I have a hc that the kambal would play against their dad in Eternos from time to time lol
context for those who have only seen the anime: In the comics, Talagbusao was imprisoned in the online game Eternos instead and was left to constantly battle hundreds of players to keep him busy and out of the human realm.
Things I wish they included in the Trese Anime, in no particular order
Spoilers for the comics, obviously! Tumblr mobile isn't letting me put a Read More so if you mind the spoilers, just scroll through please oof
Anton Trese driving through the dwende tunnels and running Datu Talagbusao over with a car
Basilio thwarting a MRT bombing because it cockblocked him from asking for a lady's number, the flirty mfer 🤧💖
THREE SANTELMOS
And speaking of Santelmos, teenage Alex summoning a Santelmo to play with him. Would explain why it addresses her like a childhood playmate on the pilot episode (also Alex doing a "mano po" to her dad. In Filipino culture, it's one way to greet and show respect to your elders and I wish they showed that too!)
Baby Basilio looking for his mom 😭 this scene would've made his "We're more momma's boys" remark heart wrenching
And speaking of his mama, Ramona dying to protect her boys (and baby Basilio going apeshit on his father). Seriously, just showing her stabbed corpse in the anime did her dirty
Revealing that Alex trapped Talagbusao in Eternos using the Dragon's Blood in her bloodstream, which Talagbusao drank in the comics. Eternos was the game Jobert was playing in an earlier episode. Why did they leave a crucial piece of info out? Hopefully season 2 will remedy that!
A Random Filipino Teenager rants about Trese Netflix Original
As someone who watched the whole Trese Netflix Original.
I have to admit. Even with the Japanese Audio for my own personal enjoyment, even though I almost forgot everything because it’s been so long since I have read the comics, that didn’t save me from having negative opinions about it.
It has a lot of problems and I’m going to address the problems only because everyone has been praising about it since “PINOY PRIDE!!!!!!!” and nice scenery I guess. It looks like a photo of manila being put in a filter lmao.
Spoilers for both the Show and the Comics
• Out of Character
The character with a lot of this problem is Talagbusao
His motives and actions are confusing.
In the comics, all suicide bombers were singing the National Anthem and bombing public places with a lot of people, causing obvious chaos and disruption. Very straightforward. Cause chaos like he wanted. The man just fights. War gives him energy and strength. He’s literally the God of War.
In the show, the suicide bombers were saying something in latin (which I highly doubt that a filipino god of war living in the Philippines know) and bombed places from the Tribes and Jobert’s place to divide the tribes from Trese and to have Trese fulfill the “prophesy” for “the destruction of the rebirth of the world”
How the hell Trese is going to cause chaos exactly? Powers? The end of the world from the Revelations?
Why the fuck is he bombing some Ghost kid’s place just to divide the tribes? He’s not part of a tribe nor he’s a unique kind of mythical creature. It even hurts because Jeremy the Dragon was in his place for the Tiyanak episode and his father (also a dragon) own the mall.
What really grinds my gears is that he just... keep on talking.
Talagbusao monologue and talking about Trese past (that’s never been a part in the comics) instead of fighting like a God of War supposed to and this goes on and on and on in the whole episode. He fought for like a few minutes and then he just talks until it clearly visible in the background that the sun is setting because he talks too much. Unbelievable.
It makes your audience bored if you just talk and show flashbacks in a supposedly action packed episode. We never get to experience this said “past” that we’ll probably never experience.
Trese even asked why she should trust Talagbusao and he just keeps talking, obviously ignoring her and Trese just ate it up. I,,, okay bro?????? I mean, he did show it in some smoke but I don’t know why Trese doesn’t doubt him for not answering her question. He could fabricated it like come on Trese.
The Dragon’s Gate was never established being able to bring someone who didn’t drink the blood with you. It’s just a form of transportation. What happened to him anyway? He never came back from the comics. He just got sent into the shadow realm.
The way he gets defeated in comics is way way more interesting and better. Trese tricks him into drinking her blood that contains the dragon’s blood and he enters the Dragon’s Gate. The guy got trapped in a video game, with the help of Jobert (who actually appears here in An Act of War), with the Dragon’s Gate so the God of War can forever have his war and thirst for blood while players of the game get to fight and kick his ass. Which makes sense with the whole dragon’s gate thing.
• Combination Episodes
Each episode have two cases from the comics. Some episodes have it combined (The tiyanak episode has the combination of characters and plot from Case 5: A Little Known Murder in Studio 4 and Case 7: Embrace of the Unwanted ) and some two cases in one episode but somehow, for the two cases in one episode, they make it feel lacking. An example for it is the Bagyo and Tikbalang episode (I forgot what episodes there are I’m sorry)
Trese was supposed to visit Livewell village to investigate but instead was casted aside cuz Bagyon Kulimlim just shows up anyway. It was interesting to know about the citizens and why there are people dying. We never know why that happened. It got treated like a side quest instead of the main thing.
Case 8: The Association Dues of Livewell Village Bagyon Kulimlim had a bit more personality and screentime in comics, since he is behind the deaths. It was even explained why the deaths even happened. It is revealed that the deaths happened because the people who died were sacrifices. People outside of town were being offered as sacrifices because if the townspeople don’t offer any sacrifces, Bagyong Kulimlim would take one of their lives instead as offering. The townspeople were in debt to the prince because they had no electricity and suffering, storms are hitting them I believe. The town people smiled when the electrician died, because they get to live another day and another blessing. When he died while battling with Trese, the townspeople suffered again.
The comics has a lot of content. It has 13 unique cases from three volumes that the show was based on and yet they somehow manage to make it feel so short.
The flashbacks (not the damn episode 6) are feel even lesser. They didn’t even show when the Twins protecting Trese when they were kids and more about what happened to Ramona, their mother. The tiyanak episode can stay though. The only time I can say that this is better than the original since it was hella anti abortion.
I’m not expecting the adaptation to be faithful but if you’re gonna combine two cases only for it to feel like something’s missing despite the shit load of content, I think you’re doing something wrong.
• Fight scenes and animation
The animations is.. eh. Fine I guess.
But my biggest gripe and suffering is watching the fight scenes. The animation isn’t snappy. It isn’t fast and action packed. There’s some parts just like the gid above but then the rest is just,,,,,,
???????????
It looks like it took like too many frames for a supposedly fast movement like a kick or flying in the air for a swift attack. The camera work isn’t helping.
I feel like they also lack something called in betweens or a smudge. It’s painful to watch. I’m being serious. This is not a “in my opinion” because I tried my hardest to like it from episode 1, I tried so hard that I forgive it and expect better. The only thing that was fast was the Tikbalang and the cars I guess and I was expecting the same speed but no. It’s so obvious it makes me want to cry and feel ashamed that my father wants to watch and saw me watch trash.
This is far from anime. Even with jp audio. (It’s more similar to DC type of animation, why you lie to me?)
A real nitpick but why are they passing few bills in a jeepney ride instead of coins? Jeepney isn’t expensive. There’s no 1 peso bill. This isn’t America.
• Characters (personal nitpick at the beginning)
Where is my boy Jeremy the dragon? Where????? I hate you for this. This could have explained how they get Dragon’s blood. He’s funny.
They really downgraded Bagyong Lektro.
In the comics, he looks like a DILF, lightning hot papa, actor level hotness if you will but now he looks like your everyday fat politician. (I personally don’t simp him but I’m just stating facts here)
What a downgrade man
I forgot about the five men on the Trials while watching so I didn’t understand why they’re there. They’re Trese’s brothers. I’m somewhat baffled. If I, someone who read the comics, didn’t know about them, how more if it’s a new viewer? They would be so confused, you can’t just put characters there without explanation, especially when they’re connected to the protagonist.
Ok maybe this is somewhat forgiven. Maybe we’ll see them in a hypothetical Season 2 or something. But a “Trese’s brothers are also there” would be good enough, ya know?
• Colorism (a bit controversial but fuck you I will talk about it)
The bad guys in the Captain Guerrero’s team were brown. Talagbusao is brown in color. The most of the good guys were pale. I think we can see the problem here.
I can understand about Trese and the Twin being in the paler side (to compliment their goth aesthetic and it fits very well), but it’s pretty bad to have them brown, especially with the problem today’s of racism and colorism.
We already have problems with having the whitening skin products and people around me belittle themselves and comparing their skin to mine my pale af and “fair” skin. Unrelated note, but some people keep on asking about my skin routine and I’m like “why are you asking that do i look like a person who takes care of themselves”
• Episode 6
I fucking hate you Episode 6. The only cool thing was the Payday machine gun Kambal.
The whole thing felt like everyone didn’t do anything.
The twins hold Trese down for the whole monologue and yeah that’s it I guess. Trese just break free, I guess. It makes me feel like “okay” instead of cheering for her. It’s not getting me off my seat, shaking my boots, feel sad for her and be happy when she and the twins breaks free.
Why are the lamang lupa and the duwende teaming up with Talagbusao again? Why? they literally have no motives. If they mentioned it in the show, well fuck man, I didn’t hear anything. In the comics, Amang Paso said that Talagbusao destroyed their duwende tunnels when they trapped him in there. I don’t think they want to help the guy.
The addition lore is painful. Like I said, Talagbusao just fucking talks about it and what’s worse, I think I don’t see any clues about this revelation. Why did you do this? Because hehe hoho plot fucking twist? Because we want that “Your life is a life” drama?
A bit of addition is that the comics makes Trese smarter with the sending Talagbusao to a video game since they actually prepared for it and it shows, it gives us hints. Also, Guerrero died cuz he has to a heroic death since he said it in the Zombie Episode, am I right fellas????? I didn’t feel sad and I feel bad. It wasn’t as emotional. That’s also a problem since I should feel sad for such an amazing character.
This is the longest case (Case 13: An Act of War) of the entire series which means a lot of content for Episode and Show!Talagbusao really said “I’m going to have my sons pin Trese done and I’m going to talk for almost the entire episode so that she joins my side until she and my sons unexpectedly break free”. He committed more sin than Comic!Talagbusao.
----
Conclusion:
This really show how much they cut corners and miss many opportunities with Trese. Merged storylines and missing stuff, cut out characters, adding something new that doesn’t exactly fit in, imo. I might even compare this to the dreaded and dumpster fire that is called The Promised Neverland Season 2 since it reminds me too much about it. I understand that this is a Netflix Original but I have expectations since I like Trese comics.
I definitely don’t recommend this to my international friends. I told them that maybe you’ll like for the filipino lifestyle, the culture and maaaaybe the the mythical creatures. But if you’re here for the plot and animation, don’t bother. Though if you want, I highly recommend that you give your own opinion and watch it yourself. So yeah, that’s my big hot take.
I can’t really deny that, this may make way for more Southeast Asian/Filipino stuff in mainstream media, especially with the “Raya and the Last Dragon” and other stuff so there’s one of the positives. Since the problems I have talked about ended up are the like the animation, plot, Talagbusao and what not.
You may like the show, maybe you don’t. I actually did like the show and I like aspects of it but it’s really hard not to point out the flaws. Especially Episode 6-
Hi sorry for my ignorant or dumb question but I'm confused about something. Was Alexandra's twin sister really murdered by their father (because she was going to be some sort of evil world ending child)? Or was that just a lie to provoke her? Do they ever reveal the truth of whether she was really stillborn or killed? Because honestly it will be heartbreaking if she really was killed (unless the Netflix version is completely different to the comics story)
I think the circumstances leading to the twin of Trese's death as of this writing is a 50/50 truth or lie.
[minor spoilers ahead, read at your own risk!]
Initially I thought that it's a lie because of how Talagbusao narrated the events. Well it's a deus ex machina thing... Yet also, him holding the kris where Twin is forged perhaps tries to imply that indeed he's narrating the truth.
Anyway aside from that ep, there's no clear proof throughout the Netflix canon, though yes you're right that in the comics the Twin was forged in the sword.
Either way, I think it's Anton seeing the big picture and wanting to somehow change destiny. For having the fifth child possess the "to be human", it would mean that Trese's position as a babaylan-mandirigma would be cancelled somehow. Terra Mundo would be doomed because the Twin is fated to be a berserk, lover of destruction. For some reason
But some theories somewhere else say that had the twin been born, she might have been more of a healer character. That's one apparently based from the comics and how her essence in the kris was used.
If the murder is true, it is sacrifice. Otherwise, Talagbusao indeed wanted to provoke Trese as you mentioned.
And I'm thinking that the "alt Trese" they're saying (the lady seated on a throne above a mound of skulls) is in fact Sinag if she was born, as where Trese was noted to be destined of bringing harmony, Sinag's existence goes by the lines of Talagbusao's intent—something about destruction and creating a fresh start. Chaos.
P.S. It seems weird that Alexandra and her twin do not have matching "terno" names. Sinag... a beam of light... perhaps it was intentional or just happened to flawlessly go by the rest of the lore regardless of the truth? We can only wait for season 2. Anon, I hope this finds you well.
