garycxjk

[garycxjk]

'Tis Time for "Torture," Princess season finale speculation and prediction

Okay, so, I make it no secret that one of the anime I enjoy this season is 'Tis Time for "Torture," Princess. It's a really fun series, though there's something odd going on with the series. Obviously, spoiler warnings. I'll put the rest behind a read more, but it's going to be a major spoiler.

So, last episode, they introduced and neatly wrapped up Gekkou's arc. The strange thing about it is that they actually revisited an older chapter, as they went back to chapter 47 (the Krall chapter with the dog), went on to chapter 62 (the dream chapter), then did chapters 82 and 83 (the youth spell chapters), before going back to chapter 71 (the pizza chapter). So, there's precedent of revisiting older chapters to neatly wrap up each story arc.

So, I want to do a little prediction, and it's going to be a bold one.

I think they're going to introduce Sakura Heartrock.

So, throughout the series, Princess has talked about a friend who betrayed her. In her flashbacks, she's been portrayed as a pink-haired girl. Later, in episode 10, during Vanilla's "torture" with cards, she again talks about that girl, showing her having a tea party with her.

Except the tea party only appeared in chapter 126, the episode where Princess and Sakura are reunited.

So, what I think they'll do is adapt chapter 97 first, which introduces Sakura. Then they'll adapt chapter 100, which is a callback to chapter 1. Next, I think they'll first do chapters 106 and 113, though they might switch the order. Both are Sakura centered, and both can't be shown after chapter 126, since both chapters still work under the assumption that Sakura doesn't know that Princess is also there.

Then as a season finale they'll do chapter 93, the chapter where Torture isn't sure if she's going to continue being Princess' inquisitor.

Look, the only thing I'm certain of is that they'll be doing chapter 93, as that's a great season finale. You're unsure whether Torture or the rest will stay on, so it ends with every inquisitor assembling while the end credits and the series opening start. If they don't do that, 'tis a missed opportunity.

I'm also fairly certain they'll adapt chapter 100, as that chapter only works if the series is still fresh in your mind. Sure they could leave it for a season premiere, but I don't know, I feel like putting it in the final episode would work great, especially if it's after a lore-heavy chapter like chapter 97.

However, there's one chapter that could delay Sakura's reunion with Princess, unless they drop chapter 106, which is chapter 96, which is just starts off as a regular chapter, and turns into a lore chapter at the end.

Of course, they could just adapt an assortment of chapters, like chapter 91 (a very cute Vanilla chapter), either chapter 72 or chapter 94 and 95 (all three Krall chapters, though 94 and 95 are both connected), and, let's say, maybe chapter 98, and Inki and Youki chapter. Maybe also drop in chapter 90, a Maomao chapter. That way, we can leave Sakura for next season, plus, we still have plenty of other older chapters to adapt anyway, so it's not like we're running out of chapters anytime soon.

#'tis time for torture princess #hime sama goumon no jikan desu

[garycxjk]

This weekend I did something I didn't do before, go to an event and stay there overnight, or in this case, stay two nights. I went to this little Dutch event called KaraokeCon.

I discovered KaraokeCon thanks to the Asgard Sings Discord server, Asgard Sings being the one(s) to bring Karaoke to Dutch conventions like Abunai or AnimeCon.

I was a bit anxious to go, but in the end, I'm glad I went. Despite my social anxiety I was able to vibe with many people there, and probably even made various new contacts.

So yeah, that's basically it. Nothing much actually, I didn't really take any pictures because I hate taking pictures of humans.

Anyway, I'll be preparing for next year. I've already decided to get a bigger suitcase and a better sleeping bag, and I've decided on a cosplay costume. I've even decided on some songs I could sing for the competition, but I still need to figure out which one I want to do.

So yeah, I really hope the second edition of KaraokeCon will happen, and I'll definitely be there, though next time I might need to clean shave myself.

#karaoke #karaokecon #karaokecon 2024 #Asgard Sings

[garycxjk]

Why most people don't get Europapa

So, Joost Klein's Europapa apparently is taking the world by storm. With its happy hardcore or gabber house tunes and beats and the silly music video, there's no denying that this song has a certain charm, though it also has its detractors.

The thing is, though, most people on both sides don't fully get the song.

To summarize the song, it's essentially about an orphan who travels around Europe to find himself. Those were in Joost's own words.

Europapa is about an orphan who travels throughout Europe (and beyond) to find himself and tell his story. At first, people don’t recognise him, but he goes on seizing any opportunity he gets to let himself be seen. Europapa is a tribute to my father. When bringing me up, he passed on to me an expansive view of the world.

Okay, but why does the song sound so silly? Well, that's something deliberate. I don't really know much about Joost Klein's music, but what I do know is that this is basically what most of his songs are. Silly, yet deep.

Okay, brief detour to give context to the rest of what I'm writing, but it's important to remember that Joost Klein basically became an orphan at a young age. He lost his father to cancer when he was 12, and a year later, his mother died as well. This essentially shaped his music. From what I can gather from the many YouTube comments, he always watched Eurovision with his parents, and told them that one day he'd be there on stage.

So, let's just talk about the elephant in the room. Some people call this European propaganda. However, just the first few lines clue you in that it isn't just some pro-EU propaganda.

Welcome to Europe Stay here until I die

In fact, there are several lines used that wouldn't sit right if it were pro-EU propaganda. Let's look at the second verse.

Ich bin in Deutschland Aber ich bin so allein

Which roughly translates to

I'm in Germany But I'm so lonely

The next lines, "Io sono in Italia / Maar toch doet het pijn" (first line Italian, second line Dutch), which translates to "I'm in Italy / But I still feel pain".

Essentially, the entire song is him trying to let go of his past, to let go of his grief. That's essentially what the burning house and the windmill represent at the end, finally moving on from the past.

And that's essentially what the entire song is about. The entire song sounds like it's stuck in the '90s and early noughties. Naturally the most glaring part is the music style. Back in the '90s, happy hardcore and gabber house was really big, especially in the Netherlands. The way people dance back then and dressed when they did can be seen in the scene with Paul Elstak. Then there's the Gameboy Advance, which came out in the early 2000s.

Another cool thing is a reference to New Kids, a Dutch comedy show from 2007, when someone says "Welkom in Europa jongen!" ("Welcome in Europe boy!"). On the television screen, you can see Gerrie van Boven, played by Tim Haars, a character from New Kids.

But it isn't just a throwback. It's all being done deliberate. Something that gets lost in translation is the text. The rhymes work, however, to a Dutch person, it sounds a bit... childish. Very simple, at the very least. But I think that even that is done deliberately. It sounds like a child has been writing these lines, but I think that's the point of the song. It's supposed to sound like a child has been writing these lines.

The entire song is about the protagonist being stuck in the past, being stuck in his grief. It's why there's a disconnect between the text and the melody. Sure, it's a celebration of Europe, of Eurovision. Joost Klein genuinely loves Eurovision. However, it's also essentially him saying, this is me closing another chapter in my life.

Let's take a look at the outro of the song.

Op kruistocht in m'n spijkerbroek, lopend door de velden M'n papa en m'n mama zijn voor altijd mijn helden Aan het einde van de dag zijn we allemaal mensen M'n vader zei me ooit: "Het is een wereld zonder grenzen" Regen op het raam en ik stond huilend bij het venster Veel te vroeg duister, het is winter in de lente "Ik mis je elke dag", is wat ik stiekempjes fluister Zie je nou wel, pa? Ik heb naar je geluisterd

This... seems quite long, doesn't it? Well, that's because that's the full outro. What most hear during the video clip is this:

Aan het einde van de dag zijn we allemaal mensen M'n vader zei me ooit: "Het is een wereld zonder grenzen" "Ik mis je elke dag", is wat ik stiekempjes fluister Zie je nou wel, pa? Ik heb naar je geluisterd

Let's translate the full lyrics. I'll put the translations of the lyrics in the music video in bold and italic.

On my crusade in jeans, walking through the fields My dad and mom are forever my heroes At the end of the day we are all human beings My father once told me: "It's a world without borders" Rain on the window and I stood at the window crying Darkness far too soon, it's Winter in Spring "I miss you every day", is what I secretly whisper You see dad, I listened to you

So, basically, the gist is, this song has many layers. It's a heartfelt tribute to Eurovision, while also telling a personal story about grief and letting go of said grief.

Though I think this interview with Joost Klein on De Avondshow met Arjen Lubach may say more than I could.

Well, sometimes you must say goodbye to whatever is most dear to you. And when one door closes thousands of others open, apparently. But what I've learned is that you tend to hold on to your own pain sometimes. So this letter provides some sort of closure, dare I say. Saying: "Hey, Mum and Dad... You will always be there for me, but I can't carry this pain forever."

#europapa #joost klein #eurovision #eurovision 2024 #esc 2024 #eurovison song contest #the netherlands #Youtube

[garycxjk]

Second chances

Let's get this out of the way. Throughout this post, I will not name one certain individual, not because she has done anything wrong, but to make ego searching this post a lot harder for her. This also means that this post will not be easily found. The thing is, I don't really even need to mention her to make a point, as her situation isn't a big part of it, it only serves as the backdrop. So I will neither name her previous life nor her current.

Second, I'm not gonna shit on Nijisanji EN. Too many have already done that before, and it's getting a bit tiring. Plus, again, it doesn't serve the point I am trying to make, however, it does serve as a backdrop.

So, basically, to keep it short, recently a certain person had been terminated in a pretty fricken dumb way which I'm not going to get into, which involves them self-exposing their own incompetence. This termination also came after the person who was terminated made two attempts on her own life, fortunately she's still with us.

But that's not the point of this story. Recently, three of the talents have released a not really smart video, basically digging themselves deeper into a hole, if I may so personally, those being Elira Pendora, Vox Akuma and Ike Eveland. Now there are theories going around, but let's keep it as a fact, they were used as spokespeople, either against their will or otherwise, we don't know. We'll get back to the three.

Now, out of all of this mess, one thing was clear. Zaion LanZa, also known in her current life as Sayu Syncronisity, was right. After her termination a month after debuting at Nijisanji as Zaion, she was terminated, and she wrote a scathing expose about how her experience at Nijisanji was, and spoilers, it wasn't great, and later, it turned out a lot of it lined up with what the most recent terminated member experienced.

The thing is, at the time, she was mostly ignored. Not by everybody, but by too many, in my opinion, mainly because she was only there for a month. I know, I was there when it all happened. People either ignored her, or just said that she was salty or straight up called her a liar. Her reputation as Sayu therefore tanked, and it was only after a week after the most recent termination that people slowly began believing her completely.

The thing is, her reputation only improved almost a year after it happened, and from what I understand, her offenses weren't even that severe. People called it mistakes, yes, but not bad enough to warrant a termination. But okay, maybe Nijisanji didn't think she fit into the Nijisanji ecosphere, so she was let go. I'm not going to go into how she got terminated, that's a whole different can of worms, all I'm going to say is, she got terminated, and her reputation didn't exactly recover.

But, and excuse me for repeating the same phrase but, here's the thing. After almost a year, people should have forgiven her. She had already apologized, I'm not sure if she's done it multiple times, but she did at least once. She had admitted she made mistakes.

I'm a firm believer of second chances, everybody deserves one. Now, I do have to say, people don't deserve second chances from everyone, depending on how bad the offense was, but, look. If we can forgive James Gunn for his tweets he made when he was dumb and stupid, we should be able to forgive Sayu for the dumb shit she said, right?

It's as if people don't actually believe in second chances. Now, I'm gonna be honest, I'm not really willing to give Nux Taku a second chance, not after he did Coco's graduation notice dirty, essentially acting like a rrat. But that's my personal issue, I've been betrayed too many times in my life, taken advantage of too many people that my flight response gets triggered quite easily. Fuck, it's why I stopped associating myself with the Steven Universe fandom, despite me still liking the series. It's not that they're inherently bad or that I think they're bad, it's that they're bad for my mental health, which is why I distance myself from them.

And if you ask me what my opinion is of Charlie (penguinz0) or Asmongold, I don't talk about them at all. They just give me too much of an I-don't-trust-them vibe. Not that they're untrustworthy, but I just don't want to burn my fingers on them.

The thing is, yes, the SA jokes were in bad taste, I agree. However, it just feels like people were looking for an excuse to hate on her. And now that all this shit with Nijisanji EN is going on, she's suddenly being hailed as someone who was right all along. It just doesn't sit well with me.

The thing is, we all want second chances, but we don't all want to give them. I personally believe that everybody deserve second chances. Not just one, but many. People continue to make mistakes in their lives, and yes, if it's better for your own mental health, you can decide not to give that person another chance. Maybe there are some people who just don't deserve second chances because they never take them, they never learn from them. As cynical as I am in life, I still believe people can change, either for the worse or the better.

Which brings us to Elira, Vox and Ike. No matter whether they're guilty of whatever people accuse them of or not, their reputation is toast. In the short term, they won't be able to recover it. However, let's look at another case.

Mikeneko. Amemiya Nazuna. Yes, even Uruha Rushia. Her reputation has sunk to the bottom of the ocean. However, I don't think it'll remain that way. In time, there will be people who will give her a second chance. Remember, it's forgive, not forget. People may forgive her, but they won't forget. Honestly, I've decided to stay away from that drama, as I really do not care about it, but I do believe she can, in time, recover her reputation.

I mean, fuck, if Logan Paul can come back from that Aokigahara controversy, as much as I still think there should have been more repercussions from it, anyone can.

So, as a closing thought. Elira. Vox. Ike. Your reputations are pretty much toast, at least at Nijisanji EN, but possibly also in your PLs as well. However, it's not unsalvageable, it never is. As long as you're willing to change, as long as you're willing to better yourselves, as long as you want all of that, you can come back on top.

Tanking your reputation isn't the end of it all. You'll probably have to start over from scratch, and you'll most likely never going to go back to the reputation you had before. But it's not the end. Just live and learn.

But I do think Nijisanji EN is practically done.

#nijisanji #nijisanji en #kurosanji

[garycxjk]

I actually had to ask my youngest brother, and I can actually confirm this. He might not be good at tech, but at the very least he can use Microsoft Edge to download Opera GX, or install Paint.NET. He even knows how to send an email if needed. Mind you, he's 13 years old.

So while it might not be isolated cases, it might be at the very least regional.

So this was originally a response to this post:

****

****

Which is about people wanting an AO3 app, but then it became large and way off topic, so here you go.

Nobody under the age of 20 knows how to use a computer or the internet. At all. They only know how to use apps. Their whole lives are in their phones or *maybe* a tablet/iPad if they're an artist. This is becoming a huge concern.

I'm a private tutor for middle- and high-school students, and since 2020 my business has been 100% virtual. Either the student's on a tablet, which comes with its own series of problems for screen-sharing and file access, or they're on mom's or dad's computer, and they have zero understanding of it.

They also don't know what the internet is, or even the absolute basics of how it works. You might not think that's an important thing to know, but stick with me.

Last week I accepted a new student. The first session is always about the tech -- I tell them this in advance, that they'll have to set up a few things, but once we're set up, we'll be good to go. They all say the same thing -- it won't be a problem because they're so "online" that they get technology easily.

I never laugh in their faces, but it's always a close thing. Because they are expecting an app. They are not expecting to be shown how little they actually know about tech.

I must say up front: this story is not an outlier. This is *every* student during their first session with me. Every single one. I go through this with each of them because most of them learn more, and more solidly, via discussion and discovery rather than direct instruction.

Once she logged in, I asked her to click on the icon for screen-sharing. I described the icon, then started with "Okay, move your mouse to the bottom right corner of the screen." She did the thing that those of us who are old enough to remember the beginnings of widespread home computers remember - picked up the mouse and moved it and then put it down. I explained she had to pull the mouse along the surface, and then click on the icon. She found this cumbersome. I asked if she was on a laptop or desktop computer. She didn't know what I meant. I asked if the computer screen was connected to the keyboard as one piece of machinery that you can open and close, or if there was a monitor - like a TV - and the keyboard was connected to another machine either by cord or by Bluetooth. Once we figured it out was a laptop, I asked her if she could use the touchpad, because it's similar (though not equivalent) to a phone screen in terms of touching clicking and dragging.

Once we got her using the touchpad, we tried screen-sharing again. We got it working, to an extent, but she was having trouble with... lots of things. I asked if she could email me a download or a photo of her homework instead, and we could both have a copy, and talk through it rather than put it on the screen, and we'd worry about learning more tech another day. She said she tried, but her email blocked her from sending anything to me.

This is because the only email address she has is for school, and she never uses email for any other purpose. I asked if her mom or dad could email it to me. They weren't home.

(Re: school email that blocks any emails not whitelisted by the school: that's great for kids as are all parental controls for young ones, but 16-year-olds really should be getting used to using an email that belongs to them, not an institution.)

I asked if the homework was on a paper handout, or in a book, or on the computer. She said it was on the computer. Great! I asked her where it was saved. She didn't know. I asked her to search for the name of the file. She said she already did that and now it was on her screen. Then, she said to me: "You can just search for it yourself - it's Chapter 5, page 11."

This is because homework is on the school's website, in her math class's homework section, which is where she searched. For her, that was "searching the internet."

Her concepts of "on my computer" "on the internet" or "on my school's website" are all the same thing. If something is displayed on the monitor, it's "on the internet" and "on my phone/tablet/computer" and "on the school's website."

She doesn't understand "upload" or "download," because she does her homework on the school's website and hits a "submit" button when she's done. I asked her how she shares photos and stuff with friends; she said she posts to Snapchat or TikTok, or she AirDrops. (She said she sometimes uses Insta, though she said Insta is more "for old people"). So in her world, there's a button for "post" or "share," and that's how you put things on "the internet".

She doesn't know how it works. None of it. And she doesn't know how to use it, either.

Also, none of them can type. Not a one. They don't want to learn how, because "everything is on my phone."

And you know, maybe that's where we're headed. Maybe one day, everything will be on "my phone" and computers as we know them will be a thing of the past. But for the time being, they're not. Students need to learn how to use computers. They need to learn how to type. No one is telling them this, because people think teenagers are "digital natives." And to an extent, they are, but the definition of that has changed radically in the last 20-30 years. Today it means "everything is on my phone."

[garycxjk]

Piracy is a service issue, not a price issue

So recently, I've subscribed to the Deluxe plan of MANGA Plus. I could have gone for the cheaper plan, since I mostly just use it to reread 'Tis Time For "Torture" Princess, as well as trying to get back into Dandadan and maybe other manga.

The point is, I subscribed because the app works well enough, isn't completely dogshit, and the service is reasonably priced for what it offers.

When a service asks me to pay as much for a single issue as I pay for one Deluxe subscription of MANGA Plus, I'm starting to think that service might not be worth it. Heck, if I have to pay as much for a single chapter as I pay for a complete volume of my favorite manga, then maybe you should overthink your service.

And, like Gabe Newell once said about piracy being a service issue, not a price issue, if your app is complete doggy doo doo, on top of everything being overpriced, people will rather not read your shit if piracy wasn't an option.

You're already overworking and underpaying your content creators, don't expect us to take your proverbial dick in our mouths, let alone suck it. If you want us to go legit, give us something worth while.

At least with my MANGA Plus subscription, I can catch up with *checks app* One Piece.

[garycxjk]

Why Hakarane has a high chance of becoming canon

In my previous post about 100 Girlfriends I talked about how the manga (and anime) is essentially a parody on romance manga (and anime). So, let's continue from there.

100 Girlfriends by definition ships every girlfriend with Rentarou, but there have been some smaller ships in the community. One of the bigger of these ones is Hakarane, or Hakari x Karane, thanks to chapter 12. There are some who write it off as just yuri bait, but what if I told you that this was all intentional?

Yuri bait, in essence an element in a story that contains something that looks like yuri or a lesbian relationship only to draw readers in but never follows through, is something that is pretty common in manga, romance manga in particular. In Hakarane's case it's no different. We have one big kissing scene, followed by multiple smaller kissing scenes in the manga and hints that there's more to Hakari and Karane than the mangaka are willing to let out. In the end, it just looks like circumstantial evidence.

However, knowing that this is a parody manga, I'm not too sure if it just remains as subtext. 100 Girlfriends does a lot of deconstructing of tropes, yes, but at the same time it reconstructs said tropes to make it more interesting. One of them is the yuri bait.

Right now, we're in the deconstruction stage, where everything is played up for laughs. Haha, Hakari and Karane end up acting like a married couple yet again, or they end up doing something very yuri, like kissing. However, these are all setups. Something this consistent will eventually come back as something significant, and it will happen the moment the reconstruction phase of this trope begins.

I just feel that the yuri bait is actually a yuri bait bait, baiting you into believing it's just yuri bait. It would be on par for a parody of romance manga to just play this one completely straight instead of just baiting us with yuri. It would be a master bait.

#The 100 Girlfriends Who Really Really Really Really Really Love You #100 Girlfriends #100kano #Hyakkano

[garycxjk]

Why everybody gets 100 Girlfriends wrong

I've been seeing quite a few comments that completely misinterpret The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You, so I'm gonna break down to you the series a bit, trying to not spoil it for anime onlies. This is mainly in response to someone wondering why they don't just "speedrun girlfriends".

100 Girlfriends, first and foremost, is not a romance manga. It's a comedy manga with focus on romance, yes, but first and foremost, it's a parody manga. It's parody in the same sense that Gintama is a parody. Yes, it's an affectionate parody, but a parody nonetheless.

It already starts with the premise that the main character has 100 girlfriends. The focus actually isn't the 100 girlfriends, it has always been the girlfriend archetypes. The pervert, the tsundere, the non-communicative one, the kuudere. They deconstruct, then reconstruct each and every single one. This is why it also does not speedrun the girlfriends, because it shouldn't.

In fact, the first seven chapters (up to episode 5) do show this already, it has a slight pacing problem. Not because it takes too much time to get to each girlfriend, but because it doesn't take its time to give us the deconstruction and reconstruction phases. It is only from the next two chapters (or episode 6) on that it basically uses each girl's traits and shows us creative ways they work with them.

But they had to speedrun at least the first four girlfriends to give us an idea of what the premise is. Rentarou is an impossible protagonist who actually manages to make a polyamorous relationship work. I'll get back to that later, but keep this in mind. It needs to establish the actual rules.

We know the visible rules, that if Rentarou rejects a girlfriend, she'll die. However, chapter 3, and by extension episode 3, establishes directly that Rentarou doesn't just make these girlfriends his because they'd otherwise die, he actually genuinely starts caring for them, and wants to love them, while at the same time he wants them to care for him.

This is one of the manga rules people miss, because, forget the rejection means death rule. That rule hasn't been important since episode 3 anymore, and hasn't even been brought up that much in episode 5, and that's the initial mistake many manga readers made when getting to chapter 7. However, from chapter 8 on (the next episode), something magical happened. We finally figured out that this manga has never actually been about playing the romance part straight. It was always a comedy first and foremost.

You see, the fourth wall breaks, the absurd situations, the literal physical abuse Rentarou gets (from Karane of all people). Heck, even the anime opening. Especially the first point, the fourth wall breaks, those should tell you that the manga never really takes itself too seriously. Yes, it does take the romance parts seriously, but that's because if you don't do that, it doesn't work as a parody.

Take Gintama. It's a parody of shounen manga (and by extension anime). However, it is also a shounen manga in and of itself, that part it still plays straight. If it was just riffing on shounen manga, do you think it would have been as successful as it has been right now?

Or take the many films by Mel Brooks, and one in particular, Spaceballs. Spaceballs is a parody of science fiction films, but Star Wars in particular. However, it still is a science fiction film in and of itself, it still takes that part serious enough to make the parody work.

Compare that to the later Scary Movie films or those other movie parodies. They didn't work because it became pop culture reference, the movie, instead of being a parody of the genre while still playing that genre straight enough to make it work. They fundamentally forgot how parodies work, which is why the parody film died.

So let's go back to my comment about Rentarou being the impossible boyfriend. Many manga readers joke about Rentarou being the chad, or Chadtarou. However, by now we've realized one thing about him. He's literally an unrealistic standard when it comes to boyfriends.

There's a reason the meme "Chapter 1: I want to become Rentarou, Chapter X: I want to be Rentarou's." We realize that we literally cannot be Rentarou, nor would we even want to be Rentarou, because, face it, his job sucks. He has to take care of, what, four girlfriends at this point, which already seems like an impossible task in real life, but Rentarou goes above and beyond to make sure each girlfriend is equally loved. Not proportionally, no, equally. And with each new girlfriend, he doesn't divide the love he has between his current girlfriends and his newest girlfriend, no, he adds on top of it. It's like, at the start, Rentarou's love capacity is 100%, but then he gets two soulmates. Does he just divide his love in two, 50% for Hakari, 50% for Karane? No, he gives 100% to Hakari and 100% to Karane.

At this point, we'd just rather be Rentarou's **girlfriend**, because at least we **know** we can and will be loved by him 100%. Rentarou deliberately sets an impossible standard for the harem protagonist, because it's a standard that should never be reached by any living being. Rentarou in and of himself is the ultimate parody of a harem protagonist, and the reason for that is so that the manga and anime can safely parody every single romance trope that exists.

So, to break down the five episodes for you, to explain why it's paced like this:

Ep. 1: It explains the premise of the story, and how it's going to subvert your expectations.

Ep. 2: It shows an explanation of such subversions.

Ep. 3: It shows you the more serious side of this anime.

Ep. 4: It subverts the harem narrative.

Ep. 5: Basically the same as episode 3, combined with trying to deconstruct and reconstruct the archetype of the week.

And you will notice that with each new girlfriend, it will do the deconstruction and reconstruction in one episode. It needs to explain an archetype, show how it would actually work in reality, and turn it around and make it actually work in the bigger picture. Then, in the following episode, it will... well, you will have to find out soon I guess. But there is a pattern.

To sum it up:

1. This anime isn't a harem romcom. It's a parody of romance manga.

2. Each girlfriend represents an archetype that gets deconstructed and reconstructed.

3. Likewise, without going too much into spoiler territory, any situation is a parody of an existing romance trope.

4. Rentarou isn't your typical harem protagonist, because he isn't meant to be one, he's meant to be a parody of one.

5. The reason it doesn't speedrun girlfriends is to give each girlfriend enough time to parody.

#The 100 Girlfriends Who Really Really Really Really Really Love You #100 Girlfriends #100kano #Hyakkano

[garycxjk]

Okay, so, I've seen some people comment that "No, you shouldn't ship a bully with the bullied", but people do seem to forget that Clover and Mandy are basically on equal grounds. Sure, Mandy might have some social influence, but it's quite as often that she gets her own comeuppance in that very same episode. In fact, there are enough people who aren't fond of her at all.

Truth is, there are enough times when Clover could have bullied Mandy back but didn't because she's one of the good guys, instead, she let karma win.

And also, people forget that their hate is mutual. There were some moments when Mandy mellowed down for an episode and actually was nice to Clover (and the rest), and those also happened to be the episodes where Clover was still mean to her.

But yeah, I still ship them. Even wrote a fanfic about them (on an alternate account, because smut). You can find it on [REDACTED] under the title [REDACTED].

Why does nobody seem to ship Clover with Mandy?

Don’t you think it kind of makes sense?

[garycxjk]

Does anybody else have trouble writing the spicy bits of your spicy fictions (fanfictions or original work)?

Like, and maybe it's because I don't have a lot of experience with real life spicy stuff, but I find it very hard to write something that doesn't sound cringe, like, how can people write the mouth noises without breaking down laughing?

By the way I'm talking about smut.

#writing

[garycxjk]

So normally when I time songs for Ultrastar Deluxe, it takes me about half a day to finish a song, though with most modern English songs it might even take me several days due to all the adlibbing and decorations, which is why I really love timing Japanese songs, as the melody doesn't change much throughout the song.

Yes, there is that small thing where the chorus changes, but that's mostly just changing the lines, but overall, it's easy for me to just copy and paste large sections and do some minor tweaks. This is why Japanese songs can take me around eight hours to do.

Not this song, though! Kurae! Telepathy by Maharajan is even simpler than that. The chorus only has one line changed, and the second verse only has the bridge. In fact, there are only two verses, compared to most songs that have three verses.

What's more, the song could quite literally qualify for a Eurovision song if it was written in Europe and wasn't written specifically for an anime, as the song is under three minutes.

In total, it took me around three to four hours to finish it, and this was with the additional time of checking the song, uploading it to my site, posting it again on USDB, trying (and failing) to post about it on Twitter X, and writing this tumblr post.

Right now I have quite a few songs in my list of songs to do. I still want to do Leo Sayer's Thunder In My Heart, Yvonne Elliman's Love Me (because my mom requested that one) and quite a lot of hololive songs (think songs like Inugami Korone's Wonky Monkey, or Houshou Marine's I'm Your Treasure Box). On top of that, there were a few songs I've seen on the request list of AsgardSings that I do want to do, like Peaky P-Key's Absolute (though Photon Maiden's Akatsuki and Happy Around!'s Brand New World kinda have my personal priorities).

I'm gonna be quite busy for the coming few months. I might also have to tone down the amount of days I'm streaming (not too much of a problem since I do have coughing problems at the moment). Oh well, as long as I have everything ready by Christmas.

#ultrastar deluxe #karaoke

[garycxjk]

So people seem to speculate why a lot of films flop, and blaming it on this or that, but I think the only reason they flop is because production costs keep rising, while personal budget keeps falling.

While our income might not have changed, everything has become more expensive, making us a lot more picky about what films we want to see. And, for films to just break even, they need to earn about 2.5 times the production budget.

The same goes for video games, though they have the added problem of games still costing the same despite higher production costs.

I feel like what the entertainment industry should focus on is not just trying to make films cheaper, but making the process cheaper in general, and unfortunately, at that point we might head into more unethical practices.

Or we all should get paid more. Like, I live in a country where I can get by with just one job, but there are countries where three aren't enough. Right now, a lot of people can't frivolously spend their money. Heck, they can barely pay for groceries. How do you expect them to go to the movies?

[garycxjk]

Okay, I need some honest opinions, guys. Do you think this baby head, which I made in the game Zeepkist, is cute or creepy?

#zeepkist #polls #honest question #definitely not a troll

[garycxjk]

Decided to do more streaming on Twitch. I don't intend on earning money from it though.

I haven't set everything up, and it all is still a bit barebones, but it'll get there soonish.

For now, you can find me on Twitch every once in a while.

[garycxjk]

My little opinion on The Little Mermaid

Just got home from watching The Little Mermaid, and let's just start out with, I enjoyed the film. I thought it was good, or at the very least good enough. So, I wanna give my thoughts. I'm gonna go through various points, each discussing the things I didn't like with the things I did like.

Beware, it's gonna be spoiler heavy.

Classic songs

What I didn't like:

First, while I don't mind the song being cut, it does feel like it was missing from this film, and that was Les Poissons, though to be fair, I don't see how it would fit into the film.

I thought Under The Sea was really weak. It was just Sebastian and Ariel singing most of the time. The thing is, the song only works if it's an entire choir singing. This is also something that comes up more in the classic songs, the only ones singing are the main cast, but in Under The Sea, this is especially bad because the song relies on the choir singing, since that's how Ariel was going to escape.

Also, I don't feel they did my favorite song, Part Of Your World, justice, at least not the main version. The reprises are okay to actually really good, but I'll talk about that later. The thing is, the singing wasn't bad per se, it's just that, the articulation, the timing, all that just felt off, mainly because it was too perfectly timed.

The thing I liked about the original was that it was dancing around the beat, sometimes lagging behind, sometimes being ahead by a bit. It felt theatrical, but also, more natural. This just felt off.

But also, I love Halle Bailey's voice, but she didn't exactly pull off the right emotions. The beginning is supposed to be really small, then it goes more grandiose, until it dies off. I can't really explain it, but, it just felt like it ended too strong, the beauty of the original was that it just died down, became more fragile by the end. This was needed, because the reprises of this song were there to show the difference in confidence and resolve.

What I did like:

Kiss The Girl was good, it was fun. It wasn't as grand as the original, but it worked, they made it work. It felt more intimate.

Fathoms Below was also a good one, and, spoilers for the rest of the review, but the movie didn't start off with that song, that song was moved to Eric's birthday, which was what I expected when it didn't show up at the start.

But the one song I thought blew every other song out of the water was Poor Unfortunate Souls. Melissa McCarthy really blew that one out of the water. I loved it, it became one of my favorite songs of the movie. The way she sung it really felt like Ursula.

New songs

What I didn't like:

I thought Wild Uncharted Waters and The Scuttlebutt were pretty weak songs, especially the latter song, I really did not like that one. It's fortunate that that song was the shortest song.

Wild Uncharted Waters just felt like a cut song that they brought back for this film, which hopefully wasn't the case, but I don't know, I think the main problem I have with that song is that it was sung in a too low register. Only when it went a few semitones higher did it sound decent. I don't think there was anything really wrong with this song, it just felt boring.

What I did like:

For the First Time was a great song, almost being as great as the classic songs. Unlike Jasmine's song, this song actually added a lot to this film, and actually set the new tone of the film. I also loved how the tone shifted throughout the song.

Changed things

What I didn't like:

Honestly, just the first time when Ariel became a human. In the original, Eric found her. In this version, some random fisherman finds her. Sure it set up how the rest of the story would work out, but I just liked how the original had the meet cute, and it would be kinda mirrored in how Ariel originally left Eric, and also how Eric found Vanessa.

Also the fact that Eric doesn't play flute anymore. Him throwing his flute in the ocean was such a powerful scene.

Finally a minor thing, but the fact that they moved Fathoms Below to the birthday scene. Maybe how they changed Scuttle into a girl, but I didn't really care about this that much, Awkwafina was a fine casting for Scuttle.

What I did like:

Let's start with the elephant in the room, because that's one thing that will polarize people. In the original, Eric was the one who murked Ursula, in this one, it was Ariel who did it. I found it thematically more fitting than having Eric do it. Sure, Eric had a good motivation for killing Ursula, that motivation being getting it on with a mermaid, but by switching it up, they turned it into Ariel righting what went wrong. By changing it up, it turned into Eric having to swim back to shore by himself.

Also I did like how Eric wasn't the biological son of the king and queen, and that there was a substory about why Eric wanted to travel.

There were quite a lot of things they changed, but it was all for the better of the film in my opinion. One thing I really liked was how they actually developed the budding romance between Ariel and Eric.

Also turning the wedding into an engagement party made so much more sense.

Some other notes

Before going to the dislikes and likes, I just wanted to say I got jumpscared at two points. One where Ariel was grabbed by the thingies on her way to Ursula, and one in an earlier scene, where Eric was floating down and suddenly Ariel grabbed him from behind to save him.

What I didn't like:

The final battle. The CGI Ursula just looked bad. Sure, there was a lot of CGI that obviously looked CGI, but to me, they looked fine, or at least good enough. The final battle? That looked like shit.

What I did like:

Call it a hot take, but I thought Melissa McCarthy was really hot and sexy in this film. She put a certain sex appeal into Ursula that turned her from a bad guy into a "bad" guy.

Also, the underwater scenes weren't as dark and colorless as people made it out to be, or at least the trailers didn't do this film any justice.

Overall, I liked the film. Was it a necessary live action adaptation? Most certainly not. But was it enjoyable? Yes, I'd even go as far to say that I had fun.

#the little mermaid #opinion

[garycxjk]

The Garden is a story about two people, Gui and Em, and their life on top of a giant tree. It's a web novel that I try to update regularly, or at least as much as I can.

This story actually started with another idea for a story set in a similar world, called Heaven Fades Away. I wanted to have a big blank slate world, but also one that was dark, that could potentially give you the sense of loneliness.

Both ideas have a similar theme, rebuilding a world. While Heaven Fades Away is more on a smaller scale, building up a new village from just one house, The Garden does it differently, by building up an entire dungeon city.

The Garden is also a bit more intimate. It's about the friendship between the two protagonists, and how they deal with being stuck on top of this World Tree, a tree the size of a mountain.

I might one day post Heaven Fades Away, once I get a solid first chapter. I'm still working out how I want the story to be. Meanwhile I do hope you'll at least enjoy The Garden, or at least what I've written so far.

Also feel free to ask me anything about this story.

#writing #webnovel #isekai

[garycxjk]

I've never had the greatest luck in love. It's not that nobody is interested in me, it's that I just seem to fall for the type of woman that would never fall for me, and that really is nobody's fault.

To keep it simple, after over half a decade, I still am in love with the woman who is incapable of loving me back.

I'm not gonna go too much in detail, as one of her relatives is on tumblr as well and she knows my online handler, but the gist of it is that she's asexual and aromantic. The problem is that I have a tendency to hold on to someone and never let go.

I know it isn't worth the pain, but I also know she deserves all the happiness I could give her. The thing is, even if she wasn't asexual, I doubt she'd fall for me.

All I can do is be a good friend for her, and have her be my muse, my inspiration, for the stories I write.

#vent