#and has one of the best human main cast protags do not @ me we all know sari is the best | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

BuzzFeed published a report claiming that Tumblr was utilized as a distribution channel for Russian agents to influence American voting habits during the 2016 presidential election in Feb 2018.

#and has one of the best human main cast protags do not @ me we all know sari is the best

saltiestcoconut · 5 months

Text

To the nonny who sent me an ask I'm sorry I accidentally deleted the ask cause I'm an idiot (this may or may not have to do with Tumblr acting wonky)

But no worries! I'll just answer as a post cause I'm stupid /sobs

But!!! But!!! Zexal only huh? Lets fucking goooooooooooooooooooooo zexal is my favorite spin off!!!! /Refuses to pick between zexal and vrains as the fav

A — Ships you currently like a lot

Oh gosh I love so many ships so in no particular order: Yuma and astral (of course I love protag/partner ships), Yuma and shark, shoot let's throw in Yuma and kaito, Yuma and III, shark and IV, kaito and V, kaito and mizael, shark and durbe, Rio and IV, shark Rio and IV (I saw art of shark and rio carrying off IV and I like it a lot sifkdk), Yuma and vector (I find it interesting if anything), alito and Yuma, alito and kotori, don thousand and eliphas (imaging them as the divorced parents of astral is soooooo funny to me) and uh there's probably more ships I'm forgetting about lmao

B — A pairing— platonic, romantic, or sexual— that you initially didn't consider, but someone changed your mind

Mizael and kaito tbh got sold on it cause one of my friends made art and really shipped it back in the day and it was through their intellect that I realized the ship is so good actually

C — A ship you have never liked and probably never will

I don't think there's any zexal ships I don't like? I'm pretty chill with ships in general and I don't think there's been one where I was all like nah not feeling it :0 we shall see tho

K — What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

Yuma . . . My beloved. . . Absolutely adore him and all the development he got obligatory shark mention cause goddamn is he also a top tier character him and kaito too gosh they're all so good IV and V too I should stop there before I list off the barians the main cast and then some lmaooooooo

S — Show us an example of your personal headcon

Oh my goodness I don't really have personal headcons I've come up on my own (I hardly ever do) but some I always think about is the crackcon that the less clothes astralans have the higher up in their society they are (specifically I think about the comment of eliphas having a crop top and short shorts underneath his armor it's so funny) I also think about the fact that Yuma is astrals other half but he's a human born from human parents maybe astrals other half "settled in" Yumas body while Mirai was pregnant when they found the emperors key idk man just thinking out loud

If mist ever needs a human name it should be Misty just saying

#friend if youre reading this ily and i still consider us friends 💖#i wonder if one friend will read this and if so theyll know im talking about them #eh who knows oh well #zexal my beloved gonna hang myself cause apparently people dont think its my fav and i finished it wknfnskkdk #ygo zexal #ask and ye shall receive

10 notes · View notes

zzthekaiju · 9 days

Text

Best of the Reptiles in Media - Arlo

Back again with some more charming scaly protags! And once again, we've got ourselves an animated one!

This time, we're taking a look at one that starred in a film/TV show on Netflix that sadly seems to have undeservedly faded into obscurity. Of course, for me...not so much. This plucky swamp puppy pretty much had a vice grip on my head since the moment I said "what the heck" and gave his film a shot. To say I was captivated by it all would be a huge understatement.

For those who don't know, "Arlo the Alligator Boy" was an animated musical feature released in 2021. And it pretty much had everything I could ask for. A cast full of colorful characters brimming with personality, a gorgeous 2D-animation style (really, you just have to say your animation is 2D to immediately get my attention, it's a personal preference), songs that are immensely catchy, and while the plot wasn't terribly original, it was still a very charming and wholesome romp that I ended up watching several times. And because fate was kind that year, it was almost immediately followed up by a one-season series, "I Heart Arlo", which basically picked up where the film left off.

But enough beating around the bush, let's get to the biggest reason this film took off for me. Namely, the fact that it's titular protagonist was an absolute ball of sunshine in the form of an anthropomorphic alligator.

Say hello to Arlo Beauregard. As you can probably guess from the above gif, he's an absolute far cry from the reputation his more feral cousins have. In fact, let's talk about that for a second. Most of the time, members of the Crocodylia family are treated no better than their other reptilian cousins in media. They get the short end of the stick in the form of being characterized as ravenous, meat-shredding brutes. And, to be fair, that's not exactly far from the truth. Trying to pet a gator is like saying you want an amputation without having to pay any fees. But you know what, they're still animals, not evil monsters.

And that leads us to a very unique sort of main character. Seriously, how often do reptiles get to have the lead in these sort of movies, let alone ones like gators? That's part of the reason I gravitated so hard towards this film. It provides just that on a silver platter.

But what about Arlo the character as opposed to just Arlo the reptile protag? Well, the simple introduction here is that he's a half-human/half-alligator hybrid in his teens who lives with a swamp hermit in Louisiana. It isn't until he hits fifteen that he finally decides to figure out where his true family lives. And it just so happens that he has a dad...all the way in New York City. Thus begins the trek towards the city so nice they named it twice. And along the way, he meets a cast of equally displaced oddball misfits that may just prove to be a better family than anything blood relations could provide.

The best part about Arlo is, aside from the fact that he's an adorable little gator, is that it just so happens that he's another favorite archetype of mine. Namely, the blithe spirit. To put it simply, this is the character who brings out the best in everyone. An all-loving soul who sees the bright side in everything, even if it comes off as a bit naive. And we see it all throughout his journey. From instantly befriending a sad loner named Bertie (who, side note here, is some wonderful body-positivity rep in her own right), to some little scenes of him just instantly winning over complete strangers.

Seriously, some of my favorite parts include him just being himself and winning others' endearment that way.

And of course, I can't go this far without mentioning how great of a singer he is. Michael J. Woodard not only NAILS this character's bubbly personality (plus, he's pretty great at pulling off the more comedic bits too), but he's got one heck of a singing voice. If I had to pick a favorite song, it'd be "Beyond These Walls".

But reptile or not, I also really like how the movie concludes. Instead of living with his rich father, he ultimately decides that he'd rather be with the ragtag group who helped him the whole way through. Sure, father and son are on very good terms, but it's easy to understand why Arlo wouldn't want to be with the person who abandoned him twice over. Yeah, the artists knew how much the rich suck here (though Ansel Beauregard is less detestable and more laughably pathetic, so he gets a pass). Bottom line, this gator is no class traitor!

As for Arlo in the subsequent series, it's more of the same, and that's okay! Arlo continues to be a bastion of innocence, though I also commend the show for demonstrating that he isn't perfect. Some episodes have him show a habit of making swift decisions without thinking. Sure, it's always in the name of doing something good, but his lack of foresight leads to things like parties that go on for days and even runaway Ferris wheels. But he still pulls through and mends those mistakes in the end. Plus, the whole thing is about him and pals revitalizing a small beach-side community while his dad just keeps making a fool out of himself (not that he doesn't help, but still). It's all good...though not a day goes by where I don't wish it got just one more season. I mean, come on! There was plenty of material to work with, like whatever happened to his mom or whether or not he and Alia would become more than friends!

Oh, right...yeah...I'm not going to pretend you can't read that crossed-out part. Yeah, it's one of my major comfort ships. Though those who have followed me for some time probably already knew that. I just think it's adorable in a "city mouse meets country mouse" sort of way. Plus, anyone who shows unwavering faith and patience with someone who has very clear ADHD and/or aspects of being on the spectrum more than deserves that sort of happiness.

And that's Arlo for you! I wish so much that his film/show got more attention (and Netflix wasn't so dismal with marketing its originals), and now you know why. Sure, he's not the most complex reptile in this catalogue (that comes later, trust me), but he's the kind of character that I can adore from the get-go. I mean, when your lead is basically a scaly Steven Universe, do you really expect me to just blow that off? I don't think so!

#best of the reptiles in media #ramblings #arlo the alligator boy #i heart arlo #arlo beauregard #animation #animated movies #animated series

2 notes · View notes

dobercorgis · 1 year

Text

I did say before that I didn’t really want a dlc prequel and after playing fr I still do kind of think that. Even just thematically an epilogue seemed more fitting, but I guess not.

It did have some good parts! I think I understand N some more now (tbh I didn’t care for him in the main game) and family angst/drama is always spicy. Loved seeing Shulk and Rex again and I loved the interactions with them and their kids. Esp Shulk and Nikol just nerding out together. Also did not expect Rex to have that kind of parenting style haha. They really did go all out on the fanservice which I adored and found funny at the same time. And some of them were references to side quests or just lore which I appreciated so it wasn’t just all surface level references. Also they mentioned how Melia has been captured several times and Shulk never comments on it which is an interesting choice.

But I feel like overall it didn’t answer a lot of my questions about the main game and left me with more questions instead. Also it was much shorter than I expected. Even with the forced community padding in torna… it still feels like fr was much shorter. When I was fighting Alpha I was like this feels like a final boss but it feels like I haven’t been even playing for that long. Pacing was fine don’t get me wrong, it just felt… lacking. Also with how xc3 and to an extent fr was supposed to be the ending for the klaus trilogy, it doesn’t really feel like one? It’s not that there’s loose ends, I don’t really think there are any, it’s just that it doesn’t really feel “complete” ig and just leaves a lot of things unanswered. And while I don’t rlly like info dumps, xc does a decent job at them and is sometimes crucial for understanding the lore, and we just don’t really get one in xc3. I was kind of expecting a few scenes or maybe just a glimpse of the post-merge world of the xc3 or fr cast but didn’t get that. Which I get, but I still would’ve liked to see it.

I’m not really sure how to feel about how they handled Alvis. Man really did lose his melanin when he split but you never really see him in proper lighting so it’s not as obvious as in the art ig… Honestly with all the xc1 fanservice I expected more interactions with Shulk and A but uh nothing much happened other than Shulk calling A Alvis at the end. I get that he’s a computer and the logic behind how he became that way makes sense but it just seems so contradictory towards xc1 Alvis where he understood yes humanity shapes future with their own will, etc. Ik that part of Alvis became A but idk it’s complicated.

I saw ppl saying how Shulk and Rex overshadowed the rest of the cast when they were introduced, and I think I’m the only one that didn’t feel that way. I think the narrative just shifted course to focusing on those characters to focusing on the lore and world. And a lot of those were references to xc1 and xc2 which did give those two some more screen time since they’re one of the very few that remember those worlds. That being said, I do think Matthew is the weakest protag in the series. He just didn’t have a lot of time to shine and the story’s focus isn’t really on him. Glimmer and esp Nikol also felt lacking in the character department. They weren’t bad characters but they didn’t have much presence. At least they had connections to Rex and Shulk to work with.

The exploration was great though. Have a fully connected open world was cool, and I loved the little things you could look for like the ether, containers, relics, etc. Didn’t play X, but I think fr had the best exploration so far.

OH and the xc1 parallels! Like the zoom in on A’s eye at the end! And how you warped to the final boss similar to how you went to memory space after beating Dickson. And apparently it was intentional??? Like Alvis Alpha what are you cooking???

While the credits song isn’t my favorite, seeing scenes from all 3 games just made me feel stuff esp after seeing older Shulk and Rex. Like yes look at how they used to be, look at how they and we have come. And it was just AGH

Maybe I just need some time to sit on it, but I think it’s my least favorite dlc story so far. I think my expectations for both xc3 and fr were a bit too high which might be why I feel this way. Overall, I think I could’ve been satisfied which just watching the cutscenes or a let’s play.

#I’m sorry for this huge ass essay but I needed to spit out some thoughts #thing my dlc preferences go torna >>>>> fc > fr #fc wasn’t that great but the ending cutscene saved it #I loved the fanservice in fr and the story isn’t bad but it’s just… idk if we needed a prequel #or at least a prequel that started at that point in time like maybe a prequel set a bit earlier could’ve been better #torna set too high a bar for me I think #and honestly I’m sad I feel disappointed or a bit lacking #gameplay-wise… it’s fine #two keves tanks that can’t draw aggro well is definitely a design choice #I don’t really like how shulk’s playstyle revolves around awakening but it’s fine #nikol was easily my least fav to play as #I think my favorites were glimmer and rex (for quick fights)#also didn’t play x or gears/saga so the radio didn’t really leave much impact on me but I saw that ppl were freaking out over Dimitri #it was rlly nice seeing Shulk again tho!#especially seeing him talk abt the past and the areas of colony 9… I wanted to cry #kinda wish we started a bit further in the past like Shulk and Rex meeting and then fighting alpha for the first time #Alvis… so many thoughts and no conclusions…#also how tf the Malos’s core crystal survive and how did it even get to n #I’m pretty sure all of these were hot takes oopsie #misu.txt

3 notes · View notes

deadmandairyland · 3 years

Photo

Hi! I’m here to bring you yet another Danganronpa tier list: the sexuality tier list, which you can find here.

Now I’m going to be honest here: I don’t really have any LGBT headcanons. It’s just not really something I focus on much when it comes to fandoms. Instead I usually just focus on ships, and as a result from that I tend to present a lot of characters as LGBT in fanfictions and posts I’ve made or reblogged. In other words, a massive chunk of my “headcanons” here are a direct result of shipping (as well as information I’ve picked up from the games themselves). That being said, it was interesting to actually think about this for once, so I’m kinda glad I did the tier list. And it gave me an excuse to bring back the rainbow color scheme I usually put in my tier lists for aesthetic reasons.

The original tier list had Straight at the top, but I moved it to the bottom for two reasons. One, this is Tumblr and that’s not what you’re here for. Two, I gave it a neutral color, and having a gray section next to a white section (i.e. the title of the list) like that looked bad to me. I definitely prefer this setup just on aesthetic alone.

Because this is largely based on ships, I feel it needs to be said that representation does not factor into this chart in any way. I know it probably looks bad that the only character in the Lesbian category is one of my least favorite (though NOT hated or even disliked, I should point out) characters in the main series. That has nothing to do with the fact that she’s a lesbian. She’s just a jerk, and usually not in a way that’s at least entertaining enough for me to like her.

Also keep in mind that this is just the main cast of the main series games. If you were to include characters from the DR3 anime, UDG, or the spin-offs, the Gay, Lesbian, and Ace categories would get more rep, certainly. Think Juzo, Yui, Takemichi, that gay guy with the trumpet, etc.

With that said, let’s go through the list:

Gay

Not gonna lie, one of the reasons why Rantaro is here (and not in Ace) is because of ships. Though I do sometimes ship him with girls, canon suggests he’s not interested in dating girls, and most fans seem to headcanon him as either gay or ace because of this, so I respected that. That being said, I also acknowledge he’s a very popular character in mlm ships, and at the time I was putting this together I hadn’t gotten to Taka yet so the Gay tier was still empty, and Byakuya was already sitting in Ace, so all of that swayed me to putting Rantaro here instead of Ace.

Taka was much easier to place here. He strikes me as a closeted gay man who probably doesn’t even realize he is gay. “Hey, let’s all hang out in the bath, guys! Getting naked is essential to form bonds with your fellow man! No need to be ashamed, it’s tradition!"

Lesbian

Again, ships. I only ship Hiyoko with one other character, and as soon as I say that you already know who she is.

Bisexual (Male Preference)

Akane is mostly here to account for any wlw ships I may have of her (e.g. Hina, Sonia maybe). Obviously she has a thing with Nekomaru, so Male Preference.

Chiaki is here for the same reason as Akane. I’ve shipped her with characters like Sonia and Ibuki before, but she really digs Hajime.

Chihiro honestly could have been anywhere in the Bi and Pan sections, but I ultimately went with Male Preference because of ships, specifically the fact that outside of the more... R18 circles of the Interwebs Chihiro tends to be shipped with guys more often than girls. Also doesn’t hurt that my OTP is Naehiro. I mean, have you seen how often Chihiro blushes around Makoto? (There’s more to it than that, as I’ve covered in the past. I’m just trying to add more fuel to the fire.)

Himiko is probably one of the few characters that isn’t here mainly because of ships. I do think she has some attachment towards Tenko, but I also get “I’m uncomfortable around her” vibes from her, and there are moments where she seems to crush on Kokichi (of all people) so that’s why she’s here. Still very much bi, though.

Hina has a crush on Makoto and has a complex around wishing she was more feminine so she can attract boys. So why isn’t she in the Straight section? ...Because Sakura, duh. And Kyoko too. And any other wlw ship you can think of that might work with Hina.

Honestly if it wasn’t for Miu I probably would have considered putting Kokichi in Gay. Again, while shipping plays a big part of my choices here, much like with Rantaro I have no qualms with putting a character in a tier that contradicts any ships I might have with that character, if those ships aren’t something I’m super invested in. This is a very important distinction, because it’s why I let ships sway my hand for so many of these even if I am also okay with going “Just because I ship this doesn’t mean I headcanon it” as I did with Rantaro. And honestly Kokichi’s ship teasing with Himiko does come off as more trollish than a sign that he’s into her, but he really gets into his back-and-forth with Miu, in my personal opinion, and he gets into it far more often with her for that matter. It’s why it’s one of my favorite ships for both of them tbh, and it’s because I like the ship so much that I just can’t ignore it for this sexuality headcanon tier list.

Maki... is here because of ships (e.g. Kaede).

Sakura... is here because of ships (e.g. Hina). ...What, you were expecting me to put a guy in the example? Remember, she has a boyfriend in canon.

Sayaka... is here because of... NOT ships, but DRAT. Yes, really. (”We really got down and dirty, Naegi-kun.”)

Sonia... strikes me as someone who swings both ways. I can’t describe exactly why I feel that way, but yes.

Bisexual (No Preference)

Celeste wants a harem of vampire boys but shipping her with Kyoko is also very popular and honestly i feel like it would fit her character. She’s got a look that says “I could get any ass I want and I know it.”

Ibuki is decked out in blues and pinks, and also I ship her fairly evenly among both boys and girls. She just screams bi icon to me, more so than any other character in the series.

Junko is either bi with no preferences or pan. She is an equal opportunity heart-and-soul-breaker and lust-for-despair machine.

There is no Mukuro in this list, but honestly I would probably put her where I put Junko anyway.

Kaede... is here because of ships (e.g. Miu, Maki)

Honestly I had no idea where to put Kirumi, so I just randomly chose one that I wouldn’t regret later if I ever put more thought into who I shipped her with.

I’m pretty sure Nagito being bisexual has some degree of canon attached to it??? I think??? I’m not entirely sure tbh, but fuck it. I’m doing this for fun anyway, so this doesn’t really matter.

Shuichi, like all Danganronpa protags, is bi as fuck. I also find him to be more shippable with guys than the other two protags, so IMO he has no preference.

Toko might have a thing or two for pretty boys, but... Komaru, I mean, this isn’t exactly shocking, I don’t think. Probably was closeted before she met Komaru. I mean she did focus on Hina’s boobs a lot in DR1, let’s not forget.

Tsumugi, much like Kirumi, is here because I haven’t put much thought into her ships.

Bisexual (Female Preference)

Gundham has a thing with Sonia in canon, but I can see him being bi. So... yeah, ships again.

Hajime, like all Danganronpa protags, is bi as fuck. It’s just that his Chiaki and Mikan game is just too strong.

Hifumi might claim to only like 2D, but his interest in Chihiro both in human form and computer program form (and the fact that this didn’t go away after the gender reveal) places him here.

Kaito strikes me as a closeted bisexual. The kind that could start any given conversation with “I’m not gay, but...”

Kazuichi also strikes me as a closeted bisexual, only his “I’m not gay, but...” is rooted more in dumbass than it is in systematic homophobia.

Korekiyo... is here because of ships (e.g. Rantaro).

Kyoko is bi as fuck, and I can see her having a preference towards girls in particular. She gets shipped with girls a lot (e.g. Celeste, Hina, Yui, and even Junko and Mukuro), and when she is shipped with boys it’s usually just pretty boys (e.g. Makoto, Byakuya, Ryota, Shuichi, and, depending on your interpretation, Chihiro). Also note that aside from Makoto and maybe Byakuya, Kyoko’s girl ships are far more popular than her boy ships. Just something I’ve noticed over the years.

Leon... is here because of ships (e.g. Chihiro).

Mahiru is here because I’m pretty sure she has a thing for Hajime in her FTEs, but obviously she tends to get shipped with girls more often (especially Hiyoko), and I agree.

Makoto, like all Danganronpa protags, is bi as fuck. It’s just that his Kyoko, Hina, Sayaka, and Mukuro game is just too strong.

Mikan may be interested in Hajime somewhat, but her obsession with Junko cannot be ignored, no matter how much some of you may want to.

Mondo is another character that strikes me as a closeted bisexual. He is said to strike out all the time with girls, so I do think he’s attracted to women. And I do get some vibes that he’s attracted to Chihiro pre-reveal. And if circumstances had been different, I imagine he probably still would have been post-reveal. But obviously it’s his bond with Taka that I feel cements his sexuality in, at the very least, an mlm category.

Tenko... is here NOT because of ships, but because I’m pretty sure she’s at least sort of interested in Shuichi because of some canon thing... and also I don’t want to put her in Lesbian just because it feels like I’d be stereotyping the Lesbian category if I do that. If we were to compare her to the character that I did put in Lesbian, Hiyoko doesn’t treat people like shit because they’re men, she’s an equal-opportunity asshole. Still not the best representation for lesbians by a long shot, but at least Hiyoko doesn’t follow the stereotype of a man-hating lesbian. She’s just like that, and that’s okay. But putting Tenko there, especially if she’s shown some degree of interest in a male character at some point in the game, just rubs me the wrong way personally, because it would feel like I’m ignoring canon just to stereotype her. But that’s just a personal hang up of mine. No disrespect intended toward anyone who genuinely feels that Tenko is a lesbian. Maybe you see something there that I don’t, and that’s perfectly fine.

Pansexual

I don’t remember exactly how her FTEs went, so I’m not going to get into that, but Angie just comes off as pan to me, like gender doesn’t fit into the equation at all for her.

Gonta I can see as either pan or ace. I feel like he wouldn’t care about gender, and honestly the only reason I decided to put him in Pan rather than Ace is because of that scene with Miu.

Imposter is not only pan, they are currently OT3ing it up with Ibuki and Ryota as we speak, and that’s a fact.

Keebo... is mostly here because of ships. A lot of ships, actually. Mostly male ships (Kokichi, Shuichi, Kazuichi, and, depending on your interpretation, Chihiro) but there’s also Miu to consider. And the Miu game is SO strong that I put him in Pan instead of, say, Male Preference.

Just gonna lump them together because I have the same thing to say about both of them: Miu and Teruteru would **** anything that walks. What did I censor? Well, I’m doing the Nier: Automata thing, so you can put whatever you want in there and trust me, it would probably fit, for better or for worse.

Ace

I know this is an unpopular opinion, because Naegami, but I just don’t think Byakuya is interested in anyone, at least not in that way. He might be fascinated with how common people live, because it’s so foreign to him, but that’s about it.

Straight

Even though I do ship Fuyuhiko with some of the boys, his Peko game is so strong that honestly I can’t see him actually dating anyone aside from Peko outside of some very niche fanfiction.

Honestly, Hiro was another one that I was just like “I have no idea what to do with you.” I think maybe his team up with Kanon made me eventually choose to put him in Straight? I don’t remember. I clearly didn’t put much thought into Hiro.

I really only ship Nekomaru with Akane, so that’s why he’s here. I’m sure if I dive deep enough into my psyche I can pull an mlm ship with Nekomaru in it out of my ass, but like Rantaro that wouldn’t be significant enough to change anything.

Peko is in the same boat as Fuyuhiko. I have shipped her with girls before, but her Fuyuhiko game is just too strong.

Ryoma had a girlfriend once, and as far as I can remember he didn’t really seem interested in anybody in the game, so that’s all I have to go off of for him.

-----

So there you have it. Explanations for literally all of them! Explanations that were definitely not pulled out of my ass as I was typing them, nope, certainly not. Definitely won’t be tagging all of them, but I may tag the ones with the longest entries. And like all the tier lists I’ve done, this was just for fun and honestly any opinion I have for any of these characters could change at a moment’s notice because my brain is fickle like that. Tried my best to make sure that every tier had at least one character in it, but I did so without trying to force characters in places that I personally did not believe they should go. I hope you all enjoyed my dive into this area of fandom that I rarely dive into (the LGBT headcanons, not the ships, obviously). It was a lot of fun, and hopefully it will stay fun and not result in angry anons blasting me for my opinions. I am grateful that this never seems to happen to me, but I’ve seen it happen to others and I know what Tumblr is capable of at its worst. These are just headcanons and a matter of personal opinion, and if you disagree with them, that’s perfectly okay. Your feelings and opinions are also valid.

#dangan ronpa #tier list #rantarou amami #kiyotaka ishimaru #hiyoko saionji #chihiro fujisaki #himiko yumeno #aoi asahina #kokichi ouma #kyouko kirigiri #mondo oowada #tenko chabashira #kiibo #miu iruma #teruteru hanamura #ended up tagging anyone who (at least in the editor) has four or more lines of text in their entry #or in hiyoko's case because i mention her a lot outside of her entry

60 notes · View notes

chuuyagum · 3 years

Text

♡ Winter 2021 Anime Watch List ♡

i've always wanted to make watch lists and reviews of anime i'm watching each season so i thought now's a good time as any to start! below are the anime i'm watching this season, at some point i'll make lists of the anime i've dropped or put on hold as well ♡

---♡---

♡ Current Season;

Beastars Season 2

although i thoroughly enjoyed S1, i'm not currently keeping up with the manga so S2 will be full of surprises for me. so far the pacing and tone is keeping up with the 1st season so i'm looking forward to how this will progress. in particular i'm enjoying seeing Legoshi tackle the murder on school grounds, and Louis's gripe with his morals.

Dr. STONE: STONE WARS

another one where i absolutely adored S1! granted i'm pretty biased as this anime got me through a dark time when it was first airing, so i'm very excited for S2. i'm not keeping up with the manga, however i do know most of what to expect so i'm interested to see how it'll be adapted. the tense struggles with an environment so fragile that the Kingdom of Science could be sent back to square one easily, and the Tsukasa empire looming around the corner is riveting. what always stands out to me is how hopeful and driven Senku is in his pursuit of a better future which always has me rooting for him at every turn

Kemono Jihen

so far pretty good! i went into this one blind, so i'm not sure what to expect and don't plan to pick up the manga at the moment. i'm enjoying the found family set up and hope to see more of the world our protag has been brought into! i'm curious what cases will come the way of the main characters, and to learn more about the kemono world sitting just under the surface of the human world

Tenchi Souzou Design-bu / Heaven's Design Team

i haven't watched a comedy anime in a while that made me laugh this hard! the topic of God outsourcing the creation of life on earth is hilarious on its own, but the cast of characters and pace of the story as they brainstorm new animals is just the right balance! its lighthearted enough to be a pleasant break from the heavier series i'm watching this season, but still clever and witty in a unique way

Urasekai Picnic / Otherside Picnic

setting aside the fact that i keep misspelling this, honestly it's not that great. plenty of other people have said it, but i will too - the animation is horrible. you can tell the budget for this was really really low, all the CGI creatures our protags run into look campy and awkward instead of creepy which takes away from the setting a lot. this story is being carried by the characters and the romance, which i don't necessarily mind and i am still enjoying this, but it's not the best watch of the season

Wonder Egg Priority

i'm convinced this is going to be one of the best anime of 2021 hands down. the animation, pace, tone, character design, voice acting, everything is simply that spectacular! i wasn't sure what to expect, and i finished the first episode in awe. i'm so excited to see what the future episodes will bring! although we've already seen some really heavy topics bubble to the surface, it's clear our girls have a lot of trauma to heal from that we haven't seen yet. i anticipate it's going to be addressed in a way that feels liberating and cathartic, if the Wonder Killer's we've seen faced are anything to go by

Yakusoku no Neverland 2nd Season / The Promised Neverland Season 2

another 2nd season, and honestly what can i say? this one is living up wonderfully to the 1st season! although our protags have been thrown into a new and much more uncertain environment the air of mystery, tension, but also family and hopefulness ties everything together. it's interesting to see what the world outside of the farm is really like, and unravel what lies Ray, Emma, and co have been told all their lives. looking forward to seeing where things go!

Kai Byoui Ramune / Dr. Ramune -Mysterious Disease Specialist-

not really sure how i feel about this one! it's another anime i started watching without knowing much about it. the character designs are interesting and i'm into the art style, but besides reminding me of MP100 there's not much i can say about it yet. the premise is interesting, sure, but the "weekly problem" style episodes right from the beginning feel a little offputting.

---♡---

♡Past Seasons;

Jujutsu Kaisen - Fall 2020

just like everyone else, i'm having a ton of fun with this anime even though its tugging violently at my heartstrings! the writing, animation, characters, and tone are all spot on. although there are serious moments, the humor doesn't burst those bubbles and everyone's reactions feel realistic despite the less than realistic scenarios. from what i've seen manga fans are pretty satisfied with the adaptation, and while i won't be jumping into it any time soon i'm excited to see how well the anime captures everything

---♡---

97 notes · View notes

charmspoint · 3 years

Note

how was it ^-^

Let's seee. It was good, perfectly enjoyable, it reads fast and i was never really bored with it. I'd give most chapters like a 7/10 and then chapters 71-82 like 8 or 9/10 and then back to like 7/10 and the ending was weird but also kinda sweet in its own way.

Now to preface anything else: This isn't my type of manga. I can easily see it being a 10/10 for someone who really likes fight scenes and death and gore and what not. I'm not really into that, I'm a character and story driven person which is why the manga as a whole scored as just goodish to me while chapters 71-82 which kinda make a lot of emotional and psychological aspects of the chapters before them come to culmination scored a lot better. You know I don't GET fights. Chainsaw man was very gory but I didn't even really register it. Like because of all the gore I feel I heard people say it has horror aspects but I never really felt scared or off put or anything. It was just kinda like 'oh a lot of people are in pieces rn, okay, that's a thing that's happening'. So yeah that's why the score is the way it is, it simply isn't a manga that focuses on things I like and that's perfectly alright. I couldn't buy into the hype like I did with jjk and I certently didn't feel 'oh this is the best thing ever' like I felt with witch hat atelier.

With all that out of the way let me talk long and hard about Denji and sexual aspects of the series in a surprisingly positive light:

I like Denji as a character. I think he's still a bit rough around the edges but he's not a character made for introspection so that's fine, you really kinda have to take what he says and how he acts and think about it because the author won't do it for you. That being said, I think Denji is probably the most compelling shonen protagonist I've read so far. Like when I read bnha or jjk I see Izuku and Yuji and I'm like 'this is a shonen protagonist'. They are a likable character but they won't be your favorite character. They are largely made for japanese high school boys to project themselves on and I'm not a japanese high school boy. That being said, Denji feels like a character of his own and not something meant to be projected on to. Honestly if anyone projected on to Denji I'd be worried about them. But that makes him probably the most compelling shonen protagonist I've ever read. You just wanna dig a shovel into his skull and go 'man kid ur fucked up'.

I know when you first read csm you were off put by Denji because it felt like a manga put a pervert character as a protag which is naturally off putting and I can 100% see that. Now be it because I was warned about it first or something else, I didn't actually find fanservice jarring at all. It kinda was integrated into the world in a way that made me think 'yeah of course it's like this'. This is a very grim and rough and drty world and things in it would be just like that. It is a story about base desires and sex is one of those. These are people who expect they will die any day now and Denji is a person who's just now getting to experience a somewhat decent standard of living. Here's a thing I noticed though: even as Denji thinks many sexual things (which, he's a teenager, that's normal) he's actually very respectful. I don't think I've ever seen him touch anyone without their permission, in fact i think things like that mostly happen to him. Like example how Power comes in just as Denji is in the middle of his 'i wanna touch some boobs' phase. You would almost expect that what happens next is we see him try to grope Power as she's sleeping or something. But no, he doesn't do a thing until she asks him to help her save her cat and he gets to touch her boobs for it. And it's like this with p much every other sexual encounter through the series. Both partners are consenting and getting something out of the whole thing. Sexual aspects are used as normal bartering chips in a world where your whole body is a bartering chip. It's normal and no one is forced into it. I've told you before that my biggest misgiving with fanservice is that it's often based on embarrassment and unwilling participation of the girls. Like fanservice isn't fanservice because you saw a boob it's fanservice because you saw a boob when you weren't supposed to, when the girl didn't want you, when she's angry or scared or embarrassed because you did. A lot of fanservice feels very much like taking something from the girl, debasing and humiliating her for the sake of watchers/readers satisfaction.

Despite all it's sexual jokes and themes and everything else Chainsaw man never once made me feel like that. It never once made me feel like the author expected me to gain sexual satisfaction out of debasement of female cast. Which is why even though boobs and naked women are literally all over the manga I didn't mind it at all. It stopped being fanservice and became just a natural part of characters lives as sexuality and sex is a natural part of real world.

Back to Denji.

So I mussed a bit about Denji and Maslow before but here it is in total

Denji is 16 years old and at the beginning of the series he's just starting to have his physiological and safety needs met. Like he doesn't live like a human being at the start of the series and Makima recruiting him is A BIG CHANGE for him. Like for a good while Denji is like 'Now I have three meals a day and a place to sleep at so I'm good with whatever'. He's given reliable sources to fulfil his needs and he's given a way to keep those sources stable. He has a job, it's not a good job but he has it. He has a place to live and a theoretical safety net. He's immortal so there's nothing to fear in the death and injury department which means the otherwise unsafe job is perfectly fine for him. Now what Denji gets stuck on through most of the series is Love and Belonging. Because you can't just give someone love like you can give them food (not that Makima doesn't try). People are more complicated. Compromises need to be made and human connections are hard to establish, especially if you are someone like Denji who has no idea how to interact with others aside from obeying orders. This is why his need for love and belonging first manifests as a sexual need (that and he's an allo teenager). Human connections are hard but sexual contact doesn't have to come tied with connections so it's easier (if unsatisfactory as Denji finds out with Power) to achieve. A lot of Denji's personal growth is tied to him finding out that this need can be fulfilled by other things alongside sex. This is why I love chapters 71-82 so much because they are really a culmination of Denji's emotional journey in that category. Along the way along with sexual love he finds romantic one. He wants to spend time with girls he likes, he wants them to like him beyond the sexual. Of course sexuality is always an aspect of it but after that scene with Power it's never the only thing. Human connection, understanding the other person, knowing them, loving them, making them happy. And it all culminates in the familial love he finds with Aki and Power, taking care of someone and being taken care of for no other reason than they are your family and you love them, you care for them, you want them to be well and happy. There's this scene with Power later on when they are taking a bath together and Denji is like 'huh we are both naked but it doesn't feel naughty at all'. He's stopped seeing Power sexually because he started to see her as his sister and it's just really nice, those few chapters we get to see them as a family are really nice.

By the end of the series Denji starts checking off the esteem box too, by people accepting him and loving him and him feeling like he wants to respond to that, but I feel like that aspect and possible self actualization will be more explored in part 2.

There you have it, my essay about why Denji is the most compelling Shonen protagonist I've ever read :)

Also I really liked the girls in this series, it really isn't afraid of letting it's female characters be weird and gross and in Makima's case just plain evil and I appreciate it for that. I just wish Quanxi got more time and things to do but she's a side character and it's not her fault she's cooler than the whole main cast (Power best girl tho).

I feel like I talked a lot already about what was my most important take away from the whole thing but yeah, in general: pretty entertaining read, would probably be a complete blast for someone who's invested in fights, a little thin on psychology and emotion for my tastes but when it delivers them it delivers them good.

Also I like how it basically ended on 'you should give people more hugs' it was cute

Additionally I think the authors idea to basically release manga in seasons like you would an anime is straight up genius I hope that more mangakas start picking this up because it allows them more rest in between big arcs.

Ok now that's it for real this time.

#megacarapa #lucy rants #csm #chainsaw man #character analysis fanservice discussion sex and sexuality dicussion this baby has it all

26 notes · View notes

docholligay · 3 years

Text

Feed

I don’t normally read zombie stories. The tropes of the genre don’t really appeal to me. This isn’t some sort of referendum against it, mind you. I just people think they like what they like when it comes to genre fiction, and horror specifically, which I love! But I love ghost stories, not zombie ones.

This is one of exactly two zombie novels I’ve ever read that I enjoyed in literally any capacity.

In non-spoilery terms, here’s what I can say about it. It plays with the genre without in any way being bound by it, and in many ways Isn’t about the zombie thing at all. We go en medias res to a world where zombies are a given--our protagonists don’t even really remember The Before Times as they were small children. It casts a totally different light on what can be, for people named Doc, who are me, a very very boring -ass genre. It’s more about news and what we owe to the news, and what it means to present truth, than it is about zombies at all, and manages it in a way that doesn’t come across as try-hard and hamfisted. It’s also an easy read, for those of you looking for that.

SPOILERS BENEATH THE CUT

HOLY SHIT SHE KILLS THE MAIN CHARACTER HOLY SHIT SHE KILLS THE MAIN CHARACTER HOLY SHIT SHE KILLS THE MAIN CHARACTER IN THE THIRD ACT OF THE BOOK. BUT NOT THE END.

She gets bitten and I start ROLLING MY EYES IMMEDIATELY. I have read plenty of genre fiction. I know the rules. I can’t wait to see what unbelieveable horseshit they pull out of--OH MY GOD SHE GOT SHOT IN THE BACK OF THE GODDAMN HEAD. SHE LEGIT KILLED THE MAIN. BLESS AND ALSO THANK. Seriously, even if I had been on the fence about the rest of the book I would have moved to appreciating it from the brass ones to do this alone. And she’s a FIRST PERSON PROTAG. Never would have guessed it. Delighted. Thrilled. Shocked in the best way.

This is about the news, and it’s about how bloggers have basically stepped into the space of news, and become almost their own kind of news network, and you can trust the bloggers MORE than the standard news crews and wow does this book read differently now than when it was published. I could have believed this 18 times over when it originally came out, but after everything that happened with blogging and “independent news’ in the Trump era it reads almost naive. It’s incredible to me how fast the world turns, and this isn’t the book’s fault--like I said, when it was published, I, too, would have seen this as completely plausible. It’s just STRANGE to read it now, knowing what we know. Also the idea that a Republican candidate can have inviolable core values. (I kept picturing Mitt Romney, one of the last bastions of honor in the party.) Knowing that the author is deeply liberal I super applaud her for writing the ‘good guy” as a Republican, which also reads weirdly naive now. Remember when Ted Cruz refused to acknowledge Trump’s nomination and now he sucks Trump’s ballsack? Everything changed so fast.

And yet, all this STILL holds up better than Hamilton.

I also really appreciated that Fiction has its own very strong backing within this world of news and documentary type stuff, that it was presented as just as important to people’s general need to live, and to find happiness. I suppose I should expect that from an actual fiction writer, but in a world where I think writing itself gets downplayed, often, it’s nice to see that yes, this is a huge part of what makes us human, and writing DOES matter.

below here are my minor quibbles and dislikes with the novel:

It’s genre fiction and as such it’s not the style of prose I prefer. I know the deal when I pick up a genre fiction book, but still, I miss the poetic prose of like, Tartt or even French.

I found out about her alt ending for the novel and now I’m ENDLESSLY DISAPPOINTED I didn’t get that. I know its dark as the devil’s asshole but YES PLS. I was like, “Oh, was that a possibility???? We could have??’

Grant has a “stock heroine” apparently, and this is my only real criticism. I recognize this girl from Parasite, the girl with a boy’s nickname who doesn’t like girly things and is sporty and whatever. I think this might have not annoyed me at all--all authors have their favorite wells, all composers have themes, all directors have fixations--but I don’t care for the “tomboy is the best kind of girl” thing that feels very 90s rah rah not like the other girls to me.

20 notes · View notes

dangan-meme-palace · 4 years

Note

Do you find Saihara's characterization weird in chapter 6? Because I do :( He's become super confident, optimistic, and leader-like too fast, especially if you compare to ch5 and before...I understand that in the last chapter all protags get pumped up to end the killing game but...he's quoting Momota and he also developed a 'hunch' like him...even Harukawa says 'sometimes you're so much like Kaito' pls no I like Saihara the way he is, meaning, not like Momota :( but that's just my opinion! ^^

Shuichi's characterization is all over the place. It's not even like... "he's inconsistent because humans are inconsistent" or whatever, it's literally just that his personality changes whenever the narrative needs it to without anything but loose, barely-there excuses to try and justify why it happens.

Chapter 1:

No problems with believing in his detective work, he's actually quite shockingly confident in them for how much he downplays them.

His actual problem is not thinking his skills are where they should be according to professional standards, which is an accurate assessment if the rest of the game is anything to go by actually.

Calls Kaito a reckless idiot for doing something reckless and idiotic. This is the only time he does this.

Learns a lesson?? I guess?? The lesson was apparently supposed to be "don't be afraid to reach for the truth" but it came off more like "you shouldn't let everyone die just because you liked Kaede the most, picking favorites and having bias is bad because you have a duty to remain unbiased so everyone doesnt die"

Then everyone conveniently forgets that he was willing to let them die.

Chapter 1 was the best for his characterization except for the trial. I wish he had acted like this throughout the entire game.

Let him investigate. Dear god why doesn't the detective investigate, or even cast doubt?

Chapter 2:

Kaito is starting to become his Bro now. He's not super biased like in later chapters, but you can start to see it happening.

This is the chapter where he tells everyone not to let their biases get in the way of logic, which is funny considering what he's like in other chapters.

Big sad about Kaede, but a few of the characters (Ryoma, Tenko) comfort him so he's choosing to turn this tragedy into a growth moment. I guess it's kinda like what Chihiro did, except a girl had to die for it and he didn't get brained with a dumbbell at the end.

He's the nicest to everyone in this chapter. Don't worry, it won't last long :)

If he had kept the weird sort of optimism he had during this chapter plus the logical thinking instead of leaning into the angst he might've actually developed and Kaede's death might've been worth a damn.

Chapter 3

Maki gets the spotlight so there's not much to say except for the fact that he's gotten super awkward and is getting progressively dumber.

Honestly Maki is kind of right when she keeps calling him a dumbass for asking questions with very obvious answers.

Literally how the fuck did he ever solve infidelity cases when he can't even figure out shit that's this basic.

Smh.

Oh yeah, the odd hopefulness is gone now. It's buried next to my hope of him turning out to be an interesting character.

Put your hat back on if you're gonna angst again emo boy.

Investigation? Dont know her. I only know the Grind 💯 and hanging out with the Bros 😤👊

Chapter 4:

One of his worst chapters. I fucking hate this chapter.

Everyone patted him on the back before the trial and it felt shoehorned in. I'm not even sure why they did it honestly?

Kokichi = Evil

Kaito & Maki = Good

But dont worry guys, he's totally not biased or anything! (/s)

He's mega biased.

During the trial he has a lot of confidence, like the good kind he had back in Chapter 2. Especially when he lied and when he stood his ground against Kaito. He'll be punished by the narrative for going against Kaito, but for now I'll enjoy his limp-dicked rebellion.

Apparently he cares for Gonta except he never once talked to him during the main story and even insulted Gonta in his head during their FTEs. When did he start to care about Gonta? He didn't, but now he does I guess.

Chapter 5:

Another bad chapter. Hate this too

Officially graduated from Kaito's Bro to Kaito's Simp.

Also his confidence is entirely dependent on Kaito. When Kaito wants him to do something, he's sure Kaito's plan will work and gives him all of his support. If Kaito expresses displeasure, he's ashamed of himself and has no confidence. I-... y'know sometimes I genuinely worry about their dynamic.

Kokichi = Evil ×2 combo

No detective work or reasoning. Why would the gofer project want a cosplayer to go to space and preserve humanity? Or an ex murderer? Or an assassin? Or a detective? Are they going to be solving space crimes? Shuichi should have been so god damn suspicious- the MOST suspicious, even- but he's practically braindead at this point in the story.

Investigation skills, when will you return from the war?

Goes from suicidal to "uwu I'm a hopeful student of Hope's Peak Academy" way too quickly for someone with supposed confidence issues.

Seriously, how did he go from "the world has been destroyed and I cant fix it so I might as well die" to "yeah! we will definitely fix it! we dont know how yet, but we'll totally do it because we're Ultimates even though in Chapter 1 I didnt even think I deserved to be an Ultimate but shhhh" so quickly?

Kiibo and Shuichi kinda sounded like Kaede when they saw the Hope's Peak Flashback and it's so fucking weird because there's no justification for it

Chapter 6:

Literally what was this chapter

Why did it take Kiibo threatening to blow up the school to get him to investigate the mastermind again? 9 people have died since Chapter 1, but he acted as though he couldn't do anything about it. He even says he "can only help after people die", but Chapter 1 disproved that because he literally almost caught the mastermind without anyone dying so-

At least he investigated, I guess. It's sad that a detective investigating is considered a miracle, but here we are.

During the trial he's rapidly switching from hopeful to suicidal to hopeful again and it gives me so much whiplash, like god damn. Chill out a bit, buddy.

Much like the now-late Kaito, Shuichi tries to convince everyone to die with him to make some sort of stand against TDR. Somehow this worked and they also somehow didn't die and we aren't given justification for either.

The confidence came from the fact that the narrative needed him to be confident. That's it. There's literally no justification for this. There's no justification for anything, honestly.

What even was that ending, like what the fuck was that? None of their arcs got wrapped up at all...

So basically

Shuichi is confident but he's not but only when Kaito believes in him but he can stand against Kaito when he needs to and also he's not actually confident and Kaito needs to baby him. Shuichi is also not biased because he learned a lesson about that, unless your name is Kaito, Maki, or Kokichi, in which case he is incredibly biased to the point of putting the lives of other people on the line, but he wants everyone to survive because he learned a lesson about that. He's also incredibly dismissive of most of the cast in his head, to the point of being cold, but it should be noted that Shuichi really cares about his friends and is really nice and supportive of others. He's a big doormat except for when he doesn't want to be, unless it involves Kaito, because then he is always a sidekick except for when he isn't.

Hope that cleared things up! As you can see Shuichi is a very consistent character :) (/s)

-tech

#asks #defective detective #ive probably missed a lot but im going off my bad memory #i gotta rewatch the whole game again sooner or later #its been a while #but this is what i can remember anyway

40 notes · View notes

aj-anime-blog · 3 years

Text

To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts - Review!

First review here we go!!

So, after being completely and utterly obsessed with Jujutsu Kaisen and AOT season 4, I decided to check out MAPPA studios and watch a bunch of stuff from their roster. My so-called "MAPPA binge" included this strange and unknown piece: Katsute Kami Datta Kemono-tachi e, or in English, To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts. An adaption of a manga originally released in Bessatsu Shounen (you might recognize this as the magazine that released Attack on Titan!), it looked pretty promising. I do have to admit that I didn't read a page of this anime's manga, though the art style on it looks gorgeous!!

The concept behind the show: A war has torn two halves of a nation apart, split into the North and the South. The Northerners, who were previously greatly outnumbered in battle, created a half-human, half-beast species known as "Incarnates" because of their God-like abilities. But the Incarnates begin having some issues when their beast forms take over their bodies, turning them into monsters. When the war ends, our protagonist, Hugh Hank, an Incarnate and previous captain of the Incarnate squad, swears to kill all of his mutating Incarnate buddies before they can destroy the world.

This review will not contain spoilers until the labeled "Spoiler" section at the bottom.

In general, what do I think?: 4/10, this show kinda sucked. Ouch! I hate being that blunt! Especially on my first review here! But To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts (let's call it TTASB from here on out!) had glaring flaws that, while it did hold up as a show, made it uninteresting and hard to love. Not only were the characters mediocre and boring, but the show seemed to contradict itself and its own opinion of the Incarnates all the time! Are they bloodthirsty monsters that need to be killed? Are they misunderstood humans who should be given peace? I don't know! Our main characters don't seem to either! Other than the "war bad" motif that gets shoved down your throat from episode one, the show felt stagnant in what it was trying to make the audience feel.

I hate being so cynical about it, though, because it does still earn those 4 points! Even though a lot of it falls flat, as a whole, it's still an ok show! Hank and Schaal have good concepts and their dilemmas are interesting in certain parts when the writers manage to nail pits and pieces of their development! The fight scenes were cool and I think that the concept for the world was neat! And the show does have a pretty cool title. Let's be honest, To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts sounds super metal.

So what about those characters?: 5/10! Hugh Hank and Schaal are our two main protags for the show, and they both have pretty interesting concepts! Hank is an Incarnate, he used to be the leader of the other Incarnates, and he made a vow with them that when they lost their minds, he would kill them himself. Schaal is the daughter of one of these Incarnates that fought under Hank. Interesting, right?! How could these two opposing characters get along with one another?

TTASB tries to give the two of them a sort of grumpy-old-mentor-teaches-a-cheery-youngster relationship (which, admittedly, is one of my favorite tropes) and manages to forget everything good about having this kind of relationship. To start, it feels like Schaal has next to no reason to be tolerating Hank, and vice versa. She follows him around because *insert some excuse about understanding the Incarnates?* and Hank lets her because *insert I really don't know*. It really feels like Schaal doesn't need to be there, and she's just a plot device to move along Hank's character development.

Then, the two of them never really interact in ways that really moved me. It never felt like they made a deeper connection that meant something to the plot. They interacted, sure. They spoke about their issues, yeah. But it never felt like Hank needed Schaal, or that Schaal was emotionally tied to Hank, until the show spoonfed it to you that they were.

In the end, neither of their developments felt compelling or interesting. There were a few scenes that maybe, if you squinted, hinted towards them growing as people, but for a 12 episode anime, it was very menial. It also felt like said scenes were fairly forced, with their development not really leading them to the point that they ended up at. Again, TTASB has a bit of an issue with contradicting itself.

The villain was so meh. He has a motive, yeah. It's pretty lame. He's not compelling at all. Nothing about him is interesting or kept me hooked on him. The show probably could've existed without him, to be entirely honest. I don't really have much else to say about him! I just did not really care about him at all.

The best characters in the show are hands-down the supporting cast of Incarnates. Each one has fairly interesting motivations, and even though they're only given an episode or so to tell their stories, they feel the most genuine. My biggest qualm with them is that the show doesn't build their connection to Hugh Hank at all, so when he gets emotional over them, you're kind of like "uhhh u know this guy??". More about this down in our spoilers section, as I'll go over a scene where this is prominent.

So characters were meh, but what about the story itself?: 4/10, just as meh. Again, very interesting! Lots of potential! But it fell flat where it mattered. To be clear, just before we dig deeper: the 12 episodes of TTASB isn't the entire story. It's clearly intended to be continued, though, as of writing this, I haven't been able to dig up any news about a potential season 2.

I don't really mind if animes aren't completely original, as long as they're fun, but TTASB didn't really do that. A lot of the episodes felt boring and reused like it was a watered-down copy-paste of other material. Some episodes were repetitive and seemed to be trying to hammer in the same themes, only to be later contradicted by other episodes. TTASB will spend a few episodes showing you how misunderstood and sweet the Incarnates are and then have an episode where an Incarnate murders a bunch of people. I would love it if it was, in any way, shape, or form, sarcastic, but it is not. TTASB just thinks it can get away with the blatant disregarding of its own morals. It only ends up feeling disconnecting and frustrating.

It follows an almost monster-of-the-week style format for introducing the Incarnates, which does them a bit of a disservice, in my opinion. I really would have liked it if there was a bit more overlap between the Incarnates and their stories! We know that they're all very close (or, at least, the show tells us that they are without really showing us) so seeing them interact with one another outside of their respective episode would've been fun!

The story tries to be darker and grimier than it actually is. I didn't end up caring much for the nation itself and much of the politics that the show tried to utilize felt boring and, again, watered-down. It felt like the show wanted to make it a political drama about war and human rights and only ended up shying away from what makes those genres impactful. Again, this isn't to say that TTASB's story is bad, it's just not as good as it could've been.

But it's MAPPA, so the art has to be good, right?: Yeah! Art was cool! Nothing golden, like MAPPA's newer stuff, but a solid 7/10! The fight scenes were nice, and even though a lot of them felt redundant to watch, they were still smooth! I have some qualms about a few of the Incarnates' beast forms (especially Hank's) looking like they belong back in 2001, but they still looked cool nonetheless.

I don't really have much to say on this front! Nothing really blew me away, but I never looked at the screen and winced away.

Ok and finally, pacing!: 4/10. 12 episode animes always have tricky pacing to them. I like to think about the show being pretty much only 5 hours long, which isn't that much time to cram in as much story and plot as they might want to. Overall, TTASB actually had pretty decent pacing, with a long enough build-up that led to a final showdown. If you ask me, I do think there was a pacing problem in the second half, as it felt far too stretched out, but that could've just been my perception of it.

My biggest issue with pacing loops back to the characters again. They're never really given time to explore or build up relationships. Especially not Hank and his prior team of Incarnates. I think that there should've been more screen time dedicated to their time in the army, to better explain the emotional distress that he's going through as he's forced to hunt them down. Instead, TTASB relies on a throwaway line or scene to deliver this emotional blow, and it nearly always falls flat.

Music!!!!: 6/10, The soundtrack in this anime really wasn't memorable and I don't remember much from it. Whoops!

I did like the opening a bit! It was done by Mafumafu, who I think has done a Pokemon intro song? Either way, it was energetic and fit the theme of the show well! The ending is also a bop, now that I'm thinking about it! It manages to be nostalgic and sad without being too slow! So good music on both fronts!!

OK, now we're in spoiler territory! Be warned!

I don't have too much to say regarding spoilers. Nothing in the show really feels important enough that I have to mention it under a spoiler tag. A few small notes, I suppose.

The show treats Hank like the more important character but then throws him away in his "death" to focus on Schaal, which was a very frustrating episode. Schaal felt so bland and useless in it, even when she faced her father again. Bringing him back to life felt like a sad excuse to force her into character development. I did like it when she found the courage to shoot him, but I also thought that it wasn't really as emotional as the show wanted it to be.

Hank's connection with Schaal, particularly in the second half, feels completely unnatural and forced. When she gets kidnapped, he has some sort of mental breakdown over her and it, if anything, felt creepy. It was undeserved and was forced down your throat rather than built.

Beatrice was the best character in the show and I think that if they stuck to ideas like hers (misunderstood creatures who just want to go back to their old lives), the story would have been much better. Instead, you switch to characters like the Gargoyle Incarnate, who just goes on a murder spree, and it ruins a lot of the development that Beatrice brought to the table.

& our deep deep look at one part: Forgive me if I get this screwed up a bit, it's been a weekish since I finished the show and my brain dumped out all details of it already.

Hugh Hank goes to the mountains and fights the Garmr Incarnate, Rex (Roy? I'm a bit confused on his name), in an epic show-down. Obviously, at the end of it, Hank wins, killing Rex. Now, if you're like me, you sat there for most of the fight going "who tf is Rex and why is this battle important?" and only at the very END, when he's dying, do you see a clip that you might remember from the very beginning of the anime, with Rex talking about Schaal. You go "oohhh I know who he is!" but you wished that you remembered this ten minutes ago when the fight started because it would've been so much more impactful. The show didn't remind you of this scene. It didn't tell you that Rex was this same person that you already met. It expected you to remember, and I didn't. This scene sums up a lot of the character problems with the show, where even if something does have emotional weight, the show doesn't act on it.

Now we're done!: Sorry if this was harsh, but that's my full review on To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts! I'd love to hear if you agree with me or think that I'm totally wrong! If you've read the manga, tell me if it's better or worth a read! And thanks for reading!

(The crossed-out "Hugh"s are all of the times that I got Hank's name wrong! I'm not super great with character names, but I always take it as a bad sign when I screw up the name. )

#anime #mappa #studio mappa #to the abandoned sacred beasts #to the abandoned sacred beasts anime #review #anime review

3 notes · View notes

ichika27 · 3 years

Text

Thoughts about Yashahime pt2

Because I have more stuff in my mind and I have to ramble or else I’ll lose it. This is supposed to be a part of the overall post I did after watching season 1 but it was longer than expected so I made a second post. I wanted to post my thoughts on sessrin but that would make this more unbearably longer than it already is jfc.

This is my “additional thoughts on season 1 stuff and what I wish to see in season 2″ filled with spoilers and actually have more screenshots.

Thoughts on Moroha:

I know you’ve probably heard of it from everyone else but I’ll say my piece, too: they wasted Moroha’s character. I know the main protag is Towa and Setsuna (as seen by the summary) but it’s not an excuse to just... not give Moroha anything. Inuyasha’s main characters are Kagome and Inuyasha but they also gave their companions (Sango, Miroku, and Shippo) the spotlight with episodes dedicated to them and their issues and in battle, they do get to shine. Moroha keeps getting thrown off, injured, or passed out and the twins (esp. Towa) gets to finish off the bad guys (sometimes the buildup to it is too much but how she beat up the bad guy is anti-climatic). It’s a waste cause she’s a bounty hunter who is not only trained but also has a lot more experience than Towa does. She doesn’t even have to land the finishing blow but at least don’t make her lame.

I do understand why the battle in both Inuyasha and Yashahime is different though. The Shikon Jewel is powerful even when it’s in pieces. Even a shard could give an advantage to anyone who has it and so many demons are drawn to it and to the person who has it. The more Kagome and the gang get, the more enemies they would attract especially Naraku and his minions whose goal is similar to the protagonists that they also want the entire jewel. As such, there are many enemies to fight with and so even if Inuyasha and Kagome are fighting the boss, there are other enemies for their companions to fight with showing us what they’re capable of.

Yashahime has the seven rainbow pearls which not everyone knows about and while powerful, it’s not as great as the Shikon Jewel that helped create it. There’s also just one main bad guy group - Kirinmaru, his sister Zero, and the four perils (one of them is dead before the story starts, too so 3 perils). Not all of them have minions or bring a horde of demons in battle so in a fight with the trio, there’s a lack of enemy. Some episodes at least have 2-3 or so but the later boss fights are like, 1 or 2... and Moroha gets thrown off and the twins get the spotlight and there’s no other enemy they can give Moroha who ends up being used as comic relief.

I hope this changes in the second season at least. Let Moroha show off more of her badass abilities. Even if she's a quarter-demon, she is also the daughter of Kagome and have sacred abilities which can actually fight off demons and make her immune to some debilitating stuff for demons like her as shown in one of the episodes. There's so much potential there!

Also, I wish they let Hisui be a part of the team. Like, he’s Miroku and Sango’s kid. Can’t he be a part of the main cast, too? It’s a waste cause he is close with Setsuna having worked with her as a Demon Slayer. He could be incorporated in the story and could even give us insights as to what's happened with his family in the time when Inuyasha and Kagome disappeared and all that and even give a reason to have Miroku and Sango appearances from time to time.

Thoughts on Yawaragi and the wolves:

Another thing wasted. She helped raise Moroha who is a main character so she should've gotten a bit more screentime rather than everything about her shoved in one episode and is barely talked about after. If they just didn't do the whole mystery thing with Moroha's backstory they could've put more flashbacks with her time with Moroha earlier in the show. You can't tell me they weren't trying to make Moroha's past mysterious when she barely talked about her Master or her childhood with not even a single second of flashback showing up before the episode with Yawaragi. There's also that time when Towa asked why Moroha is trying so hard to get money from bounty hunting and then Moroha dodged answering. So many theories came out of that interaction! People thought her bounty hunting and debt is connected to her real parents even.

If they didn't go with this route we could've gotten attached to the idea that even if Moroha didn't have her real parents around, she's got someone else that care about her and their reunion and battle against each other would've felt more dramatic. I personally would've felt "No! She could've been here longer to see Moroha grow as a fighter and even talk to her parents once they're back!" but due to how it was done, I couldn't feel that. Moroha is already independent when she's introduced and again, we barely hear anything about Yawaragi. It would've also helped develop Moroha as a character cause we'd know more about her and how she became who she is now.

Also, Moroha is given to the wolf tribe led by Koga. Imagine if they showed that in flashbacks and expanded on it! Koga's a supporting character in Inuyasha and was even in a love triangle with him wanting to get Kagome. It would've been interesting to see the characters we knew from back then while also showing us Moroha's childhood.

Like, one of the things I mentioned that I wanted to see when I found out the sequel is about the next gen kids is seeing how the now grown up cast of Inuyasha interact with the kids and how they are as parents. With the kids' actual parents not around for reasons (depriving us of seeing how they'd handle being first time parents which is a shame), the kids' interaction with their foster family is the next best thing. They gave us a couple of episodes about Towa and her life with the Higurashi's (specifically, Kagome's now adult younger brother Souta and his family) and later Setsuna living in the hanyou village under Shiori - also a supporting character like Koga but appears only for a few episodes. Again, something for the twins but not much for Moroha. It could've been something!

Thoughts on Takechiyo:

He's kind of like the Shippo of the show but isn't treated like he is. I like it actually cause seeing the promotional materials made me think he'd be Shippo 2.0 but just like the other characters, he didn't become an actual copy-paste.

Takechiyo works for Jyubei just like Moroha does but he's more of Moroha's supervisor (could order her around and would send Jyubei reports of what Moroha is doing on the job) while also acting as transportation for Moroha (or Towa if bribed) towards where the demon they need to fight are. He's not a part of the main cast but shows up a lot due to the transportation thing.

He does seem to have a deeper backstory but it is barely touched upon at all. I do hope they do something about it in s2.

Thoughts on Riku x Towa:

From the episode where Riku is first introduced, many fans already wanted to ship Riku with Towa. They do have that feel to it with their interaction at the beginning - it's cute! It does get the spotlight and the fans do get an episode which is really shippy but as I pointed out in the main Yashahime post, it felt rushed.

The first time Riku appeared, they had a bit of moment and then Riku has Towa framed up for stealing a sword he probably took himself for entertainment, probably as there seem to have not been any important reason for this. It gets settled as we saw from episode 1 but it's never brought up again. When he shows up in front of the trio later on, he gets greeted like the issue never happened.

Anyways, Riku does get scenes for himself but it's either him being mysterious or interacting with the enemies (which made it hard for fans to pinpoint exactly where his loyalties lie and it was hard to know how exactly to feel about him). He doesn't have much interaction with the trio either only showing up from time to time and there didn't seem to be any personal talks either.. you know, bonding moment that isn't just going into battle?

I'm bringing all of this up because the shippy episode is, as I said, felt rushed. Riku suddenly feels something for Towa but it felt like it came out of nowhere due to the lack of meaningful scenes together. He's not human nor a normal being (he's a doll, apparently?) and don't understand emotions that well and the buildup to him suddenly having feelings for Towa felt unrealistic. Emotionless or stoic characters gaining an understanding of feelings, especially their own, is a big deal. Sesshoumaru himself, Towa's father, went through this and his character development from always annoyed and angry villain to actually-starting-to-care anti-hero is really fun to watch and it was something I looked forward to seeing in the original series. Riku's development didn't really have give the same satisfying feeling due to how it was handled. There was a lack of gradual buildup.

Upon revisiting past episodes and remembering that he doesn't think very well of half-demons and humans (probably cause of what happened to his mistress, Zero with the whole heartbreak thing) it makes the thing even weirder. I could maybe think that he might be lying to Towa but a couple of his actions later on like lying to Zero about Towa, it seems he does honestly care about her.

There's still a chance in s2 though since the two didn't really get together and were more "I don't get it but maybe I do feel something." in that episode. It's not fully romantic yet but could actually get there. With Riku being connected to Kirinmaru and Zero though, I'm kind of scared for how his character would develop outside of ships (like he could end up becoming a bad guy firmly on Zero's side with no hesitation anymore to uh... I do hope they don't kill him in the end).

His role of being in the enemy side but slowly cares for the heroes have so much potential for a fun story development!

Finally, thoughts on Kirinmaru:

He’s been kinda weird from the start. He could’ve killed the girls himself when he found out about them but he didn’t even though there’s this prophecy thing which is strange. I mean it was talked about like it was urgent but then again, most of it seem to be fueled by Zero and her personal issues at being heartbroken lol.

Kirinmaru is as confusing as Riku when it comes to understanding what he’s on about and where his character is gonna go. A bad guy who doesn’t really act like it and have mysterious plans. I guess this’ll be focused on in season 2. Hopefully. Please don’t drag this out longer than it should be.

On the other hand, a minor thing: final battle between the girls and Kirinmaru at the first season’s climax: Setsuna is probably dead and her sister and cousin are enraged. Moroha goes Beniyasha-mode and Towa finally goes demon-mode and both unleash their most powerful attacks onto Kirinmaru. They got beaten which isn’t as surprise at all cause Kirinmaru is supposed to be as powerful as the girls’ grandfather who is a Daiyoukai and there’s no way in hell a bunch of kids (with one lacking in a lot of battle experience) could suddenly beat him just like that.

Anyways, Moroha uses her most powerful attack which is something her grandpa, the Daiyoukai Toga created but had evolved into something more her own. Towa is similar with her using her most powerful attack that came from her father but this time, changed into something of her own. Kirinmaru notices and while blocking off their attacks actually talks to them basically saying “These techniques you’re using that originally came from your grandfather and father respectively have been changed into something else by yourselves so you guys should rename them appropriately.”

He said it so calmly before defeating them afterwards. I thought “lol this guy sounds like a teacher.”

Hehehe

#yashahime #hanyou no yashahime #yashahime: princess half demon #inuyasha #anime #sana_post

5 notes · View notes

datawyrms · 4 years

Text

That’s Robophobic!

Is K1-B0 really too sensitive about being a robot, a far too long rambling thing digging through every bit of dialogue he has.

short answer: no. long answer: HOLD ON FOLKS I’N SERIOUS ABOUT EVERY BIT OF TEXT as i’m bored and i’m going to spit ideas about my Favourite good robot at you all day. It’s entire prologue and first chapter I am serious this thing is huge and way too many words. Also spoilers everywhere so uh. Don’t...look at this if you haven’t finished V3ok.

Prologue

Keebo doesn’t talk or do anything in this bit! He’s just there. Up front for the splash and then hiding in the back afterwards. Officially according to the art book he is in fact a robot at this point in time as well. He’s just covered up and apparently doesn’t have to have those lines on his face or the ear-analogues he’s got most of the game. The More You Know. (not that this should stop anyone from havin fun in fan work. do what makes you happy!) I mostly point it out as Being A Robot is a massive part of Keebo’s character, so the fact he’s always one isn’t really that surprising. We’ll get into that more when he actually...has lines... oh and the mild theory of Monodam basically being Keebo’s Bear Equivalent, they have similar plot beats/character progression though the Monokubs are shaky in general so :v MOVING ON

Ultimate Revival

aka we meet Keebo and Kokichi ‘properly’ for the first time. The pair should generally be the 6/7th students protag bumps into. (me replaying and going ‘lol Tsumugi makes herself the first not Shuichi person Kaede should canonically meet by the placements’) Get used to Kokichi, a massive amount of Keebo’s dialogue is with, in response of, or directed at him, and this introduction is a testament to that. You meet them mid interaction!

Kokichi- Heeey! Wait for meee!

That boy in white is chasing that other boy in the funny clothes... What's happening here?

Great opening robot. You spend most of the time lonely but the first we see of you is running away from someone. (It’s an interesting difference to how he reacts to Kaede/Shuichi in their first FTEs.) That, and apparently Kaede doesn’t peg Keebo as a robot here. Shuichi says he’s ‘chasing somebody’, so he might have noticed.

Kokichi: C’mooon! Wait up! Lemme touch your body a little! I've always wanted to be friends with a robot! Kaede: What? A robot!? K1-B0: ...What is it? Are you another robophobe? I have a recording function. If you make any robophobic remarks, I will see you in court.

keebs you don’t have the money to take anything to court but we’ll let you keep that delusion ok. and you’re probably legally counted as property In fairness, the robot lad is not making the best first impression! Kokichi is kinda childish by just assuming he should get to touch the robot, but he is genuinely interested at this point. It’s easy to read this as Keebo being too touchy. He’s sensitive about that being a robot is the ONLY thing you care about. So Kokichi wanting to be friends with a robot and being grabby...well there he goes getting defensive. (and it turns out he probably has reasons to not like grabby hands. kaede)

Kaede: Wait...you're a robot!? Are you, for reals, a robot!? Shuichi: A-Are you...one of the Monokubs— K1-B0: Do not compare me to those toys! I am not just any old robot!

Keebo is completely justified here, visually he isn’t even close to a Monokub or an Exisal, and lacks a split two tone theme. Would you want to be compared to a Monokub? No. No you would not. He’s also showing at bit of that pride here, calling them ‘toys’, though they do seem as capable as thinking as he is. (keebo is also a robophobe oh no.)

Oh look it’s the reason you have SO MANY NAMES. Some people prefer the ‘Kiibo’ shortening, but all the screenshots are going to say Keebo so we’re gonna be consistent. We are never going to see another character refer to him as K1-B0, but everything interface wise will call him this. We might not think you’re a person, but we’ll use your preferred name no problem. probably because k1-b0 is a mouthful

Kaede: A robot and...supreme leader? Neither of them make any sense. Kokichi: By the way, I learned the hard way that a robot's breath smells like gasoline. K1-B0: My breath does not smell like gasoline! I am powered by electricity! Kokichi: Nee—heehee...I'm just kidding. K1-B0: ...You're not funny. Kokichi: Of course you don't think I'm funny. Robots can't understand human humor to begin with! K1-B0: D-Don't mock me! I have studied the complete history of stand-up comedy!

Things we learn: These two are weird. That, and Keebo is kind of terrible at interacting with people. He takes the lie/joke at face value, hesitates when corrected that it is a joke (But doesn’t go saying ROBOPHOBIA this time). and each time he’s responding he’s trying to prove something. The little stammer seems like Keebo knows he’s bad at it but darn it he’s going to tell you about the things he can do. Like study stand-up comedy. (Poorly)

Kaede: I think you should've just watched stand-up comedy instead of studying it... K1-B0: Plus, I may have the appearance of a robot, but I am a high school student just like you Shuichi: You're a high school student? K1-B0: I was created by Professor Idabashi, the leading authority in the field of robotics... He installed in me a "strong AI," capable of learning and maturing like a human brain. That's why, at the time of my creation, I didn't know anything. I was like a baby... But the professor raised me like I was his own child. He taught me so many things... Until finally, he enrolled me in high school. And now I stand here before you all! See? I’m just like everyone else! Kokichi: Hey, do robots have dicks? K1-B0: Please do not ask ridiculous questions! Kokichi: Nee-heehee... I only asked because your backstory is pretty flaccid for a robot. Kaede: Well, I can see how being a robot might be enough to be called the Ultimate Robot...

Keebs loves talking about himself, this like the longest intro block of text. Then the justification to why Keebo is Pretty Garbage at fitting in! He speaks rather formally and uses contractions less often than he could and spends a lot of time clarifying things you could probably assume. His entire life up to this point he’s basically been home schooled by a leading robotics expert from scratch, and we don’t even know for how long. He doesn’t mention any other people, and even via FTEs and Salmon mode he never refers to having any other close relations or friends. (This isn’t uncommon for most of the cast there isn’t a ton of FTE time to bring up things that don’t matter, but they’ll usually MENTION other people/activities that you could reasonably assume would involve others.) He says he was raised ‘like his own child’ but Keebo might have zero actual context to what a family relationship looks like! Kaede’s mental crack nudges at this, maybe our robot friend ‘knows’ what something is, but has he actually experienced it? Is he just assuming his experience is ‘close enough’ to whatever he was taught? We don’t know! For all we know Keebo has only been operational for like three years. He’s incredibly aware he’s a robot, he doesn’t use words like born and always clarifies he was like a baby or a child, but not literally so. So constantly being reminded like he doesn’t already know that might be annoying for him. Really he’s asking for respect and to be treated like an equal...but he’s expressing it by saying he’s the same as everyone. Also: We’re just meeting him and we’ve already got two people going ‘this is a disappointing robot’. Kaede doesn’t even think he’s much of an Ultimate right now, and we all know Kokichi’s thoughts :v This trend will continue.

Kaede: Hey... Everything he's said so far has sounded like a lie, so that's gotta be a lie too, right? K1-B0: Just leave him alone. Everything he has been saying has been a lie. ...He's a far more suspicious person than I am, that's for sure. Kokichi: Well, of course you're not a suspicious person, because robots aren't people, silly. K1-B0: Grgh...! Kokichi: Oh, you mad? Are you gonna hit me with a rocket punch? K1-B0: I don't have that function! Kokichi: Aw maaan, you’re boring.

Keebo will use ‘person’ to describe himself! Never human. It’s likely the main conflict he’s having is having a different definition for ‘personhood’ than most of his fellow classmates. If you’re into marine life, you might know about how dolphins and whales seem intelligent enough that considering them ‘non human persons’ was/is bandied about sometimes, and the whole issue with that is well, we’re humans. Everything we judge is going to related to the human experience. (National Geographic had a neat article on the topic in 2015 I think?) Keebo is not coming from that experience. He knows he can think and feel like all the others, so of course if he needs a word, it’s ‘person’. Note how he doesn’t actually argue back when Kokichi says he isn’t one. They’re both ‘right’ in a sense, even if Keebo clearly doesn’t like it.

K1-B0: I may have the appearance of a robot, but I am a high school student just like you. From one high school student to another, I hope we can all get along! Kokichi: Who creates a robot without a rocket punch? Why do you even exist?

Yes, even in post conversation dialogue Kokichi comes along for the ride. Here Keebo goes trying to use ‘high school student’ as a describer instead of person since he is undeniably a student. The fact he flips from being proud of what he is to downplaying the fact he’s a robot is pretty interesting and the first look at the difficulty he’s going to be having. Fitting in=Respect. While Kokichi is digging for more info, but Keebo doesn’t elaborate or react to the repeated rocket punch reference :v Shuichi and Kaede only comment on Kokichi in the post dialogue, so nothing to add from them.

Then we get to the gym. Kaede chastises Himiko for being lazy and then Keebo decides to add his thoughts. With an apology. This boy can’t decide if he has all the confidence or none of it.

K1-B0: Pardon me, but...we need to be on our guard. We do not know if and when danger will strike. Kokichi: D-don’t say that... I’m so scared... I don’t know what to do... Angie: There is no need to worry. Atua will protect us. Kokichi: Phew! That’s a relief!

oh look a Keebo line immediately followed by a Kokichi one i wonder if this will be a trend. Kokichi points out that Keebo phrased ‘uh we might be in danger’ rather poorly with his little emotion flip flop. We know that Keebo means it in the best way possible, he wants the best for everyone, but it’s unnecessary. Yes, nothing has happened, but they all know they’ve been kidnapped by weird colourful bears. Are you restating for the audience at home Keebs? (...he could be. Inner voice is a fun can of worms. we’ll get to that.) He doesn’t speak again until the killing game is announced.

Tenko: W—Wait a second. What did you say? K1-B0: I-If I heard him correctly— Monodam: KILLING-GAME

There he goes taking someone completely literally. Then not even getting to finish his sentence because Monodam cuts him off. The Monokubs do their jabroni throwdown thing annnnd Tsumugi: In a situation like this, is he just going to watch!? K1-B0: Either way, it's too dangerous! We need to get out of here or else— Monokuma: Now, now, now... Kaede: What? Monokuma: My cute little cubs... You gotta knock off this awful fighting...

Cutting off other robots is apparently a family trait, because Monokuma does it here too! The fact Keebo is instantly suggesting running also shows he’s not really the aggressive sort. When you see his profile image in the Monopad you might think he’d be a scary sort of fighter bot. Buuuutnope. The Monobear gang do their chattering/properly introduce Monokuma

Maki: Headmaster? K1-B0: It appears to be some sort of autonomous robot with a built-in A.l., like me... Monotaro: Dong dong dong! The Exisals are different, though! They're brainless buckets of bolts!

He does recognize Monokuma/kubs as similar to himself here instead of continuing on with the current question of ‘how is this thing a headmaster of anything’. Keebo would probably be the expert on this, but no one asked. Time and place for information is also something Keebo is terrible at :v Monokuma: It's just...when I said it before, I kinda just phoned it in and now I feel awkward... I want you students with your Ultimate-level talents to participate in a killing game. Kaede: K-Killing game? Us? K1-B0: Please stop joking! Why would we agree to participate in a killing game!? Monokuma: Huh? You guys don't wanna do it?

‘Maybe he’s joking like Kokichi was earlier!’ Sorry robot friend, Monokuma is not joking. Keebs cares about death, even if reasonably he could be as ‘replaceable’ as Monokuma (Though we sort of know he isn’t based on Tsumugi’s mentioning that she’s glad he ‘made it to the end’.) Keebo doesn’t comment again after this

He is the second to show up after Kaede in the into though! Considering he is a ‘protagonist’ (for the ‘real world’) that’s not too surprising, while Shuichi is hiding in the 5th spot, after Rantaro.

Chapter 1

ohboy here we go. With the entire cast alive, Keebs is very much a background character. What’s his first line as everyone is learning the rules of the killing game?

Tsumugi: But...we looked all over that wall and there wasn't a single hole. K1-B0: Now wait just a second. If there's no opening in the wall... Then how did we get inside these walls in the first place? Tsumugi: ...Oh, good point.

Correcting Tsumugi. No horrified reactions or anything, but oh That Isn’t Logical I Will Correct You. Especially in group settings, Keebo generally sticks to factual statements, unless he’s being goaded. Once again, he has nothing else to say after this! But before you have Gonta open the manhole cover, Keebo shows up in Kokichi’s dialogue if you talk to him. aka this is optional content.

Kokichi: Whoa, look at all these weeds. This place could definitely use a groundskeeper. Right, Kee—boy!? K1-B0: Why are you telling me that? Furthermore... I would prefer you address me as "Keebo." Kokichi: But you can pull weeds. Right, Kee-boy? K1-B0: I can do all sorts of things just as well as any person! Kokichi: As well as any person...? But...you're not a person. K1-B0: Th-That's discrimination... Robophobic discrimination...

I don’t have anything to say, time to hassle the robot is a pretty common tactic for Kokichi. He’s also the only one to nickname Keebo a second time. No one else will be calling him Keeboy. It’s curious how he pulls Keebo into this conversation, and how Keebo doesn’t really seem to know how to react to it and just tries to correct Kokichi about his name. We can add our second example of him actually going ‘robophobia’ to the list though :v He seems a bit offended that he’s being underestimated/having the suggestion floated that he can only pull weeds and basically does a low key brag about his abilities ‘all sorts of things’. In fairness, ‘as well as any person’ isn’t exactly a useful metric for ability. People vary a lot! Again he doesn’t deny that he ‘isn’t a person’, by going ‘robophobia’ he’s practically agreeing. If you talk to Keebo directly...

K1-B0: ...There is a monitor here, too. That aside, this is a rather remote location to install a communication device... K1-B0: ...lt's a pointless expenditure, wouldn't you agree?

He’s making observations about the area alone and trying to be useful by posing a question. That, and getting someone to agree with you is a decent tactic to becoming more friendly, and it’s a pretty easy thing to agree with... He’s not actually being useful, since we have no reason to care why Monokuma would make pointless expenditures, but he’s trying. This is also the most dialogue any single person has (Kurumi gets close, but only has one textbox to Keebo’s two.) Time to lift a manhole cover aaaannnnd

Angie: Awwww, this manhole cover looks heavy. Can we even lift it? K1-B0: I can try. Keebo placed his hands on the manhole cover, and with all his strength he—Grgh...! Grrrrrrrrrrrrgh...! How embarrassing. It won't even budge. Angie: Huhhh? A robot's not even strong enough to move it? K1-B0: Oh, don't worry. My physical strength is approximate to that of a strong senior citizen. Miu: Th-That's fuckin' pathetic! K1-B0: Th-The professor did not want a repeat of the tragedy that occurred during trial production. Tsumugi: Umm... Now I'm just plain curious about what happened during that trial...

Yes, the first time Miu ever interacts with Keebo, she calls him pathetic. :v His want to help overroad the common sense that he probably wouldn’t be able to lift it at all. It is also possible Kokichi’s comments made him want ho show he can do things. Even though he literally can’t do this. Tsumugi was very much me at this moment, going ‘wait explain that please’ but no one else really cares so he won’t be clarifying. The fact he just goes there was a tragedy in trial production and no one bats an eye is low key hilarious to me. He’s just so matter of fact about it. Gonta then makes the cover look like a paper plate.

Kokichi: But Gonta is sooo much more reliable than some bean—counting robot. K1-B0: Are you...talking about me? Because I can count many things, not just beans.

His objection is that he can count lots of stuff. Not that he’s a bean-counting robot, or less useful than Gonta. Keebo is adorable, okay. Keebo doesn’t speak again after this, meaning we’re back in optional dialogue time! This is right outside the death road of despair.

Miu: You're too weak, Keebo! Lemme remodel you and I'll make you the strongest robot ever! First, I'll soup up your crotch plate by installin' a nice, thick one, just how I like it! Hah-hahaha!

Miu is Miu. Keebo doesn’t respond to this! It is fun to see Miu’s already excited that there’s a robot around that isn’t evil to tinker with, but we don’t know how he feels about it for the moment. Her lab isn’t even open yet and she STILL is talking about remodling new robot pal :v (and yes i am putting down dialogue that relates to Keebo even if he doesn’t react/isn’t present for it. Knowing what the other characters think of him is important too.)

K1-B0: ...It's quite dusty in here. Prolonged exposure to this polluted air may be detrimental to one's health. Angie: Whaaat? Polluted air bothers you? But you don't even breathe air, right? K1-B0: W—Well, that is... While it's true that I do not breathe, I also do not like polluted air any more than you do. Kokichi: I see, you have a function for sensing poisonous gases! Well then, lead the way! K1-B0: N—No! I don't have that function! Do I look like a canary to you? Kokichi: Whaaat, you don't? Then you're even more useless than a canary! K1-B0: Grgh...

oh did you think he’d have a conversation without Kokichi. WRONG. Poor Keebo is already a bit flustered by being called out as different again when he was mostly just making an observation like he did upstairs. The whole not breathing thing is a pretty big difference and he’s instantly going I STILL DON’T LIKE IT, even though originally he might have just meant everyone’s health in general. Being able to sense poison gasses would probably be a helpful skill, and it’s a reasonable deduction...buuuut since he doesn’t have that it just gets to be an easy jab at him instead. The fact Keebo instantly goes for the canary comparison when as a robot he could be reasonably expected to not die because of the gasses is a bit odd, but sets him up wonderfully for a roast :v Keebo is one of the few that gets to ‘...’ at the death road failure, but doesn’t comment again until everyone is rallying themselves for another shot.

Tenko: My body is ready! You can tell by how outta control my pit sweat is! Kaede: E—Everyone! K1-B0: Isn’t it premature to say what we’ll do after we escape? Assumptions are all but useless. Kokichi: Geez, you're clueless... Why am I not surprised that a robot can't read the air? K1-B0: Robots can read the air! Thanks to innovations in pollutant-detecting technology, I— Kaito: Anyway, it doesn’t matter if Monokuma says it’s impossible! We’ll show him what we can do!

Kaito has joined the ‘people who cut off Keebo mid sentence’ club. Keebo is TERRIBLE at interacting. The question is probably genuine, logically they’re thinking too far ahead but like he’s told...now is not the time to be throwing reality in people’s faces Keebs. Or for desperately trying to prove yourself as able to read the air by completely misunderstanding what Kokichi is saying. he’s such a little disaster. i adore this silly robot. Once Kokichi calls Kaede out for ‘torturing’ everyone, K1-B0: Given the circumstance...the most logical course of action would be to give up...

No mentions of how he’s feeling. Just logic and trying to relate it to facts. I assume he expects feelings to be ignored so he sticks to facts for that reason...but that’s just my reading. He does it again when Rantaro speaks up.

Rantaro: Hey, guys? Just...as a warning...We shouldn’t let our guards down. We’ll be easy targets at night. Gonta: C-Cuz of killing game, you mean? K1-B0: I see no need to worry about something as illogical as murder taking place here. Rantaro: I know, I know. Just a warning.

Even though he says there’s no need to worry, he’s absolutely sporting a worried sprite. Yet he goes for saying it’s illogical for murder to be taking place. He can’t see any way doing such a thing would be justified at the moment, and you can see Keebo is a bit of a stickler for things ‘making logical sense’. When he’s not just taking the advice of a voice in his head anyway. We don’t hear from him again until the next morning in the dining hall.

Korekiyo: Now...all of us have arrived. Kehehe...I'm glad. It looks as though there were no victims. K1-B0: But of course! Kokichi: By the way...are you okay, Kaede? Kaede: Huh? What do you mean? Kokichi: Well...you looked pretty bummed out after everyone started blaming you yesterday. Tsumugi: H-Hey... What are you doing all of— Kokichi: Seriously, you guys are so mean. Poor girl... She tried her best to encourage everyone, and you sore losers got mad at her anyway. K1-B0: What's the point of bringing that up again? Tenko: Actually...didn’t *you* blame Kaede first?

Oh look, Keebo’s being positive. Since everyone lived and he can confidently say that now. He’s also showing that Understanding Kokichi For Dummies was not in his hard drive, but he is trying to figure him out a little. Why did you bring it up? They don’t know, because Tenko gives him an easy out here. Not that he was likely going to answer anyway, but hey! A direct question! Which he follows up on after the rest of the class squabbles about it here..

Kokichi: Phew, cool beans! Now everything’s settled! K1-B0: ...But you did blame her first, didn't you? Kokichi: Well, that was a lie. Y'know, one of those lies to make us more united or whatever. Did you know half my lies are actually told with good intentions? Himiko: Now *that* sounds like a lie.

Kokichi actually answers! Genuinely, no less, even though he’s already got his lying reputation by this point. Kokichi is surprisingly up front with Keebo a decent chunk of the time, even if most of the time it’s just His Opinion On The Robot. Maybe he knows no one’s gonna take anything he says to Keebo very seriously now that he’s laid out the constant mockery groundwork. and then monokuma shows up

Maki: ...Motivation to kill? Monokuma: In short, a motive! That oughta add some mystery to the proceedings! Even if a killer is exposed, they could whip up a sob story to deceive everyone! K1-B0: Wh-What are you saying? Your logic is impossible to understand...! Monokuma: I will now announce the first motive! Make sure you record this moment for prosperity! Now then, the special motive I’ve prepared is called the First Blood Perk! Wow! For the first murder that occurs, no class trial will be held! Can you believe it? That means the first one to kill someone will get to graduate, no strings attached! Maki: No class trial will be held? Monokuma: I'm sorry that I made the class trial seem more important than it really is... So for the first murder, I've decided not to hold a class trial at all. Please just relax, calm down and kill! After all, the first one’s free! Miu: Huh? That's all!? We just gotta kill someone to get outta here!? K1-B0: "That's all"!? What's that supposed to mean!? Please just calm down! Tenko: First Blood Perk!? Don't make it sound like some kind of game show bonus!

Keebo is super anti-murder, though it’s sort of funny how his plea to Miu is very close to Monkuma’s own wording to ‘just calm down’. He doesn’t understand why you’d want to kill someone or make someone kill another, and seems genuinely surprised someone would do it based on how he reacts to Miu here. Leaving is not a justifiable reason to murder for Keebo, and we get that fact pretty fast. Then he just watches until Kaito gets himself in trouble by threatening Monokuma.

Monosuke: Youse bastards better pay attention! This is what happens when you mess with us! Kaito: Wh...what? What are you guys planning to do? K1-B0: P-Please, don't! Kaede: Run, Kaito!

More pleading to reconsider, because watching people die is Not Fun. Asking the Monokubs to not do something over encouraging Kaito is a bit notable though, no one really tries to reason with them. Keebo might not like them, or like being compared to them, but still seems to think they might be able to be reasoned with. They are AIs like him after all...and he doesn’t remark on anything after Monotaro messes up and crushes Monokuma either. I wonder if watching Monokuma die bothered him at all. (I think it might have, on the walk to the library Shuichi takes Kaede on, Keebo is one of the few characters that isn’t around to talk to.) You don’t see him again until the next morning where he’s hanging out near the main entrance.

K1-B0: Good morning, Kaede. Kaede: Morning, Keebo. K1-B0: Everyone appears to have gathered at the dining hall again. Kaede: Yup, looks like it. K1-B0: I'm thinking about heading over there as well, but... ... Kaede: But? K1-B0: Oh, nothing. I was just wondering...when someone is going to come rescue us. It's been almost a full day since Monokuma was dispatched, but our situation hasn't changed. I'm just speculating, but what if... ...only Monokuma knew about this place? What if this location is not on any map? What if...no one is coming to rescue us? Kaede: Huh? K1-B0: Maybe...we'll just be forgotten, and no one will ever find us again... Kaede: D-Don’t say that! Besides, we should be trying to escape, not waiting for someone to rescue us! K1-B0: Y-Yes...I apologize. I was overthinking things. It would be impossible to discreetly construct a facility such as this in the first place. Plus, if the professor knew I was missing, he would not rest until he found me. With his technology, he would rescue us! No matter where on earth this place is! Kaede: Yeah... K1-B0: On the other hand...it *has* only been one day. As much as we'd love to go home right now, we must wait in a calm, dignified manner! (you need to talk to him a second time to get this line)

This poor boy has thought himself into a tizzy and is looking to Kaede for some of that positive thinking that he’s not super great at. He goes from ‘good morning’ to ‘oh it’s nothing but I’m worried we’ll never be found :v’ in two seconds flat. Keebo DOESN’T SLEEP. He’s probably been overthinking all night! He has no trouble finding reasons to not worry once Kaede shakes him out of it, and once again shows us he thinks a great deal about the professor who made him. Look at him going all ‘we must wait calmly’ like it wasn’t just him having a miniature breakdown there. Keebs is fond of ‘we’. Not a shock, since Fitting In and being part of the group is kinda big deal for him. At breakfast he’s taken the whole ‘don’t worry’ thing to heart.

Gonta: But...when someone coming to get us? K1-B0: Whoever does...I assume they will come today. There's no need to worry. Rantaro: ...

he’s probably a bit over positive in thinking they’ll be rescued in a single day after Monokuma’s demise though. Logically they’re going to be saved, therefore it should be quick. Keebo kinda runs down bad logic paths like this to extremes instead of staying a middle ground. there’s levels between we’re all gonna be stuck forever and rescue today keebo.

Monokuma: After dying in a tragic car accident, I've been reborn as a Yo-Kai! Call me Jibakuma, kuma! K1-B0: Jibakuma...? Monokuma: From now on, I'm the headmaster of the Ultimate Academy, kuma! You might feel uncomfortable at first, but eventually you'll get used to it.

Keebo’s the only one to even sort of play along. Considering he has everyone call him something other that his name, I can see him continuing to use ‘Jibakuma’ if Monokuma had kept up the bit for more than ten seconds :v audience stand in keebs always on standby if a bit is falling flat for the other participants. Next motive gets given, Kubs do their shitk with the one of a kind thing and Kaede: Of course! We never left! K1-B0: Why are you doing this!? How much suffering do you want to put us through!? Monokuma: I see... Well, if you're suffering, you all better hurry up and start the killing game. Puhuhu... then you can say bye-bye to the suffering.

monokuma is directly answering the audience at this point I swear. Keebs does do a decent amount of the ‘obvious protag questions’...it is kinda his job. It’s interesting in hindsight. Bears leave, panic happens.

Kaito: W-We can’t panic about something like this. I’ll...do something about it. K1-B0: ...Did you have a course of action in mind? Kaito: I'm...gonna start thinking of one right now!

Kaito is so salty about Keebo pointing out he has no actual plan that he doesn’t invite him to the ‘fight Monokuma’ meeting on the final day. (or doesn’t trust a robot/think he’d help after the manhole debacle.) Keebs, once again bringing down the mood with reality/ genuine questions he doesn’t think through very well. (And honestly Kaito’s whole believing in people thing is inherently illogical, so they don’t really see eye to eye...) They then discuss fighting back.

Ryoma: You're going to go against those machines barehanded? Isn't that too reckless? Tenko: B-But...we have to do it! If we don't, we'll die! K1-B0: Wait! We still have plenty of time to calculate all possible options— Korekiyo: We’ve no time to be indecisive. We are being urged to make a decision... To die fighting... Or die from the time limit.

That’s four members of the cut Keebo off club. :v Keebo might react in the moment, but when it comes to making a plan? Yeah he’d rather take the time to think over everything, but apparently that’s not an option here so he gets trampled over.

Kaede: Miu! You better not do anything shady, okay!? K1-B0: There is no need to worry, is there? No one is going to...kill anyone, right? Himiko: If someone is going to kill, they should just go for the robot. K1-B0: That's even worse!

It really isn’t Keebo’s day. Korekiyo goes right into talking about ‘why does everyone think killing is wrong’ here, no one goes ‘hey maybe don’t threaten the robot’. Poor guy hesitates to even say kill and then gets told he should die first and no one stands up for him. being keebo is suffering. People start leaving and Rantaro starts being Mysterious

Kaede: Ultimate Hunt? What is that...? I've never heard of it. K1-B0: What about it? Rantaro: ...Nothing, forget it.

Curious robot is curious. That and is doing the whole protag thing again by following on weird unanswered questions, not that it goes anywhere this time. When you talk to him after Rantaro leaves, he’s still thinking about it.

K1-B0: That Ultimate Hunt Rantaro mentioned...what do you suppose it is? ...Any theories, Kaede? Kaede: I don't know... It's the first time I've heard of it... K1-B0: It sounds so...violent. It sounds like it involves us somehow...No, disregard that. Nobody has any clue what it could mean, so it is illogical to continue thinking about it. Our more pressing concern...is the current predicament we find ourselves in. Kaede: Yeah, you're right... K1-B0: We have until nighttime, two days from now... What should we do until then? (once again you need to talk to him a second time for this line.)

He’s pretty much on the right track, but dismisses it before he can drop into that overthinking spiral he was doing earlier in the day, and decides to refocus on the current problem, probably trying to be helpful again. Yet again, reason why is ‘it’s illogical’ to keep worrying about it. Of course, he doesn’t actually have any ideas here. Logic can only take you so far Keebs. He has nothing else to contribute until Free Time. If you chat to him in the first time slot...

K1-B0: A killing game... Why are we being forced to do such a thing? I cannot believe we're being subjected to this purely for the entertainment value!

Keebo has apparently found the script and read chapter six. oknotreally, he’s clearly basing this off the fact it’s called a game and Monokuma basically answered his ‘why are you doing this’ with ‘lolcuzican’, and can’t accept this as a valid reason. Yet he’s not gonna get another one! In time slot two he’s hanging out at the gym

K1-B0: I'm tired of everyone's prejudices! Yes, I'm a robot. But I'm also a high school student like everyone else, you know!?

Himiko literally said kill him first, I think he’s allowed to be a bit miffed about being treated differently. He’s still not arguing that he’s not different, but wants to be treated the same way the others are in ways they can be. sadly for Keebs he is this game’s easy target and he will not be getting a break ever and he needs a hug. Instead we’re going to make a mockery of him again when Shuichi recruits Kaede for operation ‘Get Miu to Make Stuff For Us’ as go near the Casino area.

Kaede: Morning Keebo. K1-B0: Ah, good morning. Your timing is impeccable. I have something I wish to ask you both. Shuichi: Huh? What is it, Keebo? K1-B0: What are your thoughts on this door? No matter how hard I try, it will not open... Kaede: Um, well...it doesn't seem like an exit... K1-B0: What do you think is on the other side of this wall? Kokichi: Why don’t you fly over and see for yourself? K1-B0: Whoa—!? Shuichi: K-Kokichi!? Kokichi: C’mon! I wanna see you fly! Robots have jet packs or whatever under their feet, right? K1-B0: ... Kokichi: Whaaat? You...don’t...? K1-B0: ...No, I don't. Kokichi: ...Have a dick? K1-B0: Wh-What are you talking about!? Kokichi: Oh yeah! If you had a jet pack... then you could've flown over the wall and called for help! K1-B0: ... Kokichi: Geeeez! You're just a huge disappointment, Keebo! K1-B0: ... Kaede: K-Keebo? K1-B0: ...I’m fine. Please just let it be. I...don't like sci-fi functions like flight. Kaede: But aren't you already pretty sci-fi? K1-B0: ... Kaede: Um...it might be better to leave them alone...

Oh look a big semi important conversation. Keebo’s just asking questions again, he seems to put a lot of importance on what other people think over what he personally does. (he listens to a voice in his head that he knows isn’t himself. listening to other people first is probably preprogramed into him so he’s more malleable >> You can also take it as having a lot of doubts about himself.) Of course, neither Kaede or Shuichi can have any more idea than he does about the wall and what’s beyond it, but he’s asking anyway! Then Kokichi shows up and completely redirects the conversation to Keebo’s abilities again. And robot just can’t follow this! He knows he’s going to disappoint Kokichi ability wise again and clams up instead of stating yes or no clearly here, it takes a second nudge to get an answer. Honestly it reads like he feels bad that the reason he can’t fly is because of something he personally doesn’t like, so he’s unable to help again. He just assures Kaede he’s fine and then clams up again. He’s probably not fine! Like Kaede thinks, Keebo is..pretty sci-fi on his own, but he’s not elaborating on why he doesn’t like that sort of thing. It makes him stand out too much, it makes him less ‘like everyone else’ is probably a safe bet though. And all of this is completely missable dialogue :v In free time slot three he’s in the B classroom alone.

K1-B0: ...Tsumugi just asked me if I can perform a "rocket punch." Why does everyone automatically assume that robots have a rocket punch function!? I don't have a violent function like that!

it’s a common robot trope, but keebo doesn’t know this, apparently. But hey, bonus reafirrming that Keebo would consider rocket punching violent, and probably doesn’t have any other similar features. Nor does he want any. (For now.) In time slot 4, the final one...

K1-B0: ...At this rate, the time limit will expire before we know it. We must take action somehow...

He’s worried again! That, and still using ‘we’. Killing someone and only looking out for himself isn’t an option here. He does have good reason to be worried though, if you swing on by to talk to Himiko at this time... Himiko: The time limit is tomorrow night... Maybe...we should kill the robot? Kaede: That's just a joke...right?

seriously himiko you’re a jerk. I get it, you’re magic and he’s all science and wouldn’t buy a magic trick for a second but you have seen him around for a few days now and are just calling him ‘the robot’ and saying someone should kill him! For the second time! At least he’s not in the room this time but come on! Himiko clearly has a division between human life and Keebo’s life, and she’s going to stay that way, Which, fair enough, a human can value human life over other forms of life (and guess what we usually do) but...he’s literally sitting and talking with you guys and in the exact same boat. He’s closer to human than a lot of things... After this free time we don’t see him at all until it’s corpse time. So I’ll throw down his Kaede FTEs now. With all the options. As I’m nuts.

K1-B0: If you have come to talk to me...that can only mean you are interested in me, right Kaede? I certainly do not mind. After all, I am the Ultimate Robot. Naturally, I will attract interest. Kaede: Yeah, I've never talked to such a human-like robot before... Well, any robot, really. Hey, if you don't mind... Can I ask you a question? K1-B0: By all means, ask me anything. Oh, but I cannot answer any questions about the technology used to create me. Kaede: Don't worry, I won't ask anything too difficult! Okay, first question...do you sleep at night? K1-B0: I have no need for sleep. However, it is necessary to recharge my power cells. Kaede: Oh, so you recharge! K1-B0: Yes, but I am still conscious while I recharge, so it's not quite the same as human sleep...A single charge generates a week's worth of power, so I don't need to do it very often. Kaede: Ooh, for one week, I see... I always assumed robots needed a lot of electricity. K1-B0: That's what's so incredible about me! My energy efficiency is truly incomparable! Kaede: Hmmm... K1-B0: ...That's it? Kaede: Huh? Was he expecting me to be more excited? To be honest, it's not *that* amazing... May I ask you another question, then? K1-B0: Yes, go ahead... Kaede: Do you eat? K1-B0: ...No... Kaede: Huh? He looks pretty down... Sorry, did I say something wrong? K1-B0: No, I'm sorry too...Though I cannot eat, food still looks delicious to me. The unfairness of it all pains me... Kaede: Yeah, that seems pretty rough. Do you like girls? K1-B0: ...Huh? Kaede: Are you attracted to human girls? Or do you prefer female robots? K1-B0: Are you suggesting...that robots should stick with their own kind? Kaede: I didn't mean it like that! I was just curious! Honest! K1-B0: Then...are you saying...that you...and me...? Kaede: Th-That's not it, either! K1-B0: ...Of course. I apologize for being overly self-conscious. I have never felt romantic attraction, so I cannot answer questions on that subject. Kaede: How do you feel about the Roomba? K1-B0: You mean...the disc-shaped cleaning robot that scoots along the floor Kaede: Yeah, that! Do you see them as, like, younger siblings or something? K1-B0: ...Kaede, it's very robophobic to suggest that robots are only good for cleaning. You should know that I am completely different from that simple machine. Kaede: But you guys are basically the same, more or less...so I was just wondering K1-B0: That does not matter. If I am comparable to a human, that thing is comparable to a microbe. Kaede: But compared to Roombas, you're losing in the popularity department. K1-B0: Why, that's—! Kaede: I'm kidding! Really! K1-B0: Krgh...! Human jokes are rather vexing...! Kaede: I continued to ask Keebo some questions... Well, that's all! Thanks for answering them, Keebo! K1-B0: Yes, of course...You're the first person to ask me so many questions, one after the other. Kaede: Oh! Was I being too forward? K1-B0: No, that's not what I meant. I just thought......being treated like that isn't so bad. It's actually...kind of fun.

hooboy that’s a lot. Robot is just looking for some validation and is not gonna get it in the ways he thinks he should! One week battery life is incredibly impressive but Kaede sure doesn’t think so, or care to know why that is. She is pretty nice though, overall. Oh and the fact Keebo has a built in company secrets thing is kinda funny. Maybe that’s why he’s garbage with computers, he can’t blab if he doesn’t know jack :v. Mostly we just reconfirm that Keebo is pretty bad at talking to people and probably hasn’t met all that many. He also takes the ‘liking girl’s question really badly and backpedals into being offended when really he just doesn’t have an answer at all. Since he doesn’t know what love is. He actually apologizes for freaking out here, so apparently getting touchy is just his default reaction. :p You can see when he actually has time to explain why he doesn’t like a thing he’ll actually do so, and seems more reasonable when he can. Of course he doesn’t like being compared to something that scoots along, doesn’t think and cleans. They’re both robots, but really not on the same level...and Keebo isn’t quite sure how he’s going to handle that. He says it’s rude to say they’re only good for cleaning...but you can kind of tell he mostly means in relation to himself/robots as intelligent as he is. So instead he just sounds weird and inconsistent...and robophobic himself considering he thinks he’s better than other robots :v Even if it is a joke...Kaede is probably right about the roombas being more popular than Keebs. Also who the heck made him think food looks good when he can’t eat. That’s just mean.

Kaede’s blurb about him for the FTE is pretty positive too, when you see Shuichi’s they’re quite different. (Though their rank one FTEs are INCREDIBLY SIMILAR. because this is how Keebo introduces himself to people. By assuming they want to know about him and flailing. aka terribly. this poor robot. he’s probably only met other people interested in robotics before now.) So we move to FTE 2, where Kaede shows she’s an impulsive little imp when she wants to be!

Kaede: I'm chatting with Keebo again today, but... K1-B0: ...Kaede, is something troubling you? Kaede: N-No! It's nothing. To be honest, something's been bothering me, and I can't really focus on our conversation.There's a button on Keebo's neck... What does it do? It's calling out to me... I wanna push the button! *thud* K1-B0: Hm? What was that sound? Kaede: Whatever that sound was, it occurred at the exact right time...Because when Keebo turned around, his neck was completely defenseless...Oh, god! The button is like screaming, "Don't push me! Don't push me!" But I'm definitely gonna push the button! *click!*

(great job you broke him kaede. they do a ... back and forth like five times, just stare at it for a bit.) No reaction...? Keebo!? I called his name and circled around him... K1-B0: ... Kaede: Whaaaaat!? Keebo was completely frozen! Like a toy out of batteries...M-Maybe that was the emergency stop button!? Wh-What should I do!? Maybe if I push it again, it'll fix him...? Hoping that was the case, I pressed the button again. *click!* K1-B0: ... Kaede: ... K1-B0: Wha—!? Kaede, why are you in front of me? Weren't you behind me earlier? A-And why are you so close to me? Kaede: I-I'm so glad... You're back to normal... K1-B0: Huh? What do you mean? Kaede: U-Um...well, I noticed a button on your neck, so I pushed it K1-B0: What—!? You discovered this button!? Kaede: I-I'm so sorry! It was tempting me! Was that the emergency stop button? K1-B0: ...Yes. It's there just in case my AI or essential functions encounter problems. Kaede: I didn't know you had such a function... K1-B0: Kaede...you know my secret now... Kaede: I-If it's a secret, then you should've hid it better! K1-B0: But what good is an emergency button that cannot be easily found in an emergency? Kaede: But there are people who might push it for fun...like me... K1-B0: ...That's true. I will forward your feedback to the professor when we get out of here. Kaede: Yeah, good idea... K1-B0: But...Kaede, that means you will have influenced my design. Which means you will have played a role in my creation. Kaede: Huh? You're exaggerating. K1-B0: It's no exaggeration. If Professor Idabashi can be considered my "father"...Then you, Kaede, will be my "mother." So I shall call you mom. Kaede: M-M-Mom!? What!? K1-B0: ...That was a joke. Kaede: U-Um... K1-B0: It's payback for messing with my body. You deserve at least that much. Kaede: Ha...hahaha... I'm so sorry, Keebo. A robot making a joke... That's pretty cool. The title of Ultimate Robot really suits him. K1-B0: Um, Kaede... Do you think you can keep that button a secret from everyone? Kaede: Yeah, don't worry. Kokichi definitely can't find out about his button. That would be a huge problem...

Keebo spends a good chunk of his own FTE completely frozen up :v That, and Keebo has this collar covering nearly all of his neck and half of his face! How did you get to it? Or are you calling the collar his neck. He’s probably had to deal with literally getting his buttons pushed before, but Kaede does apologize so he seems more okay with it than he’d usually be. (Really as long as you say sorry he’s generally okay...he wants you to like him.) Also, having that button probably isn’t a ton of fun, even if it’s important. He was completely unaware of what happened and a bit disoriented because of it. Yet he still has time to defend the professor about the placement of the stop button. (As I seriously doubt he had any say in where it is, Kaede! Don’t go pushing random buttons on people!) The fact he gets back at her with an attempt at a joke this time is pretty cute, considering he just previously said jokes are difficult for him. He’s learning! That and the fact both of them instantly go ‘Kokichi must never know’ is just ‘yes, hilarious.’ He’s pretty lucky she keeps it secret and no one else finds out. As an aside, Kaede can ask Rantaro what she thinks of people, and Keebo is an option.

Rantaro: Nah, it's nothing. By the way, who's the most...unique person here, in your eyes? Kaede: Keebo... Rantaro: Being a robot is interesting enough that his personality barely matters. But you know, I think Keebo is on our side... Kaede: What do you mean, on our side? Rantaro: Have you ever heard of the Three Laws of Robotics? The long and short of it is...robots can't harm people. If Keebo's creator was a good scientist, he would have programmed that into Keebo's AI. We're all human, so we can assume that he's on our side...Of course, I'm just guessing

He probably wouldn’t appreciate his personality not having to matter, but Rantaro basically seems to trust Keebo here. Because he’s a robot :v Unfortunately, he doesn’t trust him enough to let him in on the survivor perk thing...he probably would have lived if Keebo came along to his ill advised library search. It’s much harder to sneak up on two people with a shot putt ball. speaking of shot putt balls, time to get past the part where he dies. Since Keebs is hiding out his room, he gets summoned by the body discovery announcement.

He doesn’t get it, and understandably panics a little, and doesn’t really interact with anyone, they’re all doing their own expressions of dismay. Miu’s does come after his though. What finally gets him talking again? Being worried he won’t be much help.

Kirumi: Do not fret. Just imagine this as something out of a police drama or detective manga. Right, Shuichi? Shuichi: R-Right... K1-B0: I'm in trouble... I've never watched police dramas or read detective manga! Korekiyo: Well...there's no need to think so hard. We need only converse with the corpse... A corpse is not simply a dead person. That is just an assumption made by the living. Yes! By coming face to face with the corpse, you will learn a great many things! (yes that is it exactly.)

Really though, how long has Keebo been ‘alive’? He’s never so much as looked at entire genre even once? You had time for the entire history of stand up and didn’t look at detectives? Shuichi taking charge a little does get him a bit more positive though.

K1-B0: As novice investigators, logic dictates that we work together rather than give in to paranoia.

Teamwork makes the dream work :v He also goes ahead and does the protagonist thing again here.

Kaede: We’ll all escape from here! I’ll make sure of it! K1-B0: So, let's get started.

He’s the first one to say ‘okay let’s do the thing.’ He’s also the first to react when Kaede says...

Kaede: The mastermind killed Rantaro... K1-B0: ...Mastermind? I’m sorry, what are we talking about?

Asking clarifying questions is Keebo’s part time job at this rate. Most of the other characters have no idea what Kaede is going on about here! This exchange is ten times funnier when you know Kaede is actually right, Tsumugi’s sprite is on screen when she says this and everything. Keebo also trusts Monophanie at her word when it comes to developing the camera film.

K1-B0: And she said she had to follow the rules, so I don’t think she’d destroy evidence.

He doesn’t say how he thinks very often! Though in this case he’s probably speaking from experience...he’s a robot too, and might have rules he absolutely has to follow. (Such as not talking about how he was created.) Gonta is the other one who trusts her...but Gonta is kind of a sweetheart that trusts almost anyone so :v. Angie also sort of does? But really, the ones who trust are all in the ‘probably not taken seriously’ camp. He continues to be a team player during the investigation.

Kirumi: I do not intend to offer a suggestion that would further arouse suspicion, but... K1-B0: No, that's logical! Please speak your mind, Kirumi! Kaito: It's not something you should be proud to say... but I guess we don't have a choice. After all, if we don't find out who the culprit is, we'll all be killed.

Keebs with the logic train again, with Kaito there going ‘I Do Not Like’, seeing as it’s kinda hard to believe in your friends while suspecting them. He almost seems to be chastising Keebo here, since he’s unapologetically for the ‘stick in groups’ plan. Of course robot lad knows someone is dead, someone here had to have done it, taking all precautions therefore is only being sensible. In the investigation proper he hangs out in the classroom they kept watch in with Korekiyo, since he actually listens when they say stay in groups.

K1-B0: Kaede, Shuichi! I would like to ask you two a question! You were on lookout inside this classroom, right? Kaede: Yeah. From here, we could keep an eye on the basement, and it was close to the library, too. Shuichi: That’s our alibi. We were both in this classroom when the murder occurred. K1-B0: I see... Then the probability that you two committed the crime is extremely low... By the way...were you two together the entire time? Shuichi: No...I did leave for a bit to see what was happening in the basement. But besides that, we were together the whole time, until the receiver went off. Kaede: Y-Yeah, that's right... K1-B0: ...I understand. Thank you very much. Kaede: Is that all you wanted to ask? K1-B0 Oh, may I ask you one more question? Specifically, about that vent... It appears to be connected to this classroom. The air duct in the basement hallway leads to it... Shuichi: Yes, I was also concerned about this vent... That’s why we kept watch in this classroom. Kaede: Because the culprit wouldn't be able to use this vent if we're in here on lookout. K1-B0: Under those circumstances, it would be difficult to sneak into the library from here. Shuichi: Kaede stacked up books in front of the library vent as well. With those in the way, it would be even harder for someone to go in and out. K1-B0: Really? I will be sure to save that important piece of information to my memory bank. I hope my line of questioning has not offended either of you. It is necessary, so that we may find the truth. Kaede: Keebo, you totally sounded like a detective or a lawyer just now! Oh! Maybe you were a detective or a lawyer in a past life!

Keebo does not appreciate your absolute nonsense Kaede. Even if you’re meaning it as a complement. He’s trying pretty hard, noticing the vent and asking for alibis and trying to puzzle out what happened. He is of course, pretty wrong about these two being unlikely culprits for being here since he hasn’t considered how the murder occurred, but he’s already admitted to not being good at this. He even apologizes for being rude, he’s so worried about making people not like him! Yet he still gets prickly about the robot thing, but really Kaede should we be talking about past lives when there’s a smashed avocado downstairs at this very moment?

Kaede: Hey Keebo, what were you doing and where during the body discovery announcement? K1-B0: Ah... My alibi. ... ... (we get his glitching out sprite here :v) Kaede: ...Um, are you glitching right now? K1-B0: No, I'm just searching for the right words. In all honesty I was alone in my room, so I admit my alibi is not altogether reliable... Kaede: So...you don't have an alibi? K1-B0: But Ryoma said he was alone in his room, too. Kaede: Geez, way to throw him under the bus K1-B0: Huh!? Th-That was not my intention! Kaede: But I see... Both Keebo and Ryoma don't have an alibi... That means, it's possible one of those two is the mastermind... K1-B0: Umm... Am I under suspicion because I don't have an alibi? Kaede: No... I won't suspect you just because you don't have an alibi. And I’m not saying that because you’re a robot or anything! I’m not robophobic at all! K1-B0: Thank you very much. But...you don't need to be so PC.

Don’t throw Ryomas under busses. Though this is more of ‘I’m stating a fact’ and not really thinking how that comes off again. Well, really you should be under suspicion Keebo, but Kaede already knows who the culprit is and is trying to make you feel better since you’re clearly anxious about it. So she leans into your weak point...and you tell her it’s fine and she doesn’t need to do that. Now is that because her outright saying she not a robophobe makes you feel silly, or are you so worried about inconveniencing your friends you’re just automatically downgrading the importance of your feelings? keebo doesn’t know what he wants. So who’s the one to ask the protagonist about the last bit of evidence they get?

K1-B0: ...Kaede! Are those the developed photos?

zero points for guessing designated audience insert. I have a question and wish to ask it is just how he rolls, especially early on when everyone needs time to talk.

K1-B0: There is one more photo of the front entrance, correct?

as you see. A+ for consistency.

Kaede: The camera pointed at the front entrance only snapped these four photos... K1-B0: Neither Rantaro nor anyone else who could be the culprit are in the photos... Ryoma: Did they both enter through the back door, then?

Adding his two cents, though he’s basically stating the obvious. Hmm. Is it really his two cents when he’s just making factual comments? Ryoma’s the one who actually moves the thought to the next question that needs to be answered.

Ryoma: Could the culprit have gone into the hidden door? K1-B0: Yes, that is a possibility. Korekiyo: For now, let us see the next picture. There is one remaining, isn't there?

Validating other people’s assumptions but not adding any of his own here.

Shuichi: But that would mean that Rantaro noticed it... He saw...our hidden camera... K1-B0: Moving the bookcase triggers the sensor, which in turn activates the camera, right? The bookcase appears to have already been moved, so why did the sensor activate...? Tenko: Who cares!? What happened to the culprit!? How come they're not in any of the photos!?

Tenko, Keebo cares. That’s why he asked. He’s either not quite understanding how the sensor works...or he’s pointing out the bookcase has moved more than it should have to trigger the sensor a second time. So we know someone came out of the mastermind lair when Rantaro got distracted by the flash. We will never touch on this again! We know the door can automatically close, but it’s in the exact same position despite the camera interval timers. this is probably just oversight but it is kind of funny to think this could have been a giveaway.

Kaede: We just need to expose the mastermind in this class trial! And then everything, including this killing game...will come to an end. K1-B0: Yes, that's right.

Gotta stick to those safe tiny bits of encouragement eh Keebs? even if he’s wrong

K1-B0: I'm sorry, I can't even posit a guess as to who the culprit might be...But I haven't given up! I assure you, we will avenge Rantaro!

‘I have nothing useful to add, so I’m going to use odd words and restate my willingness to help.’ The choice of ‘avenge’ is pretty interesting though. Keebs isn’t big on violence, and we’re not going to be avenging Rantaro with a song and dance number here, we’re gonna get someone else dead. Perhaps we’re getting a tiny peek at the ends justify the means Keebo who only really gets to come out to play in chapter six. or he’s just mimicking the other’s sentiments and not thinking too hard about what avenging would mean :v

Keade: An...elevator? K1-B0: Does he want us to board it?

protagsaskstupidquestions.txt

K1-B0: This is an authentic replica of a courtroom

No it’s not! Well maybe it is in ronpa world. oh god does he know what they look like because he was literally built for this. is this why he threatens with lawsuits.

Tenko: First, let's breathe in! And breathe out! We need to remember our "No, No, No's"! “No pushing! No running! No talking!” K1-B0: But communication is the foundation of any discussion!

The human is confusing me, and we’ve been here for like five seconds. He can’t think of a good way to start, so he’s stuck just pointing out things that might be problems, such as not talking :v

Ryoma: The mastermind, huh? Odds are, it's one of us... Kokichi: It's Kee-boy over here! Everyone else thinks so too! K1-B0: D-Does everyone really think that...!? Kaede: We'll get to the bottom of this...

He can instantly buy into the idea that everyone suspects him. Even when it’s coming from Kokichi. Kaede sort of denies it, but this poor boy. He’s trying so hard and wants to do his best but has no trouble at all going ‘yeah everyone doubts me’. Maybe that’s a protag thing, with how Shuichi freaks out when you present the wrong evidence :v (THEY’LL THINK I’M A FRAUD)

Kaede: Because, Rantaro didn't have the card key to open the hidden door. You'd think the mastermind would have that card key on him, right? K1-B0: Perhaps the culprit took the card key after killing Rantaro? Shuichi: But none of the pictures show Rantaro holding the card key. So I don't really think he had the key at all

Time for Keebo to make little logical guesses and generally be wrong, since this is Kaede and Shuichi’s trial to run. Someone’s gotta double down on Rantaro possibly being the mastermind I suppose.

Ryoma: To lure Rantaro to the library...and kill him K1-B0: Does that mean the culprit and the mastermind are one in the same? Korekiyo: Hmm... That does seem plausible. It’s very likely the mastermind knew about Kaede and Shuichi’s trap. Kaede: The mastermind knew about our trap this whole time?

Yes, but actually no. Ryoma, Keebo and Korekiyo are absolutely correct here, even though we won’t be getting the correct answer. It’s kind of impressive that the ‘real world’ protag and his Investigation Buddy have the actual right answer here. (Kiyo and Keebs were together after all). Ryoma’s showing up a lot near Keebo’s dialogue too :v The most unexpected trio ever.

K1-B0: So you knew nothing about the trap in the library? Miu: I'm tellin' ya, I had no idea! Not like it matters...cuz I never went to the library, okay!? Ryoma: The person who made the cameras...would've known their blind spots, too.

Keebo Ryoma tag team...to get the agree statement Kaede needs. I don’t think Keebo has really talked to Miu beyond her calling him pathetic once still.

Ryoma: Cool your jets, kid. Korekiyo: Tsumugi and Kirumi were both in the dining hall as well. K1-B0: We can dismiss those four as potential culprits if they were together the entire time. Korekiyo: No...not the entire time. At one point, Tsumugi went to the restroom. Tsumugi: Oh...so you brought that up after all...It's true. I went to the restroom closest to the dining hall.

I really didn’t notice how often these guys are paired together but now I keep seeing them. Kiyo corrects Keebo like a good Investigation Buddy and brings up a damning clue even. THAT WE WON”T USE AAAAA

Tenko: I would never punch a foe from behind! A true aikido master would never do something so dishonorable! K1-B0: Punching is permitted in aikido!? Tenko: Yes! Neo-Aikido even uses wooden swords! Maki: All you've proven is that you're an idiot.

A distraction conversation in the mass panic debate, but the fact Keebo is so baffled here is funny to me. I suppose he’d be more interested in self defense styles like aikido. Gonta also mentions ‘ Not person... Robot? Like Keebo? ‘ when talking to Angie. Keebo Is Not A Person is a pretty common sentiment in the class :v

Tsumugi: The A/V Room's sliding door doesn't open, so you can't get into the hallway. K1-B0: If you cannot enter the hallway, how would you open the rear door to the library? Kirumi: Although you cannot fit your whole body through the sliding door, an arm would suffice. It would be possible if you used a particular item in the A/V Room.

Keebo doesn’t talk a ton in this trial because Lots Of People need screentime, but here he is to ask more questions now that we’ve moved past the correct culprit and are moving on to the ‘acceptable’ culprit. He continues to follow Kirumi’s logic path after this exchange too.

Kirumi: Yes, the act of throwing a shot put ball could lead one to use it as a weapon. K1-B0: Even if a person couldn't fit through the space, a shot put ball certainly would.

He doesn’t see the contradiction Kaede does in the whole open bookcase thing, after all. So he’s just helping in making Gonta look suspicious.

Kokichi: Yup! A walking, talking Roomba can't compare to a mighty beast like Gonta! K1-B0: That Roomba remark...is probably not about me, as l have a variety of custodial functions.

Yes, I’m sure everyone totally believes he believes that. While your rebuttal is ‘i can do lots of types of cleaning over a roomba’. This robot, I swear. I tell Kaede off for assuming robots should just need to clean but to prove myself to Kokichi I will talk about how good I am at cleaning things. (Amusing, Kaede apparently magically remembers this, she brings up Keebo’s cleaning function in one of her Salmon mode library dates :v) Also: Kokichi proving to himself that he can derail the robot REALLY EASILY if he wants to be distracting in trials. Keebo doesn’t participate again until another robot crack sets him off.

Tsumugi: We don't even know if they're a guy or not, though, right? Himiko: Or if they're even human... K1-B0: Are you referring to me?

Himiko doesn’t like you Keebo, I’m sorry. Who else could she be referring to? The fact Tsumugi is saying this to Kaito’s ‘culprit should man up and confess’ thing though? Ha

Angie: The culprit was hiding in the library the whole time, before Kaede and Shuichi even placed the cameras. K1-B0: Where would they have hidden? Angie: Inside the hidden door! Ryoma: So you’re sayin’ the culprit was lyin’ in wait there? Korekiyo: If that's true, the suspects...are those who were alone at time of the incident.

Oh look, Keebo is talking when proof of the real culprit shows up, and asks the question that brings up that proof. Angie’s right! Kiyo is going a bit too far in suspecting Keebo and Ryoma here, but they’d be on the right track if it wasn’t for that chalk dust in the card reader :v

Kirumi: So the real question is how the culprit entered and exited the library. K1-B0: We cannot continue until we address that problem first! Korekiyo: It’s quite the mystery. How did the killer avoid being caught by the cameras?

He’s helping a little here in making sure the discussion stays on this topic, but Investigation Buddy Kiyo is the one doing the work again. Keebs, you are really showing your inner Makoto :v

Miu: Eureka! I know how the culprit got in the library-- the front door! K1-B0: Um... Have you been paying attention? The camera would've taken their picture. Miu: Not if the culprit timed their movements around the camera intervals!

He’s so exasperated by her by saying something that goes against hard evidence/logic. He hasn’t even considered such a thing like camera intervals. He’s pretty bad about thinking of stuff that goes against ‘facts’. Sadly we won’t get more robot sass for a bit. But hey, we got some.

Miu: The three cameras that Kaediot and Poo-ichi placed go off when they pick up movement. From there, it takes 30 seconds for the film to auto-roll to the next photo. K1-B0: So, for 30 seconds, anyone could've entered the library without their photo being taken!? Kirumi: That may have been enough time to kill Rantaro and exit the library...

Thank you for summarizing for the audience Keebo, I think they figured that out. He’s perfectly happy to work with Miu even if he was just snarking at her for not paying attention. She just needed a logical reason and now he’s on board, no problems. This is probably the first non-aggressive/in agreement bit the two have, depending on how you read their other interactions.

Korekiyo: I see. Then he caused the receiver to go off in front of Kaede to trick her. Shuichi: ... K1-B0: It's certainly plausible, considering that Shuichi knew about the intervals.

Ryoma, since the receiver trick is his idea is the one who gets Keebo on the Suspecting Shuichi bandwagon. The fact Kiyo talks right before he decides it’s plausible is just amusing. He keeps following them, but doesn’t seem very sure. He doesn’t join in for the following debate.

Kaede: So that’s why there’s no way Shuichi could’ve turned off the receiver! Shuichi: ... K1-B0: If that is true, then the entire premise of the argument thus far is wrong... Kirumi: Is this true, Kaede?

He doesn’t actually ask if it’s true, just what it would mean if it was. I’m not sure if I’d rather take it as he doesn’t really buy it or not, she doesn’t seem like a great liar, but Keebo is pretty garbage at reading things. I don’t really think be buys it yet personally (he does later once hearing ‘why would I lie’), that why he doesn’t want to ask, but I can see it being the other way, in he does completely and he’s bummed that they’re back to square one.

Korekiyo: Or perhaps...you wanted to cover for Shuichi, even at the cost of your life. Shuichi: ...Huh?

Kokichi: Words from a true heartless robot! Emotions are only for meatbags! K1-B0: That is a harmful stereotype. I can produce heartfelt remarks through calculations! Tsumugi: Like "less than three"? Those kinds of calculations?

Mugi’s just here to dunk on a robot. Keebo is actually showing how different he is from everyone here. Even though he’s a big team player, he can’t fathom why someone would risk death for a lie for someone else. Kokichi is going to give Keebo a real life example someday, but it seems like Keebo is a tiiiny bit selfish here, or really just very lonely. He doesn’t have a strong enough relationship with anyone to make this idea seem possible, that and he’s not much of a liar. It’s not a shock Kokichi jumps on him here to try and figure out if this is just a shortcoming or Keebo just doesn’t feel much in general, but Keebo’s angry response probably clued him in. Even if he needs to clarify he’s doing so via calculations. Maybe you;re a bit too honest, Keeboy. (Also, given what we learn in his third FTE, a bit strange. His previous self killed himself over risking hurting the professor again...but perhaps he’s not counting that because it’s not a lie?) Either way, he’s taking Kaede’s lie as 100% truth at this point.

Miu: So we all agree that Poo-ichi did it!? Then let's just vote already! K1-B0: No, I think it’s too soon to determine the culprit. Tsumugi: Umm...I agree. I sort of can't believe that Shuichi is the culprit.

mugi i swear to god you just love flaunting don’t you. Keebo’s the first to go ‘actually let’s not die killing tthe wrong person’, so good for him. Against Miu, again. you two have a rocky start huh.

Ryoma: If Shuichi had the receiver, it could have been disguised. K1-B0: Kaede is the one who actually had the receiver!

Robot is gonna be the one taking the lie in the debate scrum and using it as a weapon. She said she didn’t lie, it is a fact now, and he’s sticking with it. He really flip flops on how much he wants to trust people. I think he wants to trust everyone generally, but then he gets in that logic zone and starts being suspicious again. Thaaat and the voice in his head often probably tells him to get off the logic track and believe. He listens to it when he ‘doesn’t know what to do’, and let’s be real Keebo is almost in a constant state of ‘what do’. The less confident he is, the more likely he’s going to be nudged into being trusting...

Kaito: Whoa! The brightness is totally different! K1-B0: Same room, circumstance, and camera. And yet, there is a disparity in brightness...

Reiterating and expanding on what Kaito said here, but he’s letting Shuichi explain it instead of trying to do so himself. It’s this sort of thing that makes me think his confidence is incredibly fragile >>

Shuichi: ...Kaede is the culprit. K1-B0: Huh!?

Keebo has identified the new protagonist and is now reacting to them first instead of False Protagonist. I suppose it makes sense he’s first to react a decent chunk of the time...he does have a computer for a brain. Quick on the update, sometimes. Not that he knows what to say beyond being baffled.

Shuichi: How Kaede killed Rantaro with the shot put ball...should become clear when you consider where she used it. K1-B0: Where she used the shot put ball?

Keebo you were in the room and pointed out the vent, come on buddy. but i was serious about how he’s figured out who he should be listening to most closely again.

Shuichi: ...She rolled it. She rolled the shot from the first floor classroom and hit Rantaro. K1-B0: I am skeptical that she could perform such a feat of accuracy...

see? Of course in his confusion the thing he personally investigated has just dropped right out of his hard drive. :v It does egg Shuichi on so he’ll continue explaining. It’s his show now. To the point Keebo stays silent until we get to Kaede’s motivations.

Shuichi: You weren’t persuaded by Monokuma...and you weren't trying to save yourself. What you were trying to do...was kill the mastermind! K1-B0: Kill...the mastermind? Shuichi: Kaede wasn't targeting Rantaro. She was targeting the mastermind. She was trying to end this killing game... She was trying to save us all. ...Isn't that right, Kaede?

Keebo just loves to pretend to be Solid Snake. He’s been really quiet otherwise, this isn’t a good time. Kaede was one of the friendliest people to him, too.

Kaede: ... K1-B0: Kaede, what would possess you to do something like this?

Even after hearing how it played out (well, everyone thinks it played out) he still doesn’t get it. She did it to kill the mastermind, but he just can’t see why you’d ever take such a step. Maybe he wants to hear it from her, but it’s still a gut punch.

Kaede: I felt like if I didn't do this, then Rantaro's death would have been meaningless. K1-B0: We were searching for both the culprit and the mastermind during this class trial. Angie: Ah, Kaede did mention that.

What can you say to something like that? His death is ‘meaningless’ in a way, but the truth about him will come about later. (too bad keebo’s is the MOST meaningless) Keebo just chooses to stick to stating the facts, as if that’ll help it make more sense. Not that it probably does. He still has questions.

K1-B0: But, Kaede, why did you set such a convoluted trap? If your intent was to kill the mastermind, there was no reason for you to cover your tracks. Kaito: Isn't it obvious? It's because...she didn't want Shuichi to know.

Kaito is way better at figuring out people’s motivations, especially if driven by emotion. Keebo’s question is sensible...but it is probably rather obvious to everyone else there. He’s accepted she killed with a reason, though we don’t know if he thinks it was a good reason. Being tricked like this...it couldn’t have been good for anyone. He doesn’t stand up to the Exisals. He’s not going to throw his life away.

Kaede: Even after I'm gone...my wish will still be here. So I’m counting on you all! I’m entrusting my wish to every one of you! I believe in you! I believe that you all will make it through this, somehow! You guys better live! Don't go dying on me now! End this ridiculous killing game, survive, and get the hell out of this place! And then...be friends after you escape, okay? I think you’ll all be the best of friends. K1-B0: Affirmative, Kaede...

He will agree to try and make her wish come true. (before everyone else. he’s quick on the draw for this kind of thing.) Of course...no one takes her death well.

A horrible mess Keebo, a horrible mess. Of course, he can still pull himself together if a question needs to be asked.

Monokuma: ...Hate you? Puhuhu...who can say? That's your job to figure out. If you really wanna know what's going on, you're gonna have to work for it. ...Though the corpse formerly known as Rantaro may have had a hunch. Gonta: ...Huh? K1-B0: What do you mean? What was Rantaro's hunch? Monokuma: Puhuhu... What, indeed?

Posing for the camera, that bear. Unfortunately, Keebo doesn’t really pursue what Rantaro’s hunch might have been...or if he does, Shuichi isn’t around to see him do it. Or maybe he mentions it in a one off line and I’ve forgotten. We’ll see.

Tenko: Wh-what kinda d-degenerate male... cries in p-public...? It’s so r-rude... Keebo: But, Tenko, you're crying too. Ryoma: Now's not the time to point that out, Keebo. Just let it be.

Ryoma’s a good guy, he’s figured out Keebo doesn’t really mean anything by it, and he’s genuinely confused by Tenko’s illogical statement. No mockery or anything, just tells him to let it go for now. Of course he’s trying to get more easily answered questions figured out when you’re stuck dealing with ones like ‘why did Kaede have to die’, ‘why did it have to be so cruel’ or ‘what secrets do we know nothing about’. He’d rather be distracted right now.

Kaito: Clench your teeth! K1-B0: Kaito! You are supposed to say that *before* you hit him!

An easy fact that can be applied, so he speaks up. He’ll be speaking up when Kaito does a repeat performance later, too. Kaito and Keebo get on each others case sometimes :v But now it’s Keebo’s turn to be a bit insensitive.

Shuichi: ...I'm fine.

Gonta: Gonta not sure it waste of time. But Gonta agree, fighting not good...

That was a pretty emotional moment between people mourning a lost one with Kaito trying to get Shuichi to stand up and fight back annnnnd Keebo’s calling it a waste of time. Oooof, he is bad at people. Gonta disagrees, though to Keebo it’s logically just a waste. He can’t see what they’re gaining here, or the point of fighting between friends like this. We know in hindsight that Shuichi kind of needs this, but our robot pal doesn’t. That, and violence is never really entering his acceptable solution list. Not yet.

Shuichi: Sorry, you should go ahead without me... K1-B0: ...Why? Is there a reason you wish to stay in a place like this? Shuichi: I want to be alone for a while. Just for a little bit.

must...respond...to...protagonist...Cannot understand why you want to stay in the place Kaede just died and you got punched in. Shuichi kinda gives a non answer, but Keebo doesn’t press. Probably because he’s not going to understand the answer anyway. That’s in for chapter one!

Why did I do this? Cus I’m in the mood to replay it and I am going to babble about my favourite who deserves better. The other kids a bit too, I do like them all but mostly the robot lad.

Also congratulations if you got this far, you’re just as nuts as I am! please share your own hot takes/ things you just realized from all the quotes shoved in here. I probably should have worked on my fanfics instead of doing this :v (I have a bunch on Keebo as Verl on A03, if you are like ‘yeas i want more ravings from this mad being’) ...I’ll be back with Chapter two later...

#danganronpa #drv3 #kiibo #keebo #k1-b0 #text #the longest of long posts #do you want to read Opinions on Robot for ages?#you're in luck #because i've got a lot of em #he's not boring he's fascinating aaaa

36 notes · View notes

lethesomething · 4 years

Text

An otome lover’s guide to A3

So. A3.

Not an actual otome, but the actor management game and anime from Cybird (of Ikemen All the Things fame) has a bunch of boys. Ok, so a Lot of Boys. All the Boys, in fact. And men. Some of them are like thirty. Which is refreshing.

Where do you even begin telling them apart? Here is an Attempt, based on the first season of the game.

Spring troupe: The Vanilla boys

Bright, youthful, mostly kinda normal. This troupe stands out for its overall lack of experience and its anime protag willingness to overcome hurdles. Most resembles the main team in a sports anime.

Sakuya Is baby. This boy is a golden retriever puppy that has yet to realize he's ended up in human form. Orphan street urchin with a heart of gold. He's kinda useless as an actor but he will ganba all the way until he makes it. Protect him. Mostly from himself.

Masumi A Giant Friggin Red Flag. Weirdly obsessed with MC. His personality apart from stalker syndrome is what I like to call 'the Kageyama Tobio': genius at one thing and uninterested or terrible at everything else. He is seemingly incapable of social interactions and at best uninterested in any of them apart from MC. Also really harsh on people who don't perform to his standards, which is almost everyone.

Tzuzuru The Self Sacrificing One. Look, this dude gave up most of his dreams to look after his siblings, and he literally joined you because otherwise he'd be sleeping in a cardboard box (Why are all these dudes street urchins?) Wants to be a playwright so he foregoes any semblance of sleep to finish scripts. Has the spinal cord of a jellyfish unless in Very Specific Cases. Cute when he pouts. Pouts a lot. Someone save him.

Itaru Jekyll and XxHydexX. Super cordial professional by day, game addict that will murder you for messing up his kill streak by night. He's So Friggin Pretty why is he a dick?? Doesn't really know if he's even into this theatre thing. You know he is. Of course he is. Calms down tremendously over the course of the arc, just don't, you know, get between him and his gamer score I guess.

Citron What the Foreigner. Mysterious foreign prince possibly on the run from his parents/the cops. Your theatre is a convenient hiding place for him, because obviously getting into showbiz is what you do when you want to remain anonymous. Speaks Japanese in a weird way. In fact, he sounds Exactly Like Utapri's Cecil despite having a different VA. Quirky to a fault. Has potentially been trained as some kind of covert operative but is surprisingly cheerful about everything.

Summer Troupe: The Diva's

A group of highly talented dudes with varying degrees of social issues. Most resembles the cast of a smaller indie otome game.

Tenma The Arrogant One. A child actor from tv wanting to learn stage work. Has zero social skills. He's brash, completely full of himself and extremely critical of everyone else. Needs to learn the Power of Friendship which, spoiler, he obviously does, albeit in a very tsun kindof way. Can't let them know you care, ever.

Yuki Salt Personified. This kid is friggin 14 years old and wears dresses but he will rip you to shreds with his words. Winner of the most deadpan delivery of burns. He's in middle school ffs. Really into fashion. Resident costume designer. Potentially serves as a representation on gender roles in theatre, but the whole thing is fairly lowkey. The team, bless them, just accept him for who he is, sharp tongue and all.

Muku The Soft One. Another middle schooler, this one is way less sharp with his words. Into shoujou manga. Has severe insecurities and a propensity to start sentences with 'um'. Shaking leaf, what is he doing on a friggin stage. He actually has pink hair, could he BE any more squishy. Protecc.

Misumi The Weird One. I realize several characters fit that description, but Misumi is obsessed with triangles and lives in a liminal space between realities so I don't know what to tell you. Also he's like… spiderman. Inhuman amount of acrobatics. Another homeless street urchin (Tokyo - is it Tokyo??? - appears to have an issue, guys). Sweet dude though. Chill and positive about everything, as long as it is triangular.

Kazunari The Influencer. Resident designer and bigshot on social media. He's down with Literally Everything. Likes everyone, is cool about every instance. Unerringly positive to an unhealthy degree. Really, Really conflict averse, even. You could call him painfully insecure, but that's like most of the cast. Wearer of hats in a non-ironic way.

Autumn Troupe: The Delinquents

This troupe consists almost entirely out of (ex) violent delinquents and (ex) criminals. The tough guys, no one here is totally innocent. Most resembles the cast of a beat-em-up.

Banri The Number One. Hotshot teenager who's never tasted defeat in his life. Good at anything without trying, so he never tries. Obsessed with outperforming Juza because he's like the one dude Banri can't beat at fisticuffs. Honestly kinda insufferable for most of their arc.

Juza The Lone Wolf. Cursed with a resting bitch face and an inability to perform in social settings. Considered a delinquent and constantly challenged to fights. Is actually sweet lamb, just with lots of muscles. Cripplingly low self esteem. Wants to act to be someone else. Protect at all costs.

Omi The Responsible one. Wait, that was an option?? Big brother type. Perfect son in law. A keeper. This guy is mature and he cooks and it makes me wonder what's wrong with him. There's probably a dark secret (narrator voice: there was a dark secret).

Taichi The Sunshine Child. Really into yoyo's. Like the toy, not the male subspecies. Has the hair colour and the vocal volume of a shonen jump protag. Bouncy and very loud. Feels way younger than the middle schoolers, though he's in high school.

Sakyo The Debt Collector. Actual yakuza agent. The one the theatre owes a lot of money too. Secretly really loves the performing arts, because of course he does. Massive tsun. I wasn't looking at you, baka. Should have been an accounting professor in another life. Wordy.

Winter troupe:The Drama Team.

No really, most of them have drama and angst written all over them. Only team that consists entirely out of actual adults. Angsty adults, but still. Most resemble the cast of a daytime soap opera.

Tasuku The Defector. The top actor from the rival gang troupe that joined Mankai instead. Fitness buff. Pretty clear about his boundaries for right and wrong. Sweet bean, really. Has a lot of emotions about his childhood friend Tsumugi. Seems to have a lot of feelings in general. Red oni type.

Tsumugi The Subdued one. Talks like a wallflower, looks like he got his fashion choices out of a high end french magazine from the eighties. One of the boring ones. Cinnamon roll. Blue oni. Massive self esteem issues due to past trauma. Weird relationship with his childhood friend Tasuku. They'll work it out, you know they will.

Hisoka The Narcoleptic. Literally washed up and adopted by the theatre group that found him. Weirdly good at acting. Sleeps about 80 percent of the day. Needs to be poked and cajoled with treats. Might actually be a cat. Has no recollection of his life before he was picked off the street by a desperate director.

Homare The 'Extra AF'. A poet who dresses in loud costumes and has really stupid hair. Loud, overtly confident in his bad poetry and just generally confusing to watch. A Gentleman. Flamboyant. Kinda gay coded. Hisoka's crutch and the only reason that man is able to perform like a human being.

Azuma The Flirty One. A Cuddling Professional, because this is a teen rated game and we can't put in an actual prostitute or host. Unnaturally pretty. Indeterminate age. Sensitive. At least one of these dudes has empathetic abilities, may as well be the cute one. Extremely flirty and Experienced (tm) at life.

#a3!#a3 #mobage

109 notes · View notes

stilitana · 4 years

Text

so i listened to this embarassingly quickly but let’s chalk that up to the self-isolation/working from home and leave it at that

wolf 359 reactions under the cut (spoilers):

firstly, that soundtrack was so good and i’ll be listening to those piano pieces forever

this show demonstrated the eternal power of the agatha christie principle: gather a ragtag cast of characters who’ve all got beef with each other, and trap them in a small space together. cue the instant tension and inevitable weighty revelations.

i adore that amid all the drama/action, there were so many moments when the writers let the narrative breathe a little and just allowed the characters to talk to each other, and play games with one another. the word games were delicious. these were often moments of levity and good character building, but they also all moved relationships forward or revealed something new, so don’t ever let anybody say that having chill little funny moments is useless narrative fluff. these were the best moments.

empty man cometh might be my favorite. am i alone now? and memoria were also just...so good. a lot of the mini-episodes were excellent as well, especially all the character ones. variations on a theme might be my favorite of the shorts.

normally i’m impatient and skip anything i perceive as extraneous to the central narrative, and come back to it later--im so glad i didn’t, the live episode was hilarious. ashamed that i even tried to skip change of mind because i was so impatient to see what was happening, but i felt too bad so not even five minutes into the next ep, i went back and listened to it, and that was the right move...it was so good.

every single character was fantastic. every single one. they were all complex--even the less central characters had at least a moment or two where they struck a different note, showed another side of themselves. kepler was the stand out on this front for me. i didn’t care at all about the si-5 crew when they first came in--i was actually annoyed and expected to hate them all, which is a risk you run when you introduce a bunch of new, influential characters so late in a story. they made it work so well. first i came around to maxwell, then jacobi, and finally (tbh it was his swan song) i was like, okay, kepler was a great character. they made him sympathetic without trying to retcon anything to force me to pity him or think he’d been good all along or anything. cutter and pryce were less human, so their redeeming qualities came more from being interesting. i think the voice acting plays a lot into this--cutter just on paper wouldn’t be half as fun

really impressed with how this same thing played out with lovelace--she went from this sort of mythic, predeceased character, to an antagonist, and finally to being such a central character to the crew that you could hardly imagine them without her. poor writing could have easily made her kind of character unlikable. i think characters like her often get short-changed and written as one-note action hero types who crash in and upend the narrative just to give the plot steam and provide friction. instead, she’s as fully fleshed out as the main characters, and seamlessly becomes one of them.

rip plant monster...i loved you :,(

so, the antagonists were multifaceted, and so were the protags. this could have also easily been sloppy. with eiffel especially, lazy writing would have made the reveal of his backstory super cheap, out of left field, and made you feel like you never knew him at all and leave you unable to reconnect. instead of going the route where the writer for some reason thinks they have to make their plucky protag gritty, the reveal of eiffel’s backstory doesn’t change him at all--and why should it? it’s his backstory--it already happened. instead, it only forces him and minkowski to have conversations they probably needed to have anyway, and fleshes out the reason he’s even there in the first place. on this note, it’s not ultimately his backstory that eiffel has to confront within the story as a major flaw--the backstory was a mistake in the past he’s been dealing with for years by the time we meet him. i love what they chose to do instead so much more: what he had to deal with was his current, present day behavior--how he effortlessly disrespects and belittles the people closest to him without even trying. the key there is, without trying--he has to make a decision to start. (”that’s the thing about you, eiffel--you try. you try really, really hard, and then--you stop trying” that was such a good interaction...god.) i could go on and on about how this was such a satisfying tack to take but i’m trying to cut it down. glib bastards like eiffel are so often a sort of male wish-fulfillment character where they get to say whatever the fuck they want without consequence, be lazy, be careless, and still come out on top, and still seem lovable, because hey, he’s funny. eiffel doesn’t get off that easily, and he’s a much better character for it, and so are all the others, for actually demanding better for themselves, because they know they deserve it, and because they all actually care about each other, so when they confront him, he doesn’t just shrug it off--he tries. (it takes him a minute. but he tries.)

hera broke my heart a million times i love her so much. she had so many complex inner conflicts that weren’t just boiled down to some dumbass bs like “boo hoo am i human.” her personhood is a given for the sorts of conflicts she has, as far as feeling inadequate, feeling unappreciated, like an imposter or a less-valued member of the crew. her and minkowski arguing was excellent and allowed them both a chance to be childish because hey, eiffel shouldn’t have the monopoly on that.

death was a serious thing. human life was highly valued, and its loss was never made light of. not even for antagonists (kepler, hilbert) or, in the most extreme case, pryce, who eiffel chose to make a sacrifice to defeat rather than just kill her, the one principle aside from doing as little work as possible he stood his ground on the entire story. team what’s wrong with handcuffs indeed...i just really loved that the main lead was a pacifist and that this line of thinking held sway in the narrative. it was really refreshing (i don’t think it should be--there’s just a lot of bad writing out there especially when things edge into the action genre) to see this stance on nonviolent conflict resolution wherever possible, because yeah, most people have a really hard time ending another person’s life...no shit. minkowski makes that call and deals with the fallout for the rest of the show--she’s not done dealing with it by the end, it’s going to be something she takes with her. sometimes eiffel’s passivity was depicted as a weakness, but he ultimately did diffuse a lot of situations and gave other characters the space to consider their options. i do think that sometimes the narrative’s insistence on eiffel’s dual pacifism/incompetence shifted the burden of action onto minkowski and lovelace and i’m not sure how i feel about that. i think where i’d have to look is comparing how pryce and cutter are dealt with--yeah, im willing to buy that minkowski wasn’t willing to trade all of her memories so that she wouldn’t have to kill cutter. but was she the one who had to have a body count as a conscious narrative choice, or were we just determined to maintain eiffel’s status as the sort of goofy, “innocent” one? or was that something minkowski was determined to preserve--because that’d be really sad and complicated and say way more about her than it would about him.

dear listeners. i loved everything about the dear listeners. it was everything i ever wanted from aliens trope-wise.

didn’t really get the total significance of surrogates or decima virus. those were the only two things that felt sort of hasty because the stakes suddenly went from “the lives on this space station” to “life on earth as we know it.” but apocalypse averted so whatever, the aliens just want music

i am conflicted about the fucking. amnesia. memory was SO important throughout, and questions of identity and personhood, and this is the only reason that amnesia ending didn’t enrage me. if i think about it more i’m sure there will be a lot to unpack with what’s being implied here

this has gotten REALLY long so im going to stop now and finish mindlessly entering data into excel. in short: i loved it

#wolf 359

19 notes · View notes

terramythos · 3 years

Text

TerraMythos’ 2020 Reading Challenge In Review - 9/10s!

See Master Post

Here's the 9/10 books of this year -- books I really liked but not to the point of perfection.

1. This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (Full Review Here)

This is a beautifully-written novella about two women from enemy time travel societies. They start as rivals who pass taunting letters to one another and gradually fall in love with each other through their writing. There’s some really beautiful and interesting locations, and I love the longing and emotion in the letter sequences. I think using a science fiction setting for a love story is super cool; especially with time travel, there’s a sense of predestination not found in other genres. I also like the idea of each author writing one of the two leads, so the style is slightly different between them.

2. The City We Became (Great Cities #1) by N. K. Jemisin (Full Review Here)

Jemisin is a fantastic author and created my favorite series ever (The Broken Earth), so I was stoked to read book one of a new series by her. The concept here is that cities become sentient beings over time given enough people and cultural influence. New York City is about to be born into a human avatar, but something goes wrong. An eldritch foe known simply as The Enemy seeks to sabotage the nascent city and almost succeeds. Proto-avatars of the city’s boroughs have to find their inner power and band together to rescue him and save the city.

I really dig the ensemble cast, especially Manny (Manhattan), Bronca (The Bronx), and New York City himself. The book is also a great middle finger to Lovecraft, as the cosmic horror element is steeped in structural racism and oppression, with the Eldritch Aesthetic being a creepy pale white. Super excited for the next book.

3. Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2) by Martha Wells (Full Review Here)

I’ve already said plenty about the Murderbot books on my 10/10 list. I really like this one in particular because it introduces ART, one of the best supporting characters in the series. It’s super interesting to see how Murderbot interacts with a non-human person (or... spaceship. But ART is also a person for sure) similar to itself and I really like the banter and friendship between the two. Like the rest of the novellas, it’s short, but it packs in a lot of story and heart.

4. Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries #3) by Martha Wells (Full Review Here)

My other 9/10 selection for this series! There is a heavy focus on Murderbot’s past and how far it’s come ever since it freed itself from the company’s mental slavery. This probably has the strongest character development in the series outside of Network Effect, with a genuinely sad and sobering ending.

5. Finch (Ambergris #3) by Jeff VanderMeer (Full Review Here)

I think this book is where I really “got” the Ambergris series; it’s a pseudo-trilogy with a lot of postmodern elements, but this one is the most straightforward. Finch is a fascinating mix of noir, dystopia, and cosmic horror. I even called this “nontraditional cyberpunk”; there’s elements of a surveillance state, underground resistance/revolution, artificial implants/bodily enhancements-- but all related to fungi and eldritch horror.

Anyway, this book stars Finch, a detective working in the city of Ambergris, who is tasked with solving an impossible double-murder case. In his investigations, he soon stumbles upon a web of conspiracy related to the downfall and takeover of the city by the gray caps, the humanoid mushrooms who enslave and oppress the human population. It’s just as weird as it sounds, but if you made it to book three, you'll be plenty familiar with how bizarre the series is. Technically, this book is a standalone, but I recommend reading the other two first as they are integral to understanding the plot.

6. The Last Sun (The Tarot Sequence #1) by K. D. Edwards (Full Review Here)

This is a really impressive debut novel with an interesting world concept and great characters. The idea is that Atlantis was a real thing and got destroyed. The surviving inhabitants decided to build a new city by magically stealing a bunch of buildings throughout the world and transporting them to Nantucket. The result is a cool patchwork urban fantasy setting. There’s a huge tarot motif, hence the series name. It’s also gay!

I fell in love with the excellent character banter, especially between Rune and his soul-bonded bodyguard Brand. While I had some criticisms on the plot structure and a reliance on same-y action scenes, everything else was so good I gave Edwards the benefit of the doubt. And it really paid off in the sequel, which improves on basically everything.

7. The Princess Bride by William Goldman (Full Review Here)

I mean, the movie’s a beloved classic. If you haven’t seen it... go do so? It’s a great adventure story with lots of memorable characters, lines, and moments. Honestly I’m more surprised I hadn’t read the book before, and I’m glad I did. It often felt like an extended cut of the movie, with a few key differences in the frame story and some locations. While I think I like the film just a little more, I appreciate the novel for giving me a broader perspective on the story and characters.

8. A Choir of Lies (A Conspiracy of Truths #2) by Alexandra Rowland (Full Review Here)

A Choir of Lies is a standalone sequel to the book A Conspiracy of Truths and can be read on its own if desired. It stars Ylfing, a fan-favorite character in the previous book. He’s processing grief and depression in the wake of his mentor (the last book’s protag) suddenly abandoning him. A (sort of--it’s complicated) professional storyteller called a Chant, Ylfing tries to make it in the Netherlands-inspired fantasy city Heyrland, and writes a diary about his experiences. However, another Chant has found his manuscript and writes scathing commentary on his decisions in the footnotes.

I had a difficult time getting into this one, as Ylfing is both relatable and infuriating, and a depressed protagonist can be hard to get behind. However, it's well worth sticking through, as the sheer catharsis of Ylfing realizing his horrible mistakes and doing everything he can to fix them is... well, pretty inspiring. Multiple characters own up to their failures, often at great personal cost, for the wellbeing of others. I think it’s a great message, especially reading it in 2020 when the future feels hopeless. A Choir of Lies also has two of the things I liked most about A Conspiracy of Truths-- lots of meta commentary on storytelling, and surprisingly interesting economics.

9. The Harbors of the Sun (The Books of the Raksura #5) by Martha Wells (Full Review Here)

I thought this was a nice finale to the series. It has some satisfying thematic bookends regarding the Fell and Moon’s character development. It’s also probably the most “epic” fantasy of the series, with super high stakes and a broad cast of perspective characters. I have to wonder if there are plans for further books or a different series in this universe, since the setting has a lot of depth and potential. Either way, I really enjoyed it!

10. A Killing Frost (October Daye #14) by Seanan McGuire (Full Review Here)

Another year, another October Daye book! Obviously I like this series if I’m fourteen books in and still reading it. A Killing Frost has some slow-ish pacing, but ramps up a lot in the second half of the story. It’s the conclusion to my favorite storyline in the series -- the redemption arc of Simon Torquill. He’s a really interesting morally gray character, and I think serves as the poster child on how the series plays with the idea of heroes and villains. Also, this book casually drops probably one of the craziest twists in the series at the end, and I am super interested to see the fallout of that.

11. The Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura #4) by Martha Wells (Full Review Here)

This is basically part one of Harbors of the Sun and involves the main cast going on a long journey to an ancient ruin. The first half of the book is pretty slow and probably could have been pared down -- lots of travel sequences. However the second half is super tense and action packed. I found the ancient ruin itself really interesting and creepy, and the book sets up a lot of things that pay off in The Harbors of the Sun.

#2020 reading challenge #taylor reads

1 note · View note

ruoyeming · 4 years

Text

My Fav Books, another chaotic list

Another quarantine review fest! I know I ranked my top anime but this is seriously too hard so I’m just going to list them to avoid hours of debate. Enjoy!

1) The Skulduggery Pleasant series

This whopper of a series (now at 15 books jesus christ I didn’t know there were that many I’ve only read about twelve) has a special place in my heart. I was FULLY obsessed with it throughout my tween - and teen - years, and for a reason. This shit just butters my bread like nothing else. The story follows a young girl Valkyrie Cain (who eventually becomes a young woman through the series) and her partner in crime, a fashionable living skeleton called Skulduggery Pleasant. They’re MAGICAL DETECTIVES!!!! Bitch!!! They use elemental magic - water, earth, fire, air - to fight off magic-wielding bad guys and look good doing it. The duo is hilarious and seriously shaped my sense of humour, the dry wit and comedic writing style stuck with me and influenced my own writing style to this day! As the series progresses we get a massive cast of characters but to me they’re all memorable, likable (mostly) and well-developed so that’s not an issue. I have no fukcing clue how Derek Landy comes up with his stories because every book in the series has an absolutely wild (yet unique) plot with its own twists and turns. It gets REALLY dark and depressing at times, gory, brutal etc etc especially in the later books I have no idea why this is labeled as a kids series.

10/10 for badassery, humour, and MAD codependency issues

2) The Feverwake series

This bitch is one hell of a YA series. It’s actually only a 2 book-series which is rare, but that’s not the only thing that sets it apart from other creations of its genre. It’s hard to explain the setup without waffling so I’ll just quote the blurb of the first book: “In the former United States, sixteen-year-old Noam Álvaro wakes up in a hospital bed, the sole survivor of the viral magic that killed his family and made him a technopath. His ability to control technology attracts the attention of the minister of defense and thrusts him into the magical elite of the nation of Carolinia.

The son of undocumented immigrants, Noam has spent his life fighting for the rights of refugees fleeing magical outbreaks—refugees Carolinia routinely deports with vicious efficiency. Sensing a way to make change, Noam accepts the minister’s offer to teach him the science behind his magic, secretly planning to use it against the government. But then he meets the minister’s son—cruel, dangerous, and achingly beautiful—and the way forward becomes less clear.”

As you can tell from this, the series is heavy on its politics but in a grounded, realistic and relevant way which is different to many other YA series. Marxist theory is brought up, and you can make some pretty strong links between the books and real events. The magic also has a semi-scientific explanation which is cool and adds to the realness. Anyways this series is action packed and full of twists, plus there’s a bisexual main character and queer romance at the core!! Wig!!! Very good for moral debate - how far is it acceptable to go to protect the oppressed before you become one of the oppressors? Dark and exciting series.

10/10 queer representation and political themes.

3) Spin the Dawn

It’s probably obvious that I’m biased towards YA books but they’re just so exciting and cool! Anyways this is about a girl living in a kind of alternate universe ancient China where magic exists. Maia Tamarin is a skilled seamstress who dreams of being the Imperial Tailor, a position that can only be held by a man. She poses as her brother to go to the royal palace and enter a competition full of skilled tailors, all vying for the role of imperial tailor. She also meets Edan; a mysterious, annoying, but SEXY mage who seems to know her secret identity? Oho? IMO this would be an elevated book if Edan had been a girl but that’s just me being gay. As the final challenge Maia is tasked with making 3 dresses from the sun, moon, and stars - a mission that takes her to the ends of the world in search of these magical materials (obvs Edan goes with her and they kiss kiss fall in love). It’s a fairly classic YA plot and characters but the combination of Project Runway, Mulan, and kind of Lord of the Rings(??) vibes makes for a very entertaining read. It’s also really fun to imagine what the clothes look like, plus the romance between Maia and Edan is very cute. Second book is yet to be published but sounds lit.

10/10 magic fashion and romance (despite its heterosexuality)

4) Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Usually I steer clear of angsty gay stories because I’ve consumed too much of the depressing narrative which is all about suffering because of being gay, but fuuuuuuck this book is like the definition of bittersweet. Mostly bitter to be fair but it has a happy ending which was lovely after the emotional torment of the book. It’s about two teen boys - Aristotle is angry and repressed, Dante is eccentric but kind, and the two eventually form a strong friendship after meeting at the local pool. It’s kind of obvious that Ari is in denial about a few things, which leads to some real sad boi hours. There’s also a devastating moment around halfway (not sure) through with a car accident which makes the whole thing 10x heavier. Despite all this, the book has its sweet moments - parents play a big role, but not in the way they usually do in queer stories - and like I said the ending is the bandage for your broken heart. I’m not sure what it is about the writing style, maybe the way it just cuts between scenes randomly or perhaps the way the dialogue and actions are so realistic, but it’s so different to any other book I’ve read that it’s stayed in my mind for a while after reading it.

10/10 really good philosophy plus supportive parents

5) The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue

Okay if this was a ranked list, this bad boy would be on its way to the top spot. It’s got everything: historical setting, gays, pirates, alchemy, humour, adventure, angst, character development, and some healthy second-hand embarrassment. It’s not complicated or philosophical but reading this book all in one go is like taking five shots and diving into a pool. It’s exciting and witty, but deals with darker themes like child abuse too. One of the MCs also has a disability and doesn’t treat it as something to be cured, which is a lesson our protagonist has to learn. Speaking of protagonists, Henry ‘Monty’ Montague is a great main character. He’s obnoxious, oblivious, and hedonistic yet quick-witted and passionate, and he has a good heart. Sometimes you just want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him for being such an ignorant idiot, but throughout the book he grows and learns to open his mind more (as well as becoming more humble). He’s a great example of a flawed yet likable main character. He is also a bisexual icon.

Oof forgot to even talk about the story. Monty embarks on a tour of Europe, usually taken by lads his age to get all cultured before they settle down and inherit the family company or whatever. With him are his younger sister Felicity, a girl with a brilliant mind for science who isn’t taken seriously by anyone because of her gender, and the lovely Percy, Monty’s lifelong best friend (and crush). Monty ends up stealing a very valuable object that turns the Tour into a manhunt across Europe, and drags the trio into a big ol’ conspiracy involving something that may or may not be the philosopher’s stone????

Issues of race, gender, and disability in historical context are really well done, and it’s an absolute banger of a book.

10/10 very exciting adventure, plus GREAT GAY ROMANCE

6) Heaven Official’s Blessing

HOOOOOO BOY. This is probably my absolute fave on this list. It’s a webnovel (originally Chinese but the full translation is online). Set in ancient china in the cultivation world (difficult as shit to explain if ur not into all of that but I’ll try), basically there’s three realms - the heavenly realm, the human/mortal realm, and the ghostly realm. If a mortal reaches a certain point (good deeds, power etc), they ascend to become a god - or if they fall far enough, they become a ghost.

I’ll just quote the author’s description again cause I don’t have the brain cells required:

“Eight hundred years ago, Xie Lian was the Crown Prince of the Xian Le kingdom. He was loved by his citizens and was considered the darling of the world. He ascended to the Heavens at a young age; however, due to unfortunate circumstances, was quickly banished back to the mortal realm. Years later, he ascends again–only to be banished again a few minutes after his ascension. Now, eight hundred years later, Xie Lian ascends to the Heavens for the third time as the laughing stock among all three realms. On his first task as a god thrice ascended, he meets a mysterious demon who rules the ghosts and terrifies the Heavens, yet, unbeknownst to Xie Lian, this demon king has been paying attention to him for a very, very long time.”

It’s hard to describe the enormity of this story and all the emotions it encapsulates, you really have to read it for yourself. But bitch the undying, pure, Hozier-devotion-level LOVE is by far my favourite part of this story. If you’re looking for an epic, god-tier gay romance, then this is it baby!! This story has comedy, action, and downright harrowingly depressing moments, but throughout is this achingly beautiful love between fallen god and last believer.

I don’t wanna give too much away cause there are some big ol’ plot reveals, but oooh this shit made me cry. The protagonist is MY FAVOURITE EVER I didn’t think it was possible to like a protag so much!! He’s legit my fave character! At first he seems oblivious and carefree but he’s just doing his goddamn best after all he’s been through and he’s so fukcing kind and just wants to help everyone for fuckcs sake excuse me I need to go have a breakdown.

Okay I’m back, anyway there’s a great cast of characters, even the background characters are all incredibly memorable and all given their time to shine and develop. My faves include Quan Yizhen, a rowdy himbo who just wants to fight, and Shi Qing Xuan, a friendly genderfluid god who controls the wind. Read this shit I’m not joking it’ll change your life.

10/10 for everything

#book review #book recommendations

3 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

teen-jose

Depress20

twosheds

...and we all had a jolly good laugh

joshosis

PAIN NEVER STOPS ;

polarislogy

Chenji Support Group

the-zebra-dragon

Just Call Me King