Happy Halloween

As we say, it's That Day.



Have fun, if you can, wherever you are. And those in America, I hope everything returns to normal soon.

Untrue As It Can Be

"Eye of the Beholder" is the first Halloween episode of Disney's Gargoyles. True to the spirit of the series, it has a deeper purpose than to be a holiday outing, as the story develops Xanatos' and Fox's characters and lays the foundation for further changes to come.

However, it's still wonderful as a Halloween episode. A particularly cool thing is Elisa dressing as Belle from Beauty and the Beast, choosing the golden ballroom gown and starting a tradition of having Elisa dress as a Disney Princess, since she was Jasmine in the comics. Goliath does not dress in any costume, choosing just to be concealed by the holiday. It's a very sweet moment, as Disney makes a nod to itself, and more importantly, a nod to one of my favourite Disney films, as Goliath serves as the "Beast" to Elisa's Belle.

But....

Okay, okay, I have to do it. I have to state that this meta reference, much as I love it, is not a profound expression of the similarity between the two couples. Some fans make it out to be this, but the central relationship in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and the relationship between Goliath and Elisa, are different except on the most simple visual level.

The major difference is that in Gargoyles, both characters are already the species they want to be. It's common to say that the Beast shouldn't have transformed at the end of the Disney film, but that's ignoring that the Beast hated being what he was, and his entire character arc, the plot of the whole film, was about him learning to become a better person so the curse would be lifted. The Beast becoming human was the only ending that would have made sense, no matter how many fans love the Beast as himself.

In contrast, Goliath and Elisa are already their natural species, and so they don't  need to change their forms, and indeed never will. Because of this, the source of the conflict is different, and so is the story being told. Beauty and the Beast is about a character learning to change so he can be transformed back. Gargoyles is about two characters having to meet the problems that come with being of two different species. The former is a single goal that must be met within the confines of a film's running time, and then it ceases being inter-species. The latter is about a slow burn, as Goliath and Elisa come to terms with their attraction, and the limits they have, because there is no space for a transformation to remove those limits.

Another important difference between Goliath/Elisa and Belle/Beast is that Goliath is not a dick. The personalities of Goliath and Elisa are not the source of their struggle; the source is the taboo and the surprise of their very relationship, while in the Disney film, the Beast's personality is the major obstacle. (That, and the whole imprisonment thing, but the film tries to re-direct viewers away from that unpleasant truth.)

Some fans of Beauty and the Beast interpret the central dynamic as less creepy than others do, so that maybe Goliath not being a dick would be a major difference. Among the supporting evidence: Belle gave herself to the Beast freely, the servants are nice to Belle, Belle stands up to the Beast, the Beast lets Belle go—there are all these things that are supposed to prove the central romance isn't creepy, and it seems like the writers are trying to prove it too, but I can't buy it. No matter how much I love and respect this film, it's still about a creepy romance. And Goliath/Elisa is not creepy at all, because neither starts off in a violent, hateful role towards the other.

 It's not that either type of story is better, just that they are so very different that any similarity between them is on the superficial level, and nothing deeper. I love that the Halloween episode of Gargoyles references Beauty and the Beast, but this doesn't mean the film will turn the crank of Goliath/Elisa fans, because it is a very different story.

It's Obvious I'm White and Nerdy

So, this is me in my Halloween costume, dressed as the crazy human version of Fred Wolf Baxter Stockman. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, as I found the right pieces or close enough.

Most kids of my generation probably remember him for this episode, in which he became a toy-friendly fly-beast, but I like him whatever he is. I've talked in some detail about this surprising interest in a character I'd never liked as a kid, and this isn't some kind of Exedore thing, but I'm going to go with it.

'Nother picture, closer up:

Guilty Pleasures: Shinji Ikari

Shinji Ikari is one of the most hated anime characters of all time (in the west at least; I don't know about his country of origin), but he's been one of my favourite characters for a long while. I like him 'cause his portrayal doesn't shy away from what a scared, broken kid might do in this situation, and it creates a visceral emotional realism that's so far been unmatched. This is not to say I only like him for clinical reasons, though; I do have a genuine fondness for Shinji, considering him more than just an object to study. However, that doesn't mean Shinji is free of any moral issues, far from it.

I used to feel far more guilty about being a Shinji fan than I do now. I lost a lot of this guilt when I realized how dumb it was to fret over being a fan of a character. Sure, the fact that Shinji didn't always do what was right might have been deplorable in a real person, but he was just a character. And, now that I'm twice as old as he is, I have a lot more detachment from this actions, usually just looking at him and think "Sheesh, poor kid," instead of faking a hard-line moral stance. But even so, there are some things regarding Shinji that makes me question liking him, and they are questions I can't answer.

His behaviour in End of Evangelion is reprehensible. There is the worst: he masturbates over an unconscious person. It makes total sense given the point the character is at, and is effective, but it's also…just…augh. When reminded of the scene, I ask myself how I could rank him so highly with this happening.

What I will say is that the scene makes sense. At that point in the series, Shinji has hit rock bottom, but is still attracted to Asuka. The way I interpret it, he's bought into her hype about being heroic and strong, whom he desires even though she's hateful towards him—in fact perhaps because she's hateful towards him, since Shinji seems like the masochistic type.

In Shinji's self-destructive, self-hating state, the sexual impulse becomes twisted, and he gives it release in one of the worst ways he can. It is a disgusting scene, but it makes sense. That doesn't excuse it, but it didn't come out of the blue. I can understand why some fans rejected Shinji after the movie, but it wasn't out of character for him to do that.

In the same film, Shinji is so destroyed that he does nothing in the first half but let himself be dragged around like a sack of potatoes. While this reaction also makes sense, and I'll defend it on those grounds, it's also true that Shinji opened Asuka up to death, compounding the way he harms her. Some of the deaths at NERV in the raid should be on his head, too, for if Shinji had entered battle earlier, he might have saved more people. Yet even though Shinji has done worse on a larger scale, and I still hold that against him, the smaller, more personal crime is what makes stands out. That's not surprising; it might just be human nature, so that it's easier to get a strong reaction to a more intimate harm.

Knowledge of the scene just sits there, like a big immovable stone right in the middle of my headspace. I can't ignore, it, I can't move it, I can't wish it away. It doesn't destroy my interest in Shinji, but it's not forgotten. It's just…there. I don't try to excuse it, but it can't change anything.

A Quick Bit O' Nicktoons Turtles

I told myself I wouldn't actively seek out the new Nickelodeon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, not because I'd hate it, but because there was already so much stuff to go through, and go back through, if I wanted do extend my brief, rekindled interest in TMNT, I'd start with the older stuff and work my way forward.

But, I saw YTV was showing some of the latest episodes, and I had a free hour. It was the first time I'd watched YTV in a long while, which is sad considering what an icon for my fandom and my childhood the station used to be. I should tune into Legend of Korra so I can see it on a real TV screen, but I am always somewhere else at noon on Saturdays, and it doesn't have a 6-7 pm re-run like TMNT does.

Okay, so I know that by this point it's cliche to compare the Nicktoons Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Teen Titans, especially since there's a producer who worked on both shows, but dammit, the comparison is apt, so I'm gonna make it again: Nicktoons Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is like Teen Titans. More specifically, it's like the early episodes of the series, before it got to pushing the envelope with the Trigon arc or the various things Slade did.

That is, it's goofy and dopey a lot of the time, and the plots are cliches, but there are some moments that hint it is capable of greater intensity. In addition, you've got "anime-style" double takes, which here are represented as 2D-style effects like teardrops, blank eyes, and cross-popping veins, inserted into the 3D animation.

Personally, I think it's all...okay. Not great, but not horrible. A nice thing to kill a half hour with and then forget about, nothing to become deeply invested in. I'm sure a lot of people will find it to be insufferable, but it's really not. It's just...okay.

The two episodes I watched were "Old Friend, New Enemy" and "I Think His Name is Baxter Stockman". The first one was worse, being like a rehash of the Gargoyles episode "Leader of the Pack" (though I know it didn't invent that plotline, my brain just happens to go to Gargoyles a lot), but with Michelangelo wanting to pal around with a serious-minded Chuck Norris parody who turns out to work for the Shredder, briefly crushing Mikey's dreams of forging a greater connection to the outside world.

The second was a little more fun, though it had the cliche of "young heroes grounded who screw up after they sneak out". With my newfound liking for Baxter Stockman, I enjoyed this latest version of the character, who's voiced by Phil LaMarr and has a similar ineffectual dorkiness to his whitewashed counterpart from the old Fred Wolf show. Not quite so stupid mind you, and this time written by writers who are more aware of just how pathetic he is, but it got me laughing in a similar way.

(Why are people already asking that he become a fly in this version? He's already going the robotic/cybernetic route, we don't need to overload him with another mode of transformation. I like Baxterfly, but the ship's sailed, guys.)

Inevitable comparison to other Turtles stuff: It's midway between the old show and the 4Kids show when it comes to how seriously it takes itself, and how well it develops its world. It skews towards the goofy, but can feel serious, and takes more care in what it creates. After two episodes, I'm not ready to call out the series for being unable to decide on its tone: it still hangs together despite the shifts from dark to goofy.

The characterizations of the Turtles are mostly the same. They're played as more youthful than usual, Raphael is angry instead of sassy (more Mirage accuracy), and Mikey is very childish, with Greg Cipes drawing a lot on his previous Beast Boy role. Donnie or Leo pretty much are who they are. Donnie is a little more petulant, which I like. Flaws are always a good thing.

I don't care whether it's Rob Paulsen voicing a different Turtle, since as a spawnling I was all about Splinter anyway, and now I'm just about Splinter and Baxter. Splinter isn't in these two episodes very much, and shows only the harsh disciplinarian side to his character, rather than the wise and fatherly side. I was a tiny bit disappointed in that, but there's some episodes I missed, so I'm not going to react as though this is the whole of Splinter's character.

(Though because Splinter is such an icon from my childhood, I don't know if I could ever get as attached to any other version of Splinter, or even if I'm capable of liking a Splinter as an adult, without the nostalgia factor.)

I like the animation okay. The Turtles having individualized character designs was the best part. Even though the series takes place mostly underground, and at night, on my TV it was still a little too dark, visually, to make out some of what was happening.

So, that is all I have to say. It's still up in the air whether I'll actively keep up with this show, but I enjoyed it on a surface level.

Guilty Pleasures: Neo-Exsedol

Picture it: a character you've grown to like a great deal, is suddenly, totally, rebooted. He looks different, acts different, and sounds different**, and absolutely no in-story or out-story reason is given for this. It is taken simply as a given, and all other media versions of the character are now that one (with the exception of one video game).

Thankfully this does not happen often, but one taste of it is bad enough. It happened to Exedore/Exsedol from Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, a secondary character whom I had grown strongly attached to in a short while, eventually declaring him part of my personal A-List. The reasons for doing this make complete sense to me—the character wasn't all he could have been, but I had a cool little emotional connection to him.

**the different voice is actually the result of the actor, Ryunosuke Obayashi, having difficulty doing Exsedol's original higher pitch. I only leave the voice change as a neutral note, and it was never a big problem anyway.


It's not just that Exsedol was changed, but that the changes undermine the original appeal. The original Exsedol had something of a character arc, and an active interest in the human world, and combined comic relief with being useful and intelligent. The new Exsedol is simply sitting there, providing exposition or comic relief, adding almost nothing to the story. He's not really a character, so much as a talking piece of furniture. Also, the original character design was much cooler.

I've run the emotional hamster wheel several times, and am still unable to decide what my exact feelings are towards "Neo-Exsedol". I can't reject this version, totally, even though I've gotten a lot more confident in my dislike. Nor can I accept the reboot totally, either, or change my perspective on the issue to make it less grating.

At the start, and for several reasons, I tried very hard to acclimate myself to Neo-Exsedol. I was afraid of being petty, of disrespecting the creator, and of rejecting a new character out of hand. Now I understand that among all the mocking of nerds for getting upset about changes to media, the simple truth gets lost: people get attached to fictional things, they have reactions to them—that's what fiction does. It's far from wrong to dislike a media change that gets you right here…the difference is not being an ass about it.

Therefore, I've become much more confident in my dislike of Neo-Exsedol, but the fact remains that I am still attached to the character. I like that Neo-Exsedol looks like a B-Movie monster but is still a nice guy. There's a kind of sad, friendly sweetness to him that you don't often see in giant-brained characters. Nothing about him would actually annoy me except for that he essentially takes the place of a character I liked very much.

Making these points are not a failing. I won't avoid or apologize for making comparisons between the two, or wishing one were more like the other. I could interpret this as two different universes with different versions of the same character, but I just can't do it, especially because other things have not changed.

Being unable to decide whether to just ignore this reboot of Exsedol, or to like it whole-heartedly, is what makes this a guilty pleasure That, and having any attachment to a reboot of a character that also makes you squirm is the other reason. If you can't be decisive over trivial stuff, what good are ya?

Guilty Pleasures: Pokémon/Digimon/Monster Rancher/Medabots/Yu-Gi-Oh!

So, once upon a time I was obsessed with badly-dubbed children's anime designed to market toys and video games. With a background like that, I obviously know these series have many important differences, and that's why they're named individually. But the reason they are "guilty pleasures" is fundamentally the same for each: I was too old for those series and at times felt every inch of it, but I still went crazy over them.

I realize that a large majority of popular anime is intended for a younger audience than some think it is, but if we're talking pure emotion, it's valid to distinguish between series for children that do or don't  make you feel childish for watching them. Even though its intellectually dishonest, this is how I reconcile considering these series "guilty pleasures", with my broader enjoyment of children's cartoons.

It also doesn't matter if we're talking about the heavily-edited dubs or the original versions, either. Yu-Gi-Oh! was the only one of these series that I saw in Japanese, and while it had a ton more gravitas and a better plot in Japanese, it was still pretty ridiculous. Any others, I never got around to watching in Japanese, but I imagine my reaction would be the same.

The reason I liked these series was because they had cool or adorable monsters, liked some character or another, and/or these series unlocked my first feelings of almost-nostalgia, as I got a buzz of being exposed to childish things that I hadn't actually known as a child. My attachments didn't run any deeper than that, but they had strength for a while.

For a few years Yu-Gi-Oh! even became my main fandom. I have no idea why, since my reasons for liking it were superficial and never involved embracing the actual themes and content of the series. I was hardly alone when I did this: there was a notable adult female fandom for the series, but looking back I, personally, still don't get why this happened to  me.

And it's maybe because I never got it, that I forgot all about these series very quickly. However, forgetting doesn't mean rejecting. If I happen to run into something related to any of these series, I get a warm nostalgic glow, and instantly accept that I still have a soft spot (maybe on my head) for 'em. I own only fragmented DVD collections, but sometimes I wish I owned more. The thoughts pass, but they always come back.

Yet the best one out of all of these was probably the third Digimon series, Digimon Tamers. Under the guiding hand of Chiaki J. Konaka, a guy who likes Lovecraft and Evangelion and making his own strange anime, Tamers actually had a decent and compelling storyline that had nothing to do with acquisitions or tournaments.

There is still a certain chronological cutoff date for my interest in these properties. At some point, I stopped caring about new product for these media franchises, and I still don't keep up with those of them that are still alive. All of my good feelings are reserved for material that came out pre-2005. There are also other, similar shows from that time that I have completely forgotten about. But there's no fooling me: I still hold a special place in my heart for these series, no matter how much sharper my faculties get.