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My Daemon Review

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Nothing is more trendy than making your own edgy version of Pokemon and that’s exactly what My Daemon set out to do. Right off the bat you have the opening theme which is definitely like something out of a horror movie and the overall tone of the show fits it in. It definitely has some interesting ideas and I also liked how unique the abilities for the Daemon were. The show does tend to be mean spirited more often than not though and ultimately it’s one of those titles where I quickly began to root for the villains instead of the heroes. Never a good sign for the heroes…

The show starts off by introducing us to the state of the world. Humanity must contend with creatures known as Daemon that appear to come from another world. You are supposed to stay away from them except for licensed trainers who enslave Daemon with their technology. These captured Daemon are then used to murder all other Daemon and are mistreated on the side since the show goes out of its way to show how almost every character in the series is evil. We’re then introduced to Kento, a nice kid who is fairly quiet. One day he runs into a Daemon named Anna and decides to adopt her.

Kento’s Mom figures this is a bad idea but she doesn’t want to crush Kento’s hopes so she lets him keep it as a pet. Unfortunately the neighborhood doesn’t like this and the cops are quickly called in. During the scuffle, she is murdered and so Kento vows to bring her back to life. In order to do this, he will have to search for a Daemon that is rumored to exist on the other side of the planet. It has the ability to bring people back to life. This will be a tough journey for Kento though and he is effectively a wanted criminal at this point. Anna’s ability appears to be that she can suck anything into another dimension and store it for later. So the ability is crucial for keeping Kento’s Mom’s body from expiring but it may not be enough to take on the more offensive type Daemon that are out there.

When you’re deciding who to root for between the humans and the aliens, you usually want to see which character is in the wrong and then how badly will the losing side fare if the other team wins. The humans lose this test on all accounts. For starters, we know that they plan to enslave and genocide the creatures for all of eternity. They don’t wish for coexistence at all and will take the Daemon down as maliciously as possible. So clearly this isn’t really an option to root for.

On the Daemon side, most of them are instinctual. They’re like animals and are just trying to survive and do whatever they can. With only a few exceptions, it’s not like they’re making plans or anything but of course they also won’t forget how cruel the humans have been. If they were to win, they will leave the humans alone who don’t bother them and won’t be going out of their way to be cruel. With one exception there again but yes the Daemon are very easy to root for. The series is similar to Attack on Titan where they make the humans so bad that you want the Titans to win, at least early on. The show could have made everyone seem a little more reasonable to be honest.

Kento works as a reasonable main character. He’s a bit young so I wouldn’t expect him to really be dishing out the pain to the villains or anything but he means well. He has an odd energy crystal in his head that instead of murdering him, lets him sync up with the Daemon. He’s clearly a chosen one to some capacity and has a bright future ahead of him, but I do wish he was a bit older. Then he could have really gotten in some fighting of his own. Instead he often has to be saved. Kento doesn’t fall short on bravery though, as he jumps in to help Anna at all times even when it means his life.

Anna is a very fun main character. She’s super loyal and also uses her abilities in a very useful way. You may think that teleporting objects isn’t super handy but she is able to apply momentum to them. This means she effectively has an endless array of projectiles which is handy. She also has her true form which shows up a few times and does well. At times I dare say she should have put up an even better fight so the villains have a bit of plot armor this time around. Still, in the story Anna gets a lot of hype which is definitely deserved.

Azuma is a fairly talented fighter and another character who is a good strategist. Her Daemon can open doors which are effectively portals in this context. She is then able to attack and dodge really seamlessly with this ability. It’s pretty fun to see and the show is at its best when it’s having fun with these fights. Even the most standard of powers can be really deadly in the right hands after all. She takes a little while to really go to the right path but still ends up being more reasonable than most of the cast so I’ll give her that.

Kaede is the main heroine of the show. She definitely makes some mistakes along the road but ultimately comes around. She gets some plot twists which connect her to the main villain group and ensure that her role will be fairly large for the whole program. So Kaede was a good character and she’s a bit older so she could actually talk back to the other big characters and not have to hide in the back or anything like that. She could defend herself as needed which is very important.

As Kento’s mom, Kaoru was another solid character. It would have been nice if she could have appeared for more of the show as I think she would have handled things way better than Kento. Kento really fumbled the bag on several occasions, one of which was when a shapeshifter was pretending to be her. Yes, Kento sort of knew for most of it but continued to play along because it felt good. That’s still not a great look for the kid who was risking everything for this feeling when his real Mom needed him.

Iori is one of the first villains to show up. He’s a bounty hunter so the guy can fight well enough and definitely comes close to taking Kento off the board initially. That being said, you would expect him to be a little more careful and precise when he attacks. The guy should have a lot of experience but definitely doesn’t handle him self as well as you would expect. Ultimately this is why he gets absolutely rocked when he ends up taking on Kento and getting in the middle of all the Daemon.

There are quite a lot of Daemons in the show but 4 of them in particular stood out. First was the Black Hair Daemon which looks like another big horror threat. Hair has always been one of the cooler weapons for a villain to have because of how versatile it is and that’s the case here as well. It can be used for attack or defense and makes this a lethal opponent. It’s another villain that you feel bad for since the humans started this with all of the experiments. That is the case for virtually all of the Daemon that the heroes have to fight with.

Then you have Senju, the spider Daemon. It’s another super fierce opponent who has been through a lot and is finally fighting back against humanity. You’re rooting for it to show those guys who is boss and really flip the script on the current scenario. Doing that is definitely easier said than done but if anyone can pull it off, it would be this creature. After that you have Pandaemonium, the ultimate threat to the universe. You need actual nukes to take this guy on which is crazy but really good hype the whole time. Again, this is basically self defense so why wouldn’t you be rooting for this guy right? He has a great design and absolutely insane amounts of power. It doesn’t get to have quite as much character as some of the others but works well as a final boss type fighter.

Genjiro is the leader of the main villain group so you may expect him to be a cool mastermind but nah, that guy’s just annoying. He’s one of those people who figures that the ends justify the means. We get a sob story about why he really wants Anna and it involves how he lost his family to another portal creature. The problem is that he used this as an excuse to attack all of the Daemon. I could have actually had some sympathy for him if he just went after Anna and ignored everyone else but the fact that he got the whole world roped into this takes away any sympathy I may have had for the guy.

We can’t forget about the best character in the series though. Kiriko is a Daemon who can heal and shapeshift. He has a lot of tremendous abilities including a form of sorta telekinesis. It’s more complicated than that but he is able to simulate its effects. He tried to give humanity a fair shake but saw that no matter what, humans will continue to try and destroy the Daemon. There would be no way to ever achieve world peace and so they had to be wiped out. It’s hard to argue with that considering how much he had to put up with. Whenever a villain is this logical and thought things through, you need a really solid hero to try and counter his points. Again, that’s where Kento falters because he really can’t debate against him.

Kento just isn’t very mature like that. He talks about how beautiful Anna is all the time and how he likes Daemons but that’s really all he can do. He doesn’t understand what it would mean to have true peace and isn’t prepared to take either side. A half hearted approach like this ultimately doesn’t help anybody. Yeah Kiriko is taking a super drastic approach but you know…at least he is taking some kind of approach. That’s more than most characters would have managed to do.

Yura is one of those guys who ends up being a terrible character even though he had a reasonable start. The guy completely cracks before long and the whole thing makes him look super embarrassing. Look you either have an honor code or you don’t. I get that he had a sick family and needed money badly but if the show was hoping that would make him sympathetic for betraying the heroes, then it definitely didn’t work. You definitely need some more desperate circumstances than that to pull such a thing off.

Kouya is a guy who gets quite a lot of hype. His thunder punches let him fight with Daemons directly which is pretty much unheard of. The thing is, it’s unheard of for good reason. Lets put it this way, he goes up against one of the strongest creatures in the verse and actually holds his own for a bit. He’s still just a guy, I think heh should have died early on in that fight. The fact that he continued to live is something that I just didn’t buy into the whole time. No offense to his fans of course. I did like him though, he worked well as an antagonist and would hear the main characters out.

The technical aspects of the show don’t really help to support it much at all though. The soundtrack is definitely on the weaker side. The opening is historically weak and probably in the bottom 5% of all shows that I’ve watched. It’s just way too soft and that only works if you’re super scary but it doesn’t pull that off. The ost in general is fairly forgettable. Then when it comes to the animation, I would also say that it is not quite up to par. The fight scenes can look good and I wouldn’t say that the CG is terrible or anything but it’s definitely not at the level that it would need to be in order to really support the story.

So the show itself is really on its own here. It does succeed in the core premise of the series which is to explore the world of Pokemon if it was in a more grounded world where everything is sinister and messed up. However, that works to the show’s own detriment. The Daemon are written to be super realistic so they’re like animals the whole time. As a result when they’re being tortured and experimented on constantly, it doesn’t make for an easy watch. The show isn’t generally super violent or anything like that but it does have its moments. Kento’s head exploding was certainly one of those intense moments, I remember being pretty surprised there.

The show tackles some fairly heavy themes here. It makes for a compelling watch as you’re curious how things will go. It would have been nice if it was easier to root for the humans though instead of just wishing they would be defeated the whole time. You’re seriously rooting for their downfall the whole time which isn’t always easy. Since you know the Daemon have to ultimately lose, that’s a bit of a downer. An ending where humanity is wiped out may not be a popular one but sometimes it just fits and I think this definitely would have been one of those cases.

You’ll probably wince at least once per episode for the poor Daemons. On the flip side though, it is always nice when they finally start to dominate. Every time one of the humans goes down, I’d pump my fist. The fights are also very dynamic like I mentioned before. Even if I didn’t love the actual animation, the directing and writing for the abilities were on point. Every ability can and will be shown to be absolutely lethal in this show. It’s why you can’t underestimate any of the creatures here or you will end up dead. That’s something the show definitely deserves a whole lot of credit for.

Overall, My Daemon is a pretty intense title. It’s certainly not the kind of show that is going for an everybody wins kind of ending. Even though the ending is fairly light, there was definitely a lot of damage along the way. You can also tell that the situation is not completely fixed yet either. There is plenty of room for a season 2 should they ever want to do it but it’s hard to say exactly what is in the cards here. I’ll certainly be interested though, whatever they decide to do here. If you can get past all of the Daemon violence then this is a title you may be interested in checking out. A better way to gauge this may be if you have always wanted to see a much darker take on the Pokemon mythos. If so, then this should be up your alley.

Overall 5/10

WandaVision Review

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WandaVision is the first of the big Marvel TV shows to come out. One of the big hooks for these is unlike the previous shows such as Agents of Shield or the various Netflix properties, this one would be plucking some rather big characters straight out of the movies and into TV format. As a result you can expect more big events and for scenarios that actually impact future films. WandaVision definitely delivers on this as the events feel quite massive and you can bet that the films will feel an impact here. I did have some issues with the show’s pacing but lets dive in.

The show starts by introducing us to Wanda and Vision who appear to be living in a rather old era. It’s like something out of I Love Lucy or I Dream of Genie with the two getting involved in some wacky adventures. Each episode plunges us 10 years forward in time or at least with what the show is paying homage to but in real time it’s just the next day. Something doesn’t seem right though, why are the characters stuck in what appears to be an alternate world? Something just doesn’t seem right here.

Most of the show is about this mystery. The first 3 episodes keep this up and then in episode 4 is when we finally start to crack the puzzle. As a result it makes things rather interesting for a review since that is about a third of the way through the show. The actual plot twists are at the halfway point so would that be a spoiler? Since the hook of the show is figuring out what is happening I would say it is so I’ll try avoiding those plot threads for the most part.

So, the intro episodes for me are the weak links. The show isn’t quite as funny as it thinks it is with the various homages. It’s fun noticing what shows the series is going for but the issue is that it isn’t quite as good as any of those. The Office certainly made better use of the Mockumentary style, The Brady Bunch seemed to be more entertaining and likewise in each era. I think the issue is that the show was trying very hard to be as wacky and intense as possible to simulate these shows but as a result it doesn’t feel natural.

So I wasn’t big on the old time parts. The whole time I was always looking forward to the meanwhile plots as we see what everyone else is doing. Also, you can start to piece together what the plot is very quickly even if it takes the characters in universe a little extra time to pick up the pieces. The show is at its best when it is fully embracing the twists. The final two episodes are definitely the highlight of the show for that reason. It’s certainly nice to see the characters in a slice of life setting but it would have worked best in modern day.

I was satisfied with the various twists and explanation of what is going on though. It all makes sense and you can also see why it would be hard to intervene at this point since the Avengers aren’t in the best shape at this point in time. Iron Man’s not really in the picture, Cap’s gone, and Thor may be in space right now. You’d have to hope that someone like Ant Man is around and the odds of him even hearing about this event are slim to none.

For the characters, Vision is probably the worst one here. I really can’t cut him any slack. The guy moves as fast as molasses once he finds out more and more information so you can’t help but feel like he’s partially responsible for what is going on. The second he realized that something was wrong you would figure that he would quickly act or do something to help out. Instead he just drags the whole thing out as long as possible well past the point where you will lose patience with the guy. At the end of the day, his acting can help save lives so the longer he doesn’t do anything, the worse it gets. He had to be the most frustrating character in the show without question.

Meanwhile Wanda definitely has a lot to do here of course. Without going into details, you can see how her character has changed drastically even when you just see flashbacks in the show to her younger days. Her powers have gotten quite a lot of respect in the movies so we already knew that she was quite powerful. This whole show is really setting up that she will only get stronger from here. Power corrupts so this is rather dangerous and her actions in the show don’t exactly make her a beacon of hope.

All right, time for a quick pair of spoiler paragraphs. Skip these two if you haven’t seen the show yet but it’s time to dive into some of the bigger items here. All right, so it turns out that Scarlet Witch was holding everyone here against their will. She went from being a morally dubious character to a flat out villain and it’s not really something you might have guessed initially. The show did set her up as being suspicious as early as episode 2 to be honest but it’s all rather gradual. She seems rather insane and spiteful but you may write that off as just being fed up at the villains until it’s too late. I think she is going to make for a very interesting villain. Someone who isn’t quite pure evil yet but is quickly going there. Based on the end credits scene in the show I think she is going to be absolutely psychotic in short order. She does seem to be set off pretty easily and in a way this whole show could be considered as a super villain origin story.

In that sense you can see why the government wanted to wipe her out. Hayward and Monica represent two extremes in the army. Monica is insistent on treating Wanda like a victim who is only holding everyone hostage and threatening to murder her because she’s unstable at the moment. Hayward doesn’t want to try any negotiating and believes just shooting Wanda is the easiest way to do this. As a result both of them seem really unreasonable. I think you’re meant to be on Monica’s side as Hayward starts going so extreme that he even tries to shoot kids straight up. As a premise you do need to take Wanda down for sure, but there should be lots of ways without destroying her. Her durability is still that of a human’s if you can attack before her shield’s up. I do think peace is out of the question once she has hundreds of hostages the way that she does though. With her power said to be even stronger than the Sorcerer Supreme by the end, Strange may actually need some help in dealing with her. I can see why her powers are greater though, if you think about it, she essentially altered reality for an entire town and created new life forms complete with true super powers. That means she can conceivably do something similar like creating the original Avengers to fight Dr. Strange. There are so many exciting possibilities here and needless to say they all spell bad news for Agatha as well since she’s really at Wanda’s mercy right now.

Okay, spoilers are over now so back to our regularly scheduled program. We have some supporting characters from the old days like Darcy. She’s good at trying to crack the case although she does give the government a lot of grief whenever she helps. She definitely reminds them that she is doing this because she has to and not because she wants to. Monica also gets a fairly big role in the show and looks good. While I do think she needs to look at things in less of a “peace at all costs” approach, at least she is trying to reach out to Wanda. She probably just needed more of a plan though but we are setting up some fun things for her character in the future.

Inside of the dome we also have some supporting characters like Wanda’s kids. I’m not a big kids person but they could have been more annoying I suppose. At least they have powers which is pretty cool. That definitely separates them from the average kids at least since they can now defend themselves. You also have some neighbors like Agatha and I’m sure the instant that name is mentioned a lot of people will have various ideas on how that would play out.

Then the show has a really solid climax which was nice to see. We’re definitely at a point where shows can even look like movies now so I’m glad to see this show embracing that. No reason to shy away from big comic fights now. You can just get straight into the action and we get a prolonged battle from multiple sides which was fun. Things are definitely starting to get high tier by the end and magical battles are always fun. There’s just a whole lot you can do with that.

So WandaVision is a show where I’d say it really turned up once the action got going. Not necessarily fight scenes but once we got less of a focus on the old TV show motif and more into the actual plot. I admit that at times it felt like those scenes were straight up filler that were just holding the big plots up. The TV shows are a big focus of WandaVision so taking them out would effectively be changing the show but I think they could have had less scenes for it. Maybe it was just the execution that was off for me but that’s really the only thing that holds the show back from going further.

In a way the show was going for a low key horror vibe despite the classic show settings because you can see that something is off the whole time. So, if the show had committed to this more fully I think that could have been interesting. Grab a Stranger Things vibe or something with each question leading to more mysteries. You would need to retool the plot a bit but for example, Vision realizes he is in a world created by the Grand Master and none of it is real or he’s in a simulation. He confronts Wanda but even she isn’t real and he’s in Mephisto’s lair. Something like that would have been really scary but those are just alternate paths. I feel like the shows were sort of stuck in the middle so while you had that feeling of unease, it wasn’t quite enough to keep you compelled.

The writing is on point though so whenever the show is in the modern setting then it’s pretty interesting. I always like seeing a lot of government scenes so the moments with Hayward and the team were always fun. He may go all in but at least the guy did his best in commanding the troops. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter how many average humans you have though, it’s not going to do much at all against a true magic user.

Overall, WandaVision is a fun show. At only 9 episodes it is definitely over in a flash and can feel like an extended movie. It’s a fun thing about having the show format since you can cover a lot more ground than a film ever could. The first half of the show is a little slow and they didn’t have to do the dog like that by the end. Beyond that the second half turns up though. There are a bunch of twists and turns here so while you may understand the main plot and get most of the twists early on, ideally at least a few can throw you for a loop. I wasn’t expecting the after credits scene after all which was really solid. I can’t wait to see where that one goes since we should get more action out of it. I’d definitely recommend checking this title out and we’ll see how the rest of the shows fare coming up. Oh yeah there was also a song that shows up in the show which was pretty catchy.

Overall 6/10