RE: Avengers: Infinity War

Prior to watching Avengers: Infinity War, I learned something about Thanos thanks to my brother.  Apparently, back in the days of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (among other crossover titles), Thanos was a playable character -- not a very good one, from what I’ve heard, but that’s to be expected in a game infamous for its god-tier characters to this day.  In any case, the Thanos incarnation in that game had a certain quirk to his moveset: he could trap foes in bubbles.  That’s exactly the kind of move you’d expect from the Mad Titan, and not, say, a foul-mouthed magical girl from a game released nearly a decade later.

So in the lead-up to Marvel’s latest, my brother ecstatically went on and on about that move.  “Oh boy, I hope Thanos uses his bubbles!” he said with a grin, and rubbed his hands in anticipation.  It was the most bizarre thing I ever heard.  But what’s more bizarre is the fact that, yes, Thanos uses bubbles in Infinity War.  Twice.  That nearly made my bro rocket out of his seat.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  Gamora grabbed a knockoff Proton Cannon in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.  Someone on the staff is a Mahvel fan.

Anyway, Thanos using bubbles is the only spoiler you’ll get from me in this post.  So let’s get to it.

RE: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid

“We Madoka now.”

I remember using that line to describe Kamen Rider Gaim a few years back, and with good reason.  For those unaware, Gaim -- a tokusatsu series carrying the Kamen Rider torch -- was spearheaded by Gen “The Butcher” Urobuchi, who by then had long since stolen the spotlight with his now-infamous magical girl anime, Puella Magi Madoka Magica.  Confession time: I haven’t seen the latter series, but I have seen the former.  And cultural osmosis has made me suspect that there are more than a few parallels between Gaim and Madoka…which I’ll spare you of here, because spoilers are involved.

Parallels or not, Gaim went on to become a fan favorite with plenty of spinoffs to its name.  I’m mostly okay with that; I like Gaim, and I can see why people would absolutely love it, but to me it’s not the be-all and end-all.  Good, but not outstanding; strong, but not without flaw.  It did give us Micchy, one of KR’s best characters (IMO), but it also gave us Kaito, one of KR’s worst characters (IMO).  My thoughts aside, it’s not hard to imagine the showrunners wanting to reproduce the success and fame that Gaim brought in -- especially as a follow-up to the less-than-stellar KR Ghost.

Enter Kamen Rider Ex-Aid -- which at a base level is “We Madoka Now: Revengeance.”  But if you cut even an inch deeper, it’s Gaim 2.0.  But if you cut two inches deeper, then you might have the same opinion I do: Ex-Aid is the bizarro-Gaim.  It’s good for the reasons that Gaim was bad…and bad for the reasons that Gaim was good.

…In my humble opinion, of course.

On Danganronpa V3 and Spoiler Culture

*sigh*

All right, Danganronpa.  I’m starting to get a little pissed off here.

Iron Man 3: American Business

So apparently, my brother reads this blog.

It was during an update for Black Ops 2 (joy of joys) that the topic shifted to my distaste for CoD.  See, he’s under the impression that I only like Japanese things, given my talk about Kingdom Hearts and Halo.  Of course in saying so that he revealed that he only SKIMS the blog -- maybe getting no further than the titles -- considering that I’ve slammed both Japanese AND American games.  Apparently he missed the weeks I spent tearing into Final Fantasy 13-2, or how I’ve willingly explained that Japanese media has its faults, or even that I laid into Kingdom Hearts 2 on multiple occasions…which you think he would have found instantly, considering that they’re under the same tab.

And this whole “I hate American games” business?  Yeah, no.  I hate terrible things.  If a game gives me enough reason to pick it apart, then I’ll pick it apart -- but if it does something right, I’ll say so.  I’m pretty damn sure that even though I said Halo 4 was awful in general, it had a bright spot via Cortana -- and by extension, the biggest issue was that she was so underutilized in comparison to a refrigerator on legs.  I’m ALSO pretty sure that I’ve praised Far Cry 3, PlayStation All-Stars, Ratchet & Clank, and most recently BioShock Infinite in more than a little detail.

I like American books.  American TV shows.  American movies.  American comics -- with my favorite hero being, you know, Captain America.  If the work is high-quality, then I don’t give a damn about its country of origin, and neither should anyone else.

I’ll get deeper into this topic another day, but for now we’ve got another issue to discuss: Iron Man 3.  Is it good?  Is it bad?  Well, I know one thing for sure: it’s definitely American -- and in a lot of ways, that’s all I could ever ask for.

You know, this is usually the part where I say SPOILER ALERT, but for once I think I’ll hold off.  It’s not that there’s nothing to spoil -- there is, and quite a bit of it -- but I feel like it’s time to do something a little…different.