#ramblings about gintama

[joelletwo]

reading thru the The Final utsuro fight visuals with the vocabulary i gained while liveblogging gintama

[VD: the section of the fight that has gintoki and utsuro-in-takasugi's-body slide through reanimated flashbacks to past scenes of the series that cast them as past versions of themselves, shouyou, and takasugi]

bc the maths is insanes

the initial flashback is to their immediately previous silver soul fight - the casting of the conflict as unending, progressless, in utsuro's favor. have either of them appreciably changed since then? is anything different? what is initially an incomplete brief flash - with utsuro still inhabiting takasugi - solidifies when he regresses to his original body and begins to more effectively counter gintoki. utsuro remains on the right throughout.

direct cut from there pulled further back in time to gintoki's immediately previous fight with takasugi's body in shogun assassination - takasugi on the right, giving utsuro in his body the power of Unconscionable Violence (senseless, gleeful, and knowing you well enough to perpetrate it) (joelletwo tags on squeaky toy video, 2023, repeated endlessly every day since)

but it's mutual - gintoki also knows you well enough to turn the tables and get the upper hand back

(not that this meaningfully stops you for long).

direct cut from there slightly forward in time to gintoki's first fight with utsuro in the immediately following farewell shinsengumi, where the revelations overwhelm him and reduce him to being fueled by the pure instinctual anger of The Demonic, a state of losing yourself and your ability to fight effectively (reductionisms, 2023),

conditions where it's all you can do to hold out against an enemy that represents something so big in your psyche,

which he knows about, since he's been that for you before. back in time again to the first (onscreen) takasugi confrontation, right before taking advantage of your precarious mental state to punch you out of the plotline (kraniumet tags on yamameta post addition, 2022)

but utsuro keeps a vice grip on control of the story, surfacing back into the present to stop and reverse his fall mid-air so he can stay anchored in the battle with gintoki,

meaning he remains vulnerable to the weaknesses of the body he's in, which only ever exists anymore in one memory - you're unable to move, only to witness. a third figure is introduced, who is more you than you here, while gintoki remains himself.

the you more you than you accepts death while you watch it approach with helpless despair and terror.

the collapse of utsuro back into the body he inhabits in present invites a re-examining of the series of flashbacks thus far - where the perspective of who controls the focal memory seems to flip from utsuro to gintoki back to utsuro here, does it? the farewell shins->festival transition is 1:1 substitutional, working out so that utsuro-as-takasugi winds back up on the right.

but it isn't utsuro borrowing a strength of his like Violence here - it's, just like in the execution, succumbing to one of his weaknesses. flipping between the two scenes, takasugi's derailing fear of gintoki as a figure becomes gintoki's of utsuro. there's a double elision of takasugi (missing from farewell shins due to his fight with gintoki) so that utsuro becomes both gintokis - making him both the one who looms large, and the one who is destabilized by.

gintoki signifies something huge to utsuro, after all.

he takes up the role he had back then, the one you assigned him from the start, because half of his time always exists in that one moment now as well.

being the one who acts on the story and moves it forward, brings it to an end.

the regression through history continues to child against unbeatable teacher, again the question of if either of you has grown since you met. gintoki becomes the underdog challenger on the right.

the refusal to give up an unwinnable fight, no matter how many times it's tried, the even-back-then way that gintoki becomes a shouyou figure for others, fluidly shifts you forward in time.

the reverse shot, the perspective flip - the identity lines cross.

he drags you through time with him, until you're someone he knows how to beat.

(because, again, you know each other so well as to be losslessly interchangeable, for two opposing souls in the process of finding themselves - conquering themselves - to become indivisible.) (reductionisms translation, 2024) (yamameta ouroboros poem, 2023)

and even when you win - earn by ceaseless trial and effort the right to play his trick back on him and dethrone/defang him by pushing him literally out of frame - ...

he learns from you as well and pulls himself back in by your anchor.

#gintama #sopping wet gintoki posting #undescribed #borrowing the power of gay love to beat ur dad......................... i guess #the kind of thing i could ramble on abt for 5 million words trying to untangle everything i think about. the connections here.............. #but i limit myself kjsdfg so i can come back and use this as a reference for my own confusion lol. this sequence. makes me ILL #videos

[s2pdoktopus]

The brothel experience.

#look. i wanna see more of them and i can't find more of them so I made more of them #i can't always make a clean art XD it can be time consuming. #looks at the fanfics: fine! I'll do the funny myself! #it's funny in my head anyway #sakataka #gintama #subjecting you guys in my brainrot again. featuring! my messy drawings! #feel free to ramble in the tags about your stupid sakataka thoughts. half baked au. fic. headcanon. whatever tell meeeee #i'm starved here. tamanone feeds me but i want more XD #wish i was here when people still talk about them ughhhhh

[imai-nobume]

biromantic asexual tsukuyo. that is all.

#gintama #gintama rambles #tsukuyo #might write a proper post about this eventually

[soppymilkgin]

wonder if one of the things trapping the narrative was not just shouyoutsuro undying but shouyou's guilt? his guilt for letting oboro die and living happily for all those years while he was suffering lead to being arrested lead to the cliff and his guilt for choosing to make connections and inflicting them with the pain and responsibility of dealing with utsuro. we see a lot of sensei feeling terrible and apologizing for everything in the final chapters and theres a relief in seeing gintoki having become a human and simply being there to send him off as yorozuya gin-san. so much of the buildup to the end shows us gin-san's guilt and since shouyou and gin are so *indescribable and indistinguishable* mirror-y, then absolving shouyou's guilt would also play a significant part in ending the series (the eternity)

#im rambling idk has this been said before and im just regurgitating someone else's words #anyway no one able to hurt shouyou like oboro did lmaoo #this is also born from what to do about tomorrow LOL #im sorry its a beautiful fic i will never ever shut about it #i stretch it like putty and engulf canon gintama with it #words

[shutupdia]

Well since i finished Gintama yesterday just wanted to post my overall thoughts regarding it. DEFINITELY my favorite shounen. I've watched Naruto, Bleach, one piece, etc etc and Gintama wins for me. it's mostly comedy yeah and the comedy hits better than a lot of series but bro when it gets more serious its so enthralling. I do admit it's a little difficult to get through the first season hence why i hadn't finished it sooner but after that it's SO good imo. It's hard to say which arc was the best but the Shogun assassination arc was the most emotional for me. The fights in this anime are fucking incredible too. I have a bias and every fight with Kamui was my favorite but anyway. The sword fights are so good ugh. Also the characters in this show are really good. They never sexualized minors either which i appreciate. Gintoki as a protagonist is really great tbh. His personality is not the best like he's often lazy, an alcoholic scumbag, a bit of a pervert. he's not perfect. I like that though. I like it when protags have flaws it makes them more real. But when he needs to be, he'll go to hell and back for people he cares about. Speaking of which i do appreciate there wasn't any romantic subplot. Gintoki just ends up alone by the end of the series. Personally don't mind since i cant see him with anyone in the cast despite a few women seemingly interested in him. Speaking of the entire cast though holy shit. SO many good characters. My favorite female characters are probably Kagura and Tsukuyo. And my favorite male characters probably have to be Kamui, Okita and Takasugi. They're so interesting and fun man....

Overall the show was a blast, not perfect since there was a bit of cringe here and there but no series is perfect i guess. I definitely plan on rewatching it eventually and likely checking out that spinoff series that's coming out soon.

Also i love Kamui so so so so so so much.

#if you haven't noticed i really love Kamui #anyway i fucking love gintama #too bad i didnt watch it while it was airing LOL #although given certain things maybe that was for the best #blah just wanted an excuse to ramble about this series. #dia screams about gintama

[tariah23]

Bobobo bo bobobo was so stupid. I kind of view is as an even more underrated Gintama despite being pure gag while Gintama is like 90% gag with the rest being actual plot that’s more serious and depressing at times. And Gintama is also pretty underrated.

#Gintama was one of my first shounen and bobobo was also one of my first gag series #rambling #I was just watching some bobobo clips and ☠️ #I miss the characters… poppa rocks/ don patch… #sorry for talking about shounen It’s one of the worst genres of all time

[enamamesan]

You know jeff “dude” lebowski’s friend? that guy who seriously needs to be tied with a leash? constantly talking about the vietnam war? yeah that’s the only live action hollywood movie depiction of Katsura Kotarou that I accept with my entire being.

#no because dude’s dynamic with him is basically ginzura fr #katsura kotarou #gintama #gintama katsura #gintama zura #katsura is THE war grandpa who would ramble about the ‘good old days’

[asheoninactive]

I miss gintama

#ashe is rambling #i miss the sillies . #I’ve been thinking about it compared to ososan and like #they both have always Sunny energy #bad people do bad things to each other type of shows #i think ososan is more always Sunny like though if only because #i think everyone in that cast is going to die and go to hell no matter what #whereas Gintama’s cast is . more redeemable #but still #i love u comedy trope of everyone’s horrible and watch them be horrible to each other

[lostusagis]

( I do wonder how a fight with Kamui and Mutsu would end tbh. Mutsu is a Yato too, but she never actually met Kamui. I feel she wouldn't like him immediately given that's she's a no nonsense type person (she works alongside Sakamato high key one of the most insufferable guys ever lol)

But yeah they never explained just how strong she could be. I mean okay, she's not really important to the overall story at all I guess, a really minor side character, but I would've liked to see the extent of her strength and whether she could put Kamui in his place or not. She was friends with his dad too, I wonder if his dad ever mentioned Kamui to her and she was just like:

"Wow I'd never want to meet that guy." Fair enough though. Kamui for one, would immediately try to fight. The minute he opens his mouth too, bullshit comes out.

Kamui is supposedly the strongest Yato by the end of the series I think, although I think it's infinitely funnier if the one Yato he has never met can take him out easily. )

#ooc. #( mutsu is too powerful ) #( would've killed kamui and ended kagura's character arc early if they ever met ) #( if i do ever make a gintama multi i'll probably write her ) #( but yeeeah ignore my ramblings ) #( it's like 8am kinda bored thinking about this series ) #( honestly i know gintama was mostly like comedy and the plot heavy stuff was on the side but ) #( there was like so so much missed potential when it came to the plot heavy related stuff ) #( shout out to that art i once rb'd where ) #( mutsu shot kamui in the head and he's on the floor bleeding out ) #( 10/10 content )

[crehador]

ive looked through your 2023 watched stuff but ive been wondering if youve said anywhere what your favourite animes of all time are ? just curious cus i want more reccs

ooh good question! i am so indecisive and so full of love for so many series that it's always been a bit of a struggle to pick out just a few absolute faves, but here are the first few that come to mind

(i'll try to keep to shorter series here)

and standard disclaimer that everything here is my opinion and my opinion only

best anime of all time: shouwa genroku rakugo shinjuu, and for me nothing even comes close

the story is told over the course of two seasons (the second being shouwa genroku rakugo shinjuu: sukeroku futabi-hen; 25 episodes total) and it is imo just an absolute masterpiece. it's a somber tale, but executed in such a masterful way. the show is centered around rakugo and rakugo performers, and felt to me like not only an incredible story but an incredible performance of the art of storytelling

i don't rewatch this one very often because it makes me so sad, but i think it's a beautiful and worthwhile sort of sadness to experience

best sports anime of all time: kaze ga tsuyoku fuiteiru (23 episodes), and once again nothing even comes close. which means a lot coming from me because i love sports anime i will watch any sports anime i love good ones i love bad ones i love them unconditionally i'm like sports anime georg so 'best sports anime' is maybe even a more significant crown than 'best anime' coming from me lmao

ahem anyway in terms of objective quality there's just nothing that beats kazetsuyo, and i highly recommend it even as a character-centric piece for people who aren't generally into sports anime. it's just that good

side note 1: while i would call kazetsuyo the 'best' sports anime, my personal favorite is eternally kurobas (though it is on the longer side)

side note 2: honorary mention to megalo box, another of my all-time favorites. it's sports + sci-fi so i typically don't count it solely as a sports anime, but i love it to bits. there is a second season that i haven't even seen yet! i've always heard the second season is even better than the first, so i've been saving it for a special day (also i'm a bit scared of it because i was so happy with the ending of the first season that i'm kinda like resistant to change lol)

best anime i can't tell you anything about: so generally i'm of the belief that spoilers don't ruin much for me, if something is done well then it's done well even if i know it's coming. that said, there are a handful of series where i am so glad i went in knowing nothing, so that every twist and turn caught me completely unawares

and the top two i would recommend in this category are samurai flamenco (22 episodes) and sarazanmai (11 episodes)

definitely do look up trigger warnings if you've a need for them! but otherwise, going in knowing nothing really heightened the experience of these for me

they are... strange, and amazing

this is getting long so i'll just dump a bunch of favorites in a list below (some are Great, some are decidedly Not Great but Very Fun and beloved to me lol, and all are 25 episodes or less)

feel free to ask for details if you'd like to hear more about any of these, or if you'd like recs in any specific genres!

acca: 13-ku kansatsu-ka, appare-ranman!, baccano!, barakamon, cool doji danshi, dorohedoro, fantasy bishoujo juniku oji-san to, gankutsuou, gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun, houseki no kuni, ikebukuro west gate park, kimi to boku, kuragehime, paripi koumei, sabikui bisco, tiger & bunny (and its distant cousin double decker! doug & kirill), uchouten kazoku, wotaku ni koi wa muzukashii, yojuhan shinwa taikei, yuru camp

side note 3: just realized tiger & bunny is actually no longer under 25 episodes because we got a second season after like ten years lmao BUT i couldn't bring myself to remove it because it is phenomenal

#asks #long post #sorry this got super rambly lmao #i am always talking too much about anime orz #tried to keep to shorter series here but for longer ones (over 25 eps) some favorites are: #natsume yuujinchou; 3-gatsu no lion; psycho-pass; kurobas; boueibu; jjba; gintama; idolish7; and probably more that i'm forgetting lol #basically the tl;dr of what i would rec is 1) rakugo 2) kazetsuyo 3) depends on what genres you're interested in #thank you for the ask!!

[yamameta-inc]

okay so. i've always thought it was obvious that yoshiwara in flames arc's main relevance to gintama's overall narrative is as the prelude to rakuyou. like it's not thematically very interesting on its own, right? but it exists mainly for kagura and kamui's sake, establishing the sort of parallelism that gintama lives off of. it isn't really that connected to the red spider arc even though at first it might seem to be.

but i had no idea about the meaning of the name "rakuyou" until i saw @suchira 's post about it earlier today. and before that i also hadn't thought about utsuro's connection to the sun, which they've also talked about.

given everything that happens in rakuyou, this has expanded my thoughts quite a bit! i'm going be thinking through this as i go, so this is going to be me rambling.

housen is one of the few big arc villains who don't feel related to gintoki. jirocho, jiraia, oboro, takasugi--these kinds are obviously meant to be foils to gintoki. isaburo functions differently as a character, but even he gets directly compared to gintoki by nobume. but housen isn't really there for gintoki--he's there for kamui. he isn't a particularly interesting character, nor is his death very satisfying because of the wishywashy writing about hinowa showing kindness to him at the end. previously i'd thought that his thing with the sun was just a weaker example of craving something that would destroy you, and/or running away from one's weaknesses and vulnerabilities to the point that you become a sort of husk.

that's probably still a thing, but the introduction of the sun motif on the much more meaning-dense end of gintama adds so much more. because now the pre-existing thematic framework of gintama can do the heavy lifting for housen (who is, again, a pretty uninteresting character), hinowa (who is cool, but suffers from both Woman and Mom in shounen), and tsukuyo (who is very cool, but suffers egregiously from Woman in shounen).

so what is housen, really? he's the guy kamui chose to go with when making his very bad life decisions, the end result of the path he decided to pursue. for simplicity let's call him kamui bad end, though they aren't very comparable in canon itself because housen doesn't come across as nearly self-destructive enough. but the basic logic is that housen is one of those characters who gave up everything in single-minded pursuit of power--he's a flat character because he already "emptied himself out", as kamui says, before the series started. (but then he got scared and lonely, and all that.)

what's funny is that if housen is a bad end, then the guy who he considers his rival automatically comes to mind as an opposed route. i think it would be a serious stretch to call umibouzu the "good end" for kamui, and that's definitely part of the point in how the yato are written. but in any case, kamui clearly looked both ways (insert roads leading to two castles meme) and saw housen stereotypical villain bad end on one side, and his dad on the other. so obviously he chose housen.

rakuyou is a planet where it's always overcast. you could say that kamui chose to leave that "safety" in order to pursue something that shone much brighter to him, even if it would disintegrate him in the end. or, since rakuyou's name invokes the sun, you could say that he chose to flee the place of his weakness and pain, where his family was, like housen deciding to flee the sun and build an underground paradise.

when i go over my gintama cast tarot assignments, i always hesitate over hinowa. is she the Sun? or the Empress? how can i choose? and i think this is essentially the same conundrum. and i think the fact that she's both (thankfully, actual gintama storytelling isn't restricted to 1 character = 1 arcana) also provides us with the best answer here. hinowa is the object of yearning of both housen (as the sun) and of seita (as a mother). obviously, as i said before, the whole seita-hinowa thing is meant to lay the groundwork for kamui's motivations, and is also why he's introduced in this arc in the particular way that he is. but kamui is both seita and housen. he's the child yearning for his mother, but also the warlord who fears the sun so much he'll lock not only himself but countless others into the dark forever. but housen also desperately longed for the sun. kamui looks down on seita for being weak, and he looks down on housen for choosing to drown himself in vices at the end of his life. in the end, he doesn't kill either one of them.

if the sun is what kamui yearns for, he wants to leave rainy "rakuyou" behind--and/or he misses his home, his childhood, his family, even if these things feel like they will destroy him. or, if the sun is what kamui seeks to avoid, he wants to turn away from "rakuyou", all the things that hold him down so that he can throw himself into single-minded pursuit of self-destruction--and/or he's afraid of the weakness and pain that the sun inflicts on him, and desires to be strong enough that he won't feel them. see, a whole lot of words to say the same thing over and over.

i've always assigned housen the Emperor arcana. and i've often wondered, should it be umibouzu instead? should it be utsuro? and that, i think, is another illumination. thank you tarot for being an icon. it's so effective here because gintama is predictably built on parallels, and overlapping arcana assignments are bound to make you think: why?

in the end, housen builds a city underground in order to avoid the sun, but he also severs hinowa's ankles so that he can hold her, the sun proxy, captive in his grasp. he can't bear to feel sunlight, but he can't bear to let it go either. kamui is much the same, but he's young--he thinks he can let it go, his fears and regrets haven't caught up to him yet, because he still has so much to reach for. housen attained the peak of his strength and notoriety, and then there was little left for him.

what else happens in rakuyou? well, oboro and takasugi fight. oboro is sort of a seita figure in his own right, if seita had burned down yoshiwara in hopes that it would drive hinowa running to him. of course, seita didn't know that hinowa couldn't run; and oboro didn't know that shouyou couldn't, either.

but aside from seita and housen, there's another character in yoshiwara who yearns for the sun--not to possess it, but to protect it, to serve it. tsukuyo is an interesting character heavily let down by the realities of living in shounen jump. from my own understanding of sorachi's character, i don't think the following was intentional on his part. but i do think there are real reasons why these parallels are textually present (mainly through gintoki).

tsukuyo is the closest oboro has in this series to someone similar to him. not in the sense of a reflection in the mirror or hole-sided adjacency, but as in someone who sort of has a similar job and background to him. or had, anyway. as i implied earlier, the few, specific, clearly intentional similarities she has with gintoki (hello red spider) bleed over into her similarities with oboro, of course, because gintoki and oboro are... you know. just look at them.

tsukuyo swore herself to hinowa, but technically she was working under housen. she led housen's paramilitary force--fortunately, the hyakka loved her a lot more than the naraku were probably ever able to have an opinion about oboro. i don't think tsukuyo and oboro would ever get along--but they did have the same job. oboro did it in the heavens, tsukuyo did it underground. anyway, hinowa "saved" tsukuyo by teaching her about fighting from inside one's cage, and so tsukuyo gladly walked into the cage, just like oboro returning to the naraku without shouyou. because they thought it would be worth it. and also because tsukuyo had been groomed from a young age for the Hole (apologies to those who haven't read my ouroboros essay), to give up on her selfhood, and also to kill her sensei (hello gintoki). but hinowa remained around, unlike shouyou. tsukuyo never thought she could really free her--but protecting her, being able to see her, was enough.

oboro's life problem is a bit like if hinowa and housen were the same person. but kamui would see in that pairing only a reflection of his parents. and also, kouka is a bit like if hinowa and utsuro were the same person. but utsuro is already like if shouyou and utsuro were the same person--because oboro's actual life problem is that shouyou and utsuro are the same person.

i've spoken a lot about tarot, but the moon in gintama has little to do with the Moon arcana. in gintama it's the backdrop, the symbol of promises--promises made, promises fulfilled, promises held on to dearly whether they can be fulfilled or not. i don't truly think that the sun as represented by hinowa interacts directly with this. but tsukuyo and oboro share moon-related names, and their promises (or rather, their vows of devotion) towards hinowa/shouyou are one-sided. one-sided promises aren't a problem in gintama--our silver-haired protagonist wouldn't be alive if it weren't for them.

if the naraku, if utsuro, if oboro under utsuro is associated with the sun through the yatagarasu, perhaps it's because of the evaporation of the promise through the eclipsing of the moon. shouka sonjuku, after all, burned down, and utsuro emerged from a pyre. and though i think that the sun is overall a motif much more strongly associated with the yato--that which they avoid, are weak to, and secretly long for--i don't think that's incompatible with the crow-meaning.

rabbits can die of loneliness, you know--or they can die from overheating in the sun. i think the question here is, is this a trick question? are those two the same thing?

#i love starting a post with no idea of what my conclusions will be. thoughts can only be sharpened through writing #gintama #kamui #tsukuyo #oboro

[whosname]

Would ya let me ramble for a moment about the first Gintama live-action movie?

I was so wary about it 'cause live-actions are... live-actions, but I have a ton of fun watching it

i mean, from the first scene and then Gintoki's actor badly singing... I guess I'll have to make a justaway keychain for my self.

The beetle hunting adaptation, delicious, laughed more than I should

(I think I miss these idiots more than I thought)

Somehow Kondo is even more creepy in the live-action. yikes.

Shokasonjuko scenes!!!!!!

Oh, I thought Gintoki's wig was weird ('till I saw him in action) but... Kid Gintoki has a HUGE helmet for hair

"But the boogers keep coming" I KNOW, RIGHT?!

(Also, that's a totally big bro Zura scene)

"He's got to stop drinking it, or he'll be diabetic"

The Shinsengumi thing is weird, but it kind of works; specially the "Liar! That's obviously your lying face" scene with Sogo

The dream

I love that Kagura's actress is having the time of her life

Shinpachi admiring the ship made laugh a lot

I hate to play the impulsive punk at my age + the umbrella scene = my favourite part of Benizakura in all of the adaptations

The scene at old man Gengai's shop, I loved it; doesn't make a lot of sense but, I loved it

Have I talked about the costumes? I like the little details, the button on Shinpachi's kimono, the patch on Gin's (the pattern looked a little weird, but whatever), Takasugi's clothes!

Seriously, the Shinsengumi there, it's so fucking weird. Also, Toshi and Gintoki relashioship is better than the relationship they had at that time in the story. I guess I'll see what happens in the second movie.

Short-haired Zura!

"The dumbest samurai in the universe!" <3

"Don't worry, he's my friend"

I got very distracted at the end of Gintoki vs Takasugi 'cause I remembered the comment about Gintoki's actor absurdly long legs on the anime and Takasugi's actor having to shave his legs and being grumpy about it from the bts' gifs.

Also, is Takasugi's actor that short or they used hobbit film techniques?

"Too much sugar, I guess"

kind of missed the Bakuchi Dancer fight, but I guess amanto were expensive

The parachute scene <3

Next! The Rules are Made to be Broken and... I've been searching for the Okita Mitsuba Arc drama but I've only find it with indonesian subtitles so... if you know something... wink-wink nudge-nudge Found it! if anyone need it, hit me up! (maybe not in the best quality and from like 3 different sources, but hey)

#gintama #ramblings #gintama live action

[pomodoko]

Do you have any manga recommendations?

Oh yes! Yes I do! I have a lot of recommendations, actually! I'll put it in keep reading because this post is gonna be loooooong.

Slice of life/Seinen manga:

Hirayasumi: story about a young ex-actor who inherited a little house from one of his only friends, an old lady he met by random.

Skip to Loafer: country bumpkin meets city guy, but this time it's a deep exploration about teenagehood, what it means to work towards your dream, and the complex social situations teenagers have to deal with besides just romance.

Shiori Experience: bumbling English teacher Shiori gets haunted by the ghost of Jimi Hendrix. Because of that, she needs to rise to stardom before she's fully 27 as that will be when she dies. (Fantastic art work, amazing paneling, highly recommend!)

Wonder Cat Kyuu-chan: cute, relaxing 4koma about a smart and competent little cat and his easygoing owner.

Embrace Your Size: autobiography about the artist growing up in a very fatphobic Japan. A short, sweet read. CW: eating disorders, fatshaming.

Yotsubato!: a true slice-of-life manga about a single father and his adopted daughter and their day-to-day escapades.

Sweetness and Lightning: another manga about a single father and his daughter, but this time centers around the dad learning how to cook for his kid now that his wife passed away.

Hakumei to Mikochi: story about a race of little people living in the woods among anthropomorphic animals. Amazing worldbuilding and attention to details.

Romance manga:

A Bouquet for an Ugly Girl: sweet but self-deprecating "ugly" girl meets sunshine puppy dog guy. A story less about changing ones' appearance and more about gaining self-confidence.

The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy At All: cute story about a preppy girl having a meet cute and developing a crush on the nerdy girl in class, but she thought she was a cool emo guy at first.

Fantasy Bishoujo Juniku Ojisan to: genderbend isekai, but it's actually very gay and very good! Can't say much else, but the comedy is on point and the two leads are super closeted it's insane.

Majo-Senpai Nichijou: in a modern fantasy setting, a businessman falls in love with the witch in his department. A very sweet romance.

Ajin-chan wa Kataritai: another modern fantasy setting where a school teacher finds out that his school has several fantasy creatures as students. Has a really nice romantic build up (not with the students) and cool worldbuilding.

Beware of the Villainess!: actually a manhwa about a woman who got reincarnated into a villainess of some pretty sketchy romance novels. Sick of all the horrible male leads, she sets off on her own to make a life for herself.

Action/Adventure manga:

Kuutei Dragons: a massive, expansive world that has a culture in dragon hunting. Fantastic worldbuilding, creature art, and character writing.

Dungeon Meshi: an adventure party has to travel deeper into the dungeon to rescue the male lead's sister who was eaten by a dragon. Another manga with amazing worldbuilding and character/creature art.

Tondemo Skill de Isekai Hourou Meshi: normal guy gets isekai'd, but he's not a hero at all. He's just a dude whose skill is grocery shopping online and he gets roped into cooking for mythical creatures somehow.

Mairimashita! Iruma-kun: human boy gets adopted by devils and gets sent to devil school. Actually really sweet!

Natsume Yuujinchou: human boy who can see spirits receives a book of names from his late grandmother. Names have power, and those names belong to spirits who would do anything to get them back.

One Piece: top best selling manga of all time that's been going since 1997. It's still good, believe it or not.

Gintama: another old classic. One of the funniest gag manga I've ever read, though sometimes the jokes get too rambly but that depends on your taste. Aliens have invaded Edo Japan and almost all samurai have been wiped off the face of the Earth!

I have so many others I'd like to recommend, but for now I hope you'll find something good among all I've listed.

#manga #manga recommendation #manga rec list #long post #my ask #Anonymous

[tariah23]

Ppl never talk about gintama, soul eater, houshin engi (CLASSIC, my god), and zatch bell whenever they bring up shounen like it sucks so bad

#they do this with yyh too even tho it’s togashi’s like magnum opus to ME #emo… #I feel like it’s because of gintama and soul eater not airing on like American television blocks like toonami/adult swim back when it really #mattered #zatch bell is so good it’s just… 😭 no one ever talks about it ksksk #it’s a damn shame that ppl don’t even know what houshin engi even is… it’s such a great series and I miss it a lot! #still crying at the fact that houshin engi was still a big inspo to nasu and writing/ characters… like that explains sm things…. #rambling #gintama and the others didn’t even get serialized in the NA releases of the jump magazines either….. #well I have the volume where gintama was featured as a preview back when it first started to get localized but :( #that jump magazine is from 2005 or so too it’s raggedy as hell and my friend from that time bought it for me from our school’s book fair #in 5th grade- so that was my first time learning about gintama lol

[ravenboysandcrows]

welcome to my blog!

"What about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. That was how you survived when you weren't chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway." - Inej Ghafa, Crooked Kingdom

Hello! Welcome to my goofy little blog. I’m Maya, I’m 15, and I’m a really delusional hopeless romantic and dreamer. This is just a random little thing I decided to start. I will mainly be reblogging things and occasionally I might add a headcanon or little rambling/thought I have. As my bio says, I am obsessed with fictional bird boys, so the Raven Boys from the Raven Cycle and the Crows from Six of Crows.

some basic info about me: white/caucasian, she/they, fifteen, lesbian, infp, scorpio, ravenclaw, sweet tea addict, cat lover, huge reader, introvert, english and history lover, autumn stan, apple music > spotify, folklore and evermore girlie, kinda mentally unstable (😅), perfectionist, suffers from a lot of burn out

Hobbies: reading, listening to music, writing fanfiction, watching anime, napping, baking, hiking, deep intellectual conversations and debates, playlist-making, procrastinating, overthinking everything at 3 a.m.

Artists: Phoebe Bridgers (probably my favorite), Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus, boygenius, Mitski, beabadoobee, Taylor Swift, Cavetown, Lizzy McAlpine, Searows, Bon Iver, Iron & Wine, Jason Isbell, Elliott Smith, Death Cab for Cutie, Bright Eyes, the Lumineers

Books: Six of Crows duology, the Raven Cycle, King of Scars duology, Lonely Castle in the Mirror, the Secret History, Normal People, Conversations with Friends, Legends and Lattes, the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, Into the Wild, Slaughterhouse Five

TV Shows + Movies: Coraline, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Spy x Family, Skip and Loafer, Fruits Basket, A Silent Voice, Gintama, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Haibane Renmei, Natsume’s Book of Friends, basically any Studio Ghibli movie, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wolfwalkers, the Breadwinner, Juno, the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, Shadow and Bone, Lockwood and Co.

Characters: Wylan Van Eck, Inej Ghafa, Nina Zenik, Jesper Fahey, Ronan Lynch, Adam Parrish, Blue Sargent, Noah Czerny, Francis Abernathy, Connell Waldron, Coraline Jones, Alphonse Elric, Yuki Sohma, Saki Hanajima, Shoya Ishida, Kagura Yato, Natsume Takashi, Ash Fox (not a furry I promise 😭)

Thank you for visiting my blog! Feel free to ask or message me anytime!

#introduction #get to know me #phoebe bridgers #six of crows #the raven cycle #pinned post #about myself