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hope-for-the-planet · 5 years

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So I'm pretty much top tier terrified because the Amazon Rainforest is on fire. Like, that's seriously bad, isn't it??? How are we supposed to bounce back from this...?

Hey Anon! I’ve gotten a lot of asks about the Amazon forest fire situation so I’m going to address them all here.

The most concerning thing about the Amazon fires isn’t necessarily the fires themselves, but the reason that there are so many this year: This is almost certainly because Brazil’s current president is very anti-environmentalist, which has led to more clearing of the forest (which involves setting fires).

The fires themselves aren’t actually a new threat. People have been practicing slash-and-burn agriculture in the Amazon for a long time. What’s different this year is that there seem to be more fires than usual and they are impacting densely populated locations.

Something that I think is being glossed over by many of the images and headlines being passed around is that it’s very normal for there to be human-caused forest fires in and around the Amazon at this time of year.

Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research says that this is a record year for forest fires in Brazil since they started monitoring fires via satellite in 2013.

However, NASA says that the overall fire activity in the Amazon basin as a whole is actually slightly below average compared to the last 15 years; fire activity has increased in Amazonas and Rondonia but has decreased in Mato Grosso and Pará.

A manager for Global Forest Watch has said that the fires this year are roughly equivalent to what they saw in 2016 (according to satellite images). Now, 2016 was also a bad year for forest fires, but it goes to show that this level of fire is not unheard of.

So, why are we only hearing about the fires this year if they’ve been this bad before? Probaby because ash clouds darkened the sky over the most populated city in Brazil, which is a big, dramatic, apocalyptic thing that tends to get people’s attention.

Although some meteorologists think the ash over Sao Paulo may have been caused by fires in Paraguay, not even in the Amazon, the air quality in populated areas has been so strongly affected that Amazonas has declared a state of emergency.

To be clear, it is still definitely bad that parts of the Amazon are burning and the fact that the fires are impacting air quality in populated cities poses very real human health risks. We should be speaking out about this, drawing attention to it, and donating to organizations that are working to protect the Amazon. But this is not necessarily an apocalyptic scenario.

And the good news? #PrayforAmazonia went viral on Twitter. Tons and tons of news sources are covering these fires in a way that Amazon forest fires have not been covered in the past. People are talking about Amazon deforestation and its potential impact on climate change.

This whole debacle is generating a lot of outrage towards Brazil’s presidential administration. Hopefully, this will lead to more international support for those who are fighting his damaging policies towards the Amazon and the indigenous communities that rely on it. By the way, I think it bears mentioning that last week an indigenous women’s march occupied a Brazilian health ministry building in protest of their president’s harmful policies.

Do you want to help? Donate! I really cannot stress how much small amounts of money can go a long way in situations like this.

Donate to SOS Amazonia, a Brazilian NGO working to preserve the Amazon (I can’t find any third party information on how reputable this NGO is, but I think this may largely be because of the language barrier-they’ve been operating since the 1980s)

Donate to Rainforest Trust which buys and protects rainforest land all around the world (4/4 stars on Charity Navigator)

And don’t forget to vote for politicians that prioritize environmental protection and can put pressure on Brazil’s government to clean up its act!

Photo Source: X X

#amazon #amazon rainforest #deforestation #amazon fires #amazon rainforest fire #ask #anonymous #climate change #hope

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transboykirito · 3 years

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sword art online volume 1: aincrad (my thoughts/review/summary)

to give a disclaimer, i have some knowledge of the novels however this is my first time fully reading them!! i’m very excited to read all of them and i would prefer to avoid any spoilers for anything after alicization!

under the cut!

first of all, it’s a bit jarring skipping over so much to go right to the last floors. i got confused about it thinking i’d somehow missed a bunch of chapters lol.

kirito is a dork. i love him. he is an asshole to klein. why. i think klein and kirito’s interactions are quite funny and i’ve decided that, in aincrad, agil basically adopted the both of them. i love found family dad agil.

the cute kirisuna moments in their cabin!!!!!! my heart!!! i think it really shows what the anime skips, since this gave me much more of a domestic feeling reading it. speaking of kirisuna, the way kirito talks about asuna melts my heart. it’s so obvious that this girl is his everything, she could just breathe and he’d compare her to angels.

it’s really interesting to get to see kirito’s inner thoughts and monologue. i really wish we had more of this in the anime. it makes him feel so much more of a teenager while also highlighting how much he goes through. it’s something i’ve always wanted from the anime.

THE SCENE AFTER ASUNA DIES. BROKE. MY. HEART. the fact kirito just imagines them in a field together? and imagines her just asking if she can nap? because he fell in love under that tree in the field? I’M AN EMOTIONAL MESS. i wish it was animated but also i would not have survived watching it at all.

also, kirito admitting to being suicidal. finally explicitly having kirito say he wishes he’d killed himself, that he should’ve killed himself. it destroyed me. i genuinely started sobbing. only one volume in and there’s already serious repercussions for kirito’s trauma. this is something that, if i’m remembering right, is briefly mentioned in season 2 and then again in a few scenes in alicization. i’m so glad its being mentioned early.

kirito is trans. he is also sarcastic and idiotic and dorky and to actually see him act like a real person was amazing. he has stupid thoughts. he acts irrationally. he hates his face. he wants friends. he doesn’t want to hurt people. he has goals and motivations. he’s a real character with a real personality.

i feel like i’ve been re-introduced to sao. this is everything i’ve ever hoped for that i thought i’d only find in fanfics. to see it in canon in the light novels? i’m so overjoyed. i’m so happy. i’m reading volume 2 right now and i’m so excited! i can’t wait to share my thoughts on each volume.

thank you for reading!! and thank you for coming along on this journey of rediscovering and falling in love with this series and these characters all over again <3

#sword art online #sao #light novels #saoln #saoln volume by volume #meta

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meaningofmotorsport · 3 years

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Qatar Grand Prix Preview

Having not had time to decompress after the manic weekend in Brazil, F1 is straight back at it, and at a brand new venue in Qatar. This track may not be the best for overtaking, but with the amount of drama going on in F1 right now, I am sure it won’t be a dull weekend.

After the drives we saw from Mercedes at Sao Paulo, they are coming into this race on the front foot, and Hamilton doesn’t have much to lose either, which may have been why the team was so aggressive last weekend. Their power should be valuable on the kilometre long front straight, however Red Bull might have a chance to fight back in the high speed middle sector. In FP1 the advantage looked to be with the Austrian team, but we know they go better in hotter conditions, and sure enough, as the sun went down, Mercedes brought on a pace that no one could match, although it was with Bottas not Hamilton. If Mercedes have turned the engines up, as many think they have, the question may be more about reliability rather than if they can match Red Bull. To be honest, I can’t see Max being able to stop Lewis this weekend, if Mercedes keep their engines on a higher level.

Red Bull have been brought unstuck by the pure power of the Mercedes, and Red Bull cannot turn their engines up to match, as they are close on reliability too. The good news for Red Bull, is that their car looked stuck to the track today, which suggests they have scope to detune it a bit, in return for lap time. Obviously, it won’t be that simple, but it wasn’t a tough day for them. The constructor’s title is almost as thrilling as the main title fight, as Red Bull, after getting within a few points of Mercedes, are losing any grasp on it again, but as we have seen so many times this year, it can turn on its head so quickly.

Are McLaren back? It is hard to say definitively from practice, but the signs are there that they could be closer to Ferrari or even ahead this time. It would take an almighty effort from the team to claw the points back, but Ferrari made the gap in 2 races, so it could swing back that fast as well. There was a rather concerning moment for the team, when Lando lost power when he went harshly over a kerb. It didn’t ruin his session, yet that is something they will need to be wary of.

Ferrari had a pretty horrible day really, as they were both outside the top 10 in FP2, which is not something to expect given their recent form. Plus, we saw Leclerc have a major excursion late in the day, which may have damaged some parts. I would still be rather surprised if they don’t end up with points from the weekend, but these days are likely to put them on the back foot compared to others.

The last time we were at a desert track, back for the season opener in Bahrain, AlphaTauri were right on form, and could have scored well if Gasly hadn’t of made a Lap 1 mistake. Despite that Tsunoda was still able to get a point on his debut, which was a rarity for him in the next few months. So, coming to the desert here, we yet again are seeing some incredible speed from that car, with Gasly finishing in 2nd in FP2, beating Hamilton and both Red Bulls. I don’t think he can keep that up, but 5th is definitely on the cards. Let’s hope Yuki can join him too!

Alpine should be worried by the pace shown by the junior Red Bull team, as whilst it hasn’t been a terrible day for the French outfit, I would be shocked if they can match AlphaTauri. Aston Martin were plagued with technical issues throughout the day, as Stroll lost half of the morning session with a brake failure, and Vettel had loose items in the cockpit in the afternoon. With the harder tyres being brought here, it may not favour Aston Martin as much with their strong race pace.

On a new track, it may be a chance for Williams and Alfa Romeo to get up to speed faster than some of the midfield teams, and grab a few points. Alfa Romeo especially have come on strong in the past races, and probably deserve some reward for their efforts. Mazepin lost most of the days running with a chassis issue, likely as a result of the kerbs, whilst his teammate had an off track excursion, but did well to try and keep the gravel off the racing line.

There is no form guide for the rest of the weekend, but we have the potential for Lewis to close in further on Max for the title, and it is crucial that Red Bull fight back. The tension is growing both on and off the track, so it is only a matter of time before something gives!

-M

Thank you very much for reading this article! To keep up to date with when they go out, and to see my reactions to races and other news, follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/MeaningofMotor1

Also, if you want to support me, I have a Patreon Page at: https://www.patreon.com/meaningofmotorsport

#f1 #qatargp #qatar gp 2021 #f12021 #formula1 #motorsport

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eclipsingstream · 2 years

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My Anime Story: Final Post!

Well, it’s been fun, everybody. It’s time that we depart and continue on our own anime journey. Wait a minute… There is one thing that needs to be discussed. It’s about me and the story of how anime has become a huge part of my life.

Anime to me as a kid was like I know what it was, but never knew what it was called. I just simply thought it was our typical American cartoons. Also, around that time I watched kids anime like Pokémon, Beyblade, Yugioh, and Bakugan (and maybe watched Dragon Ball Z but mostly played the video games) Again, I didn’t know what they actually were, until growing into my teens and going to high school my older sister and cousin introduced to all kinds of anime. It really started with a bonding experience with my older sister by watching a childhood anime that she grew up with called Sailor Moon. Watching that show has gave us a lot memories that me and her has shared together and we enjoyed all of it. Later on, when we ran out of season to watched we started to browse on Netflix and ran into some new anime along with our older cousin who was big into it. That’s when we start watching main stream anime like Attack on Titan, Sword Art Online, My Hero Academia, Bleach, and many more shows that’s out there.

Now, as for me, with anime once I started watching it I couldn’t stop. Every time I had a chance to watch one episode, one season, or one video/clip, I grew more into it. Honestly, it was culturally educational for me because over the years of watching anime I’ve learn a lot about Japanese culture, and that was one of my favorite parts. However, if I had to choose my favorite part about anime is the actually the aesthetic and drama the feelings that it lives behind to the audience. To be honest, when I watching a movie, yeah if there is a sad part, of course, it’ll be upsetting, but, there is a difference compared to anime. The reason is that in fictional characters there is more emotion, put in them, more strength, more power. Even like comparing to American animation or cartoon films, anime has that touched to where you say to yourself, “wow, that was amazing, I feel like I was there.” Or “That’s me.” You can picture yourself there or as the main character, and feel those moments. There is one anime that I can tell you and recommend to watch, and that is Sword Art Online (Aka SAO). That show gives a lot of emotions and it’s extreme at its greatest, despite the fandom. I can say to beginners to go watch it 10/10 personal favorite. Even, as of today the series is still going like next month there is going be a new SAO movie going to theaters at December 3rd. I can’t wait to see it.

So, there you have it that’s all folks. Hope you enjoyed following up with me and my blogs. Maybe I might continue or do something else. As of right now, this is the last post you will see. Thank you for letting me discuss and share all the fun facts and stuff about anime and Japanese pop culture. Until we meet again, Goodbye!

#anime #Japan

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script-a-world · 4 years

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Submitted via Google Form: So space is 3D with no direction. We have to create an orientation based on our position. But how about aliens in other solar systems and planets. They would orient from their position. If their orbit is inclined and also far up compared to earth, then you have a different orientation. Thus, a lot of orientation problems that are way more confusing then your left my left stuff. Heck what if I had a planet in our solar system in the same orbit plane and incline as earth but the aliens made compasses pointing to the direction of earth's south but they oriented it as up/north. And say if some galaxy organization decided on a universal orientation, how much would that upend existing orientation and make everyone's sense of direction change up even on their own planets especially non space explorers who absolutely don't need a change to orient their own world...

Tex: Which way is Earth oriented? Is the default the Northern hemisphere? Why? It’s mostly cultural associations, isn’t it? There’s some argument as to landmass and population densities (albeit incredibly weak arguments), but it boils down to Tradition™. Australia isn’t literally upside down, and as you’ve indicated, it’s all a matter of perspective.

For reference, this is the current proposed view of a galaxy similar to the Milky Way from the edge (Space.com):

Source: J. Skowron/OGLE/Astronomical Observatory, University of Warsaw

There’s a little bubble in the middle, but for the most part, the galaxy is relatively flat. Quite a lot of galaxies are like this to some degree or another, though the outlier dwarf spheroidal galaxies are relatively rare and difficult to spot (Wikipedia, Mann A).

This is pertinent because it does impart a manner of inherent standardization on forming navigation systems - up will usually be either up or down, not left or right (sorry, Uranus). Because of that, the “is Australia upside down” issue becomes one of perspective rather than “is Australia left or right”.

Most every scifi media I’ve encountered has a ship coming into orbit before landing, so it’s less “throw a dart on the board” and more “falling with style”, and in that case the orientation of the ship doesn’t actually mean much. If, however, things like hyperlanes come into play, then ideally (or hilariously) traffic becomes the norm and it’s more likely that a ship will need some sort of radioed turn signal than a shape that dictates something like “front” versus “back” or “up” versus “down”.

Further Reading

Centripetal Force by COSMOS - The SAO Encyclopedia of Astronomy

Feral: Sailing and nautical references have long been used in science fiction (hello Space Navy), and it’s easy to see why. While there are certain ship directions that require a waterline and are therefore unhelpful (unless tweaked), in general, it makes sense that on a spaceship as on a marine ship “starboard” is a more helpful direction than “right” or “left” due to its stability and ease of reference for anyone onboard regardless of where they are. Celestial navigation has been used for centuries by sailors, and NASA currently uses celestial navigation (albeit a much more sophisticated kind) for navigation via relative positioning to various celestial bodies.

As for how the imposition of a universal standard on navigation would work, consider the history and implementation of the International System of Units (or SI or metric system), why the US does not have a (functional) federally mandated standard of measurement, and how the US, Myanmar, and Liberia (which uses USCS in addition to SI) have managed without complete metrication. The big takeaway here is that standardization like this, particularly across multiple governments is not some one and done mandate by a single authority; even when it’s a really obviously good idea to have a standard so anyone can understand a measurement or hop into a spaceship not made on their planet and be able to use the nav computer, it might not be universally adopted, and it can coexist with traditional standards.

Constablewrites: The thing about directional terminology is that it’s highly situational. If a visitor to my house asks where the bathroom is, I don’t tell them to ascend to 722 feet and then bear south, even though that would be accurate--I tell them to go upstairs and turn right. So a system for explaining where planets are in relation to each other wouldn’t at all supersede any localized means of orientation.

With that in mind, why do your characters need to know where planets are in relation to each other? Especially when that’s constantly changing, due to orbits and stellar drift? Like, we learn in grade school the order of the planets in our solar system based on how close they are to the sun, but at any given moment, that ranking can look very different. It can make sense to establish a region (like the Outer Rim in Star Wars) but beyond that any conversational terminology is going to be generalized and inaccurate at best. Frequently you’ll see a coordinate system, where it’s implied that someone had to agree where (0,0,0) is, which is the sort of thing that’s relatively simple to get consensus on, especially if the coordinates are defined within a system with an obvious central point.

The only time you would really have to be concerned where planets are in relation to each other is when you’re traveling between them. Narratively, the things that will be a factor in such a journey are how long it will take, if we have the supplies (food, fuel, spare parts, etc.) to get there, and if there are any obstacles in the way. Direction is not one of these factors, precisely because it’s so complicated--even if your characters have worked out a way of explaining it, it’s gonna be lost on your reader and therefore doesn’t matter. There might be alien/supernatural beings who are capable of making the sort of calculations a human can’t, but within the story that just means “tell the computer where we want to go and off we pop” becomes “tell Gary where we want to go and off we pop.” Don’t get bogged down in the sort of details that millennia of storytelling convention have decided we just skip over because they get in the way.

Utuabzu: In space, everything is in constant motion, so absolute position does not and cannot exist. Your position will always be relative to something, usually the nearest major body like a planet or a star. On a galactic scale, assuming you’re writing about the Milky Way or a similar galaxy, Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the core of the Milky Way (or whatever lies at the core of your galaxy) is pretty likely to serve that purpose. If you then take the general plane of the galaxy and arbitrarily declare one side “up” and the other “down”, you can use corewards/rimwards, spinwards/antispinwards to give rough directions. More likely though, any spacefaring civilisation is going to have massive databases of the relative positions and velocities of stars to permit interstellar navigation, and any star system inhabited by a spacefaring civilisation would have very well-known orbits for all major bodies. It wouldn’t be too hard to work out different systems so long as the two civilisations had a couple of shared reference points, because once they know what they call whatever body, they could just look it up in their own database and calculate travel paths. Unless something major happened, these databases wouldn’t even need to be updated all that often, as velocities in space tend to stay the same and thus positions could just be calculated from old data.

#google submitted #space

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semi-imaginary-place · 3 years

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rewatching decadence part 2 because part 1 got too long

ep7: Getting to see the game Deca-Dence as a new player would with the opening cutscene, skipping the TOS, character creation and all was a good touch. Also the fact that Kaburagi could look like anything, but he wants to look like mid 40′s dad both times. I wonder who it was that decided Minato should vape. The conversation on the top of Deca-Dence is real interesting because its like only 20% of the actual conversation is spoken out loud and the other 80% left unsaid, so we have to guess what was left unsaid. Minato tells Kaburagi to not make things worse for himself, condoning his actions, but also vows to himself to help Kabu even though it is very dangerous for him. Kaburagi leaves after regretfully saying he doesn’t want to cause Minato more trouble, and yet his current and future actions are and will be doing just that. The obscuring fog in this scene adds to the sense of distance or disconnect between these two. Somewhere over the past 7 years they have fallen off the same page.

This episode again highlights how while for the Tankers this is life and death situation, for the cyborgs Deca-Dence is a game. We get a shot of some Gears lightheartedly discussing how fun the latest game event was, followed right after with what that event meant for the Tankers as we see a makeshift medbay in the streets filled with the dead and dying to really drive home the gap of compassion between the two groups. Minato is one of the few cyborgs we really see besides Kaburagi and the show uses him to show how cyborgs don’t think of humans as people. Humans to the cyborgs are just npcs in a game. Now anime and manga about videogames have been around a long time and were especially popular in the mid 2000s (mmorpgs especially) after which the genre dropped the “in a game” part but kept everything else which were today know as the isekai genre. Hot takes like “the videogame characters are actually people all along” aren’t new either, but Deca-Dence is one of the most successful in generating sympathy and compassion for the Other by flipping the script. Most of those series come from the perspective of the player and show the player coming to care about the npcs. This often isn’t done very well or comes off as patronizing, like the other characters act in service of making the mc look like a good guy instead of actually acting like fully realized people in their own right. (*cough* sao *cough*). In contrast to this, Deca-Dence initially starts from the perspective of Natsume who is human just like us the audience, and thus predisposing us to feeling with and feeling for her. So later when its revealed the humans of this world aren’t seen as people by the cyborgs or the the corporation that rules all their lives, it is granted greater weight in the context of all of us who have played videogames before and met npcs and maybe not cared all that much about them. Decadence places the viewer in the position of the npc, the Other.

Episode 7 is also the beginning of several letters exchanged between Kaburagi and Natsume. Its a presence that lingers long after the person has left and also acts as a contrast to the call/social networking apps of the cyborgs. In episode 5 we saw Kaburagi choose Natsume over following the orders of Solid Quake, but through to episode 7 he still believed in its system. Look even at episode 6 where he still believed that if he worked hard and played by the rules, the system would reward him and everything would be ok and compare that calm assurance in episode 6 to his mountain frustration in episode 7. He’s starting to see how thing are run in Deca-Dence makes life really hard and kind of terrible for the Tankers. This frustration at the system culminates at the end of the episode when he realizes the real human cost of perpetuating this system of oppression in how it hurts Natsume. I mean “Late stage capitalism made my adopted daughter Natsume cry, so I'm going to dismantle it.“ is a joke and pretty funny, but like, that’s what actually what happens. Both Kaburagi and Natsume further the theme of pushing the limits. Kaburagi realizes the limits of his society and why its time to break them down, while of Natsume’s side we see her struggle in the face of things much larger than her. Much like how the cyborgs are stuck in their lifestyles of working for Solid Quake, earning oxyone, and playing Deca-Dence, the Tankers are stuck in their role in society to leave their fates to the Gears and Deca-Dence. So Natsume asking everyone to take charge of their own lives and close that the hole is them stepping out of the comfort of what they’ve always done, which is leave it to someone else (deca-dence administration, gears, etc.). Natsume asks the Tankers to push their limits, the step outside of what they’ve always done and to believe in things they thought were impossible to do. We see Fei representing the belief a lot of Tankers that nothing needs to change, thus nothing should change and they will not act to bring change to their own lives. The Tankers live lives that are decided for them. The Deca-Dence administration controls their population, and the system eliminates any who would disrupt it. They don’t have a lot of control and are resigned to live like that, until Natsume comes along. This episode we see her do what she does the entire series, inspire people to be more. Natsume’s doing alright, she might not be where she wants to be but she’s taken steps in that direction. Where Nstsume is psychologically contrast Kaburagi who’s a bit of a mess realizing he can no longer live under the thumb of Solid Quake’s Deca-Dence system and is kind of floundering about. When kaburagi meets Natsume again... he is so awkward, I’m getting second hand embarressmen. and again the assault jokes have got to stop. The shot of the empty chair calls back to the first episode and another talk between Natsume and Kaburagi. I always love it when an anime plays the credits early.

ep8: again the importance of the individual over the group with kaburagi’s lines at the beginning on why he’s taking down the gadoll factory. I’m just thinking about how kaburagi is certain minato kept his avatar. and everyone just agreeing that minato has that vibe. I really love the avatar retrieval part of the first episode. Its a heist sequence. I love heists!. They also did a good job with pacing and tension in that part. Still can’t believe the creators put a sex toy in this show but at least this joke is actually funny. Oh Minato pulled strings to get Kaburagi out of the poor jail. I missed that part. but now the two of them are not only on different pages, but on different books. Minato doesn’t see the tankers as people and follows the Deca-Dence system on what is good and what is bad, so he can’t comprehend why Kaburagi is throwing away everything the Deca-Dence system values for something the system has deems less than worthless. While Kaburagi has formed a moral compass independent of this system, he sucks at communication and doesn’t explain anything to Minato. Interesting how Minato views bugs as bad but has made an exception for kaburagi and probably did some mental gymnastics to do so. It reminds of those homophobic family members that make an exception for their gay family member. Minato never wanted anything but to be by Kaburagi’s side so he prioritizes Kaburagi above pretty much everything else which is why while he defends the establishment, he also breaks rules for Kaburagi. Their little convo continues the same dialectic, Kaburagi’s been inspired by Natsume to push the limits of himself and society, to choose how he lives instead of letting the Deca-Dence system tell him. Kaburagi underwent character development when Minato wasn’t looking and he can’t recognize him anymore but desperately wants to. Kaburagi moving forwards without him and him realizing that he was never as much a priority to Kaburagi as Kaburagi was to him, means that Minato’s really hurting by the end of the scene, and he doesn’t take it out on Kaburagi, he just leaves. ...if it isn’t obvious by now, minato is my favorite character. gotta love the gay robot having a mid life crisis. (i mean his feeling aren;t necessarily romantic, but you know the joke I’m referencing). Turkey just wakes up and chooses evil every day huh. I predict someone on tumblr with a history of unhealthy relationships is horny for turkey.

ep9: why does the reactor look like a cyborg core? Again. WHYYY does Donatello have a gun??? idiots let him keep a working gun. I love the contrast of the actual pretty gritty situation of the prison riot being represented with super cartoony slapstick animations. This probably saves on frames as well as keep the series from getting too dark, because if you think about it the labor camp conditions are pretty horrifying but its disguised with cartoony designs and wacky characters. Kaburagi and Natsume are doing very important plot things, but the core of episode 9 are Sark and Turkey. Through them we see the same conversation that has been repeated through out the series of conforming to society and staying in line, that things won’t ever change so you should just duck your head and follow order, or the “I’m comfortable how things are” versus you should make your own choices with live life how to want to, to push your limits. Turkey sees the Deca-Dence system as absolute and eternal and thus tries to play by the system and help it continue by selling out everyone else. Sark is passive and doesn't really have an opinion of his own, just following whatever the others are doing whether its Kaburagi stealing his avatar or Turkey in betraying everyone. Sark unlike Turkey isn’t malicious, he wants the best for everyone but also isn’t quite willing to put himself at risk for others. After seeing everyone be destroyed as a consequence of following Turkey however, his new resolve and subsequent suicide bombing is the only reason the plan ends up succeeding. For total destruction of the gadoll factory two things were needed: flipping the kill switch on all the gadoll in the dome, and destroying the reactor powering the factory. We aren’t told how Jill and Kaburagi originally planned to destroy the reactor (like was he just suppose to wander around until they bumped into it?), but Sark’s explosion is what allowed Kaburagi and Natsume to get away from Hugin. Without Sark, Hugin would have totally caught them. So it was Sark taking charge of his own life and pushing his limits that saved them all. That said, if the explosion was powerful enough to reach all the way up the giant tube and destroy the reactor, why didn’t it break the tube and why didn’t it destroy everyone left in the prison? ah well it makes thematic sense so I’ll let this pass.

So I’ve talked before about how Deca-Dence’s ending could be improved to build on some of the themes established in the first couple episodes. The problem is that this show isn’t pushing a narrative of collaboration and the power of collective bargaining, its pushing an individualist narrative about how each and every person can reach out and better themself. Now I don’t think these two themes are mutually exclusive, but it would take a very delicate touch as well as an attentive and thoughtful audience to successfully weave these two theme together into a nuanced whole. And if a rewrite were to happen with the minimal amount of changes, I think ep 10 is a good divergence point. The final little arc is about the rogue gadoll outside of the Deca-Dence system and the threat of total annihilation by solid quake, and while big kaiju fights look cool, they don’t quite deal with dismantling systems of oppression at the hands of your corporate overlords. So, I would have preferred something like the cyborgs and Tankers coming together to seize the means of production, destroy Solid Quake, and take its assets for themselves. The ideal rewrite situation though would for this all to be 24 episodes and the big gadoll to be the episode 12 climax while taking down Solid Quake happen in ep 23-24. And since we’re doing a rewrite, Natsume kinda drops off as the main character after episode 5 and I’d like to see her back at the forefront of the show.

ep10: If this show had leaned more into the futility of Natsume seeking to improve herself within a system that rendered it meaningless, it would have ended up much darker, but I also think it would have been richer. Ah poor Natsume, she’s at a low point since the context of what she has been doing has wildly changed, afterall, what’s the point of improving yourself if nothing else ever changes and what you do doesn’t matter. The letter writing continues and it is good. So I’m not going to question how the exit tunnel is still intact, but watching into robot kaburagi angrily drive a car and swear is really funny. I’ve been wondering for a while, the humans literally live in a fuel tank, how is there enough light to grow plants in there? Like as part of the post-apocalyptic aesthetic, a lot of Tankers have little house plants which in addition to being inside the fuel tank, are also inside their houses. oh yeah for any who didn’t get it. The reason as a child Natsume went into cardiac arrest and her chip was read as dead wasn’t because of the severity of her injuries, Deca-Dence’s system had deemed her too dangerous to live and flipped her kill switch.

ep11: on a thematic level I might be meh, but the writing and execution are what really pull the ending through. Everything is nicely set up from the mutated gadoll the victim of animal abuse several episodes earlier to fighting hugin in the factory being how hugin finds out about natsume. I think about Jill’s lines here, that no matter how hard you try to keep things from changing, you’re just fighting the inevitable. Also Natsume took Kaburagi’s switching bodies really well like seeing someone you care about die in front of you but then surprise they just got another body would give most people such whiplash. “our bodies are under the system’s control, but our core’s are independent of it” I’m still thinking about this. It makes sense given how the first generation of cyborgs where humans with mechanical implants, but cyborg’s cores are still such a mystery. The things you can’t control are a part of life too. In Deca-Dence bugs are uncertainties that the master control system doesn’t know what to do with. More than just individualism good, here we get a little more nuance to Deca-Dence (the show)’s theme. Jill was one of the creators of the Deca-Dence game (giant mech, control system, and all), and they tried to create perfect system where everything was under its control and order could be maintained forever, and this inevitably failed (the show tells us). Trying to perfectly order everything is to attempt the impossible, disorder will always creep in and those little individual differences should be celebrated. and is to the backdrop of an old Deca-Denca(robot) part that is rusting away, plants and animals overtaking it much like how the Deca-Dence’s currently enforced status quo of the game will fall away in the face of those it deems bugs. wait did we ever figure out what the bug was that jill left in deca-dence? mmmm I’m still thinking about Minato logging out because the system told him to but unwilling to let things end this way so physically going back down to earth in his real body. Facing the possibility of truly losing Kaburagi forever is what pushes Minato to question following the Deca-Dence master control system. He totally became a bug for Kaburagi. I doubt Kaburagi had any idea how much Minato wanted to hear the words “let’s fight together to the end”, but offered the thing he truly desires, Minato probably would have done anything. mmm he’s got it bad. there’s also that linking Kaburagi and Deca-Dence’s core takes two people and yet, Kaburagi didn’t bring anyone with him. Which is terrible planning, but allowed for this really great scene. that he knew Minato would come after him. And then the last thing me sees in Minato. Minato truly is ride or die. literally. He could have gone back to the spaceship so that he’d survive no matter what, but he choose to stay. If the plan succeeds then he will see it through with/right beside/literally inside of Kaburagi, and if it fails and Kaburagi is annihilated when Solid Quake wipes the dome, Minato will also be annihilated along side Kaburagi.

ep12: so kaburagi just straight up demands admin privileges and the governing sys is like “sure”. Yeah pretty sure the governing system convo was a season 2 hook to show the big wigs. The independent all governing system tells Kaburagi that all this, him and bugs are a part of the system’s learning process, to which Kaburagi responds that all that doesn’t matter since he’s going to do what he wants independent/regardless of the governing system. the context in which you do things doesn’t matter. Also I never pointed it out since its like the 4th wall of scifi, everyone is just trained to suspend their disbelief, but oxyone is total bullshit. A non toxic liquid energy dense fuel that can be concentrated into orbit range lasers. The tankers all helping Natsume push the spare part is a feel good moment seeing everyone working together. Its an unnecessarily scene for the purpose of including the tankers in the action, since the part wasn’t ever really needed and the writers didn’t have to have it severed by the laser to begin with. the Natsume montage overlayed with the music is very good. wait. i just realized, limiter release can be reversed. Afterall, Kaburagi released his limiters with his first avatar, and if he had still been fully connected to it when hugin killed that avatar, cyborg Kaburagi should have died too but he didn’t and just immediately logged in on a different account. Kabu-Dence releasing his limits here and literally giving all of himself to destroy omega is fulfilling both for his character arc and on an emotional level. This entire show has been about pushing one’s limits and making your own choices, and it culminates here’s in Kaburagi literally releasing his limiter, thus putting him in mortal danger, and then giving every last ounce of himself to the path he has decided. The destruction of the mech fortress Deca-Dence is also symbolic of the end of the game of the Deca-Dence mmorpg as we know it. wait wait did Kaburagi hold on just long enough to hear Natsume thank him. aaaaahhh and then the ed song plays!! and then the play the new mmo intro scene. Still real weird that they’re using a cyborg brain as a ball.

#deca dence #deca-dence #decadence #deca_dence #anime #reviews

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travllingbunny · 4 years

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The 100 speculation: Anomaly Stone, Eligius 3, Second Dawn

based on info up to episode 7x02 “The Garden” (I don’t know any of the spoilers from screeners for the next two episodes) and what info can be found in the season 7 opening titles

When Gabriel said (again) that the Anomaly Stones were created thousands of years ago by an unknown humanoid species, a lot of people, me included, thought that he’s wrong and that the Anomaly Stones were actually created by humans, not that long ago. The fact that some of the symbols on them look suspiciously similar to real life Earth alphabets and symbols used in math or physics, support that.

However, it seems that the popular theory is that the Stones were created by our protagonists through some kind of time travel storyline. I don’t agree with that because I don’t believe there will be actual time travel in the show. There haven’t been any indications of it, it would be a too big of a curve ball to introduce in the middle of the last season of a show, and it would also mean that Jason Rothenberg has been openly lying in his recent interviews about there being no time travel on the show. (He certainly says a lot of weird stuff that doesn’t match with what’s on screen, but he tends to be vague rather than outright lie about things that aren’t up to interpretation and that he can be called out on.) Gabriel has been studying the Anomaly for a long time - how long has it been? Decades? A hundred years? - so, long, long before Ourkru came to Sanctum, so there’s no way for them to have anything to do with the creation of the Anomaly Stones unless they actually go back in time.

Sure, it’s not 100% sure, but let’s forget about time travel for a while and just work with the info we have so far from the show and things we know to be true. And this is that there is time dilation - at the very least, between Skyring/Beta and Sanctum/Earth/probably Bardo, too. Which was explained by Becca Franco as the effect of Beta (Skyring) being too far from the black hole, compared to the other planets. As someone with a little more knowledge in astrophysics (mine is barely existent) was explaining to me on another website, the vicinity of a black hole, the time feels “frozen”, slows down. (So, technically, time is not accelerated on Skyring, but slowed down on other planets.) Which should mean - unless the writers screwed up - that Earth is also close to the black hole in the show’s universe, since there is no time dilation between Sanctum and Earth. If that’s the same black hole, it seems to me that would mean the distance between Sanctum and Skyring is much bigger than that between Earth and Sanctum.

Why was Skyring named planet Beta - if it really was? It would make more sense for Eligius 3 to arrive on Skyring much later than on Bardo, Nakara and whatever other planet is there? I guess the names would, in that case, be about the possibilities for life on the planet, rather than when they were discovered, and Sanctum and Skyring have conditions much closer to Earth and better for humans than Bardo or Nakara seem to, based on the opening credits.But we still don’t know how time runs on other planets and where exactly they are.

What I currently believe is that the Anomaly Stones may have been created by members of other Eligius 3 missions, in order to find a quicker way to travel across the universe, including back to Earth - maybe even the only way, since they had just one interstellar ship, Eligius 3, which went from planet to planet, dropping off the mission members. Now, Eligius 3 was a very fast ship and seems to have taken just a couple of years to travel from Earth to Sanctum (unlike Eligius 4 - because the latter’s engines were busted in Diyoza’s rebellion), it would have still taken years to get to all the planets, and if Skyring was that far, it may have taken decades. On top of that, we still don’t know where Eligius 3 is, who has it, or even if it is still functional.

And if the Anomaly Stones were created, say, decades ago, or a 100 or 200 years sao, the one on Skyring would look ancient - in fact, millions years old, because that’s how old it is by Skyring time. But why does the one on Sanctum also look thousands of years old? Maybe because it was created together with the other one(s), but the Disciples from Bardo left it on Skyring for a while until they came back and found a way to bring it to Sanctum, With the time dilation, a stone that was left for a day on Skyring would be thousands of years old when brought to Sanctum. The other team missions were cut off from Mission Team Alpha and may have only connected Sanctum to the Anomaly/bridge later than the other ones.

ETA: I just realized that there must be time dilation on Bardo, too, and the time there must be slowed down compared to Sanctum, too - just probably not that much, since Octavia returned in less than a minute in 6x08. During that time, she spent 10 years on Skyring and some time on Bardo. It may have been days, weeks or months. That would mean Bardo is also further away from the black hole compared to Sanctum, but not as far as Skyring is. Becca just said Planet Beta (Skyring) was far away from the black hole compared to the other planets so the time dilation was “sexy”, not that there was no time dilation between the other planets, too. That means it could be simpler and the Anomaly Stones may have all been created on Bardo, so if the Sanctum one was created decades or a century ago, it would technically be thousands of years old.

My other speculation is about the “Disciples”. It would be way too much coincidence if they didn’t have anything to do with the Second Dawn cult. In fact, I think the “Disciples” are an off-shoot of Second Dawn. Anders is the Head of the Disciples - not the Teacher. I think the Teacher is Bill Cadogan. Some of the mission members may have been Second Dawn to begin with. Second Dawn was influential and had connections to Becca, too (who somehow knew exactly where Cadogan’s real bunker was). What if one of the purposes of the Anomaly was to find a way to bring people - specifically, Second Dawn members - from Earth? Maybe even Cadogan himself - we don’t know what happened to him? It would explain all the weird similarities between some of the Anomaly imagery and planet symbols with some of the imagery of the Grounders. Bardo even means something between death and rebirth, and one of the planets (probably Bardo) has a phoenix as its symbol - the symbol of rebirth, the bird that burns and then literally rises “from the ashes”.

That would also explain how the backdoor pilot ties into the current story.

What is the Disciples’ ultimate goal? Is it return to Earth one day - which would be a reason why they don’t bring everyone to a beautiful planet like Skyring, but prefer living in dome-like bunkers on Bardo where atmosphere is not breathable? Or is some other, more out there/religious fanatic-like reason?

#the 100 #the 100 season 7 #the anomaly #second dawn #bill cadogan #the 100 speculation #skyring #sanctum #bardo

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dropintomanga · 3 years

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I Give Up on Anime (Almost) - A Discussion on Anime vs. Manga

Over the past few years, I started to enjoy anime a lot less than I used to. I used to watch quite a bunch of anime series around 2013-2015. Since then, my anime viewing has went down to almost zero while my manga consumption increased steadily. I sometimes felt I was the only person left behind as almost all my friends and peers talk about what’s hot and not each and every new anime season.

I don’t know if it was a sheer coincidence, but I found a Reddit manga thread that spoke to me and maybe some other people. A user on the platform honestly asked “Is anyone else literally unable to watch anime since you got into manga?”

The premise behind the post was that the user felt like anime takes too long to get going while in a few short minutes, plot development in manga ramps up. There were about 750+ comments chiming into the discussion. A majority of fans do feel that anime wasn’t worth their time as manga is still serialized even when a 12-24 episode anime season ends. Some fans feel that a lot of anime adaptations tend to be subpar. There’s also still the argument that anime adaptations are just advertisements for the source material that is the manga. Some discussion about clever usage of manga panels telling a quicker story was mentioned as well. And of course, multiple fillers is another big reason for fans’ preference of manga over anime.

But when I think about the argument about anime adaptations being ads, isn’t that a good thing? This is true especially in America, where most fans tend to read/buy manga after noticing how hot an anime series is. In Japan, a decent number of manga sells well before an anime adaptation is announced. However, even constant “ads” become annoying over time when the novelty wears off.

It doesn’t mean that certain series are necessarily better as manga though. The best example I can give is Gintama. Sunrise, the studio behind the anime adaptation, goes balls-out on the series. I love how all the Gintama voice actors take so much pride in their roles. I sometimes find Hideaki Sorachi’s art to be lacking in certain areas and Sunrise helps to enhance it. It’s funny because reading chapters of the Gintama manga made me enjoy seeing its eventual anime adaptation. I think it depends of the kind of series you want as anime. I don’t think every seinen series should be anime as a good number of them are much slower-paced even if there’s action. Certain slice-of-life series (Yotsuba&!, a much-demanded series for an anime adaptation, comes to mind here) might have pacing issues when put on a TV screen versus a drawing board.

Someone on the Reddit thread did point out a potential elephant in the room - isekai light novel adaptations. Isekai is pretty much everywhere and a lot of the series aren’t always of the best quality. But so many fans worldwide eat it up because of fantasy tropes. I remember reading a convention recap of New York Comic-Con one year and the writer, who is a manga reviewer, of that recap noted that while waiting inside a panel room for a manga panel, he went through a Sword Art Online panel. The writer found it somewhat depressing that there were a ton more fans at the SAO panel compared to the manga panel that happened later. I think he said what he said because the lovable diversity of manga titles out there is being passed over for an isekai series whose reception gets divisive pretty fast.

What to say about fantasy tropes? I remember trying out one of the hottest video games today, Genshin Impact. After playing it for a few hours, I just gave up and that’s not because of the gacha mechanics. I wasn’t invested in the story as it sounds like stuff I’ve heard over and over again. Genshin Impact plays up fantasy anime tropes that I’m mostly over at my age.

I think maybe my mind is not satisfied by tropes that are just easily rehashed. However, that kind of thinking has been challenged at times. For starters, I really enjoy Kaguya-sama: Love is War. I don’t like romantic comedies, but the way the story is told in Kaguya-sama and how it gives every character a good amount of emotional depth has left me impressed. The serious stories being jumbled in reminds me so much of Gintama.

Maybe the real elephant in the discussion is the usage of common tropes and how often they’re used to cater to the lowest common denominator. I know manga can be guilty of this, but anime adaptations make them a lot more visible. That’s because most people would prefer watching anime a lot more than reading manga. Anime is a more mainstream form of media. You need to appeal to those fans a lot more as they bring in more money via other means (The Demon Slayer: Mugen Train movie is a big case of this right now) than just manga volumes.

Combine that with how consuming anime is more passive than reading a manga and you may have fans who just don’t stop and think about the media they consume. I sometimes feel that anime production committees view fans as mindless consumers of media and only think of them as such. I also wonder if fans reinforce that thinking since corporations enable them to do so.

Honestly, I think in my case, when you learn something that’s outside your comfort zone, you start to come down with uncomfortable truths. I’ll admit that there’s a little cognitive dissonance, but I’ve accepted that my mind has changed. Maybe I was never much of an anime fan in the first place. Maybe I realized watching anime takes up much of my time. A lot of folks stay away from certain truths since people are afraid to admit that they may be wrong about certain things. This is what happens when you begin to understand more about the psychology of crowds/groups and public opinion. I like being in solitude to reflectively gather my thoughts. Being outside of a “popular” group doesn’t subject you to certain cognitive bias that can become damaging over time.

I watched a panel featuring the digital manga service Mangamo and one of its executive editors said that he’s always been more of a manga guy. He said he doesn’t watch much anime with some exceptions (Japan Sinks 2020 was a relevant example, he gave). I’m still going to watch anime series here and there because hey, I got to preach some notable series worth everyone’s time.

I know I’m talking out of my butt here, but I feel that discussing a topic like “why manga over anime?” and vice versa (in a way that doesn’t become a shouting match) is warranted. Hell, I think it’s best to discuss both at the same time. It’s conversations like this that develop into newer insights. I wish more people realize that despite whatever you prefer, anime and manga are very much yin and yang to each other. I think experiencing both anime and manga worlds lead to a better appreciation and understanding of why Japanese pop culture media fascinates us and will continue to do so.

#anime fandom #manga fandom #manga #psychology #tropes #Japanese pop culture

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sometimeshipper · 4 years

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Reading the Signs (A Dair Fanfic)

It’s only in the middle of the pandemic that Blair realizes she is in love with Dan.

Shortly before the whole world is plunged into chaos, Blair’s world is plunged into it as Dan and Chuck confront her with an ultimatum, giving her weeks to decide on who she really wants.

The irony doesn’t escape her that this is the only time she’s ever seen Dan and Chuck agreeing on something.

The irony doesn’t escape her that she once judged Serena for doing the same things she is doing now - vacillating between two boys, giving them the faint hope that her heart belongs to one of them.

The irony doesn’t escape her that one of the boys used to be Serena’s.

Irony doesn’t seem to escape her these days.

ii.

The morning after the confrontation doesn’t leave her with a clear head.

Dan texts her, apologizing. He says that it isn’t fair for her to force her to choose, that he is willing to wait for however long it takes.

Chuck doesn’t text her. She receives a notification from Gossip Girl, saying he has flown to Monte Carlo or Sao Paolo. She’s not sure. She doesn’t really care.

That should have been the first sign.

iii.

For once, she is content to tuck herself away at home, faced with the enormity of everything. She volunteers her time to relief efforts, even. For the first time, she is faced with the idea of her mortality.

Dan messages her everyday, graciously skirting the elephant in the room.

He sends her poetry - Cummings (Seriously, Humphrey? He’s a sap!), Neruda (I get the message - you love me!), and Emerson (God, Humphrey, I always knew you were an old man.)

He asks for her opinion on his Contemporary Literature paper, hoping that he did not go too far in his critique of self-reflexivity as escapism. (The irony doesn’t escape her here, either, as she thinks of Inside, his diary-turned-debut-into-the-literary-world.)

He even sends her memes.

Chuck texts her too. He sends photos of all the places he’ll take her, if she chooses him. He promises that he’ll even go to museums with her.

He tells her about his plans for Bass Empire and how she would fit into them.

Sometimes, he even calls, his voice cracking, telling her how alone he felt as a child and how he never wants to be alone again.

It would be terribly sweet if she hadn’t already experienced something else.

That should have been the second sign.

iv.

It’s the eve of her 24th birthday and she spends it alone, for the first time. Both sets of parents are waiting out the crisis in Paris, pleading with her to join them.

She refuses, in the meantime, secretly hoping that when she flies there, she’ll have someone to join her.

Serena and Nate call her from Vietnam, signal crackling, but their happiness shining through. She smiles. She can’t believe she used to be resentful of their easy love. She feels magnanimous.

Dorota insists on staying over, but Blair shoos her surrogate mother away, telling her to take care of Vanya and their children.

Uncharacteristic acts of kindness have been coming more naturally to her these days.

She wakes up to a small package on her bedside table, a handful of peonies, and a note.

“Blair,

This is for you to share the beauty within you, not for anyone else, but for yourself. Your intelligence, tenacity, and confidence have always floored me, and I could think of no better way to show you that.

Happy birthday. I miss you.

- Dan”

It is a journal. She smiles and heads her way down for a leisurely breakfast, eager to start jotting things down.

She is greeted with a dining room full of Ecuadorian roses, a necklace from Tiffany’s and also a note, this time from Chuck.

“This is only the beginning of a lifetime of choosing you.

- Chuck”

She is strangely unmoved.

That should have been the third sign.

It’s on an ordinary day in the midst of the pandemic that she realizes she is in love with Dan.

Here too, the irony doesn’t escape her.

She is bogged down by the ordinary these days, realizing how small she is, compared to just.... everything. She is Blair Waldorf, she knows, but she is also.... just Blair Waldorf.

She writes, just as she has been doing since her birthday.

She writes and she writes and she writes, and she feels like herself again - beautiful, intelligent, tenacious, and confident. Blair.

She writes and she writes, and she writes, and she realizes she is seen.

She writes, and she writes, and she writes, but this time, it’s a note.

“For once, I don’t have witty repartee. Just these words: I love you.”

She slips it in between the pages of her journal and sends them over to Brooklyn.

And she waits.

#dair #dan humphrey #blair waldorf #dare to dair #gossip girl #pandemic fiction #fanfiction #fanfic #gossip girl fanfic #gossip girl fanfiction #dair fanfiction #dair fanfic #dair fic

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medea10 · 4 years

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My Review of In/Spectre

How did I get into this anime? Let’s see what my check-list was back when I picked this up during the winter time. Does Crunchyroll have immediate rights to play it? Yes! Do I have one more slot open for weekly showings? Yes! Are you in the mood to hear Mamoru Miyano right now? Always! Let’s do it!

Kotoko Iwanaga is used to the abnormal and out of place situations. When she was 11 years old, she went missing for two weeks. During that time, demons asked her to become their “God of Wisdom”. However, Iwanaga lost her right eye and left leg as a result of this power. Fast-forward approximately 7 years later when she meets a college-aged male named Kuro Sakuragawa. She found a fascination with him, but kept her distance due to him being engaged to another woman named Saki.

But Kuro’s life changed when he and his girlfriend were on vacation and saw a kappa and the situation turned near-deadly. Due to an abnormality with Kuro, whenever it looks like he’s on the verge of death, he comes back to life. Thing is, his girlfriend Saki was absolutely set aback by this development and they wound up breaking up. With the news of Kuro and Saki splitting up, Iwanaga seizes this opportunity to spend more time with this young man as she asks for his assistance with dealing with the supernatural…

And to be her boyfriend!

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: At the moment, Crunchyroll is the only one with authority to this anime and several weeks after the premier, they gave us an English dub. So far, so good! I’m getting a chance to hear a few of the newer voice actors and even some veterans like Cristina Vee. Now that some time has passed, all of the episodes are finally dubbed after a long hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As you already know from sentence one Kuro spoke, yes, that is Mamoru Miyano playing another main lead role. Luckily for me, he isn’t spazzy and he isn’t a holy asshole. Next to him, we have Akari Kitou who I’m hearing quite a bit of as of recent. I really enjoyed her performance as this insightful little lady. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE: *Iwanaga is played by Akari Kitou (known for Aru on Hitoribocchi, Nene on Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun, and Kaho on Blend S)

*Kuro is played by Mamoru Miyano (known for Cilan on Pokemon BW, Light on Death Note, Tamaki on Ouran HSHC, Koutaro on Zombieland Saga, Rin on Free!, Death the Kid on Soul Eater, and Tsukiyama on Tokyo Ghoul)

*Saki is played by Misato Fukuen (known for Georgia on Pokemon BW, Chibiusa on Sailor Moon: Crystal, Iggy on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Pt. 3, Eruka on Soul Eater, Yami on To Love Ru, and Yin on Darker Than Black)

ENGLISH CAST: *Iwanaga is played by Lizzie Freeman (known for Cardinal on SAO: Alicization and Trish on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Pt. 5)

*Kuro is played by Brandon Winckler (known for Eugeo on SAO: Alicization and Dale on If It’s for My Daughter…)

*Saki is played by Lauren Landa (known for Kyouko on Madoka Magica, Michiru/Sailor Neptune on Sailor Moon [redub], Annie on Attack on Titan, Juno on Beastars, Xenovia on High School DxD, and Sakuya on SAO)

SHIPPING: Well, let’s see if I can make any sense out of this.

*Iwanaga x Kuro: I guess it was love at first sight for Iwanaga as she seemed to have developed a crush when she first met him at the hospital. And you could tell how disappointed she was when Kuro’s relationship with Saki was growing. Even when Kuro is still in the post-breakup mode, Iwanaga has the balls to ask him to enter a relationship with her in the span of a single episode. And even after the two-year time-skip…I guess they are in a relationship. At least according to Iwanaga they are! It’s just that Kuro is so damned uninterested it’s so hard to tell. I’m not sure if I’m fully on board with this ship. Mostly because of Kuro’s disinterested attitude whenever he’s around his “girlfriend”! Iwanaga is very controlling in this relationship and prone to jealousy when Saki re-enters the picture later in the Steel Lady Nanase arc.

*Kuro x Saki: Yes, Saki was Kuro’s former girlfriend. Actually, it was more than that! They were freakin’ engaged! But because Saki got freaked out by the fact that Kuro could regenerate his body if he gets severely injured, she ended the relationship. Yeah, I can totally see how that would be shocking for anyone to go through. Due to the mystery that Iwanaga and Saki were trying to solve, the romance talks kinda had to be put to the side. It seems as though near the end that Saki has put her feelings of Kuro in the past and seems to have moved on for the most part. Plus when Saki was engaged to Kuro, she felt inferior to ANOTHER past love of Kuro’s. And now we gotta talk about…

*Kuro x Rikka: They’re cousins! BLOOD COUSINS! But Kuro has a special place in his heart for his sickly cousin! I mean, his thoughts of being greeted by Rikka at home compared to his real girlfriend are freakin’ damning. Plus both of these people have the same anomolie courtesy of their fucked up family. I’m not sure after the whole Steel Lady Nanase mess if Kuro’s perception of Rikka has changed for the worse. I just know that there was definitely something between those two. Kuro brings all his girlfriends to meet Rikka only for Rikka to say something like, “she’s not your type”.

ENDING: For the majority of the series, Iwanaga and Kuro have found themselves in the midst of a mystery involving the death of a famous actress. Seems simple enough in an anime like this, an idol (Karin Nanase) dies suddenly by a steel beam to the face and comes back to haunt the world of the living as a ghost (later named Steel Lady Nanase). But it can’t be that simple! There’s gotta be reasons for Steel Lady Nanase’s existence and Iwanaga is gonna figure it out one way or another.

I mean, she knows the real truth. It’s just that someone is pulling the strings behind Steel Lady Nanase still causing havoc. She’s still running amok due to a fan website dedicated to the ghost. And that site has A LOT of traction with fans of all sorts. Add to this mind-fuck, Kuro’s “lovely” cousin Rikka is the administrator for the website. As I’ve mentioned before, she has that immortality power that her cousin possesses as well. And Rikka uses that power to keep things going with Steel Lady Nanase.

Iwanaga went through several scenarios to disprove Steel Lady Nanase’s existence. And all but one of those theories were poked by skeptics and even Rikka who was stalking the forums. It wasn’t until Iwanaga came up with the theory of Nanase meeting a woman who looks exactly like her and that her doppleganger was the one that died at the construction site. Somehow that was the theory millions of fans took as truth and this was how Iwanaga was able to take down Rikka and her fansite.

So everything is gonna go back to somewhat normal. Karin Nanase can rest in peace, the spirits around the area can rest easy without being tormented by a crazy bitch swinging a steel beam, Saki goes back to work as a police officer, Rikka is still lurking around, and we get a cute moment between Iwanaga and Kuro.

This anime started out strong, but once you realize that this Steel Lady Nanase arc was going to be covered in 10 episodes out of a 12 episode series, it kinda leaves this series a little underwhelming. The idea of having one character with the ability to communicate with spirits and another character with an anomolie in his body preventing him from dying seemed really interesting. Especially when you have someone like Iwanaga trying to solve mysteries and coming up with the best case scenario in every case! But that’s just it, we only got two cases in this 12 episode series. The manga still seems pretty new and so I’m hoping to see more development with Iwanaga and Kuro. It’s an okay series, it’s just that I give a hesitant recommendation with the warning that this will drag a bit when we’re stuck in Steel Lady Nanase hell for 10 episodes. In an anime season that was filled to the brim with mystery animes, I actually found myself a little more invested in Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun. But that’s just me! You guys make your own judgments on which mystery anime of 2020 wins your vote.

Final note: The OP is a banger and as for the ED, it’s always a treat whenever Mamoru Miyano is singing!

If you would like to watch In/Spectre, Crunchyroll has all 12 episodes available for streaming in both sub and dub.

#anime review #in/spectre #kyouko suiri #kotoko iwanaga #saki yumihara #kuro sakuragawa #rikka sakuragawa

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imagine-loki · 4 years

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Two Hot Chocolates, A Brownie and A Norse God of Mischief

TITLE: Two Hot Chocolates, A Brownie and a Norse God Of Mischief

CHAPTER NUMBER: One-shot

AUTHOR: Inspired-snowflace

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: imagine that you are really interested in MARVEL and you and your friend are always like quoting the movies and so one day ur in a cafe and u say a Loki quote and then someone behind u finishes the quote ur saying and it sounds hella like Loki so u turn around to be like whoa great impression but when you turn around it’s actually Loki and he’s like nice impression and ur like dead and just fangirling and Loki is just loving being adored so much and so u two end up hanging out and fall in love

NOTES/WARNINGS: I haven’t written anything in the past 3 months. So this is my attempt to get back to writing. I am sorry if it isn’t good, but I tried real hard. I am sorry it I disappointed the original imagine writer due to not putting the same ending. (And not to mention half of it iust got deleted by itself)

"When you said you were opening Wakanda to the world, this is not what I imagined."

“Well, what did you imagine?”

“The Olympics, a starbucks maybe?”

That was it. That was all your crazy friend had to say to lead to this moment. You had shifted to a new place and this was the first time your friend was visiting you. You took her to the nearby Starbucks, because Olympics wasn’t really your cup of tea. As you entered the store, the only noise was the small bell on the door. Well, that you and your friend were here, not anymore.

“I am Loki of Asgard and I am burdened with glorious purpose" Your friend screamed, testimony to the statement that you both quoted the movies so much that you wont notice even if you came face to face with the real avengers.

You looked inside to see a couple sitting and a man with his back turned to you. Hm.. Didn’t look like the kind of people who would call an ambulance on you guys to take you to the mental hospital.

You liked this branch because it was cosier as compared to the others, with a very few people. The shop had mahogany furniture which mingled beautifully with the smell of freshly brewed coffee and hints of vanilla. You went to place the order while your friend picked a seat.

“Is that your friend?” The barista asked you sceptically. He didn’t think you mad and you attributed that painful fact to the inability to scream quotes when you were alone.

“Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard and he is my brother.”

He stared at you blankly. Ahhh... not a fan. Probable candidate of calling the ambulance.

“I would like two hot chocolates, a brownie and a Norse God of Mischief please.” You placed your order.

“Hot chocolates- 2, Brownie-1 and... what was your last request?”

“Never mind.. you guys don’t have it on the menu” You wish you knew how wrong you were at the moment.

“That will be 12.50.”

You paid and waited for your order. When it arrived, you picked it daintily and turned around. You saw her sitting ahead of the man. Yet, she took matters in her own hands.

“Cap, On your left.” She turned and waved as if there were a hundred occupied tables instead of just three. She was sitting on the table ahead of the man, which were the only two tables on the left. She had purposely chosen that table. Cheeky girl!! A+ for the effort.

Placing the order down you sat opposite to her your back to the man. Immediately, she picked the cup with your name on it.

“He spelt your name wrong!!! He had one job!! Just the one!!”

Well, you had corrected the man the last time you were here. But people spelt it wrong so often that you stopped correcting them. It wasn’t exactly new for you.

“If it’s all the same to you, I will have that drink now.”

You friend turned to look at the barista and scream some Tony, or better yet, Falcon quote. Instead she turned back without screaming and said, “Oh God!! He is cute!!”

Trust your friend to fall in love with someone who is minutes away from calling the ambulance on you guys.

“There is only one God ma’am, and I am pretty sure he does not dress like that.”

“Loki.” You both said at once, laughing and high-fiving.

“I swear he exists only to raise my expectations in men. Normal men- yeah! They will never be God.” You added.

“Your world on the balance and you bargain for one man?”

“Any day... If you are talking about Loki, that is.”

There was a few minutes of silence where you both savoured your hot chocolates and the brownie. You hear footsteps and saw the couple leave.

“I wanted to tell you something..” Your friend said, interrupting the peace.

“I was having 12 percent of the moment.” You added closely after, “I am listening.”

“I understood that reference.” She said pointing out like Steve.

She continued, “Since you have given the breakfast treat, allow me to take you lunch. There is a Shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don’t know what it is, but I want to try it.”

“Why do you wanna take me to lunch? Tell me!!” You whisper screamed.

“Its really not that complicated. I got red on my ledger, I'd like to wipe it out.”

The next dialogue was more malicious, but cursed be you if you allowed a chance to say Loki’s dialogue slip. So you steeled yourself and began, “Can you?”

“Can you wipe out that much red? Dreykov's daughter, Sao Paulo, the hospital fire? Barton told me everything.” Came a voice from behind you, nailing the dialogue, the British accent and the snark down to a T. You literally froze, a chill went down your spine as you understood the dread that must have sparked in Agent Romanoff. However, it died as soon as the dialogue ended. Not for your friend though, she sat with her jaw hanging as if she had just seen a ghost.

“Umm.. wow man!! That was flawless. You nailed it down perfectly.” Under normal circumstances, you would have quoted the movies but all flew out of your head when he spoke.

Your voice seemed to snap your friend out of the daze she was stuck in. Her eyes widened and she pointed the space behind you. She tried to speak but no words came out. Her eyes were unblinking as if she feared that a blink will turn it into a dream.

“Cap, to your left” She finally said, but you figured her words from reading her lips rather than what she said, for her voice was completely inaudible.

You turned around.

No. No way.

Sitting there was a man, with a chiselled marble face, framed by night black hair, his bluish-green eyes seemed so deep that you could not look away. It seemed like the sea had engulfed you with its beauty. But your focus was stolen by the smile. Despite the mean comment, the smile was hopeful, was genuine.

You had argued with you friend that the first thing you would do if you ever saw Loki would be to scream, jump up and down no matter the situation. But even as you tried to say his name, your voice got stuck with the various emotions having a party in your throat. This time your friend snapped you out of the temporary muteness by whisper screaming.

“This is madness!!”

“Is it?” His eyes softened as he looked at you, “Is it?”

“OhMyGodLokiThisIsUnbelievableIAmAHugeFan!!” You squealed in an incoherent language.

“Darling, I am pretty sure even allspeak cant translate that.” He said with a laugh.

“Oh my gosh!!! Can we get a hug?” Finally, all the quotes flew out of your friend’s mind.

He had such an innocent smile on his face that it seemed impossible that this guy had tried to attack New York. He stood up and green light shimmered around him, changing his coat into the costume from the avengers. He held his arms open calling you both for a hug.

You were quicker to respond. “Mmmm.. Brother, you look ravishing.” And proceeded to throw your arms around him and bear hugged with as much love as your body could muster, making sure to convey the love and make your tumblr friends proud. Behind you, your friend had completely lost her mind at the change of outfit.

“Dont faint. Don’t faint. Don’t faint....” She repeated like a mantra while pressing her fingers into her temples as if that would keep her alive.

“Does she do this often?” Loki asked you amused at the effect he had on your friend.

“Only when she meets incredibly hot Gods of Mischief in their armour.” You said with a smirk.

You nervously glanced at the counter because it was about time for the ambulance to be called. He was busy cleaning the counter, leaving you guys to your own shenanigans. Phew!! No ambulance.

Then you noticed the mischievous glint in Loki's eyes with the words, “Just a bit of illusion magic dear.”

Meanwhile, you saw that your friend was crushing Loki in a bear hug so tightly that you doubted he was able to breathe but he didn’t say anything, happy for the love and attention he was getting.

“Now, now, darling, even if I am a God, an occasional breath of oxygen would be nice.” Your friend loosened ever so slightly, taking his words ‘occasional breath of oxygen’ too literally.

“Hey!! Get off him!! Get yourself your own Loki. He is my God of Mischief!!” You pouted and started playfully hitting your friend, urging her to stop hugging him so that you could be in his embrace again. After all, how many people are luck enough to hug their fictional crush.

Loki threw his head back and laughed and opened his arm, “Well, I can definitely handle two mortals crushing me.” You threw yourself into his open waiting arm after poking your friend a bit so that you could squish your cheek against his armour.

“I must say; it was easier to breathe with Thor's hammer on my chest. You mortals are pretty strong.”

“You have an army.” Your friend’s muffled voice came and then added, “And we will most certainly kneel.” Loki laughed at that though his cheeks were sprinkled pink.

“How about my beautiful ladies stop crushing me like a bilgesnipe its prey, and then perhaps we talk and exchange, what do they call it, phone numbers?”

“Deal!!” You promptly screamed. Your friend promptly fainted.

“I am honoured?” He questioned, winking at you.

“Oh don’t worry about her”, you dismissed. “She wouldn’t want to miss your phone number.” You said while facing your friend.

“Of course I will not!!” your friend said while keeping her fainted pretence. “Haven’t you seen enough movies to know that this is the cliché where he falls in love with me?”

You all laughed.

#Loki #Others #Imagine #submission #Two Hot Chocolates A Brownie and A Norse God of Mischief #inspired-snowflace #Submitted one shot

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king-minyard · 4 years

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For anyone who wants to watch SAO but has heard about how awful it is after [x] point, I made a point to rewatch it and mark the points where there was unnecessary fan service (if it can be called that), fondling, groping, or partial nudity.

Without all that, SAO is actually a pretty okay anime with an interesting concept and a well-done main character arc (however, it does deal with heavy topics like suicide and depression at several points throughout, so watch out for that). Episode descriptions/avoid areas ahead!

Episode 1 and 2 are fantastic exposition and do a good job of introducing the world and the characters and generally setting the scene for how Kirito is going to be treated throughout the anime.

Episode 3 gives Kirito his Traumatic Backstory™, and deals with themes of guilt, depression, and suicide. Kirito blames himself for people's deaths henceforth and carries that weight with him for a Very Long Time.

I personally dislike episode 4, but it's important (at least, I think so) from a character-forming perspective. Kirito meets Silica, a childlike character who he compares to his sister. I assumed from the look in his eyes at the beginning of the episode that he was still recovering from the events of the previous episode, and hadn't smiled in quite a long time. Upon meeting Silica, however, he sees his sister in her and finds a reason to smile again. Unfortunately, from 9:40-10:00, she is shown wearing underwear in bed and, later in the episode, is practically fondled by various monsters (12:30-12:50 and 14:40-15:00). Other than these three scenes, the rest of the episode shows Kirito telling Silica about his family, fighting monsters with her, and treating her like a little sister. I would personally skip this particular episode because it squicks me out, which is why I included a description for anyone else who feels the same. This is also the episode where we're introduced to the concept of killer-players.

Episode 5 is actually a pretty cool episode! It reminded me that "real" is a subjective term, which is always interesting to me. I did count two unnecessary butt shots in this episode, but they're very quick. Oh, this is also Murder Mystery Episode Pt.1!

Episode 6 is Murder Mystery Episode Pt.2, and it is very fun because ghosts! This is also the episode where we are introduced to the main assassination guild. I counted one unnecessary butt shot in this one! Also, Grimlock is a nasty piece of shit.

Episode 7 is the Dragon Episode! I really like this one because of how it deals with Lisbet's feelings in the end, and how she decides to be happy for her friend instead of jealous like so many other awful "love triangle" situations.

Episode 8 has the Titty Squeeze Scene at 14:00-14:20, but is otherwise Very Domestic™ and cute! (Ugh, Kuradeel)

Episode 9 is important for plot reasons.

Episode 10 has a fun duel! Kuradeel is a nasty piece of shit and Asuna beats his ass for it. There is stripping at 19:20 because she misunderstood what Kirito meant by "stay in the same room" lmao

Episode 11 is 10/10 very good excellent! They are Domestic™! Asuna is a great mom and Kirito is a great dad!

Episode 12 made me laugh and then sob loudly very late at night. Watch out for themes of depression and a minor suicide scene later in the episode (nothing bloody or graphic; a minor character walks off the edge of the world).

Episode 13 is mostly very peaceful! It's very interesting to me to think about all these people trapped on lower floors because they aren't physically strong enough to level high enough to advance, and especially at the way they simply settle down somewhere and do something like fishing. Watch out for Kirito's personal trauma making another appearance later in the episode and mentions of suicide.

Episode 14 is The End. There is some self-sacrifice and sad boi hours.

It is my personal recommendation that anyone who has read up until this point should skip everything beyond episode 14. There is some nasty, nasty shit beyond this point including but not limited to imprisonment, gross verbal harassment and unwelcome sexual comments, non-consensual touching that makes me want to do something violent to a certain man's important parts, and almost-incest.

#sword art online #watch guide #long #long post #sao #these are my personal recommendations #i fucking hate the alfheim arc #gun gale is okay because guns #but alfheim is nasty nasty nasty #character death #mentions of depression #mentions of suicide #mentions of noncon #sao has some heavy shit #tl;dr avoid everything after ep14 #mine

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askthewitchlady · 4 years

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Revisions Review

THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS

I’d seen the trailers a couple times before deciding to watch this one, There was something I couldn’t quiet put my finger on about it but it annoyed me, I dis’t know why, after watching it, now I know.

Our ‘protagonist’ is just so douchey I could feel it in the trailers.

I’m not even kidding here this guy is Omega level douche from the word go.

Basically a huge chunk of the Shibuya ward in Tokyo is suddenly transported to the year 2388 a world wide Pandemic has decimated humanity leaving only two surviving species, humans of the team ARHV Of whom we only ever meet Milo, but who Have specialised brains that allow them to jump through time and predict the future. And the Revisions, people who where not immune to the pandemic and became bloated monster like creatures who eventually learned to use Machines to support the weight of their bodies. these are commonly referred to as civilians and in order to maintain a level of control they break down human bodies on a cellular level and absorb those new healthy cells to replace what has decayed from the illness.

A lot of this you don’t find out till half way through the series.

STORY TIME

When they where young a group of five friends while on a trip for the summer get separated from one of their number Daisuke who is kidnapped as a result. The kidnapper uses his cell phone to call one of his friends as they wait at his home for news and he tearfully explains if they don’t come alone the kidnapper will kill him as they debate what to do they meet a pink hair woman named Milo who helps them find and save Daisuke before giving them advice which it is later discovered plays an important role in their futures.

She tells Daisuke that a prophecy has told he has a great destiny and must protect everyone. Several years later Daisuke has taken this to such an extreme that he’s constantly causing trouble for his friend by picking fights with people who he perceives as slighting them such as Punching a businessman asking his female friend Marin for directions.

He insists something bad is going to happen it will happen soon and he will be ready he will protect everyone, it’s revealed the five friends have drifted apart because of Daisukes attitude and his only remaining close friend is Keisaku. It’s also revealed that Daiske constantly carries weapons even to school such as a switch blade so he is ‘prepared’ but that he has made no plans for his future like collage or Career choices.

Everyone has resigned to the fact Daisuke is delusional and following a mass text to all five friends Gai leads a confrontation Demanding Daisuke knock it off, Gais twin sisters Lu admits Daisuke has gone to far this time but Daisuke admits he never sent the text. Suddenly there is a pulse and everyone is lifted off the ground for an instant before falling, upon investigation it is revealed a large area of Shibuya has been transported to another time.

after heading to the roof to investigate and try to get a cell phone signal the students including Daisuke and Marin are attacked by a massive robotic monster that kills some students and collects others., While attempting to flee the roof with Marin Daisukes Counsellor Miss Yumiko panics and shuts the door preventing any more students from escaping the roof. Daisuke realises he’s not actually prepared for the situation and thinks he’s about to die when Milo appears attacking the creature.

She doesn't seem to know Daisuke and Marin however after he tells her his name she grabs him and jumps from the roof rappelling to a waiting mechsuit that is apparently coded for his brain.

PROBLEMS

The dog ear girls didn’t need to be dog ear girls. it’s explained that the looks ‘communication vessels’, the only way the revisions can communicate with the people of Shibuya, were selected based on data to encourage empathy in the people they talked with. Sooo we got A tall dark skinned dog ear girl who is overtly sextualized ((The dark skin isn’t the problem By the way it’s the fact that the ONLY dark skinned character in the show is a hyper sexualized woman it’s just wrong in a mecha show full of people in skintight suits she didn’t get a better design)) a dog ear lolita girl, and a walking dog mascot character... yeah....

Daisuke, as I said in the beginning is almost irredeemably Douchy I mean for some he might not be redeemable at all, I thought ok character arch and growth is good, but by episode 9 I had a sneaking suspicion he wasn’t going to learn anything. AND HE DOESN’T the show kind of sandbags his weird hero complex and desperation to ‘protect everyone’ and instead gives it... justification? I dunno how to explain it but basically you never feel like Daisuke learns a lesson from anything he does, not the times he ignores direct orders, or even steals one of the mech suits to help his friend Keisaku find his missing mother.

Daisuke is imprisoned along with Keisaku for stealing the mechs known as string puppets, but while Keisaku comes around to understanding what they did wrong, Daisuke never does instead coming to this pseudo philosophical conclusion of, I understand that others understand me, it was stupid.

when the characters learn that the civilians they have been fighting and killing aren’t monsters but infected human Marin has a major beakdown which you think is going to be like a thing but Nope, an episode later she’s back to smiley giggling Marin, because even though there are six main characters this story isn’t about them it’s about Daisuke and the anime reminds you of that... all... the... time

which is a shame because the other characters when given screen time are really good! Milo is fascinating with her abilities, Gai and Lu as twins have a great dynamic with each other and the others around them. when they first realise a real disaster has happened Gai take Lu to the nearest convenience store to get supplies because he knows the ones in the school won’t be enough.

Marin is a sweety and seeing her bits of character growth are satisfying but rushed because it’s not her story. and Keisaku? OMG this guy gets the shaft!

Not only does he see the horrifying way his mother is dissolved and dies (which was unexpectedly graphic for the show and I was kind of pissed about that) but he’s then killed but not just killed, he’s ‘ripped out of time’ because he doesn't have a special future brain, so the last remaining piece of him is used by the big bad who constructs a body that looks just like Keisaku to taunt Daisuke during the final battle which becomes a massive timeline fight and then Because they became merged and free of the timeline Keisaku Dies while Daiskle lived, The whiney bitch lived but not the best freaking character in the show WTF?

you find out during the climax of the show that the reality was that the prophecy was that Keisaku was actually meant to lead the five friends and you see hints of that through the series where he consistently mediates between characters and works in the background to help move things along as well as offering everyone support even while he’s worried for his mother, he calls people out but is also willing to help them. THAT BEING SAID THERE ARE GOOD THINGS Other then Daisuke all the characters are really interesting, even the teacher who shut the students on the roof later admits that people act on instinct when scared, and that she regrets what she did even actively trying to help the Shibuya survivors.

The plot isn’t bad, a little convoluted at points but not terrible

The 2D animation and 3D rendering is a little different this time around so there were moments I wasn’t sure which was which, unfortunately the weaknesses in the CG rigs eventually gave away but the moments were I really had to look gave me hope for future CG projects.

It’s really easy for a show with timeline shenanigans to just revive everyone so no one dies and there’s no consequences and blah blah blah. This didn’t do that and in fact at the very end there’s a memorial for everyone who died while Shibuya was stuck in 2388 I love happy endings don’t get me wrong but I can appreciate that they didn’t do that here.

FINAL THOUGHTS?

I’m on the fence on this one, I would recommend it t was interesting to watch But you really gotta power through Daisuke and his hero complex, and some of his scenes are really hard to get through with out wanting to smack him through the screen, it’s just a shame he’s the main character. Interestingly because he has the same English VA (Bryce Papenbrook) as Kirito from SAO (which I enjoy don’t @ me) I found myself comparing the two characters and while both of them have this need to protect people and this drive to ensure the ones they care for are safe even to the point of self sacrifice in the dangerous situations they find themselves in. Kiritos comes off more genuine. so the younger guy from the pseudo fantasy harem Anime is way more mature then the Highschool kid who knows he has a responsibility and a destiny (supposedly)

If you’re a fan of Mech battles you might enjoy it, if you like lots of intersecting plot lines you might like it. It’s got it’s goods and bads and the goods are really good, the problem is the Main Bad is the Main Character which is probably the reason I won’t watch it again.

Great concept, amazing side characters, okish ending... really really really terrible protagonist.

#Revisions #Anime #Anime reveiw #netflix #netflix reveiw #spoilers #Daisuke #Keisaku #Marin #Gai #Lu #Marin is best girl

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theanimeview · 5 years

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Controversial Opinion: The Rising of The Shield Hero, I don’t hate it + Why

By Peggy Sue Wood | @peggyseditorial

Top of the controversial titles to like this season in anime, according to most everyone I know's list, is The Rising of the Shield Hero. Why? Well, as you may have heard, it starts off with a false rape allegation against the protagonist and that is enough to have it burned from most watch lists as a potentially good anime or manga in the western (and probably everywhere else) anime watching community. HOWEVER, I think that focusing on this aspect without consideration for the rest of the plot and characters is faulty reasoning. There are lot of animes with messed up sh*t that happens--including murders (One Piece has a ton, and that plays off as a generally happy-go-lucky series), torture (Overlord anyone?), and instances where rape is heavily hinted as an outcome for a character in addition to assault that actually took place (SAO tentacle scene ringing any bells?). Considering that I’ve met at least one woman in my adult life that is like the redheaded princess that made a false claim in the anime and manga (and presumably light novel the series is based on) in real life - a long story for another day - it doesn’t seem impossible. It’s rare, for sure, but not impossible.

Taking a moment here, in American culture, of which I am speaking as a female, American citizen, false rape allegations are a major issue because women already struggle to be believed when they are indeed victims. So many women do not go forward about assault as it is and media that portrays women in such a poor light only reinforces the horrific mindset of “she probably wanted it” or “she probably just regretted it” or "she's making it up" that seems to be so prevalent in our culture. When false allegations are made, it only hurts real victims more. Media often likes to villainize groups of women as a result, and it makes it harder for real victims to come forward out of fear that they will be penalized for speaking the truth--which also happens way too often for anyone to feel comfortable with in the current state of affairs right now. Looking at this anime, it is hard for some to get behind the portrayal of this in any sort of media since we know how much it hurts real victims, but let’s take a moment to look at the anime/manga’s response to this setup. (*Please note, this is not an argument defending rapists or anything of the like. I am an avid supporter of victims of sexual assault and kindly ask that you don’t misconstrue my words. If you would like to question me further, wish to see me amend something stated here, or want to debate about what I’ve written regarding this subject, please feel free to message me. I am always open to criticism or revisions.)

What happens initially after the rape allegation is that everyone, save for the blacksmith after a short while and the people that later get to know Iwatani Naofumi (the protagonist), believes the victim. That is super rare for our culture, and even after the allegations come to light as being false, not everyone believes that he’s really innocent. Instead, the people continue to see him as a villain/rapist, which is even more surprising given the fact that he should have a lot of support given his prior actions and title. His title alone should have given him status enough to stand against her - I mean, he is (1) one of the four summoned heroes; (2) a hero that protects the masses more than the other three; (3) one that advances the most by investing in/learning about the culture he’s in and not just making assumptions because it reminds him of a book/game/whatever; (4) one that tries his best despite his severe disadvantages that continue throughout the series thus far (I’m only at chapter 50 in the manga); and (5) thinks critically about the state of affairs for the people beyond surface level (like cleaning up the corpse of a slain monster that one of the other heroes killed and left on the ground where it began poisoning the land and people living there).

SIDE NOTE: Even after being proved innocent, the Spear Hero still says stuff like this (chapter 44):

By the way, chapter 44 is where the ranged/arrow hero’s bad side really comes out. Just saying...

Naofumi lives through the allegation because he is a hero, so his status is helpful in that regard, but look at him compared to the others. Because of their hero status, the other heroes get away with a lot of ridiculous behavior, including their lack of foresight and not having to listen to the queen of the country they are summoned in (its a matriarchy system by the way, so they’re literally insulting the head of the country they live in and get away with it whenever they disregard her--which is something NO ONE else would be able to do). And yes, the manga makes it clear that the reason he is disregarded so easily is that he is the “shield hero” and not many respect the shield in this particular country, BUT he is still one of the four major heroes that they NEED. Angering him is not in their best interests, yet they still disregard/disown/hate on him because of this allegation (even after it is proved to be false). The situation, the society, is vastly different from our own and that’s something I appreciate from the series. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of the rape allegation opening, but I can still appreciate that the author used it as more than just a means to put the hero in a bad starting position. As with most starting plot points, the allegation puts the protagonist into place for his hero's journey adventure while also setting up one of our antagonist for the series’ first arc. In addition to this though, it adds a world-building element to the story. Here, women are still considered relatively weak and damsel-like when it comes to fighting, but they have way more political and social power than men by comparison. The other three heroes don’t really experience this initially because they act like this is all a game and exist/live maintaining their patriarchal perspective hence the way the spear hero--a man who acts like he is all about women (protecting them, showing off to them, etc.)--doesn’t consider how the female characters that want to be with Naofumi feel. This idea could be applied to the others too since all the heroes disregard the queen regularly after the king is removed from power (before they were very amicable toward the king). If you are counting, that means the scene does three things. First, it acts as the starting plot point--setting up the protagonist’s starting point and an antagonist. Second, it shows that this is a matriarchal society in which women have more political and social power than men. Third, it shows/helps the protagonist understand the society is truly different here. The rules are different here. By extension, that means it is not a game--in games, justice always prevails (typically), but that is not the case here.

The anime is pretty different too in the set up since they reveal more differences right off the bat than letting you know over time (like how the country is a matriarchy) and having Myne, the accusor, put a lot more work into tricking Naofumi than in the manga (in the manga, she never fights for him or tells him much about the world, instead letting him figure it all out after they’ve parted). In the manga, Naofumi is an active character, while Myne is bidding her time for that evening to trick him. Naofumi buys her the gear to protect her without instigation, while she tricks him into buying gear for himself that she uses to win over the spear hero. Moreover, Naofumi has to convince the court to let him live because of his role in the manga, whereas in the anime they say they’re letting him live because of his role, essentially taking away an important essence to Naofumi’s character (the essence that he is capable, more so than the other’s even realize, of adapting to the world around him). Another change that I’m not a particular fan of is the other heroes saying that he should at least do his job of saving the world after all this--one that they wouldn’t do at all without proper payment according to their anime selves. There are a lot more differences too like in the payment scene where Naofumi is given more than the others, or how--- way too many changes for me to get into that are not important right now. The changes all make Naofumi out to be more passive and victim-like, maybe because those adapting the series knew that the start was really controversial and want to make Naofumi as likable as possible before his inevitable, anti-hero-like personality comes into play, and while I don’t like it I can kind of understand it from a storytelling perspective since there is no guarantee that this series will get a second season (and as things stand now, it probably won’t) so lets move on.

Emphasizing the difference between him and the others, in a way that is more obvious then the other three continuing to think this is a game over the course of the series, is how much knowledge Naofumi gains about the world which brings us to another controversial subject in this anime/mange: slavery. (*Please note, I don’t condone slavery either. I’m just analyzing its role in the manga and anime as critically as I can.) (Check out chapter 16 to see how the three still think it is a game even though they are on the verge of defeat.)

Having distinguished that this is another world with rules different from our own, we find that here (in the summoned world), slavery is real, and Naofumi uses that to his advantage. He doesn’t particularly like the idea, but he’s not in a position to change it or really go against it. The anime doesn’t let us know how against it he is, choosing to stay out of Naofumi’s head for most of the episode, but it’s pretty obvious in the manga, and manga spin-off which features the spear hero as the protagonist, that Naofumi is not a supporter of slavery. Still, he’s not in a position to change the rules of the country. NONE of the heroes are, and Naofumi understands that better than most considering that he is thrown from grace in the summoned queendom early on. With not many options, none at the start really, he buys a slave, but despite his hard words, readers can see that Naofumi isn’t planning to force the slave-girl, Raphie as I will call her from here on, into doing something not up to a skill level that he can’t defend her from, at least at the start.

Only after the pivotal scene in which Naofumi allows Raphie to make her own choice about continuing to fight does their relationship (him forcing her to fight and keeping her as a slave) change. After she agrees to continue fighting for him he never really orders her to do anything like that again, and the tone of the story and their relationship hints that she’s free to go whenever she likes if she chooses to do so of her own free will. In the manga, when the spear hero, most loudly but not alone, confronts Naofumi about slavery, the Spear Hero acts high-and-mighty and is silenced temporarily by the response he gets from Raphie before making up his mind that she must be brainwashed. Even after the rape charge is cleared and a bunch of other things happens, none of the heroes can forgive Naofumi from being a slave owner, but that only makes them stand out even more as flawed heroes. (Not just because they don't listen either.)

See, the beauty of this show is that the hero’s path, no matter which one you take, is one uniquely flawed. The Shield Hero has disadvantages and to overcome them he has to get his hands dirty with sins he never would have considered otherwise. The other heroes choose to be lone wolves, playboys, and snobbish--they suffer from hubris, and so while they are not aware of their sins, their path is as stained with blood as Naofumi’s is, if not more. The only difference is that Naofumi is aware of it and trying to use these sins to help others. With Raphie, for example, instead of buying a strong slave that he could have gotten in order to level up faster, he chose one he could help get stronger and healthier because if he had to have a slave, he felt that he might as well chose one he could help. The others, however, justify their sins in ridiculous ways, the most egregious of which, I find, is their sheer lack of concern for the people of the land. They constantly take care of surface level issues without concern for the deeper problems or nuances that come from such situations. Like killing a monster to upgrade their gear and not caring that the corpse literally poisons the land meaning the people can’t grow food or drink the local water without suffering from contamination. Or invading on another person’s hunting territory during the leveling island adventure thing and not caring that it upsets people and prevents them from leveling up in ways that may allow them to protect their homes since heroes can’t be everywhere.

I wouldn’t be surprised if all of the other heroes ultimately suffer horribly by the end with Naofumi living quite well-off for his efforts--maybe even being able to abolish slavery, though that does not seem to be a priority for him at all right now. And the good end wouldn't be simply because he's the protagonist, it would be because he's worked for it. If you take the spin-off as canon (I don’t know if it is), the spear hero certainly suffers betrayal at the end. That aside, I wouldn’t be surprised with the other three heroes suffering has nothing to do with their dislike of Naofumi, after all, Naofumi doesn’t make it easy to be likable to other characters (an anti-hero to the readers, in my opinion). The reason I wouldn’t be surprised if the other heroes ultimately suffer a bad end is because the other three heroes suffer from hubris while Naofumi does not. If, like me, you're a fan of ancient Greek and Roman heroes, you know that heroes who have hubris tend to fall on their own sword because of it. Already we see that their arrogance is causing the heroes that once were superior in fighting strength begin to suffer greatly for their hubris as the waves have been getting harder and harder and the other heroes are falling more and more behind Naofumi in necessary skills for living, and fighting, in this world.

In the end, it’s hard for me to hate this series when the storytelling elements are so strong. It paints its world as one filled with complicated grey areas, which is true of our own world and circumstances. By doing so, The Rising of the Shield Hero seems to be a transformative element in its genre. Not that other isekai’s aren’t attempting this kind of nuance in their writing, but the depth of this series stands apart in the current season and I don’t hate it.

#the rising of the shield hero #shield hero #rising of the shield hero #rise of the shield hero #yari no yuusha no yarinaoshi #Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari #A day in the life of the shield hero #long analysis #analysis

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beneaththetangles · 5 years

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BtT Light Novel Club Chapter 15: Readers’ Choice

Welcome to the special Reader’s Choice edition of the Light Novel Club! This was a great chance for each of us to pick our own novel to read, and it looks like we all had quite a few thoughts on our choices. So without further ado, let’s dive into our books!

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Jeskai Angel’s choice: Log Horizon

For some reason I feel compelled to check my database.

Jeskai Angel: Good: Shiroe is an interesting protagonist. He seems a bit introverted and shy, and refuses to join a guild. On the other hand, he gravitates to the inherently social roles of support and tactician, building his character in a way that demands working with others. It’s a good tension and helps make Shiroe a more well-rounded character. The book also manages to make Shiroe seem smart without falling into the trap of making everyone else an idiot.

Bad: all the characters besides Shiroe seemed pretty one-dimensional. Each one has a niche and sticks to it. Naotsugu is the cheerful pervert, Akatsuki is the taciturn ninja, etc. They lacked complexity and struggled to hold my interest. I didn’t connect emotionally with any of them. Other than general love-your-neighbor philanthropy, why should I care about these characters? This volume doesn’t have an answer.

Good: the world is intriguing. This volume sets up a pretty huge mystery: what exactly happened to transport all these people into the game world, physically transforming them in the process? Hopefully later volumes have some kind of payoff on that front. There are also various smaller mysteries relating to making sense of this new world. For example: is there a secret to cooking tasty food? The point that the former NPCs are now virtually indistinguishable from “human” players also hints at interesting possibilities for the story to explore. The novel does a nice job working through practical ramifications of going from playing a game on screen to physically being present within it. And there’s the backstory of the Debauchery Tea Party to consider. This volume sets up a plethora of interesting plot threads and directions for the narrative to go.

Bad: the info dumping. I realize that the author has a lot of information to share, and the setting is interesting, but it’s important to find an elegant solution, weaving the information into the narrative in such a way that it doesn’t FEEL like a series of info dumps. With this volume, I felt like every so often the author just said “Cut! Now let’s talk about game mechanics for a few paragraphs. * * time passes * * Okay, now back to the story.” At least for me, the info dumps felt more like distractions from the story than contributions to it.

Meh: I’ve heard Log Horizon touted as a superior counterpart to Sword Art Online. However, I confess that after volume 1, I find Log Horizon fine, and…that’s it. The quality of the writing and characterization is acceptable, but unremarkable. It’s not deeper or better written or anything. Of course, the very first volume of SAO isn’t the greatest, either, so that doesn’t mean Log Horizon is a bad series. I’m just saying that given how I’d heard Log Horizon praised, my expectations were a little higher.

In Conclusion: unlike series that pulled me in and had me eager to devour the next volume (Invaders of the Rokujouma, Infinite Dendrogram, SAO Progressive, Abilities Average, etc.), I find myself uncertain as to whether I want to continue with Log Horizon (especially with the hurdle of needing to buy more expensive physical copies since there’s apparently no Kindle version). I enjoyed this volume, don’t get me wrong, and maybe the series builds on its passable start to become something great. Do the non-Shiroe characters become more interesting? Does the big mystery get explored? I would love to hear from anyone who has read the series whether it goes to satisfying places from here.

stardf29: So about that: I will say that the Log Horizon anime definitely took a while to really get going, and that applies for the light novel as well, with the really interesting developments only really starting in vol. 2. It’s only then when the story really seems to figure out what kind of story it wants to be; it definitely felt to me like vol. 1 was really more just setting the basic story beats up. That said, the direction the story starts to go in is very interesting, at least to me. I’d say it’s worth at least going into vol. 2 and seeing its developments to see if it is turning into the kind of story you’d like.

I’ll say that I don’t really like comparing this series to Sword Art Online, because it’s a very different nature of story, especially after vol. 1; if I say I like Log Horizon more than SAO it’s because I like the kind of story LH is more than the kind of story SAO is, not that I think LH does what SAO does better. (It might be worth thinking of LH more like a traditional isekai, which I wouldn’t categorize SAO as.)

Jeskai Angel: Agreed. While there are superficial similarities in terms of the “trapped in a game” premise, SAO is very much still a game, existing in the context of a physical reality much like ours. On the other hand, LH is an isekei story whose world happens to be based on a game. This leads to very different stakes for each story.

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TWWK’s choice: Re:Zero Ex

That’s a cute cat girl on the cover… wait, what?

TWWK: Speaking of popular isekai series, I decided to go with volume one of Re:ZERO Ex. As a fan of the Re:Zero anime, I was excited to read this novel, which among others focuses on one of my favorite characters, Crusch Karsten. And as I started the novel, I thought I’d made a good decision as it seemed to perhaps reveal an epic story about dragons and kings and queens and love lost. There was some of that the story actually, and maybe there’s more in later volumes, but this one ended up being not quite so epic as I hoped. Worse, it was jumbled and at times poorly written. There was a whole lot of “Look! Crusch and Ferris and the new character, Fourier, have a wonderful friendship! Look!” It all felt very forced.

The last half was better than the first though. There was an exciting passage involving Ferris facing his past, and that was far more readable than the first half, so it at least ended on a high note. Have you guys ever read a spin-off light novel?

Jeskai Angel: Sword Art Online Progressive is basically a spinoff of the main SAO series, retconning Kirito and Asuna’s time in the original Aincrad. I think the series is great, possibly even better than the main series.

TWWK: Besides being a good read, did it fill in details that make the original SAO more enjoyable?

Jeskai Angel: SAO Progressive fills in the background of Kirito and Asuna’s relationship in a really satisfying way. In the original novel, their romantic relationship comes across as kind forced and out of the blue. Progressive shows them developing a deep respect and fondness for each other long before the events of the original novel, and the events of SAO vol. 1 are more believable in light of Progressive’s relationship development. Progressive also gives a lot of insight into Kirito’s thoughts — he’s a deeper character than I think he’s sometimes given credit for.

TWWK: That’s really interesting! Re:ZERO Ex gives us a bit more about Crusch’s motivations, which is nice, but doesn’t add any depth to her character like Progressive does with Kirito. Instead, it’s Ferris we learn more about, which would be fine except that I feel he’s an uneven character in the book, written almost like bad fan fiction—he was sometimes the Ferris I recognized from the anime series and sometimes not at all.

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stardf29’s choice: The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life

Of course at least one of us would pick a light novel with a super-long name.

stardf29: I chose this book hoping for another nice, laid-back slice-of-life fantasy story, and at its core that was exactly what this story was. There’s no major conflict; it’s all about the main character Mariela trying to adjust after she wakes up after 200 years of “suspended animation”, with everything and everyone she knew gone or changed drastically. Now, for me, the most important part of a slice-of-life story is its emotional core: getting into the thoughts and feelings of its characters and how the small changes in life affects them. In that sense, this novel does pretty well. It gives a good picture of Mariela’s feelings of being in an unfamiliar place, and the relationships she develops with the people around her, especially Sieg, is very nice. Overall, this novel definitely has a lot of things that would normally make it among my favorite novels, but…

The big issue I had with this novel is that it has a ton of info-dumping. Obviously, as a story about an alchemist, this novel goes into the process of using alchemy, but it really goes into the details of everything: the processes, the background of the ingredients used, and lots of other things. It feels like the author wrote this story mainly to come up with some intricate world of alchemy rather than as a character story. And it definitely had the same issue that Jeskai had with Log Horizon in that it completely interrupts the flow of the story. Though it’s even worse here because, at least with Log Horizon, my interest in gaming makes the actual info being dumped of interest to me. And even in something like cooking novels with lots of cooking-based info dumps that I’m not as personally interested in, at least there’s a sense of “well, maybe this info will be of some use at some point in life”. But with all this alchemy info-dumping, involving magical processes and fantasy plants and animals, there’s absolutely no practical use to this info, so unless you want to be as invested in this fantasy world as the author is, it really drags down the book.

And then there’s the… special thing about this book. Early on in the story, Mariela buys a slave, Sieg, supposedly to save him from a worse fate. Yes, this is another fantasy novel in which the main character is a slave owner. That said, the owner this time is a girl, so at least we can now declare this trope equal opportunity… The flip of the usual gender dynamics does make things a little more interesting, but for the most part it still hits the usual tropes: Mariela doesn’t like slavery but she feels that buying him is the only way to save him, and while he initially appears ragged, with some cleaning up he turns out quite handsome, and of course he falls in love with her. I suppose that, since she at least doesn’t come from our world, she’s at least not expected to follow our society’s view on slavery, though it’s still a bit weird to read how she’s apparently uncomfortable on being waited on when she still orders him around to take care of assorted tasks. And, of course, while the relationship between Mariela and Sieg is otherwise very nice, the whole slave aspect does put a pretty big asterisk next to it.

Jeskai Angel: Can I just say this reminds me of one of my favorite things about the Reincarnated as a Sword series? The two main characters have a policy of “kill on sight” when it comes to slave traders, and all three volumes so far have included at least one occasion for them to kill slavers. It’s refreshing to have such a staunchly negative portrayal of slavery.

I wonder what is the appeal slavery as a plot device in LNs / anime. Obviously, Japan doesn’t have the same history with slavery that we do as Americans, but it’s not as if IRL Japan is pro-slavery. I’m tempted to say “It’s all about power” but that feels trite and inadequate, considering there many ways to write a power fantasy that don’t involve slavery. Is it, hmm, virtue fantasy, as in “Normally slavery is wrong, yeah, but my main character is so good and righteous that they can do slavery right,” perhaps?

stardf29: Going to your first paragraph first: If there’s one thing that does make Mariela’s case just a bit “better”, it’s that Mariela doesn’t really have the power to oppose slave traders. She does have a “cheat” in being the only remaining alchemist we know of, but that doesn’t really give her any combat or (at the moment) political power (it mainly just gives her a lot of money). I probably get most annoyed at cases where the character has the power to oppose the slave trade but chooses not to for some reason.

As for the appeal of slavery as a plot device, I do think it is that combination of power fantasy + virtue fantasy. There’s definitely a sense of “my main character is so good to slaves” while still having that element of power in there. But hey, now that we have a girl with that power, at least now we can throw out the idea that it’s just a “male power fantasy”, right?

Jeskai Angel: I mean, depends. Do women fantasize about having power over men? Or do men fantasize about being slave to a beautiful woman (because the women in these situations are inevitably good looking)? I can’t answer those questions, but if it’s the latter, then even though the scenario may not be strictly be a male power fantasy, it could still be male-oriented fantasy / fanservice.

stardf29: I do think “being a slave to a good-looking woman” does exist as a male fantasy, but I doubt that’s the case here, if only because Mariela isn’t drawn to be particularly attractive; she’s not bad-looking by any means, but she’s not drawn to be sexy or even extra-cute. (That is actually one of the big pluses of this novel; Mariela is a great female main character that doesn’t get caught too much in common female character tropes.)

As for whether women fantasize about having power over men: there’s this other light novel called Sexiled that suggests to me that they absolutely do. (Or at least the power to oppose men.) But if you ask me, both genders like power fantasies, and while I can’t say for sure how many direct their power fantasy specifically toward the opposite sex, I do think that there is an innate psychological desire to have control that plays into why fictional power fantasies are so popular.

TWWK: I don’t want to go too far down this rabbit hole, but I think the slavery aspect touches on sexual fantasies involving the same, as well as the idea of dominating another and of servitude. While none of the series I’m familiar with go down that route necessarily, that might be why this works for the readers and writers—a “kind” slavery relationships seems both palatable and fun.

In the west, the mention of slavery typically ignites a strong, strong sense of disgust. I’m not sure how Japanese audiences feel, however, and what that society’s history is with slavery. I can’t imagine they have near the same on-going societal repercussions as we do.

That’s unfortunate about the info dumping in your two selections, guys. Info dumping can be interesting and stardf29 mentions, or it can be boring. It can be a good plot element or a lazy one. But for the it to be both interesting AND a good plot element, I think it needs to be done on the hands of a very strong writer; plus, light novels readers are maybe used to or expecting such writing, so even with a good writer, this might just unfortunately be part of the game.

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That’s it for our own choices, but what about your choices? Post in the comments about what new novel you read and what you thought about it!

This is our last regular Light Novel Club discussion for the year, as we let people take a break for the end of the year. However, we will have some side content coming, so look forward to that! And join us on January 2nd of the new year, when we announce our next titles! (You read that right: that’s “titles” with an “s”.)

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Volume one of The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life, Log Horizon, and Re:Zero Ex are all available for purchase. Featured illustration by 佐倉おりこ (reprinted w/permission).

#Light Novels #Log Horizon #Re:Zero Ex #The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life #Ikinokori Renkinjutsushi wa Machi de Shizuka ni Kurashitai #Re:Zero #Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu #Re:ZERO: Starting Life in Another World #Sword Art Online #Sword Art Online Progressive #BtT Light Novel Club #Articles #Author: stardf29 #Author: TWWK #Author: JeskaiAngel

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