Love Live! Superstar!! is one of my favorite entries in the Love Live! franchise, but even I was unsure if the third season was necessary. The previous season ended on a high note, and the girls of Liella! could have ridden off into the sunset for a satisfying conclusion. But despite some misgivings, I decided to stick with it. Fortunately, my faith was rewarded once again, and by the end, I found that this season solidified my ongoing belief that Superstar!! is the absolute best of Love Live! from a storytelling perspective.
Love Live! Superstar!! 3rd Season begins with protagonist Shibuya Kanon and the rest of Liella! coming off the high of finally winning the Love Live! national school idol competition. They start the new school year determined to be first back-to-back champions, but a few hurdles stand in their way. First is the pressure of being the reigning team. Second is the presence of one Wien Margarete, a transfer student from Austria who competed against Liella last time and decides to form her own school idol club at their school instead. Third is the fact that Kanon decides to pull a surprise heel turn (of sorts) and join Margarete’s side along with another girl, Onitsuka Tomari. Now, instead of everyone working as one, the two sides must compete to see who will represent their school.
The idea of rival clubs is an intriguing one, but Love Live! is not really a franchise that can make it particularly intense. Or rather, the last time they tried with the (now-defunct) Love Live! All Stars mobile game, it backfired among the fanbase, and the anime adaptation had to tone things down. And so events proceed fairly predictably, with the two sides eventually coming together and any animosity being just caring and affection in disguise. In that sense, Season 3 is a bit of a disappointment, but I eventually realized that this was the wrong angle to look at the whole thing.
The Love Live! competition itself isn’t actually the main focus in 3rd Season. Even the desire for a repeat victory and the challenge of getting there is merely a backdrop than the driving force. Instead, the real story is about how everyone deals with the inevitability of change that comes with the fact that Kanon and the other founding members will be graduating from high school. All the third-years are thinking about what their adult lives will look like and what careers they want to pursue. The second-years will be the ones to inherit the club, and they must go from being the newcomers to becoming the core. And the first-years, Margarete and Tomari, see their participation in more cynical terms. They’re all at different stages.
Superstar!! is also the first time we’ve followed a core cast from the start of high school all the way to the end. In the first season, Kanon’s main struggle is overcoming her trauma that prevents her from singing. In the second, it’s figuring out how to help others overcome their own fears and doubts. And in the third, it’s about leaving behind a system and legacy that will encourage even more in the future to have courage and chase their passion. This might seem par for the course compared to previous generations of Love Live!, but there is a significant difference.
In every other case, the story begins with a collection of first-, second-, and third-years all coming together. While characters develop in their own ways, they’re also limited to a degree by this format in one way or another. Often, the specific roster is portrayed as lightning in a bottle—something that cannot (and maybe even should not) be replicated. In contrast, all three seasons of Superstar!! collectively work to show that even as Kanon and her classmates leave, the club will continue to grow and change. Each iteration of Liella! has been important in its own way, and the anime implies that this won’t stop even after the original five are no longer there. This flow of time is what sets this series apart, and ultimately makes this third season satisfying to watch.
So that’s Love Live! Superstar!!…or at least until the series gets a feature-film send-off. While I have great fondness for all generations of Love Live!, I really do think that this one is special because of how strong it is as an overall piece of narrative fiction. Superstar!! relies the least on expecting from its audience an inherent receptiveness to idols (and by extension the “school idol” concept), and I think this versatility helps make it a very rewarding series overall.
It’s customary to see the New Year as a fresh start, and an opportunity to say farewell to the previous year. I don’t expect 2025 to be an especially fantastic year, but I do know we have a lot of anime to look forward to. Witch Hat Atelier! Wandance! And more! At the very least, I hope that we can find comfort in art created by artists.
Thanks to my supporters on Patreon. I appreciate that you’ve stuck with me, and hope you’ll be safe in 2025 and on. And remember: Don’t subscribe on iOS if you can help it!
I don’t exactly have any big plans for Ogiue Maniax in 2025, but perhaps if I write about my lack of ideas, something fun will manifest. I really should get back around to doing a Gattai Girls series…
For a color illustration with a lot of skin tones, Kio tried a high-contrast style with lots of layers and some airbrushed red. He thinks he could figure out how to replicate what he did, but is holding off on that for now.
Kio was interviewed by Yomiuri Shinbun a little while back along with fellow manga artists Toyoda Minoru and Shito Reisa. (Unfortunately, I can’t seem to access the site.)
Kio is shocked to discover that yuzu pepper sauce has no black pepper in it. Apparently, in Kyushu, they call chili peppers (karashi) “black pepper” (koshou). It might have something to do with English.
Kio never made an account on mixi (an older Japanese social networking site), so while he might be an old man himself, he can’t jump in on discussions related to it.
In the new year, Kio plans to release part of It’s All Your Fault, Sensei2, the sequel to his 18+ doujinshi. In the meantime, the first book is on sale at various sites.
Finding characters you can relate to is part of the fun of fiction. Over the years, I’ve found a fair many that I could connect to, but exceedingly few have spoken to the core of my very being in the same way as Laios Touden.
Laios lives in a fantasy world filled with magic and the supernatural, where he has the unusual hobby of eating monsters, but there are layers to that passion. Sure, he wants to know the best ways to cook the beasts that populate the dungeon, but he’s not like his travel companion Senshi, who wants to find the peak of labyrinth cooking. Instead, what drives Laios is culinary discovery and exploration. More important than figuring out what tastes best is the desire to taste flavors he’s never come across before, and to eat things that might not even be considered edible to most others. If I were in his shoes, I would be the same way. He and I share a similar philosophy: “You don’t know how it’ll taste until you actually eat it.”
And if Laios were just a goofy, relatable guy, that would be enough. But there’s a depth to his silly charm. He’s basically never lost his childhood curiosity, and his enthusiasm is both infectious and a positive force on everyone who gets to know him. I could only hope to be so lucky to do the same for the people I know.
BEST FEMALE CHARACTER
Frieren (Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End)
Over the past fifteen years, it’s often felt like anime has been lacking more traditional fantasy series. Then in comes Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End to show that something more classical-feeling still has a place. It feels refreshingly new yet orthodox, and central to that success is the protagonist herself.
Frieren is an elf mage who has basically already accomplished her biggest quest ever, and is now on a journey to retrace her old steps, indulge in her hobby of collecting obscure and delightfully frivolous spells, and help guide a new generation of adventurers. Her long years mean she has lived experience of things lost to time to most, yet she neither puts stock in the old or the new just because. To her, everything is a valuable learning experience. In a way, she reminds me of a previous Best Character of the Year, Yang Wen-Li from Legend of the Galactic Heroes.
There’s something that I think sums Frieren (and by extension the themes of the series) very well: How the character Serie sees her. To most, Frieren is like a walking myth and impossibly powerful, but Serie is actually even older and stronger. In her eyes, the younger elf has squandered her years and is well below her magical potential—like someone with 30 years of experience in a foreign language only being as fluent as someone who’s been studying for 20. However, Frieren sees value in pursuing things at the pace you want for the things you value, and it’s a lesson I constantly try to take to heart.
BEST ROBOT BRO
Bravern (Bang Brave Bang Bravern)
There is possibly no character who flips his entire world on its head more thoroughly than Bravern. When you first enter the story of Bang Brave Bang Bravern, you think it’s this gritty, relatively realistic mecha story. Colors are dark and subdued. Then, when a fearsome enemy attacks that overwhelms conventional human militaries, in comes a mysterious and bright-red super robot reminiscent of 90s Yuusha anime with little need for an indoor voice, but he literally plays his own fiery, trumpet-filled theme song!
Bravern is not just a fun character—he’s a representative of a style of giant robot and giant heroics lost to time. And he’s the massive unit you want by your side, whether for the bro friendship or the bromance. Or, you know.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Laios and Frieren have a lot in common. They’re both protagonists of fantasy series that have garnered incredible acclaim among fans and critics alike. The two are so popular that you might well accuse me of making the most boring and obvious choices. Yet, while it’s often said that “popular doesn’t mean good,” that doesn’t mean popular things are automatically bad either. With Delicious in Dungeon and Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End alike, you have titles that show how you don’t have to appeal to the lowest common denominator to garner love on a wider scale.
But more important than all that stuff is this: If they met, Laios and Frieren would probably end up being incredible friends for each other. Their sense of wonder at amazement at things others overlook would probably get them talking for hours to each other. The two represent not just styles of fantasy fiction that aren’t as game/isekai-coded, but also approaches to heroes who don’t prioritize power or progress.
And as for Bravern, well, he’d probably be good chums with them too, don’t you think?
I completely forgot that November is the anniversary month of this blog. I guess I was bound to do this eventually after 17 years, though the tumultuous nature of both November and December (let alone the entirety of 2024) made it even less of a surprise.
From what anime has told me, this is the eternal year. Once you reach this milestone, you’re 17 forever (or you enter “17, Season 2,” as per one Houshou Marine). So here we are, where Ogiue Maniax isn’t quite able to vote, but it’s still insisting that it’s practically an adult.
I’m making all the jokes that we’ve seen from anime and otaku culture, but when I look back on how far I’ve come writing here, there’s gotta be one thing above all else that marks how far I’ve come: I got to interview Inoue Kikuko, the mother of the Eternal 17 movement. How wild is that?!
But as long as I’ve gone, I still find the identity of Ogiue Maniax to be perpetually in flux. A big part is that every year I find myself with new ideas, new responsibilities, and the awareness that my perspective simply has to be different from when I started. That’s not to say that I consider myself a traitor to the values and inspirations that prompted me to start an anime blog in the first place, but I inevitably have to approach it with a different energy.
In a way, continuing to write about anime in this fashion is a sort of Eternal 17 attitude in itself. At the same time, who the hell blogs anymore? It’s the domain of weirdos like me who have stubbornly refused to switch mediums (this is not a bad thing). Yet, given where media as a whole has come and gone, I wonder if younger people will rediscover the unique joys of writing as a way to escape some of the things they enjoy less.
If there was ever any sign that I’ve become a serious fan of VTubers, it would have to be the fact that I went to the Fantôme Thief’s Revenge concert in Atlanta, Georgia.
When this joint event between Dokibird and Mint Fantôme was first announced, I felt conflicted about whether to even go. On the one hand, I had decided to support Doki in ways I hadn’t back when she was Selen Tatsuki. Mint, for her part, is a charismatic performer whose friendship with Doki goes back to their previous incarnations in VTubing. On the other hand, this was pretty bad timing, being right before the holidays. Moreover, the concerts I had attended previously were either attached or adjacent to other things I was already doing, like conventions. Anime Weekend Atlanta was the same weekend, but I simply couldn’t stay too long.
But between the lack of an official streaming option and the reveal that one of the special guests was none other than Dooby (another big name who made the decision to go independent), I made my decision to go. I had a focused mission: Fly to Atlanta, go see Doki and Mint, sleep, go home. (Also, eat some fried chicken and Bojangles.) I never thought I’d do something like this, but here I am, and it was totally worthwhile.
Entering the Venue
Upon first arriving in the area of the concert, I saw a large line outside that gave me a bit of deja vu from Breaking Dimensions. While waiting in line is never fun, I did enjoy seeing all the eager fans. There were the Doki and Mint supporters, of course, and Dooby’s reputation precedes her, but I even saw some who were clearly there for the other guests—PiaPiUFO, Phoebe, and Juna Unagi.
After finally getting into the concert site, the Tabernacle, I was faced with a second line—this time for merch. Unfortunately, the penlights sold out before I could make it to the front, but I bought a few other things instead, including a holographic ticket that isn’t going to be sold online. Also, I thought there was a chance I might not get my hands on a concert penlight, so I brought a backup with me, just in case. From there, I made my way up to the balcony. To my surprise, a good number of seats were available despite the fact that the tickets for them were unreserved, so I got to have an amazing and unobstructed view. After a half-hour delay (due to the sheer number of people trying to buy merch), things kicked off with the opening acts.
The Opening Acts
I had little prior experience with PiaPi, Juna, or Phoebe. At the very most, I’d seen Phoebe on guest lists at conventions here and there. Knowing the lineup, I actually spent a bit of time in the days prior and on the plane getting to know their music. While I got the sense that they were all decent performers, I wasn’t prepared for how much more impressive they were at the concert. PiaPi did a great job building up hype and using her 2D model to its fullest, and she just sounded great. I’m glad I finally got to hear Phoebe in action, who was solid all around, and I enjoyed her cover of “Snow Halation.” Juna’s sultry voice and presentation worked well, though I’m not quite the audience for a parody song that describes gay sex and waterworks in extremely fine detail.
Each of them sang three or four songs, and were almost half the entire concert. I think Doki and Mint granting so much time to the other VTubers is very representative of them and their desire to create events that celebrate others. PiaPi has the smallest following out of all of them, and she’s seeing a significant bump in subscribers. While waiting in line before the concert, I happened to spot two PiaPi supporters (known as Pickles) dressed in themed happi.
It was then time for the main acts, and the screen transitioned to Dokibird—except she wasn’t singing or dancing, but was instead indulging in her latest gaming obsession: Marvel Rivals. The audience spent seven minutes watching her play as Luna Snow while Mint was telling her to wrap it up. If there’s anything that a more corporate VTuber event wouldn’t be able to do, it’s probably silliness like this.
The Main Attraction
Finally, on a stage decorated with their fan mascots waving penlights, Doki and Mint warped in, fully 3D and amidst raucous applause. I can’t say enough about how beautiful their models were. It was as if the original 2D designs had been brought to life, and to make them look that good both when still and in motion was no easy feat. Mint’s concert model wasn’t her official one, but the quality was still very nice. Dokibird’s is her official one, and she even hired for it a highly regarded artist in KarakuriPower (who’s done work for hololive).
I didn’t recognize a lot of the songs, and I even thought their first act was an original number when it was actually a cover with the words “Doki” and “Mint” swapped in. Regardless, I enjoyed the sheer variety of musical choices. Doki acknowledges that she’s nowhere near as good a singer or dancer as Mint, and so her individual performances tended towards meme picks, like “Xue Mao Jiao”, the Doraemon opening, and the Five Nights at Freddy’s theme. Even if she admitted to flubbing some choreography, I think she succeeded in bringing the fans along for the ride. Hopefully next time, she can do a Cantonese song too.
Mint loves idols and idol culture with all her heart, so she tended in that direction. Her performance of “New Romantic Sailors” was a personal highlight. Not only is it one of the best Love Live! Songs, period, but I actually got to see it performed live at Anime NYC a few years ago. While she delivered in spades on the “Minto-chan Laser Beeeaaaam!” (playing off “Riko-chan Laser Beam” from the original performer), I also appreciated seeing her substituting her name for all three Guilty Kiss singers in the lead-up to the yell. However, in between the idol stuff, she threw in a cover of “Break Stuff’ by nu metal band Limp Bizkit, which has become an anthem of sorts for Mint. The ghost maid is such a solid entertainer.
The Ultimate Callback
One of the biggest moments of Fantôme Thief’s Revenge snuck up on the entire audience. A duet began with Mint sitting at a table with a cup in hand. Doki walked over, also holding a cup, and then she sang the words that brought some of the loudest cheers of the evening: “Someday, we’ll have our last conversation…and drink our last cup of coffee.”
The significance of lilypichu’s “Last Cup of Coffee” to Doki and her fanbase cannot be understated. For her original supporters in her earliest days of VTubing, this was like Doki’s gift to them shortly before her original graduation. For those who discovered her as Selen, her cover music video was supposed to be her Christmas present to us, but its removal is what started the chain of events that led to her tumultuous firing and subsequent revival as Dokibid. And now here she was, almost a year later, singing it once again, as if to show that she dictates what the song means to her and her fans.
Much of Dokibird’s return since February has seen her reclaim aspects of her identity, such as her fan name (Dragoons), her appearance (a design by the same artist used for Selen), and her subscriber count (800,000+). This song was one of the last pieces of the puzzle. In later streams, Doki and Mint revealed that the decision to have this in the concert was Mint’s idea, and that it was to make “Last Cup of Coffee” a happy memory for the Dragoons.
Dooby and a New Age of VTubing?
What actually brought the loudest yells of the concert was the awaited appearance of the final guest.
As the stage screen transitioned to a red curtain backdrop, “Sugar Song and Bitter Step,” the ending theme to the anime Blood Blockade Battlefront, began. Mimicking the ending video, Doki appeared in a spotlight, followed seconds later by Mintl. This left an open spot in the middle, where a little train car suddenly appeared, signaling a warp-in by Dooby in all her train-conducting Jerboa glory. The audience erupted and I did my best to add to the excitement. This song was also a popular karaoke choice for Dooby in her previous identity, so it felt extra special to her fans who have been supporting her these past five years. Seeing them all dance and kick and just have a good time is one of my fondest memories from this concert.
I think the crowd reaction wasn’t simply because Dooby is a beloved Vtuber. Just as important was how these were three of the biggest names in English VTubing, now all working as indies. It was as if a new era had arrived.
Bringing It Home
The “final” song of the evening was emblematic of the general irreverence of the concert as a whole: “I Just Had Sex” by The Lonely Island. PiaPi, Phoebe, and Juna all joined in, still using their 2D models. The comedic nature of the song had the whole audience bopping along, and I think the fact that Doki and Mint brought the opening guests in for this performance once again speaks to their general interest in using their platform to bring attention to lesser known talents. It was an attitude that benefited their previous company, and it’s heartwarming to see them follow through on their desire to help others out. The encore was “shake it!” by Vocaloid composer emon. I didn’t know it myself, but in hindsight, having it end with a Hatsune Miku song is about as appropriate as it gets for a VTuber concert.
Closing Thoughts
While there was no official stream of Fantôme Thief’s Revenge, the two made it okay to record the concert. Later, I learned that there was a handcam stream on Twitter that had over 50,000 concurrent viewers. Days later, a full version was also uploaded to Youtube:
So why did I write all this up despite it being freely accessible to everyone? Because I think it’s important to still have these memories put into words for posterity. Also, I think there are some things that don’t easily come across even with a video,
In terms of criticisms, I don’t have many. I wish I could have gotten a penlight. Some of the reserved seating (which I wasn’t a part of) forced that part of the audience to view things at an awkward angle because of the screen. Not only was the timing of the concert inconvenient because it was so close to the holidays, but it also overlapped The VTuber Awards which had a halftime performance), as well as hololive EN’s musical, “The Broken Promise.”
I’m happy I ended up going to “Fantôme Thief’s Revenge.” It was both Dokibird and Mint’s first true 3D concert as their current selves using their updated designs, and I cherish the fact that I could be part of it. Getting to see Dooby make her concert debut was also a treat, as was being better introduced to Piapi UFO, Phoebe, and Juna Unagi. It was an experience that rewarded my fandoms and helped me discover new possibilities. And while I hardly talked to any other fans, I could at least appreciate their mutual enthusiasm and energy.
Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master stands out as an anime that deftly combines different genres together to make a smart, compelling adaptation of the novel series.
Yamauchi, the world of Yatagarasu,resembles Heian-era Japan, but all the people have the ability to turn into large three-legged ravens—because they actually are ravens. Yukiya, the son of a leader from the North (one of four areas alongside the West, East, and South), gets into trouble that winds up with him working for the Imperial Prince. But despite its pristine outer image, the imperial court is center stage for the different factions to jockey for power, and clandestine actions are not uncommon.
The series is a mix of fantasy, court intrigue, character drama, and detective fiction, where the Prince is the primary investigator and Yukiya is his somewhat reluctant assistant. With all these different elements at play, it would be very easy to have the work fall apart, but Yatagarasu successfully weaves it all together. The world-building is continuously intriguing, the mysteries are elaborate and well-structured, and the twists and revelations are genuinely surprising while still connecting logically. Even the seemingly arbitrary decisions about the setting play into the greater story. The greater cast is great as well, whether it’s potential brides for the Prince showing that they’re more than passive damsels or enemies with unseen sides.
The anime gets through its initial major story and ends in the middle of the next one, so it doesn’t wrap up neatly. Nevertheless, I think it’s a great series that can draw viewers deep into its world if they can handle the court complexities.
I’ve known about Riki-Oh(aka The Story of Ricky) and its supremely over-the-top violence for decades. Whether it was seeing grotesque(ly awesome) moments from the original manga by Takajou Masahiko and Saruwatari Tetsuya, or animated gifs of the most ridiculous scenes from the 1991 Hong Kong movie directed by Lam Nai-Choi, those images stay with a person. When I finally got around to watching that film adaptation, I thought I was ready for what I was about to see. What no one ever told me was just how much Riki-Oh speaks to a nascent prison-industrial complex that has only grown horrifically stronger by 2024.
The opening narration text establishes that Riki-Oh takes place in the future year of 2001, where something horrifying has happened: All government organizations has been privatized, including prisons.
Seeing this made my eyes widen in surprise. When for-profit private prisons plague the United States and treat its inmates in the cruelest ways possible, when Hong Kong itself is having its rights taken away, and when there is actual talk about privatizing state and federal penitentiaries in the US, this movie feels practically prescient. I don’t know how much of this is from the original manga and how much is a quality of the movie, but it’s a hell of an establishing message to put at the beginning.
Then, our hero, Lik-Wong (literally Riki-Oh in Chinese) shows up among the newest batch of convicts. He’s impossibly cool and strong, living with five bullets lodged in his chest and possessing the power to punch people so hard, their body parts explode. To say he’s cut from the same cloth as Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star would be an understatement. But one thing is immediately clear about him: While he is capable of astounding acts of lethality, he would rather there be respect for human dignity, and so tries to show restraint. However, should someone trample on that humanity, Lik-Wong’s willing to give them some consequences for their actions. He believes strongly in peace, but will not preserve a false one in the absence of justice.
And so Lik-Wong gets into many battles and punches holes in his foes and cleaves their limbs off with the power of his qi gong. He is a manga hero brought to life. But the really interesting portrayals come from the other prisoners, both individually and as a whole. Some are brutal and unrepentant criminals who have gotten in with the equally malicious guards for their own selfish benefit. Others are good people only in there due to a corrupt justice system. Those who are victimized by the prison and its warden, including being used as slave labor for illegal drug production, rally behind Lik-Wong and even gain inspiration to fight back thanks to him.
But Lik-Wong, for his part, understands that you can’t hold him up as the standard of what a normal person can do. When his fellow inmates resist orders to bury him alive, our hero tells them to do it anyway. They need to avoid incurring the wrath of the warden and stay alive to resist tomorrow. By the end, the prisoners stage a mass revolt while Lik-Wong fights the superhuman monsters that make up the prison’s strongest fighters. Lik-Wong is singularly exceptional, but even he can’t do it alone.
So we’re left with a movie featuring the most off-the-wall feats of dismemberment and disembowelment as performed by a very colorful cast of characters, and underneath it all are some profound questions. Why do we permit the utter dehumanization of prisoners while allowing prisons to profit off their enslavement? Why do we allow people with such an opportunity for corruption to wield such power over people? Sadly, we have no Riki-Ohs or Lik-Wongs in the real world, but we do have the ability to rally around those who believe in compassionate justice that protects the vulnerable, and to work together to make a difference.
A couple years ago, I started watching the popular Dungeon & Dragons roleplaying stream Critical Role, following the adventures of the ragtag band known as Bell’s Hells from the very beginning. A number of my friends are long-time fans of Critical Role, particularly Campaign 2, “The Mighty Nein,” and I decided that this third campaign was a good time to jump in.
I’ve had my ups and downs with Campaign 3, as 1) I felt it couldn’t always keep my attention, especially when each season was 3–5 hours long, and 2) it drew a lot from previous campaigns that made it hard to follow. Nevertheless, I stuck with it. Then came a turning point that I think helped finally get me more invested: the group’s trip to the red moon, Ruidus. Not only was it revealed that this moon is inhabited by all manner of heretofore unknown species, but that they lived under the tyranny of the Weave Mind, five ancient psychics who have combined their powers to rule as one. And if there’s anything I love in fiction, it’s villainous hive mind masters whose very combined nature is both their greatest strength and their Achilles’ heel.
The Overmind? Hell yeah. Mother Brain? Always love fighting her. Virtually every shmup final boss? Give me more. Ougi Ichirou from Kekkaishi? The reveal that he’s actually six brothers grotesquely fused together is one of my favorite moments in that manga.
A couple weeks ago, Critical Role finally had the players enter into direct battle with the Weave Mind. However, while Bell’s Hells are the main heroes, they were not the ones to confront the masters of Ruidus. The story had led to the player groups from each of the three campaigns tackling separate vital missions, and this was the Mighty Nein’s. The result: It was amazing, and probably my favorite episode of Campaign 3, tied maybe only with the pyrrhic victory against Otohan.
Now, I’ve seen some of the arguments online as to why the Weave Mind fight was disappointing for some people. “The Mighty Nein have no narrative connection to them.” “They were only ever talked about as this great evil, and never had the chance to really show it.” But as valid and reasonable as those opinions are, I can’t resist an awesome battle against a hive mind boss, particularly when it involves special mechanics, and those mechanics are key to unraveling the seeming invincibility of the enemy. I’ll eat that stuff up all day long.
The Weave Mind was revealed to have a number of features tied to their unique composition and the site of battle, their Pentathrone Chamber. A psychic shroud of some kind made them difficult to target. Damage to any one of them would be divided evenly between all five, blunting the damage. They could attack in unorthodox ways, like eliminating player spell slots and forcing exhaustion. Three could work together to create a triangular area-of-effect attack. They also had special shields that granted them more HP, which were also restored at the top of every turn.
But as the Mighty Nein fought them, the players gradually learned how to tear down the interconnected layers of defense. Smashing the crystalline structures in particular helped to blunt their ability to regenerate their shields, and when Veth (played by Sam Riegel) landed a sneak attack on one of the Weave Mind, the foe happened to be in a position that prevented them from sharing damage with the others, and that became the turning point of the battle. The implied shock at having their weakness exposed was personally extremely satisfying.
Shortly after, Yasha (Ashley Johnson) landed a blow so strong that even the damage distribution couldn’t save the wounded member from being slain, and the lattice work of defenses actually led to the Weave Mind’s undoing. With one less ally to take the pain, it became harder for them to weather hits, and when some clever teamwork by Beau (Marisha Ray) and Caleb (Liam O’Brien) left one of them stunned and unable to resist a Disintegration spell, killing one actually led to the demise of the collective. The DM, Matt Mercer, described the dying Weave Mind as ironically being defeated by the very fusion of selves that granted them such extraordinary abilities, and that their final moments showed how pathetic they and their petty ambitions really were despite their immense power.
Amazing. 10/10.
I think what made all this especially appealing to me was that Matt Mercer had specifically set this all up as a unique combat challenge for the players. Like a good pro wrestling match, the technical aspect helped to fuel the story of the fight, but this battle had an added factor: None of this was predetermined. The whole setup reminds me of one of the big dividing lines in battle-oriented anime and manga: whether a series focuses on brain battles or heart battles. This definitely leans more into the former with the previous fight by Campaign 1’s Vox Machina more the latter. Making a brain battle emotionally satisfying isn’t always easy, but I think theteam pulled it off.
I don’t think every battle in an RPG should be against hive minds (it’d probably get old), but pulling one out and making it this exciting is exactly the kind of thing that makes me want to memorialize it on this blog. Kudos to the Critical Role team.
Video essayist F.D Signifier has made various videos about what he calls edgelord movies—media featuring cool lone-wolf heroes—and the way they interact with the portion of their fanbase that consists of a male, mostly white viewers drawn to their depiction of masculinity. Fight Club, The Matrix, Joker, and even something like Attack on Titan all count towards this. They’re fascinating watches, and well worth checking out.
At the end of his most recent video (see above), he comes to a striking conclusion: Attempts to address edgelords through edgelord media are probably in vain because there will always be a part of that audience who will just remember the badass stuff and ignore (or not even notice) the criticism. To make an edgelord movie, you need edgelord moments, and that is what a particular type will gravitate towards. If you make violence look cool, that’s what some people will remember above all else.
I can definitely see where F.D Signifier is coming from. But despite my sense that he might very well be right, I’m going to toss in my suggestion for an edgelord title that I think is the most likely to reach that audience and drive its criticisms home: Chainsaw Man.
Fujimoto Tatsuki’s manga Chainsaw Man centers around Denji, a destitute boy who does menial tasks for gangsters and dreams of 1) losing his virginity 2) eating bread with jam. Through an odd confluence of events, he gains the power of the Chainsaw Devil and becomes Chainsaw Man, with a chainsaw for a head and chainsaws on his arms…and also he can just make chainsaws come out of his body. The series is crass and ultra violent, and Denji acts as this powerful hero who breaks all the rules.
Except, where other edgelord fiction might leave any revealing commentary about its protagonist to the end (Fight Club, Attack on Titan), or couch its transgressive politics in imagery and metaphor (The Matrix), Chainsaw Man constantly juxtaposes the “sigma male” qualities of Denji with his own pathetic nature. Rarely does a badass scene or arc take place that isn’t immediately cut at the knees while the series questions that badassery in the first place. While it’s still possible to ignore Denji’s sadder qualities, Chainsaw Man really throws it in the audience’s face over and over again. There are even times where Denji himself explicitly expresses frustration over how shallow he can be, and how he often wishes he wasn’t that way.
I don’t have any empirical evidence that Chainsaw Man has reached anyone in the manner I’ve described. In fact, I often see the opposite, as parts of the Chainsaw Man fandom concentrate on refracted pieces instead of the whole: the brutal violence, the character Makima’s domme aesthetic, general wackiness, etc. But while at least a chunk of that audience might never learn, the series itself continuously pulls apart its own power fantasy only to put it back together and then tear it up again in a continuous cycle. It never relents, and I think that persistence could pay off.
OGIUE MANIAX 