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meiizumi · 5 years

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Castle of Shikigami: An informal rant nobody asked for about my most obscure obsession to date

STOP i spent like 2 days writing this post and im only posting it on tumblr because it’s the one website i’m a member of that can hold the most text. i wanted to infodump somewhere...... read this to learn something i guess (´･ω･`)

Bad voice acting is the Peak of comedy to me, and while I was looking for something to laugh at one day, I found this game called Castle Shikigami 2 for the PS2. The US version of the game's dialogue is rife with machine translated text that makes no sense, and awkward voice acting to boot. They even have voice actors saying the wrong lines, voice actors speaking implied commands, and a few voice lines are left in Japanese. Apparently, Roger Craig Smith (Sonic the Hedgehog's current voice actor) was in this game but I don't think he's even credited?! I think I know which character he voiced but I’m not exactly sure.

The history behind this game’s localization is REALLY weird. Castle of Shikigami/Shikigami no Shiro was originally an arcade bullet hell shoot em up game. The series was created by Alfa System and it was one of Alfa System’s main IPs. There are three main shmup installments and a text adventure game for the PS2, Nanayozuki Gensoukyoku. Nanayozuki was practically fanservice for whatever number of CoS fans there were back then. Each main game in the series was originally an arcade cabinet, but they were all ported to PC and home consoles. In CoS 2′s case, it came out on the PS2, Gamecube, and Dreamcast, but only the PS2 version got localized. The western publisher, XS Games specializes in publishing quality budget titles such as “Bass Pro Shops: The Strike” for the Wii. I theorize they didn’t care too much about the actual content of CoS 2 and were more focused on selling a game quickly for a low price, so they just machine translated it and adjusted a few things. If you’re wondering if Castle of Shikigami 1 was also translated this badly, the answer is No. XS Games instead removed all the dialogue from the western release of CoS 1, and released it with the title “Mobile Light Force 2″.

“Wait, what do you mean ‘Mobile Light Force TWO’ if Castle of Shikigami 1 is the first game in the series?” If you want to know what Mobile Light Force 1 was, it’s GUNBIRD; another shmup game, but by a completely different developer than Castle of Shikigami. I don’t know why they did that. What really kills me though is that both MLF 1 and 2 use the same boxart, which is COMPLETELY unrelated to the actual contents of either game. AFJQHJFOKLJFDS look at this

There’s more hilarity behind Mobile Light Force that isn’t hard to find so you can search that up if you’re interested. But thankfully, Castle of Shikigami 3's Wii edition got more of a proper localization by Aksys Games.

Now I would bluntly say something like “stan castle of shikigami” but:

1. This series’ lore is insanely convoluted. It’s an essential part of this expansive fictional universe referred to as “Mumei Sekaikan” (I don’t know what this translates to in English) where there’s like, 7 different parallel worlds. There’s more obscure ass games and manga that are tied to this universe, and I think there’s even a tabletop RPG made based off it. Have you heard of “Gunparade March”? Most likely you haven’t; it’s an obscure video game made by Alfa System that also got adapted into an anime, and I feel it can be described as Mechas x Persona. One of the characters in CoS 2 is just one of the GPM characters going undercover to find her senpai who traveled to the CoS world. Or something like that. The 7-world universe isn’t explicitly talked about in the game but they make so many references to it without defining anything that it’s like you Must know about it. There is NO documentation in English about the Mumei Sekaikan I could find on the internet, although there is a wiki in Japanese where I got a ton of knowledge from (GOOGLE TRANSLATE IS MY TRUSTED FRIEND) I feel like I might be THE person in the United States who has the most knowledge on the Mumei Sekaikan, and I could go on another tangent talking about what I know so far (and who this one specific dude Shibamura Yuuri is) but I won’t.

2. The writing isn’t excellent and can be pretty Unwoke ™; the first game came out in 2001 and the third game came out in 2005 if that gives you a sense on what era these writers were in. As far as the games dialogue goes, the characters appear kind of flat. CoS 1 and 2 Kotaro (i refuse to use the official “Kohtaro”) is stupid and driven by JUSTICE to a point where it’s annoying. I can’t tell if Hyuga is trying to be a Ladies Man in CoS 2 and 3. Kim, a religious tae kwon do instructor, spends CoS 2 thinking about how he should atone for his sins, then he turns himself into jail at the end. Sayo’s backstory is that she was a shrine maiden raised as a “human weapon” to have no emotions and her only goal in life was to kill god and then die, something like that. However, after CoS 1, she gets a crush on Kotaro because he actually treats her like a human and Of course that’s what you’d expect from the main teen girl and boy in the series. In CoS 3, Sayo's character is mostly played out to be a major tsundere for Kotaro even though surprisingly HIS character in this game changed a ton compared to 1 and 2 (he had to kill an illusion of his older brother, who he learned actually died earlier, and now he has to kill an illusion of his childhood sweetheart... damb that shit sucks :/). He’s still stupid though

There’s a gag in CoS 2 that I can’t clearly remember where it’s like, Niigi makes Sayo and Fumiko, who are both romantically interested in Kotaro, think that he’s only into little girls? Meanwhile, Fumiko’s magic goes wrong and her appearance turns to that of a child though in response she’s like “hee hee maybe Kotaro will like this”. basically more On-Brand early 2000′s anime unwokeness than average. Speaking of Fumiko, she’s a 400+ year old militaristic witch who constantly teases Kotaro (who’s like 16 or 17) and she wants to marry him for his magical potential since he’s like one of the candidates for becoming God??? From the official CoS 3 character descriptions, “Her hobby is to steal the men from other women. Her second hobby is trampling upon people.” She canonically stole her stepmother’s husband from her stepmother (the 3rd boss of CoS 3). I don’t get how that shit would have worked

3. The game itself is HARD af but to be fair I’m a scrub gamer. I can’t get past stage 3 on easy difficulty without continuing. Yes i bought CoS 1 on Steam, Yes it has a port on steam i feel like i should have mentioned this earlier

4. Besides CoS 1 having a port on Steam, CoS 2 and 3 might be hard to obtain legally. The poorly translated CoS 2 was apparently super cheap back then, but since it’s an old game, its value might’ve increased. When I tried looking up prices for English CoS 3, all the listings were like at least $40 and being broke I wouldn’t want to spend more than $29 for a Wii game in 2019... honestly I just emulated CoS 2. shout out to PCSX2

Last month I was desperate, bored enough, and deep enough in the Shikigami rabbit hole that I tried to find the manga based off of it online. The CoS manga only tells the events of the first two games so I still don’t really get anything about CoS 3, like who Mihee, Batu, and Emilio are supposed to be. However, the plot events also differ. For example, Roger Sasuke exists as a character in CoS 3 but in the manga he literally Dies. There’s 11 total volumes of this; 3 volumes dedicated to CoS 1 and the latter 8 (the “Twisted Castle arc”) dedicated to CoS 2. Only the very first 3 chapters were scanlated to English all the way in 2011. Fortunately, I did find the entire manga uploaded though............... in CHINESE. So you know what I did? I “read” the entire thing using my phone’s Google Translate OCR app to take pictures of each page and comprehend the translations. Of course I still don’t understand CRAP because of the Mumei Sekaikan jargon + machine translation but I understood enough to get emotionally attached to some of the characters. I wish I hadn’t. At least through the manga I learned that the characters DO have some depth and pre-established relationships. For instance, the reason why Roger Sasuke became a ninja is because when he first landed in Japan as a kid, he was getting bullied or something and he didn’t know Japanese then Kotaro saw this and told the bullies to stop. Then after Roy /sorry i mean Roger learned that he was set to home-stay with the Kugas in the first place, he decided to dedicate his life to Japan in order to protect Kotaro back. I think. DO U SEE HOW ABSURD THIS SHIT IS Anyway Nanayozuki takes place between the second and third games and sets things up for CoS 3. There’s a full playthrough of it uploaded to YouTube and I think it contains a lot of juicy lore, but it’s just too much to go over with Shitty Google Translate OCR. There’s also Shikigami no Shiro novels which apparently contain the most backstory, but I have a 0% chance of finding these online for free. Not to mention that these would ALSO be too much effort to Google Translate.

in conclusion: You don’t HAVE to play Castle of Shikigami. Like, I’m not gonna recommend it for the content, but if you love shmups and are looking for a shmup game you haven’t heard of then I will recommend it for the gameplay (old touhou mutuals assemble theres a POWER-UP-BY-GRAZE MECHANIC). I’ve counted like 4 total fans outside of Japan that like this series for the story, and I don’t think that number is going to increase because I doubt CoS 2 will ever get retranslated and ported. I just want you to know that this series exists and that there’s a ton of wacky shit behind it besides the bad Castle Shikigami 2 dub. also if someone knows enough japanese or chinese and has an INKLING of interest in this series umm talk to me and help me decipher stuff

I‘m kinda sad that the series is pretty much Dead though. This is the most recent piece of official Castle of Shikigami art I could find, and this was for the 2018 New Year. The next most recent piece of official CoS art I found was also drawn by the character designer Sonoda Miku all the way in January 2008, commemorating the end of the CoS manga serialization. Alfa System released a spiritual sequel to Castle of Shikigami on the Japanese Switch eShop called Sisters Royale, with character designs I think are still by Sonoda. By “spiritual sequel” I mean that it has some of the EXACT same shot types as CoS and the same mechanic where grazing bullets increases your power and score. This is the closest we’ll get to a Shikigami no Shiro 4. I wonder what the business decision behind that game was but it actually looks like fun and I want to play it so OK Go off i guess

#bees are good #castle of shikigami #shikigami no shiro #video games #i feel: DISEASED

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soaker87 · 7 years

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A Spider Riders guide for beginners (mainly anime-centric)

Sort of a sequel to my guide for getting into Battle Spirits, but yes, I wrote a massive essay on a much smaller and easily digestible franchise. And it was fun.

Honestly, half of this is me ripping on things, but yes, I honestly love this show and wish it was more popular. And it’s my main interest when Battle Spirits is bad/on hiatus and I’m in denial about Code Geass.

Put it here instead of my SR blog, since established fans probably don’t need a guide. And I think it’s only fair when I don’t shut up about it.

1)The first pressing question that seems to bug people. Is Spider Riders a “real” anime? Not that it particularly matters, but the answer is yes. Spider Riders is officially a Japanese/Canadian co-production. But, based on official statements made by both the Japanese and western staff, the actual production went something like this. A book (which was meant to be the first in a series of 5) was published in English, and at the same time, the Japanese studio Bee Train was commissioned to make an anime based on the same general concept. The show was completely crafted in Japan. That is, the animation, writing and directing was done there. The English side of things got to make specific requests and got a minimal amount of creative control, but it was largely left in Bee Train’s hands. The people on the English side of things consider the series Yosuke Kuroda’s vision, and admitted to not really knowing any more about the characters and world than what the viewers know. So it’s just as much a “real” anime as The Big O season II, Bakugan, Dimension W and the like.

2)Now, the deal about those books I mentioned above, which were the “source material”. Well, as anyone who’s read them can tell you, they have almost nothing in common with the anime. There are characters with the same name and alliances, and the very basic setting is the same. Other than that, you can hardly compare the two. So while the books came first (at least the first one did) they are in no way a pre-requisite for watching the anime. But still very much recommended. Without spoiling anything, they’re certainly darker than the anime (while still remaining kid-friendly). Anyway, there are three canon books total, because the publisher never ordered the planned five. Thus, the story is never fully resolved. Additionally, an unfinished 4th book exists on Tedd Anasti, the main author’s website. This book can not be considered explicitly canon, because it’s basically a re-write of the 3rd book with some added plot points, and it mixes things from anime canon that contradict the previous books. However, it is highly recommended for Buguese and Aqune fans, as the added plot points concern them.

For the record, if you want to read the novels and can’t buy them (because they’re rare and expensive if you want to buy them new) I can point you to download links. And you can read the 4th one here: http://teenovels.webs.com/spiderriders.htm

3)A Spider Riders manga also exists. It’s interesting if you’re a fan, but really not suggested as a good starting point for the franchise. While the manga has more in common with the anime than the books, it’s also a very different take on things. The manga is probably the most comical entry in the franchise, only becoming serious on occasion. It also includes more violence and fanservice (especially panty shots) than the very tame anime. The art style is considered rather unattractive by most people.

Like basically every other entry in this franchise, the manga is unfinished. 10 chapters exist total, but only 9 were released online, the 10th appearing exclusively in Shounen Fang magazine. Of these 9 chapters, only the first 6 were published in tankouban format, and only those 6 were scanlated, as the online releases of chapters 7-9 were not high quality.

Translated scans for chapters 1-6 here: http://spiderridersftw.tumblr.com/tagged/sr-manga

4)Getting back to the anime, another thing that trips people up in exactly how many seasons the anime has. Theoretically, it only has one season, consisting of 52 episodes. A series which yes, I’ll admit right here, ends with a heck of a lot left unresolved. I’ll get back to that point later. However, most anime encyclopedias list Spider Riders as having two series of 26 episodes each. The first is called “Spider Riders ~Oracle no Yuusha-tachi~” and the second is called “Spider Riders ~Yomigaeru Taiyou~”. Why? Because the series tanked in ratings when it aired in Japan. And this is starting from the very first episode, so very few people gave it a chance. It probably wasn’t on many people’s radars, due to the show getting virtually no publicity before airing in popular anime magazines, and due to the stigma it carried being a “co-production”. Because the series tanked, TV Tokyo, who was broadcasting it, stopped airing Spider Riders after 26 episodes. Another network, Kids Station, picked it up and re-aired the first 26 episodes. After that, they continued with episode 27. But they gave the series a new title. It was outright advertised as being a second season. This is most likely because of the reputation the first “season” carried. So there you have it. Spider Riders, a 1 season show, had two seasons when it aired in Japan, but the episodes were exactly the same.

However, the saga thickens. What I mentioned above about the ending being rather a non-ending? It’s because the staff hoped for a true second season of Spider Riders. So they went out of their way to leave questions unanswered. You see, Spider Riders originally did have a true ending. Teletoon, the channel that broadcast the series in Canada, put out a press-release about the anime on their corporate website very early into the anime’s run. This press release contained character bios and episode summaries, which essentially spoiled the entire series. It became known as “the Teletoon Corp spoilers”. For the first 24 episodes, everything these spoilers said matched up with what happened in the anime. The second half of the series, the “second season” in Japan, did not. There were some things that matched, and others which didn’t. So yes, they changed a perfectly thought out second half to the series for the sake of leaving opening for a sequel. A sequel that was never going to happen with the ratings the series got in Japan. In hindsight, Spider Riders ~Yomigaeru Taiyou~ may very well be a “second season”. Because that’s when the series starts to diverge from its intended route.

Because of the convenient break, I’ve actually suggested to people to just watch the first 26 episodes and stop there. The story won’t be resolved, but you’ll still have a lot of questions even after watching the second set of 26. And ep. 26 is actually an epic one, so it makes a pretty great ending point. Better than episode 52 anyway.

Obviously, I don’t hate the second half. I just have very mixed feelings about it. There are severe pacing issues. Plot twists that don’t really make any sense (probably due to having no basis in the first half/original plans). Beerain/Buguese/Aqune/Hunter/Corona love triangle nonsense that goes nowhere. Yes, I spoiled it. None of them end up with anyone. (Also, I am under the impression that love triangles are a plague and rarely ever done well.) Hunter and Corona becoming black holes in terms of focus, while other characters are mis-handled in various ways, especially Magma and Aqune. And Beerain’s handling is a whole separate issue I’ll talk more about later. But probably, the biggest problem with the second half is the forced portrayal of a certain character as sympathetic when I personally did not see them that way. (And no, I’m not talking about Beerain. This could apply to her too, but she didn’t cross the line like this character did.) Also, the writers go out of their way to make sure this character gets everything they want in the end, even when the more important characters have massive unresolved plot threads. Though, considering that I occasionally go to TV Tropes to try and prune some of the leather pantsing for this character, many other fans saw them as sympathetic too. So maybe it’s just my problem, but it still bugs me.

Now, the second half has some good episodes and scattered moments that were awesome or cute or funny or whatever. It has episode 49, which was very validating for me. I love what they do with Igneous in the later episodes, because it helps flesh out his character, even if he doesn’t actually get to do anything useful. Grasshop’s subplot in the second half is well regarded by fans for a reason. Buguese gets to pilot a giant robot, which is beautiful. Stags finally gets some time to shine. Corona gets some good development. So it’s not all a lost cause. It’s just not the second half that should have happened, and the executive meddling made it suffer in quality.

4) Now, if you still want to watch the show knowing all this, should you watch it subbed or dubbed? Coming from someone who never had any problem with dubs, this is one show which really should be watched subbed. While the dub (produced by Cookie Jar Entertainment, not 4Kids, contrary to popular belief) is not the most horrible dub ever, that does not by any means make it an acceptable dub. I’m going to break it down into a few aspects. And these are not the only flaws it has.

First, translation. The dub is not a straight translation of the Japanese script. Except for when it is. But that’s the exception, not the rule. Many times, they just take the Japanese footage and make something up that might fit with it. Even if it has nothing to do with what the characters actually said. Sometimes, this doesn’t really affect much. But other times, it’s created actual plot holes. Avoiding spoilers, the most glaring case of this occurs in episode 23, which is a very important episode about the villains and their motives. And the differences in the script are outright jarring. Especially factoring in that the dub goes back to the true story later on.

Second, the cheese factor. Yes, it is a show where people ride giant spiders. But this is anime. It’s far from the most absurd premise in the medium. And it’s also a premise that the show itself takes seriously, even in the dub. It’s not meant to be a comedy anime, despite having a fair amount of humorous episodes in the first half. So that poses the question of why the people writing the dub script decided to take the cheese factor up to eleven. The dialogue is outright cringey a lot of the time because of it. You have characters constantly shouting “Arachna Power”, a phrase which is never uttered once in the Japanese version. When every other line sounds like it was written by an 8-year-old trying to be hip, it makes the show very, very hard to take seriously. And, as I said, the anime takes itself seriously, even in the dub. So that’s why you have a problem.

Third, censoring. Now, like I said earlier, the anime is pretty tame. There’s no blood and gore. Nothing sexual. There’s not much that needs to be censored at all. Tell that to the people at Cookie Jar. When they decide to censor things like characters being grabbed by the arm (which they frequently cut), all while having other kinds of violence when the characters are fighting a war, you just have to wonder. When they cut a male and female character innocently sleeping in the same room. Characters who get absolutely no ship tease, I might add, and one of them is happily married to someone else, you really have to smash your head against something hard. There are probably two things in this show that could understandably be censored for western viewers, although I personally don’t believe in censorship at all. But the dub does not stop with those two things.

Fourth, name changes. Now, most of the main characters keep their Japanese names in the dub. This is probably to keep consistent with the books. But basically any secondary character has their name changed for no reason, even though their names don’t sound “foreign”. Even if their name is Melissa. The Insectors, the main enemies of the series, were changed to Invectids in the dub. This was apparently due to legal reasons. But due to the prominence of Insectors as a whole, it’s a notable change. Brade, called Quake in the dub, is probably the most important character who underwent a name change. (He isn’t in the books, so that probably contributed to the change.) And one character’s first name is actually their last name in the dub, in a world where no one even has last names. That’s a pretty weird one.

Fifth, the dub treats viewers like morons. Very frequently, the dub will take a scene where in the Japanese version, nothing was being said (the show has a lot of dramatic silence) and make a character whose face isn’t shown on screen state something obvious. It might not be something the Japanese script outright said, but it’s something that anyone paying half-attention would have figured out. Additionally, the dub will regularly add shots of Shadow in manacle space when he talks, assuming viewers won’t be able to pick up that he’s talking despite not being on screen. It’s really kind of insulting. Even if kids are the target audience, they’re not that stupid.

Sixth, the acting is terrible. People make fun of it for a reason. The dub has frequent awkward pauses between lines. Additionally, some of the voices do not fit the characters. And I don’t mean, because they’re not sound-alikes to the Japanese cast. I mean, it was gross mis-casting. The most glaring case is Beerain. Most fans, regardless of their opinion on her character, agree about her dub voice being horrendous, which makes her sound like an old lady, and is even worse during emotional scenes. In general, the actors also tend to change the tone of some scenes, which give off the very opposite impression that the same scenes did in the Japanese version.

And, I won’t link it in this post for reasons, but there’s a torrent for the subs on Nyaa, and it also includes a link for DDLS if you prefer (or if the torrent is dead, because it probably is.) If you must watch the dub despite reading all this, look it up on your own time. It’s definitely on some streaming sites.

5) So, now that we’ve got all that out of the way, what is the show actually about? Well, the plot follows a 13-year-old boy named Hunter Steele. (11 in the dub.) He follows the notes of his deceased grandfather, in order to find a place called the Inner World that his grandfather used to tell him about. Naturally, he finds it within the first few minutes of the show, and the rest of the plot takes place in the Inner World, which is basically like some sort of pocket dimension inside of the earth itself. Hunter meets with Shadow, a spider, and the two reluctantly become partners. After Hunter joins up with the other Spider Riders, he takes part in a war to save the Inner World from the Insectors, a race of bugs with human-like qualities.

6)So what are the characters like? Okay, here goes. First, the main Riders and their spiders.

Hunter Steele- The hero. Typical shounen lead. He loves adventure, he’s a bit clueless, but he’s generally friendly and well-meaning. Which doesn’t make him perfect, either. He can be bratty and disagreeable, especially early on. And while he has a sense of justice, he’s actually incredibly self-righteous and sees everything in black and white. But he does get to develop as the series goes on. And he’s the true heart of the team, who keeps everyone in line. Unfortunately, he does get a disproportionate amount of focus, even for a main character, especially later on.

Shadow- Hunter’s spider partner. He’s cocky and prideful. He has a tendency to bicker with Hunter, and he’s usually the one who’s right. They actually become really good friends. Their bond is pretty cute and needed more focus. Out of all the spiders, he’s the only one who really gets much screentime.

Corona- The heroine. Of course she has a crush on Hunter. That’s obvious from almost the get-go. But she’s absolutely not a bland swooning cheerleader like some shounen heroines. She’s a genuine action girl. After Hunter, she’s the character who gets the most focus. Sometimes the show feels more like it’s her story than his. Corona is riddled with insecurities, but Hunter inspires her a lot, and she gets to grow and develop as well as him.

Venus- Corona’s spider. To be honest, she has the personality of a rock. Yet she will get occasional lines that are longer than one word, unlike most of the spiders.

Igneous- He’s a knight of Arachna. Very protective of his kingdom, and the royal family. At first, he comes off as very serious, but you see later on that he’s one of the biggest dorks in the show. Refreshingly, he doesn’t become Hunter’s rival, despite early episodes hinting towards that. He takes on more of a mentor role. At first. Then the writers kinda forget about that aspect.

Flame- Igneous’ spider. He doesn’t speak. Not even once.

Lumen- The prince of Arachna, but you’ll just have to take his word for it. He doesn’t act much like a prince. He’s super lazy, and he loves to flirt with girls. Every girl. Even if they’re his sister or an Insector. And did I mention he’s only 12?

Ebony- Lumen’s spider. He does speak, but only once.

Sparkle- The princess of Arachna. Yes, her name is Sparkle, but just deal with it. She’s cute. Super cute. Apparently, the writers had no idea what to do with her and changed her character like a million times in the pre-production. So at first, she seems sort of wise and mysterious, but really, her purpose is to just be really cute. Which doesn’t make her any less awesome.

Hotarla- Sparkle’s spider. Like Sparkle, her purpose is to be cute. All she can say is “kyu.”

Magma- He’s introduced as a brooding wanderer, looking for his spiders’ long-lost sister. That doesn’t last for long. He’s also a total dork. He also basically clings on all the other guys. And serves as obsessed fanboy to an old man. Like, Magma is as gay as possible without the writers actually going out and saying it.

Brutus- Magma’s spider. Because he’s a flat character, he doesn’t even seem to care about finding his long-lost sister as much as Magma does.

Now, the villains’ side. They actually get more character development than most of the good guys, for better or for worse.

Mantid- He’s the Insector emperor. The main villain. But saying much about him is spoiling.

Buguese- The leader of Mantid’s Big Four. He looks pretty human-like, despite being an Insector. Based on old information, he might be an artificially-created Insector, except that never made it into the actual show. He’s a cold and calculating person, who treats everyone around him pretty badly. He seems to think the ends justify the means, when it comes to making sure the Insectors win the war. He’s constantly brooding, also. He absolutely hates Hunter, and is pretty much the rival character. He always uses various robots to attack the Spider Riders. He usually has Aqune accompanying him too. It’s clear that he cares about her a lot, but because she’s a human, he makes every effort to hide it, even from himself. He’s my favorite character, as you can probably tell since I don’t shut up about him. As I’ve put it before, a fascinating mess of contradictions, who flips between being a total jerk and the most sympathetic character in the show. He really needed to be in a better show.

Grasshop- Easily the most popular of the Insectors with the fandom. This is because he’s very much the butt monkey. He’s sort of like a one-man Team Rocket. Always coming up with crazy schemes to defeat the Spider Riders. Always failing epically. And even the other Insectors treat him badly. Even Aqune of all people isn’t particularly nice to him. Well, he’s actually a lot of fun, and more than that, he has a lot of depth. He might be the most well thought-out character in the show, to be honest. And his development is very satisfying.

Beerain- Another Big Four member, and the only female. She doesn’t really do much for the early part of the series. Mostly just summons flying insects to do her bidding. Kind of a flat character, to be honest. She makes a good comedy duo with Grasshop, at least. Later in the show, she gets more focus. I found what they did with her character one of the absolute worst subplots in the second half of the series, mostly because it came out of nowhere and felt like extreme character derailment based on the little we know about her, dragged out until it became a plot tumor. But saying much more counts as spoiling.

Stags- The last of the Big Four to be properly introduced. But he’s the strongest and most dangerous. Stags actually is an honorable villain. But at the same time, he’s absolutely crazy. This is the guy who bursts out into maniacal laughter for literally no reason. And later in the series, when he really gets some focus, woah. Well, his fight scenes are epic, and he’s a character who deserved more focus than he got.

Aqune- She’s a Spider Rider, but on the enemy’s side. However, she’s not a villain by any means. She’s an incredibly nice person who is willing to sacrifice her own happiness to help others, whether friend or foe. Aqune is a very tragic character, and like Grasshop, is one of the most popular characters (though Hunter is the most popular of all.) She’s a favorite not just because she’s tragic, but because she’s incredibly tough. If Corona is an action girl, Aqune is even a step above that. She’s strong enough to take on multiple armed opponents alone, and she gets the most stylish fight scenes. It’s hard to talk too much about Aqune without spoilers, but she’s my other favorite character, and one of the best written, even considering she gets screwed over in the second half.

Portia- Aqune’s spider. She also has the personality of a rock.

There are other characters too, but like, watch the show and you’ll see.

7)Anything else? I ship Buguese x Aqune like it’s my job. Honestly, I’m much more fervent about them than I am my job. I would love more fic about them. Yes, I’m shameless.

8)Anything else else? There used to be an online game. It was a dice and card battle RPG with weekly quests. It was more popular than the anime. It was fun. It doesn’t exist anymore.

9)Final notes/warning- Okay, I’m straying from the point, but I’ve wanted to get this off my chest for a long time. The Spider Riders wiki is basically toxic and should not be treated as a good source. I don’t go and edit there because I know I’m not wanted, and I think it should be allowed to exist. Freedom of speech and all. But it hurts that people use it as a go-to source.

Basically, everything you might need to know about the anime is on the very detailed Wikipedia article. Go there instead. The reasons the wikia is so bad are as follows:

It is 100% dub biased. As I said above, the dub is not always accurate to the Japanese.

It is all about the anime with very little on the other canons. Yes, the anime may be the most famous, but it’s not all there is to the franchise, and a wikia should be more thorough. I say this as the owner of the Battle Spirits wikia.

Some of the information is outright wrong, even going by the dub. It feels like whoever edited it was throwing in their headcanons and misconceptions as if they’re fact

It’s super clear what pairings one writer does and doesn’t ship by what they wrote. That’s called bias, and doesn’t belong on a wikia. Friendly reminder that a one-sided relationship is not “close to canon” or however they put it. That would be like if I edited the Battle Spirits wiki to say Gilfam and Lucretia were probably lovers. Which they are as far as I’m concerned, but according to canon they were “friends.” Ship meta is an awesome thing, I love reading it, but keep it to your blogs and off encyclopedias.

A lot of the information was outright ripped off from my old fansite, then modified to fit the writers’ opinions. They did not ask me first. I might have even said yes, but the point is, if you’re going to copy someone else’s writing, you should ask them. I put my contact information on my site. On top of that, I don’t even consider my old website a great source for SR. It was something I threw together for a school project when I took web design, and had to follow particular guidelines on. So basically, they copied my half-assed schoolwork.

The wiki contains actual bashing of me. And my writing. I’m not kidding. That’s all the more insulting when my “writing” was good enough for them to rip off. Or at least it did have this at some point. I don’t really lurk around it, so I don’t know if it’s still there. That’s called bullying. And yes, I take it personally. Even if the wikia didn’t have all the other problems above, I would still loathe it just for this point alone.

#spider riders #geez this is almost 5k words #but really it was super fun to write #i'll probably regret this later #especially the last part #but right now I don't care

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murasaki-murasame · 7 years

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Thoughts on Dreamin’ Sun v1

Now that I’ve finally read this [after having dealt with the nightmare of originally getting an incredibly damaged copy and needing to wait an extra two weeks for a replacement copy to arrive], I may as well write down my thoughts. This isn’t really going to be a review, at least not “officially”, though I’ll obviously talk about my opinion on different parts of it. It’ll be more ramble-y and over the place than a proper review. Like with Rakugo, I might just wait until the series is done before doing a proper review of the entire thing, to save on time.

This got really, really long, but it’s mostly because since this is the first volume there’s just a lot to talk about right off the bat to get my initial feelings out. And also because there’s stuff like my whole lengthy point about comparing the art in this version to the original release of the series, which I won’t need to bring up as much later on. Even if I have less to say overall about the later volumes, I’ll still probably try and make posts like this about them even if they’re way shorter.

TL;DR: Basically I REALLY enjoyed this, more than I thought I would. It reminds me a LOT of Fruits Basket, in a good way. But it definitely seems to be going for a different vibe from that series. I like both, though. This might not be anything mind-blowing, especially if you’ve read a lot of shoujo rom-coms, but it seems like it’s probably a good title for people like me who are a bit less ‘experienced’ with the genre.

I’m really excited to see what happens in v2 now. I guess one good aspect of how it took like a month since v1′s release date for it to arrive is that it means there’s now only about a month or so until the next one’s out.

Detailed thoughts under the cut

For a bit of background info, the biggest reason I even checked this out is because I really adored the anime adaptation of Orange when it aired a year or two ago. I plan on getting the English release of the manga eventually, since I liked it so much as an anime. I’d been curious about this series for a while, but then Seven Seas announced their license of it, and I decided to wait for it and hold off on reading the scans online. I’m so glad I chose to just wait for this release, which I’ll explain in a bit. Over the last 6+ months or so I’ve been checking out the covers of the new Japanese re-releases of the series as they got revealed. Which certainly got me hyped for this. Let it be known that I am a complete sucker for beautiful covers, and man are these covers wonderful. They fit all of my aesthetic tastes so perfectly. Even if the series somehow falls apart later on I’m gonna still collect it just because the volume covers are so beautiful. OK, I just needed to lay that out there because these covers deserve to be raved about.

I guess it’s not really related to this series, but I’d also been reading Fruits Basket over the last six or so months via Yen Press’ new omnibus versions. Mostly because I’ve been wanting to read some cute, fluffy shoujo rom-coms for a while, and FB is like the most universally praised manga within that genre. I might still make a separate review of that series later. I’m bringing it up here because, honestly, it’s really hard not to note the surface-level similarities. I keep finding myself comparing the two. But even then, the comparison just makes me like Dreamin’ Sun, thus far, even more. I won’t call one better than the other, but this series definitely has it’s strengths.

To get more into detail about the similarities, both FB and Dreamin’ Sun involve a teenage girl being either voluntarily or involuntarily forced out of her home because of drama and life circumstances stemming from the relatively recent deaths of their mothers. Both protagonists wind up living in an isolated house with two teenage boys who complete the central love triangle, and their kimono-wearing house-owner/landlord who’s in his 20′s. It feels a bit weird to even list this out, since I don’t mean anything negative by it. I’m not saying that Dreamin’ Sun is a rip-off or anything. It certainly didn’t impact my enjoyment of it. It just highlights how even strangely similar premises can be handled in different ways. And obviously those elements aren’t the entirety of the story of either manga. I mean, you can’t really ignore the way that FB is also about supernatural curses and people that turn into animals, and Dreamin’ Sun is very much not about those things at all :V

[Lengthy ramble about comparing the current style to the ‘original stye’ starts here. Scroll down a bit if you want to skip past this]

Before I talk about the actual premise/story, which will take a while, I want to talk about what I said before about being happy that I chose not to read the scanlated version. I didn’t realize it until the author states it at the end of the volume, but for the recent re-releases of the series [that the English version is based on], she actually re-did a fair bit of the art. I spent a while comparing chapter one page by page across the ‘original version’ and the version we got in English. To put it simply, judging from just this one chapter, it seems that about half of the art is redone to some degree or another. It’s a bit complicated. It’s not a complete re-draw, or anything like that. It’s mostly focused on changes to how the characters themselves are drawn, but I noticed a few instances of slightly refined backgrounds and added/edited visual effects, though I wasn’t paying as much attention to that stuff. I can tell that the artist was focusing on fixing inconsistent or anatomically incorrect art, while in general making the art-style feel more consistent. I could tell that a lot of the panels that were left alone were the ones most similar in style to her current art.

It didn’t bug me or anything, but I could tell that there were notable differences between the style of certain panels, especially when it comes to how eyes, and specifically irises, are drawn. Takano’s art style clearly hasn’t changed that much over the years [it’s just gotten more refined and consistent], but she’s obviously developed a specific way of drawing eyes/irises, as you can see from the cover of this volume, which is very consistent across how she draws all of her characters now. It definitely clashes a bit with how she used to draw irises in particular in a more . . . inconsistent way. This is especially notable with Shimana, who used to often be drawn with largely unshaded/uncoloured eyes, and with more shaky lines. But, just to be clear, the difference is so relatively minor that I genuinely thought it was just a matter of her putting more effort into certain panels compared to other ones, and was genuinely surprised to see that there was, what, a 9+ year gap between when these were drawn? Wow. So yeah, she’s notably improved, and there’s still a fair amount of untouched art in this, but it’s not very noticeable at all. It’s actually most noticeable, I feel, with the colour pages [I assume they were originally in colour. This release has absolutely zero colour pages, which is very disappointing since I thought that the official blurb for it said that we’d get at least one per volume]. Something about the way they’re done feels more immediately different to her current style.

But even though the difference isn’t too noticeable just in the context of this version we have now, after seeing the original version and all of it’s art, I’m VERY happy she re-did the parts she did. A lot of panels in the original felt very similar to what she does now, but a LOT of them were noticeably worse, and definitely needed to be updated to make things consistent. She pretty much just took the worst of her old art and re-did it, and left the best parts, which seems like a good way to prioritize this sort of partial re-draw if she didn’t have the time to re-do the entire thing. Her older style definitely has it’s own charm and personality, and is arguably more experimental and expressive than her current style, which could be called overly consistent and ‘safe’ if you wanted to be negative about it. I imagine that there’s probably lots of people who prefer the original art completely, even beyond just basic nostalgia, and that’s fine. But after having been exposed to this new version first, I’m very glad it exists. It might get ironed out quickly [I only read the first chapter in it’s original form], but from that chapter alone it definitely felt like Takano sometimes struggled with keeping facial structures and hair-styles perfectly consistent between panels. Her handling of it’s better than a lot of other artists, but there were obvious examples of faces seeming a bit too flat at the side, or eyes being oddly sized/spaced, or foreheads being too large. The characters also have more realistic and consistent hair-styles, which is nice. It was especially noticeable with how Zen’s hair felt more wild and fire-y originally [and his hairline seemed too high a lot of the time], but is more specific and rigid now while retaining the spiky look [I really don’t know how to phrase this], and how Taiga’s hair felt more messy originally, with lots of strands/tufts on the top part sticking out more wildly. His hair’s a bit more tidy and flat now, but not entirely so.

[Art comparison ramble ends here]

Also the fan translation used for the scanlation I found was TERRIBLE, holy shit, but that’s not a point against the story itself obviously.

In general I love the art-style of this manga. I’ve been a huge fan of Takano’s way of drawing her characters ever since I watched Orange. I’m never good at praising visual types of art, since I never know how to put my thoughts into words about it, but her style is just really nice. It all feels very soft and consistent. She has a way of drawing hair and eyes in a way that captures a nice middle-ground between looking ‘realistic’ and looking ‘manga-y’, if that makes sense. They have a nice sense of depth and visual complexity to them. She’s also really good at drawing outfits, but really I’m just envious of anyone who knows how to do fabric folds at all. It might annoy some people that her modern style is more soft and subdued and clean than how her art used to be, but it never bothered me.

I guess there’s not too much to say in terms of the “story” of this, if we ignore the romantic elements. But I do want to say that I actually think I prefer this variation of the “girl leaves her original home and moves in with a group of guys” set-up to how it was handled in Fruits Basket. It’s a bit of a meaningless comparison though because I love them both for different reasons. FB was taking a way more comedic and silly angle for a lot of it, while Dreamin’ Sun handled it in a relatively more serious and reasonable way than I expected. Aside from the vague contrivance of Taiga immediately guessing that Shimana is looking for a new home, I really liked how everything else about it was handled. For one thing, Taiga’s an actual landlord who’s already renting out parts of his house to other teenagers, so it makes everything feel way less sudden and unprepared. It also explains why Taiga so readily presented her with the option. Which helped make it all feel way less creepy than it could have been. He also gave her every chance to back out of the choice if she wanted, while also being rather responsible in telling her what to do if she actually wants to commit to it. I greatly appreciated how he wanted to make sure that Shimana cleared things up with her parents and got permission from them, and it was nice seeing him go with her to more or less negotiate with them. It was cool seeing him back Shimana up and make a reasonable case about how she deserves to have some freedom of choice while she still can. And I really love that she didn’t cut herself off from her family entirely, or anything, and is going to stay in regular contact with them. They even gave her some money to help her get settled in. In general what I mean is that the story put WAY more effort into making the entire moving process more reasonable than it necessarily needed to be. I could have dealt with it being hand-waved more easily, with nobody caring that much about the gravity of the situation. So it’s nice that it went out of it’s way to do all that. [I just realized that the way Taiga stood up for Shimana and made a case for her choosing to stay at his house is probably reflective of his family’s connection to law. Huh. I never quite put two and two together on that]. It’s also worth noting that the updated art-style also made Taiga seem notably less creepy in chapter one. It actually surprised me how outright sinister and unnerving he looked at times in the original, whereas in this version he’s mostly just sorta snarky and deadpan. It’s especially notable how sinister he looked originally while commenting on Shimana’s bag at the end of the park scene, whereas in this version he just looked mildly curious about it. It’s stuff like this that also went a long way to making him and his living situation proposition feel more reasonable.

On the topic of things being reasonable and different to what I expected, this may just be because I don’t read much shoujo, and/or because I just recently finished FB in particular, but holy shit did I appreciate the openness Shimana displayed with her emotions. She actually talked about her feelings with people instead of just bottling them up! Obviously she hasn’t really confessed her feelings to Asahi yet, but honestly who can blame her. And even then, she still outright asked him during the test of courage if he has someone he likes, and then when she saw him with that other girl, she plainly asked him if she was his girlfriend. A fucking plus for characters talking to each other about stuff and not just making assumptions and sitting on them for chapters upon chapters that lead to misunderstandings and drama. And it’s just kinda refreshing to get a protagonist like Shimana who is relatively open in talking about romance-related topics, while still not being super confident and forward, and still having relatable insecurities. I also have to respect Asahi for being similarly open about things. I love that he was completely open about saying that even if they’re not dating, he has a crush on that girl. I would have been fine with him hiding it since that’s realistic, but it’s so refreshing to see him be clear and unambiguous about it. This should help minimize any future drama. It was also cute seeing him ask if Shimana wanted to eat lunch with the two of them. Even though I also get why she tried to back off due to not wanting to be some sort of third wheel. Also, I can’t QUITE remember since it’s been a day since I read this, but I remember there being a scene where she talks to Taiga and Zen about her crush on Asahi, and about her wanting to learn more about his preferences and so on. It’s just so nice seeing characters like this who can talk about such things without anyone getting weirdly shamed for their feelings. I also really hope that the story is going where I think it’s going, with the emerging topic of the value of appearance vs personality. Please let this send a message about how being a nice, loving person is more important and valuable than just being pretty. That’d be wonderful. Also, just to fit it in here, I really love Zen’s brand of tsundere, where it mostly comes across as him and Shimana just being close friends who can rib each other back and forth about stuff. He even apologized for one of the more shitty things he said to her as soon as he saw how much she’s going through. I prefer this brand of tsundere to the more rough and violent and edgy kind.The characters in general probably aren’t super unique or memorable for the genre or anything, but they really appeal to my tastes. I love that they’re all just really nice, reasonable people who know how to get along and have fun, while also having some wonderfully snarky back and forths. And obviously I like it when characters lean more toward talking to each other about stuff instead of being moody and quiet and holding onto misinformed assumptions and grudges and so on. I already kinda love Shimana as a protagonist. I get why some people might not like her, but she hits all the right notes for me. Especially since the awkwardness between her and her family, and her angst over all that, has basically been cleared up. I love that she has her own fun, vibrant personality, and can be as much of an active part of conversations as the guys. I like how her torn-up feelings over her mother’s death are portrayed, even though I expect it to never be explored quite as deeply as in something like Fruits Basket. And I already just love her dynamics with all the guys, which I guess I’ll get into when I talk about each one.I’m not even gonna lie, I ADORE Asahi already and I really hope that he’s the one that ends up with Shimana. I mean both ‘options’ are totally fine and I love them both, but I certainly have my preferences. To be blunt, my tastes in romances like this are SUPER vanilla. I know that a lot of people often dislike characters like Asahi who are near-perfect, kind, mellow, smart, etc, and the one that the protagonist already likes from the start with no ‘build-up’, but I’m a sucker for this. I just really like love interests like him. It’s kinda hard to deny that part of it’s because he’s genuinely my type and so I can totally get why Shimana likes him so much. I vividly remember seeing that one panel of him with glasses when the black hair goes away and my reaction was basically just “be still, my beating gay heart”. I will defend this precious boy with my life. But I do also like that we might start seeing a more frustrated, cold side of him as he interacts more with that other girl. There’s some nice contrast going on there. I also really like that he’s studying to be a lawyer, if only because it’s an interest/academic field that I’ve basically never seen a character like him have before, and I’m interested to see if it becomes more important later. [Also I really like his fashion sense. I have a *weakness* for guys wearing ties]Even though I love Asahi a lot already, Zen is just the most adorable thing in the universe. My sweet panda-loving child. I love him. I immediately fell in love with his character design as soon as I saw the cover of volume three. I love that he has a lot of traditionally masculine traits, like his punk aesthetic, his interest in martial arts, etc, but he has absolutely no shame about carrying a plush panda around even in school. The guy has a goddamn full-body panda bear pajama suit. It’s amazing. His plush panda itself is also wonderful in it’s own right. I love how in the new version of the art, there’s a few examples of Takano giving it cute little facial expressions to match Zen. It’s so fucking cute I wanna die. I can totally see why it’s sort of the mascot of the series. Anyway, as said above, I really click with his brand of tsundere. He knows how to treat Shimana like a good friend. I like that his ribbing isn’t just a one-sided thing that she meekly and silently endures, and that she can also poke him right back if she wants. I love that be immediately, profusely apologized for calling her useless once he learned about her family issues. I love that he didn’t even really poke much fun at her for her crush on Asahi. And obviously I love that he never does anything worse than verbal teasing, and I can’t see him doing anything much worse. In terms of his position as the secondary love interest, I’m down with it. He clearly has no chance of being the one she ends up dating, though, so I’m probably just gonna spend this whole thing feeling bad for him. Thankfully it won’t be quite as harsh as Suwa’s entire situation in Orange and how much that poor guy sacrificed for the sake of his friends. I hope that, if he can’t end up with Shimana, he at least finds someone else he can find happiness with.Most of my feelings on Taiga can be summed up with what I said above, about being really refreshed and surprised by how reasonable and non-creepy he is. He’s pretty wonderful thus far. There’s not a whole lot to say thus far, but I’m curious to see how things go as we explore his family situation and his history with Miku. It feels like there’s a lot left to discover with him. Just to get it out from the start, I REALLY hope the story never frames him as a love interest. It hasn’t thus far, at least. And obviously it could be totally fine if it’s executed well. But the power imbalance of their current situation, not to mention their age gap, bothers me a bit too much. Hopefully things just stay the way they are now. We’ll see. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.I don’t have much to say about Miku thus far since she only showed up near the end of the volume, but I can already tell that she’s going to be great. Hopefully she remains a part of the main cast, even if she doesn’t live in the same house [I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t, and that she was just visiting, but I forget]. It’d at least be nice to have a prominent female character for Shimana to befriend. I guess this is also on the note of characters, but it was . . . surprising, to say the least, when I got to the end of the volume where there’s an omake that literally introduces some of the other cast members who have yet to appear. It even specifies which volume they’ll first appear in. Which is really goddamn weird. I don’t dislike it, but it’s weird, and I could see it bothering some people. It’s at least fine by me since I’ve already seen these characters on the later volume covers. But in general I don’t care much about whether or not a character’s general existence is ‘spoiled’ for me. Though seeing Zen’s brother was a surprise since he doesn’t actually seem to appear on any of the covers. So that was new. There’s not really much to say about them all since it was such a short little bonus thing, but I feel like I might dislike Shuu, and I could see myself really enjoying Miura so long as he isn’t a complete asshole. [Also I might just feel silly about saying this if I get ‘proven wrong’ when he appears, but his comment about Taiga’s dad being a stud is making me REALLY hope, in the depths of my gay heart, that he might be bi. I’ve been burned before, though, so we’ll just wait and see].I don’t really have any predictions or anything for where I think things will go. There’s kinda not a lot to go on, which is how these things tend to be. There’s less of an over-arching story/mystery than there was in Fruits Basket, that’s for sure. We’ll just see what happens when it happens. All in all, I pretty much loved this from start to finish. It was pretty damn wonderful. It’s at least nice to read something light and fluffy. I’ve been really needing something like this lately.I’m certainly a bit afraid that, even with my almost entirely positive feelings toward this first volume, there might still be a chance of things crashing and burning later. I’ve definitely heard mixed/ambivalent things regarding this manga, but I’m hoping it’s just a matter of this being a typical shoujo rom-com that lacks the narrative hook and emotional depth of something like Orange, or Fruits Basket, or whatever. Because I’m totally down for ‘typical shoujo rom-com’. That’s what I’m here for. [[I also wouldn’t be surprised if the original art played a part in people preferring Orange. So that shouldn’t be an issue now]]Just to end this off, on the topic of my comparison between this and Fruits Basket, I feel like the best way to describe it is that I feel like Dreamin’ Sun is going to be more ‘consistently level’ than FB. It’s not going to have all of the really good parts of FB that made it such a core staple of the genre that stands the test of time, but it also definitely looks like it won’t have the same issues that I had with FB. So it might not have the same high peaks, but it should avoid some of the pitfalls that caused be to kinda sour on FB a bit by the end.P.S: This is a really subjective and personal point of mine, but at the very least, if there’s any one thing I want, it’s for this manga to avoid actively negative portrayals of queer themes/characters. I really don’t mind if nobody in this is queer, or even if the very concept is never discussed or shown at all, so long as it’s not negative about any of it if it DOES come up. Nothing negative along these lines has happened yet, at least. I’ll say so if anything bad happens later, though. I’d be fine with a base level of silent neutrality, or whatever, but I’d certainly appreciate something a bit more than that, and as I kinda said above, there’s at least one faint glimmer of potential representation, but I’m certainly not going to hold my breath, and if it doesn’t happen, then that’s fine.

#murasaki rambles #dreamin' sun #this is the exact sort of fluffy shoujo rom-com I've been needing in my life #at least since I finished Fruits Basket

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