#jia_talks

[fizzyjacuzzi]

K-pop demon hunters is a fun watch, the songs are catchy and good, animation and art direction amazing, but I'm not really a big fan of how they gloss over the k-pop industry like it's very clean, instant, and easy. It feels like an outsider's perspective of what k-pop is.

Disclaimer: I was pretty active in kpop fandom spaces during 2019-2023, and still keep up some until this day.

(opinion + criticism under cut, along with out of context spoilers)

First, the good parts: The dance and styling are reminiscent of popular k-pop (major K/DA + BP + IVE vibes for the girls, BTS/NCT Dream + Atz/Skz for the boys). The ridiculous variety show, yes, they exist, but not quite like the one in the movie where it feels like a mashup of Hot Ones, Japanese game shows, and Donnie and Connie more than anything. Obsessive fan culture, a bit touched upon, with the opening introduction, but didn't explore it enough, especially with the dating taboo (missed opportunity, I'd say), fans were too supportive and too positive for the Huntrix + Saja Boys thing.

So, those good things are are also the bads: the way these are portrayed seems pretty surface level, sanitized, simplified, over the top and comical. Eating carb-heavy, presumably spicy, greasy foods right before singing? Horrible idea, their voices will give out. No rehearsal and soundcheck before the concert? Unprofessional. Announcing a new single a few hours before release? Without marketing and promotion months beforehand? Holding a live show right after said sudden release? There are other kpop groups in universe, How Do They Get Their Slot in music shows with the sudden, unplanned release!?

The industry is cut-throat and competitive, which is barely shown through how Saja Boys dominated the chart and suddenly removed Huntrix from their throne. Often, idols don't have that much of a say of creative nor executive decisions. Even those with such freedom will always have to relay their decisions to the top brasses first before moving a limb. So: no, Rumi will not be able to release the song with one single click. Especially if it's Huntrix, a group single and not, say, Soundcloud Mixtape. And no, Rumi won't be able to just leave a live show without repercussions. Media will have a field day with that, and netizens will leave scathing remarks and not-unfounded criticism along with mean-spirited bullying. Plus, after the mess with the Idol Awards, their career will not be able to recover. "Public breakup" will either paint one side as evil or dunk on everyone. All in all, the portrayal of k-pop in this movie is terribly unprofessional and fantastical. How did it not get out that the girls broke into the men's baths? And how did they not get protest trucks and threatening letters when Huntrix and Saja boys were seen chummy chummy in the same fan event? Did the girls not receive any PR training at all?

Many celebrities have gone down overnight over lesser offenses: women being too thin or too fat; being spotted clubbing and smoking weed. Huntrix wouldn't survive a year. In my opinion, they could have capitalized on how cutthroat the industry is when Saja Boys are trying to topple Huntrix's top dog spot: make use of scandals and rumour mills, destroy their reputation, and usurp their throne.

It's made to be palatable for audience unfamiliar with k-pop, but made to capitalize on the name k-pop on its title, with characters, especially the girls, written to be quirky, relatable, disney princess template with not much other personality traits. Honestly, I think that even if you erase the K-pop in the title and all the gratuitious Korean vocab, names, and hanboks, and make them ambiguously-fictional-Asian instead, they will not make much difference narrative wise.

My major gripe with this movie are 1. that it's trying to reach too many audience and generalizing and simplifying everything that it ceases to be K-pop; and 2. that either the characters tell and not show (the whole everything with Rumi and Jinu, Zoey's "people pleasing" tendencies) or they don't at all (Mira's "insecurities"); that even after watching the movie, I don't understand these characters nor their motivation beyond that they sing, dance, look pretty, and #relatable. They're just vehicles for the aesthetics, and that's it.

Tldr; It's a fun show, if you ignore the k-pop in the title and watch it with no prior expectations. And the tiger is cute, horanghae shoutout 🐯

[fizzyjacuzzi]

disjointed thoughts on ghost trick

(spoilers under cut‼️ please play ghost trick and get ghosting and tricking. please.......)

a game about devotion: a man's despair when all is taken away from him, a dog's loyalty to chase after his dear humans, another man's attempt for penance to set all things right, a girl who wants to save her savior, said savior who willingly shoulders the burden so that his little girl shouldn't have to-

-and a cat who knows devotion, but doesn't remember it. but he relearns about it. and so he saves them all.

i keep thinking about yomiel, how he's just a zombie, alive without truly living. and his only companion, a cat, whose fur he can't feel, who is named after the person he loves the most. who he brings along everywhere. who he's going to bring along for when he finally has his respite. and just when his pieces have started to finally fall into place for his vengeance to be enacted, just as he reached the light on the end of the tunnel- his only friend died, because of him.

i also keep thinking about yomiel and cabanela... cabanela has wronged him so, the one who set up all the dominoes to fall in the first place. yomiel had his revenge, enacted with his own hands. and yet cabanela's still here, remorseful, not knowing how far he had pushed yomiel, how far yomiel had fallen, and succumbed, and drenched his hands in blood, for all cabanela knows, in this new, pristine clean timeline, it's only set in motion because of cabanela's mistake, and not yomiel pushing the boulder down the dominoes-

-how does he accept the apology from the spotless, bright, clean visage, who is left in the dark? who doesn't know how he gleefully painted his loved ones in the red he oh so hated?

anyways yeah cabayomi/yominela(?) post-canon. god.

oh and im tagging all yomiel posts with #tagged for samsara's blond hamster. because samsara is a wheel. and yomiel's always running on it with no end in sight. ha. get it.

[fizzyjacuzzi]

rant about one certain ship (especially the shippers).

obligatory mk and m27 spoiler warning.

I actually like kaishin, I shipped kaishin way before I shipped akam, and this reveal is pretty much a too-long-overdue on aoyama's part because... well, 30 years of on-and-off serialization.

I get that many are mad. I, too, am so baffled that it circles back to hilarious. The relation makes sense story-wise and does not make sense profit-wise at the same time. Alas, kaishin is not the biggest detco ship in japan at the moment (kaishin got dethroned since around a decade ago, I'd say, they're still popular, but not to akam's extent in japan).

That said, a lot (but not all, love you all who don't participate in this) kaishin shippers are being so obnoxious in their anger. It's a gay ship, you know aoyama would never make it canon anyways. Just because kaishin was an "unproblematic" ship back in the day, before the cousin reveal, doesn't make it any more canon than other fan favorite ships. (Kaishin is one of the tamest, most vanilla, and mass-appealing gay ships you can find in detco, since both parties are still teenagers, technically, and both are written as cool™ protagonists who are rivals, and I stand by my case.)

Also: to the other side of the fandom, aka fans who insist on every fanwork to be canon-compliant and glorify the mediocre het romances aoyama's written into his stories, don't be homophobic while you're tapdancing on the cousin reveal. If you don't have anything nice to say, keep it to yourself.

Anyways, ship what you want. If you don't feel comfortable with kaishin being incest, maybe step away and clear your head and find other hobbies on the side. You can stop making content about them, or you can always ignore canon, and put that disclaimer in your fanworks, especially on ao3. Fanworks are fair game and free playground, you can play sand however you want. It doesn't make your works invalid. Just tag your works properly if you do mean them to be incest. They're fictional anyways, fictional morality does not translate rigidly to real life laws and morals and principles. To add, fanworks are simply derivative of the original, nothing you make is any more canon than the fanworks others have made.

To be honest, I'm more mad at aoko's mom and toichi being alive than kaishin being cousins. Stellar parenting, the bar was on hell that it actually drowns on hellfire now. No continuity no nothing, from early MK canon to current DCMK lore.

[fizzyjacuzzi]

if there's one thing that bothers me, it's the fact that during the entirety of mask of, oshtor is said to have come from humble origins, and have clawed his way up to the upper echelons the hard way, starting as a foot soldier-

but then, monomebi says that nah, it's basically nepotism?? while he did put in effort (and by the virtue of noseyness and not being able to let sleeping dogs lie), it's also due to his father and dikotoma's connections that he was capable of going this far... he did start from cleaning gutters etc too, but that is not the same as starting as foot soldier in my books

don't get me wrong, i do enjoy monomebi, but the non-continuity does bother me... and i'm fonder of the headcanons that oshtor and mikazuchi started from the bottom...

[fizzyjacuzzi]

after all, ship stands for relationship and not all relationships have to be romantic! (there's a reason we got / and & differentiated on ao3)

i just love to explore every option... awkward interactions, gradually getting to know each other, platonic bonding, comfortable silence, or even just plain Tolerance.

even if i dont necessarily ship certain pairs nor are they my ultimate faves, looking at how others explore them can be really fun!

Not to tell people how to enjoy their fictional media or anything but I am begging Some People on the Internet to at least try witnessing a character dynamic they find interesting and not immediately assuming it’s rooted in sexual tension and turning it into a ship

[fizzyjacuzzi]

i just noticed but isn't this the exact same tactic bourbon and vermouth used to trick camel and jodie into spilling about kusuda rikumichi...?

[fizzyjacuzzi]

the more i think of it (especially after monomebi), oshtor just doesn't seem straight. he's married to his work and being mononofu yes, but like. you know what i mean. (spoilers for MoT and tame nsfw talk under cut‼️)

i feel like ougi and oshtor got some kinda fling going on, pre- and during MoD. and that's why ougi immediately clocked on to "oshtor" during MoT- [gets run over by cocopo]

this is my fujo lens bias speaking: oshtor respects haku a lot, and maybe there's some budding attraction going on? but haku seems uninterested (ace!haku i will die on this hill)... oshtor has to vent it off somehow, and so, maybe during MoD oshtor and ougi arrange clandestine meetings snuck between his shitty work-life balance.

in all seriousness, i think the only one in the main party who's close enough to oshtor to notice the differences is ougi (not counting mikazuchi), even if ougi himself is pretty sharp and observant. i'm kinda sad that they make munechika somewhat close enough to oshtor in monomebi while in MoT they just seem like passing acquaintances who work together sometimes... I know it's probably because they haven't fully fleshed out monomebi, but still... seeing that munechika got a halu plushie too...

anyways i think bottom!oshtor deserves more rights. especially if he's obliterated by the Twinks (MoD!haku and ougi. and maaaaybe kiwru. he should also get to rail his aniue, just saying).

[fizzyjacuzzi]

haku should have a harem but said harem should also include hakuoro, oshtor, mikazuchi, raikou, and maroro

[fizzyjacuzzi]

(explaining on rb because this got out of my hands and is too long to fit into the reply section, sorry if this is too long, OP 🥲)

@peculiarphantomphoenix The translations I caught up to are still on 210+ (out of 800+) and I avoid context for spoilers, but I'll try my best to explain the premise.

If you're familiar with solo leveling, TSCTIR's start is a bit similar: Dungeon Gates appearing, monsters residing inside the Gates, and Dungeon Breaks happening when the Gates are not cleared and monsters breaking out, humans Awakening with powers and separated into Classes.

The mc Han Yoojin is a weak F-class Hunter, and he was abandoned by his ridiculously-OP S-class younger brother (who he raised singlehandedly, look, it's complicated) right after the latter awakened. He struggles to keep himself afloat, only to find out that his younger brother left so that Han Yoojin won't get caught up in S-class mess and politics... and Han Yoojin only gets to know this when said OP younger brother sacrificed himself to save Han Yoojin and died.

Due to circumstances, Han Yoojin got to turn back time (5 years) to prevent their relationship's fallout and his bro's death. Han Yoojin got niche OP support skills out of the regression, but all the previous events from the timeline that Has Never Happened (it's hard to elaborate in one blog post, but... yeah...) clearly fucked him up, and the novel narration depicts that. Han Yoojin's self worth pretty much banks on bravado and those skills... He does have ppl (including his bro) who feel fond and protective of him, but he thinks that's only due to the influencing effects of his skills.

tl;dr I'd like to think that the more disturbing aspects are when they elaborate and narrate the 'showing' on the emotional aspects of it.

Worldbuilding-wise, well, there are scummy human practices that are prevalent in the world that are portrayed as realistic as you can get in a pseudo-isekai settings, and some important characters are directly affected by it.

There might be more, it could be either I haven't reached the part yet, or I missed it, really.

warnings for self-worth issues, insecurity, self-sacrificial tendencies (which we're all unfortunately familiar with, I'm afraid), alcoholism, depression. To add, it also touches on toxic familial relationships, destructive workaholic tendencies and sexism in the characters and the worldbuilding in general.

That's about it that comes to mind. The premise is interesting, worldbuilding and politics very contemplative and well done, and the pov is most of the time unreliable narrator. There are plenty of slapstick and funny moments, and the manhwa comes off as mostly comedic so far, but just be prepared that some sad and heartbreaking moments may sneak into you. Also, since the mc's OP kits are either non-direct-combat support skills or passive skills that can only work in Extremely Niche Circumstances, you can count on him to think of ingenious ways to get out of a hairy situation.

Anyone who wants to add anything I miss or correct me if I got anything wrong, feel free to do so!

I haven't read ORV or TSCTIR but according to the posts and memes that I read here in Tumblr ORV is angsty and TSCTIR is a bit disturbing. So I think I'll stick to TCF and the memes about ORV and TSCTIR.

[fizzyjacuzzi]

does anyone else find it ironic that amuro's first ever appearance involved a case with estranged twins about to get married when furuya's one-sided sworn enemy turned out to be dating his own cousin all along

[fizzyjacuzzi]

from time to time i think about haku and how he resigned himself to always don a mask (both literally and figuratively) and take the mantle he never asked for

and how he tried to give torikori good memories of "oshtor". and how she noticed, all along. and cared about him. and then lost another son....

[fizzyjacuzzi]

do you ever think how shirou thinks a body armour design with abs highlight is cool enough that his fit is just like that even in his afterlife

[fizzyjacuzzi]

talked long about this with bibi (not kpop bibi but actual moot and resident fellow rabid akam enjoyer) but bam yang gang by bibi (kpop) is sooo amuro... all whimsical and fantasy like, but when you get to his core, something is Just A Little Off

amuro is such a perfect crafted shell of a persona with all of furuya's edges shorn away to create a hollow shell for him to squirrel away inside and present to everyone, enemies and allies alike, all lovable and pretty words and pretty smiles and no substance no feelings, perfect practiced motions of a gentleman built right on top of furuya's unappealing arrogance and fury and intensity

[fizzyjacuzzi]

a venn diagram of my faves (ghost trick spoiler warning!)

aka exposing my tastes, as you can see the common trends between them

had to rack my brain for rei and emiya's similarities that they don't share with yomiel in particular

i can probably compare haku to them too, but that is for another day

[fizzyjacuzzi]

you're not alone in this. this also haunts my thoughts 24/7. he always remembers her. even after this long long time of killing for the sake of humanity, when even the memories of his own name has rusted over, his memories of her ideals will never fade away.

There had been a time when he found that contradiction to be beautiful.

[fizzyjacuzzi]

from 'My Item' to 'My Partner', we love a good character development here