#Ranma learned something new that day

[ask-ranma-and-ryoga]

[lalabits]

Holiday Break Productivity

As a lady born in the year of the "Horse" 🐎, it is a natural characteristic of ours to always do something productive, even during breaks. This holiday break should have been a rest or game day for me, but instead I practiced my drawing skill and continued reading "Ikigai," which I hadn't opened in weeks.

I've been practicing different "emotions or feelings" in chibi, as I haven't drawn chibis in a while.

I used to sketch "anime" rather than chibis or illustration back in elementary because I was a big fan of ✨ 90s anime ✨ like Fushigi Yuugi, Ghost Fighter, Ranma 1/2, Flame of Recca, Hell Teacher Nūbē, Oh my Goddess!, Sakura CardCaptor, Boys Be, Gatekeepers, Slam Dunk, HunterxHunter, Sailor Moon, and many more.

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of my sketches today because I used to draw on notebooks or pad papers - I remember back in primary school, my classmates would pay me PHP 5.00 - 20.00 💰💰💰 (yup! business-minded since I was a kid 🤣) to draw their favorite anime which technically honed my skill in creating anime art and marketing/sales, but as I grew older, I outgrown drawing animes and now I prefer to draw still life or illustrations/chibis since I love anything kawaii and sketching beautiful landscape or places.

Book Review: Ikigai (Chapter 1 to 3)

I promised myself to finish this book by May 🎯; please don't get me wrong, on why I'm still not done reading this book its because I didn't have a time for reading this past few weeks due to my workload (my job), but this holiday I made sure to allocate 3-4 hours just to read this book and discovered that...

Ikigai is one of my favorite book out of my 7 new self-development books and I am now currently on Chapter 4: How to turn work and free time into space of growth - very timely to what I need nowadays, isn't it? 😀

To give you an idea why I love this book so far, one of the reason is that it tackles on how we determine our life's purpose and reasons to live more, like the centenarians in Okinawa, Japan. It also emphasize the importance of maintaining physical health by staying active even after we reach the age of 60, since sedentary lifestyle can lead to hypertension, imbalanced diet, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and even some cancers. Sleep plays an important role in how we can slow the aging process and build our immune system because "melatonin" is a powerful antioxidant in our bodies that contains an ingredient that protects us from cancer, Alzheimer's disease, aging, and other diseases.

This book also discussed "Logotherapy," a therapy developed by Victor Frankl that focuses on people's search for meaning in life. Unlike other therapies, logotherapy takes a spiritual approach. Frankl's logotherapy incorporates three philosophical and psychological concepts: freedom of will, will to meaning, and meaning in life.

Freedom of will asserts that we have the ability to chose and take action in response to both internal and external circumstances.

Will to meaning states that we have the freedom to follow our goal and purposes in life, which means this is our major motive for existing and doing, allowing us to bear pain and suffering.

Meaning in life is a subjective experience, but the meanings exist within us and waiting to be realized by us in any moment or in any situation.

One of the therapies that this book also tackles is the "Morita Therapy," a therapy based on the Buddhist perspective and developed by Dr. Shoma Morita, wherein the therapy focuses more on accepting the fluctuations of thoughts and feelings, embracing negative emotions, and learning how to blend with nature - if you ask me, it is quite similar to what we've learned from Grandmaster Lao Tzu (Taoism) which is

"Go with the flow, Be like water 🌊"

Sounds very profound, isn't it? 🤔 The first time I heard that, I was perplexed: how and why be like water? Then our Grandmaster taught us the value of being fluid, soft, and flexible in any situation, just like water, which takes shape wherever you put it and can adjust to any environmental changes.

Change is inevitable and if you resist it, problems will arise in your life and that's why our ancient philosophers taught us the importance of adaptability, because change is constant and not fixed; our lives are the result of constant change in our environment, feelings, emotions, interpersonal relationships, religion, and so on, and those who adapt easily win life, whereas others rot in the past, are unable to move on with their lives, and are depressed.

Like "Morita Therapy," embrace the imperfections in your life, welcome them with open arms, and acknowledge that the sentiments or emotions you're experiencing are valid. Simply accept how things are and then figure out how to mend them or overcome your own demons.

I'm about halfway through the book, but I'm looking forward to get more insights and teachings from Ikigai.

I definitely suggest this book to everyone who has ever felt empty on the inside, unable to discover their purpose in life, or simply lost.

Sincerely, Ayei 🌻

[jomatto]

I don't know if I've officially announced it, but I'm presently in the process of rewriting Mister Cinderella. I've written some things down but now I'm trying to organize everything into Scrivener.

This is something new I'm trying, at least in regards to my stories. I've spent the last couple years dealing with workflows, kanban boards, spreadsheets, and all sorts of annoying BS at work. From this experience, I've learned that I'm a very meticulous sort of fellow, and applying this approach to story writing may generate tangible results.

However, my plan is to only update once everything is complete. I ain't about that update-as-I-go life anymore. I want everything to be ready to go as soon as I make my comeback announcement, and nothing would kill my momentum more than a disappearing act moments after my grand entrance. If I'm gonna be coming back, I'd better be bringing something big to prove it.

Mister Cinderella has become a testbed for learning Scrivener. The more I dig into it, the more I'm digging its features. Being able to move scenes around willy-nilly or bring up reference cards for characters, settings, and themes across multiple windows fits very much into my modus operandi. I find it easier to set up foreshadowing and callbacks, maintain thematic consistency, and just make the whole thing a lot more structurally sound.

I've reached a point where I feel like I'm making steady progress, so I've started looking ahead for what's next on the horizon. Besides MC, there's only one other story that I haven't finished in my FF.net profile, and that's Best Deceptions Redux. The last update was July 2014, which means it's been more than 8 years. That's a helluva long time.

After a brief flirtation with Ranma 1/2 and Evangelion in middle/high school, it was Best Deceptions that pulled me back into the fanfiction writing game and it made poetic sense to close out my run with the story that started it all.

We go back even further and the original has been dead for much longer -- since 2006. That's over 16 years, twice as long as my neglect. Methinks the story is cursed since it failed to cross the finish line twice -- but I suppose getting a second wind is more than most stories get if we talk about the massive graveyard of unfinished fics floating about the internet.

Since I wanted a refresher course, I tried to look up the original story but it's been gone for a long, long time -- and I mean gone. The profile for the original author has been done and dusted, with nary a trace left behind. Imagine my sheer panic that the story I'm trying to remake no longer exists. Well, shit.

But didn't we encounter this exact situation not too long ago? Luckily, an enterprising individual requested that I recover a story that I long since buried, and I was able to exhume its corpse thanks to the foresight of preservationists who backed up FF.net's entire story database.

To my abject horror, I could not find it after searching in the "K" archive. I gave it a couple more tries and eventually resigned myself to thinking that I'd have to depend solely on my faint memories to finish the tale. I went to bed, weighed down by the prospect of trying to complete a story that no longer exists.

Next day arrives and I search for it again. Found it. Turns out, I was looking in the wrong folder. You'd think a story that was never completed would be in the "In Progress" folder, but since the original author officially discontinued it, they marked it as "Complete". Now that's just confusing, not to mention, the archive has multiple folders for Kingdom Hearts (because of the crossover categories).

I backed that shit up immediately. Since the original author deleted everything, I could now claim sole ownership over the plot and firmly declare "I made this".

Obviously, I'm not as unscrupulous as to take credit for something I didn't make, but I do find it funny that I credit a writer that can no longer be found by conventional means. There's no way for readers to unearth this mysterious original "Best Deceptions" that I mentioned unless they go through the effort that I did. I might archive it publically on my profile somewhere if I ever get started on this final story, but for now, I'll hold on to it as reference material for my version.

I always thought that the internet was a place where everything is recorded forever, but the state of data is much more precarious than we think, and that has been demonstrated multiple times over the years with the loss of huge websites that are forever doomed to be remembered by a cache image.

Someone sent me a message last year warning me that FF.net could potentially be closing down and suggested that I repost my stories on AO3 or archive them somewhere. As far as I know, FF.net is still up, but who knows how long that will last? Although I've been lucky enough to recover two long-lost fics thought to be destroyed, it makes sense to make a backup while the opportunity is still there -- just in case.

[princesscolumbia]

Almost forgot to post this!

So more writing has been done, and we're getting closer and closer to the next chapter of Fission being published. That means you get here on Tumblr, Chapter 1 (yesterday was the prologue, I was drunk, sue me), wherein our heroes meet each other...then promptly leave.

It's way more monumental than it sounds, promise!

Ranma was having one of his usual bad days. One of these days, he mused, I'll learn to keep my big mouth SHUT!

The mostly calm thought process he was now enjoying wasn't really due to any relaxing environment or position. Running pel-mel across rooftops while avoiding spatula shuriken, spiked gymnastics clubs, and the occasional Amazon arrow isn't exactly relaxing. The casual demeanor to his thought process was simply due to repetition; he'd done this same thing, or similar, far too many times to have to even worry about where to put his feet, let alone focus on the situation.

This gave him ample opportunity to examine how he came to have two of his fiancée’s and The Black Rose after him with rather deadly weaponry. Tensions had been rather strained at lunch, after all. Kodachi tended to do that all by herself, then add Ukyo, who was already a bit irritated at Akane's latest attempt at cooking (an okonomiyaki that was, naturally, a total wreck), then Shampoo dropped in. Add the fact that all four of them had brought food for Ranma to eat, throw in a pinch of jealousy, stir...

Tape! he thought, I'll just use tape over my mouth, keep a role in my pocket, like that gaijin guy on TV, wasisname, Muh-gai-vur!

Suggesting that they all just get a room wasn't the smartest thing he could have said. He, of course, meant that they should take their argument where the Average Civilian wouldn't be pestered by massively overpowered martial arts. The Fiancée Front had taken it to mean that he wanted them to treat them all in a “manly” fashion (as his mother would say) and the implication was that he wanted them all at the same time. He had, of course, not realized that this was the conclusion they had come to, so he wouldn't have known that suggesting that the “go do it without him” would have sparked the response it did.

That is to say, like a match being lit at the tip of a gas pump nozzle.

Usagi didn't often visit Nerima.

This was less due to the fact that she didn't really care one way or another whether she went there, and more a bit of rare (for her) common sense.

There were rumors that the Nerima ward had strange goings-on. Energy-vampire teachers, rooftop leaping superhumans, the occasional monster or demon. Most people would wave off these rumors and go anyway. Considering that Usagi was one of the active participants in the same types of rumors regarding Juuban ward, she paid damned close attention to said rumors and steered clear of the area by the simple expedient that if she didn't see it happening, she didn't have to get involved. Simple logic, but it kept her life simple.

Well, as simple as her life can get what with being Sailor Moon and all.

In fact, the only reason she was in the area at all was because Mamoru, or Mamo-chan as she liked to call him, had needed to pick up something from a college friend of his in the area. She had accompanied him in the hopes of sneaking an ice cream date in, something he was hinting at thinking of already, when he got a call on his cell phone from another college friend, this one a student at Nekomikoka U. They needed some help with getting some friends out of a tight spot. She had heard her boyfriend expressing disbelief and incredulity, spouting surprised phrases such as, “Billboard?” and, “Where did they get a JET engine from?” and the clincher, “She flashed WHAT at them!”

After being on the phone for more than five minutes, he sighed, “Usa-chan, can you hang out for a bit here? Some friends of mine need a ride, and there won't be enough room for you and I DEFINITELY don't want to...inflict some of these characters on you.”

Giving him a tight hug, she thoroughly confused Mamoru's friend Kai, who had been eavesdropping. “I saved the world several times now, I'll be OK 'till you get back.”

“I had to wait two lifetimes to be with you, it just seems like forever when we're apart.”

Kai didn't know whether to barf at the WAFFyness of it or call the psych unit.

In the end, Kai hadn't called the psych unit, and Usagi eventually decided to browse the small shops that lined a nearby street. The contents of the shops boggled her mind sometimes, and she wondered who in their right mind would enchant something so simple as a toy fishing rod, something any kid might want to buy, with a very powerful love spell not once but MASS PRODUCE said toy fishing rod and have them sold like cheap tourist trinkets. And they were genuine magic, too. Her Ginzuishou had reacted slightly when she approached them. She had considered calling the cops, but who would believe her?

The author would like to point out at this time that the Nerima division of the Tokyo PD had a VERY experienced Magic Control Unit and would have shut down the shop for inspections if she had simply left an anonymous post-it with the words, “There's magic at this store” and the address on the police station's front door. Usagi can be forgiven for not knowing this, as she is, as has been mentioned, somewhat inexperienced in the ways of Nerima.

She had just about reached the end of the street when her communicator bleeped at her.

Major fads in electronics was not something that Usagi paid a whole lot of attention to, especially given that her “night job” afforded her access to technology at least 500 years more advanced than the top-of-the line equipment used by the top universities in Japan, the United States, or anywhere else on Earth. (There was, of course, Washuu's lab, but as Washuu kept that in a subspace pocket who's door was on Earth, that didn't qualify) Pagers, then later cell phones had made it considerably easier to explain away the occasional chirps and dings that came out of the pocket she kept her Senshi communicator in, as a result, nobody looked at her fishy when she ducked in a walkway between two buildings that was, perhaps, nine feet wide to dig out her communicator.

She popped it open, “Moon here!”

“Moon! We have a priority one emergency!” said the tiny face of Sailor Mercury from the small round screen on the communicator, “Three youma are attacking civilians in a mall, no energy drain, just an attack!”

As Usagi grimaced she heard a tiny, “Venus Love-me Chain!” in the background followed by an explosion. Mercury flinched forward, shielding her eyes from falling debris.

“Where are you!” said Usagi urgently.

“It's the new mall about four blocks from school, do you know the one?”

Usagi nodded and said, “Yes!” just in case the nod didn't translate too well through the tiny screens.

“I've already called in the Outers, but we could use your final attacks!”

“I'll be there as soon as I can, but I'm a district away,” said Usagi, slipping into her rarely seen Princess persona, “Get the civilians out of there, take the youma out if you can, and keep the combat contained!”

“Understood, Mercury out!” the screen went black as the link was cut.

Looking around, Usagi decided that this was as good a place as any to transform if she went further back between the buildings.

Digging out her Ginzuishou, she clutched her purse close and said, “Moon Prism Power Make-up!” The sound of her voice completely covering the sound of a pipe being snapped by a spatula shuriken.

Ranma frowned as he realized what section of town they were in. It was a smaller shopping district, not nearly as big or flashy as the Ginza, but a place for a great many innocent bystanders to be. Where innocent bystanders were, Ranma knew from experience, there was often a good chance that said bystanders could get hurt. He risked a glance back to see if his “admirers” had cooled off any. That errant glance was enough for him to miss a pebble that had rolled into his path since the last time he had taken this particular route, causing him to reflexively buckle his knee to keep the weight off the rock.

This had two consequences, one of which he would discover in approximately twenty seconds, but the immediate consequence was that it forced him into a tumbling roll and he went right off the rooftop he was on. Given that he regularly executed drops and falls, even unplanned, from far greater heights than a three story building, it was no panic for him.

This was about the time he realized what the second consequence would be.

Usagi's body went slightly limp as her form raised into the air, her regular day wear dissolving in a burst of light as ribbons swirled around her. She felt a bit of water hit her as she slowly spun, but didn't worry about it as she had been in the midst of raging infernos during transformations and nothing untoward had happened. Ami had once theorized they could transformed in nearly any environment they could draw enough breath for the activation phrase, but nobody particularly wanted to test that theory.

Ranma, ever the expert martial artist, looked down and instantly processed the area where he would be landing.

He saw Ukyo's spatula shuriken embedded in a wall, no doubt only there because it had missed his head when he dropped due to the pebble.

He saw the water coming out of a pipe, noted that it was most likely cold water, and spraying out right where he would land. Aw, man! the thought registered briefly, Can't I just stay a guy for ONE full day?

He also saw what looked like a girl, floating, bathed in light and ribbons and not a whole lot else, exactly where he was going to hit the ground.

“HEY, LOOKOUT!” he shouted.

Usagi's eyes snapped open in the midst of her transformation to see a person headed through the air straight for her. Her eyes went wide...

When Ranma changed from a boy to a girl or vise versa, he rarely felt anything other than the water and the temperature thereof. In fact, he sometimes didn't even notice that if he was daydreaming or distracted.

This time, however, it felt like he had bit down on aluminum foil, hard, then stuck his finger in a light socket.

Usagi normally didn't really register what happened when she transformed. There was always the gentle caress of magic, the surge of power, and, of course, the slightly breezy feeling one gets when nearly naked.

This time something else happened. There was a sensation not unlike being completely doused in water that was then hit with an electric charge.

The outside observer (that would be you, gentle reader) would at this point expect something silly to happen like often does in these kinds of stories. Ranma-chan wearing Sailor Moon's outfit while Sailor Moon would be wearing Ranma's usual cloths, for example.

That is not what happened.

The outside observer, instead of aforementioned silly happening, saw the physically impossible as Ranma passed right through the transforming Usagi.

Both Ranma-chan and Sailor Moon collapsed to their knees, muscles unlocking slowly and the shock of the unusual change wearing off. Breathing heavily, they simultaneously turned around and said, “Are you alright?”

They blinked at each other. “Uh...” grunted Ranma, dispelling the brief thought that maybe some sort of weird magic mirror clone type thing was going on as Sailor Moon didn't mimic her.

They remained locked in that tableau for only a moment longer as the battle cries of Ranma's suitors echoed down into the alley from the rooftops above. They weren't quite there yet, but would be in seconds. Ranma-chan knew she had just seconds to hide and didn't want to use the Umi-sen-ken in front of a stranger. “Er, I gotta go...” she said.

Sailor Moon blinked, remembering that she had to be somewhere, like, now if she wanted to save lives. “Rrrright, me too!”

Had either of them been more learned in the ways of physics or magic, they might have known that what they just did was impossible and dangerous and they should be checked out by the authorities on either subject immediately. (That being Ami, a.k.a. Sailor Mercury, and Cologne, a.k.a. Really Old Goul)

Instead, they respectively leaped off in different directions, doing their best to hide their transit, one from pursuers, one from the general public.

Of course, given that either of them dealt with the impossible and dangerous on a regular basis, they might not have cared anyway.

[translationandbetrayals]

My childhood started with anime.

The first time I watched an anime, I must have been about 4 or 5 years old according to my calculations, and my sister, who was already 10 years old by then, liked it a lot and as an older sister, she monopolized all the TV time we had, so I just had to watch it with her. It was at the time when Mega was releasing anime with Spanish dubbing, among them Sakura card captor, sailor moon, dragon ball, and the one my sister claims as to the first one I watched with great attention, Ranma ½, which I watch now, and I can notice the lack of adults to supervise what a child watched.

With sexual innuendo and nudity, mostly of women, I want to believe I liked it because there was a panda and a piggy, and the fact that I cried every time Shampoo appeared tells me I didn't even understand what I was watching, a fact even my mother remembers. But anyway, it was my first foray into the vast world of anime.

As I grew up, I realized that almost no one knew the word anime, while my classmates watched Disney shows, telenovelas with their mothers, or entire shows based on showbiz, like yingo or mecano, I watched anime. Much of it could be because my parents never liked programs made here in Chile. My father for as long as I can remember has bought pirated gringo movies until he learned how to download them by himself and my mother watched the occasional telenovela, but only that. It must also be due to the overprotection I had since I was a child, my parents would rather pay for cable than let me go out and play with the kids on my block.

So, I spent my childhood being mostly raised by what I had in front of a screen and what I could have on a DVD until we found a place at the fair in my city that sold pirated anime. Just seeing the poorly printed cover of an anime in a plastic bag with a cd inside and we were already amazed at my sister, I remember that they cost $1000 each and we preferred that to my mother buying us ice cream in the middle of a summer day. Unfortunately, I watched those animes alone because my sister was tired of me pausing it to read what the subtitles said. I was a kid and my reading comprehension increased significantly with anime, that also led to me usually skipping things I read or trying to read everything as fast as possible, but you can't win twice.

Anime became part of my daily life when on December 26th my sister was given a computer as a present, which became the only one in the house, saving us from having to go to a cyber every time we could. The internet broadened this world, showing me new genres and already in itself, showing me a new world that took anime by hand, the manga. My friends, thanks to me, knew what anime was and at least each one of them watched a complete anime thanks to my insistence until I finally found people who watched the same as me.

Anime was my childhood, my adolescence and now it is still my adulthood, manga came later, but I can easily say that now I read more manga than I watch anime, it has become the only thing I have liked for so long without getting bored a week, it has become what makes my emotional stability vary more than I would like, a taste that I have carried for more than I am aware of. Every anime I watched made me feel like I fit a little more in this world that swore it only wanted to see me fail, it may sound a little ridiculous, but for a 16-year friendship with something intangible that has never left me aside, I think it's the least of it.

Fernanda Rojas

[simp4ace]

aa you're so sweettt

it was a retake exam for the one we took last week and I did worse 💀 oh well, definitely going to have to try for finals week cus ugh

aaanddd thanks for reading my request definitely take your time on it!! owo your works are worth the wait babe, I've read the other ones you published and they definitely made me smile big!!

btw, do you read/watch anything other than one piece?? -🧪

jfvhfjbfjbjdbdkbkfdb omgggg noo you're sweeter😭😭😭 thank you though🥺🥺❤❤ I just started writing this October and my works are still all over the place fnjkbds😩 I'll try my best to improve more knowing that there is still people enjoy my stuff like you, it means a lot to me tbh. Give me the courage to share my work more regularly😍 Love youuuu <333 (btw did you mean the new hc with insecure s/o?XD or the cockroach one? or the taking care? I kinda don't remember my stuff very well and I always forget to update my masterlist😭)

And YESSS I READ A LOT OF MANGAS OTHER THAN ONE PIECE 🥰🥰🥰 you can tell that I'm a big weeb hehehehe XD I read various genres, I'm gonna put my list under the cut if you're interested in <3 It's too long tbh

Normally, I prefer reading manga to watching anime, but I still have my fav anime yes❤ I love Studio Ghibli<3 Watch all their movies🥺🥺🥺

And Cowboy Bebop!!!

Also Perfect Blue<3

And Akira

About manga...

I like reading shounen the most❤ Here are my GOAT:

Kimetsu no Yaiba (such an emotional rollercoaster, so so so in LOVE😻)

The Promised Neverland

Horimiya (honestly don't understand why people put this in the shounen tag😂 BUT true masterpieceeee😩😩😩❤❤❤ if you watch the anime the art is even more awesome<3)

Chainsaw Man (MY EDGY SIDE LOVE THIS!!!! dark and lots of blood, aw I live for the angst, yk👀)

Haikyuu

SPY X FAMILY (THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE AN ANIME ADAPTION NEXT YEAR PLEASE CHECK THEM OUT🤩🤩🤩🤩 truly, the most wholesome manga ever I treasure it!!!! Anya is so precious omg😭)

The Seven Deadly Sins

Bakuman (new motif, very inspiring, a darling to my list)

Hikaru no Go (I start to play go after this manga, it has had a strong effect on my life till this very day, also the art is everything)

DeathNote

Liar Game

Dragon Ball (sure, so classic, how can I not add it in?)

Great Teacher Onizuka (ahahahhaha 😂😂😂😂 TRULY MASTERPIECE HOWLING EVERY TIME HHHHHHH XDDDDDDD!!!! but if you don't feel comfortable you can skip this, it's quite...touchy. I know some certain people won't like its jokes)

Inuyasha (my first manga! the plot and the characters are all well-written! I LOVE Sesshoumaru omg)

Ranma 1/2 (same author with Inuyasha, gives good laugh and satisfactory fight scene❤)

Lum/ Urusei Yatsura (Lum is my favorite female lead 🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️)

Assassination Classroom

Magi (why so underrated?????? The plot is genius, and the art is *chef kiss*🥺)

AOT

One-punch Man (just.the.art.is.worth.the.reading)

A Silent Voice (heart-touching, cry a lot, a must-read)

My Hero Academia *screaming Todoroki to the void*

Hunter x Hunter

Yotsuba&! (Cuttttteeeee, wholesome and so endearing🥺❤)

Gintama

Komi can't communicate (the bestest I'm telling you😔😔😔 too much fluff, too much love I'm jealous with them)

Beastars (unique, intelligent plot, loveable characters, amazing twist, you gotta try it out real fast omg🏃‍♀️💨)

Dr. Stone

Blue Flag (1000000000000/100 can't say no to this darling)

Angel Densetsu (wholesome❤ also so funny, and the art is ....erm haha you must try it out yourself then😂)

Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches (normally, harem is not my cup of tea, but this one is great! So worth it<3)

Yankee-kun to Megane-chan (howlinggggggg😭😭😭😂😂😂 so hilarious highly recommend)

Witch Hat Atelier (🤩💯❤One word: their art)

Silver Spoon (slice of life, good for the heart, also learn lots of new stuff you def never gonna use👁👁)

Yozakura Family

The Way of the Househusband (laughing a bit too hard dhdjdjdjjsjs😂😂😂)

Touch (a manga about baseball)

Cross Game

Also, if you ask me about something darker:

Kingdom (historical, battle, lots of fight and blood)

Berserk (classic)

The Climber

Innocent

20th Century Boys

The Flowers of Evils

Vagabond

Monster

Parasyte

Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist Journey (not like really dark? Mature, I'd say)

And don't forget shoujo! my favorite mangas of this genre are:

Glass Mask (10000000/100, OMG IT'S SO INSPIRING SO CAPTIVATING I'M SO IN LOVE!!! highly recommend, the only flaw is that it is dropped😩)

Kaichou wa Maid-sama (hjghjvjvjrh A MUST READ!!!! omg blaming Usui Takumi for setting my standard too high😭)

Kimi ni Todoke

Nana (JDKVBHVBEVB OSAKI NANA IS MY QUEEN!!!! TRULY A MASTERPIECE ❤ but this one gonna hurt you as hell so uhmmm, still worth a try tho 😥 also they have an anime adaption, and I must say my style is mostly influenced by this manga/anime)

My Little Monster

Last Game (so FREAKING CUTE WHAT😭😭😭😭 their love is just so pure I'm crying, 10000/100)

Daytime Shooting Star ( my GOAT, the art and the plot and the characters are all well done! chef kiss)

Tsubaki-chou Lonely Planet (*rollingggggg cuz this manga it's sooooo freaking wholesome🥺😭❤* so loveable and make me have daddy issue *gasp*)

Oresama teacher (Laughing my ass out reading this hilarious manga😂😂😂 If you want a good laugh, an interesting female lead, and not too much loving theme Oresama teacher is a must-read)

Cat Street

Ore Monogatari (THE CUTEST! You are fed up with good-looking main chars and want something more close to reality? Try this one out and you'll not forget! Also, the art is chef kiss and I just want to say I love the male lead's best friend👉👈)

Kyou no Kira-kun

Beauty Pop (so underrated, why? It's very short but very awesome, make you want to devour it all at one go <3 a must try 💕 I have read this 5 times tbh)

Takane to Hana

Hana Yori Dango (A classic, truly, a classic. Just don't like the main chars too much now that I have grown up enough, but you can give it a try)

Strobe Edge (MAKE ME WANT TO GO BACK TO HIGHSCHOOL AND LOVE SOMEONE 😭😭😭😭😭🥺🥺🥺🥺 I read it again and again and aww, just love)

Remei no Arcana (cry...just cry a little too much....though I'm in love🥺 I love the art and the plot sm please!!!)

Machida-kun no Sekai (THE MOST WHOLESOME<33333333 touch my heart and warm my soul every time I read it, Machida is so precious and need to be protected😭😭😭)

Hana to Akuma (adorable, demon x human, make you cry your eyes out but worth it!!!!)

Black Bird (s-sexy, so sexy and charming gosh! I love it)

Lovely Complex (just as the name, EXTREMELY LOVELY hahaha I love their dynamic <333)

Beast Master (a real short one, only 4 or 5 chapters so far but have my whole heart from the very start💘💘💘)

Love so Life (One word: ADORABLE! Too much fluff, too much cuteness, make my heart goes uwuuuuuuuu, a true masterpiece believe me🥺🥺🥺)

Gakuen Babysitters (let-let just lay me down and leave me drowning in the endless fluff forever...Truly, I have the biggest smile ever reading this manga, also makes me wonder why my brother can't be cute like this? why😭😭😭 ah, it's about family bond! So no love<3)

Kamisama Hajimemashita -

Hibi Chouchou (too much sweetness my teeth are going to hurt😩😩😩 AAA agaiiiinnnn, makes me wanna go back to high school and fall in love with someone🥺💕)

Taiyou no le (another wholesome manga about love and found family 😍😍😍 heart-touching and warming, so good for the heart<333 I recommend it)

Dengeki Daisy (The female lead is so loveable! I like the angst here, and the fluff! It has everything, can break your heart and heal you at the same time❤)

Ouran Koukou Host Club (so freakingggg funnyyy😂😂😂😂 omg love its comedy!!! pure gold! and the main chars are just too precious I can't🥺)

Red River (HOW CAN I FORGET THIS AND NOT PUT IT IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!??? My childhood mangaaaa😩 I just love it with my whole heart, so so so perfect you have to try it out!!!!!)

From Far Away (AGAIN, HOW CAN I FORGET THIS ONE?! It is beautifully written, the art is so gorgeous, and the characters are extremely wholesome🥺❤ I love!)

Rere Hello (relationship goal? relationship goal! highly recommend, ngl😭😭😭😭)

Hotarubi no Mori e *cry*

Sacrificial Princess and the King of the Beast

Colette wa Shinu Koto ni Shita (as a mythology nerd, I A.M I.N L.O.V.E with this manga❤ the art is cute, and I fall in love with Hades why he's so handsome😭)

Our Precious Conversations (yes, just like the name, this manga is precious and need to be treasured more🥺)

Shinsuki Bitter Change (new motif, very interesting, great characters, and intelligent plot)

Kiss him, not me (also quite a new motif, funny and adorable, I'm strongly related to the female lead aha😆)

A Bride's Story (historical, the art is charming! Love all the detail❤)

Pochamani (I-I think the list is getting too long so I'm gonna end it with a fluff...)

that's all thank you for coming to my Ted talks!

[medea10]

My Review of Trigun

How did I get into this anime? Let’s just say this was one of those animes that used to air on Saturday nights back in the day that I would every now and then come across while waiting for either Full Metal Alchemist, InuYasha, or Cowboy Bebop to air. But I never did watch a full episode or know a damn thing about this anime. So I’m just jumping into this anime blindfolded. All I know is that this was Johnny Yong Bosch’s first anime role.

Who is Vash the Stampede?

A frequent question that comes up throughout the series! Rumor has it that he wears a long, red trench coat and sports a Mohawk hairstyle. Some say he’s a notorious lecher. Many recount him shooting up their villages to a pile of rubble just for the heck of it. He has quite the reputation as he has a $$60,000,000,000 bounty on his head and is often known as the “Humanoid Typhoon”.

In reality, Vash the Stampede is…a bit of a dingus. He just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and things kinda get out of hand. But that doesn’t stop two insurance agents (Milly Thompson and Meryl Stryfe) from following him around to confirm Vash’s identity and keep his actions to a minimum. At first, it’s hard to tell if he’s a stupid-genius or just flighty and gets lucky one too many times. But when shit goes down, don’t be surprised when you see this doofus get serious.

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: Okay, what sad company did this use to belong to, Geneon, Bandai, or ADV Films? Oh, Geneon! That means good voice actors from L.A. put in really shitty roles. On the contrary, this was a fairly decent English dub. And on a severely positive note, this was indeed Johnny Yong Bosch’s very first anime role (and a main role at that). This was like fresh off his time as a Power Ranger! And I gotta give props for giving this guy a chance at voice acting. This role was the launching point to what has been a very successful career for Bosch. As for the sub, let’s just say I’m happy any time I get to hear Hiromi Tsuru in something besides Dragon Ball. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Vash is played by Masaya Onosaka (known for Bill on Pokemon, Isaac on Baccano, Jadeite on Sailor Moon, Kero on Cardcaptor Sakura, Leeron on Gurren Lagann, France on Hetalia, and Spandam on One Piece)

*Meryl is played by Hiromi Tsuru (known for Bulma on DBZ, Ukyo on Ranma ½, Yubel on YGO GX, and Mika on Gravitation) [R.I.P.]

*Milly is played by Satsuki Yukino (known for Kagome on InuYasha, Mion/Shion on Higurashi, Tae on Gintama, Amakata on Free!, Hiiragi on Natsume Yuujinchou, Mutsumi on Love Hina, and Yoruichi on Bleach)

ENGLISH CAST: *Vash is played by Johnny Yong Bosch (known for Ichigo on Bleach, Lelouch on Code Geass, Makoto on Free!, Izaya on Durarara, Artemis on Sailor Moon redub, Koizumi on Haruhi Suzumiya, and Yukio on Blue Exorcist)

*Meryl is played by Dorothy Elias-Fahn (known for Kaoru on Rurouni Kenshin, Naru on Love Hina, Tomoe on Rozen Maiden, Hakuei on Magi, Houki on Fushigi Yugi, and Amane on Tenchi Muyo GXP)

*Milly is played by Lia Sargent (known for Dorothy on The Big O and Judy on Cowboy Bebop)

FAVORITE CHARACTER: Milly! I don’t need a reason, it’s Milly!

SHIPPING: I didn’t really start thinking about shipping until more than halfway into this series. I thought there might be something between Vash and Meryl, but then again maybe not! Then I saw the backstory of Vash’s “younger days” and falling for the one woman who showed him compassion.

Yes, this is the same woman we consistently see in Vash’s flashbacks, Rem. Ooh boy, it’s one of those stories! So yeah, never mind my thinking with Vash x Meryl ever happening. I feel like Vash will mourn Rem’s death for a long time that I don’t think the whole thing with Meryl will ever work.

And as for Wolfwood x Milly…

FUUUUUUUCK! WHY DID YOU RUIN THIS CUTE COUPLE?!

MILLY WAS HEART-BROKEN!

…At least she got to have one night of passion with Wolfy-boy before the unthinkable happened.

THAT DARN CAT: If you watched this series, you might have noticed a little black cat spotted in nearly every episode. It’s there in the opening theme. It’s there in random places throughout the series. It’s there in the ending theme. What’s up with this cat? Well, there are a lot of theories surrounding this particular cat (or Kuroneko). Some say it’s really Rem inside that cat since you see it in literally every episode around Vash. Others say it’s because the creator of Trigun wanted to just mess with your minds with the kitty walking around in random places and towns. Seriously, it will always appear in every new town Vash and the gang comes across! As an avid cat enthusiast, I’m fine with whatever the result. Just as long as no harm comes to the little Kuroneko.

HALFWAY POINT: Halfway into the series we notice something more when it comes to Mr. Vash the Stampede. First of all, those horrifying scars all over his body! Second, that mysterious girl he often thinks about. I mean, we see flashes of her in the opening sequence. And third, the reason why he never kills. Vash has the ability of causing so much damage when pushed to a breaking point. One of the many reasons why he’s known as the “humanoid typhoon”! And that was perfectly shown when Vash chases the residents out of a town (so there would be no casualties), totally demolished the town during a fight, and made an indent on the moon!

But the story takes a sharp-left turn into WTF territory when we learn about WHAT exactly Vash is. Vash is a plant. Vash also has a brother named Knives. And while Vash has a mentality that all beings have a right to live, Knives has a “kill them all and let God sort them out” point of view. Now the existence of Vash and Knives came with a lot of controversy, especially in the ship that they were on. But that girl who Vash cares for, Rem cared for them regardless of what they were. Rem had high hopes for a peaceful world with coexistence. Too bad Knives had other motives and killed her.

ENDING TO TV SERIES: Vash has tried so hard to keep Milly, Meryl, and Wolfwood out of harm’s way. He knows there are some pretty bad people after him, including his polar-opposite brother, Knives. Vash hates death and wants to save as many people as humanly possible. He doesn’t want to see any more needless death. Probably from his flashbacks and losing Rem! Unfortunately, this doesn’t go so well.

I can see how iconic this death was now after witnessing it. Wolfwood, the priest who would hook up with Vash every now and then when they’re up against some ruffians, now finds himself in a crucial decision. He gets orders that he must eliminate Vash. And Wolfwood ends up dying instead in a very dramatic death scene. God-damn! And just that scene where Milly is sobbing freakin’ eats you up inside.

At least she had one night of passion before the unfortunate happened!

Vash hates the thought of having to kill anyone. But he might not have a choice if Knives is coming after him and even hires a powerful foe from a previous episode and the guy that killed Wolfwood to take you out. Once Vash met up with Knives, he winds up having some pretty sick flashbacks of Knives. But our homeboy was able to take out Knives, the desert area gets water, and…

I’m gonna have to read the fucking manga for more, right?

Tap dancing fuck!

BADLANDS RUMBLE: 12 years after the series ended, Japan decides to release a side-story in the form of a movie, bringing back our favorite characters like Vash, Wolfwood, Milly, and Meryl. And yes, reuniting the cast…in Japan.

By 2010, Geneon was as good as dead and FUNimation licensed Trigun. In short, they managed to get Johnny Young Bosch to reprise his role as Vash the Stampede. But everyone else was replaced. And surprisingly, the people they got to do Wolfwood and Milly were pretty freakin’ close to their original voices. Meryl’s voice, come on I know Luci Christian any-damn-where! Vash helps a young lady take out a big-bad guy (who turns out to be his father). And it has the feel of the original series where it’s set in a western town with lots of booze and shoot-em-ups! It’s an interesting side-story to the Trigun trilogy.

Trigun was a pretty good anime. I mean, not one of my favorites, but I can definitely see a lot of people sticking by this classic. Maybe you can chalk up my blah attitude to the fact that I’m not fond of westerns and I kinda took it out on Trigun. Or the fact that there was so much more that the anime could have covered before the end and the ending kinda felt off to me! Like I thought I was expecting more. But I suppose that’s what mangas are for. To be honest, the stories that really grabbed my attention were the back-stories with Vash and Knives and Wolfwood’s final episode.

*sniffles* At least Milly got one night of passion before he died!

If you would like to check out Trigun, all the episodes are available through FUNimation and Hulu (in both Japanese and English). And if you really like the anime, why not purchase the hard copies? Both the series and movie are available for home video.

Okay, that took me a while, but I’m glad to finish Trigun. What’s next on the FUNimation list?

EEHHHHHEEEHHHE

Fuck is that supposed to mean? What is that? Is that even in English?

YOU WILL BE HORRIBLY MUTILATED: The Isekai

Do you mean Re:Zero? That’s great…but that review’s not ready yet. And it probably won’t be until after April 2021! So let’s cast caution to the wind and pick another FUNimation licensed anime.

You’re watching Sarazanmai next. It’s best if you don’t ask questions.

Sarazanmai? The fuck does that even mean?!

OH. MY. GOD.

[sally-mun]

I know I mentioned in another recent post that I really want to get back to doing my “shows,” but before I can get started I have a couple of other things to finish first, one of which is working on zines. The one I’m currently working on is a Ranma ½ zine, and it’s been an interesting experience -- both because of working on the zine itself, and because of my own history with this series.

That’s right, it’s time for another rip-roarin’ Sally-mun ramble!

My first encounter with Ranma ½ was on my 15th birthday. A friend of mine, one of the only other anime fans I knew because it was still relatively unknown in the US, got me the second graphic novel, which is as much as had been officially translated at the time. Going into the story with no context was confusing to say the least, but it also intrigued me enough to look up whatever info I could find on the few stray bits of internet that covered the series, and it was enough to get me hooked.

That said, I also had kind of a difficult time being a fan, because I honestly didn’t like Ranma himself. Like, at all. I found it confusing that the author would write the protagonist to be so blatantly and outwardly unlikable, and as a result I found myself just sort of looking past him and trying to follow the lives of the other characters. I was appalled at the sort of things he would say to Akane; his constant jabbing that she’s not cute, she’s stupid, no one will ever like her because she’s a tomboy, his frequent judgements of her body... I gotta say, they really resonated with me. I couldn’t help putting myself in Akane’s shoes, and in a weird way I felt personally hurt by his insults. I really admired Akane’s strength and the fact that she never let his bullying get to her, because I know it probably would’ve destroyed me. And this is just the way he treats her; I was equally uncomfortable with the way Ranma antagonizes and harasses several other characters in the series as well. I loved the series and I enjoyed following it, but there was always this uneasy feeling inside of me anytime Ranma opened his mouth.

The last time I read or watched this series was probably in my early 20′s. I worked really hard to track down all the DVD seasons (which were exceptionally rare and expensive at the time), and once I completed my set, I felt such a relief and satisfaction that I put the story down and, it turns out, I hadn’t picked it up again since. It’s been a decade or so since I was actively engaging with this series, so when I got accepted to work on this Ranma ½ zine, I’ll admit that there was a part of me that felt a mild degree of panic. Yes, I’m still a fan, but I’m not very deep in the weeds right now; I honestly wasn’t even sure if I could decently write the characters, including and especially Ranma himself. In fact, I realized, I didn’t want to write about Ranma. I didn’t want to write about a character that I probably wouldn’t willingly spend time with in real life.

In the end, however, none of that mattered, because I signed on with this zine and I needed to be an adult and honor that commitment. Since it’s been such a long time since I’ve read or watched this series anyway, I decided to binge on the anime again for the first time in all these years. And this is why I’m writing this long-ass post tonight, because even though I’m only a couple seasons in right now, I have been absolutely shocked to find that my perspective on this story has completely changed. My teenage self can’t even believe I’m saying this, but I seem to have switched sides. I now find Ranma extremely sympathetic, and Akane to be the bully.

Although there is still a part of me that feels for her when Ranma really digs in with his insults, it pales in comparison to how upset I get with Akane over her treatment of Ranma. The fact that she’ll purposefully go as far out of her way as possible to paint Ranma as a jerk is honestly something that’s interfering with my enjoyment of the show. She does have her nice moments here and there, but if any opportunity arises for Akane to scream about Ranma doing something allegedly reprehensible, she’ll take it -- no matter how many people point out the very simple and innocent alternate explanations.

With Akane relentlessly campaigning against him, it honestly comes as no surprise anymore that Ranma snaps at her and antagonizes her. It’s about all he can do to vent his frustrations sometimes, and if she’s going to depict him as a jerk no matter what, he may as well let off some steam in the process. Ranma’s situation is difficult enough just having to deal with his curse, but then to also get forcefully engaged to someone who intentionally sees the worst in him? If anything, I’m now surprised at how much he holds back. He could easily be as nasty to her as she is to him, but he actually takes it kind of easy on her, all things considered. And don’t forget, he rarely gets a break from her; they not only live together, but also go to school together. They’re in each other’s faces all the time. I’m pretty sure I’d have had a few choice things to say to her too if I were in his shoes.

It’s even more frustrating when you consider that she doesn’t even have a good reason TO be treating him this way. This all started because of a mishap that was nobody’s fault. Ranma’s not at fault, Akane’s not at fault, NO ONE is at fault here. Ranma had no reason to believe that anyone (let alone Akane) would walk in on him getting out of the bath, and Akane had no reason to think a boy would be in there. I’m sure she felt embarrassed and violated and wronged, and I DO feel for her in that regard, but that is not his fault. If, IF, IF we’re going to assign fault to anyone, it could honestly only be hers, because one could argue that Akane could’ve at least knocked or announced herself prior to joining Ranma (as a female) in the bath. Furthermore, she doesn’t even acknowledge that this mishap went both ways, as Ranma points out himself that she got a good long look at him, too. He was just as exposed as she was, but she immediately disregards his point and tells him “it’s different when a girl sees a boy,” whatever that means.

Akane is too stubborn to admit to herself that she’s the only one you even could assign blame to, too hypocritical to acknowledge that she wasn’t the only victim, and too immature to just let the damn thing go. It’s a really bad mix that becomes the driving force behind her relationship with him from day one. Akane wants retribution for the crime she’s convinced herself that Ranma committed, so she INSISTS that he’s a no-good pervert because she’s mad that no one was on her side that day. If she couldn’t convince them then, then by god she’s going to convince them eventually, which is why she just will not fucking stop trying to paint Ranma as a perverted jerk. She takes any opportunity she gets to show off his allegedly bad intentions, because to her it’s just another step closer to getting people to see she really was justified on that first day. And Ranma is forced to keep tolerating this, day in and day out, regardless of what he does or doesn’t do.

So what does all this mean?

I think this means that this series is exceptionally well-written, more than anything. At the time that I first discovered this series, I was only marginally younger than Akane herself. I related to her so strongly that I was only capable of seeing the situation from her side, and only able to relate to her emotions and her experiences. As I stated in the beginning, I felt like Ranma’s insults hurt me personally, rather than just empathizing with Akane for him hurting her. This tells me that, for all of her faults, Akane is exceptionally on-point for a girl in her mid-teens. Yes, she’s being immature and petty and unreasonable, but she’s also only 16. That’s how we are at that age, and sometimes it’s easy to forget about that once you grow past it. Teenage years are that shitty point in your life where you feel like you’re so sure that you’ve FINALLY got everything figured out, when in reality you aren’t even capable of understanding the depth of how much you don’t know. Akane holds her grudge against Ranma because she’s so sure she’s right, and she’s determined to find validation for that if it’s the last thing she does, because that’s how most of us viewed the world at 16.

But that’s one of the things that makes my revisit to this series so extraordinary: Akane’s not able to grow and change, but I am. I’ll never be able to view the series the same way I did as a teenager, because I’ve had so many new experiences and so much time to grow since then. I can certainly remember the point of view I had and why, but I’ll never actually have that same view again. I’ve learned so much more about the world, about people and relationships, about morals and ethics... all kinds of things that she can’t, because she’s necessarily frozen in time as a character in a story. Akane doesn’t get to evolve with her readers over the years, and it makes for a fascinating snapshot of where I was mentally and emotionally at that time.

I think the biggest and most critical difference between then and now is my self-esteem. When I first connected with this series, I had basically no love for myself and no confidence that anyone else would ever see anything valuable in me. I was in a place where it was not only very easy for words to hurt me, but for those words to stick with me, sometimes for years after the fact. Ranma, despite simply being a character in a book, was effortlessly able to hurt me on a particularly deep level because that’s how delicate I was at the time of reading it. He hurt me so much that I was completely unable to see his point of view; all I could see was someone being cruel for seemingly no reason, and as such I saw Akane’s treatment of him as completely justified.

20 years later, however, it now reads as a completely different story. I don’t share Akane’s kneejerk reaction to these situations anymore, and I’m more focused on thought process and reasoning. I’m more able to recognize when I’m missing information and need to investigate more, more accountable for when I’ve done something wrong, and more willing to let small things go. Hell, I have a better understanding of what “small things” even are. When I was Akane’s age, none of the incidents happening in the story seemed like small things, but now? Now I just don’t have time for that kind of minutia. It’s... wait for it... childish. Because teenagers are still children, no matter how much we didn’t want to admit it at that time.

But that’s part of the genius of how this series is written. Not only did I instantly fall into the same mental trap as Akane when I WAS her age, but now that I’m not anymore, I look back on it as just kids getting wrapped up in their microcosm of the world. No matter how much I get frustrated at Akane for being horrible to Ranma, I can’t not admit to myself that she’s not an adult yet, so in some way it’s me being the unreasonable one by trying to hold her to adult expectations. She’s still got a lot to learn because she’s still just a kid. I literally used to be just like her at one point in my life. If I was able to mature past that sort of behavior, then I’d like to think that, if Akane were able to age, then she probably would one day too.

[mrmallard]

18 and 33

18: rant about your favorite musician

So I was bullied pretty badly as a kid at school and at home, and there was a period of time where I was drowning in a sea of age-appropriate content that felt extremely condescending and fake - it wouldn't ever engage with the idea of being sad or depressed in a serious and nuanced manner outside of the token "you're sad now but things aren't so bad!" message. Most adult media I had access to at the time, mostly shitty early-00's action movies airing on TV, was very vapid and about as thematically hollow as the age appropriate stuff. Nothing really represented me and made me feel heard, nothing validated what I was going through and the negativity I was feeling towards others and myself.

As a 12 year old, I found the media which finally validated the depression, hurt and general violent negativity that existed within me due to all of my negative experiences.

And that media...

was End of Evangelion, an anime movie in which the apocalypse happens in an immeasurably bizarre and fucked up way, where there's a bunch of overt giant robot violence but also very alarming and grounded person-to-person violence, and where the ending is unendingly bleak.

I then found the Mountain Goats through a show called Moral Orel when I was 16, and I lamented the fact that I hadn't found them before I found one of the bleakest anime movies of all time to cope with what I was going through. Because my Evangelion fandom ultimately did me a lot of harm - and while I was a stupid kid at times in how I engaged with the Mountain Goats (sending John stupid asks on Tumblr like a fucking asshole), there was a much more resonant catharsis that came with the music I heard, and it facilitated healing over time rather than escapism and outright nihilism.

I feel like had I found them earlier, I could have negated some of the harm I did to myself - like Tallahassee came out when I was 6, and I was pirating music all the time on LimeWire from 13 onwards. There's a hypothetical past where my music piracy led me to find the Mountain Goats way earlier than I eventually did, and it would have changed my life forever.

The Mountain Goats laid out a template for how I found all of my other favorite bands. There was the initial hook - the prerequisite "No Children" and "Old College Try" from Moral Orel - followed by immense overplay, followed by branching out into their other music. Once the connection has been made to a strong base of starter songs, I then get interested in listening to full albums, which is where I find the second wave of songs to latch on to after the first wave gets overplayed. Rinse and repeat until I've exposed myself to all of their music. TMG was the first band to facilitate this process, and I've done the same thing to every "core" musical act I've listened to since.

What I like about the Mountain Goats is that they're not afraid to broach difficult subjects? The Sunset Tree is a masterpiece in this regard, there's a level of vulnerability on that album that you don't get from most other artists - the closest equivalent I can think of is A Crow Looked At Me by Mt. Eerie, about the singer's wife dying of cancer.

There was a part of me that used to approach The Sunset Tree with a lurid voyeurism, a desire to validate my own pain by engaging with the pain that the album puts out there - but now when I hear songs like Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod, I'm capable of seeing a broader picture and having more than just the desire to be validated by listening to another person's trauma. I would consume media like this to feed an unending hunger, but now I take it in bite sized portions and stay mindful of what it represents outside of my own experience.

One thing I want to talk about is John's early work, because when I started listening to the band I couldn't stand the lo-fi stuff. The whirring sound gave me a headache. But over time I've built up a strong base of his earlier material, even stuff he considers an old shame, that I absolutely adore.

The first "going to" song, to my understanding, is Going to Chino. And if you haven't heard Going to Chino, I recommend it - it's silly, it's overwrought and it's passionate. You'll never hear a more earnest commendation of a town's access to the 60 freeway in any other songs on earth. There's also Minnesota, which to this day might be John Darnielle's most romantic song. He acknowledges that he's a different person than when he started making music and he prefers to move forward as opposed to living in the past, but there's a lot of power in songs like No, I Can't or Yoga, regardless of how far removed he becomes from the self that made them.

My favorite song might be From TG&Y, because it hits on a very personal note - engaging in self-destructive behaviour to cope with a town that's sucking all of the life and goodness out of you. I've only ever drank to excess, but there's something very relatable about feeling how run down you are after a bender, having this awful manky taste in your mouth the whole time as you shift from place to place, and having this impulse of needing to run away and start a new life before this way of living kills you.

There's a lot of myself wrapped up in the Mountain Goats, and whether they're the primary band on my radar at any given moment or not, I can always spare a few words about how they make me feel.

33: what do you think about a lot

I think a lot about queer people in the past and how they've able to live their lives. I'll give you three examples.

Lately, I've had this pet idea about the anime/manga series Ranma 1/2. I haven't seen or read it, but I do know that it's about this young guy named Ranma who is afflicted with a curse or the like that results in him changing gender depending on the temperature of the water that gets dumped on him.

Ranma 1/2, from what I've gleaned, has resulted in a few gender awakenings - if I'm not mistaken, I think Dan Shive was one of those people, who went on to create the webcomic El Goonish Shive which deals with gender in a similar way at the start before taking more of a serious turn as the comic goes on.

But I have this idea in my head about early Ranma 1/2 fans writing stories about Ranma coming to terms with being a woman, and deciding to find a way to break the curse in a way that would leave the character as a woman. I wonder if there's anyone who tapped into their transness back then through their Ranma fandom, and whose journey is documented in their work.

It's like, there's people back then who Get It. Who came into their own in a time where the concept of gender transition was less accepted than it was now. And that's my people - geeky fanfiction writers. I want to know that there are people who found an innate truth to them, and who were able to be happy.

Another example I want to talk about is Robert Reed, who played Mike Brady on the Brady Bunch. I care deeply for Robert Reed. From what information is the most easily accessible about the man, he was apparently a pretty angry guy at times - he wasn't proud of his role on the Brady Bunch, and he'd get into arguments with the producer of the show. He was a closeted gay man playing the most sanitized TV dad in America, and if that news ever came out, it would sink his career and the entire show along with it.

But he was a good man. Notably, the producer of the Brady Bunch would tolerate his outbursts because his instincts would usually turn out to be right. And while he was upset with the material, he was never abusive to his co-stars. A bunch of them speak fondly about him to this day - he'd take the kids on day trips and stuff, and became something of a mentor and father figure to them. You don't hear wholesome stories like that from the 70's any more, but by all accounts Robert Reed seems to have been a decent man.

Robert died of colon cancer, but at the time of his death he had HIV as well. He was an incredibly private person - the only reason we know that he's gay is because he called Florence Henderson a week before he died to let her know and to get her to tell the rest of the cast. Apparently he kept in touch with her for years, and he saw fit to let everyone know before he died.

My understanding is that he had a partner at the time, though I'm not 100% sure. I hope Robert Reed had love throughout his life, y'know. I hope he had people who he loved and was loved by in return. I'm sad that he lived his whole life in the closet, and I hope he was able to find comfort and fulfillment in the relationships he did have in his life.

The last example I want to talk about is David Hyde Pierce - Niles from Frasier and the professor from Treasure Planet. I learned a while back that he had come out as gay in the late 2000's, getting married before Proposition 13 went into effect in California. I saw a topic about him on GameFAQs recently and I wanted to bring up that he was gay and married, but it had been a while so I googled him again to get my facts straight.

Not only is David Hyde Pierce still married, he's been in a relationship with his husband since 1983.

It means so much to me because people break up all the time in Hollywood. Whether it be the stress of the outside world gawking at them all the time, or the vice and excess of the entertainment industry corrupting people over time, or just falling out of love ala Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman - relationships in Hollywood don't last. And you don't hear much about gay celebrities and their love lives unless it becomes a point of controversy, ala Elton John's adoption issues or George Michael getting outed.

But the entire time David Hyde Pierce was on Frasier and doing voiceover - for all intents and purposes, at the top of his career - he was in a relationship with a man he'd already loved for a decade beforehand. And they continued to be together until gay marriage became legal, at which point they married each other, and they're still married to this day.

I'm really happy that they've been able to go the distance. May we all have what they have one day.

[rigelmejo]

Reflection on Japanese Progress (so far)

I wanted to make something more coherent on my thoughts on how my japanese progress has gone lately, because in some ways its better than I expected. I think part of it has to do with better study methods being used right now compared to the first time I studied japanese, but another large part of it I think is my experience with chinese affecting my japanese. 

Prior Japanese Progress (2.5 years)

When I first studied Japanese seriously I took 1 college class, then continued to self study. Generally 30 minutes to 1 hour per day, some weeks/months no study, sometimes more study. I studied like this for 2 years. Then the final portion, year 2 - 2.5, I immersed and studied more like 2 hours per day and that’s when I saw the fastest progress as far as milestones. 

The reasons my progress went so slow up until year 2 are pretty clear to me. I had very little study time per day and japanese simply takes a lot more hours to hit milestones than french. The other thing slowing me down is that japanese has few cognates with english (compared to french). 

When I read The Word Brain recently, it said for languages similar each other (like english/french) you need to learn around 5000 new words, and for less similar languages like chinese and japanese you need to learn 15,000. So for Japanese I needed to learn more words before I could hit the same milestones of “read a comic ok with a dictionary” or “read a comic comfortably without a dictionary” or “read the news with only occasional word lookups” etc. French having more cognates and similarities benefited me quickly - I could start reading comfortable with occassional dictionary look up (and follow the overall main idea fine) after learning ~500 words. For Japanese, I was expecting the same kind of results from a few hundred words when that wasn’t realistic. 

I also remember I held myself back a lot with Japanese - I didn’t want to learn more words until I’d learned 1000+ kanji lol. Guess who never did. The closest I got was I borrowed a Tuttle book from the library and learned the meanings of 300 kanji. I tried Heisig’s RTK book and barely learned any, I never got past a couple hundred. I tried KKLC and my tendency to “over memorize until I’m perfect” meant I also never got past a couple hundred. In 2 years, I knew a few hundred words and a few hundred kanji, and it was not nearly enough to hit the same milestone I’d hit in French in 6 months with 500 words. 

I didn’t make progress until year 2 in studying japanese, when I started Nukemarine’s Memrise LLJ decks and got through around 500 kanji, 500 other words, and a few hundred example sentences. It’s not surprising in retrospect that its at that point when I saw the same milestone I hit in french 5 months in. I finally had ~1500 ish words I knew from various resources. 3 times as many words as I knew in french when I could hit the same milestone (very basic reading skills with a dictionary of overall main idea). 

At year 2 I made another major change that helped a lot - I started immersing. Before that, I’d “assumed” japanese would be too hard until I “learned more kanji, more words” and basically refused to challenge myself. But I learn best by doing. I remember best by doing things that make what I’m learning necessary to know. So immersion helped a LOT, it made remembering kanji much easier because I constantly needed them, it made picking up words easier too because I had reasons to know them. 

I also started using more audio materials. It wasn’t a significant part of my study, but I remember I’d started using JapaneseAudioLessons.com’s lessons. I did 20 of them during that time period. What was useful, is I was practicing listening (which I later learned in Chinese really helps me specifically remember things better), and I had found a study method I could do when walking or doing other things. I’m very bad at sticking to flashcards or apps, which is why I always burn out on srs flashcard courses after a few weeks to a month. But just listening to files? If I manage to remember to, I don’t get burned out as easy, and its a good way for me to review and do new study regularly when I can’t carve out the time to sit down. Also again - in retrospect I think listening helps me learn a LOT better, which is something I didn’t really realize about myself until studying chinese later. But I think the regular audio exposure of japanese from year 2 - 2.5 helped a lot. Just like when I started japanese, my beginner college class made us listen to dialogues and shadow them constantly - which really helped.

So in retrospect, year 2 to 2.5 I made the quickest progress in japanese because I started prioritizing learning a LOT of words over learning them ‘perfect,’ and I got willing to just challenge myself and actually use the language regularly by trying to read manga and play a video game. I also realized at that time, that japanese was going to need more hours of study on a regular basis if I wanted a faster progress rate.

After 2.5 years, I stopped studying japanese. Because I was going to school full time, working 50 hours a week, and I knew I had no time for it. 

During the study gap (2+ years)

I only engaged in japanese a little bit during the break where I no longer actively studied it. Every few months I’d try to read a manga - either one of mine or ones I found in thrift stores. I think I was hoping that like my french, reading once in a while would maintain it. But I knew a lot more french before I went down to not studying and only reading occasionally. So I did lose a lot of japanese. 

I stopped remembering some verb endings, although in the middle of reading I could still recall a lot of them in context okay and understand what they meant. I forgot some particles - which again came back ok while I was reading. Word order I somewhat forgot. Hiragana-only words I FORGOT the most. Kanji for the most part I managed to keep remembering, so I suppose reading helped me keep remembering them. I am not sure if this occasional reading helped me review japanese year quicker and get back to progressing from where I left off. 

The most noticeable thing was when I started learning Chinese, about 1 year after stopping Japanese. When I started learning chinese, some of the hanzi I learned ended up making manga more comprehensible to me. I remember maybe 6 months into chinese study, japanese manga (especially easy ones like School Rumble, Ranma 1/2, fan comics) had started to get understandable enough that I could sometimes follow chapter main overall ideas without a dictionary. So not the specific details - although sometimes I could pick up a few. But I didn’t need a dictionary to follow the main idea with simple manga anymore. Whereas at 2.5 years into study, I could follow the main overall idea of some simple manga chapters with a dictionary - that was the extent of my reading comprehension. So this was a significant improvement, a milestone I noticed. I know chinese hanzi study was indirectly benefiting my japanese reading skill a little bit. 

In retrospect, I think it was giving me more ‘near cognates’ to rely on when reading. Since I didn’t know the new japanese words, but knowing the meaning if it were a hanzi gave me an idea of what to Guess the word might mean in the context of a manga chapter I was reading. Which helped a lot compared to having no information at all to rely on to figure out new words. With french, so much having latin and english similarity gave me a lot more tools when I was trying to figure out new words in context. So I think hanzi knowledge in the same kind of way was giving me more information, more related meanings, to pull from and make guesses. For me, that kind of information helps a lot when I study. its how I learned a lot of words in english - I’d relate them to english words I already knew, that they seemed similar to or written with something in common etc. So I could finally start relying on the same strategies I am more used to using for vocabulary figuring-out in japanese.

Current Japanese Progress (picking it up after a couple years gap)

I started trying to study japanese again I think in March or April 2021 - the exact month’s on this blog somewhere. So that’s 4 months as of now that I’ve studied japanese again. It took about 1 month to review the information I already knew - I just reread the beginning portion of Tae Kim’s grammar guide, and did the old lessons I’d done before in Nukemarine’s LLJ memrise decks. 

At the very start of review, I just reread the intro of Japanese in 30 Hours (which I’ve read before), and listened to the first 15 lessons in japanese pimsleur. This was all audio or romaji so I didn’t confuse it with chinese. And it reminded me of the particles and general basic grammar. This mainly-audio portion of review was easy to just do while I was walking or playing video games. 

After that, I went and reviewed old words and specific grammar using Tae Kim and Nukemarine’s memrise decks (which had text). 

Then I was doing new stuff.

I had a goal to play a video game within a few months of restarting japanese - I met that goal about a month after reviewing. So May I think? I wrote down the exact month in previous blog posts. 

It was easier than during my initial study at 2.5 years. It was still intense and draining though lol. However, I realized I didn’t actually need a dictionary to follow any main ideas. The biggest issue was either taking a long time to read for detail directions (very draining mentally), or trying to speed read for key info so I could get to a save point faster (draining mentally because I have less info and time to comprehend the info I’m reading). Anyway, not needing any dictionary for following the main overall ideas was a HUGE difference from my last japanese comprehension milestone at 2.5 years into study.

I am pretty sure its hanzi recognition that really boosted my reading comprehension in japanese. I know around ~1500-2000 hanzi in chinese right now, and a decent amount more I can comprehend pretty well if they’re in compound hanzi words (so context clues to figure out which word the ‘unknown’ hanzi is making the new compound word) since I read in chinese a lot. So in japanese, many of the most common kanji are similar to hanzi I’ve already learned well, and a lot of the compound kanji words are also pretty easy to guess a meaning for. And when the kanji doesn’t mean the same thing as the hanzi would, the prior context I have for these video games such as setting (and some knowledge of them in english playthroughs) and a similar-hanzi’s usual general meanings, means I can usually guess what the new japanese word might mean. Like japanese uses some kanji for somewhat different meanings than chinese (but a speech radical still means its probably talking related) then I can figure out from the scene how it might be a different speech-related word etc. 

This past month, June 2021, I did two more things that boosted my japanese comprehension.

1. I’m playing a video game now that I know the story of really well. So I know the english lines almost by heart for most scenes, so if I don’t know a word in a sentence or don’t know the grammar pattern going on? I have a much better chance of figuring out what it might be. As a result I’m comprehending nearly all the details and words, nearly all the grammar roughly, so there’s very few portions of the game that I’m running into where I don’t have a good guess about every single part of a sentence or at least nearly everything. It’s Kingdom Hearts 2 I’m playing, and I am not surprised lol to realize I played that game So Much growing up I really do know all the lines by heart once I see them. KH2 is the game I initially played 2 years into studying japanese, and could somehow manage to function playing - probably because I know the game so well. So now? Now of course its the first japanese video game where I can follow nearly every part of it in japanese. It’s? A fun experience?? It’s kind of bizarre to me?

This is my favorite game, THE game when I was little that initially made me want to learn japanese. The game I wanted to play in japanese one day and understand and get to see the differences. It is an odd experience to be actually DOING what I wanted to do since I was 11. Over half of my life I’ve wanted to play this game in japanese! ToT I learned to draw people because of this game! It is absolutely surreal to me to be able to DO it. To be doing it. 

Anyway back to study reflections ToT

2. Katakana english cognates and near cognates are galore in KH2 which makes navigation and playing easier than it could be, and my hanzi knowledge also helps with a lot more ‘near cognates’ I can recognize now compared to when I played 2 years into study. Reading Tae Kim’s grammar guide and Cure Dolly (and @yue-muffin telling me iru gets used like ‘ing’ in verbs like ‘doing’ versus to do) also have made the grammar somewhat easier to parse.

2. Clozemaster has ultimately been helping a lot. Clozemaster is definitely a contributing factor to having made KH2 easier to play for DETAIL understanding. I’ve been reading manga lately - which helped me practice parsing grammar in real life versus in textbooks a bit. Grammar and formality in manga like Yotsuba is informal and has these like slang-mood endings to sentences that I never see in grammar books I’ve read or in Nukemarine’s memrise decks (because they’re made from learner materials). But manga is easy to figure out context now, so I was getting used to grammar used in Reality. 

Clozemaster is actually really good for practicing this too - and like with french or chinese, I think an upper beginner will be able to use it much better than a beginner. It changes formality, it changes how much slang is in a sentence or how polite, at random. Not all the translations are literal. You need a basic comprehension already to use clozemaster sentences somewhat. I did 632 sentences in clozemaster this past week. That was a LOT of practice with actual words regularly used in sentences, in dialogue, in various levels of formality and with words being hiragana or kanji depending on the specific sentence. So when I started KH2 again? Now a lot of endings that seem to convey moods, and words that I struggled with (like ‘a lot’ ‘always’ ‘because of’ ‘from’ ‘until’ ‘but’ ‘kedo’ ‘dakadesu’ ‘dakada’ etc) I am more used to following what they mean in a sentence. I’ve just seen a LOT of examples of them. Clozemaster also highlights verb endings sort of like their own ‘helper verb’ and while I don’t know if its actually grammatically true, it helps conceptualize stuff like verb tenses for me a lot easier. So now I am having an easier time recognizing them attached to verb stems, and recognizing the point the conjugation is getting across. 

The main thing though is its just a lot of very focused practice on recognizing words and grammar in the context of regular sentences instead of learner material. Learner material tends to show one aspect at a time, not mix lots of things together since its giving examples, etc. Clozemaster does mix up the examples a lot - but while still generally having an easier ‘difficulty curve’ than an actual web novel or visual novel etc. Clozemaster will have a lot going on in a sentence but it will all be very common basic stuff where at most half is new stuff, and eventually only 1 is a new thing. Whereas if I just dived into regular materials it could be a bunch of “I know very little” sentences. Manga is good practice for this too - its just you see less text per minute in manga. In Clozemaster you see a lot of text and its generally at my reading level so it feels ‘graded’ but less learner-material perfected, which in this case makes it good for getting used to the variety. I think overall THAT is how Clozemaster is helping right now. Its also helping because of common words - but a lot of what I’ve seen so far has been review too, so I think its the exposure to different sentences and odd things in them that’s been most helpful in translating to making video games feel a bit easier.

I’ve been doing the “most common” word tracks in Clozemaster’s japanese lessons, and I think they’re more useful to me immediately than the JLPT track. The fast track is kind of useful, but it doesn’t expose me to as many sentences to really drill aspects. I took someone’s advice and have been doing listening mode, so I listen then listen a few times and identify words THEN read it and answer the cloze. They also said to do the full ‘most common words’ tracks, and so far that advice has been good. The JLPT track is good too - and matches up more with words I had to learn in my other lessons and textbooks, combined with more complex sentences with more stuff going on in them at once than some learner materials. But since I’m trying to study to understand japanese games, not take the JLPT, I think right now that track less useful to me. In the Common Words track I immediately learned a lot of ‘filler’ words that imply meanings and are important but weren’t in my textbooks, even though I hear them constantly when watching things or playing games. So because of that, right now I’m sticking to the common words track. 

Summary: using kingdom hearts 2 is a good immersion material right now since I know the context well, it feels almost ‘graded’ for me since I can comprehend it much easier than other things I know less well (like Crisis Core which I love but requires much more focus and is more mentally draining since I have to re-figure out the initial context of scenes before i can focus on what the specific words mean). And using audio materials, clozemaster, has helped. Also just... I was wondering why lately handling japanese stuff has been easier (compared to previously for me) and I think a huge part of it is that for me hanzi knowledge really helped give me more near-cognates from kanji i can rely on now. Which makes japanese seem much less opaque as far as me trying to use context clues to understand things and learn new words. And since I prefer to learn by DOING, its valuable to me that now I have enough surrounding context and context-hints from kanji to start learning by guessing words in context a bit more. Also, in KH2′s case a huge benefit is the large amount of katakana words that I know what they’re meant to be in english, which are pretty much cognates, and both recognizing kanji a bit and also knowing the rough-english they Should be corresponding to (if its different than the chinese hanzi meaning). 

I’m going to keep playing KH2 lets see if its the first Game I can finish in Japanese (which it may well be lol). Also I just... genuinely think that for myself, among the other things I learned about How I personally learn through the years of trying to learn this, I think for me learning some chinese first really helped. 

I know books I used to have used to encourage me to learn kanji first, but that always just ended up holding me back from studying more because I just could Not handle a kanji with no sound attached solidly in my mind. And then when I did brute force just study words anyway, it helped, but I still had a much fuzzier way of handling and relating to kanji. And in general just was learning them from nothing as a prior basis.

With chinese, just one sound matched to most hanzi really like clicks with how I remember? And when there are pronunciation changes in my brain it just clicks a lot more like how english word-parts change pronunciation depending on the word - it makes a kind of pattern sense to me I guess? And the logic of sound+meaning for most hanzi formations means I finally get why certain radicals are in things - because it got simplified, or used to hint at sound, since they don’t All have all radicals relating to meaning only. Whereas when I studied kanji prior all the books would try to get me to associate all the radicals with meaning (but sometimes if a radical in hanzi come from a sound they don’t have to do with the meaning). And I guess it was just so much harder for me to stick the information solidly in my brain.

Now? Now I’m finding putting kanji pronunciations to different words is making a bit more sense to me. Like I already have a base to attach it to, so its less hard to add “this extra pronunciation for japanese word X” rather than just “this ONE pronunciation for this BRAND NEW kanji+hiragana word!” Because attaching an extra pronunciation to something I Already know? Is not too hard - I did it in english word-parts for my whole life, I did it with hanzi occasionally in chinese. So now attaching sounds to kanji feels more like something I’m used to doing and know how to do - instead of learning lots of new stuff with no idea how to mash it together and remember it. 

Also now the ‘chinese like’ pronunciations for some words stick out to me much clearer in japanese, since I can tell when the pronunciation is similar to a hanzi in chinese versus not. Which makes those words much easier to remember, those pronunciations easier to remember, and it much easier for my brain to distinguish between ‘when to use this pronunciation versus another for this kanji.’ Also just grammar of course, knowing how the pronunciation changes in different forms also helps make it easier to think ‘ok this might be why the kanji sound changed when this verb is in a new conjugation.’   

I just. If I would have told myself over 2 years ago that 1. I’d even learn some chinese, and 2. it would help my japanese this much (to a noticeable amount) I would have been really ???

Another thing I think helped is a Decent Solid sound base in chinese - I generally have a sound associated to all hanzi already that I know so I do not ‘confuse’ them with japanese words. Which would definitely happen if my listening wasn’t as solid. I worked on chinese listening a lot the past few months and it helped a LOT with keeping the languages as very distinctly different so I don’t mix up kanji/hanzi (also the fact kanji don’t have tones the same way helps me separate the sound when I hear so I don’t mix up what I’m listening to, which if me listening wasn’t as practiced I think mixing up would happen more - tones really help me clearly keep my brain from even thinking I’m hearing chinese when I see a kanji and hear pronunciation).

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Hey, it’s Ranma Rewatch, I’m on episode 7, and I don’t want to waste too much time with the preamble. I am super excited for this episode, my boi is here, I really hope it holds up, see you after I watch it again!

That wasn’t exactly how I remembered it, but not in a bad way. The episode starts with a short scene that has become pretty freaking iconic, and has been sampled in dozens, if not hundreds, of AMV’s: A man cloaked from head to toe, walking through a desert, his eyes barely visible under goggles. It is a really cool shot that catches the eye right away.

We cut from that to that same person approaching a small village, deciding to throw off his concealing clothes to reveal his typical yellow and green outfit, with a bandanna around his head and an umbrella on his back, which he takes out to slow down his descent when he jumps off a cliff. This village happens to be being attacked by a huge wild boar, wrecking everything in its way, but this fellow is able to stop the animal with little effort and send it flying. When the grateful villagers approach, he only has one question for them: where is Furinkan High School?

At first they don’t understand the question, until they look at what he has for a map and realize it’s of Tokyo. The problem is, this young man is on Shikoku, a completely different island in the archipelago. They point him in the right general direction, and he reveals before the scene ends that he is specifically trying to find Ranma Saotome.

Speaking of the show’s titular character, we get a small scene of him in his cursed form being blackmailed by Nabiki into wearing women’s clothes because all of his stuff is in the wash. After that, we get another scene of the mysterious umbrella-wielding stranger asking someone for directions to Furinkan High School, but this time he’s in Hokkaido. Once again a completely different island, only this time on the opposite end. Fun fact: Hokkaido was the inspiration for Sinnoh in Pokemon!

We get another small cut-away to Ranma in various outfits, then another of our new character somehow ending up back in that village he was in earlier. The point is being made clear to us: he is terrible at getting where he wants to go, but is also so inhumanly strong and resilient that he has no trouble surviving in the wilderness in the process.

What seems to be the next day, he finally gets to where he’s going, just as school is letting out for the day. Ranma is being chased by Akane for something, though we don’t know exactly what. (Of course, we know their dynamic well enough by now to know it’s almost certainly something Ranma did to annoy her.) The newcomer slams into the ground where Ranma is landing at the same time, leaving a crater in the cement from the force of his landing, all while screaming how Ranma has to die.

The problem is, Ranma has no clue who this guy is, which pisses him off to know end. Even after he brings up that his vendetta has something to do with Ranma never showing up for a duel, Ranma still struggles (and fails) to remember this guys name, but luckily he gives it to Ranma anyway: Ryoga Hibiki. They went to Junior High together, and they’d agreed upon a duel, but it never happened because Ranma wasn’t there when Ryoga arrived.

Now, Ranma protests that he waited in the agreed upon empty lot for three days before taking off for China with his dad, which is honestly more time than most people would have waited. As we already know though, Ryoga can’t seem to get anywhere quickly, so he got there on the fourth day. Oh, and the lot was right behind his house.

The crowd of students who only moments before considered him with awe over his fantastic martial arts abilities are now looking at him like a buffoon, and Ryoga is ready to get his revenge on Ranma already. But Ranma puts a pause on that, runs out, and comes back with a bunch of different kinds of bread. Why? Because bread was the reason for their duel in the first place. Their school was only for boys, and getting food at lunch was a nightmare. Ranma ended up snatching the last piece of bread just before Ryoga could get it time and time again, and all the bread he brought was one of each type he’d taken years before.

But Ryoga doesn’t care about that, making it clear that the bread isn’t something he cares about anymore, that Ranma has put him through hell, even if Ranma has no clue what he’s talking about. But before they can get a proper fight going, Ranma runs away, losing Ryoga enough that when he starts busting up the school looking for him, he ends up going the wrong way and out of the area entirely, leaving Ranma and Akane to wonder where he went. We do get to see where before the episode ends: once again back in that village that had the boar problem, where he gets a meal before running out into the evening to find Ranma once more.

Like I said before, this episode wasn’t entirely how I remembered it. Namely, there was a lot more humor than I remembered. For the most part, that’s not a bad thing, there was actually some really good comedy, and I don’t feel like it trampled over the more serious parts of the episode.

If it isn’t clear, I am going to say right now that I did still love this episode. The animation was really on-point, some of the visuals of Ranma darting around people or the brief combat he gets with Ryoga just looks beautiful. Also, even though we don’t get a fight between the two just yet, it’s already solidly communicated, through Ryoga easily beating the boar, barreling through steel barriers, and hitting the ground so hard it destroys concrete, that he is strong as hell.

As much as I love the opening desert shot, I actually think my favorite part of the episode is some of the conversation between Ranma, Akane, and Ryoga. Ranma straining his brain to remember who Ryoga is killed me. It was weirdly relatable too, I’m sure many of us have run into someone who obviously knows us, while we can’t even remember how we know them, let alone their name. The fact Ranma actually specifically bought one of each bread he’d taken from Ryoga before was kind of cute, more than I expected of the usually flippant martial artist.

There’s also an exchange I’ve seen on Tumblr a few times in screencaps and gifs, and there’s a reason people love to share it. When Ryoga says he’s going to destroy Ranma’s happiness, there’s this shot of him freaking out, only to turn to Akane and blankly ask if he is happy, to which Akane doesn’t understand why he’s asking her. They take such a trope-y line from a character seeking revenge and turn it around into a really good joke.

There was also a really interesting thing I noted in terms of translation. After hearing about the string of times Ranma stole bread from Ryoga, Akane makes an analogy to why it mattered so much, but it’s different from dub to sub. In the English Dub, she says the straws broke the camel’s back, a common phrase that seems to fit the situation. But in the English Sub, she says (loosely remembering) “enough dust can make a mountain”, and I think that actually fits much better. After all, we soon learned that the bread isn’t really why Ryoga is angry, but once you do know everything that happened that led to Ryoga’s rage, that analogy fits perfect: it isn’t so much one specific event, as a collection of small events that collected into an enormous vendetta.

All my compliments aside, I did have some issues with the episode. Some of the comedy didn’t really work for me, and that was most true with the early scenes of the Tendo girls trying to dress Ranma in Akane’s clothes. Some parts did make me chuckle, but on the whole the mini-plot made me uncomfortable. Primarily because, as I’ve said before, I feel like the best way to look at Ranma’s cursed form is as a trans man. Even though his body has changed, his gender hasn’t, he’s still a man. The scene has Ranma protesting again and again that he is a man, even as they try to dress him as a woman. The idea of some cisgender folks trying to force a trans man into women’s clothes just...isn’t very funny to me. It’s kind of terrible, at least from a more queer perspective. That complaint done, let’s do the character spotlight.

Oh come on, who else did you think I was going to do? If it isn’t clear yet, Ryoga Hibiki is my favorite character in the series, and he has been since I was a teenager. Who knows if that will remain true this entire watch-through, but so far I’m not liking him any less. I’ll get into why, but first let’s talk about his voice actors.

The voice actor I’m more familiar with, his English one, is Michael Donovan. Like most of the actors for this dub, he’s someone who worked with the Ocean Group for a lot of series around this time period. That said, if you’re a fan of the Fate franchise, he has done some voices in Ufotable’s recent anime adaptations, playing Risei Kotomine and Zouken Matou. In Japanese, his voice actor is one Kōichi Yamadera, and he continued the pattern of voice actors who are well-known in Japan for dubbing English works. He’s most well-known for dubbing over Jim Carrey in a lot of movies, but he’s done a ton of others as well. In anime, some of his notable roles include Spike Spiegel, Beerus in all the recent Dragon Ball movies and anime, and Gentle Criminal in My Hero Academia. Seriously, diving into this guy’s list of roles is like swimming in an ocean of great roles.

So, how do they do? Well, so far I’d say I like both of them a lot, but they do play Ryoga differently. At his core, Ryoga is actually kind of a perfect microcosm of the tone of the series itself. Ranma 1/2 is simultaneously a shonen battle anime, a romantic harem series, and a wacky comedy. Ryoga is someone who takes himself very, very seriously. His desire for vengeance against Ranma isn’t a joke, and neither is his ability as a martial artist. But he’s also a doofus who ends up crossing the length of Japan several times because he can’t follow directions properly and the reasons (so far) for his hatred of Ranma are completely laughable.

I wouldn’t say that Michael Donovan’s performance lacks seriousness, in fact when he wants Ryoga to sound menacing I think he does it well, but on the whole he leans more heavily towards the comedic parts of the character. Meanwhile, Yamadera’s Ryoga hasn’t really sounded silly once to me. He plays the character dead straight, and let’s the comedy come through in the contrast between that demeanor and the circumstances around him. We’ll have to see as we go, but I actually might be preferring the Japanese performance so far, a rarity for me.

Okay, so, why do I love Ryoga so much? There are SO many reasons, many of which I won’t go into just yet because I’ll save them for when they appear in-series. But there is still a lot shown in this episode that I feel I can discuss. To start with, I adore his design. I don’t mean the cloak and goggles, though those are absolutely awesome, I’m referring to his standard mode of dress. The yellow and green as a color scheme, with accents of black to top it off, is something really unique. I don’t know enough about art to really articulate why, but I just love every touch of his design. My favorite small touch has to be the yellow strands wrapping around his lower legs, clashing with his otherwise dark green lower half. I have no clue what they’re supposed to be for, but they just add something, almost making him look more rooted to the spot of wherever he’s standing, more solid.

That is a good word to use for Ryoga in general. Even though we haven’t gotten to see him in a proper fight just yet, we’ve seen quite a lot of evidence of his main attributes. In Dungeons & Dragons terms, Ryoga is making out his Strength and Constitution. He hits like a truck and he can be hit by a truck without slowing down. I love that because it contrasts so perfectly with Ranma’s strength: his speed and precision. I adore it when rival characters actually have qualities that make the fights between them more interesting from the contrast, and Ryoga fits the bill there quite well. He’s also a good foil in terms of personality: Ranma is easy going, likes screwing with people, and is quite quick-witted; Ryoga has a hot temper and a long memory for grudges, hates it when people trick him, and tends to let his emotions do the thinking for him.

I will say it feels like his character has some classic Early Installment Weirdness, as he uses his umbrella quite a bit in this episode. If I remember correctly, after his introductory arc, he doesn’t use his umbrella much at all for the rest of the show, preferring to rely on his fists. It definitely feels like they hadn’t quite nailed the character completely yet, if that makes any sense.

Ryoga is also doing that thing where he’s seeking revenge and really angry, but refuses to talk about why, drawing out the mystery as long as possible. While that trope can become annoying, I don’t really mind it in this case. This isn’t a situation like Godot from Ace Attorney, where Ryoga is purposefully hiding it for some grand plan or something, or to teach a lesson. Ryoga doesn’t go into specifics because A) he thinks Ranma should already know; B) Ryoga is very mad; and C) he doesn’t want anyone else to know his secret. I’m not saying it isn’t stupid that he doesn’t tell Ranma why he’s mad, but I am saying that it’s in-character.

Are you surprised that I adore this episode? You shouldn’t be, I’ve been gushing about it this whole time. Even with the parts I found more rough to watch, this is still my favorite episode of the series thus far, putting the rankings at:

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

The big question is: will the next episode of this four episode Ryoga arc be even better? We’ll find out next time with Episode 8: “School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga”. See you then!

[thejustmaiden]

The problem with your post about Jaken not being the father figure is that the idea of Jaken being that doesn't come from the fandom, but from the seiyuu. They know more than us, so all the analizing we can do won't work because they are working with information that we don't have. They work with the very creators, we work with our own bias or perspective. Plus the kind of relationship R and J have is very common in Rumiko's work. Look at Ramma and his father, or Ataruh and his father.

Hey, nonnie! I believe this is the first time I'm hearing from you. Thanks for stopping by, and sorry about the delay in getting back to you. 😊

My guess is you read my "Jaken = Rin's Dad?" blog. For anyone else who hasn't and would like to, voilà!

To be honest, nonnie, I have never read or watched Ranma 1/2 so what I had to do was ask around. I found two friends who were able to fill me in a little, because all I literally knew about it before was that it was another series by Rumiko. I even went and watched a few clips to get a feel for it myself.

At this moment, I'm going to quickly go over a few important facts I learned about Ranma and his father's relationship. Following that I'll go ahead and discuss some of the observations made- mine included.

I was told that Ranma's father teaches him martial arts and that he's agreed to a long-standing arrangement with another father to have their two children marry someday. Before I even looked up clips of the show I remember thinking to myself after hearing that, that I doubt I could ever picture the day where Jaken would have that much authority over Rin. If anyone's teaching someone anything or commanding the other one around, it's Rin not Jaken. Jaken could never force Rin into an arranged marriage let's be honest.

The people I was speaking with believe that even if Ranma and his dad have some similarities with the other two, that comparing them to Rin and Jaken is still a bit of a reach. According to them, Inuyasha isn't really like one of Rumiko's comedies.

I can see where you're coming from, as their respective dynamics do share some things in common from the little I have to go off of, but I still wouldn't say the bond between Rin and Jaken would necessarily be described as a father-daughter type. I won't pretend to be an expert on something I'm not, but if my first impression is anything to go by then what it's telling me is that my friends' interpretations are more in line with how I too would view Ranma and his father once I got to know their characters a little better over time.

Later one of them adds that they don't see why Rin can't have two fathers, which is another point I expand on in the link to my blog I provided above. They even drew some interesting parallels between Sesshomaru/Jaken and other (married) couples that we typically find in Rumiko's work. For example, take Mirsan from our very own Inuyasha. As we're all very familiar with, those two lovebirds fight and bicker like an old married couple and well before they're even together.

"Jaken is the 'misunderstood idiot dad' and Sesshomaru is the 'hardworking mom.' There are often scenes where the mom will smack/hit the dad for something stupid, and this is evident in Miroku and Sango as well."

I mean, I can already come up with a handful of scenes where we have Sesshomaru stepping on Jaken or even throwing an object at him after he says something dumb or annoying. Now although I see Jaken as more of a reluctant big brother or babysitter than father figure, he could still fit that father/guardian role to Rin but NOT unless Sesshomaru is one too. I can't stress that enough, and in the blog I keep bringing up I go into detail about why that is. To me, they both contribute in their own way to raising and protecting Rin. They're a team, which is essentially what a family is in many respects.

You make some excellent points, nonnie, because a seiyuu (voice actor) undoubtedly has access to information we don't yet. What else we have to keep in mind, however, is that they're paid to do a job and occasionally that includes saying what they need to (or what they're told to) in order to really "sell it." Creating buzz via promotional work just comes with the job, and a lot of times the information is embellished and/or used for fan baiting purposes. So I'd take everything with a grain of salt if I were you, I wouldn't want you to be too disappointed if the outcome is not at all what you were expecting. Same goes for antis of course.

It appears to me that the main purpose of the livestreams that have taken place so far has been primarily centered around pleasing returning fans and getting us more hyped about the upcoming sequel. The way they've been doing that is by taking fans on a trip down memory lane and revisiting some of our favorite moments. It was all about nostalgia and not so much about discussing the sequel as far as I can tell. Here's hoping the interview with Rumiko on the 31st will give us a lot more to work with in regard to any news and developments on the fast-approaching sequel. We shall see, nonnie! Whatever happens, I hope we're both satisfied. Take care of yourself. ✌

[mysticdragon3md3]

The Meaning of Death: BoJack Horseman vs. The Good Place by Wisecrack

When they started talking about “all books have endings”, I couldn’t help but think of comic books, going on and on and on.  Before I switched to manga, I read American comic books, americomi.  So it was a shock to me, to get into one of my first favorite manga series and reach its end.  No rolling into new writers, artists, or storylines.  Just “this is the end of the series”.  And yes, it was nice to have a story so cohesive---with repeating motifs, foreshadowings, properly placed milestones of emotional progression, a perfectly unfolded theme(s)---because CLAMP had an ending in mind, even when they gave Rayearth a sequel series.  But when that first series ended, I didn’t know what to do.  Magic Knight Rayearth had taken up so much real estate in my brain’s fangirling, that I didn’t know what to do with it gone. I felt an empty spot, that was pretty big.  And years later, when Ranma 1/2 ended, there was melancholy and loss too.  ...Though, Ranma 1/2′s open-ended  “ending” to the manga felt reassuring, that Ranma and Akane were still out there, up to their antics.  But I think when that manga ended, some small part of me was still a little unsatisfied with the lack of finality.  Though compared to the vast majority of fans, it was a very small part.  I was actually very happy to feel like Ranma and Akane were still out there.  Even if their further adventures were only in our imaginations.  But yeah, it’s got nothing on americomi that has gone on for years and years and decades.  LOL

I watched Bojack but not the Good Place, so I thought I’d stop watching this video before spoilers.  But I don’t think this is even the first video essay on The Good Place, that I forgot to check out of before spoilers.  Whatever.  I used to be immune to spoilers.  My immunity has gone down, but I still feel that a series is as good as the experiences of its moments, vs just knowing what happens in the plot and the end.  I want a series/movie/story that feels good to re-watch, because the individual scenes are good experiences, in and of themselves.  So what do a few little spoilers---like plot points---matter?  lol  

And maybe that explains why I never liked the idea that death gives life meaning.  It sounds like the moment to moment experiences are negated or invalid.  If you’re suffering, it “doesn’t matter” because death will make it end and that will be meaningful in some retroactive symbolic way. If you’re enjoying a moment, then it “doesn’t matter” unless it’s eventually ripped away from you, or you or someone else eventually suffers.  Maybe it’s the suicidal depressive in me that doesn’t like the invalidation of the hells or heavens of each daily, “mundane” moment.  Once my sister and I watched a suicide scene in a movie and she didn’t understand why the character did it because he was happy in his relationship.  I just told her cryptically, “It’s an artist thing.”  Maybe I didn’t want to actually talk about the fear of good moments turning bad or wanting to seemingly stay in good moments by making life cut off right there.  Not that I agreed with the character. (Personally, I think death/suicide is for ending and resting from the never-ending suffering that is existence.)  He could have continued on, having many more good moments, he couldn’t have possibly imagined with his significant other.  My sister was right.  Death doesn’t give anything meaning.  It’s like what dream-Herb said in Bojack Horseman, “It’s just your brain trying to make sense of things.”  That’s just what human brains do.  But the comforting interpretations of people left behind doesn’t make anything better or worse for the person who had the actual experiences.  Maybe my problem with the idea  “can’t enjoy anything without it eventually ending” (or even “no light without darkness and no good without evil”), is because it probably plays into the same anxious insecurity that I have to deal with in real life.  I’d like to be able to feel secure in good things/experiences staying and not being called “invalid” unless it has an end in sight.  I’d much prefer for things to evolve.  Even if they transition so much that they’re no longer recognizable from the original, then at least each state was gradual and the necessary fit for each corresponding situation.  I’d prefer that good moments be appreciated, instead of being told they’re invalid unless they have an ending.  And I’d prefer bad moments stop, vs being told it has meaning, like the universe giving you “tough love” so you can learn to become “stronger” or whatever.  Sometimes shitty situations/feelings are just shitty.  And anyway, there’s no guarantee that everyone reacts the same enough to predict whether “tough love” will yield a “toughened up spirit” or a traumatically scarred mentality; the only certainty is that the dispenser of “tough love” is being callous, discompassionate, and often trying to make excuses to “allow” such abuse.  If there’s anything that’s given me the closest understanding of objecting to “the ends justify the means”, it’s my objection to the implication that the day-to-day daily moments don’t matter unless Death.  Like Cloud said in FF7AC, “There’s nothing that isn’t important.” 

Though I can be a little bit of a nihilist about life never having any inherent meaning, I actually just like the ideas that life can be given meaning and that there’s nothing cheap about that manufactured meaning.  (Who told that allegory about a man-made fire to sit by, being just as good as a fire that came out of no where?)  Even though I haven’t watched The Good Place, I like a lot of stories/series about immortality, my Personal Myth uses it a lot in Thought Experiments, and I do like muddling over such themes accompanying immortality.  I feel, just like a truly enjoyable movie/series/manga, the value is in the experiences of scenes and moments.  So what if you already have experienced everything for yourself and know how everything is going to end or know what patterns are going to repeat forever?  You don’t know what a moment feels like to someone else.  One of the tragic failings of language is that humans will still never be able to communicate their exact experiences to each other, no matter what the means of conveyance.  Anything short of a psychic hive mind is still inadequate communication, even that could be considered a singular being who doesn’t know how to communicate to other entities.  (Not without some trial and error, like in Eureka 7.)  It would be just the same as like individual humans to individual humans.  But maybe I just find an unusual amount of value and joy in experiencing things by proxy or from the outside.  Maybe it’s because I’m oversensitive and the bluntness of actually having first-person experiences is too intense for me.  But I enjoy watching someone else having an experience or even just imagining how they experience something, even if I myself have experienced it a zillion times.  Like when I watch an anime I already saw, in a video room with other people at a convention, or listen to reaction videos of a scene or movie I’ve already seen.  No matter how jaded I’ve become to the event, watching someone else have an experience and me trying to imagine what it must feel like for them, reminds me of how I felt when I first experienced the same thing.  But not just a recall; rather, the feelings actually re-manifest as a full emotional experience in and of themselves.  Not just a recollection of events in a plot.  Of course, a whole group of immortals jaded with their own experiences could become too dependent and addicted to the need for fresh people to have experiences for them to re-experience things freshly, by proxy...  ^.^;  There’s just something irrevocably new each time, to dealing with someone who isn’t already experienced with everything.  And all because no matter how jaded and “been there, done that” you’ve become, you still have to be kind and empathetic to other people.  Like when I was a teacher’s aid for 3 year olds, for 6 years.  I wonder if empathy is the reason why watching someone else’s experience, second-hand, by proxy, can be just as intense as a first-hand experience.  I wonder if the writers of The Good Place or all the philosophers cited would have had the notion that “once you’re jaded to your own experiences, there’s nothing else to experience”, if they were neuroatypical?  Where any of them HSPs?  And I don’t think that using other people as proxies for reinvigorating re-experiences is the only use of inexperienced people.  I think that genuinely caring for their emotions, not knowing what they’re going to do when you interact with them, having hopes that they’ll experience things well, and adjusting your interactive tactics to help guide them to good experiences, is instinctually emotional each time.  Or maybe my brain is just weird to care too much whenever someone is standing in front of me in real life.  But I really don’t think it’s just me.  As proof, there’s a lot of problems in the world caused by people ONLY caring about people in front of them in real life, so it can’t be that uncommon.  So then why get so jaded after depleting your own experiences?  Am I saying that mentorship is the “ultimate answer”?  lol  I dunno. But it would explain why people like raising children, even children not their own, when working as teachers.  In my Personal Myth, my main character is spiritually dying inside because she’s immortal and life is a never-ending hopeless trudge, that she no longer has the Strength to improve.  So she hopes instead for death, as a lazy way out.  But continually, new people she meets, and new experiences with old people she’s met before, keep pointing to the answer being to return to the Fight, the everyday battle to continuously improve.  After all, even in the jaded mindset, apparently perfection is still unattainable, because even complacency and satisfaction can spoil into stagnation.  So the answer was in the “martial arts anime” genre all along.  That must be why it always rung true enough for me to encounter it again, seeing the same tenants repeated in the artist community.  “Continual self-improvement”, “compare to your past self, not to others”, “progression is only measured by your own path, not someone else’s years of experience or natural talent”, “fear stagnation and complacency”, “be more concerned with self-improvement vs aggrandizing your ego”,  “recognize the True Strengths of Compassion vs Power”, etc.  Whether art or in anime martial arts, existence is a never-ending battle, constantly teetering on the edge of falling, then gritting your teeth to climb back up, again and again.  There’s always so much to do in existence, how can any humans get bored?  Maybe being jaded is less about having nothing new left to experience or do.  Maybe it’s more about being too tired to contract and expand to adjust to other people? Or just being too tired to overcome the fear that nothing will be different, no matter what you do or what happens, enough to stop trying?  Maybe I’m just falling into human cliches to value Evolution.  Or maybe that’s just the necessary value of anything living.  “Sometimes life is a bitch, but then you keep living,” to paraphrase what Diane said in Bojack Horseman.  Believing that Living and being truly Alive has to be about constantly evolving, both spiritually and mentally, is probably necessary for my survival as a living being.  Evolved into instinct, out of necessity.  

[kcgostaaarto]

Experience, Growth, and Resolve

I have always been a reader, and because of that, I have always been proud about my level of understanding stories- how I write them, and how I’m able to analyze the messages and meanings stories have behind them. When I heard about the subject “21st Century Literature”, I had my nose up in the air, thinking that “this is a class I’ll be excelling at! I don’t need to study at all!”, but that pride of mine soon crumbled as I continued on in 21st Century Literature.  

I had experiences of being proven wrong a multitude of times, so I’m not really sure why I didn’t expect that I was wrong in my way of thinking. Throughout my time in 21st Century Literature, I have been proven wrong again, and again, and again, but coming out of that, I didn’t feel bitter. I didn’t feel like my pride had been smashed into a million pieces. I felt like I grew. There were numerous instances in that subject that helped me realize my skills, understanding, and views more and showed me to grow. In 21st Century Literature, I felt as though my views and skills were widened more than I anticipated.  

There were instances in class that made me realize that my skill of being able to understand literary pieces is still unpolished. I remember our teacher having us choose and read some short stories she picked out, and I chose to read “Dead Stars'' by Paz Marquez Benitez. I thought that it was going to something I can just breeze through and get the message and summarize it easily. Though the next day, our teacher asked those who read that story to answer some of her questions. Feeling proud and confident, I answered, though my answer was wrong. It seemed that I didn’t understand the ending well and missed out some parts. I felt dejected afterwards, but it made me realize that I still have a long way to go. Gaining the skill of understanding and discernment takes time. It’s like forging a sword, rushing the process could break it, and after forging, it requires care and maintenance to keep its shine and sharpness. In this class, it helped me refine and sharpen that skill, with our teacher telling us to write mountains of reflections, analysis, and answer many questions regarding different stories and poems. I learned to keep a keen eye and broaden my way of thinking, which helped me understand the literary pieces I read in a much deeper sense.  

During our second quarter, our teacher assigned us authors to report about. To my luck, the author assigned to me was “Rumiko Takahashi”, a manga author and artist. If you don’t know, I’m a huge anime and manga dork, so this fell right into my alleyway. Because of that, I went all out in my presentation, from the interpretations to the design of my PowerPoint. Although during my research on the manga “Ranma ½”, I came across an interview that Rumiko Takahashi did. She stated that she made that manga just for fun. That got me thinking, don’t authors usually have some sort of meaning behind their works? I mean it can’t just purely be for fun right? With that, the realization struck me like lightning. Literature is not only for fighting or defending the just, it’s not only for voicing out, literature can also be enjoyed in a fun, light, and cheery way. Sometimes, a person’s true emotion can be conveyed through their works, and I felt the fun and bubbliness from the stories and art Rumiko Takahashi makes. It made me realize that these are the kinds of works I want to make, works that make people smile at wholesome parts, laugh or cringe at the bad jokes, cry at heartbreaking scenes, or scared out of their wits at surprisingly eerie ones. 21st century literature didn’t just show me how to discern and dissect deep and meaningful stories, it showed me that literature has its fun, bright side as well.  

In 21st Century Literature, there have been no shortage of poems introduced, and I have never been much of a poet, nor do I have the ability to understand one, but poems are a part of literature and I have to accept it. Though with many poems introduced in class, I have never felt even more intrigued about poems than ever before. When we were tasked to add a stanza to an existing poem, I felt dread filling me up. I was scared of ruining the already beautiful poem I chose, but because it was a task, I went and did it while apologizing in advance for, possibly, ruining the poem. After writing the new stanza, I sent it to two of my classmates to get their opinions on it, and they surprisingly liked it. I felt a bit of hope bubbling in me and thought that I shouldn’t be scared. I tried writing my own poem, and it felt like exploring an unfamiliar territory, but it was fun nonetheless. Despite it being a requirement, this subject didn’t just broaden my understanding, or my views of literature, it also broadened the styles of writing I can explore. It showed me many possible ways to tell what’s in my mind for the world to see, like how other authors have done.  

After going through this subject and all its difficulties, I feel as though I can walk on, my head, not nose, held high as I continue to enhance and improve the skills that I have gained from here. Being able to learn where I fell short at, to know another view, and to see another possibility, I know that with these skills, I can overcome any challenge that comes my way, as these skills can also be used in not only literature, but also in other fields. In the future, I know that I look back and see how far I have gone.  

[lovingastory]

Nostalgia Trip: My Story of Watching The Slayers - day 1

Thanks @alexeiadrae for starting this challenge! Looking forward to doing this. :) 

Day 1: How did you start watching The Slayers?

I was in middle school, and my sister (who was then in high school) and I were both into anime (mostly Sailor Moon, Ranma, and whatever happened to be on tv in Italy at the time). We learned from tv guide that this new anime was about to be broadcast, and when we started watching and found out it was fantasy, we were instantly hooked (we were both fantasy nerds and my sister was also my first D&D Dungeon Master). The series might have simply fallen into my neverending list of fantasy interests - I was also into the Dragonlance series at the time - but it was immediately different. The fact is, I fell in love with Lina. This was right before the Buffy era. There were female heroes on tv at the time, but they tended to be “nice girls”. Lina was not nice. She was a resourceful, competent, cunning sorceress, with dodgy morals. She had a name in her field, alright, but she was infamous - always remembered for her bad deeds (real and invented - there was ample choice of both) rather than for her heroic ones. She had a big brain, a sense of humor, a loud mouth... and a soft heart and lots of insecurities underneath all that - which she would only show to the right people. She was so perfectly imperfect - so human, how could I not fall for that? I think Lina was my revolution, the role model and anti-hero I needed in my formative years. I loved everything about the series from the start - the world building, all the side characters (who were so well defined, too), the humor, the interesting storylines, the serious and even tragic moments. But I have no doubt that what made this series become part of me for so many years was Lina. In some ways, she shaped the curious and free-spirited person I am now, and I am so grateful for that. 

2.       How easy was it for you to collect the series to watch it?

3.       What stage of your life were you in when you watched The Slayers?

4.      Have you met anyone involved in any way with the creation of the show? Hajime Kanzaka, a voice actor be they Japanese, American, Spanish, Elvin, etc? A janitor who worked in the animation studio? What were they like?

5.      Do you have a precious collectible from the show? What is it, and how did you get it?

6.      What inside jokes do you have about The Slayers with friends/family you watched it with?

7.       What lengths did you go to to get access to Slayers VHS/DVSs/fansubs, etc?

8.        This one favors our English speaking fans, but it’s too great a story in the history of watching Slayers to leave out. Do you remember the Great Slayers Disc Exchange (I think that’s what it was called)? Do you have a story involving your participation in it? And are you still mad at Software Sculptors? If English isn’t your first language, what stories do you have about the studios bungling the release of Slayers DVDs in your primary language?

9.        What is your memory of experiencing your favorite funny moment in The Slayers?

10.       What is your memory of experiencing your favorite moment of your favorite Slayers character?

11.       What moment in The Slayers surprised you the most?

12.      When did The Slayers exceed your expectations?

13.      When did The Slayers disappoint you?

14.      What do you remember about experiencing the moment when Phibrizzo kidnapped Gourry?

15.       What was your memory of experiencing your favorite moment of your favorite Slayers ship?

16.       What is your memory of watching your favorite dramatic Slayers moment?

17.       What is your favorite memory of watching The Slayers?

18.       What was your strangest memory of something that happened when you were watching The Slayers?

19.       Which character dying at the hands of Phibrizzo affected you the most?

20.       What was your reaction to the end of Slayers NEXT?

21.       What was your experience with tracking down the novels?

22.       When did you fall in love with Lina? Or if you didn’t fall in love with her, how did your feelings about her evolve through the series?

23.      How did your feelings about Gourry evolve through the series?

24.      How did your feelings about Zelgadis evolve through the series?

25.     How did your feelings about Amelia evolve through the series?

26.     How did your feelings about Sylphiel evolve through the series?

27.     How did your feelings about Xellos evolve through the series?

28.     What moments from the show do you use to motivate you?

29.     What impact has the show had on your life?

30.      Why do you believe this show has had such a lasting impact in people’s hearts?

[translationandbetrayals]

Is the concept "otaku" in Chile related to our racist society?

I’m a 90’s child, I can’t remember a time where anime wasn’t in my life, although when I remember my early years the word anime wasn’t in my vocabulary. “Monitos”, just as simple as that. I came home from school and Detective conan or Ranma ½ were on the tv, life was simple and good. On those years there were many shows that were on tv, I can name a lot of different anime tittles, and probably most of my friends also could. But as I grew older something changed, I continued watching anime like a normal thing, I discovered new genres and I found myself thinking about the deepest meanings in these new discovered shows. The days of “monitos” came to an end, those new shows weren’t “monitos”, some of the topics that were on these anime brought a new way of thinking in my life, and I’m sure anyone that kept on discovering new anime can relate with me.

But somehow now there was this word with a bad connotation, “otaku”, apparently everybody forgot that the “monitos” that they saw on tv were anime or maybe they never knew, and they started to use the fact of watching anime as a reason to segregate. “Why do you watch those “monos chinos?”, “she likes monos chinos, she is an otaku” and other phrases to make you feel like you were doing something weird. They “imitated” the language like it wasn’t an actual language and somehow this weird hate against anime or “monos chinos” turned into plain prejudice and racism.  Because we can debate on the meaning of the concept otaku here in Chile, if it’s mainstream or not, or a lot of different aspects that surrounds this word. But I think there is something that we can’t forget, and that is our cultural background. Even if it is a hard conversation, chilean people caracterizes for discriminate everything that is unknown to them, and anime and manga culture are no exception for that.

Of course this has been changing over the years, globalization had allowed us to have access to a lot of new information and brought us together even if we are in different countries. But we are still far away from accepting everything that we don’t understand. For example, there isn’t a word for people who likes to watch western shows, but the word otaku is still used to categorize the people that likes anime or manga.

I keep thinking on the excuse of many people for not watching movies in another languages appart from english, which is ironic because many people that I know actually can’t understand english either, but for some reason they draw the line on asian languages. I’ve been learning japanese for years but somehow I’m a weirdo because “why do you want to learn “chino”?”.

So, I’m tired of covering up, racism is still a thing, because here in Chile the word otaku doesn’t mean what it actually means in Japan, in here you can be seen as otaku just for liking anime, manga or even japanese culture, and people always use the word with a bad connotation. And it’s funny that a lot of people that I know, once they got over their prejudices, they’ve started to love anime and manga. I don’t even watch that much anime anymore, but I still love it though, and now all those people that made fun of me and my “monos chinos”, are huge fans.

Maybe is a controversial thing to say, are all people racists? I don’t know, probably not. But maybe we got so used to the phrases “Im not a…, BUT…” that we forgot that sometimes discrimination or prejudice is not as evident as bullying, sometimes it lays on the details, sometimes come out in a conversation with a random japanese person with people assuming the person is an otaku just for being japanese.

In conclusion, as in many things in our society, once we get over our prejudices, racism and discrimination against the things that we don’t understand, we are able to discover a whole new world of knowledge. The world gives us the opportunity to embrace new ways of thinking and to be more understanding people everyday, we just have to be open.

Magdalena Cordero