La Ron S. Readus
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My Main Problem With Marvel's Hit-Monkey (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2021-11-29 21:01:01 +0000 UTCI feel like I don’t say this enough, so here is a pleasant reminder that I do not like Deadpool.
So keep that in mind before you REALLY start this video, and either don’t watch it, leave a Dislike -- even unsubscribe from the channel if this news is too much for you. Because even though he’s not IN this series, his INFLUENCE is, and it DEFINITELY has impacted my opinions about it
Still here? Alright! Let’s talk about, uh... Let’s talk about THIS (hand movements)
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I’ll be honest, Readers; it took me a minute to get into Marvel’s Hit-Monkey
/Sure, I was intrigued at the concept of a monkey assassin when I saw the trailers for the show online, let alone that it was already a Marvel property/
I was also surprised to learn that it was one of the last projects to come out of Marvel Television that was completed before it was absorbed by Marvel Studios, previously ran by outed racist Jeph Loeb
So I decided to watch the show, and the first episode left me like:
(On couch, narrows eyes leans toward television) ...What?
Then after the first episode finished, because I genuinely needed my curiosity satiated, I discovered that Hit-Monkey was created by Deadpool writers.
And because of that, in the comics, Hit-Monkey is usually associated...with Deadpool
And outside of the movies, considering my initial dislike of Deadpool, everything immediately made sense.
So I continued on with the 10-episode season, albeit in sessions of five, doing everything in my power not to tap out after episode 3
Because while the show does have its moments when it decides to focus on the right things regarding the tale of revenge its trying to tell, getting there was a bit of a struggle for me.
Deadpool bias aside, there were definitely a few things both within its narrative and that were presented over the course of it that rubbed me the wrong way. Things that if properly fixed and-slash-or adjusted would’ve actually pumped up my enjoyability factor of the show.
Y’know, other than the fact that a non genetically enhanced feral monkey is out assassinating people. That part I’m fine with; that can stay.
/But out of the gripes I gained from the show, there’s one that definitely annoyed me to the point where I came close to leaving the show alone MULTIPLE times. And I’ll give you a hint; it’s exactly what you think it is./
Now before I continue, I have to warn you that this video WILL contain spoilers for Marvel’s Hit Monkey. So if you want to watch this show for yourself before you watch me talk about it so that MY opinions aren’t the only ones first and foremost present in your mind when you do, I suggest you head to Hulu to do so before continuing on with my spiel. Cool? Cool.
So the first gripe I have with the show is the one that I think because of everything that happened in-house, couldn’t initially be helped. And that one is the overall quality of the animation.
/Watching it play out on the show was very interesting, because I found it incredibly hard to tell at times whether it wanted the animation flow of something like The Boondocks from season 2 onward, or it was aiming for more of an Archer-slash-Chozen-slash-Frisky Dingo vibe/
Because of it, there’s this very weird hybrid of stagnation and fluidity in a lot of its scenes that works sometimes but doesn’t most of the time
Not in the fight scenes, though; the fight scenes were pretty much 80% fluid throughout
The reason why I believe that this is one of those negatives about the show that couldn’t be helped, is because this show was planned during Marvel Television’s transition to Marvel Studios.
And out of all the upcoming animated projects Marvel Television were planning, only Hit-Monkey and Patton Oswalt’s MODOK made it to greenlight. And you already know how I feel about MODOK
/So with the show surviving the transition, I’m sure cuts and budget restrictions were also implemented, since Marvel Studios had their own MCU-related stuff to fund. At least, that’s what I HOPEFULLY assume is the reason why the animation is the way that it is in the show./
Otherwise... (pauses) Hmmm...
However, because of said assumption, there is a problem that takes higher priority in Hit-Monkey that -- both as a storyteller and a lover of authenticity -- absolutely IRRITATED me watching the show.
And that’s the Americanization of Japan
No, I’m not talking about the fact that every Japanese person in Tokyo speaks perfect English in the show -- although that’s definitely a talking point we need to eventually have about America’s disinterest in subtitles
I’m talking about how outside of a few trademark things a lot of people know to associate Japan with, everything else is just American set dressing because the show’s writers and its showrunners couldn’t be bothered to do proper research on the machinations of day-to-day life in Tokyo that they constantly present in the show
For example; the Tokyo police officers depicted in Hit-Monkey are the most NYPD-ass cops I have ever seen
/No, seriously; the banter between the cops in this show feels more like how police operate in America than Japan. Everything from how briefings work, to the “I don’t need a partner” trope between Detective Ito and rookie Haruka/
Another example is how the Yakuza are depicted...
/And how they act -- and LOOK -- like they’re members of the American mafia/
And this sense of Americanization even affects the very locations used in the show. Because why is there an American prison in Japan?
/WHY IS THERE A HIGH-SECURITY AMERICAN PRISON IN JAPAN?!?!/
When I see another country in american media depicted like this -- especially another country that has a VERY heavy influence in pop culture -- it tells me one of two things
Either the writing team consists of so much (white) privilege that they can’t be bothered to depict the lifestyles appropriate to the culture they’re depicting because they assume the similarities in how it works in America in comparison are accurate
Or they care more about depicting the stuff that western audiences already find “cool” about the real-life history and machinations of the culture that made their way to America. Like martial arts, Yakuza, ninjas, samurai and katanas.
So considering that Hit-Monkey’s showrunners are Will Speck and Josh Gordon -- two white guys who got put on the map for directing the comedy Blaze of Glory, and being known for comedy after directing The Switch and Office Christmas Party -- I wouldn’t be surprised if what we got in Hit-Monkey was the result of a bit of Column A and a bit of Column B.
And it's in that focus on comedy that brings me to my main problem with Hit-Monkey.
Because while the consistency of the animation may or may not have been the result of Marvel Television getting the short end of the stick because of company shifts, and the depiction of Japan being relatively irritating...
/The one thing that kept testing my patience regarding whether or not I was gonna stop watching this show...was Bryce./
So not only was Bryce a mess -- and yes, I understand that was the point, let me finish...
But after taking a peek behind the curtain, I had the unfortunate revelation that he could’ve been a DIFFERENT type of mess; a more DYNAMIC type of mess.
/A kind of mess that, in my opinion, would’ve made him worthy of the backstory and road to redemption that the animated series sought to give him./
What do I mean by that? Well, let’s dissect Bryce as he’s shown in the show.
/When we are first introduced to Bryce, he’s incredibly insufferable. Talking off the ear of his driver and drinking himself into countless stupors. It was clear the type of person the show was painting Bryce out to be./
So by the time that he kills Ken Takahara and is double-crossed by the Bonsai Master and is killed by his soldiers after being treated by the snow monkeys that took him in, it’s very hard for someone to feel sorry for him, especially me.
From that 20 minute window we’re introduced to Bryce and witness his death, there’s really nothing interesting about his character other than he’s really good at killing people and being an asshole, and the former doesn’t really account for much because it’s completely overshadowed by the latter.
So when I saw Bryce die after Hit-Monkey kills the guys who murdered his tribe, I felt pretty indifferent.
/As far as I knew, this guy and Hit-Monkey’s distrust of him upon watching him train gets the idea about what he needs to do in order to go about carrying out his vengeance. An Uncle Ben to Hit-Monkey’s Peter Parker, even though his tribe should technically be his Uncle Ben./
Then we find out that Bryce became spiritually bound to Hit-Monkey as a ghost...
/And according to Stick -- who’s a Japanese monk in this universe -- in order for him to to properly ascend to his respected afterlife, he has to rip the seed of evil from a baron field where nothing can truly grow until then/
So now I have to deal with a full 10 episodes of Bryce’s snark, commentary, and forced character development, because of COURSE he has no clue or motivations to realize that the baron field is himself
I say forced, because over the course of the season, the show does everything it can do in order to convince you that not only is Bryce capable of said development and accomplishing said mission to ascend, but that he’s also worthy of said redemption arc
And every time the show tried to deliver that belief of capability and worthiness -- at least with me -- it fucking FAILED
You wanna know WHY it failed? Because animated series Bryce is designed to be so obnoxious, so self-entitled and so self-righteous in his actions, that every scenario that presents itself to him over the course of the first four-fifths of the series just goes immediately over his head and he barely takes anything away from the experiences
/So much so, that writer for episode 7 of the show Ken Kobayashi, who -- let’s just be real here -- is probably one of the only non-white writers on this show, summed it up pretty nicely with the second use of Stick in the season:/ (Demons are talkative, arrogant and entitled. But in his case, he may just be American)
Now the reason why I said that actual work on animated Bryce’s character didn’t really start until the final fifth of the show, is because we don’t get a proper peek at his upbringing and what drove him to become an assassin until episode 8 when he’s separated from Hit-Monkey via salt circle and is forced to be alone with his thoughts
/The multiple men his mom dated, the one that ended up with a problematic past that would later catch up with him, where he learned the saying he told Hit-Monkey when he was watching Bryce in the mountains and why he abandoned his own family./
But did this change my mind about animated Bryce? No. Not at all. If anything, this just made me hate this depiction of him even MORE
Because 1. You had ALL OF THIS TIME for him to associate this backstory you gave him with how he lived, how he died, and how he progressed over the course of the series in order to get us to better empathise with him, and you chose to continue depicting him as this weird personality hybrid of Ryan Reynolds and Will Arnett
And 2. IT SHOULDN’T HAVE TAKEN YOU 8 OUT OF 10 EPISODES TO GET ME TO CARE ABOUT THIS ASSHOLE IF HE’S THE CHARACTER YOU SOUGHT OUT TO TRY AND PINPOINT HIS DEVELOPMENT VIA THE ONE THAT THE SHOW IS NAMED AFTER.
/This version of Bryce is so undeserving of not just the repeated chances the show gives him for proper character development, but also of both his origin and the quickly paced realization he received in the two-part finale, and it makes the majority of the show unwatchable for me/
But there IS a version of Bryce that DOES deserve EVERYTHING the show tries to get us to believe the animated version deserves. And that’s the version of Bryce that’s depicted in the actual Hit-Monkey comics.
Now I understand that most of the scenarios presented in this season are original, due to the limitations in how much source material there was in Hit-Monkey's comic appearances to adapt on screen. All they really had to work with is a digital one-shots, a three-issue story arc in Deadpool, and a three-issue limited series
But even in the seven comics Hit-Monkey has been the focus of, Bryce is not only present, but his personality is INCREDIBLY different from how he's depicted in the animated series!
Bryce in the comics is Cold. Calculating. Almost emotionless. Both before and AFTER his death when he spiritually connected to Hit-Monkey.
/And with his sociopathic and manipulative nature, he TRULY encapsulates the arc that animated Bryce goes on and what his end goal is supposed to be./
Because Comic Bryce IS a barren field where nothing can grow. HE is the seed of evil that needs to be removed.
And if you give comic Bryce animated Bryce’s origin regarding why he’s the way that he is, not only would the events over the course of the show’s ENTIRETY actually affect him in order for it to have the desired effect on the audience that WATCHES Hit-Monkey
But in having this version of Bryce realize that passing down this behavior of his to a violent-prown snow monkey in order to enact his vengeance is doing nothing but perpetuate a history of violence that started with him, it makes his realization responsible for his ascension all the more rewarding.
/Instead, for the sake of making the show an action-comedy, animated Bryce is yet another selfish middle-aged white man with Bojack Horseman levels of self-destruction capabilities, and is constantly denying his problems until he’s forced to confront them directly./
Now considering the fact that I was able to successfully finish Hit-Monkey, I think it’s safe to say that despite my nitpicks I was able to gather some enjoyment from it.
And I do not want any of my complaints about the show to affect your decision whether or not to watch it.
But considering that I was able to find these three main things incredibly hard to watch and enjoy the show from beginning to end, that means that there’s a good chance that OTHERS might have come to the same conclusion as well.
/And for those like me, I present to you this video, in order to show you that you are not alone./
But, I digress, Readers. Your homework assignment for the day:
Write in the comment section below what YOU thought of Marvel’s Hit-Monkey if you’ve seen it
Or, if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, a tv show YOU’VE seen that that had one or two problems with it, that, if addressed and fixed, would’ve made the show 10 times more enjoyable for you IMMEDIATELY
And yes, saying “X show would’ve been better if they sent all the caucasians to the back” is an acceptable answer.
Whichever questions you decide to answer, I’d love to know your thoughts.
