Blue Eye Samurai is one of the best animes I've watched in ages.

It feels weird that January (being a long month) makes it so that today is not Insecure Writer's Support Group Day. But putting it off another week just means I'll have more time to think about my February 2024 post. Being the last day in January, it's time to talk about Netflix's Blue Eye Samurai. There are spoilers ahead for this show, so if you want to watch it, you might want to avoid my review.

I practically binge-watched this animated show with my roommate over the holidays while it was cold outside. The story is pretty strongly feminist, following Mizu who is masquerading as a man in feudal Japan for various (and obvious) reasons. Mizu is a woman that is hell bent on revenge, justice, and in many ways acting heroically to save her nation against the awful white people who have come to conquer it via subterfuge, manipulation, and use of firearms. It's an adult feature dipping into animated gore, sex, and the various ways the different women who are central to the story seize power for their own in a world where they are supposed to be seen and not so much heard.

Blue Eye Samurai was one of the best animes (manga is comic books) I've watched in ages. It's obviously inspired (in part) by Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, which in turn was inspired by anime (we're going full circle here). There's even a section that features music that I only associate with Kill Bill. So, it's definitely a "which came first the chicken or the egg" thing when analyzing what inspired what. There was some clever tropes used as well. For example, Mizu has her weapon disassembled in parts around her ankles (and other body parts) and she can reassemble it by taking these things off (it surprised me that she had this huge, bladed spear the entire time). In the meantime, they serve to add weight to her body to kind of explain the character's strength (even though it obviously portrays Mizu as being able to survive superhero levels of damage). This kind of thing is to be expected in a story the likes of Blue Eye Samurai especially true because it is animated. When I saw it in the show, it was like watching a "power up" that you'd see in something like Dragonball Z, and it was exciting as a result of that.

At first, I kinda cringed at Mizu's edgy grimdark attitude. However, she committed to it and doubled down repeatedly, and it made me go, "Damn...that's cold..." at certain points, and the character does do some horrible things in her journey. I became convinced that her psyche had just been turned into this cold killing machine with only one goal, but then came the heel turn which was executed beautifully.

Blue Eye Samurai was filled with remarkable scenes, and it is dripping with details in the animation itself to bring feudal-period Japan to life. The castles look real, as do the costumes, and the fight scenes. There's a scene where a strong woman who is practically a man's property slaps her violent husband (a son of the Shogun) on their first night only to seduce and absolutely control him moments later. Rarely do you ever get to see an anime with this level of complexity and intricate details in the plot and character development combined with great music and resemblance to history.

If there's one complaint that I have about the show, it's that the comic-book aspects of the character can be a bit disrupting. Mizu's ability and prowess seems to change according to what the writer's want. A cut to the abdomen takes her out a few days, but later she gets shanked and piled on by a horde, and she manages to take them all out. She makes it to the big boss in the end after beating many challenges while suffering many crippling injuries and then she gets smacked around. She gets shot, and yet can basically swim to safety towing another man. So, it leans heavily on the trope: "injuries only affect me when the story requires it" and "I can beat dozens of highly trained warriors easily, but as soon as I get to the main villain, suddenly I'm struggling and can barely do it."

And that's basically my review. Did anyone else watch it? If so, what did you think?

For Friday, I'm going to discuss the mini-series called Chernobyl which came out in 2019, and I finally got around to watching.

Even if it is puzzling why Echo was ever greenlit at least it gives us some insights into Daredevil Born Again.

I watched Echo on Disney Plus. That being said, I think this "Echo Pitch Meeting" best describes kinda how I feel about this new character. But, even after you watch the "pitch meeting," I think I have a few thoughts that might be useful regarding this series.

I still kind of liked Echo. It wasn't as dark and gritty as Daredevil, but it clearly emulated the show as far as Kingpin's persona and the action scenes were concerned. It's not quite at Daredevil level with the fight scenes, but they were also fun to watch. The series easily could have been whittled down to a feature length film, but that might have thrown off the pacing. And the series didn't overstay its welcome. Regarding Maya's powers: they are weird in the way that Scarlett Witch's powers were weird, and I don't understand them. I also don't know why she couldn't just cure her own deafness with her own powers, but maybe they just need this character to be deaf for some reason. It's also an interesting thing to see Disney release the entire series in its completion all at once. I don't remember them doing that for any other series I've watched on Disney+. 

Echo is reportedly the first of a bunch of "Spotlight" shows that Disney is launching. In this context, "spotlight" means that these stories will be more grounded and character-driven tales made for the small screen. This also probably means they can save a bunch of money making these things while still retaining subscribers like me.

The "end credits scene" from Echo seemed to be setting up an evil, unmerciful, and very angry Wilson Fisk running for mayor of New York City. This is probably going to be the setting of Daredevil: Born Again which is on the horizon, set in New York City, and has both Charlie Cox reprising his role as Daredevil and incent D'Onofio coming back as Kingpin. And let's face it...these two are fun to watch. I'm sure Kingpin as mayor will introduce all kinds of complications to superheroes who call New York City "home."

This Wednesday, I plan to discuss the Netflix show Blue Eye Samurai. Until then, thanks for visiting.

The Witcher season 3 is kind of a confusing mess but I still have thoughts I want to share

So, I finished watching The Witcher season 3 on Netflix. This season had a lot of content from the books (which I read). We got to see the formation of the Scoia'tael, guerrilla warriors allied with Nilfgaard, who were helping to hunt the Cintran princess named Ciri (who is the main protagonist in "the Witcher" books). Although the elves were present in other seasons, this is the first time I remember seeing them inserting themselves into the messy network of alliances and the realm of human politics. We also got to see Vilgefortz's betrayal and how powerful he actually was. I knew from the books that he was the big bad, but you never got that impression with him being in the background for the past two seasons. But he spanked Geralt like it wasn't any effort at all, and that payoff (to see that on screen) was a lot of fun.

We also got to bid farewell to Tissaia de Vries who was arguably the most powerful of the magic using women in Aretuza. She underestimated Vilgefortz and cast Alzur's Thunder, "a spell only of last resort" that ends up really not doing all that much. I think she killed herself over the guilt of trusting Vilgefortz and basically failing the girls that she was there to teach and nurture. This then opens the door for Yennefer to become headmistress of Aretuza. And I know from the books that Yennefer is a badass so this is a good "passing of the torch" even if it is done somewhat clumsily via a suicide and a letter of explanation, "I would love to see you through the next leg of your journey. I know you will do great things, my daughter, but I'm afraid I cannot." And so it goes.

This was also Henry Cavill's last outing as "Geralt." From what I understand, he left the role because he was going to be reprising his Superman role in the DC extended universe due to promises that Dwayne Johnson had made. But then Black Adam crashed and burned in a spectacular fashion (it was a box office bomb), and the whole DC Universe (which was on life-support anyway) just imploded and all of the actors got fired for a complete reboot. But Cavill had already quit his role as Geralt and there was no going back because Netflix had already hired Liam Hemsworth. But we shouldn't feel sorry for Henry Cavill because he's got a movie coming out called Argyle that looks fun and he's been put in charge of a Warhammer 40K production, which is his true love.

But his exit did seem a bit awkward in The Witcher season 3. After the Vilgefortz battle where Geralt was almost killed, he needed time to recover. This is where Netflix made a strange choice. In the books, he was in a thing called convalescence for like a year since he basically got every bone in his body broken. This would have been a great opportunity to justify why he looks and moves different going forward: the man was in bed for a year and needed facial reconstruction magic. But instead they just had him get better and recover, and this was a bad choice. My thoughts on this were that they wanted to give Cavill's Geralt an action/compassion sequence to go out on, to give him a send-off worthy of what he put into the character, and a good wrap of the character development up to that point in his last scene. Anyway, I think that's what happened.

One of the problems I have in watching The Witcher is that it is difficult to remember the weirdish names of people and places. There's also a lot of conspiracies going on. The conspiracy of the mages, the conspiracy of the kingdom with the spymaster, the Nilfgaard conspiracy, and the conspiracy with the elves. It's difficult to keep track of them all, and I think it's just the way in which it is filmed. I had absolutely no issue keeping track of the various factions in Game of Thrones. But Netflix's The Witcher has so many characters I frequently ask myself, "okay...who is this and why are they saying stuff?" The monster fighting that showed up was a little worse than back in season 1. How the season ends with Ciri is kind of frustrating. At least what leads to it. Yes, the world she lives in is a shitty place. Everybody wants her for her powers or wants to kill her because of it. She has a right to feel jaded and cynical of the world. And yet, Geralt and Yennefer are always there for her. It's fun to watch the three of them. So Netflix breaks from this and Ciri ends up in a desert area far away from the only people who are her support group (Geralt and Yennefer). This kinda/sorta happens in the books too, and I remember not liking that part of the books. Also, the show is called The Witcher and yet he really has many moments where he feels irrelevant to the show that bears his name.

I will continue to watch this show. After three seasons, I feel like I'm invested. But I do wish it was easier for me to follow (or that my brain grabbed onto things a lot better).

On Monday, I'll be writing about Echo, which is a new series on Disney+ that I just finished watching. And on Wednesday, I want to talk about Percy Jackson which is also on Disney+.

Lower Decks season four had a lot of fan service to earlier versions of Trek.

As with every episode of Star Trek's Lower Decks, season four had a lot of callbacks to a lot of previous material in the bigger Star Trek universe. By now, most people who watch and follow "Trek" know about the crossover episode in which Mariner and Boimler went to Strange New Worlds season 2 for some time-travel shenanigans and one of the best episodes to date of that series. So, I'm not really going to talk about that. Instead, we meet Nick Locarno who was scorned by Starfleet for not following their rules and getting a fellow student killed (I believe this was in a Next Generation episode with Wesley Crusher in it). At the time, Cadet Locarno convinced the surviving team members to provide false testimony, etc. and it was all kind of brought down by Picard.

Another thing that we got this season was a portable version of the Genesis device. It certainly had a comical introduction (as the series is comedic), but the Genesis device is (and always should be) serious business. Fans of the movies should remember that it created a planet at the end of Wrath of Khan (movie that came out in the 80's), and even at the young age in which I saw it, the Genesis device struck me as the most powerful weapon I'd seen in that universe (invention of Dr. Carol Marcus). I still think that today. I always wondered what would have happened if a Borg armada was targeted by the Genesis device (for example). But I don't think it was supposed to be viewed as a weapon, even though that's exactly what its potential is. Of course, it doesn't end well for Locarno who ends up dying as the Genesis device explodes on him (while trying to disarm it) which quickly forms a planet in the nebula his ship was floating in. This is also very similar to how Wrath of Khan ended.

There was also a lot of growth this season. Our scrappy ensigns are now Lieutenants Junior Grade, and they have new quarters. Tendi is going off on her own adventure via a bargain she made with her sister on Orion. And Mariner has learned a lot about the kind of person she wants to be. I hope that in the next season, Rutherford and Tendi get a bit more time, because they could use some development regarding their characters. but overall I'm pleased with how the show is going.

There are some great jokes made by the Lower Decks crew regarding Locarno. In the original live-action episode of Next Generation, I believe that Locarno was played by a very young Robert Duncan McNeil. Robert was later cast as Tom Paris in Voyager. So they make fun of this by saying how much Locarno looks like Tom Paris and even say "Their faces are exactly the same" in one scene. That made me laugh. 

The animation this season was also really great. The team at Titmouse are doing great work with the digital rig animation techniques, and this show has some of Trek's best looking space battles. Additionally, the fight between Mariner and the Klingon looked awesome. In many ways, it felt like there was a blend of "real" graphics with traditional animation, and it kinda just felt like a Trek TV show or movie...not like an animated cartoon.

There's also good news already that Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds have both been renewed for an additional season. Anyone else love this season and notice things that maybe I didn't? Please share your comments below.

This Friday, I'll talk about The Witcher season 3.

Monarch Legacy of Monsters was kick ass. You should watch it.

Toho and Legendary Pictures Television division did a great job with Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. This first season on Apple+ was everything I expected and more. Sure, there are some who complained that "it needs more monsters." But I was satisfied with the count, which ended up being at least one if not two kaiju per episode. Each episode clocked in at about 45 minutes, and this meant that about ten minutes per episode had some huge creature in it, while the other 35 were used for character building, setting up the story, and continuous world-building. For those who may be fans of things like kaiju, and who haven't watched it yet (but intend to), here's your spoiler warning, because I may bring up things in the next few paragraphs that could possibly ruin the story for you.

We picked up in the monster-verse by first doing a bit of backtracking. The show bounces back and forth in time between a set of three major characters. For the most part, the "modern" part of the show takes place after G-Day (in 2014) but before the events of the next Godzilla movie. "G-Day" is the name given to the event that destroyed San Francisco in the movie that launched the Legendary-verse. The other part takes place back in time during the first nuclear tests done at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. This is where Americans conducting the experiment first see Godzilla (who is a bit smaller as he hasn't grown to full size). They think that they end up killing the "Titan" (this is the term the Legendary team uses for kaiju) when the bomb goes off. We know from the future timeline and movies in the "monster-verse" that this simply isn't true. Two of these main characters are scientists. The last one is a military guy named "Lee Shaw" and he's played in part by Kurt Russell (older edition) and Wyatt Russell (his son by Goldie Hawn) in the earlier edition. It actually works out really well, and I definitely need more Wyatt Russell in my life. These three people end up actually creating Monarch, which is the international secret agency that monitors and deals with Titan attacks when they come knocking in the modern world. But they aren't the only team in the game. There's another, called Apex Cybernetics, which we know creates the "mecha Godzilla" that we see in Godzilla versus Kong. Here's a quote from that movie by the character Walter Simmons:

"When we started Apex Cybernetics, we dreamt of new ways to push past the limits of human potential. Robotics, the human mind, artificial intelligence. Who knows what brave new future we will dream of next? I'm Walter Simmons. And it is my privilege to lead Apex into humanity's bold new era. We're not going anywhere, and neither are you."

The Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season one also introduces us to several new characters. One of them is Corah, who is a brilliant computer user who ends up working for Apex after hiding out in Tokyo ( she's there to try and avoid retribution from Apex) and the whole thing kinda flies apart on her. There is also Cate Randa and Kentaro Randa who are siblings, but not from the same mother. Their father, Hiroshi Randa, is a bigamist. He's also the son of Dr. Keiko Miura and Bill Randa (who were the two scientists who founded Monarch along with Lee Shaw which I talked about above). These new characters mostly serve as a vehicle to drive the modern plot. 

The first thing they do once they discover that they are siblings on two sides of the world is to go and look for their father. When they find him, he's actually at work trying to call Godzilla using technology designed to provoke a Titan attack. All of this leads to Lee Shaw going on a crusade to close mysterious portals around the world which seem to open in the presence of Titans, and they end up in some dimension that isn't the Hollow World, and which is somehow tied to the Titans. Keiko named this dimension "Axis Mundi," and it has weird time-warping effects. Keiko got trapped there for 57 days, and it basically advanced her from the 1950's to 2019, but she never aged. The same thing is used to explain why Kurt Russell is ninety some odd years in the show but he has the vigor of someone twenty to thirty years younger. Yes, they do escape Axis Mundi by season end, but Lee Shaw gets killed during the escape (or trapped in Axis Mundi again). You don't actually see his body, and sometimes "death off-screen" just means that they could theoretically pop up again as a surprise.

And then the season ends with them being in a laboratory operated by Apex with a closing shot of King Kong coming for them at the end of the episode. This is included (probably) to show that Apex is now on Skull Island, and to show that this is before the events of Godzilla versus Kong (which shows Kong being removed from Skull Island for shenanigans elsewhere).

Look...this show was great, and I really enjoyed it. It's probably up there with Reacher. It's so different that it's hard to compare them, but there was no lacking in budget and the show added to the monster-verse in ways that were unexpected to me. I'm looking forward to the next season wholeheartedly. If you aren't a subscriber to Apple+, go to Best Buy's website and get the free three-month trial and put that into your shopping cart and checkout. Then log on and watch the show. It's worth it, and plus you could binge watch Ted Lasso and Silo and Foundation. Apple+ is actually a pretty good streaming service, given that they don't have near the content of some of the others out there.

On Wednesday, I'm gonna talk about Lower Decks season four, which is on Paramount Plus.

Both seasons of Reacher are available on Amazon Prime and its easily the best thing I've watched in six months.

I didn't realize that I was watching a cultural dynamo when I started watching Reacher on Amazon. But that was before The New York Times declared in a critic's notebook piece, "Reacher: Women Want What He's Got, and Not Just the Beefcake." Okay then, how can I possibly add to the discussion that this article started? Well first off, I really enjoy it, and I'm not a woman. But I think I like it for the very same reasons as the article put forth in early February: a jacked-up beast of a guy wanders around solving terrible crimes, has an incredible moral compass, and the ability to just walk up to menacing strangers with confidence and reduce them to a quaking puddle of fear with just a stare. And then (added to this mix) is that he's a thoughtful and attentive lover, displaying vast emotional intelligence and he's smart to boot. It sounds kinda like he's a Mary Sue, and he more than fits the bill for that. But sometimes there's a lot of comfort in a Mary Sue character who can just do everything effortlessly. And there's a lot of fun to be had in just watching Reacher punch things that really deserve punching.

In my opinion, season one of the show definitely outshines season two. But that isn't to say that I haven't enjoyed season two. If I had to guess at the differences in stories between seasons one and two, it's that season 1 was very contained in a more central location in the U.S., and that allowed for telling a more cohesive story with a smaller spread of characters. The fight scenes were also just extremely good. In season two, we have a bigger story, more characters, and the bad guy seems to have a rolodex of available assassins for hire (which makes for some pretty good conflicts). I joked with some friends (who I watch it with) that the villain of season 2 must be a great guy at parties because if anyone needs a hired killer, he's got a couple on speed dial. And this kinda punctures my suspension of disbelief a little, because I just can't believe how many hired assassins and trained killers that Reacher mows through on his way to the final villain. It seems...unrealistic...at least outside of a John Wick movie.

For fans of the books, written by Lee Childs (?) I think, there's plenty to love I suppose. I had no idea that Tom Cruise was a big disappointment to fans of the books, but I guess his smallness never matched up to the physical description of Reacher (6'5" with subcutaneous fat equal to a Kleenex tissue). You also have to just roll with this character. Obviously, there's no way the kinds of abuse that Reacher puts up with would ever actually be possible for a human to withstand...even one of his build. But, he's such a huge physical specimen that you just keep piling on the barely plausible scenarios, and it makes sense to your head that this guy would just keep on fighting. Alan Ritchson (the star of the show) is perfectly cast, and it is refreshing to see a non-twink character take the spotlight for once in a movie. Lately, in the age of the twink, all we see are the Tom Holland/Timothée Chalamet, skinny white kids being the heroes (and that's obviously what a lot of people want). Stranger Things is packed with these as is practically every other show on television (especially true if you watch anything on the CW). 

If I had to describe the flow of the show to someone who hasn't watched it, I'd say that it's like Sherlock Holmes and the Punisher (Marvel) fused together. The main character is bulletproof with plot armor, but it's fun and that counts for a lot in entertainment. I'd say it's probably my favorite series I've watched in the last six months, if that counts for anything. If you're looking for something to watch, I'd give Reacher a go if you have access to Amazon Prime's programming.

I hope to see y'all come back on Monday to hear what I have to say about Monarch: Legacy of Monsters on Apple plus. Have a good weekend.

Two season in and I still have no idea what Invasion on Apple TV+ is trying to be.

Apple TV+ has a show on it called Invasion. It has two seasons thus far, and it's about an alien invasion that occurs on Earth. The cast for the show plays their parts well, but they are all new faces. You've got a Japanese sound engineer pseudo scientist named Mitsuki who's girlfriend was a closeted Japanese astronaut that was killed by the aliens. There's also a medical doctor named Aneesha who has a chunk of some alien metal that instantly kills aliens she stabs with it. There's a white English twink named Caspar who seems to have a psychic connection to the aliens. A black girl who really likes the twink and goes by the name India (she reminds me a lot of the Zendaya/Tom Holland thing). There's Trevante, who's a military guy from Afghanistan that saw his whole troop get affected by the alien invasion. And then there's Monty played by actor Paddy Holland, who is the youngest (in real life) brother to Tom Holland. His whole purpose seems to be part of a weird pre-teen love triangle created by the black girl (India), the twink (Caspar), and Tom Holland's brother (Monty).

A lot has happened since the invasion started (it's basically lasted about four months thus far). And the humans have predictably had a difficult time dealing with the aliens and their technology. As far as the look of the aliens goes, I kinda think that they resemble Hefty trash bags with no trash in them (kind of black and plastic looking). They create pseudopods to walk which make them resemble a sea anemone. As far as the humans go, they are mostly stupid, but I at least appreciate that the aliens look really strange. At times, the show does seem to be drunk on itself almost like when you hear a band's song build and build to then...not ever rock out. As I watch, I see smatterings of Arrival in the sense that it is pretty much left up to the character of Mitsuki to learn to communicate with the aliens and to determine what it is that they want. The kids can kind of see into the mind of the aliens, but you never understand why this is. Other than...maybe...it's an attempt to make kids interesting by giving them powers.

The other character, Aneesha, is probably the most annoying character in the series. She isn't a person you can trust, and because of that, she isn't particularly likeable. Additionally, she's always losing her kids, if not the son...then the daughter. And the missing kid becomes the impetus for her entire storyline told in a backdrop of an alien invasion. I also don't understand why Aneesha is hiding the one really effective weapon against the invaders, trying to keep it away from the military who might, say...use it against the invaders?

I think my biggest gripe about Apple's Invasion at this point, is that it doesn't know what kind of show it wants to be. Because it is told through a "fog of war" lens, we only know as much about the aliens and what is happening as the characters who experience those things. We bounce around the world multiple times during an episode to check-in with Caspar, with Mitsuki, with Aneesha, with Trevante, and it goes round and round like that. Each time, we get a little more knowledge to fill in the blanks with, and there does seem to be some attempt to bring these characters together. But as for what kind of show it wants to be? Well, it could be anything based on these main characters. Is it a love story about two British kids? Is it a hero arc of a war-torn vet from Afghanistan? Is it "science wins the world" like Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day. Is it that somehow a family with a fragment of alien tech is going to save the world through a mother's love? To hell if I know what it is about at this point, and I'm two season in. However, at this point I'm going to keep watching no matter how many episodes come out. I feel like there's got to be some big payoff coming. But if you decide to follow me into this strange science fiction take on alien invasion, be warned that it can be a slow burn at times.

That's basically all I have to say about Invasion at this time. For Friday's post, I'm going to talk about Amazon's Reacher and how it's easily the best show I've watched in a long while. On Monday, I'll talk about Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and its first season (I loved it). On Wednesday, I'll discuss Lower Decks season four, and on Friday of next week, we'll talk about The Witcher season 3.