My thoughts on Survivor episode 8, “You Call, We’ll Haul”

Here it is guys! My thoughts on the best episode this season! This episode was intense and fast paced. During the pre-reward section, we saw Savage telling Jeremy to watch out for Ciera who wanted to make a big move. Then we see Ciera telling Stephen about a big move against Joe. The big narrative this episode was Stephen versus Joe. Which one would make the big move?

Reward Challenge

The castaways participated in the reward challenge called, “Boats, Brains and Brawn.” It consisted on two teams paddling on the boat to retrieve colored crates. Then the teams would assemble the crates, at the beach, without repeating colors. The green team consisted on Joe, Keith, Wentworth, Wigglesworth, Kimmi and Ciera. The purple team was Stephen, Jeremy, Tasha, Savage, Spencer and Abi.  Joe lead  the green team to victory. He pushed the other team’s boat and then he carried two crates by himself. Joe is like a professional athlete. He motivated his team and performed incredible well in the challenge. The green team, on the other hand, fell apart.

Survivor Cafe

The Survivor Cafe looked amazing, it had ice coffee and bagels.  Here Ciera recounted the events of Blood versus Water. She was at the bottom of the Tyson, Gervase, and Monica alliance. She told everyone that they needed to make a big move, otherwise, the Alpha Alliance would control the game.  We saw Joe talking about getting rid of Stephen. Afterwards, we got a fun scene with Keith. He drove everyone around the beach on an auto rickshaw, called in Cambodia, “Tuck Tuck.” This scene recalled earlier survivor seasons, were Survivor was more about the experience than the game.

Immunity Challenge

The castaways played, “Take the reins.” This challenge consisted on a contestant balancing a ball on a disk. The contestant holded two ropes to balance the disk. This challenge looked pretty tough one had to maneuver the ropes with two hands and had enough endurance to hold on to them for an extended period of time. Most of the castaways lost fast; It came down to the Keith and Joe.  Keith put up a fight but awesome Joe ended up pulling the win. Its insane to see how good Joe is at every survivor challenge. At this point I would say he’s better than Malcolm and on par with Ozzy. Remember, Ozzy in his first season won almost every single immunity challenge. I would say, however, that Joe has better leadership and social skills than Ozzy who was more of a loner.

Before Tribal

Stephen had thrown Joe’s name around given that Joe is like JT; The golden boy of  the season, the player Stephen can’t beat. However, since Joe won immunity he rallied people against Stephen.  Despite the episode setting up the Joe versus Stephen, the Alpha alliance does not go forward with it. Jeremy has become tight with Stephen and plans on pulling a JT. While Joe keeps on winning immunity. Therefore, everyone targets Wentworth who they see as the easy vote.

At Tribal and Next Week

I am proud of Ciera, especially how she called out Stephen. Of course there’s a hierarchy! Jeremy, Tasha, Savage and Stephen are on the top. Ciera is one of the best women to ever play the game. She’s strategic and voices her opinion. It seemed very obvious that Wentworth was going home. However, something amazing happened, she pulled out her hidden immunity idol. Abi, Ciera and Wentworth rejoiced in joy, while everyone else was left speechless. Eventually, Savage was the guy who went home.  Next week is looking to be another excellent episode. Now that Savage is gone, I see Jeremy and Stephen becoming a pair. While I also see a stronger alliance forming between Abi, Ciera and Wentworth, hopefully they can pull more women or Spencer, we’ll see!

Vintage series Music: Ramones- Ramona

Its November 4, 1997. Just a couple of days ago the Pistols launched, “Never Mind the Bollocks.” The punk rock movement is exploding. Will punk rock break the mainstream?  One thing’s for sure, it is an amazing time to be a punk! Joey sings to Ramona, a Ramones fan girl whose Joey ex-girlfriend. Ramona tells Joey, “You are getting better and better its getting easier than ever.” By late 1977 the punk movement was at its peak. The Ramones themselves were spearheading it and Rocket to Russia, with Rockaway Beach and Sheena is a Punk Rocker, is considered their best album. Joey lets Ramona into his life, “I let her in and I started to cry.” Joey captures how a young person feels when he opens up to people, girls in particular. And how vulnerability can lead either to nostalgia, “She always wants to come over.” Or even sadness, “ and then I knew, I wanted to die.” Yet, the backup music turns this song from sad to bittersweet. The melodies are catchy and echo Ramones classics like Beat on the Brat.  This song feels like a conversation between Joey and Ramona. Yet, somehow lives goes on Ramona will continue with her life an the Ramones will go on touring; sadness after all is momentary.

                                                                                   

My thoughts on the first five minutes of Digimon Tri!

Finally, I get to write my thoughts on the first five minutes of Digimon Tri! It was hard to find a clear trailer, however, I ended up finding an HD one.[1] The trailer kicks off with the Data World, a white room where a black cube is being created.  According to the narrator, demiurge is the black cube. He existed in this data world without a soul, while the universe was being constructed. According to Plato, Demiurge is a entity that created the world and is able to maintain it. However, since Demiurge created the world from complete chaos, the world still out of control. Keeping with the platonic explanation, the narrator says that there were transcendental/perfect objects or as Plato calls it ideas. Among these ideas was demiurge that was an idea created from chaos. The narrator, then says that Demiurge was alone and nothing else existed. Its interesting to note that the image here is of a dark matter spreading around the white room. I can see the parallels between Demiurge and a computer virus. Afterwards, the narrator emphasizes Demiurge as superior to everyone; he has no match. Later he says that the world was covered in shadows.

We see the image of two digi eggs, one white and the other black. I am guessing they represent parallel worlds.  The white world is where story of the original digidestined and the one’s in 02. While the black one is the one where the 02 characters were defeated or never became digidestined. We can support this by the fact that we see red images of Alphamon defeating Davis, Yolie, Cody and Ken.[2] Meanwhile, see an all grown up Kari waking up Tai for him to go to school. Tai’s digivice remains the same from Adventure, hinting again to 02 never happening. After, Tai leaves for school we get shot from a man checking watching the new from his phone. The newscaster talks about a blackout at Kawasaki. Most likely its Kuwagamon, whose come from the Digital world and is causing chaos.[3]  Finally, we see Tai riding his bike across Tokyo. In the background, we can hear Wada singing the classic theme song, “Butterfly.”

These five minutes of the OVA are heavy. They lay the philosophical foundation for the creation of the Digital world. In addition, the trailer touches on the parallel universe, where Digimon Tri takes place. I am sure that later in the movie they’ll be more exposition and an clearer explanation of the events that took place.

Any way, what do you think about the first five minutes?  

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[1] It was in Spanish so I don’t have precise quotes.

[2] Come on really? First, Blackwar Greymon beats them and now Alphamon? Not the biggest 02 fan…

[3] Something similar happened in Adventure’s ep21 with Ogremon coming to earth .

My history with Digimon

Hey guys, before I delve into analyzing Digimon; the trailers and Tri. I thought I’d share my experience watching Adventure and how I got started. I probably started watching Digimon around 2000. At around this time I stopped watching Cartoon Network[1]: Dexter’s Laboratory, Mike Lu and Og, and Ed Edd and Eddy.[2] To started watching Fox Kids. Now Fox Kids used to be the cool channel. There were more violent cartoons and a more exciting cartoon lineup. When I came in anime was just starting to get big. I remember Monster Hunter was a huge deal back in the day and it was just about to end. There was also Shinzo, Shaman King and Track City.[3]

Any way, I watched the first episode of Adventure and enjoyed the premise. A bunch of kids on a summer camp dragged into a digital world? What’s not to like? I was hooked. I remember the strong first arc: it followed the digidestined each had their Digimon evolve to champion level. Just re-watching the show, in Japanese, the characters feel very realistic. For instance, when they are fighting Devimon for the first time. You see the group dynamic: Matt's quick-temper, Tai's impulsiveness and Joe's frightfulness. They all create tension within the group and watching them feels like watching real people.

I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, as I plan on rewatching the series. But it gets better and better. The show is all around amazing. Everything from the protagonists, to the arcs and the villains exceeded my expectations. For instance, the villains are all well written and very compelling. For example, Devimon is scary looking but also intelligence.  He’s a menacing villain as he can control those around him. While Etemon might be the weakest of the villains his placing in the series makes sense as he brings light-heartedness to what could have been a are very dark show.

 Now the Darkmasters are my favorite villains. I don’t want to talk about them as it would spoil the show. However, the digidestined have to rely on confidence and strategy as opposed to powering up to defeat them. For me this is the best way to conquer villains as opposed to powering up. In general, I thought the show was brilliant and one of top three from my childhood. I think that is why I was highly disappointed with season 2. [4] I reconnected got back into Digimon with Tamers. Which  was more violent, darker and had compelling characters. Tamers had a certain magic that 02 lacked and after Tamers ended, I was satisfied with my Digimon viewing experienced. Around this time a new show—about monster cards—was exploding.Therefore, I no longer had an interest in Digimon. Digimon 4 took longer to debut in Latin America and when it dropped my interested had waned. I ended up watching the whole season, however, while it was a good show  it no longer felt like Digimon.  

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[1] I am originally from Peru, therefore, I watched a Spanish dub of the Japanese version.

[2] One of these days, I’ll cover the history of Cartoon Network.

[3] I never felt the Digimon versus Pokemon rivalry because I watched the Pokemon when I was very young kid. By the time Digimon hit, my Pokemon phase was over. Dragon Ball was probably a bigger deal for me at the time and it had already ended.

[4] That’s a whole another story.