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My Adventures with Superman Episode 1 and 2 Talkback (Series Premiere)


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Clark Kent builds his secret Superman identity and embraces his role as the hero of Metropolis, while sharing adventures and falling in love with Lois, a star investigative journalist, who also takes Jimmy Olsen under her wing.

Fresh from the last echoes of the Hamada-run DC comics brand, this pseudo-anime take on the Man of Steel debuts tonight at midnight.  Tonight is the first two episodes of the series, with an encore set for Toonami.

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Funny enough, the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen also debuts tonight on Crunchyroll.  In a perfect world, that’s what airs on Toonami for the summer (especially after Kaisen 0 did very strong box office numbers for the small cost of its release and would have been CR’s biggest film of 2022 if not for Super Hero), but we’ve beaten that horse dead.  
 

Anyway, you ever feel like American attempts to recall shounen always feel…off?  There’s always something that people can feel is wrong, be it the movement, the writing, or just the way people are drawn.  I’m not saying an episode needs Power Girl with her airbags bouncing around (or maybe I am?  I dunno) but there’s this feeling of “you’re trying to be something you’re not.  We love the DC animation most of the time!  It’s universally considered the area DC always beats Marvel in!  Just be you!”

If the summer was just DC releasing their films post Apocolaypse (The Tomorrowverse as it’s been called) leading up to WarWorld in September, I think that would have gotten more attention.  There’s a lot of films ranging from interesting concepts to genuinely good that all feel like it’s more of DC doing what it’s good at, rather than getting people who don’t know or don’t want to know how to do shounen to awkwardly shoehorn Superman into that role.  
 

This is probably why Gunn is wiping the animation slate clean as well.

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3 hours ago, Jman said:

Anyway, you ever feel like American attempts to recall shounen always feel…off?  There’s always something that people can feel is wrong, be it the movement, the writing, or just the way people are drawn.  I’m not saying an episode needs Power Girl with her airbags bouncing around (or maybe I am?  I dunno) but there’s this feeling of “you’re trying to be something you’re not.  We love the DC animation most of the time!  It’s universally considered the area DC always beats Marvel in!  Just be you!”

 

There are usually two key problems that all of them have. First, they miss what actually makes anime popular, and often times actually rebel against it. They think it’s just the style that carries it, not the substance. So you get something that looks like anime, but is painfully western when you actually sit down with it. 

The second is the people on the staff for these shows usually have extremely narrow anime knowledge. Ironically enough, mostly just stuff Toonami aired in its after school days, and maybe a dab of a recent FotM if it has extreme culture impact such as AoT. So when we get fake anime stuff like this, it’s ripping tired tropes from DBZ and Sailor Moon rather than things that weren’t out of date 30 years ago. 
 

1 hour ago, Jman said:

You see this is exactly what I’m talking about.

They had a lot of extra space in that tweet they could have plugged Toonami with. If they are forcing us to run this crap instead of getting new shows at least give us a shout out. 

“MY ADVENTURES WITH SUPERMAN premiers tonight @ midnight, next day on @streamatmax. Also catch an encore at midnight Saturday night on #Toonami”

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32 minutes ago, OwlChemist81 said:

Guess everyone's waiting until Saturday??

I checked it out, for the moment it’s passable. Still think it’s squandered on Adult Swim, but what can you do? This will definitely be a weird way to start off Toonami for a few months, the block has always been deprived of the SoL feat action style shows. 

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Why does young-Clark wear glasses before even discovering he has powers? Why does he wear glasses at all prior to being resigned to having an alter identity?

My Krypton knowledge might be pretty sparse, but, kinda thought they were largely "normal" (mostly due to having red sun), yet Jor-El is depicted as a flying older Superman? I'll let the high tech spaceship thing slide, at least. It's a stretch, but.. doesn't completely ruin anything yet.

If you're going to throw in an anime costume transformation scene, you really gotta crank up the gratuitous fanservice, c'mon.

 

Anyway. It's an origin story, which I'm never stoked on. But, I did catch in the credits, kinda nice to see Chris Parnell getting a role that isn't a total sad sack. Evidently, Mr. Black Ops was Slade. Ok, we can roll with that. And the cameo of Waller at the end, I can get down with.

Ultimately, not knowing the Super-history super well, kinda wondering/hoping this is at least pulling from.. some actual source material? And not going crazy overboard with retcons. Otherwise, you kinda start alienating some of the comic book audience you're trying to target by deviating from established lore.

Does sorta need to tone down the moe moe flirty omg they're totally crushing each other stuff, tho. Cute stuff is cute.. sure fine, sprinkle it in here and there for whatever. But, again, feels like a disservice to the core Superman audience you're trying to catch?

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1 hour ago, rpgamer said:

Anyway. It's an origin story, which I'm never stoked on. But, I did catch in the credits, kinda nice to see Chris Parnell getting a role that isn't a total sad sack. Evidently, Mr. Black Ops was Slade. Ok, we can roll with that. And the cameo of Waller at the end, I can get down with.

Ultimately, not knowing the Super-history super well, kinda wondering/hoping this is at least pulling from.. some actual source material? And not going crazy overboard with retcons. Otherwise, you kinda start alienating some of the comic book audience you're trying to target by deviating from established lore.

Does sorta need to tone down the moe moe flirty omg they're totally crushing each other stuff, tho. Cute stuff is cute.. sure fine, sprinkle it in here and there for whatever. But, again, feels like a disservice to the core Superman audience you're trying to catch?

I think the origin story is more just set up for the first 2 episodes. That was a major speedrun, and I think that’s for the best. Superman is 85 years old, we know who these characters are and don’t need to waste precious time on a lengthy retelling of things we already know. 

As far as I can tell, there is no hard source material. They are using existing characters, and as far as antagonists go they will just be villains of the week. To me, this series feels like it’s trying to deviate away from the “what if Superman was an asshole” type of story that kind of hijacked the franchise. 

And building on that point, the moe moe flirty thing is by design. This is a Superman series meant to lure in some new people, not cater to the core audience. It was pretty clear it would be that way at announcement, the title gives it away. This is Lois’ show, not Superman’s. Remember, this was supposed to be a Cartoon Network show, and their intent was to appeal to other demographics. 

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A lot of the problems with this series can be traced back to two very notable issues.  It was originally designed as a bonafide kids to teens show with none of Genndy's cross-generational appeal (seriously, what kid is going to appreciate Genndy trying to homage Franco-Belgian comics?) and most of the staff were veterans of notorious Twitter classic but general bomb She Ra and the Princesses of Power.  It was an all-female writing staff from the people who bought you the Princess Prom, and you can tell.  These are not the people who would want to do an anime Superman, at least not one that actually embraced its anime-ness (if that's a thing?) because so many of the tropes of anime are seen by these people are "PRObleMAtIC!" or too appealing to the dreaded male gaze.

It would be easy to go full Jay Sherman and declare "IT STINKS!" but I don't think that's its problem.  I think that its problem is that it is aiming for a very, very narrow audience. "Hey, do you like Superman but are willing to excuse massive changes to his supporting cast?  Or maybe you just hated the Zack Snyder movies that much (#SnyderVerseIsDead) and want a Superman without the big destructive battles and blatant Jesus symbolism?  Do you like anime but wish it was less "problematic" with things like blood and bouncing titties?  Did you like the She-Ra remake?  And are you willing to watch a proud kids show on Adult Swim?  If so, then this is the Superman adaptation for you!  Otherwise, the new season of Jujutsu Kaisen premieres the same night."

 

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I liked it. 

Well over half of DC's content is dark, morbid stuff, so when a fan sees wholesome and friendly content, you really, really appreciate it. 

Also, random online people I respect are giving the first two episodes positive reviews.

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Oh that's right.  The show actually premiered Thursday, so this is technically a rerun.  But, may as well watch it now.

Ah OK.  And looks like it is actually part of Toonami.  Too bad Toonami couldn't get the premiere, though.

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2 minutes ago, ben0119 said:

Oh that's right.  The show actually premiered Thursday, so this is technically a rerun.  But, may as well watch it now.

Ah OK.  And looks like it is actually part of Toonami.  Too bad Toonami couldn't get the premiere, though.

Yeah forgot about that, it's airing like Unicorn.

Would have been really cool if it would have been a full premiere. Though I guess it will be for me, like the Unicorn eps were.

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I expected Clark to stop the car more dramatically.  But I guess that didn't happen so the mom wouldn't see.

Busting things left and right.  Had to rescue a cat.

Clark in a bib.  And eating 3 dozen donuts. 🤣

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5 minutes ago, Dark_Cloud_Overhead said:

Wait... he's already wearing glasses as a kid? Why? That makes no sense. It's supposed to just be as part of a disguise.

Maybe he actually needs the glasses this time. 🤣

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