#toblerone

As a swiss photographer, I just had to…

teen hashimada AU where hashirama and madara are the younger siblings

“Loof eating a Toblerone in one bite!”
Incredible fanart by Koala Creations!

Reviewing this show episode by episode so you don’t have to watch it!

Episode 3.

The show opens up on a body of water near the city where there’s a suspicious image of 2 twin buildings submerged in the center of the composition. Is this supposed to be a WTC reference because to say that it became submerged underwater as opposed to being destroyed by terrorists comes with a lot of implications that don’t make sense to me. Charles is reading Kaz “Cold Iron” by Rudyard Kipling as if he’s a little boy being read a bedtime story. According to TV Tropes this poem may be a poetic way to describe how iron disrupts magic.  Kaz responds that his world has become “Cold Iron,” obviously meaning that his world and all the great things in it have become disrupted. Charles tells Kaz that some men might find falling off the bachelor board (y’know, that #1 bachelor ranking system that still has yet to be explained) but Kaz finds it embarrassing despite claiming he doesn’t care about the ranking system! Did the writers forget about this or does he really care and pretend not to? Aunt Agatha calls him for a meeting and he only agrees to go because their serving a squid ink pasta and he wants to eat something melancholy. 

After complaining about his fallen bachelor status Aunt Agatha informs him that despite this, his next assignment actually came out of his still present popularity. Some Helena St. Tessaro (the fashion blogger from the first 2 episodes) fangirls, the Helenists who attend his alma mater, Easton prep school are refusing to wear their uniforms and Kaz, being one-track minded is concerned, not with their unhealthy obsession with her, but with the notion that their uniform is all the rage in teen fashion. 

Kaz goes to visit Helena whose room is a mess and has food waiting outside of her door, indicating that she’s a shut-in. The first thing he says to her is to complain about the mess, again lacking any genuine concern for her. She says she’s “hikikomori” now which basically means she’s a recluse (more anime trope words). She complains that the world is bullshit and that she’s fed up with it. Kaz tells her that ball made him depressed too, assuming that’s what she’s been bothered about even though she was depressed before the ball and explained to him why she was. Did he forget about this or is he just that self-centered? He informs her that she’s still effecting that bullshit world because her fans are now refusing to wear their school uniforms and she makes it clear that she doesn’t care. Kaz says the headmaster of Easton cares and doesn’t argue when Helena accuses of him of wanting to control what woman wear. Kaz tells her that high school is not the proper place to experiment with style. Because y’know, it’s not like self-expression and experimentation helps you figure out who you are and what you want to do in life before you become an adult and may not have the luxury to wear or do whatever you want every day. Oh no, high-school is not the place for experimenting with anything! He says that he’s been asked to teach these girls about elegance and that he’s an elegant man with taste. Man, this show loves to use the word “elegant.” Helena scoffs at him and calls him a materialistic narcissist for being so clearly obsessed with clothes. He dismisses her, telling her that he has to go meet with his friends at the polo club, saying that he’d invite her but it’s outside. Wow…

He goes to see Lexy and Gottlieb at a bar and they tell him that they’ve invented a Caprese martini. Which is basically a salad flavored drink. Although it sounds weird, Kaz and people in real life who’ve tried it says it tastes good. Lexy suggests that they make Kaz the poster boy for their new drink after his taste-test. Kaz says that he doesn’t think it’ll mesh well with his new self now that he’s going to be teaching at Easton, to their surprise but he’ll give it a try. 

Kaz goes to Easton and explains to Charles how people think Easton is a place where rich people send their kids but he says it’s a place for rich kids to learn and grow. He meets the Helenists in class and they immediately reject everything he says. They say that since Helena is not longer into fashion, neither are they. Kaz tells them that Helena used to be a great role model for girls but now she’s gone hikikomori. They appear to be shocked but the undertone seems to be that they’re impressed or inspired. The headmaster calls him into the office to tell him that him being invited there is just a cover for his real mission: to find out which teacher there is bringing demons into the school. Kaz returns to the classroom but is locked out by the Helenists and they try to barter with him saying that they’ll consider letting him teach them if they bring a letter to Helena. Kaz gets angry and scolds them for attempting to blackmail him. The headmaster approaches Kaz and asks what’s going on to which Kaz responds that they have gone hikikomori. The headmaster is outraged and asks where they got that idea from. Kaz tells him that they got the idea from him but that really, they were inspired by St. Tessaro. The headmaster asks if Kaz has found the demon sympathizer and he says he’s close to doing so and needs more time. 

The field-hockey coach appears and says that his ball has been possessed by a demon and it proceeds to bounce on its own through the halls as Kaz chases it into the library. He tells everyone in the room to pay no attention to him while this chase ensues. Really? I know that the Neo Yokio residents are supposed to be aware of the constant demonic presences in the city but how do you expect them not to be alarmed by this? Especially with you throwing your lightning at it? He catches it and it pops. The headmaster demands that he get the school back to normal at the end of the week and tells him to clean up his mess. 

Kaz goes to visit St. Tessaro. He brings her another big Toblerone (Infamous Toblerone reference #3). Will he actually let her keep it this time? He gave her the letter from her fans and tells her that he’s being blackmailed by them. If he didn’t get the letter to her, they wouldn’t let him back into the classroom. This is pretty nonsensical to me. Why hasn’t the school gotten their parents involved? And really? Kaz is allowing himself to be controlled by these girls? What the hell has the headmaster been doing other than watching Kaz fail to do damage control? Also, the girls had to leave the classroom eventually. They’re not going to stay at the school overnight. And if they attempt to do so, threaten expulsion, call the cops, get a handy-man to break the door down, do something! Of course as always…bad writing. St. Tessaro tells him that as a response to Kaz trying to control them, they resorted to controlling his class. She tossed the letter onto her large pile of ignored fan-mail. Kaz is shocked about the quantity of letters that she gets from the Helenists and St. Tessaro tells him that she hasn’t bothered to keep up with it. Kaz begs her to help him deal with the rebellious students but she declines, telling him that he’s on his own. He also tells her that he needs to focus all of his energy on finding the demon sympathizer at the school and that he thinks that it’s Professor Muley. St. Tessaro scoffs at the idea of there being a demon sympathizer at the school. She tells him that he needs to respect her wishes to remain secluded. Kaz gets a call from Charles that the professor has returned to his apartment. Kaz leaves after telling St. Tessaro that he hopes that he reconsiders, if not for him then for Easton. 

Kaz and Charles stake out Professor Muley’s apartment and discuss their suspicions of him (black clothing, occult jewelry, etc.). Charles comments that the occult symbolism is too commonly used to be anything serious and Kaz tells Charles that he’s making his case to suspect Muley weak. Charles tells him to trust his gut and Kaz calls Muley to see what he’s up to. Kaz informs Charles that he’s headed downtown to meet with friends and we see Muley leaving the building and getting into a cab but as Charles notes, the cab drives uptown. Charles asks why he would lie about that and Charles suggests that they follow him. 

They fly off through a tunnel and Kaz asks if they’ve ever been through that tunnel before. Charles says no and that the tunnel goes to Queens. We get a shot of the city that shows a congested cluster of low-income looking apartment buildings. It looks similar to Chinese and Japanese low-income housing where we see that the apartments are all cramped together and the air-conditioning units are on the outside of the building as opposed to being built-in. We zoom in on the cab that Muley was riding in and we see that there’s Chinese written on the building. Muley walks into the building. Kaz comments on their surroundings and Charles informs him that they’re in Long Island Walled City based on Long Island City which despite the inferred racial demographic, isn’t known to have a large Chinese population in real life. Charles tells him that he won’t fit through the halls and to go on without him. Kaz tells him that he’s supposed to going to the launch party for the Caprese Martini and to let his friends know that he’s running late. Kaz follows the professor into a door marked with a satanic symbol. Muley spots Kaz and asks him what he’s doing there. Kaz asks him what he’s doing in this supposed “demonic chapel” and Muley explains that it’s a club and his boyfriend is the DJ and spins “Gregorian House” which must be pretty obscure music because when you Google it, you mostly get Neo-Yokio related conent. Not to say that all obscure music is hipster but this has hipster written all over it. The two men take a seat and Kaz asks him why he lied about going to a club and Muley claims that he’s embarrassed to be a classically trained musician dating a DJ who to his implication plays bad music. Muley asks him not to tell anyone about it. Kaz asks him to try the Caprese Martini and Muley prejudges it to be fowl until he tastes it. Kaz tells him that he couldn’t believe that he thought he was a demon sympathizer to which Muley replies “I don’t sympathize with anyone.” I take it he’s joking but in the context and tone of this show, I don’t find it funny. Although it is better to empathize with people than to sympathize for people, it still says a lot of negative things about his character. Of course Kaz finds this funny because he’s a selfish narcissist. 

Helena is laying in bed and we see her about to be attacked by her fan-mail that turns into a giant tentacle monster. The monster squeezes the giant Toblerone she received from Kaz over her body and splatters chocolate onto her. This turns out to be a dream until we see her awake, opening a letter that reveals Kaz’s name inside of a glowing piece of paper shaped like a pentagram.

Kaz is kidnapped in the bathroom by the Helenists donned in black cloaks. How he let this happen I’ll never know. Did the writers forget about his powers? He tells them that pranking their teacher isn’t funny and they reveal that it’s not a prank. Kaz figures that they are the demon sympathizers and they tell him that they want to get possessed by demons as the ultimate tribute to St. Tessaro. Great way to show an unhealthy devotion to celebrities, writers! Scary thing is, I can see teenage girls attempting this in real life. Kaz warns them that they don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. They tell him that they’re sacrificing him because the demons asked for it as an offering. 

We get back to Charles and his friends whose Caprese Martini is doing well. They ask where Kaz is and Charles tells them that he should be there soon. 

Kaz is bound to a bundle of sticks as Helena appears Toberone in hand, to monologue about how he is everything that’s wrong with this city and that he is foolish and vain, not that elegant (Kaz is insulted by this the most) and that the only thing worthwhile about him is his taste in luxury chocolate. While one of the girls is distracted by her commentary on the chocolate, she hits her over the head with it the same way that this show has been hitting us over the head with how much the writers love Toblerones. The blast from the released energy sends the girls flying in all directions and the noise wakes up the headmaster who runs in wearing a bathrobe. Wait, is Easton a boarding school? Does he live there? He asks “what in the name of Shakespeare’s ass is going on here?” The writers’ attempt at making this character have any humor? Why Shakespeare? Is there a reference here that I’m not understanding? (I’ve never read Shakespeare.) Kaz reassures him that everything is under control and that he discovered that the Helenists are the demon sympathizers. The headmaster complains that the board of trustees are going to crucify him for this. Such a great headmaster to be concerned about the school’s funding more than his students… Kaz assures him that the trustees should at least be glad that they are close to solving the uniform issue and asks the Helenists to confirm this. When he turns around, in true anime humor cliché fashion, we see that the girls have escaped and Kaz’s alarm is signaled with a video game sound effect. They’re all shocked. How was no one paying any attention to them? Kaz really sucks at his job sometimes and that’s not necessarily a bad thing because it shows realism. But for fucks sake, man, you just got kidnapped by 3 crazy teenaged girls, attacked them as they were about to kill you and you’re not going to watch these girls to make sure they don’t try anything behind your back? That’s just unconscionably idiotic. So Kaz is a moron. Ok, got it! Kaz is shocked that the headmaster is giving into their demands and abandoning the uniforms amidst all this trouble. Kaz spews some bullshit about how the uniform is an important part of the school’s culture instead of showing any concern for the missing girls and the headmaster puts his foot down on the matter before firing him. Kaz asks Helena how she knew that the girls were going to kill him and she tells him about her dream where the Toblerone was getting crushed by the fan-mail, the Toblerone representing him. Wow, did they seriously equate a black character to being chocolate? Kaz is shocked that she came and says he thought she hated him. She denies that and says that she wishes that he wasn’t “a lapdog of the bourgeoisie.” He says that he can’t help it, it’s the family business. She says that she owes him because he showed her that she didn’t want to be a part of the city’s wealthy culture anymore. 

Kaz finally shows up to the Caprese Martini party. Charles asks him how his investigation went and he complains about how he falsely accused Muley and his students tried to kill him. His friends totally ignore this and tell him about how successful their martini is. If I had a friend with powers who told me that they were almost killed, I don’t care how powerful they are, I’d still show them some concern. But I guess they’re trying to cheer him up? They tell him that him and his martini are going to be rise to top popularity. Gottlieb asks him if he can “feel the synergy” to which Kaz gloomily replies no, again trying to sell to us how depressed Kaz is. 

Stray Observations

-As Kaz and Charles take off to follow Professor Muley, we see a billboard with Kaz’s Caprese Martini ad on it. Decent attention to detail or just more display of Kaz’s vanity?

-It’s amazing how a plot about rebellious teenagers has so little parental involvement. Correct me if I’m wrong but I haven’t heard a single thing from any of the characters about getting the Helenists’ parents involved and knocking some sense into their kids. 

-In the scene where Kaz is being held by the Helenists we get a view of the building from the outside and see that it is coursing with a bright electrical aura. Does no one outside find this strange? Why is there not a crowd of people outside looking shocked at this display? Do the people of this city just assume that whatever the hell is going on is being taken care of?

-I’m beginning to think that the demons running amok in Neo Yokio are trying to use powerful and wealthy people in the city like St. Tessaro, Sailor Pellegrino and now these prep school girls to show Neo Yokio that it’s culture of worshipping wealth is toxic to society and I’m tempted to root for the demons because it feels like Kaz isn’t a hero worth rooting for. However, I wouldn’t root for the demons because:

1. For me personally, this show doesn’t have any characters or entities worth celebrating.

2. I’m against capital punishment and as shitty as Kaz is, I don’t care enough about him to wish death upon him.

3. If the demons are supposed to represent a voice of reason against a harmful 1%er class culture, the show makes it seem as though speaking out against this culture is evil–which could be the show’s point that the 99%’s voices against this class are often demonized but making this demon entity homicidal completely kills this idea entirely and therefore leaves the central plot of the show without any real point or direction. I mentally scoff at people who think this show has any potential to be groundbreaking because they’ve already lost the point of this show in the 1st episode. 

So, I first learned about Neo Yokio via Facebook. My friends were posting about this and when I saw the trailer, I thought “Ah, this looks really kind of cool. The protagonist is black, Jaden Smith is voicing the character and I really liked his character on The Get Down so I’m definitely going to check this out.” Then I started hearing about all the negative reviews and I reserved judgement simply for that fact that I wanted to see it for myself. When I finally saw the show, however, I was more than disappointed…after the first episode. I’ve seen all 6 episodes already and I don’t know what to think about it other than it not being good. So, for those who haven’t seen the show, I’m going to torture myself and review this show episode by episode. I’m going to break everything down from the animation to the dialogue to the plot and then summarize all of my thoughts with a final review. So this is my review for episode 1. 

Episode 1.

So in the series’ intro, we are introduced to what exactly New York, I mean -clears throat- “Neo Yokio” is. It’s basically New York but the name is mixed with Tokyo which is strange and makes no sense to me because we don’t get any references to Japan or Japanese culture in the city whatsoever other than the fact that this show is supposed to be an anime. It seems as though they were trying to reference San Fransokyo from Big Hero 6. However, we actually see Japanese architecture, culture and people in this well-integrated city. In Neo Yokio, we don’t. A very disappointing missed opportunity. We next learn that Neo Yokio is constantly under attack from demonic entities because of the city’s prestige. This is reminiscent of 9/11 and the various attempted and successful terrorist attacks on NYC and it makes sense to me that evil entities would want to seek to cripple and destroy NYC’s power seeing as how we’re one of the largest financial and social epicenters on Earth. We’re told that to combat these demons, the mayor who looks suspiciously like FDR, invited a class of exorcists to become citizens of Neo Yokio so that they could fight off these threats and that because of their growing status in the city, they became part of the elite in the city which I also thinks makes sense. It also reminds me a bit of Pacific Rim where the jaeger pilots became famous heroes for their victories against the kaiju. 

So we are introduced to the main character, Kaz (after getting an unnecessary butt/crotch shot of one of the girls playing tennis) on a tennis court. The first thing we learn about him is that he has recently broke up with his girlfriend Kathy when his mecha butler, Charles returns his watch to him that is engraved with her name. Kaz then throws this very expensive watch onto the street to be run over. I guess removing the engraved words and pawning it were out of the question? We then meet his friends, Lexy and Gottlieb whose jarring use of slang reminds me of The Boondocks. Except that it doesn’t seem to fit with the tone of this show so far, or at least, not to me. Although Kaz has prior commitments like his field hockey game, he asks Charles to cancel his appointments, tells his friends that he’s dropping out of their field hockey tournament and sulks over the end of his relationship by spewing a bunch of poetic nonsense about death and feeling like going through the daily motions of life are like navigating through a maze. Like, jeez, I know that break-ups are depressing but it sounds like the writers were trying to force his depression on us without really showing that he’s depressed.

We then find out as Kaz leaves with Charles (it’s so suspicious that he flies on Charles the way that Hiro flies on Beymax when we already have the San Fransokyo reference, like they’re intentionally trying to rip off Big Hero 6) that there is a board in Times Square that ranks the city’s most eligible bachelors and although Kaz claims not to care about it, he’s disappointed to find out that he’s second to his rival who is number 1. He goes to meet up with his Aunt Agatha who reminds him that he has work to do fighting to protect the city and that he’s been wasting his time with frivolous matters. Kaz laments again about how depressed he is over his girlfriend to which Aunt Agatha replies that it wouldn’t have worked out because all people like her will see in their family is that they are “neo riche” rat catchers despite the prestige and elegance they have achieved in society. She tells him that Helena St. Tessaro, one of the city’s top fashion bloggers has been possessed which for some odd reason, is good news. Kaz, still sulking refuses until she yells at him that he has no choice and that he’ll lose his extravagant lifestyle if he doesn’t do this job. 

Kaz goes shopping for a new suit…to go perform an exorcism…and he shops by touching the suits rather than seeing them. Charles’ positive reaction to this makes me wonder how in the world they got Jude Law to voice this character. We meet Kaz’s rival, Archangelo who after a bunch of classist insults gets himself blasted through a bunch of walls with Kaz’s exorcist powers. Oh, and he’s completely unscathed after this! He destroys a bunch of changing rooms in the process. Does he eventually pay for that? Is he not going to apologize to the salesclerk? Also, I’m assuming that security and law enforcement are going to turn a blind eye to this because Kaz is rich and powerful. After having done this, he claims that performing the exorcism on Helena would be easy. 

Kaz and Charles venture to the scene of the exorcism, 14th street which, for some odd reason is underwater. Is it because of climate change? The two enter the house where they meet Helena’s fans and are told by Helena’s parents that after being offered a Chanel suit, she became possessed. Kaz walks into her room and sees her floating in a ball. He tries talking to her, complimenting her on the suit, casually reminding her about how they may or may not have had sex at another rich kid’s party and when she doesn’t respond to his “charms,” he tried touching her suit which results in him being electrocuted. He gives up after this, so easily. What the hell? Just after he was boasting about how easy it was going to be to exorcize this girl. Not surprised they pulled this cliche. Her parents kick him out of the house. Kaz sulks again. Charles informs him that this failure has taken on a toll on his ranking. How the hell does this ranking system work anyway? How did whomever is in charge of changing this ranking find out so quickly that his attempt to help Helena failed? Did Helena’s fans tweet about it or something? Did her family complain to someone about this? Also, who the hell cares about his stupid ranking? What about Helena? Sounds like this episode is trying to say that if you’re wealthy and famous, it does’t matter if you do your job well, it’s your status that matters. 

After that event, Charles offers Kaz a giant Toblerone (the first of the ever famous Toblerone references) but Kaz declines and asks to go visit the grave…his grave. Yeah, that’s right, this kid is so narcissistic that he created his own grave to go visit whenever he has a problem, apparently. Besides his break-up with his girlfriend and his worries about being considered neo-riche, what could possibly be going on in Kaz’s life that’s so bad that he has to resort to mourning his own metaphorical death in order to cope with it? I also notice that his gravestone says that he was born in 1997. So this isn’t the future? It’s the accelerated present (like with Real Steal)? Also, this means he’s 20? I’m so confused about what time period this is supposed to be. Then to add to his pretentious attitude, he tells an old man who’s spraying his wife’s favorite perfume onto her grave that he should spray a more youthful perfume onto her grave instead. When the old man insists that his wife loved the perfume that he’s using, Kaz arrogantly condescends to the man that the elderly don’t understand anything about style and that the girls of his generation would never use that perfume. Now Kaz is being a straight-up asshole and I’ve decided that I don’t like him. And somehow, the writers decided to use this moment of ass-holery to help him figure out a mystery surrounding Helena’s exorcism. The Chanel suit wasn’t subject to the same security measures as other luxury items! It was vulnerable! The suit was possessed! Not Helena! 

Kaz rushes back to help Helena and fights to suit off her body. We’re subjected to some really terrible voice over effects to convey the fact that she’s possessed and she’s left in her bra and underwear after Kaz fights to suit off her. Fan service? When she wakes up, wet and nearly naked, instead of the rational reactions of “what the fuck? Where are my clothes? Did we have sex again?” I’m guessing she’s a party girl and this happens to her all the time? She casually greets him and says that she hasn’t seen him since that party…ok… Kaz makes it to the field hockey game. He makes such an inspiring and riveting speech about how he was depressed and how it effected his feelings toward field hockey but now that he was there, he knew that they can win the game. Oh, I’m being sarcastic about that last sentence, by the way. And of course, they win the game because they have to because happy ending. 

Stray Observations

-The lip-syncing is terrible; so terrible in fact that I have seen comments from people asking about the original Japanese version of this that doesn’t exist because this is an American made cartoon. Yep, it’s that bad. 

-Why do Kaz and everyone in his family have magenta hair? Not necessarily a bad thing, just curious. Is that one of those typical anime character distinction things? The main character must have an outlandish hair color to stand out!

-I heard that the director who helped create this, Kazuhiro Furuhashi made some animes pretty amazing. What the hell happened here?

-They refer to The Bronx (that’s where I’m from!) as being a “prefecture” in a sorry attempt to make the city sound more Japanese. 

This first episode was so painful to watch… And it sets a pretty shitty precedent for the rest of the series. Will be reviewing the 2nd episode soon.