#and also if you’ve read the manga it also acts as foreshadowing for what’s to come | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

Squid Game’s Most Heartbreaking Hour is Also Its Best

https://ift.tt/3u23hm5

This Squid Game article includes MAJOR spoilers for all nine episodes of the series, including Episode 6.

“Gganbu” isn’t the Squid Game episode with the highest kill count. It’s not the episode when we finally discover the man behind the deadly competition, or its ultimate winner. It is not the most fast-paced or action-driven of the Netflix series’ nine installments, nor is it the bloodiest. Instead, it is a relatively quiet hour that divides its characters into teams of two, with each pair acting as their own mini-social experiment. If the “deadly competition” trope is designed to reflect on the inherent goodness or not of humanity, then Squid Game‘s most articulate answer to the question of what humans will or will not do to survive comes in “Gganbu,” and it is as nuanced as it is heartrending.

What Happens in “Gganbu”?

“Gganbu” concerns itself with the events of Round 4. Before the next, mysterious competition begins, the remaining players are asked to pair up, unaware of how the structure might come into play. Once they have chosen partners, they enter a massive room designed to look like a traditional Korean village. Each player is given a bag with 10 marbles, and instructed to play a game of their choosing with their partner. After 30 minutes, whoever has won the game, and all of their partner’s marbles, will pass the round and survive. The loser will be “eliminated.” This is the round when characters we have come to care about start dying…

This is also the episode that gives the most time to a round of a competition. Episode 7, “VIPs,” comes close with its depiction of Round Five’s bridge of glass, but the narrative focus is split between the competitors and the disgustingly rich men who have come to watch. In “Gganbu,” there is no such split focus. The players begin choosing their characters around the four-minute mark, and they enter the playing arena at around the 13-minute mark. This is where they will stay until the end of the episode, which means the viewer experiences Round 4 in what is, more or less, real time. “Gganbu” makes use of every bit of it.

Can any of these players hold on to any scrap of their humanity when they have been manipulated into Squid Game? This is the question the “deadly competition” trope seeks to explore and, sometimes, answer. Squid Game doesn’t opt for one definitive answer, but rather a more complicated and nuanced one. It does this by giving us four clear, varied scenarios to see this theme played out.

Deok-su vs. Ja-hyoung

First, we have our duo with the least surprising thematic outcome: gangster Deok-su and henchman Ja-hyoung. Unlike Sang-woo, these two have rarely pretended to prioritize anything over their own survival and accumulation of power. When Deok-su betrays Mi-nyeo, leaving her to her presumed death again and again rather than risking his own survival by teaming up with her, it’s expected. Past that, there is little artifice to Deok-su’s games with Ja-hyoung. Ja-hyoung has dropped the act that he will obey Deok-su’s orders without question, but not even Deok-su is surprised by that. After all, he lives his life without the comfort of human connection, solely trusting in violence and money as security—why should he expect anything else from his social circle? What’s most interesting here is the game stipulation that says Deok-su cannot use violence to win the marbles. This puts Deok-su at a disadvantage because violence has always been how he exerts power. While Deok-su ultimately wins, this is the most unsettled we’ve seen him up to this point, and a reminder that even violence has its limits when it comes to ensuring survival.

Sang-woo vs. Ali

Lying can be a form of subtle violence, and it’s one that Sang-woo has demonstrated himself very capable of since the beginning of Squid Game, most notably when he chose to knowingly send his “teammates,” including childhood friend Gi-hun, to the harder dalgona challenges in Round 2. If you’ve been paying attention to Sang-woo, then his betrayal of Ali isn’t particularly surprising, but it cuts much deeper. That is because, while the viewer may not be shocked that Sang-woo would trick Ali to his death to save himself, Ali is. While this characterization didn’t always work for me—I think Ali would be more discerning as a 33-year-old immigrant who has been screwed over before—it works on an emotional and thematic level. Ali is depicted as the most innocent character within the game; he is almost child-like in his portrayal. To see Sang-woo take advantage of that innocence is upsetting. It may be tempting to see Ali as a passive player in this game, but that’s not how I view him. To me, believing in the goodness of others, and taking a chance on the relationships you have built is not only an active decision, but one of the bravest ones—an action that Deok-su and Sang-woo are much too cowardly to ever take themselves.

Gi-hun vs. Il-nam

While Gi-hun may struggle to play “fair” against Il-nam when his own survival is at stake, it’s all in the context of Gi-hun’s first major decision in this episode: to take Il-nam as his teammate. When the partner requirement is announced, Gi-hun initially goes to seek a more able-bodied contestant—and he has some good options. However, when someone points out that there is an uneven number of people and makes the assumption that the odd man out will be killed, Gi-hun sacrifices the edge a more physically able teammate might give him in order to make sure Il-nam doesn’t die. In this episode, Gi-hun hits peak aspirational relatability. He is the kind of player, the kind of human, we would like to believe ourselves to be. He’s relatable in that, when Il-nam’s apparent dementia gives him the chance to avoid losing, he takes it; he wants to survive. He’s aspirational in that, when faced with entering Round 4 in the first place, he chose friendship and compassion over the presumed competitive edge. It’s not the first time we’ve seen him make that decision, and it won’t be the last.

Squid Game: What Could Season 2 Look Like?

By Kayti Burt

Is Squid Game Based on an Anime, Comic, or Manga?

By Kayti Burt

Ultimately, the outcome of “Gganbu”‘s contest between Gi-hun and Il-nam hits different once you’ve seen the ending of the season, and the Oh Il-nam twist. Il-nam doesn’t die here. In many ways, Il-nam’s arc in this episode foreshadows that reveal. For most of the episode, we and Gi-hun are led to believe that Il-nam doesn’t fully understand what’s going on. Then, with only minutes left in the round, Il-nam reveals to Gi-hun that he knows Gi-hun has been tricking him, using his apparent memory problems against him to ensure he isn’t taken out of the game. It’s a manipulation not unlike the larger manipulations of the game in the sense that Il-nam has so much more power than Gi-hun, and is using that power to play with him and see what he will do. It’s cruel because it is dishonest. Watching this the first time, Il-nam’s decision to let Gi-hun win is a powerful one, and it disappoints that the Il-nam plot twist retroactively undercuts that narrative choice. That being said, the playing out of this dynamic—both a first and second time—helps to give us a complex, nuanced view of humanity.

Sae-byeok vs. Ji-yeong

While most of the players spend their half hour playing marbles to the death, Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong choose to “enjoy” what will be the final 30 minutes of one of their lives. This decision alone is a thematically impactful one: it treats life as precious. By using that 30 minutes to share their secrets with one another, they are choosing humanity’s capacity for togetherness and connection over humanity’s capacity for violence and desperation. They tell stories about the pain they have endured, and trade dreams about a future only one of them (and then neither of them) will have. While some, especially during an initial watch, may think the “Gganbu” of the title refers to the friendship between Gi-hun and Il-nam, I think it refers to the connection between Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong. If a gganbu is, as Il-nam describes it: “a good friend, one you trust a lot [and] you share things with,” then Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong become gganbu over the course of this hour of television.

In the end, Ji-yeong decides to let her gganbu, Sae-byeok, win. If Deok-su and Sang-woo represent the worst of humanity’s capacity for selfishness, then Sae-byeok and especially Ji-yeong represent humanity’s capacity for hope. And, unlike so many stories in this subgenre, Squid Game treats Ji-yeong’s act of desperate hope as just as likely as Deok-su or Sang-woo’s desperate acts of self-interest.

Humanity is not a monolith. Some of us make selfish decisions and some of us make selfless ones. Usually, it’s a combination of both. Squid Game neither wholly condemns humanity, nor wholly celebrates it; instead, it goes for something in-between, with an eye towards hope. While other episodes in Squid Game‘s first season concern themselves with a criticism of how society allows the ultra-powerful few to make decisions about the value of human life, “Gganbu”‘s ambitions are simultaneously simpler and much more ambitious: It chooses to depict the most powerful and affecting act not as a show of violence, but rather as a quiet gift of friendship and the sharing of one’s own name. As a result, “Gganbu” is Squid Game at its absolute best.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

What is your favorite episode of Squid Game? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Squid Game’s Most Heartbreaking Hour is Also Its Best appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3zxZq1a

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

7 notes · View notes

taurusborus · 3 years

Text

someone translated more of the under the tides event on reddit if you're interested in reading wtf is going on.

I'll also add it under this in case it's easier to read.

Warning, if you don't want to leave the slightest bit of surprise for yourself when the event hits global, TURN BACK NOW!!

I made a comment thread yesterday with a story summary. However, I still left out a lot of things, so I thought I'd make a new post, add in more info about plot I left out, organize the Q&A from the thread, and link to the TLs of the new units. Hopefully a centralized hub of info will help people find the information they're looking for and dispel any of the more wild hearsay floating around.

This will be organized into a few sections, the new unit TLs, my original story summary, a bunch of (my new summaries) separate plot threads that tie into the bigger story, and then some common questions.

Skalter profile + lines TL

Gladiia profile + lines TL

Event CGs

Some good supplemental information about the seaborn hivemind

A much longer summary of each stage, 11 pages - courtesy of Lauli. If you want to know more about the townspeople, Inquisitors, and details on Kal'tsit's end conversation with the Inquisitors, take a look.

The original summary I made yesterday, the fastest crash course on the major story points. I have edited some of the references of the new factions to match the updated TLs from MrSkyblock404 so there's no confusion:

First of all, if you've ever read the manga Claymore, you now understand most of the event. Key differences are that the "Organization" is Aegir. They don't SEEM to be the villains here, and they went the Claymore route to fight the sea horrors fully knowing that their Claymores will eventually awaken into the sea horrors that need to be put down.

The "secret" of the Abyssal Hunters is that Aegirians created them as supersoldiers with the bodies of land dwellers but the blood of sea horrors. More on that down below.

The seaborn is part of the underwater cosmic horror hivemind that's been foreshadowed since the start of the game. Its interest is in learning, evolving, and assimilating everything (a la Evangelion's instrumentality more like end goal of Starcraft's zerg). It's acts primitively... robotic? It doesn't understand things like emotions and "Does not compute. We will learn what you mean" is a large part of its exposition. The church in the town is actually the Deep Sea Church hiding in Iberia and slowly indoctrinating remote towns and turning the people to sea horrors. The ending convo with Kal'tsit implies that Iberia is now completely infiltrated by the cult and if they maintain an isolationist policy, they will be destroyed like Aegir.

The seaborn shows up to impale Gladiia, and reveals the big "you [Abyssal Hunters] and I share the same blood. You are us. We are you." Skadi has a mental breakdown over the truth bomb ("I've killed my own transformed family and friends" etc. Glossing over the specifics, just know she doesn't take some past war trauma well), and it seems like the seaborn can somehow "awaken" the blood and turn Abyssal Hunters like Skadi into one of them.

Skadi is right about to awaken [and probably become Skalter, that seems to be the general consensus on CN forums right now, Skalter = Skadi if she gives in to the call] when Gladiia reveals she was sandbagging (yay superhuman regen abilities) so she could listen in on why the seaborn wanted to meet Skadi so badly. Since the seaborn revealed everything, Gladiia promptly kills it and tells Skadi to get her shit together. Skadi gets her shit together. As the seaborn dies, it says its people will learn to understand everything the Abyssal Hunters have told it, and then they will ask them to join the family again. Also, Specter is now free from whatever "control" the Deep Sea Church exerted over her, she's elated over being "free" now. She's still infected but compared to her previous half-dream state, she considers it a minor setback.

Then there's the Deep Sea Church leader dude who had no idea Hunters were also of seaborn blood and also has a mental breakdown. His entire life's work and dream is shattered because the cult crap he made up believed in is a lie, and the seaborn don't put any special weight on his existence and work. He turns into the SV-9 giant tentacle demon that the 3 Musketeers take down. Before he dies, he curses Gladiia and says some ominous things about how she's different and unlike the other 2, her fate is set. Then in the scene with the mirror, she's shitting on herself for being useless and still ending up like an ugly little bitch. The mirror closeup shows part of her neck starting to look like fish scales, so it seems like she's already undergoing the sea horror transformation.

The town situation

The town has fallen on hard times, and the Deep Sea Church has slowly indoctrinated the population with Iberian values twisted into a pro-seaborn slant. These towns become experimentation grounds for the Church and seaborn. Gladiia confirms that she's been busy destroying many of these experiment grounds. The Church now provides the town with food from the sea when the tide comes. There is also a human sacrifice chosen by lottery, which the Church disguises as "the sea has chosen you to take into its embrace and provide a better life." Kind of like how parents tell their kids their dead dog went to live on a farm. The brainwashed people genuinely believe they have a better life and see it as the greatest honor.

The "food" the sea provides are the "dormant" state of severely injured Dinichthys, which regress into a more resilient meaty form while it recovers. This dormant state is edible (ugh) and what the people harvest during the tide. The unlucky human sacrifice walks into the tide to be eaten by the Dinichthys and thus what the sea giveth, it ultimately taketh.

I would like to note that the Church leader has made an appearance before this event. He has a substantial role in one of the story scenes in Archetto's event. I won't ruin the surprise, but if you pay attention to the setting, you'll know which scene it is before he shows up.

Deep Sea Church agenda and the seaborn

The Deep Sea Church are likely the major instigators of this major "sea vs land" conflict. According to the seaborn that shows up in the Church, the general seaborn population are territorial and generally abide by the animal instinct of survival of the fittest, there is no right or wrong if you kill to survive. The seaborn's behavior and inability to lie show that they indeed don't give a damn about individual seaborn, the Church's plans, or even the Church leader.

Distinction needs to be made between the general seaborn population and the seaborn used by the Church, the latter which could be artificially created. The Church leader is Iberian, but somewhere along the way managed to become part seaborn, which is why the seaborn will listen to him. Being part seaborn allows him to "weaponize" the true seaborn population for his own agenda.

The seaborn themselves indeed have a goal to evolve and and expand (from Skalter's profile). But to what degree the Terra conflict can be attributed to seaborn passive expansion vs. the Deep Sea Church's hostile accelerationism is not clear.

Thus, there's an interesting 3-way disparity between how the conflict is perceived.

* Abyssal Hunters: believes all seaborn must be eradicated * Seaborn: not really interested in the conflict * Church: "it is the will of seaborn to subjugate all"

Regardless, Gladiia has constantly repeated she doesn't give a shit about the seaborn's role in the Church's schemes. Her duty is to kill seaborn, and she's not going to discriminate.

Kal'tsit creates a cliffhanger every time she shows up at the end of any event

After the church-leader-turned-giant-tentacle-demon is killed, its enormous corpse is like a beacon calling to all the Dinichthys zerglings to swarm the area. The 3 Musketeers are like "ok fuck what now" and Kal'tsit swoops in with perfect timing to call Mont3r to completely destroy and bury the ground and its secrets.

She's here to direct the 3 Musketeers to leave Iberia and rendezvous with Misery to go back to RI for a vacation (yes, she actually says they get vacations). The Inquisitors also show up to stop everyone, and after giving them her usual condescending finger-wag-and-lecture, she offers to stay as hostage/information source in an Abyssal Hunter's stead. Her agenda is to convince the Iberian powers to ask for help instead of maintaining an isolationist policy. If they continue to keep it internal, they will be destroyed like Aegir.

She has some atypical kind words for the 3 Musketeers before they leave. To Skadi, she makes a throwback to some cryptic bullshit she said in Grani event. To Specter, she makes some banter about her newfound freedom and moving forward knowing her body's state.

And then it turns out she and Gladiia planned for almost everything before the Skadi sets off for Saltwind City.

The state of Iberia and Aegir

Aegir is pretty much sunken Atlantis. Gladiia says that there's no communication in and out of Aegir after the Calamity.

The Abyssal Hunters were created as just one small piece of Aegir's military power. Aegirians are fully aware of the Abyssal Hunters' eventual fate to turn into the enemy, and have special patrols out to monitor and kill any who turned. The seaborn confirms that they had nothing to do with those deaths. The people Skadi killed and watched get killed, those were all done by her own people. This does not help her mental state.

Iberia has likely attempted to replicate Aegir's Abyssal Hunters. We don't have story on the result of this project, but based on clues in her profile, Andreanna might have some connection to it.

In Kal'tsit's "I know everything" exposition, she states that Iberia once had a prosperous Golden Age, and is now a shadow of its former glory. As stated before, the Deep Sea Church has also infiltrated all levels of Iberian government. Thorns' profile says he left because of "religious strife" and how in recent years treatment of Aegirs in Iberia has gotten worse. All the breadcrumbs are building up to Iberia potentially getting the same kind of Calamity that destroyed Aegir. (See Skalter page's TL note on Calamity.)

Bunch of misc info that don't really fit anywhere else, from yesterday's thread Q&A

It's established that Abyssal Hunters are not allowed to bleed, especially on land. The seaborn says the swarms of cannon fodder zerglings can smell the "same blood" on the Abyssal Hunters. But they're a bit stupid, so their brains only know "this is the blood of my kind, but why is it trapped inside hooman skin?" instead of recognizing it's not a trapped comrade.

Their attacks on Abyssal Hunters are attempts to "free" their kind from the trappings of hooman skin. The more the Hunters bleed, the more frenetic the swarms get, because they know they are getting closer to freeing them.

If you are a Specter fan, you will absolutely love the scenes after she wakes up. The ensuing conversations show that the Abyssal Hunters cherish their close connections like everyone else, despite their usual "stay away from me I'm dangerous" vibes. I really hate how Specter's operator record turned out, and I'll keep salting about it, but this event really did her justice.

Question: Is story Skadi already Skalter? She is wearing the same clothes.

Answer:

No, and this is the biggest misconception that needs to be cleared. At no point in the story does Skadi fully awaken. She comes close but pulls back just in time. The in-universe reason Skadi changes into her wandering songstress wardrobe is that she needs a box carrying her "instruments" (her sword and Specter's chainsaw) and to avoid suspicion while sneaking into Saltwind City. There are two high ranked law enforcement officers (something like that) after her, who know she's an Aegir and a possible threat. In story, she's still guard Skadi. Devs probably wanted to keep the red getup on Skalter to differentiate between the two units.

Question: Why did the seaborn want to meet Skadi so badly?

Answer:

It's not entirely clear thanks to hYpErGRyPh oBtUsE wRiTinG. Every time the sea heir talks about how much it wanted to meet Skadi and perhaps why, Skadi or cult leader interrupt with their mental breakdown monologue. My interpretation of its reasons is a combination of desire to share knowledge with her (learning is constantly repeated as a goal of the sea horrors), extend an invitation to join the hivemind, and ask a question, explained below.

There are flashbacks to this one suicide mission she and her Abyssal Hunter squad had against one particular sea horror. Her entire unit died and she barely made it out after landing a fatal strike on it. Based on Skadi's mental breakdown, it sounds like that sea horror is like the Zerg Overmind, a central connection for the sea horror hive mind.

There's some exposition about how the Overmind isn't really dead, and it's gone into Hibernation Mode because though it no longer responds to communication, the sea horrors can still feel its pulse.

His specific question was whether Skadi heard the Overmind say anything before it went dormant. More Skadi breakdown, because she did. It said (rough TL) "[our] suffering is eternal." The "our" is ambiguous. It could be referring to Skadi and the Abyssal Hunters, since she's the one narrating, or it could be the Overmind and the sea horrors, who Skadi is repeating. I'm leaning toward the Abyssal Hunters since "being abyssal hunter is suffering" has been a core takeaway of this event.

And then Gladiia stops playing dead and kills off our sole source of Aegir lore :)

Question: Is Skalter/Under Tides canon?

Answer:

The events that happen in Under Tides is canon. Skalter's canon status is in existential limbo. As MrSkyblock404 has reiterated, devs have directly said Skalter is a POSSIBLE future in which Skadi gives into the call.

Question: But isn't the fate of every Abyssal Hunter to eventually turn into Seaborn?

Answer:

Technically yes. The call will never fade, so the moment it overpowers the Abyssal Hunter's will to resist, it will have won. But I say technically because the other side of the tug-of-war is the Abyssal Hunter's own willpower. There are hints scattered throughout that their fates aren't set in stone. As Gladiia said to Skadi in her "get your shit together" moment, if you don't want to become a seaborn, then you won't. Not to mention, they can always ask to be killed by another's hands before they fully turn, so they can die as "themselves". This is like the black card system in Claymore. Skalter's E2 promotional record also has this part:

Well, but that's not what I want to say to you today. What I want to say is that when they want to acquire a structure, they transform in that direction.

Skadi, since those creatures can become what they want to be of their own volition ...... Then you can also not become a certain way by your own will. You can do what you want to do.

For example, an Abyssal Hunter. Or, a little more freely, a bounty hunter.

The seaborn as a collective are naturally able to "focus" their evolution toward a specific direction. So as an individual, Skadi should also have a degree of control over what she does and doesn't want to become. Gladiia is implied to still be undergoing transformation despite her obvious obstinance, but the Deep Sea Church leader says she's different from the other 2 and her fate is sealed. As one of the first Abyssal Hunter prototypes, Gladiia might not be able to resist like the later Hunter prototypes.

If you made it this far, nice job! I hope that helps the EN community understand the tsunami of information that got dumped on us in the event.

If there are questions, post in the comments and I will do my best to answer them. Corrections to information in this thread and swapping notes with other CN readers are very welcome!

EDIT: Removed the spoiler bars since I got feedback that it was annoying to click on each paragraph. I've also added a new section "Deep Sea Church agenda and the seaborn" to clarify all the relationships defined in the story.

Also loving the connections the comments are making to other media. I personally made this post because I am a massive Claymore fan. Seconding one commentor, I highly recommend Claymore, it's a gem that's passed a lot of manga readers' radars. I'm also giving Bloodborne and Dragon Age a shot after the event.

EDIT 2: Thanks to the awesome ak-lore group on the official Discord, I've since made a number of corrections on key points. They are in the sections The town situation, Deep Sea Church agenda and the seaborn, and The state of Iberia and Aegir.

#arknights #so the abyssal hunters are similar to grey wardens from dragon age #and the seaborn are kiiiiiinda like darkspawn? like the higher thought seaborns are more individuals but the lesser seaborn creaters aren't #there's a comment the op made that explains this bit more if you're interested #also sorry for weird formatting if you see extra spaces #I tried to fix some of them but there's a lot so I gave up LOL

13 notes · View notes

jinruihokankeikaku · 3 years

Text

to add onto my last post, one of my favorite things about the anime adaptation is the way the opening themes are used, yes, to foreshadow impending plot points (as many fans have pointed out) but also as a wonderful bait-and-switch. To put it in the bluntest way possible, the final act of the story essentially says "Fuck you, this is what you've 'dedicated your hearts' to."

Like, looking at all of those "epic", "heroic" moments in the first three seasons - Erwin's entire character arc comes to mind, but there are plenty of examples - in the context of Season 4, they don't read as heroic at all. They're revealed for what they really are - not glorious, but senseless casualties of the cycle of violence that's defined the entire story. To quote the second season 1 OP, "Jiyuu no Tsubasa", "...what slashes across is the screw of folly."

The positive associations viewers are conditioned to have with the violence, nationalism, and brutality portrayed in the first three seasons is ripped out from under them in the final movement of the story - the consequences of what the show has hitherto portrayed as favorable aren't glory, they're just senseless death and anguish. Looking at it as a complete work, it's easy to see what the creators were going for - unfortunately, this effect was compromised by the rate at which the story was presented, as well as some inadvisable decisions towards the end of act 2 that were carried over from the manga.

#sorry to sincerepost about snk at 5am again #just had to write down my thoughts before i crash lol

1 note · View note

tohruhondagoals · 5 years

Text

Now that I processed the episode

The whole thing from start to finish was beautiful. The voice acting by Jerry and Laura were SPOT ON!! They put so much heart and soul to this that you could feel and hear the pain and joy and suffering. Probably some of the best voice acting I’ve heard.

You could see so many expressions through everyone’s eyes and could see what they were thinking.

I love that the beginning you saw kid Kyo and all the things he was hearing. That Kazuma really was like a father to Kyo and just wanted him to heal his heart and move foreword. ALSO LOOK AT KYOS FACE!!! He loves him so much.

“You know about the zodiac curse? Ah but how much?” THAT definitely foreshadowed so many things. Because while Tohru knows about them turning into animals there is WAY more to the curse than she realizes. We will find out for sure.

The talk with Shigure and Kazuma was so well done. “Even you will entrust everything to her” was such a beautiful line. How Shigure talked about the risk and what could happen if it goes wrong just showed how big this could go wrong.

Kagura hearing and this followed the episode where she thinks of why she clings go Kyo. For Manga readers we know why but this scene will hit home in a later episode. I love how Kagura isn’t there by the door during the last sentence. When they say “her” you know for a fact she isn’t the one they mean.

The whole scene with Kazuma and Kyo was so perfect. The movement, the angles, the music, all so well done and really catches home how serous it was.

The “don’t look at my son. Don’t look, I love you” part was actually KYOS MOM????? Wow reading the manga I thought it was Kazuma the whole time so that surprised me. Nicely done though!

I love that they show the transformation, because it wasn’t cute. It was painful and horrifying. His eyes changing was so cool though, that he didn’t look close to human and showed why the cat was the lowest zodiac for sure.

MY GIRL TOHRU!!!! Of course she runs after him. It wasn’t the first time she has either, she did it once before during the valentines episode. She actually sounded like she was throwing up too wow! Her facial expressions was so determined throughout the whole thing.

I love that when Kyo threw her off the landslide she did turn away. She was hurt and scared. But then she straightened up and turned around. That was my favorite part. I was waiting for her turning around because that truly is the turning point of their relationship. Her going back to him after him turning into the monster. How even after he lashed out of hurt, she went back.

“If you need to talk I’ll listen. If you need to be selfish I’ll let you. I want to help you the way you’ve helped me” that was so beautifully delivered. I definitely cried during this part. His words throughout the series echoing back to him. How she wants to understand all the good and the bad. It was so poetic!

I liked that Kyo talked about his mom during this, because he never healed from it. Her killing herself, her being scared of his form, her hiding him. Tohru was scared but she told him. She didn’t ignore the bad parts, she acknowledged them and still wanted to help him.

The music at the end and Kazuma staying up waiting. You can see the relief and the age when he smiles after seeing them.

Kyos monologue at the end to himself. How he wants to treasure her. It was so beautiful. I’m so happy with this episode in so many ways. I can’t wait to see the rest of this animated. Sorry for the long post.

#fruits basket #fruits basket 2019 #kyo sohma #tohru honda #fruits basket spoilers #this whole thing was so well done

134 notes · View notes

makiema · 5 years

Note

Hello! What makes you ship Levi and Eren? (always curious about how people get into ereri)

Hi there, anon! I wish I could’ve answered this briefly but you’ve asked me something that I could honestly ramble on about forever. I’d try to be precise but I’m afraid it’d still be quite long because I don’t have the time to summarise, so bear withe me please >.

Okay so first of all, I used to be more into Eremika than Ereri in the beginning and the precious Eremika moment from Chapter 50 owned my heart. Back then the 13 y/o me didn’t get shit about Levi and Eren’s platonic canon relationship. But the popularity of Ereri was overwhelming and even though they were far from being my OTP I still shipped them in AU settings mainly because the fanfics were excellent. Also, at that point of time, I was more invested in the Naruto fandom and SS was my only OTP. In fact, I didn’t even know about the Visual Novel until late 2015 or early 2016 (I don’t remember exactly) which made me really get into Ereri. Reading the VN actually changed my whole perspective on Ereri and made me realise the depth of their canon relationship. When I re-read the manga again after that none of their subtle moments were lost on me and that’s how the ship started growing on me. Since then I even began picking up on a lot of parallels, symbolisms, etc. associated with them and all of that collectively went into becoming the reason why Ereri is my OTP.

I probably cannot think up of everything that makes me ship them at one go. Also I have my internals next week and Im losing my mind. Anyway here are some of the reasons that immediately came to mind when I saw your ask:

• Levi equating Eren to “The Tyger” : The VN concluded with the first two stanzas of Blake’s poem “The Tyger”. The poem is taken from The Songs of Innocence and Experience and the entire volume focuses on two things : the transition from childhood into adulthood and the existence of both beneficial and malevolent forces in human beings. So in the novel, Levi’s understanding, acceptance and even admiration of both the humane and the monstrous potential in Eren is commendable : “A monster with perfect, fearsome beauty; that inspires awe” Also, Levi acknowledges Eren’s will that “cannot be made to surrender” and his drive for freedom that “people living like birds in cages won’t get”. This shows us how Levi realizes that Eren’s mental maturity is not that of a normal 15 yo; that his “experiences” have made him into someone much more gritty, resilient and strong-willed for his age. “The Tyger” here is the agent of free-will and the poem further emphasises on free spirit by incorporating references to mythological figures who’re deemed as humanity’s heroes, for instance, “seize the fire” refers to Prometheus who is mankind’s hero because he stole fire from Zeus. It is said that because of him mankind could gain knowledge ; that mankind could step out of the bounds of ignorance ( See the parallel with Eren who said how ignorance is the biggest obstacle to freedom in Chapter 112 ). Another hero alluded to in the poem is Icarus who grew his wings of freedom and attempted to reach the farthest point (dangerously close to the sun) even though he was burned in the attempt (parallels with Eren’s whole attitude of ‘no matter what kind of hell awaits me I’ll keep moving forward’ ). Yeah so, that’s how deep Levi’s understanding of Eren runs.( Can you imagine the entire arc of Eren’s character was foreshadowed in Levi’s thoughts about him?) To me understanding is the most important factor when it comes to a ship so, I think Levi’s pov in the VN is the biggest contributor to their development.

• The way Eren looks at Levi : Idk how cliched this sounds but yes, the way he looks at Levi honestly gives me life. Be it in the Forest of the Giant Trees, or in the Reiss Chapel or in the Marley Arc, his eyes say it all. Add to this his signature shaky way of saing “Captain?”, idk if it’s only me but that just carries so much feeling, so much angst, so many unspoken emotions right there. If Levi’s thoughts on Eren made me fall in love with Ereri in the first place then Eren’s body language when it comes to Levi made me fuckin smitten over them (i kid u not honestly this ship is one of the very few things that actually give me the will to live)

• Hope and Strength : Honestly, I love Levi and Eren’s roles as humanity’s strength and humanity’s hope because this actually speaks volumes about their relationship. If Erwin gave Levi’s strength a dimension then Eren gave his strength meaning. Their roles in canon show their inter-dependence. After all, what is strength without hope? I don’t remember who first pointed this out, but someone said that this is the very concept the Survey Corps logo alludes to. The Wings of Freedom are shown as blue and white because royal blue represents strength and white represents hope. So the Wings are symbolical of what Levi and Eren individually stand for as well as signifies their dependence on each other.

• Levi’s role as Eren’s guardian : I love him both as Eren’s protector and his mentor. (oh also let’s not forget Eren had a little crush on him,,how adorable 🥺)

We’ve seen Levi giving it his all to protect Eren multiple times. And when he couldn’t protect him during the Battle of Trost because of his injury we see him clenching his fists in frustration. Again, in RTS we see Levi quite baffled when Erwin orders him to protect the horses and not protect Eren. Also in the RTS when Eren got flung on top of the wall, Levi was visibly concerned and then when Erwin couldnt come up with a plan that’d guarantee their survival, he quickly suggested that BOTH Erwin and Eren flit from there. This goes on to show how Levi thinks Erwin and Eren are EQUALLY important for ensuring humanity’s survival. It is evident from here that his liege and his mentee both belong on the same pedestal and he’d do anything to save them. Levi similarly comes up with an abrupt suggestion again in Ch 112 to save Eren when the Soldiers informed him that the higher authorities plan on having Eren eaten. Even though he clearly disapproved of Eren’s actions in Liberio, even though Levi himself always adhered to rules and discipline, he still had faith in Eren and he’d never accept such a ridiculous order, even if it came from Pixis. (plus he remembers the first time he met Eren which sort of makes us realize that Levi still sees himself as Eren’s protector🥺)

Next comes Levi’s role as a mentor in Eren’s life. I think his words of advice to Eren is an important factor that made him the man he is today. Levi encouraged him to believe in himself, he acknowledged his willpower, appreciated his relentless drive for freedom and even goaded him on to make important choices by himself. The recent happenings in the manga made a lot of people say that Eren follows the principle of “the end justifies the means” but originally, to quote Levi: “nobody can dictate you on what is the right path or what is the wrong one till you arrive at a certain outcome resulting from your choice”. I think one of the major reasons why Levi kicked Eren in the Marley arc again was because the outcome that Eren caused (at least according to Levi and the SC) was making Paradis the enemy of the whole enemy of the world and also a mountain of civilian deaths. This is just head canon but I think Levi was mainly disappointed because Eren didn’t seek his approval (unlike in the Reiss Chapel incident where he urged Levi to have faith in him before jumping into action of his own volition). Him comparing Eren with the underground thugs also makes me assume that he was genuinely hurt because he thought Eren has become complacent to the point where he doesn’t see Levi as a mentor anymore. But, right after his voice trails with the “you too..”, we see Eren looking up at him with the same beaming eyes. Curious why he’d do that at that instant. Also, during Serum Bowl, Eren used his height as the trump card to tower upon Levi. It was the only time he actually defied Levi and he did manage to look 100 percent domineering. But, post time skip Eren grew in leaps and bounds and he could easily repeat that but HE DID NOT. In fact, he utters his usual “Captain..?” and his eyes also have the same look. So maybe he still sees Levi as his inspiration but he cannot express that because he’s in a bind and has to act distant and cold with everyone. After all in Chapter 121, in the memory panel, we did see him recalling that very moment when Levi first advised him on making independent choices. His role as the mentor in Eren’s life is therefore once again reinforced by Isayama and I think that adds substantially to their wonderful platonic dynamic. ____________xxx___________

I probably couldn’t fit them all and even this is a terrible briefing. It is all so disarrayed and incoherent. I didn’t even get the time to attach pictures. Ugh, I’m so sorry anon ;-; I wish Uni would spare me some time to rant properly about my precious babies >.

#snk #ereri #riren #levieren #asks #thank you for the ask!#this is so shitty but i hope you'll accept this anon #i'll write a proper appreciation next time #also let me know why you ship them!#and have a nice day #<3

51 notes · View notes

duhragonball · 5 years

Video

youtube

Ran across this video on Twitter, and it pretty much sums up my feelings on skipping around in JoJo.

To be sure, Part 5 is one of the most self-contained JoJo parts, so it’s fair to say that you could jump in there and be less confused than if you started with, say, Part 3 or Part 8. Even so, Part 5 still sort of assumes that you’re familiar with Jotaro Kujo, Koichi Hirose, Dio Brando, and Stands in general. I just know that if I had started with Part 5, I would have been pretty frustrated, because Koichi would whip out Echoes to save his stolen luggage, and I would have had no idea what he was doing or how he was doing it.

Also, I don’t get why people act like Part 1 has cooties or something. It’s not as intense as some of the later arcs, but it’s hardly boring. More importantly, it sets the stage for everything that comes after. I haven’t come across anything in Part 8 that calls back to Part 1, but that’s about it. Giorno Giovanna is a walking, talking Part 1 reference. You don’t really need to know that in order to enjoy his story, mostly because he doesn’t know it himself, but I think it heightens one’s appreciation for the character.

I’ll admit, I’ve consumed a lot of pop culture out of sequence. I read Harry Potter out of order, but it would have sucked no matter what order I read it in. I watched the Star Wars movies out of order, but they were produced out of order, so no one had a choice until 2005. I watched Dragon Ball Z out of order, and then watched Dragon Ball later, but that was out of my hands as well.

But with JoJo, you’ve got every possible chance to read it in order. The anime has been released in order, the manga has been published in order, and if you downloaded scans of the comics, you have equal access to every part.

I can see a case for skipping a part and then coming back to it later. Maybe it’s cool to watch Part 5 first, and then go back and check out the earlier parts and you might pick up cool foreshadowing of things. What I can’t understand is skipping Part 1 and never going back to check it out. It doesn’t make sense to me to want to experience JJBA and just sort of sample bits and pieces of it. To me, the whole point is that it’s this big long thing to explore. To look up the plot of Part 2 on a wiki so you don’t have to watch it is ridiculous. That’s like flying halfway to the top of Mount Everest and climbing the rest of the way.

1 note · View note

frederickabberline · 6 years

Text

The Parallel Theory (AKA The Original Kuroshitsuji Anime Is Relevant, Actually,)

So I’ve just watched the original anime s1 again in full for the first time in years, and while I was expecting to find some parallels with the manga so far, I wasn’t expecting to find such a wealth of information as I did. So here’s an essay-length breakdown of all the similarities so far, and the plot points that I think are yet to be. Feel free to point out anything I missed!

Genuine warning that underneath the read-more this is a few thousand words, and when I say essay-length I mean it.

Note that the anime had a different order of events to the manga, and the arcs are as follows:

Intro Episode ~ Kidnapping Arc -> Ripper Arc -> Houndsworth Arc -> Magic Camera Episode -> Thames Last Froze Enough For A Fair In 1814 This Is Highly Inaccurate (Ice Fair Episode) ~ Drocell’s Arc -> Curry Arc -> Ghost Princes Episode -> Monastic Cult Arc -> Lady Blanc Arc ~ Servants and Chess Episode -> Paris Episode ~ London Fire Arc (Final)

And in the manga, (not including bonus chapters):

Intro ~ Kidnapping Arc -> Ripper Arc -> Curry Arc -> Circus Arc -> Murder Arc -> Campania Arc -> Weston Arc -> Green Witch Arc -> Blue Sect Arc (current) -> ???

IF ANY PART OF THIS IS DIFFICULT TO READ OR CONTAINS TYPOS, DON’T HESITATE TO SHOOT ME AN ASK, I’LL BE HAPPY TO CLARIFY/CORRECT!!

Now, I don’t have anything to say about Intro ~ Kidnapping, so let’s skip those.

Ripper

Although this had very little variation from the manga, the most interesting change (which everybody has noticed) was the addition of Grelle going to stay with the Phantomhives and proving herself deathly useless and insincerely suicidal at the slightest mistake. This was obviously her being difficult on purpose because she thought it was funny, and foreshadowing the fact that reapers are all suicide victims. The reason this is important for me to note even though everybody knows it already is because season one originally aired in 2008, but we didn’t learn about the reapers in the manga until March 2015, seven years later. This is proof enough in my opinion that the anime, while often poorly scripted, was made with full or near-full knowledge of the manga plot.

Houndsworth (See: Green Witch, with the lightest dash of Murder)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Our heroes enter a “cursed” village, well removed from society. The curse is said to have been around since ancient times, and one of the most notable village members is an old hag who warns them at the entrance. It is said that any outsiders or any who interfere with the village will be punished by the curse. Villagers who break the rules are punished severely and cruelly, and it is considered the duty of the head of the village to enforce the laws. People die due to the curse. Finnian has some flashbacks. There’s a decidedly canine element. In the end, the curse turns out to be fake, but there is something more going on under the surface, relating to Particular Plans to engage in a major war. A dog man is brought back to the Phantomhive Manor.

It’s easy to see how this lines up with Green Witch, although we don’t have Sieglinde or mustard gas. What we do have is Pluto, a dog man capable of massive destruction (I’d equate the fire breath with the gas in this case), who I’d say is a slight nod to Wolfram (the rough lord of the village was a bit more clearly related to Wolf, so I’d say he’s the other half of the character).

I mention Murder only because Pluto is an animal man who becomes a footman, and just so happens to be unaware that the Phantomhive group will eventually end up his enemies. That is, Pluto is a mix of the gas, Wolfram, and Snake. Snake must eventually learn that OCiel killed his family, which will test his loyalties severely. Whether he and the gas, like Pluto, ends up in the hands of the enemy again is another matter. Note that Queen Victoria desperately wishes to have Sieglinde on her side, and Sie is the key to that gas.

Magic Camera

This episode was total filler, as far as the anime was concerned, and while I’d say nothing of note happened, symbolic photographs are becoming more and more relevant to the current plot. So this episode had more of a thematic importance than anything else (and perhaps importance is a strong word). The rules of the magic camera were that any photo taken would also show whatever “not of this world” that the subject cared most for (that is, dead people). We do have a camera that took a photograph showing what was most important to OCiel, belonging to our newly introduced reporter friend Pitt, but making much more links than that is a stretch at this point. On the other hand, we have OCiel tossing the photograph into the fire, just as Sebastian burnt the photo from McMillan. Rejecting close bonds and trying to erase them with fire? hm. Undertaker too was recently captivated by a photo of the deceased, as he lamented that Vincent was burnt to ashes. Very opposing methods of dealing with grief. In any case, this episode doesn’t yield much. Yet, I guess.

Ice Fair ~ Drocell (See: Noah’s Ark, Campania, a dash of Blue Sect)

The Ice Fair was overall not a great episode and I’ll never get over the “I dunno, to hell with it, whatever” attitude of the staff in giving Undertaker a stall, as if he’d need an excuse to visit a fair without having a shop. But, it was necessary to set up for Drocell’s arc, and had a tip of the hat to the Noah’s Ark Circus with the inclusion of the toy ark. The reason I mention it specifically is because it had a bit of information that struck me as oddly relevant. That is, the fact that Ciel own one portion of the Hope Diamond, passed down through the Phantomhive generations. The diamond is supposedly cursed, often bringing a gruesome end to the owner, and the other half ends up coming through to Lizzy and marking her for Drocell.

“This ring has seen the demise of its master many times. My grandfather’s... My father’s... And... Without fail, this ring will bear witness to my death as well. It has heard the final agony of every family head. When I close my eyes... ...I can hear their screams” - OCiel, Volume I, Chapter 2 (bold emphasis mine)

I looked up the Hope Diamond. This next part is purely speculative.

The Hope Diamond came to Europe in 1642 and ended up with the French Royal family, who kept it until 1792 when it was stolen during the French revolution. Marie Antoinette, who died in October of 1793, was supposedly a victim of the curse. The diamond went missing, was cut to smaller size (in Kuro, this would be when it was split in two), and didn’t surface again until 1839 when Henry Thomas Hope acquired it. Hope died in 1862.

And I know exactly how half of the diamond (the half not belonging to Hope - that half would be the one Drocell tracks) made its way to the Phantomhives following the death of Marie. Undertaker reaped her, according to William in episode 18. Undertaker likes mementoes. So, quite possibly, he took it. Grelle does not know who Undertaker is, and yet she graduated from the Academy in December 1799, just 6 years and two months after Marie’s death. Therefore, Undertaker deserted between November 1793 and December 1799. How the diamond was split, I can’t say, but if it came to England through Undertaker then he evidently gifted half to the Phantomhive family.

Undertaker possibly gifting half is interesting, considering in the manga there are now two competing heirs to the title, one of which may be a bizarre doll. I’m not going to go on about season two any, and this isn’t really related, but Alois’ soul was carried in a ring for some time. But of course R!Ciel isn’t wearing a ring, and Undertaker should no longer have the other half, as it would have passed into Hope’s possession. That is, unless he later got it back, since he’s had enough time to. I don’t have any conclusions about this, I just think it’s interesting to note. We just don’t know that much about Undertaker’s true motives and how he first came to be involved with the Phantomhives, and anything relevant helps.

Lastly, though I personally hold no love for the theory that Undertaker is Cedric K. Ro--, it is interesting that OCiel said the ring came through his grandfather, despite it being a Phantomhive ring with the Phantomhive crest and as a result having been owned by Cloudia, rather than her non-Phantomhive lover. Possibly it was the gemstone itself that was owned by Cedric, and that was then incorporated into the Phantomhive family ring. This is only one possible explanation, and may not even be relevant.

Moving on from speculation about the Hope Diamond.

This arc, unlike the others, is made from two full manga arcs Frankenstein'd together with a dash of a third, so there’s a lot to unpack.

On the side of Noah’s Ark, we have a ginger-haired pied piper figure luring young children (in this case specifically girls) away and removing their autonomy, turning them into building materials for Questionable Fine Wares. This is done on the orders of a higher power, and it is not necessarily what the pied piper figure would wish to do of his own accord, but he himself has been turned into a mere puppet long ago. Elizabeth is in danger.

Sliding over to Campania, we have a puppet-master turning people into living dolls. Made to do his bidding, they can no longer speak and they do not complain or tell lies, they are in a respect pure beings, but also purely horrifying, as he commands them like a soulless army. The animal man must keep Ciel safe, and act as a guide. Grelle is there, freshly returned to the field, and is instrumental in taking down a few of the dolls. Elizabeth is in danger, but surprisingly ends up joining the fight against her wishes with some powerful attacks.

And another step over to Blue Sect. Elizabeth runs away from Paula, to meet a man who promises her happiness, and the ability to fulfil her wishes. He tells her that he sees her great sorrow. He can help her make Ciel happy. The victims are being controlled through music, and Sebastian saves the day by overriding the false prophet’s songs with his own, effectively stripping the man of his power. But, it turns out he is not the true leader here. Elizabeth is in danger, and is being turned into a weapon against Ciel and Sebastian.

Need I say more? Probably not, but I have one last note:

When Drocell is killed, Grelle says she knew he’d been reaped years ago, and then Sebastian says that he “must have been fitted with a makeshift soul”. This contradicts the information we have in the manga so far. We haven’t yet seen a reanimated manga character with a “makeshift soul”. Undertaker cannot create a soul, and the dolls cannot steal one. However, RCiel... We don’t know what’s powering him just yet. If Undertaker isn’t fully responsible for him as it’s “not his style” (-comment Othello made about unknown parties when examining the Cult technology), then it’s very possible RCiel might have a makeshift “soul” created by some other entity. This, however, assumes that the comment means anything and isn’t simply one of the lore inconsistencies between the manga and the anime.

Curry

Bitterly sobs about Agni.

Since this is one of the manga arcs, there’s nothing much to note other than... When the Queen enters the scene in the anime, everybody except for the Indian duo and Lau sing God Save the Queen. Lau actually opens his eyes to glare at her. We haven’t seen this developed in the manga yet, and any disdain on Lau’s part there is still well hidden. Meanwhile in the manga, the Curry Arc is where we first see John Brown comfort the queen with a little Albert puppet - he says to her “Your Majesty, Prince Albert is always with you”. He also just survived getting trampled by a horse, and we’ve never seen his eyes. These three factors add up to making him a suspicious figure already, considering Ash was an angel (therefore unable to be harmed by a horse, and had angelic features) who literally sewed Victoria and Albert together so that they could always remain with each other. Always with her, indeed. But more on him later.

Ghost Princes

If this is going to show up in the manga on a literal level, it hasn’t yet. We’ve not been introduced to any ghosts, and Ciel has not lost a game of chess to a deceased elder brother around his age who takes control of Sebastian as his prize (though Sebastian is not devoted to him and returns to Ciel - and this did happen in the manga with Sieglinde a little bit while OCiel was having a breakdown). Said elder brother devoted to protecting his little brother while holding a warped view of his past. This warped view, which is ultimately him lying to himself, is held despite his hatred of liars, and despite that hatred and his insistence on fair play he is willing to cheat to win (whatever is in his power is “fair”, matching Ciel’s whole bit to Madam Red about how Sebastian doesn’t follow the rules of the game and real life is not so predictable or fair). He, truthfully, holds guilt at how powerless he was to stop his little brother being attacked, as he was killed first after a guard let assassins into their castle while they were alone together in their room. When he comes to his senses and remembers the true version of events, and realises he can never have physical closure, his soul is put to rest.

O H W A I T,

We’re currently dealing with a lot of chess symbolism between OCiel and RCiel, and I don’t think it takes much to see how these situations are parallels.

Monastic Cult (See: Blue Sect)

This is the arc where we see that Tanaka and Ash were on friendly terms, which was a gag, but considering where Tanaka stands at current between OCiel and RCiel, and considering how he was insistent on OCiel being allowed to stay in his breakdown state to gently emotionally/mentally heal, I felt it was worth pointing out. After all, if OCiel heals, he surely gives up the Ciel act and possibly even gives up the contract. I don’t think Tanaka is a likely antagonist, but his goals are certainly at odds with Sebastian’s, and do sit more in the field of OCiel giving up hatred and revenge, as Angela tried to force.

According to Ash, there was concern that the heretics in this cult of purity were planning to rise up and overthrow the government, just as Victoria is supposedly concerned about with the Blue Sect and the way it bridges social divides. In both cases, this was a false order of sorts, since Angela and Ash were one in the same, and Bravat only used the Sect for the Blue Star, true mastermind of that operation and final goals currently unknown.

Both cults were infiltrated via a trusted tradesman - the anime cult through Undertaker’s coffin deliveries, and the manga one through Nina’s clothes deliveries. Undertaker is of course still involved in this case, but not in the same casual way he was in the anime. Both involved awarding people with radiance and a purpose, but ultimately were just ways to “harvest” people, and both gave a false hope. Bravat tried to tempt OCiel the same way, but was unsuccessful, just as Angela was.

Also, Grelle was there, having to investigate the stolen records/record tampering/altered fates. And O/Ciel had to dress up after pretending to be purified/have found his shine. Ciel is tempted to give up his revenge by a loved one returned from the dead, who also tries to kill him. Whatever works best, I guess.

When it comes to taking down the anime cult, Undertaker’s expertise was required against the higher-order antagonist. Angela and Undertaker were both capable of and in trouble for stealing/altering cinematic records/record books. Just as Undertaker is currently tampering with records and people’s futures to create bizarre dolls, there is an antagonist above him (and above Bravat) who is in charge of what has happened with RCiel’s resurrection and the Blue Sect’s altering people’s fates. While the radiance and purity are false promises, Angela could alter people’s perspective of their memories, and Bravat did succeed in extending the lifespan of several patrons (before he set the machines to reverse and drained their blood entirely).

Lady Blanc ~ Servants and Chess (See: Blue Sect)

Ciel is stripped of his role as Watchdog when he is blamed for crimes that Angela committed. Violet is currently giving the police a report which would state that Ciel Phantomhive was intimately involved with the Blue Sect and everything was for his sake (as the Blue Star), and OCiel is at risk of having his title stolen by RCiel, who would be the rightful heir if it is legitimately him. Ciel is forced to give up Sebastian temporarily (which also recalls, if RCiel is the ghost brother, Sebastian being ‘given up’ when the chess game is lost), Abberline sticks with him, however, which ultimately proves to be the dear inspector’s downfall. Manga Abberline is proving to be much more sympathetic to OCiel than his superior officer Randall, so it’s not a stretch to say his death could come to be in the manga fairly soon.

In the anime, Abberline states that this is just like the opium war all over again - “two wars in the mid-19th century (in total spanning 1839 to 1860) involving Anglo-Chinese disputes over British trade in China and China's sovereignty”. The wars started fifty years ago, and ended the year before Albert died, 14th December 1861. What else happened in the manga roughly fifty years ago? Something required Othello in the human world to investigate, and Undertaker was last referred to as a reaper some time around then. OCiel has inherited one hell of a political mess, I’d say.

In the anime, Lau is caught up in this, but I can’t currently see that happening in the manga, and I think we still have a ways to go before his true role is explored. That means that Lau interfering with a message from the queen that would result in war, Lau losing his opium dens due to a move from the Queen, Lau deciding to pull out of England because there’s no future here for him or the Phantomhives, and Lau ending up as one of OCiel’s Watchdog duty targets, all of these events have yet to happen and are most likely to get their manga parallel in the arc following this one. It’s interesting to note that in the anime, it was Lau who killed Abberline, but if Abberline is to die as a result of the Blue Sect, then it’s highly unlikely we’ll see a repeat of this. If Abberline survives the Blue Sect and becomes intimately involved in whatever comes next, particularly if Lau is also involved, then it might still come to pass.

However... OCiel has already lost a close ally who didn’t deserve to sacrifice their life as they were forced to do. This would be Agni. The manga has a lot more players than the anime, so just as Drocell was a composite Campania!Undertaker, Bravat, and Joker, it’s also possible Abberline took the brunt of what would have otherwise been two narratives within the plot, and he may not die as that has already been... accomplished by Agni. Or they might both die. I don’t know.

Lastly, the Chess Episode gave us a little glimpse of the servant trio’s canon backstories (except Bard was British??? for whatever reason), and centred around them and Elizabeth trying to cheer Ciel up (difficult, surely after he’s just lost his title). Manga Elizabeth is certainly dedicated to Ciel’s happiness, but we all know how that’s going in the drastically different circumstances she has to face with two Ciels. When/if OCiel loses his Watchdog title either because he is not the rightful heir or because he has been arrested for supposedly controlling the Blue Sect, the servants (by extension Sieglinde and Wolf as ‘Pluto’) may be his last physically powerful allies.

Paris ~ London Fire

Ciel heads to Paris, an important location because it was Paris that the Queen had tried to start a trade war against (the war that Lau tried to prevent), and because manga Undertaker has as of yet unknown business in France and in the anime supposedly was involved in Marie Antoinette’s death (see also the Hope Diamond ring). Druitt and Redmond have ties to France, and Undertaker has ties to Druitt. This links the Blue Star group with France, unless Undertaker was there to see to separate business not yet related to anything we’ve seen. The real-life Blue Star shipping group was involved with getting supplies to France during WWI (though France was allied with England during that), and thus far the Blue Star line has had a young member of their ranks killed (by Snake) during the Murder Arc. Incidentally, all three of the Murder Arc deaths were those of international figures. Woodley, an illegal arms dealer, Siemens, a banker who by what Grey says (”Dim-witted Germany will catch up to Great Britain, you say? It’s ten years too soon for that.”) can be assumed to have helped fund Germany’s military advances, and lastly Phelps with Blue Star. Blue Star line created the Campania, a boat doomed to sink from the very beginning, and the Blue Sect are also dedicated to “the Blue Star”.

That upcoming link with Paris aside,

“The entire slate must be wiped clean. There is no room for creation without destruction. In order for the new century to be pure, I cleansed the house that has taken on all that is negative in our nation: the house of Phantomhive” -Queen Victoria

“That’s what you call ‘cleansing’? Demeaning the dead?” - Ciel

Ciel runs into the Queen in France and that is when he discovers that without Albert she was willing to end her own life, and it is only through being ‘reunited’ with Albert that she has gained the strength to go on. It’s unlikely that the Victoria of the manga is a composite corpse like she was in the anime, but the same themes of her being ‘softly guided’ by a servant clad in all white who promises that Albert is here with her are there. See ‘Final Notes’ for a full breakdown of why John Brown is so likely to be a supernatural figure.

The Queen’s youthfulness may parallel the extended lives of the Lords that Bravat temporarily “saved” and Irene Diaz’s youth-retaining methods. In Campania, Druitt expressed his desire to rule the world in an eternally youthful state. I don’t think it’s related, but Vincent was also concerned about looking youthful next to Rachel, as she was a few years younger.

Ciel withdraws from the fight because he has begun to care about the fates of bystanders, which is a breach of the contract and angers Sebastian greatly, leading to them getting separated yet again.

Ash kills Victoria when she proves to be unclean as all humans are, caught in the past and rotting, and then returns to complete the holy bridge made of people’s despair. According to the manga (volume XVIII, chapter 85), construction of the tower bridge began three years ago. This means construction of the bridge began around the date of Vincent and Rachel’s death.

Ciel reaffirms that “If I let go of hatred, then I don’t exist”, and gives up the Phantomhive ring (the ring that in the manga is a symbol of who is currently acting as Ciel, the head of the family, and it not allowed to be worn by anyone who isn’t the rightful heir) in order to return to England. He is blamed for the death of the queen and shot. This summons Sebastian back to his side. Will OCiel have to give up the Ciel act in order to truly focus on his revenge...?

Undertaker’s crimes of the same-but-slightly-lesser nature as Angela’s to do with records are forgiven, in exchange for his help and expertise in taking down Ash and the way he is mass-defiling souls to fuel the bridge. Whether Undertaker will have his freedom in exchange for his assistance in the manga, we are yet to see, but I am positive that he is not too highly ranked within the Blue Star organisation for this to be possible, and his bizarre dolls still are a lesser crime than a manufactured doomsday-through-world-war. See ‘Final Notes’ for what I’ve gathered on Undertaker’s involvement.

Pluto is turned into a weapon against the servant trio, and they must kill him (servant trio vs Snake and the mustard gas...?). The reapers working together and the servants fighting to near-death are necessary to remove the power of the big bad, Ciel dies and all that, and as he’s guided down the river (of.... death....???) by Sebastian, a ring made of a blue flower, made by Lizzy and Paula, reaches him through the water. The Phantomhive ring (which in the manga is not truly his) is thus replaced by support/recognition from loved ones. This part was highly metaphorical and it’s difficult to see what it will (if it does) relate to until we have more in the manga.

Tanaka is a secret keeper in the anime just as well as he’s proven to be in the manga, as it’s revealed that the entire time he knew Victoria was responsible for Vincent’s death and didn’t say anything, as Vincent had instructed him not to allow Ciel’s perspective to become clouded by hatred. That sure went well, huh. Manga Vincent was clearly aware that he would soon die, and he tried to set up a support network for his sons in the event of his death, so it’s possible that he holds the same view as his anime counterpart and would be highly displeased (to say the least) by everything that has gone down in his name since his death.

The end, we don’t know what happened to anybody else after Ciel goes down the river.

Final Notes

JOHN BROWN IS SUPERNATURAL AND THE QUEEN IS READY TO KILL THE PHANTOMHIVES:

During the finale of the Circus Arc, Queen Victoria sent her three men to watch OCiel’s movements at Kelvin’s manor, to which they arrived by horse-drawn carriage. Moving from London to Kelvin’s manor took Sebastian one hour, the alternative of regular transport via train would have taken a full day’s travel. Although we don’t know where the white trio started, it is highly unusual that they would be able to both locate OCiel and travel in time to witness the manor burning when at no point did OCiel report back to Victoria that Kelvin was so much as under suspicion. Either she already knew Kelvin was responsible (who told her?), or the white trio managed to tail faster-than-a-train Sebastian from London to the manor... with a carriage.

Double Charles must be human, as they have grown up together, both attended Weston, and Grey states in the murder arc that ghosts, and other things he can’t take down with his sword, are a large fear of his.

They are surprised and suspicious about how OCiel managed to get a sample from the cursed forest in German to England so quickly, and yet John Brown makes the journey himself to deliver a letter from the queen directly, through an area known to contain deadly gas, with a horse that he did not ride. That has to slow somebody down.

He is not an alumnus of Weston, we have never seen his eyes, he moves with speed comparable to Sebastian, and he is the Queen’s right-hand man just as Ash was. It is highly likely that her unusual knowledge of current events, that OCiel has picked up on and is starting to become suspicious of, is also due to Brown. It’s worth noting that she has not referred to OCiel by name since he was given his title and she saw him in person. Beyond that point, she has always used “my dear boy”. Brown did not attend the title ceremony.

Victoria’s constant surveillance of OCiel, her sending Grey to the manor to frame him for a crime (see how in the anime he was framed for her murder, framed for the drugs, and right now he seems to be at risk of being framed for the Blue Sect) with no regard for how he, a literal child, will get out of such a situation. Grey also expressed frustration that Sebastian had gotten in the way and ruined his plan. OCiel was not willing to give Victoria SuLin, rightfully distrusting her. He sees Sieglinde as his ‘insurance’. Manga Victoria is shaping up to be just as willing to get rid of the Phantomhives once they disobey or become a threat as anime Victoria was.

I won’t conclude yet that Victoria, Brown and Double Charles are the ultimate antagonists, but they are proving to be antagonists.

UNDERTAKER IS CURRENTLY ONLY A PAWN OF ‘BLUE STAR’ AND MAY CHANGE SIDES:

This is my personal favourite set of notes I put together, and is the most immediately relevant, which is why I’ve saved it for last. It’s also the most speculative, and therefore most likely to be wrong. Undertaker may just be killed and Othello may turn out to take the role of “this is how we all defeat the big bad, actually," that Undertaker played in the London Fire episodes. Putting that possibility aside:

Undertaker is only seen handling RCiel at night, giving him an unknown drink and telling him it’s not yet time to wake up. I argue that this ‘wake up’ is a red herring which makes us believe RCiel wasn’t yet ready to be fully revived and implies Undertaker is in charge of this revival.

RCiel must have been collected directly from the cult to prevent the immolation of his body, possibly by the overly-calm hooded figure who appears in chapter 137, and from this point he entered directly into the care of the Blue Sect, as Bravat has been collecting blood for the sake of the Blue Star for roughly three years. This is evidenced by the altered death dates of the upper-class patrons who were using the transfusion technology to extend their lives, once the Sect started getting enough guests to have leftover blood. RCiel has been receiving transfusions (useless to a corpse) since the contract was formed.

Alright, you say, so Undertaker brought him back to life three years ago, no big deal, right? Well....... Undertaker is certainly aware that OCiel isn’t the real Ciel, meaning he’s known about RCiel for some time, but..... The bizarre dolls don’t require anything like blood, and Undertaker stated that Agares was his ‘crowning masterpiece, for now’... During the Weston arc. If Agares was the best doll he has created, and RCiel was already revived, how is it that RCiel could be the best? How could Agares be considered a masterpiece with RCiel around?

And then, supposing that he meant ‘crowning masterpiece revealed so far’ instead, how and why would Undertaker create such an elaborate network of people as the Blue Star lot? He hasn’t. He explicitly admits that he isn’t in charge in Campania, which means that somebody else is in control of this massive group that revolves around the revival of RCiel. How Undertaker got involved with them, I couldn’t say, but the first person to make moves towards reviving RCiel mustn’t have been him.

“Grim reapers, going by their lists, extract human souls from bodies and bring cinematic records to their ends. Day after day. Indifferently. Matter-of-factly. However, one day, after I’d spent a long time as a grim reaper doing just that, day in and day out, something occurred to me. What would happen if there was a sequel after those endings?”

“Even though it’s impossible to make another’s soul one’s own...”

“I can tamper with cinematic records, but I cannot create souls. I experimented plenty, but most of them became no more than dolls of flesh without an ego.”

“Those eccentric fellows said they wanted to see just how useful these could be... ...So I decided to experiment by tossing the same number of bizarre dolls as live humans onto this luxury vessel.”

“Because of you all, more humans survived than I’d expected. Will I get a scolding for that?”

Undertaker first got the idea to create dolls when he was still working as a reaper, which was presumedly before he met the Phantomhive family, since if the anime is to be believed he must have stopped working some time between 1793 (Antoinette’s death) and 1799 (Grelle and William’s graduation - Grelle doesn’t know who Undertaker is) and if that isn’t correct then at the very latest fifty years ago around 1839 when the opium wars began and Othello was also last in the human realm, as that was the last time Undertaker was recognised by anybody as a reaper. When he discovered that he could attach ‘episodes’ to make a more realistic doll, I’m not sure, but it was probably before Campania and Weston.

Whoever “those eccentric fellows” were, who had him go out on a Blue Star line boat and may “scold” him for not sinking the ship cleanly and leaving no loose ends, they most likely rank above him. It would be very easy to convince Undertaker to do something like this for you, if you had in your possession, or were speaking through, a Phantomhive in perilous health, wouldn’t it?

So, we don’t know if Undertaker was the one to revive RCiel, or provided he was the one who did it if he even did so alone, or who is actually responsible for this Blue Star group that is evidently preparing for war. Does Undertaker perhaps believe that the Blue Star group are the right side to be on? His character songs imply he’s awfully fond of the idea of doomsday/destruction, which Angela/Ash was trying to achieve, and just might come through a massive world war with supernatural influence. He’s stated his distaste for the queen, who the Blue Sect seem to be positioned against. But in the anime, the one in control of the cult that created a revived Vincent/Rachel creature and the one guiding the queen to dispatch the Phantomhives turned out to be two faces of the same enemy, which I’m sure wouldn’t go down well with him.

So where does a disgraced and betrayed reaper go to help take down a massive enemy that perhaps he has vital inside information on, but couldn’t take down alone, even though he knows exactly how to sabotage their final plan which has something to do with that yet-to-be-completed bridge? Why, he makes a deal with Dispatch, of course.

#kuroshitsuji #sebastian michaelis #ciel phantomhive #undertaker #john brown #angela blanc #ash landers #double charles #elizabeth midford #lau #bravat sky #I'm not tagging every character I mention hfhfdghjfdjfgdh #txt #mine #the parallel theory #this is almost six thousand words #I'm the WO R ST #analysis

442 notes · View notes

beardmasterlegham-blog · 6 years

Text

Let’s talk about my boi Vegeta and DBS Episode 122

This is probably one of my first times weighing in on anything Dragonball in any public medium, and hoo boy it’s a long one so strap in.

(TL;DR: My theory is that Vegeta is going to attain an alternate form of Ultra Instinct that will grant him the power of Accelerated Probability)

Let me just start off by saying that while Vegeta is my favourite character in all of Dragonball, I stand firm on my belief that he will NEVER surpass or even match up to Goku’s raw fighting strength. In all honestly I’ve accepted this, and am honestly fine with it. It's not that he can't. It's that he shouldn't.

Goku's character literally boils down to "I wanna fight strong guys and get stronger." That's basically it. It's the mantra that drives practically every action he takes, and hell it even drives the narrative to an extent. (he is the titular character after all) The Tournament of Power would not exist if not for Goku wanting to fight strong guys. That's why Goku HAS to be the strongest, because without that his character is essentially nothing.

Meanwhile I am more than content with Vegeta being put on the backburner when it comes to epic fights, because they are replaced with touching moments in Super that show how much his character changed over the years.

Compare that to DBZ in which even later on in the series he was practically always angry about something. Vegeta is one of, if not the most well-developed characters in all of anime in my opinion, and honestly I'm content with just that instead of wanting him to be #1 strength-wise.

Another reason why I never understood fans wanting Vegeta to attain Ultra Instinct is that the form really just does not suit his fighting style, or him as a character. The first time we saw Goku use it, he was basically some kind of vessel for this higher power; hell the guy had to fade out of consciousness to even achieve it. There’s something uniquely primal about it, what with the roars of other voices combined with Goku’s voice in its debut, and just the fact that Goku wasn’t making any sort of preparative motion to attack or seemed to think prior to acting at all.

When you consider all that, it’s a perfect match for Goku. Whis foreshadowed it waaaaaay back in Resurrection of F, hinting at a level of power where one could have their body move on its own appropriately. He also stated Goku and Vegeta’s respective shortcomings, saying that Vegeta was too tense and thought too intensely in battle, whereas Goku was absentminded and careless despite his amazing natural instincts.

While Vegeta has shown to have improved his high-strung attitude and even gone so far as to slouch in battle in an attempt to loosen up, I feel as though his tactical prowess and ability to analyze and adapt to his opponents techniques is something so fundamental to his character that I would be shocked to ever see it change. It’s what makes him Goku’s foil, and it’s a huge part of why so many people love his character.

Which finally brings me to what I wanted to talk about in regards to Episode 122, as well as that spicy preview for the upcoming Episode 133.

The preview for 122 had everyone hyped, since it showed two major things: Vegeta landing two impactful-looking blows on Jiren in just SSJB, and him using the Final Flash. After having watched the episode, the way these events play out pretty much solidified my belief that Vegeta will not get Ultra Instinct. Or at least not the same UI as Goku did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLj_oT1zYvg

The way he lands his first hit on Jiren was far more interesting than I expected. By observing Jiren’s attack, he is able to predict the movement patterns of his recycled animation--uhh I mean flurry of punches, and go in for the counterattack.

Now hear me out. Vegeta is very observant. But there is NO WAY you can just see the exact positioning and trajectory of each punch in a flurry of probably hundreds of punches, occurring in the span of like 2 seconds. Let alone the first time you’ve seen it. Not to mention, why only that attack and not any other of Jiren’s attacks? If Vegeta could just see through him that easily, couldn’t he have been doing it consciously the whole fight? Could it be that this is a new ability Vegeta has within him that he has yet to truly master, but is bubbling at the surface?

The combination of these factors leads me to believe that this is the first step towards Vegeta obtaining a new form that suits him better than UI, and him being able to see Jiren’s movement patterns so clearly in this episode is the first inkling into what that might entail.

Before I share my prediction for this power, I wanna point out one last scene that really sold me on Vegeta achieving something other than UI. (Also I really just wanna talk about this scene because it’s great)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrq2uDEQWxI

Besides just the moving soundtrack, the incredible visuals, and of course the nostalgic throwbacks to Vegeta’s Final Flash against Cell, two lines in particular spoke volumes to me:

“I can never throw away who I am!”

“Kakarot can have his Ultra Instinct! I’ll defeat you in my own way, Jiren!”

Do you think someone who owns his arrogance unabashedly, proudly proclaiming that he’ll never throw away who he is, would ever truly want a form that may remove the user from full control of themselves?

After this scene it felt wrong to imagine it. I might be looking too deep into it but it’s not a form I can see fitting him with this in mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITeApg8_w2Y

Now everybody who watched the ending credits and the preview for 123 know 2 things:

1. Vegeta is going to “awaken to an amazin’ power beyond Super Saiyan Blue” (And it ain’t Mastered SSJB, cause that would be a pretty weak payoff for all this build-up and that ship has long past sailed in the manga).

2. This form will allegedly have the same pupils as UI, but different hair, very similar to SSJB but darker, and it’s aura looks to be darker as well with some tinges of purple thrown in there.

My prediction for what new power this form will give Vegeta?

Accelerated Probability

In this new form, Vegeta would be able to see all the potential movements of his opponent in a span of milliseconds, before they even take those actions. He could then use all these variables presented to him to determine the best course of action he should take to succeed. Something like this seems like the most logical step. This way, the separate forms of UI can have this opposing duality while playing to their respective users greatest strengths. Goku has the form of the Body, while Vegeta would have the form of the Mind. It fits them both well, and it would make Vegeta predicting Jiren make so much more sense.

Wow. This took a long time to write, and probably a long time to read. If you did read it all, then holy shit you rock, thanks for sticking with me. And keep in mind, I am in no way claiming that this is exactly what will happen, just a neat little theory. I suppose he only way to find out is to tune in to DBS next week!

#dragon ball super #vegeta #super saiyan blue #ultra instinct #theory #jiren

53 notes · View notes

thisgoldenafternoon · 7 years

Text

Coincidence, you said??

Hey there, I'm back with another rant (rambling, whatever I don’t care) this time on a panel of VnC, that probably made many a heart flutter.

I'm talking about this panel from Memoir 14:

This post will contain spoilers for VnC so far and Pandora Hearts. Turn away now, you have been warned. It’s also gonna be long as fuck...

And therefore I can hardly believe, that this special pannel, should have been nothing but fanservice or a lumpish reference to PH. No way.

Why would she even choose theese alias? For aforementioned reasons? I highly doubt it. Bitch, please, this is MoshiJun-sensei, after all. Give her some credit.

So I thought about it and various things crossed my mind.

Please note: the following is nothing but me rambling about some vague parallels and thoughts, that popped right into my head at 1am right after reading Memoir 14, that I only now found time to put into words.

(Btw, english isn’t my mother toungue so please bear with mistakes and weird grammar)

(And would you look at this, it’s nearly 1am again... did I mention that I gotta go to work at 7:30 am tomorrow? Today??? Well, as soon as the alarm rings, anyways)

So first of all... I think that when we look back at that scene from a later point in the story we might realize just how much of a foreshadowing she's been giving us here. From what we've learnt in the last arc we can already draw many parallels between those characters.

Let's start with Vincent and Vanitas, shall we?

Both of them are considered harbingers of bad luck, Vince as a child of misfortune for that red eye of his, Vanitas for been kin of the blue moon and therefore associated with the curse of Bloom Vanitas. Both of the symbols of misfortune are closely linked to the cirumstances of their births and a certain colour, but that just seems to be the way MochiJun rolls.

Although we still don't know much about Vanis early childhood, it's stated that he, too, is an orphan who'd been abused and manipulated.

Also, Vanitas seems to blame himself heavily for the (still unknown fate) of Nr. 71, who'd referred to him as “Oni-chan”. Whether they're blood relatives or not matters little, as I'm sure he has as big a brother complex as Vincent had.

It's further hinted that Vani caused someone's death, and boy isn't that true for Vincent as well (no it's absolutely not, for the poor little sinnamon roll had been fucking manipulated by Jack and was just trying to save the only person he's ever loved and vice versa... So the precious child actually did nothing wrong. Still a lot of people died in the aftermath of his deeds and it haunted him ever since. I guess it'll turn out to be a similar story with Vanitas.)

From the general characteristics we've been shown thus far, even more parallels arise. Both characters are emotionally and physically traumatized, abused and mistreated, and therefore act distant, happy-go-lucky and sometimes ruthless.

They don’t value their lifes, either, and have been ready to give up on themselves multiple times.

Neither of them can deal with open affection and care, for they don't consider themselves worthy of it and refuse to view the people around them as more than mere pawns.

This behaviour is also mirrored in how they treat women- both act chivalrous, flirtatious and deeply committed on the outside, but who's gonna by this, I ask?? It’s all but an act serving an ulteriour motive.

In general, both seem to look for atonement and forgiveness. This was what saved Vincent in the end, and I'll be damned, if it won't save Vanitas, as well. Just think about Noe's words at the end of Memoir 18. Now we'll just have to wait and see, what kind of salvation that'll turn out to be.

Which leads me to the next part... (please bear with me, who ever reads this till the end get's all my gratitude and a years worth of fictional cookies).

Noe and Gil... frankly I didn't find as many parallels here, as with the previous two, but some still came to mind. (If any of you guys has something to add, please message me, I'm dying to hear your thoughts)

First thing here again is both of them being orphans with a somewhat tragic past, that still turned out to be the most precious cinnamon rolls.

Both have a strong need to protect and act as a shield due to certain physical traits (Gil was able to take more or less any hit due to being a Baskerville, while Noe is a fucking Vampire).

The two of them are also portrayed as more or less naïve and sometimes simple minded, yet head strong and generally kind hearted.

We know, that Gilbert's mind has been manipulated and tempered with and that he was bound to his master's will and frankly, I wouldn't be too surprised if that turned out to be true for Noe as well. His “teacher” is shady as fuck.

By the way, Noe had been more than once shown with hands reaching out for him from the shadows in official art...

Like here, e.g.:

In this case those are specifically his teacher's hands. You know who else had often been shown like that? Oz. And Gilbert. In Oz's case those hands longing for him represent Jack, in Gil's case Glen Baskerville. (Sorry, can't find the pic I'm looking for right now... Oh wait... there it is:

This might be a little far fetched, but maybe it's a hint, that Noe as well is bound tightly by his past? Maybe he, too, is a vessel for some ominous entity?? We'll know for sure some day.

I guess I could pull some more things out of my arse right now, but it's getting late on my end and this post is already sooo fucking long. (Sorry, not sorry.) But I think I got the major issues covered.

So, if you've read all of this: Here is your cookie! You're a precious being and deserve all the love you can get!

That's it guys, TGA.

#vanitas no carte #the case study of vanitas #vanitas no shuki #les memoires de vanitas #vanitas #noe #Pandora Hearts #vincent nightray #gilbert nightray #character study #jun mochizuki #memoire 14

179 notes · View notes

ladyloveandjustice · 7 years

Photo

So I’m doing my Natsume rewatch, and this time around I’m gonna talk about episode 7 of the show, “The Little Fox’s Hat”, because I think this is the episode that officially cemented my love for the show. The ending of the episode before this, with the swallow-girl, started the love train, but this episode is what really did it.

Little Fox Child is one of my my favorite reoccuring characters in the series and there’s a lot of stuff going on with their narrative this episode. They obviously act as a parallel to Natsume in a lot of ways, which we’ll get into in some other posts, and have a whole narrative about loneliness, self-worth, loss and found family going for them. but there’s also an interesting gender component to their story I want to talk about, because it’s really interesting and positive no matter how you choose to interpret it.

Here are the facts about Fox Child’s narrative: They were clearly assigned male at birth, because whenever they start getting weepy they shout to themself about how “a man musn’t cry!” However, overall their presentation is very feminine and their struggle with resisiting “acting feminine” seems to be symbolized by this hat they adore.

They’re drawn to this pretty hat that a girl would typically wear and love it, and then their desire to show off its cuteness to loved ones who are not present (their dead mother, Natsume) starts making them want to cry, at which point they scold themself and say they have to be a man and be strong, make it on their own and they can’t let themself be vulnerable or cry or need anyone. They shouldn’t seek out their mother and Natsume and show them this pretty hat. They shouldn’t cry or show their loneliness. They have to “be a man”.

But in the end, fox child does decide to go seek out Natsume, and they take the hat with them. Then they see Natsume with his family, feel unwanted and run away. They try to suppress their vulnerable emotions again, but they trip, the hat falls away and they realize how much they need it and yell for it to “come back”.

At which point Natsume appears, gets the hat and brings it back to them. He says he understands their feelings and is glad they came to see him. At this point, fox child finally breaks down in tears and flings themself at Natsume to hug him. Natsume hugs them back and it’s framed as a positive, affirming moment. The fox child allowing themself to cry is good and right. So is the fox child getting their girly hat back.

To cap it all off, Natsume tells fox child their hat is very cute and fox child feels affirmed and happy.

Natsume also mentions they find it amazing that fox child took the first step and reached out to someone like this, allowing themself to be vulnerable and open with another person, because it was something he was afraid to do as a child.

This is a narrative of a child who believes they should be “masculine” and suppress their emotions and not be openly emotionally vulnerable and “feminine”, ultimately finding happiness through emotional vulnerability and receiving affirmation from a nurturing figure that their emotional vulnerability and feminine expression is both supported and accepted.

It is obviously very, very easy to read fox child as a trans girl- or an nb person- and see their narrative as one where they finally accept themself and Natsume also lends support and affirmation to their identity. This adds an extra layer of poignancy to the narrative.

(and notably, the episode titles never assign a gender to fox child. In the title of this one, they’re called “little fox” and in episode 34 is titled “the fox child’s watch”.)

But however you choose to read this narrative, its message rings positive- it’s a message that emotional vulnerability and reaching out to other people are okay and shouldn’t be discouraged, that anyone should be able to express themself in a “feminine” way and it has our main character affirming and encouraging that.

(It also adds an extra layer to the narrative knowing that being “feminine” is something Natsume struggles with himself- according to tv tropes, there’s some extra material in the manga that notes that Natsume uses “ore” rather than the “boku” you’d expect from someone soft-spoken by him because he’s aware of how feminine he appears and tries to compensate for that. There’s also a couple times later in the anime where he acts embarrassed at being called “girly” or being near cutesy stuff, not to mention the whole exchange “You’re not like Reiko, you’re pretty soft, considering you’re a man” “WELL EXCUSE ME FOR BEING SOFT!!!”

But notably, this insecurity seems to have faded somewhat, little by little, as the series has progressed and doesn’t come up as much (with Natsume wearing some very feminine looking stuff without complaining, etc). His support of fox child seems to be foreshadowing he’ll eventually grow more comfortable with himself as well.)

ANYWAY, TL;DR THIS IS A GREAT EPISODE WITH A GREAT MESSAGE ABOUT HOW FEMININE PRESENTATION AND EMOTIONAL VULNERABILITY AND REACHING OUT TO OTHER PEOPLE FOR SUPPORT ARE FINE AND CAN BE POSITIVE THINGS NO MATTER WHAT GENDER YOU’VE BEEN ASSIGNED. FOX CHILD IS GREAT. I LOVE THIS SHOW.

#nev watches natsume's book of friends #natsume's book of friends #natsume yuujinchou #takashi natsume #fox child #meta

50 notes · View notes

evilkitten3 · 7 years

Text

Warning: Rant

So... I was thinking about Fairy Tail, as I am wont to do, and something occurred to me. Before I get started, I would just like to clarify a few things. I love Fairy Tail (even if there’s a lot I don’t like). I love Jellal. I love Ultear. I love the Tartaros arc.

I am going to complain about all of those things. This will not be short. This will not lack profanity. Read at your own risk.

So one of the most controversial characters in Fairy Tail - aside from all the other ones - is Jellal Fernandes. Some people love him, some people hate him, some people are indifferent, etc. Sadly, most of the people who love him have a tendency to defend him blindly (yours truly included). So let’s talk about some problems people have with him.

The biggest is his recruitment of the Oración Seis - five individuals who were at one point enslaved to him, whom he beats the shit out of and recruits. A lot of people feel that he didn’t give them a choice. For a while, I scoffed at that, remembering that Jellal flat-out told them that he wasn’t taking them back to jail, and I never saw any implications that he was going to kill them should they refuse. But then I looked at things through their eyes, and realized that they probably didn’t feel the same way. They saw a guy who was powerful enough to have destroyed them by himself and who admitted to being sent by the person most likely to want them locked up again. In their eyes, they probably didn’t have as many options. The anime expanded the scene further, showing their decision to follow him and officially become “good”, but it didn’t happen in the manga, so it’s really up to the viewer whether to count it as canon (to the best of my knowledge, it isn’t official, but I don’t know what Mashima-sensei thinks about it).

Another problem people have with Jellal is everything being blamed on Ultear, which... honestly? Yeah, that bothers me too. Because it’s not about Jellal or Ultear - it’s about taking the blame from Zeref so that he can be a tragic villain (something that is very hard for me to accept at this point). First, we’re told that Jellal is being possessed by Zeref, who is - as far as we knew then - this mysterious evil wizard who was responsible for a lot of shit but was thankfully now dead. Okay, that works. But then it’s revealed to have been Ultear all along (in the manga, this is revealed almost immediately, complete with a bubble bath scene, but it takes longer in the anime). The problem here is that that makes no goddamn sense. It feels like an asspull, even in the manga, as if Mashima-sensei had finally developed Zeref enough to genuinely get attached to him as a character (which writers do), only to decide that Zeref should be sympathetic.

First off, since when can Ultear brainwash people? Her magics are Arc of Time and Ice-Make. She uses the brainwashing thing once, and never again after that, despite the fact that it would’ve been really fucking useful.

Second, if Jellal wasn’t being possessed, where the hell did he get all that magical power? It’s not implied that he’s always just had a bunch of magic - he doesn’t use it until after going off the deep end. If he was possessed by a super powerful evil wizard, then yeah, it makes sense that he’d have a lot of power, but Ultear wasn’t supplying him. So, where’d it come from? And regardless of who was controlling him, why the hell did they allow him to let Erza get away?

Third, how the hell is he still alive? In the manga, it was stated that he was atomized by the destruction of the Tower. Atomized. As in, reduced to atoms. But come Oración Seis arc, and he’s... totally fine. Well, he does have memory loss, leading to:

Four, what’s up with his brain? He can’t remember anything except Erza’s first name and, somehow, the location of Nirvana. Oh, and he remembers how to use his magic. Somehow. Putting aside that that’s not how memory loss works, that’s still a lot of disbelief we’ve gotta suspend. For that matter, how the hell did Brain find him? What, he was just in the right place at the right time? Really?

Five, wasn’t Brain the one who taught him magic? And wasn’t Brain also the one responsible for Ultear’s life being a dumpster fire? In that case, why the fuck would she work with him? For the sake of the Alliance, which was apparently a non-aggression pact (that is also bullshit, but it’s irrelevant for the moment)? Doubtful.

Lastly, why was Ultear even in the Tower at all? Did Hades send her? Why? Did he genuinely believe that a little girl would skip through a Tower of terrified slaves and people being tortured (you know, like she was), and not think to herself “gee, this is kinda messed up. Maybe I shouldn’t be working for this guy.”? Did he actually think that? And even if he did, wasn’t Hades supposed to be extremely smart? He shouldn’t have even taken the risk.

So yeah, there are a lot of plot holes. It’s a shounen, so that’s to be expected, but here’s what really gets me: All of this, everything you’ve read so far, could easily have been avoided. How, you ask? Well, this is where the Tartaros arc comes into the equation.

Jellal is insanely strong, can apparently survive getting atomized, doesn’t seem to fully understand other people’s point of view on things, and has a strange obsession with Zeref (who, by the way, has done nothing to any of the members of Crime Sorcìere. Nothing). Sound familiar?

Yeah, the Etherious demons. Literally all of the above problems can be solved by making Jellal a demon. You still feel like someone should’ve been controlling his actions during his streak of villainy? FINE. Seilah exists. Problem solved. If she can use Macro on herself, she can use it on other demons. Mirajane’s immunity can be explained due to the variety of her abilities. Easy.

So, how does this work? Let’s say that Jellal is the result of an attempt to create a humanoid demon that can act as a spy or something. Only he doesn’t understand why he should be looking down on humans. So Mard Geer decides to “help” him think that all humans are shit by sending him to the Tower and sealing his powers, hoping that he’ll develop some sort of deep-seated loathing of humanity. Only instead he makes friends and decides to try and liberate them. Obviously, since the Tower is under Grimoire Heart’s control, this isn’t good for the Alliance, so Seilah heads over to make sure Jellal is unsuccessful. She decides to allow Erza to get away in order to use her as a scapegoat and keep everyone in line.

Flash-forward to Jellal getting blown up in the Tower. He’s destroyed, and reforms in the Cube. Like Tempester, he doesn’t have his memories. Part of the Balam Alliance involves the three major guilds to try to do at least one Nice Bad Guy Thing™ per year, so Tartaros gets Crawford Seam to implant some knowledge about Nirvana into Jellal’s head and they hand him over to Brain (he can still be in a coma if you wanna see him in chains so badly). Jellal wakes up, has no idea what the hap is fuckening, and does what he does in canon (only without remembering Erza - he just figures that the people not trying to take over the world are probably the good guys). Anyway, he helps Natsu fight Zero, gets arrested, and leaves to be probably executed.

Only his memories start returning, and he realizes “oh shit, Tartaros is full of demons, I’m one of them, the humans are fucked”. So he basically decides to try and help the humans by providing them with what little he remembers. Ultear and Merudy break him out, and Crime Sorcìere becomes a kinda task force (as in, the Council is pretending to be actively hunting them, but isn’t because 1. they’re really good at taking out Dark Guilds, and 2. Jellal keeps sending them extremely helpful info).

Hell, this even fixes the beach scene. Jellal has the majority of his memories back, knows he’s a demon, and feels like he needs to tell Erza, because he’s not sure if he’s capable of loving her (literally). But he panics, says the “I have a fiancée” line, and doesn’t end up telling her. The scene where Ultear and Merudy tease him about his shitty lying is replaced with them scolding him and saying that of course he can love and Erza doesn’t care what he is.

Anyway, Jellal’s struggle changes from him trying to forgive himself for crimes the series is intent on reminding us “weren’t his fault” (yet also fails to explain exactly why they weren’t his fault) to him trying to come to terms with his identity as a demon.

This also gives him a reason to go after Zeref. The Etherious, with the exception of Mard Geer, are hardwired to believe that they need to reunite with Zeref. Jellal wants to prove - to himself and everyone else - that he’s more than his origins and decides to kill Zeref (ironically becoming one of the only demons doing what he was supposed to be doing in the process), despite knowing that he will die if Zeref does.

Now, let’s get back to the Jellal vs. the Oración Seis fight. Jellal is a character who wants to be a good person, but shouldn’t he understand that the Seis might not see things the way he does? Well, no, actually. Most demons don’t seem to have any empathy at all - even Natsu has difficulty seeing things from other people’s point of view.

Speaking of Natsu, Jellal’s whole “kill Zeref” plan becomes a bit of a problem once he realizes that Natsu is also a demon, and will thus also die if Zeref does. Jellal has, over the course of the series, demonstrated little to no regard for his own well being, but it’s doubtful that he’d be okay with Natsu dying.

One other complaint people have is that Jellal is often thrown into the plot when there’s no reason for him to be there. But if he’s a demon, his presence can become foreshadowing for Natsu’s identity. Instead of having his character randomly show up to have a moment with Erza, the series could instead show what he was doing compared to what Natsu was doing, highlighting their similarities. And then, once Natsu learns the truth, Jellal can be the one who says “yeah, well, welcome to the club”, giving him an actual reason for showing up so much.

And that’s still not everything. This also provides a solution to the rest of the cast learning about the demons in the first place. In canon, Doranbolt finds out from Cobra - who, when you think about it, really shouldn’t have known about that. It’s highly unlikely that the Dark Guilds had meetings (again, the whole “it was a non-aggression pact” thing), and Brain was good enough at shielding his thoughts that Cobra didn’t know his “father’s” true opinion of him until Brain literally back-stabbed him.

Is that it? Nope. Jellal’s relationship with Merudy and Ultear becomes a lot more meaningful too. Instead of being “oh yeah, they’re friends now, yay”, it becomes Jellal accepting them in spite of the crimes they (willingly) committed, and them accepting him in spite of him being a demon. Hence why he knows that Fairy Tail won’t abandon Natsu - because true friends will be there for you, even if you are literally a monster.

On top of all that, there’s Jellal’s strength. Several people have said that he shouldn’t have been able to defeat the Seis, given that Midnight beat him so badly the first time they fought (to be fair, he’d just woken up from a coma and spent a lot of magic on a suicide attempt). But the Etherious are powered by negative emotions like anger and hate (hence why Natsu can solve most of his problems by getting pissed off at them), so Jellal could’ve just been powering up off how much he hates himself and/or Zeref.

To sum it all up, some of the biggest problems with Fairy Tail could’ve been resolved by making Jellal into a demon. And that says a lot about this series, to be perfectly fucking honest.

#fairy tail #ft spoilers #fairy tail rant #ft rant #jellal fernandes #jellal rant #tartaros #tartaros arc #UGH THIS TOOK FOREVER #ek3 complains

112 notes · View notes

recentanimenews · 5 years

Text

Bookshelf Briefs 2/4/19

DIVE!!, Vol. 1 | By Eto Mori and Ruzuru Akashiba | Yen Press – Tomoki Sakai has loved diving since the second grade, when he was awed by the diving of another boy named Youichi Fujitani. Now, six years later, he and Youichi are both members of Mizuki Diving Club, which is in trouble as the new president of the sporting goods company that sponsors it is considering shutting it down. Enter their new coach, Kayoko Asaki, who hopes to keep the MDC open by sending one of its members to the Olympics. To this end, she starts training Tomoki hard since his natural flexibility gives him an advantage. So too does his work ethic, but this does little to soothe the wounded pride of his long-time teammates Ryou and Reiji, who think the coach is playing favorites and refuse to acknowledge that they’re slacking off in comparison to Tomoki. There’s not much else to say about DIVE!! at this point, but I’m intrigued. – Michelle Smith

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas: The Complete Manga Collection | By Yoru Sumino and Idumi Kirihara | Seven Seas – Out of all of the versions of I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, including Yoru Sumino’s original novel and its various film adaptations, it was the manga series that provided my introduction to the story. A touching friendship develops between two high school students—Sakura, who has a terminal illness she is hiding from everyone but her family, and an extremely introverted classmate who discovers her secret. The end of the story is known from the beginning, but I Want to Eat Your Pancreas takes a startling turn to get there. Even though it’s foreshadowed, initially it feels a little unfair, but that’s exactly the point and the characters have to come to terms with it, too. So far I’m unfamiliar with the other incarnations of I Want to Eat Your Pancreas and therefore can’t offer a comparison, but the manga adaptation is a pretty solid work on its own. – Ash Brown

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas: The Complete Manga Collection | By Yoru Sumino and Idumi Kirihara | Seven Seas – Shiga Haruki is an introverted kid who claims to have no interest in other people. Odd, then, that for the majority of the series he substitutes his own name with whatever he assumes other people are thinking about him. His outgoing classmate Yamauchi Sakura is intrigued, and when she comes upon Shiga reading the diary in which she has written about her terminal illness, she seizes the chance to get to know him. Gradually, she draws him out of his shell, and it’s really gratifying to see him start to display passionate emotion when he senses that her diagnosis has gotten worse. Knowing her changed him for the better. My one complaint is that, after a pretty random plot twist, the story just speeds along to the end. I might have to check out the original novel to see if the pace is any more leisurely. Definitely recommended. – Michelle Smith

Manga Plus | By Various Artists | Shueisha – I’ve never reviewed an app here before, but this is a biggie. Shueisha how has all of Shonen Jump out Sunday afternoon—yes, including the tiny “unlicensed” series—as well as selected Jump Plus and Square titles, such as Blue Exorcist. This is day/date with Japan (it really is—don’t make me explain it again). It allows you to see obscure series you’d never expect over here, like theatre nerd series Curtains Up, I’m Off. And you can see the latest popular Jump chapters too, and marvel at how freaking awesome (and strong!) Uraraka was in the latest Academia, or the snugglepiles in the new Neverland. This is basically the app all of us have been waiting for, and it’s free! Go read it now. – Sean Gaffney

Murcielago, Vol. 9 | By Yoshimurakana | Yen Press – The first third of this volume wraps up the previous arc, and does it pretty well. It also gives us even more hints that Hinako is some sort of experimental child a la A Certain Magical Index‘s darker volumes. The majority of the book, though, is much lighter in tone, with Kuroko and Chiyo’s relationship resolved much faster than I expected (Chiyo admits she sort of likes Kuroko when she’s being… well, Kuroko), and also a beach episode that then segues into giant robots that destroy the apartment complex! It’s very silly and filled with large-breasted women acting cool, which is two of the things that people read Murcielago for, and has a an over the top lesbian sex scene with Kuroko and Chiyo, which is another. Fun. – Sean Gaffney

Now Loading…! | By Mikan Uji | Seven Seas – This is a new yuri series from Seven Seas, and given it’s also the final volume you know not to expect too much. It’s cute. It’s basically New Game if they actually went in that direction explicitly. We see a game company with a bright-eyed newbie and a game designer with a tragic past… well, OK, it’s not tragic, it’s just “reality happens, this is Gametown.” Sakurazuki ends up kissing Takagi at the end of the first chapter, and the rest of the book shows how they slowly talk about how and why that happened and maneuver their way into being a couple. There’s also a beta couple of two other employees, which is cute. This will make you smile, but you’ll likely forget what happens in a day. – Sean Gaffney

Spirit Circle, Vol. 6 | By Satoshi Mizukami | Seven Seas – This final volume wraps up the Fortuna life, which is as terrible as possible, and then heads back to the present, where unfortunately Fortuna has hijacked Fuuta’s body. Things are not looking good for this not ending in death. But then a tragic prediction ends up going horribly… not tragic at all, and the day is saved by a butterfly net that the alien couple gave our heroes, which is a sentence that only makes sense if you’ve read this series. Kouko theoretically gives Fuuta a final kiss and then leaves him to Nono, but let’s face it, given those last wishes from Rune and East, we know what’s really going to happen. This was an awesome series, just the right length—just like the author’s prior series, in fact. – Sean Gaffney

The Voynich Hotel, Vol. 3 | By Douman Seiman | Seven Seas – The series continues to veer between terribly silly, terribly dark, and somewhat nauseating. There’s a sense of everything coming to a head here, and that’s the case, but honestly I was struck by how many more people survived than I was expecting. This is probably as close to a happy ending as The Voynich Hotel was going to get, and there’s potential in both the adventures of the now adult detective gang as well as Elena (who I keep thinking of as Maria because she looks just like Maria in Zetsubou-sensei) and Tarou ending up as a couple and opening up to one another. Not for the faint of heart, but if you like weird and heartwarming, this is a good series to check out. – Sean Gaffney

Yuri Is My Job!, Vol. 1 | By miman | Kodansha Comics – I’m very happy that Kodansha has begun licensing yuri titles (or, yuri-adjacent, at least), but I really wish they’d started with anything other than this. Hime Shiraki is a cute first-year high school student who has cultivated an angelic façade in order to snag a billionaire husband. But aside from her looks, she has nothing going for her, so when she’s manipulated into helping out at a café where the waitresses pretend to be prim and proper ladies from an all-girls private school, she proves largely incompetent. What’s worse (and supremely frustrating) is that she fails to comprehend that anyone other than her might be putting on an act, so when a coworker speaks harshly to her in private but gently in front of customers, she is utterly baffled. Honestly, it’s just bad. I liked no one and it was a chore to make it through a single volume. – Michelle Smith

By: Ash Brown

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf

0 notes