#I hope we get an ova or something in the future with them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theaceofskulls · 9 months

Text

The Original Gundam: Thoughts About the Show that Changed Everything

I've made no secret about the fact that during my watch through of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, I've been miserable. If you're here for a random person on the internet to give a number at you to see how it measures up to your own number that you use to validate feelings, it's 5/10. I have anon asks turned on so you can scream at me there if that helps.

For everyone else who wants to understand the journey, more complicated feelings on the subject, what I feel holds it back, why I still argue it's something to watch, and my feelings on meeting aged media on its own terms, I'll try to make this a post I hope you'll enjoy.

First off, let's get this out of the way, viewing this through the lens of a toy commercial cartoon from the 70's and 80's, it's punching well above its weight class and the cultural significance of it is hard to overstate. I also acknowledge how frustrating it is to hear people disparage the mecha genre as "just robots fighting each other for a full series" when this series itself broke that mold back in 79.

It's also frustrating beyond all belief to hear people react to anything with any mecha influence with "ew gundam" which is a feeling I'm sure anyone who has ever interacted with people in the 40k community will have familiarity with.

I understand why people are defensive of this show. It's the foundational story for the largest timeline with the most amount of other works in it for the Gundam franchise.

What is the Show?

For those not aware, Gundam as a series is divided up into different timelines that all have different canons that for the most part don't intersect. The only exception to this is that there are a few works that are implied to be far futures of this one timeline we're talking about: Universal Century, which is a time period denoted by the change in the calendar to "UC" (implied from AD).

All of the shows, movies, OVAs, manga, novels, and so on fit onto the timeline with definitive years on this calendar, with the original being set in 0079 UC, during a period called the One Year War between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon which we follow from just after its start to its conclusion.

The story follows a ragtag crew of a prototype spaceship/mobile fortress called White Base with its own set of prototype robot weapons including the titular Gundam, with all of the crew being fresh faced youths most of whom aren't even part of the military at the start of the show after an attack on their space colony leads them to a prolonged escape that changes the fate of the war forever.

It's an interesting setup that immediately hits a lot of tropes with its own unique twist to them and drives a lot of the plot. Sadly that plot is where the issues show.

Before we go any further I want to note something important: I watched the English dub of this series. I have no doubt this influenced my feelings on the show but also I feel it's no less a valid way to experience something like this as it's not as though you can simply discount the existence of a version of the show that is meant to be there for its target audience to be able to connect with it.

I also did this because I knew that it would be dated and that I would struggle even more to finish the series if I did not have an option for it to not be the only thing I was doing at the time. This was how I had to meet the show and it worked out because I actually finished it, which is better than a lot of other series I've bounced off of even when I try to watch them for their significance.

It's also important to note here that the show famously brushed with cancellation that shortened its runtime down to 43 episodes, the last few of which were obtained by a lot of begging by the director to see it through. So when I mention pacing issues, I know there's a knee jerk reaction to be defensive here.

The Problem Pace

But all the acknowledgements in the world don't change what the actual viewing experience of the show is like. The pacing is atrocious, and when I say that I mean the following:

-The pacing of the overall plot -The pacing of individual episodes -The pacing of individual fights inside of episodes.

So just pacing problems in general. Some things feel drawn out, some feel like you're watching with the fastforward button held down and it's all related to the fact that the show is fitting into a trap that holds it by the throat and is to me the fundamental flaw of it that it only manages to escape with scant few episodes remaining: it's a villain-of-the-week format.

That villain could be a new character, a new enemy robot, or a strategy that's being tested on them but inevitably the end result is that it's almost always resolved by the end of the episode, usually by Amuro, our main character.

I hear some defenders about to cry out from that description so let me cut you off: the single greatest strength of the show is that it keeps a main plot going throughout the entirity of its run, usually by shuffling a different arc and threading it through individual episodes so that something always happens and its always moved forward by the events of an individual episode. This saving grace is actually really powerful at keeping the series watchable even as its animation and story structure have aged like milk.

Sometimes this even includes advancing character arcs. Sometimes.

But all in all, it begins to wind into a repetitive structure that begins to weigh on you when you realize that these episodes are running together and all the names are changing and the mechs they're fighting are different but it's frustratingly the same with the exception of the background which is never completely stalled so you keep going.

I kept deleting "watching Amuro saves the day" while typing out the story structure because technically sometimes its someone else but I realized that I couldn't continue discussion of why the show is hard to watch without addressing the other big issue in the room: the characters.

Characters, aka Char, Amuro, and the people who aren't as important

This series mostly focuses on Amuro Ray and his nemesis Char Aznable. One of them is extremely interesting and helped carry the franchise on his back. The other one is our POV character.

Amuro is not the most frustrating protagonist I've watched, nor (due to the glut of isekai I've seen) the most generic. But he's a hard sell. Just a regular kid stuffed in the cockpit is as bland a trope to the mecha genre as having a startup sequence for the first time in the cockpit is. It does allow him to suffer the stress of the constant war which is interesting on paper, but outside of that he doesn't have much.

He's a gear rat who pushes himself so that his friends (when the crew actually manages to become friends almost a quarter of the way into the show) don't suffer. And when you get towards the end and track his progress on paper, it seems interesting. It's just very... flat in practice. My favorite moment is him being called out for fighting for no ideology or homeland and he doesn't have an excuse beyond "so what" compared to another character who at least acknowledges they're ride or die for their found family.

Amuro instead gets defined by being the Hero who most episodes have him save the day, and not often in too interesting of a manner.

So this leaves the rest of the white base crew with not much to do as they wait for Goku... I mean Amuro to finish off the villain for them. Sometimes they're allowed to be the main character but all too often they're here to handle the background fighting.

I'll say I enjoy Sayla and even Kai's eventual arc's, though it takes almost 30 episodes for the latter to get his and until that point I legitimately wanted him to die off and I'm normally fine with Heel allies in these types of shows because most of the time they're written to showcase why they're like that. Kai is just insufferable until that point and he then rarely gets to save the day on his own afterwards.

Sayla meanwhile has a lot going on with her playing catchup at being a pilot midway through the story in an attempt to get close to her brother, Char, which considering he has his own great story going on really helps elevate her. I don't have many notes here other than it feels odd that she never gets her own mobile suit and fades away after this series, but she's the one side character I feel like I'd miss if I'd gone for the compilation movies instead of watching the series proper.

Well maybe Commander Bright qualifies too, as he's fascinating. A 19 year old who is the only military officer on board at first who still is unqualified for the role he's found himself in who struggles to hold the crew together. Him being tied as strongly to the overall plot allows him to develop over the course of the series and makes him standout.

Of the remaining main characters:

Fraw Bow, Amuro's childhood friend, quickly becomes irrelevant

Hayato doesn't get anything to do until the final couple episodes and it boils down to an inferiority complex

Mirai suffers from some great 70's/80's anime writing of women that's somehow slightly better than your average writing of female characters in shounen or isekai these days until it's time to talk about her love life

Ryu is a big guy in anime who does what you expect a big guy in anime on the good guys side to do

Slegger is introduced right near the end and is a chauvinist disruption to the crew's dynamic towards the end that the show makes me want to believe went through the same development as Kai did around the midway point but never really gets the time to be likeable in the same way

The three children who the show desperately wants me to agree should be on the military base headed into battle because they're family through justifying them helping the crew once every 12 episodes or so. I feel like my opinions here should be self explanatory

They just don't resonate with me at all that much in the end. The protagonist side ends up fairly flat because of this, with the antagonist side being made up of the Zabi family, Char, about 2 or 3 arc villains who last at least 3 episodes, and villains of the week who die often the same episode they appear in.

It's no surprise that like almost everyone else, I enjoy Char the most, but acknowledge how the story's rushed conclusion sees him declaring that his vengeance for the Zabis doesn't matter and that he must kill Amuro to within 2 minutes of that exact statement saying "I now realize the Zabis are the true enemies" with no one making a speech that actually gets through to him. Beyond that however, Char remains a fantastic character with more depth than expected who had his own arc and motivations that didn't always revolve around the protagonists and makes for an enjoyable part of the show to watch.

The Whole Love Triangle Subplot

And I've been avoiding the Laylah in the room, the woman at the center of Char and Amuro fully becoming each other's true rivals and the start of the introduction of Jedi to the series.

Yes if you don't know, Universal Century has Jedi, they're called Newtypes and while they do try to foreshadow it early on, it abruptly comes out of left field in the final 8 or so episodes and takes over every aspect of the plot. It didn't fully gel with me but it worked well enough.

My issue with Laylah is instead the love triangle that abruptly occurs and Amuro's entire motivations changing during the fight with her to be solely about how he's in love with her. While him getting bad crushes is not new to the series it's a two way thing that also comes out of nowhere for a single episode with Laylah who until this point has been solely motivated by Char and the entirety of the pivotal episode that defines the rest of Universal Century regarding this had me shaking my head with the knowledge that this was doing nothing for me. It sucked and I couldn't feel anything and this is going to be massively important for future series.

I literally knew the exact plot beats that were occurring and part of why I was watching this show was to see it in action and it just didn't work out at all. Performance wasn't the issue, the pacing, lead up, the abrupt "we were destined to be together", and lack of any interaction or introspection of Amuro and Laylah's feelings about each other just sabotage the scene and its effects entirely. You can understand what the scene is going for but it doesn't stick its landing.

Sure I grokked the Char side of things in the ensuing aftermath of the fight, but as for the moment itself, it fell flat.

The Animation

Look, this is really easy: The animation aged harder than anything else. This turns into a larger problem when it intersects the structure problems I talked about earlier where episodes are very Villain of the Week and are resolved by Amuro Mercs a Man.

That being that a lot of episodes are centered around a fight scene in the mechas, and those fights don't hold up great. It's not the worst animation you'll ever see, but when it feels like it's meant to be the core of the episode and it's underwhelming, it drags the show down.

Geewoners

Part of why I decided to put my thoughts together on this series is that in looking for other Gundam series to watch, I've seen plenty of people's ratings on other shows in the franchise and listened to them explain why a show that others rave about fell apart for them, and I realized something when I was reflecting on this show: With the exception of "aliens", almost every thing that killed another show dead for them is present in this show in some way. It's a mess of creative decisions that are divisive and drive away viewers but it's still rated highly by its fans. And I wanted to see it through to understand that.

One thing I should explain is that I am a Transformers fan who got into that series because of reruns of its original work and therefore have experience with something that fandom likes to call Geewoners, people who are superfans of the original show. The term itself tends to get a negative connotation because they insist that the show is better than anything else in the franchise, and I can't help but see reflections of that in this fanbase.

G1 of Transformers is an aged piece of media meant to sell toys. It had an amazing amount of thought put into its world for a show that was basically there to sell you a robot that is also a truck. And some episodes are great ideas that are given life by colorful and memorable characters. It's also extremely cheaply animated with mistakes all over it because of the way it was produced.

And like MSG, it's also foundational for what came after. It's hard to comprehend Transformers in its entirety without looking at G1 at some point. But it's understood that it has aged and that it's important to acknowledge that for newcomers.

Aged media is an interesting subject, because you have to acknowledge on simple fact: there's a lot of things competing for your time these days, and a lot of things that have been done poorly have ended up being done better even by their own franchises, so why should you watch something older if something newer and better exists?

In part, the answer is academic. And I don't just mean looking at something purely to write out a report or an overly long social media post on the subject. I mean that sometimes it's important to consume media to understand other media as well as yourself.

While I spent a good amount of time berating the show for its format, it should be noted that it was done in an era where it wasn't assured you could see the reruns, so missing the part 1 or part 2 of a multipart episode was a bigger deal. Thus it choosing this format is not a dumb decision on its part, but rather something necessary. It still ages the material and I'd argue that makes it harder for newer viewers to enjoy it as much. While it's possible to acknowledge that this format fits its era, it's equally important to discuss that viewing it as a modern viewer, it holds back your enjoyment of it.

Meeting media on the terms it was made is a complicated matter. Everything makes compromises and nothing is made in a vacuum, but that doesn't change the viewer's experience of it. You could argue the merits of changing the score to be weighed in light of that, but I kept it to the more shocking number of 5/10 because that's still a valid takeaway. It's an approximation of how I felt when I ended it, where I thought I had equally as many complaints as I did enjoyment of the material.

It's equally as important to understand material as it is to see media without the history or the understanding of landscape at the time, as it can be consume in either manner.

It's also worth remembering someone else's opinions don't invalidate your own experiences. MSG can be good to you and mean a lot because of your own experience with it even while to me I see it's age.

And aged media involving robots isn't just limited to 80s cartoons. I want to take a brief moment to talk about the fact that one of the hardest other recommendations you can give for mecha anime is Evangelion despite what the anime community believes due to its status. Eva is amazingly influential but that alone also damns it. Everything mecha made after it pulls from it, and as is often the case that means returning to it often makes it hard for those who grew up with its successors to understand why it's so good. If you get into any video essays on video gaming that stray anywhere close to Resident Evil 4, you'll hear this subject a lot.

Still it's hard to talk about the giants that everyone stands on the shoulders of being anything but great for someone. How can someone not enjoy the experience of something as important as they are? And the answer does often boil down to: experiencing something well after it came out or consuming media after consuming those it influenced is a different experience entirely.

I'll say this: there's a lot of nostalgia rose tinting going on when discussing Mobile Suit Gundam. I maintain it's a hard watch for people that have no attachment. Hell, the fact that I made it through was in part due to me having an attachment to the franchise as a whole.

But also I did make it through this show. It's 43 episodes and despite me consuming it at a snails pace at times and being incredibly frustrated with it in a variety of ways, it was something I could still finish. And while I stand by all my criticism above, I have to acknowledge its merits.

Okay, Time to be Nice to Grandpa

I'm not going to talk about the historical significance of the show. Others are better versed on that have made posts you can search and find. I'm not even going to discuss that this is the foundation of the Universal Century because that's not important to the experience of viewing it.

Instead I want to talk about the fact that despite the pacing issues and the performances and the animation, the story of the show is at its core an interesting examination of a ragtag crew who end up as the unlikely heroes that help end a war.

Core ideas of plots throughout the show are enthralling in ways that are hard to explain so I'll give examples:

Char's original misunderstanding that base is crewed by special forces and his attempts to understand why they're using such odd tactics

The fact that the show plays with the idea that the titular mech begins out as overpowered and everyone else is quickly catching up to it and Amuro needs to learn to use it properly before the gap it provided at the start is shortened completely

The way the Earth Federation treats the White Base, first with indifference since their attention is elsewhere to treating them as a decoy after they realize Zeon is overly concerned about the base, to finally having to depend on them. The Crew's relationship with the military as a whole is interesting to see play out

The way supply lines are actually part of the show ranging from an early episode where the threat of Char being able to resupply could effectively end their escape from him to having to figure out how to rest and repair in hostile areas

While I don't think it sticks the landing since it had to rush the arc, the way Newtypes begin to change warfare the same way the mobile suits early on had shows the war ramp up at its tail end with both sides becoming more desperate

The animation improves towards the end and becomes far more coherent even if some of the final battles are definitely stretching the budget

While I've mentioned the animation's quality, there are plenty of good standout moments even early on, mostly when mechs are exploding

The mecha design is great. While some of it definitely looks awkward, they're all captivating and the villain of the week format did allow for a lot of different designs (which in the end did save the franchise since it sold enough model kits)

The way the show handled death as something sudden and abrupt is different than almost every other mech show out there. Danger feels real most of the time and the fact that almost no one gets a parting speech even if their mech doesn't immediately explode adds to a realistic feeling that doesn't cross the line of "too grim"

The show manages to find a balance where the protagonists feel important but not as though they're destined to end the war. Even as the ending ramps things up, it feels as though circumstances work out the way they do without feeling contrived. They end up at the final battle because Zeon used its last superweapon on the larger fleet and that final battle worked the way it did because of infighting and just enough tactics to find the right place to hit. It doesn't feel like the Death Star as much as an actual military battle.

Things like these keep the show watchable for reasons beyond just "you gotta appreciate the classics" or "well you need to watch it to understand what comes next", especially in an era where every detail of what happens is recorded in text for you to read on a wiki or a fan site.

MSG is not something I think everyone can love, but I think there are things in there that most people can appreciate beyond just the anime that shows the One Year War or being the official start of the Gundam Franchises' history book.

After all, there have been novelizations, video game adaptations, and other material that adapts the story and summaries of its events. But the show and its compilation movies remain with enough solid material there of worth that they're something you can chew through.

Wrapping Up

This is one of the longer posts I've made. Probably the longest I've actually posted in literal years. But this was inspired primarily because the frustration I experienced with wanting to enjoy this as much as others did. It was inspired by listening to critics dissect the other shows in the franchise extremely harshly only to turn around and sing praises of the Ur-entry in the series and wondering if it held up to the hype.

My journey was inspired by me wanting to consume exactly one work in the Universal Century Timeline and realizing when I looked at another along the way that I would be lost without starting earlier on and setting myself up for a longer journey than I wanted.

I feel like I understand not just Gundam, but also Mecha in general better. It's interesting to see what was abandoned along the way, as from episode one the idea of them actually using a mech that's stronger than everything else seems like an unbearable powerfantasy that the genre outgrew only to watch them utilize the trope in an interesting way over the 43 episode run. But at the same time I watched as it fumbled episodes or arcs that I've seen other shows nail.

When I finished the show, I let out the biggest sigh of relief at having finished it, but it also left me hungry for more content from the timeline.

Despite the flaws, it didn't drive me away. Despite the fact that it literally took me months to finish, I felt like continuing and not just jumping to another timeline or franchise entirely.

But I still maintain a lot of my feelings that I did from the beginning. It's rough, it's hard to recommend, and I'd never start a newer fan here. I still hate how central it is to being able to look at most of the rest of its timeline with those other labels on it, but I can't fully bring myself to recommend a complete alternative to it either.

I feel like it would be a niche recommendation if it wasn't central to what came next or if it wasn't first out the gate, something only for those really interested in the series to check out, but also it's something that I feel like still might be worth checking out on those merits, even with a huge amount of caveats attached.

In the end, I can't really give a general recommendation for if Mobile Suit Gundam is the type of show for you other than this: If you ever find yourself enjoying Gundam, at some point I feel it's worth looking at in some manner. Maybe like me you'll need to have it running while doing other things. Maybe you'll only be able to do it in the compilation movie format. Maybe you'll need to go with a novelization or some new version of it.

But the story ideas and some of the plot directions are captivating and worth looking at.

Just don't start here.

#gundam #mobile suit gundam #long post #gundam 0079

7 notes · View notes

prowerprojects · 10 months

Note

(Modern Tails anon) {Don't worry, I totally get the need to vent. We all have our feelings on things, I'll try to my best to follow up with my own word vomit.} Heh, as long as he's doing something other than typing on a pad, that's seems to be enough for some people. /s (Archie didn't exactly do him better either; with everything else that was going on in it, but at least he had a few personal shining moments in it. IDW, Modern really hasn't had a definitive story yet. One that covers all his aspects and show his future potential, not just smarts and gadgets.)

Probably doesn't help that characters with superpowers tend to have a bias, compared to more "normal" ones. (I mean, Tails isn't normal either, but I think you get what I mean. Kid genius trope struggles.)

Hmmm, probably have to chalk that up to SoA localization changes; which omit the whole bullying thing and downplayed his inventor aspects pre-Adventure/Sonic X. Early cartoons playing hard into the 'kid' side didn't help either. (Underground completely removing him for real siblings certainly was a choice after AOSTH and SatAM went on about him and Sonic being surrogate brothers. At least the OVA balanced everything.)

Yeah, some are missing the point why Nine is the way he is and his current arc. As curious as I am about potentially seeing a "main antagonist" Tails, I can't help but feel it might hinder Modern Tails' outlook more or give even further wrong impressions of his character, especially in tangent to Sonic. (Frontiers is just words until we see what happens passed this game onward. I did sneak a look at the DLC leaks, and well, let's just say a certain trend of his we keep joking about continues and leave it at that. xD)

This is what I also mean about him interacting with other characters. How would he be as THEIR partner for a while? What if he took leadership and inspire others, just like Sonic has. What does he learn from those experiences? Considering he doesn't have personal contempt for most characters, him being mostly neutral allows him to talk virtually with everyone rather civilly. Including Eggman's robots. (Ah, someone else with the Tails and Sage vision. xD I'm hoping with their similarities, it leads to a cool dymanic between them, I don't quite see them fighting each other as much as Sonic and Eggman do.)

Heh, we don't talk about Sonic's admiration of Tails very much, or how they keep each other centered and it often leads to that lopsided view. Yeah, Sonic 'raised' Tails; more as guidance than the traditional parental sense, but Tails is one of the main reasons why Sonic is still alive. Sonic values Tails' opinion, even if it doesn't always align with his. His support and planning is why Sonic can succeed in his heroism. (Sonic isn't dumb by any means and can handle himself well, BUT can you say his adventures would have gone smoothly or quickly without Tails' help? Do you not think he enjoys Tails' company regardless and supports him with all his heart? Do you think why the dude who generally prefers solitude considers this fox close enough to be described as his family? Their bond has multiple layers, years of trust and is still evolving. Focusing and giving all the credit to one side of the team is disingenuous to both.)

Thanks, anon!

I wonder if idw would do something with Tails at all... maybe in a couple of years we'll see. I have other thoughts on idw, but I should stop myself because thinking about it too long is a bit upsetting. (I wrote an entire paragraph about him in the Metal Virus but. I should really stop thinking about it)

I'm really hoping we get a Tails-centric story in that 900 issues special, and if not, at least have him be a supporting character for someone he doesn't usually interact with much (so basically anybody who isn't Sonic). I looked at the list of the writers and I honestly have no idea who I'd want to write for him, since a lot of them only did a couple of sonic stories at most.

Technically Tails does have superpowers, he can fly and he's fast... but a good chunk of the cast also has those, so it isn't something that seems so special anymore. So he only has him being a kid genius to set him apart and yeah, I guess it isn't as awe-inspiring as being able to throw cars with your mind or set things on fire.

Yep. What I was trying to say in the last post, is Tails's backstory being kind of hard to figure out just from playing the game is the reason why the western adaptations were able to change him so much in the first place. (At least that's what I meant by "that's how we ended up with Tailses who thought math was hard"). Though maybe if those adaptations did have his game backstory elements being more prominent somehow, it would have created a different image of Tails for a lot of people in the west...

Interesting that the bullying thing was included in Stay Sonic, which is what the Fleetway comics is (partially) based on, and it is a part of his backstory in the comic as well. His bullies were other foxes, just like in Origins/Prime. (Kid genius thing was not included though, hence "Pixel Brain")

(Also it's interesting that aosth started to bring in some of the aspects of his game characterization by the second half of the show. The whole episode dedicated to him being a genius, and then his technological abilities do occasionally come up later on, him fanboying over a pilot and flying a plane in another episode, people occasionally commenting on how freaky it is that he has two tails, stuff like that)

Honestly I don't know what else I could add on the Nine thing, I genuinely don't believe he would be the final antagonist. If he does end up as one, I have no idea what it says about the actual Prime Tails, how are we meant to read it? (Also I just generally have a bit of a distaste for how fandoms would see a traumatized and hurting kid, who is maybe kind of angsty and isn't the best at managing their feelings, and immediately go "Oh evil! They're soooo gonna be a villain!" I understand it could be really cathartic to see a character who's been wronged and hurt to turn the tables and be unhinged and calling the shots, but 1) often in the end it ends up being self-destructive behavior, 2) while it could be cathartic for some viewers, and technically it's a plot that has a right to exist, the fact that it's a trend that I've noticed makes me feel like people associate mentally ill teenagers with being evil, which is not great (though maybe I'm reading too much into this), 3) I just genuinely think this isn't where Prime is going)) Tails could make for a terrifying antagonist, I'm just really struggling to imagine what could actually drive him to villainy.

Tails and Sage... my first thought was "Oh they're definitely gonna make them rivals. Considering that Tails used to battle Eggman, isn't that a bit of a downgrade?" But then I actually started thinking about it, and now I want it. I have some ideas, but the actual dynamic would really depend on where they take both of those characters after Frontiers. But it could be really interesting, and more importantly, different from the rivalries that we already have!

Yes, Sonic and Tails! As much as I would love for Tails to interact with other characters, he and Sonic do have a great dynamic together. Honestly I don't think I have anything to add. It reminded me of the recent Sonic Channel story, at the end Sonic says something along the lines of Eggman being the unluckiest person in the world because of all the people not to lose their memory, it was the two of them, which means he's definitely going down!

#sonic doesn't look before he leaps not because he's reckless he just knows tails would catch him #tails #hmmm I wouldn't call this one a rant #I've chilled out #project.txt #miles tails prower #tails the fox #sonic #how much sonic trusts tails is amazing to me #it really balances out tails's own admiration of sonic #i feel like being friends for so long had influenced sonic as well. the not looking before leaping thing from before was a joke but #I do think that knowing that he always has tails in his corner does influence some of his decision-making

7 notes · View notes

kramaku · 2 years

Note

I'll be honest, I too am a little bothered by that. A lot of people are saying it's silly (before we're even getting the official release) and I'm sure people (who hate him) are also upset that Bakugou is coming back.

Nowadays, I really feel like everyone wants everything to be top tier and written to perfection. Always having high expectations instead of enjoying something as it is.

It reminds me of people complained about the OVAs that were meant to simply be comedic. It's ridiculous.

Some people in this fanbase expect too much.

It's not like BNHA was entirely written to be something so serious. We have a kid with tape for a quirk, another with balls on his head, a guy who yells for a living, another who can manipulate fibers, etc. It doesn't even stop at quirks.

Just even how the characters' personalities are, how they're designed and how some scenes are written to be played for laughs.

I'm just real tired of people thinking every piece of media should be perfect. It should be enough that it's entertaining.

Don't like it. Leave.

You're right and I've talked a lot about how every chapter can't be a masterpiece. But messing up a "death" of the 2nd main character is a mistake not to make.

Now I'll be honest, when I first read the leaks, at the end, I stopped and thought... "is that a joke? Hell no." Because I somehow understand the hate towards this chapter (this isn't a hate post only positivity here!!). But let's resolve the love and hate Horikoshi receives this week, shall we?

Bakugou's death is sad, respectful, beautiful, but to me, its quality depended a lot on rather he would come back to life or not because we have to take the story in consideration. My Hero Academia is a story that gives hope, it's not meant to be a tragedy... so can you imagine a kid that dreamed to be the top hero and to have a happy future with his childhood friend to just die.. and that's it? Can you imagine Izuku even able to grieve and show the glimpse of a smile after Bakugou's death? To consider himself the strongest hero if he couldn't save his best friend? No. And what kind of life long rivalry ends with "can i keep up with you?"?? Theyre not even fighting side by side once?? The bromance/romance between the two is a huge pilar of the story and it ends with them not even being officially friends at least??? There's still a lot of details that sold how Bakugou definitely couldn't be off the story for good but we're not here to talk about that. His death is well written to me because of the way it comes with sacrifice and of the fact that it ends with revival. Now... is his revival well written? Well, unlike this morning when I first read the leaks, I believe that it's gonna be well written.

I understand why people are angry.. if they believe that, that's it, Bakugou's back to life and will go running again next chapter. If it happens I'll be the first to cry when I read this bullshit, I swear. Because 1st, Bakugou being back so fast feels useless. What was his death for?? If it just causes the death of a pro hero we barely saw in the story, then better not do it at all. Was it written just to make a good cliff hanger and keep people excited for the next chapter each week?? That's it????? No. I don't think so. Horikoshi isn't like that. He even dared to draw the my villain academia arc, despite how risky it was. People read hero comics for the heroes, they don't usually want dozens and dozens of chapters about the "bad guys". Yet he did it because he wanted to (and it happened to be one of the best arcs, congrats). Anyway, just to say, fans want consequences to Bakugou's death. At least Izuku going feral seeing the carnage Shigaraki did, Izuku proving once again how villains and heroes are two sides of the same coin and how the differences between the two can be very thin, so thin that Izuku could give himself to rage and act very unheroic... villainous. That could lead to talk again about morals, the good and the bad, the values of a hero- it could've opened the door to so many good stuff!! But here we are, with... nothing. Nothing because the revival act feels (currently) empty. Edgeshot is a character that had almost no screen time, has never been relevant to the story whatsoever and never even spoke to Bakugou but now he comes out of nowhere and saves him, dies for him. Like that. I'm an edgeshot fan, he's cool, I'm happy to see some actual ninja stuff from him, but rn I get why people are mad. Edgeshot basically came like "Hi! My name is plot armor! Let's pretend nothing happened so there's absolutely no consequences and none of your awesome theories will come true!"

If bakugou really stands up next chapter, izuku arrives and they just fight together, then yes this is utter crap. Every chapter between 356 to 364 would feel meaningless.

But I have trust in Horikoshi and im convinced that Edgeshot's sacrifice is just the first step of the resurrection. Jeanist still has to do an insane job, the other heroes have to hold back Shigaraki, some will probably die too, and Bakugou will surely still be very much dead when Izuku arrives so we'll get Izuku's reaction and all the good stuff that comes with it. I'm excited and trust Horikoshi on this one.

If the revival is wrote like that, well handled, then the 364th chapter is a good one. It's not the kind of chapter you can judge on its own, but unfortunately, seems like a lot of fans (now haters..?) did that today.

I'll either praise of shit on this chapter after we get next week's. On a side note, I really loved the All for One stuff, the Stars and Stripes with All Might moment, the Mirko moments, there's good stuff!! For now I'm just watching how Horikoshi plans to handle this. Patience, everyone 👍

#mha spoilers

24 notes · View notes

blueikeproductions · 1 year

Text

While I’m impressed at the anime committing to retiring Ash I can’t help but have mixed feelings and a sense of dread.

Ash in a lot of was was functionally the best known mascot alongside Team Rocket, and to loose them now feels like the series has lost a bit of its soul. The new anime having this slightly generic vibe doesn’t help either.

I’m sure the new kids will be lovely, but this situation reeks New Gen drama that’s hurt other series because of fan backlash: Yokai Watch, Kinnikuman, BuddyFight, Naruto and others have all gone through this, and it wasn’t pretty. Now to be fair there were other factors at play and Boruto largely seems to have evaded this, but the point stands the attempt to move on didn’t work...

It’s worth mentioning this happened in a fashion in the anime where Team Rocket was supposed to retire during Best Wishes, but fan backlash at the mere thought guaranteed their return after a brief break.

The new generation vibe also feeds into the new kids, who feel like they could be, as of typing, Ash and Go’s kids. The new lead girl looks like Ash and Serena smooshed together, and along with wearing Ash’s old hat logo as a pin, it feels like a cheeky conclusion to long standing shipping discourse lol. (If the girl is unrelated, the pin is probably just a cute reference all the same.)

Already the fanbase is pretty split between upset at Ash leaving and overjoyed at starting fresh. I’m curious to see how long this goes on for once the epilogue OVA ends and the new anime starts and how that may feed into the future of anime projects…

Personally I was fine with Ash and Pikachu because of how the anime functioned as a silly continuous adventure, and I semi suspect Ash will continue to journey anyway, we just won’t see it anymore going forward, so it’s honestly very bittersweet. Especially since I was looking forward to see how Ash (potentially Go too) and Team Rocket would adapt to Scarlet and Violet’s storyline. Ah well.

As eluded to prior, I think my main concern about this is it’s gonna get unfairly flung in the mud by various factions for various reasons, and I can’t shake the feeling the new kids are gonna be Rodimus Prime like martyrs, and like Yokai Watch Shadowside, they’re gonna revert back to Ash and Team Rocket because of backlash. And that’s in spite of a grand finale they seem to be building towards that addresses some lingering loose ends for Ash and co…

I hope I’m wrong though and this takes off, I’m sure it’ll be fine, but past experiences has me very wary (and weary) something absolutely stupid is going to happen.

#Pokémon #pokémon spoilers

9 notes · View notes

mechanicalinertia · 2 years

Text

STMPD Goes All Ham: Why Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 is Bad

Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy. Here we go.

Yeah. It's real Salty Fanboy Hours, except I'm a zoomer born-and-bred, too young to have known either Bubblegum Crisis 2032 or its hard reboot 2040 during their respective points of anime-culture relevancy. So I hope I don't come off as entitled-sounding as those dudes I described in that kotaku article's comments in an older post, the kind who refused to let Samusina Von Metroiddereich have a personality of any sort besides 'stoic' and presumably 'sigma female'.

But I've got a gripe, you see, a real stone-cold gripe. For MAL still has a great many positive written reviews of 2040, most surface level cheers for 'girls being cool' as though 2040 invented that in anime, and the other suggesting that 2040 has more character development and nuanced plot than 2032 (which is half-right. I'll get to that). And though no one I know well, physically or digitally, seems to labor under the conception that 2040 is worth a rewatch or whatever, I think it's time I conjure my bile into a ball and Linda Blair it out on this here keyboard, and in so doing settle what exactly it is that makes Crisis 2040 an anime I truly despise.

Button your butthole, bucko. We're about to go deep.

I should probably say right off the bat that I don't like Crisis 2040 solely because it is different than Crisis 2032, that I think Crisis should be this way and 2040 is that way and therefore it is bad. It would be so easy to pin such reasoning down on one being super 80's cyberpunk and the other being super 90's cyberpunk and then it just being a matter of preference which kind of cyber-nostalgia you prefer or whatever.

(And, well, I think a great deal of 80's cyberpunk has aged better than the stuff from the decade following it. If Blade Runner inaugurated the genre and defined a good chunk of its look in the 80's, the bland-ass hero's-journey grind of The Matrix was the culmination of 90's-era cyberfuturism trying so earnestly for the mega-mainstream that I think it just kind of buried the genre in its own way, a genre that's now unable to be revived without occasionally valid criticisms that the genre is itself now retrofuturistic and too obsessed with its own legacy, unable to find again what made the genre connect to the concerns of the future so well. New novels push boundaries, try to do things similar to cyberpunk while being more contemporary, but that's no guarantee they're good.)

But I can recognize that Crisis 2040 is trying to do something different with the core concepts of Crisis, modernize them, see them through to a completed story. Much praise is heaped on 2040 simply because it ends where 2032 and Crash do not. Only - it fails to do, at the broadest level, what it is trying to do. If it is modernity, I would like something a decade older, thanks. Shit, what it's trying to do, be a Highbrow Sexually Troubled Mecha Show just like Evangelion, is something that feels like it's aged poorer than the Girls-With-Guns-Make-Things-Go-Boom ethos of 2032's OVA-era sensibility. Sekaikei, I’m told it’s called in Japan.

Look - just - let me split my criticism into three big chunks. One for production quality, one for characters, one for the plot these characters inhabit:

1. BAD PRODUCTION QUALITY

- ANIMATION QUALITY: POOR

Oh my god. Jesus dick. You can tell this was made on a budget, because AIC has always been terrible at making full-length TV shows - even in the 90's, at the top of their game, their strength was OVAs like Tenchi or El-Hazard. Not - this.

Like, there's a scene I think as early as the end of episode 2 and start of episode 3 where it's a sort of cybernetically-enhanced flashback, Linna moving in Priss's place. Priss fights a Boomer, and backflips like eight times in a cheap-looking loop where we only see her bottom half as she spins around. It's just inexcusably bad.

Still shots with maybe some moving tentacles (more on the Boomers later) saturate this anime. Moving shots are single ones, simple grab-n'-go kind of shots, or they just lose a background as the fight happens. We are a long, long way from the excellently paced and placed Razordoll fight from OVA 2, and goddammit I wish we at least had competent 'bareskin' animations, where people actually moved around a bit more, like, oh, the steak dinner from OVA 4. Or at least, uh, more of them than the few we have.

Why would you watch an inferior copy of an original, guys? Because the plot's more complete? Somehow? People like 2040, but oftentimes they like it for things that 2032 did better, the robot fights and the kick-ass girls and things like that. And when pressed as to why 2040 is better, it's something to do with the plot. Well, fair enough. You sure as hell didn't come here for production quality.

- MEGATOKYO: STERILE

I think this was by design - a utopian, if relentlessly dull, city on the verge of destruction. Easy on the budget, too. Only the entire city looks dead on arrival. That sort of 90’s TNG-looking design. It’s not as bad as Crash, but it’s getting there.

Okay, so only the first 4 OVA's really kept the idea of Megatokyo as a cyberpunk city filled with grit and grime, and design focus gradually shifted to something brighter and more liveable, especially OVA 8 - but was that just because of perspective? Focus on Nene, and the city becomes nicer. Or - no. OVA 5 looks just a little less gritter than before, but it's still half-ruined, like those old vending machines Priss and Sylvie just find along the coast. But that's kind of a Priss episode, so... Where was I going with this? Oh, right.

Shots are reused constantly, like the one which shows the split from the Quake, how the city is split in two by height (Or we're just looking at a really big part of the Fault? Admittedly the OVAs did this too, but they didn't reuse their shots so many times that it feels just kind of annoying.)

- HARDSUIT DESIGNS: SIMILARLY UNINSPIRED

I could talk about blocky, ugly cars, or fairly dull-looking ADP mecha like the K-suit redux and the aerodyne copters they have to replace the FireBees from OVA 1. But that’s fine, the ADP’s hardware was designed mostly to be blown up. It’s the hardsuits, man.

Not just how they function in combat - that’s not one, but two separate gripes. But, it's like... Look. For the first half of the series, the Sabers use what are mostly minor recolorings of the second-generation hardsuits from OVA 8, similar more in shape and color than anything else. They do seem a bit less detailed, but that's the low budget rearing its head again. It's fine, really, because the OVA 8 designs are probably the best realization of hardsuit design, because they throw out the blockiness of the first-gen while still keeping the general body shapes we're used to. These ones don't look great, the colors seem either more severe (Priss) or more bland (Linna, Sylia), and their feet use that stupid little sound effect from Crash!, and they still move in high heels (this is a more feminist anime how?). But it's all - passably good-looking.

And then comes their second generation, made to be even lower-poly for the budget, and made to be even less interesting in terms of tech. The continuous thread through the Boomers and the hardsuits is bullshit liquid-metal morphin' powers, not even nanotech per se, just 'voodoo organic metal' or something (they call the Boomers Voomers here, I guess). Because, again, morphin' metal a la Terminator 2 looks cleaner, is easier to animate, then the grotesque fusion powers of even OVA 1.

So the hardsuits are all clean lines and joints, no real indication of them being more than a drawing, no sense that they're machines. And what does this bring us, anyway? Well, their weapons are the same, so... oh, right, the fucking battery problem is solved. Whoop-de-doo. More on that idiotic plot device later. Also, they don't get them for six or seven episodes after their first-gen suits are destroyed, which strikes me as missing the point of what BGC is about. Again.

- BOOMERS: SOMEHOW EVEN WORSE

One of the things I really like about 2032's Boomers, especially the 55C, is how they're neither machine nor monster. The 55C and other quasi-covert ops Boomers burst out of a fairly convincing human disguise, skin and flimsy flesh flexing, boiling, then bursting away not to reveal a Terminator-ish skeleton, but something with interlocking armor, bulging synthetic muscles, dead red fisheyes, and a snarling, aggressive look to them that just makes em' look ferocious on every level. They're the Boomer we see the most of in the mainline series, and it's good because they look at once like machinery - albeit very advanced, very organic machinery - and yet still demonic and monstrous and unrelentingly nasty. Same with other truly non-human Boomers: the 12B looks more crustacean-ish, but somehow the chunkiness of its design and its heavy-looking armor plating still convey the sense that this is something new and futuristic and you do not want to fuck with it. Even Miriam's Saber-hunting custom Labor models might look sillier, a little punier, but they still look distinct and uncanny, the more generic-looking Labor Boomers we see him work with then pimped out to an outrageous degree. Again - they always look just on the boundary between machine and monster.

The 2040 Boomers, though? Well, by default either they're big masses of colored blocks stapled together for maximum ease of animation, with the usual synthesized voices we expect from robots ever since Forbidden Planet, or they're waitresses or secretaries or bosses of human workers with grey-white skin and little tendency to emote except when told to. (Okay, so there is one scene where Mason tells his secretary Boomer, the one he keeps on creepin' with as well as a handy-dandy audience proxy so he can explain his evil plans, to just laugh. For no reason. And she does, at the same pitch, at the same tone, for a good long while until Mason tells her to stop. Some say it's creepy - I didn't really feel anything from it, though. More on its possible thematic significance later.) And then when induced into madness (no really the JP dub uses the word 'mad'), they mutate in the same way the one in 2032's first episode did - into roiling masses of cyber-flesh, sprouting teeth and tongues and other instruments until they end up looking like poorly-designed kaiju, or just straight-up zombies.

You can see what they were going for - turning what look like home appliances with legs into Resident Evil-style monsters. So I would forgive the boring basic designs if their other sides didn't, again, look like rejects from a Godzilla flick. Look, it's a design failure Crash! succumbed to as well, where the civilian-use zombie Boomers eventually mutate in Melt Down into that one Big Chungus which warbles about needing 'moto data yo' in a nigh-incomprehensible filter, and neither is particularly interesting.

It would be tricky, mind you, but I don't see why 2032's hybrid aesthetic couldn't be extended to the labor Boomers we almost never see in that series. The human-facing ones, the 'service industry' ones in other words? Uncanny valley: Eyes too big and fishlike, voice warbling up and down off-tempo the way real-life text-to-speech does, seemingly always reading from a script. The rest of them? Model them off of animals, give them the shape of things we know then plaster the elements of things we don't like on them. Fahrenheit 451's Mechanical Hound is a robot dog with the head of a mosquito, a massive steel injector needle its killing implement. That's a good example of how a Boomer could seem familiar, and yet designed as a machine to not ever try to look natural to us.

But that would be expensive, and 2040 has something of an aversion to budget, doesn't it?

- SOUNDTRACK: WORST TECHNO EVER

I have said to friends that one of the things that annoyed me greatly about The Matrix once I finally got around to watching it was its lack of kitschy late 90's techno beatz, the kind of thing supposedly in line with the anime and other cyber-y pop culture it was cribbing from. Seriously, the whole thing sounds so goddamn generically orchestral, and it really does give away the fact that The Matrix is just generic Star Wars-y action-romance with black and green smeared on top.

So let it be said that I don't have a problem with much of 2040's sound track sounding somewhat of its time. Yoko Kanno working on Stand Alone Complex had techno-y bits in her soundtrack and I would be hard-pressed to call that bad. But Crisis 2040 ain't got the stuff to succeed. It doesn't just use the same few bits of music over and over again for vaguely similar dramatic beats, it uses them in a way that brings nothing to the show itself. It doesn't enhance moments of tension, but even the first time the techno feels out of place, too slow for the drama it's trying to create. It just kind of... throbs and beeps and bleats and doesn't do much.

The rock is even more grating, somehow, because it's so goddamn slow. Okay, maybe not slow, maybe just lacking in flair. Mad Machine was slow, but it had a good beat, a drum-crashing march, a mechanical rock-grind that still had room for an epic guitar solo right at the last part of the song. You can hear tones of the kind of rock 2040 was cribbing from in Cowboy Bebop and FLCL to an extent, they're all drawing from roughly the same well, more post-punk than the Meatloaf-y arena rock 2032 cribs from. So why doesn't it work here? Probably because, like the action-techno, it feels like it's applied everywhere, all the time, with little emotional flair for what's going on. It is in perfect sync with a great deal of scenes where nothing is happening.

- PLAINCLOTHES CHARACTER DESIGNS: KINDA MEDIOCRE

Really, what gives away how little effort was put into this series is that a) Sylia's new design is a straight lift from Ifurita of El-Hazard, and b) Linna's new design is a lift of sorts from Afura Mann of the same series, except somehow even more dull. Linna in 2032 might have not had a whole lot going for her as a character beyond being the relatively normal one, but she still had a sort of athletic yuppie flair to her design and dress. Linna is an office lady, now, and not a very exciting one at that. But we'll get to that later.

One article from a site called The Anime Feminist insisted that because Priss didn't wear her lewder stage outfit, instead opening with Linna chasing after Priss for the sandwich thing, that the show was more feminist. (It also misread pretty rote yuri-baiting as genuine poggers lesbian character development, but that's to be expected.) But if Priss wearing her street clothes is good, why are the midriff-baring second-gen hardsuits an improvement?

It's weird, too, because no one would accuse AIC of dull character designs, except maybe in similarly cyberpunk-y anime Armitage III - well, okay, the titular android girl has a fairly fanservicey outfit there, but think of how the designs in El-Hazard or Tenchi have just enough flair to them without being fanservicey. It ties, I think, back into this sense that 2040 had to be dark and gritty and realistic and exactly like Eva (which doesn't have dull designs, so...). That all the flair the 80's version possessed had to be edited out to be... something.

Or maybe it was just they thought using Armitage III's character designer was a good idea? Hey, they got Chiaki Konaka to write both, why not just super-commit? Only, Armitage is its own sort of cyberpunk (more pretentious mid-90's-y stuff, but it does try, sometimes, to do interesting things) and it is not BGC's type of cyberpunk.

So you've got both budget too low to work with even interesting character designs, and artists who think that reskinning a very different anime as BGC will somehow work. That's not good.

Oh. But it gets worse.

2. ACTUAL CHARACTERIZATION (THEY DID EM' DIRTY FOLKS)

-PRISS ASAGIRI, THE STRONG SILENT TYPE

One of the great shames of 90's BGC fandom, I think, should be how people thought of Priss. So many wrote her off as a perpetual rageaholic stupefied by the cleverness of their cool new Self Insert (Twisted Path), or openly just said they hate her or that she's a bitch. It's... kind of disgusting. It might not be helped by how she behaves in OVAs 2 and 3, getting in tangles with Boomers way stronger than her. You know what I'm talking about - it makes her look kind of dumb.

Except - I don't think Priss is dumb, per se. She's the one who single-handedly figures out what's going on with the Gryphon in OVA 4, right? Her rage rises up for OVA 6, but wouldn't yours if you had to gun down your best friend / potential waifu to stop a bomb going off? She might barge into things really fast, but I never felt like she was characterized as dumb (except maybe in Crash?)

Hang on, let's get back on track here. 2040 Priss ain't dumb, but she strikes me as empty. Okay, she's supposed to be the brooding, silent type, here. I don't really like that she is that, now, because, again, it sucks a lot of the fun out of her character. Priss, here, doesn't have half the emotional range of 2032 Priss, and I don't even think that's the voice actress's fault. This is Yuu Asakawa we're talking about, here, best known for being Medusa in Fate, a real pro compared to Kinuko Oomori.

Then again, Yuu does do more monotone characters most of the time... Fuck, I'm back off topic.

Look, you wanna know what Priss's secret is? Why she hates the ADP in this timeline? It's not some dead boyfriend, it's not about the ADP being a bunch of assholes like they were in Files. No, it's that when she was a kid her residence was blown up and they destroyed her mega-hot mixtape.

That's the kind of characterization we're dealing with. It's not like Priss gets to make attachments besides one with Leon (she finally tsundere-blushes and kisses him after he saves her from small Boomer clown dolls I am not making this up), it's not like there's a sense of camraderie with the Sabers. Priss is just... Priss. She's just there.

-SYLIA STINGRAY, VICTORIAN-GRADE HYSTERIC

Jesus Christ. They did my girl dirty.

Look, I think of 2032's Sylia Stingray as grade-A waifu material, and that may cloud my judgement, but this is the internet, where hurricane-grade clouds over judgement is the perpetual logic-weather forecast. And now that I've beaten that metaphor into the dirt, let me explain why I simp Miss Stingray unapologetically: She is 100% leader material.

The other Sabers in 2032 are good at what they do individually, but Sylia's very good at being personable, keeping the girls all together and ready to face whatever crazy cyber-bullshit the Sabers are fighting that week. She's sleek and sexy and stylish, sure, but she's capable of stabbing Mason in the throat without making a big deal of it, capable of keeping what I assume is an intelligence network that expands well beyond Fargo fed and loyal, capable of designing those hardsuits herself to emphasize good tactics against tougher, bigger opponents like Boomers. Fanfic makes her a little stoic and unemotional, but listen to the series and there are so many times when Yoshiko Sakakibara, truly a pro voice actress in whatever she does, matches the wry little smile playing across her character's lips with a smile in the voice. For all that she is managing humanity's last hope against a corporation hellbent on world domination, she still manages to have joy in her life. (I also like the headcanon that she's a huge sentai geek, which is how you get her claiming her aim is 'to protect peace and justice and rid the world of evil' in OVA 1 with no detectable sarcasm.)

2040 Sylia is... Fuck. Jesus. Kind of pathetic. They tried to give her flaws, insecurities, instabilities - they basically made the fan theory about her enhanced brain from Daddy Stingray canon - and in the process made her unable to function. They went, as much late 90's melodrama which assumes overwrought pain equals character development, way too far.

Like, just the most basic shit - we don't see her in action, on the field, at all. 2032 Sylia was good at fighting alongside her comrades - proved that she was just as invested in fighting GENOM as they were by hacking Boomers to bits with arm swords, blasting them with laser guns, taking hits but still going. 2040 Sylia doesn't show up until episode 7 or so to bail the other Sabers out. Buuuuut she can't do it again! Because she's too old for the hardsuits to synch with her! So we've basically taken one member out of the fight on-and-off - why, exactly? Because she's a Christmas Cake? What is the point of this? She does come back for later fights, but can't go to face down her doppelganger in what would ideally be a satisfying conclusion to her character arc?

She's a bad team leader, too, hysterically angry (I swear she breaks a shotglass while getting a debriefing from some contact of hers like three episodes in a row), terrible at communicating with her team - or at least making it way too obvious that she hides stuff. And when she tries to be friendly it always comes off as kind of perv-y. Perhaps she is a lipstick lesbian - supposedly her reason for only employing women in the Sabers is that she, as a fashion designer by day, 'only understands women's bodies' - but the way she keeps on trying to get Priss and civilians to wear fairly racy fashion, it all feels like she's leaning too close to the Carmilla stereotype of lesbians, elegant and fashionable and all too willing to suck little girls dry.

Also! She's terrible at threat management. She doesn't realize her contact in GENOM is on Mason's payroll. She doesn't realize Mason is using her to trace her doppelganger Galatea (more on that later!). She can't get Mackie to stay away from the dormant Galatea long enough to kill the cyber-messiah like she intends to. She doesn't even go to space in the finale to fight her own doppelganger, denied of a proper climactic character arc because her having fits of weakness as Galatea builds power becomes a consistent plot point. And, uh... she isn't even the one who designs and builds and maintains the hardsuits. Her daddy-complex lover Nigel is.

And 2032 Sylia kept Fargo, the one dude we ever see in her life, at arm's length, and she was able to do Mason in with little fuss the first time, more difficulty the second time, and just dissed him, broke free of his mental lock, then wrecked his ass again the third time in Crash. Why can't that be the Sylia here? Why are there no layers to Sylia encasing the scared, neurotic little girl she may very well be even in 2032? Why is there nothing to her here but uniquely feminine weakness, and not feminine strength?

-LINNA YAMAZAKI, WHO EXISTS

So one of the things 2040 lovers advocate as a quality of the show that makes it better than 2032 is that we open with Linna as this normal office lady who gets sucked up into the Knight Sabers after getting her lunch knocked over by Priss on her bike. Yes, Linna chases after Priss and it's kind of badass, and so she's inducted into the Sabers... over the course of three episodes. This show is like that a lot.

The thing is I'm not entirely sure why we needed to see the induction phase for only one character. Yes, yes, normal-joe-discovers-a-fantastic world, but 2032 opened very differently. It opened loud and proud and explained itself visually, in a burst of unadultered Konya Wa Hurricane, and then the Knight Sabers show up, and it's in medias res but who cares? Crisis OVA 1 gets us in the world. It gets us in the mood. A gradual explanation of what is going on in terms of GENOM and Boomers and all that generally wasn't super needed.

Worse still is that because Linna is now the normal one who's just, you know, 'strong' because of a decent character moment or two, she's got even less personality than 2032's Linna, who at least had some moments where she was money-crazed, or boy-crazed, or whatever. Maybe people didn't like her for those moments, but there was enough foundation to build some good fanfics about her (I direct you to my Dance of Armor review to see what I'm talking about). Linna here... well, I'll just say that most 2040-inspired fanfics channel her more as Priss's lesbian buddy and leave it at that.

Christ, she barely gets to be the protagonist for like the first ten episodes or so, and then it's Priss and Sylia's game. It's not like I mind those two in 2032 (I mind them here), but if Linna was supposed to be our anchor in the Sabers' world then she can't even do that.

-NENE ROMANOVA, MARGINALLY LESS USELESS

Nene gets more screentime here. She's also arguably less moe. Fine. She's still cutesy as hell. Okay. I don't like her character design half as much, but it is a design which requires less animation work be done - her hair's less complex and all. Again, god forbid we spend more money on this show, eh? Yeah, it's hard to get a read on her. She's got a thing for Mackey, but it's never really paid off beyond a 'just because he's a Boomer doesn't mean he's not a person' shtick.

She's not exactly more useful in combat, though. The one time when a plan to take down a Boomer hinged on her, she was literally ripping wires out of a power box to rewire the Boomers power source to starve it out. (Electrical power, abstract energy fields, very un cyberpunk-y plot devices, these are all a recurring element in this show and I despise it.) Which isn't just kind of a dull way to hack, but she takes a really long time to do it, too, and even lifts her hardsuit visor to do it (that's an annoyance I have with the series in general - don't lift your visor unless you absolutely have to, girls - so we'll let that slide) That dartgun thing she has, supposedly a 'railgun' - it doesn't do jack shit except when popping off a weakpoint on a non-Boomer monster. But that's a problem a lot of the other Sabers have, too. More on that later.

-MACKEY, PLOT HINDRANCE

Mackie with an -ie sounds better. Fight me.

Anyway, yeah, the dub has him voiced by Spike Spencer, and that's all you really need to know, isn't it? Mackie in 2032 was kind of a non-presence except when he was lusting after his sister. He helped around, built the highway star, was just kind of there. Whatever plans there were to make him more of a POV character for the male audience fell by the wayside probably even before OVA 1's pre-production.

So Mackey here is... uh. He walks in on the girls changing and there's a Tenchi Muyo-esque 'it's not what it looks like I swear' moment with Nene? In, like, the first six episodes or so? Oh. So... they didn't change jack shit. When they probably should have.

Well, they kind of did. Spoiler alert: Mackey is actually a Boomer prototype derived, as all Boomers are, from Sylia. As such, he's vulnerable to the Big Bad Galatea's mental influence, who is the same sort of thing. It's he who stumbles into Galatea's chambers just as Sylia's about to kill her loli doppelganger off before she awakens; it's he who is constantly mentally manipulated to hinder the Sabers; it's he who sacrifices himself to save the Sabers from... nanomachine walls? in episode 23 (I wish I was making that up)... and then it's his 'death' which so traumatizes Sylia that she fails to kill Galatea when she uses his voice, and then basically bows out of the show for the last few episodes because she's so fucked up.

In other words... he's a plot contrivance to make things worse that Nene just happens to have feelings for, for reasons unclear to me; in classic Tenchi styling the boy has about as much personality as a dishwashing rag. So without Mackie the plot doesn't really happen, and without any redeeming qualities to justify him holding up the Sabers so much, I'll now forever write him off as an annoyance. Sorry. Not sorry.

-NIGEL, HAREM PROTAGONIST

OVA 4 gave us Dr. Raven, who was, at most, a plot point of a character, a grouchy-ass Einstein-lookin' mechanic-y boy who built the Motoslaves and not much else. Raven's Garage, when we see it again in OVA 8, has no Raven present, just the Sabers doing training. So 2032's staff decided the character wasn't really an essential element of the series. 2040, on the other hand, decided he was, and turned him into Nigel Kirkland.

Priss seems to be carrying a torch for Nigel. Sylia fucks him on the regular, because she can't get over her father-figure issues. He's pretty much the one who designs the hardsuits, because he worked with Sylia's father on the Boomers, and the hardsuits are essentially Boomers with no brains. Cool, eh? It's almost like he's more important that Sylia when it comes to getting shit done.

Maybe it's not his fault, you know. He's just an expression of how dearly they did Sylia dirty, how they couldn't imagine a woman being as capable as Sylia without overloading her with mental problems that slip out every episode. They needed this incarnation of daddy issues with no personality of his own to be the new boss.

It's like... People gave Other M so much shit for undermining Samus, why is this allowed to pass? Why did those dinguses at Anime Feminist seriously think that in the end he's unimportant, and that's somehow a girl empowerment thing? I... don't know. I don't fucking understand the positive reviews on MAL, either, since most of them are gibberish, so there we are.

-LEON, GROWLCOP

Is it weird that for all he's meant to be a side character in 2032, I like Leon? He's voiced by Ataru Moroboshi, for godsakes, so there's this internal dynamic where he's clearly thinks of himself as the Cool Cop, a Loose Cannon Who Doesn't Play By The Rules - and certainly he has those moments, he has his fights with the chief just like a Real 80's Cop Movie - but he's also a massive goofball. Even if he's the equivalent of Comissioner Gordon to Priss's Batman, unable to totally crack a case himself, he plays the part with aplomb. I keep thinking of the scene where Lisa's trying to spy on Nene, Leon catches her, she lies that she wants to play a trick on the pinkette, and then Leon just spidermans along the floor to surprise Nene himself. He's so... earnest.

This Leon, on the other hand, is perhaps a better fit for the Priss of 2040: stout, gruff, constantly shouting around to figure out 'what the hell are the Knight Sabers up to this time? Daley gets off even worse, being the guy who exists solely as a foil to Leon, whereas in the OG series you felt like the two could exchange role of bokke and tsukkomi pretty freely. Here, though... I guess the Leon x Priss thing is a lot clearer? That both develop feelings that the other Isn't So Bad After All?

It still doesn't feel earned, though.

-QUINCY, SENILE CYBER-MANDARIN

You know how Quincy in the original was like eighty but still cut a pretty imposing figure? Okay, we don't see him all that often, but he's always clearly the man in charge. Mason takes orders from him, gets his last-chance warning from him in OVA 3, scares the bejeezus out of him only after he's torched multiple cities and even then he doesn't give a shit 'cause he was a decoy the entire time, learns from that experience and shows up to Reika trying to kill him as a decoy because he's already figured out who was going after McLaren after the first 15 minutes of the episode, and he only bothers to show up not because he's concerned with losing a scientist (Kill him, stick him in a pot and boil him, do whatever, that's literally the line) but because he can't bear to lose a good project - yeah. Stone Cold Killer, this dude.

Aaaaaaaaaand contrast that to 2040 Quincy, who wears this dress and sits on this throne in GENOM Tower like he's some sort of Chinese emperor, but never moves his mouth to speak, is wired up into the chair, and as such can be disposed of the minute Mason decides it's time for him to unplug the old bastard's life support. And his philosophy's all janky, too. He seems to think that Boomers should be loved by humans, wants to capture the Knight Sabers to see why they're so annoyed by the great things he's doing for the world, which - not the vibe I got from Quincy in 2032, who literally called them 'foolish rabble' in OVA 7 in a fairly scenery-chew-y rant. Like, that version of Quincy, he did not give two shits about the welfare of other people.

So Mason is able to work on his own sinister plans independent of Quincy without his boss ever finding out, and when he's no longer useful Mason just unplugs his life support and that's that. Dumbass in life, dumbass in death. Pity that.

-MASON, MIGHTY MASTERMIND AND PROBABLE PEDOPHILE

Shuuichi Ikeda, of Char Aznable fame, played Brian J. Mason in 2032 with not much aplomb. He's got few if any lines and honestly sounds like he doesn't give a shit about his own evil plans, but I'm never sure if that's the fault of the writers or the fault of Ikeda. Certainly VA's who had made their careers at the dawn of the 80's were still able to win me over here in Crisis all the way in 1987. Leon and Sylia, for example. So I think it's more that Mason never had any room in the original OVA trilogy to be anything more than a Slick Evil Corporate Bastard who may or may not have killed Sylia's father. As Largo, with a different voice he's a lot more of a rote megalomaniacal villain, but at least he has some hammy presence.

I wonder if the AIC holdovers who made 2040 decided to have Mason be the main villain for pretty much until like 2/3rds of the way through because they wanted a second chance at making him interesting. Except, well, he isn't, not really. His ultimate plan is to promote the robot apocalypse via Galatea for... what purpose? To watch it, apparently? Just to see the whole thing take place? Galatea straight-up exposits that he was a sickly boy who had his organs cyberized when he was little and is bitter because of that, which is a) a weak-ass revenge-on-humanity motive, and b) just told to us almost as a throwaway line.

For all his planning and plotting, Galatea pretty much gives him what he wants when he's absorbed into GENOM tower to become a human gargoyle, because his organ transplants were Boomers too, he literally put a little bit of her inside himself, it's kinda gross. An MAL review said the show is better because now Mason has a motive, but, uh, no. Just because you have a nonsensical and convoluted motive for a character does not mean that they have somehow now become better than a character with no motive at all. And we keep coming back to this, this assumption that just because 2040 has more of a plot that it must be better, even though that plot is so stupid-people-trying-to-sound smart that it makes the whole show worse.

Someone on reddit noted that, just a few episodes in, the anime felt hornier than 2032 despite all the claims it was more feminist (It really is hornier, especially during the final battle where the Sabers end up Akira-mecha-tentacled in Galatea's clutches, or just because there's a goddamn Mackey-walks-in-on-girls-changing scene in like episode seven), and Mason is... well, kind of a walking embodiment of that. His sexual relationship with his Boomer secretary - his sinister monologues he shares with her (doing this pretentious tracing of Hebrew letters golem-style is the cringiest, 90's-ass-I'm-12-and-this-is-deep thing I've seen in a long-ass while) - the man loves Boomers so much he wants to be mommy-dommied by them. It would be pathetic were it not for the fact that, in raising Galatea (he keeps her in a cutesy little room in GENOM Tower and everything), he largely succeeds, the Sabers don't even slow his plans down. That's what I liked about Mason - he got out of the way real fast, and Largo was infinitely more fun (and so were the villains in the non-Largo, non-Mason episodes). Sylia stabbed him in the throat and that was that, but she doesn't even get that here, does she? Fucking hell.

(Hornier still: Priss, Linna, Nene, all ending up nude in obscure parts of the world, the plot largely unresolved.)

-GALATEA, PLOT DEVICE

So... Galatea. Sotai. The genesis of all Boomers, built off of a neurochip modeled off of Sylia's brain (and I guess daddy Stingray killed his wife to make the chip, too? Why? Who cares? Sylia's mother is the 'Boomers are against God and should not be made' type, and every flashback scene where she shows up just annoys me, because they're trying to make us care about this woman and they can't seem to pull it off). Due to that origin she... has the power to infiltrate inorganic objects through some kind of bullshit energy field that warps them to her will, just like the fusion with the other Boomers. It makes no sense. But then again Mason accesses Galatea's chambers via a hologram bridge. So even the vaguest sense of not just being straight-up science fantasy is chucked out the window by episode fifteen. Or maybe episode one. Fuck.

Anyway, what is Galatea's personality? Well, when she really starts to do stuff for Mason she's cutesy, quiet, but keeps going on about how she wants to play. You know, like every other creepy ghost girl in every other piece of media. So that's hardly interesting. She grows up, exceeds Mason, turns him into a gargoyle, turns into GENOM Tower, and somehow turns that into a space rocket so she can boomerify the entire planet, every inch of mankind's cities turned into her gooey morpho-magic tentacle paradise. She's not a personality, or a person, or anything with an explainable motive so much as she is one of those force-of-nature villains... except the show seems to think she's a bit of both, neglected as a child, wondering why she exists before settling on the reason that she must become God so that humans can be forcibly fused with machine-flesh. Which... eh. Largo was the same sort of thing, but the show takes her Deeply and Philosophically Seriously here, whereas Crash's Largo delivered his lines in so hammy a register you couldn't take his lust to fuse with all Boomerkind very seriously... and 2032 Largo didn't believe a word of his own liberatory rhetoric. So she comes off as a budget Eva villain instead.

So we've seen Galatea before, except not so bullshit fuck-you all-powerful, and not so rote in her execution. Wot a pity.

I feel is as good a time as any to mention that most of the fights in the second cour, where Galatea has woken up, are very... bondage-y for the Sabers. It's a lot of dodging tentacles, getting grabbed by tentacles, screaming each other's names, etc. Towards the end the Sabers also have to contend with their own hardsuits being fused with Boomer goop unless they fight with the strength of their emotions and willpower, further compounding the how-in-god's-name-is-this-feminist factor. It's such a boring way to have fights play out, too, in sharp contrast with awesome heavy-weapon slugfests like the one in OVA 7 where Priss goes toe-to-toe with Reika's spidermech. It feels more demeaning, more grotesque but not in a good way.

3. THE ACTUAL GODDAMN STORY (WEIRDLY PACED, POORLY CLIMAXED, BEAT-TO-BEAT BORING)

-THE OL' WAIT-A-COUR-FOR-THE-PLOT-TO-START CONUNDRUM

Oooh, the MAL reviews say, the plot gets dark in the end, as there's a - zombie-Boomer apocalypse in the ADP HQ? And then all the Boomers eat Megatokyo whole basically? Bitch please. None of this was dark per se. Edgy and melodramatic in presentation? Sure. But they manage to evacuate the entire city offscreen, as they always do, because they can't exactly have the liquid-metal fusion apocalypse occur with people in the city at the same time, that would cost actual money. And it's not like the Sabers even beat the big bad at the end: Sylia doesn't get to go to space (why can't her character arc be resolved, AIC? Why is she always done dirty like this?), they try to fight Galatea, it goes miserably, Galatea decides she's God, becomes God, disappears in a shower of neutrinos, the non-Sylia Sabers drop to earth, Priss sings again, that’s it.

But before we get to any of that we have to deal with Monsters Of The Week. Mad Boomers, controlled by Mason for his own ends, except when they aren't (Why is Sylia so shocked that this is a thing? There's one episode, again, where she drops a shotglass and freaks out about GENOM doing Bad Shit With Boomers as though this is some sort of novelty). Also, the existence of such things is somehow kept a secret from the public? Like, Priss literally says to Leon that people are starting to realize that Boomers can go mad after the first cour.

I could get mad at the fact that they made the fan assumption that Boomers just rampage (which in 2032 is not true) canon. I could. But that's creative liberty. No, what I'm complaining about is that none of this shit advances the plot in any way. Eva kind of gets around this by having equal parts a-plot and b-plot in a given early episode, so we learn a bit about Misato and Ritsuko and the rest bit by bit, and also by having fight scenes that are actually good, and then the plot kicks in the second cour but we don't mind because we're already having fun. (So many eva-alikes don't get that, I think, that things have to move somewhat even while you're in MotW mode.)

2040, on the other hand, does not have interesting fight scenes, so that's right the fuck out, especially since it likes to stretch what could have been a single-episode fight into two (more on that in a bit), and the character development is glacial, at best. Actually, let's just get into that right now..

THIS SHOW COULD HAVE BEEN HALF THE LENGTH IT IS

Anyone who has seen this show knows what I'm talking about. There's so many still shots, so many conversations where information is hinted at but withheld, and so much stretching.

So, so, so many times we're faced with a problem the Sabers could solve in an episode, but don't, because a bunch of other stuff has to happen. Quincy and Mason comment on the action, there's some character scenes that you forget the minute they happen, some forced tension with battery problems or something... every single goddamn time in this first cour, and then even after that, the show refuses to resolve a plot arc in one episode, except for one or two times that are somehow even worse (Priss races after a car Boomer a la Revenge Road and it's the ugliest little shit I've ever seen, that guy). The Sabers fight a Boomer and are cornered by the ADP; they hunt a monster GENOM is also hunting; Linna goes on her first outing and almost gets a Boomer but runs out of power (battery metal). Those all sound like single-episode arcs, but no, there has to be build-up, and de-escalation, and an episode split to up the danger, and all this bloat. That's the right word for it, really, bloat.

-THE FIVE-MINUTE-BATTERY HOEDOWN

Yes, you heard me right. They ripped off the 5-minute battery from Evangelion. Which ripped it off from Ultraman. They understood nothing about why it worked in Eva and copied it for contrived suspense. Okay, so they threw it out once they got rid of the old hardsuits, but were the new ones an improvement in spite of that? Up for debate, folks.

Like, there's literally a bit in the 1996 BGC RPG, the one by RTAL, who knew a new series was coming but (probably) not anything about it, where a possible mission for player characters straight-up has the hook be "While the players break in their new powered armor against a rouge Boomer, they find that their power cells only last about five minutes in real combat. This is bad." And you know damn well why - the Sabers can't afford to have that tight of a time limit to enter and exit a combat zone by whatever means (Does the timer start the minute they launch out of Sylia's mass driver? Does it keep running after they've beat the Boomer and have to go home? How do they go home? I seem to recall them literally yoinking up into the night. Why the hell are their jetpacks so goddamn powerful and everything else is absolutely broke?). It's a design error that the showrunners should have ignored had they given their own show some thought, but they didn't give it some thought. Multiple times.

Evangelion could compensate for this because they're essentially playing Tower Defense with the Angels. Tokyo-3 is a combat arena built to favor the mecha, because all they have to do is ask and a charging umbilical or a skyscraper-sized weapon cache will pop out of the ground. Even if it is a dramatic conceit to make the fights a little more high-stakes, it communicates those additional stakes by cutting away to the pilot's own timer every so often. 2040 does not have the former - which makes the idea of having these suits be what they but having this flaw strike one as a forced contrivance ever more obviously - and it does not convey the latter, diminishing the effectiveness the viewer's ability to figure out what the fuck is going on. You have no way to count when the timer starts or stops, so in the end it just comes down to the timer running out whenever the showrunners feel like it. For example, when Linna goes out on her first hardsuited excursion, she is inches away from overcoming her fear of combat, having a moment of triumph, finally whooping a Boomer's ass even if she has to do it alone (since Nene is still combat useless), and it's good for her - except then she runs out of power, because the writers don't want to give her a moment where she wins, and instead want to drag this subplot out for another episode. But we've been over that already, the impulse to take one episode's worth of content and make two or three episodes instead.

-A POOR CHOICE OF ARMAMENTS, MISS STINGRAY, NOW YOU SHALL DIE

So all the Sabers now have one weapons system per suit in 2040. Nene has a dinky-ass flechette gun that she cribbed from 2032 Priss (where it could do some amount of damage), Priss has the Knuckle Bombers, Linna has those impractical-ass head ribbons, Sylia has arm swords. Three out of four melee weapons - for Boomers that are pretty good at melee themselves because they can do the low-budget morphin' metal-tentacle thing. What the fuck. Shit, a good deal of the time those weapons don't do proper damage without figuring out some gimmicky weakpoint or another.

The Sabers manage to compensate by being able to jump and run with capabilities far beyond the 2032 hardsuits, but even then it feels like the Sabers can never quite gain an edge. There's no tactics, they just get thrashed and then somehow figure out where a given Boomer's 'core' is. Christ, they don't even upgrade once the new hardsuits come into play - all that happens is that the battery thing gets dealt with and that's it. (Also the new suits are even more ‘low-poly’ than the last ones to be easier to animate and whatnot, the truth that they’re actually psychic Boomers aside.)

-THE ROBOZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

So you know how Boomers being like human beings was a theme played around with in Crisis and Crash? And even to a lesser degree in 2040? Well, by episode 16 all that goes out the window, because Galatea is the Boomer God, and all that is cyberflesh has no will but to obey her.

Yeah, so Mason releases Galatea's energy (???) through the GENOM-controlled power grid (the 'Dragon Line' centered around the Tower), which causes all the dead Boomers kept in the warehouses underneath the ADP warehouse to reactivate just as most of the cops have left on a strike. Of course Nene and the chiefs of staff are stuck in the building, with Nene trying to coordinate moving the boys around so they can get to safety, because the Boomers are essentially now a few hundred zombies. Their eyes glow red, they shamble forward, they clutch, they reach, and eventually they fuse with the building. This is what kicks off the Boomer plague eating Megatokyo whole mind you, but still, it's so fucking stupid. Not only have we destroyed any sympathy for Boomers that stuff like the waitress Boomer might have incurred, it's just... rote. Cliche. It was bad in Crash OVA 3, it's worse here: the ADP Tower even becomes a cyber-flesh monstrosity which grows a face just like 'moto data yo'.

I have to ask: Who thought taking anything at all from Crash 3 was a good idea? Because, evidently, someone did.

Did I mention this takes like three episodes to get through, Nene and the officers scrambling all over the building bit-by-bit? It took twenty minutes to resolve the ADP invasion scene in OVA 8, and it felt like all the events in that moved at a nice brisk clip where more and more scrambling against endless hordes is the default here. But we already talked about langorous pacing, let's not repeat ourselves.

-WHAT EVEN IS THIS LAST ACT?

So Megatokyo's been colonized by Boomers. Quincy's dead, Mason's fucking around with Galatea, and it feels like we should be moving the plot somewhere. Only we don't for the most part. But... eh. You know how it is. It's not until like episode 21 that we get to see the new (ugly!) suits in action, and even then their assembly is just fucking weird: a given operator is covered in 'inner metal', basically Boomer goop which looks too much like semen for its own good, and they... focus? On their heart? They must communicate in clear mental language to articulate the metal into a cohesive shape and to... oh fuck it, it doesn't matter, because then the girls are all bondage-d by a giant worm made out of power line (that's another thing that I hate about this show, its tendency to reduce all fights to 'who can dodge the grabby tentacles until the plot decides it's time to kill the beastie'), and so the new suits barely get to do anything interesting and they have to call on Priss's Motoslave to kill it (in what appears to be a callback to OVA 1 where she flies down the thing's throat... only there she shot the inner Boomer to bits so it vomited circ fluid, and here we just get a shot of her punching and then the thing explodes).

We don't actually get to the assault on GENOM Tower until episode 23, and it's grossly unsatisfying, with the Sabers fighting first sticky bondage nanowalls (this show has an obsession with restraining the Sabers so they can't fight, in case you haven't figured that out by now), and then magical zero-gravity fighting. Probably the only place where the show gets interesting, at least visually, is when the Sabers sans Sylia go to space via the skyhook and attempt to cut off Galatea's ability to beam magical boomerifying energy across the planet (it really is magic, I have no other way to describe it). They fail, of course, because this show won't give the Sabers a single success to take home. Galatea gains control, bitching about how annoying mere humans are, and...

-THIS IS WHAT YOU CHUCKLEFUCKS CALL A SATISFYING FINALE?

People say 2040 is better because it ends? Dude, what the fuck. It ends in the worst way possible. OVA 8 was ambiguous but at least was self-confident in a cuter, cheesier tone, ended, seemed to imply that the adventures of the Sabers could very well continue.

But let's look over the ending of Crisis, it's very last minutes: The Sabers except Priss (Not Linna, she's not the protagonist anymore) are incapacitated in space. Galatea has hooked up with the bigass space station, turning it into her body. Priss's hardsuit turns into a tentacle-tastic bondage monster, because that way of putting our heroines in peril hasn't been done already for every fucking episode. But she mentally overpowers the thing, fuses with her Motoslave by accepting it as a Boomer, rides it into the core of Galatea's operation, and Galatea is just like - yeah, okay, I'm done. She stops being a robot apocalypse, bursts into neutrinos that illuminate the world. Priss falls back to earth, Nene and Linna turn their Boomer suits into dolphins (fuck what?), everyone lands safely, but, uh, now what?

Why did Galatea stop? I barely remember. Her motives were the usual 'Boomers are a superior race who have been oppressed' shit, she must transcend normal life, and Priss comes in there, and turns Galatea into God. Because they... fuse? Reproduce? As life surely must... FUCK YOU HIROKI HAYASHI THIS IS JUST THE ENDING MONOLOGUE FROM GHOST IN THE SHELL!

And GITS did it better, too! Because Motoko was looking for meaning in her existence for most of the movie! This is just whatever psychotechnobabble they could come up with! Fuck!

Okay, so, it ends. But can you call that a satisfying ending? The Sabers got their asses kicked multiple times, and failed to really stop the Big Bad, who just sort of gave up and yeeted out of this universe. Mason got what he wanted, Galatea got what he wanted, did the Sabers really do anything except get bondage'd by various ooey-gooey-boomeys? Can you really call this a girl power show if so little proactive action is possible?

Apparently there was a sequel series planned (what would it even be about? You've stopped an Eva-scale apocalypse, where do you go from there?), but I guess AIC wasn't happy with its reception, they moved onto other things, and anyway the other big sponsor ADV Films went belly-up around 2008. So the chances of this happening are slim to none, which is nice, I guess. If more Bubblegum Crisis comes out, I'd rather it aim low and just try to ape the 80's vibe of 2032 than go shoot for the fucking philosophical moon... but then again, I just might get the worst of both worlds, there...

4. HOW THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN?

I actually have no idea.

Like, AIC finally secured the rights around 1996 or 1997, and supposedly during preproduction they got the last of their problems out of the way when Toshimichi Suzuki showed up with Yakuza in tow and demanded royalties - and then one of the Yakuza admitted who they worked for, which in Japan is Not Done Among The Criminal Classes, and Suzuki spent the rest of his life hiding out until he died in 2019, the poor bastard. So they had 2 years or so of turnaround time to make this show happen from late 98 to early 99, and they were co-producing it with ADV Films, who were at the time the richest American licensors of anime out there from having licensed Eva. And even if Hiroki Hayashi’s directorial claim to fame from the original BGC was OVA 4, and even if his claim to fame proper was Tenchi Muyo, I don’t think the man lacked talent - El-Hazard, a later creation of his, is quite good, if a bit simplistic and PG-ish. He might not have done most of the episodes here, but still.

But as far as I can figure out most of 2040’s history is much more buried than anything regarding 2032. I ain’t got shit on this one, fam. The ADV cofounder was the executive producer, but he was attached to plenty of things that seem to have turned out okay. Chiaki J. Konaka did the ‘screenplay’, I think he landed the gig after Armitage worked out well for AIC, but he’s hardly bad at what he does - Lain, The Big O, stuff like that. Sadayuki Murai did the ‘script’, okay, that’s weird that sounds like two different dudes in the same role, but his other writing credits aren’t bad either. Shinji Aramaki’s back for mechanical design, but he was on that duty on 2032 as well. Ikeda Shigemi is art director for both, and yet… What happened?

Budget woes I can guess at - the 1997 East Asian Financial Crisis compounded the woes of the Lost Decade I assume, and maybe ADV was stingier with cash than the money-hose from Youmex last time around. But I keep seeing little JVC logos on various ancient advertisements for 2040, and the Victor Company has money to burn. It may not always burn it even on its own anime through JC Staff, but if AIC had not one but two sources of income, surely two halves could make a reasonable enough whole?

I think what probably did happen was ADV said 'we made a gajillion dollars off of Eva, make us another Eva', and they did not understand what made Eva work, and so tried to replicate Eva with a lower budget and a belief in their own infallibility that failed to understand that Crisis was not and really should never be Eva. Plenty of mecha shows in this era tried to be Eva, yes, but does anyone remember RahXephon? At all? God, am I really chalking this bad anime up to Western meddling? I think I might be.

2040 was the beginning of anime getting really, really edgy and pretentious in the aughts before swinging back to flat-out retarded with endless harem light-novel adaptations, and now we've got the isekai boom, and what isn't isekai is either Shonen Jump or mindless rom-coms or mobage tie-ins. The aughts might have produced some good stuff, but after that it's just... ugh. I don't know anymore. Even ufotable has been chained to the shitty-ass mandates of Shonen Jump, because Mugen Train was the biggest anime film ever, and I just - I fucking hated it. I won't deny that the OVA era produced a great many disasterpieces, but here I am and I'm having good clean fun watching the Dominion Tank Police OVA's, and all I can think of is that I want more stuff like this even though I know I'll never get it.

2040 is the epitome of that disappointment in anime - the tail end of an era when girls had guns, mecha were painstakingly designed, and things exploded relentlessly. To see a show I want to be that way, turn out to be another way - it's the saddest thing I ever did see.

#bubblegum crisis #bubblegum crisis tokyo 2040 #bubblegum crisis 2040 #rant #gigascreed

6 notes · View notes

theblackinnkeeper · 2 months

Note

Personally I think the OVA was a good wrap up (maybe it's just my view because it's by Kodaka), they didn't go to the full of tear and emotion route that I personally think would be too odd for their chosen main character (Nagito), because from his two terminal illness one actively messes up his perception of emotions, and all the crazy trauma caused by his luck numbs him emotionally to tragedies. I think the fact Hinata, Kazuichi and Fuyuhiko reacts to him positively (and that everyone seemed to wait for his awakening) was to show that there is no need for seeking forgiveness. The reason I think lies in the fact, that no one knew what went on during Hope Peak and the Tragedy, since their memories were reset to the time they got accepted as students, so they had no memories about their school years, about their friendship. And AI Chiaki did not get murdered by Nagito, his true motive was to save the "traitor", since he was manipulated by misleading information from Monokuma (not getting information about what happens to their real self if they die in the program), and with all the talents in Hinata, I think he can get her back without the Junko AI corrupting her program, but he chooses not to, because that would be looking to the past, when he swore to look to the future, or maybe for the remorse he felt when he didn't save the real her, who actually got murdered by Junko.

Sorry for the long post, I don't really like the shipping aspect myself (there is no official shipping in this franchise, and I like to follow those), but it kind of feels wrong to give a hate speech about a character because of other fans liking a ship. From the view of the little information he got at his end, it was to protect what little is left of the World from themselves. And yes, he started the first trial, but if I had to guess if Teruteru didn't take the bait and try to kill him, then he would have used the knife on himself (everyone would have noticed the glowing knife), but more than likely someone else would die (because of his luck cycle)

Okay here’s the problem i have here mental illness shouldn’t be used as an excuse to brush over someone crimes when we deal with things like this we get the mentality Ill person to try and see what they did wrong and help them improve

Second while it wasn’t his intention his actions still caused the death of ai Chiaki and it still bugs because the kindest member of the class has to suffer while the most unhinged gets a get out of jail free card yes I get the thematic message but the forced redemption of nagito kind of ruins it for me

The reason I target the shippers here is because most posts I’ve seen on the ova from komahina fans are more focused on the ship and not nagito’s character development (or lack thereof)

And it ties back to my main issue nagito’s lack of remorse for his actions if nagito apologized to everyone that maybe he took things too far and realizes that he did something wrong I wouldn’t be sitting here making posts like this

That’s really all I want

(Nagito would never that would be to easy and wouldn’t cause any despair according to him)

#danganronpa #nagito komaeda #sdr2 nagito #anti nagito komaeda #answers

0 notes

hirazuki · 1 year

Note

I AM LATE BUT BACK, sorry work ate my life |D but yes! camelot movies are a bit different; mostly in order of events and dialogue and how certain events happen, not the big stuff, but some stuff is shuffled around and altered for time purposes. i'm pretty sure they also added mordred vs sanzang in the second one, that wasn't in the game. but it's still good! it's very very good, it's just a bit edited down etc because they crammed a whole chapter into 2 ovas rather than a whole 24 ep anime.

the extra anime does sound fun! i absolutely fucking adore Robin and Drake, so om nom nom more content for them is always wonderful, and i like nero's route in the game best so i'm glad it's her starring-- i should definitely check it out at some point once i finish apocrypha.

(i...am very early on into apocrypha. i need to finish that. i love everyone in it, they're all delightful. especially astolfo and achilles, though honorary mentions for karna and vlad.)

kojiro BALLS honestly he's really cool and i hope he gets more stuff in future events, we do get a 'gudaguda' historical japan event every year and i think they finally ran out of sengoku shenanigans, so maybe he'll get to star in a future one? here's hoping he deserves it (or maybe he'll be in that new koei tecmo game, since musashi is in it!)

you have excellent taste tbh, everyone on that list is amazing, and i stan shishigou SO HARD you have no idea he's So Cool. waver too, i love him as small and dorky but also older and...still dorky. but hotter. Gil, Cu, Emiya, Robin, Merlin, and Dantes are some of my favs but honestly i can't name a servant i HATE 100% (okay yes i can, but that's just one of them XD)

No worries!! UGH I hate when that happens, I wish work was just. not a thing XD

Oh, yeah, that makes sense, with Babylonia they did a full anime season; I wish they had done the same for this, but I'll take what I can get! I don't really have the time/interest to explore the game chapter for myself, but I wonder if I could maybe find a let's play or something to watch, I'd be interested in seeing the content in full.

Haha, Apocrypha is also very differently structured in terms of Holy Grail War dynamics (14 servants on the field....... it's so many....) but I really, really liked it. Lots of pain, of course, but it's so well written and executed. Enjoy!! Astolfo is a gem <3 (Achilles I'm not a fan of, but I've never liked him in any form/media and idk why; I like to pretend we don't share heritage XD BUT that's just my personal taste and, as a Greek, the Apocrypha team did an absolutely excellent job with his portrayal! I honestly have zero complaints about how they've handled any of my culture's mythological/historical figures, they consistently produce some of the most intuitive and nuanced interpretations I've ever seen).

It's just my curse, always falling for the side characters with the least amount of screen time lmao. I hope so!! Fingers crossed! (though Musashi favoritism kind of abounds in sword/historical circles, so it that might not mean anything -- but I'll be very pleasantly surprised if he does turn out to be in it!!).

Lmao THANK YOU! You have excellent taste too, Gil is one of the best boys and Cu is amazing as well <3 Shishigou is just so badass (and a necromancer, so instant bonus points for me) and his attitude is so relatable, he'd be my number one pick for a Fate mentor figure, you know? YES I love both young Waver and older Waver, and can I say how much I adore that he's so completely and utterly out of shape? Wheezing when he runs? I love that about him XD

I haven't spent too much time with Robin and Dantes so I can't really say anything worthwhile other than they are awesome and I love their designs, but MERLIN is also a top choice, 10/10, he's absolutely irritating but also a delight and his relationship with Fou is one of the best things ever.

Same! There are definitely characters that I don't like, as in, they don't vibe with me, but no one who I dislike as a character in terms of their role/purpose in the story, everyone is extremely well written.

#what i really want from fate at the moment is more el-melloi case files tbh #like. Fate universe + victorian mystery aesthetic??? yes please #XD

1 note · View note

skipps-writes-for-gojo-satoru · 3 years

Note

Gojo's character shows a lot in the first Light Novel. Basically, Yuji and Megumi are following Gojo around the streets to find out what he does on his day off. They see Gojo going in and out of stores and an arcade where he buys a capsule toy, all while eating a crepe, which Megumi grumpily comments is strange seeing such a tall adult dressed in black doing because it's so childlike.

Eventually, they end up following Gojo into a Maid Café, and they realize that Gojo must have gone in there to try out a special foreign dessert they're serving. They follow him in only to realize they were correct, as they see Gojo sitting down and eating the dessert while looking out the window- while casually wearing the wings and halo the maid cafe forces you to wear too, something Megumi and Yuji find he wears so naturally.

After their Megumi and Yuji leave the maid cafe after being practically forced to eat there, Gojo appears behind them as they wonder where they went. The two ask him if it's his day off today, and I think it's really important what their conversation was.

"No, I'm working as usual," said Gojo.

"Eh, but you ate crepes and walked around town..."

"If you're as busy as me, you wouldn't have time to walk around town and make rediscoveries if not as you work, y'know. I might look like that, but I'm actually doing my job," said Gojo.

Therefore, even though Gojo looks like he's mindlessly wandering the streets and relaxing with plenty of desserts, internally, he's actually working. All the stores he went to had a history with the cursed building he had to investigate. The maid cafe had a clear view of the building through the window he was looking at. He'd also moved an amp around the building, played recordings like what's written in the rumours, all to get the cursed spirit to come out. In the end, he has the first years take care of it.

Obviously, the Light Novel was written for the reader to recognize that no matter what Gojo does outwardly, internally he's thinking of far deeper and calculated things than he let on. Also, Gojo barely has the time to just "walk around town." He doesn't have time for dates and pleasure unless they're during a mission. Even in the 2nd light novel, Gojo spends the entire day with Nanami while Nanami is on a mission to "help him," as Gojo put it. And after spending time with Nanami, the reader realizes Gojo had done so to get Nanami to help mentor Yuji.

Gojo is not just incredibly busy, but even when he acts as if he is recklessly avoiding work (like when he went with Nanami, went to a maid cafe, etc) he's really working. Everything Gojo does, no matter what it may seem like on the surface, is all for his students, his job, for the future.

I think a lot of people get stuck in Gojo always boasting about himself or insulting the higher ups or acting as if he's being lazy, but the reality is that no matter what Gojo seems like on the outside, he's very kind-hearted and thoughtful once you see past his quirks.

Also, Gojo is totally a virgin. I don't think it's more to do with his personality as it is that he can't even walk around town unless it's for his job. Unless Gojo has to seduce some hot cursed user or interrogate her (wink wink) he wouldn't have the time to do so. He barely even sleeps because he's so busy.

Also, we know in his youth that Gojo loves playing video games. I mean, he admitted to Geto that getting 99 years of Momotaro Dentetsu was more difficult than keeping his infinity on all the time. Exaggeration or not, he's definitely a gamer and games in his spare time while hanging out with Geto. They also likely sparred together, and Geto mentioned that he shares snacks with Gojo so they spend lots of time together. Their missions and classes also contribute to taking up Gojo's time, because Gojo wasn't just a student in his youth, he was a student with a job- a job to protect the weak.

Also, Gojo doesn't even flirt with his colleagues. I think Gojo only teases Utahime because she's strict like Nanami. Other than that, Gojo doesn't interact much with women at all, and he's respectful to Mei Mei and Shoko.

Gege mentioned Gojo wears shades when he goes to meet girls, and someone on Twitter mentioned that Gege said that to allude to Hidden Inventory, where Gojo met Riko while wearing his sunglasses. Gege is very good at symbolism and foreshadowing, so he could have meant that Gojo was going to meet a girl while wearing his shades (Riko).

Gege also said that Gojo decides "on a whim" whether to wear his sunglasses or blindfold, which means Gojo doesn't make a rule that he has to wear shades whenever he meets girls. I think Gege saying Gojo's acts on a whim makes it more likely that when he said Gojo wears shades to meet girls was just a nod to Gojo meeting Riko. Otherwise, the two statements contradict each other and we all know Gege is extremely good at future planning and foreshadowing and would make a statement like that to tease us readers.

Virgin Gojo is wayyyy more likely based on the evidence.

Absolutely love the light novel I hope they can animate it into an OVA someday ahhh I love it even though I only read 2 chapters of it what other juicy stuff lies in there...

Gosh I am just stunned at the amount of information you wrote. You literally summarized the light novel chapters 👏 honestly I completely agree with everything you say because it's so well backed up with reseach. You have really strong evidence, damn. After all these diseases and theories and gege decides to make Gojo a non virgin he gotta back it up with some facts or else I'm not believing him and say he just wants us fans to rage hahaha Thank you so much for taking the time to write this I've gained some new insight into gojo's character 💕

#gojo discussions #virgin or not?#jjk light novel #jujutsu kaisen light novel #skipps chat

319 notes · View notes

strangerivy · 3 years

Text

Confessions in the Snow

Summary: The first winter for Levi and Y/n on the surface and in the corps. A misstep in the training course reminds Levi of how easily it could be to loose you. Warnings: Swearing | Spoilers! for OVA No Regrets Pairings: Levi Ackerman x Reader (y/n) Genre: 18+ | Fluff | Tiny Angst Word Count: 3.7k Author’s Note: Let me know what you guys think! and if anyone wants to be tagged in future Levi fic’s just let me know and I’ll start a taglist 😊 💜

|| Masterlist | AOT Masterlist ||

Year 844 - Winter

It was your first winter on the surface and you so far were not a fan. It was cold all the time, you were starting to forget what it felt like to be warm. You were laying in your bunk now the blanket pulled tight around you, but you were still shaking from the cold.

You heard a heavy sigh from behind you and then some footsteps coming towards you stopping right at the side of your bed. You turned your head to look behind you to see an annoyed Levi staring down at you.

“You can’t be seriously that cold,” He stated, and you shot a glare up at him

“I’m sorry I’m not cold-blooded like you,” You spat turning back over pulling the covers tighter trying to stop from shaking but it only lasts a second before it started up again. He clicked his tongue pulling the covers completely off you, causing you to start shivering even more legs pulled to your chest as you tried to preserve what little heat was left.

“What the hell Levi!” You yelled sitting up ready for a fight, he looked at you with a bored expression.

“You can sleep with me tonight if you’re that cold,” He said walking towards the door to head to the men’s barracks, you quickly shot up scrabbling out of your bunk grabbing your cloak since you were only in a nightshirt and shorts. Which was probably one of the reasons you were cold but you refused to sleep in pants, they made you feel too constricted to sleep. You caught up to Levi pulling your cloak tight as you walked down the hall.

“Are you sure?” You asked shyly your voice coming out smaller than you intended, he looked back over at you with gentle eyes giving a small nod before opening the door to the men’s barracks it was quiet except for the sound of snores. You scurried over quietly to Levi’s bunk at the end of the room climbing into the blanket. You heard a small scoff and peaked up from the blankets to see Levi shaking his head at you, a small smile on his lips. This made you smile, he looked so nice when he smiled. You wished he would do it more often.

He laid out your blanket on top of his for extra warmth before telling you to scoot more, climbing into bed wrapping an arm under you pulling you close to his chest making you freeze up. Eyes wide with nerves.

This wasn’t the first time you two had cuddled, but this was the first time you both were doing it consciously. Of course, when you had slept in the same bed in the underground you had woken up countless mornings wrapped in each other’s arms. You used him more as a pillow than the pillow that was there. You had offered on multiple occasions to get another bed, but he always said it was a waste and to not bother.

Furlan would go on to tell you that Levi never slept in the bed until you had come around from that first night. You smiled softly at the memory as it passed through your mind closing your eyes. You rolled over so that you were now facing Levi, his other armed draped across you.

You took a deep breath trying to relax your nerves, snuggling more into the pillow. You felt a gaze on you that had you open your eyes, he was looking at you with a gentle gaze, the hand draped across you rubbing small circles on your back. You don’t know how long you two looked at each other like that like there was so much more between you than what was shown. Like you meant everything to him. You fought to keep your eyes open and he noticed another small but rare smile gracing his lips. One that only seemed to be reserved for you.

“Go to sleep, Y/N,” He whispered pulling you closer to him, you let out a small quiet yawn your eyes slowly closing.

“Levi,” You mumbled, he hummed in response, you tried to open your eyes to look at him before muttering a small thanks. You felt his chest vibrate for a second and then the faintest feel of his lips on your forehead and the small sound of something leaving his lips but sleep was already taking you to hear what it was.

Your ear twitched as you picked up on something in the room, you let out a groan snuggling further into the blanket. It was so warm you weren’t ready to get up. The blanket shifted under you. Wait, blankets don’t move. Your eyes slow open blinking sleep out of your eyes. You gazed up at a sleeping Levi without moving to not give away that you were awake to the guest in the room.

“Honestly, I wish they would just admit it to each other already, I mean look at them!” Your eyes widen as you realized you two were no longer alone in your barracks. “Plus, it would probably soften up shorty over there,” You recognized the voice as Hange, you felt Levi shift under you and that is when you realized the position you were also in. Your leg was draped completely over Levi and his hand had found its way up the back of your shirt hugging you close to him. The blanket that was once pulled tight around you two was now at your waist being pushed down at some point in the night.

Levi shifted under you and you glanced up seeing his eyes flutter open before instantly going into a cold glare once he was fully awake.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He asked clearly annoyed by Hange’s presence and whoever was with her.

“Just coming to get you two lovebirds for training, and to remind you that she isn’t supposed to be sleeping in the men’s barracks, but I know you won’t listen,” She said cheerfully not even phased by Levi’s cold tone. “Make sure to wear your jackets, we got some snow last night.” You went to sit up a rush of excitement running through you, never having seen snow before only reading about it in the few books you had collected down in the Underground, but Levi was quick to pull you back down covering you up with the blankets.

“Out.” He demanded with a stern voice, Hange grinned with a chuckle before leaving you two alone to get ready for the day. You sat up quickly once the door was shut and you heard no one else in the room everyone already going on with their business for the day.

You raced over to the window looking out hands on the windowsill as you bounce on your toes out of excitement to see the white snow outside. You let out a soft wow as you looked out the window. The trees covered in the stuff, little pillows of snow covering each branch. You felt Levi grab your arm spinning you around while putting your cloak on you then turning you to face towards the door.

“Go get ready,” He demanded not having any of your bright energy this morning. You let out a chuckle as you went out the door and down the hall to women’s barracks going to your bed getting changed into your uniform.

You were getting your boots on when Levi appeared at the other end of the room leaned up against the door frame all set for training this morning. You buckled your boot getting up grabbing your clock putting it on as you walked towards him with a bright smile. You walked side by side down the hall.

“I hope you know I won’t be slowing down for you because of the weather,” He informed you, keeping his eyes straight ahead before opening the door for you. You sucked in a breath when the winter air hit you, but you were completely mesmerized by your surroundings the snow-covered ground and trees, looking through the frosted window did not do it justice.

A chill ran up your spin that you shook off as you adjusted to the cold, “You're just mad because I beat you the last time at the obstacle course,” You gloated giving a toothy smirk as he let out an unamused scoff before heading towards the training grounds with the snow crunching under your boots. You noticed that even though there were people out and about around HQ it seemed oddly quiet for it. A peaceful quiet that you had never really thought possible.

“That’s because I didn’t let you win, you would have thrown a tantrum like a child,” He said coolly making you frown.

“Would not,” You protested making his lip move into a smirk “Don’t be such a sore loser,” that’s when you got an idea which he was quick to notice the mischievous glint in your eye,raising an eyebrow at you curiously knowing this would not bow well for him. “Why don’t we make a bet?” you suggested, I mean there is nothing wrong with healthy competition when training for life and death scenarios, right?

“What do I get?” He asked as we reached the forest training ground getting our ODM gear ready. He helped you adjust the straps so that the gear sat better.

“The winner buys the other a box of their favorite tea?” You suggested and his eyebrow went up curiously, you looked up and saw Hange giving you the signal to get ready, Mike, getting ready to follow you two to observe though it wasn’t really needed, you both proving to be a skilled duo.

“I’m not buying you a box of chai,” Levi deadpanned, getting into position, you gave a small smirk.

“So, you’re saying I’m going to beat you?” You smirked

“Tch not a chance,” Hange could see you were both in a competitive mood and looked at the two of you gleefully to see what kind of maneuvers she would see from the two of you today while Mike looked slightly annoyed at the idea of having to keep up with the two of you.

“Alright you two we are almost reset,” She announced waiting for the signal from a Scout in the forest, you and Levi both waiting ready to go the second you saw the signal, and when you did you both were gone before she could even tell you to go a loud squeal of excitement as you two flew off.

The air was crisp as you flew through the trees, goosebumps forming all along your skin, but you didn’t let that slow you down, moving faster from tree to tree. You twisted and turned through them with ease making sure to keep your eyes open for the wooden titans to appear.

A fake titan appeared in front of you as you maneuvered out of a path of a tree and you gracefully bounced off of a trunk of tree going higher into the air flipping upside down dragging your blades deep into the fake nap cutting out a more than deep enough cut to kill. You flipped back up with missing a beat moving on.

“Careful Y/N, you'll dull your blades before we’ve even started,” You heard Levi mock somewhere in the trees, you continued through the trees another titan appearing on your right but before you could make your move Levi came out of nowhere just a quick flash of green.

You let out groan in frustration picking up your pace. Another Titan appeared on your right and you went for the kill but when you went to use a tree branch as a launch point you hit some ice on the branch losing your footing. You let out a small gasp as you lost control and began falling to the forest floor, you quickly caught yourself though sending out your grappling hooks pulling yourself back up just barely giving you enough time feeling your hair drag against the ground before swinging yourself back up in the air.

The last titan in the course showed up on your right and you couldn’t hear Levi anywhere and just as you were about to swing your blades for the kill, he flew past you taking the kill for himself. You grumbled to yourself as you reached the end of the course landing down on the ground.

“I didn’t even hear you!” You shouted walking up to him, he turned to face you with an annoyed look, “Where the hell did you even come from?”

“You need to be more careful,” He critiqued not even minding to address your question, you gave him a confused look.

"Yeah I didn't see the ice on that branch," You smiled at him but something was really bothering him with your slip up. He narrowed his eyes at you letting out an angered huff.

"You would have been dead from that slip up you had," He spat

“What do you mean? We aren’t outside of the walls Levi,” You questioned him not sure why he was starting to grow this angry with you.

“That one misstep outside of these walls could cost you your life, y/n!” He snapped at you, he walked up to you anger fuming off him and that’s when you could see it in his eyes that this wasn’t about the slip you had. This was more than that. Mike moved on back to the start of the course noticing that you two were now fighting and did not want to get in the middle of it. “I am not about to lose you to the filthy beast outside of those walls! I can’t lose you!”

“Levi…” Your voice was quiet as you stood there unreactive to his anger as you stared at him with sad eyes the faces of Isabel and Furlan running through your mind. It hadn’t even been a year since you lost them. Levi hid his pain well. Until now it seems.

It had started to snow once again; you could see each breath of his coming out in heavy pants. You reached out quickly pulling him into a hug so he couldn’t reject it. He stiffened sucking in a breath at the sudden gesture so openly out her in public. You gripped onto his shirt snuggling into his chest, his arms slowly wrapping around you as he accepted the simple display of affection and comfort you offered. He pulled you tighter to him his head falling to your shoulder his breath tickling your neck.

“You’re not going to lose me, Levi,” You felt a tear fall from your eye, your hand traveling up weaving your fingers into his hair holding his head, “I promise I’ll always find a way back,” You whispered, you felt him grip you tighter at your words. You both stood there holding one another quietly as the snow fell.

"Do you think they would have liked the snow?" You whispered to him, he let out a small scoff

"Isabel would probably be as excited as you were this morning, I can't imagine we would get anything done," He muttered fondly to you as you both thought of your two dear friends.

Levi pulled away just enough to look into your eyes his hand reach up and rubbing your cold and reddened cheeks from the winter air. You felt the familiar butterflies in your stomach that you always felt when you were together like this that you always managed to push aside but it was getting hard each passing day especially after that day when it became just the two of you left.

He had been growing more and more affection over the past couple of months leaving you completely confused on what his intentions were. You thanked god it was cold out to hide the blush on your cheeks as he looked at you. He leaned forward leaving a small kiss to your forehead.

“Ohhhh loovvvebirds!” Your eyes went wide at the sound of Hanges voice, Levi, and you both pushed the other away feeling your cheeks heat up at being caught in such a state. You stared at the ground as you heard Hange get closer and closer.

“What the hell do you want four eyes?” Levi’s voice back to his unamused self, pretending as if Hange didn’t walk into something meant only for the two of you. You looked up to see her grinning widely as she looked at the two of you innocently.

“We are getting ready to just go over some maneuvers, hurry up!” She shouted from where she stood waving her arm wildly around for you two to follow, Moblit standing right beside her shaking his head amused by her.

“On our way!” You shouted back with a wave looking over at Levi with a smile. He clicked his tongue before starting to head towards the others with you in tow. The moment you and Levi shared already pushed aside, stored in the very back of your mind.

You dragged your feet back towards your bed ready to take off your uniform and gear for the day, Levi turning what was supposed to be a simple training into an all-day event after your little slip in the woods making sure you had it down by the end on how to spot where you should and should not land when there’s snow and ice out.

You changed into a simple shirt and pants putting on some shoes heading back out into the hall towards the mess hall. You spotted Levi at your usual table a tray of food next to him that was meant for you. Hange smiled as soon as she spotted you. You took your spot next to him starting to eat your food.

Hange was probably your closest friend in the Scouts besides Levi of course. You would spend most of your time that wasn’t with Levi with her, helping with her experiments when needed or helping her organized her very messy office so she could actually find notes she needed when she needed them instead of days or sometimes months later.

As soon as you settled into your seat, she actually started talking to you about the idea of trying to capture a Titan but that she couldn’t get the approval.

“I mean that has to be really risky, wouldn’t it?” You asked her taking a drink of water from your mug, Levi rolled his eyes and you elbowed him under the table to knock it off.

“Yeah, and unfortunately, I can’t think of a way to make it safer,” She sighed disappointedly staring out past you, you could see the gears turning in her head that never seemed to stop with her.

"Well," you started, taking a bit of bread "If there's anyone that can figure it out, its you"

The rest of the meal was quick, and you said goodnight getting up disposing of your tray and dishes before heading back to your bed, but as you, passed a window, you noticed it was snowing again. You decided to go up to the roof to watch for a while. You stopped by your bed to grab your cloak before heading up.

It was cold but it felt good and it was quiet. No one around to disturb your peace this late. You walked over to the ledge whipping off the snow to clear a spot for you to sit. You dangled your feet over the edge looking up at the sky watching the snowfall around you. Blinking softly as a few flakes hit your lashes.

You closed your eyes letting out a relaxed sigh until you felt a presence. You opened your eye to see Levi staring out into the world. He held two cups of tea in his hand, offering the closest one to you. You gladly took it taking a sip letting out a hum from the warmth that coursed through your body. Levi took a seat next to you falling into a comfortable silence between the two of you.

There was that feeling again, the one that started in your stomach and filled your chest whenever you were with him. So many years of pushing it aside, it was easy at first but now it felt almost impossible but somehow you still managed not wanting to ruin the friendship you had. He was, after all, all you had left and vice versa.

“What are you thinking about?” your head snapped to look at Levi, a faint blush on your cheek as you forgot he was right next to you for a moment.

“N-nothing,” You stuttered taking another sip of tea, Levi still stared at you with his intimidating look that was just his face but still, it made you nervous when he stared like that. When he released you weren’t going to let up, he hummed getting gup from his spot leaving you to your thoughts.

You thought he was already gone but then you felt him right behind you kneeled down so his head was right next to your ear making you freeze to the spot as you felt his breath on your neck small goosebumps appearing on your skin.

“Come on, before you freeze yourself to death,” He whispered sending a small shiver down your spine. You turned your head to face him and noticed just how close he was to you, so close you could feel his breath hit your lips. You couldn’t help but glance down at his lips swallowing nervously when you looked back up to his eyes.

“Okay,” Your voice so quiet that you weren’t sure anything really came out. The corner of his mouth moved slightly into a small smirk, he leaned into you and you couldn’t move letting out a small gasp when you felt his lips just on the corner of your mouth before it was quickly gone. His hand grabbing yours and guiding you back up and back inside as you stared at the ground to hide the deep blush on your cheeks. He really didn’t need anymore boost to his ego, at least for tonight.

#levi ackerman #levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman fanfiction #levi ackerman fic #levi ackerman fluff #levi aot #attack on titan #attack on titan fanfiction #levi ackerman attack on titan #levi attack on titan #hange zoe #aot hange

264 notes · View notes

haropla · 3 years

Text

I have no idea how anyone else responded to the first Hathaway’s Flash film, but going into it, I completely expected to hate the idea of an entire trilogy of films centered around the kid that lost all his rational thought for a crush that was also kind of insane and had no real problems throwing tantrums and taking lives no problem. CCA I still love, as weird as it is, and I still tolerate Quess and Hathaway being there since I understand their purpose as characters and what they mean to the worldbuilding and themes and how they’re meant to contrast with the returning characters.

but how was I supposed to even like a trilogy of films centered around Hathaway and without characters like Char, Amuro, and Bright? and films not even touched by Tomino at that.

the answer? you make Hathaway just as goddamn weird and fucked up as Char and not brush aside that he is a very flawed, self-contradictory, emotionally-stunted man-child and THERE YOU GO you’ve got me grabbing the kettle corn wanting to see this trainwreck unfold and how he bounces off the other mains who are almost just as messed up and incapable of functioning as proper people.

the Tomino weirdness (affectionate) in regards to dialogue is very much intact for this movie and watching scenes that have Hathaway, Gigi, and Kenneth all together and just chatting is so rewarding, because not only are you getting that entertaining characterization via contrast, but their dialogue also speaks to worldbuilding. it’s such a tight, economic script compared to CCA, where everyone is always saying Something all the time. it’s a very different approach compared to how Tomino himself would handle his own work but it still just really works for what this first film is trying to accomplish, which is mostly just setup for the content of the other two films.

but this film still manages to be such an engrossing experience because of this film’s intense focus on tone, even though there’s a relative dearth of mobile suit battles compared to most other gundam media. in a lesser creative team’s hands, this risk would not pay off, especially since gundam’s appeal to the general media-consuming crowd is the ms battles as opposed to strong thematic writing. even the film’s final fight between the xi and penelope (which is still well-done) is not nearly as flashy compared to, say, kshatriya vs the jegans in the first Unicorn OVA since we still have two more films to show them off. instead, the only other ms fight in this film is the big highlight, which leads back into the tone.

there’s considerable more focus on how terrifying it would be to be a civilian at ground zero of an ms fight. and that lends itself to the film’s focus on how that much more grounded it really is compared to all other gundam media. (IBO is a complete joke in this regard, don’t @me.) you don’t get the classic newtype flash sound, you can count the times direction calls for a Tomino cut-in (the little peeks into the cockpit framed in a geometric shape while still keeping the mobile suits in frame) on one hand, and there’s just so much attention to ambient/atmospheric lighting and relatively muted color palettes. all these more grounded approaches still speak to hathaway’s dilemma of trying to achieve a lofty, high-minded goal of getting everyone to migrate into space for the sake of the planet’s recovery (and to try and make sure quess’ death wasn’t as senseless as he hopes it isn’t), while everyone on earth has the upsettingly realistic mindset of not having it in them to care about the far-off future because living in the day to day is hard enough under the Federation’s oppressive presence in their lives.

gosh, as scattered as this post is, everything in this film just comes together so well and I think this tighter approach puts it right on up there with CCA, which I did rewatch prior to my watching Hathaway’s Flash. I’ve rewatched this first film like three times already, I just can’t wait for the next two. honestly hope Sunrise and Shuukou Murase keep up the good work here. they set the bar up so high.

#gundam #hathaway’s flash

21 notes · View notes

lilylilym · 3 years

Text

hearing the leaks on AOT hits different as a scholar of war memory

The leak here being Mikasa brought her husband and child to visit Eren’s grave. How ya'll feeling about it? Love it? Hate it? Here's my hot take that is gonna be long.

First of all, let me just say that the great Eldian war gives me VIOLENT whiplash to the Vietnam War where both sides were just people trying their best for their freedom and yet their unfreedom is contingent upon larger powers. Don't get me wrong, millions die in war and on the run, but our people are not at all exterminated, we existed in the homeland and in the diaspora. And yet our collective memory is so fragmented it was used to legitimize some fucked up neoconservative and the move to white nationalist shit. I know the Eldian war is better understood as a parallel to the ancient hate that resulted in the current Palestine-Israel conflict, the right to return, the right to land, the right to exist and freedom, and what it looks like. But let me talk to y'all about memory a little bit.

So, in all wars, there are losers and winners, those who will be remembered and those who will be selectively remembered. Choosing to be a revolutionary, a violent one at that, who waged wars upon multiple people for the sake of his people, Eren has chosen a future where the memories of him will always be complicated. He will always be remembered and forgotten at the same time. The Yeagerists will remember him as a great leader, a martyr, a god even, and use his name to enact military authoritarian dictatorship - and they already did. The rest of the world will remember him as a monstrous Titan who flattened the earth and killed millions. His friends, those who have known him all their lives, some will choose to not engage with their own memory of him, thinking that they didn’t know him after all. The only one who is entrusted to remember him, who made it a point to LIVE so she could remember him--all of him, as her savior, her family, her beloved, now that he has no descendants and all his families are dead--is Mikasa.

He died so she could live on, so to speak.

Memory is an important part of history. In the case of Eren, it’s more important than history, because he gave his life so he could make larger history but in so doing he gave up on the ability to control private memory.

In my culture, not everyone worships gods, but we have an altar for our dead ancestors. It’s considered one of the largest sins to not have children because that’s how memory ended. In the past, we remembered through oral history. Memory exists in the telling and retelling of history to people dear and close to us. That’s why one of the most violent things that King Fritz did was to alter the collective and private memory of subjects of Ymir, and that’s why when the memories carried by Ackermans and Hizuru clans could not be erased, they have to be exterminated. History was lost that way when people could not carry memories with them.

Some of the Eremika shippers lost their shit when they heard Mikasa might be married to someone else and have kids. For me, it’s a given that she moves on and has a life and a family--something she deserves and wants the most and probably the most courageous thing she could do. Did y'all remember when our girl at the tender age of 15 thought Eren is gone and she zipped herself into a suicidal chase, almost dead, then decided to live on so she could remember him? That was when the boy was 15. She loved him, of course, but did we really think she’s gonna be a 90-year-old virgin chewing the same old stories about her 1st love who died? 4 years later, there are many, many more stories and moments that she can remember, Great War and dreams of different outcomes, what-ifs, and regrets, Mikasa now lives with the weight of Eren’s choices. What makes some of us think she wants to do it by herself? For me, even without the leak, I always imagine that one day, maybe five, maybe ten years from the war, she will build a family of her own, with a person who will love her and respect her love and memory of Eren, who will accept that the family heirloom will be from the maternal lineage--a red scarf--and the family tradition will include visiting Eren’s grave. I will be awaiting fanfictions and djs about this process because how many of us are at Mikasa's caliber and/or easily found a partner that is willing to carry some trauma that will be passed on for generations? Exactly.

But as time goes on, Mikasa's clan will grow, there will be songs and poems and folktales and paintings and dances created in the memory of him the boy who sought freedom. Ya’ll not thrilled at that? I am. I am for one fucking stoked at how life goes on, how it moves past moments of even the greatest tragedies.

How do people live with the Holocaust? The nuclear bombs? Slavery? Wars? Massacre? Genocide? This war is not the first and would not be the last. It is the women who hold memories, carry them, pass them on through their children and loved ones. Some find other ways to pass on memory--through books, poetry, songs. If Mikasa chose to be one of the memory holders in that way, pass down her stories about Eren for generations to come, he will live on. His name will be remembered in storiess that no one else could have told.

Mikasa couldn't have protected Eren because the boy “carries death within him” (flashback OVA Lost in the Cruel World), then passing down her memories of him is the only way she could protect him for years to come.

Life is very, very long, so much longer than we can imagine. Next thing we know the world as we knew it no longer stands. And love exists in ways that transcend our human bodies into the collective consciousness of many others. That’s how traditions are created, cultures formed, history made. I am touched to see that poetic possibility in AOT, I do, and I hope that whether the leak is true or not, it remains the same.

#eremika #eren yeager #mikasa ackerman #aot #snk #aot leaks #snk leaks

28 notes · View notes

hei-ch0u · 3 years

Text

Oh boy. Here goes... Shingeki no Kyojin Final chapter (139) thoughts and analysis ✰

Well, where do I even begin to accumulate my thoughts on the final chapter of Shingeki no Kyojin? Even after some time to reflect and read the chapter many times, over and over - I’m still going to struggle to form this analysis. But, alas I shall try my best despite this.

I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read this and understand my own views of the final chapter. Proceed with caution - ⚠️ spoilers ahead ⚠️

This chapter and ending overall has left me with a love/hate relationship with the overall tale in full. I’d even go as far as saying it has tainted my view slightly of the entire series in one way or another and I will never look at it the same way I did - as much as I wish I could. My reasoning for the love/hate relationship I have will come, but, I want to start off by saying that despite it’s ending I will always appreciate this story and Isayama for his work, even if I myself don’t approve of his steering towards the ending.

It is just like I said in my theory, the thing we all need to recognise with this story is that the characters we love and have cherished, were never going to get exactly what they desired and if anything this chapter is a clear indication of that fact. It has been a story that was paved for a bitter, somewhat ‘bittersweet’ ending (yes, I hoped it wouldn’t be in the form of ‘that’, but it was). It is just as Mikasa said - “The world is cruel and merciless, but it is also beautiful”. This tale became the typical embodiment of humanity and how ruthless it can be.

Again, like I said in my theory, it was heavily foreshadowed that Eren was playing devil’s advocate and might have to sacrifice his freedom in this life to save the ones who meant the most to him. We heard hints in OST’s such as My War, Red Swan, Vogel Im Kafig, among others…

“Angel playing disguise with Devil’s face”

“I’ll cry for you in a dream”

“All of my kingdom, for your return, I’d let it burn!”

“Spread your wings, which are dreaded in blood”

“And eternity as you, fly to heaven”

“Like a fallen angel”

“Looking down from above I feel awful”

“Every living being dies someday, whether we are ready to die or not”

“Is that the angel who flew down from the twilight sky?”

“Is that the devil who crawled out from the crevice?”

“Tears, anger, compassion, cruelty, peace, chaos, faith, betrayal.”

It was foreshadowed, all of those things in the last example is humanity in a nutshell. The use of birds to symbolise the dead was shown on multiple occasions. Hell, even in the Levi ova, his friends are shown as 2 birds above him as he continues forward. It didn’t shock me that Eren’s soul was represented or “reincarnated” in the form of a bird - simply because birds are the most free creatures on our planet, they can fly over land, sea and maintain the air around them. Realistically, we should’ve analysed the birds presence more (it was even implied in the opening trailer for season 4. Falco awoke to a bird flying above him, we saw the bird present many times in even past seasons and don’t get me started on how many times it was present in the manga). Our Angel was Eren. He was a fallen angel - a slave to the story and what it means to be human, to feel deeply and make sacrifices. He was never a monster, just a pawn in a wicked game.

For a split moment of initial shock, I let the “judging a book by its cover” ideal kick in. After calming down and having access to proper translations, again I can’t say I love this ending or hate it - it has the bittersweet notion that was intended, but it was also lukewarm. It is not perfect by any means, there are some plot holes and loose ends that could have been tied up by extension. However, Isayama maybe intended for it to remain open for interpretation. Something of which, I’ll reveal what I personally took from the ending.

One thing I am surely certain of, is that I can hold my hands above my head and say this chapter 100% embodied my love for my favourite character - Eren Jaeger. He had such a tragic outcome, he did it all for his friends and loved ones. He was never free, not in life and partially not in death. He was a broken child, in a broken world with a broken fate of shouldering mass amounts of responsibility with no idea of how to change or control the past, present and future. To witness your best friend talking of all the things he was going to see, yet knowing you wouldn’t be there to see it yourself. To know the girl who was there for him forever and always, could never be his to cherish. He had no freedom to do so. To live the life he wanted to, he would have died anyway. If he had ran off with Mikasa, he would have damned his friends. The life he wanted was not feasible, therefore he chose to sacrifice his desires so his friends could live long lives, unlike the one he was damned to. He was a character who was torn along all sides of the coin. Torn between his desires, his duty and his self - all while experiencing memories from all angles. He was not a monster or a psychopath and I won’t let others spit on his name due to their lack of analysis and empathy. He is human. He is allowed to feel. He isn’t pathetic for wanting to live, for wanting to be with his friends or the girl he loves. He is 19. Can you really say you wouldn’t feel the same? It is natural to be frustrated at your life being ripped from under your feet at such a young age. He was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. Look at his face in paths when he talks with Armin, he is devastated and he had no solution.

However, I do believe he will be reunited with his friends once more. After all, the scouts were reunited in death, so why shouldn’t he? His friends will not live in vain, his sacrifice will mean something. They will live their life to the fullest and find peace in life and then in death - they have Eren to thank for that. Another misconception I want to pick out of the fandom is that they did not condone genocide, they did not thank Eren for ridding the population of 80%. Armin states it as an “error”. What they did do, was acknowledge Eren’s sacrifice for them to live and that they understood it’s not what he wanted himself, but that due to unseen forces. - did he really have a choice? It is not by any means perfect, but it gives them freedom to live out with the walls - was this not Eren’s dream? To be free, not confined within the walls by Titans. He did exterminate all titans, that is one goal Eren Jaeger accomplished. We don’t know the full extent of the power of the attack titan or the founding titan, this is one of the open plot holes. Eren himself explains this, he himself has no clue and his head is a mess - is it any shock that his head is a mess? People would go crazy over less. He was a pawn in a story with no happy ending. At least not for him.

Even in the bird reincarnation theory, I hope he is happy and free. Free to roam the skies, perch upon the tallest mountains, titter along the grass banks of the world and watch over his comrades, his friends, the ones he loves deeply… The tragic protagonist I will always remember. (Especially as one who was done so dirty by his author)

There was so many routes this manga could have taken, fan theories proved this and I do think the ending could have been executed better. We were not getting a happy ending, it is not happy by all means. Those characters left have to live in the aftermath, aware of their friends sacrifice and all he had to put himself through for them to live the lives they themselves desired. My favourite quote will always be:

“Don’t pity the dead. Pity the living”

Mikasa lost her family in more ways than one, she has to live a life where she didn’t get the one person she desired more than anything, but I believe she will move on and Eren will be by her side the entire time until they are reunited in death. Levi is the same, he lost everyone and whoever his love may have been - Erwin, Hanji, Petra (who knows). Either way, he didn’t have those loved ones around in the end. But, he no longer has to fight for survival and can spend the remainder of his time resting until the day in the future he can be reunited with his comrades, friends and even kick Eren a big one, ruffle his hair, tell him its okay and tell him all the things he wanted to tell him like he said. Armin lost his best friend, he held the burden above his head that he himself killed Eren and not Mikasa. However, he has an abundance of friends, he has Annie and he can travel the world like he desired - like Mikasa, he will have Eren by his side for the remainder of his time.

Jean can meet the woman of his dreams and have the children like he desired, knowing that even in their silly quarrels - Eren was loyal to him always. Connie can have his mother back, his family and move on. Reiner can live, not die like he once desired and live on knowing of Eren’s sacrifice, that he wasn’t a monster himself. He is free from the curse, as is Annie, Pieck and Falco. The warriors have their families back. Gabi and Falco can be together unlike their comparisons, sad, but fitting. They are in Paradis, a place we never expected them to be in the end, advocating for change alongside Onyakapon looking after their elder, Levi, alongside them. On Eren’s death anniversary, it is implied they all return to his grave to be together, none of them are alone like we initially thought. Mikasa is not alone in Paradis since it is implied that Levi, Onyankapon, Gabi, Falco, Historia even… still live amidst the walls - I think it would be wasteful to assume such a strong character secludes herself after the love of her life’s death. She does not have to love another man, she can choose to live her life for herself, a long one alongside her friends. This manga has never necessarily needed to have love stories, they are implied, but not needed. For life itself is the embodiment of their freedom.

This above is the rosy way of looking at it and it’s what I personally will take from it. I overall think it is terrible writing and use of dialogue - there’s no denying it. I myself as a writer and artist would have done it differently. Isayama has created a manga with a tragic story that reveals the raw, tainted feeling of what it’s like to be human. We all want things, we all have desires…but we don’t always get them, no matter how hard we try, some will slip from our grasps. That is life, no matter the universe. Yes. But, I do think in ways Isayama did taint and obliterate Eren as a character. This I am disappointed in. It is a typical author ideal of damning his protagonist and the sad thing about being a stories protagonist - you risk being ruined due to being written so complex initially that the author loses sight of how to conclude your arc respectfully. I believe from what we have been shown, he would not have accepted his death that easily and would fight for another way. Although, I cannot blame him as I myself would have felt defeated, suicidal and depressed at learning everything he did after his contact with Historia at such a young age. Remember, how you are brought up in an already cruel world is key - he didn’t stand a chance. But alas, I still feel he would’ve fought. This Eren is not the Eren we saw the majority of the manga, but then again he did change and I feel so sorry that the Titan power had that effect on him.

This is the character development true Eren stans are enraged with. TATAKAE! Fight the attack titan, fight the founding titan, fight against your cruel fate - don’t succumb to defeat. There is always another way. I don’t accept this version of Eren, due to the development we saw built by Isayama of his character, I can’t. It leaves so many gaps among other plot reveals. I don’t see what was accomplished. Eren’s being, his life, was a ploy to keep the other characters we care about alive, but at what cost ? If I was Eren’s friend, I would go forward like he wanted me to, but I could never forget the burden he bared and what he had to go through and what he did to achieve that outcome for me. I would forever be sad. I would be living in a world much like this one, lacking in peace and serenity and above all is that not what we all desire in one way or another? He did not necessarily know the Dina titan would go for his mother, but he had to direct it away from Bertholdt since in the timeline it was not his time to die. Always remember the theory of time, one thing changed, drastically changes the outcome. He did not want civilians or people within Paradis to die, it became collateral damage and no one would be able to fight for some time because of the 80% notion. He gave them time to live, time to change things to the best of their abilities and experience all they possibly could. They became the ‘heroes’, but again, at what cost?

Now, to the plot holes and answers I feel needed to be present for the story to knit together in a better way. This will be less “paragraph” based and more pointed, since…well these things were not explained. Majority of potential foreshadowing was swept under the rug like it meant nothing to bring about the lukewarm feeling I was talking about.

The alien like hallucigenia, what exactly was its purpose? It’s reason for being? It disappeared and ceased to exist. No mention of how it came to be. Even Ymir just vanished. Everything ceased to exist and Eren himself couldn’t understand Ymir’s reasoning other than being able to witness love. This seemed to be cop out on Isayama’s part.

Historia’s pregnancy was heavily implied and emphasised on within the manga, making readers think it meant something (when a creator zones in on these things, its usually for further plot reveal) Her character development was destroyed and she deserved better. She sidelined herself and stayed away till the final moment where it is implied she and Armin will become the negotiators of a new world, all while housing tyrants (Jaegerists). Again a further implication of Shonen manga and its poor interpretation of women.

The conclusion to Ymir and Eren’s particular character arcs was shocking and this can’t be dismissed. We needed both their sides of things to explain more. It lacked real conclusion and didn’t match up to past events or character development. This chapter should have purely been an Eren POV with the ending moments of how the scouts moved on. Of course this couldn’t have been done in 1 chapter, hence the recognition that this manga needed ‘more’ and it wasn’t enough to tie it all together. Another flaw in Isayama’s writing and continuity.

The Ackermans? Don’t get me started. My theory again will entail my rage about this one. Did the Ackerman power cease to exist like the titan curse? What is their origin story? To imply the Ackerman blood concept in all its parallels and foreshadowing to not even have the 2 remaining characters from said bloodline talk about their shared experience in thorough detail is such an abysmal hole in plot. Especially with it being heavily emphasised throughout the entire manga.

I barely saw any signs of Eren being in love with Mikasa? If this was the case, then it should have been shown in the manga and emphasised like isayama did with many other things that eventually had no meaning. I always viewed their relationship as very toxic to both sides and needed amending. So for Eren to suddenly turn round and say he doesn’t want her to be with another man....I find this a very bad continuation and completely disregards how Eren has been the past 138 chapters. Why was it so hard for him to say these things even before he made contact with historia and unravelled it all? Was it the power of the attack titan preventing him?.... (below)

The attack titan and founding titan, explain how it works. Why does Eren himself not fully understand yet he embodies them? Why could he not have flipped the switch? Why could he not ask for help? Explanation is needed.

All the time loop links diminished to nothing other than Eren’s past, present and future…yet its implied in many characters even in their childhoods mentions of things they could not be aware of. How can it merely be coincidence?

I wholeheartedly believe that this was not the initial ending of Shingeki no Kyojin, specifically because I and a few others I’ve seen noticed the shift in the story around 10 or so chapters ago. It seemed to be going in the route of a few particular fan theories and then suddenly (quite drastically I’ll add) shifted into this ending. I can only theorise that Isayama changed his original ending along the way to please editors and readers in different ways. In interviews past, he has completely contradicted things he has said about the manga and its ending with what he has produced in the final chapter. When you look at it from a marketing point of view as a selling point, if Isayama had killed certain characters like “Levi” for example or left the ending dark as it possibly could have been (something I wouldn’t have put past yams to do) it would be bad from a marketing point given the likes of Levi is the targeted favourite of the series (even with being a side character) and editors would heavily warn him of this.

People are saying that it’s Isayama’s story and editors won’t have influence - you’d be heavily surprised how much the editing team can have influence, especially when a story of this magnitude becomes so popular. I do think in ways, Isayama gave up. As an artist even myself, its very abundantly clear when a fellow creative loses drive and how the concept of something becoming popular can influence you to become bored and look for a way out. Hence, the clear signs of the story coming out as rushed, its all there, the loss of continuity, the holes in plot and even though Isayama’s art can be inconsistently coherent - some parts of the past few chapters weren’t at the full potential we saw previously. We watched him get better to suddenly somehow revert? That to me seems like a creator who had just had enough and maybe in the end chose to veer off his original plan.

Alas! As I said, I will always love Shingeki no Kyojin despite its ending and loose ties, it holds a place in my heart and has been a favourite of mine since my school days. Being an adult now In her 20’s and experiencing the many troubles of what its like to be human and a creative can sympathise with the struggles and stress Isayama would have been under all these years as his manga gradually became the phenomenon it is now. As it is our favourite characters time to rest and move on, it is his also. Although the story is not where I and many others hoped it would go, I still thank him massively for giving me characters like Eren Jaeger, Levi Ackerman, Mikasa Ackerman, Armin Arlert… the list goes on. Thank you for embodying why Eren was my first and last favourite character. Goodbye Shingeki no Kyojin.

#snk 139 #aot 139 #I've put a read more so proceed with caution #eren jaeger #eren yeager #mikasa ackerman #levi ackerman #armin arlert #if i tag all of them itll go on and on #snk final chapter #snk #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #aot #snk manga #snk analysis #snk theory

47 notes · View notes