They do this in order to maintain the political status quo. They don’t want to turn the US into something different, since they want to keep the familiarity of New York and the like, but they don’t want to use anything else in an inaccurate manner. Makes sense I guess. I can imagine people getting irked over some comic book dude taking, say, Hungary and turning it into a dictatorship controlled by some egomaniac in a power suit with mommy issues.

That’s what I really dug about this week’s episode of Lupin. They clearly wanted to do a play on the Cuban Missile Crisis, but they wanted to take some historical license with it. That’s an awfully romantic picture of Castro they paint there, but they wanted to use him as yet another foil/pawn for Fujiko to manipulate while using the USA/USSR bit as a backdrop. They could have created a completely new Caribbean nation and had it play the same role as Cuba, and its revolutionary leader could have been Fujiko’s plaything.

And they do just that, but they don’t plop it down in the Caribbean we know. Everything in the Lupin world is slightly out of phase. The world has the same map, but nothing goes by the same name. The tensions are the same, but the world leaders are completely different. This is the Cuban Missile Crisis, but by changing everything’s outer appearance they’ve turned it into its own thing.

Someone might find this lazy. “They just renamed everything. That’s nothing!” But I think it’s pretty damn clever. By doing this you make everything familiar. Anyone with a modicum of world history knowledge knows what’s going down, so there’s no need to over-explain things. At the same time, that familiarity makes changing history that much easier. It’s familiar, but it isn’t the same, so the way the show plays with history (Goemon cutting the needless nuclear war) doesn’t feel as revisionist as, say, X-Men First Class and its similar set-up. Not that said revision is really bad, but it avoids some of the “really, you’re gonna go there” vibes that playing with the real names can create. Those vibes don’t go away completely, but they’re lessened. At least for me.

In a way it’s just a matter of appearances, and it’s a bit of a shallow observation in that regard, but I got no problem with finding meaning in the shallow end of the pool.

But damn, man, Goemon did in one swipe of his sword what Magneto did with all of his might. and I’m really liking his interplay with Fujiko. She’s playing to whatever little boy still lives inside of his stoic, cold-blooded heart. She isn’t playing the unattainable goddess like she does with Lupin, and she isn’t playing the femme fatale like she does with Jigen. She’s toying with him by being the flirty schoolgirl he never got to meet since he’s lived the life of a cloistered monk even amongst his peers. It’d almost be sweet if we didn’t know everything Fujiko does is an act.

It all goes back to that moment in the burning building. The buddy wants to save those that can be guaranteed survival while Zetman wants to save everyone. They’re both making decisions based on their internal logic– their actions make sense to them. It turns out that Kouga made a decision that weighed on his heart a bit. He saw that leaving behind the mother was a bit of a heartless move, especially since Zetman was able to save the whole family, and now that’s coming back to bite him in the ass.

Now that he’s gone full ALPHAS, he’s faced with having to own up to the ideas of his superiors. He may be a rich kid with a family fortune to play with, but he has to answer to the guys that authorize the spending of said fortune. In a way, ALPHAS has to answer to his shareholders since he doesn’t own all the stock in his heroic business.

He’s basically a corporate hero.

Tiger & Bunny kinda hit on this last year. The heroes had to make sure their showed off their corporate sponsors, kinda like glorified NASCAR drivers. Make sure you mug that camera while punching out the bad guy and saving the old lady from a runaway train or whatever. But what’s going down with ALPHAS is on an entirely different level. He isn’t trying to make his sponsors look good, he’s trying to satisfy the bottom line. He’s in beta testing mode right now, and while ALPHAS is all about being a hero, what’s most important to his backers is maintaining the safety of the test subject and gathering data.

So ALPHAS can be a hero, but he has to do so within reason and within the perceived budget. I get the feeling that what’s important is the image of the hero. If you save your sister from some derelict scum, you make your daddy’s company look good and you show that his technology has the potential for all sorts of applications. And on top of all of that you’ve created the perfect spokesman for the product: a hero of justice straight out of the comic books and TV shows the kids love.

All that said, you’re in the black. Yeah, you might lose your sister’s best friend and some other teenager in the process, but it’s a net gain for Justice and a net gain for the company. No need to self-sacrifice and take unnecessary risks when guaranteed growth and guaranteed crime-fighting is staring you right in the face.

The heroes in Tiger & Bunny still had that selflessness about them. They may have been shilling products, but they put their lives on the line. The backers behind ALPHAS aren’t looking for that sort of hero. They want to remake the image of the hero in the corporate image, and that’s a pretty fascinating take on the concept. We’ve seen the selfless do-gooder. We’ve seen the at-all-costs vigilante. And while this concept isn’t exactly new (Pretty sure Booster Gold from the DC universe has been interpreted in this manner before.) it’s cool to see it in Zetman. And it’s cool to see Kouga struggling with this proposition when it’s in line with the way he viewed things as a kid. His ideals are in conflict here. Can he maintain his dream of being a hero without “selling out” in the truest sense?

So yeah, a Japanese designer. That didn’t necessarily mean it’s a game from Japan, but it caught my eye since I’ve been going out of my way to check out from-Japan games for the blog. Turns out Texas Zombies is a game from Japan, but that isn’t what’s interesting about it.

“Texas Zombies” isn’t the game’s original name. In Japan the game was released as Cat & Chocolate.

Old school anime fans are used to things being “rethemed” for the western audience. Go-Lion gets mixed up into Voltron. Yamato becomes Starblazers. Stuff like the early episodes of Pokemon would call riceballs and meatbuns “donuts.” Even more recent localizations like Asobi ni Ikuyo get more “accessible” names like Cat Planet Cuties. But even the most drastic changes usually didn’t change the inherent meaning of the anime in question.

And that’s what’s interesting about this game. While I haven’t played the game, everything I’ve heard says that the actual mechanics of the game are unchanged. It’s a party game where the players deal with randomly drawn events, and all of the rules and card text was not altered when the game was “localized” for the US and European market. For most board gamers, this is all that matters. To these fans, the visuals and “theme” of the game are fluff that has no real impact on the actual experience. Some people might be turned off from the zombie theme, but for most gamers they’ll play it regardless if the actual game is enjoyable.

But I’m curious to see what fans of Japanese stuff think about this. Part of the reason why a lot of us like anime/manga/etc that is because of that aesthetic that’s inherent to it all. So in taking away the anime-ish art and replacing it with something wholly different takes away part of the appeal of the original product. It may make it more “accessible” to the board game audience as a whole, but it pushes away an entirely different audience that might find this interested for the very fact that it’s Japanese.

Then there’s the bit where you can’t help that they changed it not so much because they wanted to make it palatable for western audiences and more because it was too Japanese. Maybe they aren’t changing it because “zombies sell more,” but because “no one wants that anime crap.” It’s the whole “why the fuck are they getting white dudes for the Akira remake” thing in cardboard form. Or maybe they think the game won’t be taken seriously if it gets associated with Yu-Gi-Oh.

Whatever the case, it’s “interesting” to see import board gaming go through a lot of the same motions as the early days of import anime. Sometimes you get something completely untouched save for translation, like Tanto Cuore, and sometimes you get ghost cats turned into Texas Zombies.

Also: If anyone can find a copy of Cat & Chocolate, let me know. It’s sold out at all of the online shops I know about.

Popee is in Hell. It isn’t quite the sort of Hell we see in Dante or whatever. I’m sure this is one of the lower circles of Hell, but this isn’t a matter of people joining together in mutual suffering– their punishments streamlined and mass-produced to be appropriate for a wide range of similar sins. This is a personalized Hell, not unlike the punishments of Greek myth. If you piss of the Gods with your hubris, they create a custom scenario of suffering that only you will ever suffer.

Popee and his dog companion must have been amongst the greatest of mortal sinners, since they’ve received an elaborate set-up for their eternal torment. They’re isolated at a circus, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they’re even dead, much less in Hell. Their only constant companion is a frog who is likely some demonic familiar placed there to keep watch on them when the various Princes of Hell are unable to pay attention. Each day Popee and his companion go about their business, playing games and training for the show that will never come. But their antics always lead to an escalating series of assaults, backstabbing, and murder.

These two souls are incapable of going about their day without turning on one another and attempting to kill one another, or at the very least “innocently” and “inadvertently” placing one another in harm’s way, and it never ends well. Without fail, someone is maimed, dismembered, or left for dead. And the next day whomever died rises back up, only to repeat the same sequence of slaughter again.

This is the sort of unending, inescapable punishment along the lines of Sisyphus. That dude pushes a rock up a hill every day, only to have it roll back down. Popee and his dog murder one another, only to come back the next day ready to die and murder again. And this isn’t Looney Tunes. They don’t stretch out and bend and flex with each blow. They bleed and cry and shudder in fear with every incoming bullet. They aren’t just doomed to kill one another, they’re also doomed to feel that impending dread that comes with facing one’s fate.

But their suffering doesn’t end here. Satan himself has taken a liking to these souls. He takes the form of another “performer” or “clown,” taunting his prey with the obvious allusion to his guise as Lucifer the Morning Star by wearing a sun-like mask. And with his appearance the punishments doled upon Popee and the dog only escalate.

Before Lucifer’s appearance, the suffering demonstrated was relatively tame. Sure, swallowing a bullet and shitting it out, only to have your friend swallow said shit bullet and shit it out again, is pretty damn freaky, but it’s also self-inflicted. Popee and the dog only have themselves to blame for that sort of torment since they chose to play around with guns. Once Lucifer arrives, there’s that looming presence of the other . Lucifer chooses the form by which today’s suffering will manifest. Saw oneself in half with a chainsaw? Popee would never dream of such a feat, but Lucifer’s taunting results in just that.

But the most horrifying act happens in episode 20 of the series. Lucifer hypnotizes the other characters to act like birds. Innocent enough, but once Popee gets into the act it becomes a duel of wills. Popee tries to make Lucifer act like a dog. Lucifer counters by trying to turn Popee into a cat. They start to stab themselves with daggers in order to ward off the hypnosis, turning the ordeal into an orgy of self-mutilation. Their hypnosis attempts de-evolve, as they try to make their enemy into increasingly primitive life forms. Finally, they hypnotize one another into worms, and the aforementioned “birds” swoop down and devour Lucifer-as-The-Worm. Popee is able to turn his own hypnosis upon the “birds,” mesmerizing them into skeletons, but the resulting celebration reveals that Lucifer’s eyes are still alive, and their last action is to hypnotize Popee into becoming Lucifer.

Bam. Popee is no longer himself. On this day, he learns of the worst form of suffering: losing one’s very existence. Popee isn’t just killed, he’s robbed of his very existence as Lucifer’s being imprints itself upon his very soul. Sure, Popee will rise back up the next day with his identity intact, but he has suffered a fate worse than death.

And Lucifer smiles.

If you’ve seen enough action movies, you’re familiar with this cliché. You have your “retired” action hero type. Once upon a time he was a hired killer or a mercenary or a Marine or something like that. He did some things that the average dude would find regrettable at best and abhorrent at worst, and he was damn good at those things. In fact, he was the best at doing those things. But he reached a point where he couldn’t take the lifestyle anymore. Maybe his wife was caught in the crossfire. Or maybe he met a kid who made him question his actions. Or maybe he saw one too many friends die a miserable, lonely death. Whatever the case, he’s turned away from his violent, shadowy lifestyle and wants to start anew.

To get away from that life, the guy usually takes up a career or hobby that’s a complete 180 from his prior gig. Steven Seagal in Under Siege becomes the cook on his ship. Sylvester Stallone owns a taxi boat in the new Rambo. Bruce Willis is just some bored retired dude hitting on the call center chick in Red. Their characters were all highly trained military types, and now all they want to do is live a relaxed life that has no hint of danger, conflict, or violence.

These guys always get dragged back into the action. Something comes up that forces them to use their badass killing skills in order to save themselves or save someone they care about. But before that they usually have some moment of temptation. Some old acquaintance comes along who tries to talk them into “one last job” or the like. This old friend never left “the life” and needs the main character to fulfill some big scheme or rescue the president or whatever.

What’s important in these scenes isn’t the actual “sell.” What makes these scenes cool is that you get a lot of hints of the history between these two characters. There’s always a  sense of uneasiness, since the main character doesn’t want any part of what’s being “sold,” but he also knows that he can’t really be abrupt about his unwillingness to help out. This guy is his friend, or at least used to be, and he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing. Or maybe he does want to say the wrong thing just to tick the guy off. And then there’s the references to past actions. Maybe someone brings up “that time in Guatemala” or something like that, and the two exchanged a few words about how they saw those events differently. Their history is detailed in as few words as possible, but you get the gist of it.

That’s exactly what went down when Polar Bear and Panda when to hang out at Bar the Grizzly. The Grizzly Bear who owns the place clearly has a past with Polar Bear. They exchange some banter that shows that their friendship is a little more than “two bears hanging out.” Their ways of life are clearly at odds, since Grizzly sees Polar Bear as being a bit soft while Polar Bear’s uneasy with Grizzly’s rough personality and wild patrons.

I get the feeling that Polar Bear has done some particularly nasty things in the past, and opening up his cafe is a way for him to get away from that past. His love of puns is probably some gallows humor that developed out in the field, where he’d lighten the mood with some awful quips. And maybe he chose a cafe because a woman he loved had a dream of opening such a shop, but she died before she could do so, and now he’s honoring her wish. Grizzly probably finds all of this a bit silly. While he’s set up his own place, he likely still keeps in touch with old friends in whatever line of work they used to be in. That alligator that tried to eat Panda is likely some mercenary taking a breather between jobs and wanted to scare the shit out of some wimpy-looking kid for a few laughs.

Yeah. Polar Bear Cafe is doing everything that Jormungand anime wanted to do (exploring the minds of mercenaries and the like), did it way better, and did it in one half of an episode.

The obvious proof for this is that little chibi-Cthulhu dangling from her hair from the commercial break eyecatch. That should be proof enough and stuff. But such an observation isn’t worthy of  a blog post. Hell, it isn’t even a tweet. It’s just, like, a stray electron hitting a synapse– the sort of thing your brain barely acknowledges for longer than a second. “Mini-God. Girl. She’s Cthulhu. Bam.”

But this chick is too awesome to not waste precious words and time upon. She has a DeLorean, dude! And it flies! She isn’t just 1955ing here, she’s 2015ing as well. She plays the time and space awesomeness spectrum in multiple dimensions.

What struck me about pitting Nyarlathotep against Cthulhu (again, assuming this green haired maybe-nun is Cthulhu) is that this sort of butting of cosmic heads already happened in the Mythos. Indirectly. The dude that effectively took over the Mythos after Lovecraft died, August Derleth, tried to turn the Great Old Ones and Elder Gods into embodiments of the elements. Cthulhu became a water elemental. Cthugha was created to make a fire elemental. And Nyarlathotep got shoehorned into being an air elemental.

What’s interesting about this is that Derleth didn’t pit the traditional elemental opposites against one another. He pitted Earth against Fire and Water against Air. Not sure why that’s the case, but that’s the case. What this means is that Nyarlko is already paired against this new lady by this elemental nonsense. Nyarlathotep and Cthulhu are opposing beings and their duking it out over Mahiro’s mom is to be totally expected. This new lady is so meant to be Nyarlko’s nemesis. It’s already written in the stars.

Except I turned around and read the Nyarlko Wiki and found out that this new pseudo-nun just works for the Cthulhu Company. So actually all of what I just wrote is yet another one of my failed conspiracy theories. My shit’s already busted and I haven’t even finished this post.

But wait! This has created an even more elaborate conspiracy theory that allows for this new character to both be and not be Cthulhu. Check this out.

I’ve had this idea rummaging around my brain ever since I started watching this series. There has to be a reason why all of these Elder Gods take the form of cute girls and shit. I’m not buying into this “Nyarlathotepians are just an alien species and not one single God Being.” That’s just a ruse– a lie to tell mortals to make their existence a bit more palatable.

See, there’s no such thing as “Nyarlathotepians” and these other space “races.” Nyarlko isn’t a member of an alien species, she is Nyarlathotep in one of his many Masks. In order to keep Mahiro and other humans from going completely bonkers and lose all of their SAN, Nyarlko and Kuuko and the other Gods not only take cutesy human forms to soften the visual blow, they also concoct elaborate backstories to make the very concept of GOOs a bit more comprehensible. A mortal mind can’t handle knowing that the moe girl in front of it is just an Avatar of a creature so powerful its akin to a force of nature, but it can handle the concept of such gods being misinterpretations of entire species from another planet that just happen to have superior technology and magic and shit.

It’s the sort of effect you get from World of Darkness games like Werewolf or Mage. The human mind needs to rationalize the fantastic in order for it to allow such stuff to exist in its paradigm. Seeing something that goes beyond the human scope of reason breaks the mind, so for the Elder Gods to mingle and get their otaku swag, they have to play by The Masquerade and lower their conceptual level to more manageable levels.

That’s why this new girl isn’t Cthulhu. He’s the Big Daddy of the GOOs. She can’t just rationalize it away as saying “I’m a Cthulhuian. My species is the basis of Cthulhu and I really do have tentacles instead of green hair.” That shit’d still freak out humans. We can handle a fire being taking mortal form, but not Cthulhu himself. So he has to pretend to be an employee of a company called Cthulhu Whatever and not even use his name to refer to himself.

That’s why this Cthulhu chick is and isn’t Cthulhu. It’s to make sure we have some modicum of sanity left over for the next story arc.

Also, I want her car so bad.

The short of it, if you’re the type adverse to spoilers and shit? Avengers was pretty decent.

The long of it, if you love having movies ruined of have already seen it and are looking for your opinion to be repeated back to you? Keep on readin’ and stuff.

The Characters

They made Captain America’s gosh-howdy earnestness work. The “he’s so old he doesn’t get the modern world” jokes got stale quick, but they made his gung-ho patriotism and goody-goody nature not only palatable but cool. And they emphasized his role as the heart of the team and made his leadership shine. He wasn’t just standing there with a flag waving behind him, all posturing and no substance, he was taking command when no one else could and making sure everyone used their skills to the fullest.

Iron Man was Robert Downey Jr, and that’s about all I need to say. He puts on the same act that he did in the Iron Man movies and that smarmy asshole routine finally butts heads with people who can headbutt back. He isn’t put in his place so much as he finally meets people who are his equal, and that’s pretty cool. And that bit where he faces down Loki is pretty great.

Hulk smashes awesomely. I really dig how they portrayed Bruce Banner. He’s self-depreciating, but he does it in a gallows humor sort of way. He’s laughing at his plight and not wallowing in it. He’s a messed up dude that’s all too aware of it and kinda relishes it to a certain extent– at peace with never being at peace and all that. And Hulk smashes awesomely. Awesome smashingness. Smasherific awesometality. He hits really good.

Thor… had a good line or two? “He’s adopted.” That’s about it. Had Loki not been in this movie, thus making Thor relevant, he’d be dead weight. I did dig the Thor/Iron Man scene, but it wasn’t necessary.

Black Widow was every Joss Whedon female character ever. She felt like she was there to have a token female character rather than because she was integral to the team. She had some cool moments, especially the bit where she gets info out of Loki that no one else could, but the whole spry lithe female martial artist badass is SO Joss Whedonish. If it hadn’t been his movie it might not feel that way, so maybe I’m just being a jerk by picking on the character. But I’d rather have, say, Wasp or Scarlet Witch or someone a little more obscure like Captain Marvel.

Hawkeye may as well have not been in the movie. He’s brainwashed for most of the movie, and after that he’s just the dude with a bow. He’s only relevant because of his relationship with Black Widow, and I wasn’t too keen on her presence either. I did like his quiver that could make arrow tips that fit the situation. That was a cool touch that I don’t remember from the comics. But “cool backpack” isn’t much to say about a character.

Nick Fury was underwhelming, especially since it felt like Sam Jackson was phoning in the part. He had to be there since he’s the guy that brought all of this together, but all he did was shoot a gun and look mildly irritated. Eh.

But Agent Coulson, who has also been there the whole time, was far more interesting. His geeking out over Captain America was cute and all, but by having him in all of these lead-up movies made his death (spoiler) all the more awesome. You got to know the dude much like how all of these other characters got to know him, and his death actually meant something. And he got to go out with style. It wasn’t the Whedon-Death everyone was fearing. It mattered. I really hope those “Coulson becomes Vision” rumors are complete bullshit. Turning him into a ghost-cyborg would ruin the impact of his sacrifice.

Loki’s scheme was nonsensical, but this is Loki we’re talking about. This dude isn’t your megalomaniacal Dr. Doom type. He isn’t out for control (despite his claims). He isn’t out for money. He isn’t even out for revenge. If he wanted any of that he’d already have it. The dude just wants attention. He’s the younger brother acting out to get attention from his emotionally distant parents and to one-up his big brother. And his alien, god-like logic leads him to join up with a worshiper of Death (end credits spoiler) in order to basically jump up and down and say “LOOK AT ME BIG BROTHER! GIVE ME A HUG BIG BROTHER!” Loki is so moe.

The Rest

The dialogue was pretty decent and avoided the Whedonisms I was fearing (for the most part). It was easily the best-written of all of these Avengers-related movies. It wasn’t just a matter of actors having chemistry, like in the Iron Man movies. They also had interesting stuff to say to one another.

The “gathering the team” beginning part was a bit slow-going. The individual scenes worked, but it didn’t quite work as a narrative whole. It was like reading a couple of issues of a comic book back to back rather than watching a cohesive movie. At least things picked up once Loki started dicking around in Germany. After that, the movie flows pretty well.

When the action was all shooty-shooty, it was pretty clear. The way they zipped around the battleground and showed things was shot well. The hand to hand fighting could have benefited from the camera being pulled back a bit so we could see what’s happening. But Baysplosions it was not. The action made sense and was comprehensible.

All in all it was a fairly well-made movie. It lacked a bit in terms of individual style (anyone could have directed most of the movie), but it worked.

The Ultra-Spoiler

Thanos. Alien demi-god who has an Eternal boner for Mistress Death. He totally wants to fuck with Earth, since doing so will be like “courting death.” Since, yeah, the dude wants to court Death. He totally wants her to be his girlfriend. The dude’s fucked up like that. So fucked up that he’s tried to wipe out the entire universe just to get Death’s attention.

It’ll be interesting to see where they go with this. Are they gonna go full-on Infinity Gauntlet with this? Are they gonna sow seeds in the upcoming stand-alone movies? That’s kinda cool, since Avengers is a big-time summer movie and shit like The Infinity Gauntlet is the comic equivalent of the big-time summer movie.

The Bitching

We need SUPERVILLAINS. All of these movies have one name-brand villain and waves of fodder. Cap had Red Skull and Hydra goons. Thor had Loki and frost giant goons (And Destroyer, but eh). The Iron Man movies were all about generic cannon fodder enemies. Hulk sucked and doesn’t get a vote. Avengers had a rehash of Loki with some alien robot skeleton things from that Ultimates universe that no one really gives a damn about.

The fight needs to be on a more personal level. The X-Men movies did a good job of that, since those movies boil down to These Mutants vs Those Mutants, and we get to know characters on both sides. It was a clash of personalities rather than a clash of bodies.

When Loki is going at it with one of the heroes, whether it’s verbally or physically, it carried a lot more weight than the endless hordes of video game enemies. That final battle with the aliens was very well-made, but I don’t give a fuck about defeating an army. Leave that shit to the Call of Duty generation. I want to defeat SUPERVILLAINS in a SUPERHERO movie.

Also, it’s a shame that it’s taken us SIX movies just to get to the point that we have a team that can DO STUFF.

Really. Other than the Captain America movie, I haven’t really enjoyed any of these Pre-Avengers movies as stand-alone movies. They’ve felt like extended trailers teasing of what’s to come. They’ve had individual elements that worked well (mostly character interaction stuff), but as actual movies they’ve haven’t worked. It’s like I paid money to see two-hour commercials for the movie I finally saw yesterday, and half of that movie was build-up to what really mattered.

Now we’re finally at the point where the characters can breathe and do their thing and we have to wait until, what, 2015 to see a movie that can have its own stand-alone narrative? That’s fine when you’re churning out movies in the series with greater regularity, but this isn’t the 60s where a new Bond movie came out every year. They take 2-4 years between installments because of the time it takes to do special effects and the like. That just doesn’t fly.

Basically, in the number of movies it took, say, Harry Potter to tell the majority of it’s story, the Avengers’ story is just beginning. That’s great marketing but lousy storytelling. That sort of “development” can work in comics since you wait maybe a month or so between issues, on in a TV series where you get a new episode ever week or so, but it doesn’t work in movies.

The Statement Added to the End to Give This a Positive Finish

But yeah, despite my whining I liked the movie. I still prefer X-2 and First Class as far as Marvel movies go, but that’s my inner X-Fanboy talking. This was good stuff. I just wish we could have gotten to this goodness sooner.

It really annoys me that most anime characters have crappy flip-phones. Like, most anime centers around kids. Kids are gonna be into the newest shit. They like all that social media stuff. They wanna have iPhones and Androids and whatever else is out there. But anime characters are stuck in the early 00′s, going around with these cheap-ass phones that can barely send a text message so much as post to Facebook or whatever the preferred social site is in Japan.

It takes a progressive, forward-thinking anime about animals in a cafe to acknowledge that smartphones are the norm. It’s about damn time.

That scene in this week’s Polar Bear Cafe wasn’t quite as brilliant as last week’s questioning of one’s existence bit, but I got a big kick out of how they presented smartphones as something wholly mundane. You got the usual “how does this damn thing work” bit from Penguin while the others made him look like an old man by busting out some serious touchscreen moves. This wasn’t some Eden of the East bit where the only smartphones in existence patch you in with a mysterious benefactor who can pull all sorts of financial and political strings. It was just animal dudes messing around with a cool new piece of technology.

But all of that got me wondering. Do they have to make touchscreens design special for animals? I actually did the disgusting test and was able to push a few buttons on my iPhone with my tongue, but is the phone gonna be able to handle continuous exposure to saliva? I have an Otterbox for my phone, but Llama didn’t have anything protecting his phone. Do they make phones that can handle that sort of thing for the animal market? And Polar Bear’s claws aren’t exactly dull like a stylus. If he’s using his claws to touch the screen, isn’t the screen gonna get scratched up even with a flimsy screen protector? Maybe they use some high-grade scratch-resistant polymer for the screen or something.

And if this is the case, why don’t they take the limitations of penguins into consideration? Those flippers don’t have digits and don’t have the manual dexterity of a Llama tongue, and his beak was ineffective despite Polar Bear using an equally sharp and hard appendage. It’s obvious that Penguin is having a hard time with his phone more for his species limitations and not so much with his inexperience. So, do they not take birds into consideration when making these things? Is this a sign of mammalian supremacy at work? Do we need to have some protests from non-mammal species in order to get equal representation? Maybe we need an Avian and Reptile Rights Act to get equal access and accommodations.

Also, I loved how we found out Polar Bear does his pun act less out of a love for puns and more out of getting a reaction from his buddies. You marvelous bastard, Polar Bear. You’re awesome.

Also Also, as I was writing this post I was ragging on a buddy of mine who is a big My Little Pony fan (way more so than I am) and telling him that Polar Bear Cafe presents an animal-based society that’s far more progressive and equal than that of the ponies. MLP has a caste system while Polar Bear has a fully integrated society. Some species may seem a little less equal in Polar Bear, but there’s been some obvious advances. With MLP, it’s all about the pony totalitarian government and how they put down anyone without four hooves and a cutie mark.

Polar Bear Cafe is the progressive choice when it comes to animal cartoons.

You’re gonna vote for Mecha Guignol in this tournament. It’s your destiny and stuff. But just to give you the illusion of free will, here’s some evidence to dupe you into believing you voted by your own volition.

• We talk about anime other peeps ignore. Who else is awesome enough to blog about Space Adventure Cobra, Azazel-san, or Punk Cat?
• We talk about Japanese board games and card games that have been translated into English. Tanto Cuore and Shadow Hunters and Magical Athlete and other stuff, with more to come as we waste our money on new games.
• We have a badass Top 50 List that includes mainstream awesomeness and obscure curiosities that’ll turn on your inner hiptaku.
• We’re not afraid to do things like compare the ending of Madoka to Steven Seagal movies, insinuate that moeblobs are the anime equivalent of Rob Liefeld comic book art from the 90s, or proclaim Milky Holmes to be fucking brilliant.
• We have cool stories to tell, like this one about watching hentai with someone a friend of mine was trying to hook me up with.
• We hate My Little Pony. We love My Little Pony.
• We love old school OVAs. We really love old school OVAs.
• We solved the evolutionary development of the animeverse and determined the highest form of life therein.

There’s some stuff for you to grok. Or you could totally ignore these picks and form your own reality by wandering through the site and read shit of your own choosing. Take my custom-made delusion or create your own. It’s all good.

But I think it’s pretty obvious that this particular series ain’t about the heists. They’re just the groundwork to let all this other stuff go down, and there’s plenty going on in this episode. If anything, this episode lays the groundwork for this series’ intentions better than any episode.

Zenigata and Lupin Really Fucking Hate Each Other

None of the respectful give and take seems to be at play here. When Zenigata meets Lupin face to face for the first time in this series, he gives us a spiel about how it’s his destiny to take down Lupin. Standard “their families have been at each other’s throats for generations” bit we’re used to. But then Zenigata pulls out his gun and shoots at Lupin point-blank. No banter. No swinging of the handcuffs. Just rage and bullets.

This is the first real break from the old school Lupin. Even those early episodes of the first Lupin series didn’t depict Zenigata in such a coldblooded manner. He wanted to see Lupin die for his crimes, but he also wanted him to face a proper trial and be executed by the state. This new Zenigata is all about the vendetta and seems to be willing to do whatever it takes to see this blood feud ended.

At the same time, we get a little nod to the original relationship. Lupin is perched on a balcony in a theater and spouts his own variation of Juliet’s famous “wherefore art” speech, since the “war” between Lupin and Zenigata’s families and their subsequent frenemy relationship can be easily squeezed into that Romeo and Juliet romantic mythos.

And how does Zenigata react? He shoots at Lupin again. No real exchange. No playing along with the joke. Just more violence.

It’s a pretty clear sign that things have changed, at least on Zenigata’s side of things.

Yeah, Zenigata is a Bastard

Zenigata uses Fujiko to get his rocks off. Then he uses her to try to capture Lupin. Yeah.

That sex scene that opened the episode wasn’t really shocking in and of itself, but seeing that it was Zenigata using Fujiko was pretty shocking. Zenigata’s always been portrayed as a bit of a bumbling fool. Not quite Inspector Clouseau levels of ineptitude, but he’s always shown to be inferior to Lupin and his gang. It makes him an ineffective antagonist, but I don’t think he’s really intended to be a foe. He’s just a foil in the original stories– there more to play off of the gang than to be an actual force out to stop them.

He’s always been a confident character personality-wise, but that confidence seems to be spilling over into his actions. Zenigata is being set up as an actual antagonist. But he isn’t being portrayed as the sort of antagonist that you’re supposed to love. Old school Zenigata is just as much a part of the crew as Jigen, Goemon, and Fujiko. He’s a part of the act. In the new series he’s being set up to be an outside force bent on destroying everything we love about Lupin.

That’s a welcome twist, but yeah, in doing so they’re making Zenigata a rat bastard.

Oscar is a Chick?

I had that suspicion when I saw Oscar in the first episode. A character with that androgynous look who shares the same name with the infamous crossdresser from Rose of Versailles? Yeah, they could be going for something else when they had Oscar blush when Zenigata was posturing in the first episode, but “girl dressed as a boy” was my first reaction.

I didn’t have any real evidence beyond that gut feeling, so I didn’t mention it at first. But this episode had Oscar going out of his/her way to rag on Fujiko. While they’re chasing after Lupin, Oscar gets some good digs in on Fujiko. Oscar basically calls Fujiko a slut, accusing her of being little more than a depository for men’s “waste.” A man could easily take offense to Fujiko’s behavior, but Oscar was especially snarky about it. It seems like he/she’s taking Fujiko’s indecent behavior pretty personally.

If that’s the case then Fujiko has her own nemesis, much like how Lupin has Zenigata. Seeing how this series is focusing on Fujiko, it makes sense for them to create a law-abiding foil that despises everything Fujiko represents.

Or, y’know, this could be yet another one of my crazy conspiracy theories and all of this is total bullshit. But I doubt it.

Quantum of Solace

Just wanted to point out the obvious: the opera used in this episode, Tosca, is the same opera used in the best (only good?) scene from the last James Bond movie. Appropriate since Lupin seems to fit the same pop culture niche as Bond. Born out of the same relative era and whatnot. I dug that particular parallel, intentional or not.

Butterflies

That “flashback” Fujiko had in the aqueduct, where she chomps down on a butterfly, reminded me of that Branded to Kill movie I mentioned back in my first Lupin post. There’s some dreamlike sequences that use some heavy butterfly imagery that are pretty damn cool in that movie, and all of said imagery is focused upon the femme fatale character from said movie, much like how it’s linked with Fujiko in this series. Again, could be deliberate, could be coincidence. It’s cool regardless.