#if you saw this post with the wrong number and ep title no you didn't

[ilchohand]

Ichidai San vs Seidou: Koshien Aftereffects

@ Anon-san, here's the essay haha!

I've officially watched the Ichidai San vs Seidou match for the fourth time last night. My adrenaline was so high, I couldn't sleep until 3am that I ended up wanting to unleash all these feelings for this show.

Daiya, Act II ep 13

And I kid you not. I'm writing 'bout everyone in Seidou.

Coach Kataoka & Ochiai

Let's start with Boss. I'd like to reiterate that he always had high hopes for Eijun.

Daiya, Act I ep 5

He placed Eijun in the first string even when the boy was still shit with his form, his control, and zero baseball knowledge. Even Osaka Kiryuu's coach implied that it's actually Eijun who is Kataoka's secret weapon.

I remember him even letting Eijun pitch against Raichi during the batter's next at-bat against Eijun. That was cleary a sign that he was starting to trust Eijun. But clearly Eijun wasn't still good enough back then. Kataoka knew of Eijun's potential, it's just that he didn't expect him to grow soooo fast. Eijun was bound to get there someday, but not this soon. However, seeing Furuya's pitching in Koshien, he too was blinded by it since he was desperate for a real ace with an impact. Of course you'd wanna parade your pitcher like that. This is where Ochiai enters the picture. (If you've ever felt personally victimized by Ochiai, please raise your hand! ✋) Kidding. Ochiai was shit during his introduction. It took a long time to warm up to him, but he was an essential addition to the coaching staff. Kataoka, although tough is more of a feeling kind of coach. While Ochiai takes information at face value. Clearly in the Ichidai game, Ochiai was the one who was practical even suggesting that Eijun's pitching is more effective (even though he likes Furuya as a pitcher more). Kataoka was blind, and it was glaring. Why? You see the other teams were watching. And every single coach of the teams Seidou played against with is wary of Sawamura- even Inashiro's Coach Kunitomo. Eijun is the kid who rallied Seidou to one out away into reaching Summer Koshien- during his first freaking year.

This is why I really like it when Ochiai said Kataoka is human afterall. I guess Kataoka also has some growing up to do.

I'd like to add that these two coaches were blinded by the Koshien performance that they didn't even notice that Furuya's form was crumbling. Quoting these reddit posts, the coaching staff was purely after results. If it's not broken, don't try to fix it. We all gotta say thank you to baseball jesus, Chris-senpai, for we won't be having this problem with Eijun.

Furuya

Contrary to people saying Furuya became selfish, I feel like he actually knew what his role is and the expectations from him. He never once lost the goal to win Nationals. It's just that, he didn't know how to actually do it. He was chasing his best performance. He didn't want to be Japan's #1 pitcher for the title you know. He wanted to be the top pitcher to bring his team to the top.

Let's accept it. Despite being a monster rookie, he shouldered the ace number prematurely. Of course the weight of it would one day catch up to him. This is why the phrase 'There are no shortcuts.' keeps being reiterated in the story. I felt bad for Furuya so much. This phase of his baseball life is pretty parallel to Eijun's yips arc.

Eijun

How do I even start with our ball of sunshine? He really puts relief in 'relief pitching'. Such a refreshing player. Woah, like Sanada Shunpei. Yes we know that an ace carries the whole team, we know that an ace saves the team during a pinch, and an ace uplifts the overall mood. Already sounds like Eijun right? We know the role of an ace and how an ace should perform towards the team. What the Ichidai San match highlighted is how a team, in response, acts towards the ace. Trust. It really slapped me in the face the same way it frustrated Eijun. The extreme difference in trust given to an ace versus a relief pitcher.

This was the turning point for Eijun. Probably why I love rewatching it despite the angst. (For a more painful experience, try rewatching the episode before the Ichidai San match 🤭🔪🦝) Anyway, during that scene where Kataoka was dumbstruck with Eijun's top tier pitching I kept remembering that one quote from HQ by the U19 coach--

"We don't look for them, but that doesn't matter. They come to us with solid, undeniable strength and they make us choose them."

Literally screams SAWAMURA EIJUN!!!

Miyuki Kazuya

Where should I stab him? (Ya'll stop taking me seriously when I say stab okay?) I've been saying this all the time but our personality is the same. It's nasty. I love him and hate him at the same time okay?

Anyway, I hope we're all aware and agree that Miyuki also saw Eijun's potential from day 1. Sakuhin shit right there. Miyuki likes interesting people or happenings. This guy played catch with noob Eijun during his day-off! Offered, in fact. (Act 1, ep 5 during that intra squad game of 2nd/3rd yrs vs 1st yrs).

May I also add! Chris didn't like Eijun in the beginning. It was Miyuki who ended up covincing Chris to look at Eijun clearly and say "to a catcher, he's the most interesting kind of pitcher". However, this boy has his first string duties so it was understandable that he focused on Furuya for a while. But what's unacceptable is, during Ichidai's game, he was guilty of prioritizing Furuya over the game. This is 99% on Kataoka but 1% on Miyuki. Bitch you were losing and you couldn't even send distress signals to the coach. He trusted Furuya because of the Koshien performance and the ace number when a whole ass Sawamura Eijun exists. That's why he was quite guilty when Eijun dropped the 'trust' word on him during the switch.

And while I like that Eijun's performance during the Ichidai San match was eye opening to the catcher, I still haven't forgiven Miyuki for the day before the game when he 'ditched' or put Ei on the back burner. No, no. I'm not simply being a bitch about it because we know Miyuki's POV at that point. He needed to figure out what's wrong with Furuya and a match was looming. He didn't throw Eijun away, he just put him off a few hours. What I'm angry about is the way he put it to Eijun.

We all know Eijun is dying for some Miyuki acknowledgement. I'm pretty sure Miyuki is so unaware of this fact. Which brings me to the point. Miyuki is unaware of how his words come across to Eijun. How it impacts the little pitcher. That a simple jab to Eijun like "ace-sama wants to pitch" is a big sore spot. We see this later at night when Eijun keeps repeating, "Since I'm already put at the back burner!". Miyuki was being sarcastic about the ace-sama thing. But you see, Eijun is a big idiot. He takes everything at face value. Miyuki even brushes it off as they practice catch, "You're still angry about that?" he jokes.

And whooosh, everything's okay! Or is it?

You may say I'm being dramatic about it. But no. Here's why. During the Ichidai match, Eijun flashes back to two things. One, while on the bullpen frustrated that Furuya's messing up, he recalls the day before when Miyuki chose to catch for Furuya even though he promised to Eijun. (The other one, at his at-bat, he remembers when Kataoka didn't let him pitch the last inning.) So what seems to be a simple nasty joke to Miyuki is a sore spot to Eijun. I have observed this time and time again, but Eijun is quick to under value himself, and these jokes Miyuki pulls aren't helping. Recall that crippled Sawamura self deprecating joke he did, and him saying he was put in the back burner.

(Well anyway, Miyuki was praising Eijun in his mind the night before so I'm appeased. This is one of those TJ inconsistencies I hate, but okay, that's another post. ☹️)

Everything got better after the Ichidai game. Because as Eijun made Kataoka look at him properly. He also did the same to Miyuki. Eijun's performance just screamed, "I'm here. I'm ready!" It lit a fire to everyone in Seidou.

Fielders/Batters

I want to end my long ass post with a good one. I wanna highlight the team's performance during the Ichidai game.

While Furuya was pitching, I could go as far as say the fielder's were baby-ing him. They were so soft and encouraging because they knew Furuya when he is at his best and that it was off day during that time. The fielders were playing primarily to relieve Furuya's pressure.

In contrast, when Eijun was playing on the mound do you guys know how the batters felt? Kanemaru? Kuramochi? Utter frustration and hopelessness. And I was giddy as fuck when that happened. Because Eijun was performing his best, but they couldn't get any runs in response to his amazing pitching. It mothafuckin felt so good watching them feel powerless.

Don't you love this whole match? Obviously I do haha! If you guys ended up reading everything, then thank you! I really wrote this for myself because I was overwhelmed while rewatching it. 😅

#I PRINTED THE DRAFT OF THIS ON PAPER #THE THINGS I DO FOR DAIYA #I LOVE MY SUNSHINE BOI EIJUN SO MUCH #MIYUKI LOOKED SO TURNED ON DURING EIJUN'S FIRST PITCH DURING THE ICHIDAI GAME. DON'T LIE. #daiya no ace #sawamura eijun #miyuki kazuya #furuya satoru #kataoka #coach ochiai

[sol1056]

Do you think they couldn't make other characters queer cause of copyright? As far as my knowledge goes (correct me if i'm wrong bc I'm confused) Shiro belongs to the first itineration of Voltron, Go Lion! and Koplars are the owners of the American version. The post-s8 tea on Twitter said they weren't given permission of changing last names, what if was the same with sexualities? Koplar's Shiro, Sven was coupled with Romelle but I think Go Lion's Shiro didn't have anyone, so it was an easy pick?

That’s not really the way copyright works. 

Shiro belongs to DreamWorks, full stop, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. The same goes for Allura, Pidge, Hunk, Keith, Lance, Coran, Kolivan, Krolia, Zarkon, Lotor, Haggar/Honerva, and any other iteration of the characters as they are presented in DreamWork’s version. 

Note: I’m not saying that Shiro wasn’t a character in GoLion. I’m saying that the Shiro-of-GoLion is a character copyrighted by Toei Animation; Shiro-of-VLD is a character copyrighted by DreamWorks; Shiro of… well, any other iteration would be copyrighted by whomever created that iteration. 

It’s a complicated and heavily-legislated area of the law, but here’s the core idea boiled down into a single statement: your creation is copyrighted the instant you “fix it in a tangible medium of expression”.   

That is, you cannot copyright an idea; you can only copyright a distinct implementation. Furthermore, copyright is always owned — automatically upon creation — by the person or company who did the work of setting that idea into its concrete state. 

Behind the cut: copyrighting characters, withholding character information, cultural hot buttons, and where do we go from here. 

note #1: there is one exception, known as “work-for-hire,” where employees create something on behalf of an employer. This must known beforehand and made explicit via some kind of agreement. If you read the fine print, there’ll be a work-for-hire clause in most employee or contractor agreements.

note #2: yes, this does mean you could create a mecha series where the robots are all big lions, or a mecha series where animal-based mecha combine. It would probably end up in court anyway ‘cause companies get prickly about protecting their IPs, but afaik the court’s decision would hinge on whether your implementation is different enough.

(this is why I scoff so much at the EPs being so open about where they steal ideas from: there’s a reason writers talk about filing off the serial numbers. it’s not because we don’t want you to think we get ideas from everywhere. it’s because distinct is also a necessary ingredient for plausible deniability of plagiarism.) 

copyrighting characters

The ‘no last name’ claims are frankly a lot of hot air. 

First, you cannot copyright a character name; you can only copyright the specific and fully-developed character as a whole. (A Meg Murry who’s a South Asian marathon runner? Not a violation of L’Engle.) You could trademark a character name, but only if that name appears in the title; frex, Indiana Jones was able to be trademarked because his name is part of a series of works that all begin with “Indiana Jones.” 

WEP could trademark Voltron (as the mecha’s name), but doesn’t look like WEP chose to do so. Recent research seems to indicate WEP actually embraces and supports non-media products (that is, things that are obviously not their adaptation-of-an-anime) using the name, possibly on the theory this wide usage increases the name’s recognition and cultural cachet.

Second, consider Devil’s Due Publishing (DDP), which gave every character a full name, new biography, age, height, and family history. It retains its copyright over those characters, but only as whole characters. You could make your Keith Kogane an orphan in his mid-20s who’s distinctly anti-social, and you’d probably be fine, because that description is still more of a stereotype than a distinct/unique character. 

To quote the legal encyclopedia:

Judge Learned Hand of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit established the standard for character protection in a case called Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corp., 45 F.2d 119 (2d Cir. 1930), when he stated that, “the less developed the characters, the less they can be copyrighted; that is the penalty an author must bear for marking them too indistinctly.”

For example, alien characters stranded on Earth is a popular and recurring theme as portrayed in My Favorite Martian, Starman, Alien Nation, Transformers, District 9, Predators, and The Man Who Fell to Earth. The idea of a stranded alien character, without embellishment, is not protectable.

[…] once a stranded alien character acquires more distinctive features or aspects—for example, a big-headed, long-necked alien with a glowing finger who murmurs “Phone home”—it becomes distinct enough to merit protection and its owners can prevent others from using the character’s image and expression.

If you make your misanthropic orphan named Keith also a former Marine, and an expert in hand-to-hand combat, and grieving a dead fiancee… He’s no longer a stereotype, but a character with a unique combination of features. DDP probably would have grounds to send you a cease-and-desist. 

However, if you say Keith Kogane is a lonely kid from Texas with an alien mom and a fireman dad, who’s the best damn pilot of his generation, and is generally awkward and whose silence hides a whip-smart intellect… again, a unique combination that fleshes out generic ‘Keith’ into a very specific and distinct Keith. Who is not, it should be noted, a carbon-copy of DDP’s Keith.

And the real nail in the coffin: if you’re going to argue that it’s a copyright violation to use Keith’s or Lance’s or Hunk’s last names, then why wouldn’t the same apply to using their first names? Or using names like Daibazaal, Sincline, Lotor, Honerva, Haggar, Alfor, Yurak, etc. Pretty sure ‘Zarkon’ isn’t a name you see everyday. I mean, it’s not, say, ‘Bob.’ 

withholding information

I’ve seen staff from another DW project say they can’t specify character ages until marketing decides. Which is… truly bizarre. If DW really is having marketing make such creative decisions, it’s not just putting the cart before the horse, it’s putting the cart in the jewelry store and the horse in the attic. 

If marketing or PR is anywhere in the mix, perhaps that’s because someone with social media savvy has realized topics like ethnicity and age will bring out the vitriolic teeny meanies of the Fandom Purity Police Brigade. Thing is, that doesn’t hold water, either: Trollhunters gave us ages and grade-in-school.

There could be another layer, too. The EPs I saw in those earliest interviews clearly had little firsthand experience with fandom, and seemed startled to hear fans actually care about those details. Two years of their interviews, and I have the strong sense they don’t like losing what they see as a battle of wills, no matter who their opponent is. Fandom cries out for surnames? Fandom will never get it. Fandom likes this couple over that one? Fandom is heading for severe disappointment. And so on. 

That’s ignoring the praise the EPs enjoyed for fandom’s conflation of a Korean-American VA and a Korean studio’s aesthetics, to see Keith himself as non-white. The EPs got representation points, and didn’t have to do a thing; the fandom did it for them. Why mess with that?

But no, copyright has nothing to do with that. 

cultural hot buttons

Sexuality, gender, and ethnicity are three places that a franchisee could run into problems, because these are hot buttons in the US. If the franchise owner feels a particular tangible form (this specific character in this specific iteration) violates the franchise’s ‘family-friendly’ aspect of their brand… I’d bet the contract between the parties does give the franchise owner some right of refusal or revision. 

Set aside what you think of VLD’s beginning, middle, or end. For all LM’s other faults, that sketch she did so long ago highlights all three: gender (Pidge), race (Keith and Allura), and sexuality (Shiro). We may’ve had to wait for an unfortunately tacked-on epilogue to get explicit confirmation*, but in the end, VLD was a significant break from previous Voltron iterations. 

Where, exactly, is anyone getting the impression that WEP is so terribly upset about its princess no longer being white, one of its pilots no longer being male, or another pilot no longer being straight? Whatever Bob Koplar might think of VLD’s end, his statement on the day of S8′s release made clear WEP is eager to continue their partnership with DW. 

Sounds to me like WEP is okay with DW’s creative and cultural approach. Otherwise, why go back for more? 

* edited to clarify, per @inklingdancer‘s tag

moving right along

It ultimately doesn’t matter what a previous iteration did. So long as DW’s creation is fully its own, copyright is neither barrier nor impetus to providing (or withholding) any information about that creation. 

What DW creates, DW owns. Which means DW is free to tell us last names, middle names, heights, ages, family history, race, gender, sexuality, love interest, even most hated food or favorite color — or nothing at all. 

#vld #voltron #copyright #sol thinks about stuff