#Ok I know there was that other time where he referred to Haruka as haruka but used boku

[skrunksthatwunk]

ok so. kiwami 2. rooftop scene. the ending. it's a bit of a clusterfuck but i wanna talk about one detail, a problem they bring to your attention by Fucking. Talking About Her.

haruka is watching all of this unfold.

[this post is like 4.5k words long + pretty critical + has spoilers for kiwami and kiwami 2, and really minor/vague ones for a couple others. they're not that bad though, trust me (and i added a warning in the one place it is major)]

ALSO CONTENT WARNING i'm gonna talk about kiryu's passive suicidality a good amount in this one, so stay away from this if you think that might affect you negatively/you'd be better off skipping it. i'll also make a tl;dr (which i will highlight in red) at the very end if you really wanna know what my point is that will exclude those elements <3. i am also going to use a lot of choice-based language in regards to kiryu's contemplation of suicide because i think it's the lens through which the games treat the topic, but i personally don't find it a productive or realistic way to look at suicide or suicidal ideation at all. someone dying by suicide absolutely does not mean they don't care about their loved ones enough to fight on or whatever. i love you, and proceed with caution on this one.

(also i'm using the kiwamis as my point of reference because i uh. don't have a ps2? those are the games that i played, and though the differences are likely slight, i wanna be clear about that. also,, ignore the watermark on these screenshots,, i didn't notice them and i'm not retaking them. we're all gonna have to settle for youtube cutscene comps for now xoxo)

first, we have to talk about the ending of the first game.

[note: i am Really Really Confident kiryu has a conversation earlier in the game about his going to jail in nishiki's stead being him running away and choosing not to resist his two options (go to jail or let nishiki go to jail) and define his own path, fighting his way against fate to make it happen. part of why i'm so confident it exists is because it made such an impression on me at the time. it's pretty important to my interpretation of things but i also can't find it for the life of me, so uh. sorry ✌️ i really tried. this post's takes/analysis will be dependent on this scene existing, so keep that in mind. if anyone knows where to find the scene/screenshots of it, lmk and i'll add a follow-up with it]

kiwami stuff

so as she's dying, yumi tells haruka this:

that she may be dying (painfully, and right as she's getting everything she wanted), but she doesn't regret it, because at least she did something rather than running away from it all. that you shouldn't run away, ever.

shortly thereafter, when the police find kiryu and haruka, this exchange happens between him and date. here's the play by play:

date tells kiryu he can get him out of trouble with this, and that if he doesn't, he'll get life in prison; kiryu declines his help:

kiryu is so devastated (understandably) by the back to back losses of the three people closest to him that he resigns himself to life in prison, and the death-in-effect that would be. he would prefer to waste away rather than struggle through a life without them. prison was monotonous and isolating, but coming back after a decade was overwhelming, and coming back to everything being so warped and twisted, and then losing the corrupted scraps he had anyway, well. he wants to go back to sleep. he doesn't want to be in a world where everything's the same except he's on his own. better to return to safety, to die slowly in a hell he knows well than weather a new one where he has control and agency, and thus one where he has the ability to fail and to lose anything at any time. he explains to date that that loss is why he can accept his death:

date shakes him and asks him if there's really nothing left for him, no reason to keep living at all:

then echoes yumi's advice to haruka:

which makes an impression on kiryu:

date gives him a reason to live in the form of haruka, saying she'll be on her own again if he goes to jail. he hijacks kiryu's tragic protector complex to keep him alive, because she needs him, and because she's someone precious to him:

after the dust has cleared,

kiryu and date also have this exchange, where date tells him to stay away from the cops (and presumably arrest and a return to prison, the aforementioned fate akin to death), and kiryu cites haruka as his reason to stay away, one he holds to with no uncertainty (showing again that he's accepted date's logic, that his reason to keep living even when it's incredibly difficult is to care for the more vulnerable haruka). given the weight of the consequences, to me, it feels like date's telling him not to be alone with his thoughts or something. it's almost frightening:

so, what's our takeaway from kiwami?

kiryu lost everything and hit rock bottom, but he chose to fight, and to live life on his own terms, even when it got difficult. that's the narrative life lesson he had to learn to avoid repeating the events of 1995. he made that choice for haruka's sake. it's seen as growth.

and without him, haruka would've just returned to the orphanage (assuming she could make it back to sunflower at all) with no one who knew or understood what she had been through, no one to mourn with her, and no one to give her the attention, care, and protection she needs. kiryu knows what it's like to be an orphan with a limited parental figure who only checks in every so often (kazama, "aunt" yumi), and what someone will do for attention/affection from that person (via both himself and nishiki swearing up, climbing the ranks, etc. arguably haruka coming to kamurocho by herself to find "mizuki" is similar), and what it's like to lose them anyway (again, kazama, yumi). their situations parallel each others' somewhat, and that binds them further. and after losing everyone (which he blames himself for to some extent, as one can probably assume from this and 2, and something key to his arc in later games), he chooses to protect her. and this time, he won't fail. at least partially because failing would hurt him, too. he'd have nothing left again.

okay. now we get to kiwami 2.

if you forgot, the context is basically:

everybody's fighting on the roof of a building which i'm sure will not be a running theme or anything as the series goes on

there's a bomb that's about to go off and they don't know how to/can't defuse it

ryuji shot the twist villain to death, but took fatal hits to do so

sayama's like hey!! let's get out of here!!! and kiryu and ryuji are like nooo we have to settle this oughh it's punchin time and they stick her on an elevator and send her down so she doesn't have to watch

ryuji loses. sayama returns, they have a cute sibling heart to heart, and ryuji dies in her arms. sad

kiryu is in rough shape as well, and there's like 2 minutes left on the bomb's timer

here's the scene itself:

sayama tells kiryu they have to run, and kiryu says he can't. the gist is "let's run!" "you go without me" "i'm not leaving you!" "i'm in no condition to run" "i'll carry you then!!" sayama: *sees how fucked up kiryu is, realizes he's Going To Die Anyway* "ok, then i'm staying with you!" and then further bickering about that, before they give up and make out (as one does i guess)

date (he's here now) yells this at them from a helicopter:

before someone else in the helicopter tells date this:

we get this shot of haruka calling out to kiryu as the helicopter swerves away:

and kiryu and sayama have this exchange about haruka where they say they let her down, but that she'll understand:

then they hug and the bomb ticks to zero right when the credits hit. in post credits it's revealed that the twist villain defused the bomb when they weren't looking, betraying his co-villain for reasons i truthfully do not remember and am unwilling to look up. it's not about that right now.

so, how does this scene interact with the ending of the previous game?

the short answer is "badly <3" but here's the long answer:

it's about choices.

the thing about fiction is that anything you want to have happen, as a writer, can happen. it may not be effective, internally consistent, or logical, but you can write it regardless. audiences suspend their disbelief for the sake of engaging fully with your fiction, but everyone has a threshold past which they will stop being engaged in a story and either become uninvested or annoyed. writers usually have lines they're unwilling to cross as well. but in almost every story, there's at least a couple of places where they stretch reality a little to make the narrative they want happen. this is not a bad thing at all. that's how stories get told.

now, i'm gonna be real with you. i don't care about how feasible plots are like 95% of the time. it's not something i think about much, nor is it something i prioritize. i am a very character-centric media consumer, so if world building and/or plot are a bit stale or contrived, that doesn't really bother me much so long as i'm invested in the characters involved. some people can't stand plot holes or the ways musicals burst into song or whatever, and that's fine for them. but it's not something i tend to find that all that important.

this is all to say that i have a sorta affection for rgg's flavor of bullshit pulling. and it is a powerful flavor, maybe even an acquired taste, but i can and do rock with it so long as it doesn't damage the characters too much. this is why i'm not making a lengthy post howling into the void about joji kazama or the second joon-gi han or how many secret relatives there are. those things are silly and endearing and a clumsy yet heartfelt part of a series i care about very deeply. i'll joke about it, but i don't consider it much of a flaw. it's more like personality. flaws are texture, and they help a piece's identity. point is i am very, very willing and able to suspend my disbelief for these games in exchange for a good time, particularly via good characters.

(if you want another example of where i draw the line from within rgg, the answer's the YAKUZA 4 SPOILERS INCOMING rubber bullets twist, because i think 1) it's actively horrifically stupid (especially retconning a scene we SAW HAPPEN. WE SAW BLOOD ON EACH IMPACT, AND RUBBER BULLETS DON'T OFTEN BREAK SKIN THAT DEEPLY (THEIR DAMAGE IS MORE PERCUSSIVE THAN PENETRATIVE). THESE EVENTS HAPPEN IN THE SAME GAME YOU DON'T HAVE TO RETCON IT JUST REWRITE IT. OR DON'T SHOW THE HIT AT ALL SO THERE'S MORE PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY. DON'T DO THIS JUST TO HYPE UP YOUR SHITTY VILLAIN NO ONE CARES ABOUT. and 2) (a bit more importantly) i think it actively removes saejima's primary internal conflict for that game, that being his intense guilt over the 18 murders he thinks he committed, one i was invested and interested in. but this isn't a rubber bullets post.)

characters in this series walk off a lot of life threatening injuries. they survive miraculously, they escape in the nick of time, and they pull through in the end. kiryu still somehow hasn't killed anyone. almost every game in his saga ends with an "is kiryu gonna make it out this time?!?" shortly followed by a "yeah lol. lmao" postcredits reveal. kiryu fucking punches a marble statue into dust in the first game. having a story that asks you to suspend your disbelief so much and so often means that when a decision is made, it's not the writers saying, "well, this would have to happen so we are obligated/forced to write it happening" so much as "we wanted this to happen for some reason(s)," because you already know that they're not guided solely by logic. again, this is true of all writers, it's just amplified in stories like these because they've already given you so many hard mode suspension of disbelief moments (they've broken you in like leather, yeah? or like how obvious internet scams allow for self selection by being so obvious that only the most vulnerable people would fall for them. they curate an audience willing to play along with their bullshit flavor so they can tell a story that's more likely to satisfy that audience. in a good way, in a fun way! mass appeal is overrated). there is not much limit to what this series is willing to try and sell you.

so when ryuji takes lethal damage taking out the big bad, that's a choice. when he doesn't die immediately, that's a choice. when ryuji and kiryu send sayama away in the soon-to-be-forgotten elevator so they can settle this like men or whatever despite the literal actual bomb about to go off, that's a choice. when sayama comes back, that's a choice. when ryuji does die, that's a choice. when kiryu determines that he can't escape in time, that's a choice. when sayama is unwilling to leave him, that's a choice. when she says she'll carry him out and there's an elevator right fucking there and then she's like never mind i guess i won't anymore we're dying together right now kiryu like they're not gonna even try?? wouldn't distancing themselves from the blast give themselves a better shot, something that's super possible given the 2 minutes they have with that elevator??? sayama you met him like a week and a half ago why are you ready to die with him that's not a plot hole i just think that's kinda strange whatever anyway, that's a choice. when kiryu stops arguing with her so they can kiss (next to her brother's corpse), that's a choice. when date shows up, that's a choice. when the helicopter can't save them because the bomb was going to go off too soon, that's a choice. when they put haruka in that helicopter and take her away, let her only impact be reminding kiryu and sayama that they can't help her, that's a choice. when they spend their last moments talking as if they're already dead, then simply waiting, that's a choice.

they're all choices that the writers made for the characters, and we are asked to believe them for the sake of achieving the writers' vision, as with any story. the only problem is that the writers' vision here fucking blows.

i'm not saying it would be realistic for kiryu and sayama (and even ryuji) to make it out alive, but it wouldn't be out of character for the series in the slightest. kiryu is suddenly unable to power through here, and that's a choice. so, what is their vision?

put simply, i think they wanted a romantic last stand for kiryu and sayama, a tragic scene of doomed, devoted lovers. and i think they wanted an edge-of-your-seat fake out death. they wanted spectacle.

here's how some specific choices they made undermine all that shit we talked about earlier from the first game.

once again, kiryu is called by date to live, to pick himself up and keep going, no matter how impossible the odds are. he's even reminded by haruka's presence, his one anchor in keeping himself going. the growth he had in the parallel scene in the previous game is challenged, and he fails.

it's not enough this time. and that's a choice.

it's also one i can't think of a good reason for, and that's the real kicker.

characters can have developmental backslide just like people do, and if they're given good reason for it, it can be just as, if not far more compelling that purely linear growth (i am a chimera ant arc enjoyer, and that's all i'll say. sorry if you haven't seen hunter x hunter. uhh. i am also a zuko avatar enjoyer if that helps). but i can't think of anything that happened in that game that would cause this from a character perspective. if anything, kiryu should be less likely to do this intentionally. he's spent around a year raising haruka, and a year has passed since he lost his loved ones. at the very least, the pain should be more dull, though it is established through an early nightmare sequence that his ass is (justifiably) not over it yet. given that their deaths were the initial motivation for his willingness to rot forever, theoretically, he should be more motivated to stay alive than before now that he's got more investment and stability in his life outside of them, particularly when it comes to haruka, his reason for surviving. and if the ongoing nature of the trauma was the motivator for this, then they should've had it affect him more past that nightmare scene (it really serves more as a recap of the last game than anything else) so it didn't come out of nowhere. so the reminder of the lesson that saved his life and then guided it for at least a year afterwards, one that the whole resolution of the previous game relied on heavily falls flat for... some reason.

i think this is a good time to mention that, generally speaking, you don't write arbitrary choices into characters. sure, people in real life are often sporadic, but when analyzing fictional characters, every choice is filed into a portfolio of characterization that can and should be analyzed. going for pure realism can obfuscate their development, motivations, themes, etc. their choices and reactions may be unorthodox, but they must be internally consistent. this is very related to how i view plot contrivance as well. characters drive the plot, not the other way around. stories are about the ways characters affect their worlds/lives and vice versa, and they're the human face to the themes and ideas the writers are trying to explore and express. maybe my stance on this seems hypocritical. i don't know if it is. but to me, plot issues are usually a matter of engagement and investment, while character issues are a matter of substance.

i hope this doesn't feel patronizing explaining all of this, but i want you guys to know where i'm coming from in my analysis. starting at my base philosophy on writing is the easiest way to do that, i feel. defining the terms of the debate, and all that. anyway

and i mean, look. they survive because "it was defused the whole time we just didn't see it happen", so it's not like narrative tension or realism or whatever was THAT big of a priority overall. if it was gonna be a cop-out anyway, they should'nt have ruined kiryu's development too, yeah?. and sayama fucks off to america after this game anyway, so it's not like the doomed lovers thing had much payoff or meaning after this one (though you could argue that's more an issue with yakuza 3 than yk2, which has some merit to it). which means that they chose to sacrifice kiryu's prior development and internal logic for the sake of cheap tension for their finale that was both kinda illogical in and of itself (the elevator!! the elevator!!!) and a romantic climax that neither required nor really benefitted from this staging. (like. you coulda had them make out and then get saved by date, or kiss on the elevator in a "it's moving, but will we make it in time??" way or whatever. look i'm not saying those are great options either but they're SOMETHING okay. it would remove/reduce the amount of time wasted on characters sitting around with their thumbs up their asses for no reason in this finale).

instead the message of this finale is that, actually, sometimes it is impossible to change your circumstances and fight for your own way out of an awful situation. and what should you do about this unfortunate truth? uh. die! i guess. it's the exact opposite of the encouraging, optimistic message of the last game. zetsubou chou pride my ass.

note: i feel i should mention that when suicidality is brought up within the series (particularly in substories), it is always something someone has to overcome themselves through wanting it badly enough. they simply need the inspiration and the motivation to keep going. it's arguably treated as a moral obligation. frankly, the series is broadly very meritocratic (<- bad) when it comes to this topic (and others, but that's a Whole Other Thing. see akiyama's weird loan shark tests as well). sheer will and resolve is enough to conquer any problem, be it physical or mental/emotional, and it's irresponsible to act/feel otherwise. this is the logic the games operating under, and kiryu is often the mouthpiece for this bootstrap-pulling "tough love" sentiment. so when kiryu "chooses" to die, yet faces no emotional fallout from date, haruka, or anyone else, it feels very out of place. it's not just an odd choice; it's specifically, once again, an odd choice to make in context of the game/series/character it appears in.

kiryu's just like eh, haruka'll watch her only family die right as she gets some sense of tentative stability and lets her guard down after a devastating month the year prior (and a relatively dismal upbringing before that) that we trauma bonded over. sure, she likely came to view me as the one who would stay no matter what, who was too strong to be taken out, who she could always rely on, and so i know that dying would hurt her immensely, but she's smart enough to know it'd happen eventually. her eventual recovery means it's okay for me to do this (somehow, in a way it wasn't in the first game). it's an excuse within the narrative's logic, and one it is uncritical of simply because it's kiryu. he gets a pass.

and i think with the previously mentioned passive suicidality and general series-long mental health issues kiryu displays (i mean. yakuza 5's literally his depression arc), this could be retroactively seen as an interesting choice, like a piece in that particular narrative. i don't even dislike that viewing, especially in terms of fan approach. but (assuming this went down the same in yakuza 2), they likely didn't have that in mind. all they had then was the first game and the movie. and they took the first game's Entire Message and contradicted it for nothing but a scene they wanted to have happen because it'd be suspenseful and/or emotional (without actually doing the work to earn it). and they're not fans trying to analyze his character, they're the ones making choices for him. and they chose to massacre my boy. and if the subject of kiryu's mental health was a priority of theirs, why didn't they explore that? haruka and date's feelings on him not resisting and their words not being enough (whether that blame is justified by the narrative or not (it shouldn't be btw)), the uncomfortable drifting that resigning yourself to death and living afterwards anyway often brings, literally any conversation about it besides the minimal shit we get post credits of date being like "did you know about the bomb not having a fuse?" which like. bad answer either way (which is why they weren't straightforward about it, the cowards). you can't just be like "oh uh. idk he just gave up this time. yeah he was gonna die on purpose for some reason. good thing the bomb was fake lol" and then pack up and go home!! that's stupid!! any merit the idea of kiryu dying by suicide in this scene and in this way could have had from a character-based perspective loses its weight because 1. it didn't happen (for kinda stupid reasons), which makes it fall flat and 2. no one is really affected by the fact that it almost did, including him. they sacrificed his ass and replaced it with nothing, even when there could have been interesting outcomes to it.

so the narrative effectively chose to kill him by making the situation impossible, and this impossibility is ultimately arbitrary, given the series' usual approach to miraculous, illogical escapes. that, or the choice to stay was up to kiryu and sayama, one that 1. doesn't make sense and is actively regressive in context of kiryu's arc in the only other game in the series (as well as his whole saga in retrospect) and 2. one that contradicts how the series sees/treats resignation to death/death by suicide in all other contexts without being addressed, challenged, or condemned in ways it would in all other contexts. because they don't want you to think about it like that. they want you to think he (and the narrative) had no choice, that it made sense to do that. but it didn't. it doesn't.

and look, honestly? if i was bleeding out and had like 2 minutes to live, there's a non zero chance i'd say fuck it and kiss a girl too. i get it. but i am (and this is crucial) not a fucking yakuza character. and i'm certainly not kiryu kazuma.

tl;dr (basically just rephrasing the second to last main paragraph)

there are not sufficient character reasons for kiryu and sayama not trying to escape. additionally, because the narrative regularly facilitates even less likely escapes, it's not so constrained to logic and reality that it couldn't pull this one off. the choice to let their situation be impossible this one time was a cheap and arbitrary way of forcing a scene they thought would be cool and dramatic, and in doing so they chose to cannibalize a key emotional note of the previous finale (namely kiryu's mission to dedicate his life to protecting haruka) for hollow last minute stakes-upping in this one. it is then completely disregarded anyway. god damn.

[dragon-of-timeless-blue]

The Free! soundtrack art and the evolution of Haruka Nanase 🐟

aka: Dragon is obsessed with the Free! soundtrack and finds symbolism in everything

Ok, here I am again, overanalyzing aspects of the official art of Free! and finding symbolism too obvious or taken from heavens knows where, Specifically, and in honor of Haruka's birthday, I'm going to be talking about a subject that drives me completely crazy in a good way:

The album cover art of the soundtracks of the different seasons/films of the series

🏊‍♂️*** 🏊‍♂️

The Free! soundtrack makes me immensely happy, and for that matter, not only the music perfectly conveys the feelings and motives of each season and scene, but also the art of the album does it, in addition to showing the stage of the series and especially the character development of Haruka

Ever Blue Sounds

The first music album of the entire franchise,

In this first art we can see Haru with headphones made of bubbles in what appears to be an underwater environment.

I really like the shades of blue and the fragmented and triangular shapes, because despite giving a feeling of "imprisonment" due to the shades of colors, we have a kinder aura, the blue that surrounds Haru is bright and shinny, as if that light came from the surface...

And precisely we have Haruka, with an expression softly amazed and even nostalgic looking at the surface, that is to say: the origin of light

I think you already know where I want to go with this, Haru underwater, still sunk in the waters of the past, longing for the light that is on the surface

All this concept of Haru submerged and being guided to the surface by "the light" reminds me a lot of this specific part of the opening

it's too obvious the headphones are there because this is the soundtrack art, but imagining they had some kind of hidden meaning I would like to think that they symbolize how alienated and isolated that Haru was with his own feelings, stopping swimming as he usted to even tho he longed to swim again with his friends like that time,

Clear Blue Notes

The soundtrack of the second season (and of the following ones) is at times basically a variation and reference to the most important melodies of the first season, and the concept of art is also similar and seems to refer to the previous one but with a completely different attitude.

The environment is already more "watery" if we can say it that way, the darker shades of blue no longer occupy part of the the foreground and blend very nicely with the other tones, The same goes for the bubbles that hardly appear anymore.

However, we still have the light, here, in fact, way more clearer and more visible, the surface feels closer and the light surrounds everything. Haru here has an expression of amazement, that light getting closer, waiting for him, so coarse and beautiful, his attention is totally focused on that brightness, and from the pose he is in he gives us the feeling that he is about to follow it, to swim after it as freely as he can, as if he were about to reach out his hand towards that light, that light in a brand new scenery

JUST LOOK AT THE BRIGHTNESS IN HIS EYES, HES FINALLY KNOWIING THE FUTURE HE WANTS TO FOLLOW, THE WORLD HE WANTS TO BE PART OF IS JUST SO SLXNOENXLSNX

Deep Blue Harmony

I'll have my opinions about DTF but something undeniable is that the soundtrack is just so cool (i mean, this is where "Rhythm of a new sensation" appears), but, anyways, the intentions in this one are quite clear...

The surface is positioned right above Haruka, a smile is drawn on his face, the future its just around the corner, I feel that those circles In addition to being used to emphasize the light that now directly bathes Haru, it also gives me the feeling of "being accompanied" all of Haru's friends will be there to support him and he has returned to meet old "circles" of friends.

Over Blue Refrain

The soundtrack of the first part of The Final Stroke, unlike what happens with the soundtrack of the first and second season, here the music of the first part is actually a reference to the second part (specifically to the main melody "the final stroke"), and something paradoxical that I think happens with this art is that the pose, expression and environment seem to be a reference to the art of another album... but i'll talk about that in a moment.

HARU IS FINALLY ON THE SURFACE!!

The blue of the sky and the blue of the water that splashes they unite and contrast, Haru observes something, as if analyzing his new horizon, amazed and finally at the starting point to fulfill the dream...

Now, The reference and parallel I was talking about earlier is this:

Pure Blue Scenes

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

This is the art of the "Starting Days" soundtrack, and i love it so so much, Haruka's uncertainty, entering a new phase of her high school life and the inevitable changes that entails, his look, with a hint of nostalgia precisely turning to see the cherry blossom petals (aka: memories of the relay and specifically of Rin)

The parallel here is very straightforward, the entrance to the "new world" and changes and remember the true core of swimming (swim with friends / be free)

🏊‍♂️***🏊‍♂️

I could talk about the artwork for the character songs or the other movies, but to keep this short, I'll end with a quick mention of the artwork for The Final Stroke vol. 2 because it's literally the one that breaks the chain that I've been trying to explain and that threw me off when I first saw it, but hey, here I go

Never Ending Blue

To be honest as much as i totally adore the TFS2 soundtrack the cover of this latest album makes me quite boring compared to the others, but it still has its charm...

A determined expression, Haruka in a more "sketch style" as if implying that it is the beginning of a new era.

I think that one of the reasons why this cover doesn't cause me much emotion is because it looks more like a cover that one could find on some music record without thinking that has to do directly with a series or something like that is how I feel, and precisely thinking about this was that I remembered what album it vaguely reminded me of:

This is the OLCODEX album in which Rage On (the opening of the first season of de Free!) can be found (there is also the single but conveniently let's ignore that), the design of their albums is similar to each other and, idk, im probably reading too much into it but my theory is that by having an OLCODEX song for the anime one last time, the soundtrack art is a tribute to the album where the first song comes out...

ANYWAYS, THAT WAS MY RAMBLING OF THE DAY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARUKA, THANK YOU AS ALWAYS FOR EVERYTHING I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO LEARN AND SMILE THANKS TO FREE!, I HOPE I CAN FACE THE FUTURE WITH THE SAME RESOLUTION AS YOU, U R LITERALLY BEST BOY LOVE U 😭💙🐟🌊❤️

[yuukei-yikes]

any thoughts on remind blue?

currently, it is my favorite kagepro song (this changes like every week but i digress...) and i really want to make a pv for it but i lowkey have no idea where to start

your analysis/ramblings on things is really interesting to read and see, so also just wanted to let you know that i love all the content you post!! :D

I LOV remind blue. like every kagepro song makes me want to rip my face off ♥️♥️♥️ but this one is one of those that make me feel so strongly that i cant listen to it ♥️♥️♥️ cuz i do that btw. i cannot listen to kagepro songs without preparing myself emotionally and it has to be when i am alone in my room. i could never listen to them in public. that'd be weird. im drawing and suddenly a kagepro song comes on in my playlist and im like this is so fucked up who put this here (<- i did)

songs like summertime record, lost day hour, remind blue and ayanos theory of happiness specifically i basically never listen to because it causes something in me both mentally and physically. im normal though.

TOTALLY support the idea to make a pv!!! i wouldn't know how to start either tbh💔 who would u make it be sung by?? like the song is so good but for the lyrics im like meh like str is already a thing. idk it sorta has the same vibe. its like summertime record and lost day hour's lyrics had a little baby together. which is why i always liked to interpret it as a haruka song but fuck it ig its shintaro's.

i also liked the idea of it being seto's or hibiya's. i think they'd deserve a song like this, especially hibiya!! tho for hibiya the whole "adult" thing is different LOL and even seto, he's just 17... ive always loved haruka being the punchbag for the "im an adult wtf" feeling because he goes from living his whole life thinking he will die and then he doesn't. or well he DOES die but then comes back, and suddenly he finds himself with his whole life ahead. like haruka and his early 20s crisis abt i did NOT think id be alive this long and now i gotta deal with everything those feelings bring me but at the same time i have to pay rent and worry abt what to make for dinner soooo erm fine ig. that's also what i think lost day hour is about, i know jin describes it more like a song abt old friends but girl idk it rly only has a couple lines abt that as opposed to all the rest of the song... erm. what was i talking about again.

i just think it was rly funny how we were all like ok remind blue uses "boku" so it's seto kano hibiya or haruka (or konoha). and then jin was like hehe. shintaro♥️ SHINTARO DOESNT EVEN USE BOKU whatever im pretty sure he also said it can fit anyone and its more a general mekakushi dan song. but tbh so is summertime record sooooo. sorry im sidetracking a lot

i dont particularly care for remind blue so much (LIKE THE SONG SLAPS im still talking about lyrics) bc it's very heavy on the shit abt like growing distant and stuff sortof??? like kagepros ending/str is implied to have the mekadan not grow apart but kinda do their own thing while still meeting to hang out, bc kagepro is also about growing up and with growing up comes maybe growing distant from these friends you love, but they will always be important and one of a kind in ur life and when u meet its like time hasnt rly passed between you. not to mention the whole thing about combining eyes and how all the snakes will always end up gathering by the queen no matter what, meaning the dan will always be bound to make their ways back to each other no matter what, and are connected to one another by the literal narrative that theyre all actually sort of aware of a little bit (they always refer to their tragedy as a "story"..kagepro is a little meta lol). and like that's all so beautiful but also fuck it. they all meet for pizza nights every week. erm. the passage of time am i right

ALSO TY FOR READING MY POSTS:///3 I LOVE KAGEROU PROJECT A NORMAL AMOUNT AND IM A NORMAL PERSON

[gracemyheart]

KaguMyu Act I ~ RANT REACTION

Okay, so I watched act 1 of the new Sailor Moon Musical "Kaguya Hime no Koibito" and spoiler: it felt like wasted time. Even NewMyu is more exciting to watch and I say that as an official NewMyu-hater-disliker...

You can watch the musical full for free on vk.

I included screenshots to make my little notes a bit more exciting. Disclaimer again: I am and will forever be honest with my opinions. If I think something sucks, I'll say that it sucks. (Spoiler: This was even too boring to suck lmao). Tbh. I have no idea how the manga handeled this story so I will make references from the S-movie.

- The musical starts with the song "You are my universe" and I have to say, it reminds me strongly of Tsukiiro no Chainon. That is not particularly a good thing because those random J-Pop songs these days have a bad thing in common: There is not really a melody in them? Like it feels too mechanical and not like music anymore. I couldn't really follow the melody because it was actually not existing. A good thing is that every Senshi has some solo lines in the song but that doesn't make it better. I am for example not sure if I could sing it with that lack of melody and rhythm.

- Next thing is the costumes. Was there really not enough money to make them look not THAT cheap? Also, Chibimoon's costume looks so baggy? And her wig looks, I quote @vampiru-chan "like a burst sofa cushion" xD.

- What annoys me too is that we got those no-name background-dancer demons again. SO boring like wtf finally get something interesting like in Banitimes again!

- However, the choreography wasn't as bad as it usually is in NewMyu and with that I mean they were not swinging their arms like crazy while running and walking from on end to the other end of the stage. So I grant a bonus point for the choreography.

- Yuuka-Saturn NAILED her solo-line. Good girl.

- I am still annoyed, that we got that all-female cast again! It might be rare, but I am still a straight girl in this fandom and I need real men again xD And I think all the lovely gay fanboys in the fandom agree xP.

- After the dance-fight-song-scene we see how Kakeru finds Snow Princess Kaguya's ice crystal as he does in the movie and then we get to know that it is winter and the Senshi will celebrate Mako's, Mina's and Setsuna's birthdays all together. And I have to say, she doesn't do ANYTHING, she is only a side character and simply...well there - BUT I LOVE Shinjyu-Haruka so much, omg. Finally a good Uranus! Her face reminds me of Asako but she is stronger and her male-like acting does not feel that forced. Too bad she was in a musical that was not about the Senshi at all :(

- Again I have to say, WHO, WHO thought it was a good idea to cast a Sailor Moon with that kind of face? Like, literally wtf. Tbh I would sue the surgeon who is responsible for this.

- Okay, now we found out why the costumes are so cheap: The whole budget was spent on the civilian outfits. They are so sweet and so pretty, omg. I want to have them all!

- But because all the money was spent on the outfits, there was no budget left for Artemis >:( He is only mentioned.

- Then lemme ask why our Usagi-chan is so bitchy here? She pushed Minako to the side in a very-not-Usagi-like style??

- Okay, birthday goes on and we get a birthday song and then some kind of idol-song by Mina and Mako. And the songs are not memorable at all :(

- What I liked was this little scene between Rei and Usagi. Looks like a reference to the anime where both quarrel a lot and it feld refreshing.

- And I have to say, that the lovely voice of Kisara-Mako/Jupiter reminds me SO MUCH of my friend's voice @missemperor you gotta cover her, nobody would notice the difference lol.

- Okay, now Himeko sings a song of how Kakeru developed as a professor or something and it makes no sense because Himeko is just so unimportant. Oh, yes and I never liked her in the movie because she was such a fkn bitch to Luna? I mean, I don't like Luna either but stop bullying the cat, bitch.

- as I mentioned in my last post about KaguMyu - we do not have a real setting again :/ But they tried to compensate that with heavy projections even from thought bubbles. I'd liked it better if there had actually been a setting but okay, we live in the century of technology and not of proper requisites.

- I also wonder why Michiru always has such a cute voice in Nelke productions? Ever watched the anime? She has a normal adult voice which sounds very elegant but not cute. But besides being a side character, Ayana plays a decent Neptune/Michiru.

- The rest of the musical is basically Luna and Kakeru doing stuff? But it feels like nothing happens T_T. Btw. the actress of Kakeru reminds me STRONGLY of a Zuka actress too. Apropos Takarazuka: Riku Sorahana is a cool Mamoru. Maybe a bit too cool for Mamoru but I like her.

- Another thing I noticed: The birthday scene, in the beginning, was just to show that this musical actually has the Senshi in it. Because after that scene... they are gone. There is that one scene with Usagi and Luna à la how does a kiss taste and then Chibiusa sings (very badly, omg. Why not casting a child that can sing?) a very annoying song, of how Luna is in love.

Overall:

- It was so boring. Literally, nothing happened. It felt like wasted time and yes, I know that the story is mainly about Luna but....geez no. I had a bit of hope that this musical might be better than the last ones but I have to say out of the new musicals - NogiMyu stays the best.

- Those songs were really not good and not memorable at all. They feel like the typical mass-production these days. Maybe BaniMyu was so good because back then it was a rare thing for anime/manga to turn into stage plays? I mean, today almost every anime/manga which is a bit popular gets a musical. Plus BaniMyu had Akiko Kosaka for the songs (and Queen Ado for the choreo <3).

- Funny thing: Usually in the new musicals it is that the first act is rather good or at least ok while the second one is boring af - but in this case, I doubt that this can get even more boring - maybe act 2 will be good then? Ewwww, we'll see but I do not have big hopes, tbh.

- If I had to rate it with points while 10 points would be super good and 0 points super bad, I'd give it so far 2 points. (LR, PE and UNV would even get 3 to 4 points, wtf it's really so bad xD. Okay, no they'd get at least 3 but still xD).

Today I'll watch the second act but I doubt it will get any better... :(

BANDAI! GET SERA MYU BACK AND DO GOOD STUFF AGAIN!

[bbdaydreams]

Courage My Love// Semi Eita

Pairing: Semi Eita x Reader

Summary: You like Semi and come up with a plan to confess to him, unfortunately it takes a turn. You meet again a couple years later by chance.

Chapter Seven: Take What You Want

Series Masterlist•<Previous•Next>

“Are you done with the eyeliner? I need it,” Izumi asked Haruka as everyone was getting ready on the bus.

“Stupid. Fucking. Boot. ZIP UP!” Yui yelled in frustration as she yanked on her zipper that had gotten stuck on itself.

“Yui, be careful-“ you started only to witness them accidentally hit their forehead.

“Goddamnit!”

“Yui got a boo boo already,” Haruka sighed before handing the eyeliner to Izumi.

“Poor Yui,” you said rubbing her forehead to which Yui attempted to bite as a joke. “Ooooo feisty, let’s save that for the set, alright babe?” Yui got up and took hold of your ears gently and you did the same. Giving each other a toothy grin you started shaking each other’s heads and making a random sound but you decided to mess with her and let your forehead tap hers. Yui let out a yelp as you let go and ran off the bus to get away from her wrath.

“Y/n!”

“Not here right now! Please leave a message!” Yui was probably the person you were closest to in your band which meant she was the one that had to put up with your bullshit while you put up with hers.

“I’m gonna getcha! And then I’m gonna hitcha!”

“No you’re not!” Running into the venue you were trying to find a place to lose her until you saw Won’t Regret and decided to talk to them instead after realizing the time. “Hey, boys,” you greeted.

“Hey,” they all greeted back.

“You look really good tonight,” Ranmaru said to spite Semi.

“Boo! She does, doesn’t she?” Yui asked as she wrapped her arms around your torso only to move your body side to side with her like a penguin.

“Thanks! You guys look good too,” you said taking note of their ensemble.

“Thank you,” Ranmaru said, looking over at Subaru.

“Gotta impress the crowd, ya know?” Subaru said before stretching his arms upwards to show off the muscles he’s gained from drumming over the years.

Your eyes grew in size taking in Subaru’s form only to grow wider when taking in Ranmaru’s, who was bigger than Subaru due to him working out, when he started rolling his shoulders. Semi took notice of your reaction and knew what his band mates were doing the moment they first complimented you but they didn’t have to go this far. “Hey! You guys should probably start prepping your stuff on stage to make sure it sounds good. The guy is signaling for you.”

“Yeah! Let’s go!” Jiro said wanting to help his leader out. He walked behind Ranmaru and Subaru’s backs and gave them a slight push so they could start walking. The two were about to complain before the took in Semi’s glare. When they got to the edge of the stage they fist bumped knowing they accomplished their goal only to hear the crowd scream because they thought the show was gonna start.

“That’s literally the funniest part about performing live,” you stated causing Semi to ask you ‘what was’ while looking confused.

“Them being so excited that they’ll literally scream just by seeing someone get on the stage, even if it’s just a tech guy,” Yui answered.

“Or when the lighting changes! The room just gets a little darker for a second and all of a sudden someone shrieks which just cases a chain of other people doing the same while others laugh,” you added on.

“It’s cool seeing them get so excited. Gets me excited,” Semi said, looking longingly to the crowd.

“I gotta go piss. I’ll be back!” You told them, excusing yourself to go find the restroom. After walking around with no luck you eventually decided to ask a staff member to point you in direction of the bathroom.

Sometime during your search you could hear Won’t Regret start playing their set and when you finally made it to the comfort of the stalls, Semi was already at the second verse of the first song. When you felt it time you were ready to get up you heard a voice belting out the bridge.

“Rage!

I'm the bad guy, I'm the nice try

I'm the typical bitch with the rage

On my face

I'm the goddamn beast of the goddamn pride”

Your face grew warm from the raw emotion you could feel from the sound. After washing your hands you sprinted back to where you left Yui at side stage. She turned around as you were approaching and looked at you with wide eyes.

“Was that him?” You asked while pointing at Semi. The song had ended and he started introducing the band to the crowd.

Yui with the same stunned expression nodded her head before speaking. “Dude, this mother fucker got lungs.”

“It wasn’t Jiro or Ranmaru? Even Subaru?” You continued still not believing it was your old friend that could do that.

“It was him. Has he always been able to do that?”

“No! Where’s his guitar?”

“I don’t know. He performed the song without it. He’s something else. It’s crazy.”

“Maybe he took over the vocal role and left the guitar to just Jiro...” you wondered.

“Alright let’s keep the night going. This next song is called Girlfriend,” Semi spoke into the mic. Ranmaru started leading them into the song with his bass and Jiro and Subaru followed.

As they were playing the intro, Semi licked his upper lip before taking a deep breath and started singing. With every word he sung he nodded his head along with the music either up and down, back and fourth, or side to side; whichever way he felt was best for the moment. He would bring his mic stand closer to himself and then pull it away so he could take quick breaths. When he got to the pre chorus he started bouncing his right leg to match the instruments as he head banged along.

You were feeling as if this was a completely different person from sound check. He wasn’t as stiff as he was before, he was actually getting really into it.

At the chorus he grabbed the mic off its stand and started walking closer towards the crowd which made them start pushing against the barricade. Backing away to get ready for the second verse, he made his way over to Jiro who was on his on his left and rubbed the back of his hand on his cheek before proceeding to go over towards Ranmaru on the other side of the stage to boop his nose. Both gestures made some people in the crowd scream which you and Yui found funny.

Hopping to the beat of the repeating pre chorus into strutting along with the chorus, Semi made his way back to his mic stand and put the microphone back into its holder. At the bridge his voice got softer and he was swaying lightly side to side but as it progressed he leaned forward with the mic stand until it was almost on the ground only to gradually come back up while rolling his shoulders backwards.

Using both hands to hold the bottom of the mic that was still on the stand, Semi belted out the final verse that led into the ending of the song. He used both his hands to run his hands down his face into raising his hands to show his index and thumb fingers were connected while his other fingers were pointed upwards. He then pointed at the crowd only to then use his hands to make an hourglass shape. Ending the song by putting one hand on his chest and the other on the mic, he pulled the stand to the left side of his head so he could catch his breath. The crowd immediately started cheering and screamed even more when he used the bottom of his shirt to wipe his forehead.

“Girly,” Yui started, “I ain���t gonna lie to you, but that’ll make your pussy throb.”

“Yui!” You laughed not expecting those words to come out of your best friend after what you both had just witnessed. “Girl, I was literally about to say that made my pussy throb,” you responded to finish the meme.

“Is he single?” She asked in a joking matter.

“Yui!”

“Y’all better not be referring to Jiro,” Izumi said which made Haruka hit her on the arm. She looked at you two with a panic in her eyes which you guys responded with a smirk.

“Oh? Does our baby of the band have a crush?” You started.

“Does our little drummer girl like their little guitar hero?”

“I hate you guys” Haruka said as she crossed her arms and pouted.

You all put your arms around her instead of continuing to tease her and continued watching Won’t Regret perform. Some of the songs really blew you guys away. Each song had something different to say and even if you couldn’t relate to the songs personally, you could emphasize with them. At one point you had tears in your eyes because one song had hit Yui too close to home. Taking note of the time, you realized their set was almost done and you needed to do your warm ups so you led the girls to your green room.

“They’ve grown so much,” you started, crossing your arms over one another to stretch.

“I mean, they’ve been playing for years so it makes sense but Jesus didn’t they just recently get signed?” Yui asked, holding the back of foot behind her to her butt one at a time.

Izumi sat on the ground with her legs spread out and placed her hands in the middle to stretch before speaking. “Yeah, with that talent they should’ve been signed years ago.”

“I guess luck wasn’t on their side up until now,” Haruka responded while doing lunges.

On stage, Semi could feel the rush of adrenaline within him. He was on a high performing live with his band mates and he couldn’t be happier. He loved showing off and seeing you and your band mates watch him for a while only fueled him more, not to mention his band mates and the crowd did as well. He put out so much energy and was lucky that the crowd gave it back because many crowds don’t. Most people just stand and watch with a bored expression on their face during the opening band because they’re only here for the headliner.

“Thank you so much again! We’re Won’t Regret and we’ll be at our merch table once we get off stage. The night is still young so I hope you’re not tired yet and are excited for Courage My Love!” Semi spoke, resulting in the crowd hollering at the mention of your band. “Wow, you guys really like them. But what about One Ok-“ More screaming started before he could even finish speaking. “-Rock. I didn’t even finish saying their name!” Semi laughed. “You guys were a beautiful crowd. Thank you for your time and being the first people to ever hear us live in the US. We’ll meet you at the merch table!” Getting off stage the boys received so much applause they couldn’t help but look back and wave goodbye.

“That was amazing!” Jiro started once they were off stage.

“That was the best show I think we’ve ever played,” Subaru added, pinching his shirt and moving it so he could get some cool air.

“Good job, guys,” Ranmaru spoke, putting his bass down in its case.

“I’m excited to meet some of them,” Semi said.

Meeting some people after the show was a new experience for them this time. Back home when they met people, the majority of them were people they could recognize because of the amount of times they’d seen each other where here they’re in a completely different country. Everyone was new.

Not many people were lined up at the table, probably a good fifteen people were, which they assumed was because not everyone wanted to risk giving up their spot in the crowd.

“H-hi,” a girl with dyed blue hair stuttered as she approached the table. “Could you sign my book?” she asked, opening her composition note book to a blank page.

“Of course!” Jiro responded with a smile. Semi and Jiro had the best English so they did the majority of the talking while Ranmaru and Subaru would responded whenever they felt comfortable.

“Could I also get a picture?” she asked nervously.

“Yes,” Ranmaru, answered enthusiastically.

The guys posed behind the merch table while the girl stood in front of it and one of her friends took the picture.

“Thank you for hanging out with us,” Semi told them.

“Have a good day,” Subaru added, smiling and giving them a nod to which the new fan gave back.

The boys continued talking to the people that were in line for them and ended up staying there to watch your set from a distance. When your set was done they got up and ran to the bus so they could take a quick shower, Semi going first since he had to go back on stage.

Your band met with your fans after your set as well and left once On Ok Rock started to perform so you could shower as well.

When you were done you found Semi standing side stage watching Taka and his band perform. “Hey,” you started, surprising your old friend when he heard your voice.

“Hey,” he responded.

“Proud of you. You guys were incredible to watch.”

“I could say the same to you. I didn’t know you had that much energy in you.”

“Don’t worry, I’m still lazy. The stage is where I really let myself bloom. I love it,” you told him honestly.

“Well, I’m glad you found your safe Heaven.”

When Taka announced that they were playing the final song, you and Semi stopped talking to pay attention to your cue to start getting on stage after one of the staff members handed you wireless mics. Semi took the lead and walked to the center of the stage when his part started only for you to follow when it was time for the duet. You continued your singing since the second chorus was assigned to you. Semi and Taka backed up to give you some space to have center stage but when it was over you and Semi crossed each other to switch positions. He sang the part that led into the bridge only to switch places with you again and then walk over to the left side of the stage. Taka stayed in the middle and you made your way over to the right side. As Taka sang the last chorus of the song you and Semi did your best to interact with the crowd before standing up to walk towards the middle of the stage while alternating lines. Taka sang the second to last line by himself and then you and Semi joined him to sing the last one together to end the night.

You both stood with an arm around Taka’s shoulders as he had his over yours and Semi. When the song was over, you and Semi moved to get off stage but Taka kept a hold on you both and spoke into the mic, thanking the crowd, your bands, and everyone else that helped make the show possible. He had you all bow together before turning and waiting for his band mates to come over so they could take a group photo with the crowd behind them.

Getting off the stage Taka thanked you for your performances tonight before letting you both go to your respective buses to relax and get ready for the next day.

“Welcome back,” Haruka yawned when you appeared.

“Hey. Is Izumi making curry?” you asked.

“You know it!” Izumi responded, following your tradition of her cooking her favorite curry on the first day of tour.

“I can’t wait,” Yui spoke, tired from jumping around. Taking a seat next to her on your small lounge couch, you rest your head on her shoulders and let your eyes close as you waited for Izumi to finish dinner.

Laying in his bunk after a long night, Semi couldn’t sleep. His mind was clouded with how the first night went. He was proud of himself and his band mates for doing really well their first night. They performed just like they usually did and didn’t hold anything back which made them surprise themselves. He honestly thought at least one of them, mostly himself, would’ve messed up. Eventually letting his mind wander a little, he thought of you.

He’s seen you perform on stage through his phone screen but never live in person. You were all smiles on stage moving your body along with the music while also never missing a beat. You were literally a pro. He also enjoyed watching you interact with the crowd and seeing you change your attitude when talking about certain topics regarding your music, most of them being about feminism, but other topics as well. He felt like he could watch you perform for hours and never get sick of it. He just wanted to listen to you.

Another thing he realized is that he would love to sing a song with you. The duet you both shared was probably his favorite part of the night because of the harmony he could hear through his headpiece was crystal clear since the majority of the crowd was blocked out. It was pure bliss to him.

He could still feel an attraction to you but he knew better than to jump on it because who knows if you still felt the same. On top of that you both decided to start anew instead of jumping into where you left off. He had to take things slow and see.

a/n: I wrote 90% of this all this morning all because I couldn’t get the songs out of my head. The first song Won’t Regret sings is another song by Badflower and it’s called Wide Eyes. I’ve been obsessed with Badflower since December like I basically listen to them daily they’re sooooo good. Also the song that made the girls emotional was Daddy by the same band.

I basically headcanon Won’t Regret as Badflower like I legitimately believe songs like theirs are what Semi’s band are like. Also if I remember correctly I’m pretty sure this hc is what led me to write this story. This is a long ass authors note oops sorry I just adore Badflower

Taglist: @pluviophilefangirl @yourstarvic @sunaswife @mynscorner @syaziahvg @discountkiyoko @blondemitski

[endysgirl]

Sailor Pluto, A Birthday Tribute

My Sailor Pluto birthday tribute..I got a bit carried away so read at your leisure. I wanted to talk about Setsuna’s complicated place on the timeline, specifically in the manga.

In the manga, we meet Setsuna in the Infinity arc at K. O. University. She’s a first year lab assistant in the science department, majoring in Theoretical Physics. We first meet her when she’s introducing herself to Reika, whose Mineralogy Club is meeting next to the lab. In this chapter, Tellu is using plants to drain people’s life energy and Setsuna has one of those plants in her lab. At the same time that the Inners confront Tellu, Setsuna’s life force is being drained in the lab by the plant. Haruka and Michiru are at their condos and they can feel that someone very close to them is in pain. As Setsuna tries to fight against the plant’s power, she remembers the “reason I was born! The reason I was *reborn*!” And just like that, she awakens with the symbol of Pluto on her forehead. This causes Haruka and Muchiru’s forehead symbols to glow and teleport them to Setsuna. At the same time Mask, and possibly Moon and the girls, sense that someone has awakened. They continue to fight Tellu and as ChibiMoon is about to take a hit, she’s saved by Pluto’s Dead Scream attack.

The two of them share a sweet moment where they hug. As Pluto starts to explain that she was sent to complete an important mission, ChibiMoon notes that Pluto is different from the one she knew. She’s stronger and grander. The three outer Guardians kneel to the now transformed Princess Serenity and officially introduce themselves. Pluto explains their role during the SilMill and that they too were reborn but that they awakened too late to stop Pharaoh 90 from invading. Pluto explains that the Death Busters from the Tao star system were attracted to the unusual energy of the Mugenzu (the triangular delta that the three buildings bearing the Outers’ names contains and the site of Mugen Gakuen, and the site of the future palace of Crystal Tokyo), and they are warping the space-time continuum of mugenzu. Michiru and Haruka chime in to explain that they disguised themselves as students and that this is their jurisdiction and don’t want the Inners interfering. They say that they have stronger powers and stronger items. Mask interrupts them to ask what items they’re referring to and if they mean the three talismans that will lead to destruction. In the manga, the Outers have always been in possession of their talismans and are not searching them out like in the anime. Mars, who has also been having prophetic dreams like Mask, joins the questioning, asking what exactly the talismans are. The only answer they give before leaving is that their talismans and their mission is to bury their ultimate enemy, “the Deity of Destruction”.

So how exactly did Pluto get here at this point in the manga? It’s revealed that the Outers were reborn at the fall of the SilMill along with the other Senshi. But Pluto was apparently sent from the future? But reincarnation is cyclical so it’s irrelevant where she died on the timeline, but what does that mean for the current Pluto that we meet in the third arc of the manga?

Let’s review Pluto’s death in the manga because it’s truly significant. She stops time in R when Demande has both Silver Crystals and is trying to make them touch and destroy the world. This allows Moon and Venus to take both crystals. Venus holds onto the future crystal. As Pluto dies because of using her Time Stop, Black Lady is shaken. She remembers how much she loves Pluto. She cries a single tear, which becomes ChibiUsa’s Silver Crystal and future starseed, allowing her to shake off wiseman’s control, power up as a Senshi for the first time, and start growing TF up. It’s Chibi-Usa birthing her own Crystal that awakens NQS from her slumber too. After she has her mommy moment with ChibiUsa, NQS promises that Pluto will have an eternity of peaceful slumber in the Crystal Palace.

So yeah, Pluto dies. This is majorly significant bc it’s implied later that she didn’t even do that for the fall of the Silver Millennium. Her and the others had to watch as their talismans activated and awakened Saturn. They had to watch her drop her Glaive of Silence on the Silver Millenium and on their beloved Princess - ending everything they had been protecting for so long. The manga heavily implies that Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Venus have the most significant emotional trauma from the fall of the SilMill.

Ok, so this brings us to the Infinity Arc. In the manga, when Pluto is awakened. She is already a student studying at Mugen Gakuen. We never hear about her backstory but it’s implied she has one since she had a life up until then. When the 3 Outers reveal themselves in the manga, Pluto explains that NQS had a new mission for her and sent her to be reborn. That means NQS has the power of reincarnation which we come to fully understand during the Stars arc, but still pretty cool. The Outers also say they were reborn after the fall of the SilMill. It’s implied that this is referring to Neptune and Uranus, not Pluto since Puu just said it was NQS that sent her. This is also stated in the anime, epi 113, when Mamoru meets them. Uranus and Neptune say they were reincarnated from the SilMill and Pluto says she’s from the future.

OK, so let’s talk reincarnation and it’s gonna get mindfuck-y if you think too much. So before we follow Pluto’s reincarnation, let me reiterate: reincarnation is cyclical, not linear. That means that a person can be reincarnated at any point in time, it doesn’t have to be the future, even if we refer to it as the “next life”. It’s not implying chronological order. In this case, in the manga, when Pluto dies in the future in R, she is reincarnated backwards into Usagi’s time frame. That should mean that in her future, she will die. And when she dies, she will be reborn to the past? Again and again? Idk. But, that would happen if there is continuity. The timelines never get explained but IMO I think they SHOULD BE divergent, but they ARE NOT. And that doesn’t really work but it also kinda works bc it’s implied. Sailor Moon went to the future to stop Nemesis, which she did. So we can assume that the current Usagi will one day give birth to a ChibiUsa that shouldn’t steal the Crystal. But that’s not necessarily true. In the manga, they never tell ChibiUsa that she was Black Lady. She has no knowledge of that. At one point they mention BL, and ChibiUsa is like, who? And they change the subject fast. So it’s possible all the things that happen in the future are still going to happen bc they don’t prevent it. But why don’t they?!?!?! So I guess, it’s not divergent. I keep talking myself in circles on this one...side note: in Stars when the world starts going to shit, the future with NQS, NKE and ChibiUsa starts getting warped. NKE doesn’t know what’s happening and eventually him and all the Senshi start fading. NQS says there must be something distorting space and time and changing the future (Galaxia). ChibiUsa says she’s gotta go back and help Moon. NQS has been acting like she doesn’t know shit up until that point but then she gives ChibiUsa a time key and tells her to go across space and time to the far end of the Milky Way aka the Galaxy Cauldron. So homegirl knows what’s happening, which proves it’s not a divergent timeline. But god dammit i think there’s still a good argument made for a divergent timeline. (😭😭omg somebody stop me). All that being said, perhaps the Pluto of Mugen does not reside in Crystal Tokyo at all. Maybe she goes elsewhere through space and time but then what? So perhaps the timelines are not divergent but maybe there are two Sailor Plutos who can’t exist in the same time plane. So if I haven’t twisted my thoughts too much, the idea is the Pluto in Infinity, is from the future and she’s different than the Pluto ChibiUsa remembers - Bigger, stronger - so she is not the same Pluto who will, in the 30th Century, use Time Stop. So if we follow this timeline, and everything parallels what Moon found out about the future and ChibiUsa does end up taking the Crystal and WiseMan attacks, the Pluto and Outers from this Infinity timeline are not present in Crystal Tokyo. So then we get the Pluto guarding the time gate (Hallway Pluto from R) showing up and dying to protect the world and ChibiUsa. And then she’s sent to be reincarnated by NQS into the past.

Did I lose anyone? Do you all hate me now? 🙋🏾‍♀️ I lost myself a few times and had to stop, reread, align my ideas again and try to explain them. Lmao. Anyways, Happy Birthday, Pluto!

Fun side note (bc the main post is deranged enough): we all know that time gate Pluto had a thing for NKE. Can’t blame her. She’s been in that hallway forever and he’s literally the only dude she’s ever seen up til then. But I’d argue that Infinity Pluto who fights alongside Moon is different from that Hallway Pluto and doesn’t still have a thing for him.

[fuckyeahkagepro]

the Kagepro Mary's "Age" problem (TM)

Kagepro fandom: how old is Mary

Wannyanpuu, Kagepro music video animator, on the team circa 2k11, during Imagination Forest pv release: This is Mary! I designed her! As a teenager, maybe! (weight: 130 apples?)

Jin, 2k12: we haven't really decided on much of the extended plot yet, I've only written one of the novels or so, Mary's only appeared in a couple of songs so far...

Jin, 2k12: oh! she weighs 130 apples. I'll say this in the Disintegration Book (2012), too.

still v. newly developing baby Kagepro fandom circa 2012: wHaT DoEs iT MeAN

baby Kagepro fandom, somehow much more surprisingly calmer back then despite everything that happened back then, too?? ?: oh!! maybe the apples are her age?? so she's 13?? because she's part-Medusa?? It's a neat theory!

Jin: speaking of that, she's over 100+ chronologically. but she's part-Medusa, so part-immortal ---- "Immortal" means she probably doesn't age like a normal human bei ----

baby Kagepro fandom, in their defense, it was still a baby fandom: ok, so she's 13 ,,,,,,

Jin, 2k12, in the same Disintegration Book: btw, Shion, Mary's part-medusa MOTHER, weighs: /150 apples/.

both baby and current Kagepro fandom: ??????? we'll just ... ignore this fact ...... (wait, how can /her mother/ be /15/ if /Mary's/ 13 ---- wait, never mind ---) (wait, do we have any updated scans / references on that at all ??? ?)

Jin, a bit later on: actually, I'll correct Mary's to 140 apples.

baby Kagepro fandom: so, 14 now! or was it 13? Shion who??

Jin, 2k15 tweet: so anyhow, Mary chooses her "age" to be /exactly the same as the Mekakushi Trio/'s, keep in mind some of /them/ have /conflicting ages/ as well ,,,,, but for the most part let's just /round them all out to "17" as referred to "officially"/. Mary will light "/seventeen candles/ on /the cake/". Her birthday cake, yes

Jin's tweet, /exactly/: Thus today we’re celebrating Mary’s birthday. Since she didn’t really count it, she herself didn’t know her own age. So, on Mary’s first birthday at the hide-out, Kano told her that 「You’ll be the same age as everyone then」!!! while lighting /// !! 17 !! /// candles on the cakeeeeeeee Dirty Listen closelyyyyyyyyy!!! [Dirty Motto Kiiteeeeeeee!!!]

Jin, in the same tweet: It’s nice to have that kind of warm feeling sometimes~.

@Shintaro_ikemen: Mary-chan has become a trending topic!

Kagepro fandom: Mary's age tho Physically, too,

Sidu's artbook, 2k15: btw we'll correct Kano's official age to 17 from the /conflicting/ /younger/ "official" MCA age of 16, while Kido, who we /originally/ had at /17/... we'll still list as "17", but chronologically she'd be 16 if Kano was 17, who is slightly older than her; Seto, he's in the same grade as them, he's the youngest, bc his birthday is in March, the Japanese school year begins in April and ends in March, this is v. important understanding this, so ,,,,,

certain parts of Kagepro fandom, 2k19: Gotcha! Mary is physically 13 years old, this wasn't corrected to 140 apples /at all/ later ,,,,,

the rest of us: and either way, do we even have a confirmation of this apples / aging theory /that isn't just based on theory or heresay/? For some reason /we can't find direct references for this information ANYWHERE/ ???

also Kagepro fandom: "Children Record booklet" ?????

Children Record booklet, /2k11/, a.k.a from v. V!!!. baby Kagepro fandom days: /does not contain any official ages/. /Only birthdays/. Yes /we have full scans of this/. Yes /we know what it says/. No, there were /no ages/. Yes, the kanji for "age" in the typical profile is very noticeable, and there's usually numbers next to it ----

Jin: so, my 2k15 tweet ,,,, "17"? ,,,, ,,,, ,,,,

Sidu: so, my 2k15 artbook corrections ,,,, ,,,, ,,,, ,,,,

Jin: btw Mary is part-Medusa, meaning part-Immortal, anyhow,,,, does it really matter haha ,,,,,

HARUKA, FINAL NOVEL 8 OF NOVELS ROUTE, SUMMERTIME RELOAD: btw, TIME ON "THE OTHER SIDE" from [where I am], /IT'S LIKE NOT EVEN A SECOND HAS PASSED/, ahahaaaa ----

certain parts of Kagepro fandom, 2k19: Mary's age tho

the rest of us, TRYING:

[manabingu]

Haruka Nanami = soft girl

This has been sitting in my inbox since yesterday MY BAD! I wanted to answer this earlier but got distracted by deadlines of some stuff ANYWAY. Thanks for sending me an ask about Nanami CUZ I BEEN WANTIN TO TALK ABOUT MY HOME GIRL FOR AWHILE BUT NEVER GET THE CHANCE TO! So thanks~*~*~*

THIS GIRL RIGHT HERE. NANAMI HARUKA ^^^^ I WOULD DIE FOR HER.

Honestly, I’m that one person in every fandom that tends to fall in love with characters who I feel get undeserved hate or are either a minor character who gets glossed over. And be like….YALL??? Why you so mean to such adorable, innocent,sweet, hardworking, wouldn’t hurt a fly characters and then say that characters who are LITERAL murderers and criminals are the “precious cinnamon rolls who can do no wrong” only cuz you attracted to them??? yall thas sad. Listen…I’m honestly tired of people who bash on the anime and only play the games cuz they think it’s boring. Yes, you can have your opinion & I respect that, but I’ve seen some people whom have a pretty steadily growing following just bash on Nanami or some of their “not best boys” for reasons that make no sense to me & I been bottling this for awhile but Imma just SPEAK today cuz I’m on fire. ANYWAY BACK TO MY QUEEN.

LET ME HAVE MY NANAMI HARUKA TED TALK. Debunking complaints

Complaint I’ve heard: She’s boring

IN MY PERSONAL OPINION. NANAMI HARUKA IS ONE OF THE BEST LEADS IN ANY IDOL/ REVERSE HAREM ANIME I HAVE SEEN TO DATE.

She’s FAR from boring. She kind of reminds me of one of my other favorite lead heroines of all time. Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket. Both are humble & haven’t really had much in their life. Let’s talk about her story, she is a girl who was born with with bad health so much so that her parents sent her to grow up and live with her grandma in the countryside where the air was cleaner & less polluted than the city where they live. While she stayed with grandma, she learned to play piano by ear & she really didn’t grow up with much technology. She states in episode one that she didn’t even have a TV so anytime anyone in her class makes a reference to a famous celebrity she doesn’t know who they are. If I had to guess she only probably had books, toys, & a record player at grandma’s house AND I think she was home-schooled? Which means that that her only other friend besides her grandma & possibly the local neighborhood kids was grandma’s piano.

 I think she’s highly relateable too. I sure have had similar experience (trust me, my immune system is TerRibLe XD so I feel home girl) But I knew the moment I saw that part in episode 1 where she describes how music LITERALLY saved her life, THAT is when I knew I would protect this girl for the rest of my life cuz I just yelled at my screen SAME GURL! SAAAAAAME TTuTT/ In Nanami’s case, she went by herself to the city to visit her parents, she thought since she no longer was a kid, her health wouldn’t be too endangered but she she got there she got REALLY lost & the noise pollution was so overwhelming that her anxiety gave her a panic attack. AND THIS IS WHY I REALLY LIKE UTAPRI. BECAUSE THEY GET HELLA REAL HELLA FAST. THIS KIND OF THING IS NOT SOME KINDA MADE UP THING. LET ME SIT YALL DOWN AND TELL YOU A STORY.

Listen- I remember when I was like 16ish I went to New York with a cousin & as a person who comes from a small town- being in the city BY YOURSELF for the first time, it’s SO SCARY to someone who has anxiety. I was dropped off in Manhattan while she ran a work errand she gave me money for food & encouraged me to explore. As soon as they left, I looked around thinking OH GOD WHAT NOW?? I saw a cathedral close by and I RAN for it. I was so scared being alone I went to a small corner of the cathedral and started crying & tweeting, which got some comforting responses from native NY people that followed me & I texted the friend that was closest to me (if you count Virginia close lol) But he called me & just talked to me & helped me feel better. He encouraged me to not stay in one place & to go find a place I like & perhaps if I was too anxious, to go stay there till I was picked up. IT TOOK ME 30 MINUTES to get courage enough to walk to the Barnes & Noble/Starbucks that was close & I stayed there texting him the rest of the time. So ANYTIME people talk crap about Nanami’s panic attack in the city I’m gonna politely tell them to get out of my face cuz that’s a VERY real emotion. The thing that saved Nanami was hearing a singer in a giant screen singing a soothing song. THE MUSIC HELPED CALM DOWN HER ANXIETY. EXCUSE ME. YALL CAN’T SAY THAT YOU’VE NEVER BEEN SOOTHED BY A SONG IN YOUR LIFE. WE ALL BEEN THERE. WHEN WE WERE SO DOWN THAT LISTENING TO A SONG MADE US FEEL BETTER. I know that happened with me. Just like Nanami, I had a time in my life where I was just ready for death, I had lost hope to live but hearing ONE. SONG by my favorite singer, literally stopped me. So I can relate how she felt about HAYATO in the city. And how afterwards she was so inspired by it that she wanted to try to have a career dealing with music. HER REASON FOR WANTING TO BECOME A COMPOSER IS BECAUSE SHE KNOWS WHAT IT’S LIKE TO FEEL SAD AND SCARED. SO SHE WANTS TO MAKE MUSIC THAT CAN TOUCH PEOPLE’S HEARTS & IF THEY’RE HAVING A BAD DAY, SHE CAN CHEER THEM UP WITH A SONG. IF THAT ISN’T THE GREATEST REASONING TO GO FIGHT FOR A DREAM, I DUNNO WHAT IS.

AND SHE KNOWS THAT THE ODDS ARE AGAINST HER. BUT SHE DOESN’T THROW IN THE TOWEL EASILY. I FREAKING LOVE HER FOR THAT. NANAMI. HARUKA. IS. NOT. WEAK.

Once she was of age, she applied for THE most prestigious music academy in her area. She was nearly late to the entrance exam cuz she helped a lost child find their mom while she was running in a snowstorm to the school. And because she was noticed to have that high moral compass by the principal, she was allowed to take the exam and made it in. And even when she DID get in, she was bullied by all the rich kids for not being able to read sheet music & not being taught by a private piano teacher when she was asked to play in front of everyone. She KNEW that she can play piano but she was self taught & played by ear. ((THIS STRUCK ME HARD TOO. Because I am self taught too- as a singer, I thought that if I didn’t have access to all these things & I didn’t know how to sight read I’d never be taken seriously or that I was less worthy to be called a musician than my peers)) But did she give up??? NO. HOME GIRL RAN TO THE LIBRARY and she studied her ass off to not let her first assignment project partner down. I COULD GO ON FOR HOURS ABOUT THE FIRST SEASON ALONE. SHE WAS THROWN SO MANY CURVE BALLS TO CRUSH HER SPIRIT AND DESPITE HER ANXIETY KEPT FIGHTING FOR HER DREAM.

But you know what? She also showed me THAT IT’S OK TO FALL DOWN TO ROCK BOTTOM. It’s OK to feel like giving up especially when your confidence has been crushed to a pulp by everyone. YALL, I FREAKING BAWLED MY EYES OUT WHEN SHE FOUND OUT THAT STARISH - THE BAND SHE SINGLE-HANDEDLY  (and with some magical fate strings pulled by Cecil)) CREATED WAS GONNA DEBUT WITHOUT HER. She was asked by the principal if she thought HER music could compete with pros already established and household names already in the business. She didn’t want her friends to give up their dreams of debuting so she agreed to step down as STARISH’s composer AGAINST their demands for her to not give up. She went home and cried to her grandmother that she felt SO outclassed. And you know what? I’m GLAD Utapri shared this kind of story because I’m sure it has happened to a lot of people.

Nanami is a really kind, compassionate, selfless human being. She does anything and everything so that all her family & friends can be happy at the expense of her own happiness. She takes it to the extreme that she is PUSHED and forced to FOR ONCE think selfishly and do something for herself. Her purity & kindness won the respect of her classmates & teachers so much so that they always want to support her dream of  becoming a songwriter. When STARISH came to her house cuz they heard she ran away- she openly admitted  IN TEARS that SHE wanted to be STARISH’s composer, she didn’t want anyone else to write for them because she had fun with her friends and she didn’t want that to stop. ((The principal overheard her and said FINALLY! SOMETIMES ITS OK TO BE SELFISH WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR DREAM! Its ok to be kind but also think of your own feelings sometimes too. I think young, budding artists need to hear this. )) SHE GIVES ME HOPE CUZ I BE THE SAME WAY SOMETIMES WITH MY STUFF SO YEAH ;~~~~~;/

SOMETIMES When I watch a show that has harem elements to it, I really judge the protag that everyone is falling for and I think about if the harem people’s feelings are justified enough for them to actually fall in love with the protag. And you know what? In Nanami’s case?? ITS A BIG OL HELL YEAH IT’S JUSTIFIED.

FrICK- I fell in love with Nanami too??? How could I not??? I AM A BIGASS SAP FOR INNOCENT, SHY, CHARACTERS WHO TRY THEIR BEST EVEN THOUGH THEY SCARED AF CUZ OF CONFIDENCE ISSUES.

She’s a wonderful, compassionate, gifted person who just needs love and support and you know she’ll be there for you too and it’s mutual. She works SUPER hard at her job, she’s endearing, she makes you wanna just protect her cuz if she is sad lord I will probably go on a rampage. This girl doesn’t deserve to go through more than she already has. I love and respect Nanami. A female protagonist doesn’t need to be bitchy, slutty, or badass to be considered “interesting”. 

HECK, one time I heard someone say “This show would be 10x if Nanami was a guy. UMMMM???? WTF??? Ok, listen, I’m in the lgbt spectrum, & I’m sick of people saying that Utapri would be better if Nanami was a boy. Why is it so bad that she’s a girl?? Like- I would like ONE reasonable explanation that doesn’t involve fetishizing your personal fantasies. When people fetishize an lgbt relationship- you’re causing that type of relationship to not be taken seriously irl. If we wanna make this the norm, we gotta treat it like it’s a natural occurrence. Not force something for the sake of fanservice. There are barely any well written female protags like Nanami out there in the world and if we change her, we are taking out one of the best from the list. I want more shows to write good, memorable  female protags like Nanami. I wouldn’t be against her being a boy. But only if the reason was for good reasons and to explore character development dynamics. Cuz I enjoy content that has actual substance. SERIOUSLY- If Utapri was ONLY fanservice, I would despise it. BUT IT’S NOT. It tackles real issues & speaks about people in the industry and they don’t sugarcoat ANYTHING. They show you the harsh realities but they also give you hope to keep doing what you love even if you gotta work extra harder than your peers who might be more experienced than you.

And THAT is what I learned from Nanami Haruka. And I will defend my songwriting princess till I die. Thank you.

[queen-of-hearts92]

Revue Starlight 1: I can’t believe it’s not Ikuhara!

GRANT ME THE POWER TO REVOLU-wait. Wrong show.

If you haven’t read the prelude for this, you should! Please go here!

Otherwise come on in for the episode summary and discussion! This will be fun! ouo

Note: I have NOT seen episode 2 as of this post/typing. All this is based on the first episode and the first episode alone.

>RAISE THE CURTAINS Y’ALL, IT’S STORY TIME!

The episode starts with our main character, Karen Aijou, repeating a story she’s seeing on stage which she is also performing in with her childhood friend, Hikari Kagura, who also recites the story. It cuts back to the audience and now Hikari and Karen are little kids watching the play that their teenage selves are performing in. The play is called Starlight, it's about goddesses that were drawn into the glowing of heaven. That’s about it for the play summary. Teen! Karen speaks about ties that bind others together, Teen! Hikari counters that they still can be pulled away from each other anyways and never see each other ever again. She refers to the story as sad. 

Next we get this amazing shot, I pulled it together so it’s one screenshot cause we gotta see it in its full glory. I hope it looks alright!

I WARNED YOU ABOUT THOSE STAIRS BRO

It seems like on these stairs they are underneath the Tokyo Tower, which seems to be quite relevant to this series cause this isn’t the last time we will see it. Not by a long shot lol. Anyways, Karen declares that she and presumably Hikari are gonna go to the stars together and we get a very Ikuhara looking title card. (It also comes in black!)

Is that the Tokyo Tower? God damn this tower is EVERYWHERE.

We then start with how most anime starts, getting up for school. Karen is woken up by her roommate, Mahiru Tsuyuzaki, because she slept through her sweet dino alarm clock going off and they gotta get to school (side note: a framed picture of little Karen and Hikari sleeping on a bus is on Karen’s desk). Karen, isn’t a morning person at all but she gets up and dressed and sleeply waits to cross the road with Mahiru. Karen realizes she left her crown barrette in her dorm so they run back to get it. Mahiru isn’t a fan of running back just for a hairpin but sometimes you do wild shit just because you have a crush on your roommate. 

The two make it to school not only right on time but they are the first ones there, the first class of the day seems to be dance so the two of them suit up and start doing stretches and warm ups together in the dance room.

We also find out that Karen’s class is the 99th one here and she’s student number 1. Mahiru’s student number is 17. Soon the other girls in their class start showing up. Student number 25, Junna Hoshimi walks in first. Junna expresses surprise that Karen got up in time this day, student number 11 Claudine Saijou also comments on that but in song because she’s a theater kid. Student number 15, Nana Daiba aka Banana-chan (yes that’s her nickname), twirls Mahiru and says Karen getting up on time was probably because of Mahiru’s help. We are then introduced to number 22 Kaoruko Hanayagi and number 2 Futaba Isurugi at the same time, I also like to call them our resident Haruka and Michiru descendants lol. Student number 18, Maya Tendou, strolls in with a sparkle sound effect and makes her way to the center of the room. All the girls follow and stand for the morning class. 

We learn there are 28 girls (this is before Hikari comes) in this class all together and that they are Class 2-A which means they are most likely second years (as it goes for anime set in high schools). It’s also May 14th, I dunno if dates will be relevant but we should make note of it anyways just in case.

Karen gives us internal exposition explaining the school is 100 years old and it’s a theater training school. She also says they are classmates but also rivals at the same time but it’s cool they all get along. We then see more of the pretty school grounds and then we go to the girls having lunch. 

During this lunch scene we see more glimpses of what the characters are like and their quirks. At the table with Karen are Mahiru and Nana. Junna comes over and gives them flyers for something called the Seisho Festival, even though this festival isn’t until next year Junna says they are preparing to get ready for it anyways. According to the flyer, Karen’s class will be performing the Starlight play we saw a bit of at the beginning. Nana is nostalgic about the first year they performed this play but Junna scoffs and says what they did was amateurish and they needed to do better than last year. 

We learn that this class at least will perform the Starlight play every year of them being in high school for this festival. Karen is jazzed about doing the play again. Mahiru comments that maybe next time her and Karen could be the “fated couple”. Karen is like, nah Claudine and Maya will probs be the leads since they are the best in the class. Junna disagrees with this assumption and shows her disagreement via dipping Karen and saying they shouldn’t assume who will be getting the roles in the play just yet.

Back in class, Karen is sitting in the back row by the windows (as many protags have) and she...She has a vision/daydream of some sort. We get a shot of gears turning and smoke and then she’s on the top of the Tokyo tower, overlooking the city. Karen admires the view and wonders how she’s getting such a great view when suddenly Hikari walks up behind her and pushes her off the tower. Karen falls backwards in slow motion, the background music turns distorted and off putting. Karen recalls that the tower was where she bought her crown barrette. She talks about a promise coming true and then we get a symbol with a giraffe on it and Karen lying on the classroom floor. 

Mahiru and Futaba (I think) asks if she’s ok and Karen is like its cool I’m fine. We cut to Junna’s phone and on its screen there is the giraffe symbol and it says underneath “Auditions Day 1”.

If you want to prove your love you-wait no thats bears not giraffes

Karen thinks about her weird dream and then the teacher announces there is a new transfer student and, bam it’s Hikari! She has the number 29. Karen is super excited to see her childhood friend but Hikari doesn’t seem like she feels the same way. Hikari has been at the Royal Drama Academy in England for the past 12 years. Karen and Mahiru show her to the dorms after school, on the way there Karen comments on the promise and it has something to do with their barrettes (Hikari’s barrette is stars/sparkles). 

Karen wants Hikari to stay with her and Mahiru, much to Mahiru’s distress, but Hikari says no and goes to her own room. Hikari doesn’t have a roommate btw. Karen says through the closed door of Hikari’s room “let’s be stars one day”, the tower is shown again.

We then get a montage of Hikari being amazing at everything because she’s a anime transfer student, that’s just how these things go. Next we go to everyone but Hikari in the showers (don’t worry, we don’t see anything at all) and Karen is fangirling about Hikari and how cool she is. The other girls join in on the fangirling and it’s commented that Hikari seems rather cold, Karen defends her saying it just means she’s cool and mysterious. The other girls playfully tease her about that statement. Afterwords Karen realizes Hikari isn’t around and looks for her. 

And I must mention this line is said:

Is this foreshadowing? We just don’t know.

I could be wrong but have a feeling this will be important later down the line.

Anyways. Maya comments that she can’t “see Hikari’s heart” and then we go back to Karen. She goes to Hikari’s room and finds it empty, she also finds Hikari has the same picture of them as kids as she does. Karen then notices Hikari outside running off somewhere and decides to follow her. This leads Karen to the school, Hikari seemingly has disappeared. Karen notices a strange elevator she’s never seen before, she steps in and presses the down button cause thats what you do when you find strange elevators. 

And then.

The fucking elevator rapidly drops down screeching all the way, speeding down like it’s a fucking rollercoaster. The gotta go fast elevator takes her to the “Underground Music Theater of Seisho academy”, this stage is under a recreation of the Tokyo Tower. A voice declares that day one of the auditions has begun. We are shown center stage, the voice says the competitors are aiming to be “the top star”. Karen is flung into the air and lands safely in a audience theater chair. The stage lights up and Hikari and Junna are seen decked out in a fancy uniform. The two start singing and then, they start dueling. Hikari has a dagger and Junna has a bow and arrow. 

Karen is confused, she asks “Is this Starlight?” which means that the songs they are singing are likely from that play. A stray arrow whizzes by Karen’s head and then its revealed she’s not alone in the audience. There's a giraffe. A talking giraffe.

*Insert Spongebob joke here*

This giraffe was the voice from earlier. The giraffe says the revue has begun and talks about the wonderful combo of song and dance and fighting. He says the person who presents the “most sparkling revue” will have the path to the “top star” opened to them. He also says the top star will get the “heavenly tiara”, a tiara is then shown. There are suddenly stars on stage everywhere as Hikari and Junna fight. 

Karen is still confused, the giraffe says “they understand” and says “they are desperate” and thats what makes them Duelists Stage Girls. He asks if Karen has the same determination. Hikari is struggling, Giraffe says if the metal pin/button on her jacket falls the revue is over. Hikari gets pinned to a wooden star decoration via arrow and loses her weapon, it seems like she’s going to lose. Giraffe says that those who don’t wish to play lead don’t get chosen and asks Karen to leave. Karen gets on Giraffe’s neck, he tips over and she leaps off his head towards the stage declaring she and Hikari are going to become stars together. 

Then, the transformation sequence happens.

Maybe one day she’ll become a car to revolutionize the world.

After she transforms Karen, wielding a sword, announces her presence on stage. Junna tells her to fuck off and Hikari seems horrified that Karen is here. Karen then smoothly charges to Junna, blocking her arrows with ease, knocks Junna’s pin/button off and smoothly dips her finishing the duel. There’s a very brief shot of Junna kneeling on the ground in the dark defeated before a curtain falls on her.

Karen stabs her sword into the ground declaring “Position Zero!” and we get this shot of curtains/ribbons covering tower like a fucked up christmas tree.

We can’t go without our phallic symbols you know.

Giraffe declares the first day of auditions over. Karen is pretty pleased with herself, Hikari on the other hand is crying and says “Baka Karen!”. The episode ends here.

We get to see the opening and its pretty cutesy but, we all know ops can lie about what the tone of a series is don’t we?

This looks a little different from when I did theater. Less giraffe. 

>If 9 girls worked for Love Live it can work here!

Alright now, Imma go over all nine of the girls very briefly and then we can move on to the episode breakdown.

Karen: Our protagonist! I find she’s starting off the series about as standard as protags get. She’s passionate, kinda weird, and determined. However there's one particular thing that stands out about her to me, she’s not untalented or struggling with the craft she wants to do. Quite the opposite in fact! Like she won that duel with pretty much no problem and doesn’t seem like she’s struggling in any of the classes! Her classmates tease her about her being a sleepyhead but they never tease about what she can do nor imply she’s behind everyone in someway. I find that to be quite unusual for this kind of protag character. I’m interested to see where she goes from here.

Hikari: Hellllooo mysterious transfer student! I’m getting strong Homura Akemi vibes from her, as in she knows more than she lets on and really doesn’t want the main character to get involved into whatever crazy shit is going down. It will be interesting to learn about her as the show goes on.

Mahiru: She’s very cute but all I can think is “oh this girl is gonna get her heartbroken isn’t she”. I’m getting a strong vibe she has feelings for Karen but is too shy to confess, and unfortunately it seems like Karen only has eyes for Hikari. This, could get messy.

Junna: Serious business girl here. I like her design, I can’t say I’ve seen this particular look for a character before. Specially the bell decorations. Unfortunately for her, she’s the one who loses these stage duels first and we will get to see via her what happens when someone loses. If anything. Could be nothing. Or she’s fucked. Guess we will know next episode.

Claudine: If this show was made in the 90s, Claudine would have the “ohohohoho!” laugh. This is based off her looks alone btw. She’s one of the top students and she reminds me of a classmate who was in choir with me in Jr High and she would sing opera in the girls locker room nearly everyday. It seems like she’s not a “mean girl” and gets along with her classmates, except for Maya. She and Maya obviously have a rivalry going on, to a point they compete with each other over eating lunch. But they were also the leads the the play last year so there’s probably more than meets the eye for their relationship for sure.

Nana: Her nickname is Banana and I just. I dunno if I’ll ever call her that, but her hair does look like bananas. She’s interesting, it seems like she’d interested in Junna since she took like three pictures of Junna with her phone in one scene. She might be the “is sweet but 100% can kill you if she wanted to” type. She also seems pretty nostalgic, talking about how fun it was to do the play last year and such.

Kaoruko: Ah yes, one part of the couple of this series. She and Futaba are always seen together, even on the steps from the start of this episode and in the op. Kaoruko is the femme in the relationship and seems to have a knack for traditional dancing, but she’s also a bit childish. She’s super sleepy in the morning and when Futaba drops her she complains and during lunch when she finds a food she doesn’t like she plops it into her girlfriend’s plate. I like her.

Futaba: The other part of the couple of the series, always seen with Kaoruko. Futaba is the butch in the relationship and her skill lies in stage combat if her wiping the floor with everyone during practice is any indication. In the op she’s seen riding a moped. She seems pretty patient with her gf’s antics. Sighing and rolling her eyes like she’s super used to it, like when Kaoruko dumps the food she doesn’t like onto her plate. I like her too.

Maya: The other top student and rival to Claudine. Maya seems to be very confident in herself, she walks like she’s all that and a bag of chips in her first scene and she isn’t intimidated by Hikari’s talents. It seems like she might know something is up with the not seeing Hikari’s heart comment but it’s hard to say for sure right now.

>Holy Zettai Unmei Mokushioku Batman!

-This anime nails down the Ikuhara style excellently! Especially in the last half of the episode, the part with the sewing(?) machines when Karen enters the stage reminded me of the Utena movie when Utena turns into a car. The action scenes are amazing and I’m really impressed with them! You could legit replace the soundtrack of this show with Utena’s and it would work just the same (in fact I went ahead and did just that!). I’m very impressed in this regard for sure.

-Something that I picked up on right away is the fact that Revue Starlight starts similarly to shows like Utena, Princess Tutu, Madoka Magica, and Penguindrum. A standard not so new plot is happening and then PSYCE you are going down an elevator 2000 mph and there's a secret stage underground and a giraffe is there. I think this is a reason why this show gives me a good feeling about it, cause it opens the same way shows I love have done.

-The fact that this school’s specific age was said makes me go HMMM. To my memory, that’s not something you state in anime unless it’s important to the story or becomes relevant later. A 100 year old school is nothing to sneeze at anyways.

-I’ve seen some folks saying that the underground stage bit is imaginary and it’s really just a normal audition but I very much disagree with that. It’s too mysterious for such a simple explanation, Hikari is way too dodgey about going there for it to be normal, and we see Junna get the call for this weird audition in the classroom. No this is real, giraffe and all.

-Speaking of the Giraffe let’s talk about him a bit, so it’s clear he knows what’s up and he acts as a referee of sorts at the very least. I looked up to see if giraffes have any particular symbolic meaning but I can’t find anything concrete, just spirit animal websites which isn’t a reliable source to say the least. So, let’s look at this from a historical perspective briefly. Giraffes are subjects of African folklore unsurprisingly, it seems these tales revolve around how the fuck it’s neck got so long. Outside of folklore, giraffes have captured people’s fascination for a long time. They were often kept as pets on the continent and especially overseas. The Greeks and Romans thought giraffes were a camel and leopard hybrid and called them camelopardalis. Giraffes have often been used as showanimals so to speak, their owners would travel around the world to be like LOOK AT THIS LONG THING. They were liked because they were pretty and elegant looking and yet they are also very powerful animals...hm possible meaning here? 

I also must mention Qilins. 

A Qilin is a mythical animal from east asian cultures, and they are based on giraffes. A giraffe was brought to China and the Emperor declared them to be magical creatures (I don’t blame him, giraffes are amazing). Quilins are basically very small dragons that sometimes have unicorn-like horns. In Japan, Quilins are called Kirins which is also the modern word for giraffe in Japanese. In the power hierarchy of mythological animals in Japan, Kirins are at the top with the phoenix and the dragon right behind it. There's a lot more about Qilins/Kirins to say but for now I think it’s a being to keep in mind going forward. It might be relevant or not, we will see.

-I refer to Futaba and Kaoruko as the Haruka and Michiru of the group because let’s face it, ever since they’ve appeared in the 90s they’ve been a source of lesbian couple inspiration in anime and other media. Honestly that’s what I think of first when I see couples in anime like Futaba and Kaoruko, even if their personalities aren’t 100% like our favorite early 90s gays. Now if they will be like them in their actions it remains to be seen though.

-Hikari seems really upset Karen became a Stage Girl, that’s one reason why I’m thinking there's more than meets the eye for these auditions. She seems way too upset, to the point of crying, for it to be just “oh crap we gotta be rivals now”. Her cold demeanor also extends to this, trying to push Karen away so she doesn’t get involved. Whoops she got involved, you tried Hikari.

-The Tokyo Tower is seen EVERYWHERE in this episode and it’s even in the title card! I don’t know if this takes place in Tokyo but even if it doesn’t that doesn’t change the fact it’s in places it shouldn’t be. The only relevance for why the tower is around as of right now is it seems to be the place Karen and Hikari got their barrettes and made their “promise”. There might be something else that happened there too though.

-On the shot of the girls sleeping/knocked out on the stairs, there's something odd here. The narrator says 8 women, not 9. And Karen, isn’t there. Her cape and sword are at the top by Hikari but Karen herself isn’t there. Oh dear, this can’t be a good sign for Karen.

-I find that the curtain falling on Junna after she loses interesting, especially with how fast it comes and goes. Took a few tries to get a screenshot, which will be below. Symbolism? Besides a pun that is, “IT’S CURTAINS FOR YOU” being a phrase that describes when someone has lost. Or the curtains falling meaning the ending of a stage performance. We won’t know more for sure until we know if anything in particular happens to those that lose.

Plot twist the curtain literally ate her.

-Cool thing about the elevator, when it drops down its styled to look it someone cut the dang thing out with scissors. Like a cut of reality? Anywho, I just think it’s neat.

-I like the glimpses we got into the girl’s dynamics and personalities. Claudine and Maya are rivals and possibly more than that. Futaba and Kaoruko are together all the time. Mahiru is the responsible friend who might have a crush on Karen. Nana is friendly and sweet and likes to reminisce on the past. So on and so forth. It makes me curious about seeing more of them that’s for sure.

-On wikipedia, it states this anime is 12 episodes long and while I’m still not sure if that is correct, I’m gonna assume that’s what we will get until told otherwise though.

-I like how the teachers don’t look like, ya know super young and childlike. No their teacher looks like an adult and you can tell she’s one compared to the teenagers. I really like that. I’m curious if we will see other staff members of this school but it’s hard to say if we will or won’t right now.

-I wonder how big this academy is? The dorms appear to be at least a few blocks away from the school itself judging by when Karen and Mahiru leave in the morning and when they show Hikari where the dorms are. It’s not as wild as Ohtori’s design but I want to see more of this campus for sure.

-The musical part sounded good BUT it was really hard to hear over the fucking giraffe talking. I’m gonna assume this won’t happen next time cause Karen is in this shit now but it was a little annoying. I get why, had to explain shit, but I was like aw man when he was talking over the song.

-Hikari’s cape is blue while everyone else's is red. Interesting. SYMBOLISM?

-I’ve seen some people say “oh this is an idol anime?” no. No it isn’t. The girls aren’t idols, they are stage theater performers. I can’t say I’ve seen a ton of idol anime but no this ain’t an idol anime. And just because it has a game coming out for it doesn’t make it one either, if it did we should consider Fate/Stay Night one then lol.

-A Stage Girl eh? Hm, the fact that they are called something like this concerns me. Like it’s a mark of being fucked over like duelists in Utena are.

-There are flower petals all over the opening and the last shot of the opening is Karen and Hikari holding hands. Interestingggg.

-This show is hardcore using Utena as a basis and invoking Utena imagery, just look at the official art! The opening, the dueling outfits, the fact that dueling is occurring and how they are won, the title cards, the transformation parts, the flowers (what kind of flowers I dunno), the tower, even the god damn title all invoke Utena imagery. I’m hoping this means we are going to good places.

>Gogai! Gogai! Speculation and Questions time!

-So this is a school that's there to recruit girls for a very specific dancing group which appears to be named after a, I assume, tragic play. And the recruitment process is done in an underground stage and it appears this class and solely this class have been chosen for this audition. I don’t know about all of you, but this sounds awful ritualistic and just plain fishy to me. There's something wrong with this group, or whoever is running the group behind the scenes. At least it feels that way.

-This series could be a metaphor/symbolic for two things, it could either be about the competitive nature of stage theater and how it can make or break relationships we have with each other. Or, if they are going deeper than that, it’s about all the struggles of those who do theater professionally/want to do it and everything that comes with it including exploitation, being overworked, sacrificing relationships, and, if they really are going for it, homophobia. It will really depend how much creative freedom is here. I’ll talk about that a bit more later.

-There MIGHT be a deeper reason to why Hikari left Japan all that time ago. To chase her dreams? Something darker? Is there more to the Tokyo Tower beyond them just getting barrettes together? Why the dream sequence at the start? Was there a falling out there? Too little to go off of just yet.

-So, this is the 99th class right. The first years below them are 100th then. Does, that indicate anything? Why was this particular class chosen and why now? Unless this happens every year to the second years? Many questions.

>But is this really such a good idea?

This anime shows A LOT of promise, I haven’t been this excited for a new anime in a long time like I said in the prelude. However, I’m worried that my gut feeling is wrong. It’s mostly cause of who produces this series. I’ll explain my two big concerns here.

-Revue Starlight looks A LOT like an Ikuhara work, that is for sure. But, is it going to talk the talk if it’s walking the walk? Will this just look like an Ikuhara thing and not commit storywise? I’m not expecting Utena levels of greatness or discussion here, I just feel if you are gonna imitate Ikuhara you need to have something to say. But, what is allowed to be said is unknown here. You see, like I said in the prelude, Bushiroad has its hands in this project. These are the guys that have made Love Live and Bandori, their usual target demographic is male otaku that want to imagine themselves in relationships with fictional girls and buy all the merch and blu rays. This begs the question, is the Revue Starlight anime going for that crowd? 

It’s not airing at “Otaku O Clock”, which is a time period late at night that specifically airs shows for male otaku (RS airs around 4/5pm btw). But that doesn’t mean it won’t be an issue nor does it say what the target demographic is. Revue Starlight is going to be a multimedia project, it has an rpg mobile game planned, as well as a stage musical. So that begs the question, how much creative freedom is here with the anime? Will it be limited because they want to appeal to and not upset the male otaku? If so that might prevent this series from being more than just a superficial Ikuhara look alike. However, Bushiroad has also produced Watamote which is a jab at socially awkward otaku but Watamote wasn’t gonna be a multimedia project so. I dunno if that should indicate anything at all.

-Even though I’ve been referring to the girls in this show having romantic feelings for each other, the other thing I worry about is the use of lesbians/wlw here. You see, shows like Love Live and Bandori don’t have a whole world inhabited by girls for no reason. Having little to no male characters in these types of shows is so there isn’t anyone to get in the way of the entitled male otaku’s fancys of being in a relationship with one of the girls. In turn, any and all gay romantic tension in these shows aren’t for the girls benefits nor are they for any queer person watching, it’s so the entitled male otaku don’t feel threatened and for any yuri fans. 

In these shows, there will never be a canon gay couple or even any girl that will admit that she’s gay. Most will call this queerbaiting but that would imply that this is for any queer people, cause it isn’t aiming to bait queer folks. So I’ll refer to it as Yuri Baiting, sure the girls can flirt with each other and “act” gay towards each other but nothing will ever come of it! As a gay lady myself, it’s frustrating to watch. Love Live is annoying enough with it but Bandori, oh man. It hangs around the borders of committing but it just doesn’t, legit theres a character flirting with every girl she sees and she’s pretty much all but gay without saying anything but they never will say as such! Despite me being a fan of both these series, I really really hate seeing this.

Now I’m gonna clarify what I mean by committing, I don’t mean that the characters have to kiss or even be like “THIS IS MY GIRLFRIEND”, you can have gay characters without them ever declaring themselves as such. Utena is a great example of that, Anthy and Utena fall in love with each other and even though they don’t kiss in the show (beyond a frame in the second ending credits) you can tell that’s what's going on via the language of visual storytelling. Granted Utena made this even more obvious in the movie where they do kiss, hell it’s one of the last shots at the end! Another example is with Haruka and Michiru, they don’t really like say they are together romantically but you can tell they are via how they are shown interacting with each other and how other characters see them and comment on it. You can do this without even saying the word lesbian! Hell even before Ruby and Sapphire of Steven Universe got married you can tell from the moment we meet them they are very obviously a romantic couple. In the same vein, you can tell Pearl was romantically in love with Rose from Rose’s Scabbard (and even before that) onwards. In Legend of Korra, reading Asami and Korra’s interactions as romantic is very much the correct read because they become the official couple at the end even if it’s never said within the tv show. I haven’t seen Yuri on Ice but my understanding is Victor and Yuri, while canon, also shows they are romantically into each other via visuals. Visual storytelling is useful like that!

Hence you can tell in things like Love Live that it isn’t going to do that, I’m using Love Live as an example cause it’s so fucking clear it’s Yuri Baiting that you can’t fucking miss it. This is super 1000 times more obvious in the mobile game where, sometimes the girl on your screen will hit on you or flirt with you (please stop I am 26 YEARS OLD). And while yes, in universe the player is another student at the all girls school but that doesn’t matter. Their dialogue is directed to the person playing and when the target audience is male otaku well, that is who they are really speaking to.

Gdi one time Riko, one of the girls in Love Live, blatantly buys yuri doujin/manga but does that mean anything? Nopeeee! AND, the same anime has probably one of the biggest examples of Yuri Bait in this particular series! There’s an episode of the anime Love Live Sunshine where Chika and Riko are standing by a beach, looking in each others eyes and holding hands and the sun slowly comes up all romantic looking and the music swells and Riko tells Chika “I love you.” and that’s where this episode ends. Now you’d think this would go somewhere, but NOPE. No it sure fucking doesn’t! It’s never fucking mentioned again. When I first saw the ep I was like “Fucking christ this isn’t gonna go anywhere isn’t it.” and ta dah I was right! Cause fuck you if you think they’d ever commit to anything that isn’t pandering to their shit tier demographic and anyone who is queer can go fuck themselves cause all we are seen by these people is fetish bullshit that fucking hates you and fucking christ I’m SO TIRED OF THIS SHIT! AaaaaaaAAAAHHH!

This Chu Chu is here to prevent me from ranting too much about off topic stuff. Please stand by as I scream into a corner.

Ok. I’m good now. Ok. Sorry about that.

I could go on but I won’t. My point being here is I’m worried that the Revue Starlight anime will backflip into this direction. If it does then any and all romantic looking interactions are a fucking lie and fuck you if you think it’s anything else but fetish pandering. I’m hoping it doesn’t do that in this anime, but it’s hard to tell at this point. So I have this fear anyways. I am hoping I’m concerned for nothing, I really am.

>Starlight, Starbright?

So, after all this I am left to wonder if my good feeling about this show is correct. I’m either right or the visuals are tricking me and this show is either really mediocre at best or outright bad. Right now, concerns aside, this show feels very very promising. The fact I’m able to write this much about it is a good sign to me. 

Well, that’s all for now! I promise the next post won’t be as long, or at least I’m thinking so but who knows? Thanks for reading!

Meet you back on the stage for episode 2!

[sazandorable]

A compilation and comparison of Ghetsis’ USUM lines about Giovanni in ENG, JPN, and FR

awright so I was actually started on this over on twitter and actively encouraged, so now you get... this (harharhar). It’s long and rambly, sorry!

For clarity’s sake, let’s start with the official ENG localization. I’m linking random LP videos each time for convenience, but there are lots of others to find.

ENGLISH:

"In order to achieve this beautiful ideal, however, I have need of a useful pawn... And that man, the leader of Team Rocket, is a man of pure evil! If I can make good use of him, and set him up as a king, I shall be able to reign supreme above all existence!"

"I have found that humans, with their predictable ambitions, are easier to use and control than a freak without a human heart."

"It wouldn't do at all to have you get in his way, especially when I must establish him as my king!"

(text c/p’d from bulbapedia (bolding mine). conversely, please have a look — i don’t even mean read, just. look. — at the entirety of ghetsis’s USUM dialogue on bulbapedia:

look at all this bold. i love his freakout trips so much.)

So to recap:

- pawn

- man of pure evil

- useful, make good use

- set up as (my) king

- human

- predictable, easy to use and control

- don’t get in his way (doesn’t comply with my plans!)

Now for the original

JAPANESE:

この野望を叶えるには操り人形が必要です 純粋な悪の思想を持つロケット団のボス… あの男…王としてうまく扱えば ワタクシはあらゆる存在の頂点に立てるのです！ 目的がわかりやすい人間は人の心を持たぬ化け物よりはるかに制御しやすいのです！ いいですか？ワタクシの王として彼を利用するためじゃまをされてはこまるのですよ！

(partly c/p’d from this blessing of a page which is basically the monolingual equivalent of this post, I’m laughing so much, same, bro, same)

I’m... Ok, I linked a video where the player reads the text aloud, but I’m still also going to transliterate this so you can “hear” it in your heads because. I really need you all to take notice of the sheer amount of “のです” in this extract. 3 out of 4 lines end with “no desu”. This is how Ghetsis speaks all the time. English localization did its best but still mostly lost this IMO: there’s two ways to read the formal, polite way JPN!Ghetsis speaks. One is the calmly threatening, quietly scary way in which the player acts out his lines in the video. The other way, the way I personally cannot stop hearing him, is like an affable, cutesy and harmless grandmother. Like a moe schoolgirl, even. Ghetsis once referred to himself & Team Plasma as being all “nakama” in canon. (EDIT: i actually remembered that bit as being worded “nakama na no desu” but alas, not quite.)

I just really need people to know this, okay.

Now that I’ve made this clear, as-literal-and-close-as-possible-and-thus-very-wonky-sounding translation by yours truly:

kono yabou wo kanaeru ni wa, ayatsuriningyou ga hitsuyou desu

“To fulfill this ambition, I need a puppet.”

Although “pawn” is a perfectly good translation choice (and adds a very appropriate chess theme), I also really want to let it be known that the original was “a puppet” (操り人形 ayatsuri ningyou). The kind with strings. (操る ayatsuru means “to pull strings” or “to manipulate”, in the literal sense.) Such a wonderfully creepy image too <3

junsui na aku no shisou wo motsu ROCKETTO-dan no BOSU... ano otoko... ou toshite umaku atsukaeba, watakushi ha arayuru sonzai no chouten ni tateru no desu!

“The boss of Team Rocket, of purely evil thought/idea/ideology... that man... if I can successfully treat him as a king / if I can make good use of him as a king, I will be able to stand at the summit of all of existence!”

The ENG used two verbs constructions here, but it's a single word. I am not savvy enough in Japanese to be able to tell if one or both nuances is stronger than the other here. But I do know that the verb (扱う atsukau) has the two meanings (“handle/operate” and “treat as”). And the ENG localization did keep “make use of”, too, despite the として structure being generally translated with “treat as”. I'm just saying, interesting double meaning within a single word here. V nice.

mokuteki ga wakariyasui ningen ha, hito no kokoro wo motanu bakemono yori haruka ni seigyoshiyasui no desu!

“A human with easy-to-know/understand objectives/motivations is far easier to control/keep in check than a monster without a person’s heart!”

... Okay usually I would have gone with “without a human heart”, like the localization always does, but the thing is he actually says “人間 ningen” (human) in the part about Giovanni. But not for N. In his usual pet name for N, he just uses “人 hito” (person). So. As evil as Giovanni is, Ghetsis still considers him human, unlike N (and N doesn’t get to be a person either). As lovely a dad as ever, huh. (Not about Giovanni but also noteworthy: the “freak” in the recurrent pet name is originally “monster” (化け物 bakemono). As far as I can tell, it’s always the exact same wording in JPN too.)

Technically this sentence could also be set in plural (no grammar cue at all), but since he’s clearly referring to N in the second half, I went with singular both times. In truth, he could be referring to humans in general (like what the localization went with), or simply to Giovanni specifically.

ii desu ka? watakushi no ou toshite kare wo riyousuru tame jama wo sarete ha komaru no desu yo!

“What about this? In order for me to make use of him as my king, allowing you to interfere would be troublesome!”

I ALSO JUST REALLY NEEDED EVERYONE TO KNOW THAT HE SAYS “II DESU KA?” HERE AND IT’S SO HARD TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO CONVEY THAT ACCURATELY. IT’S NOT QUITE “WHAT ABOUT IT”. IT’S BASICALLY. ASKING FOR YOUR PERMISSION. LIKE “MAY I?”. Except of course he’s not asking for your permission, it’s also like... “So, you see?” But basically. Basically he’s not just threatening you or explaining to you why he’s gonna beat you up, he’s like “See what I’m about? So, can’t you be a good kid and let me do this puh-leaaase? :)”

And the word choice in the rest of the line is also very “Look I’m a nice harmless grandma :) :)” and cutesy.

The verb for “use” is a different one this time, though, more straightforward.

And the last line is slightly ambiguous as to who you’d interfere with — either “I can’t let you interfere with my plan (which is to control Giovanni)”, or “I can’t let you interfere with Giovanni’s actions, since I need him to succeed for my own plans”. Ultimately that doesn’t change a thing, but the latter sounds a little like “heeeey don’t break my stuuuff, I need this”.

And by the way yes it’s literally “my king” in Japanese too, very conspicuously so, sounded super gay to me.

So to recap, this version gives us:

- puppet

- PURE EVIL MIND

- to treat him as my king (huhuh)

- human

- easy to understand, easy to control/keep in check

- puhwease :) don’t get in [his OR my] way

And now for the absolute funniest:

FRENCH:

“Mais pour cela, j'ai besoin d'une créature... Un pion facile à manipuler, un pantin pour distraire les masses...”

“Et soudain, voilà que le ‹‹ boss ›› de la Team Rocket, un homme à l'âme plus noire que son costume, se présente à moi !”

“Je n'ai qu'à faire de cet homme un roi, puis à tirer les ficelles en coulisses... Et je me dresserai au sommet incontesté de toute la création !”

“Il est tellement plus aisé de manipuler un balourd aux désirs primaires qu'une grotesque parodie d'être humain sans âme !”

“Comprenez-vous, belle enfant ? Et vous, Dresseuse ? Je ne peux vous laisser m'empêcher de faire de cet homme un roi.”

So much to unpack here. /rolls back sleeves/

First off, you can probably tell that the French localization loves to make Ghetsis RAMBLE. He’s very dramatic, flair and all, and his choice of words are absurdly purple (and often archaic). Yes, he noticeably has these traits in the ENG localization too, but FR!Ghetsis is that to eleven. I can’t manage to accurately convey this in these translations, but trust me, he’s just. Completely over the top in all ways, all the time.

Mais pour cela, j'ai besoin d'une créature... Un pion facile à manipuler, un pantin pour distraire les masses...

“But for this, I need a creature... A pawn, easy to manipulate, a puppet to distract/entertain the masses...”

Geez, FR!Ghets, how come your localization lets you have all the cool dehumanizing insults and creepy metaphors at once?!

Et soudain, voilà que le ‹‹ boss ›› de la Team Rocket, un homme à l'âme plus noire que son costume, se présente à moi !

“And suddenly, the “boss” of Team Rocket, a man with a soul blacker than his suit, presents himself to me!”

I treasure the shade in those sarcastic quotation marks, okay. These just. Come from absolutely nowhere. Quite possibly to poke fun at the fact that French localizations have used the word “boss” from the start of the franchise, and it would be weird and confusing to use something else to refer to Giovanni here, but it’s not actually a word we’d use naturally and, indeed, FR!Ghetsis would never use it unironically (it’s kind of slang and very much not-originally-a-French-word)...

Also: A SOUL BLACKER/DARKER THAN HIS SUIT

GUYS THIS WAS NOT IN THE ORIGINAL SCRIPT

Je n'ai qu'à faire de cet homme un roi, puis à tirer les ficelles en coulisses... Et je me dresserai au sommet incontesté de toute la création !

“All I need to do is to make this man king / make a king out of this man, then pull the strings backstage... And I will stand at the unquestioned/unchallenged top of all of creation!”

In this version he just says he’s literally going to make Giovanni a king. No detail as to how, but there’s no nuance that it’s just pretending or tricking him or anything. The words he uses also mean literally “pull strings” and “backstage”, exact same nuances as in English, so still totally reveling in the show metaphors.

Il est tellement plus aisé de manipuler un balourd aux désirs primaires qu'une grotesque parodie d'être humain sans âme !

“It is so much easier to manipulate a boorish oaf with primal/basic desires than a grotesque parody/repulsive joke of a soulless human being!”

... Again. Bonus extra shade. The original wasn’t complimentary by any measure, but this is so gratuitously extra mean. Amusingly, even though we have the word “ambitions” too, the FR localization opted to turn the JPN “objectives” into “desires”. Yes, same nuance as in English here too. “Désirs primaires” sounds insulting but also... kind of raunchy.

Also, “balourd” is a really funny word choice, intrinsically and also especially when contrasting with Ghetsis’ usual speech, it suddenly drops a few levels in formality to go almost colloquial. A “balourd” is like... think The Jungle Book’s Baloo, actually.

"Grotesque parodie d’être humain” was one of the (... many) things he yelled to N at the very end of B2W2, however it was translated a bit differently in BW, so this is the first reoccurrence French localizations get!

(... Because until then he had... quite a varied arsenal of these. “Marionnette” (puppet) and “aberration de la nature” (aberration/freak of nature) in B2W2, “MA CREATURE” (my creature/creation — Giovanni got this one too here!), “Il ne possède pas de coeur!” (He doesn’t possess a heart!) and “triste abomination” (sad/grotesque abomination) in BW.)

Comprenez-vous, belle enfant ? Et vous, Dresseur/Dresseuse ? Je ne peux vous laisser m'empêcher de faire de cet homme un roi.

“Do you understand, beautiful/lovely child? And you, Trainer? I cannot (afford to) let you stop me from making this man king / making a king out of this man.

This has nothing to do with Giovanni anymore but it’s some more extra creepy :) (HAHAHA YOU HAVE FALLEN FOR MY CUNNING TRICK i just wanted to ramble about Ghetsis’ awesome lines and speech patterns in general ok... don’t shame me...)

“Do you understand?” appears to be how the FR localization chose to deal with the “Ii desu ka?”, which isn’t a wrong decision, but they randomly decided to apply it to Lillie too.

“Belle enfant” is referring to Lillie, he calls her this through the entire scene. It sounds very archaic (calling to mind the Middle-Ages and fairy tales — it’s what someone would call a teenage Sleeping Beauty for instance) and also, you know, SUPER CREEPY. Also, despite this infantilization, he uses vous (= formal you) for both Lillie and the PC, which is very very odd for an adult speaking to a child. Like I said: extremely polite, overly so, unnaturally so.

... Until you beat him and he snaps, anyway, because then he switches to tu (= thee, informal/familiar you) and informal insults. <3

Anyway, in this version he says you’re in his way, not Giovanni’s.

So to recap:

- creature, puppet, pawn

- manipulate, pull strings, creation

=> overall, all the chess AND (puppet) show AND creator-god metaphors (later on instead of “ruler of this world” FR!Ghets literally calls himself “the demiurge”, I’m not making this up) 

- “““boss””” of Team Rocket

- his soul is blacker than his suit

- simplistic, boorish oaf

- ... does not directly call him a human (just at-least-not-a-grotesque-parody-of-a-human-being)

- primal desires ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

- don’t stop ME from MAKING HIM KING

- (no “my king” :()

I wasn’t setting out to make a point but oh hey guess there is one: the level of ‘respect’ and amusement Ghetsis has for Giovanni’s abilities and evilness, as well as exactly how serious Ghetsis is about the whole king thing, vary from one version to another, and some things can also be interpreted in various ways! The reason why he attacks you also differs from “Uhhmm, I can’t let you get to Giovanni and ruin his thing, because I need him functional for my thing later, so I’ll have to stop you here” to “Don’t ruin my thing. Lol just try and stop me”. ... And I thought he called Giovanni something along the lines of “black-hearted” in all versions, but this post taught me that he doesn’t, just “evil”, so hey now you know that in French he does, isn’t it neat!

Also, Giovanni may be evil and basic, but at least he doesn’t speak to Pokémon.

Ghetsis, your standards.

[haropuro-blogs]

Weekly Playboy Interview with Yokoyama Reina [27/1/2018] - Part 2

Every year, Weekly Playboy News chooses our "Idols to Watch This Year" for our interview series. For the second round, we are presenting the member of Morning Musume '18, who are celebrating their 20th anniversary, Yokoyama Reina!

About a year ago on December 2016, she joined Morning Musume as a 13th Gen member, so now we approach this beautiful teenage personality!

***

Interviewer: When you fell in love with Takahashi Ai-san, she had already graduated. "The person that I came to love, became a person in the past..." That sounds like a very modern thing to say. So from then you carried with you this adoration for Morning Musume, and you entered middle school?

Yokoyama: Yes. In middle school... I had to go to a cram school.

Speaking of which, you had some "Advance classes" in school? You must be pretty smart.

I'm not! I was really an idiot in year 2! For maths I got just 60 points for the first time!

Now, that's perfectly normal isn't it? Well, it probably isn't good enough to get into an advance class though.

I really hate to lose. I was thinking to myself "I must get into the top 50 this school year", but maths during the 2nd term of year 2 turned out to be incredibly hard! What's it called! Quadratic functions!  Because of that I got just 60 marks. And as a result I fell like 100 places!

I was feeling disappointed so I told my parents "I want to go to a cram school!", and when I started going it became so much easier to understand. I thought cram school was amazing! But of course I really liked to study. I was happy that in a short while I could do it! ...but I still didn't understand functions that well. And so, I abandoned functions for my studies.

Eh? Isn't giving up on functions just as bad??

It's terrible. When I entered high school, I could see the impact. But in the advance class, I got into the top 35 places for the entrace exam. In the entrace exams the points allocation for quadratic functions didn't have a big impact. And for me, I'm really good at the social studies questions!

You made up for your math score with your language, and social studies and other such subjects?

Yes. Ah, but for me, I'm really bad at reading kanji. I can write them but not really read them. For Kanji drills and such I could memorise some easy kanji from the reference book and then read them out during tests, but I can't really read the kanji that comes up in daily life. I read "屋上 (Okujou)" as "Yajou"...

Ooh! That must have some impact!!

Of course the members would say "Yokoyama, you're really so dumb?"!

And you were appointed class chairperson of the advance class!

Actually before she graduated Kudou (Haruka)-san said that to me. I read "Chitose Airport (千歳空港)" as "Senzai Airport", so she said "Yokoyama, are you that dumb?". When Kudou-san said that to me I really thought "Ok this is bad!".

... I see, so that's a worry that you have. But, looking back, learning to dance since you were small, being smart enough to get straight As at elementary 3, holding student body power as a class chairperson, being able to be a funny tsukkomi, playing alto sax at a national level, being able to hold a broken guitar, and finally admiring Morning Musume as a child and then actually joining them... well, I'd say that's a pretty accomplished life you know.

Well... actually, I'm scared now. Till today every day has been happy for me, but I worry about a day coming where I make a big failure. Because of that, when I do radio and such or give comments I think "If I say this I'll just fail big time...", that worrying nature appears.

Well, I suppose that's the story of your life. Oh, has Satou Masaki-san said that to you?

Ah, yes. Er she said "Are you hiding"?

I see. Previously, when she appeared on Weekly Playboy, Satou-san said "Why is Yokyama hiding? Because she has feathers. She's hiding it right?"

She said that. I'm not hiding anything though (laughs). She kept saying after that as well. "Yokoyama is hiding something~". But I don't even know it. Am I hiding something?

Since she's called a "Genius", surely, you must have some hiding abilities for her to say that.

Yes. Having her say that makes me want to do my best to achieve it! I will do my best in 2018!

Well then, please tell us your goals for 2018.

There are so many of them, but I'm bad at cooking so I want to challenge that. After that, I want to learn to do common skills like cleaning up and doing the dishes too.

You're bad at cooking? So you don't have a specialty dish?

My specialty is Beansprouts in cheese. I add the beansprouts to the frying pan, then I add about 2-3 melted cheese slices on top and fry it and then add pepper to it. For our home economics assignment we had to "Make your favourite dish", so everyone went to think about it.

I said "Beansprouts in cheese is definitely tasty alright". And it really is tasty! Everyone wanted to try it. We wanted to make a menu... but we couldn't make anything else besides that. We couldn't even make fried eggs.

I see. But it's surprising that Yokoyama-san who has been on the road of success can't cook.

It's not success! (laughs) But I want to get rid of any weakness I know that's in me. I want to set a high bar for myself in everything.

On that, on Yokoyama-san's life graph, are the dips "Cooking", "Quadratic function" and "Reading kanji"?

Also, I can't drink black coffee.

Isn't that just fine? Even if you can't drink it! (laughs)

But all the members around me drink it. Like my generation mate Kaga Kaede-chan drinks it everyday. Not being able to drink it makes me feel like a kid! Also I can't do sprints too. I want to overcome these!

So, with "Black coffee" and "Sprinting" that adds up to 5 targets that you can work on this year... If you hit these targets, you can spread these feathers you've been hiding!

I'll do my best. Also right now, Morning Musume is entering it's 20th anniversary, so I think there will be a lot more venues and opportunities for people to call out to us, and I want to do my very best to leave a longlasting impression on everyone! Firstly I want to establish my character. I'm still completely normal and without any character.

Now, how can that be so? I think you have a comedic character (laughs). For now, I have learnt about this amazing mentor you had in elementary school. It would be great it he could read this interview~

Ah, that would make me so happy. Thank you so much!

Source: http://wpb.shueisha.co.jp/2018/01/28/98767/

[griffinsanddragons]

So About Hinata’s Story...

I’ve gotten into Naruto again and I have a lot to say.

I told myself not to do it, but @crowlesbian told me I might as well, so I wrote this in an attempt to get across how I’d personally rewrite Hinata and Neji’s story to maximize their character development. 

I’ve seen some people write their own but this is simply my take.

You see, Hinata isn’t a character we see a whole lot in the manga so there isn’t really much to go off of because Naruto has what I affectionately refer to as ‘Sailor Moon Syndrome.'

Because like Sailor Moon, only a few members of the cast have character development. Understandably Naruto is the title character so of course, those closest to him (that being Team 7) are the main focus and it’s fine.

[[This is, however, why I believe both the  Sailor Moon and Naruto anime are more beloved: The humanization of the other characters.

(The best example is Rock Lee, whose only real story arc happened in Part 1. Nevertheless, he remains a popular and beloved character and people enjoy the episode’s with him in it.)

The anime did a great job with the stories unfolding around Naruto by developing the other members of the Konoha 11, the other Jonin, etc… regardless of whether or not it’s ‘canon’ to the source material or not, I personally choose to consider the anime as canon to itself — it’s simply a different way to tell the same story and while some of the episodes are a bit, uh, much and many times out of place, I appreciate it.

But I digress.]]

The point is we don’t see Hinata much so there really isn’t much to go off. Nevertheless, I believe her story could have been better had more emphasis been put on her role as a member of the Hyuga Clan and her relationship with Neji.

The problem is that Neji and Hinata’s stories are intrinsically intertwined but the more interesting parts of their relationship aren’t very well presented if you ask me.

On the outside, yes, Neji and Hinata’s story begins as your average Genius vs. Loser face off, but there’s much more than that going on.

Their story is about Social Class and Privilege.

Neji’s anger at the Main House of the family wasn’t unjustified, he was right and things aren’t actually solved just because he learned his Father choose to die in place of Hiashi…

[Keep Reading]

The Branch Family lives to serve the Main Branch and while it’s hinted things began to change, er… there isn’t really any definitive information about that.

I don’t want to spend too much time on things we already know, but Neji was angry because he believed his father was murdered in the place of his uncle.

And it frustrated him to know that no matter how talented he was or how high he ranked, his literal purpose was to serve the Main Branch of his family.

He’s so talented he was able to learn so much by himself but how many other Neji’s are in the Side Branch? How many bright and talented kids never even get the chance to learn the more advanced family techniques because they’re forbidden to be taught to them?

How many have been punished via Cursed Seal for having the audacity to be unhappy?

Meanwhile, Hinata’s suffering isn’t necessarily caused by the Main House / Side Branch Family structure, but it is a symptom of it:

Her problems stem from the fact her Father has deemed her too unworthy to be considered the heir for the Main Branch of the family and disowned(?) her due to her more gentle and timid personality (if she were a member of the side branch I’m sure this wouldn’t be a problem.)

But what does all this mean?

Well, it means that Neji and Hinata’s story should have been about them trying to fix the system that lead to their troubles in the first place.

And here’s how I think it should go:

In their fight, Hinata mentions that she shows Neji is suffering but I don’t think she knows the full extent of it. I’d like it if she learned that during his fight with Naruto.

Neji’s putting all his family’s business out there anyway, so it might as well be used to set something else up.

After Hiashi apologizes to Neji, tells him the truth and begins training him, Hinata should speak with Neji.

They have their first real heart-to-heart where he apologizes for trying to kill her and she apologizes for not realizing just how badly he’s been suffering and promises that she’ll do whatever she’s able to help him and everyone else who’s suffering thereby giving her a new goal.

Never breaking a promise is her nindo, after all, and it’s definitely a worthy goal.

Neji would simply thank her for her apology.

From there on out, Hinata trains hard to obtain her new goal–becoming strong enough to reclaim her status as Clan Heir.

She trains harder with Kiba and Shino and as her resolve strengthens they begin to perform better on missions.

Hiashi and Hanabi begin to notice her newfound resolve and so does Neji.

He begins to think that maybe she’s serious about what she promised (prompting a flashback of Naruto claiming he’ll never go back on his word and will become Hokage,) and he goes to watch Hinata train.

She still has trouble pushing herself while training alone and Neji extends the offer to assist her.

Hinata agrees and that’s when they begin training.

Kurenai, Kiba, and Shino notice how much better her relationship with her family has gotten and how cheerful she’s become now.

Neji’s a strict teacher but a really good one and she begin improving quickly.

Their newfound relationship shouldn’t just benefit Hinata, however, it should also benefit Neji.

So as they grow closer as friends, Neji begins to feel more comfortable telling Hinata about his dreams and ambitions, the ridiculous antics of his team and things like that.

Gai, Lee, and Tenten begin to notice a change in Neji too. He seems less on edge than usual and begins improving his performance as well.

He’s been able to perfect and refine his understanding of what Hiashi teaches him by applying it to his lessons with Hinata. (because once you truly understanding something you’re able to teach it.)

This is where things really take a turn because I think that Hinata should begin to admire Neji as her inspiration.

She doesn’t have to stop liking Naruto or stop admiring him–he’ll always be the person who inspired her first— but it would be nice to see her take inspiration from other people too.

Because Neji didn’t have anyone there to teach him, he didn’t have anyone to really encourage him to get up and keep trying, he learned all of this on his own, he became strong on his own and he did it while knowing he was ‘only’ a member of the side branch of the family.

Neji is amazing and she hopes to one day be as strong as him.

Eventually, they take the Chunin Exams again and Hinata becomes a Chunin. Neji, of course, becomes a Jonin and they begin working on the Gentle Step Twin Lion Fists in hopes she can further impress her Father and Hanabi.

Hiashi asks Neji what spurred Hinata to start working so hard and why he agreed to help her and Neji simply tells him they have a goal they must work together to obtain–because he fully believes in his and her power to do this.

They’ve also become best friends.

Gai believes that Neji really has the makings of a teacher and is proud of him for coming so far. He has so much youthful determination!

This, of course, spurs on Lee and Tenten to train even harder!

In fact, it’s clear to everyone how far both he and Hinata have come thanks to their training together.

Not wanting to fall behind, Shino and Kiba up their training and Team 8 have risen to become one of the best tracking teams in the village!

Over this time Hinata begins to have a more sunny disposition. She still has anxiety because those things don’t really go away so easily but it’s a bit more manageable now so by the time she meets Naruto again maybe she won’t faint.

Nevertheless, she’s happy to see him.

Naruto’s story pans out as usual.

Hinata, as always, tries to buy time for Naruto by jumping in front of Pain, confesses her feelings but also feels sorry she couldn’t keep her word to Neji—Pain almost kills her, Naruto beats him up, and everyone turns out ok.

When Hiashi learns Hinata jumped in front of Pain he muses about how much she’s grown and speaks with her about how admirable her actions were. He tells her she’s happy she’s alright and that making difficult choices is something a leader must always do. Hiashi also lets her know that believes she’s shaping up to be a really good one under Neji’s influence.

At this point, Hanabi realizes that Hinata might actually reclaim her status as heir to the clan and they decide to spur each other on —neither wanting to lose but also wanting to fight while the other is at their best.

[If I wanted to get into any shipping stuff I guess this is where Naruto would ask Hinata if she was alright and if maybe she’d want to get some ramen when Ichiraku is rebuilt. He also makes a point to say goodbye to her when he goes to talk to the Raikage, to the Falls of Truth and whenever else he leaves the village, alluding to them become closer as friends.)

Anyway—

Hinata greatly improves her confidence and taijutsu abilities in time for the 4th Great Ninja War.  

She and Neji fight side by side and protect a lot of people.

They both survive. Naruto pulls some protagonist shit and protects them from the splinters.

[Again I guess this would be where Naruto tells Hinata how happy he is that he got to save her from danger this time and it’s cute or whatever. They hold hands when Naruto takes time to ask if she’s okay and she’s happy she gets to stand beside him and all that jazz.)]

Regardless, both Neji and Hinata are trapped by The Infinite Tsukuyomi where they both have similar dreams about uniting the Hyuga Clan. (In Hinata’s case I guess Naruto could be there to congratulate her on fulfilling her dream.)

Sometime after the war, Neji begins to think about becoming a Jonin leader since he seems to have a knack for teaching and asks Gai what he thinks about the idea first.

Gai is very proud of him and thinks he’ll do great! Now he’ll have his own students to pass his youth unto! And Neji is very pleased.

After the war everything is peaceful and happy. 

(Naruto and Hinata begin spending more time together as friends and then Naruto decides he really likes Hinata and tries to ask her on an official date but she’s been busy preparing for a very important duel with her sister. 

When he finally gets the chance, the events of ‘The Last Movie’ take place and Toneri kidnaps Hanabi. Neji was off on a mission or something so he isn’t part of the Hanabi rescue team. Either that or he joins them and makes it a six man squad??? idk.

At some point, someone (Sai?) might ask Hinata why she’s fighting so hard to get Hanabi back when she’s competition for her. Hanabi stands in the way of her dreams. But Hinata tells him that, while that’s true, her sister matters more to her than the title. She and Neji can fulfill their dreams without hurting anyone or leaving them behind.)

When both Hanabi and Hinata are adults and Hiashi is ready to retire, they fight to see who will become heir to the Hyuga Clan.

Within this time Neji and Hinata managed to rally Hanabi to their cause as well as some others who see the need to change.

While I’d like Hinata to win as a show for all her hard work, I think I’d have to give the heir position to Hanabi anyway.

Regardless the three of them all work together to reform the clan.

Hanabi as the head, Neji as her advisor and Hinata can help train some of the younger clan members in both The Gentle Fist Taijutsu and Tracking, which she, Kiba and Shino are still greatly recognized for.

Meanwhile, all of Team Gai becomes Legendary Shinobi! 

(I guess this is where Hinata marry’s Naruto and starts her own family. Neji helps to oversee Boruto’s training and visits them a lot. When Himawari becomes a ninja she’s assigned to Neji’s Squad.)

Nevertheless Hinata, Neji and Hanabi remain close and everything is beautiful.

I say all of this not because I dislike Hinata, but because I like her. She’s a good character but Kishimoto could have done more with her story and tied it into her family issues better. 

[4clc]

day6 as a swim team aka free!au

aka the start of my free!ly collection

sungin:

swim team captain of course

3rd year

in charge of grilling the hot dogs

breaststroke!!

smol man but he finishes 100 fast

always fckin eating bananas

hates protein bars with a burning passion

“THERE’S SO MUCH EXTRA UNHEALTHY STUFF”

hangs all his medals on his bedroom wall

next to pictures of this team :’D

<3 loves his team so much <3

googles team bonding exercises

spent 33 hours in total reading wikihow articles and guides

has been pushing a team camping trip ever since he was a 1st year

“but what if someone mistakes you for a bear” - wonpil

The Driver™

car permanently smells like chlorine and old spice

was pulled aside and asked to be in an old spice commercial after a swim meet once

NO COLORED BEVERAGES IN THE CAR!!!

lifeguard in the summer with the bro brian

pulls out his guitar at the end of season bonfire

has a loooooong ass speech prepared

ends it with “i just love you guys ok”

cries but says he didn’t

jae:

swims FREE and buttah fly

2nd year

his credits got messed up when he transferred from the u.s.

looks like a twig but don’t be fooled

this string bean will be outta the water before you even finish

very very good at long distance

the L O N G really helps him

used to do hurdles in track but decided to try smth else

he met brian at a party where he spouted some philosophical bs

and jae thought it was hot

BOOM! swim team

hogs the aux cord

plays strictly nicki minaj and coldplay on meet days

always on snapchat

u see that 600 second story?

dont bother it’s just closeups of wonpil

and sleeping brian

gets yelled at by sungjin bc he even does it in the locker rooms

“accidentally” pushes kids into pools (see: wonpil)

looooooveeess teasing wonpil

but dont even u DARE even THINK anything mean abt wonpil or else jae will fight u

in fact he nearly fought some 3rd years who made fun of wonpil’s speedo

“YEAH WELL HE’S GONNA BEAT U WEARING THAT” “hyung stop”

known for his huge ass sunglasses

“DAMN DANIEL” but at dowoon in sandals

a big dowoon fan, especially of the cat pictures he sends

but not the links to horror stories at 2am

brian:

medley king

3rd year

The Hot Swimmer™

a marketing ploy to gain more swim team members (see: jae)

hates backstroke because it feels like he could sleep but he CANT

acts like he knows u

will smile at you before and after he obliterates you

even if someone didnt come in first place young k congratulates them and shakes their hand

everyone has a crush on him

even the swimmers from other schools

likes to sling his arm around sungjin in group pics

sungjin’s lifeguard buddy

LOTS of food dates with dowoon

but they have to be sneaky bc sungjin puts them on a strict diet

dj young k, second in command to the aux cord

the first to go into the pool during morning practices

not bc he wants to

but bc his soul has already left his body

thank you cram school and swim practice

in other words this boy doesnt sleep

always forgets his own soap and shampoo

“hyung can i borrow some-” “get ur own hamster boy”

also forgot his clothes at a meet once

thank god he was saved by wonpil

but not rlly bc “WHY THE HELL DO YOU OWN THIS PINK SWEATER”

wonpil:

pink speedo

1st year

just wants brian to be thankful for his pink sweater

stopped straightening his hair bc it gets ruined at practice anyway

and he always complains but everyone LOVES it

he looks so good ok honey please bless us with ur curls again

distance swimmer

used to be intimidated by sungjin bc he’s v good at breaststroke

but it disappeared when sungjin helped him out of the pool after he got last place at his first meet

cried tears of joy (also sungjin hugged him for the first time)

really looks up to sungjin

was shocked when he beat sungjin 200 fly

but sungjin congratulates him and hypes him up

and wonpil cries again

thinks brian’s butt looks nice

he compliments it a lot

once jae recorded him singing in the shower and it went viral

because his voice is beautiful

but also bc he slipped and fell when he saw the camera

always seems to be falling when jae is around

got pushed into the pool bc he asked jae what he got on the math test

gets the aux cord when theyre going home and everyone’s asleep

sungjin gets annoyed because he’s always changing songs

*turns the radio off*

gives his teammates chocolates on valentine’s day w the help of dowoon

bffs with dowoon

wonpil was scared to try out on his own so dowoon tried out as well

BEST. DECISION. EVER.

held dowoon’s hand while the coach was talking bc he was so so scared

both ended up making it on the team

dowoon:

“i only swim free”

1st year

always makes references to anime

and spongebob

bought his swim shorts bc they look like haruka’s

tried grilling mackerel with only an apron + swim shorts

wonpil walked in on him

“....”

wrote pick up lines on cards to go with wonpil’s chocolates

“are you tired? bc you’ve been swimming thru my mind all day”

uses earphones to listen to his own music in the car bc jae sucks

“why can’t you appreciate jazz?????” “are u gonna slam nicki??”

always brings the largest bag to meets

bc its filled with manhwas

steals everyone’s parkas to spread out on the grass so he can lie down and read

quiet and shy but always trying his best

jae and young k stole his clothes while he was in the shower once

it was “initiation”

but dowoon started crying for help and mama bear came

and jaehyungparkian fckin BOLTED

his team attacks him with kisses when he gets his first bronze

they carry him to the car when he gets gold

cries when the seniors graduate

cries at the last meet of every season before they go home

and his teammates smush him in a group hug

always the first to fall asleep on the ride home

also ik their ages dont match their years but shhhhhh

[magical-gull]

Yknow if you absolutely had to stick to limits of canon StarS is pretty easy to redo, if you throw in some myu stuff. So lets start the snark/thoughtproject

Just have Mamoru get to wherever he is and he’s fine. Make it some stuff about Usagi learning to be independent or whatever. Yeah it didnt make much sense before either BUT it sets up a fakeout. Maybe throw in a thing where Usagi is deliberately not telling him whats going on to create some real internal conflict in her, and maybe make the times he kept shit from her too less... dumb in retrospect.

the outers have like 99% less meaningful stuff to do because the inners arent dead so they dont show up for a while. more on this later. We miss out on hatemance but also on a mostly nonsensical rivalry. It’s all about the inners and the starlights. Set up some amusing ironies. Seiyas gungho to play nice. Yaten is pretty personable once you know how to approach her but is kinda a shit teamplayer. Taiki’s an attentive and honestly obedient soldier but she has no bedside manner and is kinda of distant dick in civvie mode. The inners halfjoke the irony of a team thats helpful yet just as difficult, haha. Conspicuous reference to the outers. Sucks they aint here but you know how they can be. (Yes this is going where you think it is)

Mamoru still pretty lazy about letters but honestly been swamped. Understandable. Nothing suspicious, but building to a fakeout.

Much later Pluto shows up. Between letting little Hotaru chill with her dad a bit and giving Neptune and Uranus a break, she’s only sort of involved. Not really sure she approves of the Starlights, but not coming too forward about it. Puto actually haivng use in the plot, amazing. She doesn’t have much backup in this regard tho. Someone mentions ‘oh hey havent seen those two in a while’ but initially its handwaved as no one really being around/on-point to check up on them, they got a tendancy to run off as-is, so it’s nothing unusual. Hell even Mamoru’s been distracted with his contact, and he’s closer to the team. Pluto mentions ‘yeeeeah I havent heard from haruka or michiru either tho, figured they were with you’

Long pause....whoops

much later end-arc, hey turns out H&M were the ones getting janked on holiday, obviously together. Cue angsty flashback you know the drill. Galaxia shows em off to the others and... well you could still have the betrayl thing from the original. BUT. Consider you could do the myu thing of the ability of Galaxia to revive and vaguely control a senshi, weird zombie manga magic style. Like that one StarS myu with the fake Endymion. Only mentioning it cause it at least later explains why at the close of the story we can suddenly have people back from starseeds completely ok. Makes it slightly less bullshit. Slightly.

N&U not having weird OP slave cufflinks doesnt matter tho, cause Galaxia still wants to fuck with people. She  knows the inners will be squeamish about fighting them, esp when they’re not in their right minds. Maybe even Galaxia will interfere so theyre deliberately hurt defending themselves, but whatever works. It’ll be hilarious to her.

Trouble is the Starlights DON’T mind swinging at these two and have to be prevented from the easy solution of killing them. Cue inners supermad at the Starlights. Cute Pluto and Saturn admitting both sides of have a point. Galaxia lmao-ing all over the place. Taiki and Yaten apparently pull rank and tell the inners and Seiya to fuck off and do the double-cross gambit, ostensibly revealing they were jerks all along and everyone was holding them back... except they werent so much, and it fails just as big as it did in original canon. Both die martyrs.

Then plot happens idk

[fuckyeahkagepro]

Kagepro theories / random analysis / questions of sorts?

so, funny things seem to happen when you directly compare [play at the same time against each other] the music videos for - Otsukimi Recital [of all songs] and - Outer Science ... while trying to find more Outer Science parallels ..... ... and then compare those findings to other things too ..... [bonus: some novel 8 spoiler bits from recent translations] [ even if this ends up being totally false maybe consider it like a fic that wrote itself? (hhhha) ] [ but seriously please try comparing the two videos by playing them at the exact same time against each other, some parts time up timing wise surprisingly well! ] [ also it’s very amusing ] [ also includes some “Additional Memory” arc from Manga Route analysis ]

ok so if you weren’t here for Outer Science’s release in the past, this happened at one point: [spurring off a series where everyone tried to catch more parallels]:

..... (and so on) ..... uhhhhh “[this] is the real thing!” - “Kagerou” in Wannyanpuu’s KageDaze pv [TOO] (also in original KageDaze’s song lyrics still) (UHHHHHHH) naturally, I recently was reminded of it [in the year 2k18 at that] and thought, “hey, did anyone ever directly compare Otsukimi Recital too? i didn’t have any caps from it in my archives just thematic parallels--” and well um [disclaimer: most of this is just for fun ok] [ but also to try and connect together thematic parallels if indirectly ] [ Outer Science re-translation from Kagepro wiki ] [ CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ALL MAJOR ROUTES ] [ skip to the end for more important Routes questions! ]

[^ opening: Momo pan-up, Saeru pan-up] [ ^ Momo’s eyes flashing red as she points to the viewer, Outer Science intro ]

[^ oh hey (the one on right flashes by very fast too)] 

[^ “...Daze you too”] [”hey, you (prayed too, right?)” -Saeru]

[^ also just before Momo’s “nee!” face at the exact moment Saeru says “nee”] (that’s more of a fun timing thing though)

[^”young master”] [similar mouth placements...] [”it’s pointless” -Hibiya, and also Kagerou in old fanmade [but later Kagepro artist though] Wannyanpuu versions] / [”it’s (an unpleasant) story” -”Azami”]

[^ compared better to young Seto in Shounen Brave up there but]

(a bit earlier) [^the wires?] [there are a lot of TVs in certain Music Route songs ....] [^”(just saying supportive things) wasn’t going to cut it” as Konoha flashes by]

[^ hmmm] .....

[^ ok but what if Momo DID know more than she’s letting on] [or later on, too]

[^ all of them flash by in these and related parts but]

[^ ”...go together”]

[^ HIBIYA NO]

[^”(Legends, life, and even people’s fate)”] [^ oh hi cat] [still a KageDaze reference]

[^ disclaimer: I am not writing these ok. it does it itself] [”...(And inadvertently falling in love, too)...” - right side]

[^ THIS ENTIRE SECTION LINES UP TIMING WISE PRETTY CLOSELY] [ PARALLELS WITHIN PARALLELS (ON THE LEFT SIDE TOO) ] [ Hibiya’s FACE there ] [”(Such stupid things.)” -Saeru] [”i don’t even know what’s going on...” -Hibiya] [“(Ah, how difficult, what a challenge, I can’t stand it)” -Saeru]

[”*(Embedding in those eyes)”] [ ... the soda hits Hibiya in the eyes literally right then ] (maybe more fun but wow timing)

[”the power to combine the eyes together...”] [...?] (oh hi Mary) ( they DO need Focusing Eyes too ..... )

[^ Momo WATCH OUT]

[^ I mean literally] [ PARALLELS WITHIN PARALLELS WITHIN ] [’sobbing ”I don’t want this!”’] [”(You knew it, right? That's fate)” -Saeru]

[^ he obviously wouldn’t want this to happen to Konoha either ok] [ much less the rest ] [^ in Otsukimi Recital he’s also having Hiyori flashbacks here] [”(first tragedy)”]

[”I wanted us to be together” -Hibiya] [ ... uh oh]

[^ Momo: must help Hibiya get FOCUSING EYES] [^“Outer Science”] (RIGHT HERE) [ in between during Otsukimi Recital interlude: Outer Science deaths, including Saeru pushing Hibiya in front of truck, like so ]

[ bonus: the street light in between flashing as Seto particularly dies too ] [ maybe related .... ]

[”(No matter how many times you deny it This foolish life you're living)” -Saeru] (.... ok seriously, this comparing aside, Saeru’s watching them?) (is that also why there’s so many TVs that pop up in Music Route videos?) (certain novel 8 spoilers too seem to indicate similar things) (also especially in some particular songs ... [see below for more on that])

[”(No matter how many times you just cry)” -Saeru]

[^ RIGHT AS HER EYES FLASH RED] [ the right side flashes by very fast reds too ] (tw epilepsy if you compare um) [^ same timing though]

["( You asked for too much and now serve to sin)” -Saeru] (ok but if it was said to Mary AND Hibiya ..... it’d fit)

[^ ending smirks/grins] [^ video ending on Otsukimi side with Momo grabbing Hibiya to pull him along]

[ ..... ok all that for fun stuff aside ] [but then I was reading Hibiya bits from novel 8 and TAKANE / ENE NO] [ DON’T GIVE HIM IDEAS TAKANE / ENE NO ]

.... ........ ........... ..... .. .

it was “MOMO’S PHONE”

- OK BUT WHY DOESN’T HE HAVE THE PHONE IN MOST MAIN TIMELINES - LITERALLY HE WAS ALMOST ALWAYS TRYING TO BUY A PHONE - LITERALLY THE FREAKING PHONE

[”i’ll do it!” -Hibiya]

[”the next next next”] [”(Let’s ridicule it!)” -Saeru]

^ “Kagerou” Hibiya, from the old Wannyanpuu fan pv

[”continue?”] [“yes”]

[ ... and after Saeru!Hibiya kills Momo ..... ]

BONUS:

[ is ... is Saeru holding Momo in Outer Science too ..... ? ]

(or if it’s not Momo, Shintaro maybe? either way) (Momo still dies by Saeru!Hibiya in Manga Route)

(BONUS THE NTH: MY TAGS FROM WAY BACK THEN EVEN:) “#... #Momo...?”

more of a fun bonus (i’m sorry) (don’t take this one seriously)

(”WELCOME TO MY WOMB” [mis?]translation)

THE POINT OF ALL OF THIS REGARDLESS OF PARALLELS OR LACK OF BEING:

WILL HIBIYA STILL CHANGE THE TIMELINES / GO PSUEDO-“DARK” (EVEN IF HE’S NOT THE “HEAT HAZE” SPECIFICALLY BUT SIMILAR) [ or like unintentionally corrupted Hibiya in a way ]

WILL HIBIYA WAKE UP NEXT ROUTE HOLDING [MOMO’S?] THE FREAKING PHONE [ IN THE PAST WE ALL THOUGHT IT’D BE HIS OWN PHONE BUT ]

- WHAT WILL HE REMEMBER (.... OR NOT) [ because even if he WAS he might not remember everything / not intentional ] - WHO DIES FIRST (HIYORI OR HIBIYA) - WHO GETS FOCUSING EYES (HIYORI OR HIBIYA) - DOES KONOHA TRY TO SAVE HIYORI OR HIBIYA FIRST OR BOTH - WHAT WILL MANGA ROUTE NEW FORM SAERU DO IN BETWEEN - (NOW THAT HE LACKS ‘KUROHA’S FORM ?) - IS THE LOST TIME MEMORY SCENE WHERE SHINTARO SAVES KUROHA AND OR KONOHA / HARUKA FROM BEING KILLED STILL IMPORTANT TOO (I’M BETTING IT IS) - ARE THERE ANY POTENTIAL ROUTES AT ALL WHERE MEKAKUSHI TRIO DON’T KNOW EACH OTHER PRIOR TO AYANO’S THEORY OF HAPPINESS [YES] (SEE: The Deceiving [novel 5], young Kano meeting young Ayano at the playground BEFORE he dies and enters the Daze / by being stabbed when still young) (SEE: Shounen Brave possibly ? ??, the period of time in between Seto drowning before he eventually revives and winds up at the orphanage (later on); later  [or possibly BEFORE that in some spinoff Route[s]?] meeting Mary) (this goes for all three members of the Trio by the way, ‘that time they died before they all met Ayano / Tateyamas’ because yes this is what messes up Mekakushi Trio dynamics and can change with every route) - IS NEW ALBUM A NEW ROUTE OR IS IT PART OF CURRENT MUSIC ROUTE CONTINUED [FORMER SEEMS LIKELY] - IS MEKAKUCITY RELOAD (WHEN IT HAPPENS TOO) A NEW ROUTE OR IS IT PART OF ANIME ROUTE CONTINUED [THE FORMER SEEMS LIKELY] - WILL ANYTHING ELSE BE ANNOUNCED COME AUGUST 15TH [LIKELY] - WAS MOMO [AND/OR KONOHA AND REST] A CATALYST EITHER WAY (IF SOMETHING LIKE THIS STILL HAPPENS) - IS MANGA ROUTE / NEW FORM SAERU DOING THINGS ON HIS OWN IN GENERAL [MAYBE?] - WHO ELSE IS IN ON THIS IF IT’S EVEN AT ALL A POSSIBILITY STILL (BECAUSE I’M HIGHLY SUSPECTING - MARY [RESETS .... ] - SETO [MAYBE] [IF HELPING MARY] [looks at novels volume 8 summaries] - HIYORI [OBVIOUSLY] - A Y A N O)

LITERALLY AYANO LITERALLY TALKS TO HIBIYA IN THE DAZE [IN NOVELS, MANGA KIND OF?, AND MCA TOO]

AYANO YOU COULD HAVE TOLD HIM ABOUT THE FREAKING PHONE !!!

BONUS THE NTH (MORE...): - Otsukimi Recital is like an “Extra Edition” type of song - Shounen Brave is/was “Episode ?” - other episode ?s: Shinigami Record, Dead and Seek [Kenjirou, also Saeru], Ene’s Cyber Journey [Route XX Ene?] - other extra edition type songs: Toumei Answer [Ayano & Shintaro], Yuukei Yesterday [Haruka & Takane], Yobanashi Deceive [Kano]* is technically listed but isn’t included in the main/first Music Route, neither was Toumei Answer?, Ayano’s Theory of Happiness*, Otsukimi Recital* ..... .... because maybe they are “interfering with the Routes” type songs ?

BONUSES THE NTH (AGAIN): - we’re confirmed to [eventually] be getting an “Additional Memory” song [note that’s the title for the Saeru!Hibiya involved mini-arc in Manga Route] [even if it doesn’t center completely on Hibiya, well....]

a bit from ‘Additional Memory’ (I)? summary:

Ayano asked when the snake entered Hibiya’s body, to which he answered from the very start, long before he killed “Concealing Eyes” and met Ayano. He continued that this body was a “miss”. It was good that the boy who didn’t have any wish began to have a desire to “save the girl”, but it was a little bit immature. Regardless that the snake was a being that eats up “desire”, that wish causes him a sour stomach. “[LONG BEFORE HIBIYA (&SAERU)] [MET AYANO]”

^ “THE BOY WHO DIDN’T HAVE ANY WISH”

^ “A DESIRE” TO “SAVE THE GIRL”

^ ok but why the HECK would it be “IMMATURE” if Hibiya ALWAYS WANTED TO SAVE HIYORI FROM THE START and WHAT DOES SAERU MEAN “DIDN’T HAVE ANY WISH”

..... unless .....

... if SAVING HIYORI alone isn’t a strong enough wish ......

... and in the beginning of some routes SAVE HIYORI alone wasn’t his wish .....

what if it eventually [slowly] becomes [over time] “SAVE MOMO [TOO]”, “SAVE KONOHA [TOO]”, “SAVE EVERYONE [TOO]”

(some Saeru somewhere, probably: “oh, NOW his wish is strong enough”) (mangaverse New Form Saeru: [takes advantage of all of this])

a bit from ‘Additional Memory II’ summary:

Ayano questioned the snake: “You can’t do anything without using Hibiya-kun’s body right?.” Then suddenly, Hibiya regained his self consciousness, asking if Hiyori was alright!? He seemed very happy to see Hiyori. He was very worried that he could never meet her again… Then he was shocked to see the situation and tried to break out of Konoha’s hold. The snake used that chance to break out of the window, of course without forgetting to smirk at the kids: “Didn’t say I no one can stop this anymore?."

..... [later]

Hiyori finally reached their place, just to see Hibiya cry and say "I’m sorry” right before her eyes. http://fuyuyuu.tumblr.com/post/167573767600/

..... i’m done (sorry)

[erin-the-awesome]

For the OC thing! 1, 5, 8, 15, 21, 25, 33, 41, 44 :) take ur time ik thats alot

I’m quite pleased lol~ you didn’t specify which OCs, so i’ll do whoever pops into my head for each i suppose. Maybe I’ll go back and do everyone later. This post is already long enough. Ill put all the answers under the cut.

1: Favorite color - Sayuri’s favorite colors are green and yellow, which isn’t much of a surprise seeing as she’s a botanist. They’re very soothing to her. Numa’s favorite color is grey because of what it represents for him, which is that nothing is truly good or evil, black or white. Basically, it’s morality. 

5: First memory - The earliest thing that Hikari can vaguely remember are her parent’s just talking to her normally. She was still small when they died, around 5 years old, and has lived with her grandparents since. Her earliest vivid memory is of her grandfather taking her to a hill away from the city to stargaze.

8: Theme Song - Ok, this one I actually have for all of them, but it’s more like… well. So i took the ost of “Brilliant Pagoda or Haze Castle” and decided which song suites each of my characters best awhile back. I have the entire list, but it might be long to post links. maybe i’ll do it later. So for now have song names. Makizou “Another Mind”, Ren “Money Game”, Shinzo “Lost Jackpot”, Satoru “Moon Child”, Daishi “Not Steady Body”, Sayuri “Mono EYE”, Haruka “Meeting a Hero!!”, Jurian “Homunculus Nightmare”, Ayano “Over Heat Down”, Numa “Eleven-Dimensional”, Miyo “Chimera Soul”, Kaoru “BIG STAR”, Tsukiyomi “Mowed-Down Relationship”, Hikari “Burst Overflow”, Yuo “Ruler of the Deceased Moon”, and Eiko “Cyclops Tech”!

15: Pet? - Ayano would definitely want a snake of some kind. Any kind. She think’s they’re really cool. Sayuri would want a rabbit because they seem non threatening. Yuo loves dogs but has never had one. He’d love to be able to go on runs with it. Tsukiyomi doesn’t like animals, and would be against owning any as pets, but if she had to she’d pick a song bird of some kind. Miyo would want a cat, because she’s always liked the way they act. 

21: Pet Peeves - AHAhaha ok well. there’s lots. Here’s a few: Satoru HATES pop music and bullies, Sayuri is afraid of girls, Makizou dislikes pointless banter, Jurian hates other people being better than him, Ren dislikes violence in real life and people who think they’re above others, Kaoru hates guys flirting with her, Tsukiyomi HATES being looked down on or being treated like a child, and Numa dislikes not knowing what’s going on.

25: Design - Welp I could say a LOT for this, but i’ll keep it shorter. So they are all fan characters for danganronpa as you probably know, but interestingly I actually made all their designs to reference dr characters from the first two games! (V3 characters not announced when design happened) For example, Makizou is referencing the ��default protagonist” thing Makoto and Hajime had going on. I even made his name a reference. Another really obvious reference was Ren. He’s basically one giant reference to Toko, who is a Writer with a serial killer alter ego, which for Ren I combined into Horror Author. Even his last name, Gyakusatsu, means “genocide” (I’m so sorry Ren). Satoru is a reference to Chihiro essentially. And as for Numa… welp. You can probably tell that Numa is like, basically a Nagito reference, right? And Shinzo is a reference to Gundamn, Celeste, and Mikan all in one. You’ll uh… you’ll see. K, i don’t wanna post actual spoilers for MY story so i’ll end it here. But yeah every character references 2 or 3 other lol. I found some interesting ways to combine traits.

33: Would they be a killer? - OOOOOH ahahaha~! So answering with details would be spoiler inducing so i’ll speak in general. This story is about a murder game so… killing abound!… Probably. It depends on the path readers take. So overall, I’ll say MOST characters would kill in some scenario. I’ve actually plotted out ways for all but four of them to do so, but some are rather situational. I will say, I’ve also plotted out a “typical” murderer, or person involved in each specific chapter, that I will use as the default lest things change based on who survives. I also have a secondary set that I’d also consider relevant to most routes. And then a sprinkle of situational ones and ways for things to backfire and such. I’ve thought pretty hard on this. It’ll be fun~! 

41: What do they do when angry? - Kaoru gets more outspoken and her voice gets shriller. Tsukiyomi would become cold and harsh, and stop being polite as she usually is. Jurian would belittle someone else, probably Ren Yuo or Kaoru. Numa would destroy you mentally lol but he’s not one to get angry. Satoru gets spiteful. Makizou would probably start yelling at and threatening who ever made him mad, but also isn’t one to let this happen usually. 

44: Being criticized - Makizou would usually ignore it. Satoru would DEFINITELY ignore it, and also you. Kaoru would get defensive. Eiko would try and talk it out and get feedback. Sayuri would crumble. Jurian would insult you, probably backhandedly. Ren might argue or agree depending on what it was. Daishi would take it and try to improve. Miyo would REALLY take it and try and do what you said to do instead as much as she could. Shinzo would be curious as to why it was being said, analyze it, and adjust accordingly if he saw fit. Yuo would either have it fly over his head or be surprised but laugh it off. Hikari would try and understand where you’re coming from but likely stick to her ways or compromise. Numa wold be amused.

Ok~ thats them all answered at least mostly~! That was reallllll long. I’ll see if i think of anything else but here you go!