One-Punch Man is back, but the resuts are mixed

Hero may not be drawn to scale

Show: One Punch Man, Season 2

Genre: Animation, action, comedy

Network: Hulu

Premiered: April 9th, 2019

So what do you get when you cross an awesome series, massive hype, and a premiere date that keeps getting pushed back to the far side of the universe every few months? Probably the explosive powder keg of edgy chatter that accompanied the release of anime phenom One-Punch Man's second season. Penned by the exemplary manga writer (and not-so-exemplary artist) ONE, this brilliantly-paced, satirical superhero yarn struck the 2015 anime world with the force of a meteorite, battering its adversaries with the overwhelming might of its strong story and fluid animation. For anime fans and casuals alike, this 12-episode buffet sated a TV hunger they never knew they had, and the withdrawal after it left the airwaves proved almost unbearable to the many viewers starving for more. But with no announcements and hardly a word from the creators, fans clung desperately to the hope of a future release like a life preserve until finally, an announcement two years back heralded the beloved series’s triumphant return. Or...it would have, until word got out that studio Madhouse, the artisans behind Season One’s dazzling spectacle, won't be returning to the drawing board. Instead, JC Staff - a group not exactly known to dazzle fans with the power of their presence - took the helm. This move was decried as the end of the world even before the season premiere, but is the switch to a different studio really that crucial to spoiling such a beloved, acclaimed show? Let's find out...

Synopsis

In a world filled to the brim with monsters, alien attacks, and other threats to the safety and welfare of mankind, Saitama looks like just your average hero for fun, sweeping in to rescue folks from the world’s myriad dangers in between bargain shopping and vegging out on his apartment floor. But Saitama isn’t just your run-of-the-mill, pajama wearing caped crusader; through a “rigorous” training method, he somehow accidentally became the strongest being in existence, capable of killing any villain he comes across with just one, lazy punch. Unfortunately, the wages for this phenomenal power are paid in baldness and boredom, and as the threats pile on and would-be disciples land on his doorstep seeking the secret to his power, our hero bumbles through his existential ennui with a dry wit and one desperate yearning: to find a foe strong enough to give him that one good fight.

The Good

I’m dodging the giant pink animation elephant in the room for now and just going to say that OPM Season 2 is still the same show at heart as before. The characters we all know and love are back, and bless 'em, they haven't changed a bit. Saitama is as lazily indestructible as ever, though he now thoughtlessly doles out common sense wisdom to everyone he meets, morphing him into some latter-day Bodhisattva and captivating some of the best of the best in the hero biz. This season finally gives a proper introduction to one of the series' more popular characters: the psychic diva Fubuki, or “Hellish Blizzard,” as per her hero name. The stunning, green-haired beauty has been a fan favorite since her debut in the webcomic, and her rendezvous with Saitama sheds a bit more light on the dodgy politics saturating the hero world. At the same time, it still adheres to the series's absurdist comedy, rooted in elaborate setups which lead to hilariously anticlimactic conclusions. Episode three showcases this brilliantly, with a serial escalation of fights and hype behind one particular character, only to see him get one-punched - or "one-chopped," in this case - like the Saitama afterthought he ultimately is. And speaking of scuffles, the battle between Genos, Saitama’s chief “disciple,” and the bald hero’s self-proclaimed ninja rival Speed-o'-Sound Sonic, possessed a fluidity and cinematography that exceeded my expectations, and the third episode's spotlight on Garou, the monster-obsessed antagonist this season, propels this kernel of competence into something approaching wonder.

The Bad

...Do I really need to state the obvious?  Fine, here goes: the animation quality, at least for some parts, gets stuck somewhere between “hot royal mess” and “something my sick dog fertilized the lawn with last night.” I'm leaving the fight scenes out for now, since that's an equine of an entirely different hue I discuss down below. Rather, it's what JC Staff does - or doesn't do - with its characters when they're not bleeding or in mid-punch that will leave you scratching your head. For one, it is very lazy; often, the characters are mere still shots with their mouths flapping, veering entire scenes to a level of uncanny artificiality that'd make the Stepford Smilers blush with envy. It doesn't help that for the first two episodes, the folks at JC Staff leave a lot to be desired with their fight scenes. Sure, Genos and Sonic’s epic showdown actually lives up to the overused adjective, but Saitama’s clash with Blizzard and her crew drew little more than a snooze out of me. One blatant gaffe I noticed during their fight made it look like Blizzard suddenly teleported to near Saitama’s head from over thirty feet away, ready to swing in with her box cutter, instead of the desperate charge it had been accurately depicted as in the manga. This was the only part of the fight that elicited more than a yawn from me, though I don’t think “snorting while trying not to laugh” is what JC Staff was shooting for. Beyond the laziness, and short of the best of the action scenes, the animation is passable, if not stellar. Still, fans can’t resist comparing it to the magisterial ease of the past season’s visual accomplishments, even with mundane matters like facial expressions. Madhouse managed to etch the personalities of each character into every tick and twitch of their faces, and every slump of their frames - even Saitama, who ain't exactly the most expressive guy around. But seeing these beloved characters rendered so dully gave a shock to the system of long-time fans, and I doubt the phenomenal first season would have sparked nearly as much acclaim had JC Staff been manning the ship from the get-go.

The Ugly

The animation.

All joking aside, the animation quality, particularly as it concerns the fight scenes, roams all over the map. Had this review gone up before the third episode, I would have judged it an unqualified bad; the hero clashes in the previous two episodes didn't inspire much beyond disappointment, Genos vs. Sonic aside. But then they drop episode three, and surprised everyone with a startling growth spurt from out of the dregs. Garou's curb-stomp across the faces of dozens of heroes reached a height of skillful depiction the naysayers would have thought impossible when the studio released its announcement trailer some time ago. It doesn't quite approach Madhouse's mastered fluidity and seamless execution, but JC Staff pulls off a valiant effort nonetheless, and has a knack for manipulating shadow and lighting to the service of high-octane movement that surpasses even their eulogized predecessor, and in my opinion, this style better fits the somewhat darker tone of this season. The reason I don't count this as a definite good is that we just don't know what to expect in the upcoming episodes: JC Staff may continue the upward march, shattering every negative expectation like the force from Saitama's apocalyptic fists; or they may slide back to the wonky mouth work and still images of before. It's anyone's guess at this point. Besides that, almost every scene so far has been lifted straight from the manga's pages. This is great, on the one hand, since ONE is, if nothing else, an outstanding storyteller, so you can’t go wrong with keeping faithful to the source. But too much faith can shutter the creative juices, and dogmatic adherence to the manga might prohibit JC Staff from making the acceptable breaks from the printed page necessary for every adaptation.

Tune In or Tune Out? 

Tune In. Never mind the seesawing animation quality, never mind the broken pedestal or ruined, mostly unreasonable, expectations; at the end of the day, this is still One-Punch Man, one of the best manga series to come out of Japan in the past decade. ONE's humorous tale of a superhero world beholden to image and devoid of meaning and the caped baldy who wanders that mire carries an evergreen resonance to modern life, no matter what package it comes wrapped in. JC Staff's style may, to old fans, feel like a bitter pill to swallow, but given some time and an open mind, it might still prove just what the doctor ordered.

"The Order" is nothing groundbreaking, but still a good deal of fun all the same

...Could you stop staring?  Please?

Show: The Order

Genre: Supernatural Drama

Network: Netflix Original

Premiered: March 7, 2019

From Buffy the Vampire Slayer down through The Vampire Diaries and the host of its descendants, few television genres can claim the same degree of bloated over-extension as the tangled web of productions known collectively as "the paranormal drama." Whether we’re talking vampires or werewolves, ghosts or witches, or all of the above, you can’t throw a stone anywhere in TV Land without hitting someone baring fangs or weaving a magical incantation while tenaciously necking with a gorgeous co-star in between P.E. and Chemistry 101. Netflix, of course, had long ago planted its bi-colored flag atop this mound of fecund dollar returns, with The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Stranger Things but the more circulated shows in this genre falling under its established corporate stamp. And into this nexus of internet savvy, media business, and supernatural fantasy they toss yet another original series: The Order, created by Dennis Heaton, which premiered on March 7th and aims for a slice of the lucrative paranormal pie with an attractive cast and a little twist on the supernatural drama which adds some pop to its wardrobe. Okay, so I’m a little late to the party — as in, nearly a month late — and I'm sure everyone who’d been hellbent on watching it had probably binged it the very weekend it came out. But to the one or two of you out there who missed the memo, or have been buried under Netflix recommends for the past several fortnights, if you’ve missed this little morsel in your lists, it may be worth taking up now and giving the old college look-see.

Synopsis

We're introduced to Jack Morton (Jake Manley), a baby-faced freshman who's “fresh” in every sense, standing over his mother’s grave while he reads aloud a letter fulfilling his apparent lifelong ambition of getting into the illustrious Belgrave University, a school with old money rules and more than a few dark secrets. But for Jack and his maternal grandfather (Matt Frewer), his acceptance isn’t a cue to start a four-year binge of parties and student life. They are men on one peculiar mission: enter Belgrave, infiltrate a secret and powerful fraternal society centered in the campus known as "the Order," and find a way to strike at its mysterious leader Edward Coventry (Max Martini), who also happens to be Jack’s biological father and the supposed nefarious scoundrel behind his mother's demise. But there’s more afoot than mere skulduggery from an oligarchic secret society; the Order hides a darkly magical secret, and as Jack falls deeper into a web of supernatural intrigue, he gets locked in a paranormal conflict way outside what he signed up for.

The Good

The best thing The Order has going for it is a delightful and irreverent sense of humor. Unlike the flood of supernatural series spilling over Netflix and other stations’ time slots, The Order approaches the supernatural with a casual air and a delightful sense of whimsy that somehow avoids reducing or trivializing its inherent danger. Jack doesn’t stumble into the paranormal ring as a hopelessly naive newcomer; though the world of magic and werewolves slips a teensy bit outside his grandfather’s preparations, Jack takes it, if not quite in stride, than with a great deal more grace and wit than the average schmoe. I know “likeable” is about as bland and nondescript a compliment as you can make of a character these days, but the glove definitely fits, and watching him bumble his way through college is more joy than irritation thanks in no small part to Manley's effortless charisma. Jack's misadventures merely set the beat to this deliciously off-key drummer, where the supernatural gets introduced and incorporated with all the flare and gravitas of a dorm inspection, and several tense moments defuse on a cheeky quip or turn of the phrase. Rather than grounds for pulling my hair out, these moments of lightness add flavor to the broth, like the comically PC tour of the modern college campus where freshmen receive both a rape whistle, and a “how not to rape” pamphlet. The show knows not to take itself too seriously, and yet avoids falling into the trap of (overt) self-aware pastiche like the million or so similar series gunking up the airwaves and interwebs. In that happy medium, The Order finds a contrasting voice to the myriad of dark, paranormal, Grimmified fairy tales littering the market.

The Bad

Unfortunately, this lighter shade does come with a few bad palettes. For one, there’s the all-encompassing cheese factor to consider whenever anything like this series pops up. The dialogue, while whimsical and pleasant most of the time, can veer into the obnoxious on occasion. This mainly comes to the fore with Jack’s awkward and janky “romantic” slog with Alyssa Drake, a fellow Belgrave student, campus tour guide, and his eventual superior once he joins the Order, who's played by the generally charming Sasha Grey. Their dynamic feels forced and stiff, like two neophyte thespians reading their lines and the implied emotion thereof on each others’ foreheads. I know they’re supposed to be in college, and trust me, I remember just how little the maturity level of an inbound freshman can differ from the high school knuckleheads they evolve from. But their chemistry sizzles with all the pop of a damp towel, and as entertaining as they are separately, they looked the polar opposite of dazzling at every turn of their screen time together. Thankfully, this little gaffe remains the only stink I’m willing to point out. Adjusting your expectations for this series (it is a paranormal teen drama/thriller, after all) means letting go a bit of the critical scalpel and suspending any comparisons to genre titans and path breakers, like the aforementioned Buffy or The Vampire Diaries.

The Ugly

Good lord, you may as well call this show Your Mileage May Vary: the Series. Though The Order is low-key and innocuous enough to escape the type of hard-nosed scrutiny that leads fans along divisive extremes, so much of its content can be a hit or miss for practically everyone. Is Jack a funny, enjoyable main lead, or an irritating, bland, cookie-cutter protagonist; does the mystery of the plot invite intrigue and speculation, or is it a snooze fest out of place with the rest of the story?  The fact that it doesn’t take itself as seriously as other shows of its kind, while a supreme strength in my eyes, may invite legitimate accusations of derailment due to breaking the atmosphere and heaping piles of cheese atop it. Seriously, there’s something for everyone to love or hate in equal measure, with only your mood to decide which way the windsock blows at any given moment.

To Bing or Not to Binge

Knock yourself out and Binge to your heart’s content.  Yes, the show’s derivative, and yes, it's a hot ticket to Cheesyville at its very worst, but that’s as close to a nadir as you’ll likely get. There’s no ground to break here or new paradigms a-shifting; just good, old fashioned comedy-drama, with a refreshingly irreverent eye on the paranormal. Speaking as someone a little miffed by the borderline apocalyptic tone so many of these series flash like a Boy Scout badge, I find it The Order's fresh humor and fresher protagonists must welcomed divergence.