Delicious in Dungeon (Netflix 2024)

Cooking anime meets dungeoneering adventure in Delicious in Dungeon. Based on a manga from Ryoko Kui, this show is focused on…

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Monarch (Apple TV 2023), update

Turns out the third episode was perfectly placed to build up my impression that there wasn’t enough character development or emotional grounding going on in the modern day storyline. I’m not going to edit my review, but

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Blue Eye Samurai, s1 (Netflix 2023)

Blue Eye Samurai is a damn good show.

A damn good show that comes with a couple of warnings.

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Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (Apple TV, 2023)

Remember how I was upset with Castlevania? Very mild spoilers here.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters shows how to give a character life after killing them in episode one. It makes that death a tragedy instead of a cheap trick, and lets us come to know the person—their strengths, their joys, and their faults—even after we know they’re dead. Even better, that character’s death and life reveal the themes foundational to the Godzilla series; after all, Godzilla stories aren’t just about giant monsters.

Don’t worry. There are definitely some giant monsters. It’s just… Monarch, like the first Godzilla movie, is really more about human drama and humanity’s hubris than about a big stompy beast.

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Filler, fight scenes, and Marvel fluff

I practiced stage combat years ago. I know how to choreograph a decent fight. I love watching skilled practitioners strut their stuff. This is why I love watching old Jackie Chan movies and the John Wick series, why I marvel at Olympic gymnasts or any other athletes where I have some basic understanding of just how utterly awesome these people are at what they do. I appreciate skill, and I admire craft.

Making a big blockbuster action sequence takes a lot of work, and can be done well. Sometimes I like that style. The first time I watched the first Avengers movie, I don’t think I was aware that the climactic fight took over twenty minutes. I enjoyed the spectacle, appreciated the work put into it, and didn’t care about how long it ran.

But many of those climactic fights feel like filler. Maybe I’ve seen too many Marvel movies, consumed them past the point of satiation. Or maybe… 

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Castlevania, s1 (Netflix 2017)

I admit, I very nearly bounced off the first couple episodes of season 1. I’m now a few episodes into season 2, and the show has improved. But has it improved enough?

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The back-into-it roundup, 11/2/23

There’s a wall that builds itself. It stands between me and my creative work. If I pass through it every day, I can knock it down a little with each trip—moving past it is never effortless, but the wall doesn’t have a chance to grow that much. If I don’t pass through for a while, the wall climbs and solidifies. Pushing past it gets harder the longer I wait.

I shared that image, that metaphor, with Ley when it came to me recently. They nodded, and suggested the metaphor of a quickly-overgrown path that I need to frequently bushwhack and clear. That works for me too.

I’ve been busy doing other work for a week or so. I didn’t think that would be such a distraction from my other writing, but it was. Fortunately, I had the Monuments Men post ready and was almost finished with another World Seed (The Blister is now available for sale!).

But now I’m trying to decide which fiction project to return to, how I want to start bushwhacking—and I’m being pulled in yet another direction by Skip Intro’s Veronica Mars episode for the Copaganda series. Sometimes I watch or listen to interesting analysis (critique and/or appreciation) of stories and find that spark of inspiration. This was one of those times. I don’t know where I’ll take it or what I’ll do with it. Maybe I’ll hunt down more old noir and see if that gives me any new clues.

That’s my ramble for now.

Wait, I should have another review showing up on Geekly Inc soon. I reviewed A Power Unbound, which I enjoyed. I’ll probably have more for you here about that another time, and I’ll let you know when that post has gone live.

Oh, it’s already up! Enjoy.

Portals and the hero’s journey

I figured out what I like about isekai and portal fiction—and why some of it feels so bad.

The portal fiction I love most plays with the hero’s journey. It is, at its core, about characters traveling into the unknown and experiencing growth through trials and tribulations. It’s the same pattern that so much adventure fiction I love adheres to.

The hero’s journey puts a big emphasis on coming home to confront the ways one has grown (in the image above, the Act Three segment saying “Master of Two Worlds” & “Incorporation”). But it’s confronting that growth which is the important part; what home you’re coming home to doesn’t particularly matter, as long as the recognition, confrontation, and resolution with past-self happens. The hero could literally return to their home world, or recognize any space within their new world as sufficiently home-like to be their new home—as long as they have that final confrontation and resolution.

And that’s the thought I had when everything clicked.

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Sucked into the portal (fiction) again

I’m a sucker for portal fiction, so it’s no surprise that I’m fond of—or at least eager to try—many isekai anime. I’ll even keep watching isekai long after I’ve decided that I don’t like the show. Something about it is compelling. It grabs part of my brain and refuses to let go.

There’s a lot of schlock out there. And worse. Hell, I watched at least ten episodes of The Rising of the Shield Hero, despite that show being a rotten apologia for toxic incels making slave harems (don’t be a shithead, and practice your kink consensually mmkay?). Someone else wrote more or less what I should have posted here about that show years ago—it’s a solid critique, check it out.

But that means when I find isekai that isn’t awful, that doesn’t feel like it’s spoon-feeding me poison and whispering sweet justifications of heinous shit, I’m delighted. And when I keep watching that isekai and find hints that they’re building towards bigger, more interesting twists with potentially interesting moral conundrums… heck. They’ve got me hook, line, and sinker. All of which is to say…

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Skull Island (Netflix, 2023)

I grew up loving Johnny Quest’s zany pulp adventures. Skull Island feels like an updated version. Unfortunately, two episodes in it feels like the writers only updated some of the original concept and didn’t go far enough. It gets enough right that I’m still hoping that’ll change, but…

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