Well, I got married! And between all the planning and a full time job that is basically writing things for the internet my urge to blog has not been high.
But I know what my fans want and that’s Kit-Kats.
Take it away Toffee Treat
Okay so, the latest U.K. Kit-Kat variant is Toffee Treat. They have done toffee Kit-Kat’s before so this isn’t terribly exciting but let’s give it a shot.
So the packaging is… dull; basically a standard Kit-Kat wrapper but with a quarter given over to a light brown box showing us the name and the individual kat. It’s… fine. The main thing I like about it is the off register font for ‘Toffee Treat’ which promises wackiness.
It’s a toffee flavoured Kit-Kat. They’ve done these before. Growing up we had Caramac Kit-Kat’s which were the bee’s knees, legs, shins and entire lower half. This is fine but I don’t know what to say about it.
Basically I’m not that excited to talk about Kit-Kat’s today.
That’s because I want to write about Oreos instead.
So at my wedding the lovely, beautiful and generally great person Liz Anistranski gave me some limited edition Oreos as a wedding present.
Liz knows me very well it seems because I am super excited about these. They’re just as creative and bizarre as the best Japanese Kit-Kats but they’re also All-American and so represent an exotic diversion for me.
I am possibly too excited about limited edition biscuit flavours, sorry, sandwich cookie flavours.
Oreos don’t have the same cultural impact over here as they do in the states. Up until about a decade ago they weren’t even available in U.K. supermarkets and even now we only have the standard versions. They’re nice but they’re not the ubiquitous childhood classic Americans think of them as. That honour probably goes to Kit-Kats. As such they’re seen as very, very American to British people and Nabisco have enhanced that reputation by combining them with 3 equally quintessentially American things. Red Velvet Cake, S’mores and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
The packaging for all 3 is very similar but that’s okay because I think it works great. Basically a big Oreo logo with a picture of the object they’re flavoured for in the background and a picture of what the individual Oreo cookie looks like in the bottom right. It’s a well-designed and expertly comped image that makes sense, isn’t over cluttered and looks attractive. Looking at them standing there on a table how could you resist their charms?
There are some little American touches that make me laugh like the enormous bit of copy saying “ARTIFICIALLY FLAVOURED,” in all caps no less. It takes up the same real estate on the packet as “limited edition” or the name of the flavour, both of which are actually USPs. It’s like they’re proud to be artificially flavoured. I assume the size and the fact that they have to include this information is mandated by law but in the U.K. we’d still try not to draw attention to that whereas in America they’re all; “fuck that pansy shit, none of your natural girly bullshit in these cookies just good old fashioned American ingenuity.”
I also love to pieces the little instruction on the side telling me how to open them properly. That’s just adorable. I could make the typical Americans are dumb comment here about how Americans need to be told how to open a packet of biscuits but frankly I want more food to feature cute little stop signs on the side.
Red Velvet
Red Velvet is red, white and blue, the true colours of France, the U.K., The Netherlands, etc. Seriously why are Americans so proud of their flag colours? Nearly everyone has a red, white and blue flag. It isn’t that special guys.
Anyway the cake on the packet is somewhat off putting with its violent shade of red but all that delicious cream cheese frosting sure is pretty. I also love the little place name stand telling us that the crème is cream cheese flavoured. They could have just added the copy directly but the little stand immediately conjures up backyard parties, weddings and the 4th of July (I assume, different culture and all I have no idea if people ever have place names on the 4th of July but dammit that’s what it made me think of). This packet is practically singing “Stars and Stripes Forever” as it encourages you to eat cake.
The actual cookies are closer in colour to actual red velvet, thankfully and the cream cheese crème might be artificial but it 100% captures cream cheese frosting as a flavour. Initially I wasn’t a huge fan of these as the cream cheese has a faintly sour quality which is, whilst accurate, unexpected in a cookie. They’ve grown on me though and despite being an artificially flavoured American cookie they’re not too sweet, something I was worried about. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to eat more than 1 or 2 in one go but I was worried that one bite would put me into a diabetic coma, so I’m pleased they’re not as sweet as I was anticipating.
My big complaint is that the crème feels weirdly gritty. It’s okay with the crunchy biscuit to hide it somewhat but on its own the crème feels like toothpaste, not nice. Really nice biscuit though. Oreos have always had a little bit of salt in them which lifts the super sweet crème and makes them kind of moreish (well for kids, as I say, too sweet for an adult). These have that slight saltiness and with the sour crème it’s a surprisingly complex flavour profile.
S’mores
Of the 3, these are my absolute favourite and it’s all about the biscuit. They could have just made regular chocolate Oreos with marshmallow filling and called them s’mores and it would have worked. But they went for graham cracker biscuits. Not only do the pale golden cookies look nicer but they look more like a s’more and having that visual similarity really helps sell that these are s’more flavoured.
I should probably explain for Brits what a s’more is. It’s toasted marshmallows sandwiched between 2 graham crackers and with a piece of chocolate included. The heat from the marshmallows melts the chocolate and you have a gooey, crispy treat that’s a delightful combination of flavours and textures.
Americans are probably shocked right now. “You don’t know what s’mores are?” No, we don’t. See, we don’t have graham crackers and without graham crackers you don’t have s’mores. Graham crackers are big biscuits that come in flat layers like crackers. They’re probably most similar to the biscuit you get on a custard cream except lightly spiced with cinnamon. And guys, I love me some cinnamon. The nutty cinnamon flavour really meshes with the sweet marshmallow and rich chocolate to make an amazing treat. I was introduced to s’mores by American friends in Japan and have wept ever since for my wasted childhood and the lack of graham crackers in the U.K.
So from what I can remember, these taste astonishingly like s’mores. The biscuit is doing most of the hard work. It looks, tastes and has the texture of a graham cracker. But it’s not all biscuit. Chocolate crème is no big deal but whatever wizards managed to capture the taste of marshmallow in crème form have powerful arcane abilities indeed. They need to be on a list in case they use their magic for evil. I didn’t even realise marshmallows had a distinctive flavour beyond generically sweet until I ate these. They’re almost marshmallowier than a marshmallow.
Incidentally, my spellchecker recognises “marshmallowier” which is delightful.
One final bit, again they could have just written “Graham flavored cookie” but the little wooden board helps sell the idea of camping and making s’mores by the fire. It’s a nice touch.
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
This variety doesn’t get a cute little sign telling you what flavour it is instead just opting for the Reese’s logo for understandable but disappointing reasons.
It does have an image showing you that these are 2-toned crèmes with half chocolate and half peanut butter. Which is cool…but if the biscuit is chocolate flavoured why don’t we just have all peanut butter crème?
So unlike Oreos, Reese’s products have definitely made a splash in the U.K. Peanut butter wasn’t really a thing when I was a child. It came in jars; odd people had it on toast instead of the more socially acceptable jam or Marmite and sometimes foreign people made satay with it.
Now it’s huge. Peanut versions of chocolate bar favourites, peanut butter ice-cream, peanut butter crisps and snacks, there are even peanut butter Kit-Kats.
And Reese’s led the way. From peanut butter cups being a niche product they’ve spearheaded the peanut butter revolution into U.K. supermarkets and their curious blend of salty/sweet peanut butter (that’s been dried and made oddly paste like) with decidedly not great chocolate that still somehow contrives to be OMG YUM! is now everywhere.
As such I know what a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup tastes like.
This tastes like one, almost exactly. But even more so it smells like one. If you were blindfolded you would definitely think you were about to eat a peanut butter cup, and then the crunchy biscuit would shock you.
It’s no surprise that cookies and peanut butter work well together nor that peanut butter and chocolate is a great combo, so unsurprisingly these are great. And with the slightly salty peanut butter and slightly salty Oreo biscuit they’re verging on savoury. Okay, that might be overstating it as they’re still incredibly sweet but the salty flavour profile makes them a bit moreish and balances the ultra-sweetness.
A brief google reveals that Nabisco has whole heartedly embraced the limited edition world with cookie dough, banana split (bleurgh), cotton candy, key lime pie and even birthday cake all hitting shelves in recent months. I might just have a new hobby on my hands.
Night of the Lepus (1972) Directed by William F. Claxton
Bad movies are bad for all sorts of reasons but mostly they are bad for technical reasons. Bad acting, bad direction, cheap sets, lousy dialogue, laughable effects, plot holes, etc. Rarely is a film bad because of a bad concept. Oh bad ideas are common, but they’re usually part of a concept that would have broadly worked. Plan 9 from Outer Space is predicated on a secret alien invasion using our own dead against us, that’s kind of neat. It’s just every single thing that follows on from that premise that Ed wood and company get wrong.
No, the collaborative nature of film and the high cost of production means that most truly bad concepts die before they manage to jump through the many hoops needed to get a film financed, produced and distributed.
Which is what makes Night of the Lepus such a rare treat. This is a film, ladies and gentleman, predicated upon the high concept of giant mutant killer bunny rabbits.
Giant, mutant, killer bunny rabbits.
Let that sink in for a bit.
Multiple people heard that idea and thought, yup, that’ll work. There are 57 people credited with working on this film and at least 4 of those (the director, producer and two screenwriters, yes two of them!) are personally responsible for the thought process.
“Giant, mutant, killer, bunny rabbits. Why not?”
The mind, it boggles.
Now some of you bad movie aficionados are probably squirming uncomfortably now thinking, hang on Adam, this must be a piss take right? This is like 8 Legged Freaks or Slugs or something else patently ridiculous where it really is a satire or at least a parody of monster movies?
I don’t blame you for thinking that. In my experience when you come across a truly bad idea usually the creators know it and have done it on purpose. Also bolstering this argument is the fact that the novel it is based on is a satire with an anti-war message.
But if this is a joke then it is a work of deadpan genius to rival Andy Kauffman. Every single thing in this movie is played 100% down the line straight. Even better it is portrayed with a seriousness and gravitas unique to 70’s “message” films. This isn’t just a film about giant mutant killer bunny rabbits that takes itself seriously, this is a film about giant mutant killer bunny rabbits that thinks it is important!
Our film starts with Rory Calhoun (yes, that guy who is always walking and talking) murdering a horse.
Okay, in fairness it actually starts with Rory Calhoun riding a horse, the horse tripping on a rabbit hole and Calhoun euthanizing him with a rifle. I suspect this is intended to make us hate the rabbits because they caused the death of a horse but it doesn’t. It makes me think Rory Calhoun is some kind of emotionless human robot who kills horses without being even slightly broken up about having to do it.
And actually in further fairness I skipped the prologue which features news footage of people exterminating rabbits, mostly in Australia. The footage of hundreds of rabbits running panicked against rabbit proof fences being chased by men with sticks and guns is accompanied by frightening music and a voice over intoning how devastating ecologically rabbits have been in parts of the world.
Now intellectually I know this to be true and I have no moral opposition to the culling of rabbits to protect farmland. Hell I eat rabbits. But watching adorable little bunnies running for their fucking lives while giant, half-glimpsed human forms lunge at them with sticks menacingly does not make me scared of the rabbits.
Which is a problem the film never solves. They try, they try really hard. Over the course of this movie we get every horror trick in the book. We shoot rabbits from low angles, in the dark, with menacing strings. They even shoot close ups of the rabbits impressive front teeth that they’ve smeared with tomato ketchup. And all I can think is.
D’awwww, look at his widdle nose twitch.
So, human robot Rory Calhoun (sporting the full denim tuxedo) is upset that his farm is full of rabbits, as well he should be. He decides to exterminate them but not for human robot Rory Calhoun the ways of his father, just drop loads of cyanide down all over the place. No, human robot Rory Calhoun is going to try and do this in a more sensitive ecologically friendly manner. He calls in De Forrest Kelly (alright folks, everyone get your dammit I’m a doctor not a [blank] jokes ready) who hooks him up with Stuart Whitman, another old western star playing a scientist.
When we meet Whitman he continues this film’s trend of all of its heroes being bastards to animals by shaking a box full of bats. Why is he shaking a box full of bats? Well apparently he has isolated the noise bats make when distressed and he hopes to be able to use it to corral them away from crops and livestock using sound. Now the canny among you might be thinking; “A ha! This is clearly exposition for the thingy that will stop the giant mutant killer bunnys in the film’s climax.”
Nope, no this scene serves no purpose except to set up that Whitman is a man who will casually just shake a box of bats for the express purpose of pissing them off.
Our heroes ladies and gentlemen.
So Whitman sets about trying to come up with a solution to the rabbit problem. His idea is to breed a rabbit that is singularly uninterested in sex then introduce them to the native rabbit population where they will breed with the natives and pass on the gene for not wanting to breed.
You don’t have to be an expert in biology to spot the somewhat massive flaw in Whitman’s plan there.
However Whitman’s plan swiftly becomes irrelevant. Having not much luck with his asexual rabbits he decides to inject one of the rabbits with a mysterious vial of liquid. How mysterious is it? Well apparently even Whitman has no idea what it will do.
So the mechanics of how our mutant bunny escapes into the wild are thus (somewhat paraphrased)
Little girl who is not adorable: Daddy don’t inject that bunny with the mysterious liquid. He’s my favourite.
Bat torturer: Uh huh. (ignores his annoying daughter)
Little girl who is not adorable: *pouts*
Little girl who is not adorable: Mommy, can I have a rabbit?
Janet Leigh (yes, Janet Leigh who regrets being in this turd and boy can you tell from her performance. In the fine tradition of Famke Jannsen Leigh only agreed to star in this because it was near her house.
Anyway)
Janet Leigh: Bat torturer, can our annoying little girl have a rabbit?
Bat Torturer: Sure, just don’t take the one I injected with a mysterious liquid.
Little girl who is not adorable: Okay.
Little girl who is not adorable: *proceeds to take the injected rabbit, then take a random rabbit from elsewhere and put it in the cage marked, mysterious liquid rabbit*
THE VERY NEXT SCENE
Little girl who is not adorable: Whoops! (drops rabbit)
So then boring shit happens so we can build tension (giggle snort) until the giant mutant killer bunny reveal. Boring shit is interspersed with our first rabbit attack which is amazing in its lack of subtlety.
Here is my recreation. (again, somewhat paraphrased)
Truck driver: (stops truck, gets out) Boy I need to stop this truck right here in the middle of the desert. Yesiree bob, its time to stretch my legs. Whoooo. That feels nice. Well, I guess I better check that my cargo of carrots and cabbages is still all there (opens door of truck) Yup, all the carrots and cabbages are still in place. That’s right, boy I’d be in trouble if anything ever happened to my carrots and cabaaaaaaaaagh.
(man is eaten by rabbits)
End scene.
So more boring shit happens and the next brilliant scene is where Bat torturer for some reason is attending the autopsy of the truck driver. (Or it might be a prospector, frankly I couldn’t give a shit). Said medical examiner is, refreshingly, black. Thus making him the only black person in the movie as well as the only person aged between 10 and 50. He is also the only actor who clearly realises this is a terrible idea and has decided to ham it up and have some fun. A particular highlight is his delivery of the line that he can’t rule out the possibility of a vampire attack!
More boring shit and then Bat torturer, human robot Rory Calhoun and Deforrest Kelly (dammit Jim, he’s a doctor not a rodent exterminator) set out to end the rabbit menace. Their plan is to find the cave they’ve been living in, collapse the cave entrance with dynamite and then go get some beers.
The plan is jeapordised a bit when Bat torturer decides he wants to have a look at the monsters before they go extinct and nearly gets himself eaten for his trouble. This gives us our first good luck at the rabbits and along with the special effects achieved by just shooting real rabbits that have been smothered in tomato sauce from a low angle we also learn that this film will feature men in bunny suits!
Sometimes the bad movie gods see fit to reward me.
So other than Bat torturer being kind of an idiot (although, yeah I’d be curious too) the plan goes off without a hitch.
The problem with the plan is that it didn’t really account for the fact that rabbits can burrow
Dun dun dunnnnn!
And at this point, about an hour into the film just turn it off. You have seen everything this movie has to offer both from an ironic “oh my god how dumb is this” aspect and from the perspective of the story itself. For the next half hour all we are treated to is endless slow motion footage of bunnies running around miniature sets interspersed with boring human robots reciting bland dialogue at each other. There is zero tension, zero movement in the plot, zero character development just rabbits, rabbits and more rabbits.
This footage is hilarious at first, the combination of old skool cheapo special effects with the just terrible idea to make cute rabbits scary is absurd. But the joke dies a swift death and yet the rabbits cavorting just keeps…on…happening.
Mercifully the film finally ends when the heroes concoct a plan to chase all the rabbits towards an electrified train track and shock them all to death. This happens in glorious close up for a loooong time during which every viewer is made supremely uncomfortable about how unhappy those bunnies appear and start wondering if a “no animals were harmed disclaimer” is going to appear.
It does not, which is the only scary thing about this abomination.
Long-time readers of this blog know that I’m a sucker for limited editions, unusual flavours and basically turning any familiar food into something new! Especially Kit-Kats.
I was therefore a perfect mark for Walker’s “Do us a flavour,” campaign. A couple of months ago Walker’s set up a website that lets users invent their own new crisp flavours. This website did not publicly display the entries because Walkers has learned something from when they tried the same experiment in America earlier this year and got entries such as:
And my particular favourite.
There is in fact a tumblr devoted purely to these parodies.
6 flavours were chosen as winners and have now been made are on sale. Another website located here lets you vote for your favourite and the winner will receive £1 million plus their flavour will become a permanent part of the range.
So enough wittering, what do they taste like.
Hot Dog with Tomato Ketchup
Ketchup flavour crisps have been knocking around for a while now and are somewhat controversial. For me, the mix of tangy vinegar and sweet tomato works well on a crisp and is at least as good as prawn cocktail (another not uncontroversial choice but one with staying power at least). Others though find ketchup crisps to just be wrong on every level.
These are still mostly sweet and taste of tomatoes but they lack the vinegar kick of most ketchup crisps. Instead they have a meaty under current that is probably the hot dog. They’re surprisingly savoury too, still very sweet but not as sweet as I’d expect. I can’t say they astonish me though, they’re just somewhat average tomato flavour crisps.
Pulled Pork in a Sticky BBQ Sauce
The last time I visited the States was in 2003 and that was the first time I ever tried pulled pork. I was instantly smitten with it. Moist, tender, meaty, flavourful, juicy and just delicious in every way imaginable. Going back to the U.K. I didn’t think about it again until Man vs Food began airing on these shores and introduced Brits to the full plethora of creative and delicious ways Americans have invented to kill themselves with diabetes. It was revelatory, and now, about 4 years later, pulled pork is everywhere slathered all over menus like grease on a pig. It’s like piri piri all over again.
Whenever you see X meat with Y sauce flavoured anything assume that the main thing you’re going to taste is the sauce. These are no exception, they taste like sweet BBQ sauce. And since sweet BBQ sauce is basically tomatoes and honey they’re not dissimilar to the Hot Dog flavour. A bit fruitier and much sweeter but not very interesting.
Chip Shop Chicken Curry
I’ve had chip shop curry flavour crisps before. Growing up , for a very limited time, there existed Beano* themed crisps and being a comic obsessed kid I wanted them. Amongst the frankly bizarre flavours on offer was chip shop curry and to my mouth they tasted like some kind of exotic masterpiece.
I have loved chip shop curry ever since. Chip shop curry, for the uninitiated, bares only the faintest of resemblances to Indian food. It is basically gravy with the meat juice replaced by generic curry powder, the tiniest whiff of turmeric so as not to frighten old ladies with its foreignness and enough yellow food dye to make this season’s Norwich home kit. As tastes have adapted it has gradually got spicier and more like actual curry but I still seek out the truly naff stuff. There is something about the way the claggy fat on a chip allows it to cover the inside of your mouth with the spicy goo and then when you drink a hot, sweet cup of tea the whole inside of your mouth tingles in response. I love it.
It should be noted that most of these crisps are sort of lightly dusted in their flavouring powder and so the colour is still predominantly the light brown of a crisp. These though, these are stained brown with the masses of curry powder dumped into the bag or bright yellow where the turmeric hits them. I’m pretty sure Walker’s didn’t bother creating any kind of flavour powder here but instead just bought a job lot of curry powder from a cash and carry and said, that’ll do. And it does, by heavens it does. Do they taste like chicken chip shop curry? Oh heaven’s no! Do they taste like Bombay mix? Yup, exactly like Bombay mix. They’re basically crisps drowned in curry powder and that is no bad thing my friends.
Sizzling Steak Fajita
Whereas the pulled pork in STICKY BBQ SAUCE tasted of the sauce and the chicken CHIP SHOP CURRY tasted of curry this steak fajita does actually have some slight beefiness to it, enough that if asked what flavour these were supposed to be without knowing you would probably guess correctly. Mostly though they taste of two things. Firstly they taste like fajita seasoning mix, the blend of cumin, coriander, cayenne and other spices beginning with c that you use to season Mexican food. Again, I suspect that part of the reason this flavour was chosen was that Walker’s didn’t have to do much more effort than ordering a job lot of pre-mixed seasoning from Old El Paso and then knocking off early for a long lunch.
The second thing they taste of is green peppers. They have a really, really strong green pepper flavour from the first taste to the after taste. Consequently they’re quite bitter which is an unusual flavour for a crisp. Not a bad flavour, just an unusual one. They’re also super savoury. I checked and they’re not really any saltier than the other flavours but Christ, you wouldn’t know it to taste them.
Overall though, I like these. Bitter and savoury is kind of unique for crisps and it works surprisingly well.
Cheesy Beans on Toast
Out of 6 flavours I cannot believe we had 3 that basically amounted to, tomato. It’s not like tomato is a universally loved crisp flavour either, it’s actually quite divisive.
These are horrible, just gross. They neither taste of cheese nor beans nor cheesy beans. They don’t even really taste of tomato. If blindfolded and asked what these were I might plump for foot sweat, rotten onion or maybe, just maybe that plastic they make fake vomit from. These are foul, avoid!
Ranch Raccoon
Walkers are jumping on the Guardian’s of the Galaxy bandwagon I see.
You loved his antics in the movie, but what does he taste like?! This could be a whole new kind of tie-in marketing. Ratatouille with real rat flavoured crisps for Ratatouille. Penguin flavoured chicken bites at KFC for Happy Feet. Human liver flavoured ice cream for Hannibal! You could really invest yourself in the story when you’ve eaten one of the lead characters.
Kidding aside I am dreading this flavour. Not because it is raccoon. I love eating weird meats and would jump at the chance to eat a raccoon in real life. I’ve personally consumed snake, alligator, jellyfish (it tasted of nothing), sea snail, kangaroo, various insects and hot dogs before now.
No I am apprehensive because these are in ranch dressing and creamy crisp flavours are of Satan. I am a firm atheist and whilst I’ve seen no evidence that god exists, the existence of cream cheese and chive flavour crisps certainly strongly implies that old scratch has a job at Walkers somewhere.
Well I can’t tell you if they taste like raccoon but they sure don’t taste like ranch dressing. And whilst that might be a relief these are disgusting in their own unique way. I actually can’t tell you what these taste like. I’ve tried an entire bag now and my best guess is like something that used to be food but now should be thrown away. To start with they smell bad, like meat that’s juuuuuust starting to turn and after that smell I think that my brain intervenes and shuts my mouth down. I can’t detect any distinct flavours just a big red flashing light in my brain going “warning, warning spit this shit out of your mouth at once you moron or we’re going to get e-coli.”
A check of the ingredients reveals this to mostly be parsley, dried milk and dried sour cream. So I guess when you dry sour cream it starts to taste like rancid meat. That makes a certain amount of sense, why did someone decide to make crisps this flavour?
Final Verdict.
Ranch Raccoon is almost intriguingly bad. I urge you to eat it just to have a point of comparison that will help you appreciate normal food all the more. Cheesy Beans on Toast however is both boring and terrible.
Hot Dog is okay, Pulled Pork is marginally better and basically the same thing. It’s a slightly more complicated flavour and less obviously tomato.
Sizzling Steak Fajita and Chicken Chip Shop Curry are both far and away the best. In both cases they’ve basically just drowned the potatoes in spices but since I like spices and since there are a lot of conflicting and complementing spices going on they’re a winner for me.
In the end though there is a reason Bombay mix is already a thing. The Chip Shop flavour is basically Bombay mix and that has to be the winner.
*The Beano is a children’s comic available in the U.K. with a series of short humorous strips. It was launched in 1938 and has been telling pretty much the same jokes ever since. It may once have been ground breaking and artistically inventive in the 60’s and 70’s when it was the U.K.’s answer to MAD but it hasn’t been good in the 28 years I’ve been on this earth. Still, as a kid with no taste, I loved it!
Nestle has a new Kit-Kat flavour and you know what that means.
Yup it’s time for another dose of “bring pretentious about mediocre chocolate!” WHUT WHUT! (throws up hands)
(realises he is sitting alone in his living room)
(puts hands down)
(sobs once, gently, and quietly)
(takes deep breath)
(steadies self)
(begins)
So the new Chunky Double Caramel is a bizarre beast. It’s a Kit-Kat Chunky divided into only 2 sections, one with a smooth caramel and the other with a crunchy caramel.
Starting with the wrapper then and it helpfully makes this all clear for us with an illustration showing a cross-section of the Kit-Kat and the contrasting caramel centres.
Oh and as a warning from the future, said illustration grossly exaggerates the amount of caramel you’re getting here.
Beyond that I have most of my usual complaints. The wrapper is far too busy with three different logos fighting for space and no attempt at any kind of evocative design. It’s just, how can we fit all this copy on here in the way that looks least crap. It is shiny and gold though.
Oooooh, shiny.
So taste test then and…HOLY SHIT!
When did Kit-Kat chocolate get this good?
I usually moan that Nestle chocolate is soapy, waxy, vaguely pasty, bland and too sweet. This is still very sweet but it’s smooth, creamy and delicious. It tastes way more like real chocolate than any Nestle product I’ve had in years. I mean, it still isn’t great but it is a marked improvement. Well done Nestle.
In contrast the wafer has gone to shit. I’m used to the wafer being inoffensive but competent, it is there to be crispy, nothing more. This wafer though, is soggy. And that’s a big no-no. There is no redeeming a soggy wafer in a biscuit,it’s just inherently unpleasant and it nearly ruins this. And I have no idea why. I’ve written something like 80,000 words on Kit-Kats at this point and I don’t think a soggy wafer has ever been an issue. Was it a trade-off for the nicer chocolate? Is it something to do with the filling?
Anyway onto the caramel. The smooth one is what you’d expect, the standard caramel you get in a chocolate bar. Similar to Cadbury caramel or Galaxy caramel. It makes the whole thing waaaay too sweet but I think it might have been salted slightly which does make the caramel itself taste nice (and might also be the reason the chocolate tastes so much better).
The crunchy caramel is a sort of caramel crème paste filled with bits of hard caramel. It too is slightly salted and the caramel crème itself tastes nice but makes the whole affair too sickly. The crunchy bits do help with the soggy wafer a little bit though so I’ll give the edge to this half of the pair.
Also the word caramel has ceased to have any meaning as I proof read this. Caramel, caramel, caramel.
Caramel.
Caramel.
Aftertaste wise both are hugely chemically and sweet. Like drinking anything with saccharine in it (even though it is pure sugar all the way). Having said that it is soooo sweet that it pairs quite well with unsweetened tea and the tea counteracts the aftertaste quite nicely.
Overall a success! Sweet, salty caramel and much nicer chocolate than I was expecting. Sort out whatever has gone wrong with the wafer and you have a winner here. I don’t understand the half and half gimmick at all though.
Pokémon X and Y have to be the worst Pokémon main series games I have ever played.
(waits as internet erupts in outrage)
Okay have you guys calmed down now? How about now? Still going? It’s okay I’ll wait.
Feel better? Okay, I’ll continue.
I stand by that statement but I do have to offer two caveats.
The first is that even the worst Pokémon game is still really good and I did enjoy playing Pokémon X.
The second is that Pokémon X and Y are genuinely innovative and they’re trying to change what a Pokémon game can be.
Black, White and their sequels were basically the most polished and well executed version of a game that dates all the way back to the Red, Blue, Green, Yellow days of 1996.
This is a version of the game with sprites, an overhead view and Pokémon battles that have minimal sprite animation. A version of the game where you get given a choice of 3 starters from a Pokemon professor. A version of the game in which your either catch Pokémon and forfeit experience or grind them into the dust. A game in which you start off not being able to catch much but a few Pidgeys and Rattatas and that when you walk into a cave mobs you with Zubats.
Black, White, B2 and W2 were basically the most perfect possible version of this game. The sprites were gorgeous, colourful, beautifully rendered and full of character but they were still sprites and short of hand animating every Pokémon’s every move they looked as good as they were going to. The story was clever and inventive and challenged the very core of what Pokémon is all about but it was a story that felt very grounded in the rules established by the Pokémon world in previous games. What’s more there were lots of small touches, refinements and improvements that just made the overall game experience better than anything before. Putting shops inside Pokécentres for example, or the BWT or taking away poison in the over world.
Having created basically the perfect Pokémon game the only thing you can do to go forward is to change what Pokémon is, to fundamentally alter what the base level of the games is about and throw loads of new innovations in there. And X and Y have dozens of new ideas and completely game changing shifts. The addition of Fairy type, the nerfing of weather, adding loads more variety of species to each area, Mega Evolution, experience on capture, Horde Battles, Sky Battles, the list goes on.
Some of these innovations are welcome and great improvements to the game. I love that we get more variety of species in each area, particularly early on. Whereas in most games you fight nothing but small birds and small rodents in the first few areas by the end of the second route I pretty much had a full team with a wide variety of types. That’s great, it makes the game interesting and varied from the off. Some of the changes are less well thought out. Horde Battles are basically something I avoided as much as possible. If I’m trying to get somewhere I quite like being able to one shot scrub enemy Pokémon and just get on with the story. Forcing me to attack 5 times doesn’t provide me with a greater challenge but it does drag out the time. Similarly Sky Battles are really ill conceived. They add no depth to the combat except to exclude a bunch of popular Pokémon and provide a much more limited meta game. If Sky Battles had some kind of movement mechanic they might be interesting but as it is I basically skipped them.
Some ideas are good but need more polish. The additional XP should be nice but X and Y were the worst scaling Pokémon games I have yet played. In every game I’ve ever played yet the badge limits to control monsters hasn’t been a factor. Designed properly you should have monsters that are roughly equal in level to your opponents at any time. The badge mechanic is to stop you just grinding out one powerful monster and dominating the game or trading in a level 100 beast from an old game. What it should not do is kick in when you’re playing normally . The gaps between gyms early on in X and Y are ridiculous. My Blaziken had made it past lvl 30 before I reached gym 2 and I was deliberately trying not to use him. Then once you’ve beaten the 8th gym there is a loooooong grind to lvl 100 and not many ways to gain the XP needed to get there. Black and White were probably the most perfectly balanced and scaled Pokémon games yet providing me with a real challenge when I reached the Elite 4 for the second time but lots of ways to gain more XP to beat them.
The biggest changes of course are the graphics, Mega Evolution and the Fairy Type.
In terms of the Graphics Pokémon has gone from a top down sprite game on a fixed grid to a 3D polygon game. This is a mixed blessing. In battles it works amazingly well. The new Pokémon especially take advantage of the opportunities for a greater range of animation and more integration between what the monster is doing and the attack. This is the best looking game for battles yet, surpassing the home console versions easily. In terms of the map it’s much more mixed. Generally it works roughly the same as any old game did with a largely top down viewpoint. Whenever it goes behind your character though it is a mess. Lumiose city is practically unplayable its so hard to navigate. The problem is there’s no camera button so it becomes really hard to orientate yourself in what is basically a big circle where everything looks the same. It’s a nightmare and I avoided going to that city like the plague. And that’s a shame because it is full of stuff to do and clearly the centrepiece of the game but I’m sorry X and Y I just couldn’t find anywhere in order to do stuff. In the end I had to resort to using an FAQ and riding cabs constantly.
Then there’s Mega Evolution
Evolution is where one Pokémon turns into a different Pokémon gaining a stat boost in the process, changing its appearance and sometimes gaining new typing or abilities.
Mega Evolution is the same in every respect but the following.
1. in normal evolution the Pokémon cannot change back to the Pokémon it was before, but Mega Evolution only lasts for the duration of a Pokémon battle.
2. Mega Evolution happens during a Pokémon battle.
3. In order to mega Evolve the Pokémon must hold a special stone and the trainer is required use a special device which looks an awful lot like a wrist watch.
I don’t like it.
It’s hard to explain why I don’t like Mega Evolution but it basically has something to do with the story function of evolution. Evolution in Pokémon is not like evolution in real life since it happens to individuals and not to the species as a whole. Evolution in Pokémon is more like metamorphosis or puberty, an irreversible change that happens to an animal as it gets older. That’s why we get things like Caterpie evolving into Metapod evolving into Butterfree. It mirrors the life cycle of a real caterpillar as it undergoes metamorphosis and turns into a butterfly.
It may not function exactly like something in real nature but it gestures towards it and helps reinforce the nature theme of Pokémon. This isn’t an RPG where levelling up is some kind of arbitrary mechanic but instead relates to an animal ageing and maturing.
It also allows for some cool story telling ideas built into what is ultimately just a game mechanic. Look at Magikarp to Gyarados or Feebas to Milotic which reference an ancient Chinese myth and the ugly duckling respectively. Cool evolutions can lead to some really cool Pokémon concepts. In fact Gen 6 actually has some of the most imaginative evolution mechanics I’ve seen in any games so far.
The key thing that cements the reality of this mechanic for me though is that it isn’t reversible. Once you’ve evolved that’s it, you can’t go back and whilst you always get a stat boost from evolution you can lose something in the change in appearance or even in a type or ability change.
Being reversible Mega Evolution is more like a form/forme change like when Rotom turns an electric ghost into an electric ghost possessing a washing machine, or a refigerator, etc. Or Cherrim opening up its leaves during the sunshine.
Form changes have been a part of the game since the 3rd Gen and I have never had a problem with them, in fact I actually really like them. The reason I like them over Mega Evolution is twofold.
Firstly Form changes usually only have an aesthetic change like Sawsbuck’s appearance changing with the season. When they do have an in-game effect it usually has an advantage and a drawback i.e. the various forms of Deoxys which sacrifice defense for speed as one example.
Secondly the form changes all said something about the Pokémon in question, they opened up a story telling ideas. Why can Deoxys change form? Because he’s virus themed and viruses mutate rapidly. Why does Sawsbuck change forms? Because his horns are tree branches and he’s showing the cycle of trees as season’s change.
Mega Evolution doesn’t do this. Every Pokémon that mega evolves does so in the same way, magic stone plus wristwatch and the designs don’t give any kind of storytelling idea other than slightly spikier version of existing monster.
What Mega Evolution most resembles is the concept of Henshin, or change, that you get in shows like Power Rangers or Kannen Rider. Think about it, with the wristwatch device, the magic stones, the special effects and the striking a pose doesn’t Mega Evolution remind you of the Power Rangers Morphin’ Sequences?
Once you realise that it becomes clear that Mega Evolution fits into a tradition of transforming and powering up that is huge in Japanese culture and all over anime and computer games. Super Saiyans in DBZ, Guyver, Digimon, Power Rangers, Gurren Lagann, Super Mario, and on and on and on.
And so whilst this is an accepted pat of anime story telling it isn’t something that has ever been part of Pokémon before and it has nothing to do with nature or mythology which is traditionally what inspires the designs and stories in Pokémon.
It’s taking a very un-Pokémon concept and inserting it into the game and it doesn’t make a good thematic fit.
It doesn’t help that it isn’t even really a very strong gameplay mechanic, a power-up with no real drawback doesn’t add much strategy to the game. In almost all cases why wouldn’t you just mega evolve any Pokémon you have that can? The only reason not to is if your Pokémon needs another item such as a leftovers to be viable.
It’s also weird that Nintendo generally gave these Mega Evolutions to Pokémon that were already very, very useable. Blaziken is only of only two non-legendaries to make it into the uber tier (well this was the case when I started writing this but now plenty of Megas and Aegislash have made this jump) and is so powerful he’s outright banned in some competitions, he did not need a Mega Evolution, neither did Garchomp or Mewtwo. Charizard appreciates the boost as does Mawile but for the most part these seem kind of superfluous.
Having said my piece let me now say that the presence of mega evolution doesn’t ruin the game for me. I don’t like it but I don’t have to use it and it is really a very minor part of the mythos.
So since we’ve talked about it so much lets review some of the Mega Evolution designs.
Mega Blastoise and Mega Venusaur
One thing I should stress is that whilst I don’t like Mega Evolution as a concept that has no bearing on what I think about the designs. Most of the Mega designs are awesome and I kind of wish they just replaced the existing final stage of the monster in question. Mega Blastoise is a great example of this. Giant turtle with a cannon on its back is already a pretty neat idea but I always wondered why Blastoise had two cannons pointing at different angles. They couldn’t fire together at the same target and he’d have to angle his head out of line with his target to fire straight. Even as a kid I recognised that this was dumb. Mega Blastoise though has no such problem. His three cannons can all move so they can all aim at one target and his new one massive cannon fires straight ahead! Also his bigger cannon just looks more intimidating and overall his design looks more balanced. I’ve gotta give him points for his stlyin’ goatee too, the first in a theme of awesome beards that defines this generation.
As for Mega Venusaur…..sorry guy but you got screwed. An extra flower, extra leaves and some garlands does nothing to improve your ugly mug.
Mega Charizard Y and X
Most people’s favourite starter gets not one but two Mega Evolutions and both are awesome for different reasons.
Y fixes all the issues I had with original Charizard and in my head canon this is just what regular Charizard looks like now. My main issue was that Charmeleon had all these design elements going on, horns coming out the back of his elbows, a single horn on his head, etc that Charizard just drops. Y puts them back in though turning the elbow horns into arms wings and giving him a crown of horns that again looks more symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing than Charizard’s original horns. I love the bigger scalloped wings too which make it look much more like it could fly. And taking the patch of colour all the way up to the mouth avoids giving the impression that Charizard has a fat tummy like he did before. It’s just all around better than Charizard, more refined and improved and shows off just how far Sugimori has improved over the years.
Charizard X is awesome though because he is METAL AS FUCK! HE’S A BLACK DRAGON WITH AXE BLADE SHOULDERS AND SPIKES AND BLUE FIRE AND HE’S BLACK AND OH MY GOD I NEED TO PAINT MY ROOM BLACK AND LISTEN TO SOME SLAYER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mega Mewtwo X and Y
The other OG to get two Mega Evos is Mewtwo one of the most complex Pokémon and one of the few to have a personality, motivation and character. The Mega Evos are one of the rare examples of a Mega Evo that implies a strategy. X gains a secondary fighting type when he evolves so the Evo is far more muscular with more powerful looking legs and arms, a shorter tail and big manly shoulder pads. Y in contrast just goes all out on the psychic power so the body gets smaller, the feet and arms become even less developed and the head becomes much larger combining with the tail. The contrast in designs really sells the contrast in abilities and both designs work. I prefer Y overall though even if that seems to be a controversial opinion. Everything about Y’s design seems to sell unbelievably strong psyker for me whereas there’s stuff in X’s design that either doesn’t work or just isn’t aesthetically pleasing. I hate his feet for starters which look gangly and weird for a fighting type. I also think his big purple diaper looks goofy and so do his shoulder pads.
I can’t let any discussion of Mewtwo’s Mega Evos slip though without mention Freiza. You know Freiza? The popular villain from Dragonball Z. Changes forms and looks at various stages like this.
Yeah there’s some inspiration going on there and I’m just going to leave it at that.
Mega Aggron and Mega Tyranitar
One of the things I do like the in the Mega Evolutions is the idea that these monsters are somehow unnatural. That their evolution isn’t something to do with nature but something forced upon them by an outside force. Consequently many of the Mega designs look like the animal is exploding with power, almost deformed by the strength they now possess. I don’t think any two designs better express this than Mega Aggron and Mega Tyranitar. In both cases they take the design and basically add loads o spikes but they do it in a very clever way, turning design elements from the previous monster, like Tyranitar’s head spikes, into exaggerated versions of themselves. It looks intimidating, it looks effective and it really ties in with the Mega Evolution concept.
Mega Aggron I like because his ability makes him the ultimate tank. He has the highest base defence in the game and is immune to super effective attacks making him a wall. And he now looks like a wall, wider, stockier and dumpier than before. I find his weird linked head spikes going through holes to be fussy and cluttered but overall I like Mega Aggron. Mega Tyranitar similarly kicks Tyranitar’s ass. His design is just so much more balanced. Whereas before he was weirdly lacking in the head and shoulders department compared to his body and legs the addition of head and shoulder spikes makes him look more balanced and overall just bigger and more intimidating. I particularly like his chest face. I don’t understand why his tail now looks like a peeled banana but I’m happy overall.
Oh yeah and he totally looks like space Godzilla now too.
Mega Gardevoir
I’m on record as not liking Gardevoir because a disturingly high number of perverts on the internet seem to be sincerely sexually attracted to her. Putting her in a wedding dress does nothing to fix this issue.
Mega Heracross and Mega Pinsir
Japan absolutely adores beetles, in particular two varieties of stag beetles they nickname Atlas and Goliath. Elementary school kids adore catching these things, putting them in boxes and making them fight each other. And now you understand why Bug Catchers are a thing in Pokémon games. Every Japanese man at some point in his life put on tiny, comfortable shorts, got a net and captured innocent beetles to fight for his own amusement.
As such I am not surprised Pinsir and Heracross got some Mega Love. Thing is, these both could work as just regular evolutions for these Pokémon who are just single stage evos in the game. They don;t have the exaggerated almost deformed thing going for them that many Megas do nor are they vastly improved versions of the original designs, they just look like what Sugimori’s sketch for an evolved Pinsir probably always looked like.
Of the two I like Heracross more since his proportions, small head, short body, short legs and massive arms, really sell the idea of strength and power. That and I have no idea what the hell those orange things are in Pinsir’s design.
Mega Manectric
Are you okay Mega Manectric because that looks really heavy. That, that can’t be good for your neck. Do we need to get nurse Joy to help you little guy?
Mega Aerodactyl
Continuing our theme of awesome beards, Aerodactyl is positively satanic with that Van Dyke and the new spiky evil eyebrows help sell it too.
Mega Alakazam
So the evolution line for Abra, Kadabra and Alakazam goes like this.
Starts with no spoon.
Gets both spoon and moustache.
Gets an extra spoon and an even bigger moustache.
Following that logic the only place to go with a Mega is multiple spoons and an epic hermit beard. And he pulls it off well. I particularly like the yoga pose.
Mega Alakazam, you can’t fault the logic.
Mega Kangaskhan
On the one hand Mega Kangaskhan feels very natural. What’s the ultimate form of a Kangashkan? Why using it’s baby in its attacks. Makes perfect sense and helps fill in some gaps in the Kangaskhan life cycle.
On the other hand, I really wish the baby Kangaskhan looked more like a Cubone so that this bit of fan canon could be true.
Mega Blaziken and Mega Lucario
Two examples where I massively prefer the mega form to the original design and wish this design just replaced it.
In Blaziken’s case I love Torchic and Combusken and despise Blaziken. May main complaints are that his hair is stupid, he had some weird feather cock thing going on, he didn’t look like a chicken and his hair is stupid. Well he still doesn’t look like a chicken but his feather cock is gone and his hair is much less stupid. In fact the change in shape to his chest and head balance his design much better giving approximately equal space to his body, head and legs. Unrealistic, yes but aesthetically pleasing. The new chest is more reminiscent of samurai garb too typing in with his martial arts theme. And the colour scheme just seems more dangerous and imposing.
Lucario is similarly much improved. I never got the love for the standing up, kick boxing dog before as he looked like a mess of randomly combined elements. I like Mega Lucario though. Like Blaziken his new shapes mean that space is more evenly distributed, the flare to his collar and dreadlocks add much needed visual interest to his head area and his slightly thicker, chunkier thighs balance out his height. Plus the addition of extra smaller spikes make the big hand, foot and chest spikes seem more organic. I like the change in colour scheme too which again seems darker and more imposing.
Mega Garchomp
You know how adding the colour red and more spikes actually seemed to improve Lucario? Well it doesn’t work for everyone.
Plus the original scythes looked more badass, your Mega can’t be less badass, that makes no sense.
Mega Scizor
Scyther was such a good design and whilst Scizor wasn’t better he still had charm. This though. It’s all square and boxy where it should be sleek and knife like. And those legs, they looks barely attached and just weird and angular. This is a mess of a design and all the worse because both Scyther and Scizor are really great designs.
Mega Gyarados
You know how we all think Gyarados is bad ass? How he has such a cool, sleek design that just screams rage and power. Yeah. It is amazing how much of that is owed to his neck. For some reason get rid of his neck and he goes from being bad ass and dangerous to unbelievably derpy. Magikarp is, in fact, marginally less awkward looking than this.
Mega Abomasnow
What I don’t like about Mega Abomasnow is that design concept has disappeared. Abomasnow is supposed to be a tree covered in snow but nothing about these shapes suggests that in the slightest. Divorced from the concept though and this is a nice design. It conveys power really effectively. The stocky design with the head in the centre suggests size and the hunched over pose where it can’t even support itself really suggests weight. The exploding effect caused by all the lines radiating from the centre says power too, almost as if Mega Abomasnow is nearly exploding with restrained strength. It’s a cool design but it isn’t Abomasnow.
Mega Meditite
So Meditite is one of the worst design ever, combining slutty lips, hammer pants and the kind of hat stoned people who went to India once routinely wear.
Mega Meditite retains the hammer pants and draws more attention to them, retains the slutty lips and replaces the dumb hat with, and I didn’t think this was possible, an even dumber hat. It also adds some scarves.
I suppose the logic is that Meditite is ridiculous so for the Mega we’re going to double down on the ridiculous? It kind of makes sense.
Mega Ampharos
So Ampharos is an electric/pharoah/giraffe. What is the natural next step in that deeply confused concept?
Got it.
Male Model from the cover of Harlequin romance. It was the missing link all along.
Mega Absol
I think everybody likes Absol. He has such a unique design. He doesn’t really look like any distinct animal you can name but he does look like an animal and his yin/yang thing was subtly but effectively incorporated into his design.
Mega Absol is more of the same really except they’ve really, really leaned heavy on the emo thing. Absol always had this emo aspect to his concept since he was the harbinger of disaster and as such people hated him. They’ve now refined that by making him a literal angel of death and giving him the hair cut of Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy. He pulls it off though.
Mega Mawile
I’m on record as not really liking Mawile because on first glance it is nigh on impossible to tell what is going on. Namely that I know it has a second face but could never see it. Mega Mawile though, so much better. Getting rid of the forward facing top knot, adding a second mouth and having the mouths stand up just looks so much better. The mouths both more obviously read as hair and look more like they’re attached to Mawile.Plus the new mouth design looks more threatening. This is another Mega that should just replace the original.
Mega Gengar
Mega Gengar is considered one of the game’s absolute power houses, banished to uber tier he is regarded as annoying, amazing and powerful.
It is a shame then that his design is horrendous.
What’s wrong with Mega Gengar, oh god what’s right with it? Let’s start with a list of design elements that seem to serve no purpose. What is that gold thing on his head? What are the arm things he suddenly has if they even are arms and similarly what is that weird tail thing? Why is he glowing from beneath? On good Pokémon designs I understand why something is there, it’s either a signifier of some meaningful element (i.e. Bulbasaur has a bulb because he is a grass type) or to improve the aesthetics (i.e. Charizard has a band of a second colour on his chest to break up what would otherwise be a large flat space. On Mega Gengar though I have no idea what anything is doing.
Even worse he used to have a cleanly defined design concept, he looked like Celfable’s shadow, and now that has disappeared.
However the biggest sin Mega Gengar commits is that he is at worse poorly drawn or at most charitable drawn in a style that doesn’t match the other designs. By this I mean that the other Pokémon are drawn with a realistic approach with regards to perspective, whereas Mega Gengar is drawn more like a comic strip character. Judging from how his body and arms are presented Gengar is in 3/4 profile here so he’s looking at about a 45 degree angle to our left and down. The means we shouldn’t be able to see his whole mouth, it should curve round to the other side of his face where we can’t see. similarly his right eye should be lower and his left eye either higher or gone entirely. It just looks wrong and disconcerting.
Mega Gengar looks better in game but this is easily the worst artwork from Sugimori. Not only is it a bad design, it’s a bad drawing.
Mega Houndoom
Remember back when Pokémon started and became the biggest thing on the planet? Remember the religious groups in America who saw it as a tool of Satan? Can you imagine how hard they would freak out if Mega Houndoom existed back then?
Mega Banette
Speaking of child unfriendly, hey everyone it’s the gimp themed pokemon. Whose arms and legs are actually evil monstrous tongues. Because you’re never too young to learn about consensual S and M.
One of my running jokes is that the pokemon designs often reflect whatever the designer was looking at in his office that day. I wonder if that implies to the gimp mask pokemon.
The Fairy Type
The other massive change to the game in X and Y is the addition of a new typing, Fairy, the first new type since 2nd ed. This is a massive change but a very welcome one as it re-shuffles the meta game making long term threats like Hydreigon weaker whilst boosting some weaker monsters that have been languishing in lower tiers (Azumarill). It’s particularly welcome in that Fairies are Dragon killers and prior to 6th ed Dragons were easily the most over powered typing. With a massive suite of resistances, only two weaknesses and only one type that resists Dragon, Dragons were just the best typing on paper. And as one of their weaknesses is Dragon type the best way to kill them is often to have a Dragon yourself. Fairies having an immunity to Dragon attacks puts a solid counter on this but not so much that Dragon’s have been utterly nerfed, as can easily be seen by the fact that Garchomp is the most commonly used Pokémon in competitions.
In addition to nerfing Dragons, Fairies are pretty tough themselves. Most are specially defensive focused with a sideline in special attack and good neutral coverage. Xerneas using Moonblast can walk through teams until he reaches a special wall and the edge on Fighting and Dark types just makes them better. They lack a diverse movepool to make them as uber as Dragons but Fairies arrived as a top tier challenge. The effect of this is to create the need to try and get some Poison and Steel attacks onto your team to take out Fairies, and Steel and Poison are not normally considered attacking types so this shakes up the meta further.
My main complaint with Fairy types is that I don’t get the concept of the typing. With something like Water the concept is clear, this animal lives in or shoots water, make it a Water type. But what makes something a Fairy? It mostly seems to be the big pink blobs of previous generations like Clefable and Jigglypuff but then Chansey and Audino are big pink blobs and they didn’t get Fairy. Fairies in mythology are tied to elements and usually represent different flowers, rocks and other natural phenomena but that idea largely inspires Pokémon anyway and is way too broad for a typing. In practice the only common theme seems to be that Fairy types are cute, playful and free spirited so it reflects a personality more than an element. But then there are lots of cute playful Pokémonthat didn’t get fairy either (Pikachu, Plusle and Minun, Cherrim, Pachirisu) Fairy doesn’t seem to have a defined conceptual space and that bothers me.
Sylveon
The first Fairy we ever saw sets the tone for most of the new Fairy designs in this generation. It’s pink, it’s cute, it’s covered in bows and frills and it references some stereotypically girly hobby or activity. In the case of Sylveon that would be the practice of dressing up your dog in cute outfits with little bows. It’s a nice spin on the eeveelutions = dog breeding thing without been too on the nose. Plus I just like Sylveon, it’s a balanced, striking design. One thing that does weird me out though is that the bows and ribbons are a part of her, like, made of flesh. Euuurggh,
Swirlix and Slurpuff
Girly activity number 2, eating sweets. Yes, I know men enjoy cotton candy just as much as the womenfolk but in Japan going out for sweets is seen as a very stereotypically feminine thing to do, so we get the sweet pokemon. Unlike Vanillish, the ice cream monster, Swirlix and Slurpuff do have legs so they’re marginally less silly, only marginally though. And that gap gets wiped out by Slurpuff’s hilarious face. I can’t tell if he’s happy or suffering from a concussion.
Spritzee and Aromatisse
Hey guys, did you realise that the Kalos region is supposed to be France? Oh, you did? What was your first clue? Was it that the region looks exactly like France? Maybe it was how the game seems to pack in every single stereotypical thing about France Gamefreak can think of. So we get fashion! art! fine dining restaurants! and perfume, personified by giving a cockatoo a big nose and making it pink. It kind of works but the lack of a mouth robs Spritzee of much of her personality.
Then we get to Aromatisse who personifies…can can dancers.
I know I requested less sexy Pokémon but this, this is not what I wanted. Aromatisse is horrifying, her flirtatious leg haunts my nightmares. Can can dancers may be French but they are not suitable subject matter for a children’s computer game or as the basis for designing cute animals.
Flabebe, Floette and Florges
The most Fairy looking fairy-type. For me the defining characteristic of a Fairy is that it’s a flower spirit. However, Pokémon already has the Grass type, about a hundred designs of plants with faces so how do you convey Fairy? The solution hit upon here, of having an animal that sits on a flower, carries it and eventually wears it is ingenious. Beyond that though I don’t have nice things to say. I don’t understand Floette’s enormous eyebrows (the work on Florges as exaggerated eyelashes), I don’t understand Floette’s ear/hair, I think the faces for all three lack personality and generally these are pretty meh. Also minus one point for yet another Pokémon in a bra. No! Bad Nintendo. No!
Dedenne
This generation’s electric rodent is Dedenne (his name is straight from Japan, it’s an onomatopoeia for the noise of electrical wires) and I think he’s great. I love designs that take an element and incorporate their element logically and interestingly and Dedenne is a textbook example of that. His whiskers turn into electrical transmission wires and his tail into a power cable and he looks like a cute, happy mouse. Sugimori can do this kind of thing in his sleep by now but I’ll always welcome this kind of design.
Klefki
So I’ve started writing the entry for Klefki about 5 times now and each time it just devolves into rarge blargle OMG SO VERY VERY STUPID. Do I even have to write about it? We know it’s lazy, we know it’s dumb, we all hate it right? They didn’t even have the decency to put a spike on it. This is every lazy and horrible trend in pokemon design embodied in one beast, one horrible monstrosity that OMG SO VERY, VERY STUPID!!!!!!
Carbink, Diancie and Mega Diancie
I’m not normally keen on the inanimate object style Pokémon but there are things you can do with it that I like. Geodude is one of my favourite Pokémon of all time despite being essentially a rock with arms but he has a couple of things going for him. 1. Limbs. 2. a face. 3. a personality. Carbink lacks all these things. It’s a rock with eyes, and eyes drawn in such a way that I can infer no personality. It’s just boring.
Diancie in contrast has limbs, has a face and has a personality and as such I like her. I don’t love her (I wonder where she got the dress from) but she’s okay. If you’re going to do Rock Fairy this is what a Rock Fairy looks like to me, cute, happy, perky with adorable jewels, pigtails and a big poofy dress (the rock). Like other Kalos Fairies she embodies the stereotypically girly notion of precious gems but they don’t go overboard with it in her design. That of course is because they saved the overboard for her Mega which…I like. If the design concept for the Megas is OTT version of the original then yeh, Mega Diancie certainly pulls that off.
Xerneas
The legendary Pokémon for X is a fantastic design. He looks like a real animal but incorporates dozens of clever ideas and concepts. His X shape is subtly but effectively incorporated(if you can’t see it the X forms between the front legs and the crown of horns), the crown of horns are a striking visual in their own right but really connote the idea of some powerful forest spirit, his sword legs look cool and dangerous, his expression is imperious and proud and the colours in his horns suggest his Fairy typing without painting him pink.
In keeping with the theme for this generation of “plagiarism” I can’t help but feel like I’ve seen him before though.
Chespin, Fennekin and Froakie
So normally I review each evolutionary family as a whole but I thought I’d do something different this time. As news was coming out about Pokémon X and Y we got the starter monsters revealed as a trio, then their 2nd stage and finally they’re 3rd stages. I thought I’d replicate the impact somewhat here. So let’s look at these three on their own. Well, out of just this Fennekin is easily the winner. Fennekin is simply but she’s cute and the ear hair being turned into flames is one of those design elements I was discussing with regards to Dedenne. Chespin has more potential but I can’t work out what he is. Is he a squirrel? a chipmunk? a rat? He’s certainly some kind of rodent but I don’t know what. I can’t parse his hat as any kind of plant either. Normally it’s pretty clear what the plant aspect is meant to be but again, no clue.
Froakie meanwhile looks like Benjamin Franklin.
You can never unsee it now.
Quilladin, Braixen and Frogadier
BWA HA HA HA HA HA
Just, oh my god, breathe. BWA HA HA HA HA HA! *gasp* inhale. BWA HA HA HA HA
Really? Really?? Do I even need to say anything? Look at him, just, stare at it. It is majestic in its awfulness.
You know what makes it better. The way its drawn here he looks like he’s fallen over and can’t get up. Like he’s lying on his back. And he’s just so gosh darned cheerful about it! Life has dealt Quilladin a bum hand but he is not going to let it get him down.
Frogadier is just kind of there. Oh and Nintendo, you don’t have to make the water starter always blue guys. We get that frogs = water without the help.
Braixen though is just awesome. She really reads as witch with only a few witchy icons but they work very well. I especially lover how her fur becomes a cute skirt. She looks like a teenager too which works for a 2nd stage. And I just love the flaming branch she uses. I like when Pokemon have natural weapons (Cubone, Leavanny) and a witches staff that shoots fire just feels like a natural fit.
Yes sir the Fennekin family definitely one the design lottery this time.
Chesnaught, Delphox and Greninja
And then Delphox shits the bed.
She just looks ugly and awkward, there’s too much…stuff. Her design doesn’t feel flowy or balanced it feels baggy. I know she’s wearing a robe but it looks like she has just too much fur, and worse some of the fur doesn’t make sense as witch clothing like whatever is going on at her shoulders. Plus her ear hair is just ridiculous now, it doesn’t look like fire anymore it just looks ugly. What a tragic waste of a good design concept.
Chesnaught however, redeems himself. Revealing himself to be a hedgehog…groundhog…muskrat okay I still have no idea what animal he is, but he does at least look knightly now and suitably intimidating. His overall shape works now, still being rounded but now the round shapes are all in the shoulders and back which convey power rather than roly polly cuddly chubbiness. He still isn’t very planty though.
Greninja goes from meh to undisputed coolest design in this generation. He’s a ninja, always cool and like all the best designs they convey ninja without giving him anything that doesn’t also convey frog, it’s all in the pose, the colouring and the body shape. That and the tongue which is inspired. Turning his long frog tongue into a scarf is just a terrific idea, even if it does go back to this year’s theme of “plagiarism.”
Playing one of the great enemy’s games were we Sugimori-san? Shame on you.
Greninja also retroactively makes Froakie make sense. To reflect the setting of Kalos we have our fairy tale character, the knight, the witch and the thief. The Ninja look subs for thief but Froakie looks like a stereotypical Japanese bandit.
Bunnelby and Diggersby
This years useless mammals you catch early in the game are a better effort that most generations. Rabbits are good animals to base designs on having several iconic features you can fiddle with, in this case the ears. And in my opinion turning the ears into hands is a neat little idea that works well. The Diggersby evolution of that concept I also dig, turning the ears into excavators and giving him a control panel to manouveour them.
Other than the ears and Diggersby 5 o’clock shadow (another one for the beards list ) there isn’t a huge amount else going on here though.
Fletchling, Fletchinder and Talonflame
Talonflame….?
Talonflame?
You didn’t even try did you localisation team? Talonflame is actually a really neat design, He’s a hawk, on fire!!! And he has warning stripes on his tail. He looks menacing and you just panicked didn’t you.
Talonflame.
Here are 10 more creative names for a bird on fire than Talonflame.
1. Falcook
2. Hawkindle
3. Falcomet
4. Napalcon
5. Scorchawk
6. Firaptor
7. Robinferno
8. Peregrill
9. Hinoraptor
10. KFC
Scatterbug, Spewpa and Vivillion
God, do I have to?
Scatterbug and Spewpa are just a mess, somehow bland and cluttered at the same time and I have no idea what the high concept is behind them. Easily the worst caterpillar in all of Pokémon.
Vivillion though, I like, a lot. She’s themed around LCD televisions and consequently that’s why her wings look like patterns of pixels and why her antennae resemble digital TV antennae. She’s a nice twist on a butterfly design already but what really makes her is all the different wing patterns.
Sure it’s a blatant ploy to make it feel like there are more designs in this Gen than there actually are but it’s kind of cool. I also like that the different designs are linked to different geographic regions. That’s something that’s true of real animals and so it’s nice to see it incorporated into the games. It also forces you to trade internationally which is a nice way to big up the new GTS and Wonder Trade improvements.
Lileo and Pyroar
So we have had a lion Pokémonbefore (the Shinx family) but Lileo and Pyroar are the first lion monsters that really resemble the animal. Again, considering how iconic lions are and how often they feature in children’s picture books I’m surprised it took us this long.
There isn’t a huge amount to say about these two, they’re basically just cartoony drawings of lions, I’d have liked a bit more fire integration personally. The one cool bit of fire integration they have done is incorporate the Kanji for fire into the pattern of Pyroar’s mane.
Skiddo and Gogoat
In contrast Skiddo and Gogoat are much more what I like. Animal they haven’t done before? Check. Element incorporated sensibly into the animal’s shape? Check. Lack of unecessary clutter? Check. Use of patterns to break up large areas of flat colour? Check. Everything I want and in addition to the element these two also have a secondary theme of being motorbikes. Can’t see it? Check the horns, Skiddo is meant to be a dirt bike and Gogoat has the swept back handlebars and backrest of an old school Harley chopper.
Pancham and Pangoro
Another pair that tick all the boxes, animal we haven’t done, no flat blocks of colour, uncluttered design, element incorporated, etc. What really sells me on Pangoro though is his evolution mechanic. Pancham only evolves when he levels up and there is a dark type in your party. And when he does he goes from being slightly cocky troublemaking kid to a full on bancho.
What’s a bancho? Well it means delinquent or gang member, and they look like this.
I love that, he only evolves when another dark type acts as bad influence on him. That’s such a fun idea and such a great example of how evolution can be used a story telling tool (and another reason why I hate Mega evolution.)
Furfrou
Furfrou is a pokemon that exists for one reason and one reason only. As if there weren’t enough clues, may I remind you that the KALOS REGION IS MEANT TO BE FRANCE!
DO YOU GET IT YET?!!!
So of course we have to have a French poodle. But wait, Furfrou doesn’t look like a French poodle? Well he does when you take him to the hair dressers and pay to have him styled like thus.
The concept of a customisable Pokémon design is one I quite like. I’m a big fan of Rotom for example and adding more options like that I think is a good thing. But beyond the gimmick there isn’t anything else to Furfrou.
Espurr and Meowstic
Please enjoy some of the internet’s finest Espuur death stare Memes.
Also female Meowstic has a beret becasue IT’S SET IN FRANCE!!! FRANCE!!!!! FRAAAAANNNNNNNNNNCE.
Honedge, Doublade and Aegislash
So this is a much better way to do the “it’s set in France” thing. France of course has a long history of chivalry and knights and the chivalrous values to some extent are still relevant in France today. Doing something with knights is a good idea and Honedge is a truly fantastic idea. A ghost sword is just inherently cool. Weapons are cool and weapon themed monsters are cool but the idea of this ancient blade coming to life to fight again just resonates with so much personality.
You can ruin a good concept with bad design though but fortunately Honedge is great. I love how the scabbard works as face but also reads as believable scabbard design. I love how the ribbon becomes a hand grasping the blade and I love the eye that appears to be part of the scabbard but is in fact built into the hilt. It’s a great idea executed flawlessly.
Doublade and Aegislash I like less but I still like. I’ve never been a fan of the combine two together evolution style so Doublade gets points off for that and Aegislash’s handle doesn’t look like any sword handle I’ve ever seen but overall a fantastic set of designs.
Inkay and Malamar
So these two are just weird. In case you don’t know, to evolve Inkay you actually have to turn your 3DS upside down. This is because Malamar is just Inkay upside down so the tentacles turn into Malamar’s hair and the head fins turn into Malamar’s legs.
It’s a very clever idea and takes great skill to pull off effectively as they have but I can’t say I’m in love with the actual design of either monster.
Binacle and Barbaracle
So its fair to say that Binacle is dumb. It’s a hand stuck to a rock with a face. Worse, it’s two hands stuck to a rock and I never liked the designs that feature more than one monster since something about it just strains my credulity. For example, you hatch an egg, you should get one Binacle, not two and a rock.
That said your theme is barnacle pokemon. I’m impressed you did it this well.
Oh and in case you’re wondering why they look like hands, they look like a Goose Barnacle which is a variety native to Japan.
In case you’re wondering why that’s in a bowl, it’s because it’s food. Japanese people will eat anything that comes out of the sea.
Barbaracle should be everything I hate. I hate monster designs where more than one animal comes together, I didn’t like Binacle and I don’t like anthro monsters but Barbaracle is just kind of brilliant. Having each limb also be a head is just neat. This isn’t like having three Diglett’s hanging out somehow equals a new organism this is 5 different organisms working together as one monster. That makes Barbaracle a siphonophore, a colony of specialised multi-cellular animals so closely integrated they cannot survive on their own, like a Portuguese man of war. It also makes perfect sense, you never see just one barnacle you always see a few sticking to one rock, but having them co-operate to turn that rock into a body is clever.
Plus he looks grumpy, and I love all the grumpy faced monsters.
Skrelp and Dragalge
I’ve said it before and I will say it again. I completely understand why they have so many fish, that doesn’t mean any of them are interesting.
Clauncher and Clawitzer
I fucking love this!!!!
Firstly Clawitzer is based on an animal which is inherently awesome. He’s a mantis shrimp and if you don’t know why they’re fantastic watch this video.
BTW Nintendo, the one time it would have made sense to colour your animal like a clown having an accident in a paint factory you chicken out and make it blue.
So a mantis shrimp has the fastest punch in the animal kingdom, it can punch so fast it literally makes explosions!!! So how do we exagerate and cartoonify that?
Let’s turn one of its claws into an enormous cannon which is also shaped like a shrimp!
Genius!
I love Clawitzer and everything about it except it’s boring blue colouring, I want my Mega Evolution with an even more enormous cannon and a tiny body still the same size and I want it now Game Freak!
Helioptile and Heliolisk
I don’t know why but I’ve always had a thing for frilled lizards. I think I can trace it back to The Rescuers Down Under where a frilled lizard is one of the cast and I just always thought he looked cool. Heliolisk however is no frilled lizard. This is a frilled lizard.
That pathetic wimpy thing Heliolisk has round his neck can’t compare. I get that it’s meant to be a sunburst but don’t get why they’re sun themed in the first place. They’re an Electirc type, sun is more of a fire type thing.
Tyrunt and Tyrantrum
and
Amaura and Aurorous
It has taken us 6 generations to get the most obvious dinosaurs out of the way. A T-Rex and an Apatosaurus, probably the most famous and iconic dinosaurs that every kid aged 6 knows about. Before we got to them we did ancient sea scorpions, archaeopteryx and even trilobites (all hail Lord Helix). And I can easily see why, Sugimori just doesn’t have any interesting ideas for what to do with a T-Rex and an Apatosaurus.
Tyrunt starts well, the proportions sell baby dinosaur well and he looks both cute and powerful. Tyrantrum though, it’s a T-Rex. Admittedly It’s a T-Rex with an awesome beard but aside from a head crest (which is okay) and a fur collar (which is baffling) it’s just so-so.
Aurorous is much better. The basic problem with an Apatosaur design is one of body proportions. To fit the shape into the size restrictions in Pokémon you end up with a massive gap between the head and body. Adding the fin helps this and balances out the design but turning the fin into the Aurora Borealis and the curve of the Apatosaurus’ neck into a snow covered mountain side is just inspired.
Hawlucha
I think we’re all agreed that Hawlucha is everyone’s favourite design this generation right? I mean, it’s a luchador hawk. All luchadors are inherently awesome and have visually interesting designs and the choice of animal, a high flying beastie with an intense stare just suits it perfectly. This little guy just exudes personality.
Goomy, Sliggoo and Goodra
Okay, let me spoil Goomy for you.
Those two adorable little dots. Those aren’t eyes, they’re nostrils. The cute green chubby cheeks? They’re its eyes. Instead of being a cute cuddly wuddly goofball Goomy is in fact creepy and alien.
So Goomy, Sliggo and Goodra are based on slugs, snails and a H R Geiger guest directed episode of My Little Pony respectively. You’re probably thinking, okay, snails, that means France again right. And you’d be right. But you might also be wondering why the hell they’re dragon type? Well, let me tell you all about the Lou Carlcolh.
From Wikipedia
Lou Carcolh, or the Carcolh, is a supposed mythical beast from Frenchfolklore. It was described as being both a serpent and mollusk at the same time, taking characteristics from both types of animals. Its massive and long body carried an enormous shell upon its back, much like a snail‘s shell, that was believed to live in underground caverns in southwest France. Its gaping mouth was surrounded by several long, hairy, and slime covered tentacles that could extend for miles. These appendages stretched out from the cave it inhabited for a long distance and laid upon the ground among its own viscous slime. They would ensnare and drag back to its abode anything within reach. It would then swallow the victim whole with its gigantic mouth.
image taken from Atlas Games
And since Dragon type refers more to being based in myth than any physiological characteristics, Goodra is a dragon.
Also beard. Horrible slimy chinbeard but still, beard.
Phantump and Trevenant
So is Gen 6 the generation of “I can’t believe it took them this long to do that idea?” Because evil tree seems pretty obvious. Evil tree is like on of the first 10 monster ideas I come up with when I’m DM-ing. Certainly way before evil mask, evil candle or evil keys.
That said the reason it may have taken this long is again that I don’t think Sugimori has anything new to add to the idea. Trevenant is a generic evil tree that could appear in anything from Final Fantasy to a Mario game. In fact, with the relatively realistic proportions and high level of detail it doesn’t even feel particularly like a Pokémon design.
Pumpkaboo and Gourgeist
I showed my fiance Pumpkaboo’s design when X and Y first came out and I don’t think she’s stopped squeeing since. I personally don’t get it. I agree he has a cute, fat bottom and his name is inherently funny but I kind of find him creepy.
I also like that they avoided the obvious route when making a Jack O Lantern monster. The added bat touches really make Pumpkaboo his own monster and give him his own distinct feel.
Bergmite and Avalugg
I do like these two. Avalugg in particular has such a unique design, the flattened top is so distinctive and so different from not only every other Pokémon but most monster designs in general. And in a weird way it makes him seem powerful and imposing. It’s also a nice spin on the idea that iceberg’s are small on top and huge underneath. Bergmite is all top and is small, Avalygg is all bottom and is huge. And in addition to that it references one of the more bat shit insane moments from history. Check his Pokédex entry.
“The way several Bergmite huddle on its back makes it look like an aircraft carrier made of ice.”
That is a reference to a plan the British had in WW2 to build aircraft carriers in the North Sea made out of Pykrete, a sort of frozen cement made of wood chipping. Pykrete is actually an amazingly durable material, about as strong as steel and very cheap to make….provided of course you keep it frozen, but that isn’t as hard as you might think. Ice is a great insulator and the original Pykrete aircraft carier took 3 years to melt. Yes, years. The Mythbusters once made a boat out of it. You can read more about it here and find out why it was ultimately scrapped.
Noibat and Noivern
It is entirely possible to read Noivern’s ears as the eyes of an owl looking sideways, this marginally improves this dull ass design.
Also another fur collar. Going back over the designs I actually count 18 fur collars this generation. That compares with only 5 awesome beards and that is catastrophic.
Yveltal
Fur collar number 19. I know why it is here though, it helps balance out the shape.
I really like Yveltal. I’m a sucker for a few things and birds with horns are one of them plus turning those wings into hands. Yveltal has not one, not two but three weird hand wings (beating previous champion Lugia) and his pose makes him look like one massive grasping talon reaching out to get you. It’s all very cool and intimidating helped further by the black and red colour scheme, the lack of a mouth (which is always scary) and the weird but sinister black veins. It also incorporates the Y shape subtly but effectively. Between Xerneas and Yveltal we got two great legendaries this generation. Also, Gen 6 gives us the fewest legendaries yet with just 3. Yveltal, Xerneas and Diancie. Yeah I know about Hoopa and Volcanion but until they officially release them I won’t be reviewing them because I won’t be able to get a decent image and…
I forgot one?
Which did I forg..ohh. Oh.
Zygarde
Is a piece of shit.
You want more, okay. He’s a Ground/Dragon. Nothing on his design says ground or Dragon. His Z is barely there and the shape is ruined by his back crest which is just one of many design elements which signify nothing. Why the back crest? Why is he covered in hexagons? Why is he asymmetrical? This design is a combination of elements that neither work individually nor as a whole, he’s crap and I didn’t want to end the generation on him so let’s look at Hawlucha again.
So much win.
In general Gen 6 is a mix of trying too hard but failing and succeeding but being boring which applies to the gameplay as much as the designs. That said Gen 6 has staked out a course. The first 5 Pokemon were all in one evolutionary tree getting better and better. But now, now nothing will ever be the same again and franky, I’m excited to see what comes next.
And I use that term very specifically. A flawless movie means that I can’t find a single thing wrong with it. It doesn’t necessarily mean the movie is great merely that you can’t find fault in its execution. I’ve seen a very few flawless films in my time but even of the ones I have seen they aren’t my favourite kind of film. I’m much more interested in films that are trying to do something new or interesting even if their reach exceeds their grasp. Ambitious failures are more exciting than lazy successes.
Summer Wars is flawless and its got just enough creativity, engaging themes and new things to say to compensate for a straight forward plot and ideas that are not particularly original.
Summer Wars tells the story of Kenji Koiso (Ryûnosuke Kamiki) a high school student who has just missed out on the chance to represent Japan at the math olympics. He’s preparing for a dull Summer in a job as an administrator for OZ.
What’s OZ? Well it’s a social media platform that has kind of replaced traditional browsers. In OZ you can do anything you can on the internet, banking, work, shopping, social interaction and of course play games. But rather than just reading text on a screen you have a custom avatar that inhabits a virtual world and interacts with its surroundings visually and in multiple dimensions. Want to go shopping? Well you can take your avatar to a shop and have it wander around the same as you would on the high street.
Kenji’s boring Summer plans get interrupted when he gets offered a Summer job working for Natsuki Shinohara (Nanami Sakuraba) a girl who has just graduated high school this year and also a girl that Kenji has a massive crush on. She wants him to accompany her to her Grandmother’s home to attend her 90th birthday party. What Natsuki doesn’t tell our hero until he arrives is that he’s pretending to be her over achieving fiance from a perfect family. Turns out Granny Shinohara hasn’t been feeling well recently and Natsuki said she wasn’t allowed to die until she met her boyfriend, a boyfriend that didn’t exist.
Kenji of course thinks this is both unfair and impossible and has a stressful day answering questions and being sized up by the extended Shinohara family including black sheep uncle Wabisuke Jin’nôchi.
He gets distracted from his problems though when a mysterious message arrives composed of numbers. Thinking it’s a maths problem he spends all night deciphering it and then sends the finished code back to the mysterious sender. And this turns out to be the secret backdoor password into OZ. And Kenji has just given the password to a malicious A.I. named Love Machine that immediately starts causing chaos and havoc in OZ. Worse, since OZ effectively is the internet the chaos has major ramifications for the real world, fire engines are dispatched to fake emergencies, traffic seizes up into miles long gridlocks, medical monitoring equipment stops working. Whoops.
Now the race is on for Kenji to fix what he did and he discovers along the way just how much the Shinohara’s are inextricably linked to the fate of Oz, himself and the world.
At face value Summer Wars is a Cyberpunk story, and not a particularly original one. The notion of an alternate virtual world that reflects how the internet works goes all the way back to William Gibson’s Neuromancer in 1984 and variations on the idea have appeared in Snow Crash, The Matrix, Johnny Mnemonic, Tron, ReBoot and even Digimon. In fact Summer Wars is in part a re-make of the second short from the first Digimon movie known in Japan as Bokura no wô gêmu! Or “Our War Game.” Director Mamoru Hosoda was also responsible for that short and the plot, basic concept and a lot of the animation is freely recycled from his earler effort.
What many of those other examples share though is that they’re set in the future and so feature other sci-fi or fantasy elements. Tron and Digimon feature people actually travelling to the digital world. Neuromancer and snow Crash features cyborgs and other SF technology that reinforce their theme of how people and technolgoy interact.
In contrast Summer Wars is firmly set in real world Japan pretty much exactly how it works, looks and feels in 2010. And this is because Summer Wars is only half a cyberpunk story. The other half is concerned with the family and relationship drama of the Shinohara’s. The dynamics, tensions and alliances of the Shinohara’s are beautifully observed and feel so real to me. Kenji’s stress and panic when he’s the one outsider in a group of 20 or so people, all with names he struggles to remember, completely echoes the way I felt when I first stayed with my fiance’s relatives in Tokyo. Even if you don’t have any experience of Japanese culture though you’ll recognise and empathise with the way each family member teases the others, slots into a defined role, makes sub-groups within the larger family, etc.
Summer Wars really is about the contrast between communication amongst families and communication online. It’s about how the human dynamics of 2 thousand years adapt to the technology of the modern world. And it’s a story that could not be told more perfectly than in Japan. I’ve remarked numerous times that one of the things that stands out to me about Japan is about how the very high tech and the very ancient live together. Outside of Japan countries adapted to the changes of technology gradually, each new invention necessitating changes in how human beings lived and thought. But Japan remained largely unchanged for hundreds of years until the Meiji Revolution when, boom, all the benefits of the industrial revolution came completely overnight.
It meant that Japan had to adapt fast to change and the way they managed it largely was to isolate and section off their lives, this bit is traditional, this bit is new. Like the paper walls that section off a Japanese home they could create invisible notional walls that left both the old and the new in the same place, but separate.
The Shinohara’s are a particularly good example of this. A samurai family with a large traditional house that made their money from silk. They have unusually strong ties to Japan’s past and are proud of their heritage. But they all have cell phones, the kid’s all have game boys, one son is a professional baseball player, another is a computer programmer and one more sells computers. They’re as much a part of the modern world as anybody.
Summer Wars is not alone in being about the tension between technology and tradition in Japan, Mononoke Hime and Hi-No-Tori cover similar ground in greater depth and complexity. What Summer Wars does get right though is that it doesn’t pick a side. Very often in films about the importance of family or the environment tech gets demonised and the audience is encouraged to root for nature. Not so in Summer Wars. Tech can cause problems but it also, ultimately, saves the day. The strong family bonds of the Shinohara’s help them organise and get through the crisis but it’s a failure in family dynamics that inadvertently causes the threat in the first place. And one character dies explicitly because tech that was keeping them alive no longer works. Tech is not the bad guy, nor even is the reliance on tech.
What is the bad guy though, in every instance, is a lack of communication. Kenji not knowing the situation he’ll be in stresses him out, which leads him to solve the maths problem and not knowing who sent that problem leads to the problem in OZ. Wabisuke not knowing that he is loved and forgiven leads to the creation of the Love Machine. Equally every problem is solved through communication. There is an amazing sequence of Granny Shinohara phoning people up during the first OZ crisis and pulling seemingly the whole of Japan through the problem with stern words of admonition and others of encouragement. Kenji is able to get the gear he needs to fight Love Machine due to the family connections of the Shinohara’s each of who can contribute a particular skill or talent showing that we’re stronger together than fighting alone.
If there is one criticism of Summer Wars it is that technology doesn’t work that way. The depiction of OZ is one thing but the damage that Love Machine is able to do because he hacks OZ is simply impossible. And the idea that punching a giant monster, which is rendered in code in a graphics engine, with a rabbit avatar which is equally rendered in code in a graphics engine would somehow re-write or alter code is frankly silly, a useful visual allegory but silly. I think the film gets a buy on this though. Every film gets to do one impossible thing and for me with Summer Wars I’ll let it slide that the internet doesn’t work that way. Partly because although the internet doesn’t work that way the way the film depicts how people use the internet, what our relationship with communications technology is and what it does to us is 100% spot on. I know for some people though this is an insurmountable obstacle, and all I can say is I wish you could get past it to experience just how good Summer Wars is.
Every other element is, as I say, flawless. The acting and script are just perfect. The movie has a very naturalistic feel despite the big SF concepts which again supports the contrast between the real world and OZ. Even better the script is brimming with humour and nice character moments. This film has a huge cast of characters, many of whom get maybe one line of dialogue and most of whom have names I couldn’t tell you. Yet they don’t feel interchangeable, everyone feels like a real person and distinct from the others. With only a few lines of dialogue, the acting and the animation everyone is able to bring each character to life.
The animation too is spectacular, right up there with Ghibli. Supplied by Madhouse, who also did the stunning The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Millennium Actress, the scenes in the real world look nearly photo realistic with amazing attention to the background details. The characters are just stylized the right amount, nobody looks like an obvious cartoon like Disney or Ghibli but they still move and emote with energy whereas many realistic animated films feel stiff and lifeless.
That realism is crucial for selling the contrast between the real world and OZ. In OZ though the animators are free to indulge in their wildest fantasies and OZ is full of striking, inventive and memorable visuals to rival other eye candy anime like Evangelion or Spirited Away. I particularly like how there are no black lines in OZ, everyone is instead outlined in another primary colour such as red. It gives the effect of making OZ seem more ethereal and the real world more real by comparison.
Pacing, direction, music, atmosphere; everything else is just perfect for what the film needs them to do.
Here is a picture of what Marlon Brando wears in one scene of this film.
Need I say more?
The Island of Dr Moreau is a very special bad film indeed. Most bad films are because they’re low budget, independent efforts and the lack of experience, talent and money are the main sources of their badness. Dr Moreau though, features some very talented people (Stan Smith on make-up, Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer and Ron Perlman acting, Richard Stanley on the script) trying very hard to produce something with genuine artistic merit and instead winding up with a campy and confused mess for the ages. It’s like if you left all of history’s greatest artists in a room together with tools, brushes, paints and materials and then came back at the end of the day to find that all they’d managed to do was leave a single turd in the corner. It’s almost amazing that they’d get everything so wrong given all the opportunities available to them.
The Island of Dr Moreau, the book and to a lesser extent this film, is the story of a mad genius. A scientist who believes he can turn animals into men and possesses the intellect to do so, but not necessarily to question if he should do so. For whilst he tries to instil in his creations some morals and ethics they are ultimately torn apart by their own instincts and his experimental society devolves into an orgy of violence and destruction.
It’s kind of a fitting metaphor for this film.
Let’s start with the script which is just as much a creation of mad science as Moreau’s own beasts. This movie had no fewer than 5 full rewrites, three of which happened on set after filming had begun and each script emphasising different themes and ideas. The original screen writer, Richard Stanley who is responsible for a number of cult efforts including Hardware in 1990, worked on this film for over 4 years and it was a real labour of love of him and his first attempt to make a big Hollywood film. He was also slated to direct but was fired after just 4 days on set. His replacement, John Frankenheimer whose career stretches from classics like The Manchurian Candidate to crap like Reindeer Games, ordered not one but two re-writes whilst on set meaning that actors that had been brought on board because they liked Stanley’s work, such as Val Kilmer, were suddenly contracted to work on a script they loathed. It gets worse though, because Brando threw his not inconsiderable weight around to get his own re-writes done. In fact Brando seems to have an unusual amount of freedom and control over the production for an actor, even for a legend. For example, he controlled his own wardrobe which means that outfits like this…
…are entirely Brando’s choice. What’s more Brando’s midget side kick who wears the same clothes as him and at one point plays a miniature piano whilst Brando plays a real one, was also his idea entirely.
Yes, you read that right. And you may be thinking, ‘wasn’t a scene of a mad genius duetting with his midget clone on the piano played for laughs in Austin Powers?’ And you’d be right, they got it lock stock and barrel from this film where it is presented to us with gloriously awful sincerity. Just, can’t look away, mind-blowing amounts of what the fuck were they thinking?
The end result of all these re-writes is a Frankenstein’s monster of a script that pulls in different places. The Island of Dr Moreau is not an adventure or an action or even a horror movie. It’s largely a sci-fi movie, only one that contains exactly one scene of “science” being done. Moreau holds up a test tube and says something to the effect of “My god, the colour. It’s practically turned orange.” Then turns to his assistant and says “do you know what this means?” He doesn’t and the film never ever bothers to explain it. But science is all holding up beakers and test tubes and watching liquids change colour right? RIGHT?!
Being a sci-fi film of the old school the film is all about ideas and themes and exploring the implications of a scientific breakthrough. Problem with that being that every script had a different theme in mind and they all pull in different ways and contradict each other. Brando clearly wants to play the film as an environmental message. Now there is nothing in the original book to support that but we’ve got mad scientists dicking with animals so you can extrapolate that out to “human’s mess with nature too much” as a theme to explore. Problem is Brando’s idea of doing this is to turn Moreau into a hippy dippy love child that recites poetry and that characterisation is somewhat undercut by his magic disco medallion that gives everybody electric shocks. Oh and his outfits. Brando actually delivers a fairly good performance here, he’s more engaged and energetic in this role than anything he’d done in the previous decade. He’s clearly trying and sometimes, it nearly has the power to correct all the madness. However everything he does is undercut by the fact that he’s wearing an ice bucket on his head.
Similarly parts of the film seem to be about how man is inherently evil, or the nature of evil, or the nature of instinct. Whereas others are clearly to do with the morality of animal experimentation. And I’m not saying that a film can’t explore different themes but parts of the script that are about plot a clearly contradict plot b. For example, Moreau claims that he has found the devil in his microscope, cut it up and created creatures without evil. Except of course he has to control them with his magic disco medallion of electric reinforcement. Oh and a cocktail of drugs too, including, according to Val Kilmer’s character, uppers, downers, morphine, mescaline and a little magic mushroom. Because that’s a great plan Val. Give psychoactive drugs to the animals that you’re worried could regress into becoming violent and dangerous, I can foresee no possible drawbacks to that.
Which brings me onto Val Kilmer. Val famously took one look at the new script and tried to flee from this movie like he was a Japanese fisherman and it was Godzilla. The studio thought different and demanded he be in it as he was recently coming off the success of Batman and he was one of the biggest financial draws in the film. He eventually showed up to set two days late having clearly learned no lines nor done any research for his character.
Kilmer plays Moreau’s assistant as a frazzled a pot head that messes with the doctor’s experiments seemingly just for the sake of it. Nothing Kilmer’s character does makes any sense of has any logical motivation it’s just pure chaos. Now I have a theory why this is. I suspect that in the script Kilmer’s character had reasonable motivations and behaved like a somewhat sinister underling determined to usurp the doctor’s role and steal credit for himself. Instead what happened is that Kilmer showed up to the set blazed out of his gourd and just said and did what he liked forcing the crew to try and cobble together his behaviour into something usable no matter how little sense it made. The following conversation is something I am certain happened.
John Frankenheimer: Where the hell is Kilmer?
Runner: We found him sir. He was lying in the radio station set drinking a bottle of tequila and telling everyone he’s Batman. Then he put a flower in his mouth and stared at us. It was creepy.
John Frankenheimer: Oh for fuck’s sake. Does he have clothes on?
Runner: Sort of sir. He’s topless and wearing a sarong and cowboy boots.
John Frankenheimer: At least he has clothes on, that’s better than yesterday. Alright, film whatever he’s saying and we’ll cut it next to Thewlis looking concerned.
If that didn’t happen then it means that someone in the production team decided that having Kilmer wear a sarong and cowboy boots was somehow a good idea and I refuse to believe that the Universe I live in makes that little sense.
There’s a scene in the film where David Thewlis’s character (ostensibly our protagonist) has to steal some keys from a sleeping Kilmer. I am wiling to bet money that, that scene as originally written required Kilmer to be awake and they decided to film him whilst asleep because it was just easier that way.
Needless to say everything Val Kilmer does in this film is utterly delightful.
Most of the other actors seems to have realised fairly quickly that they were in a stinker too. Fairuza Balk actually tried to escape the production but was caught at the airport and sent back to the set. If your film is so bad actors try and flee the country you may not be making art but instead are committing some kind of war crime. David Thewlis seems to have adopted the strategy of doing and saying as little as possible in the hopes that nobody will ever notice he was in the film, which is a time honoured strategy for embarrassed actors trying to pick up a pay cheque everywhere but quite difficult to do when you are the “hero” (hah!) of the film.
Even Ron Perlman sucks, although in his defence his entire job is to drone monotonously.
This combination of terrible script, actor’s either not trying or in the case of Brando trying to do something that we mere mortals cannot comprehend, a hack director, a very hostile production and a subject matter that is already fairly weird produces some of the most incomprehensibly odd imagery I’ve seen since Zardos. The Island of Dr Moreau is a film of such staggeringly bad choices that I almost wonder if its some kind of Kaufmann-esque anti-film and the joke is on the audience.
The only thing in the film that works purely on its own terms is the make-up which is really great. Ron Perlmans’s goat man is particularly good but all round the animal-men look the business.
So you should you watch The Island of Dr Moreau? Oh god yes! They really don’t make stinkers like this anymore.
An unusual Kit-Kat for you all this time around, not a Japanese one, not a British one, not even an American one, but a French Kit-Kat.
I picked this up on my recent holiday to Normandy and, as with everywhere I ever go, most of my fun was had wandering through supermarkets looking at the differences between foods there and at home. When you’re a tourist the best chance you’ll ever get to experience what life is like in another culture is to go their supermarkets and note the differences. For example, Dutch supermarkets are all small, they don’t have the big out of town centres we have in the U.K. because everyone cycles everywhere and so can’t do the weekly big shop we do back here.
French supermarkets have to be amongst the world’s very best. They’re all absolutely enormous for starters and home to a cheese section so glorious it made me weep to behold it. Plus so much booze, just so much booze. Although not enough ale, and since I require both good cheese and good ale to thrive I’m limited to living in either the U.K. or The Netherlands so far.
Anyway I noticed a few odd Kit-Kat products, some Kit-Kat balls which we’ve discussed on this blog and before and a snack that was some Kit-Kats packaged together with some plain yoghurt. I did not eat this as plain yoghurt makes we want to vomit and other than that addition it’s just a regular Kit-Kat.
But they do have one flavour we don’t have in the U.K. and that’s noisette or hazelnut.
Not much to talk about with the packaging this time, it’s identical to a Kit-Kat chunky packet back home except green. I learned that green is kind of a standard noisette packaging colour in France the same way we make red crisps ready salted despite red and salt having no connection.
Incidentally I’ve noticed a few supermarket crisps start doing cheese and onion as blue and salt and vinegar as green. I know Walkers does this, we all know Walkers does this and we’re all in agreement that the people at walkers are insane to do this right? Red is Ready Salted, Blue is Salt and Vinegar, Green is Cheese and Onion, Pink is Prawn Cocktail, Dark Pink for Smoky Bacon, Brown for Steak and Onion and beyond that if you’re making up other flavours use what colours you like but those first 7 are a constant. Don’t give in to Walkers people, we need to shun them for their deviancy.
I expected this to be the same as the Hazelnut flavour that was in last year’s chunky champion contest but weirdly it isn’t. That had a layer of hazelnut crème on top of the wafers but this has something that isn’t a crème really. It’s whiter, grittier and less of a smooth paste. It’s pretty much a proper praline rather than some praline flavoured paste. The closest thing in taste I can compare it to is a Kinder Bueno which it really does resemble with the praline filling, wafer and chocolate.
It’s a nice praline too, not too sweet, really creamy, nicely nutty and with a real depth of flavour. I can taste four or five different distinct flavour notes in there which is impressive for a Kit-Kat. And it doesn’t have a sickly sweet aftertaste either; instead it’s nice and mellow.
I wonder if it says anything about our two nations that France chose hazelnut and we chose mint. Is it because mint has warlike associations with spearmint and arrow mint whereas the French are nutty? Is it because mint is a bold sharp natural flavour whereas the French prefer something smoother and more sophisticated?
Nah, but it probably does have something to do with how they like to put Nutella on everything.
So what have I been writing about these last few months. We’ve done some film reviews, we’ve started a long series all about the Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles, I’ve discussed adaptation extensively.
Hmmm, I think it might be time for me to talk about Kit-Kats.
Yes, Kit-Kats. Despite not having lived in Japan for 3 years I have retained my ability to find special Kit-Kats remains. This time it’s due to a donation from a friend of mine so thank you Kaori Yoshikawa, and if you’re interested in reading about Kit-Kats then you should all thank her too.
Incidentally if anyone in future wants to donate some kit-kats to me to review, or any Japanese foodstuffs, I am more than happy to do that. You can find me on twitter at RAdamHalls if you have a suggestion.
So Kaori gave me three flavours, two of which are green tea variants and the final one of which is a passion fruit flavour. I think I’ve discussed green tea enough on this blog to be honest and these flavours don’t seem to be adding anything new so we’ll just talk about the packaging briefly and then move on to the real star of the show, passion fruit.
So let’s start with the pink one. Well it’s a very attractive box, the contrast of pink and green works nicely and it avoids being overtly cluttered. We have a picture of a cup of matcha which looks very inviting (do not be tricked, matcha looks significantly nicer than it tastes ) and some beautiful pink sakura blossoms. All in all this is a well composed Kit-Kat package.
Oh and there’s some Kanji on there, and hey! Just for a change this is Kanji I can read, one of them says Sakura and the others say Matcha and…
Oh hell!
This is a new flavour isn’t it. I’m going to have to review it again.
Arse biscuits.
Yes, a little research and reading the back of the packet confirms it, this Kit-Kat is flavoured with both matcha which I’ve reviewed many, many times before and sakura (i.e. cherry blossom) which I have not reviewed before.
I have had sakura tea before though and my main impression of it was that it was really salty. Really salty. Saltier than you’re imagining. Picture some seawater, now add some salt, now boil it for a bit so some of the water evaporates, now ejaculate into it. Saltier.
Which is not what you’d expect something called cherry blossom to taste of. You’d probably imagine there’d be some cherry aspect to it. But nope, just water and salt. Does that sound like an appetising cup of tea to you? Probably not, and if it does consider seeking a doctor, your tastebuds are broken.
It was basically a thoroughly unpleasant experience and not one I ever hoped to re-create so you can imagine I’m absolutely thrilled to have to try a sakura matcha Kit-Kat.
For any Japanese people reading this that’s an example of sarcasm, you might refer to it as an “American joke” and look bemused.
Oh well, before we get to that let’s look at the individual wrapper.
It’s actually one of the best individual wrappers I can remember seeing and uses a pattern that’s completely new too. Rather than having one massive Kit-Kat logo in the middle that spoils the design it has a pattern of smaller red Kit-Kat logos repeating along with sakura blossoms, kanji and the English name all set against a patterned pink background. It’s very attractive and it makes sense, you have already bought the product by the time you see the indivdual wrapper, you don’t need yet another big red logo slapped in the middle. It’s not like you’ve forgotten in the time it tales you to take the individual wrapper out of the box that you’re eating a Kit-Kat.
Or does Kit-Kat think that people will forget? That because it’s pink and not red they’ll undergo some kind of existential crisis and break down into some kind of fit if they don’t see a Kit-Kat logo?
Nah, it’s probably a marketing rule thing.
It’s in the tasting that I have to own up to a problem with these particular three flavours. They didn’t make it through their journey over seas and then sit around in my flat in the middle of the hottest heatwave in the U.K. on record entirely unscathed. Instead they’ve melted into one big chocolatey wafery mess that will probably prove a detriment to the eating somewhat.
You never know though, it might be an improvement.
But with that in mind let’s give it a shot, sakura matcha. How does it taste?
If you said like every other matcha Kit-Kat I’ve ever eaten then…you’re wrong actually. I know I was surprised too. I went into this fully expecting it to be boring and samey but this is nice, really really nice and quite distinct from other green tea or matcha flavours. For starters it isn’t too sweet, nor is it too bitter. If anything the main flavour is cream. It does taste of green tea, obviously but it has a really strong, smooth creamy feel to it that it is absolutely delightful both flavour and texture wise.
And then in the aftertaste the saltiness of the sakura comes through. But whereas in tea it was disgusting in chocolate it works. It cuts the sweetness considerably and livens up the taste buds so the green tea and creamy notes really sing. If you’ve ever had a white fudge pretzel flip (I have confused every non-American and every Brit not my age) it’s similar only not as sweet and with a subtle green tea flavour to it. It’s really very moreish actually and works extremely well with a real cuppa.
This one was a bit of a revelation, I expected something disgusting but it’s a complete and utter winner.
So what about the other flavour?
Well no luck with the Kanji this time but some research reveals this is Uji Matcha, basically a kind of very refined, very high quality matcha. I’m not the world’s biggest matcha fan and have absolutely no idea what Uji matcha tastes like or how it is distinguished from regular matcha.
The package is okay but a touch busy. I like the use of black as main colour, it really let’s the colours of green and red work together rather than clashing and adds a touch of sophistication. It’s also something I associate with Japnese tea houses which often have polished black wood as their main colour with highlights of red, gold and green. The off kilter design reduces the clutter and I really like the umbrella which is one of those quintessentially Japanese things. The only part I don’t like really is patterned cloth in pink and purple which adds a clashing colour and makes it unclear what exactly we’re looking at. Rather than a box of powdered tea it makes the green section look like some kind of cloth which is kind of confusing.
The individual wrapper is similar to the sakura matcha just not as nice. Same repeating pattern but instead of gorgeous sakura leaves and pink we have tea leaves and green. It’s still a great wrapper though and so much more adult and inviting than most Kit-Kat wrappers.
Flavour wise it’s green tea, bitter but quite fresh and with a very refreshing after taste. It’s also not too sweet and, like the sakura matcha, surprisingly creamy. It’s a green tea Kit-Kat ultimately which are a dime a dozen but it’s a really good green tea Kit-Kat which can’t be said for most of them.
And it manages to avoid the soapy and waxy chocolate problem
Finally we have passion fruit.
The box is a really lovely colour. It’s a got gradient fade on it and is in various hues of yellow and orange but it just looks so warm, summery and inviting. It’s also not too busy for a change and I like the layout choice of using the trail of biscuit to lead your eye down from the Kit-Kat logo to the picture in the bottom right.
I do have two massive problems with it though.
Firsly the colour of the Kit-Kat in the picture is really close to the colour of the background so it kind of blends in. If it were me I’d have made the bottom right of the box purple so the Kit-Kat picture really pops. Also the pictures of the passion fruit are too small, not nearly delicious looking enough and they’re red? Now I’m not someone who use passion fruit all the time or anything but in my experience passion fruit are purple aren’t they? In fact i just did a google image search and got this back.
That is a decidedly purple fruit, am I not right? There are few things in life more purple. Grimace from McDonalds, The Phantom and Ronnie (y’know Purple Ronnie? Nope, just confused all non-brits. Google it Americans) maybe but a passion fruit hAs to rank highly on your top ten list of purple things. However, the one on the box is, at best, maroon. Not the colour of a passion fruit at all. And that seems like such a weird design choice considering purple and yellow are contrasting colours and go great on packaging together. I wonder if the artist is colour blind, or has some kind of fear of the colour purple. Maybe he read The Color Purple the novel and forever associates it with lesbians. Maybe he got so distracted thinking of lesbians that he couldn’t possibly paint a purple passion fruit. I mean a passion fruit is kind of yonnic (I just gave you an awesome new word peeps, it’s the vagina equivalent of phallic, use it and impress your friends) so I can see where the lesbian fantasies might start.
Do you ever stop, read what you just wrote and have a little cry? No, me either. I stop, read what I’ve written and shrug nonchalantly, like a Frenchman. I’m half cut and it’s a fucking Kit-Kat, you’re all lucky I’m this coherent.
Where was I? Oh yeah, maroon passion fruits.
I can only assume it was done so the fruit wouldn’t clash with the Kit-Kat logo but it’s not something they’ve ever been concerned with before.
The individual wrapper is even worse, look at it.
It’s plain yellow with a slight gradient, a Kit-Kat logo that is absolutely massive and loads and loads of text. No interesting or pleasurable aesthetic features just text on a plain background. What a terrible lazy effort.
Well, with packaging this bad, hopefully the Kit-Kat tastes better.
Unfortunately it isn’t great. For starters not only is it waxy, really waxy, waxier than any Kit-kat I’ve had recently but it is also weirdly gritty. I was prepared to put that down to the abuse it’s suffered in the heat but neither of the green tea flavours were gritty in the slightest and this is unpleasantly gritty to the extent that its hard to eat.
The flavour isn’t too bad. It starts off bland and then hits you with a really powerful hint of fresh, fruity passion fruit flavour. It is unmistakably passion fruit and if you like that flavour (and I do, I’m a massive passion fruit fan) it’s very realistic and very nice. And then it fades almost instantly back to blandness again.
It isn’t too sweet at least, being part of the “adult sweetness” range and that can be a problem for passion fruit flavoured products.
Overall I’d call this one a dud. Although it does a nice job of recreating the flavour of passion fruit the texture is simply disgusting and hard to get past.
Here is a pitch for a film that would never get made in a million years.
So I have this idea to do a film right, and it’s based on this kids TV show but we’re going to put swearing and violence in it that means a lot of the audience for that show can’t go and see it. Also when they do eventually see it they’re going to be confused because we’ve changed how all the characters look and act and their origins. And the reason we’ve changed it is that this is actually based on a comic book which barely 3000 people in the world read.
Oh and did I mention the main characters are anthropomorphic turtles? Yeah, turtles. Turtles with ninja weapons. And we’re going with suits and puppeteers to get the turtles so that means we need to hire martial artists who can perform stunts wearing heavy and constricting rubber turtle suits. Oh and it means our stars can’t really act for most of the film as y’know, they’re puppets.
You go pitch that to a Hollywood exec today and watch how fast the door hits your ass.
Nonetheless they made it, and it became the highest grossing independent film of all time.
Yes, THE HIGHEST GROSSING INDEPENDENT FILM OF ALL TIME!
Maybe that’s not such a surprise. TMNT was basically the biggest thing in kids entertainment from its debut until Power Rangers came along and dethroned it. Certainly it was in North America if not the whole world. The desire to milk the franchise for all its worth was logical and inevitable and so of course a film would get made.
But what was popular about TMNT in 1990 was the cartoon. Sure the comic was a moderate success by comic book standards (and a huge hit for independent black and white comic book standards) but for most people, and especially most children, the image of the turtles that they had in their heads (and also on their backpacks, lunchboxes and t-shirts) was that of the animated series.
So why not make an animated film? After all G. I. Joe and Transformers had done animated theatrical releases that had been moderate hits. In contrast He-Man had done a live action film that was a critical and commercial flop. A live action film might be slightly cheaper but you immediately run into the problem that your main characters are turtles and so have to be portrayed using actors in suits and expensive animatronics.
And why base it on the comics? The comics may be more mature and more serious but they’re also a lot less well known. You also quickly run into the problem that your audience is expected to take anthropomorphic turtle men seriously. That’s hard enough to do in animation or comics which both have a long tradition of animal protagonists but guys in rubber suits?
I’ve looked and looked but I can’t find any material about the decision making process that led to TMNT being made but however strange those decisions seem at first glance they worked. They absolutely worked.
So a brief plot summary. April O’Neil (Judith Hoag) is a reporter covering a recent crime wave in new York City, a crime wave that has the police baffled and the residents of Japan town (is that a thing in New York) reminded of a similar crime wave by The Foot Clan some years ago. Basically April thinks that the crimes are being committed by dun dun dun Ninjas!
And she’s sort of right. Actually the crimes are being committed by teenage delinquents being trained in the ways of Ninjitsu by the mysterious Shredder (James Saito but voiced by David McCharen). He sees April as a mouthy female that can ruin his plans (we never learn what his plans are incidentally other than steal stuff) so sends a team of Ninjas to shut her up. She is saved by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles who take her back to their lair when she faints. There she meets Splinter and learns their origin.
Shredder tracks her to the lair though and a team of Ninjas destroy it and capture Splinter. The turtles, with nowhere to go, end up crashing at April’s place whilst they plot how to rescue Splinter.
Shredder becomes obsessed with stopping the turtles since he recognises their ninja style as his own and perceives them as a threat. Through one of his clan named Danny (the delinquent son of April’s boss) he learns the Turtles hiding place and sends another group of ninjas to kill them.
An all out brawl ensues and Raphael is greatly injured. As a result April, The turtles and their ally Casey Jones flee out to the countryside to recover and recuperate. After some time they get a spirit vision from Splinter and go back to New York where they meet Shredder in an epic show down and defeat him.
Then Splinter makes a funny.
In many respects the film is a synthesis of the comics and the cartoon taking the best elements from both. The plot, for example, summarises the first 13 or 14 issues of the original comics, or at least those elements related to Shredder. The brutal ninja beatdown of a turtle (in the comics it was Leonardo but in the film it’s Raphael) the trip to the farmhouse and the first meeting of Raph and Casey Jones are all straight from the comics. Since the comics had much better realised plots than the cartoon using them as a story basis is a good idea.
The tone though is much closer to the cartoon. These turtles crack jokes and eat pizza. The fights are full of flips, pratfalls and slapstick moments. This is all for practical reasons of course. This is a PG film and you simply can’t get away with the kind of violence that was present in the original comics* (poor Raph and Leo will never get to stab anyone outside the comics I fear). You’re also working with actors in suits who have somewhat limited movement for what are supposed to be expert ninjas so going the slapstick route is the smart choice. And it works. The tone it resembles most closely is a Jackie Chan film. You have a serious plot with real consequences and emotions all broke up incredibly silly fight scenes full of slapstick that nonetheless are real fight scenes with people hitting each other. It’s not executed even a tenth as well as a Jackie Chan film of course but the fight scenes are still pretty enjoyable to watch and are one of the few parts of the film that still hold up today.
Character wise the film freely mixes and matches elements of both the comics and the cartoon, usually picking the best version in my opinion. The turtles have their colour coded costumes and love of pizza here but they’re treated as real people with real feelings not just catchphrase spouting jokers. Michaelangelo is the loveable goofball we know from the carton but Raph, rather than being the sarcastic wit he was in the cartoon is much closer to the angry lone wolf he is in the comics. Leonardo is the taciturn stoic he is in both versions. Donatello however gets the most changes; he’s voiced by Corey Feldman here (pretty much the highest profile celebrity in the film, which is saying something) and they make him more humorous and light hearted to match the casting. He’s basically portrayed as a slightly more intelligent Michaelangelo and other than fixing a van never gets to do anything particularly nerdy or intelligent. This is a shame since the turtles all have very distinct personalities in most versions and Donatello’s good humoured nerdiness makes a nice contrast with the other three. Making him into just another Michaelangelo makes both Donatello and Michaelangelo less effective.
The suits, which were provided and operated by the Jim Henson company, are pretty great. The design keeps the big friendly faces from the cartoon rather than perpetual scowls of the comic which helps sell the emotions of the main characters. The actors in the suits also do a great job, they avoid the big over the top gestures most performers in costume opt for and they perform some fairly impressive stunts and martial arts in what must be restrictive costuming.
April is a reporter because April being a reporter is such a good plot device it’s insane to waste it but she also owns an antique store like she does in the comics. She’s also less ditzy than the cartoon version. Oh and she wears normal clothes not a banana yellow jump suit, although the film makers do give a visual nod to the cartoon version.
Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) is pretty much directly lifted from the comics and is a much more nuanced and fun character than the cartoon version. They do play up his humour quite a bit in this, particularly by making him obsessed with sports, and especially hockey. I like that choice though since it produces some of the films best gags, for example;
Casey: Time for a new game (pulls out cricket bat) cricket!
Raphael: Cricket! Aw no not cricket! Nobody understands cricket. You gotta know what a crumpet is to play cricket.
Casey smacks him in the face and knocks him into a dustbin
Casey: Hmm, 6 runs.
Casey is easily my favourite character in the film since he’s basically a fifth turtle here but with the benefit of being able to see the actor’s face and Elias Koteas just has this great laid back smug delivery.
Splinter (Kevin Clash, most famous for being Elmo of all things but doing a pretty good impersonation of Peter Renarday from the cartoons) uses the (worse) original origin of being a rat that mimicked martial arts. Sigh. He’s basically a non-entity in the film since the puppet can barely move and he spends most of the plot tied to a wall.
By far the biggest set of changes apply to Shredder. Rather than being based on the comic or cartoon version he’s pretty much a third version here. His origin is mostly like the comics but simplified a bit. He’s still Oroku Saki and he’s still a foot clan ninja but his brother Oroku Nagi is removed entirely. Instead Saki is the one in love with Tang Shen and the one jealous of Hamato Yoshi causing Yoshi, Shen and Splinter to flee to New York. He tracks them down there, murders Yoshi and Shen and Splinter scars his face before fleeing.
Because his face is scarred he starts wearing a mask and because he’s in New York now he decides, what the hey, let’s start building a new Foot Clan by recruiting delinquent youths and training them in Ninjitsu.
There are things I like about movie Shredder and things that simply don’t work.
On the positive side I like his simplified origin. Comics Shredder had a weird double standard problem where it was wrong for him to want to seek revenge for his brother’s murder (presumably because his brother was a dick) but totally okay for Splinter to seek revenge for his master’s murder. The movie wisely side-steps this issue by removing Shredder’s brother entirely and making Saki the murderer of Yoshi. The move also constructs the initial encounter between Shredder and the Turtles much more elegantly. In the comics the turtles are specifically sent out to kill Shredder making them little better than Shredder is himself. In the movie Shredder attacks the turtles first and kidnaps Splinter. The Turtles have a much more heroic reason to go up against him, they want to rescue Splinter and they also want to stop him using children to commit crimes.
I also like his costume which mixes the super villainy of the cartoon version (purple in the colours and the cape) but also looks like somewhat realistic samurai armour. He’s also just portrayed as very threatening and powerful. The cartoon was a straight comedy so wanted a comedic villain but the movie is an action adventure film with a light hearted tone. You need a serious and threatening villain for that to work and James Saito’s Shredder is decent in that role able to dispatch all four turtles with ease when they finally face him.
My main problem with him though is that whilst he’s intimidating to look at he’s absolutely terrible in a fight. He’s a vague mysterious presence for the first two acts seen briefly and with his power and menace only hinted at. The film builds him up to be this great and terrible threat and, quite logically, builds to a final fight with the turtles. And that fight is lame. Utterly, irredeemably lame. Shredder basically draws a stick along the ground, the turtles get defeated by editing and then Splinter throws him off a rooftop with a stick. It is such a huge and disappointing anti-climax.
Also many people have drawn comparisons between Shredder and Darth Vader. And it’s true, they do look alike. But that’s because they’re two dudes in capes and stylised samurai helmets. But movie, don’t draw attention to this problem by having Shredder declare “I am your father,” to the turtles. It isn’t cute.
I also have to question his plan. His motivation is fairly low key, steal stuff, but his method is bizarre. Train gangs of teenaged delinquents to become ninjas and employ them to steal the stuff. I think the idea is that you have to get them young to make them effective ninja but teenaged delinquents are not exactly famous for their obedience or work discipline. What are the odds that one kid gets sick of being hit in the face by nunchucks all day and decides to rat the operation out to the cops? I mean its not like their imprisoned there. Danny seems to be able to come and go as he pleases. And wouldn’t you know it, Danny rats Shredder’s operation out to the cops. Next time Shredder use either real ninjas or robots.
This does lead to one of the film’s best scenes though with the ultimate underground hide out for teenaged kids. This thing has a half pipe, arcade cabinets, a pool table, a resident D.J. and all the cigars a 16 year old can smoke. This film makes joining the foot look pretty awesome. Hell I’m, 27 and I’m tempted to join if I get to spend my off hours playing arcade cabinets and pool.
The film has two other major characters not present in the comics, Danny and Testu.
Tetsu is Shredder’s right hand man and he’s basically someone to do all the acting in scenes between ninjas in full face masks and turtles in full face masks. Since all he has to do is look menacing and yell instructions he’s fine but he has no character to speak of.
Danny is the son of April’s boss. He’s probably the only character in this film with a real character arc (you could maybe argue Raphael and Casey but it would be a stretch) since he starts out as a member of the foot clan and after meeting Splinter and the Turtles decides to repent. Ultimately he redeems his former bad actions by leading the turtles to Shredder’s base. Now in most films the character with the arc is the protagonist but Danny is barely in the film at all and we don’t get any scenes that give us any sense of why he joined the foot in the first place or what leads him to realise that stealing is wrong. Which is a good thing because the kid is a terrible actor. His range runs from mumbling and scowling to confused mumbling and scowling. He’s immediate death to any scene he shows up in. Worse he is given the challenge of spending most of his scenes acting opposite a largely immobile rat puppet. He is not up to this challenge.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Movie is ultimately not very good but considering the challenges inherent in adapting TMNT into live action it is miraculous that the film is as good as it is. The plot is utter bobbins, the fights are nothing special, the final fight is a huge anti-climax and it lacks anything in the realm of character growth or proper character arcs. Nonetheless it possesses a sort of goofy charm, there are some good gags in here and there’s just enough of a plot that it feels brisk rather than flabby. It’s a perfectly affable way to spend an hour and a half.
But as a kid I hated this film because of how different it was to the cartoon. I couldn’t get over the lack of the van or the blimp, or Kraang or Bebop and Rocksteady. Or why it was literally so dark, or who the hell these teenaged gang members were. However, I was an idiot as a kid and now, whilst the execution is lacking the conception of TMNT in this film is actually the one I prefer. Take an action adventure spine with real emotions and consequences but rather than wallowing in angst, gore and violence keep the tone light and breezy. Have the characters quip and fight with ridiculous slap stick moves but have them occasionally need to grit their teeth and get serious to put down a real threat like Shredder.
Oh yeah, and Sam Rockwell is in this film. Yes, that Sam Rockwell, the guy from Moon and Iron Man 2. See if you can spot him.
Next on Teenage Mutant Ninja Origins we’re going to look at the 2003 animated series but i have seriously underestimated the amount of research it’s going to take to review this so this feature is probably going to go on the backburner for a few weeks whilst I plow through the important episodes of the first four series.
*Although actually the film was widely criticised for how violent a PG it was. To today’s eyes it’s pretty tame stuff but at the time the use of martial arts in any children’s entertainment was considered controversial. Evidently the producers took this seriously enough that the turtles basically never use their weapons in the immediate sequel and the slapstick gets toned up even further. It also got heavily criticised for the language. There are at least three very loud “damns” in the movie and one scene where I swear a Japanese character says “kuso,” the Japanese word for shit. He kind of hisses it so it might just be the actor hissing but I listened to the scene a few times and I swear he’s saying shit under his breath.
The Island of Dr Moreau (1996)
mummyboon 
