Anime has long since carried the medium of Animation when it comes to journeying into any field other than kids media.
I mean Animation is obviously for kids right? Pretty colors, potential for exaggerated facial expressions and other movements, not to mention, since a lot of children's media revolves around things that are, not so real, some kids media can be believably portrayed only in Animation.
You can see then, why a lot of people would see Animation and immediately assume kids, but things that are not real, can also be directed towards adults, I mean Modern CGI is Animation, and while it is used to portray a lot of Larger than life Superhero type properties, it is also used to portray something like War, you know muzzle shots, nuclear explosions, etc.
The point I am trying to make, that has been made multiple times by everyone who enjoys adult animation like Rick and Morty, Invincible and what not, is animation is simply a separate medium that doesn't on its own represent an age group that it should primarily be marketed to.
And since Animation is often tied to larger than life stories, Larger than life stories therefore should also not be seen as shallow, and lacking in depth, because ultimately that's what people mean many of the time when they say this is "for kids" that it simply doesn't appeal to their developed brains, of course it is much more complicated than that, but for the sake of this Blog post, I can stop there.
So now lets finally talk about the actual content of this episode shall we, I mean we got nine days constant, that can't be good for my anxiety. You know I mean its good for the show and the viewing experience, but it seems in trying to expel one beast...
Okay I should say the line in the show is "In Trying to expel the beast within.." and not what I said above, it simply sounded better.
This story is about an alternate timeline where Bruce Banner and Sam Wilson had the epic jog through the park instead of Steve and Sam Wilson, obviously the other jog also happened, because later on Same still goes on to be captain America, or maybe its some other way, Idk, specifics do not matter.
What matters is that at the center of this story is the story of two friends one broken to the extent that he can never trust himself, and the other who has found a way out of his trauma by helping others like him recover from it.
Which is very interesting considering that on the surface this episode is Pacific Rim but Avengers, or is it Armored core? I mean some of the mech designs definitely seemed inspired, who knows, its the age old story of Mecha vs Monster.
Except in this case the Monsters are born out of Bruce Banners desire to hide his "monstrous" side from someone he genuinely considered a friend, I mean come to think of it, in the MCU, he doesn't have a lot of those, only Natasha who is into him romantically, obviously that is different.
The Mechs are enhanced versions of Tony Stark's Hulk Buster Armor, after he died obviously, alongside the other avengers, because they gotta focus on the new ones, I mean it makes sense, that way they don't have to pay for the Avengers' Actors to do voice over, specially when they aren't in contract at this moment.
And we come to a very interesting type of Story where something larger than life like this is used to tell a small personal story.
I mean we see this in real life too, great events, catastrophes, disasters, while they are undeniably cause for great destruction, they also inspire people to come close in ways they wouldn't have otherwise, stories that would have never happened otherwise take place in this crucible.
And given the context of this story it is very poignant that this story begins with a children's animation explaining the events in a very oversimplified manner.
Over simplified views of events are often encouraged and favorable in the public eye during dire times, I mean you can't have someone trying to understand the psyche of a monster that is actively trying to kill you, you know, it's kill or be killed, hesitation is defeat (yes that is a Sekiro reference, bite me.)
But the story begins, literally by reality crashing hard into this view of events as a Gama monster attack blocks the internet and stops the show midway.
You see there is a line in this episode which really sums up the main message this episode is tryin to get across.
Yes, surface level cartoonish interpretations of things are often easy, useful even, like I said, you can't have a conversation with someone when they are actively trying to kill you.
And in a way, the episode reinforces this survival of the strongest and excessive violence being the way to victory idea.
After all, the battle is won by Bruce Banner finally giving in to the monster and absorbing the Gama energy to such an extent that he takes over as the Apex of the Gamma beasts.
And yes, this is true, some forces cannot be reasoned with.
In this case the force of the Gamma beasts and their nature necessarily required a show of force so strong that it overcame them, but... then this force is left in this world, what's to stop it from taking over?
Becoming the new horror to fight.
This is very true across history and Fiction, case in point, Maximillian Robespierre and President Alma Coin from the Hunger Games.
And Bruce almost did become that.
But what stopped him, was sitting down and talking.
To be clear, the cycle of violence would never have ended if it weren't for Sam breaking this overly simplistic interpretation of the situation that everyone else was so quick to adopt, and who could blame them?
It's like they said.
But Sam only saw his friend, and as a result, Hulk did the right thing, Tempered his strength with his conscience, and took the monsters with him.
Before ending this, I would like to point out that this episode, in my opinion is a quintessential example of the concept of "What if...?" being used correctly to tell a story that not only explores the endless possibilities in the multiverse to tell a story that would otherwise have been impossible, but also to dive deeper into the psyche of the characters that exist.
Also this story is surely evidence for the rumors about the world war hulk movie I keep hearing so much about.
And another last thing, something that has carried over from the last two seasons.
In general, the Watcher becomes more and more prominent and larger as the time for his direct intervention in the story grows closer, case in point in season one from episode one to eight, he went from eyes in the sky, to a dark silhouette, to almost physically present in the moment to actually being talked to interacted with directly by Strange Supreme and Ultron Infinity.
In season 2 he was a lot closer from the start.
This is episode one of Season 3, and my boi is dangerously close to just being visible to everyone... and that is to be expected, as this is the final season of this series and the Watcher will obviously be heavily involved directly throughout the story that this season wants to tell, it will be interesting to see what that will be.
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