I have somewhat complicated feelings for live action television, mainly I like comedies because the focus isn't on story but on jokes which means a show can potentially keep me invested for a long time. Compare that to dramas or action shows where the ongoing story line is the draw and it just has endless potential to lose me, and I just end up not caring about any of it. Honestly, if I was doing a list of all my favorite shows period, it would be all cartoons except the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Friends and Game of Thrones. So I figured I'd just list off my favorite cartoons instead.
Note: I'm not including Anime on this list because I have a hard time deciding how much I even like a lot of anime when comparing them against each other. It would be much more difficult to try to slot any into this list against some of my favorite shows ever. I'm also not including films, as I could more easily compare those to their live action counterparts.
Second Note: Almost none of these are set in stone, they only as of this moment reflect my feelings on the matter and are subject to change in the future as my tastes and perspective develop.
Some Honorable Mentions:
Chowder- really funny cartoon that came around in Cartoon Network's dumb period of CN Real, and it was a bright spot in a dark time. The fourth wall does not exist and it's superbly funny almost all the time.
Futurama- probably the best adult animated cartoon ever, and if I liked that genre a fraction more this would have made the list proper. The Comedy Central seasons in general though brought it down some, some are good but most are average.
Rugrats- nostalgia is the primary reason I'm mentioning this. I've gone back and watched the show as an adult and while the pre-movie episodes hold up pretty well it's not as great as it was. Still, I have a lot of fondness for it regardless.
Robot Chicken- when it works, it really works and I absolutely love it, but there are enough segments I don't particularly like that have landed it down here. Still, it's a great show no matter what Peter Griffin has to say.
Family Guy- speak of the devil. Honestly, this show might have made the list if we were just talking about... let's say up through season 6. Those episodes are gold and I watched them at just the right age for me to love it. Everything after that though... well, I can't feel good about putting it on a list of my favorite shows when it's done things I just really detest. Brian has been awful since season 7 or so and no one else has been that good either, and a few jokes are just vile.
Rick and Morty- I wanted so badly to put this on the list, but there's a whole part of this show that doesn't work. Rick, Morty and Summer are great, I love seeing them do stuff and go on adventures and abuse each other, it's great comedy and drama. But Beth and Jerry just kill half of the show and it just won't stop bringing them back up. Get rid of that stuff, the marriage problems and most of Jerry's pathetic characterization and this would easily make the cut.
I could talk about plenty more but that's not what this list is about so apologies if I didn't mention something you thought I should have. On with the list.
10. Regular Show
Synopsis: two park workers strive to do as little as possible on the job while avoiding being fired, though their laziness and greed inevitably cause the situation to blow up in crazy and unexpected ways.
There's no real explanation for why I like Regular Show so much. It's an 80's referencing weed-inspired show about two of the most frustrating characters ever. I'm a kid born in the early 90's who has never even known people who smoked weed and I hate characters who are lazy assholes. And yet Mordecai and Rigby don't bother me... all the time. I guess it's because when it comes to it, they really will go the distance to get the job done. Also, it never ceases to amuse and amaze how these simple situations can escalate in the most insane ways. The supporting cast is also pretty good, with very few characters actively annoying me. As the show goes on you feel the camaraderie between all of them, and even though they still anger each other you know they're going to be alright. It's really imaginative and funny and you should definitely take a loot at it.
9. Phineas and Ferb
Synopsis: two step-brothers try to make the most of every day by building impossible devices and machines while their older sister tries to rat them out, meanwhile their pet platypus is a secret agent who battles an evil scientist who wants to take over the tri-state area.
In 2007, Disney Channel was... terrible. The sitcoms were bad and there were no really good cartoons on either so, when I first saw Phineas and Ferb my expectations were pretty low. I really adore this show. I'm such a cynical person and these two boys always provide a counterpoint to that, and they're funny, witty and inventive! The things they've done on the show are just really cool. You see some shows and the kids have built or done something that's out of their league and you just don't buy it because they're kids and adults could barely manage it, so the show does the smart thing and turns it up to eleven. They stop being kids then and start being their own characters, so they aren't just kids building something that you don't buy, it's Phineas and Ferb building something that's impossible! Perry the Platypus and Dr. Doofenschmirtz are hilarious as well, I honestly can't think of a single episode in which I didn't like what they got up to. Unfortunately, the show has a fairly big flaw: Candace.
Candace is the older sister and she's obsessed with proving to her mother that Phineas and Ferb do all the amazing things they do. On paper it's not a bad idea but the execution just... I don't like it. Ashley Tisdale is absolutely grating in the role, and I just never found her shtick funny. She gets hurt and humiliated in her pursuit, and she does this not because she thinks her brothers are endangering themselves and others but because she's jealous and spiteful. I realize that Phinease and Ferb's stories need some kind of conflict, and since the boys don't have any someone needs to be in conflict from their actions but it just doesn't work that well. Obviously, it works well enough because it made my top 10 list, but it could have been higher than it wound of being. Also, Vanessa is... so great. Love her voice.
8. Spongebob Squarepants
Synopsis: a plucky yellow sponge has wacky misadventures in the undersea city of Bikini Bottom along with his friends.
How the hell can I place Spongebob Squarepants on this list? Futurama didn't even make it but this did!? Okay, this is a bit of a cop-out because I'm actually only really considering the first three seasons for this list. When mentioning Family Guy I did say the later seasons dragged it down, but the thing is I actually don't mind Spongebob's post movie seasons. Some great episodes have been in them and at worst they're mildly annoying. I was also about seven when the show first aired so I have a lot of positive nostalgic feelings for the first few seasons, and they hold up. Make no mistake, the first few seasons of Spongebob Squarepants are some of the most amusing cartoon episodes ever. It helps that back then the characters were all done well and none were annoying or overly mean. The gags were smart and only get better as I get older. It's sad that the show has been going downhill for the last decade or so but there is a reason why it got so popular in the first place and definitely earned it's spot here.
7. The Avenger's: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
Synopsis: after a mass breakout of super villains from four S.H.I.E.L.D. high security prisons, five superheroes join forces to recapture them, adding new members to their ranks over time and facing ever deadlier threats.
The only reason EMH is this low on my list is because the second season is... not so good. I'll maintain the first season is one of the greatest ever but it just really didn't do well in its second, despite the fact that there are really good episodes in that season. It's honestly difficult to find anything to say about this show because it's mainly the writing I really liked. The animation is excellent, but apart from that it's just how they wrote the characters, the story lines and all that. It's really well done and I like the characters, they all feel like real people with their own strengths and weaknesses having to learn how to work together for a great goal. They have varying goals throughout the show while not forgetting who's actually manipulating events behind the scenes so it's a bit episodic but has continuity. It's a really great superhero show that only gets beat out by one other.
6. Justice League (and Justice League: Unlimited)
Synopsis: seven heroes join forces in order to face threats and foes... uh... it's hard to summarize this actually, kind of like the one above I guess.
So yeah, Justice League is a better version of the EMH cartoon. I mean, it has Batman! Batman actually accounts for a ton of my fondness for this show because I absolutely love Batman, specifically this Batman, the DCAU Batman. But the characters in this show are done slightly better than in EMH and feel more like they struggle with the weight of their responsibilities, which is not really a concern in Marvel. The show has humor, but it tackles things in a less light-hearted manner as well, which normally wouldn't be something I like but it finds the balance between taking things seriously but also recognizing that the things happening are really cool. I actually like Unlimited a little more than the first two seasons because of the increased focus on additional characters and not every episode has to be a two parter. Some of the original episodes felt a little long and unnecessary so I felt the shorter amount of time for a story helped things a bit. Still, I think this is about the best superhero cartoon ever made.
Slight tangent, Teen Titans also sort of fits in here as well, for a lot of the same reasons, but it lacks Batman so I felt obligated to name the one with Batman in it. Still, Teen Titans is fantastic and I wish I could talk about it more but I gotta move on.
5. Ed, Edd n Eddy
Synopsis: three friends design and build scams to trick their neighbors out of their allowances so they can buy jawbreakers at the candy store, but inevitably fail to do so in hilarious ways.
When I think of a cartoon that has made me laugh a lot and is crazy imaginative, I wouldn't have guessed I'd go with this one. But I am. Ed, Edd n Eddy is hysterical. It's good ole slapstick, it's witty, and mean-spirited and loud and dumb and just great. The three main characters bounce off each other so well, and it's really a marvel that they got us to root for these three to both succeed and fail. You want them to get jawbreakers because of everything they go through, and you also want them to fail because it's funny and they deserve it for trying to scam the neighborhood kids. The animation is unique and some of the character designs are super weird and yet it's all very endearing and works, and the sound work is phenomenal. If you really pay attention to the background noises, you'll notice all the work put into it with not only music matching what's going on but sound effects playing at appropriate moments to underscore the comedy on screen. It can get overly mean sometimes, especially when two of the three protagonists get brutally punished for things they had no part in, but most of the time it's just funny. I enjoyed most of the Cartoon Cartoons but Ed, Edd n Eddy was the only one to really stick with me.
4. Dreamwork's Dragons: Riders of Berk (and subsequent seasons)
Synopsis: after proving that vikings and dragons can coexist peacefully, a young viking and his friends must find ways of making it work when problems arise as well as fending off external and internal threats to their home and their dragons.
This is the one entry that I feel comes close to cheating my fondness for it isn't rooted entirely in the show but in its accompanying movies, but screw it. Dragons is a really great show, first on Cartoon Network for two seasons and then streaming on Netflix for the remaining seasons. What helps this show is that it looks and sound very similar to the movies, with most of the main cast reprising their roles from the film (which is very important for Hiccup in particular since it'd be hard to find someone who sounds that similar to Jay Baruchel) and it expands the world of the films. We see new dragons, explore new places, meet new people, both allies and enemies, but most important we get to see the bonds between the riders, their dragons and each other. It's quite well written, few of the characters get annoying and they work off each other well, far better than they do in the movies. Hiccup and Toothless are always great but you also see how Astrid and Stormfly connect, the affectionate relationship Fish Legs has with Meatlug, the antagonistic yet strong bond between Snotlout and Hookfang. Also the twins and their rather dopey two headed dragon. There are story lines that continues through episodes, it's not entirely episodic but there are some self-contained episodes and even some of the ones that further the plot mostly tell their own story,.The dragons themselves are quite unusual, though whether it's inspired by the books or the movies or if they just got to design new ones I don't know, but they diverge from what you'd think a dragon would look like. It helps you believe that dragons are their own kind of group of animals, like a category separate from mammals, birds, reptiles and the like. There's a lot of heart in the show, which is good because that's one of the best things about the movies and it really feels like it's part of them, that they all go together in ways that most movies and cartoon series don't.
3. The Legend of Korra
Synopsis: after Avatar Aang stopped the Hundred Year War and lived his life, we follow his successor Korra as she tries to fulfill her role as the Avatar in a new and rapidly changing world.
The Legend of Korra has a messy history, but the short version is that season one was going to be the only one, but then two was commissioned by Nickelodeon and after that an additional two seasons were commissioned so there's not one continuous story here and there are plenty of pacing problems. Despite that, TLoK is a fantastic show with stunning animation, incredible music and a protagonist that I love and some others kinda don't. It's difficult to talk about this show though since a lot of what I would say applies to it's prequel series which I'm not talking about here. So if I don't elaborate or seem vague, it's because I'm saving it.
The Legend of Korra fleshes out the world of benders, showing us a new time period reminiscent of the 1920s but in their world, in a city that's entirely new for them. This brings up new issues and innovations that didn't exist before, and it's exciting to see how the world's developed. Bending has new uses, not just fighting but a lot of recreation and utility, but it's competing with technology that comes close to one-upping what benders can do. Non-benders find themselves discriminated against, there's gang activity, and the politics are different in peacetime decades after a major war. It's really interesting and the way Korra approaches problems is not the most effective way (she probably would have done better in the Hundred Year War, or at least been more comfortable). Though each season is different, Korra constantly changes and grows as a person, by the end she's matured and become more effective in her role as the avatar without actually changing who she is as a person.
The supporting cast is... iffy though, with Tenzin and Lin Beifong being exceptional characters, while Mako and Bolin, half of the new Team Avatar, are kind of duds, the former being too broody and uptight and the latter way too immature and obnoxious (Asami falls in the middle, not a bad character in the least but receiving far too little screen time compared to the other main characters). The villains also vary in quality, with the Red Lotus being some of the best villains on television, to Amon and Kuvira who have high points but get hurt when their motivations are explored and then there's Unalaq, the worst villain in the franchise. The pacing problems hinder the show at times, especially in the second season where it seems like they had to rush the story, trying to tie it in with the first season and having to start getting ready for the next two as well in a short time frame. Despite the problems though, The Legend of Korra is one of my all time favorite shows, the only one I own entirely on Blu-ray, and I'd happily recommend it to anyone. I have also talked about it on this blog before, so by all means look at my previous posts if you'd like to see more of my thoughts on it.
2. Steven Universe
Synopsis: a young boy learn to control magic powers he inherited from his mother to help his friends/guardians protect the Earth.
I thought I would hate this show. The promos on Cartoon Network were awful when it was new. Steven looked like the most annoying kid ever and I couldn't really tell what it was supposed to be about. It took a review of cartoons (the Mysterious Mr. Enter) to highlight one of the episodes and explain why it was good to make me check it out, and I fell in love with it. Steven Universe is possibly the most upbeat and positive show ever, perhaps only outdone by Phineas and Ferb, but it hides a surprisingly dark backstory within it's pastel colors. I won't spoil anything here though, it deserves to be watched fresh and pure. The first half of season one is a bit on the slow side but if you keep with it you'll see that it's a show with so much to offer. It's got a lot of lore to go through that gets told in the background and very slowly, but it makes it for the slow pace by getting us acquainted with the characters. Steven is the focal point and he's not hard to figure out, but as the show goes on the events he goes through impact him, and you see over time he does mature. He's still a kid and is a bit goofy, and he even manages to maintain a childlike innocence and naivety, but he understands the importance of things and the situation he and the other gems are in.
The slow build is important for us to connect with the other gems too; Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl. Garnet is the leader, mainly because she keeps a cool head and efficiently deals with problems and over time we see that though originally she was kind of distant and mysterious she loves Steven dearly and respects him as a member of the team. Amethyst is the second youngest of the group and it takes a while before we really find out what makes her tick, but she's always game to try new things and is the most likely to joke around with Steven. Pearl is the most motherly of the three, she treats Steven like her own child and worries the most about him, and as the show goes on we see she's not as well kept together as she presents herself to be.
The show originally was more slice-of-life kind of show where Steven would accompany the gems on a mission to poof a monster or retrieve something, or he would spend time with human characters and try helping them out. As events happen and backstory is revealed though, it becomes more plot oriented with things happening that directly tie into future episodes, and even past episodes become relevant again. There's a deep and sad story that we still don't fully understand even going into the fourth season, but through all of it Steven Universe is ultimately a positive show that's about healing and moving on from trauma and finding the good in other people and in life.
There are a few problems though, one is Ronaldo, a love-him or hate-him character and I fall in the latter camp. He's a conspiracy theorist who doesn't really care about how he affects other people, so he's just kind of a jerk in addition to being a conspiracy theorist so there's not a lot of reason to like him. Another is Lars, a character who often has to learn to be less of a jerk himself, but never seems to remember that. He's obsessed with how others perceive him and desires to be cool, to the point where he wants to be friends with "the cool kids" not because he likes them or anything but because they are "cool". A major problem though, and it has nothing to do with how the show is made, is the airing schedule. There are times where months go by without any new episodes, only for Cartoon Network to air a week of new episodes, and then follow it up for a bit and then no new episodes for several more months. The worst was summer 2016, where May had five new episodes through the month, a promise of a Summer of Steven, and the nothing through most of June and July before late July and early August aired almost all of season three in three or four weeks.
Seriously, Steven Universe is the best show currently running now and it needs to be watched. It tackles issues that most other cartoons wouldn't touch like they were nothing too tough to handle, including homosexual relationships, abusive and toxic relationships, trauma, consent, and other things that I'm just forgetting. I haven't even mentioned the incredible music in the show, that's how good the show is that it took this long for me to say anything about that! It's a wonderful show and I can't wait to see where it goes.
1. Avatar: The Last Airbender
Synopsis: after being freed from an iceberg, a young Air Nomad must learn to master all four elements in order to restore balance to the world and embrace his destiny as the Avatar.
I might have given this away with my third pick but regardless, Avatar: The Last Airbender is the greatest show of all time. I'm struggling to think of what to even say at this point, I think it's self-evident. The animation is amazing, especially since it's nearly a decade old at this point, the music is so great and fitting, the characters are all well written and performed, the world is fascinating and mystical but still feels like it could be real. Bending is absolutely amazing, it's not magic that you just use incantations and stuff happens or some kind of technology/object that you learn to use, it's a physical art that has mystical effects! It's an art you have to master physically, and could actually learn the moves for in real life, but still is fantastic (as in fantasy). We get to see this world in the midst of a century of fighting, the aggressors are a terrifying force of fire and bigotry and the defenders are worn down after so much conflict for so long. It's a world that desperately needs a hero and watching the goofy kid become that hero is one of the greatest adventures I've ever seen.
I'm probably going to spoil things for this series, because although it'd be better to see it unspoiled, it's old enough that you ought to have by now, so fair warning now if you want to watch spoiler-free.
This show comes about as close to perfect as anything can get in my books. I can't think of a single character that I thought was bad, and even the weakest episodes of this series are better than any episode of other cartoons. Aang's development as a character is marvelous. He doesn't lose his core but he grows up, starting off as a goofy kid afraid of his destiny into a mature, kind and gentle person who will do what it takes to bring balance to the world, but in the way he chooses. The other main characters develop well too, especially Prince Zuko who makes the most radical change from an angry, misguided teenager obsessed with reclaiming his honor to a man at peace with himself who realizes he is on the wrong side and strikes out alone to help the one person who can bring balance and in doing so, finds his honor. He is easily the most interesting character on the show, but that's underselling the others, all of whom are a joy to watch as well, Katara is motherly but hides a deep pain and ferocious anger, Sokka is sarcastic and intelligent but feels inferior to everyone else because he's not as physically capable thanks to a lack of bending, and Toph is a blind earthbender who learned to see with her feet and is potentially the most awesome, bad ass character ever created (hyperbole? perhaps). I didn't even mention Iroh, Zuko's wise uncle who has a dark past but is the nicest character in the show, Azula, Zuko's crazy sistes who's a firebending prodigy and scarily intelligent, Suki, Sokka's love interest and surprisingly capable in many situations even after you know how cool she is, and so many others!
I have to mention the finale to this show by the way. It's the best culmination to a show I have ever seen, everything comes together in a two hour experience that brings almost all the plot lines and character development to a conclusion, gives everyone something important to do and features the best work done by the animators, musicians and actors. Zuko's duel with Azula deserves special mention, it's hauntingly beautiful as two siblings who have such a complicated and antagonistic relationship come to blows, and it's just sad that it's come to this, but epic in the way you know it was destined to happen. And of course there's Aang's fight with Fire Lord Ozai, a fight that's been building up since day one and it delivers, the tensions rises almost continually and only when it's finally over can you relax, and realize how much you were into it.
I could ramble on an on about this show, but I'll stop it here. Avatar: The Last Airbender is my favorite cartoon, my favorite show, of all time. It's actually difficult to think of anything else I love as much as this series, maybe the Legend of Zelda games or Jurassic Park movies, I don't even love the Harry Potter books as much as I love Avatar. I can't conceive of any show that could dethrone this one, not even Steven Universe has come close. Not even the creators of this show doing another show in this universe got close! I could watch this show anytime, any episode, and be happy. Obviously, if you haven't seen it already, I urge you to seek it out.
That's my top 10 favorite cartoons list. If I didn't mention a series or you have a specific question I didn't answer, leave a comment asking me about it and I'll either address it directly or do a follow up post or something. Thanks for reading.
-Subtle
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Thoughts on Sword Art Online
I recently watched Sword Art Online for the first time and I was surprised just how much I loved it. For the first fourteen episodes anyway, after that it kind of becomes a mess. The premise: 10,000 people get trapped in a virtual reality MMORPG and must beat the game to escape. The catch is that if they die in the game, their VR equipment will kill them in real life, so it's a race against time while their bodies waste away to try to beat the game and get out. Well, they get put on life support but one would assume that if they didn't get at some point they would have just died anyway.
Our main hero is Kirito, a teenager who beta-tested the game and has come back for the full version. He knows how the game works and becomes a hardcore solo player, taking on challenges on his own when most people join a guild and work together. He has good reason for working on his own, a lot of players don't like the beta-testers from a combination of envy and fear. We don't know what the beta-testers did as a whole in the game, but a lot of new players end up blaming them for the deaths of other players, saying they didn't do enough to help in the early days. Kirito gets labelled as both a beta-tester and a cheater (beater) which gets him loathed by some.
I'll just jump into what made me really enjoy this show. The romance, which is the most surprising to me because I'm not one to generally enjoy romantic media. It works here though, we see how Kirito and his beloved Asuna come together, from their first meeting to their work relationship which leads to a more intimate relationship that turns into love. I believed that their transformation from an argumentative pair to a couple willing to die for each other was genuine, it felt natural and right. I wanted them to survive and escape because of what they meant to each other, and it made sense they would grow such a bond because of the chaotic and intense lifestyle they lived inside the game world.
The reason I titled this thoughts instead of a review is because I really don't want to touch on much of the other stuff from the first half of the season. The side characters are cool, though disappointingly a lot of them only appear once and the ones who reappear don't tend to stick around too long. For instance a guy named Klein bonded with Kirito before they found out they were trapped and they seem to have a sort of 'best friend' style relationship but they hardly interact and they didn't know each other before hand. It's kind of weird, and there isn't really any resolution or development.
The game world looks cool and it was interesting to see how many people just sort of stopped trying to beat the game and started building lives in it. For some reason people could run shops, I would have figured players wouldn't have that option and it would be NPC only, but I guess it was a more advanced game system that allowed for it or something. The first half has a lot of focus on the game, the rules and really makes it feel like a game world they are in. That's one of the things the second half doesn't do.
Spoilers from here on.
In the second half, after Kirito defeats the game maker and releases the 6000 surviving players, he finds out in the real world that 300 are still trapped somehow, even though SAO was deleted. Asuna is among them, and even worse, her father has allowed a man she detests to marry her in her current state. She of course can't say no, and this man, Suguo, is the one responsible for her continued captivity. He's experimenting on the other minds for some sort of reason I don't remember, but he has Asuna trapped in another game using the SAO data called Alfheim Online.
Kirito, or Kazuto since that's his real name, finds out she's trapped there after seeing an in-game photo taken by other players, so he once again heads in to Virtual Reality to rescue Asuna. This is where things stop being so great. First off, Alfheim Online feels much less like a game world because they don't spend a lot of time on game mechanics. There are few fights, and there are new powers that don't seem to function like game mechanics more like your average fantasy powers. It's more fantasy feeling than game feeling is what I'm getting at.
Second, Kazuto's sister Suguha is introduced for the first time in this half of the season. She's discovered since Kazuto came back that she loves him. I've been assuming it's a romantic love and I'm not really sure how that would be looked upon in Japan but I found it kind of... off putting. She feels jealous of Asuna, as Kazuto goes to visit her unconscious body in the hospital regularly. When he was in SAO, Suguha got curious after her anger subsided about what her brother even liked these games and so she started playing Alfheim Online. Wanna guess who ends up being Kirito's helped in the game? They don't know up until the last couple of episodes that they've been playing together so Suguha mostly just gets to be sad when they realize it.
Anyway, the game world in this game is divided into seven fairy races, with the ultimate goal of each race to get to the top of the world tree where rumor has it the first race to make will become a super fairy and be able to fly forever, instead of the ten minutes or so they got now. Asuna is also up there, so Kirito just pretty much goes straight there, making a few allies along the way, and yeah he eventually gets to her. Asuna doesn't get to do much except be a captured damsel in distress and get molested (and nearly raped), which is a big slap to the face after her performance in the first half. Her fiance is a pretty terrible character, both morally and as a character. He's one dimensional, and there's nothing interesting about him. He's just disturbing and a sociopath.
There are other things I could talk about or go into more detail over but I guess now's as good a time to stop as any. The last episode is pretty good all things considered, it feels like a wrap-up to the first half more than the second, most of the characters in it were from the first half not the second, and it showed that Kazuto and Asuna would be able to be together in the real world. I haven't seen SAOII yet because Netflix only has it in Japanese and I'd like to watch it in English, hopefully it is up to the quality of the first half.
The Sword Art Online episodes make it into the top of my favorite anime list, but the Alfheim Online episodes drag the whole package down a bit. I don't know if I'd recommend skipping episodes 15-25 altogether but if you don't really want to watch all the episodes 1-14 and 26 are what I personally enjoyed very much.
-Subtle
Our main hero is Kirito, a teenager who beta-tested the game and has come back for the full version. He knows how the game works and becomes a hardcore solo player, taking on challenges on his own when most people join a guild and work together. He has good reason for working on his own, a lot of players don't like the beta-testers from a combination of envy and fear. We don't know what the beta-testers did as a whole in the game, but a lot of new players end up blaming them for the deaths of other players, saying they didn't do enough to help in the early days. Kirito gets labelled as both a beta-tester and a cheater (beater) which gets him loathed by some.
I'll just jump into what made me really enjoy this show. The romance, which is the most surprising to me because I'm not one to generally enjoy romantic media. It works here though, we see how Kirito and his beloved Asuna come together, from their first meeting to their work relationship which leads to a more intimate relationship that turns into love. I believed that their transformation from an argumentative pair to a couple willing to die for each other was genuine, it felt natural and right. I wanted them to survive and escape because of what they meant to each other, and it made sense they would grow such a bond because of the chaotic and intense lifestyle they lived inside the game world.
The reason I titled this thoughts instead of a review is because I really don't want to touch on much of the other stuff from the first half of the season. The side characters are cool, though disappointingly a lot of them only appear once and the ones who reappear don't tend to stick around too long. For instance a guy named Klein bonded with Kirito before they found out they were trapped and they seem to have a sort of 'best friend' style relationship but they hardly interact and they didn't know each other before hand. It's kind of weird, and there isn't really any resolution or development.
The game world looks cool and it was interesting to see how many people just sort of stopped trying to beat the game and started building lives in it. For some reason people could run shops, I would have figured players wouldn't have that option and it would be NPC only, but I guess it was a more advanced game system that allowed for it or something. The first half has a lot of focus on the game, the rules and really makes it feel like a game world they are in. That's one of the things the second half doesn't do.
Spoilers from here on.
In the second half, after Kirito defeats the game maker and releases the 6000 surviving players, he finds out in the real world that 300 are still trapped somehow, even though SAO was deleted. Asuna is among them, and even worse, her father has allowed a man she detests to marry her in her current state. She of course can't say no, and this man, Suguo, is the one responsible for her continued captivity. He's experimenting on the other minds for some sort of reason I don't remember, but he has Asuna trapped in another game using the SAO data called Alfheim Online.
Kirito, or Kazuto since that's his real name, finds out she's trapped there after seeing an in-game photo taken by other players, so he once again heads in to Virtual Reality to rescue Asuna. This is where things stop being so great. First off, Alfheim Online feels much less like a game world because they don't spend a lot of time on game mechanics. There are few fights, and there are new powers that don't seem to function like game mechanics more like your average fantasy powers. It's more fantasy feeling than game feeling is what I'm getting at.
Second, Kazuto's sister Suguha is introduced for the first time in this half of the season. She's discovered since Kazuto came back that she loves him. I've been assuming it's a romantic love and I'm not really sure how that would be looked upon in Japan but I found it kind of... off putting. She feels jealous of Asuna, as Kazuto goes to visit her unconscious body in the hospital regularly. When he was in SAO, Suguha got curious after her anger subsided about what her brother even liked these games and so she started playing Alfheim Online. Wanna guess who ends up being Kirito's helped in the game? They don't know up until the last couple of episodes that they've been playing together so Suguha mostly just gets to be sad when they realize it.
Anyway, the game world in this game is divided into seven fairy races, with the ultimate goal of each race to get to the top of the world tree where rumor has it the first race to make will become a super fairy and be able to fly forever, instead of the ten minutes or so they got now. Asuna is also up there, so Kirito just pretty much goes straight there, making a few allies along the way, and yeah he eventually gets to her. Asuna doesn't get to do much except be a captured damsel in distress and get molested (and nearly raped), which is a big slap to the face after her performance in the first half. Her fiance is a pretty terrible character, both morally and as a character. He's one dimensional, and there's nothing interesting about him. He's just disturbing and a sociopath.
There are other things I could talk about or go into more detail over but I guess now's as good a time to stop as any. The last episode is pretty good all things considered, it feels like a wrap-up to the first half more than the second, most of the characters in it were from the first half not the second, and it showed that Kazuto and Asuna would be able to be together in the real world. I haven't seen SAOII yet because Netflix only has it in Japanese and I'd like to watch it in English, hopefully it is up to the quality of the first half.
The Sword Art Online episodes make it into the top of my favorite anime list, but the Alfheim Online episodes drag the whole package down a bit. I don't know if I'd recommend skipping episodes 15-25 altogether but if you don't really want to watch all the episodes 1-14 and 26 are what I personally enjoyed very much.
-Subtle
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Least Favorite Pokemon by Type
With every Yin there must also be a Yang. With every rose there must be the thorn. And with every cliche opening there must be acknowledgement of it's status as such. So yeah, I'm going to go through the types and pinpoint exactly which of the hundreds of creatures are the worst in Pokemon. Let's just jump right in.
Bug - Wormadam
Alright, starting off the list we have Wormadam as the worst bug type Pokemon. I'll be honest, looking at the list of bug types I realized that I don't actually have any particularly strong negative feelings toward a single one. Even Weedle and Metapod, two of the most frustrating from the first gen, I have nostalgia for and can't bring myself to dislike. Wormadam ends up here mainly for its stupid gimmick. Basically, wherever its' former stage evolves decides what secondary typing it will have between grass, ground and steel. Combine that with a lackluster movepool in gen 4 and just an unappealing look and I just don't care anything for it. You know what doesn't help? It's just the female evolution, the male evolution, Mothim, looks cooler and becomes bug/flying (admittedly not an original typing) which to me just works better. I don't know, I don't really hate it but there are far better bug types to use.
Dark - Skuntank
Similar problem to the last type, I don't really hate any dark types. They're all pretty cool. But Stunky and Skuntank just are unpleasant looking Pokemon. I mean, they're skunks, and no one wants to get into a close encounter with one of them. Stunky and least has some pretense of being small and cute-ish, but Skuntank is just a big unpleasant looking skunk and I just don't want much to do with it. I guess there's not much more to say.
Dragon - Kingdra
Oh hey, a Pokemon I legitimately dislike! I'll admit, this choice comes from purely how much Kingdra irked me as a kid playing Gold and Silver. The last gym leader Claire had this freaking thing on her team and none of my Pokemon could take it down without getting wrecked. Electric attack? Nope, second type removes super effectiveness. Grass? Same thing. Ice? Nope! Dragon? Get taken down before getting an attack in. So so so so so frustrating! Granted, I would be more forgiving if it was easier for me to get as a kid, but it's another Pokemon you have to trade to get! It doesn't even look that cool. I think that evolutionary line nailed it with Seadra but Kingdra just looks weird.
The runner up was Druddigon by the way. It barely missed out on this pick because it's pure Dragon which makes it more manageable, but it's still a pain when you encounter one in the wild. Not to mention it just looks ridiculous.
Electric - Electrode
I'm a little surprised at how many electric types I dislike. Obviously there's the Pika-clones including Pichu, but we gotta go back to the original generation to find the worst of the batch. Magnemite and Magneton got steel typing which helped them out considerably, but Voltorb and Electrode have not improved in any way since the original games. They're practically useless, just balls that look like pokeballs and explode! That is the worst, there is no use for a Pokemon whose main gimmick is suicide. Electrode is only worse than Voltorb by a small margin, mainly because it just reversed the colors and smirks at you. Just terrible design, both visually and gameplay-wise.
Fairy - Spritzee/Aromatisse/Swirlix/Slurpuff
This is kind of a cop-out, but Fairy type is new and I don't really have anything against the pre-existing Pokemon who got it added to them. It's not like fairy typing made them worse. But the new Pokemon with the type they introduced just don't do anything for me, and these four represent a couple of things I don't like. They are newcomers in the trend of Pokemon you gotta trade to make evolve, and I really despise that method of evolution. It doesn't make any sense to me why a Pokemon would get more powerful from being abandoned by its trainer (holding an item or not) and handed off to a new person. Anyway, not one of them looks good either. And I'm not saying that because they look cutesy or whatever they're bad. I mean even if you argue they're supposed to be cute THEY ARE UGLY! Every single one just looks terrible. I can't even think about them anymore.
Fighting - Tyrogue
This little twerp is frustrating to deal with. Tyrogue evolves into one of three Pokemon: Hitmonchan, Hitmonlee and Hitmontop. It's evolution depends on its stats, which means you gotta manipulate those in order to get the Pokemon you want. The first two aren't hard, you just got to get one stat over another, but Hitmontop is the hardest to get because two stats have to be equal when it evolves. So screw Tyrogue and the Hitmons, I'll take my Blaziken and be on my way. Plus, Tyrogue just doesn't have an appealing look.
Fire - Torkoal
I was tempted to just skip over this type but I'll be fair. There are a couple of Fire types I'm not very fond of but Torkoal is by far the least interesting. I think most of my beef with it comes from the fact it has no evolutions. There are lots of ways to make an interesting fire tortoise line but apparently they thought they struck gold with this one and didn't do anything else. It's slow, mostly defensive which doesn't gel with my desire to offensively burn the world around me and Flannery's could be a pain to get through with a Grovyle starter so yeah, this is the lamest fire type and it can only be saved by some new evolved forms.
Flying - Farfetch'd
There are plenty of flying types I'm not particularly fond of, but Farfetch'd is the worst simply because it is useless. It is weak, the only unique thing about it is a held item which barely does anything for it and worst of all they made it rare so getting one is a hassle if you're a completionist. There's no other reason to have it and in the first generation you could only get one with a stupid nickname. There are no redeeming qualities here, moving on.
Ghost - Gourgeist
I'll be honest, I had trouble choosing any Pokemon for this category. I just don't dislike any ghost type apparently. I can't even remember one that gave me trouble that I don't also have nostalgia for. So in order to be fair I chose Gourgeist because it's one of those trade to evolve mons and Trevenant can be found in the wild while Gourgeist can't so it comes on here because that's the fairest I can be here.
Grass - Cherrim
There were a lot of contenders for this category. Maractus, Foongus/Amoongus, Quilladin, Tangela, etc. But Cherrim has the distinction of being the worst Grass type because you don't even get to see it most of the time! 99% of your exposure to it will be with it withdrawn into it's petals covered up like a doof. It only reveals its true form when exposed to sunlight, which means you gotta have sunny day on hand or you will never see it. It's not like it's a powerhouse or even particularly good in battle anyway, so there's literally no real reason to use it over any other grass type.
Ground - Diggersby
Gastrodon was going to be the choice for this (mainly for it's appearance gimmick and unpleasant design) but then I remembered this ugly bugger and knew there could be no real contest. Bunnelby is cute enough but Diggersby is awful. It's like they realized Lopunny looked a little too good so they need to balance it out by having an ugly rabbit to go along with it. As com mons go, it's not the worst but it's nearly there. The last three gens have struggled making these guys appealing and this was just a bad try.
Ice - Cryogonal
No, I don't have a problem with the ice cream Pokemon. They have a distinctive design and look more or less cute and I can see the appeal. Cryogonal is just a mess. It's a snowflake that I can't even tell if it has a face or not and it's another one of the no evolution mons so there's no chance for a better form. It's a pure ice type so you'd be better off with something that has a dual type or can just learn ice type attacks, pretty any other ice type would be preferable than this anyway. I just can't believe what a disaster this Pokemon is.
Normal- BIDOOF
I don't even need to look at a list of Normal types to know that Bidoof is the single greatest mistake in Pokemon history. It looks like a stupid little beaver and it's cringe-worthy how un-cute it manages to look. Not to mention you couldn't go five steps in Diamond/Pearl without finding one! Words can't do this justice, I hate Bidoof so much.
Poison - Swalot
Another in this long list of awfully designed Pokemon, Gulpin at least managed to be small and round so it has a bit of a break. Swalot is just this huge blob and it has a silly mustache that just doesn't go with the rest of it. Not to mention it has this weird move gimmick of swallowing stuff to either restore health or spit it up at an opponent. No thanks, this is just too much ick for me to deal with.
Psychic - Unown
If only I could list more Pokemon, there are plenty of bad Psychic types I'd love to complain about but I'd be here for a while and I still have other categories to get to. Unown is infamous even among gimmick Pokemon so chances are you know why this one sucks. Nearly 30 varieties based on the alphabet and punctuation but completely useless. It only learns one move that does barely anything. Novel at the time they first showed up but quickly proved to be uninteresting and they've just never made any progress on making them worthwhile.
Rock - Graveler
Unpleasant design. Right out of the gate, I think it looks terrible. Geodude and Golem both have solid designs, even if Geodude is silly. Graveler is the awkward puberty stage that you burn all the pictures of and pretend never happened. Yeah that is shallow and I don't really mean it as harshly as I'm saying it. But Graveller is terrible because of a certain combination. Namely the ability Sturdy and the move Self Destruct. For crying out loud! X and Y filled Victory Road with these fuckers and grinding in there was almost impossible as a result. How are you supposed to grind when every time a Graveler shows up, survives your attack that should have KO'd it in one hit and then blows itself up anyway? It's the Electrode problem again, but made worse! By far one of the most irritating Pokemon in the wild.
Steel - Bronzong
Probopass nearly made this one for being a terrible looking Pokemon, but Bronzong has the distinction due to Gen 4. In D/P fire types were scarce, so Bronzong, being Steel/Psychic had very little to be afraid of, each type cancelling nearly everything else out. And while this wouldn't have been too big a problem normally, it seemed like they were freaking everywhere! Running into it so often made it quite a frustrating part of that gen, and for that it holds this dubious position as the worst steel type Pokemon.
Water - Luvdisc
Luvdisc is a useless Pokemon. There is no reason to use it. It's weak, performing terribly in all stats. It doesn't evolve or learn any particularly great moves that other Pokemon can't. The only reason to catch on is for it's held item, a heart scale which can be used for something, learning moves I think. Similarly, Alomomola is a runner up for similar reasons, but it at least looks a little more impressive than Luvdisc. It's the nadir of water types and quite possibly the worst Pokemon in the games.
So that ends my list of least favorite Pokemon by type. I thought this might be difficult but honestly most of these choices were easy to make.
Going by Gens, Gen 1 has 3 Pokemon on this list, Gen 2 has 3, Gen 3 has 3, Gen 4 has 5, Gen 5 has 1, and Gen 6 has 3. Surprisingly it's pretty even for the most part, with Gen 4 having a couple more and Gen 5 having only one. I guess it goes to show that each gen has for the most part introduced some stinkers. I mostly dislike unappealing designs coupled with bad movepools or lack of evolutions, and gimmicks. Also trade evolution.
I know my way isn't the usual metric by which Pokemon are judged and I'm curious to see if I've listed and really well-liked Pokemon and if I may have overlooked others that can be worse.
-Subtle
Bug - Wormadam
Alright, starting off the list we have Wormadam as the worst bug type Pokemon. I'll be honest, looking at the list of bug types I realized that I don't actually have any particularly strong negative feelings toward a single one. Even Weedle and Metapod, two of the most frustrating from the first gen, I have nostalgia for and can't bring myself to dislike. Wormadam ends up here mainly for its stupid gimmick. Basically, wherever its' former stage evolves decides what secondary typing it will have between grass, ground and steel. Combine that with a lackluster movepool in gen 4 and just an unappealing look and I just don't care anything for it. You know what doesn't help? It's just the female evolution, the male evolution, Mothim, looks cooler and becomes bug/flying (admittedly not an original typing) which to me just works better. I don't know, I don't really hate it but there are far better bug types to use.
Dark - Skuntank
Similar problem to the last type, I don't really hate any dark types. They're all pretty cool. But Stunky and Skuntank just are unpleasant looking Pokemon. I mean, they're skunks, and no one wants to get into a close encounter with one of them. Stunky and least has some pretense of being small and cute-ish, but Skuntank is just a big unpleasant looking skunk and I just don't want much to do with it. I guess there's not much more to say.
Dragon - Kingdra
Oh hey, a Pokemon I legitimately dislike! I'll admit, this choice comes from purely how much Kingdra irked me as a kid playing Gold and Silver. The last gym leader Claire had this freaking thing on her team and none of my Pokemon could take it down without getting wrecked. Electric attack? Nope, second type removes super effectiveness. Grass? Same thing. Ice? Nope! Dragon? Get taken down before getting an attack in. So so so so so frustrating! Granted, I would be more forgiving if it was easier for me to get as a kid, but it's another Pokemon you have to trade to get! It doesn't even look that cool. I think that evolutionary line nailed it with Seadra but Kingdra just looks weird.
The runner up was Druddigon by the way. It barely missed out on this pick because it's pure Dragon which makes it more manageable, but it's still a pain when you encounter one in the wild. Not to mention it just looks ridiculous.
Electric - Electrode
I'm a little surprised at how many electric types I dislike. Obviously there's the Pika-clones including Pichu, but we gotta go back to the original generation to find the worst of the batch. Magnemite and Magneton got steel typing which helped them out considerably, but Voltorb and Electrode have not improved in any way since the original games. They're practically useless, just balls that look like pokeballs and explode! That is the worst, there is no use for a Pokemon whose main gimmick is suicide. Electrode is only worse than Voltorb by a small margin, mainly because it just reversed the colors and smirks at you. Just terrible design, both visually and gameplay-wise.
Fairy - Spritzee/Aromatisse/Swirlix/Slurpuff
This is kind of a cop-out, but Fairy type is new and I don't really have anything against the pre-existing Pokemon who got it added to them. It's not like fairy typing made them worse. But the new Pokemon with the type they introduced just don't do anything for me, and these four represent a couple of things I don't like. They are newcomers in the trend of Pokemon you gotta trade to make evolve, and I really despise that method of evolution. It doesn't make any sense to me why a Pokemon would get more powerful from being abandoned by its trainer (holding an item or not) and handed off to a new person. Anyway, not one of them looks good either. And I'm not saying that because they look cutesy or whatever they're bad. I mean even if you argue they're supposed to be cute THEY ARE UGLY! Every single one just looks terrible. I can't even think about them anymore.
Fighting - Tyrogue
This little twerp is frustrating to deal with. Tyrogue evolves into one of three Pokemon: Hitmonchan, Hitmonlee and Hitmontop. It's evolution depends on its stats, which means you gotta manipulate those in order to get the Pokemon you want. The first two aren't hard, you just got to get one stat over another, but Hitmontop is the hardest to get because two stats have to be equal when it evolves. So screw Tyrogue and the Hitmons, I'll take my Blaziken and be on my way. Plus, Tyrogue just doesn't have an appealing look.
Fire - Torkoal
I was tempted to just skip over this type but I'll be fair. There are a couple of Fire types I'm not very fond of but Torkoal is by far the least interesting. I think most of my beef with it comes from the fact it has no evolutions. There are lots of ways to make an interesting fire tortoise line but apparently they thought they struck gold with this one and didn't do anything else. It's slow, mostly defensive which doesn't gel with my desire to offensively burn the world around me and Flannery's could be a pain to get through with a Grovyle starter so yeah, this is the lamest fire type and it can only be saved by some new evolved forms.
Flying - Farfetch'd
There are plenty of flying types I'm not particularly fond of, but Farfetch'd is the worst simply because it is useless. It is weak, the only unique thing about it is a held item which barely does anything for it and worst of all they made it rare so getting one is a hassle if you're a completionist. There's no other reason to have it and in the first generation you could only get one with a stupid nickname. There are no redeeming qualities here, moving on.
Ghost - Gourgeist
I'll be honest, I had trouble choosing any Pokemon for this category. I just don't dislike any ghost type apparently. I can't even remember one that gave me trouble that I don't also have nostalgia for. So in order to be fair I chose Gourgeist because it's one of those trade to evolve mons and Trevenant can be found in the wild while Gourgeist can't so it comes on here because that's the fairest I can be here.
Grass - Cherrim
There were a lot of contenders for this category. Maractus, Foongus/Amoongus, Quilladin, Tangela, etc. But Cherrim has the distinction of being the worst Grass type because you don't even get to see it most of the time! 99% of your exposure to it will be with it withdrawn into it's petals covered up like a doof. It only reveals its true form when exposed to sunlight, which means you gotta have sunny day on hand or you will never see it. It's not like it's a powerhouse or even particularly good in battle anyway, so there's literally no real reason to use it over any other grass type.
Ground - Diggersby
Gastrodon was going to be the choice for this (mainly for it's appearance gimmick and unpleasant design) but then I remembered this ugly bugger and knew there could be no real contest. Bunnelby is cute enough but Diggersby is awful. It's like they realized Lopunny looked a little too good so they need to balance it out by having an ugly rabbit to go along with it. As com mons go, it's not the worst but it's nearly there. The last three gens have struggled making these guys appealing and this was just a bad try.
Ice - Cryogonal
No, I don't have a problem with the ice cream Pokemon. They have a distinctive design and look more or less cute and I can see the appeal. Cryogonal is just a mess. It's a snowflake that I can't even tell if it has a face or not and it's another one of the no evolution mons so there's no chance for a better form. It's a pure ice type so you'd be better off with something that has a dual type or can just learn ice type attacks, pretty any other ice type would be preferable than this anyway. I just can't believe what a disaster this Pokemon is.
Normal- BIDOOF
I don't even need to look at a list of Normal types to know that Bidoof is the single greatest mistake in Pokemon history. It looks like a stupid little beaver and it's cringe-worthy how un-cute it manages to look. Not to mention you couldn't go five steps in Diamond/Pearl without finding one! Words can't do this justice, I hate Bidoof so much.
Poison - Swalot
Another in this long list of awfully designed Pokemon, Gulpin at least managed to be small and round so it has a bit of a break. Swalot is just this huge blob and it has a silly mustache that just doesn't go with the rest of it. Not to mention it has this weird move gimmick of swallowing stuff to either restore health or spit it up at an opponent. No thanks, this is just too much ick for me to deal with.
Psychic - Unown
If only I could list more Pokemon, there are plenty of bad Psychic types I'd love to complain about but I'd be here for a while and I still have other categories to get to. Unown is infamous even among gimmick Pokemon so chances are you know why this one sucks. Nearly 30 varieties based on the alphabet and punctuation but completely useless. It only learns one move that does barely anything. Novel at the time they first showed up but quickly proved to be uninteresting and they've just never made any progress on making them worthwhile.
Rock - Graveler
Unpleasant design. Right out of the gate, I think it looks terrible. Geodude and Golem both have solid designs, even if Geodude is silly. Graveler is the awkward puberty stage that you burn all the pictures of and pretend never happened. Yeah that is shallow and I don't really mean it as harshly as I'm saying it. But Graveller is terrible because of a certain combination. Namely the ability Sturdy and the move Self Destruct. For crying out loud! X and Y filled Victory Road with these fuckers and grinding in there was almost impossible as a result. How are you supposed to grind when every time a Graveler shows up, survives your attack that should have KO'd it in one hit and then blows itself up anyway? It's the Electrode problem again, but made worse! By far one of the most irritating Pokemon in the wild.
Steel - Bronzong
Probopass nearly made this one for being a terrible looking Pokemon, but Bronzong has the distinction due to Gen 4. In D/P fire types were scarce, so Bronzong, being Steel/Psychic had very little to be afraid of, each type cancelling nearly everything else out. And while this wouldn't have been too big a problem normally, it seemed like they were freaking everywhere! Running into it so often made it quite a frustrating part of that gen, and for that it holds this dubious position as the worst steel type Pokemon.
Water - Luvdisc
Luvdisc is a useless Pokemon. There is no reason to use it. It's weak, performing terribly in all stats. It doesn't evolve or learn any particularly great moves that other Pokemon can't. The only reason to catch on is for it's held item, a heart scale which can be used for something, learning moves I think. Similarly, Alomomola is a runner up for similar reasons, but it at least looks a little more impressive than Luvdisc. It's the nadir of water types and quite possibly the worst Pokemon in the games.
So that ends my list of least favorite Pokemon by type. I thought this might be difficult but honestly most of these choices were easy to make.
Going by Gens, Gen 1 has 3 Pokemon on this list, Gen 2 has 3, Gen 3 has 3, Gen 4 has 5, Gen 5 has 1, and Gen 6 has 3. Surprisingly it's pretty even for the most part, with Gen 4 having a couple more and Gen 5 having only one. I guess it goes to show that each gen has for the most part introduced some stinkers. I mostly dislike unappealing designs coupled with bad movepools or lack of evolutions, and gimmicks. Also trade evolution.
I know my way isn't the usual metric by which Pokemon are judged and I'm curious to see if I've listed and really well-liked Pokemon and if I may have overlooked others that can be worse.
-Subtle
In Defense of Korra and Asami's Relationship
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
"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
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?
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