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To start off, this is positive and a little rambling, but I've been wanting to talk about it for a while, especially since it's pride month now. Much as I love Togame, Kiryu, and Mr. Homotron 3000 himself (Endo), Tsubaki will always be my favorite.

I'm a non-binary trans woman and the naunce with how they handle him is SO refreshing, affirming, and really good queer rep. And, look, Tsubaki is amazing - I would love for him to be trans, but that's not who he is and I love him for that and I love that for him. Do I wish Nii-sensei would at least explain if he's a cross dresser or gender queer or femboy? Yes. PLEASE. I want to know how he sees himself! But the answer is literally just, "chill girl, I'm just hot" and that's enough for me.

In the very rare instances when he's othered, everyone has his back, especially Ume in his backstory. Every single person just treats him as people, no waffling, confusion, or discomfort. All accepting, 100%. And no one pries to try and "understand" it when they're not likely to get it anyhow and would just make him uncomfortable. Hell, he even triggers Sakura's blush radar. And even though Ume doesn't seem to have the same feelings, he's still very supportive and doesn't distance himself at all. And his back story is handled with such delicacy that it actually gives the audience the exact sense of frightful anticipation when admitting to something that's an integral part of you but not socially acceptable- especially in the anime.

And, speaking of the anime, let's talk about the English VA for a second. I don't know if the VA lurks here, but if you do I really hope you see this. I wanted to be a VA, even went to college for it for a few years - that training let me do my own voice training when I realized I was trans without having to fumble throughit like so many trans women do. And I've been hurt so many times by queer rep pulling back at the last second. Whether it was queer baiting or caving to pressure or bad casting or whatever...

I was really worried about how they'd handle this voice. I was particularly scared the casting director wouldn't understand well enough the subtleties of complex gender expression and we'd end up with a voice that was a cishet dude faking a girl voice or, worse, that they'd play it 100% straight with kind of a beefy, normal dude voice. I had something very specific in mind with Endo and I'm still reserving judgement, and absolutely nothing against the VA, but it sounds almost like the standard kind of deep slightly rough-around-the-edges shonen protag Aleks Le tends to play and that choice had me sweating.

But Tsubaki's English VA blew me out of the &#^%ing water. It doesn't sound like it's a man who this is his first time putting on girl voice. It doesn't sound super straight. It also doesn't sound like a stereotypical campy gay guy. It doesn't even sound like a practiced drag queen's stage voice. One thing you learn when voice training becomes a survival skill is how to break down the differences in the way men and women speak as well as how certain subcultures might change that.

What I hear from Tsubaki's VA is someone who *gets* it. The performance knocks it out of the park. The consonants are softer, words flow together more, there's a breathiness and lilt to the voice. There are squeaks and slinks whenever he's gushing about someone, usually Ume, in ways that none of the aforementioned subcultures do. But it's also played with just a bit of that masculinity to convey that Tsubaki still sees himself as a guy, no matter what he likes or how he presents. The delicacy with which both the manga and anime handle his backstory is the same care with which they cast and directed Tsubaki's VA. It's so, so much more than I dared hope for and it's almost making me cry just to write about how much it means to me.

From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank the community for telling the 'phobes abd haters to gtfo. This is animated by cute-girls-doing-cute-things CloverWorks, y'all, did you expect Berserk?!

But also, how everyone says Suba'ki rather than Tsu-Ba-Ki? Okay, that one bothers me a little.

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can we plaster this everywhere on the internet actually

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I've been in a funk and art rut lately, can't imagine why. But this just popped into my head fully formed yesterday and was clawing on the walls to escape.

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holding space for whatever the hell this is /pt1/pt2/pt3/pt4

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AGATHA ALL ALONG 1.08 - Follow Me My Friend / To Glory At The End

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My head canon is that these are various cavs reacting to things. In order: Cam, Naberius, Magnus, Pyrrha, Gideon, Jod.

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This really is a perfect description of it. I can't recommend it highly enough (if you're the right kind of person to enjoy it and mind the trigger warnings) and now I have a profound need to watch all of Kawajiri's other movies.

Spooky Anime Recommendation Time

Have I got the most batshit insane movie to recommend to you all today!!

It's an 80s anime OVA, it's a mystical fever dream, it's so bad it's good, it's:

Demon City Shinjuku (1988)

Many thanks to Mother's Basement on YouTube for the Halloween anime recs!!

Okay people, here's the rundown:

The plot: doesn't really matter. We're just here for the vibes. These two screenshots tell you everything you need to know:

English dub: so, so bad it comes around to being great. The line delivery here is just... *chef's kiss.* You have to hear it to believe it. Whoever translated this movie, I just wanna talk. With such banger lines as:

The animation: absolutely STUNNING, like, much prettier than it has any right to be.

The characters: almost non-existent. We're here to watch protag-kun fight demons and kiss a cardboard cutout of a pretty girl.

You'll ask yourself questions like:

Why does that tiny man have a grenade?!

Wouldn't your mucus membranes dissolve if your spit is sulfuric acid?

Why does no one seem to care that there's a portal to hell in Shinjuku?

My rating: An adjusted 8/10. The perfect movie for getting high and watching with friends. Vibes are impeccable for sheer ridiculous fun. Reminiscent of the feel of the greatest movies riffed by MST3K.

Where to watch: streaming on Amazon Prime or your local 🏴‍☠️ hangout

Trigger warnings: animal death, rape (mentioned), epilepsy (so many flashing lights), lots and lots of cursing, some good old fashioned 80s misogyny

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Yeeesss

Big naturals Sakura can't hurt you.

Big naturals Sakura:

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Vegeta was too stunned to speak

We're doing Calvin and Hobbes bits now ig

Take this while I finish... the other thing...

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This drawing is about four years old at this point, so I can definitely see a lot I could've improved on, but I was reminded of it when my wife started getting back into the Hades groove over vacation.

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Oh shit my bad I didn’t know cabba had sick moves like this

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Apparently even Cabba's VA is in on the joke. Supposedly, Vegeta says something to Cabba in Super which - with other canon events - mean he's stronger than anyone in GT, so I just had to draw it.

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WIND BREAKER (2024)

#10. dialogue ⋆ 対話

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do you get deja vu?