the girls is like this, it's supposed to be over the top and funny how much they hurt the guys for even the most minor infractions. There's also the premise, banding groups of students to help each other do better so they'll get better grades and become stronger to get luxuries other classes have. Then there's a second season premise that takes up a few episodes that's essentially a war between the boys of the second year and the girls/teachers to spy on the girl in the bath. It's a concept that sounds good, a literal war over peeping on girls, but it plays out very dully and it's repetitive.
I have a problem with this show and it's fairly serious, despite it's hyperbolic nature. The abuse that goes on in anime always makes me uncomfortable, but this series dials it up for the sake of comedy and I just can't laugh at it. Sure, the boys fairly often behave in such a way that it makes sense the girls would get angry and "punish" them for it, even though it's not their place to do so. But almost all the time it's disproportionate and a number of those the guys didn't even do anything wrong. I so detest abuse anywhere in media, regardless of who's doing it, and it really concerns me when I see something like that played for comedy when if the genders were reversed it'd be dramatic and the abuser would be a monster. The problem with this anime is that this is almost satirical and laughing off anime that does this kind of stuff seriously. It is over the top, the girls are shown to be kind of crazy when they do it, but the fact is it's still supposed to be funny for the audience. I'm very mixed on what to think about it but it detracts my enjoyment of the series overall.
I don't intend to turn this into a discussion of sexism though, that's for another time and place and probably not by me. Baka and Test is a really interesting anime, it's pretty funny even with the problems I have with it and I would recommend watching it if you're a fan of comedy and especially comedic anime. It's a fun ride for the most part and it even manages to get some decent drama and sentimentality into the mix without making it melodramatic and sappy.
-Subtle
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