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Miscellaneous
Dec. 30th, 2023 03:13 amLife & Health
My parents, my brother and I have taken turns taking care of each other, so it's not the worst way to spend Christmas. But I don't like being sick, I've caught enough flus and viruses in 2023. Here's hoping 2024 will be better.
Exchanges
Due to above mentioned health issues, I haven't made it far through the Yuletide collection, and I doubt I'll have time to make a rec post before the new year. There's a couple tabs I've got open with interesting looking fics, though, like the Time Engraver one or the Detective L one!
My gift was pretty awesome, someone took me up on the Jet Rocks Lives Instead Of Ruby AU prompt for Dimension 20: A Crown of Candy. It makes for a good character study by seeing how the interactions between Saccharina and Jet differ from Saccharina and Ruby's canon drama! I'm curious who my creator is, this is the second awesome D20 fic I got in exchanges recently :D
crumbs enough for everyone, D20: A Crown of Candy, Saccharina & Jet sibling bonding, rated T, 7k
I've also signed up for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rarefemslashex and I'm pretty happy with my assignment! I got some ideas where to go with it, I'm going to sleep on them and see which one crystallizes.
Watching
Being sick always lends itself to binge-watching random stuff I hadn't considered before! Most of it was spend on catching up on Ninja Warrior Germany 2023, ngl, and I did the traditional family group watch of godawful reality tv dating shows. But I also spend some time catching up on Netflix.
The streamlining in this one just didn't work for me, the pacing was way off. I get that they were trying to stuff as much crew-get-together into this with as many backstories as possible, and I don't fault it for that, but it hobbled the pacing something awful. The animanga starts slow and ramps up over time, whereas the Netflix show is much more constrained. And even then they spent a ludicruous amount of time on the stupid Marines subplot and ngl that just left me exasperated. They kept mixing up the message of what the Marines were supposed to stand for to the point I got whiplash inside the scenes. While I agree that Luffy's relationship to his grandpa is interesting, it just felt weirdly hamfisted and incongruous with the Shanks backstory. That's not even mentioning Ace and how he fits in! By giving Garp so much weight in the story, it felt like it muddled the actual message of the animanga and what Luffy stands for, especially since it needed to keep Garp vaguely sympathetic. If Garp is the authority Luffy is rebelling against, making him a sympathetic antagonist with wildly inconsistent messaging is... not the best choice. I appreciate the idea of Garp's character, but it just doesn't work, and imo it ruins Kobe's arc, too. Because Kobe is the good marine within a corrupted system - Luffy's counterpart in many ways, because Luffy is a Good Pirate amongst many Bad Pirates. And all of those great themes and comparisons were usurped because Luffy's grandpa was throwing a tantrum.
While I'm glad they cut Don Krieg's appearance short (he's such a borigng villain), I feel like the show didn't pull off the Baratie arc nor the Arlong Park arc. The cooks got too little screentime, especially for their relationship building with Sanji, and that undercut the emotional tension of Sanji leaving the Baratie behind to pursue his dreams. His fighting with Zeff also felt like it pulled the punches compared to the animanga. The whole "You should go." "Fine!" "Fine!" barely scratched the surface of their complicated relationship and made Sanji the weakest of the crew characters introduced, imo. And Arlong being suddenly interested in Luffy just because Buggy mentioned him bugged me. I don't recall it going that way in the anime/manga. Luffy should be beneath Arlong's notice until he shows up to punch his face in, but in an attempt to raise the stakes, Netflix had him attack the Baratie and it just doesn't work for me. Maybe if they'd cut out the Marines subplot, they would've had time for Nami's betrayal and fleshing out the tension and fights. The way it happened, Arlong didn't feel particularly dangerous, just another in a long row of minor villains.
Though I have to say, the show did a good job of highlighting the kindness of each crew member and how Luffy notices and values that trait. It's the most important theme of the Straw Hat Pirates, and that's one message the show managed to nail. They did surprisingly good with the outfits and crew banter, too - I wish we'd gotten more of those quiet crew moments, those were A+ - and the CGI and creature customes worked really well. They sold me on those fishmen being weird half-fish creatures rather than cosplay, e.g.
And then I went to watch (rewatch? I cannot for the life of me remember if I ever watched the anime. I know I prefered reading the manga back then, but fuck if I can recall) some of the relevant anime episodes and I was blown away by how much unnecessary detritus they cut out. The Netflix series did a great job setting Yusuke up as a reasonably misunderstood but well-intentioned protagonist, and I'm *relieved* that they skipped over the typical shonen anime comedy of up-skirt shots and female violent responses. Making Keiko and Yusuke childhood friends and centering that relationship worked much better than having Keiko be the class president in charge of Yusuke.
And despite all the changes, they stuck surprisingly close to the original canon, as far as I can tell. The major shift was a fantastic bait-and-switch in having the bad guys pretend to be Hiei when kidnapping Keiko, rather than have Hiei actually kidnap Keiko. It set up Hiei with a different start to his character, but I am honestly glad they skipped the villain-demon characterisation for the more emotional stakes and motivations of a kidnapped Yukina. Imo, that did a lot to smooth the early team-up, and changing the dark sword into a way for Hiei to gain his abilities rather than turn humans into demons was a clever choice. It makes sense to streamline the story like this and it worked really well for me! The Hiei we see here resembles his later incarnation in the manga more than his earlier, what with being more of an anti-hero.
The one thing about the Three Thieves mini arc that could've used another draft was the explanations (or lack thereof) of those three teaming up to steal the artefacts from escaped yokai (???) that were supposed to be Yusuke's next enemies. Nice way to raise the stakes, I guess, but it just falls apart the moment you take a closer look and doesn't do shit all to explain what the items are and why they're so dangerous to be lose in the human world (aside from Goki's orb, they do a good job showing that). Unlike the rest of the plot, that all just felt to be very out of nowhere.
My major complaint is that they did done dirty to poor Kurama with those wigs, both of them lack the proper flair Kurama deserves. Mostly it's in the bangs, imo, the straight fringe just does *nothing* for him. At least make it an uneven or fluffed up fringe!
And a minor complaint, I honestly would've preferred if they'd dropped the pacifier. Koenma's actor is hot af and I get the comedy value and wanting to stick close to the source material, but c'mon. Just let him be a hot teen, it's not like Enma-sama was even mentioned as plot pressure and thus irrelevant.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with this reimagining of a favourite old fandom. Maybe it's nostalgia goggles, but it was fun to watch old, beloved characters go on adventures again. The CGI was decent, too, and the plot and stakes surprisingly emotional for what I mostly fondly remember as a fight-centric manga with interesting characters.
Grimm (re)Watch with
It's still fun! We're getting into the Hexenbiest!Juliette arc now and I'm very excited to see how that goes (and how things go wrong for Nick/Juliette). I love Theresa, she's a fun apprentice character. Sean's mother was a nice surprise, too, I love how Renard is such a momma's boy :D I'm sad she had to go again, though I understand the plot reasons, she was fun in how she interacted with everyone. The Wesenrein subplot is scary but fascinating for worldbuilding, poor Monroe and Rosalee deserve better. I wish they'd handled Adalind better, and I can't believe the show runners chose to ship her with Nick later, like wtf. After all these lies they told her about who took her baby and all the gaslighting that's happening and honestly they all handle that baby subplot horribly, no wonder Adalind blows up at them. (Not that Adalind is a cinnamon roll herself, I get why they distrust her, but jeez. The show runners clearly present our protagonists being in the right and so clever for doing it this way, I'm flabberghasted.)
CW for Health Issues
So I and my family caught covid for the first time this Christmas. We've managed to avoid it until now by being extra cautious. The symptoms are mild to moderate, but I'm worried about how this'll interact with Mom's and my MCAS in the long run. Worse, my grandparents caught it from us over the holidays, and they're not in the best of health even without this virus on top. It's made for a pretty subdued Christmas overall. At least we had the positive rapid test before we went to visit my newborn niece over the holidays? Though my aunt made questionable decisions in that regard just because she was symptom-free (Without testing. Ugh. I love my family but sometimes you just gotta disagree with their choices.)My parents, my brother and I have taken turns taking care of each other, so it's not the worst way to spend Christmas. But I don't like being sick, I've caught enough flus and viruses in 2023. Here's hoping 2024 will be better.
Exchanges
Due to above mentioned health issues, I haven't made it far through the Yuletide collection, and I doubt I'll have time to make a rec post before the new year. There's a couple tabs I've got open with interesting looking fics, though, like the Time Engraver one or the Detective L one!
My gift was pretty awesome, someone took me up on the Jet Rocks Lives Instead Of Ruby AU prompt for Dimension 20: A Crown of Candy. It makes for a good character study by seeing how the interactions between Saccharina and Jet differ from Saccharina and Ruby's canon drama! I'm curious who my creator is, this is the second awesome D20 fic I got in exchanges recently :D
crumbs enough for everyone, D20: A Crown of Candy, Saccharina & Jet sibling bonding, rated T, 7k
I've also signed up for
rarefemslashex and I'm pretty happy with my assignment! I got some ideas where to go with it, I'm going to sleep on them and see which one crystallizes.Watching
Being sick always lends itself to binge-watching random stuff I hadn't considered before! Most of it was spend on catching up on Ninja Warrior Germany 2023, ngl, and I did the traditional family group watch of godawful reality tv dating shows. But I also spend some time catching up on Netflix.
One Piece (Live Action)
I've got mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, it's another nostalgia show and that wins it a lot of bonus points. On the other, both the manga and anime did it a lot better and with more emotional impact.The streamlining in this one just didn't work for me, the pacing was way off. I get that they were trying to stuff as much crew-get-together into this with as many backstories as possible, and I don't fault it for that, but it hobbled the pacing something awful. The animanga starts slow and ramps up over time, whereas the Netflix show is much more constrained. And even then they spent a ludicruous amount of time on the stupid Marines subplot and ngl that just left me exasperated. They kept mixing up the message of what the Marines were supposed to stand for to the point I got whiplash inside the scenes. While I agree that Luffy's relationship to his grandpa is interesting, it just felt weirdly hamfisted and incongruous with the Shanks backstory. That's not even mentioning Ace and how he fits in! By giving Garp so much weight in the story, it felt like it muddled the actual message of the animanga and what Luffy stands for, especially since it needed to keep Garp vaguely sympathetic. If Garp is the authority Luffy is rebelling against, making him a sympathetic antagonist with wildly inconsistent messaging is... not the best choice. I appreciate the idea of Garp's character, but it just doesn't work, and imo it ruins Kobe's arc, too. Because Kobe is the good marine within a corrupted system - Luffy's counterpart in many ways, because Luffy is a Good Pirate amongst many Bad Pirates. And all of those great themes and comparisons were usurped because Luffy's grandpa was throwing a tantrum.
While I'm glad they cut Don Krieg's appearance short (he's such a borigng villain), I feel like the show didn't pull off the Baratie arc nor the Arlong Park arc. The cooks got too little screentime, especially for their relationship building with Sanji, and that undercut the emotional tension of Sanji leaving the Baratie behind to pursue his dreams. His fighting with Zeff also felt like it pulled the punches compared to the animanga. The whole "You should go." "Fine!" "Fine!" barely scratched the surface of their complicated relationship and made Sanji the weakest of the crew characters introduced, imo. And Arlong being suddenly interested in Luffy just because Buggy mentioned him bugged me. I don't recall it going that way in the anime/manga. Luffy should be beneath Arlong's notice until he shows up to punch his face in, but in an attempt to raise the stakes, Netflix had him attack the Baratie and it just doesn't work for me. Maybe if they'd cut out the Marines subplot, they would've had time for Nami's betrayal and fleshing out the tension and fights. The way it happened, Arlong didn't feel particularly dangerous, just another in a long row of minor villains.
Though I have to say, the show did a good job of highlighting the kindness of each crew member and how Luffy notices and values that trait. It's the most important theme of the Straw Hat Pirates, and that's one message the show managed to nail. They did surprisingly good with the outfits and crew banter, too - I wish we'd gotten more of those quiet crew moments, those were A+ - and the CGI and creature customes worked really well. They sold me on those fishmen being weird half-fish creatures rather than cosplay, e.g.
Yu Yu Hakusho (Live Action)
It's been ages since I read the manga, but watching this felt like it absolutely nailed everything: the characters, the plot, the vibe. I guessed that it had been streamlined from the common shonen animanga meandering in early episodes, and I thought they did a great job of tying the first season together into one singular plot. The one change I could tell immediately was the whole escaped demon insect thingie, to give us stakes quicker, but I thought it was all really well done.And then I went to watch (rewatch? I cannot for the life of me remember if I ever watched the anime. I know I prefered reading the manga back then, but fuck if I can recall) some of the relevant anime episodes and I was blown away by how much unnecessary detritus they cut out. The Netflix series did a great job setting Yusuke up as a reasonably misunderstood but well-intentioned protagonist, and I'm *relieved* that they skipped over the typical shonen anime comedy of up-skirt shots and female violent responses. Making Keiko and Yusuke childhood friends and centering that relationship worked much better than having Keiko be the class president in charge of Yusuke.
And despite all the changes, they stuck surprisingly close to the original canon, as far as I can tell. The major shift was a fantastic bait-and-switch in having the bad guys pretend to be Hiei when kidnapping Keiko, rather than have Hiei actually kidnap Keiko. It set up Hiei with a different start to his character, but I am honestly glad they skipped the villain-demon characterisation for the more emotional stakes and motivations of a kidnapped Yukina. Imo, that did a lot to smooth the early team-up, and changing the dark sword into a way for Hiei to gain his abilities rather than turn humans into demons was a clever choice. It makes sense to streamline the story like this and it worked really well for me! The Hiei we see here resembles his later incarnation in the manga more than his earlier, what with being more of an anti-hero.
The one thing about the Three Thieves mini arc that could've used another draft was the explanations (or lack thereof) of those three teaming up to steal the artefacts from escaped yokai (???) that were supposed to be Yusuke's next enemies. Nice way to raise the stakes, I guess, but it just falls apart the moment you take a closer look and doesn't do shit all to explain what the items are and why they're so dangerous to be lose in the human world (aside from Goki's orb, they do a good job showing that). Unlike the rest of the plot, that all just felt to be very out of nowhere.
My major complaint is that they did done dirty to poor Kurama with those wigs, both of them lack the proper flair Kurama deserves. Mostly it's in the bangs, imo, the straight fringe just does *nothing* for him. At least make it an uneven or fluffed up fringe!
And a minor complaint, I honestly would've preferred if they'd dropped the pacifier. Koenma's actor is hot af and I get the comedy value and wanting to stick close to the source material, but c'mon. Just let him be a hot teen, it's not like Enma-sama was even mentioned as plot pressure and thus irrelevant.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with this reimagining of a favourite old fandom. Maybe it's nostalgia goggles, but it was fun to watch old, beloved characters go on adventures again. The CGI was decent, too, and the plot and stakes surprisingly emotional for what I mostly fondly remember as a fight-centric manga with interesting characters.
