User blog:SomeoneYouUsedToKnow/SYUTK's V4E3 - Of Cats and Monkeys - Impressions/Recap

Same reasons as the previous ones: Feels easier to write my thoughts in this manner.

Same as always, the Language of Truth shall be used. Red Truh and Blue Truth.

Red is fact, simple as that in the eyes of the user.

Blue is an hypothesis, theory, guess.

Now let's begin as always:

1.YARR YARR, Fiddle Dee Dee!
We begin this episode by looking at Blake in a boat. Though this boat is special. You see, in this world, where 8/10 weapons are swiss-army guns, with robots, mini-mechas, airships and magnificent towers that reach the heavens........this is a simple wooden boat stuck in the semi-industrial age. It's like Jaune's old sword reincarnated into a piece of swimming wood. It's most special trait is the lack of actual sails.

(By the way, is it just me, or has Blake's skin become.....less pale? )

Tunaslayer here then gets approached by an old captain, getting combat-ready inmediately once she hears him say "traveling alone?". Paranoid much? Whitebeard then comments on how not many people travel on boats on their own (Which I understand....it's a world with freaking airships, why would anyone keep using wooden boats and risk a Grimm Kraken attacking them? They would at least try to bring company just in case).

Blake, as expected, responds that for some, it's better to be alone.... And then I discovered....Black Panther has become....a pussycat, as she's startled a bit too much by noisy kids running. Jeezus, I know trauma is a bitch, but she seems less afraid and more like an emotional wreck.

(There's also an inconsistency here with her pose, around 2:27 when the camera angle changes, but it's so obvious you should notice just by watching the ep).

After finishing her chat with Captain Whitebeard, she takes off her bow and goes to elsewhere on the ship, while an Organization XIII member spies from afar. And then, on the water, we see a red fin. Finally, This Will Be The Day We've Been Waiting For.

2.The Melancholy of Yang Xiao Long
Now we cut to Yang See-ya so-Long. (Guess my gut beat my brain after all; we got Tunaslayer and Burnout). She's......melancholic? ......Nah. She's Nihilistic. And not the good kind.

She sees some books but doesn't feel like reading (can't be cause of the hand. Holding a book with one hand and turning pages with it is hardly difficult. ), so she decides to watch a bit of the V3Finale, before getting bored and switching to the news. Before switching to the news. And then she switches to the news.

Speaking of news, the situation in Vale is a bit Grimm. Hunters apparently are having a hard time, the Internet is still down which means no porn to calm the masses, the Council has banned all air-traffic not related to the evacuation, and Lisa Lavender.

Now, compared to how she looked in Vol.1 (and Chibi), she looks more in-line with the rest of the art-style. Originally, she looked very obviously 2D when (mostly) everything else was 3D. Now, she looks 3D too, though her animation still makes her feel 2D.

She talks about how people are investigating and speculating about who caused the attacks during the VytalFES. No one knows who, but the White Fang was seen everywhere, including Adam Taurus. The Faunus did it then, obviously.

And then Proto-Jaune Xiao Long enters the scene, carrying some bags and boxes, one of which apparently is for Yang. And what is it? Well.....it's a platinum, state-of-the-art Atlesian robo-arm. That's right, a robo-arm. Yes, the opening implied despair with her lacking arm, we thought we would see her cope with having 1 arm.......and we will.

Apparently, Ironwood made it off-screen, just for her. Because "you fought Adam. You should be proud of yourself" (apparently forgetting how that just cannot be called a fight.) Regardless, Yang doesn't feel like testing it right now.

3. The Agony of Yang Xiao Long
(Yes, there's still more Yang)

We see Yang brushing off the bits of boring dust outside her boring house, checking her boring mail in her boring mailbox, washing the boring dishes, everyday boring stuff....

....and then,<font style="color:#FF0000">The Worst, Most Atrocious, Most Shocking, Most Despair-Inducing Moment of her Morning happened: She broke a cup by accident.

...And no, that was hardly a joke, it really was the most Despair-Inducing moment of her morning, as the shattering glass inmediately brings to mind Adam and the slash....for some reason (it feels like a weird connection).

Now this is interesting....though granted, we're at the 3rd episode so it could prove different later.....let's compare Ruby and Yang for a moment. Ruby: Far more innocent and idealistic, less mature, saw 2 dear friends (and 1 enemy) die in her face, + everything that happened in Vale, and....she has nightmares.

Yang: More mature and not as innocent, was incriminated on Live TV, saw 1.5 dear friends die, lost an arm, + everything that happened in Vale, and...she has PTSD.

I know different people can suffer different levels of trauma from different things, but, I don't know....I feel Ruby should be at least around as clearly-traumatized as Yang. Granted, kids deal with Trauma far more easily than adults do. (Or better said, more easily avoid getting traumatized).

Finally: As Yang calms herself, her father watches from outside the kitchen, looking with sadness at her emotional situation, and his own futility at improving it.

4.Trapped By The Ocean's Scent
Now back to Tunaslayer (¡YAAAAY!)

Now evening, Bowless Blake stares at the ocean before her attention shifts (surprisingly not paranoidly) to a rabbit and deer faunus pair. Now, I would say it's better than in previous Volumes, were most of the time <font style="color:#FF0000">it was hard, if not impossible, to find a non-human person in the background ....though since it's clear it was supposed to be noticed this time, I won't count it.

She stares into the ocean again, clearly thinking about Sun, before walking down the deck....before she notices the Organization XIII member looking at her from above. She yells (in the most narmy, ugly-sounding way I've seen her yell in a long time) at him, but he leaves.

We see then, in the background, a looooong Sea Monster Grimm who shortly reveals itself. (Appearance-wise, due to the head, I say it's an Asian Dragon. I shall call it <font style="color:#0BBFFF">Long until I find out it's real name). It's big enough to create waves of sufficient size to push the ship just by going to the surface for a few seconds.

The Captain seems to have a history with it....sure, he says they haven't fought one so big before.....but he also called it <font style="color:#FF0000">"her". Unless he's had some interesting partners in his past, it seems...conspicuous. I wasn't even sure Grimm had genders (yes, including Salem).

Now, back to the fight: Blake makes some acrobatics before giving an absurdly huge jump that just pushes my willing suspension of disbelief (not helped by more inconsistencies, such as the crew dissappearing when Blake makes the jump, and the Grimm becoming far bigger than it seemed seconds ago.), before attacking Long.

Long, in response, starts moving. The way it moves and "stands" looks less like it's swimming, and more like it's....flying in a serpentine way, making me feel it really is Asian. (Now that I think about it, Menagerie is right below Mistral. Yeah, definitely Asian Dragon).

Long gets blasted by cannonfire while it pushes Blake back. Blake is about to continue, but for convenience's sake, it seems she twisted her arm a bit. Then, Whitebeard's crew activates the heavy cannon (moment during which I notice, the ship is actually more advanced than I thought), while Long.....pulls out wings (now longer so Asian-looking.... :C)

They fire the heavy cannon, but it's....<font style="color:#FF0000">absolutely worthless as Long easily avoids the shot. Seriously, what were they even thinking?

Long then prepares to unleash a Kamehameha on our heroine, when suddenly Org.XIII Guy hops off her head towards the mighty snake, pulling out it's coat and revealing itself to be Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.

....Mmm........oooh, I see, I see. Long isn't just any Asian Dragon....<font style="color:#0BBFFF">it's the Dragon King of the Eastern Seas! Ao Kuang! My god, how could I forget that guy?

Back to the fight, Sun manages to make Ao Kuang miss with his Kamehameha, and hangs to it's whiskers....but he hardly manages to stay on top, before getting thrown out and shocked for such insolence. Blake catches him with more acrobatics that I still find hard to believe, and they land on a stone.

They have a short lover's quarrel, during which I noticed...Sun's eyes got <font style="color:#FF0000">lighter colored, more like aquamarine. Granted, it's better than some other eye-color changes other characters have received before. We see Blake run towards the ship while Sun stays doing nothing (again), while Ao Kuang proves his awful accuracy.

Blake stupidly is about to get blasted in the face but Goku saves her by somehow blocking the beam with no issue. We can see his staff better at this point, and I have to say, it looks....improved. More ornate, and more like it's made of flintlock rifles. <font style="color:#FF0000">Or maybe it's just the new art-style making it look cooler.

Following the Captain's advice to clip the wings it clearly didn't need before to move swiftly, Sun uses his clones to send Blake flying towards the heavens, getting blacked by Blake jumping on top of him when he expected a beautiful hug below the bed of stars (seems Blake doesn't ship Black Sun anymore).

She manages to cut it's wing (though it's a bit hard to tell afterwards...for me at least), and Sun saves her from crashing down like an idiot, the momentum causing a small crater at his feet. Ao Kuang is Relentless however, and keeps attacking, forcing both to jump over many rocks that I swear were not there before, getting very far away from the ship in the process, though it manages to keep up by using the engines.

Sun almost gets devoured, but Blake saves his ass....before losing all momentum somehow and becoming helpless as Ao Kuang prepares to blast them....until <font style="color:#EE82EE">it gets pierced by the ship at full speed in it's lower half section, before the fight reaches it's Climax when they blast the Dragon King of the Eastern Seas in the face (...when did this get so Freudian?).

5. HARR HARR, Ahoy and Avast!
The night arrives as we see Sun trying to...apparently calm the faunus couple complaining about the noise. Then, we get more Lover's Quarrel, between Sun who chose Hoes before Bros, and Blake who no longer ships Black Sun apparently.

Blake asks him what he's doing here, and Sun deflects the question. Obviously, it fails. She asks him if he's been following her, with a tone of great disdain, no doubt more paranoia. Now, Sun gets serious and explains himself....but....remember Blake's narmy expression in the V4 opening when she appears being attacked by Adam? Well, we get more of those (particularly bad at the mouth). <font style="color:#FF0000">Mini, you were right, it's more stupid than SSJ Weiss was.

Now, when Vale got wrecked, Blake made sure her friends were OK, and then, without a word at all, ran off, which is when Sun saw her, hence why he's here. Blake tells him he "wouldn't understand", but apparently, Sun gets it.....<font style="color:#FF0000">Blake is on a solitary rampage to demolish the White Fang. The best part is that he's right (well, will be right).

Sun tries to remain at her side, but Blake wants to be a Forever Alone. Blake explains to him she's not going to fight them yet, for she needs to sort some things out. Sun, proving he's not the brightest banana in the bunch, asks her "why not do it with your team?", though Blake points out the hipocresy.

Sun: Hoes before Bros, to the point of ditching his team. More than once. After Vale got wrecked. Who died and made him leader, honestly?

Blake tells him she's going home, "to Nahgery", and Sun proclaims he will accompany her. Meanwhile, the boat looks like it's not even moving. We get the requisite "Journey to the East" reference, and then the scene ends.

6. Meanwhile at the Hall of Injustice...
Salem and Cinder are alone in the Meeting Room, while we hear....something moving through flesh. "Do you feel it?"...."Don't fight it, girl"....yup, it's Beetlejuice. Salem gives her best Sith impression, telling Cinder that it can taste her fear, and she must make it fear her, while having her hand casually held out as if using the Force.

Merc and Emerald wait by the door, probably squicked out at the idea of having a Beetle Grimm living inside you. Then we get a Grimm Hanar casually floating into the meeting. <font style="color:#0BBFFF">It seems to tell Salem something, but I don't speak Jellyfish, so...

Salem, in contrast to Ep1, now acts like a less benevolent boss, giving Cinder one final question, and expecting a clear, final answer: "Did you kill Ozpin?". Proving that she wasn't as convinced as she seemed before. A bit inconsistent but letting it slide.

Cinder, having lost her voice, tells her Cinder Translator to come in, but Salem being Genre Savvy, denies her this. She wants Cinder alone to answer it, knowing that doing it through Emerald easily allows her to lie.

Thankfully for both, Cinder doesn't need a Cinder Translator for monosyllables, and says "Yes". Now, <font style="color:#OBBFFF">whether that Yes was honest or a lie done to appease her is another thing entirely. Salem tells the Hanar to send more Grimm to Beacon, for the Relic is there. The Relic....please don't let it be the chess pieces.

Sadly for Cinder, it seems Salem knows that Yes was Bullshit, wondering alone "what are you planning?". Cue end of the episode.

Conclusion
The episode makes up for the lack of action in Ep2 by giving us a long fighting scene. A good consolation prize.

There were some parts where I felt the animation was...weird looking, at times narmy. Taiyang's pose as Yang heads to her room, Blake's facial expressions.....but on the other hand, the movements themselves did not feel as uncannily fluid as was the case with Wheatley and Klein.

The voice acting....feels weird. Arryn sounds a bit narmy at times (though granted, this isn't particularly new), while Barbara sounds almost identical to Arryn. Michael's still good though.

On the bright side, we know more about Grimm: They can have more fantastical abilities, such as firing Kamehamehas of lightning. This should help expand the ideas for Fan-made Grimm.

Alright, since Ep3 was Tunaslayer and Burnout combined, this could change my idea of how the order of focus this Volume would be. I wonder what the future will bring?