Filmation Presents: Bravestarr The Legend (#3)

This time around, Stampede demonstrates just how deeply violating a cartoon intended for children can really be. Prepare for a surprisingly disturbing experience after the jump.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #37

361. Gazaran. Gazaran (singular is Gazar) come from Veron. They have leathery wing flaps on their arms, and have two pictures of them that don't look like each other aside from being things with wings.

They're apparently cheerful and friendly.

Rating: 3/5. This is mostly based on appearance. Both of them.

362. Geelan. The Geelan (also Geel) are ugly and short, and also have at least two rather incompatible appearances. Seriously?

Anyway, they're apparently greedy, annoying hagglers.

Rating: 2/5. They sound like a bad stereotype, but at least the first picture (the wolf-faced one) gives these guys an unusual face for a pesky group like this.

363. Gektls. Gektls have possibly the rarest trait to give to a sapient lizard person: Detachable tails. (In all seriousness, I can think of one fictional character who had this trait other than this, and he was from a series with characters who had their heads pop off on a regular basis.)

This is apparently played completely seriously in the stories, and a character detaches his tail to escape capture. Hilariously, the unfortunate guy left holding his tail shouted "Yi--!" They could also slough off their skin if somebody grabbed them. They are noted for extreme resiliency, and are also known for their great works of literature and their delicate artworks. Also, once a female Gektl was disguised as a male Mandalorian (as near as I can tell, she actually was considered a Mandalorian, it's just that she presented herself as a non-Gektl male).

This is great.

Rating: 5/5. If it weren't for the Barabels, they would probably now be my favorite reptilian aliens from Star Wars. This considering that there seem to be, like, two named Gektl characters.

364. Gen'Dai. Gen'Dai are hulking hyper-regenerative guys who apparently have an average lifespan of at least 4,000 years, and it's possible for them to reach 7,000. They're difficult to seriously injure, as they lack normal vital organs, and they're even harder to kill, going into hibernation whenever they're severely messed up. (One of them also displayed the ability to turn his extremities into tentacles when injured.)

Gen'Dai are rare because their homeworld is lost or something, and not many of them have appeared. Most of them are peaceful, but they're prone to mental instability as they age and one of the only named Gen'Dai, Durge, was not a very nice guy when he was young. When he was old, he was one of the chief hired killers for the Confederacy of Independent Systems, and was eventually stopped when someone literally tossed him into a sun.

Except maybe he wasn't. Nobody's entirely sure.

Rating: 4/5. The Gen'Dai are pretty interesting if only because of their potential as psychotic antagonists.

365. Genians. Purple skin. Skilled diplomats.

Boring.

Rating: 1/5.

366. Gensang. One bought a ship once.

Rating: N/A. What could you really expect from something named ginseng Gensang?

367. Geonosians. Geonosians are bug people (complete with at least some eusocial behavior) who appeared in Episode II, as the numerous rather wimpy guys who totally got slaughtered during specific parts of the movie. They built the battle droids.

One of their notable members, the archduke of their planet, was named Poggle the Lesser, which is a great name, if only for its rather diminutive quality.

Rating: 3/5. Eh, they're reasonably interesting.

368. Gerb. The Gerb are bunny rabbits.

They are also not the only sapient bunny rabbits in the Star Wars galaxy.

They apparently coexist as primitives with venomous snake people.

Rating: 2/5. Eh, they aren't completely terrible.

369. Geroon. Hum. The Geroon were enslaved and possibly exterminated by the Vagaari (who are mentioned as killing off another species here). At one point, a group of Vagaari disguised themselves as Geroon in order to spy on their primary enemies, the Chiss.

This ultimately didn't work out well for them.

Rating: 2/5. Poor Geroon, you're very probably all dead.

370. Gesarils. Gesarils appear to essentially be very large funky-nosed mole people, and apparently are all Force-sensitive.

Apparently, they were made for an RPG, and the game masters were discouraged from permitting players from using them as their characters.

BOOOOOOOO.

Rating: 4/5. They're basically not-quite-star-nosed mole guys. There need to be more of those.

-Signing off.

You Can Kinda Tell The People In The Window Aren't At The Right Angle

(Oy. If you're wondering about the inconsistent content the last few days, I spent the last two finally reading Gunnerkrigg Court. Like, I finished it maybe ten minutes ago.

It's kinda good.)

I don't know that much about Batman '66, but this? This is kinda brilliant.



Although it admittedly kind of dates it, doesn't it?

-Signing off.

INFAMOUS

I don't know, I just randomly found this the other day, and wasn't much in the mood to work on my regular content.



Said my sister, "How can he be infamous? I've never heard of him before!"

Good question.

-Signing off.

Funniest Megatron Ever

Or at least, tied with that really pathetic guy for the title.



That last score just cracks me up.

-Signing off.

I Like To Think My Mind's Like That

I'm out today, so here's what you get: An old She-Ra clip of Orko's weirdness at its best.



One of my absolute favorite moments when I was a kid, and I still love it.

-Signing off.

Lamest Megatron Ever (And That's A Good Thing)

The lamest Megatron is clearly the KRE-O Megatron. Why?



Because he's actually somehow more pathetic than Waspinator.



This really just makes him entertaining, of course.

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #36

351. Gands. The Gands of Gand are one of those Star Wars races that I really like... but they're also one of the most confusing, continuity snarl-ridden races at the same time.

Snarl #1: Gands come from a planet with an ammonia-gas based atmosphere. One character, the bounty hunter Zuckuss, was introduced as needing a personal air supply and respirator to survive in oxygen atmospheres. Another, Ooryl Qrygg, was revealed as not needing to respire at all, and was able to march right into clouds of poisonous gas unharmed.

Resolution came in the form of just explaining that some Gands are one way, and other Gands are another way.

Snarl #2: When Zuckuss was introduced, he was presented as speaking only in the third person; this was eventually established as a cultural trait found amongst most of the Gands, and related to their cultural humility. (Some Gands are judged to be famous enough to be allowed to use first person pronouns. Gands who haven't proven themselves don't even get names, and refer to themselves in the third person as "Gand.") In later material, however, Zuckuss spoke arrogantly like any other random bounty hunter jerk.

Resolution came in the form of simply describing poor Zuckuss as crazy. (Various continuity creep also ruined his partner bounty hunter, 4-LOM.)

Regardless of that, Gands are still very interesting. Among other things, Gands have a group called findsmen, who are identified with bounty hunters, but are actually mystics/a religious sect who meditate to find things. Zuckuss and Ooryl Qrygg, the Gands mentioned above, both happen to be findsmen. And while Ooryl's capabilities are uncertain, Zuckuss could indeed do many things that indicated he possessed mystic powers of some sort (his entry notes him as a Force sensitive). (According to Ooryl, sometimes on Gand a childless couple would employ a findsman to go into the mists of Gand to bring back a child. ...I'm not sure how that works.)

Gands are also, despite being smallish, very physically powerful and well armored, able to endure considerable harm and to punch through stormtrooper armor with their clawed fingers.

All in all, the Gands are awesome.

Rating: 5/5. 'Nuff said.

352. Ganks. Ganks, also known as Gank Killers (ha), are a large group of thugs usually found on Nar Shadaa, the moon of the Hutt homeworld Nal Hutta, who originated somewhere else, but apparently moved there en masse in order to work for the Hutts.

They all wear armor and all seem to have cybernetic implants which apparently lets them more or less instant message each other as a substitute of sorts for telepathy.

Rating: 3/5. They don't seem to have an actual character design; all the pictures of them show very different features. Presumably this is due to the armor.

They're still rather amusing, of course, if only because of the mental image of a bunch of aliens textspeaking to each other while they're chasing somebody to kill them.

353. Garbage rats. Um... It's possible that the garbage rats are actually members of some other species that just didn't get referred to by name.

They're comparatively large and intelligent rats.

Rating: 1/5. There's like ten species of intelligent rat things in Star Wars. These ones don't even have a real name.

354. Gargantelles. These giants resisted being conquered by the Hutts, killing and eating armies sent to try to enslave them and ambassadors sent to try to reason with them. So the Hutts sent their lawyers to a planet full of droids called the electric caliphs, where the lawyers convinced the caliphs they had no good reason to live, but that before they destroyed themselves in a world-consuming suicidal orgy, they should kill all the Gargantelles. There is nothing about that sentence that fails to be awesome.

Rating: 3/5. With that hilariously awesome story, an utterly boring race of cannibal giants becomes much more interesting.

355. Garhoons. The Garhoons apparently are basically vampires. Apparently, at some point there was a court case involving the Garhoons and a group they victimized, but after it, the group they victimized went back to them.

Rating: 2/5. Not really very interesting, Stockholm syndrome aside.

356. Garoos. The Garoos (singular is also Garoos, and the adjectival form is Garoosh)... have some odd descriptive details, such as "ear clusters" and "breathing through gillis flaps." They speak with a whistling accent.

Rating: 3/5. Despite the lack of extensive details, the details that are there are very interesting, and immediately create a sense of uniqueness.

357. Gas clouds. Apparently, some gas clouds could become sapient. ...That's all there is, folks.

Rating: 1/5. Need... more... information.

358. Gastrulans. These gastropods (slugs) have four arms.

Their existence was apparently significantly threatened by poor food regulation, as their atmosphere turned out to be hospitable to a monstrous creature birthed from bantha biscuits and preservatives. It is unknown how many were harmed, or if any survived.

Obviously, they appeared in a humorous story.

Rating: 3/5, because I like slugs.

359. Gathi. There was a Gathi ship designer once.

Rating: 1/5. Oh, one designed some ships. What an indicator of their natures!

360. Gaulians. The Gaulians are from Gaulus. Whether they have any connection to Gaul is unknown.

Rating: 1/5. This is not meant as an affront against Gaul.

-Signing off.

Ruin (Is Beautiful)

Randomly going through the sites I go through every day, I found this nice little CG film. (Since my blog has a limited size, you might want to view it on its page even though I've embedded it here, because it's a lot bigger there.)



There's not much I can say about it besides the abilities of the protagonist having some nice subtle touches to them. Well, that and the fact that his response to having won out against the drone thing (suddenly standing up, dusting off a bit, and then casually sauntering off) was hilarious in a good way.

-Signing off.

Filmation Presents: Bravestarr The Legend (#2)

Today, we're going to meet the villains. (Refresh your memory here.)

Then, Random Explosive Imagery

I was investigating the Korean pop band BIGBANG today (it was recently announced that one of their songs would be used as the theme for the Japanese dub of Transformers Prime). I wasn't paying too much attention to the music videos until... (Pay attention to 3:50 onwards.)



Somebody just dropped a car.

This is the kind of random weirdness I can appreciate in a music video.

-Signing off.

Cheating For Your Amusement

Obviously, a lot of the time, when you use some method to cheat in a video game, it's pretty stupid.

And sometimes it's just something you might do for comedic value.



In case you don't know, this video is of the ship from one of the Gradius games, and those orange/yellow spheroid things are called Options. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be able to have fifty of them.

-Signing off.

Filmation Presents: Bravestarr The Legend (#1)

In my time on the Internet, I've seen numerous insults hurled at old cartoons. One of the most frequent things I've read is that Filmation was bad at animation.

Folks, if you think that, you're either ill-informed or full of bull.

Filmation produced a lot of material. When we look at the impressive runs of material they made-hundreds of episodes of He-Man and She-Ra, for instance, enough that the two shows could be shown five days a week for thirteen weeks per season without a single repeat-it becomes clear just how much they could produce... With their single-building studio.

Filmation was a tiny company. That one building (though granted, I don't know what kind of building) housed everything. Filmation had little enough going for it that it had to fall back on something other than money-it had talent.

According to DVD commentary provided by former Filmation staffers, former Filmation animators would later go on to become important members of the '90s-era animation departments at Disney. Whether or not you care for the movies of that era, their animation was beautiful.

And now we come to what this post is about: Bravestarr: The Legend was one of Filmation's later productions, in fact among its very last.

The accompanying Bravestarr series was merely a somewhat above average Filmation show for much of its run, although it had a few fantastic episodes. Bravestarr: The Legend, however, is what I consider Filmation's crown jewel.

Functionally, it's an origin story for the character. Ultimately, you can tell that for its creators, at least, it was a bit more than that. Lou Scheimer, Filmation's producer, came up with the idea, and many of the former Filmation staffers who were called in for commentary for the DVD release called Bravestarr "the best thing [Filmation] ever did." It was probably a particularly personal work for Bob Forward, who seemed to be deeply involved in the character's creation, was one of the movie's writers, and was the physical model upon whom the character was based. (Note, though, that while Forward is ethnically white, Bravestarr is obviously of Native American descent.)

Anyway, without further ado, here I begin an extended analysis and review of Bravestarr: The Legend (after the jump).

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #35

341. Gadons. They inhabit Gadon 3. Shocking.

Rating: N/A. NEXT.

342. Gados. The Gados (singular also Gados) are creepy yet adorable fuzzy bug-faced things. Apparently, they tend to be very amiable and to happily overlook rudeness and abnormality, and thus their obscure homeworld was a popular place for pirates to put their headquarters.

Rating: 4/5, if only because they're just so inexplicably cute. The fact that their friendliness encourages pirates and outlaws is an interesting quirk.

343. Galacians. The Galacians of Gala have pale blue skin, a color that they call "moonlight," and they are also known as "moon people."

They mostly appeared in a couple of kids' books, so I can't tell much more than that, other than the fact that the conflict in said books was a war of succession over their throne.

Rating: 3/5. I'm being lenient. While I can't discern much of their appearance, blue people usually look appealing.

344. Galandans. Galandans are native to Galand, and many, especially those from a religious group called H'kig (after its founder, H'kig), apparently emigrated to a world called Rishi. There were apparently two billion followers of H'kig on Rishi during the movie era.

Rating: 3/5. Eh, nothing special, but the fact that there were so many H'kig followers just showcases the size of the Star Wars galaxy.

345. Galderians. Galderians are described as "ambiguously canonical" and "goat-like." They aren't very goat-like from the picture, but I'd suppose that the ambiguity of their canonicity is correct.

However, I'll draw attention to this egregious sentence fragment:

Galderians were average size and medium build...

...average size compared to what? Medium build compared to what? Stupidheads.

Rating: 3/5. Even if the whole article is basically nonsense, they look cool.

346. Galidyn. The Galidyn are clearly frikking awesome. Just go look at the pictures. Big mosquito/pterosaur hybrid thing? Yes please.

Rating: 5/5. I haven't even gone into how they can get to be at least four thousand years old, or have a thirty-plus foot wingspan, or how they grow stronger as they age, or how they lay one egg every hundred years, or how one has the name Ssseeeeseetek, I mean seriously you guys. They need to have a 28-novel epic written about them stat.

347. Gama-Senn. The Gama-Senn, who have an extra thumb on each hand, pledged loyalty to the Emperor (who at the time had resurrected himself after a few years, for some reason) only after the Emperor demonstrated that he had a weapon that could destroy planets from anywhere in the galaxy. That it took the Gama-Senn that long to acquiesce ticked off the Emperor.

...Dude, you're a huge jerk who rules through force and fear. Don't take it personally.

Rating: 1/5. There really isn't much to talk about.

348. Gamandars. The Gamandars are nearly human, and from appearances, the ones who made story appearances were enslaved. They are connected somehow to Iskalon, the water planet which has the various Iskalonian species on it, or so I would presume from them appearing in at least one story related to Iskalon somehow.

Rating: 1/5. Bah.

349. Gamorreans. I don't have too much to say on the Gamorreans beyond their planet having a great name (Gamorr). I mean, they're really just generic big dumb thugs.

The most interesting thing about them is that Jabba's guards were prone to turning off their powered axes to demonstrate how strong they were, but everybody just assumed they were actually morons who didn't know how to turn them on instead. That's actually kind of a clever bit, I think.

Rating: 3/5. Well, the other best bit was a funny bit where a Gamorrean had been mind-controlled into thinking he was a stormtrooper sergeant and was talking trash to Luke Skywalker, but I don't know if that counts.

350. Ganathans. The Ganathans look a fair bit like humans. Their most notable trait is that they live in a weird space cloud that doesn't make sense, and utilize steam-powered spacecraft.

Dark Empire II was trippy, yo.

Rating: 3/5, if only for steampunk spaceships.

-Signing off.

They Shouldn't Have That Much Fluid In Their Whole Bodies

Recently, my sister and I watched the complete DVD release of Teknoman, a series which I'd only ever seen an even-more truncated version of. (Teknoman is an adaptation of Tekkaman Blade, which was, or so I've read, 49 episodes. The Teknoman dub that aired in the United States was only 26 episodes. The longer international dub, which is the basis for the DVD release, is 43. Incidentally, if you check the labels, I've actually talked about this series a fair bit.)

Curious to see if there was anything else to see, I naturally scoured YouTube, which usually at least has some kind of information on the subject. I already knew about Tekkaman Blade II, which by most accounts is off-putting to American audiences, but I kept hearing about other material.

Eventually, I found that there were three "specials" or OVAs related to the series.

One, "Missing Link," was actually a trailer for a longer OVA that never got made, and wasn't much worth watching. Another, "Burning Clock," was a completely ridiculous emo character scene/reinterpretation, which was distressing to watch because a character watches his mother burn to death in front of him, and then her charred body somehow continues standing and starts falling apart afterwards.

The last one (as listed arbitrarily by me), "Twin Blood," was better, admittedly mostly because the bar was low, but also because in its own way it was actually pretty awesome.

(WARNING: Pretty mindlessly violent and gruesome.)



Intense violence? Sure. I can't really say I much care for that aspect of it, although the fountain of blood when Blade gets impaled is kind of hilarious.

Completely inconsistent with the series? Yeah. It reminds me of the Escaflowne movie, which my sister describes as "totally spoiler-free, if you're interested in watching the series later."

Cool anyway? Of course. I do have to admit that the character animation from the original series wasn't always terribly dynamic, and the designs here actually sort of make more sense than what was in the series. (The characters were transformed into superhumans by aliens; the aliens were always depicted as entirely organic, which makes the Tekkamen's obviously technological forms a bit odd if you bother thinking about it.)

So, yeah, worth watching for the cool fight and especially the animation.

The only other part of the "Tekkaman Blade Specials" that is remotely worthwhile, in my opinion, is a line from "Missing Link" which is made completely ridiculous by context: A character is having sex (or trying to, anyway) with Blade, and screams "You call yourself the hero of the Solar System?!" apparently because she's disappointed (in context, it looked like he was disinterested because of depression). And that's not because it's good, it's because it's so bad it's hilarious. (That's also why I didn't bother linking anything for that video.)

-Signing off.

HERE'S WALDO

It's kind of funny that, fairly recently after this post, I'd find Waldo again.



I mean, really. (Obviously, it's a mock trailer somebody made for the lulz. Don't take it seriously, even if you thought it would be awesome.)

-Signing off.

Suddenly, Something Insane

The cartoon Blackstar is an odd little predecessor of sorts to the original Filmation He-Man cartoon. By and large, it isn't nearly as iconic, and its animation is strictly inferior (while He-Man is relatively low-budget, it was always very nicely drawn; Blackstar is not as well illustrated).

However, the second episode, "Search for the Star Sword," has this gem of a sequence.

The Overlord, the main villain, is threatening the Trobbits, the obligatory kid appeal characters (who are actually genuinely bothersome, because there's seven of them and I can't remember most of their names or keep track of their personalities).

The Overlord (this is pretty much the nicest image of him from the series) has declared that "nothing can save you now."

Since he's trapped Blackstar, one of the only characters who can fight him effectively, on the other side of a huge rockfall, it would seem that he'll be able to use his sword lasers to blast them.

Then...

Mara, the obligatory friendly sorceress, shows up riding a flying shark, who is actually the shapeshifting member of the cast, Klone.

Needless to say, the Trobbits are saved, and somebody should have won an Internet for this.

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #34

(Note: The slightly odd placement of the Jungle Felucians is due to a weird foulup on Wookieepedia's list pages: For some reason, "Jungle Felucian" is listed under "J" on the page for "F." No, it makes no sense. It should have gone a few back, I suppose, but there's nothing for it.)

331. Jungle Felucians. Jungle Felucians are bizarre primitives who serve as game enemies in The Force Unleashed. They have a naturally high sensitivity to the Force, and when a Jedi apprentice on their world turned to the Dark Side because the player killed her master, all of them became murderous savages.

Whoops.

Rating: 4/5. This is mainly because they have a fantastic design.

332. Froffli. Froffli are known for 1) weird hair and 2) being vindictive, this leading them to be among the first to call for punishment for the Bothans during the Caamas document crisis.

I've linked that stuff so many times I can't bring myself to do it right now.

Rating: 2/5. "Known for weird hair and being vindictive" is a funny combination.

333. Frog-dogs. Like the Covallon, the Frog-dogs let others think they're mere animals. Incidentally, if you remember that strange, grunting animal that growled at C-3PO in Return of the Jedi, that was actually a Frog-dog. In fact, the reason he was in Jabba's palace was because he was an assassin who was planning on killing Jabba.

Rating: 4/5. They don't quite get the same points as the Covallon, who look cooler, but they're still pretty nifty for basically the same reasons.

334. Frost Giants. Frost Giants are gigantic beings who live on Endor, and have lethally cold breath.

Not only are they not the only race of absurdly huge giants on Endor, they are not the only ice-themed race of absurdly huge giants on Endor.

Rating: 3/5, if only because I love typing sentences like the above.

335. Frost Sprites. They... may not be an actual species. It was the Ewok cartoon, which was rather trippy.

If you're wondering, one of them "seduced" the "Snow King" to get him to cause an unseasonable and severe winter, or something. I don't know.

Rating: 3/5. Why? The design is kind of appealing.

336. Frozians. Urgh... I don't want to read this article. Do you know why?

THERE ARE TOO MANY CITATIONS IT IS UGLY.

Ahem. Some Frozians have amusing facial hair. They have some interesting biology quirks and linguistic quirks, and stuff like that.

Rating: 4/5. There seems to be a lot of solid detail (and an epic 'stache), but that article! Yikes.

337. Frunchettan-sai. Also known as Frunchies (yes), the Frunchettan-sai are pacifists who like art and culture. They also have more joints in their arms than humans and see in a slightly different frequency range.

Rating: 2/5. Minimalistic, but not uselessly so.

338. Fuzzums. The Fuzzums seem to be basically bird people similar to Ewoks. Instead of giant trees, the Fuzzums live in cliff-face dwellings.

Rating: 3/5. Eh, why not?

339. Fyyrsprus. The Fyyrsprus are reptilians who apparently have a reputation for clumsiness. The known Fyyrsprus characters worked as mechanics on a starship.

That doesn't bode well.

Rating: 3/5. You kind of have to love details like that.

340. Gacerites. Gacerites are interesting-looking, and their governor was rather hands-off during the Imperial era, so they actually loved the rule of the Empire, as nobody bugged them and they were allowed to do what they wanted.

Rating: 3/5. It's always interesting to see a species who got along with the Empire and have a good reason for liking them, instead of a bad one (see Ailon).

-Signing off.

"Place Him in the Deadly Beast Craft and Let Him Fly!"

Watching another episode of the original Voltron, I came across the above gem of a line, and it only accentuated the hilarity of what the Deadly Beast Craft actually looked like:

It's a flipping coffin-shaped spaceship. There is nothing about that which does not make my day.

Incidentally, watching Voltron makes it clear just how far anime dubs have come. These days, they actually have enough information to know what the characters are saying-back then, apparently nobody bothered sending World Event Productions anything like that, and so they just made stuff up. They also clearly have chopped in bits from later episodes at random, which makes me wonder what the heck they're talking about sometimes. (There was apparently even one episode which I believe was from the lesser-known "Vehicle" Voltron where they had it turn out that two virtually identical characters were brothers, and the one from this Voltron had sent a letter to the other.)

And, oh yes, the writers don't bother trying to preserve the fourth wall at all, at least in the episodes I've watched-while they hardly have the characters address the audience, when a character renames the protagonists from "the space explorers" to "the Voltron Force," all of a sudden all the other characters, including the villains with which they have no communications, start calling them that too.

-Signing off.

Anime Profile: Tiger & Bunny

Tiger & Bunny is a Western superhero story, but it's a Japanese anime.

Yes, that's a little odd.

It's the story of Kotetsu T. "Wild Tiger" Kaburagi, an older, fairly unpopular hero, and his brand new partner, Barnaby "Bunny" Brooks Jr., a young "rising star." (Yes, the "bunny" of the title is a guy, although my sister likes to talk about him actually being a woman/girl who just happens to actually be a man.) They don't get along very well.

And they're on a reality TV show about heroes competing for the top spot, while being sponsored by corporations and wearing advertising.

It's also a very silly series, although the second part has a more serious tone and it can be taken very seriously throughout.

Kotetsu is essentially an everyman hero, and he couldn't be more different from the privileged Barnaby... except that the two actually have a lot in common when you get down to it, including their powers.

I can't emphasize enough that this is a very well-written series. Sure, it's a comedy much of the way through, but it's extremely good at foreshadowing in a way that is neither too obvious nor too obscure. I found myself calling at least half a dozen plot points for the second half of the show at the halfway point correctly, but they were things that, when they happened, I was happy to see.

The show is also very emotional and good at swerves. Even with the comedy, the writing, and the animation (which is also nice), the characters are the main draw.

And that link up there? That's to Hulu's subtitled version, which if you live in the United States you can currently watch for free. (An English dub is due... sometime in the future, I guess. The Hulu version apparently put up each episode just an hour after it aired in Japan. There's also supposed to be two movies coming up, the first one slated for this year.) So don't take my word for it.

-Signing off.

Voltron Has a Disturbing Image/Violence Warning

And do you know why? (You can find it here, if you're curious. It's the official posting, just so you know.)

It's not because one of the rather odd inhabitants of Planet Doom (who were originally intended in Golion to simply be evil people, but were presented as robots in Voltron) are wearing hilarious clothing.

No, that would be the pit of bones and blood that some vultures dump the protagonists into.

And, oh yes, I'm pretty sure it was being implied that the robeasts ate people. Not that the people dubbing it would admit to that.

(Incidentally, while I'm a fan of Voltron, I never actually managed to watch the actual Golion dub. Thank you, YouTube.)

-Signing off.

That's Not Action, That's Slapstick

I was looking at clips from "The Last Dinosaur," a Rankin/Bass film from the '70s.

How do you deal with an enormous floppy dinosaur?



You tie its tail to a boulder and hilarity ensues?

-Signing off.