Quarantine Control #57: Titan of Wolves and Fireflies

People never tire of analogies for whatever state of the COVID-19 crisis we’re in, which explains why U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head Dr. Anthony Fauci came up with one using a baseball analogy, being a clear baseball fan. Fauci told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the US is currently in the bottom of the 6th inning regarding fighting the pandemic; basically, the end is in sight, but vigilance will be required to make it there. But any Philadelphia Phillies fan can tell you this also means there’s plenty of time for things to go horribly wrong. Anyone in the US or UK should at least make time and an appointment to get vaccinated, while the option will ideally come soon for those outside the countries.

 

Geoffrey Barnes

Hey, I finally got around to a certain popular anime and manga series.

Attack on Titan (2013-2019)
Format: Funimation
Episodes: 59 (The first three seasons)

I usually prefer to go into a new anime series with a fresh mind, not knowing which side of the opinion spectrum I’ll land on. This was not possible with Attack on Titan. With its status as a popular anime and manga series, its vocal fans really enjoy it while those who don’t like it think it should be wiped from the face of the Earth. Neither side will shut up about their intense feelings on it. I’m not saying all the series’ fans and non-fans are this, let’s say, passionate, but the more silent ones are overpowered to a hardcore degree. There was no way I couldn’t let this be among the first series I checked out after getting access to the actually-working Funimation app after through Sony’s Play-at-Home offer.

Fortunately for the sake of the free time it took to watch the first three seasons, I’m enjoying it. But I can see why a good chunk of the audience isn’t.

The earlier parts of the series are quite misleading about the direction the franchise will go in, though I won’t go as far as to accuse author Hajime Isayama of making it up as he went along. It starts with characters Eren Yaeger, his very devoted friend Mikasa Ackerman, and Armin Arlert joining the scouts to take on the Titans. These Titans are responsible for upending the lives of the new scouts and those around them, and the new recruits, especially the overly-enthusiastic Eren, are anxious and ready to do some Titan slaying. This gives the impression that the series will be a human-focused one that deals with the struggles of a populace and military dealing with a threat most of them aren’t properly equipped to fight and survive. This… is not quite what it is.

It’s no secret by now that Eren is “killed” early on, only to reemerge with Titan powers. This slightly shifts the series from being more than about human survival against the Titans, but also with the military fighting the Titans on equal ground with Titan-on-Titan kaiju-style action. But it shows how that action doesn’t have to be cheesy, nor does it distract from the overall well-done survival story.

The series handles its characters well, despite the sizable number of them. The scouts take orders from tougher and erudite higher commanders like tough guy badass-with-a-backstory Levi (who I really like — don’t take that as an insult), endearing scientist Zoe Hange, and commander Erwin Smith. It’s not easy to balance this large of a cast, especially in an anime that sometimes feels abridged compared to the manga it’s adapted from, but it does a good job making the viewer care about their motivations. The prominent characters have a defined purpose, while others initially introduced through either cameos or comical scenes (like Sasha) eventually grow to have one.

The Attack on Titan anime needed a sizable animation budget to properly realize its large-scale fights, and the series was fortunately popular enough to get that — a stunning achievement for a series largely deprived from fanservice. It’s a sight to behold, with key “sakuga” segments rivaling theatrical anime films at times, and beautiful backdrops. I didn’t even mind the frequent use of CG to animate larger titans and even horses from a distance, which segues better with the 2D elements later in the series. I’ve read about how much of a pain it would be for the horribly paid and overworked animators to do everything in 2D, so Studio Wit’s efforts to blend them better are appreciated.

There was a point when I was concerned about the series getting too fascist, given some (warning: spoiler-heavy) complaints about it and the German names and lyrics in songs. But it’s clear the series doesn’t endorse it and pictures those who fight fascism in a sympathetic light. This could not get more apparent with the not-even-subtle stand-ins for the Nazis and the Jews near the end of season 3. I’ll have to see if this is maintained for the remainder of the series, and this doesn’t mean I want to be spoiled on it.

It could not be clearer at this point that I’m on the side of the audience that’s enjoying Attack on Titan so far. There are intermittent pacing issues (though apparently still smoothed over from the manga), and points where Eren veers a little too far into the “typical shonen protagonist” tier, but it’s a lot of fun. I’ll watch the fourth season when it’s completed, which could happen around this time next year at the latest. If there’s any luck, Quarantine Control won’t be around by then.

 

Joseph Daniels

Kingdom of the White Wolf (2019)
Source: Disney+
Episodes: 3

Wolves are one of the most beautiful animals on our planet, especially white wolves.  I’m sure fans of Balto can agree.  This nature documentary is presented as a short series, and I went into it thinking that it was going to be a documentary about white wolves, but in actuality, it’s more like a documentary about a documentary about white wolves.  I should probably explain.

National Geographic explorer Ronan Donovan travelled to Ellesmere Island in order to try to document wolves that wouldn’t have an instinctual fear of humans, since he tried to document wolf behaviour in Yellowstone and they were too afraid of him to give him a 100% authentic wolf experience.  He found some wolves in the north once before who weren’t afraid of humans, so he decided to try again.

However, disaster struck in the first episode: as soon as he started documenting the experience of a mother raising pups, he could tell from how she held herself that she was feeling too much stress from his presence and it devastated him that he was impacting her well being too much, so he moved on and tried to find a different pack to study.  This is what I mean about it being a documentary about the documentary.  It’s as much a story about the wolves of the arctic as it is about the man who wants to share them with the world and tell their story.

Admittedly, he does take a few reckless chances, as you’ll see in episode two, but the good news is that he did survive, or else this documentary wouldn’t exist.

Firefly (2002)
Source: Disney+
Episodes: 14

Also available on Disney+ is another series starring Nathan Fillion.  Before playing author Richard Castle, he played Captain Malcolm Reynolds of the Serenity in a role that, if there was any justice in the world, he should’ve been able to play for many, many years.  If someone like Kevin Sorbo could play Dylan Hunt for five years on Andromeda, surely Nathan Fillion deserved at least the same amount of time as Mal.

After coming out the wrong end of a war, Mal finds himself doing less than legal jobs in order to afford to keep his ship running and crew fed.  Over the course of the fourteen episodes, he defends the ship against the bloodthirsty Reavers and arguably equally bloodthirsty Alliance while wrestling with the notion of protecting a pair of fugitives or turning them over to the authorities in order to get the Alliance off of his tail.

Okay, so it doesn’t take long for him to make that decision, and so he gains a really good medic, but has to also put up with the medic’s sister.  Simon and River Tam are both very intelligent, but River’s intelligence is far beyond Simon’s, and as a result, River got subjected to some pretty cruel experiments by the Alliance, so no one’s very eager to allow her to be captured.

By far, my favourite member of the crew is Kaylee Frye, played by Jewel Staite.  She’s been described as the heart of the ship and I tend to agree.  She’s also the best mechanic in space and could give Mongomery Scott a run for his money.

Incidentally, I seem to have accidentally followed Jewel Staite’s entire career like I did Chali 2na’s, simply from watching the right shows at the right time.  She was in Stargate Atlantis for a couple seasons, and she was also in the short-lived Space Cases, speaking of a show that should’ve lasted a lot longer.

Compared to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly has a lot of lore waiting to be explored.  Whereas Buffy could survive being an episodic series with a monster of the week, it feels like Firefly is meant to be something more.  The high school setting of Buffy did most of the heavy lifting and Joss Whedon didn’t have to come up with too much backstory to make it work.  Firefly, given that it takes place a few centuries in the future and involves a setting unfamiliar to anyone who might not have watched shows like Star Trek (hey, it’s possible!), needs to explain itself and establish its various elements.

Unfortunately, Fox didn’t do right by the show and cancelled it without giving it much of a chance.  There are a few unaired episodes which they never even burned off, but fortunately they’re all included on the DVDs and now they’re also included on Disney+.  Firefly was almost one of the greatest science fiction shows of all time, and these fourteen episodes stand as a testament to the series that could’ve been.

 

Remember: If you keep saying the pandemic is almost over, it will happen. This is a full-proof plan that couldn’t possibly backfire, so you’d better be thinking the same thing, or I’ll know.