Quarantine Control #15: Horse Girls and Destruction

Hopefully you’ve been taking the advice we’ve been providing in these posts, that you should stay home as much as possible during this unprecedented pandemic. Way too many people figured that it was safe to go back out and tried to live their normal lives while this was all still unfolding, and they’re now finding out the hard way how big of a mistake that was. Cases have spiked yet again in the United States of America, which has led to not only some states rolling back reopenings, but others imposing restrictions for the first time. But don’t worry: Brazil is right there with them. But it’s tough to outdo America in sheer stupidity here.

Good thing there’s plenty of entertainment to soak in while indoors, like the examples we’re providing this week.

 

Geoffrey Barnes

See? I told you I wouldn’t be talking about Assassin’s Creed Odyssey again this week. I’ve since finished the main game and the free DLC quests, but I’m holding off on the expansions for now. Thank goodness I have something else to talk about this week.

Chernobyl (2019)
Source: HBO on Demand
Episodes: 5 (The whole miniseries)

It’s well worth watching shows or movies about pandemics or disasters that organizations or governments subsequently tried to cover up, something I alluded to while watching Contagion nearly two months ago. Chernobyl is within the same vein — including the civil unrest that soon erupted while the pandemic was happening, though our real-life protests weren’t entirely related to the pandemic itself. But while Contagion was a frighteningly prescient fictional account, this one is based on accounts of a real-life disaster that a government tried their damnedest to pretend wasn’t as severe as it actually was.

There’s a chance you’ve heard the story of Chernobyl, one of the most fatal nuclear accidents in history. The explosion and ensuing radiation leak not only put the scientists and engineers working inside in peril, and led to their eventual deaths, but many humans and animals living in the vicinity that unknowingly absorbed it. The Soviet Union tried their best to downplay the event, despite it happening on a massive scale. It’s one thing to read about the event in history books and online sources, or watch a documentary about it. But it’s another to see a recreation of how it likely happened through a live-action series like what HBO provided. It’s depressing, yes, but it’s worth seeing a largely accurate illustration of how the events unfolded.

Chernobyl is partially a story of hubris. Several scientists and engineers testing the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant knew there was a potential for danger if they went through with the test, despite several warning signs. But there was little they could do with a boss who insisted it had to be done in a certain way, and threatened to ruin their careers if they didn’t. This is only the start of the incompetence shown by certain characters and organizations involved in the story, along with the actions of others who actively tried to downplay the events and prevent their cohorts from digging too deep into what happened. The ever-intimidating KGB can make good on its threats to do something about those who go against the wishes of the government and its aligned forces.

Part of the incompetence is due to several people involved being unequipped for what they were dealing with. For instance, those living or staying in the vicinity of the reactor weren’t notified fast enough about their potential exposure to radiation, and the government waited hours to tell people they should evacuate despite it being too late for them. A number of those very government officials refused to listen to the experts for fear that acting hastily would make everyone involved look bad and incite too much panic. Fortunately, this shouldn’t remind anyone of anything currently happening in real life these days.

Chernobyl is also a story of injustice. Much of the truth eventually came out in the more than 30 years since this happened, but the government was adamant about the worst aspects being kept secret from the world at large at the time. They also sought to punish those who wanted to expose the truth with humiliation, sometimes a fate worse than death. It took years for everyone to start learning the truth, which, at the very least, took down several figures who were in leadership positions in the late 1980s and early 1990s. There’s an argument to be made that this helped lead to the end of the Soviet Union too. But it was a slow burn, and the people who wanted to expose the truth were the ones punished.

Chernobyl is absolutely worth watching, but be aware of how depressing it is, and the little payoff that exists for those who deserve it. Reality has a habit of being harsher than fiction, and thus, works based largely on reality inherit that morbidity. It helps to be in the right mood for this show, but know that it’s absolutely worth your time.

Strider (2014)
Source: PlayStation 4
It’s a Video Game

One of the biggest issues with buying digital games is how easy it is to forget that you purchased certain games, particularly those you grabbed on sale years ago. I happened to look down my digital PlayStation 4 library to remember what games I’ve purchased through PlayStation Network, and noticed that I owned the 2014 Strider title, a game I’ve wanted to play for a while but never got around to. After Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, I wasn’t in the mood for another long game, so this was perfect.

The most amusing aspect of Strider thus far is how it lulls the player into a false sense of security. Strider himself almost feels too powerful for the game’s enemies, with the guns and melee attacks from normal soldiers barely doing any damage, while Strider can cleave them in a few hits in very quick succession. The enemies also drop a little health, just enough for Strider to fully recover any damage he might have taken. But the game suddenly starts getting more difficult about one-third of the way through, which caught me off guard. You probably don’t want to know the number of encounters I survived with only around one percent of my health intact.

Okay, okay. You probably do. Sorry, I don’t remember all of them, but one of the encounters was a robot centipede that summons a bunch of buddies when its health has been halfway depleted. They all shoot enough slime in a nigh-simultaneous manner that the game temporarily resembles a shoot ‘em up.

That said, it’s a fun game with tight controls. Strider himself is versatile, capable of quickly slicing in multiple directions, and eventually receiving abilities that allow him to charge for a more powerful slice and sliding. He’s a treat not only for anyone who’s played the older games, but also for anyone familiar with his Marvel vs. Capcom series incarnation. He doesn’t have the teleport or the throw, but both of those would break (or, if you prefer, slice) this game in half.

At this point, I’m about two-thirds of the way into the game, and have about six areas to go. This is just the kind of quick game I needed, with it having enough mandatory and optional content to be a satisfying experience by the end. And that’s not getting to the Survival Mode, extras for which can be unlocked for during the course of the main game. It’s so up my alley that I can’t believe I held it off for so long.

 

Joseph Daniels

Mobius Final Fantasy, despite being over for about a half a month by now, is still seemingly dominating my thoughts.  One of the theories I’ve been rolling with about where all the Blanks come from in the game are, they’re warriors from other Final Fantasy worlds who have died and Palamecia is where they go to fight another day.  But the majority of these souls weren’t heroes in their realm of origin, so they aren’t heroes in Palamecia.  I don’t know where the main Warrior of Light comes from, but wherever it is, they could very well have been a hero in their original world.  I don’t know.

So this week I recommend an anime that is set up in a surprisingly similar manner to Mobius…

Uma Musume: Pretty Derby
Source: Crunchyroll
Episodes: 13

The world in Uma Musume is a lot like our own, almost exactly in fact.  The only difference is that somehow, horses are girls and still race each other.  Horse girls are the souls of great race horses from our world who have passed on and are given new lives as female kemonomimi, girls with horse ears and tails.  If you keep this in mind, you won’t mind their strange naming conventions.

The series follows several horse girls based on real horses from roughly 1997-1999 as they play out careers in this alternate Earth that roughly follow the same paths as their original racing careers did.  The main character of the show is Special Week, whose father in the real world was none other than 1989 American Triple Crown hopeful Sunday Silence, who had won both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes before losing to rival Easy Goer in the Belmont.

If anyone was wondering whatever happened to Sunday Silence, and I’m sure some of you were, he spent his retirement in Japan and both Special Week and fellow anime horse girl Silence Suzuka are based on horses he sired.

In the real world, we don’t bat an eye when a horse has a name that’s a bit out of the ordinary, and sometimes it can lead to some rather hilarious races.  But in this alternate world, I would think it’d be a bit awkward for a person to go around with names like El Condor Pasa; every time she appears on the screen, I can’t help but think of Simon & Garfunkel’s version of the song.

The series is mainly faithful to the real world histories of each horse, but there are a few liberties that were taken, including one about halfway through which will have you breathing a sigh of relief if you’re aware of what really happened to the horse in question.  I’m not going to say anything more than that, I feel like I probably already spoiled things just by saying what I did.  At the very least, it can sometimes make more narrative sense to break from reality than to follow it right to the letter, which makes this anime basically Cool Runnings for horse racing.

From the start, the series makes a big deal over the fact that the girls who win their race get to perform, idol-style, for the crowd.  This aspect of the world is mostly forgotten almost immediately and never really had any bearing to the series anyway.  It felt like the series didn’t know if it wanted to be a sports show or an idol show and it tried to do both, then changed its mind after it was too late to go back.

One more interesting thing to note is that most, if not all, the horse girls in Uma Musume are based on male horses from the real world, but the implication of this is never explored.  I also don’t recall finding out how horse girls are conceived, but it’s been a long while since I watched the first episode, and I only got my Crunchyroll subscription back during the current epidemic.

A second season is unlikely to be made, considering these thirteen episodes cover pretty much the entire real world racing careers of the featured horse girls, and a new season would have to follow the next generation.  So instead…

Umayon
Source: Crunchyroll
Episodes: Ongoing (currently 2)

…a spin-off comedy series has recently begun airing.  It takes place pretty much in the same continuity but it doesn’t take itself very seriously.  Unlike the original series, Umayon is a three minute comedy short and… well, it’s too early to tell, but so far I approve of 50% of the episodes.  I suppose we’ll be able to see in the coming weeks if this is going to be one of the better comedies or if it’s stalled out at the starting gate.

 

The Quarantine Control conclusions are getting repetitive by now with insisting that you stay safe and wear a mask, but… stay safe and wear a mask. It’s necessary repetitiveness because there are way too many people who think they’re impervious to this virus, or still think it’s a hoax. They’re the same people who get sicker than expected, or, worse, infect more vulnerable people. Please don’t be an idiot and take this seriously, unlike some elected leaders and conspiracy theorists.