#but sk8 gave us such complex relationships

[chickenandwafflesandtv]

Sk8 the Infinity Season 1

I cannot skateboard for the life of me, but this show really makes me wish I could.

Welcome back! Today we're focusing on another anime that I've seen countless times, but just as I think I'm finally over it, it comes back and hits me tenfold.

SK8 THE INFINITY SEASON 1

My friend introduced this to me after she watched the first episode with her then boyfriend. I tried to watch but only got about 20 seconds into it before I called it quits. I'm very indecisive when it comes to settling on a show to watch if you couldn't tell. About a month later, I finally gave it a real try. I think I finished the whole show in a night. I fell in love.

BACKGROUND

Langa Hasegawa. Ex-snowboarder. Just moved to Japan after the death of his father. Has no friends. Meet: Reki Kyan. Skateboard fanatic. Designs and makes his own boards. Love skating, but isn't exactly the best. After meeting in front of the skateboard shop that Reki works at, Langa decides he wants to learn how to skate. Spontaneously defending Reki's honor in an underground competition, it turns out he's quite the skater, and gains the attention of an array of people: teenage prodigy Miya, Italian chef Joe, calligrapher and tech-wizard Cherry Blossom, and founder of the underground skate competition and all-around bad guy, Adam. Langa and Reki try to navigate friends, fights, trips, and skating, all while preparing for Langa's final skate battle against Adam.

REVIEW

No matter how many times I watch it, this show just doesn't disappoint. Much like Yuri!!! on Ice, it has a lot of movement which could have been animated less eloquently using 3D modeling, but instead they were with classic animation, which made the show so much more beautiful. One of my favorite things about this show is the character designs. Each character is craftly to have a look that I think truly encompasses them. Everybody is filled with color and it's almost easy to guess their personality just entirely on their individual appearances. The plot for this show is also extremely well done. Episodes focused on the struggles of learning a new skill, of friendship and how it can be hard to maintain them, there's a subplot about political corruption, and of course a beach episode, which I think can really make or break an anime. The story and relationships here are really complex and inadvertently deal with tougher conversations such as depression, injury, and worthlessness. Once again, this truly is a really well done show that I'll always recommend to anyone who asks.

SIGN OFF

Great news! This show was recently announced to have a second season AND a special episode! I follow most of the voice actors on twitter and everyone was so happy (me included)! This show is just super cool and a really fun watch! I hope everyone can enjoy it as much as I did!

Thank you for reading! I haven't decided what to watch next week, but I'm sure I'll pick something good!

9/22/22 4:59pm

#manga #anime #sk8 the infinity #matcha blossom #tv series #review #sk8

[sleepingcrisis]

Okay listen I bitched about the Adam and therapy thing for awhile so now it is fair game for me to bitch about this because this show's fandom is so wack. Maybe I should post these takes on Twitter but Twitter terrifies me so... no.

Twitter pisses me off but this one thread really did so just let me vent for a hot second:

Langa and Adam didn't really have a rivalry and any sort of rivalry they did have was one-sided on Adam’s end of things. This thread was talking about edenshipping and about how the show "dropped" their romance after the first few episodes only to pick it back up on the last episode.

Now I swear to god Adam stans need to pick a side because seeing some people say "Adam only ever wanted a skating partner and only ever saw Langa as that" and then in the same breath say "Adam clearly viewed Langa as a love interest" is so frustrating because those two statements can't exist at the same time. Adam can't only see Langa as a skating partner and then also see him as a lover interest. He could see Langa as a skating partner and a love interest and that can totally be something someone gathers from the show (because I can definitely see it) or someone can headcanon them as love interests or whatever else. Just please stop trying to make both claims it hurts my brain reading it lmao.

This specific user wasn't too happy that Langa seemed to only be thinking about Reki after their fight (as if Reki isn't Langa’s primary friend and the person who introduced Langa into something that made him happy after having moved across the world after his father died). Anyway they not only didnt really seem to like the Reki/Langa narrative that the show went for (what a tragedy that the show is about the... two... main... characters), but in the comments a user was saying that they disliked how central Tadashi, Joe, and Cherry were to Adam’s backstory (while, ironically, censoring Reki and Langa’s names 🥴).

In the monster thread about Adam and therapy a mutual of mine said something along the lines about how it is important to recognize how tragic it is that Adam needs an Eve... so let me use this to segway into my next point.

Adam never knew jackshit about Langa. Adam refers to Langa as Snow constantly idek if Adam ever knew Langa’s name. Adam’s attraction towards Langa (from my viepoint at least) came only from his skating ability.

Also as a huge Cherry/Shadow shipper and Joe/Tadashi shipper this does means that I need literally nothing to ship characters and can pull headcanons from thin air, I'm just stating what I believe the show gave us.

Anyway they made the complaint that the show doesn't focus on any single relationship... but they are completely missing the point of the show because Langa building a community of friends and the exploration of different character relationships seems to be a very central part of the show: Adam-Langa, Adam-Tadashi, Adam-Cherry, Adam-Joe, Joe-Reki, Joe-Cherry, Reki-Langa, Reki-Oka, Miya-Shadow, Miya-Langa, Miya-Reki and so on and so forth. It is literally a sports anime about friendship and expecting it to focus on any single relationship shows a lack of understanding in what a sports anime is.

They finish their thread off by saying that they are an eden shipper and that antis can't use the post to attack them (because the thread was really about why edenshipping isn't as popular as other ships... I think it is like the forth most popular ship but alright).

Might make an entire seperate post about how wack the opposite end of the fandom is for taking the "Cherry is the villain" jokes too seriously. That is for another night though.

#sk8 the infinity #vent #sk9 #sk8 discourse #this is a lot of rambling #not nearly as coherent as my other post #but sk8 gave us such complex relationships #in 12 episodes and watching people push for #one single relationship #is beyond frustrating

[miyuskye]

NOT ME GOING FERAL OVER THE NEW UTSUMI'S INTERVIEW

source:

It's funny that some of the points Utsumi made clear only confirmed what I hced XD

This ended up being very long, so be sure to go hype the og post up, these are just my personal thoughts and ramblings about it XD

- she said that the Joe/Cherry/Adam relationship is shattered (I'm glad she addressed the problem) and since they're adults (ouch that hurt) it's not as easy to solve it. (we would have a lot of material for s2 then~)

- to no one's surprise, Tadashi taking the blame for Adam was just a test for him. I admit that during my first (rushed) sk8 watch I didn't immediately get it either (in the ep where he mentions it of course) (I did, though, when Adam said it wasn't true in ep 12), but that was probably the point. THE FUNNY THING IS that Tadashi didn't get it either, while the whole thing was... Just? Something to rile him up (as always...)??? Dense Tadashi IS canon. Or rather, dense Tadashi when it comes to Adam's feelings for him..... No wonder that man got frustrated and started venting on teenagers (sarcastic tone).

- speaking of venting! She made a very good point of saying that the Langa in ep 12 (the one that has been taught/reminded by Reki that skating is fun) is the only one who can teach that concept to Adam (and not, like, "any other Langa"). I beg you to go read op's translation for this because I found it so so cute that she encompassed and not denied any of the important relationships involved (eden and renga) this beautifully

- apparently, the ending catch me scene has happened very often, so much that Tadashi is used to rush to Ainosuke and Ainosuke is also very used to it (can they be more blatant than they already are?)

- Adam's ep 12 suit is actually designed using real downhill skaters suit as an inspiration (but then Utsumi likes her Adam so much that she gave him the heart-shaped hole in the back, and proceeded to talk about how Adam's back muscles are beautiful and amazing and also his hips and butt - Tadashi prolly agrees with her and it's a pity that 90% of the fandom hates a character this much when the original writer is so WHIPPED for him???)

- SPEAKING OF THIS, she literally said that she struggled with Tadashi's facial expressions a lot during the show (because he is a quiet character and doesn't convey his emotions on his face) but in the last infamous scene she had no doubts and it is meant to be an expression of JOY (antis what's good)

- SPEAKING OF THIS PT.2, she labels TadaAi as complicated characters, though I think that she actually means complex (she is also laughing in the interview, and Japanese is a high context language, like my first one, and more often than not when we call something complicated in a high context discussion we actually mean complex) (I'll try to be brief, but complicated bears a more negative accent, referring to something that is unnecessary difficult, while complex is more descriptive, meaning that something just has different layers which have several and various connections). However this is my very personal interpretation and feeling, from another high context language-speaking person, and absolutely not accurate. Also Japanese is a language that changes his grammar and words based on conversation tone and formality, so maybe she really did say the word complicated, but that's just how I decided to interpret it.

- also because in general, from every Utsumi interview I read (translated), I got the feeling that she always went defensive when talking about Adam, especially his Problematic Aspects and Relationships. She always seems preoccupied that her intentions with his character have not been thoroughly understood, and, well, she's not wrong!

#shindo ainosuke #kikuchi tadashi #tadaai #aitada #sk8 adam #sk8 the infinity #sk8 tadashi #ainosuke shindo #tadashi kikuchi #if word of god said that tadashi was happy in that scene then he was happy end of the story XD stop projecting your hate please?????? #anyhow i love the little tadaai things..... #even if i wanted another BIG BOMB dropped like the trivia that tada was aiichiro's secretary THAT WAS WILD #utsumi you madwoman

[moldy-mold]

July Blog I occasionally have a social life.

My friends from different states came together to visit for July 4! It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other - probably since before pandemic times. We did the usual, getting takeout at the recommended food spots, going hiking, playing games. We finally had a self care day, which is what everyone desperately needed:

We jumped in a freezing cold river, watched ducks, soaked up the sun. I was born and raised in the sunshine state, meaning I am a creature of the water. Every summer, my fellow Floridians and I long for our hometown beaches. I’ve never considered swimming in the rivers so this was my first time. It was cold, numbingly cold. But the river’s current pushing at my back, being in the open water and surrounded by trees and wildlife with hardly anyone around was definitely a profound experience.

We ended our self-care day with boba tea, face masks and John Wick. Nothing like sharing a relaxing spa time with Keanu Reeves.

Compilation of other things we did. I feel like all we did was eat...

-

Uhhhhhh......... I have more because I lack self-control.

I can explain... Our local park started hosting a farmer’s market so my roommate and I wanted to check it out. It also has a greenhouse / plant store. Its caretaker is a grandpa whose name is Art. The guy just really loves plants and just wants to keep growing new things.

I first established my relationship with Art when he gave me an offshoot of his super huge and old Christmas cactus. I didn’t have cash on me so he said, “just take it and pay me back the next time you visit.” Two weeks later, I returned to him with the cash.

My cactus is about 3 years old now and he blooms hot pink flowers every Christmas. His name is Kiryu. I have given some of Kiryu’s offspring to my parents and my friends.

Back to the present... Enchanted by the new and exotic additions to the greenhouse, I could not resist. Luckily Art was there, still planting it up. I told him about Kiryu and he was happy to hear that my cactus was doing well. He gave me my plants for pretty much chump change when they can go for $25+. He even repotted them in new pots for me. Art is the best plant grandpa.

Sooo without further ado, say hello to Ferdinand, the Cosmic Delight Caladium!

And a warm welcome to Raven, the Flamingo Feather Celosia! Hard to kill, easy to please. Disappears every winter, but returns every summer.

And here is cat grass! You don’t get a name because you are a sacrifice!

Rokurou the Venus Flytrap caught his first fly! Had to take a picture. You’re doing great, sweetie. 🥺

Lorenz is doing ok. He suffered from white fungus thanks to the nighttime showers and lingering humidity. SERIOUSLY, DUDE? Anyway I’m keeping him inside at night for recuperation. I spray his leaves with a soap formula to kill the fungus.

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Finished watching...

Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex ✦✦✧ What if we lived in a world in which people have cyber-brains and prosthetic bodies? If we are made of machines, then how do we retain our sense of self? The show explores these kinds of questions. Super interesting.

Sk8 ✦✦✧ Soooooo cute but kind of unhinged. Best sports anime in recent times.

Gundam: Hathaway’s Flash ✦✧✧ Finally. Tbh, I was underwhelmed by it, but I know it’s only one piece of a whole series of movies so I’ll still hang on for the rest. The animation was sooooo good though. I do give it props for showing us in detail what happens when you’re a civilian caught below a mobile suit battle. It was terrifying and well done.

Giant Robo OVA ✦✦✧ Animation was really really good. A show about the world’s energy problems and how it was solved in the distant future. Its plot is like a cousin to Cyborg 009.

Carmen Sandiego ✦✦✦ Solid show for kids and adults. We are all in love with Shadowsan (ok maybe it’s just me). Screamed at the ending.

Castlevania ✦✦✧ It was so cute and then it got really freaky in here and then it was cute again.

Demon Slayer (2nd watch for the legendary ENG dub cast) ✦✦✧ Ufotable delivers the most amazing sword fights. I forgot how cute the boys were. Zenitsu’s VA (Aleks Le) was SOOO GOOD even tho he was screaming 70% of the time. I hope his throat is okay honestly. Also really satisfied that Johnny Yong Bosch is Giyu lol.

Angel’s Egg OVA ✦✦✧ It made sense sometimes but most of the time it’s ???????? Kinda freaky imagery. Superb animation.

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This Month’s Shower Thought Why did I get into comics?

I never considered myself a comic artist but looking back, I did get serious about it (aka, putting more effort in) when I was in high school. Maybe I watched/read some serious plots and wanted to create some crazy story of my own. The thing with me is that I never had OC’s. I always drew fanart or drew my friends from school and placed them into difficult situations.

In college, after reading Gekkan Shoujou Nozaki-kun I was inspired to do less angsty comics and switch to comedy. I wondered what made me choose to be “funny.” I was not a funny person. In fact, I was quite miserable during that time. It was an escape, perhaps...

What makes people funny? Is it something that is always within you, waiting to be unleashed or is it a social pattern you pick up on?

I was thinking it had to do with self-confidence. At a certain point in my life, the inhibitor switch kinda turned off in my brain and some ridiculous things come out when I’m talking. I didn’t care if it was embarrassing or stupid. Now it’s applied to my comics.

It might even be as simple as, “it makes me chuckle, so I like it. I will keep doing it.”

#diary