(sorry for getting behind, let’s catch up)
Young Justice
Drop-Zone
I swear the alternate title for this episode must have been “I love the ’80s”. Let’s see here… “Hail Cobra?” The Sportsmaster? All that was missing was a giant truck to transform into a giant robot. On this episode, I’m a little torn. On the one hand, it was nice up until now to have some of the leadership of the group being shown rather than outright talked about. On the other, it is in character for a bunch of teens or young boys to end up talking about things that don’t need to be or are generally best not talked about. It was weird for the line “it is your destiny to lead this team” to be said in the context. Sure, we the audience with our outside awareness know Robin will lead the team eventually, but how or what convinces Aqualad that he’s destined? In context, it’s very weird. Minus one shell for breaking verisimilitude.
Schooled
Amazo was one of the best villains in the old Dini Justice League series. It was one of those idiosyncrasies of comics that Amazo, a villain with all the powers of any heroes that have faced him, most often played a one-off villain. The diniverse took it to its logical conclusion and made the character a demi-god. This episode went with the more traditional take on the robot. It does make one wonder how, if the inventor can create a robot which mimic/absorb the powers of every hero it encounters, why would he build its interface to have to voice the name of every power its using? Seems then all the league would need to do to beat him would be to send a hero with a really long name. (which… I guess that is how they defeated it this episode)
Superboy’s character arc is… eh, he’s not too annoying with his whining (so far) which is helped a lot by every other kid there being much happier and more easy going. It’s good to let someone there at least have some character arc. (Though him being the ONLY guy Miss Martian is interested in is… well it brings up some questions.) Standard episode here.
Supernatural Anime
Roadkill
This is… part of the reason I say the anime HAS to be its own universe/canon. But we’ll get to that later. This episode is a remake of the season 2 episode – uh – Roadkill. It was definitely one of the best episodes of season 2 and they keep a lot of the quality here, though with only half the time allowed, we don’t get to see as much of the boys trying different strategies to escape. Of course, since this is drawn from an old episode, the anime throws in a new twist to keep things lively. I liked it (in fact, that’s what I thought was going to be the answer in the first airing) and won’t spoil it for you (though you can probably guess it).
Oh, and the surprise is kind of spoiled by the intro for this episode with Jensen. He mentions this as one of his favorite episodes; I wonder why… Anyway, it was great then, and remaking it hasn’t dulled the episode at all.
Home
Yes, this is a remake of the season 1 episode. Yes, the anime’s first three episodes are remakes of S1-S2-S1. (Roadkill papered over this by inserting a line about looking for John Winchester.) Now here’s where I anger a lot of fans. I have never been that big of a fan of this episode. I liked Missouri and hated we didn’t get to see more of her but…
I always thought the show worked best when Mary (and to a lesser extent, Jess) maintained an almost mythical quality, especially to the boys. This increases the impact of episodes like the wish or a time traveling one. While I’m a sucker for the “parent kicks ass to save their kids” motif (seriously, Taken is one of the greatest movies of all time) this one just feels off. Even more so after the events of season 6 and another hunter of the family (Bobby) haunts the boys. How come Mary never did? On the other hand her body was burned (which in the show seems to handle most recent death/ghosts – EVEN THOUGH WE DON’T SEE PEOPLE USING SALT LIKE THEY SHOULD) so how did she have a ghost in the first place?
Still, like I said, I can’t hate “parent-defends-kids” so normally this episode would rank average. However whereas the live show wisely kept Mary’s words to a minimum (even made them haunting in retrospect), the anime gives her a whole freakin’ monologue – which only shatters the mystique she should have even more.
Hunting Muses 