The WRaP: Hobbits, Vigilantes and Despair

This week’s ‘WRaP’ includes ‘The Hobbit,’ ‘Daredevil’ and ‘Danganronpa: Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls.’

Greetings nerdlings! Despite my incredibly busy schedule, I still find time to consume media when I am not working or writing or doing all kinds of other adult things. I have talked about many of said things on Geek Speak, but for those of you that don’t have the time to sit through a two-hour podcast, you can get the gist on what I’m watching, reading and playing, which will hopefully inspire you to try some of them yourself.

Watching:

Daredevil Season 1

I watched Daredevil several months ago when it first came out, but I have recently started my first rewatch of the show to remind myself of all the Hell’s Kitchen shenanigans before Jessica Jones gets released next month. I just finished the fourth episode a few hours ago, and wow is this show just as good on rewatch as it was the first time. Even knowing about the uh… car door scene (to try avoiding too many spoilers) didn’t change its shock value. I just hope I can find the time to finish it before Jessica Jones comes out Nov. 20.

Arrow Season 3

This one has been especially difficult for me to get into. I am not sure if it is because this season is especially bad or if my standards have been raised by shows like The Flash, Agents of SHIELD and Daredevil, but I find myself constantly checking how much time is left in the episode. The gritty Batman-esque angst has been turned up to 11 this season, and I find it almost impossible to stop rolling my eyes. Between the Oliver/Felicity will they/won’t they romance, Oliver’s insistence that Diggle stop joining him because “you are a father now” and everything to do with Laurel, I can’t help but wonder why I even bother anymore. Oh right, because it ties into the much better The Flash. Speaking of…

The Flash Season 1

Due to my own stubbornness in wanting to watch things in order, I have been switching between watching episodes of Arrow and The Flash on Netflix. While this is tedious in regards to forcing myself to watch Arrow, it is nice that I can reward myself with an episode of The Flash when I am done. The show reminds me of the original Spider-Man trilogy in a way: cheesy in all the right ways with a funny supporting cast, while having an annoyingly drawn-out romance that I wish the show could resolve so we could get back to fighting bad guys. I am especially impressed with the cast, which makes some of the cheesy dialogue actually enjoyable to hear. The show has almost single-handedly made The Flash one of my all-time favorite superheroes, so that’s nice.

Reading:

The Hobbit

The Hobbit is one of those books that I’ve always meant to read. I tried several times, but I always found myself forgetting to keep going and then forgetting what had happened, and then eventually starting over several months later. But while I still haven’t finished it, I am now further along than I have ever been, and I feel like this time I will actually finish this “children’s book.” Ugh, I suck. I originally wanted to read it to wash out the bad taste of the first Hobbit movie, but really all it did was bore me with a story I already knew. That being said, it is still a fantastic novel, even if at times it likes to drone on with details I have no interest in.

Playing:

Danganronpa: Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls (Vita)

I am a huge Danganronpa fan. When I first heard about a third-person shooter spin-off game, I had some serious doubts. But I am happy to say that while it doesn’t quite live up to the greatness of the first two games, it is still a great game with a surprisingly rich story. Tackling tricky issues like child abuse and suicide, Danganronpa: Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls handles it with impressive tact, while still having the series’ humor. But the real draw to the game is the growing relationship between the two protagonists: Komaru Naegi and Toko Fukawa. These two have fantastic chemistry, and watching them grow from uncomfortable partners to true friends was wonderful to see. My biggest complaint about the game is how loosely it tied together the first and second games. I wanted to see more of the Remnants of Despair, not just two of them! Still, I would rather play a great game that could have done more for the overall narrative than a game that furthered the overall narrative at the expense of the in-game narrative, i.e., Assassin’s Creed III.

What have you been watching/reading/playing or, rather, “WRaPing”? Have you ever read ‘The Hobbit’? You can tweet me @adam_mcconnell. And be sure you follow us @YouNerded.