Bleach Recaps: Ep 206, Forward to the Past

Last week we had the great misfortune of having to deal the final death coughs of the Amagai Arc. Now we move forward into the next true season of "Bleach".  This newest season is a break from tradition in that it is a jump to the past, back when Urahara and Yoruichi were both Soul Reapers.  Aizen was but a lowly lieutenant, and most of the main characters we've come to know and love were not even born yet.  So yeah, Ichigo is not stealing the plotline this time.

Now some of you might have died of a heart attack and despair last week when it seemed like this episode was another filler thing.  Oh, but you are mistaken.  This is not anime filler, this is actually manga filler.  Tite Kubo decided to make a whole arc about the past of the Visoreds (or Vizard, nobody can decide what they're called).  You see, every one of the Visoreds from Shinji on down were Soul Reapers before... something happened.  What happened?  I don't know, but it probably has something to do with Aizen.  And I suppose this means that the Visoreds are essential characters and this new trip to the past will completely shift my viewpoint of this universe, "Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep" style.  Everything we once knew is up for grabs!  A twist beyond twists is on its way, right?  Maybe Aizen isn't actually all that evil, or Shinji is really a bad guy, or we'll find out what the deal with Ichigo's dad is, or something.  Maybe?  ...Please?

Please God, "Bleach", don't dick us around for these episodes.  Whatever you're trying to reveal here, it better be damn worth it.  I don't want to spend a whole season only to learn that Aizen created the Visoreds in a silly experiment and that's it.  Also, this would be a great time to actually give these characters something to do, because I'm not sure Tite Kubo will find room in the giant clustfuck that will be the battle in Fake Karakura Town.

Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides

I have spent many a difficult day and night fighting with myself whether or not I'll see "Pirates of the Caribbean 4".  Its been a tough decision, full of deep soul searching and hard prayer to Film Gods.  "Pirates 3" was an okay enough movie (even if I'm the only person on Earth who likes it), but it really was the end of the story.  And by that point even then the whole Jack Sparrow and the other pirates shtick was getting old.  This sequel just feels so utterly tacked-on.  I couldn't believe that there could be another adventure to be found in this universe.  Plus the reviews were basically savage.  But at the moment we are stuck in the most awful movie drought I can ever recall - I haven't seen a movie I was completely excited for since "Sucker Punch" and that sucked.  Really the last great movie I saw that I knew for certain would be awesome was "Drive Angry in 3D".  Ultimately I had nothing at all to do, so I just flipped a coin, it ended up Tails, so off to "Pirates 4" was I.

"Pirates of the Caribbean 4" is kind of a milestone for me, because now I can officially declare 3D to be dead.  After "Thor", where an extra ten dollars for those stupid glasses for basically nothing, I am absolutely done with this movie fad.  I can name three moments in movies where 3D actually made it better:  all of "Drive Angry", the balloons in "Rapunzel", and the flying in "How to Train Your Dragon".  That's it.  Even when its done well its entirely unnecessary, and the extra ticket price is never worth it.  So I am in protest now - until 3D movies cost as much as regular ones and actually manage to deliver a better movie experience, I will not see another movie in 3D again.

So onto my grand gamble:  was "Pirates 4" any good?  Well, to what was my real surprise, I actually rather liked "On Stranger Tides".  I like all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, its my favorite film franchise of the last decade.  Jack Sparrow is awesome, the action is crazy, and the plots are just as wild and mixed-up.  Its my kind of film.  Despite everything, I actually think I want to see a "Pirates 5".

Atlas Shrugged: Part 2

PART 1 HERE

In the last few days I've realized that the political spectrum of this country seems to be driven by the fear of two ghosts.  Liberals are afraid of Big Brother, and Conservatives are afraid of Stupids like Jim Taggart.  "1984" and "Atlas Shrugged" seem to be almost rival novels, one detailing the horrors of government oppressing individual freedoms, the other detailing the horrors of government oppressing the free market.  Big Brother stole the humanity of his victims, breaking down their ability to even see reality past the lies of propaganda.  Jim Taggart and his government cronies just steal everything they can under the claims of regulating the economy.  Ayn Rand ultimately comes to the conclusion that these characters are their phony altruism exist only to destroy everything they see, including themselves.  To the Right in America, President Obama is a foolish Randian Looter, ruining the economy to steal hard-won money from the real workers.  To the Left, President Bush is a Orwellian Tyrant trying to kill liberty in his search for power.  Both viewpoints are extremely delusional and indeed outright dangerous.

I have finally managed to finish "Atlas Shrugged" in one of the worst slogging reads I think I've ever managed to complete.  Reading Ayn Rand's masterpiece is a desperate climb through a seemingly endless expanse of paragraphs the size of houses, each one smashing on the reader's brain with the horrible thud of bloated mass.  This book for me was the Battle of Passchendaele:  endless muddy charges in a bitter war of attrition.  Which would break first?  Rand's prose or my own consciousness?  At nearly twelve-hundred pages of 645,000 words, this monster is 200,000 words longer than "War and Peace".  You could build bridges using copies of this book as bricks.  It is just inexcusably long - since ultimately it can be cut down to half its length with very little lost to the plot line.  Any teacher who forces his or her class to read this novel is committing a crime against humanity.

No. "Atlas Shrugged" is not a good book by any stretch of the imagination.  As a matter of fact, it easily ranks onto the list of the worst things I have ever read, right up there with Dan Brown's schlock and the indigestible vile that James Patterson wretches up every few years.  But unlike modern crap writers like Brown and Patterson and even Stephenie Meyer, Ayn Rand didn't write this just to make a buck.  No, this was to be her grand achievement, her great message to the generations.  This is the most monumental single work of fiction I've touched upon on this blog.  It deserves, at the very least, a much more detailed analysis than I usually give.

All Lucky 7s!!

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory

So last week I reviewed "Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam", the supposed classic of the Gundam franchise which actually was pretty awful until the ending.  "Zeta Gundam" was so intolerable to watch that it actually took me a full year to finally slog through the entire thing.  I would watch a batch of episodes at a time, then get so sick of the show that I physically could not sit through another moment, ten somehow or another find myself returning to "Zeta" like three months later when I was especially bored.  In contrast, "Gundam 0083" here took me only a week to see through.  Partially because at thirteen episodes its only a fraction of the length of "Zeta" but mostly because "Gundam 0083" is infinitely better.

"Stardust Memory" is the prequel to "Zeta Gundam" and so is tasked with telling the story as to why the Earth Federation went from being the good guys in the original show, to being a load of jackasses that created the Titans.  The year is After Colony 195  ...I mean, the year is Universal Century 0083 in the wacky Gundam calendar system.  A ragtag fleet of Zeon survivors has stolen* a brand new Gundam prototype, a heavily armored monster that comes equipped with a nuclear rocket launcher.  Piloting that Gundam is a legendary Zeon ace with the fear-inspiring title of "The Nightmare of Solomon"**.  But luckily there's another Gundam, a more traditional model that can be piloted by the hero, Kou, a test pilot with a childlike obsession with giant robots.  So begins a grand chase as Kou and his Federation allies rush across the stars to stop Operation Stardust - whatever its true target is - and try to save the world.

"Gundam 0083" is better than "Zeta" for several reasons - chief amongst them being that the show has a plot.  "Zeta" was just an endless repetition of battles without any kind of resolution.  With only thirteen episodes, every moment is essential for the storyline to move forward, meaning we can't waste time with moronic extraneous characters or whiny teenage angst.  But more importantly, the characters here by and large actually are likable.  The animation is not only crisper but the battles are better choreographed and give a proper feeling of danger and tension - its amazing how much better Japanese animation got in just ten years between the 80s and the 90s.  "Gundam 0083" didn't leave me wishing for every character to die, so it gets a pass.