Quarantine Control #172: Super Secret Stories

DC Staff | July 20, 2023 | Animation, Features, Movies, Television, Videogames | No Comments

The ledes to these Quarantine Control posts lately have harped on about how hot it’s been lately because this summer has been more of a scorcher than any the world has seen in years — if ever. Cities in the southwestern segment of the United States have been breaking high and low temperature records, and the Middle East set a record high temperature just below human survival tolerance threshold. It’s tough to imagine how this, itself a climate calamity, can worsen from here, but it will as nothing is being done to address climate change. That’s not even getting to the constant rain and floods some places around the US and the world have received, and those which have been in the thick of both.

Geoffrey Barnes

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (2022)
Source: Crunchyroll
Episodes: 1 movie

I’ve been thinking about the revived form of Dragon Ball through Dragon Ball Super a bit lately, and concluded that I slightly prefer the movies Toei Animation has released compared to the TV series that finished in 2018. For as quickly as Super’s story wrapped up compared to certain sagas from Dragon Ball Z (especially the pre-Kai version) and the now-noncanonical Dragon Ball GT to a lesser extent, the movies tell their stories in a much quicker fashion. I’m emphasizing “slightly” because even though the series adaptations of Battle of Gods and Resurrection F came with considerably worse animation (two arcs done before Toei gave the animators more time to work on them), the series versions admittedly had much more time to flesh out the stories and characters didn’t receive as much development in the movies.

My slight (there’s that word again) preference for the movies is why I was thrilled that Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero was coming along, the newest film with a slightly redundant name. It delivered even harder than I was expecting in terms of quality, but also inherits the same issues as the previous films.

Dragon Ball, still partially spearheaded by creator Akira Toriyama, never ventures far in terms of inspiration for its newest content. The new villains are yet another revived form of the Red Ribbon Army, their fiercest enforcers being the new Gamma 1 and Gamma 2 androids. The chief story involves their desire for revenge on Gohan, after all these years, for finishing off Cell at the Cell Games’ conclusion. This establishes the movie as one that will chiefly focus on Gohan, his daughter Pan, and Piccolo, with Bulma getting good star time to a lesser extent.

Super Hero gave the impression that it was made to address fan concerns that arose over the years among the older set who just can’t let this series go, me included, especially after Super ended. Goku and Vegeta are featured heavily throughout Super, but both characters, alongside Broly, Cheelai, Beerus, and Whis are reduced to little more than cameos, and have little to do with the actual story. This not only increases the stakes for the heroes and Earth as a whole, currently lacking its strongest warriors, but shifts the attention to characters neglected in Super, namely those mentioned in the above paragraph. It all makes for a solidly entertaining film, and a welcome tale in Dragon Ball lore.

Gohan is far better here than in any part of Super, while the movie works as the best demonstration of Piccolo’s potential than any point since — DBZ? Geez. But I was most impressed with Pan, who’s far better as a supporting character here than throughout all of GT by not being a constant hindrance. The girl in her three-year-old form actually helps.

The animation style had me skeptical initially. The largely-2D animation of Dragon Ball Super: Broly was a sight to behold at all times, so switching to a largely-3D one was ostensibly a baffling choice. But the animation gets the job done, and shuts down many fears about 3DCG use in anime form — at least for higher-budgeted movies. There are a few occasional blemishes in the animation, particularly at a few points during the final fights, but it looks great most of the time.

Super Hero indeed runs into the same issues as prior movies, with parts of it being worthy of expansion. Both the Gamma androids are convinced they’re the heroes, but there could have been more exposition as to precisely why they believe so. A certain heroic character’s new form could have similarly used more build-up. (Dragon Ball fans tend to have looser lips than those for other franchises, but I won’t provide massive spoilers for a film that just hit a streaming service.) I’d also like to see more of Pan’s training with Piccolo, who sure cares more about training Gohan and his daughter compared to their father and grandfather). The same goes for Goten and Trunks, who’ve finally reached their visible teen years, though they’re reportedly featured more heavily in the story’s manga adaptation.

None of that is anywhere near enough to take away from how Super Hero is one of the more enjoyable Dragon Ball films, nor does it entirely change my preferences for the movies over the series. I’m not hopeful this will receive an anime series expansion with the animation style it used. It may not be feasible on a TV budget, even with Toei pumping more cash and resources into them if the recent One Piece arcs are a solid indication. Considering how well the movie performed, and Dragon Ball’s seemingly perpetual popularity, more anime is undoubtedly coming. It’s just a question of when.

Angela Moseley

Watching corporate social media rapidly change has been an experience. Twitter has been firmly digging its own grave since the day it came under new management. Reddit has angered its community over API changes. Bluesky has shown it is not up to the task of even the most basic user moderation. The only success story as of lately is Meta’s Threads. It is a lukewarm Twitter-like service that insists on showing users posts from others they don’t actually follow, at least for now. In this atmosphere Tumblr decided to get in on the action of alienating its users. First, they’ve made the service look more like Twitter than Tumblr. I pointed this out on Mastodon, and my toot took off. People really don’t like the changes.

Anyway, enough about social media. Let’s get into some gaming.

Monster Hunter Stories (2017)
Source: 3DS, Android, iOS
Episodes: One Video Game

When I last wrote about Monster Hunter Stories, I didn’t realize how close I was to finishing the main story. A few more hours and I would have been done with the game. Even less if I hadn’t spent so much time on side quests. There’s not much else to say about the game regarding the story and its technical aspects. I’ve previously covered them in great detail. So I’ll just share my thoughts on the remaining stretch of the story and some post-game content.

The final battle hit me before I knew it was actually happening. Other RPGs trained me to expect a grand finale dungeon or some epic speech by the game’s villain. None of that really happened, as the game’s antagonists had already played their parts. The plot device they unleashed served as the final boss. It was more of an environmental challenge than just one person or monster. This particular boss served as a bump in difficulty, but because I’d spent so much time doing side quests my Monsties were more than prepared. The game had previously taught me that bosses have to be taken down in a particular order and deviations from that makes the fight harder to win.

After everything went down, the power of friendship and bonds rode in to save the day. It’s a fairly common JRPG trope, and it fits here. I can see why some are cynical about the trope overall, but in a game aimed toward a younger audience it’s a good lesson. Especially now considering how dystopian the world has become. Having friends is good for everyone’s sanity. No, seriously.

Once the game ended, I had the option to unlock and ride higher rank Monsties. I had used prayer pots to unlock rare monster dens and obtained Monsties I couldn’t place in my party because my rider’s rank was too low. Now those high rank Monsties were useable. Finishing the main game also unlocks monster dens filled with high rank monsters which are a challenge. These monsters also yield better armor and weapons. The Challenge Tower is filled with powerful monsters and made accessible after the credits roll. Additionally, a training tower unlocks. The Challenge Tower is the best place to fight powerful monsters, including elder dragons. The training tower is likely a good place to train your own Monsties for either the Challenge Tower or online battling.

I had intended to try the challenge and training towers in Stories. However, I had a hard time actually finding them on the map. Being lost is an issue that can be fixed with a walkthrough or by just exploring. Instead, I tried the post-game side quests, and they were somewhat difficult. I ran into one monster in a rare den that absolutely wiped the floor with me, so I ran from battle. That had the effect of causing the monster to leave the area. Since I was in a den I found one of its eggs.

I had a lot to do, but I was just ready to check out at that point. I’d sunk nearly 70 hours into the game and while I was curious about the new areas that opened up, I was also craving a new game. It didn’t help that online battles are no longer a thing with the closing of the eShop and Nintendo moving on from the 3DS in general. Online battles might work on the mobile versions of the game, but I’m not interested in finding out.

I might pick up Monster Hunter Stories every so often to train the stronger Monsties I acquired. Even though I burned out on the game after finishing the main story, I had a great ride. If you’re able to find this game at a reasonable price on 3DS or by other means, it is a fun story from start to finish. I also love Capcom’s take on the Pokémon formula. If you’re tired of the big daddy of monster collecting franchises, try Monster Hunter Stories.

Joseph Daniels

Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout (2023)
Source: Crunchyroll
Episodes: Ongoing

Over the years, I’ve heard some things about the quality of anime adaptations of video games. They can be very hit and miss, unfortunately, and it feels like there are more misses than hits. However, if you were to tell me, after I finished watching Campfire Cooking in Another World With my Absurd Skill that I would find not only another anime I like just as much, but it was going to be a video game adaptation, my first thought would’ve been “Oh good, the Final Fantasy IX anime will actually turn out well?” That’s a project that I’ve been certain is going to fail, if it ever sees the light of day.

However, it turns out that an anime based on an Atelier game is easily one of the best I’ve seen all year (presuming it sticks the landing at the end), and that’s saying something, considering I already declared Campfire Cooking to be my anime of the year, way back at the start of the year. Could it be that my anime of the year has competition?

It turns out that yes, yes it does. Atelier Ryza tells the story, as most Atelier games do, of a girl who wants to be an awesome alchemist. There’s more to it than that, and there usually is, but it doesn’t really feel important. The first three episodes have basically given us a pretty awesome slice of life anime. Despite the presence of enemies needing to be killed, this is about as chill as Flying Witch is. So far, anyway. There’s going to eventually be villains to defeat if this anime continues to follow the video game faithfully, and I have no reason to believe it won’t, since the original developers are heavily involved in the adaptation because they wanted to make sure it works.

Come to think of it, it’s like anime is slowly working its way through Final Fantasy XIV’s crafting classes this year. Campfire Cooking was their effort to level Culinarian up and now Alchemist is being leveled up.

The only thing, the only thing, that I don’t like about this anime is how it looks whenever Ryza drops ingredients in the alchemy pot. The small splashes of ingredients meeting liquid don’t look very natural at all. With how much care and attention they took to make everything else look amazing, I’m surprised that they would let themselves drop the ball on this very minor aspect. I have noticed that they’ve been trying to be so faithful to the game that they imitate the chest and thigh high camera angles on all the characters (even the males) from the game’s cutscenes, and I guess this does make it feel authentically like the anime adaptation of Atelier Ryza.

The anime is also very well timed, for it came out at around the same time as the remake of the very first Atelier game. I don’t know if this is merely for the benefit of their Japanese fans or if this is meant to be part of a push to get Atelier more widely accepted in the West, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the latter. Atelier is largely seen as niche over here, and many people haven’t even heard of it or they choose to ignore it, and that’s a shame. They’re good games and it’s impressive that they’re able to release one new main series game a year, something both Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest have long since abandoned way back in the days of the SNES, and which other games like Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty actually get made fun of for. Meanwhile, over in the corner, Atelier is quietly doing its own thing and apparently doing good enough to allow for its continued presence worldwide, but not good enough to be spoken of in the same breath as any of the juggernauts of the genre. In fact, most people I’ve been watching on YouTube lately who talk about their favourite modern RPGs or their favourite RPG series or favourite hidden gems don’t ever mention any of the Atelier games. Atelier is the game you cover on your YouTube channel when you’re waiting for the next game in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise to come out.

If Atelier Ryza can stick its landing, it’s easily going to be one of the best anime of the year and one that I don’t think anyone should miss.

I wonder if, after I finally get further in my original retrospective project, I should do an Atelier retrospective as well.

Also, I accidentally forgot to promote a short film last week, so here’s two this week.

This Week’s Short Films
Drawn To You (2019)

Bounty (2019; uploaded 2021)

There isn’t much to say here, other than to hope that you stay cool for the remainder of this extremely hot summer season, and stay safe if you’re in an area that’s received a constant amount of flooding rain and fierce storms. See you all next week.

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