2015 has been kind to anime fans. From the Black Lagoon-esque ultra violence of Gangsta, to the military fantasy mash-up Gate, to the MMO deconstruction of Overlord, to Hiromu Arakawa's take on the Legend of Arsland (Arsland Senki), there are a lot of solid options vying for your time. (Shout out to Marcus and Noelle for all of these recommendations). I thought it would be impossible for anything to overtake Gangsta, with its weird mix of criminals and drugged up super soldiers. Then Grace and I started watching Shokugeki no Soma, which roughly translates to Soma's Food Wars. It's not revolutionary, but it is a brilliant example of how Shounen structure can be translated to topics other than fighting. In fact, it is one of the best Shounen to date, provided you can ignore (or enjoy) all the fan service.
Here's the plot in a nutshell: Soma is a 15 year old cook who works in his father's diner in Japan. It's a humble, affordable joint in a neighborhood being targeted for urban development, but it is tremendously successful thanks to the phenomenal food. In the first episode, our hero gets a real estate vulture to permanently piss off just by serving her an amazing dish. It turns out that Soma's dad is secretly a world renowned chef, and he has quietly been grooming his son to one day surpass him by challenging him to no-holds barred cooking duels since he was six years old. But one day, dear old dad disappears, leaving instructions for Soma to (temporarily) close up shop, and head to an elite cooking academy.
This school has a fancifully low graduation rate where kids can be expelled at the drop of a hat, with its alumni going on to be the next world's next Gordon Ramsays, Julia Childs, Wolfgang Pucks, and Giada De Laurentiis. Furthermore, students challenge each other to cooking duels called Shokugeki to settle disputes. I know, I know, the cliches are already thick in rank and file. But like I said, the show isn't an evolution or critique of Shounen anime (go watch Kill La Kill or Attack on Titan for that), so much as an immaculate execution of the form.
Two episodes in, I found myself wondering whether the creator was a chef himself, or a food critic. Whatever his background, he is not writing from Wikipedia knowledge. The cooking techniques that are casually rattled off are insane, covering everything from carving monkfish to molecular gastronomy, and featuring dishes like diner food with tastes and textures that evolve over time, nine layer french terrines, and curries that use compression and convection to enhance their aromatic impact. Needless to say, watching this show while you're hungry is a poor life decision.
I also really love the cast of characters. Even when they get tropey, clever eccentricities and running gags make them relentlessly endearing. Everybody in Soma's dorm has a specialty (fermentation, smoking, game meats, food history) that adds another dimension to their characters. Soma himself is fearless, tenacious, and a little dense (defining qualities of the archetypal Shounen hero), but when it comes to food (this show's equivalent to combat), he is beyond innovative. And when he comes to his friends' rescue, he is every ounce the hero of a show where problems are solved by punching. Moreso in fact, because it requires more creativity from the writer and the characters.
The only thing keeping me from recommending it to every anime fan I know is the fan service. It doesn't approach the depravity of High School of the Dead, Triage X, or other aspiring hentai, but when a character serves a dish that is amazing, the diner goes on a journey. And usually that journey is an orgasm. They blush, gasp, cry out, and are often shown in the abstract, stripped near nude in an explosion of ecstasy. To its credit, the show doesn't discriminate by gender, though the female reactions tend to be a little more explicit. You also have the token stacked girl who walks around in a bikini (although, there's a male nudist who walks around in nothing but a cooking apron, too). Soma also has the habit of developing truly heinous dishes (like octopus with peanut butter) to prank his friends and these experiences draw upon the proud Japanese tradition of the Fisherman's Wife.
It's not all graphic innuendo and implicit tentacle rape. The show routinely employs brilliant imagery. A flawed dish is portrayed as an island paradise, marred by a parade of noisy hippo. A curry duel is showcased as Muay Thai boxer fighting a lancer. A molecular gastronomy dish becomes a metaphor for pioneering the edges of a new galaxy. All of these scenes are rendered with beautiful animation quality, and accompanied by the sort of bombastic music that makes you want to cheer for the good guys, and their opposition, just so you can see what they come up with. When people clash via cooking, everybody wins.
One day, after I get the book-writing thing nailed down, another project I would love to tackle is writing a shounen-style comic set in the ballet world. It features brutal competitions shaped by fierce rivalries set in adolescence, stunning feats of physicality that can easily be embellished in fantastic ways, and inspiring camaraderie. You could even throw in the tasteless sexual pandering and fan service scenes without much exaggeration, because why the hell not.
I haven't seen any other cooking anime, but I'm confident this one's cuisine will reign supreme in perpetuity. I can't wait for a second serving next summer. May even have to jump the gun and start on the manga.
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Friday, October 16, 2015
The Dark Knight's Darkest Timeline
Rocksteady's Arkham series is the best video game adaptation of a superhero to date. Nothing else captures so many aspects of a character so perfectly, much less a figure as iconic, nuanced, and macro-mythic as Batman. Fans have had towering expectations for each version of the game and Rocksteady's titles have crushed them every time. (WB Game's Montreal's prequel offering, Arkham Origins, fell short in many ways, but it also has a much worse rep than it deserves. Very solid writing.)
I have so much faith in the franchise that I bought the PC version at launch, without waiting for any kind of reviews, only to have to wait several months for the second round of fixes to make the game playable. The nightmare port could be a post unto itself. Apparently WB outsourced it with almost no time left, and didn't bother to do enough Q&A to wait for a Halloween release, which really would have been so much smarter for so many reasons. Even after the second major patch, it's still not perfect, periodically suffering from graphical stutters and mass-slow down, but none of that stopped me from playing it in 2 to 6 hour binges. (In the course of writing this, I discovered a new patch has been released with more fixes and support for all the DLC. So yay!)
The game has stellar mechanics, beginning with combat that blends pseudo-Quick Time Event style brawling with the opportunity to deviate and improvise via movement, gadgets and special combo abilities. Getting a good flow going feels amazing. It feels like you're the goddamn Batman. On top of that, you have the incredibly liberating ability to zip through the city with his grapnel gun, sling-shotting yourself into mile long glides over Gotham. The combat and flying could get monotonous, and I think some of my friends have leveled that complaint against the game, but clever puzzles that require careful use of your gadgets, and compelling detective side-quests kept things fresh for me.
This game's signature wonderful toy is the Batmobile itself. You get to rocket around Gotham in a car that transforms into a tank, which you can use to get into shoot-outs with unmanned military drones. It strains disbelief a bit to believe that thugs and criminals you hit at 100+ miles per hour are merely "stunned" by the car's taser field, and weird to have Batman blasting tanks, but the gameplay is ridiculously fun, grafting an entire secondary combat system into the game's DNA. You also get a surprising amount of puzzle mileage out of the hulking video, via remote control and grapple cables.
All of that would be meaningless if the story wasn't stellar. Fortunately, the Arkham universe combines the best of the incredibly varied Batman mythos into one experience (save for Damien Wayne - nobody is perfect). You have Mark Hamill voicing the Joker and Kevin Conroy as Batman from the animated series. Barbara Gordon as Oracle (and Batgirl in the DLC), Dick Grayson, and Tim Drake from the comics. Lucius Fox from Nolan's movies. And between all the titles in the series, you get to face every villain from the best rogue's gallery in the history of all comic bookage.
What's more, the series takes risks with canon. It breaks rules that the movies and comics cannot afford to, for fear of alienating entrenched fans or scaring off new ones. Spoilers to follow until the final paragraph, but please read on if you won't be playing game.
The second game in the series, Arkham City, ends by killing off the Joker. Arkham Knight begins with you cremating him. Some people thought that the ol' Clown Prince of Crime was actually Clayface in disguise--a theory I dreaded might be true. But no. Joker really is dead. Dead but not gone. If you will recall, Batman was infected with Joker's blood at the end of the last Arkham Game, and thanks to the magic of comic book logic, his blood slowly starts to possess everyone infected with it. What does this mean for gameplay? Hamil's Joker appears as a hallucination in Batman's head, talking to him throughout the entire game, savagely (but hilariously) taunting him at every opportunity, and urging him to abandon his code and succumb to violence. There are a couple moments where Batman loses control too, giving us a glimpse at the most terrifying villain ever: Bat-Joker. So the net result is a prolonged exploration of their relationship. It doesn't really go deeper than any prior analysis, but it brilliantly illustrates the point that Joker subsists entirely on Batman. And there is also a nod to the theory that Batman depends on Joker, as the game suggests Bruce is finally making some preparations to hang up the cowl (via side missions where you play as Azrael, training to inherit the mantel).
That's only one stunning part of the story. The first fifth of the game ends with the fear-gas induced suicide of Barbara Gordon. Which, I mean, holy fuck. They say this is the story about the end of Batman, but I didn't believe it until he watches his already paralyzed, brilliant young protege blow her brains. She is trapped in a glass room which he doesn't enter, for fear of inhaling fear gas. At that point, Batman has already lost. He has lost so hard that no matter how hard the story plays out from here, there is no coming back. They make her death all the more destructive, by making her and Tim Drake into a romantic item, and having Batman tell bald-faced lies to him about her death; which is a legitimate aspect of the character that is rarely explored outside the comics. Batman keeps secrets that hurt his loved ones. You also get to see Jim Gordon discover his daughter's involvement with Batman for the first time. It's so brutal, and so unfair, that I actually had problems with it. Part of it was the feminist gamer in me, mad that they killed one of the few female bat characters, and one of the best heroines in comics, but the real issue was, it was genuinely upsetting. More so than deaths in the comics, because those have been proven, time and again, to be temporary setbacks. But the Arkham series started out as a trilogy, it would end, and that will be it.
Unfortunately, they cop out. It's all a hallucination. Batman was influenced by fear-gas. Babs is okay. Scarecrow had her stashed away to manipulate Jim Gordon. The funny thing is, I was simultaneously hoping they would find a way to rescue her, and that they would stick to her guns. My relief that she survived wrestled with my disgust that they didn't commit. Ultimately, I think it was the wrong call, but I was so relieved that I still love the game. And Batman still failed. He succumbed to fear and selfishness when he watched her die, instead of breaking into the glass room and rescuing her, hallucination or not. It is still the Dark Knight's darkest timeline. He got lucky instead of being good, and Batman should always be the best.
The most predictable part of the story is the Arkham Knight himself, who is inevitably, Jason Todd. The only thing that threw me off is that Red Hood had a separate, distinct costume and action figure with his own level pack and everything in preorders and promotions. But once you hear him addressing Batman as 'old man,' and talking about his tactics, it could really only be one character. Worse yet, despite laying siege to Gotham, and being party to Barbara Gordon's apparent murder, Jason is redeemed by Bruce through fisticuffs and a heart-to-heart that's about seven words long. I know, I know. How else would it end? Personally I would hope for an ambiguous heroic sacrifice, leading Bruce to wonder if Jason is dead again, just after he is effectively resurrected.
Narrative rough patches aside, Arkham Knight is still the definitive Batman experience. I can't see Rocksteady topping it, and I earnestly hope they don't try. Tackle a Wonder Woman game instead. Or Flash. Or Cyborg! Even Aquaman. Hell, these guys are so good they might be the ones to finally figure out a Superman game that doesn't suck.
I have so much faith in the franchise that I bought the PC version at launch, without waiting for any kind of reviews, only to have to wait several months for the second round of fixes to make the game playable. The nightmare port could be a post unto itself. Apparently WB outsourced it with almost no time left, and didn't bother to do enough Q&A to wait for a Halloween release, which really would have been so much smarter for so many reasons. Even after the second major patch, it's still not perfect, periodically suffering from graphical stutters and mass-slow down, but none of that stopped me from playing it in 2 to 6 hour binges. (In the course of writing this, I discovered a new patch has been released with more fixes and support for all the DLC. So yay!)
The game has stellar mechanics, beginning with combat that blends pseudo-Quick Time Event style brawling with the opportunity to deviate and improvise via movement, gadgets and special combo abilities. Getting a good flow going feels amazing. It feels like you're the goddamn Batman. On top of that, you have the incredibly liberating ability to zip through the city with his grapnel gun, sling-shotting yourself into mile long glides over Gotham. The combat and flying could get monotonous, and I think some of my friends have leveled that complaint against the game, but clever puzzles that require careful use of your gadgets, and compelling detective side-quests kept things fresh for me.
This game's signature wonderful toy is the Batmobile itself. You get to rocket around Gotham in a car that transforms into a tank, which you can use to get into shoot-outs with unmanned military drones. It strains disbelief a bit to believe that thugs and criminals you hit at 100+ miles per hour are merely "stunned" by the car's taser field, and weird to have Batman blasting tanks, but the gameplay is ridiculously fun, grafting an entire secondary combat system into the game's DNA. You also get a surprising amount of puzzle mileage out of the hulking video, via remote control and grapple cables.
All of that would be meaningless if the story wasn't stellar. Fortunately, the Arkham universe combines the best of the incredibly varied Batman mythos into one experience (save for Damien Wayne - nobody is perfect). You have Mark Hamill voicing the Joker and Kevin Conroy as Batman from the animated series. Barbara Gordon as Oracle (and Batgirl in the DLC), Dick Grayson, and Tim Drake from the comics. Lucius Fox from Nolan's movies. And between all the titles in the series, you get to face every villain from the best rogue's gallery in the history of all comic bookage.
What's more, the series takes risks with canon. It breaks rules that the movies and comics cannot afford to, for fear of alienating entrenched fans or scaring off new ones. Spoilers to follow until the final paragraph, but please read on if you won't be playing game.
The second game in the series, Arkham City, ends by killing off the Joker. Arkham Knight begins with you cremating him. Some people thought that the ol' Clown Prince of Crime was actually Clayface in disguise--a theory I dreaded might be true. But no. Joker really is dead. Dead but not gone. If you will recall, Batman was infected with Joker's blood at the end of the last Arkham Game, and thanks to the magic of comic book logic, his blood slowly starts to possess everyone infected with it. What does this mean for gameplay? Hamil's Joker appears as a hallucination in Batman's head, talking to him throughout the entire game, savagely (but hilariously) taunting him at every opportunity, and urging him to abandon his code and succumb to violence. There are a couple moments where Batman loses control too, giving us a glimpse at the most terrifying villain ever: Bat-Joker. So the net result is a prolonged exploration of their relationship. It doesn't really go deeper than any prior analysis, but it brilliantly illustrates the point that Joker subsists entirely on Batman. And there is also a nod to the theory that Batman depends on Joker, as the game suggests Bruce is finally making some preparations to hang up the cowl (via side missions where you play as Azrael, training to inherit the mantel).
That's only one stunning part of the story. The first fifth of the game ends with the fear-gas induced suicide of Barbara Gordon. Which, I mean, holy fuck. They say this is the story about the end of Batman, but I didn't believe it until he watches his already paralyzed, brilliant young protege blow her brains. She is trapped in a glass room which he doesn't enter, for fear of inhaling fear gas. At that point, Batman has already lost. He has lost so hard that no matter how hard the story plays out from here, there is no coming back. They make her death all the more destructive, by making her and Tim Drake into a romantic item, and having Batman tell bald-faced lies to him about her death; which is a legitimate aspect of the character that is rarely explored outside the comics. Batman keeps secrets that hurt his loved ones. You also get to see Jim Gordon discover his daughter's involvement with Batman for the first time. It's so brutal, and so unfair, that I actually had problems with it. Part of it was the feminist gamer in me, mad that they killed one of the few female bat characters, and one of the best heroines in comics, but the real issue was, it was genuinely upsetting. More so than deaths in the comics, because those have been proven, time and again, to be temporary setbacks. But the Arkham series started out as a trilogy, it would end, and that will be it.
Unfortunately, they cop out. It's all a hallucination. Batman was influenced by fear-gas. Babs is okay. Scarecrow had her stashed away to manipulate Jim Gordon. The funny thing is, I was simultaneously hoping they would find a way to rescue her, and that they would stick to her guns. My relief that she survived wrestled with my disgust that they didn't commit. Ultimately, I think it was the wrong call, but I was so relieved that I still love the game. And Batman still failed. He succumbed to fear and selfishness when he watched her die, instead of breaking into the glass room and rescuing her, hallucination or not. It is still the Dark Knight's darkest timeline. He got lucky instead of being good, and Batman should always be the best.
The most predictable part of the story is the Arkham Knight himself, who is inevitably, Jason Todd. The only thing that threw me off is that Red Hood had a separate, distinct costume and action figure with his own level pack and everything in preorders and promotions. But once you hear him addressing Batman as 'old man,' and talking about his tactics, it could really only be one character. Worse yet, despite laying siege to Gotham, and being party to Barbara Gordon's apparent murder, Jason is redeemed by Bruce through fisticuffs and a heart-to-heart that's about seven words long. I know, I know. How else would it end? Personally I would hope for an ambiguous heroic sacrifice, leading Bruce to wonder if Jason is dead again, just after he is effectively resurrected.
Narrative rough patches aside, Arkham Knight is still the definitive Batman experience. I can't see Rocksteady topping it, and I earnestly hope they don't try. Tackle a Wonder Woman game instead. Or Flash. Or Cyborg! Even Aquaman. Hell, these guys are so good they might be the ones to finally figure out a Superman game that doesn't suck.
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