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communist-ojou-sama · 2 months

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Otherside Picnic manga vol. 11, Side Story excerpt

"It's okay, I won't do anything. I'm just curious."

"Curious...?"

"That's right. I'd like to be friends with Kamikoshi-san. That eye of hers is so pretty, I'm really taken with it."

"Friends, huh."

"I mean, there aren't many chances to meet other girls who have experience with the Blue World, right? If she was also Satsuki-sama's fan, then I'd have to make a little "request" and have her give up on her, but Kamikoshi-san isn't, so I might be able to become friends with her without using my gift, right?"

"Haha, I wonder about that. I don't think that girl... is suited for friendship."

"Why? Is she a bad person?"

"No... she's not exactly bad..."

As she mumbled, Kozakura wondered to herself what exactly she's trying to defend Sorawo for.

From her perspective, Sorawo's personality isn't a matter of good or bad. As twisted as it may seem at times, at others it's it's shockingly straightforward. She's reckless and shortsighted, but lacks the maliciousness that'd lead her to try to control or constrain the will of others either.

She's no saint or sage, but she's no demon either. In other words... she's ordinary.

The problem is that she's fatally unhinged along a totally different axis.

"I don't get it."

Kozakura thought she heard a hint of impatience in Luna's voice, and suddenly she hoisted herself forward. She brought her face in close to Kozakura's and met her gaze from below.

"You sure are anxious to defend her, just what is she to you?"

"What do you mean 'what'? I don't understand what you're ask-"

"Won't you tell me?"

Kozakura shuddered. Without even a moment to run, Runa's whispers flowed into her ear.

"Eek...!"

With a smoothness that elicited a shiver of disgust, Runa's voice slipped in through her ears, and went inside of her. It felt as if there was some sort of soft, invisible organism inside of her. The most blood-chilling part of all was that, even though it was clearly a foreign entity, her body wasn't rejecting this intruder. If anything, it was the opposite. Like cool water flowing down a thirsty throat, her ears were rejoicing. Her brain, her spine, her whole body were yearning for, and greedily feasting upon Runa's voice.

ASMR doesn't even compare. This is something... something totally different. This voice was something different from the mere airwaves produced by the vibrations of an ordinary human voicebox.

"Stop... it..."

Even though she was no longer tied up, her body wouldn't move. As she sat frozen upon the chair, Kozakura struggled to rebel against the sensation Runa's voice was causing within her. In her ever-blurrier vision, she could see Runa's underlings standing behind her. Each and every one was watching with entranced, envious expressions.

It irritated her to imagine that she was also making such a slovenly expression-- but, she could feel even that irritation being ground to bits by the overwhelming power of the voice.

"Tell me. Just what is Kamikoshi-san to you, Kozakura-san...?"

She didn't understand what she was being asked. Who is Sorawo? To me?

Something like that... that's...?

Contrary to the confusion in Kozakura's mind, her body attempted to obey the voice. Her mouth opened, she sucked in air, and spat out:

"...I DON'T KNOW!"

The words came out like a roar.

"Huh!?"

"What is she? I don't KNOW. I have no idea. What in the world is she?"

Runa, seeming shocked, kept looking at her for a moment with her eyes wide, but then abruptly opened her mouth and began to laugh.

"Ahaha! you don't know! That's so funny!"

"...What's so funny about that?"

Kozakura managed somehow to squeeze that question out. The sweet sensation brought on by the voice began to fade. It seems that after obeying her "request", the dominating power of the voice was lifted. Kozakura felt that made sense, and tucked it into the back of her mind. Runa's victims indulge in the sensation once, and from there on grow to await her further "requests".

"I didn't think I was asking such a serious question. But I see. To you, Kozakura, Kamikoshi-san is someone so important you can't put it into words. That's fun! I'll have to ask Kamikoshi-san how she feels about you, later!"

Kozakura didn't have the energy to reply to this taunting intimation. Luna flashed a smile at her as she leaned, drained, against the back of the chair.

"Well, putting that aside! The real thing I wanted to ask about was Satsuki-sama. Will you bear with me for just a little longer, Kozakura-san?"

Runa's voice tickled her ears and brain pleasantly. Her mouth opened and began to answer Runa's questions of its own accord, and she was now powerless to stop it.

(translation courtesy of yours truly)

#my translations #Otherside Picnic #urasekai picnic #裏世界ピクニック #I hear the bonus chapters have not yet surfaced in english so: a present from a very busy girl

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fishing-lesbian-catgirl · 4 months

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how does the manga compare to the original novels for Otherside Picnic? I'm debating looking up where to read the novels since I'm caught up with the manga

The way most people talk about Otherside Picnic adaptations is like this: the anime is mediocre, the manga is good, and the books are amazing. The manga is very good but it struggles to capture Sorawo’s internal monologue, which is the most fascinating part of it all. I could talk forever about how much Sorawo’s thoughts and limited perspective on everything are important to Otherside Picnic, but other people have said it better than me a hundred times. I have read all 8 books twice and I only learned about Otherside Picnic in summer of 2022. And I know I will be rereading them many times in the future. They’re so good I can’t begin to get across just how good they are. Again, the manga is very good, but it’s honestly more enjoyable to me after reading the books because I know what Sorawo is thinking the whole time

#if you want to know how to read them you can dm me and I’ll help #I mean you can also just buy them digitally #from J-Novel club. idk how much the whole set costs though #if they made all of them in print in English I would love to buy them #otherside picnic

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is-this-yuri · 1 year

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what is miyazawan yuri, i wish to know more,,,

Hi, happy to answer. It's a difficult concept to talk about, but I'll do my best. Keep in mind this is just my interpretation.

Miyazawan yuri is a concept explained by Iori Miyazawa, author of Otherside Picnic, in an infamous interview. While discussing his thoughts on the yuri genre and his own writing, he says some things that people on the internet have kind of rolled with and turned into a bit of a meme.

He says things like 'yuri can be an empty field with broken machinery' or 'two wild beasts glaring and ready to pounce on each other. It's yuri, isn't it?' The 'an empty park bench is yuri' idea is one of the more common jokes in the meme space.

These abstract ideas about yuri are meant to speak to the feelings present in yuri media. It's a contrast, or a compliment, to 'literal' yuri, which is more about depictions of girls kissing and going on dates. On the extreme end of the spectrum, smut for the sake of smut is probably the clearest example of literal yuri.

An empty field with broken machinery is yuri because you could imagine that at some point, two girls were in that field working with that machinery, happily in love with each other. Two wild beasts fighting is yuri because that's a representation of what it can feel like for two girls working out their relationship, or being intimate together. An empty park bench is yuri because you could picture two girls going on a date and stopping there to share a moment together.

These empty images, devoid of any actual girls, can be summed up by the term 'yuri of absense.' Some people have taken this term literally, and think it means that anything with no girls present can be yuri. Actually, the absense of girls is meant to prompt you to fill in the empty spaces.

The reason it's abstract is that it deals with feelings rather than actions. If you have a romantic mind and understand what love between girls feels like, it won't be hard to see yuri in everything. That's the idea. Yuri of absense can also be about feelings of yearning, focusing on what a girl might feel when she can't be with the one she loves, or while the relationship develops.

This kind of feelings based writing is somewhat rare, but it's what Miyazawa excels at. Somewhat ironically, Otherside Picnic also features a ton of literal yuri. The characters are very much in love with each other and spend a lot of time together. There's hugging and kissing, and they go on what could be considered dates. However it's also a slow burn story involving a lot of confusing feelings from pretty much every major character, as well as a missing woman that many of the characters were either in love with or close to falling in love with, leading to many scenes that could be considered yuri of absense.

You can read the interview in English here, and I highly reccomend doing so:

#Miyazawan yuri #literal yuri #otherside picnic #asks #i hope this makes sense lol

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ladyloveandjustice · 8 months

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Otherside Picnic Volume 8 Review that Devolves into a Bunch of Quotes and Gushing

I’ve been wanting to do a review of Otherside Picnic Vol 8 because I loved it so much, but haven’t been in the right mindspace to properly convey my enthusiasm. But I’m about to get busy so it’s now or never. Here are my thoughts that are inevitably going to devolve into a bunch of quotes and gushing. Let's just go through it all!

-I loved this so much, first off. It literally inspired me to have an honest discussion with my partner about my own intimacy and relationship quirks and what we want from each other. It made me feel a little better about myself and my own weirdness, that’s how much it affected me. It really got across the relief of just communicating in a relationship, of having frank conversations with your partner, and accepting your differences from the mainstream as okay.

-The conversation about romance, love, and sex being different actually made me tear up, which is how I knew this book would murder me from the beginning. It’s just so nice to see one of my favorite yuri and favorite romantic stories ever acknowledge asexuality and the full spectrum of experiences in such an understanding and thoughtful way.

-I love that this book really recontextualizes the oblivious-to-love protagonist, slow-burn and often stalled development that aren’t uncommon in animanga adjacent media romances and made it into something incredibly interesting. This was already hinted at in previous volumes, but Sorawo’s disconnect with her own feelings and slowness in responding to Toriko wasn’t just to tease the audience, but because her view of romance and her understanding of her own feelings conflicted with societal ideas of romance and it left her lost and confused. It makes everything that came before it so much more meaningful. This is also extremely relatable, and I love that Sorawo was frustrated with the idea of her relationship fitting into a socially acceptable box, when she felt what she had with Toriko was a lot more complicated and far reaching and didn’t want to define it so neatly.

-Honestly reading about Sorawo not being all that into kissing and basically being like "I don't hate it but it doesn't do anything for me" made me feel a little bit less alone and little more confident in talking about this aspect of my experience. ME TOO. GIRL.

-Every single yuri should have a line like “sounds to me like you’re a raging lesbian” from now on. How can anything ever live up to this.

-Toriko looking into sexual abuse gave me a heart attack because at first I thought she was trying to understand what happened with her and Satsuki. But she was researching Sorawo, because the stuff with the Red Person made her realize Sorawo has trauma and I felt so vindicated about my article. Then we have the hilarity of Sorawo, who literally has a “cult mode” when she’s made to relive where she had to deal with abuses from cults, where she becomes like a different person and talks to herself like she’s a separate person and is disconnected from her normal self…claiming she doesn’t have lingering cult trauma and doesn’t dissociate.

And then Toriko going “uhhhh what about the Red Person?”

“Huh oh that didn’t count. Cuz your love saved me.”

THE most un-self aware person, I love her.

(And EVERYONE knows it, especially Toriko, loved this exchange:

“Don’t try to force something I’m not aware of onto me.”

“Sorawo, there aren’t many things about you that you actually display self-awareness of.”

“Wow, insulting much?!” )

-The fact Toriko noticed how thirsty Sorawo was for her the second they met is so funny and makes that scene 100 times better in hindsight.

“It took me by surprise. Here I am, holding you in my arms, and you go and stare at my face, then your eyes start working their way down. I was like, ‘Girl sure has a lot of energy for someone who almost drowned.’”

“So, what? When you were talking about me ogling you before, you meant—”

“Yeah, right from the get-go. From the moment you saw me for the first time.”

Sorawo didn’t realize she was doing it…the entire exchange is hilarious. SO much of this book was hilarious honestly, here are some other choice quotes:

Who would’ve known there could be such a touching scene right next to a shelf stuffed full of erotic manga with titles so incredible that I couldn’t possibly name them...?

And this, the best love confession ever:

“I love you! I love you!”

“For real?”

“Apparently!”

-I really liked that Toriko was genuinely worried Sorawo might not have consented to the previous kisses and might be bothered by them. It built on the ongoing theme of Toriko struggling with emotional and physical boundaries, giving her such good character growth, and It shows a concern and care most stories gloss over.

…Which is kind of a stark contrast to the lack of concern she shows about that time she hit Sorawo in volume 6, despite Sorawo bringing it up as a problem. This has been an ongoing issue that’s bothered me, and it’s been mentioned often enough I hope Miyazawa is going to actually do something to address it. He DID address the questionable consent of the earlier kisses, going beyond my expectations, so I actually have my fingers crossed this is something we’re going to explore and confront. It’s really jarring compared to the rest of how well everything else has been handled, and is the only mark against the story, so I’m hoping this is intentional. The Toriko who worries Sorawo might have been sexually abused and goes above and beyond to try to be sensitive and understand her and the Toriko who is dismissive of the time she hit her (now) partner seem so in opposition to each other, and I there could be some interesting exploration and resolution of that.

(Miyazawa does mention something about having to treat serious issues casually because of Sorawo's detached, cynical POV and hoping readers will understand; and I think it's likely he was referring to that, which gives me more confidence).

-Sorawo understands Toriko’s moms are lesbians now I’m so proud of her.

-the fact that Toriko wanted to fuck in her dead parents bedroom …she has so many problems, I cherish her.

-I loved getting more Toriko backstory and her moms. Love Sorawo being like “wow I probably should have asked about this but…” YES YOU SHOULD HAVE, FOR MY SAKE. But Sorawo’s focus on living in the here and now, and being content with the Toriko in the here and now, is such an interesting aspect of her.

-EVERYthing about the final scene was so good. Like how can I even talk about it? Toriko fucking Sorawo with her weirdass interdimensionally-corrupted hand while getting jazzed by Sorawo's magic eye is just PEAK lesbian fantasy, no other series had delivered this exact weirdness that I want, thank you for being there for all of us bizarre sapphics.

“I...might make you go crazy.”

“That’s okay.”

Toriko’s hand drew closer. It meant something different now than it had before. If Toriko touched me now, I’d be the one to go insane. She snuggled up to me, so close our noses could touch, and with a voice full of heated passion, she whispered, “Let’s go crazy. Together.”

“Girl hit me with your evil eye, let’s get real fucked up” I love them, they’re such freaks and I am here for it. THE PASSION. THE METAPHOR. THE PURE CHUUNI WISH FUFILLMENT.

-Honestly I just highlighted the entire final scene because it hit me right in my weird gay little soul the way few other things have and I want to be able to whip these out the next time some loser says wlw media doesn’t have poetic declarations of love and passion so I’m just going to go through them.

Here’s one:

But that’s not what happened. Toriko looked beautiful, opening before me like a flower in bloom, and I was aware of every minute branch of the tree, down to their very tips…[]

Toriko became rude, polite, lewd, or embarrassed. I didn’t have the composure to focus or think as I watched, so Toriko changed from one thing to another as my gaze wandered. Laughing, getting angry, crying, fearing, moaning—feeling as if she were flowing from one state to the next, in constant flux, and yet in all of them simultaneously.

Sorawo accepting all sides of Toriko, all her complexity, how she’s everything all at once! And the fact they have such amazing sex they basically GO TO THE OTHERSIDE? Dimension transcending lesbian sex? Showstopping, incredible.

The way her hand moved, tracing the outline of my body—its true outline—was as gentle as could be, sensitive yet bold, overflowing with care, incredibly unreserved, and audacious. It felt like it was packed full of all the experiences of being touched by another person. In another way, different from mine, Toriko was unraveling the person that I was too. I was being decomposed, broken apart. The things that had been pressed into a human form were decompressed, and expanded outwards without limit.

This is how you do a sex scene. If your partner doesn’t unravel you and make you see all the shattered pieces of yourself, is it even worth it? I love the motif of falling apart but becoming more whole at the same time- isn’t that just every human experience all wrapped up into one?

I had been afraid to look at Toriko. Toriko had been afraid to touch me. Now, as we were looking at, or touching, our partner directly, tossed about on the waves of madness, we began to gradually find a way to take control of the situation.

The idea of how maybe you can’t help losing your minds when you look and feel all the other person is…but maybe if you lose your minds together it will be okay. Romance.

These two beasts with all these bodies converged through their desire for one another and were bound together. We were blending together at the interfaces where we connected. The different ‘us’s melted together, without ever becoming a perfect whole, but without fully separating either. Like a chimera made from two types of living being. Or two galaxies colliding.

“We became a chimera” is the absolute nerdiest way to describe making love and thus perfect for them (also lol the beast with two backs).

That’s too long, so how about shortening it to Soratori?” I burst out laughing as I remembered the time she’d tried to use the name Soratori Road for what we now called Route 1 in the other world. “

That’s like one of those ship names,” I told her.

“What’re those?”

“You’re a mangaka’s daughter and you don’t know that?!”

“Nope, not a clue. Is it something dirty?”

“Well, maybe?”

“Hmm.”

Okay, so Sorawo is clearly in some fandom and ships something. Place your bet on what it is. Probably she ships creepypasta monsters.

Do you know what the ‘nue’ is?”

“It’s a Japanese monster, right? Made up of a bunch of different animals mixed together.” “Yeah, that’s the one. As an extension of that, the word can also refer to something that doesn’t have a discernible form.”

[...]

While we were there, the two of us got all mixed up together, right? Intertwined, melting into one, like animals... Depending on how you look at it, you might say we were like a nue.”

“So, basically, if you wanted a word to represent our relationship, we wouldn’t be ‘lovers,’ or ‘accomplices’...but a ‘nue’?”

Okay forget what I said this is ACTUALLY the nerdiest way to describe your relationship. And speaking of nerds, I love this stupid conversation:

“It’s cute. Nue. I like the sound of it. Maybe I’ll get a tattoo of the kanji.”

“You’d take it that far?”

“You’re not gonna get a matching one?”

“They might not let us in the hot springs in Japan anymore. You sure?

” “Huh?! I wouldn’t like that... You think it’d be okay if we put them somewhere no one will see?”

“Where would no one see? This is sounding painful, and I’m not really on board with it.”

“Wha?”

Anyway, yeah, this section was everything I wanted, no notes. Toriko and Sorawo have the most demented, fantastical sex possible, having a threesome with the otherside because they all are strange and wonderful, being the nerdiest dorks it’s possible to be, their relationship is now a chimera because that’s even better and more all encompassing that something boring like lovers, Miyazawa really gave us it all, love wins, gays win. What more can I say? I adore this series.

#otherside picnic #otherside picnic 8 spoilers #my reviews #books #yuri #sorawo kamikoshi #toriko nishina #soratori

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falinmarcille · 10 months

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Trans reading of Otherside Picnic/UraPi

I haven't seen many talk about a possible trans aspect to the Otherside Picnic/UraPi narrative, specifically Sorawo's character so I wanted to discuss it with my thoughts as of Volume 8 of the Novel. Before I start explaining, unlike a lot of other yuri/lesbian stories Otherside Picnic is a bit more complex in the feelings of the main couple Sorawo/Toriko and how they feel abnormal compared to rest of society. This impacts most of the way they both interact with one another and the world and 'Otherside'. While Sorawo is aware of 'some sort' of feelings for Toriko as soon as they meet, she has issues in her self image and lack of understanding of the difference between romantic/sexual and platonic attraction. Whilst Toriko had gay mothers, she grew up with an understanding of being gay and lgbt experiences.

Sorawo, especially in early parts of the series, is very shut off on what it means to be a woman, and her own pov on who she is. This is primarily due to fact she spent most of her teen years trying to escape the control of her religious family, who fell into a cult after Sorawo's mother died young. She didn't have any friends or support from family growing up and felt she was unable to be herself. We later learn due to influence from the 'red woman' that Sorawo planned to kill herself along with her family, but learned they died in a gas explosion in the mountains. This has left Sorawo really pessimistic and hateful to typical views on family, marriage and relationships.

Given they were dead, she could start being free, but at same time she had no idea what to do, no guidance, no friends. She was lost until she found the 'Otherside'. We learn the initial reason she got into 'True ghost stories' was a hope there was 'another world' she could escape to to leave her miserable life. So for Sorawo as dangerous and scary as the otherside is, It's a physical representation of a world she can be herself without being tied down by expectations society and others have for her. Now, onto specifically the trans aspect of her character, early on in series, Sorawo is pretty detached about her gender whilst still seeing herself as a girl. She often has insecurities about wanting to do feminine things, to be more cute, like cute things but feel 'she can't'. For example, the way she feels uncomfy wearing cute more fashionable clothing as she feels her figure can't pull it off and compares herself heavily to Toriko who she sees as her 'ideal woman'. Or when she picked out her first swimsuit awkwardly as she isn't sure what to get and ended up with swimshorts which is likely the kind of swimsuit she wore as a kid so now has no real idea what's right or wrong to wear.

The flashback she has during Volume 4 to her past is an idea of her life if her mother didn't die, her family didn't lose themselves to the cult, had her paranoid, her family would take away a doll which is described as like a barbie doll. It reads from what details we get about her past that she wasn't allowed to express herself as her true self, more so due to the cultish way her family ended up which got to an extreme point she wanted them dead, so they couldn't control her life anymore. In the manga she appears a lot more boyish in looks, clothing etc. of course this could just be her being 'tomboyish' but with her general issues about herself it could possibly be intentional.

Based on some info from Volume 8, it can be implied one of Toriko's mothers were trans due to fact it doesn't mention if she was adopted and could likely be their biological child. Which'd fit with what we know about her mothers across volumes and mainly way Toriko talks about them in volume 8 before she and Sorawo decide to finally have sex. It can read like Toriko wanted Sorawo to be aware she's ready to be patient and understand her issues, in herself, her family trauma and is ready to face them along with her.

On the topic of sex, way they have sex in Volume 8 feels very atypical and unique to them both even in sense of being gay. Both worry about hurting the other and making the other uncomfortable; the way Sorawo especially feels guilt over idea of 'deflowering' Toriko can feed into this pov. As unaware of herself as she is, main reason Sorawo didn't see herself as a lesbian can be due to her own broken perception of gender, and the way she doesn't feel like she's a 'real girl' like Toriko, is often shown to be her ideal both romance wise but also body and self. I feel this is a reason why she's so insistent on keeping her relationship with Toriko in a way she can be comfortable in definition as accomplices due to her insecurities through meaning of family and way she's seen how most marriages and normal relationships break apart.

The way Toriko treats Sorawo across the series also reads like she's aware of Sorawo being trans but tries to slowly encourage her to be more open and comfortable in herself. Such as her compliments on her breasts to her face (“Your breasts are so cute Sorawo!”), her hair to try and build her confidence up. Also, the way she tries to get her more comfortable in wearing girl clothes as series goes on (as it's stated she doesn't have any girl clothes before she met Toriko). And main reason Sorawo doesn't wear girl clothing much is feeling she doesn't fit and taints the outfit despite being clearly enjoying it such as when she dressed up for her date with Toriko in Volume 7

I'm unsure if it's unintended, but after how much coding is her in character, it can be easily read as if she's a trans woman with her arc of acceptance and understanding of herself after breaking free from her family. I'm curious if more will be revealed in later volumes though as Toriko still has a wrong assumption of her past, but as Sorawo herself states: "Although I know I’m indifferent towards others, I still don’t feel like I can be interested in people. More precisely, I'm not interested in people's pasts. I can only be interested in the Toriko who is right in front of me."

Just to clarifying i'm not trying to state Sorawo = trans as canon, more her experience mirror most trans people's experiences and her character can be read and implied that way as it's not really stated explicitly either way, and the them of being free from labels is a major theme in series and something Sorawo herself wants.

A lot of series usually tend to imply trans stuff through subtext than stating it, and there's a lot of scenes which can imply something like that. Firstly, the first time they go to beach she has wears and bought boy swimming shorts with something to cover her chest, as shes not been since she was a kid. Despite being Japanese unlike Toriko has a panic attack over going into hot spring as shes never been and it 'feels wrong'. She also gets naked drunk in a girls night and Natsumi who doesn't know Sorawo well gets weirded out. In Volume 8 when Benimori is advising Sorawo on her love problems she doesn't seem surprised she likes girls and often brings up advise she heard from a progressive teacher, due to being relevant to Sorawo's issues.

#sorawo kamikoshi #sorawo #otherside picnic #UraPi #Toriko #Toriko Nishina #Trans Sorawo

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yuriskies · 10 months

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Relationships and First Contact (Otherside Picnic)

Otherside Picnic vol 8 spoilers after break

I really like the long conversation between Sorawo and Toriko in File 26. The little dialogues and Sorawo's increasingly clear thoughts about her relationship with Toriko are now starting to interweave at both the narrative and thematic level.

One of the major themes of the volume is First Contact. In her conversation with Sorawo, Tsuji introduced the idea that first contact is building a diplomatic relationship, and that this relationship can take many forms - some mutually beneficial, some mutually destructive, and many forms in between. Kozakura connects this concept to building romantic relationships, pointing out that many of the qualities needed to explore and understand another culture from no knowledge are the same as those needed to build a stable relationship. The question Kozakura asks, "are you engaging in first contact with Toriko properly?", eventually reframes Sorawo's approach to defining her relationship with Toriko.

Up until this point in the series, Sorawo and Toriko have both been trying to force their personal feelings of what their relationship should look like on one another. Toriko has been somewhat aggressive in pursuing an escalator relationship with Sorawo (or as Benimori put it, following in the progressive model of history), often expecting Sorawo to conform to what she thinks girlfriends should be and should be doing. Sorawo has been passively resting on the idea of being accomplices, and often applying commander/subordinate dynamic that characterizes their exploration of the Otherside to their interpersonal relationship. This is most explicitly made clear at the end of File 25, where in her frustrated rant about the mujina she says to never let the Otherside or Toriko seize the initiative.

However, as Sorawo's forced to contemplate a world without Toriko, or where to set about finding her had she vanished, she realizes that she doesn't understand Toriko well at all. She makes the point that they've been judging each other by their own standards rather than trying to find a mutual understanding with one another. I think that's what makes their conversation in this section feel so cathartic: it's the first time they've sat down and mutually tried to understand what the other wants out of their relationship.

At the end of this section, Sorawo has a long monologue where she summarizes her thought process about being accomplices, and notably, acknowledging and accepting Toriko's point of view that there are shortcomings with what she wants. It's probably the most Sorawo has ever shared about how she thinks with Toriko, and it's a clear change in attitude from the evasive/terse responses she normally gives when Toriko asks her how she feels about something.

The narrative-level events are satisfying, but what I find really neat is that this kind of "first contact" exchange is subtly being mirrored on a metaphorical level. So far in this story, Toriko's pushiness for a romantic relationship have been accompanied by her physically intruding on Sorawo's space - touching Sorawo in ways that annoy her, aggressively exploring Sorawo's apartment at the first opportunity, and even a low level of physical abuse. Sorawo's desire for "the closest relationship in the world" has oriented her towards trying to remain an emotionally-closed book to Toriko as her way of forcing her to consider the Sorawo of the here and now, rather than someone hung up on the landmines in Sorawo's past. Sorawo is similarly bad with boundaries: she's often intentionally frosty and makes borderline abusive comments when she feels Toriko has overstepped.

But when Toriko invites Sorawo into her apartment for the first time, it's symbolically saying Toriko won't barge into Sorawo's physical space. Her gesture is immediately reciprocated by Sorawo allowing Toriko into her mental space. The thematic dynamic here is one of creating the conditions for mutually beneficial first contact: they're meeting one another from a neutral perspective rather than letting the more forceful aspects of their personalities take charge. The result of their cultural exchange is their relationship taking a giant leap forward now that they're not talking past one another or attempting to impose their viewpoint on the other. It's going to be exciting to see if they negotiate something that can work for both of them going forward.

This volume weaves an exceptionally intricate tapestry, and it goes a long way towards making one of the core abstract ideas of this volume - negotiating queer romance and the forms it can take - an interesting story, emotionally impactful, and something that resonates with some of the other ideas Miyazawa wants to explore. The way these threads converge and tie off really leaves me in awe of Miyazawa's craftsmanship.

#otherside picnic #otherside picnic spoilers #mini essay #iori miyazawa #yuri #spoilers #media analysis

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historyhermann · 1 year

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Bang, Bang, Pop!: Reviewing Girls With Guns Anime

Created in Microsoft Paint.

In recent years, there have been even more anime featuring girls with guns, expanding the genre. I decided to examine this genre and offer my thoughts.

Reprinted from The Geekiary, my History Hermann WordPress blog on Feb. 17, 2023, and Wayback Machine. This was the fifty-first article I wrote for The Geekiary. This post was originally published on August 16, 2022.

When you think of girls with guns in popular culture, you might think of Lara Croft, Sarah Connor, Alien, Foxy Brown, or Coffy. However, there are more than just hundreds of films featuring girls with guns. In anime, there are over 20 girls with guns series.

While there are many strong anime gunslinging girls, there aren't as many anime which are truly "girls with guns". It is a genre defined by series such as the 1980s sci-fi comedy and space opera, Dirty Pair, centered on two women: Kei and Yuri.

Since then, there have been many more series, including the recently-ended Vampire in the Garden and currently airing Lycoris Recoil. There are also older series such as Gunsmith Cats, El Cazador de la Bruja, Noir, and Otherside Picnic. This article reviews these six series and four others. It is sample of a much wider array of girls with guns anime.

This post contains spoilers for the ten series that I'm writing about. So, without further ado, let me begin!

Girls with guns are stars of the show in Lycoris Recoil

Chisato Nishikigi defends herself from those trying to kill her in the show's sixth episode

This original anime series by Spider Lily and Asaura is all the rage. The /r/yurimemes subreddit is filled with posts of Chisato (Chika Anzai) and Takina Inoue (Shion Wakayama), the show's protagonists, as is /r/wholesomeyuri. The show's yuri subtext is often noted. Furthermore, the show's subreddit, /r/LycorisRecoil, has over 4500 subscribers. The show's story, characters, animation, and dialogue make it easy to like.

The series begins when Takina brazenly uses a machine gun against criminals, threatening the life of a fellow "Lycoris", an armed intelligence agent. The covert organization, Direct Attack (DA), fires her. She is then transferred to Café LycoReco, a DA front organization, where she meets Chisato, a fellow Lycoris. She also meets a former DA member named Mizuki Nakahara (Ami Koshimizu) and an Afro-Japanese man named Mika (Kosuke Sakaki) who runs the cafe.

The series pulls you in due to Takina's struggle with fellow DA agents who resent her, and villains who attempt to take down Lycoris. The same can be said about Chisato's mysterious past and a hacker named Kurumi (Misaki Kuno) joins the show's heroes. The series often focuses on growing friendship between Takina and Chisato, arguably with romantic undertones. Unlike other anime about girls with guns, Chisato only uses rubber bullets. This means that those she does not kill anyone, a practice Takina adopts, as they work together as a team.

Momo shines through in Vampire in the Garden

Momo defends herself from a vampire girl, Alicia

This original dark fantasy net anime features many girls with guns. Front and center is Momo (Megumi Han) who runs away from home, where she is a soldier, and trainee in a war against vampires. She meets Fine (Yū Kobayashi), queen of the vampires, learning to love life and experience music all at the same time. Unfortunately, her controlling mother, Nobara (Rika Fukami) sends out a search party to find Momo. She wants to bring her "back" to "civilization" and way from the purportedly "barbaric" vampires.

In the process, Fine and Momo grow closer to one another. Like many other girls with guns anime, there are many yuri vibes in the series. In fact, neither of these protagonists gets a chance to live together. They are chased throughout the anime and do not have a chance to rest. This is because society sees relationships between humans and vampires as "unnatural" and does not accept them.

The focus on the relationship between Fine and Momo parallels those who do not accept queer relationships and those othered by society. Rather than an anime solely about girls with guns, Vampire in the Garden is a mature dark fantasy filled with blood, death, explosions, and serious injury. Even so, there are scenes with a slice-of-life feel. This five-episode anime ends positively. Momo founds a society many years later where humans and vampires can live together in peace.

Gunsmith Cats exemplifies the girls with guns genre

Irene "Rally" Vincent at the shooting range in the episode "Neutral Zone"

This adventure-crime series is based on an eight-volume manga of the same name illustrated, and written, by Kenichi Sonoda. It is different than other series in this post because it is loosely set in Chicago. It centers around Irene "Rally" Vincent (Michiko Neya), a 19-year-old woman who operates "Gunsmith Cats" gun shop. She works with 17-year-old explosives expert and former sex worker named "Minnie" May Hopkins (Kae Araki) as a bounty hunter in the underworld.

The anime is an original video animation (OVA), released between November 1995 and September 1996. It is only three episodes long. Some reviewers praised the animation as colorful, fun, and a "solid piece" of filmmaking. Others praised the action, artwork, and said it sounded like a "gritty" suburb of Chicago. Moreover, there were those who described the animation as smooth, said it has the same amount of humor as the original manga, but complained that the series should have been longer.

Like Vampire of the Garden and Lycoris Recoil, yuri themes are implied. Although Yuricon's founder Erica Friedman does not write about the anime on her blog, Okazu, she did review each volume of the five-volume manga, Gunsmith Cats BURST. In her reviews, she notes the yuri subtext between Rally and Minnie. She also noted that mafia donna Goldie Musso is a stereotypical "evil" lesbian. In the manga, all three of them live together. Otherwise, the series fits within the girls with guns anime genre.

Love, amnesia, and guns in El Cazador de la Bruja

Nadie, Ellis, and nuns shelter in a basement, hiding for people out to get them, in an episode

This 2007 series, a mix of modern Western, adventure, and yuri, is a classic girls with guns anime. It centers around Ellis (Ai Shimizu), a fugitive who has amnesia, an unknown past, and powers of some kind, and a bounty hunter named Nadie (Shizuka Itō). Both travel south in hopes of finding the key to who Ellis is, where she was born, and what she did.

In a review of El Cazadar de la Bruja first episode, Friedman noted that there were clear yuri vibes. But, she worried there would be another "ambiguously yuri" relationship like other Madlax series. However, in a review at the end of the series, Friedman praised the growing romance between Nadie and Ellis. She said it is different than Noir in more ways than one.

Others were more critical of this series, especially purported "filler" episodes. They noted that even the show's gun violence is restrained. This series is unlike other anime in this genre as it is set in the Southwest United States and Mexico. As a result, it shares similarities with Western animations like Nomad of Nowhere and The Legend of Calamity Jane. Both series have gun-toting female protagonists.

Girls with guns are at the center of Noir

Kirika and Marielle in the front, with Chloe in the background, in an image on the show's now-defunct official website in 2003

This adventure anime is as well-known as El Cazador de la Bruja. It is often noted as exemplary of the girls with guns genre in anime. It centers on two female assassins, a Corsican woman named Mireille Bouquet (Hōko Kuwashima) and a Japanese woman with amnesia, Kirika Yuumura (Kotono Mitsuishi). Both journey together to learn about their past. They ally together and assassinate "bad" people under a code name: Noir. They face a French secret organization named Les Soldats, led by Altena (Tarako), which is out to kill them, and a skilled assassin named Chloe (Aya Hisakawa).

Friedman, who I've mentioned earlier, criticized the series for weak animation at times. But, she praised the show's music, settings, and yuri vibes in the series. She added that people will put up with the series, despite absurd storylines because it has an attractive woman with a gun. TV Tropes, on a page about LGBTQ fanbase of anime and manga, stated that the series garnered a "sizable lesbian fanbase" due to the "ambiguous" relationship between Mireille and Kirika. They also noted the subtle lesbian attraction shown later.

Director Koichi Mashimo described this series, Madlax, and El Cazador de la Bruja, as his "girls-with-guns genre trilogy". Some praised the 26-episode series for redefining girls with guns series, with an elegant, and sleek story. But they criticized it for having repetitive actions sequences. Others said that Noir was an original anime which "stands out". In the end, the series changed the girls with guns genre for years to come, although no series since then has been exactly like it.

Girls with guns are focal point of Otherside Picnic

Sorowo aims a military-style weapon while Toriko sits next to her

This adventure sci-fi yuri series centers around two women. One is a college student named Sorawo Kamikoshi (Yumiri Hanamori) who enters parallel worlds named the Otherside. The other is the woman who saves her, a former Canadian special forces soldier named Torika Nishina (Ai Kayano). The series focuses on Nishina's quest for her friend, and their repeated attempts to return to the Otherside to gain artifacts, with the help of Kozakura (Rina Hidaka). However, the world affects them physically and mentally in ways they didn't expect.

Early last year, I began watching this series, excited to watch it since too many yuri anime are either set in schools or fantasies, with the implication that lesbian relationships will be short-lived and even replaced by heterosexuality. Unfortunately, this series did not deliver on that promise. Friedman criticizes the series for being a "children’s version of the novels". My bigger qualm is that the series did not deliver on the yuri that seemed present from the beginning, despite romantic vibes throughout.

Otherside Picnic remains within the girls with guns genre. Even in a few episodes, Sorawo and Torika save U.S. military soldiers from Okinawa who are stuck in the Otherside. Unfortunately, this becomes imperialist apologia. It glosses over problems with U.S. military occupation, and presence, in Okinawa, and Japan. It marks a low point for the entire series.

Girls with guns have an important role in Blue Drop

Yūko takes out a gun to defend Mari from harm in the show's sixth episode

This 2007 yuri sci-fi drama contains some girls with guns. On the manga cover, a girl named Shōta has a gun. On the other hand, neither of the show's protagonists, Mari or Hagino, uses a gun during the series. Instead, secondary characters like Yūko and Tsubael have guns. Yūko even confronts Hagino at gunpoint. Otherwise, there are armed sentries on the ships from another world.

Blue Drop delivers more on yuri themes than Otherside Picnic or even, arguably, Lycoris Recoil. And you don't even need on yuri goggles to see it. It is more than a "fun watch" with likable characters, some of whom are morally ambiguous. Instead, it is an enveloping story which draws you in, with its plot and animation. Even the ending is heartbreaking.

Since the series is usually put into the sci-fi and yuri genres, reviewers don't often put it into the girls with guns genre. Although there are fewer girls with guns in Blue Drop than other series noted in this article, it has positives which go beyond other series. It is a classic that can be watched over and over. The same can likely also be said about the affiliated manga which ran from 2004 to 2008.

Badass girls with guns are central to Canaan

Canaan about to fire her pistol during the show's opening

This 2009 mystery thriller is little-known, despite the fact that a Japanese game company, Type-Moon, created it. It's based on a special scenario originally outlined in 2009 game, 428: Shibuya Scramble. This anime centers on a gun-toting assassin and mercenary named Canaan (Miyuki Sawashiro). She faces a rival named Alphard Al Sheya (Maaya Sakamoto), a skilled assassin who heads a terrorist organization named Snake. Canaan also has a pretty reporter friend named Maria Ōsawa (Yoshino Nanjō).

Canaan and Alphard are both skilled at using firearms, as is ex-mercenary Siam (Akio Ōtsuka), Alphard's lieutenant, Liang Qi (Rie Tanaka), and many others. Predictably, yuri themes are spread throughout this anime. Canaan often saves Maria from sticky situations thanks to her ability to perceive people's emotions as colors. They clearly are attracted toward each other. The series ends with Canaan being, in the words of Friedman, "awarded equal status to Maria in her heart."

Otherwise, Canaan is action-packed, with fast-paced fight sequences and chases. In some ways, it makes me think of chase scenes in Carmen Sandiego, although the ones in that series are never filled with guns, but with other deadly weapons instead. This series is unique because Canaan is from an unnamed country in the Middle East, presumably Syria or Lebanon. It adds another dimension to the story.

Guns, love, and demons in Engage Kiss

Shu, Sharon, and Ayano pictured on the show's official website.

In this ongoing, and currently airing, romantic comedy, one character stands out as a girl with a gun: Ayano Yugiri (Lynn). She is the former girlfriend of Shuu Ogata (Soma Saito). He lost his memories of their relationship after partnering with a demon named Kisara (Saya Aizawa). To give her the necessary demon powers to fight, he kisses her, which erases a memory every time he does so.

While it seems, at first, that she chooses his memories to erase at random, it is later shown that she can choose which ones to erase. She even eliminates a time that Shuu and Ayano have sex, enjoy each other's company. She also eliminates a time when Shuu had sex with the demon-hating priest, Sharon Holygrail (Rumi Okabo), and poisoned her in a devious way.

Ayano has the most skills at using firearms apart from Shuu. It has not been revealed how she is so skilled, but she may have on-the-job experience. Unlike Lycoris Recoil, the only other people who use guns are the police, as the villains often manipulate demons instead. None of the show's characters without faults, and have all likely done deplorable things.

A gun-toting protagonist in Venus Versus Virus

Lucia fires her gun in the show's opening

This dark fantasy and supernatural thriller centers around two girls with guns: Lucia Nahashi (Ayahi Takagaki) and Sumire Takahana (Minori Chihara). Although it has been rightly described as a series to avoid by Stig Høgset of THEM Anime Reviews. He argued that it is "lazy and dumb", with mild fanservice and violence. That makes it different from others in this genre, which are usually more violent and bloody.

In Venus Versus Virus, Lucia, especially, is skilled with use of a firearm. She works to protect Sumire, along with others, from harm that demons, known as "viruses", can inflict. Predictably they both bond in the process. Even so, the yuri themes in this story are not very strong, with neither Lucia nor Sumire appearing to be lesbians.

On the other hand, the series is strong as an anime that features girls with guns. As such, it is relatively well-established in the genre. In fact, when bullets hit Sumire, it causes her violent personality to surface, which can be harmful to anyone around her.

Closing thoughts

There are many other examples of girls with guns anime. Some of the most prominent, apart from Dirty Pair, include Bubblegum Crisis, Miami Guns, Gunslinger Girl, and Burn-Up. One critic argued that while there aren't many true girls with guns anime, the ones that do exist have been so influential, it has created "an entire thematic genre and stereotype of anime."

Princess Principal and the film, Kite Liberator also fall into the genre. Even Izetta: The Last Witch might fall into the genre since Izetta rides an anti-tank rifle. Apart from Sabine Wren, Padme Amidala, and Zam Wessell, who tote guns in the Star Wars franchise, there's no Western animated equivalent of the genre. On the other hand, there are some gun-wielding women elsewhere, like Millie in Helluva Boss.

There are many girls with guns within anime, but even with newer series, it remains to be seen if the current trend toward more girls with guns will continue. Many of the series within the genre, such as Strike Witches, Michiko & Hatchin, Grenadier, and Upotte!! are years old. The same is the case for Madlax, set in the same world as Birdie Wing.

With anime production companies flush with cash, there is a possibility of further girls with guns anime in the future.

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galacticplayer · 1 year

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THE FUNNY OTHERSIDE PICNIC REVIEW/MINI-ANALYSIS

ok since no one follows me on here im gonna write my thoughts for Otherside Picnic so. spoilers yk. (this isn't meant to be serious or in-depth just my personal thoughts and experiences!)

TL;DR 9.5/10 One of the best things I’ve ever read. It has its issues but they're so small that it doesn't detract from the story. When the main issue is “It’s so specific in what it wants to do you’ll either really love it or not like it at all” you know it’ll be good. Please at least try it!!

I went into Otherside Picnic thinking “oh this is gonna be Roadside Picnic but with yuri” and to an extent that is what i got. but I think Otherside Picnic is. so much more than that. It's a deconstruction and rebuilding of a lot of themes and ideas Roadside Picnic suggested into one whole and uses being a yuri and its notable influence from Slavic literature as a backing to the main ideas of liberation, freedom, grief, and what it means to love despite our insignificance. which, reading that yeah no shit that’s how media works, but the specific way Otherside Picnic does it is so intense and so specific that I can't really tell you another series like it. I can state its inspirations and works in the genres it's in but I can't give you anything that is “like” Otherside Picnic because I don't believe that exists.

Otherside Picnic and Iori Miyazawa’s use of psychological and cosmic horror and sci-fi to portray the raw emotions love can induce on a person, especially someone who is very much traumatized and not used to the feeling of being loved or loving works so well you’d think all psychological horror is yuri (which... you could make that argument but I won't be getting into that.) I believe the main point Otherside Picnic is trying to make is that queer love is scary. The Otherside is supposed to be an escape for Sorawo, a place where she can run away and hide, but it ends up becoming the reason she opens up and finds her place in the world. Despite its use of cosmic horror, Otherside Picnic’s narrative feels exceedingly personal, and this is for its narrative as a whole, not just the interpersonal relationship between Sorawo and Toriko. It feels like it’s saying “No matter how big you think your problems are in the grand scheme of things they don’t matter and neither do you.” and even though that seems scary and depressing it uses that to portray so many positive emotions. The characters don't matter, the plot doesn't matter but despite that it keeps going. Love is the driving factor of the plot, not just queer love but the concept of love in general. Most of the characters in some way love each other, or they simply want to be loved. In my opinion nobody exemplifies this better than Toriko.

Toriko is an extremely interesting character. She’s seemingly an open and quite silly girl who's in over her head with trouble she can’t quite grasp and while yes, as a baseline that is true you very quickly realize that there's much more to her than just that.Toriko is a timid girl who is scared who just wants to love and have her love acknowledged but is so scared to commit to her love that she can end up seeming pushy and overbearing. She ends up not committing to her feelings for Satsuki which leads her to be the way she is with Sorawo. She just really doesn't want to lose her and at first ends up not really displaying much care for Sorawo’s feelings even though she very quickly starts to love her. She wants to do the things she couldn’t with Satsuki through Sorawo because throughout most of the story Toriko is grieving. She couldn’t handle the thought of Satsuki being dead and once she finally accepts that she is, she's able to start being able to genuinely love Sorawo. All she wanted was love and it took her a while to realize.

Other aspects of the story are less about love and more about how love affects us.It takes elements from Roadside Picnic, mainly, the insignificance of man and says “Yeah, you’re right about that, but I don’t care.” With this it builds up a narrative separate from Roadside Picnic that is about queer women finding a place where they are free from society’s and the universe’s indifference and cruelty. It’s a story about finding your place in the universe and loving who you are and the people around you, no matter how cruel life is. Otherside Picnic says that all it takes to be free is committing to yourself and who you love and not caring what the universe thinks.

In conclusion Otherside Picnic is a deconstruction and rebuilding on a lot of the things Roadside Picnic was about. It's about finding your place in a universe and society that is indifferent or outright hates you and learning how to love. Although love is a scary thing, especially as a queer person. Committing yourself to someone in whatever way, whether that is romantic or otherwise can feel like a task of cosmic proportion. Being free to do such a thing can feel just as hard as confronting an entity from another world. All Otherside Picnic suggests is to try fighting, for the people you love and for yourself because finding yourself and being free is all that matters. As it stands currently I believe Otherside Picnic is one of my favorite pieces of media ever created. It stands beside Revue Starlight and Undertale for me which are two pieces of media that legitimately changed my life. I can’t give it anything but my highest praise.

If you read all of this and haven’t read it yet. Please do yourself a favor and READ OTHERSIDE PICNIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#otherside picnic #i know no one will give a shit abt my thoughts on it but i must post this or ill explode #actually one of the best things ive ever read

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skye-huntress · 9 months

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Otherside Picnic Volume 8 Thoughts - Part 9 (Final)

File 26: Accomplices No More

She’s in her not-lover’s room for not even thirty seconds and she’s already having morbid thoughts. I mean, I get it. I was thinking the same thing before when she noted the lack of dust, and I can understand the why’s of it. So I can also understand when she entered Toriko’s room there was that relieving thought of, “oh, yes, this is a place a person lives”.

She may not share the same intensity in feelings as Toriko, but I couldn’t see Sorawo being this accomodating with anyone else. Still, I can empathise with how she felt, worrying about not being able to match how someone else feels about her.

I don’t know why I expected a different outcome from these two walking disasters. Their first kiss tasted of puke, that should have been the first hint.

I think Sorawo’s correct that a huge part of this is that she is just not used to that level of contact and intimacy. She was betrayed by those closest to her, in a time she needed them most, and has since been very guarded with other people. It’s not the kind of thing you can overcome in a single year. She only just accepted that she loves Toriko, so jumping right into sex is probably beyond her at the moment. With that said, she’s being very level-headed about this and it’s not like she is concluding that the problem isn’t something that couldn’t be overcome in time.

The more immediate concern is Toriko’s ruined confidence.

Breaking News! Sorawo just discovered her kink!

Oh, they’re going all the way now, all the way insane! I suppose this was the inevitable outcome.

I admit, for a second I thought they were already fully back to normal. Their conversation flowed so naturally, I didn’t think anything was amiss. I still really want to see that video. How many years do you think it will take the manga to catch up to this point?

That must have been some mind-blowing sex if it made both of them let go of the labels that hours ago were so important to both of them.

The most shocking revelation of this series so far is that somehow Toriko is unaware of the concept of ship names. Huh? What?! How?!?

Nue. That’s the kind of ship name that you’d expect from the RWBY fandom.

As an aside, wasn’t one of Kozakura’s points about defining your relationship in a way that is easier for other people to understand? In that regard, what they went with is so much worse. Almost no one will understand the reference, and the few that do… well, I know what Kozakura’s reaction would be.

Hell yeah, you’re having an after party! Do you know how long some people have waited for this day?

It might actually be a bigger deal that Sorawo kissed Toriko for a change than the fact they had inter-dimensional sex.

#otherside picnic #otherside picnic spoilers

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yurisorcerer · 3 months

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some thoughts on Hanako & The Terror of Allegory

On a Discord server I'm in, some folks are doing a manga-swap challenge. I have six manga from this challenge to read in 2024, and I've just finished the first one. I don't have enough thoughts to warrant a full review, but I did want to say a few things.

This is Hanako & The Terror of Allegory. Also called Hanako & The Teller of Allegory---the name has an intentional double meaning that doesn't translate super well, I think.

This one is pretty obscure, it was recommended to me by my buddy AftershockWolf (@theokamiproject).

To be honest, I didn't love it. The series is in that "urban legend horror" genre, of a sort that's since been perfected by the likes of Otherside Picnic or, say, something like Mysterious Disappearances (which, that's getting an anime next season, isn't that weird?). The innate disadvantage something like this has is because there's such a small pool of source material, it can very much feel like you've read every take on every idea before, and furthermore, this manga is from 2004 (into 2005. Ran for about a year, from what I can tell), so I've seen a lot of different spins on the stories it mines for most of its chapters---Hanako of the Toilet, Mary the Doll, Kokkuri-san, Red Paper / Blue Paper, the Slit-Mouthed Woman, etc.---and in many cases I've seen them done better. Again, it's kind of unfair to this manga since it was written quite a while ago, so I suppose you'd call this a case of something aging poorly.

It's also bad in a few other more mundane ways; the sense of humor is absolutely daft as fuck, lots of very basic stock jokes with zero originality to them. Most of these were getting old in 2004. Reading them 20 years later makes them kind of insufferable. Occasionally it'll be funny *by accident*, but that's a different thing and doesn't really count IMO.

It's also not actually great at really getting under my skin in the way that the truly great stuff in this genre (again like Otherside Picnic) can, and has a bad habit of pulling plot twists out of its ass when it doesn't really need to. Most of this will not stick with me, and to top it all off the art is very middle of the road and of its time. Although there are occasional cool splash panels that make up for that somewhat.

However, all is not lost. The weakpoints of this manga are mostly not that interesting, what is interesting is where it goes in its final act, where it introduces a (to my knowledge) completely-original antagonist, and the manga starts essentially collapsing in on itself as the characters very directly fight for control of the narrative against said antagonist, a villainous authorial figure who herself might not really exist. It's a rather sudden shift, but it's a welcome one, and I think if more of the manga had been like this I would probably have enjoyed it a lot more.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this series got axed from whatever magazine it was running in, and that's the culprit for the swift change in direction, but in this case it saves a bad manga from itself and makes reading the thing not a complete loss. Also, said character is attractive, I'll say it. (Wolf happened to tell me that this character was the whole reason they recommended me the manga. Given that she carries this last arc hard, I will say that was a good call.)

If you can put up with everything I mentioned in order to get to the fairly compelling final act, I might tentatively recommend it, since Terror of Allegory here is only 19 chapters long. Still, I don't think anyone's hugely missing out by not reading this thing, the genre has evolved *a lot* over the past 20 years and this is not exactly a foundational release.

Interesting side note; on the scanlation page the translator actually recommends a few similar works, one of which is the MUCH better Dusk Maiden of Amnesia, which came out only a few years after this. Another reminder that even at the time this was solidly middle of the pack.

#Hanako and the Terror of Allegory #Hanako and the Teller of Allegory #yurisorcerer talks about media #2024 six manga challenge

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 1 year

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saturday again no problem (a tuesdaypost retrospective)

sort of mixed feelings about this one bc, as we have previously chatted about, the august 2021-august 2022 period was one of the worst twelve-month periods of my life.

however! this year brought like six new tuesdaypost initiatives from other people (please shout at me in the comments or by DM bc my brain is broken and i don't remember all of you) and i DO want to take a look back at some media i enjoyed.

the normal format + some misc. stats below

listening

here are all the tuesdaysongs plus Permanent Peace by Jack de Quidt, who is not on spo/tify. this year gave me albums by: joywave, alt-j, unloved, scene queen, new doja cat, a bunch of junie and the hutfriends singles, and the gleeful insanity of the mcr tour. VERY good musical year imo

reading

this historically has been one of the more fallow categories, bc there is a level of background pain where it is quite difficult for me to read and viddy gaem is a better distraction.

could have sworn i read three cowboy novelizations this year but i can only find evidence that i read the sabata and red river novelizations. i have mixed feelings about the execution of Tom Lin's The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu and Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Gods of Jade and Shadow but do not regret reading either.

no particular comics or manga stand out in my fallible, forgettable brain this year. i am excited for the ongoing light novel and manga adaptation of Otherside Picnic but that's just from watching the anime

watching

happy that letterboxd is doing part of the thing i wanted (getting me to watch more movies) deeply annoyed i have fallen into the trap i was afraid of. this trap is: I Want To Make The Number Go Up and am now reluctant to watch tv bc i can't log it on letterboxd and it doesn't "count". fucking hate to gamify my own leisure like this!!!!

the very good thing about letterboxd is that my friends have excellent taste, and letterboxd reminds me which of the eight billion django knockoffs i have and have not seen.

GOD was january a good movie month. the below screenshot is movies i watched for the first time this year and really liked/have stuck in my head in some way, and 3/8ths were from january. thank u library streaming service kanopy

see letterboxd has taken such a big chunk of my Moving Images time that it was hard to remember that both peaky blinders and killing eve ended this year!!! and i rewatched several seasons of adventure time! and most of the first season of DS9! and i am now in the process of watching the vampire interview show with my sister!!!

playing

got a handmedown switch!

this year was mostly big open worlds that didn't require a lot of complex thought from me, or if they did require some puzzle solving it was in really short bursts. lion's share of the hours this year went to fallout 4, breath of the wild, and pokemon scarlet. i really loved junk shop telescope, depanneur nocturne, and card cowboy.

honorary mentions to phone games that kept my anxiety to a low simmer while in a lot of doctor's offices.

game im most hype for is probably the spooky fishing game Dredge, but i don’t think we’ll get that until early 2024. if anyone says the words "fallout 5" next year i will lose my mind bc i would like another one of these stupid motherfuckers before i die.

making

i think i'm going to mourn the old lair until i die.

i am deeply, deeply unhappy with how this year went both personally and professionally. made an apartment cozy. lost the cozy apartment. cleaned a whole bunch of metal. framed a lot of things. bought a whole bunch of furniture. still have moths.

hate to leave this post on this note however i really should have died twice this year and didn’t. so im trying to be nice to myself about the rest of it.

bonus stats

47/52 weeks posted

moves: 1 (assisted with two)

recipes failed: many

postcards sent: many

number of 1040s i will receive next month: 4

overnight trips: 2

day trips: 3

covid: +1

serious covid scares: 9

combined hospital and doctor's visits: don't worry about it

number of lamps: also don't worry about it what are you a cop

cats: +1

#tuesdaypost meta #tuesday again

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communist-ojou-sama · 1 month

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Otherside Picnic (manga) vol. 12, bonus chapter

Bonus Chapter: Flashback to That Night

“...Hey, Sorawo.”

Nishina Toriko had been quiet for a while, as I was thinking she was making an odd expression as she opened her mouth, her next words were “What should we do about the wrap-up party?” for a moment, Kozakura lost the thread of the conversation.

...Hm?

Kamikoshi Sorawo, like Kozakura, was looking at Toriko quizzically. Seeing those looks, Toriko added, as if making an excuse,

“Look, we went into the Otherside this time too, right? Then we’ve gotta have a wrap party.”

If you didn’t know anything about these two’s usual routine, this addition wouldn’t serve as much of a justification, but with that Kozakura was able to reorient herself within the conversation. Toriko and Sorawo have a habit of going out for food and drinks after coming back from exploration of the Otherworld, and calling it a ‘wrap party’. To Kozakura, who’s so afraid of the Otherside that she can’t help herself, the exploration that serves as a precondition to this celebrating is already so abnormal that she couldn’t imagine wanting to celebrate it, but on the other hand, she could undertstand it a bit. As a sort of ritual of return to daily life from a dangerous environment full of fear, the idea of a wrap party didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

Perhaps the reason why she felt that way was because she herself was in need of such a ritual.

As she lifted her gaze, her eyes met with Migawa, who was standing with butler-like good posture. As if reading her thoughts, he nodded once. After finishing the rest of her tea, she set the cup down on the table with a clack.

“All right! Got it! Let’s go eat some meat!”

The two girls on the sofa looked up at her in surprise.

“Eh? But I don’t have that kind of money.”

Hearing Sorawo say something so timid brought an involuntary laugh to Kozakura’s lips. She trapises into the Otherside without a thought, but she’s afraid of an expensive meal.

“This time, I’ll treat you-- You did save me after all.”

We settled on the meat bar in front of the Shakujii Park station for our celebration. Ordinarily, Kozakura was not much of a meat-eater, but right now she felt like her body was craving some animal protein.

It had only been three days since she and Sorawo were abducted off of the street. Just three days! In that short span, entirely too many things have transpired.

Getting kidnapped is a big enough deal on its own, but then they were brought to a ruin in the middle of the mountains of Hannou. The person waiting for them there was a 4th-kind contactee, and had the ability to brainwash anyone with the sound of her voice.

Urumi Runa-- the teenage wannabe streamer.

Just remembering it sent a shiver down her spine. It was a terrifying voice. Far beyond the domain of ASMR, this voice from the Otherside rendered anyone who heard it a literal prisoner.

Urumi Runa brainwashed untold dozens of people with it, and made a cult centering around worshiping her. Kozakura was interrogated by Runa’s voice, and made to spit out everything she knew.

That said…

As she watched Sorawo and Torako across the table choosing from the wine menu, Kozaku was spurred into a bittersweet train of thought.

While she might have told her everything she knew, Runa’s questions were mostly about Uruma Satsuki, or well… the version of “Satsuki-sama” that existed exclusively in her mind. And in being asked, Kozakura realized that her knowledge of Satsuki didn’t really amount to much at all.

Ultimately, just what sort of person was she?

As she succumbed to Runa’s voice, that’s all Kozakura could think of.

She never did find an answer to that question, and she may never have a chance to get an answer, going forward.

“What drink do you want, Kozakura-san?”

Sorawo’s question brought her back to the present.

“What are you two drinking?”

“We’ve never had rosé before, so we were thinking of trying it.”

“Ah, is that so. I’ll just go with that.”

After she answered, Sorawo wrinkled her brow.

“Are you alright?”

“What do you mean?”

“You seemed a little bit out of it.”

Kozakura was internally surprised that this girl had developed the capacity to worry about others.

“I’m fine. Well, I am tired, so I might be a bit out of it.”

“Ah…”

The two of them nodded.

“I’m sure you are tired…”

“Thanks for everything, really.”

“You two, too.”

The information Runa wanted to hear about “Satsuki-sama” was, from Kozakura’s perspective, all inconsequential trivialities. Where she lives, what food she likes, whether or not she ever mentioned Runa, whether there were any pet-peeves of hers that she should avoid… While her ability was terrifying, Kozakura understood straightaway that the girl herself was nothing more than a mentally immature fangirl. This realization depressed her more than anything.

After a litany of mostly unanswerable questions and questions to which Kozakura didn’t know the answer, Runa clearly became a bit irritated at the slow going, but when she learned of the existence of Satsuki’s office at DS Research, and that notebooks written by Satsuki herself were stored there, she got excited, and ordered her underlings to to prepare for a raid.

Runa’s impulsive armed forces, driven on enetirely by her voice…While their organizational principles and doctrine were all childish and immature, If you have no way to deal with her voice, they’re quite formidable.

As she was worrying about the safety of the people at DS research, Runa ordered her followers to detain her and handed her over to them.

It was then that Sorawo saved her.

While her consciousness was still hazy from the effects of the questioning, Runa’s followers seemed to have a falling-out, and before she had any idea what was going on Sorawo had saved her and woken her up. While she was a bit disconcerted by how different Sorawo’s aura was from usual, they attempted to escape from the ruins, but…

The wine and ham arrived.

“Wha!? Sorawo, this isn’t sweet!”

“You’re right. This isn’t what I was expecting.”

“But this also tastes good in its own way.”

“It’s nice and refreshing.”

Sorawo and Toriko are surprised at their first time drinking rosé. When they’re relaxing and chatting like this, you could never take them for a woman who mercilessly destroys others’ minds, or a woman who’d raid a cult’s base of operations, assault rifle in hand. Not unlike Urumi Runa, Kozakura felt unease about the mismatch between these girls’ capacity for destruction and the childishness of their mentalities.

However, it’s also true that that immaturity likely saved her. Had they not been so foolhardy, she may not have made it out of that situation.

Their escape attempt came to a dead end, and Kozakura and Sorawo were once again caught in the basement of the ruin. Kozakura, now Runa’s hostage, passed through the gate and was brought into DS Research. Perhaps because she was rendered unable to resist by the voice, her consciousness became vague, as if in a dream.

And then, when she came to, Satsuki was there.

But what stood there was… that, was not Satsuki.

It was some completely different thing, imitating Satsuki’s form. Kozakura understood the the first instant she saw it. Within the empty husk of the woman she’d once loved, some unknown creature was was wearing it and moving it around.

And Toriko was moving toward that monster. While calling Satsuki’s name.

Stop it, Toriko.

Can’t you see? That’s not Satsuki.

From the depths of terror that kept her body frozen, Kozakura desperately clawed her consciousness back together. Summoning up all her irritation at Toriko for not recognizing this Satsuki as a fake, and her fury at Satsuki for trying to involve herself with such a young and immature girl, desperately, she moved her body.

Get yourself together, Sorawo-chan.

Hurry! Grab her! Toriko’ll get taken away!

She squeezed out that shout, and had no memory of what happened after that. When she came to, she was back at DS research.

There was no sign of Satsuki, and Runa was unconscious with her mouth gruesomely torn open.

Kozakura, with her mental and physical energy entirely spent, fell asleep on the spot without being able to take so much as a step-- in fact, she felt like she fell unconscious.

The main thought in her head as her consciousness faded was surprise that Sorawo and Toriko brought her back with them and didn’t abandon her. It was that extreme of a situation.

They might be hopelessly impulsive brats, who’ve matured in bodily terms alone, but they’re good kids. That was Kozakura’s appraisal of the two of them now.

So, well, there’s no harm in treating them to some overpriced steak, just for today.

As she gazed in a generous frame of mind at the two of them eating their meat, suddenly, a scene that she’d forgotten about flashed back across her mind.

Kozakura and Sorawo, having escaped from the cultists, hiding in a narrow locker.

Sorawo’s hand resting on Kozakura’s head as she trembled.

Her head being petted, as if to pacify her.

Over, and over.

Back then… why the hell did this maniac pet her!?

Kozakura couldn’t take her eyes off of Sorawo, who was cutting meat with her knife.

...No, really, why the hell did she do something like that???????

Perhaps sensing her gaze, Sorawo looked up.

The instant before their eyes met, the smartphone on the table began to shake. On the screen was a message from Migawa.

Sorawo looked curiously at her, and Kozakura looked back.

“...It seems like they finished cleaning.”

Kozakura replied, unnecessarily evasively.

END

#Urasekai Picnic #裏世界ピクニック #Otherside Picnic #my translations #This time I just translated the whole thing #enjoy~#it's pretty long so I put most of it under a cut

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medea10 · 2 years

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My Review of Laid-Back Camp

(a.k.a. Yuru Camp)

How did I get into this anime? I’ve heard this was sort of a laid-back gem. You know, cute girls doing regular life things and have extraordinary times with beautiful scenery.

Rin Shima is a school girl with a love of camping. Usually, she’ll be seen during the off-season near the base of Mount Fuji and all alone. Despite being alone, she seems to know what she’s doing and enjoys doing it. Probably because she comes from a family full of experienced campers!

That silence however is broken when one night she comes across a lost girl who’s new to the area named Nadeshiko Kagamihara. After sharing a meal together and looking at the night sky, Nadeshiko was inspired to join an outdoor club at her new school.

At the Outdoor Activities club, Nadeshiko meets Aoi and Chiaki, the only two members to the club. The club room is a baby classroom. But we won’t be spending time in there, outdoor activities means activities in the outdoors. While pitching a tent, Nadeshiko notices that Rin, the girl she met at the base of Mount Fuji goes to the same school. Now is Rin going to join the club and be more social? Rin is usually quiet and keeps to herself most of the time (with the exception of her friend Ena). It looks like Rin prefers the company of none than one on her camping experiences. But after having another encounter with Nadeshiko, it looks like Rin might turn her thoughts about solo camping around.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: This is licensed by Crunchyroll, but believe it or not, they decided not to dub this. Not going to question that for now and I am enjoying the cast a lot. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

*Rin is played by Nao Touyama (known for Koga on Bunny Girl Senpai, Nii-chan on Blue Exorcist, Chitoge on Nisekoi, Tsubaki on Oresuki, Akira on Kono Oto Tomare, and Momo on Ai Tenchi Muyo)

*Nadeshiko is played by Yumiri Hanamori (known for Hayasaka on Kaguya-sama, Sorawo on Otherside Picnic, Hinaki on Demon Slayer, Asahi on Happy Sugar Life, and Doumeki on Eizouken)

*Aoi is played by Aki Toyosaki (known for Rin on Fruits Basket 2019, Momo on To Love Ru, Uiharu on Railgun/Index, Yunyun on Konosuba, Yui on K-ON, Suu on Shugo Chara, and Aoi on Beelzebub)

*Chiaki is played by Sayuri Hara (known for Luna on Konosuba, Reimi on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Pt. 4, and Mio on Idolm@ster: Cinderella Girls)

*Ena is played by Rie Takahashi (known for Emilia on Re:Zero, Megumin on Konosuba, Mash on Fate/Grand Order, and Sumi on Rent-A-Girlfriend)

ENDING TO SEASON ONE: The girls of the Outdoor Activities club are planning on a camping trip for the Christmas holiday. Many of these adventures usually consisted of between 1-3 people. But now it’s going to be Nadeshiko, Aoi, Chiaki, Ena, and now their new advisor to the club. Throughout this season, we learned different things involving camping, money management, what’s more durable in the winter season, and so on. At this point, just about everyone in this group has experienced the winter camping experience at least once (except Ena who hates camping in the cold weather). So is it possible for the girls to have a great experience while doing everything they want to do and come prepared for anything that is to happen in the terrain? Let’s see what happens!

Oh, I suppose I should talk about Rin. Slowly but surely, she seems to be opening up more and more to the idea of camping with friends. During a solo expedition, Rin ran into several tough obstacles, but was able to get out of it with help from Chiaki and Nadeshiko.

I’m not saying she’s fully warmed up to the idea of camping with friends, but she does agree to join Nadeshiko and the rest on their Christmas camping trip. The camping trip actually went well. No major hiccups or anything like that. I mean aside from their teacher getting shit-faced in front of the kiddies. At least she didn’t tell the kids about the birds and the bees like in Azumanga Daioh. But I digress!

If you’re looking for something action-packed, there is none of that. It’s quite campy!

Although we do get an imagination of the girls 10 years from now, this is a callback to the opening sequence with a flying camping tent! After the trip, the girls plan on what to do for New Years. And out of nowhere, Nadeshiko gets a part-time job. As we all know, camping can get expensive when there’s so many gadgets one wants to purchase for a trip. At least this anime shows some young adult responsibilities.

We end this season with Nadeshiko running into Rin while solo camping.

MINI-SPECIALS: After season one, there were 3 small specials that would come out with DVD releases. The special I wanted to bring up is the 3rd one where the girls are on a plane heading to Australia for summer camping (because when it’s winter in Japan, it’s summer in Australia).

The girls end up parachuting out of the plane when they all thought they were going to crash and land on a deserted island. Did their adventure on the deserted island really happen or was it just a dream? Because I seriously can’t get over 5 high school girls jumping to the conclusion that they are going to crash in an airplane and have to jump out of a plane.

SEASON TWO: Before we continue with the cute group going camping, we get a flashback of Rin’s very first time camping on her own. Yeah, despite her grandfather’s wisdom in the woods and her parents know-how, she was a bit of a noob. Hey, aren’t we all when it’s our first time going solo?

As for the real start, we begin exactly where we left off after the Christmas holiday and right to New Years. Nadeshiko started her new part-time job so she’ll have some spending money to go camping. Aoi and her little sister are going to do their own thing for the holiday. Rin’s gonna go solo camping as usual. Chiaki is stuck at work because a lot of people drink for the New Year and she works in a liquor store. And Ena is going to be somewhere warm as she hates cold weather.

Despite Nadeshiko becoming a working girl throughout the second season, we still see plenty of sites and many different travel buddies hooking up to go camping.

END OF SEASON TWO: This has been an eventful time for the girls. Chiaki, Ena, and Aoi went on a camping trip of their own and it almost ended very badly. That’s a big lesson for you all. Always inform at least one person where you’re going and always prepare for the weather. Temperatures can drop drastically at night depending on where you are!

Nadeshiko on the other hand found great success in her solo camping trip. Despite Rin and even Nadeshiko’s sister severely worried. When they spied on her, they noticed everything was going according to plan. Okay, it’s now March and everyone is done with exams, let’s have a several day excursion to Izu! This area is famous for geo-spots worthy of seeing at least once in your life. Toba-sensei will rent a mini van, take all the kids (minus Rin, but add Aoi’s sister), and remain sober at the most important time.

That might be asking a lot because Sensei loves booze!

Always remember to never drink and drive.

This trip to Izu also had an ulterior motive for some of the girls. As it turns out, both Aoi and Nadeshiko have the same birthday and the date is during this trip. So Rin, Ena, and Chiaki were planning a big dinner to celebrate. Despite Nadeshiko and Aoi knowing about the surprise prior to the actual surprise, they still had a fun time.

This was actually a very successful trip all around as the girls were able to see many geo-spots, got to go to hot springs, see rare animals, and just have a fun time all the way around. Just an enjoyable romp!

This was an enjoyable series. I know there’s no action or romance or mystery, it’s just some high school girls enjoying the great outdoors and camping. Nothing wrong with just keeping it simple! Watching this almost makes me want to give camping another chance. I know it’s been a good two decades since my last outing, but who knows. Plus I live in a different territory than I did back then so I might feel adventurous and want to do it. My state has a lot of places to do so. That’s what anime does to us, it inspires people to try something new or rediscover something you did long ago. Laid Back Camp just might be one of those animes. Again, I cannot stress this enough. There is no action adventure. No one hooks up. You notice how I just breezed through this review? That’s because there’s no ship to speak of.

If you are looking for love in this anime, there is none. Only more campy!

But sticking to the main story of five girls who like to explore the great outdoors without any kind of ulterior motive in mind is fine. It keeps the story safe and we all might learn something from it. And I’m quite interested to know where the story will lead us next as I think there are plans on there being a Laid Back Camp movie. We could finally see the girls camping during summer without me wondering if it was a dream or not.

If you just want a chill-lax anime about cute girls going camping, this is your anime. Crunchyroll has both seasons available for streaming.

Okay, next Amazon, Crunchyroll, or Netflix exclusive anime! Please be a good one!

Tokyo Revengers? Okay, I guess I’m jumping on this bandwagon.

#anime review #yuru camp #laid-back camp #rin shima #nadeshiko kagamihara #chiaki oogaki #aoi inuyama #ena saitou

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ihateuverymuch · 3 years

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Anime Marathon Day 6

My friends and I started watching anime together (via discord), and we've watched Horimiya, Jujutsu Kaisen, Wotakoi, The Saint's Magic is Omnipotent, Shaman King, To Your Eternity, and Moriarty the Patriot.

Since we've already caught up with the latest episodes of the ongoing anime, we decided to make a roulette of anime to watch, and we're going to decide if we are going to continue watching the anime or not after 1 episode. We're indecisive as fuck.

After watching 4 episodes of Moriarty the Patriot (12-15), we started this 1 episode session, and we've managed to watch 4.

Boarding School Juliet (NO)

This was the one we disliked the most. I had some laughs, but I ended up getting more irritated. I felt like if we continued this, I would lose the last remaining brain cells I have.

Romio and Juliet were kind of annoying. Always fighting because of petty things. Romio's thoughts were so chaotic. Juliet's ideals were admirable, but it kind of didn't make sense in their situation.

The members of the Black Dogs and White Cats were annoying too. I hated the guy who kicked a child, and the three guys who tried to harass Juliet. What in the damn hell is happening in their school.

Otherside Picnic (MAY CONTINUE)

I am intrigued at the story, but the first episode was kind of confusing. You are thrown in their world without any background knowledge about the creatures their, or the girls. For some people, that would be alright, but for me, it was kind of confusing. I only know some parts because I found out about this in a youtube anime suggestions (Mother's Basement), so I had an idea. Still, it is intriguing to know more about the girls, and the world they decide to travel into.

WARNING: Idk if it's just me, but I think some of the scenes (especially with the creatures), may induce seizures. Flashing lights, and all.

Tokyo Revengers (WILL CONTINUE)

I like time-travelling aspect - telling a person in the past about their future, and that changes the future (*coughs* Erased).

Even though it's full of people beating each other up, I'm honestly intrigued as to how Takemichi will just himself for the better. I felt really bad for him. I want to know more about him, his friends, and the Tachibana siblings. How will they change things that happened?

I just hope that we don't get something like what happened in the ending of Erased. That shit still haunts me.

Talentless Nana (MAY CONTINUE)

Tbh, I'm quite torn. I'm intrigued to know more about what would happened, but there are too many anime that flashes in my head while watching this. It's kind of like My Hero Academia with probably Assassination Classroom? There are characters that have the same powers of My Hero Academia characters.

Nana's voice is shrilling. It irritated me. I would have enjoyed it if she had less dialogue.

Also, maybe I would have enjoyed this better if I didn't accidentally spoil myself.

Do you have any anime suggestion? Reply to this post. :D

#anime #thoughts #anime thoughts #otherside picnic #boarding school juliet #tokyo revengers #talentless nana

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untapanimedraw · 3 years

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Ok, lets talk the Winter 2021 anime season

Dear god, there are so many shows airing. A ton of sequels, and a decent amount of new shows. I think I’ll actually break down what I’m interested in watching into two parts, sequels and new. Lets get started.

Watching:

Sequels

Jujutsu Kaisen - This is technically a continuation rather than a sequel, but the spirit is the same. This was my choice for favorite anime of the season fall 2020 so this continuation has me pretty hyped.

Black Clover - Still continuing. The manga had a 6 month time skip and the anime did some anime only stories with the author’s direction to cover that time period and now it’s caught up to that time skip. Shit is about to go down and I am stoked.

Attack On Titan: Final Season - So this started airing in December which makes for a strange airing schedule, but it’s technically continuing from the fall season into the winter season. Anyway, it is fucking fantastic and this week’s episode left us on a major cliff-hanger for 2 weeks.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime S2P1 - Ok, so first... HOLY FUCK I’M SO EXCITED FOR THIS SEASON, IT’S GOING TO BE AMAZING. Second, yes this is part 1. Thanks to covid there are some longer running seasons that are being split up to accommodate the production schedule. So this part 1 is airing in winter, then in the spring the 4-koma comedy re-telling is airing, and then in summer part 2 of this season 2 will air. it’s annoying, but 3 continuous season of slime is a welcome thing.

Re:Zero S2P2 - Alright, so this is the second half of summer 2020′s season 2 part 1. I have high expectations considering what we’ve already been given.

Dr. Stone: Stone Wars (S2) - HOLY FUCK I’M SO FUCKING EXCITED FOR THIS SHOW, I LOVED THE FIRST SEASON AND AM READING THE MANGA AND OMG I CANNOT WAIT FOR MORE.

The Promised Neverland S2 - More of the promised neverland. I’ve heard that this season will go even harder than the first season and Emma will prove even more why she’s best girl, so bring it on.

The Quintessential Quintuplets S2 - A second season of a decent harem show? Bring it on.

Log Horizon S3 - So I didn’t watch this when the first 2 seasons aired years ago, 6 I think actually. That said it’s always been on my PTW list and when I heard season 3 was going to air I decided that now was the time to catch up; and wow am I glad I did. I binged the first 2 seasons over the last 3 weeks and I am so fucking invested now. I cannot wait for this next season.

Higurashi GOU - this is continuing from last season and I’ll keep watching it, though I’m still not quite sure how to evaluate it.

Yuru Camp S2 - WOOHOO!!!!! This was the chillest of chill shows that aired winter 2018 and I absolutely loved it. I’m so excited for this next season for more camping and adorable girls being chill.

World Trigger S2 - So I was under the impression that there were already 2 seasons of this show, I watched most of it I think but it’s been so long I don’t really remember much. But this is being called season 2... so either this is retconning the previous season 2 or that was really just 1 big season despite the notation on some websites. Also a S3 has already been announced so I need to hurry up and rewatch this before the new season airs. But with 73 episodes that might take a bit of time.

Armor Shop for Ladies and Gentlemen S2 - This is a sequel to the short anime of the same name. If you like it, you like it.

New

Cells at Work S2 - Ok, technically this is a sequel, but I’m including it here because of something cool that’s happening with the next title.

Cells at Work: Black - Why yes, this is a different Cells at Work title. This is based on the spin-off manga of the same title that gender swaps the cells from the main series and covers their work inside an extremely unhealthy body. This is going to be a grittier, bloodier, and bleaker show than the main one and in a fun airing scheduling event, they will be airing back to back. I’m quite excited for the both of these.

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation - OMG I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS IS GETTING AN ADAPTATION! SADLY IT’S A SPLIT COUR SO THIS IS THE FIRST HALF OF SEASON 1 AND THE SECOND HALF WILL AIR LATER PROBABLY IN THE SUMMER. BUT THAT’S OK BECAUSE EVERYTHING I HAVE SEEN ABOUT THIS SO FAR TELLS ME THIS WILL BE A PRETTY DAMN FAITHFUL ADAPTATION AND IT IS GOING TO BE FANTASTIC.

Horimiya - I’ve heard many good things about this romance show and am looking forward to it.

Redo of Healer - Ok, here we go. This is going to be the outrage anime of the season. That is, if it is actually watched by people. It’s also getting 3 different levels of censoring so uh, I’ll have to check for the proper versions when it airs.

So I’m a Spider, So What? - Ok, so funny story. I’d been hearing about this manga for a while so I decided to dive into it a few months back. As I read it, I thought it was pretty funny but I wondered if the anime adaptation would be great for a comedy manga about a reincarnated girl into a spider’s body. Then about 3 weeks ago, I realized I was reading the comedy spin-off instead of the main story. That said I’m still quite excited to see this adapted and I’ll get the manga after then anime is done.

The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter - Hella ecchi, actually pretty fun manga. I’m looking forward to this adaptation.

Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies moved to a started town - Hopefully this will be as fun as the manga was. Here’s a better synopsis than the Livechart one - Lloyd is the weakest person in his remote village but his dream is to become a soldier in the big city. So he moves to the city and strives to make his dream come true. However in a twist, it turns out that the remote village Lloyd came from is the retirement town for all the world’s strongest heroes and they are all massively overpowered, so when he gets to the city he’s stupidly OP but it doesn’t quite click for him. Shenanigans ensue. It’s fun and I’m looking forward to this adaptation.

Bottom-tier Character Tomozaki - This is supposed to be not quite as good a romance as Horimiya this season, but still decent. If that is the comedy romance this is the drama romance show and hopefully it’ll be good.

Kemono Jihen - Mystery, supernatural, Yokai. I’m intrigued in this show and hope it’s decent.

Otherside Picnic - Shoujo Ai, Sci-Fi, I’m sold.

Hortensia SAGA - This is based on a game, but I’ve heard that the story and scope are actually quite good and the PV actually looks quite good so I’m definitely gonna check this one out.

SK8 the Infinity - Ok, so my first impression of this was nah, I’ll pass. But then I saw the PV and saw it was being animated by BONES and my impression changed to Ok I have to at least give it a couple episodes.

2.43 Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Team - So this is supposed to be Haikyuu except lots more drama and less gameplay. It will really have to pull me in in order to get me to not think boring Haikyuu when I watch it. I’ll give it a couple episodes.

Dr. Ramune -Mysterious Disease Specialist- - Doctor heals people from Yokai or something like that. The tags look interesting as do the character designs. I’ll check it out.

Back Arrow - Fantasy setting but BOOM... Mecha! That premise at least demands a couple episodes of my attention.

Heaven’s Design Team - Here’s my chill comedy SOL show of the season. The premise is Heaven has a design team that creates/created all the animals. I’m very excited to see the shenanigans.

Gekidol - Idols and stage acting. After watching the new Love Live last season I’m in the mood for some idol stuff. But most interesting to me is the next show on this list.

Alice in Deadly School - It’s not currently known whether this will be a full series or an OVA or some other thing, but this is an anime of the stage play that is being put on in Gekidol. The same VAs in Gekidol that play the characters in this play are voicing the characters for this anime production. And I just think this whole setup is neat and am very interested to see it play out (pun fully intended).

Idoly Pride - This seems to be a more straight-forward idol show which I’m going to check out.

Maiko-san Chi no Makanai-san - Girl doesn’t quite cut it to do the thing she and her friend came to do, but she found that she can cook so uses her cooking for support her friends. SOL, lets go.

Wave!! Surfing Yappe!! - Surfing show, the animation will make or break this show so we will see how it turns out.

Wow, that is a lot of shows, lets add them up.

13 sequels and continuations

22 new shows

35 total. I kinda hope some of these suck cause HOT DAMN, that’s a lot of shows.

#anime #winter 2021

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