Tag: Netflix

Instead, Watch ‘Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse’

So, the hotly anticipated Barbie movie has been released, and it is, from what I hear, a giant rug-pull on par with Puella Magi Madoka Magica, except less pleasing. This thing had a massive ad campaign, so enormous that everyone has been buzzing about it (though I am pleased to say that, Luddite that I am, I never so much as saw a single trailer). Its ad campaign promised that it would be a fun, simple, sugary film full of pink. Instead, it is apparently an over-long feminist lecture that actually uses the word “patriarchy” and expects you to take it seriously. And Ken, instead of being Barbie’s love interest, is the villain.

What most annoys me about this is that so many are shocked by it. Everyone should have learned by now that Hollywood is currently incapable of treating a long-running, much-loved franchise with any kind of respect. Smearing their feces on other people’s creations is part of their religion: They can’t not do it. How many fool-me-once-fool-me-twice situations do we have to go through before all of you finally wise up? Stop watching this crap. The people who make these movies and TV shows hate you, and they also hate the titles they’re adapting. How could a new Barbie adaptation from Hollywood possibly be anything but a hamfisted feminist screed? Barbie, after all, is a perennial boogeyman for feminists.

But if you really need some sugary entertainment featuring airheaded dress-up dolls, the best possible adaptation of Barbie has already been made: A series of short, CGI-animated videos called Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse was produced by Mattel in 2012. It now lives on Netflix, where it has been rearranged into twelve half-hour episodes. (I know that link is crossed out because WordPress is screwy, but the link works.)

Life in the Dreamhouse does what the current movie should have done: Drawing probably on the depiction of Barbie in the Toy Story movies, it gently pokes fun at the Barbie franchise while also respecting it, its history, and its lore. Appropriately set in a fantasy version of Malibu, it depicts Barbie, along with her family and friends, living in a shockingly pink “Dreamhouse” filled with bewildering and sometimes dangerous gadgets. In a nod to the many different Barbie outfits released over the years, it portrays Barbie as owning a clothes closet so large it threatens to collapse into a black hole, and it also portrays Barbie as a self-styled expert on most every subject because she’s had thousands of different jobs. Barbie is a Mary Sue but without the features that make Mary Sues annoying: She is not a self-insert character, and her perfectness is always played for laughs.

In the new movie, Barbie lives in a world where every woman in named Barbie and evey man is named Ken, but Life in the Dreamhouse remembers that there are other dolls in the franchise, so sisters Skipper and Chelsea are regular characters (Chelsea, in particular, is a series highlight), as are several of Barbie’s friends, all of whom are given distinct and appropriate personality quirks. Most ingenious is the show’s treatment of boyfriend Ken: Although always remembering that Ken is essentially an accessory to Barbie and sometimes poking fun at the fact, Life in the Dreamhouse makes him a kind of idiot savant, a himbo who despite his airheadedness is a gadgeteer genius who inexplicably makes over-complicated Rube Goldberg machines whenever he tries to put together simple devices. Unlike in the movie, in which Ken is Barbie’s underling and ultimately her enemy, the affection between Ken and Barbie in Life in the Dreamhouse is sappy but genuine, exactly as it should be.

Life in the Dreamhouse is silly and saccharine. Its only source of real conflict comes from the twins Raquelle and Ryan, who are constantly trying and failing to separate Ken and Barbie out of jealousy. When Barbie isn’t accidentally foiling Raquelle’s plots, crises come from such things as gadget malfunctions or Malibu suddenly running out of glitter.

It’s genuinely funny, but more importantly, it’s short: Originally, the episodes were five minutes. The last few episodes run nearly a half hour, and they drag a bit as Barbie and her friends overstay their welcome. It’s also, unlike the new movie–which makes raunchy jokes and references to Proust–appropriate for kids. We could perhaps have a serious discussion of whether the airheaded bimbos and superficial lifestyle of Life in the Dreamhouse are really quality children’s entertainment, but at least the humor is child-appropriate, with no references to drugs or genitalia, and no resentment of one sex for the other.

In any case, Life in the Dreamhouse is probably the best version of Barbie-themed entertainment we can hope for. As the new movie suggests, it’s increasingly unlikely that such an innocent and sincere take on a franchise like Barbie can be made anymore. If you were looking forward to Barbie because of the trailers and are disappointed to learn that it’s exactly what you should have already guessed it was, then watch Life in the Dreamhouse instead. It’s probably the best version of Barbie that will ever get made.

Netflix’s Adaptation of ‘Winx Club’ Is a Steaming Pile of Crap

Note: This essay has been edited, and an additional section has been added.

Netflix is infamous for its disrespectful adaptations of existing properties, probably mostly because of its live-action version of Death Note. I regret to inform you that Netflix has recently decided to give its signature treatment to one of the best-loved magical-girl titles from outside Japan, the Italian cartoon Winx Club. The new Netflix series consists of six episodes, with the possibility of a second season.

Manga/Anime/Netflix Adaptation Meme

I tried to watch it. Alas, this will not be a proper review because I couldn’t make it very far into this dreck.

Continue reading “Netflix’s Adaptation of ‘Winx Club’ Is a Steaming Pile of Crap”

Netflix Pisses Off Pretty Much Everybody with ‘Cuties’

As you can see from the meme collage at the head of this post, the streaming service Netflix absolutely loves it some dirty, sexy kids. In the last couple of days, this fact has become apparent not just to the few edgelords talking about it on /pol/, but to everybody, as Netflix has advertised its acquisition of a French movie called Cuties, which made it big at Sundance.

What’s remarkable is that, although Cuties has a handful of defenders, this is one case where almost everyone seems to be pissed off. The left-right divide, over this one film, has evaporated: Everyone is angry. For a brief moment, our fractured nation is united in mutual offendedness and outrage. Maybe now we can begin to heal.

What sparked the controversy is the poster Netflix chose to advertise the film—a poster notably different from the original French version, which Netflix apparently created on the unwise assumption that it would appeal more to American audiences. The poster has so outraged some that I have even seen an individual I admire and respect begging people not to share it, even to criticize. Because I don’t think we can talk about this without depicting, in some fashion, what we are talking about, I’ve decided to share the poster, but only after the break. Consider yourself warned.

This movie, Cuties in English and Mignonnes in French, is about a group of eleven-year-old girls who dance. That brief description sounds inoccuous, even charming, but wait until I tell you that the film achieved an NC-17 rating and will be rated TV-MA when it appears on Netflix next month. As you likely know, NC-17 is the rating that replaced X; this is an X-rated film about eleven-year-olds.

After the break comes the poster, and then I will discuss how Netflix chose to describe the movie, what people are mad about, and so forth.

Continue reading “Netflix Pisses Off Pretty Much Everybody with ‘Cuties’”

Walpurgisnacht: ‘Little Witch Academia’

Witches get stitches.

Little Witch Academia, directed by Yô Yoshinari. Written by Yô Yoshinari and Michiru Shimada. Music by Michiru Oshima. Studio Trigger, 2017. 25 episodes of 22 minutes (approx. 9 hours and 10 minutes).

Available on Netflix.

Today is Walpurgisnacht, the second most important day in the magical-girl calendar, so now is a good time to discuss one of the most popular cute witch franchises of recent memory, Little Witch Academia.

This title first made its appearance in 2013 and 2015 as a duo of short films that were generally well received. The original film once had its home on Crunchyroll (if memory serves), but a quick check reveals it is there no longer.

The concept was adapted into a 25-episode television series in 2017, and it found a home on Netflix shortly thereafter, where it still resides. A mostly pleasant and sometimes silly coming-of-age story, Little Witch Academia is basically “Trigger does Harry Potter.”

Continue reading “Walpurgisnacht: ‘Little Witch Academia’”

A Comparison of ‘Smile Pretty Cure’ and ‘Glitter Force’

Don’t you cry tonight.

A vlogger calling herself MagicalGirlStarlight produces this handy video making a comparison between the original Smile Pretty Cure and its localisation Glitter Force, which was produced by Saban and Netflix. Most of the changes she discusses I was already aware of, but one I wasn’t—Glitter Force eliminates or heavily edits the show’s more emotionally fraught scenes and removes references to death.

She ends the video by asking the haters to please show some restraint. I generally agree with the sentiment, and I’m not one of those weebs who think the English language is an abomination that besmirches all Japanese media it touches, but I will say that I find heavy-handed localisations like Glitter Force to be wrongheaded. The show tried to eliminate Japanese references and change the setting to the United States, apparently to avoid confusing American children, but everything is so obviously Japanese, the alterations only make it more confusing.

For example, there is an episode in which the characters take a school trip to Kyoto. Glitter Force changes this to an Asian expo. But to get there, they ride in a train past Mount Fuji, and then they walk through a bamboo forest. So where the hell in America are they?

Glitter Force is intended for children, not weeaboos, so some changes are understandable. For example, I like the changed title; “Glitter Force” sounds like a sparkly team of action girls (which it is), whereas, to the English speaker, “Pretty Cure” is mere nonsense. (It’s actually a pun when pronounced by a Japanese speaker, but most non-Japanese people have no way of knowing that.)

I also don’t really mind the changes to the characters’ names. Japanese names can be a mouthful to small children who don’t speak Japanese.

But they should have kept the Japanese setting simply because they had to go to absurd lengths to hide it and it was futile in the end anyway.

Also, although I refuse to enter the sub vs. dub debate, the dialogue in Glitter Force frequently makes me grit my teeth. Watch the video above and wait for the scene comparison at the end, and I think you will see what I mean. The English lines are obviously wedged into a scene that wasn’t meant for them, and this is typical of the show as a whole. If you’re going to dub, fine, but try to respect the lip flaps.

Finally, the change to the show’s emotional tenor is unnecessary and even cowardly. I mean, it’s freaking Pretty Cure. It’s not exactly edgy. Agree with it or not, I can understand why they censored half of Sailor Moon back in the nineties, but Pretty Cure? What angry phone calls from parents were they anticipating over Pretty Cure? This is the network that green-lit Big Mouth for Pete’s sakes, but they think a little crying is too much for kids to handle.

So in the warped world of Netflix, you can masturbate in front of children but weeping in front of them is totally off-limits.

Now Starting ‘Glitter Force’

The year 2004 represents a sea change in the magical girl genre. In that year appeared two series that would give a new look and feel to mahou shoujo. One was Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, a series aimed primarily at the neckbearded adult male crowd, and the other was Futari Wa Pretty Cure, aimed at young girls. Both would produce spin-offs. Pretty Cure became a cash cow franchise for Toei Animation, with an impressive total of fourteen series to date, the most recent of which, KiraKira☆Pretty Cure a la Mode, began in February of 2017 and is still ongoing as of this writing. There are also several movies, including crossovers that bring together cures from different series.

Both of these franchises are notable for introducing to the genre a heavier emphasis on physical combat. Both series also completed the process of all but eliminating the previously omnipresent romantic subplots in favor of a focus on feminine camaraderie. Continue reading “Now Starting ‘Glitter Force’”