Rambling Reviews

Let's see, I did get through some series on Netflix recently...

I finished She-ra. It was enjoyable overall. Catra remains my favorite character even though her "redemption" (and really all the relationships) felt a bit over-simplified. Entrapta's up there, though, with her quirky lack of focus. And Double Trouble pretty much carried a season on his/her own. The overall story worked fine for me even if certain aspects lacked any depth and the Eternia/Greyskull stuff leaves a massive, unresolved mystery to the universe.

I do have to say Adora and Catra being a "thing" at the end felt a little... hmm... "incestuous?" Sure, it's clear through the series they love one another, if in some muddled ways, but their shared background and youth painted that as more sisterly than romantic to my eyes.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Aggretsuko season 3. The OTMGirls storyline worked so well and was so largely positive for Retsuko I was sad to see it end. The Haida-Inui story is a tearjerker. Tadano proves himself to be an absolutely supportive bro for Haida.

As with many sitcoms/slice-of-life stories, I feel the will they/won't they dynamic between Haida and Retsuko is getting a little long in the teeth. At the end of the season Haida pretty much gets over the waffling and goes all in. If Retsuko still rejects him, his pining will be more uncomfortably creepy than awkwardly charming. And if she accepts him, the atmosphere of the show shifts. I sort of feel like there should be a season 4 with them at least trying out being together, but that may be heading toward a wrapping up of the series.

I also managed to binge through BNA. The take on shapeshifting beastkin living openly after ages of hiding themselves among humans is interesting, weaving into various mythologies. I have to say it doesn't support too much thinking-about, however, as for all the talk of DNA and scientific research, there are aspects of it all that get very metaphysical/supernatural. There's effort to make things at least a little believable, but when things really go down the show becomes more style over substance. I'm okay with that, it just bears acknowledging.

Shirou works fine for the story as the stoic, overly-powerful, human-hating wolf. That's probably only because Michiru is there as the optimistic, often-bouncy tanuki protagonist alongside him. The balance and interplay make it work in ways a Shirou-like character absolutely does not on its own or in something like a tabletop RPG.

The story twists a bit, but didn't strike me as highly-surprising. A few big reveals have more impact on characters than the viewer because elements of the setting are not really conveyed until that point. Overall, it was good and entertaining, though I don't see it as something that really needs continuation.

As a side note, I watched most of the latter two with subtitles on and it was curious to see the differences in some lines between what was said in English and what was subbed. Often there were slight differences in wording, but the overall meaning/intent seemed to be the same. A few times, however, I noticed a major difference.