My Video Game Meme Thing Response

1.       Very first video game.

This is a little difficult to answer because it depends on whether you exclude “edutainment” like the Muncher or Blaster series. I played a lot of those titles at school and at home when I was a kid. The first “real” video games I played, though, were the PC ports of Sonic titles like Sonic CD and possibly the first Rayman. If you consider a videogame something that is played on a console, then my first one was Sonic Spinball on the SEGA Genesis.

2.       Your favorite character.

Probably Dante from the Devil May Cry series. He’s superficially devil-may-care but has real heart. His ability to laugh in the face of whatever odds he faces really helps soften the blow of playing the games on the harder difficulties and failing because Dante’s own ability to shrug off whatever comes his way helps empower the player to keep going. It’s a great characterization in cinematics that carries over into the gameplay by encouraging the player to embody that same attitude.

3.       A game that is underrated.

Onechanbara Z2: Chaos. The game is ultimately a mess in a lot of ways and can become repetitive quickly with its Dynasty Warriors-style “throw one hundred enemies with broken AI at the player at once in lieu of actual balancing” approach to level design, but there is a surprising amount going on with the game under the hood. There are a lot of little details that indicate some real care went into designing this thing, like a robust practice mode more action titles should include and full bios for every character (including the bland zombie enemies). The game isn’t a hidden gem by any means, but it feels like a diamond in the rough.

4.       Your guilty pleasure game.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan. I recognize that almost every criticism of this game is valid: Many enemies aren’t fun to fight, the companion AI is completely moronic, too many missions are badly-balanced and often just involving holding the circle button in front of an object. BUT—I unironically love this game. Granted, I got a great deal on it on Amazon when the PS4 version was deeply-discounted for no particular reason, but I really enjoy it. I like the graphical style and the emphasis on outright brawling over styling on opponents (which put off people who went in expecting the finesse of something like Bayonetta and instead got the undisciplined roughness of Anarchy Reigns).

5.       Game character you feel you are most like (or wish you were).

I’m not sure I really feel like any character, but I would probably most like to be Bayonetta. She’s stylish, sassy, and basically omnipotent. In a dreary, nasty, overwhelming world, that seems like something to aspire to.

6.       Most annoying character.

The Gadgetron vendor in the Ratchet & Clank remake. He embodies everything I hate about games/media seemingly designed for younger players these days—He never shuts up. It would be one thing if he only talked to you when you were near his shop, but he also somehow has the ability to call you when you’re out in the field and will constantly remind you that he has X weapon for sale or that you have “a lot” of Raritanium and should come by something. He only has a few lines, and they get old very fast.

7.       Favorite game couple.

I don’t think I have a favorite couple specifically, but my favorite relationship (of any sort) between characters is probably between the members of Dedsec in Watch Dogs 2—They’re bright, excited, eccentric, dorky, and just fun to be around.

8.       Best soundtrack.

Best soundtrack of a game I have played—Bloodborne. Best soundtrack of a game that I (regrettably, somehow) haven’t played—Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

9.       Saddest game scene.

The most melancholy scene from a game that I can think of is the one that ends The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. Although the story ostensibly ends “happily” after Majora is destroyed and we get to see so many of the characters enjoying their happy endings, the sequence ends with depressing music and a shot of the Deku butler beside the twisted tree players encounter in the “things betwixt”-like area before the proper start of the game when Link is travelling from Hyrule to Termina. The implication of this scene is that this tree is all that remains of the butler’s own son who left home long ago. This is a real gut punch of a final note that drives home how deeply melancholy Majora’s Mask is. It’s not just “sad”; it’s sad at heart in a way that few stories are. I’d most compare it tonally to the live-action Spike Jonze adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are.

10.   Best gameplay.

I am completely addicted to the Souls games’ gameplay loop, and I love the weighty combat and emphasis on managing the stamina meter. The mixture of exploration, esoteric storytelling, atmosphere, levelling, and gradual progression despite or even because of repeated failure is just great. I can’t get enough of it.

11.   Gaming system of choice.

GameCube—the last time Nintendo had a solid third-party lineup of titles like the excellent Prince of Persia trilogy and the simple but enjoyable Lord of the Rings movie tie-in games. The system also had two Pikmin titles and multiplayer games like Kirby Air Ride and Mario Kart: Double Dash that I played a lot with family. Luigi’s Mansion, a Skies of Arcadia port, The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age. As much as I have enjoyed owning both a PlayStation 3 and 4, I can’t stop thinking of GameCube games I played and enjoyed and have fond memories of. The system was also originally supposed to be the exclusive home of Resident Evil 4, so… there you go?

12.   A game everyone should play.

When I think of the criteria for a game “everyone” should play, I can’t help but try to think of games everyone could play. Although I love the Souls series, for example, and do not think they are actually as prohibitively difficult as some claim, I also do not think everyone could play them. At least not to completion. Similarly, I think God of War III is the ultimate distillation of everything that series is about and absolutely should be played by anyone with an interest in the franchise. However, once again I don’t know that everyone could play it. I’m thinking a bit about my mother here—someone who enjoys games like Kirby Air Ride but isn’t up to tackling something as seemingly straightforward to many people as Call of Duty. Ultimately, I want to say that Rayman Legends is a game everyone should play—particularly fans of platformers. It’s a beautiful, high-energy game that improves on the classic platformer formula by completely doing away with lives and offering frequent checkpoints. It can still be difficult, but the difficulty can be mitigated in a few ways like playing multiplayer or ignoring optional collectibles and side challenges like the “invaded level” time trials.

13.   A game you’ve played more than five times.

I’m not sure I’ve played it more than five times, but the original Darksiders is one of the few games I’ve played through more than once or twice. The game is obviously, heavily influenced by other titles like Zelda and God of War, but it’s ultimately greater than the sum of its parts. In particular I think the mixture of Zelda-style adventuring and dungeon-ing with a flashier, meatier, but also accessible combat system makes it great to me.

14.   Current (or most recent) gaming wallpaper.

I don’t actually use gaming-related wallpapers. The closest I came to doing it was when I saw this image of 2B from Nier: Automata, in Raiden's pose from Metal Gear Rising’s box art, by MoonFace on Twitter recently. It’s just too cool.

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15.   Post a screenshot from the game you’re playing right now.

(Lords of the Fallen—a Souls-like with a number of technical issues that nonetheless does pretty well replicating the gameplay of those titles. If Dark Souls is Western fantasy by way of Eastern sensibilities/comics (like Berserk), then Lords of the Fallen is Western fantasy by way of Western comic books: ludicrously big, bright, and over-designed.)

Captured by my PS4

16.   Game with the best cut scenes.

Devil May Cry 3 has the best choreographed action in its cinematics I’ve ever seen (even compared to Devil May Cry 4 and both Bayonettas).

17.   Favorite antagonist.

Majora’s Mask/Majora. I like under-explained villainous forces that cannot really be understood (like the Great Ones in Bloodborne).

18.   Favorite protagonist.

Dante (again).

19.   Picture of a game setting you wish you lived in.

I love horror movies, and I’m retiring to Yarnham to become some kind of monster.

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20.   Favorite genre.

Stylish "Beat 'em up"s like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden. The mixture of replayability (on higher difficulties) and skills/systems to master really appeals to me.

21.   Game with the best story.

I’ve never replayed it again, but I remember really liking Metal Gear Solid 4 when I first played through it a few years ago. Since the story is about 90% of the game, I guess you either get very invested or stop playing. I might also offer up Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, though I don’t necessarily think it individually has a great story—It’s just a very fitting capper for the trilogy both textually and metatextually. It’s a return to form tonally from Warrior Within and essentially redeems both the Prince and the developers in one go.

22.   A game sequel which disappointed you.

Darksiders 2. I think this one was a real step sidewise—The RPG systems are ok but unnecessary additions, the story is worse/less urgent (partly because the game isn’t a true sequel), the lore is less interesting (less riffing on the Biblical apocalypse, more generic fantasy adventuring), and there’s the added problem of more glitches. Don’t get me wrong, though, as Darksiders 2 is still a great game. It still mixes Zelda with better action and manages to use its obvious influences to great effect, but it feels like a misstep in a number of ways. Most importantly, I suppose, it failed to make good on the hype from the end of the first Darksiders. Rather than blasting forward and leaving it all out there with a proper follow-up, the developers chose to do a sort of side adventure with Death that takes place before and during the events of the original game. They couldn’t have known that this would be the last Darksiders game they would get to make, of course, but if nothing else this is a very real lesson in not hesitating when it comes to what you’re making as a creator: No saving stuff back for later, as there may not be a later.

23.   Game you think had the best graphics or art style.

Killer7—a style that not even Grasshopper itself has managed to one-up despite obvious attempts like Killer Is Dead. Child of Light is also a beautiful, beautiful game undermined only slightly by the protagonist’s character model (which looks too 3D compared to the other models and landscapes). The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker also has a highly-expressive graphical style that truly withstands the test of time.

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24.   Favorite classic game.

What is a “classic”? (It’s probably Sonic 3 & Knuckles. I loved that game to death as a kid to the point that what I wanted most was a level editor in it. I actually wrote SEGA about this at one point.)

25.   A game you plan on playing.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole and The Stick of Truth later this year. I remain a South Park fan despite the rough quality of more recent seasons. To me, both of these games seem to embody one of my favorite aspects of the series, which is the child POV vs that of the adults: magic vs reality. They’re games about playing games as a kid, and one of the moments that really sold me on The Fractured But Whole is the one during the “Civil War” fight in the street when the fight actually pauses briefly for an irate guy in a car to drive past and yell at the kids for playing in the road. As “edgy” as South Park can be, there is just something charming about the whole scenario of playing fantasy adventure or super heroes.

26.   Best voice acting.

Uh… the English voice acting in Devil May Cry 3? Look—voice acting usually doesn’t make a huge impression on me unless it’s noticeably bad. Maybe I take it for granted. What I like about Devil May Cry 3’s presentation of its story is that it is both melodramatic and genuine. I think it has moments of anime ludicrousness—“Dude! The party’s over!”—but also genuine pathos—“I told myself I wasn’t going to cry.” It made an impression on me when I first played it because of how well it balances its sillier moments with family drama that I found surprisingly effecting.

27.   Most epic scene ever.

I’m not sure I think of things as “epic” or not. It felt appropriate to use something from God of War here—a series built on the promise of “epic” moments—but I’m not sure what I want to use qualifies. Similar to Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones there is a moment at the end of God of War III that I think really caps off the series very well. At the end of the final fight against Zeus and then his ghost(?), you grab the boss and are prompted to press the circle button to pummel him, and the more you punch the boss the more the screen fills with blood. The catch is that you can actually keeping jamming on the button forever here and that it is up to the player to realize this and finally let go. It’s a powerful moment of using direct gameplay/input to influence the emotional quality of what is essentially a cinematic scene. After everything the player and Kratos have been through together, of course the instinct is to grab the boss to get to “safety” from a game over in the QTE and then mash like hell to win. It’s incredibly effecting (to me at least) to have that “Stop, he’s already dead!” moment and realize you’ve been bashing a corpse for longer than was necessary. More than any other QTE in the series, it makes the player embody Kratos’s rage and (I think) be somewhat surprised or repulsed by it when they finally realize what they’re doing. It’s not “epic” so much as it is “draining,” but forcing the player to literally quit playing the game so that it can end is a nice finale to the series. (And as far as I’m concerned, the series chronology ended there. I'm not enthusiastic about what I've seen of the new God of War so far.)

28.   Favorite game developer.

PlatinumGames—for the simple reason that they’re basically the only folks around still making triple-A entries in the genre I most enjoy.

29.   A game you thought you wouldn’t like, but ended up loving.

Bloodborne (and the Souls series). Despite playing stuff like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden, I was genuinely worried that the game(s) would be too difficult for me and that I would have bought a PS4 for a game I wouldn’t enjoy. (I literally did buy a PlayStation 4 for Bloodborne.) However, I did enjoy it, and it wasn’t too difficult. If anything, Ninja Gaiden in particular prepared me for it pretty well since that game also has overly-powerful, frustrating grabs and an emphasis on most actions being un-cancel-able once initiated.

30.   Your favorite game of all time.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is an astoundingly good game—made over a shorter development cycle with many recycled assets and using a new system of time management wholly unique to the series, it somehow managed to become one of the most compelling games I can think of. I love the creepier, moodier atmosphere and the way that it turned bit players in Ocarina of Time like the mask salesman into important, compellingly strange people. As much as critics tend to praise open world titles today and talk about advances in AI, I don’t think any game has sold me on a world as well as Majora’s Mask has. Every character has a story that plays out over the three day cycle, and revelations like the boastful sword master hiding in his back room for fear of dying or how Anju and her family relocate to Romani ranch to try to escape the moon’s falling help sell these characters as people in ways that “radiant” AI still can’t replicate (by virtue of it being random and not artfully orchestrated). The game makes up for a lack of proper, longer dungeons with many more shorter, self-contained side areas like the infested spider houses and the three-night delve into various graves on the way to Ikana Canyon. As a games player and as someone who wanted to make games, Majora’s Mask inspired (and continues to inspire) me in ways that only a select few other games—like Devil May Cry 3 (had to get that one in here again)—have ever done.

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Life and True Detective

“Pain is inexhaustible. It’s only people that get exhausted.” – Ray Velcoro, True Detective (season two)

*The following post contains spoilers for seasons one and two of True Detective (if you have not seen them already and/or care).*

            I started to write something on HBO’s True Detective a while ago shortly after finishing the first season; however, I ultimately tabled it because I felt that the show had already been written about to death. I did not think I could contribute much to a discussion that had been going on for over a year (which is about how long it took for me to actually watch season one after it aired). I recently watched season two, though, and I think the time has come to say something—partly because of True Detective and partly because of how I can use True Detective as an excuse to talk about myself a little bit. When I started this blog, I decided that I was going to keep personal stuff to a minimum because of how unsatisfying I find those posts in retrospect and how I would like to keep the personal information about me online to a minimum. That being said, I have certainly had the urge to get personal, especially after the election last fall. There is a recurring concept in season two of True Detective mostly centered on Vince Vaughn’s character that I feel really applies to what I experienced waking up on November 9^th, 2016. At several points, Frank Semyon mentions that there are times in a person’s life that essentially split their life—There’s you before and you after. This is a salient theme for the season, of course, because the whole thing, much like the first, is concerned with fatalism, and arguably the night that three of the four main characters are all called to the scene where missing Vinci city manager Ben Caspere’s body has been discovered is one such moment. Their lives are irrevocably split, as the past is gone and they enter into the phase that will lead to their destruction.

            In retrospect, the election was absolutely one of those moments for me. I am genuinely not exaggerating here when I say that it split my fall. I remember the events prior to the day, of course, but they feel abnormally far removed from me. It feels like I jumped forward a decade in a day. Obviously the sensation I just described suggests which side I was rooting for, though I do not really want to dwell on the particulars of that personal interest. Generally, what I will say is that I have never been involved in politics before, and I got really invested in this presidential election. The ultimate denouement of all that emotional and mental investment just… did something to me. This is not going to turn into a “woe is me” or End of the World-type diatribe, but that day felt like a split that I did not really appreciate until I watched season two of True Detective and discovered a metric by which to judge real life—and regardless of whether you wanted Trump to win or not, I think this election marks a clear divide in the lives of all of us. There was life before November 8^th, and now there is life after November 8^th. 

            I somehow managed to watch both seasons of True Detective at oddly appropriate moments in my life. I watched the first one the summer I was job hunting and feeling pretty desperate—old, bad thoughts creeping back in. Season one of True Detective is very pessimistic, but it ends with a moment of hope. Rust Cohle, our consummate doomsayer, returns from his near-death experience with the realization that there is something else out there. Life does not end pointlessly with death. As bad as things are or seem, there is more to existence than just the bad. It is a powerful moment for the character and for the audience since it is the moment we end on. A show all about fatalism and pessimism ends with hope instead.

            Conversely, season two carries its gloomy outlook through to the end—Almost everyone “good” dies from their involvement in the Caspere case. Paul guns down multiple armed assailants only to be shot and killed by a surprise attack from behind as he is about to get away. Ray’s final message of hope for his son never reaches him. Not only does Frank die, but he discovers that he actually dies before he realizes that he did—His spirit kept dragging itself across the desert unaware, futilely, and in pain for longer than was necessary. Ani and Jordan Semyon find one another and seem to have formed an unconventional family unit with Ani and Ray’s child and Frank’s former bodyguard at the end, but the message that Ani leaves us with before she and the others disappear into a crowd is not one of hope. The bad guys won, and the institutions that enabled them and are run by them still exist. All Frank and Ray and Paul did was get themselves killed for nothing. And, of course, the tagline for the season is that “we get the world we deserve.” While season one definitely has a fatalistic outlook for much of the season, it ends with hope. Season two does not stop bearing down. Post-election, that story spoke to me as many of us (mainly well-meaning white folks) have realized for the first time how fallible and corrupt our institutions can be and have been under Democrats and Republicans alike. What people like me—I will admit it—are learning the hard way after the election is what so many people living here—the poor, people of color, LGBTQ folks—have always known: That the world we live in is cruel. Not just spiritually but literally. Institutionally—legislatively, executively, judicially—the deck is stacked against people and always has been. Some of us just have not been paying attention because it was not quite as threatening to us personally for a long time.

            What we do with our real world problems, I do not know.

            As far as the critically-divisive True Detective season two goes, though, I can offer these thoughts: I do not think it is anywhere near as bad as some people made out to be. I liked it a lot, in fact. By the last two episodes in particular the show has built up a sizeable amount of momentum and concludes with real pathos. I think the biggest problem with the season is not its perhaps overly-complicated conspiracy but its technical side. I do not think either the cinematography or direction of season two are on the same level as that on display in season one, and arguably this comes in part from the fact that no one director gets to leave a clear mark on the show this time around. Everything is competent, but it seems workmanlike. There are few interesting or “artsy” shots, and I think the missing visual surrealism makes the dialogue, which sometimes goes for verisimilitude but also often swerves hard into Don DeLillo territory, come off as silly a lot of the time. The straightforward presentation makes the heightened dialogue seem ridiculous when it should be poignant. Season one had the striking Southern Gothic atmosphere and scenery, but all season two gets is some occasional mystical oddness (Ray’s dream of his father that predicts his death, Frank’s dying conversation with spirits, and Paul’s girlfriend’s recognition of his death the moment it occurs) and a lot of shots of busy freeways. Although the freeway motif works well—suggests “transit” between scenes, communicates the busy criss-cross of the mystery and the looming interconnectedness of the conspiracy—it does not create the same sense of place that season one’s wilderness did. Although the show is no longer a Southern Gothic tale, a correspondingly meaningful use of California scenery seems to be missing, though the creative title credits suggest what might have been. 

            Otherwise, I think season two is a worthy successor to the first. Yes, I liked Vince Vaughn’s performance, though it grew on me over time, and I still do not know if he had the range to really sell more intimate moments like Frank’s rumination on the water stain. In some regards, I think season two is better than season one. The first season introduced a similar conspiracy of affluent people but ended with a showdown with a backwoods handyman without saying much of anything about how the audience should feel about the other guilty parties still at large. Season two does a much better job at demonstrating the vastness of its conspiracy and following that thread to its natural conclusion—that someone uncovering such a thing would be utterly crushed in order to maintain the status quo. Insofar as season two can be said to be the “worst self” of the short-running series, I would argue that it is also its “best self” thematically, and I think those themes are now very resonant with our times.

Keijo!!!!!!!!: Or, The Little Butt That Could

Keijo!!!!!!!!'s protagonist (Nozomi Kaminashi) attacking with her butt.[1]

             I really liked the first episode of Keijo!!!!!!!! I can say with complete confidence that I have never watched any episode of any series (Japanese or otherwise) before that left me thinking “I cannot wait until next week when that older woman beats up those young girls with her ass!” My unironic enjoyment of this show might come as something of a surprise, though, if you know anything about either Keijo!!!!!!!! or the sort of content I usually post here (specifically the “political” content of much of that content). For those who might not be familiar with one or the other, here’s a quick run-down: 1) The title of the show “Keijo” refers to a supposed sport where female players try to knock one another off a floating platform into the water using only their breasts or buttocks; 2) I once wrote and posted a 14-page essay on Mad Max: Fury Road and feminism, and my most popular post so far has been one on Mr. Robot and the concept of women in refrigerators. Given that Keijo!!!!!!!! so openly objectifies women and is clearly intended to be about 90% fanservice (read: total wank-bait), one’s assumption might reasonably be that this post is going to be a criticism in the strictest sense of the term. However, that isn’t my goal here.

            Although I saw certain voices online speculating that this show would rile the ole so-called “SJWs” up something fierce, as someone with an abiding interest in social politics and in examining social issues in media, I don’t see any good reason to write about Keijo!!!!!!!! like that. To be blunt: Keijo!!!!!!!! is what it is. There’s nothing insidious about it to be called out. It wears its dedication to T&A on its sleeve, and that’s all there is to it. It’s hard to get angry at a show so open about its interests. The far more annoying offenders, in my opinion, are the anime series that pretend to be about something else but then spend a lot of their time slyly trying to cater to horny fans. Knights of Sidonia is a lot more irritating to me in this regard since it’s principally a drama that nonetheless gets completely sidetracked in its second season with “erotic” will-they-won’t-they-ness that ultimately means nothing since anyone familiar with the genre knows that they absolutely will not even as the show continues to go all in on the male lead—a bland stand-in for the ostensible straight, male viewer—literally having sexual tension with every woman he meets so that people can experience erotic drama featuring the “waifu” of their choice. If there was any chance at all of the protag actually having sex, this would bother me less, but the show seems determined to avoid it so that no fans are disappointed that their stand-in isn’t getting busy with their lady of choice. By continually dangling sex in front of viewers with no intention of ever actually engaging with it or its consequences, the show essentially exists to keep viewers in a horny limbo. It’s the most exploitative, cheap carrot-on-a-stick treatment of romantic drama, with such an obvious hook that the fact that it continues to also pretend to be a serious space drama is downright insulting. The poorly-executed subterfuge is annoying and worth discussing since the series claims one thing while doing another.

            Keijo!!!!!!!! by comparison is frank about its intentions. It’s all wank-bait all the time and doesn’t give a crap. There’s no viewer stand-in either, and, ironically, the show passes the Bechdel-Wallace test, with a large female cast that absolutely focus on things other than men. Furthermore, the fanservice in Keijo!!!!!!! is hardly worse than that of other anime series. As much as it may angle to focus extra hard on butts and boobs, the actual imagery—at least in the first episode—isn’t much hornier than what you would find elsewhere. The act of beating opponents into submission with boobs or butts is as unerotic as possible, and the ludicrous breast jiggle is so over-done that it’s more humorous than hot. My impression of the series thus far, despite all the jokes I’ve seen in comments sections where viewers shout about how much “fapping” they’re doing, is that the only sort of person who could find this genuinely arousing is someone turned on by the mere presence of breasts and butts—in which case they probably get as much out of a trip to the dentist or grocery store as they do out of this ostensibly fanservice-focused show.

            I specified the first episode above because I do feel that the second chapter goes to considerably greater lengths to show off the characters’ bodies with carefully-chosen camera angles, but the context for much of these shots is still more ludicrous than erotic. In fact, one of the things that I love about Keijo!!!!!!!! is that it is low-key hilarious. The premise of the “sport” of Keijo is so completely stupid—and impossible given that butts and boobs are not unfeeling bits of the body and couldn’t be slammed together like this in first place—and the execution of the characters’ various butt- or boob-based attacks is so over-the-top that the show is probably one of the funniest things I have seen in a while; however, Keijo!!!!!!!! is less laugh-out-loud funny than it is low-key funny and genuinely engaging. There is nothing tongue-in-cheek about the show, and this approach to its ridiculousness is a big part of its appeal (comedic and otherwise). I could easily imagine a version of this series that was constantly winking at the viewer and acknowledging its attempted sexiness and wacky premise—and I could also easily imagine the approach becoming tiresome quickly. Instead, Keijo!!!!!!!! takes itself completely seriously. It still has comedic moments, but it treats the sporting event at its core with complete seriousness. The girls’ ambitions to become the best Keijo players are dramatically treated as well. The “races” they participate in are played straight and are animated in a more traditional style: significantly less exaggerated or over-the-top visually than something like Kill la Kill (though the action occurring has more in common with that other series than it does with a true sports or action anime). The result is that Keijo!!!!!!!! is both funny to watch but also genuinely engaging since the drama is real, with no winking required. I would compare it to something like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, another series known for its core of consistent weirdness.[2] One of my favorite blogs is one that posts panels from the JoJo manga without other context in order to show off the ridiculous stuff that becomes even more ridiculous in a vacuum.[3] You can do something similar with Keijo!!!!!!!!.

            Here’s an example from the first episode: One of the characters in the show has a move where she can be standing flat-footed in front of an opponent and then pivot and hit them in the jaw so quickly with her butt that they A) can’t see the attack coming and B) are immediately rendered unconscious. This is physically impossible of course, and it’s also very silly; however, Keijo!!!!!!!! treats this move and the main character’s assessment of it and attempted defense against it with action anime drama. There’s no sword involved, but techniques like this one (or the MC’s “Butt Cannon,” another character’s great butt that makes her opponent think they’re looking at a pair of boobs instead, or a “Butt Guillotine”) are as dramatically presented and animated as anything out of, say, Bleach. The fights are over-hyped and over-dramatized like any other anime. Self-awareness is absent; therefore, the show manages to be funnier and genuinely engaging. The premise also readily lends itself well to the usual action anime escalation of powers. I don’t know what Keijo!!!!!!!!’s version of the old anime “This isn’t even my final form!” is, but I can’t wait to see it.  

Sayaka Miyata using her butt to confuse an opponent.[1]

            With regard to specific episodes, I would say that the first is significantly stronger than the second. I wanted to see at least two before writing some kind of review to see if the quality would drop, and it definitely does. Keijo!!!!!!!!’s first episode is exceptionally well-executed. The first episode of any series always has a lot of ground to cover—The premise has to be established, the foundation of a world built, characters introduced, and some kind of potential or promise demonstrated. A premiere has to juggle more than any later episode because it has to introduce so much and still be satisfying to watch. It needs to be forward-thinking without sacrificing the experience of the Now. Keijo!!!!!!!! is great in every regard because it pulls all this off with aplomb. The sport is introduced before the opening credits along with our main character and her dreams of going pro. These introductions are accompanied by some action—a little taste of the weirdness to come as one Keijo player flies butt-first into another. The setting is also suggested here (some near-future in a world not unlike our own). From there, the protag enters a Keijo academy as we meet more characters before flashing back to an extended action sequence in which we meet more characters and start to see some more of the ridiculous butt and breast attacks. We then return to the present to meet more characters before the episode ends with the promise of a showdown between our core group of girls in training and an older teacher. In roughly twenty minutes, the premiere of Keijo!!!!!!!! includes two action sequences (one much longer than the other), introduces its initial group of major players as well as its premise and world, has time for a more intimate conversation between the MC and her close friend, and then ends with the promise of more crazy action right out of the gate next time. None of this feels rushed either. It’s well-paced and well-animated. Even outside its role as the point of origin for a whole series, “Setouchi Keijo Training School!!!!" is a remarkable bit of television, and I would argue that if you’re on the fence about the series that watching this one episode should give you everything you need to make a decision.

            On the other hand, "The Hip Toss Brings Us Together!!!!" isn’t nearly as well-executed. For one thing, the animation of the single, brief fight sequence isn’t as good. Granted, I do understand why. I’d rather Keijo!!!!!!!! save some money now to pump into bigger, more important action-heavy moments down the road. At the same time, the brevity of what we get here in terms of combat is pretty disappointing. To add insult to injury, the actual practice “race”—the one teased at the end of the first episode—doesn’t occur until near the end of this second chapter. The rest of the episode is a flashback to training that happened before the bout occurs; however, since the episode doesn’t offer any indication of this, I was initially very confused, thinking at one point that I had actually missed something somewhere despite the fact that this was clearly labeled as episode two. Denying viewers the fight until the end with no clear signposting of where the training that dominates the episode fits into the timeline is a bad move narratively. It denies the viewer what they were promised and is also just confusing to watch. The bulk of the episode is about teamwork and bonds the core group of girls and is completely fine. We get to see the girls lift weights with their butts and walk on their butts to train, and it’s all appropriately silly. Episode two is still funny, but its narrative problems throw things off a bit. The capper on the comparative disappointment of the installment comes when the long-awaited “race” at the end just ends. The MC uses a new butt move and her instructor remarks on it as we cut suddenly to the protagonist in a weird, new swimsuit which the other members of the core group briefly comment on before the episode abruptly ends. The timing on the cuts between these last two scenes is awful. There’s no clear sense of transition between them, and then the episode goes to the credits without hinting anything about the function of the new suit or offering anything like a tease to keep viewers watching next week. It’s functional but very bland compared to the first installment, and my continued interest has more to do with the aforementioned promise of crazy escalation down the line set up in episode one than it does with anything that happened this week. Overall, it’s a clear step backward, with more explicit fanservice and less to counterbalance it.

            Despite the disappointment of the second episode, I have high hopes for Keijo!!!!!!!! Again, I say this as someone who doesn’t find the premise or its execution erotic, but I spent a lot of time thinking about the first episode after I watched it. The inherently silly drama of anime treated seriously and coupled with the inherent nonsense of the show’s premise really appeals to me in ways that more overtly comedic series—like One Punch Man, for instance—have not. I’m currently watching the new Berserk anime, which I also like a lot, but the perfect storm of Keijo!!!!!!!!’s first episode occupied my thoughts like the other shows I’ve watched this season have not. I was legitimately, unironically excited to see what happened next, and that’s the biggest endorsement of Keijo!!!!!!!! that I can offer. I encountered the show through the most roundabout method possible, though. I know I’ve seen panels from the “scanlated” manga posted on Twitter before with no sense of what series they belonged to. I also saw someone more recently use a gif of the series’ action in a joke about how much better this butt-fighting series is than Berserk (given the latter show’s overuse of janky-looking CGI). I still didn’t know what it was. Practically the next day, I saw another panel from the manga on someone’s timeline and then immediately Googled “ass fighting manga,” which led me to Keijo!!!!!!!! It feels serendipitous in a way, so I’ll be keeping an eye on this one to see if it reaches the heights that I anticipate for it.  

Notes:

[1] Both images used in this post come from The Reviewer’s Corner’s wonderfully-titled “Keijo!!!!!!!! Ep 1 Review: Nothing BUTT Sports Here.” Their review provides a detailed summary of the plot of the first episode and also includes the thoughts of someone with experience with the Keijo!!!!!!!! manga if you’re curious: https://josefcd904.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/keijo-ep-1-review-nothing-butt-sports-here/

[2] I would also compare Keijo!!!!!!!! to professional wrestling. I think enjoying either requires an unironic investment on the part of the viewer. Wrestling is ludicrous (and fake), but it treats its ludicrousness seriously. Watching professional wrestling without being able to suspend disbelief seems like a recipe for frustration—You would keep watching and waiting for someone to wink, but no one does. Both Keijo!!!!!!!! and pro wrestling know that they’re looney; however, they double-down on it rather than trying to play it off for the cynical, ironic humor one might expect. There’s an earnestness—even purity—to this approach that makes them engaging to watch… because they are engaging; they’re just also low-key batshit insane.

[3] This is the blog in question: http://outofcontextjojo.tumblr.com/   

My Beef With “The Cleveland Show”

The Simpsons

          There are actually several problems I have with the now long-cancelled The Cleveland Show—the ungainly third child in the Seth MacFarlane stable of animated adult cartoons that all share one universe (confirmed by that episode where they all got hit by the same hurricane). There are some obvious issues I could point to—that this is a show about black characters created by three white dudes, or that like all MacFarlane Brand Programming The Cleveland Show has major issues with trans people but, somehow, to an even greater degree than Family Guy or American Dad!, which only manage to be all “ewww gross trans people” every so often instead of what seems like every other episode in the case of this show. I feel like those particular issues are pretty glaring, though, and my actual, real, deepest-seated problem with The Cleveland Show does not have anything to do with social justice.

            My beef with The Cleveland Show is that it squandered its potential.

            John McWhorter once described The Cleveland Show as “basically Family Guy in blackface,” and I think that is a pretty apt assessment of the creativity on display there.[1] This is not to say that I think The Cleveland Show has no redeeming qualities. It still manages to be the sort of bad funny/not-all-that-funny that I will watch consistently whenever I have nothing better to do and it is already on television. Low effort for the occasional laugh. The series does unabashedly follow the Seth MacFarlane Formula For Comedic Success (Maybe), however, with talking animals, a precocious child character, and oddly catchy musical numbers.[2] In fact, so closely following this mold is how The Cleveland Show fails to make good on its initial promise.

            When Cleveland leaves Quahog for California to pursue his dream job as a minor league baseball scout he gets sidetracked in his hometown of Stoolbend, Virginia when he runs into an old love, Donna Tubbs, who has two rambunctious children, a deadbeat ex-husband, and finds that she has strong feelings for Cleveland as he, over the course of the pilot, helps out with the kids and generally proves himself to be a nice sort of fellow. Donna and Cleveland fall in love and get married… and then the show really begins and what we actually end up with is the same family dynamic as Family Guy and American Dad!—namely a husband-wife duo who give us the same old “women do X but men do Y!” bits that we have seen trotted out over and over again in sitcoms. The pilot suggests that Cleveland is a handy father (good with kids and whatnot), but then we still get the same stories down the road where he plays the part of a goofy, incapable, irresponsible man-child. Donna is the love of his life, but then we get the same old man-is-tired-of-his-nagging-wife plots where, say, Cleveland fakes being deaf to avoid having to listen to Donna talk. This is a comedy, so nobody was expecting an idyll, but this shameless re-hashing of the same dynamic and jokes suggests that the writers had no idea how to deal with a husband-wife pairing other than to shoehorn in the same tired tropes for both the man and his spouse. We talk a lot about damaging tropes for women in pop culture, but one for men that I know I am thoroughly sick of is that of the negligent, goofy father who does not understand his kids (at best) or completely, accidentally, humorously(!) neglects them (at worst). In fact, the general atmosphere of “idiot, clueless man” that permeates a lot of shows or ads that also pull the old “women do X…” etc. trick bothers me.

            If the character of Cleveland was only this trope, that would be one thing, but the show also faithfully copies and pastes the same all-over-the-place characterization used in the fathers in the other two series. Just like Stan and Peter, Cleveland’s personality and character vary wildly from episode to episode. Sometimes he is the loving husband and capable father, and sometimes he is an utter child or irrationally, ridiculously dismissive of his wife, children, and responsibilities. Donna fares little better. She shares many similarities with Lois and Francine: All of them are cast as pleased domestics at points who occasionally try to jumpstart other careers with the grudging support of their husbands. They are all good in a fight and have some kind of sordid past that is casually alluded to for… humor. Look, the juxtaposition of housewife with “good in a fight” works. It is funny—just not when you reproduce the exact same thing three times over and call it a day.

            Donna, Cleveland, Peter, Lois, Stan, and Francine are not characters: They are comedy vehicles. I once read a very good A.V. Club article (that I can, unfortunately, not find at the moment) that examines the difference between King of the Hill and American Dad! in very similar terms. To paraphrase heavily: Where the characters of King of the Hill are just that (characters who are consistently drawn and have jokes built around their personalities) American Dad! offers no consistent characterization. Stan can be an idiot man-child, a caring father, a loving husband, or a complete misogynist as the joke dictates. This approach is not necessarily “wrong,” but I would argue that it makes the difference between a show with true cultural staying power that can summon genuine pathos for its major players (like, say, King of the Hill) and a show that is ultimately throwaway, forgettable. Like The Cleveland Show. Like using a pop culture reference in place of an actual joke. Shows like Community and Bob’s Burgers establish characters first and then build the jokes around the ways certain characters act and react. But, to be fair to The Cleveland Show for a moment, this was never MacFarlane’s MO. It is not like it had any real chance of not being what it was, but the fact that there was a chance—however slim—at the start to shake things up with a new location, new characters, and new relationships irks me. It speaks to the industrial quality of reality TV series and “reboots” that are cranked out to reproduce safe, old thrills—The implicit assumption is that the world of television is a world of trough feeding and that the viewing public will eat the same thing again and again without caring. Again, repetition is the bread and butter of the MacFarlane Trio, three very dumb series undoubtedly made by smart people.[3]

            How to end this discussion? Perhaps with proof that MacFarlane and company can do better. Here is one really great character moment (of all things) that I suspect may have been accidental:

            In the Family Guy episode “Thanksgiving,” Joe’s son Kevin surprises everyone by showing up alive when he was presumed dead while serving a tour of duty in Iraq. The characters eventually discover that Kevin, who initially claims to have been in a coma, actually went A.W.O.L. To defend Kevin’s actions, Brian, the liberal mouthpiece of the series, turns to Ida—a trans character. Idea’s transition story is the focus of an earlier episode of the show that has become notorious for its protracted, disgusting depiction of a straight man’s reaction to discovering he has had sex with a trans woman.[4] In “Thanksgiving,” however, Brian turns to Ida to support Kevin because first, as Brian explicitly states, Ida also served in the armed forces and should be able to commiserate with Kevin’s negative experience, and second, implicitly, the appeal singles Ida out because by virtue of being a trans person she ought to be more permissive in general, right? Wrong. Ida refuses to support Kevin’s going A.W.O.L. and instead reminds him that he owed his loyalty to the people serving with him.

            What I like about this moment in particular is how it breaks the mold for MacFarlane-verse characterization. Rather than use the appeal to Ida to set up some kind of joke about perceived stereotypes of transwomen, the episode instead allows a character to answer in something like a genuine voice. Ida’s pride in her military background is also completely unrelated to her trans status. It is rare to see a trans character anywhere characterized like this (in a way not somehow related to transition). It feels utterly alien watching this one scene and recalling it after the fact that the episode does not go for some easy jab by using the moment to remind viewers for the umpteenth time that Ida is trans (and that that is disgusting to the show). The way that this brief exchange subtly characterizes Ida and rebukes Brian’s assumptions is better than Family Guy deserves or even usually manages.[5] It is not a humorous moment at all, so as a standard for fixing what was wrong with The Cleveland Show it really does not apply. I suppose all I can really say about it is that, generally, The Cleveland Show was a chance to change the game even slightly or at least up the ante. The characters could have been more clearly drawn to try for a more King of the Hill-esque approach to humor instead of using both cut-aways and non sequiturs again. Cleveland could have had a different family life with Donna—Comedic troubles could arise but their genuine affection for one another could still be evident, rather than being so changeable and seemingly distant to the characters mere episodes after they were married. That the show could do no more than to leap from love to dissatisfaction so quickly demonstrates its lack of faith in its own ability to make audiences laugh without resorting to the same old shtick. And that is The Cleveland Show’s greatest sin: a lack of imagination and an apparent unwillingness to try to be anything other than “Family Guy in blackface.”

      

Notes:

[1] McWhorter, John. “Just a Cartoon, But Still: Is Family Guy in Blackface Funny?” The New Republic, New Republic, 2016. Accessed 7 Sept. 2016.

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmePGQ3Mu7I

[3] Of the three, American Dad! is easily my favorite. It starts out rough in seasons one and two but really finds its footing in three. Although it also borrows the same dynamics from Family Guy, it somehow manages to make them work. The most recent season that aired only on TBS felt weaker, but there are some great comedy moments in the mix. Furthermore, Roger is a brilliant character—one who perfectly embodies the spirit of the MacFarlane-verse since he is ever changing (through costume) and can meet whatever comedic or narrative demands a particular episode may have. Certain episodes of American Dad!, especially “Lost in Space,” actually manage to summon the same mixture of humor and genuine feeling that you could consistently find in the likes of Futurama.

[4] The guy is, of course, Brian. He vomits for a long time. The vomit is really the only thing that moves as Stewie looks on and Brian keeps vomiting. The vomit creeps across the floor. It goes on so long. It is… humor.

[5] I do not think anyone in Family Guy has really grown as a character over time, though I guess Brian has become less well-liked by other characters. On the other hand, I will admit that American Dad! and The Cleveland Show do attempt some small developments. Stan becomes somewhat less intolerant of gay people, and Cleveland becomes somewhat less intolerant of Hispanic people.

American Horror Story: Prepare to Meet Your Maker—But Not Really

            At this point I’m off the American Horror Story bandwagon and hitching a ride back into town while said wagon rolls unsteadily, merrily onwards. During the fall of 2013, I began watching the series on Amazon at $1.99 a pop starting with the premiere of Coven. When that particular season didn’t amaze me with its opening episode (and would go on to disappoint me further), I swapped over to Asylum, and it was the show’s second season that got me. With Asylum, I fell into the “Just one more and then I’ll quit” loop. I still argue that Asylum represents the series’ high point—aliens or no aliens—because it manages to tap into the terror of institutional misuse of power: namely the fear that you can be trapped somewhere until someone else says you can leave. The truth of the matter is that both Asylum and Murder House had strong, haunted settings backing them. The former had the asylum where the main characters were stuck for most of the season, and the latter had the family home—a far from original setting but one that always resonates because of the symbolism (dissolution/dismemberment of the American family and so forth) and the suggestion that “It could happen to you too!” Coven and Freak Show had less effective settings which rarely felt dangerous or scary, and Hotel seems to have tried to remedy this problem by making its Cortez hotel its centerpiece once more. Although settings in horror films get reused a lot, setting is still an important part of the scare, and if the atmosphere isn’t oppressive—if the audience can’t feel threatened or trapped like the characters—then there’s a massive obstacle to overcome when it’s time to really turn the screws and put them on the edge of their seats. I don’t want to belabor this point, but the fact that the characters in Coven could come and go as they pleased lowered the stakes considerably.

            The biggest problem with the AHS formula, however, has been its treatment of character death. Although the spirits of deceased characters in Murder House were forever doomed to haunt a building, they were still able to behave and interact as if they were alive (albeit with serious restrictions on their ability to leave the domicile). In Coven, the magical premise allowed the writers to kill and then revive major characters several times before finally deciding to kill them for good. Freak Show even resorted to cheap “It was all a dream!” cop-out scenarios where it would show a major character dying in a gruesome fashion and then reveal that it was all just a Denis O’Hare murder fantasy. Now Hotel has vampires, and I think that point pretty much bears itself out. I’ve saved Asylum for last because, even though its aliens do intervene to revive one major character, it still feels like the show with the highest stakes where character deaths are concerned. There are no ghosts, vampires, or murder fantasies. When characters die, they don’t live on thanks to a supernatural or storytelling loophole (again, except for the occasional alien intervention).

(And it's a problem.)

           

           I think AHS has the Heroes problem, as it’s a show that became so enamored with its stars that it is reluctant to kill them. This isn’t a perfect comparison since AHS is an anthology series and doesn’t really carry characters from season to season, but it is a similar principle. Heroes became too fond of its major characters to kill them off. Meanwhile, AHS is too in love with its star power. For example, it was pretty much a given that Jessica Lange wasn’t going to die until the very end of each season. Kill Sarah Paulsen or Evan Peters? Perish the thought! Part of the thrill of horror films is the threat of character death, and American Horror Story has squandered that potential. It’s established a trend of saving its major players from death from the very first season, but the pattern has become especially obvious in more recent years. Every year, the show comes back with creepy trailers and opening sequences that look great but have only a tenuous, symbolic connection to the actual and atmosphere of the show. I’m fine with the way that these materials show off the motifs or themes of the season to come rather than giving away actual plot details, but I also have to admit that these short snippets have become more horrific and entertaining than AHS itself, which is more interested in being a soap opera with horror elements than a horror series with soap opera elements. Character dynamics always play a role in horror films even if the characters are easily identifiable as tropes; however, AHS seems to have mistaken its characters/actors as the real focus of a genre that really only uses and abuses them in order to accomplish its actual purpose: scaring or horrifying the audience.

            I was able to watch the premiere of Hotel on Amazon for free earlier this fall, and that’s the only episode of the season I’ve watched so far. I will undoubtedly continue to check out American Horror Story as the new seasons make their way to Netflix or Amazon, but the love affair is over. I consider myself a fan of horror movies and of the premise and potential behind a series like AHS, but unless the show manages a renaissance of sorts where it gets over its squeamishness regarding major character death, I’m unlikely to spend any more money on it. This is not to say that the series’ only problem is its considerably lowered stakes, but even the worst horror movies can at least manages this much. I’m sure there are folks who love American Horror Story for its glamorous side and because of the hype machine it still manages to be by casting Lady Gaga in a starring role, but I’m not one of those people.