#meant to post this for its 6th anniversary but lol

[macaronnya]

So I just saw the announcement about the EN server shutting down or at least dicontinued (hopefully just for now) and I might just burst into tears 🥲 I want to put my thoughts or rather feelings of the journy up until now on here to come down but maybe also as some form of comfort for anyone who needs it? It's very long and might have some broken english as it's not my first language so do keep it in mind please 😅

Anyways, I started A3! last year on march 7th because I saw a youtube video of people cosplaying Sakuya and Sakyo. At taht point, I already knew of A3! somewhere in my distant memories back when it was JP only. I decided to try out the game since I was getting bored of my current mobile games and the few reviews I could find of it were relatively positive. I had no idea just what a big part of my life this game was about the become 🤧

Btw I'm listening to some A3! songs right now, specifically Sakuya's 2nd character song, and it's not helping me 😢 So at the time, lockdown just started 2 days ago, which left me with a lot of time playing it and, I kid you not, I gulfed the main story down like it was the last slice of cake at home. I have 2 siblings. I think I finished it in a week or so despite it being only unlockable through leveling up, and if my memory serves me right, you need to be around lvl 75 to unlock all 4 episodes. As one can see, I was VERY invested in the story. It was just so....nice? I don't know how to exactly describe it but I was surprised by how likable everyone was. Of course I didn't hold such strong feelings for everyone back then as I do now but I was intrigued enough back then of nearly everyone, which is kind of rather rare in such types of games, no? At least for me it is, although I haven't played terribly a lot (Love Live, MLQC, Mystic Messenger).

I really like how the story actually continues through the events and how it alternated between stories exploring certain characters more (show events) and stories focusing on just them having fun. Getting to know everyone bit by bit and seeing how everyone grows closer to each other, not only within their respective troupes but the whole theater, makes me really all warm and fuzzy and it's found family, what more could you want?

Also, I really like Izumi, our dear MC 🥰 Even though she's supposed to be our self-insert, I found myself really enjoying reading her thoughts, observing her reactions to other characters' shenanigans (like her 'I do not see' to the members plan of faking their identity to bail Citron out lol) and just....her personality. Trying not to digress here but she has a lot more personality than other MCs in these joseimuke games and it makes her interactions with others not only bearable but even enjoyable. I'm not saying that this is what a perfect MC looks like or that she's superior to bland self-inserts. After all, it depends on the story, gameplay and other things. It's just a nice bonus I'm very grateful for. I mean, I got really emotional when Izumi performed with the other staff members all of the plays the actors have put out so far for the first anniversary. Her realizing she gained a new dream for her lost one just really took my heart, broke it in thousand pieces and then mended it again.

I also love A3! songs ❤ I did wonder how they would work in this franchise since it's not about idols but actors, though I guess there was nothing to worry about. I really like the duets because it's always a different duo and hearing them singing together, harmonizing with each other, complimenting each other, just fills me with undescribable joy. Of course the songs also slap pretty much every time. Even by limiting my options to 1 troupe, I still wouldn't be able to pick only one favourite (I like the majority of Winter's song tho, like Shoutai is just 🤌 and my sibling blasted Unmasked non-stop so I can't get it outta my head anymore). Gosh, I was so excited for 'Double Solitaire' since it would complete trilogy of the Hyodosakas singing together. I was really looking forward to getting all the songs and I was even saving up for Summer Troupe's 6th play.

If I had to describe the game A3! in one word, it'd be "charming". Coming to game itself, there are so many little quirks, that on their own aren't anything groundbreaking or big but together give the game its own flair. Live 2D is pretty common to see nowdays in games because it brings the characters to life through movements like 3D models. But I think A3! is able to illustrate it just as well, if not even better with their 2D sprites. Citron moonwalked by flipping the image over and sliding across the screen, Hisoka appeared out of nowhere by coming from above the screen, they do a little jump when they're happy, they go down a bit when they're sad. And that's just things with their whole sprite. The little drops when Tsuzuru finds himself in an awkward situation or is worried, the little note when Sakuya is happy, the hearts when Kazunari is lowkey flirting with Izumi, it's so cute! Or Omi's O.O face, Taichi's crying face (the usual one, not his face when he cried out of guilt of betraying Mankai), Yuki's done expression, H O M A R E AHA! They each have at least one personalized expression and also quote. Can you hear Kazunari's Yoropiko~☆, Citron's humming, Taichi's loud ass whining and scream of terror, Tsumugi's awkawrd laugh? It's brimming with life.

But also the UI (?how it looks) is joyful. The main screen's background cascading shapes changes depending from which Troupe your current character is from, the loading screen has sakura petals and a bird, the colors are very bright and saturated fitting to the overall color palette of the whole game, the little notebook during practice showing all the necessary infomation and a little sketch by the characters. It's just really charming.

As frustrating as it was, not getting halloween Tsuzuru after 110 pulls or Valentine Omi after 120, it was my first time ever understanding why gachas are called hellholes. Through my strong connections to the characters, their cards automatically appealed to me more. But the art is also so good???? Azuma is always looking flawless obviously but Omi's unbloomed Wolf card, where he is standing in the sunset looking at his camera or Kazunari's Shinobi card, unbloomed all concentrated on his panting and bloomed all shiny smiling like the fireworks in the background? Breathtaking everytime. I also appreciate it not needing multiple copies to unlock the whole backstage story.

I think I'm slowly running out of things to say, which might be good for whoever managed to come this far. I have to say though, A3! helped me through the pandemic. Being a perfect distraction to the world's chaos and more importantly my crushing schoolwork and worries for personal future. I'm a very pessimistic person but seeing the characters overcoming their hardships through the help of their to-be "family" and just being happy doing trouble, gave me a little hope and light for a bit every day. I came to cherish everyone, even those I like the least. I haven't felt like this since Mystic Messenger, which was also a game, that helped me through a difficult time. I can only wish to a shooting star, that it's not the end for the EN Server yet. While yes, the JP server is thriving and I could just switch to reading fantranslation, through my experience, my enjoyment considerably sinks playing like that and I wish to fully enjoy A3!.

Anyways thanks for reading (maybe again). Sorry for all the possible errors on the way here. I'm writing everything directly without too much thought. If you want, you can also share your experiences in the comments. It's always nice to share good memories with others.

Edit: I accidentally posted it already but I wasn't actually done 😓 When I said I had a lot to let out, I meant A LOT

#a3! #i will never forget a3! #in the end i never managed to get halloween and groom Tsuzuru

[pkmnjesus]

5 years of the PokémonJesus

Before the night comes to a close, I would like to personally reflect on today’s importance (thus the reason for the Takeover queue). It’s been 5 years since I officially became engaged with this fandom that has really became a weekly routine of mine when new episodes come out. This is really just to put my thoughts out there in the blog archive, so I would prefer if no one reblogs this. P J’s beginnings started all the way back with Serebii Forums...

2013-2014 (The Pokémon forums Era)

I have been lurking in the fandom as early as the Best Wishes days, and often visit sites like Serebii Forums or tumblr’s Pokémon anime tags around 2011. I usually talk Pokémon online when it comes to the games when battling or trading in certain chat rooms (was really active during the Gen. IV era of games), but never really talked about the anime with. I have been a spectator to the discussion while the BW saga was rolling a long, then I decided on September 26th 2013 (which was the airdate for the final BW! episode in Japan) to create a serebiiforums account under the username PokemonJesus123, just in time for the start of the XY series which I was mad hyped about! I WAS A FAN SINCE DAY 1...some y’all just tagged along in XY&Z NO LOYALTY xD . My serebii profile is still there actually, so you can try to find my old inactive page if you want lol (my avatar was me holding up my 3DS in a cringey way...looking back why tf did I take that photo lol delete later). Coming into 2014, I joined tumblr as well under the url name you see right before you. Never changed it, and probably never will. The origin of this name you ask? You’ll just have to ask me personally for that story 😉 I absolutely joined tumblr out of pure boredom to view and follow blogs I was a fan of. I had no intention of posting whatsoever. Oh, and I made a Twitter account under the P J name too! Follow ME :^)

2014-2015 (Thursday LIVE! tumblr era)

After a couple months of finally creating a tumblr account and actively posting on serebiiforums and bulbagarden, XY episode 50 (the episode where big lips Nini/Nene debuted) was the first EVER Pokémon anime episode I ever posted about in my blog. I was still new the #pokeani tag (funny story, I didn’t really knew what it meant back then besides to tag it lol), but I got as much as around 30-100 notes. Seeing those notes already got excited that it pushed me from making it a weekly thing since I had a livestream to watch it every Thursday night and screen-cap it. My goal from the very beginning was to try to be the first one to post about here, like what the Japanese fans do on Twitter under the #Anipoke tag. Of course, most of my notes came from either an AmourShipping post or a Serena post. I’m not going to lie, I was really a huge Serena fan when the series first started. I rambled a lot too getting hyped for Citron/Clemont episodes because he was probably my favorite character at the time xD

2015-2016 (A growing blog)

This was the era I started to do special long posts in celebration with Pokémon’s 20th anniversary. Around this period is where my blog was in a developing state getting like 2 or 3 followers every week. And trust me, there were A LOT of posts that I regret posting, but I learned to watch my words every week and say the right things (I really try not to trigger anyone here). I took a couple of weeks off when new episodes aired since I was really busy with college, or I wasn’t into XY filler episodes that much. Would usually tune in live when Team Flare was involved or anything with Squishy/Puni-chan (I absolutely ADORED Bonnie/Eureka in this arc), but I didn’t post that much on tumblr...unless if there was like an AmourShipping moment that happened xD. The hype for Gen. VII was already looming, and I kinda got bored from the anime A BIT. When Ash-Greninja came into the picture however, I got excited again! Then the Kalos League happened, and the anticipation of Ash’s journey hit a climax! We all know what happened, and the rest was history...

2016-2017 (GIFmaking era)

So the Sun & Moon anime happened late 2016, and the hype for a new series was within me again! This is when my blog REALLY started to boom, as well as the birth of my Pokémon Discord server PokéTōku. My notes were higher than over compared to what I posted from XY. One possible reason is that a lot of pokeani bloggers from back then weren’t really interested in Sun & Moon (probably because of the animation change), so I was one of few who still stayed for the ride and that really benefited my blog’s exposure. I absolutely loved Lillie’s character development, and I also did not expect myself to enjoy Lana/Suiren’s character so much! Brock & Misty’s was a huge highlight for me as well seeing my childhood come to a modern-day Pokémon series. I was surprised to have popular people reblog my stuff that destroys my notifications per second. I was even flattered when popular pokéblogs such as shelgon, corsolanite, chasekip, and a few others followed me. Back then I really wanted to get a lot of notes, but at this point I just wanted to be myself and post screen-caps that I feel like talking about. The series also motivated me to start making GIFs since I finally had access to Adobe Photoshop through my university’s application benefits. Later in 2017, I graduated from college and it gave me more time to improving my blog. Also, can you believe it took me 3 years to get 1,000 followers? If you asked me from day 1, I would have never expected to get that much since I had no idea about tumblr’s audience.

Everyone here knows that my blog doesn’t really follow “traditional” tumblr methods such as tags or making specific posts and what not (since I’m not really that into the tumblr culture lol...I’m just here for fun doing my own thing), but I hope I’ve brought something different to your dash experience 🙃

2017-2018 (Making friends)

From 1,000 to 2,500+ followers the next year. You’d be surprise how small that still is compared to the other popular Pokéblogs that joined tumblr later than me, but I’m still grateful for that number. My hype for movie 20 was crazy! I’d always make a post about it when a new trailer was out. But just like Sun & Moon, not everyone was looking forward to the AU it produced. The Let’s Go games shared the same fate as well since everyone didn’t want another Kanto, but I always defend the things that deserve a chance! I fairly enjoyed movie 20 though, and was the first movie that I posted screen-caps and GIFs for in this blog, even made an experience post about it watching it in the theaters! What’s MOST important to me during this time was actually interacting with some of my followers...or should I say friends now :) Out of the 5 years I’ve been here (not counting serebiiforum peeps I’ve known since 2013), I only recently talked to some of you around 2017. My interactions with people here have been awesome (for the most part at least lol) from sharing interests, geeking out over the anime, sending memes xD and concerns when P J isn’t feeling P J. You know who you are, and THANK YOU for cheering your boy up in times when I needed it despite not telling you about it <3 Going back to PokéAni hype, my next excitement attack was when they announced the Aether Foundation and Ultra Beasts were getting involved in the main story. It really makes up for no Alola movie...but hey we still got 1 year left, so maybe there’s hope?

Despite the brief breaks I took, P J’s activeness in the fandom has reached its highest when I managed the time to do scheduled posts and even started a few mini-blog series this year. Even during stressful times, I always make it an effort to find time and contribute to the fandom. I honestly don’t care if I get any asks because I know who the real homies are ◉‿◉つ A special shoutout as well to all the people that joined my Discord server through this website. I couldn’t have reached 100+ members without some of your blogs ^_^ And to the lurkers out there (I know some of y’all are creepin’ in the shadows of my blog without liking anything), you may not know it but I love you people too ლ(́◉◞౪◟◉‵ლ)

Anyway this is just a summary of my journey here so far, and if you’d to hear a more in-depth story on some toxic things I’ve experienced in this fandom just message me. I personally don’t like venting out stuff in public because it just promotes more negativity, and I’m not about that. I will make a separate post on my feelings toward the schedule change maybe next week, and an appreciation post (5th tumblr blogaversary) for my specific followers January 2019. I am still preparing for that because there are so many people (even ones I don’t even talk to) I want to thank ❤ Moving forward into my 6th year, I probably won’t make another post like this anytime soon...but I am very hopeful for the future of the SM series and possible Gen. 8 anime late 2019. I also do plan on making some PokéAni-related stuff in my YouTube channel when the time is right, and have the resources to do projects. Keep your eyes out fam 👀LET’S F’N GO!

#The PokémonJesus reflection #P J's thoughts #PokeAni #Pokemon anime #5 years of being in the PokéAni fandom...what a bumpy ride #TPJ Takeover #END_TAKEOVER...good times and good night! Until next post PEACE ✌️