Ekko Vs. Jinx Was Absolutely Masterclass, Such An Immaculate Display. The Foreshadowing Flashback With

Ekko vs. Jinx was absolutely masterclass, such an immaculate display. The foreshadowing flashback with implication they shaped and mirrored each other in combat/tech ingenuity. Showing the routine reenactment of their formative days, as a means of Ekko reaching out. Brought on one of few comforts in Jinx's shattered memory. Imo, the glimpse they shared in the end signifies Jinx saw that Ekko still cares for her; the Powder within Jinx and possibly even who she became (reason for why her expression was solemn yet wistful as she pulled the pin). As he's all but certainly the only one who can empathize as well as fully comprehend the process that shaped her beyond the deaths of Mylo, Claggor, Benzo, Vander and the loss of Vi (he went through it all the same. Witnessing all the fallout firsthand alongside her). She's just too far gone. Their shared, ill-fated experience made them greater. Yet caused one to break; Jinx. As one harnessed it for the good of those around them; Ekko. Such a poetic tragedy.

That pain that feels like it'll eat you from the inside out, can either break you or forge you into something greater. -Silco

— a youtube comment

Arcane - Ghosts of the Past

During the tea party is episode nine while Jinx is having her breakdown Vi tries to pull her back by reminding her of all the people they have lost. This is a disconnect on Vi’s part because she used her memories of those who she has lost as motivators to keep going and keep trying to protect others. Whereas for Jinx all those people are ghosts that haunt her.

Vi says at the start of the tea party “ I spent so many nights in that shitty prison. On the freezing floor, hungry, bloody, counting the hours. The only thing... The only thing that kept me going was the thought of getting back to you.” She used Powder as motivation to keep going while in prison just like she used Vander as a motivator to continue to try and do what’s right and help the people of Zaun despite there being no guarantee that she will get her sister back. She helps Caitlyn genuinely (it takes a while but she eventually gets there) because she notices that Caitlyn actually wants positive change and once again she is following in Vander’s footsteps. She is called Vander’s protégé and compared to her “old man”. Vander’s ghost helps and influences her long after he is gone.

Unlike Jinx when we see “ghosts” from Vi’s perspective they are either of the happy moments she shared with them or of them helping her get back up. Vander appears to Vi when she is knocked down while fighting Sevika and says “ I wish I could say it gets easier, kiddo. But I'd be lying. What I can say is... She still needs you. They all do. So what do you say?”. When she sees Powder in their old dilapidated home her visions are of Powder happy and of her innocence. Once again her sister is pushing her to keep going like she did in prison (this time it is getting her through getting stabbed).

For Jinx the ghosts haunt her and are constantly looming over and around her. Every time we see visions of those Jinx has lost from her own perspective they are either warped almost beyond recognition or they have a grey tinge and look dead rather than the ghosts that look just like they did when alive that Vi sees. These ghosts blame Jinx for what happened and her part (however big or small) in their deaths. They are constant reminders of her guilt which tower over her and consume her. Even when they aren’t towering over her they are always right there at her back, following her so she can never escape. The more she is reminded of them the larger, louder, and more distorted they become. Those ghosts overwhelm her until she finally snaps under their weight. Powder is gone and Jinx has fully taken her place.

Jinx needed someone in that moment to help fight them off and protect her from them instead of someone who welcomed them. But that’s not something Vi could have known. She hasn’t seen Powder in years and she didn’t see the evolution of Jinx. She doesn’t know the weight that those ghosts bury Jinx under each day because those same ghosts have been there to lift her up not knock her down. This is just another sad disconnect between the sisters and the two very different people they have become. Both Vi and Jinx can’t understand each other fully at this point and there’s no telling if they ever will be able to again.

Kid Cosmic Series Thoughts/Review

I’ve been a casual fan of Craig McCracken and his cartoons, catching them on air here and there, until recently (well I say recently but it’s probably 5+ years now) when I really got into animation and decided to binge watch his cartoons. I can easily say that he manages to entertain me, make me laugh, and break my heart all at the same time within each of his shows and Kid Cosmic is no different. His unique and quirky characters are always a fun time. I have nothing but respect for his creations. Craig McCracken simultaneously makes his shows both a love letter to their genre and a deconstruction of it and Kid Cosmic is no different.

Kid Cosmic just dropped its final season on netflix and like a lot of people I have a lot to say about it unlike most people I didn’t get into kid cosmic until its final season dropped. So I spent the last few days having a binge of the series as a whole. As a huge fan of superheroes I loved how this show played with classic superhero tropes and brought its own spin to it. It was a really fun ride from start to finish full of the same heart, passion, and adventure that drew me to animation in the first place.

Now to get into my actual full thoughts.

I had so much fun with the characters. They all had this playful, heartfelt innocence about them that is a staple of many Craig McCracken characters that draws you in and makes you want to see them succeed. I especially loved Jo, Kid, and Papa G. I think Jo was my favorite character. I loved Jo’s arc and her growth into becoming a better leader. The fact that it was her empathy and anxiety/caution that made her the best fit to be a leader is something I really appreciate. I’m really liking this trend in animation that deconstructs/subverts the hard, tough, super prepared leader trope that many characters grow into or start out as. Especially with the way the show sent that message with Xhan and Flo. I really loved that Jo and Flo had such a strong relationship in the show and it was her mom that taught her how to be a leader even though she didn’t have a job that would conventionally put her in the place to mentor Jo in that way. Jo’s heart and intelligence are what make her both a great leader and a great fighter. Her fighting skill is also something I like about her. She doesn’t have the stone with the most raw strength, that would be kid’s telekinesis stone or Rosa’s growth stone, but she has the mind to use her stone to its full potential which makes her portal power really fun to watch in battle. 

Kid’s relationships to Jo and Papa G are what elevated this show to me. Jo and Kid had an amazing sibling relationship and Kid and Papa G got the most emotional moments of the series. I don’t think there was a single dry eye when watching the scene pictured above. I know that this moment had me on the edge of my seat begging for Papa G to make it. The flashback to when he first took Kid in at the start of the episode being juxtaposed with this final scene hurt more than I ever thought it would. When he appeared at the beginning of the finale I have never felt so relieved over a cartoon grandfather. 

I also loved how the third season really wasn’t afraid to critique and deconstruct or poke fun at comic book tropes. The perfect world, the parents returning from the dead, the long living mentor, the kid getting powers and immediately mastering them, etc. And how many callouts to Craig McCracken’s other works there were. It worked really well. I think the show became better with each season and that’s because it let itself do wackier and more crazy things with its superhero inspiration. 

There were only a few things holding this series back from being one of the top 5 of 2021 for me. The first is that it took me a while to come around to Kid as the main character. Don’t get me wrong I felt he was well written and an accurate portrayal of what a kid who got powers would be like but I personally didn’t feel as strong of a connection with him as I did with Jo and I wasn’t as intrigued by him like I was with Papa G and I didn’t laugh at him as often as I did Chuck. He wasn’t one of my top 3 characters until season 3 came around and really made him grow on me (Which is part of why the 3rd season is my favorite). I never hated him but I was neutral about him which is something a protagonist shouldn’t be in a series to me. I think this is my most personal problem because I’m sure there were plenty of people who were able to relate to Kid and loved him from day one. I just wasn’t one of them but I wish I was.

The second is that I found the first season didn’t hit me nearly as hard emotionally as the second or third seasons (especially the third). It struggled with letting us sit with the most emotional moments. It used bathos a lot more then the other two seasons which I think took me out of the moment too frequently and I found myself taking a break from it more than once whereas I binged the second and third seasons. The second and third seasons weren’t afraid to let us stay in emotional moments without a joke to break the tension and really feel them which is something I really appreciated about them. I’m someone who loves drama and I think children’s television can tackle heavy themes in a unique way that sometimes hits harder than things that are rated mature but only if the show respects it’s audience and lets them experience them fully. Kid cosmic doesn’t do this as well in the first season as it does in the other two which disappointed me.

This wasn’t my favorite animated show to come out of 2021 but don’t take that as a slight against Kid Cosmic. Animation in 2021 was amazing both for films and for shows and the company it finds itself in for that year is phenomenal: Arcane, Invincible, Inside Job, Maya and the three, and centaurworld to name the standouts. It may not have been my favorite but it had just as much heart as the others I listed and managed to hit me in a different way. 2021 will have a special place in my mind when it comes to animation and kid cosmic will always be a part of that. I can’t wait to see what Craig McCracken does next.

My Thoughts on Centaurworld

Centaurworld is a show that’s pretty much impossible to describe to someone else. It contains such a wide variety of heavy themes and wildly different tones that any description wouldn’t really do the show justice. It can be colorful and quirky one moment and then be dark and tragic the next. One moment you completely understand why this is a Y7 show then the next you have no idea how it managed to get a rating below a PG rating. I will say for certain though that Centaurworld is a wacky, fun, and surprisingly heartfelt ride from start to finish. There’s so much to talk about and cover so I’ll just get right into it.

With season 2 having just released I can talk about the series as a whole. I really enjoyed the whole thing but I will say I think the first season is overall stronger than the second. The first half of the second season meanders and doesn’t quite seem to know what it wants to do and as a result it makes it so that the second half is jam packed with all this progression, character development, and twists that I think would have been better served being spread out over the course of the season. One big thing is that the general should have gotten more screen time and his relationship with rider should have been expanded upon because of how important he is in the finale. Also Wammawink gets sidelined pretty hard in this season in comparison to her role in the first. They seemed to be setting Wammawink up for a much bigger role in the finale in the first season with her being revealed to be a shaman in training, have powerful magic and potential, and have a tragic backstory that makes her the perfect candidate of the characters from centaurworld to want to take the minotaurs down. It just seemed really strange that they would backtrack on Wammawink’s importance especially with how well received she has been.

Pacing issues and Wammawink’s sidelining aside the final 4 episodes of season 2 were really good. They managed to fit a lot of backstory and world building alongside the main story without it feeling overcrowded which is a struggle for most shows to do. And while I think the character build-up between The Nowhere King, The General, and The Purple Haired Woman in the present timeline was lacking I still found their ending to be emotional especially the reprise of the nowhere king lullaby during his final moments.

The characters are probably what is most likely to make or break the series for you. I had a lot of fun with the characters. The only one I wasn’t a big fan of was Durpleton because I wasn’t a fan of the humor that he was used for especially in the first season. I liked him more in the second when he became a father to Stabby and we learned his backstory. Everyone else I really liked with Wammawink and Zulius being my favorites. The reveal of Wammawink’s backstory was really well done. Horse seeing her home destroyed and thinking that she’s returned home only to see a baby Wammawink alone among the wreckage was devastating. That one reveal makes so much about Wammawink snap into place and you completely understand her character in just a few minutes. This along with her moment in the season 1 finale where she asks the purple haired woman to let her go back into the void with her friends really cemented Wammawink as a favorite of mine. Zulius is just pure fun and I love his larger than life energy while still being a team player and caring about his herd which is a welcome departure from his character archetype.

Horse herself has a strong arc in season 1 and I was invested in her getting back to rider. I didn’t expect how far the show would go in exploring the pain and effects of losing a loved one. Episode 8 was a thinly disguised metaphor for depression and suicide that actually covered the topic with quite a lot of tact that I wasn’t expecting from the show because the marketing does not prepare you for the darker aspects of centaurworld at all. I like how Horse becoming more emotional and soft, both literally and metaphorically, is shown as horse growing and doesn’t make her a less capable warrior in the slightest.

I had a lot of fun with this show and I really think that other people should give it a shot. I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did and I can’t wait to see what netflix and Megan Nicole Dong do next in animation. (Netflix is on a roll with its animated originals. They’ve had so many great animated shows release this year. Centaurworld, Arcane, Maya and the Three, Inside Job, etc. Netflix has become my go to for animated shows.)

The Owl House - Top 5 Episodes of Season 2A

With the owl house returning in a month I decided to re-watch all the episodes currently released and I want to rank what I think are the 5 best episodes of season 2A for fun. This is just my opinion and I’d like to hear everyone else’s. Also almost all the episodes in this season are incredibly strong so this was really hard to do and none of these episodes are anywhere close to bad.

1. Eda’s requiem

This episode is amazing and my favorite episode of the series. It has one of the most beautiful sequences in the whole show with Eda’s requiem which is just as emotionally resonant as it is stunning. Eda’s fear of abandonment and decision to almost commit suicide to stop the emperor was arguably the most emotionally heavy the show has ever gotten. And I know it hit me like a train the first time I watched it. Not to mention it managed to create a poignant, tragic romance between Raine and Eda in the span of 22 minutes.

I really love that the show has doubled down on the found family trope that Eda, King, and Luz have become. Eda’s fear that she’ll be left behind once King and Luz have their real families paired with when Raine asks Eda “You have kids?” and Eda responds “They’re not mine. Mine.” and tries to push on with her sacrifice makes it so you are hit full force with just how replaceable Eda believes she is. Which makes the ending reveal that King made himself legally Eda’s child all the more heartwarming.  It can be hard to acknowledge just how important you are in other people’s lives and seeing this struggle displayed so honestly was powerful.

2. Knock, knock, knockin on Hooty’s door

This episode was an amazing follow up to Eda’s requiem. It has the structure of an anthology except everything comes together in the end. While I love the Lumity of this episode and that they got together without a long “will they, won’t they” period I have to say my favorite part of the episode was Eda’s portion. I appreciate that they have decided to do a deep dive on the consequences of Eda’s curse and her isolation that stems from it. In the first season it was ever present but because they wanted to keep the focus on the mystery of who cursed Eda we didn’t get to deep dive into how the curse effects her outside of the physical transformation. Seeing all the people she’s lost due to it makes the effect Luz has had on Eda all the more powerful. Also Harpy Eda is awesome.

I enjoyed all the other parts of the episode as well. The fact that Lilith and Hooty are actually pen pals was oddly heartwarming. Their friendship was something I didn’t know I needed. Hooty wanting to help everyone and doing it in a unique and kind of creepy way is really in character. I’d have to say King’s part of the episode was probably weakest which is mainly because it’s the payoff that had the least amount of build up towards it. Lumity becoming canon and Eda reconciling with the owl beast are both things that we began the journey towards in season 1.

3. Hunting palismen 

This episode was a fantastic introduction to who Hunter really is. We got glimpses of the golden guard before this point but we finally got to know the boy behind the mask. This episode makes a compelling character out of Hunter, establishing his goals and motivations as well as his grievances and shortcomings. He has an easy chemistry with Luz that makes you wish they were on the same side which worked really well if all the older brother Hunter fanart is to go by. He’s the character I’m most excited to see the trajectory for the rest of the season. He has so much potential to effect the story moving forward.

4. Eclipse lake

The character moments in this episode really made this one for me. I had been wanting to see how Amity and Hunter would interact since Hunting Palismen and this episode delivered. The similarities between the two were right in front of us and I’m happy the show decided to head right for the heart of it instead of beat around the bush and have the characters recognize it as well. 

Hunter himself seems to be an amalgamation of what I thought Lilith and Amity would be. Just like Lilith he’s dedicated his life to the emperor and the coven and fears being replaced and failing. He’s willing to do whatever necessary to make sure he isn’t useless until he finds worth outside of this. And just like Amity he has the conflict of what is planned for his future and the pressures to be perfect clash with the fact that he has found some camaraderie with people who oppose this planned future. I will admit that in season 1 I was disappointed they didn’t take Amity or Lilith in these directions but with how the show has handled them and Hunter in season 2 I am completely on board.

5. Through the looking glass ruins

I just had a lot of fun with the A and B stories of this episode. There wasn’t a ton of plot progression but that doesn’t matter because I loved the character and relationship development. On one end we finally got some more Gus development which was sorely needed and on the other we got some pretty massive Lumity development and some plot progression with finding Philip Wittebane’s journal (an echo mouse ate it but still). I almost put Yesterday’s Lie in this spot but this one beat it out just based on pure enjoyment on my end. The plot progression and drama of yesterday’s lie are phenomenal but I sometimes need an episode I can sit back and watch without having my heart torn out.

Feel free to disagree. This list is just my list and I’m sure everyone has vastly different opinions. If anyone would like to share I’d love to hear in the comments, tags, or an addition to my post. All of that is welcome.

Arcane - The Sins of the Father

Arcane does a really good job of assessing nature vs nurture when it comes to what shapes a person and what they become. Vi and Jinx are the primary examples of this. They are both caring people by nature but the world around them and their adoptive father figures are key parts in solidifying that characteristic or deteriorating it. 

For Vi the world has beaten her down time and time again like many characters in the series but Vander was a key part in making sure she didn’t succumb to her hatred and anger. At the start of the series Vi wants to fight. She wants to teach the enforcers a lesson and hurt them like they hurt the people of the undercity. But Vander reminds her that her decisions effect those around her. “You have a good heart. Don’t lose it. No matter how the world tries to break you”. When push comes to shove Vi is willing to give herself up to protect her sister and friends and prevent conflict with those in Piltover. She chooses peace over violence despite violence being all she knows. I think it is here that Vi becomes a protector rather than an avenger. She was toeing the line between the two before this moment.

Vander learned from his mistakes and passed those lessons onto Vi. His final appearance convincing Vi to get up really solidifies this and Vi’s role as a protector. His lessons have continued on long after he is gone. “ I wish I could say it gets easier, kiddo. But I'd be lying. What I can say is... She still needs you. They all do. So what do you say?” 

For Jinx the line that defined her was said by her sister rather than any father figure “Because you’re a jinx... Mylo was right”. Powder’s evolution into Jinx is brought on by her hearing her sister finally agreeing with the others and looking at her as a weakness (from her perspective. We know that Vi’s outburst came from a place of pain from learning that her sister caused the explosion that killed Mylo and Clagger and led to the death of Vander rather than a place of genuine hatred or contempt). This is further solidified by Silco using his misplaced guidance to make her believe that this moment made her stronger rather than actually addressing the issue and dealing with the trauma. He believed that killing the person who was hurt by the one closest to them was the solution rather than healing. Jinx became a vessel for destruction because that’s the only way she was taught to deal.

Silco and Vander genuinely loved their daughters and did the best they could with what they had. The sad reality is that Vander learned from his mistakes and Silco didn’t. Silco didn’t have the same kind of support that Vander made for himself which gave him the ability to clearly see that violence hadn’t gotten them anything but loss. Silco was forced to drag himself through his pain which lead to his misplaced beliefs and unintentional projection onto Jinx. This story is a tragedy of circumstance and trauma. The sins of the father and their lessons learned really can pass onto the child and effect who they become moving forward.