Ms. Frizzle: An Inanna for Our Time

Because I am an adult, I can spend my Friday nights eating pizza and watching The Magic Schoolbus on Netflix if I so desire.  I can also, while doing this, develop a great desire to begin cosplaying Ms. Frizzle.  She has sandwich earrings!  Sandwich earrings!

This sudden need to dress in a way this fabulously bizarre has me kicking myself even more for failing, while in Tanzania, to buy the bright red fabric covered with clocks, hourglasses, and scythes.  I could have used that to cosplay Ms. Frizzle when the Magic School bus goes to Hell, an episode which should absolutely exist and that it does not is a void in my life of which I was hitherto unaware.

I said all that to say that I have been contemplating Ms. Frizzle recently, and I have concluded that she is really a goddess, specifically Inanna. Inana is absolutely into understanding and controlling  the world around her, as evidenced by her theft of the Mes.

Now to fit into the current zeitgest, Ms. Frizzle has had to make some adjustments, like replacing her lion with a lizard, replacing her chariot with a bus, and adding prints to her wacky dresses.

Also, she's not much of a sex goddess anymore, at least not at school (though who knows about her non-school life) but with plenty of celebrity singer types trying to be sex goddesses, there's really no need for her to fill that role.

But of course she is now in Hell, as suggested by the above-linked trailer for a movie that totally should exist.  I mean, the actual show episodes already include an undead foreshadow-y being.

Keisha looks at Ms Frizzle's scienc-y things while the self-animate classroom
skeleton looks on foreshadowingly. 

Inanna does make a trip to the afterlife, and Ms. Frizzle goes absolutely everywhere in her magic bus.  Inanna's removal of her clothes and jewelry in her descent is kind of a big deal, and we all know that the Friz's wacky jewelry is a big deal.  One can only hope that her worshippers/students rescue her from her crucifixion.

This is Hell. By all Means, Let us Settle Things with Violence: Bureaucratic Problem Solving in Hozuki no Reitetsu

It has recently come to my attention that Hozuki no Reitetsu exists, and it is amazing, ongoing, and
addresses the very important issues of bureaucratic administration in Hell.

From geekeccentric.com

The bureaucracy in Hell is complicated.  There are 272 divisions of Hell (8 cold regions, 8 hot regions, and each of those 8 is split into 17 sections), all of which have to be staffed and supervised (in case demons need to be yelled at for tormenting the damned in an entirely too lackadaisical fashion).   The great spirit of the Styx needs medical attention for eating a giant crab, and various minions need to have settled the important issue of whether or not most demons still wear the traditional tiger skin underwear.   What's Hozuki, personal secretary/second in command to Enma sama to do to relax in between beating people with a giant club (because it's Hell.  How else does a demon settle things than with violence?), organizing torture seminars for newcomers and sightseeing tours for the visiting Satan of European Hell?  Mostly watch Australian nature shows on satellite, which is somehow available in Hell (cable, I would believe, but satellite?  Reception has to be terrible, and if that's how they get internet, eesh the latency.) and grow giant creepy goldfish plants.  It's a living.

Only four episodes of this have aired so far and I'm completely in love with this show.  It's even educational!  We get to meet famous people from history and folklore, like Momotaro, who has a job harvesting peaches in Shangri-La (Heaven's biggest tourist trap and into some questionable dealing of Chinese wonder drugs.), and Yoshitsune Minamoto, who is a pretty boy with the Hell police.  Yoshitsune Minamoto is a pretty boy in Hell.  I cannot stress enough how much I adore Yoshitsune Minamoto as a pretty boy in Hell.

The opening theme is as amazingly ridiculous as all the rest of it:

New episode out as of yesterday.  Sports day for the minions of Hell!  I am incredibly excited.