#i wanted to go for a manga-esque style if that shows at all :D

[arkadiaasks]

Why do you think YGO attracts so many LGBTQ and non-gender conforming fans?

Okay, I really liked this question, and I assume you're asking in good faith, so I decided to get some second opinions from friends (though keep in mind the LGBT community is not a monolith):

A) It's a big franchise that's over 25 years old, it's gonna have something for everyone at this point. There's probably some game, card or show or manga that vibes with you at this point.

B) Takahashi Kazuki was at least center-left at least, and was a pretty, near as we can tell, open minded person, who wanted a better world. His tendency to vibe with underdogs I think gives him a certain Neil Gaiman esque quality of writing in such a way that can be fairly endearing to LGBTQ+ and Non-Gender Conforming Fans looking for rep.

Now from Friends:

C) The series had Yugi be inspired by Edward Scissorhands, a social outsider who for reasons, couldn't quite fit in with 'normal' society. That's definitely going to leave marks and signs.

D) The wide variety of Decks allows people to find a Deck that 'fits' them, something important to a lot of LGBTQ+/NGC fans of media, that they like to latch onto something that lets them express themselves if they're into something casual.

E) Aesthetics wise, the manga and the spinoffs were and are generally good at very attractive guys (and femme masculine characters) and very very gorgeous pretty women.

F) A friend of mine joked "If VRAINS had been brave enough to have Aoi be a feminine boy in RL who plays a big tiddy cute fashionable girl online", do you KNOW how many people would be going "She's just like me fr fr fr"

G) "Plus who else wouldn't love having a steady consistent friend group that is present in many of the shows where you can honestly say "they're all going to form one Functional Adult by the time they hit college"."

H) Yugi is a VERY rare case of positive non-toxic, non-villainous plural representation. Judai + Yubel by show's ending. That's a good thing for people. Plural people tends to be very LGBT+/NGC adjacent or intersectionalize.

I) From another friend:

"Every single Trans girl I know has had a period of looking at Dark Magician Girl and going "God, I wish that were me" without realizing at the time what they were doing."

J) The Punk Subculture vibes with Yugi and Kaiba. Leather. Chains. Gold. Yu-Gi-Oh! has a LOT of spiked/gelled looking hair. Remember, Punk is an anti-establishment subculture originally.

K) Huge phenomenon, a Japanese series that blew up in the west that had a fairly androgynous cast. Marik, Bakura, Pegasus etc. A lot of the popular guys tend to be femme masculine. That sort of aesthetic can be very appealing and comforting to young Queer fans still in the closet.

Bakura's been HUGELY formative on at least two of my friends.

L) It's a large Fujoshi attracting IP, and if you don't think Fujoshi aren't attracted to LGBT material or become LGBT adjacent, boy I think you gotta go and sit down and think for a while.

M) Yugi comes off as very queer energy, Kaiba's incredibly practically homosexual lust for Atem, Mai despite it being a 90s-00s manga and anime was a pretty strong woman, dominating, powerful feeling, while very very CLEARLY feminine, can be fairly endearing?

N) The art style not being mono-coded as Magic the Gathering, allows for much more variety leaning back to points A and D

O) Yubel. Judai and Johan. Yugi. Etc. There's a lot of undercurrents of unintended queer writing.

There's a lot of reasons, but the IP has a LOT going for it that can be attractive. LOTS of Questions of identity. Characters who are social outsiders (especially the main characters). The artistic style favors NGC appearance to some degree.

There's as many reasons as there are people, but the franchise is just very, even if it doesn't directly intend for it, you can draw a LOT of feelings and thoughts and headcanons and vibes from the franchise.

#lgbtqplus #yugioh

[poisonappletales]

I hope this isn't rude to ask or anything - if it is, I apologize! But you wouldn't happen to have a version 1 of the demo for Beauty and the War, would you? My reasoning is that I would like to compare both versions, so I can see the progress, and I'd truly appreciate a link of some sort to the first version!

Hello, Anonymous!

Don't worry, this isn't rude at all. I don't happen to have a link on hand at the moment. Before, I noticed having it up was confusing to some players, leading them to assume that the finalized version of the game would look like what it does in early development, so I went ahead and removed it. However, I may consider re-uploading it in the future!

If it helps, here’s some of my older works from version 1 of the demo that I found:

This was Ambrosia's 1st demo sprite (well, it didn't have this black-and-white scheme in the game - it was just for this image). At the time, I was going for a more anime-fied look. I'm still going for that angle but with a more mature touch.

Here's Chase's 1st demo sprite. At the time, I was in a bit of a hurry so I put a collar around half his face to draw less expressions. This was definitely not a complete version of his sprite and was missing a whole lot of elements.

The prologue was completely different. This is a low-res preview featuring King Barium of the Vi, all dressed in armor and engaged in battle with the other clans. This was from Prince Alexandrite's perspective. In case you're wondering, that flash of movement in the background is a bunch of arrows shooting across the snowy sky.

Over here, I was attempting a manga-esque dialogue bubble. This is another low-res preview.

Same here. This was until I decided I wanted to make it look subtitled like an animated film, which would also create a more cohesive look once everything comes together. My colors back then were also quite...vibrant.

Here's King Barium unmasked.

There's the manga-esque think bubble - swath? - again.

And here's my super old promo for the game! Back when I just called it War (X Playing Pieces). Then it changed to Beauty and the War (X Playing Pieces) based on a recommendation by the Magic Mirror (that is to say, he thought War sounded too masculine and wouldn't draw in players who could've enjoyed the fairytale aspects, romance, etc.). In case anyone's wondering what's up with this long title, I would suggest seeing it like this - Beauty and the War is the first in the X Playing Pieces series (much like how Game of Thrones is the first book in A Song of Ice and Fire series).

Anyway, this features Onyx intimidatingly carrying Ambrosia in a blood-stained dress. I still like the design concept I made for this. But looking at it, I kind of want to redraw it since I would like to think I improved since then.

Based off answers to the survey linked in the new demo, I believe my changes were...liked by some and debated by others? Some prefer the more straightforward/cute anime-ish style I was going for back then. But I ultimately think the new style - once I show you how it looks all polished - fits the story and its tone so much more.

There was a handful that preferred this old prologue as well, but the majority vastly appreciated the new one, where X made it easier for players to grasp Virgo Island. However, that doesn't mean the old prologue has completely vanished. You might find it somewhere else in the game...

As I mentioned earlier, I'll consider re-uploading the first version in the future. But one thing I can do now is show more previews of how the game's progress is coming along! Stay tuned for that.

Other than that, I'll be visiting the Discord today (May 21, 2021) around 8:20 PM (PST)! I'm hoping to get our planned D&D session (that takes place on Virgo Island!) underway. But I'm also open to questions and/or just shooting the breeze with anyone who cares to do so.

Thanks for asking about this, Anonymous! It was actually kind of fun digging out screenshots of my old work because it gives me that creative drive of wanting to do better than what I did before. (And I still totally want to re-draw that promo. That's going on my hopeful to-do list!) Hope this was also able to give you some basis for comparison between demo versions, too! If you'd like to see more screenshots, I might be able to scrounge up others. Just let me know.

Have a great rest of the day!

#ask

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Still a few weeks out from issue 4 of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow and DC’s solicit schedule is exceedingly wonky so WHO KNOWS when those will drop...THUS. A tiny bit of art appreciation, to tide us (read: me) over. XD

Potentially (?) spoiler-y art tease below!

FIRST UP, issue 4 variant by Rose Besch! The September solicits had a bunch of variant covers listed without previews, so I think this only started showing up in the last few weeks? Regardless, check it ouuuuuttttt:

First of all: So sparkly. :D

Second, MMMMM, look at that CMY(sans K) color palette! I also think the artist’s style of coloring is just very neat--like, refracted light through a prism, if that makes sense? Very geometric. And of course, always dig a cool, shojo manga-esque look for Supergirl. I think, of the variants released thus far, this one and the Amy Reeder cover are my favorite. 

The other little bit of art comes courtesy of Evely, who is back to posting in-progress snippets. As always, I recommend following her and colorist Mat Lopes on their various social media sites because 1.) they are both INCREDIBLY TALENTED and post that Good Good art and 2.) you get to see stuff LIKE THIS:

HNNNNNNGGGGG.

I will go through my usual happy art shouting: HAIR! FACE! BODY LANGUAGE!!!!!!

This is the potentially spoiler-y bit, though without text/additional panels for context, there’s not much it’s actually spoiling? Still. Just want to be extra careful.

I continue to be so completely, utterly thrilled to have eight--EIGHT--issues of Evely’s Supergirl. I mean. Just look at that. Beautiful.

Can’t wait to see the whole page, and Lopes’ colors. Aaaah. S’gonna be GOOD.

Another quick social media account recommendation: Evely’s represented by Felix Comic Art. Even if you aren’t an original art collector, the site usually has decent scans of the original black and white pages. (Watermarked, natch.) But it’s so neat getting to see the original art vs. the colored pages.

And, okay, on that subject of inks vs. colors, I had not originally planned on including this but HERE WE GO, MORE ART, BECAUSE I CAN ALWAYS RAMBLE ABOUT ART.

This time, from Lopes’ twitter; he shared the colors for this page from issue 3, and then later posted Evely’s initial inks: 

It’s maybe a little hard to tell, scrolling, but when you check these out on Lopes’ twitter, and toggle back and forth, you can actually see that the colors ever so slightly soften Kara’s expression. 

Which I find FASCINATING, because it really illustrates the wild game of telephone that is comics creation.

You’ve got the writer and the editor, who work sort of in tandem to figure out how best to tell the story that the writer has in mind. That then goes to the penciller, who puts their own spin on the script, then it goes to the inker who has to interpret the penciller’s lines and choose what lines to keep and how best to highlight them (though, in this case, Evely is inking her own stuff so there’s less chance for any drastic changes between these phases) and then FINALLY (at least on the art side of things) it goes to the colorist who adds a whole NEW layer (literally and figuratively) to the art by selecting palettes and color holds and so on and so forth.

In fact, I was just reading the coda in the most recent Fire Power issue, (a comic by Robert Kirkman--of The Walking Dead fame--Chris Samnee, and Matt Wilson) and Samnee said he’d imagined a particular scene taking place at night, but got the colors back from Wilson, who had set the action early in the morning. Samnee drew the pages for a night palette, but Wilson totally made the morning lighting work, and Samnee felt the storytelling was better that way, as it made the time-skip more apparent. (The previous scene also took place at night, which would’ve been confusing for readers, had they both been set at night.)

ALL OF THIS TO SAY! You have multiple storytellers working on any given book, and here, specifically, I think it’s very cool that Lopes choices enhanced the acting that Evely already put on the page. 

(Though, disclaimer: it occurs to me that this is entirely subjective, and some folks might feel that there WASN’T any discernable change between inks and colors. *Shrug* ARRRTTT!!!!)

Caught a Felix Comic Art stream a few weeks back when he unboxed the art for these issues, and someone in the chat mentioned wanting an Artist Edition for Evely.

And may I just say: Yes.

Like. I don’t think it’ll happen, but I really wish this book would get the usual King trade treatment--a special edition hardcover with a bunch of backmatter, so that we can just DRINK IN THE ARTWORK.

(Would also love to see the script for any of the issues! They did that with Strange Adventures and much like seeing inks vs. colors, it’s always cool to see script to pencils.)

Actually, what I’d really love is an unlettered version of an issue, to highlight Lopes’ colors in particular. 

Don’t get me wrong, I think Clayton Cowles is doing a great job on letters, but this is a very wordy book! And sometimes you just wanna push those caption boxes and word balloons aside and see the entire panel, free of text. XD

Sadly, as I said, this probably won’t get too many bells and whistles in the trade release. Maybe a little bit of Evely’s design work? Hopefully?

She actually posted her initial sketches of Kara, a while back! I think they should be on her IG somewhere? 

Anyways. I would kill for a large format of ANYTHING by Evely. Seriously, just. Do it DC! Take my money! (Or, IDW? Who handles the oversized editions for DC? ...I think it’s IDW. Either way! Do it! Come on! XD)

(Again, someone in that same art unboxing chat mentioned they don’t really do large format editions for contemporary artists, BUT. They totally released a Samnee Daredevil book! That’s pretty contemporary! Or, it was. At the time of release.)

Okay, I will stop now. For real.  

That’s it, I think, in terms of art teases and updates! Until solicits and/or preview art, I guess!

#supergirl: woman of tomorrow #DC comics #long post #kinda #comic thoughts #comic opinions #ARRRRRRRRRRRT

[tub-thump3r]

Foolishman, part 1

Orlando had originally just said the hideout was cool on impulse, but he had to admit after seeing what it was really like? It probably ranked in the top 5 best hideouts he’d ever seen. Which, admittedly, he hadn’t seen many over the course of his life, but any hideout with a mini-fridge could beat out his original, starter hideout. Man, just thinking about it was embarrassing. A blanket fort with no furniture supports? He’d done better in Natalio’s 16th Century Castle IKEA dimension. 

Aside from the mini-fridge, though, it was very “The Rebellion/Resistance Base”-esque, which meant it was covered head to toe in posters. All the posters were about, like, academic performance stuff or school spirit, but clearly one of the two had some kind of graphic design experience. Slogans like “DEFEAT BAD STUDY HABITS!” and “SHOW YOUR SPIRIT!” had designs showing knights and wizards fighting dragons and other D&D-style monsters. Orlando could understand why a school wouldn’t want to display them, but at the same time, he certainly would’ve felt a lot more school spirit in high school if he’d seen posters of wizards blasting magic spells at people. 

In addition, the whole base had a very rough-and-tumble vibe to it that Orlando really dug, since it was in an alley between two brick buildings with a tarp hung over it. Other than that, it was mostly normal Cool Base Stuff (mini-fridge, comic books/manga, video game console, board games), although the mini-fridge was thematically replaced with a malfunctioning vending machine, which was how you KNEW it was a good base. You could restock a mini-fridge no problem, but figuring out the restock schedule so you could consistently wheel out the vending machine for that exact timeframe was a really tough evil move. These guys were legit.

“So, who are you and how are you planning on backstabbing me for your own gain?” Orlando said with a smile. Being part of a plot was fun, even if you were just in the part where your downfall was the one being plotted. Plus, it was nice to have a distraction from his only other currently relevant principal activity, which scared and confused him (no offense to Garner).

Riyumi coughed. “We’d never dream of something like that, Mr. Kincaid. We are the Izumi-Ku Excellence Club, founded with the goal of making Izumi-Ku Senior High School the best high school in the world."

"Hm! Is that why you hang out in this alleyway nowhere near the school?"

Riyumi clenched her fist and her teeth in such a sudden and fierce rage that Orlando thought she was going to murder him right then and there.

"Well," Hinako explained, patting Riyumi on the shoulder, "we're not an official club."

"Stupid, brainless kids saying I'm not cut out for Student Council! What do they know, huh?? I'm great for Student Council! I WORK EXCELLENTLY UNDER PRESSURE!!!"

"Ooooookay," Orlando said, nodding along. Riyumi had some potential. "And I factor into this how?"

"Well, uh, um-" Riyumi's rage disappeared as quickly as it had come as she scrambled for an answer. Again, her friend explained in her stead.

"Well, Budo-ga Oka has… a bit of a reputation, yes, but it's noticeably improved since you became the principal.”

“Not by much-”

“Not by much, but by a noticeable margin nonetheless. I thought that perhaps, if we wanted to improve our own school environment, we could take some notes from your leadership style.”

“Oh…” Orlando crossed his arms. “So you guys just want to get yourselves properly elected and stuff. This isn’t an elaborate political power play, I see, I see.” Orlando hung his head in disappointment. “Well, I guess that’s fine. If I have to make this situation evil, I will. I’ll probably exploit your debt to me later for personal gain.”

Riyumi and Hinako looked at each other, a bit uneasy. “Uh, not at the school’s expense, right?” Riyumi offered.

“No, no, I’ll have you help me rob a bank or something.”

Riyumi relaxed. Hinako did not.

“Well,” Orlando said, standing up. “Why not start right now? I’ve actually got some pretty important principal stuff to do today, so you’ll get to see how I deal with… reads hand… paramilitary paranormal investigation groups!”

Orlando marched away without another word or any indication to follow him, so Riyumi and Hinako just stood there for a few seconds before following behind a Distance away, far enough to make sure Orlando couldn’t hear their… non-scheming.

“I’m not sold on this just yet,” Riyumi started, making sure to actually keep her whisper down this time. “Everyone knows politicians don’t get anywhere by being honestly good leaders. It’s all smoke and mirrors.”

“Maybe he’ll show you some of the smoke and mirrors,” Hinako rebutted. “It couldn’t hurt to try. I’m tired of trying to trick people into doing weird stuff to make the school “better”.”

Riyumi didn’t have a counterargument for that. “I’m glad you’re my friend. I know my ideas aren’t always the best.”

“It’s cool. I’m glad you’re my friend too. And I’m glad we’re trying my idea.”

They followed Orlando for a while, watching him aimlessly waltz around town in the general direction of Budo-ga Oka. Eventually, he veered out of the commercial area of town where he’d met up with Riyumi and Hinako and decided to cut through a back alley into a more residential area, where the crowd was thinning out. The two Izumi-Ku girls shrugged at each other before following him, but while Orlando kept walking, the two girls stopped short when someone shouted from the roof of one of the buildings they were walking past.

“HEY YOU! EVILDOER!” was what the person shouted, and despite the fact that it couldn’t possibly have applied to anyone other than Orlando, he kept moving like someone else was being addressed. 

The person jumped down from the rooftop, flinched a little from the fall, and walked towards Orlando with clearly ill intent. The Izumi-Ku girls kept their distance, keeping inside the alley until he’d closed the gap more. 

“Who is this guy?” Riyumi asked, looking a little nervous. They were only seeing the back of the person, but he looked male, with a short (if a tad unruly) haircut and a more masculine… outfit? It was hard to tell from behind whether it was supposed to be an outfit or some kind of costume, as it mainly consisted of a green hoodie with some type of armor attached to the back and shoulders, and black pants with way too many pockets. Riyumi looked at her own modified uniform and tried to pretend like she still thought she was cool.

“No idea. Well, Orlando’s supposed to be some kind of supervillain, so maybe it’s his nemesis?”

“I think he’d recognize his voice or something if they were nemesises. Nemesi?”

“Nemeses. Let’s keep out of it if we can. We don’t know what the principal’s capable of yet, so we don’t want to get dragged down with him.”

What the principal was currently capable of was ignoring the hell out of this newcomer until he was grabbed harshly by the cape, forcing him to turn around and acknowledge the boy. Orlando did so cheerfully, and despite the fierce expression of his younger-looking cape-captor, Orlando greeted him like an old friend upon realizing what he was looking at.

“Hey, I know you! You’re the kid I accidentally switched bags with at the airport last Christmas!”

Ichiro Kenshi let go of the cape and brandished a sword… a bit shabbily. Orlando was getting a feel for this after hanging around Jacian so much. The posture was definitely off. Ichiro threw down a packet of official-looking papers, which Orlando promptly ignored. 

“Whaddaya doin’ here, kiddo? I coulda sworn you weren’t plot relevant…”

“Orlando Kincaid!” Ichiro announced, “Thanks to your little mix-up last December, you left me with THESE!” He gestured towards the paper packet, which Orlando glanced at, unimpressed. “I’ve found you to be in connection with the Abraham Institute, an American organization linked with the disappearances of a number of innocent people! And so, as a hero, I’m here to put a stop to whatever evil plan you’re cooking up!”

Orlando didn’t really know what to make of this, so he made a joke about it. “Nice job, kiddo, you’re really stepping up your plot relevance.”

Ichiro didn’t move or change expression, but his Stand slowly emerged - some sort of metal boiler with medieval weapons sticking out of it like porcupine quills - this is where he got the sword, apparently. An empty knight’s helm was its “face”, and the front of the boiler spat green fire, not that either of the Izumi-Ku girls could see.

“Holy shit, the kid’s got one of those things too?” Riyumi grabbed onto Hinako’s shirt like Hinako was a lamppost she was looking out from behind of.

“A lot of people around here do… but do we know if the principal has one?”

“You think he’s gonna be okay?”

Orlando drew Shatterstar.

Riyumi looked a little impressed, if not any less worried.

“No need to worry, friends, I’ve got this totally under cont-”

Orlando announced his intent to attack and Ichiro took the opportunity to launch one of his own - the boiler’s door swung open and a ball of dark green… goop floated out of it. The goop stayed there for a moment, floating while Orlando wasn’t looking at it, before launching itself at Orlando’s head at an insane speed. He instantly hit the ground, completely unconscious.

“Oh shit,” said Riyumi. Ichiro turned around. “Oh, fuck!” she shouted.

“You were with him, right? You’re bad guys too, I bet. Come on,” he said, swinging his sword aimlessly as he approached.

Riyumi immediately went on the attack. She opened one of her pockets and took out a single pen, carefully putting the end opposite of the point up to her eye and looking down it like the sight of a gun. With a steady hand, she aimed at Ichiro, and the pen extended with speed almost equal to the goop ball.

Ichiro dodged out of the way, just barely, looking surprised. Riyumi prepped more pens and “fired” them as well; Ichiro managed to dodge most of them. The last one he, by some miracle, blocked with the sword. He navigated through the field of long pens that Riyumi was still holding, speeding up his approach.

“Hinako, do something!”

“I… I’ve almost got it!” Hinako flipped through the pages of a hardcover book - it almost looked like a textbook, but its cover was mostly composed of weird vaporwave imagery - random shapes, colorful swirls, and lattices. “Modern Linguistics” was printed on the spine, in English.

“Hey, uh…” she started.

Ichiro kept walking, his Stand floating beside him, but stopped for a second. “Ichiro!” he shouted before continuing.

“Ichiro! You’re a hero, right?”

“I am!” He didn’t respond in a way that sounded like he was proud of it, more like a job he’d grown tired of over the years.

“That means you go through the Hero’s Journey, right?”

Ichiro paused, and after a second, he held his sword up defensively, expecting to need to block another pen. “I… guess?” he eventually responded, neither of them doing anything.

“What stage are you on?” Hinako offered. Ichiro seemed baffled, but Hinako was giving it some thought herself. “I bet you’re Crossing the Threshold, right?”

Riyumi jumped up like the kid in class who was excited to know the answer to a question for once. “Oh! That means you have to fight a Threshold Guardian!”

Hinako’s book glowed for a moment as Riyumi spoke it into existence. The Threshold Guardian, a bizarre-looking creature that seemed to be constructed entirely out of mathematical symbols and having the approximate body shape of an orb with long arms and short legs, tackled Ichiro from the side. 

Ichiro was pinned down by one of the Threshold Guardian’s arms, but as it raised its other arm to attack, his Stand intercepted. Its two largest blades began to animate, countering the blow with a single stab. The Guardian screamed in a garbled, deep voice and picked up Ichiro in its hand while the two girls semi-panicked.

“I don’t think that thing’s gonna hold him off for long!” Riyumi scream-whispered, not sure whether to fire more pens or not.

“It’s a Threshold Guardian. It doesn’t stand a chance - if it did, the plot would never progress,” Hinako said, flipping through her book again. “I just need to find something else I can use on him… I wish this damn thing had some kind of search function, or if I could remember to buy those stupid little divider tabs!”

The Stand had sliced through one arm and released Ichiro; with him free, he and his Stand could then focus on avoiding attacks and taking down the beast. After a few select stabs, it collapsed into a pile of plus signs… or were they multiplication signs? Math was never Ichiro’s strong suit, but fighting kind of was. This time, he didn’t take his time and sprinted towards the two of them, his Stand leading ahead.

“Riyumi,” Hinako started, her finger on a page, “I’ve always thought you should never meet your heroes!”

The two vanished in front of Ichiro’s eyes. He resisted the urge to throw his sword down in frustration, partially because he didn’t trust himself not to stab himself in the foot. 

He punched through nearby dumpsters and piles of trash that littered the alleyway, trying to figure out what had happened while the two, communicating with their hands, had climbed up to the roof he’d been standing on earlier.

“That was a bit of a stretch,” Hinako whispered. “It’s probably worn off by now. We need something that can affect him directly! Just slow him down a little more!”

“Alright, I can do that,” Riyumi said, trying to make it sound intimidating to give herself an ego boost. Normally she was pretty good at this stuff on the rare occasion it had occurred, but this guy scared her probably more than he should’ve reasonably been able to.

Riyumi carefully opened Hinako’s backpack and retrieved her secret weapon. Very cautiously, she took out a power drill and, rather than aim at Ichiro, drilled a hole in a small piece of wood. Once she was satisfied it was stuck, she lined up a careful angle, and pulled the drill’s trigger.

Ichiro was knocked over by the force of the wood hitting him. It was thin and didn’t feel like much more than a stick, and he could definitely hear it break after hitting him, but the spinning force it had hit him with was a lot stronger than if someone had come up and hit him with it. He quickly recovered, using the broken piece to get himself up off the ground faster, and tried to use his Stand to fire more green goop at Riyumi.

Riyumi, without a moment to lose, took out her pocket protector and extended it into a huge shield, stopping the goop from hitting her. One stray ball, however, managed to curve around at the last second and hit Hinako in the shoulder.

“Hinako!” Riyumi shouted, shortening the protector before it crushed her. “Are you okay? Is it eating your flesh???”

Hinako, for her part, seemed to be keeping calm. “I’ve got it! I can beat him! I’ll be fine!” She’d closed her book by accident as her arm had gone limp, but she held it in her free hand with purpose.

“Hey, Ichiro!” she announced, looking down at him from the side of the roof. He tried to fire another ball of goo, but Hinako said first, “Don’t you think good things come in small packages?”

Hinako’s shirt was hit by a ball of goo the size of a pea. 

Riyumi looked at it and let out a huge sigh of relief before picking up a small milk crate on the roof and extending it to the street below. She and Hinako stepped onto it before Riyumi shortened it, taking them back down safely.

Hinako walked over, her arm still limp, and vanished her book back into herself so she could use her remaining hand to pick up a very tiny Ichiro out of the grass, who squirmed and shouted in a voice so tiny that Hinako didn’t think trying to listen was worth the effort.

“Go us!” Riyumi cheered. “Man, I never thought we’d be able to pull off something that cool! You were awesome! I was awesome! We’re a great team!”

Hinako smiled, trying to ignore the small man in her other hand. “Let’s get the principal back to school before we find a place to keep our new little friend.”

“Well, uh, Hinako, I was thinking… maybe… we should get rid of the principal too.”

Hinako gave Riyumi a look of shock.

“No, not like that! I mean we shrink him too and throw them both somewhere!”

Hinako’s expression softened by the smallest amount, she still looked horrified at the implication. “But, we were going to work on your leadership skills! We need his help!”

“I need to be a leader! Think about it! He only became the principal because he showed up one day with a fake signature! Even we heard about how baloney the whole thing was! But no one stopped him! So what’s stopping us from forging his signature and making me the new principal?”

“But…” Hinako looked at the tiny Ichiro that was struggling to escape her grasp. “I don’t want to hurt people anymore…”

“I know that, I know that, but unless you help me, I… I can’t do much on my own. I know I can be a leader, and I can help a lot of people, but unless you’ll help me, I can’t do that. You’re the only one I can trust, Hinako, please. We’re not going to hurt them either! We’re just going to… keep them somewhere where they can’t hurt us.”

Hinako looked at Riyumi’s bright eyes, pleading for support. Hinako looked at the unconscious principal, then at Ichiro, and then at the glob of goop still keeping her arm stuck.

“...Okay.”

#All these plot posts will be kept under read mores to keep them from clogging your dash #so be careful not to miss them! #FOOLISHMAN

[maxsix]

MVNALYSIS: GOD’S MENU by STRAY KIDS

Hello friends, seeing as 2020 is going down in flames anyways, there seems like no better time than to start my MV Analysis series, MVNALYSIS. Storytelling and cinematography are both important but the technical aspect is definitely more interesting to me. If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you’d know how often I yell about a good lighting scheme so this is just an extension of that.

There have been some great MVs this year but the one that really lit my fuse and prompted me to do this is God’s Menu by Stray Kids. If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it first then come back. This is very long so if you’re not really interested in the technical aspects of music videos then I would definitely recommend scrolling past. 

1) The Cyberpunk-Anime Intro tracking shot. That flourescent-neon title card reminds me of cyberpunk aesthetic, especially if you’ve seen the trailer for Cyberpunk 2077. I really love title cards because they remind me of old movies and cartoons. To throw it up so nonchanlantly immediately sets the vibe and subconsciously triggers your mind to think about when you last saw something like that, be it a video game or anime or a movie. They use it a lot more often than other groups and I never noticed until I went back to watch a few of their videos for this post. 

The Intro to God’s Menu is both a sonic and visual assault. It’s so fcking good that I am almost sad I will never get to watch it again for the first time. 

That tracking shot for Changbin is just beautiful perfection because it has three levels of depth and a very controlled use of blocking. The deepest level is the chaos in the background, the main level is Changbin and the most superficial level is the one closest to the camera, with the marching band player. Interestingly, the movement and speed of each level progresses in descending order: the background is crazy busy, Changbin is moving through at a controlled pace and the marching band player is almost still, like a sign post to reiterate the depth of field. 

There are a few really famous and amazing tracking shots, so I’m just going to link them here if you are interested in camera work: Atonement (legendary tbh), 1917 (deserved the cinematography Oscar), Ava Adore (you can see the track they used for the whole video) and the Baby Driver introduction has one of the best tracking shots but I won’t link to it out of respect for people who might be triggered. 

Sometimes you watch something and you don’t know why it’s so cool. Well, this is why it’s so cool. This is why some MVs are so interesting to re-watch and why others have no re-watch value at all. 

2) Transitions and editing. Oh boy. The fcking transitions. Sometimes people think of them like a cheap trick in the vein of a horror movie jump scare but when you see a good transition, 'cheap’ should be the last word you think of. All the transitions are worth mentioning: Changbin seemingly changing the frame with his hand, Han’s mid-choreo transition and Hyunjin’s forced perspective to mimic the spotlight. I suppose they are are little flashy and tricked-out but it doesn’t change how cool they look. The video editer deserves all the credit for this one. 

It’s seems obvious but I can’t ignore the stop-motion DuDuDuDu editing either. It does exactly what the music does in that moment: it’s jarring and abrupt and literally like shots fired and bleeding red. Sometimes literal interpretations are cringey and don’t work but sometimes they work so well you wish everyone was on this level. 

A more subtle transition is one that I don’t see a lot of people talking about but it’s when the music shifts from the heavy rap to the smoother vocals. The first time it happens we went from the dark enclosed confines of Han’s kitchen rap to vast open air of the cars racing. The smooth flow of the vocals is echoed in the smooth silent roll of the car tires and then the smooth choreo from Bangchan with that bright God ray lens flare. It’s just like a smooth smooth smooth flow of water after total chaos and that’s exactly what the music is trying to do: the rap is a spicy meal, the vocals are a glass of cool water. Seriously, this MV is so well thought out and well planned. It’s like the director actually listened to the track. What a crazy notion, heh. 

3) Robot Camera. If you’re not sure which part I mean, it’s basically during Han’s rap, Felix’s 5 Star Michelin part and the subtle camera tilt for the group choreo. You can see it in action in their ‘Making Of’ video. You’ve probably seen this used before, most notably on Jungkook for DNA but I think it was made really popular in music MVs when Kendrick Lamar did it for Humble. Everyone is using it now but I still love it. No human can film with that precision and it’s seriously cool use of tech. I like that they didn’t overuse it though because it would’ve felt too repetitive. Restraint? In Kpop? Hell really has frozen over today. 

4) The colour and lighting. It’s generally really well lit and coloured but the most remarkable thing to point out here is that God’s Menu has only four sets. It feels like it has some meat and depth to it because they used those four sets to their full capacities. In contrast, I think I counted 9 sets for GOT7′s ‘Not By The Moon’ and let’s be honest, they were all kind of wasted. 

The scrapyard set is used four times with four different lighting schemes and you barely notice how repetitive it is because they all look so different. The garage scene is my favourite example of good depth of field because they’re in a tiny confined area for choreo but it doesn’t actually feel tiny or confined because of the huge open grandstand in the background. 

Also. It’s rad how the video goes from day to night. I didn’t even notice until the third or fourth re-watch. 

5) Kendrick Lamar. I just wanted to spend a little time on this point because I hear and see his influence on God’s Menu. Obviously, Kendrick doesn’t have a patent or copyright on use of RoboCams but the main backing track is very Humble-esque and the DuDuDu reminds me of old KL. It’s a little grating tbh but the producer at least showed some restraint with it. Any more of the DDD part and it would’ve been too obnoxious to listen to. 

6) Styling. I really love these black outfits because they look like a cross between a karate uniform/dobok and black chef aprons. I wasn’t really sure why they went with the racetrack imagery but there is something about this entire MV that reminds me of anime/manga...and then I remembered that Initial D existed. If you’ve never heard of Initial D until now? You’re welcome. 

Oh and Hyunjin’s hair. Damm. 

7) Bias: Okay, I’m Australian and I used to live in Sydney so part of me has always been invested in Chris and Felix. But. I have to be straight with you all, that tag-team of Changbin and Han is insane. Insane, I tell you! I wish I could hear that rap intro again for the very first time. It’s like when I heard Mingi’s rap in Wonderland for the first time. Some things are just inexplicable. 

8) Conclusion: This is one of the best MVs JYPE has ever made and it’s not even story driven. The modern tech and insane editing is truly next level and I hope people appreciate the work that went into it instead of just seeing it as another flashy kpop video with no substance just because it’s not “deep and meaningful”. 

#MVNALYSIS #stray kids #God's Menu #Felix lee #Bang Chan #hyunjin #Han #Changbin #Jisung #he gets two tags #Minho #Seungmin #i.n #i should write his actual name #but i'm tired now haha #text #music video #there are lots of links in here #i like to analyse stuff i guess #there just hasn't really been a lot of MVs that made me want to write #i'm really looking forward to the new CIX mv #anyways #i should've watched the Making Of video first hahaha

[thebeauregardbros]

Can you tell me about Yakuza 0? I've never played it before and would like to read your thoughts on it.

YOOOOOOOOOOO LES FUKIN GO (thank u!!)

This review is spoiler-free!

Despite what you might assume a game about a bunch of tough muscley fighting dudes, the amount of moral philosophy in this game could rival a 3-part episode of Star Trek: TNG in terms of surprisingly deep and emotional thought. The struggles the protagonists go through has a huge emphasis on honor, keeping your word, taking responsibility for your actions, standing up to things you think are wrong and persevering no matter how much pain, suffering and threat you personally go through all in the name of trying to be a good person, and emphasizing that the mental fortitude to stand for your convictions is the true strength, not just brawn. Character development is absolutely fantastic and I feel like it’s impossible not to fall for these main characters by the end of the game, no matter how weird or even pigheaded they might seem to you at first.

(Trust me, moral philosophy is probably my biggest autistic hyper-fixation. They did this shit GOOD.)

Another major reason I really love Yakuza 0 is that it takes an unusual setting to the normal person - the incredibly political, dark, yet surprisingly realistic setting of organized bullies, criminals, and the uneducated brawn and bad-attitude baddies of the world and try to show them as worthy of more as humans like you and me than just trash that should not be seen or touched. The amount of humanitarian outlook on these people and the humanitarianism of our protagonists is absolutely heartwrenching and beautiful. Despite appearances, anyone can be a good person - this seems to be a major message in this story which I just find absolutely beautiful.

The yakuza definitely have different rules to their world, and that is one that’s built on violence over paperwork, especially when it comes to showing eachother the extent of their passion about something. I feel like it’s an excellent way of portraying the difficulties any normal person goes through with their mental health while struggling to do the right thing in a very direct and relatably painful way that anyone can understand.

The story deals with not only the importance of preserving life and protecting it with surprisingly pacifist ideologies, but the aesthetics in align with the idea that no matter how dark the world or your life feels, happiness is always an option.

Why you might love Yakuza 0 even if the plot doesn’t sound that interesting to you:

Tons of minigames - I think about 28~30 total. That includes 4 actual vintage SEGA arcade games! There’s also tons of gambling games like black jack and shogi, fishing, rhythm games, bowling, fighting tournaments, pool, darts, stock car racing, doll dressup.. It’s very hard not to find at least one you’ll like!

Tourism. Yakuza 0 has such an incredible amount of visual detail to every nook and cranny of every corner and unseen alleyway in the town maps that it feels just absolutely insane to me. The devs didn’t need to put in all this detail but they did. I could legit spend hours in first person mode just looking at everything. On top of that, every restaurant in town has a detailed menu describing each item despite the fact that all food items are just generic healing items. I think there’s even a bar where the bartender will go on a spiel talking about certain drinks after you order them. The atmosphere really makes you feel like you’re truly taking a vacation in another place. Great for when you’re longing to see new scenery while being stuck at home all the time during COVID.

The amount of optional side quests is absolutely insane. According to a wiki there’s a total of 100 side quests in all. If you’re a fan of JRPGs or a fan of completionism, completing them all gives you a ton of extra content and side-stories that can sometimes be just as gutwrenchingly wholesome or tragic as the main plot, or otherwise be great comic relief.

Speaking of comic relief, this game is notorious for it. The main plot can be incredibly serious and stressful and the devs know that can really wear down on the mental state of the player after awhile, so seeing Kiryu dance at a disco in the most lame awkward embarassing dad way possible, or see him pick up a phone in the most ridiculously over-dramatic way for no reason, or see Goro sing lovey-dovey pop songs is just something that will absolutely kill you with laughter and joy and give you a refreshed break you need to help you be able to keep continuing on.

Big fan of seiyuu (Japanese voice actors)? The karaoke bar lets you hear your protagonists’ gorgeous singing voice. You can even invite some side characters and hear their voices too!

NOW THE FAIR CRITICISMS:

Despite the plot having a huge emphasis on how important the morality is of not killing, fighting animations are often totally lethal. Goro canonically fights with a knife and a bat by the end of the game. Both characters can use guns, swords, poisoned knives, baseball bats and other lethal items as a weapon. One of Goro’s main fighting animations is snapping a dude’s neck. Kiryu threw a dude out of a high window. Kiryu shoots at dudes with a gun in a high speed chase at some point and none of these instances are ever addressed in canon plot as having blood on the hands of these characters - no matter what, the people hurt by these things seem to be able to stand up fine later on like nothing happened. Even the main characters can get shot by an actual gun 20 times in a row and shrug it off by shoving convenience store food down their throat. It’s super dumb but absolutely hilarious in it’s unaddressed B-Movie esque hypocritical nature and became a huge in-joke with the fandom. Despite these Goofy Video Game Logic instances, the main plot (specifically the cutscenes) are all extremely realistic and well done. Actual members of real-world Yakuza say the story is pretty accurate to reality.

One of the minor characters is obviously a trans woman but is misgendered constantly by other characters, including the protagonist (though this may be a translation problem), and is the only female character in the game you can fight and have to fight in order to unlock Kiryu’s endgame fighting style (though he remarks he only fights her because she looks like she can handle herself in a fight). She does end up joining up with you as an ally afterwards without changing anything about herself so that’s a positive, I guess? SEGA is aware of fans’ dislike for transphobia and have removed a lot of transphobic content from their re-releases of future Yakuza games, as well as shown the protagonist, Kiryu, as a huge LGBTQ+ ally.

-----------------

Things you might like or otherwise want to check out relating to the same story style of Yakuza 0 I personally highly recommend:

Kyou Kara Ore Wa!! (aka, "From Today, It's My Turn!!"): Absolutely hilarious gag comedy with surprisingly heartwrenching drama and incredibly lovable in-depth characters. It’s about highschool delinquents in the late 1980s (same era Yakuza 0 takes place!). The two main characters remind me a lot of the protagonists of Yakuza 0 in that one is very straight-laced and honorable while the other is more prone to dirty tricks but still does the right thing in the end. I personally recommend reading the manga above all because adaptations cut out a lot of details that I feel add a lot of depth to the characters, but the OVA anime is pretty good on it’s own and there’s a hilarious live action TV show adaptation if you like slapstick.

Rookies: A story about an impossibly determined formerly disgraced highschool teacher doing absolutely everything he can to be the best teacher he can be. Part of his journey is helping reform a group of delinquents who have self-sabotaged themselves into having their baseball team - the one thing they cared about - disbanded. The delinquents constantly fight the teacher off, believing him to just be another adult putting on airs instead of truly caring, while the teacher perseveres no matter what to prove them wrong. A manga and live action drama - both extremely good.

#yakuza 0 #review

[walkingnorth]

How did you pick the colors for text boxes in Always Human? It seemed to be somewhat linked to the hair color of the character speaking? And what font was that? It isn't quite Comic Sans, but it's similar (and better) looking. (your art+music is amazing btw!)

Hello! This is going to be a giant ‘reply to asks’ posts, sorry for how long I”ve been keeping you all waiting.

Yep, it was roughly the hair colour of the character speaking, but lighter and shifted a bit to fit in with the colour schemes of the scene. I mostly just winged it? The font is Komika, which has a lot of variations and is a very handy lettering font.And thank you very, very much

More asks under the cut

Anonymous said:I really really wanna start making comics, you’ve inspired me a lot! Do you have any advice for story telling, and character backgrounds?

Hello, I hope you enjoy making comics!

Please check out my webcomic advice tag, and my how I write tag (these are only viewable on a desktop, I think.)

Anonymous said:Hey Walkingnorth, I saw that you use DAUB Brushes on clip paint studio, Do you have a tutorial about how to use the DAUB's watercolour brushes by any chance or any way how I can learn to use them?

I don’t have a tutorial, but I’d suggest playing around and having fun! Find out which brushes you like best, then go into the brush settings and play around with the settings too, until you’ve found a way to make the brushes work exactly the way you want them to. I think tutorials are never quite as useful as messing around and seeing what happens :)

I’ve had a lot of people ask about my art process, so I’ll put together something for how I work on Aerial Magic panels (and maybe upload it as part of the Q&A episode that will happen I promise XD)

Anonymous said:I just wanna say your art gives me the happy tears. Always human was the webtoon that got me into webtoons and im glad to see you working on new things bc i love it all. I hope one day i too can make something that others will coment on and think "wow i made that forever ago glad it still makes people happy"

AHHHHH thank you so much ; - ;It’s really amazing to me that people still occasionally talk to me about Always Human, it’s such an incredible feeling. People are so nice!Good luck with your own works - storytelling is such a wonderful thing to do and I hope you have fun with it :)

Anonymous said:Question, How did you take the first step to moving to a new country, Cause in Always human, You were in Australia and now the United kingdom, How did you feel about taking that step and how did you manage to cope with a new country, Also bonus question if you feel up to it, How did you and your husband first meet?

Actually, during Always Human I was also in the UK :)I’m Australian, but my then-boyfriend-now-husband (who is also Australian) decided to study over here, so we moved. He moved first and got everything settled, so I didn’t have to do much organising beyond my visa, which was a relief. When I came over I was working as a substitute/casual primary school teacher, and I signed up with some teaching agencies before I travelled over, and they gave me e an idea of what to expect and what work would be like. Having them helping with bank accounts etc. definitely made everything much less stressful :)

Overall living in another country has been a great experience, I’ve learned a lot and I’ve had fantastic experiences. I’m glad I did it (though I’m also looking forward to when the two of us move back home - some time next year we think.)

If you get the chance to work overseas, I definitely recommend it!

Aaaaand my husband and I met at a mutual friend’s birthday party. He was funny and kind and he talked to me about books, and then he made an excuse to get my phone number by offering to lend me a book which is 100% the way to my heart :)

Anonymous said:Hey there! What are your primary artistic inspirations for the writing and art of your webcomics? What are your thoughts on Jack Kirby as an artist? Would you like to do a sports story some time in the future? Sorry fir being rambly😅

mmmmmm Kristin Cashore and Umino Chika are probably my biggest inspirations writing wise. Always Human was very shoujo manga inspired, Aerial Magic is very iyashikei inspired.I’m not sure I can point to any one particular influence on my art - obviously I’m very very anime/manga inspired, I’ve been inspired by other webcomics, I’ve been inspired by anime-esque Western shows, I’ve been inspired by Disney etc.(Mostly though I’m anime/manga inspired, I love the big eyes, small nose, small chin aesthetic it’s so pretty!!! Though not very good for facial diversity.)I’m afraid I have no thoughts on Jack Kirby, sorry. I never got into US comics (partially because I don’t particularly enjoy the aesthetics of the art style, partially because I prefer the more cinematic paneling of manga.)I love sports anime/manga a lot, and I’d be keen one day to do a story about a girl’s sports team :DBy the way, please let me recommend to you the webcomic Champs and the visual novel Butterfly Soup :)

#asks #anon #sorry for taking so long ^^;

[gffa]

Scattered Star Wars animation + novels thoughts: - I know a lot of people are wary about the Resistance animation style--it’s not my first choice, either--but I’ve seen it often enough in video games and other animated shows that I know it can be used to really good effect.  And I’m really willing to roll with a lot for good, fun characters and stories--and I’m really delighted to see how much of a diverse cast there was! It reminds me that Star Wars really is getting better about casting diverse characters--both in more human ways and in getting more aliens in there!--and I’m glad to see it, because a lot of the darker skinned characters are WONDERFUL, but they tend to be in novels where it’s less cemented into the audiences’ minds.  Rebels was a great step forward and I’m really looking forward to Resistance hopefully continuing that! This has been on my mind, because I wanted to a “women of color” photoset and realized there are characters like Kaeden Larte or Lula from Canto Bight that are dark-skinned, but I don’t have any pictures to use.  Cienna Ree has some official art + the manga, Vi Moradi has a couple of official art pieces, Sana Starros is in the comics, etc.  Not animated/live action ones necessarily, but I could still have enough characters to make a full photoset, I think?  Maybe?  Except so many of them DON’T HAVE OFFICIAL ART, SO IT’S HARD TO FIGURE OUT WHO TO ADD (in addition to the animated/live action ones).  And MAYBE NOW I CAN DO IT WITH RESISTANCE GIVING US MORE?  :D - I finished Canto Bight and the final story was perfectly fine.  It wasn’t quite as charming as the first one (about the Wermal Salesbeing Of The Year character) and it didn’t quite hit me in the feelings place as much as the third one (about the Dor Namethian masseur who got wrapped up in criminal activity to save his human daughter), but it had some cute moments.  It had a lot of moments of, “oh my god these people are obnoxious!” but I’m pretty sure they were meant to be? And I think that’s the thing about the whole book, that place is awful and not somewhere I even want to visit, just like I never want to visit the more obnoxious places of Las Vegas.  So I’m really glad I got a chance to listen to it, rather than read it, because I never would have finished it otherwise.  That’s no knock on the writers, they were writing exactly what they were supposed to be writing!  But they’re obviously oneshot characters and thus I’ll have no reason to get emotionally invested in them, the only familiar “character” is Canto Bight itself and that place is horrible--both morally and just to slog through stories about it! I’m not quite sure who this book was meant to be for--are there people who really enjoyed the book?  (Genuine question!)  It seems like the Canto Bight was some of the most hated of/disinterested in TLJ stuff? Oh, one final thought:  Look, they’re not bad or anything, but fathiers are not well designed enough to have all that hoopla about them.  They’re basically rabbit horses.  Or maybe goat giraffes?  They’re not that intricate or interesting, they’re not that visually appealing or beautiful, frankly, the only creatures I felt were worth the OMG THEY’RE THE MOST AMAZING CREATURES IN THE GALAXY were the vulptices from Crait. Those were gorgeous!  Listen, the porgs are ADORABLE but they are very clearly animatronic robots and you’re going to have to do better than that to pull me away from the established creatures of the GFFA, like call me back when you have something as awesome as a Tooka or a Convor or as terrifying as a Nexu or as nightmare fuel-esque as a Dianoga or as awesome as a Varactyl! - I started Lost Stars and I’m only about half an hour into the audiobook version and I’m still hung up on Cienna’s name, how is it “Cye-enna” and NOT “See-enna”??  It’ll be interesting to see how she goes from such a loving family to the Empire (though, I’m less invested in Thane’s journey, but maybe I’ll come to like him?), to see if this book accomplishes what I think is a VERY uphill battle:  Showing the point of view of a good person joining the Empire and NOT having it eventually be a defection story. Rae Sloane is another character that I’m interested in this for, but I don’t recall much of how she sees the Empire or why she wants to keep going with it or why she joined, only that she’s loyal to it, despite seeing the flaws in the people in it, in the first Aftermath book. I guess what I’m looking for is partly that--how you can join such an oppressive regime and still be a moral person--but also partly an answer to the question, “Why is an Empire better than a democratic process?” from these characters.

#novels

[recentanimenews]

5 Anime Fighting Games That Will Punch Your Face Off

It's really weird to me when anime characters aren't fighting. I watch Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai and think "But why doesn't bunny girl just take her TRUE BEAST FORM and annihilate that dude?" And in all twelve episodes of Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san, not once did Honda unleash his THOUSAND MANGA SKELETON SMASH on an annoying customer. It's major narrative oversights like this that draw me back to fighting games that are based on anime and manga where everyone is fighting, all the time, often for little to no reason. And it's why I'll wind up playing Jump Force when it comes out. 

  Regardless of your feelings on the playable characters (It's 2019. The Jump Force roster should logically be the cast of My Hero Academia and then maybe Krillin), there's no doubt that Jump Force is going to deliver on spiky haired anime protagonists beating the tar out of other spiky haired anime protagonists. But it doesn't come out for... 4 days. What am I going to do until then? Play the critically accliamed Resident Evil 2, a game that critics and fans alike have deemed to be almost perfect and has seemingly revitalized the survival horror genre? Easy, there. I'm gonna play some underrated anime fighting games, and I'm gonna start with...

  JUMP ULTIMATE STARS

  I wrote an entire article about this game but honestly, every article on the internet, regardless of its topic, should show tribute to Jump Ultimate Stars. After you create your team (from the 56 playable characters and the 249 support characters) by assembling them on a manga page, you unleash them in arenas based on various manga series. The combat is fast and intense, and the art style is perfect. If the characters on an issue of Weekly Shonen Jump suddenly leapt from the page and began strangling eachother, it would look like this game. 

  Now, Jump Ultimate Stars never got an official English release, so if you want to play it on your DS or 3DS, you're probably going to have to pull up a GameFaqs walkthrough at the same time. But it's not that hard once you figure out the menus. And honestly, it's pretty worth it, especially if you've spent years thinking "The cast of Dr. Slump COULD beat up Sasuke."

  DRAGON BALL Z: BUDOKAI

  I didn't watch Dragon Ball Z growing up, because I was raised on limited cable in the South, which means that if I wanted to watch anime, I either woke up at 5:30 in the morning to catch Pokémon on UPN, or I hoped that Pat Robertson ended The 700 Club with a Kamehameha. And so, my first exposure to it was through my roommate's PlayStation 2 games in college. I take that back. My FIRST exposure to it was through my friend's fan art in sixth grade. He drew Vegeta bleeding from the mouth, and then when a girl he liked asked him what he was drawing, he threw away the picture and said "Just stupid stuff." And I never respected Dustin again.

But my friend Tim, who unabashedly displayed a seemingly endless collection of three Dragon Ball Z games, supplied me with a great introduction to the series. Now, especially when you compare them to the beautiful, measured combat of Dragon Ball FighterZ, the Budokai series can feel clunky. They seem less like a tounrament between the world's greatest martial artists, and more like two drunken Super Saiyans fist fighting outside of a Chili's. However, they are so fun and I love them. 

ONE PIECE GRAND ADVENTURE/ONE PIECE: BURNING BLOOD

Yeah, I'm putting two One Piece games on this list. One Piece is kind of my "ride or die" series and it's my list, so I can and will do what I want with it. 

If you've ever listened to the absolute banger that is the 4Kids One Piece pirate rap, and you thought "If only all of One Piece could be more like this," you are in soooooo much luck. The opening cinematic to One Piece Grand Adventure includes what can only be generously described as "rapping," and it includes all of the "random record scratches and misplaced hip hop! Kids these days like that, right?" that the 4kids opening had. Also, it is dubbed by the 4Kids cast as well, so that's kinda fun. 

    One Piece: Burning Blood was weird for me at first because, by the time I started playing it, nearly everyone who played it casually had left. So, by the time my thirty minute matchmaking session had ended, the people that I was playing against were god-tier, S-Class warriors, much more akin to the secret, borderline invincible bosses that you run into unexpectedly in JRPGs than actual players. However, in retreating to the single player options, I found solace, and I believe when it comes to arena battle anime games, Burning Blood is one of the best. Also, after playing Burning Blood, Monkey D. Garp is my next choice for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC. Don't overthink it. 

  YU YU HAKUSHO 2: KAKUTOU NO SHO

  The aesthetics of the Yu Yu Hakusho anime are PERFECT for the Super Nintendo, and that's why the Street Fighter-esque YU YU HAKUSHO 2: KAKUTOU NO SHO is such a pleasure to play. Its story mode takes you up through the end of the Dark Tournament arc, which means that you spend about a third of the game fighting Younger Toguro. But considering that Yusuke vs Toguro is one of the best rivalries in the history of fiction, I have absolutely no problems with this. It'd be like complaining that I got to eat strawberry shortcake too many times this week. Why am I complaining? IT'S STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE, BRO.

  Now, this is another game that only got an official release in Japan, so if you don't want to import a copy, you could play Yu Yu Hakusho: Dark Tournament for the PS2. It's not a bad game, but something about it feels off, like the protagonists often move super slowly in comparison to the demons that are pummeling them. I have to wait for Kuwabara to deliver an uppercut, and meanwhile, Chu has already punched me in the groin seven times.

   NARUTO: ULTIMATE NINJA STORM SERIES

  Talking about the visuals in a fighting game can be odd, because fighting games never really give you a chance to "stop and smell the roses." If you wait to say "Dang, I LOVE how Kakashi's outfit looks," Sakura will have already pulled out your spine. Also, the lazier anime fighting games tend to hope that you'll be too wowed by the fact that you're playing as familiar characters to even care about the graphics, which is like hoping that you'll be excited to see your Uncle at the next family reunion, without noticing that he's currently made of slugs.

  That said, the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm games are quite awesome to look at, with really vibrant, energetic colors. And the gameplay is super fluid, living up to the rad fights in the actual show. Also, exploring the Hidden Leaf village in the first game and doing training quests between fights was way less of a chore than I thought it would be. Overall, the Ultimate Ninja Storm series takes what could be some really lazy cash-ins and turns them into great games.

  What's your favorite anime fighting game? What do you think about the games listed here? Are you gonna play Jump Force? Let us know in the comments!

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  Daniel Dockery is a writer and editor for Crunchyroll that uses Twitter for the dumbest reasons. On Jump Force, he wants to main Luffy, Younger Toguro, and Hisoka. 

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