Volume 4 of My Hero Academia begins where we left off with our cliffhanger. The Sports Festival is in full swing and Midoriya, our hero, is the one with the most points. However, the second round is a Cavalry Battle, with each participants' headband being worth more depending on how they ranked in the last round. Since Midoriya came in first place, he is target #1.
The first half of this volume deals with this Cavalry Battle and how Midoriya and his carefully picked team must survive until the next round. Oh yeah, and since Midoriya still can't control his power ("quirk"), he has to play it extra careful.
The centerpiece of this volume, however, deals with what is going on behind the scenes. Aspiring hero Todoroki (the kid in the top left of the cover) who until this point just seemed like competition for Midoriya, reveals that his desire to win is about more than just winning. He wants to beat his father.
Todoroki's father is the #2 hero (behind All Might) Endeavor, who has control over flames. Endeavor, it turns out, is not such a nice guy as he is only the donor of half of Todoroki's power. You see, Quirks in My Hero Academia are hereditary. You might get your mother or your father's Quirk, or some combination thereof. Endeavor participated in a Quirk Marriage (a sort-of arranged marriage) in which he forced Todoroki's mother into marriage using his wealth and influence in order to give birth to a child with the best Quirk. It hints at the fact that Endeavor is definitely not much of a father figure.
Todoroki was born with Half-Hot Half-Cold power. The ability to control fire and heat with his left side, and the ability to control ice and frost with his right side. His mother didn't take to the relationship so well, and ended up scalding half of her son's face with boiling water.
Naturally, this leads him to having a complicated relationship with his father. However, there is one twist on this sort of relationship you probably wouldn't see in a western comic these days.
Instead of wallowing in despair, Todoroki makes a pact to himself to make it to the top of the hero world only using his mother's power. While his anger is understandable, and his pouting typical of that of a child (he cannot get by on half his power), the fact that he does not throw away the world of heroes to become a villain is admirable. Despite his hardships, Todoroki still aims to be the greatest hero of all time.
Bakugo, Midoriya's former bully, overhears all of this, though he doesn't act on it. He's still getting over his own realization that he is not the greatest thing since sliced bread, and that he still has a long way to go to get to the top.
As you can tell, this volume is all about what My Hero Academia is best at, and that's character development. This volume specifically focuses on Midoriya, Todoroki, and Bakugo, though at the end it hints for some for Uraraka in the next volume.
After the second round ends, we get to starting the third and final round which is a tournament. Thankfully, this is the one and only time this series uses such a standard set up for the story, and it is primarily driven by characters instead of flashy battles. By the time the volume ends, we'll be on our way to the end of the Sports Festival, and you get the impression that things are never going to be the same again for our heroes.
My Hero Academia is, in my opinion, the current best running manga series out there. Even though it's a love letter to western and eastern comics, it is, at its heart, a story about characters struggling to be the best they can. Not only is that the heart of both shonen manga and superhero comics, but the heart of good stories in general.
Though I don't want to spoil it for new readers, I can say wholeheartedly that what comes next is fairly great. If you're enjoying My Hero Academia now, well, you ain't seen nothing yet.
In case you missed it, author Brian Niemeier is having a Book Bomb by Larry Correia for Nethereal, the novel I reviewed here. If you still haven't checked it out, go give it a shot.
On the other hand, I'm neck deep in editing right now, so there won't be a full post this week. Today also happens to be my birthday which makes it doubly tough to get a full post out.
I recently saw Captain America: Civil War and thought a post on the movie would be apt considering everyone else is making one. But I'm going to go a little different and speak of the Captain America trilogy as a whole.
Before we begin, I thought I would mention a little background of the Captain America film series. I will be skipping the Avengers films and any others starring other superheroes for this post. This review is going to be focused on Civil War being the third, and probably final, installment of the Captain America film series.
Back in 2011, Marvel had only recently launched its new Marvel Cinematic Universe with the remarkable Iron Man, it's not-so-great sequel, and the fish out of story Thor. They were good, for the most part, with the original Iron Man being by far the best. The third new property was known as Captain America: The First Avenger, ostensibly a war movie directed by the man behind cult favorite, The Rocketeer, but really an old style superhero movie in the package of the Golden Age of comics. It's a film that isn't highly appreciated these days, or mentioned much, what with its very old school approach and morals is still unheard of in the realm of superhero movies. Yet it set the tone for much of the best parts of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The First Avenger centered on Steve Rogers, a scrawny kid from Brooklyn, who is so puny he can't even join the war effort against the Nazis. But after an experiment for which he is chosen because of his heart and nothing else, he begins his career as a Super Soldier: a man capable of super strength and agility. He fights against the Nazi war machine before they are overtaken by the Hydra organization, run by the tyrannical Red Skull. He fought with a squad by his side, a classy dame named Peggy Carter, his best friend, Bucky, and a shield made of vibranium made by super-genius, Howard Stark.
The film opened well and formed a great foundation for Steve Rogers as a character leading into the even more popular Avengers. That said, it is a great start for the series, one that has aged excellently, and only gets better on multiple re-watches. If you haven't seen it in a while, you might be pleasantly surprised with how good it really is.
But as good as Captain America: The First Avenger was, it only got better from there.
At the end of the first movie, Steve Rogers sacrifices his life and crashes a plane in the arctic to prevent countless people from dying. In the process he is frozen under the ice and not discovered for decades. Years pass and it turns out, even if he didn't die, that he did lose his old life. Everyone he left behind had lived their lives without him and had passed on, leaving him as a man out of time in the modern world.
The second film in the series, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, is about how Steve Rogers, as a man the world had forgotten, finds his way in a world much different (and not so different) from the world he had left behind. More than that, it is about how far the world has come since the "Greatest Generation" and where it's going next in the morally vapid modern age. It turns out that the forgotten values of Captain America might just be what the modern world needs after all despite how antiquated he is. While the first movie was a war film, the second is a full-on '70s spy thriller and totally changed the tone of the series.
Cap works for the people who unfroze him from the arctic, a secret government agency called S.H.I.E.L.D., to stop terrorists with his special strike team. The boss of the organization, Nick Fury, is a modern man who has his eyes on all the players and his fingers in all the pies and thinks the key to saving the world is to keep it under the right man's thumb. What ends up happening in Winter Soldier is how very relevant the past can be, in more ways than one, and how despite how advanced and far along we have gotten since the second World War, things are still fundamentally the same as they ever were no matter how much we might deny it.
This film tests Steve Rogers in a way that the physical challenges of the first didn't. It tests his traditional values and beliefs, leaving in a climax that's both jaw dropping and reaffirming Captain America as the hero the world desperately needs just as much as it did back in the war.
The most impressive aspect of Captain America: The Winter Soldier was how it took all of the ideas and themes from the first Cap movie and pushed them even further. The decision to change the war setting to a spy one and the contrast of the films between the idealistic past and pessimistic present not only strengthens both films, but leads Captain America on a path none of the other Marvel series have been able to replicate, even now.
But it doesn't stop with those two films.
Now we get to the newly released Captain America: Civil War. After the events of the second film, Cap is still around in the present, but he now leads a new strike team with those who have special abilities, just like he does. An inciting event occurs and a disaster on one of their missions leads to innocent people dying and the UN demanding that people like Cap have to be held responsible for their actions and kept in check.
Howard Stark's son, Tony Stark, is also a hero like Steve called Iron Man and has been working with him for years now. The two both have complicated pasts, which is what leads to their opposite solutions on how to deal with the situation as it comes up. What enfolds is a conflict that starts explosive and public, but eventually, and slowly, winds back down to personal stakes. That's strange for a superhero movie, but for a Captain America movie, it can really end no other way after the explosive finales of the first two films.
As a conclusion to Steve Rogers arc from the first two movies, it is quite potent. It flips an early scene from The First Avenger on its head to show not only has Cap come far, but he's the same scrawny kid he's always been, refusing to back down from what's right. It also pushes on the themes from Winter Soldier about how the darkness of fear and revenge will not win out over truth and goodness. At the end of the film, things are not the same and probably never will be again, but Captain America and Iron Man are still standing despite the doubt and evil that has befallen them. They will keep fighting for what is right.
Despite everything Steve Rogers has been through, he was and forever shall be a hero. Nothing will break him down from doing the right thing--even if the whole world is against him.
And that's where the trilogy finishes. Starting with a scrawny kid that can't even protect himself, he ends up a hero standing up for the whole world who will never be broken again. It is a fantastic end to a fantastic trilogy.
But there is one more thing I wanted to point out.
One aspect of the Captain America films that no other Marvel series (or any other comic book based hero movie has done) is how each film represents a different era of comics.
Captain America: The First Avenger is clearly the Golden Age of comics. Larger than life heroes and villains clash on an epic scale. The good guys are true, the bad guys are unrepentant, and everything is unambiguously clear. It also forms the bedrock of everything to come.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier is Silver Age, matching the '70s spy fiction feel it gives off. Good and evil are still there, buried a bit under the surface, and things might get muddy or more serious, but still heroes are heroes and will do what they must at the end of the day. Things can still get outlandish just like in the Golden Age, but everything is brought down to a more slightly grounded level allowing for character development not possible before.
Captain America: Civil War is Bronze Age, through and through. Heroes fighting heroes, villains scheming out of the spotlight, and things not always being what they seem at first. Civil War, however avoids the Bronze Age trap of moral relativism by never having the heroes or villains forget that they know who the real good or bad guys are even when it gets dark. Still, despite all the awful things that may occur, a hero is the one still standing for the right thing at the end.
That this series of films manage to touch so well on each of these areas speak very well for it a unique superhero series. Despite being part of the overarching universe of Marvel movies, they tell their own story and arc that stand well on their own.
And with Civil War being an excellent film in its own right, the Captain America series now stands as the best superhero trilogy ever made. Nothing else comes close.
If you have never seen the Captain America films, or Civil War, then you owe it to yourself to see them. You will not be disappointed.
Has anyone out there taken a look at the movies coming out this Summer season? A long time ago (actually as early as 10 years ago) one could expect the Summer movie season to be stuffed with blockbuster titles that make your sweltering days feel a little lighter with a good dose of fun, good humor, and imaginative ideas.
Then there's the last few years. Outside of Inside Out, I don't think I saw a single movie last Summer.
But let's not use me as an example. Did you see any? Did anyone you know? And would either of you consider anything a film you would come back to over and over again like Iron Man or a Pixar original? Because that is what Summer blockbusters are supposed to make you want to do.
For a second, let's take a step back and take a look at the films I'm going to see without a doubt in this Summer:
Captain America: Civil War
A completion of what I hope to be the best superhero trilogy is about all I'm dyin' to see. Is your list longer than mine?
Now how about movies I'm interested in on a casual basis. This is a sort of Word Of Mouth/surprise hit category like the last Mad Max movie.
The Nice Guys (Shane Black is the reason)
X-Men: Apocalypse (The last movie was excellent, but I loathe this villain)
The BFG (Spielberg and Roald Dahl are an intriguing combination)
Suicide Squad (Because of a friend. DC's non-Batman movies have been awful since the '70s)
And that's about it.
I probably won't even see three of those four and wait until Netflix. I didn't list Finding Dory because Pixar's sequels, outside of Toy Story, are never as good as the originals: and this is a sequel that is completely unneeded. But, again, what about you? Is your list any bigger than mine? If so, well, what is there that has you so excited?
The bigger problem here is how bad this year is overall for brand new movie ideas. Check out the amount of sequels, revamps, license movies, and remakes out this Summer Season:
Captain America: Civil War
Elstree 1976 (If you count these sorts of things)
The Curse of Sleeping Beauty
Angry Birds
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
X-Men: Apocalypse
Alice Through the Looking Glass
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
WarCraft
Now You See Me 2
Finding Dory
Independence Day Resurgence
The Legend of Tarzan
The Purge: Election Year
The BFG
Ghostbusters
Star Trek Beyond
Ice Age: Collision Course
Jason Bourne
Suicide Squad
Pete's Dragon
Ben-Hur
Twenty-two. That's 22 out of 37. More than half.
In defense of these sequels, the worst movie of the Summer probably won't even be one of these, but a movie listed below called Swiss Army Man. No, I'm not going to link to the trailer. If you want to see the awfulness yourself, feel free and waste your time. It's somehow even worse than the Ghostbusters trailer and just as barren.
Of course you might be thankful there are any originals at all. Well, you might be, that is, unless you looked up what most of them actually are about.
These are the original movies:
Money Monster - A drama starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts about greed. Don't fall asleep on me here.
Last Days in the Desert - A movie about a guy who has visions of Jesus Christ. There are two ways these types of movies tend to go and since we're no longer in the '40s or even the '60s, it probably won't go the good way.
High Rise - An allegory for class warfare: in a building! Wait, come back! They get more exciting, I swear!
The Nice Guys - Shane Black is the writer of the first two Lethal Weapon movies, Iron Man 3, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. His direction in the latter two was quite great, too. He is the main reason I am interested in this movie.
Me Before You - It's a modern romance coated in shallow emotions and nihilism. Chances are you already saw the poster and walked away. The modern world can't do romance at all. And that title is rather ironic considering the story, but this cynical generation loves their vacuous irony, so have at it. I won't be seeing this.
Central Intelligence - An action comedy starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Kevin Hart. The former would get me to see it, but the latter would drive me away. I'd have to hear strong Word Of Mouth to see this.
The Shallows - Remember that movie where James Franco yelled from the bottom of a crevice for six years or something? That's this only with a woman and at sea instead. The only difference is that this is listed as a horror movie. Yay, modern horror! The only genre more bankrupt than modern romance.
Free State of Jones - A movie about racism. You know, I don't oppose the subject being tackled, but Hollywood being completely incapable of nuance or subtlety on hot button topics these days always makes these movies ham-handed and embarrassing to watch. Plus, Matthew McConaughey. There's that.
Swiss Army Man - Here's the plot: "Hank (Paul Dano), a man marooned on an island and at the verge of suicide, sees a corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) wash up on the beach and engages in a surreal friendship with it. Hank soon finds that his new friend, whom he names Manny, possesses the ability to talk and a myriad of supernatural powers." Yes, it's a modern indie film. How could you tell?
Equals - Stop me if you've heard this before: "In a futuristic utopian society, human emotions have been eradicated and everyone lives in peace but when a new disease surfaces, everything changes for illustrator Silas (Nicholas Hoult). He becomes an outcast once infected and is drawn to his writer co-worker Nia (Kristen Stewart), who is also infected but hiding her condition. In order to survive, they have to escape together." Okay, okay, you can cease yelling stop at me now. Another films where emotions solve problems instead of start them.
Our Kind of Traitor - A movie based on a John le Carre novel (Woo!) of all things. Oh wait, did I mention it was a modern John le Carre novel (Aww!) because that's the important distinction. Might as well just move on to the next movie.
The Secret Life of Pets - This is an animated film by the team behind Despicable Me. The problem is that every movie they've done outside of that franchise has been lousy. A pessimistic wait and see.
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates - A modern romantic comedy. So it'll be raunchy, the main guys will be manchildren, the girls will be ho-humming the whole time at their immaturity, and there will be a turn in the end where the boys "grow up" and become the men the women deserve. If I'm wrong, then I'll be happy to eat my hat. I don't want to be right.
The Founder - This year's Social Network. That means it's a film you'll only ever see once, so why not wait until Netflix?
Nine Lives - This was the plot of a one season family sitcom in Canada called Doghouse. I'm not making that up. How that bodes for this, I don't know. But the only talking animal films I think are worth watching are the first Homeward Bound and Babe, so who knows if this will compare? Given the two decades since those films came out, I'm guessing no.
When I was a teenager, I would spend much of the Summer out watching movies with my friends in between everything else life held. We had a blast. Even if we are older now, that doesn't change the desire to want to recapture the feeling of encountering a brand new story that produces awe and wonder and stirs the imagination like the best stories do. None of us do that anymore, not just because of life, but because Hollywood is all dried up now.
I find that most have grown tired of what Hollywood shovels out these days. Endless despair, empty sex based on shallow feelings, crude and mean-spirited humor, vitriol against views they disagree with, and films about nothing at all blare from every cinema screen these days even if no one is sitting in the seats to watch them. Is it any wonder they are falling further and further into irrelevance?
Well, that's becoming increasingly fine with me. Once independent studios can make films as technically impressive as films like Aliens or Terminator 2 and allow more creative conrol and original ideas out, they will have found a whole market of movie watchers who have been eagerly awaiting for that lost spark to come back again.
Give it a few years and soon enough Hollywood will be joining the publishing and music industry on the scrap heap of irrelevance.
Nethereal by Brian Niemeier is a different kind of book. I'm not the most well-read in science fiction, but then, this isn't totally a science fiction book. It's not really fantasy, either. But then, it's also not horror. It's a mixture of all those genres as if they are the same thing. Genre boundaries are sort of an annoyance to me as it is, so reading a book that just does what it wants to do was a real treat.
Imagine if Abraham Merritt read Galactic Patrol and said "Pshaw! I can do that!" then while writing his space opera he read Dune and watched some classic anime and decided to throw those in too. Of course, he couldn't do any of that being that he died so long ago, but that's not my point. That's the closest I can come to describing what reading Nethereal is like.
Imagine a universe where space pirates descend into space hell accompanied by a strange band of rogues and misfits that might not all be what they seem. This hell is split into levels, each as strange as the last as our main characters begin to learn more and more that maybe this job was not only a bad idea, but a horrifying mistake. Oh, and they have to deal with horrifying monstrosities from the depths at every turn. Can't forget about those, can we?
The story follows a core group of four pirates: Jaren Peregrine, the captain of the pirates who has tunnel vision on whatever task he sets his mind to, and his second-in-command, Nakvin, a woman with a lot more to her than there may be, are the main characters. There is also Teg Cross, a hired mercenary who has as quick a sword arm as he does a mouth, and Deim, their apprentice steersman, a young man with ore passion than sense, who fill out the main cast quite well. There are other characters, but getting into them would probably spoil the story. Needless to say, you are always wondering just what each character is really playing at even when they're playing it straight.
Probably the most interesting, in my opinion, is a character named Vaun Mordecai, a necromancer wearing a mask and missing his soul who has a vague motivation to join our crew that is only really revealed later on. He is evil, but he plays by his own rules and has no problem eating his own should it suit his agenda. It makes him a fascinating character to follow along with even though there is no ambiguity in who he is.
How I imagined Vaun
Now, for the negative points, of which there aren't many. The plot bogged down a bit in the middle and became a bit convoluted before finally straightening out for the last part of the book. I'm a bit of a slow reader, but I almost lost myself in the middle a few times. Some characters also sort of vanish then reappear, leaving you to wrack your brain to remember what they were doing when you last saw them hundreds of pages ago. The climax is also short considering it took almost 600 pages to get to it, as well.
Where the author most succeeded, however, was the sense of dread and unease about the entire journey. Hell, of course, is not a pleasant place anyone would want to visit, but space hell is not even a place you want to think about. Demons and baals at every turn, mysterious and horrifying landscapes, even death isn't an escape from the torture, and those who revel in their basic instincts come to regret them soon enough. Though this is a space opera, it manages a bit of thought on basic morality along the way giving it a nice touch you wouldn't expect from such a story.
Of course, as I said, this is a space opera through and through. You have dramatic reveals, over the top fights and encounters, a story that twists as it goes, and an ending where everything (more or less) falls into place. Just don't go into it expecting unblessed ray guns and in-depth politics, but Workings and damnation instead and you're on the right track.
As a classic anime fan, I couldn't help but picture this as a 26 episode series by Studio Deen made way back in 1992 or so. This is not a criticism. That is not a feel anime can even get down anymore, but a point for the book in matching a feel and spirit that isn't really done today. I'm not sure if non-anime fans would get as much out of the Nethereal's style as I did, but that does help to make it totally unique and wrapped in with the world-building that Brian Niemeier sets out to accomplish. By the end, you just want a second season right away. Unlike that season 2 of Outlaw Star I've been waiting around fifteen years for, the Soul Cycle series already has a second book out, Soul Dancer, which I hope to get to eventually.
The sequel
Now, despite my issues, Nethereal is a unique treat in the current world of genre fiction. The industry revels in sluggish books that hide the genre from their covers (this fools no one, by the way) in order to make a bid for respectability from an "elite" group of people who write books that the general populace couldn't care less about. Nethereal makes no apologizes for what it is, doesn't bog down in navel-gazing, or forget that the first rule of entertainment is to entertain. In that aspect, Nethereal succeeds admirably where so many modern genre books fail.
Looking for a fun space opera with horror and fantasy elements and a distinct old school anime vibe? Then Nethereal is for you! Give it a read today.
*NOTE: The author has released an updated version of the book as of April 23, 2016. Being that I finished the book on that date, this is clearly a review of the older version. To see a list of changes, please visit his blog here.
Following up on my last anime post, I wanted to expand a bit on what I meant about a show based on a 25 year old manga being better than most of what is being put out now.
This might be very easy to misconstrue as an old man longing for the "good old days" who can't understand that things are different now, consarnit, we are a more evolved people and therefore the stories we see now are better because they are newer and therefore more true than those icky old things.
To the first point: Watch your mouth, kid. I ain't that old! To the second: Well, no. You're wrong. Not even a little wrong, you're so wrong that you wouldn't know right unless it sliced apart your cinderblock heart into tiny cubes to wake you from your lucid dream of "realism" and despair.
Stories are meant to be Superversive. To lift up. To brighten someone's day. To give them hope. To show them that the dark can be fought against and driven back. These are what stories used to be before the 20th century began to upturn that tradition which fully toppled the cart over in these early years of the 21st. Good is evil, bad is good, true is false, and . . . is it no wonder we're so messed up we have to take pills to sleep through the night?
But not everyone is sitting tight letting the darkness overtake the world any more than it already has.
The goal of the Superversive Movement has always been for those who refuse to take this lying down. We all have this inkling that things are not as they should be, we live in a broken world that will not be fixed, and stories are made to reflect this drive we have to live to brighter times and in a wider world. Not only to live to those dreams, but to show they exist at all. To prove they are real.
From Mrs. L. Jagi Lamplighter Wright's post on the blog:
"Why give a book like this to children to read? What are we trying to teach them? That life is difficult and meaningless? That sometimes its okay to kill something we love for a “good reason”? That life is pointless? That dreams and hopes are a sham? That no matter how you try, you cannot improve upon your circumstance, so it’s better not to even hope? (That was what The Pearl was about.)
What possible good is such a message doing our children?"
She then goes on to end with this:
"This is what the Superversive Literary Movement is for—to whisper to the future Trisha’s, Don’s, and Andrea’s that miracles are possible.
That hope is not a cheat.
The goal of the Superversive is to bring hope, where there is no hope; to bring courage, where without courage, hope would never be manifested.
The goal of the Superversive is to be light to a benighted world.
The goal of the Superversive is:
To tell the truth."
Though a term invented by writer and master essayist Tom Simon, "Superversive" has taken a life of its own for those tired of all the pointless subversion pulling the world down into the muck with stories about nothing but pointless negativity and stories that poison the soul blacker and blacker. The world is not getting any better, but we don't have to sink with it.
I bring up Ushio & Tora as an example of a Superversive story, as it is indicative of a story that seeks to rise up. This does not mean author and artist, Kazuhiro Fujita, set out to make a story to highlight attributes like friendship, heroism, and the greatness of being good, just that those are the features that underpin his story. His is an action/adventure story, yet it manages to be more than that for telling truths we all know beneath its action-packed exterior.
Ushio & Tora is about a boy named Ushio Aotsuki who lives in a shrine run by his father, who is the priest of the place they live in as their home. Ushio is a normal rough-housing teenager who gets into arguments with his dad and his crush, and lives a relatively average life that he enjoys very much. He's just an average boy.
But his father tries to warn him of something else. He tells Ushio there are spirits and monsters in the world and he must take care to watch out for them, but Ushio, being a teenager, doesn't believe in things he can't see. He thinks his dad is full of it, and isn't afraid to tell him. This all changes one day when his dad has to head out on business and leaves Ushio to clean up the storehouse. Ushio begrudgingly complies, but stumbles upon an opening cellar to a basement he never knew about under his home.
He finds his way down into the basement and into the dark where he finds his whole world changed in an instant. There he meets a creature called a Youkai, a monster, colored like a tiger, who has been pinned to the rock of the basement for hundreds of years by a mystical spear called the Beast Spear which chooses its wielder and has not been removed since the Youkai was pinned there. His dad's stories were true after all.
Ushio removes the spear and is granted immense strength, speed, and agility, as the Beast Spear has chosen him to wield it for whatever duty he will have fulfill. Now since he has come in contact with supernatural, he can see spirits and monsters, and pledges that he will not let them hurt anyone. He quickly tames the formerly trapped Youkai and takes responsibility for letting him go by keeping watch that he does no evil.
He names this orange Youkai "Tora" and takes him in as the two fight among each other over who will eventually get to destroy the other. This pair forms an unlikely duo that is destined to save the world from a terrible evil.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The story begins as we get to know the characters through monster-of-the-week scenarios for the first six episodes before we finally learn that everything we have seen has a purpose. Events that didn't seem to mean much, come matter a lot in the long run, as do characters you wouldn't first think would have much prominence eventually have quite a bit.
Ushio's character is established as a good-hearted kid that never gives up, but unlike modern anime heroes like Naruto, he isn't just good-hearted, but determined to do what is right. He aspires to do what is right, not for personal glory or recognition.
Tora is shown to be a monster who doesn't care about anyone other than himself, but as he spends time with Ushio he begins to understand that being good isn't all that bad. Unlike most modern stories, he does believe there is good and evil and he is proud to be evil. But Ushio and those he meets on his journey begin to change him slowly but surely.
Around the seventh episode is where the main story begins and Ushio & Tora comes into its own. This is where Ushio and Tora head out on a journey that ends up shaping their destiny and those around them.
You see, there is black and white in Ushio & Tora, but that doesn't mean there aren't flawed individuals doing the right thing for wrong reasons, or those on the borderline before choosing one or the other. And when you meet the main villain, you will believe that there are only two choices and eventually we all have to make a choice as to whether we choose to be on the side of angels or demons.
One of the things I have always liked classic anime and manga, especially the shonen genre, is how the main characters never mope, never whine, and never give up. They have a resolution and they stick with it even in the face of impossible odds. The cliche for this genre is called "Hot-blooded shonen" for a reason.
Ushio and Tora have a complex relationship
But Ushio Aotsuki is on another level for most of these series. He believes in good as a force (an early episode where he saves a cursed soul and sends it to Heaven is particularly touching) and sacrifices everything he has in order to save even complete strangers. And what is it that makes Ushio so strong and powerful? Well, it isn't just the Beast Spear. The weapon might choose its wielder, but the real strength of Ushio is that he is at heart a fundamentally good kid who always gets up again even when he screws up.
It is this good heart that slowly changes Tora into thinking there might be more to humans than what he knows, and it is that strong moral compass that draws others to him. His strength and spear is not what makes him special, though it does reinforce his inner strength to match.
This is anime at its best. It's inspiring, hopeful, exciting, truthful, funny, and a blast to watch. It is why I ever got into anime and manga in the first place.
So why am I saying that most anime and manga are not like this anymore.
Well, because they're not.
Can you name the last anime that had a main character that wasn't starring:
A) An anti-hero who is treated as being "cool" despite having no redeeming qualities
B) A dimwit who does things for personal reasons and nothing else
C) A coward weakling boy that doesn't change one iota to become better
D) A busty (or very young) girl that has no definable personality besides how attractive she is
Whoever you might be thinking of to dispute this, I doubt the examples are very plentiful, especially over the last ten years. There are a few I can personally think of, such as Izuku Midoriya from My Hero Academia, and Osamu Mikumo from World Trigger, but they are fairly obviously in the minority. There are certainly not as many like Vash the Stampede, Kenshin Himura, or Ushio Aotsuki as there used to be.
And don't think I'm mocking "rogue" characters. Gene Starwind, Spike Spiegal, or Gungrave, might have been more on the anti-hero side, but they were never treated as infallible or always right about everything and they did have good underneath the muck. They were outliers even back when their shows came out.
But if you want to use those as counter-examples, Outlaw Star has the crew essentially meeting God in a machine. Cowboy Bebop's ending is a classic for a reason. Gungrave is about rejection of Ultimate Good and the dead end it leaves you in. Shows and manga like Gantz, Attack on Titan, or Tokyo Ghoul, do not aspire to even things like that. Though they are fine for what they are, they are not aspiring to anything above themselves like those classics did.
Ushio & Tora was written in 1990 and ended in 1996. The world is supposed to be a different place now than it was then, but you wouldn't know it from watching this anime made in 2015/16. The good that Ushio inspires in us is as real in 2016 as it was back in 1990. The conflicted nature of Tora to choose between what he was and what he could be hasn't dated a bit in over 25 years. The story's adamant refusal to say good and evil are a matter of perspective, and it's insistence that one choose a side or else one will be chosen for you, is timeless.
While flashy anime with edgy plots and super cool protagonists with angry backstories fill the mainstream airwaves and shelves in Japan to decreasing market shares, stories like Ushio & Tora still float to the top to show that what is true will never truly stay down no matter how much we want to look away from it or pretend it is irrelevant.
Just like Ushio's insistence on the good, Truth always wins in the end.
Did you notice in the last decade, rock music has become so self-serious and opposed to fun that it's become a self-parody of a genre that prided itself and goofy Chuck Berry and Little Richard songs. What happened to the fun? It doesn't have to be hedonistic or smirking, either. Sometimes it can just be tongue in cheek or off the wall.
But you don't really get those songs from rock bands any more, do you? The days of Barenaked Ladies is long since passed.
That's why I chose to post this song from Supergrass, a defunct brit-pop band, that was rarely ever serious. This is their enlightened message to super-serious angry rockers out there:
Seen the Light
Music and lyrics by Supergrass
Now that our eyes have seen the light
Well, the world lies twisted and weird
It's like our minds have taken flight
Heady load rises up to the sun
Well, what you do is up to you,
I tip my hat and push on through
Well, you can try and understand
I'm a rock'n'roll singer in a rock'n'roll band
Now that our eyes have seen the light
The road lies open and clear
It's like our minds have taken flight
Like the river runs down to the sea
Well, what you do is up to you,
I tip my hat and push on through
Well, you can try and understand
I'm a rock'n'roll singer in a rock'n'roll band
Pay special attention to the delivery on the last line of the song. He even delivers it like Elvis. There's no message underlying the lyrics, they're just a rock n roll band having fun. They don't have a deep hidden message of the universe that you don't have. The key to getting through bad times is not whining endlessly, but pushing on through. They didn't need to write seven albums of angsty songs to get to that message either. That's what pop songs were made to be like, weren't they?
Anyway, enjoy. It's a fun song.
For a bonus, one of my favorite Brit-pop songs:
Melodies Haunt You
Music and lyrics by Dodgy
I need to open up my eyes
to see what's in there deep inside
I got to find out for myself
cause there is no one, there's no one else
I'd wait for a thousand years
to see what you would do
I ain't got a thousand years
so what you gonna do?
I need to venture out much more
to get much closer, the need is pure
I won't regret a moment from this day
the key of life is calling out to stay
I'd wait for a thousand years
to see what you would do
I ain't got a thousand years
now what you gonna do?
I can't find out why
The way you're treating me you'll die
Those melodies haunt you, they make no sound
Those melodies haunt you when there's no one around
Those melodies haunt you, they make no sound
I can't find out why
The way you're treating me you'll die
Cause it's a sorry affair
but you don't really care
You don't even try
Those melodies haunt you, they make no sound
Those melodies haunt you when there's no one around
So, the new anime season started this past week. Despite not really being into anime much in the last few years, there have been standouts recently.
I posted about Blood Blockade Battlefront and Ushio & Tora before. The former is a series made by the creator of Trigun and the later is based on a manga over 25 years old, which probably explains why they're so much better than a lot of the recent stuff.
You see, once upon a time, anime used to pride itself on crazy comedy, over the top action, fun adventure, and complex romance. You won't find many anime fans who would spurn classics like Irresponsible Captain Tylor, Cowboy Bebop, Dragon Ball (not Z) or Kimagure Orange Road, and for good reason.
But over the last decade there has been less and less to appeal me. Comedy has been replaced with the same jokes uttered from the same stock characters, action has been replaced by nihilistic gore, adventure has been neutered so badly by formula you can see every beat coming before it does, and romance has basically become glorified porn with flesh taking a backseat to character development.
All those aspects are still problems with the industry, but I've noticed a few gems slip through the cracks recently: there are several shows this season that I'm surprised are coming out at all.
The first is the second season of Ushio & Tora:
This barely counts being both the second season to something I listed earlier and also for being based on material 25 years old, but I mean LOOK at that video. Is that not everything you watch anime for in the first place? Action, adventure, comedy, romance . . . it's all there and from the director of Trigun. This is the type of show that got me into anime in the first place and this season will finish the story off, hopefully giving us a classic anime that will be looked back years from now as an example of how to do it right.
Seriously, I don't care if you're sick or shonen anime (boy's adventure) or not, this is one of the best examples of it and predates many of the awful cliches that have stigmatized it 25 years later. You will be amazed by how well it holds up. Just start with season 1. Season 2 starts very plot heavy out the gate.
Next is probably no surprise to classic anime/manga fans:
Yep, the next part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure just started. Also a manga that started way back in the 80s, this part is actually from the 90s and deals with a mystery aspect to its usual over the top action/comedy focus. This is actually a fan favorite part (the fourth of six in the main series, though there are others after it) and has less of a grand adventure feel that the last two parts had and focuses on a smaller location, a small town, and explores every nook and cranny of it.
JoJo has always been a been mixed in that people either love it or hate it, but this is a good place to jump into if you want to see it for yourself. It is, after all, a fan favorite part. If you like old school anime, you'll probably lap it right up.
Third is actually something more recent:
(Update for April 10th: Official upload)
The very manga I've been reviewing on this blog. My Hero Academia is my currently favorite running manga and the first episode of the anime has not disappointed.
Kohei Horikoshi (the man behind the series) combines everything that makes Comics and Manga great, pours it in a big old pot with a dash of excellent character development, smooth buttery art, excellent action, and heaping dose of fun that hasn't been seen in years. Keep in mind, I don't really like modern shonen much. I thought Bleach fell apart after Soul Society, lost Naruto with the Chase Sasuke arc, and have never liked One Piece as much as others. But My Hero Academia hits that mark the three of them just couldn't hit for me.
If you have ever been or are a fan of manga or anime, you can't go wrong with this. Oh, did I mention the writer of Trigun is involved with the anime? That was a selling point to me, too.
Yeah, I'm watching three shows this season. I don't even remember the last time I've liked more than one show in a season, but here I am as surprised as anyone. If you've given up on manga and anime, and I don't blame you, I still think you should give these above listed shows a shot. You might be just as shocked that I do that the industry still has spark in it beyond glorified porn and empty bloodshed. It's not over yet.
