Getting Frenched: ‘Miraculous Ladybug,’ Season 2

Miraculous Ladybug (a.k.a. Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir). Season 2. Directed by Thomas Astruc. Written by Thomas Astruc, Fred Lenoir, et al. Zagtoon, Method Animation, and Toei Animation, 2017-2018. 26 episodes of 22 minutes (approx. 9.5 hours). Rated TV-Y7.

Available on Netflix.

See my review of the first season.

Although this is a blog about magical girls, I have always made an effort to write it for people who are not magical girl fans. To that end, I have often pondered what would make a good entry-level magical girl title—something funny, fast-paced, action-oriented, and without the saccharine quality that audiences in the West might find off-putting. I have decided that the best entry-level title I know is Miraculous Ladybug, the family-friendly CGI magical girl show out of France, made by Zagtoon in association with Toei Animation, the Japanese company that has historically dominated the magical girl genre.

Also, the show’s director once insulted me on social media, so I have a certain personal affection for his work. I took it in stride, of course: He’s French, so I expected him to be rude.

(Rimshot.)

Anyway, Miraculous Ladybug is lightning in a bottle. I can’t really describe for you how good it is, because it’s one of those shows that seems to be made on a secret formula. It gathers together various shopworn motifs from children’s cartoons, YA fiction, superheroes, and magical girls, puts them together in a blender, and renders the result into mediocre CGI. Yet somehow, it is pure magic. It works on the Casablanca principle: It is good not because it avoids clichés, but because it uses all of them.

And Rose is still best girl.

Rose poses for a picture
Best girl.

The first season was so remarkable, I wondered if the show’s creators would be able to pull it off a second time. Not only have they pulled it off, but they’ve stepped up their game. This second season is better than the first and has eliminated some of the first’s biggest problems, both technical and story-related.

Continue reading “Getting Frenched: ‘Miraculous Ladybug,’ Season 2”

Cinemassacre on ‘Akira’

I have for some time been following James Rolfe, as I’ve enjoyed both his discussions of film and, in spite of the crassness and vulgarity, his role as the Angry Video Game Nerd. He mostly discusses retro video games and B-movies, so I was surprised when I saw a review of Akira appear in my YouTube recommendations.

The reason he hasn’t discussed much anime, as he freely admits in this video, is because he hasn’t seen much. His discussion here is positive, though I was disappointed to find that it was mostly fanboyish enthusiasm rather than analysis.

For any readers here unaware, Akira appeared in 1988 and depicted a dystopian future Tokyo of 2019. The protagonists are punkish biker thugs who begin as best friends and end up trying to kill each other on account of a secret government program investigating children with psychic powers.

The movie is credited with jump-starting the anime craze in the U.S., and it was extremely influential in Japan as well. The animation was some of the best ever made at the time, and involved some bold choices that might go unappreciated in the age of computer animation, such as the decision to set most of the story at night, which required considerable extra work because of the dark colors and backgrounds. Like many anime of the late Eighties, it takes influence from Blade Runner, and like many anime films, it is opaque and largely indecipherable, though it’s based on a much lengthier manga that’s considerably easier to understand.

It was probably popular in the States in part because it was shocking, with bloody ultra-violence and graphic nudity, which fans inevitably contrasted with the content of animation aimed at children.

Personally, I have to admit I’ve never cared for it, even though both the manga and the film are undeniably impressive achievements. Mostly, I just hate the characters.

#memes

I’m sorry.

‘Jake and the Dynamo’ Volume 2 Complete

Featured image: “Sailor Moon as Pretty Cure 5” by williukea.

Sort of.

Not happy with the progress I was making, I decided to stay off the blog for a while until I completed the first draft of Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites, which is of course the sequel to .

That draft is now done. Much of it is still rough, of course, but I hope to have the first pass finished in a few days, after which it will go to my illustrator. After the second pass, it will go to my editor.

The draft is about 140,000 words, which makes it almost half as long again as the previous volume.

#memes

#memes

Writing Day

I know I’ve got a few promised reviews in the queue, but today I’m spending on Dead to Rites. This book keeps getting longer and longer … but at least I can see the light. I am on the last action scene! And then it’s pretty much just the denouement and the first draft is done.

I haven’t had many update posts lately because I sort of screwed up the app I was using to record my progress, and I’m not sure how to fix it. Oh well. I expect the book will get even longer on my second pass, as for me, a second pass usually means adding detail as opposed to cutting out extraneous stuff.

Preliminaries on ‘Sailor Moon Super S’

As Viz Media has released the uncensored Japanese version of the ’90s anime version of Sailor Moon with an English sub, I’ve been purchasing it on iTunes.

I previously reviewed the first half of Sailor Moon S, the third arc, but never reviewed the second half partly because I got busy with other things, partly because I lost the ability to take screenshots from iTunes, and partly because I had little to add to my review of the first part: the series takes some of the most questionable decisions of the manga, makes yet more questionable decisions in adapting them, and somehow spins gold out of what by rights should be a complete mess. It might be the best chapter in the saga.

Anyway, Viz has released both halves of Sailor Moon Super S, the penultimate series, as well as two of the movies, Sailor Moon R and Sailor Moon S. Both films had limited runs in theaters, but I only had the chance to see the first one.

I started out by purchasing this series on iTunes, and am still doing so. I’m currently puzzling out what to do about the screenshot issue, because I’d like to review them. I have the Japanese version of Sailor Moon Super S, but the movies I haven’t bought yet, mostly because iTunes appears to indicate that they’re only available in English, which makes me think that maybe I should shell out for the Blu-Ray so I can have them in Japanese. Stephanie Sheh, who plays Sailor Moon in the dub, does a passable job, but she’s also another minor celebrity who’s made a habit of making a fool of herself on social media, so I’m frankly uninterested in listening to her voice.

Anyway, what I’m saying is … Sailor Moon Super S is out, if you didn’t know that already. This particular series has historically been unpopular with American fans because it centers on Chibi Moon, who is not as well-liked in the U.S. as in Japan. I’ve only just begun it, but I’m so far enjoying it. I feel the need to revisit this section of the manga, since it didn’t make much of an impression on my memory and I’m unsure how utterly the anime has changed it.

 

#memes

#memes