#i really listen to very little actual japanese pop

[orcelito]

The Spotify diagnosis for my music taste lol

I can't even argue against it

#speculation nation #what even is 'industrial' lmao. #i swear im not that into kpop (says the person with kpop as the top genre Somehow) #theyre probably including the vocaloid music in jpop. and one ok rock. just bc theyre in japanese lol #i really listen to very little actual japanese pop #anyways the diagnosis: Theres something wrong with you but youre coping with it. Maybe. #'angst dark angry sad' being the present emotions #and a Little bit of chill. when im in the mood for it. #honestly that's probably more in the psytrance. i rly like psytrance. #anyways i think my music taste is godly but thats just bc it's mine lol #i rly should get to bed soon lol. i finished going thru the music at least

[inthelittlewood]

i know you like japan a lot, do you listen to japanese music? do you listen to vocaloid? do you have a favorite hatsune miku song? :D

I definitely want to listen to more Japanese music, so I'm always open to suggestions.

I'm actually on a bit of a City Pop binge at the moment, it's from the 80s but man it slaps!

Vocaloid isn't really my thing. There's moments in a few songs where it's great but it doesn't became very samey and sounds awkward / strained more often than not

I'm actually doing a little segement on the radio show this Sunday about some Japanese music :D

[nolita-fairytale]

burn your life down: the director's cut, or rather, fun facts about this story now that it's over

luca's last name in my fic is davies, and formally davies-bernardi. bernardi in italian means 'strong as a bear' which, was truly a perfect coincidence that i originally thought it sounded good hyphenated with davies. it felt like the perfect little nugget to drop in here.

this one kind of took on a life of its own. I thought maybe a headcanon or a few chapters, then 46.5k words later... before writing a fic, i always like to map out where i'm going, because it helps me zero in on what story i want to tell. as someone (and who hasn't, truly) who has plenty of abandoned fics, i like to get clear on what story it is i want to tell before beginning to write so that i know it's a fic worth writing for me. no, i don't think finishing a fic should be a marker of success, but where i'm at right now, it feels like the best way for me to see if i have a story to tell or not.

speaking of stories to tell, the reason i wanted to have our main character divorced was because i wanted to try something different. i wondered how i could differentiate this mc (while keeping the reader neutral so you could picture yourselves in it if you wanted to) from others that i have written / will write in the future. the divorce and growing apart is actually kind of inspired by my previous upstairs neighbor who i met a year after his divorce. i wanted to imagine what the inner world of someone who had experienced a divorce that wasn't messy, but its relationship had just run its course and i the end, left two people who weren't sure who they were and how to talk to each other anymore would be like.

music and playlisting really helps me envision and feel into the world that I’m building. I ask myself questions like: what does their love sound like? what does this relationship shound like? how do i want the world i'm building feel, and how do i convey that in sound? and then of course, what songs could underscore certain moments of this chapter? listening to the playlist i create as i go really helps me get into character aka enter the world of the story when i'm sitting down the write.

so many of my fics and interactions are based on my own real life experiences, which is why they often feel so human and so real. i weave in little details like conversations i've had, a person i reminded of. i often write dialogue after i've imagined the scene in my head down to the cadence of how characters speak to one another to make sure it feels grounded.

speaking of, we've got to talk about the food in this fic, something that you all complimented me on at the very beginning! it was important for me to have the food feel deeply personal to reader, and be an expression of her identity through the years. yes, i wrote it with an mc with asian heritage in mind. however, i wanted to make space, again, for you to picture yourself in this fic, which is why mc's ex and family were written with japanese heritage.

a lot of the dishes were inspired by dishes i've had that were similar to what i think her culinary pov would be, and a lot of it is the way that i cook as well. i am not a chef by any means, but i am AM a home cook who occasionally does pop ups who very recently discovered my own culinary pov. food for me is something that not only helps me express myself, but has helped me connect to parts of my own identity. in so many ways, as someone who describes themselves as a cultural melting pot, food helps me feel closer to myself; it helps me find and define, and express who i am.

the culture of food and the role it plays in allowing us to connect was really important for me to weave into this story as well.

for the mikkelson twins, i pictured timothee and pauline chalamet as jesper and mathilde.

for the kimuras: rina sawayama would play astrid, darren barnet would play joe, and gia kim would play lina.

let's talk about luca's character development: so many things were so will poulter-coded/borrowed for will poulter, which felt right to do considering he wove his own life into the luca's tattoos. examples? the nike book, the kendrick lamar on the playlist, how much internal work the man has done on himself.

in the end, I initially had mc have a way bigger freak out than she did -- that it would be her final: holy shit am i ready to be loved moment, but as i wrote it, it ended up being luca who brought up the main conflict. it just ended up going in a different direction and didn't feel right to go with my original plan, because she felt so in their relationship already that i pivoted.

i watched a lot of travel and lifestyle copenhagen vlogs because i'm obsessed with youtube.

after season 2 of the bear, i wanted to explore what positive relationships with mothers could look like in these characters. that's why mothers (and single mothers) are the superheroes of this fic.

i knew i wanted this fic to be about these things: second love, loss, trusting the beginning that comes after the end, inspiration, following your heart, and mothers. these are the guiding principles that i used when writing, knowing that these were the pillars i wanted this story to be about.

looking forward: i am working on two oneshots that will live in this world, one about marcus visiting again -- an eat, pray, love for him of sorts -- that's about mothers and loss and life. the other one is a fun, sexy little smutshot that will hardlaunch their (she and luca's) restaurant so keep an eye out for those. truthfully, i've only just started workshopping the marcus one and am prioritizing finishing my carmy fic first.

opening myself up for q&a! feel free to ask any questions about this fic or my writing process in the comments.

#chef luca #will poulter #luca the bear #the bear season 2 #the bear headcanon #luca x reader #the bear hulu #the bear fx #the bear fanfiction #chef luca x reader #pastry chef luca #burn your life down

[the-conversation-pod]

Dispatch! (The Ossan's Love Episode)

And we're back!

NiNi and Ben bring our friend @twig-tea to the show to talk about the entire Ossan's Love series. We'll talk about the way this franchise evolves over time, the difficulties of comedy, what it means to love older queer men, and how this show tackles the complexities of family and masculinity.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Introduction and Some Context 00:06:25 - Ossan’s Love History and Summary 00:13:42 - The Characters 00:28:23 - Love or Dead and In The Sky 00:39:00 - Ossan’s Love Returns 00:45:33 - Final Thoughts and Ratings

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 - Introduction and Some Context

Ben

And we're back! 

This week, we are covering all of Ossan's Love, from 2016 through 2024. We have brought on a special guest for this special episode as we're going to talk about the longest-running BL project. We have brought on our friend @twig-tea.

Twig

Hello.

NiNi

Hi, Twig. Welcome to the show.

Twig

Thank you so much for having me.

NiNi

New friend of the pod. Super excited to have you here. Twig is what we delightfully referred to as a ‘fandom old.’ I'm very excited to be having this conversation with two fandom olds in here, Twig and Ben, because, dear listeners, I have not had the time to watch Ossan's Love, so this is gonna be interesting. Ben and Twig are gonna school me.

Twig

We'll do our best.

Ben

This is going to be an interesting episode because we're going to be talking about a project that was somewhat overlooked by fandom, myself included, until the last couple of months. And I'm a little bit salty about it, and so I wanted to bring on somebody who has watched all of this in real time, and I thought that their perspective would be helpful. 

Twig, you are new to our listeners. Why don't you tell them a little bit about yourself in fandom and your history with queer cinema and BL?

Twig

I actually started on the GL side, which is a little bit different than I think a lot of folks in the BL fandom. I started with getting into Sailor Moon and got involved with a group of women who started Yuricon. The first Yuricon was held in Newark, NJ, in 2003 and I was the secretary. 

From there, there just wasn't enough GL content, and so I got into BL, too. I was really into Japanese manga, was part of a few scanlation groups, got oversaturated, stepped away, came back in 2016 to be shocked at the fact that a whole lot of the stuff that I used to watch was now made into live action. 

The YouTube algorithm in late 2016—early 2017—fed me Lovesick and I sort of went, “Hello. What's this?” Then watched Make it Right and was hooked on Thai BL. Tried to backfill as much as I could, so I watched Gray Rainbow, and Diary of Tootsies, and all this stuff that nobody talks about, really, anymore. 

One of the things about fandom at that time was that the way you found stuff was digging and a prayer, and random people making random lists, and it was very hard to tell how good those lists were. And so I managed that by watching everything and making my own opinions. And that is why I watched Ossan’s Love when it aired, or as soon as I could get my hands on it.

NiNi

So we're talking like real, real old school. We're talking about “Oh God, maybe some fansubber might help us out here.”

Twig

Fuckin’, like, Internet relay chat.

NiNi

IRC was my job back in the day.

Twig

Yes!

NiNi

I was talking about other things—not BL, but I was there.

Ben

Twig has sketchy as shit DVDs that were handed to her by a fan that have not great rip but really solid subs.

Twig

Bought in a mall parking lot with Mandarin subtitles that we used to watch with my friends who spoke Mandarin so they could translate for us in real time. It was hard. We used to walk uphill both ways back in the day.

Ben

A lot of folks who have been in this for a long time—we joked that we watched everything because we had to. You have done a better job of keeping track of what you've watched.

Twig

I wish I'd done better. I only really started tracking things in 2020. I did try to backfill the years before that, but I only really captured all of the major series. There was so many shorts, and things like that, I just couldn't do. But my spreadsheet has about 600 things on it, 606 as of today.

Ben

Incredible.

NiNi

I have been watching media overall—like seriously watching media—for…30 years…and I have not watched 606 of anything.

Ben

Nah, I believe her. It adds up. I engage with close to 100 BLs every year for the last 2-3 years.

NiNi

Clearly I'm not in these streets with y'all.

[Twig laughs]

Ben

I'm so glad Twig has showed up because it has given me permission to not watch so much.

NiNi

I bow down to you guys, because there was a point in time where, trying to keep up with week-to-week, I was watching something like eight shows at a time and I literally felt like my head was on fire. So, I don't know how you guys do it.

Ben

Practice. [laughs]

NiNi

We talked about this on the show, how last year I watched 50 things, maybe, for the whole year, and I felt like I was losing my mind. I usually watch like 15.

Ben

50 is good. Like, that's a really healthy number.

Twig

That is. That's pretty solid.

NiNi

As in five-zero? 

Ben

Yeah, no, that's great!

NiNi

A year?! 

Ben

Yeah! And we made a whole fucking show out of it! It’s good!

NiNi

Deep breaths. Okay, let's continue. Let's go on. [laughs]

00:06:25 - Ossan’s Love History and Summary

NiNi

Let's get into Ossan's Love. Ben, do the honors, tell us what is Ossan's Love about?

Ben

Actually, I want to do this one a little bit differently. 

NiNi, you have not engaged with Ossan's Love. The most you have is the fandom vibe on it from the periphery. What is your impression of Ossan's Love prior to all of us posting a lot about the new show?

NiNi

When you say periphery, I think you're being incredibly generous. There was one where they’re flight attendants maybe, or something to do with an airline. I am aware of that. And then there was something with a boss. There was a thing about a shower. There's some dirty jokes that go over my head because they're referential to this show. But in terms of my awareness of Ossan’s Love, it's honestly not much. 

Did I get any of those things correct by the way?

Twig

You totally did.

Ben

You did. I almost shouted “Dispatch” when you mentioned the airport. [Twig and Ben laugh] 

All right. So, I will give what I knew of Ossan's Love prior to earnestly engaging with it: Ossan's Love is a workplace-set drama in which a guy who works in an office is being pursued by a colleague of the same age as him and his boss—who is like 20-plus-odd years older than him. At the time when I didn't watch it, the fandom vibe on it was that it was fairly offensive, particularly around the old guy character. And, when it was hard to find this show, I was like, “Whatever, I'm not going to work that hard for a show that people seem really put off by.” I have had to make sure that I check if I am riding an old fandom opinion from prior to 2019 when it comes to older work, because those opinions are usually not informed by the lens that I use. And so I decided to engage with Ossan's Love properly. 

Before we start describing what the show is specifically, Twig, what do you remember about your experience watching the show in real time and the popular opinions about it?

Twig

So, the first thing is real time had really different meanings back then because we didn't have international distribution. It was sort of when things were fan subbed and when you could find them and knew they existed. So, I actually didn't get to watch the short until years after the original. So my first outing with Ossan’s Love was season one. 

At the time, it felt like if you liked it, you should be quiet about it, because the opinion was so negative that you would be shouted down if you said anything positive about it. So I just sort of stayed in my corner of enjoyment and tried not to think too hard about it.

Ben

That is unfortunately how I remember it being. It was not popular to say positive things about Ossan’s Love at the time. Even the fans of Ossan's Love seemed super ambivalent about the second season, which was an alternative universe.

Twig

Yeah. When Season 2 aired it was an even wider swing. The people who really loved Season 1 seemed to hate Season 2. I actually like Season 2 better than Season 1, so I was even more like, [laughs] “Okay, I guess I don't know what I'm talking about, guys, so I'm just gonna stay over here and let you all have your opinions over there.”

Ben

So our quick timeline: we have Ossan’s Love the TV special in 2016. We have Ossan’s Love the TV show airing during spring of 2018. They released the movie Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead —that went into theaters on August 23rd of 2019—and then a few months later, in November, they released Ossan’s Love: In The Sky. It's my understanding that Ossan’s Love Returns was originally supposed to air in, like, 2020-2021. They've returned to that project this year in 2024.

NiNi

I know they're going to be doing a Thai version of this coming up and they also have the Hong Kong version?

Twig

That's right. Yep. There was a Hong Kong version in I think 2021 or 2022.

NiNi

I love when they take a property and they remake it across cultures over and over again. I'm always intrigued to see how they turn out.

Ben

Have you watched the Hong Kong version, Twig?

Twig

I peeked at it. It's really true to season one in a lot of ways. I haven't actually watched it all the way through because I was like, “If I want to rewatch season one, I'll just rewatch season one.”

Ben

I feel like I have to watch it at some point. 

All right, so let's get into Ossan’s Love properly now: Ossan’s Love is about a 33 year old man named Haruta who is a slob. He is a hot mess of a man. He cannot take care of himself. He lives with his mom, and she does all the housework. She decides to bail on him and go run off with the hot new man she's with. And so he asks his colleague, whose name is Maki, to move in with him to help him out because Maki is very good at house chores. 

He learns accidentally that his boss, whose name is Kurasawa Musashi, has had a crush on him for a long time and also simultaneously learns that Maki has been crushing on him for a long time. Hijinks ensue as the two of them begin aggressively pursuing him, and he is not prepared for this sudden surge in gay activities.

Twig

One thing I add to your description, Ben, is it's a comedy.

Ben

So this is where things get a little bit complicated. Comedy is hard to do correctly, because a big part of comedy is playing with people's preconceptions of how an interaction should go. A lot of folks struggle with Japanese comedy because they're just not aware of the expectations for how an interaction should go, and so the humor is not landing on them, and this can happen even in your own culture. Like, if you showed a teenager today Airplane, many of the jokes in that movie would make no sense to them because they're missing some of the cultural context. Some of that exists with peoples engagement with Ossan's Love, I think.

Twig

I think that's right.

00:13:42 - The Characters 

Ben

The big part about Ossan's Love that impresses me is how the show gets better each time they come back. There are things that are kind of yikes in the short that are tweaked out in the first show. There are things that they retooled Haruta and Kurosawa over in the airport season. And then, in the most recent season, Ossan's Love Returns, they've shifted where the focus of their storytelling is after everything that's going on. So we are seeing the same characters, but they're dealing with much different dynamics. 

So, Ossan's Love Returns was a completely acceptable point for a lot of people to jump on, and I almost just jumped on. But, I like to know how we got here. So I was like, “I must watch all of this first!” [laughs]

NiNi

I was about to say on what point were you ever gonna just jump on without going back into the before times? You, sir, are a historian and a completionist.

Ben

Of course. And so I went back and watched. 

Twig, since you didn't have a lot of people to talk about Ossan's Love with at the time, how about you talk about your impressions of Haruta, Maki, and Kurosawa when you first engaged with it?

Twig

The thing that stuck with me is that, even in 2018, it felt a little more queer than a lot of the other stuff I was watching alongside it at the time. Haruta and Maki, and all of the characters, play into that in different ways. Haruta is an extremely frustrating character. I just wanted to reach through the screen and strangle him through most of season one, and I think that's partially intentional. 

Haruta is set up as the literal straight man. He's there to be what your average straight guy reaction might be when confronted with gayness, and everyone around him literally slaps him and tells him he's being an idiot. Delightful, but it doesn't make the character himself very likable at first. The fact that he grows on you anyway, even while he's being so frustrating, speaks to the other strengths in his character: his kindness, and the way he values his coworkers. And I think the later seasons did a really good job of picking up the things that made Haruta such a great character, and enforcing that in the character writing itself to make him more likable overall. 

I loved Kurosawa from jump. I think he's [laughs] incredible. He lives life on 11, and I think watching an older man step through some of the more standard romance tropes very clumsily but earnestly is incredibly charming. 

Maki is the competent character. He's also a self-actualized gay man. He at no point questions his sexuality at all, has no crisis about it. He knows who he is and what he's attracted to. And that was also really refreshing for BL at the time.

NiNi

Describing the kind of character that Kurosawa is made me think of Ben describing characters like Shin from Minato's Laundromat. When you tend to see these younger characters who are full on gung-ho chasing after the ones that they like, people like that. But they don't like the boss because they don't think their character should be doing that.

Twig

When I was first telling Ben about my opinions about the show, I said one of the things I struggle with is whether Kurosawa is telling the joke or is the joke. I think the more I have watched and rewatched, especially in later seasons, they do a really good job of him being a funny character and we're not laughing at him. He's not the butt of the joke, he's just funny. The people who would be turned off by an old guy hitting on a younger guy no matter what were turned off by that character and the ones who were sympathetic to older men also having romance in their lives were turned off by the idea that it was a comedy.

Ben

The comedy in the way Kurosawa pursues Haruta is about the age gap, not the fact that he's an old man. It's that he's at a different stage of his life. He's not fumbling to figure out stuff, he knows what he wants and his time is limited, so he's pursuing it determinately and also because he's older, he's behaving in line with his generation.

Like, if you don't have friends who are more than 10 years older than you, sometimes you're going to get weirded out by their cultural stuff. Like right now, I'm reaching the age gap with some of the kids I tutor, and I had to deal with all the various iterations on rizz and I don’t like it. 

[Twig and NiNi laugh]

I had an 8 year old call himself The Rizzler the other day and I almost pushed him down.

Twig 

Oh no.

NiNi

Oh my God.

Ben

I understand the concern around Kurosawa. But that is not what I think the show is doing, and even if it accidentally does it, that is not the show’s intent. Haruta is dealing with the sudden shift in his relationships with men who are important to him. Maki was just like his friend and colleague, who he was low-key mooching off of to do housework for him, and he has to deal with the fact that the only reason Maki is willing to put up with him is because Maki likes him. With Kurosawa, a big part of their relationship is the fact that he respects and admires him so much. The relationship between them is very paternal in a lot of ways?

Twig

A mentorship.

Ben

Yeah, he sees Kurosawa as a respected mentor and Kurosawa respects Haruta as well as a valued member of his team. A big part of the show is them sorting out the way that affection complicates some of these relationships, and we as the audience have to struggle with why these men like this man. Haruta is fucking useless in the household. He may be good at his job, but he is horrible at house related stuff. And so the question is why would anyone want him? 

And this is not rhetorical for the show. They really want you to grapple with this. The fact that Haruta is kind of repulsive as a romantic interest is something the show wants you to think about. You have to work to understand why so many people are into Haruta, and I think this gets better overtime.

Twig

They do a really good job with all of the women characters in this show, which was super rare for the time and still worth saying. His best friend Chizu also is terrible at housework, but she's a woman, and so she's struggling with the expectation that she get married and she keeps talking about how she needs to find somebody who does for her what Haruta’s men are willing to do for him. I just love putting those two characters side by side. And the silent question that's asked of the audience. That's like, why is this okay for Haruta, but not for Chizu.

Ben

It's not really subtle. As the show goes on, Maki won't really commit to Haruta because Haruta is ostensibly straight. Maki is hesitant about full committing because it's hard to be gay, like you got a lot to face as a gay person and he doesn't know that Haruta is going to stand up to all that. He's kind of a waffly type of dude. He's kind of a people pleaser who won't really stand up to anyone. This is kind of good for him as a salesperson. It's obvious why all their clients like Haruta. But it makes him kind of unreliable as a partner because you're not certain he's going to hold ground with you when the world is telling you that you shouldn't be together. 

The first season ends on a really cool note, ‘cause Maki and Haruta break up and Haruta just falls apart. And Kurosawa moves in with him for a while to help take care of him. For Kurosawa, it's a romantic thing, but it very much feels like someone’s parent going to take care of their kid. Haruta recognized where he failed with Maki, and he starts trying to help out with house stuff a little bit. But it's not like he suddenly becomes like a great housekeeper. I really liked that choice, that he starts putting in an effort but he's still horrible at it. 

Kurosawa ends up proposing to Haruta. Haruta has a hard time saying no to people, so he accepts. Also, he used a flash mob. It's hard to say no when someone flash mobs you.

NiNi

Pause. Pause for cause.

Twig

Michael Jackson-themed flash mob.

NiNi

Okay, not pausing. Unpausing. Go ahead.

Ben

Kurosawa is always at 11. He is an incredible character and like he and Haruta are going to get married and at the altar, Kurosawa is like. You need to go to him. You don't actually want to be here. And so Haruta runs to Maki and proposes to him at the end of the first season. 

And then there's just an incredible supporting cast in the show. I don't think we have time to talk about all of them properly, but. Haruta’s friend Chizu’s older brother Teppei runs a little bar diner that they often hang out at. He's so funny, always giving them weird gross food combinations to try out. They’re’s Maro, who's a member of their team who did not know Haruta’s given name for the years they worked together, there's Maika, who's kind of a nosy busybody at their work. She's a great source of comedy, ends up with Teppei. There's Takegawa, who's the second at their office in the first season, who is revealed to be Maki’s ex later. And he is intense as hell and becomes a complicating factor in the budding relationship between Haruta and Maki because he challenges Haruta. He's like, why is he putting this much effort into you? You suck! I really love the Takegawa character because he is a hot mess.

Twig

He just is so pained at Maki falling for a straight man. Something that is deeply relatable for anybody in queer spaces. [NiNi laughs] Like we have all been that person. Like, what are you doing to yourself?

Ben

I want to nod to Choko real quick. In the first season, Kurosawa has a wife of 30 years. Her name is Choko. Once his feelings for Haruta become known to Haruta, he decides he's going to pursue them and he tells this to his wife and they get divorced. She is understandably upset about this whole situation. But what's so great about it is, the show allows her to have a journey of figuring out what her life is going to be now that this information is out there. Like, she was hurt and upset at first, but then decides to support Kurosawa because this is her partner of 30 years and she understands him, so she ends up eventually supporting what he's trying to do with Haruta. And she ends up developing her own relationship with Maro. 

It's really cool in this show where there's this whole complicated thing about whether or not these three gay men are going to sort themselves out into various relationship configurations, they're also doing a pretty steep successful age gap romance between like a 30-something year old man and a woman approaching 60.

Twig

I love Choko's arc so much. It's the one thing that stayed with me the most. She is also allowed to be funny. She's silly and immature in the same ways that the male characters are. She's not perfect either. And I think that is super important that she's a complicated character. 

I think it's really important that this show talks about the ways in which homophobia and being in the closet hurts everyone, not just gay people. I think this show does a good job of at least alluding to the fact that the hurt that's caused by people having to live lies makes waves in communities.

NiNi

I like when they put that on older characters, as well. There's so much to unpack when you're talking about a life lived in the closet, emerging from a life lived in the closet later on in life. What you're gonna do with that life and how you're gonna treat it. From what you guys are saying about Kurosawa, it’s like he just decided to take life by the balls once he came out of the closet, and that's always something that I enjoy seeing.

Ben 

I guess, well, on some of the negatives. The humor is choppy in the first season. You do have to recalibrate as you're watching. It is very funny, but in ways that are unexpected. You will end up feeling a sense of revulsion in the show, particularly to season one Haruta. When I started going back to it, I had a difficult time with the first episode because I'm asking myself why would anyone want to fuck this man? [NiNi and Twig laugh] That is a real and valid reaction that you have to work with as you're watching the show. And so parts of it are a little bit difficult to watch in that regard. 

And Kurosawa is a huge character. You have to take time to get to know him and understand him and understand where his behaviors are coming from. And if you're not willing to do that work, the show is super off putting. 

Twig 

It is loud. You do have to allow your comedy ear to calibrate to its shouting. 

Ben 

However, I will say that if you want to see romance in BL about older characters, Ossan’s Love is right there. The entire drama is about 30-somethings and much older dealing with life and love. There is no wistful stuff about “things were easier when we were kids” in this show at all. It is very much grounded in the perspective and dramas that people in their 30s and 40s and 50s are dealing with in life and romance. 

Twig 

I feel like the one other thing that I always feel the need to call out about the first season is Haruta, because of what his character is struggling with, is physically uncomfortable with displays of affection, and particularly with kissing, in the first season. And that can be off putting too, but he makes it clear verbally that he's not actually against physical affection, he's just familiar with it? It is one of the things that the show does better later on.

00:28:23 - Love or Dead and In The Sky

Ben 

Let's talk about the movie! Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead. 

Twig 

[laughs] Every time I think about that title, it makes me laugh, ‘cause it's just so extra. 

NiNi 

I'm sorry, Love or Dead? 

Ben

Mhmm.

Twig 

Oh yeah. 

Ben 

The premise of this movie is at the end of season one, Haruta got an opportunity to go work in Shanghai for about six months, and the guys are going to be facing a separation for a bit. There's drama when Maki goes to pick up Haruta ‘cause he's found in a compromising position, and a big part of this is Maki still dealing with his anxiety around whether or not Haruta can be a partner to him. Maki gets selected to be part of this high-powered real estate team, and there's a bunch of drama that unfolds involving a partnership with a drug peddling organization and then we end on like an action note where they have to rescue Haruta from a burning building. 

Twig 

There are explosions. 

Ben 

Lots of explosions. 

NiNi 

This sounds… delightful. This sounds like exactly my kind of crack. 

Ben 

You should watch it sincerely. 

Twig 

It is delightful. 

Ben 

If you're not certain about Ossan’s Love, legit, watching Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead is not a terrible place to start. It's a two-hour outing that covers the basic ground of the franchise, has some really strong moments, and is super cracked out. 

What's so fun in it is, we talk about the retooling of the characters. In season one, Maki and Kurosawa beef a lot over Haruta and legit get into physical brawls over it. This is a feature of the entire franchise. These men scrap on the regular. There's this great moment when they're trying to rescue Haruta from this building where Kurosawa's role as their mentor comes through and he reads Maki about how he's always holding back in the relationship. That's what I think works for me the most in this franchise, the collective love that everyone has for each other. It's true that Kurosawa is not going to succeed as a romantic rival to Maki in this story, but that doesn't mean that he's not important to everyone and everything going on. And I really, truly love that. 

Twig 

His mentorship relationship with Maki really starts to flourish in the movie, the moment where Maki’s hanging off of a ledge and Kurosawa is helping him physically back onto the ledge so he doesn’t fall into the flames, but also verbally telling him what he needs to do to save his relationship. This movie is not subtle with its metaphors. But it's such a good moment where we realize that Kurosawa plays that role for Maki, too, of a mentor, and that he's willing to do it for the relationship, even at the same time as being a love rival. And it sets up the new season really well. 

Ben 

The movie matters to the timeline of the series. The movie is not just some sort of one off moment that occurs. The events of the movie are built into the characters, and it was the beginning of them retooling how these characters function. 

NiNi 

This sounds like a very experimental type of series, just the way that they do different things each time. While they are refining their central characters and the central storylines, they're also experimenting with style and tone, and a number of other things it feels like? 

Twig 

I think that's really true. One of the things about the movie that's really fun is it's the first instance of sports in the series. We get Justice playing basketball with Haruta and working his feelings out through basketball. 

Ben 

JUSTICE!!! [Twig and Ben laugh]

Twig 

Love and peace! And that becomes a huge part of the AU and also part of Ossan’s Love Returns that I think really adds to the experience. They try things out and then if it works, they pick it up and add and yes, and it, and then they pull out the things that didn't really work. I find that really interesting to watch happen. 

NiNi 

The concept of something being iterative like that in real time, it's not for everybody. 

Ben 

This series went on to do something super experimental where a couple of months after they released a continuation movie promising that these characters would get back together, they released an alternative universe season where only Haruta and Kurosawa were present from the original cast, and now we're at an airport dealing with a completely different set of characters and a slightly different dynamic. 

It also gave Twig and I our favorite bit. 

Twig

[laughs] Dispatch! 👍

Ben

Dispatch! 👍 Oh my God. It is so funny, every single time. 

NiNi 

Every time. 

Ben 

Every episode has at least two dispatch moments. [Twig laughs] It's so fucking funny. 

Twig 

Sometimes it's to end a conversation. Sometimes it's to greet somebody, sometimes it's to shut down a conversation, distract from someone saying something you don’t want them to say. 

Ben 

So in this particular season, Kurosawa is still a leader. He is the captain of a flight crew. Haruta is a new flight attendant who is joining this team. In this case, Kurosawa is not Haruta’s long-term mentor who has been harboring a crush on him. He develops his crush in real time. Haruta moves into company housing and there's a slightly older guy there who's got a crush on Haruta, but he won't say anything about it. And then there's the meanest twink who's ever existed in BL. 

NiNi 

I mean y'all just seem to be giving me multiple reasons to watch this show at this point, so. 

Ben 

So in the second season, there's far more complicated people in the Haruta stuff. There's Kaname who is the older mechanic who lives in the dorms, and he's got this huge crush on Haruta, but he'll never say anything about it. Naruse is causing fucking problems all the time, because every time he has relationship drama and people show up at their airport to fuck with him about it, he just starts kissing Haruta to make people go away. And then people throw drinks in Haruta’s face over it. Because Tanaka Kei is a master of physical comedy. 

Twig 

One of the staples of the series is what I call the Haruta reaction supercut, where they just have multiple cuts of Haruta’s face as it morphs into more and more absurd huh, no, whaaa faces. He does bend his body in ways that's like a cartoon falling over, it's pretty incredible. 

NiNi 

Ben knows that I love physical comedy. 

Twig 

Yoshida Kotaro has incredible physical comedy, too. 

Ben 

Like if you ever want to see an old man try and kill an aging twink [Twig laughs], this is the show for you. 

I get why people who liked the first show bounced off of this, because the rest of the cast is gone. The supporting cast is a really strong part of the Ossan’s Love experience, but I really like the AU season because I think it allowed them to retool Haruta and Kurosawa. And retool the relationship between them to make it more about their mentorship. They're building that relationship in the AU season ‘cause they don't know each other. 

Twig 

The thing that I really like about the AU setup is because Haruta is coming into a new environment, we get to see him build his network of people around him over the course of the season. Showing us what's likable about Haruta because he has to charm all these people around him in order to get friends and build a community, is a really important piece of the puzzle that allowed me to get to like that character a lot more, because he was charming me at the same time. 

Ben 

We get a lot of great moments in the season. Kurosawa has been a pilot for 30 years and he decides to retire and everyone is sad about it. I'm sad about it, Twig is crying about it. 

Twig 

Mmhm. 

Ben 

He ends up inviting the three guys who we've mentioned out to hang out in the park with him. He has this sumo tournament with them where he's basically giving them the last bit of advice he's going to give them and it is, one of the most intensely emotional man moments I have had in this genre. I was losing it and I was crying. I was hollering and screaming, messaging Twig like, “Wake up, I need to talk about this right now, I don't care what you're doing. Get up.” 

Truly, it is one of the best moments in TV about the relationships between men that I have ever experienced, and it is this hyper ridiculous sumo wrestling moment in a gay romance drama in the AU season that is technically not canon, and it was the moment from the series that lingers with me the most. 

Twig 

Even in the moment they're looking at each other like, is this happening? How is this happening? This isn't real. Nobody does this. Nobody calls each other to the side of the river with a note [laughs] to hold a wrestling competition in which we talk about our feelings. 

Ben 

But it works really well. I ended up really loving the way it allowed us to think about these two men and the relationship between them. We get to appreciate how important Kurosawa is to Haruta. 

Twig 

That sumo wrestling moment allows us to see Kurosawa's relationships with all of his subordinates. The way he's so firm and so gentle with Naruse, with like “soft landing,” meanwhile, throws Haruta out of the ring. 

Ben 

The way he talks to all of these men as specific to them, like his role as leader is strongest in the AU season. My primary concern for the Thai adaptation is who is playing Kurosawa, because this character is as important as the romantic leads. 

Twig 

I think it's more important. 

Ben 

I am with Twig. Who is going to match Yoshida Kotaro in Thailand? I need to know. 

Twig 

I'm eagerly awaiting that announcement. 

NiNi 

The answer is going to be Nu Surasak or Kob Songsit.

Ben 

I really hope it's good. 

00:39:00 - Ossan’s Love Returns

Ben

Ossan's Love Returns reunites the original cast after five years. Maki is returning from an extended stint in Singapore, and now he and Haruta are gonna start their cohabitating married life together. Maki is now part of the super team at headquarters, following up on the movie. Haruta is still on the streets with regular folk, ‘cause that's where he wants to be. Kurosawa has retired, I liked that follow up from the AU season. And now he's working as a housekeeper. Maki is working too much and Haruta is still bad at house, and so they hire a housekeeper, who ends up being Kurosawa [Twig laughs] who cannot hold back his feelings for Haruta and it becomes one of the ongoing dramas of the season. 

One of the things I enjoyed in this season is… they explore how to integrate Kurosawa into their lives long term. Haruta is serious about Maki and committed to their romance. Kurosawa is also extremely important to him and he treats him like a father figure. They explicitly have Choko talk to Kurosawa about how a lot of the ways he feels [laugh] about Maki are a lot of the ways a mother-in-law might feel about their daughter-in-law with the way they beef with each other. And when we say they beef with each other, I mean, these two men are legit fighting in their kitchen, like Kurosawa hits Maki in the head repeatedly with a frying pan. Maki legit throws Kurosawa through a door at one point and knocks it off the hinges. These two men, when they scrap with each other, are fighting for real and I love it every time.

NiNi

It's just like you all conspired to come into this recording booth today and just be like, okay, so you say this and I'll say that and between us we're gonna get her to watch this, because she likes this kind of stuff.

Ben

I didn't really have to work that hard. We're just legit talking about what the show was doing. We get a really great season of Maki and Haruta settling into what their life is going to look like. There's some introduced new characters in the season that we all had very complicated feelings about who I think end up fitting fine by the end. Most of the original cast comes back and there's like a really great bit of exploring what all these characters settling into their relationships that they got into in the first season in this one. 

So Haruta and Maki are now living together and figuring out what that is going to look like, who are they gonna be as a couple now that they're not doing long distance ‘cause they've basically been long distance between every outing. Which I think was a clever choice because it means that the characters’ relationship dynamic doesn't really move that much between outings. 

Choko is now living with Maro and Maro’s mom, and Choko is struggling because she's older than Maro's mom. She can't just treat this woman like her mother-in-law. And Maro doesn't know how to help because he's caught between his wife, who's way older than him, and his mom, who's confused and a little bit uncertain about this whole dynamic.

Twig

I also love that that's not the only thing we see Choko having worked through in the time we've been apart from her. She opened an archery range after her divorce, and sort of reinvented herself with this new life that she's actually thriving in.

Ben

They get new neighbors who are a bunch of weirdos.

Twig

[laughs] They're so weird. They're so weird.

Ben

These two are revealed to be members of, like, a public security division that maybe doesn't actually exist. Izumi ends up becoming obsessed with Haruta because he's a doppelganger for his dead lover who was killed in the line of duty, who is very, very different from Haruta. It was fun to see Tanaka Kei play a very different type of character in those flashbacks. I don't know that it entirely landed for me over the course of the season, but by the finale, which was fantastic, I was okay with them.

Twig

A large part of the way they were written is that they were a mystery for a large part of it, too. It's hard to bond with a character that you know nothing about and is intentionally opaque.

Ben

Chizu is trying to make it as a single mom and this reinforces one of the big themes of the season, that family is all the people who are going to show up for you all the time. She relies on Teppei and Maika to help, and she feels guilty about this and they tell her straight up, like, don't feel guilty. We are a family. You should rely on us. 

She had already made Haruta and Maki designated adults who can pick up her kid from the daycare. An important gay right of passage is your friend calling you and telling you I need you to go pick up my kid, and then you show up at said kindergarten to pick up a kid and they look at your ID and they go “oh you're allowed” and the kid runs to you and everybody goes, well, that makes sense. An important gay moment that everyone must experience.

Twig

One of the things that I love about this so much is that it picks up from a throw away line that Chizu says in the movie. She sort of brags that she's going to balance having a kid and her career. One of the things about the series is that it really feels like the people who are writing it love the whole series and are constantly thinking about how to call back in loving ways and how to pick up threads in loving ways. Something that she just sort of confidently stated she was going to do no problem in the movie becomes a whole plot in the following season.

Ben

There's a final arc in the season where Kurosawa has a health scare where we think he's going to die.

Twig

When we were talking about it, Ben, you said that it was an important moment for Maki and Haruta to confront the idea that Kurosawa won't always be around. And I was like, oh, that's why I don't like this part because I don't want to ever think about that. [Twig and Ben laugh]

Ben

The entire finale is this really great examination about the way this whole group of people are a family to each other.

Twig

It's not even just that it's happening, but they're explicit about it. They're having conversations about what is family? What are we to each other? How do we define our relationship? Where do those lines get drawn? And the answer is just sort of, yes.

Ben

There's an explicit line, like, what is Kurosawa to them? And then Maika comes over and hammers it home for the audience and is like, “There's no need to describe it. What matters is you all are going to be part of each other's lives forever.”

00:45:33 - Final Thoughts and Ratings

Ben

I don't think we talked about it as much. So, the first season is pretty light on kissing and intimacy between the male characters. Ossan's Love Returns is not! There's so much married intimacy between Haruta and Maki.

Twig

The casual intimacy in Ossan's Love Returns is constant, and it just feels very lived in? They're just constantly touching each other and having small kisses and teasing each other.

Ben

We got more of that today in the unexpected special spin-offs we're getting. I was like “ohh, I thought we were done. Oh, it's another cute little 20-minute office episode ending on the two of them making out next to the copier.” Love it.

NiNi

This is called Forbidden Gout Temps Nouveau. 

Twig

Mhmm.

NiNi

I have so many questions, but I feel like I should not ask those questions right now.

Ben

My general attitude is you don't need to watch all of Ossan's Love to enjoy parts of Ossan's Love. I think if you are interested in gay domesticity and complex family units, you can just watch Ossan's Love Returns right away.

NiNi

I'm watching it all. Eventually. I don't know when. There's a lot going on in the IRL space right now, but I'm gonna be watching the whole thing.

Twig

I feel like I should say something about the original short. It has a lot of the things that people found the hardest to swallow about season one. A lot of the stuff that they did originally they fixed or did better as they moved through. I would say the short is the thing to skip, of all of it, unless you're really curious about the journey of this franchise.

NiNi

I'm really fascinated by the idea of this as a reserve process of working through and refining the show in kind of a real time. I would like to see the whole thing just for that purpose. I'm a writer, so the way that this feels like multiple drafts, and you getting to actually see the multiple drafts to see why they might have decided to make a particular change in the next draft, or why they would have gone for an overhaul, or what would they have tweaked around the edges. I like the idea of looking at that.

Twig

It is not just the writing that they iterate. We haven't talked a lot about the visual effects that this show uses, but it has its own style. One of my favorites: it uses the bokeh effect, where the lighting in the background is blurred and sometimes takes shapes. It starts from the very beginning. You'll see the lights behind Kurosawa make little hearts while he's confessing to Haruta and Haruta’s has little like stop signs. [Ben laughs] And then they get bigger and bigger with that where Kurosawa’s hearts have little like heartbreak. They have– there’s little, like, zigzags in the hearts behind him when he gets rejected. Sometimes he'll be crying tear lights. That’s just one of the things that they play with in the different versions.

Ben

Naruse having that whole tantrum trying to get someone's attention for help? Then having that super cut of them screaming and then smash cutting to them just sitting at the table. There's like the courtroom audio stinger that dominates the first season that I fucking love [mimics the sound] thing that happens over the course of the whole season. It's so, so dramatic, and I'm like, “Is Judge Mathis gonna walk out? What is happening?”

Twig

Oh, and they do this thing where they hard cut to a visual metaphor like water leaking out of a water bottle or a pot boiling to represent the character’s emotions. There's so many visual moments. It's not just written well and acted well. It's also represented visually really well, and seeing how they experiment with that and how that changes. Like, the weird bobble heads we got in the AU season. I'm still not over those. I'm glad those didn't return.

Ben

It is not a perfect show. This is not a “Everybody was wrong. They should have watched all of this. Grab your pitchfork!” situation. This is not an easy show to love. If you can find your way to loving the show, I think it has been one of the most rewarding watches I've had in the genre since What Did You Eat Yesterday? 

Japanese BL is different from Thai BL. More experimental and weirder things are gonna happen over time if the series has a lot of leg in it, and Ossan's Love is one of those that has so much leg in it. Like the second season just ended, and I'd be okay if we don't see them again, but, I really hope we do.

Twig

Me too.

NiNi

All right, so let's get into ratings. I mean, is this the kind of thing that you rate? Instead of rating, let's rank. If you had to rank the different parts of the Ossan's Love franchise, how would you rank them? In terms of, for you, most enjoyable to probably the least enjoyable?

Ben

Well, the least enjoyable is the original special. It's the most rough and the hardest to swallow. I think the best season is the current one?

Twig

Yeah. I mean, for me, it's basically chronological order, I think. I struggle between the film and the AU ‘cause I like them for different reasons, and I struggled with them for different reasons. But I think Naruse tips it over there so that it stays ahead.

Ben

[Ben and Twig laugh] I love that mean twink!

Twig

He's just so great.

Ben

I don't know that I'd want to…rank them that way. I think each outing adds something to it. It's really a question of, do you like seeing people try to get together for the first time, or do you really like seeing people be together? For me, I'm very partial to Ossan's Love Returns because it's about gay life drama, which is what I’ve wanted for a while. And so I'm really fucking enjoying that.

Twig

Yeah, I love it when people have to figure out, “Now that we're in this relationship, how do we make this work?”

Ben

But I also love the AU season. I think the retooling of Haruta and Kurosawa is actually really helpful. I think taking a break from Maki is actually helpful for appreciating Haruta when you come back to them. I think you end up liking Haruta more by the time you get to Ossan's Love Returns and seeing the potential in him. The love people are trying to pour on to him in the current season is more accessible to me as a viewer because I got to spend time with Haruta growing to love him in the AU season.

Twig

I also just have affection for an entire season that seems to have basically been built off of like a throwaway reference to episode one, when Haruta says he's most attracted to stewardesses. And then, and also, like, maybe a pun because Kurosawa’s character is called bucho which means, like, manager essentially through all of the regular Ossan's Love stories. But in the AU he's kucho because he's a captain. And I think that's very funny.

Ben

In terms of my ratings, I'm looking at on MDL, I gave Ossan's Love and Ossan's Love Returns a 9. But I gave the AU season a 9.5. [Ben and Twig laugh] So, there's your answer.

Twig

There you go.

Ben

Twig, what did you rate the second season? I know ratings aren't always your thing, but did you give the second season a rating?

Twig

I didn't. If I was going to give it a rating. Ossan's Love Returns? Yeah, I’d give it a 9.

Ben

It's a 9 for me in that I think if you're into BL, you should watch the show, but I don't know that it is the most accessible show, so I don't want to give it a 10.

Twig

I think the thing about this show, too, is it's about multiple relationships. It's not just about Maki and Haruta, and I wouldn't even say their relationship dominates the story. So, to rank it against other BL as a romance narrative is quite difficult. It's about family and what that means in a queer context. Part of that is romance, but it's not even the biggest part? The family feels is what gets me about this series.

Ben

That's going to do it for Ossan's Love. We have succeeded at our mission. NiNi has agreed to watch the show. Twig and I got to unpack the entirety of this whole franchise. We have the benefit of knowing it gets better over time now, and so I don't begrudge people bouncing when they did in 2018. I think that in 2024, it is beneficial for people who care about the history of the genre to go back and properly engage with Ossan's Love. I genuinely think it is worth reconsidering your initial opinion. They… grow. Their characters are not static. What has occurred is taken seriously and what worked and didn't work is considered as they move forward.

NiNi

That is going to wrap us up on the Ossan's Love episode. Twig, it was so great having you on, and I hope you come back.

Twig

Thank you so much for having me. It was really fun.

NiNi

With that, we out. Say bye to the people, Twig.

Twig

Dispatch!👍

Ben

Dispatch! 👍

NiNi

At some point I'm going to find out what that means, and then I will be unstoppable. Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace.

#ossan's love returns #ossan's love #ben and nini's conversations #podcast #lgbtq #the conversation #on art #thai bl #bl series #japanese bl #spring series #spring 2024

[slpytired]

actually i feel like i don’t see a lot of people talking about them so allow me to briefly infodump for a moment here:

kinoko teikoku was a Japanese shoegaze band that was active from 2007 - 2019. they released 5 albums and a few smaller releases and had somewhat of a cult following in Japan. i first discovered them through their album Fake World Wonderland, and explored the rest of their work from there, going in rough chronological order of release.

their first two albums, Uzu ni Naru and eureka, as well as their Long Goodbye EP, had a strong shoegaze sound, with very classic shoegaze elements such as distorted and reverbed guitar and lots of noise. however one thing i found set them apart from a lot of other shoegaze bands was how much space they left for main vocalist Chiaki Sato’s voice to shine through. the atmosphere they created in each song, with Sato’s haunting, ephemeral voice over minimal instrumentals, was enrapturing. i was drawn in by that atmosphere, and the way they could tear it down at the drop of a hat, going into a breakneck instrumental section like in Yoru ga Aketara, or a noise-filled breakdown in Ashikubi. every song was perfectly crafted to do something a little different, to create that atmosphere they thrived in every time.

their next album, Fake World Wonderland, sounded very different from their previous releases. the style had become a little more pop-oriented, sacrificing some of the shoegaze elements for a more generic j-rock-influenced sound, such as in Telepathy/Overdrive. though this was the first record of theirs i heard, i have to say that i enjoyed their earlier releases more.

the album after that, Neko to Allergy, saw the return of a more traditional Kinoko Teikoku sound. while it was still quite different from their original 2 albums, it was a nice in between of their new pop-driven style and their old contemplative shoegaze sound. this album would be what i'd use to introduce newcomers to shoegaze, as it's not too heavily influenced as to turn new listeners away, while still retaining kinoko teikoku's signature sound.

their fifth album, Ai no Yukue, was a much more minimal, indie pop styled entry to their discography. personally i didn't like it very much on first listen, but after going over it again, i find things that i didn't appreciate before. kinoko teikoku's style is still there, with Chiaki Sato's vocals shining through in many of the songs on this record, creating that atmosphere that i would say defines their sound. of course, i still think their older, heavier sound was better, but such is the way of bands that change over time.

their final album, Time Lapse, feels like a culmination of many of their previous sounds. there are songs that seem reminiscent of the style of the fifth album, such as Lapse, and songs with the j-rock influences from FWW, such as Chuosen and Thanatos. the distorted guitar in Tightrope seems to call back to Long Goodbye (both the EP and the title track). i can't help but feel that this album is a nice closer for Kinoko Teikoku, showcasing the various sounds they've explored over the years. it is a little mishmashed together, and the overall cohesion of the album is also here and there, but i think it really grows on you after a couple of listens.

in may 2019, kinoko teikoku announced the suspension of their activities as a band, as their bassist had to leave for familial reasons, and the rest of the band did not want to continue without him.

kinoko teikoku is undoubtedly one of my favourite shoegaze bands of all time and my gateway into shoegaze as a whole. i will never shut up about them forever and i hope the band members are doing well wherever they are. crossing my fingers that they'll reunite some day so i can fly to japan to catch them live because holy shit their live shows look incredible.

if you're interested to check out this band and you don't know anything about shoegaze, start with their later albums like Neko to Allergy or Ai no Yukue and work your way up the chronological order. if you're acquainted with shoegaze already, i highly recommend starting from the first album and following order of release.

here are some other japanese shoegaze bands that i discovered through Kinoko Teikoku:

yuragi

Uchu Nekoko

my dead girlfriend

Cruyff In The Bedroom

Oeil

Bug

Plastic Girl In Closet

ok bye stream Kinoko Teikoku shoegaze forever

#slpytalk

[otteroflore]

Response to "Takara Osharena Pony analysis - why did they fail in Japan?"

This is one of the first results when you look up the Takara Osharena ponies

Listen. Listen. No offense to this person, I think they were being sincere in making this, but it really bothers me that this is the top post for "Why Takara Osharena failed" and shows up when you search about the Takara ponies, because I don't see how this makes any sense.

"Large expressive eyes and small noses are preferred"

(hello kitty wikipedia)

"What I can't fathom is why the developers chose theses attributes... ...going against the grain for them"

(article on popularity of moomin in japan since the 70s)

"They stand upright on two feet... hooves?... have tiny beady eyes and bulbous noses"

(sylvanian families bear, 1985)

(I am going to ignore the "females find small creatures with small noses and large eyes thing" because we dont need to get into pseudo-psychology rn but suffice it to say, theyre not concrete rules. OBVIOUSLY.)

I still don't know why the Takara Ponies failed in Japan; I can't read Japanese and I'm not very skilled (yet) at researching things in other languages. But I can pretty much guarantee that in 1985, the Takara Tomy ponies look extremely fitting next to other Japanese pop culture icons.

By 1985, Moomin and Hello Kitty had already hit it big and the Sylvanian families line would come out and last for the next, oh, nearly forty years.

I'd love to know why the Osharena Takara ponies were actually discontinued, but I have to wonder if it wasn't because of the above brands. Maybe Moomin and Hello Kitty were so solidified in the public consciousness that the Osharena Takara ponies could look like a pale imitator. Or, the Sylvanian families (and Takara's own flocked doll-animal line) were a direct competitor and just did better, especially since they had full playsets while the takara ponies were mainly just dolls.

The my little wiki has pictures from the 1985 * Takara Catalog, which is from what I understand most of what we know about the Takaras still. I can't find the 1986 version, although I found this site that has pictures of the 1986 catalog showing a toy similar to Sylvanian families that I didn't know about. I'm going to see if the author of said site has info about the Takara ponies- they also collect g1 MLPs and post pictures of catalogs on twitter, but the most recent tweet was 2022 so I'm not sure how active they are.

In conclusion: I think it's a stretch to assume the takara ponies weren't "cute" enough for a Japanese audience. In fact, I'd argue they followed all of the conventions of the time and match several media lines that persisted to this day- maybe too well, even.

*edited to add TW for racist caricature on the cover of the 1985 takara catalog

#my little pony #takara ponies #shutupotter #takara osharena my little ponies #hello kitty #sylvanian families #moomin

[emo-hermit]

Emo RD Rambles 3: Patient Playlist

Welcome back to Emo Cannot Write For Shit So You All Get His Rambles. With an additional thing at the end winkwink. This is really really long so let's get cracking.

Today's concept: Ian and Ada approach the idea of creating a Patient Radio - a playlist made of the long term patient's favourites songs to 'maximise comfort'.

As a beta for the Radio, they leave a sheet of paper in the connecting hallway for patients to list suggestions of their preferred music, around three or four songs maximum. Some already have ideas in mind, while others struggle.

This is just a silly idea I had when wondering what type of music the main RD cast listens to; excluding the songs they're actually involved in. This also created some funny writing prompts that I may use for a small comedic anthology. For example:

Hailey is the first person to write anything down: and she's pretty basic (sorry). Her style is very mainstream, involving those pop songs you'd hear on the radio. From there, a few folks follow, with varying genres and tastes. The next day, however, more folks have added some ideas, including Logan. You can tell Logan has visited - because there is now a messy heart drawn next to Hailey's suggestions.

Also, Logan suggests similar stuff to Hailey, with the addition of maybe an anime opening or two.

Cole... suggests his own music. For the sake of both his ego, and the declining state of the patients, he's given a stern 'no'. Of course, it's Cole, so he angrily scribbles out his suggestions and leaves the paper be. He's surprised when 'Unreachable' comes on via the Patient Radio - and, sure enough, someone's written it down past his scribbling. More specifically, Samurai. He even signed it! (By that, I mean the writing is just "Unreachable- Cole Brew (SAMURAI)". All of Samurai's suggestions are signed this way.)

Insomniac writes down only one suggestion: a traditional Japanese folk song (or 'hōgaku'). This would be fine - if he wrote the song's title in Romaji. Instead, the song is written in pure, specific kanji characters.

Ada returns to Ian come the night with a new version of the paper: "Hey, so, uh- I got the paper back today and there's some new stuff from the swordsmen. Any idea what this is?" Ian turns, "Hah?" before seeing the kanji. There's a slight pause before he just casually goes, "Oh! This is (insert Japanese title here)! That's easy, I'll type it up." Ada learns that Ian learnt how to read kanji entirely just for the songs he listens to that are in Japanese.

Oh yeah: the moment this song plays on the radio, the Insomniac falls asleep. Hell, he sleeps like a baby. Unfortunately, they can't play it on loop, but now they know he appreciates a lil' lullaby.

Speaking of Ian and Ada, they decide to add some of their own songs to the mix (Ian mostly - he felt it was a little unfair that the patients get to listen to banger tunes). Ian adds quite a variety, but we cannot ignore the fact he adds maybe one or two vocaloid songs.

Ada, unfortunately, is a little embarrassed of her status as a former theatre kid, still musical lover. She, instead, uses a few common songs from the radio to add to the list. Ian convinces her, after a little while, to add a really popular song from her favourite musical. I do not know what musical this is.

There's a surprising amount of patients that add jazz to the radio, or at least music from the 1950 to 1980's era. For one, the Stevensons' accidentally add the same song to the list twice, given Mr. Stevenson can't read his wife's handwriting that well anymore (I'll elaborate on why later). This also just so happens to be a song that played in their wedding. They have a ball dancing to it.

Additionally, the Miner also includes a bit of Rock 'n' Roll or otherwise jazz into his suggestions. They're very old for the 30-something nut, but it adds up. He also, thanks to Cole, includes a little chiptune.

Hugh somehow adds the tutorial theme. You know, the tutorial song from Rhythm Doctor. Nobody recognises the title, or the artist, but everyone in the ward has a mutual moment of "I swear I've heard this before". Hugh doesn't comment.

There's a slight cultural shift once Insomniac includes his traditional tune. It's not the only Non-English hit, and Ian/Logan do add a couple of Japanese songs to the pile.

In Nicole's case, she ends up not sure what to suggest, but still wanting to take part. So, she ends up adding a Chinese pop song, quote: "I don't know any Chinese myself, but my mom would put this on a lot, and I didn't have anything else that'd be good for a hospital radio."

Lucky adds two jazz, and a rock song to the radio. The biggest issue is that he originally aimed to add a Spanish song from his childhood, but got caught in his own head, scribbling it out halfway. The good thing? Miner is able to read bits and pieces, writing what he could make out - angering Lucky into writing the full title. He jumps when it plays on the radio days later.

I believe that's everything I had listed. Thanks to RDL for allowing me to compile all of my thoughts before adding them here, as these are now far more conjoined.

Oh, right! The bonus thing! Considering the song suggestions were taken on a piece of lined paper, I thought it would be fun to visualise what I believe the main casts' handwriting would look like:

If you have any thoughts/additions you want to make, you have full reign to send me asks/reblog this with whatever you like. Have a good one, lads - EMO

#rambles of the hermit hole #rhythm doctor #oh yeah speaking of cole idk if unreachable is implied to be a song he wrote so uh #yeah lets say yes #this would be a really funny 5+1 kinda fic ngl but i cant write for shit rn so sorry #cole brew #nicole ting #rhythm doctor miner #rhythm doctor insomniac #rhythm doctor samurai #maximo lucky joneronero #rhythm doctor stevenson #ada paige #rhythm doctor ian #sorry for the tags I spent too long on this

[linghxr]

Chinese Music I Listened to This Spring/Summer

I think it’s been a few months since I posted about Chinese music/cpop, so I thought I’d provide an update on what I’ve been listening to this past spring/part of summer.

And of course, I made a Spotify playlist to go along with this post. And each song name is linked to YouTube for those of you who don’t use Spotify. The Spotify playlist includes a few “bonus” songs.

 薛之谦 / Joker Xue In my last music post, I called 薛之谦 “my latest Mandopop obsession.” I’ve still been listening to his music a lot, but I’ve had different songs on repeat lately. His slower and quieter songs have been speaking to me a lot more.

《像风一样》 is the musical version of a deep breath. But a sorrowful, long deep breath. The lyrics are quite sad really, but this song also makes me feel at peace.

《哑巴》 is that song that I never skip when it comes on shuffle. It starts out very quietly, so sometimes in the car I can’t even hear that it’s begun, But it picks up towards the middle/end. 

《那是你离开了北京的生活》 was a song I used to overlook. But luckily I gave it a second chance! It’s once again a sad yet beautiful song. The lyrics are making me tear up a bit, not gonna lie.

《变废为宝》 kinda goes over my head lyrically, but the vibe isn’t as sad as the previous 3 songs. It gives me a slightly hopeful feeling.

《动物世界》 is the darkest and gloomiest out of these 5 songs. It sounds a bit on-edge and unsettled.

韦礼安 / WeiBird Similarly, I’ve also continued listening to 韦礼安 this spring.

《女孩》 was love at first listen when I heard it covered on Chuang 2021 (which I just watched this spring). I instantly went to look up who it was by and was pleasant surprised to see it was a 韦礼安 song! This song is just so cute—but in a good way!

《不用告诉我》 was not very memorable to me at first, but then I found that I had the line 让我卑微地享受 片刻的永久 stuck in my head. Oddly, this song really feels like an album intro song to me, but it’s #6 in the tracklist.

《记得回来》 has pretty simple lyrics that I think many of us can understand, which is a huge plus. It’s the perfect song to belt along to (even as someone who sucks at singing).

《忽然》 is basically the definition of a song that starts slow and then builds up to an explosion. It even has a nifty guitar solo. 10/10 recommend.

《如果可以》 is a huge hit for a reason. It does give off major “movie theme song” vibes, which can be a turn-off, but I still like it. Also, there are official Japanese and Korean versions, so if you’re learning those languages, check them out!

徐佳莹 / LaLa Hsu 《言不由衷》 is a song I’ve heard many times before because I’ve listened to the album it’s from a lot. Oddly, it never stood out to me before, but I somehow “rediscovered” it this spring and really fell in love.

邱锋泽 / Feng Ze

《冰山》 is just super catchy! Part of me registers that the lyrics are actually a bit sad, but I end up singing along with a smile on my face. Whoops.

《年青有为》is one of two songs to the same melody. The other song is sung in Cantonese, and it’s called 《一表人才》. They both also include singer 吕爵安. Honestly this song isn’t that special. I just like it.

《潜台词》 is actually a duet with 黄伟晋. This song really drilled its way into my head. I seriously cannot stop humming it! It has a somewhat slow and mellow but also hard-hitting. Surprisingly, I don’t mind the rap (I’m not a big rap fan).

《日环食》 was the first Feng Ze song that clicked with me. It’s a relatively simple song, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It feels quite earnest.

九泽CP / Nine Chen & Feng Ze 九泽CP is a duo comprised of Nine Chen (陈零九) and Feng Ze (邱锋泽). I have to learn how to distinguish their voices (something I am not good at in general). This feels like cheating somehow because it means I have way too many Feng Ze songs here.

《偷走你的心》 is bubblegum pop, but I love it. It’s so infectious and makes me feel bubbly. I love the little opening sax(?) moment too. It reminds me a bit of a kpop song with the short rap sections. Only thing I don’t like is that it’s too short!

《绝对发言》 has a lot in common with the previous song, but it’s a little more funky and spirited in my opinion. If you like one, I’m sure you’ll like the other.

《最后一秒钟》 is quite different from the two right above. It’s more somber and serious, but I think the duo pulled off this style very well as well. It does not feel nearly like a 5 minute song!

井胧 / Jing Long I was introduce to Jing Long while watching Chuang 2021, and *SPOILER* I was very upset that he did not make it to the final because I love his unique voice! Fortunately, he seems to be doing pretty well for himself from what I’ve seen.

《不删》 is another song that I can understand very easily. Sometimes I feel a bit silly listening to a song about WeChat, but obviously this song is about much more than just that. Jing Long’s voice conveys the emotions so well.

《丢了你》 - In the time between when I started drafting this post and today, this song was removed from US Spotify and then added back. Get your act together, Spotify and music labels! I was distressed to see it greyed out—then it suddenly reappeared! But anyway the song is really good.

华晨宇&杨宗纬 / Hua Chenyu & Aska Yang 《国王与乞丐》 is not at all a recent discovering, but for some reason I’ve been drawn back to it lately. It’s a lovely duet. But something wacky has been going on with the 《异类》 album on US Spotify too. I kept having to remove and then readd this song to my playlist. You’ve been warned!

#chinese music recs #cpop #c-pop #c pop #mandopop #chinese music #chinese language #mandarin chinese #langblr #language #languages #language blog #language learning #learning languages #language study #language lover #learn chinese #learn mandarin #learning chinese #learning mandarin #language studyblr #薛之谦 #薛之謙 #Xue Zhiqian #韦礼安 #韋禮安 #weibird #邱锋泽 #邱鋒澤 #feng ze

[melodyofthevoid]

Spotify Discovery Review

So I wanted to try something new and figured I'd dive into more music thoughts, and since I've been actually listening to my Spotify Discovery (I needed new music lol) so yeah.

Overall Rating: 13/30 that I really like and even sort of like, so not bad. Probably won't be saving a ton of these for later listening, a few might go into some character playlists at least so that's good. We'll see if any grow on me. Below are some of the standouts good, bad, and indifferent. A few songs I didn't include bc they're instrumentals that I didn't really have any thoughts on. Not even neutral thoughts.

Good

Dear Alice (rainy days)

Slow and dreamlike, it's not really a surprise that there's heavy Alice in Wonderland theming but even though there's not a ton of singing, I found myself enjoying the ride.

Femme Fatale

A fantastic beat, a combination of western and tango aesthetics, a fast paced ride that makes me want to groove. Love the flirty danger that drips off of every word, it's got a solid identity and doesn't feel like it's trying too hard to be "edgy" or anything.

YOUR HEAD'S ON FIRE

Louie Zhong is always a bop and his lyrical style is always a joy. Unconventional metaphors and fun little bits, a very groovy guitar line that makes you want to wiggle.

Blink of an eye

Halfy and Winks make DSMP songs, I'm aware of this, however I love their musical style and lyrics. Gives me heavy inspiration for my own story just with how vivid and story based their stuff is. The revolutionary spark in here is nice.

Invisible Dan Avidan has popped into my feeds and I’m not really complaining? I love the rock style/retro vibe that this one has going on, his vocals really sell it. A little bit chase scene a little bit breakdown but overall a good time.

The Moon and Stars

Good folk vibes, gets close to scratching the same itch that The Crane Wives do but not quite, which is still a good time for me. We'll see if this fits a character in future.

The Manic

A great character song, will be applying to my blorbos soon. The pushing away from someone you love because you know you'll hurt them eventually and can't take it. Very good stuff.

Dance While the Sky Crashes Down

Eyyy Jason Webly, I remember you from WTNV. A tango for the end of the world and honestly isn't that a mood? I love the lyrics, although it drags a smidge at the end. Maybe because of TMA I'm a little more inclined towards this.

A song whose title is in Japanese. It's from land of the lustrous and I cannot copy paste the title.

Very eerie, very atmospheric. I haven't watched the show in its entirety myself, but I know that it has horror and suspense interwoven in some of the back half, and the clanking bells and echoes really give the sensation of being watched. Of being on edge. Good stuff.

Break Your Cranck

An altogether inexplicable piece. It’s done on a hurdy gurdy which is already a plus but. It. It sounds like electronica crafted by pirate bees. With some Indian influence thrown in for flavor. Like a space punk pirate bazaar. Very atmospheric but also so so confusing. I love it.

Dance of the blood drunk

A balance of wild carnival and orchestral splendor, feels like an epic batter on a grand scale. The unsteady thrill of never knowing if you’re winning or not.

Neutral

Absence

I kinda forgot what this sounded like tbh.

How Dare You

Pretty good? No real feelings on it.

I was an island

Again with the good lyrics, but the instrumentation and singing are on the verge of being unlistenable? Like I can listen, and I could see myself putting this on a character playlist or two for sure.

Tavern crawl

A fun little bawdy medieval style song, Annapantsu kills it as expected, but bar songs/drinking songs aren’t really my vibe? But I could see myself grooving to this generally.

Brand new city

Mitski, which is good, but some of her stuff doesn't hit me as much as it does others, and this is one of those times. Not bad by any means, just not something I can see myself going back to.

Cold, cold, cold

Has a story to it, the grandiosity is nice especially near the end but the whole song together doesn’t quite capture me in the way that other artists in this space do. I could listen to it if I was in a particular mood but otherwise it’s not a stand out.

Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

I do like the Jekyll and Hyde musical don't get me wrong but I'm not a huge fan of this one? It's mostly a song meant to establish the upper crust as mindless gossips and twits, the combination of the old Disney-musical style instrumentals and the rather vulgar (by Victorian standards) lyrics is funny but that's all its got.

Timekeeper's Heartbeat

An interesting case where I like the instrumentals and most of the lyrics but it fails to really coalesce into a song? There's bits that don't rhyme for no reason, it comes across like one of those English vocaloid covers that doesn't adjust for the context. If it is, I wouldn't be surprised.

Nah

Whiplash (Black Math) Don’t like listening to it, not much else to really say here.

Wish you were gay I’m aware this one is a bit of a darling in some of the animation meme circles but I don’t really care for the instrumentation or the lyrics. Unpleasant to listen to.

Two's a party Jazz/cabaret but there’s not really a depth to it imo. I find it a bit hard to listen to despite the singer being pretty good if a bit... too whispery. A combination of the lyrics and sudden trumpet jump scares ig.

Judas An interesting concept and premise, the dichotomy of a queer relationship contrasted with the religious imagery is layered but the vocal performance doesn’t really do it for me. Seems to want to be mountain goats but it’s a little too raw?

I DONT TRUST U ANYMORE Person with a guitar genre, valid feelings but vocal performance is a bit flat. Reminds me of blink 182 but with none of the energy.

#melody rambles #spotify discovery review #might also open up my inbox to song recommendations if y'all feel like throwing something in there

[why-so-serious-lucifer]

K-pop Discography Deep Dives: Red Velvet (Part TWO)

A Disclaimer: I was planning, when I first started Tumblr, to be a lurker, but then I began an office job and needed something to listen to to keep myself occupied. And then, I started going through entire K-pop groups’ repertoires, album by album, and jotting down my thoughts. And then, I stumbled into K-pop tumblr and decided, you know what, there’s at least four people on this hell site who would read in depth rants about these discographies and at least five who wouldn’t read it and then get mad because it’s kind of our job as K-pop fans. My lukewarm takes should be taken with an entire silo of salt and the knowledge that this is completely for fun and occupying my very bored, very neurodivergent brain. All this to say, for the love of god, I’m a sleep-deprived student and I don’t have time for internet hate, so don’t kill me. With that being said, enjoy!

Here are my credentials: Red Velvet was the first k-pop group I ever loved, even though Blackpink was really my introduction. I became a ReVeLuv in 2019, because of Russian Roulette, and I’ve been a fan since, including of the members’ solo careers (Wendy in particular). But as I’ve gotten more into k-pop and since they come back so infrequently, I haven’t really been keeping up with them and I feel like I’m less of a fan than I once was. So, I’m super excited for their comeback on the 13th (especially with a full album!) and I’m hoping that through this deep dive, I’ll fall back in love just in time for the new album.

This is Part Two of the review, and we left off just before another famous summer comeback in Power Up. Right away, Power Up feels like an interesting combination of Red Flavor’s warm excitement and Ice Cream Cake’s high bubbliness. It’s unusual for their music, because despite its bursts of aegyo in its choruses, it also has more subdued moments in the verses to breathe. I confess that for me, it doesn’t balance quite enough and I find that the song just feels immature and shrill, rather than Red Flavor’s good mix of youthfulness and wistfulness. It’s not for me, but it’s not a bad song.

From the Summer Magic EP, it was hard to choose a hidden gem. Blue Lemonade has a delightfully fizzy feeling with its popping, while Hit That Drum has (unsurprisingly) a great driving beat and a smash of a bridge / last chorus, and Mr. E’s “abracadabra” refrain remains stuck in my head.

#Cookie Jar and SAPPY are both Japanese releases, so I won’t spend long on them, but suffice to say I do like them both. SAPPY is a touch too bubbly for me, but it mixes its R & B and pop better than Power Up, but #Cookie Jar (despite the silly title), is actually a pretty good balance and very catchy.

Really Bad Boy immediately introduces itself as a little bit strange with Joy’s 1,2,5! countoff. With all my ranting and raving in past reviews about how much I hate empty, chanty choruses, I’m sure everyone’s expecting me to rip this one to shreds. But I’m actually not going to. A little bit of excellent harmonizing and background vocalizing goes a long way, and there’s not much harmonizing better than that in RBB. Red Velvet’s voices really are doing the heavy lifting here, but that’s really what sets it apart from all those songs I’ve complained about. It may be a little hard to take seriously, but just like War Of Hormone of BTS, it’s a pretty good time if you suspend your disbelief, throw up your hands, and have as much fun as the people singing it.

From the RBB mini-album, Butterflies was a standout for me. Like the best of RV’s b-sides, it zings along with a delightfully breezy feeling and some great slowly rising vocals to complete the sound. Shoutout also to the interesting vocal fry in Sassy Me and the playful back-and-forth vocals in Taste.

RV’s 2019 work is divided into three EPs, each with its own title track, that together form one mammoth album: the ReVe Festival. Zimzalabim is the first single, and is infamous both amongst ReVeLuvs and other k-pop stans alike. While other RV titles have been odd, this song takes it to a whole other level, like Rookie’s insanity on steroids. There are parts that work (like the na na na na na higher in the pre-chorus), but many more that don’t, and, just like with Rookie, we’re left with a song that has good ideas and good parts, but needed a few more drafts and way more editing. “Are you ready for this?” Wendy asks at the beginning. Well, apparently not.

From part one of the ReVe Festival, I liked both the calming, slightly reggae-inspired Sunny Side Up (because who doesn’t love terrible puns?) and the drum-line heavy, quick-footed Bing Bing, which, despite much of it being nonsense vocalizations, is very catchy and will have you dancing before the first chorus.

Umpah Umpah is often overshadowed in the ReVe Festival, due to the craziness that comes before and the that comes after (we’ll get to that), but it’s actually my favorite of the three songs. On first listen, I didn’t appreciate its humor, odd lyrics, and 60’s-at-the-beach vibes, but after learning that it’s actually a special track marking their 5th anniversary, it grew on me. I especially like the background vocalizations that round it out beautifully and the way-too-short acapella section at the beginning of the last chorus because it was probably my favorite part of the song. It’s really a celebration of their friendship and how far they’ve come, and I’ve never been able to resist songs that wear their heart on their sleeve.

Just as Umpah Umpah is my favorite of the three titles, the ReVe Festival Part Two is my favorite of the three mini-albums (and one of my favorite RV albums in general). I found it quite difficult to choose between the carnival-meets-doo-wop of Love Is The Way, the brisk chantiness of Carpool, and the feel-good girl power disco of Ladies’ Night. But the other songs are great too.

Despite the popularity of the many titles mentioned before, none come close to the almost inescapable fame that Psycho reached internationally. From the first whispered accusation “psycho” and the swirling electronic background meeting the delicate strings, it has this creeping unsettling feeling that never quotes goes away—which makes sense, given that it’s a song about a toxic relationship. While I do like this song, I think it’s not surprising that it doesn’t live up to the insane amount of hype it recieves, because really, how could it? It is what it is, and it does what it sets out to do well, but in such a strong discography, it’s just a footnote.

From the last part of the ReVe Festival, my favorite was definitely the jazzy, bluesy La Rouge, which I wish could’ve gotten a special music video like Be Natural or Automatic, because it’s definitely at that same level. I know I’ve mentioned the harmonizing in nearly every b-side but it’s just so good that, well, how could I not? The vocals are at some of their most refined here, oscillating between drawn-out and self-assured and gently emotional, giving the song much-needed layers.

Soon after Psycho’s release, Wendy suffered a terrible stage accident that injured her hip, jawbone, and wrist, and, needing time in order to recover, Red Velvet went on hiatus for almost two years, before returning with Queendom in late summer 2021. Because of when I became a fan, this was the first RV comeback I saw in real time, so I fully acknowledge the rose-colored glasses I’m looking at it through. It’s a basic pop song, and I’m not going to champion it like it’s the best thing since sliced bread, but it does get me bopping my head. It’s got the bones of another of their classics, but none of its strongest moments are pushed quite far enough.

From the Queendom EP, I had two hidden gems. Pose, despite what in lesser hands would immediately make me classify it as an anti-drop, is actually my favorite, and the combination of self-assured sing talk and exuberant singing really works for me. Knock On Wood is a calmer R & B b-side, and like many of their Velvet tracks, it’s nothing incredible, but their voices elevate it to great. That post-chorus is a highlight too.

Feel My Rhythm is the 1st single from the ReVe Festival’s 2022 counterpart, and is honestly one of my favorites. The song is lovely, weaving in a classical background and samples of twittering birds and running water to truly establish a calm feeling. The song bursts with life, but a more refined, almost mature version of it compared to Red Flavor’s bombast. The title “Feel My Rhythm” may create the image of a very dancy, upbeat song, but in truth, it’s more like the quiet beauty of an Oh My Girl track than that. Also, the MV is just really pretty, with its moving impressionist paintings, while keeping some of that signature Red Velvet strangeness.

From the mini-album, though I did like both Bamboleo and Rainbow Halo, In My Dreams was my clear standout. That chorus is the stuff of legends: the way it rushes back and forth from quiet to loud, the way the voices blend in such a stunning way, and the way it combines its driving emotion and the beautiful elegance swirling around it. Perfection.

Birthday is the single from the 2nd part of the ReVe Festival 2022. After how much I liked the 1st part, I wish I could say I liked this one too. Unfortunately, I think that despite a few standout moments (like the pre-chorus), I have no idea what on earth SM Entertainment was thinking. This song isn’t “bad”, in the way of Rookie or Zimzalabim, where, despite not being for me, I can at least respect what they were going for. Instead, it sounds nothing like an RV song, and just rumbles around in bizarre, uncharismatic sing-talk that does a disservice to such great vocals. The girls do their best but even they can’t save this one, because every time I hear this song I just wonder who mixed up the tracks for Red Velvet and NCT 127. I also think that the accompanying EP is one of their weakest, and I don’t have a hidden gem for it.

Red Velvet just came back today (the 13th, as I’m writing this) with their third full album (finally!!) and the title track Chill Kill begins with the kind of creeping yet lovely string-accompanied verse that I wish Psycho had. I was worried that we’d get a repeat of Birthday but thankfully I needn’t have worried. The chorus bounces with horrid delight in alt-pop perfection while the girls cover up a murder in the background (as one does). The bridge, meanwhile, culminates in a 3rd gen trademark high note as a house burns to the ground, the girls dance in front of the police pursuing them, and face their fate together in a surprisingly touching show of sisterhood. I couldn’t have asked for a better single; it’s that more vocal focused and emotionally driven Peek-A-Boo that I always wished for.

The album, Chill Kill, is just as strong, harkening back to the Red Velvet I loved back in The Perfect Velvet. It was difficult to pick a hidden gem, as I loved the cathartic high part and scratchy strings in Knock Knock (Who’s There?), the surprisingly video game like chorus in Will I Ever See You Again, the catchy yet gentle comfort in Nightmare, and the slowly rising a-capella in Wings that encourages the listener to be a brave butterfly no matter what the world says.

My Top 5 songs by Red Velvet are One Of These Nights, Russian Roulette, Umpah Umpah, Dumb Dumb, and You Better Know, with In My Dreams and Peek-A-Boo as honorable mentions. Red Velvet gets a 9 out of 10 from me, and I think that both that and my distance from the band can mostly be put down to the fact that while the songs themselves are almost all technically excellent, very few of them have deeper meanings than a typical b-side.

The ones that do—like One Of These Nights or Umpah Umpah—are some of my favorites, but on the whole, I don’t have as deep an emotional connection to their music as I do to Dreamcatcher’s or to Seventeen’s. This is also down to the fact that Red Velvet doesn’t write any of their own songs, unlike the previous two (who write / compose some and all, respectively), and thus the members have less of an emotional connection to the music too. This isn’t a dig at Red Velvet, who are all incredibly talented, but I would love to hear more of what they have to say, like on their solos.

So, did I meet what I set out to do at the beginning and rediscover my love of Red Velvet? Well, I think I did! I’ve honestly yet to find another group like them, barring maybe SHINee, whose voices are all excellent separately but together become something far greater than the sum of their parts. I think it’s safe to say that Red Velvet will always have a special place in my heart, even if I don’t listen to them every day. No matter if they disband tomorrow or not for decades, I’m proud to call myself a ReVeLuv. I’ll be here on August 1st. 2024 for their tenth anniversary, blue lemonade in hand, and I hope you will be too.

Next time, we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming with just one group a week. See you then, for a boy group. Tschüss!

#k-pop #review #k-pop deep dive #k pop girl groups #red velvet #son seungwan #Wendy #Seulgi #Irene #bae joohyun #kim yerim #yeri #park sooyoung #joy #power up #psycho #umpah umpah #zimzalabim #feel my rhythm #Queendom #reve festival #chill kill #what a chill kill #Spotify

[sakiyaki-sashimi]

Yoooo I wanted to make a series where I say my headcanons about the music and clothing aesthetics of MHA characters! Warning, my picks can be hella weird XD

Firstly, 1-A!:

Midoriya - Imma be honest- I don’t like Midoriya- but he would have the cutest outfits. I always weirdly imagine him listening to anime OPs in like middle school boy sports clothes but if they were fashionable. Think whatever the fuck the v-tuber Subaru has going on. Whatever it is, it’s very Nostalga/Animecore and I’m into it

Uraraka - Shes some sort of warm modern version of Heisei Retro frrrrr. If u don’t know what that is, imagine if Y2K was Japanese and it’s a little like that but not really. This girl chills in her pink room wearing scrunchies and soft thick socks playing Pokémon or animal crossing because it makes her happy and I love her for that lol

Bakugou - It’s pretty obvious, but for him I’d have to say hip-hop and streetwear fashion. This dude totally just wears the baggiest fuckin shit and it WORKS cause he just struts around the city listening to rock music in his black and orange hoodie and everyone gets out of his way XD

Mina - Will always and forever be a Decora Kei and Harajuku girl!! Bright clothes and millions of accessories are totally her thing and she’ll never get tired of listening to bubblegum pop! She definitely also has some Gyaru to her, but not as much as the Decora Kei

Kirishima - This bro is just happy and summery and sportsy and whatever the fuck Haikyuu has going on. I just love the idea of him eating otter pops and listening to Kenshi Yonezu and being a vacation dad (I think vacation dadcore is literally what I’m looking for lol)

Kaminari - This man is hyperpop as FUCK. He WILL blast Mos Thoser at 3am and it’s fine because his music is bomb af. Neon scene clothes whenever he can manage, and if he can’t then pure BLACK because he thinks it makes him look cool (It does actually, good job denki :3)

Tsuyu - She’s always so chill, to me she screams City Pop and Lo-Fi listener!! She’s def got that calm type of vaporwave to her. Not the kind of bright vaporwave or unnerving old internet vaporwave, more like the soft colors and simple outfits and sunsets kind of vaporwave

Jirou - Im sorry y’all she is and will forever be an e-girl. Shes just a Yami-Kawaii e-girl who likes metal and 2010s pop rock. I can’t get this idea of her with the Project Sekai Dark Decora outfit out of my head so that’s who she is to me now. She probably has the most obvious aesthetic in the show but idc I’m changing it lol

Momo - Totally a dark academia girlie, she just wants to wear a brown sweater with a white collar-neck underneath and be in a small but warmly lit room full of classic literature and feather-quills with piano music in the background to listen to while she studies and no one can prove me wrong

If your wonder where anyone else is, they aren’t here because I’m not interested in them enough to give them an aesthetic or I have no ideas for them.

If y’all liked this somehow I might make more?? So ye byeeee

#my hero academia #izuku midoriya #bakugou katsuki #ochako uraraka #mina ashido #kirishima eijirou #denki kaminari #tsuyu asui #jirou kyouka #momo yaoyorozu #do I make MHA posts #ig I do now #boku no hero academia #aestethic

[haitanislvt]

"Lets go to Korea-town!"

tokyo rev x Korean reader

tw: cigarettes

characters: Wakasa

not proof read

"hey waka!"

"hm?"

"lets go to korea-town"

"what-town?"

your jaw dropped.

"babe do you know what korea is? its literally a country near japan?!?"

"hm? never was good with geography-"

"waka- im literally korean."

you saw his eyes widen

"shit really-? im so sorry, i never realized, nor did it matter to me to ask you about where you were from"

you rolled your eyes and grabbed his wrist, dragging him to the car. as you drove to korea-town you can tell hes not an outside person. his life just revolves around you and his gym.

You parked in a parking garage and told him that you guys arrived, he subtly nodded and left the car waiting for you to get out. you opened the door to leave and walked towards him who was just on his phone. he looked up quickly and reached his hand towards you. you gladly took it and you two left the parking garage.

you two entered korea-town. you first took him to a beauty supply shop because you wanted to grab something. he looked around mindlessly. k-pop playing in the background he walked towards the hoodies, he actually liked some of the designs.

"hey y/n? should i get this?"

"do you listen to them?"

"no."

you just looked at him. he changed his mind. you checked out your stuff and walked towards him to let him know you're done. he leaned his head forward to see what you got and you slight opened the bag. he saw a beanie, stationaries, and a poem book.

"so what did you actually come here to buy?"

"nothing, i just was curious"

he grabbed the bag and your hand and you two walked out of the store. while walking around k-town, he realized how Korean culture is different yet similar. waka saw how passionate you were about your ethnicity. its like something snapped in his head. he realized maybe he should make an effort towards your nationality.

the two of you just goofed off around taking cute pictures together. you felt a sense of warmth at the fact that he was opening up and having fun with you. as the sun was slowly setting you two decided to end the night at a korean restaurant for dinner.

the waitress seated you guys at a table outside to eat, she noticed you were korean and asked about your day. in korean. waka dismissed it and looked at the menu and he had a look of confusion in his eyes. once the waitress left all you saw was a very confused wakasa, this made you chuckle a bit. sucking up his pride he set it down and asked what the fuck it all meant. you looked at the menu and saw he was pointing at a picture with text under on what it was but there was no translation. it broke out laughing a little, you took the menu to read it, "일본 라면“ japanese ramen?

"it say's japanese ramen, do you want that?"

he nodded slowly with an embarrassed face, you didnt know why he was embarrassed but you could tell. its like his ego went down just by asking you for a translation. about 3 minutes passed and the waitress came by with some cha, she asked if you two were ready to order. you looked up and said 네 (yes),

"일본 라면 하나랑 김치찌개 하나 주문해도 될까요?" (can i order one japanese ramen and one kimchi stew?)

she wrote it down and nodded telling you guys it wont take long. when she left waka asked how long you lived in korea and when you moved to japan. you told him you moved to japan when you were 10 but since your parents were deeply cultural, they forced you to talk to them in korean to extend your language.

with a dumbfounded look on his face he had the audacity to ask, "do you know bts?" in a stupid "korean" accent. you stared at him with an unimpressed look and he apologized shortly after.

the food came out after a few minutes and you two talked about, or you were telling him some stories from korea and just your experience and funny family stories as he just ate his food and nodded.

when you two finished he payed and tipped the waitress, by the time you two left the restaurant it was already night and it was cold, not freezing but it was chilly. waka took his jacket off and draped it over your shoulders while holding onto you. "lets go home yeah?" you nodded against his shoulder as you two slowly made your way to the car.

a/n: idk why but i was hella unmotivated to write anything so if this is bad im so sorry😭 but i wanted to write this bc im korean. yeah thats kinda it. its kinda cheesy and kinda dumb but hey why not! 💀

#haitanislvt #tokyo revengers #wakasa imaushi #tokrev wakasa #wakasa headcanons #wakasa scenarios #tr wakasa #wakasa imagines #wakasa hcs #wakasa x reader #tokyo revengers wakasa #tokyo rev x reader #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo rev x y/n #tokyo rev headcanons #tokyo rev fluff #tokyo rev #wakasa fluff #wakasa imaushi fluff

[xxoxobree]

Hii I wanna request a match up !!

PRESONALITY: I’m a introvert, but if I’m around people I’m close with , I’m more extroverted, I’m really sarcastic when it comes to anything , I really don’t like going out , especially when it’s around a lot of people I don’t know, I spend most of my time in my room , I’m really kind and determined even though I procrastinate a LOT. And I’m really caring for my friends.

LOOKS: I don’t really have a “style” because I like a little bit of everything, but I’m really inlove with streetwear and the “earthy “ style ( I forgot the name) because it brings out my skin tone , I really love 90’s inspired makeup and clothing style, along with the fly girl aesthetic too.

LIKES: baking, cooking, gaming, reading, drawing, (or any type of art) doing hair , shopping, doing makeup, rainy days / nights , and rotting in my bed all day.

DISLIKES: bullying, public speaking( and places), school,secret animosity between friends, loud noises, loud people, people , people who fetishize poc, and racism, etc.

HOBBIES: I said most of my hobbies in the like section.

MUSIC TASTE: a little bit of rap, r&b, 80’s-90’s slow jams , 90’s Japanese pop, indie, modern Japanese pop, and whatever genre you put “the smiths” music in.

I’m mostly nocturnal because I’m so busy in the day with school and housework, I do most of my reading at night while listening to music , and I’m usually helping out with cooking .

That’s all :3!!

Hey honey bunni 🥰🥰 btw I freaking love how you described yourself.

So immediately Inumaki and Miles 1610

Inumaki -

You’re a Fly Girl so it’s only right that you have a bf that matches your vibe and Inumaki 100% does , the flyest couple ever! I can see you two swapping clothes and putting together bomb ass fits. Pictures go crazy! I can definitely see him styling you too. Ugh I kinda wanna be you guys

He is in love with your earthy girl core, drools when you wear waist beads. And him being with you just compliments your style that much more.

Can’t say much words but don’t let that fool you he is sassy and will match your sarcasm with the tone of what he says. Will be more than happy to stay inside with you and do whatever he actually prefers it.

He is very kind and caring like you are and is the sweetest boyfriend ever, expect him to be clingy and random text about how much he loves you and cares for you, will give you things that remind him of you. You are his back ground picture, shows you off.

Will let you practice your makeup and hair on him loves it.

Understands your dislike of public speaking because of his technique.

Miles 1610 -

Matches your street style also, compliments all of your fits, makes you do a spin for him while he smiles like an idiot.

He’s not an introvert, but loves that you’re quiet, he can be the yapper while you be the listener, loves to talk to you.

Sometimes doesn’t catch you’re sarcasm and when you say you were being sarcastic, he blushes form embarrassment and says that he knew that, it’s super cute

He draws too so you two can show each other drawings and get inspiration from one another.

Miles is influenced by his uncle Aaron so he will rap all the Biggie and Rakim lyrics with you, it’s a vibe every time.

Will also let you practice your make up on him, he’d probably complain and ask a lot of questions tho

Will rot in bed with you once he’s next to you watching your favorite movies/shows with snacks

- I had so much fun with this one 😘

#jjk x reader #inumaki x reader #toge x reader #miles morales x reader #earth 1610 miles morales x reader #xxoxo updates #xxoxoask #xxoxobree

[misty-wisp]

I ront know your oc but your new art popped up on the p5 tag and scratches my brain right, it might be the composition but its giving me "She is gonna make the 3rd semester even more psycological horror :)" energy, loving her hair color too

Also, about your Kasumi's post, i don't deny that Atlus tropped the ball about Sumire's arc at some point but I think Kasumi was a good sister, but also flawed. She probably had more pressure on her shoulders for being the 'oldest one' due japanese's standards, despite being just some minutes older than Sumi, so she probably also wore a mask of perfection to trick society she was what they wanted. Plus instead of just being insensitive, i read her last moment more as her being one of those people coping with humor 'my sister is sad im gonna say a joke to cheer her up :)' and it went BAD. And when Sumi belives to be her sister, she is not a 1:1 copy of the real Kasumi, she is Sumire's own cognition of Kasumi.

Tldr: i think both twins loved eachother deeply but there was a huge lack of comunication a bit due the fact they were 14 at the time and a bit due japanese norms. Also sorry for the ramble 😅

hey!!! first off i am so sorry for answering so late, i've been going through it a little as of recent😭

secondly EEEE TYYYYY i'm really normal about my oc and i can and will talk about her a LOT!!! if you're interested it should be really easy to get a good grasp on her character if you check out her ref and my many posts abt her chronicled in this tag

okok onto the sumi thing--gonna put that under the cut bc of royal spoilers

i think a lot of projection went into my post talking about the sumis tbh bc i have a LOT of issues regarding jealousy and self worth and hoo boy do i project all that onto sumi. so i end up going "grrr everyone better than me is actually awful grrr" as like this weird but natural reaction.

i do think kasumi really did love her sister!! she was just caught up in both fame, praise, and possibly expectations like you suggested. and abt her treating sumire in an insensitive way, while i'm sure she didn't intend anything malicious behind any of her actions, i'd still read what she said as fairly insensitive, albeit unintentionally. she knows sumire's got issues with self worth comparing herself to her but doesn't really try to listen and understand--sumire even points that out.

and while i also think sumire did love her sister, i still stand by my opinion that she should've bore some kind of anger or grudge toward her out of jealousy. and naturally, because she thinks kasumi's so perfect (and out of love), she'd internalize that grudge onto herself just to further her own self loathing. but even with that, i think it's okay if she did harbor that grudge--it only makes sense for you to be mad at someone you constantly compare yourself to, even if you love them with all your heart. it's really something else for her to work through and feel emotions about, bc i really don't think ATLUS let her be emotional enough in third sem.

tl;dr, i'm sure both sisters did love each other very much, one's just unaware of how to handle someone with a crumbling mental health and the other has jealousy issues she internalizes as self-loathing

#ask #hoshihime98 #p5r spoilers

[sophaeros]

so i dreamt i was listening to sias on apple music and when i looked at the album cover it turned into a slideshow (some photos some videos) of a photoshoot they'd done with kate moss and some older guy?? in terms of style and colours it was exactly like the green/yellow sias release photoshoot yk the one. the italian ingenues in a car holding a scythe. same outfits too. except in this one they were in a garden and alex was playing the guitar and singing to a group of kids for some reason. it was really pretty tbh :( alex looked so soft and cute it was very ethereal. actually also kind of giving that one sias era snoozer magazine shoot. like alex was sitting cross legged on the grass with the guitar in his lap w the kids sitting in a loose semicircle in front of him and his eyes were half closed. and each one had like an alt text button you could click on but it wasnt actually alt text it was quotes that alex kate and the older guy had said in an accompanying interview BUT I CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT TJEY SAID UGHHH i found the link to the interview but all i remember was kate moss talking to the guy and saying yo 💀 💀 i wanted to read alex's part but reading was so hard i was like it's ok i'll send the link to the server im in and catch up later (i realised my mistake when i was drifting awake but i couldnt fall back asleep into that segment FML) i think humbug also had a similar slideshow thing but i dont remember anything about it

(next part under a cut bc it's so damn long and also derails in a baffling way)

then it turns out that back when this photoshoot was released (my brain said 2007 for some reason..) it was linked to a secret part of their website where you had this video game where you could choose to tear down this beautiful little pixel house for the chance to obtain. a bed. and there were only a few hundred available. but in order to do so you had to solve a series of clues and riddles and it was so difficult that most people couldnt complete it. after the event was over they'd posted an explanation of the solution with all four of them taking turns to say each part in transcript form and matt went first but i only took a short glance bc there was so much going on like i saw math adjacent shit and was like ok nvm my ass is not understanding all that. there'd been a post of a fan with the second fastest time in the world (about 160 seconds..?minutes? idk) selling the bed she'd gotten it was all bright green pixels very simplistic style. i wanted to experience it for myself so i looked up a link and it led me to a neocities of presumably a replica someone had done after am took the official one off their website it was smth like "theoriginof-mypixelhouse.neocities" something like that idk the game had some button pop ups like are you sure you want to proceed with tearing down this house? there was a philosophical element to it. idk. the game's voice was in japanese and it said "but it's dangerous.." as i clicked yes and then i saw some scary face flashing in dim red in the darkness to the side of the screen (also for some reason i was playing this on a huge screen it might have been a projector on the wall kjshdk) and i was like oh shit it's a horror remake bye im not brave enough for this and quickly closed the tab as the face flashed again.

thus ended the am segment of my dream. after this it was dr doofenschmirtz and perry the platypus improvising an instrumental song for a talent show with the aro and ace flags displayed on their table 😭 😭 😭

#sophaerostxt #dreams #arctic monkeys #IDK MAN

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

what are your song rankings for the cross the line album?

I haven't actually listened to the album yet, so I'll put it on in the BG as I do some chores and then let you know what I think.

Cross A Line - LOVED this. I don't know what to call this genre - I guess a mix of hip-hop and... jazz...? Smooth hip-hop? man idk - but it's one I really enjoy and one that I think Japanese hip-hop excels at. The radio theme is really fun, and the beats/rapping are very good. Compare this to some earlier songs, and you can see major improvement from many of the voice actors. I'm going to listen to this to death.

Enishi - DUDE. I love this too! The singing style (particularly at the beginning) is really in vogue in Japan right now, and I think that, combined with the emphasis on singing as a group, makes this song sound more like a typical idol series J-pop-esque song than you normally get in Hypmic. Even with that, though, there's still the trademark Dotsu Hon brass (the Dotsu Horns, if you will), but it's much more mellow and mature sounding for them. The lyrics (from what I can hear of them; I don't have them in front of me) and the singing alike are very beautiful. This kind of feels like Re:start to me in terms of pretty, chilled out music. Again, this rocks. I love it.

Ikebukuro West Block Party - BRUH. I like this one slightly less than the first two, I think, but this fucking slaps. I never like Hypmic songs this much on the first lesson. What are they doing on this album? Absolutely killing it! Jesus. Again, this one feels more idol song-y than you normally get in Hypmic, but the beat is EXCELLENT. I'm folding laundry right now - or supposed to be folding laundry, rather, as I think I did more grooving holding a pair of shorts than any actual folding. This would make a super fun dance song. Rapping is also great, esp. for Ichirou and Jirou. Dude, keep it up, Cross a Line, you are nailing it.

Scarface - (10 seconds in) FUCK!! (After listening) Sorry, I got excited there. First off, I fucking love Latin pop/rock, and when you mix it with hip-hop? mmmmMMMMMMMMMMMMMM THAT'S GOOD STUFF, BABY! I have five hands and they're all doing the pinching finger emoji. The singing on this was really smooth at the beginning. I'm not a super huge fan of the way they sung "paradise" (Samatoki low-key sounds like he's dying...) and I lost my mind at the "Say hello to my little friend" "What, these cockroaches?" "RRRR!!!" part midway through. Well... that's MTC for you! I'd never show this to someone I care about, but I'll love it and cherish it for a long time. And that's what's important.

Torima Get on the Floor - While I'm sitting through this H&M ad waiting for the video to load, I do have to say that I'm excited for this one. I know Afro Parker worked on it, and I love the fuck out of their work. Plus, if it's anything like the rest of this album, it's going to be right up my alley. (After listening) I think this is my least favorite so far, which isn't to say that I dislike it at all. It's very fun, but maybe only because I've listened to so many other things I really like first, it's not completely thrilling me. It fits in nicely with the theme of the album, and it's very catchy/fun to dance to. It sounds to me like a video game soundtrack song (like you'd hear in a shop, maybe). I can def. hear the Afro Parker sound at the end. Lyrics are fun, esp. with the call-outs (love Dice going "bullshit stories" and Gentarou going "Hm?") and the "gero-gero-get on the floor." I think this'll grow on me, esp. once I get used to Ramuda's voice in this. Gentarou sounds great in this one, for what it's worth.

Synchro City - Okay, this one's actually my least favorite on this CD for real. I think maybe because all the others have gone so hard that I'm just not feeling it. It's not bad at all, but it's not doing much of anything for me. That's kind of a shame, since I normally really like Matenrou songs - I think Doppo and Hifumi have great singing voices. (Incidentally, the kind of singing Jakurai is doing here sounds very nice. He doesn't usually straight-up sing like this.) There's been a lot of straight singing on this album, huh... Maybe that's why it feels more idol focused. These lyrics are very sweet, though. It's a nice, chill song, and I think I'll enjoy it more later. I don't know how I feel about in the midst of everything else that's more upbeat, though.

Dera Sugee Utage - (first two seconds) I see we're back to upbeat. (After listening) LOVE THIS TOO. This reminds me of RIP in a good way. SUPER catchy, and all the singing in this is on point, especially Kuukou's. I really like how his voice actor voices him and his accent in general. Super good one to dance to as well. Damn. DAMN!

In conclusion:

Wow. I don't think I've enjoyed any Hypmic album as much as this one before. Apparently the secret to me enjoying something is to make it upbeat and put a lot of horns in it. What'd you guys think? I've been seeing a lot of positive responses to it. Is everyone in agreement that it's good?

#not a translation #asks #hypmic asks