#if we got to see some portion of his story arc revolve around it and using it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cartoonrankings · 2 years

Text

Best cartoons of the 2010s

Ah, the 2010s! It was an interesting decade for cartoons. There was lots more innovation to say the least. While many view the 2010s as a dark age for cartoons, I feel that it was one of the strongest decades. Sure, we got more duds than the 2000s, but the best cartoons of the 2010s were some of the best of all time in my eyes. And the hits really hit. Plus, it was a more innovative decade. We got cartoons tackling more darker subject matter, cartoons with more tight storylines and cartoons that were plain goofy. But without any further adieu, here’s my best cartoons of the 2010s!

10. Star Vs The Forces Of Evil

The 2010s was Disney’s decade! So many gems being dropped, and Star Vs The Forces Of Evil was one of many of them. Spanning a total of 4 seasons and 77 episodes, Star Vs The Forces Of Evil ran for a good portion of the second half of the decade. The series revolves around Star Butterfly, a magical princess from the dimension of Mewni. After accidentally setting the family castle on fire, Star is sent to Earth in hopes that she will mature. On Earth, she moves in with a boy named Marco along with his family. She often takes Marco with her to battle monsters, and this brings us some pretty awesome and high stakes adventures. As the series goes on, it gets more intense and gets more tightly focused on the story. Some highlights of the series are the character designs, the plot which I think gets evidently better as the series goes on (though there are some massive flaws closer to the end) and the well written characters (all of the main cast is likable to me). Despite so much greatness this show offers, it ranks at the tenth spot for two reasons: the ending which was not the greatest resolution to me, and the fan service (watch the show and you’ll see what I mean). Overall though, this is a great series which I recommend. You can watch Star Vs. The Forces of Evil on Disney Plus or Hulu!

9. Ducktales (2017)

Ducktales is a classic to many, and with all the reboots going on, one may be afraid that it does not live up to the hype the original had. However, I can assure you all that it does. Ducktales ran for a total of 3 seasons and 69 episodes, and it was truly a masterpiece. The story revolves around Donald Duck, along with his nephews, Huey, Louie and Dewey and his uncle Scrouge. The gang go on many treasure hunting adventures while facing many villains. The story has multiple arcs to keep the viewer engaged. My favorite things about this series are the humor, the characters and the comedy. Ducktales is truly a successful reboot. You can watch Ducktales on Disney Plus!

8. The Legend of Korra

If you have read my last blog, you must know that I am a huge fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender! Therefore, this was probably expected. With a total of 4 seasons and 52 episodes, The Legend of Korra follows the events of Avatar: The Last Airbender 70 years later where there is a new avatar by the name of Korra. Like the former series, Katara wishes to learn to master all four elements. At the start, she already knows earthbending, metalbending and firebending. However, she travels to Republic City to learn airbending with Aang’s son, Tenzin. However, she finds out that Republic City is not all that she thought it was - here, there are a group called Equalists who oppose bending. As the series goes on, we are introduced to more intense plot lines. I personally loved the darker tone they added to the Avatar franchise along with the character dynamics and the intensity. While it is not as great as the original, it is indeed a great series. You can watch The Legend of Korra on Netflix or on Amazon Prime Video!

7. Hilda

How can one hate a series with magic and trolls? Comprising 2 seasons and 26 episodes, Netflix’s Hilda is a truly magical show. It centers around an eleven year old girl Hilda who along with her friends David and Frida and her pet deerfox Twig go on multiple adventures and often run into mysterious creatures. It is definitely a fun series. The magic is great, the characters are all fun and the art style is unique. While the magic theme has been done so much in other shows, Hilda executes it in a unique way. You can watch Hilda on Netflix!

6. Adventure Time

Ah yes, the series that carried Cartoon Network on its back in the early 2010s. Running with a total of 10 seasons and 283 episodes, Adventure Time quickly became one of the most iconic cartoons of the 2010s. The series is about a human named Finn and his friend Jake who live in the Land of Ooo, a place which was unfortunately destroyed by a war. Through the series, they go through many adventures whether that be stopping the Ice King from kidnapping Princess Bubblegum, throwing a sick party or chilling at a haunted house during Halloween The duo is always up to something exciting! As the series goes on, it also gets much more serious and delves into some darker themes. I loved the progression, the colorful atmosphere and the very vibrant characters. Adventure Time is truly a masterpiece. You can watch Adventure time on Hulu or HBO Max!

5. Steven Universe

Another one of the few cartoons that carried Cartoon Network in the early 2010s - Steven Universe. Running a total of 5 seasons and 160 episodes, Steven Universe was another series that became a heavy hitter for Cartoon Network. The series was about The Gems - alien warriors that protect the world from threats. The Gems consist of Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl and Steven. Steven is a bit different as he is half-human as well. He inherited the gem from his mom. Like Adventure Time, this is a series that gets more intense progressively. It definitely gets better as it goes on. Off the top of my head, I need to say that the designs and color choice are beautiful, the characters are very well written and the emotional spark the series leaves is amazing. I also really admire that Steven Universe was able to push boundaries, and introduce same sex relationships in the series. It truly did change the cartoon landscape in a positive way, and this is why it is one of the best cartoons of the 2010s and perhaps one of the most impactful. You can watch Steven Universe on Hulu!

4. Rick and Morty

Adult animation can often be lazy, but Rick and Morty is an exception to this stereotype. With five seasons and fifty one episodes (and it is still running), Rick and Morty has proven to be one of the most critically acclaimed shows globally. Rick and Morty revolves around the Smiths - Jerry and Beth along with their kids, Morty and Summer and Beth’s grandfather, Rick. As the title implies, Rick and Morty take the center of attention in the show though. The two go on many adventures (led by Rick) through different planets and dimensions, and they always keep us entertained! It is truly an amazing series. I love the lore, the comedy and the characters the most (especially Rick). Rick and Morty is truly one of a kind. You can watch Rick and Morty on Netflix!

3. Detentionaire

You’ve probably heard of every cartoon on this list until now! I think it’s about time I go to Canada and talk about one of Canada’s best shows, Detentionaire! Running for a total of 53 episodes and 4 seasons, Detentionaire was one of Teletoons hit shows in the early 2010s. The series revolves around a high schooler named Lee who gets framed for the biggest prank in high school history, and gets a year of detention. He tries to figure out who the true culprit is so that he can clear his name, but as he goes deeper into the mystery, he starts to discover more and more secrets hidden deep beneath the school that could change the entire world as he knows it. As we get closer and closer to finding out what is truly going on, Lee realizes he has a huge role to play in all of this. This series is truly amazing, and it is criminally underrated. My favorite thing about this series has to be the lore and how it gets increasingly more intense with each episode. Alongside that, I love the characters as they each feel like someone you would encounter in a regular high school, and I love the overall mystery. Detentionaire is truly one of the best cartoons of the 2010s, and definitely the most underrated. You can watch Detentionaire on the YouTube channel Retro Rerun, or on Tubi!

2. Gravity Falls

Let’s be honest - who did not expect this? I’m sure most of you would expect to see Gravity Falls on a top 10 cartoons of the 2010s list. A series that had 2 seasons and 40 episodes, Gravity Falls was centered around two twins - Dipper and Mabel. The two visit their strange Grunkle, Stan, at a strange town called Gravity Falls. Stan owns a tourist trap known as the Mystery Shack. Now, the town of Gravity Falls isn’t all it appears to be, which is something that Dipper learns shortly - with the help of Mabel, along with Mystery Shack employees, Wendy and Soos, Dipper slowly unravels the town’s greatest mysteries. Now, what isn’t there to like about this show? My favorite things are the mystery (which was really well done), the characters who all keep the series entertaining in some way, and the pacing which never left an episode boring. Gravity Falls is an iconic hit, and there is certainly no denying why it is so awesome! You can watch Gravity Falls on Disney Plus!

1. Amphibia

My profile picture probably gave this one away - Amphibia is truly a masterpiece. Running in the late 2010s with 3 seasons of 49 episodes so far, Amphibia is a series revolving around Anne Boonchuy who steals a magical box that transports her and her friends Sasha and Marcy into the world of Amphibia, a world full of frogs. Now separated from her friends, Anne must find them and return home. Though, along the way, she faces many threats and obstacles. A truly magnificent show. I personally love the very new and intriguing concept, the characters which are all very loveable and the humor. Amphibia is a masterpiece, and I can see why it’s the talk right now! You can watch Amphibia on Disney Plus!

And these were the best cartoons of the 2010s to me! I hope I introduced you to some new cartoons! Which of these cartoons do you agree with? Which do you disagree with? What are some I missed? Are you going to watch any of the cartoons on this list? Have you already watched some? What are the best cartoons of the 2010s to you? Let’s discuss in the comments!

And make sure you follow my Tumblr page for weekly blogs! I promise I won’t disappoint!

396 notes · View notes

gascon-en-exil · 3 years

Note

If we try and remove Byleth from Three Houses, who would likely be their replacement/s in the storyline? In AM, it will obviously be Dedue. But, what about in the other routes?

There's no easy answer that works for all the routes, because while removing Byleth completely undoubtedly would have made the overall writing of Three Houses stronger it would have also required a different focus and some extensive rewriting, especially where Sothis and Rhea are concerned. It'd also need the house leaders to become full PoV characters and also likely controllable in exploration, although that would have benefitted all three of them. Even if Byleth loses their self-insert status (and probably gender variability, in that case) and becomes a recruitable teacher like Hanneman and Manuela who only becomes central to the plot in Silver Snow, that would still require quite a bit of reworking...and would have lost the fans of Avatar dating sims, which has apparently been the most lucrative demographic of FE players for the last decade.

Azure Moon does indeed fare the best without Byleth, helped greatly by it being the most traditional FE story and the one that trims a lot of the fat in Three Houses's undercooked story elements, ex. the Agarthans and the mystery surrounding who and what Byleth is. It's already got the best pacing, the clearest arc for its protagonist, the best relationship between its hero and villain, and the best sense of dramatic payoff in ending where it does. The Byleth-free version would be all about power couple Dimidue, with added focus on Dimilix as a second relationship that begins roughly but develops into one of equal significance. Dedue and Felix would grow into a dynamic comparable to August and Dorias toward Leif in FE5, or Soren and Titania toward Ike in FE9: a pair of advisors with vastly different views of the world and who care for their leader in very different ways and so are forced to come to an understanding. They'd be fully integrated into the plot, allowing them to participate in story moments like Rodrigue's death and the resolution of the Duscur mystery much more organically than they do in canon, not to mention be the ones along with Gilbert and Rodrigue to help Dimitri through his darkest moments. The golden ending is an orgy.

Would IS ever write that? Absolutely not. It'd be too overtly gay, even if the relationships were still only kept to subtext, and there's no plot-relevant waifu bait to be had. Fandom would decry that AM as even more misogynistic than Echoes, and not progressive enough because with no Avatar S ranks Dimitri's queer relationships wouldn't be "canon." They'd be no homo'ed just like Ike/Soren is...which they are now, only it'd be more prominent with no Dimileth taking up such a large portion of Dimitri's fanbase.

I have no idea how this reworked Three Houses would handle the Eagles route split, so it'd probably be better off without one. Silver Snow would follow Byleth as they (she? he? The former allows for a second female lead, the latter delves into magical genderqueer territory with Byleth as the incarnation of a goddess) teach the Eagles and gradually uncover Edelgard's nefarious plans only too late to stop them. Apart from Byleth now having a definite gender, voice, and personality - quite a lot, I know - not much of the actual substance of SS would necessarily need to change. It would certainly benefit from a second pass in the writers' room, Byleth or not, like handling the Gronder rematch in a less awkward way, actually working to develop the antagonism between Byleth and Edelgard outside of two cutscenes, and making the final chapter make any kind of sense and not just "Rhea succumbs to dragon degeneration because you need to fight a final boss, Seteth handwaves the whole thing with a line referencing something that got referenced once back in like Chapter 2." Just...some kind of effort there would be nice.

At any rate SS with Byleth as an actual character would be more strongly-written for it, allowing them to function as a genuine protagonist. (Alternatively, make Ferdinand the protagonist...but that would resolve in him and Hubert putting on an elaborately-staged musical where they work through their feelings in the middle of fighting on opposite sides of a war. You know what? Give me that version of SS instead. Way more interesting.)

For Crimson Flower, drop the pretense right from the start. Edelgard's your PoV character, she knows she's the Flame Emperor and what she's doing throughout the school year, and Part 1 is about her trying to maintain the façade of a normal student while she's planning a war on the DL. If they insist on keeping some of the mystery, that wouldn't be impossible as it's obvious Hubert is the brains of their operation and he keeps most of what he does hidden from Edelgard anyway. I'm not really sure how to work the waifu hot for teacher angle into a PoV version of Edelgard; as much as I enjoy it from the comedic standpoint of Hubert never getting any because his lady never looks at him twice I think CF would be stronger if Byleth stayed with Rhea and the route didn't bother with working out their relationship to the Nabateans. Just genocide 'em all as Edelgard conquers the continent and convinces herself it's all for the best. She can shed a tear over Byleth's corpse while Hubert brandishes a cleaver with even more relish than usual to extract that valuable Crest stone. The ending is basically the same minus the Edeleth, with it being even more obvious that the shadow war against the Agarthans is going to resolve in Hubert taking his place as the real Manfroy of this story.

And as for Verdant Wind, the whole route would need a rewrite, to give it a more distinct identity from SS and to make it work with a protagonist whose personality and arc revolve around revealing very little about himself to anyone else. Players would undoubtedly find out much more about Claude that way than they do in canon VW, and it'd probably work better if it kept Edelgard's war to the background and refocused hard on the worldbuilding discoveries and how they play into Claude's growing understanding of Fódlan. With or without Byleth, a better-written VW would be vastly different from the canon version.

So aside from the house leaders taking over Byleth's role as PoV characters and exploration avatars I don't see anyone else assuming their exact role in supporting said leaders. Dimitri has an abundance of male love and camaraderie, Edelgard gets all worked up over Byleth but is still completely willing to step over them to achieve her goals (also Hubert is there), Claude would likely see his background and beliefs teased out of him gradually by all the Deer in their own ways, and Byleth as an actual character could make SS all about their Nabatean family and the bonds, magically incestuous or otherwise, they can form with the surviving dragons.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses

15 notes · View notes

cherry-valentine · 3 years

Text

How Black Clover Gets Lady Characters Right

*Spoilers for most of the Black Clover anime (mostly character related stuff, not much in the way of major plot stuff)*

Black Clover is right up there with Gintama in terms of shows that reward viewers for sticking with them through some mediocre early episodes and arcs. When Black Clover began airing, I was excited. Manga readers had been hyping the series up, and it sounded like the next big shounen fighting anime that would take anime fandom by storm. Then I started watching it, and I was immensely disappointed. I found Asta’s constant screaming almost unbearable (to the point that I started muting the tv when it looked like he was about to open his mouth). The early episodes were totally predictable and cliche. The animation was, at times, embarrassingly bad. But I stuck with it because there were a few elements that kept me interested. One was the absolute bangers of opening and ending themes (at one point the thought crossed my mind that they were entirely too good for this show). Another was Yuno, whom I liked from the start. Then there’s the fact that Asta’s magic, or lack of magic, was the one element I didn’t predict a mile away. I honestly expected him to awaken to some super powerful magic early on. Almost 200 episodes later, he is still magic-free. I really did not see that coming. Still yet, I came close to dropping the series several times during those first thirteen episodes or so.

Somewhere around the time they went to the undersea village (I don’t remember the name of the arc), I began to notice that I was actually looking forward to each new episode. It was a gradual change from being at the bottom of my watch list to being near the top. So gradual it took me a while to realize it. The show still had some problems, sure, but it stopped being predictable. Asta talked more and screamed less. More interesting characters were introduced. The fight scenes were exciting. By the time this arc was over, Black Clover had become a favorite. So, if you tried the series and found it boring and annoying, consider giving it another shot. Like I said, it rewards you for sticking with it.

One of the best things about Black Clover, for me, is how it treats its female characters, especially when compared to other popular shounen fighting anime. It is by no means perfect, and I’ll talk about the show’s minor failings in regards to its ladies a little further down. But overall, it does a phenomenal job.

The first thing that struck me about Black Clover’s women is just how varied they are. There’s a surprising range in their appearances, personalities, and skills. And there are lots of them. Far more than a lot of other shounen fighting anime allow. There are five women in the main squad, the Black Bulls, alone. And we see that each squad has several women as well. Then there’s the all-women squad the Blue Roses. This extends to the villains, as well as the non-combatant supporting cast as well.

Speaking of skills, the women of Black Clover are unusually powerful. The two male leads, Asta and Yuno, eventually get “power-ups”, some kind of new form or transformation or whatever. This is super common in shounen fighting anime. What’s not so common, however, is the female lead getting her own cool power-up/transformation. This is what happens for Noelle, and it was such a great surprise. A little side note here: I’ve been watching the series on a streaming site that allows comments, and I was so amazed by the comments on the episode in which Noelle gets her power-up. The (mostly male, judging by their names) commenters were genuinely happy for her! They were proud of her for getting stronger and cheering her on! I didn’t spot a single comment about her looks or how great of a waifu she is (at the time anyway).

But it wasn’t just Noelle that got stronger. Another Black Bulls member, Vanessa, got an interesting power-up of her own, in the form a cat familiar that basically makes her and her teammates completely impervious to harm for as long as her mana holds out (which has saved their lives countless times). Another lady, Grey, has recently (in the anime) demonstrated some shockingly powerful magic that none of her teammates, or even she herself, realized she was capable of. Then there’s Charmy, who was already quite powerful but gained her own powered up transformation that made her strong enough to defeat an elf-possessed Magic Knight captain. If anything, the ladies have received MORE power-ups than the men.

And while we’re talking about powerful women, I have to talk about Mereoleona. If you’ve watched the show, you know exactly what I mean. If you haven’t, just imagine a character who can curb-stomp a powerful villain who is on a higher level than villains that the main characters were struggling to team up against just a few episodes before, who can then take on a whole group of these powered up villains and remain standing, even after losing consciousness, because they’re just that badass. Now imagine that character is a woman. And she’s so terrifying that one of the elf-possessed enemies (her comrades who had their bodies taken over by elves) remarks that his body froze up because, even though he’s controlling it, the BODY ITSELF was afraid of her. Mereoleona is an absolute beast, the kind of character that is almost always male in these types of shows. And the best part? The icing on this badass cake? The only person who was stronger than her, who could defeat her one-on-one, was ANOTHER WOMAN. Noelle’s mother. And a huge part of Noelle’s motivation as a character is becoming strong like her mother.

On the subject of Noelle’s motivation, I really appreciate that it has nothing to do with her crush on Asta. Sure, she likes him, but it’s not a motivating factor in her life and it’s not even really that important to her story arc. Her arc has always been about HER, about becoming stronger, living up to her powerful family’s expectations, discovering the truth about her mother’s death and then about avenging her, about becoming more empathetic to the common people despite being royalty. Noelle’s story is ABOUT HER. And it’s really sad that this is something remarkable, but we’ve all seen the “heroines” with no real arcs of their own, or worse, their arcs revolve almost entirely around their love for a male character (Sakura from Naruto is the most obvious example here but anyone who watches a lot of shounen can no doubt name many more). And Noelle isn’t an exception in Black Clover. Almost all of the women have interesting back stories and character arcs that have little to do with men (or if men are involved, they’re in supporting roles to these stories and very rarely the main subject).

An exception to this is possibly Charlotte, who is in love with Yami and this plays a big role in her story. However, even this is framed in a way that puts the emphasis on her own growth. It’s really about her learning to be honest with her feelings and getting over her own awkwardness around Yami. A big moment for her is when she admits to her squad that she’s in love with Yami, and they’re all eager and excited to help and support her, like the wonderful ladies they are.

Now, as I said before, Black Clover’s depictions of women are not perfect. There are a few issues I consider minor that I need to address. The first is the tendency the show has of making almost all the ladies be in love with someone. A large portion of the women are sporting crushes, though some of them are quite subtle or mainly used for comic relief, it’s still a little annoying that so many of them are in love. Of course, many of the male characters are in love with someone too (including the protagonist, Asta) and there are several female characters who are totally disinterested in romance, so I can overlook this. Another small issue is that, even though there’s more variety than usual in the body types (one female character is fat and another, Charmy, often gets quite pudgy for extended periods of time, plus a few ladies have more muscular builds), a significant portion of them have very large breasts, including two teenage characters (Noelle and Mimosa). It feels a little unnecessary, to be honest. Though to be fair, it’s rare that any of these characters are used for fan service and the camera never really seems to linger on their bodies. Most of them dress fairly modestly and among those who don’t, the more sexy clothes fit their characters and make sense for their personalities.

The last minor issue I have is that we often get the “designated girl fights”. If there’s a female villain, it’s likely that a female hero will be the one to fight her. This isn’t a rule set in stone, because there are plenty of male/female battles, but it happens enough to be very noticeable. Of course, these lady villains are demonstrated to be just as powerful and dangerous as the villainous men, but it’s still mildly irritating.

Those little nitpicks aside, Black Clover is still a shining example of a shounen fighting anime getting its ladies right. The women in the series are well-written, interesting characters with compelling stories. They’re powerful, have wildly varying personalities and motivations, and never feel like window dressing. They’re not just there to be pretty romantic interests. The show does all this very well, and I think it deserves a lot of praise and credit for it.

#Black Clover #Female characters #noelle silva #mereoleona vermillion #text #long post

22 notes · View notes

duratrans · 3 years

Text

Satoshi Mizukami Q&A, 2/3

Satoshi Mizukami recently took questions from the editor's desk, and publicly from write-ins, for an interview to celebrate the first volume of Solte going on sale (Jan 9th!). So I translated them all! It’s in three parts, so I’ll post them one by one.

Here is the second section, revolving around Sengoku Youko and his other works.

Q: In Sengoku Youko, we were wondering about the history between Tama and Kuzunoha that led to their mother-daughter relationship. We know Tama was actually born from the ancient fox spirit Tamamo-no-Mae, so Kuzunoha must have adopted her, right? A: When Tamamo-no-Mae transformed into the Sessho-seki stone, which killed anyone who came near, a monk called Gennou Shinsho destroyed the rock, sending fragments of Tamamo's being flying near and far. (that's the actual legend from wikipedia. As for my plan to tie it to the story...) Kuzunoha found the fragmented portion that became Tama, and decided to take it in basically to kill time. I couldn't find a spot to fit that part of their history in, and eventually just left it.

Q: What happened to Kuzunoha after Yazen's death? Does she leave in search of a new love? Personally, I would find it more poetic for Yazen to have been the last man she ever embraced, seeing how she was willing to die for him! A: She would take on a disguise, probably a female monk, and nurse her broken heart for many years. Of course, being an unaging youkai, she could never stay in one place too long, and would move around, until one day she meets someone new. Just the way she's always done. That's how it is for a youkai. You do what you've always done.

Q: You did judo in high school and kenpo in college, and we know you liked the matches and sparring but hated working out, so you've coined your own nickname as "the limp-armed berserker" on twitter before. Did Douren and Thousand-Tale Jinka's love of battle come from a familiar place? A: Insofar as the feeling of "yeah, fighting is fun!" might be rooted somewhere in there, I guess so. The idea of a real fight still makes me nervous, though.

Q: Senya and Tsukiko's village is protected by the barrier that makes it invisible, which has kept it relatively isolated from the larger world. Did they also manage to stay independent from the sweeping administrative changes that changed Japan, like Toyotomi Hideyoshi's restriction of arms to the samurai caste or the land census, or the Edo period's capitol attendance policy, isolationism, and welfare laws, just to name a few? A: All of it. Passed 'em right by.

Q: In the story, we learn Mudo took up a number of hobbies like go, shogi, haiku, bonsai, etc. If Mudo was living today, what kind of pastimes would he be into? I get the impression he'd be sinking cash into mobile games and Gacha. A: Mudo is a fighting game/FPS gamer. I don't think he'd be as interested in stuff like mobile games that don't take player skill into account as much.

Q: After Jinka and Tama married, did Jinka change how he addressed her? As in, did he start to have a pet name or something like that for her? I'd love to know! (I'm guessing Tama still just calls him "Jinka," but if that changed I'd love to know, too!) -Negurano A: This didn't really change for them, no.

Q: What kind of person is Mudo's sister? -Weekend A: Didn't really plan her out.

Q: So many characters in Sengoku Youko had incredibly impactful, memorable death scenes. If Senya or any of the rest of the cast that were around when the story ended had to go, how would you envision it? -Namamono A: How would I kill off the characters that didn't die? That's a weird one. I was never going to create scenes that aren't part of the the story, so I got nothing for that.

Q: Did you have any additional self-contained stories from the Youko universe that you wanted to draw? For instance, maybe something with Tama and Senya and their life together as lovers, and how that's going! -Neko A: If I had too much free time on my hands, or it was for work, I might come up with something but I don't really have any ideas at the moment.

Q: Did you have a favorite part or arc of Sengoku Youko? -Kokoronohito A: I like the ending.

Q: I wish Ufotable could do an anime adaption of Youko. Although, I also think Kyoani would do a very nice Tama... -Akane A: Is there a question in there?

Q: Can you give us your top three characters, and your favorite three parts of the story? -Akane A: For characters, it'd be Yazen, Tago, and Hanatora. I guess for the scenes I like best, there's the ending, Senya and Mudo's showdown in volume 9, and the final battle between Senya and Jinka.

Q: How did you come up with the nonsense dialog for the mad gods? Was there any reference or inspiration behind the dog, the whale, the rabbit, or the others? -Gen A: Nothing in particular. I just tried to string things together that would make absolutely no sense. I did want to hide some hints or foreshadowing in the babble, but it didn't really work.

(note: back to editorial for one question) Q: When The Man of Legend was published in Geko Geko back in 2004, you said Yamanaka was probably the most powerful out of all your characters. Does he still wear the crown here in the year 2021? A: I'd have to say at this point he's been dethroned.

Q: I really liked Soon Ken and Penta in Sanjin Sadou, so I was wondering where the idea of a sake-loving penguin came from. -Leviah A: I can't remember in the least.

Q: Akitani Inachika (Swordfish knight from Biscuit Hammer) obtained knowledge of all things, and Hakke Neko has the all-seeing eye. They existed at very different times, but is there any connection between the two? -Abuson A: There's no connection.

#mizukami satoshi #satoshi mizukami #sengoku youko #lucifer and the biscuit hammer #sanjin sadou

12 notes · View notes

chibivesicle · 4 years

Text

Golden Kamuy chapter 222. The next arc is about to begin with the factions re-defined (again).

I have to admit, I’m going to complain about the recent pacing again - chapter 222 is acting as a pause to help the readers reorient themselves to the shifting factions and alliances. I really wish this was spread out a bit more over the past 10-15 or so chapters. Chapter 222 is a good point to begin the shift to the next story arc. I had predicted previously based on pacing, that the next major arc would start around chapter 230. It is looking like that will be the case. For right now, I’ll hypothesize that the next arc will be the gathering of all of the skins and Asirpa will see them allowing her to connect them to the code and the actual location. Asirpa will likely be the character which all of the action and events will revolve around.

Let’s dig into chapter 222. First off, I am happy to see that Inkarmat survived her risky surgery. Noda started the chapter out with a various clear page with her telling a fortune for Koito. After everything that she has been through, I find it interesting that she is still performing her fortune-telling after the events of Abashiri. Just like Shiraishi, the fox jaw hits him in the eyes, but when she reveals that his fortune is good, he’s super excited with the results.

Koito looks excited and much better than we last saw him injured on the ship so that is also good to see! Even better the next page has a blushing Koito asking for Inkarmat to do Tsukishima’s fortune too. I love how cute and excited he looks! Unfortunately, we don’t get a good look at Koito’s left arm which is under he duvet cover, but his right arm is okay. Of course Tsukishima’s fortune is bad luck (isn’t his entire life “bad luck”?) so he blankly turns away while Koito is excited - in a similar way to when he wanted Tsukishima to notice how good his acting was in Asirpa’s film. Tsukishima looks 100% deadpan since Koito was injured - what is he thinking now? What happened to him?

The middle panel then focuses on a soft and introspective looking Inkarmat. The final panel then fills in the gap when Tanigaki refused to follow Sugimoto and Asirpa onto the ice floe and talked back to Kikuta. He told Kikuta that he is Tanigaki, the Matagi which resulted in a “WTF?” moment from Kikuta since he didn’t serve with him in the during the war in the 27th.

This time Tanigaki acts differently than we’ve seen in the past - since he doesn’t know Kikuta, he uses this lack of a connection as a reason to disobey an order from a superior officer (recall he is a Warrant Officer a higher rank that Tsukishima for an enlisted man/non-officer). Keep in mind that even though he hates Ogata, he always called him Superior Private and was much more hesitant to flat out just ignore him. If anything, his connection to Ogata meant he felt comfortable enough to talk back to Ogata, specifically in the swamp when he tells Ogata his only solution to problems is to kill others.

With no information on Kikuta, Tanigaki is even more brazen as he turns away from him and firmly states that he’s leaving. This comes to a quick halt as soon as Tsurumi catches up to him. After revealing that Inkarmat is no longer in Abashiri he makes it clear that she is a hostage of Tsurumi and that Tanigaki can’t find her without his help. Tsurumi doesn’t even try to seduce Tanigaki with any sort of sweet lies anymore. He knows Tanigaki went AWOL once, there is no point in winning him over per se, instead he just needs to make his relationship transactional.

Of course the transaction is that Tanigaki wouldn’t want to make Tsurumi kill Inkarmat. . . Tsurumi’s facial expression is already pretty terrifying but Usami copying it in the background makes it even more concerning.

Tanigaki tries to reason with Tsurumi that he’s not cut out for any of these things, he’s a simple man who wants a simple life (yet, he’s been running from a simple life for the entire story). He created his Asirpa side quest to avoid going home and now that he’s lost Ryu and Cikapasi as well as been dumped by Asirpa, Sugimoto and Shiraishi - he’s trying the exact same thing he tried after he was injured in the hunt for Retar. Just disengage from everything.

Interestingly, in response to Tanigaki’s pathetic excuse (sorry, that is what it is - he’s been more than capable in the quest for the gold so far) Kikuta speaks. It seems that Kikuta is trying to reason with Tanigaki to get him to understand that since he is a veteran he isn’t an ordinary person. Therefore, Kikuta sees Tanigaki’s desire to return to civilian life as betrayal of his comrades. Kikuta looks upset as we see his teeth as he says this; Kikuta is a career solider part of his feelings make sense - we may get a flashback to show that he served also in the first Sino-Japanese war, yet he is distinctly different than Tsurumi. He’s not the type of man to threaten someone and he hopes reason and logic will work. I think this is par for Kikuta - he’s a smart guy - he’ll try to rationalize out an argument with others as we’ve seen before.

Tanigaki, still tries to paint himself as sad and pathetic (again, he went to Karafuto to kill Kiro!) and even tries to say he’ll negatively impact everyone else but Tsurumi knowing how Tanigaki thinks - that he would assume Inkarmat would leave on her own. Yet, she can’t - Tanigaki loses his cool asking what he’s done to her - and the next page reveals Inkarmat from the front with no speech bubbles blocking a view of her body to reveal that she’s pregnant with Tanigaki’s child.

Wow - Ienaga was not only a skilled doctor and surgeon, but despite her terrible wound she didn’t lose the fetus! If the only time Tanigaki and Inkarmat had sex was during the otter meat stew incident it was awhile ago now. As that was the warmest time of the year - recall that Ogata didn’t wear his jacket - it must have been July or August. The attack on Abashiri was likely August/September as it was aligned with the salmon run. There is a great variability in how pregnancies develop between women, but based on how much she is showing we can conservatively say it has been say 6-7 months so the current time has to be around January maybe February (1908?). This is all a rough estimate so don’t hold me to my math.

Back to the chapter - Tanigaki is beyond shocked at this information.

I’m not at all honestly surprised at how Tanigaki doesn’t even know how to respond. He is a simple man after all! After another panel of Inkarmat holding her belly, it shows Tanigaki barely able to respond with the question of “My child?” as he sweats profusely - his actions now have even more ramifications than before.

Tsurumi then pulls him in close as he reminds him of his side quest to return Asirpa to Huci, if he were to return to this goal, Tsurumi would let Inkarmat and Tanigaki go.

This portion of the chapter ends with Tsurumi handing a pistol over to Tanigaki and tells him that he’s one of the few people who can get close to Sugimoto without him putting up his guard. It is clear that, Tanigaki’s job is to kill Sugimoto for Tsurumi.

And in regards to Tanigaki’s simple man concept/personal vision of himself is true in the fact that he’s so simple that Tsurumi knows exactly how to handle him and he’s been playing him since the beginning. Yep, Tanigaki you are so simple everyone with a brain and predict you. . . . hence Ogata warning Tamai and Co. about trying to convince him to rebel, as he’s simple.

Sugimoto’s profile then leads to a conversation between the members of team Asirpa-Sugimoto-Shiraishi + Vasily. I just can’t help but roll my eyes at Sugimoto’s comment about how surprising it was that Heita was a tattooed convict. *sighs* Sugimoto really needs to get his bad guy radar re-calibrated. Come on Sugimoto, you know many samples of bad and evil people - you can make a standard curve to be able to identify dangrous people by now!

Sugimoto takes this to mean that they are back on track for the goal of finding the gold, while Vasily silently watches him and Asirpa chat as Heita’s skin is being tanned. I really wish at least for Vasily we got some internal dialogue since he can’t talk. What does he think is really going on? Right now he might be thinking - I found people associated with that weird cat sniper guy who owes me a rematch. So far, I’ve watched them shoot a bear in the butthole, run around a fight a man with mental health issues and NOW they skinned him and are regrouping for something and there is a young girl at the center of all of this. Will this really lead me to my sniper rematch? Where are you Mr. Lynx sniper?

Asirpa calmly replies that they are also back to finding out what happened in the first place to the gold and the murder of the Ainu leaders too. Asirpa finds some platinum in Heita’s Ainu tobacco case and Sugimoto and Shiraishi revert to absolute children fighting over it in front of Asirpa and Vasily. I’m not super keen on this gag joke - it seems misplaced as they were being serious.

Action then shifts again to HIjikata’s hideout at the house of Nagakura’s relative. Kadokura and Kirawus are playing cards and having a bit of a riot as Kirawus is beating Kadokura at the game and having a blast. As Kadokura has such shit luck, he tries to cheat by looking at the bottom of the deck. Similar to Asirpa, Kirawus interestingly uses “osoma” as a part of his speech. This then allows for Kirawus to give him more shit about being a butthole peeker (in reference to looking for the poisonous plant in the convict’s anus while in prison). Kadokura then becomes embarrassed and tries to deny it as Kirawus’s sweaty hand is accusing him of cheating. The middle panel reminds me of a typical BL manga where the uke is terrified of a seme about to come onto him. That look of KIrawus has that nervous look as his hand comes to his mouth as he looks back at Kadokura.

The next panel then not surprisingly has Kadokura jumping onto Kirawus as he pins him down telling him to shut up. Yeah, definite BL energy going on there - I’m surprised Kadokura gets to be “on top” so to speak. You’ve read a fair bit of BL haven’t you Noda?

Nagakura remarks how they are essentially useless before Ushiyama looks like he’s about to say something with interest. That the stray, Ogata, has come back. Ogata is embracing his full cat persona as he bakes his beans er - ahem - hands on the charcoal stove and he scratches at it with his feet. Hijikata flat out asks him what he’s been up to since Abashiri.

So we now know his smug expression was him arriving at the house before Hijikata returned from Otaru. So this invalidates my hypotheses in regards to where everyone in the Hijikata group were in the last chapter. They have all regrouped at Nagakura’s place. Where is Ariko now? Is he with them? The wee babe Kantarou? Tell me where they are Noda.

Ogata then has to explain his actions to Hijikata.

He confirms that Asirpa verified the identity of Nopperabou to be her father. He then states that both were hit by stray gunfire. Hijikata knew that Ogata was not involved on the action directly during the “original” plan which everyone pretty much broke for their own gains. He then continues to state that everyone scattered but that Kiro took Asirpa so he chose to go with them. He’s got his hand on his hair as he explains this - a common behavior when he’s talking both to Hijikata and others who make him uncomfortable. He touches his head when he confronts Tanigaki in Asirpa’s kotan, and also when he has to deal with the group in Yubari and the last time Hijikata asked about his motivations.

He continues to explain they went to Karafuto with the intent for Asirpa to meet Sofia, as Kiro thought meeting Sofia may help her to solve the code. He states that Sugimoto caught up to them, Kiro was killed and they lost Asirpa and that he was also injured.

Let’s break down everything Ogata has said on this page.

Things that are factually true:

1.) Asirpa identified her father. - Yep.

2.) everyone scattered in the chaos - pretty much, Hijikata ditched everyone else as well.

3.) he joined Kiro and Asirpa and went to Karafuto - Yep.

4.) Sofia was a key for the code and Asirpa - Yep. Whole wolves thing.

5.) Sugimoto did catch up to them - Yep, Ogata spotted him and panicked resulting in him separated from Kiro and Sofia resulting in a huge disadvantage.

6.) Kiro was killed as a result. - Yep, Ogata left him on his own where he was killed since Sugimoto ran off with Ryu and Tanigaki, Koito and Tsukishima followed which lead to the Sugimoto “indirect assist” in Kiro’s death. Did Sugimoto actually kill Kiro? No, but his and Ogata’s own actions lead to his death.

7.) Ogata was injured as a result of Sugimoto catching up to them. Sugimoto’s scream is what resulted in Asirpa accidentally shooting him in the eye. He likely would have ended the stand off with Asirpa if Sugimoto hadn’t come rushing in.

The half-truth/half-lie:

1.) That Sugimoto and Wilk were killed by stray gunfire. Oh hell no, that was you Ogata, but that is a smart way to try to cover your ass. Ogata knows that Hijikata has lived this long and knew all about Abashiri. Ogata covering his ass in case Hijikata had information about those who saw Sugimoto and Wilk’s bodies. Ogata is a shit liar, but this at least has some evidence that is factually correct since they were shot.

So out of all 8 statements on this page, 7 of the 8 are true and one is a typical Ogata omission of a key fact - the identity of the “stray bullet shooter”.

The next page continues Ogata’s information dump.

Interestingly, Ushiyama then ask why Sugimoto killed Kiro, after mulling over this a bit, I think this is a clever spin of information on Ogata’s part (I’ve binged too many episodes of “the thick of it” recently - I’m hyper aware of spin now. lol). Ushiyama makes the assumption that Sugimoto is the one that killed Kiro, yet Ogata never actually said Sugimoto was the one that did it. This is because he was likely not very aware of events after Sugimoto cut out his eye and ran to meet up with the others after they fought with Kiro.

By letting everyone assume that Sugimoto is the one who killed Kiro, it makes him look even more involved with Tsurumi and shows that Sugimoto’s loyalties are as fluid as everyone else’s. Ogata then summarizes that Sugimoto teamed up with Tsurumi to get Asirpa back and that they should smartly assume that all of Sugimoto’s skins are with Tsurumi (actual fact!) and that Sugimoto then betrayed Tsurumi and went back to Hokkaido meaning he’s made himself an enemy of Tsurumi and lacks the skins he once had.

This really is a great way by Ogata to attack Sugimoto’s character. Sugimoto always wants people to trust him and see him as faithful and loyal - Ogata is flat out called a stray, he needs to win the information/perception war against Sugimoto. He must lay down the foundation to get back at Sugimoto and strengthen his own position as an information broker in the quest for the gold.

He very confidently states that he has two key things he brought back form Karafuto. 1.) Sofia - he has the information on Sofia and that she is a partisan leader and she was a comrade of Wilk and Kiro. He got to hear and see enough of her to realize she will be a force to be reckoned with and she will come for Asirpa.

A few interesting observations here - i.) Ogata’s respect for women continues as he flat out tells Hijikata that she will be a force to take seriously. He doesn’t write her off and I’m sure he was impressed by her when he met her. He does read people well when it comes to determining their strengths and weaknesses.

ii.) He says Wilk instead of Nopperabou. This shows that he has more information on some things than Hijikata and he’s subtly putting it out there to tease Hijikata. Yeah, you never knew Kiro’s original name (I did because I saw his wanted poster and I can read Russian!) AND I knew Wilk’s original name (from Inkarmat during the sea otter nabe, you weren’t there Hijikata and I saw his wanted poster and heard Sofia say his name). This may be related to Ogata’s meltdown on ice - he clearly felt enough about what he thought Wilk’s plan for Asirpa was that he emotionally uses Wilk instead of the dehumanizing name of Nopperabou. I also wonder if as Ogata learned more and more about Wilk he also did have some level of interest/respect [intellectual] connection to Wilk. He always looked very interested in events surrounding him - at the fox farm when they wait in the lighthouse as Kiro tells Asirpa more etc.

The second item is this, 2.) Asirpa - He knows that Asirpa has figured out the code to solve the skins. Therefore, who ever has Asirpa when all of the skins are gathered will have the key to the gold. Ogata looks so damn confident/smug/sexy when he says this bit. He not only got more information about the partisan involvement and background in wanting to take the gold out of Hokkaido and to Karafuto/Russia. He conclusively confirmed that Asirpa can solve the code.

Of course Kadokura is excited that they must find Asirpa and Kirawus looks shocked/dumbfounded. I really think Kirawus knows more about this gold and he’s also playing dumb to get close to Hijikata.

Ogata returns to full on feline mode and warms his beans - er hands over the stove as he with his eyes closed in a cat zen like states Sugimoto will come to them. They have lost all of their skins and it is impossible to return to Tsurumi now that Sugimoto has outright betrayed them. He also clearly summarizes that only two groups have the skins so Sugimoto will have to go to the one he hasn’t betrayed yet.

The chapter ends with a somewhat incorrect summary of the skin distribution between the groups and shows a serious looking Sugimoto that there are only 4 skins yet.

Overall, my impressions of this chapter. Lots of questions and more observations!

1.) Will Koito fully recover? What is the status of his left arm?

2.) What shattered Tsukishima? He’s looked the same since Koito confronted him - dead on the inside and outside.

3.) Tanigaki will continue to dance to Tsurumi’s tune and he’s still using Inkarmat to control him. Now the stakes are higher.

4.) Sugimoto needs to be less obvious about how he’ll move, he’s about as easy to read as Tanigaki.

5.) Ogata has to walk a razor thin line. He provided information on a need to know basis with a lie and some omissions. Hijikata has never trusted Ogata from the start - I don’t think Hijikata knew that Ogata and Kiro were working together. He also likely doesn’t know that Ogata knows Russian, but for the love of god he should suspect it since Ogata went willingly with Kiro to find Sofia. He is working on his own information spin to make sure that Sugimoto is not trusted by Hijikata’s group.

He omitted the following facts outright - i.) Shiraishi was with his group in Karafuto and is likely aware that he’s upset at Kiro’s death. ii.) he likely knows that Tanigaki went after Kiro for revenge iii.) Sofia, Wilk and Kiro met a Japanese spy in Russia iv.) he knows that a skilled sniper [Vasily] has joined Sugimoto’s group v.) he planted the seeds out doubt in Koito’s mind on Karafuto.

Is he waiting for a time when these can be important to him or maintaining his position? As far as I’m concerned - Ogata is his own faction in the quest for the gold. He’s just hanging with Hijikata for now, as it benefits him, but a cat has no true master. A retired vetranairian told me this once “Dogs have owners. Cats have staff.” Ogata showed his cat like tendancies in this chapter - everyone else is just his staff.

29 notes · View notes

the-ice-sculpture · 5 years

Text

Thoughts on Sanrion

Sanrion isn’t as inevitable a thing as Braime or Gendra is/has been but there’s still potential evidence that it’s been the works for a long time coming. None of what I’m saying is new, I’m just using this as an excuse to vent my thoughts.

From the beginning both the show and books made a point of emphasising how Ned and Catelyn built their love stone by stone, despite not being each other’s first choice (or even choice at all). Thematically, it’d make sense if this comes full circle by being repeated for the ending. Sansa is the Stark who most resembles her mother, who most mirrors her mother - only Sansa has the potential to be even more fierce and (is already more) politically savvy. If Sansa was to end up marrying anyone else, it’d make the most structural sense as a story if her marriage mirrored that of her mother and father’s - if she married somebody she did not initially like and if together they both decided to build their marriage.

Since a large portion of Sansa’s character arc revolves around her loss of naivety and overcoming romanticised notions of handsome valiant knights and princes, if she was to end up with someone then it’d be the most satisfying if she ends up choosing someone who is in no way conventionally attractive and doesn’t hold up to the idealised dreams of future matches she had as a young girl. Tyrion is the epitome of someone who is in no sense conventionally attractive and he’s one of the few characters outside her family who she has a long history with who is also high born. Tyrion is the only character in King’s Landing (debatably except from The Hound and Margery Tyrell) who shows her any kindness without having any ulterior motive and he’s also from a house that’s despised by her family. So, yeah, Tyrion fits the bill.

Sansa’s so used to people valuing her for what her name brings them because she is the key to the North. For years no one outside her family valued her for her and instead she’s faced an onslaught of suitors and people trying to make matches for her based on what her name and title would bring them. This is common amongst the highborn girls in Westeros but happens far more than would be considered normal to Sansa. In a political sense, she’s been traded and promised like a piece of meat. One of the most powerful things she can do now is to make her own decisions and choose what - or who - she wants for herself.

Tyrion has the opposite problem to Sansa. Instead of being fought over like a piece of meat, all his potential suitors are either repulsed or offended by the offer of a match with him. A match with him would be a punishment, as far as they’re concerned. For most of Tyrion’s story, all the people Tyrion socialises with are paid to be in his company. No one chooses Tyrion. In the show, Tyrion doesn’t know Tysha wasn’t paid by Jaime and has no idea she voluntarily chose him as a romantic partner. Whenever Tyrion accomplishes something great someone else gets all the credit and praise. Whenever something goes badly, whether or not Tyrion had anything to do with it, he gets blame or accusations. Tyrion is constantly undervalued despite his incredible assets and competence. This only changed when Daenerys named him her hand. But in terms of his value as a marital partner, from Tyrion’s own perspective, no one has chosen him.

You see where I’m going with this? Sansa has experienced too many people fighting over her for her name. Sansa now has the freedom and power to make her own choices. Tyrion is used to being undervalued and is the person no one voluntarily chooses... If only there was a solution that would satisfy both these criteria.

Personality wise, they’re also a very good match even though the age difference isn’t ideal. Tyrion is one of the few people who can make Sansa genuinely laugh and smile. Tyrion treats her gently and wishes to protect her and curses himself for not being strong enough to always be able to. His intentions and the way he treats her (definitely more so in the show rather than the books) actually read as genuinely chivalrous (see all the hand to hand contact they have). In an interesting twist, Tyrion in some ways reflects Sansa’s old romantic ideas, only they come from someone she never expected such chivalry to come from (or even someone she would’ve expected to want such chivalry to come from). But Sansa could have both. Sansa could both have someone who treats her as she wants to be treated as well as someone who represents how much she has grown as a person. Because, honestly, at this stage the last things Sansa cares about is how handsome someone is or how valiant they are. Sansa wants those she cares about to stay loyal and stay alive.

Politically, Sansa and Tyrion are also a good match. A Lannister and Stark choosing to be together would be a poetic end, given all the blood between their houses. And as many people have pointed out, the War of the Roses (which GoT is loosely inspired by) ended with the two opposing houses marrying. Sansa’s one of the very few characters on the show who can keep up with him and he saw her potential from the beginning. In the crypts, they choose to hold hands, to face the threat together, and in the heat of all that they even had a tender moment with Tyrion kissing her hand. After all the intense eye-contact of that scene, how they brought up their marriage even before that scene happened, and after everything that’s been left unsaid between them, it’d be a bit strange if this development in their relationship doesn’t lead to anything more. Due to the sheer terror of the situation, I really don’t think Sansa was manipulating him here. We only see Sansa manipulate people she sees as potential threats and people who’ve wronged her in the past and Tyrion is neither of these things.

There’s also the bonus of the potential beautiful irony of Sansa and Tyrion being happily married enraging Cersei and Tywin Lannister from beyond the grave.

So in terms of coherent storytelling, having Sansa and Tyrion renew their wedding vows could work very well, so long as they both choose it and aren’t forced into it. There’s even a possibility of it being the ‘sweet’ part of the ‘bittersweet’ ending we’ve been hearing so much about. The GoT universe is so dark that their relationship could provide a delicate contrast, particularly given the history of these two characters and everything they’ve been through.

The time they’ve spent apart has actually been very healthy for the possibility of them deciding to be together. It’s given Sansa a chance to mature on her own, to grow and become a woman and learn lessons by herself. They’ve both had long journeys where they’ve formed their own new alliances and have learned so much along the way. The absence of each other means they’re not used to being forced together. During this time, in the show Tyrion abstained from sex which surprised him more than anyone else. The show made Sansa experience the worst kind of match she could possibly have had with Ramsey, who was a huge contrast to Tyrion’s promise that he’ll never share her bed unless she wants him to (and I hope there’ll be a throwback to that line with these two). Given both their trauma, it’s a very delicate area to navigate around but these two have the potential to work together to achieve it if it’s what they desire.

But here’s the part that makes me not so optimistic: all the ominous foreshadowing revolving around Tyrion. Because Sansa’s chances of survival seem far greater than Tyrion’s at the moment. Sansa’s learned so much and now is one of the cleverest characters on the show but Tyrion... I just don’t know if he’ll make it out alive. I think if he makes it out alive then they have a genuine chance together. But all the not so subtle hints of Daenerys becoming increasingly displeased with him as well as the conversations about betrayal he’s had with Daenerys and Varys suggest Tyrion’s going to have a hard time getting away unscathed. (Given how I’m sure Sansa’s role is going to become more important in the world of politics, I’m desperately hoping she could help him out of a tough spot somehow in a plot twist.)

My ideal ending for Tyrion and Sansa would be for Sansa to be Queen of the North and for Tyrion to be her hand. I don’t see Sansa wanting to leave Winterfell or her family ever again. I don’t see her changing her name from Stark to anything else either, even if she does remarry. Tyrion loves playing the game and almost being killed over it hasn’t put him off in the past. He has no objections to supporting a queen, despite Westerosi misogyny. Sansa has learned to play the game and play it well. Together, they’re the ultimate political power couple. Tyrion has more years of experience but Sansa knows the North and she also covers Tyrion’s blind spots (like about there being no chance of Cersei sending her army north). King’s Landing also holds certain complications for Tyrion, given his history there and the treatment from his family, Shae, and the city’s citizens.

And I haven’t even touched upon how these two already started to build up a foundation of trust while they were in King’s Landing... Ugh. There’s so much to say with these two. I’m sure I’ll start thinking of more stuff I should’ve included here after I’ve posted this. I’ve no idea how it’s gonna go down, either tragically or sweetly or neither of the two.

Anyway... Fingers crossed.

#sanrion #game of thrones spoilers #my posts #meta

51 notes · View notes

nellasbookplanet · 4 years

Text

Let's talk about Star Wars and character arcs

I've been seeing a lot of discourse after the third movie, and I will not know peace until I too have screamed my opinion into the void.

Let's start with this: I love enemies to lovers stories (I also love enemies to friends stories, but you don't see them as often). I love redemption arcs. They can be so good, not to mention important; showing people that it's never too late to try to turn around and be better is in my opinion more important than punishing villains, satisfying as it can be.

I was, because of this, not entirely opposed to the idea of reylo. I am, however, very much opposed to the way it played out, which was at the cost of the character arcs of every single character, incuding Rey and Kylo. Rey, whose arc ended up revolving around sympathising with (and completely seeing past and forgiving all the flaws of) some dude who most of the time wanted to control her choices through threats directed at her and her friends. Kylo, who instead of a real redemption arc where he realized his faults and worked to correct them had a Moment and Became Good because of love I guess, and then conveniently died instead of having to face the consequences of anything he had done. Isn't it funny how the heroic sacrifice has become the go-to easy way out for lazily redeemed villains?

But, and this surprises no one, the ones who suffered most were the characters of color. Rose, who was practically removed from the third movie. Poe, who was apparently done with any and all development after the second. And most of all Finn, who despite being the leading male was sidelined and all but replaced with the white villain.

And that's where a large portion of the problem with reylo lies, isn't it? Even if they somehow ended up being perfect together (which they very much weren't) it would still be at the cost of Finn and Poe and even Rose. Having all these characters of color and still finding a way to center around the white ones is problematic no matter how you put it. There was a reason I, despite lowkey liking the idea of reylo, never wanted it to become canon. I did not trust it and that with good reason.

Maybe it could've been done? Maybe if they let Finn lead the stormtrooper rebellion we all wanted to see (fun fact: cannon fodder villains there to be killed without remorse is one of my biggest pet peeves), if they made him part of the plot in a way where he couldn't be removed or sidelined no matter who romanced who? Maybe if they made Kylo face consequences other than heroically dying, and Rey wasn't made to see past all his dickish-ness? Maybe even if Finnpoe was a thing, so long as it was given equal importance and not used as some kind of pair the spares. Hell, why not have Finnrey? They could still redeem Kylo if it was so important; having him actually realize his flaws instead of doing a heel face turn because of force bond would've been much more satisfying, and Rey and Finn would've been very good together.

But no, we got this.

#star wars #nevermind me i just have a lot of thoughts #nella talks #hey if you know of any good fics taking the above points into account feel free to rec them!#i need to replace canon #long post #star wars spoilers

1 note · View note

pomegranate-salad · 5 years

Text

Seeds of thought : DIE #1

Been a while, uh ? I missed you too. But before we start, we have to adress the horrible, no-good, terribly misguided elephant in the room : I am currently working on solutions to keep posting my work outside of tumblr before it pulls the carpet from under us, but nothing concrete yet. As soon as I have my new internet home, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’ll keep posting here. If all else fails, I’ll migrate on the Wicdiv Discord server. I’m Pom there too.

Alright ?

Alright.

Let’s do this.

IS THIS THE REAL LIFE ? IS THIS JUST FANTASY ?

Metaphors are like elections : the quickest way to ruin one is to call it early.

Even now as I’m doing this write-up, I am kind of hesitant : do I actually want to pick apart this debut, or do I want to let the rest of the comic do it for me ? There has to be some equivalent of a love bubble for art, this fleeting period before you get one of those “oh… that’s where they’re going with this” moments, before potentiality unravels into concreteness, before, like in the garden of Destiny, you look behind you and only see one path leading to where you are despite seeing so many crossroads ahead.

That’s why, paradoxically, beginnings are also the most liberating moment to write about stories, because there is a round 100% chance that you will get it wrong. The further the story goes, the least margin of error you have, and you find yourself in a situation where you HAVE to get it right, because you actually have a chance to get it right. But now ? I do not know what DIE wants to say. Not yet. If I did, there would be no point for me in reading it, and if we all did, there would be no point for them to write it. Of course, even on first read, I feel like I might know what the master word is – just like wicdiv’s was “Death”, DIE’s is “Time”, which is nothing else than the slowest sort of death – but this master word is, at best, a key without a lock. The door is further down the path.

So let’s talk about DIE – not to decrypt it, not to crack it open, not to judge it even, but maybe simply to enjoy it.

The first thing DIE is, is a voice. It emerges from the intricately painted pages in its concrete boxes of black circled with red, in a way that you almost resent it from breaking the perfection of the page, what with its eye-grabbing crude colours. Unsurprisingly, given Cowles’ always excellent work, the content of the text soon comes to match perfectly this first impression. Dominic, our narrator, is dark, jaded, and he knows how to grab his audience. But on the other hand, he’s never being all that smart and elaborate. He’s a big box of black. Even his own hindsight, the way he looks at his younger self with this mixture of indulgence and pity, is nothing that original or ground-breaking : it’s basically the way any adult might look at their own self-important teenage persona. And of course, nothing about that persona is really gone : Dominic, as an adult narrator, is still the self-important, quiet kid with just enough self-hate to balance out feeling better than everyone else half the time.

In fact, every main character in this first issue is the sketch of their own teenage stereotype, whose attributes are listed out by Dominic on our introduction page. There’s a transparent parallel between that page and the spread a couple pages later where each character introduces their game persona. Dominic’s description is just as much of a character sheet as the ones they hand out to Sol. And by way of that parallel, there’s of course the one between the cast’s game personas and their real life personas : the character they are playing, half-consciously, half-unconsciously, just enough to believe it, just enough to call it their identity. This was already a theme in Wicdiv, and it’s not surprise it shows up again here. Between the characters’ former selves, their current adult selves, and their RPG avatar, DIE sets up a game of mirrors, almost daring us to find the real Dominic – or is it Ash ? – the real Angela, the real Isabelle.

Does fantasy escapism allow you to be someone else, or does it do the opposite, and brings you closer to yourself than you’ll ever be in real life ? That’s a question asked by the text, but also by the art. Now there’s nothing I could say that wouldn’t undersell just how gorgeous Hans’ art is, but for all its merits, it’s actually its one limitation that hit me the hardest : its inability to evoke the mundane. The issue is pretty clearly divided between a flashback portion in sepia hues, the real present in bleak red, blue and black, and the fantasy world with its warm tones. The first two parts are designed to come in contrast with the third one, but for all the supposed triviality of those scenes compared to the fantasy world, nothing in the way those parts are designed resonate as ordinary. Everything is bathed in light in such a way that everything always seems to be moving, from the complex hues of the evening skies, to the shadows on the characters’ faces. The smiles are big and toothy, the eyes are either glimmering or deep and sunken. At every moment, everything in the art works to indicates that something is happening, something big. Hans’ art is out of this world, in a very literal sense : it is somehow unfit to depict our reality. And so when we finally move to the fantasy world, it’s as if pieces finally fall to their righteous place and the world is finally set right side up. Everything about the way DIE depicts our reality feels deeply unreal. And because meta is never far when Gillen is writing, this probably says something about the way we think of comic books, and all escapist media.

The entire issue is building up to that fall back into the fantasy world – to the point that I thought they’d make us stew even longer for it – but we’re not the only ones intently waiting for something that, from the very beginning of the comic, is ineluctable : the characters, too, were waiting. They were waiting surrounded by characters who feel like NPC – we never even see the full face of Dominic’s wife – waiting while marrying women who look like their high school boner and having jobs serving as constant reminders of their past. They were waiting to the point that the first sign they get of the fantasy world of their youth, they immediately all show up to the reunion, and play around something they should know damn well is going to drag them back to it.

That’s not to say any of them “wants” to go back, per se ; such is the nature of trauma, that you want to get away from it as it prevents you from totally moving on either. DIE’s characters are stuck in that in-between, as if none of them had ever really left the fantasy world – and by extension, their teenage years.

This is also why I’ve been uneasy with the reviews of DIE out there linking its storyline to “nostalgia” ; for something to be about nostalgia, that thing has to, you know, be over. But none of the characters is even close to being done playing the game they were playing in their youth. And that for the fantasy murder game as well as for the game they played in reality, the game everyone plays. As teenagers, they push each other around about elitist fantasy books. As adults, they pretend not to know what “woke” means. The codes switch, but the game is still the same. Maturity can be a persona, too. They lie. They deflect. They follow their character sheet. And that’s fantasy for grown-ups.

That’s not to say that these characters aren’t genuine – as I’ve said, it might be precisely because they’re constantly playing that we can get a better picture of who they are – or that we can’t connect with them. In fact, one of the many feats of this first issue is how immediately touching each of these characters is, both in their efforts toward pretend and genuineness. Well, with the one exception of the character who both seems the most dedicated to the game and the only one who doesn’t seem to be playing at all. Even as a teenager at the beginning of the story, Solomon is that one kid who seems uncomfortably comfortable in his role as the star his friends revolve around, vying for his attention. When he drags his former friends back into the game, is he looking for revenge, or has his world simply become boring without the rest of his party to move the story along ? This is where I should mention that the tabletop RPG hobby is one that is completely foreign to me – it’s just not my scene. And I think part of the reason why is that I’m too fundamentally selfish in that regard to share my imagination with other people. Playing RPGs implies losing part of your control over your own stories. Again, I have no idea how RPGs are supposed to work, but being both the gamemaster and a player strikes me as a fundamentally selfish move ; the move of someone who expects his friends to play their part perfectly, only giving them the illusion of control. For a RPG-themed fantasy, quite a fitting portending villain.

If I can be honest : I hope he’s our villain. I hope there isn’t some dark lore that’s manipulated all of them, and that it’s really just the story of how some teenage bullshit got gloriously out of hand. DIE’s premise is a simple one, just like Wicdiv’s premise was a simple one. But two hundred and a half plot twists later, it can be hard to remember just how fucking awful people can be to each other even when they’re not under the influence of some millennia-old force working in the shadows. I hope we never learn where the dice come from. I hope we never get an entire arc explaining how the fantasy world came to be. I hope it remains just as inexplicable as real life is, with its posture, its pretending, its own unreality, its game you can never, ever stop playing.

And that’s DIE so far. I loved it. How does it compare to the first time I’ve read Wicdiv ? Beats me. The first time I’ve read Wicdiv, I majorly skimmed through it thinking it wasn’t for me – just like comics weren’t for me in general - until maybe issue #11, when I finally slowed down and started again from the beginning. First impressions. I was wrong about Wicdiv, many times, and there is definitely ways in which I am and will be deeply wrong about DIE. And I like that. So join me, if you will, in future write-ups of DIE, where we can be wrong, be surprised, be amazed, be disappointed also, and have ourselves a party.

#diecomic #seeds of thought

66 notes · View notes

recentanimenews · 5 years

Text

THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH Unleashes Sakura With Episodes 29-35

Welcome to THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH! I'm Daniel Dockery aka That Dude That Won't Shut Up About One Piece, and I'll be your host this week as we make our way through all 220 episodes of the original Naruto. Last week, we covered episodes 22-28, and we continue this week with episodes 29-35.

This week, the theme is Naruto Minus Naruto, as we lose our title character pretty early on. But despite missing someone shouting about how they're gonna be Hokage one day, this actually seemed to work out pretty well, as it gave our favorite boy Rock Lee and the consistently underrated Sakura a time to shine. Sasuke did some stuff, too, I guess. We also got some bad guy reveals and Gaara being as Gaara as possible. So let's dive right in and let the Crunchyroll Features team give you their thoughts on a batch of episodes that didn't have an ounce of quit in them.

So, not a lot of Naruto in this set of episodes, huh? I mean, we've already gotten to know Sasuke, Sakura, Rock Lee, etc. pretty well so far, so it's not like they can't carry the story, but how do you like the show when the title character spends most of it unconscious?

Paul: I'm fine with it as long as the supporting characters have plenty of interesting things to do. Naruto's personal blend of lunk-headed enthusiasm hasn't really clicked with me yet, so I'm happy to see other characters take center stage now and then, and I like that Sakura finally got a moment to prove her mettle in these episodes.

Peter: This was probably Sakura's biggest moment in Naruto... possibly including Shippuden. I forgot they combined her special haircut scene with the Ino flashback. The whole situation with the sound ninja was kind of a cluster but I felt like that sequence was particularly well-done. Episode 30 is easily the best in the series so far, I forgot how well directed the moment where Sakura realizes she's alone is.

Danni: I've joked in my livetweets that I can't tell whether the main character of this show is Naruto or Sasuke yet, but that kind of became not a joke at all this time around, didn't it? That was kind of a shame, given that his material at the very beginning of this batch where he's chiding Sasuke is great. Luckily, the rest of the cast was great all around in this batch.

Noelle: It is pretty funny to have the protagonist absent, but it's clearly not just wasting time. A lot of stuff happens while Naruto is out cold, especially the big fight where Sakura shines, and she needed to shine! A protagonist doesn't have to be there all the time, even if they are carrying the story, and these segments are proof of that.

Jared: Having Naruto out for most of the episodes really made some other characters step up and gave them a time to shine like Sakura (finally) and Ino's group. You couldn't get away with having him be gone or KO'd all the time, but especially when the show just brought forth all these new characters, it worked.

Kevin: It actually helped to up the stakes a bit and create space for more character development. Sakura hasn't needed to do much until now, since Sasuke and Naruto could fight instead. In this set of episodes, the boys were unconscious the majority of the time, so not only did she need to push herself to look after them, but she also needed to fight opponents that even seasoned Genin like Lee couldn't stand up against. Running or hiding weren't options.

Carolyn: THIS is the Sakura I remembered and have been missing this whole time. I am fine with Naruto sitting out a spell so Sakura can rise.

David: While I like that the other characters are getting the spotlight, I'm also not a huge fan of how they're getting it. Lee? He's allowed to be cool for a little bit, but still has to be undermined by his limitations that also define his character. Sakura? We have to square getting her development with her entire character revolving around Sasuke. Oh, and Sasuke? Got cool powers from the new bad guy, so the whole thing feels a little artificial by the end.

Joseph: It kind of makes it seem like they just didn't know what to do with Naruto while other people have the spotlight, because knowing his character he would have to butt in no matter what, dattebayo! If it paves the way for more episodes like 30, which features out of this world choreography and animation, I'm all for it, dattebayo.

Kara: I'm a Doctor Who fan - having the lead unconscious or straight-up missing for major portions of story is familiar territory. That said, I'm glad it was used to good effect here. I was hesitant coming into the Chunin Exam arc because there are Just So Many Characters, and a lot of them are completely new but clearly important. Giving Nart some down time while we get to know how they work (and how characters we've seen before are growing) was a good idea.

These episodes are sort of bookended by two horrific reveals:

1) IT WAS ME, OROCHIMARU, THE WHOLE TIME

2)WTF, GAARA

How do you feel about these two? I've been playing a lot of Gaara in Jump Force, but I forgot that he pretty much opens his character arc in the show through intense murder.

Paul: I mentioned this on Twitter before, but although Orochimaru is clearly coded to be this big, scary, impressive villain, he strikes me as the ninja equivalent of that bad friend whom everybody kinda knows but nobody particularly likes. Orochimaru's the kind of guy who would get a little too drunk at the holiday ninja party, and then he'd awkwardly hit on your ninja girlfriend, and then he'd puke on your ninja couch cushion and then flip it over to hide the ninja vomit rather than tell you about it. Damn it, Orochimaru!

Gaara is just a comical murder-baby so far. Again, I know he's supposed to be frightening, but I just think he's a precious little sandy cinnamon roll.

Peter: Given what Orochimaru's done so far, I'm actually curious if Kishimoto had a plan for him at this point. One of this lines in particular speaking with Anko is hilarious in retrospect. I have a new appreciation for Temari and Kankuro. The scene where they were trying to get Gaara to calm down was particularly good. You got a sense of how desperate and afraid they are of Gaara. Also I don't remember Orochimaru using so many... wind ki blasts? I think Kishimoto wasn't sure what powers he had yet.

Danni: I'm a little disappointed that my perfect snake wife was just a creepy old snake man in disguise. I'm honestly more terrified of Gaara right now. Orochimaru seems like he actually has a plan. Gaara just seems a bit...unhinged...

Noelle: I definitely agree with Peter, where Orochimaru in his introduction definitely wasn't as cohesive power-wise, as opposed to the snakes and more snakes that he becomes later. He is set up to be extremely threatening, but at this point, it's definitely more potential than it is factual. As for Gaara, Gaara is one of my faves, even if he starts out as a murder machine. The murder does not stop my appreciation for him. You go, Gaara.

Jared: Now I want a redub of those scenes with Orochimaru except with the Higher Power reveal audio. They certainly make him seem to be a big deal, although it's still relatively shrouded in mystery. Gaara's showing fell incredibly flat for me. Unlike when we first saw him where he had this mysterious aura about him, this just felt like he was made to be the ultimate edgelord. Which if the folks above me are indicating, he gets better, so hopefully that happens sooner rather than later.

Kevin: For both of them, I feel like their introductions worked well to establish them as serious threats. Orochimaru as a somewhat unknown quantity that even the adults are scared of, while Gaara is a coldblooded Genin that doesn't bat an eye at killing people, to the point that even his teammates fear for their lives when around him. For Orochimaru though, I can't remember any actual reason why he's actually in the Chunin Exam. We'll get to future events in later installments, but why bother actually joining the Genin?

Carolyn: I remember loving Orochimaru the first time I watched the show and thinking he was a major villain. They certainly set him to seem that way. I'm interested to see if my thoughts on that change as we progress. I also remember thinking Gaara was quite impressive and mysterious, though he was never a favorite character of mine. Rewatching the show, they definitely hype up his skills.

David: Gaara having a team that is scared of him is significantly more scary than Orochimaru's clear long-term threat foundation going on here. It's kind of cheating but I think this matters a lot for how impactful this ends up being very soon, whereas Orochimaru's threat is much more broad and lore-spanning in the grand scheme of things.

Joseph: Between Orochimaru, cursed Sasuke, and Gaara, there's so much DANGER in these eps. I love it!

Kara: Holy crow, things got dark. I'm not saying that as a negative, either. I'll be curious to see what happens with Orochimaru, because that's some high-stakes stuff that got thrown into the mix. I had a feeling Gaara was gonna make Sasuke look like a ray of sunshine by comparison, but I'm with Akamaru on that whole situation.

If you had to get into intense anime battles in your actual, half-anime life, and you had to copy a Naruto character's techniques, whose style would you use?

Paul: I will continue to stan for my main man, Choji Akimichi, and his ability to transform into the boulder from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Also, they never kill the chubby comic relief characters, so my plot armor would keep me safe from harm but not from embarrassment.

Peter: I feel like the correct answer is Gaara since you can just stand in place writing poems while sand kills people. Practically I think it's hard to argue that Sasuke doesn't have the most "ninja-like" style incorporating the three "jutsus" and leaning heavily on misdirection and outmaneuvering. Each requires having a pretty particular thing though, so it's kind of a lottery by birth.

Danni: Probably Orochimaru. Less for his actual fighting techniques and more because his Mr. Fantastic powers could come in handy when lounging around the house.

Noelle: Gaara's, having sand do my bidding would be pretty neat, and it's not like I sleep much anyway.

Jared: Rock Lee's techniques are what basically what I imagined myself when I was younger when thinking of having anime type fights.

Kevin: I would probably go for the Sharingan, largely due to how versatile it is. It gives amazing kinetic vision, allowing the user to dodge more and land more hits, lets them copy any ninjutsu the enemy uses, can make [REDACTED], or [REDACTED] or even summon [REDACTED], and that's without even getting into the unique abilities from [REDACTED]! Basically, it allows for a lot of flexible techniques, and just with the slight drawback of [REDACTED].

Carolyn: Ooh, can I redact stuff, too? My favorite hasn't happened yet. Have I mentioned how much I love Shikamaru?

David: Is it wrong to want to be Sasuke just because he gets the most well-animated fight scenes? I want to be as cool as he is in those.

Joseph: I've always been a fan of the Shadow Imitation Technique of the Nara clan. I think this is the first time we've seen it in the anime, but throughout the manga I always found it awesome whenever, BAM, someone found themselves ensared out of nowhere.

Kara: Gonna have to say Ino and the body-hopping. I'm so clumsy, the only way I'll ever effectively beat someone up is if I project into them and beat myself up.

So, Sakura gets a few cool minutes in Episode 32. I especially like the reveal that it wasn't a substitution and that she was actually dropping on Zaku and gutting through those Kunai. However, it's kind of mired in a lot of flashback and a weird "How does my face look?" backstory. How did you feel about it? I will say, for a little bit, I got hyped. Bleeding Sakura descending like Batman on this goon is a dope visual.

Paul: I'm glad Sakura finally got a chance to shine, and I didn't feel that the drama of the scene was terribly undercut by her childhood anxieties about having such an enormous forehead. It contextualizes some of her earlier, snappish behavior, and I was impressed with her growth as a character when she expressed a genuine desire to protect Naruto and when she offered Rock Lee her heartfelt thanks.

Peter: I'm kind of two minds on this watching it for the second time. If anything I feel like her dramatic move was undercut by the fact that there were two more Leaf squads that could have stepped in acting as a sort of safety net rather than anything actually relying on her. That said, I think the balance between her efforts in the moment and Ino remembering the extremely dumb stupid kid reason they stopped being friends was great.

Danni: I adored it. A woman's body in media is often portrayed as a priceless work of art. It's an object whose fragile beauty is meant to be fawned over and protected. The slightest mark of imperfection is detrimental to the whole piece. This either leads to strong women whose bodies remain unscathed or weak women whose bodies exist to be tragically violated. Seeing Sakura use her own body as both a weapon and a shield in this fight was nothing less than refreshing. She cast aside the beauty of her long hair, took three kunai to the body in order to get closer than her target, straight up sunk her teeth into him like a wild animal, and took a beating without flinching or letting go. It was so incredibly refreshing to see a woman actually fight with her whole body rather than an objectified version of one.

Noelle: This is Sakura's big awesome moment, and she nailed it. She doesn't have signature jutsu like Naruto's clones or Sasuke's fire - all she really has are perfected versions of the basics. That she's able to use her intellect to her advantage; setting traps, tricking her opponents, it works for her character. The fact that she is unyielding is fantastic, considering that in a lot of anime fight scenes featuring women it it's rarely conveyed just how brutal they can get. Sakura's desperately fighting, and she will take kunai and even bite her opponents if it means she can help her friends. It's rough, messy, and great. Let girls have brawls too!

Jared: I'm a huge fan of the "cutting your hair to signify a big change" trope, so I was incredibly excited to see it here. This moment for Sakura was essentially what I'd been waiting for this entire time with her and it delivered. I was kind of surprised how much backstory we got here, but I think it fit well with everything that was happening around them with Sakura and Ino. Everything about how she attacks Zaku felt like she was desperately doing anything she could to survive, which included things like biting and not letting go. Plus, I'm surprised they showed her bloodied up.

Kevin: To put it this way, Sakura faking out Zaku is both my highest and lowest point of the week. I love that we finally got to see her fight and even out think her opponent, and I was even okay with seeing Ino struggle with their history when deciding how to act, seeing her friend-turned-rival in trouble. They probably could have cut one or two of the flashbacks and lost nothing from the storytelling though.

Carolyn: I actually loved the flashbacks explaining her desire for long hair to impress Sasuke and her rivalry for his heart mixed in with Sakura being an awesome fighter. We saw where she came from and we see where she's headed. Her cutting off her hair (epic) was not just a clever tactic, it was her moving past her fickle, shallow priorities and stepping up. (And incidentally, finally winning Sasuke's respect.) I liked that contrast and I thought it made her powerful moments more meaningful.

David: I don't like how being feminine was presented so constantly as a negative thing in the lead up to her 'level up', especially because it got immediately followed up by a line from Shikamaru to Choji about how they need to be the 'men' of the situation. I also don't like how it didn't end up even really helping the situation, but Sasuke's unintentional powerup did. I do like how the story clearly realized how drastically it was underutilizing its main female characters and tried to rectify that as well as it could within the characterization it had already established for them. So, basically, I like that it ended up where it was, but I wish it didn't have to do that in the first place.

Joseph: Sakura's moment makes up for a lot of her inaction in previous episodes. It made it feel like a much more significant turn, and I think it's another great argument for the power of anime adaptations in taking certain aspects of the source material to the next level. I would also be remiss not to mention how major of a role she played in stopping Sasuke after he awakened to some straight-up Final Fantasy IV midi cover music.

Kara: Sakura's characterization grew three sizes this week! Normally I have nothing against romance or a crush being a motivator (people in the real world act that way sometimes), but I was getting second-hand embarrassment whenever everyone and their mother used her emotions against her because she was that much of an open book. She was seriously dope in episode 32, and I do like that she didn't drop her feelings so much as compartmentalize them. Was it perfect? No. Was it better than what we've seen for the last few weeks? Very much. Plus we've spent so much time being told she knows her stuff, it was nice to see it in action.

If you've read the manga, how do you feel about the pacing of the anime at this point?

Peter: I appreciate they're not trying to draw things out, past a few recap episodes. The only real filler we've gotten was a few more social scenes that ultimately helped build up the individual Team 7 members more so I'm good with them. Visually the series uses the manga as a direct roadmap the majority of the time but the departures, like in Naruto's fight against Haku, were extremely good.

Noelle: It's definitely a little slower, especially since you can read the same amount content much faster than you can watch it. Different mediums lend to different speeds. At the same time, it's not significantly slower - not like One Piece - so it's pretty tolerable. I can't say I have much complaints with the pacing.

David: It's gotten slower recently, but it's still MUCH better than I expect from long-running shonen adaptations even today. I never feel like a half hour isn't used effectively, which is impressive.

Joseph: They've chopped a few minutes off the absurdly long flashbacks at the start of each episode, so it's much punchier now than when it was covering the Zabuza fight. The adaptation nails some of the big moments, so I think they do a fantastic job of making the most out of Kishimoto's story and characters.

Last but not least, what was everyone's high and low points for this week, along with anything else you want to shout out?

Paul: My high point was the fight between Sasuke and Orochimaru in Episode 30. Pierrot's animation team really pulled out all the stops for that one, and I was frankly blown away by how well-staged it was, especially since the previous episode was so janky, to the point where it gave us the "Naruto, you look kind of cool" silly face meme. My low point was the reveal that Rock Lee's ultimate technique is just a glorified Izuna Drop. I was disappointed by that, because I was expecting something really far out there.

Peter: I'd have to say everyone involved had a low moment against the sound ninja. Rock Lee could have actually just kicked the guys head off so I'm not sure why he pulled out his ultimate technique. The master strategist Shikamaru really handled the InoShikaCho combo poorly (why not just have Ino knock the paralyzed guy out then 3v1 the last guy?). Feels like there were too many cooks in the kitchen while Kishimoto was trying to let Sakura stand on her own. High point was Sasuke's epic fight against Orichimaru... or maybe Gaara being Goth Prime?

Danni: If you can't guess already, the high point of this batch for me is Sakura's battle. Naruto snapping Sasuke out of his daze and the whole fight between Sasuke and Orochimaru are close runner-ups. I can't say there were any real low, low points for me in this batch, but I could have done without the whole prolonged tension of them debating whether or not to open the scroll simply for them to move on without opening it. I really feel like that could have been a lot more condensed.

Noelle: It has to be Sakura's battle. She's the last member of the team who hasn't really had a moment of growth, as she's mostly been stuck fawning over Sasuke. Now she has a moment of her own, to show that she really can be one of their peers in combat, not just because she's assigned to be alongside them. Sasuke vs Orochimaru was also fantastic to watch. Low points would probably be the Sound Ninja fight when Sakura wasn't the highlight, it felt a little too long.

Jared: The true answer here is Sakura finally getting her moment as the high point. The flow of these episodes just kept moving until the end where things really slowed down, but that makes sense. Sasuke pulling out a Canadian Destroyer (front flip piledriver) was something I absolutely wasn't expecting. Maybe my low points would be Gaara's fight and then Naruto wanting to open up the scroll since it felt way too obvious that he'd do that.

Kevin: Sakura's fight somehow managed to be both the best and worst moments. The best moment was when she uses Substitution multiple times to trick her opponent into giving her an opening, even though she needed to take multiple kunai wounds in the process. It was awesome to see her thinking, and there might've even been a bit of Naruto rubbing off on her, given how brazen the plan was. Unfortunately, it led to the end of her plan... biting Zaku's arm and just holding on as he kept punching her head. Great plan, Sakura.

Carolyn: The squirrel and the hair cut were high points for me. Also, just seeing everyone have respect for each other. Sakura thanks Rock Lee, Rock Lee acknowledges Sasuke's ability. Good stuff.

David: It might not sound like it so far, but Sakura's fight is my high point for not just this bit, but the entirety of the show - it's one of the defining moments of the series to me, something that has stuck with me for decades at this point. So, criticisms aside, that matters a lot to me. Low point is how even when the show is trying to make Lee cool is still undermines him just as quickly, making it hard to believe it really appreciates his struggle.

Joseph: Episode 30 is an all-timer, so that's gotta be my high point. The low point was probably the Sound Ninja. Their powers are cool, and I understand jutsu is a term encompassing techniques in a wide swath, but to me they just had prosthetics and weapons. Hey, check out my jutsu *pulls out a gun*.

Kara: Can't decide between Sasuka vs. Orochimaru or Sakura finally Doing Things as my high point. Really liked both. Low point was probably every time I had to see Naruto squiggling around in snake guts.

COUNTERS:

"I'm gonna be Hokage!" count: 14

Bowls of ramen consumed: 2 bowls, 3 cups

Shadow Clones: 115

And that's everything for this week! Remember that you're always welcome to join us for this rewatch, especially if you haven't watched the original Naruto!

Here's our upcoming schedule!

-Next week, on FEBRUARY 22ND, we’re looking at EPISODES 36-42 as I, DANIEL DOCKERY, IN MY TRUE BEAST FORM, hosts as the Forest of Death continues to torment! THIS IS THE ONLY INSTALLMENT WE'RE ACCEPTING QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS FOR THIS WEEK!

-Then on MARCH 1ST, we’ll talk about EPISODES 43-49 as NATE MING returns as we enter into one-on-one competition including a showdown between Rock Lee and Gaara!

-On MARCH 8th, we move on to the final stage of the Chunin Exam with EPISODES 50-56, hosted by CAROLYN BURKE!

Thank you for joining us for the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! Have a great weekend, and we'll see you all next time!

Have any comments or questions about episodes 22-28? What about our upcoming installment, featuring episodes 29-35?

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

Daniel Dockery is a writer and editor for Crunchyroll. He has a Twitter that he uses.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

1 note · View note

haliadart · 6 years

Text

Queen Sansa theory

A sizable portion of the GOT fandom seem to believe that Sansa will die and that Jon/Dany will rule the seven kingdoms. A lot of these “Sansa will die” theorists have trouble separating speculation from feelings of dislike for the character. It would make zero sense to kill her off given what her arc is about - Sansa is going to become Queen.

On Narrative Arcs, or a case for why Jon and Dany won’t make it.

Every character serves a purpose to the story, and GRRM doesn’t kill off characters at random. He kills a character when A) they’ve served their purpose and B) death makes sense as an end result.

Jon Snow’s purpose is clear; he’s there to save the world from the White Walker threat. He has the perfect skillset needed to accomplish this, mainly he’s a great warrior whose leadership style brings warring factions together. He’s the conventional fantasy hero: brave, heroic, loyal, kinda bland. Once he’s served his purpose of defeating the walkers, will the narrative still need him in peacetime? Jon’s a wartime hero, but not necessarily a peacetime ruler. Personality wise, Jon Snow is very close to Ned Stark. Ned wasn’t able to adapt to the Game and it got him killed. In season 7, Jon refused to lie to Cersei, to the detriment of his own cause. Jon has the qualities to defeat the walker threat, but he doesn’t have the qualities to survive the cutthroat world of King's Landing politics.

“Only death can pay for life.” Melisandre says these words and then goes on to resurrect Jon. Jon Snow owes a life debt to the ASOIAF universe. Would it make sense for that debt to go unpaid by the end of the series?

Daenerys’ purpose is as a conquerer and a mother of dragons. She’s there to bring massive weapons to the white walker war. She brings fire to fight ice. "You're a conquerer," Daario tells Dany. Not a ruler, a conquerer. Dany was able to conquer Meereen, but she never really learned how to effectively rule it. And when she wasn't able to keep hold of the city, she abandoned it to pursue Westeros. Not a great sign if Dany's narrative purpose is to become the permanent queen of Westeros. Dany’s own visions tell her that she isn’t destined for the throne. She reaches for it, but never touches it.

“She has a good heart,” Jon says about Dany. Curious choice of words, given that the prophesized Azor Ahai needs a sacrificed lover’s heart to defeat the enemy. Mother roles are known for sacrifice for the children. Dany's good heart compelled her to put off Westeros to free the Essosi slaves. She wants to pursue power and restore her family’s legacy, but her compassion will compell her to save the realm and even die for it. Dany giving up her ambition to save the world fits in perfectly with GRRM’s intended message of the series - people should push aside their petty wars to fight the real enemy, death.

Alternatively, Dany could die by childbirth to complete the Azor Ahai prophecy. I’m not a fan of this outcome, but it’s definitely a possibility, given the Dany pregnancy foreshadowing.

So what’s Sansa’s purpose? Sansa’s arc has nothing to do with fantasy; it’s all about building her up from pawn to player. Her arc revolves around surviving vicious Westerosi politics. Tyrion literally tells her, “you may survive us all.” And that’s exactly what’s she’s going to do. What would be the point of showing her character growth from naive, prince obsessed girl to adept player, only to kill her off in the end? Sansa has been groomed to survive the political world, and she’s been mentored by some of the biggest players (Littlefinger, Margaery, Cersei).

The show also goes out of its way to depict Sansa as a competent ruler, organizing grain stores and offering Jon sound advice. Sansa warns Jon that Ramsey likes to play mind games, and then Ramsey sets a trap that Jon falls for on the battlefield. Sansa warns Jon that he will lose support if he leaves the North; later we see a Northern lord telling Sansa that they should’ve chosen her instead. Interesting how people in their world already want her as queen.

She isn’t perfect, but she’s learning. ”I’m a slow learner, that’s true. But I learn.” All of this is leading somewhere - at the very least, she’ll end up in a powerful position. She’s the most likely to succeed if both Jon and Dany die. She could potentially end up queen regent, raising the child of Jonerys.

On Trope Subversion.

The series became infamous for subverting the expectations that we came to expect in a typical fantasy. The series killed Ned Stark, the hero and apparent lead of season 1. It then went on to kill Robb Stark, the next hero in line. If we go by this pattern, Dany and Jon will not come out unscathed. Sansa is the dark horse candidate for the iron throne: she’s not the conventional hero, nobody expects her to win, but she would make for an effective peacetime ruler, rebuilding society in the aftermath.

Tormund: “How many queens are there now?" He isn’t just asking Jon this, he’s asking the audience. Cersei, Dany, and the one who has the least likelihood of dying - Sansa.

74 notes · View notes

my-name-stitch · 6 years

Text

Here’s my 2 cents about Infinity War: Vision isn’t going to die in it.

Marvel wants to hit people where it hurts, and Vision... just won’t. He’s been in very minor roles for the two movies he’s been in. There’s actually a (possibly large) portion of people that hate him (I don’t know why? He hasn’t done much, honestly), so I think the biggest takeaway from killing Vision in IW would be... nothing, essentially. A lot of people are indifferent about him because he’s such a minor character - people don’t know what to think about him, I’d say. On top of that, his character arc is still ongoing because it was literally introduced in the end of Civil War (since he wasn’t much more than “oh hey here’s another hero - and he’s neat” in Age of Ultron, especially when compared to Wanda and Pietro who got arcs (rushed arcs because they had minor roles as well, but arcs nonetheless)). Storytelling-wise, there’s absolutely no reason to kill him. Yet.

I don’t remember who said it (Sebastian Stan?), but when the news that a character will die within the first 15 minutes was revealed, people automatically thought Vision. It’d be poor writing imo, and now we have some Wakanda footage revealing Vision is in the endgame. We also, unusually, have a lot of Scarlet Vision content (unusual because - well, look at the huge hero roster, and then remember both Vis and Wanda have only had minor roles so far. Plus, the Avengers films... the most romance I can remember is Tony calling Pepper in the end Avengers and having 12% of a moment, and that bit of Bruce/Nat in Clint’s home in AoU? Nothing exactly explicitly romantic, and here we have the leaked clip of the Scarlet Vision kiss plus their fights and them so far shown to always have physical contact). Marvel is setting people up to hopefully like Vision - or, at the very least, people will have an opinion on him by the end of Infinity War.

The climax of IW will include him (and Wanda) - I can almost guarantee it with the most recent clips and the second trailer. Originally, the war in Wakanda made no real sense unless the Soul Stone was there, but now I’m thinking the Soul Stone reveal won’t be until Avengers 4. Infinity War is going to be all about the Mind Stone and the Time Stone (because Thanos has the Space Stone and the Power Stone in Wakanda - those two, especially the Power Stone, will be blow off gets imo. Thanos will quickly get the Space Stone and I’m betting the Guardians + Thor will go see he’s already gotten the Power Stone after that fight). Both Vision and Strange get away after the first assault on them (the fight in Edinburgh is 100% the first assault on Earth, and then the scene with Strange, Wong, and Tony in a street is probably the second - might be a little simultaneous, but I think the Edinburgh fight will be the first shown since we now know Gamora could be with Strange and co at that time, which would be before Tony calls Steve on the phone seen in the first trailer). I’d even venture to say Strange doesn’t keep the Time Stone (because that pointy bit with him looks like torture to me - easier to kill then take the stone, because Thanos knows how to use it already. Why torture a potential threat and keep him alive to bite you in the ass later?) and hides it/passes it to someone else and act like a red herring so that person has time to hide/escape/do something. There might even be two climaxes, to to speak (one with the Mind Stone in Wakanda, one with the Time Stone in space - because so far, we’ve seen they’ve broken up the heroes into two teams. Ex. Tony hasn’t been shown in Wakanda yet (neither has Peter, Strange, Wong, the Guardians, or Thor), but he was shown in space/on a different planet with the rest of the people who haven’t been seen in Wakanda. The same applies to Steve and co, only the opposite (seen only in Wakanda and not space)). Probably to try and keep track of all the different characters ngl, though it might make the movie messier/harder to keep track of?

But yeah. IW’s climax is going to revolve around Vision, and there will be a lot of screentime for him and Wanda (compared to their previous movies and keeping in mind they’re minor characters). If they’re going to kill him, it won’t be in IW. They might leave his fate in limbo at the end of IW tho. I’d do it. The build up means something, and there’s no reason to build him up if they’re not going to tear him down (which also doesn’t necessarily mean killing him permanently in the human sense since he’s not human). Bettany has also helped with the possible limbo situation - he’s confirmed he’ll be in A4 (and he also posted that pic to Insta featuring the Mind Stone when people thought Vision was going to die in Edinburgh, and he also implied Vision doesn’t die if the Mind Stone is taken from him in an interview (which was also at the time people thought Vision would die/the Mind Stone would be taken in Edinburgh)), but he didn’t get flack from Marvel like Sebastian Stan, Mark Ruffalo, and Tom Holland have when they revealed spoilers. Bettany is also pretty good at public speaking (as in not revealing things) imo? He never let anything slip before, in any case. Why start now?

... yeah that’s it lol. I’d be way more worried about A4 than IW for Vision’s fate imo. But I could also be thinking too much about it since I’m definitely not looking at this from a movie screenwriter’s/director’s POV, which is different since they’ve got 3 hours, max, to tell a story with 30+ heroes (with arguably 6+ main characters being forced together) with clashing storylines that all have to be tied together in some sort of coherent fashion. (I have done this before because my favorites always end up being the side characters that, by ending act, get pushed to the side for the main characters no matter how much they were built up around the middle acts.) I also personally think all of this might end up being a jab at Wanda and not Vision - possibly to expand her powers. Depends on where they want to go with her since she can’t very well say, “No more mutants.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#i babble too much when i'm excited #and put waaaay to much thought into side characters bc i love them so much more than main characters #mcu vision #scarlet vision

50 notes · View notes

sparda3g · 6 years

Text

Tokyo Ghoul:re Chapter 171 Review

youtube

Emotional attachment can lead to complexity within a person. “Easier said than done” is one quote that will be thrown around a lot when it comes to settling the issue. It’s up to their companion to relieve them from despair or among themselves to accept it. The arc is drawing near to the end as one battle ends, another one coming to a close. After a long period of waiting, it was well worth it for this emotional driven chapter.

It’s a bit challenging to say which scenario is the best part of the chapter. Sometimes I like the first half more, sometimes I like the latter. Both scenarios carry the similar theme of attachment to the world and its people, human and ghoul. When it comes to connecting themes and character’s growth, Ishida shines brightly with his delivering on his compelling characters.

I thought the last chapter concluded the battle between Yomo and Uta, but instead, we got a definitive ending here and it’s all for the better. It’s good to know Uta didn’t die from that devastating attack. Granted, I had a hunch he was going to live, but if he did die, that would be a bit easy. The chapter treated us with a really delightful ending to their bout and if there’s more room for the series, a really good future for the two.

Uta goes into greater detail on his thoughts on life itself. The way how he described his life in the past compare to the present somewhat reminds me of Citizen Kane. In that film, there’s this “checkpoint” of a man’s life that often look back and think that’s where the path was decided. Uta had fun back then because nothing in life mattered, even when they break their legs, him and Yomo. It began to change when Yomo was heading towards a different path alas Anteiku with Yoshimura. If Uta doesn’t follow or move anywhere else, what does he have left?

I thought it was pretty sad that Uta did in fact try to help Yomo to avenge his sister because it was like his way to keep him together. You know how many stories go about revenge won’t reward you greatly, if not any. This one is no different but it doesn’t address the obvious, rather use strong words to not only address the morale but connect to Uta’s despair. They couldn’t avenge for Yomo’s behalf, but now, Yomo has move ahead of it, because the world is changing.

Uta is a man that watches the world change but don’t adapt any of it. He has tried enough to adjust, or rather recover from the losses but he just couldn’t change. Every man adapts differently; he’s just harder to crack open. Honestly speaking, I am amazed and moved by Yomo as of late, which is funny considering how much of a mute guy he was. I know he let out his inner feelings when the moment is right, but his connections and thoughts speak to me.

Yomo comes off genuine with his words that it’s a bit unbelievable. Okay, no more knocking on him; I actually like his character a lot. The thing about his words is the fact they are sincere and relatable. He doesn’t come off as a leader or spokesman for a noble peace prize; it’s just two friends talking like friends. Surprising how Yomo did once come close to become another Uta on simply saying life sucks. He lost many loved ones before joining with Anteiku and convinced himself that cruelty is inevitable. When the café was burnt down, his reaction didn’t match up to his thoughts. Easier said than done.

It’s relatable to his thoughts about what should he have done instead of following orders to stand back and watch it fall. Many of us would often think about the past action and debate if it was a mistake or not. What I really like about Yomo transcribing his past is how we get a better view of his character. He was a mute person, but his subtle reaction clued you in how he really felt about it. The most obvious display is against Arima, but it’s also the moment of change for the better.

It’s ironic due to how Arima revolved Yomo’s character for past vengeance yet it intertwined with the present with Ayato and Touka. It’s no longer about fighting for the past cause. It connects very well to theme of attachment since Yomo is now fighting forward to see what rewards him, good or bad. Uta was avoiding the change around him, so nothing seem to progress. He’s there to adjust other’s life. Yomo is part of the world changing and contributing it till the end, hence soon to be a grand uncle. Best grand uncle ever, that’s for sure.

It has a charming way to end the grudge with Yomo willing to allow Uta to earn his desire. Yomo only wants for the best for others and prefer to be taken alone and him alone. It makes sense since Uta was only part of Clowns to change shape of others, even though his target has been only on Yomo. I like how Uta’s reply simply state that they are adults now. These two had a good sit down chat over their problems and reason each other like adults. It also implies he is finally stepping forward and hopefully for a better path.

The charm is how they start talking like good friends again. The topic is amusing because even the characters themselves can see the obvious pairing that is Kaneki and Touka. Who knew that they’re shippers since the beginning? I still remember when Uta asked Kaneki on his opinion on Touka; now it makes sense. The parallel panel is a nice way to end the battle; past or present, some things never change.

The rest of the chapter belongs to Amon and Donato though not without some new revealing details that was well timed for connecting themes. You got to credit Amon to keep on striving against Donato, even against the odds. I know some fans are tired of him getting wrecked, even though most of them are understandable; however, this time is actually relatable, reasonable, and powerful.

To my surprise, Takizawa isn’t there to join along the battle with Amon or even watch him to die. I was certain that the former was going to happen. It came close that Takizawa was pulling the old Shounen method of “Don’t interfere. He is fighting for his honor!” However, the reason to not to interfere is valid because Amon is actually struggling to himself. It wasn’t because Amon is weak or outclassed completely, though wouldn’t mind to be the case. He simply can’t kill Donato due to his attachment.

Whatever the missing pieces from the last chapter were are found here, including Tomoe. Like I said before, she had the perfect chance to kill Amon, but she didn’t do anything. Although she has some pity, it shouldn’t stop her. What stopped her is fear of losing a purpose. All she has left is vengeance and that can be settled now if she like, but then what? Not a single word came out from her after that thought. It’s a small yet valuable moral to exploit on fearing to fulfill their selfish wish.

The part that got me compelled is the flashback scene with Takizawa versus Houji, back at Rue Island. It was a bout that was skipped entirely, and I never knew why. With how Ishida put two and two together, I can understand clearly why it was on hold. In retrospect, fans including me believed Takizawa overwhelmed everyone, but the truth is in and it turns out that Houji held back and accepted death.

It humanizes the theme further because that bout was more emotional influence than a typical a monster versus humans. I was left believing Houji was a cold guy that had no remorse, even though I believed he drew a tear while confirming their next target. Takizawa was a loose cannon but that one expression opened his mind; Houji did care and felt sadden to end up this way. You can argue on why he was sad like regretting to save him before, but the bottom line is he was hindered by emotion and Takizawa technically took it for granted.

Basically, Takizawa’s purpose is to watch Amon develop or die before anything. If he steps in and somehow defeats Donato, what does Amon gain from it? It’s equivalent to a guy who wanted revenge on a criminal, only to be killed by another. No lesson will be learned and if there’s no other way around it, the man is lost. Amon has always been one of my favorite characters of the franchise. I find it appealing whenever he gets a development. While the bout as a whole is pretty solid, it transpires to one of the best humanized development that the series has offered so far.

What intrigued me about Amon the most is his justice system and his origin with Donato. Normally, it would be a simple premise with a boy who grew up with an evil father-figure, now against his kind. While he did embark that journey, he however remained attached to him despite everything he stands for. This portion would challenge readers if they are fine with his struggle despite one is clearly evil. The context is what saved it for me and bonus, shined his character deeper.

It’s a complicated scenario where a character meets his/her faithful enemy who is also the one who fathered them. It has a great parallel display of his tie with Kaneki and the current situation. The two prime examples of his divine character development. He has stuck to the code of justice system based on CCG. His hatred from his past went on Ghouls and killed them for what he believed was right. Once he becomes a ghoul, his view started to change.

It’s a shame that those who are so high up on their code would be forced to be a Ghoul alas force them to wear their shoes. He established a while back that not all Ghouls are evil but they are classified as one, so that may never change. I do wonder about the aftermath, which I still press on for part 3 as long as there are other elements left unsolved. Basically, Amon established both Human and Ghoul are largely the same, and yet he can define who is real evil and Donato is one. So why can he kill him if that’s the case?

The most powerful part is how he finally developed his view about the world being twisted. Remember how he told Ghouls or Kaneki to be specific that they’re the one that ruined it. After what he has gone through, he realizes the world would be twisted by anyone and among them is him. If he let Donato roam free, he is no better than anyone he’s against; a cruel irony. It’s intriguing with Takizawa realizing late of Houji’s emotional attachment result to a sad end while Amon realizing late would result to a good end. Not everyone have a same meaning and he has to deal with it.

The ending is interesting. Amon makes a sword shape weapon, though it can be considered as a cross; a fitting design. Donato looks at him and smiles like a proud father. Amon finally pushes through and takes a huge portion of his left’s side body; similar with Kaneki to Amon in Part 1. Amon actually concludes that he loved Donato and he can’t be hold back because of it.

If it wasn’t for its context and delivery, it would be difficult for readers to accept to like a murderer. The point is Amon and Donato did come a long way in their life in the orphanage. It’s hard to dispute any connection and detach any love they harbored in the past, especially since childhood for Amon. Growing up as such isn’t easy to forget and set free. Even if he seeks for vengeance, it didn’t grow out of air. The bond exists and he had to accept that fact no matter if it is wrong.

After a long break, this chapter was a great return with emotional connection with these characters. The art is pretty solid with its nice use of parallels and expressive feelings. Yomo and Uta have a relaxing bromance ending and Amon and Donato are closing their feud soon with a strong message. It seems like this arc will end in this volume. It’s a only matter of time.

#tokyo ghoul:re #tokyo ghoul re #tokyo ghoul :re #tokyo ghoul #chapter 171 #review

12 notes · View notes

sillyfudgemonkeys · 6 years

Note

do you think the P3 characters were written more realistic then the other two?

Errrrggghhhhh...........

No......no really.

P4 had the most organic/”realistic” feel of the 3 Hashino games. P3 has the benefit of having multiple arcs, which......gives them a good story development (except for Fuuka cause....P3 just freaking forgot about her I guess, goes from “I wanna protect/help people” to “I wanna protect/help people” like??? ok?). But I’ve always thought they lacked depth. I mean there are some that I do feel are realistic: Yukari (I mean I don’t like her personality but she’s “real’), Ken in a sense, and Maiko. And despite the supernatural stuff, I do find MCs/Aigis/Ryoji fairly real too (MC depends on the interpretation tho, but the development for the two non human characters feel organic for such inorganic beings). Junpei could kinda count too, personality wise, how his arc ends with the MC doesn’t feel real tho. (”Silly that’s a good portion of the cast” Yeah but like that’s out of the whole cast.......compared to the whole cast of P4, P4 still has more characters that are more realistic imo).

I dunno I just feel like I know the P4 cast more as people than I do the P3/5 casts. I know P4′s hopes, dreams, fears, likes, dislikes, relationships with each other, how this one small thing feels, the search for the freaking penguin. It’s the silly stupid small things that you’d pick up if you were hanging with a real person. P3.....a lot of those scenes are sometimes saved for SLs....sometimes. And then P5 likes to contradict itself or just make itself needlessly confusing so like what is real? Who cares? 8U I mean I could still tell you a lot about the characters....but it can usually be tied right back into it’s plot.

P3′s characters feel like they only live for their story and everything about them revolves around, or can be linked back to P3′s plot.

I mean it’s fine, it makes sense. P3 (and P5 even tho it doesn’t want to fudging act like it) is very plot/story based, it’s main focus is the plot/story. P4′s is very character based. They play to their strengths as they should (P3′s story has more depth, P4′s characters has more depth imo, but I think their themes are equal). With P4 we get to explore all their insecurities and we spend time seeing them grow together (they might not get individual arcs like P3 but they do grow together, call it filler all you want it’s important filler). I can tell you a lot more about P4 characters than I can for P3/5, from just playing the game without any side research/materials.

If I had to rank characters (for Hashino) it’d be....P4>P3>P5. “why’s P5 last?” Cause I think some of the characterizations are either a mess (sometimes opposing a previous belief they had, causing...some....immersion breaking imo) or are lacking (esp in the way P3 or P4 succeed), P5 didn’t balance it’s characters out. I mean like a character or two got.....well they stepped to the side (not dropped off the face of the earth but just stepped to the side) in P3/4. P5? Over half the cast are chopped liver tbh, like this isn’t just me I’ve seen this criticism everywhere.

This doesn’t mean I think P4 characters are better tho, just I think they feel the most.....real.

5 notes · View notes

yeonchi · 3 years

Text

Kisekae Insights #15: Hiroki and Akari’s Strawberry Mysteries Part 1 (with Hybrid explanation)

These next two instalments weren’t easy for me to write. Off the bat, the subject of these instalments is the relationship between the protagonist, Hiroki Ichigo, and his wife, Akari Ichigo. Why wasn’t it easy for me to talk about it? The subject and the storylines associated with it are heavily based on elements of my life and their associated fantasies.

Writing the review for Can You Hear Me? has really inspired me to talk about some high school friends who I wasn’t necessarily friends with (I say that because I never hung out with them much). In that review, I mentioned my high school crush as one person I was reminded of after watching the episode. The character of Akari is based on her, but this infatuation goes way deeper than you think given how much effort I put into writing her storylines in my project.

Portions of these storylines were inspired from the final episodes of certain TVB dramas from 2013-14. As such, I feel obligated to provide content (trigger) warnings as these storylines contain themes associated with mental illness, suicide and domestic violence.

In case you haven’t seen, I’m going to be giving my answer to the Hybrid in this instalment. I’m leaving the IRL context until Part 2 in the next instalment and I’ll also be taking a break after that. For now, enjoy the rollercoaster as we start going down the rabbit hole that is Hiroki and Akari’s relationship.

Hiroki Ichigo: The Enigma Beneath

You will notice that the character profiles for Hiroki and Akari are different from the ones I’ve done so far, particularly in that they have no job or personality descriptions. Aside from being officers or superheroes, any job I give them ends up being forgotten once the story arc gets going (I wish Chibnall could say the same about Yaz), so they don’t end up mattering anyway. As for Hiroki’s personality, I’ve already covered that in #2.

I’ve detailed Hiroki in his final incarnation here because most of the storyline revolves around this incarnation, but his previous incarnations do have significance in the storyline likewise.

Also, you will notice that I’ve designated Hiroki as the Hybrid. I’ve never really liked the Hybrid arc because it gave too many possibilities that pointed to multiple figures potentially being the Hybrid. Steven Moffat did reveal that the Hybrid was supposed to be the Doctor and Clara together, but to me, that’s just a red herring for the identity of the real Hybrid. This is my answer to the Hybrid arc – Hiroki Ichigo is the Hybrid.

Here are some of the criteria given for the Hybrid throughout Series 11 (BBC Series 9). The Hybrid is a creature crossbred from two warrior races, supposedly the Time Lords and the Daleks. According to all Matrix prophecies, the Hybrid will stand in the ruins of Gallifrey and unravel the Web of Time, breaking a billion billion hearts to heal its own.

Let’s break down the Doctor’s final line in Heaven Sent:

“The Hybrid is not half-Dalek. Nothing is half-Dalek. The Daleks would never allow that.” Just because the Doctor can say it can’t be half-Dalek doesn’t mean that it isn’t. Besides, Hiroki isn’t half-Dalek anyway – technically, he is part-Kaled, the Kaleds being the ancestors of the Daleks. But since the Kaleds are synonymous with the Daleks, this fulfills the Dalek portion of the Hybrid.

“The Hybrid destined to conquer Gallifrey and stand in its ruins… is me.” Some people believe “me” refers to Ashildr, also known as Me, but I think that the Doctor accusing Ashildr of being the Hybrid is just him deflecting the blame because he was in denial of being the Hybrid (plus, the Doctor seemed to prefer calling her Ashildr instead of Me). The Doctor was born from Hiroki, so the Doctor saying that is a bit of a stretch. However, to be fair, the Doctor didn’t even know who the Hybrid really was until Rassilon told him in Space Squad Part 3. In comparison, Hiroki realised that he was the Hybrid in the Decade finale.

Now, for the time being, Hiroki has never stepped foot on Gallifrey, but I’m planning on rectifying that in Soulbound Series 4. As for unravelling the Web of Time, that’s already been done if you count all the timeline changes I’m going to detail, so hopefully I won’t need to address that again. Since Hiroki is a warrior, you can bet that he’s broken as many hearts as he’s willing to break in order to heal his own.

So how did Hiroki become the Hybrid? Firstly, Hiroki was born a human with Time Lord and Jenova DNA (see #2). Later on, in 2012, Hiroki became part-Kaled/Dalek after his DNA got mixed up with Akari’s during a regeneration (read on to find out).

In 2018, during Age of Riders Forever, Hiroki found himself being pursued by alternate versions of himself who had banded together and based themselves in the Capital (like the Citadel of Ricks in Rick and Morty). Hiroki upgrades his vortex manipulator so he can travel in time. After incorporating Kamen Rider Wizard’s Time Ring into his manipulator and using his own body to calibrate it, Hiroki manages to go into the past and make contact with his past self multiple times.

At some point, Hiroki was found and brought to the Council (the equivalent of the Council of Ricks), where he was given a mission to detonate a memory bomb in exchange for leniency. He does so, but when the Council comes to pick him up, he refuses to go back with them and teleports away. Hiroki’s travels had caused numerous paradoxes, but his vortex manipulator caused the temporal energy to build up inside his body, which would rip him apart and scatter him throughout the Time Vortex instead of ending the universe.

Sure enough, Hiroki’s body was ripped apart, but his consciousness was saved by his ex-wife and her family that he saved inside the supercomputer in Dewey’s library on Never Land. They then sent Hiroki back out and made him a new body using fairy dust, pollen, the happiness of everyone on the Mainland, the remains of his DNA from his old body and about half a field’s worth of dandelion seeds. After that, Hiroki leads the fairies and Flowertots in an attack on the Capital, saving his friends while killing the Council and all the other versions of himself. With Hiroki now being part-fairy and part-Flowertot, he gained the ability to utilise some forms of Never Land magic, but because he doesn’t possess a source of magic or a connection to one, it requires some time to recharge naturally.

And so, that was the story of how Hiroki became the Hybrid.

Akari Ichigo: Mystery Girl Becomes Seductress Becomes Assassin Becomes Wife

I didn’t put a personality description for Akari in the pic mainly because she’s based on my crush and I have no idea what her personality is like. Therefore, my personality description for her would only be based on my impressions of her and what I think she would be like in the project. Needless to say, I didn’t put a lot of thought into it. When she’s good, she cares for Hiroki really much (though it’s mostly because of the hypnotic seduction perfume), but when she’s evil, she just doesn’t care about him. In the Series 9 finale, there’s a bit where she literally says “I’m gonna put a cap in your ass” in a yandere-like manner before Hiroki smacks her around and shoots her in the head, but we’ll come back to that in Part 2.

Originally, I was of the belief that Akari was born in 1998, making her six months younger than Hiroki, but I later found that I was one year off; Akari was actually born in 1999, making her eighteen months younger than Hiroki. This change doesn’t affect the story a lot, but I am kind of pissed that I didn’t know this earlier.

Akari’s paternal grandfather is a Kaled named Antoni, meaning that from him, she has a link to the Daleks. Akari was used by both her family and the Daleks as a tool to get to the Doctor by having her seduce and kill Hiroki. They didn’t know that Akari would end up getting seduced herself and before they knew it, she ended up getting in too deep that they had to wrench her off him with the help of Girl Power.

On top of that, they also didn’t know that Akari had made such an impact on Hiroki that he went to extreme lengths to either take her back or kill her. Akari never loved Hiroki, but she never had the guts to say it to his face and break off their relationship amicably. At the end of the Last Great Time War, when Girl Power were defeated for good, Akari got back with Hiroki and all was well again. Or so they thought…

The introductions are over. Let’s get into the story. Before I do, I want to clarify that Hiroki and Akari weren’t known by those names until 2014 onwards.

First meeting retcon

Based on the release order of my stories, Hiroki and Akari originally met in 2011 when they were in their secondary school armies. However, paradoxes, timeline changes and retcons have made that first meeting WAY earlier than that.

The root reason why schools were forming armies and fighting each other goes back to the 90’s when the state government established Arming Schools for the Future alongside One Country Two (Naming) Systems. Towards the end of the 90’s, a member of Akari’s family became an MP to prevent those two programs from being abolished when the opposition party formed government.

After Antoni went off to fight in the Time War, Kaled agent Neramix met with his children and helped them incite a war between the schools to support the Dalek cause. The two armies that they incited happened to be the kindergarten armies that Hiroki and Akari were in.

In March 2003, the two armies went into battle. This was the first battle of the Time War on Earth and the first battle for Hiroki and Akari. During the battle, Akari runs away from her unit and hides. Hiroki spots her and sneaks away from his unit to follow her. After encountering each other, they hide together and talk to pass the time. Akari doesn’t want to fight because she doesn’t want to make the world scarier than it already is, but Hiroki fights because he wants to make the world nice again. Hiroki decides to escape with Akari and take her home, but after a distraction involving two incarnations of the Doctor and some TARDISes, Parker finds Hiroki and drags him back into the battle, leaving Akari wondering what happened.

Thanks to that interaction, Neramix had what he needed to slowly mould Akari into Hiroki’s future killer. Neramix would be killed by Kamen Rider Decade soon after, but his intention was to have Antoni’s grandchildren, namely Akari’s brother and cousins, oversee this plan and fight in the Time War in place of their parents.

Over the next few years, Hiroki and Akari would meet out of nowhere, but little did they know that these meetings were a result of time manipulations by the Daleks. On top of that, additional changes to the timeline led them to meet more frequently.

By February 2010, Akari’s primary school army had become part of the Oda Army. Parker was planning a campaign for his primary school army to defeat the Oda, Mōri and Date armies and conquer their territories. He arranged for Hiroki to “defect” to Akari’s army and act as a spy for a few weeks. When the invasion occurred, Hiroki returned to his army, breaking Akari’s heart. Another few weeks later, the two of them reconciled when their armies encountered each other again in battle.

The date of their “first meeting” was rapidly approaching and at the way the timeline was going, the Web of Time would become damaged. In December 2010, during the primary school armies’ graduation ceremonies, the Master (Harold Saxon) used a dimensional splitter to transport them into a pocket dimension and pit them against each other in a “Graduation Battle Royale”. Hiroki and Akari met each other again, but Kamen Rider Decade arrives and fights them as he attempts to detonate a memory bomb (a replica of a forbidden weapon of the same name in the Omega Arsenal) between them. Decade evades them and successfully detonates the memory bomb just as the armies are returned to their rightful locations.

The memory bomb would supposedly restore people’s memories of the correct timelines and erase the memories of Hiroki and Akari interacting with each other before 2011. As a side effect, however, their timelines were burst open with metaphorical superglue on the broken ends. A couple of months later, in February 2011, Hiroki and Akari were in the same secondary school army. At the end of their first day, Hiroki and Akari encounter each other again, weeks before their actual first meeting. They accidentally touch hands as they dodge a falling flowerpot and as a result, they discover that they are fading out of existence until they touch hands. After seeing the Doctor, they discover that they have “Intertwined Pinkie Syndrome” – well, not really, but their timelines were fused and if they were to let go of each other, they would fade out of existence as their timelines would have no beginning or no end.

As such, Hiroki and Akari were forced to live together for the time being. The next few days went a bit like the two music videos below (because this storyline was inspired from them):

youtube

Later, the Doctor discovers that the effects can be reversed if Hiroki and Akari are willing to sacrifice their lives to save someone. At the same time, the two stop an old lady from being hit by a reversing van. Their hands let go, but they do not disappear. Their timelines return to normal and they go back to their own lives.

Without the courage to say “I’m sorry”

Finally, Hiroki and Akari meet each other for the first time in March 2011. Hiroki begins to fall in love with Akari and before long, their friends become aware of this along with Akari’s cousins, Daniel and David, meaning that the pieces of their plan are finally coming together. They formed the Teiro Army and began taking action by intruding into Hiroki’s battles. Eventually, after Parker’s death and the fall of the Sanada Army, they built up enough strength to ally with other armies, who have affiliations with Hiroki, and turned them against him.

Over the course of the next 16 months, Hiroki’s friends encouraged him to talk to Akari and ask her out, but he never ended up doing so, either because she was with her friends or he couldn’t muster up the courage to do so even when she was alone. He got more acquainted with Akari’s friends than Akari herself. When Akari and her friends founded Girl Power in February 2012, Hiroki just happened to be on the other side of Hong Kong. Eventually, Maya, one of Akari’s friends, tells Hiroki to talk to Akari before it is too late.

In May 2012, Hiroki writes a love letter for Akari, though this was partly as a result of a plot by his friends. She shows it to her cousins, who then launch an attack on Hiroki and his allies, the Takeda Army. Despite fighting each other in the battle, neither of them even brings up the love letter.

Later, in July 2012, the Teiro Army takes over Hiroki’s secondary school army, forcing him to escape with the Takeda Army. Daniel contacts Hiroki and tells him that they have taken his friends hostage. Hiroki realises what is going on and calls out Akari for being too scared to tell him face-to-face about the love letter, causing her to snap and agree to meet him alone.

Sure enough, the two of them meet alone in a hall or stadium. After some pressure from Hiroki, Akari admits that she doesn’t love him the same way he loves her, but they can still be friends. Hiroki accepts her offer, but Daniel throws some rape gas (that he stole from the police) at them, saying that they don’t deserve each other.

Going on a tangent for a bit, rape gas is similar to tear gas, but the principle of how it works is basically “rape or be raped” – depending on a person’s mental state, they would either faint or develop the urge to sexually assault anyone in sight. In July 2011, the police first tested the rape gas at a university, where protesters and counter-protesters were protesting about kids fighting in armies, racism/crime, climate change, the fact that you can drive from Melbourne to Tokyo in a matter of hours and ACAB. However, this time around, Daniel modified the rape gas, meaning that Hiroki or Akari would have to violate or kill the other person in order to get out alive.

Hiroki and Akari managed to resist the effects of the gas, fighting each other until Parker and a few others, who had managed to free themselves, break in and save them. Parker dispels the effects of the rape gas from them, causing them to lose their memories of the past couple of hours as they are knocked out. They regain consciousness later before Hiroki, Parker and their allies purge the Teiro Army and their allies from the city.

Under his spell

Following the final battle against the Teiro Army, the Arming Schools for the Future program was abolished and the armies would become schools again once the holidays were over. Hiroki was given the privilege to choose whether he would stay with his army or leave and he chose to leave. For a while, Parker gave Hiroki a choice to join him or become a ronin (wanderer), but he refused because of Akari. The reason why he decided to leave was because people had become afraid of him following the events of the battle. Instead of joining Parker or the Takeda Army, he decided to become a ronin because aside from fighting, he had nothing else to live for.

Hiroki decided to travel the land while Akari went to Okinawa with her cousins, Narutaki and Veronica. Hiroki’s travels would eventually lead him to Okinawa, where a parallel version of himself from a parallel universe would help him ask Akari out by spraying him with some hypnotic seduction perfume. Akari became caught in the perfume’s spell and so, she and Hiroki became a couple.

A few months later in November, the Salacian Time War came along. Hiroki and Akari were not involved in the war itself, but they played a role in its endgame. Hiroki and Akari were hanging out with the latter’s friends when Daniel had them kidnapped and taken to their base in the Serra do Mar mountain range, codenamed “the forests of Wanmokai”. Hiroki is subjected to a weapon known as the Dehydrator, which sucks the strength out of the victim and drives their brain to the point of insanity. After a while, he manages to untie himself before falling to the ground. Following a meta-crisis regeneration which results in Takumi Kamijō being born and escaping from the base, Hiroki and Akari are found by Parker, who teleports them back to his base in Santos.

Later, Parker and the others are trying to power up the Harmony Signal, but even with Ultimate Madoka’s help, they still can’t get it fully charged. Hiroki is still struggling to regenerate following the meta-crisis and requires a catalyst in order to regenerate, so he decides to propose to Akari. As they kiss, Hiroki regenerates, but his DNA gets mixed up with Akari’s, making him part-Kaled (fulfilling the Time Lord and Dalek requirements for the Hybrid) and making his subsequent prototypes their children. The new prototype, Kumiko Hayashi, is able to provide Parker with enough energy to fully charge the Harmony Signal.

At this point, some people would say that dating for 3-4 months before proposing is a bit fast, but when you think about it, they’ve known each other for nearly two years, or nine years with seven on-and-off.

After another year of dating and getting caught in turbulent events, Hiroki and Akari got married in December 2013, with Princess Celestia acting as their celebrant and singer Miyuki Nakajima featuring as a guest at their reception.

A chaotic marriage

Even before his wedding, Hiroki had suspected that Girl Power was plotting something behind the scenes and that if he were to walk into their trap, he would die. Borrowing the Pony Doctor’s TARDIS, Hiroki went on a farewell tour in order to delay his own wedding, but upon hearing that his old friend, one of the commanders from his primary school army, had died, Hiroki decides to accept his fate.

The day after Hiroki and Akari’s wedding, a man named Reona Yukawa (a man from a hentai game with an IQ of 256) worked with the Master to save Antoni from the Crucible. Soon after, the Daleks begin attacking Hong Kong. Hiroki and Akari work with the Fourth Doctor as they meet with Parker and Violet, who defeat the Daleks with newer Daleks. For context, it is the bronze (Time War) Daleks fighting against the coloured Daleks of the New Dalek Paradigm. Despite their reception, I’ve never liked how the latter was underused throughout the series, so I thought I’d give them some love here. Meanwhile, the Fifth Doctor is in seclusion on Paris Island with Marco Wong and his wife, Princess Maritan (from the manga that teaches Japanese people how to swear in English with army imagery).

Suddenly, Antoni transports the landmasses containing the Doctor and his friends to their base at Koshi Castle in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Hiroki, his prototypes and their partners are taken and they have their germ cells taken and placed in the Progenitor, rendering them infertile as the Daleks breed super-soldiers out of them. Soon after, Akari is kidnapped and brainwashed by Girl Power, who pairs her with a new husband, a white man (I don’t know why I pointed that out, that makes me sound racist) named Shaun. When Hiroki and the Fourth Doctor find them, Hiroki tries to grab Akari, but he is shot by all the Girl Power officers. The Fourth Doctor runs away to find Parker and Violet while Hiroki makes his way back to his TARDIS and regenerates into a new prototype, a four-year-old boy who would be named Kyōya Shinomiya.

In the Progenitor, a baby is being grown from Hiroki and Akari’s DNA – their daughter, who would be named Kasumi Shinomiya. Due to Takumi’s interference, the baby would end up in Manchester in December 2005, coincidentally the same place where Akari and Shaun would encounter Kyōya and Kasumi and form a family together. Meanwhile, Hiroki, having lost his magical boy powers following his regeneration, accepts a deal from the witch Walpurgisnacht and manifests into a female incarnation who would call herself Momoka Mizutani. Momoka opened up a Hong Kong-style café in Salford, with red drone Daleks disguising as her human staff, and for the next eight years, Momoka would become acquainted with the Shinomiya family as they became regular customers. She also uses an infostamp to make contact with Kyōya, unbeknownst to the rest of his family.

Eight years later, the Fourth and Fifth Doctors arrive in Manchester. They encounter each other and head to Momoka’s café to talk. Just as they learn who actually owns the café (Hiroki), Ayaka Kikuchi comes in with her army and engages in a shootout with Momoka and the Daleks. After defeating Ayaka’s army, Momoka transmats herself and the Shinomiya family to her ship, where she prepares to have Ayaka, Shaun, Kyōya and Kasumi exterminated using the Yashio’ori, a mythical weapon (from Warriors Orochi 3) capable of firing Dalek energy rays like machine guns or a concentrated laser beam that can pierce even dwarf star alloy. Unfortunately, the Yashio’ori was sabotaged by Ayaka and her allies so that the laser beam would not charge after Momoka fired it once during a demonstration.

Momoka is killed in the ensuing battle, but Walpurgisnacht took over her body and regenerated her, allowing her to continue with her plan. She searches out people who had wronged her over the years and enacts her own brutal justice on them. She also begins to experience psychosis brought on by a regenerative crisis, causing her to hallucinate her previous incarnation. The Doctors and Parker catch on to this and begin searching for her. Parker and Violet encounter her at UNIT and they convince her to surrender herself and not give up hope that things will be better. As Momoka proclaims that she still has unfinished business to take care of, Parker and Violet decide to work together with her so they can help her find the help she needs.

After confronting the Shinomiya family again, Momoka shoots Akari in the arm and kidnaps Shaun. She takes a video of him confessing to stealing Hiroki’s wife from him and sends it to Parker and the Doctors. Under the guise of delivering the ransom money to Momoka, Violet picks her up at a carpark and takes her to a getaway car she and Parker left for her. However, when they get there, Momoka is cornered, so she lets Violet go before she shoots herself in the head. Her body disappears as her TARDIS takes her away.

All this time, Reona, Antoni and the Master had used the distraction provided by their allies to prepare an army to start another Parallax War. The Daleks prepare to bind Akari and Shaun’s minds together as they prepare to become the emperor and empress of the new Girl Empire, but Kyōya, Kasumi and Momoka had been working to prevent this. Momoka summoned Hiroki’s past incarnations, along with his prototypes and even Storm Dasher, to fire infostamps at the throne, separating Akari from Shaun and breaking her from her conditioning. As the mind-breaker’s efficiency approaches 100%, Momoka uses a key to connect her mind with Akari, intertwining their timelines and making their previous encounters with each other fixed points in time.

Akari is freed, but all the Daleks turn on Reona, Antoni and the Master. After the first two are exterminated, the Master destroys Koshi Castle with a nuclear device before escaping, killing all the Daleks and super-soldiers with it. Girl Power managed to escape as well and most of their members went into hiding, but Shaun was apprehended off-screen, convicted of war crimes and sentenced to cryogenic suspension. Following this, Momoka regenerated into Hiroki, her final incarnation, and got back together with Akari. As a result of events, they (and some others) were eight years older than they should be.

This storyline was inspired by the final episodes of A Great Way to Care II (仁心解碼II), with Momoka being based on the character Apple Lam Chung-yan (林頌恩) played by Tavia Yeung (楊怡). Momoka would become a prototype and return in Series 9.

Anyway, I think that’s enough for now. If you thought that last storyline was harrowing enough, wait till you get to Part 2. It’s the part where things get turbulent and I cross the lines of morality so many times that you’ll be calling me an incel before you even get to the IRL context. My judgement day is nigh. See you in the next instalment.

#kisekae insights

0 notes

head-and-heart · 7 years

Note

Do you agree with what many showrunners fear re: the Moonlighting curse -- that once a pair is together, it's boring? Even Eliza said it would be boring to have Bellarke bc 'they'd be happy and then what'? As shippers we want them happy, but as storytellers, is it boring especially in this genre of tv? This show is a tragedy/angst-fest, so I wonder if making a happy couple of your leads is considered stale from a writer's POV - like they don't find it exciting to write? I'm curious to understand

Hmmm, I agree to a certain extent. Some couples are kind of boring to watch after they get together. But I don’t blame that on any sort of curse - to do so is a writer’s cop-out. It more-so lies in an issue with the way the writer’s are choosing to develop their romantic relationships in the long-term versus pursuing actual canon relationships themselves.

We have to ask ourselves these questions:

a) Is the relationship dependent on the will-they-won’t-they trope in order to function?

For this one, I think of Ross and Rachel from Friends as being a prime example. For ten seasons, the question of whether or not they would get together in the end was one of the largest focuses on the show. In fact, I’d say a significant portion of Ross’s storyline as a character (and Rachel as well, although I think her storyline actually had more to it) revolved around the journey and evolution of his relationship to Rachel. Say they got together in Season 6. For real this time, no more “breaks” or complications … Then what?

Would Ross and Rachel be considered the iconic pairing that many believe it to be (regardless of your personal feelings on the pair, I’m not a huge fan of them myself but)? Probably not.

It’s important to note, however, that it has more to do with a conscious decision on the writer’s part to drag out the ship and constantly have Ross and Rachel struggle with their feelings and milk the hell out of the will-they-won’t-they trope in order to best entertain their viewers. In the case of Ross and Rachel, the entire relationship pretty much depended on them never becoming full-out canon until the very end of the show for that story to work.

To apply this situation to Bellarke, I don’t think we need to worry too much. Because, as much as the media likes to refer to Bellarke as a will-they-won’t-they ship, the narrative itself has never actively strung the readers along in the same way. Mostly because the show itself and Bellamy and Clarke’s respective character arc’s don’t actually revolve around each other. Which means that they can still have an interesting relationship (and an interesting story) without relying on the potential romantic aspect of their relationship to carry them. Obviously, the question on whether they’ll become romantic or not is still there (and there are still many narrative reasons to suggest that it will), but the relationship itself doesn’t function only because of the will-they-won’t-they trope.

Basically, what that means is that Bellarke can develop in any way and their story can still continue. Unlike with Ross and Rachel, it doesn’t depend on the question of their feelings for each other in order to function.

b) Does the story itself end when the romantic pairing gets together (aka. an ultimate resolution to whatever the conflict in the show/book/piece of literature is)?

This is more specific to the romance genre, which quite literally revolves around the romantic couple itself. In a lot of romantic stories, the story ends when the couple finds a way to finally be happy together. And that’s it. And if you think about it, wouldn’t The Notebook be kind of boring if Noah and Allie just got together and instead of focusing on the conflict in their relationship, just let them be happy and carry on? Not much of a story to tell, is there?

But that’s the nature of the genre. It’s interesting to me that you mentioned that perhaps the sci-fi genre makes canon romantic couples especially boring. I actually disagree. Because the plot doesn’t revolve around/depend on romantic couples in order to continue, I think that actually makes it a lot easier for writers to have canon relationships that are still interesting. Those relationships don’t have to move the plot like they do in the romance genre, so it’s possible for them to exist and the story to still be suspenseful and intriguing.

So contrary to what you say, I think that the fact that Bellarke exists in a plot that is constantly moving and changing, even without their relationship, actually bodes quite well. It means that there is opportunity for that relationship to develop romantically and yet never become boring, because of the nature of the story (where stuff is ALWAYS happening and changing, which means that our characters/relationships are always changing too).

c) Will all conflict within a relationship be resolved by making it romantic, thus making it relatively uneventful and “boring”?

This is more specific to relationships where the main focus/conflict in their relationship is that they’re NOT together. Whether it’s because they’re struggling with their feelings for each other, or because they’re part of a love triangle (in some cases) or some other instance where any issues in their relationship that can be resolved by finally becoming canon - that’s what this question is specific to. I think that a lot of couples that are commonly referred to as slowburns fall under this section. Think Chuck and Blair in Gossip Girl. They hooked up and they tried having a relationship but it was never really some solid thing until the end of the series. And then there was nowhere else to run with it, right? The conflict was resolved (and oh my was there a lot of conflict in Chuck and Blair’s relationship :/) so the relationship wasn’t interesting anymore. It literally depended on the constant angst and denial of feelings and fighting and etc, etc.

Again, to bring it back to Bellarke, I really don’t think this situation applies to them because the conflict in their relationship has never been about them struggling with their romantic feelings for each other. It has always been about something else, so if they became romantic, it wouldn’t be a barrier to any interesting conflict/resolution the writers intend to pursue in the relationship. Therefore, their relationship wouldn’t automatically become “boring” just because they’re in an established relationship.

d) Is there room for the relationship to continue developing after becoming canonically romantic?

This is probably the most important question of all of them, and the one I was mostly referring to when I said that I don’t really believe in the moonlighting curse versus poor writing decisions. When writers are writing a slow burn, and they only focus on the lead-up to that relationship becoming romantic but NEVER consider what will happen after they finally reach that point … that’s where they run into troubles. THAT’S when it becomes boring. Why?

Because the relationship has already reached it’s endgame. It’s developed to the highest possible point that the writers ever planned for. They didn’t think about where they wanted that relationship to go after it became canonically romantic; therefore, it stops developing and becomes stagnant.

It has nothing to do with the couple or the characters themselves, and everything to do with the writer and their lack of vision beyond the ultimate goal (a kiss/love confession/established relationship/whatever it is).

This the question we’re currently facing with Bellarke, and here’s what we need to consider:

Is there room for Bellarke to develop after they become romantic? And the answer is this: yes, absolutely. There is ALWAYS room for development. It just depends on how committed to the relationship the writers are, and if they can continue to think of ways to keep the couple interesting and develop it.

In the case of The 100, it’s not as concerning, because the show has typically focused on the development and conflict between characters in relationships that are not necessarily romantic in nature. What this means is that the conflicts they’re used to telling don’t typically revolve around the transition from a non-romantic couple to romantic couple itself. Which means that any relationship probably won’t remain stagnant even after becoming romantic, so long as it gets sufficient focus. For more minor characters, their relationships won’t be developed as much. But since we already know that Bellamy and Clarke are the core of the show (confirmed by Jason Rothenberg himself), it’s pretty safe to say that the writers will never just let that relationship become stagnant. It’s essential to the story that it is constantly changing and evolving.

This is basically my extremely long-winded way of saying that I don’t think it’s really likely (or even possible??) for Bellarke’s relationship to ever become completely stagnant and boring because of the nature of the show, and their significance to the plot.

You brought up a quote from Eliza that she said and I’m not quite sure if it was a recent one or a different one I’m thinking of from back during Season 1. If it’s the latter, that was a long time ago and she said that she thinks it would be better to draw the relationship out a bit more. This is because slow burns are typically more interesting to viewers AND writers and are a lot more satisfying to watch. It doesn’t mean that the couple will never get together, it just means that it’s going to be a long journey. What I think Eliza was referring to is when a pair gets together almost right away and then it just feels … kind of pointless? Personally, I agree that those relationships are boring. They don’t do it for me. I like to see the characters grow and develop with each other first, and then become romantic.

A well-done slow burn (like Eliza was talking about) and a ship that’s been drawn on way past the point of natural development are two very different things.

To be honest, I think it’s also important to point out that Eliza can’t spoil anything to do with Bellarke and she was most likely deflecting that question to some extent. Cast interviews/panels should always be taken with a grain of salt.

also just because two characters get together it doesn’t mean that they’ll necessarily be “happy” right away which means that there is still story to tell

I’m rambling a bit now so I’m going to stop, let me know if you wanted more clarification in a certain area or if I didn’t quite interpret your question properly!

#the 100 #bellarke #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #kate's ask box #otp: maybe together will be our always

65 notes · View notes