#cartoon series

I’ve watched “Star VS The Forces of Evil” episode 21 season 4. It’s the last episode of the series and on the one hand, I understand that giving series a proper ending is one the most important things you can do, but on the other hand, I don’t want it to end. (Spoilers!) Star wants to destroy magic, goes to the magical dimension and start making a whispering spell and finds out that her powers aren’t enough. Marco took the wand and now tries to take care of Tom, who spent all that time there and now doesn’t have any memories (I was afraid that they forgot about Tom completely). So Marco has to feed him with pudding (Magic is weird), he succeeds and they both fight purple unicorns. Two other queens come and help Star, spirits of other queens come too and observe. Mina hears their spell from the well, falls in, but fights the unicorns and doesn’t disturb the spell. The spell on its turn works and now they have to run to the portals, which are collapsing. Already on Mewni, Star decides to come back for Marco and finds that he’s still there and there are no more portals. They stay there hugging each other and then the dimension blows up. Star wakes up on Mewni, everybody’s okay and she’s almost happy and then Tom shows her a huge glowing portal and she rushes to it. Marco wakes up on Earth and sees this portal too, takes Jackie’s board and tries to reach it. They are both late but then the portal blows up and now all the dimensions seem to be united. Star and Marco are together. I don’t know how it can be explained, what did it? Their love? I don’t care. I’m just so happy for them… For all of them. Now I’m going to take a little pause, read some comics, rethink my life, decide what to watch next.

I’ve watched the second episode of “Banana Fish”. Firstly, this stuff is getting more intense, and, secondly, I’m starting to feel who is the “hint of the slash” is going to be between. So, Eiji and Skip are being kept hostage, Ash rushed to save them but got caught himself. (Spoilers!) He was beaten by Marvin, but then tricked him and all three of them almost managed to run away, but they accidentally deadlocked and here Eiji’s talent comes out – he’s a pole vaulter, so he jumped over the wall, ran to the police and told them where were Ash and Skip. When police forces come there, Mafia and Ash’s gang arrive too, Skip is killed by Marvin (in the second episode! Now you understand, what I mean by “intense”?) and Ash chases him to his flat, only to find him there dead and be caught by the police and accused of murder. During the interrogation, we find out that Ash was invested in children-pornography. While Ash is in the hospital (he was hurt by Marvin), Eiji is sent to him get some information about Mafia, he doesn’t find out anything, but they have a nice conversation. Now Ash is in prison and everybody’s worried that he’s going to be killed there.

I’ve watched “Star VS The Forces of Evil” episodes 19-20 season 4. In the first part of the first episode, Star comes to Eclipsa, brings a lot of cool warriors with her (by the way, where’s Tom? What did I miss?) and offers help to fight Mina. Well, it doesn’t work out, everybody except for Star is injured and Eclipsa has to use her no-name spell to destroy the huge warrior… Who appears to be not Mina, but one of her warriors. She’s still alive and fine and has a huge army. In the second part, Moon arrives at the monster castle, says Eclipsa that everybody has to be evacuated. Star pulls Marco over and says that she’s frustrated and feels guilty. They finally confess their feelings to each other and kiss (this time consensually and consciously). When they come back, Moon says that Eclipsa and her family has to surrender and that Mina’s working for her. In the first part of the second episode, we see some Queen Solaria recruiting Mina to her army to fight monsters. By the way, Solaria is Eclipsa’s mother and she wanted to erase all the monsters. (Obvious thought: her name is Solaria – sun and so on, and her daughter, who’s her total opposite is Eclipsa – like sun eclipse.) Eclipsa decides to surrender and Moon tries to order Mina to forfeit, but she refuses and attacks the castle. Hecapoo saves Star, Marco, Eclipsa, Meteora, and Moon by bringing them to some other dimension. King River manages to drag Globgor out of the castle and decides to save him “because he’s a father”. In the last part, two queens, two princesses and Marco hang out at the “Tavern at the end of the Multiverse”. Everybody there ran away from governments and magic. Star freaks out, says that she wants to destroy magic and goes into Glossaryck’s eye. Glossaryck takes her to the Queen portrait gallery, every Queen there except for Moon and Eclipsa look at the new portrait – Start’s. She sees that she saved everybody, but after destroying magic Marco stayed on Earth. She cries but realizes that she still has to fulfil her fate. They ended it on a cliffhanger and I, being a coward, decided to leave the last episode to another post. (After all, the actual finale was spoiled to me by one the best friends. Thanks, Vova.)

It’s time for a little change, let’s start a new anime: I’ve watched the first episode of “Banana Fish” and I know almost nothing about it, only that it’s something criminal and with a hint of slash. Well, it jumps to the plot which seems to be very complicated: some New-York gangs, Mafia, Japanese reporters, War veterans, drugs… I’m trying to learn at least the character’s names. The main character – Ash is seventeen years old, he’s a leader of one of the gangs, a favourite (as much as it can be) of a mafia boss – “Papa” Dino and probably (as I understood from the conversations) a former Porn star. He in his turn doesn’t seem to be very fond of Papa and (Spoilers!) steals a sample of drugs from him. He has a kid-friend and a henchman – Skip. Ash tries to investigate the drug, brings it for expertise to a doctor, he also brings his brother, who’s war veteran with him claiming that he was drugged while in Iraq. In the end, he’s being interviewed by some Japanese reporters, but then Mafia (sent by Papa, for stealing the drug) and some of Ash enemies from the gang attack and kidnap Skip and one of the reporters (the one which is young and pretty, of course) and now Ash is chasing them. Woosh, that’s a lot of things to show in just one episode!

I’ve watched “Star VS The Forces of Evil” episodes 17-18 season 4. In the first part of the first episode (Spoilers!), Tom and Star finally break up. By “finally” I mean that it was expectable and everything was leading to it, not that I wanted it to happen. Well, Tom wants to leave now (obviously). Wants to leave, but can’t open the portal and neither can Star, they think it’s because they are both too emotional, but when Marco comes and his scissors don’t work too, so they understand that something’s wrong on Mewni. In the second part, they realize that Janna somehow got on Mewni without a portal, so they find Janna and she says that she doesn’t remember how did she get on Mewni, but she agrees to remember how did her “normal Thursday” go. They end up in the cellar of Taco shop and find a well which leads to the Magical dimension. In the first part of the second episode, they start throwing trash there to call the Firstborn, so that she leads them to Mewni, without them losing their memories. She finally agrees and pulls four of them in a car through the dimension, they start losing their memories, Marco confesses his love to Star, Then a bad thing happens – the unicorn sinks in some “bad magic” – but it’s not like with Toffee, where it was bog-green, this time it’s purple. Kids get off the car and just play with little unicorns until the Firstborn comes again and, while fighting with another big purple unicorn, send them all on Mewni. In the last part Marco wakes up in the castle overhearing Magical High Commission discussing their plan with Mina Loveberry, Star wakes up in a shack and goes to the human village where her parents live now – they are building a huge wall and tell her that Eclipsa’s castle is under attack, so Star rushes to help. Janna wakes at the monster village, Eclipsa saves her from Mina’s spell, then Mina hurts Globgor (badly), so Janna stays with him, while Eclipsa fights Mina.

I’ve watched “Star VS The Forces of Evil” episodes 15-16 season 4. In the first part of the first episode Star and Marco are getting ready for their trip and saying goodbye to everybody and when everything seems ready, she still comes up with excuses to delay their departure. (Spoilers!) Tom asks her, what’s wrong she can’t tell, but says that she doesn’t want to go. Tom blows up (a little, not like he used to, and he has a reason) and flees and Star goes to Earth and meets Marco (who came home too) and his little sister Mariposa. The second part is about how Star has some thaws, realizes that it’s summer on Earth and she doesn’t have to do anything. She and Marco go to get tacos and meet Jackie there. Marco is nervous and thinks that he was a bad boyfriend, but she assures him that he was and still is a very good friend and she also got a French girlfriend. The first part of the second episode is about the Beach day and yes, again about this photo from the future. Star and Marco have a beach day, finally, make the photo, but Star isn’t happy and goes to ask Father Time about it. It turns out that he didn’t give her this picture, she from the future did (or will do, time paradoxes) and she decides to live it as it is and just have fun with Marco on the beach. The last part is very cool: Marco babysits both Mariposa and Meteora, Hecapoo comes to warn him to stay out of Mewni and accidentally leaves her portal open and both babies go there – to the Neverzone. Star and Marco go to find them and they do find – two amazing and fierce teenage girls, one of whom can use magic and the other is a very good fighter. They don’t want to go with some weird strangers, instead of it they knock them off and try to sell Star as a magic-user to some magical creature in exchange for magic powers for Mariposa. Firstly, this magical creature – Wyscan – is just a fabulous blue-skinned elf with long white hair who can fly and always stands on his toes, secondly, he was going to eat Star with a huge mouth he had on his stomach and Mariposa (with Marco’s persuasion) decides that it’s no good and they fight him and can run away. The funny thing is that Star and Marco were able to make girls go with them after telling them that they have different tasty food in their world (unlike the Hecapoo’s dimension, where they had to eat garlic spiders).

I’ve watched the thirty-seventh episode of “Death Note” which means – UP TO THE END. I lived through this… Okay (Spoilers!), Near has forged both notebooks and one real ha keeps to himself and Aizawa has the other one. Light panics, screams, tells that they can’t kill him, because he’s a god of the new world (he seriously said it out loud). Then he tries to tell his motivation out loud again and then tries to write Near’s name on the piece of Notebook he has in his watches but Matsuda shoots him. At first in the hand and then almost kills him, because he realizes that Light led his father (whom Matsuda admired so much) to death. Wounded Light runs away and Ryuk writes Light’s name in his notebook (which one is it? I’m already so confused with all those Notebooks movements) because he thinks that Light is no more fun for him. I want to say two more things: Firstly, the beginning of the series was six years ago?! (By the inside time, of course.) Secondly, stop trying to make it “poetic cinema”, though the colouring on the background was very beautiful at the very finale. Finally – I did this.

I’ve watched “Star VS The Forces of Evil” episodes 13-14 season 4. The first part of the first episode has some sweet-sweet Tomco. Tom feels that he’s not cool enough (that he has to be “the cool one”, but he doesn’t actually do anything cool, that Marco does), so he decides to join The Dragon-cycling club and make some very dangerous jump, but he can’t bond with his dragon (Spoilers!) and when he finally befriends him, Tom lets him go and just flies of the cliff. The second part is about Eclipsa and Globgor going on a date (inside Globgor’s mind), Globgor makes stupid jokes and is generally nice and fun. Eclipsa gives him a present – a spell, which can decrystallize him, but he says that he doesn’t want to do it until the kingdom is ready. When Star finds out about it (because to make this decrystallizing spell, Eclipsa had to steal the piece of Spell-Book from Star’s secret closet) she says that he can’t trust Eclipsa and that the queen doesn’t think about her people. When Eclipsa says that she’s not even an official queen, Star decides to give her a proper coronation and then withdraw herself from all those “adult” stuff. The second episode is dedicated to the coronation. At first, everything goes well until Eclipsa needs to get another pack of strings for her guitar and finds out that Globgor is gone from his crystal. She tries to calm everybody and find him herself, but the Magical High Commission accuses her of every possible crime and chain her. Star tries to hunt Globgor on the bog, but it turns out that he had no intention of hurting anybody – he was going away from the castle. Star’s father (who was in the bog as well) also related to Globgor (as a father). So, she returned him to the coronation, but it didn’t help – only started a fight between Globgor and the Magical High Commission. It stopped when someone in the audience (which was still there) noticed a baby in the fire – Eclipsa and Globgor went to save her. Everybody realized that he meant no harm and just wanted to protect his family. Star also realizes that Rhombulus freed Globgor himself, just to show how evil he was. Well, it worked the other way around and the people accepted both Eclipsa and Globgor. They are so sweet together! I don’t want them to get hurt, but there are seven more episodes and something has to happen. After all, there’s still Mina.  

I’ve watched the thirty-sixth episode of “Death Note”. (Spoilers!) Takada is dead and now all the TV channels are fighting over who’s going to be the next Kira’s spokesperson. Light doesn’t care about it anymore, because he thinks that he’s going to win. He’s sure, he’s going to kill Near. The face to face meeting finally happens. Near anticipated the come of Mikami and that he’s going to write everybody’s names in the Notebook and the only person whose name isn’t there is Kira and Near is very calm because his agent has forged the Note. Light is trying not to laugh because he thinks that the notebook Mikami’s writing in right now is real (and Near has forged an already forged Notebook) and forty seconds from now on everybody in the room is going to die. They end the episode on a cliffhanger, which didn’t make it any more interesting for me, only more annoying. By the way, remember how we showed you Mikami’s personal history and motivation? Well, now he’s just crazy.

I’ve watched “Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts” episode 3. In this episode, we get to know another race of mutes – timbercats. They are cats (obviously), who makes everything from wood, uses axes and wear checkered-shirts and knitted hats. The funny moment is that cats are still cats – they play with clews and choke on fur. However, they are quite fierce warriors and they capture the main characters (all four of them) and then debate on either eat them or pet them, then, when Kipo puts on a leash on the pet of timbercats’ missing leader, they decide to give them to Scarlemagne (we and Kipo still have no idea who that is), but then Kipo offers them to cook food – she still hopes that they can work together and find the huge monster-mute who destroyed her home and stole timbercats’ scratching tree. Kipo and her friends cook, then timbercats sing an awesome song about their missing leader. The song is just brilliant! Then they are “poisoned” (with fur) and our team flies. In the night, though, Kipo can’t sleep and decides to save the leader of timbercats – she climbs the highest tree (her father taught her climbing in their cages) and finds Yumyan Hammerpaw (that’s his actual name). He climbed this tree while chasing a butterfly (cats are still cats) The animation of the butterfly is so beautiful! And in general, the animation of this scene with this stunning night sky is amazing! Then Kipo brings the leader in his village and now timbercats are her allies.

I’ve watched the seventh episode of “Banana Fish”. Our team arrives at LA and go to visit Max’s ex-wife – Jessica - and his son. She almost shoots him (but she’s actually very cool and a journalist), but then lets them all in and Max can give his son a birthday present. Then they visit an address they were going to investigate and rescue a young long-haired Chinese guy, who claims to be the son of the owner of the house and that the scientist they are searching for is his uncle who’s been missing for a long time and that his father’s missing now too. (Spoilers!) Ash hacks the computer in the house and they finally find out that “Banana Fish” is not a person, but the name of the drug, but then the real twist happens: Shorter gets a message that Chinese mafia is in this mess too now and so he’s to stay out of it or follow the orders. He doesn’t do any of it, of course, and finds out that the boy they’ve saved is - Lee Yut-Lung - the youngest son of the boss of the Chinese mafia. At first, Shorter agrees to follow his orders, but then, after Yut-Lung observed how everybody in team treats Eiji – and especially how Ash cares for him, he orders Shorter to kidnap his and Shorter revolts, gives a passionate speech about how his parents taught him to respect the Lee family and how he always believed that they were different, but now he sees that it’s not true and Lees are no better than Galzine. The episode ends with mafia attacking Jessica’s house.

I’ve watched “Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts” episode 2. In the second episode we got introduced to another one of main characters (at least I hope, this guy will stick around for some time) – a nice, easy-going boy, who lives with a “mute” – an insect, who goes through his ontogenesis (larva, “teenage”, small insect, big insect) very fast. The boy’s called Benson and the insect’s name is Dave. Wolf doesn’t trust them (Spoilers!) and on the one hand, they saved girls from the frogs, on the other hand when their help was declined, they just stole Wolf’s weapon. Though, then they returned it and then frogs caught Benson and Dave. Kipo and Wolf managed to run away, but then Kipo persuaded her companion, that they should save their new acquaintances. So, they let frogs catch them, meet the frog boss and then since they brought some mega-bunny fur with them, a mega-bunny mama came and so, all our character ran away, Dave highjacked/negotiated with a dragonfly, so they flew through the “Skyscraper Ridge” and came to the entrance to the bunker and found nobody there. Kipo believes that her people probably just moved somewhere. Dave ad Benson want to go with her to the Buro and Wolf says that her work – bringing Kipo home – isn’t done, so she’s joining the search again. Benson is a little bit like Baby-driver – he’s searching for the perfect song for important moments and actions scenes.

I’ve watched the sixth episode of “Banana Fish”. They decided to make things even more dramatic. The whole company moves from Max’s hideout to Ash’s home. A real home, where he lived as a child and where his father with a wife – Jennifer still lives. We get to know more about Ash’s family, for example, he and Griffin are only half-brothers, they have different mothers. Ash’s and his father don’t have good relationships – the father can’t say a simple word to his son, he only yells, he accuses him of all sins and says that if any of his “friends” sleep with him, they have to pay. Well, later after Max tells him that he was Griffin’s friend and they served together, the father tells a story of Ash’s childhood: he was raped by a baseball trainer, everybody in the village loved. Police did nothing and victim-blamed him (a seven-year-old boy!). Well, father told him, that if something like this happens – don’t fight, but make the abuser pay. Ash was assaulted more by the same coach, but a year later shot him with father’s gun. Police found child bones in the coach’s basement. To protect the boy against the rumour, the father sent him to live with his sister, but Ash ran away, was caught by Galzine and we know what happened next. They thought Ash was not enough traumatized? Seriously? Now they want us to think that he’s okay? Well, getting back to the plot – Dino’s people find them and take Ash’s family hostage, but he’s not so easy himself: he puts up a fight, Shorter and Max help him, but Jennifer is killed and Ash’s father shot (but still alive) and now our company has to leave as fast as possible, Ash is afraid that his father can die too. To continue their investigation about Banana Fish they go to Los Angeles, to see what’s on that mysterious address given Ash by a dying man (they’ve also seen this address written in the photo album near the picture of a man who killed Griffin (turns out, they had served together)). It’s only a fourth part of the series and so many events have already happened!

Time to find a new cartoon series, I decided to start with something short (and hopefully sweet). So, I’ve watched “Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts” episode 1. Heard that it has some good representation, cool visual and soundtrack. Well, I enjoyed it: the plot is pretty simple, some apocalypse (or whatever) happens in 2020 (seems realistic) and now everybody lives underground, only rogues and mutated animals live on the surface. An underground girl (everybody calls her “burrow girl”) ends up there after some earthquake and now tries to find her way back home. She meets a lot of odd animals, including a blue pig “with an extra pair of everything”, a mega bunny and a gang of frogs wearing suits (they are like the mafia). She also meets a girl (certainly younger than Kipo herself) – she’s tough and severe but decides to help Kipo because without her she just won’t survive. I enjoyed this episode, the soundtrack sure is cool and the visual pretty unusual, I hope to get more information about the world a little more in the later episodes.

I’ve watched the fifth episode of “Banana Fish”. (Spoilers!) Ash is released from prison, is picked up by Ibe, Eiji and Charlie then threatens Ibe and Charlie with a gun and then Eiji, who feels that now it’s his deal too, hijacks the car and they go to pick up shorter, some guns and a truck from some Chinese mafia. Then they take this truck to a restaurant owned by Dino and which is used as a place to sell children sex slaves (amazing), Shorter drives the truck and Ash rides on top and tries to shoot Dino, but gets shot by Arthur (nothing too bad), who’s there with Papa because he works for him now. So, they just run, Shorter protects Eiji (who’s unable to shoot), Max joins them and saves them, they jump off a bridge and swim away and Max takes them to his “hideout”. I have to remind you how cool action scenes are: they are very cool! It’s still very dramatic, because firstly, Ash still cries over Griffin and because when he speaks of those children, Dino sales, he says “like me”, which means that he was actually caught on the street and sold and then held as a sex slave… I don’t even want to think about how much traumatized he is.

I’ve watched the fourth episode of “Banana Fish”. (Spoilers!) Eiji, the doctor and his assistant are trapped by Arthur and mafia and threatened, so Eiji has to tell them about the drug, but then Shorter saves them, but then Griff (Ash’s older brother) recognized a doctor who came with the mafia and said something like: “You! Bana fish!”, and then this doctor shot him and he died in the hospital. Eiji feels very guilty because he feels responsible for Ash. Ash, in his turn, has more problems in prison, Max decided to move to another cell, so Ash had a new cellmate and Ash almost killed him, because this man tried to rape him (we see again how good can Ash fight, even with an opponent which exceeds him in physical strength). Then Ash has to fight mafia (three people at the same time) and again almost killed one of them. Then Max, who found the fighting scene, tells Ash about his brother and Ash, being very angry, attacks Max too, but they are both alright at the end. At the very end, they even reconcile, drink together and mourn Griffin, after all, they both loved him.

I’ve watched the third episode of “Banana Fish”. (Spoilers!) Ash is in prison, Max – a friend of the reporter – is to take care of him, but it doesn’t work out as intended. Ash is too young and pretty not to have problems in prison. The very first day he gets involved in a fight, is put in solitary confinement and beaten (not too badly) the next day. Because of that – he spends the night in the hospital, asks the doctor for a painkiller – specifically for a capsule. Sneaks it away and the next day, when the reporters, including Eiji, come to meet him he passes the capsule secretly… There was a non-consensual kiss and I thought – here we go, the “hint of the slash” becomes problematic, but then we find out it was needed for the “good deed” – that was a way to pass the capsule with a secret massage to Eiji so that he finds Shorter (second in command in Ash’s gang) or the doctor (who researches the drug), but Eiji gets caught by Arthur. While in prison with Max Ash finds out that his roommate also investigated “banana fish” and the drug and that we saw him and Ash’s brother at the very beginning of the first episode – when a soldier somewhere goes mad, starts shooting his comrades and the other soldier, who managed to hide, shoots him in the legs. The mad soldier is Ash’s brother and the one who shot him was Max. Now Ash says that when he gets out of jail, he’s going to kill Max because now his brother can neither walk, nor recognize anybody. Max (as a reporter) also tried to find any information about this mysterious “fish”, but only finds another reporter, who spent a lot of time somewhere in Asia and knew that “banana fish” was either a person or a group of people. Well, this reporter is dead now, we saw his death in the first episode. That’s all so tangled together!

Coming back to ask y'all if you know any good cartoon series for children where you can see the portrayal of families/ the role of mother and father.

To keep it short and crispy i’d use the intersectional approach and i need a series for my final paper but i’m struggling to find one with at least 3 episodes that i can write about cuz i wanna write about how children from the young age see how the mother e.g. is in an apron and cooks while the father is at work etc.

Thank you!!! Smoochy smooch