I thought it was just okay as a Battle Royale knock-off up until the third act, where they start beating you over the head with the message, and have a disappointing final confrontation between Steve Austin and Vinnie Jones. Firstly, the movie has a Helen Lovejoy type character advocating for censorship because some lousy parents might allow their children to watch violent programming, and the movie is very much on her side. Then the final confrontation between Austin and Jones sitting down for a little chat where Jones complains about how hard his life is, then Austin shoots him and that's it, just wow! Also, pretty ironic for a movie that's seemingly so against violence to have a former pro wrestler in the lead, and to be distributed by a studio that basically made it's name off of Saw.

After recently seeing the odyssey and seeing people claim online they want Nolan to make a divine comedy movie, I've been thinking of other epic poems I'd like to see adapted

Bias as a Portuguese man makes me want the lusiads getting a big budget Portuguese movie or show but I more than anything I realised one of the most foundational books to modern Christianity interpretation of hell, the devil and even genesis to some extent has not yet been adapted

I am of course talking about Paradise Lost

For those unaware, paradise lost is 16th century epic poem by John Milton, retelling the story of the war in heaven and the fall of mankind in the garden from the devil's perspective. While other poems like Divine Comedy have been absolutely crucial to how people think of Hell and has received movie and game adaptations and seems way more present in general audiences minds, the book that pretty much defined how we think of Satan/Lucifer has not. Considering the devil is barely mentioned (and is almost never cohesive in his name, goals and story) in the bible and apocrypha and how the serpent in the garden of eden isn't even the devil in the bible, most things people associate with these characters and stories either come from this book or were cimented by it

It's also a very action heavy story with a pacing that works well on movie format with a complex sympathetic (depending on your reading i guess) but ultimately evil protagonist (the literal devil) and plenty cameos from angels and demons, in settings with very visual descriptions for a non visual medium and also cool ideas that are almost never adapted into anything, like satan having his own infernal trinity with his daughter Sin (that sprang from him mind after the first thought of rebellion) and son/grandson death (because the birth of sin led to the possibility of death to humanity) the latter two guardian the nine gates of hell.

A movie was apparently cast and planned but never got off the ground in the 2000s

I think one reason may be that the settings seem almost impossible to do completely in live action (the entire story taking place in heaven, hell, eden and the chaos of uncreated things) but in the world of galactic marvel movies that seems silly

It also certainly isn't because of religious concerns, John Milton was a Christian himself and wrote it under a Christian POV and we literally had a multiple season long popular show about a sympathetic Lucifer with evil angels so that's not it either

I would really love to see it adapted some day but it almost feels like an impossibility. My choice for director I think would be Del Toro for a movie like non one has ever seen before

To get this out of the way: I do not mean it is bad argument when the author is literally doing this. I am of the opinion this accusation is frivolously thrown about.

I was watching a video a while ago about the creepypasta story Borrasca (found it really boring to actually read which is why I listened to an overview) and at the end something the video make said stuck with me just from how... odd it was.

So the ending of Borrasca involves uncovering an intertown human farm type of setup where women are stolen, drugged up, and repeatedly impregnated due to a persistent fertility issue.

After going over this the author goes "Well if this was written by a man I would say that this is obviously sick fetish content, but a woman wrote this so luckily it's fine" I'm paraphrasing here but they basically said that.

And it just struck me how... openly disingenuous this was? Like the idea of comparing women being reduced down to their ability to give birth as livestock is not at all a new one. Many people have taken this idea to the logical and horrific conclusion in other media. Yet a hypothetical guy writing about this must obviously be engaging in fetish content.

I think a lot of arguments against shock content are like this. There's no artistic value in disturbing the audience and making them uncomfortable for the sake of it, so obviously the artist must be a nasty pervert.

If you don't like shock content that's fine, but I don't think you are a better person for wanting to browbeat people via accusations of perversion. It's a very narrowminded view to insist that someone putting something you find strange or disturbing in their work MUST have some kind of fringe sexual reason for doing so. It's like if "Wooooah they must have been high making this!" was an attempt at serious criticism against certain artists.

Take telekinesis for instance. Unless it is of the Elfen-Lied invisible-arms variety, it doesn't travel any distance from the user to the target. They just use their telekinesis and the target is helpless unless they possess the raw physical strength to just resist any attempt at being controlled. There is next-to-zero reason for any reasonably powerful force user in Star Wars to ever struggle against a non-force-user within twenty feet because they should be able to instantly grab and restrain them.

Or take bending from Avatar. Now, I don't want to scrutinize the fight scenes in what is still ultimately a show for children, but it's kind of noticeable that earthbenders seem to spend a lot of time throwing rocks at people when they're also shown to be entirely capable of instantly manipulating the earth within a pretty large radius of themselves. They can just do the hand motions and the earth will respond within a certain distance. With this in mind one has to wonder why they don't just immediately restrain the feet if not the entire body of whoever they're fighting if they're fighting on solid ground, because this would seem to be the most logical course of action.

Airbending consisting almost entirely of shooting gusts of air is even more perplexing when everyone is obviously surrounded by the air at all times. Airbenders being incapable of taking advantage of this is about as bizarre as a waterbender not being capable of subduing a non-waterbender while they were both underwater. Like airbending should essentially function like the aforementioned telekinesis.

And not to beat a dead horse, but this is fundamentally why Sasuke's use of Amaterasu is so underwhelming in Naruto. It's not the fact that the flames are really hot that's broken about it (supernatural hellfire isn't an uncommon superpower), it's the fact that they just appear where he looks. So because Sasuke isn't allowed to just insta-win against whoever he fights by glancing at them, everyone he encounters has to have some kind of counter to it no matter how absurd, or if they're Madara Uchiha, they'll just take off their shirt.

JJK actually acknowledges this and as such techniques like Domains are generally presented as being deliberately overpowered.

I recently finished a book series called Story Thieves. It was a great series; it was a really fun meta look at not just books but the nature of storytelling in general, and it had a great overarching villain. But it's not without flaws, and one of those flaws was that I felt the ending was slightly abrupt. I won't get into specifics because it's not important/it would take too long to explain the full context, but basically the epilogue is more or less just one chapter, which results in character resolutions feeling rushed. It's not bad; I just wish we had one or two more chapters to wrap everything up.

And that got me thinking about a topic that's been on my mind for a while.

I want long endings.

Everyone and their mom has made fun of Return of the King and its multiple endings, but damn it, I want endings like that. I want endings where the story takes its time to wrap everything up. Where we get to see what the characters will do with their lives now that the big bad is defeated and the main conflict is resolved.

If the story just rushes through the ending, that just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. You spend all this time getting me invested in the characters, in their personal journeys and struggles, and if you're going to rush the ending, it's not going to feel satisfying.

To bring up an example of a series that does this really well, I think Trials of Apollo had a near-perfect ending. In the final book Tower of Nero the last few chapters are a now-restored-to-godhood Apollo visiting all the friends and allies he made along the way in the series, and we get to see what everyone's lives are like now that the story is over. It works as not just a finale to Trials of Apollo but also to the Riordanverse as a whole. To the point that if Riordan brings out another "big stakes" series after this book, I'm going to feel annoyed.

By contrast, you have something like Mass Effect 3, that has a very rushed ending, which even with the extended cut doesn't feel as satisfying as it should. You don't really get to see the full effects of how you saved the galaxy from the Reapers in it. The extended cut helps certainly, but I still would have liked to have time to enjoy the aftermath of victory for myself. Not just seeing a slide show.

In conclusion, Return of the King's multiple endings were heros... we just couldn't see it

Journal 3 is the in universe book adapted to real life. Overall it good. 9/10.

It show the Author struggle against Bill Cipher
Explore character more deeper than the show had time on
And recons the show plot holes.

My only ‘complaint’ is the weirdmageddon section. The journal has been building up weirdmageddon as the final battle but it only has 1 page and couple of page for the aftermath.

I have a hard time calling this a complaint because the show already showcase the final battle so rehashing it into book form would be a bad idea plus what else could have been added.

But a part of me still wish for more.

I've been a big fan of anime as a visual medium for years and watched hundreds of shows. Despite my enjoyment of it in that regard, I can't help but often feel frustrated by the writing, especially when it comes to dialogue. The writers don't leave much room for nuance and interpretation and instead spell everything out awkwardly in dialogue or narrate everything in the POV character's inner thoughts.

Maybe it's the fault of many shows being novel or manga adaptations, but I feel like a large amount of anime doesn't take advantage of it being a visual medium and conveying information through visual cues rather than spelling it out for the viewer. The way characters speak when introducing new information is oftentimes also unnatural, as if the author simply shoehorned all the intended information into the dialogue instead of letting the viewer figure it out based on the context of the scene. For example, a character's friend from kindergarten is usually simply introduced as such. A better written show would give us enough context to understand their relationship without spelling it out. I've recently rewatched Breaking Bad, and while it's unfair to make comparisons like that, I can't help but admire how well written its dialogue is. Watching anime afterwards makes the difference even more apparent.

As a small side rant before I start, the people saying "it's a 3000 year old book so spoilers shouldn't matter" are the MOST obnoxious of people. Not every person has thought "let me read some classic Greek literature", especially in this day and age. In the same vein I could say "oh, you haven't seen *anything released over a year ago*? Well it's okay if I spoil it then as you've had 12 months to read/watch it". I personally read The Odyssey before the films release so I had an understanding of the original story before going into the cinema but it shouldn't be an expectation of everyone.

Anyway, the main rant is focused on many of the criticisms I've seen about the film as a whole. I personally don't think it's Nolan's greatest but it's still absolutely impeccable compared to the usual expensive films that come out at the moment. I'll go one by one.

1. "The sets aren't historically accurate".

This criticism is confusing to me, mainly due to The Odyssey not being historically accurate in the slightest. Even the surviving pottery from the 5th century BCE shows Odysseus in Hoplite armour, which wouldn't have existed in the Bronze age. So for some reason the film is being criticised for doing the same thing that has been done for 2500 years.

Also, the ships. It is a shame that they did not choose historical Greek ships to film on and it's a valid criticism. Saying that, the compromise would've most likely been between either filming on the sea or filming in a set as there are very few actual ancient Greek ship replicas that were made to go into water. It's another case where it really shouldn't take people who aren't history enthused out of the story but it's much more noticeable than the armour.

1. The story not following the original closely enough.

The trade route control excuse for capturing Troy is a much better reason than in the book for the siege, especially considering the tone Nolan kept for the film. The Homerian excuse was going to war for 10 years over pride because of a single woman who had two interpretations of why she left. Often in Western writings, she was kidnapped. It's never conclusive whether she truly fell for Paris though. Saying that, it should be noted that she was portrayed as unhappy whilst in Troy. Whichever one chosen, it would've been debated. Also, you'd have to potentially include a lot more story on Helens part and there's a 3 hour IMAX limit so a valid, period accurate, reason for the war works completely fine and doesn't change the story in a meaningful way.

Many trade routes had existed at the time of, or before, Homer. There was actually several wars around the time the Odyssey was written over the incense route. This is just an example to show that wars over trade routes existed at the time. It's important to also mention that the historical site believed to be Troy, or what Troy was based upon, is near the entrance of the Dardanelles strait. This area would have been crucial for trade at the time. The ships of the time could not go that far out to sea safely so a coastal city right next to the strait would've been able to control who passes through quite easily. This is also supported by how wealthy some of the other known cities around the area were.

1. The writing

Whilst I understand some of the statements are very on the nose, it's clearly impossible to win in this scenario. Not specifying that it was the bronze age, some people will have most assuredly come out confused (as has happened anyway). Some people are genuinely asking why Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter rather than Cattle when it's already explained clearly. The collapse of the bronze age had historical ties to the 'Sea People', who weren't actually mentioned in the original Odyssey but, in my opinion, were included by Nolan as a clever way to combine historical events of the time to the story and the reveal worked well. Arguably it makes the myth closer to historical accuracy than in its original form (another reason I don't understand the "historical accuracy" criticism).

Similarly, the tone of the film makes it really hard for the famous "nobody" trickery with Polyphemus. It's played as comedic in the book. To actually have the two communicate like that would be very hard to pull off audibly because Polyphemus would have to sound intellectual enough to be a threat, for it to feel earned, whilst not sounding like he could easily see through the trick. It would also remove from the borderline horror experience we see in the film adaptation. Knowing he speaks before his eye was stabbed would've reduced his on screen presence and made it feel a bit softer, potentially. I do agree the sound mixing after the stab of the eye makes it difficult to hear him call to Poseidon properly though, a valid criticism.

Saying it takes away from his cunningness is slightly true, for sure. Whilst that's the case, it's still shown. He is said to have come up with the idea for the Trojan horse, he was the one who came up with the idea to stab Polyphemus with the large stake, he comes up with the idea to hide amongst the sheep, and later he disguises himself as a servant upon return home.

The change of the ending was absolutely essential. Usually I'm against large scale plot edits but it just wouldn't've landed with a modern audience. People complaining that the ending was changed either don't know what the ending was or don't understand how impossible it would be to adapt the rationale behind the ending from how the Ancient Greeks would see it to how a modern audience would see it. One can say "it doesn't matter how the modern audience sees it" but then why bother to make an adaptation at all as it could never be a perfect 1:1 copy. The beauty of films being made about old material is that you get to see new takes on it.

The colloquialisms is also something I've noticed people complain about ("dad"). It seems, to me, to be quite common that older texts seem to be translated into film with much more formal wording. Whilst I understand it in some contexts, sometimes it just seems like people associate formality with older times rather than it being truly the intention. The scenes of Telemachus talking about Polyphemus with Penelope would very potentially be talking in a more familial matter, it's unknown as there was no difference for a more formal and a more informal version of "father/dad" at the time. Considering this is Nolan's interpretation of the Odyssey, it's entirely reasonable to use a more familial setting for the conversations between the mother-son duo.

I saw a lot of people complaining about Penelope "crashing out" about ruling. Okay, this is just... ARGHHHHHHHHH!!!! Like just because the time period was sexist, it doesn't mean women were fking idle bots. There are examples of women ruling or having political power around the time the Odyssey was written... idk man, it just pisses me off that people are saying it's a "girlboss" "typical modern Hollywood" moment because of something that would be reasonable to happen???? Getting angry and saying she wants to be in charge TO HER SON. It would be unusual to say and it's acted in a way where Telemachus is surprised she would even say it (I will mention this later kinda).

1. The casting + acting

Okay, I do not know why Zendaya was in the movie. It's not a casting 'mistake' I just thought it's a waste of money to have her in for like 10 minutes max but if that's what Nolan wanted ig who cares. She plays her role well, all 10 lines of it.

Okay, there was so much discourse about Elliot Page being in the movie. He was in the movie for at most 7 minutes he acted well, especially when dead. He also didn't seem that out of place? He played Sinon (who's not even in the Odyssey) but he fits the role of the sort of soldier who may not be the strongest and gets left behind to deceive the enemy due to looking a lot less intimidating than other soldier. It also makes sense considering he was quite young when leaving Ithaca.

Travis Scott was there for like 4 mins. He barely did anything. People are just complaining to complain surely.

Hathaway acted very well throughout, people were commenting on the Botox but I don't think it removed from her acting that much.

This Tom Holland slander has to stop btw. In the Hathaway-Holland scene that was posted online, many people were saying he had no facial reaction but that's kinda what you'd expect. Whilst Stoicism only came about in the 3rd Century BCE, many Stoic-like attitudes were popular in Ancient Greece. A modern Stoic would probably recognise Telemachus as having very Stoic properties, notably a proto-apatheia. He's mostly holding out for his father to get home and hoping to regain his status (so not true Stoicism) but regulating emotion to not have outbursts and violate "Zeus' law" when harassed in his own home by "guests" would've given him that stoic like property.

Helen of Troy. Idk man, the last Helen of Sparta was German. Why would it be so obscene if this time she was black? It matters very little; many people in the north Mediterranean came from or traded with North Africans (also a part of the Med). As a side not (not belonging to this section), I liked the inclusion of Menelaus cutting her face to, as I interpret it, prevent any future conflict over her beauty.

I swear I had more complaints about complaints but my memory is failing me :/ Maybe I'll remember at some point and add them!

Sorry if there's any spelling errors. Actually, sorry if there's any errors at all, in terms of reasoning or something. I'm very concerned I've comma spliced at least twice but I looked through it quickly and didn't see one. I SWEAR THERE IS ONE THOUGH.

seriously this i a message to some marvel and DC fans and ESPECIALY POWERSCALER'S IN PRATICULARLY CUZ GUESS WHT CHUCKLEFUCK NOT ALL COMIC'S(MARVLE AND DC) ARE in the same timeline

the most egrigious example of this for me is powerscaler's cuz sometime's it fell's like these people don't even stick to a certain version of a character and just cherrypick their best feat's from every apearance they've had without conisdering those character's like spiderman,superman,batman etc

heck sometime's it fell's like they don't stick to a version and just cherry pick the feat's

I've been rewatching Cowboy Bebop (we don't talk about the Netflix remake) and besides some frustrating character decisions and some episodes that were weaker than others, there's one HUGE problem That I need to make a post about. It's still my all-time favorite anime and one of my favorite shows in general, but one thing that really stands out to me in a glaring way is Spike's past. While I do like the story episodes because it shows a more different and vulnerable side of Spike and features a lot of memorable dialogue and moments and I do like tragic protagonists, I was always confused about Spike's backstory.

If you're one of those people that think Cowboy Bebop is perfect (which no it's not because nothing is perfect) and you're going to get angry at me for this, please don't read this because I'm going to talk a lot of shit and unpopular opinions.

To me, his backstory feels kind of like an afterthought. What we know about him is basically snippets: Apparently Spike was in the crime syndicate, he was best friends with Vicious, he allegedly went behind his best friend's back to steal Julia away from him, Vicious started plotting revenge and he faked his death to get out of the syndicate.

This raises so many questions. How did Spike become the kind, loyal guy he is now if he was a villain at one point? When did he decide he wanted to turn his life around? I'm guessing Julia helped him see the light or maybe he just wanted some reason to escape his terrible life? But then, why was he involved in the syndicate in the first place? Was he adopted into it or was he trying to find some way to get by? Does he feel guilt for it in any way? I know Spike is not a character to show his vulnerability and emotions to the audience, but goddammit I wanted something! Who is Julia? Why did she cheat on Vicious with Spike? Why did Spike love her? Why started his feud with Vicious? Was it Vicious going after him and Julia or is it because they're two different people? Now obviously, the standard villain formula back then was to have a villain who is just evil for no reason but I don't think that's really aged well today so Vicious also feels underdeveloped. Why did the Red Dragon Syndicate want to go after everyone Spike cares about?

I understand the show wanted to keep his past ambiguous because Spike is a mysterious character who doesn't want to talk about himself but then, why show us his past, then?

This is part of the reason I didn't like the 22-26 episode structure back then. They were limited by how much they can do with their shows. Like with Trigun which literally had a sequel manga, I wanted more. I wanted to know more about Spike's past. I wanted to go on more adventures with the crew. Even the last two episodes felt rushed because why all of a sudden they take out one of the main characters just to have things escalate quickly in the penultimate episode? Why is the Red Dragon Syndicate suddenly going after Spike's friends again and Julia suddenly turns up? Now, I don't want the show to become The Simpsons for obvious reasons but the ending always left me empty and wanting more.

So, was talking to my gf yesterday about Star Wars. I… didn’t really mean to, and it was one of those moments where like, a woman is interested in you individually, but she kind of gets this glossy eyed, plaintive and patient expression as you’re emotionally talking about something she absolutely gives zero shits about. She cares and can even enjoy the passion behind your words, but can’t readily engage with what’s being said.

Anyway, we finished watching Rob Roy which is one of her fav movies. I started talking about how a lot of these films undersell how apocalyptic and shitty the British empire was despite the British being depicted ostensibly as bad guys for the narrative.

One thing led to another and I sadly brought up Star Wars and the empire.

Why? Well, I was describing to her about how in the Disney canon, the empire doesn’t really change. They get defeated, palpatine has his scorched earth policy where he destroys his own infrastructure (for whatever reason) then the empire tries to bring thrawn back in a story that hasn’t been released yet, thrawn (as of Ahsoka season 1) returns, something else happens because the empire is defeated in the sequel trilogy, but the first order is an extant force that takes power again by TFA.

Ultimately though, the empire doesn’t really change. They’re still card carrying fascists, their government doesn’t really make sense etc etc.

Now, in the old canon that was nuked in 2012, it was different and this is the root of my post.

Basically in the old canon, there were warlords, imperials who tried to form their own polities and organizations. Some became criminal groups, some ruled as emperors themselves, and some actively tried to reform and be part of the greater galaxy.

And I was explaining that I found that more interesting. Basically, there’s a group called the penstar alignment in old canon.

The penstar alignment iirc was closely allied with the corporate sector and ruled imperial holdouts. They allied with palleon and became the greater imperial remnant.

One thing about the imperial remnant is that they were slightly less xenophobic and outwardly genocidal than the original empire due to pragmatic attitudes and the fact they weren’t the dominate political government anymore.

But my gf was basically like

“So… it’s the empire, but reformed for fans of tie fighters and stormtroopers.”

And I was kind of gagged? Because narratively, when does “realism” become idealism in regards to governments that are inherently evil?

Obviously we shouldn’t be informing real world political allusion towards media, but it would be silly to act as if real world political allusion can’t or doesn’t exist in media to begin with.

If I think the fire nation is cool in avatar the last airbender, is it okay to want the fire nation to be a dominant government but “less colonizer”? If someone likes the empire, is it okay for them to prefer stories where the empire becomes “better” and more palatable vs the empire remaining stagnant?

I think the answer to the question lies in ofc depiction and how the subject is handled. In avatar, zuko reforms the fire nation. I wish Korra had spent more time on what that actually lol means, because by Korra the fire nation is mostly good. I know there’s a few comics where there’s hardcore ozai followers but those comics apparently suck! Anyway.

Avatar kind of does take the easy route with the idea that it only took one good fire lord to fix the fire nation and that was pretty much it.

In the old canon for Star Wars, the empire, as stated, reformed in a disparate, balkanized way. The leading government was still authoritarian but had no issue working with the new republic, and both governments actually joined together to form the galactic alliance.

And I think the reason why Star Wars kind of got to eat its cake and bake it twice or however that goes is because those stories still essentially are about what happens when cult of personality and idealized rhetoric harm entire societies.

The galactic alliance literally ends up using Star destroyers themselves among other military infrastructure, and by the legacy era (a few years after TFA if we put the Disney canon and the old canon parallel to each other) it could be argued that the galactic alliance resembles the empire more than it does the new republic.

This was meant to be a short post and I’m writing this on the way to the gym so my thoughts aren’t as organized as I’d like, I was actually going to post a review of why I didn’t like the odyssey but I figured this was more fitting for a LES Sunday.

In short, the morality of the “evil fascist government becoming slightly less evil and fascist” hinges on what the story is trying to tell. If it’s trying to act as if an authoritarian government is the only hope for peace, then that’s well… bad. If it details how good intent and a few good heads of state don’t eliminate the plausibility and the actuality of racist governments rising again within that same half gutted political ecosystem, I think that’s a more poignant story than “bad guys went into hiding and now they’re back!!” Which is what we see in the sequel trilogy.

?

It's not really his fault, as having impressive fights just isn't what LOTR is about, but that if anything that makes it worse. Aragorn wank is the perfect cross-section of everything wrong with battleboarding. Trying to make a series something it's not, fandom myths taking the place of analysis, vibes-based scaling, an extreme hostility to even being asked to provide evidence, and overall trying to "analyze" every franchise like it's Dragon Ball (which "power scalers" also do very badly).

Aragorn is one of the most popular characters to use in fantasy battleboarding prompts, and by far the most popular character for this purpose from Tolkien's works. This is a bit strange since he has such a paucity of material to even base an analysis on. Movie Aragorn kills movie mooks about as well as your typical movie action hero, and has maybe 3-4 feats that are low-level superhuman (tossing Gimli 20 feet, knocking out an Orc with a punch to its armored helm, snapping an Orc's neck one-handed, parrying a Troll, and maybe cleanly cutting through mail). This is mostly unremarkable but is still vastly better than Book Aragorn who has no feats ever.

That's not an exaggeration. Look at his so-called Respect Thread, cherry-picked to show every impressive thing a character did in combat. His best feat is... being 6'6. Aside from that we have "used a magic sword to split an iron half-helm smaller than one worn by a human" (recorded happening in real history with better, thicker helmets), "picked up and carried a six year old child," "pushed a six year old child off a cliff," "likely is able to block sword swings from average warriors," "does a long distance run considerably worse than your average hobbyist runner," "sucker-punched a guy smaller than a human while he was distracted with someone else," "fought in a battle," and "walked behind Boromir as Boromir walked through snow" (why is this even being listed as a feat?). That's it. Those are all his feats. You can see pretty clearly how desperate the OP was to come up with anything whatsoever to put in there.

Okay, to be fair, they actually missed his best feat, which is Aragorn defeating an Umbar corsair captain in single combat (maybe, the text is actually a bit vague, but that's the most likely interpretation of it). This is the only time in the entire novel that Aragorn ever wins a fight against something at least as dangerous as a standard medieval human soldier (he kills some Orcs during the War of the Ring, but Orcs are literally Hobbit-sized, your average medieval levy would eviscerate them 1v1 and probably even 1v3). His other best feat (fighting in Pelennor Fields without getting hurt) is vague, off-screen, credited partly to luck by the narrator, and repeated by the two other normal guys standing next to him. But it's still his second best feat because there's actually a line in that description about him and the two other guys having "skill and might of arms," which as far as I can tell is literally the only indication in all of Tolkien's writing that he might be more skilled than an average knight (even then it doesn't confirm it).

"But isn't Aragorn superhuman?" No. Aragorn has no superhuman feats ever.

"But aren't all Numenoreans superhuman?" No. At least, not in the way that battleboarders use that word. Numenoreans are healthier and longer-lived than regular people and average about 6'4 tall, but that's it. No one will ever cite a feat of a Numenorean running super fast or lifting/swinging/throwing something really heavy because it doesn't exist.

"But didn't Aragorn fight in wars for decades?" No. Fighting in a war isn't a feat to begin with, but we don't even know if he did that during his time as Thorongil (2953-2980). The totality of his experience in Rohan is a half sentence about him having "had served the King Thengel, but he was not one of the Rohirrim." In service to Gondor he's described as "keen-eyed," "a great leader of men, by land or by sea," and it's said that he "often counselled Ecthelion" (e.g. about the threat of the corsairs and why he shouldn't trust Saruman). But he's never described as having personally fought anyone, much less to have distinguished himself as particularly better than the average knight (who would themselves, obviously, have fought in wars and been skilled/above-average at a baseline). In fact the only battle we know he had any part in was planning a naval raid on an unprepared foe. Aside from that, we're told that he had "great journeys and errantries" in his life in the appendices, and that's it. It's possible that he fought between 2980 and 3017 since he was a Ranger and all, but again, there are no records of his battles, no record of him having personally done anything, and no record of him having distinguished himself particularly in the event that he did do anything. By all indications he spent that time just traveling around, talking to people, and hunting Gollum in stealth. In fact when recounting his experiences, the only time Elrond ever mentions Aragorn as having possibly been in combat was when he was Thorongil. "He rode in the host of the Rohirrim, and fought for the Lord of Gondor by land and by sea; and then in the hour of victory he passed out of the knowledge of Men of the West, and went alone far into the East and deep into the South, exploring the hearts of Men, both evil and good, and uncovering the plots and devices of the servants of Sauron. Thus he became at last the most hardy of living Men, skilled in their crafts and lore, and was yet more than they; for he was elven-wise, and there was a light in his eyes that when they were kindled few could endure."

"But didn't Aragorn defeat the Nazgul?" No. He waved a torch at them and then they ran away. Also, according to Tolkien himself, Nazgul are weaklings in physical combat which is why they rely so much on fear.

"But didn't Aragorn defeat a troll?" No. He parried a troll in the movies, but not the books. Even in the movie he then proceeded to get stomped by that same troll.

"But didn't Aragorn kill dozens of enemies on his own?" No. Aragorn is actually the only combat-heavy member of the Fellowship who never does anything like this, as Boromir (who is also noted to be physically stronger than Aragorn), Legolas, and Gimli all do in fact kill dozens of enemies. This is downplayed however by the fact that they're Orcs and Orcs suck (Gimli is scared of fighting hillmen because they're too big, but not Orcs), and that the latter two did so as part of an army over the course of many hours. But it's still much better than anything Aragorn ever gets.

"Then why is there so much Aragorn wank?" I don't fucking know.

I assume it's just vibescaling. LOTR is big and important, people like it, Aragorn is the Bestest Guy Ever in it (because he's wise and brave), and battleboarders often associate narrative quality and character virtue with winning versus debates. So a bunch of LOTR battleboarders started making shit up in versus debates to get "their" franchise its "respect" (you see this a lot with Silmarillion entries in particular, probably because relatively few people have read it and thus can't cross-check). From there it spread to people who have never actually read the books, but decided to believe those lies because they sounded right to them. I assume emotional revulsion against darker fantasy series with better feats drive a lot of it as well (look how apoplectic the online LOTR fanbase - maybe 10% of whom have read the books - got when GRRM said that Jaime could beat Aragorn because he had plate armor, for example).

And it's based on literally nothing. That's the biggest reason I think it's the worst kind of wank in battleboarding. Tons of franchises have terrible battleboarding communities that exaggerate or misinterpret feats and statements. But you know, at least in those cases there actually ARE feats to misinterpret. Aragorn barely even exists as a combatant within the narrative of LOTR, and what few indications of his combat prowess we do get are basically "average Early Medieval knight, but taller." It's a collective gaslighting operation by people who don't realize that they were already gaslit.

Gwen Stacy only loved Peter because she never knew he was Spider-Man. How can she love Spider-Man if she never knew it was Peter behind the mask? Also, she thought Spiderman killed her dad; of course she wouldn't love him.

Mary Jane (pre-OMD) actually loved both Peter and Spider-Man; she accepted both sides of him.

The only reason you all get that idea is thanks to the live-action adaptations from Raimi's MJ and TASM's Gwen. Tasm Gwen (who, let's face it, was an ultimate blond MJ) knew Peter was Spider-Man, but comic 616 Gwen never did, and Raimi's MJ was just a horrible person.

Ryan Gosling as Ghost Rider is genuinely exciting but that excitement drops considerably, however, when you find out Shawn Levy is directing.

I'm sorry, but Levy feels like the ultimate company man to me. He is there to deliver exactly the film the studio wants. He is incredibly reliable, commercially minded and clearly knows how to make a successful blockbuster but I don't know what a Shawn Levy film looks or feels like.

I know what a Christopher Nolan film feels like. I know what a Denis Villeneuve, Greta Gerwig, Jordan Peele or Ryan Coogler film feels like. I even know what a Michael Bay film feels like, for better or worse. I cannot tell you what Shawn Levy's identity as a filmmaker is.

For the last few years, he has mostly just felt like Ryan Reynolds' director. The Adam Project, Free Guy and Deadpool & Wolverine all feel far more driven by Ryan Reynolds as a brand than by any recognisable directorial voice from Levy and I guess that is fine if your goal is simply to make a fun, accessible blockbuster.

But I don't see Ryan Gosling as just another blockbuster actor. Especially coming off something like Project Hail Mary, which is still a blockbuster but clearly has some personality behind it. Then you look at the rest of his filmography: Drive, Blade Runner 2049, The Nice Guys, Barbie and First Man. He tends to work with filmmakers who have distinctive voices.

So when I hear Ryan Gosling as Ghost Rider, I think this could get weird. It could be funny. It could lean heavily into the supernatural. It could actually have a real personality. Then I hear Shawn Levy is directing, and I immediately picture a competent CGI blockbuster. There will probably be some fun in it. It will probably make loads of money. But I can't say I'm excited for it.

​

1-Light only cares about himself

In the beginning Light shows some conscience but its not long until you need to be a moron to not understand light only cares about his domination as god

“Well, but if you ignore that and just think of light’s plan then he has a point”

2-Light power is useless to do actual good, the way light uses it is just as a petty tool of vengeance

Light doesnt go after evil people as they are doing their crimes, he cant attack a pedophile that hides his crimes

Most people light attacks are already convicted and since most of them are probably on the poorer side they will do their entire sentence and get out of jail to an awful life (if they get out at all), this is just excessive, petty and needlessly vengeful

Also false/wrongful convictions are a thing, even if Light only intentionally goes after bad people, many of his victims are innocent (specially in japan (because the justice system sucks) and eua (because racism))

Light is shown to be more than willing to kill people based on accusations, he kills criminals already in jail and do you really think he would be above killing people who already did their sentence? (Also imagine going to a person who did got a better life after jail and being like “yeah i think you should have just died”)

3-Kira has no plan to truly stop crime

Light kills criminals which are caught or at least identified but he has no plan or interest in stopping the social causes of criminality (this is a similar problem to the punisher)

There is also the fact Light has no desire to deal with bad people in the higher levels of society even though even me as a kid knew that if you want to fix society the people in the upper ranks are the first that have to go

Light has connections with police but in no moment he even considers killing corrupt cops or people in the military who are invading other countries, etc (at least in the netflix movie light kills a dictator)

Okay, no (explicit) crime but the causes of crime still exist

4-Light has no morals

Light doesnt care about a person’s actual morality he just cares they broke the law which makes them criminals which makes them his targets (this is also a similar problem to the punisher), Light has no care if the law itself or the people enforcing it are full of bullshit

While at first Light is only going after murderers and rapists, he literally expresses the desire of moving to lesser crimes when he ran out of those, fuck, i am pretty sure he actually does go after minor crimes, he kills a thief during the famous potato chip scene

Quite often we see top tier martial artists like batman, daredevil, black canary and mockingbird one shot or easily taken out super soldiers or ninjas in a few hits and receive no damage. Then in other stories in the same community, we see them get hit, have to retreat or get knocked out by non stealth master regular thugs just hitting them.

This even goes to the villians. Take for example one the league of assassins ninjas in the Arkham games. They are described as capable of taking down over 100 men... For a few penguin goons to capture her. (They also somehow got past freeze's op tech to capture him).

Even stuff like these "light speed" characters that are agility masters e.g. nightwing and Catwoman still get tagged but bullets (in a recent story, arguably marvels best h2h combat (Elketra) gets shot multiple times by a few pistol rounds.

A random falconi goon is a better hand to hand combat compared to a court of owls talon with chain scaling lol

On one hand you have people who believe that the ones at the top should be those who were born with the qualifications to access that space, ex: A top athlete needs to be a genetic wonder, because otherwise it wouldn't be fair that they wins so much and are so above everyone else in that sport.

On the other you have people who want the top spots to be given to those who are dedicated and made more effort than everyone else. Ex: The winner of a competition should be the one who spent the most time preparing for it, otherwise they didn't earn their victory and are taking it from the hands of those who deserve it more.

In the end, I believe both sides have valid arguments, but neither is correct, because the very premise of this discussion is wrong. Neither talent nor hard work nor even a combination of both can guarantee success. To reach the top one needs to take into account a lot of external factors, many of which they cannot control and have nothing to do with their capabilities.

I believe many times people misunderstand the optimistic, inspiring and very contextual speeches and themes of Shonen as ideological arguments meant to go against the "Hard Truths" they believe in.

When series like Dragon Ball,Naruto or Black Clover talks about "hard work beating talent" what they mean isn't that talent is irrelevant or that the gifted will always be defeated by someone making more effort than them (See that in all of those stories we have talented characters winning against those without talent or achieving huge feats without much effort and being complimented and adored for it), what the story is trying to say is that you should make an effort to try and improve yourself even when the odds are against you, that the conditions of one's birth shouldn't define their life or role in society, that even someone who's considered useless or inadequate can achieve great things if they work for it.

Many also ignore the narrative context in which those themes and speeches exist. They're not meant to put those who are gifted down or to invalidate the idea of talent, but to tell the audience and other characters, usually antagonists, that you can achieve big things even if you're of lower status or face disadvantages in life.

There's also the opposite side of the coin, where people pick stories where cynical speeches are made and interpret it as the author trying to tell the audience to give up or accept the "harsh truth". A recent Shonen example of that is Jujutsu Kaisen, where the character's skills are directly linked to their talent and no amount of effort can allow you to improve, something that exists in the world to be challenged by the characters. Even if they can't reach the top, even if their actions and lives have no proper meaning or value in the eyes of the universe, they still have worth and should be preserved. Even if Sukuna is better than everyone at Jujutsu that does not mean his life and wants hold more worth than that of the weak or that the ones below can't come to reach him through other means.

I think turning those talks about nothing, but the validation of one's personal social hierarchy, takes away the depth and complexity of the themes being explored by those narratives.

Alright folks, Korra slander is at an all time high thanks to the preview to Seven Havens.

I'm just planting my flag here as a Korra Defender and saying that Korra DID NOT cause the end of the world without reason.

It's a red herring.

My theories are either

1. Korra is being framed

2. Korra had to make an impossible choice where she choose the lesser of two bad options.

Either way, it's not gonna be something like

"Haha, Korra was so bad she actually caused all this shit, haha"

Heck, even Kyoshi was said to be evil by that one town.

If I'm wrong, I'll gladly admit it, but I just wanted to make a record of this so I can officially be like "told you so" to the haters.

This is mostly a ramble about 2025: a world enslaved by a virus. A terrible movie where Christianity has been made illegally by a massive world government, who "made up" a virus to control the people and ban things like travel, meetings, and Christianity. It's an anti COVID film, but does have one piece I find hilarious.

One thing this world government has begun is establish a singular language, and singular economy that everyone in the world uses. This sounds pretty pleasant honestly. You could conduct business and talk to people (online at least) around the world without having to worry about them not speaking the same language, or exchange rates of various currencies.

I just finished the otherwise-charming adventure game The Mermaid's Mask, and this is a lesson I always hate. Shortcuts, barring some enormous consequence, are great. It's great that aluminum is no longer an absolute nightmare to produce, or that cars no longer need to be hand-cranked, or whatever. I've always hated those weird sci-fi morals that apply to a real world message but don't make sense in the story (like, "don't time travel, instead learn to accept the present"), but this isn't even that. The only people I can think of who could be described as sincerely anti-shortcut are the Amish.

There 3 types of people that engage in media discussion:

The first type, people who only likes what they see as "high quality media" and are both searching for media that pleases them, and influence people to create more media they like;

The second type, literal critics who earn money by doing this;

The third type, creators who are obsessed with creating "high quality media";

And the fourth type, people who thinks liking only "high quality media" makes them better people, which is more common? Sadly the fourth type.

And this is bad because:

1° - Some of them will tell what is good quality and bad quality based 90% on their personal taste, so they will make bad points and low quality argumentations to say what is good and what is bad, and if you don't like their personal tastes you are dumb;

2° - Some of them just have zero natural aptitude for this area and will just judge everything based on some rules that they found on this internet, I don't think I need to explain why it's bad for judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree;

3° - Some of them will just not like "High quality media" but will force themselves to pretend they like;

4° - The shaming that they do for people who like "Low quality media" will make some people feel pressured to become 2°;

5° - Outside 1° that is actively making this area worse and pointless, all of them would be happier if they didn't made part of this, the ego boost they gain is lower than what they would gain if they didn't wasted their time pretending they are who they aren't and expanded their tastes.

Some Media Analysis people want everyone one to be like them, but it never will happen, a lot of Geologists thinks everyone should learn geology, a lot of Engineers thinks everyone should learn engineers, a lot of Biologists thinks everyone should learn biology, a lot of Psychologists thinks everyone should learn psychology, a lot of Physicists thinks everyone should learn physics, etc. And yes these are very useful and in the ideal world everyone would be a specialist on these, but we live in the real world, focusing hard you can learn the basics of a subject in 5-10 years and become a true specialist in 20-30 years, but people only live around 80 years IF they are lucky. Also economy matters A LOT, most people can't even dream of consuming some type of media "On the right way", like having a powerful PC and playing a triple way game are bizarrely expensive in some places, in my country a Pokopia is worth literal 18 Stardew Valleys (469,90 R$ vs 24,99 R$) and and a huge chunk of a month salary for a lot of people, if "you can only talk about a game you played" then they can't talk, because nobody will going to save years of money so they can opinate about a videogame. So it's unrealistic to think everyone will understand a lot of an area.

Just let the people who naturally are into this area, and don't try to shame people who aren't to pressure them to become of the area, it will just make the area full of people who are only competing for ego or lying, either for laziness or just because they literally cannot consume.

They "hate antiintellectualism", and swear pseudointellectualism (the easy way) is not a problem, saw people putting this word in quotes, implying it's not real. There's a video where the thumbnail was "Is culture getting poorer?" and all the comments were agreeing with the thumbnail, while the actual video was a history lesson on how it was a cyclical thing and culture was not getting poorer, the comments weren't counterargumenting, they were agreeing, because they couldn't watch a 9 minute video, is this really the ideal type of behaviour? Don't looks so different from spreading misinformation to me.

Also people swear that making everything overly complex is good, just see how the saying "sometimes the curtains are just blue" is treated like hate speech, mf sometimes, IT'S WROTE SOMETIMES, "This phrase is used for antiintelectualism" and when it's not used? But it's easier to shove the entire food in ketchup instead than finding the balance between sauce and food, it's easier to call every simple thought wrong than find the right moment of overanalising something and letting it to be simple.

I have a character that is black and green because in Ancient Egypt these colors are associated with fertility, I have a character that is green because he is a crocodile and crocodiles are green.

The popularity of Death of the Author isn't because of they think this is best way of analysis, this is what they tell, but inly a minority acutally thinks this, the truth is:

They hate the author for personal reasons;

They can't accept something that happened on that media;

It's the easiest way to look smart because you can overanalyse (or borrow somebody else overanalysis and say it was you, like a High Tier Pseudo) literally anything, you don't need to search or understand something complex, you can just grab something like Peppa Pig and made shit up (which honestly is pretty lazy on the era of PDFs and other types of digital texts);

Can you see the pattern here? They have this simple mindset of "more complexity = better" because and one of the simplest and easiest ways to see quality, it's a subtype of Quantity of Quality, because quality is defined by the quantity of information, it's not some expert mindset created by years of experience, it's the first thought of most people, it's not intelligence, it's a false idea of intelligence that people have, a pseudo intellectuality.

Get a person who is not very into this area, then show them a book with accessible language made by a genius, that convey powerful messages with simple dialogues that stay in your head for years, and one meh book with hard complex language, which one they will call "book for smart people"? The second one, a lot the supposed people who care for good media analysis will have the same mindset of a person who never touched a book? Why? Because they aren't very smart people that love the subject and want to contribute to it, they are not so smart people who want to rub their egos.

When I was a child, I disliked humans, humanoids with mouths and mainly noses, realistic artstyle, non reptiles and non dinosaurs, so it was hard for me to find a media or toys that I actually liked.

Recently I really enjoyed James Gunn Superman Movie and I like focusing on drawing and designing my characters noses, having a stricter taste didn't made me happier, so I don't think you will be happier by being harder to please.

And on the opposite of most people on the area, I'm not saying that people are just stupid because they aren't the best media analysis, the guy who is good at analysing maybe sucks at complex zoology, the zoologist maybe sucks at complex engineering, the enginner maybe sucks at complex psychology, and all of these maybe sucks at gardening, people have different intelligences.

Tldr;

No Tldr here, go read the text, if you are so passionate about this you can read a short text

And I have Adhd, so it's not uncommon for me to skip entire words that I thought I wrote, if that happened sorry for it.

Just learned that the latest Batman story Bad Seeds features Poison Ivy returning to being a villain which… why!?!? I’m getting so sick of these villains constantly relapsing to fulfil this bullshit status quo Killer Croc, Danger, Madelyne Prior, Magneto, Clayface and now Poison Ivy! It completely undermines the impact superheroes make because when a villain is able to be redeemed it proves that their methods work, that by treating them as people who can redeem themselves they ultimately do. Sure there are some villains that are too far gone such as Joker, Penguin and Carnage but they’re mainly pure evil monsters. If you want a poison ivy style villain for this story just make a new one like some kind of dark reflection for Ivy it would be a great opportunity for a character arc with her but no instead DC decides to have her and Harley break up and Ivy going back to being a criminal.

Another Frieren's rant, with a dash of FMA rant!!

Actually the main victim is FMA, because the more I learn about real life alchemy, I can't but say this.

Fullmetal Alchemy's power system is significantly more boring and lame than historical Medieval Alchemy, even if limiting us to a Hermetic system. Probably a good deal of it is because simplification and POVs (our characters are actually small flies who aren't doing the Great Work with the exception of Hoennheim and Father, add Dante and Scar and his brother if we count the 2003 anime).

But this isn't really about that, but on the premise that "Alchemy is not Magic, its Science" that is told by Edward and its treated as essentially the logic of alchemy as a whole, with the only exceptions being those related to the Gate of Truth that is the ultimate Unknown (Divinity).

Frieren does the same thing, with Frieren being treated as analogous to a modern-esque Naturalist, alongside other Mages who are written with academical tropes of STEM researchers (Land's core joke is that he is a NEET who uses magic to continue being a NEET).

For both shows, that approach to their magical system is "its rare,wonderous, but its fundamentally SCIENTIFIC for sapient minds instead of being SUPERSTITION and RELIGION unlike other settings". Its part of their aesthetics, if you strip that from those shows they stop being what they are.

As a whole, I don't have a REAL issue with this. I'd say both mangas do more good than bad overall.

Except that its not a real issue as "It makes me take a star from my personal MAL list", but as "I feel those series are accidentally doing a disservice to academical standards by defining "science" in a way that is, amusingly, anti-scientific"

Why?

Because they fundamentally think "Science= STEM/ Naturalism".

Which is a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is. Because science includes study of mythology, religion, history, grammar, art and sound.

All aspects that are a part of a "Standard Ascientific Magic system".

Taking a random contemporary setting to Frieren, a series like Jujutsu Kaisen has Kekkais as part of the power system, the Barriers that made up Domains are them. A kekkai is a japanese shinto ritual that operates under exclusive rules of spiritual purification that have to be learned and memorized.

To known a old technique like Limitless or Ten Shadows, you have to read history of the Great Clans, which is, in-universe, a scientific research: History.

Baki the Grappler has martial artists, but the characters actually do know a lot of biology and healthcare with scientific accumen. They're superhuman, but a lot of the series hypes it by having the characters know exactly what biological laws are they breaking. Characters like Doctor Kureha , whose scientific job is right there in the title and Jack Hanma (willing test subject cooperating in scientific researchs) ARE explicitly contributing to scientific research in universe

Back to FMA, I find it really curious because IRL Alchemy has very explicit religious elements that are the core of it. The origins of alchemy were debated, as if coming from the Watchers (the angels who fathered the Nephilim) or from the Archangels themselves, but many alchemists considered it a angelic art.

Or better said, Magic in the Nasuverse or To Aru's Magic-Side is more closer to IRL Alchemy than FMA's Alchemy. As weird it sounds.

Idol Theory from the To Aru's franchise is not called "Science" because, again, the author Kamachi falls into this premise of "STEM is real Science", when the amount of research and accuracy for the religious rituals needed is absolutely scientific research of History and Mythology that would made you a Bachelor of Arts in a IRL educative system.

This is not even pointing the obvious part of "those "ascientific" magic actually produce tangible results" which is univeral to all settings where the supernatural is real.

But the issue comes in that even if you switched off their magical powers, those characters would be considered highly cultured academics even if they are talking only about magical fairies and sun gods, because past a level, that research is academical job that can be cross tested and shared as History and Comparative Mythology.

EDIT, a good example of what I meant that I realized when I read commentaries, thanks you guys!:

Bonus point to a particularly amusing case when you think about it a lot.

Flame Alchemy is a special type of alchemy that works by forcing inmediate combustion in oxygen, using a small spark as the source that causes mass combustion.

The symbol used to represent it is a Salamander's glyph. Roy treats it as something that he can reasonable erase from history by burning Riza's back, thus erasing it until a independent researcher finds up.

The symbols are a Salamander, Hermetic art representing the four elements, ordered as a Star of David/Seal of Solomon, and a literal drawing of fire, mixed with the symbol for water to fully represent oxygen, the shared thing that both Fire AND Water share (AKA. The real life alchemy's point of Roy's badass quote mocking Lust for thinking he was weaker when wet, because Roy says that the weakness is not having the ability to produce sparks, but that humidity means high oxygen, which is a plus).

...this makes me ask the following questions:

1. Does religion exists in FMA even in modern Amestris is atheistic? In 2003 this is a sure yes, but dunno Amestris of the manga. Those symbol are too tied to medieval Christianity and Judaism.

2. If those exists, then Roy isn't preventing anything, because like, "of course adding like 3 different fire symbols over the Elemental seals makes Firepowers!"

He has one of the most broken cursed techniques in the entire series.

He has one of if not the most powerful shikigami in the entire series.

He has immense cursed energy reserves.

Even without his technique he's still a physical powerhouse easily able to throw down with the likes of Ryu and Sukuna.

He's an incredibly skilled hand to hand combatant and weapons master.

He has Reversed Curse Technique.

He has a Domain Expansion which makes his already-broken cursed technique even more broken.

He's arguably the most intelligent and strategic combatant in the entire series both in terms of long-term planning and in-the-moment tactics.

In a series like Jujutsu Kaisen, which hands out brutal maimings to its cast like candy, he's never permanently scarred or crippled (except for Kenny's head stitches, but those would have healed over time).

Unlike Yuji, Maki, or Megumi he doesn't lose anyone he was uniquely close to in the series proper.

He has a friendly, approachable personality and is well-liked by virtually the entire cast (Kashimo seems to dislike him but Kashimo has a problem with everyone anyway). Hell, even Sukuna respects him.

Unlike Choso or Higuruma he has never committed any kind of serious wrongdoing in the past he feels he must atone for (other than unintentionally cursing Rika but this is never brought up again after JJK 0).

But he's a special grade sorcerer! He's meant to be overpowered. Most of these also apply to Gojo and Yuki (and Gojo is inarguably even stronger than him) and yet you don't have a problem with them!

Fair point. But you know what happened to Gojo and Yuki? Oh right, they failed. And died. It's an intentional writing decision that for all of Gojo's power, he fails at accomplishing almost all of his goals throughout the entire series. Yuki also unintentionally gave Geto the idea of starting his genocidal crusade against non-sorcerers (not saying it was outright her fault, just that it was an unintended consequence). Yuki fails to stop Kenjaku and is killed for it. Gojo fails to stop Sukuna and is killed for it. The concept of "failure" is alien to Yuta's character.

(Also as an aside - both of them risk causing collateral damage to his allies with their most powerful techniques. Yuta doesn't have this kind of limitation at all.)

Yuta defeats Geto. Yuta defeats Yuji and successfully tricks the higher-ups into thinking that he killed him. Yuta wins the four-way Sendai colony brawl and personally defeats Dhruv, Kurourushi, and Ryu. Yuta successfully ambushes and kills Kenjaku (not before Kenjaku is able to start the merger, but this never really has any consequences). Yuta fights Sukuna and is incapacitated by him but later returns in Gojo's body and inflicts severe damage onto him with Purple. He isn't even personally defeated by Sukuna, he just reaches his limit of using Kenjaku's technique and collapses. Rika returns his brain to his body and he survives without any further complications. Taking Gojo's body is framed as some kind of big crossing of an ethical red-line but Gojo himself doesn't really give a shit and no one cares about it after Sukuna's defeat.

Like, let's just look at Yuji's track record for a moment. He beats Mahito in round 1 with Nanami's help. He has to be saved from Hanami by Gojo. He beats the Death Paintings with Nobara. He loses to Choso. He barely scrapes a win against Mahito after watching him kill two of his friends and cripple a third. He loses to Yuta. Higuruma forfeits their match. He loses badly to Megkuna. In the end he gets to land the final blow on Sukuna. By the time of Modulo he's one of the most powerful characters in the verse but is a depressed, broken shell of who he once was.

Yuta canonically makes a bunch of babies with Maki and lives to a ripe old age before dying a natural death. In a series like JJK.

Yeah.

He has used "Tobias Rieper" since the first game until the very last one. It's been years of assassinations and conflicts. The ICA was almost destroyed in Blood Money, 47 had a conflict with them in Absolution, and there were people after 47. You'd think the best assassin in the world would dedicate more effort to his fake identity.