Belch's Brief Reviews--Jun 30, 2001

[DR. BELCH]

CARDCAPTORS: "Under the Weather"
This one open with a scene of Sakura lying in bed and the hand of a woman dressed in white robes touching her forehead. At first I thought it looked a bit yuri, noting how Sakura blushed, but then I thought...could it be--?
Sakura comes down with a flu-like fever which nearly incapacitates her, and to make matters worse, there's a Clow card on the loose--Cloud. Sent home from school sick, she nonetheless decided to go catch it. She puts Mirror in the bed disgised as her and goes out, aches, chills, and all.
Here's where it took an odd turn--Julian seems to have inherited some magic after all. He admits he senses things, and he knows the Sakura in her bed is a fake. His repressed memories of his initial meeting with Mirror (the most human of cards, as it seems she actually regrets her misbehavior) have resurfaced (in flashback form). He doesn't have the whole picture yet, but he knows Sakura's no ordinary girl.
Sakura captures Cloud--with Mei-Lin and Li's assistance--(see "Mei-Lin's Story" for a flashback clip)--and returns home, supposedly before she's missed (she's unaware of what Julian knows). In the final scene, we see that the woman in white is Mrs. Avalon...who looks like I imagine Sakura will, as an adult, plus there's a hint of Mrs. Mackenzie about her as well. Not so much the face, but the general body shape, or the eyes...it's hard to explain, but one gets the feeling that the teacher is more than she seems. It's as if she knew Mrs. Avalon when she lived, or in some way is her...some sort of possession, or a variation on the guardian angel mythos. Julian sees her also...though oddly isn't surprised. Seems to me if I saw a ghost of one of my relatives hovering about, I'd do a lot more than just quietly say hello.
Um...when Julian handed Sakura the thermometer to take her temperature, where did she stick it? Note it went not in her mouth but under the blanket....
Mei-Lin seems to be calming down a lot, even behaving more helpfully here, and shows genuine concern. Could it be she sees that she's the odd side in the love triangle and is willing to concede?
Note that Kero is a lot more worried about Sakura's health than whatever evil Cloud can wreak. It's nice to see he's capable of compassion--in the early episodes he was more "capture at all costs". Interesting he wants to crash at Mei-Lin's until the heat's off and Julian stops sniffing around--remember, this is the same "person" who once called her "a little glitch" (and for some time I've had a feeling the actual translation was something a lot harsher that rhymes with "glitch", if you catch my drift.... )

MEN IN BLACK: "The Endgame Syndrome 2"
Very interesting, although in some ways a bit of an anticlimax. After MIB HQ is reduced to a smoking hole in the ground and the world reels under a crapstorm of alien menace, the president is forced to launch a wave of missiles against the alien armada...which slows them down, but doesn't stop them. There's a whole sixties flashback schpiel that combines McCathy communist paranoia with Reagan Star Wars tactics that weighed down the story a bit, although it provided some historical perpective and basically proves that sometims the "kooks" are more right than we'll ever know.
K and J are forced to go into space and board the lead ship in the armada...and here we see J's hotdogging get the best of him when he trips a sensor on board. Not smart. K would've taken him to the woodshed if they'd had the luxury of time.
Here is where it took an odd turn--Alpha's partner double crossses him when they fall out over the ultimate goal: Alfie wants to rule over the masses; the alien leader just wants to break open the earth like an egg (a lot of egg and omelet metaphors used here; odd that the alien leader seems to comprehend the names of Earth breakfast foods) and consume its oil reserves. K and J are forced into a grudging partnership with Alpha ("Don't go calling me a hero," he warns; K assures him he won't). Naturally Alpha's newfound interest in saving Earth is less than altruistic; who wants to be god of a barren rock in space?
The scene with Alpha riding the Ixion missile towards Earth was reminiscent of the end of Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. K detonates the missile in space, killing Alpha, without a hint of sentiment.
Several odd subplots: X and L hitch a ride on a pig farmer's truck and learn about MIB's destruction from Jeebs; Frank breaks a leg and is forced to go to the vet's office, where he's nearly executed for being a stray; and the worms force Congress to make coffee-related changes to the American government.
DYN that one of the worms wipes up a coffee spill with the Declaration of Independence? I would think they'd lock those glass cases (a similar joke appeared in an outtake of Beavis and Butt-Head Do America... except Beavis wiped something else....).
Nit: as Frank leaves the vet's office, I could have sworn that both front legs were bandaged; however, as he leaps out of the wrecked truck, it's only his right foot that's wrapped. I also noticed that the puppies looked very big standing next to Frank...I think they had Shepherd and/or Lab in them.
K neuralizes the entire world, ironically using their own TVs to do it. It's oddly fitting, although, again, anticlimactic--nothing fancy like a neuralizer building or neuralizer streetlights. This brings me to a query: suppose someone in the audience wore dark glasses, which would block the light's effect (or is it just special MIB perscription glasses that do the trick, not storebought?) Or what if someone was in the can and missed the broadcast?
J asks K why he wiped the masses' minds when they could have been heroes. K assures him it isn't about the glory...but assures him if they gave Congressional Medals of Honor to the MIB, J'd be very deserving. High praise indeed coming from the stoniest face in black.
Rebuilding begins. As Zed dryly notes, he wishes MIB wasn't covert so they could use government money to fund the project (and I'm presuming Earth doesn't honor checks from other planets).

On the Cartoon Cartoon Friday front, the first short on last night's Time Squad cught my attention with the title "Big Al's Big Secret". My first thought was it sounded like an alternative title for the South Park ep with Big Gay Al as a scoutmaster; my second was that it was going to be about Alexander the Great. No, it was Albert Einstein as...a used car dealer? Sort of a weird variation on the urban legend that the famous German physicist appeared on a radio broadcast of Gunsmoke. And in last week's episode, Sigmund Freud. My favorite scene was when he made a pretty spot-on diagnosis of Larry, Otto, and Tudrussell's dysfunctional pseudofamily dynamic. Plus Leonardo da Vinci gives up beatnikism and paints the Mona Lisa--and the ending wasn't far from the truth; her enigmatic smile has been explained by historians who say her front teeth were in horrible shape and she was embarrassed to show them. Other experts say that Mona was Leonardo's ultimate joke--a depiction of himself as a woman! Very yaoi, Leo....

Next week, as I predicted, will be hosted by...Mojo Jojo! This will make a certain mujer de los pez con dientes very happy, I think....

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

Isn't Sakura's brother named Tori in this dub?

I think since this is episode 39 in the original, Tori's seen mama before, in another unaired episode.

Maybe RockitShipper remembers...has Touya been seeing their mother's ghost ever since he was a kid (he sees dead people)? I seem to recall that he mentioned this once.

[DR. BELCH]

L.L. JOJO:
Isn't Sakura's brother named Tori in this dub?

Oops! That's right! Tori is her brother, and Julian is his washed-out looking slightly effiminate friend. I don't know why I get those two names mixed up.
Well, a lot of anime seems to revolve around magic, ancient lineages, and past lives/loves...I suppose seeing the spirits of one's ancestors is a common enough theme there too. Probably a high honor; here in America, it's regarded as something evil or terrrifying. In Hamlet, the young prince is warned that sometimes seemingly friendly spirits are devils in disguise...I'm not sure if that's solely Western or universal thinking, though.

[Sharklady]

> In Hamlet, the young prince is warned that sometimes seemingly friendly spirits are devils in disguise...I'm not sure if that's solely Western or universal thinking, though. <

It's definitely not uniquely Western; the Chinese and the Navajo (to name two I've read about) have a similar attitude towards ghosts. And I've never entirely understood it- why do we assume they're likely to mean us harm? Isn't it probable that ghosts (if they *are* real) are as variant in personality as live people?

[norung]

Originally posted by Leap Larry Jojo
Maybe RockitShipper remembers...has Touya been seeing their mother's ghost ever since he was a kid (he sees dead people)? I seem to recall that he mentioned this once.

Well, since RockitShipper hasn't answered yet, I'll play the card captor expert today (add this to my title of Histeria! expert and I've got quite a bit of work on my hands). Anyway, Touya/Tori saw his mom's ghost quite a bit as a child, but she stopped hangin' around when he became a teenager or thereabouts...up until then, she was "worried about him", as moms tend to be about their young children...now that Sakura's got herself in this whole Clow Card mess, mom is starting to get "worried about her", too...so Nadeshiko/Natasha's ghost is back now, and Tori's starting to get to see her again, albeit because of his little sister, whose exploits he's now beginning to figure out...I think we'll get to see the english version of the episode where Sakura meets her mom in the woods soon...I wonder what they'll make Madison see...a giant "calzone" in the sky? Hee hee. The Kinomoto/Avalon family history was one of my favorite parts of the original series, and I'm starting to admire the American series a bit more for finally bringing some of this in...

...I also found Dr Belch's comparisons of Mrs. Mackenzie and Mrs. Avalon interesting...the loss of one might have led poor grieving Tori to the other...but that's another story...

Norung
Encyclopedia Histeria - http://www.angelfire.com/tv/enhist/

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

Apparently, Teletoon runs less edited early episodes of Cardcaptors, so there are 2 dubs out there--one for Canada and one for the WB. Apparently, Teletoon aired the original first 7 episodes fairly intact (including the one about Sakura feeling left out in that bring-a-mother day or something). The WB has only aired episodes 1 and 3 of the original first 7, and only in a heavily edited manner.

[James Harvey]

We folks up here in Canada have less restricitons on television and movie content. Cartoons aren't edited up here. If it's anime, it is edited but not butchered. Heck, we still air Gargoyles unedited while the Disney channels either air the horrible ABC Gargoyles series or the badly edited syndicated versions.

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

Originally posted by DickGrayson
We folks up here in Canada have less restricitons on television and movie content. Cartoons aren't edited up here. If it's anime, it is edited but not butchered. Heck, we still air Gargoyles unedited while the Disney channels either air the horrible ABC Gargoyles series or the badly edited syndicated versions.

It's funny how I say "In Canada" when I actually live IN CANADA. But I guess since I don't get Teletoon or YTV, I consider myself a viewer of American shows.

[Nftnat]

Originally posted by Leap Larry Jojo


It's funny how I say "In Canada" when I actually live IN CANADA. But I guess since I don't get Teletoon or YTV, I consider myself a viewer of American shows.

Well, technically, you didn't say "In Canada" that time; you said "for Canada". But I get your meaning.

One more MIB thing; y'all of course noticed the head of the Alien Rights Commission leading the cavalry, as well as complimenting Madame President Generic's hairstyle.