nenena | Tuesday randomness.

Tuesday randomness.

RE: Paris Hilton

My faith in The System has been completely restored. Thank you, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer. I've never met you in person, I've only read about you once in an AP news article, but I think that I love you.

cleolinda has articulated my exact feelings about Paris Hilton here, and in a much smarter way than I ever could have written.

And what bugs me the most about this is that Ms. Hilton STILL refuses to take responsibility for ANYTHING that she's done wrong. Argh, she reminds me of my worst maturity-challenged students. You know, the ones who will blame their parents, their friends, their dog, institutionalized racism, immigration reform, and the failures of the American/Japanese social support system for the fact that I just caught them cheating on a test by copying answers downloaded onto their cell phones.

But enough about Paris Hilton, who sucks. Here are some memes.

One for me to do: Ganked from

sam_chan and

meiousei: Name any character I know and I'll tell you three reasons why s/he sucks, whether or not I like that character. You can name more than one character. I like a challenge.

One that I am doing: Ganked from

evercool. What's in your bag?

In my backpack is...
* A folder full of schedules and contact numbers for all of the schools that I work at.
* A precious, precious English-language edition of Newsweek that I picked up in Tokyo and am trying to make last as long as possible. Also, an issue of Time, same deal.
* Colored pencils, because I use them for my special-ed students, and I never know if I'm attending a special-ed class until five minutes before class begins.
* An electronic J-E/E-J dictionary.
* An electronic kanji dictionary.
* A bottle of lotion.
* A mail-order form for the Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo Pinky:st figure. (She's so cute!)
* A flash drive.
* An internet cable, because a lot of the places where I work expect me to provide my own.
* Envelopes of various sizes, stamps, clear tape, and some postcards.
* Some spare pens and a black marker.
* An extremely crushed cookie. Oh crap, I forgot about that.
* Emergency feminine hygeine supplies.

And normally my laptop and laptop cord would be in there too, but I'm at home right now using them.

In my purse...
* Wallet
* Camera and carrying case
* Hand lotion
* Hand soap (a necessity in Japan; rarely provided in public restrooms)
* Floss
* A comb
* Nail clippers and a nail file, because hangnails suck!
* My alien registration card
* Phonecards
* A file of business cards that people keep giving me
* My International Driver's License and my Iowa driver's license, because the former is invalid without the latter
* Address book
* Bank book and ATM card
* Emergency feminine hygeine supplies
* A little to-do and shopping list
* Many pens, all colors of the rainbow
* My hanko (signature stamp), ink pad, carrying case, and hanko registration certificate
* Health insurance card and various hospital/clinic ID cards (goddammit Japan)
* Packs of tissues
* Two mirrors. Bwuh, I didn't realize that I had two.
* Makeup.
* My cell phone.

...Yeah. That's all of the stuff that I never leave home without. Apparently I was a Boy Scout in a past life, or something.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tell me bad things about Tousaka Rin from the Fate/Stay anime. Also, Belldandy and Crowley.

Have fun.

Oooh, good ones! Let me see:

Rin

1. She fell in love with Shirou. That's the biggest thing that bugs me about her. Her love for Shirou isn't something that I can buy at face value; it completely goes against her established character and personality. The only reason that she fell in love with Shirou is that Fate/Stay Night is a harem anime and EVERY GIRL must fall in love with Shirou. Or at least, every "main" girl character, that is. I find her love for Shirou a *little* bit more believable in the original game, but that's because the game is longer, and can take its sweet time unpeeling the layers of Rin's personality. In the anime, however, her love for Shirou just came out of left field. It's like, WTF. Wasn't she trying to kill him twenty minutes ago?! And that whole she-wants-to-kill-him-but-then-is-blown-away-by-his-selfless-heroism-and-instantly-falls-in-love-with-him thing strikes me as astoundingly sexist. It reminds me of the latest issue of The All-Star Adventures of Batman and Robin. Wonder Woman wants to hit Superman with a baseball bat, Superman opens his mouth and says two words, and all of a sudden big scary evil Wonder Woman is reduced to a heaving-bossomed romance heroines, throwing her arms around Superman and purring "Take me, I'm yours." (Yes, that was written by Frank Miller.) It's like, the magical power of ~~Superman~~ Shirou's cock can make even homicidal magicians renounce their misguided ways and instantly swear to become his devoted maid/cook/girlfriends.

Again, like I said, Rin's love for Shirou made a bit more sense in the game, because it was developed slowly. But in the anime... Yeah, it's just a big giant sexist fantasy being projected onto an otherwise awesome female character. Grrrrr.

2. She really doesn't seem to care about Sakura until Sakura is a) in mortal peril or b) dying. Of course, this is Rin that we're talking about, so of course I believe that she does care about Sakura, but she just doesn't show it. However, for Sakura, that kind of sucks. Especially in the game, where Sakura is trapped in a horrifically abusive family situation, and Rin knows about it, but doesn't make a move to help her. I know that Rin has her reasons, of course - she always does. But still. It's hard to reconcile Rin's coldness toward Sakura with her otherwise general awesomeness.

3. In Fate/Hollow Atraxia she gets turned into a hyper-genky cosplaying anime fanboy wetdream. Who are you (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:FSN_KALEIDO_RUBY.jpg), and what have you done to my Rin?!

Part two, because I exceeded the maximum comment length when I tried to post this all together:

Belldandy

1. I can't divorce her from her context. As a character, she's great. As an oppresive representative of the ultimate ideal of Japanese femininity, and as the ultimate representative of fanboy wish fulfillment, she sucks. I wish that I could enjoy her as a character, and just conveniently forget about the fact that she was created as a sexist masturbatory fantasy. But I can't.

2. Speaking of #1, I hate the way that every anime incarnation of Ah! My Goddess (including, and especially, the most recent TV season) has to portray her as wimpy, helpless, and constantly in need of a rescue. At least in the manga, she can hold her own and kick righteous ass. But in the anime, for some reason, every writer and director has to portray her as helpless. I think that has a LOT to do with the whole "idealized representation of Japanese femininity" thing, actually. Because our wimmins have to be wimpy and helpless and need protecting, right? (Gah, I blame the whole moe trend for that.) I think that the most egregious example of this was the season finale from Ah! My Goddess Sorezore no Tsubasa. The problem: Hild traps Keiichi in a spell. The solution? In the manga, Belldandy would have kicked Hild's ass. I mean, there's precedent for that. Every time Hild (or any villain) shows up in the manga, Belldandy kicks her ass. But in the anime? Belldandy curled up in a fetal position and cried for twenty minutes, until Keiichi came along and saved her. What. The. Hell.

3. Kikoku Inoue's "Belldandy" voice. Graaaaaaaa.

Crowley

1. He's a yuppie. I hate yuppies. But I'll actually give Crowley a pass on this, because he's a yuppie specifically because he knows that being a yuppie is an exercise in pure evil. As opposed to, you know, people who are yuppies because they actually believe that they're good people.

2. There's not enough Crowley. He's such a fantastic character, he deserves waaaaay more source material than a flimsy little novel. He and Aziraphale could easily support an entire series of novels, if you ask me. Or a TV series. Or a comic book series. Or something.

3. His fandom sucks. The fanficcers and fanarters have this weird (well, more like predictable but exasperating) tendency to turn him into a weepy angstpot, a wibbly bishounen, a sadistic rapist, or whatever other demon vampire yaoi archetype you can think of. Which is infuriating, because it's like just because he's a demon, and just because he happens to have a humorously strained friendship with an angel, then he automatically must be beautiful and tragic and completely, utterly gay!!!

I love your attempts to come up with any reason for Crowley to "suck". And Good Omens comic book series would be beyond awesome. Far beyond. Mmm...

As for the fandom, aren't all yaoi/slash fandoms like that? Taking cues from a minor amount of interaction between two male characters and then trying to fit them into a small number of tragically and utterly gay character tropes?

Anyway, here are a couple of my humble suggestions:
1. Suzumiya Haruhi
2. Barbossa
3. Mara (surely there are more reasons for her sucking than for Crowley?)
4. Aziraphale

Yay. *hides*

Good ones again! Let me see:

Suzumiya Haruhi

1. Sexual harassment is NOT OKAY. Somebody really needs to teach her that.

2. Her attraction to Kyon baffles me. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the Kyon/Haruhi pairing. But the problem is, although I can totally see why Kyon is attracted to Haruhi, I really can't see how or why Haruhi is interested in Kyon.

3. Numero Uno rule of writing sci-fi/fantasy: It is really, really, really difficult to write a character with omnipotent, god-like powers well. Omnipotent characters can gum up the plot of any piece of fiction faster than you can say "deus ex machina." I once read a really good online essay about how much omnipotent characters suck, but for the life of me I can't find it again. Anyway, the essay was specifically written about The Beyonder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyonder), but I think it could apply to Haruhi as well. Now, the reason that the Haruhi novels *work* is that there's a twist in Haruhi's story: She does not, and cannot ever, know that she has omnipotent god-like powers. SHE thinks that she's just a normal person. But even with that twist, the novels still run into plot-problems caused by Haruhi's omnipotence. And the end of the first novel still freaks me out, especially when Koizumi tells Kyon that they may be living in a different world, and that he may even be an entirely different Koizumi. So in short: Omnipotent characters almost universally suck. Haruhi is a notable exception... most of the time. I still think there are parts where the novels write themselves into plot corners specifically caused by Haruhi's powers, though.

Barbossa

This one's a toughie because, honestly, I didn't really like Barbossa until PoC III. It's not that I didn't like Barbossa before, it's just that... Well, I never really noticed how AWESOME he was until PoC III. I think that's largely due to the fact that in the first movie, Jack Sparrow's shtick was still completely new and fascinating, and so (to me at least) he totally overshadowed Barbossa. But in the third movie they just cut Barbossa loose and let him shine.

But anyway, Barbossa sucks because:

1. I always thought that the apple thing was kind of stupid. As a character quirk, it's just lame, not to mention incredibly clichéd. I'm glad that they got rid of it in PoC III.

2. All of his grand schemes end in miserable failure. Aztec gold? Cursed. Try to drum up support from Feng and double-cross him at the same time? Didn't work out so well. Unbinding Calypso? Oh shit, she doesn't like us after all. Fountain of Youth? OH SHI--

And that's not something that annoys me about Barbossa as a character, really; rather, it's something that annoys me about his writers. Jack Sparrow also has all of these crazy/stupid/insane schemes, but they always work out brilliantly for him. Why can't Barbossa get a little bit of that idiot-savant-brand success thrown his way? I mean, he's way smarter (and perhaps a bit crazier) than Jack, anyway. You'd think that he'd be the more successful pirate, then. But strangely, no.

3. What kind of self-respecting Pirate Lord is the Lord of the Caspian freakin' Sea?!?!

Haruhi

Word about sexual harassment. It bothered me massively when I was watching the series.
The whole Haruhi/Kyon thing was a bit contrived, but I guess part of it was that he was just fascinating for her in his level-headedness and sceptical attitude to everything. Plus, the whole over-used "opposites attract" cliche may have played a role.

Barbossa
I also didn't care about him at all in the first film, but for some reason I felt really exhilaratingly happy when he reappeared in the second. In the third was many kinds of awesome, as we have have previously agreed.

1. I always thought that the apple thing was kind of stupid. As a character quirk, it's just lame, not to mention incredibly clichéd. I'm glad that they got rid of it in PoC III.
And they replaced it with the weird "peanut" thing. I didn't actually see apples as terribly cliched, and Barbossa used to bite them in a very badass way, but I see your point in that there are many, many better character quirks out there.

2. All of his grand schemes end in miserable failure... I mean, he's way smarter (and perhaps a bit crazier) than Jack, anyway. You'd think that he'd be the more successful pirate, then. But strangely, no.
Oh yes, definitely. Strangely enough, he reminds me of Mara in this way - as in he is bound to have no success no matter how much it should logically follow from what he does, simply in virtue of not being the main character.
Although the "druming up support from Feng and double-crossing him" plan struck me as fairly stupid to begin with.

3. But he is uniiiiiique in being the only lord of the lake! That is awesome.
Speaking of which, I wonder how long it will take for a new brand of PotC sues to appear which will all be Ladies of amazing and unique seas with magical colour-changing waves and pink unicorn fishes...

I actually think that "Lord of Lake" status fits Barbossa very well, actually. Yes he may have all of these grand ambitions and fabulous schemes, but they never work out... So if he would be a Pirate Lord, of course he would be the Pirate Lord of a dinky little lake. It's just so fitting. Because Barbossa is more ambition than he is success. Thus, he has an ambitious and grand title, but when you look closely, it turns out that he's just the lord of this worthless little inland sea.

But you're right, that's one of the things that makes Barbossa hilarious and awesome.

Oh, and forgot to add... I totally agree that Barbossa is definitely the Mara of the PoC world, too. ;) That is an excellent way of putting it.

Maybe I'm beating a dead horse, but I couldn't help replying to the Kyon/Haruhi comment, mostly because I'm of the opposite persuasion: I don't know what exactly what Kyon might see in Haruhi. (At least, not at the end of the anime; he is, after all, a little bit more infatuated with Mikiru at this point still, and Haruhi's continued treatment-slash-sexual-harassment of her does rankle him. Not to mention her blackmailing and occasional bullying.) Don't get me wrong--I don't dislike her; I actually like everyone in the cast, which is pretty rare for me.

I've just recently gotten into the series, and to me it's pretty obvious why Haruhi could be attracted to him: he's the only one who consistently challenges her (i.e., the only one who won't make her bored, and probably the only one with enough patience to put up with her without muting his own personality). Itsuki agrees with whatever she says, Yuki is like a piece of furniture to her, Mikuru doesn't fight back, her parents apparently don't figure into her life, everyone else is ordinary and thinks she's a freak and are therefore beneath her notice. Plus, Kyon is the one who three years ago--um, if you haven't read the novels, that'll be a spoiler, and should be animated when they do a second season.

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting seeing things from an opposite shipper's view.

Mara

1. She's a character with such great dramatic and comic potential, and yet for nearly the past ten years, she's been almost completely written out of the manga (in favor of focusing on Hild, of course). Particularly, I think that Mara's dramatic potential has been almost completely wasted. As a villain, she easily could have been elevated to the threat level of, say, the Lord of Terror, or Welsper, or Hild. She has the brains, the power level, and the intimate knowledge of the Norn's weak spots. And she has the record of success, too. I mean, Mara managed to turn Keiichi into a lizard, summon the Lord of Terror, separate Urd's halves, and transform all of Nekomi Tech into Sayoko's personal fantasy land. That's more than Hild has EVER done. But for some reason, the latter half of the manga has re-cast Mara as a bumbling two-bit comic relief villain who hardly constitutes a threat at all. The other reason I'd say that Mara's dramatic potential is wasted is her relationship with Urd... Which is brought up once in passing, once in depth, and then never again. I mean, that's some serious story potential right there. But it's never explored, never developed. It's just brought up as an excuse to jump-start the Demon Urd arc, and then it's thrown away, virtually retconned out of existence.

2. Walking. Fashion. Disaster. Also, Kosuke Fujishima had to draw her for 85 chapters before he finally gave her a hairstyle that didn't completely suck.

3. I still have no idea what the hell was going on with her sudden and inexplicable identity crisis in Sorezore no Tsubasa, particularly in episode 18.

Aziraphale

1. In the novel, he's not nearly as developed as Crowley. Which makes it hard to get a real grasp on his personality, other than the fact that he's a stuffy bibliophile.

2. He falls into that "angels can be evil too!" (http://girl-wonder.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1311&highlight=angels+evil) cliché that's overused and annoying. Okay, we get it. He's a total bastard but OMG he's an angel too?! Oh, how original and edgy. (*eyeroll*) Now, to be honest, I really do love Aziraphale, and I do think that his whole selfish-bastard-angel shtick is really interesting and funny. But at the same time, it IS overused and clichéd. And that's kind of annoying.

3. His fandom really sucks. Especially because he's an angel. That means that he's doomed to be forever cast as pure-hearted sparkling bishounen uke. The novel may not have revealed that much about Aziraphale, but it did at least establish that he was a) NOT pure-hearted, b) cynical to a fault, c) selfish, and d) dumpy. A far cry from any sort of pure-hearted sparkling bishounen uke. But, you know, internet slash/yaoi fandom. Meh.

Mara
1. Couldn't agree with you more on all of this. I think she's ultimately taken a backseat to Hild simply because AMG is wish gratification manga. Not having been particularly attractively drawn or portrayed as a person, Mara didn't really come close to fulfilling that role because she doesn't cater to any fetish and she isn't interested in reader-proxy anyway. Hild, in both of her forms, on the other hand, is a fetish satisfaction goldmine for obvious reasons.
As for It's just brought up as an excuse to jump-start the Demon Urd arc , that basically sums up why I cringe whenever anyone on the forms proclaims Fujishima to be a wonderful writer. He honestly isn't. He introduces piles of random and unexpected plot elements without any prior justification to move the plot along and then abandons them, or retcons them out of existence, as you've so nicely put it. Ootaki's girlfriend, Urd's mother issues, Sayoko's inconsistent attitudes to K1 and so forth. I mean, I'm obviously most bitter about Mara's and Urd's loose ends simply because manga would have been so awesome if it explored those issues adequately... Sigh.

2. *snort* Yes. Although, I quite liked Mara's hairstyle during the Devil Urd arc. Perpetual dishevelled look suited her personality quite well.

Aziraphale

2. I'm inclined to say that the way the "bastard angel" stuff was handled in GO was fairly decent. It wasn't nearly as blunt and annoying as Pullman's or Kaori Yuki's "ZOMG! God is totalitarian, murderous villain, marvel at my originality!!" stuff. Aziraphale appeared to me to be morally ambiguous, but on the whole a thoroughly decent celestial being, even if he's enough of a bastard to be worth liking. So I didn't really see it as bastard angel cliché rather than him just being a fairly 3D character.

3. Odd that you should mention this. All GO slashfic that I've ever read (not massive amounts, admittedly) featured Aziraphale as an evil rapist or at the very least a manipulative seducer. Although, now I'm tempted to hunt down the sparkly pure-hearted uke fics and laugh at them.

Oh yes, I did rather like Mara's hair in the Devil Urd arc. But at the same time... It kinds of looks like my hair when I wake up in the morning. Which means that during the entire Devil Urd arc I just wanted to yell at Mara to comb her damn hair! It's the OCD part of my brain.

I agree with you about Aziraphale, now that you mention it. I guess I was just grasping at straws. Beause Aziraphale is pretty awesome. ;)

Yeah, I've read Aziraphale as a rapist or a manipulative seducer before... But the sparkly uke thing squicks me even more, because it's just so... Argh. I don't know, I can't articulate it very well.

Hah! True on all counts. I shudder at that picture of Rin. They gave her cat ears? What is wrong with the world? And as for the Sakura thing, I was completely baffled by that episode. The anime implied that they knew each other for a long time/were childhood friends, but didn't really explain what happened between them or why Rin was taking it so personally. Or if they did, it was either veiled or I wasn't paying attention.

And Crowley's fandom does tend to suck. I have read way too many Crowley stories with him and Aziraphale having sex and randomly sprouting wings during than I care to recall, and it makes me laugh EVERY TIME. They're a very predictable pairing result from that novel, but I don't think anything in the book implies that they have anything other than a companionable (if somewhat complicated) friendship. Poor Crowley.

Also, I am currently working my way through the "Ah! My Goddess" anime, which I had not seen before.

Oh, I agree completely with the point son Rin and Belldandy. I can appreciate Belldandy as a manga character, but the thing is... her character only works in SCRIPTED ENVIRONMENTS. Too bad that the anime scripts just overall sucked.

Wow your bags have so many things! xD You're definitely prepared for anything, eh? XDDD

I want electronic dictionaries so bad D: *envious* They're really hard to get ahold of around here =__=

Yeah, I heart my electronic dictionary so much. ^___^ I don't know why they haven't caught on in the United States yet.

And the downside to my bags having so many things is that they weigh a TON. Especially my purse. ^^;;

Actually, I believe electronic dictionaries have been available in the US for a while. My mom bought me a Spanish->English one when I was in 4th grade, and a bunch of middle schoolers owned electronic ones with German, French, Italian, and Chinese. They were popular in my elementary school, but after entering middle school, I ended up being the only kid with an electronic dictionary. :\

They're definitely on the market, but in comparison to iPods and PDAs, they're pretty difficult to find. Pity, since an electronic dictionary is oodles more helpful than an iPod (and I happen to heart iPods).

I agree with you on Paris Hilton. I'm glad she didn't wiggle out of the law, unlike Bollywood movie stars.

My, you definitely have a well-prepared bag. This is coming from a person who uses her pants pockets and backpack to stuff things in, but I mean it! I feel a little sorry for the cookie, though. D:

As for the character meme, how about Saber from Fate/stay night?

Saber is a toughie. Let me see...

1. I want to know SO MUCH MORE about her past than what was revealed in the game and anime. I want to know about her tragic relationship with Mordred. I want to know who Mordred's father was. I want to know exactly what her "mistakes" were and why she blames herself for the fall of Britain. I want to know how and why she broke through the gender barrier of the time, even when she was a child, even before she pulled Excalibur out of its stone. I would find any of that story material far more interesting than her modern relationship with Shirou.

2. In the anime, it takes too damn long for her to show up.

3. Her merchandise scares me. I love to collect PVC figures and models. There are a LOT of Saber figures out there, which means that there are a lot of good ones... And a lot of astounding sexy, creepy ones. And then there's this (http://nenena.livejournal.com/49793.html). That's the stuff that makes me slightly ashamed to be a Saber fan. Well, more than slightly ashamed. And it makes Saber-goodies-shopping an uncomfortable experience. I was in Tokyo last week, and I found this fabulous model shop in Shinjuku that had a whole section devoted to Saber figures. Unfortunately, the whole section was... Well, it made me really uncomfortable standing there being forced to look at figures of Saber displaying her breasts and panties, just so that I could dig out the fabulous Good Smile Company PVC that I scored. Plus the heavy-breathing fanboy that was right beside me the whole time and kept staring at me like OMG a white woman with boobies! droooooooooool made me want to get out of there as fast as I could.

Wow, that turned into a rant about a lot more than just Saber. ^^;;

Hmm... characters...

Archer from Fate/stay night.
Fai/Fay/whatever Flourite from Tsubasa.
Um... Mizuno Ami from Sailor Moon.
Oh, what the heck. Tell me all of Urd's faults <3

...How spoilery can I get with the Fay answer?

Very :D I don't care about Tsubasa spoilers.

Okay. Here goes.

Fay/Fai

1. There is a limit to how much tragedy can be piled upon one character. Even CLAMP usually observes that limit. Even CLAMP showed a modicum of restraint when writing the Angsty Tragic Stories of Subaru and Kamui. But Fay? In the most recent twenty chapters of the manga, so much tragedy has been piled upon him that it reaches the point of sheer fucking ridiculousness. And that's both in terms of what's happening to him in the contemporary plotline of the story, and in terms of what's been revealed in his past. And the worst part? Every single tragedy that Fay has been ground through is a boring-ass overused cliché. Vampires? Check. Suicide? Check. Self-mutiliation? Check. Cursed to kill Sakura? Check. Dead identical twin brother whose name he assumes? Check. And we still haven't even gotten to the what-the-hell-is-his-relationship-to-Ashura? part of the story yet, but I'm willing to be money, real actual genuine money, that it will involve an extremely twisted sexual component.

I mean, it's gotten to the point where in every chapter some new unimaginably awful thing either happens to Fay, or is revealed about Fay's past. And at this point, I'm just rolling my eyes. Tragedy must be doled out sparingly, or else it loses all of its meaning and impact. And Fay's tragedy has become so overwrought that it's lost all meaning. And it's descending dangerously into self-parody territory at this point, too. Not to mention the fact that Tsubasa has become so focused around Fay's tragedy-of-the-week that the other three main characters have been completely pushed to the background.

2. His I-hate-myself-and-want-to-die shtick is getting old. I can see why it infuriates Kurogane. And especially in light of what happened in the Tokyo arc, when Kurogane made a tremendous sacrifice in order to save Fay's life. And what does Fay do in return? Tries to be even more proactively suicidal than before. That's gratitude for you.

3. His bad posture makes my back hurt from just looking at him. ^^;;

Mizuno Ami

1. As much as I do like her character, I have to admit that she basically has a one-note personality. Study, work, obsess, study, work, obsess. Her only "depth" shows up when she faces a crisis of self-confidence. Which is always resolved when, surprise surprise, she realizes that she does have self-confidence after all. All of her power-up episodes are exactly the same, and that's annoying. At least Rei, Makoto, and Minako realized more varied and interesting truths about themselves in their power-up episodes. But with Ami, it's always like Gosh I suck... Oh, wait, no I don't! MERCURY CRYSTAL POWER! It's the exact same pattern every time, with no variation. ~~But the pattern works, and I'm sucker for exactly the one note that her personality is, so....~~

2. Shabon Spray is still the most useless attack that any Sailor Senshi has ever been saddled with. And yes, that includes Chibi Moon. (Yeah, I went there.)

3. I really, really dislike the Ami/Shingo pairing.

Urd

1. Sometimes I just can't believe that a person as otherwise smart, sensible, and perceptive as Urd would not realize what a mess her meddling schemes are making of Belldandy and Keiichi's love life. And sometimes Urd is just blatantly used as a plot device to cause some sort of comical mishap, regardless of whether her actions in that situation are in-character or not. For example, that chapter in the manga where she tried to shoot Skuld with cupid's arrow or something. So Urd has just spent the entirety of the manga trying to get Belldandy and Keiichi together, and now all of a sudden she thinks it will be a good idea to encourage Skuld and Keiichi to fall in love?!

2. How, exactly do some of her outfits stay on her body? Particularly her goddess dress, the most modern version. What is she doing, lining the inside of that thing with double-sided tape? Yeah, yeah, I know, she's a goddess, the laws of physics and gravity should not apply. But still....

3. Same complaint that I wrote about Mara above: Urd's relationships with Mara and Hild could be goldmines of dramatic and comic potential, but they're just completely wasted.

Archer

1. Engrish.

2. Engrish.

3. Engrish.

Nothing ruins a heart-poundingly dramatic death scene faster than a big heapin' dose of unintentionally hilarious Engrish.

Nothing ruins a heart-poundingly dramatic death scene faster than a big heapin' dose of unintentionally hilarious Engrish.

Man, I laughed SO HARD during that fight. Especially because it came out of nowhere.

I so totally agree with the Engrish.

I think in the Dark Horse adaption Urd was actually about to shoot the arrow of "broken love", in order to end Skuld's seemed infatuation with Keiichi. But it still doens't explain why Urd wouldn't at least be aware of the "coming of age" things that come with ebing a goddess, given her own experiences in the physical development realm.

I think her dress stays on because she's always so oiled up, hot, and sticky. That or her hrony pheromones are also sticky.

No-no, not pheromones. Magic! And magically moving important parts which would definitely be exposed if she were a normal human female. But she's a goddess after all.

Reading all the comments was really amusing. :) Especially I like (and fully agree with) the idea of Barbossa's being PotC Mara. That's sooo true.

As for characters:
Hild from AMG
Nadie from El Cazador

You people keep picking such hard ones!

Hild

1. She's completely upstaged Mara. Worse than upstaged - the magical power of Hild's awesomeness has caused Mara not simply to fade into the background, but to be re-written as a bumbling ineffective two-bit villain. To make Hild look scary in comparison, I guess. (Why Ah! My Goddess can't just have two badass female villains is beyond me.) This is my number-one annoyance with Hild. Yeah, can you see my bias showing?

2. Like Aster said, Hild is basically a giant male wish-fulfillment fantasy in the ~~flesh~~ ink. In her normal form, she's the classic sexy MILF. In her child form, she's drawn as a lolicon dream come true.

3. Like Mara, and like Urd... So much unfulfilled story potential. What was her relationship with the father of the Norns? How can she balance her evil nature with what is clearly her genuine love for Urd? How did she react when Urd chose to become a goddess instead of a demon? (Or in the anime!verse, what was it that drove Hild to give up her daughter and essentially choose the goddess path for her?) What exactly is her daily role in the greater workings of Heaven and Hell? Etc.

Nadie

1. She's so overly-skilled that it gets kind of boring to watch her in a fight. We know that she's going to shoot before the other guy will, she always does. That's the reason why so many of her fight scenes are so darn boring. It's more exciting to watch an evenly-matched showdown, like the one between L.A. and Ricardo. Now that was a fight. The only interesting thing that Nadie brings to a fight is the chance for maybe some comic relief. But what she doesn't bring is the dramatic tension. I roll my eyes every time she ends up in a "tense" standoff with a gun-wielding bounty-hunter, because we know exactly what's going to happen in the next five seconds.

2. I have trouble believing that someone as young as Nadie could be such an uber-skilled sharpshooter. Where did she learn to shoot? Why? How? How did someone like her become a bounty hunter, and how did she hook up with Blue Eyes? The one episode that showed a glimpse of her past seemed to indicate that, unlike the girls from Noir or Madlax, Nadie did NOT spend her entire life training to be a fighter. So how did she get so good at it, and in such a short span as a few years?

3. I think that her character design is beautiful... But it's also extremely silly. She looks like an over-the-top video game character, especially with her crazy quasi-Mexicana cloak, and that unbelievable hair. Normally I wouldn't mind such a silly character design, because hey, it's an anime. But El Cazador is actually an otherwise very realistic anime. The settings and many of the other character designs (Ellis, Jody, Rosenberg, Ricardo, etc.) are believably realistic-looking. That just makes Nadie's cartoonish design stick out like a sore thumb. Although I will admit that L.A. and quite a few of the baddies-of-the-week are also pretty cartoony-looking, too.

Agree, agree and agree again. :)
What I don't like in Hild is her being over-everything when being over-powerful would be enough.

By the way, was it mentioned anywhere how old Nadie is?

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