So This is a type of blog I wrestled with whether or not I should do for a long time. I consider myself very well versed in cartoons, knowing all sorts of cartoon history and growing up with the various Animated Television shows of Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Disney from the 90s to the present. I am of course very nostalgic for the shows I grew up with, that said always love watching New franchises over any reboots of those as I highly value Creativity. That all being said I didn't want to do reviews just for the sake of it, as I felt that was a bit cliché, so I'm reserving this for ones that inspired me to do so. So I Just watched a new Show on Disney called Amphibia and it did just that.
So Amphibia is a brand new cartoon from Disney, so I should probably talk about my feel for the state of cartoons on that channel. Presently Amphibia is one of their only cartoons thats an original franchise, as opposed to the Ducktales reboot, Milo Murphy which takes place in the Phineas and Ferb series and several cartoons based on Disney Movies like Tangled, Big Hero 6 and Star Wars. Now none of those other shows I listed our Bad, in fact I know Ducktales at least is really good. But my point is if you look at the small amount of original series they had recently like Gravity Falls, Star VS The Forces of Evil and Wander over Yonder, you see 3 fantastic and popular cartoons which all sadly ended relatively early compared to most Cartoon Network shows for example. See this has me worried because Amphibia season 1, despite being 20 episodes long, was put out in only 5 weeks rather than 20, thats twice as fast a rate as the 4th season of Star was put out, which makes it feel like it isn't being treated as a big deal. Hence Forth, part of this review is going to be trying to show how truly good this show is.
So to give the general spoiler free description of this show, Amphibia is about a teenage girl named Anne who, after acquiring a mysterious wooden music box, gets sucked into an alternate dimension called Amphibia, a swamp like dimension inhabited by anthropomorphic amphibians. She then gets taken in by the Planter family and together they search for a way to get Anne back home, and go on some fun adventures along the way.
So with that outta the way lets look at what this show really offers. So this show is really well executed in all regards in my opinion, there was not a single bad episode, character or plot, and the world building was very interesting and well done.
Speaking of the setting specifically, I LOVE the style this show is in, the backgrounds, architecture art and designs are all very reminiscent of classical american art from places like the Bayou or Everglades.
This is very fitting given the amphibious swampland setting and is actually kinda genius due to how it makes a marsh not only not look gross but beautiful. The Music on the other hand uses a lot of country style instruments and is beautiful and soothing yet still adventurous in a manner I have not seen done this well since Over the Garden Wall, and of course matches perfectly.
A lot of cool elements exist in this world ranging from the customs of the townsfolk to the way the government is set up, to real dangers of this world like giant insects, thieves, cannibals, mutants, magic and more. In fact I would say the way that this show is written is most similar to Gravity Falls, In that a lot of the episodes are these cool and fun adventures using various mystic elements of the show, having lots of really envelop pushing humor along the way, and the rest of the episodes are related to the main plot of unraveling the mysteries of the Music Box and trying to get Anne back home, these eps being filled with lots of mystery, twists, incorporation of past episodes that you didn't think were important, and some really good character moments, seriously the last episode of the season had me crying.
One thing in particular I want to praise this shows writing for is how, despite being about a girl who gets trapped in another dimension inhabited by beings who have a totally different culture and don't even know what a human is, it doesn't fall into relying on Fish Out Of Water stories. Anne adapts to this place pretty dang quickly, and a vast majority of the plots actually revolve around Anne setting new trends There which is much more fun and interesting.
So what about characters? Well there are 4 Main characters in this show known collectively as the Planters. Anne, our lead, is smart, adventurous and a bit of a rebel but unlike other characters like this is also largely responsible to the point she's very self aware when she's going too far, and even when she does end up doing so will assuredly own up to it which I think makes her feel much more real and the show overall never tedious. Sprig is Anne's best friend and the Wander too her Sylvia (If you get the reference you're awesome), he's very sweet, happy-go-lucky and loyal. Hop-Pop is Sprig's grandfather and is the wise old mentor figure for this show, and honestly he's the best execution on that trope I've seen in a Disney show. Lastly there is Polly who is Sprig's little sister, in fact so little she's still a tadpole, but she's also a super funny tomboyish snark who somewhat reminds me of Louise from Bob's Burgers if you're familiar with that.
Past that this show actually has a surprisingly strong supporting cast, a lot of fully fleshed out characters who end up having one episode dedicated to them and a lot of them teach really great lessons. Some standout Supporting characters to me were Maddie, Wally, Ivy & Mrs. Croaker. Also I can't really talk about the Villains without Spoiling stuff but MAN that was such a smart and clever take with them that this show does.
In Summary I think this is my Favorite show currently on Disney, its funny, its got a unique setting the characters are interesting and likable and the plot is getting really really good, leaving me genuinely excited to see where they take it. I Highly recommend this cartoon to anyone looking for a new one, the whole first season is out and I think watching it would be a treat.
Welp, decided to take another
note from fellow blogger, Imp, and make my first one of these. And what better
way to start it than with my favorite series of all time, Skullgirls. So the
goal of this type of blog is to find out what counter strategies are most
effective in the tiers of a verse. To do this you must find characters whose
powers best allow them to counter the verses strong suits while capitalizing on
their shortcomings. Most importantly characters you choose must have physical
stats equal to or less than the characters of the tier, as having greater stats
is not a strategy. So without further ado, here's how to be OP in Skullgirls.
City Scale Threat:
So this is the most common tier
of the verse, almost all the playable characters and a large amount of the NPCs
fall into this category. Characters in this tier are Small City Level and
Hypersonic in speed so That is the hard limit for counters.
Now the big problem when facing
off with characters in this tier is how disproportionately haxy the verse is
for its power. Numerous characters can manipulate Spacetime, able to stop time,
time travel, create portals, teleport and even spatially separate beings. These
are diverse powers that would allow characters to counteract speed, among other
things.
The tier also has numerous
offensive hax, several characters have soul manipulation, characters like Brain
Drain have mind control, Double can copy other peoples powers and trap people
in her pocket dimension, Peacock can erase beings from existence and Cerebella
can reflect attacks and manipulate matter on the molecular level. As far as
defensive powers goes, numerous characters have regeneration abilities, Ms. Fortune
of which even down to the cellular level, and characters like Squigly can
become intangible.
So what are some popular
strategies that can affect this verse? Well that in itself is tricky due to the
verse itself having a lot of counter strategies. Due to the Spacetime
manipulation, one would think Stealth would be a good counter, BUT numerous
characters also have super senses, Peacock’s of which has some SO potent that
only the absolute highest tiers of stealth have any chance.
Numerous of the characters can
be manipulated, so an intelligent/manipulator strategy could be effective, but
in term, numerous other characters are manipulators and geniuses, so that's not
gonna be very effective either.
Another big problem is
characters like Peacock and Marie who's powers also let them vastly increase the
amount of foes you have to fight, which will again be major trouble.
All this said every series has
its weaknesses and this is no exception. One major weakness I notice in
Skullgirls is the verse having an over reliance on Technology. Science and
Technology are deeply rooted into the verse's offense and defense, with over
half the playable cast having some and a large portion of those going as far as
being full on Cyborgs or even Androids. Which brings me to my First Counter
Pick.
Royal Pain:
Surprisingly enough Royal Pain
from the Sky High series would be a pretty dangerous villain for the verse. She
has massive technopathy abilities that would let her psychically dismantle,
take control of or even copy the weapons, armor or even Bodies of numerous of
the characters and incorporate it into her own arsenal. With this over half the
roster would be down almost immediately, and the other half would have a hell
of a time dealing with her newly acquired armory of attacks. Her suit already
allows her to fly and blast lightning, as well as go toe to toe with characters
like Will Stronghold, who could fly over 9000 M/S and catch a school falling
with the kinetic energy of 4 Megatons. And all this isn’t even counting her
most powerful weapon, The Pacifier, a specialized Rifle that reverts its target
into a baby, a hax no one in the verse has resistance to.
All this being said, Royal Pain
is not resistant to Mind control, Existence Erasure, BFR or Soul Hax, while
she’s more than got the power to deal with those that have that quickly, this
only makes her challenging, not broken. A broken character would be able to
resist all their hax AND offer new ones not seen in the verse.
Zasalamel:
This Brings me to Zasalamel
from the Soulcalibur series. Zasalamel has the same Hypersonic small city stats
of the verse but backs it up by being a very powerful sorcerer. The Main
obstacle with taking on Zasalamel is his curse that resulted in him having an
inability to Die, through this curse he can regenerate from being blown to
bits, as well as resist all kinds of Soul and Mind manipulation. With that
alone the verse is already running low on things that could stop him, but then
you consider that in the event Zasalamel IS slain, he will simply be
reincarnated with all the same memories and an identical body, making
permanently killing him Actually impossible. In addition to that, Zasalamel in
all his centuries of life has acquired Numerous helpful magic abilities that
really round out his arsenal to take this verse down. He’s got numerous of this
verse’s best powers like Time Stops, Dimensional BFR, Super senses, summoning,
telekinesis and multiple forms of mental manipulation, as well as a bunch of
abilities Not seen in the verse like Absorption, and Poison manipulation.
All this being said, it is
possible for Zasalamel to lose fights, while his reincarnation ability means
he’s gonna win eventually, it could potentially take a long time to do so if he
has to use it, because at the end of the day its very hard to not put yourself
in harms way in a verse this hax so long as you have a physical body, thus I’m
brought to my last and best pick.
X.A.N.A.:
X.A.N.A. from the Code Lyoko
series would be unstoppable in the Skullgirls series. This powerful, hyper
intelligent A.I. is a digital being and therefore has no physical form to risk,
and is immune to all the series’s Hax due to flatout not having a mind or soul
to attack. Combat wise X.A.N.A. is the best at both worlds, it can possess not
only any form of machinery, but also going as far as inanimate objects and
sentient organic beings. In addition to that X.A.N.A. can rewind time, copy
powers, amass armies of robots, turn beings to stone, manipulate sound allowing
it to attack Squigly’s intangible sound form, erase beings from existence
stopping any of their regeneration, and he can digitize people, something no
one in SG has shown resistance to. And even if they did find a way to somehow
attack him, X.A.N.A.’s own Regen is able to come back from deletion. There is
nothing the verse could do to stop this thing.
Country Scale Threat:
This is the tier of a few of
the most powerful characters to ever walk the Skullgirls Earth, including Queen
Nancy Renoir after she became a full fledged Skullgirl, as well as Eliza’s true
form The Crimson Scourge. Characters in this tier are country level and gain
speed boosts putting them roughly in the Massively Hypersonic range. Powers
include power absorption, creating armies of the dead, life draining, flight,
Umbrakinesis, Hemokinesis, high end regeneration and soul hax. Characters in
this tier also do not rely on Technology, so that can no longer be relied on to
score an advantage. But what Are some weaknesses one could exploit?
Well due to there being less
characters In this tier there are actually far less hax one has to deal with.
One could theoretically just bring a lot more versatility than them and become
overpowered that way.
Grimnir:
This brings me to my first
pick, Grimnir from Magicka. Grimnir has insanely high versatility able to
summon force fields that can block up to planet level attacks, Summon Zombie
Armies to combat the Skullgirls own, as well as blast the Skullgirl with raw Life
energy which should be able to harm her as an undead. Similarly he can take
down the Logia Crimson Scourge with raw Entropy. Grimnir would likely not even
need to do these however as he can also trap them in an endless string of
mental battles, brainwash people, slow down time, teleport, turn invisible and
cancel out opposing magic.
Past that however, Grimnir is
slower than them, only able to keep up via massively hypersonic reaction speed,
and couldn’t survive being hit by them. While he is extremely clever and likely
would succeed in playing keep away until he wins, he’s still in immediate
danger from their abilities. A better option would be to have comparable power
as well as situationally overpowered abilities to stop them, such as.
Gray Fullbuster:
Gray is One of the more
powerful members of the Fairy Tail Guild, being just as fast as characters in
this tier and while he's not quite as raw powerful, his abilities are very
geared towards fighting them. Gray has multiple forms of extremely powerful Ice
Manipulation which can easily coat whole cities and mountains in Ice, Allowing
him to fight armies of zombies and large kaiju sized entities. Not only is Ice
a Great weapon to use on the logia Crimson Scourge, but Gray’s Lost Ice Shell
which allows him to Freeze anything solid, including those Heavily resistant to
Ice attacks should more than guarantee he could freeze her solid, either
defeating her, or reducing her to Sekhmet, who could not contend with Gray
directly. Against the Full Powered Skullgirls, Gray has something perfect, Ice
Demon Slayer Magic. This magic grants Gray Super senses, Resistance to the
attacks of beings created from dark magic, the ability to negate the durability
of beings made from dark magic, and the ability to freeze beings mind and
soul.
Gray with all this is extremely
well equipped to take on these characters, and it would be extremely difficult
for them to beat him in a fight for sure, but him losing is still a possibility
due to the inability to remove the threat they pose to him. For that you’d need
to go with my best pick.
Mew Mew’s:
Literally Any of the Mew Mew’s
from the Tokyo Mew Mew series would be totally broken not only in this tier but
skullgirls as a whole, seriously if they were just a little slower I easily
would have put them in the last tier but here we are. Despite this tier now
largely outclassing them in power, it matters approximately 0% due to the Mew
Mew’s primary ability, Mew Power. Mew Power is a hax that regresses living
things on a genetic level back into their natural state. This ability removes
any form of artificial enhancement to beings and can even heal past injuries
and resurrect the dead. In a verse like skullgirls where almost all the
characters were normal humans who merged with a parasite or got cybernetic
implants or drank a super serum or something, this would basically just be a massive
Undo button that would take away all of their powers, leaving them helpless and
doomed. Mew Power should easily revert a Skullgirl, either back to a normal
girl or at least a pile of bones. Against Eliza this wouldn’t be perfect as,
though it would separate Sekhmet from her and remove her acquired power,
Sekhmet is one of the few parasites that CAN fight without a host. That being
said her power is reduced to the Mew Mew’s level, and given the Mew Mew’s have
a few other awesome powers to use, I see little reason they wouldn’t beat her.
If I had to pick a particular Mew Mew to use it would either be Zakuro due to
being the most skilled fighter, or Pudding for her handy immobilization powers.
Godly Scale Threat:
Lastly following a MASSIVE jump
in power we have the Trinity, the three goddesses of the Skullgirl series, and
some of the most powerful beings in all fighting games. The Trinity are the
embodiment of abstract concepts of the multiverse, they exist in a realm not
contained in any universe and craft Avatars of themselves to enter the
universes around them. The Skullgirls cosmology has always been described as a
Multiverse, Issac in particular stated it contains infinite universes and
timelines, and these gods manipulate all of that like puppeteers. They created
the Skull Heart a sentient, self regenerative artifact that Warps Reality, and
did so so casually they literally made infinite of these things across the
multiverse. Venus, the goddess of Space is all space that exists, her true form
is stated to be so large it defies comprehension and if one sees it they have
already been engulfed, there is no safe place to fight her as the very fabric
of the universe unravels around her. She can attack omnidirectionally, control
all of space and warp reality itself. Her sister Aeon, is the goddess of time,
she literally IS all the time in the multiverse, she knows everything that ever
was or will be. She can destroy timelines with a thought, manipulate time in
numerous incomprehensible ways, pull alternate versions of whomever shes
fighting to battle for her, and manipulate sand which is coarse rough,
irritating and gets everyWAIT…
And worst of all we haven’t
even mentioned Their mother. Mother Trinity is the queen of all reality and god
of the Skullgirls verse, almost nothing is known about how truly powerful she
is, and in a way that is even more frightening.
Sooooooo, what could POSSIBLY
stop these beings? Well one would need to have High Universal/Low Multiversal
power to say the least, extremely high speed to deal with the inescapable
nature of the trinity and some hyper advanced Spacetime and reality warping
resistance. And that’s just to be on their level, past that you would need to
have something to kill them with. So what is something that can resist heavy
space time manipulation, and take on multiversal gods?
The One Being:
The One Being is the most
powerful character in the Mortal Kombat series, as well as the Actual most
powerful character in fighting games. The One Being eats universes and Elder
gods that make and maintain them for breakfast and was only ever stopped when the
Elder Gods managed to seal him in ancient powerful relics and separate him into
multiple vast universes. Even after that however he was not truly stopped as
even in that state was able to manipulate powerful villains across the MK
series to merge these universes into one so he would be set free. The One Being
is resistant to massive amounts of hax, even being above the Titan Kronika,
keeper of time, and mother of gods, who has much of the Trinity’s same
abilities. In addition to that, The One Being has absorption powers on the
Trinity’s level, which there is Not evidence they could resist.
This is all well and good,
however the Trinity are even more powerful than the elder gods who, to be fair
took a lot of time and planning, managed to seal him away. It Is still
theoretically possible for the Trinity to win, what we want is someone they
would have no way to defeat.
Yukari Yakumo:
Hailing from Touhou Project,
Yukari is one of the most powerful and dangerous Yokai in the entire series.
While she isn’t as Raw Powerful as the Goddesses, she has heavy amounts of
control and resistance over the Spacetime continuum due to her primary power,
Border Manipulation. Border manipulation is an astonishingly diverse hax in the
series that lets its user switch the borders of anything, including vague
concepts. In the Touhou series, conceptual borders are the fundamental
boundaries between everything, space and time, night and day, life and death,
without these borders the universe would exist as one singular thing, and did
before the gods separated everything with names and concepts, and THIS is what
she is manipulating. Through both this and her insane super genius mind, Yukari
could make the Gods fictional to her, Seal them away, replace their minds, turn
them into antimatter, or even Erase them from Existence. She can even manipulate the boarder of possibility and impossibility to completely take away all their abilities. Yukari cannot be
destroyed by Venus’s sheer size due to her ability to come back from death or even being erased down to a concept and
just to top that off, she can turn intangible. She can see into the future to counter Aeons own precog, and
she can make other versions of herself to counter Aeon trying that as well.
All that said, even she isn’t
the best character in this situation.
Entropy:
Entropy is an almighty
villainess from the Freedom Force series and easily the best possible character
I can think of to Stop these Goddesses. Being the now literal abstract
embodiment of Entropy, she is a powerful reality warper capable of deleting
entire timelines, making her a match for the trinity stat wise. First and
foremost, she has INSANE resistance to spacetime manipulation, to the point she
was able to battle against Time Master, a multiversal entity who controls all
of spacetime and has every ability Aeon and Venus do, and not only held her own
but matched him completely in power. And to top that off she has all of the
most dangerous abilities these Gods dread, she has an active defense that
absorbs all attacks that come her way, even including mental attacks, the
ability to seal enemies into stasis, Godly Regeneration, Flight, the ability to
gain resistance to new attacks once they are used on her and reality warping
that can let her completely turn the tide of a fight by swapping possibility with
impossibility. And then there's the Icing on the cake that really sold me on
this pick, Entropy, true to her name, can drain the energy of beings down to
nothing on such a scale that the Trinity couldn’t hope to resist it. She would
literally make the gods of this multiverse, suffer a true Heat Death.
So this is a bit different from my normal foray. I recently did a blog on Sadako from the Ring series, and due to the film Sadako VS Kayako, had to watch through the Ju-On/The Grudge series for scaling purposes. I had never seen that series before, but as a horror fan, I had always heard that it is Good, so was excited to check it out. If you can tell from the blog's title I was Really Disappointed in what I saw, and if you know me, you know thats a pretty big rarity indeed. Why is this though? Naturally theres a lot of factors that contribute to this but a lot of it stems from one thing, the villain.
So The Grudge, as I will call it now for the remainder of the post for simplicity, is very similar to an american slasher movie, much more so than a haunting movie which is what one would expect. Its got an original evil, a singular villain, and a bodycount of characters that builds throughout the film.
When writing a Slasher Villain there is normally two schools of thought, the left side being malicious villains, the right one being sympathetic villains. Malicious slasher villains are evil, always were, always will be. They are sick, twisted and absolutely love killing and tormenting, its their favorite thing. These villains are real 'Love to Hate' types, they generally either have really strong Intimidation like Michael Myers, a really strong entertaining presence and showmanship like Ghostface, and in some cases Both like Freddy Krueger.
Freddy in particular, even before he got his powers, was a child murdering serial killer, and after was a godly powerful and pure evil psycho who would kill people just for the fun of it, and made the whole movie both entertaining and terrifying with his big personality and creatively f*cked up ways of doing so.
On the other hand you have sympathetic slasher villains. Sympathetic villains are ones who on some level you can relate to, understand or see the humanity within. Even though sympathetic villains do horrible things to people that didn't deserve it, you can on some level still feel bad for them, and sometimes even subconsciously root for them. These characters tend to need to be provoked into killing people, normally because they have rules they exist by and go after those that violate those rules. Jason Voorhees is the most popular example of this, he was mentally and physically handicapped, he drowned as a friendless child, he never hurt anyone until literally seeing his mother murdered. After which he killed those responsible and decided to kill anyone who enters camp crystal lake, the area where so much wrong was done to him. The rule you violate is entering his territory, and while that might not be a good justification for killing someone, its Jason's rules and they broke it, and in later films they knew the risks.
So lets move on to how this relates to Kayako, so lore wise Kayako is clearly trying to be a sympathetic villain. Her husband brutally murdered her and drowned her son, afterwards they both came back as vengeful spirits, and she killed her husband and put a curse on her house were anyone who enters it dies. Kayako didn't start out as a bad person, she had something horrible happen to her, Clearly We are Suppose to feel bad for her, and she has the rule of only killing people that go into her house similar to Jason's. The problem? Kayako is far too much of a malicious monster for us to feel bad for.
Lets talk about why She fails at being a sympathetic first off, Kayako kills anyone who enters her home......and also family members of those people....friends of those people...random people who just happen to be near them when they die....people who talk to people shes after on the phone....people who talk to THOSE people on the phone....people who just look at her house....people who just hear about what happened....people who enter into other places where she's killed people and the list goes on and on. Kayako is super inconsistent with her own rules for killing people and clearly intentionally tries to stretch her net as wide as she can to kill as many people as possible. This is seen even further when she will do things like intentionally lure people into her house, like enrolling her ghost child in school and not having him go, eventually resulting in concerned teachers going there, among other things. So no I absolutely do NOT feel bad for her, Kayako doesn't want justice or understanding or peace, Kayako is a spiteful bitch that just wants to Kill random people like what was done to her. Jason NEVER lured people into Crystal Lake, Jason even when the people he's after left Crystal Lake didn't needlessly kill other people, Hell with Jason most people freak out at him cause he's scary looking but Kayako can look like a normal woman so most people who first see her are actually nice to her and try to help her, which may or may not make Jason hesitate. Not Kayako.
Okay so if she fails as a sympathetic villain, maybe she's at least an awesome malicious villain? Ha, funny story about that. Kayako has neither the intimidation nor the entertaining presence of other malicious villains. Kayako doesn't speak and doesn't offer much interesting in her ways of killing her victims, heck a great deal of the time it actually doesn't even show us the kill itself. Yes when Kayako shows up the people she's after are pretty f*cked, but we knew they were f*cked from the beginning cause its been made clear from the title of the segment of the movie that she's going to kill them, because all The Grudge movies are actually presented as a interconnected group of shorter films with the title being the name of the victim. That in and of itself makes another problem, the movies are predictable, part of what made Freddy's attacks so interesting is not only how intricate and surreal the dreams were, but also the characters could beat him, its possible for Freddy to lose and we get to see if they have what it takes to survive. No one survives in The Grudge movies, no ones safe, I feel apathetic towards these characters cause theres no mystery to solve here, no reason to get invested or care, they all only exist to die. Through this, these movies I find strangely mirror a lot of the problems I have with another popular horror genre,
The Zombie Genre. I really dislike the vast majority of Zombie movies, which is surprising due to how much of a horror buff I am but bare with me. Zombies aren't scary, Zombies aren't interesting, Zombies are just generic unintelligent ghouls without reason. Zombie movies are generally two things, boring and depressing. Like The Grudge, they portray a bleak hopeless world, where characters exist and mostly do boring stuff and get worked up before inevitably being coldly killed by some unspeaking ghoul, until there is no one left, The Grudge and the Zombie virus even spread from person to person. The two series are also both guilty of shock horror and trying to dive into the inner evils of humanity, throwing in random things like child murder or suicide for seemingly no other reason than to be Edgy and hard to watch.
Now Obviously this is all just my opinion, The Grudge series is popular, and the Zombie Genre is obviously huge so there are people that love it clearly, and I am happy they do, I actually can see the Grudge being really popular among Zombie fans as its the same kind of thing but in a really unique way. But there is one question about my preference I do have to answer.
Why do I dislike Kayako when I really like Sadako? Its a good question and its pretty easy to answer, Sadako is basically Kayako done correctly. Sadako too is suppose to be a sympathetic villain, and she pulls this off, she was ostracized for her psychic powers, was trapped down a well for 30 years by her adoptive father and failed to escape over and over before dying without ever being saved. After that she created a cursed videotape that kills anyone who views it in one week, with the only way to prevent this being to make a copy of the tape and show someone else, who then has to do the same thing. Sadako through this has a strict code she follows and it is derived from her character motivation, no one knew she was down in that well, and she want the whole world to know, to know what happened to her and how she suffered, thats what she cares about, not necessarily killing. Even some of her more questionable actions are still all in service of this goal, as are times she actually helped the characters solve her mystery with hints. Kayako doesn't care if people know her story, in fact thats one of the MANY reasons she might kill you, and has done to other people exactly what was done to her for no reason.
Villains, not just horror villains, but all villains are judged on 3 bases to me. How Intimidating they are, How Compelling they are, and How Entertaining they are. The best villains in fiction are often really high in 2 or even all 3 of these. Kayako honestly struck out in all 3 for me. Thank you for reading.
Ah, it
feels good to get back to Horror, and ya know what I haven't done before?
Delved into some good old fashioned Japanese Horror for a blog! Japanese Horror
has a lot of differences to Western Horror, and sometimes different is a super
refreshing thing. One thing the two subgenres have in common however? Making
Fantastic villains that are fun to analyze in VS, and boy do we have a treat
today! So bust out your old VHS player and turn out the lights, because we’re
doing Sadako.
To
briefly Address canon, the Novel’s will not be used as, despite being the
original source, it presents a completely different version of the character
than the iconic one everyone knows. As Far as Films are concerned, Initially in
a vain similar to my Dracula Blog I was going to Talk about the Japanese,
American and Korean film canons and composite together in the end, but then
realized there was no point in doing that as the Japanese one has all the best
feats and every power the other 2 have plus more. So this is Strictly the
Sadako from the Japanese Film Canon.
Background
Sadako
Yamamura was born after a woman with low level psychic powers named Shizuko
Yamamura conceived with a powerful Ocean Onryō, a type of Japanese Spirit.
Shortly after her birth, Sadako’s mother Shizuko was discovered as a Seer, or
possessor of Psychic abilities by a man named Dr. Ikuma, who decided to prove
the existence of Psychic abilities with her aid.
The two
gained notoriety when she managed to correctly predict the eruption of the Mt.
Minara Volcano, and eventually lead to them becoming romantically involved.
Before long Dr. Ikuma had organized a whole public display of Shizuko’s psychic
abilities to members of the press. They would each draw symbols in sealed
envelopes, and she would draw the exact same symbol live on stage only for it
to be correct each time.
Eventually
However, one of the press members accused her of being a fake, using cheap
tricks to give the illusion she had powers. This caused the rest of the crowd
to rally behind him and cause a massive scene.
Overwhelmed
with frustration and distress from behind the curtain, Sadako accidentally
unlocked her own psychic abilities and caused the accuser to suffer a fatal
heart attack.
Naturally
the press release was a disaster, tabloids speculated Shizuko was the cause of
this, calling her an evil witch, eventually driving her to throw herself into
the very volcano she predicted would erupt. Afterward, Sadako and her adoptive
father Dr. Ikuma moved to a secluded area outside of Izu. Devastated by the
death of her mother she felt she had caused, Sadako used a great deal of her
psychic power to separate herself from the vast majority of her power.
This
created 2 Sadako’s, The Light Side, or Sadako’s human half, which contained all
her memories, reason and personality, and The Dark Side, or her Onryō half,
which contained all her raw power, instinct and aggression. Due to being
Extremely Dangerous, Dr. Ikuma locked the dark side away, drugging it to inhibit
its own power, while the light side of Sadako was allowed to go to school and
have a normal life.
In
school Sadako was a quiet and kind girl, who wanted to make friends and had a
particular affinity for the arts, and so joined her schools Drama Club, trying
out for the play. Unfortunately unbeknownst to her, Sadako’s Dark Side had an
innate desire to protect the Light one, and without a moral compass, would
occasionally escape and remove anyone who was an obstacle to Sadako getting the
starring role.
Eventually,
the deaths caused pandemonium and lead to Sadako being blamed and soon she was
beaten to death by an angry mob while wearing her dress for the play. Right
after this, the mob learned of Sadako’s Dark Side and Drove to Dr. Ikuma’s
house intending to destroy that too.
They
made the mistake however, of bringing the good Sadako’s body with them.
Sadako’s dark half resurrected the light half and forcibly merged back together
with her becoming whole again.
With
her power now unrestricted, Sadako quickly slew the entire attacking mob in
self defense before breaking down in tears at the horror.
Unable
to bare the horror she causes, Dr. Ikuma poisoned Sadako and attacked her with
a knife, throwing her body down the well in their backyard before sealing it
shut, deeming her a tragic sacrifice so that no one else had to die. There was
one giant problem with plan however…
Sadako
wasn’t dead. It was here Sadako reminded for decades, kept alive by her own
Onryō powers, she tried to climb out of the well hundreds of thousands of
times, breaking off every one of her fingernails in her futile attempts of
escape. She wanted desperately for someone, somewhere to come and save her, but
no one ever did.
Left
with no other option, Sadako gave into her Onryō side and separated her soul
from her dying body, sealing it in an alternate dimension. This made Sadako
into a full Onryō but different from conventional ones. Sadako’s soul is still
living and exists in her own dimension, rather than being a dead spirit
residing and drawing power from the Demonic Abyss. This essentially made Sadako
a Living Onryō, who had a very unique powerset to other Onryō of her series.
Anyway
as an Onryō Sadako is a much more malevolent force and decided to take her
vengeance on the world. One day when a boy left a VHS tape recording on a TV
stuck on a station playing only static, Sadako sent visuals into the tape,
creating her infamous Cursed Video.
The
videos contents are a series of cryptic images that tell Sadako’s tragic life
story in a artistic and disturbing manor. Upon watching this video, it’s viewer
becomes marked by Sadako curse, and exactly 7 days later...
They
would Die. The only way to avoid Death after watching the video would be to
assist Sadako by showing the video to more people, who then in turn would have
to do the same thing, and it would continue in a never ending….Ring.
Over
the years since then Sadako has grown much, Much more powerful to the point
that now in her world Onryō’s are a common knowledge fact and scientific study
that is taught in school. And Characters have used both anti Onryō weaponry and
even other Onryō’s to fight her, but Sadako always emerged victorious in the
end.
One
time she chased characters into the Demonic Abyss thanks to our main characters
using technology to get there, where Sadako was sealed there by the
Bunshinsaba. This however turned out to be a very stupid plan as she then ended
up absorbing the essence of the Demonic Abyss and gaining access to base Onryō
powers she didn't previously possess.
But
even that pales in comparison to the time she defeated Bunshin’s Yokai form by
absorbing the soul of a previous Emperor to become part Demon. Sadako is a very
interesting horror villain, but when one comes to understand what she truly is,
you see just how terrifying she can be.
Personality
In
Life, Sadako was a very gentle, compassionate and intelligent girl. She enjoyed
swimming, spirituality, and numerous artistic pursuits, especially acting. She
was often very shy or scared around people, given how her equal but opposite
other half had all the abrasiveness. But she was quick to trust and form
attachments with people when they did approach her. After being persecuted and
trapped down a well for decades, leaving her forgotten with no one coming
to save her however, she became much more angry and cynical at the world's
cruelty. She made her cursed tape partly to take vengeance on the world that forgot
her, but that actually isn’t her main goal. Sadako simply wants her story to be
known, for the world to know her story and what it did to her, for her never to
be forgotten again. This is why the only way to avoid death after seeing her
story is to help her show it to More people, and also why she will often assist
those marked in solving that riddle. This makes Sadako a lawful evil type of
villain, as she has a strict code that everyone has a choice to spread her
story or die, you can even argue if this was taken to the logical extreme and
the last people to see her story don’t have anyone to show it too, that in her
eyes they deserve to die, as they were the last to know so must have cared
least. Sadako also will not tolerate those that would use her for their own
benefit. One time some people used her Cursed Video to show to people they hate
so she would kill them, Outraged by this Sadako went after the murderer’s
herself.
Intellect
& Skills
Sadako
is an extremely talented and skilled Nensha user who is very highly adaptable
and quick at learning. When faced with numerous new problems like entering into
the Demonic Abyss or encountering anti Onryō weaponry, they generally only
worked against her a single time and she’d already have figured out a way to
combat it by the time it was tried again. Sadako likes to perform very
intricate and artistic forms of Death on her opponents when she is able. When
up against someone on equal footing to her however, she tends to put that aside
and go all out, attacking seemingly like a savage animal, but actually being really
strategic, attacking from numerous unexpected angles and taking great advantage
of her esoteric abilities. Outside of Tactics such as those, Sadako is raw
intelligent enough to be able to completely rewrite both technological and even
genetic code, and outwit even the smartest telepaths of the series.
Powers
Sadako
draws the vast majority of her powers from a natural Psychic Energy called
Nensha. She inherited Nensha from her parents and it allows her to do all sorts
of powerful things with merely her mind. After being trapped in the well,
Nensha also allowed Sadako to separate her soul from her dying body to become a
Living Onryō, and while this denied her access to a lot of normal Onryō powers,
after spending time in the Demonic Abyss she eventually gained access to
several spiritual and demonic powers as well. Sadako’s current powers include:
Image
Burning:
Her
most famous ability is her ability to mentally burn images into people’s minds.
Sadako uses this to create all the images on her cursed videotape, but also can
make people experience illusions, hallucinations and even enter into their very
dreams. She can use this to create projections of herself, or place someone's
mind in visions of the past.
She can
also Mimic the appearance and voice of her previous victims, in order to lure
more people into viewing her film.
Mental
Plane Attacks:
Sadako
is also able to Directly attack people's mental bodies in visions and
flashbacks. Attacking someone's Mental body does damage to their physical body,
disregarding their own durability. Through this Sadako was able to grab
someones arm in a flashback and leave a burn mark on their actual person.
Imprintment:
Sadako
can Imprint small samples of her power on to the living when it suits her,
those she imprints these upon are often not able to control it however.
Dimensional
Creation:
When
Sadako’s physical body Died, she actually created her own Dimension for her
Disembodied, yet still living, Soul to reside in. Sadako can pull people into
this dimension which houses her true self, and within this plain of existence
she is far more powerful.
Immortality:
As a
disembodied soul living in another dimension, Sadako has transcendental
immortality. She can not die naturally and would need specific hax in order to
be slain. Sadako even from this alternate dimension can still affect the
physical world with her powers, as well as create physical avatars of herself
to interact with it. These Avatars are full extensions of Sadako, and thus
possess all of her abilities, and share a connection to Sadako. Should an
Avatar absorb more power from a foe, Sadako’s actual power will rise in tandem
through this, however should an Avatar be destroyed, Sadako’s true self will
Not be affected, you will actually need to find a way to reach and destroy her
soul in another dimension in order to kill her.
Dimensional
Portals:
Sadako
is able to create massive portals to her own dimension through screens, water,
mirrors, paintings, photos and more. She Can send Physical Avatars of herself
out of these portals to attack her foes, and while these physical avatars can
appear much larger than herself when going through a large screen, she's also
shown the ability to send full sized Avatars out of screens as small as cell
phones.
Duplication:
Speaking
of Sadako’s avatars, she is able to create entire armies of these things
simultaneously and even send them into multiple different places at once.
Meaning
Sadako effectively has some ridiculous self duplication powers and can
effectively make herself Omnipresent around technology, water, mirrors, photos
and other reflective surfaces.
Technopathy:
Another
thing that Sadako is famous for is her ability to control technology. This is
partially how she was able to create her cursed tape, by sending images through
Television Static. This Videotape can call to people, tempting them to watch
it, and can also rewind, play and inject itself all on its own. But Sadako’s
technological powers go far beyond that, as she is now able to make her video
pop up on any screen in order to target those she is after.
Sadako
can also control and manipulate video, radio, phones and even photographs at
will as well as control electricity and machinery with mere thoughts. She can
make these things explode or electrocute people, placing them in constant
danger and even hack into a person's computer and upload herself right to them.
Heart
Attack Inducement:
Sadako
can remotely kill people with her curse by making them suffer massive Heart
Attacks even when they are not around technology.
Death
Hax:
Sadako
is also able to inflict a horrific instant death to her victims by simply
staring into their eyes, this causes their face to contort in horrifying agony
as their soul is forced out. This ability however does not work on other undead.
Self
Sustenance:
Sadako
is able to use Nensha alone to sustain her body for long periods of time, this
gives her insane stamina able to stay awake unmoving for days on end and even
allowed her to keep herself alive at the bottom of a well for 30 years with no
food.
Hydrokinesis:
Sadako
can control water with her mind, use it as an access point, move it around
telekinetically, poor tons of energy into it and even make it freeze or boil.
Weather
Manipulation:
Sadako
can quickly create and control weather, ranging from manipulating gusts of wind
to creating A Massive Typhoon big enough to cover the entire 35 square mile
island of Oshima for over a day, and intense enough to cancel all Ferries and
Planes in the whole area.
Entomopathy:
Sadako
can also control massive amounts of insects including moths, cicadas, and
locusts and can use them to create constructs and access points.
Telepathy:
Sadako
can directly talk to others and send messages into their mind telepathically.
Clairvoyance:
Sadako
inherited all of her mother's same psychic abilities for herself. This Gives
Sadako numerous extra sensory abilities including total awareness of the
environment, sensing other spirits and yokai, reading people's minds and even
seeing the future. In short it is basically impossible to take her by surprise.
Insanity
Inducement:
With
The mere presence of her ghostly avatar, Sadako can drive those that witness
her to complete and utter madness, even if they are not her target.
Mind
Control:
Sadako
has powerful Mind Control abilities, able to remotely take over peoples minds
even from her alternate dimension and force them to kill themselves and others
with beyond human strength. Her mental control can affect high level psychics
and multiple people at once.
Possession:
Sadako
can also take over the bodies of people, temporarily transforming them into an
extension of her.
Telekinesis:
Sadako
has powerful telekinesis that allows her to manipulate objects and people with
her mind.
She can
Redirect attacks, throw things massive distances, lift heavy objects, make
things explode with her mind and even straight up force choke people.
Virus
Manipulation:
Sadako
was able to create multiple types of Viruses collectively known as The Ring
Virus. These Viruses base themselves off diseases like smallpox and
tuberculosis and are extremely fatal. The Ring Virus could initially infect
anyone who viewed Sadako’s tape, but could later mutate itself to do things
like infect people who merely read or know about her, infect people through
physical contact, or even infect animals.
DNA
Manipulation:
Her
Biological power isn’t just limited to viruses however, she can also do all
sorts of things to mess with someone's DNA and genetic code. Mutating someone's
body, imprinting her own genetic code into her videos and even causing people
to become pregnant.
This
also gives her somewhat of a reincarnation ability as so long as she has access
to someone's DNA, she can recreate them from the dead complete with all their
memories and personality, herself included.
Flight:
Sadako’s
Avatar is able to levitate and fly around at incredibly high velocities and
silently through the air like a gust of wind.
Teleportation:
The
Avatar can also Teleport around wide distances, Other Onryō were capable of
teleporting to the other side of the planet, and logically as the most powerful
Onryō she can do this as well.
Invisibility:
Sadako
can also be completely invisible, only able to be detected when viewed through
a lense of some kind.
Regeneration:
Sadako’s
extensions also come with a powerful regeneration ability that can let them
heal from being impaled, beaten down or even shattered to pieces.
Size
Manipulation:
Sadako
can increase her size to giant proportions, vastly increasing her strength and
allowing her to unleash numerous smaller avatars of herself from her body.
Hair
manipulation:
When
Sadako needs to get physical, her hair is her primary weapon. She is able to
grow and extend her hair in a large variety of manners and control it like
tentacles. Her hair can manifest itself around her victims, pull things into
her television dimension, physically grab intangible ghosts, and even drain
things of their energy.
Soul
Manipulation:
Sadako
has the ability to grab and destroy or even absorb souls. Absorbing Souls makes
Sadako even stronger, how much so depends on the age and authority of the
person it was from. When Sadako absorbed the soul of a long dead Emperor, she
gained a massive boost in power and became part Demon.
Absorption/Exuding:
Souls
are not the only thing Sadako can mess around with, she can also interact with,
absorb and exude things on more abstract plains as well. She was able to
interact with the Spiritual plain, absorbing the power of fellow Onryō Kayako
and the Yokai Bunshin, as well as absorbing the energy of the spiritual Demonic
Abyss Dimension. Sadako can also absorb functions of Consciousness such as
emotion or experiences. She was able to copy the subconscious of numerous
people, and lower level psychics have feats like taking in all of someone's
fear.
Energy
Manipulation:
On top
of that, Sadako has some really potent feats of Energy manipulation. In the
above picture Sadako gets shot by a gun designed to separate her from her
demonic abyss energy and weaken her, this worked earlier in the movie but after
she learned to immediately pull it back in. Sadako has been Sealed and trapped
in a machine that drains away a spirits energy until it ceases to be, she
overloaded and burned through it to escape. Sadako was combated with an energy
draining Melee weapon and immediately broke it with a simple snap.
Necromorphs:
Sadako
can summon Necromorphs to fight on her behalf, Necromorphs are the bodies of
previous victims, mutated into inhuman undead monsters. These creatures have
Keen senses and superhuman athleticism and can turn into swarms of insects
Demonic
Abyss:
After
spending time in the Demonic Abyss, Sadako gained the ability to use it to trap
her foes forever in the terrifying limbo world from which they will never
escape.
Feats
Strength:
In her own world, where which all Onryō movies
are real, Sadako was considered the most powerful Onryō of all, even before
gaining base Onryō powers.
Ms. Hoyru, a powerful medium, described Sadako
as an absolute darkness that continues forever and the most powerful and
terrifying spirit she had ever encountered.
Is strong enough to physically tear people
apart, flatten skulls and break necks in horrendous ways.
Ripped Kayako appart.
Can lift full grown men into the air with one
arm.
Can shake entire buildings with her strikes.
Impaled a girl through a chandelier on the
ceiling.
Speed:
Ran a good 10 feet faster than the eye could
track.
Kept Pace with Kayako.
Was fast enough to disappear from Bunshin’s
sight.
Her and other Onryō are fast enough to fight
without humans being able to see them.
When she pulled Bunshin into a painting, the two
were depicted quickly fighting across an entire mountain range.
Durability:
Tanked attacks from Kayako.
Can endure Bunshin’s powerful telekinetic
attacks.
Has been Blasted through walls.
Had dozens of tons of rubble fall on top of her.
General:
Escaped being sealed and trapped in a device
that would drain off her spiritual energy until she died.
Is Easily the most Powerful Onryō in her entire
series.
Quickly Slew an entire squad of people armed
with guns while she was still alive.
Slayed an Absorbed Kayako, the main villain of
The Grudge.
Has routinely bested the best spiritual psychics
in the world.
Summary
Advantages
City Level DC Via Storm Creation feats
Building Level Strength/Durability
Hypersonic
Extremely intelligent and adaptable
True Body is an intangible disembodied soul
sealed in an alternate dimension
Near Omnipresent on Earth
High End Mental Manipulation
Soul Hax
Consciousness Absorption
Spiritual Absorption
Large Variety of ways to inflict Death upon
someone disregarding durability
Dimensional Manipulation
Self Duplication
Precog
Flight
Teleportation
Mind Reading
Invisibility
Low Godly Regen
Can manipulate Objects, Technology, Energy,
Water, Size, Hair, DNA, Insects and the Weather
Can hit intangibles
Reincarnation
Disadvantages
Relies on her Hax to cover her lacking physical
stats
Has been bested by humans in the past
Really needs a damn Manicure
Recommended
Opponent:
Anthrax
I did
Not expect to have to go to BASTARD!! To get an opponent for this one but here
we are. Anthrax is similar to Sadako in that she used to be a good natured
angel but was overtime made into being a malevolent demon, as well as a heavy
affiliation with technology. As far as the fight goes both of them rely on
their hax to stay competitive despite their somewhat lacking stats. Both need
specific hax to harm, which their opponent just might be able to pull off, and
they have really interesting powersets would make for an imaginative and truly
amazing battle of wits and esoteric power.
