Tag: Episode 13

Animini: Digimon Adventure -Episode 13- Garudamon of the Crimson Wings

Konichi-what’s up with these super spoilery episode titles? I mean.. I know some people never saw Digimon and might not know what is about to happen next.. but with a title as did I sure as heck was suspecting a Sora episode. Yet after last week I somehow expected Digimon to begin falling apart for me as well.. yet I saw one of my best episodes yet.. one that made me squeee so loud my downstairs neighbour asked me if it was alright.

The Summary

I am going to do these Summary sections a bit different from now on .. talking more on what I feel about certain plot points.. then using the positives and negatives section to talk more about the consequences of those choices and such.. because.. I have to use this section to gush a bit! We see both parties traveling forward on the way to the ford that contains the holy digimon still.  When Yamato’s and Sora’s group encounters a flying fortress shaped like a giant queen bee. It turns out this huge fortress is a digimon called cannon Beemon. It is in the process of capturing FunBeeMon and turning them into Waspmons.. with the dark Miasma to create soldiers for.. what I assume is Devimon. Sora, being the kind girl, wants to save these helpless creatures but ends up crashing in the woods with her partner.. where she encounters a single terrified Funbeemon… I LOVE FunBeeMon it is one of my favourite digimon!..Even if it evolves into a wasp.. it’s so cute.. and this anime makes the digimon super cute as well.  I am so happy they chose this.. plus it offers a very easy crutch to tell a Sora story… all enemies in this episode are Airborne. She has the only flyer in this group!

To take Joe out of the equation temporarily the series decides to give him air sickness.. because of this he lacks the strength to evolve Gomamon and gets into trouble. This means even Yamato who follows the belief of “we are so important , we can’t risk ourselves for everyone”  has to be involved. This same behaviour is seen with the rescue attempt.. as soon as they got Joe.. Weregarurumon punches a hole in the floor of Cannonbeemon to make an escape. So they can put Joe on the ground safely as he is out of his league. Cannon Beemon. Then Joe gets a great role as well not making him useless throughout the episode. He and Ikakumon will work as the “artillery station” using Harpoon Vulcan to keep the Waspmon away from Sora.. who can not leave innocent creatures behind. Yamato joins her.. knowing Sora by now.. and that she will save the Funbeemon. He comes up with a plan where he goes inside the monster.. while Sora distracts and fights Cannonbeemon. When we see the monster has the strength to blow up a mountain.. Sora wishes for the strength to protect these sweet little innocent creatures..her love for all that is living and pure allows Birdramon to evolve.. and we see Birdramon Super Evolve into Garudamon. It defeats Cannonbeemon in a spectacular way and we see Funbeemon lovingly say goodbye to the group as they travel into the new area.. no doubt seeing Zudomon in Episode 15!

The Positives

Once again this series really understands how to set up a conflict. You need to keep the focus on Sora so choosing for flying enemies is a great choice.. not just a single flyer.. because everyone has ranged attacks.. no this time they need to enter a flying fortress.  Joe can indeed function as heavy artillery as is displayed at the end of the episode so giving him motion/air sickness makes sense. It fits his character and you take out a character from the action in a non intrusive way. Old Sora struggled with love.. she was kind of cold and in the end her love for Biyomon pushed her to activate her crest. This time.. we see a Sora whose heart is filled with love. She cares for everyone.. and this was established prior to her own episode.. allowing it to work even better. It feels like a much more powerful emotion worthy of Digivolution.  We see a much more heroic Sora that has her own sense of justice. That pursues her ideals.. hard. Not as reckless as Taichi.. but a lot more proactive than Yamato. The idea of having Cannonbeemon be a flying fortress you can enter.. also opens up so many possibilities for cool encounters in later segments, plus having Joe struggle can be a great hook to activate his crest of Reliability!  Awesome!

The show also does some amazing power scaling. My favourite scene is the evolution into Garudamon. We first see Cannonbeemon blow up a Mountain when facing Birdramon.. the Mountain is miles and miles away but it blows away a huge chunk.. causing a shockwave to reach all the way over there.. then Garudamon arrives and instead of dodging this time it uses its own attack and a short beam struggle follows. Cannonbeemon’s beam however is fairly easily overwhelmed showing how immensely powerful Garudamon is! I am a sucker for these types of visuals in Shonen situations.. Beam Struggles are fun on it’s own.. but Beam Struggles we can power scale… Woop Woop! There are a few scenes like this troughout the episode.. that really makes us realise how much impact some of the attacks here have.. by applying the attacks to things we know.. and can imagine what force it would take to damage them.. it all makes the hits so much more.. real. Great Job.. great action!

The Negatives

This episode does fall in the pitfall again of having too many things scale though. Birdramon  takes up half the screen, the log the chosen ones are sitting on takes up a quarter of the screen .. so now you have to draw the digidestined into a  eight of a screen or so… it results in a few very ugly looking shots where there is no facial detail and thick outlines.  Even some scenes where the destined are bigger  have no facial details.. as if they just blew up the other art to give them perspective.. it really REALLY stands out.  To a point where I feel as if two animation themes did this.. and the cheap team did the non exciting scenes.  The scenes that matter look absolutely breathtaking.. but there are also a fair few scenes that look a bit clunky.. as if they think.. this is a kids show.. they don’t care. I HATE that excuse.  I am not sure if they did it for that reason.. but it left a bit of a blemish on this episode.. that honestly for me is not that bad since I don’t care about visuals that much.. but I noticed and I know for a few of you that is a big thing.

And that’s about all I dislike in this episode. The pacing was great, the action was superb and I LOVE FunBeeMon’s voice acting. It sounds super familiar..but I could not place it.. but I could just hear the joy and fear in it’s little voice.. great job. I do like how they take Koshiro’s laptop away little by little.. meaning he will not have the KNOWLEDGE he has had so far.. setting up for a great episode about him that undoubtedly will be next. The flying bee fortress setting was new and fresh as well. If I had to pick another nitpick..the final fight could have had a better endshot.. now the head of Cannonbeemon just kinda falls off and it looks a bit more comical than it does epic..but since there were people on board I do get why it did not fully explode. I would have loved to see Garudamon rip off the compartment with the Yamato and the Funbeemon and then see the evil fortress explode in a Death Star like explosion.. but that would be asking for a cherry on top of my cherry.

The Score

While admittedly this one will be on the lower end of my highest score I did still decide to award this episode just that.  I don’t mind the visuals that much.. I just notice them and wonder.. would it not be better to draw these things big and scale them down?!  But I have no idea about animation, let alone animation budget so who am I.. if these faceless weird Chosen ones help pay for the visual spectacle in the actual battle scenes I will take it for granted three times over. I really like how music is used in this show as well! It constantly lifts my spirit or brings me down.. when I need to be.. I am not a big music girl and I keep being surprised how much investment I have in it.

Digimon Adventure will be Digimon and it has a fairly high level of colour by numbers, when it comes to it’s overarching plot.  Episode 14 we will see MegaKabuterimon, Episode 15 will show Zudomon, I have no doubt in my mind and in that manner you could say the show is lazy.  Yet in a way this show is also a legacy show.  While also bringing Digimon to a new audience.. they indeed are probably best served with this level of structure.. while the audience that has been on this journey before will just love the ride for showing us all these classics and without delay and just offer us that other kind of fanservice.. you know the one that makes you go Wooo Demon Mayan Bird Thing that I know and love!.. Instead of Wooo Boobies. I can imagine this show will get stale for newcomers to the show that are of the age that they will read my blog…but for kids that where as old as when I first watched the original and for long times fans.. this just consistently an amazing series.

Animini: Flip Flappers -Episode 13- Pure Audio

Konichi-WAAAAAAAAH , my favourite magical girl show is over and I am sad now! My sweet island guests! I had such a great ride with this show and it quickly worked it’s way into my heart!  I loved this show so much and while I had a few episodes I did not like as much.. due to the chosen themes and the constant infighting.. what I had in the end was beautiful.  Could this final episode deliver a proper ending?! The answer is YES! In True Flip Flappers fashion it did it in a rather unconventional way..but I really loved this show.. and I really loved the ending as well.

The Summary

There is a lot to unpack here and words may not tell what happend properly.. but what we see is the final battle between the evil side of Mimi.. the broken part that clinged to Cocona as the only light in her life. That wanted to protect her from everything bad… however it doesn’t take long in this episode for her to abandon that goal and want to give Cocona a proper spanking.  Mimi Conjures, Snake Like Golems  that are immortal to beat the powered up Cocona and Papika. When they manage to hold her own Mimi starts to attack Yayaka as well who has been stripped of her powers. Luckily.. this super magical girl transformation Cocona and Papika have undergone cause their Impedance to go super unstable..  which caused breaches into Pure Illusion everywhere.. why is this lucky? Because Uexkull , Cocona’s Rabbit manages to enter Pure Illusion and in his warrior rabbit mode he saves Yayaka. Dr Salt uses the Elpsis to enter Pure Illusion and create another layer of it to hopefully keep Mimi at bay…This doesn’t work to well but it draws the good Mimi out! .. Sensing she is now losing ground Evil Mimi says “Flip Flapping”  and transforms into a Dark Magical Girl.. who is also a black hole.. planning to undo everything and recreate.

Flip Flapping Mimi overpowers the group and first but Cocona flys over to Papika.. they confess how font they are of each other one more time.. and reaffirm that whatever selfish desires they seem to have had.. to go on an adventure.. to let life just take them away.. all got redfined by meeting each other.. now whatever they do.. it only matters because they do it with each other. This realisation gives the girls the power of light ..and that destroys the black hole.. Evil Mimi realises she was wrong and is fished out of a pond by good Mimi.. fusing into a more complete being afterwards. .It seems Cocona wants to stay in pure Illusion to save her mother but Papika uses a bubble to send her trough a portal.. and we see Cocona return to a world.. but without Papika! A world that seems a lot more sterile than before.. she refuses to accept this reality.. and rightfully so.. it turns out that this grim reality is yet another figment of Pure Illusion.. almost as if a final test for Cocona.. she won’t leave without Papika… together the pair Flip Flaps one final time and flies among giant Butterflies back into reality again… where there friends… old and new are waiting for them to arrive… together.

The Positives

Sometimes you encounter one of those show that over time becomes.. “whatever they do you’ll think it’s cool”. I will admit that Flip Flappers has become one of those types of shows for me. While the final battle isn’t particularly epic and the final attack is kind of selfish.. justifying the villians belief.. it is pretty in it’s own way. A simple attack so filled with friendship and love .. and a desire to go beyond this obstacle that even a black hole could not assume it.. A love so fast.. it can not be consumed by that what consumes everything.  That doesn’t need to be a pink colourful spiral flying with sparks that if you look closer is a galaxy… No it’s litterally just two girls in cosplay being sucked into a black hole together.. with a light bloom effect on them..This not only stopping that final attack but also completely vanquishing the foe was  great.. because that is what this show is about. Friendship and love overcoming any limit.  That is what we got! The Epilogue is weird.. but fits so hard in the style of this show.. when we suddenly see Uexkull depicted as a regular bunny. Was he so weird from the start because of Cocona’s power?!  I did not see the twist coming and I was choking up.. fearing I would not get the end I wanted to see… yet when Papika popped up in that old concrete pipe .. my heart jumped with joy! Seeing Yayaka just start at the sky and grin when her two friends breach back into reality it all feels like carefully placed buttons that the end of the show pushes for you to leave you as content as possible and assure you  that there is no longer any doubt in these girls hearts on what they mean to one another.

Everything seemed even more crips in this episode.. they chose for some extremely close close-ups and it works so well. We can see every twinkle in Papika’s eyes, we can see how broken dark Mimi really is.. and we even get a lovely moment between Mimi and Salt.. where their sizes do not match up anymore.. even though they were both mature..Salt is painted very much bigger… he has grown older.. he has grown…while Mimi stayed her in pure Illusion, it helps convey the tragic truth that these once lovers are from different worlds that can no longer co-exists.. Salts form of Pure Illusion being more dead.. while Mimi’s is more alive and colourful. Their final embrace and Mimi’s request to Salt to always be his number one are a very touching sentiment and deep care for one another. The makers pulled out one heck of a ribbon box for this episode because everything gets so nicely wrapped up.. and pulls out all the stops in the visual department to make clear this is a finale too.

The Negatives

I do not believe in a flawless final episode, no matter how much you try , if we love a show there is always something we want to know as well. Will Yayaka ever go exploring Pure Illusion with Cocona and Papika again.. will Salt ever tell Cocona she is his daughter? (Probably not)  Where will Papika stay now that her evil robotic auntie/grandmother has been slain and her house has been blown up? It’s all kind of left unanswered.. perhaps what we saw in Pure Illusion can be an indication of what happens next but that is never confirmed. I would like to think so though. Would I have loved to see Salt hug Cocona and tell her the truth.. I think I do.. I am not sure?! So while the ending offers no closure on all things except for what Papika and Cocona mean to each other, I am not sure if I mind. On the one hand I really would have loved to see a bit of a fleshed out epilogue to see she is alright.. afteralll in reality she still is in pretty deep doodoo! I would love to see some resolve.. on the other hand.. now I can imagine what happend at the end.. and choose what happens. If in my headcanon Salt becomes a loving father.. he can.. if I want Papika and Cocona to live in a concrete pipe for the rest of their lives together.. eventually moving into a couple .. I can.  Flip Flappers is a show about making choices and it gives you the ultimate choice in the end. 

Like I mentioned earlier the episode might be a bit too oddball  to officially be called a good final episode. There is some odd pacing.. such as the final fight being resolved in the first half of the episode with half an episode epilogue.. could the show have been stronger if both things have gotten an episode? Yes quite possibly! There was so much that needed to be told… did they succeed in telling it all?! Yes! I am content.. could it have been told better.. Yes.. one more episode might have left it even more Ironclad. However could an additional episode have made it resonate with me more? If I had given all the answers I wanted would the show be as much on my head as it is now?! Possibly not. In the end it comes down to this show making a stylistic choice of ending that ..like the rest of the show isn’t made for everyone. I do think they could have done a better job with the final episode.. in some ways.. but no matter how I change it , I might like it less.  The flaws on display give this a character of sorts.. I am being made a participant.. instead of just being spoonfed things.. It might not be as satisying to pick my own grapes.. compared to being fed them by skimpily clad ladies and a Enuch with a palm leaf fanning me… but because I touched it.. I do feel more of a connection with what I experienced.

The Score

So do we end it on a perfect score?!  No.. the episode is just a bit to oddly paced, the fake out in the middle, while fitting denies us closure and instead of slowly ramping down the insanity that is this show we keep on revelling in it  in the end. That might not seem bad.. but compare it to a rollercoaster, that goes up a hill slowly then it picks up speed down hill… some crazy loops, crokscrews and what not..  usually right before the end you break and are hauled into the little station.. a moment to catch your breath… this ride stops full speed at the station and as a result .. you are not full ready to disembark yet, you haven’t wrapped your head around the fact that a guy now shoos you out of the cart. 

It’s a ride that I have found truely unique and delightful and it surprised me to the very end. Reality and imagination became interwoven and I get to decide if they live a happy ever after. I do like that idea.  The final episode has been structured to give people who loved this show one final trip. One more JOB! Everything that made this show great is crammed in this single episode and we even get a dark magical girl transformation to complete the entire trope thing as well! I did not know I needed that but when it happend I went .. .OH MY ARCEUS!  I NEEDED THAT! So in a way this show knows me better than me.. with this show I felt like it was made FOR me.. and this final episode could have almost have my nametag written all over it.. wrapped up in a pretty pink box and delivered by a jolly fat man or maybe by a Delibird. It isn’t flawless.. it isn’t a perfect final episode and it will not get the perfect final score.. but that makes this show better. A show that gets the perfect ending is a show you want to stop watching something that leaves you truely content… With Flip Flappers I might have not gotten everything I want.. but now I ‘ll forever want more.. and I love love LOVE that!

And that concludes the series! What magical girl show should take it’s place on the Animini slot?! Should I do an article where I gush on the entire series?! Let me know in the comments! Also this must be said! Yayaka rules!