[ABC Movie & Show Game]

Futurama

[ABC Movie & Show Game]

Darker Than Black

[Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono - General Discussion]

Season 1 Review

Now, the camera quickly pans up from the bottom
And the logo shows up with a thud!

This leads into...
The part where we introduce everybody
All of us, one by one
Our characters are established as we show up on-screen

And now we're running!
We're reaching out our hands!
- Actual lyrics to the anime's opening theme, "Stand Up!!!!", mocking anime opening theme clichés

Needless to say, that title sequence is the reason that got me into watching the anime in the first place. I've expressed on record multiple times my love for metafictional movies and TV shows, especially if those shows are making fun of familiar tropes and conventions. This affection wasn't necessarily born out of some meanspirited obsession to make fun of everything I dislike, but more often than not, it's due to something entirely opposite: my love for those things being made fun of. For example, I remember liking that film class scene in Scream 2 (where everyone is making fun of sequels) more than the rest of the movie itself, even wishing there are more movies like this that just spend all day long talking about movie conventions. Naturally, this is because of my love for movies and talking about them.

Similarly, Tesagure is a slice-of-life anime talking about anime. It's like that one film class scene in Scream 2 stretched over an entire series of 12 episodes, but the topic being anime (and manga) instead of movies sequels. And when I said slice-of-life, I do mean that the entire anime is about nothing else but the mundane conversations between four girls sitting around a clubroom table. It's not really a parody like Excel Saga or Panty & Stocking that imitate the conventions on a visual level, which is a misunderstanding I had going into the show (and from the meta lyrics of the TV intro, could you honestly blame me?). More specifically, it's about a middle school club with a suggestive and problematic name ("The Groping Club") 'groping' around for the identity of their club.

The formula of every episode usually plays out in similar ways: 1) the four club members would decide on a school club theme they want to discuss about (be it a sports club, a chess club or even a music club), 2) discuss what's the first impression they get when they think of the club, 3) talk about the way said clubs are portrayed in anime and manga, and 4) by the end of the episode (though not every episode), they would head over to the gym and try out new and unusual activities related to the club theme (such as a card game but with photos in a journalism club, or Twister but with chess pieces). While the anime would occasionally involve amusing jokes about the silliness of anime tropes, more often than not, Tesagure is more about the girls just fooling around in the clubroom and spending quality time with each other, which is actually the main appeal of a slice-of-life show: characters going about day-to-day mundane activities.

I mentioned before that I'm not particularly a big fan of slice-of-life anime because they are essentially about... well, nothing really. That's the point. But as I've found out, it isn't a genre exclusive to anime, but existent within some of my childhood cartoons as well like Hey Arnold! and Disney's Recess, or more notably and effectively utilized, As Told By Ginger. It's what you do with the genre that matters, but unfortunately, the Japanese seem really obsessed with "school culture nostalgia," thus leading them to create strangely popular shows like K-On! where characters just sit around doing mundane things that don't really make for an exciting narrative or even exciting drama. "Drama" is the keyword to a good American slice-of-life like Doug or even Seinfeld, which is why most Japanese slice-of-life anime don't work for me due to their lack of it.

That being said, slice-of-life can work when they focus on something with more substance than just cute girls sipping tea and lazing around. Nichijou, for example, exaggerates the mundane nature of the genre for laughs, while Tesagure's end credits sequence denotes that the show is intentionally about nothing to focus on the quality time students spend with each other before the tearful graduation split them apart. Even the melody and lyrics of the ending theme, 12 kagetsu or "12 Months" (indicating the 12 months taking place in the anime) are melancholic in nature:

Although there was nothing special
There was meaning to the time we spent together
You'll never return, so I'll tell you
"You're more important than anything else"
Encounters, departures, everything has an effect on our future

The final episode in particular confirms this as the newest member of the quartet, Koharu Tanaka, cries out in sorrow at the idea of the senior members leaving her. For some reason, even though K-On! also contains such a tearful departure, it just comes off more effectively for me in Tesagure, probably because such a message has been repeated in its closing theme for 12 episodes (whereas K-On! merely has a really energetic pop music that I can't stop listening to).

Another reason is also because the conversations between these girls feel very grounded. Tesagure is a "pre-scored" animation, meaning the lines were recorded then animated over them using the MMD ("MikuMikuDance") freeware (originally used to produce the famous Japanese virtual idol, Hatsune Miku). This means that the girls basically sit around and talk with each other about club themes every episode as if it's a podcast, which is why their conversations tend to come off as more natural and realistic, like a group of girls having fun chatting with each other. It's probably the reason why it's so easy to connect with these characters and just act like you're one of them, listening in on the conversation and enjoying their company. Because of such a realistic style, when it's time to depart, that sentiment feels stronger and more relatable. It really doesn't help that an anime like K-On! sidelines the audience while the characters eat cake and dress silly, making the audience feel more like an outsider looking in on something fun you'd much rather participate in than watch.

By the way, the MMD technology has also been used for other recent anime, though they are such obscure titles it's not really worth naming them. However, I've also seen it used to create virtual YouTubers, and more notably, virtual Twitch streamers. It's probably not gonna be my favorite animation style any time soon as they seem like an amateur form of 3-D animation, but hey, it's yet another creative use of the medium in the wonderful world of animation! Or as the characters of this anime would say, atarashii (it's a novel idea)!

Final Rating: 7.2/10

[ABC Movie & Show Game]

Blue's Clues

[The Simpsons - General Discussion]

The Simpsons (Season 6) Review

Usually, by the sixth season of the series, TV shows have long reached their peak and have packed their bags for syndication. The Simpsons, however, was only just getting started. Some would even argue that this was the real beginning of its Golden Age that lasted through season 7 and 8. The ratings would certainly reflect that, as season 6 marks the highest-rated season of the series yet. The animated adult cartoon would literally never be as good ever again, for better or worse.

Personally, I had a lot of problems with Mirkin’s direction previous season, to turn up the zaniness of the cartoon and dial down the realism or even the satire of earlier seasons. Season 5 became one huge gag show that’s made purely for laughs, containing very few of the clever social commentary or even the emotional moments that made season 2 through 4 such a blast. Fortunately, season 6 has returned to form and brought a nice mix of a ridiculous cartoonish nature and a more heartfelt examination of the characters and their relationships. Mirkin’s usage of character traits (as opposed to their flanderization) to bring the humor worked to great effect this season.

For starters, we get three very nice episodes revolving round my favorite Simpson yet, Lisa’s Rival (where Lisa gets a friend as smart as her), Round Springfield (an incredibly grounded episode by Mike Reiss & Al Jean that deals with Lisa grieving for her one connection to her love for Jazz), and Lisa’s Wedding. The last of which was literally an Emmy-winning landmark on its own as it features the series’ first episode to be set almost entirely in the future. While such speculative scenes have been present in the series’ history before, this was the first to center its entire premise around what might happen to the Simpsons family decades down the road. It’s also one of the rare chances we get to have the satisfaction of seeing OFF (Our Favorite Family™) grow up, an element that easily makes me more eager than ever to watch similar episodes like this such as Holidays of Future Passed and Barthood. Meanwhile, we also get two episodes focused on the often overlooked Marge as well, Fear of Flying and The Springfield Connection, even if the former didn’t work so well in its attempt to inject humor into a non-humorous character. But from such episodes that lend further depth to the characters, season 6 has a more intimate feeling that reinforce the character qualities that made us like them in the first place. Alongside Lisa’s Wedding, the tightening of familial bonds also extends to Grandpa and Homer Simpson in Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy. Another standout episode with such a strong emotional core is And Maggie Makes Three, of which its “Do It For Maggie” ending reminds us we put up with his buffoonery: because he’s a doting father at heart full of fatherly love.

But emotional rollercoasters aside, this is still a comedy series, and the first few episodes of season 6 (though the first two were delayed from season 5) already gave me a good impression of what’s to come, with Simpsons being as biting with its satirical commentary as ever in the forms of Itchy & Scratchy Land and Sideshow Bob Roberts (one was taking jabs at Disney’s merchandising and Disneyland’s poor working environment almost two and a half decades before their purchase of Fox, while the other was supposed to be a parody of Bob Roberts, but ended up predicting problematic candidacies voted by the people). This was followed by my favorite Treehouse of Horror thus far that’s probably also the darkest one yet that really pushed back against the censor-pushing of Fox and the FCC. Later on, Homer Badman once again exemplified the show’s hilarious social mockery by predicting SJWs long before SJW culture. Needless to say, season 6 was firing on all cylinders: comedy, satire and emotions.

However, some of the later episodes did fail to get as many laughs from me like Bart vs. Australia (a mockery of Australian stereotypes conceived by Americans), A Star is Burns (a blatant advertisement for another Fox show known as The Critic, a parody of movies that should’ve been more appealing to a movie fan like me but somehow didn’t catch my attention), Homer vs. Patty and Selma, Homie the Clown and Homer the Great. These are the furthest things from being the kind of bad episodes we’d see down the decades, but they are kinda forgettable and just didn’t really do much for me with their usual Mirkin cartoonish shenanigans that bored me in season 5. On the other hand, I quite enjoyed Two Dozen and One Greyhounds and its blatant parody of 101 Dalmatians and the Be Our Guest musical number from Beauty and the Beast. Much like the other episodes I mentioned this paragraph, it feels like a typical episode written for the fun of it (as opposed to having anything that clever to say), but it strikes a chord for me and my Millennial childhood, something rare for a show written by Boomers. In fact, most of the jokes in the show probably don’t land well with me because they’re obscure references to some ’70s talk show host or celebrity I never heard of in my non-American country (somehow, anime like Gintama and their obscure references to other anime and Japanese culture Americans won’t get land better for me, a non-Japanese).

But to its credit, season 6 has both a strong start and a strong ending, with winning entries near the tail-end of the season like the aforementioned Lisa’s Wedding, Two Dozen and One Greyhounds, Round Springfield, and of course, the famous milestone that’s part one of Who Shot Mr. Burns? an episode where the show gets the audience to answer the titular question through a hotline (before revealing the “truth” three months later). Such a publicity stunt is obviously a reference of the 1978 drama, Dallas and the coined catchphrase spawned from its third season finale, A House Divided, but for a comic book fan like myself… well, you comic book fans probably know what I’m about to say. Yes indeed, it’s the 1988 Jim Starling series known as Batman: A Death in the Family, where fans were asked to dial a number to decide if Robin should be horrifically murdered by The Joker. It’s not the first time audience interaction became that intimate, and with Gravity Falls, it certainly wouldn’t be the last. It’s an interesting social experiment that led to a whole generation of media sensation and ultimately heightened the cartoon’s already heightened reputation as a historical TV landmark the likes of I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch, Cheers and of course, Dallas (shows that are so old and yet somehow I have still heard of them).

All in all, even while not every episode works for me, it’s still an ambitious season that has thoroughly entertained and even amazed me, possibly more than ever since season 3. Yes, The Simpsons is definitely heading off to a a great future ahead… or at least two more years (or three depending on whom you ask) of glorious laughter before said laughter is behind us, replaced with a husk of its former self. No wonder many consider S6 the peak of the series.

Final Rating: 8.5/10

[ABC Movie & Show Game]

Yakkity Yak

[The Simpsons - General Discussion]

While watching The Simpsons, I had a thought that a lot of people complained about how Modern Simpsons constantly milk off modern pop culture that nobody cares about like Lady Gaga and Twitter. But then when I think back to the many Simpsons episodes I've seen so far, even those in the current season 6 I'm watching, there are so many references to celebrities from the '50s through '70s (from Billie Holiday to Mel Brooks to Tonya Harding), references I had to look up so many, many times (as opposed to the more modern references which I grew up with). It makes sense, of course, considering that the series was created by boomers who lived through those times, but that just goes to show that it's a matter of perspective how entertaining such references can be for the viewer. Many of these cultural references in the "Classic Era" can be ham-fisted and unnecessary too, but nobody complained about them. In fact, a large number of these references existed in the Classic Era just to get audiences to remember the good times and laugh about them, going, "Do you remember that? Do ya?"

Anyway, long post short, I'm probably becoming less cynical of what's to come in the Simpsons series now that I know, even if the writing is weak, even if the comedy is no longer smart or biting, at the very least, they'll be making references that reflect my childhood. That's... something, at least. I'm sure Steve Allen and Bob Newhart mean something to somebody born 20 or 30 years earlier than me, much like how a Pokémon and Powerpuff Girls reference would appeal more effectively to a Millennial like me. It's only a matter of time before The Simpsons have to reference something that current generation adults would understand.

[ABC Movie & Show Game]

West Wing, The

[ABC Movie & Show Game]

Total Drama

[ABC Movie & Show Game]

Recess

[ABC Movie & Show Game]

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

[Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt - General Discussion]

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt in Sanitary Box 6.5/10
Instead of granting us a sequel, the gods of Gainax instead gifted us this bundle of (very) short episodes featuring more of what made the original series so awesome, with more parodies of American media mixed with the sister angels' wacky raunchiness.

Notable parodies include Geek of the Dead playing on Shaun of the Dead (keeping a zombie as a companion) and Chuck to the Future Part 4, an entire Super Mario Bros. montage. The other shorts are the usual gross out humor like baby foreskins made into Pringle chips (Brothers of the Roundhead) and Stocking getting revenge on Panty for messing up her hair by snipping half her head away then using her blood to replace her hair (The Hairdresser's Bad Wife). You know, typical P&S stuff. The final segment, Bitch Flash, is a play on flash animation with the entire episode animated using it, thus paying yet another tribute to the wide world of animation.

For an 8 minutes short, it's not bad for what it is, though I'd have much preferred a second season.

[The X-Files - General Discussion]

The X-Files: Fight the Future

(after showing a clip of Mulder urinating beneath a poster of 1996's Independence Day)

"Hahaha, hahahaha, oh my god! That is so funny! Hahahahaha! Absolutely brilliant pinpoint satire from Chris Carter. No wonder he went on to such a distinguished, varied career that in no way peaked and sputtered out in the '90s like the human equivalent of Pogs. I mean, just look at it. (shows the clip again, laughs again) Do you get it? Do ya?! The X-Files is a smart movie about space aliens, and Independence Day is a stupid movie about space aliens, and the best possible way to point out this obvious superiority was to have the paranoid conspiracy guy pee on something. Ha! Classic.

And in no way is it as lame and awkwardly dated as The X-Files overall, since that series definitely didn't ultimately reveal itself to be a rambling cluster-f with no idea where anything was going and absolutely doesn't not work at all now that we're all slightly more aware that smug, paranoid white guys who think the government is out to get them are in reality seldom sexy, interesting or particularly heroic. Ha-ha-ha! Nope. Fox Mulder doing a literal piss-take on the ID4 poster is THE height of sophisticated satire undertaken by an enduring classic film against a disreputable flash-in-the-pan. I mean, that's just one of the reasons why X-Files: Fight the Future is considered a modern classic audiences worldwide can quote from memory and that you can't help but rewatch every time it's on, while Independence Day is a forgotten '90s relic that feels like it never happened, right? Right?"
- Bob Chipman's meanspirited take on X-Files: Fight the Future in his "Independence Day: Really That Good" video

In my defense, I hesitated against posting the above quote (let alone posting the entirety of it) not just because it feels overtly meanspirited, but also out of fear that it might distract from the review. Buuut on the other hand, I grew up with Independence Day and it's a favorite movie of mine and I had to deal with that look from people whenever I said that it's one of my top 10 movies. Yeah. So that short scene in the X-Files movie, belonging to a franchise I didn't grow up with, making fun of my favorite movie in such a tasteless way for a quick fatuous joke, really deserves that overtly verbose and meanspirited quote in my humble opinion, especially when it turns out that the big-screen debut of the longrunning TV success wasn't even that big of a deal, feeling more like an extended TV episode that in no way dealt with the ongoing mythology arc of the series in any consistent or satisfying way.

In fact, Chris Carter and director Rob Bowman (who went on to such a successful film career with the likes of Reign of Fire and Elektra) had the challenge of appealing both hardcore X-Files fans and casual movie fans who might have just came across the franchise for the first time. Its clunky expositions and awkward handwaving of self-contained storylines that were of very little significance to X-Files season 6 show just how problematic this particular film adaptation of a successful TV series really is under the surface, and in no way did it mirror the much more satisfying and successful The Simpsons Movie (2007) that provided a far more satisfying closure than this movie ever could for their respective TV counterparts. And this is even more frustrating for an anime fan like myself, because movie extensions of TV series happen all, the, time in anime (particularly popular mainstream anime like One Piece and Detective Conan). I've seen at least a dozen of these and have been utterly disappointed by at least 60% of them, feeling like I just wasted myself an hour and a half of my life that I'll never get back.

But in all fairness, much like those anime movies, there is still some appeal in bringing a TV production to the big screen: bigger budget, a grander scale and a chance to reinvent the classic theme song to something more epic and orchestral. You get huge building-destruction explosions, you get intense helicopter chase sequences through a corn field, you get multiple guest stars like Martin Landau, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Glenne Headly and Blythe Danner, and you get an all-expenses-paid film expedition to Antarctica with Lord of the Rings/Peter Jackson-level of scale when setting location backdrops in the narrative. Everything is bigger and louder than the TV series.

However, let's face it, the real appeal of this movie is the Mulder/Scully relationship, the two important speeches in this movie that define the significance they provide to one another. And even if Fight the Future's silly little virus storyline magically cured by a vaccine (after the infection has taken place - that's not how vaccines work!) is insignificant and even counterproductive to the TV production, it does well enough in reflecting the overarching themes and the spirit of the series, and maybe that's sufficient and should be the realistic expectation one should have going into such a film.

Mulder: "How many times have we been here before, Scully? Right here? So close to the truth. And now, with what we've seen and what we know, to be right back at the beginning with nothing!"
Scully: "This is different, Mulder."
Mulder: "No, it isn't! You were right to want to quit. You're right to want to leave me. You should get as far away from me as you can. I'm not gonna watch you die, Scully, because of some hollow personal cause of mine! Go be a doctor. Go be a doctor while you still can."
Scully: "I can't. I won't."

Such a conversation might as well been Chris' own summary of the two characters, their motivations and how that motivation has affected one another, with Mulder's vengeance against the government for kidnapping his sister becoming an obstacle in Scully's medical ambitions, while Scully's own cynicism and pragmatism have been softened by her inspired admiration for Mulder's passion and faith for the unknown. The film's core appeal is its character study, even if it's not so much character development. It's a self-aware callback to the show's frustrating meandering in conspiracy-exposure that ultimately lead to fruitless effort, but nonetheless tightening the bond between the two agents' pursuit of justice in their own definition and context of the word.

It's a heartfelt commentary on the series, an endearing one that feels like a nice tribute to what the series stands for, two passionate souls trapped in a meandering journey to nowhere with each other's company their only comfort. Even if Scully is once again reduced to a damsel archetype, even if she's once again trapped in a forced impregnation narrative that also plagued so many older series like Angel and Star Trek: The Next Generation the same way it plagued The X-Files (it's practically a central narrative for Scully in the series' fourth and fifth season), these saving graces are perhaps enough to say, "it's good enough of an effort for their first movie," even if their follow-up film adaptation would ultimately end in disaster, disgrace, and on the audience's part, voluntary amnesia. It's good enough.

That'll do, Chris. That will do.

Final Rating: 6.5/10

[ABC Movie & Show Game]

Friends

[Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt - General Discussion]

"Gag series” (a sub-genre of the coined genre “widget series” on TV Tropes) are not new to anime or even American animation. In fact, there’s even a whole page listing anime that are light on plot (usually a nonlinear plot) and heavy on comedy without regards for a traditional narrative structure containing a beginning and an end. For a Gainax comedy (the studio infamous for their nonsensical endings unrelated to the larger plot such as those in Neon Genesis Evangelion and FLCL), a savvy viewer should have already been prepared for such unorthodox storytelling. However, while there are dozens of comedy anime like the slapstick Nichijou and the dramedy Gintama out there that revel in absurdist humor (a form of humor more traditionally rooted in Japanese culture), Panty & Stocking takes pride in its own ridiculous universe and its ludicrous logic instead of having the kind of self-aware, fourth-wall breaking, “winking at the camera” kind of guilt comedies like Gintama would express towards its own silliness. This is especially evident by the final episode when the voice of reason “geek boy”, Brief ”Briefers” Rock, asks how the two titular characters could be so flippant about everything, to which the angelic duo answers, “We’re always serious,” “Dead serious when it comes to screwing around.” In spite of its ostentatious crudity, especially when it comes to the more promiscuous “Panty” of the protagonist duo, the show implies that it’s a representation of the freedom to do whatever it wants, not bounded by boring ol’ rules. This is pretty clear when you realized that the main antagonists of the show, two devil sister counterparts to the titular angel siblings, “Scanty” and “Kneesocks”, have a serious passion for enforcing the rules.

Created by the same staff team that brought you the over-the-top Gurren Lagann, the 2010 anime Panty & Stocking was conceived over the staff’s vacation trip, with Hiromi Wakabayashi (who came up with the initial idea) comparing it to the likes of Comedy Central’s Drawn Together, a 2004 American cartoon that also crudely parodied several styles of American traditional animation like Betty Boop and Disney princesses. The main premise the anime is loosely built on involves two “fallen angels” who have to work their way back to heaven by killing vengeful “ghosts” in exchange for Heaven Coins. Once they’ve earned enough coins, their return is assured. Thus, we get a monster-of-the-week cartoon bearing much similarities to The Powerpuff Girls, including the design of the main characters and the opening narration of every episode describing the setting of the show, “Daten City”. However, unlike PPG (or even many gag anime for that matter), P&S tells you right from the start that it’s not meant for children’s consumption (with or without parental guidance), as its first episode, Excretion Without Honor and Humanity, involves the angels fighting… a poop monster. Born out of everyone’s feces. Yeah, it’s that kind of show. The aptly named “Giant Brown” is also the first of the “Excrement Trinity” where disgusting human waste matter are involved, alongside snot monster “Ugly Snot” in Raiders of the Nasal Dark and vomit monster “Boogey Pukey” in Vomiting Point.

Befitting such vulgar content are the two angel protagonists of the anime hardly behave in any angelic manner at all, with the blonde Panty being more interested in sleeping with men all day long and the blue-haired Stocking more interested in stuffing her face with confectionaries. From episode 6 onwards, the anime would start to move away from its monster-of-the-week format to focus more on the rivalry between the two angels and the aforementioned devil sisters. This is where, I feel, the anime starts to fall into a more formulaic pattern that undercuts its initial novelty. In my opinion, P&S is best when they don’t have any traditional plot going on in an episode at all. This is best shown through their visual variety. While most episodes bear a similar minimalist animation style in the vein of PPG, the series can have a wide range of settings and storylines, though still largely rooted in the comedy genre. For example, one episode like Death Race 2010 is an entire chase sequence stretched out to an episode, but another like Pulp Addiction is bookended by a black-and-white sequence featuring the Normandy landings from Saving Private Ryan… except the soldiers are all personifications of sperms trying to eject. Needless to say, entire location sets the audience might be familiar with could be switched every episode, with Vomiting Point taking place in the more grounded “Little Tokyo”, mirroring Daten City the way “Citiesville” mirrored Townsville in PPG’s Town and Out. In fact, instead of its usual PPG style, that particular episode features an entirely different animation style that resembles Satoshi Kon’s artstyle (the guy that brought you Paprika and Perfect Blue). P&S is simply at its most interesting that way, showing a different style of cartoon storytelling every episode when you’re expecting something familiar.

To exemplify why such nonadherence to a traditional plot works effectively, one simply has to look at the popular Gintama. But while I’ve mentioned Gintama a number of times in this review so far, P&S’ resemblances are more similar to a more obscure title known as Excel Saga, of which its full title is Quack Experimental Anime Excel Saga, a name that speaks for itself just how nontraditional its structure is. Much like P&S, it also has a blonde airhead girl and a more subdued blue-haired girl as its main protagonists, including a pet dog mascot like Chuck in P&S as well. More strikingly similar, however, is its unique shift of genre every, single, episode, ranging from sci-fi alien invasion to romantic comedy and even American animation like Wonder Woman and Disney cartoons. P&S kinda treads this genre-bending territory as well, but more so towards its later-half like the aforementioned Vomiting Point, Trans-homers (a Transformers parody down to Optimus and Megatron changing to Rodimus and Galvatron respectively), …Of the Dead (a zombie episode), 1 Angry Ghost (a courtroom drama episode) and even Ghost: The Phantom of Daten City, which contained far more emotional elements by the end than one would initially expect (Stocking dating a self-centered ghost with a phallic head and extreme body odor).

In fact, it’s because of its unique structure (which I loved about Excel Saga) that made me a bit surprised about P&S’ mixed reviews from critics, most notably Anime News Network which calls it “unremittingly revolting,” “generally not funny,” and having style over substance. Honestly speaking, I don’t usually enjoy style over substance either, with myself not being a huge fan of Kill la Kill, but I feel like there’s just something refreshing beyond P&S’ obvious shock humor. Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely not a deep show by any stretch of the imagination, but I always have a fondness for “meta shows” that play around with the genre in creative ways, pushing the boundaries of what you could shove into a series without traditional structures. With episodes like Chuck to the Future (a mostly dialogueless three-parter with Chuck the dog as the main star), Help! We Are Angels (a literal music video referencing various American musicians) and Nothing to Room (a single-shot episode with Panty and Stocking sitting on a couch waiting for dinner), there’s just enough range in flavor to satisfy someone like me who actively seeks out original and novel ways to tell a story. That anarchic spirit of both the anime and its titular characters hearken back to the kind of post-modernist shows I grew up with in the ’90s (and even shows I didn’t grow up with like The Simpsons and South Park), daring to poke fun in shameless ways just to see what works and what doesn’t. And for P&S, most of the time, it works surprisingly well right until the end, often intriguing me with some new surprise each episode.

If there is ever a gripe, as there always are since nothing is perfect, it’s not even really a gripe at all but more of a disappointment: the series is only 13 episodes long with no sequel. Practically speaking, this is sensible because you can only do so much to parody different genres before it becomes stale (Excel Saga somewhat suffers from this with its 26 episodes, and The Simpsons shows that too much of a good thing can sour the taste). But as someone who had such a great time watching this… my god, I just can’t help but crave for more. Unlike the many serious anime I’ve reviewed, P&S has a carefree nature that makes me appreciate American animations like PPG and the many Nickelodeon and even Disney Channel cartoons, that frivolous spirit to just give the audience a good time for the fun of it without imparting any serious morals or didacticism. It feels like a welcoming break not having to point out what political or social commentary the episodes might have contained in this review, or what real life issues they might have addressed, and just to have a jolly fun time with its colorful narrative styles and TerryLoid’s electronica tracks that grant every episode full of life and energy.

Final Rating: 9.3/10

[The Simpsons - General Discussion]

Just saw this episode and man, in spite of knowing what's coming the moment I saw that plaque (no thanks to the dozens of spoilers praising this episode... like my post here), I still ended up tearing up a little by the end. It's no wonder this end up as one of people's favorites.

[ABC Movie & Show Game]

Daily Show, The

[So What Are You Listening To?]

Aside from effectively showing (and singing) what Panty & Stocking is about, this music video also contains at least a dozen music references, from Elvis to Pink Floyd to The Beatles and even t.A.T.u.

[ABC Movie & Show Game]

Boston Public

[So What Are You Listening To?]

 

[The Simpsons - General Discussion]

"Your tears say more than real evidence ever could."

This was 1994.

Oh god.

Classic Simpsons predicting the future one episode at a time.

[ABC Movie & Show Game]

Zoids

[So What Are You Listening To?]

My mum forced me to play her some ABBA, her favorite band growing up. She requested Money, Money, Money, which she said was her favorite. Then I played her some of my favorites from the band (no thanks to her influence during my childhood), and we ended up with a small ABBAthon including Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) and Does Your Mother Know, both of which I like because of their faster beats.

 

 

 

[The Simpsons - General Discussion]

Appropriately enough, I got to watch Treehouse of Horror V in Simpsons season 6, a Halloween tradition in the series I wouldn't have been able to watch if I'm stuck watching the sixth season of The X-Files or Buffy right now in my rotation. 😁

And boy, this is definitely the best Treehouse of Horror I've seen so far. It has a fun Shining parody where Homer goes crazy from a lack of beer and TV, but my favorite segment is easily Nightmare Cafeteria where the school staff starts cannibalizing on delinquent students, then just any student in particular. It was easily the darkest segment of any Simpsons episode so far in 1994, not to mention the incredibly disturbing ending where Bart and Lisa are implied to have fallen into a food blender... the fact that their bloody demise was left to the audience's imagination probably made it worse.

It also has this equally upsetting end credits sequence that probably haunted a lots of kids' nightmares:

Apparently, this episode's dark nature (or at least darker nature) came about because of the aforementioned executive meddling from Fox, trying to tone down the violence. I miss when the show was this rebellious and anti-establishment.

[Monster Hunter (2020)]

 

A portal transports Lt. Artemis and an elite unit of soldiers to a strange world where powerful monsters rule with deadly ferocity. Faced with relentless danger, the team encounters a mysterious hunter who may be their only hope to find a way home.

Director and Writer: Paul W. S. Anderson
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Tony Jaa, Tip "T. I." Harris and Ron Perlman

Love or hate Paul W.S. Anderson, you can't deny he's just a big kid who wants to put cool monsters in movies. In our time of sophisticated storylines, that might be eye-rolling, but there was a time when movies were the likes of The Bride of Frankenstein and Friday the 13th sequels. Not all movies need to be sophisticated (see Pacific Rim).