#and after reading the manga I can definitely say that the subs for the episode are not good

[fluffykitteninabox]

¿Thoughts on Deku vs class 1-A?

(Also unrelated but yesterday at school the girl I have a crush on called me "a very cute and kind boy" and then hugged me and I been happy ever since and wanted to tell someone)

hi cute question mark anon (^w^)

congratulations on getting compliments from your crush!!

here's some good luck sparkles so that it may happen again ✨✨✨✨

I also feel like I should apologise for not answering your previous ask 😔

I did not expect to have to think about it so much. I just didn't know how to answer it, not in a "I don't know how to express my opinion" , but more like "I'm not sure what my opinion is". I'm working on it though.

Anyway Deku vs 1A:

I'm going to assume you mean both the actual fight and the before and after stuff.

warning: some salt about denim man and heroes in general because I can't help myself! - minor spoilers for Avatar the Last Airbender - nitpicking about superhero tropes

The before stuff:

First of all I love how the entire class barged in Nezu's office to force Endeavor to talk to them. The way the top heroes were operating using Izuku as bait was extremely stupid and didn't help at all in the end since Izuku just run off on his own and honestly did more work than any of them.

look at them, they're serious, they won't take no for an answer 😎

I like that they have like a class meeting about this and make a decision and they they go all together to present their demands to the administration.

Not much else to talk about here, I just think showing how they made the decision was cool and it reminded me of the meetings we have at uni. (though they didn't vote for the decision in this but it was clear they all agreed so it still counts)

The fight:

I think the actual fight and what the class told Midoriya was great. The voice acting and music were as always top tier.

I prefer the manga fight over the anime. Probably mostly because the subs I watched were a bit confusing so I couldn't keep up and get as emotionally invested because I was focusing too much on trying to read.

The animation was ok. I like the atmosphere with the rain (AND THE GREY SKY OMG I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE BONES LEARNT THAT WEATHER EXISTS!!) The fight was animated amazingly of course.

But there's some parts before and after that felt like they were missing dynamic movement. I'm guessing a lot of it has to with the time they had to do this and most of the focus going on the fight. Animators are extremely overworked and underpaid so I'm not going to hate on them for this. I'm guessing they might add stuff or make corrections for all episodes when the bluray comes out.

Also the fact that they shout their moves took me out a bit, which really is just a personal nitpick I have about the entire anime in general. In the manga you can say it's just a narrative tool so the readers can recognise each move more easily. And it works well. I'm currently also rewatching the third movie and I recognised Shouto doing hell spider without him saying anything. I think it's a bit too silly for characters to announce their moves out loud mid fight. It ruins the tension for me and also it's kind of stupid in the same way as shouting "SNEAK ATTACK!" before attacking is.

I think it's cooler when they don't say it and it's just a neat little detail for fans who recognise them. (also no this gif isn't the atla spoilers! 😂)

Bakugou's apology had me bawling in both manga and anime and Uraraka's speech was just amazing. The new episode with the bath scene was also a bit confusing but again I think that's a problem with the sub I'm watching. I'll go read that in the manga later. (these are all parts I hadn't read before so maybe that also played part in the confusion)

Overall I love how this part of the story shows the bond class 1A has and also how great they work as a team. I just love them they're my children 😭💖😭💖😭!!

The aftermath:

I dislike how Nezu and the top heroes talk about Midoriya like he's an object. Jeanist especially talks about him in an extremely dehumanising way imo.

I have kind of said this before about different parts of the story, but I feel like the child soldier stuff is never really properly addressed. From what I understand Horikoshi probably doesn't consider the way UA operates as a child soldier program, but he probably considers what Hawks went through a child soldier program.

I think both are terrible, and UA is just the lesser of two evils.

Now I understand that this is a shonen and the kids are going to be the ones in the middle of the plot. This was handled perfectly fine in earlier arcs with the kids making the decision on their own and then being reprimanded by the adults for putting themselves in danger needlessly, or being forced to defend themselves against villains.

However this seems to have stopped happening after the kids got their hero licences. Now the kids are being sent to the front lines of the war and suddenly everyone's ok with that. Which unfortunately accidentally implies that the pros and teachers were only actually worried about paying the consequences if a child under their supervision got hurt.

I'd personally prefer the adults we're supposed to consider good role models didn't treat their trainees they supposedly care a lot about like weapons and send them to fight a war without informing them on why they're there!!

*spoilers start here*

In ATLA during the invasion the kids and adults fight along side each other. Is it still fucked up that the kids in ATLA had to fight in a war? Yes. But the adults in ATLA (the ones we're supposed to root for) prioritise the kid's safety. Parents leave their kids behind to go fight in the war, they don't send their kids to the front lines. When the kids fight it's because they organised the attack, they chose to do this and they fight together with the adults as equals. There's no one being kept in the dark, they all know why they're there. And when the situation becomes hopeless the adults make sure the kids escape and they are the ones staying behind. This isn't really a direct scene comparison, but I don't think it's outlandish to assume that none of the good adults in ATLA would ever try to use Aang as bait or a weapon. Anyone that tries to is presented as bad for doing this.

*spoilers end here*

I tried to be as vague as possible so I don't think it's too spoilery

anyway conclusion: ATLA adults>MHA adults

Unless of course this issue gets addressed and they all lose their jobs because they're honestly terrible at them! But considering the way Horikoshi portrays them I doubt something like that would ever happen.

The reason I brought all this up is because I wanted to bask in how much better Uraraka's "Izuku is just a normal person like all the rest of us"👌😭😭speech is compared to bastard Jeanist's "let our weapon recharge here so we can use him again later"🤮!!

I think Uraraka and Bakugou are the true highlights of this whole thing. They were amazing. After them I think it's Iida and then the rest of the class. But I will point out Jirou and Mina specifically because the both really got me emotionally and I didn't expect it.

the flashbacks the other characters had I expected. Iida with the Stain fight, the sports festival flashback with Ojiro, even with Tsuyu it wasn't a surprise. But I didn't expect the callback to Midoriya helping Jirou with her notes. Because as she stated it was something that seemed so small and insignificant. Why would anyone ever have a flashback about that?

Anyway emotions AAAAAAAAAA!!

But the way the scene is recontextualised really shows that it's the small things in life that people will remember.

Edit: I forgot Mina because I was too busy being emotional about Jirou! Yeah... um.. death is sad and Mina made me tear up when she said she doesn't want to lose anyone again

#actually I just rewatched the episode about the fight to see if there was anything I missed #and after reading the manga I can definitely say that the subs for the episode are not good #there's a lot of parts that don't make sense at all #so most of my issues would probably be solved if I find a site with better subs #ask #krista answers #mha

[canmom]

Ping-Pong The Animation: eps 1-3

So Masaaki Yuasa [AN12, AN28, AN150] can do no wrong, right? OK, well, I'll admit Ride Your Wave was kinda mid, and Devilman Crybaby goes hard as hell at the beginning and end but sorta treads water in the middle, but... generally speaking! No-one does it like Yuasa.

For reasons I don't really remember, I didn't get very far watching Ping-Pong The Animation some years ago. It should be entirely my shit: Yuasa pulling in a gang of wildly creative animators to put their unique spin on something. However, the first episode didn't entirely hook me, and I never got round to trying the second before something else punted 'watching Ping Pong' out of my brain. ADHD, y'know.

This is a shame because even the very next episode seriously goes, as does the one after that. But also this anime isn't entirely what I was expecting (crazy sakugafest full of Yuasa weirdness). Not to say it doesn't do a lot of really unique stuff with its cinematography and animation, but these first episodes at least are more about like... dissociation! ennui!

But more on that in a mo. First I wanna continue the thread of 'how do you animate sports'.

So, ping-pong, or table tennis. Not a sport I know much about, I'll be honest. (To be fair I don't know a lot about sports in general outside of some very specific niches. The sports I've pursued so far are rather eclectic: swimming, fencing, tai chi chuan, and roller derby; I never got particularly far in any and it's been years since I've done them.)

I'll inevitably be drawing a lot of comparisons to The First Slam Dunk, the other sports anime I've watched recently. I do think it's a productive comparison though! Both of them bring something of the visual language of manga into their presentation in unique ways. I have not yet read the Ping Pong manga, but it's by Taiyō Matsumoto, otherwise known for scifi manga like Tekkonkinkreet (god tier movie, still need to read the manga) and Number Five. So that's a pretty impressive track record!

If you go take a look at some scans of Ping Pong, what will immediately jump out is the shaky, rough line style and unusual camera angles and compositions.

The stylisation is also very different from a lot of manga. Noses are fully drawn, eyes are realistically small, and in contrast, lips and mouths tend to get the emphasis - as well as hands.

Knowing this makes a lot of the creative choices in the anime make sense! It also adopts a shaky lineart style, and makes use of heavy line weights and spotting blacks to add definition. It also has a lot of crazy closeups and layouts, and it loves a visual metaphor. But most of all, the most striking element of this anime is how often it loves to split the picture up into little panels...

...which [eli]'s subs do a really good job of typesetting, incidentally, moving the dialogue to fit naturally into the split composition. And while this shot with 7 smaller shots is perhaps on the extreme end, splits of three or more are pretty frequent. It's a really interesting way to evoke the effect of seeing a whole page of manga

So, as you proooobably know, ping-pong is a game of bouncing balls off a little table and directing them into places the opponent will find it hard to hit them back. From watching this anime I picked up that there are a number of styles of holding the racket (e.g. 'penhold grip' and 'shakehand') and approaches to hitting the ball (e.g. 'chopping'). A lot of this pretty much went over my head, but honestly it didn't matter, since the narrative significance was pretty much always evident.

Compared to basketball, though, ping-pong is a pretty tricky sport to make visually interesting! Sure, you have the players running to and fro, and that can lead to some interesting poses, but how do you get the drama and tension into this?

Ping-pong additionally is all 2D, it doesn't have the sort of resources that Toei could throw at making the best looking 3DCG basketball game ever. It is limited to a TV-feasible drawing count. So it has to make use of clever limited-animation tricks to get the most impact out of fewest drawings.

Let's take an example sequence from episode 3. A minor character is about to get his ass kicked by Tsukimoto. Tsukimoto is something of a pingpong prodigy, and yet he is very emotionally closed-off and even standoffish; he doesn't particularly seem to like the game very much, and doesn't particularly feel inclined to flex on other players and get into the status games. But other players, like Wenge, have heard about him and want to see what he's got.

First we have the setup. Other characters are observing and discussing the game. Since ping-pong tends to involve very rapid exchanges, it can follow the classic shōnen model where there's a lot of talking, flashy fight sequence, more talking...

The cut happens in two steps, maintaining the vertical dividing line. This approach to cutting is used a lot in Ping-Pong, and it's quite a creative way to keep visual interest when it's using a lot of largely static shots. The panel on the right is more animated than the panel on the left, a naturalistic depiction of bouncing the ball off the table.

Things start moving faster here. A rapid pan on the image on the left disguises the fact that this anticipation pose is actually not moving at all. This then goes into a rapid, explosive moment as this guy serves.

The final pose is held for a couple of seconds while the voiceover line discussing his intended move finishes. This sort of elasticity of time is a very Osamu Dezaki type of move - it's something that Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata actually really disliked.

A sound effect hits as Tsukimoto appears on the right in silhouette, anticipating his reaction, and setting up the next shot which leaves the split picture and hides the background for just a moment, as if to put us in Tsukimoto's shoes: he only sees the ball.

Tsukimoto follows through and holds this pose - the ball is the only thing moving here. The ball moves mainly on 2s while Tsukimoto moves on 3s and 2s, and he and the ball move on alternating frames. He holds the pose as the ball zips off to the right (bouncing off the corner of the table), with a speed lines-like effect. At the end of the shot, the ball freezes in the air for the moment while the sound echoes.

The actual table-tennis round lasts just seconds, and the drawing count involved is pretty minimal, but it does a lot with those drawings.

We go back to voiceovers and reactions in the next few shots, returning to the split video as Tsukimoto's opponent thinks about how he'd really rather be at the beach...

Often, these comic-like compositions will change one panel at a time, and while one panel is animated another panel will be still, naturally moving your eyes across the screen. It is an approach similar to some experiments I've seen in 'animated comics' viewed in a web browser, where the panels do not appear all at once, but enter with some animation.

So this is the sort of animation technique that Ping Pong uses. It's effective! Elsewhere the cuts are used in a less direct, continuity-editing way and more in a juxtaposition/montage way. For example, Wenge's desire to return to China is symbolised by match cutting/fading to shots of an aeroplane.

And there is a recurring image, which I'm sure will be expanded on, of Tsukimoto hiding in a cupboard and wishing for a tokusatsu hero to come save him from his isolation. As Tsukimoto's feelings about himself change, the toku hero is replaced by a robot. At this points it starts to feel like an outright Ikuhara anime.

There is occasionally a little bit of CG, mainly when Tsukimoto uses a different type of racket surface, and the way the ball and racket make contact is the crucial thing that the shot is trying to convey...

It gets the job done, but I'm glad they stuck with 2D for most of it.

So I went in the first time expecting like, crazy elaborate sakuga - and to be fair, the OP, animated by none other than Shinya Ohira, delivers on that front - but if anything what I've seen so far in Ping-Pong is actually a triumph of storyboarding and limited animation techniques. I think back then I didn't have the eyes to appreciate it in the same way.

OK, that's the film nerd stuff, but what about the story? Ping Pong follows two school friends, Makoto Tsukimoto aka "Smile" (right), and Yutaka Hoshino aka "Peco" (left). Smile is defined by a flat affect and a standoffish persona. He's just going through the motions. He's very good at ping-pong, but to him it's just a way to pass time, and he's scornful about the idea of caring all that much about it. Much like Shinji with his casette player, Tsukimoto is pretty much always staring at a handheld games console rather than make eye contact with anyone.

Peco on the other hand is the more childish one - playful, kinda arrogant, very much an 'emotions on his sleeve' kinda guy. He sulks when he loses and gloats when he wins, and is constantly seen with bubblegum or other kinds of candy. He provides a lot of our commentary when he chats with the other players.

日本語上手 readers probably noticed the tsuki (moon) vs hoshi (star) symbolism thing they've got going on here!

High-school table tennis in this story seems to be a rather 'tough love' kinda world. Most of these players tend to look down on those who can't meet their level. Going easy on someone is seen as weakness, or cultivating bad habits, by almost everyone. Tsukimoto doesn't play at his full potential because he isn't as invested in winning as all these weirdos, but it seems that might be starting to change...

The coach is interesting. He's an old man and fairly disdainful of the club at large, and prone to speaking English randomly with a heavy accent. But he gets excited at the prospect of getting Tsukimoto to unleash his full potential, in terms that are repeatedly metaphorically compared to romance/marriage.

And when Tsukimoto gets sick of it, he challenges him to a game, with the stakes as...

Cue Makima/Beatrice images here I guess.

Tsukimoto de facto wins when the coach collapses, but this episode marks a change of heart. He starts to think of himself as a robot - the affect of a robot replacing the affect of the toku hero in his fantasy. And in this way he does what people seem to want and plays ping pong with mechanical precision, expressed once again in visual metaphor (shot here from a cool transformation sequence)...

What if I just dissociate harder? This is gonna end well.

So it really is one of those kind of like 'ennui of being a teenager' kind of stories - c.f. say FLCL. 'Boy with complicated emotional landscape' is Yuasa bread and butter, but the particular variant here seems a little unusual for him - they tend to be a little more earnest. I'm curious to see how Tsukimoto develops.

I am definitely enjoying the arrogant Chinese player Kong Wenge. Dude's got a lot of screen presence, and while I'm sure he'll get shown up sooner or later, he makes for a very fun antagonist of sorts.

In comparison to Slam Dunk... one thing that's significantly different about table tennis is that it's an individual rather than a team sport, which means it's harder to have an ensemble cast all contributing to the protagonists' eventual victory - instead it's about a lot of individual arcs interweaving with each other, individual duels. Besides that, it does seem like it will be following a similar arc of a character in an emotional hole (grief for Ryota, depression for Tsukimoto) finding new meaning and purpose through sports - though I can't be sure how things are gonna go for Tsukimoto here!

The tone however is quite different. Even when it's silly, I feel like Slam Dunk is a very sincere story. There's little detachment or irony, or false consciousness - with perhaps the major exception of Ryota's mother, who lets her own grief and trauma get in the way of understanding her son. But ultimately 'why would you care this much about basketball' is not a question that anyone would ask in Slam Dunk. Even the judo guy in the manga who's trying to recruit Sakuragi is just as hot-blooded about his own sport of choice.

There's a difference in like, general affect about the players as well, which has something to do with the sport itself. Yeah, Sakuragi's superpower is his 'genius' ability to predict rebounds, and there is plenty of strategising in Slam Dunk - but basketball is still a sport that very much emphasises physical power, and as much as Slam Dunk will work hard to sell you on a clever trick pass, the visuals are also emphasising the speed that players are dashing, the height they're jumping, their physique. Table tennis by contrast seems to be a sport that's more about prediction and mind games.

That said it is equally just like Matsumoto's style being different from Inoue's. Now I know it's by the guy who wrote Tekkonkinkreet, a lot about this series falls into place! There's a sense of tension here, of being fundamentally at odds with the world. The autismfeels. This is reflected also in the drawings - the characters don't entirely seem comfortable in their embodiment.

So if that's what I'm getting from just three eps, I'm very excited to see what the remaining 8 have to offer. This series is probably too long to cram into Animation Night format, but we'll see...

#anime #manga #ping pong the animation #masaaki yuasa #animation

[formulaorange]

2024 Winter Anime

It's here! It's finally here!!! Solo Leveling comes out this season! There's definitely a few others to keep an eye out for but this is the star of the winter season:

Solo Leveling One of my most anticipated series. I'm caught up on the english light novels (8 volumes) and I'm honestly so invested in this story. In a way it gives the same impact as One Punch Man but if the story progressed a little faster toward fame and growth in his power. Easily the best of the season. Noteworthy On Going Shows: Frieren - Episodes 17-28 One of the most mesmerizing and well paced fantasies I've seen. Also one of my 10/10s of all time. Worth looking into if you remotely like fantasy. Shangri La Frontier - Episodes 14-25 Another fantasy game series that honestly just looks like it's a fun game. Explores a lot of game mechanics within this full-dive VR type game that almost puts SAO to shame. Fun action, fantasy and fun for game lovers. Apothecary Diaries - Episodes 13-24 My current favourite drama/romance/medical mystery series. The characters are simple but the show highlights the different dynamics and almost feels like an enemies to lovers plot. New Seasons:

Blue Exorcist - Season 3 This is one of the og shows I watched growing up. It's a mythology school themed show that I loved. It's been 13 years since season 1 aired and I'm stoked to see it come back. It's being done by a different studio since A-1 is busy with solo leveling, so I'm not sure if it'll hit the same but I'll still check it out at least for the nostalgia.

Mashle - Season 2 The funniest anime I've seen in a while. Man muscle brains his way through magic school and the whole show is a meme of harry potter and other magic series. Truly entertaining. Can't wait for this season

Delicious In Dungeon This is a series I've wanted to pick up the manga for for a while. It's about dealing with food and hunger when these adventurers are deep in a dungeon and learn to start cooking and eating what they can find down there. Funny concept but honestly looks like a lot of fun.

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer I read this manga and light novel so long ago. (Literal years - link to my manga thoughts and summary). I'm looking forward to the adaptation. I think nowadays this kind of story doesn't catch nearly as much attention as it did a few years ago. An adventurer dies in a dungeon and is reborn as an undead who can evolve as he kills other monsters and he deals with trying to fit in with the human realm again and evolving. I'm still looking forward to it after keeping an ear our for so long!

Mr. Villain's Day Off I recently heard about this series and thought it was such a cute concept. Us with all our villain complexes with enjoy this one. Will likely be a background show for me as there won't be a huge plot, regardless, still fun to watch. Burn the Witch - #0.8 - 30 min Special I think this won't be as exciting now that Bleach has come back and we aren't as depraved of Tite Kubo's work but I really enjoyed the original short series. Hoping for more of this world in the future. Sequels: Classroom of the Elite - Season 3 Tsukimichi - Season 2 (Link to review of season 1) The Dangers in My Heart - Season 2 More Continuations: Undead Unluck Ragna Crimson After going through 20+ shows every season, many with sub-par animations and the same fantasy twists, I've become real picky about which series are even worth trying to watch these days. Here are the ones that deserve at least 2 episodes in order: A Sign of Affection - Gets a special spot since it's incredibly rare to see disability representation in anime and it looks like it's done quite well- A romance between a guy and a deaf girl. Looks super sweet Bucchigiri?! - I honestly can't say this looks appealing to me personally but I've hear the name before and well it's MAPPA. (Give em a break) 'Tis Time for "Torture," Princess - looks well animated and just a fun watch Metallic Rouge - The sci-fi series for this season. I'm not sure I have it in me to watch something heavy like this this season but it looks decent. The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic The Witch and the Beast - Here for manga readers - lowkey looks like the manga will be much better and this might be a skip for me. Hokkaido Gyaru's are super Adorable (Ecchi) ALSO - Big reminder: Haikyu!! and Demon Slayer have their movies coming out this season as well (both theatrical releases so keep an eye out!!!) Demon Slayer: To the Hashira Training - Feb 2nd 2024 Haikyu!! - The Dumpster Battle - Feb 16th 2024

#anime #new anime #anime recommendation #2024 anime #2024 winter anime #solo leveling anime #solo leveling #frieren #frieren: beyond journey's end #sousou no frieren #mashle magic and muscles #mashle #mashle season 2 #blue exorcist #blue exorcist season 3 #ao no exorcist #shangri la frontier #the apothecary diaries #delicious in dungeon #the unwanted undead adventurer #mr villain's day off #burn the witch #bucchigiri?! #a sign of affection #the witch an the beast #haikyuu #demon slayer

[waitmyturtles]

Ooooh man, while my dash is on QUEEN FIRE right now, I wanted to get a couple of short reviews out of shows I recently finished. This post is going to be mostly about Cherry Magic, but I did wrap up Cafe Minamdang and wanted to tie a bow on that right quick:

1) Cafe Minamdang: so cute! This was my first full show starring Seo In-guk, and Doom At Your Service is definitely going to be up on my list in the very near future (especially now that I have discovered that BELOVED WHALE BUTLER Kang Tae-oh is also in it). 

I mentioned previously that I wasn’t a huge fan of Oh Yeon-seo in the early episodes, and I think my overall judgement is that her character wasn’t as well written at the start as it could have been -- but I see now that her stiff character needed to be set up as a foil to Nam-jun’s antics. I forgive you, Jae-hui! The pairing of Jae-hui and Hye-jun was particularly entertaining and cute.

I know Seo In-guk best because his 2016 song, “Bebe,” has been on permanent repeat on my Spotify (AAHHHH GAH I LOVE THAT SONG), so this show was a TOTALLY wonderful surprise for his hilarious acting. I thought he was fabulous and convincing in his continued pain over Jae-jeong’s death, and his drive to solve Jae-jeong’s murder in such a wild and self-indulgent way. 

I think the writing didn’t quite address some real gaps, like, whoa, the prosecutor is brothers with a really questionable figure in this scheme wtf, maybe we should find another prosecutor?! And also, omg, don’t turn your back on criminals after you apprehend them, they will either escape or hit you, turn around, AAHH!

But this seriously didn’t detract from what was an easy watch -- super recommend it if you need a watch that doesn’t wrench your emotions out from your torso.

2) Cherry Magic: BUT SPEAKING OF EMOTIONS WRENCHED FROM YOUR TORSO Y’ALL

As with my recent KinnPorsche meta, yes, I realize I am SERIOUSLY BEHIND on Cherry Magic, although thrilled to learn that I’ll be joining the eng sub crowds in waiting for the November DVD release of the movie.

OMG YOU GUYS! Literally without Tumblr, I wouldn’t have had this show in my life.

What can I say? Kurosawa is pure in his love for Adachi. Adachi is pure in his love and compassion for Kurosawa and for the others in his life that  unintentionally messaged their feelings about him and feelings about their lives. 

In trying to catch up with the existing meta out there about Cherry Magic, one note I see repeated is, why don’t Adachi and Kurosawa kiss in the drama? I haven’t read the manga yet (I just bought volume 1), so I’m not sure if they kiss in the manga, but this to me is reminiscent of Kinou Nani Tabeta and Shiro-san’s avoidance of Kenji’s come-ons. If Shiro-san and Kenji kiss in the drama adaptations, to me, that wouldn’t be telling their story as accurately from the perspective of how Shiro-san IS in his life as a slightly stiff, somewhat anti-social guy.

So I also think, if kissing happened in the Cherry Magic drama adaptation, that that would detract from the messaging that we’re getting from Adachi and his growth as a person and a young man. 

Adachi is so touched by the pure love that he sees coming from Kurosawa that he’s literally moved to tears. Adachi is driven to respond to Kurosawa’s feelings because those feelings are so strong, and he feels an urge to be decent towards the man that is Kurosawa and Kurosawa’s open heart. 

Couple of thoughts here. Firstly, their pairing doesn’t strike me as a usual seme-uke pairing in that the seme is overly strong in his approaches. Sure, Kurosawa flirts -- that happens outside of the mind-reading. But, Adachi’s mind-reading ISN’T communication. It’s not a communication FROM Kurosawa TO Adachi. 

I SO LOVED THIS! I really liked this play on how “messaging” and “communication” can work in a coupling, and I truly enjoyed how it upended the usual seme-uke pairing. (I do love, love, love, love stories that get messy and complicated about how communication COULD work.)

The story about their love, to me, was about Adachi alone deciding to accept and move forward with the information -- NOT communication, just information -- that he had about Kurosawa, to decide that he was going to explore his life in response to a purely wholesome love that he was unintentionally exposed to.

If this is a trend in Japanese BL -- because we saw this in Old Fashion Cupcake two years later -- then I am all for it, namely, the exploration of decency towards another human being. I wrote about this in my first-ever Tumblr post, when I was so moved by Nozue’s compassionate morality within himself to treat both himself and Togawa with the loving decency that humans COULD and/or SHOULD show to each other. In Nozue’s instance, that drove him to consider and accept a queer revelation about himself, that he could love another man.

It’s a similar set-up here in Cherry Magic, and I wish I could have watched the shows chronologically as a way for me to understand the Japanese BL genre more. Adachi literally considers responding to Kurosawa’s love, and he DOES respond, because he sees the love as so true and honest and beneficial to his life.

And we see Kurosawa’s development, too. We see WHY he loves Adachi. It’s why others love Adachi. Adachi is a compassionate guy! He’s an insecure person who lacks confidence, and recognizes at the end of the series that the people in his life root and pull for him. 

The purity of the messaging of the show -- that love, when well-intentioned and well-placed, is a BEAUTIFUL thing -- coupled the fact that a human can explore themselves outside of the spectrum placement that they may otherwise identify with, makes Cherry Magic an important show to me. I just loved how DIRECT the show was with Adachi’s compassionate consideration of Kurosawa, his jealousy over Kurosawa’s past, his empathy towards Kurosawa’s pain. 

There wasn’t a struggled journey as, say, Nozue went through in Old Fashion Cupcake. Adachi didn’t have the burdens of age and authority as Nozue has. Adachi hadn’t ever been in love before. (I don’t even think the virginity aspect mattered here -- to me, what mattered more was that Adachi hadn’t ever been in emotional love before.) If his first experience of emotional love was this purest form of love and attraction that he got from Kurosawa, then all the better for him. Adachi knew how to respond to it as authentically necessary for himself. Because he already knew how to treat people compassionately, he knew how to turn that lens into himself, and consider himself a person worthy of love. This realization very much made the ending just so, so beautiful and satisfying for me. 

*****

(Side note: there’s something I’m pondering about the BL trope of an individual having a queer revelation only after being approached with the opportunity. I want to pose this question to expert viewers of the genre, but what I’m wondering is whether or not the nations from which these shows hail, view this revelatory experience as one being on a/the sexuality spectrum, or if it’s expected to be a one-time episode of queerness that wouldn’t necessarily repeat itself in an individual’s life. More on this soon in another post. Old Fashion Cupcake deals with this a little in the later volumes of the manga, where Togawa identifies Nozue as “most certainly not gay.”)

#cafe minamdang #seo in guk #cherry magic #machida keita #akaso eiji #cherry magic meta

[ciaossu-imagines]

Hope it’s alright that I’m responding to your admin chatter now with your inbox being open or the day. If it’s still too early, I’m really sorry. Damn. I hope you still got plenty of rest after pulling your all-nighter. And that’s very understandable. I’m also looking forward to finally talking about it since I didn’t say so much when you first mentioned the new chapter but would love to (or at least I hope to) say more about it. Super quickly even 😅 And I’m glad people are since you do deserve that. Yeah, it’s a romance anime and the summary (which I can DM you if you want) does sound quite nice. Do you not generally watch romance stuff? And thank you or saying that 😊 I’m currently rewatching Demon Slayer and I’m at the latest season, but I’m also rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender so it will probably be when I’ve finished with those two series. I see and it makes sense that that kinda stuff would take up so much room. And what you’re saying about the screencaps is very true. And I hope so as well because it does deserve so much love 😊

Sure thing 💕 And I’ve finally caught up on all of the posts, which is nice. Oh that bit about your manga app really does sound handy and nice. It that website really is. And it’s also colour coded so that also makes it easy to quickly see which episodes are filler and it also even says if an episode is mixed filler. And I see, that makes sense. Sometimes filler episodes can be good but yeah, it is indeed handier going for the source material so you don’t have to worry about filler. It’s nice to hear that you had so much un reading the Iruma-kun! manga 😃 And I see. That’s nice to know and it’s great that there’s still great stuff to come. Did / Do you watch it in the sub or dub?

That’s interesting. Thank you so much for saying all of that. Yeah, not only that but since we last spoke it updated on my computer and now the section that shows all of your conversations has become ever so slightly longer and I just don’t understand why and I do hate the constant,  unnecessary updates on the PC. It’s like they just love changing the way it looks since apart from that, the updates don’t really do anything good (that I can see). I’ll give you a breakdown sine it’s easiest like that. Seasons 1 to 3 are amazing adaptations, just so beautifully done in all ways (so that’s till chapter 190). But then there are two important matches of a different school and instead of putting them into the next season or something, they just shoved them into two OVA’s (so one match per episode), which is so rushed. Still looks great, just probably missed out on some bits. I mean, it definitely did miss out on this manga bit that I saved which is so cute, but since it’s been a while that I’ve read it, I can’t say just how good or bad the adaptation was. Then we have the first part of the fourth season and I honestly don’t know how good or bad an adaptation it is beause I didn’t read the manga for that but it is really nice, and the second part has great music (including one of my favourite OSTs) and stuff but I think it’s not as great as the previous seasons. So yeah, everything until the end of season 3 and the first two OVAs are amazing, it’s just afterwards that the quality unfortunately drops. But yeah, I can’t really quantify it in how much you’ll be missing beause we do get important bits, it’s just not the same quality (when it comes down to the last season) as in the manga. So I’d recommend watching the first three seasons and hopefully it’s back on your manga app or somewhere for free. I almost forgot to say that there are movies which kind of summarise the main match of the first three seasons (so one movie per season) and not only that but they have added scenes from the manga that weren’t put in the actual season. The one for the second movie is really feelsy and there’s this added scene in the third movie that I really love beause of how funny it is. It’s between two of my faves and the way the owl baby just says something is just so funny and gods I love that scene so much. But yeah, since I’ve saved it, I can just as well send it to you if you don’t feel like watching the whole movie. There’s also an extra scene at the end of the movie, which they have on YouTube. Either way, you’ll have to go to the manga if you want to continue since there’s still so much after the latest season, not only the babies grown up but also a very important match that I know is best read because it’s been put into a movie of 1 hour 25 even (that came out last month) though it deserves to be an at least 8 episode long in my opinion season, so yeah, hopefully with all this info, you can make an informed decision. True. It’s very nice. I’m looking forward to hearing all your Haikyuu!! opinions and who of all of the guys ends up being your fave, whether you end up with multiple like me and just anything really. And that does sound like a good plan. And thank you for that 😭

I hope the spoilers were so out of context that it turns out better than you fear. And that’s very understandable. The characters remain their lovable selves after all so no matter what, you’ll always have their scenes to look forward to in the manga. Glad to hear that you’ve recovered from your cold 😄 Oh that sounds so horrible and disgusting. I’m so sorry to hear you had to deal with something like that. And it is good to hear that your workplace is stocked up on those kinds of things. True. And I’m a sucker for justified text so I’m glad that I can always do that to my stories. No problem 😄 Glad to have been of service.

C

That’s perfectly all right! Just as a heads up, by the way, when I shut down my ask box, I’m only closing it to actual new requests like ‘can I have a scenario for reader reacting to Gojo SPOILER ALERT’ (by the way guys, it’s really not nice to toss spoilers into the ask box – while I had guessed at that particular one happening, I hadn’t read it as of that moment)! It’s always open for general chattering and talking to me though, so feel free to send these in! And thank you for that! I slept and slept well for once, that was for sure. I’m always running on not enough sleep, to be honest, so I’m pretty used to being tired anyhow, haha. And please, always feel free to say more about it! It was a great chapter and makes me happy and I’m genuinely interested in your thoughts on it 😊 Okay, that makes sense with the title! I generally don’t watch or read anything that focuses exclusively on romance, nope. I don’t mind romance around other things in the story – for example, YYH definitely has some romance elements, but it’s not the entirety of the story, Ouran has very romantic moments but there’s also comedy and drama elements of it, etc. It’s just not my cup of tea, but I’m always happy when other people enjoy things like that! I hope both rewatches are going well! A:TLA is just one of the most beautifully done shows and stories, in my opinion, and I’m sorely overdue on a rewatch on it myself, honestly! How are you enjoying the rewatches of both?

Wow, you got caught up fast! Thank you for catching up then and I hope you enjoyed most of the posts! It is really handy and I definitely had to search up that website. If it’s the one I found, it has a crap-ton of shows done up too, and from what I can gather, it’s all fans writing these up which is amazing and really shows just how useful fandom can be 😊 There are some good filler episodes, I do agree with that…but some filler arcs really, really drag on or sometimes shows (like Bleach, which is an excellent example) just have wayyy too many filler episodes and it makes it hard to get into them for me. As for watching Iruma-kun! I watched it in the dub, just because I can speed through dubbed stuff compared to a sub. I can get maybe two or three episodes of a sub in a complete day off, but I can get double that for a dub, since it doesn’t hurt my eyes as much. The dub was well done, with some really good voices and the English music was still catchy, though I’ve looked up the songs for the sub and they are amazing as well.

Wow, that sounds like a pointless update! It doesn’t really sound incredibly well-executed, but maybe they wanted more room for people who have to use larger fonts? I can only guess because otherwise I see no point, haha. Thank you so, so much for the thorough and clear explanation! It’s good to know that seasons 1 through 3 are well done at least. I’ll have to google the chapters following that point though, the ones for the OVA’s to see if any important details were missed, just because I’m that sort of person. I like to know all the details and the little bits and pieces. Good music is enough to interest me in the fourth season though…or any seasons of anything. Music is definitely something that can sway me to looking favourably on something, haha! I’m sorry to hear the quality drops though. I’ll definitely keep checking my manga app for it after I finish the first 3 seasons and the movies (which thank you for letting me know about them!) I really do want to read the manga for both that and Demon Slayer, so I might have to use that app at some point, even if I hate the chapter limitation. If I could pay and not be limited on chapters, I would be more okay with that, honestly. I’m still on the first season (again, struggle with subs) but I haven’t really gotten any favourites yet, it’s more like I enjoy everyone for their own individual quirks. They’re all cute and charming in their own ways, even the ones with slightly more noticeable flaws.

Oh no, that spoiler I’m hoping is completely wrong was very specific in that certain beloved characters of mine turn out to be bad guys and it really, really upsets me. But you are right – the characters are their loveable selves in what I’ve read before and I’ll always have those chapters to go and read however many times I want. And thank you – people can be really gross when out in public, haha, especially sick people but at the same time, I try to keep a kind mind. I am with you – a good bit of justified text is always nice and again, thank you! I hope you’re doing well, my dear 😊

#admin chatter

[perryhedge]

Media Log Nov-Dec 202

I spent these last two months mostly trying to catch up on some long series I had started, and while I did read a bunch of manga in the first half of November, it definitely fewer series than the rest of the year. I'm not sure I did too much aside from watch anime and read manga, honestly. The winter months always tend to kind of fly by for me. But anyway!

Anime

Seasonals

Bocchi the Rock!: I mentioned this already and made a post about the first episode, but wow, this show did the impossible and pretty much kept up the frenetic energy and nonstop mind-bending visual gags the whole time. There’s some great music too. I think the fairly conservative performance scenes (barring the Kikuri scene) are not the strength of the show, nor are the characters (to me, though I did like Bocchi, Ryou, and Kikuri), but other than that it’s definitely one of the most impressive anime I’ve seen, up there with Mob Psycho as the height of the last decade of anime maybe. Also I think this is the only of two shows from this season that survived (the second being, tentatively, Cool Doji Danshi).

Cool Doji Danshi: It’s fun, it’s cute. Makes me feel really warm inside every week. Honestly even though I don’t have much to say this show is immensely underrated. The aesthetic is very comforting.

All Saint’s Street: Revisited for the Japanese dub. Still cute, haven’t finished it though.

Yugioh Go Rush: I initially dropped this so I could come back with a higher level of Japanese, and coming back to it it is still pretty hard to understand without subs at times, but other than the occasional out there episode I can follow it fine now, and even watched the arc finale live through a stream, which was really fun. So, I do like the tone and laid back atmosphere, I’m still a bit horrified at how it looks, but at this point I’m too far in to drop it and honestly, I like the humor and ensemble cast structure enough that I don’t think I’ll have trouble keeping up every week.

Shadowverse Flame: I really loved the tournament arc and everything leading up to it. I can see why the approach might strike some as nonstandard or even anticlimactic, but for those same reasons I really loved it — this show is all about catharsis and explosive moments of character growth always delivered in a very empathetic, almost sentimental way. I think the villains are super charismatic as well. Tsubasa won a spot as my favorite character in the show after the amazing arc she had in these episodes, and every match she was in was a highlight in terms of animation as well. Though like I said Tsubasa’s episodes are my favorite, the final match of the tournament was really impressive in its over the top facial expressions, and I loved everything about the beach episodes and all the slice of life character stuff in general (that’s my favorite stuff, somehow I don’t quite feel starved for it because there’s just enough, but I’d be lying if I said the show’s constant duel to duel pacing was what I wanted really). I think we’re entering the last arc, so I’m looking forward to it. I assume watching the original series will make me appreciate that arc more, but I don’t know if I’ll work up the courage to do it.

Digimon Ghost Game: I finally caught up to Ghost Game, after over a year. I also watched an episode live before the New Year, which honestly felt like fulfilling a childhood dream. That said, I think the series started to get a bit formulaic around the 40s. Around the 50s, the horror started to really go places and get really weird, which I appreciated, and a bunch of animation highlights picked up my motivation to catch up near the end. My favorite episodes 30 - 57 include 30 Bad Friend (maybe my favorite episode of the show, or tied for it), 32 Who Are You (genuinely one of the scariest episodes), 40 Spiral Beach (nice and strange concept, some fun animation), 41 Clown (Piedmon is one of the most threatening villains of the show), 43 Red Eye (killer Kakudou visuals as always), 45 Ghost Newspaper (I’m an idol fan now, remember? Also I liked the sakuga at the end), 48 The White Bride (probably one of the most if not the most actually disturbing episodes, with tons of nice Naotoshi Shida animation), 53 King of Knowledge (Kakudou again lol), and 56 Impurity (bringing together an all star team of Ghost Game staff regulars to deliver arguably the most visually consistent episode with an atmosphere to match). There are tons of duds, but you know, I’m still a Digimon fan at the end of the day, I’m going to tune in. I’m a bit sad the series is likely entering its last year (and Digimon anime may enter another eternal sleep) but hopefully it has a strong finish.

Non Seasonals

Crayon Shin-chan. As fun as ever, though I am predictably finding it a bit hard to binge. I’ve put it on hold around 40 episodes in, but I definitely am looking forward to watching more and hopefully the movies. My obsessive tendencies mean I want to watch the TV series (at least, the first 500 episodes or so under the first two directors) in order before watching the movies, but really that’s pretty insane, so we’ll see about that. I might do some research on the staff and pick out a curated list of episodes and just watch those.

Aikatsu: I was really hoping to finish the first series (at least how it's broken up on AL, at 50 episodes) but I found myself getting a bit burnt out after the major arc during the 3rd cour. It's a bit baffling to me why the show decided to have that whole saga, which is probably the most invested I've been in the show, and then follow it up with what seems to be a 12 episode victory lap (I didn't finish it yet though). I guess there's still room for these characters to grow, but I definitely miss the fun episodic stuff and the Star Anise arc has just felt a bit stifling so far. I have 8 episodes left, so I'll finish it when I find the energy. I think I'll probably watch more, but we'll have to see, since while the show is consistently fun and delivers on subtle long term character growth, I'd like to see some more...important? story arcs, or no arc at all.

Marmalade Boy: I absolutely love the aesthetic, especially the music, but also the cheesy and melodramatic direction. I guess sometimes it’s hard to take seriously, but for me it’s just pure fun and a real joy to watch.

Pokemon: After it was announced that Ash / Satoshi would be literally dying, I decided to start watching the series from the beginning in Japanese! I may not get through all of the series, at least not for a while, but I’m going at my own pace. 6 episodes in, it is surprisingly fun, and looks a lot better than I expected. When it comes down to it Pokemon is just a solid kids anime, and though the episodic plots I’m sure will start to wear on me, every episode so far has been moving the journey forward in a satisfying way. My favorite parts of it are the characters (Pokemon included), the music, and most importantly the humor (tons of wordplay, which is fun).

Minky Momo: I’m 13 or so episodes into this, caught up with the farthest known English subs project, and now hopefully contributing to the rest. It’s still fun and very cartoony, and most episodes deliver on the spectacle and humor. Momo has really endeared herself to me as well.

Visual Prison: I watched the first episode on a whim and it kind of blew me away with its surreal Gothic imagery, nonsense logic, integrated music videos and general musical-like structure, and striking character designs (I really like the music, too). I was kinda hoping the whole show would be like that, but 3 episodes in it seems far more conservative structurally (though there is still plenty of weird stuff in the narrative). I really like some of the character designs, and generally I’m still pretty much on board, but the whiplash from sky battles with microphone swords to mostly exposition kind of threw me for a loop.

Yugioh Sevens: This was a real treat to find, because I’m one arc in and I actually really loved this. The OP set the tone as it’s ridiculous, funky, and pure fun. The show isn’t the best looking (much like Go Rush), but it has so much more life than that show. I love the characters, humor, and overall energy, and I love that the distinct callback-heavy narrative writing is even more pronounced here than in its sequel. In fact, I kind of respect the sequel a lot less now, since I realize the vast majority of it is directly taking gags or characters from this show (a nice concept, but to the degree it’s used it’s just shameless). I love the main four generally, and I know the plot has to get crazy if it ends with an elementary schooler in freaking space, so I’m looking forward to it.

Manga

Kono Oto Tomare!: Was in the rare mood for a drama so I checked this one out, and the first volume won me over with its head-on sentimentality. I enjoy the classic shoujo art and the characters are endearing. That said, this manga has a dramatic flair that I’m not usually in the mood for, so I don’t know when I’ll return to this.

Fire Punch: 2 volumes into this. The first volume blew me away with its one of a kind premise, setting, and tone. I really like how effortlessly Tatsuki Fujimoto can weave strong theming into a narrative. However, volume 2 was pretty much a disappointment, with the irritating “meta” commentary taking up space that could have been used for characterization or just more of the unique blend of horror and absurdity that permeates the first volume without feeling incoherent. Instead, I just felt irritated and not at all emotionally invested. I may not finish this one for a while, because if the rest of the manga is dominated by this figure that’s more concept than character, on top of his mediocre dialogue, I might not be able to stomach it, but I’m sure this is going places and if nothing else, Fujimoto will always surprise you.

Digimon Dreamers: I guess this was funny and cute, but there’s no chance it doesn’t get cancelled very soon. I chuckled a couple times, but not much else to say. I don’t think it’s a standout in the gag genre (though from my understanding that’s the bread and butter of CoroCoro) and it doesn’t seem to deliver on action either. Feels a little disposable, sadly, though it might interest other Digimon fans.

Iki dekinai wa kimi no sei: I’m still relatively new to the genre, but this might be in the same category as Umibé no Etranger as one of my favorite BL manga. I love the concept, character interactions, and art. I was a bit disappointed that the premise of the manga only really applies to the first volume of which there are three; but I read the second recently and there’s some really solid drama in there while delivering on romance fanservice. I don’t know where it could go from here, but I definitely will check out the mangaka’s other works.

Bokura no tsuzuki: Cute manga with nice sketchy art, an interesting dynamic (it isn't explored too much, but there's this concept of childhood friends who never got along after an accident and the associated guilt, one is a tsundere) and there's also a nice sex scene at the end.

Seiyuu ka!: Wonderfully cathartic and genuinely heartwarming. The sheer charisma and sentimentality of this manga and its main character really struck a chord with me, especially towards the end. I was pretty shocked at how the initially messy three plotlines converged and all resolved in a really satisfying way.

Yofukashi no Uta: Made it through maybe the first “serious” story arc, and what I loved about it is that after it’s over the manga, while feeling deeper on the level of the characters and their interactions, as well as feeling like it has a bit more direction, pretty much can return effortlessly to the lighthearted tone it had before. I was surprised at how well that arc worked by the way, in the sense that it fit in the narrative in a pretty clever way, and delivered on emotions in a way I wouldn’t expect at all from this manga. I’ll get back to the rest eventually, maybe this month.

One Piece: This arc is pretty wild. I like that a lot of the stuff in the story is starting to pay off, and I really like the expansion on the lore.

Dropped

Delicious Party Precure (again): now that hype for the 20th anniversary season Hirogaru Sky Precure is in full force, I tried catching up with Delipre so I could maybe catch the finale on its airdate. That turned out to be more difficult than I thought, as returning to it made me feel even more like I was wasting my time. With the abhorrent designs, cheap looking animation, nonsense episodic plots, and paper thin characters, it’s hard to care too much. The one thing I can praise is the music and the fairy designs. I peeked at the movie too, but it frankly doesn’t look up to standard for TV animation, let alone a feature film, so I think it’s a pass for me. I have hopes for Hirogaru, I guess, but I think my expectations for anime in 2023 are pretty minimal for the time being, not just Toei shows or long running anime but the entire industry. I think on the whole people really haven’t properly factored in the pandemic’s effect since there was still anime released these last 2 (3?) years, but honestly I think we’ll look back on this decade and see that there’s clearly an “anime before COVID” and an “anime after”. Maybe I’m being a bit of a doomer here, but I really don’t find this too disheartening, since it’s an excuse for me to seriously tackle older anime as I’ve always been meaning to do.

Hamtaro: I still find this cute but even though the show looks pretty good and consistent, it isn’t exactly visually impressive and the plots are hit or miss. I can see myself coming back for the movies or even watching a few more episodes eventually, though.

#perrylog

[tribow]

So I watched Dive!!

Dive!! is a sports anime that unsurprisingly focuses on the sport of Diving. A diving team of high school boys that are somehow not gay face the struggles and drama of competition while they are pushed to their limits to be ready for the Olympics.

Can high schoolers go to the Olympics? I haven't watched the Olympics in a hot minute I'm gonna look it up. ....okay you can dive at 14 years old godamn.

That tangent aside, Dive!! is a surprisingly realistic take on the shounen sports genre. In most other stories a character might have some super power or special ability. The main character might be some gifted genius aiming to be the best of the best through hard work and training. The protagonist wins through the power of friendship or something of the sort. We do get a bit of that in Dive!!, but not much. Dive!!'s characters are ones that have already been diving for years. They don't try to introduce you to the sport by making the main character the new guy. One of them is practically a pro from the start and he genuinely remains the best on the team even though he's not the main character. The main character does eventually strive to be the best, but only after completing a character arc where he finds where his true motivations lie. The divers do not get better because of their own skills, but rather because of their coach guiding them the whole way.

I say all this because it's a more realistic portrayal of what competitive sports are really like....which brings me to my next point. Dive!!'s story is not really about the sport. It's about the emotional struggles of competition. The main character's conflict is not based on his performance, it's based on how the competition affects his emotions and daily life. This competitiveness affects the whole cast outside of one character whose conflict revolves around his traditions, wants, and needs.

Dive!! certainly provides a unique angle to the shounen sports experience. The only other story rocking the vibes I can think of is Whistle! (My vague memory of Whistle!'s anime is that it sucks. I read the manga a very long time ago and loved it though. Big fan of socc...I mean football). Is Dive!! good though? Eeeeehhh....it's alright. Without getting too into it, there's some parts to the story that feel a little contrived. There's this romantic sub-plot that reaches its emotional climax then gets completely dropped until the end. It's a super unsatisfying resolution to the sub-plot. Characters can get pretty stressed about something and then just not worry about it again very shortly afterwards.

It fumbles a bit, but overall I'd say the story is handled well. Also it's both intentionally and unintentionally funny and that definitely distracted me from getting hung up on parts I didn't like.

The studio animating this is Zero-G. I've never heard of them, but at the least I'd say the animation is handled alright. There's this weird way they handle water reflections on skin, but other than that it doesn't look bad. The animators even do some seriously good diving shots especially on the last episode. That last episode looked very good. Seems like a neat studio based off of this show.

Also the composer goes hard for no reason. More power to her, but I was not expecting the soundtrack to go so hard.

Surprisingly pleasant watch from Dive!! I'd recommend it if you're looking for a sports anime that is more realistic and less flashy.

#anime #review #Dive!! #Whistle! #why do so many sports anime have exclamation points? #is this why Keijo has so many? #Arcana Heart love max six stars is a sports game confirm #I usually don't write the name of the show so many times but the mangled punctuation that comes with the title was too funny to me

[papers4me]

Lots of people think the Kakeru-Tohru subplot is filler/unnecessary but I like it because 1) it's an emotional catalyst for Tohru to confront her feelings (as you'll see when you get to later chapters) and 2) it provides direct commentary on how she hides her feelings with her smile. It forces Yuki to see and acknowledge this, too. It definitely wouldn't have worked in the 13 episode season 3 but I strongly feel Tohru's development is diminished by omitting it.

Hi Friend,

You see, me & you come from two different experiences regarding this omitted sub-plot.

You read the manga first, so this chapter came to you as part of the plot before you know the ending or how tohru's development will be furthered. So, tohru here was teased as a small step towards her future development. I find it fascinating that some manga readers thought of this chapter as filler once they finished the manga.

I already know tohru's core issues before reading this chapter cuz I saw the anime's finale first. Reading this omitted sub-plot felt fascinating for kakeru as a character which I agree with you on, but so underwhelming for tohru which I disagree with you on.

You see...

Direct commentary on tohru is what we ONLY have in the anime &.. what I'm disappointed to still see in the manga.. We know tohru hides her feelings, so the story tells us her feelings thro so many characters but her... Isuzu, kagura, shigure, kyo, momiji, hana, Arisa , kisa, hiro, kakeru & yuki... That's all what we see & know of tohru.

When yuki told his story, he took charge, expressed himself & was on control of his own flashbacks that the aduiance saw.. & who is yuki? someone who was withdrawn & hiding behind a mask with princely smile.

When it's time to know small scattered pieces of kyo's story, he was forced into confrontations with Kazuma, then akito & finally tohru But he told us his own story from his own pov. no one did it on his behalf.

Same goes for Isuzu, Arisa, hana, momiji & the others.

Only tohru was always commented on by the others. We see her thro binoculars & even her own flashbacks was introduced thro others.

I love this chapter for a glimpse of kakeru's new side.

Also~

I don't like this chapter precisely cuz we saw tohru thro yuki's eyes. Throughout se1 & 2, 90% of the story was presented thro yuki's eyes. Not only his own struggles with kyo, himself & tohru. We saw kyo-tohru's romance thro his eyes, saw isuzu & haru individual personalities & romance thro his eyes as well. Yuki provided plenty of commentaries abt so many characters including kagura!!!. Yuki is one of my top 3 fave characters, but his insightful comments abt other characters are my least fave things abt him & the story in general, cuz they're so direct, so forward, so guided, & so diminishing of the readers'/ viewers ability to connect things, relate to characters or guess the " lesson".

The author impersonates yuki to tell us straight forward what X & Y feels & I find myself confused on whose the target audience of the story? children? Do we really need to hear it that clear? Does yuki need to know every bit of other characters feelings & struggles so he can tell us the wise comments/lesson? Why can't yuki be allowed to be real ! interactive! & dynamic! instead he's the story's guide on what to feel & what to learn. To do that, he's made into this nonstop monologuist, tremendously wise & all knowing being. It adds to his "perfect" presence that contradicts his goal of being okay with imperfectness & un-princely character.

Tohru was already established as someone who hides her feelings. After seeing/reading kyoko's chapters & hearing her open up her ugly side to kyo in the sheet hug, to put more " indirect story-telling" abt tohru contradicts what the writer has established. It is regression story-wise. If this chapter was before kyoko's chapter, then fine, but now.... what is the writer trying to tell me in this chapter abt tohru that I dont know already??? Nothing. But the writer did inform me sth new abt kakeru!! but also needed to once again involved yuki into the only part in the entire story that he wasnt involved in.. tohru's past after kyoko's death.....

I love this chapter for kakleru, it's fun, but tohru's presentation? ~ another story-telling disappointment that I never expected from the author herself. but it's okay~

~

I'm glad you liked all the sub-plot & so happy to read your thoughts abt it! I love it when someone sees things differently, it's fascinating & provides new angles & refreshing perspective! I have lots to say abt kakeru. I love when characters are made to make horrible insensitive mistakes! It makes them human & realistic. That's how you tell a story after all, thro exploring their misdeeds & the reaction to them <3

#fruits basket #manga spoilers #asks #anime only #lovely friends #childrenoftheforce #sleepy paper #responding paper

[ichika27]

Mairimashita! Iruma-kun s2 ep8

We’re finally at the end of this arc! Took a long time and many people waited and now it’s here and it’s over. I’m sure you manga readers are waiting for something else after this and I wonder what you guys would be hyping next.

They finally got all the stamps from the other teachers and they’re now here to show Kalego-sensei the results and are waiting for sensei to sign his.

Sadly, sensei is pulling some technicality on them and says it’s not enough. They only had letters from the teaching staff and Babyl’s faculty members include those working on other parts of the school (cleaning, cafeteria, etc.) and the class failed to gather those. He says too bad but he’d at least see if he could have their old classroom fixed.

Honestly, seeing that Iruma is close with the other staff members since he’s been helping them out anyways, I thought that if they could use the rest of the 3rd day to gather those letters, they could turn this around.

But it seems they didn’t have to go anywhere because the other staff members heard about what the Abnormal Class was doing and they all arrived in the Faculty Room to give their letters.

Iruma is surprised and asked why they were here and helping them and each group/person mentioned that Iruma had either helped them or made their jobs more fun. They’re fans of Iruma and they appreciate him. While you could see Iruma helping people throughout this arc alongside gathering the other letters which foreshadows this scene, this had been going on since season 1. Iruma had been shown to volunteer in helping clean ups and such (with Azz and Clara following him and helping out, too) because that’s the kind of person Iruma is.

I’m not gonna lie, I teared up at this scene. Not only cause it was heartwarming to see the others help Iruma but also the fact that Iruma realized he’s appreciated. Iruma had been working his entire life before Grandpa Sullivan adopted him. His parents have abused him and he’s always had to survive. He also would help anyone of they even said the word “Please”. To Iruma, doing work and helping others is a normal part of him and is probably no big deal to him. To see him surprised that he’s being thanked this way for everything and knowing all of what he’s been doing made a big impact on people, things that he never really thought much of cause it’s normal for him to help, is just... it’s nice. It’s great because everyone loves Iruma and now he hears it from them.

(This reminds me of a story I heard but it has nothing to do with Iruma-kun but the comparison made me cry more lol)

Kalego-sensei very, very, reluctantly stamps his own letter lol.

There’s now a celebration for two reasons: one, Royal One is finally going to be opened after who knows how many years. This is a historical moment! Two: everyone wants to see the kids that made this possible. The class is surprised by the 2nd reason cause they’re never been thought of as cool and interesting before.

Royal One is finally open! The inside is super shiny! It doesn’t look like it’s part of a school at all.

I was wondering earlier why the place looks so clean and spotless despite being abandoned for many years. Turns out, they have an explanation for that! Darn, I wish I had that kinda magic to keep our house clean! Would’ve been helpful lol.

Iruma sits in the throne!

Okay... again, I’d like to ask: the Wicked Phase/Evil Cycle for Iruma just lets him do his desire, right? Iruma before this scene purposely walked inside rooms seemingly looking for something and then when he sees the throne, he smiles and walked directly to it and sits on it without a word as if this is what he wanted from this (everyone else is shown to be interested in parts of the school that would benefit them or is their thing).

So... does this mean Iruma low-key wants to be the demon king deep inside his heart?

Anyways, none of the other kids complained at all or criticized him for sitting on the throne.

Azz suddenly had a vision.

This is pretty cool, I admit. I mean, Iruma is the main character and we know he’d be the demon king someday but seeing everyone else start realizing it is awesome.

The next day regular Iruma returns! And he is feeling the cringe! How dare he act like a cool but rude guy at school? It’s totally bad and embarrassing! lol

He apologizes to his grandpa and to Opera about his behavior the past few days and they just tell him it’s okay and that they liked his rebellious phase, too. They’re really happy he’s back to being the sweet kid they know though.

Iruma also apologizes to Ameri about his actions and Ameri tells him it’s fine.

Don’t worry Iruma! Ameri really doesn’t mind the dokidoki scenario from the other day. In fact, I think you awakened something inside of her!

He says sorry to the rest of his class for putting them through something troublesome but they said they aren’t mad and are actually happy about how it all went. And they have a really nice classroom to boot!

They also tease him about the whole “Sitting on the throne” thing, too.

In the end, they all decided to take a picture and dragged sensei for it, too!

The one from the episode itself had subtitles so I took a screenshot of the after credit image so it’s got no subs but it does have the show’s logo on it.

--

That was a fun arc! I can definitely see what you guys liked about it but the hype is still strange to me. Probably because I usually see those hype for fight scenes when it’s on a shounen anime. It was entertaining though! I was gonna point out how weird it is that Royal One is super clean and sparkly after many years of being locked but they surprisingly had an explanation and I was like “Oh...” lol.

It’s definitely a nice ending to this arc. I love how Iruma’s actions from season 1 with being nice and helpful culminated into this. It’s definitely a nice part of his entire story.

Thanks for reading this far! Looking forward to the next episode!

#Mairimashita! Iruma-kun #welcome to demon school iruma-kun #sana_post

[themightyaliendwarf]

Bungo Stray Dogs!

Remember how I said I was going to share my thoughts after finishing season 1? Yeah... that was a lie. But I can fix it now!

So, I finished season 2 on, I think, Wednesday and I'm glad I watched it before I wrote this post, because I have some more to talk about it. Besides, I've actually decided to pick up the first 3 volumes of the manga.

(Yeah, I think it's now quite obvious, I will be mostly praising the series in this post)

But let's start from the beginning!

As I mentioned before, I knew nothing about this anime (apart from the fact Mamoru Miyano is voicing a character who gets stuck in a barrel once). But, of course, the title suggested it's going to be about writers. Suffice to say, the first episode was absolutely nothing what I was expecting. Superpowers? Detectives? Mafia? Another series with a weretiger?! (yes, it's actually a second series - the first being Midnight Texas - I know about that has a weretiger). But despite being something that I wasn't expecting, I enjoyed it. Mostly because of Baccano/Durarara vibe and aesthetic.

But despite all that, I didn't notice many literature references in the first season (don't shout yet, please). Apart from the names of the character's gifts that is. But then I opened the manga and saw this:

A whole 4 pages talking about how literally EVERY character is based on an author. They are all just Japanese authors (duh!) - apart from the characters from the Guild who appear later, of course. So, that proved how ignorant I truly was. Speaking of characters.

I really enjoy watching characters with strong personalities, but, who at the same time, are complex and can't be described with only one trait. I think it's so easy to make a character who is "just gloomy" or "just quirky". But here, although they seem at first simple, every character clearly has a lot of layers. And those subtle/clever references to their real-life counterpart (that's to translator's notes I know that, for example, the actual Akutagawa was a big fan of the actual Dazai) simply add even more spice to it.

Oh, another thing to love about this series:

I'm a sucker for frenemies.

Of course, another important thing to discuss is voice acting. And, oh my God, this anime has all seiyuus that I love. Mamoru Miyano? Amazing as always. Hiroshi Kamiya? Yes, give me this god of playing smug/charming/lovable bastards. Yoshimasa Hosoya - perfect voice for serious characters who can lose their temper easily. Kishou Taniyama -that one guy I always forget about, but then I remember I adore his voice. Kana Hanazawa - the queen of cute voices. Sumire Morohoshi? I did not believe that she was the voice of Kyouka. But then she started screaming "yada, yada, yada" and I finally heard Emma from TPN.

Seriously, that's one of the strongest set of voice actors I have seen in a while.

Another thing I have to mention - comedy. I was really surprised when I read it's classified as seinen because I usually assume those shows with lots of jokes/superpowers to be shonens (of course, I am writing it after finishing the second season, and I know how dark/sad/serious this anime can get). But yet here we are! Thanks to an amazing cast, this anime is effortlessly funny. I love those fast-paced, characters-oriented jokes, so it's a perfect series for me.

Before I move on to some random thoughts, I have to say a couple of words about another important aspect of this series: the music. It's really good. The OST and OPs are definitely going on my playlist.

And now here are some random thoughts: - Ranpo might be my favourite character (not just because of the seiyuu). Probably because he is not exactly your typical "I'm smart, peasants" genius-detective. He is also not a strange, L-like, quirky detective. I think he is a healthy mixture of both. The result, apparently, is a lovable character, who always steals the show.

- I was certain Atsushi was voiced by Nobuhiko Okamoto. Welp, guess I was wrong.

- While I was reading the first volume of the manga I noticed Akutagawa speaks in a very archaic - mostly applies to how he forms sentences, rather than using specific words. It is not something I saw in anime (I watched it with English subs, but I read the manga in Polish). I wonder if this is a translator's choice (there wasn't anything about it in the notes) or maybe he also speaks like that in Japanese.

- I aspire to be like the President of the Agency. Not because he is a man of honour, power and wisdom. No. It's because there is always an electric guitar playing whenever he enters a room

- Fitzgerald's ability is literally pay-to-win

- When you are mortal enemies but you have to share a lift:

And I think that's all! Right now I'm going to have a break with this series (will probably finally watch Monster), but I will surely be back! From what I've heard, after season 2, I shouldn't go for season 3, but rather the movie, right? Or something like that. Well, anyway, I'm going to double check once the time comes.

So, to sum up: loved the first two seasons. I give 8/10

#bungo stray dogs #anime #manga #bungo season 1 #bungo season 2 #no spoilers? #at least I think so?

[jeonjeonggukenergy]

Anti-Hero

summary ~ in search of wine at a party that’s so not your scene, you run into jungkook, the weeb from your film class, and become determined to learn just how much he lives up to his big reputation.

pairing ~ jungkook x reader

genre ~ fluff, smut (coming in ch3!) - college!au

wordcount ~ 2.3k

warnings ~ pretty much n/a, mentions of drinking and light smut

a/n ~ v excited for these lil dorks! i thought about combining this with the upcoming chapter but it felt right on its own and i wanted to go ahead and post an update for yall haha. ch 3 will most definitely have some serious smut to look forward to 👀 thank yall for reading, i love and appreciate any form of support or feedback so so much, so feel free to msg me or send me an ask abt whatever you want! 🥰 hope u enjoy this chapter!!!

previous: chapter 1 ~ next: chapter 3 | chapter 4 (coming soon!)

~ read on ao3 ~

CHAPTER 2 ~ cowboy bebop & chill

You couldn't stop thinking about Jungkook. Every time you brought the enamel of your favorite mug to your lips, teeth knocking the rim as you exhaled to cool off your tea, it called back the click of his earrings in your mouth. Whenever you reached behind your ear to tuck away the hair you'd impulsively cropped to your chin this year, it hit the same spot you'd sucked into a bruise on his neck and you shivered. Even your slight headache thanks to the shitty vodka from the pregame reminded you of the wine you'd sought out from him in the first place and never fucking got to drink. 

You found yourself reading over your responses to each other's discussion posts from your film class, trying to find any more justification for this sudden crush than the drunken flirtation that mortified you as soon as you remembered it sober. He did seem to like your directness...but you could easily ascribe that to his similarly loosened-up state. Scanning through your reflections on The Shawshank Redemption and Casablanca, you painstakingly overanalyzed every smiley face and "I loved that part too!" Could he have been into you at all before this? Or had he just eyed you for another quick fuck at a party? Shit, what if he hated you for working him up and then leaving? If he wanted to, you knew he would have easily found someone else to finish the night with. But what if he still held it against you? The image of him bitterly turning aside to find another girl in the crowd, with your hickey still fresh on his jaw, turned your stomach more than you wanted to admit.

Shaking your head with a grounding exhale, you reminded yourself that whoever else he did or didn't hook up with was none of your business. Plus, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy and probably didn't hate you in the first place. Wow, the bar really was so fucking low. Maybe that was part of the reason you were never that bold with boys. Every classmate you'd fallen for so far at college had remained innocently unaware of your feelings, likely because you never worked up the courage to clearly express them. You hadn't even been trying this time, though—this semester had been so busy you'd barely had time for your friends, much less crushes. And now your one blowoff class had become your biggest distraction.

Jungkook, a communications & media major, couldn't afford to lose as much focus in this class as you. Normally near front-and-center, he sat all the way in the corner of the last row, wary of imaginary stares burning through the hopefully-opaque-enough curtain of his hair. Even the risk of zoning out staring at the back of your head stressed him out less than the thought of you doing the same to him.

You walked into class through the back right entrance today so you'd pass Jungkook in the front row, though you could have gone straight to your usual left-side seat from the main door. Knowing you'd never summon the courage to talk to him, you still couldn't help wanting to see his face. You didn't know just what you were looking for—some kind of confirmation or dismissal that would let you just move on with your dry-ass life—but any reason to catch a glimpse of Jungkook was a good one. Today, though, he sat far closer to the entrance than you'd expected, and his proximity stopped you in your tracks a few feet behind him. Eyes dragging down the sculpted form under his soft black sweatsuit, your stare traced the veins in his forearms to reach the hands in his lap. Catching a half-page cartoon ass in your view of the manga he gazed at intently, a snort-laugh escaped you, the sound setting him on high alert. He snapped the book shut, spinning around with eyes wide and still-long hair an understandable mess for a Monday.

"I'm so—"

"I'm so sorry!"

You both shoved out the words at the same time.

A pause swelled between you, eye contact maintained as your mouths fluttered open and shut like fish. Even awkward and off-guard like this, he was just so damn pretty. It felt unreasonable for him to seem as flustered around you as you were around him. Finally, you spoke again, solely to force the conversation forward and put you both out of your misery.

"W-what do you have to be sorry for? I'm the one who, like—ugh, I was drunk, I'm so sorry, I never would have been so, yknow, if I was sober, like that's not me I promise, I really didn't mean to make you uncomfortable or—"

"No-no-no-no-no!" Jungkook cut you off, dismissing your barely intelligible apology. Before you could cut him off in return and continue, he held up both hands between you, his eyebrows knit together in a pleading expression. "Are you kidding me? Seriously, I feel so bad, I was kind of drunk too, I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable! Please, you have nothing to worry about, it was, uh...I was...good...if...you were." He grew shyer as he continued, drifting off as a hand reached back to rub his neck. A light laugh. "You did make me have to keep my hair long for another few days, though. It's gotten so annoying to take care of, I was planning on cutting it right after the costume."

This admission perked up all your earlier curiosities about him, and a cautious smile spread over your face as Jungkook unconsciously reminded you that he was, in fact, a total dork, rather than the fuckboy you'd irrationally feared him to be.

"Wait, hold up," you snorted again. Gently. "You're telling me you grew out your hair for three, maybe four, months...for a Cowboy Bebop costume?"

"Hey, it was free and way less lame than a wig," he defended himself. Crossing his arms over his chest, he fidgeted uncomfortably, face blushing into a grin as you continued to giggle at him.

"You are such a fucking weeb," you accused lightheartedly.

Jungkook furrowed his brows back together, an anxious hand grazing the spot where you'd marked him again. "Well, you recognized my Spike costume, at least," he pouted. "You're not all innocent."

"I watched one episode with my friend, and it was dubbed," you downplayed. "Isn't watching dubs instead of subs a crime for real anime fans?"

"Actually," his eyes lit up at your rhetorical question. "The dub of Cowboy Bebop is excellent. It's pretty universally considered better than watching the OG with subs. You're right though, that is the general rule."

"Oh man, who knew." Looking down, grinning, you tried to hide how endeared you were by his earnestness. "Well, it was pretty cool, not gonna lie. I guess I kind of get the appeal."

"Would you want to start watching the rest sometime? That's one I just never get tired of," he blurted, then blushed, closing his mouth and working his lips between his teeth as his eyes stayed wide and on you. Jungkook's heart accelerated in his chest, a fist opening and closing at his hip as he tried to decide whether he regretted taking a chance on the question.

You instantly diverted all your mental energy from hoping he couldn't sense your attraction to massively overthinking your response. This was a "Netflix and chill" kind of invite, right? If he wanted you, of course you wanted him, but you had to be sure before you did something else stupid and risked having to find another discussion board buddy.

"Um...yeah, sure," you accepted. "I have to ask, though, do you mean, like...Cowboy Bebop and chill?" You raised an eyebrow, trying to look bolder than you felt. "Or...Cowboy Bebop and just...Cowboy Bebop?"

"I..." Mirroring your playful grin, Jungkook shrugged, not wanting to look like a fuckboy if he answered with the first option but also wondering—were you actually interested in watching this anime with him? The possibility puzzled him, the same way it confused you how he could go bold and then back to his shy weeb-ass self within seconds. You shrugged too, with an anxious exhale of a laugh.

"That was...weird to just say like that, sorry. We can just see where it goes, whatever you want," you backtracked, full of faux-nonchalance. The Google Calendar schedule on your phone suddenly became very interesting. "We could do another day if that works for you, but I'm free after this class once I write my discussion post—I don't have any other homework or meetings today for once."

He nodded quickly, eyebrows up. Swallowing, Jungkook saw the opportunity to show a little more initiative and seized it. "We could do that together even, 'cause we usually jump off each other anyway. So you can come over right after class if you want." He glanced up and to the left for a quick mental inventory. "Oh shit, wait, but I seriously need to clean my apartment first, can we do more like dinner time tonight? You can just come over for ramen or takeout if you want, or eat first or whatever."

"Yeah, that's fine!" you agreed warmly. "Ramen and homework, two birds with one scone. I should probably, like...get your number? So you can send me your address when you're ready or something?" You didn't want to sound too desperate, especially since you knew he was used to it, but you found yourself weirdly excited to experience something he so obviously loved. If you got dicked down too, even better, but you were definitely willing to wait on that part, especially now that this first sober conversation had restored your inhibitions. He had this slightly shy sweetness about him that just made you want to make him happy somehow. You wanted to see more of his cheesy little smile. You wanted to hear the bright laugh that occasionally rang out at the most inappropriate times, during Citizen Kane or attendance. You wanted to watch his light pink lips fall open in bliss as you kissed down his sensitive neck to the trim of his worn-in hoodie...

"Yeah sure, here." The quick touch of his hand over yours snapped you out of your thoughts as he took your phone, ready to type in his number, and—

"Wait, did you say 'two birds with one scone'? Not 'one stone'?"

You blushed furiously. Somehow him calling you out on your quirks embarrassed you more than the indecent daydream he'd interrupted. "Okay, so I saw this tweet a while back where they said 'feed two birds with one scone' to replace 'kill two birds with one stone,' I think it was just some vegan troll being all like 'don't talk about killing birds!' but it stuck with me because I just really fucking love scones."

"You...really fucking love scones?" he repeated in slight sarcasm, eyes down on your phone. You grew even shyer, but continued.

"Yeah, I bake a lot and they're my favorite thing to make. The flavor possibilities are endless and they last for days so I just keep them on hand for breakfast and snacks and to give out to friends. And they go with tea, which is my other favorite thing." Ooh, was he a tea person? Should you bring some tonight? Something earthy, to go with your ramen. Your go-to green sencha, or maybe chrysanthemum? Chamomile?

Jungkook held your phone back out in front of you, but waited silently for you to notice, enjoying the view of wheels turning in your head as you pondered tea pairings. This was the you he was used to, daydreaming in class and going on tangents as dorky as his in discussions. Even from a distance, he'd noticed you consistently gave off a vibe somewhere between absentminded professor and grandma, and this confirmation made you even cuter to him. But the hair still falling over his ears wouldn't let him forget his new physical proof of another side to you.

You finally collected your phone with a mumbly "Oh right, yeah, cool, thanks," that you prayed sounded more chill to him than it did to you.

"I just texted myself, so I have your number too now, and I'll just send you my address when I'm ready, and, uh...yeah!" he rambled a bit in response.

You nodded, confirming. "I'll see you tonight!"

"Yeah, see you tonight."

Jungkook watched you walk to your desk, silently admiring your ass and allowing himself only a moment to savor the memory of half of it filling his hand. A strange nervousness tingled through him. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about you all weekend either, and now he had a chance to get closer to you than ever before. He hoped, more than he could remember hoping for anything else, that this would go well, one way or another. He had no idea what you wanted with him, but you had him questioning everything he'd thought he wanted. Easing open his laptop, he pulled up your last discussion board response to him, signed off with a smiley face but backwards.

I like the way you think. (:

He turned his head to read it right-side-up, letting his face scrunch into a smile you wouldn't see.

Meanwhile, though the film thrilled you, you struggled to stay facing forward for the duration of class. You suspected the plot of Rear Window was simply unsettling you, but you swore you could feel Jungkook's eyes on your back. No, he was probably actually watching the movie as usual, or reading his manga if not. You were definitely just being paranoid. Definitely. Probably. Right?

next chapter 

#jungkook x reader #jungkook smut #jungkook fluff #jungkook x reader smut #bts smut #bts fic #college!jungkook #college au!jungkook #bts college au #jungkook #jeon jungkook #bts jungkook #jungkook imagine #bts imagine #bts fanfic #jungkook fanfic #my writing #anti-hero #anti hero

[medea10]

My Review of Trigun

How did I get into this anime? Let’s just say this was one of those animes that used to air on Saturday nights back in the day that I would every now and then come across while waiting for either Full Metal Alchemist, InuYasha, or Cowboy Bebop to air. But I never did watch a full episode or know a damn thing about this anime. So I’m just jumping into this anime blindfolded. All I know is that this was Johnny Yong Bosch’s first anime role.

Who is Vash the Stampede?

A frequent question that comes up throughout the series! Rumor has it that he wears a long, red trench coat and sports a Mohawk hairstyle. Some say he’s a notorious lecher. Many recount him shooting up their villages to a pile of rubble just for the heck of it. He has quite the reputation as he has a $$60,000,000,000 bounty on his head and is often known as the “Humanoid Typhoon”.

In reality, Vash the Stampede is…a bit of a dingus. He just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and things kinda get out of hand. But that doesn’t stop two insurance agents (Milly Thompson and Meryl Stryfe) from following him around to confirm Vash’s identity and keep his actions to a minimum. At first, it’s hard to tell if he’s a stupid-genius or just flighty and gets lucky one too many times. But when shit goes down, don’t be surprised when you see this doofus get serious.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: Okay, what sad company did this use to belong to, Geneon, Bandai, or ADV Films? Oh, Geneon! That means good voice actors from L.A. put in really shitty roles. On the contrary, this was a fairly decent English dub. And on a severely positive note, this was indeed Johnny Yong Bosch’s very first anime role (and a main role at that). This was like fresh off his time as a Power Ranger! And I gotta give props for giving this guy a chance at voice acting. This role was the launching point to what has been a very successful career for Bosch. As for the sub, let’s just say I’m happy any time I get to hear Hiromi Tsuru in something besides Dragon Ball. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Vash is played by Masaya Onosaka (known for Bill on Pokemon, Isaac on Baccano, Jadeite on Sailor Moon, Kero on Cardcaptor Sakura, Leeron on Gurren Lagann, France on Hetalia, and Spandam on One Piece)

*Meryl is played by Hiromi Tsuru (known for Bulma on DBZ, Ukyo on Ranma ½, Yubel on YGO GX, and Mika on Gravitation) [R.I.P.]

*Milly is played by Satsuki Yukino (known for Kagome on InuYasha, Mion/Shion on Higurashi, Tae on Gintama, Amakata on Free!, Hiiragi on Natsume Yuujinchou, Mutsumi on Love Hina, and Yoruichi on Bleach)

ENGLISH CAST: *Vash is played by Johnny Yong Bosch (known for Ichigo on Bleach, Lelouch on Code Geass, Makoto on Free!, Izaya on Durarara, Artemis on Sailor Moon redub, Koizumi on Haruhi Suzumiya, and Yukio on Blue Exorcist)

*Meryl is played by Dorothy Elias-Fahn (known for Kaoru on Rurouni Kenshin, Naru on Love Hina, Tomoe on Rozen Maiden, Hakuei on Magi, Houki on Fushigi Yugi, and Amane on Tenchi Muyo GXP)

*Milly is played by Lia Sargent (known for Dorothy on The Big O and Judy on Cowboy Bebop)

FAVORITE CHARACTER: Milly! I don’t need a reason, it’s Milly!

SHIPPING: I didn’t really start thinking about shipping until more than halfway into this series. I thought there might be something between Vash and Meryl, but then again maybe not! Then I saw the backstory of Vash’s “younger days” and falling for the one woman who showed him compassion.

Yes, this is the same woman we consistently see in Vash’s flashbacks, Rem. Ooh boy, it’s one of those stories! So yeah, never mind my thinking with Vash x Meryl ever happening. I feel like Vash will mourn Rem’s death for a long time that I don’t think the whole thing with Meryl will ever work.

And as for Wolfwood x Milly…

FUUUUUUUCK! WHY DID YOU RUIN THIS CUTE COUPLE?!

MILLY WAS HEART-BROKEN!

…At least she got to have one night of passion with Wolfy-boy before the unthinkable happened.

THAT DARN CAT: If you watched this series, you might have noticed a little black cat spotted in nearly every episode. It’s there in the opening theme. It’s there in random places throughout the series. It’s there in the ending theme. What’s up with this cat? Well, there are a lot of theories surrounding this particular cat (or Kuroneko). Some say it’s really Rem inside that cat since you see it in literally every episode around Vash. Others say it’s because the creator of Trigun wanted to just mess with your minds with the kitty walking around in random places and towns. Seriously, it will always appear in every new town Vash and the gang comes across! As an avid cat enthusiast, I’m fine with whatever the result. Just as long as no harm comes to the little Kuroneko.

HALFWAY POINT: Halfway into the series we notice something more when it comes to Mr. Vash the Stampede. First of all, those horrifying scars all over his body! Second, that mysterious girl he often thinks about. I mean, we see flashes of her in the opening sequence. And third, the reason why he never kills. Vash has the ability of causing so much damage when pushed to a breaking point. One of the many reasons why he’s known as the “humanoid typhoon”! And that was perfectly shown when Vash chases the residents out of a town (so there would be no casualties), totally demolished the town during a fight, and made an indent on the moon!

But the story takes a sharp-left turn into WTF territory when we learn about WHAT exactly Vash is. Vash is a plant. Vash also has a brother named Knives. And while Vash has a mentality that all beings have a right to live, Knives has a “kill them all and let God sort them out” point of view. Now the existence of Vash and Knives came with a lot of controversy, especially in the ship that they were on. But that girl who Vash cares for, Rem cared for them regardless of what they were. Rem had high hopes for a peaceful world with coexistence. Too bad Knives had other motives and killed her.

ENDING TO TV SERIES: Vash has tried so hard to keep Milly, Meryl, and Wolfwood out of harm’s way. He knows there are some pretty bad people after him, including his polar-opposite brother, Knives. Vash hates death and wants to save as many people as humanly possible. He doesn’t want to see any more needless death. Probably from his flashbacks and losing Rem! Unfortunately, this doesn’t go so well.

I can see how iconic this death was now after witnessing it. Wolfwood, the priest who would hook up with Vash every now and then when they’re up against some ruffians, now finds himself in a crucial decision. He gets orders that he must eliminate Vash. And Wolfwood ends up dying instead in a very dramatic death scene. God-damn! And just that scene where Milly is sobbing freakin’ eats you up inside.

At least she had one night of passion before the unfortunate happened!

Vash hates the thought of having to kill anyone. But he might not have a choice if Knives is coming after him and even hires a powerful foe from a previous episode and the guy that killed Wolfwood to take you out. Once Vash met up with Knives, he winds up having some pretty sick flashbacks of Knives. But our homeboy was able to take out Knives, the desert area gets water, and…

I’m gonna have to read the fucking manga for more, right?

Tap dancing fuck!

BADLANDS RUMBLE: 12 years after the series ended, Japan decides to release a side-story in the form of a movie, bringing back our favorite characters like Vash, Wolfwood, Milly, and Meryl. And yes, reuniting the cast…in Japan.

By 2010, Geneon was as good as dead and FUNimation licensed Trigun. In short, they managed to get Johnny Young Bosch to reprise his role as Vash the Stampede. But everyone else was replaced. And surprisingly, the people they got to do Wolfwood and Milly were pretty freakin’ close to their original voices. Meryl’s voice, come on I know Luci Christian any-damn-where! Vash helps a young lady take out a big-bad guy (who turns out to be his father). And it has the feel of the original series where it’s set in a western town with lots of booze and shoot-em-ups! It’s an interesting side-story to the Trigun trilogy.

Trigun was a pretty good anime. I mean, not one of my favorites, but I can definitely see a lot of people sticking by this classic. Maybe you can chalk up my blah attitude to the fact that I’m not fond of westerns and I kinda took it out on Trigun. Or the fact that there was so much more that the anime could have covered before the end and the ending kinda felt off to me! Like I thought I was expecting more. But I suppose that’s what mangas are for. To be honest, the stories that really grabbed my attention were the back-stories with Vash and Knives and Wolfwood’s final episode.

*sniffles* At least Milly got one night of passion before he died!

If you would like to check out Trigun, all the episodes are available through FUNimation and Hulu (in both Japanese and English). And if you really like the anime, why not purchase the hard copies? Both the series and movie are available for home video.

Okay, that took me a while, but I’m glad to finish Trigun. What’s next on the FUNimation list?

EEHHHHHEEEHHHE

Fuck is that supposed to mean? What is that? Is that even in English?

YOU WILL BE HORRIBLY MUTILATED: The Isekai

Do you mean Re:Zero? That’s great…but that review’s not ready yet. And it probably won’t be until after April 2021! So let’s cast caution to the wind and pick another FUNimation licensed anime.

You’re watching Sarazanmai next. It’s best if you don’t ask questions.

Sarazanmai? The fuck does that even mean?!

OH. MY. GOD.

#trigun #vash the stampede #meryl stryfe #milly thompson #nicholas d wolfwood #knives millions #anime review

[dokidokivisual]

Gochiusa BLOOM episode 5 impressions

Previously: 4 - 3 - 2 - 1

Welcome to another installment of my Gochiusa BLOOM episode reviews. At the end of last episode Cocoa finds out about Chino’s intention to go to her school, so this episode opens with some sort of ceremony to celebrate this fact. Despite a reference to alcohol, this ceremony might seem innocent, but it actually has a dark connotation...

First off, Cocoa is asking if everyone is holding a sakazuki. Sakazuki is a special traditional sake cup, which was apparently so important that it even has its own kanji  盃. A real sakazuki is actually more like a saucer than a cup, and holds very little alcohol. The girls are holding regular coffee cups, while pretending they are sakazuki. But what is the importance of sakazuki here?

The hint comes from Chiya’s description of the ceremony: 義兄弟の盃 (gikyodai no sakazuki) which literally translates as “sake cup of sworn brothers”, though kyodai can be used for siblings of any gender. The origin of this type of ceremony lies in Chinese 14th century novel Romance of Three Kingdoms, where the so-called Oath of the Peach Garden has transpired between three major characters. However in modern times, this type of brotherhood ceremony is mainly used by organized crime syndicates known as yakuza. So what you’re supposed to be seeing in this scene is literally Chino being initiated into a gang. If you’re interested, here’s a video of gikyodai sakazuki ceremony of Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest yakuza organization.

The ceremony is interrupted by Aoyama Blue Mountain who somehow got behind the counter. Soon, Mate Rin comes in looking for her, but she’s already gone. Before this point I didn’t know yet what the part B of the episode will be about, but this intro definitely provides a hint about it. Rin also gives a business card to Chiya, but it’s a bit difficult to read. Thankfully, there’s a better shot of it later in the episode.

Cocoa remembers there’s a marathon tournament, and Chiya is horrified when she learns that it involves running. However Cocoa persuades her that as Chino’s recently sworn older sister and senior she should run the whole distance.

Chiya’s motivation for participation in marathon was changed compared to the manga, the chapter in question (vol.5 ch.7) opens with Cocoa and Chiya doing exercises during PE class (a scene sadly cut out from the anime) and has to deal with Chiya and Cocoa’s friendship bond. This is why Chiya wants to finish the race with Cocoa so badly.

Chiya starts training by herself to get ready for the marathon. The location where she trains (some sort of clearing being overlooked by a bridge) is quite interesting, as it also appears in season 1 episode 5 (where Cocoa and Chiya practice volleyball) and Sing For You OVA where Chino uses the same tire excercise as part of her special training.

Ironically Rize thinks one tire is “too far” for Chiya, but 5 tires is ok for Chino who was supposed to train her singing. Anyway it’s quite interesting how some locations in town stay consistent, I wonder if the staff has a detailed map of them.

Despite having muscle pain from training, Chiya shows her resolve to finish the race to Cocoa. In this speech she mentions the Whirlwind (旋風) from the title of the episode (”On that day I will make Ama Usa An whirlwind blow”). Interestingly, the title of this manga chapter 千の夜を走る風となる (”run 1000 nights to become the wind”) also mentions the wind.

Cocoa also wants to train, and justifies her ability to wake up early with a helpful diagram (which looks as if she’s born directly from bread). To be fair, her justification that bakers wake up early does make sense, and she didn’t seem to have a problem to wake up in time in Dear My Sister. However when staying in Rabbit House, she definitely tends to oversleep, which happened this time too.

Rize and Chiya start training without her, and start playing shiritori to keep Chiya’s spirit up. Honestly this game appears in pretty much every anime ever, so should I even bother to explain the rules? Anyway, Rize names sweets that she supposedly overate, while Chiya names stuff that would be normally served at Ama Usa. However after saying いちご大福 (strawberry rice cake) she continues even though it’s Rize’s turn, saying 黒豆寒天 (black soybean jelly). This ends in “ん” (n) which is a losing turn in shiritori, since no Japanese words start with ん. Nevertheless, Chiya continues listing off Ama Usa desserts and eventually just switches to advertisement mode. Rize compares her to senden car which is a decorated truck that you can find driving around Japanese cities while blasting advertisements really loudly.

Rize introduces her stamp card here (which is an upgrade over her previous motivation techniques, such as the schedule in Dear My Sister), which gives Chiya an idea for an Ama Usa An stamp card. The reward for completing it is 90 minutes of all-you-can-drink piping hot oshiruko, which is a kind of soup made from red beans. The fact that it’s very hot was for some reason omitted from the official English subs, even though that’s what makes the deal especially ridiculous.

Cocoa still wants to train, so she asks Sharo to run with her. However when the morning comes she still can’t wake up on time. When Sharo talks about Chiya taking up jogging there is a montage of Chiya training with Rize, but at this moment Sharo doesn’t know that Chiya trains with Rize, which is why she gets jealous when it is revealed later.

Sharo’s orange phone with the dangling teacup charm was previously seen for example in season 2 episode 7. The exact model is “Kyocera Honey Bee 201K” and as you can see it’s accurately drawn down to the small details.

This is another repeatedly used Gochiusa outdoors location, seen for example in season 1 episode 6 when Cocoa and Tippy meet Aoyama, and in season 2 OP in the shot with Tippy, Anko and Wildgeese. This is where Rize wants to persuade Chiya to continue training, but Chiya isn’t having it. In the manga this is where Rize pulls out her stamp card (almost filled out) to persuade her, but in anime version we never see how many stamps she acquired.

The marathon starts and we see some of Cocoa’s classmates from the previous episode running by. As expected, Cocoa ended up being less fit than Chiya and had to hold on to Chiya’s twintails to keep up. The manga doesn’t actually show them finishing the race, so watching whether Chiya would be able to cross the finish line was quite suspenseful.

After the race, Sharo is disappointed at being left out, but Rize invites her for special training right away. Rize seems to be interested in some triathlon competition and tried to invite Chiya earlier, but Chiya was scared off by the mere name “triathlon”. A triathlon competition features running, cycling and swimming. Sharo is actually better than Rize at swimming (see season 1 episode 8) and perhaps Cocoa is the best at cycling.

We never see how these two trained, but in the manga there’s an additional illustration at page 65 of volume 5 which shows how it may looked like.

Now the “carefree breeze” part of the episode starts, and it’s based on volume 6 chapter 3, making it the first chapter from volume 6 to be animated. Even though there are 9 chapters between part A and part B of this episode, in retrospect it makes a lot of sense that they were put together. For one, they feature a lot of running. And there are a lot of outdoor locations. Such as the park where Cocoa and Chiya meet off-duty Aoyama.

You might recognize it as the same park where Cocoa meets Aoyama for the first time in season 1 episode 6. In season 2 episode 8, Cocoa and Chiya also walk through this park when returning from school. 

Cocoa and Chiya think Aoyama is going on a date (this is more explicit in the manga) but it seems she doesn’t have anything to do and just dressed up nicely for the sake of it.

She wants to play tag, which in Japanese is called oni-gokko and oni (a demon) is the one who’s chasing the other players. The role of the demon is relegated to Mate Rin who comes to Rabbit House for the second time this episode to search for Aoyama. This time we get a better look at her business card.

The name of the publisher is Seironsha (生論社 - the first kanji is not visible here, but is visible in the manga). Usually publishing companies in Kirara series are parodies of Houbunsha but not this time. I couldn’t find the reason behind this name anywhere. There’s a word “Seiron” which means “sound reasoning” but it’s spelled with different kanji (正論). There’s also a publisher Rironsha (理論社) although it seems pretty obscure. Also a fun fact: Aoyama’s book Bakery Queen (seen in Dear My Sister OVA) had a different publisher 走兎舎 (”Soutosha”?) which means “running rabbit house”.

Rize, Chino and Rin form Shin-furimawasare-tai (“the new at-their-mercy corps”) which is a reference to season 2 episode 8, as well as a few character songs recorded by Rize, Chino and Sharo as Furimawasare-tai. It seems that Sharo is sidelined a lot in this episode...

Next there’s a montage of them unsuccessfully chasing Chiya, Cocoa and Aoyama, which shows off various locations in town. They are not necessarily just random spots. For example the stairs with the statue and the fountain are actually right next to each other, as can be seen in Dear My Sister.

Then they spot Aoyama riding a gondola (a somewhat fancier one than in the beginning of episode 3) and Tippy falls off Chino’s head. Which doesn’t happen nearly as often as you’d think it would. Last time (season 2 episode 6) it also involved boats...

Cocoa, Chiya and Aoyama make a pact to be caught together, but it falls apart rather quickly, as Cocoa gets lured by Chino. The scene of Cocoa being captured was quite expanded compared to the manga, with Chiya and Aoyama trying to discourage Cocoa from falling into the obvious trap, and then lamenting her “passing”. 

Despite the earlier pact to be caught at once, Aoyama and Chiya split up and Rize ends up chasing Chiya. This is where the marathon chapter is referenced, as the teacher ends up chasing the student. Chiya was able to keep up for a while, but hits the dead-end and surrenders to Rize.

Meanwhile Cocoa, Chino and Rin go to some sort of fair, where Sharo finally appears, performing as Phantom Thief Lapin. Rin, being a fan of Lapin comes closer and discovers Aoyama already sitting there, who seems to like Sharo a bit too much... 

I also wonder where did Tippy come from, because it didn’t seem like Aoyama carried him while running away earlier. Next we see the infamous rabbit carousel, which looks even weirder when CGI animated.

It’s evening now, but if you look back at Rize chasing Chiya scene it’s clear that the sun is already beginning to set by then, and the sky becomes darker in the Lapin scene. There are all sorts of colorful lights in the background, which creates a proper fairgrounds atmosphere.

The lighting gets even more fairytale-like as everyone gets on the carousel, with bokeh effect being created by all the lights at the fair. Interestingly, the word “bokeh” comes from Japanese where it means “blur”. This entire scene looks quite amazing with CGI and special effects blending in with 2d animation very well. I bet it used up more budget than the rest of the episode, but it was worth it.

One of the interesting shots here was this one, with Chiya riding alone and looking pensively at Rize and Sharo, which made me feel bad for her. At least in the manga version, Chiya was riding with Rin so she didn’t look as lonely.

Aoyama and Rin are reminiscing about their past, and there’s a flashback of Aoyama in high-school uniform thanking Master (Chino’s grandfather) for lending her a fountain pen (a callback to season 1 episode 9 where she loses this pen). Unbeknownst to her, Master is sitting right in her lap, as Tippy. Maybe if Aoyama kept track of when she hears Master’s voice and Tippy is around, she’d have figured it out by now...

Anyway, that was another great episode of Gochiusa BLOOM, and check in next week for my review of the next episode which is coming out this Saturday. Seems like it will have more rabbits than usual...

#gochuumon wa usagi desu ka? #is the order a rabbit? #gochiusa #review

[danwhobrowses]

One Piece 1000 - 10 Confessions as a One Piece Fan

Although we did the Initial Thoughts a week ago (a long week ago, damn) which you can read here I wanted to do something for the official release of One Piece’s 1000th Chapter At first it started out to be ‘10 things I wanna ask Oda that I don’t think we’ll ever know’ but I couldn’t think of 10, then I was gonna do a General opinion post about it, but didn’t want it to come off too negative. So I am settling on a confessions post, which will have elements of these anyway.

So as we have a happy 1000, let’s talk about some stuff I usually don’t get to talk about in One Piece

Note: There will probably be spoilers so make sure you’re up to date

10. Late Beginnings I think the first confession I have to have is that despite being older than One Piece I am unfortunately not a ‘Day One’ fan. In fact I think I mainly got into One Piece around mid-Whole Cake Island arc, before I had of course known about One Piece, it was a ‘Big Three’ anime after all but the most I knew about it was that they had a guy named Luff-y and another called Zorro, and it was about ‘Pirates who can’t swim’. My curiosity only developed when in a youtube deep-dive of anime clips I kept being recommended One Piece clips, and decided to give a couple a go. Most of them were Paradise arc stuff from the anime, the dub voices were mostly atrocious so I stuck to sub. I was happily surprised about the amount of fun and emotional weight these clips gave me, which led me to check where One Piece was as of current and backtrack from there (Ironically I did the same with Beastars). I did eventually get caught up around the time of the Mafia Meeting and I’ve kept up with each chapter since.

9. I mostly still prefer the Pre-Timeskip looks When I first felt this I thought it to be pretty controversial, nowadays not so much. I understand that Oda wanted to change the look for many characters but some of them did feel like a downgrade. I think the ones who got it worst was Franky, I think it’s the bulbous shoulders, Franky was no stranger to body horror from Enies Lobby to Sabaody but I kinda preferred that he still had a lot of his humanity rather than looking like an action figure. Otherwise I think Robin, Nami and Chopper had it bad, maybe Brook too but his was more fashion than design; the women in general took heavy hits by Oda’s proportion design - I mean I get it boobs are nice but proportions are what make them better - but Robin also underwent a skin color change in the anime, who pre-timeskip shaded her skin darker than in the manga and corrected it to match the manga, I think most of us would’ve preferred Robin to have kept the darker skin tone and possibly even the fringe, Robin’s hairstyle (and her fashion in general) can be hit and miss. I go to and fro about Nami, other than the general waist and bust adjustments I think it fits her character to use her sexuality a bit, she was no stranger to that pre-Timeskip, sometimes though I can’t tell whether I preferred her with short or long hair (Short was definitely better on Nojiko), I do think though that Oda could have her show less skin, she is still very pretty in outfits such as Water 7, Thriller Bark and even her fake pirate disguise in the early chapters/episodes. Finally with Chopper I think it was a bad move to alter the hat, that was a memento from his father figure Hiriluk, it’d be like if Luffy altered his straw hat or Zoro replacing Wado Ichimonji, I do also feel that the design for Chopper’s points while easier to draw don’t look as good, I think a lot of it is the scruff, or lack thereof in favour of smoothness, Walk Point is fine but Heavy Point, Guard Point and Horn Point seem less threatening, Monster Point especially too, in Enies Lobby he looked like a cave painting of menace and destruction, now he’s smoother and his scruff lighter so it’s not as good. The rest of the designs I’m quite fine with though.

8. I wish some markings stuck as well Tattoos and Scars seem to be optional in the One Piece world sometimes, unless it’s branded in molten heat like the Dragon’s hoof, Sun Pirates logo or an attack from Sakazuki. While Nami’s redesigned tattoo has stuck around and Luffy and Zoro’s scars persist, they are mainly character reminders/mysteries for huge moments in the story, and I kinda wish that some of the Straw Hats had littler markings, not just scars either. For instance, the Alabasta X on the arm, I really wish that stayed on each of the Alabasta characters’ arms since it was a symbol of friendship with Vivi, I also wish that Luffy kept the 3D2Y mark on his arm. In terms of scars though it would’ve been nice to see the characters a bit more battle-worn; Zoro’s ankle scars from Mr. 3 have faded and frankly he should be covered in little and long scratches given his fights with Mr. 1 and 2 years of Mihawk Training, Nami’s shoulder scar is hidden completely by her tattoo and she has no scars on her hand (from fake stabbing Usopp) or foot (from blocking Miss Doublefinger), Usopp himself could’ve used some small scratches because lord knows how there’s even still bones in his nose plus he was in murder island for 2 years, Chopper could at least have a small bald patch from when his shoulder was impaled and burned by Shura’s fire lance too, other than that there’s just Jimbei’s potentially missing shoulder scar from Marineford, though Oda has kept it obscured a lot so maybe that is still there. I understand why Oda doesn’t or forgets to, but it would’ve been nice if we lived in a vacuum of no time limits and whatnot.

7. Dead End Adventure is my favourite One Piece film I don’t know what it is, but Dead End Adventure just gives me the most fun out of the One Piece films. It has a good side plot and the side character Shuraiya was a blast of a character. Granted, Gaspard wasn’t too good of a villain side for actually harming the straw hat and his defeat was a bit underwhelming but the race, the settings it was all fun. It is not to say I don’t enjoy any other One Piece movies, I delight in the horror fuel of Baron Omatsuri - and that killer final punch - and Z’s tragic tale of a fallen marine, Strong World has that epic entrance to the party and Stampede also had some great team up moments and fantastic writing for Usopp and Smoker but Dead End Adventure always feels like the movie I could watch in any mood.

6. Skypeia and Fishman Island are some of my favourite arcs While I can understand the criticism of the Long Ring Long Land arc (especially since the anime dragged out the Davy Back Fight) it surprised me that people found Skypeia and Fishman Island arcs to be boring or less entertaining than previous arcs. Everyone has their preferences of course but I felt that Skypeia and Fishman Island were very powerful arcs especially with the theme of racism. Both had glorious setting design different to the common customs of the world we had seen, Oda made both Skypeia and Fishman Island feel very much lived in with its own budding culture and prejudices, with a villain who was dead set on destroying everything just to have their way. With Enel and his priests we were able to push several characters to newer limits, with Robin showing her fighting capabilities, Zoro learning his projectile slashes, Chopper having to endure fighting 3 priests and even Usopp growing all the more braver in the face of seemingly indestructible opponents and later gaining access to the dials. With Fishman Island it was different because it was basically a ‘flex arc’: where the main villain is meant to be a stepping stone rather than a threat but even then the symbolism of the enemy is what’s significant with them, the inherited hatred of humans. But at the same time we do learn new strengths from the crew; Red Hawk, the use of armament Haki, Skywalk, Hell Memories, Franky Shogun, Usopp’s pop greens, Nami’s weather eggs, Brook’s Soul Solid and his new DF power (which is possibly an awakening), as well as the first true steps of Jimbei joining the crew. The biggest strength of both arcs is the flashback as well, like Wano would in present time both arcs demonstrated that Oda can carry a story without his main characters and still keep it as captivating as ever, be it the friendship of Noland and Calgara, the tragedies of Otohime and Fisher Tiger or the life of Kozuki Oden and the man who would be Pirate King. And the impact of Fishman Island and Skypeia’s flashbacks both come back around in Dressrosa with the dwarves and Koala, and Fishman Island really does kick off the whole Yonko saga with Luffy challenging Big Mom, these arcs were definitely significant as they were entertaining with silly faces, strong fights, challenging themes, lorebuilding, good side characters and unique twists. And the overall message of healing from the past is still significant to this day. Through Wyper’s sacrifice and the Bell ringing to Jimbei giving blood and the Ryugu royals wanting to attend the Reverie, it is all very powerful stuff and while the arcs are similar in nature its their similarities that make me love them. Also the cover stories with Enel and Gedatsu on their own mini adventures are fun

5. I really want to know where Ghin is Ghin/Gin was such an interesting character in Baratie. Given that this was right before Arlong Park too so we had not seen a character conflict with different loyalties in One Piece until then, his gratitude to Sanji against his loyalty to Krieg created a fantastically complex character, but then he left and we didn’t hear about him ever since. Did he survive Krieg’s poison gas? Is he still with Krieg? One reactor of the episode said “maybe he’ll become the next Don” which was a concept I kinda really liked. The guy was pretty strong given that he had bested Sanji at that time, and since he didn’t appear in a cover story my mind does wonder. It’s not just Ghin either, a lot of the early East Blue characters kinda fell off the map; where is Morgan? Last we saw he was sleeping as he sailed past Jango, where is Kuro? For someone wanting to resume piracy after some years off he has been very quiet, where is Krieg? Only Arlong and Morgan were arrested and the latter escaped so the rest of these characters are a mystery. Recently in Wano I am still wondering where Law’s crew that he brought to Onigashima went, as well as Caribou - where is that slippery bugger?

4. Basil Hawkins is probably one of my Top 5 Supernova There’s something about that dude I gravitate towards, which makes it quite frustrating when the anime decides to add extra malice and creepy faces to him. Hawkins in Wano is still a victim, if anything he is simply a prisoner with better working conditions, if he thought he could survive escaping Kaido he would but he doesn’t so he won’t, he’s also gonna feel sore about Drake betraying him and letting Law cut him up, so it annoys me that Hawkins is seen like a villain. Not only does he have an extremely interesting Devil Fruit and creativity with it but he’s also audaciously confident in his fortunetelling, even Luffy ran from Kizaru at Sabaody while Hawkins looked at his cards while Kizaru was about to boot him to holy hell and said ‘nah I’m not dying today’, you gotta respect that moxie. At the same time though as a pirate he has that shades of grey element, he’s okay with letting some of his crew be disposable and we don’t even know to what end, he doesn’t look like a guy too concerned about being Pirate King or having riches. I also get a good laugh in that his hobbies are interior design, it makes me really want to see what the inside of his ship looks like. I think as a top 5, I have Luffy, Zoro, Law, Hawkins and then Kid, Bege, Killer and Bonney are not far behind with Apoo dead last because fuck Apoo. Kid and Killer are cool but I do feel like they need a bit more character, Bege earned some points in being funny and his care for his family in WCI and then there’s Bonney - I really hope we dig into Bonney’s significance, she feels really important and that mystery keeps her fresh whenever we see her. Drake too has only really started to become interesting because of SWORD, we could still see more fleshing but for now he is like bottom 3. It’s a shame Urouge has to be so low, he’s not bad but he’s not spectacular either, gotta admire his hobby of lovemaking though, you do you Urouge.

3. I don’t think that either of the ‘Most Beautiful Women in the World’ are the Most Beautiful Women in One Piece The in-world consensus seems to be that the Most Beautiful Women in the World are Boa Hancock, Komurasaki and Shirahoshi, and granted they are very pretty, but the most? Not for me. I mean, y’all know that Nico Robin, Nami and Vinsmoke Reiju exist right? Makino as well is stunning, as are Tashigi, Bonney, Margaret, Ishilly, Nojiko, Vivi, Rebecca, Pudding, Perona, Cosette and I’m sure a few others, realistically I think they could all give them a run for their money. I get how for those three their beauty is a plot point (Boa it’s drilling home Luffy’s obliviousness to it, Komurasaki it’s the swerve of her not being awful and for Shirahoshi it’s due to Vander Decken IX pulling the creep factor on her) but it would’ve worked the same way without the ‘world’ hyperbole I think. As much as Oda is iffy with proportions and rarely writes women with as much attention as the boys he sure knows how to make them attractive.

2. Some of my favourite individual Straw Hat scenes aren’t in Canon If I were to have a top 5 moments of each character, it may surprise you that some of it comes from movies or filler episodes, particularly Sanji’s flexing on Jessica in the G8 Arc (in fact, Jonathon is one of my favourite marines, T-Bone is in there too, but I don’t have room to fit that). Some are of course obvious because of how iconic they are but it does go to show that sometimes filler isn’t all bad. Since you’re probably curious: As a Group Goodbye Merry [Enies Lobby] Entering Shiki’s Palace [Strong World] Walk to Arlong Park [Arlong Park] Entering the Grand Line [Reverse Mountain] vs a Stuck Oars [Thriller Bark] Jimbei Giving Luffy Blood [FMI] Vagabond Drill on Big Mom [WCI] Leaving the Big Mom Pirates [WCI] Returning in Wano [Wano] Trying to argue with Luffy [FMI] Brook vs Chess Soldiers & Big Mom [WCI] Flashback [Thriller Bark] Breaking Mother Carmel’s Picture [WCI] Baron Corpse vs Dog Minks [Zou] Hysterically laughing at seeing Duval [Sabaody] Franky vs Senor Pink [Dressrosa] Playing with the Kids [Punk Hazard] vs Fukurou [Enies Lobby] Freedom Roller [Wano] Trapping Caribou in the Barrel [FMI] Robin  I Want to Live [Enies Lobby] Clutching Spandam [Enies Lobby] Throwing Usopp under the bus [G8] vs Yama [Skypeia] Clutching Tequila Wolf guards [Amazon Lily] Chopper Monster Point [Enies Lobby] Flashback [Drum Island] Chopper Man (& Minoru Kazeno) vs Usobada [Chopper Man Special] Don’t blow the whistle: Immediately blows whistle [Skypeia] Dr Chopper the definitely Human Doctor not wearing fake glasses [G8] Vivi w/ Karoo (she counts okay!) Goodbye speech [Alabasta] Escaping Bon Clay [Alabasta] Karoo Digging Luffy Out [Little Garden] Luffy Fan Club Meeting [Reverie] Slapping Usopp awake [Drum Island] Nami vs Kalifa [Enies Lobby] Standing by the kids [Punk Hazard] Saying goodbye to Bell-mere [Arlong Park] Helping Luffy vs Cracker via Lola’s Vivre Card [WCI] Luffy WILL be Pirate King [Wano] Sanji ‘I needed a light’ [Skypeia] Flexing on Jessica [G8] Saving the Vinsmokes [WCI] O-Soba Mask [Wano] vs Doflamingo [Dressrosa]  Usopp Alabasta speech [Alabasta] Awakening Observation Haki [Dressrosa] Sogeking Theme Song [Enies Lobby] vs Perona [Thriller Bark] Saving Luffy from the fire [Stampede]  Zoro Nothing Happened [Thriller Bark] vs Ryuma [Thriller Bark] vs Mr. 1 [Alabasta] vs Gyukimaru & Kamazo [Wano] “He’s sweeping our floors that fiend!” Test of Luck [Loguetown] Luffy ‘On the Sea, you fight Pirates’ [Wano] Red Roc [Wano] vs Katakuri [WCI] Haki clash with Doflamingo [Dressrosa] Punching Saint Charloss [Sabaody] I will have to say that for some characters I could go to 20 so if one’s missing it may’ve just missed the mark, such as Usopp and Nami vs Enel or Luffy putting back a Zombie or Stealth Luffy, I mean it is 1000 chapters as well as movies and filler episodes/specials...

1. I’ve learned quite a lot due to One Piece Since my fascination started with a deep dive of checks, I did start to learn a hell of a lot more not just about the franchise itself (you know it’s almost catching up BATMAN on total sales, which has been around more than 3 times longer?) but I also learned a lot about stuff Oda has used as a reference key; folklore, actual pirates, actual practices, the amount of detail Oda puts in is astounding. Which does lean into another thing I’ve learned, One Piece has changed the way I approach some of my ideas for writings and whatnot, before I would be afraid of either spoonfeeding or being too vague, Oda’s mastery not only in storytelling but character development, character quality and pacing has both helped and intimidated me a lot of times, I mean consider this: it took hundreds of chapters to get a proper backstory on Luffy, the main character, how unprecedented is that? Often I could fall into the trap of making sure you knew everything about the main character from day one but now I wonder about what’s necessary for the now and what can I work on. Another thing that both inspires and intimidates me is his drawing, I suck at colours and still do, and a lot of Oda’s attention to detail is incredible considering he’s gotta whip that out on the weekly, but at the same time you see some of his rough sketches and they’re pretty similar to a rough sketch of my own, so in a way it’s a ‘there’s still hope for you’ moment seeing those. I can’t say I’ve learned Japanese from listening to One Piece, but I have picked up on some stuff, some hiragana there, some phonetics here, I also appreciated some of the stuff kaizokuou-ni-naru does (I won’t tag them in case that’s a bit rude to do it out of the blue but check out their tumblr) when it came to deciphering the Japanese of chapters and the little puns and hints Oda puts in his native tongue. And of course any One Piece fan has learned one thing above all else: Patience. Oda himself included, it took over 20 years to get to 1000 chapters and we still have plenty of questions to ask, plenty of islands to see and thus plenty of chapters to go. So Straw Hats off to you Oda, and a happy 1000th!

#one piece #one piece 1000 #one piece chapter 1000 #eichiro oda #straw hat pirates #monkey d luffy #straw hat luffy #roronoa zoro #Pirate Hunter Zoro #usopp #usopp one piece #god usopp #sogeking #nami #nami one piece #cat burglar nami #vinsmoke sanji #sanji #black leg sanji #sanji one piece #stealth black #soba mask #nefertari vivi #vivi #vivi one piece #karoo #carue #tony tony chopper #cotton candy lover chopper #chopperman

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Moriarty 8 - 11 (FINAL) | HypMic 12 - 13 (FINAL) | Taiso Samurai 7 - 9 | Akudama 9 - 12 (FINAL)

Hopefully I’ll be able to get on to all that backlog soon, because...I don’t want it to keep accumulating and Skate-Leading Stars (first winter 2021 anime) already has an advance 1st ep. up...

Moriarty 8

(Moriarty 8 notes deleted accidentally…)

Moriarty 9

If you want a modern equivalent to the Baker Street Irregulars, then I’d suggest you look this way *jabs finger at Odd Jobs Yamada (from HypMic)*.

These CGI background horse and carriages are…kind of distracting…

I’m guessing back in those days, the Irregulars were better than Google at finding info…because Google didn’t exist until the internet did.

Moriarty 10

Just this ep and one more until the end…at least, until spring 2021.

Wow, the use of colour here is really striking!

White lilies mean…purity/chastity…?

I’ve never heard of “bending someone’s ear” until now. It means to talk to someone, especially to ask a favour or to talk at length.

Probatio diabolica: the devil’s proof. I didn’t even know that was a concept until now…(I never once studied law, as you can tell.)

“William” isn’t normally shortened to “Liam”…It’s normally “Will”…also, notice all the footprints on the floor…

Moriarty 11 (FINAL)

Last ep. before spring 2021.

LOL, kabedon.

The fishy thing about Brits is that they’ve named things across the world names from Britain. I know there’s a Doncaster which isn’t anywhere near Britain, for one thing…

Observe the weird finger-like marking made by one of the bloodstains and the scratches on the suitcase. The latter was probably forced open.

Considering the number of signs the killer left, he was clearly in a hurry…

Well, based on that shoeprint we can find the killer if we can find traces of blood on his shoe.

“Duram” (sic).

Ah! If it was raining in Durham, then there would be traces of mud on the killer’s shoes. I remember early on in Detective Conan Shinichi, then newly shrunk, deduced Agasa was running in the rain based on the mud on his pants…this is similar.

Chloral (hydrate…?).

The “washroom” (apparently a Canadian term, the British term is “water closet”) has privacy and a place to get rid of the evidence, to some extent.

What about the rest of Eddie’s clothes?

Considering there are still 5 minutes of the ep. left…there’s going to be some kind of stinger for the next season. I can feel it.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait…Director Holmes??? Y’mean, Mycroft?! That is a good stinger! See you next time.

HypMic 12

“Ever since I was born, there was never a time I’d felt I’d accomplished something.” – Aw, Doppo, sweetpea (<- this blogger calls people “sweetpea” when they’re feeling lots of moe feels for them). Please don’t say that. You’ve accomplished more than enough in your life!

…Oh, almost didn’t notice it until Hifumi hid behind Doppo and the angle changed to confirm the jacket was on the bed, but Hifumi doesn’t have his jacket on.

I think I saw a tweet that said something about a wall being wrecked (specifically “Wall: Ow…”) but I wasn’t sure of the context, so I saved it in my bookmarks…LOL, so that’s what it means?

Samatoki, I know you don’t like Ichiro…but please stop trying to preach what his 2nd character song says in the title…(i.e. Break the Wall, LOL)

Jyuto’s very much a “I’ll leave this problem to the other guy” guy.

When the Funi subs say “dame”, I think Samatoki is just referring to an “onna” (woman). It’s a bit of an odd choice, really…although I can’t go and interrogate whoever was responsible for it. I don’t have the authority or the contacts that will allow me to.

This is not the time for fighting one another!!!

Notably, in the manga, Jakurai was going to chaffeur Hifumi and Doppo to their place, but then he had to go to work and so they rode the train with their prize money. This “run from Special Forces” ending is better, I think, since people got grumpy at Jakurai for having to abandon them with the money.

“…permission to cover a story.” - Permission from…who?

*screams* I was thinking Tom, Rex and Iris worked for a foreign government! They work for Ichijiku – why didn’t I think of that?!

LOL, I couldn’t even tell what Tom was saying until I played it back…it’s English, just…said in a spot where you don’t expect it.

“…that scares me.” – This may be nitpicky of me, but osoreru is actually a derivative of osore (fear), so “it strikes fear in me”…? “It strikes fear in my heart”? What would sound right…?

Go, host mode Hifumi! (...but does that imply host mode Hifumi is the only “version” of Hifumi able to rap? Certainly, he was able to do Wrap and Rap without his jacket, right…?)

You can tell Tom still respects Jakurai after all this time because he (the former) calls him (the latter) “Sensei”. Also, this’ll be interesting, we haven’t seen many mics and speakers beyond the standard bad guy ones (depicted in both the anime and the manga).

My gosh! All I knew of this song was that m-flo, also responsible for Human Lost’s theme song (and notably they’re a hip hop group with techno influences), was responsible for this song. Man, this s*** slaps! It’s great! (Sorry, I’ve just never really had the chance to capitalise on all the info I gathered on EDM DJs when talking in terms of things from Japan…m-flo is basically the only act I know which does that, so I’m really excited…can’t you tell from how verbose I’m getting in this note?)

That’s interesting that Matenrou won and Tom still took the gold chair symbolism to represent him and the Secret Aliens as the victor instead.

Iris’s parts are awesome. M-flo has a female vocalist and so I’d assume Iris takes on Lisa’s (m-flo’s vocalist’s) parts.

…Hmm, Gentaro’s made a reference to the track “Me Against the World”, has he?...Maybe.

I’m not quite sure, but I think Ramuda said “majo” (witch) when he was referring to Beauty and the Beast in the English subs.

…gosh, what is up with that airhorn…? Still, next time is the last time. See you on Christmas…no, Boxing Day.

HypMic 13 (FINAL)

This is the beginning of the end and the end of the beginning…y’know, considering how stuff trended on Twitter, I’d say this anime’s gonna get a 2nd season, but you can’t really say that until it actually happens. I mean, Boueibu is much less popular than HypMic and that got a 2nd season…

This is the 1st episode where I woke up early enough to watch without spoilers and had no obligations to place over it, so…this is exciting, in its own sense, but in a sense, it could also be called “profoundly disappointing” because this experience is only available to me as of the final episode.

One of the tweets I saw a few weeks back came to mind – someone became interested in sakuga houkai (terrible animation, literally “animation collapse”) because of HypMic…I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing…

…Dude, you probably shouldn’t answer a call from someone who just revealed themselves to be a traitor last episode…*sweatdrops*

(Spoiler for rest of franchise) Hmm…Dice’s face is pretty straight. Assuming at this point we knew Dice was Otome’s son, this is a good poker face from him…!

This thing about gangs was mentioned in their profiles (although the words used implies they “went delinquent”), so it actually doesn’t surprise me.

I wonder if this subway exists in the mainline story…?

According to the next ep. preview I saw on Twitter, TDD will reform to take down the Secret Aliens. I’m not sure if that was a guess or whether that’s true, so I’m waiting for the shoe to drop on it.

Samatoki-san, not -sama. Hmm…

There was definitely the word “team” in Dice’s line, so it’s “what the legendary team was made of”.

…oh gosh…they’re still using that airhorn…?

Again with the play on “lonely thunder”. It’s a really fun pun, but one I’d like to see in the rest of the series more.

Notably, Iris’s rap in English missed the word “charisma” where it could have fit (unless I missed reading it the first time).

Note Samatoki does actually use the word “shinsensa” (freshness), so there’s no lie there.

I still love how much they went in on Rex’s theme, even in his raps.

Huh, that’s new. Never seen a tag team like this before.

It seems Tom’s signature is using a lot of English, which makes it easy for us English/Japanese pair translators.

Saburo didn’t actually say “Ichi-nii”, did he…?

…based on the rock intro, this is Rhyme Anima, the OP, or something that sounds similar. What I’d need to confirm this is the “nautilus” line and the “ends corruption” line, which are the OP’s two biggest tells for AMQ.

“rainmaking” – Hmm, another link from Gentaro to Rei. This might be a different part of Rhyme Anima (OP) that wasn’t used as the OP proper.

“this white light invites and heals” (<- paraphrased) – Sounds like Sensei, alright!

…now that (rainbow bit). That’s sakuga!

*a silhouette appears* - Oh nooooooooooooooo! Now they‘ve done it! They’ve included Rei! That’s more than enough spoilers to last a lifetime for y’all anime-onlys!

I wish someone would work on this collaboration between Saburo and Riou…

Hmm…what is the series endgame? Putting in Dice as the new ruler??? I mean, Dice is the worst possible politician ever. He’s far too lax about things.

*Nemu enters* - No! Nemu!

Not only is Iris a “ramen shop owner”, it’s Tom’s favourite food…No wonder ramen has significance to her.

…ooh! A new song! Update: I don’t know what this song’s name is, although it probably will become clear what its name is on the 13th. I’ll keep my eye on Twitter in case the answer is there.

…I knew it was far too early to say if there was an s2 – the DVD’s live events go until September 5th and the 2nd DRB finishes in March. That almost felt like a stinger right there. Oh well, I’m more than happy to call this anime a success, even if I would call it the worst of the arms of the franchise. All HypMic’s anime had to do was deliver fun, before anything else, and it delivered on that front. See you around!

Taiso Samurai 7

Anime burnout means I’m coming back to the anime after the day it finishes.

This dancing scene is kind of like the one at the start of ep. 2 of IWGP, except it has the owl to represent the setting as well as the dance stage.

Leo doesn’t seem to know kanji or katakana, only hiragana.

Even though this part of the anime is set in London, the characters are still speaking Japanese (lel…?).

LOL, Edward Scissorhands much?

LOL, these background gossips are like the Plastics from Mean Girls…haha.

…LOL, that’s not one of those dismounting moves, is it? It’s just kind of…jumping off the bar.

Lookit how Leo’s sticker is 90 deg. sideways from what it should be, haha.

I don’t think it’s true that Olympic gymnasts have never failed. Like other people at the top of their game, they’re probably failed millions of times, but only outside the view of most of the world. Persistence and passion are what’s key to becoming the best at what you are, no matter what field you’re in.

Now Aragaki’s what I call a “determinator” (see TV Tropes on what that is).

Taiso Samurai 8

Notably, the word used for “clothes” is specifically for Western clothing, like dresses.

Well, now we know why Leo can do those stretches…

They’ve clearly sped up the dance here, but…it’s basically the same sort of movements Yuri on Ice used to suck me in. I’m here for it!

Leo seems to be the type who tries to push away his worries by distracting people (including himself) with other things…I see. I didn’t have much of a grasp of his character beforehand.

Britney! F*** you, Britney!

Ah, that must be the (a?) fabled owl of Ikebukuro. I’ve never actually been to Ikebukuro…the closest I got was Akihabara (to memory) and even then, that was for electronics, not anime…so I’ve never seen the owl statue I’ve been talking about close up.

Rei does kind of look like her mother like this.

Ah! Rei and Kitty have a pair look now! “Twinsies”, they call it.

Amakusa’s head is located right next to Leo’s butt, so I end up staring at it…LOL.

The Hoover mission.

“I <3 Ninja”, LOL.

LOL, “Nyapoo!”

*sighs* The problem with being multi-talented is that you’re going to be told to one day put one passion above the others, even if you don’t want that.

LOL, you can be a ninja with this WikiHow article. (I was looking for Kitty’s quote, but found that instead. It seems to be a quote from one of Tomoyo’s movies.) Update: I was right.

There’s a movie in the back where the title is “Black Rainmaker”. (Tomoyo, I presume) Mifune is the 1st person credited.

Considering this is 2003…you won’t be on Mars in 2013, Kitty.

Wow, a tape! That brings me back to 2003, indeed.

Charlie’s Angels…so that’s what the tape was.

LOL, a shoebill.

“blade in your heart” – That would refer to the character for “ninja”, which has a blade over a heart. Y’know Kiss Shot Acerola Heart-Under-Blade (from Monogatari), yeah? Like that.

…you might think emails were out of place in 2003, but a virus from an email caused me to be an avid reader and that virus was unleashed around the late 90s – early 2000s.

LOL, Kitty’s cat belt buckle.

You said it, Rei. You said it.

Taiso Samurai 9

Lausanne, Switzerland.

I noticed one of the boxes at the start of the OP says “Horizontal Bars”, rather than some random name to make the boxes look like they were discarded.

Someone encoded the video funny…

LOL, BB’s getting possessive of his territory.

Fuku-chan the fukurou (owl) in Ikebukuro…LOL.

LOL, randomly there’s a skeleton with a hat in the background of Britney’s clinic.

Notably, one of the wall hangings says “heart” on it – alternatively, “soul”.

Notably, Atlanta was the 1996 Summer Olympics…there is no 1997 Lausanne Olympics, as far as I know.

Akudama 9

I watched the part where it glitches twice and I can’t quite figure out what that circular symbol is…maybe it’s Hacker’s symbol…?

Ah! Only now they properly confirm Swindler used to work in the Seal centre.

“Life that never dies is defective.” – Doctor

Does that mean Doctor is actually older than she looks, due to plastic surgery…?

Marker? What marker?

Apparently that flower is a cherry blossom…according to Detective Conan.

…I know this anime wasn’t made in America (it wouldn’t be “anime” otherwise), but Anime Feminist is going to have a field day with this one…if they haven’t abandoned it already due to their idea of morals.

…now I can even see parallels between HypMic’s authorities and Akudama’s. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

“Why did this have to happen when I’m chief?” – Sounds like…basically every authority during COVID and BLM, to be honest.

See? Akudama likes the S word. I told you.

I haven’t watched The Shining, but reading the synopsis, you can figure out why Cutthroat is the way he is…sort of.

How does the iconic quote go? “Heeeeeeeeeeeere’s Danny!” (or something…?)

They even copied the iconic eye shot! There you go!

Way to take a guy out (with the door, LOL).

…with all this killing, I can see why Akudama Drive was only in one magazine now. (Then again, HypMic was in basically all of them and that also has a tonne of problems…)

Akudama 10

万死 literally means “10000 deaths”.

Babel.

That police chief is such a mood, LOL.

I can see why people didn’t recognise Swindler, but Courier never changes his look, so…uh…

You can’t become a police chief without a sense of justice, no?

“Since when did you know that I’m not-“ - *facepalms*

Is this what they call an “ass-kickin’ Christmas”? (LOL)

Y’know, Sister, you could just do the whole “wherever you are, I’m also seeing the same sky as you” thing some other anime do.

Notably, there are shide (the paper strips) and a rope over the vault…they really do treat the shinkansen and its immortal children as a single god, huh?

Hmm? They don’t care about Sister anymore? Just Brother? (Somewhere along the way, the priorities must have shifted.)

In the end, the best ship is Brawler and Hoodlum (lel).

Akudama 11

One more ep after this. I’m gonna miss this anime, even if it was crazy over-the-top and I didn’t finish it until after the day it ended.

I think the scariest scene in all of Akudama Drive is the one where the “cleaner” tosses the girl aside.

“This nowhere place!” – Around this time, the bunny and shark’s shirts say “morning”/”afternoon” (shark) and “evening” (bunny).

The blue bird of happiness…literally. That character on the birds is the one for “happy”.

…LOL, that one glitched Courier looks more like Cutthroat.

Hacker’s drone matches Courier’s head angles, LOL.

I guess if you think you’re falling in Kanto, you’re falling in Kanto and if you think you’re floating (like Courier did), you float. I always liked that concept.

War Games. Now the title makes sense!

…but they can be together if they stay here in Kanto as vessels for the citizens? (That sounds mighty antagonistic of me, but…that logic does compute.)

Maybe swindlers play games with the truth…? (What an interesting concept.)

“Just fine.” – I think Hacker needs a “This is fine” meme.

“We can hear your heart talking.” – It means something like “We can hear you spouting your true intentions.”

“…worth every last penny…” – That’s a weird thing to say for someone whose life got changed by 500 yen…Just goes to tell you how American the subbers can be sometimes.

Swindler’s smug face is so good, LOL.

Akudama 12 (FINAL)

This episode isn’t named after a movie. It’s named after the anime itself.

The TV says “Please watch away from the TV”, i.e. stand back from the TV while you watch.

“They came and stole the offerings…” – At this point, bunny’s shirt says “freedom” and shark’s says honpou, meaning “wild, uninhibited, rampant, extravagant”.

…where did Shikoku come from? Is that where Swindler and Sister landed after they tried going to the moon?

Ohh! That Christian imagery! That’s scary!

Is Akudama Drive a tragedy? No, I think…on the contrary, it’s a story of hope.

LOL, “s*** guy”.

I thought the girl had a bomb. Turns out she has a gun, which is…far worse, come to think of it.

Instead of red characters which say things about the situation, now Shark and Bunny have Hacker’s symbol on them.

There’s no way anyone who wasn’t immortal would survive the attack Courier took…

…why is it that falling over represents vulnerability in children in all of these stores where a war has happened and/or there’s a chase? Hmm?

Wow, Sister did everything with heels on…?!

Anyways, that was a fun time. See you next time!

#simulcast commentary #akudama drive #Chesarka watches Akudama Drive #taiso samurai #Gymnastics Samurai #HypMic #Hypnosis Mic #Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle - Rhyme Anima #moriarty the patriot #yuukoku no moriarty #Chesarka watches Yuukoku no Moriarty #Chesarka watches HypMic #Chesarka watches Taiso Samurai

[yunsoh]

true form thoughts

- for starters: i’m so happy with how this episode turned out. just beautifully directed, beautifully scored, beautifully made. just wonderful. now onto chronological thoughts:

- really loved that little moment between kazuma and yuki. i think i forgot that kazuma also trained him lmao, which ofc sends a little pang down my yuki loving heart. but it was nice :)

- also really liked this internal line from shigure: “even you choose to entrust everything to her?” it kind of calls back on his conversation way back with hatori, putting into question how tohru really fits into his whole scheme. (also, side note: got some choice views of shigure’s absolute trash bedroom lmao)

- loved the way this scene played out (at least in the sub -- not sure how it happened in the dub):

like just.... really poignant. really drives home kagura’s part in this, and her relationship with kyo. kazuma knows, and she knows, that she won’t be the one to save him in the end.

- the ENTIRE scene between kyo and kazuma speaking in the rain. i mean, just the tension of the shifting camera angles, the score.... it made me like, horror-movie nervous. so beautifully done. 

- the overlay of kyo’s mom saying “it’s all right. because i love you” -- and the scenes quickly panning to yuki, kagura, and shigure -- “that’s why i don’t want others to see you ” -- and it panning to tohru. chills. i wanted to cry ah.

- i really liked that they changed it so that tohru was standing behind kyo this time, rather than kyo spotting her over kazuma’s shoulder. and the way that kazuma reached out to cover his eyes -- it makes me wonder if kazuma wanted kyo to know that tohru was there or not. this little change in direction 1) made kyo seeing her that much more jarring, and 2) puts into question how kazuma wanted this to pan out. he of course wanted her to see it, and was essentially testing her, but for kyo to realize that she was there.... hm. 

- i mean.... the transformation scene. straight up scary. especially considering what we’ve seen so far in the series -- we’ve seen a lot of darkness so far, but this is really the first time we see something very mystical and inhuman (physically inhuman, anyway) occur. and tohru’s face after seeing him? choice.

- actually thinking about it, in the manga they didn’t show him actually transforming. and boy, here they made it really intense. like, we see that transforming into the true form isn’t just a cute, poof thing like transforming into the animals -- it’s painful. it’s like his body is being ripped to shreds. which makes you think, how absolutely terrifying and horrible it must have been for him to transform as a child, and how traumatic it must be to even think about removing those beads ever again. not just because of the emotional damage, but the physical pain. 

- okay. let’s talk about the landslide real quick. there’s something very, very poignant about seeing kyo create a landslide and then knock tohru off of it. those who have read the series and know what happens later probably had a similar stomach-lurching reaction that i did -- not because he hit her so hard (seriously, how tough are tohru’s bones? does she drink a lot of milk?), but because of the sweet, sweet foreshadowing. to create a landslide now and injure her in order to reject her, versus later when he basically sends her to a landslide where she gets injured, not by his hand but still caused by his rejection of her? fucking ouch. fuck. ing. ouch.

- actually, rewatching this........ tohru’s neck should definitely be broken?

like? that water’s shallow as hell and he smacked her so hard she dove head first into it. i’m not entirely sure that kyo’s the only inhuman being here lmao.

- the scene where tohru is thinking to herself that kyo will never return home if she doesn’t help him, and the door slams shut is really reminiscent of the new year’s episode, where hana asks kyo and yuki if tohru is really okay being home alone for the holiday, and the door slams shut on tohru waving them goodbye.

- i like that they changed kyo’s dialogue when he transforms back -- instead of saying to tohru “you don’t have to love everything. it’s okay if you were scared” (as in the manga), he instead says “it would have been fine if she didn’t love all of me, or if she were scared of me,” and continues to speak about his mother rather than tohru. this really drove home for me that, while kyo looks at tohru differently than yuki sees her, he still does find in her that missing maternal love that he wished he had received from his own mother. 

- just. ugh. the hug scene. the way he twines his hand into her hair and presses his face into it. like he’s holding onto her for dear life. the fact that we saw him cry! man. just beautifully done.

- and, of course, the way they played the ending theme over the last minute of the episode. it sent straight chills down my spine. 

- “i know i shouldn’t, i know i don’t have any right to... i know it’s a mistake to be by your side. so why can’t i help wanting to treasure you this time, to never leave you?” again, hits very hard for people who know what’s to come later. with the context we have now, we can take this as him wanting to treasure her more than he had in these past months of them living together. but it’s really him speaking about his whole history with her -- the guilt he carries, that feeling that he shouldn’t be allowed to be near her, much less accept her love. it’s reminiscent, too, of a later scene where he realizes his love for her, and he says: 

“i’ve never done anything but hurt people. why didn’t my mother just kill me? she should have killed me. so why am i alive? shamelessly forcing my existence on people, even now. so why am i still looking for her?... i’m sorry, shishou. now i understand. but deep down inside, i knew, really. i knew. just like there is despair in the world, there are people who will hold their hand to you... she won’t ever come back. i couldn’t fulfill [that promise], but even so, it blossomed in front of me. it kept blossoming. a small, small flower. a tiny flower, precious... i want to be near you. until the time when i must go away. i want to be with you until the end.”

#fruits basket #a long one but. wow. wow! #there's ofc other things to talk about but these are my immediate thoughts #fruits basket spoilers