#anyway here are visual guides for the next chapter and the next arc of The Stars

[shirozora-draws]

So, uh.... how about that Kendrick vs. Drake Rap Beef 2024?!?!?!??!!?

In all seriousness, I had a mentally ugly April and so I want to thank the early May nuke that was Meet The Grahams blowing up my Twitter feed for getting me back on track. Sometimes you gotta pop out and hyperfixate on something really fucking different to get your brain back on track, which it did. The final draft of the next chapter is ready and waiting, and now I just need to get rid of all the goddamn rust and dust clogging up my arting gears.

I've done and posted multiple iterations of these designs through the years and they're buried in the archives but at some point I have to commit. That point is right now. I have to commit because these are going to be my visual guides for the next act of the story. Man, I hope I can pull this off. I want Din's look to be red for Aq Vetina and made up of scraps while he continues on his quest to rebuild himself. And I want Luke to have SOME color of some fucking kind and also I got tired of capes and thought the contrast to Din would be fun.

Grogu has some tweaks too but I need to stop dawdling and start thumbnailing for the chapter that is waitingwaitingwaiting for launch day so his little "design sheet" will come later. And once the chapter goes live, I'll spend the rest of the summer getting the pop-up shop up and running for pre-orders. Hopefully. Definitely. For sure.

[iron-touch]

Author's Notes: Chapter 37 (Swing and a Miss)

And I'm back! Again, this chapter took a little bit longer to come out due to other commitments. But I'm pretty proud of how this one turned out nonetheless.

While I always planned on having Hol Horse have an inner monologue about intending to ditch the group at Chicago IX, some of the context of this scene had to be redone from my initial outline because, as discussed previously, him leaving here wasn't part of my original plan. That being said, it did end up going well with the golf setting.

Okay, for some context. About a year ago while I was still planning this arc, @allshaftsfall played Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach on stream with the intent of 100%ing the game. One of the game's achievements calls for you to get a low score on the minigolf minigame, centered around the alligator animatronic Monty. Shaft lost his mind trying to get this achievement. "Gator Golf" has since become something of a meme between us and our friends (most of which are probably reading this right now; hi!), and I knew I had to incorporate it into Iron Touch somehow. This informed several different things about the chapter, like Screaming Jay's appearance, Mr. Williams' golf clubs, and the moment where Mr. Williams is disappointed he didn't get a hole in one. I mean, hey, I was already doing a resort/beach arc anyways. Those places usually have golf courses.

That being said, the golf course itself did end up changing a bit from start to finish. I originally planned on having it be a glow in the dark putt putt course like Gator Golf (which is, in my objectively correct opinion, the superior form of golf), but decided against it because I liked the visual of the sun setting as the chapter progresses, symbolizing Hol Horse losing all his options to go out with someone else (and drawing us closer to the next chapter). My next thought was to make the golf course feel "alive" somehow; like maybe slopes would form in the ground that would guide the ball to the hole or something. I decided against that because I felt like it made it seem like I was trying to hard to make Chicago IX feel like this weird, cryptid location that bends the rules of reality. We already have the giant spider car wash portal, we don't need a living golf course. I considered making this Mr. Williams' Stand ability instead, but I couldn't think of a good "mechanism" for how it would activate. The physicality of Stands is very important to me; the Stand can't just "do thing" because the user wants them to. There's gotta be something the Stand does that makes it work, or have it be part of the Stand's design. Plus, I wanted Mr. Williams' Stand to be less obviously tied to golf. Eventually I just settled on having it be a plain old golf course.

Mr. Williams' half-afro hairstyle was inspired by a picture of a real person I found online (where someone was arrested mid haircut), but is also meant to symbolize how the stress of running Chicago IX is causing him to lose his hair. I also liked how it split down the middle, like how his Stand does.

"What kind of a person just walks around with cough drops in their pocket?" Me. I'm person.

Here's a video of what the club flip would look like, if you're curious.

I rewrote the paragraph where Screaming Jay activates like two times in order to really sell the gross out factor of it. Iron Touch needs more body horror in it! I mean...not like this is the last bit of body horror we'll see this arc. Teehee.

Originally I was very hesitant on adding an animal Stand user to Iron Touch because I didn't know what else I could do with the idea that Araki hadn't already done himself. I didn't want to make an animal Stand user just because, I wanted the fact that the character is an animal be relevant to the story. While I suppose you could replace Lucky with an old and or terminally ill human, I think the narrative of Mr. Williams restructuring Chicago IX around Random Access Memories works much better when it's his pet and not another human. I also didn't want Chicago IX's owner to be Random Access Memories' user because I thought the narrative of seeking out supernatural abilities for personal gain was too similar to Depeche.

I had to fight every fiber in my body to not have Hol Horse say "Do me a favor and shut the fuck up" instead of "Do me a favor and shut the hell up." Even in a post Stone Ocean-dub society, I'm still only allowing myself one F-bomb in the fic, and I shan't waste it here!

Shit's gonna start going down next chapter :)

Music references:

Brackish, the resident brainwasher that Mr. Williams mentions, is named after a song of the same name by Canadian heavy metal band Kittie. Originally this character had a generic name; making it a music reference was a last minute change made literally as I wrote these author's notes. I like the implication of Brackish being important enough to warrant a music reference.

Mr. Williams is a weird one. Two of the collaborators on the album Random Access Memories were Pharrell Williams and Paul Williams (not related to each other). They're "co-references" of sorts. I'll add a Pharrell song to the playlist just to prevent things from getting too cluttered, but think of them both when you listen. Plus, I felt that the name William would be very fitting for a Fnaf inspired chapter.

Mr. Williams' beta name was Screaming Jay. My initial idea for him was for him to constantly be whispering despite his name, maybe have him lash out into a yelling fit when he starts rambling, but I decided against it because that wouldn't show up well in the prose.

Screaming Jay was named after American singer Screamin' Jay Hawkins. Honestly, I just wanted to put I Put a Spell On You on the playlist. Sadly, the Hocus Pocus version isn't on Spotify.

Screaming Jay's beta name was The Romantic, after the American rock band The Romantics. This was another Fnaf reference; since their song Talking In Your Sleep was used extensively during promotional material for the movie. However, once I actually got to writing the chapter, I realized that I hated the sound of the name and decided to change it to something else.

Lucky was named after the song Get Lucky from the album Random Access Memories.

[littlemisssquiggles]

...Sooo...about RWBY Volume 8 Chapter 12...

I’m not going to lie to you guys. I don’t know how to feel about this episode. Again, it wasn’t a bad episode. It’s just that I’m still processing a lot of elements to this episode that stood out for me. At best, it seems that it’s finally concluded Penny’s Arc. Like for starters, did the showrunners just make Penny a real girl?

[SPOILERS AHEAD. NUFF SAID]

Cause that’s what happened, right? Penny became a real girl. Penny is a real girl now, right?

I can’t believe the showrunners found a way to “cheat” keeping Penny longer in the story and making her a real person. Even though the spirit of the staff said that he couldn’t be used to create life, they found a loophole. They found a way to make Penny a real girl by using the staff’s power to give form to the part of her that’s always been the true Penny---her aura. This…actually isn’t bad at all. I just wished that Pietro Polendina was also there to see his daughter literally become human. Become real. Speaking of, where the fudge are Pietro and Maria? Seriously, I hope the Staff made a portal for those too as well because I don’t wish to think the PLOT forgot about them, right?

Anyways, going back to Penny---yeah, it may seem that Penny is now a real girl…I think. Her robot side which succumbed to the virus and terminated itself is now dead and all that’s left is her soul. I’m still in shock by this. I’m still in awe that the Staff can be used to do something like this.

Speaking of---hey wait a hot minute. If the Staff could be used to make Penny “human” by separating her soul from her machine half then…does this mean that the Staff of Creation could ultimately be used on Oscar as well? I mean…the Staff was used to separate the human part of Penny from the robotic part of her. So…doesn’t this mean that the Staff could be used on Oscar the same way?

We all know that Oscar doesn’t want to merge with Oz. This has been said at least twice for this volume.

If Penny is an exemplar of how successful it would be to use the staff to separate something with a soul from it’s inorganic parts so long as the method could be explained…couldn’t this not be used on Oscar? To separate him from Oz so that way, Oscar can be free to live his life as he wants without the fear of losing himself?

This is what I’m wondering now because if the staff can do that then what’s stopping it from being used on Oscar next?

As for the spirit of the staff---I didn’t quite catch his name but I really like him. I REALLY, REALLY love his personality. When Oz said he’s quite the character, he wasn’t kidding. He is quite the enthusiastic creative guy and I love him already. I hope to see more of the staff’s spirit.

Then there is the point that the Staff said. The Staff’s spirit said… “Don’t fall”. What does he mean by that? I’m assuming this is what the V8 opening has been eluding to all of this time.

In the opening, we got the visual of the ground caving in underneath our heroes with Team RWBY falling into an eternal abyss never to see the light of day again.

Remember the theory that I shared before about…what if…our main heroes ended up “disappearing” off the face of Remnant, leaving humanity at the mercy of Salem and her army?

What if…I wasn’t too far off from being correct in my assumption?

Here’s what I think might end up happening. 

Right now…the Staff’s power is being used to create a magical means of aiding the People of Atlas and Mantle by transporting them safely to Vacuo, right? But at the moment the people seem to be caught between realms---between the reality that will guide them all safely towards Vacuo and something else that I’m going to simply dub as “the void” as in the void between creation and its polar opposite.

For part of this volume, the image of falling has been teased. It was teased in the opening and it was also teased when Oscar brought up the Remnant fairytale about the Girl Who Fell Through the World. I had a feeling that that fairytale may be a foreshadow to how this volume might conclude and the feeling that I may be correct is getting stronger.

What if…the reason why the Staff’s spirit warned RWBY about falling is because…falling would mean falling out of existence and ceasing to be in the real world?

What if…it’s something like that where whoever falls literally stops existing and can never return to the real world again because their presence would’ve been phased out of existence?

This is what I think the volume has been alluding to since the start. Either RWBY or just Ruby is going to end up falling and…something bad is going to happen to them because of it.

I think the reason why the question “Happy? Never Again” keeps repeating in the opening is because…that’s exactly what will happen in the end. Whoever falls---be RWBY or just Ruby alone--- won’t be able to experience happiness again because…they or she will be gone. Forever. They will no longer cease to exist. It will come as if the person or persons died since…they would be gone forever, no longer allowed to return?

At least, that is the vibe that I’m getting. I’m not sure if this will be the case but…I’m getting that vibe you guys. I guess…only the last two episodes will tell. We’re nearing the last inning stretch folks.

And based on the last shot of this episode, Cinder is going to show up to ruin everything. Because let’s not forget, while Penny may be a real girl now…she’s still technically a maiden. Her maiden powers are still a part of her since they are a part of her aura---her soul. So…dude...imagine how depressing it would be if RWBY went through all this trouble to make Penny human only for her to die for good this time because Cinder would’ve killed her for real.

Penny is human now. She no longer has the back up of being part machine with a robotic body that could easily be repaired. She is as vulnerable as any other maiden before her and…oof…it’d be interesting to see how things play out for the finale for sure.

But...I guess we’ll see soon.

~ LittleMissSquiggles (2021)

[bthump]

now listen. i LOVE berserk and when i watched the 90s anime i binged the whole thing in two days because ive got no self control. but i feel like the eclipse has taken a harsh toll on me and i coudlnt handle it. ive tried to read further on from the manga and i dont think i can bear with how violent it seems to get from there on out- but i find myself obsessing over griffiths character and i feel like i have to know what happens next. how do i cope with this pain ???

oof that’s a tough one.

Honestly if it’s the violence in general, yk sword swinging and blood and guts and whatnot then I think you’re kind of out of luck unfortunately. There’s the 2016/17 anime which covers some of the post-eclipse stuff, which might be easier to watch in terms of violence because... it sucks lmao, the animation is awful so the violence might be harder to take seriously. but hey afaik it does tell a chunk of the rest of the story, so maybe it’s an option.

But otherwise it’s just impossible to skip the violence because it’s so constant in the story, and many important things happen during violent scenes.

On the other hand, if it’s specifically the sexual violence that’s hard for you to take, I might actually be able to help: I already have a big list of content warnings with manga page numbers written up that I made for someone else.

I’ll copypaste it here under a cut on the offchance that it helps. And if there’s anything specific other than sexual violence you want warned for, like suicide or self-harm or non-sexual parental abuse, just send me another ask and I’ll try my best. But yeah, gore in general is just too prevalent.

Also I wrote this for someone unfamiliar with the whole story so you can probably skip the golden age stuff if you’re not reading it.

Just so you know going in, this mainly just focuses on visual depictions of sexual assault. I don't think I could write a guide that covers every rape threat or mention or insinuation, in part because I'd have to re-read the story front to back, and also because like, significant plot points revolve around threats and discussions of rape so it's not really possible to skip a lot of it.

Chapter and page numbers are taken from the scans on mangasee and probably won't match the physical volumes. (They changed some of the formatting on the site recently, hopefully that doesn’t affect the page numbers but apologies if it does)

Black Swordsman arc:

nothing that i can remember. the story opens with Guts fucking a monster before killing her but the sex is consensual lol.

Golden Age arc:

Guts is raped as a child by Donovan, who tells Guts that Gambino sold him to him. ch 9, pg 44 - ch 10, pg 15

Guts has a nightmare about it ch 13, pg 2 - 9 If you skip this, it's worth knowing that guilt for killing Gambino features heavily in this nightmare, and that as he wakes up the monstrous representation of Donovan shifts into Casca who is lying on top of him. Guts is close to panicking as he wakes up before realizing that Casca is a woman. She's gone when he fully wakes up on page 10.

brace yourself for rape threats towards casca in ch 15

A nobleman attempts to rape Casca in a flashback to her childhood, Griffith interrupts the attempt by slicing off his ear ch 16, pg 13 - 14 If you skip this it's worth noting that Casca's reaction is helpless acceptance and believing it's natural.

ch 17 as a whole is p heavy with discussions of pedophilia and graphic self harm, but the csa isn't graphic and it's not really skippable anyway, just something worth bracing for.

more rape threats towards casca in ch 18

Casca's pursuers catch her and attempt to rape her ch 20, pg 18 - 21 Casca fights off her attacker on pg 21

brace yourself for Gennon's return at the end of chapter 23

rapey implications at the beginning of chapter 24 w/ Gennon thinking about Griffith

more rape threats in chapter 26+27 as Casca fights Adon

end of chapter 37 - halfway through ch 38 This whole sex scene with Charlotte is really fucked up, it's treated like consensual sex by the narrative but Charlotte says "no" early on before getting into it. I wouldn't skip it, there's some important emotional stuff here that's hard for me to convey, but I'd be aware going in that Miura is leaning heavily on v misogynist tropes in this scene.

discussion of incest ch 39, pg 7

incestuous rape attempt ch 39, pg 15 - 19 and ch 40, pg 2 - 7 (I wouldn't recommend skipping the 2 pages in between which return to Griffith in the torture chamber) And if you do skip this the things worth knowing are that Charlotte fights off the king and screams for Griffith to help her, upon which the king abandons the attempt and flees.

ch 46, pg 15 - ch 47, pg 5 Guts has a graphic flashback to his rape during sex with Casca and strangles her.

might want to brace yourself for the torturer being v suggestively creepy to Griffith in his scenes, particularly in chapter 54, but there's nothing explicit there

Wyald begins to choke a woman he was seemingly having consensual sex with ch 58 pg 20 the entire sex scene is ch 58 pg 18-20 if you skip it the only mildly important part is that Wyald mentions he already has business with Griffith to take care of, suggesting many or all apostles are aware he has the crimson behelit

ch 59, pg 16 graphic rape in the last panel. i'd recommend reading the rest of the page and just not scrolling down, last panel just describes how the black dog knights would rape women and murder children etc.

ch 59, pg 25-26 graphic rape

ch 60, pg 1-2, and pg 9-10 dismembered bodies skewered on swords, the imagery is p sexually violent if you skip it, guts thinks to himself that wyald's troops are being driven by fear. wyald attacks him with a body on his sword, which guts notices and which informs his outrage

implied rape threat ch 63, pg 18 - 19

rape attempt ch 64 pg 9 - 17, though Casca's torn clothes unfortunately remain throughout the rest of the Wyald fight, and Guts' response to her is terrible If you skip, Griffith sees Wyald grab Casca and tries to get to her despite not being able to walk, Guts eventually wakes up and saves her, nothing else of note

ch 68, from pg 15 to end of scene Wyald strips and humiliates Griffith, it's not overtly sexual and it's not skippable but it might be something you want to be prepared for

ch 71, pg 4 - 7 Griffith makes a sexual advance on Casca. It's not a rape attempt, he stops when she says stop, but it's wordless and might be another thing worth being warned for going in

ch 72 pg 10 - 13 Another one that's not really overt and not skippable but is just kind of vaguely sexual in a disturbing way. Griffith's nightmare sequence of a life with Casca suggests they have a kid together while Griffith is pretty far removed from reality, can't talk, and can barely move

ch 81, pg 21 - 22 The monster rape begins, nothing of value is lost if you skip these pages.

ch 85, pg 8 - 16 More monster rape

ch 86, pg 11 - ch 87, pg 16 Femto rapes Casca in a horrifically grautitous and eroticized rape scene in which the focus is entirely on Guts' feelings as he's forced to watch, with nothing from Casca's point of view. it's bad.

ch 93, pg 14 - 17 Guts tears Casca's dress after hot soup spills on it, then nearly kisses her before she shoves him away and runs, screaming.

Now I have to apologize because I can only warn for major rape scenes here on out. My memory of the post-golden age story isn't the best and there's some random background assault and rape for tone setting, sudden eclipse flashbacks featuring monsters holding up Casca, etc and I don't remember every instance.

Lost Children arc

general tw for abuse, implied csa, implied incest, this is a really dark arc tbh

assault attempt ch 95, pg 3

I believe there's a scene where Jill is sexually harassed by one of her father's friends in a tavern, but I can't find it.

violent rape, potential csa triggers ch 109, pg 14

Conviction Arc

general tw for a few full page spreads full of torture, including sexual torture, but I can't find specific pages

rape attempt, eclipse flashbacks ch 124, pg 6 - 9 + pg 12

possessed farnese tries to fuck guts' sword, idk ch 125, pg 8 - 12

eclipse flashback ch 130, pg 8 - 9

a monster sexually assaults casca ch 147, pg 21 - 22, ch 148 pg 3 - 5

Millenium Falcon Arc

the beast of darkness implies that guts should rape and kill casca in a nightmare. the imagery isn't graphic but it's fairly disturbing. I wouldn't recommend skipping this part but it's worth bracing yourself for. ch 187, pg 21-22

this is the scene where guts assaults casca ch 189 pg 11 - ch 190, pg 9 if you skip it, what happens is that casca is assaulted by bandits, which become monsters from the eclipse from her point of view, but she grabs one of their swords and kills them. guts finds her as she's holding the sword, naked and bloody, and pushes her down and forcibly kisses her. there's some gory beast of darkness imagery in guts' mind. guts bites her breast and then seems to come to his senses and stops. the scene ends abruptly.

single panel flashback to casca right after guts has assaulted her, not very graphic but just in case ch 199 pg 2

trolls rape a village woman ch 204 pg 5-7

a lot of graphic troll rape and gore featuring naked women ch 216 bottom of page 12 - end of chapter, easily skippable (tho top of page 12 is good)

somewhat sexualized image of a naked eviscerated woman ch 217 pg 10

another panel of trolls raping women ch 217, pg 13 hopefully that’s all of it, but apologies if I missed some, these troll chapters suck

slan getting sexually menacing with guts ch 219, pg 13 through ch 221, pg 3 this isn't really skippable, but fair warning going in. it's stuff like slan pressing him against her tits, tearing off his shirt, making a lot of suggestive comments, and kissing him on the last page

I can't find this, there are so many potential chapters it could be in, but at some point Raksas and Silat end up spying on Ganishka together and they see that he creates his demon army by immersing kidnapped pregnant women in a vat full of... apostle essence idk, and it corrupts the fetuses and turns them into demons. it's graphic and fucked up so brace yourself when you get to a scene where Raksas is leading Silat around Ganishka’s palace. ETA it's chapter 233, thank you @satanswolfcut

Fantasia Arc

eclipse flashback ch 354, pg 5

[ittibittium]

Shimanami Tasogare - how to support the series, and a guide to Yuhki Kamatani’s other works

Lately, there’s been a surge in posts and threads recommending the manga Shimanami Tasogare, a slice of life LGBTQ+ manga that centers around the life of Tasuku and other members of the LGBTQ+ lounge that have entered into his life, which has recently reached its final chapter. The series is written and illustrated by Yuhki Kamatani, an x-gender and asexual mangaka best known for their debut series Nabari no Ou.

If you’ve read Shimanami, or are considering it, there are a number of ways you can support the series and the mangaka by buying copies of the original Japanese volumes and/or its localizations, and by supporting Kamatani’s other series as well.

There are currently 3 volumes published in Japan, with the fourth (and last) volume set to publish in August. Right now, in addition to the Japanese and Chinese versions of Shimanami Tasogare, the series is currently being localized in an additional 3 languages, and will be localized in English for next year:

Spanish: Sombras sobre Shimanami (”Shadows over Shimanami”) published by Ediciones Tomodomo

2 volumes. Comes with a special bookmark if you order it online through the publisher.

(I’ve also heard that it has additional colour pages that are in b&w in the other versions, and possibly also the online omakes?)

French: Éclat(s) d’âme (”Soul Shards”/”Radiance of the Soul”/”Sound of the Heart”/etc etc) published by Editions Akata

2 volumes (volume 3 releasing in August, volume 4 likely near end of this year, if the pace they’re going keeps up. Delay of ~1 month for publications in Canada (difficult to order online, but physical in-store copies should be easier to track down if you live in Quebec...? you can order it online from renaud-bray, but they don’t tend to have the volumes in stock on the release date so far (vol 3 set to release in CAN oct 1, so we’ll see) chapters only has the ebooks online and seems to have given up on the physical copies, but has phys copies of vol 1 available in QC))

You can read the first chapter in French here.

Italian: Oltre le Onde (”Beyond the Waves”) published by J-POP

1 volume (volume 2 releasing in October)

English: Finally got licensed! Yay! And is scheduled to released on May 7, 2019!

In addition to the physical copies, you can also buy ebook versions for about half the price, which would also save you on import costs if you don’t live in a country it’s readily offered in. You can find these via the amazon sites for each country, and physical copies are also offered by other local bookstores.

Kamatani has also been colouring special versions of the covers for the French release:

While there is no word of any English localization right now, Seven Seas Entertainment (the same publisher that localizes My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, My solo Exchange Diary, and The Bride was a Boy) does monthly consumer surveys asking for titles people want localized. However, they’ve also tweeted that “As a Shogakukan title, it's very unlikely [Shimanami Tasogare is] available to anyone other than Viz for publishing.“ But that doesn’t mean it’s not impossible, so requesting it is still worth a try, and hey, you’ll be entered into a raffle to win a free book from them anyway. You can also suggest Kamatani’s other titles which haven’t been localized into English yet either, which are published by a different publisher than Shimanami in Japan. They haven’t put up their June survey yet though, so keep an eye out. edit: the survey is now live!

Shimanami is now licensed in English by Seven Seas!! Please consider suggesting their other series (Shounen Note, Busshi no Busshin) for licensing in the future as well!!

The Storytelling Style of Yuhki Kamatani

If you’ve read Shimanami, you’re no doubt familiar with their stunning use of imagery and visual metaphors in their work. Their visual storytelling brings a whole other level of intricateness and emotion to their pieces. These visual metaphors often carry over multiple pages, and return in later story arcs. Their visual storytelling also makes up some beautiful spreads.

(Shimanami Tasogare, Busshi no Busshin / Shounen Note, Nabari no Ou)

When it comes to plot, Kamatani tends to focus on the grey, rather than black and white stories of morality. There is never any distinct good or evil --- everyone has their own motives that move them, and these motives lead them all to take actions that affect everyone else. Everyone has their own shortcomings, their flaws, and everyone has their strengths, and the ability to either help or hurt the people around them. And the potential to grow. Their stories focus on topics like self discovery, personal growth, and the many definitions of family and friendship, and span many genres, from slice of life, action, and historical fiction, and include LGBTQ characters and arcs!

Other Works

Brief introductions to Nabari no Ou, Shounen Note, and Busshi no Busshin under the read more.

Nabari no Ou

Kamatani’s first and most well known series. It was made into a 2 season anime, and both the manga and anime have been adapted into many languages, including English, and has numerous other adaptions such as drama cds as well. However I really don’t recommend watching the anime before or instead of the manga. Many of the character backstories are changed, as well as the arcs and overall story, as the anime changes the ending and ends before the manga. The majority of the important arcs and character development occurs in the parts not included in the anime.

An action manga set in a modern ninja world. The series centers around Miharu Rokujou, a 14-year-old boy who is the possessor of a secret ninja art called the Shinrabanshou, which gives the user the power of creation and knowledge of the universe. However, he wants nothing to do with it or the ninja world, despite how much his situation and the people around him drag him into it. He later meets an enemy ninja named Yoite who wants Miharu to use the Shinrabanshou to erase his existence before he dies, and the two make a promise to find a way to make it so Yoite never existed, while also collecting the other forbidden arts of other villages which would help them find a way to remove the Shinrabanshou from Miharu for good.

Shounen Note

Shounen Note: Days of Evanescence is Kamatani’s second main series. All eight volumes have been localized in Spanish by Ediciones Tomodomo under the name of Shonen Note. If you order it from the Spanish publisher’s website, it also comes with special bookmarks/postcards for each volume.

The story is a slice of life, somewhat sports-y type manga with its competitive choir competitions. It centers around Yutaka Aoi, a middle schooler with a love for singing who joins his school choir, and later an opera group. It follows the stories of him and his choirmates, as well as Vladimir, a Russian boy soprano, as they compete in choir competitions, perform in operas, and attempt to support their town. It’s also jam-packed with really neat visual metaphors.

Busshi no Busshin

Busshi no Busshin - The Sculptor's Buddhakaya is the series Kamatani was working on prior to Shimanami Tasogare, and for some time, simultaneously, before putting the series on hiatus to focus on Shimanami. Other than Chinese, it has not yet been localized in any other languages, but currently has five volumes.

The story is historical fiction with lots of action. It follows Sou, a Buddhist image sculptor (busshi) who can use a technique called raigou to call Buddhas and other gods into the sculptures he carves. While fighting the goddess Mizuchi who was attacking his homeland, he summons the Bodhisattva Myoujou to save them, but the two are easily defeated and eaten in half, leaving each with only half their body. In a last ditch attempt to survive, Sou manages to fuse his remaining body with the remaining half of the statue he had used to summon Myoujou. Five years later, he finally reawakens, but must now face the return of Mizuchi and the Heike clan who seek revenge for their defeat alongside the family of busshi that took him in . 

[alkanote]

Blitz Announcement! The New Protagonists (Chapter Pascal)

Spada: The next protagonist is Pascal, huh… They say she’s a brilliant engineer, so she might get along well with honor student Ruca. Ah, there she is! Heeey! Pascaaal!

Spada: You’re sure energetic. I like that.

Pascal: Dunno what’s going on, but glad to hear thaaat. Fwaa...Uhn…

Spada: Careful there! What’s wrong? Being that unsteady on your feet is dangerous. ...Whoa, is that smell coming from you?

Pascal: Nnaa~ I pulled a bit of an all-nighter~ Got too into my research…

Spada: All-nighter...? Don’t tell me that means you haven’t taken a bath. You have, right?

Pascal: Ehh, I took oneee. Once a week is my nooorm. ...Huh? Wait, what’s today? Maybe it’s been two weeks now…

Spada: You… You’re startin’ to worry me in a different way than Ruca does..

Pascal: Anyway, how can I help youuu? You called me here, so you must have something to talk about.

Spada: Oh, right, I wanted to ask you somethin’. You see, in “The Augite Sleeping in Avalon”, my friend Ruca is--

Pascal: Guu… Zzz...

Spada: Hey, don’t sleep!

Pascal: Mnya? Ah, sorry sorry. I’m getting real sleepy, you see. So what did you say?

Spada: No good… Someone like this will just give Ruca more trouble… Interview result: rejec--

[ Beep, beep…! ]

Spada: What’s that sound?

Pascal: Sorry sorry! Looks like I got a call.

Spada: A call?

Pascal: Please quiet down a little! Hello hello, Pascal speaking! ...Yeah. Yeah. Okay okay, about that~

Spada: Who’s she talkin’ to? Could it be…

Pascal: ...Yeah. And that’s how it goooes. See you, buh-bye~

Spada: Pascal… Just now…

Pascal: Hm? This here is a transmitter. It’s a device that lets you talk to people faaar away! ♪

Spada: Dang, that’s cool! You make it yourself?

Pascal: You bet!

Spada: Interestin’! Have any more devices like that?

Pascal: Weeell, Parser #1’s pretty awesome if I may say so myself! It allows for visualization of the invisible and analyzes their components, which is possible due to the theory that quantum waves--

Spada: Ah, don’t need that much detail. So what can you do with it?

Pascal: During “The Crystal Land and Guiding Light” arc, it confirmed that the crystallized humans and animals still had signs of life. Also, it let Mikleo and Lailah be visible to everyone.

Spada: Wait, that means if you didn’t do that, Sorey and the others’ adventure would have been--

Pascal: Nn, dunno what you’re talking about buuuut maybe something would have changed!

Spada: Amazin’! That’s like you saved the world right there!

Pascal: That’s exaggerating~ But I’m stoked if it helped them out.

Spada: Pascal’s inventions are essential! Interview result: passed with flying colors!

Pascal: Still dunno what’s up, but yay, I passed! Tropical yahoo~

Spada: So you worked so hard on great inventions for the world’s sake that you barely have the time for a bath...

Pascal: Ah… It’s not like thaaaat… I just don’t like baths… Anywho, that’s all you wanted to ask, right? I’ve been at the brink of sleepiness...so I’ll just nap a little now...

Spada: Hey, don’t sleep here! ...Maybe she’ll cause trouble for Ruca after all.

[lottesseenaghoul]

RE:169 quick thoughts before I go into rabbit hole of tg posts on tumbler (edited)

So I was expecting the scans to come out on Thursday but was surprised to see some fresh panels in the uta tag and FLIPPED.jpeg at my behavioural economics lecture. Honestly not the best place for getting a nosebleed xdd

Anyways here are some of hot takes I got from reading the chapter. More nuanced meta probably on its way. I read it on mangastream and I did screenshots there.

The chapter starts with the first part of Uta’s tattoo quote and ends with the second part, forming a sort of narrative framework to read it.

We jump straight into the fray, with contrasting shots of Yomo’s damn fine looking face and Uta’s there as well, clearly guided by very basic thinking and mostly intuitive, emotional impulses:

Like this is typical, stereotypical “unhinged” face people do in mangas. A mix of enthusiasm and bloodlust, it says this guy went “insane”. Ugh. Uta’s mental health warrants a LOT of unpacking nevertheless so let’s leave this face’ implications for later. 

We glimpse their fight styles then:

Uta is on the offensive, honestly his is such forceful, visceral way of attacking here - straight up fuck up your opponent with the sheer force of your blow. He is shown to be a lot more nuanced and deliberate in previous fights, steering clear from attacking and content with evading the blows, dealing some psychological damage afterwards. But that is Uta just half-assedly toying - clearly he doesn’t stop himself with Yomo. The reasons can be manifold - that’s how they’ve always done it; he’s so pumped, he stops thinking and loses himself in pure bloodlust; he’s in a serious crisis - this is my preferred angle.

Now his fighting style, besides the raw strength behind it, is also quick and agile. In a second Uta gets behind Yomo, and tries to strike through his body mid-air. His face looks like this:

Very unstable.

Uta’s pupils are incredibly large here - again, a visual reminder how little conscious control he might have in this situation. OR how vicious his intents are.

My impression is that when he’s led by such murderous motivation (whatever its composing parts), Uta moves intuitively, we don’t see him playing around or allowing to be struck. Here he has the initiative but Yomo can so far fend off or otherwise deal with his attacks.

I’m honestly so thirsty for Yomo in this chapter, just look at this fine motherfucker:

{I’m interjecting to thank my lord satan for my pan-shipping, slutty heart because now UtaRen became another ship I love. Add in some Itori and you have another one. This one just keeps on giving <3}

Also Uta is so messy here, my baby all playful like a rabid hyena. 

Despite all the refinements older Uta keeps about himself (suave clothing, neat hair, designer mask studio, antiques in glass cases, chess), he didn’t seem to have done much growing up, emotionally. Donato comments on it like that:

You just gotta love the fact that for most of the manga Uta keeps the facade of actually being the least reckless of the ghouls. But I trust Donato on this, who seems to know Uta’s darker impulses fairly well. Possibly better than Yomo and that dude got his fair of beating from Uta too.

What got me interested is how Amon had commented how pointless Clowns endeavours were. Initially I thought it’s Donato who said it, but later on he tells Amon that he would soon understand...

Oh Amon looks fine AF too. Be still my slutty heart!

Furuta says something possibly pivotal for the incoming plot arc:

(IDK wtf this is, but if even Furuta comments on it as if he was both grossed out/scared, it must be important. Oh, he meets Kaneki too, no biggie. “That’s just freaky!!”, I love you Nimura)

Back to my boys, Yomo is getting beat up but mostly evades Uta’s attacks and looks more and more pissed. Uta just looks like a dumbass. Or rather as stupid as cats who torture smaller critters for fun and recreation do:

Also we get a glimpse of his kagune. It seems to be very elastic, easily changing shapes as Uta sees fit. It was just this gigantic mass of RC cells in the beginning panels, now it’s much more resembling the spider legs en masse that we remember from his fight with Juuzou:

But what is most important here, we finally get the first shot of Itori. She is wearing a mask in the beginning, and it’s important in context of what Uta will be saying shortly: edit: It’s Itori speaking, thoughts on that in a different post.

She’s an observer in that panel, very significantly voiceless, not shown to be nearly as amused as Nico here:

Uta’s Itori’s words are honestly a key to Clown’s philosophy and deserve a meta of its own. [In the beginning I thought these were Itori’s words, especially after I saw “Kanekichi” being mentioned; it’s how she had referred to Kaneki before.] - no wonder, it was my brain’s way to remind me I was far too concentrated on Uta to consider the awesomest queen Itori :/

Uta Itori says something very interesting here:

Obviously, if he were to be an OEK, first or the second one, that would be right up the alley. But even if not, it hints at very interesting possibilities. I want to see Ishida expand on it in some flashbacks. 

The most important words are coupled with shots of Itori slowly taking her mask off. It has a very dramatic effect.

Theres a heck ton to unpack here. Honestly I would never think Uta would look at his value system from that particular angle. Edit - and he wouldn’t because he is currently in the midst of a mayor meltdown. It’s Itori who actually bothers with explaining.

He She refers to the coldness of their existence as ghouls, of how senseless it is - like a vast, cold void stretching infintiely in front of them. 

Uta’s ways of searching for warmth are probably the only ones somebody as uprooted as him could come up with - he sees drawing blood, wounding (but also getting wounded - Uta seems to have a very laissez faire attitude to him perishing eventually as we remember from his talk with Donato).

According to Uta  Itori, Yomo is the warm one. For him her, it’s via bloodletting that he can get closer to taste it. Edit Uta def seconds that in the panels to come with his own actions

 I still think there’s some theatrics involved in this speech, as the next panel shows....

God, way to make your opponent unsuspecting of your next move Uta. 

And we get another important shot of Itori. She’s clearly positioned as somewhat stradling the line between Uta and Yomo but this series consistently shows her as being closer to Uta nevertheless.

Her eyes are shining so bright here, it’s clear she’s in deep thought and possibly a bit torn apart with what’s happening here. What Uta says clearly strikes a cord but her taking the mask off, idk it may signal some important differences between her and Uta’s worldview. That or it’s a sign she identifies with his words deeply. Edit ditto, these are her words and the scene took entirely different meaning and made me Love Itori, the first time since reading the series.

Honestly Uta is just beginning tho, as he has some creepy words about dreaming of the day where he would get his hands stained with Yomo’s blood. He actually left Yomo on the ground to have this mini speech properly. He’s posturing as far as my impressions go - Uta reverts to his younger persona, sans earlier sentiments of not wanting to cut his fun short by killing the only one ghoul who could match him somewhat. 

The most important thing in this chapter is what Yomo says next...

Here Uta is, going off about his strange blood kink and Yomo goes all shonen manga on him. But it’s not the same shonen posturing he did in previous chapter. We don’t see his eyes - we see Uta’s and that dude is honestly #shook. 

Naturally he reacts in ways only Ishida can think of. Honestly how Yomo’s words are literally drowned out by Uta’s uncontrollable and histerical laughter is such a masterful move:

This is the guy who dug up Ren from the ground because he was his “friend”. Now he’s just a mouth apparently.

Idk but this seems like the key panel for analyzing Uta from psychological angle. This dude most pronounced feature is his mouth which is nothing like human’s or ghoul alike. It’s like he’s truly the chaotic trickster god with none of the sentiments he was hinted to possess.

I was talking with @gaiajulz and I love how she pointed out that it seems like Uta is actually drowning out Yomo’s heartfelt words and he isn’t even fully aware he’s doing it. With Uta’s firm worldview, he’d rather go full crisis-mode instead of acknowledging how vulnerable and in need of closeness he is. 

Honestly Uta is soo Washuu-like in this panel, like Furuta’s older brother or something. First screech like a  Cthulu monster and then do a little happy dance!

What’s important is how Uta links what he sees as Yomo’s nivete with his emotional honesty and lack of any hidden agendas. Yomo is pure and good and this is why he is naive enough to trust a world like this. Uta saw so many sides to it, he literally sees no other option than to play the fool, including fooling around with one of the precious few of potentially close people in his life.

I also think he kind of looks like crying? From laughing so hard maybe. 

The chapter ends with my baby going full kakuja (predictably it’s his shifty face that’s the most inhuman part here, just a mass of flesh) and this flirty words:

Renji seems so shocked, it’s possible he had never seen this form. Either way he’s speechless.

And Uta’s philosophy is hinted at again - he’s willing to trample his friend just to feel anything. 

What we are dearly in need of is some good meta on Uta’s mental health, how his values feature into it and how his own actions contribute to it unraveling. Obviously such speculations are about as scientific as psych profiling but I feel it would be very important to try and understand this character better.

And boy, is there a lot to unpack here... 

Edit - crossed the parts where it’s suggested it’s Uta who summarizes Clown’s philosophy. It’s Itori and I don’t get my brain could hint at the discrepancies in my own thinking but not make the definite link. Gotta love that sweet ADHD folks.