Re: Entertainment Joys

[bomaye]

Just finished off the 100 episode adaptation of Dragon Quest: Dai no Daiobakan/The Adventure of Dai.

It shows its age being an early '90s shonen in a lot of ways (character designs, character arcs etc) but god damn does it do what it does well. There were still great twists that I didn't see coming, these character were very likeable, the shonen hype of overcoming great odds was absolutely there. This will be a rewatch someday.

[Datelessman]

Just finished off the 100 episode adaptation of Dragon Quest: Dai no Daiobakan/The Adventure of Dai.

It shows its age being an early '90s shonen in a lot of ways (character designs, character arcs etc) but god damn does it do what it does well. There were still great twists that I didn't see coming, these character were very likeable, the shonen hype of overcoming great odds was absolutely there. This will be a rewatch someday.

Oh yeah? I've begun to research the series and you've certainly raised my interest. 100 episodes is a lot of time to invest in a series; that's almost as long as INU YASHA, YU YU HAKUSHO, and FIST OF THE NORTH STAR. But what I have seen of it does have potential, and most of the reviews are very positive (even CBR has called it "underrated"). So thanks for the notification.

[bomaye]

I would say it's underrated. Being a video game spin-off (you don't need to know anything about Dragon Quest but it will enhance enjoyment if you do) and being an adaptation of a 25-30ish year old series meant that I don't think a lot of western people watched it, but it's definitely appreciated for being top-tier in its home country.

[Datelessman]

I would say it's underrated. Being a video game spin-off (you don't need to know anything about Dragon Quest but it will enhance enjoyment if you do) and being an adaptation of a 25-30ish year old series meant that I don't think a lot of western people watched it, but it's definitely appreciated for being top-tier in its home country.

Interesting. My curiosity has been piqued and I have ordered it; ideally I should get it within the next month or so and could start watching it this year. I have a heap of anime I technically own and haven't watched like DEATH NOTE or CASTLEVANIA (I know the latter isn't really an anime but it is close), but it might be fun to get a more straightforward fantasy kind of shonen series besides RECORD OF LODOSS WAR, which I haven't seen in decades. So thanks for the recommend.

Onto my latest entertainment joy, I've once again switched tones with enough bluntness to cause whiplash. Due mostly to the DVD's being dirt cheap on Amazon, I binged the last new animated series that WB and DC produced for Cartoon Network before largely abandoning the channel (aside for TEEN TITANS GO!., which has somehow long outlasted the show it was made to parody). It was, if I am not mistaken, the last TV show in which Kevin Conroy starred as the voice of Batman as part of the main cast before his untimely death from cancer in 2022. He'd played Batman nearly up until the end in various video game and direct-to-video roles, or as a guest appearance in a show, but I am very certain this was the last in terms of starring TV roles. I am talking about the show which sought to merge JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED with BATMAN: BRAVE AND THE BOLD, and seemed to come and go with little fanfare. I am talking about JUSTICE LEAGUE ACTION.

Produced by Sam Register, Jay Bastian, Tramm Wigzell and Tatiana Krokar, alongside Butch Lukic, Alan Burnett, Jim Krieg, and Rebecca Palatnik, it seemed like an attempt by some old school WB/DC animation producers to cater to the sort of format that CN has wanted out of cartoons ever since ADVENTURE TIME started printing money for them. Living up to the title, the show primarily focuses on action, and returns to the "mini-episode" format which was common in cartoons going back to the 1960s but was mostly put on hold for the 90s into the 2000s. Rather than produce one 22 minute episode every week, they would air two 11 minute "mini episodes." On top of that were 2 minute shorts produced and aired exclusively on YouTube; they were not included on the DVD. The end result was a single season of 52 mini-episodes (or 26 episodes of airtime) on CN from 2016-2018 alongside 22 two-minute shorts (or 44 minutes worth of animation) that aired on YouTube in 2017.

The gist is as basic as it gets; the adventures and antics of the Justice League, headlined by Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman (in that order). One, two, or all three appear in nearly every mini-episode and/or short. At first they are housed in the "Hall of Justice," but when that is destroyed early in the series, they move to a Watchtower base built atop an inactive volcano (which, despite how unstable that sounds, only comes back to bite them in the series finale). The Justice League already has an active roster of over a dozen rotating heroes, but the trio actively recruit new members as the series progresses. They spend all their time responding to various crises, attacks, or disasters, or at times the ramifications of some of their wackier members. Aside for the "big three," the Leaguers who turn up the most are Firestorm, Green Arrow, Booster Gold, and Swamp Thing, with notable mentions to Cyborg, Plastic Man, and the Atom. Considering he had a movie coming at the time, Shazam is recruited in the pilot, and the first four mini-episodes are actually linked in a reoccurring subplot revolving around monsters summoned by Black Adam. After that, the continuity of the mini-episodes is very loose, with some exceptions. Most notably, Felix Faust steals Zatanna's hat in order to use it as a portal for one of his summoning spells, and as a by-product, grants himself a newly youthful form. Though his scheme is thwarted, his youth spell was permanent. Other reoccurring subplots center around Firestorm's development as a superhero as well as Booster Gold revealing that despite being quite a moron, he does have some genuine skill at dealing with the chaos of time alterations. Plenty of other heroes guest star, everyone from Hawkman to Flash to Green Lantern, Stargirl, Supergirl, Vixen, Big Barda, and Blue Beetle, but the ones mentioned before turn up more often as a loose set of regulars around the "big three." Conroy's Batman, especially, stars or appears in nearly every mini-episode, even a few where he doesn't speak, and ties the show together.

There's no main villain; merely an endlessly reoccurring series of rogues. The show cribs from Batman and Superman's galleries most often, as one might expect. This is also another cartoon that retroactively brands Lobo as a Superman enemy (or at least an anti-hero), so he pops up a few times. The villains who turn up the most are Lex Luthor, the Joker, and Darkseid (or his various minions from Apokolips, especially Granny Goodness and swarms of Para-Demons), with Harley Quinn, Penguin, and Deadshot popping up pretty often compared to others. Nearly every villain turns up 2-3 times.

At first I was unsure what to make of this show, and genuinely only bothered to try it because Amazon offers the DVD's at dirt cheap prices. It wasn't as cheap as JOE VS. JOE or ARCHIE'S WEIRD MYSTERIES, but close. On the downside, the show is very single minded on centering everything around action, as the title states. It also is amazingly sausage heavy, almost as much as the first season of BATMAN: BRAVE AND THE BOLD. For many episodes, Wonder Woman represents her entire gender. On the rare occasions other heroines turn up, they are also usually the "token girl" of that week's squad of heroes. Two of the times that more than one female Leaguer turns up at once, it is either a hallucination by the Atom, or a Christmas party thrown by Green Arrow. Despite being a WB production, the animation is surprisingly lackluster at many intervals. Like many anime shows, there are various cheats done to avoid having to actually animate people, but whenever the storyboards demand some fluid action or fighting, it can get a bit choppy. It isn't "Spider-Man on FoxKids" bad, but it's closer to it than you usually see from a WB cartoon show. There are also many mini-episodes where Batman is simply there to provide star-power and/or an easy solution and he didn't need to be there.

Also, in classic misleading fashion, some characters appear routinely in the intro yet barely appear in the series. Mister Terrific is only in two episodes, and Cheetah is only in one. Bane only appears as a simulation in one of Darkseid's alternate dimensions. It is a show which defaults to the white "classical" identities of many heroes for really no reason, and it makes the show less diverse than it could be.

On the positive side, the mini-episode format works better than some might expect. There are a LOT of plot ideas with the Justice League which would be lame or slow if drug out to 20 minutes, but work at half the time. Paul Dini, who writes approximately 20% of all of the mini episodes, really thrived under the format and all of his scripts were gold. One easy example is an old JLU episode, "The Little Piggy." It's an episode where Wonder Woman is turned into a pig by Circe, forcing Batman to go on a magical journey to save her, and ultimately sing at a lounge. At 22 minutes it was padded out and kind of awkward. If it'd been an 11 minute mini-episode, it would have worked. Not that I prefer that format, but the show's writers realized this was the chance to burn through a lot of the insane plots that could never work in a longer, more serious format.

I get the feeling the show's creators intended for Space Cabbie, an obscure character voiced by Patton Oswald, to be the "breakout character" kind of like Aquaman was on BATMAN: BRAVE AND THE BOLD. And he is fun, though weird. But for my money the true breakout character was Firestorm, voiced by P.J. Bryne. As a character merged with another, he always had someone to bounce off of; in this case, Professor Stein (Stephen Tobolowsky). Firestorm has actually popped up in a lot of cartoons going back to to the 80s, but this was the first show which I thought really played to the "dual aspect" of the character; that he's a teenage jock turned superhero and merged with a stuffy teacher who constantly tries to explain stuff to him or get him to act serious. He keeps trying to make, "The heat is ON!" into a viable catch phrase, and his earnestness almost makes it work. I will give props to Diedrich Bader as Booster Gold, who totally nails the "moron with a heart of gold, somewhere, kind of" angle to him. Jason J. Lewis was the real workhorse of the cast, as he voices Superman as well as a darn lot of their random villains or civilians. Mark Hamill, of course, has a ball reprising his role as the Joker for the 100th time, but he spends about as much time voicing Swamp Thing. There is also the infamous short where he literally voices four characters and possibly earns some SAG overtime (Joker, Swampy, Trickster, and himself). Then again, how much overtime could be paid for a 2 minute short? A part of me thinks that half the reason Hamill was cast as Swamp Thing was so he could get to act with Conroy and not be an antagonist sometimes, but I could be wrong.

The rest of the voice cast is a mixture of old veterans, actors reprising roles from current shows, and some stunt casting. Like, of course Khary Payon voices Cyborg, and Tara Strong voices Harley. Lacey Chabert, who plays Zatanna on YOUNG JUSTICE, went across the hall to voice her here. Same with Josh Keaton as Green Lantern, since he'd voiced the character in the cancelled CGI cartoon. Charlie Schlatter, who has voiced the Flash off and on for guest appearances since the 90s, reprises the role again here. Dana Synder, best known as Master Shake from AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE, has a blast with Plastic Man here (who stars in about half of the 2 minute shorts, since he makes for easy gags). Fred Tatasciore voices Solomon Grundy, and basically does his Hulk voice, as most folks have played him as "Zombie Hulk" in cartoons. The late Gilbert Gottfried reprises his role as Mr. Mxyzptlk from the 90s Superman cartoon, and if any villain benefits from the mini-episode format, it is Mr. Mxy. John DiMaggio voices Lobo, doing a Macho Man Randy Savage impression, and it really works. He calls Hawkman "a McNugget" and "a Chicken" a few times, which really endeared him to me. For reasons I cannot explain I really, really, REALLY hate Hawkman, so anything which mocks him I automatically love. The only exception was the BLACK ADAM movie, which made Hawkman kind of cool. Jerry O'Connell, who has voiced various superheroes in a few guest spots across various shows, voices Ray Palmer/Atom here.

Certain things were randomly fascinating. It's the first time I saw John Constantine pop up in a cartoon intended for kids. The Red Lanterns show up twice as villains, and as one would guess, Dex-Starr the evil cat gets most of the airtime. Space Cabbie's intergalactic fares can, fairly, easily reach the five figure range (in dollars), but in an attempt to make him younger, he somehow can bypass the fare of a superhero takes a selfie with him. The only Leaguer who actually pays Cabbie is Superman, who crushes some coal into a diamond for him. The show actually makes Mr. Miracle work and not seem stuffy by playing him off as a showy Vegas style celebrity magician, which works well.

There were some inspired stunt casting choices. Chief among them was James Woods as Lex Luthor, who actually tries to play him as more arrogantly stoic instead of phoning it in like a Hades knockoff. Brent Spiner plays Riddler in one mini-episodes, and he's definitely better than he was as Joker in YOUNG JUSTICE. Andy Richter plays Chronos in two episodes, and the late Cloris Leachman and Jessica Walter play Granny Goodness and Athena, respectively. An entire mini-episode is written around a guest appearance by Jon Lovitz. John de Lancie is an interesting choice as Brainiac. It is a show for kids, but there are plenty of references for adults.

JUSTICE LEAGUE ACTION doesn't have a series finale per say, especially since I imagine the producers did not imagine CN would cut bait after only a single season (though after BEWARE THE BATMAN, they should have expected it). The last mini-episode, "She Wore Red Velvet," does serve as something of a fair finale. It centers on a new villain named Red Velvet who is a time traveller like Booster who actually uses the fact that the Watchtower is on a volcano against the heroes, and makes the volcano erupt. Booster ultimately reveals that Red Velvet is his fiance who he literally left at the alter so he could go back in time and earn his fortune, so he could become an equal to her. Wonder Woman and the other heroes don't believe the haplessly shallow Booster ever intended to return to the 25th century and marry her, which was what drove Red Velvet insane. Yet when Batman goes into the future with Booster to help him complete his wedding, Red Velvet follows them. Batman notices her power ring is the same as the wedding ring Booster gives her, and deduces it wasn't being left at the alter that drove her insane; it was being married to Booster. He eventually squanders her fortune, snores, and "goes bald. Really, really bald." In order to save the Watchtower, Booster has to basically allow Red Velvet to talk his bride (her younger self) out of marrying him. It is kind of sad, even if Booster gets over it very quickly and asks for Giganta's number (for the implied fetish reason, since she's a giantess).

It didn't win anyone an Eisner, but for what it was, it was fine. Any DC fanatics curious about it should give it a whirl.

[Datelessman]

For the record, I did get that DRAGON QUEST series via an import DVD. I actually had to order it all the way from Korea, I believe. They used a carrier I'd never heard of before (not DHL). I haven't begun to watch it yet but I will eventually. Just ordering it was a little bit of excitement!

And wow, this forum has been kind of dead all month, huh? Well, it's been almost two since I posted anywhere, so no one can accuse me of hogging anything.  

It's just a brief entertainment joy this time. DC and Warner Brothers spit out animated direct-to-videos at a fast pace, at least 2-4 a year. Almost all of them involve Batman, the Justice League, and/or Superman (in that order), even when they make no sense and seem like obligation. I used to nab them all but have dropped off in recent years, due to being Batman'd out sometimes. I don't understand how some folks just never get enough of him. Anyway, I did nab one from a few years ago which was good, but also proves my point about the obligation to the Caped Crusader. It is "BATMAN: SOUL OF THE DRAGON," from early 2021.

DC/WB have produced so many of these 75-80 minute OAV's (which is what they'd be if they were anime) that many have stopped being based on actual comic book stories, or reunions of old TV casts, or even team-ups with Scooby Doo. Some are almost avante garde pieces, like "what concept can we justify as a pitch to Warner Home Video for budgeting purposes?" And the answer seems to be "anything, so long as Batman is in it." This DTV was announced in August 2020 and as such work on it likely began earlier in the year, if not in 2019. Since animation is work which was social distance friendly, Covid-19 barely put a dent in that industry.

This DTV is deliberately designed and intended to be a loving homage to 1970s martial arts and "blaxploitation" films. Both became "hot" around the same time and comic books definitely sought to hop on that bandwagon. DC Comics' shameless attempt to capitalize on that martial arts craze at the time was Richard Dragon, a character Denny O'Neil and James R. Berry created in a 1974 novel which the former then brought over to DC the following year in RICHARD DRAGON: KUNG FU FIGHTER. A slew of DC's major martial arts characters debuted there, such as Lady Shiva and Bronze Tiger, among others. The problem with Richard Dragon is the same thing people noticed about Iron Fist once he got a Netflix show; it was a "mighty whitey" origin story which by the 1970s was waring thin and has looked even more troubling ever since. You know the drill; a white man (it is almost always a man) winds up in some "far off land" which is often Asia, Africa, or some homage thereof, and is trained in their ancient skills yet due to his, ahem, "natural aptitude" becomes better at it than anyone of the local population, ever. It could be argued that one of the forefathers of this was Lee Falk's THE PHANTOM in 1936, which was about a legacy of white dudes who became better at jungle, tribal combat than any of the native tribespeople there and is essentially treated as a superhero god (at least until later decades when "irony" was invented in comics). Thankfully, "mighty whitey" origin stories have taken a nosedive since the turn of the 21st century and many of the heroes created by it have seen more diverse "legacy additions" in later decades.

Spoiler:

The voice cast is a good mix, with warning that because of it being a martial arts story involving mostly Asian characters, there is a TON of typecasting. At least it beats white actors faking accents, as tended to happen before the 90s. Mark Dacascos, who starred in the reboot of "HAWAII FIVE-O," "CROW: STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN" and "MORTAL KOMBAT: LEGACY" (along with the live action film version of "CRYING FREEMAN," to link to an earlier review) voices Richard Dragon. David Giuntoli, best known for "GRIMM," voices Batman/Bruce Wayne here (and in "BATMAN: THE DOOM THAT CAME TO GOTHAM" in 2023). But then we have some of the usual suspects; the legendary James Hong, who has seemed to make a career out of dignified performances of what could have been stereotypical characters, voices O-Sensei. Kelly Hu, who played the character for the Arrowverse as well as one video game, voices Shiva. Jamie Chung, of "DRAGONBALL EVOLUTION" and "BIG HERO 6," voices Jade. Michael Jai White, star of "SPAWN" and another Arrowverse veteran, reprises Bronze Tiger. Among them are more regular voice actors like Chris Cox, Grey Griffin, Robin Atkin Downes, Patrick Seitz and Eric Bauza.

Erica Luttrell voices Silver St. Cloud for her first ever animated appearance, albeit in what is barely more than a cameo at the start. Silver St. Cloud is usually considered one of the last of Bruce Wayne's "normal civilian girlfriends" after Vicki Vale (and some others who were less famous). St. Cloud debuted in 1977 so her place here fits the theme. In the comics, St. Cloud figures out Wayne is Batman (like most of his lovers do) and breaks it off with him because she can't stand worrying about him. She was a little infamous because by the late 1970s, it was okay to at least allude that comic characters had sex outside of marriage so she was the first on-panel girlfriend that Wayne 100% used his grappling hook with. Being dumped by her actually devastated Wayne for a few issues and he almost quit being Batman over it. St. Cloud has rarely been used since, and most of the stories where she has were retroactively considered non-canonical. In this flick, she dumps Wayne because, ironically, he won't fully "open up" to her.

(I suppose most Bat-fans would ask, "what about Sasha Bordeaux," Batman's girlfriend from the early 2000s. I wouldn't consider her a "normal civilian girlfriend." Sasha was Bruce Wayne's bodyguard who eventually figures out his secret, vows to still protect him, then falls in love with him, and then eventually dons a costume and fights crime with him. Then she becomes a cyborg and is mostly forgotten since. My point is she was always a fighter, capable of donning a costume (albeit with no codename) after only "weeks" of extra training. Whereas heroines like St. Cloud or Vale were always non-combatants. Typically, Batman is most attracted to thieves and terrorists like Catwoman and Talia Al Ghul, respectively.)

So, BATMAN: SOUL OF THE DRAGON; it has more Dragon and less Batman in it. But if you forget how out of place he is in a kung-fu flick, it's a fine romp for under 85 minutes. It reminds me of a NINJAS & SUPERSPIES campaign, for anyone who has played or heard of old school Palladium Books tabletop RPG's.

[Hielario]

That movie sounds like a nice evening. From what I remember about reading some lended 70s Batman (and Robin) comics, they were relatively grounded for a while, yet still very acrobatic (I honestly thought adult robin with the tiny circus pants was the coolest ever, I don't understand superhero nerds) so I guess they thought that iteration would fit in a martial arts story.

I've been pretty busy myself, my job has been ass for the last three months and I discovered something that's kind of a red flag for me with women, so I'm going to speak about some things I've liked instead.

• Due to some planning error, there's a lot of idle time at my new office and an office mate discovered the existance of online console emulators to me, so I've been playing the first Parasite Eve. The 3D characters look like ass in this emulator and some things aged really badly (especially the expectation of constant grinding and replaying), but combat's fundaments are as delightful to play as they look, the 90s police movie crossed with scifi horror vibes are still immaculate, and the music slaps. It's a shame the company has treated these games so badly. Also, I'm starting to understand how it influenced the first RPG adventure I mastered, Project-E.
  
  
• After finishing classic Doom, I've switched to fanmade levels, whose creativity is one of the things that drew me to the game in the first place. For the last year I've been plugging on and off through a big collective compilation where every level is made by a different creator, but still tries to stick to a sense of spatial continuity: Solar Struggle. It's a collection of enormous levels (they call them "limit-removing" because they go beyond the original hard-coded limits of the game in terms of level size and number of enemies)  that try to imagine how would the rest of the solar system look during the demon invasion. While actual quality has ups and downs with so many different people involved, I've found there is a lot of  creativity in level design and use of visuals (which, since this compilation mostly sticks to the original stuff apart from some textures backported from Doom II, has a lot of merit). I'm currently halfway through the last episode, which is set in Venus, imagined in this mod as a world of floating structures inside a green atmosphere. The difficulty is getting rather harsh for me since it's close to the end, but I still want to see all of it even if I have to play in an extremely careful and coward way (which is more that I can say about the last episode of Doom the way ID did). Very neat!
  

[Datelessman]

Glad to hear from you again.

At the moment, the biggest entertainment joy of the last few weeks has been X-MEN '97. Anyone here watching it?

It's been amazing so far, truly uncanny (pun intended). It's the kind of project DC fans take for granted. Warner Brothers has always proudly reminded the world they made Batman: The Animated Series. They've had that voice cast, writing team, and/or production team reunite for canonical and non-canonical instalments dozens of times. The sad recent passing of Kevin Conroy and Arleen Sorkin only reminded us of this.

But Marvel? Not so much. Thanks in no small part due to shifting license rights (i.e. Sony having Spider-Man TV rights from 2000-2010 and Fox having all things mutant until recently), Marvel/Disney treated their old shows as relics worthy of local syndication but little else. X-MEN '97 is a major change. It has many of the original producers involved, especially Larry Houston, and a good chunk of the original surviving voice cast from the 90s, either reprising their roles or for notable cameos. It embraces the past and cherishes it while moving forward with canonical adventures told and animated with modern techniques. It averages like a million views a day on Disney+ and has caused the number of views of the old series to increase something like 300-600%. It may not help balance out the $11 billion loss of revenue from Disney+ that Disney has suffered according to Forbes (due to, basically, overinvesting based on pandemic era flukes alongside petty penis-measuring contests with Netflix), but it sure doesn't hurt either. It's the best X-Men content, anywhere, in over 25 years.

And yeah, spoilers required if anyone wants to chat about recent episodes. Seriously, don't go anywhere near Facebook or X/Twitter when an episode drops for at least 12 hours.

[Hielario]

I don't have paid streaming so I wouldn't be able to watch even if I wasn't wary of anything by Marvel or DC; my forays into their comics always end up disappointing me. It looks nice, though! The original, like most shows of its kind in that moment, suffered from the continuing plots or returning characters becoming incomprehensible if you didn't get to watch enough episodes in order.

• I got the printed version of STAGE ONE!, a stand-alone comic  by Ulises Lafuente, a.k.a RataUnderground (published first at Fanternet, a sort of professionalized webcomic portal. This is the second time I buy something from it) I've followed his work on and off for a few years and I was hooked to the online version of this, so when the physical release came it had to be mine; It's actually the first time I actually buy something by him (his previous works either fizzled off or lost my interest) and I'm really happy. It's a gripping story about rallies, classic cars and finding your own purpose in life. Soleil, an Andorran twentysomething racing fan, is adrift in life. But then retired racer Alessandro scopes her out at an amateur competition where she gets screwed over by a mechanic friend of both due to the crazy shit she does in her old 2CV and offers her an opportunity to compete and maybe start a career. Several rallies, errors and intense moments of competition ensue; I particularly love a moment where Soleil screws up immensely  and, some time after, Alessandro realizes he fucked up as much as her because he didn't think to teach her that going overboard in speed is deeply dangerous - it has incorporated the words "maximum attack" to my everyday vocabulary. And the art is great! Irregular sometimes - it was published page by page and some clearly show that the author was constantly figuring out stuff. Personally I'm really thankful that it's finished without a massive dip in quality or an eternal hiatus like some of his other projects.
  
  
• Watched a couple episodes of the portuguese edition of Taskmaster I love the displays of lateral logic in some of the trials - and sometimes even the terrible ideas from the contestants are hilarious, like eating an egg with the shell and everything.
  
  
• Played a few demos: Legends of Castile, CLeM: the first element, and Desolatium. Liked most of them even if they felt slightly weird at points. Kind of a shame I can't justify game purchases right now.
  
  
• Civvie11's work keeps being delightful. I have particularly enjoyed his video about Chex Quest; as unnerving as the american tendence to make entertainment to sell other things feels to me, I have to say there is something adorable about the idea of finding a game like that in a cereal package. It made me wonder if putting Steam codes in Kinder eggs would be viable.
  
  
• I've been watching SPY X FAMILY once in a while and I absolutely adore it. Somehow they made a comedy of mistakes that doesn't drive me over the wall - I think it works because, for every character, believing the other's lies is so often beneficial to their own situation that it makes sense that they'd gloss over the implausible elements. And yeah, like a lot of other lonely nerds I am very emotionally affected by the plot. I'm not sure of how common is identifying the most with Yor, though! And the detail of Loid's contact being named Mercader is a delightful little reference
  
  

[Enail]

Seconding Spy x Family, it's a really fun and charming show!

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