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2019 Update Archive / Re: New Releases - December 14th 2019
« Last post by MCaesar on December 29, 2019, 06:12:28 pm »One last Week-Old Thoughts for this (last) week, though I will confess, they are less than a day old. I blew through A Christmas Conundrum? The Sinister Storm Of The Snow Queen! in its entirety this afternoon.
But actually, most of this post will be taking advantage of this opportunity to talk about My Mom Is A Supervillain?!, that Conundrum is the sequel to, because I didn't at the time.
On the more technical side, there's room to improve. The prose is noticeably on the "tell" side of the "show, don't tell" spectrum. Characters "grin" or "smile" their lines, as opposed to "saying" them, which I find calls unwanted attention to itself. At the conceptual level, the story is advertised as a superhero tale, but it's much more heavily influenced by anime tropes. Half the heroes are magical girls with transformations and special moves they yell out as they perform them. I am not particularly invested in that style, so the parts that really leaned on it didn't really grab me as much. I do like a good dash of camp in my superhero stories, but too much anime camp I can find grating, and this story sometimes rode that line.
However.
I'll be damned if this story isn't so fucking charming! If there was one thing that the anime sensibilities afforded this story, it was a dazzling earnestness. I could not help but enjoy watching the trials and triumphs of the characters. More specifically, I thought the world was interesting and fleshed out well, and the main protagonists were very entertaining.
Christmas Conundrum is basically a special holiday episode to the main series, and retains all of the same strengths and flaws of the original. I would have liked to see mind control take a more active role in the plot too, beyond just using it on bystanders. Favorite moment: the baking scene.
But actually, most of this post will be taking advantage of this opportunity to talk about My Mom Is A Supervillain?!, that Conundrum is the sequel to, because I didn't at the time.
On the more technical side, there's room to improve. The prose is noticeably on the "tell" side of the "show, don't tell" spectrum. Characters "grin" or "smile" their lines, as opposed to "saying" them, which I find calls unwanted attention to itself. At the conceptual level, the story is advertised as a superhero tale, but it's much more heavily influenced by anime tropes. Half the heroes are magical girls with transformations and special moves they yell out as they perform them. I am not particularly invested in that style, so the parts that really leaned on it didn't really grab me as much. I do like a good dash of camp in my superhero stories, but too much anime camp I can find grating, and this story sometimes rode that line.
However.
I'll be damned if this story isn't so fucking charming! If there was one thing that the anime sensibilities afforded this story, it was a dazzling earnestness. I could not help but enjoy watching the trials and triumphs of the characters. More specifically, I thought the world was interesting and fleshed out well, and the main protagonists were very entertaining.
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Christmas Conundrum is basically a special holiday episode to the main series, and retains all of the same strengths and flaws of the original. I would have liked to see mind control take a more active role in the plot too, beyond just using it on bystanders. Favorite moment: the baking scene.
