Month: March 2018

New Reviews are Coming!

Featured image: “Saint Tail” by SubaruSumeragi

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m finishing up a graduate program, which is why the posting is infrequent here, but I haven’t forgotten about you.

I am still slowly working on cleaning up the blog and organizing the content. I removed a “currently reading” widget that I never kept updated, but replaced it with one from Goodreads, which will be easier for me to keep current, since I simply have to remember to scan book covers with my phone. I’m still planning to give fiction, essays, and reviews their own pages with a menu at the top, so stay tuned for that as well. Leave comments on any other features you want to see, or recommendations for layout.

Also, since a reader recently asked for a discussion of Christian-themed magical girls, I am currently looking into Saint Tail and Phantom Thief Jeanne, the two Christian magical girl cat burglars who steal for Jesus. As I frequently mention here, works in the magical girl genre often come in pairs: someone produces something with a certain theme, and someone else replies by taking that theme and reversing it. Thus, Phantom Thief Jeanne can be interpreted as a deconstruction of Saint Tail, and it also features a plot twist that makes it a precursor of Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

But we’ll get to all that later. Soon. I promise.

Justice Tempered with Cuteness: Moral Development and Retributive Justice in Craig McCracken’s ‘Powerpuff Girls’

This essay was originally intended for another venue, but that venue has, sadly, closed its doors, so I print the essay here. —DGD

JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH CUTENESS: MORAL DEVELOPMENT AND RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE IN CRAIG McCRACKEN’S POWERPUFF GIRLS

by D. G. D. Davidson

For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.[1]

Brainchild of Craig McCracken, who first conceived of the concept while an art student, the animated series The Powerpuff Girls ran from 1998 to 2004, and each episode save one opens with lines that have become iconic: “Sugar, spice, and everything nice: these were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girl. But Professor Utonium accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction—Chemical X.”[2]

The result of the Professor’s mishap is a trio of young girls, each representing a different component of the recipe used to make her: sugar produces the giggly and girlish Bubbles, spice produces the tough and tomboyish Buttercup, and everything nice produces the bossy and brainy Blossom. Because of the Chemical X, these girls have superpowers, including super-strength, the ability to fly, invulnerability, super senses, and heat vision.

The girls attend kindergarten, play with their stuffed animals, deal with various childhood problems, and fight destructive battles with the supervillains and giant monsters plaguing the city of Townsville. The show’s manic mixture of cutesiness, large-scale violence, and toilet humor proved wildly successful: it grew popular internationally and ran for six seasons, producing spinoffs such as TV specials, video games, a theatrical film, and even a Japanese magical girl series called Powerpuff Girls Z. A reboot with a new voice cast, and without McCracken’s involvement, began airing on April 4 of 2016.

Although many superheroes are in their teens, preadolescent superheroes are comparatively rare. Marvel’s relatively obscure comic book series Power Pack, which appeared in the 1980s, is possibly the first attempt in American comics to explore the concept seriously.[3] Likewise, superheroines who are simultaneously very powerful and very girlish, common in Japan, are unusual in American media, but the Powerpuff Girls are both extremely young and hyper-feminine. Saddled with the responsibility of protecting a city in spite of their tender age, they frequently face moral choices that prove difficult given their level of mental development and lack of experience. Continue reading “Justice Tempered with Cuteness: Moral Development and Retributive Justice in Craig McCracken’s ‘Powerpuff Girls’”

The League of Extraordinary Grade-Schoolers, Part 2

FIRST | |

Chapter 2: Nancy’s Power

Nancy once again awoke on a cold table, but this time, her head didn’t hurt. Surprisingly, nothing hurt, and her body was relaxed: She was calm—perhaps because she was emotionally spent.

She raised her head, half expecting to see Judy looming over her again. Instead, she saw Judy, eyes closed, lying on another table nearby. Her arms were by her side, and the mood ring on her left index finger had changed: The silver setting no longer looked like plastic but instead glinted like real metal, and its stone was a peaceful sea-green. It glowed faintly, throbbing like a heartbeat.

Nancy blinked, sat up, and touched her face. The puffiness around her eyes was gone. She swallowed. Her throat wasn’t dry. She felt as if she had just awoken from a full night of deep sleep.

Her dress, however, was ruined and hung open in tatters.

She gingerly touched her right hip, where Judy had stabbed her with the needle. She felt a small, tender bruise. That was the only thing that hurt.
Continue reading “The League of Extraordinary Grade-Schoolers, Part 2”