Vox Populi

Dear Illuminati:

I used Action Replay on my video game and now it doesn't work properly. I contacted the original video game manufacturer and asked for assistance but nobody replied. Why? And what can I do now?

Signed,
Anonymous


Dear Anonymous,



Your question is so clueless, just reading it has driven Blackbolt OOC. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Shooting you into space with our minds,
The Illuminati

Eat Drink Mad Villain

Good news, everybody! It's the upcoming series Three Delivery!

Three Delivery is set in a magical Chinatown and follows the adventures of a group of orphaned teenage delivery kids who are also Kung Fu-fighting superheroes. Together, they must prevent the evil Kong Li from collecting powerful, ancient food recipes that have the power to unleash dark forces upon the world.

Finally, someone acknowledges those underrepresented themes of Chinese kung-fu and evil Chinese men! But tell us more, creator Larry Schwarz:

“The show is a fantasy, but the characters are written as real kids who viewers will want to emulate. We also incorporated tween trends, including extreme bike riding, punk and EMO."

Really? Emulate real orphaned delivery kids? Wow, I can taste the awesome already, and it tastes like EMO! I'll let the press release explain further:

When orphans Sue, Sid, and Toby are recruited by Nana to make deliveries for Wu's Garden Chinese restaurant, they see it as a chance to move out of the orphanage and ride cool bikes.

Two things:
A) Nana got to stop with that child labor shit.
B) Seriously, those kids have got to be dumb. As. Fuck.

Anyway, Three Delivery. Coming this fall!

The Order #1

So here's the deal: California's LA-based Initiative team is composed of regular humans juiced up into superheroes with really boring names and powers. And a Greek pantheon-based sorting system that doesn't work at all, just like Ares once his royalty checks start rolling in. There's no genuine reason why arbitrarily designating team roles as Hera, Apollo, or Athena works any better than Strategist, Tank, or dozens of other words that are completely free to use (until Stark applies for trademark registration), but you'll have to sit through the official explanation whether you like it or not.

Anyway, this issue won't set the stars ablaze but there's enough here to show promise, especially if you're not wedded to the idea of four-color superheroes. (Speaking of color, the cast includes not one, but two physically handicapped minorities--c'mon, would it be so hard to let at least one of 'em keep a pair of functioning legs?) Our characters are adults who recognize, to varying degrees, that it's all basically a set-up. So do you join up to save the world? Or so you can use your new powers to skip traffic on the freeway? Sure, it's a little cynical, but hel-lo, LA.

Barry Kitson's art is solid, which also helps. Incidentally, I suppose it's too much to ask that action star/charity diva Magdalena turns out to have an international passel of adopted orphans or a Kabbalah bracelet, is it? No? Oh well.

The deal-clincher, though, is that everyone gets fired in the first issue. Okay, not everyone. But a bunch of people are unceremoniously handed the pink slip, and it is awesome. This is something the Marvel Universe could frankly use a lot more of, as its employment standards are pretty laughable:

X-MEN: So, A-List Villain, you've been killing people off and on--mostly on--for the past ten years or so without remorse or regret?
VILLAIN: Yup.
X-MEN: Even tried to kill us a number of times, I see.
VILLAIN: Uh-huh. In fact, I'm thinking about poking your eyes out right now.
X-MEN: Welcome to the team!

Also, there's a bear with a jetpack. I'm not one for bears with jetpacks, as a rule, but if you have to have bears with jetpacks, LA is as appropriate a place as any to send 'em. So--go bears!

Where is the good stuff?

Aoi House: because creativity would take effort. Published by Seven Seas and appearing in Newtype USA, this OEL manga "harem comedy that's truly like none other" features the truly, truly unique elements of:

* A harem, duh.
*A panty-stealing character hamster!
* Everyday protagonists who end up living in a cra-a-azy dorm full of people... of the opposite sex!
* A shy, dark-haired girl with glasses! A sassy, trouble-making redhead! Rich blonde girl! Plus, other characters you've seen a dozen times before!
* A theme song featuring 101-level Japanese lyrics!

My God! Can you stand the sheer novelty of it all? Sure, it's a collection of overused stock elements that justifies OEL manga's occasional bad rap as nothing more than cheap imitation. It even reads right-to-left. But on the other hand--well, there is no other hand. Still, the artwork by Shiei is competent, if very generic. Who knows, maybe even Aoi House was supposed to be unoriginal. You know. A very post-modern artistic statement. Or something. Besides, it's not the creators' fault they got published or that people are willing to buy this stuff.

And yeah, it's a manga set in America where all 7 main characters are pleasingly pale to the eye. If Wikipedia is to believed (as I haven't read the hard copy of the books), one character was supposed to be African-American, but there were toner problems. Never heard that one before, but OK. Sorry, African-Americans! It's not that they didn't want put a token representative in this manga. It's just that they couldn't, 'cause of the technical issues involved with your darkness and all. And there just wasn't time to hire a replacement here. Maybe you can appear in an upcoming volume once they can do that toner stuff. Or maybe not.

But hey, at least the gay character isn't a comedy prop portrayed as an effeminate freak unable to resist straight men due to his uncontrollable queer man-lust, right?

Right. Does he turn kindergarteners and Cub Scouts gay in his spare time, too?

In any case, lest you think author Adam Arnold was completely asleep at the right-side wheel, his notes make it clear that lots of effort did go into developing a quality product:

We've even taken steps to ensure that all the girls' bust sizes are as varied as possible. Nina's are the smallest, but she's quite macho. I'll let you try and figure out which girl has the largest.

Thanks, guy! But I'm afraid I'll pass. On all counts.

Anime: a beacon of nuanced multi-ethnic representation since, well, never

Hey fan-kids! Want to blog against racism? I know you do, because it's easier than trying to make a difference in the "real" world! And now pretense to action is cooler than ever with these handy dandy anime icons! Nothing creates concrete change like a "ninja against racism" icon, because you know how Naruto is about the fight against--against, well, ninja, mainly. Um. Maybe they're ninja who stand for racism (except for the good guy ninja, who stand only for being ninja) and also ninja.

Here at Power Level One Million, we're ready to join International Blog Against Racism Week and speak out against racism. For a week. On a blog. Which only a few of our friends read. Because that's how we'll turn back centuries of institutionalized inequality. See, there's even an icon.



Because like so many bloggers out there, we too can commit... to looking committed. As long as it can be accomplished entirely from the comfort of our computer wheely chair, anyway.

Hello Kitty: Mark of the Beast, Mark of Shame

Because tardiness and littering are adorable! But did Sanrio okay this?

It's also made for a man but strong enough for a woman

Just as video games increasingly attempt to emulate film, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. And here it is: a film that emulates a video game cutscene, but alas, not on purpose. Action sequences: good, of course. Everything else: well, just tune in at 4:25 into the trailer and thrill! To! Acting! If that doesn't make you feel like you are right there in the recording booth, nothing else will.

CATBLUE Dynamite! Making its stateside premiere at the New York Anime Festival this winter. Good luck.