Welcome to this week’s Animation Quick look. I’ve spent the last two columns basically praising the hell out of DC animation. It’s awesome. What about Marvel though? Marvel unfortunately has a much more spotty record. Sure more recent stuff like Spectacular Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man and especially Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have all been pretty damn good. But basically up until those recent shows Marvel cartoons were a mixed bag at best. Spider-Man Unlimited tried to build on the successful Spider-Man series that ended in 98, but only lasted one season. Want to know why? Let me relay the plot for you.

Ok we all know J. Jonah Jameson is a first rate asshole and Spider-Man hates him. But his son, John Jameson is a good heroic astronaut, so he and Spider-Man are kind of cool. John Jameson is manning a one-man mission to “Counter-Earth” (wait it gets better), but somehow Carnage and Venom (who are apparently best buddies because reasons) sneak aboard and sabotage the shuttle mid-flight. Spider-Man attempts to stop them and actually fails, but everybody only sees Spider-Man so they blame him thanks to Jameson’s usual blame game tactics. The shuttle is lost and everyone presumes Astronaut Jameson is pretty much done for. Best case scenario he’s trapped on “Counter-Earth” with no way home.

No big deal, right? Spider-Man should just shrug it off and keep protecting New York. He’s dealt with being labeled as criminal and menace for decades, this shouldn’t be a problem. Nope. He somehow gets a job at NASA (they say Jameson pulled some strings, I’d like to know what clout a publisher of one little newspaper has to get a photographer a job at NASA), STEALS A FUCKING SHUTTLE THAT HE SOMEHOW KNOWS HOW TO PILOT (because you know he’s a scientist in one area and it applies to all science somehow) AND GOES OFF TO RESCUE ONE DUDE LEAVING NEW YORK TO THE MERCY OF ALL HIS ARCH ENEMIES. Spider-Man is not someone who goes to other planets, that’s part of his appeal, he’s a fairly earth-bound regular guy. This seems more like a job for the Fantastic Four, I’m pretty sure they even have their own space shuttle. And no one cares when they leave the planet. Hell the planet is usually better off.

But it gets better. You see “Counter-Earth” is different from our Earth. How different you ask? It’s run by furries! With great names like General Ram and Lord Tyger! See some random human from our Earth somehow escaped to Counter-Earth after being sick of all the war and destruction. Because apparently anybody can just go there. He found it to be just as bad (grass is always greener dude), but vows to fix it. How? By making “Bestials”, which are basically animals with human form. How does he even accomplish this? IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW!

Hellloooo ladies…

So this leads to present day Counter-Earth where this douchebag has crowned himself the “High-Evolutionary”, Bestials run things and treat humans like trash, but everything is of course better in his view. To his credit, Spider-Man doesn’t really give a shit and just wants to get John boy and go home. But of course, John is the leader of the human revolution! Because of course some dude who’s been there maybe six months is the leader of the revolution. And both the shuttle Spider-Man came in on and John’s shuttle are trashed. But you say can’t Spider-Man just use his SCIENCE to fix the shuttles? No such luck I’m afraid. So he’s sort of just stuck here. The Bestials don’t really know what to do with him (because thanks to his clever costume, they think he might be a Bestial and apparently they don’t really hunt their own) and he doesn’t join the revolution, remaining a neutral party.

So what does he do? Basically just dick around as far as I can tell. I mean Venom & Carnage are there and up to no good, but he doesn’t know that until several episodes in, and even then doesn’t make defeating these insane criminal mass murderers a priority. He runs into Counter-Earth versions of Green Goblin and Vulture, who are not only heroes (because you know, it’s Counter-Earth, but somehow Kraven is still Kraven) but have even gaudier outfits than their Earth counterparts. And also his has a cape made of webbing. WHY THE HELL DOES HE HAVE A CAPE MADE OF WEBBING?!?

How is this guy the Vulture again? He looks nothing like a vulture…

So yeah in case you haven’t guessed this is an all-around awful show. The “best” thing about it is the animation, which is that exact same Marvel animation that seemed top notch in the 90s, but doesn’t really hold up so well these days. If you want some good Marvel cartoons, stick to anything released in the last 4 or so years, the older stuff either doesn’t hold up or was pretty awful to begin with and Spider-Man Unlimited is a prime example of this.

Final Rating: 1/5-”Sexy” Rat ladies who clearly want to fuck Spider-Man

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Welcome to animation quick look where I watch a few episodes of something animated and tell you if it’s worth your time.

In the year 2022, a hotly anticipated massive MMORPG, Sword Art Online is released and snatched up by gamers around the world. What makes Sword Art Online special is it’s “Nerve Gear” VR helmet, which makes everything feel more real. But once players log in, they find they can’t log out. The batshit insane creator of the game has locked everyone in and nobody can get out until the final level of the game is cleared. Worse yet if someone dies in the game, they die in real life. So noobs are truly fucked.

The show focuses on “Kirito”, who was an early beta tester and has some advanced knowledge, but is also pretty damn good at the game. He and other beta testers are actually outcasts as others think they have inside info they are holding back, which I think is a great angle to go with. Kiriko mainly fancies himself a solo player for this reason. But he has made a few friends, namely Asuna, a skilled swordswoman who is the glaringly obvious love interest, but they work pretty well as a couple so it’s fine.

At it’s base, Sword Art Online has a ton in common with your standard fantasy anime, but the interesting characters and the fact that while it’s a game that everyone should be working together to beat, but people are assholes and that keeps it interesting. I mean seriously, people murder each other in Sword Art Online, knowing that it will kill them in real life. That’s both fucked up and awesome. A guild leader gets murdered because she sold an item and another guild member wanted to keep it. In a video game. Over a fake item for fake money when they should be focused on killing the fake boss so they can get the fuck out of there. That’s human and awesome. Some do it just for fun, which is normal in a regular MMO, but again adds a level of awesome I wouldn’t expect.

To be fair, it’s not all fun and murder. Kirito and assorted friends look for rare items, protect the weak and occasionally remember to beat dungeon bosses so eventually they might get out (it’s been a little over two years in at the point I’m at story-wise). But they also start to like the life they have built in Sword Art Online and the friends they have made and are starting to get torn about what they really want.

Of course there are lingering questions. Namely why did the designer of the game do this? But also, what if there’s a fucking power outage or the internet goes down? And how they hell are their bodies staying alive outside the real world? I suspect we may never get a real answer to even the first question besides the guy being a crazy nutjob, but Sword Art Online still manages to keep me engaged and interested in the virtual world it’s presented and I’d highly recommend it for anyone looking for an entertaining fantasy anime.

Final Rating: 4.5/5-Online Trolls who kill people for reals

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Last week, I reviewed Attack on Titan. It was fantastic but also brutal so admittedly I was looking for something a little lighter. Blood Lad is about Staz, a powerful but extremely lazy vampire. He is the boss of a demon territory, but all he really cares about is stuff from the human world, especially anything from Japan. He obsesses over manga (Japanese comics), video games and action figures and doesn’t particularly care about anything else. He thinks it’s a dream come true when Fuyumi, a human girl from Japan somehow has accidentally wandered into the demon world. Unfortunately it’s not long before she’s killed and becomes a ghost. At that point, Staz decides it’s his duty to revive her. Unfortunately, he has no idea how…

If you haven’t watched much anime, Blood Lad might seem pretty unique based on it’s premise, but really it’s not. It’s the Japanese version of your cookie cutter sitcom. There’s nothing horribly wrong with it, it’s well animated, it’s got a few solid laughs but demons and humans interacting and having separate worlds that interact is an extremely common theme in Japanese anime. The characters have extreme reaction to every single thing. They throw in the usual cute furry sidekick. give girls who are clearly of high school age huge tits and make them unusually sexual with constant references to their breasts and fleeting glimpses of nudity for no reason other than titillating desperate virgins. I don’t have an issue with animated nudity or sexuality and it can be used to comedic effect quite well but this just hammers it over your head again and again in every episode and feels extremely pervy.

And as oppossed to Attack on Titan where I watched a bunch of episodes because I was instantly hooked and wanted to keep watching, I watched about five episodes and figured that was enough. And the series is only ten episodes long. Even five episodes in there is clearly some filler material with Staz’s brother only giving him vital info about resurrecting Fuyumi if he’ll go kill a evil monster on the loose terrifying the various demon territories. What is this, an rpg? It’s not like the brother needs Staz’s help in taking the monster down, he’s more powerful than Staz is. It’s more like he feels it’s beneath him to get involved but he still needs to deal with it anyways (that does lead to one really good joke about Staz initially saying no because he just doesn’t give a shit).

The one really unique thing that I actually did enjoy is that most anime don’t really acknowledge that other anime exists and Blood Lad is filled with quick humorous references to things such as Naruto and Dragonball Z and Shonen Jump manga. But it’s not really enough to give the series a unique identity or anything.

If it sounds like Blood Lad is awful, it’s not. Overall I enjoyed it much more than I groaned at it. It’s a perfectly decent enjoyable anime that you can pretty much finish in an afternoon. It’s just doesn’t really do anything to stand out or be original. It’s the Japanese equivalent of a CBS sitcom. You might enjoy it while watching but then promptly forget about it not long after.

Rating: 3/5 Busty schoolgirls being eaten by carnivorous plants.

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Now, overall this was a very solid premiere that keeps the old trope of bad guy and good guy working together alive though it does have a few missteps. The cop, Elizabeth Keen played by Megan Boone, is actually an FBI profiler who is sought by Red after his capture. Initially I thought “Yeah this is his daughter” but so far it doesn’t seem to be the case though her father has a sordid past. Anyways, I didn’t mind the very unlikely situation of FBI swarming the house with 5+ cars and a helicopter but what I did mind was the fact that this chick thought she was going to go in for a half day at work and then meet her husband for an adoption meeting. (You know because the family ties theme wasn’t punching you in the face already. ) Another thing that bothered me was her whiny ass husband who was shocked that his wife who was just essentially abducted by the FBI IN A FUCKING HELICOPTER couldn’t make their hearing. (They should be denied. They couldn’t even plan two separate life events without fucking it up, things aren’t looking good) Before I get to the awesome stuff my last annoyance that I can remember is why didn’t that Generals daughter kick and scream while being kidnapped? That’s like my first response to anything when I was a kid and definitely to being taken.

Alright now the fun stuff. While the acting is all solid from a cast of mostly unknowns (to me) Spader’s Red steals the show obviously and carries the scenes even if he doesn’t have to. I particularly liked the scene where he was overlooking the FBI’s intel and rearranging and chastising them for some of their prime suspects. This wit and sarcasm continues throughout the episode and will no doubt continue through the show as this man Red has a long arcing game plan with pieces seemingly in place well beyond any scope we can see. I also liked the scene where Keen stabbed Red in the neck when she wanted answers I felt it was nice they didn’t pussy foot around plus they showed that his coolest kid in the room act will only go so far.

The Blacklist has already set out a ton of mysteries for fans to try and unravel. Why does Red want Keen? Whats the deal with the husband? Red’s overall plan, Red’s Family? Keen’s Family? and probably more that I can’t think of right now but the story is ripe with directions to go and so far is heading on the right one. It seems to have a case of the week feel to it but it will clearly have season long story arcs. Also Red has escaped and shown dominance so many times that this show could be around for awhile since the obvious deadline of him being useless to the FBI will undoubtedly be brought up.

NBC has a bad habit of getting rid of their dramas early; Freaks and Geeks, Awake, Black Donnellys, Journeyman (wait am I the only one that watched that?!), etc… So there is no free lunch here. Here’s to the hopes it gets as many seasons as Las Vegas.

*I know he is from Boston Legal too I just wanted to piss off Joel

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