Quarantine Control #43: Sentinels and Titans, Baby

It’s still only January, but it’s already clear that 2021 will offer a lot of the same horribleness that made 2020 a miserable year, even with some incidents being contrasted by brighter spots. Joe Biden is president now, but the problem of right-wing extremism will be with us for a while. The COVID-19 vaccine is here, but distribution is happening at a molasses pace. There was also the incident involving Redditors inflating the stock of GameStop and other fledgling organizations this week, to the point that the new White House and the US House Speaker have taken notice; this one was all-around hilarious in how it exposed how nonsensical and rigged the system is. It could be a better year than the last one, but that’s not to say it will be good.

We’re, of course, still quarantining, and there are reportedly new COVID variants out there. It’s still a good time to stay home and do stuff, like we are.

 

Geoffrey Barnes

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (2019)
Format: PlayStation 4
Episodes: It’s One Lengthy Game

Games like Hades, The Last of Us Part II, and Ghost of Tsushima have been frequently discussed and prominently featured in 2020 Game of the Year lists. But I’m always more interested in games that receive rave reviews yet largely went underappreciated among the wider audience, while those who played it try (often in vain) to get more people to play them. I’m not sure if any game released in western territories fits this description more than Vanillaware and Atlus’ 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, an adventure and a real-time strategy hybrid title that plenty of people can’t stop raving about. I enjoyed previous Vanillaware games like Odin Sphere Leifthrasir and what I’ve played of Dragon’s Crown, so I had to pick it up.

I’m about two-thirds of the way through the game, and should have it done by the end of the month provided no plans get wildly derailed. But I’m more than far enough in to say the game is every bit as lovely as I’ve heard. The opening parts were rough in how obtuse the plot was in terms of its storytelling and figuring out which parts to tackle first, but it comes together in time.

The earliest events are presented in the form of story vignettes, little of which makes sense. All the central characters are introduced, but its vague motivations give the impression that this will be a mind-screw-heavy game. It’s all a confusing mess, but don’t take this as harsh criticism. Battle tutorials are provided in the middle of these story elements, which include characters the player will barely know at this point fighting in mechs completely naked. There’s also a lot of talk about nanomachines, which reminded me of a certain other game.

This is all ostensible nonsense early on, but the presentation reminded me too much of 1990s and 2000s mind-screw mecha anime so much that I had an intense desire to see where this could possibly go. That’s the main hook, though I’m interested in reading about precisely what intrigued anyone who didn’t obsess over the likes of Neon Genesis Evangelion and RahXephon during their younger days.

It’s after the prologue that you’re given the option to pursue the adventure aspects with a choice of character, and the battle aspects, both of which start from different points of the story but eventually connect to each other. I don’t know if the average person who played this had a problem with all the options early on, but I had a nightmare of a time thinking about which order the developers felt was the optimal to play the game in. I eventually decided on playing the adventure aspects until I couldn’t, and then did enough battles until I couldn’t, and so on. This turned out to be a good decision, though it eventually became clear that none of the options were bad per se. If you haven’t started it yet, don’t worry about this and play what you want.

I’ve gone through a significant portion of the individual character stories at this point, and I’m now able to start piecing a number of mysteries together. It’s here that I realized just how damn good the storytelling is, nor is the story quite as complex as it insinuates at the start. This is another story where not everything is as it seems, and it’s presented in a way that would have been difficult to tell without a video game-style presentation — the kind of story video games should present. There are also mecha battles against the kaiju enemies that involve RTS-with-pause gameplay, and while they’re fine after adjusting to the gameplay flow, it’s clear what the real focus is here.

I’m about two-thirds of the way through at this point, and there are several mysteries I haven’t solved yet. But I’m dying to know just what will happen to certain characters and how misleading the game was about the state of the in-game world. The battles also don’t get in the way of the story, even though it’s not the most exciting combat that Vanillaware has concocted. It’s a shame this didn’t get the attention it deserved outside Japan and Asia, but there’s still time for word of mouth to help it along. Give it a shot.

 

Angela Moseley

If I’m being completely honest, I was nearly sidetrack today by current events. The revolution and fiasco surrounding GameStop stock, retail investors, and the Robinhood trading app has been just as entertaining as any television show or movie. If I were a more nimble writer, I probably would have incorporated some aspects of this series into today’s update beyond this introduction. Perhaps one of our other writers will have already covered the topic. (And yes, the secret’s out. We don’t collaborate with one another on topics before writing these pieces for Quarantine Control.)

Attack on Titan Final Season (2020)
Source: Crunchyroll
Episodes: 12 (I’ve watched 7 as of this writing)

The final season of Attack on Titan has been just as impactful as the start of the very first season in 2013. Once the secret of what the titans actually are and their origins were revealed at the end of season three, the series was bound to take an interesting direction. When you have the rough analogy of Eldians and Marleyans being likened to the Jewish people and Nazi Germany respectively, it is bound to leave an uncomfortable taste in viewer’s mouths. Fortunately, the Eldians of Paradis Island have other ideas about their ultimate fate. The show also has other plans for its protagonist Eren and his transformation from a bland hero to possibly one of the interesting villains in television.

First, I’ll address the largest titan in the room, the start of season four. The first episode of the anime is confusing because doesn’t explicitly state four years have passed from the end of season three. Not only is there a time skip, but the point of view takes place through the eyes young Eldian soldiers as they fight in Marley’s latest war. All we know is that some of them have the ability to transform into titans and that Zeke Yeager is among them. For all the audience knows these events could be a flashback or a look to the future instead of the present day.

What’s actually happened is that after Reiner and Bertolt’s failed attempt to kill Eren Yaeger and/or reclaim the Founding Titan’s power, they retreated from Paradis Island. The nation of Marley temporarily gave up its attempts to take over the island and turned its attention to war against the Mid-East Allied Forces. Because this nation had the power of titans on their side via the Eldians they kept oppressed and brainwashed, they became a military might. However, the rest of humanity developed weapons capable of countering the titans. Marley barely wins the war and realizes they need to capture and take the Founding Titan’s power for themselves. They begin to make plans to attack Paradis once more.

What the majority of the military didn’t count on is forces from Paradis coming for revenge against them after successfully infiltrating the country. The rulers of Marley, the Tybur family announce a plan to stop the war and unite the world against Paradis. The concern has always been the promise the Eldian King Fritz made one hundred years ago before he and his people retreated from the world. If anyone from the outside world came to threaten the island, he would release the titans forming the three walls and millions of them would attack and destroy the world. As the head of the Tybur family declares Eren Yeager enemy number one because he’s currently holding on to the Founding Titan’s power, Eren and the Survey Corps begin their assault on Marley.

The result of the attack is a bloody and violent callback to the destruction rained down upon the Shiganshina district in episode one. This time around Eren and Armin are the aggressors. Sacred and confused citizens of Marley run for their lives as debris crushes them or they’re trampled to death. It was a callback I never thought I’d see. I also love how Attack on Titan doesn’t paint Eren’s actions as heroic. Even Mikasa is horrified at his decision to kill civilians. Eren knows what he’s doing is atrocious, but is doing so to end the threat to Paradis once and for all.  In that way, his motivations as a character haven’t changed. This time instead of the threat being titans, it’s other nations. By his actions countless people lose loved ones in an instant and will spawn many more people filled with the same rage he once felt.

When I originally watched Attack on Titan, I feared this would be a black and white anime about people vs monstrous titans. Instead, what I got was a show filled with numerous shades of gray. The ugly side of humanity is shown, yet the reasons behind some of these ugly actions are understandable. Marley was once oppressed by the Eldians and took revenge against them once they were able. Other people fear the Eldians’ power to shift into titans. The people of Paradis are attacking because the world is threating to wipe them out. They also want revenge on Marleyan forces for sending the Armored and Colossal titans to shatter the peace they enjoyed for a century.

At this point, it is unclear how the series will end with just 16 episodes allotted for the season and plenty of manga material left. Either we’re going to have an anime original ending which seems odd given how close to Attack on Titan has followed the manga, or a second half to this final season will be announced. Either way, the newest episodes of AoT have been some of the most intense television I’ve seen in a while.

 

Joseph Daniels

Way back during week 11, I looked at three different shows from Disney, all available on Disney+, and compared them based on quality and on who their target audience were.  I proposed that there was a correlation between target audience and how hard they tried when making them.  The Lion Guard was for young boys and they basically didn’t try at all.  Elena of Avalor was for young girls and they put a little bit of effort into it.  DuckTales appealed to everyone and they put a lot of effort into making sure it was good.

Since then, I’ve seen a bunch more episodes of DuckTales and although I’m enjoying the stories very much, certain aspects of the series may have aged like milk after 2020.  For example, Scrooge and Flintheart’s feud with each other and their mutual feud against new character Mark Beaks quite possibly hits a little too close to home for anyone negatively affected when they lost their job thanks to Covid-19, especially after hearing about billionaires like Jeff Bezos who make money hand over fist for doing nothing at the same time that those who work for his company are enduring rather abusive conditions and can’t blow the whistle for fear that they’ll lose their jobs.  Remember, “essential worker” just means “disposable worker” for people like him.

I also don’t know how I feel about the modern DuckTales trying to incorporate all of the Disney Afternoon into one continuity.  There’s an episode in the third season that I haven’t seen but which apparently makes the Quack Pack and Goof Troop casts neighbours, in an alternate universe thanks to a wish.  Season three’s not on Disney+ yet so I haven’t seen it.  But I do know that Tale Spin’s been brought into the modern day thanks to Don Karnage showing up in season one, Darkwing Duck is a television show that gradually becomes real in the new DuckTales continuity, the Rescue Rangers are the result of a supervillain’s lab experiment in season three… most of this is stuff that I could possibly adjust to but I’m not sure I like the lab experiment origin story (again, I’ll have to give the episode a fair shake when it lands on Disney+, but I’m hesitant).  I was happy with the notion that the Rescue Rangers just existed already in their original series, they didn’t need to be lab grown.

That said, DuckTales is also ending after the final ten episodes are aired, so it’s possible all this world building and reincorporating of the classic Disney Afternoon into modern day might be paving the way for more reboot shows.  At the very least, a new Darkwing Duck show would be nice.

I’ve also forced my way through the entirety of The Lion Guard, and it did not get any better.  The pacing of the second season was awful, the series also had a very fast and loose grasp of geography as evidenced by the third season, and near the end, there was a sudden and unhealthy obsession with paring several of the main cast off into heterosexual, same species couples.  Maybe someday I’ll analyze Ushari for the blog since his story arc resembles an accidental allusion to alt-right recruitment, with a heavier than you’d expect dose of “Don’t tread on me” for good measure.

Elena of Avalor is the series I’ve watched the least of, but that’s not because it’s bad.  It’s certainly better than The Lion Guard, I just feel like I need to take it in small doses.  But that brings me to this week’s show.  I thought I’d do the same thing I did back in week 11, but judge one show based on the above scale.  Is it as good as DuckTales, as bad as The Lion Guard or a middle of the road show like Elena?

Muppet Babies (2018)
Source: Disney+
Episodes: Ongoing (currently 47)

Muppet Babies is a 3-D animated 2018 reboot of the hand drawn 1984 series.  It was mentioned to me a couple weeks ago by someone who’s a big fan of it and I thought, sure why not?  I remember liking the original when I was young and maybe this new version is going to be good, too.  There’s even a new character, a penguin named Summer.

It’s… definitely made for a very young audience.  Every episode is split into two stories and features at least one song between them, sometimes one song in each story.  In each story, the young Muppets have a problem that needs solving and they end up using their imagination to help solve it.  In helping their nanny find a missing article of clothing, the young Muppets become knights and wizards and fairy queens and end up playing Dragon Quest IV.  It’s almost literally the part of the game where the party is underground and finds a hidden castle.  Underground.  For no real reason.  Meanwhile, the young Muppets end up in a spy mission when Fozzie’s hat accidentally flies into their next door neighbours’ yard.

I thought I’d have more to say but I think this is going to be another series I watch very sparingly, if at all.  I got through two episodes and assuming the quality hasn’t gone way up since those early episodes, then it’s definitely for the under ten crowd.  Given who it’s aimed towards, I’d say that if you’re having trouble finding something for your young children to watch during a quarantine, give them this show.  The first two seasons are available on Disney+ and although it falls short of the middle ground of Elena, it’s still an improvement over The Lion Guard, although the songs definitely aren’t.

 

Everyone was hoping 2021 would be a serious improvement over 2020, but the signs that it would largely be more of the same were always there. It’s rough, but it remains nice to imagine the year getting better and actually turning out good from here, despite the clues pointing otherwise. There’s no way to tell when we’ll get back to normal, or what the new post-COVID “normal” will resemble.