#i read the manga version some time ago but i only remember it was gay lmao

[yohankang]

atarashii joushi wa do tennen isn't even a bl but it's so gay and romantic i can't asdfghgfd it's also SO stupid and funny i'm having a blast

#i read the manga version some time ago but i only remember it was gay lmao #i love it SOOOO much #if you like comedy anime pls watch it <3 only 2 eps have been released so far #it's about a guy who was abused at his previous job so he's traumatised #and his new boss who turns out to be very caring and goofy #it's about healing but also about having crush on your boss <3 #k.txt #tbh i've been a total mess lately and this is probably the first thing that made me laugh this week #i needed it so bad

[morkofday]

this or that tag game

tagged by most beloved @icouldhyperfixatehim​ and @milkpansa​ ♥ thank you thank you thank you~

i uuh. took it that most of these are bl tropes rather than things about me so we’re going into this with that in mind

crying in the shower or making out in the shower (men should be allowed to have emotions outside the shower smh even if i do love a dramatic breakdown in said space)

give cute boy line ID or stalk his IG (i like confident characters that approach their crushes bc that’s something i would never do myself. also IG is such a hazy concept to me so it’s hard to relate to that in any way?)

share his earbuds or share his clothes (sharing earbuds is cute but sharing clothes is my ultimate love ♥ plus points if the sharing can happen either way and their closets slowly become indistinguishable)

manga or manhwa (i’ve read a lot more manga in my life but tbh i adore some manhwas more)

long dangly silver earring or dark leather cuff (absolutely obsessed with dangly things, it’s most likely the cat in me)

time loop or reincarnation (both is good, currently very in love with such tropes)

blue engineering smock or red engineering smock (i think most of the engineering boys i’ve liked in bls do wear the blue version rather than the red one)

kisses at the beach or kisses in the mountains (truly cannot pick between these two bc we gays own both the beaches and the mountains and that’s how it should be)

cactus or chili plant (tbh all i can think about it the tiny cactus from modc so that it is. also i own a tiny cactus myself, it’s called taavi (short for oktaavi/octave))

fairy lights or spot lighting (as much i love the confession scene in tol with the spotlight, i do prefer fairy lights more. brings me right back to history 3: modc ♥)

ghost boyfriend or vampire lover (absolutely obsessed with vampires ok, we deserve a good vampire bl pls i beg)

hard sub or soft sub (ajshdsf this question?? like i can take this in so many ways. deciding to be a bit unhinged and take it the sex way so soft sub it is, do not ask me to elaborate on that) 

stray cat or ... actually that’s your only option (omg finally i own a cat!) 

hawaiian shirt or blue shorts (pat truly made me love hawaiian shirts so much. doesn’t hurt that those seem to also be off’s chosen piece of clothing lol)

evil ex-girlfriend or predatory fujoshi (you know what? i refuse to choose. women in bls deserve to get treated better. we are way past these tropes)

suit jacket or leather jacket (leather jacket can be a suit jacket if you work hard enough for it but you cannot do it the other way)

high school or university (absolutely university these days bc it’s more relatable and i love seeing at least a bit more mature characters. tho just like nini i do also enjoy watching high schoolers be stupid ♥ but we’ve seen too many of these both imo)

kitchen drama or office drama (not really big on public drama so let’s keep it in the privacy of the kitchen thanks. also kitchen drama can be many things 👀)

forehead kisses or cheek kisses (absolutely livid about forehead kisses bc the love is truly stored into those but i do love casual cheek pecks too)

Viki or GaGaOOLaLa (i do hate viki for blocking screenshotting but they do provide very nicely most of the shows)

Japanese arthouse depth or Korean high concept (uuhh am not quite sure what either of these mean but if they’re even close to what i think then i really gotta go with the japanese one. i am thinking about given here)

pink milk or yakult (cannot for the life of me remember what show had yakult in it and i absolutely refuse to pick pink milk so neither)

censored Chinese BL or trashy Thai pulps (both truly. some of the chinese ones are absolute art in other aspects (krhm cql) and the thai ones are just a ton of fun)

body swap or dead body (was really against body swap some time ago but the shipper changed my opinion. it’s a nice trope and can offer a lot of good topics to explore if done right) 

sexy or story (story is always everything to me, i don’t need the sexy)

back hugs or lap sitting (back hugs always give butterflies to my stomach bc there’s something very vulnerable about it and i also enjoy the brief moment of surprise in those when the other doesn’t yet know he’s gonna get hugged but then just relaxes into it)

piggyback or cradle carry (i am very into the dramatics of cradle carry but i do enjoy the casualness and sweetness of piggybacking too)

this was a lot of fun to do ^^ also gave me some nostalgia bc these tropes really make me think about older bls a lot :’D

tagging: @dimpledpran @talaypuens @snimeat @namchyoon @toptaps @nongnaos ♥ feel free to ignore if you don’t feel like it!

#tag game #this was such a random string of questions #but so much fun

[kugisakiss]

Coming from your bio, do you know of any popular shounen manga or anime where the main m/m leads canonically get together? Even if it's only hand hold in the last chapter, I'd like to know if it's possible outside of shounen-ai or romancs category, for relatively popular manga. Someone told me Tokyo Ghoul has canonically gay leads and that's why it lost popularity, I didn't believe them, do you know anything about that too? Thank you.

Let’s talk about Tokyo Ghoul first! idk where your guy got the idea from, the main character literally sleeps with a girl in a chapter and then eventually married and had a kid with her. I don't remember much about it anymore but, I'm pretty sure the reason it lost popularity was because the last arc or two were, by general consensus, rushed/anticlimatic/messy. the ‘general consensus’ being what I remember from the mangastream comments at the end of each chapter lol

For your main question,

Short answer: if we're talking about a ‘series that ran in Weekly Shounen Jump’ then there hasn't been a single one afaik. and I suspect that we probably won’t be seeing any gay leads for a while yet so I wouldn’t hold up hope for that.

Long answer:

when it comes to shounen manga, unless it already has romance in its genre, characters don’t get together all that often to begin with. sure there’s a few that do (Naruto, Bleach, Kimetsu) but most of the time, if the story has hardly any romantic elements in it (or even if it was teased with plenty), it usually stays that way til the end (Haikyuu, Kuroko, Eyeshield, KHR, Gintama, Sket Dance (there was a confession scene in the last chapter and it’s still in this list), AssClass, TPN, Beelzebub, Hikago, Saiki, Death Note, I’m showing off all the WSJ manga I can list but you get the idea). so as you can imagine, looking for a canon gay relationship between main characters there is pretty impossible.

even looking elsewhere, if you’re looking for “there is no doubt in the audience’s mind; these two boys have hand holding rights with each other”, it’s going to be hard. the best I can find is “implied, but can be explained away” type of relationships which seems to be the furthest they go when the demographic is shounen:

Nabari no Ou - a shounen action manga which garnered enough popularity for an anime adaption, by the same author as Shimanami Tasogare. spoiler alert for a series that ended over a decade ago, not a happy ending for them

Samurai Flamenco - a superhero anime more known for throwing some truly insane plot twists when you least expect it. the closest to relationship confirmation is from some images from the gacha mobile game spin off

xxxholic - more seinen than shounen but it is a spin off to the shounen action Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles so I’ll put it here. it’s a CLAMP series where the two male leads’ lives are very interconnected with each other

these two are very explicitly gay but they aren’t very shounen:

Evangelion - probably the most famous of this list, the relationship (if you can call it that) was with a character that only appeared and lasted one episode but it was fairly overt with it rather than just implying

No. 6 - it’s rather neutral in its marketing and it’s not marked as BL so close enough. an anime adapting a shortened version of a dystopian novel series with an overt relationship between the mains

there’s a few of others like, in DGM where one of the mains has a very complicated and free to interpret past with a one arc character. Banana Fish and Yuri on Ice are definitely gay and popular shows which I wouldn’t put as BL but they are also definitely targeted towards a female audience. Ikuhara is a pretty well known director for his storytelling style and his inability to keep things straight, though not very shounen and if you’re looking for mains in a relationship there’s only Utena which is wlw. I haven’t read it but Blue Flag is a shounen romance manga which went where no one was expecting it to, though it is a SOL romance so I’m not sure it’s quite what you’re looking for.

there’s a few other series which have gay characters in a relationship as side characters but this is the best I can do for leads I’m afraid, hope this helps! if anyone wants to correct me on anything or add to this feel free, this is all mostly from memory lol

#asks #thanks for the ask! really went on a trip down memory lane typing all this out lol #wow remember mangastream i miss them every time the jump+ site refuses to display double page spreads normally #sorry for being stupidly longwinded i just have lots of thoughts about shounen manga

[fubukiswifenoimnotjoking]

💎

Ooo, fun facts or trivia! This one is super hard bc I feel like every mega OPM fan already knows the trivia and I’d just be preaching to the choir, but I’m gonna think on it!! Might have to result to personal opm facts u know?

1. I first found out about OPM when I saw a commercial for season one on adult swim and thought it looked really creative and funny

2. It’s my second manga ever! I tried reading Sailor moon but only got two volumes in bc I hated it :/ was too girly and convoluted to me

3. My pop got volume one for my 13th birthday! I remember unboxing it and being like :0 it was a Halloween b day party too 😏😏

4. A few months after I started opm I drew Saitama’s face in sharpie on a craft egg and he was my first OPM toy/figure(?). Still have him somewhere! I tried to draw Genos too but his face was too squished

5. I have a dvd of season one that’s just the normal edition and a bootleg af version with the OVAS that my uncle got from god knows where. The OVAS are only in Japanese tho :/

6. I have a miniature cottagecore house for my Sai and Genos nendos!! I’ve talked a little about it before but never posted pics for it bc tumblr kept messing it up. I’ll try to show it soon tho! It’s got an overhead light, oranges and orange leaf wallpaper, tiny pictures of fubuki, Garou, Mumen, etc, hanging pots, fake moss on the outside, windows, Keith haring art, tiny teacups, a picture of saitama punching Nick Wilde that I got off tumblr (I’ll try to link it if I can find it) and so much more. I just now thought of putting up some gay flags in there, like why haven’t I thought of that before?? I’ll prob put up and mlm flag for Genos and a demi flag for Sai bc that’s how I hc them. I’m very proud of the house and I’m always adding onto it :) OO and I like to pose my nendos every now and then, tho I’ve posed them so many times that I’m running out of ideas 😭

7. I have a really cute lanyard I got years ago at a comic con that I never wear bc when DO you wear a lanyard? Wore it recently tho bc I was bored. Its got Sai Genos Tatsu Mumen and fubuki on the strap in chibi, they’re so cute.

8. Including posters, official Murata art, fan art, my art and posters, I have 10 opm things hanging around my room. It’s unhealthy I know 😃

9. I started with the manga, watched s1 of the anime then s2 when it came out years later and finally decided to check the wc after. If you had to make me choose, I’d choose the manga. I love the webcomic but the manga is more solid (not completely of course) and just more fun to read. Tho the webcomic IS fantastic don’t get me wrong, ONE is a great artist. The anime is pretty good, I’m still sad they had to cut s2’s budget but I love it anyway. THO I HATE HOW THEY TRANSLATED THE SAITAMA SAVING EVERYONE FROM CENTICHORO SCENE BC THEY TOTALLY DIDNT GET THE DRAMATIC LOVESICK LOOK ON GENOS FACE AND THE SURPRISED LOOK ON SAITAMA LIKE THAT SCENE WAS SO ICONIC AND THEY FUCKED IT I—sorry. Still upset.

10. I used to hate Tatsumaki Amai and Suiryu! Suiryu is still on thin ice bc he gives me such arrogant fuck boy vibes. Tatsumaki has grown so much in the current arc and even the arc before it and I just love her so much, even if she’s mean. Amai is a sick but he’s loveable and an interesting one you know? Especially bc of the webcomic. Used to get annoyed by Fubuki but now I’m in love with her LOL

11. I straight up thought Sonic was a girl until I watched the dub and heard his voice 💀

That’s about all I can think of! Sorry if this totally isn’t what you asked for, just a little lost on how to talk about fresh trivia u know? Thanks for ur ask tho :)

#opm #one punch man #opm asks #fubuki #genos #saitama #genosai #mumenrider #tatsumaki opm #speedosoundsonic

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #19: Madoka Magica Part 2 (Yuki Magica)

(Art by アスカール)

In the last instalment, I talked about Takumi Kamijō and Madoka Magica’s involvement in my project, but I stopped after Gokaiger because things are about to get complicated; there is another story thread that I need to cover before we can continue.

In this instalment, I’ll be talking about another magical boy who became a GARO-esque Kamen Rider. He and his powers have their own backstories which would normally be impossible in the eyes of other Madoka fans (if Takumi’s story wasn’t crazy enough). Basically, I’m the Australian Shinichiro Shirakura and I’m breaking all the rules. Wait, was I supposed to save that joke for the Decade instalments? Oh well, anyway…

One man’s trash, another man’s treasure

In the sixth block of the 50th Anniversary Series, I made an adaptation of The Name of the Doctor but with Hiroki instead of the Doctor. When Hiroki’s timeline gets invaded by a vexatious villain (not the Great Intelligence), he makes a contract with Kyubey to save his past, present and future. He meets Goddess Madoka and becomes a magical boy similar to that of Madoka’s magical girl form. Calling himself the Loveshy Boy, Hiroki enters his own timeline and sends out splinters of himself across his timeline to repair the damage. Zhuge Shu and Nodoka Manabe were among those echoes, along with five individuals whose syllables of their names spelled the syllables of “Nodoka Manabe” and “Madoka Kaname”.

The only other time Hiroki used his magical boy form was in the ninth block when he fought Girl Power and his other enemies in Koshi Castle. He is shot and sent flying in a desperate attempt to save Akari and that is the last we see of Hiroki’s magical boy form – though Walpurgisnacht would influence his next (female) incarnation, he would no longer be a magical boy by the time he moved into his final incarnation.

But by some miracle, Hiroki’s magical boy powers would show up again in 2018, albeit utilised by someone else. How did that happen and why? You’ll find out very soon…

Yuki Yamaki: Secret Inside

Yuki’s timeline is a bit complicated to pinpoint, but it doesn’t matter since this project runs on wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff.

A note before I go on – Yuki’s name would usually be written as Yūki given his Japanese name and my usual habit of denoting long vowels with macrons as per Hepburn romanisation, however I only found his Japanese name recently in an old document I wrote ten years ago, with that same document denoting Takumi’s surname as “Kamijou”. Then again, I didn’t know much about the rules surrounding romanisation back then, so I’ll continue to write Yuki’s name as I have and not bother changing it for the sake of consistency.

Naisho no Tsubomi (Secret Tsubomi) is a manga series that covers topics centred around female puberty and sex education, with a different girl (named Tsubomi) featured in each volume. The first volume was adapted into a three-episode OVA in 2008 and was released in North America by Sentai Filmworks in 2018. Spoilers if you haven’t seen it (but given the premise of Kisekae Insights, you shouldn’t be surprised by now), but based from what I’ve read about in reviews and my own observations, it seems that the character of Saya Endō is likely to be the spirit of a dead girl who reincarnates as Tsubomi’s little sister, or Tsubomi’s little sister who died and came back into the past as a spirit or something. But that doesn’t really matter because this is Doctor Who, what did you expect?

Yuki was born in 2008, the same year as Tsubomi’s little sister, Saya, in a universe where the Third Doctor is the Prime Minister of Australia. In 2018, they joined their universe’s Torchwood at the age of ten and a year later, they were sent on a mission back to the year 2008 to investigate anomalies involving Tsubomi and Yuki’s cousin, Shisei Nagato (長遠志成). During that time, Yuki, Saya, Tsubomi and her friends came to the Doctor’s universe three times over five years from their POV (in our POV, they came once each before, during and after the Salacian Time War). It turned out that Yuki and Shisei are Parker and Hiroki’s counterparts in that universe and that Shisei was taking the place of Futoshi Kuki, who was exterminated by the Daleks. They were unable to find any conclusive evidence regarding the anomalies when they were called back to their time (2023) to fight the Beta Uprising.

Torchwood then sent Yuki and Saya on their second mission in the past, which was to kill Elliot Rodger on his Day of Retribution, 23 May 2014, and prevent the Beta Uprising. Their comrade, Alex Schmidt (played by Alex Williamson) was with them, but he disappeared by the time Yuki and Saya returned to their time. The two had fallen in love during their time together and by 2028, they decided to get married. However, when they were having yum cha with their friends, Alex came in with a group of Chads and revealed his betrayal to everyone; he went back to 2014 and helped Elliot Rodger with his Day of Retribution before spurring Chads and Stacies around the world to fight the incels (nerds basically). He killed Yuki in 2018 because somehow, he was the anomaly surrounding Tsubomi and Shisei that was motivating the incels to continue fighting – Tsubomi and Shisei were never the problem at all.

The 2028 Yuki was killed along with his fiancée and their friends and was taken back to 2018, where he was “fixed up” and prepared to be married to Hideko Kimihara (NOTE: The Kikuchi Clan were not involved in this incident). Kyubey arrives and offers to turn Yuki’s pain into power; Yuki accepts and makes a wish for someone to come and get him out of his mess. It is then that Hiroki, Kayley, Firerose, Narutaki and the Salacian Riders (including a future Yuki and Marcela) were brought to this universe through a dimensional hole. At the same time, Marcela (see #13) arrived to protect Yuki. It is then that Yuki transforms into his magical boy form, which is exactly the same as Hiroki’s Madoka-esque magical boy form (due to interdimensional genetic multiplicity, as Takumi would later speculate), by swinging his Soul Gem necklace in the air similar to how Barago transforms into Dark Knight Kiba in GARO.

(Hiroki and Yuki’s magical boy forms are based on that of Madoka’s magical girl form, albeit genderbent. Art by 黒野ユウ and Makarii)

Hiroki and the Riders from his world help the past Yuki and Marcela out by attempting to hide with one version of them (past or present) for two weeks, but they are captured after four days. While the Stacies brainwash Marcela, Yuki and Hideko are hooked up to the Progenitor, combining their DNA and making super-soldiers from them. Yuki begins to fall into despair, but despite Hiroki telling him not to give up, he transforms into his witch form, Legendorgarc, which is similar to Kamen Rider Arc’s Legend Arc form, freeing himself in the process.

After a few moments however, Yuki manages to change his despair into hope, allowing him to cast away his witch form and combine it with his magical boy powers into a stronger power. Yuki’s rose bow transforms into the bladed Barayumi Rose Bow (バラユミ), which he swings around him to transform into Kamen Rider Magica, similar to how Aguri Kusugami transforms into Sky Bow Knight Gai in GARO: Yami o Terasu Mono. Two of his signature finishers are the Rensha Ranbu/Rapid-Fire Attack (連射乱舞) and the Naginata Ranbu – Gōka Midaresaki/Naginata Attack – Luxurious Bloom (ナギナタ乱舞・豪華乱れさき). Magica’s Rider design takes inspiration from GARO and Kamen Rider Hibiki, particularly the latter as Magica was originally planned to take its place in Decade before being reinstated.

(Kamen Rider Magica logo concept. Art by aqmr)

Hiroki as Decade kills Alex and destroys the universe to get back with to his own universe with his friends and the Salacian Riders, taking the past Yuki and Marcela with them as well. The two, having lost their memories of what happened due to their timelines not being in sync, were left in the past and the only thing that they remembered was that they were enemies; Yuki blamed Marcela for killing his lover and destroying his world, while Marcela blamed Yuki for killing her family.

Decade Episode 7 happened and during the final battle, Decade’s use of the Magica Final Form Ride card allowed Magica to unlock his final form, Loveshy Form, upgrading his weapon into the Ultimate Barayumi Rose Bow in the process. Subsequent transformations only require Magica to squat down and draw a circle on the ground around him similar to how Takeru Jakuzure transforms into Flame Sword Knight Zen. In this form, Magica can split his Ultimate Barayumi in half and use it as a nunchaku or a pair of swords. One of this form’s finishers involves shooting an energy beam from his bow, with the first such usage being aided by Decade using the Magica Final Attack Ride card, breaking Marcela’s brainwashing in the progress.

Following that adventure, Yuki and Marcela reconcile and agree to help each other find the truth about their pasts. By the time they encounter their past selves again in their home universe, they have become a couple. Later, they would thank Hiroki and Narutaki for bringing them together, saying that without their help, they would have kept wandering the land fighting each other without realising their true feelings.

Soulbound and Magia Record

A few days after the last instalment was published, it was announced that there would be a new Madoka Magica film produced as a sequel to The Rebellion Story. This, along with the Magia Record game and anime, means that I can’t have a definitive happy ending for Takumi when my project ends this year, though I might be able to do something for Kamen Rider Zi-O.

Soulbound Series 3 is where Takumi and Yuki’s plot threads converge, with the Madoka Magica tribute being shared with the tribute for Sea Princesses (see Dark Sea Princess in #13).

Following the events of Gokaiger and Decade, Yuki and Marcela begin living in seclusion from humanity, working to protect it from various threats as the “rejected beings of their universe”. Meanwhile, with the rise of magical girls in nearby Kamihama, Takumi started becoming territorial and competitive towards other magical girls, including his own comrades. Despite his efforts to save magical girls from becoming witches, Takumi became frustrated that no matter what he tried to do, the universe seemed to rewrite everything and ruin the work he put in. Unbeknownst to Takumi, the Incubation Cleanser was sabotaged, leading to the continued appearances of witches and other evils; said device was taken out of the equation when the Doppel system came into effect. Takumi’s rivalry with Homura still continued, though they began siding with each other so they could fight warriors (including Kamen Riders and magical girls) for their own enjoyment. Takumi and Homura even attacked Yuki and Marcela, only to be saved by Mami and Hitomi.

At the start of the two-parter, the Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews arrive in Kamihama, where Kyōko and Sayaka, alongside Takumi’s twin sister, Kumiko Hayashi, ask them for their help in saving Takumi. When the Salacian Riders appear along the coast in response to a protest against the human exploitation of marine life, the Barrier Base crew and Torchwood Pleiades fight them. After a while, Takumi and Homura arrive and single-handedly defeat everyone, inviting them to bring more warriors to fight them next time.

Following the battle, the Salacian Riders agree to work with the Barrier Base crew, the SEPTAN crew and Torchwood Pleiades to defeat Takumi and Homura. After Torchwood Pleiades gathered up all the magical girls they could find (technically all the playable Magia Record girls released on the Japanese server up to the end of the Rumors in Disguise event in October 2019, not including Tart Magica or crossover characters), they all confront Takumi and Homura outside of the city. During the battle, a number of magical girls use the power of their Doppels and so do Takumi and Yuki; Takumi’s Doppel resembles Walpurgisnacht to differentiate it from Sayaka’s, namely Oktavia von Seckendorff (but also because he was somehow able to command Walpurgisnacht’s power), while Yuki can only use his Doppel, Legendorgarc, for a maximum of 99.9 seconds (like the Makai Knights in GARO) because he only became a witch for a very short time and as such, is unaccustomed to its power.

The negative emotions and minus energy gathering above them from the constant fighting manifests into the Despair Monster, Kanaderos, a sight observed by Kyubey as he thanks everyone for providing the universe with more energy. Hikaru Tomokaze transforms into Ultraman X while Yuki and Marcela transform into Gaia and Agul to fight Kanaderos. After Exceed X uses the Exceed X Slash to purge the despair from Kanaderos, he joins Gaia and Agul as they fire the Xlugger Shot, Photon Edge and Photon Crusher, but the monster is still standing because of the sheer amount of despair still powering it. Gaia powers up into Supreme Version while Hikaru switches into Ginga. The three Ultras finally defeat Kanaderos for good with the Sparion Beam, Photon Stream and Agul Stream.

After the battle, Kumiko convinces Takumi and Homura to stop fighting and work together to investigate what is going on in Kamihama. Following the two-parter, Takumi would appear again at the end of Arcs 11 and 12, while Yuki and Marcela would only return at the end of Arc 12 alongside the Salacian Riders.

Takumi gained further development in Soulbound Series 4 when he was featured in a two-parter at the end of Arc 13, which was just recently broadcast at the time of publishing this instalment. Due to an increase in dimensional fluctuations through the Cardiff Rift over the past 18 months (since the end of Series 3), Kamihama and Torchwood Pleiades disappeared from this universe and so did Takumi, however he resurfaced recently with his comrades nowhere to be found; he had been cut off from his friends and the magical girl circle. Whether Kyubey and the Incubators had anything to do with it is unknown, though even if they did, the most they would have done is indirectly manipulate events to achieve this goal.

Upon receiving a message from Torchwood in Cardiff notifying them of Takumi resurfacing, the Barrier Base crew head to Mitakihara to meet with Hiroki, Akari, the Doctor and Captain Jack Harkness. After encountering Yuki and Marcela nearby as well, the group heads to Porthcawl (one of the entrances to Kamihama) upon hearing that police have spotted Takumi there. When they get there however, Takumi had killed the police officers cornering him and it is then that Yuki realises that something is wrong. Takumi asks where his lover, his friends and his comrades are before taking his cutlass and transforming into his magical boy form similar to how the Golden Knight Garo transforms.

In the ensuing fight, Takumi summons another cutlass and uses it with his other cutlass to transform into Kamen Rider Serranon similar to how Rei Suzumura transforms into Silver Fanged Knight Zero. Serranon was created as a secondary Rider for Magica in response to Geiz Majesty (I had to create a Rider whose name rhymed with Zeronos so that I wouldn’t need to change the transformation tune because this wasn’t like Decade where I could just do whatever and get away with it). At the moment, I don’t have any plans for Serranon’s final form and it’s likely that he won’t be getting one. Takumi’s cutlasses transform into a set of twin swords called the Yanagiba Sōken (柳葉双剣) that can combine into the Yanagiba Ryūtō (柳葉流刀). His finishers are the Sōken Ranbu/Twin Sword Attack (双剣乱舞) and the Ryūtō Ranbu – Mugen Shinken Nuketsuki/Cutlass Attack – Blade of Infinity (流刀乱舞・無限真剣抜けつき), the latter being similar to the signature attack of Zodomas/Skatana from Gokaiger/Super Megaforce.

While the others fight the familiars that Takumi summoned, Yuki and Takumi fight in their Rider forms, resulting in the former being defeated. Takumi is later spotted at the Roald Dahl Plass, right above the Hub, with the intent of opening the Rift to find a way back to Kamihama. Though the Doctor, Jack, Hiroki and Akari try to stop him, he is only stopped when another villain, Doctor Wells Moreau, shoots him out of nowhere. Moreau later approaches Takumi and offers him a way to get back to Kamihama. Takumi is given a gun which he uses to transform into Galactron MK2 and attack Cardiff, but is defeated by Ultraman Ginga.

After the battle, Hiroki and the others convince Takumi to use his powers for good and so, he takes up Captain Jack’s offer to join Torchwood for the time being until his friends return. While the magical girls will be featured in Soulbound Series 4, they will have to part ways with Takumi again at the end of the series because of Magia Record and the fourth Madoka Magica film.

So this is it for the involvement of Puella Magi Madoka Magica in my personal project. I’d like to remind everyone not to worry if you’re confused at anything you’ve seen so far in Kisekae Insights; chances are that I will address it eventually.

#kisekae insights #puella magi madoka magica

[ahkaraii]

Belatedly answered ask responses

Thank you for anyone who has sent me stuff!! I LOVE reading them and I’m so sorry I’m awful at replying, but know that I love each and every one. Here’s my attempt to answer a whole lot :D

@doki-dream​ Thank you so much for enjoying my DBZ comics!! DBZ was my earliest “fandom”, as it were, from over twenty years ago, and it was so, so special to me as a wee child. I think it’s obvious how heavily I project onto Gohan, haha! But now that I’m an adult, it’s really fun to weave in all these ideas I had as a kiddo into a more seamless interpretation that works with the existing canon. I hope you continue to enjoy my interpretations  <3

@half-devil-in-red-leather​ Thank you so much for sticking around with me for so long!!  :D :D DMC still has a very dear place in my heart, and always will. As for Trunks and Gohan  -- they were my favourite characters, too!! Gohan moreso than Trunks in my case, but I’m awfully fond of all iterations of my purple-haired boy, and someday I’ll get around to drawing all of my Mirai!Trunks headcanons :) Trunks and Goten are fascinating to me as well, because they’re a Unit, yanno? In canon they were rarely seen without the other, and so their development as people is undoubtedly tied together, too. The differences between Mirai!Trunks and main-timeline!Trunks is FASCINATING, and speaks a lot to what are “core” characteristics of Trunks and what are things he’s adapted from his close peers over the years. Anyway, I love Trunks and Goten and Gotenks and rest assured I’ll be posting a lot more about them in the future.

@vejigante​ Unfortunately I still haven’t watched Dragon Ball Super beyond the two movies (Battle of Gods and Broly) so I’m preeetty much out of the loop as to who these guys are. Maybe someday :0

@katerchip​ :D :D :D =happy=

@yusuke96universe​ I don’t exactly take suggestions, mostly because I kinda draw whatever I feel like in any given moment, and drawing something based on someone else’s idea or suggestion is almost always stressful (”what if they don’t like my take” “what if I drew something they find gross” “what if what if what if” etc), but I can safely say I, uhhh, actually don’t know much about Tien??? I’ve skim read the original Dragon Ball manga, but I never watched the original Dragon Ball anime, so Tien is one of those side characters I don’t have a very good grasp on, or, frankly, much interest in. Maybe someday!

@shika-boom​ Fugaku and Shikaku were not friends, per say, but they were always peripherally aware of each other. They’re both clan heirs, for one, so you gotta know who’s who. Shikaku has always been a nosy nin who collects secrets, while Fugaku’s shameful secrets have always been painfully on display, so it’s not like they didn’t butt heads now and again growing up. I talk a little more about the topic here (x).

@darkblades75​ Thank you!! You can read the manga online here (x).

@hydrabellwolf​ Raditz is an interesting character I’m still getting a handle of, in my own interpretation, but I think he essentially has little to no attachment to his birth family and as a kid he probably thought Goku was pampered trash because Gine kept his pod at home. I don’t think Raditz ever made the connection that Gine sent Goku out to save him from the massacre, so I don’t think Raditz realized Gine “spared” Goku and didn’t think about him (Raditz).

Afterward, he only ever remembers Goku might still exist when he realizes he needs someone he can ally with against Nappa and Vegeta (after establishing he’s Alpha Dog, hence him stealing Gohan and talk-posturing at Goku instead of properly fighting from the start), so it’s not so much familial piety as it is convenience because he’s outnumbered and outgunned and outbullied by the only couple other Saiyan survivors.

@wardstoneus That’s a story for another day, and details I probably won’t get super into because I’ve learned my lesson about delving into unnecessarily dark themes in an ambiguously exploitative way. But, yeah, I have lots of Thoughts about Raditz’s distinctive hairline and how that looks more like Vegeta than it does Bardock, and how exactly that could’ve gone about.

It was not a consensual thing :/ Gine had a rough life, and not just because she was weak and also not very Saiyan like. Bardock married her to protect her after she was pregnant, and he got demoted to low class because of it. (That’s how I explain to myself how Bardock was apparently super fucking strong and yet inexplicably deemed low class).

@loyaltykask​ Tbh the only other Sakumo ship I find mildly interesting is Sakumo/Tsunade (you can kinda tell why I drew them together in the Five comic in the first place xDD), but, naturally, my take on Sakumo and the Sakumo that gets shipped with Orochimaru in fandom are very different characters with very different pasts that made them that way :’D So if I separate my take and just take fanon Sakumo as it is, there’s lots of interesting fics with him and Orochimaru and such. I don’t tend to read them though, because Orochomaru is never in character (as I interpret him, anyway), and that can be tiring XD

@pretty-rage-machine​ Thank you!!! I’m sorry (not sorry) that I jump around fandoms so much, my creative brain is stupid and it latches onto new things every 2-6 months without control and I’ve learned to just go with the flow, it allows me to create faster and better works if I let myself explore whatever topic has captured my interest at any given moment instead of forcing it to stick to one thing. Luckily, I am not a professional artist; if you are, don’t do this xDDD Maintaining discipline and motivation beyond personal whim is important in any job!!

That being said, yay!! I’m glad you like my stuff regardless of how much knowledge you have of the canon I’m messing with. Hearing my characterizations are grounded and relatable makes me happy <3<3

@poly-hebdo​ Thank you!!! :D :D Once again, I apologize for jumping fandoms like the attention deficit fella I am, but I’m glad you’re still digging my works regardless of the fandom!

@jkl-fff​ Ahh thank you, friend!! (Side note reply: I watched DBZ:A yeeears ago, and I have to rewatch it again STAT because I actually have gotten mentioned by MasakoX (voice of gohan and goku in DBZA) a couple of times now, once in one of his videos and twice on his twitter feed, so I’m like HOLY SHIIIIT!!!! because that’s some Senpai-Noticed-Me shit and eeeeeeek).

It may be obvious by now but I HEAVILY project onto Gohan, he was basically my mental self-insert as a wee lad, so my characterization of him is heavily tinged by that selfish nostalgia; part of the reason I’ve been drawing these comics is to seamlessly integrate that mental image of Gohan I have living in my brain to the actual existing canon, to make him a plausible version of Gohan that can exist between the pages. From that, a fascinating little narrative has been born and I’ve been having fun detailing out the characters that exist around the Gohan I’ve created :D Thank you for enjoying my hot take on it!!

And YES LAWD I am all for bisexual Gohan, he and Dende were totally a cute first romance thing as teenagers, though naturally it had to come to an end as they moved on with their lives -- Dende to proper ascetic Godhood, and Gohan to a more normal human highschool life. Maybe someday I’ll get into the nuanced complexities of that, though I probably won’t post it to twitter, where the audience there seems to crave more canon straight stuff than any wistful doomed gay sideplots (that seems more a Tumblr thing). Ahhhh so many ideas, so little time XDD

#ask responses

[jojiship]

Studio Ghibli Films: Ranking & Thoughts

I have been binging Studio Ghibli (and other anime films) since May. I saw a lot of people in Youtube rank them and I decided to do it as well. While I don’t have a camera to record myself, I decided to post my ranking of its films. First of all, I want to say that this is quite a subjective ranking and it’s personal. These are my opinions and of course, everyone can have opinions of their own. Second of all, I think all of these films have their good sides, but there are ones that I enjoyed and there are ones I didn’t enjoy. Either way, I recommend people to watch all of these films. You won’t regret watching most of them.

This post ranks the films from the 22nd to 16th. Obviously, there will be spoilers ahead, so you’ve been warned.

22. My Neighbors The Yamadas (1999) - I watched it a few hours ago and I found myself getting bored with it (which is rare because I don’t get bored with films. I can’t count how many times I’ve sat through Titanic). While I found some parts funny, I just wanted it to end. I’m not a big fan of its animation and while the family is charming, it didn’t pull me in like some family dynamics do. However, the last scene with the umbrellas and Japanese version Que Sera playing was quite enjoyable. Definitely the best part of the film was that.

21. Tales From Earthsea (2006) – When you watch fantasy films, you expect a lot from them. You expect magic, awesome fight scenes, worldbuilding and many other things. You expect to be entranced by the world, but I didn’t get entranced at all. I found the film lackluster and boring. None of the characters appealed to me. I truly didn’t get the dark side Arren plot to be honest. I was waiting it to be explained, but nah. The other characters weren’t that interesting as well. You would expect the climax of this film to be fantastic and mind-blowing, but it was disappointing to say the least. A lot of things were left unexplained and I wished they had dug deeper to the magic system etc. Lord Cob was a villain that I have seen too many times and frankly, I found him to be a snooze fest. Sparrowhawk mentioned the Balance being restored, but it never seemed like the balance was lost. Nothing seemed to be in the line and I didn’t find the loss of balance to be threatening. The best thing in the film was the animation. It was truly captivating and sometimes, I forgot all about what was going on because I was admiring it. The animation is a reason why it’s higher than My Neighbors The Yamadas. While reading the Wikipedia page, I learned that the film adaption included four books of the series and I guess that was the big mistake Studio Ghibli made.

20. Pom Poko (1994) – I hate to rank another Takahata film this low because I truly love him as a director, but Pom Poko wasn’t it for me. I did enjoy the premise of it and there were moments I found endearing and interesting, but I just found it to drag a bit as it progressed. I didn’t really care about raccoons as characters as much as I wanted to. Seeing them learn how to transform and carry out their plans was interesting. However, it started to become a bit too much. I thought that the pacing was a bit off sometimes. There were moments when I was truly shocked like when the raccoons caused the death of three people and injured two others. I didn’t expect them to show that, but Studio Ghibli has the tendency to show that the world isn’t black and white. While the raccoons had a reason to fight, I liked that they showed they could go too far as well. I liked the end scene and the message of the film overall. It truly showed what the film was all about.

19. Ocean Waves (1993) - I was surprised when I saw that this film was only one hour and twelve minutes as Studio Ghibli can be over two hours long. This film needed to be longer because it was quite flat. While I do appreciate the realistic take of it, it didn’t sit right with me. There were too many things missing in this film like character development, chemistry, even the plot wasn’t that good. Taku wasn’t that good of a lead in my opinion, but there were moments when I enjoyed him. Rikako was truly annoying and underdeveloped. I usually come to a female character’s defense because they tend to be hated way too much, but I didn’t like Rikako at all. I understand that she was going through a hard time, but her behaviour was truly horrible at times. While some might get annoyed with her actions toward the boys (I was too), her attitude with the class was the one that annoyed me the most. I personally love collectiveness and teamwork in our society, her self-centeredness and individualism didn’t sit right with me. She was unapologetic of her behavior and I get why no one was really friends with her. Yutaka wasn’t that interesting as well, but he was alright. I have to say the most developed relationship was between Yutaka and Taku (no wonder some call this film accidental gay), but even their relationship fell flat. Also, when I saw some people calling Taku slapping Rikako as equality, I screamed internally. Why do some people only care about equality when it comes to violence?

18. From Up On Poppy Hill (2011) - As soon as this film started, I started to enjoy it. Umi was a good character, she was interesting to see. She was running a boarding house at such a young age. I love her relationship with her family, especially with her parents. She was your average high school student and I liked that. The romance started good too, I like the scene where he jumps in the water and she helps him. The scenes in the club house are amazing as well and so are the other scenes between the couple. I loved how they all came together for a common goal and they succeeded in that goal. Seeing people work together as a collective is what I live for. Now, you might wonder why this film is ranked this low since I loved a big chunk of it. Well, it’s the twist that never actually is a twist. Like I get romantic films having conflicts, but incest, really? Of all the things, you chose incest. While at the end, they weren’t related, it did leave a sour taste. I couldn’t get over it, especially when the two of them said that they didn’t care that they might be siblings and they still had feelings for each other. It reminded me too much of Game of Thrones. That’s the reason why it’s ranked so low.

17. The Cat Returns (2002) - I remember this film to be one of the first Studio Ghibli films I’ve watched. I’m pretty sure that it was the second one I’ve ever watched. As a kid, I thought this film was amazing. I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. When I rewatched it, I was let down. It’s not a bad film, I just had raised standards of it and it didn’t even touch those standards. I didn’t hate Haru, but I didn’t like her that much either. There were moments where she got on my nerves. Sometimes, she made the situation worse for herself. Her crush on Baron was weird and it will always be. Baron was alright. He was enjoyable, but I didn’t fan over him as much as I expected to. Somehow, I would have liked if they did some sort of prequel to the Whisper of the Heart. Showing how Baron and his wife were made, but also showing the love story of Shiro’s (Seiji’s grandfather) and Louise. Muta, however, was the true MVP of this movie. I enjoyed every minute that Muta was on the screen. He was truly the most enjoyable character. The scene in the labyrinth has to be one of my favourite scenes. It was funny and enjoyable. The only reason this is ranked higher than From Up on Poppy Hill is because of nostalgia.

16. Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind (1984) –This film isn’t technically a Studio Ghibli film, but I decided to do it because it was made by Miyazaki who wrote the manga of it. Plus, I think it fits the Studio Ghibli film. Before watching this film, I expected it to be on my top ten. To my surprise and disappointment, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to. Maybe it’s because I’m still getting used with dystopian fiction works, but I don’t think I enjoy them as much as I want to. I liked that it was all about how people ruined our planet and how future generations had to suffer through it. For a film created in 1984, it speaks a lot to present day. This just proves that the talk about environment has always been there even though so many people say it had become popular nowadays. When it came to the film, I enjoyed the premise and the story. I just didn’t care about the characters, the only character I enjoyed watching was Nausicaä herself, the others didn’t really get my attention. I guess I was just too focused on Nausicaä who was such a good protagonist. When she ends up being the savior, I was smiling like an idiot. I definitely predicted it, but I loved every second of that scene. The last scene of the film restored hope in me as it meant to do.

#studio ghibli #my neighbors the yamadas #tales from earthsea #pom poko #ocean waves #from up on poppy hill #the cat returns #nausicaä of the valley wind #hayao miyazaki #isao takahata #films #rankings

[got2ghost-archive]

10 niche interests

i was tagged by @jlf23tumble for niche interests (I THINK? it was like a month ago) i somehow...... got to ten. 

1. this soriku manga that is kind of extremely dark and about riku’s possessiveness over sora that he literally lets sora’s pet chocobo get hunted by a stray cat so that sora will cry in his arms. i read this originally when i was like. 13 and it just stayed with me for my entire life! the power of stories! i love this entire mangaka’s work because she goes from them as childhood friends all the way up to dream drop distance where riku is much happier and realizes how wrong he was which is a RELIEF. i literally... consider her work canon. even tho it is not at all

2. this list is gonna just be about embarrassing things i have done and said in my life...... manip of jack and will from the pirates of the caribbean gif that was on photobucket i remember frantically searching drarry edits on photobucket dot com and somehow this will and jack MOVING MANIP appeared. i was not a huge pirates stan but there were very cool girls in elementary school that i wanted to be friends with that talked about it CONSTANTLY and bc i wanted to be involved in their convos i said “YEAH LIKE THAT TIME THAT JACK AND WILL KISSED” and addi, the cool girl, said “that never happened.” level of shame and exposing how gay i was 16/10.

3. every child has a movie they attach to and this was mine. i haven’t seen it in years but i’m very sure that the main artists did a lot of LSD. 

4. my comphet crush on skandar keynes who literally only acted in the narnia movies and then disappeared. 1) he looks like a lesbian but also 2) i wanted to look like that so it was mostly just gender envy

5. speaking of gender envy how i LITERALLY HAD AN OC THAT WAS JUST A MALE VERSION OF ME? this is combined with my obsession with mafia stuff as a teen? 

6. MAFIA STUFF.... I GUESS. i used to literally “cosplay” as stereotypical mafia shit. like white button downs + suspenders + fedoras and slacks. me and my friends would watch mafia movies and we all became disconcertingly good at doing new jersey accents that i still hold this talent today.

7. ALL OF THE MYTHOLOGY OF ARCHANGELS. i grew up in a very baptist state, first of all, so i was barely exposed to catholicism AND i grew up buddhist, so i have no idea how i became so enamored by archangels. i specifically the fall of lucifer! and the inherent eroticism of michael being the perfect model angel fighting with lucifer who loved god the most out of all the angels??????????????? DADDY ISSUES!

8. this is archangel related still. this song is incredibly beautiful and intense and passionate and the story goes that tartini was visited by the devil who played him this song and he woke up and wrote it as closely as he could, but he said that it couldn’t even capture a 10th of the actual song. ANYWAY. every time i listen to it i think about as lucifer’s lament being cast out of heaven and it’s SO GOOD AND YES! I HAVE SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL!

9. this list is UNEXPECTEDLY CHRISTIAN? how many times have i watched this movie? once. how many times have i listened to the soundtrack even tho it’s LITEARLLY christian rock? countless. i don’t know WHAT IT IS about switchfoot but it still remains as one of my most listened to albums and also mandy moore’s voice is just so sweet.

10. MCFLY. we’re ending on a boring one? it’s not too niche but basically if you aren’t british or were weirdly obsessed with lindsay lohan’s last movie before she dovetailed, just my luck, you’d never know about them! they did write a couple 1d songs as well, but they were my bandom for like. 3 years and i wrote fic and modded for mcflyslash on livejournal! 

i’m just gonna tag my wife @scottspack​ I WOULD LOVE! TO KNOW! 

and then tag some pals who i want 2 see this! @alienfuckeronmain​ @newleafover​ @pattern-pals​ @vibey-lesbian​

#about me

[moontheoretist]

The thoughts about rarufumi I kept inside for months and can now unleash, because manga covered this whole topic already

Ah, it was so long since I talked about Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari and the reason for that was simple. I wasn’t checking each month if the new chapter of the manga is up, because I was writing my master thesis. Now I quickly read the chapters I didn’t saw before, and I am happy I did, because it turns out manga reached the point in the novel which I actually read (the only thing in the novel I actually read tbh), so I can finally brag about L’arc and Naofumi once again!

Ok, starting from the start. I skimmed the chapters of the light novel long time ago, because I was unable to wait for more manga chapters and wanted to know if L’Arc appears in any other arcs, and imagine how surprised I was when I learned that this cute motherfucker was featured in Spirit Tortoise Arc as well? Just inside the turtle, where he was adventuring with Glass and Therese for some unknown reason and where he also meets with Naofumi again.

And what is the first thing that L’Arc does in the manga when they finally meet? HE FREAKING TOUSLES HIS OWN HAIR TO LOOK COOLER IN FRONT OF NAOFUMI! AND EVEN THERESE COMMENTS ON HIS BEHAVIOR, POINTING OUT THAT HE IS PLAYING AROUND, LIKE I KNOW IT MAY BE REACHING BUT I READ THIS WORD AS “PLAYING” AS IN ROMANCE/FLIRTING. THIS IS MAGNIFICENT! 

(I have a growing suspicion that mangaka knows that L’Arc is a raging bisexual).

Naofumi as to Naofumi, the only logical thought which could come to his mind at that moment, when L’Arc decided to conveniently NOT tell him why they are there (which tbh would save them a lot of time and playing hide-and-seek, what a smug bastard from this L’Arc) was that they are responsible for Spirit Tortoise’s rampage, and we really cannot blame him. Anybody would get suspicious. Though, because Naofumi actually trusts them to some extent, even if he isn’t aware of that most of the time, he doesn’t convince himself that they are the greatest evil in the world, which he has to murder and instead listens to Raphtalia’s voice of reason right away, without even having to be convinced.

(That’s called progress, people). 

Soon Naofumi and his party find the culprit and now believe me or not, but what Naofumi says is directly related to L’Arc and his teammates. The moment in which Naofumi laughs and declares that he won’t regret killing him is the very same moment when he gets confirmation that L’Arc, Therese and Glass were innocent. He wasn’t sure if they aren’t the culprits, and he may even be worried that they were, so this moment is a big relief that he won’t have to fight them and kill them. He literally admits here between the lines that if they were the culprits he would feel regret, he would feel guilty if he had to fight and kill them, because he actually cares about L’Arc and Therese, they are his friends, and he doesn’t want to fight with them, he doesn’t want to kill them, so the fact that culprit is someone entirely else and also completely rotten to the core makes him glad.

Of course that is only my interpretation, but I had it already when I read this whole scene in the novel. I cannot tell you if Naofumi mentions their names in his thoughts at that moment, because it was long ago and I don’t remember, but because there were no other culprits in the sight, it’s the most likely explanation. Naofumi isn’t a person who naturally feels compassion for people he doesn’t know unless they are in certain circumstances which make him do so, and those aren’t circumstances in which he would naturally feel bad for fighting someone who literally took over Spirit Tortoise and murdered innocent people, no matter if that person was rotten or actually was nice and had noble cause or something. Hence why this interpretation was what popped in my head instantly, because it makes sense for Naofumi to be on some deeper level worried that he will have to fight L’Arc and Therese again due to the fact they have special bond and it’s actually harder to fight someone for whom you may unconsciously care. Harder not in regard to the battle itself, but in regard to your own feelings as a person, because your moral compass cannot just logically explain why you killed someone who you genuinely liked and didn’t wish to fight at all, but have to due to unusual circumstances of them being the enemy from another world.

And then everything is put upside down when L’Arc, Glass and Therese appear again, because why would they appear now? Any logically thinking person would assume that they came to support the guy from their world and that’s fine, even though Naofumi should know better than to lump together people from the same universe as friends, considering that he would beat the shit out of every person who would do the same thing with him and the rest of the heroes. They then proceed to once again show Naofumi that they do not wish to hurt him with the very same friendly flames as before, which burn only the enemies. 

It doesn’t convince Ost, but for Naofumi it’s enough to consider them comrades as in the next moment, when they are attacked by the familiars and Kyo, Naofumi protects them, without even thinking twice about that. Yeah, yeah, he justifies it, by saying it’s “just for the time being”, but he isn’t actually a type of person which gives flowery descriptions of his positive feelings at any given moment. So you can read it as “I am too tsundere to say that I actually care about you all”. He is the same with other heroes as he also protects them, even though he hates their guts, but there is significant difference in how he protects other heroes and how he protects L’Arc, Therese and Glass. With heroes, he always commands them to move towards him, because he doesn’t wish to come to their aid, he wants them to ask him for his aid when they need it as he is the person they didn’t respect before and need to show him again and again that they do now. In L’Arc’s and Therese’s case though he moves towards them, because he genuinely likes them (sorry Glass, you didn’t spend enough time together to like each other) and doesn’t wish to see them hurt or dead. (Yeah, I am aware that I am stretching it here a little, but only because I do not remember all the occasions when Naofumi actually had to protect other heroes, but I am probably more or less right that he usually doesn’t move to their aid first).

And now I will finish it with a spoiler to the next arc, so be warned. But before I can do that I have to firstly say that manga doesn’t mention it, but Glass is weaker in this arc due to the fact that she had to level from the scratch as per rules of the world she stayed in, just like L’Arc and Therese had too before. They can only use their full power during the wave, which was mentioned in this arc. Therese explains to Naofumi that rules of their worlds coexist at that time, hence why they can use moves they shouldn’t be able to and are also more powerful. And now, I wanna express MY DISAPPOINTMENT that L’Arc didn’t end with Naofumi when they crossed the worlds! The next arc happens in L’Arc’s world and during crossing the universes Naofumi and the rest of the band get separated. Naofumi (and Risha?) ends in a labirynth prison, where he meets new character, while L’Arc, Therese and Glass end with Raphtalia. SO MUCH GAY POTENTIAL WASTED! AH! I WISH I COULD SEE L’ARC AND NAOFUMI INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER IN THE PRISON! THEY WOULD HAVE TO WORK TOGETHER AND NAOFUMI WOULD HAVE TO LEVEL UP FROM SCRATCH WITH L’ARC’S HELP. GODDAMMIT WHAT A GREAT BONDING MOMENT! AND IT ALL GOT WASTED! Not that I am not happy for learning about Kizuna, but Kizuna is gay as fuck for Glass, so this situation is good for Naofumi only, because thanks to him Glass will finally meet her gf again, which will also make Glass grateful to Naofumi for helping Kizuna escape the prison and maybe she will finally stop wanting to murder him on the spot. If it wasn’t enough of the reason, Kizuna is a walking reason why she shouldn’t anyway.

[Word “gay” is used here as an umbrella term, as some people may not like the alternative version even though I have no problem with the other word. When I say that there was “gay opportunity” I indeed mean all sexual orientations, not only homosexuality, as for me Naofumi is asexual and always will be.]

(This is “I am gay for you, Kizuna” face).

(Gaaaaaaay!)

BTW I forgot to mention that, but Kyo’s situation is exact reverse of Naofumi’s. Kyo is actually bad guy, who imprisoned bad heroes in order to destroy enemy world and is pursued by good guys, who just so happen to be Naofumi’s friends. Both Naofumi and Kyo are alone, but because they are different their enemies also are different. In Naofumi’s case those are 3 dumb heroes who accuse him of everything bad, while in Kyo’s case those are three good people, who actually know that he indeed committed crimes and has to be captured and judged. (Notice that good guys rarely wanna kill others, even when they have a chance or say they will kill someone, while bad guys don’t even think twice about that - yeas, I am counting Motoyasu as a bad guy, even though he is just an idiot).

#rarufumi #l'arc x naofumi #naofumi iwatani #tate no yuusha no nariagari #tate no yuusha no nariagari manga spoilers #kizuna kazayama #kizuna x glass #l'arc berg #therese alexandrite #tate no yuusha no nariagari light novel spoilers

[firebunnylover]

I thought I would take the time to discuss my VERY complicated feelings on the big ship of TFP: MegaOp.

Why?

Because it’s so far the only ship for me that is simultaneously an OTP and what I can only describe as NOTP… and even that word doesn’t feel right.

I apologize if this post causes massive discourse. This isn’t me telling other why or why they shouldn’t ship said thing. Just me getting my feelings out.

Note that this is for TFP the show by itself. From what I’ve seen, IDW comic’s Megatron is likeable and does poetry. And I read that there is some continuity with some games to TFP, but honestly it’s all still confusing to me as I’m still pretty new.

This ship is fully an OTP for me if it’s set in the days before the war - back when they were Orion Pax the Archivist and Megatronus the Gladiator. They had very different backgrounds, but still had a common interest for the greater good. They wanted to end the caste system. And they worked together. And that is my goddamn jam.

I love the idea of poetic Gladiator Megatronus cuddling his smol Librarian BF Orion as they make plans to change the system. 

And then… when the Council actually heard them out… that’s when things get out of hand, as Megatron’s worst character traits, him being power hungry, came out of the shadows, stayed and got worse.

As much as I’m down on a first hearing of Megatron’s plan to overthrow the system as a whole, along with the people he was currently talking to, I have to backpedal and re-evaluate the details of said plan when I recall that Revolutions without a clear plan on future governing systems or laws tend to lead to a power vacuum, which can lead to a system equally as bad or even worse than the current system in the long run.

For an example, a quickie on the French Revolution, in what is an attempt to keep it simple while outlining what went down and why it went sideways. It overthrew a very bad system. But there was no clear plan of government following which lead to a power vacuum, which ended up with Robspierre, one of the revolution’s most influential figures, using extreme means to control the political activity, bringing about the Reign of Terror, in which terror was used to maintain the current system, enforced by secret police. And unfortunately, innocent people, usually because small offences, DID get f*cked over by that. And after Rospierre was executed, the next form of government, the Directory, was corrupt. WHOOPS.

And then France had Napoleon put in charge, someone who fought for the revolution himself then ended up as Emperor of France, passed policies that would limit women’s rights, and reinstituted slavery in French colonies, NEITHER OF WHICH ARE GOOD THING. And let’s not forget how he f*cks Egypt over when it comes to Ancient artifacts in the long run.

I would go on to describe the Russian Revolution as another example, but I’m less familiar with that revolution than the French one. Probably because there are no over-the-top drama manga/anime set during that setting.

off topic real quick, if you like anime, history, and enjoy over the top drama and can tolerate shoujo sparkles gone unchecked, check out Rose of Versailles. Especially if you’re interested in a bisexual lead girl, and one of the best portrayals of Marie Antoinette. Who is GAY for the lead girl.

Honestly if it wasn’t the fact that unwitting consequences could equal the deaths or screwing over of thousands of innocent people I WOULD BE DOWN TO WRECK SHOP.

Orion’s proposal was favored by the council, and that didn’t sit well with Megatron’s ego, and the war is kicked off.

And regardless of what your feelings are on Orion getting accepted by the Council while Megatron was rejected (i feel this varies on what you think on the council and if they were truly convinced to make changes for the better), let’s make one thing clear.

YOU SHOULD NEVER RESORT TO DESTROYING A WHOLE PLANET.

To sum up the old days, they were the best young lovers.

Now with the main-timeline Optimus Prime and Megatron.

Well, they still have chemistry, which I love. And they both need therapy.

Optimus Prime knows that the relationship is no longer capable of truly going back to how they were long ago. He knows he has to move on. But… he can’t fully move on yet. He still has that small shred of hope that maybe Megatron will change and make amends, as unrealistic as it is, and he may never be able to fully throw that away. He still has those lingering feelings.

And then Megatron… HO BOY.

He absolutely is SET on being the one to destroy Optimus Prime - if him beating around Starscream for him trying to do so is any indicator. He has taken the “if I can’t have you no one can” route following a break up. He doesn’t want to move on with OP still alive. But he doesn’t want to do it in a flash and just get it over with. He wants fanfare for it. Because Optimus is worthy of his attention.

Oh and now he’s a crack-addict.

SPEAKING OF STARSCREAM! I see him as the rebound Megatron has picked following his break-up with OP. One who he abuses, physically and mentally. He picked Starscream to be the outlet of his aggression. Starscream is very much the polar opposite of what Orion was. Constantly sneaking behind Megatron’s back, self-serving, aims to take Megatron’s place (Orion accidentally stole the spotlight from him), and quick to run. It would make sense that he would pick someone so different from Orion because no one CAN replace Orion, so why try?

And then after years of fighting… Orion comes back.

No memories of the war, of the council, of the Decepticon Autobot split, nothing. The Orion who was with Megatronus and looked up to him.

What does Megatron do when presented with this old persona of OP, the one he loved and was unconditionally loved by?

Take advantage of him to get the Iacon Database decrypted.

At this point, despite his current relationship with Optimus, he loves his IDEA of Orion. This Orion, who existed years ago but has changed because he wanted to be better. This Orion, who Megatron had plenty of time to over-idealize - to remember slightly differently from what he was actually like. He wants Orion to stay like this - naive with no idea of what’s really happening, never questioning him.

There is the withholding of information that immediately causes consent issues. And he wanted to keep it like that - hence threatening to kill anyone who destroys this little fantasy… and when he realized that the fantasy would have to end because Orion might ask the wrong questions, he decides that he would have to kill Orion when that happens. Because Orion would no longer be his fantasized version.

He doesn’t want to change, so why should Orion?

And who should start off the end of this fantasy other than the one Megatron chose as his rebound from OP?

Pretty poetic when you think about it.

I personally don’t like Optimus Prime or Megatron getting back together as they stand in the current time. I love what they were before, but they can’t just go back and act like nothing happened. But with that said, I absolutely LOVE their current dynamics as Ex-Lovers, and it hurts me to know they can’t be together happily as they once were before.

IS THERE A TERM TO DESCRIBE A RELATIONSHIP YOU DON’T WANT TOGETHER AT THE END BUT RATHER ADMIRE THEM AS EXES AND WHAT THEIR HISTORY TOGETHER MEANS FOR THEM AND HOW IT STILL AFFECTS THEM?! I DIDN’T SURVIVE THIS GODDAMN HELLSITE ONLY TO BE LEFT TERMLESS!!

If the show writers were to have actually consider having them together as end game, it would take a LOT of character development on Megatron’s part, because he's the type of person who’s willing to destroy a whole planet. Twice. And changing himself isn’t really something that interests him, as we saw with the Orion Pax arc.

Predacon’s Rising doesn’t count for me.

Metaphorically, their relationship is a well lit oil lamp. It was beautiful to look at when it was new and well managed. But it is in disrepair, started to leak out the oil, and the fire needs to be put out.

#transformers prime #tfp #megatron #optimus prime #orion pax #starscream #megaop #megop

[into-september]

Banana Fish episode 20-21

The short version is that the only things I even like about this show any longer is Max and Yut Lung.

So chalk this up to the proud tradition of watching-stuff-just-to-complain-about-it, because I've invested enough time in this show to be talking about it at length anyway. There's going to be too much to say about its existence as an adaptation, about the timing of the release, about the inexplicable fact that they updated the setting but didn't update the content. If sullen complaints are going to be what it takes for me to get through the last four episodes, then complain I shall, and I'll be sharing it with the internet so that maybe some other lost soul might find comfort in it.

Sailor Moon's ending was spectacular, by the way, by which I mean that I would never have gotten over it if I'd watched the show when it was actually airing and I was actually smack in the middle of the intended audience. But I really loved it a lot okay, and certainly more than this contemporary.

Seriously, guys. Go watch Sailor Moon instead. It's funny and charming and way more entertaining and there are ACTUAL GAY PEOPLE BEING GAY AND SAYING THEY LOVE EACH OTHER AND INDISPUTABLY BEING IN A RELATIONSHIP AND ALSO WOMEN.

Oh, screw it all. I just realised that there have been no named women on this show who were around for more than two episodes (Max's wife and Ash's stepmum. Shorter's sister was at least named in the manga, and possibly Dr. Vegetable's housekeeper who was really working for Yut Lung was, too). I'll be re-watching this with my sister come Christmas break, and I swear I'll COUNT the number of women who aren't background extras because the last woman I recall having lines the nurse who tried to kill Ash some six or seven episodes ago.

EPISODE 20

- ugh WHY did you have to sully Canon's good name by putting it into this anime and putting it into DINO'S PARTY of all places. Maybe the cellist owed him money.

- I'm pretty sure this whole thing about people adressing Dino as "Monsieur" was just something the mangaka came up with halfway through and introduce because she thought it was cool, and then the anime didn't realise that adaptations are where you take the chance to fix the fuckups of the source material

- Cute how this is America and a mob-boss with more enemies than George Soros and yet no-one thought to pat down the staff and oh, Eiji, showing off that gun is not a good idea if you're trying to be undercover. Mostly I'm just disappointed that the show thinks it needs to remind the viewers that this gun existed, as if EIJI of all characters requesting one at the end of last episode is something we just forget

- Eiji runs at Dino with a gun drawn, is shot down before he gets within ten metres of him. Dino is arrested and is locked up for life. Max adopts Ash, who goes on to use his genius to find a way to cure climate change and cancer. Ibe returns to Japan owing Eiji's family some explanation. Yut Lung lets go of the ghosts of his past. Sing lets go of avenging Shorter. I can quit this anime reasonably satisfied, and turn my attention to re-reading the No. 6 novels and probably moan about the weird pacing or something. WELL THAT WAS A HAPPY ENDING BOY AM I GLAD THERE ARE NOT FOUR EPISODES AND TWENTY MINUTES LEFT OF THIS SHOW OR NOTHING HA HA HA ha

- And there goes Yut Lung with his Eiji hateboner. I KNOW it won't happen but let me hope for the miracle where he gets his wish granted and gets to shoot him in the face personally.

- Yeah Sing, IDK, maybe someone's should've told the civillian to stay home or at least wait behind the wheel of the getaway car so that someone who had fired a gun before could've not missed the child rapist trying to take over the country standing a metre and half away from him.

- Also: Most anticlimatic shootout ever. I thinkthey spent more time talking about the super important party last episode than on showing us the super important party in this one.

- WELL FOR SOMETHING THAT IS GENUINELY INTRIGUING: How upset Yut Lung is about Blanca's betrayal and how emotionally invested he is in whatever the hell it is he wants with Ash. I'm pretty sure he's in a position to get rid of whichever brothers of his he hadn't already killed, and whatever reason he has for cooperating with Dino, it sure as hell isn't because he LIKES him. So why exactly he's got such a personal vendetta against Ash is pretty much the only thing I honestly care about at this point.

- I like this entire "oniichan" thing between Ash and Eiji, and probably for all the wrong reasons. Just let me compare it to Digimon Frontier, which similarly established the "Takuya-oniichan" dynamic between Takuya (parted from his younger brother) and Tomoki (parted from his older one). Was it profound, on any level? No. Was the relationship between Takuya and Tomoki notable outside of it? No. But the fact that they on some level treated each other as the brothers from which they were parted gave their relationship this little flavour of some more profound psychological issues at hand, even if it was probably just to foreshadow and highlight the Kouji-Kouichi disaster. And even if it's a stretch to apply the same to Ash and Eiji, it would at least explain something if the two of them saw each other as the absent family members: If Ash saw Eiji as a chance to have a Griffin-who-lived, if Eiji saw Ash as subtstitute for his younger sister, then that would go a long way in explaining why the hell they're so irrationally invested in each other's safekeeping. I mean, it makes absolutel no sense because even goddamn Digimon Frontier had more elaborate sibling relationships than Banana Fish has, but let me pretend a bit, okay? Because even oniichan jokes lend more narrative logic than the absolute silence that has been entertained about the love that dared not speak its name in 1892 but if you're going to tell that omg cencorship, LET ME REMIND YOU THAT THIS AIRED ON JAPANESE TV IN 19 FUCKING 92

- Oosa still lives on in our memories

- Oh good, I can appreciate Ash just waking up in time to instantly tear into someone for not being a feral genius child like him

- Eiji takes off on another ill-adviced suicide mission, and Cain speaks for all of us when he knocks Ash out

- Not that I question Cain's decision to have Ash tied up on the bed here, but ouch being tied up on beds is not the thing this boy needs to experience ever

- Other things to be counting upon the re-watch: Ash's body count, now increased with at least one

- On the one hand: How the hell did he just get into that museum just like that. I mean, surely there must be guards? Alarms? Locks on the doors that require more than blunt gun-induced force to open?

But on the other hand: IS THIS ZOOTROPOLIS OR IS THIS ZOOTROPOLIS and I'm fully on board with this if it's going to end with Ash pretending to be hit with Banana fish and fake-killing Eiji in front of Dino's eyes while secretly recording his premature bragging about his evil plans for using this drug to take over the world

- I can't believe I'm seriously hoping they shoot Eiji. What have this show reduced me to. I used to like him.

- oh good, I was hoping that Ash would just shove Yut Lung head first down the stairs and for once the show did not disappoint

EPISODE 21

I don't think "torture porn" is the right description for this story, and I'm getting the definite impression that The Manga Is Better, but someone being lippy in other fora means that I've got some expectations that I've no doubt will come about, given the story's previous track record. But my orchestra is having the Christmas programme from hell tomorrow and I sure won't be doing this after getting home from that past midnight, so let's just get it over with, shall we.

- Not to get into the fandom's internal debates or anything here, but Eiji ridiculing his sister's doki-doki good luck charm is a pretty good indication of the status of Eiji/Ash and "super canon confirmation" is not it

- I don't know the Japanese word for "hitman" but I sure perked up at recognising it here anyway. Thank you, Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens, a far dumber anime that was ultimately a far greater joy to watch, and which also had a better track record at depicting gay men than Banana Fish has this far, with a good 100% of them being depicted as a) relatively nice guys since they’re the allies of the hero, b) not rapists, c) not pedophiles. 

- My god is Sing actually going to have some plot relevance what is this trickery

- I just realised that we never learn enough about Eiji's babysitters for their names to be worth remembering. Because I actually do think these names were mentioned at some point, but don't ask me what they were.  As far as I can tell, they're Scrawny Guy, Black Guy Who Was Somehow White In The Manga, and Not!Oosa

- In no news, I suppose, Yut Lung is seriously the only thing I'm enjoying about this show all the time Max isn't around, and I'm immensly enjoying his getting his own hands dirty and also his hear being wild and free to symbolise his deteriorating mental control

 - Sing's plot relevance lasted for a full minute and half

- DADDY IS BACK

- And now also a sugar daddy. I approve.

- Oh this darling show, this is... what, the third? Yeah, the second or third time it's mentioned gay men, and all of them have been when showing us child rapists. Such representation, much progress.

- The one guy I'd LIKE to see Ash kill, and Max stops him. Boo.

- Ash kill count: +1

- It's sad how they just mentioned the French Foreign Legion and my interest just perked 20%, isn't it

- Max goes down like Dr. Marco and Ash, couldn't you just... you know... CALL HIM, THIS IS 2018, YOU HAVE SMARTPHONES

- Ash kill count +2

- A woman? In MY Banana Fish???

- Jesus, I completely forgot that Max is a goddamn Iraq veteran

#banana fish spoilers #sailor moon #digimon frontier #hakata tonkotsu ramens #banana fish #let's watch cartoons

[retro-friki]

New Utena manga: recap + analysis

(Our favorite gal-pals are back! Although we don’t see much of them)

First things first: Yes, there’s a new Utena manga and the escalation is available thanks to the people from Ohtori.nu. You can check it out here: (X)

Second important thing: In this post I’ll be writing about the plot in general and trying to analyze what’s going on there, if you don’t like spoilers I recommend reading the manga first and then maybe skipping to the analysis part of this writing.

Without further ado let’s recap this surrealist little story I like to call:

“Touga and Saionji’s Weird Gay Adventure”

It’s been 20 years and now Touga and Saionji are rival art dealers. It seems like Touga never really grew past his playboy phase and Saionji keeps suffering for his unrequited love towards his childhood friend.

(Just watch how salty he is)

One day they receive a mysterious leter urging them to go to their old school in order to gain “The Revolution”. Turns out “The Revolution” is a painting made by their former chairman (Akio) who committed suicide 20 years ago, however, a great amount of art pieces supposedly belonging to Akio had been discovered recently and are already being confiscated for taxation purposes, so Touga and Saionji decide to sneak in Ohtori to get “The Revolution” before anyone else.

Both men make a truce and team up to look for the painting, the problem is that neither of them haven’t seen “The Revolution” before, they only know that it’s a portrait of the chairman’s younger sister (Anthy). While talking about that, the ghost of Akio appears and asks them to protect the painting because someone’s trying to take it away from him. In exchange he’ll give them a will stipulating that Touga and Saionji are the legal heirs of all his possessions (I don’t think a will signed by a ghost has any legal validation, but whatever). Before Akio can disclose the thief’s identity he gets impaled by a sword that comes out of nowhere.

And it’s awesome.

The rose in the sword’s hilt looks familiar to Touga, but before he can remember anything, he and Saionji are whisked away into a  strange dream/memory. They are taken back to that fateful day of their childhood where both of them witnessed a catastrophe that took many lives. That same day, they found a little girl lying on a coffin who had lost her parents in that event (Utena). At first she tells them that life is unreliable, Touga agrees with her. However, she suddenly changes her mind and decides to keep up living and become a prince in order to rescue another girl who is also suffering.

(preciousbabyutena.jpg)

The dream/memory ends and the two men get back to Ohtori and realize that they had the same visions. Saionji looks at Touga’s phone and finds out that his friend is still buying paintings from a man that has been repeatedly proven to be a pedophile. Saionji being a decent human being calls out Touga on that, but Touga really doesn’t care about “morality” because beautiful art is eternal and therefore more important that human lives.

They start fighting with swords and get transported to the Dueling Arena, where they conclude that they have no choice but to keep fighting,ok...

Look, I get the impression that they want to put Touga like some kind of tragic antihero that was deeply affected by the catastrophe but I can’t really buy it. Specially considering that in this timeline Utena and Saionji went through the exact same thing and reached different conclusions.

Anyway, Touga’s being all cynic and gothic until Utena is prompted to literally descend from the skies to stop this nonsense. It’s then revealed that she was the one that called them back to Ohtori. She grants Touga the power to revolutionize the world under the form of her ring and sword. Why would she do that to Touga of all people? She probably thought he was the most noble man on Earth after listening that he’s not even sorry for the things he has done. Sure. (/sarcasm) (there’s actually an explanation, but more on that later).

Touga and Saionji get back to Ohtori and use Utena’s sword to open an entrance to Akio’s secret room where they finally find “The Revolution” (a nude painting of Anthy because the universe is unfair). Akio appears once again and tries to attack Touga but Saionji takes the hit. Touga asks Utena to grant him some of her princely power and manages to kill Akio with the sword.

I will never get tired of watching Akio getting stabbed repeatedly.

Once the danger is gone, the two men notice that the painting has changed and now it shows Utena and Anthy together. The painting vanishes and Touga explains that they may have indirectly helped Utena in her quest to rescue Anthy. As they walk away arm in arm, Touga and Saionji discover that maybe, the real treasure was the friendship they regained along the way (or maybe something more than friendship).

II Ok, So What’s Really Going On Here?

As happens with anything concerning to “Utena” this story also gives more questions than answers and it’s open to many interpretations. So far I’ve come to three different conclusions in order to answer all the questions raised by the story in a more or less satisfactory manner (for me, at least). These are the following:

1. This manga is an AU and it’s not related to the original anime

2. It’s all a quick reinterpretation of the events of the anime from Touga and Akio's P.O.V

3. The story is actually about how Touga got the power to revolutionize the world

Allow me to explain myself:

1. This manga is an AU

Seeing this manga as a story of its own that’s meant to be read without comparing it directly to the anime will help us avoid lots of frustrating questions like: Why is Akio a painter if that only happened in the movie (which can also be seen as an AU)? Why doesn’t Touga show any signs of the maturity that he seemed to be about to gain at the end of the anime? (in other words: Why is he still such a huge jerk?) Why is Utena a ghost, a prince or supernatural being now? Where’s everybody else? And most importantly: Since when Saionji’s been interested in art? Reading the story as an alternate universe where things went differently for the characters makes more sense. Besides there’s evidence that this might be the case.

Although it’s true that Touga and Saionji were Student Council members and everything implies that they also dueled on this continuity theirs and Utena’s backstory is completely different. Let’s remember that when the two boys met Utena for the first time in the anime, her parents had died in an accident, there wasn’t any catastrophe that killed lots of people. Besides, this manga seems to imply that Nanami died too, which might be the reason why this version of Touga is disillusioned with life.

2. The story is a quick reinterpretation of Utena’s story from Touga and Akio's P.O.V

In this manga we see Utena deciding to become a prince to save Anthy and ultimately achieving her goal. One might think that there was no need for Touga and Saionji to be there. In fact I don’t understand why did Utena need their help unless she couldn’t do anything once she became a prince and she needed to pass her powers to a human or maybe she was using them to distract Akio while she performed the theft of the century (could this be a case of “Utena’s Malice”?)

Another interpretation can be that nothing that Touga and Saionji saw that night was actually “real”, maybe Akio’s ghost is constantly reliving the events that led to him losing Anthy. The “Anthy” and “Utena” that Touga and Saionji encounter are merely shadows that remained in Ohtori while the real Utena and Anthy are actually free in the Real World.

After defeating Akio, Touga may have remembered what happened 20 years ago and he interpreted it as Utena becoming a prince and saving Anthy. Since he was closer to the events than Saionji he immediately understood what happened while Saionji could not. This interpretation can be applied wether you see this manga as an AU or as a sequel to the anime. However, this isn’t really a story about Utena, because this manga mainly focuses on Touga’s story.

3. Touga Kiryuu and the Power to Revolutionize the World

Touga is the main protagonist of this manga, there’s no doubt about it, therefore the story centers on his development (or lack of, depending of how you read it). In all iterations of “Utena” the Power to Revolutionize the World refers to a change, but this transformation is on a more intimate level in which the people that are benefited by the Revolution make a substantial change in the ways they have led their life.

Touga faces a disjunctive and has to chose between two options: becoming Akio’s heir or revolutionizing the world. Although the manga never shows Akio abusing his sister one can infer that this may be the case, specially since he treats her as an object and even Utena realized that Anthy was suffering. Akio is no different from the pedophile painter that Touga is financing. Becoming Akio’s heir meant that Touga would continue with his cynical attitude and more sooner than later he would also become a monster and lose his only friend. When Touga receives the Power to Revolutionize the World he gets the possibility to change, but he had to chose change by himself.

At the end, he decides to destroy Akio and he’s able to do this because he met someone that inspired him. Utena is someone that Touga feels identified with since she suffered like him and even came to the same conclusions about life. However, she changed in order to achieve a noble goal and that ultimately showed Touga that he could make a positive change in his life. So yeah, my interpretation is that after this story, Touga will finally become a better person and revolutionize the world.

Finally, I think the manga is mostly ok. This is a great Touga and Saionji story, however it does a disservice to Utena and Anthy’s arc and this is mainly because Anthy isn’t a character in this story. The problem here is that even if Utena was the only one that didn’t see Anthy as an object and manages to rescue her, Anthy doesn’t have any say in all this. It seems like the victims don’t really matter unless they serve as a motivation for other characters. On the other hand Anthy’s lack of involvement can be explained by concluding that this is Touga , Akio and Saionji’s POV and they never saw Anthy as a human being to begin with. The other explanation is that the author really didn’t care about Anthy…

Anyway, this was the 20th anniversary manga, let’s see what the next story has in store for us. If you have any corrections or alternative interpretations of this manga I’ll be happy to read them.

#revolutionary girl utena #shoujo kakumei utena #touga kiryuu #Kyouichi Saionji #utena manga #meta

[infinite-rabbits]

1,3 and 4!!

1. Animated character that was your gay awakening?

Oh gosh, you guys are making me think back hard. Uuuuh.... You know what the weird part is? I think it was Holly (the animated version of her) from Cool World? I distinctly remember being in the pool by myself (the adults would check on me through the screen door every once in a while) and I kept sneaking over to the screen to watch parts of the very adult movie whenever they weren’t paying attention to me. If I saw someone coming, I’d run back over to the pool and swim around for a bit.

Most of the time I’d really like the boy characters, but there were some girls I just thought were really pretty and I liked looking at. I had no idea it was a gay awakening. lol

Otherwise there was... Deff the female version of Ranma, from Ranma 1/2. My uncle let me read that book when I was like.... 10? I think? That was my first Manga, actually. But she had a really cute frame that was... well shown off a LOT because they had a lot of sexualization in that Manga. XD

Mostly Ranma, honestly. Those were the main two, even though I’m sure there were more.

OH! I also really liked Officer Jenny, from Pokemon. Like, a lot a lot.

3. What show/YouTube video(s) do you put on in the background when you when you don’t have anything to watch but you want something on?

Honestly? Lately it’s been all of the Sonic Real-Time Dubs. Especially either ‘06 or Riders. I also have been putting on the Sonic OVA from oh so long ago. But usually I just play music.

4. Your go-to bar order, if you drink?

Usually things with Vodka in them. I also really like rum, and I also like Moonshine. I love mixed drinks, mostly. I only tend to drink out in public like... twice a year really? At Halloween Horror Nights, and at the single Furry Con we tend to go to.

The drinks I tend to like to mix for myself at home are:

- Whipped Cream Vodka and Orange Juice

- Coke, Apple Pie Moonshine, Whipped Cream Vodka

- Rum and Coke (preferably the Malibu rum because it tastes like coconut)

#ask #about me #meme #Anonymous

[alightinthelantern]

Because the decade is ending I’ve been revisiting old interests and past fandoms from when I was a teen, and boy is it a trip down Memory Lane.

Listening to old Vocaloid songs from when I was in high school back in 2010, when I was 15 and new to internet culture, and it was one of the first Japanese culture I ever discovered. Apparently Vocaloids are still a thing? I knew Miku was still popular bc I’d seen stuff in the past year featuring her, but apparently the other Vocaloid characters are too, and there’ve been a whole bunch of new ones introduced in the past decade? I remember when the whole Daughter of Evil saga was being created. I remember all the alt characters people created by taking the main vocaloids and pitch-altering their voice banks. The Vocaloid community was fresh and thriving back then. That was back when Gender-Bending was a staple of fandom culture, and making male “versions” of female characters and vice versa was hugely popular. This was when “Caramelldansen” and “Ievan Polkka” weren’t Classic Memes, this was when they were new, and all the rage.

I remember the Gamecube days, back in the 2000s, and watching my stepbrothers battle my sisters interchangeably on it or the old Nintento 64 they had, in Mario Kart, or Mortal Kombat, or the original Smash Brothers (I, who had terrible hand-eye coordination, wasn’t fit for playing, but was more content to passively enjoy anyway). I remember when the Wii was first introduced (my mother didn’t believe in video games for a long time, and only bought a console for the family about four years later). I remember the GameBoy, I remember the release of the first XBox. I remember the online dress-up doll games. I remember when the Lego Star Wars video game was first released, and being an avid fanatic of those famous bricks as a kid enjoyed watching my siblings play that probably more than than anything else.

I remember how huge the cosplay scene was in the early 2010s, for all kinds of shows. I remember reading Emma: A Victorian Romance by Kaoru Mori with glee as a teen, siting in a bean bag chair in the Teen Area of my local library, because they had a dedicated manga section and had the entire print run. That was back before Borders was bought out by Barnes & Noble and ceased to be, and I’d often sit in the second-floor manga section of my local Borders and read the volumes that caught my eye for a half-hour or more, and the store clerks didn’t care because it was a different world then, a different culture, and I was always a polite, well-behaved kid anyway who always physically respected the books. Apparently the anime adaptation of Mori’s Emma from years ago finally got an English dub in the past year? I’m going to have to track it down and give it a watch.

I remember loving the Romeo x Juliet anime as a teen, that crazy and brilliantly original high-fantasy reimagining of the classic play. I loved that the English dub script was mostly in Elizabethan-era English. I remember Ouran Host Club and Baccano! too, and the first of those being one of the funniest things I’d ever seen in my life at the time. Same with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. I remember liking Fruits Basket back in 1010, and only realizing years later how fucked up it actually was. I remember Baccano! and Nabari No Ou. I also remember some other shows whose names don’t bear repeating. I remember downloading their OSTs off dedicated websites that no longer exist. I still have these soundtracks in my iTunes library. I remember when burning playlists onto CDs was popular; they finally became obsolete and passé sometime in my high school years, after the rise of mp3 players and programs like iTunes crystallized the superiority of the .mp3, and then people would laugh when I mentioned my own burned CD collection.

I remember when Over the Garden Wall first came out, in 2014, and how groundbreaking it was at the time in terms of what an animated show could be, visually and plot-wise. That show still has a small bud dedicated fandom it seems. I remember the character ask-blogs that were so popular from 2014--16 on tumblr, both ones with drawn replies and ones with live cosplay photos or gifs. God, the ask-blog community was so huge at the time. That might have been the height of tumblr’s popularity, the mid-2010s. I remember DeviantART and the thriving fanart community it had before tumblr took over in the early 2010s. I remember all OCs people were making, and the ask-accounts before ask-blogs were a thing. I remember the roleplay groups. I remember all the fucked-up things people were into back then because the Scene Phase had come but not yet entirely gone, and because teens were emo little shits in general. I remember when anime pairings were written as “[name] x [name]” in full before people started mashing names together around 2014, I remember when words like y*oi and y*ri were the norm. Oh how times have changed. (And thank god they’ve changed)

I remember when the Twilight movies were being made and my high school health teacher put the first movie on in class one day and had the class point out different ways in with the romance was toxic and unhealthy. It’s mind-boggling that in 2019, after The Discourse had come, burned, raged, and gone, that people are still stupid enough to like those films. Even back then I was smart enough to see them for the creepy, badly-written dreck that they were. I remember when The Hunger Games was published (I never read it). I remember the first Hunger Games Movie coming out and the controversy surrounding Jennifer Lawrence being cast as the lead. I remember coming into school one day to find two of my teachers casually debating it (I never saw the movies, and didn’t particularly care about that conversation).

I remember watching an independent showing of Studio Ghibli’s From Up on Poppy Hill in 2015 at a local indie theater, and the audience roaring with laughter when one of the boys at the old club house asked “How can we make archaeology cool again?!” and another replying “We can’t!”, and then a woman in the audience said out loud “Archaeology is cool!”

I remember the birth, life and death of Vine, and despite The Discourse raging on tumblr at the time, the humor on that app was still largely Mainstream and often racist.

I remember Teen Wolf, and Glee, Sherlock and Supernatural and Doctor Who. I remember the emergence of “Superwholock” and the sheer insufferableness of the fandom before they eventually, blessedly died out. I remember the disappearance of shows like J*njou R*omantica and the rise of shows like Free! and Yuri on Ice!!!, Modern “woke” animes that still featured vapid, cliché-driven writing, with Modern “woke” audiences that were puerile-minded and cliché-hungry as ever, the same y*oi fangirls as those that had existed in the early 2010s, only now the shows had done away with the nasty R*pe-As-Romance and replaced it with cringey, ham-fisted pretenses of Realistic Psychology or Social Conscience. And I realized that anime fans my age weren’t worth their salt, and by that time I was too old for anime anyway so I finally dropped it. New animes have come and gone, new live action shows have come and gone, and all the same terrible fandom drama that has burned year after year regardless of show still burns. Same shit, different sewer.

I remember how different online culture was for teens a decade ago. I remember how different real life was for teens a decade ago. Everything has changed so much in the past decade. Teens were children when I was teen. Now, ten years later, teens are like miniature adults, thinking and speaking maturely, socially and politically conscious, wise beyond their years. Racism is acknowledged for the evil it is, and bigoted trolls are no longer socially accepted. When I was a teen, been an edgelord was in, and kids like me who were unusually conscientious were labeled Babies and Oversensitive whenever something didn’t sit right and we voiced objections. Anons telling people to kill themselves was routine. People were violent and ruthless online, and the culture was truly reminiscent of The Lord of The Flies, a cutthroat free-for-all among girls and boys of all ages.

But not anymore: as people keep saying these days, being an Asshole is Out, being Kind is In. Shit like H*zbin H*tel, that would’ve been immensely popular ten years ago, is acknowledged for the violent, vile crap it is. And the language around sexuality and gender has changed so drastically, and has opened up so much. There was no trans content a decade ago in fandom, and Gender-bending, when done to explore the social ramifications of a character as the “opposite gender” (because nothing outside the gender binary existed as far as fandom was then concerned), and not just for titillation, was always cisgendered and done by way of Alternate Universes.

I had a miserable experience as a teen, and I wish that I could have experienced this kind of environment in my formative years rather than the one I did. But although I never did, I am so happy for the teens of today, that they are able to experience this kind of social openness, that they can experience this kind of unity and conscientiousness that exists in a way it never did before. That, even with as bleak and awful as the world is, they are fighting to make it better for themselves. Because it really was them that changed it.

Because, as much as Millennials like to pretend otherwise, we didn’t make the internet culture what it is today, We were edgy shitlord brats who loved laughably bad media, whether it was edgy and featured protagonists who murdered for fun, or maudlin and featured Mary Sue protagonists. We had flame wars over who was “uke or seme” for characters that weren’t even gay. We were nasty piss-stains, and even the teens like me who were better than the rest still had our awful moments. I’ve done and said things as a teen that I’m ashamed of, and no amount of nostalgia can change the fact that fandom and the media it consumed was objectively awful a decade ago. And though “Fandom Moms” and other nasty, disgusting, overgrown-children may be a proud bastion and defenders of the Old Ways, reminiscing about their LiveJournal Days and telling themselves their age is somehow indicative of wisdom rather than how creepy and pathetic they really are, their days are numbered, and I can’t wait to see their +30yo asses slowly die out in the face of progress.

#personal #''Old Radio'' is a good song tho. Kaito was def my favorite as a teen.

[booksandchainmail]

nanoha vivid liveblog: episode 2

When we left off, Vivio was training with her new plushie magical integrated thingy, and Nove had run into our favorite angsty LARPer

the most polite of serial street duelists

gods her name just keeps getting more and more elaborate. Also, is it ever explained where the Heidi part comes from? Or did she just pick a vaguely germanic belkan name.

Ok, those are awesome titles

nove gives zero fucks

fuck yeah! assert the right of your friends to not be defined by their pasts lives. *stares pointedly at einhart*

Also, does nove’s hoodie have an attached tie? bc that is awesome

oh my god einhart

the angst

Oh cool this time the op has lyrics attached

…gay

I’m really glad they kept the whole eye symbolism from OG nanoha (“that girl with the sad but beautiful eyes”), since vivid seems to be taking a lot from it tonally/thematically. It feels very full circle in a nice way.  

REALLY GAY

this is honestly just the best summary of nanoha as a whole

she does the foot tap thing! idk why this is a thing in anime, but i’m a fan

hnnng

hey. Nove. Remember that thing you said about her being a kid? Maybe keep that in mind.

the return of the rollerskates

This franchise sure has a thing for leotard and short poofy coats doesn’t it?

Here we have the rare anime phenomenon of a reasonable adult giving sensible advice

But alas, einhart is too emo to hear

Her determination to be in a very different show is adorable

Yeah, I can imagine that trying to drag warriors and the children of important people who have tried to move on and lead normal lives back into fighting would be a hot button for any of the combat cyborgs

The angst, it burns

That said I appreciate the consistent translation as queen, which is more accurate for olivie etc, even though the source material (or at least the random german) used king a lot

dominom pizza

Ok, I know ive been teasing einhart a lot for how wrapped up she is in the past drama, but this is genuinely tragic. She’s a child stuck with all these memories and associated trauma that she has absolutely no way to process or cope with, and so instead she’s just living with all this guilt she inherited, and trying desperately to hold herself above the standards of adult soldiers in a long-ago war. No wonder she sounds so drained and regretful all the time.

Gods. She’s twelve. And just… gods Someone please give this child a hug I mean I know vivio will be there to help soon, but this is painful to watch

But do we get to see her? Do we?

WE DO HELL YEAH

Please please please please give us tia as well I kinda still want to spell her name tea bc that’s the version that I saw when I was younger But consistency and all that I guess

Tia! My favorite of the forwards probably. And she’s looking as good as always. 

Come to think of it, she knows a fair amount about feeling guilty and afraid about not being strong enough, and pushing yourself too hard to the point where you collapse and risk hurting others

They’re just girlfriends! (you can’t really see it in a still image, but they turn to look at each other at the exact same time)

ITS HER! I know i get excited about a lot of characters showing up, but I remember reading the Vivid manga as it came out, and waiting every month for scraps of information on Belka, so getting to see Olivie so soon and so much is really cool for me.

Sorry claus, unfortunately you are too male and your romance to heterosexual for this show.

Ok, a side effect of those inherited memories is she talks like a Shakespeare character

Tia tia tia tia!

snort

please keep mildly roasting einhart

The best girlfriend, complete with food

Ok, looking at those photos: a bunch of vivio and her friends, plus one of caro and erio, and one of tia and subaru.

Probably a good thing einhart doesn’t look closely at them just yet

Sister! It just makes me really happy to see them all being family now. Nanoha is the best show for enemies-to-family fluff

Oh so now you spell it teana

Wait, this is subaru’s apartment, yes? So why is it “they” who took her in? Unless Subaru and teana live together... Please let that be true Come to think of, that bed they had einhart recuperating in is way too big for one person…

Nove in a tank top appreciation post

no particular reason, i just like having the two of them in the same picture

this guys nose looks wrong

HA! so it is spelled tea. you can fuck right off with your inferior spelling from earlier

im glad to see tea hasnt stopped snarking at subaru in the past four years

Im a fan of how nove is vaguely tsundere about being a teacher

Im also just a fan of nove in general

thats, uh, sure one way to describe a terrorist crisis

last tea and subaru appreciation post

uhhh

okay then

fate is permanently flustered by her wife

this nerd

The shows commitment to translating all the belkan titles as queen runs into and promptly ignores a bit of a problem with claus ingvalt

I would like to point out that some wiki sleuthing would indicate that the belkan war ended only a hundred years ago, which seems a bit too recent to be shrouded in myth

i completely forgot to listen to the ending last time, so here it is (with lyrics!)

The world reflected in your eyes/looks a little different from the way it had been until yesterday

that is real gay. and also once again a callback to nanofate way back in season one

this whole silhouette martials arts fight is really really cool. and also, once again, really really gay

this is a very pretty visual to leave off on

#nanoha vivid #nanoha vivid liveblog #magical girl lyrical nanoha vivid #magical girl lyrical nanoha #vivid #mahou shoujo lyrical nanoha #long post

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Rakugo v3

This took way longer to get to than I wanted, but I finally got around to reading this.

It’s not really related to this volume specifically, but I was afraid that Kodansha was going to start releasing the volumes every three months [rather than two] starting with v5 or so, but thankfully that seems like a one-time thing, so I imagine that they’ll release the final volume at the end of next year. Which is a kinda daunting prospect when I put it like that. I dunno if I’ll bother writing about every single volume as they come out. I kinda feel like I should just rewatch and write about the anime instead, especially since I prefer it to the manga. Oh well.

Anyway I’ll just put my thoughts on this volume under the cut

I’m still kinda struggling to figure out how the heck to even go about writing these posts, since I’ve already seen the anime. It feels weird to discuss my feelings about each scene in and of itself, since my feelings toward this story in general are largely rooted in the anime specifically, but it also feels weird to just talk about my feelings on how it compares to the anime. I don’t really want to come across too harshly toward it. It’s still a fundamentally great and compelling story, but I definitely feel that the anime adaptation elevated it to a degree that I wasn’t expecting.

The manga is still very good, though, and I especially love the bonus sections at the back of each volume, where Kumota talks about rakugo theatres and how they work, and things like that. You can really tell that she has a genuine passion for rakugo. One of the things I love most about this overall series is how it manages to sell both the concept of rakugo as an art-form to the audience, and the feelings that the characters in the story have toward rakugo as an art-form. If I’m being honest, I still doubt that I’d ever have any interest in actually sitting down and watching a real-life rakugo performance, but Kumota presents it in a way where even if it doesn’t personally appeal to you as the reader/viewer, you can understand why it matters so much to the characters, and why they enjoy both performing and watching it. I feel like it’s always a sign of good storytelling, when an author is able to make you care about something you might not otherwise care about.

I also still quite like Kumota’s art-style in general, but there’s a lot of moments where it doesn’t really work for me. Maybe I’m just used to the art-style of the anime. I think I talked about this before, but the heavy usage of cartoon-y chibi faces and whatnot still throws me off a bit. But just like how the manga as a whole has a slightly more light-hearted and comedic tone than the anime, it’s more of a subjective taste thing than anything else. There’s probably fans of the manga version out there who dislike the anime for being more serious and dramatic in tone.

In terms of how this volume compares to the anime, I felt strangely thrown off while reading this. I kept having this sense of ‘wait, we’re doing this part already?’. I haven’t watched the first season in at least six months, so my memory of the exact flow of events is fuzzy, but I was a bit confused by how quickly the manga seemed to go from the Benten Kozo performance to the whole thing of Yakumo going with his master on the tour, and dumping Miyokichi. I remember there being a scene in the anime where we saw Yakumo’s master talk to him about his choice to take him on the tour rather than Sukeroku, but I guess that scene didn’t happen in the manga, since I don’t remember it happening in this volume. I’m confused about why the manga wouldn’t show that sort of scene, though, since it makes that whole plot-point kinda come out of the blue, at least more so than in the anime.

I’ve seen people talk before about how Miyokichi is portrayed more negatively and shallowly in the manga than in the anime, and I’m definitely starting to see bits of that. There’s actually not as much of a difference as I was expecting, but there are definitely little moments from the anime, like her uncomfortable reaction to the Shinagawa Shinju story, which weren’t in this volume. But I feel like beyond the whole topic of parts that outright only happened in the anime, it’s also true that Miyokichi’s overall performance and portrayal in the anime gave a slightly different tone to even the scenes which were taken straight from the manga. Not to a major degree, at least not yet, but subtly.

I still think that Miyokichi is one of my favourite characters in the story, so I’m glad that she’s not completely different in this, but it’s definitely sad to see the small ways in which she doesn’t come across as being quite as deep or multi-faceted as in the anime. I’d say that the aforementioned differences in tone plays into this as well, in some part. In the anime, the cut of her living in Manchuria was presented pretty seriously, from what I remember, but in the manga, it’s a small panel with her drawn in a fairly simple, cartoony style. It’s little changes in framing and tone that add up.

It’s also fairly undeniable that, though it’s true for the story as a whole, in the manga especially she’s presented as a fairly straight-forward ‘femme fatale’ of sorts who instigates drama and separation between Yakumo and Sukeroku. So right from the start she wasn’t really handled with a huge amount of depth and nuance. You can kinda tell pretty easily that Kumota is mostly used to writing BL manga.

Which gets me into the whole mine-field topic of sexuality in this series. I don’t know if I really talked about it in my last post, but it sure is a thing people have discussed. It’s been a bit of an ongoing argument since the first season aired nearly two years ago so I feel a bit disinterested in the idea of diving right back into that again [especially since the entire debate of ‘is blahblah fictional character queer?’ happens so goddamn often and it’s incredibly tiring to constantly feel a need to argue about and defend my own interpretations of media], but to be honest I still can’t tell if Yakumo is actually gay [or ace], or if Kumota just isn’t very good at writing heterosexual romances, or if I’m just biased against them in general. At the very least, I’ve never at all been convinced by the idea of Yakumo’s romantic feelings for Miyokichi.

Anyway the bottom line is that it feels intentionally ambiguous and, especially with revelations and themes from later in the story, all interpretations are more or less equal, and this has been such an ongoing and mind-numbingly boring argument that I will genuinely block anyone who wants to come at me with their Hot And Spicy Takes [tm] on how he’s obviously straight and I’m, like, a gross fujo or something for liking to think that he’s gay. I know I’m letting myself rant here for a bit, but I’ve seen all the arguments play out before. No matter how original you think your opinion is, it really, really is not original, in any shape or form.

With that whole rant over, I should finish this by saying that this was still an enjoyable volume to read. This is where the drama really kicks off, and I still love watching it unfold every time I revisit it. It’s not a very complex story, in terms of the Yakumo-Miyokichi-Sukeroku love triangle and how it plays out, but it hits all the right notes of being realistically tragic, especially in how it connects with the inherent tragedies of things like misogyny in Japan, and the decline of rakugo as an art-form, with all of the infighting and moral clashes about how to approach it that we see in this volume. I’m very curious to see how the manga depicts the overall climax of the flashback arc. Some of my favourite parts of the entire story happen soon, so I’m interested in seeing if I like them just as much in manga form.

Also I just remembered that the anime never got, and might never get, a physical release in English. That really sucks. I can only hope that maybe Funimation will release it as part of their partnership with Crunchyroll, or that maybe Anime Limited will release a UK version. It’s one of the relatively few anime that I’d gladly spend money on a physical version of.

#murasaki rambles #showa genroku rakugo shinju #these posts in particular always seem more negative than I want :c #the anime is genuinely one of my favourite things of all time so I don't want to come off like I dislike the story #I just don't really like some of the subtle differences in tone and portrayal and pacing between the two