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[bestbonnist]

hi uhhh idk how this app works at all so here have a lot quality french president Bonshen :333 HES SO SILLY GUAARRAGHHH

[bestbonnist]

This anime broke my heart </3

[bestbonnist]

Only three weeks left to fill out the interest check for Pink Blood, a To Your Eternity fanzine!

Interest Check

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Oh, you are crying? I'll give you something to cry about *presses play on To Your Eternity episode 1*

[bestbonnist]

More Kahaku Shit. Sorry

There's no new episode or chapter this week BUT that means I had enough time to write an analysis on one aspect of Kahaku's character development. I rooted through the Uralis and Renryrr arcs for this one specific pattern like a madman, so if this doesn't give you more insight into Kahaku's character I won't be able to do anything because I don't know any of you people, but I will sit down and stare into space for at least an hour.

So this anaylsis focuses mostly on Kahaku in the Uralis Arc, and more specifically, his relationship with religion. Because Kahaku is pretty religious. He was raised as a cult's figurehead, it's built into his character. So like all of Hayase's other successors, he's a follower of the Defense Corps.' belief system. In his opinion, his faith makes him stronger, and he also uses it to reassure himself and other people.

This exchange where Kahaku tells Fushi about the afterlife stands out because it's worlds apart from anything that could conceivably comfort Fushi. They had just fled from a girl who was going to die, because they couldn't stand not being able to cure her, and climbed a tree in March's form to feel more secure. Seeing this, Kahaku went with something he would be relieved to hear in that situation, and it shows just how much his beliefs dictate his thoughts and actions.

Since Fushi is the Defense Corps.' deity of choice, Kahaku's opinion of them had already formed before they met. How this affects the way he treats Fushi is clearest when he apologizes for not maintaining the public's good will towards Fushi almost immediately after introducing himself, and when he anticipates that they'd let Bon execute the Defense Corps. when they were captured by his soldiers. Both times, he's pleasantly surprised when Fushi demonstrates basic human decency; he was expecting to meet an inhuman shapeshifter who needed to be guided towards benevolence by someone worthy. Because that's how Hayase depicts them. But the slightest bit of kindness makes Kahaku's perception of them shift entirely. Ironically, Fushi only told Kahaku not to apologize because they thought everyone was right and they were responsible for knocker attacks. It had nothing to do with cheering Kahaku up, but he thought they were being nice and asked if they could be friends.

Fushi—because they, you know, kind of have a history of friends dying horrible deaths—doesn't accept this offer, so Kahaku sticks to the servant/master relationship, which only intensifies after he falls in love with them. Yes, this is creepy as fuck. He could talk to Fushi in a friendly way and even messed around with them a little before they started using Parona's form, but afterwards... Referring to Fushi as "our Fushi," bowing before he enters their room, acting as if he can make decisions for them, and encouraging them to work miracles so that other people will believe in them too are some of the bullshit things he does that make Fushi uncomfortable/piss them off/are just weird as fuck.

The Defense Corps. version of Fushi doesn't match the person Kahaku is getting to know. Beyond the "Hayase's opinion on what Fushi needs versus what Fushi actually needs" discrepancy, he can see how they react in very human ways when they're angry, how they like to read and absorb new information, how they can't ride a fucking horse properly, and how they can't handle death. None of these are very godly things, but Kahaku's so wrapped up in his own mind that he doesn't notice how out of touch he is, and how it affects Fushi. This inconsistency comes to a head when Kahaku proposes, and subsequently can't understand why Fushi's rejecting him because he doesn't have a sense of who they are at all. He falls back on Hayase's belief that Fushi needs to be taught by others and assaults them. Then, this:

Kahaku was dead wrong, and according to Fushi, so is the religion he believed in. Next, Bon and Fushi are captured by the Bennett Church, and Pokoa throws a lit match onto gasoline.

This is a great interaction because Pokoa unintentionally points out that Kahaku actually doesn't have much faith in Fushi, and maybe he never did. He was trying to guide them like Hayase's successors are supposed to, but that's just proof that he doesn't think they can take care of themselves. So the Defense Corps.' agenda is contradictory: if not Fushi, what exactly are they supposed to be having faith in? Hayase? That answer might have suited Kahaku fine before, but now he knows that she was a horrible person. To make things worse, the Defense Corps. have to disband.

In the middle of this mess, Fushi gives him a concrete goal: to help them fight the knockers in Renryrr and to worm information out of the left hand. And after that he—wait for it—stops wearing the piece of cloth that has the Defense Corps.' religious symbol on it. Yes this is what made me decide to write this up. As funny as it is to imagine that removing one article of clothing not even I noticed was missing from an outfit so distinctly unfashionable it could be recognized from a mile away was Kahaku's idea of going incognito, there was no reason for him to disguise himself by the time the knockers started attacking Renryrr. It didn't get ripped up or anything either. He just stopped wearing it. It's a statement that means he no longer agrees with Hayase's religious ideals.

Kahaku decided to put his faith in a specific person who he cared a lot about, instead of an organization based on the beliefs of an insane person. In the Renryrr Arc, he's able to attune himself to Fushi's emotions because he's no longer confused about who they are. After the left hand kills Fushi, and Kahaku's in another situation where it looks like there's no hope, he does have faith in them, and fights the left hand assuming that March managed to work something out despite not even knowing that they're still alive until he sees Kai.

That last sentence would have been a somewhat positive point to end this post, but I'm going to keep going. When Kahaku died, he killed himself and members of the Bennett Church, while declaring that he loved Fushi, directly after a flashback in which he swore to devote himself to them without even knowing who they were. You get the point I'm trying to make here: his death was like a ritual sacrifice, and he chose to die in that way and reincarnate instead of returning to Fushi's side when Kai offered or wait for them to resurrect him after he died.

[bestbonnist]

Chapter 186.4 link.

[bestbonnist]

⚪️ Carrd and Info Docs ⚪️

We highly encourage checking them out, especially if you're looking to contribute to our zine!

Carrd

Info Doc

Everything a contributor will need to know is in the Info Doc. Your feedback and questions are very appreciated, and will be added into the Info Doc as an update.

[bestbonnist]

Yes I love over-explaining things! I don't know what you're confused about so I'll start with the basic premise and keep going deeper.

Back in the present era, Yuuki started a company before he died called Kaibara which was dedicated to researching/developing knocker-related technology which was supposed to allow humans to choose whether or not they have a knocker and make it easier for knockers and humans to live together peacefully. Five hundred years later, Kaibara is now a mega corporation that has the authority of a government and a religion. At some point Kaibara merged with the Guardians even though Mizuha tried to disband them.

Kaibara's main product is their tag-chips, which are the form knockers take now. Getting them implanted is opt out, not opt in, and anyone who doesn't have one literally gets thrown out with the trash. Tag-chips can "make any wish come true!"™ so they're basically doing Fushi's job of making the world peaceful for them. The whole idea is that Kaibara has gone and done what Fushi and the knockers were talking about doing in the present era, which is make everyone's dreams a reality. And it kind of sucks.

Kaibara runs on a five-star system. It's basically like online ratings. Everyone can give "reviews" to other people that bump them up or down. A person's status depends on their stars, with five-star people being employed at Kaibara and one-star people being outcast from society. So whether or not you can get everything you want like they say depends on whether you've got stars or not. One way to jump to five stars is to catch one of the immortals. No one's supposed to bother Fushi because everyone knows about them now and believes they're a god, but their friends are supposed to be wicked people who tricked them. But whenever someone manages to capture one (usually Tonari) they'll just take poison and let Fushi resurrect them somewhere else. So Kaibara and the immortals have been stuck in a stalemate for a really long time.

Kaibara also had thirty-two Mizuha clones that they kept in a lab. They were creating these clones in an attempt to "bring a certain woman back to life" (probably Hayase, but not confirmed). Other than that, we don't know what kind of research the clones were doing, we just know that they were all killed over eight years ago. Whether the thirty-second clone was killed with the rest of them is the subject of much debate. Her tag-chip says that she's dead, and we've seen her dead body in a flashback, but one of the other characters believes she's still alive.

The biggest mystery of Kaibara is who their leader is. Even Kaibara employees on the ground don't really know what's happening. But Bon went exploring as a ghost, and found out that Kaibara headquarters is some sort of tree which produces human bodies and survives by consuming human flesh. It's strongly implied that one of the bodies growing in the tree has the knocker who was friends with Yuuki and Fushi in the present era inside of it. Other than that, we don't know anything about what its purpose is.

Right now Kaibara and the immortals are both trying to find the sphere. Kaibara's been looking for it for the past eight years, and Fushi and the others just want to get to it first so that Kaibara doesn't have that power in their hands. Fushi's also thinking of using the sphere's power to grant their friends' wishes again. But that plot-line's kind of been on the back-burner for a while because the story's more focused on the Mizuha clones right now.

Our main protagonist in this arc is the doll, who has lost her memories and whose origins are unknown. Things we know about the doll so far (this list is non-exhaustive, it's just everything I can think of that's important):

She was unconscious for eight years before the arc started.

She has 32's tag-chip around her neck.

When she's unconscious she sees snippets of the memories that she's forgotten.

She's been modified to have super strong punches.

At one point, she was 32's doll.

She produces human brainwaves.

She's in love with Abel.

At the time I'm writing this, the most recent chapter basically confirms that the doll has 32's memories inside her. How? Why? We don't know. But we'll find out.

Two more important characters new to this arc: Abel and Andy Day. Abel was born without a tag-chip, so he'll die of a heart disease in less than a year. Abel was friends with 32 when he was a kid, and also interacted with the doll. He believes that 32 is still alive and he was the one who gave the doll her tag-chip in the first place. How he got a hold of her tag-chip is also unclear. Andy is an eight year old kid who accidentally captured Tonari, became a Kaibara employee with five stars, and went on a power trip. Fushi and their friends were able to remove his tag-chip so he's no longer a threat and take him back with them, so now both Abel and Andy are sort of on the immortals' side. Temporarily. Abel is mostly on the doll's side, Andy has the moral backbone of an eclair but he loves his brother and has a crush on Tonari.

Something else important: the perspective of this arc is divided about 70/30 between the doll and Fushi, which stands out because Fushi is usually the one the story follows. When we do see things presented from their perspective, they often reveal a crucial bit of information that the other characters don't know. Based on this, it's likely that Fushi is more involved in what happened to 32 and the rest of the clones than they let on.

There are a lot of questions and very little answers. But I hope that gave you a better idea of what we do and don't know. So, ahem. What is the purpose of this arc within the greater story?

Fushi's longest-standing dream has been to "make everyone else's dreams come true." Fushi also shares this dream with the knockers who've been trying to come up with ways to make Paradise—the world with none of the physical constraints of reality that people go to when they die—on earth. The knockers want to remove pain and suffering, and if they can't take humans away from suffering, they'll take the suffering away.

To Your Eternity has already established that in this universe, experience is what makes people people. Fushi experiences painful and happy things, and they develop into a human. The knockers avoid these experiences, so they're not human—but the ones who come down to earth end up getting attached to their bodies or becoming afraid of death. So the question is: if pain and suffering are a part of human development, what happens when they get removed? Should they even be removed in the first place? If Fushi does find the sphere, what will they do with it?

i love the to your eternity cyberpunk arc so much but i will be damned if i actually understand with substance wtf is actually going on. feel free to overexplain it to me.

[bestbonnist]

Saving the best for last!

⚪ Meet the Immortals ⚪

Our final mod is Nikki @4nikki21! Nikki's favorite character is Kahaku, and just like Kahaku she strives to do her very best at her job, which is to manage our writers and social media accounts. But unlike Kahaku, she won't botch it at the end.

(Psst! Keep an eye out for our info doc and Carrd this weekend!)

[bestbonnist]

Best Underrated Anime Group A Round 4: To Your Eternity vs Shadows House

#A7: To Your Eternity (Fumetsu no Anata e)

Immortal being learns what it’s like to be human

#A5: Shadows House

Two girls unravel mysteries surrounding an isolated manor

Details and poll under the cut!

#A7: To Your Eternity (Fumetsu no Anata e)

Summary:

An Orb, known only as It, is cast to Earth to be observed from afar. Capable of changing forms from beings whose reflections It captures, It first becomes a rock and then, due to the rising temperature, moss.

It does not move until one snowy day, a wolf at death’s door barely crosses by. When It takes the animal’s form, It attains awareness of its consciousness and starts to wander with an unclear destination in mind. Soon, It comes across the wolf’s master—a young boy waiting for his tribe to return from a paradise abundant with fish and fruit in the south. Although the boy is lonely, he still hopes those whom he holds dear in his memories have not forgotten him and that he will reunite with them one day.

The boy wants to explore new surroundings and decides to abandon his home with It to find the paradise using the traces his tribe left behind. However, with a heavily injured body and no sight of his elder comrades, what will become of the boy?

Propaganda:

I don’t think I’ve ever watched an anime that has meant so much. It’s/Fushi’s journey from being born as nothing and without emotions, to becoming a genuine, real person who loves and cries is so special to me. The constant war he’s in between being too human and being not human at all is written so well—for him to love so much it hurts, leading him to isolate himself for years on end, for him to want to make friends, to love, but too afraid of them leaving and eventually dying to meet anyone new. For him to get so detached from life and death and the cycle it perpetuates that he loses understanding of why human life is so special—why should he save people, if they will die anyway? Why should he save them, if he can just bring them back to life, if he can just become them? The constant cycle of him learning to love again, and learning to treasure life again, only to lose it once he’s experienced death in a new and agonizing way. It’s about love, and it’s about humanity. Always.

Trigger Warnings: Animal Cruelty/Death, Child Abuse, Graphic Depictions of Cruelty/Violence/Gore, Racism, Rape/Non-Con, Self-Harm, Suicide

All TW’s apply to the protagonists, except child abuse and the racism. The world itself has hints of racism/discrimination throughout the anime, and not directly towards the protagonist. As for the rape, an antagonist attempts to rape the protagonist. There is a ton of self harm (protagonist and side characters) and blood as there is a lot of wars also happening in the anime

#A5: Shadows House

Summary:

The Shadows, characterized by their pitch-black appearance and tendency to emit soot when agitated, are a family of nobles who reside in a colossal manor deep within the mountains far from other humans. When a Shadow child is nearly of-age, they are assigned a Living Doll who acts not only as their attendant but also as their second half—the faces they could have had if not for their complexion.

Emilico is a cheerful, newly created Doll who serves a rather soft-spoken master named Kate. Despite their difference in personalities, Emilico does what she can to carry out the needs of her master. As she learns more about her role and duty, Emilico begins to meet her fellow Dolls and their respective masters and comes to know more about the purpose of her existence.

"Do not fret over trivial matters," says one of the rules by which all Dolls must abide. But how could the ever-curious Emilico do so in the face of the deep secrets that the Shadows House holds?

Propaganda:

The atmosphere of the manor is probably the most effective aspects of the story, creating a feeling of isolation and worry as Kate and Emilico try to survive in the mansion. The show starts off pretty subtle, but as it progresses it becomes more and more strange and off-putting. This series is an incredibly interesting, layered mystery, and the horror elements are excellently done.

Trigger Warnings: Child Abuse, Emotional Abuse

When reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.

If you want to criticize one of the shows above to give the one you’re rooting for an advantage, then do so constructively. I do not tolerate groundless hate or slander on this blog. If I catch you doing such a thing in the notes, be it in the tags or reblogs, I will block you.

Know one of the shows above and not satisfied with how it’s presented in this tournament? Just fill up this form with your revisions, and I’ll consider adapting those changes.

New: Starting round 5, screenshots will be included in the poll post. You can submit screenshots through the form linked above, or through here, via ask or dm.

Guidelines in submitting screenshots:

No NSFW or spoilery images.

Pick some good images please. Don’t send any blurry or pixelated ones.

You may send up to 9 screenshots, but not all may be used.

[bestbonnist]

⚪ Meet the Immortals ⚪

Up next is Nova @spectacular-supernova, President of the Tonari Fan Club. She hopes to follow in Tonari’s footsteps and take on a sister-like role to future contributors, guiding them through the brainstorming and development phases of their pieces.

[bestbonnist]

⚪ Meet the Immortals ⚪

Next up is Ray @bestbonnist, who's like Fushi in many ways—including their tendency to take on way too much work. To mitigate this, we've restricted them to Graphics & Formatting Mod: making pretty pictures (like the one you're seeing now!) promoting the zine and putting the final product together.

[bestbonnist]

⚪ Meet the Immortals ⚪

First up is Kafka @kafkaoftherubble, probably the only Beholder stan known to humankind—so their job is to be our Beholder and oversee everything. But Kafka is more involved in the project, less apathetic, and has more hair and humor than the Beholder ever could.

[bestbonnist]

Meet the Immortals of the Pink Blood team!

Kafka (Head & Organization Mod)

Ray (Graphics & Formatting Mod)

Nova (Art & Merch Mod)

And our newest member:

Nikki (Writing & Social Media Mod)

You'll get the chance to learn more about them when we have our mod spotlights later this week. More updates, including our Carrd and info doc, will also be coming soon. Keep an eye out!

And if you haven't done so already, please fill out our interest check! The sooner we reach our target number of respondents, the sooner we can move into the next phase.

[bestbonnist]

Chapter 186.3 link.

[bestbonnist]

It's 4/6! You know what that means.

[bestbonnist]

Chapter 175

175.1 | 175.2

I love the chapter title. “A Perfect Plan.” Yeah, Fushi, lying to your friends (again) is a brilliant idea. That worked so well for you the last time you tried it.

This feels like a good time to go over Fushi’s tendency to lie in the present era, because now it’s continuing over into the wish era and at this point I would go as far as to call it an essential part of their character.

Chapter 125 "Secret Base"

It starts with Mizuha, and Fushi’s decision to omit the truth about what happened to Izumi for her peace of mind. During their conversation the night after Mizuha kills her mom, they have a pretty telling exchange about lies and their deeper meaning. Fushi reveals that they think lying to someone means that someone’s important to you. They don’t say why they think so, but I’m going out on a limb and assuming it’s how they justify the decisions Bon made in Renril.

Chapter 105 "Setting Sun"

Immediately after Fushi tells Mizuha what they think of lies, they then proceed to lie to her, setting up that she’s important to Fushi and laying the groundwork for their eventual conflict. Mizuha doesn’t go into why she thinks lying is bad, but in the case of her relationship with her mom, she was so upset at Izumi stealing her hair-tie and lying about it because it was an act of self-preservation. Sure, Izumi wouldn’t have lied if she didn’t love Mizuha, but her lie was—from Mizuha’s perspective—100% selfish. Fushi is already inclined to take Izumi’s side, because they’re doing the same thing she is. After all, they’re concerned about Mizuha because she’s Kahaku’s reincarnation.

Fushi continues to lie not just to Mizuha, but to their other friends. They don’t tell them about the knockers returning because they want their friends to remain blissfully ignorant of what’s really going on. They tell Yuuki that it’s because they promised their friends a peaceful world, and they don’t want to let them down.

Chapter 131 "Alongside Peace"

Ideally, Fushi would like to take on everything by themselves and spare everyone else the pain. Connecting all of this back to the events of the chapter which I am supposed to be discussing, Fushi lies with the intention to "protect." Reality doesn’t go away if they don’t tell their friends about it—it’s still going to hit them eventually—but given the option Fushi will always choose to pretend everything’s fine for just a little longer.

Chapter 175 "A Perfect Plan"

Chapter 1 "The Final One" (panels in achronological order)

The composition of some of the panels in this chapter are a callback to the scene where the nameless boy thinks the rustling of his fishing line means a human tripped it. He and Fushi both expect to see someone on the other side of the door, although they’re hoping for different things—the nameless boy hopes that someone will be there, Fushi hopes that no one will—and they both switch back to a happy denial when the moment is gone.

Like Fushi, the nameless boy is a liar. He kept up the appearance that everything was fine, and carried on imaginary conversations with Johann because admitting the truth would completely break him. In a way, he was lying out of necessity. But the only person he was lying to was himself.

In the same way, when Fushi lies to the people around them, they’re trying to paint over the truth with an idealized version of reality. They’re lying to themselves just as much as they’re lying to others.

Chapter 172 "Utopia"

Earlier in the wish era, when one of the lacking dies in front of them, what Fushi says when reassuring him reveals more about what they would find comforting in this situation. Similarly, when Fushi lies to their friends about what’s going on with the knockers or Mizuha’s clones, they’re projecting what they wish happened over what actually happened. Fushi doesn’t want to say that the clones are dead, because theoretically they could have stopped the massacre. They especially don’t want to disappoint the doll. Hence the lie that they choose to go with, about all of 32’s friends remembering her.

In terms of whether Fushi’s lying is selfish or not, well. That’s not a distinction that matters in any way. Fushi is doing what’s best for themselves, but they only go through with it because they genuinely believe that’s it’s the best for the people they’re lying to as well. They’re just… not always right about that.

Chapter 175 "A Perfect Plan"

Moving on to the second half of the chapter—which I don’t have nearly as much to say about—this is our introduction to how Fushi uses Yuuki’s form now that he’s acquired it. Immediately I wonder what would happen if Fushi lost Yuuki’s form. It’s clear just from what we saw in this chapter that their memories of Yuuki have become a core part of Fushi’s decision-making process. “What would Yuuki want?” The wish era is the world that Yuuki built, of course Fushi is unwilling to disrupt it even thought they're familiar with its flaws. Maybe that'll change if they lose his form—or if they realize that this world isn't what Yuuki would have wanted.

It seems like most of Fushi’s friends don’t approve of their insistence on pacifism. Tonari and Messar are just tired of it, Bon and Hylo don’t really understand. It’s sort of ironic, since Fushi wanted to create a peaceful world for their friends to live in, that most of them don’t value peace all that much. What they value more is their life with Fushi. A peaceful world has been Fushi’s dream since Takunaha, and they believe everyone else wants it as much as they do. Kind of like the way they lie assuming everyone wants that kind of treatment. Just tied it all together, bam.