Martin_Pyramid

One of the best seasons of the whole franchise, clearly up there with the fan favorites American ones like Season 5 or All Stars 2.

This is mostly due to a very charismatic cast with a high level of talent; every challenge was entertaining and impressive, and the fashion was breathtaking. There is also a big lack of drama here between the contestants. Usually, a good season has good drama, but as all the contestants joyfully tease each other. They do get annoyed with each other a few times, but they all brush it off with jokes.

Serious talk while putting on makeup became inevitable in the franchise to a ridiculous level sometimes, but here, each talk feels genuine and well-developed. At one point, they talk about how Drag Race fans can't be the meanest bullies online, and I was glad that the franchise finally addressed it.

I liked the judges, even if sometimes I wasn't sure they were honest in their criticism (but at least it was not as flagrant as the American seasons). Shy'm is a good addition, but only in the second half of the show; at first, she seemed a little out of place.

SEASON 1 (4/5)

It's a kid show, easy to enjoy even as an adult. This is mostly due to the beauty of the animation and the constant atmosphere between innocence and ominous mystery. Everything contributes to the unique atmosphere of Cardcaptor Sakura, between the pastel colours, the slow pace (until some exciting action scenes), the mysterious score and the ambiguous characters.

It's hard not to see all the queerness between the characters; it's never explicit, but it's implied multiple times. There is a strong theme of love here, but especially love at the age of innocence. As an adult, it feels weird to have a child character being in love with her teacher (and spending time with him outside school) or having a girl loudly present herself as her cousin's girlfriend, but they are still kids.

Cardcaptor Sakura has some good messages, especially for the time, about going above the genre expectations. Toya is presented as a cool guy, but he cleans the house and cooks really well. Sakura is maybe girly, but she is very good at sports. The kids are always really polite with adults, and on the other side, the adults are all patient and comprehensive.

I liked that the issues only come from the card, which can be described as a monster of the week. There are some imaginative confrontations between Sakura and a card that sometimes feels like reading a fantastic short story.

I was far from being impressed with this one. The stories felt unimportant and sometimes not particularly enjoyable, mostly due to unpleasant main characters. The heroes are so focused on coming back with the stolen artifact from Wakanda, but it's hard to care about this kind of mission, and sometimes the "enemies" feel more right and easy to relate.

I don't think they were successful in their way to include Wakanda heroes into real historical events, or at least popular myth, like the Trojan horse. It feels out of place and they don't take advantage of them to make impactful arguments about our history.

The art was not that great either, not a big fan of how they made the faces, they all look like they have too much makeup on. There are some beautiful moments there, but the overreliance on "yellow rays of light" makes everything too dull when it could have had a brighter contrast.

The action scenes were as good as you can expect from Marvel, with very well-choreographed fights.