Also, believe it or not, I’ve been anticipating this episode in particular. Why? I’ll explain 2 paragraphs below.

IN THE DARK REACHES OF SPACE!

After the events of Halo 3 (wherein (*ahem* Spoiler alert!(?)) the Master Chief and Cortana end up lost in deep space in a half-destroyed warship), Cortana finds herself with nothing better to do than to contemplate her virtual navel (and perhaps the Master Chief’s cryogenetically-frozen navel, as well). She claims that upon her creation, it took her 2 hours to absorb the data pertaining to all of human history, knowledge, and understanding. Well, thanks for being such a cocky cunt, Cortana. Maybe you should take up being a schoolteacher… Actually holy shit that should totally happen. A.I. teachers? No, not that! Cortana in a teacher’s–

I mean … Anyway, so this is when the flashbacks begin. Oh boy, the flashback of all flashbacks. The flashback that retells the entire Halo timeline, from 100,000 BC to 2553 AD. Not that this is a bad thing, as this episode can be compared to The Animatrix’s The Second Renaissance, and everybody knows that was the best short of the Animatrix anthology. But then again, most people watching these should already know the history, so you would think they make up for it in pretty cinematics and finally showing us a glimpse of what really happened back then, of Forerunner civilization, right? Right, so I won’t bother with a synopsis as there isn’t much to say. As I mentioned before, I’ll make it up to you with what everyone loves: Pretty pictures!

Cortana proves she was behind it all by showing us her All-Seeing Eye...

100,000 years ago, the Forerunners ruled the galaxy.
Until a bunch of extragalactic space zombies knocked on their door and, ahem, flooded their worlds and colonies.

The Flood, to those who don’t know, is an Eldritch abomination that feeds on intelligent life, sucks their brains and bones dry, and uses them as space marine zombies from then on to kick your ass. They put a new meaning to, “stop hitting yourself!” Except in a species sense. Or something.

"They waited too long to see the threat," says Cortana as millions of Flood organisms descend upon Forerunner worlds and overrun them. And yes, every dot is one, and every frame has like, even more coming down. Seriously, how in the hell did these guys rule the galaxy and have god-like technology, when they couldn't stop what amounts as a bunch of space poo coming down meteor-like on your planet? Oh, no wait... I see the problem now.

ZE GOGGLES! THEY DO NOTHINGZ!

So the highly-intelligent Forerunners fought a millennial war against the Flood. But they had royally fucked up the beginning, so like pretty much every RTS in existence (including Halo Wars! *gets chased by PCfag mob*), once you screw up the beginning, chances are you’re fighting a losing battle.

"I can only guess this, fill the gaps." That's OK, Cortana, the cinematic does the job for ya!

Not shown: Energy swords FIRING THEIR LAZERZ HOREE SHIIET

So um, yeah. They fought, and they fought, but the Forerunners were no match for… The Flood’s tentacles.

It's okay to fantasize there's a hot, starved chick underneath all that sleek armor... You freak.

Rule 34 in the making

Who animated these, again?

Right, the story. So as you may or may not know, the Forerunners were screwed, so they decided to nuke all life in the galaxy with the Halo array they built. Yes, you got it. They said, “well, we tried, guys. Time to nuke everything because we fucked up.” At least Cortana lampshades the irony, and brings up a valid point, for anyone going “WTF?” by now.

Vore not included. Tentacles but no vore? Son, I am disappoint.

So they show the Halo rings over the homeworlds of several Covenant species, and the gateway to the Ark on Earth. At this point in time I am uncertain if this doesn’t contradict other established canon of where the other rings are, but what the hell. So they fetch up the DNA of some evolving species, like us humans, and several Covenant species. So, yay, we’re all clones, apparently. Unfortunately, said species would worship the very beacon of their salvation to a fanatic level, live off their technology and use it to bring holy war and genocide throughout the galaxy. Neglectful precursors: More common than you may think.

TL;DR: Lost in deep space, a crazy A.I. woman rambles to herself because she has nothing better to do, because her cyborg super-soldier space marine boyfriend’s junk is going to be frozen solid for a long, long time. (Not like she can touch it, anyway, the holographic bitch.) Also, space zombies tentacle-raping a highly advanced humanoid species to death. Goddamn you, Japan.

Conclusion: As usual, not much to say here about the episode itself. It wasn’t really as good as the Second Renaissance, for starters — That one actually gave more answers than questions. This one gave more questions then answers.

Sure, we know what the Forerunner may have looked like (and I say may seeing how unreliable the other Japanese studios were in appearances), and that is like Clone (clones from clones?) troopers from the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoon. The one where General Grievous is a badass, not the one he’s as wimpy as George Lucas makes him out to be to compensate for his lack of a–GIGANTIC TAGER!

But as I said, it doesn’t answer some things, namely why the hell the Forerunner were unable to save themselves, when it is shown they survived not only the Halo blast long enough to repopulate every damn planet with primitive, suspiciously bipedal monkeys, lizards and what-have-you, but you would think they’d put their own survival before that of the funny primitive creatures they saved. And why is humanity special compared to the other species they saved? Besides building the gateway to the Ark on Earth, there’s not much difference. Hell, they got Halo rings over their homeworlds, which led to their worship (great going, highly-advanced god-like species! Oh…wait.)

Meanwhile, WE get an ancient colossal megastructure buried for a hundred-thousand years beneath the continent thoroughly explored most by archaeologists, and that’s that.

But enough rambling; to put it simply, it was decent, but I’d expect better. And seeing part 1 of Origins covered the most riddling aspect of the Halo timeline, I’d say part 2 will dick around just as much, maybe even more so. Or maybe they’ll asspull the Emperor of Japan being descended from the Forerunners and having migrated from the planet Venus, where Japanese Covenant live in Japanese castles and worship Buddha before he even existed. Who knows?

Segnala presso:

… Pun intended.

After some 300-styled slow-motion dashing, Frederic blasts through a sealed door and the trio blitzkrieg across the ship, gunning down hordes and hordes of Covies. During this, there’s several clips from the first-person view, showing the familiar HUD found in the video games. I thought it was nice, if a bit tacky. They didn’t try to depict the realistic movement of arms aiming firearms around, for instance, and the crosshairs always remained stuck in the center of the screen. Guess they didn’t really care for extra details there.

Eventually, the unnamed Elite Major and his guard intercept the Spartans. Frederic blocks an energy sword with his Spartan laser (lolwut? Shouldn’t it cut through it?) and then knives the fucker in the eye (which I’ll admit, was badass). Then he holds off the Major and his remaining lackey so John and Kelly can go on ahead.

Desperate as the Spartans come closer to their objective, the Commander/Shipmaster/Fleet Admiral/Thel(?) accesses the bridge controls and starts detaching parts of his flagship and letting the hull pieces fly off to space in an attempt to impede the Spartans’ advance. As for the poor bastards still occupying those sectors, the Commander claims that he’s “letting them die with honor.”

After frolicking their way through Dead Space (*rimshot*), Kelly grabs Chief and tosses him through the vacuum so he goes ahead to “go get her.”

The Package turns out to be Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, founder of the Spartan-II project, in cryogenic stasis. Worth it? I s’pose. She’s important, and stuff. If it wasn’t for an unnamed female at the beginning of part 1, I would’ve wagered that Halsey or Cortana was the titular package. Speaking of Cortana, the design team lets us know they know Cortana’s based on Halsey, which allows them to get lazy and recycle nostalgic Cortana lines from Halo 1 & 2… except in a British accent. They hurry up and scoot, but their escape is blocked.

The Major shows up (Frederic’s nowhere to be found). Chief unloads a full magazine on him, only for the Major to casually block it with his sword. He’s like “lol wtf was that n00b fgt” and throws a sword hilt to Chief a la Meta-Knight from the Kirby games. In fact, that’s his new name: Meta-Knight. In fact, he proves he’s god-tier.

Unnamed Elite Major MetaGame-Knight made “the Master Chief” John-117, iconic protagonist/unbeaten one-man army of the Halo trilogy, his bitch. In 15 seconds flat. Before delivering the deathblow, however, alarms sound off; the fleet’s left the “magnetic interference” distortion field it was in, so the Covenant are abandoning the system. The section they’re in is promptly scuttled by the Commander, which mocks Meta-Knight claiming all he would make a good Arbiter (+prequel irony). Meta-Knight is beamed up to the working remnants of the flagship, nastily cursing the Commander a thousand hells or something fierce. Makes me wonder why the Commander saved the guy; he’d already sacrificed thousands of poor bastards under his command. Why not some prick he hates?

Knowing they’re seconds away from being blown up to the other side of the galaxy (hopefully, somewhere friendly with sunny beaches and without dogmatic aliens), Chief and Halsey hijack an escape pod and GTFO the scuttled flagship as it blows to bits. They’re chased by even more poor bastards that were ditched by Commander Jackass. They don’t have to for long, though, as Frederic and Kelly come to the rescue along with the UNSC stealth ship they deployed from.

What the fuck, Frederic? How did you make it out? Did you run away like a pussy from Meta-Knight, or something? Seeing he totally owned Master motherfucking Chief in 15 seconds flat, I wouldn’t doubt it.

In the end, they are united in the ship, where Halsey congratulates them. But because they lost two Spartans, the Chief gives off some forced speech about how he wasn’t “strong enough” and that he “needs to get stronger.” You know the one. Remember who makes these?

TL;DR: Spartans plow thrugh clusterfuck, get package (Spoilers HOLY SHIT IT’S DR. HALSEY), ironic events surrounding future Arbiter Thel, Spartans and Halsey ride into the sunset … go home?

Conclusion: Nothing much to say here. There’s little to poke fun of. Not a very thrilling conclusion, either. Surprisingly, though, the short is 14:08 long, total. So I guess I was off by 4 minutes in that aspect.

Something struck me, and it’s related to the Arbiter. If you couldn’t tell from the summary, he used to be a major dick. At this point, I’m starting to think they’re putting in a bit of prequel irony to ensure us that yes, Thel is a jackass and his conversion to Arbiter was deserved…

This, after two games of making us sympathetize for him getting ostracized by the fanatical religious empire he swore to serve for the destruction of Installation 04 (the first Halo) and his entire armada. So first, they make us sympathetize him in the games (where it’s implied he wasn’t incompetent, and that he wasn’t to blame) and now he’s portrayed as an overzealous asshole. I haven’t read the novels, I’ll admit, so I’m not sure if this is news, but he’s never portrayed that way in the games, so it came as a bit of a surprise. I’d call his case (as well as the other characters) “character derailment”, but I would just be assuming there.

Alternatively, I might have been misinformed and it turns out the Major is the future Arbiter, not the Commander. If that’s the case, it explains why he kicked John’s ass so easily, and it might explain his personality and the sympathy we’re supposed to have for him (which makes the above paragraph invalid). The irony loses its sting, though, as it was the Commander which jested about the Major being Arbiter one day. 

As of this point, I’m not sure anymore and, frankly, I don’t give a damn. The events are still ironic, no matter which one’s Thel.

If I’d read the novels, I could probably form a better opinion, but I haven’t. Something tells me they messed with the characters a bit too much, though, and I’d be able to pick that apart rather easily. Though not as easily as how the anime companies seem to like picking apart decades of progress from the U.S. civil rights movement. No wait, mainstream rap music already did that first… Never mind.

Segnala presso:

Contrary to popular belief, coquito is, in fact, not made of coquis or the legendary coqui water.

Inside jokes aside, worry not. I have ceased drinking the stuff to watch this 5-minute action-fest known as “The Package” (Part 1). Spoilers: MASTER CHIEF, SPARTANS FROM THE NOVELS, ARBITER FROM HALO 2-3! HYPE!

The Covenant has captured a “high-priority package”, and a Spartan squad only has 10 minutes to retrieve it. They include John-117 (better known as the “Master Chief”) and his fellow Spartans, Kelly-087, Frederic-104, Solomon-069, and Arthur-079. The Spartans hail from the novels, excluding the latter two; they’re redshirts debut characters. If they run out of time, the UNSC will simply annihilate the entire fleet alongside the package and the Spartan strike team. When the titular package is revealed, it better be something really worth it or I’ll facepalm at the opportunity to take out, you know, an entire fleet of evil genocidal aliens.

A “stellar field” something I didn’t quite catch is keeping the Covenant fleet from simply doing a Slipspace jump and high-tailing it to another system. Handwavium aside, the Spartans deploy in what are essentially space fighter jet motorcycles and an epic Star Wars-styled space battle ensues.

The first scan reading reveals the package is in the ship. Solomon goes for it and asks Kelly to back him up. The Chief knows “something’s off” when the first reading, out of a whole fleet of ships, turned out positive. Knowing it’s too good to be true, he goes in after the pair to save them. John manages to save Kelly because she’s in the hangar bay; Solomon, however, isn’t so fortunate and perishes when an antimatter bomb blows up in his face, taking the entire cruiser with him.

I just know you guys are at the edge of your freakin’ seats now (This is intense!!!), but I’m pausing the plot now for humor something I noticed.

Remember that whole business with “Chad” (whose name turned out to be “Checkman”) back when this whole thing started? Yeah, meet this week’s redshirt:

This guy.

I’m starting to notice a trend here, and to my surprise when I went to fetch this link, so has TVTropes. In Solomon’s defense, though, the Covenant sacrificed an entire battlecruiser, several kilometers wide, with or without its crew just to eliminate him. Granted, it was a trap to lure every present Spartan-II to their destruction, seeing they’re widely feared by the Covenant (they’re so notorious, the Covenant calls them “Demons”). So, in super-soldier space marine-ology, this is the equivalent of dying from a firecracker. Unfortunate implications indeed.
By the way, his last words were, “It’s a trap!” Make of that what you will.

Resuming the plot (lol), the Covenant Fleet Admiral, revealed to be Thel ‘Vadamee (The Arbiter from Halo 2 & 3), plays his role of the villain by laughing evilly and rubbing his hands together and such, while some unnamed Elite aide insists to not underestimate the Spartans. Thel chastises him for being the sole survivor of his battallion and not dying with honor.

The Spartans realize the Covenant are wary to their objective when they get multiple readings from every ship in the fleet. Because of this, good ol’ Chief somehow comes to the conclusion the package is at the Covenant flagship. Yes, really. So they go there, lose debuting stand-in Arthur in the process, and bomb the shit outta Thel’s flagship’s hangar bay (including pulling an unmanned kamikaze attack with their space motorcycles. Remember who animates these?)

Meanwhile, Thel’s aide starts getting edgy and decides to leave the bridge to go meet the Spartans head-on when they do board the flagship. Thel scoffs at this notion, claiming he is merely overestimating them.

John, Kelly, and Frederic land in the bay, and after the smoke clears, they are inside a bubble shield, waiting for it to dissipate, so they can get a move on through thousands of enemy combatants. As the tension rises from waiting for the bubble to go down, Kelly says they only have 3 minutes left. Interestingly, the short if only 5:16 long. 

The Master Chief simply utters, “Go!”, the bubble shield disappears, and they head out to kick some ass.

A big, fat, “To be continued” pops up on screen. I totally didn’t see that coming, not at all.

TL;DR: Master Chief and other Spartan-IIs have a space battle against a Covenant fleet.

Conclusion: At only 5 minutes and 16 seconds, this week’s short is an improvement. Although the shortest episode so far, it has what everyone wants (and indeed expects) from a sci-fi blockbuster like Halo — Action. Unlike the other entries insofar, this one keeps completely faithful to Halo canon by not having ancient alien Japanese ruins (which, since then, I’ve read also included statues of Buddha) and Elites in samurai armor. The fact it has actual memorable characters from the games and novels is another sweet treat for fans. That and the fact Elite mandibles were actually properly animated unlike in the abomination known as Duel.

This CGI explosion fest should prove entertaining the whole way, but did it really need to be divided into two parts? It has little plot, and it’s only 5 minutes long.
Five. Freakin’. Minutes. Seriously. What. The. Fuck.
Even if you had the whole package, it would, presumably, be approximately 10 minutes long. The Babysitter was about 18 minutes long, whereas Duel was about 12. It makes no sense. Honestly, they probably decided to divide it into two parts because I’d bet my money it’ll be the best of the 9 shorts. It wasn’t excellent, but this is honestly the best I see these short films getting. Well, unless one of them averts the whole “black dude dies first” thing. Then that one will have me sold.

Segnala presso:

I thought the Arbiter armor was metallic gray? Seems like that ain’t real gold, and that everything about this short is cheap.

In any case,  this short apparently takes place during the early days of the Covenant Empire, when the Sangheili-San ‘Shyuum (Elite-Prophet) alliance was formed. Yet, there’s Hunters and Grunts featured. I’m not sure, but I’m certain those weren’t subjugated by the Covenant until much later. Say, centuries later. Well, technicalities aside.

An oversized moon reflects upon a still pond. Somewhere, an astronomer is crying, when he shouldn’t. As Unskippable any genre-savvy fellow would inform you, everybody knows the moon is bigger in Japan… Land of the Mooninites.

The current Arbiter, Fal, after ignoring warnings of a trap by “the Boatman”, has a swordfight with half a dozen fellow Elites. There are flashbacks in the midst of said fight, which conveniently reduces the fight scene budget by half and moves the scene to a daydreaming Fal sitting with his wife, Han. And I’ll tell you right this instant that she looks like what Cleopatra would’ve looked like were she in the movie Antz. Seeing himself in inevitable danger, he suggests she leave to save herself. Naturally, she refuses stubbornly.

After training with some of his troops on his suspiciously-looking samurai robes (hakama and everything, just to remind you this 3D clusterfuck was animated by an anime company) a servant pleads to Fal not to go against the Prophets. He counters that the Sanghelli/Elites were great before the Covenant, and that their honor has been subverted by a thirst for power. One of Fal’s fellow Elites, Haka, takes this opportunity to attempt to usurp Fal’s leadership and become head of the clan. In cooperation with the Prophets, of course. Also, he wears a full set of samurai armor. Groovy.

The aforementioned flashbacks are related to Fal’s service to the Prophets, and his rebellion against the Covenant. He declares the Great Journey, the central theme of Covenant religion, a lie. For this, the Prophets declare the once-honorable rank/title of Arbiter to be “a mark of shame”, which pretty nicely explains the origins of the Arbiter mythos. While he fights a Covenant army by himself, the servant from before betrays Fal for Haka, by leading the latter to Han. While Fal brutalizes said army, his wife is likewise brutalized (offscreen) by the servant and Haka’s troop. After much reluctance, the servant kills her, and the Arbiter returns home to that horrific sight. With this, he sets off to accept Haka’s challenge.

After a short exchange, there is an even shorter duel which probably lasted less than 5 seconds. Yes, the titular duel for which this story was named for was short and anti-climatic as all hell. It got so cheap in the end that I thought my stream froze because the overuse of several still shots were that poorly done. There’s no need to explain the duel; it’s the classic “we’ll decide this in one blow” you see practically everywhere. But I’ll do it anyway, for one reason in particular.

After said poorly done still shot, Fal gushes a massive, so-ridiculously-looking-it’s-hilarious fountain of purple alien blood grape juice. Seconds later, the camera shifts angle so we see Fal’s sword, too, has dealt a fatal blow to Haka. As the cliché continues to unveil, they both fall and die. Insert sad music and credits. Yup, that’s all.

TL;DR: Cliché samurai short story IN SPACE! With aliens.

Conclusion: This short presents us with the origins of the Arbiter mythos and finally solves the mystery of whether Egyptian ant alien chicks are hot or…wait, that’s not it.

In the heyday of the Covenant Empire, the Arbiter was a heretic who underwent a suicide mission to redeem himself in the ultimate sacrifice for the Great Journey. As one can see, it was originally a rank of prestige, until an early Arbiter was branded a heretic, and so his armor has since been symbolically donned by subsequent Arbiters to save the Covenant from great crisis. In that aspect, it’s a great origin story (God knows I can be a bit of a sucker for that trope), but the lack of plot and memorable characters, as well as its poorly-written story weigh it down significantly to nothing remarkable. It seems to me that, sadly, this trend will follow in each of the Halo Legends episodes as they come.

Whether you like the three two average fight scenes or not, this is nothing but a cliché storm reminiscent of samurai fiction, including an Orient-inspired soundtrack to go along with it. Don’t bother; it’s a waste of 15 minutes of time better spent elsewhere, like matchmaking in Halo to have a teabag party with a bunch of 12-year-olds (and what is this?), which is, ultimately, what this is all about.

Segnala presso:

It’s been a while since I’ve had a post put up but hopefully my writing hasn’t deteriorated much since then; at least not as much as Canaan has. With a promising first episode, the series has started to toe the line between the fresh and the mundane. Here’s a quick look at the first three episodes following the pilot, and how they’re shaping the series, for better or worse.

Episode 2 starts off with the secretary and her lackey in the helicopter helping to rescue an escaping snakes leader from her military captors. She slaughters them and escapes in the helicopter as we learn the two women are sisters: the snakes leader being the calm sibling and the secretary the insane one.

The rest of the episode consists of mostly backstory, namely about something called the Ua Virus, which Maria happens to have. We also learn that the name of the rescued blue-haired woman is Alphard and that Canaan seems to be working for the glasses lady in episode 1, and whoever the hell she’s associated with.

After this revelation, unimportant crap happens at a restaurant, which is then attacked by the old man from episode 1 that Mino mistook as being important (of course, now he actually IS important) and his grandson that we’ll call “green-shirt dude.” The two go after Mino and Maria, until Canaan shows up (of course), and kills the old man by sending him into electrical wires.

The reporters get back to their hotel and see their room covered in blood and shit; they get kicked out for it and Maria decides to play with street cats for no good reason. They then run into this:

I raged.

There are three things I hate and cannot tolerate in any anime:

1) Anything having to do with the word “demon”
2) Osugi from Eden of the East, or any other bullshit character who tries doing shit that’s way over his head but thinks he’s all that because he’s anonymous and posts regularly on 4chan
3) CATGIRLS

Now I know, she’s cosplaying. It’s pretty obvious she isn’t actually a neko girl, but still: I raged heading into episode 3. And, of course, episode 3 starts out by introducing me to more catgirls, which I hated. A comedy scene between the reporters, Johnny Cage, and his waifu results in us learning that Hakko also has that Ua virus going around.

After that we get several minutes of bullshit about Maria and Canaan hanging out and doing random stupid crap. While the pair take a train, green-shirt dude decides to make another appearance and go after them again. Canaan conveniently decides to leave the train to get it moving again, so green-shirt dude kidnaps Maria, takes her elsewhere, and straps a bomb to her head. After the last scenes of smiles and happiness and crap from Maria and Canaan sharing moments together, this pleased me greatly. Of course, Canaan comes in yet again to save the day, as green-shirt dude reveals the he and his brother were test subjects for the Ua virus, resulting in nasty side effects like turning his brother into an old man and turning him into a pretzel. Canaan doesn’t really give a shit, and shoots the guy in the stomach after he says he ate the deactivator. Of course, the bomb wasn’t actually a bomb, and he succeeds in getting Maria to be afraid of, and reject, Canaan. Why the hell he decides to be a suicidal jerk about it beats me, but hey, if it means less scenes of Maria and Canaan “playing,” then I’m all for it.

Yeah! You sure showed them!

Episode 4 starts out with more backstory, this time about how Canaan was trained as a sharpshooter and how her synesthesia helped her out with that. We see Canaan getting her snake tattoo, and some guy named Siam humming that same tune from episode 1. We then see glimpses of scenes between Canaan, Alphard and Siam, which seem to hint at Alphard killing Siam, Canaan wanting revenge despite Siam’s words about never fighting for revenge, and Canaan never wanting to see loss again.

A brief scene shows that Johnny Cage and the lady in glasses know each other, and another scene tells us the name of the secretary/sister: Liang Qi. Maria has a brief scene of her going crazy and depressed, which annoyed me because she was saved from getting gangraped at the last second.

Canaan meets Alphard in a bathroom at the event hall, but fails miserably in trying to fight her. Alphard lets her live if only to toy with her for a little longer. Canaan runs away, with Liang Qi noticing her as she flees. And that brings that episode to an end.

Newfags can't ambush.

So, three episodes after looking at the pilot, and this show is starting to get going more, in some good ways and some bad ways. There’s been less action all around, which is kind of good considering how overwhelming the pilot was, but at the same time, it’s resulted in the episodes fading into a routine of sorts, which looks like the following:

Scene reflecting or continuing previous episode—->backstory/flashback—->shit—->new connections between characters—->more shit—->ACTION—->DISTORTION FINISH

Okay, maybe not the last one, but the rest of it feels pretty accurate to me, with all three of these episodes containing similar pacing. Similar pacing from episode to episode works for slice of life comedies or dumbed-down shounen crap, but, in my mind, it’s not very efficient for a show that’s trying to take itself seriously and deliver a story that is deep and thought-provoking. What I got from episode 4 was the standard “revenge” plot crap, with an end boss that’s too strong for the main character at the moment. I didn’t want that to happen at the beginning of the show, and unfortunately it might be happening four episodes in. Hopefully the show tries to break away from its common stride and into something more spontaneous, like the pilot was. Hopefully this happens when the need to throw backstory at us at the start of every episode passes; until then, all we can do is watch as Canaan treads the fine line between originality and stereotype.

Segnala presso:

Be careful of what you wish for...

OK, let’s get a few things out of the way. Tokyo Magnitude 8.0′s first episode is something that one sits through with some degree of detachment. It does its job sufficiently to provide the backstory behind what the protagonist, Mirai Onosawa, is going through. She’s not exactly painted in the most sympathetic light since her immaturity gets the better of her in most occasions, but it’s done for a reason and that reason is effectively spelled out in both the title and the first few seconds of the first episode. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that adversity changes people, for better or for worse, but in Mirai’s case, I’m hoping to see a profound, uplifting, set of changes brought about by having gone through the disaster.

Sometimes, she just needs a good dose of perspective...

And then IT happens. A natural disaster that’s so big that buildings, bridges, and sewage mains are unable to cope with the full fury of the quake and break apart. The tension ramps up significantly and is a testimony to the fact that the producers were able to convey the unpredictability of it all. The aftershocks alone were able to bring out that sense of fear, heightened further by the fact that when these aftershocks did occur, they would happen when the characters were in an enclosed, unstable area that could collapse if it were given the slightest nudge. By combining claustrophobic environments while dangling the specter of aftershocks, what results is an atmosphere that’s almost unbearable as your primal instincts tell you that you must… get… OUT!

But like a smithy’s fires, the earthquake helps forge a change in Mirai’s condition. Although she’s still immature and emotionally unstable, she accepts her sisterly role and takes on great risk to her personal well-being to find Yuuki, even if she does so based on her sisterly instincts rather than rationally planning it out. The high point comes in when she’s aided by Mari Kusakabe who really shines in episode 2 by having her pair up and interact with Mirai in such a way that brings forth an upwelling of hope.

A big factor that allowed her to mesh so well with Mirai is based on the concept of shared experiences. It goes without saying that Mari’s close proximity to Mirai when the disaster strikes makes up one part of the shared experience. The other lies in the fact that she shares Mirai’s mother’s situation; that is, she needs to work to support her daughter, Hina, and though this is one way to care for her daughter, she quietly frets that by the time she earns enough so that she and her daughter can live an independent life, she’ll have missed out on her daughter’s formative years and time is not something one can regain. By meeting Mirai and getting a chance to talk to her, Mari is able to articulate this fear to someone who’s in that very same situation even if the point of view is slightly different, resulting in a moment of understanding.

The most powerful line in episode two by far illustrates how far Mirai and Mari have become tied together. Mirai, while still sullen and suspicious asks Mari why Mari is being so nice to her. Mari replies simply that she’s a person, a human being. This declaration, while simple, brings out an uplifting experience highlighted by empathy and the feeling of community. What she suggests through that admission is that we’re all united by the common thread of humanity and that in times of adversity, people will raise each other up to ensure that people, collectively, will come out for the better. It’s not a message that will touch some of the more cynical people out there, but it’s a weighty one that bears consideration. That Mari is able to believe and act upon this belief is extremely heartwarming and she becomes an excellent foil to Mirai’s selfishness.

While it’s easy to look back on disasters and see human foibles rise up, leading to the sort of looting and vandalism that gets reported on the evening news, one must not forget that the potential for people to do good is always present. By imparting this message of hope and goodness, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 succeeds in being wonderfully compelling.

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What happened: When the series first starts, you’re treated to a lot of wonderfully-drawn scenery, but there’s no central point of emphasis save for vast amounts of space and a manic sort of camera work that focuses on a spiraling staircase. Although it takes some time for events to be placed within the proper context, once they are, it becomes easy to parse out what happens: a girl, Hitagi Senjougahara, slips on a banana peel and falls from a great height, only to be caught by a boy, Koyomi Araragi, and to his surprise, he finds out that she weighs about as much as a feather.

It’s admittedly not a sterling start, but it does raise a few questions that will be revealed in due time. The first curiosity is that rather than be thankful, Hitagi behaves in a menacing manner as she aims to preserve the fact that her lightness is a secret she’s been harboring for quite some time and to protect this secret, she staples Araragi’s cheek as a warning. Araragi manages to recover from the pain fairly quickly though and rushes off to inform Hitagi that he can offer her salvation by curing her of her affliction. Such a claim seems preposterous to Hitagi, but with nothing to lose, she accompanies him to go see a homeless mystic, Meme Oshino, who tells her that a crab-like god has caused this and that the only way to eliminate it is to undergo a ritual.

My love is a stapler.... right?

What I thought: All right, I’m quite aware that the synopsis doesn’t go far enough to do the series justice because with Shinbo’s execution of Bakemonogatari, you’re sure to derive enjoyment from his visually interesting camera work and careful attention to the narrative which begets interesting characters.

Hitagi is awesome because she too has Unlimited Blade Works!

So first off, the characters are usually what drive me to watch a show in the first place and Hitagi’s characterization definitely stands out. The fact that she looks like a nice, but aloof girl only makes the psychotic tendencies even more attention-worthy since it does such a good job of catching you totally off-guard. One of the main highlights of that scene is its ability to convey the sort of pain that Araragi faces should Hitagi carry out her threat. It also doesn’t hurt that Hitagi speaks in that emotionless voice that really hammers home her psychopathic behavior (though it also makes the scene in which she’s saved more powerful as a result. More on that later) as well as her extra-dimensional pockets which store a vast quantity of weaponry as to evoke Archer’s badass scene from Fate/Stay Night. Oh, and apparently she can talk in that dismissive, sarcastic tone better than I can, which helps make her pretty identifiable.

Now that's just cold... then again, it's not like he's got personality...

The visuals are always going to be interesting, but if you’re not the type who enjoys Shinbo’s eccentricities, some of the scenes may be a bit off-putting. Take, for example, that part where the characters’ heads get replaced by pasta which, for all intents and purposes, came out of left field. While I can understand it if there was some symbolic value in implementing the scene in that manner, but it just doesn’t fit together all that well. There’s a fine line between being clever and being weird for the hell of it, and that’s what we have here. Oh well, that’s the biggest complaint though and in the grand scheme of things, it’s not actually that bad since the visuals for the rest of the two episodes manage to fit the tone decently.

At this point, what we have are surface-level reasons to take a stab at Bakemonogatari; to get the full benefit out of watching it, one cannot skimp out on how well the resolution is executed. To put it simply, the viewer is treated to the kind of emotional outpouring that strikes a profound chord and leaves an indelible mark. Although Hitagi has already given us an idea as to how her life has gone, it’s not until the resolution that we begin to get a feel for the tragedies she’s had to suffer through. What made that scene even more compelling is how those traumatic experiences are conveyed through the art. My mind was blown from the very start of Hitagi’s repentance sequence. The bandaged doll, the mother’s outline with no discerning features, the cult leader’s creepy, groping hands, all of these combined to illustrate the pains that she had been holding onto and it makes you appreciate the figurative weight she’s been forced to bear. It’s a huge, captivating moment where one simply cannot look away because of how cathartic it is now that Hitagi can face reality without trying to hide that weight through sheer force of denial. I can’t relay how well-done that scene was and if the series can continue to deliver like it did in the first two episodes, we’re going to have a winner on our hands.

Either way, this show has effectively rocketed to the top of my must-see list.

OP and ED sequence are pretty catchy too:

OP:

ED:

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Since gaming releases for last week and the week before that one consisted of nothing except BlazBlue, which we’re extensively covering, and shit, I’m going to start writing some other stuff to keep my contributions up and keep you all entertained. Besides, don’t BlazBlue character bios get a little old after a while?

And that brings me to my thoughts and analysis on the latest show I’ve watched: the first episode of Canaan. Please be warned that the following will spoil things if you haven’t watched the episode, as this is more of a summary-and-review combo than anything. If you’d rather watch without knowing about anything that goes on, do so before reading.

Now, before even watching, I decided to do some digging on Canaan’s origins, since the preview for the series told me nothing about it except that random people are brought together in Shibuya for no good reason and I was only more confused when the series opened up in Shanghai, China rather than Tokyo, Japan. What I discovered was pretty interesting, though.

Canaan is based on a scenario within a visual novel for the Wii called 428: In a Blockaded Shibuya, which actually received a rare perfect score from Famitsu (oh shit; but then again so did Brawl and Nintendogs) and was conceptualized by the co-founders of Type-Moon (creators of Fate/Stay Night, Melty Blood, among other things). This, combined with an all-star Japanese voice cast (though I pay them little to no attention considering I read the subtitles), increased my expectations as I finally decided to sit down and watch the episode.

That balloon probably deserved it.

Bang.

The OP wasn’t all too spectacular as it dispensed with the standard jap tunes that accompany every anime aside from Eden of the East (love~) and action scenes that usually accompany OP’s. It wasn’t bad, but nothing unexpected came up. But then then the episode begins, with balloons gently flying through the air. This peaceful scene is interrupted as a blue balloon bursts into smithereens thanks to a sniper bullet coming from a woman shooting from a rooftop. The lone word “Canaan” is uttered, presumably the woman’s name.

The voice goes off into a narrative as soldiers cart off a blue-haired woman who has some connection to Canaan before segueing to an inner-city carnival where Canaan shoots various objects including firecrackers, a stuffed animal (ironically a prize for a shooting game), and some dude, humming a chilling tune all the while. For some reason, two kids start playing with the dead guy’s blood (as you can see).

We are then introduced to two new characters: a reporter, Mino, and his camerawoman, Maria Oosawa, (at least I think so, considering all the damn characters) who are on their way to Shanghai on a project. As they speak, we see three men walk through the festival wearing fake animal heads. Some random person, for no apparent reason, removes the animal headpiece from one of them and the guy starts to go crazy, screaming and writhing in pain. The townspeople, kind as they are, assume the guy’s playing around or dancing, and decide to join in, even after he collapses to the ground. The other two masked men flee.

The scene transitions over to Canaan’s home where she is chatting with some random lady with glasses about some other woman (the woman we see carried away at the beginning perhaps?), the CIA, some group called the Snakes, and some dude and/or thing named Ambloom, but I couldn’t really keep up with it because the episode intentionally obfuscates information to weave the layers of mystery. This is not the first instance that this occurs in this episode, either.

God dammit, this is such a long read.

Hi there, big boy.

We are then introduced to some unnamed dude who looks like Johnny Cage from Mortal Kombat and his green-haired waifu named Hakko, who share a tender moment in a car before we move back to the festival where Mino ends up getting separated from Maria by following someone who resembles a Chinese politician but actually turns out to be a random old guy. Then we shift over to a conversation at a corporate office where the participants talk about synesthesia, an ability allowing someone to use all their senses at once for everything, like seeing music or colors from letters. The conversation is cut short by the owner’s secretary, who spouts some random nonsense about a sister (hi rule 63 Jin), and then walks out of the bathroom totally naked. The boss gives her orders while the shocked guest looks on as the naked secretary then hands the guest some papers.

Back at the festival, Maria is snapping away with a camera, this time getting shots of the main attraction: a parade involving a Chinese dragon that shoots water at a jubilant crowd. Maria bumps into the two animal-headed men, and the dragon’s water shoots one of their animal heads off. The guy starts laughing as he goes crazy and the children join in with his jumping and flailing, even as he bleeds to death, making me wonder whether the people who live in this place are unable to see blood or are plain stupid. Hell, even Maria doesn’t notice until she takes a picture of the guy.

After that, some masked men appear and are about to shoot the fuck out of Maria, but then Canaan jumps in out of nowhere and rescues her. The two make their escape and Canaan ends up leaving Maria in an alley tied up for her own safety because nothing is safer than having your hands tied up in a Shanghai alleyway during the New Years Festival. Especially if you’re a woman who can’t tell the difference between a guy cheering and a guy bleeding to death.

A great action scene then ensues as Canaan enters a shootout against the masked men and the idiotic festival-goers seem oblivious to all this, thinking it’s all part of an act. Mino reappears and he can tell it’s for real, also deducing that most of the people know it’s real too, but purposefully ignore it. He takes pictures before running into Maria again, who managed to use her untied legs to return to Mino.

The scene shifts to a helicopter, with the former unnamed “boss” rubbing the now-clothed secretary’s feet which then kick him in the face as the secretary hears the words “Canaan” while speaking over the phone. We quickly move back to the fight where Canaan manages to take out everything including one of the Chinese dragons. And if you thought the shifting was done with, there’s more as Johnny Cage and Hakko help out the last remaining animal-headed guy before Johnny decides to run off for some reason.

Canaan then flees the scene through the city rooftops while Maria remarks about how Canaan is still alive, which hints at some huge past thing that every anime character and their mother have these days. The last shift takes us to a military car which holds members of the Snakes and their leader appears to be the blue-haired woman we saw being carried away earlier. The transport vehicle in front of the Snakes’ car explodes out of nowhere as the woman hums the same chilling tune that Canaan hummed at the beginning. And with that, Episode One: Crimson Shanghai draws to a close.

Canaan’s debut is wild and impressive and can only get better. The mysterious main character has a connection to just about everyone, from corporate heads to random photographers to the Snakes. That said, this episode was also overwhelming due to the amount of content and transitions. They are always introducing someone new, developing connections, or adding to the mystery so much that it feels like watching the beginning of Baccano! except that Baccano!’s huge cast of characters wasn’t this difficult to keep track of, considering we’re reminded of their names at the start of every episode. As such, you may want to watch this episode a second time to absorb some of the finer details.

It still remains promising though, with some great action scenes and a deep, involving mystery surrounding a strange girl, her connections to various people, men who die upon having masks removed, and synesthesia. Only time will tell whether or not it will match Eden of the East’s great heights, but it should still be worth following.

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