arts // no. &

 

Superheroes and supervillains,
they're all screwed-up people

> ‘Worm’ is brutal, awesome, and horrifying

Caroline Ho
Arts Editor

 

I: need of a superhero fix—one of
sufficiently epic length and scale, one
that takes all the standard superhero
tropes and shoots them brutally in
the face, and one that’s available
online in its entirety for free? Get
ready to lose yourself in Worm.
Worm isa web serial written by John
C. McCrae, under the handle Wildbow,
comprised of 30 acts each broken into 6
to 13 chapters, with a total word count of
approximately 1.7 million words (about
the current length of A Song of Ice and
Fire). The story’s full of wild superpowers,
an expansive cast of despicably flawed yet
endearing characters, tumultuous plot
twists, and impossible moral dilemmas.
The serial takes place on an
Earth where certain individuals have

superpowers. These parahumans, called
“capes” in slang terms, have abilities like
pyrokinesis, teleportation, superhuman
intellect, technological inventive ability,
and a vast array of other wacky powers.
Capes keep their true identities hidden
by donning aliases and appearing in
costume, and are labelled either as
heroes, villains, or rogues. Teams of
superheroes and villains with code names
and colourful bodysuits—it sounds like
it should be cheesiness to the max, but
Worm is the opposite, embracing and
subverting its own potential for tropiness.
The hero/villain dichotomy itself is one of
the major themes of the serial: What are
tidy, black and white categorizations when
all of the characters are awful people?
Worm is campy fun, if you're camping
at the site of a brutal massacre during
a nuclear apocalypse while your friends
are getting mauled to death by a grizzly
bear. The plot turns super dark, and it

continues escalating throughout in horror
and intensity, long past the point where
you'd think it has reached the pinnacle
of depravity. Some scenes are violently
nightmarish, augmented by excruciatingly
gory descriptions and the twisted
actions and motivations of characters.
Hero, villain, everyone in between,
they're as screwed up as they are
compelling. The protagonist of Worm

is Taylor Hebert, a teenager who is
ruthlessly bullied at school and who has
the power to control bugs. Taylor starts
off aspiring to bea hero, but over the
course of the serial she goes through
some drastic, yet unnervingly believable
character development. Along with
Taylor, Worm has dozens and dozens

of characters with awesome powers,
badass alter-egos, and misguided at best
ethical codes to root for or against.

The serial unmistakably has rough
parts, as youd see with anything self-

  

theotherpress.ca

Photo via Parahumans.wordpress.com

published—a few typos, clunky sentences,
and similar cosmetic blemishes. The
story's pacing and timeline are alsoa
little jarring, especially in the final third
of the serial. However, it is impressively
internally consistent for such a large-
scale project written by just one person
and posted chapter by chapter without
substantial retroactive editing.
Originally published between 20n and
2013 at a pace of two or three chapters a
week, Worm is one of the most popular,
expansive web serials out there and

still enjoys a solid readership today.
Wildbow has stated that he’s working
on editing the whole serial for eBook
and physical publication, and the
sequel serial Ward just started its run in
November 2017, so now’s as good a time
as any to crawl into the Wormverse at
https://parahumans.wordpress.com.

YouTube Music Video Classics: Jurina Matsui

> Rising star of SKE48 and AKB48

Jerrison Oracion
Senior Columnist

uring the opening weekend of the

FIFA World Cup this year, another
big event was happening in Japan with the
AKB48 Senbatsu General Election—an
event wherein fans vote for their favourite
AKB48 member. In the end, AKB48 and
SKE48’s Jurina Matsui won the election,
a decade since we first saw her in 2008—
even though she is only 21 years old. She is
one of the best dancers in the group and
probably the greatest member of AKB48
of all time. The following music videos
have Matsui either as a lead or co-lead.

This was the music video that caused
Matsui to become famous and began the
surge of many sister groups of AKB48.
Also, this was the first time that a member

from a sister group was the lead in an
AKB48 song. In this video, now former
member Atsuko Maeda feels that she
doesn't want to be in the group. When
they perform, Matsui sends Maeda a

text message and eventually joins and
sings with them. When this song was
released, Matsui’s future was unknown—
now, 10 years later, she is probably

the greatest member of the group.

SKE48 did not go mainstream until
2009. This music video may have

caused many to become hooked on the
group. This shows what makes Jurina
Matsui so exceptional. We see the group
performing on top of a building in their
hometown of Nagoya with helicopters
going around it. The choreography in the
video is excellent: It showcases Matsui’s
dancing skills and shows that they are

like AKB48, except they also do R&B. I
like the aerial shots of Nagoya that are
seen throughout the music video.

When you see AKB48 without their
eye-catching clothes and fast-paced
choreography, they are pretty much a
choir. In this music video, Matsui is a
co-lead with HKT48’s Sakura Miyawaki.
The u-minute-long video shows some
of the group members going to an
elementary school and performing
with the school’s choir to pay tribute
to a long-time teacher. We also see
them playing with the students around
the school. The music sounds like a
theme song in a Studio Ghibli film.

This year is the 10th anniversary of SKE48,
and to celebrate the occasion they had a
birthday party. Throughout this video we

see members wearing clothes from all of
their music videos, including “Unrequited
Love Under the Blue Sky.” During group
shots we see the group’s flag, which is still
the same to this day. Near the end of it,
we see them in their current uniform and
we also see a graphic that indicates that
they have been making music since 2008.
There is even a lot of confetti and cake.

The music video of the group’s recent hit
single was released a week after Matsui
won the election this year. It looks as if
this is a solo song by her, with the rest
of the group as backup singers. The suit
that she wears in it is similar to the suit
that Michael Jackson wore in “Smooth
Criminal” except that it has sparkles.
The song is a catchy track with plenty of
spice. This prepares us for AKB48’s next
hit single, which is sure to be very fun.