Quarantine Control #176: Your Guardian Sister
Remember COVID-19? The virus that led to a years-long pandemic that a bunch of not-smart and easily-played people (or bleeding-heart capitalists) like to pretend wasn’t as severe as it was despite it killing millions? The virus and pandemic that led to this very feature’s creation? It’s back. Cases are rising again across the United States and in other parts of the world thanks to a new “Eris” variant. It’s not like the virus actually left when cases weren’t as high; the symptoms were merely not as severe because of the vaccines. We’ll now need a new crop of shots to keep up with an ever-evolving invisible villain, and heaven help us if they aren’t free.
Geoffrey Barnes
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
Source: Disney Plus
Episodes: 1 (the third and final movie in the series)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was the right movie for Marvel Studios’ greatest time of need. This project generated more intrigue than other Marvel movies and Disney Plus shows from the start thanks the feeling of finality that surrounded it. Director James Gunn made it clear that it would be the last installment in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie series, and it will be his last Marvel work in a while with him taking the job as co-head of the upcoming DC Universe. The cast were also bidding their goodbyes to their roles, to relief for some considering how long they’d been playing the characters and the extensive make-up jobs required for their outfits. Creative types tend to put their best efforts into their conclusive works, and this movie is another example of the phenomenon.
This third film in the series follows the titular Guardians for another adventure around the universe, albeit with changes that have affected the core cast since the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 from 2017. (This made it clear that Gunn couldn’t simply use all his ideas from the cancelled third movie after previously being taken out of the director’s chair after a bad-faith attack.) The team remains largely intact, with Nebula (Karen Gillan) now taking the place that Gamora (Zoe Saldana) once occupied after the latter’s current timeline version died and was replaced with an alternate-universe version in Avengers: Endgame. This movie features the Guardians’ battle against Orgocorp, led by the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), who seeks revenge on the Guardians following their thievery from the second film. It’s a story that serves as good continuity for the GotG series and the overall MCU, and a solid conclusion for this specific segment of the universe.
The story is heavily focused on Rocket Raccoon, whose history with Orgocrop is long and sordid, offering him much character development regarding his past left out of previous films. This comes at the expense of him not being as involved in the present-day quest after being severely injured at the film’s start. But it was a worthwhile exchange because it allowed for the group’s other members to receive sufficient character development, especially between Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and the new Gamora. This is where it helps that the film is about two-and-a-half hours long, by far the longest movie in the franchise, but the movie is so briskly paced that it never drags.
GotG Vol. 3 distinguishes itself from other Mavel movies by actually having a soul in the middle. Too many recent Marvel shows and films feel designed by committee, with the mediocre Secret Invasion being too fresh in my mind after ending mere weeks ago. It couldn’t be clearer that Gunn was given more creative freedom than other directors and writers. The movie does a better job of balancing the storytelling, character development, and humor compared to other recent MCU content, in an ironic twist considering the earlier GotG movies were the more snark-heavy works among Marvel’s content. Kevin Fiege and the Marvel Studios’ crew should take notes from this.
It similarly helps that the cast members brought their A game despite several of them longing to be done with their characters (in live-action, anyway). I especially enjoyed the performances from the changed Gamora from Saldana, and Bradley Cooper, Dave Bautista, and Pom Klementieff provided their best work as Rocket Raccoon, Drax the Destroyer, and Mantis. Iwuji also got the chance to shine here compared to his performance in Gunn’s Peacemaker.
The only small issue I had with the movie is the aforementioned Rocket Raccoon not getting much of a chance to shine in the present day due to being down for most of it. But “small” is worth emphasizing because the movie is otherwise well paced and very entertaining, and there’s potential for his adventures to continue in other films and series. My hope is that those will be treated with a similar level of care as this movie.
The end was bound to arrive eventually, but man am I going to miss a bunch of these characters, and GotG vol. 3’s conclusion makes it clear that a good deal of them won’t be returning for future works. In the meantime, I sincerely hope Marvel Studios understands why this had the best critical and commercial reception for a Marvel film in a good while. Excusing works beset with problems outside the production team’s control like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Marvel has to figure out what worked in this film compared to underwhelming material like Secret Invasion and Thor: Love and Thunder. There are ways to remind the audience of why they became invested in the MCU to begin with outside bringing back old stars. This movie has shown them the way, even if Gunn won’t be there to guide them along.
Joseph Daniels
I’ve been thinking long and hard about how to recommend this week’s anime. I thought about dancing around the delicate topics, but maybe I should just jump right in.
ONIMAI: I’m Now Your Sister! (2023)
Source: Crunchyroll
Episodes: 12
Rabbits?: Not sure it should count, but there’s a throw away gag in episode 11, plus bunny girl dress-up in the opening and closing themes
The premise of ONIMAI is that the main character is a shut-in older brother who plays video games all day and pretends this is all for the sake of home security. I can sympathize with him because honestly, the world is getting harder and harder for anyone to want to be a part of. The COVID crisis never went away despite right wingers and Trump worshippers deciding it never existed in the first place, not to mention those kinds of people are being increasingly radicalized into feeling that violence is the answer to people disagreeing with them. I’m sorry, but a shotgun to the face of someone who tries to tell you you’re wrong doesn’t actually make you right. It just makes you wrong and a felon.
But ONIMAI is not concerned with the political state of the world. Instead, the main character Mahiro wakes up one day and discovers that he’s suddenly and spontaneously transformed into the opposite gender, and has de-aged by several years. It turns out that his genius little sister has snuck a drug she developed into his food as the first step in a plan to break him of all of his self-isolating habits. It’s a gradual process that starts out small, with Mahiro taking a while to make friends and not going to school until around the midpoint of the show. Because of this, the first several episodes are lent a kind of coziness, since Mahiro needs to gradually warm up to the notion of going out in public, but once he does, the show moves on towards the slice of life shenanigans of a middle school student who just happens to be struggling with the notion of life as a girl instead of life as a boy. By the time the final episode comes around, Mahiro has started to get used to life as a girl, but then a terrible choice comes up and he must decide whether to let the drug wear off or take more of it to remain a girl. He can go back to the normal body he was assigned to at birth, but he’d be losing the actual life he’d managed to build up for himself. It’s a pretty good way to end the season and although the manga has yet to end, this is one of those rare cases (at least, in my experience) where the studio making the show isn’t trying to add a sequel hook at the end in the hopes that a second season will eventually come. Unlike other shows that adapted what was clearly meant to be the first arc of a longer story and/or kept things open-ended, it feels like ONIMAI has a deliberate beginning, middle and end to the series. If one season is all we ever get, it’s actually a properly structured one season, for once.
The studio also did not have to go as hard as they did animating ONIMAI, but they did. It’s one of the most well-animated shows I’ve ever seen come out of Japan, alongside Beastars and the first episode of Gleipnir. With a series premise like ONIMAI’s, it would’ve been very easy to put out a low effort show, but they didn’t.
It also would’ve been easy to turn this into a very, very questionable hentai, but ONIMAI is surprisingly wholesome. Which is good, because there are a lot of elephants in the room I need to mention. Going to the bathroom is actually brought up a lot more than you’d expect, but it makes sense because one’s own plumbing is completely different if one gets physically transformed in the way Mahiro was. Still, it feels like a running gag that it gets brought up about once every other episode or so and if this was any other anime, I would start to get the impression that someone involved in the writing of the story was publicly revealing their fetishes.
The other large elephant I need to address is something that requires a lot more of a delicate approach. The kind of story being told in ONIMAI is one where Mahiro is needing to come to terms with his new body, so there are points in the show where he is without clothing while in a body that the west would deem illegal. Fortunately, the anime is presented in such a way that you’re not breaking the law watching it. For example, most of the scenes in question involve either a bath or an onsen, there’s enough steam to obscure the important parts and the characters aren’t sexualized. They’re just middle school girls being authentic middle school girls. It’s been suggested by the comment section that these scenes have been censored a bit for western audiences, and I wouldn’t be surprised. For a show as well animated as ONIMAI to suddenly cut to a still shot of a piece of background scenery during such potentially uncomfortable parts, it does feel like a little bit of editing happened to make things a bit more acceptable outside of Japan. Whether this is because they needed to or were just exercising caution in order to cover their butts, I don’t know and I don’t particularly care. All that matters is that the show is somehow safe for western audiences to watch, and would definitely make for a good palate cleanser after How Not to Summon a Demon Lord.
I definitely enjoyed ONIMAI: I’m Now Your Sister!, and although there are at least two other shows from 2023 that I’ve been enjoying more, I would say that this is definitely the most well animated show of the year. Considering this actually started as a comic on a Japanese art gallery website, I imagine the artist is over the moon with how successful ONIMAI has become. I think next week, I’ll talk about a recent movie that also started out as a webcomic. This is definitely a good time to be creative on the Internet, especially if you have a story you believe in and enough people want to help you tell it.
Now that COVID cases are rising again near the summer’s end, imagine how bad they could get once school begins in mere weeks in places where it hasn’t already started, and when the fall season rolls around. New vaccines rolling out quickly could mitigate the severity, and the chances of them being free has thankfully increased. Good luck out there, and be cautious.
About The Author
dcstaff
The collective will of the Damage Control staff combined into a single article.
