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Metal Monday: Manowar

Published on September 7, 2026Leave a comment

Manowar arguably is the metal band that does the most to confirm all the prejudices normal people have about metal bands. As The One True Poster over on Bluesky has it, in their consideration of metal albums that should be included in any best of ’88 competition:

KINGS OF METAL is an act of self-flanderization so extreme it rewrote the perception of Manowar entirely, and created a love-hate relationship with metal fans who saw the band as by turns true-believers, jokes, or jokers. To this day there are those who can’t quite believe Manowar is an entirely-serious proposition, despite half a century of rigorous commitment.

This perception of Manowar comes down to the version presented on KINGS OF METAL, and maintained ever since—a ridiculous band making absurd pronouncements of their own mastery on songs that could be self-parody if the band ever winked. Manowar, as a concept, an ethos, a representation of metal, is such a big part of the genre’s psychic real estate that I think the album that captures them at their most Manowar is simply an essential for consideration.

I first encountered Manowar listening to VARA’s Vuurwerk, a Dutch metal radio show presented by the lead singer of the country’s second most famous new wave teenybopper pop group (their sole attempt at an English song, translated for Eurovision), Henk Westbroek (and who’d later be the front man for a right populist local party but then nobody is perfect). For a couple of years the program would run an annuel top fifty with the songs chosen by the listeners and in 1989 Manowar’s Battle Hymn was number fourteen. Heady stuff for a fifteen year old kneedeep ine pic fantasy to listen to.

It immediately madeM anowar one of my favourites, despite or maybe because of how over the top and ridiculous their songs were. You can call it camp, but it’s genuine camp, made from the heart and without an ironic wink at the listener; just look at the absurdity of that live performance: three drummers, motor cycles on stage, flames everywhere. This is high camp but it refuses to be in on the joke. Manowar is the perfect exemplar of something that’s been part and parcel of metal for at least as long as Rob Halford has been swanning around in macho leather outfits.

So yeah, having gotten in the mood for some metal thanks to this I thought I’d return to an old series of mine, last updated in *good lord choke* 2010.

As for my essential metal albums of 1988? I’d go for Death’s Leprosy, Slayer’s South of Heaven, Metallica’s …And Justice For All, Queensrÿche’s Operation: Mindcrime, Maiden’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and Carcass’ Reek of Putrefaction as the first half dozen that come to mind. These are the albums I listened to as a budding metalhead: they still hold up for me. That decade and a half between roughly 1982 and 1998 or so will always be my peak metal era.

David Correos: He Won’t Betray Us

Published on August 10, 2026Leave a comment

Look at what Taskmaster brought me for my birthday:

Not sure quite when I started watching Taskmaster videos, but sit must’ve been sometime in late 2021 or early 2022, when the official channel started doing those single tasks exceprts and the like, before they put out entire episode on Youtube. But David Correos I first found in an unofficial compilation showing off just how chaotic Taskmaster New Zealand’s second season was. And while David certaintly was the most unhinged candidate that season (or really, in all of Taskmaster), the rest of the cast was pretty out there as well.

You had Urzila Carlson there to have a good time, not a fast time and her good time mainly consisted of menacing Paul the Taskmaster assistant. Guy Montgomery meanwhile menacing Paul in another way, by wearing a series of t-shirts with youth photos of Paul. Matt Heath was there as the straight man, continuously failing to understand the tasks, trying hard but not succeeding very often. Finally, Laura Daniel, the most normal and competent one, but she too had her unhinged moments, like when she stole everybody but Urzila’s girlfriends for a prize task.

And yet David sticks out from all of them. Good or bad, he gave everything he got for each task, throwing himself into them with equal measures delight or desperation. Usually the chaotic candidates tend to be at the bottom of the rankings, but he closely trailed Laura for most of the series, finishing second. You can see this dual nature at work in this compilation, especially with the “float a sprout down from the balcony” task. The idea of tying the sprout to a helium balloon is genius; the execution …not so much.

What I really like about David Correos is how genuine his reactions are, both when doing the tasks and in the studio. For example, his reaction to how Laura solved the floating sprout task, angrily shouting “It was there for so long! I’m so proud of you”! Or the infamous team task rap he made, dissing Matt and Urzila on the other team, which he apologised for in the studio by gifting them each meat platters…

In short, David is the cherry on top of the cake that is Taskmaster New Zealand Season 2, arguably the best single season of Taskmaster ever.

I Am from Bosnia – Take Me to America

Published on June 12, 2026Leave a comment

If we have to have quick cash grabbing World Cup tie-ins, make them more like this:

Turns out Dubioza Kolektiv is actually a pretty right-on ska/rock band from Bosnia-Herzegovina, active for all sorts of leftwing causes, if we can believe their Wikipedia page. They originally recorded this song under its proper name, U.S.A. for their 2011 album Wild Wild East. Then it was intended as a satirical take on the desire of many Bosnians to, well, migrate to America. But then Bosnia-Herzegovina actually qualified for the World Cup for the first time ever, by beating Italy even and so…

As the report from TRT above shows, there’s a history behind all this that makes both Bosnia’s appearance at the World Cup and this song so poignant. Today they’re playing their first game at the finals, so it feels fitting to post this. That it’s a skanking ska song makes it even better.

Bloody Mary

Published on April 12, 2026Leave a comment

Remember this? Well, now there is a sixteen minute pilot featuring the same characters as they go ghost hunting:

Best of all, it’s available in your choice of dub: English or Japanese. The plot is simple. Paranormal Youtube streamer Betty, now living together with Seeka, the demon she half assed summoning in that earlier video, gets an invitation to a ghost hunt in an abandoned mansion at the edge of town. Said mansion is supposedly hunted by a ghost that will pop out of the mirror if you say her name three times in front of it: Bloody Mary, Bloody ?Mary, Bloody Mary. When she appears things do not go according to plan…

Very much running on Loony Tunes logic here, this is more funny than scary. I love the CG animation here, that doesn’t bother to hide it’s CG animation. If you like this, Studio Wrong has a lot of shorts starring the same cast up on its Youtube channel.

Wandance is good actually

Published on November 29, 2025Leave a comment

People have been slagging off Wandance for its supposedly bad CG animated dance sequences, but I don’t see it myself. Maybe I’m used to seeing slightly dodgy CG animation being used in idol or magical girls shows, but doesn’t this, part of the dance battle in episode 8, look perfectly fine?

What you need to understand is what Wandance is trying to do here. If you go in expecting idol show like performances, you will be disappointed. This is not a style of dancing we see a lot of in anime, street dancing, hip-hop style, raw, improvised rather than carefully choreographed as in a Love Live or IdolM@ster. The dance scenes are not animated to make them look cool or dramatic, they’re animated to showcase the moves the dancers make, to allow you to understand what they’re doing and how it relates to the music they dance to.

This why it doesn’t matter that the faces look plasticky or the background spectators a bit wonky: you’re not supposed to look at them, you should look at the dance moves, at the way the dancers use their arms or legs instead. Throughout the series each dance scene goes for clarity over impact, to make sure you understand what’s happening. Which is why you can easily understand how both Iori in the clip above and On-chan in the clip below take the same part of the song to dance to yet dance so very differently from each other

The way the animation is created is by motion capturing actual professional dancers, with each of the main cast having their own real life counterpart. It’s honestly impressive how dedicated Wandance is to keeping the dancing as real as possible. For how well it does, check out this reddit thread from a professional dancer. For me, this sort of fidelity easily trumps the occassional goofy CG face. And for a taste of what the real dancers can do when not limiting themselves to high school amateur level, check out them dancing to the opening.

Wandance is one of those series where each episode feels like it’s only five minutes long: no sooner are you invested in this week episode then the ending theme plays already. It fits in well with the trend of somewhat more realistic high school sports and romance series.The protagonist Kabo is a big long dude who has always gone along with whatever his friends did, partially because he stutters. (This must be the only anime that has a Scatman Jones clip in its first episode). Wanda, the girl that inspires him to dance is slightly less well defined than him, but not a manic pixie girl either and the supporting cast, so far mainly Iori and On-chan as featured above is great too.