Tokyo Mew Mew/Mew Mew Power Episode 24 Sub/Dub Comparison

Plot: Ichigo is taking over for Zakuro’s personal assistant while she’s out sick. Zakuro has a jewelry modeling show for Pop Jewelry soon, and, as she’s working, she meets Tsukiko Yamada, an aspiring jewelry designer but mostly overlooked lackey for Pop Jewelry. She made a necklace out of a rare rainbow stone that she wants to use in the show, but no one will listen to her. The girls discover that the rainbow stone may be the crystallized form of Mew Aqua at the same time that the aliens do, and it’s a fight for the rainbow stone while also fighting for Tsukiko’s dream.

————————————————-

Say it with me everyone; the text on the signs were all removed!

Subbed:

Dubbed:

One of Ichigo’s friends says Zakuro was voted Best Dressed. In the dub, she says Renee’s modeling for Rayburn Jewelry.

The letters A and I are erased from the rings.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

A stands for Aoyama and I stands for Ichigo, which is a bit weird because she’s seeing these rings in a daydream of him proposing to her, I presume anyway…so wouldn’t it be better to use his first name ‘Masaya’ instead? Who calls their significant other by their last name?

Ichigo says it’s scary for her because Aoyama’s always popping up out of nowhere. In the dub, Zoey says, because of how they acted in the arcade, that she should stop being friends with Blonde and Brunette at once. I agree. Do that.

The stories as to why Mint/Corina is upset is roughly the same, but in the original Zakuro’s attendant merely caught a cold. In the dub:

Kiki: “Some mover guys dropped a grand piano on Renee’s personal assistant.”

Bridget: “The doctors say she’ll be okay, but until she’s up and walking again–”

Nonononnononononononononono……..come again?

Kiki: “Some mover guys dropped a grand piano on Renee’s personal assistant.”

Bridget: “The doctors say she’ll be okay but until sh–”

Nonono, one more time?

Kiki: “Some mover guys dropped a grand piano on Renee’s personal assistant.”

……..Uh…..is this Looney Tunes? Someone had a GRAND PIANO….DROPPED ON THEM….and….they’re not a stain on said grand piano?

She’ll be okay? Until she’s up and walking again? When will that be? When they discover a cure for death!?

I have a feeling they meant to say ‘dropped a grand piano on Renee’s personal assistant’s foot’ or something. You just do not get a grand piano dropped on your person and live, especially if they were moving it with a pulley system to get it onto a high level building or something. Hell, even if it was her foot, that would still be like ‘probably lose your foot’ level damage. What was wrong with merely saying she had a cold?

Zakuro says Ichigo has brawn. Renee says she has more inner strength than every one of them. This change is merely made so that Zoey can make a joke about it when she’s lugging all of Renee’s crap around.

Ichigo says even she’s not strong enough to carry all her stuff. Zoey asks why Renee isn’t going around in limos and stuff like she thought all popstars did.

Pudding says the spirit of cooperation is important, and Lettuce says they’re all friends. Kiki says the reason Renee doesn’t drive around in limos and stuff is because she’s environmentally-friendly, because we haven’t brought up that message in a while. Then Bridget points out her environmental-friendliness by stating that the bags are pleather.

The ending of this scene is cut off for some reason. In the original, Ichigo is told that Zakuro is going to a roll-out event for Pop Jewelry (which additionally means that they changed the name of the company from Pop to Rayburn in the dub.) She imagines the rings she saw earlier and suddenly gets really excited to help Zakuro. Mint then stews about Ichigo’s sudden happiness at being Zakuro’s assistant.

In the dub, they extend Ichigo’s muttering a bit and make her complain about having to haul the stuff around. The rest is removed for some reason.

Scene shift, yay! The next scene in the original is Kisshu and the others researching some new rainbow stone that has something to do with Mew Aqua. In the dub, it’s the scene with Elliot, Wesley and the girls researching it. I’m basically obeying the flow of the dub now, so let’s tackle it.

They cut out the shot of Wesley explaining the rainbow stone at the start of the scene.

Mint calls the stone ‘plain’ while Corina calls it ‘Ugly’….really? It’s kinda pretty. Not the best cut in the world, but it’s a rainbow gem, why would it be plain or ugly?

Shirogane says they had a special agency investigate the stone, and apparently it can detect drops of Mew Aqua. Elliot says that the first thing he thought of the rock was that it was ugly like Corina said and then goes on to say ‘that tacky rock’ has similar properties to Blue Aqua….Am I missing something? What is the hate with this gem? Do I just have awful taste? I mean, a rainbow rock in jewelry would go with anything wouldn’t it?

They add in another shot of the girls from behind to extend the scene and have Corina call the stone ugly again. Can we start an anti-bullying campaign against rocks? This is getting really mean.

Also, Akasaka says he believes a rainbow stone will be included in one of the jewelry pieces at the jewelry show that Zakuro is in. In the dub, they haven’t tracked any down yet.

More scene swappage as the next scene in the original is preparations for the jewelry show while the dub’s brings us back to the meeting with Dren and the others.

Kisshu asks if Taruto’s information is reliable, and he says he’s confident that it is. In the dub, Dren asks why he’s staring at some gaudy rock—Okay seriously, leave the poor rock alone.

Anyway, Tarb says it’s because the ‘gaudy rock’ is the answer to beating the Mew Mews.

The aliens’ screen says ‘Power Search’ and it’s erased in the dub, which is weird because the Mew Mews screen said ‘Rainbow Stone’ earlier and it was left alone.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

I can’t quite understand what the sign behind Zakuro says, though I think the first part says ‘Pop Jewelry’. It’s painted away and replaced with ‘The Future is Now: Rayburn Jewelry.’

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Originally, Ichigo is talking to herself about how Zakuro is beautiful like jewels. In the dub, she’s loudly acting like some obnoxious fashion show announcer while also imagining that Renee’s modeling jewels that Zoey made famous.

They cut out some shots of Zakuro getting prepared for the show. Also, the guy doing her hair is originally silent. In the dub, they make him babble on in what I can only call a stereotypical gay guy voice. Because men who are hairstylers, right? Pfft.

Ichigo also is thinking about the rings Zakuro is going to showcase that night while the guy is talking over this in the dub.

Name Change: Tsukiko Yamada is changed to Gretchen.

Ichigo asks if Tsukiko is okay. Zoey asks if she’s alive. I just found the dub to be kinda rude is all.

They cut out some of the conversation between Ichigo and Tsukiko after she falls into the boxes. Her glasses are messed up and then she fixes them while we get a long shot of Ichigo obscured by the box. In the dub, it cuts straight to her glasses being fine and her getting up to help.

Ichigo, like Zoey, says that they (or in the dub, SHE, because Zoey’s rude) made a mess, but Ichigo also adds that she’d be glad to help her. Tsukiko starts crying because, since she’s constantly messing things up, everyone either yells at her or ignores her yet Ichigo is being kind to her. In the dub, they cut out the shot of the messed up boxes and remove the line about Ichigo wishing to help her. Instead it jumps from Zoey pointing out the mess to Gretchen crying about the fact that she can’t do anything right.

Ichigo asks for Tsukiko’s name and she gives it. Zoey gives the suggestion that she should be in a wrecking crew. *sigh* ….Zoey….goddamn it.

Tsukiko explains that she polishes gems day in and out. She was really impressed with Zakuro at the rehearsal and we see a fantasy clipshow of Zakuro modeling the jewelry. This is removed.

Tsukiko’s credo is different between the versions. Tsukiko says she knows the rainbow stone may be kinda plain (I still don’t get this. The rainbow stone actively changes colors!) but she believes a gem’s true value is in how much it brightens the person wearing it, and she believes it will brighten up Zakuro very well. In the dub, Gretchen says most people think the stone is ugly (urgh) but she believes it has a real future in fashion, and she has to convince the big wigs in the industry to get over their conservative tastes to see that.

Uh, first off, conservative; yet another word 4Kids shouldn’t think their audience knows.

Second, conservative tastes? Isn’t that kinda the opposite of what’s going on here? The gem is seen as plain and whatnot, which would technically be what a conservatively viewed person would prefer right? The other option is people who are so set in the trends of fashion to change them, but come on, this is the fashion industry. It thrives on change, even in the slightest. That’s why it’s a kinda a joke when someone says something is ‘so yesterday’.

Originally, the chief and the other higher ups won’t listen to Tsukiko’s ideas because she’s a bad worker. In the dub, it’s because she’s an intern.

Ah, scene shift. This is where the scene from earlier in the original with the girls learning about the rainbow stone comes from. In the dub, we cut straight to the next day at the show.

I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I became conditioned to instantly correlate the name Gretchen with the Gretchen from Recess.

Zakuro asks why Tsukiko doesn’t ask the chief herself if she’s sincere about the necklace, but Tsukiko says no one will listen to her so Zakuro has to be the one to show everyone. Renee asks her the same thing, and Gretchen says the producer thinks the stone is ugly and she has no chance of changing his mind.

More scene swappage. After the midroll, we originally cut back to the show. In the dub, we get a commercial and cut back to Gretchen in the street. It’s a very short shot just of her walking and we cut back to the actual scene right after so…..yeah.

In the dub, they keep focusing on the future of fashion accessories, and even Gretchen said she believed the rainbow stone has a big future in fashion. This just lends credence to my earlier confusion about why the stone is actually having problems being accepted. If this show is all about changing trends in jewelry then why are the higher ups so determined to not give the rainbow stone, a very unique gem, the time of day?

After we see the girls in the audience, they cut out Ichigo running up to Zakuro.

Ichigo tells Zakuro that the show’s about to start but Yamada’s nowhere to be found. In the dub, Zoey says:

Zoey: “Between you and me, you can be really cold sometimes.”

I don’t think you know how ‘between you and me’ works. It’s usually used in situations where you’re either keeping a secret or talking about/insulting someone behind their back. The only person who would get insulted by what you’re saying now is Renee, and that’s who you’re talking to.

After Ichigo says that, we see the shot the dub used as the first post-commercial shot. In the dub, this is obviously removed.

Zoey’s being a lot more lecture-y to Renee than Ichigo is to Zakuro. Ichigo’s merely trying to make a plea for Tsukiko while Zoey’s bitching her out.

The guy who tells Zakuro about the interview merely says “I don’t know…” when Ichigo asks for more time. In the dub he tells Zoey “Who are you, and why are you talking to me?” Why the hell is everyone an asshole in this dub? Does Americanization in shoujo shows mean ‘Shove a stick up everyone’s asses’ to 4Kids?

On the electric billboard outside, the shot changes to two different shots of Japanese text. In the dub it’s changed to ‘The Future is Now: Rayburn Jewelry.’

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Tsukiko says to herself that she really is a failure. Gretchen says she should move back to Ohio and work at a mall kiosk.

Also, this makes this scene not work. Once Tsukiko says that she’s a failure, she hears Zakuro on the TV saying “That’s not true.” This is meant to sorta make it seem like Zakuro is talking directly to her. She says the same thing in the dub, but since it’s after “I should move back to Ohio and work at a mall kiosk” it doesn’t make it seem like Renee is talking to her, making the shot lose some impact.

Signs are painted, yayaaayayayayyaayayya!

Subbed:

Dubbed:

The messages of Zakuro/Renee’s speeches are the same…..but Renee adds that the reason she knows that girls need to find their own inner beauty and share it with the world was because when she started out no one would sign her as a singer because they said her songs were boring. So, she decided to record and distribute them herself. It’s not a bad change, and I’m all for characterization…..even if it’s made up here, but still.

The original’s first display was the Blue Sky Aquamarine series. I honestly cannot understand half of what the announcer is saying in the dub as she’s forcing a really snooty accent, but I’ll try my best….Luscious Blues from the….Portal Heart collection?

Zakuro says “You came back!” in a pretty happy tone. Renee says, with a ‘tude of course “So, you came back.” Because no one can be pleasant in this show.

The incredibly small, impossible to read, Japanese text on Ichigo’s phone is removed.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

There’s an important change in the next scene. Tsukiko and Gretchen both beg the producer to put the rainbow stone in the show, but the producer sarcastically suggests that she model the stone in the show if it’s so important to her, and, in the dub, Gretchen is the one who makes the offer.

The reason this is important is because the dub is completely against what we know of this character. Sure, she’s gained some confidence to push her dream a little more, but you don’t go from as spindly and quiet as she’s been to offering to model in the middle of a live show, televised no less, because of one pep talk. Look at the way she’s standing as she’s talking to the producer. She’s still really slumped over and giving off no sense of confidence. The reason she eventually does it is because the comment is taken as a challenge to prove herself, and Zakuro gives her more confidence later.

The producer obviously still mocks Gretchen for her offer, but the fact is that she is already ready and confident enough to model the stone on her own as she made the offer to do so. The mocking at this point really just presents a bit of padding.

As expected, the producer is WAY more of an asshole in the dub. He does suggest sarcastically that she should model the necklace, while the girls behind her laugh, but then he merely asks what Tsukiko knows about jewelry and says they need to go back to work. In the dub he says:

Producer: “You want ME to let you strut your stuff on the runway? The fall LOSER line is being modeled next week. Tell you what, when I decide to throw my career away, I’ll give you a call!”

I really hate this dub….

They cut Ichigo’s lines after the producer leaves. She says the only reason that the jewels in the show are shining so brightly is because Tsukiko worked so hard on them. In the dub, she just says “That guy…!” and then Dren shows up.

I paused for a second after this, and, man, sometimes you just gotta appreciate Pierrot’s work.

That is some kind of terrible.

I hope I didn’t praise Pierrot much in my Tokyo Mew Mew review, which I will probably redo now that I’m taking a much harder look at this series, because man this series can look horrible sometimes.

Tsukiko says she’ll leave the retrieval of the necklace to Ichigo before she falls unconscious. Gretchen laments again about how nothing goes right for her before falling unconscious……Yeah, I’d say once it’s come to an alien stealing your life’s work, it’s pretty safe to say that the world doesn’t particularly smile on you often.

Wait a minute, why are they okay with showing Ichigo pinning Kisshu down, but they do everything to edit out Kisshu pinning Ichigo down? Double standard?

They even leave in the line about asking for a kiss as he’s being pinned by her. Wow.

Scene swap; we originally don’t see Masha alerting the other girls to the Chimera Animal until after Ichigo transforms. In the dub, since 4Kids wanted to use their transformation mashup again (though, oddly, instead of mashing up the four of theirs transformations, they only do Mint, Lettuce and Pudding’s. It’s weird because the way they set it up makes it very easy to have Ichigo in there too), they place this scene right after Ichigo gets slapped.

Again, this is one of those times where I don’t care that they did this because the original was being a jerk again. Instead of just skipping their transformations altogether in the original, they have them all yell out ‘Mew Mew Mint, Lettuce, Pudding Metamorphosis!’ while showing us a shot of the hallway! And then they burst into the hallway transformed. That’s almost more insulting than just skipping the whole transformation sequence entirely. Hey, we’d rather show a shot of a hallway than show our main characters transforming. Who cares about them? You saw Ichigo transform, and that’s all that matters.

4Kids did something weird to the transformation sequence though. Because it’s just Corina, Bridget and Kiki transforming right now, they misplace a clip of Mint’s transformation and play the clip backwards to make it look like it fits.

In the hallway, Taruto says he discovered this piece of Mew Aqua, so they shouldn’t steal it. Pudding says she (or they) found it first, so it’s not stealing. In the dub, Tarb says they found the Blue Aqua so it’s finder’s keepers. Kiki then says that it’s loser’s weepers so he should get ready to cry. Then she runs away.

…Wha? Why would you say something like that just to run? And instead of Taruto telling the girls to wait, he says “What’s that mean?!” to Kiki’s comment. Which also doesn’t make sense because if he knew “finder’s keepers” surely he knew the rest of it was “loser’s weepers.”

Pudding offers to keep Taruto busy. Corina basically makes her do it while Kiki complains about it.

So here’s something new……..they cut out Ichigo’s transformation entirely in the dub. Which is fine, I mean, we’ve seen the other girls transform off-screen enough, and it’s nice to see Ichigo’s kept aside for once….but why? They have mashup transformations for specifically just these four girls considering they were a group before Zakuro joined, so other than possibly time constraints I can’t see why Ichigo’s transformation was omitted entirely.

They also include the beginning of Ichigo’s attack in the dub as it starts off at her spinning in the original.

The bright attack that the Chimera Turtle uses is called Diamonds are Forever. It has no name in the dub.

Ah Blue Knight appearing in the nick of time just as Ichigo’s about to be attacked. I really hate this trope.

The rainbow stone being stolen is news to Ichigo. In the dub, she knows, which she couldn’t because Pai’s the one who took it and she hasn’t seen Pai yet. Last she saw of it, it rolled under a curtain.

Why does the dub announcer need to say who’s modeling the jewelry mid-show?….I’m pretty sure the only model there IS Renee.

This episode is ripe for weird screencaps.

All of their faces look weird in that shot, but man the Blue Knight….the spacing between his eyes is just…wow.

The dub omits the fact that the way they won was because, since the Chimera Turtle is…well, a turtle, it can’t get up when laying on its back…….which shouldn’t be true in this instance since it’s humanoid. It can easily get up……Eh whatever.

This is in both versions, but it still confuses me. Pai/Sardon says they have no interest in the rainbow stone anymore because it merely reacts to Mew/Blue Aqua, it’s not actually made of the material. But….isn’t a stone that reacts to Mew/Blue Aqua still useful? You’re looking for Mew/Blue Aqua and it’s a Mew/Blue Aqua detector…*sigh* Eh whatever.

Corina gushes over Renee just like Mint does, but she says this:

Corina: “I mean, talk about Mew Mew style, Mew Mew grace…”

Mew Mew live grenade in your face.

What? They left in Zakuro winking with a little heart popping up and Mint’s (albeit funny) super blush and cartoonish burst into flames? Yet they’ve erased blushes from Aoyama’s face before. This company purposely seeks to make no sense.

The announcer originally says that all girls can shine brightly; the brilliance is within you. That plus Tsukiko’s show slowly starts making the producer change his mind. There is no narration by the announcer in the dub, and he just says to hire her as soon as possible. I wouldn’t really note this, but the dub seems like bunk to me. It’s like he changed his mind because she’s all pretty-fied now not because he’s starting to come around to Gretchen’s way of thinking.

By the way, why did the announcer announce Gretchen’s necklace as the beginning of a new rainbow stone line for Rayburn Jewelry if the producer, IE Mr. Rayburn, the owner, didn’t approve of it?

They cut out Tsukiko throwing her bouquet.

Lettuce says Tsukiko was very pretty, and Mint adds that Zakuro was too. Bridget says that Gretchen was almost as pretty as Renee, and then Corina gushes and says no one’s prettier than Renee. Glad we’re ending on a ‘You’re pretty but not THAT pretty’ note.

Ohmahgawd guise. 2 moar episods!!223123

*cough* Uh anyway, my thoughts on this episode? Eh, it was okay. There were many elements that I thought were weird, and we got a random sudden appearance from the Blue Knight who hasn’t appeared in a while. The defeat of the villain made no sense, but Tsukiko was a decent enough CotD. The art and animation in this episode was noticeably poorer than usual though.

Next episode has Ichigo being unable to really see Aoyama much because of work overload.

…Previous Episode

---

If you enjoy my work and would like to help support my blog, please consider donating at my Ko-Fi page. Thank you! ♥

Cartoons Step-by-Step: American Dragon Jake Long Archive Post

S01 Ep01 – Old School Training

S01 Ep02 – Dragon Breath

S01 Ep03 – The Talented Mr. Long

S01 Ep04 – The Legend of the Dragon Tooth

S01 Ep05 – Act 4 Scene 15

Cartoons Step-By-Step: American Dragon Jake Long S01 Ep01

Plot: The world is filled with mythical beasts who try to live normal lives among humans who aren’t aware of their existence. Each part of the world is protected by a dragon who is tasked with protecting these creatures and maintaining their secrecy. Jake Long, a reckless but determined teenager, is a dragon in training with New York City, and ultimately the United States, as his main domain. His grandfather, the previous American Dragon, is getting too old to do the job, and is training Jake to pass on his title and responsibilities to him. However, Jake seems to want all of the fun and action of the role with as little work as possible.

Jake comes from a long line of dragons, but it is purely on his mother’s side. His mother does not possess the ability to transform into a dragon, but his little sister, Haley, does. She, however, is not tasked with protecting the country/city. She merely has to keep her powers a secret. Jake’s father is completely unaware that he married into a family of dragons, so they have to keep their secret even when they’re in the house.

As Jake is out training with his grandpa and his magical talking gruff bulldog, Fu, they find signs that the Huntsman, a man that leads a group of hunters who target mythological beings, specifically dragons, has been in the area. His target tonight? Unicorns.

Grandpa sends Jake out to fight the Huntsman on his own, and while Jake screws up his first attack, he does succeed in scaring the unicorns into running away. The Huntsman targets Jake, who is only half transformed at the time. As he manages to transform entirely, he’s knocked out by the Huntsman’s protégé, Huntsgirl. As the Huntsman calls for Huntsgirl to finish Jake off, Grandpa intercedes and rescues him, prompting both Huntsman and Huntsgirl to retreat. Seeing his extreme difficulty in even keeping up his transformation and his previous failures in battle, Grandpa decides to amp up Jake’s training.

After school the next day, Jake is forced to blow off skateboarding with his friends, Trixie and Spud, to go train. Grandpa’s training for the day turns out to be a lot of chores that incorporate certain aspects of Jake’s dragon-ness such as grasping a toilet brush with his dragon tongue to clean the toilet and sweeping with his tail.

After getting fed up with Grandpa’s weird training, Jake decides to skip training for the day and go with his friends to the new skate park. As Grandpa and Fu wait for Jake, the Huntsman and Huntsgirl show up to capture Grandpa. He tries to fend them off, but ends up falling into a trap.

Fu witnesses this and runs off to find Jake. After Fu finds him, he tries to convince him to find help, but Jake insists that he save Grandpa on his own since it was his fault that he was captured in the first place. Jake arrives and starts fighting the two, and he finally sees the benefit in his odd dragon training when Grandpa directs him to fight using actions that he learned in his chores. Jake and a freed Grandpa cause Huntsman and Huntsgirl to retreat yet again. Jake apologizes to Grandpa for blowing off training and putting him in danger. As they return home, Jake promises to take his dragon training more seriously from now on.

Breakdown:

– Dragons can fart fire. I didn’t need to know that.

– Apparently Grandpa sounds like a lion when he uses his dragon breath.

– This isn’t really relevant enough to include in the plot synopsis, but Jake also has a teacher, Mr. Rotwood, who is obsessed with magical creatures and teaches mythology class….Yeah apparently there’s mythology class in high school now. If anyone has been lucky enough to have mythology class in high school, I hate you.

Getting back to Rotwood, though, he’s basically a less crazy Mr. Crocker (Fairly Odd Parents). He believes that these mythological creatures exist, and he’s right, but everyone thinks he’s nuts for having such a strong belief in them. Unlike Crocker, though, I don’t believe he’s ever made out to be a real threat. For the most part, his scenes are relegated to either harassing Jake in class or going on tangents about mythological creatures to eventually trying to out Jake as a dragon.

– Another thing I couldn’t really squeak into the plot synopsis was Rose’s role. Jake has a crush on a girl named Rose, who is seemingly perfect in every way. She is secretly the Huntsgirl, though this secret is not kept a secret from the audience due to the dragon birthmark connection. Jake’s relationship with Rose and the big secret that Jake is the American Dragon while Rose is Huntsgirl is a big overarching part of the series.

– Who exactly screamed when Jake shot off that fireball in the house? Haley? His mom? No matter who it was, burning someone with fire kinda warrants an apology, Jake.

– I find it a little stupid that Grandpa fell for Huntsgirl’s trick. I mean, as a serpentine dragon, surely enemies have tried to force him into tangling himself up before. If he’s such an experienced master, why would he have fallen for something so obvious?

– Huntsman and Huntsgirl know Grandpa’s human form and that he’s a dragon. Isn’t that….really bad? I mean, surely the Hunts Clan is knowledgeable enough in dragons to know that the trait is carried through blood. If they know who Grandpa is, it’d be incredibly easy to hunt down his family members, Jake included, and capture them. At the very least, Huntsgirl/Rose would know from the start that Jake is Lao Shi’s (Grandpa) grandson.

– While I’m no stranger to transformation sequences, the one for ADJL is a little…cringy? Especially the awkwardly placed 360 shot of CGI Dragon!Jake.

– Grandpa knew the exact move for blocking the magical net. Why didn’t he use it in his fight with the Huntsman? He was tangled up not completely immobile.

– Another dragon fire fart….sigh.

————————————

I did follow American Dragon Jake Long in its entirety when it was on Disney Channel back in the day, but I can’t say I followed it too strongly. While I liked the stories and loved the premise, Jake and Trixie’s mannerisms and the rap got on my nerves on more than one occasion.

As a first episode, this does its job quite well. It explains the world that they live in, the main character’s role and many of his powers just fine. It also does a good job of establishing his family dynamic and the villains. Rose’s dragon birthmark is not the most subtle way of showing that she was Huntsgirl, and, personally, I would’ve preferred that they waited a while before revealing who she was, but it’s not that big of a deal. I suppose it was meant to create some early drama in allowing the audience to know something that the main character doesn’t.

While they also establish Jake’s friends, Trixie and Spud, just fine as well, I really never got into Trixie. I mean, at the very least, she’s not made out as an obvious love interest for the main character like most female best friend characters, but she basically acts exactly like Jake with much fewer instances of responsibility and character development. In essence, she’s annoying most of the time. Her voice is annoying in itself, but giving her gangsta speech just makes it grating.

Spud can be funny on occasion, but for the most part he’s also exactly like his friends, just stupid. His slow and dimwitted manner of speech coupled with his gangsta-isms can also get annoying, but he’s the most tolerable of the group in that regard.

I’ve always had a bit of love/hate with Fu Dog. On one hand, he can be really funny and he’s arguably the most unique character in the series. On the other hand, he can be really unfunny and annoying. He’s voiced by John DiMaggio, so I guess I have to side with liking him.

Jake as a character can seem really one-note. He’s a ‘gangsta’ teen who is egotistical and wants to do everything cool without putting up with a lot of work and responsibility. However, when he’s actually serious, he becomes a pretty cool character. He has plenty of flaws, but he always seems willing to accept when he’s wrong and do his best to protect others.

The story of this episode as a whole, however, is very predictable. Absolutely anyone who’s seen The Karate Kid can predict how this episode will go once they see Jake doing those chores. The episode seems to take more time in establishing necessary things about the series than the actual story of the episode….and that’s fine I guess. There is a lot to go through in first episodes, and trying to work all of it into an original pilot is very difficult. Points are still taken for going the predictable route, but still.

Next Episode, Jake tries to get a date for the dance, but when he’s unable to get human candidates, he goes for supernatural girls.

---

If you enjoy my work and would like to help support my blog, please consider donating at my Ko-Fi page. Thank you! ♥

Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru Review

Plot: Yori has been in love with his twin sister, Iku, for as long as he can remember. When he finally reveals his feelings to her, Iku is shocked and their lives get increasingly complicated. Does Iku feel the same? Can this relationship ever work?

Breakdown: I want to make one thing clear right off the bat – I’m not against anime or any other form of media that explores taboo subjects. When done well, these stories can explore something risque that opens entirely new views on the subject at hand. Even particularly squicky topics like incest can be handled well and made to be interesting.

It’s important to address these topics. They may be uncomfortable to discuss, but they’re a part of life. Learning about and understanding something that many people don’t talk about can be incredibly valuable.

When done wrong, however, they can turn what would’ve been a meh or bad show into a horrible show.

That being said, I’ve been wanting to review this OVA ever since I watched it a few years ago. It is a shining example of how to tackle taboo subjects in the wrong way.

The biggest issue with this show is the main character, Yori. He is in love with his “younger” twin sister, Iku, and has been since he was a small child.

It was a little sweet to see Yori be so nice to Iku as kids. Even though he obviously had aspirations to make Iku his bride some day, it was still cute because that can really be brushed off as the musings of a child who simply doesn’t understand the norms of society and even, to a degree, nature. When we see Yori grown up, however, basically all sympathy and understanding for the guy goes up in smoke.

He’s a mean, jealous, angry little sack of crap who seems more in lust with Iku than he is in love.

Case and point, he uses some girl that has a crush on him, Tomoka, for sex in order to release some of his sexual tension geared towards Iku. But don’t worry, it’s not an asshole-ish thing to do because Tomoka is fully aware that he likes someone else and even asked to be a proxy for this girl, hoping that one day he’d fall in love with her, just because sex.

In regards to his jealousy, he flies off the handle at even the slightest hint of another guy showing interest in Iku, or Iku even contemplating having a non-descript boyfriend to the point where he’ll go into rage-fueled rants about who she may have in mind for this, even grabbing her and yelling in her face about it. After having a fantasy of him having sex with her, of course.

When he’s not doing that, he’s being overall unpleasant, never smiling and constantly being mean to basically everyone.

I believe the writers want us to feel like it’s understandable that Yori is such an undeniable douchenozzle because he’s been so frustrated for years that he loves/lusts after his sister yet can’t admit to those feelings. And if he does, not only does he have to worry about rejection, but he also has to worry about changing if not destroying his relationship to Iku because of this incredibly awkward situation.

No.

I understand that loving someone and even lusting after someone for years and not being able to tell them has to be frustrating, but Yori is an unbelievably huge asshole about it. A ‘normal’ person would still try to be kind and friendly to the person to not harm their relationship.

You could say he’s being an asshole for the sake of keeping her at arms length to help stave his feelings, but he’s an asshole to everyone yet especially to Iku. At a certain point, it seems less like he’s doing this to prevent heartache and break, and more like ‘I want to stay as far away from you as possible because I’m afraid I’ll rape you.’ kind of thing. This is only further enforced by the fact that he’s constantly grabbing and restraining her against her will.

It’s possible that whatever love he had for Iku as a child mutated into whatever rape-y person he’s devolved into today, but that doesn’t give me any sense of sympathy for him or connection with him. The exact opposite is true. I severely dislike this guy from practically the first frame of his scowling face, and that turns into hatred before we even get to the halfway point.

You might be asking ‘Well, what of Iku? Surely she’s better.’ You’d think so, but honestly, no. She’s a crybaby and an idiot. She cries every five minutes over every last thing and has a really unhealthy dependency on her brother.

Despite showing zero signs of being romantically interested in Yori during the first fifteen minutes of the show, after he jumps her, suddenly professes his feelings and gives her an ultimatum in romantically loving him or not, a quick clip show of all the times in the show where he’s been a cold asshole to her, which are pretty much the only moments where they shared screentime so far, makes her reciprocate his feelings. Not only that, but when she realizes there might be something between Yori and his FwB, Tomoka, SHE starts flipping out and being an even bigger idiot.

Even after this, it becomes clear to Yori that Iku doesn’t really love him and that she might be forcing herself into it to make him happy, which pretty much makes her a big ol’ doormat.

Iku offers her body to Yori after she finds out that he plans to go to a high school that is very far away, likely to keep him from leaving. However, when he realizes she’s forcing herself into it for his sake, he stops and says he wants her to love him first.

Okay, this seems better…..but the way he acts when he’s doing it shifted from rape-y to serial-killer-y. He says he’s not content with just her body and that he wants her heart to be his as well when they do it. And then he says:

Yori: “Hurry up and fall in love with me as a man, because there is no man in the world who loves you as much as I do.”

I might be reading too much into that, but this scene really contrasts with everything we’ve seen of him so far. He’s been a complete dick with nothing but sex on his mind. He needed to use some deluded girl as a stand-in for Iku to get his rocks off, which still doesn’t seem good enough, and now he’s all lovey-dovey all of a sudden. It’s jarring and unsettling.

Then they get to a point where they insult their audience. They, now fully involved romantically, go back to a place where they used to always go as children.…

………..a field of little white clovers.

….in front of a church.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

After proclaiming Iku as his lover and not his little sister through a really corny and convoluted breakdown of the word ‘clover’, they go into the church…..to make out. Between attempting to have sex in their own bunk bed while their parents are home and this, they really suck at finding secret places to swap bodily fluids. “Secret sweethearts: Kind of a miracle this is even a slightly a secret”

And yes, for some dumb reason, these opposite gender teenage siblings not only still share a room but they also sleep on bunk beds.

Really, out of all of the places to secretly tongue wrestle, why a damn church? I get it – this is the church their parents got married in and where Yori made the declaration that he’d be Iku’s husband, but still. They both fully understand the social and religious taboos of incest yet they can’t be bothered to find a place other than a church to kiss? A church where they may be easily recognized? That’d be one hell of an awkward encounter with your local priest.

Oh wait, I can tell you why they chose to do this in a church. Because then they can throw a crapton of looming religious imagery at your face to remind you that what they’re doing is frowned upon in the eyes of God. Not only do we get imagery, we get talking statues reminding Iku that what they’re doing is icky.

I agree, angel statue. This OVA is despicable.

I should mention that it’s never been established what religion they are, if they’re religious at all, but that’s not really the point. Do they really believe the audience is so dumb that we can’t understand that what they’re doing is taboo? They need to chuck talking angel statues and spinning camera techniques at us to make us understand the weight of it all?

Not only that, but, like I said, they needed to remind Iku of how icky this is so she’ll suddenly dump Yori since she can’t go through with this while they’re under the eyes of God.

Just when you think that Yori might actually be accepting of the fact that this can never work and seems ready to give up on it, he dumps Tomoka stating that he can’t accept any replacements as he can only be with the real deal. Tomoka freaks out about it, even though she knew full on what she was getting herself into. Hell, she’s the one who offered to be a stand-in.

After our rapiest scene so far, courtesy of Yori, he admits to Iku what he was doing with Tomoka and that he’s a terrible person. Well, give him credit for owning up to it. But in spite of it all, Iku still doesn’t seem like she can either forgive him or go through with their relationship.

Just when you think Iku might be giving up on this altogether, she brings him to a skeevy love hotel after school since that’s where he and Tomoka had sex. In order to counteract the Tomoka sex, she wants to have sex there too.

…….You remember how I said Yori was the biggest problem I had in this series? Iku earns second place. I know I’ve already explained what was mostly wrong with her character – whiny, crybaby, weird combination of manipulative doormat – but her character just keeps getting worse and worse.

Yori has been in love with her since he was a kid. His creepy feelings likely stem from an idealized and misguided childhood infatuation. Iku’s feelings stem from nothing. They could’ve kept going with the idea that she non-romantically loved her brother so much and she was so dependent on him emotionally that she felt like she needed to reciprocate his feelings in order to make him happy and keep him from leaving. But now they feel the need to make her be in love with him now as well.

I would say this love is stemming from jealousy of Tomoka, but it’s quite obvious that Yori is not in love with her. He even outright admitted that. Judging from how she’s been acting and the way she’s been talking, I’d say that those signs of jealousy of Tomoka are actually more possessiveness for Yori. She’s not jealous that Tomoka is/was dating him, especially considering that she holds no ill will towards Tomoka, she’s offended that Yori was being intimate with someone who wasn’t her. She wants complete claim over him.

The thing is, Iku doesn’t seem sexually charged towards Yori. Every time they’ve been close to having sex, and even in the scene where they actually have sex, she seems scared out of her mind and is constantly crying. Despite the fact that she agrees to have sex with him, she’s completely uncomfortable with the idea of him seeing her even partially nude, which raises a red flag with me. She doesn’t really seem like she wants to have sex with him. She’s either doing this to, again, make Yori happy or to stake a claim on Yori. She was perfectly fine just kissing him and stuff and being with him before she heard that he slept with Tomoka and then, boom, let’s go to a love motel.

As the sex scene goes on, we get talked to like idiots again.

Yori: Narration – “What we have done is taboo.”

NO. WAY. Incest is taboo?

Yori starts crying because, now that he’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted, he still intends on leaving because their relationship is unnatural and he could never give Iku happiness.

But maybe it’s a good thing that he’s leaving because, even in spite of being a consensual relationship, he still seems to have abusive asshole behavior lying within him with this line.

After he explains to his best friend, Yano, about the situation, Yano asks why he’s still leaving if he loves Iku.

Yori: “Sometimes, my feelings of wanting to protect Iku with everything that I have, clash with feelings of wanting to destroy something.”

And that pretty much sums up why this guy is so creepy and deplorable. It’s not the fact that he’s in love with his sister. It’s the rape-y abusive asshole part that makes you want to turn this thing off.

Oh yeah, Yano, let’s talk about him for a minute seeing as how that’s about the amount of time he gets on screen. Yano seems to be a pretty cool guy. Wanna know how cool? Yori admits his feelings for Iku and even tells him that they had sex…..and he’s not only totally cool with it but he’s also not really surprised. He talks about it like it’s any other relationship. That’s about it.

For more on Iku’s possessiveness, we get this next line. At Yori and Iku’s graduation, Yori gives away all the buttons on his school shirt to the girls because he’s….. popular? I think? They never established such a thing, but okay.

In Japan, it’s a tradition for boys to give their second school uniform button to a special girl that they consider their loves at graduation as a means of confession. Specifically the second button down since it’s the closest button to the heart and is said to hold the feelings built up from the years in school. I get the symbolism with losing all the buttons, even though it may just be blatant fanservice with his open shirt, but given the tradition I don’t get it. The best thing I can find for the other buttons is some people give them to friends.

Anyway, she sees his lack of buttons and says this;

Iku: “Why are there no buttons? Don’t let other girls touch you!”

If what I’ve researched is true, I don’t see why she doesn’t assume some of them weren’t given to guys. The second one is the only one meant to be linked to romance. Though that does leave the question of where his second button went.

Iku has a hissy fit about him leaving, and he later tells her that he’s leaving because they can’t be a normal couple where they live now. Since everyone knows them and knows they’re siblings, they can’t do the smallest romantic gestures without experiencing the social stigma of such a thing, which is totally not what he said earlier.

He basically said he was leaving because he was afraid he’d end up hurting someone or Iku because of his intense passion. Now he’s not only giving a totally different reason but he’s also telling her to meet with him again so they can be a normal couple in a different place? Does he no longer care about his “feelings of wanting to destroy something”? What a creepy son of a bitch.

The OVA also start flipping on the comedy switch here. This show has been nothing but melodrama this entire time. Not one comedic moment or joke has occurred until this point and all of a sudden we get surprise puppies, pratfalls, Iku hiding Yori’s luggage, their father hiding his shoes, and cartoon-y art in several places. Just as soon as it started, it stops. What the hell happened?

Yori sets off for high school, and just Iku touching his arm as he gets in the car makes him say this.

Yori: “Don’t touch me. Mom and dad will think it’s weird.”

Yeah because it’s totally unreasonable for a sister to hug her brother when he’s moving away, especially when they’re close twins.

Just in case you still felt like Tomoka was a decent character, she arrives at the train station to stop Yori from leaving. As she hugs Yori, she glares at Iku, indicating that she realizes that the girl Yori liked this whole time was Iku and this hug is partially to spite Iku. See? That’s jealousy.

Yori pushes Tomoka away, hugs his father and mother to make it more socially acceptable to hug Iku I guess. They hug, he gives her a kiss on the cheek and then he leaves, the end.

Before I get to the bottom line, let’s explore what this series really didn’t feel like talking about and that’s the psychology of incest. Prepare for uncomfortable education!

Anime is no stranger to incest. It’s…odd, but true. This is anything from heavy incestuous overtones like Shugo and Rena from .Hack//Twilight to downright blatant incest like Yuka and Kouta from Elfen Lied. The difference here is that the incest angle is usually shooed away a bit by saying they’re not fully blood related or they didn’t grow up together. Still icky, but toned down because of technicalities. However, there might be more to at least the second excuse than merely toning down the ick factor.

Incest is taboo for several reasons. It creates a high chance of birth defects, religions usually don’t tolerate it, and we’ve all been taught throughout our lives that it’s simply not accepted in society. For the most part, we accept this just fine because people don’t usually have sexual or romantic attractions to people they’re related to. Some of this may be contributed to something called the Westermarck Effect or reverse sexual imprinting.

The Westermarck effect is a psychological theory that suggests that people may become desensitized to sexual attraction to people of the opposite sex if they spend prolonged periods of time with that person as a young child, supposedly from the ages of birth to six years.

People who are related yet don’t grow up alongside each other and meet later in life may experience something called genetic sexual attraction or GSA. GSA occurs when relatives who didn’t spend much, if any, time together as children actually experience high levels of sexual attraction due to their similar facial features and possibly similar interests and experiences. I believe this may be one of the reasons why the go-to incest angles for anime and even some western shows is usually the cousin. Just far enough apart genetically to avoid some of the ick factor while also removing most of the childhood aspect from the picture.

In contrast to the Westermarck effect are the well-known theories of Sigmund Freud whose motto is ‘everything in your life amounts to your desire to bone your mom.’ Freud’s theories, shockingly enough, pointed to natural lust between family members that nearly everyone has yet is covered up due to the taboo of incest. Freud believed this taboo was created to help tamper down instances of incestuous relationships for the sake of healthy reproduction, religious taboos and other reasons. However, the Westermarck effect has even challenged this theory. Taking a note from Wiki, the psychologist Steven Pinker wrote in his book ‘How the Mind Works‘;

“The idea that boys want to sleep with their mothers strikes most men as the silliest thing they have ever heard. Obviously, it did not seem so to Freud, who wrote that as a boy he once had an erotic reaction to watching his mother dressing. But Freud had a wet nurse and may not have experienced the early intimacy that would have tipped off his perceptual system that Mrs. Freud was his mother. The Westermarck theory has out-Freuded Freud.”

In essence, there’s really no worse setup that this show could’ve created in terms of a realistic incestuous relationship. Despite the title, the two siblings are twins, meaning they’re the exact same age. They grew up alongside each other since they were born with no difference in their ages.

Taking the Westermarck effect as mostly gospel and believing that the cutoff for its effects is six years old, the way they could’ve gone about this in a more realistic way would be to have Yori actually be the older sibling. Make Yori at least seven or something when Iku is conceived. That would help account for at least Yori’s lust/love for Iku. And to make it less squicky in regards to loving someone so much younger than Yori, maybe have them both be in their twenties when the attraction starts or at least when they get together?

I know this still leaves the issue of Iku’s feelings, but I don’t really think it matters much. She’s so wishy washy in what she actually wants. She wants Yori to stay with her and loves him deeply, but she doesn’t show much in terms of sexual attraction to him and her romantic feelings are highly questionable.

Or go the obvious route and head for GSA. Keep them as twins, but make them separated at birth for some reason and meet each other later in life. Yori and Iku can still develop both romantic and sexual feelings for each other while keeping the incest angle intact. If the childhood connection thing is important, have them meet at like ten or something and have Yori’s feelings develop through puberty.

I think this series is so widely known and somewhat well-received because of the fact that it is throwing focus onto a no-holds barred fully blood related, twins no less, pairing that grew up together from birth. And I understand that. It’s nice to give some applause for simply acknowledging that they had the balls to do something like that.

Except for one itty bitty thing.

They’re not 100% blood related in the manga. They’re half-siblings with different fathers. How is that possible when they’re twins? It’s incredibly rare, but it is possible. When a woman has sex with two different men in the time frame of, at most, one week, she can get pregnant from both of them. One egg gets fertilized from one man and another egg by the other, creating something called heteropaternal superfecundation.

After looking it up, this is indeed how they were conceived, but I won’t spoil who the second father is.

Art and Animation: The background art is very nice and detailed. I really love the art and animation for the hair. It’s beautifully done…..however, the faces….ech. I was so distracted by the terrible art for the faces. By all means, it looks like it’s trying to be typical shoujo style, but the lips are huge and oddly shaded at points. The noses seem overly big and oddly shaped from the front. The eyes, as silly as it seems to note this in an anime, seem too big and oddly shaped for their heads.

Music: The OP is fine, albeit a bit over dramatic with violin music. The BG music is forgettable. I didn’t care for the ED. It sounded like several songs overlaying each other in the beginning.

Voice Acting: Japanese – A bit overly dramatic, but they were probably directed that way. Everyone was fine in their roles.

Bottom Line: This is a terribly written show with poorly written characters that you want to smack with the only redeemable one being Yano, and there’s even a hint of something off about him near the end. He also gets little screentime so it doesn’t matter.

What could’ve been an interesting look at a taboo topic instead of the insipid incest pairings we get in anime purely for the sake of shock value and adding naughtiness to a pairing for the sake of pervs just turned out to be an uncomfortable show about people you will grow to hate quickly with incest thrown in as conflict. Siblings or not, these people can kiss my ass.

The Tomoka conflict, if you can call it that, was basically unneeded. They could’ve done something better with it, like put more focus on him trying his best to use her as a substitute for Iku and trying his hardest to love her, but nope. He bangs her and only a few days later, after 15 years of being in love with her, kisses Iku and confesses his feelings to her just because she started crying after he was being an asshole to her yet again. Then Tomoka turns around and seems to turn into a bitch once she realizes that Iku is the one he’s in love with, despite the fact that she instigated their whole relationship as a substitute deal.

Yori is terribly inconsistent with his character outside of his assholeish behavior, and Iku is basically the same way only replace ‘assholeish’ with ‘whiny and useless’.

This is just a poor story all around. I will be reading the manga for the AniManga Clash and possibly in hopes of finding something more redeemable about this series, but as it stands, it’s just not worth anyone’s time.

Additional Information and Notes: Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru was based on a manga by Kotomi Aoki. It was directed by Mayumi Nishimoto and it was produced by Shogakukan.

In 2007, a live-action version was created and produced yet again by Shogakakun. It was directed by Hiroshi Ando.

Runtime: 50 minutes

Year: 2005

Recommended Audience: The subject matter alone is enough to nudge this towards an older audience, but there are also several sex scenes. Nothing is shown graphically, but they’re still there. Yori can also be somewhat rough during these sex scenes and even crosses the line into assault once or twice. 14+

---

If you enjoy my work and would like to help support my blog, please consider donating at my Ko-Fi page. Thank you! ♥

Tokyo Mew Mew/Mew Mew Power Episode 23 Sub/Dub Comparison

Plot: Ichigo’s friends have suddenly become madly in love with Akasaka and Shirogane. Ichigo decides to help them confess their feelings, but the appearance of Mew Aqua makes the situation even more complicated.

———————————

Getting off to a bad start with a scene removal/misplacement, the original starts with a shot of a river at night cutting to a drop of Mew Aqua before we get our title screen. In the dub, we start off at the scene following this which is the café scene.

The sign outside the café is painted and actually translated….to a degree of course.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Is it just me or does ‘gotta’ look wrong written in that sentence?

When Ichigo faces the audience with question marks in her eyes, she’s yelling out “Why?!” In the dub, she says it’s gross that her friends are in love with Elliot and Wesley. I wouldn’t bring this up if not for the fact that the dub doesn’t really make sense with the question mark eyes.

During the flashback, the letter ‘K’ is removed from a sign behind the thug. Because…yeah, kids will never know what a K is. This is why your young demographic sucks, Special K cereal!

I find this paint edit even stupider because 4Kids has purposely replaced words with the specific letter K before. Remember Kaiba’s company building?

Subbed:

Dubbed:

In the next shot, we see the garage door full out. It used to say in printed letters ‘World Tane Museum’ Instead, 4Kids painted over this with a huge ugly splash of graffiti.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Remember, museums are bad. Vandalism is good!

More text, even the incredibly small and totally unreadable ‘text’ in the black sign, are also removed.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

By the way, how lame are these thugs? One of them gets flipped and they’re all ‘AHHH RUN AWAY!’

The tea that….uhh….Brunette friend I know I’ve learned the name of but don’t care, has is merely chamomile. In the dub, it’s Lazy Jane’s Peppermint Pleasures.

Akasaka states that chamomile was the tea he was looking for. In the dub, he recites the company tagline of Lazy Jane’s tea. Also, he omits stating that he wants to buy it because he keeps going on like he’s their damn spokesperson.

Brunette friend says she has the money to pay for the tea since she dropped it, but Akasaka says it’s fine since he’ll be using it the instant he gets home. In the dub, she keeps going on about how she didn’t mean to drop it, and Wesley says she actually did him a favor because he’s been looking all over town for it. Yeah he never would’ve found it had you not dropped it on the floor.

And this sales associate is a bit of an ass for giving Brunette friend a dirty look for dropping the tea. It must happen all the time in stores, and she barely poked a hole in it. That mess could be cleaned up with a broom and dustpan in five seconds. Lighten up.

Before the end of the flashback, Brunette friend is shown giving goo-goo eyes to Akasaka while surrounded by hearts. This is removed.

Brunette Friend originally says that she’s never met a man with such a kind smile. In the dub, she says that any man who drinks Lazy Jane’s Peppermint Pleasures is the only man for her. If that was an actual brand, I’d really believe this whole scene was a commercial. And is she really so shallow and/or obsessed with this brand that her relationships may hinder on it?

Woman: “Oh darling, I can’t wait until we’re married. We’ll have a wonderful future together. A nice house, some kids, maybe a cute little dog. I just can’t wait to share my life with you!”

Man: “I feel the same way, sweetheart. Would you like any tea?”

Woman: “Oh certainly! Make mine Peppermint Pleasures, please!”

Man: “Oh that’s only available in Lazy Jane’s brand; I don’t have that.”

Woman: “Aw, you’re all out?”

Man: “No, I use Motivated Joan’s brand tea. Has a slightly better taste and is a bit cheaper.”

Woman: “THE WEDDING IS OFF, YOU BACKSTABBING SON OF A BITCH!!” *storms off*

Ichigo asks if it’s a coincidence that her two best friends fell for Shirogane and Akasaka. Zoey says that it looks like they have really deep crushes on Elliot (“The attitude king,” as he’s referred to here) and Wesley (“Prince Charming the second” as she refers to him) and then says she hates her life. I can get how it’d be annoying to have one of your best friends be in love with someone you dislike, but why is she upset about the other liking Wesley? She likes him just fine doesn’t she?

The next scene is removed. In the original, we cut back to school. In the dub, we cut to a scene with Deep Blue having a meeting with Dren and Tarb. I’ll tackle the removed scene first then go to the meeting.

It’s the end of the school day, and Ichigo is talking to Aoyama about the situation. She says Shirogane’s abrasive and Akasaka might be too old. She also worries about them getting hurt, so she doesn’t know what to do.

Aoyama tells her not worry because he believes Shirogane and Akasaka would never intentionally hurt them. Plus, the most important thing is to support the girls’ feelings of love as they’re very important. Ichigo agrees and we cut out. I guess this was removed because this actually shows a mature conversation about this situation and doesn’t involve treating Shirogane and Akasaka like they’re assholes.

Now for the meeting….

And….they didn’t really change it at all. Good on ya, 4Kids.

The scene that follows this is pushed back a bit. Instead, the shot of the river from earlier is placed here as the group continues to talk.

An establishing shot of the café is added before the scene with the boys researching because of 4Kids’ commercial.

Like always, the text on the computer is removed.

Incredibly minor details but;

1) The herbal tea shop originally was given no name. In the dub it’s Gourmet Galore and More.

2) The tea that he’s serving is the same tea he bought that day. In the dub, it’s Lemon Zinger.

The girls say the traditional ‘itadakimasu’ before drinking their tea. In the dub they say that the Lemon Zinger tea ‘sounds zingy’.

Brunette Friend clamors over Akasaka’s smile. She, in response to Wesley saying that he finds the tea subtle and refreshing, thinks to herself that she finds him subtle and refreshing too in the dub….not sure what that means.

Blonde friend asks Shirogane why he saved her, and he responds that he was walking by and felt like it. In the dub, she thanks him for saving her to which he responds sharply that it was no big deal.

Afterward, she gushes over how cool he is while in the dub she gushes over how crabby he is.

All the girls say while musing about the secret Akasaka and Shirogane could be harboring is maybe they’re fighting to save the world with a super-woman. Not exactly sure why they’d say specifically a super-woman, but whatever. In the dub, they get way too specific by saying they’re probably teamed up to fight aliens with a bunch of half-human half-animal superheroes.

Blonde friend babbles about how Shirogane’s probably a nice person beneath his rough exterior while dub!Blonde friend babbles about the food she’s going to make him for lunch. Oh she also adds this stupid line about napkins. Because he’ll truly be blown away by napkins with little cupids on them.

Brunette friend talks about how Akasaka is likely carrying a heavy burden secretly in his heart and she hopes her poem will mend the wounds. In the dub, she basically says Wesley’s really refined and intelligent so she’ll search her soul to create the perfect poem for him.

Shock beyond shocks, the signs in the next scene are all painted free of text. There are a bunch of other signs that are painted free of text as they walk, just trust me on that.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Also, what is that store? Mold Seven? What?

Ichigo talks about how it’s weird that she never noticed the attributes about Akasaka and Shirogane before her friends fell in love with them. Aoyama then says that liking someone allows you to see merits in a person that others may not see – that’s the power of love. He then wishes them the best, Ichigo agrees and then thinks to herself that she sees Aoyama’s smile in a more radiant way than anyone else, and she hopes one day that her feelings will get through to him.

In the dub, Zoey talks about how love is weird in the way that one day you’re just walking along and, boom, love hits you. Mark says he heard that love changes your body’s chemistry. They cut out Ichigo nodding in agreement, and her inner monologue is changed to her thinking she’s so lucky to have met him. They also cut out a shot of him near the end before we cut.

They included this line purely to add in a new pop song that can pucker up and kiss my ass.

….Sorry….Anger’s getting the better of me in this episode. Let’s carry on.

They cut out a shot of a bunch of poetry books on Brunette friend’s desk. And they paint away the title of the book that she’s holding as well as all text on the books from the further away shots.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Bonus:

Ichigo says the café is closed today so the boys should be in the office. In the dub, one of the friends says it’s exciting.

4Kids not only adds in cheesy piano music when Blonde and Brunette go to give their gifts to Wesley and Elliot, but when they say they’re too busy, they add a sound of someone slamming the keys of a piano. That’s basically the piano equivalent to a record scratch.

Ichigo just yells at the boys to wait and then says “What the…” after they leave. In the dub, Zoey yells that they’re rude and then says “Men are beasts”…..They excused themselves politely and said they had an emergency to attend to in both versions. They also apologized for needing to leave. That’s not rude and in no way warrants calling them ‘beasts’.

I get that these are young teenage girls we’re dealing with, but why are they so devastated merely at the fact that Akasaka/Wesley and Shirogane/Elliot were too busy to take their gifts at that moment? They could always do it later…..Okay, in the case of Blonde maybe not because the food might spoil, but still. She can always make a new lunch or put it in the fridge, and Brunette’s poem won’t rot. You caught them at a bad time. It’s not the end of the world.

They cut out a shot of the presents at the café and Ichigo explaining that they left them there for them to enjoy later…..so wait, they did that and they’re still moping and giving up completely? Man, either teenagers are more wishy washy about this stuff than I remember or they’re just lame.

They exchange a wipe transition for a fade. The most exciting of edit notes!…..XTREEEEEEEEEEEMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!

Ichigo is also mad at the boys but moreso because they ran off during such a ‘critical point’ in their confession. Zoey says this as she rants through the park:

Zoey: “Of all the mean, low-down, rude, egotistical, chauvinistic, arrogant, pigheaded tricks I’ve ever seen, this takes the cake!”

……….Bitch, shut up.

I know you’re angry, but this little tangent is completely uncalled for.

Let’s see, what did they do in this episode so far? Elliot saved Blonde. Wesley was kind to Brunette. They kindly put aside something important they wanted to do, something involving, of all things, investigating Mew…..*sigh* sorry, this is the dub so BLUE aqua, for the sake of having tea with a couple of lovesick kids. Then they politely excused themselves, as they were clearly leaving and you guys were interrupting them YET AGAIN, mind you, and apologized for leaving.

How is that mean? Low-down? Rude? Egotistical? Chauvinistic; a word I’m pretty sure you don’t even know the definition of? Also, nice that you’re basically calling them sexist when earlier you said, word for word “Men are beasts,” hypocrite. How are they arrogant? Pigheaded? Hell, how was anything they ever did a TRICK?

Out of all of the stupid, nonsensical, moronic, mean-spirited, childish, bitchy, and completely uncalled for lines I’ve ever heard from this show, this one takes the cake!

The following few lines are basically the same, with Zoey of course being more brash, but Zoey adds this:

Zoey: “You big ape!”

Elliot: “Who are you calling a big ape?”

HAHAHA, GET IT!? BECAUSE SEAN SCHEMMEL’S MOST NOTED AS BEING GOKU FROM DBZ!? GOKU’S A SAIYAN AND THEY TURN INTO GIANT APES! It’s funny because references.

And yet they turn around to make a nice comment where there was none. After relaying that there are signs of Mew Aqua in the river, Akasaka says he and Shirogane wanted to investigate the area first before sending out the girls to do a more thorough investigation and possible retrieval. In the dub, this is changed to Elliot apologizing again for being ‘rude’ (He REALLY wasn’t. Not even the abrasive Elliot/Shirogane was really being slightly rude.) to her friends, but they really needed to investigate the area. Then Zoey says, understandably….’Oh.’

Ooohhhhh you mean when you said you had an emergency to take care of and work you needed to do that you actually had an emergency to tend to and work to do!? I thought you guys were going to go out in the middle of the street to put your thumbs in your noses while repeating ‘Lunches and poems are for losers’ and setting fire to pictures of Zoey’s friends. Welp, color me embarrassed.

No, don’t! Please, I beg of you! I’m sorry for all the mean comments and sarcasm I’ve made this episode. Please don’t bring this plague upon me again! Mercy! MERCY!

Zoey: “Mew mew style, mew mew grace, mew mew power in your face!”

That’s it! I’m committing all the arson. The world will burn alongside my rageful heart! I WILL NOT LISTEN TO THREE MORE INSTANCES OF MEW MEW POWER IN MY FACE WITHOUT COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF DESTRUCTION AT MY FEET! DO YOU HEAR M–

*panting* Ah…..so…..someone took all my gasoline, and my blowtorch and my lighters and my matches and my flint and my magnifying glass…..and all the dry sticks in the area. I….just…I just want the world to hurt as I hurt. Is that so much to ask?

Also, two notes about this.

1) Ichigo doesn’t do her motto here, so screw you, 4Kids.

2) Why are you wasting time doing your motto when your friends lives are in danger? That’s way ruder than anything Wesley and Elliot allegedly did to them.

Kisshu says that, in the end, the Mew Aqua they were after was merely a drop. In the dub, Dren says there’s something different about that drop.

They cut out the other Mew Mews showing up out of nowhere, which I don’t mind in the least because all they do is stand behind Kisshu and do nothing. Did they have a screentime quota they needed to fill?

Shirogane told Blonde friend that her lunch made him feel loved. Elliot said it was so good she should open a café. It’s not the worst change, but considering how closed off Shirogane is, getting him to say something like that, to someone he barely knows no less, is a pretty big deal.

A closeup of the girls on top of the café is shifted to the end of the episode where they use it, in reverse, to merely just have Renee say she’s going to barf at the lovey display from Blonde and Brunette.

This replaces a shot of the top of the café.

————————

This episode was poo. The dub was an elephant poo sundae being forced down my throat via a hollowed out cactus. I’m so glad this is done. I procrastinated so much on this episode. I’m really sorry if I amped up the anger a bit much in this episode, but sometimes these comparisons seriously grate on the nerves, especially during episodes that are both filler and focusing on characters that annoy me.

But it’s done now, so let’s look on the bright side.

Three episodes left, guys! Whoo!

Next episode is Zakuro at some jewelry show and stuff happens! YAY!

…Previous Episode

---

If you enjoy my work and would like to help support my blog, please consider donating at my Ko-Fi page. Thank you! ♥

Episode One-Derland: Diabolik (2000)

Plot: Based on the Italian comic series, Diabolik is a master thief who has dedicated his life to righting the wrongs of his assassin and fellow thief brother, Dane, and the brotherhood he leads. Along the way, he meets a woman named Eva Kant whose mother’s necklace was stolen by Dane. She later finds out that he was one of the people who kidnapped her father several years ago. Diabolik recruits Eva to help retrieve her necklace, and she later becomes his partner in ‘crime’, aimed at taking down Dane once and for all.

Breakdown: While I have never read the comic this is based on, I believe this is a pretty good intro to the series as a whole. The theme song gives off a very weird air, like this is a very cheesy old spy show from the 70s, but it’s actually a pretty solid anti-hero story with some really cool gadgets and a surprisingly serious tone.

Neither Eva, Diabolik (which is actually pronounced Dee-a-Bowl-lick and not Die-a-Bawl-ick like I thought at first) nor Dane are really anything special in the personality department so far, and Dane is kinda super-villain-ish, but they’re still pretty good characters. Diabolik has a charm about himself, and Eva, despite being new to thievery, is made out to be a good strong female lead. I’m a little weirded out that she’s so open to the idea of becoming a thief, but considering they’re supposed to be stealing for the greater good I guess it’s not that outlandish.

There are also some surprisingly cool gadgets in this show so far, and he even has the trademark tricked out car.

I like anti-hero stories, and a phantom thief always seemed like a more appealing hero story than a spy. They have all the charm and intrigue, but with less of the cheese.

This show is a bit old, and the art and animation make it seem like early 90s not 2000, but I did enjoy what the story has to offer so far and I look forward to more.

Recommended Audience: There’s no comedy bits in this show and assassinations/killing people/death is alluded to a few times. 7+

---

If you enjoy my work and would like to help support my blog, please consider donating at my Ko-Fi page. Thank you! ♥

Site Update: 1/10/17: Layout Update Redux

So you may have noticed that we, again, have a new layout even though we just changed the layout a couple of days ago. Well, after some deliberation, I found that the layout wasn’t working for me like I thought it would. Plus, I found that that layout also had the same featured image redundancy issue I had with other layouts. How I didn’t notice until I set everything up and activated it and let it sit out for a while, I don’t know.

The point is, we have a new new layout that works as well and even better because I confirmed that this theme does not display the featured images above posts, making a lot of my posts look weird.

The current theme we have now is a modified version of Big Brother, which actually was one of the final themes I was selecting before I decided on Zoren before. The main reason I kinda didn’t want Big Brother was because I would’ve had to completely remake a new site banner from scratch, and I didn’t want to do that. However, since Zoren didn’t work out, I had to. I think it came out pretty good, even if the menu kinda messes it up a little. Plus, we got some fairly nice color selections and my new background still stays. Hooray!

Additionally and minorly, I added some page images to all of the SDC pages and Dissecting the Disquels just to make it a little more appealing in there.

Thanks, and like before if you have any suggestions, comments, requests or ideas, feel free to let me know. 🙂

~Twix

 

 

Tokyo Mew Mew/Mew Mew Power Episode 22 Sub/Dub Comparison

Plot: Ichigo has neglected her summer homework, and school starts back up tomorrow. As she rushes to get it all done in time, she finds herself faced with a ton of distractions, no one willing to help her out, and Taruto with a new Chimera Animal.

———————————–

The shot of Ichigo and Aoyama on their date is just of them walking together. In the dub, they’re on the roller coaster, and the dialogue is also changed to reflect this.

They remove the wiping transitions for simple cuts.

While still in the ‘summer is awesome’ montage, we see Ichigo and the others in their yukata at a festival catching goldfish, followed up by a shot of Ichigo looking ‘spooky’. After that, we see chibi-Ichigo flying through the air as she gushes over what a great summer it was. This is all removed because Japanese culture and…..no reason for the last one I suppose.

After the title card, we see Ichigo running in circles in her room lamenting that summer is over. This is removed.

As Ichigo cries about the end of summer, we see Japanese text in rock form fall on her head. If I’m not mistaken, that’s supposed to read as ‘August 31^st‘ (8^th month, 31^st day.) which I suppose is indicative of the end of her vacation. In the dub………………………………………………………*sigh* Ya know, I took a rather long break from these comparisons……I come back and I see…..

Tater tots.

Yup, since 4Kids can’t be arsed to just friggin’ write ‘August 31^st‘ in rock text above her head, they draw a bunch of rock-ish tater tots to fall on her head instead. Her dialogue is also altered to set up this fantastic joke by listing off crappy things she hates about school, one of which being tater tots.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Obviously none of the Japanese text on Ichigo’s books is kept.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Also, the small text on the books behind her school books is completely wiped clean. Give 4Kids some credit for changing it instead of just painting it away.

Because 4Kids places their theme song in the middle of this scene instead of at the beginning of the episode like the original, we get a shot of Ichigo’s house before we see her running in circles again.

Ichigo just basically says she’s screwed as she cartoonishly floats to the ground. Zoey points out the fact that this is happening by saying “I’m a leaf falling off the tree of procrastination.” In addition to being a dumb joke, ‘procrastination’ is yet another word 4Kids shouldn’t be expecting their target audience to know if they don’t even believe they have the reading level of a stick of deodorant.

Okay, 4Kids, remember that stuff I’ve been telling you about in regards to the ‘missing the forest for the trees’ thing? Well, surprisingly, you kept in this scene with Ichigo dressing up in traditional clothes, in a traditional Japanese style house and sipping tea…..yet, you erased the Kanji on the wall.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Ichigo just glances to her pile of homework because she remembers it on her own. In the dub, Zoey tells herself to feel her energies focusing, and then we hear some bored sounding guy’s voiceover talking about kinetic energy, which makes her glance to her homework.

Ichigo just keeps muttering “What to do” over and over as she imagines sinking into murky water. In the dub, Zoey again points out the visual gag by saying she’s sinking in a pool of her own laziness and the fish of shame will nibble at her rotting…well, she doesn’t complete her sentence, but it’s safe to assume she would’ve said ‘corpse’.

Ichigo calls her friend Moe for help, which is reflected when we see the name on her phone. Zoey calls…..’The Megster.’ 4Kids….stop. Stop. Just stop. You’re making a fool of yourself whenever you try to act like you know anything of what kids actually say and do. Go take some Metamucil and watch your stories, but stop. Please.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Also, Ichigo merely asked for help with her homework not to copy it.

Unreadable text on the back of Ichigo’s phone is removed.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Zoey: “So, listen, I’m a bobo.” A….bobo? What?…..I know I didn’t mishear that……A bobo…..Wait. You mean a DODO? You guys can at least proofread or catch this in recording/editing for god’s sake.

Again, Ichigo asks for help with her homework while Zoey asks to copy it.

Ichigo also asks if it would inconvenience Miwa to go to her house immediately. While Zoey says the same thing, she also asks if there’s a boy at Mimi’s house.

HOLY CRAP! THEY LEFT IN, DIALOGUE-WISE NO LESS, THAT SHE’S IN OKINAWA! They could’ve said ‘California’ or ‘Hawaii’ and easily got away with it in that shot, but nope. They kept it in. I would be more proud of them if not for the fact that I’m pretty sure they left it this way purely because they made it clear that she traveled, which sometimes makes it acceptable. But still they could’ve merely said ‘Japan’ as a whole instead of leaving in the exact area.

Aw, 4Kids lost their brownie points from earlier by removing the text entirely from the books as we pan by.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

That means I have to make the joke I was going to make earlier. Ahem. Well, no wonder she’s having such trouble with her homework!

Also, for some reason beyond my understanding, they change the panning direction. In the original, the shot is moving from right to left (back of the books to the front) In the dub, it’s from left to right (front to back). Confusion levels rising.

While Ichigo says, as she floats to the floor yet again, that it’s her fault that she’s in trouble, Zoey says, as she points out the visual gag yet again, that she’s flapping in the breeze of doom and failure.

Scene swaps, yay! The scene originally continues with Ichigo contacting Moe again for help, with her finally caving in at the end. In the dub, they cut straight from Zoey floating to the floor with a scene of the aliens eating shaved ice, so let’s tackle that first.

There’s a banner behind Kisshu in this shot with the kanji for koori (shaved ice in this context). This is changed to saying “Home sweet home.” Right, ‘evil’ aliens would totally have a ‘Home sweet home’ banner in their house.

Subbed:

Dubbed (sorry for the quality; it’s a moving shot and the dub tends to have this ‘fade’ problem):

Kisshu then asks Taruto about the shaved ices they’re eating. Dren asks what Tarb was thinking by not installing an air conditioner in the new base he built. Also, as a slight note, Taruto talks about how he created a field to help keep them hidden while Tarb talks about all the trees he cut down for the lumber for their new house.

There’s two reasons as to why this is noteworthy. 1) They despise the destruction of their planet in the exact same means as chopping down trees. The original aliens may be hypocritical and ‘evil’ but I can’t see them condoning land clearing like that. 2) Taruto is the plant guy. Why would he specifically feel perfectly fine with knocking down tons of trees for lumber?

We get a lame presentation (and yes it’s an actual presentation) about the environmental reasons for the summer heat. Global warming, greenhouse effect, humans suck, where’s Captain Planet when you need him etc. etc. This is kept the same, but there’s another slight difference in Kisshu/Dren’s reaction. Originally, he just says that humans need to refrain from messing with things such as the ozone layer. Dren says they need to destroy the humans before they destroy the planet they’re trying to steal from them. I just feel like the last part of that line was tacked on to again make the aliens less sympathetic.

Taruto points out that the humans do have some good things as well, and he directs our attention to the jangling wind chimes. The boys all enjoy the sound while Pai just remarks that it’s boring. Tarb says that he wants to start the annihilation of the humans by starting with the Mew Mews. A shot of Taruto looking at the chimes is removed and Dren suddenly butts in to mention the cool breeze.

The rest of the scene plays out roughly the same with the only difference being Taruto pointing out that they’re using the heat as an excuse to skimp out on work while Tarb says he’ll tell Deep Blue that they’re slacking off.

The thing with Kisshu being confused about rock, paper, scissors is also the same, but Pai doesn’t mention anything about a ‘Daily Human Report’ that Dren should be reading……And, really, doesn’t that sound like something an alien in a Looney Tunes cartoon would have to read? Hey, guys, don’t miss that intense article on Rock, Paper, Scissors in the Daily Human Report. Next week, I hear they’re doing a piece on the cultural significance of Hopscotch.

They remove a shot of Kisshu in slow motion realizing that Pai and Taruto have thrown paper and rock. I have no clue why. In both versions, it’s clear that he cheated (He waited several seconds before putting his hand down. I know this shot was in slow motion, but it’s completely unreasonable to believe Taruto and Pai didn’t see that Kisshu paused before putting his hand out.) Was that a time cut or something?

The rest of the scene past Kisshu and Pai leaving the porch is removed. Pai looks back at Kisshu and thinks, for a guy who said he knew nothing of how Rock, Paper, Scissors worked, he played astoundingly well. I actually don’t mind this cut because it’s stupid to say that someone plays a game of pure luck well. That’s like saying someone’s good at slots. The only way you can really be ‘good’ is if you’re lucky or cheating.

Now back to the stuff from before with Ichigo, she’s sitting there trying to do her homework while berating herself for being stupid enough to put off doing her homework until last minute. Zoey’s prattling off a bunch of stuff about geometry. This continues throughout much of the scene.

The rest plays out basically the same, but the ending is completely changed. Originally, after Ichigo’s speech about friendship, Moe pops into frame yet again to say she’s not happy, but eventually she agrees to help Ichigo, and Ichigo rejoices before we cut to the scene with the aliens. In the dub, They repeat her blubbering animation after Megan yells at her, freeze-frame on Zoey as she’s making her speech and have the phone play a recording indicating that she’s been disconnected. Zoey then falls over on the desk and sighs before continuing with a scene that is supposed to occur later.

This means, dun dun dun, scene swap. And scene deletion as a bonus. This part where Ichigo falls over and laments isn’t until a scene with Taruto has passed and we get our first commercial break in the original. Also, it skips over a small scene with Ichigo’s mom asking her if she’s finished her homework since she’s just chatting on the phone and laughing.

They changed the name on Ichigo’s phone to—for the love of God…. THE MIMSTER?! Seriously?! She uses the same terrible nickname device for both of her friends…..Either Zoey’s being made out to be an incredibly lame teenager or 4Kids is trying to make me vomit.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Another paint edit changes her default screen to reading ‘Tom’. Are you sure he’s not the TOMSTER? Also, while no name is given to this person in the original, they clearly have a female voice. Since the shot of the phone is just the same over and over, I’ll just give you guys the screenshots of the dubbed versions for these cell phone changes.

Dubbed:

The girl merely asks if Ichigo wants to go swimming, and Ichigo politely declines. In the dub, Tom is given a ‘surfer dude’ voice and asks Zoey if she wants to go to a laser show because it will be “A-W-E-some” I don’t know why he stopped spelling that halfway through, I’m just glad he stopped talking. Also, Zoey very rudely basically tells him to shut up and hangs up on him.

By the way, 4Kids really is being lazy because you can clearly see hiragana on some of the buttons on Zoey’s phone.

A guy calls this time, asking the same thing about the pool, and Ichigo declines again. The phone is painted again to say ‘Sasha’ (The SASHSTER!) and she’s given an equally annoying valley girl voice as she tells Zoey about a two for one sale at Q and U whatever that is. Zoey also again rudely declines.

Dubbed:

The phone is changed to ‘Mark’ now. I would say he’s the ‘Markster’ but I kinda want the screen to read ‘The Marker’. That way I could finally link Mew Mew Power to Dead Space.

Yes, I have been wanting to do that.

The…Mark…. 😦 :

Ichigo’s line about talking to her mom instead of directing what she said to Aoyama is kept the same, but why would you want your boyfriend to think you were being a rude brat to your mom?

Half of the conversation between Aoyama and Ichigo is removed. He talks to her about seeing a movie, and asks to meet in front of the train station. While the train station line was at the end, it’s still basically the same. However, when Ichigo realizes the situation, she starts freaking out.

She starts stuttering, and Aoyama asks if she has other plans, because he can go by himself if she does. She runs around in circles stammering some more before asking Aoyama if he’s done his homework yet. He asks if she hasn’t finished it yet, but she lies and says she has before accepting his invite and ending the call. All of this is removed for no reason I can think of. Also, the removal of the rest of this scene really makes it seem like Zoey hung up on Mark right after he mentioned the train station. Rude.

In addition, the movie’s not given a title in the original. In the dub it’s ‘Better Never than Late’ which is supposedly a comedy, but sounds like it’s depressing to me.

Ichigo just asks herself what she’s going to do about her homework as she imagines sinking into a swamp. Zoey decides to play ‘point out the visual gag’ again and says she’s ‘swamped’.

Back to the scene with Taruto, they trim a bit of the establishing shot and that’s about it.

After that scene, in the original, we cut to the scene of Ichigo procrastinating that we already covered in the dub, so let’s hop straight to their date.

Text is painted off of the road in front of the train station.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

The text reads as ‘Basutei’ which means ‘Bus stop.’

Also, though you really can’t read it, there’s Japanese text above the train station that is also painted away.

And they painted off the also unreadable text on the posters in the background as Ichigo runs by.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Ichigo and Aoyama depart politely. Zoey interrupts Mark in the middle of saying goodbye to quickly run off while saying “Okay bye!” Because being rude makes all characters better.

No person is given blame for busting the water pipe, whereas Kiki is blamed in the dub.

Also;

Elliot: “Unless you know how to fix an aerator.”

4Kids, I’m no plumber, but even I see the issue in that sentence. Aerators have nothing to do with busted water pipes. They are those little fixtures that screw onto faucet heads to aerate water and prevent splashing. Keywords being ‘screw onto’ which means, yes, she probably could fix an aerator in mere minutes, actually. With her bare hands. In fact, even if the aerator was broken, smashed to bits even, that probably wouldn’t even cause a drip let alone a huge flooding leak because the actual faucet would not be broken; just a fixture that attaches to the faucet.

And why do you need all those pipes and wrenches, ones so huge even, for fixing an aerator? And why do you need pipes anyway if the main issue is the faucets? Just replace the faucets.

Hey 4Kids, I can fix this line for you.

“Unless you’re a licensed plumber.”

“Unless you have experience in replacing pipes.”

“Unless you replace lines that made sense with lines that don’t. Because originally Ichigo asked where the aliens are and Shirogane merely asks what she’s talking about.”

The selections of the Mews in regards to Ichigo’s homework are as follows;

She can’t rely on Pudding because she’s merely in junior high and probably can’t do high school work. In the dub, she can’t rely on Kiki because it takes her an hour to make minute rice. (Guess she forgot that Kiki does all the cooking for her siblings, so she must be at least somewhat competent as a cook.)

She can probably rely on Lettuce since she’s supposedly good at plenty of things. In the dub, she can rely on Bridget because she has a t-shirt that says ‘Me + Math = Love.’

She can likely rely on Mint because she has private tutors. Zoey just says ‘no comment’ when she gets to her.

Zakuro’s is basically left alone.

When she asks Mint for help, Mint agrees so long as she pays 800 yen for each subject. Ichigo declines and states that she’s not an idiot but….it’s not really that much, is it? 800 yen is almost $7.00. She likely has…what? 5-6 subjects to tackle? That’s 4000 or 4800 yen or roughly $34.00-41.00? That’s really not that bad considering her situation and the task at hand.

In the dub, she starts listing off a bunch of different stuff that she can do for her as payment, each of which starting with ‘for the rest of your life’. She lists off things like calling her Queen Corina, making her tea everyday etc. Zoey sarcastically declines by saying right after she does that she’ll sprout wings and fly to the moon, which, considering the world they live in and the fact that the person to which she’s talking sprouts wings on a regular basis, doesn’t seem as unlikely as it usually would.

When she asks Lettuce for help, she declines and says that she believes people should do their homework on their own. She then apologizes over and over. In the dub, she basically says the same thing but she says she doesn’t believe in doing homework for other people or cheating….which Zoey actually isn’t asking as opposed to those times she asked her friends for help. She’s really just asking for help.

When she asks Akasaka for help, he says he’d love to but he’s been asked to participate in a Chef’s Food Tournament. In the dub, he’s been asked to judge a cooking contest by the ‘Divorced Women’s Club.’

When she asks Shirogane to help, he puts up two fingers, indicating he’ll help her. She gets excited but he clarifies that the two fingers are indicating 2000 yen for each subject. Okay, now that’s a bit too steep, especially for someone who is probably richer than Mint. He says since he’s doing work that it’s only right that he gets paid, plus homework is something you should do on your own.

In the dub, she doesn’t know what to make of him putting up two fingers and he says he’ll charge $2.00 per question. She asks why ‘Elly’ (ugh) would do that, and he says he’s just teaching her a life lesson.

As Ichigo imagines herself trying to keep her head above water, she just repeats “No” over and over. In the dub, Zoey does the same thing she’s been doing with every visual gag and says she’s drowning.

Unreadable text on the sign behind the crowd is removed.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

In that same panning shot, the words ‘Café M’ are removed from another sign.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

It’s a good thing, too. They shouldn’t try to steal Cafe Mew Mew’s gang name.

During the transformations in the original, only the very endings of the girls’ transformations are kept, except, of course, for Ichigo who only has it slightly edited to fit the music. In the dub, we get the same mashup we usually get, this time with ‘Supernatural’ as the accompanying theme.

Ichigo and the others wonder why Taruto created such a tame Chimera Animal and claim he’s just trying to be annoying. He actually agrees and says he didn’t come to fight, plus it’s too hot out, so he’ll just go home. Mint then points out how odd it is that he’d do something so unnecessary and admit it straight out.

In the dub, Zoey complains that Tarb is getting in the way of her doing her homework, and Tarb says it’s not his fault that she put it off until the last minute….which he honestly couldn’t have known. Then Corina points out that Zoey was just lectured by a little twerp.

The Chimera Animal doesn’t have a name in the original. In the dub it’s the Psycho Cicada.

Those scenes with the girls being hit by those blades looks so awkward. The art looks crisper yet the animation is blatantly cardboard cutout-y.

Ichigo points out the main point of origin of the noise, which Pudding clarifies is the wings. Zoey says “Oh great” and Kiki asks if she was being sarcastic.

As they’re being attacked by the sonic waves, Zakuro points out that they won’t last much longer. Renee says the sound is “Worse than boy bands.” Hahaha, Oh 4Kids, you truly know how to connect with the children.

Ichigo says she can’t put up with the attack anymore because she has to do homework, so she starts attacking. Zoey seems like she’s sacrificing herself to the thing because if he doesn’t finish her off, her teachers will so it doesn’t matter. Then she starts attacking anyway.

Most of the dialogue at the end is basically the same, but the dub makes off like the girls are assholes. They’re practically mocking Ichigo the entire time, making sarcastic comments and acting snotty about the fact that Ichigo will never finish her homework with all the Chimera Animals roaming around now, and Renee comes off like she’ll hurt Zoey if she refuses to help.

Ichigo again begs for help while Zoey flat out asks for someone to do her homework for her.

————————————–

Well, that episode was…..boring. Hell, even the enemies were just screwing around for the sake of screwing around. There was no real tension because who honestly cares if she gets her work done or not? It is her fault she never started until the day before school starts back up, and I’ve seen this scenario happen way too much in shows just like these to not know that even if she doesn’t do it in time there will be no mention of it ever again.

It’s just filler for the sake of filler. It’s not like it was building up to some big joke or anything either. All it amounted to was Ichigo overcoming a powerful noise just to get back to her homework.

And I know the obvious message of this episode is procrastination is bad, but she was legitimately trying to get her work done. Ichigo was anyway. Zoey not as much. People kept bugging her and no one would actually help when she asked. The one part that I can say was her fault was agreeing to a date with Aoyama in the midst of it all and maybe getting carried away while talking on the phone. If there’s any other message here it’s ‘If you make a mistake, your friends will leave you high and dry and laugh at your expense.’

Next episode, Ichigo’s annoying friends fall for Akasaka and Shirogane.

…Previous Episode

---

If you enjoy my work and would like to help support my blog, please consider donating at my Ko-Fi page. Thank you! ♥

Dissecting the Disquels: Brother Bear 2

Plot: Kenai and Koda are back, and Kenai has reunited with his old friend Nita who wants a favor. She’s trying to get married, but apparently she’s already been promised to Kenai after giving her an amulet when they were children. The great spirits support monogamy so they force Kenai and Nita to go to the place where the amulet was given to burn the amulet and break the bond between the two. However, even the simplest tasks can be complicated when love enters the picture.

Breakdown: I loved the movie Brother Bear. It’s not as dear to my heart as some other Disney movies, but I still loved it. It had wonderful visuals, a good story, mostly good characters and great music. One of the best things about Brother Bear is that it’s one of the few Disney movies to almost completely omit the subject of romance.

The main characters never fall in love, they have no romantic interests, and there’s no big get together or wedding at the end. The most romance that they had in that movie was some sappy couple of bears at the salmon run that were meant to be comedy focuses, and a passing flirtation with Denahi and a couple of girls. That’s it. There was no room in Brother Bear for romance because the story was set purely on the brothers; Kenai, Denahi and Sitka, and Kenai and Koda. The reason I loved that was because I am really just so sick of stories feeling like they need to shoehorn in romance into any and all storylines even if there’s no room or no point.

In this sequel, they rectify that by having the entire movie, subplots and all, be about love and marriage. Oh and brotherhood is squeezed in there somewhere. Every character that reappears in this movie gets a love interest beyond Koda, and love is shoved so far down your throat that it’s painful.

Well, let’s ruin another Disney movie for me. Welcome to Brother Bear 2.

—————————–

We start with Kenai and Koda chasing each other as the opening music plays. The music’s somewhat reminiscent of the original movie’s, but noticeably different. The opening song, ‘Welcome to this Day,’ pales in comparison to ‘Great Spirits.’ Right from the start you can tell we’re in for a romance themed movie with swans making a heart shape with their necks to happy little goat parents watching their children.

Why hasn’t Koda grown….at all? In the least? It’s an entirely new year, yet he’s not even slightly bigger.

While one has not changed at all, the other has changed quite a bit as Kenai has had a voice change in this movie. I understand when they can’t get back original voice actors for sequels, especially direct-to-DVD ones, but Patrick Dempsey sounds nothing like Joaquin Phoenix.

They’re on their way to some ridge for the spring equinox to get all sorts of different berries to eat.

We have a short run-in with Tug, the big bear from the last movie voiced by Michael Clarke Duncan, who is really only there to plant the idea of romance into Kenai’s head by talking about his girlfriend. Kenai says they don’t need anyone else, but is clearly speaking with a bittersweet taste in his mouth.

We cut to a dream sequence that Kenai is having about a childhood experience. He and Nita were playing around in the snow using spears as pole vaults until Nita stuck the spear in too close to the edge of a floating piece of ice and fell into the water.

She’s saved by Kenai, who brought her up to the top of the nearby waterfall to warm up….What an awful place to warm up. The water rushing in front of the cave has to make it even more freezing in there than it is outside. As Nita tried to keep warm, Kenai gave her an amulet that he had been wearing and they drew stick figure drawings of each other on the cave wall. Nita’s father appeared on a boat below and she left never to see Kenai again I guess.

….Well, there’s your big story behind this character and the amulet. Real impressive, huh? Also, simply giving a girl, especially when you’re children, a wooden amulet is an instant promise of eternal bond? Meanwhile, we cut to another Inuit village where Nita is getting ready for her wedding.

The first scene with Nita is very reminiscent of the scene in Mulan that starts the ‘Bring Honor to us All’ song. She has two women who are never given names or explanations as to who they are to her clamoring over her every detail for the wedding. She tricks them into leaving as she puts on her wedding dress, which is the last thing that she has left of her mom. Oh yeah here’s something Disney doesn’t do very often, Nita’s mother is DEAD! Whawhawhaaaaa?

Her father comes in to talk to her before he gives her away saying how her mother would be proud and whatnot and they walk down the aisle.

It’s here where we see our first and practically only glimpse of Nita’s fiancée, Atka. He stands at the altar and gets no lines. There’s your characterization, people.

However, the great spirits will have none of that and send their mighty wrath upon the wedding by shooting down a lightning bolt which cracks the ground between the bride and groom. The villagers see this as a sign from the great spirits, and we cut to Nita meeting with a shaman about what to do about it.

She’s played by Wanda Sykes, because God forbid we just have serious characters. She invokes the powers of the great spirits who tell her that Nita has already been promised to another in the form of an amulet. In order to break the bond between the two, the couple must go to where the promise originated and burn the amulet. Nita tells the shaman that Kenai’s a bear now. How she knows that is unknown. Maybe village to village gossip? So even if she found him she wouldn’t be able to talk to him.

Also, remember how the spirits were the ones who changed Kenai into a bear? Remember how none of the characters had magical powers? Well, now we have a shaman who has the power to talk to the spirits whenever she wants and give people the ability to talk to animals. Hell, even the village elder from the first movie couldn’t understand what Kenai was saying when he got turned into a bear or do magic stuff. But screw that, we need to speed this movie up so ✸✮ MAGIC✮ ✸!!

She sets off on a journey to find Kenai an– are you kidding me? Not even a minute after she learns that she has to find Kenai….a bear….in the vast wilderness…..she finds, you guessed it, Kenai! In a scene that is reminiscent of when Nala finds Simba from TLK…She’s seen as a hunter by the boys and Kenai tries to protect Koda by attacking her, but finds that it’s Nita and puts her down.

Nita and Kenai reunite for a bit before she explains that she needs his help to burn the amulet that he gave her so that she can get married.

Kenai obviously feels a bit hurt that Nita wants to burn the amulet that he gave her when they were kids and refuses to go with her. She says that neither of them can go on with their lives if they don’t do this, but he still refuses.

….Wait, why can’t he go on with his life? He’s been doing just fine so far. It’s not like bears get married. But she, for some reason, brings up that the great spirits might turn Kenai back into a human again for some reason to help her burn the amulet.

…..What? How?…What? He’s not a bear under punishment anymore. He became a bear of his own volition. Even if they did offer that, why would he care? Unless…..wait, are they using his relationship to Koda as leverage? Are they technically keeping Koda hostage away from Kenai unless he agrees to help? Wow, that’s kinda awful, spirits and Nita.

Koda, hearing this, worries that they won’t be brothers anymore if they do turn him back. So, in order to sate Koda’s worries, he agrees to go to the waterfall to burn the amulet. Flimsy plotpoints are on buffet right now.

The boys and Nita run into the moose, Rutt and Tuke, the comic relief from the previous movie, as they’re also on a mission of love. They’ve been trying to find mates, but the girl moose that they’ve found won’t give them the time of day. Kenai agrees to help them by pretending to attack while Rutt and Tuke pretend to save the girls and win their hearts.

It ends up in an awkward to watch scene where both Kenai and Rutt and Tuke fail miserably at their roles. Kenai does an embarrassing job trying to attack, which is odd because he’s shown that he can seem threatening, and Rutt and Tuke actually end up getting so scared by Kenai’s lame acting that they fall into the river and float away. I get that the scene was meant to be lame, but that was painful.

Kenai ends up getting kicked into a hollow log by the girl moose before they leave as well. In an attempt to get Kenai unstuck from the log, we realize that Nita has a fear of water ever since she nearly drowned as a child. She loses her bag containing the amulet in the river and is too scared to simply lean over and grab it from the water. She has a fit as the bag starts to float away and breaks the log that Kenai was stuck in as she yells at him to retrieve it for her. It goes over a waterfall, but quickly ends up on shore, somehow. As she breathes a sigh of relief, a comic relief raccoon comes over, sifts through her bag and steals the amulet. Why? Because padding.

I’m just now realizing that Kenai doesn’t have his totem around his neck. It was given back to him at the end of the first movie. What happened to it?

Anyway, Kenai, feeling guilty for apparently being responsible for her losing the necklace, goes off in the middle of the night to find the raccoon. He spends all night tracking it down, and then Nita barges in and climbs the tree when Kenai was waiting for the raccoon to fall asleep to take it without bothering them. That’s the way to repay someone for doing a favor to you and working their ass off all night; by doing your best to ruin their hard work and not thanking them at all.

She makes too much noise and alerts the raccoon. He doesn’t notice Nita, but sees the boys. They ask for the necklace back as Nita tries to retrieve it herself. He then calls on his raccoon brethren of about 100 friggin’ raccoons as backup. What exactly happened to everything being afraid of this BEAR? The raccoons pelt him with pinecones until Kenai offers a trade. He has nothing to trade, but Nita has the amulet so who cares?

However, there’s a baby raccoon clinging to the necklace. She shoos him off, but then he cries for his mommy, which alerts the raccoons to Nita’s presence and they start chasing her. I should mention that this scene is very reminiscent of the scene in Tarzan where Jane makes a baby monkey cry because she shoos it off of something she wants and then is chased by hundreds of monkeys. What is going on in this movie? There are so many scenes seemingly taken from other Disney movies, yet the movie itself is boring as hell.

Kenai tells her to climb to the top of the tree while all of the raccoons follow her. He advises her to let go because he’ll catch her, and they send the raccoons flying while sending themselves flying into a snowbank. Then they speak a mile a minute about what just happened while ending on how amazing the other is in a scene that is very reminiscent of a scene in a fellow Disney sequel, Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamp’s Adventure. Really, what is going on?

We’re at the halfway point in the movie and I’m still failing to get into it. Nita’s really annoying. She’s pushy, whiny, selfish and just an overall chore to watch. Koda’s annoyed me since the first movie and he’s no better here. Kenai’s okay, but his different voice and constant slapstick gags get old fast. The subplot with Rutt and Tuke is just embarrassing to watch. I didn’t mind them much in the first movie, but they’re pretty awful here. They’re there to push the message of love and extend the runtime. That’s about it.

As for the plot, it’s very thin. It’s obvious as hell that Nita’s not going to end up marrying Atka especially since he’s not even a character so much as a picture with a name. He has no personality and no dialogue thus far. She’s gonna fall for Kenai, and, if that shaman was any indication, she’ll likely get turned into a girl bear and they’ll live happily ever after.

Anyhoo, we meet back up with Rutt and Tuke who are still trying to court the girl moose. They’re rubbing themselves with dead leaves, mud and, thanks to a prank from Tuke, poop, in order to attract them with scent.

Poop jokes? Really? That’s what we’re reduced to? Thanks, Disney.

Kenai tells them that he has another idea, but Nita explains that his last plan sucked. Kenai then decides to brush off the whole situation and go to the falls, but Nita decides that she wants to stay which is completely against the way that she has been acting this entire time. She’s been hell-bent on burning that amulet at the falls since she arrived, not willing to put up with any nonsense that interrupts them. Now she wants to delay her trip?

Nita sends Koda out to the girls to act all cute and cuddly even though bears, ya know, eat moose. They’re all in love with the little guy, and Koda says that he’s playing hide and seek with his two best friends. Rutt and Tuke then come out asking if they’ve seen their bear friend. Koda comes out and they act all cute with him, tickling him and laughing and whatnot.

The girls are all impressed with how good they are with the kid. They finally look like they’re going to get a date, but Rutt, for reasons beyond my understanding, suddenly blurts out poetry which makes him look like an idiot. Tuke knocks him down and walks way with both girls stating that his brother was hit on the head as a child and Rutt runs to follow. Bros before hoes doesn’t apply to moose apparently.

Here’s my entry in the ‘most photogenic moose’ contest.

Nita and Kenai basically flirt about how she was able to hook them up but he wasn’t and they ignore Koda’s pleas for attention at impressing them with how good he acted during the plan.

Kenai explains that the falls are close as they only have to go a short ways and cross the river to get there by lunchtime the next day. Obviously the whole water-phobia thing comes into play so Nita suggests instead of going through the river that they climb a bunch of mountains and crap to avoid it.

Kenai and Koda practically laugh at the stupid route she suggested, and they vote to go their way, but she refuses like a stubborn child. Koda flips a fish out of the river for lunch which lands in Nita’s hands and makes her fall into the river. She flips out and immediately makes her way to shore.

Koda believes that she’s afraid of fish so Kenai and Koda quickly start laughing at her for it. Koda even takes the fish that he caught and does a puppet show about how scared she is of fish.

Wow, how completely insensitive and assholeish of you guys. First of all, she’s freaked out at the concept of water three times by now. That’s not a big enough hint that she’s afraid of water?

Second, even if she was afraid of fish, that’s no reason to act like an ass.

Third, this water-phobia thing is getting old, and it doesn’t even make complete sense. I can understand if she didn’t display outright signs of trauma after she was rescued as a child, but she left that scene ON A BOAT! If she’s so traumatized by water to the point where she won’t even lean over and grab a really important bag out of a slow as hell moving river, how did she easily get into a boat and paddle away? She’s so scared of water I really have to wonder how she handles bathing or gentle rainshowers.

Kenai realizes that they’re upsetting her, so he yells at Koda to stop it. He doesn’t explain why, especially since he was laughing with him a minute ago, he just sighs in disappointment and goes to comfort Nita. He apologizes, and she explains her phobia of water and how she can’t go through the river because of it. Kenai says that they got through this much together so they’ll get through that together as well.

Thus begins the ‘Koda Neglect montage’. Basically we have a montage of Nita and Kenai flirting and having fun together as they travel, while Koda is either treated like crap or completely ignored the entire way. Kenai stops Koda from walking on a log bridge to let Nita go first, he and Nita completely block Koda’s view of a mama bird feeding her baby birds, they nearly KILL HIM by not noticing or caring when he nearly falls off of a mammoth that they’re riding, barely able to hold onto the tail, and every other scene with Koda shows him being completely ignored.

The song accompanying this montage is also okay, but it’s not very memorable.

The montage ends upon reaching the riverside. Kenai gives Nita a ride on his back to cross the river, and, after going under the water and seeing turtles, she’s completely over her fear of water to the point where she actually gets off Kenai and swims to shore on her own.

What utter and complete bull. Yes, facing your fears helps you get over them, but a quick dip in the river and seeing some turtles shouldn’t be enough to completely cure you of a crippling phobia that you’ve had since you were a child that was caused by a traumatic near-death experience. It’s also a completely anticlimactic and stupid end to that insipid plotpoint.

Kenai and Nita walk away on the other side of the river, and Koda watches them with sadness as he continues to get ignored. They’ve been ignoring him in his entirety all day. I’d be surprised if they even realize he’s still traveling with them. What a good big brother Kenai turned out to be.

As Koda broods, we get another appearance by Rutt who has also been ditched by his brother for those floozies from before. He tells Koda to watch out because his brother might do the same thing to him. Rutt and Tuke; good for stupid comic relief and giving awful messages to children.

Koda doesn’t believe that Kenai would ever ditch him, but obviously has doubts.

Koda crosses the river and eavesdrops on Kenai and Nita who are laughing and talking by a fire not even realizing that Koda could’ve drowned behind them eons ago and no one would’ve been the wiser. I have a feeling these two are somehow the ancestors of the parents from Rugrats.

Nita asks Kenai if he’s ever considered going back to being a human. He says that he’s thought about it, and before you can say ‘obvious misunderstanding’, Koda interrupts and says that Kenai is going to leave him for Nita and become a human again and he runs away. Kenai and Nita sit on their asses long enough for him to get a good head start.

So yeah now they’re ripping off their own movie. Koda ran away in the last movie too, also in the snowy mountains.

Kenai and Nita search for him by following his tracks in the snow. Even though Kenai showed amazing tracking skills with those raccoons, he completely misses the footprint that leads into an ice cave, but Nita finds it. She also fails to tell Kenai because the plot said that Nita and Koda needed to have a heart to heart.

Nita finds Koda hiding in a hole in the wall of the ice cave and tries to bring Koda back, claiming it’s not safe, but he refuses. As the cave starts to collapse, he jumps into Nita’s arms. Well, that’s kinda what she meant by unsafe….

They manage to escape, but Koda gets pinned under a bunch of ice. Nita saves him, but flings them over the cliff in the process. They dangle over the edge while an avalanche occurs due to the collapse. They somehow ride the broken cliff piece on top of the avalanche (rocks do that?) but inevitably get buried. Kenai spots them and surprisingly only yells out Koda’s name. As he digs them out, again, all he says is Koda’s name. Ya know, you can show concern for both of them. There’s no need to play favorites just because Koda overreacted prematurely and you’re a terrible brother.

Koda explains that he believes Kenai’s going to leave him to go off with Nita and become human. He said he does miss being human, but they’re brothers and he’d never leave him. If Koda had just let Kenai finish his sentence before, this whole thing could’ve been avoided….

Hearing this, Nita gets all whiny. How did we go from constant slapstick and stupidity to butthurt city and stupidity?

We cut back to Rutt and Tuke where they’re watching the northern lights. Rutt’s off on his own while the girls are cuddling with Tuke who asks Rutt to get them some twigs, and Rutt chokes back tears and agrees to go. Hearing that he’s crying, the girls instantly gravitate to his sensitivity and cuddle with him. These girls are more easily swayed than girls who thrive on teen romance novels.

They reach the falls and see the lights as they prepare to view the spring equinox.

Oh did I forget to mention that in this universe the spring equinox is a magical event made by the great spirits? It happens in an instant. Yup, the great spirits turn winter into spring in mere moments, melting feet of snow, growing grass, blooming flowers and more. Because gradually doing that stuff over the course of a few weeks wouldn’t have meshed well with the movie.

Koda brings up connecting with his dead mom through the lights as Nita mentions her dead mom as well. We get some cliché line about how you don’t need to see the spirits to know that the people that you have lost are within your heart forever. The speech couldn’t be more cliché if it were on a Hallmark card.

Despite this talk about spirits and dead relatives and this being called BROTHER Bear, I guess dead brothers need not apply to this conversation because Kenai never brings up his dead brother from the previous movie, Sitka.

The guy dies for you, turns you into a bear to teach you a life lesson, and is a friggin’ eagle, which is awesome, yet you can’t even give him a verbal cameo? Nice. I will give some slack here as to why Kenai’s other brother, Denahi, makes no appearance as his voice actor committed suicide before this movie was created. However, he can still be mentioned.

They start the burning and the lights vanish. After the amulet is gone, Nita tries to talk to the boys, but finds that the spell broke with the burnt amulet. This creates a mirror of the same scene from the last movie where Kenai becomes human and is hurt when he can’t understand Koda’s words. She tearfully says goodbye while Kenai and Koda simply roar and grunt at her.

We get our first sad song as they go their separate ways. It’s actually a very good song. Much more memorable than the songs we’ve been given. It has a nice somber tone and melody that fits the mood well. I wouldn’t say it’s as good as ‘No way out’ but I still like it.

Koda and Kenai reach some food while Nita reunites with her family and prepares for her wedding.

Koda talks with Kenai about Nita. He asks if her gave her the amulet because he loved her and he says it was a long time ago so it doesn’t matter. Kenai goes off to sleep to get to the ridge with all the berries that they were going to early in the morning.

Koda speaks to the spirits, moreso his mom, telling her that he’ll be fine on his own and that they should turn Kenai back into a human so that he can be happy. The spirit lights….flicker for some reason and we cut to Kenai waking up. They kinda trick you into thinking that the spirits did turn him back, but he’s still a bear. Rutt and Tuke inform him that Koda ran off to find Nita and bring her back to him to make him happy. Kenai freaks out because Koda will be killed by hunters the instant that he sets foot in the village.

We cut to Nita getting ready for her wedding again. She’s having doubts this time and tells her father than she can’t marry Atka. Aw, but we got to know him so well and fell in love with him during that 32 seconds of screentime with no dialogue or backstory. And we know she truly loves him because she never talks about any aspects of him whatsoever and really never brought him up at all. Such a shame.

They’re interrupted by screams as Koda runs around being chased by the villagers. Nita tries to stop them to no avail. We finally get dialogue from Atka a full hour into this hour and 13 minute long (including credits) movie. However, we don’t learn much about him besides he’s like every man in the village in that if a bear entered it, they’d want to kill it. Kenai bursts onto the scene roaring to get them away from Koda. They run away with Kenai getting grazed on the back by a spear, but don’t worry, the wound’s gone mere seconds later. Continuity!

Kenai sticks Koda in a tree and tells him to stay low while he drives them away. Despite doing his best to hide, other hunters catch Koda anyway while laughing like stereotypical villains.

Rutt and Tuke surprisingly show up to save the day, but end up getting caught up in a tree as they try to jump on the hunters. Conveniently, the tree breaks and falls on the hunters, leaving Koda unharmed and the girls once again impressed.

Kenai tries to run away from Atka, but he can’t shake him. Kenai jumps onto a cliff, and Atka throws his torch on it to spook him while jumping on him with his spear. The two fight while Nita catches up to them. She tries to get them to stop, but only Kenai does. Atka throws the torch in Kenai’s face and pushes him over the edge of the cliff. I guess this scene could resemble the scene in The Lion King where Scar did the same thing, but not exactly.

Nita scolds Atka for what he’s done and goes to Kenai’s aid. Yes, Atka. You’re awful for doing what you were taught to do your entire life and has never been seen as wrong until this very moment since the bear was your fiancée’s friend. Oh and protecting the village from what appeared to everyone else as a violent rampaging bear. You bastard!

Nita and Koda go to Kenai’s side. He’s supposedly hurt but I don’t see how. Koda and Kenai are still speaking to each other in roars and grunts since Nita can’t understand them. It’s odd. This scene is the only emotional scene to me only because of the subtlety involved with not being able to understand them.

Kenai puts out his paw and Nita matches it with her hand, again, like Tarzan, and Kenai puts it to his heart to say ‘I love you.’ Eugh. Nita admits her love for him too, and the great spirits make a cameo again. Apparently they’re loading the ‘Make Kenai human’ program as Koda tells them what he asked them to do and that it’s okay because he just wants Kenai to be happy again. Kenai tells Nita that he can’t become human and leave Koda, but Nita tells him that she can join him instead – BOOM! CALLED IT! NITA → BEAR RESOLUTION!

Nita’s father comes and asks her if this is what she truly wants. She says yes, and he gives her his blessing. What a cool dad. Interracial marriage still isn’t cool to some people, but he’s letting his daughter turn into a bear to marry a bear. We can all learn a lesson here, people. It involves bestiality in some way I think, but it’s still an important lesson to learn.

Also, since when do people order the spirits around? Last I checked, they do what they want when they want unless they feel like giving you a choice. What, is Koda’s mom pulling strings up there?

I’m sorry to say that, while the intro almost sounds like a remix, we don’t get a reprise of ‘Transformation’ from the last movie, which sucks because that’s one of my favorite instrumental songs in the Disney franchise. Instead we get some mish mash dramatic music that sounds cobbled together…..

Nita looks….kinda weird as a bear, and we cut to their bear wedding with bear friends and the village merging together. Right, the villagers who were laughing maniacally at catching a bear cub are now cheering at a bear wedding. Okay, movie. Atka’s nowhere to be found here, by the way. I guess he got burned at the stake for trying to kill a bear which is now seen as a friend. Damn that bastard who only got about two minutes of total screen time and about two full lines!

This is a legit issue with me, though, because we’re left thinking that Atka’s an asshole when he’s supposedly a really nice and honorable guy. They could’ve resolved this a lot better. Have Atka be understanding like a good friend. If Nita really did love him enough to go through all this to marry him, he can’t be all that bad.

Surprisingly, Eagle-Sitka does make a brief appearance at the very end though.

The raccoons from before are also there to cheer them on for reasons beyond my understanding. Why would you cheer on characters that stole what you believed was your stuff and flung you across the forest by a tree?

We end on the great spirits changing the cave wall drawing of Kenai and Nita as humans together to bears. Because little details like that need to be changed by great and powerful spirits.

The end.

——————————-

Wow was that a big disappointment. To it’s credit, they could’ve done a lot worse, but what they did do still wasn’t really good. The movie’s a bore. It’s predictable as hell, the tone is so much more different than the original, Kenai and Nita’s backstory as well as the story of Atka and Nita aren’t fleshed out enough or, in the latter’s case, at all.

Why did Kenai love her back then? Because they played for a minute and he rescued her as she almost drowned? Why were they best friends? What did that amulet mean to Kenai? He’s the one who was wearing it before he gave it to Nita. It must’ve meant something to him. What was the story with Atka? Was it an arranged marriage thing like Pocahontas and Kokoum? What’s his backstory? How’d she meet him? Does he have any form of personality beyond hunting and standing at the altar? Why’d she never see Kenai again after that incident at the falls? How’d her mom die?

This is one of those movies that had nothing to really build on. The story decisively concluded. You could’ve done something with it, but why’d they have to go the cliché angle of making a sequel for the sake of giving everyone a love interest? Except Koda, I guess, but now he has an older sister/mom figure.

Brother Bear is really a movie that shouldn’t have been built on, however. Other than possibly showing us a grown-up Koda having some adventure or learning an important life lesson, there’s just not much to be done here. The story has a solid beginning, middle and most of all, end. No one was yearning for Kenai to get married after that.

Nita is annoying during the first half, but gets gradually more tolerable as time goes on. I never reach a point where I actually like her, but she was reaching good annoyance levels in the first half, so at least she avoided the dangers of my wrath.

On a technical aspect, the art and animation is very good for a Disquel, even if they seem to be going overboard with the color saturation, but not quite as good as the previous movie. It’s Direct-to-DVD-ish while not being TV-series-ish like Hunchback 2 or Aladdin 2 or 3. Also, we don’t have nearly as many epic views or sights to look at, if any, during this movie unlike the first one where practically everything was gorgeous.

The music was also better than most Disney sequels, but nothing particularly memorable to me outside of that one sad song. Phil Collins doesn’t return to do anymore work on this movie, which is disappointing.

The acting is good, but I can’t mesh Patrick Dempsey with Kenai. He just doesn’t sound right.

Bottom Line: As a movie, it’s just okay. As a Disquel, personally, I’d skip it, especially if you were a fan of the previous movie. It’s a predictable, confusing and lifeless movie meant to shoehorn in some love stories into the Brother Bear universe. The writing’s not very good and there are many scenes that seem almost ripped directly from other Disney movies. It has some moments that are legitimately good, and it didn’t make me seriously angry, but it’s absolutely nothing that you’d need to watch unless you like watching Mary Sue Disney fanfiction come to life. It could’ve been much worse, but I still can’t recommend it.

Recommended Audience: I think we actually get a fairly subtle sex joke. At the beginning of the movie, Rutt and Tuke are being chased by a buffalo or something while looking for a mate, and Rutt says that she looked like a moose from behind….yeah. Other than that, it’s your basically sterile Disney sequel. 5+

---

If you enjoy my work and would like to help support my blog, please consider donating at my Ko-Fi page. Thank you! ♥

Site Update: 1/7/17 – New Layout

Hey guys!

After much sifting through the WordPress layouts and internal debate, I have decided upon a new layout for The Anime Madhouse as a fresh coat of paint for the new year. This is a free layout (because my wallet is just for decoration.) called Zoren, which actually wasn’t originally one of final layouts I was considering that I mentioned in my last update lol. I liked this one because it had a nice flow to it, it allowed my banner to fit in pretty well without needing to mutilate it (or make a new one from scratch), it had more character than some of the other final layouts I was considering, and it had a fair amount of customization for free users (even if the overall color scheme was slightly restricting)

I’m pretty happy with what I was able to to do with it. It’s dark and bright at the time to add plenty of contrast while still being easy to read.

Some of the other more prominent selections had this weird thing about putting the featured image above the post so, since my featured images are almost always the first images on the post, it was repetitive.

I changed the banner a bit to match the altered color scheme, and I changed the background to this lovely bit of crazy.

Finally, I removed the poll section because it was jutting out of the menu box. I may replace it in the future if I can manage to fit it in more fluidly.

If you have any feedback or suggestions about the new layout, I’m open to them and will make tweaks to the best of my abilities. 🙂

~Twix