Film Review: Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender

The film opens big questions, but being an interquel constrains how deeply it can explore them

It’s hard to keep track of all the productions involved in the Avatarverse. The original 2005 Nickelodeon show is called Avatar: The Last Airbender. The epically embarrassing 2010 live-action film is called The Last Airbender. The 2024 Netflix live-action series is called Avatar: The Last Airbender. And now we have a sequel film (technically an interquel if you count The Legend of Korra and the upcoming Seven Havens), streaming on Paramount Plus and launched on a handful of movie theaters, called… Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender.

I’ve been less confused trying to sort out all the Ghost in the Shell series and films.

The first impression I got from this new film is the refreshing return of the goofy sense of humor that distinguished the original show and is so noticeably lacking in the Netflix retelling. The core characters have reached early adulthood by this point in the timeline, but they still feel like the same fun team we met 21 years ago. However, this plot is heavily focused on Aang, with the rest of the team confined to admittedly cool-looking combat scenes but no story arcs of their own.

The plot begins with Aang following clues to the location of another frozen airbender, Tagah, who sparks Aang’s hopes for restoring the air nation. Tagah is interested in unearthing an ancient magical artifact that a previous Avatar used to grant airbending powers to normal people. The twist, we eventually learn, is that Tagah is a supremacist who wants to punish the world for the historical mistreatment of airbenders. This creates obvious problems: Aang has already founded Republic City, where people from all nations coexist in peace. Tagah wants to replace that with an airbending empire, so Aang will have to fight to prevent a new world war.

You may have noticed that this story retreads discussions that have already been explored in the franchise. Korra season 3 also featured the return of airbenders to the world due to powerful world-changing magic, and also introduced a radical airbender who plotted to overthrow the world’s political system (albeit for diametrically opposed ideological reasons). The film has an undercooked subplot about a faction of rebellious nonbenders who perceive elemental bending to be a tool of oppression, which retroactively foreshadows the Equalist movement seen in Korra season 1.

Exciting action choreography and beautiful background landscapes notwithstanding, there’s a nagging sense that this film exists to tick off a line in nitpicking fandom’s log of complaints. The plot seems to care a lot about clarifying an uncertain point of magical lore: if Korra season 1 established that an Avatar who knows energybending can restore the powers of a bender who has lost them, what prevented Aang from simply giving airbending to random people and rebuild the air nation? This film answers: no, you need special powers from the Lion Turtles themselves to do that, like for example the magical staff that everyone is looking for. That does solve the question that had been left open, but at the cost of oversimplifying the political themes of the franchise.

Aang’s peculiar situation has always lent itself to lengthy discussions about the nature of nationhood. He’s the only survivor of a genocide (until he meets the frozen airbender Tagah, but that guy dates from way before the genocide), and a big part of his mission as this incarnation of the Avatar is to heal that wound in the world. But the methods available to him carry their own complications. Korra shows us that, once Aang became an adult, it took him three attempts to conceive an airbender child, which I’m sure must have caused immense tension in his marriage with Katara, not to mention Lion Turtle-sized daddy issues for his children. The Korra series didn’t explore that famly dynamic deeply enough.

But also, why are Aang’s first two children not considered part of the air nation? If ethnic membership means anything, it has to be tied to ancestry. But in the Avatarverse, the nations are not exactly defined by shared ancestry, but by the ability to practice a magical art, to the point that, in Korra season 3, completely unrelated people from other countries who suddenly gain airbending are invited to join the restored air nation (and it’s a stain on Tenzin’s moral character that he only repairs his relationship with his brother Bumi after Bumi wins the magical lottery and becomes an airbender). The comic book The Promise adds another twist to these questions by introducing the character of Kori, an earthbender who politically identifies with the firebending side of her ancestry.

The elemental bending disciplines influence everything: visual art, clothing, urban design, military technology, even the respective cultures’ favored metaphysics. This is a conception of nationhood unlike anything seen in the real world. It would be like defining the Swiss people as only those who can ski, including anyone from anywhere who can ski (plus structuring all of Swiss society and culture around the visual markers and philosophical analogues of skiing). And this wouldn’t necessarily restrict Swisshood to Switzerland itself; we’re used to conceiving of nationhood as fundamentally connected to territory, but airbenders are nomads, so they’re not tied to a specific territory in the way conventional nations are.

In the film, finding the magical staff that gives airbending would put Aang in the position of choosing who will join the new air nation. This is a decision he has strong opinions about (remember how, in the comic book The Promise, he chastised fans of airbending culture for appropriating the arrow tattoos without having any airbending ability). Even if he’s the only remaining representative of his culture, it’s still worth asking: should one single person have the power to decide how an entire national identity is to be built?

All these questions are brought to the forefront in the film. Unfortunately, established characterization exerts a force against this potential for drama. Although Aang is a bit too eager to follow Tagah even when it endangers his friends, once Tagah’s true intentions are exposed, Aang remains morally immaculate, never feeling the temptation to use horrific violence to Make Airbenders Great Again. Part of this has to do with the need to keep the timeline in harmony with the established events in the sequel Korra series, but it’s also a waste of big themes that the film introduces and then dispatches unaddressed.

Overall this is a worthy addition to the Avatarverse. It can’t be emphasized enough: a core component of the appeal of this franchise is its goofy humor, and here there’s plenty of it. The animation is impeccable, and the music is in keeping with the real-world inspirations of the setting. I only lament that the story could only go as far as established lore allowed.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Anime Review: Daemons of the Shadow Realm

Sibling strife and plenty of intrigue in the new anime from the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist

Sibling bonds and sibling conflicts are frequent themes in popular anime. Powerful examples include Sasuske and Itachi in Naruto, Asta and Yuno in Black Clover, and Demon Slayer’s inseparable sister-brother duo Tanjiro and Nezuko. Sibling relations are often a side story in many adventures, adding emotional depth to the characters. In some stories like Fullmetal Alchemist, the sibling relationship is the primary story. Daemons of the Shadow Realm is a new fantasy anime from the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist which brings sibling drama back to the center of the story, but with a twist. Kind, down-to-earth Yuru will do anything to protect his twin sister Asa until he finds out that Asa is not who she appears to be. Neither is his cozy medieval village what it appears to be. The new series is full of plot twists, family angst, lots of betrayal, and plenty of magical creatures who are invisible to the rest of society. In addition to the intriguing premise, the story keeps viewers engaged with its movement between adventure, humor, and very graphic violence. Holding the diverse cast and action-focused plot together is the primary protagonist Yuru, whose particular balance of pure-heartedness and clever, wise cynicism is a refreshing change of pace from the usual shonen heroes.

[SPOILERS for the first episode] Teenaged Yuru lives in a small medieval village with his twin sister Asa. Legend has it that twins born on opposite sides of midnight will have magical destructive power (the power to sunder day and night). This leads to a quiet power struggle by outside forces to control or destroy the children. After their parents disappear, the children are raised by the village. Yuru is mentored in hunting and fighting skills but, for unknown reasons, Asa is kept locked in a cell by the village elders, and Yuru won’t leave the village to search for his parents because he refuses to leave her behind. Despite the strange arrangement, Yuru has strong friendships and support in the village, and remains close to and protective of Asa. But things aren’t what they seem, and everything changes when outsider assassins attack the village and brutally massacre most of the adults. They are led by a dark-haired teen girl who looks somewhat familiar. Yuru and his mentor Ryu (also known as Dera) are able to skillfully defend themselves, but Ryu decides to take Yuru and flee the isolated village. Yuru refuses to leave his sister behind and vows vengeance against the lead killer. But the assassin shares some unexpected news: the little sister he’s been protecting is a fake designed to trap him in the village, and the brutal murderer in front of him is his real sister, who’s been searching for him for years. Then, as he and Ryu flee the magically protected village, Yuru is suddenly exposed to cars, cell phones, and skyscrapers. We learn that Higashi Village is trapped in time but surrounded by contemporary Japan. It’s a lot to take in, but Yuru is surprisingly level-headed as he navigates a completely new world. In the process, he forms a contract with a pair of powerful daemons who fight to protect him. As the world battles around him, he must navigate his powers and fight off those who seek the control him and his sister. All of this is mostly hidden from the rest of the world. Only certain people can see daemons; few people can reach Higashi village, which is hidden from the rest of the world by magic.

But are the people of Higashi Village trying to protect Yuru or use him? Asa has been raised by the powerful Kagemori clan, whose manipulative wealth and crime connections make their intentions suspect. The story is filled with lots of betrayals, plot twists, and power struggles that keep the story enjoyable. But there are also enough sentimental moments to keep the story emotionally anchored. Cynical Ryu becomes a reluctant father figure to Yuru in their modern urban apartment. There are some fun fish-out-of-water moments as Yuru and his giant shadow daemons discover the wonders of modern living. But, despite being mystified by seemingly magical gadgets, Yuru has been raised with strangeness as part of his life, so his humorous fascination is always moderated. The idea of something he can’t understand is already a part of his being. This element is a fun exploration of the wonder of magic versus the wonder of science. And his curiosity is balanced with his solid instincts and a healthy dose of cynicism. After being abandoned by his parents and lied to by those he trusts, and witnessing the massacre of his community, he is not easily fooled by the smooth-talking manipulators who are trying to access his power. Asa, on the other hand, is fierce, cutthroat, and brutal, but she unexpectedly loves intensely, and is completely devoted to the brother she lost. Yuru treats her with bitterness for killing his village, but also with suspicious curiosity, as she genuinely dotes on him and tries to connect with him. Although he won’t forgive her for what she’s done to try to find him, he understands that there are larger issues at play, since control over the combined power of the twins will affect the safety of the entire world.

The pairing of opposites working together is a consistent theme throughout the story. Yuru and other magic wielders have pacts with supernatural beings called daemons. The daemons exist in pairs with opposite identities. Yuru’s daemons are the strong, giant, ancient, male and female warriors named Left and Right, who are fun characters with gorgeous animation and character design. The central story focuses on the twin protagonists who symbolize Day and Night. Yuru represents night and the power of “seal,” locking things down or bringing closure. Asa represents day and the power of “break,” destruction or opening to freedom. The duality symbolism is fun, and many of the various magical characters have their own quirky personalities. Beyond the core characters, the story builds outward with a growing cast that includes the various factions fighting to control the twins. Fortunately, the characters are introduced gradually, which makes it easier to keep track of who everyone is. Other than Yuru, almost all of the characters are morally gray, including Asa, who has no remorse for slaughtering people to get to her brother. This dynamic keeps the tension strong because you never quite know when someone is going to suddenly betray a character. Fortunately, Yuru understands the realities and is clever enough when dealing with the various factions trying to get to him. His balance of youth, curiosity, cleverness, and cynicism makes the show highly watchable without falling into the more common protagonist tropes of either excessive optimism or grumpy bitterness. And the quirky relationship between the lethal siblings is a nice change of pace from the more common protective big brother themes.

So far in season one, Asa feels much less developed than Yuru, but neither of them have extended deep moments of introspection. Fortunately, the brief moments pack a lot of meaning and keep the story grounded. In one passing moment, Yuru realizes and comments out loud that his parents left him behind. There’s not a lot of drama, but viewers can feel the gravity of the hurt in that single sentence. Elements like this keep the show entertaining and engaging despite the growing cast of characters. The show’s premise feels typical, but the delivery is clever and unexpected, with plenty of early plot twists. Additionally, the story gives us a unique and intriguing sibling dynamic that differs from the usual setup of protection or rivalry. Both Asa’s and Yuru’s love for each other has been twisted, leaving the twins to navigate not only the forces battling to control them but also their own personal connection that was brutally damaged through the actions of others. That internal tension is a great way to balance an action-oriented plot in this unique fantasy setting.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

Highlights:

• Refreshing change of pace in the protagonist and relationship set up
• Complicated cast of morally gray characters
• Solid action with plenty of violence

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

Looking Back at The Transformers

Does an old toy commercial have the Touch?

Before I begin - since I will be discussing a Hasbro property, I want to bring up the fact that staff at Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary, have successfully won a union and are now bargaining for a contract. You should support the union here.
  
                                      

The 1986 Transformers show lurked over my nerd-dom for a long time. I got into the franchise in the early 2000s as an impressionable preschooler who dove headfirst into the 2001 Robots in Disguise show (does anyone else remember that one?), and then loved Armada and was more intermittently into Energon and Cybertron. I got rid of my Transformers toys in 2006ish, and then was left to look longingly and regretfully at the toys released for the Michael Bay movies. Even then, I could tell there was something off about those films (I rewatched them recently and concluded that they’re not terrible but they are seriously hampered by being late 2000s blockbusters but that is an argument for another day), but I enjoyed them as impressionable boys do. All of those, though, I knew ultimately came from this cartoon from before I was born: The Transformers, released in 1983.

I wasn’t entirely unaware of the contents of that show when I was a kid; my parents bought me a video tape of the 1986 movie as well as another with two episodes (City of Steel and A Prime Problem), which together formed my view of that show for a long time. I remember being spellbound by the animation of the movie, and bits of those episodes stayed with me as half-remembered snippets for over twenty years (like Long Haul’s line in the former of the aforementioned episodes “Remove! Remove! Always remove! I didn’t join this outfit to be a dump truck! For whatever reason, I also remembered Mixmaster’s particular verbal tic in that episode and that episode alone). But then, last year, I finally got around to playing War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron, both great games that take a military science fiction approach to the basic conceit of Transformers, and I felt that, at some point, I should actually get around to watching the cartoon that started it all (along with the eighties Marvel comics, of course). And then, to my joy, it turns out Hasbro put the entire show, excepting the movie, on one of their YouTube channels. I went on this quest in earnest.

The thing that struck me again and again about this show is how clearly very few people involved in its creation actually gave a shit about it as a work of art. Every comment one of the writers, Donald Glut, made about the show in retrospect sounds like more polite versions of “why do you still give a shit about this?” Glut, whose most prominent work is probably the novelization to The Empire Strikes Back, nevertheless created several characterizations and wrote several memorable episodes, which to me is a sign of how good he is; even his phoned-in scripts are entertaining. The animation is often clearly phoned-in, with many, many obvious errors with little regard to consistency or continuity. More broadly, there’s a sort of slap-dash quality to the writing, not necessarily the dialogue (which is usually serviceable if never particularly deep), but rather the coherence of the world. You have Atlantis out of nowhere in one episode, never mentioned again, and in another episode the main characters are sent back to Arthurian England for no particular reason.

But it’s this potpourri of SFF influences on the different episodes that I think ultimately made the cartoon, and from there the franchise, the success that it was. As I watched it, I came to understand why so many kids came to love this show, as the sheer variety of situations, the sheer diversity of the little nooks and crannies of this universe both on Earth and on Cybertron as well as elsewhere, comes together in a way that feels vast rather than inconsistent. Sure, we have talking, transforming robots at war with one another, so why not Atlantis? Why not time travel to Arthurian times? I have a hard time putting my finger on why, precisely, this worked out the way it did, but it did.

Somewhat surprisingly, most of the time the show is not obviously a toy commercial. Yes, the robots look cool and can do things, but for the most part the fast-paced adventure plots don’t feel too contrived to sell a toy (there are, of course, exceptions). The toy-driven nature of the show is much clearer when you take a look at the broader narrative arcs. The show starts with the Autobots’ ark stranded on Earth, and there is a fairly small cohort of both Autobots and Decepticons for the first season and the opening few episodes of the second season. But, after those few episodes, for no reason whatsoever there are more and more new robots, on both sides of this war, that were never established previously. The cast grows and grows, to the point that the Protectobots, a team of five Autobots that can combine, are inelegantly squeezed into the final episodes of the second season, the last before the 1986 film. This is also at the expense of human characters, several of whom appear only a few times but could have been turned into series regulars to its profit. The one who comes to mind first is Raoul, who appears in two episodes set in New York, a city which is given a certain grotty atmosphere that is ultimately a kid-friendly pastiche of a Scorsese film of that era. He is a product of that particular era in the city’s history and as such he feels rooted in a way that few human characters do. I wish we got more of him. Likewise, I wish we got more of Carly, the girl who eventually gets romantically involved with Sam Witwicky but is ultimately both more intelligent and more daring than he is (it’s why, after finishing the first two seasons, I came to see how Dark of the Moon was a massive character assassination on Carly. She is far too interesting a character to be reduced to eye candy).

Another reason the show has endured as long as it has is the voice actors. Peter Cullen and Frank Welker are legends for a reason, after all, and the voice actors more generally are one of two groups of people involved in the production of this show who are clearly giving it their all. It can be very surprising to see how certain actors provided so many voices; both the rasping voice of Megatron and the breathy voice of Soundwave are both Welker! All of these voices are unique, all capable of giving their characters a vibe, which provides a certain depth.

The other group of people who clearly gave a shit about their jobs are the composers. There were but two of them: Johnny Douglas and Robert J. Walsh, who produced the wide variety of background music in the series. What struck me, looking on from forty years in the future, is how much of it is orchestral. You’d think that your giant transforming robot show would have a lot of synthesizers, more electronic music, to go with the artificial nature of the protagonists. There is some of that, yes, but for the first two seasons the score is overwhelmingly recorded via orchestra, which felt like a sixties World War II movie - tell me this doesn’t sound like something out of the golden age of those films. There are even leitmotifs! There are bits for triumph, and for planning, and for panic. The spacier third season changed this, halfway through, to a soundtrack with more synthesizers that quoted liberally from the score of the 1986 movie, which worked for the pulpier feel (the particular sound of the old score just felt out of place in the new setting, feeling less John Williams and more Ernest Gold).

I didn’t binge this show and I think that was the right call; I watched one or two episodes a day, mostly, with the exception of multi-episode events which I watched the whole way through in one sitting. These older series, with less connective tissue between episodes (and frankly a raft of continuity issues), benefit from letting the characters stay in your mind a while, so that the underlying repetitive structures don’t become too obvious. I started in January and ended in April, and remained mostly consistent to the one episode per day rule. It became a ritual I looked forward to, for as long as it lasted.

And this, of course, brings us to the movie, and what a movie it is. The movie is the first two seasons of the show, but more epic - better animation, better voice acting, better writing (none perfect, mind you, but definitely on a higher plane). It’s a better movie than it is a toy commercial, seeing how Hasbro treated its characters like the disposable toys they thought they were, rather than the beloved icons of childhood the children in question did. And so, the deaths of Optimus Prime and so many other stalwarts of the cartoon were decreed with no thought to the fact that people actually loved them, to be replaced with shiny new toys with not enough writing done to make them lovable.

(in fairness to them, Hasbro has tried to make up for it)

I had watched the movie on VHS as a kid several times without the benefit of familiarity with the series before it; now that I have, I realized what I was missing. The conflict between the Autobots and the Decepticons in those early seasons is a conflict fought under conditions of utter scarcity; their wars are fundamentally for fuel, regularly raiding power plants and the like for the bare necessities of their continued existence. There is a sparseness to those seasons that doesn’t really come into relief until you compare them with the movie, which begins with a lush view at a fully functional Autobot base on the moons of Cybertron with the stated intention of soon liberating the planet from the clutches of the Decepticons. The music in that sequence, a soaring number by Vince DiCola, is designed to highlight the awe of this new state of affairs, the rough-and-tumble Ark of the series replaced with Cybertronian civilization in its resplendent glory. The same goes for Autobot City, which is more detailed than anything that came before it, and the battle for that city is a crowning achievement of the franchise.

I have a vivid memory of watching this movie as a kid and finding the Quintessons to be terrifyingly fascinating, all through that one scene where Kup and Hot Rod are thrown to the sharkticons. The way that these various scary faces coexist around a central bulb with tentacles, each a personality that bickers with the others, lodged itself in my mind and never really let go. That’s why I found the way the Quintessons were portrayed in the third season to be so disappointing; none of them get a name, none of them really get a personality, and as such they are just sort of a blob.

After the movie, the third season felt like a step down. The movie wasn’t free of animation errors but neither did it look as shoddy as the rest of the cartoon could look. The third season, the one that is the most openly space opera, looks all too fake. This is unfortunate, as the upgraded animation of the movie really sold the vastness of space and therefore the vastness of the story, something that the third season is lacking. You have the growing pains of the new cast; this season has a strong idea for a cast dynamic, with the rookie Rodimus Prime contrasting the experienced, firm-handed Optimus, while leading and serving the more experienced Kup and Ultra Magnus. There’s also one of the few female transformers, Arcee, and the first to be a major part of the cast. Not unlike Avatar: the Last Airbender, Rodimus’ arc is about the burdens of being the chosen one.

In terms of deeper themes, there are two major ones beyond the obvious one of “buy Transformers toys.” Much of this show, if you think about it for a bit, is about anxieties regarding the nature of industrial civilization as something capable of both great accomplishment but also great destruction. This becomes very obvious when you consider the Constructicons; I find it very telling that construction vehicles were chosen to be Decepticons. All six of them have vehicle modes that can be used to create things, oftentimes good things, but together they can combine into a gigantic robot literally named Devastator. This suggests a dialectical relationship between the positive and negative aspects of the second industrial revolution; that which creates can also devastate.

There’s one particular episode in the earlier part of the second season that has a heavy subtext about this, namely The Master Builders. In this episode, Autobots Grapple and Hoist, who turn into a crane and a tow truck, respectively, are possessed by the idea of building a solar power collection device, and in the process of doing so are offered help by aforementioned Constructicons, who claim to have defected. The episode bounces between these two groups, one building for altruistic reasons and the other building for sinister reasons. Again and again, you are confronted with their fundamental similarity. The difference is the choices they make with their awesome powers of creation. Throughout this episode, I was reminded of The Bridge on the River Kwai, particularly the character of Nicholson, played by Alec Guinness, the British engineer captured by the Japanese whose love of building is harnessed by his captor and used against his own people. Both Nicholson and the two Autobots are entranced by the act of creation, but refuse to think about on whose behalf they are creating, and to the detriment of their own.

The other big thematic category that appears a lot in this show is the cost of warfare on the environment and on the combatants. The conflict between the Autobots and Decepticons is a resource war for their own survival. Their sustenance is energon, and energon can be created from terrestrial sources of energy, such as oil or hydroelectric power. A surprisingly high percentage of episodes in the first two seasons are about raids on power plants and the like, and the results are always destructive to the environment around them. One episode has the Insecticons running roughshod over Indonesia, and another features Constructicons drilling into the Earth’s core. Both sides of this war are concerned with survival, but they differ in what they are willing to justify in its name.

I finished this show with an understanding of just why this toyline became a cultural juggernaut. When you get down to it, the show is simply fun, and in a way that creates a universe that feels like it could be endlessly explored. It’s rough around the edges, yes, and it’s a bit janky, yes, but by the end I found it quite charming if you can stomach something which was obviously created to sell toys. By the end of the last episode, there was part of me, somewhat surprisingly, that was sad it was over.

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POSTED BY: Alex Wallace, alternate history buff who reads more than is healthy

Film Review: Toy Story 5

A treasure trove of worthy ideas wasted in a movie that has no reason to exist

In Toy Story 5, our girl Bonnie receives a computer tablet that now consumes all her waking hours, and the toys are worried that they’re going to be abandoned. Jealousy and misunderstandings ensue. I think it’s time to ask in what year the Toy Story universe is set, because if anyone at Pixar has kids, they should have noticed that the preoccupations explored in this newest film in the franchise have been discussed and analyzed to death since literally the last century, and this plot adds no fruitful arguments to the conversation.

Traditional toys worried that they’ll be replaced by a newer, shinier electronic toy was the plot of the first Toy Story, back in 1995. Just one year later, the world saw the launch of Tickle Me Elmo, the Tamagotchi, the Game Boy Pocket, the Nintendo 64, the Palm Pilot, and the Yahoo Kids portal. Then, in 1997, came the Tetrix Robotics Kit and the Digimon (the virtual pets, not yet the TV show). And in 1998 came Betty Spaghetty, LEGO Ninja, Imaginext, and the Furbies. All that happened before there even was a Toy Story 2, which had nothing to say about the Tamagotchi and its cousins.

So who is the intended audience of Toy Story 5? If it’s the nostalgic fans of the first film, it’s absurdly late to say anything about electronic toys to viewers who already moved on from the death of their Tamagotchis. If it’s today’s children, this film has nothing useful to say to them either, given that what they have to deal with is Minecraft giving them malware that can steal their data, Fortnite pressuring them to spend more and more on loot boxes, Roblox serving them on a silver platter to pedophiles, and ChatGPT teaching them how to kill themselves. This movie makes a big gesture of concern for the dangers of digital entertainment for children, but it shows no awareness of what those dangers are.

I’m not saying that the Toy Story franchise has used up its potential. But it needs to make a more serious effort to stay relevant. For example, toys in this universe are cursed with immortality, accumulating lists of past owners across generations. So there are much more interesting stories that could be told with this lore. The new gadget in Toy Story 5 is a supposedly kid-friendly tablet computer, and because toys have sentience, this computer can take its own initiative to use its browser, email, chat or camera functions, acting as an agentic AI without constraints. With that character there’s a lot that could say about today’s AI craze.

Or consider the small army of Buzz Lightyear dolls that are set loose on the world at the start of the movie and eventually learn that the sole purpose for their existence is to play with kids. Why can’t one of those toys wonder whether maybe there’s more to life? Barbie, of all things, did a deeper exploration of the meaning of a toy’s life than Toy Story 5 (and the fascinating questions raised by Forky from Toy Story 4 are completely forgotten in 5).

It seems that toys in the Toy Story universe are expected to resign themselves to a life of unquestioned subservience, much like the robots in Star Wars. Jessie the Cowgirl, who takes a more central role in 5, laments the fact that children grow up and forget their old toys (and makes the laughably boomer-coded observation that those new digital gadgets are making them grow up too quickly), but even after going through an extended reflection on the pain of repeated abandonment, she doesn’t question her assigned function, and even considers it an honor to be used as a literal plaything for an unknown number of lifetimes.

The core ethos of Toy Story may be the heart-warming “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” but friendship happens between equals, and the dynamic between a child and a toy that can never reveal it’s actually sentient is far from equal. All the fanciful imaginary adventures that the toys enact are decided by the child, with the toys forced to go along with them. Once you really give it some thought, where’s the fun, let alone the honor, in such a life?

Toy Story 5’s solution to Bonnie’s difficulty in adjusting to digital culture is to find her a new human friend who also likes traditional toys and doesn’t bully her on a public chat. That’s a more reasonable narrative choice than a flat “machines bad,” but it implies that a whole swath of “kids bad” is left unexamined. Sure, hurray for the handful of kids still interested in playing with toys, who would otherwise face the existential horror of immortality inside a shoe box, but when it comes to the many, many more kids whose playtime consists of interminable sessions of Candy Crush or Angry Birds or whatever it is that today’s kids are into, the movie just gives up on them.

The safety of children in the digital world is a very real concern, and Toy Story 5 doesn’t have anything to say on the matter that rises above tired Black Mirror-level platitudes. If you want a good animated movie about the absurdities of electronic life, try Ralph Breaks the Internet. That one’s from 2018, and the points it makes feel more relevant than this year’s Toy Story 5. Try to keep up, Pixar.

Nerd Coefficient: 5/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Anime of the Year Finalists 2026

A strong year for drama yields an intriguing collection of finalists for Crunchyroll’s 2026 Anime of the Year.

2025 was a big year for intense dramas and powerful character explorations in the anime world. The finalists for Anime of the Year, for the most part, reflect this change of focus through an eclectic collection of nominees. Three returning popular series: 2025 nominee The Apothecary Diaries (Season 2), 2025 nominee Dandadan (Season 2), and the long awaited finale of My Hero Academia (The Final Season) face off against three very unique and intense newcomer stories: Gachiakuta, The Summer Hikaru Died, and Takopi’s Original Sin, all competing for the 2026 title of Anime of the Year.

The Apothecary Diaries - Season Two

In its second straight year of being nominated in the top category, The Apothecary Diaries had another strong year building on the momentum of the first season. In an ancient China inspired setting, seventeen year old apothecary Maomao is kidnapped and sold into indentured servitude in the rear palace, the residence for the emperor’s various concubines. Although she decides to keep a low profile and serve out her time, her high intelligence and curiosity get noticed by the gorgeous head eunuch, nineteen year old Jinshi, who promotes Maomao and gets her help to solve a string of palace mysteries and murders. In season two we get the long awaited official revelation of Jinshi’s true identity as well as the culmination of a major political upheaval along with some disturbing family history. There is a faster pace in this season’s storytelling with plenty of action added to the puzzle box mysteries for Maomao to solve, and the season turns up the heat on the continuing slow burn romance between the lead characters.

Dandadan - Season Two

Dandadan Season Two is a slight change of pace from Season One, giving us a single cohesive action story arc and less of the strange sexual humor. Season One of this supernatural comedy adventure explored the origin stories of nerdy teen Ken, nicknamed Okarun, who gets possessed by supernatural powers that create an alter ego super version of himself when needed. And we meet his new friend, outgoing Momo who learns the secrets of her very youthful grandma’s supernatural talents and her family’s connection to the spirit world. Together Okarun and Momo work to fight curses and demons while still making time for school and their awkward budding romance. Eventually, another classmate, the self absorbed Aira, and later Momo’s kindhearted childhood friend Jiji join them in their demon fighting adventures, creating a more defined supernatural squad. Season two involves the group’s attempt to deal with an evil possession in Jiji’s home. The season long story arc has great fight scenes, a poignant backstory for the antagonist, and a very creepy villainous demon/ghost family. While season one alternated jarringly between outrageous slapstick comedy and the profound, tragic backstories of the various demons, Season Two has more even pacing with a single direct adventure, along with lots of teambuilding and character introspection woven into the action. Overall, it’s an enjoyable adventure (in many ways more enjoyable than season one) but less intensely philosophical compared the rest of the nominees for Anime of the Year.

My Hero Academia – Final Season

The long running anime, My Hero Academia, came to a satisfying end in 2025. After starting out as a kid-friendly, colorful, optimistic, sometimes silly, action-adventure, the series gradually became more intense and powerful in the later seasons with plenty of onscreen tragedy, moral gray areas, family drama, and deep societal questions. After years of increasing tension between the heroes and the villains and the rest of society, the final season of MHA did not disappoint. The ending story arc featured an intense and gorgeously animated dual showdown between idealistic Deku and the tragic villain Tomura, as well as the angry, loudmouth young hero Bakugo versus the sociopathic villain, All For One. Additionally, the final episode of the series delivered an unexpectedly thoughtful and powerful message on what it means to truly be a hero in everyday life. The final season was the total package of action, sacrifice, camaraderie, and meaningful messaging, making it a sentimental favorite as the long-running story comes to an end.

Gachiakuta

Newcomer Gachiakuta was the breakout new show of the year. The debut anime featured familiar story elements reimagined through a unique setting with stylish animation, heavy social symbolism, and diverse characters. Gachiakuta is the story of Rudo an outcast orphan from an elevated world, who is unjustly sentenced to death for murder and thrown to his death into the deadly, garbage covered surface world below. However, he unexpectedly survives the fall into the toxic atmosphere and is rescued by the charismatic Enjin who convinces Rudo to grudgingly joins a group of specially gifted people who destroy monsters and fight raiders in the world’s wasteland and allow communities to be created in the dismal surface landscape. The debut season of Gachiakuta, had lots of action, likeable found-family dynamics, stylish character design, and outrageously appealing characters including the antagonists. The story balances traditional shonen action with intense and tragic stories, along with diverse characters and plenty of real world symbolism. The grunge vibe and edgy visuals made it no surprise that Gachiakuta landed an Anime of the Year nomination.

The Summer Hikaru Died

In a complete change of pace, The Summer Hikaru Died forgoes the usual action adventure and delivers a slow paced physical and psychological horror. The Summer Hikaru Died tells the story of Yoshiki, a quiet teen boy whose outgoing best friend Hikaru disappears from their rural community. When his friend returns some time later, Yoshiki is the only one who realizes that the returned person is not the same Hikaru. The story leans into quiet horror elements with sleek, hypnotic animation, as well as the creepy elements of a small village which is isolated and surrounded by supernatural vibes. The series uses thoughtful storytelling and unusual visual symbolism to explore psychological terror as well as the growing, intimate but dysfunctional connection between the two boys. The Summer Hikaru Died is a standout series for its uniquely creepy plot, unusual animation, and quietly clever story execution.

Takopi’s Original Sin

The last finalist for Anime of the Year is the very bleak and disturbing Takopi’s Original Sin. This short series packs a lot of emotional damage into only six episodes. It joins shows like The Promised Neverland that are cute-looking and child-centered but are not appropriate for young children due to the anime’s violent nature. Takopi is a round, pink, bouncy, cheerful, naïve alien who believes its mission is to bring “happiness” through its various magical gadgets. It encounters Shizuka, a physically bullied and meek grade schooler. Takopi’s superficial attempts to cheer her up lead to an unexpectedly tragic outcome. Confused, Takopi rewinds time to change the outcome which leads to more unexpected occurrences. Through the course of the series, we learn more about the backstory of the bullied girl Shizuka, her cruel abuser classmate Marina, and about Azuma, a stressed out young boy who is a mutual acquaintance. As the title implies, there is also another layer of culpability on the part of the irritatingly cheerful and naïve Takopi that is eventually revealed. All of the child characters experience various forms of cruelty from their parents and from each other and gradually descend into increasing physically and psychologically tragic behavior despite their own victimization. Despite moments of redemption and hope, the story is intense, bleak, and full of trigger warnings and is a surprise finalist given its unusual content.

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The nominees for Crunchyroll’s Anime of the Year are, for the most part, a surprising change of pace from the usual shonen adventures. Noticeably absent from the nominations are two of last year’s nominees, including Kaiju No. 8, which had an entertaining but less strong second season, and last year’s winner, Solo Leveling which delivered more of the same escalating adventure in its second season. A perfect fit for this year’s drama-focused collection would have been the always evocative Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, but Frieren’s second season released in 2026, past the cut off point for this category. Overall, this year’s nominees, for the most part, represent a general shift towards intense drama and philosophical explorations rather than primarily action adventure. The collection provides anime fans looking for something more psychologically intense with some solid choices for their future viewing.

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POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

Film Review: Scarlet

Something is rotten in the state of human hearts

If I had known in advance how the anime film Scarlet would handle its topic of obsessive revenge, I would have made this post a Double Feature with Redux Redux, because both stories use the devices of their respective genres in a visceral manner to demonstrate the self-destructive poison that is revenge.

Scarlet is a gender-flipped retelling of Hamlet that sends the princess of Denmark to an endless limbo when she accidentally drinks a cup of poison sent by her treacherous uncle before she had a chance to avenge the late king. In that barren landscape of sorrow and regret, she learns that her uncle has also died, so she embarks on a quest to walk across the vast land of the dead to find him and make him pay.

If you’ve ever wondered whether Prince Hamlet should have been more decisive in carrying out his revenge plan, Scarlet answers that that was never the issue. Being quicker to punish his uncle would still have played into the narrative conventions of a tragedy, and the thing about tragedies is that the only person you succeed at punishing is yourself. In that intermediate realm between Earth and the Great Beyond, Princess Scarlet fights waves of assassins sent to make her spirit dissolve into nothing. By willingly adopting the role of tragic heroine, by refusing to abandon her one-woman war, Scarlet has built her own hell.

Interestingly, there’s an element of cosmic retribution at play too, a remote, speechless character who takes the form of a celestial dragon and imparts punishment without the distortion of human passions. This addition to Hamlet lore makes Scarlet resemble the Greek Oresteia, where the impartial, impersonal judgment of the state is introduced to put an end to the self-perpetuating cycle of bloodshed that always results from private vendettas. However, in the case of Scarlet, this replacement is not associated with the state but with a more universal sense of justice, with death as the great equalizer.

Learning this lesson takes Scarlet a long, painful journey over beautifully designed scenery that almost steals the spotlight from the story’s heavy themes. We follow Scarlet through deserts and mountains and oceans that take the breath away with their sublime immensity. Even if the plot’s structure sometimes feels too streamlined and easy, the level of visual artistry more than makes up.

Because the other side has a loose relationship with time, Scarlet is joined by a random newcomer: a recently dead paramedic from present-day Japan, who strangely insists on bandaging every lost soul he meets, including Scarlet’s enemies. Even as she slashes and stabs her way through the land of the dead, he follows close behind, providing comfort to those you’d think are beyond hope. His example turns out to be crucial to her choices at the end of the film: the thing at stake is not only the punishment for the usurper king, but the fate of Denmark. Through this paramedic, Scarlet gets a glimpse of a time (which from her standpoint is the future) when people no longer butcher each other in eternal spirals of hatred. This being a Japanese production, it’s easy to perceive a subtextual allusion to the discussion on the remilitarization of the Japanese state. Can we have a future without more bloodshed? Can we escape this interminable journey between corpses and vengeful spirits?

We don’t have to renounce the entire idea of justice. But if death comes for all, it doesn’t need our help. We can face evil, even punish evil, without punishing ourselves.

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Anime Review: Sentenced to Be a Hero

An intriguing fantasy premise that would benefit from deeper character development

The Winter 2026 Anime season was loaded with the return of major heavy hitters from the past including Jujutsu Kaisen, Frieren, Fire Force, and Hell’s Paradise. This powerhouse lineup made it hard for new shows to stand out. But, Sentenced to Be a Hero arrived as a debut anime with lots of promise, in both its premise and its animation style. The initial concept was unique and the character design was appealing. While the show is entertaining, it’s hard to say why this promising story doesn’t land as a mega-hit the way one would expect, especially since it seems to check the boxes for a fantasy adventure anime.

Sentenced to Be a Hero is set in a magic medieval like world where knights (soldiers), under the direction of the local military and religious leaders, battle hordes of monstrous creatures (demons) to protect civilians from destruction. The knights are periodically helped by magical creatures known as “goddesses” who have special powers. The series is primarily the story of Xylo Forbartz, a heroic knight who falls into disgrace when he is betrayed in battle and falsely accused of murdering his partner goddess. He tries to explain the circumstances of the goddess’s death but it’s clear the trial is rigged. Instead of being simply executed, he is sentenced to serve as a “hero.” In this culture, “heroes” are executed convicted criminals who are magically brought back to life and forced to protect the kingdom. Since they are convicted criminals, they are looked down on by other knights and by the local people. Each hero is sealed by a spell that grants them miserable immortality. In the event that they are killed they are brought back to life to continue fighting and suffering. However, each reanimation strips them of memories and their humanity.

Xylo is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to an eternity of servitude basically doing the kind of work he was doing when he was a holy knight. However, the heroes have minimal resources and are given the most dangerous assignments including suicide missions. Although they can move around and still exist as seemingly normal humans, they are controlled by seals around their necks and must comply with orders or face a painful death and reanimation. Xylo heads a ragtag team of other convicted heroes, including the fearful thief Dotta, the con-artist Venetim, the slightly unhinged killer Tsav, and the mentally unstable Tatsuya. There is also, Norgalle a strong, older fighter, who lives under a delusion that he is a benevolent king. Dotta stumbles upon and steals a box containing a new immature goddess Teoritta. Teoritta insists on forging a pact with Xylo despite his reluctance due to his prior bad experience with his previous goddess. However, when an attack by swarms of demons puts hundreds of military lives at risk, he capitulates and accepts her help. He and his ragtag team of enslaved heroes are forced to assist a squad of knights under the leadership of Captain Kivia, a woman who initially distrusts Xylo but eventually becomes a grudging ally. The rest of the series focuses on various battles and rescue missions involving the growing demon horde and the search for the various demon lords who control them. Along the way we are introduced to more members of Xylo’s team who apparently don’t always fight together, including dragon rider, Jayce and creepy, overly polite soldier Rhyno. Eventually, we learn the story of how several members of team became trapped as heroes. In almost all of the cases, the heroes are sentenced unjustly as part of a corrupt government cover up. Manipulating all of this drama are shady religious leaders, undercover demons, and local demon sympathizers who are happy to betray humanity.

Although each member of Xylo’s team has a distinct name and an overtly referenced personality type (thief, con-artist, killer, dragon-rider), I often found myself double checking who was being referred  when a name was mentioned. The supporting characters were conceptually interesting, but in the execution of the story, they seemed underdeveloped and not fully emotionally engaging. Unlike other anime where the side characters are essential to understanding the main protagonist, these supporting characters are mostly limited in terms of evoking emotions from the viewers. Even Xylo himself doesn’t reveal much about his backstory (family, upbringing, childhood trauma) and doesn’t meaningfully evolve over the very short season. Xylo is grumpy, understandably cynical, and pragmatic. He is paired with the newly birthed “goddess” Teoritta who is sunshiny, childlike, and egotistically optimistic. Even though she is called a goddess, Teoritta is basically still a person and vulnerable to being killed despite her magical powers. Teoritta is distinctly portrayed as childlike and not as a romantic interest. She is similar to Sylph, Yuno’s bossy, possessive, sprite-like wind spirit companion in Black Clover. Her personality is a contrast to the general serious vibe of the other characters. Teoritta and the other goddesses rely on praise to bring meaning to their lives and she is constantly asking praise from Xylo who is initially belligerent to her in a classic grumpy-sunshine trope. Xylo and the supporting characters are likeable but underdeveloped and the series relies more on the political plot than the interpersonal relationships to tell the story

Battling demons to save humanity is a story that has been done often, including in shows like Black Clover, Fire Force, Frieren, and even Bleach. Sentenced to Be a Hero revisits this popular story concept with a fresh premise of the forced sentenced heroes. But once the story gets rolling, the ultimate execution still feels like something we’ve seen before. As such, it is reasonably entertaining but not as innovative and uniquely engaging as it could be. Most major and popular anime have a moment that builds a surprising emotional connection with the viewers through a poignant moment, a tearjerker scene, a stunning moment of battle, a unique character introspection, or at least powerful and inspiring character camaraderie. Those elements are mostly missing from Sentenced to be a Hero. Fortunately, towards the end of this very short season, there are some big revelations and surprising developments that help make up for the intervening flat moments. Ironically, the person with the biggest character arc is the initially antagonistic Kivia, as she experiences a major shift in her worldview. Xylo primarily only evolves onscreen in terms of his treatment of Teoritta, as he gradually grows more protective of her when he realizes how many people want to hurt her. Surprisingly, one of the other best characters, is Frenci, Xylo’s former fiancé who is clever, cynical, and loyal to Xylo. Her status as fiancé also indirectly provides some abstract insight into Xylo’s prior life.

Beyond these small insights, Xylo, remains mainly stoic, vacillating mostly from annoyance to irritation. It’s not until around the seventh episode that we see him actually smiling. His perpetual baseline of irritation makes sense given the premise that the heroes are generally like inmates, not friends, and are not very emotionally connected to each other. That kind of emotionless presentation may make sense for the story concept, but it is hard to pull off without risking disconnect. Frieren is an example of a show with an initially stoic protagonist. However, over time she became a much more complex character. Solo Leveling is another series with little emotional content or fleshed out characters, but it still manages to be entertaining due to the intense and creative video game inspired action. The battles and victories in Sentenced to be a Hero are often overshadowed by the pervasive sense of injustice that are an inherent part of the corruption story. Fortunately, there are a few positive moments of inspiration where the townspeople show appreciation and even Xylo has a moment of surprise at being shown gratitude. 

Overall, Sentenced to be a Hero is a reasonably entertaining show that has a unique initial premise. But the overall plot feels familiar and the characters are underdeveloped in a way that risks disengagement, despite some dramatic moments in the series. Diving deeper into the characters in the future would be a risk that could be worth the payoff, especially given the short season.

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The Math

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10

Highlights:

• Unique and intriguing premise
• Little character development or story energy
• Complicated list of characters navigating a familiar plot structure in short season

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

Film Review: Hoppers

Totally not like Avatar. It’s both more and less than that

The core conflict of Hoppers is fairly standard kid movie drama: protecting a piece of nature before a heartless urbanizer paves over it. What’s not so standard is the movie’s gimmick: a new mind transfer technology that lets humans pilot animal-shaped robot bodies to communicate with real animals. This invention could be used to convince the local fauna to retake the landscape they’ve been pushed out of. As soon as the protagonist learns about this machine, she makes the inevitable connection to the Avatar franchise. The inventor of this technology protests that there’s no resemblance to Avatar, but by that point in the conversation, the viewer is already primed to think of that connection and read Hoppers in the context of what Avatar has tried (and failed) to say.

To recap: in the setting of Avatar, humans have found an exomoon rich in resources that Earth wants, but there’s also intelligent life for whose culture those resources carry sacred significance. Humans invent a technology that lets them inhabit native-looking bodies so they can infiltrate the local society and persuade it to trade. As early as the first movie, humans realize that the natives don’t want anything from Earth and aren’t willing to give up their sacred spaces. So humans opt for war. One human defects and starts fighting on the side of the natives against Earth forces. Rinse and repeat for the next two movies.

The first major difference that can be noticed between Avatar and Hoppers is that in the case of Hoppers the human who infiltrates animal society is already on the animals’ side, which somewhat moots the point the movie is trying to make about the need to put oneself in the position of the threatened party in order to have empathy for their suffering. Our girl Mabel is introduced as a passionate believer in animal liberation since childhood, frustrated with people’s indifference and personally attached to a pristine glade near her grandmother’s house, through which a highway is now being planned. Mabel doesn’t need to be convinced of the importance of protecting the glade, which probably makes her the wrong character to put in a beaver’s body to talk to the other animals and experience life from their perspective.

The second major difference has to do with the type of rights in dispute. Avatar pits two civilizations against each other, which we’re meant to view as having equal worth and capacity for agency; but Hoppers tells a conflict between humans and animals, and those tend to be resolved by purely human decisions. For all the discussion that has emerged about the rights of nature (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here), so far it’s been human activists which push for their recognition, and human tribunals which agree to enshrine them. Avatar points in a different direction, with the pantheistic figure of Eywa taking her own initiative to defend Pandora. However, Eywa is still an impersonal force whose will is hard to discern. Hoppers goes much further. In Hoppers, the animals behave as persons with intentions and agendas of their own. When Mabel walked into the forest under the guise of a beaver, she was hoping to inspire the animals to reoccupy the glade; she wasn’t prepared for a wrathful declaration of retaliatory war.

Which brings us to the third major difference between Avatar and Hoppers: the ethics of the use of force on the resisters’ side. Whereas Avatar views the conflict between Earth and Pandora as a simple matter of who has the bigger guns, Hoppers seems to want to question the practicality of responding to aggression with more aggression, favoring empathetic discussion and teamwork instead. And in general, I favor that approach, because self-reinforcing spirals of violence are very hard to deescalate, but the movie’s moral stance is not kept consistent through the whole plot, because the leader of the animal resistance (a) can’t be reasoned with and (b) ends up being eaten by another animal without consequence. If the movie’s allegory of settler colonialism and the struggle of displaced communities was already strained by the use of animal characters, the way the story ends breaks any useful parallels that could be drawn. You can’t have your antispeciesist cake and eat it too: if you’re going to treat your animal characters as having human-level intelligence and dignity, you can’t just condemn them for the methods of their resistance while dismissing their casual predation as a joke.

Hoppers has its heart in the right place, but the mechanics of its plot are based on a flawed assumption that it never questions: that true empathy requires inhabiting the same body and seeing through the same eyes. Science fiction has already addressed that viewpoint. In the Babylon 5 season 2 episode “Confessions and Lamentations,” a deadly plague threatens the Markab aliens, who are confined to a sealed chamber while a cure is researched. The Minbari ambassador Delenn chooses to join the Markab in their quarantine, which prompts the station commander to chastise her because she’s not a Markab herself. To this she gives the brilliant reply, “I didn't know that similarity was required for the exercise of compassion.”

Right now Pixar is dealing with bigger problems than a confused plot. But perhaps Hoppers is a symptom: it points to a creative team that can’t commit to being too confrontational or too radical or too unyielding. They’re still making pretty-looking movies (although, by past Pixar standards, Hoppers doesn’t show us anything spectacular on that front), but they need to make up their minds about what they want their movies to say.

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Film Review: Arco

Look up and make a wish

First we have the far future. People live on platforms above the clouds, where they practice subsistence farming. With the help of multicolored robes adorned with pretty diamonds, they routinely travel to the prehistoric past to recover samples of usable species; there are hints that something caused an ecological catastrophe that made the surface unlivable. The family we follow has a girl and a boy, but the boy, Arco, is still too young to join the time-traveling expeditions. Because it’s a human universal, even after the end of civilization, that kids have an instinct for getting in trouble, the boy steals a suit and attempts a time jump on his own. As can be expected, he gets lost, and thus we have a movie.

Then we have the not too far future. The environment is still in the middle of falling apart; one day can bring a killer hurricane and the next a massive forest fire, and the solution of rich people is to have retractable glass domes built around their houses. That way you can have your dinner in peace while nature rages outside. The family we follow in this era has a preteen girl, a baby boy and a robot nanny. The parents are perpetually busy at work in some other city, and the girl, Iris, is tired of feeling lonely. So fate fulfills her wishes one day, when Arco crash-lands in her neighborhood.

The plot of the French animated film Arco brings to mind E.T., with the strange visitor hiding in a child’s house until they can return to their parents. The main difference in this case is that Iris and Arco can talk to each other. She’s excited about showing him all the cool things of her modern life, but he’s rather guarded about how much of his time she can be allowed to know. This dynamic only gets a brief time to develop before we have adult authorities, mysterious stalkers and natural disasters converging to get in the way of this adorable pair.

A curious contrast to the beauty of this moment in the kids’ lives is the stunted development of the trio of stalkers who jump out of nowhere to find Arco and obtain proof that time travel is real. They’re introduced as antagonists, but soon enough their clumsiness neutralizes any threat they may pose, and they spend the rest of the movie looking goofy and obstructing our heroes’ quest for no good reason. I hear many viewers enjoyed these characters; I found them mostly annoying.

One feature that stands out about the overall tone of Arco is how obviously it’s not an American or Japanese cartoon. It’s far too common for children in American cartoons to be overly expressive of their emotions, whereas children in Japanese cartoons can sometimes speak with such deep introspection that believability is stretched. The two lead children in Arco come off as more relaxed in their inner life, which makes the stakes feel starker later, when it’s time to panic. The naturality with which they let themselves feel their emotions ends up being key to the gradual way these two start falling in love without having a clue of what romance is.

There’s an element of irony in the suggestion that Arco’s description of the post-disaster world will inspire Iris to get to work to mitigate the disaster that in her time is still ongoing. But her success is more visible in the personal sphere. Her family life is strained because she almost never gets to see her parents, who work a lot to afford the storm-proof house where she lives. When one looks at the family Arco comes from, and the magnitude of the effort it takes for his parents to find him, the implication is that Iris changed a society where parents rarely spend time with their kids into a society where parents move heaven and earth to see them. This side of the story is more impactful than any environmentalist lesson that could be read in the plot. Viewers probably already know the dangers that surround us, so Arco can just show the full extent of the climate crisis without turning preachy; the images suffice.

The gorgeous animation and the careful balancing of tension and humor highlight the small tragedy at the core of the story: two children having a wonderful, one-in-a-lifetime experience whose full meaning they can’t yet grasp. They just know something special is happening to them, and they don’t have a name for it, and it will take them decades of growth to appreciate those fleeting days of magic. The part of the movie’s ending that is happy gives both Iris and Arco a blunt reminder of the cruelty of time, a hard truth that not even time travel can fix. That’s the thing about growing up: if it tastes bittersweet, you’re doing it right.

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Anime Review: Spy x Family: Season 3

Spy x Family returns for a bold, emotional, and action packed season 3.

Anime seasons ebb and flow, with some seasons feeling slower and others being absolutely amazing. After an uneven second season, everyone’s favorite fake family has returned in fierce form for an action-filled and emotion packed Season 3. The latest stories of super-spy Loid, lethal assassin Yor, mind-reader Anya, (and clairvoyant dog Bond), are poignant, stressful, and very entertaining.

Spy x Family takes place in Ostania, a fictional 1960’s style country in a cold war with its enemy, the neighboring Westalis. To prevent another devastating war between the neighboring countries, a cynical Westalis super-spy (Agent Twilight) is ordered to spy on an extremely reclusive Ostanian political party leader. The only way to do this is to enroll a child in the elite Ostanian private school that the political leader’s son attends. To create the required fake family, the spy takes on the fabricated identity of psychiatrist Loid Forger and adopts young Anya from an orphanage but is unaware that the child is a telepath. He then meets Yor, a sweet and kind city hall clerk who needs a fake marriage to help with her own job security because, in Ostania, single women over a certain age are often suspected of being spies or insurgents. Unbeknownst to Loid, his new wife Yor is secretly an elite assassin. Yor is genuinely kind when she’s not killing people at her night job, but she is a little clueless when it comes to normal life and she is unaware that mild-mannered Loid is a super-spy. 

Only telepathic Anya knows the truth about her adoptive parents’ true identities but, thanks to her obsession with violent crime tv shows, Anya finds Loid’s and Yor’s hidden occupations to be very exciting. After a wild adventure, the family adopts a clairvoyant dog they name Bond but only Anya can sense Bond’s premonitions about the future. Rounding out the cast are Anya’s grade school classmates, Damian, the political target’s young son, and Becky, a pampered but friendly heiress. We also meet Franky, the comic relief informant, and we meet Yor’s stressed out younger brother Yuri, whom she helped raise after their parents died. Unbeknownst to Yor, her brother is a member of the secret police who is suspicious of Loid. Because Loid, Yor, and Anya are all orphans, the show emphasizes the importance of both biological and chosen family ties. The balance of cuteness and violence is what sets the story apart, especially with a cast of funny supporting characters, all with 1960’s fashionable clothing and a cool retro setting. 

Season 3 has three primary story arcs. The first and strongest arc is the long awaited deep dive into Loid’s backstory. Throughout the series, we are reminded that “Loid” is a fake name for the spy “Twilight” which a fake name for a person whose true identity remains a mystery, even to viewers. Like Sai in Naruto Shippuden, Loid/Twilight has lost his original identity and takes on a new transient persona for every job. Also like Sai, Loid begins to change when he takes on a role in his new found family that reignites his long hidden emotions. But who was Loid before he accepted his life of deception? Other than a few fleeting flashes of a crying child, we know nothing about Loid other than that he suffered the devastation of war. Over a series of beautifully written episodes in Season 3, we learn about Loid’s creative childhood friends, his harsh father, his protective mother, and the idyllic town in which he was born. Without revealing his or his parents’ names, the story shows us how he went from being a playful imaginative boy to being a war orphan, then a jaded soldier (including a poignant early encounter with his current informant Franky), and eventually accepting recruitment into the spy program. After losing everything he loved, he learns to be distrustful of others and to use deceit to survive. However, despite the repeated negative impressions of the Ostonians who attacked his country, it is ironic to see how close and protective he has become of his make-believe Ostonian family. 

The second major story is a terrorist hijacking of Anya’s school bus. Conveniently for the plot, Loid and Yor are unavailable to help, which means this story is focused on Anya and her school crew who are on their own against a violent group of hostage takers. Unlike Loid’s backstory arc, the hijacking episodes have lots of traditional Spy x Family humor notwithstanding the tense premise. Despite the weapons pointed at her, Anya’s mindreading gives her an upper hand with the kidnappers as does Damian’s grumpy bravery and protectiveness, and Becky’s cleverness and loyalty. But the key to cracking the situation occurs when Anya discovers tragedy involving the main hijacker’s daughter and her involvement in a political protest. This gut-punch of sadness sits in sharp contrast to the primary humor and adventure tone of the story. 

The third major story is the spy conflict that ultimately pits Loid against his brother-in-law Yuri in a tense battle of wits and fists. Loid’s Westalis spy agency is betrayed by a double agent who steals their information and plans to sell that data, including the identity of their agents, to Ostania. Loid is ordered to stop the traitor before he makes it to his meeting with the Ostanian secret police. Unfortunately, Yor’s brother Yuri is part of the squad meeting the traitor and he is on the lookout for the famous spy Twilight to make his move. After much speculation throughout the series, we finally see Loid and Yuri facing each other in their true spy versus secret police personas. The result is intense and fast paced excitement with just enough family drama and irony to tie it together. 

A shorter but still funny mini-story is the introduction of Damian’s seemingly cheerful mother, Melinda whose encounter with Yor leads to a day of fun in which Yor repeatedly and inadvertently shows off her superhuman strength. However, in the hijacking arc we later find out that Melinda’s cheerful exterior hides disturbing thoughts and emotions towards her mostly neglected son. 

A common thread throughout the third season is the importance of family in all of its various forms. A second, less endearing theme, is the harm caused by authoritarian regimes and political machinations. Spy x Family’s premise is modeled on regimes that are politically repressive. Yor was originally willing to accept the fake marriage because being a single woman makes her look suspicious in their society. However, in Season 3 we truly get to see how repressive a society Ostania is. We also finally get to see Yor’s brother Yuri in action as an agent of the Ostanian Secret Police. His single-minded dedication to the government is unsettling, especially since it is the same government that puts people at risk just for being “different.” Overall, Season 3 of Spy x Family has the strongest storytelling thus far. It dives into difficult subjects and pauses the humor long enough to do those moments justice. But there are still moments of the traditional Spy x Family dark comedy, especially with Anya having to navigate a dangerous situation with the help of her elite school classmates instead of her super powered parents. This combination of intense storytelling and complex emotions make Season 3 of Spy x Family the strongest so far.

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The Math

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Highlights:

• Tragic and poignant backstory
• Big themes of family and political machinations
• Strongest storytelling so far

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

TV Review: The Legend of Lara Croft, Season 2

The gods watch over humans, but who watches the watchers?

Previously on The Legend of Lara Croft, we saw Lara learn to stop trying to save the world on her own and rely more on her allies. In season 2, we see her take that lesson to an unreasonable extreme and rely too quickly on a stranger who is obviously wearing a blinking neon sign that says, “Villain of the Season.”

This new antagonist, a rich entrepreneur named Mila, describes herself as being in the business of saving the world. To most people, that lofty goal takes the form of selling a new form of plastic that degrades more quickly. But in secret, she’s behind a series of thefts of religious relics, because her idea of saving the world is amassing enough supernatural power to press Delete and Reboot on reality. That’s why she’s collecting the Dragon Balls—sorry, the Infinity Gems—sorry, the Orisha Masks: with the magic of all the Yoruba gods, she’ll become an uncontested force to deal with.

This plot sets for itself a very unstable tightrope to walk. Lara is still the star of the show, so she has to be the one to try to stop Mila from remaking the world. However, as a rich white Brit, she’s a distasteful choice of hero to save Yoruba relics from misuse. Even though the script takes care to have her eschew her late father’s less respectable methods, it still has to avoid portraying her as so ethical that she might come off as a white savior of Yoruba culture.

So the show’s solution is to have its main charater arc happen to someone other than Lara. This time there’s no personal lesson for her to figure out, so she cedes the moral spotlight to a new character: the human incarnation of Eshu, one of the Yoruba gods. At some point in the past, he had a moment of weakness and failed to protect his followers from a colonial invasion, and since then he’s lost his self-confidence and self-respect. On one hand, this is a compelling backstory for a character to deal with. On the other hand, it detracts from the thrill of the season’s climax, because Eshu happens to possess exactly the repertoire of divine superpowers that can immediately stop Mila, so a whole season’s worth of tragic losses could have been avoided if only he’d heard the requisite pep talk a bit sooner. That’s the core weakness of this plot: Eshu could have saved the day any time he chose to. All that was stopping him was low morale.

Because the focus moves away from Lara’s choices, this season doesn’t animate its action scenes in the style of a videogame like the first season did. Lara can’t be the hero in this story, because that would be horrendously problematic, so the role she fulfills is as a catalyst for Eshu’s return to heroism. It’s nice that she shares with him all the personal growth she acquired in the first season, although it feels strange that a god would need that kind of lesson.

In a way, the plot of this season resembles the plot of Eternals: someone is hunting down the gods in the present day, when they’re more or less retired after centuries of watching over humans, and the question implicit in the call to action is whether the human world deserves to be saved. Whereas the first season had humans debating whether divine powers could be trusted, now it’s the gods who debate whether humans can be trusted. That’s a neat way to carry a theme full circle.

One last, welcome addition to the show is the character of Fig, a professional assassin who works for Mila and ends up occupying a niche as Lara’s equal in martial arts. At every exotic location our protagonists visit, Lara has a fight with Fig that tests both of them in skill, strategy and endurance. It’s an exciting tension to follow, and apparently a thread that will be extended into a future season. So  even after searching for treasure in sunk ships, mounting a village’s defense with meteorite armor against modern guns, evading a shark in bloodied waters, and making it alive out of a crumbling Viking fort, there’s still much more to tell in The Legend of Lara Croft.

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

TV Review: The Legend of Lara Croft, Season 1

For what does it profit you to raid all the tombs and forfeit your soul?

With the tiniest lip service to the ethical problems related to tomb raiding, the Netflix animated series The Legend of Lara Croft asks what that kind of life does to a person. Usually, in a Tomb Raider videogame, you’re mostly worried about the right timing of an acrobatic stunt and about the remaining number of bullets in a shotgun when angry dobermans come barking at you. In the show, it’s a given that Lara will succeed at everything, because she’s just that awesome, so the stakes become personal: is tomb raiding a worthy pursuit when it can get your friends killed, when it can attract the worst kind of enemies, when it can become an easy substitute for processing difficult emotions?

The adventure for the first season is nothing exceptional: it’s a globe-trotting quest to collect all the Dragon Balls—sorry, the Infinity Gems—sorry, the Peril Stones before the bad guy does, because if one individual accumulates that much power—I’m sure you’ve fallen asleep by now. For the most part, the adventure is an excuse to boast gorgeously drawn scenery from every corner of the world, including Mesoamerican jungles, Mongolian steppes, Chinese rivers and French catacombs. The quality of the landscape drawing is one of the high points of the show.

Also, it’s fascinating to watch the flow of a videogame narrative play out in television. In every episode, Lara has to solve a puzzle rigged with traps, or fulfill a side quest to find some lost children before the villagers will help her, or jump between areas of a room in a precise sequence, or frantically run around a dinosaur to shoot it dead before it eats her. Some of these sequences are animated to have the “camera” follow Lara’s movements just as if they were happening in the game, and that’s a nice degree of attention to detail.

But what really makes the story interesting is Lara’s inner journey. At the start of the series, one of her traveling companions is killed, and she spends subsequent episodes processing her guilt and learning the difference between protecting her loved ones from the ugliest bits of tomb raiding and pushing them away for fear of losing them. She’s incredibly lucky to have the excellent friends she has, because their support stays unwavering through her worst tantrums. She eventually comes to realize that choosing the tomb raiding lifestyle is something she needs to do for reasons that matter to her, instead of doing it out of loyalty to dead mentors. In particular, she needs to learn to not use her adventures to distract herself from her grief and anger, because that’s the same mistake that the villain makes in his own quest for revenge, so he serves as a dark mirror of what she could become.

So, in between climbing cliffs and dodging bullets and deciphering clues and wrestling crocodiles and sneaking in secret lairs, she has valuable conversations with her allies that help her grow beyond her learned coping style. The messy feelings she harbors about the burden of the Croft name get resolved elegantly when she decides that she doesn’t have to follow the template of how her father defined the Croft legacy: the name belongs to her now, and she gets to define it in her terms.

I don’t know whether the Holy Grail of a good videogame adaptation has been found yet, but The Legend of Lara Croft clears the bar of not sucking. There’s enough dungeoneering for those who like dungeoneering, enough drama for those who like drama, and enough comedy for those who like comedy. Tomorrow we’ll see whether season 2 can stay the course.

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.