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inganikki · 9 months

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Out of curiosity, why do you hate One Piece? I know that the character designs for the women Aren’t Great and Usopp also has some unfortunate design choices, but other than that I haven’t heard many major complaints about the show/manga. However, I haven’t watched/read one piece so all the info I have is secondhand

Ok so this is my subjective opinion as a person who used to be absolutely obsessed with One Piece as a child. I still read it when I find the energy to do so and I've read up to volume 100. The reasons I dislike OP now are

Oda's misogyny, part 1: As you said, women's designs are Not Great. They've gotten boobier and more and more sexually exaggerated as the series goes on imo. OP does have cool female characters and cool female character designs, but when Oda wants to draw a conventionally beautiful female character, he just draws variations of the same woman. When it comes to conventionally beautiful female characters, I also struggle to tell apart who is who because a lot of them have the same face (and same body) syndrome.

Oda's misogyny, part 2: A lot of this comes up in extra-textual materials such as the reader Q&A sections he does in the manga volumes. I don't have these volumes with me at hand so I'm only paraphrasing what I remember but he's said stuff about how he draws OP for boys first and foremost, and how female fans just don't "get it" the way male fans do. This honestly broke my heart as I was the biggest OP obsessive when I was in primary school. I loved OP as much as any boys, but my passion is diminished just because I'm a girl? I cannot respect someone who thinks like that. (and unfortunately a lot of male creatives in Japan have said stuff like that). There's also some gender-bend art he drew that was pretty insulting. Also the time he drew OP characters as old people where male characters got to look like proper grandpas while female characters weren't allowed to show age. It's all so boring.

Racism, part 1: Yes you're right about Usopp's design (I love him though...). Also Oda does a weird thing where whenever he draws coloured artworks, he paints all the characters' skin in the exact same orange-pink tone. No one in OP manga has dark skin afaik because everyone has the same skin tone. I've always found that strange, especially when characters have all sorts of different hair colours and design quirks, somehow skin tone is the one thing he refuses to diversity. The anime improves on this at least by giving different characters different skin tones.

Racism, part 2: I hate that they retconned Nico Robin to be light skinned in the anime. Give us our brown skinned Robin back. Fuck.

Homophobia and transphobia: The usage of the word "okama" is a controversial one and I'm not in a position to speak on it as I'm neither a gender non-conforming man nor a transgender woman, but I don't think it's appropriate to use it so much in a manga meant for children. I understand that some queer people in Japan do self identify as okama, and Oda uses "I have friends who are okama" as an excuse but I still think the liberal usage of okama in OP a bad idea. Also one time Sanji got stranded on an island called Kamabakka ("full of okama") Kingdom and the joke is that all these caricaturized ugly cross-dressing men (?) want Sanji and he is grossed out by them.

The art style. I used to love Oda's simple, cartoony art. And it got more and more complicated and maximalist and again, modern day OP gives me a headache because it's like everything is going on eveywhere (all the time). That's my personal taste of course. I just find it to be too much. Also this ties in with my previous point of "too many characters" - new OP characters look more and more grotesque and monstrous because Oda needs to introduce a character who looks distinguishable from all the thousands of characters that appeared before (unless this new character is a conventionally attractive woman, then she looks the same). I just think it's ugly… I don't like it.

I also think it has gone on for far too long. It's gotten so sprawling and complicated that I don't find it fun anymore. Too many characters and too much history to keep track of. Whenever I read a modern OP volume it kind of gives me a headache while I try to understand who is where and doing what for what reason. I'm not invested enough to pour in the energy needed to keep track of everything anymore.

Nationalism?: I find it kind of cringe whenever a Japanese artist wants to insert their own version of Japan into their fantasy work (eg. Hiizuru in Attack on Titan) because those Fantasy Japan countries tend to be portrayed as a cool awesome place where you will find many strong honorable people yay <3 and I'm like "okay, Narcissist". The Wano-kuni arc felt so self-congratulatory. It was a bit painful.

This one is just petty stuff that's entirely my taste thing again but even as a child I found some of Oda's writing traits to be cringe lmao. Some of these attack names are so dumb (Zoro's onigiri, I get that it's a pun, doesn't work for me lol), and how different characters have to have their own weird laughs. Also OP never got me invested enough in the character of Ace so the whole Enies Lobby arc just bored me and sapped a lot of the interest I still had in OP. I just don't care anymore.

You asked a simple question and I'm sorry I wrote a long ass post but like I said, I used to be a massive fan so I just have... a lot of Thoughts. Thanks for asking.

#one piece #oda eiichiro #eiichiro oda #text post

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crystalkleure · 3 years

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Do you still do those beyblade deep dives character study posts? If so then could you so one for Count Night? And if not then just talk about something you super duper like :)

Sure thing, I love writing long analytical posts! I just usually lack the time for it lately, sadly. Hey, I'll even throw in a Ye Olde Style character icon like I used to tack onto these things, for old times' sake!

Count Night

10/10. I fucking love Count Night. Count Night is so fucking funny.

I can't believe that the anime actually entirely neglected to mention the fact that Count Night is Zac's older brother, because those two actually act so much like eachother. It's fun to compare them and realize what personality traits apparently just run in the family blood.

Zac and Night are both so incredibly fake. They are extremely good at misleading and manipulating people, and they do it in the exact same way: They deliberately give off the impression of being far more benign and stupid than they actually are, so nobody expects them to do anything foul [or, at least they don't expect them to succeed when they try]. Zac has his Sweet Bubbly Dumb Blonde stage persona, but is vicious and outright gleefully sadistic when out of view of fans and cameras, especially if he feels he has been threatened in some way -- Zac will absolutely terrify and destroy anyone who challenges him, particularly if they are encroaching on his turf as an idol, and he's quite clever and subtle about it so as not to tarnish his image. And Count Night is...ridiculous. Look at him. He looks silly. He's dressed as a cartoonish caricature of a phantom thief, he looks like a kid in a Halloween costume. Would you ever expect some absurdly theatrical lunatic who looks like a low-budget LARPer and speaks shitty broken French for The Aesthetic to actually break into your place and steal your shit? Night looks like a fucking joke, so no one takes him seriously, so no one realizes he is actually extremely competent at breaching high levels of high-tech security and committing grand larceny. Count Night WILL steal your shit.

Also, in the manga [which is not translated to the best of my knowledge, and I can't read Japanese, so do note that I always hear Manga Details from other people], I do believe it is either implied or outright stated that Zac does not know that Count Night is a phantom thief? Night does not wear his silly costume around his brother, he wears shit like sweater vests and glasses and khakis during the daytime, he looks like a perfectly harmless little librarian in his plainclothes. I think his cover story is that he's a businessman or entrepreneur or something? However, I'm not sure that Zac really doesn't know, so much as Night THINKS Zac doesn't know, and Zac is possibly playing along with that for shits and giggles. Zac certainly did notice Night's Conspicuously Impressive Rare Bey Collection, and Zac's not stupid. I just feel like he would pick up on any Financial Oddities happening, any curiously-timed crimes being committed and making it to the news, coupled with the fact that his brother tends to Just Fucking Disappear sometimes, etc., that sort of shit, and eventually put the pieces together.

Which would explain why one of Zac's favourite Dumb Things To Do In Public is don that silly mask of his and call himself "Beyblade Mask", acting like people Surely Can't Recognize Him and then pretending to be surprised when they do [after he drops 500 hints at them lol] -- he's probably tickled by the fact that his brother has an actual Secret Double Life with a disguise [many disguises, actually] that is surprisingly actually convincing. I wonder if he's waiting for Night to put two-and-two together upon seeing him in his silly Beyblade Mask "disguise", realize that's a Cutesy Brotherly Mockery of his own nighttime habits, and realize that means Zac has realized what he's been up to. That sounds exactly like the sort of bullshit mind game Zac would play lmfao. I just feel like Zac's whole stupid silly Beyblade Mask fake-disguise thing and the fact that Count Night is an Actually-Disguised Phantom Thief isn't a coincidence, those two things have to be related somehow. Unless the overwhelming desire to cover half of your face up with a silly mask is just something else that runs in the Kurogane blood lol.

Also, it's cute how Zac and Night have the whole sun/moon thematic dichotomy going on. Zac the Sunshine and Count Night. Ha.

And on a completely different note, something curious about Count Night is the fact that his Eclipse has an Avatar inside of it. Right Artemis and Left Apollo did not have Avatars inside them until Count Night stole them and used them, combined into Eclipse. That...actually raises several questions. For one, Gachi explained how Avatars are formed, so now we know that they are some type of Energy Being that is created within the mind of their blader and then channeled into that blader's favourite spintop, so no question about what the Spintop Monsters are anymore. So, we know that the monster does not come from the spintop, the spintop is merely a vessel for it. Does this mean that Count Night created Eclipse's Avatar? It would make sense for those beys he stole to have indeed been empty, because they were created by Dr. Evel, who already has his Egis -- he's already made a bey Avatar, and people can't seem to make more than one of those things, they can only continue to adapt/evolve the one they've got. So, it would make sense for any extra beys created by someone who already has an Avatar-inhabited bey to simply be benign plastic shells, empty vessels with nothing to be put in them yet. So if Night already had Avatar Energy bouncing around in his brain, ready to Coalesce Into A Creacher and just itching for a bey to hop into, it'd make sense that he'd bond that energy to the next bey he grabbed and end up forming an Avatar for it, and in this case that bey would apparently be Eclipse. But Eclipse is also a unique bey. It is a bey made of halves of two other beys, Artemis and Apollo, both now owned by Night, though we never saw him use them not fused into Eclipse. We don't...HAVE any other cases where a fusion bey, made of parts of various beys, is comprised of parts of beys all owned by the same person. Normally, when Bey Fusion happens, the donor beys all have their own Avatars, which then either fuse or simply attack in tandem via the single fusion bey, and thus the donor beys all belong[ed] to different people. And, as stated above, it doesn't appear that one person can make more than one Avatar. Normally, when a fusion bey de-fuses, the borrowed parts go back to their owners, taking their attached Avatars with them. So, what, uh...what happens when Eclipse de-fuses into Artemis and Apollo? If Count Night were to use both of those beys together at the same time, not fused into Eclipse, how would that work? Would each one have its own Avatar, making this the only known case of someone creating more than one bey Avatar? And, if so, was that perhaps only possible because Night created Eclipse's Avatar while Eclipse was Eclipse, meaning that if Eclipse's Avatar splits into two [Artemis and Apollo], that's not so much "making a second Avatar" as it is literally, well, splitting one whole into two halves? So it technically is still one Avatar, just with the capability of dividing itself into two hivemind-type semi-physical forms at once? My brain hurts. Lore's too enigmatic and complicated and Technicalities In The Laws Of The Magical Fictional Universe is not my dissection strong suit, psychoanalysis is.

Anyway Count Night is incredibly interesting and has far more potential than was tapped into in the actual show. I say this about just about every character, but BRING HIM BACK, BEYBURST. DO MORE WITH HIM. He's so fun.

#Rewatched the end of Gachi the other day and that is why Bey Fusion Logistics are plaguing my brain currently #.Replies #BeyBurst #Beyblade Burst #Beyblade Burst Chouzetsu #Count Night #CK dissects #Long post

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breathingwysteria · 3 years

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Hyperbole & A Half; Illustrated Novels as Gateways to More Traditional Comics

Hyperbole and a Half, autobiographical webcomic blog, turned illustrated novel; One! Hundred! Demons!, autobiographical comic compilation of personal “demons;” both detail the funny, heartwarming, and often ugly parts of the human experience as they unfold for each author as an individual. Both are told in short story form, with an intra-homodiagetic narrator (the author serves as both narrator and active character), accompanied by illustrated panels that invoke a sense of physical and emotional movement that the reader can easily conceptualize. With so many major similarities, why does each work receive such different classifications? What makes a comic a comic and not an illustrated novel? How do these seemingly disparate definitions affect the way we read them? Can illustrated novels be considered gateway materials to comics? I think so. Before we jump into that exact why, let’s look at the defining characteristics of comics.

Text, images, and some semblance of sequential flow in time and space are the most major markers of comics, utilized throughout history, found in ancient work like Egyptian tomb paintings all the way up to modern comics and manga. Speech bubbles erupt from the mouths of static character images, narration is often delineated by straight-lined boxes and a change in tone, real movement through space and time happens in the empty “gutters” between panels. Although illustrated novels and comics are constructed differently, they are still processed in the brain in fundamentally the same way. Children’s literacy researcher, Evelyn Arizpe, notes that when reading illustrated stories, regardless of form (comics or traditional storybooks), “the eye moves between one part of the picture and another, piecing together the image like a puzzle.” If picture books and comics are processed in the brain in the same way, why are they considered different mediums? Linguist and cognitive scientist, Neil Cohn, applies his academic specialties to comics, attributing the difference to things like panel placement and what he calls “navigational structure,” the direction our eyes track when piecing images in a comic together to create a sense of coherence when reading.

Traditional storybooks, unlike comics, typically utilize one image per page to convey everything from character relationships to arrested motion; comics achieve a more fluid and nuanced version of this by using panels as snapshots or windows into character worlds. Where then does the illustrated novel fall between these two states, and where does Hyperbole and a Half land? Illustrated novels rely more heavily on the text narrative of the story and the readers imagination, associated images usually only serve to enhance the story world or solidify ideas and images that would otherwise be difficult to conceptualize or to emphasize an exciting or emotional moment in the narrative. Hyperbole and a Half leans more heavily toward the multiple-panel style of comics to help amplify the narrative. Perhaps this stems from the novel’s genesis as a blog-turned-book. In 2009, Hyperbole and a Half author, Allie Brosh began a blog of the same name, where she chronicled events from her personal life, like the adoption of one of her two dogs; illustrated pet peeves, like the internet usage of “alot,” a misspelling of “a lot,” personified as a shaggy, fang-toothed monster; or her fear of spiders, captured by an image of an oval with spindly appendages replete with strapped-on knives, guns, and a swastika tattooed above the eyes. Brosh’s book maintains the same familiar tone, regularly interspersing images meticulously drawn by the author herself. Her use of illustrated images that convey character motion, emotional state, and even dialogue exchanges are reminiscent of both regular comics and contemporary memes.

In Brosh’s chapter titled “Motivation,” she chronicles her own struggle with self-starting and follow-through. She illustrates a frequent conversation she has between the “her” who knows she must complete a task, and the “her” who continues to procrastinate for no conceivable reason. Instead of floating thought bubbles, she makes this conversation concrete by utilizing a kind of split screen effect,where both versions of herself take up space within the same panel, as does their dialogue.

Most of Brosh’s panels behave in the same way, providing the reader with concrete examples of often abstract concepts, like internal monologue and discussions with oneself.

One! Hundred! Demons!author, Lynda Barry, achieves this same concept by forcefully changing the reader’s perspective. As she reveals the story of her struggle with impostor syndrome as an author and her childhood tendency to let her imagination run away with the descriptions in the Classified section of the newspaper, the reader follows her through her childhood musings and is dropped into the middle of one of her fantastical plots.

Only when Barry transitions back to a narrative focused on her own more present-tense position as a narrator do we as readers get dragged back into the present-past-tense of her childhood self.

Brosh maintains a slightly smoother sense of temporal immediacy by clumping her panels in “Motivation” together, as one “Motivation Game.” Readers are taken along the same journey, into and back out of, the author’s imagination and altered psychological state, but Barry’s follows tactics familiar to comic readers, while Brosh blurs those lines a bit for readers unused to comics.

This difference in delivery of the protagonist’s inner-world carries over into the way dialogue is associated with each character as well. In the above examples, from One! Hundred! Demons!, Barry uses the classic speech bubbles historically associated with comics; Brosh, on the other hand, utilizes both classic speech bubbles as well as free-floating text that the reader infers to be audible speech through context clues.

In the chapter “The Helper Dog is an Asshole,” Brosh retells the story of her and her partner’s adoption of a second issue-riddled shelter dog. She uses both dialogue vehicles on one page, in succession, the traditional speech bubbles allow each character in the top panel to convey separate thoughts, while the speech in the middle panel is only spoken by Brosh’s caricature of herself, as she is the only character “facing” the audience.

Brosh utilizes a similarly comic-style tactic when expressing active motion or a change in mental or emotional state. In “The God of Cake,” she recounts a childhood obsession with conquering her mothers demands that she not decimate her grandfather’s homemade birthday cake with her youthful inability to control her own sugar intake. She masterfully illustrates this rapid descent into the kind of one-track-minded madness only children ever master with a four-page sequence of successively blurry panels.

No, that’s not a mistake of my scanner, it’s printed that way in the book; while a little difficult to read, I think it conveys an emotional whirlwind with an immediacy that helps the reader understand just how much untamed tenacity is bubbling beneath the surface for this child character through the remainder of this chapter.

Another tactic that Brosh employs, that seems like a holdover from her work’s origin as an online blog, is her use of a colored filter over a panel to illustrate distress or another intense emotion. In the same chapter retelling her story of the “helper dog,” Brosh lists the myriad and often confounding behavior issues the new dog frequently displays, like her visceral and adverse reaction to other dogs. Brosh posits that the new dog must simply be unable to comprehend or abide by the fundamental existence of other dogs in the world. To depict the abrupt and unpredictable change in this dog’s mental state, Brosh uses a red tinted filter, along with grumpy-looking smiley faces and hand-written text over her base illustration of her new dog lunging toward another dog in the distance, teeth bared.

You can almost hear the Kill Bill sirens going off in the background.

While Brosh’s artistic approach is reminiscent of internet memes, it also resembles the cartoon-y illustrated style of altered mental states in comics. In One! Hundred! Demons!, Barry juxtaposes alternating bright contrasting colors with radiating squiggly lines in a few of her panels to symbolize the acid trip she and her truncated crush are having on their roam through China Town and Skid Row.

Instead of giving the audience a sense of almost seeing through the perspective of her dog’s psyche, like Brosh does, Barry’s interpretation of her own childhood experience makes the reader feel a little like a sober friend along for the ride, understanding what’s happening, but not able to reach quite the same level of empathy.

Although comics are typically regarded as a reading material relegated to childhood hobbies, books that fall between the borders of comics and illustrated novels, like Hyperbole and a Half, prove their usefulness as a narrative medium, and for readers afraid of being seen reading a full-blown comic—or have never even attempted it, can consider them the shallow end of the comics pool, a lighter commitment than the image-heavy ocean of traditional comics.

Brosh, Allie. Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened. Gallery Books, 2019.

ISBN: 978-1-4767-6459-7

#this is for a class assignment #I will not be keeping track of discourse or suggestions

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breadstyx · 4 years

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@hurlumerlu replied to your post “Usopp be like "give me a sec *becomes a Christ figure real quick*”

wow did one piece become good again ?

Well that’s a tough one.

For context, I’ve been watching One Piece for like, a year. But when I was in high school I had caught up with the manga reading scanlations for a while. So when I started the anime, I picked it up at that part of the story, having a working knowledge of what happened up to that point.

It ended up being “I’ve seen Luffy build relationships with and hiring the ppl that end up being the definitive crew of the Sunny”, which kinda feels like Past Me invested the energy and time to read the setup to the actual story so I didn’t have to.

So I can’t tell if someone who started watching One Piece from the beginning of it would feel the same way as I do.

Let’s talk vibes and mood first.

In my opinion: One Piece is good. It can get proper silly sometimes and feel over-the-top, but it embraces it and makes it fully part of its own vibe and style. The universe is consistent, and the story never backs down on choices it’s made before. One Piece may be silly and over-the-top, but it’s unapologetic. Which I’ve been enjoying very much so far.

Now, about the storytelling.

Here again: I’d go with yes, One Piece is good. Eiichiro Oda knows pacing like the back of his hand; some of the best applications of “if you don’t know what to write: what’s the worst thing that could happen to your characters rn? make it happen” I’ve seen are in One Piece.

Also, despite all the silliness, the story feels real for a very simple reason: stuff that happens isn’t forgotten. The eye lost in battle is lost forever. The scar stays. The characters you’ve met in this arc will not disappear at the end of it but might pop up again later. The character motivations stay consistent, even when they evolve.

When it comes to the art style, it’s a bit more nuanced.

I like it. But this one can really be all-or-nothing I feel.

First of all, I gotta address the elephant in the room: The women are basically drawn as stick figures, with boobs twice bigger than their heads and waists smaller than my wrist. Yes. And it only gets worse as time passes.

That ain’t great.

That aside, the art style is very characteristic, especially for a manga, borrowing a lot of elements from cartoons (the main character IS made of rubber after all, so the stretches and squishes of western cartoons feel right at home here). Characters have flashy, colorful designs and it doesn’t shy away from going bonkers with body shapes: round, square, triangular torsos; huge characters and very small ones, pole-thin ones next to balloon-like others (also I’ll take fat characters being balloons in a world where all traits are exaggerated over the countless anime/cartoon/tv shows where they just don’t exist).

To a question like ”That character is important and strong and respected and kinda legendary how can I show that?”, One Piece boldly goes “Well that’s obvious, make them 1.5x bigger than everybody else”. That level of unashamed do-it-like-15yo-you-would’ve-done-it design really appeals to me.

Now, it’s good to keep in mind that One Piece is still a mainstream piece of media and has the flaws we’re used to see in such works — it’s no FMA:B.

There are pervert characters, boob zooms as jokes and stuff like that. There’s a whole ISLAND whose inhabitants are caricatures of trans women.

But also, the women actually have backstories and motivations of their own? They’re fully-fledged characters with their own personality and don’t only exist as men’s sidekick.

And the most transphobic-caricature-like character’s whole point is that “queers are amazing and strong”?? and the ““““romantic”””” main char that gets disgusted by those “men in dresses” actually has an arc where HE starts to wear a dress and makeup and enjoys being a woman?? But it’s still drawn in that hairy, bearded, “ugly man in a dress” caricature-like style ???

Overall, trying to ascertain just how problematic One Piece is is.... confusing. It’s bad in some ways, but keeps surprising me with actually nuanced takes on other stuff. It’s problematic, but it’s not a trash fire, I guess.

So yeah. That’s my opinion on One Piece.

#hurlumerlu #replies #i'm so sorry merlu #you asked a simple question and i wrote you an essay #i've been thinking about my enjoyment of one piece a little these days so ig your question provided an outlet to put words on them thoughts #i'll post more info on Christ!Usopp on another post if that's what you actually were curious about

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superultrachicken · 5 years

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Zombie Land Saga First Impressions

So, let’s take a look at the minds behind the anime, including the original artist if there was one. I like to get a feeling for who worked on an anime before I really get into watching it so I can know what to expect or compare it to their other works.

Okay, so I took a look into this and it looks like this is intended to be a multimedia project with both a manga and an anime in production telling roughly the same story. Taking a look at the manga’s author, Megumu Soramichi, they’ve only got this and other anime to manga adaptation under their belt, with them having adapted Chivalry of a Failed Knight as well. Honestly, looking at the manga, it features vastly more sexualization than the anime has featured within the first two episodes.

The primary director for the show is Munehisa Sakai. He also does sound direction. His other work is Sailor Moon Crystal (which I wasn’t overly fond of but it wasn’t poorly done by any means), a good portion of a couple PreCure anime, and a small chunk of One Piece. So he’s definitely a veteran in the industry with some really notable series under his belt, even if he doesn’t have as much as some others. And I have to say that he does a good job with this series. There’s a fair amount of fluidity in the story beats which would come from the writing, sound, and direction working really well together that’s present in this series.

The chief animation director is Kazumi Fukagawa. Her other works are Bleach, Danganronpa, and YuGiOh 5Ds among a few idol and moe anime. Just having the three named anime under her belt shows a fair amount of versatility in her art style, even if they were only doing key animation or in a secondary leadership role. And the animation is really good good here, I am giving this series a fair amount of praise right out of the gate but that’s only because it does a lot of what it does well. Even the scenes that don’t have much going on are really well animated and the characters are really expressive in their movements, which is needed in an anime centered around this sort of idol group.

Kazuo Ogura does the art direction in the anime. He’s worked on a lot and has been in the industry since the 80s at least. Some of his other works as an art director include the recent Dragonball movie, the Fullmetal Alchemist movies, the Fire Emblem OVA, and the Final Fantasy XV OVA. He’s worked as a background artist on countless others including Claymore, the JoJo OVA, and Escaflowne. Much like Kazumi Fukagawa, he has a lot of experience in an extreme variety of series. And, again, this shows in the final product. Though, while Ogura has worked on some anime that have heavily sexualized elements, this anime seems to lack those. As I mentioned before, you see a bit more of it in the manga that’s being released alongside the anime, but mostly due to uncomfortable angles and overall shorter skirts than we have in the anime. I could be proven wrong later down the line with overly sexualized imagery in future episodes, but from what I’ve seen, aside from some of the characters having large (but realistically large) breasts, the anime doesn’t go out of its way to sexualize the characters. It is very much just a comedy anime featuring zombie girls so far and I’m happy it didn’t go the way of the manga.

The music is done by Yasuharu Takanashi. He also did music for a bunch of PreCure series, Naruto Shippuden, Sailor Moon Crystal, Hell Girl, Shiki, Fairy Tail, and Gantz. This guy is talented. The music within the first two episodes of this show varies between literally screaming death metal to idol music to insult based rap battles using beat boxing in the background. Even without his extremely long and varied career in anime soundtracks, I’d argue that these two episodes along have enough variety that I have to have respect for Takanashi’s technical and creative skill.

So, all that said, what do I actually think about the series so far.

Well... I couldn’t find a writer anywhere but I have to say that I really like this recent trend of idol culture criticism that gives a critical, yet comedic, de-mystification of the idol industry in Japan. From what I’ve gathered, the idols are actually treated quite a bit like the girls in this anime, they are yelled at if they don’t do things perfectly during rehersal or if they gain a little bit of weight at any time. It’s a very abusive industry and they don’t hold back on the caricature of an idol manager. I appreciate this, I really do. While Backstreet Goku Dolls has a crime boss force his subordinates into gender re-assignment surgery to become idols as a punishment for messing up really bad, we have a guy who practices dark magic to create zombies using famous women and girls from the past. Once you start looking at it that way, this series really does lay on that commentary. Especially with the only actually idol member of the group attempting to run away the first chance she got.

But, if I had one criticism, I can see all the twists coming with maybe a few. I think I’ve guessed who two of the other girls are to the protagonist. One is extremely heavily foreshadowed while the other’s foreshadowing is a bit more subtle. I guess that’s it for my first impressions of the series.

It’s pretty good so far, though I’ll come back with an actually well thought out and edited criticism in a while. But these were just my autistic ramblings about the series

edit: (before you call me ableist, I have autism)

#zombie land saga #first impressions #good #anime

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pireviews · 5 years

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Pi reviews: Ode to Kirihito by Osamu Tezuka

published in 1970-1971

Synopsis: A new disease called Monmow shows up around the world changes a person’s bones until they take on a dog-like appearance. We follow a doctor who is studying this rare disease and gets send to the said village of it’s origin, but things go south fast.

Content warnings of media: Racism, sexism, rape, torture, violence, blood, hospital/doctor themes, body horror, nudity

This review is full of spoilers! In case those warnings won’t trigger you I recommend reading it

The story

Our main guy is Kirihito Osanai, a doctor studying this weird sickness. When he tries to find out how people contract it by going to Goddogtale, a small village in the mountains where it’s said to originate from. The villagers try to trap him inside there, being not afraid to show violence and attempt murder, which forces Osanai to marry a local; Tazu to be safe, until he gets the disease himself. After he starts looking like a dog-man they all get scared and let him do whatever he wants, even give him items he asks for. Though the marriage leaves him quiet heartbroken since he had his fiancé Izumi back at home already.

We then follow him on his long journey to get back home to his former fiancé and hospital where Kirihito has to go through horrible treatment such as: being kept as a collection piece, forced to have sex with women, being tortured and generally people being disgusting towards him because he doesn’t look human anymore (so they don’t treat him as such). A friend and colleague; Urabe that worked in the same hospital as Osanai is getting worried over him and for a chunk of chapters we follow the story from his perspective and how he tries to find his friend again together with Kirihito’s fiance. He goes crazy though, gets declared as mentally ill and commits suicide. The story ends with Kirihito finding out that he was deleted from his hospital register, 2 people who caused him great pain, dying of Monmow and he himself living in a village in Syria where he helps the people out as a local doctor.

Overall this story had me absolutely engaged. I wanted to stop reading at parts where the contents were just incredible cruel, almost tasteless in my opinion, but I couldn’t because I just had to know how it ended. The start and the end are strong but parts in the middle section where Kirihito just gets thrown into one misery from the other had me almost annoyed. I really just wanted it to end at these parts, not particuarly because of the characters but just the themes.

Apart from these few parts the pacing was done really well. Although the part where we followed Urabe seemed almost a bit tad too long. I was just wondering where Kirihito was at that point! There was a part where we see Kirihito get captured by Chinese people who put him in a cage, poke him and display him where his story just gets cut off and we follow Urabe? We never see him escape and the next time we see him he is just out and about again. (could be an issue with the site i read the manga on online, but if it isn’t I would be even more confused)

The art

This was the part, apart from the premise that really pulled me in.

It’s a simple style that Osamu wasn’t afraid to break out of, getting more realistic or exaggerated when it needed to be. There were a lot of great uses of how creative you can get with how your page looks like. I also found the character design quite nice, you could easily tell people apart and get a sense of their personalty by just their first looks.

(a particuarly fav page of mine as the layout works so great as we literally see this man go into a spiral of worry and madness)

Overall this is a horror manga and it does create such an atmosphere, you get a feel of how horrible these characters are feeling in their situations

I’ve also noticed looking through it again that the lines get sketchy at some points, compared to the usual style. I thought it was for adding emotion but it just seems to happen randomly

My big issues

If the content warnings didn’t indicate anything... My biggest issues with this manga is not the quality but I guess my ethical views. Women aren’t treated well, in fact they basically just motivation factors for the male characters.

I really wanted to like Urabe. I like his design a lot and he would make for a great character if you could ignore the 2 women he rapes in the manga. Which he just gets excused for like “okay but please don’t do that again” “okay” and then he does again. And it just makes me sad because it keeps me from being able to like him.

As for the first warning, black people are drawn as caricatures and portrayed as dumb and poor which... is just something I can’t gloss over and have to mention.

Which is almost ironic because the manga is very critical towards racism against asian people (most likely as the Osamu Tezuka could have experienced it himself)

TL;DR

I liked this manga a lot, the rape and racism stopped me from loving it. If you just want a good story with characters going through hell, body horror, nice art, psychological horror and not having that perfect happy ending you will like this!

#ode to kirihito #pireviews

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bnha-headcanon-requests · 6 years

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Class 1A-rtistic (AU/HCs)

Hi peeps! Today I offer you another incredible BNHA hcs. This time, it's my art academia, wow. In this post I'll talk briefly about each members' of class 1A favourite medium/style/subject of artistic expression. And since there's already so many Music Band/Dance AUs, I'm keeping performance art off this list. Now, let's go!

Yuga Aoyama (real life collage) - he likes to use bold colors as well as way too much glitter. His pieces are usually very expressive and full of positive vibes!

Mina Ashido (clay sculpture) - she goes mostly into abstract. Likes to experiment with shapes and textures

Tsuyu Asui (digital art) - she's mainly focused on character design. Uses very cute, simple style to create lovable, mascot-like characters

Tenya Iida (printmaking/ukioy-e prints) - puts a lot of detail into his works. Loves the technical aspects of it, all the calculations that go into creating a visually pleasing print. His works are multilayered and multicolored

Ochako Uraraka (sketch) - she specializes in portraits and caricature. From the about age of 12 she's been drawing portraits (mostly for her classmates) to make a bit of money

Mashirao Ojiro (photography) - he usually photographs cultural events, festivals, and crowds/cities. His pieces are mostly meant to serve as commentary of society and deal with matters of loneliness, family, communication between people, etc

Denki Kaminari (typography/lettering) - his works are heavily inspired by graffiti culture. They look messy and use bright, vibrant colors. Also, about 80% of time he realizes mid work that he misspelled something, and has to either start again or think of creative way to cover up his mistakes

Eijiro Kirishima (comics) - his style is mostly inspired by western superhero comics. He does most of his work traditionally and is very good at inking as well as anatomy and muscle placement. Most of his works have rather heavy shading

Koji Koda (photography) - his main subjects are nature and animals. He specializes in micro photography

Rikido Sato (sculpture/wood carving) - he likes to make figurines of animals or hausehold objects. They're usually super tiny and cute

Mezo Shoji (modern art) - his paintings are very minimalistic and abstract. Mostly composed of simple, geometric shapes in primary colors

Hanta Sero (photography) - most of the time, he creates indoors compositions that he later photographs. They look very clean and unnatural from design (a lot of straight lines, patterns, etc)

Fumikage Tokoyami (photography) - his works are extremely experimental. Often shot in black and white, or at late hours, it's often hard to understand what they're meant to potray

Shoto Todoroki (traditional painting) - he uses abstract paintings to convey complicated emotions. He plays a lot with textures by using different amounts of paint and uses mostly dark colors with sprinkled in pastels

Tooru Hagakure (digital art) - she's mostly interested in illustration and wants to illustrate children's books in the future. Her style is super adorable. Often, she doesn't use outlines, using very basic cell shading to convey character poses. Uses a lot of simple geometric shapes for her characters

Katsuki Bakugou (digital art) - his works are highly stylized with thick oulines and sharp edges as well as bold colors and black cellshading

Izuku Midoriya - (comics) - manga manga manga manga manga manga manga manga manga manga ma

Kyoka Jiro (photo manipulation/collage) - she spends most of her time designing covers for her favourite music albums

Momo Yaoyorozu (oil painting) - she likes to paint extremely detailed and realistic full scene artworks. She often uses large canvases and can work on one piece for months

Minoru Mineta (comic/digital art) - you know ;)

...and that's about it for now. Let me know if you have any suggestions or disagree on any of my choices.

#bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha au #class 1a #izuku midoriya #katsuki bakugou #todoroki shouto #Momo Yaoyorozu #kirishima eijirou #kaminari denki #Ochako uraraka #Iida tenya #And more

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themangaguide · 3 years

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There after it simply begins

Something about - Individual thoughts:

Something that happy came after I observed the extremely first event to mind right was the preliminary art course concerning the figures. It had not been something which I observed that regularly formerly a number of years. Not that it shows up different from your own present art-style, it really is a collection of parts from fresh types of previous versions as well as Japanese movement as old due to the fact that the 90s. The people show up rough-around the sides to duplicate the older look of identification designs with the fluidness of the adequate anime spending plan which was previous in many circumstances at that duration. It's a pleasing version towards 2015's year where the-art program in a number of the recommends that year were second best.

The method the display is supplied when it involves account miss out on sometimes or is just a small hit. You can happy to check it out. In the beginning it becomes your traditional fight a monster till it goes into a large climatic arc close to the center as well as 2nd half each program anime. I loved the extremely first huge arc associating with the females assisting Ushio from their very own tortures since it truly supplied some humanity for them than just the major one individuality that Ushio saves for the reason that particular event to the cast.

The henjo hen na joshi kousei amaguri senko manga rather dropped me later on making use of the inclusion of times vacation piece including a queen in they offer it in a manner of the historic times. Had they procured longer to accumulate them a lot more for me have the suffering of 1 figure particularly, without messing up something and to garner sympathy for that queen personality, I think it might have already been outstanding. There after it simply begins to get old eventually, the final handful of assaults specifically seems out-of devote just how brief lived and underwhelming it experienced with objectives with dull bad guys. It isn't something which I 'd get in touch with terrible but I'm like, had the speed reduced only a little within the 2nd-half, it may have functioned within the long-term.

Ushio to Tora consists of for this having an amazing cast of people, around the item does not stay up near the finish. I found Tora and Ushio positive as 2 other individuals working at chances using their motives together within their charm and also chemistry; Ushio's to conserve great deals of the folks he takes pleasure in to 1 night from bad and Tora consume him when doesn't observe. You will find variables where it might appear a little silly, yet Ushio to Tora is, large and also by, a foolish display in some circumstances. Generally as a result of Tora's character who frequently has absolutely amusing animation peculiarities that changes him out of this frightening looking beast to some chibi browsing caricature with cartoony eyes. Lots of may discover this to be constantly a little bit irregular, however for the component the display screen does equilibriums the humor and severe occasions out well-enough that it doesn't experience distracting. If you want some flashback, return and also check out manga online here. Please visit https://jocelynhonore.doodlekit.com/blog/entry/18669229/they-were-offered-a-tablet if you like to know more related details

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amjustagirl · 3 years

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im the storm chaser anon again Nikkiiii wdymmm ive been here since forever and have read everything in your master least at least once 😳 im just too shy to reveal myself but im sure you've come across me lurking in your blog. i was so excited to see that broken compass is in the same universe as the storm chaser series, i think i like it when stories are interwoven because well, life is a bit like that as well.

which brings me to something else, im currently reading the great Gatsby and i have to say that your writting reminds me of Fitzgerald's so so much, especially after you commented on the absence of dialogue from your fics(?) i noticed the same technique being used in the great Gatsby and was wondering whether you were inspired by him or not? i don't know, i find it intriguing, the omission of dialogue i mean, whether it's done on purpose or not i love it. it allows you to grasp the meaning behind words without having to deal with them which makes the story not only more interesting but also really unique in my eyes. you need dialogue in theatre or modern films but written text is something else entirely. while reading your fics, i can't help feeling that you explore and make the best use of aspects unique to written word, that's why i still believe that you're one of the best writters around here (and im saying this while having read almost everything you've recommended since i followed you 👀)

also the interwoven stories part reminds me of J.D. Salinger's short stories, sorry i said "which brings me to something else" and begun talking about something seemingly irrelevant, it's just that in my mind, Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby resemble eachother a little and my brain skipped two "steps"

anyway, sorry i say a lot of things at once and remain silent for the next two months but im almost done i promise.

love knows not it's depth, i told you something similar when you first published it but i'll say it again, it's one of the most realistic pieces i've ever read and i love that. the fact that Kuroo is one of my favourite characters aside (Kuroo and Atsumu 💔) he was so well written !! like, it felt as though i was witnessing a couple in my circle or something of sorts, it did not feel like a manga character and im saying that as a compliment T^T

i feel like im forgetting something though, anyway if you haven't read the books i mentioned, which i doubt, but if not i recommend them! also since im sending quite a few asks i might as well introduce myself, im ellie ><

i can't wait for your Kita fic, im sure it'll be amazing but take your time with it, it's okay!! im sorry for sending a long as letter in your asks but it'll probably happen again :( (unless ofc you don't want me to do so)

anyway, anyway, i hole you'll have a nice day !! 💛🌻

HI ELLIE!

okay my own rambling will be long so i'll do it under the cut.

oh gosh - never apologise for rambling or dropping into my inbox, i always love love love to hear what my readers think about my stories or anything around the sun! im like you - life is rly interwoven (catcher in the rye, so nostalgic!!), so i feel like..idk it makes sense for me to write some stories in the same universe! i'm glad you enjoyed it - and...

thank YOU for reading all my work! you're far too sweet to me. but yes, that's what i try to get at with some of my works where i don't focus on dialogue as much - there's so much more that's unsaid and i like the subtlety of it, yknow? i don't know - i don't think im inspired by fitzgerald - i'm familiar with his works, but because of where i'm from (former british colony, taught by brit teachers), i don't focus so much on american modern literature, more like - british victorian lit / shakespeare yknow? but but but i went to take a quick peek when you mentioned him...and yeah you're right! like this line from Gatsby - “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” oh gods, that style of writing just gave me chills. thank you for the rec - i'll HAVE to check it out.

i personally feel really bad whenever ppl tell me im one of the best writers around cos i feel like such a fraud - i think im decent but like...argh. i think a lot of us suffer from imposter syndrome LOL.

oh gods, love knows not its depth. idk what possessed me when i wrote it because it just...flowed and i knew after i wrote it that...it was real, yknow? i cld see shades of it in my mother, with my parents' marriage, potential shades of it in my own marriage (if either of us choose not to put in the work), so i guess...writing it was really reflective of real life too! i don't often know whether im writing kuroo right, and i'm glad you liked it cos he's so complex? there are so many facets to him - his cockiness, his maturity, his kindness, his ambition, and it's so easy to just write him as a smirking caricature, and i was afraid of that.

i hope i hope i hope you like my kita fic - i just dropped a sneak peek of it, and i'm back on tumblr cos i just finished writing another bulk (my brain needs to rest, to be continued tomorrow!!!).

i hope you have a lovely week, dear ellie <3 don't be afraid to pop back or even dm me, i'm always always up for a chat!!!!

#Nikki chats!#Ellie<3

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toonstarterz · 7 years

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BECAUSE I’M NOT POPULAR, I’LL READ WATAMOTE: CHAPTER #115

As another arc finishes, another arc begins. You’d think that the mangaka would give us a breather chapter after Tomoko’s gag-filled Valentine’s Day, but instead, we’re jumping right into the 2nd graduation ceremony. It’s a surprising move, but I’m all for it. While this isn’t exactly packed with laugh-out-loud moments, it compensates by giving us the introspective, if not melancholic, review we’ve been set up for.

Chapter 115: Because I'm Not Popular, I'll Attend My 2nd Graduation Ceremony (Part 1)

At first, I thought that this was another case of Tomoko being overwhelmed by too much social stimuli, but at it turns out...

Best girl appears.

...it’s just allergies. The first time I read this, I thought it was a little contrived for Tomoko to be shown with allergy problems this late in the game. But as per Nico Tanigawa’s style, this is just a gateway to point out more significant elements in the manga. I’ll get to that in a bit.

I like when they bring up seemingly minor events in continuity without it looking too forced. I also can’t help but wonder if this is the way the mangaka is trying to have Yuri become the successor to Imae as Tomoko’s “guardian angel”. Honestly, I think that would be the best. I like Imae, but I feel that her overly nice personality wouldn’t have been doing much for Tomoko’s personal growth. With Yuri, her pleasant but more fair judgment has helped Tomoko come to terms with her own flaws. Ultimately, Tomoko benefits more from having a friend who will respond to her shortcomings, but still accept her regardless.

This gets elaborated later on, but I appreciate that Tomoko’s anxiety has greatly diminished when she has to interact with strangers.

At least, when it’s not a hot guy. Redundant “guy from the sports meet” is redundant.

This guy is such an over-the-top, smooth-talking bishounen that I can’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. And to answer your question Tomoko, it’s because we live in a society where being a loner is viewed as a “weakness” that needs to be overcome.

It doesn’t.

Watamote usually has two kinds of jokes. There are the self-destructive jokes in which Tomoko’s troubles are caused by her own ignorance. And there are the tragic jokes in which the world throws Tomoko a minor misfortunate that Tomoko overreacts to. This is both.

Okay, what the hell is going on with Ucchi’s face?

There’re multiple levels of hilarity to be found with all these seemingly random cameos of Ucchi. And it all boils down to context. If we didn’t know Ucchi, you’d think she was just a random background character. But we do know Ucchi, and her being recognized in the background by her background-like face, which actually results in her not being a background character is the first level of hilarity. The second level is in the hands of us, the readers. We know how Ucchi is, and how she feels about Tomoko, so just her mere presence is funny when we can imagine her thoughts to the scene happening before her eyes.

Ucchi doesn’t really have to do anything. She just has to be there at the right place at the right time.

I get the feeling that this is the mangaka relaying their own thoughts on the direction of the series through Tomoko. They probably didn’t expect Tomoko to grow as much as she did (little it may be), even if it makes the most sense story-wise. But now that she has, where do they go from here? It may have been easier to have Tomoko go through a bunch of hilarious, cringe-worthy jokes with no development, but at the same time, Nico Tanigawa knew the novelty couldn’t last forever. It’s something that many writers face when working on something that doesn’t have a definitive ending in mind.

How far can you push a developing character without just going through the motions?

From the looks of things, Yoshida seems to have cooled off from her Valentine’s Day embarrassment via Tomoko. Granted, some time has probably passed since then, and thankfully for Tomoko, Yoshida doesn’t seem like the type to hold a long-standing grudge. Sure, she’s temperamental, but her emotional highs seem to come and go.

Thankfully, Tomoko’s growth is still in its early stages, so I’m confident that the mangaka won’t run dry on ideas.

From left to right, top to bottom: Best Girl, Not-Ucchi, Closet Otaku, Okada without the Pineapple, Makeup-chan, and MC.

This is what I meant when I said Tomoko’s out-of-the-blue allergies are a segue to something more significant.

Let’s do a little compare and contrast. When Makeup-chan offers a handkerchief, Tomoko’s reaction is noticeably restrained. She’s surprised, for sure, but is otherwise collected. I’d like to think that this reaction is due to Tomoko being used to Katou paying attention to her in this way.

Then there’s Nemoto. After having her eyes opened to her “true colors”, Tomoko’s impression of Nemoto is now strained. But here, with the girl showing Tomoko kindness, it throws the latter through a loop. After having been used to Nemoto’s passive aggressiveness, suddenly being treated the opposite sparks conflicting emotions.

It’s also the fact that Tomoko still isn’t used to people being so considerate of her, especially by two people in the same moment. Though she’s grown more in terms of social interaction, she still isn’t accustomed to having all this positive attention on her.

Thus ends another over-analysis on yet another minuscule detail by Toonyoungster.

Okay, I’m certain that Nico Tanigawa are toying with us right now. At this point, they probably already know that people ship Tomoko and Ucchi, and so they’re making Ucchi’s obsession even more blatant then it already is because they know we’ll eat it up. But the thing is, I don’t really see this as pandering. It would be if the couple of the ship were forced into a “romantic” moment by an external force (i.e. accidental groping by a harem protagonist). But Ucchi’s history of distant affection tells us that this is something she would actually do, which makes it all the more believable.

Remember how I said Ucchi doesn’t really have to do anything to be funny. Here, the mangaka takes it up a notch by not even having her in the panel. and it’s still funny. A+

Now we’re getting into the really deep shit. I’ll admit, I was pretty surprised when Tomoko’s optimism took a one-eighty like that. At the very least, it’s nice to see her finally acknowledge her own growth like this. But looking at it from Tomoko’s perspective, I can see why she might think negatively about her future.

I remember late in the series when we started getting all these heartwarming chapters, there where people commenting how “this is the calm before the storm”. That’s where Tomoko is right now. She’s gotten used to her life being stagnant, painful as it was, in her first year, that when things started going uphill, it felt like she could come tumbling down any minute. We’ve seen evidence that while she appreciates her new acquaintances, having to maintain a social life now tires her out. People like Tomoko can develop, but long strides in growth become less likely as time goes on. In a way, she’s hit a plateau, her “peak in high school” if you will, and all that’s left is to either inch on forward, or throw herself at the mercy of whatever high school has left to offer her.

As far as I can tell, Imae is a symbol for everything Tomoko has managed to accomplish, little that may be. She was the ray of hope in Tomoko’s (and the reader’s) eyes that told us that things may actually turn out okay one day. Now that that day has come, Imae’s job is done. Time for baby bird Tomoko to leave the nest.

I’d write more about Imae’s character, but I figured I’d save that for the following chapter, where’s she’ll most likely be more present.

Funny thing is, this chapter could easily be a standalone chapter, so the fact that we’re getting at least one other part leaves me curious for more. Will we be saying good-bye to Imae for good? We’ll just have to wait and see.

...

So because I’m a piece of trash with no shame, I’d like to take this moment to invite you all to see my new webcomic series, Overthinking It.

It’s a pretty simple premise, really. Just a series of 4-panel gags involving a loose caricature of myself. It’s certainly no Watamote, but I sure would appreciate it if you all could give it a look. Maybe you’ll get a laugh or two. You can find it at the following links:

https://overthinkingitcomics.tumblr.com/

https://tapas.io/series/Overthinking-It

#watamote #watamote review #no matter how i look at it it's you guys' fault i'm not popular!#chapter 115 #tomoko kuroki #yuri tamura #yoshida #that guy from the sports meet #imae emi #ucchi #katou #nemoto #ogino #review

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