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god. Totsukuni no Shoujo still makes me feral. What WAS that. Nagabe was communing with a higher power.

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well, I am back to reading the Exestential Crisis manga. Perhaps I should read it some other time that isn’t my birthday, but it’s a tradition at this point. After all, I am an artist. And not the professional kind. Which is what I went to school for.

Blue period is a very good manga. There’s a lot of research that went into it, but you can also tell how much of the author’s own feelings go into the manga. I will probably write a review on it at some point. This one is a bit harder for me to process than some others, because of the story’s subject matter. I will say that the thing I miss most about reading it is the way it describes the process of making art, and the revelations of the main character regarding the nature of art.

I have a feeling that Blue Period may play a large role in my life. I’m not sure yet. I know that it will change me, somehow. Every story changes me a little. Eventually, I think, the more one reads, even manga, the better one becomes able to understand the nature of the world around them.

What do you really want? It’s a question that many people are asked, and very few know the answer to. For the main character of Blue Period, what he wants is to satisfy his curiosity— he wants to know- what is art, really? His advantage is that it’s his sole motivator, and he has no pride in his work, only a ceaseless drive to unravel that answer.

Maybe that was my mistake, going into art school with a very set, predefined notion of what “art” meant and was, one very different from everyone around me.

There’s no one or easy answer to the question of what art is. What people consider to be art varies widely from person to person, from country to country. And yet there remains a few defining parameters consistent across cultures. Art is a human creative endeavor, one that seeks to convey an idea or meaning; not something purely decorative (which falls into the realm of design, or illustration.) Art is fundamentally a means of communication. I think this is where I first became confused in art school. For me, the meaning behind art had always been secondary to its appearance. Art was a practice in intense reproduction from my mind’s eye; a practice of generating imagery from nothing in particular, something that had many details and could provoke thought, a wide array of thought that fell mostly into the realm of fantastical. Art was about generating ideas. Art was about all of the leaping off points, not necessarily about a unified and set message.

Art has no “practical” purpose. Instead, it serves an ideological one, telling you what the author believes about the world, maybe how it is, maybe how it should be, or how it has been. But it always has a central theme that, if not immediately discernible, can be recognized through the text in the artist’s description or statement. Art is about reflecting society, and reflecting ourselves.

Maybe it’s no secret why I have had such a love hate relationship with art. Unlike Yaguchi, I was not curious about what art could be. I thought I knew. And as my fundamental drawing professor taught me, when you think that you know how something looks, you will always draw it inaccurately.

And yet, art does interest me. When I can pick the questions that it asks, on my own terms. It’s difficult to justify art to oneself. It shouldn’t be. Creating art is a fundamental tenant of human self expression. Art is who we are.

I’m rambling and it’s late. I guess my point is, you can’t understand something unless you are willing to be curious about it, and really open to receiving answers in the form of information that you really didn’t expect. You have to be openminded.

You have to be willing to see art in unexpected places; in places where it wasn’t intended, where there was no human controlling the setup. The things that you personally recognize as art, which serve no artistic purpose originally, define your perspective and define you as a person. This is what you, as an individual, can utilize to make art.

art belongs to everyone. But it can only belong to the people brave enough to reach out and grab it. It belongs to those who want it, who need it. So it belongs to those who don’t create it, too. But the only art that you can claim as your own is the art that comes from your unique perspective; something built off of self reflection and in direct communication with the world around you.

And art is not about creating something; it’s about trying to get at something else, and creating something in the process.

I guess I never understood that before.

The scene where Yatora draws himself naked, and then learns that he sees his body, and the human form in general as pathetic, made me realize that it’s really easy to not know what your perspective even is until you are in the midst of reaching towards art.

I found it hard to think of art as a language, but it very much is. Once I started thinking of art in the same way I already think of writing, I believe that my art began to improve.

I think a lot of this series is Yaguchi learning, bit by bit, that traditional art is a tricky union of skill, technique and intent, trying to combine the three in perfect balance— and often failing in one capacity or another. That’s what makes the series good; it’s realistic. Most of artwork is a failure in one way or another.

I could say so much more, I could probably sit here and type until tomorrow dawns about all of the things this anime surfaces within me. But I’ll leave it there for tonight.

Blue period is a very good series about asking oneself some very hard questions, without ever really having a guarantee of an answer— but continuing to ask regardless. And I, like so many others, admire that determination.

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I have serious mental illness about Totsukuni no shoujo, god

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godddddd. I'm still not over totsukuni no shoujo.

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I was reading the reviews for totuskuni no shoujo apprehensively before I started the manga, as most of them mentioned a "disappointing ending" or one that didn't fit the tone of the series. I wondered if I would be disappointed.

Now, in hindsight, I have never seen so many people so completely miss the point. The ending fits the tone perfectly. I found the story completely satisfying, and gutting at the same time. (A sad ending is not a bad ending.)

A bad ending is one that leaves things unresolved unintentionally. It doesn't give any meaningful answer to the main question that it asks, and mentions things without clear purpose or intention. This is not what Totsukuni no shoujo does. It takes a long time to get to the heart of the story, and it unfolds slowly, and then reaches a high point at the very end. But while Teacher and Shiva's relationship was always at the heart of the story, the nature of the relationship wasn't clear until the end. I feel like people misunderstood this as some kind of adoptive monster father story. That is not what it is, that's not it at all. But I don't want to delve into it without first having proper documentation so I can fully back up my claims with the manga. I need some proper ammunition if I'm going to use inductive reasoning, no?

The story was a metaphor from the very start. It's not an easy metaphor; it's a painful one. And it's a story that doesn't entirely make sense if you don't see the metaphor. The point of the story is the end, it's not just some weird anomaly artistic nonsense that the author made up for fun. The entire story was leading up to it.

I really need to reread and make notes so I can make a post about it on my dreamwidth.

I was planning on doing Beastars volume two first, but this manga won't leave me alone. It is occupying far too much headspace. I must obsess and get it out.

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Blog tags

#liveblogging — manga panel screenshots and my reactions to what is happening in the story

#notes — fan notes that summarize or verbatim quote important plot points of media I watch, read, or play

#sarah meta — actual meta, which I post to dreamwidth and may cross post here

#random commentary — textposts apropos of nothing about media I like

#media recs — music and video analyses that I recommend

#sarah text archive — everything that isn’t a media rec is tagged thus on this blog

[sarah-hell-pit]

god I love beastars so fucking much

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being an adult means growing up and realizing War and Peace is really fucking good, actually

Tolstoy knows how to capture subtleties of the contradictions and nuances in the human condition. How people relate to one another

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finished v6 which kind of destroyed me

and here I am planning on playing Omori after I finish this manga. why do I love suffering

I am currently reading The Girl From the Other Side (とつくにの少女) and it’s really good but also this manga is fucking brutal

especially if you choose to see it as any kind of metaphor which it definitely is

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not sure what I was expecting from the furry BL mangaka but it wasn’t this. Nagabe can definitely write. (It doesn’t really show in Eat so far but maybe that’s because it’s more of a fetish manga than a story. I like it, but the characters aren’t exactly deep so far.)

You can kind of see it in Monotone Blue, his propensity for writing like this (it wouldn’t be the same without his moody illustrations.)

So far, I have enjoyed the haunting experience of reading this strange fairy tale. But volume six has me by the neck.

I’m going to have to give it a proper review, someday.

I am currently reading The Girl From the Other Side (とつくにの少女) and it’s really good but also this manga is fucking brutal

especially if you choose to see it as any kind of metaphor which it definitely is

[sarah-hell-pit]

I am currently reading The Girl From the Other Side (とつくにの少女) and it’s really good but also this manga is fucking brutal

especially if you choose to see it as any kind of metaphor which it definitely is

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I’ve got a new post over on dreamwidth about a manga I recently read, monotone blue: https://sarahwrites.dreamwidth.org/983.html

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these pages 😭

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Arcane notes

Key events (regarding Powder/Jinx)

Episode 1 Jinx + Vi parents killed /scene change Powder explodes the penthouse by accident by knocking over a blue orb.

Episode 2 Powder still has the blue orbs, having stolen them from the penthouse

Episode 3 Powder is left behind while Vi goes to free Vander with the two brothers, Powder freaks out but then sees the orbs and decides she can help —> she finds the others, sees them in conflict, and sets the monkey bomb loose to save them from a rampaging monster (one of Silco’s men, dosed with shimmer) —> 
it kills the brothers as well as Vander, nearly kills her —> Vi yells at and punches powder, calls her a Jinx, then leaves the scene—> Powder latches on to Silco, who finds her in the streets, considers killing her. She hugs him, and disavows Vi, claiming she isn’t her sister anymore

Episode 4 Jinx, present day, traps Firelights, shoots and kills a pink haired girl, who triggered a traumatic memory.

Episode 5 Jinx claims she can’t complete the weapon. She tells Silco one of the firelights was a girl with pink hair. —> She comes up with a plan to steal a crystal and prove herself to Silco. (The plan is to cause a distraction and steal the hextech crystal.) —> Jinx probes Thieram for information. —> Silco and Jinx water scene. —> Jinx sets off a bomb, killing 9 enforcers including Grayson. Caitlyn sees Jinx’s outline flee the scene. She managed to steal the hextech crystal. Silco is angry at first, but she shows him the crystal, and he is pleased. Jinx makes first prototype. It doens’t work and she runs off in tears—> Jinx makes second prototype. It works and she dances in her studio. —>
ending scene: Sevika: “The sister, she’s back.”
Silco: “From the dead?!”

Episode 6 Jinx gases and ties Sevika to a chair. —>
When Sevika wakes up, she tells her that her sister is back and looking for her. She says Vi ‘replaced’ her with ‘some girl enforcer.’ Jinx pretends to cry and then sneezes on Sevika. —>
in the next scene, Jinx lights the flare. She’s surprised when Vi actually shows up. The sisters reunite briefly before Cait interrupts, followed by the firelights, who kidnap all but Jinx.

Episode 7 Angry Jinx confronts Silco about Vi not being dead, stabs him in the face with the eye poker intentionally, several times. Silco claims that Vi only came back for the hextech crystal (despite Vi telling Jinx explicitly she didn’t even know what it was when asked.) Silco says he needs her and that she has to complete the weapon. She runs out in tears —>
Vi says goodbye to Caitlyn and Ekko, as she is going to find Jinx, while they bring back the crystal and present evidence of Silco as the underground mastermind of the council. Jinx is jealous of Cait & Vi hugging. “She wouldn’t do that. Not again.” (abandon?) Jinx calls her a liar when she runs back to help Cait, as enforcers were waiting for them at the end of the bridge, implied to have been contacted by Caitlyn. The enforcers saw that Ekko had the crystal with him, and shot Ekko. He survived, after they left, fought Jinx, who tried to blow them both up at the end of the fight. Ekko isn’t there when the smoke clears, having escaped somehow. 
 Episode 8
Jinx is rescued from the rubble by Silco, who personally carries her to Singed for treatment.—> 
Jinx undergoes painful shimmer injections and hallucinates.

Episode 9 Jinx overhears Silco monologuing to Vander’s statue about the trade deal. She presumably thinks that he wanted to trade her in exchange for Vaun’s freedom and amnesty. Her eyes widen in manic emotion. —>

Longform Summaries Missing: e7, e8

E1

beginning: Violet and Jinx’s parents are killed by an enforcer. Vi squeezes her younger sister’s hand. Vi cries seeing her mother’s body. They meet Vander. Vi can process the trauma and is devastated, but young Powder just internalizes it, hugging her sister’s arm. Vi’s hatred of enforcers and Piltover is born.

Time skip, Vi is a teen and Powder is a gangly preteen. Heavyset Claggor and rail thin Milo make up the other two members of their team, four kids who run around low level thieving for profit.

Vi has higher aspirations for their next job, and they all go up to the city above, Piltover, to break into a place that the kid that works in the pawn shop mentioned as having a rich owner.

They break into the inventor’s penthouse and steal a bunch of stuff.

Powder goes exploring and finds a chest full of glowing orbs. She grabs as many of these as she can. On their way out she drops one and it explodes, devastating a good portion of the building.

They get into a fight once they get back home in Vaun. Some low lives were tailing them, and Powder sees violence for the first time? lol

Milo calls Powder a Jinx after she loses the loot by flinging it into the water. He’s generally quite critical of her.

Meanwhile, Vander lectures Vi not to be reckless, and that they need to lie low for a while.

After, Vander takes claggor with him to a pawn shop to get him to explain what happened.

meanwhile, Milo talks to Vi about Powder screwing up every mission. Vi defends her, but Powder hears her agreeing with him, missing the followup context, and assumes Vi thinks she is a screwup.

He’s in the process of selling the kids’ stolen trinkets to the pawn shop owner when enforcers come to meet him. An enforcer woman named Grayson talks with her one on one. She asks him to give her a culprit to make a show of it, and make the people feel safe, and she won’t bring an army of enforcers down to Vaun.

Sweet sibling scene where Vi says she believes in Powder.

Silco captured the leader of the group tailing the kids and tortured him for info. Silco concluded that Vander was in trouble.

Silco’s chemist underling invents Shimmer, a substance which makes its subjects monstrous, strong and savage.

Silco decides to inject his hostage with Shimmer as an experiment.

E2

(same time as the kids break-in, from perspective of the penthouse’s returning owners) Caitlyn brings a box full of things hauled from ‘the undercity’ (Vaun) and chats with an unknown male character. He hears someone inside and realizes someone’s breaking into his penthouse. His name is Jayce.

Cut to another scene. A magician finds a young boy and his mother freezing to death, collapsed. He uses magic and teleports them (presumably) to another world. The boy is grateful.

Cut back. Jayce is being interviewed by enforcer Grayson. She asks him how he got some of the materials he has, which requires a permit, he says it’s independent study. He meets Viktor, assistant to the dean of the academy, who asks him who permitted the research. (Jayce asks who he is.) They take him away in handcuffs to be dealt with by the council, determining he could be dangerous based off of the explosion caused by his research.

Jayce is chastised by councilman & professor Heimerdinger, the 307 year old elder. He tells him the arcane is dangerous and cannot be controlled by science. He tells him to own up to his mistakes and admit his work was dangerous without mentioning anything about magic.

Cut scene to Vi practicing punching on a sparring machine. Milo is griping about Powder fixing the machines and causing him to miss the targets. Powder pops up out of nowhere and reconnects the power to more machines. Milo asks Vi not to take powder next time, and she shoots every practice target in their every vital area. Meanwhile, enforcers outside ask for a name. Someone is thrown through a window. Vi pulls powder away with her, as they run from enforcers. Ekko appears and helps them escape.

Cut scene to counselor Midarda, who’s sizing up some little inventions. The assistant introduces her to Jayce, whose family became rich through their design of the collapsable pocketwrench.

Cut scene to Caitlyn, who is defending her friend Jayce to her disapproving parents. She insists they try to help him. They agree as his patrons.

Cut scene to Sevika and the bar members, who want to start a fight with the enforcers. Viktor insists they look out for each other. Sevika says that he looks weak. Vi asks Ekko what’s going on, and her replies Vander has a deal with the enforcers. (It’s implied that Jayce wouldn’t normally be the one in custody, except topside needs a scapegoat, so enforcer Grayson chose Jayce.) Cut to the counselors, two of which are mildly quabbling. In comes Jayce. His full name is revealed as Jayce Talis, who is accused of illegal experimentation and endangering the citizens of Piltover.

Cait’s mother, a councilwoman, speaks on his behalf. Another councilmember scoffs. Heimerdinger defends him. Jayce claims his work was revolutionary. The third councilwoman asks him how his work was revolutionary. The council expresses doubts, and Jayce says he was trying to create magic. Heimerdinger cringes (says Arcane talents are something that can be fabricated, not just born with. They argue, Heimerdinger claims it can destroy civilizations in the wrong hands. Others agree that ‘their city was founded to escape the warmongering of mages, not cultivate it.’ Banishment is proposed. His mother makes the insanity plea on his behalf.

(Meanwhile, Powder still has all of his stolen research, the blue orbs, with her…)

Heimerdinger proposes he simply be expelled from the academy and taken home. He’s never allowed to set foot on academy grounds again. 

Meanwhile, in a big empty warehouse, an enforcer named Marcus speaks with Silco. Cut back to Jayce, who is sulking. 
Cut to councilman Heimerdinger and Viktor who are talking about his research. (it will be disposed of.)

In the meanwhile, in a chamber below the water, Silco is giving the spy boy Shimmer.

‘There’s a monster inside all of us.’

He willingly takes it.

We see that the basement of the chamber below the water is somehow connected to the big empty warehouse.

Jayce goes to see Caitlyn, who says he’s now a misfit. They very briefly talk. Caitlyn’s mother tells her to come inside, leaving Jayce out in the rain.

The counselors are questioning the leaders of the enforcers, who still haven’t found the culprits (or a good scapegoat.)

Meanwhile, Viktor is visited by the male enforcer, Marcus, looking for “four sumprats.” He has his men search the place. Claggor, Mylo, Vi and Powder all hide. Marcus threatens Viktor, saying he spoke to an old friend of his. Nothing was found in the search. Marcus continues insulting Viktor and leaves. Viktor checks on the kids. Ekko is with them. Vi says she wants to fight back against the enforcers. She says she wants Powder to have more than that. It’s revealed that Viktor lead the attack that resulted in violent Enforcer retaliation and got a bunch of undercity citizens killed, including Vi and Powder’s parents. He tells her nobody wins in war. Pain, hurt, and anger fester in Vi’s eyes.

Meanwhile Jayce goes to the edge of a tall building and readies to throw himself off. Viktor interrupts him. He claims his research is interesting, and wants to help him. He says he thinks Jayce is onto something and wants to help him complete the research. He tells him “When you’re going to change the world, don’t ask for permission.” Viktor offers Jayce his wristlet with the magic stone back (the one that saved him and his mother.)

cut back to Vi telling Powder her differences are her strengths.

E3

Vander finds Vi and says some parting words. He pushes her into the basement, locks her in, and submits himself for arrest to the enforcers.

Grayson is reluctant to arrest Vander, knowing he holds together the underground. He claims the council needs its pound of flesh. She asks why, and he responds it’s the only way. (he is protecting his kids.)

Vi rushes to the basement window, desperate for any sign of what’s going on, and it is shortly thereafter drenched in blood. Cut scene to outside. Grayson and all the other enforcers have been killed. Silco materializes out of green fog. He kills Benzo. Marcus protests that this wasn’t the deal, Silco replies deal’s changed. Vi freaks out. Silco has a shimmer drugged Deckard knock Vander out with a punch and takes him captive.

Scene cuts to Jayce and Viktor. They figure out the secret to the crystals, as Viktor finishes up drawing some equations on a blackboard. The crystals only stabilize at a high frequency, when he was trying to dampen the oscillations. They have to “crank it,” as Jayce puts it. They can’t test their equations to be sure they work in real life because Jayce’s equipment along with all of his older research is scheduled to destroyed the following day. They need the crystals. Viktor takes out some keys, insinuating they steal back the research from Heimerdinger’s lab.

Cut back to Vi. Ekko unlocks the door. He’s as upset as Vi, claiming he saw everything. He cries over the death of Benzo, who had been his mentor figure. Vi asks what happened to Vander, Ekko says they took him. Vi asks where, scene cut to a creepy dilapidated warehouse.

From Vander’s pov. He’s being dragged in shackles by the wrists, semiconscious. The blonde man, named Deckard, follows behind him. Below them, men are forging weapons and Shimmer is being produced in a lab.

Vander claims they can never win a war against Piltover, even with the weapons. Silco says he knows, and they don’t need to- they only need to scare them badly enough to never again set foot in Vaun. Vander says that he will get people killed, and asks him what for, pride? Silco answers no; respect. It’s revealed that Silco and Vander once worked together, and shared a vision of freedom for a Vaun, united as a nation. Silco says that Vander betrayed him. Flashback to Vander strangling him underwater. Vander says he regrets it deeply, and Silco was (past tense) like a brother to him. Silco says Vander had his respect until he made peace with the enforcers. Vander says he had no choice, and Silco shows him a vial of shimmer, claiming they have the power now to realize their dream. Vander refuses, asks him to spare the lanes. Silco asks him if he will die for the cause, will he not fight for one? Vander responds he’s just not that man anymore.

Cut scene back to Jayce and Viktor trying to steal back Jayce’s stuff from Heimerdinger’s office. They’re intercepted by councilwoman Mel Medarda. She says it’s impressive that they’re willing to risk exile for their cause. Jayce says they can prove that it works, and Mel asks how, as they couldn’t do so earlier that day. Viktor replies that they figured out how to stabilize it (hextech crystals.) Mel says the potential scares the council, and they would see it destroyed. Jayce pleads for a chance. Mel gives them one night, telling them to impress her- or otherwise pack their bags.

Cut back to Claggor and Mylo, who are looking at a pile of Vander’s weapons, calling dibs and prepping for a fight enthusiastically. Powder is in bed, sulking as she pets her stuffed rabbit. Vi returns. She reaches for Vander’s weapons. They boys ask for an explanation, she says Benzo’s dead. She says they took Vander, and needs to find him. They decide to leave Powder behind.

Meanwhile, Jayce finishes some soldering and tests his invention. Viktor claims the resonance will stabilize it.

Meanwhile, Powder freaks out.

Vi, Mylo and Claggor break Vander out of his shackles. Silco appears and threatens them. Vi fights an onslaught of Silco’s thugs using Vander’s gauntlets. Meanwhile, claggor and Mylo attempt to break Vander out of prison. All the while, Powder climbs the side of the building. Vi violently knocks out the last of them, meanwhile a shimmer drugged Deckard rises to challenge Vi. Powder looks terrified from sidelines. Vi manages to escape, and powder takes out her newly concocted weaponry.Vi closes the heavy iron door behind her, locking herself into Vander’s prison cell.

Meanwhile Jayce and Vander are working on stabilizing the device, all the while Heimerdinger bangs on the door, demanding entrance. The thing overloads with energy and breaks the containing device. It has a kind of antigravity effect in the near vicinity.

Meanwhile, Powder loads the monkey with unstable hextech crystals, begging it to work. Claggor continues punching the concrete, trying to tunnel out of prison. He manages to push a brick out of place, affording him a glimpse into their possible escape route. Powder winds the monkey and sets it down, where it approaches the drugged Deckard, who is violently trying to break into the prison cell. He sees the monkey and stares at it. Claggor finally breaks free, Mylo finally picks Vander’s lock, and Vander sits up and looks at Vi. At that very instant, the monkey bomb blows, sending out a huge shock of energy that throws powder back from the watertight door where she was watching. The explosion bulldozes the shimmer lab, destroying a bunch of it. Claggor and Mylo are killed. Powder smiles faintly, eyes wide open, happy that the bomb worked- not yet knowing about the deaths it caused. Vander, on his last legs, sees the kids beneath the rubble and is heartbroken.

Deckard is uninjured, so is Silco, who commands him to “kill them.”

Vi is okay, crying.

Vander rises from beneath rubble to fight Deckard with a piece of curved metal. Everything below them (weapon forge, chemistry setup) has been consumed by flames thanks to Powder’s explosion.

Vi cries harder seeing the monkey bomb’s head.

Silco stabs Vander in the back, and Vander catches him around the neck, reflecting his original betrayal back when he attempted to drown-strangle Silco. Silco stabs him in the stomach. His weapon falls from his hand, and Vander slumps, releasing Silco’s throat.

Silco says he knew he still had it in him, and throws him into the flames.

Silco tells Deckard to find the girl.

Vander rises from the depths of the flames, having drank a quantity of shimmer to fight. Vi sees him. He yells at Silco then grabs Vi to save her life, jumping out the window just as an explosion occurs.

Vander takes his last breaths, telling Vi to take care of powder before dying. Vi roars in grief and anguish.

Powder comes up behind her, yelling about how her monkey bomb worked in excitement.

Vi asks “You did this?”

Powder frowns at Vander, probably not recognizing him.

Vi asks why.

Powder finally realizes, beginning to cry, saying she didn’t mean to, and she was saving Vi. She looks at Claggor’s bloodstained goggles. She cries that she only wanted to help.

Vi says she told her to stay away.

She cries, approaching Vi, and Vi repeats herself, slugging her. She cries “why did you leave me?” and Vi answers, “Because you’re a Jinx.” She claims Mylo was right. Vi relents, realizing/regretting what she did.

Powder cries, “Violet please,” and Vi leaves, a tear streaking her face.

Vi is captured by Marcus, drugged and put under.

Powder disavows Vi, and lurches forward to hug Silco.

“We will show them all.”

E4

Heimerdinger lectures Jayce on an important deceased councilmember.

Heimerdinger says he deserves the honor of giving the speech, as his hexgates have allowed commerce to flourish and scholars to communicate, etc.

A ship is shown going through the hexgates.

Progress day. Car, metallic butterfly.

Cut scene to guards being paid off to smuggle drugs. Sevika drops money on his clipboard and he stamps approval.

Firelights appear, mess up the shimmer, and head below deck. Powder traps them.

She KO’s and possibly kills a bunch of firelights & kills a pink haired girl.

Meanwhile Jayce and Viktor give councilman Heimerdinger a presentation on their new stabilized crystals.

Caitlyn takes photos of the crime scene. Marcus appears and tells her to take the late shift at the fair instead of looking for more work for herself.

- Mel talks to Jayce. She has spoken to several potential investors. She asks Jayce to tell them about the new hextech crystals.

Jayce makes the speech, but doesn’t introduce the new hextech crystals yet.

Jinx kills a bunch of enforcers with a bomb.

The counselors have a meeting.

E5

opens w/ Caitlyn shooting a gun. She’s in a shooting competition with enforcer Greyson.

Jinx says she can’t complete the weapon. “Fear haunts us all, child.”

Silco takes her to the water where he almost drowned.

Sevika gets into a fight with Vi.

Jinx completes a functioning prototype of a generator to power the weapon.

e6

Child Viktor makes a steamboat. He follows it downriver to a cave where he meets a mysterious man. It turns out to be Singed. Young Viktor offers to assist him; Singed accepts.

Viktor looks out on the city and Professor Heimerdinger joins him. Viktor espresses his doubts and insecurities to him. “It’s a sad truth that those who shine brightest often burn the fastest.”

- Mel paints in egg tempera. Jayce apologizes for running off after sleeping with her. He reveals that Viktor’s dying.

Mel reveals she was an exile from her family.

- Viktor stares at the hex orb, remembering accidentally spilling blood over it. He moves to touch it again.

- Meanwhile, Jinx asks Thieram for information.

“Boss wants us to grab someone.”

“Someone? Anyone? Who you grabbing?”

“I mean- I mean not… I’m not grabbing girls. Uh, other than… those ones… I guess.”

“Focus. Who are they? Why wasn’t I invited to the party?”

“Uh, I don’t know. They… they got in a fight with Sevika. They did a number on her.”

“Oh really? Which number?”

“It… it’s like a saying…”

(condescending tone) “You’re doing great, Chuck.” (pats back.) “Here, for your troubles.”

(glitter bomb explodes)

Cut back to Cait and Vi. Vi falls down a hole, Cait follows after her.

Sevika reports that they lost “her,” referring to Vi (and Cait.)

Jinx asks “Lost who?”

Jinx gasses Sevika. Sevika wakes up tied to a chair, slapped awake by Jinx.

Sevika reveals that her sister is back and looking for her.

“It’s not what you think. She’s with some girl enforcer. Guess she replaced you.” (nasty grin)

(angry, hurt Jinx)

“You’re lying,” (quaver in voice.)

“Why bother. Her back in town, it’s only a matter of time before you implode,”

(Jinx pushing her away with her feet)

“…and Silco finally gets the message that you’re about as good for our cause as you were for your family,”

(Jinx hisses)

“Jinx.”

(jinx fakes crying and then sneezes violently on her face.)

Jinx says she thinks she knows just how to deliver that message. She spins her around in the chair.

e7

e8

e9

‘The monster you created’

((Maybe Sevika allowed Jinx to capture Silco or helped? Probably not. Sevika hated Jinx and was loyal to Silco.))

She’s left to ‘clean up the mess,’ as pointed out by Finn (intimidating looking asian guy w/ metal jaw.)

Jinx to answer for her crimes is the deal from Jayce. Jinx, the real culprit. Silco has to be the leader, so Jayce is reluctant to say that he can’t “rot behind bars” as he’d like. “we can’t make a deal with a snake and cut off its head.”
 scene change to Ekko’s haven.
“Firelights!” “It’s not enough to give people what they need to survive, you have to give them what they need to live!”

Scene change, Silco by Vander’s fountain. Silco reflects. “the boy didn’t even haggle… and what do I lose but problems?” “Oh, it all makes sense now, brother. Is there anything so undoing as a daughter?” 

Vi throws down the gauntlet at Sevika, challenging her to a fight. Sevika accepts, loading her mecha arm with a fresh supply of shimmer. Vi has both gauntlets. She gets badly beaten down by Sevika. Imaginary Vander: “She still needs you. They all do.” 
Jinx- “Bravo, sis.” (knocks her on the back of the head.) <—- what’s Jinx’s resolution here?

Vi wakes up, staring at some sparklers attached to some kind of device that looks like a planetary model.

[sarah-hell-pit]

Legoshi is Gay: A Queer Reading of Beastars script excerpts

this doesn't cover the entire video, and this does NOT belong to me. I am putting it on tumblr for archiving purposes. Watch the full video here.

A Queer Reading of Beastars: Video Essay Notes

What is Beastars? Beastars is a manga created by Paru Itugaki that ran from 2016 to 2020, published in the manga magazine Weekly Shonen Champion, which spanned 22 volumes. It has a popular Netflix anime adaptation, with two of three seasons currently released.

It has been described as a coming of age drama, focusing on the story of one young wolf growing up and becoming an adult, and in so doing, struggling with what society has in store for him (expectations and moral ambiguity.) It has also been described as a shonen, (a story about young male protagonists who fight) as each chapter has a villain that must literally be fought. It’s also a psychosexual horror thriller, where the wolf can’t decide if he wants to have sex with the love interest or devour her whole. It’s also chill slice of life, which features an entire chapter about two characters having dinner together. In other words, it can be called many different genres.

It’s a world full of anthropomorphic animals. The setting is that of modern human society, but with heavy modifications that tie into the world building.

The population is 50 percent carnivores and 50 percent herbivores. All carnivores have an inborn instinct to eat meat which hasn’t been dulled by the formation of modern society. The opening scene features an herbivore being devoured alive by someone he knows.

The protagonist is a gray wolf named Legoshi, who has a timid personality until he pounces on a rabbit at the beginning of the series. He’s overcome by instinct and struggles not to devour her. She escapes, and he begins to fall in love with her.

The rest of the plot is explained in this video in short form, chapter “what is Beastars?” And it does an excellent job of recapping everything that happens in the series.

Main cast: 

Legoshi- Main character, a male gray wolf Haru- main character, a female dwarf rabbit Louis- main character, a male red deer

Jack- male dog Bill- male tiger Juno- female wolf Gouhin- male panda Riz- male brown bear Pina- male sheep

…And many others.

Queercoding

Started with the introduction of the Hayes code in 1930. (No sexual perversion allowed to be shown on screen, which included all homosexuality.) The Hayes code was in effect until 1968. Your parents were probably already born by the time that it was replaced by the MPAA film rating system in 1968. 
There were a total of four decades of US history where explicit gayness (queerness) and many other things were banned from movies. (Even today, ratings above R are rarely shown in theaters.)

Queer characters found their way into stories through context and framing during this time (and afterwards as well. There are still queercoded characters today.) They had to have enough plausible deniability to get past censors. Villains had the most leeway for writers. So there were decades of movies had queer coded antagonists.

Disney villains are good examples of this. Ursula, Scar, Gaston, etc. have traits associated with queerness, but they are also unabashedly proud of who they are.

Now, the cultural history of Japan and its media is not the same of that of America and its media, but it is useful to know America’s policies, because there is an anime adaptation dubbed over in English, and Americans watch it through Netflix.

Louis is described as having feminine looks, and Legoshi has a feminine manner of speaking.

Legoshi says that the easiest smell to access in his brain is the scent of Louis. Legoshi’s first kiss is with a male under contrived circumstances. He fights that male in a shower, alone, and the male comments on his body. There’s a scene where Juno holds Haru’s face and then runs away, commenting that she won’t be “twisted around her little finger” like Legoshi and Louis. There’s a scene where Riz threatens to eat Pina’s finger, and sucks on it for a little while. Legoshi crossdresses so he can talk to Louis.

Devouring and Sexuality

Sexuality and devouring in this story are conflated, to the point where it’s difficult to separate them thematically. When it comes to the characters and storylines that matter, Beastars always associates devouring and sex.

There’s a feminist reading to this. A large percentage of herbivore characters shown onscreen are female, and a large percentage of carnivore characters shown onscreen are male. There’s a 50/50 split of carnivores and herbivores. Carnivores have a natural advantage in strength, and are able to do something uniquely horrible to herbivores that herbivores could never do to carnivores. In a way, you could say that devouring is like rape. Beastars is a world where this offense is the most serious crime that one could commit. “Meat offenders” is the term for carnivores who eat meat, and there is a registry for them, just like there is a sex offender registry.

In the manga, a female herbivore stripper is performing sexual favors for a carnivore, who turns on her and tries to devour her.

In Beast Complex (an earlier short story manga series by Paru Itugaki) a male camel lets a female fox eat his ring finger consensually. She talks about how she hasn’t ever had the desire to eat someone before, and how a carnivore’s hunger doesn’t dictate their actions.

When Legoshi first pounces on Haru, he struggles to tame his urges.

“I’ve always just been food to all the boys.” -Haru, the female protagonist. She sleeps with many different (herbivore) males and has a reputation in the school for being a slut.

“…you’re an attractive girl… why can’t I stop salivating?” -Legoshi

“Do you think about her flavor when you talk to her?” -Gouhin

Bill (male tiger) is confronted by an herbivore student. He insists that the black market for meat is just a red light district that sells porn magazines.

Chapter 24’s opening illustration features a carnivore stall bathroom with graffiti that reads, “If you’re hungry, jerk off.”

Legoshi smears what looks like blood in the manga when he declares his love for Haru.

“And what if I were to offer you one of my legs? You’d salivate and happily accept, right?” -Louis to Legoshi

PINA: “Say, for example, I’m alone with someone in a closed, dimly lit room. In the event that someone is a girl, I just wanna kiss her… do you want to eat me?”
LEGOSHI: “I don’t eat meat or have a girlfriend…” The story of the stripper starts on the very next page in the manga.

Going back to the story of the devouring in the beginning, we get to know who the devourer is before the main characters know. Brown bear Rip goes on and on about how he could be his “true self” around his herbivore friend, Tem. It tells the story of how they became friends and how he stopped taking his strength suppressing medication so he could show Tem his true self, which lead to devouring Tem whole.

How Haru and Legoshi’s relationship is queercoded

“This is an animal manga that is a human drama.” Paru Itugaki specifies that the drama is human despite all of the cartoon animals, making the point that her story isn’t to be taken literally.

There’s a split where loving a beast from one group is completely normal and accepted, but loving a beast from the other is a societal taboo. Interspecies relationships is a taboo in this society, and every animal is expected to find a mate of their same order at the least, and preferably of their same species. The most taboo kind of interspecies relationship is predictably a carnivore/herbivore relationship.

Everyone around Legoshi pressures him to date Juno. Even Juno wants him to date her. Legoshi, however, repeatedly distances himself from her and has no sexual interest in her at all. Nonetheless, they are repeatedly mistaken as a couple when they go out in public, because the pairing seems so obvious through the sense of social norms.

However, he is obsessed with Haru. His interest in Haru is a huge shock when Juno finds out about it. His desires for her are seen as perverse. There’s a scene in the manga where his long time best friend finds a rabbit porn magazine in his room and worries his friend is going down a dark path in life because of it.

He can’t help but see himself as the monster he has been told that he is, and the solutions he comes up with on his own are healthy and malformed.

He asks for help from mentor figure Gouhin on how to approach romance with Haru, and his advice is little more than a profoundly unhelpful ‘DON’T.’

Haru also faces stigma for having so many male sexual partners, and there is commentary about the double standard with women versus men sleeping around. But she doesn’t face nearly as much stigma as Legoshi faces for being attracted to herbivores.

There is an inherent queerness in the way Legoshi’s attraction to Haru is discussed and portrayed. The stuff about sexuality and devouring serves to emphasize the subtext.


LEGOSHI’S PERSONIFIED DESIRE: “You have struggled your entire life, and now you’ve reached your limit. You’ve suppressed your feelings ever since you were a kid, and you’ve lived quietly in the darkness, haven’t you? Is that sadness you’re feeling, or is it frustration? You’ve longed for this taste for seventeen years.”

“The winners in this world are those who live without hiding their true nature.” -Haru

Internalized Homophobia

The first antagonist of the series is Bill, the bengal tiger. He represents something that Legoshi hates or fears about himself, like all of the villains in this series. Bill is everything Legoshi isn’t- loud, boisterous, and proud to be a carnivore. He flaunts his strength and constantly pushes boundaries to see what he can get away with.

“I refuse to live like Legoshi. I am glad I was born a tiger.” -Bill

Legoshi “struggles with his identity as a carnivore.”

He speaks softly, slouches to hide his true size, and hides himself whenever he can… he’s ashamed of what he is, and goes through life apologizing for existing at all. This goes well beyond being considerate of others’ feelings to the point where it’s self damaging behavior. He also polices the behavior of other carnivores, which I can’t help but see as his own self hatred leaking out.

Bill dopes with a vial of rabbit blood, which makes Legoshi angry. This is acceptable male carnivore behavior. 
I think there’s something to be said about societal norms and rape culture in this detail. It is acceptable to consume, but not to love a member of the herbivores’ group.

Being raised in a heteronormative society has taught Legoshi to hate himself. His needs are deemed to be taboo, so he’s hit by this deep, permeating shame every time he feels any desire at all. He’s caught in a loop of despising what he is while lacking the ability to change his own nature. Beastars is a flexible metaphor about the trauma caused by society’s judgment and how that trauma ends up reflecting back at society from within us. 
The world has been cruel to Legoshi, so he acts in ways that may be more cruel than we may be willing to accept from our protagonist. It’s ugly but honest.

Bill’s crime is being just a little bit too close to Legoshi’s self image that he hates so much. An image he’s been conditioned to hate since he was a child. Bill is a mirror that Legoshi can punch more than once.

Video excerpt from Hannah Gatsby: Nanette

“Seventy percent of people who raised me, who loved me, who I trusted, believed that homosexuality was a sin. And by the time I identified as being gay, it was too late. I was already homophobic. And you do not get to flick a switch on that, no. What you do is you internalize that homophobia and you learn to hate yourself to the core. I sat soaking in shame in the closet for ten years, because the closet can only stop you from being seen, it is not shame proof. When you soak a child in shame, they cannot develop the neurological pathways that carry thoughts of self worth. Self hatred is only ever a seed planted from the outside. It took me another ten years to find out that I was allowed to take up space in the world…”

Legoshi has internalized the monster that society sees him as, hiding it away, untreated. Then, he lets it free in the scene where Legoshi fights Bill in front of a live audience.

Carnivore’s violent tendencies are also stigmatized by society. It is wrong to bare your fangs in public, wrong to threaten violence, and wrong to fight other carnivores where herbivores may see.

The herbivore audience is mesmerized by the violent display.

“You want to punish me publicly? You think you’re so much better than me? You’re not. I know you’ve smelled rabbit blood before…”

All of the enemies that Legoshi faces reflect something that Legoshi dislikes about himself. Therefore, each enemy that Legoshi must defeat has less to do with punching them and more to do with introspection and growth.

Legoshi’s friend Jack asks him in one scene, “What exactly happened to make you like this, huh?” This is after he chases away his attacker by kissing him to identify his scent.

More sexuality conflated with violence- Riz and Legoshi fight in the showers together, half naked, and touch one another a lot. After being interrupted by the cleaning lady and getting embarrassed, they agree on a final time and place to fight.

Gouhin means well. His entire practice takes for granted the idea that Carnivores and Herbivores can’t truly coexist, let alone love each other. So it feels like he’s contributing to the very stigmatization that makes his job necessary in the first place. It’s like he’s a very sympathetic doctor who loves his patients but nonetheless classifies homosexuality as a mental illness.

Legoshi tries to cure his desire for meat by buying black market meat and meditating in a room with it, basically torturing himself in an attempt to reach some form of enlightenment, as if he can escape himself entirely. His grades are slipping, he’s getting little sleep, and is neglecting Haru entirely. He overflows with empathy for other beasts, but doesn’t allow that empathy to extend to himself or Haru. He’s hurting them both by refusing to treat his own needs as deserving. He hates himself, and is actively working to defy his own nature, and spends his training literally looking like a different person. He realizes that his jaw is getting weaker through his training. 

When he finally contrives an excuse to eat a bug, his fur goes back and he looks like himself again. Deprivation was never going to cure him because there wasn’t anything to cure. It was self destructive behavior. But, the moment he indulged himself, he was suddenly Legoshi again. Legoshi has a wet dream on the next page, continuing the parallels between sexuality and devouring/hunger/hunting instincts.

“I’m a dirty wolf who just had a sexy dream about Haru. Which means I’m still full of earthly desires. I’m powerless over my own primal urges.” -Legoshi

Then, he realizes what he needs is Louis. He wants him to witness his battle against Riz. He crossdresses so he can safely visit Louis while protecting his identity, pretending to be a female hitting on him.

His developing sense of empathy is what saves his life. He offers to listen to Riz’s story before Riz kills him.

Legoshi and Louis connect for the first time, realizing they had both been wrong. As an audience, you are meant to recognize their worldview and perspective that has been an integral part of their narration of the story up until then, has been flawed, and it should be satisfying when they finally change and become who they are inside.

Louis is the opposite of Legoshi in many ways. Where Legoshi is considerate and passive, Louis is smug and aggressive to the point where he’s physically abusive to his fellow classmates.

[sarah-hell-pit]

Chapters 1 and 2: The Ancient Magnus Bride (thoughts and commentary)

I recently started The Ancient Magus Bride. It’s not bad so far- the world building seems promising, if a little bit convenient. I like the idea of there being wizards and magi, the latter of which use actual “magic” to (temporarily) change the laws of reality and allow what they want to happen (or transform, I guess.)

I’m not a shoujo or fantasy person by and large, but this definitely has me intrested.

Not sure if I like faeries being small, cute winged creatures (come on, isn’t that overdone? the good people are beings from another world but they don’t actually look like that. At least according to what I’ve read. But other details seemed accurate (they aren’t inherently to be trusted, they live in another world called Faerie)

I like that Magus (do we know his name yet?) has an animal skull head, which raises a lot of questions as soon as you learn that magic has the ability to physically alter its users if they are careless…

meanwhile, the early on plot twist is that Magus plans on wedding his newly purchased apprentice.

Usually, these kinds of stories don’t appeal much to me because I find them cringeworthy (nothing more romantic than being literally owned by a man as a wife, am I right?) Honestly I think Magus not having a humanoid head helps a lot with that. It puts the story a little more into Beauty and the Beast territory. It also helps that our main character is suicidal. I mean, if I were an unloved orphan living in poverty with nothing to hope for, ostracized by both family and peers, I too would prefer to be bought by some rich weird incel hermit if it meant I had any shot at actually being wanted and respected. Or having any purpose in life, in general.

Magus offers her all of the above. Plus, she was expensive, so she knows he’s serious about it all.

I mean… I’d never be into it, but I, too, would 100% tolerate living with a weird rich man as his wife if he gave me a home, positive reinforcement, and a life’s purpose that I could do well. Like… easy— I’ll do it. (long as he didn’t mind making love to the human equivalent of a body pillow…)

Anyways. Onto the next chapter.

[sarah-hell-pit]

welp, I’m all caught up. It’s quite good. I look forward greatly to the next chapter. Also, hopefully there will be an english release of the manga.

I found out that the author has other stuff and some of it is available for sale in English. I will definitely be buying it.

oh my god. I just found a new manga to be utterly obsessed with. Predictably, it’s a furry manga. The style is fantastic; it’s got that shaggy digital ink style with the thin line details that really hits. It’s called Eat, and it’s supposedly a BL (erotica?) I am so here for the entire concept.

The main character, god. Just look at him! His aesthetic and his personality match; restrained to the point of acerbity.

very excited to see where this goes. It feels like it has similar themes to beastars. I mean… it’s about a professor with a fetish for watching people eat… and this mysterious student who walks into his life, proclaims that he is hungry, and then chomps him. Lol.

(wow. what a panel.)