Fantasy Anime You Should Watch

I've been watching some fantasy anime of late, revisiting the classic Record of Lodoss War I hadn't seen since the 00s, but also checking out some new stuff. Here are some recommendations:

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (Crunchyroll)

Frieren starts with a basically D&Dish world, but tells the sort of story most epic fantasy media doesn't really deal with: what happens after? The title character is a nigh immortal elven mage who realizes that she didn't know as much about her party members (the leader, Himmel the Hero, in particular) as she would like only after one of them passes on. She agrees to take on a child adopted by another one of her aging comrades as an apprentice and together they set out on a journey to retrace the steps of her original party's journey into the demon-haunted North to find the place where the dead can speak to the living. Along the way she picks up a warrior who is the protege of her old dwarf comrade and they meet other allies and get in adventures big and small on their journey. 

It's a nice combination of slice of life travelogue, magical duels, and character drama, with both humor and poignancy.

Delicious in Dungeon (Netflix)

Everybody knows about this one, I think, but it deserves the hype. A group of adventurers has a deadly encounter with a red dragon, and a few of the survivors plan to go back and save their cleric before she is digested to have her raised. They have no time to buy supplies, so they resort to eating monsters in the dungeon with the help of dungeon-dwelling dwarven chef. 

It's pretty funny, but despite the setup, it has surprisingly deep setting "lore" that is slowly revealed and helps it from being a single joke show.

Ranking of Kings (Crunchyroll)

This is the least D&Dish of the three. I've seen it described as "fairy tale Game of Thrones" which is probably a pretty reasonable descriptor, so far as it goes. In a world where the gods were defeated, a committee of some sort ranks the power of the mortal world's monarchs. The king that is awarded the number one ranking is entitled to a boon from the Divine Treasure Vault, a fabled trove brimming with riches and magical artifacts. Bojji, the main character, is the first born of one of these kings, the giant, Bosse. But Bojji is diminutive, deaf, mute, and weak. When the throne is given to his younger brother due to duplicity and a lack of faith in Bojji, the boy sets out to find a way to become stronger.

The fairy-tale type beginning and the cartoon art style which recalls Shotaro Ishinomori and Osamu Tezuka belie the hidden agendas and moral shades of gray of the story, as well as the level of world-building. The 1st season doesn't end as well as it begins (with some dragging out of the final fight to multiple episodes as you sometimes see in anime, and some abrupt story developments) but I'm still interested in the world and characters and want to see more.

Wednesday Comics: DC, August 1983 (week 3)

My mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around May 19, 1983.

Batman and the Outsiders #1: Barr and Aparo introduce a new team in an action-packed debut. When Lucius Fox is captured by freedom fighters in the nation of Markovia, Batman seeks the aid of the Justice League to rescue him, but Superman has already promised world leaders the League would stay out of that diplomatic tangle, and the others back him, so Batman resigns. There isn't, however, a scene like the one on the cover in the story.

In Markovia, the king dies leaving his sons Gregor and Brion in charge of the country. Batman and Black Lightning have infiltrated the war-torn land and soon (improbably) encounter other supers: Metamorpho who has come seeking Dr. Jace and a cure for his condition Katana, who's out for revenge, and an amnesiac young woman Batman nicknames Halo. Brion is given powers by Dr. Jace, and becomes Geo-Force, but he's betrayed by his soldiers and shot in cold blood. All the other heroes except Halo are captured. Batman wakes up in a dungeon to find that he and the other heroes and Fox are the captives of Baron Bedlam.

House of Mystery #319: Another intriguing Kaluta cover, depicting Bennett from "I...Vampire." Mishkin and Sutton bring that strip to a close with this issue, leaving G.I. Combat as the only anthology book with a regular lead feature, and perhaps suggesting that this whole title isn't long for this world--which turns out to be correct. Bennett is helpless, trapped in a decaying body because he rashly took the Russian formula, and Mary Queen of Blood seems to have triumphed. She drains Deborah of blood and plans to keep Bennett around long enough to watch the woman rise as her vampiric thrall. Bennett longs for death but can do nothing but watch. Deborah does rise, but she proves too strong for Mary to command. She defeats the Vampire Queen and drags her into the sunlight. It seems Deborah took the serum as well and her freshly dead body rather than one with centuries-decayed organs, it works as intended. She sits with Bennett, professing her love, as he too crumbles to dust as the sun rises.

The second story by Mishkin and Ordway sees an underhanded Hollywood agent get his comeuppance when he orders a sandwich named for a form client of his he drove to his death and then dies from rat poison, courtesy of his ghostly chef.

Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #10: Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner pick up where last issue left off with Supergirl is still seriously ill thanks to the radiation she absorbed from Reactron. On top of that, she has made an enemy in the vigilante-hating police Lieutenant Peters after her battle with Reactron. Oh, and she's got a date that she refuses to cancel despite the fact she's sick. After her date ends early, she tangles with Matrix-Prime again and is taken captive. She's turned over to Professor Drake, one of the Council members, who has developed a cloning process. He immerses Supergirl in a bath of chemicals that causes foot tall clones of Supergirl to form, all of them under his command. Unfortunately, as the mad scientist informs Supergirl, she will not survive the cloning process.

Green Lantern #167: Cavalieri and Tuska/McLaughlin continue the story from last issue. Hal manages to rally after his defeat by Gallius Zed wielding one of the power rings supposedly without the weakness to yellow. Hal is able to turn the tables in the rematch noting ironically that Zed's greatest fear (not being strong enough to wield the ring) seemed to manifest. As Hal tracks down Eddore to the planet Tront and defeats him too, a pattern emerges: Eddore's greatest fear becomes manifest and sews the seeds of his loss. Hal recalls how this all started with a group of striped outfit loving space pirates called the Free Lancers who had clued Kaylark on to the existence of these rings. Hal heads to Kaylark's planet, D'xe, where she has crowned herself Empress Surrenda.

In the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Klein and Gibbons equoid Lantern Brin returns home to his family and retirement from the Corps. He relates that his failure to repulse an invasion by the Spider Guild (their first appearance) is what led the Guardians to let him go. But the Guardians honor him by selecting a replacement from his own household. Both his sons hope it will be them, but instead the Guardians select Brin's family's robotic nanny, Teacher.

Sgt. Rock #379: The main story by Kanigher and Redondo is certainly a departure from the usual. It involves a new private so ambitious he's willing to murder superiors to create the context for his promotion. He makes the mistakes of gunning for Rock and loses his life instead. 

The second story by Harris and Lindsey is less good with a French father moved to spare a Nazi officer who had previously threatened to kill his daughter if he didn't give up a hidden U.S. paratrooper due to the revelation that this Nazi had a daughter too.

Warlord #72:   I reviewed this first, non-Grell penned issue main story here. In the Barren Earth backup by Cohn and Randall, Jinal and friends infiltrate the Mulge guardian to get back their captured friends, encountering dangerous plants and fungi, and breaking up a creepy Mulge ritual to cause fungi to grow threw the bodies of sacrificed humans. This is probably the most interesting installment of this series so far.

Legion of Super-Heroes #302: I didn't comment on it last issue, but Levitz and Giffen are now credited as co-plotters. Lightning Lord shows up at Legion HQ, ostensibly out to find his sister, Light Lass, and puts a beating on a number of Legionnaires. Eventually, Lightning Lad steps in to fight his brother, and he and Saturn Girl decisively defeat him. Meanwhile, Ontiir of the Science Police lures Supergirl, Brainiac 5, and several other Legionnaires into trap on Webber's World, where they are blasted unconscious by the Emerald Empress's Eye. Meanwhile, Element Lad and Erin Schvaughn head to Imsk to investigate...well, something.

This is a good issue, but it bugs me a little bit with a conceit common to team books wherein a villain that usual fights the heroes with a team (in this case, Lightning Lord) is powerful enough to be a threat to the whole team of heroes, until that one hero shows up to best them one-on-one. 

Night Force #13: Katina and her son Gowon (who we learn is also Baron Winters' son) agree to help him save Vanessa after he tells them Vanessa is his daughter. His later comments to Merlin suggest this was a lie to get their help. Katina uses her very real inner demons to banish the ghosts, saving Vanessa and Jack. Those two leave the series never to return. Meanwhile, the vengeful ghosts burn Jack Carter with psychic energy in retaliation. Winters is ready to admit defeat and give up his position (whatever than is), but Katina forces him to accompany her through a portal to some mystic ziggurat where they are to journey into memory through some pool. Winters sees them as young mystic students of some sort whose romance was forbidden, so they were separated. Seeing them together again, the forces that wished them separated now declare that they are willing to kill them to do it.

The letter column announces that the next issue will be the last of the series but promises Night Force will return as a series of 4 issue limited series. The first half of that is right, but the limited series won't come to be. It will be 13 years before there is a Night Force volume 2.

Clerics and Druids

A little bit more about a couple of types of spellcasters in the Elden Urd setting Elden Urd setting I have been working on.

Clerics wield the power of the gods, the form of magic brought forth by Aion Demiurgos when he created the Cosmos. How clerics came to possess this power is one of several mysteries contemplated and debated by theologians of their faith. As instruments of the church, they preform rituals, mediate with the spirits, cast out demons, return ghosts and undead to rest, tend the sick and wounded, and always strive to make human kin virtuous of admission to the Higher Heavens where the gods reside.

The also tend to wear distinct headgear as part of their vestments.

Druids are the priests of the titans who remained neutral in the War and did not forsaken the world: primarily Earth Mother and the tripartite Moon. They are also the prophets of the great spirits to human kin. 

Druidic cults mostly found in the wild places and rural hinterlands. Their association with the titans of old put them at odds with the Church of the clerics and their tendency to resist modernizing authorities has made them enemies of the Draconic Empire.

Roaming the Mind of Gob

After a hiatus we returned to the Land of Azurth last Tuesday and picked up where we left off in an adaptation of the Role-Aids adventure Swordthrust. The party was roaming the labyrinth inside the mind (or at least brain) of the giant, crystalline gnome, Gob. They were trying to collect all the pieces of a magical suit of armor.

This time, they avoided some fights with some Rat folk cultists, a dining troll, and a kobold Necromancer:

This, and their previous expressions of solidarity with some goblin revolutionaries made their job of exploring the dungeon easier because it allowed them to backtrack through controlled territory. This was particularly useful then they wanted to move from one "hemisphere" of Gob's brain to the other. 

They didn't negotiate their way around everything, though. They had to kill an irate cockatrice and 3 disagreeable harpies:

Like these guys but more birdy

No armor pieces discovered this session, so the quest continues!

Wednesday Comics: DC, August 1983 (week 2)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! Today, I've got the comics released the week of May 12, 1983. 

Justice League of America Annual #1: This Levitz/Wein story with art by Hoberg/Giordano is notable mainly for having appearances by Dr. Destiny and the Bronze Age Sandman, both of whom will appear in the early issues of Neil Gaiman's Sandman in 1989. Beyond that, it's a classic JLA story of the team splitting up to deal with dream-related menaces before entering the Dream Dimension where Destiny has imprisoned Sandman and stolen his supply of sleep sand. Mention is made of the crisis in Markovia and Batman being on the outs with the League which will occur in Batman and the Outsiders #1.

Batman #362:  Moench and Newton bring back the Riddler who was last since seen in Detective #526, but outside of that cameo, hasn't had a story since '81. He's up to his same old schtick, but Moench throws in some decent wordplay for the Dark Knight to unravel. Meanwhile, Bullock decides to abandon his false charges against Gordon after...well, I'm not really sure how we're supposed to read what happens, unless it's a veiled threat by the Batman against Bullock made by giving him an egg with his name on it similar to ones the Riddler had employed in his caper.

Flash #324: Bates and Infantino/Jensen officially kick off the "Trial of the Flash" saga (or I guess you could say last issue did sorta), though that name is not, of course, used in the issue since there isn't any trial yet. With Fiona waiting at the altar and his family and friends gathered expectantly, The Flash engages in a round-the-world chase to stop Professor Zoom killing Barry's bride to be. He succeeds--just barely--but apparently the Reverse Flash loses his life in the process.

G.I. Combat #256: The first Haunted Tank story is mostly from the ghostly Stuart's point of view, as we see how he came to be watching over a "yankee" tank crew (Alexander the Great's orders!) and how he is unable to warn the crew of an ambush coming. Naturally the Haunted Tank makes it through. The second story is told from the perspectives of the Sherman and a German Tiger II tank. It's better than the first though not improved by Kanigher's "equipment's perspective" gimmick.

There's a "Silent Service" submarine story about the crew of the U.S. sub, Barracuda, willing to do whatever it takes to sink a Japanese sub-hunting destroyer, and another story of the Pacific Theater where a G.I. hides a gun in his bandages to get the drop on a Japanese ambush. 

The Mercenaries are back, and Kanigher and Catan have them in a mythical African micronation, Zamora, where their plan to get work with the king is sunk when his son kills him in the name of American petroleum interests. In a surprise turn, the king names Prince his successor, but once they've thwarted the coup planners, he turns over leadership to a teacher and political revolutionary--whose first act as president is (wisely) to tell the Mercenaries politely to leave the country.

New Teen Titans #34: Wolfman and Perez deliver something better than the last couple of issues, though mostly for set-up. Terra is grumbling that the Titans don't seem to trust her as they haven't shared their identities or anything. The Titans have reasons for not doing so, but all those are forgotten after the Terminator attacks and Terra plans a big part in defeating him. A staged part, it turns out, as the reveal at the end shows she is infiltrating the Titans on Slade's orders. Meanwhile, Adrian Chase's vigilante tactics (which he dragged Robin into) has consequences as a bomb comes off in his apartment. Also in this issue, Donna says yes to Terry's proposal, but wants to wait to marry him until she finds her parents, and it turns out Sarah (the woman Cyborg was into) isn't engaged after all.

Superman #386: Bates and Swan/Hunt continue Luthor's quest for revenge against Superman as he (wrongly) blames him for the destruction of Lexor. Despite the overall more serious approach to Luthor in this arc, this issue shows hints of characterization inspired by Hackman's Luthor in Superman: The Movie. Luthor discusses his plans with minions as one of them shaves and buffs his head. When he comes to believe killing Lois won't have the same impact on Superman since the two have broken up, he muses on working to get them back together then killing her. For right now, he settles for tricking Superman with a sham device similar in appearance to the one that destroyed Lexor and taunting the hero. He promises to strike for real when Superman least expects it.

Saga of the Swamp Thing #16: Pasko is back and joined by Bissette and Totleben on interior art, an artist team destined to make their mark on this character. After finding Linda Holland's grave empty, Swamp Thing and friends are on their way to Washington, D.C. to uncover the roots of the Sunderland Corporation conspiracy against them. On the way, Swamp Thing finds himself in an eerie small town where a form costume shop operator gives him a mask that appears to transform him back into Holland. He romances a local girl but doesn't feel right about his deception. In the end, it's revealed that everyone in the town is wearing a mask to hide some mutation or deformity. They invite Swamp Thing to stay with them, but he declines, feeling he can't abandon his mission.

The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Despite the attention lavished on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, and even Star Trek or the Alien universe, I feel like the science fiction franchise most consistent in quality is the Planet of the Apes. Sure, it's not without its duds (Burton's film) and lesser lights (the last original film, the cartoon, perhaps), but the Wyatt/Reeves reboot?/prequel? series of the 2010s defied sequel gravity and only got better as it went along. (To me, anyway. Some would say Dawn was the high point. Either way, War was still good.)

When Reeves left and Disney acquired Fox, I had some trepidation about where the series would go. Happily, it seems like Wes Ball has things well enough in hand, at least with this first installment. While it's not as good as the best of the 2010s series, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was more enjoyable and more substantial than any other existing-franchise entry I've seen in the theater since the end of the pandemic--though perhaps that's damning with faint praise.

Anyway, it's "many generations" after the time of Caesar. He has become a mythic/religious figure. His name is borrowed. and his legacy evoked by an up-and-coming bonobo tyrant who (like King Louie in the Jungle Book) wants the technology of humankind. He needs (ape) slave labor to get it at it and a mysterious, young human woman, so when he captures Noa's village and kills his father, the young chimpanzee makes common cause with the human. 

There are hints of Beneath of the Planet of the Apes in here, and (perhaps unintentional, perhaps not) Biblical echoes with a hero named "Noa," but those are as they should be with an ape installment. The special effects are amazing, and it makes me mad the Marvel Cinematic Universe films often seem sloppy. I guess when your whole premise requires motion capture, you have to get that thing right.

I miss Andy Serkis here like everybody else, but he trained the new cast of apes well. It probably could have been a bit shorter, particularly for a film that is a lot about establishing a new conflict, but I'm not immediately sure what I would have cut.

All that to say, if you liked the previous ape films you should see this one. If you haven't seen any of the new apes films (which lately I've discovered a large group of folks that haven't) then you should see those and see this one.

You can also check out the watch and commentary Jason "Operation Unfathomable" Sholtis and I did of the much less good but still entertaining 70s Planet of the Apes TV show over at the Flashback Universe Blog.

Notes on the Common Kin

 Here are some notes on the standard D&Dish races (focused on the "how our [x] are different," as you do) for a world I've been blogging about recently, a world which I'm now calling Elden Urd (inspired by Tad Williams' Osten Ard in his Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy).

Dwarves

Warrior mercenary companies, distilled spirits, artisans in metal and gems. They mostly dwell above ground though not entirely. The dwarven throne has been empty for ages; they are ruled by a republic.

Elves

Descendants of fey trapped in the Cosmos when it was made. To this day they care little for the gods. Extremely long lived and slow to reproduce so they are a dwindling people.

Gnomes

Preservers of some of the knowledge of the Age of Wizard-Kings. Artificers and makers of mechanisms.

Halflings

The people of the plains and meadows, sometimes called "grass runners." Some are settled in sod house villages, work farms and tend flocks, others are itinerant traders and entertainers. 

Tieflings

Descendants of Fiends, the fallen Titans. They sometimes face prejudice from the common folk, but among the sorts of people that consort with adventurers their ancestry hardly merits notice.