Mela's 2013 Year in Review Part Two: The Good Stuff
Okay, Part
1 was Gripe-a-palooza. Part 2 is the
stuff I liked, and I’ll try really hard to make it more than just fannish
gushing. Also, as part of my Shift to
Positive, I’ll be offering a Mea Culpa for some initial knee-jerk reactions in
the past, since my revisits have changed my impressions.
As I said
before, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS for stuff that’s mentioned.
BEST TV SHOW: Steven Universe: “If
every pork chop was perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs!” Promoted largely because it’s from the first
female original-show creator in Cartoon Network’s history (which surprised me,
since they usually want to avoid acknowledging females in any way), it is a
damn fine show. Steven himself is a
refreshingly sweet & dorky change of pace from the usual sassy &
wiseass kid hero (which you do get a break from on Gumball & Adventure
Time), the Gems all have great personalities & work well as his surrogate
family, his supporting cast is growing realistically & distinctively (I
love the family that runs the fry shop), and his world simultaneously feels
super-grounded while in town but still full of amazing wonders everywhere else. It’s funny and sincere & sweet at the
same time, and the mysteries of Steven’s world (like what happened to his
mother or why there are only a handful of Gems left or why they have to gather
stray jewels from the monsters they fight) are being parsed out in an suitably
intriguing manner. It’s the closest
thing to a proper magical girl series on TV right now, and it has Amethyst, one
of the few characters on TV built like me & NOT played as a walking fat
joke. This show is truly a perfect pork
chop. Or an awesome hot dog. Probably both. (And for the record, Wander Over Yonder is a very close second. VERY close.)
BEST ANIME: Gatchaman Crowds: This
is actually the show that I started watching and that inspired me to be less
negative. I hadn’t been familiar with
the original Gatchaman outside of reruns of the “G-Force” dub airing in the
early days of Cartoon Network, but that was utterly unnecessary (in fact, in my
experience, a lack of familiarity led to more enjoyment because this is so
different). An examination of the power
of new technology to unify instead of isolate, whether all innovations are
innately evil, what motivates people to become leaders or heroes, and whether
humans are or aren’t naturally inclined to do good swaddled in superheroic
trappings, it has given me one of my favorite unlikely badass characters in
Hajime as well. You don’t think a giddy
girl who collects notebooks & loves papercraft would be such a
strong-willed, insightful heroine, but she goes from being a goof in the first
episode to being the only thing perpetually keeping the world safe from the
ultimate trolling bastard. Also, her
weapons are giant neon scissors. The
only complaint I heard was from an old fan of the original series who was
disappointed it was an “in name only” adaptation, and he was being too
fanboyish to see all the good, so it’s really his loss. Everywhere else, including Comics Alliance, had lots to say about why you need to watch Crowds.
BEST MOVIE: Rifftrax Live Presents
Starship Troopers: If we’re talking about “best movie
seen in a movie theater”, then this is my winner. I had never seen Starship Troopers, and while
I had watched a lot of their DVDs & VODs, I had never been to a Rifftrax
live show. But I contributed to the
Kickstarter to raise royalty fees for Twilight (the prospect of which being
mocked made even my mother interested), and when this was announced instead, I
was fine with it. The movie itself isn’t
as legendarily awful as my family has repeatedly made it out to me – if anything,
its biggest sin is overreaching. I still
find it to be more lucid and have healthier gender roles than anything Michael
Bay has regurgitated, even if it’s not perfect.
And the riffing, holy cats...
That was one of the funniest things I have seen in my life. At one point, I was doing the Dom Deluise
wheeze-laugh (where you laugh so hard you can’t breathe & just make this
high-pitched wheezing noise), and I haven’t done that in years, let alone in
public. I’ve been to two more great
Rifftrax Live seasonal events, and I can only hope what they come up with next
summer (now that they’ve forged a good relationship with Sony after this) is
just as funny.
BEST COMIC: (tie) Young Avengers and
Bandette: I decided to pick two comics, one print &
one digital-only (and that was a close decision between what I chose &
Kinski, a comic about a man jeopardizing his job for the sake of a puppy). The first is an excellent superhero comic
that plays with the conventions of the medium, with the histories of the
characters, with audience expectations, and with generation gaps real &
perceived. Every character was winsome
& interesting, even people that I had no interest in prior to this (looking
at you, Kid Loki & No-Varr), and it gave some obscure characters like
Prodigy some much-needed development.
The path that’s been set before Wiccan is also super interesting &
surprisingly moving – how do you trust yourself & others around you when
you can be unconsciously warping reality at any moment? I’m sad that it’s ending, but I’m also glad
that it’s ending because the creative team has told their story & not
because of a fickle market. As for
Bandette, you need to read this book if you love old-school or European style
comics. The breezy yet surprisingly
in-depth story of a lovable thief named Bandette, her efforts to thwart both
the local mob & the local police, her circle of friends & admirers, and
her friendly rivalry with an older gentleman thief named Monsieur, it is building
to a suitably interesting contest that is either a massive set-up for our
thieving heroes or an elaborate attempt to bring the mob down from within. My only complaint with it is how sporadically
it comes out – the last issue dropped in July, and the next isn’t out till late
January. I guess Monkeybrain respects
that skill takes time.
MELA’S MEA CULPA: Re-evaluating Suite
& Smile Precure: This started because of two things. First, Doki Doki’s overall low quality
annoyed me so much that I decided to rewatch the two seasons before it to see
if they were as bad as I remembered.
Second, I got a copy of instrumentals from Suite that made me want to
revisit it as well. So I rewatched them
and... they’re good. My complaints about
Hibiki hogging enough solo spotlight time from Kanade to make the latter
incapable of functioning as a stand-alone character as the former still stand,
but I’ve realized that this doesn’t make Hibiki a bad character. I’ve realized that Ellen’s shift to Cure Beat
is good in its own right & not just a rehash of Setsuna’s story, especially
whenever she is forced into conflicts with the Minor Trio – her concern for
them is so genuine. Ako is a great
example of how to do a young precociously mature character who’s NOT annoying
as hell. And while the story does feel a
bit padded at times, it ultimately feels like the stakes are real. So yeah, Suite is actually pretty good. And you know what? So is Smile.
Someone on Tumblr said that if you view Smile as a slice-of-life show
that happens to star a group of magical girls, then it makes the series come
off as a lot better. That’s true – each
of the girls has a distinct personality, distinct motivations outside of how
they relate to the team leader (which is one of the biggest flaws of Doki
Doki), and distinct reactions to everything.
The villains are a weak spot, as is the pacing (we should have had the
Bad End Generals’ backstories introduced earlier so that their reformation made
more sense, as well as more against the evil Bad End Cures), but the characters
were still shaped much better than I initially thought. So apologies for anyone who goes back to read
my earlier stuff where I bitch about how awful Suite & Smile are; I’ve
grown, I’ve changed my mind, and while I’m not about to self-censor, keep in
mind that was a knee-jerk first impression that has since evolved.
Comments
Post a Comment