Uncategorized

https://nerdist.com/article/owl-house-bisexual-character-disney/

Change is coming to the world of animation, and it’s a good change: the Disney Channel cartoon The Owl House now officially features an out LGBTQ+ character. As io9 reports, it’s not only a first for the popular children’s show. It also marks the first time Disney has fronted a queer leading character in any of their stories.

Over the course of the series, there have been subtle hints that the show’s main character, Luz, might be queer. A recent storyline showed her becoming particularly close to her former rival, Amity, which culminated in the latest episode. Viewers learned that Amity was planning on asking Luz to go to the prom with her… and not just as a friend. Owl House‘s creator, Dana Terrace, confirmed Amity’s bisexuality on Twitter adding “Representation matters! Always fight to make what YOU want to see!”

This marks a big step for Disney, who despite being one of the biggest and most influential corporations, has offered its audience very little in the way of queer representation. Earlier this year, Pixar released an LGBT short on Disney+ and its recent film Onward included a brief cameo from a queer character voiced by Lena Waithe. On the superhero side, Marvel will finally get canonically queer superheroes in Phase 4 with Thor: Love and Thunder and The Eternals—but only after 22 films and a decade of characters.

Disney

In her tweet, Terrace noted that she always intended to put queer kids in the main cast of her show, but “when we were greenlit I was told by certain Disney leadership that I could NOT represent any form of bi or gay relationship on the Channel.” Alex Hirsch, creator of Gravity Falls, weighed in with his happiness and confirmed that when he was working on his show back in 2012, “Disney FORBADE me from any explicit LGBTQ+ rep.”

It seems that Disney is finally taking the steps to bring more queer characters into the spotlight—and more importantly, into the world of animation. 2020 may be a tough year, but there have been a handful of positives. And representation in animation is definitely one of them.

Featured Image: Disney

The post OWL HOUSE Creator Confirms Bisexual Character appeared first on Nerdist.

https://www.essence.com/lifestyle/travel/weekend-escapes-nyc/

New York may be the city that never sleeps — but sometimes, that’s exactly what you need to do for a little R&R. 

With New York City (almost) back up and running following the global coronavirus pandemic, recharging in a remote locale is the self-care you may not know you need. Thankfully, there are plenty of options, all within driving distance of the Big Apple, and they’re all short on time, but big on fun, excitement and adventure.

So if you’re looking to escape sometime in the near future, here are a few options that are within 6 hours or less, making for the perfect road trip for family, friends or even lovers.

The post Best Weekend Escapes Within Driving Distance of New York City appeared first on Essence.

https://blacknerdproblems.com/the-world-ends-with-you-final-remix-drops-the-beat/

Back in Fashion

In the eccentric library of the Nintendo DS, The World Ends With You was singularly unique. At the time, the 2008 handheld-only JRPG from Square-Enix shared more in common with the style of Atlus’ Persona games than SE’s own flagship Final Fantasy series. That style tied deeply into the game’s characters and setting, based in the fashion-forward Shibuya district of Tokyo, Japan. A sense of curiosity around the game’s signature design has earned it a small but devoted fan following. 

With the announcement of an anime adaptation coming in 2021, TWEWY gets an opportunity to draw even more interest to its 10th anniversary re-release on the Switch. It’s a second chance for the cult favorite one-off to make the jump to broader recognition. A second chance is all Neku Sakuraba wants. TWEWY begins with the teenaged protagonist awakening in the famous Shibuya Scramble crosswalk.

Run all you want, there’s no escaping your Kingdom Hearts crossover.

Invisible to nearly everyone around him, Neku must partner with Shiki, a young girl he’s never met. The streets of Shibuya have become a maze of death separated from everyday life, where both kids are harried by monsters called ‘Noise’ at every turn. Only by surviving these minions and their ‘Reaper’ masters can Neku and Shiki hope to return to the real world. Their struggle to escape the ‘UG’ (Underground) of alternate Shibuya will lay bare the secrets that brought them into these circumstances.

Off the Rack

The anime-ready tale unfolds in a visual novel format flavored by the unmistakable art of character designer Tetsuya Nomura. Running through the districts of ‘the UG,’ Shibuya’s alternate dimension, looks better than ever on a big screen. The result is what feels like a Jet Set Radio homage by way of Kingdom Hearts. Instead of skating around styling on public spaces and cops, though, the bulk of play is spent silencing the phantom Noise plaguing Shibuya. 

When the Switch is docked, player control shifts to the Joycon for use as a Wiimote. An option to reset the cursor when it goes off-target is readily available, but players are better off swiping and tapping enemies in handheld mode. Whatever the player’s preference, mastering TWEWY’s pin system is the key to combat. Individual spells that Neku can call upon in battle are reduced to collectible pins, associated with the different trending brands in Shibuya’s various regions. 

“To fight graffiti, we created graffiti of our own.” cue Pacific Rim theme

These can be won through combat or bought from brand-name stores, selling pins alongside the latest fashions (the RPG equivalent of equipment). Pins can level up and evolve but gain more effectiveness in areas where they are en vogue. Fighting enough battles in a given area will cause the brands the player uses to gain more popularity. It’s a clever way of keeping fashion in mind even during the heat of battle.

Wack Market 

In addition to the clever marriage of mechanics and themes throughout the game, TWEWY is made for portable, intermittent play. The difficulty can be adjusted between to reap increased rewards or lower the frustration in encounters. When logging back in after not actively playing the game, pins can be leveled with up to 7-days worth of experience from your absence. One can only wonder what modern RPGs would look like if they had been willing to take lessons from the systems here. 

So, for an RPG that respects one’s time as much as The World Ends With You, it’s a shame that the game seems incapable of respecting anything about Black culture despite how heavily it relies on it. Fashion as we know it is literally an industry built upon repurposing and reselling other cultures, but the Japanese street style on display here is glaringly devoid of any brown or Black faces beyond ‘ganguro girl’-style tans. From the ‘Bling’ onomatopoeia that comes up when collecting pins at the end of a battle to the design of the cast, it’s more of a wearying disappointment than a surprise. 

Beat’s character design is ‘a living forum post about how ‘Eminem is the G.O.A.T.’

Considering the teeth-grindingly annoying stereotype of characters like Beat (a character that’s best described as every teenage white boy that listens to rap shoved into a skull beanie), perhaps it’s best the story goes no further than referencing Shibuya’s alternate dimension as ‘the Underground.’ Choices like Neku and company only becoming visible to the ‘real world’ in places where they spend money seem like accidental commentary on the game itself: like Blackness, the player only shows up as a commodity. Stripped of the gameplay that makes this worth revisiting, The World Ends With You’s eventual anime will have little more to bring than dated-sounding noise.

7.75 Out Of 10 Collectible Pins

Want to get Black Nerd Problems updates sent directly to you? Sign up here!
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!

The post ‘The World Ends With You: Final Remix’ Drops The Beat appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.

https://blacknerdproblems.com/empyre-4-review/

Writer: Al Ewing / Artist: Valerio Schiti / Marvel Comics

Well, Empyre certainly escalated quickly and hasn’t seemed to slow down at all. The premise was set up pretty quickly and executed with an action heavy approach. Though Issue #4 can’t lay claim to the “action heavy” part as much as those before it, but the intensity is still there.

The Avengers and the Fantastic Four are managing the chaos from different sides of the war. It’s not quite as accessible as earlier issues, and it’s very clear that there are moments that are specifically tasked with compelling you to buy the tie-ins. And the script is more likely to give you a mention of a tie-in event than a teaser via flashback panel, so there’s a little more telling than showing….something this event has excelled at up to this point. However, #4 still does a pretty good job of keeping the story moving while still offering some “Holy Sh**” revelations.

One of the particularly interesting moments is the dynamic between Reed Richards and Tony Stark. Ewing does a pretty effective job of contrasting their drastically different thought processes and approaches to science while highlighting Iron Man feeling betrayed and outsmarted. Valerio Schiti’s artwork is meant to be fawned over endlessly. I’m pretty sure just about every page had a panel that I wish had been a splash page because the level of attention to detail and eye for epic moments deserved that much spotlight. The Skrull Queen’s poses and facial features were like a homage to that kooky Golden Age era of comics where the villains were just mischievous goofballs that were having the time of their lives being a wrench in the machine.

Bottom Line: Although this wasn’t quite as “jump right in” accessible as those before it, the dynamics between the characters, the reveals, and the general fun I’m having with this book are still a decent tradeoff. A solid book still absolutely worth the coin.

8 Clobbering Times out of 10

Enjoying Empyre? Check out BNP’s other reviews here.

Want to get Black Nerd Problems updates sent directly to you? Sign up here!
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!

The post Empyre #4 Review appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.