#also I know in animation it’s scene and sequence instead of shot and scene

[heyclickadee]

Because I have a tendency to get stuck in art blocks and s t r u g g l e badly with composition, and because I think The Bad Batch is a beautifully shot show, I’ve started doing rough grayscale studies of bad batch to unpack how line and value can be used to direct a viewer’s eye to where people want the audience to look. (I’m doing it with other movies and shows, but I do really like TBB, so….) That way, if I’m sitting in a period where I can’t draw, then maybe I can at least learn something. It’s not fan art, it’s just trying to break the composition down and make it make sense to me, but I think it’s interesting so I figured I’d throw them all here.

So! Potentially very boring things under the cut:

The thing that started this off was getting sent a gifset of the scene in “The Return” where Wrecker gives Crosshair his armor back. It’s a great scene, and one of the things that allows for the show to pull that moment off is the way that most everything in many of the shots is designed to draw the viewer’s attention to Crosshair’s face so that we’re paying attention to his reaction. For example:

It’s not a very high contrast shot, but if we block out the basics, most of the lines in the scene are directing us towards Crosshair. Both Wrecker and Omega make movements towards him in this shot, and then this movement is sort of carried over to Crosshair via the various lines in the background/Wrecker’s arm/even the crate. Additionally, our eyes tend to be drawn towards points of highest contract, which, in this shot, include the lamps in the far background against the pillars (forming a line from Wrecker to Crosshair) and the light hitting Crosshair’s face against the much darker background. Between all of this most people in the audience are going to end up automatically looking right at Crosshair who is, of course, the main person we’re supposed to paying attention to here.

This isn’t actually a full frame. I sort of grabbed a screenshot over the interwebs for this one, but The Bad Batch actually has a very wide aspect ratio. From what I understand it’s shot and aired in a CinemaScope ratio (2:39:1 or 2:35:1, though TBB is 2:39:1). It’s basically super ultra widescreen, an aspect ratio used when a filmmaker wants to make something feel more epic or cinematic, and as far as I know it’s the same aspect ratio used for the original trilogy before any cropping happened. (For reference, The Clone Wars was also shot in a CinemaScope ratio, 2:35:1, but was cropped to 16:9 for airing on Cartoon Network, and Rebels was shot and aired in 1:78/more or less 16:9.) So an uncropped screenshot of TBB would look more like this:

This is from “The Outpost.” It’s actually a fairly dark shot with Crosshair faced away from the camera and the value of his figure blending right into the rest of the foreground, which actually comes communicate a sense of someone who isn’t trying to draw attention to themselves (to me, anyway), but our eyes are drawn to Crosshair anyway by every major line in the shot as well as the highest point of contrast converging right over Crosshair’s shoulder. That, and the line of his rifle/shoulder and the support pole forming a big, well, cross-hair right in that same spot. Otherwise, he would blend right into the foreground and be easier to miss.

Unlike Hunter in this shot from “Plan 99”

Where basically you’ve got the exact same thing happening, every line in the shot converges on Hunter’s location, but instead of using just high contrast to draw our attention, we’ve got a fairly middle-gray scene with our eyes being drawn to the focal point by having one bright spotlight.

The orange cross mark I’ve drawn here is just to mark the center of the frame, which I wanted to point out since, at least as far as I’ve noticed, TBB has a tendency to save center and slightly off-center shots for really specific moments. I’d have to check on that and what the pattern is, though, since a few of the remaining shots in this post are center shot. (Filmmakers area generally taught shoot in thirds or, alternatively, on a phi grid or other away from center set of focal points, though you do get some center shot movies and shows. I think Raiders of the Lost Arc has a lot of center shots.)

In fact, a pretty good example of shooting in thirds (or on a phi grid—I laid it out and I think it fits the phi grid slightly better) is this shot from “Faster”

Where you’ve got Tech and Tay-0 placed on slightly close thirds on either side of the frame. If we’re just looking at line and value, with this shot we actually get this sort of interesting back and forth between where our eye is being drawn. A lot of the lines in the shot are directing us to look at Tech, but then you’ve got one of the lines going through, and the sweep of Tech’s arm and datapad pointing towards, Tay-0, whose face and body are outlined with a much higher contrast in value. And then we have that one very bold arc connecting the two. The result of this is that our eyes sort of bounce back and forth between these two characters as they get into their conversation.

Most of these shots have had just one or two (at most three) characters, and there are many scenes of TBB with everyone where our gaze is sort of directed to the group collectively, but sometimes you’ll have group scene where our attention is directed more towards one individual than others, like with this shot from “Battle Scars”

Once again, you’ve got most of the lines in the shot converging towards Rex as well as Rex’s person serving as the point of highest contrast while everyone else sort of melds into the background in terms of value. He’s also the first (and maybe only) figure who breaks fully above objects in the background to be shot directly against the sky. Line and value aren’t the only things directing the audience’s gaze towards Rex in this shot—there’s actually a lot of desaturation happening as we move from Rex, to the other characters, to the far background that helps as well, buuuuut this is a grayscale breakdown so that unfortunately doesn’t show up...here. (This is a center shot scene if we’re going horizontally, but Rex’s head, which is really the focal point, is right around the top third of the frame; it’s not exactly a low angle shot, but we are still looking up at him.)

Anyway, the reason any of this is important is because when you’re shooting with an incredibly wide aspect ratio like this, there’s a LOT of information being conveyed with every frame. You can fit a lot of stuff on screen at once. And while people generally going to rewatch and pay attention to background details (if nothing else, TBB is a goldmine for those background details), you do want to draw your audience’s attention to the most important parts of the frame—especially when an individual shot typically lasts only a few seconds. Or less. Like with this:

So this shot from "Faster" is up for less than a second before the camera turns to follow the speeders and then changes to another shot, and I had a devil of a time even getting screengrab of it. (Mostly because I was trying to grab it on my phone, but that's not really the point.) In less than a second the people making this have to communicate where Tech's speeder is, what's happening, what we're even looking at, while the objects in the scene are all moving incredibly fast. .

So, to communicate that, you've got multiple speeders moving in the shot, but only one (Tech's) standing out in terms of value against a fairly dark ceiling, as well as a combination of some real direct one-point linear perspective and the more or less arrow shape of the ramp pointing directly at the point Tech's speeder is going to be when it reaches the peak of its crest over the ramp. That way we're already looking at where Tech is going to be before he gets there and end up following his speeder as he zooms by.

[youryurigoddess]

Gabriel’s (missing) cross

Let’s put everything we know about that spooky statue of the Archangel Gabriel in one thread to make the conversation about its possible meaning as a Good Omens 3 clue more structured. Starting off with the relevant part of the official commentary from X-Ray:

Douglas Mackinnon got one thing wrong in his part of the interview — Gabriel wasn’t carved by “some guy in Italy,” but a British sculptor and prop maker David Field working as a part of the team at 3DEye in London.

Technically speaking, it’s a gorgeous piece of hand-carved expanded polystyrene with a clay sculpted head on top of it — even if the Archangel’s smug likeness isn’t that pleasant to look at, all things considered. The scenic artists from 3DEye made it look like stone afterwards.

The body itself took ten days to sculpt and is a faithful copy of the famous statue on Ponte Sant'Angelo in Rome called Angel with the Cross by Ercole Ferrata. It stands on the inscription “Cuius principatus super humerum eius” (“Whose government shall be upon His shoulder”, Isaiah 9:16), and this quote makes much more sense for Gabriel than the cross in his hands. The usual iconography of the Archangel uses a trumpet or a white lily instead.

Ponte Sant'Angelo was originally used to expose the heads of those sentenced to death — each of the angelic statues on it carry Arma Christi, the Instruments of the Passion. Like the Second Coming, what seems to be a hopeful message to the Chosen Ones can also be a warning for the others.

The statue of Gabriel, first shown in full in the cemetery scene of the Good Omens 2 title sequence, reappears at the very end as a part of the bridge leading to the biggest Easter egg — at least according to Peter Anderson, the animator behind it — which is the lift in the background, implying how we’re getting closer towards the Second Coming. Notice how the cross broke down in half at some point between these two scenes!

And it disappears in the plot as well: Gabriel’s memory depicts it only from his point of view, with the camera deliberately moving slightly to the right and stopping at his eye level. The centered, establishing shots show the statue with empty hands as a bookend.

I believe that this cross is meant to serve as a foreshadowing, a reminder of the absolution of sins and eternal life through Christ’s sacrifice and Second Coming. We see it only through Gabriel and Aziraphale’s eyes — when Beelzebub looks at the statue, the cross is not there.

As seen in the BTS photos and videos, it’s not an editing error, but a deliberate positioning of the physical props on set. The cross was clearly meant to be a removable part of the statue and displayed in a specific way to convey a message to the audience.

The question remains: is it a reassurance, something to look forward to, or maybe rather a warning?

Not helpfully at all, the traditional use of angelic imagery in Christian cemeteries matches both interpretations.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Theory: LX intended for CXS to dive to save LG

Preface and disclaimer: this is kind of an out-there theory; more a few loose thoughts that I found interesting to think on - I fully expect that some or all of this will turn out to be totally wrong. Link Click loves showing us scenes only to later have them be revealed as either a) shown out of order, or b) recontextualized by further info we weren't initially privy to. I fully expect this will be the case in s3.

For now though, concerning Cheng Xiaoshi's death, Yingdu arc is what we have to work with. And there's a particular scene that really, really bothers me: the very opening confrontation against Vein.

(Actually, there's a lot that bothers me. There are multiple timeline inconsistencies that can't simply be explained by animation error - the most egregious is CXS figuring out his powers by diving alone when he had to figure that out in s1, well after the point many timeline changes had already occurred that would directly lead to the events of s2, our current timeline. It makes my head hurt. That's why this post is not about the inconsistencies, even though it bothers me that I cannot come up with a good explanation for this atm. My best guess is that multiple possibilities or potentials are collapsing in on a singular timeline due to LX, SYY and/or LG's actions but I really don't know. Whatever. On with the theory.)

Let's start with a key assumption. If this assumption is proven to be wrong later, then the theory very much falls apart, but I feel fairly confident about this for now.

Assumption: CXS's death scene from Yingdu episode 1 is the original timeline, as is the dive back to the basketball court.

The reason I think this is from both a narrative standpoint and a character one. From a narrative standpoint, it makes sense to show us either the first timeline or the most recent one after s2's cliffhanger ending. These are the timelines that actually have consequences for our story. Here, we see a lot of focus given to the transfer of Cheng Xiaoshi's power, and his dying request of Lu Guang. This dying request, to save everyone, is referenced in a later nightmare sequence, where Lu Guang is reminded that everyone has died. I don't think it makes much sense to focus on Cheng Xiaoshi's final words in a repeated timeline, unless they were framed as something Lu Guang has clearly heard before, which, they weren't.

Which brings me to the main reason I believe this is the original timeline: Lu Guang's reaction.

He's in shock for much of the events here - doesn't look at all like he knows or knew what was about to happen. If this wasn't the original timeline, I would expect him to look more desperate and sad than shocked. His reaction after diving also doesn't make much sense to me if this isn't the first dive he's attempted. Again, I'd expect him to look more haunted and sullen if this is a repeat. Instead, he looks around at his clothes and at his surroundings for a bit before getting hit by the ball, sees Cheng Xiaoshi, gasps and immediately tears up. <- Not the reaction I'd expect from a man used to diving.

Hopefully, you either agree with me or can at least suspend your disbelief enough to hear me out.

Let's go over what's odd about the initial Vein confrontation, yes?

Vein never actually shoots or even aims at Cheng Xiaoshi

"This is the punishment for you changing the past."

Vein doesn't finish off Lu Guang afterwards

Point 1: Vein knocks Cheng Xiaoshi back and twirls his gun. A few seconds pass in which Vein does not aim at Cheng Xiaoshi at all, just stands there, maybe to make sure he stays down. Lu Guang rounds the corner and Vein immediately fires a shot at him.

If Vein wanted to kill Cheng Xiaoshi, he could've already done it here. He's fast. He fired that shot at Lu Guang in a split second. The implication here is that Cheng Xiaoshi was not the target - the target was Lu Guang.

Point 2: Vein tells Lu Guang that his actions are punishment for changing the past. If we go by the assumption that this is the original timeline, this... doesn't make much sense. Lu Guang doesn't have the power to change the past without Cheng Xiaoshi's ability. It suggests that Vein is not after them here because of Lu Guang's attempt(s) to save Cheng Xiaoshi, but for some other deviation.

Conclusion? This is a shared punishment. In the original timeline, it seems very likely that Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi made some kind of change, or changes, to the past. <- This may actually explain why Lu Guang in the current timeline is so adamant about Cheng Xiaoshi not changing anything.

It is possible that the combination of their powers resulted in some kind of significant deviation, or else that they were mistaken for or had the blame pinned on them for someone else's actions. Either way, Vein seems to only gun for one of them, but it's not the one I'd expect.

After all, if this is a punishment for changing the timeline (and presumably, you wouldn't want them changing anything else), why wouldn't you shoot the guy who actually... makes the changes? Why try to shoot Lu Guang?

Well... maybe you would if you actually wanted the exact opposite outcome.

Vein misses Lu Guang several times in this scene. It's a little strange, given that he's been backed into a corner and his attempt to fight back does him no good at all. You can see in his fight against Shao Yuanyuan/Wang Qing in episode 6 that he does have good aim and is actually fairly efficient with his objectives. You could say he's toying with him, and maybe so! Vein clearly loves a good fight. Much like Liu Xiao, he has the vibe of a "hunter". But Vein also is stated to have a certain set of principles. To me, it feels like he's putting on a show.

This brings me back to the main question: why didn't he try to shoot Cheng Xiaoshi? Why kill everyone connected with them and attempt to kill Lu Guang, ostensibly as "punishment", when Cheng Xiaoshi is the one who can actually dive?

Point 3: Lu Guang helps Cheng Xiaoshi into the darkroom and locks the door. Vein fires a shot but then just kind of... stands there, grimacing. He doesn't even try to break the door down, which I'm sure he easily could. <-This is the weirdest part of the scene.

I don't think this was supposed to happen. I don't think Cheng Xiaoshi was intended to take that bullet.

I think Vein put on that show, wanting Cheng Xiaoshi to see him shoot Lu Guang. I don't think Vein expected Cheng Xiaoshi to dive in front and die.

You could say that Vein just decided to wait outside for Lu Guang to come out instead of exerting energy, but that's strange because in the time afterwards, from 23:11 on September 12th when they stumbled into the darkroom to just a little before 00:05 on September 13th when he leaves, Lu Guang gets injured, but is left alive, and Vein is nowhere to be seen. There is absolutely no way Lu Guang was able to fend off Vein, and the only other possible sign of a continued skirmish is more blood on the photo and its positioning (this could be an animation error, truthfully - everything else in the scene is the same as before - but if it is an error then that helps my point even more - there are no further signs of struggle).

The police didn't arrive and force Vein to leave. The implication is Vein left Lu Guang alive after waiting patiently outside the door for him to come out. Why? Why wait?

Well, one possible explanation: he didn't want to interrupt the power transfer.

Think about it. Why leave one alive, but kill everyone else? If it was to avoid them making changes, only one of the pair with the actual powers needs to die. Not everyone connected to them. This situation seems explicitly orchestrated to make it so Cheng Xiaoshi cannot resist diving back. I suspect he was already intending to - if you look at the scene where Lu Guang glances down at the shattered photo, his breath hitches - I suspect Qiao Ling is already dead and they know that.

Cheng Xiaoshi's last request is to save everyone, since he is now unable to - he cannot take the shot himself, so he passes the ball to the person he trusts most. And I think this was the goal all along. In a situation like this, how could he not try to save them? Especially if, as I suspect, the rules regarding past and future weren't made quite as strict in this timeline as they are in the current one.

Except this didn't go quite according to plan, because in epic Cheng Xiaoshi fashion, he did something that wasn't anticipated and died in Lu Guang's stead. Not ideal, clearly, from Vein's reaction, but it doesn't actually matter.

All that matters is that one of them dives back. The outcome is the same.

Why kill everyone, but leave one alive, and with a power that will allow them and inevitably tempt them to try to save their loved ones? The most obvious answer is if this is exactly the outcome you wanted.

--

Now, why do I say Liu Xiao intended this if the main actor here was Vein? Well, for one, Vein doesn't seem aware in Yingdu arc of changes to the timeline, except in this scene. Needless to say, he is definitely not privy to Lu Guang having future knowledge - Lu Guang is suspicious to him, but it does not seem to occur to Vein that he could be from the future. This information likely comes from Liu Xiao, who Vein works with during the arc to obtain Cheng Weimin's book and who unzips his body bag at the end of the season. Out of anyone who could've orchestrated this, our favourite puppeteer manipulator is the most likely candidate.

I won't claim to know what's going on with Liu Xiao, nor what his goals actually are, but I suspect he has at least some future knowledge or is somehow able to catch glimpses of parallel lines. He comes across as much older in the flashbacks with him and Li Tianchen as children. There is an odd bit in Yingdu episode 2 during the roulette scene where there is a flash to the gun killing him. Metaphor or vision? It's hard to say.

Interestingly, in the Bridon pv, Liu Xiao looks back at Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang in the airport and smiles but does not approach them. Lu Guang even mentions that they didn't run into Liu Xiao in the past timeline.

At the end of episode 1, in the current timeline, Liu Xiao says "Finally, we can start the game." It implies that all the pieces are finally in place. This may be why he approaches Cheng Xiaoshi in the airport and asked Xia Fei to trail him, expecting him to have dived back from the future.

I suspect his knowledge isn't perfect. Liu Xiao is a gambler. He's not like Lu Guang, who needs to have perfect control and anticipate every outcome. He wasn't really paying much attention to Lu Guang at all until he noticed something strange - ostensibly his heartbeat. Again, I suspect the person he intended to have dive was Cheng Xiaoshi. Lu Guang was not expected - but he can still work with this, and clearly does, because at no point does it seem like any of Lu Guang's actions or knowledge disrupted his plans. Instead, it seems like everything is going smoothly because of his actions.

Everything Lu Guang does, including his decision to stall Vein and try to get him killed, seems to work out in Liu Xiao's favour. I suspect, inadvertently, that Lu Guang is doing exactly what he wants him to. Lu Guang's only real moment of "masterminding" is therefore implied to have been anticipated. Liu Xiao smiles when Xia Fei receives the call about Vein's "death", as if he knew.

"You might have seen something interesting."

It checks out. This frame from Train Trail during his verse says "the puppets are standing" over everyone's silhouettes - including Lu Guang. Lu Guang is also frequently shown as either trapped or drowning in official art and in Yingdu - if he was intended to be a mastermind on equal footing with Liu Xiao, I really don't think we'd see so much of his feelings of helplessness, nor his repeated assertions that he essentially has no idea what he's doing and doesn't actually expect the outcome to change. Liu Xiao doesn't seem to have any such compunctions or concerns in this sense.

If Lu Guang does turn out to have been essentially manipulated into this situation, it would follow a particular pattern seen in Link Click. There are characters who enact control over others but are ultimately being puppeteered or manipulated (Liu Min trying to control what is said about him comes to mind, as does Li Tianchen's literal control, to an extent), as well as characters who, through desperation and/or love, and the limited options available to them in their shitty situations, become complicit in something immoral and suffer for it (Emma taking the money from Zhu, Li Tianxi being the other half of the remote control, Vivian becoming a scammer). If Liu Xiao really did orchestrate Lu Guang's dive, then Lu Guang would follow both these patterns, as a puppet with the power of future knowledge that can (and perhaps has) hurt others, and as a victim who made a desperate choice and is now trapped by its consequences.

One last bit of evidence - this time explicitly about Liu Xiao.

^Everyone is familiar with 091305 by now. September 13th at 12:05 am. The date and time Lu Guang dived back from. However, something interesting here: the year is blurred out.

Moreover, I see people say sometimes that this is Cheng Xiaoshi's death date - it isn't. Remember the time from when they were in the darkroom? Cheng Xiaoshi's death occurred on September 12th, just a little past 11:11 pm.

Here's one last fun thing before I close out this post:

Liu Xiao, why does the date on your Tetris game-over say September 12th, 2024 when Yingdu arc takes place in 2019? I wonder whose game-over this could be?

[doctorbunny]

A little speculation about Corpse Disposal and J-horror

But I'm a little bored so sharing a part-theory, part-headcanon on Muu and Rei

So we unfortunately don't see much of Rei in "Its not my fault" but I want to point out three key times we do

The first time we see Rei in the MV, is her wet sleeve (we know its not Muu because Muu wears a pink jumper under her blazer)

Then, after a lot of bug stuff, we're finally back in the real world, where Muu has just killed her Post-After Pain. In INMF, we don't see the surroundings as well, just the dirt track and bushes. But in AP, we see this is right next to a rushing river (Muu's undercover card also features a bridge as a landmark)

The next time we see Rei after her corpse, is a flashback to the start where she turns the hourglass over. Then it cuts just further back to before Rei stood up - as she pulls herself up off the floor She's alive and absolutely soaked after a session of intense bullying (which we saw Muu insert herself into in AP)

However, I want to now switch a little to talk about cinematography and a concept called the Kuleshov effect The video I linked is pretty concise but the gist is that if you put two shots next to each other, even if they were filmed separately, the brain interprets it as a continuous scene (so if you film a character looking off screen, then a picture of an apple on a table, we're going to assume they're looking at the apple)

Therefore while we understand chronologically that the sequence of events is Rei (wet and alive) -> Rei's murder on dry land ↺ Flashback to Rei still wet and alive Which I think everyone understood as a commentary on how this power struggle was a constant cycle of the hourglass being turned over

I think visually, it also implies a sequence like Rei was bullied -> Muu kills her -> Sopping wet, Rei crawls back to the classroom

But wait! That sequence suggests a missing step How did Rei get wet again?

Well, we know Muu killed her next to a river And if you were a scrawny teenage murderer with a body on your hands, would you leave it there where someone could see it while you grab a shovel and stand in broad daylight digging a hole in tough ground??? Or try lighting a fire in public??? Of course not!

It'd be much easier for Muu to, in a panic, just roll her body into the convenient river and let all the evidence wash away!

(Of course, if Muu was panicking, she might not have been very careful. Given she ended up in MILGRAM, there must've been something tying Muu to Rei's death and in T2 Muu seems to have finally remembered losing her left shoe...)

Fun fact: this is the same shoe Cinderella loses in the animated Disney film (and the best known version of that story came into English from France)

Shoe break over, back to the Endless Queen's Game

So, if we assume Rei's corpse was thrown in the river, what does it matter? Its just a pointless headcanon

But I speculate the meaning goes deeper!

So that image of Rei, soaking wet, crawling off the floor reminded me of something: J-horror ghost girls! Specifically the most famous of ghost girls Samara/Sadako Who became a vengeful spirit after being thrown in a well and now crawls out of TVs to kill people who watched her VHS tape

Her story too is a cyclical one (its called 'Ring' for a reason), the only way to break the curse is to copy the tape and have someone else watch it, who will then become the victim unless they can themselves copy the tape and show it to another unsuspecting patsy

The story goes back further because this movie is based on a novel, which is based on the legend of 番町皿屋敷 Banchou Sara Yashiki. There are many versions but generally a maid girl Okiku is proposed to, and when she rejects the proposal, her master breaks one of ten plates and promises to forgive her if she marries him. When she declines again, he beats her to near death then throws her into a well (sometimes it's a jealous mistress instead of a master)

Interestingly, Atrophaneura alcinous (swallowtail butterfly) larvae found in Japanese wells became known as Okikumushi お菊虫 (Okiku bugs), tying back to the whole insect thing...

It's been said a bunch now, but the name 'Rei' can be read as 霊 meaning ghost (seen in words like Yuurei 幽霊, a more common word for ghost than Rei on its own)

We know Muu is afraid of ghosts too (though I must admit she says Obake, not yuurei, but both words refer to ghosts)

Remembers the i/井 in Sakurai/櫻井 can be read as 'well' I'm sure that has nothing to do with anything

Uh, I can't think of a conclusion because its 1 am and I had to look up a bunch of spooky images

TL;DR: I think Muu may have quickly shoved Rei's body into the river next to where the murder happened (maybe forgot her shoe at the scene of the crime) and now she's scared by the cycle continuing and Rei coming back to haunt her

[rikeijo]

A very deep dive into Yuri!!! on ICE canon #2

One thing that is for sure not talked about enough in the fandom is how ingenious Yamamoto Sayo is as a director & as an artist.

YoI is an masterclass of intertextuality and symbolism, and it isn't possible to talk about all of it in just one post, but I thought it would be fun to look into it in a series of posts~✨

In other words: I'm sure that a lot of people noticed it before, but let's discuss the hidden story of YoI, that's actually not so hidden if you look closely enough, to appreciate the art that this anime is.

~ Topic #1 ~

Blue, purple and red

I'm sure most people, who watched YoI noticed that these three colors have a special role in the story.

Of course they are Stammi vicino costumes' colors.

But they are also used in the OP in the same configuration:

It may be not as obvious, but the same colors are also used for DVD/Blu-ray vol. 1 & 6 covers, again in the same configuration: Yuuri always blue, Victor - purple and red.

So what is the meaning of these colors, because that's definitely not a coincidence, if they are used so often as a set...?

Let's look into what the show tell us.

One of the most important scenes in episode 1. is the scene of Yuuri/Victor skating Stammi vicino. The scene takes place one evening in Hasetsu/Tokyo.

The episode starts during the day. When Yuuri talks to Mari, it's still very bright outside. Then the sun starts to set, the evening falls and this is the shot that shows us this:

Blue to purple to red spectrum.

Then we see that the World Championships start, and Yuuri, instead of watching with Minako, heads to Ice Castle Hasetsu, where he meets with Yuuko.

Before Yuuri starts skating, we are shown this long shot:

Have you ever noticed the color parallel?

Yuuko, a girl, wearing red, and Yuuri, a boy is wearing blue... In the distance, we see doors leading to bathrooms, painted with the same two colors:

That's not the only instance, when the gender of the character is indicated like that in the show, but this idea most likely came from one of YoI's inspirations - Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Genderqueer Hedwig (created and played by JCM, one of Victor's models) -> men's/women's bathroom's door behind her

But we have this question to answer - why show something so obvious - that Yuuri is a boy and Yuuko is a girl - in the visual, symbolic layer of the show? Like, isn't that clear that Yuuri is a boy, and Yuuko is a girl? Why did she need the colors to show us this?

Well, Yuuko isn't the only person wearing shades of red in this scene, is she?

Throughout this scene, we jump from Yuuri to Victor to Yuuko, and at the same time - we jump between these two colors. For example, this is an actual sequence that starts around 16:20:

So now, from the three Stammi vicino colors, we have two - red and blue.

And if these colors are mixed together, what do we get? As the sunset shot shows us - the answer is purple. Purple is in-between blue and red.

Purple is in-between genders.

If you are not sold that this was intentional, may I introduce you to what Sagiri Yuuko, costume designer, said about the Eros costume:

(...) I made the same design in two different colors, in darker colors to suit an adult - black version and purple version. If Yuuri is to wear the costume, then you could visualize that it should be blue, but for this costume, 'femininity' was also required, so I made it purple. (...) <source>

So...

Blue, that isn't femininity + femininity = purple

Blue + red = purple

Masculinity + femininity = in between genders, or as Victor says in ep. 3 'At that time, I had long hair, so I chose a costume that represents both a man and a woman'

(as we all know, the black version was used in the show, and we are shown that purple is Victor's color)

Now, let's see the scene, when we first hear teenage, long-haired Victor talking (ep. 7):

Blue, purple and red (and I really like it how she made him extend his hand like this to touch the red 😆)

Blue and pink flowers...

That's only just the beginning....✨✨✨

Isn't Sayo just a genius?

[aristaspark]

Do you believe Brooklynn has feelings for Darius?

Hellooo, I really don't think she does! (who's surprised honestly?) No but fr I need to stop writing essays on this topic 😂 Thank god i'm an insomniac.

I know people are convinced she loves him back because she didn't *actually* reject him and instead said "I'm not really ready for..." but if you look closely at the sequence, the way they animated her body language and facial expressions is much more telling than her words (at least to me), and it led to me agreeing with Darius' recollection of this moment (she tried to be nice about it but it was clear she didn't feel the same).

Like, I don't see how anyone can see that and think she's in love 😭 THAT'S the face of love according to this fandom???? She looks horrified at the mere possibility that Darius could feel anything other than friendship towards her.

Also important to note that she started saying "I just don't think..." before changing her choice of words, and to me it's a clear sign she was about to reject him more directly, but couldn't do it, so instead she went for an answer that would spare his feelings.

And when you add the shot of her putting distance btw them by moving her feet away from him as if she suddenly felt uncomfortable with their proximity... Why would you physically recoil as the person you *supposedly* love confesses to you?

To me if the writers had wanted to indicate that deep down she wanted to be with Darius, but couldn't in this moment because it was too soon (as she said)/for Kenji's sake, they would have had her say the same thing, but have her body instinctively move closer to him as a physical manifestation of her "true feelings" (...which it is, but it moved away, you do the math).

Also the fact that right after that she still asks him to meet with her for her investigation. I don't know, I think that if she felt anything towards him she would have been as embarrassed/uncomfortable as him, but here she brushed it off as if it was nothing. She had no problem with the idea that she would see him later that day, as if to her there was nothing more to be said/this "incident"/chapter was closed.

I already talked about the look during the plane scene so I'm not going to do it again.

From a story standpoint, it would be really questionnable writing if she suddenly fell in love with someone a week after her partner of 6 years dumped her.

And I absolutely cannot see them throw the "she was in love with Darius while dating Kenji" excuse at us, like, that's straight up character assassination. I know they made Brook morally grey but you can't come back from that 😂. Also, it would go against what they showed in the two first seasons because she looked really in love with Kenji (how devastated she looked when he broke up, how happy they were on the video on her phone, how physically affectionate she was with him in episode 3, the picture of them in her secret apartment...).

And this.

I didn't think my biggest evidence for Kenlynn would be some scribbles on a notebook, but oh well 😂

Like, one simply cannot explain this away. This was her attempt at telling them she was alive, and she only wrote to Kenji, not Darius. And it's not like she had to censore herself or to, idk, force herself to write to Kenji to keep up the appearances because those are only, as I said, scribbles on a paper, her raw feelings and thoughts, something she was never going to send anyway.

Like, if they want to make dinostar canon, why post that? Why not take this opportunity to add content/substance to the ship they *supposedly* want to make endgame? Having that letter addressed to Kenji only serves the purpose of showing us that Kenji's the one on her mind, because otherwise that was unnecessary. They could have had her write to the whole camp fam, but instead they decided to show us that she wanted to tell Kenji she was alive above everyone else, including Darius, the one who confessed to her right before her "death" and who Brooklynn most likely knew felt incredibly guilty for not showing up/for her death (Ronnie probably told her).

If she was in love with Darius she would have adressed the "letter" to him, I can't see any argument against that. Or maybe it's more that if she wasn't in love with Kenji anymore, she wouldn't have written to him, but to all of them.

Honestly, the most I can see them giving Dinostar as far as Brooklynn's feelings for Darius go is to have her admit that she used to have a little crush on him when they were on Nublar but that it completely disappeared once she started getting coser to Kenji. I have nothing to back up this theory, but I don't know, I thought that much wouldn't be too far fetched.

(oh, and I almost forgot but this goes without saying... pretty sure her getting attacked, alone at night, mauled by a dino and loosing her arm partly because he set her up would have killed any potential blooming feeling in her).

[skeksismars]

Watching Uzumaki episode 2 right now and I had to pause because...I can't...did anyone else also notice how cheap the animation looks? The characters barely move, they barely emote and the level of detail of the first episode is completely lost.

Look at these shots of Kirie from ep 1 and ep 2

In episode 1 we have an ombre effect on the hair, the hair is redrawn each frame and shifts costantly, in the second episode her expression is flat and glassy, her eyes look unfocused and her face looks flat

And this is Kirie from a few seconds after, the drawing style has completely shifted and the level of detail is higher, did they just not check the shots for consistency??? What is this???

WHERE IS THE DETAIL IN HIS FACE?!? Where are the raindrops? He's supposed to be sopping wet and he's supposed to look disgusting! We're supposed to feel unsettled by him!

Oh my god, I kept watching and it just gets worse and worse, and they're cramming six storylines into one episode??? I wanted a full episode for the snails, that's one of the most horrific things in Uzumaki!!

S-S-Shuichi? What did they do to you???

We can talk about the animation quality dropping, but shot composition is not animation. WHAT IS THIS ABOMINATION. This isn't a frame, THE WHOLE SHOT IS LIKE THIS, WHYYYYY, WHO APPROVED THIS????? I don't know if you understand, but this is way worse than the animation looking cheap, this means that nobody checked the shots, they all got approved at first try, they tried to make the episode as quickly as possible. And it also means that who made the episode was either underpayed and overworked or they were...incompetent (I'm sorry but I'm veering for the latter, this shot proves it, why why why would you frame a shot this way)

I also want to point out the use of wide shots

They're used to give more rythm to a sequence, instead of using always the same shots that would give the feeling of stillness, BUT! In this case they're another indicator of cheapness! In wide shots usually there would be more things to animate, but in an anime, where the focus is fully on the protagonists, usually everything else is still, and that means less animation required! In both these shots (I would have put more but Tumbr said no) the only thing that moves is the characters' mouths and these shots don't add anything to help convey better the feeling of the scene!!! They're there only to give rythm to the sequence but they're actually out of place! In the second shot Katayama-kun ISN'T EVEN FRAMED WELL! He stops mid shot and is covered by the girl in the midground!!! I hope I'm conveying just how bad the production is in this episode, and I don't have much hopes for the future episodes.

I thought about it a bit more and, just talking about the animation, if I had to churn out 50 shots per week and I was told that they would be immediately approved I wouldn't care about the quality, so that's a factor, of course I can't tell 100% what the skill level of the people that worked on this episode is, but that's a theory I feel like pointing out

Ok I finished the episode and in the credits there are two key animators named and the rest of the animation is entrusted to "Phoenix animation holdings" and some other studios that are not featured in the first episode credits, so yeah, the animation for this episode was entirely exported to another, cheaper studio 🙂, the industry strikes again! 😃😃

[skymagpie]

**TWW SPOILERS** & theory (hopium) discussion below

Happy launch day let's talk about our favorite wizard!

For those that have played or have at least seen the video, you know that Khadgar's fate is grim and that the general assumption (as wowpedia and the wiki put it) is that he is deceased. People have made a bunch of theories about it, so I am listing everything I know and have seen from the cinematic itself that might go in either direction.

In favor of Khadgar somehow surviving:

Unlike the previous major character death cinematics, Varian's, Vol'jin's and Saurfang's as example, Khadgar's cinematic does not show him actually die. The rule of no body = no death applies, as we never see him die on screen. Even if it's unlikely that he survived given that we saw the city explode, this video does play into the common trope when characters aren't truly dead and return later on.

There was a datamined wheelchair that most people believe to be a cut asset, but if you rewatch the video itself and focus only on his legs in the second half once he is injured, they do not move at all, even when it would be logical for the animation to have him move at least the knee or attempt to get up. (This was also brought up by another user.)

Khadgar turns to Xal'atath in anger, so he is neither pleading nor bargaining, however he also doesn't seem to want to keep fighting her. Instead, when she creates the black hole around herself, he willingly reaches out and allows his hand to "dissolve" before the scene cuts and we no longer see him. He reaches out of his own volition, and he groans in pain even before touching the black hole (which goes back to the above theory that he is already injured and just the strain of reaching towards it causes him pain).

Khadgar's toy, the Wonderous Wisdomball is disabled in the new zones. This is such a small detail, but it feels like the final nail in the coffin. A lot of people believe that they wouldn't have included this small detail if they didn't plan something more for Khadgar and if this was his final farewell - maybe they would've even given it more lines and the such so people can keep it as a memory.

There is that one shot of Khadgar's eyes as he whispers "Alleria." but it's a completely new animation and it's not drawing from the cinematic. Everyone else in that sequence is actually alive. It could be a memory, but it could be something else. (this sceenshot is from this video)

In favor of Khadgar being permanently dead:

Metzen kept hinting in the interview with Scott that he will kill a bunch of characters in the saga, to which Scott asked why is Khadgar first on the list and Metzen didn't reply, only laughed it off and said that there is no kill list - before comically looking back at Scott with a frown. He also mentioned that he is thinking of how to give respectful send off to the old characters so they can make space for the new ones. Khadgar's death above is as respectful as it can get for him, since we didn't see him suffer much and he went out a hero as he always was.

We saw his hand dissolve.

Dalaran exploded when whatever darkness swallowed Khadgar closed in on itself.

Xal'atath said "Goodbye, Guardian." so if anything, she would know what happens when you touch that black hole she summoned.

The wheelchair is from an untested Dalaran scenario and we know that Blizzard has previously cut things that were in the game files.

Patch 11.0 is Danuser's last patch, and Metzen took over since then. Metzen however said that he liked what Danuser did, but believed that there needs to be something bigger for the opening of the saga, so maybe even if Danuser was planning to bring Khadgar back, Metzen could change that now that he is our story lead.

There are few running theories that I saw people talking about, and while I cannot say I am vouching for a specific one myself, I am going to list them here:

Khadgar survives, he is in the void and he is injured, so he will be permanently disabled, possibly drained of his magic and no longer able to be The (unofficial) Guardian - hence the wheelchair.

Khadgar will return as a voided up raid boss and it will be up to us to put him down like Old Yeller, because Blizzard cannot do it themselves. 🙄

Khadgar survived, but his physical body is destroyed and he will become one of the Ethereals (this goes into the Khadgar and the Locus-Walker are the same entity theory).

If you have any other ideas, have seen something else in favor of either outcome or have a theory of your own, please let me know because I am looking for all the copium I can right now and we are just getting started with The War Within.

[myownperceptions]

Minions: The Rise of Gru- details, trivia, goofs, random notes (Pt. 6)

First part Previous part

Poor Svengeance is trying to help by grabbing onto Wingman's leg. Nunchuck also thanks the heavens again.

These people can jump high with little help.

That breaking glass defies gravity long enough for Gru to climb back up.

Nunchuck quickly floats down the steps, Svengeance skates in, Stronghold roars in frustration, Jean decides to take the hard way down over the side and skids helplessly on it (wish I had a gif, haha), and Belle ties down Wingman's jets. JC is still hatless in this part so Belle probably gets it for him, which is sweet.

How did they get to the other side after Stronghold shatters the glass bridge? Who knows. Maybe another one spawned in.

Dr. Nefario once again proving how much he hates the V6. Could have easily stopped Gru, but instead advises him to 'just keep walking'. He looks to his side to check they're not seeing him. There's also a freeze ray in the box.

This lady and her dog stopping to see what's going on.

WK keeping watch. But for what? The successful candidate? A window of opportunity to get the stone himself?

Look through the window of Criminal Records: you can see Stronghold right before he bursts through with the others.

Stronghold, Belle and Svengeance jump through the window while Jean and Nunchuck use the door!

The lady picks up her dog and runs away.

Stronghold says 'Split up!' JC and Nunchuck appear to go the opposite way, but in the next shot they can be seen behind Svengeance along with Belle.

Animators were allowed to experiment with this part of the chase sequence. Here's a WIP (also includes a bit of a much later scene):

Very proud of himself here.

Man's head shattered the glass. Deep cuts, blood, bruising? No. These guys are indestructible.

Stuart slams against this car door due to the ricochet.

This guy is really tall. Also 'the demon child!'.

JC shoves a trashcan out the way.

For an old girl, Nunchuck moves fast.

This mystery machine-type van can be heard slowing down, but not in time. That driver is done for.

Nunchuck combines 2 of her nun-chucks. They have 3 ends each, but when we see it combined, it only has 4. It is possible though that the 3 ends were only added for animation purposes.

This kid is really impressed.

That's a broken nose.

Nunchuck is dead. Ain't no way. JC escaped to who-knows-where.

This kid is a villain in the making! Rooting for Belle.

Belle jumps inhumanly high.

Stronghold recovers quickly and chases after Gru.

Jean spawns back in inhumanly fast and takes hold of the chain belt. He's the only one other than Belle to hold/use it in the film. He smiles evilly as they go.

Next part

[fantasygerard2000]

Reworking Wish

I know this was already said, but the main gripe people have towards Wish is that the potential was there, it just didn't put on the right amount of effort. A criticism that took me long to agree with after sifting through Starboy simping, Magnifico sandals smooching and parasocial hatred towards the house of mouse.

So, after rewatching Wish for like the tenth time or something, I dunno I lost count, I decided to write down some things in the film that needed improvement. This is going to be taking the film as it is and giving it that little push it needed, more time in the oven to bake.

Also, a side tangent I wanna bring up before we move on. I don't like to use the word "fix" especially since it's associated with some people taking a work and reworking it to suit THEIR tastes and preferences, often without permission and out of spite.

Okay, let's proceed.

The film starts with the shot of the book opening and a narrator explaining the story. A classic Disney staple. The narrator "reads" us the creation of Rosas by Magnifico. However, the opening narration emphasizes too much on Magnifico. I get the intent that this is a form of propaganda he made to get parents to tell stories to their kids about him, but this comes with a caveat regarding his backstory that I will explain later.

So, either you have a different person narrating the opening scene like how in the classic Disney movies do instead of Asha. Or have Asha narrating to Sabino told through hand drawn illustrations she drew about how he and his family came to the kingdom of Rosas, visually through hand drawn animation.

Have the rest of the scene play out but major difference here. Instead of Asha applying to become Magnifico's apprentice, she was recommended the job by Amaya. An issue of show-don't-tell is present as Amaya explains how kind and generous Asha is, but is never shown. Have Asha welcome the tourists but the child is too scared to leave the boat, so Asha sing to them about how wonderful the kingdom is to make the child feel better while also helping the townsfolk on the way in her unique way, reminiscent of Mulan during Honor to Us All. Have Amaya watch Asha guide the tourists on a balcony through a window like the Evil Queen if you like to add a nod to Snow White as well subverting the trope to show that she's a good queen.

A detail I like in the film is that instead of having a servant inform Asha that she's ready for the interview, Amaya herself came to the kitchen to inform her herself.

As for the apprenticeship thing, I like to spice things up by having Tomas, Asha's father once worked for Magnifico who he considers a close friend before retiring once Sakina was pregnant with Asha. Amaya, being more close to her people than Magnifico, knew that Asha is Tomas' daughter and seeing how she's takes after him, recommended her husband to have Asha work as an apprentice.

So, Asha, nervous about becoming an apprentice to her father's former boss/friend/like-a-brother cuz why not make an evil uncle figure. The scene plays the same but little emphasis on Tomas. As well as a "he betrayed me" rant from Magnifico later on.

The At All Costs sequence remains the same and the argument afterwards also kept intact. Additional dialogue has Asha mentioning how her father would have told Magnifico the same but he quickly dismisses her.

The argument scene be tweaked with Sabino still hopeful about his wish being granted next year, making the news that Magnifico will never grant his more hurtful for Asha.

The filmmakers' intent for the animals is that they know much about the universe than humans but considering they can't talk, humans just think they're dumb. I'm a Star plays out the same but additional dialogue is given before the song plays, with the animals explaining to Asha that Star can't speak to answer her questions but they can in song form.

The scenes afterwards remains up to This is the Thanks I Get!? I like to add in minor details earlier like Magnifico checking his reflection during the interview as he "listens" to Asha, subtly showing his narcissism and his ties to mirrors.

Also in the interview scene, he mentions about his old home being destroyed by greedy thieves. This was the caveat I mentioned earlier and how his backstory despite being offhandedly mentioned a few times made him too sympathetic for the simps to defend his nonexistent lack of honor. Either we cut out the "tragic" his backstory and simply have him studying magic and the masses praise him so much that he has enough influence to make his own kingdom.

Once Asha returns Sabino's wish to him, have the unused scene above be kept. An issue with the film is that despite Sabino being the main drive for the plot, he barely appears in it enough for viewers to care. So the scene where he can finally be able to play his lute serves as this.

Magnifico arriving at the cottage to arrest Asha plays the same. Additional dialogue has Magnifico informing Asha and the viewer someone close to her who knows of Star ratted her out. After escaping Magnifico, have him burn the cottage if you like more villainy.

The scene after play out the same with some minor tweaks. The teens have a secret hideout, a cave with the entrance be under a tree, a nod the dwarfs and the lost boys. Asha doesn't know the hideout initially but Dahlia has left a clue for her in a form of a hardened cookie, a nod to Esmerelda leaving Quasimodo a clue to find where the Romani are hiding from Frollo. Amaya discovers the hideout by following Asha.

Instead of just books, Star uses the furniture the lift the teens up to the pulleys. Another scene has Amaya and Dahlia destroy the book in hopes of no one using it again. A major change is to have the book inform the reader that the more the person uses dark magic, the corrupt they become instead of committing once they commit to eternity, which I understand sounds like a lazy excuse to not redeem Magnifico.

Have most of the guards go after Asha who thought they were being led by Magnifico but was actually Simon. Have the animals attack the guards and Simon like in Tarzan and Beauty and the Beast.

When Magnifico blasts Amaya, she gets knocked out and drops her crown. To show his people he was the real traitor and make the crowd and remaining guards turn on him before he quickly overpowers them.

Have the climax be given additional dialogue and show Magnifico treating the wishes badly once he had Star.

Give a few moments to the scene where Asha remembers the "we are stars" message. Have her look at the her and her father's wishing tree and a moment of reflection before she starts singing.

After Magnifico's defeat, have the scene play out the same but with additional dialogue from Amaya towards Magnifico. Additional dialogue from Sakina reveal Asha her wish.

Once she takes after Magnifico's place as ruler, Amaya wears a more colorful dress, particularly a red colored tone down version of her original dress, showing she's a more competent ruler than Magnifico as well being tied to the rose, the symbol of Rosas.

After the brief timeskip, Asha wears a different dress than her previous one that gets sparkly once Star made her a fairy godmother, justifying the Cinderella reference without too being on the nose.

As for other stuff like the songs, they're fine. Just need a few lines change to sound less awkward.

The animation is fine too, though a lower frame rate like in the clip below would've suffice. And yeah, people will accused Disney for copying Spider-verse, but honestly I don't care since they'll accuse Disney of anything bad, even if they included the stuff they wanted.

And that's all what I can think of to "improve" Wish.

As much as I like this movie, I do understand why most people don't to the point of "fixing" it. However, fixing it isn't to add a love interest or a villain couple, it's to figure out what works and doesn't. Which is why as much as I have my own version of Star that is very loosely based after the Starboy concept, I didn't added them in it because it'd be unnecessary and distracting.

Wish's flaws are the intentions that were there and obvious, but the way they were executed was lacking. Hence why some of the "improvements" are what the filmmakers intended but given a tweak. Even stuff I added like Tomas being Magnifico's former best friend and apprentice are things the can be better if executed properly or not.

My general thoughts on the rewrite fandom is that some do have the right idea but just have the wrong priorities.

And as much as I wrote down changes to Wish that could may have and have not improved it, I don't want to be praised for it because they general attitude of "this is better than X" has left a sour mark on my thoughts towards the vocal minority in animation fandom or any fandoms.

[centrally-unplanned]

Watched a bunch of stuff last night, including the Alita OVA from 1993! I thought it was a lot of fun, the thoughts:

--- It did the "obvious" thing of adapting the romance arc with Yugo of Volume 2 as the core, while blending in the events of Volume 1 as sort of backstory and setup as opposed to their own story. This arc is Alita at her most humanized in the early parts of the manga, and its the plot that centers Zalem as the untouchable overlord city most effectively. Any short adaptation is gonna choose this - part of why James Cameron (lol) did the same thing!

--- Speaking of, the manga does not actually have any particular focus on Alita's eyes, but the anime definitely has more than one shot where it establishes them as thematically special. Given that the James Cameron film is famous for going full CGI on Alita's eyes, and he knows about the property from Guillermo del Toro passing him the OVA as opposed to the manga, I think I can see the chain of events that lead to that (ill-fated?) decision.

Her eyes are pretty amazing in the OVA, so I get it! As my previous reblogs showed lol.

--- I think I can break apart the manga into three "concepts": the setting as cyberpunk dystopia, Alita as a character dealing with identity issues as an amnesiatic combat robot, and shounen fighting & levelling arcs. The OVA heavily focuses on the first part, ditching almost all the shounen stuff - its fight scenes are quick and focus on violence & bodily destruction over strength or "fighting techniques", etc. This is great for me, obviously! But it also, almost accidentally, ditches most of her identity issues? Because its less than an hour long, and needs to do a ton of worldbuilding - including even adding in a new character from Zalem to help with that - and is doing Yugo's entire arc, you really don't have time left for Alita's struggles. Yugo actually gets more "inner depth" than she does! She commits to being a bounty hunter, then after that she is pretty much just In Love while Yugo goes through his detailing of his past and collapse.

I'm not saying it doesn't work, it does as a story. Just interesting for something that is known as very "protagonist associated" to have an OVA where she is barely the protagonist.

--- While no Urotsukidoji or anything, this is another one of those OVAs where its reputation, particularly in the west, is as a hyper-violent, gory OVA? And like so many it really isn't. People get decapitated, don't get me wrong, buts its never lingers on those moments. Instead they serve as tone setters for the crapsack world or just are part of the action sequences.

I think in general the OVA era rarely made horror/gore films the way some other mediums/industries did? There are exceptions of course but in the end anime is trying to do too many other things; beautiful animation, focus on character designs, often being adaptations and so doing the plot of those more complex stories, erotic content for audiences that aren't *that* fetishistic on average, and more. All of these priorities compete for space in comparison to having endless jumpscares and blood splatters. So far my track record for watching the famous "gorefest" or "~crazy~" anime is that every one of them is tamer than the rep suggests, and I believe this medium/genre mismatch is why.

--- The biggest question I have around Alita in general is why there was never any more anime? Its weird, right? Its a famous property from a beloved genre, it had a hollywood film for some crazy reason, things like Ghost in the Shell got multi-season anime after all. Why no feature film remake in the 2000's? Why no 13-cour in the 2010's? I don't have an answer to that yet.

Why the initial OVA was so minimal is at least partly answered by Kishiro here:

MNS: Many fans have wondered, why were only 2 anime OAV episodes produced in 1993? YK: It was based on the plan proposed by the animation production company. It might have been better to turn down the plan and wait for a better adaptation proposal to come up, but back then, I couldn't afford to review the plan coolly. At that time, I was still serializing the work and was so busy that I wasn't ambitious to make it into animation.

Essentially he took the "deal on hand", not offering much, because he didn't have the time, money, or business savvy to work the industry for a better proposal. 100% understandable. I don't think the OVA did too well? I can't find a lot of sales figures, but the comments I see are in the "respectable" range, and it didn't get quick or expansive rereleases over time.

More broadly, and again speculative, I think maybe Alita overall isn't that successful? Like sure Kishiro is still out here releasing more sequel manga to this day somehow, but when I look at the "media mix" its just really sparse. No big video game adaptations - it has a PlayStation game in the 90's - it has like a drama CD and a novelization? No big merch waves or tie-ins. I am betting the big anime production committees just don't think its a hot enough property to sell that great. Wouldn't be a bad idea or anything, but not one you have to do like idk Chainsaw Man.

In the western fandom spaces its quite well known because of the idiosyncrasies of licensing history, the weird James Cameron factor, and I think a general fascination with anime cyberpunk; the west eats up any of the older cyberpunk properties for its aesthetic in a way that can blind people to the reality of that just being a subgenre in Japan at the time. Alita might just be niche enough that it not getting any wider anime adaptations is no grand mystery.

(But I hope to dig into this question more)

[astridhoff03]

The Music in the remake

I am personally very into film music like httyd, Jurassic Park, Oppenheimer, Pirates of the Caribbean and Spirit are some of my favorite themes. So I was pretty disappointed of how they literally didn’t let John Powell change up the score for the httyd remake more because I can’t be the only one who recognized that the music feels very disconnected to the visuals as well as to the characters. One of the best examples for this are the opening sequence and romantic flight. In romantic flight there still plays Berks Theme and Berk is at the end nowhere to be found. But I also think in general they should have done something else with the music instead of reusing the soundtrack of the OG, which was suited for a visual storytelling through animation and music. This remake is not, it tries to be but fails terribly like with most things.

Also why is fucking Berk so fucking tiny that’s just laughable to be honest and also takes away some of the bombastic feeling we got when first seeing it and then the wave next to a Viking statue translates to a nearer view to the village. They still did it but without the Viking statue and to be honest boring. I know they had a low budget but this one of the many things the movie really screams it. How can’t the Vikings have space problems there? I would have also used a different shot maybe some easy trick Steven Spielberg did in Jurassic Park with the camera slightly from down, to let things feel more impressive. Would be more creative than just copying the excat same scene but worse.

[rmorde]

Trigun Manga Reaction

Now back with Volume 1 - Chapter 3

I like this. Simple pose but very interesting with the "imbalance" I guess with the tilted head, shadowed face, and slightly lower slope of one shoulder. It's not "stiff" and it's easy to imagine the wind blowing through Vash's coat and hair.

A thought occurs tho, Did Trigun predate Tetsuya Nomura's obsessive belts, belts, and more belts design quirk? Did Nightow and Vash started that anime fashion trend?

Uhuh. Says the people who tried to shoot a GRENADE at that same one guy.

I kinda put these three panels in a sequence because... we know Vash is a good guy. Of course, he's going to save the women but the emphasis on the Nebraskas reaction to his rescue is really interesting.

Vash gives them a side-eye. He's either gauging their capacity for mercy or already clocked in that they are capable of mercy and silently hints for them to wait just a moment.

Father Nebraska understanding and just waits as he smokes. Then confirms first if Vash is ready to rumble again.

Idk. It's a moment of humanity not only for Vash but for the Nebraskas too imo.

AND IT'S WEIRD! In '98, Father Nebraska tried to get a cheap shot on Vash while he was still carrying someone to safety.

Yeah, assholes. Vash is doing his best to keep the women in the clear while you guys just throws grenades willy-nilly into buildings who have people in them. Smh.

Ngl. This sequence confuses me a bit. But, going with what happened earlier, the Nebraskas were not targeting the women. The punch was intended for Vash - which he dodged easily. However, instead of running further away, he shielded the women from the flying debris that the punch caused.

WHICH AGAIN, I REITERATE, IS REALLY WEIRD FOR '98 TO DEVIATE FROM!

In the '98, they are bonafide bad guys but in the manga they're still bad but not "Muwahahaha I'll shoot the injured women Hahahaha!" bad . The Nebraskas have some semblance of honor here.

I guess this is why TriStamp has a much more nuanced presentation of these characters. It's closer to the manga.

Oof... Owww... Vash... 😢

Another gorgeous art. I like how Nightow's way of using perspective here!

Junior is established to be huge - a giant. He always take up so much space in the panels/pages like below:

However, when Vash finally "duelled" them seriously. Doesn't Junior suddenly "feels" smaller and Vash really big?

It's really cool how it instantly shows that Vash isn't goofing off anymore and the Nebraskas stand no chance in winning this.

Ragey Baby Girl no longer smiling.

Sigh. Gotta admire their one track mind.

Ngl. The line work here gave me Junji Ito vides for some reason. Vash's eye look haunting, cold, and really old.

Linework carrying hard on this page. Vash is obviously quicker with how much lines are there in his entire arm - convincingly too fast of a blur. Meanwhile Junior has less lines which makes his fist less blurry and, therefore, slower.

Clever use of the sound effects in the first panel.

I don't know what the fuck is going on in the second panel. I've been staring at it too long already and I still can't understand except it has something to do with Junior's arm?

Third panel is the crazy detail on Vash's eye. His glasses seem like he is looking at the side. However, on closer inspection, Vash is actually not looking away from the incoming attack.

The following pages is really great at building the tension on how would this duel end. The '98 anime captured it very well!

Looking cool, Vash!

Also, is it just me or does he always look for opportunities to show off his flexibility and long long legs. Must he really split here?

...

...

YES. YES HE MUST.

Oh. Ooooh! So that's what happened!

In '98, this conclusion was given to the bandit in Episode 1. His own enhancements crunching his body until he passed out and lost to Vash. However, they can't exactly rehash this in Episode 5. So, we have the "LOVE AND PEACE!" scene instead.

Admittedly, I prefer the "LOVE AND PEACE" conclusion more.

I like how, so far imo, Nightow just gives no fucks about anatomy in his art. I mean... Look at this! Even if we reason that it's because his coat is dramatically billowing with the wind, Vash's body is not proportionate. However, it doesn't matter! It looks cool and it evokes the right emotions just fine: fear and awe.

OMFG?!!! The trials these two are going through! These poor insurance ladies! Milly hanging on for dear life to that pillar. Meryl just screaming her lungs out EVEN WITH A MEGAPHONE!

AND IT WAS FOR NOTHING!!!! OML

Being considered as someone equivalent to a natural disaster shouldn't bring joy, but damn it... LOOK AT HOW HAPPY VASH IS!!! AWWW BABY GIRL!!!

Wow. They blame HER!!! How dare- Meryl beat them up! No, Milly. LET MERYL HAVE THEM!!! THEY DESERVE TO BE CRUMPLED LIKE TISSUE PAPER AFTER THROWING OFF GRENADES LIKE CONFETTI EARLIER AT VASH!!!

Awww. Their first interaction is SO CUTE!!!

In '98, it's funny and amusing. Ditto on TriStamp. But this one is sweet since Meryl and Milly kinda saved Vash in here.

I mean. Yeah, the townspeople are scared because Vash just beat the Nebraskas, but they are desperate for money. Desperation can override fear given enough time. Vash would've been hunted all over again.

I take it back. The insurance ladies climbing up to that bell tower was not for nothing. It was enough to allow Vash a moment to breathe and, as he rejoices, be free (even just for a while).

Wonder what exactly went through Vash's head here. Confusion? Fear? Dread?

HELL YEAH!!! BADASS LADIES IN LONG COATS! STRIKE FEAR TO THE HEARTS OF EVERYONE!!!

Oh. Some responses to the a couple of tags:

@alena-reblobs

Thanks! Glad you're having fun too because I sure am. I appreciate the warning and I'm kinda nervous because the action this chapter was kinda confusing to understand. Hopefully, it won't get worse (will it?) I agree that they are very cool nonetheless!

@eldritchneuro

Thanks for explaining! Paneling is always fun to study in mangas because they usually follow a 3 or 4 panels which mangakas creatively breakdown to evoke a feeling among readers.

Trigun is interesting because its from the 90's! So, some of the paneling are probably "prototypes" of the crazy ones we'd see in modern mangas.

I guess, Nightow's aiming to make the page very "cinematic" with slo-mo (sparse panels) and hyper focus on details (graphic weight). It draws us readers in to the story more effectively as if we are there too with the townspeople looking at the Humanoid Typhoon.

[archer-kacey]

Homewarming Analysis: Eddie

There are LARGE sections of info in the latest Welcome Home update, but none as strikingly out of place as the last clip in the compilation on awayfrompryingeyes. And what a coincidence! I like discussing puppet trauma.

First thing to note- Poppy is noticeably just gone from the Homewarming celebration. This is especially weird seeing as she was still included by name in the Cookbook, appeared in one of the technical difficulty segments, and was also on Eddie's delivery list for Homewarming. Hell, the narrator of the holiday special insists that everyone had joined in for the festivities.

Yet nobody else seems to notice her absence. More on this later.

In between the other commercials, there are several live-action instances of Eddie showing frustration at the fact that nobody has contacted him all day, and that there are no packages to be delivered.

At the beginning of the holiday special, Sally explains to him pretty breezily that everyone helped out with deliveries so Eddie wouldn't have to do it, meaning he has the day off for Homewarming.

I do think the Neighbors had all the best intentions by trying to surprise him, but unintentionally crafted a pretty perfect hell for Eddie.

There are some recurring themes in Eddie's "about" section- overall forgetfulness, his dedication to his job and by extension his reliability in that regard, the fact that he's often up and about (usually around the Neighbors), and that he works hard.

So not being contacted, not having anything to do for most of the day, and not even seeing anyone walking by outside VERY understandably drives him crazy! And for someone with memory issues already, having a huge disruption like that in an otherwise pretty standard routine has got to be not only jarring, but downright scary as well!

After Sally brings him in for Homewarming and he gets settled in, the narrator insists that Eddie was indeed happy like the rest of the cast. We quickly see this isn't the case. Instead, he seems to be having some kind of derealization, which is shown via live-action shots spliced in with the normal 2D animation.

While Eddie is in crisis, Home is the only other character in frame. Everything else is either extremely dark, or a random sequence of shots. Home stares down at him the whole time, and the whole time Eddie is incredibly aware of this.

There are quite a few abstract shots that either come off as something burning or melting- an ornament dripping yellow liquid onto the floor, a red screen with subtle changes in the lighting and shadows, a live-action shot in a red-lit room with a moving shadow, Eddie sweating profusely (possibly crying), and an actual candle burning and melting.

I don't think the derealization scene is meant to only encompass one thing. Eddie is becoming aware of his surroundings and realizing that the world he lives in isn't exactly real, and Home is scaring the shit out of him. But I don't see a lot of people touching on the fact that this could represent burnout as well.

Eddie is often held up on a pedestal as the hardest working neighbor, the one who likes to help problem solve and the one who physically takes on heavy loads. It was shown between commercials that when he's not fulfilling his normal duties, he literally doesn't know what to do with himself. His passion for his job and his fellow Neighbors is a strength, but if he's been inadvertently neglecting himself, then he's pretty susceptible, maybe even blind, to the fact that he's burnt out. And unfortunately, I think burnout is hitting him in tandem with other things. Home seems to be fully aware of the fact that Eddie is starting to crack, and judging by that stare, I don't think it's going to be handing out mental health services any time soon.

Eddie starts to come back (albeit in a bit of a confused haze), and there are only two characters in front of him- Sally and Frank.

Their two opening lines in the conversation really summarize the difference in their awareness to Eddie's distress.

Frank immediately opens with "this bitch told me you've been doing too much, what's that about?" and Sally responds with "yeah it's not easy being the hottest bitch in town </3"

Okay, maybe not exactly that. You get my point- Frank is immediately sus, Sally isn't.

It isn't until after Sally leaves that Frank tries to get through to him more insistently, and after some coaxing, Eddie seems to start coming back with more clarity of his surroundings.

Also noteworthy that despite still being a little out of it, he can see Frank pretty clearly when he leans down.

Now, the logical part of me says that he's closer with Frank than the others, therefore he might act as sort of an "anchor" when his mental state starts spiraling.

The sappy part of me says that Eddie tends to remember things he's passionate about better. AKA his job, AKA Frank.

Anyway, I mentioned Poppy earlier, and there was a point to that.

We've seen how Eddie's memory can be dodgy at times. He was already in crisis when he arrived to Homewarming, and then he immediately had to go home.

And again, let's not forget that Poppy was cited to have been at Homewarming, and by all other accounts seems to have been included to some degree, even if not front and center.

Maybe she was actually there.

Maybe Eddie just forgot.

[room-surprise]

Dungeon Meshi Season 1, Episode 3 Review

I think it was fantastic, and like the other episodes my complaints are all so minor, they're basically nitpicks. Spoilers below!

The Japanese subtitles are still kinda bad, when you watch the English dub afterwards it somehow manages to better convey the same information without leaving anything out. Japanese performances are fantastic but yeah the subtitles really suck a lot of the life out of them. There's some gems in the dub performance, like Chilchuck saying "Sword, please" to Laios instead of "can I borrow your sword" or something more elaborate.

Everything that was good about the original manga chapters is in this episode, and this was one of the early chapters that hooked me and my spouse into Dungeon Meshi - seeing how Laios figured out the living armor and how he defeated it was something really cool and thoughtful that stood out from other media to us. It was clever and novel and went into monsters and speculative biology in a way that we both adored. This episode is also the one that really foreshadows the rest of the series and it's themes. If something is alive, it desires something, and if you can figure out what it desires you can find a way to defeat it. If something is alive, you can kill it, and if you can kill it you can eat it.

All of the fight scenes in this episode are incredible, and there's tons of fun camera shots and interesting choices being made. Love the bit where Marcille catches a helmet in the loop of her staff. Also loved the bit where she caught Laios' head in the loop of her staff and shook him around angrily. They found ways to include information from the extra monster tidbits into the main narrative, which is fantastic! I'm hoping they'll be able to do this for the rest of the anime as well, because there's a LOT of vital information and funny jokes in the tidbits that enhance the story.

So nice to finally have our first Senshi panty shot and know that they'll at least give us some of those.

Though the animation is spectacular, there is a noticeable style shift between the first two episodes and 3. They obviously have some very talented animators working on this episode (the suits of armor are all rock solid, detailed, and move in fantastic ways) but they are NOT really good at drawing the human characters on-model and it shows. It's not awful but it is noticeable. I'm glad they at least were able to keep it consistent, the characters look that way through the whole episode and don't switch back and forth between individual scenes. That would have been a lot more distracting. Pet peeve, I hated the gag with the egg sack flying through cosmic space to show Laios had figured out the secret of the armor. I didn't think it was that funny, and I felt it interrupted the flow of the already very exciting and tense fight scene. Just the memory sequence being drawn in such a crazy loose style was enough for me! And the style of it flying through the cosmos and everything just felt very out of place and modern. Oh, and Laios says "oh my god" at one point in the dub, which also annoys me, but I think is better than "jeez" since a pagan could theoretically say "oh my god."

But overall a fantastic episode and it gives me a lot of hope for the rest of the series. I was worried that they were going to compress the story too much and try to fit 4 chapters into this episode, because of how they put 3 chapters into episode 2, but they gave this 2-chapter story room to breathe, which it very much needed. Can't wait for next week! I think we'll get the golem story as well as the orcs.

[greatsylveon2007]

"Kids with passion to play make-believe;

Will become young adults with the will to achieve"

Alright, so I figured I wanted to make this eventually. I finally finished my part for the Guaraná MAP a few months ago after like, almost two years of having it lmao, and those two years were wild and included a bunch of different versions of the part which would never see the light of day outside of the map server, so I figured I should put them all here :)

Here is the finished part which I am very happy with honestly, love some Hollyleaf angst

So now let me tell you about how the part used to be IWKFOLSPS

To get the part I actually had to fist fight a friend because it was one of the few really simple interesting parts and we both wanted it pretty badly

When I eventually got the part I made two storyboards for it, and my idea was for it to be very limited animation with mostly tweening, as, in my head, it would make my life easier

The first storyboard I was not happy with so I threw it out the window and made another soon after

This one I was way happier with and is the storyboard I used for most of these two years, here you can see a little light/shadow behind Hollyleaf that, while I liked, was really out of place so I didn't keep it in the end :(

What followed was multiple months of me chipping away at this part and telling myself every time that it would be easy to do because it was pmv, I got pretty far with this, making the assets for all of the cats and only needing to shade Hollyleaf, finish the backgrounds and guaraná plants and edit

At that point however, despite being almost done, I really couldn't bring myself to work on this part anymore, I'm not sure what exactly it was, but messing around with all the assets and tweening and all that just wasn't fun for me at that point and I just began stalling to avoid having to open the file again

Eventually in February a light shone upon me, if I wasn't having fun with PMV then screw it AMV was my new best friend

In a few hours I made a new sketch, skipped the rought animation stage and finished Holly's entire animation (don't do this ever, don't be like me)

I had also started on Lion but I was struggling on what to do with him because of how I animated Holly lol

I don't remember the exact plan but originally the character acting was:

Holly and Lion are looking up, Jay is a little frustrated. Holly talks to him to cheer him up and he looks at her, feeling a bit more encouraged. Then she would look at Lion, he would reassure her, and they'd all end up happy

Somehow though, while animating Holly, I ditched the plan and made her be surprised by Lion and look at him, so I struggled a bit trying to figure out what Lionpaw could do to get her attention, and spent a good while trying to figure out the solution to a problem that I created in a few hours of not following a simple plan ISMOCKSKKDS If you plan something, preferably follow it, don't be like me²

I could have just remade her animation so that would have been solved but I liked her animation I didn't want to redo it :(

Anyway, eventually I figured he could say something stupid to help cheer up Jay or something and I like his and Jay's new movements so it all worked out :)

After making the first shot, I caved in to something I wanted to do for a while which was a transition between the shots, instead of having it cut to the second shot or move the characters around a little bit.

I didn't know if I wanted to do a transition with stars or with the fire scene, until eventually I figured that the fire scene and Ashfur's... thing was what really affected the siblings, especially Hollyleaf. The part also follows a sequence of Hollyleaf feeling guilty for what she did so in general I thought that Ashfur would transition well

You may also notice that I hadn't splattered blood all across Holly's face in the second shot and that was because I forgot she was supposed to have blood on her until I read the script again for some reason and realized I forgot ISNKCKAKDLSL

So, what did we learn? PMV sucks, animate it all at 24 fps in one sitting instead/JOKE

This is all I have about the Guaraná part, it was pretty fun to work on and I loved joining a map about my country, this map lives in a little part of my brain rent free <3

Might do this for other parts that have a bunch of wips or something I'll think about that, it's kind of fun to just lay out your process like this, would recommend 10/10