What I'm Watching: Happy Valley, Message from the King, Rick & Morty

  • Happy Valley: 2 seasons (and a 3rd is planned) of a middle-aged English policewoman chasing murderers in a small town. I find Flock of Seagulls, the first season junior antagonist, utterly unthreatening, but he has his moments. The 2nd season arc was a little obvious, Moaning Myrtle was sinister as hell but with minimal payoff. Still, it's as good a police procedural/mystery as I've seen in ages. ★★★★☆

  • Message from the King: South African badass Jacob King comes to L.A. looking for his missing sister. The plot's a little opaque at times, Jacob is a mute statue except for some side-eye, and there are far fewer guns and security systems than I'd expect in L.A. underworld, but the fistfights and stealth missions are good. It's very reminiscent of The Limey, but much grubbier and less fun. ★★★☆☆

  • Rick & Morty S3: Holy shit. Pickle Rick with Danny Trejo. How many times can I spam the star button? ★★★★★★★★★★ I do want at least one of the dumbass improv cable show eps this season, we can't take a constant dose of this like that Statham flick Crank.

  • Almost no anime. Last year's Crunchyroll simulcasts had Gabriel Dropout (seriously Gabe is my spirit animal: A dropout who wants to destroy humanity), Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid (this might be a tech blog? She's a Python programmer! She's writing Django all day in a soul-crushing open-plan office without even a cubicle!), Akashic Records of Bastard Magical Instructor (awesome title, sometimes great characters & plots, endless filler crap in between), some Sakura Quest (cute start, and hooray, more shows about adults with jobs! But this was too mellow and sappy). Everything else this season seems to be a ripoff of Sword Art Online without the cranky MMO-soloing protagonist in black (ahem), or rom-com. Get your shit together, Japan, you're being out-weirded by a Marty McFly & Doc Pickle cartoon. ★☆☆☆☆

One thought on “What I'm Watching: Happy Valley, Message from the King, Rick & Morty”

  1. Mark Mark Mark. Japan has their shit together and if you nuked Harmony Gold and Funimation you could see the good stuff, LEGALLY. Other than Pickle Rick or GTFO, here's my list:

    Macross Delta - Space Bolsheviks and Nazis in Outer Space and the heroic contractors who protect their homeworld from Real Politick fuckery. Highlights: Dimensional Fold Bombs. Nanotech Magical Girls. Saab Drakens & Viggens in outer space. Hacking to JPop. Since it's Macross you can dance to it:

    GITS ARISE - It's GITS. Decent prequel story about how the major and Sec9 came to be.

    Not really anything else other than idol concerts (Baby Metal & Walkure on Youtube). Macross Delta can be had from Japan with ENGLISH SUBS as Kawamori is getting tired of HG holding the franchise back. There's also a movie coming in 2018.

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