Welcome to the Fantasy Zone
This Zone is dedicated to the lesser known elements of anime hosted by the cast of Victory Script.
What weapon is the best?
Who will win in this Death Battle?
Is this costume practical?
You name it, it's all covered here in the Fantasy Zone!
I waited an entire year before I decided to review the cast of Hirogaru Precure and I have to say, it's very much improved.
Sora came out the blocks with a massive boost and quickly gained a good arc which later ended in such a good climax.
Mashiro was a good partner for Sora even though she fell into the same category as plenty before her, the more shonen built Sora makes the dynamic much stronger though.
Tsubasa as the first main line male Precure needed more to do but ultimately sat in the generic role of making up numbers.
Ageha had the sass and the personality of the older Senpai of the group but even she had to step aside and keep to a support role.
Ellee is just Cure Ace with a more convoluted backstory, also getting sick of having baby characters in Precure now.
Sora Harewataru - Cure Sky - 8.0/10
Mashiro Nizigaoka - Cure Prism - 7.6/10
Tsubasa Yunagi - Cure Wing - 6.7/10
Ageha Hijiri - Cure Butterfly - 7.4/10
Ellee - Cure Majesty - 5.6/10
Best Dressed Award - Cure Prism
Welcome back to Hot Take Review, these takes today are video game related, these are takes that frequently get brought up by my close friends group.
"Fortnite is a bad/great game"
Oh boy starting with this one.
My biggest issue with Fortnite is how much it basks in it's own ego, popular IPs seem to get dunked in with no respect for the source material, the game itself looks at least functional but the Battle Royale gameplay, it's main selling point is a really poor selling point as winning feels impossible, as for build mode, Roblox and Minecraft have you covered. The other issue is, I'm terrible at shooters.
"You can't hate a game you haven't played"
Yes, I can, it's easy.
Real talk, gaming has come a long way from it's renaissance period of the 90s where the only thing you have to go on were game magazines and maybe Blockbuster rentals if you're lucky enough to live close to one, these days there are enough streamers playing the games to give you a sense of what to expect, when the average new release is $75 or £60, it's more important than ever to have as much information as possible, this is why over the last three years I've turned down quite a high number of so called triple A titles.
"Loot boxes and microtransactions need to piss off"
The issue isn't so much the loot boxes and microtransactions but the companies behind them, this evolves from the rising mobile gaming market where the only way to beat Candy Crush is to spend real money, because all these games are free they have to make the money back somehow, Pokemon Go has the right idea where spending is optional, not so much for gacha, Japan's lootbox lottery where lonely males are duped into spending tons of money to get a sexy lady to play as who jiggles their ass on screen, looking at you Goddess of Victory Nikke.
The free model reluctantly does have a place in gaming, my most recent complaint is essentially renting the game for a year in order to play it, this ruined Trackmania and Pinball FX for me.
Also if you're a parent that's been stung because your kid spent $100 on game cosmetics that you let them have to shut them up, then you are a stupid parent.
"Why are games so woke nowadays"
This sounds like an old man yelling at a cloud. We've evolved post pandemic to be a lot less tolerant society and games are no exception, Saint's Row is a prime example of this where the insanity of wacky murder and crime is replaced by cringy tiktok streamers whose idea of crime is review bombing a restaurant. The term woke also feels constantly misused as its more like they only want game writers to spin stories based on what the main political environment is spouting to win favour with a small vocal group of people, it also doesn't help that plenty of skeletons are getting dug out of the closets of the likes of Blizzard, Ubisoft and other big publishers. My attitude is, don't try to adjust your IP for an audience that won't play your game to begin with.
"Achievement Hunters don't play real games"
This gets directed at me alot as an Xbox player.
Much like anime, gaming isn't just ten games, it's a much bigger media spectrum, being an achievement hunter allows me to play games I would otherwise not touch normally, Gamepass and rewards services help to afford this hobby as well.
I get that more often than not you are going to end up playing your fair share of shit games and even the most well known cheevo hunters like Cheevo Guides, Patrick Maka and Welsh Hunter do achieve varying levels of burnout, this isn't helped by Xbox's loose rules system on how achievements are put into games, it all came to a head when Aabs Animals thought that 1000 minutes of staring at animals was acceptable to charge $15 for which lead to Microsoft tightening the rules.
For me these days, it's finding gems among rocks, I would not have discovered games like Vampire Survivors and Hades if I wasn't an achievement hunter and I consider novelty games like Powerwash Simulator free content for my gaming reviews. Lastly, I'm not a young gamer, life takes priority and many of these games average three hours and are easier to return to than say Halo or Forza.
An often over looked trope in anime is the art of "Earning your happy ending"; this is where the main character goes through hard ships around some of the most mean spirited people imaginable constantly wanting said main character to leave or give up, there's a right way and a wrong way of doing this.
Case Study 1 - Kaleido Star
Sora Naegino dreams of being a great star on the Kaleido stage but her boundless optimism doesn't work with the professionalism displayed by the troupe, one by one she has to earn the respect of each character as the series goes on culminating in one of the best finales in anime with season one's final episode but the mean spiritedness continued when May Wong shows up along with Leon.
With the exception of May, Kaleido Star has the right balance to make all the mean spirited moments worth sitting through, there's a big difference between being fired and being told you should leave which is present through out the whole series but it's for Sora to ultimately decide to balance passion and professionalism, feelings ain't enough in this business.
Case Study 2 - Sakura Wars TV
Sakura Shinguji enters a fairly hostile environment at the Imperial theatre both in performing at the theatre and combat;
She has to earn the respect of her peers individually, she even played as Cinderella for one of her performances which isn't very subtle.
The issue is that it's too mean spirited, the official canon of the games suggests that Sakura initially has trouble fitting in more to her own lack of confidence rather than anything the rest of the cast put her through, the TV series which is loosely canon just makes her out as worthless, Sakura's situation is way more complicated than Sora's as her case is more living up to a legacy she hasn't quite grasped rather than a dream of being a star, there was no reason to be this horrible to her.
Case Study 3 - Smile Down the Runway
A series that I'll be reviewing by the end of the week features a designer and the model trying to break into the industry.
Ikuto the designer has potential but quickly finds out how high the bar is to get to the top.
Chiyuki the model is disadvantaged by her height which is too short for being a super model but try telling her to stop and she becomes insufferable.
It's two contrasting characters journeys, one is the right way, the other is the wrong way.
Ikuto is forced to learn that just because he's good at making clothes doesn't mean it's a free pass into the industry, it's pretty cutthroat but Ikuto learns quickly enough to adapt.
Chiyuki on the other hand doesn't really earn her happy ending, she does take things seriously and works hard to achieve her dream but came across as really patronizing at times.
I'll go into more detail on the review.
Case Study 4 - Love Live
Constantly having boundless optimism and pretty much recruiting all of your detractors makes the original Love Live the worst example of this, Honoka Kosaka barely made any effort to reach the top and only through forced drama bombs that she even had to do anything other than just being an insufferable flower child.
Case Study 5 - Shonen Anime
It's not the same for your Narutos, Midoriyas and Luffys, granted Midoriya would fit more into this category and season 1 Naruto definitely has shades of this but the ebb and flow of a typical shonen anime quickly makes the hardships associated with this trope more redundant as they climb the hierarchy.
Damsels haven't really been a thing for some time, the most prominent one still being used today albeit less and less is Princess Peach, but when you really break it down, the damsel in distress trope really doesn't have as many entrants as you think.
Starting with the obvious example is Princess Peach.
By extension, all but Rosalina of the Mario franchises leading ladies have been in that role at some point, it only happened once with Pauline and Daisy both being kidnapped by other enemies.
With Pauline it's Donkey Kong the first and current, (It's complicated) in her defence it's very much a King Kong scenario, Daisy had to deal with Tatanga an alien invader with more than enough tech and army to take over Daisy's Kingdom of Sarasaland.
Going back to Peach, she's been shown at many points in her career as early as her 1986 ova appearance that she'll always try and escape herself, sometimes rescuing Mario instead, Bowser has an army, access to magic, very dangerous fortresses and is the strongest amongst a wider range of Nintendo villains, Peach just has an army of Toadstool people who are practically all pacifists, to spell it all out, her kidnapper is much better prepared than most.
Zelda is another one but there are more than enough moments in her canon where she directly or indirectly helps Link as well as shown to be pulling the strings in Link's quest, very rare that any Zelda is a damsel.
Despite her design and a role as many different princesses, Barbie has never been a damsel once as far as I can tell, an interesting fact is that Barbie is never depicted as married, this is because Mattel wanted those who bought the doll to decide themselves what Barbie should be. You actually have to kill a Disney Princess to make her a damsel as done with Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella is excused as hers is more abusive parent/guardian.
On to some examples of damsels who really shouldn't be damsels.
My favourite punching bag Fuko of Flame of Recca has been brought up more than enough times, she's gullible, has a bad habit of wandering off and getting trapped and wastes her powers leaving her even more helpless and she's supposed to be a fighter, Yanagi who does get kidnapped in the second half as she's only a healer amongst some really powerful people does a better job of being strong as she willingly allowed herself to be the offering in the tournament, has risked herself plenty of times to heal others and resisted Mori Koran for as long as she could before being sealed as a healing battery, she was even the catalyst for his defeat.
Bleach has both Rukia and Orihime, Rukia is excused as she had most her powers drained and was being sentenced to death, less damsel more prisoner.
Orihime has no excuse as her powers are often said to be more potent than most yet she proved useless with them on many occasions, she also barely does anything about her own kidnapping just accepting that Ichigo will rescue her.
A brief mention of Flute from Violinist of Hameln who often declares herself the most pathetic heroine in anime; Flute is practically She-Hulk compared to how useless Isanami is from Brave 10, Isanami will need her own entry to explain, if you thought I was too harsh about Fuko and Orihime, you ain't seen nothing yet.
On the surface of it, those who are often called out for being useless damsels are actually more than capable women who are up against opponents with better preparation and overwhelming strength.
Those who would slot into that role subvert it.
Those who shouldn't be a damsel in the first place are the characters that really should be criticised for this trope.
Welcome to another S-Tier Analysis, this time covering the sexy theives of Cat's Eye.
Stealing with a Purpose
The Kisugi Sisters are more than just a bunch of art thieves, it would be so easy to cast them as a bunch of thrill seekers who do it because they can like Rouge the Bat or Carmen Sandiego, instead they only steal back in most cases their father's art pieces in order to find him, funded by an associate and under the unsubtle disguise as a coffee shop, the Kisugi sisters use every trick in the book to avoid the police as well as the various crime lords who hold on to the art pieces, sometimes they even compete with other thieves including Lupin the 3rd.
A Work of Art in Animation
In order to get round much of the 80s animation, season 1 was styled in a way that it felt like a painting while watching, the set pieces with the music and allure of the three leads make every episode a work of art in it's own right creating an aesthetic unique to them, season 2 loses some of that art style as it's budget increased but more than makes up in sex appeal.
Three Women with Perfect Personalities
I've mentioned before that Rui is the perfect sexy woman, she knows how to use her charms to win favour in any given situation, presenting herself with a rich adult sophistication and never feels the need to find love and romance as she feels perfectly content with herself whether it be making a coffee or infiltrating a casino, she's also the voice of reason for her sisters and even Toshi.
Hitomi plays off an interesting dynamic as her fiancee is the very detective chasing them, as the lead girl in most thefts she sometimes has to think outside the box to hide her identity, she does come across as moody but considering how clueless Toshi can be sometimes, it's justified. Sometimes she enjoys the idea of being chased down by her fiancee.
Ai is the youngest and starts off the series still in school, a very subtle hint of her age (16) is indicated in her outfit being way more covered up than her two older sisters, nice touch from the animators, Ai is the tech of the group and provides the most gadgets to escape every heist, but still impulsive and childish which doesn't always give her what she wants.
All three exhibit strong personalities and the correct weaknesses to compliment them, all three I consider some of the best written women in all of anime far exceeding most of the more well known female characters in the medium.
Toshi is a Better Foil Than You Think
It's easy to look at Toshi as the useless male in a world of strong women but his dynamic with Hitomi and his Zenigata personality, he's actually a great detective just that his opponents are leagues better than him, this comes around frequently when he ends up failing to capture Cats but takes the win for capturing the criminal who held the painting, sometimes his appearance even helps the sisters.
40 Years and Still a Hit
TMS have been running the whole 2 seasons on their YouTube channel on a one episode a week release basis, it found a new fanbase in a group tired of shonens and harems and looking for something different to the normal and Cat's Eye ticks all those boxes.
