What does one do when they’re in too much pain to look down to read books? They watch a lot of television. The main pieces I wanted to highlight were Marvel’s Thunderbolts*, and the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood anime.

Thunderbolts*

It has been really interesting to see the internet’s reception of Thunderbolts*, and I personally have a lot to say about the movie. I’ll start with the critiques, then move on to the good stuff.

• The pacing was weird. Not enough to ruin the movie for me, but unusual enough for it to feel a little strange when we reached the end of it.
• I am afraid that the MCU writers don’t know how to write a post-Winter-Soldier Bucky Barnes. I felt the same way in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, where they also seemed to be unsure of how to move forward with his character, leaving him feeling a little flat. This was a disappointment to me since he has been one of my favorite MCU characters since middle school.
• I would like to have seen void scenes with all of the characters rather than just Yelena.

But! Even though I have some critiques, I want to talk about why I still loved this movie.

• It was a fun movie. The character dynamics were fantastic, and unlike any other of the team movies from Marvel.
• While some of the new MCU character introductions have been… meh, Bob was such an amazing character and I am very excited to see him in the future.
• The message was so strong. I know some people were critiquing the resolution, saying that they didn’t like the “winning with the power of friendship” concept, but I think that it was much more than that, and the way that they executed it was very well done. The whole movie had heavy PTSD, depression, and trauma themes that were explored through the cast of characters, and I think that it was actually so important to show that even literal superheroes need human connection and community to fight mental battles. It was honestly very heartwarming to watch – as someone who watched MCU movies in my teen years throughout my mental battles – knowing that there are teens now who will see this and feel encouraged to seek support from those around them.

I don’t quite agree with the whole, “Marvel is so back!” things that I have been seeing, because I am still skeptical about some of their future projects, (another Avengers movie with a huge cast, more multiverse things, projects with characters I simply don’t like) but I do hope that they continue to make movies of this quality even if it doesn’t fit all of their current plans.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Moving on, I just finished watching the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood anime. Up until recently, I had no particular interest in watching anime, but upon the insistence of my boyfriend, I watched Fullmetal Alchemist and I loved it.

One of the things that I particularly enjoyed was the pacing and the complexities in the plot. The beginning of the show starts in the middle of the story, which is my all time favorite type of storytelling. There were multiple things going on at the same time, reminding us of the fact that the world doesn’t stop for the plot of the main character. The writing was top-notch, and felt very cohesive throughout all 64 episodes.

My one complaint is that I feel like it could have used one more episode to wrap up loose ends. While I loved the fast pacing of the entire series, the end did feel abrupt. Since this is my first anime, I do not know if this is typical for their storytelling, or if this was a choice made for this specific series.

Overall, finishing this series left me with – I painfully admit – the anime void, so one week after finishing Fullmetal Alchemist, I started watching Jujutsu Kaisen. Will update you all when I finish that one.