#The Stars Align - An Eternal Rivalry Begins!

[konoha-kohai-discord]

👀

That's right folks- it's finally here! Starting September 1st, our very first Art/Writing Event will begin :D

Our base theme is the beginning of Kakashi and Gai's rivalry, with 4 seperate sub-themes that will have their own prompts every 2 weeks!

A mini-description of the Theme Title and a small list of items will be sent out every 2 weeks, up until the event ends on October 27th. New lists will be posted every other Thursday.

Here's a sneak peek-

This will be a Dual Event, which means both Solo and Team participants may make submissions!

We are so incredibly excited to see all of your lovely creations, see you all in a month at the training grounds o7

Link to Rules and FAQ

Link to Server Link Post

[x0401x]

Why do you think the writers of the Tsurune anime decided to tone down masamina and outright cut out kaisei while pushing for sei/mina instead? It's just so baffling to me why they would alter the canon content from the novels so much. Like, what was even the point?

I’ve answered this question quite a few times before, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever made the point entirely clear, so here we go one last time. Sorry that it turned out so long.

So, in novels and manga or any written medium, creators normally have more freedom to do what they want, but when it comes to TV series, animators have been developing the habit of toning down whatever they can. Most of them have this conviction that the viewers only want to watch calm and relaxing stuff nowadays. Other than this, we get adaptations of popular works that basically exist to promote the source material, most of which rush up towards the end like crazy. It does seem like the Japanese audience has an obsession with comfort animes now, since life in Japan gets more and more stressful with each passing year, but it’s not like they’ve abandoned other genres. This general belief that creators should water down the contents however they can is pretty much destroying the industry, and it’s probably what the animators of Tsurune had in mind when changing the novel’s events into a much less dramatic versions or just cutting them off. That’s issue number 1 with the anime.

Issue number 2 is that animators of adaptations tend to ignore the reader demographic in favor of making the series neutral to please all audiences lately. But that’s only when the majority of the readers are women and girls. If it’s guys, you’d rarely see alterations. It feels like the general conception is that making the contents less “cringy” for men means more people will be watching it and having a positive opinion. It seems to completely slip the staff’s minds that the fans they disappoint mostly won’t feel willing to buy the DVDs or merchandise. This is where most of these adaptations fall flat, by the way. It’s kind of really obvious to me that these series are more prone to succeeding if the studios animate what the readers fell in love with, because the originals are popular for a reason, and it’s that people liked them the way they were. I think it’s only the expected when readers are disappointed not to see animes live up to the expectations, and that whoever picks the source material will feel the difference as well. Still, if the anime isn’t a BL, there’s this unsaid rule that you can’t show too much gay between male characters unless you have an excuse for it. Normally, nakama power and rivalry is what does the trick. I don’t think I need to mention that this is the standard in sports animes.

In the Tsurune novel, most of the gay doesn’t have an excuse. Of course, it’s not officially gay unless canon states it, but the books not only don’t give any justification for it, they get rid of possible justifications, so while you can’t say it’s not fanservice, you can’t label it as just fanservice, either. For a studio that banks off fanservice like KyoAni, that’s a problem, especially since the novel is packed with heavy scenes and even heavier quotes.

I mean, in Masaki and Minato’s case, they don’t have the nakama power or rivalry elements, so one possible excuse for them being so close would be that they’re master and disciple. But Minato makes it clear quite early in the story that Masaki doesn’t have to be his master because just having Masaki’s company is enough for him, and all in all, the two of them have a much more affectionate relationship than the other teacher-student ones from the books. Another excuse would be the found family dynamics, but Masaki already shares that with Kaito, who canonically sees Masaki as the older brother he never had, and their relationship is unlike Masaki and Minato’s as well. Kaito also has a monologue in volume 2 about Masaki treating Minato differently from everyone else in the club, and the way he describes it denotes that Minato is Masaki’s favorite, and that Masaki doesn’t bother hiding it. Just as a cherry on top, Minato often loses his rationality when it comes to Masaki despite being a serious kid, and he’s very verbal about wanting to monopolize Masaki. Add fate to the mix and you have the perfect recipe for anything except an ordinary mentor-pupil relationship.

As for Kaito and Seiya, there was a lot going on between them since the beginning, but the nakama power excuse only starts applying late in volume 1, because they didn’t get along very well at first. And even then the nakama stuff hardly applies to their interactions, where Seiya often acts like Kaito has a thing for him, for no reason other than Kaito’s reactions being amusing. Their relationship also does some big strides in the middle of volume 1, and Seiya literally migrates to Kaito’s side at some point. They don’t seem to have a friendship as strong as the one between Seiya, Minato and Ryouhei, but it’s Kaito who Seiya interacts with the most in volume 2 and he’s also the one that Seiya leans on whenever he needs any sort of assistance. There’s other unexplainable things here and there, such as Seiya taking a peek at Kaito’s sleeping face when it’s just the two of them in the room, or him implying that Kaito is jealous of the motherly attention he gives Minato. It goes on as far as the novel does. There’s literally no scene with the two of them that doesn’t make it look like Kaito is really into Seiya and that Seiya owns his ass but he’s the last one to know.

Back to the main point, it’s really hard to animate all of this without giving people “ideas”. For KyoAni, any gay exists ultimately for the sake of fetishization, and they often follow the “ship whatever you want, even yourself with the characters” model. If being gay is canonically a character trait in the original, it’s out (Violet Evergarden is probably the best example of that one), and if the gay can’t be interpreted as something else, it’s either out or downplayed. In Seiya and Minato’s case, that’s perfectly feasible. Not only are they best friends, they also have a familial relationship where Seiya treats Minato like a son. Minato has sworn eternal friendship to Seiya in the novel, and both he and Kaito describe Seiya as something like a helicopter parent. There’s more than enough counter-argument to remind the viewers that, whatever happens between Minato and Seiya, it’s all a product of their childhood friend bond. Anyone is free to interpret it differently in fanon, but the viewers (at least the Japanese ones) are ultimately aware that the anime is in its “safe zone”, portraying a friendship. Nobody on the Japanese side of the fandom actually believed that there was romance going on in it. On the other hand, if you search in Japanese for people’s impressions of MasaMina, you’ll notice people often saying that the novel makes you wonder if Minato and Masaki aren’t actually dating, or if Minato doesn’t have a puppy crush on Masaki, at the very least. Basically, everyone seems to agree that what goes on between those two is hard to define, but whatever it is, there’s this very particular, “special” air about them that differs from the rest of the characters, which normally manifests when they’re alone together.

As you can tell, this overall view is the opposite of the animators’ ideal. If the novel had been animated the way it is, it would’ve probably felt like a BL for the people watching. Not only does it come with practically set ships, it also doesn’t give much space for the proverbial “ship even yourself with the characters” option. To put it bluntly, the animation went through those changes so that it could fit the mold. It gave us SeiMina and even some NanaKai (the latter being honestly disturbing, since they’re cousins), while either toning down or erasing the rest of the duo and trio interactions. It made Minato’s accident with his mom actually seem like Seiya’s fault and didn’t really take the burden off his shoulders but instead swept it under the rug. It also made Masaki seem like a two-faced bastard who only became a coach for the sake of revenge, which means he was using his students (actual 15/16-year-olds) for his own personal gains. Shuu and Minato’s friendship went down the drain, Ryouhei was pushed aside as if Seiya was Minato’s only childhood friend, Nanao was never depicted as his own person, and the girls didn’t even exist 90% of the time. So yeah, none of the changes served any good purpose for the characters’ images. All it did was (try to) fill a quota.

Personally, this whole thing feels like we’re being told to the face, “we’ve given you what you want, now give us your money”. It brings me back to interviews I’ve read featuring Stars Align director Akane Kazuki and his statements about the anime industry being in a pinch, specifically because animators nowadays keep trying to make a fool out of the audience for monetary ends. Seems clear to me that the staff thought the female viewers would latch onto anything as long as it looked remotely gay, and that’s why I was so angry back then. Being looked down on like this by people who expect us to consume their media is pretty offensive, in my opinion. I’m glad there’s at least one creator speaking up about this matter and using the exact same arguments as I have been for more than two years now.

[frozendoorgaming]

Morning Mist #87

Announcements, Releases, Trailers

Doom Eternal has a new trailer, and it's very Doom

The Nemesis Strikes In New Resident Evil 3 Trailer

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot video reminisces on Goku and Vegeta's epic rivalry

Teamfight Tactics is launching on mobile mid-March

Dystopian food truck simulator Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! arrives in early access this month

Konami's cutesy shmup Bells & Whistles returns on PS4 and Nintendo Switch

Coffee Talk will finally open its doors on January 30

An indie collective released 48 games in one day on Steam

Valve is 'absolutely not' making Left 4 Dead 3, for VR or anything else

Final Fantasy VII Remake Delayed Until April

Marvel's Avengers delayed by four months

Cyberpunk 2077 developers will be required to crunch following its delay

Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer now unlikely to come before 2022

This gameplay video for Frostpunk's Last Autumn DLC shows off worker strikes and more

The three-game BioShock collection might be coming to Switch

3D Realms revives 1999 PC shooter Kingpin

Black Book is an adventure RPG about witches and demons

World of Horror, a creepy 1-bit style horror RPG, will release next month

Table Manners, a dating sim, is out this Valentine's Day

The unknowable chaos of physics in Totally Accurate Battle Simulator

Darwin Project is basically reality TV battle royale, and it’s now launched on Steam

Milestones, Industry

Awesome Games Done Quick 2020 raised a whopping £2.3 million for charity

Universal Studios Reveals Super Nintendo World Details

Riot Tabletop is the League Of Legends developer's new board game division

Over a million people subbed to RuneScape in 2019, with ‘many millions’ more playing F2P

GameStop is so screwed

Players spent over $61 billion on mobile games in 2019

Ubisoft sues website alleged to have facilitated DDoS attacks against Rainbow Six Siege servers

GDC 2020 offers practical tips on hiring and keeping women leaders in games

Magic Legends’ lead answers 75 questions in 7 minutes

8 of the 10 best-selling games of the decade were Call of Duty

Interested in getting into games? Our friends at GI.biz have a guide for that

Epic Games Store now has OpenCritic reviews

Valve's Index VR headset is sold out everywhere

Deals, Freeware

Humble launches a new bundle for the Australian Wildfire Relief Fund

Destiny has a charity T-Shirt to help Australia

PlayStation Store started an 'Under $20' bargain bin sale

Get Stardew Valley plus six more games for less than a tenner in the Sweet Farm Humble Bundle

Indie platformer Horace is free on the Epic Games Store

Solve a festive puzzle in small, free adventure A Good Tree

Form a one-man band in free musical adventure Haunted Garage

This 17-inch gaming laptop with an RTX 2060 and 144Hz display is on sale for $999

Save over $150 on this fast 144Hz HP 25MX gaming monitor

Samsung's Space monitor is a revelation

The awesome Microsoft Elite Series 2 controller is $20 off right now

The PS Classic is now £40 at Amazon

BT is including a free Google Stadia with its fibre broadband deals

These 'smart' contact lenses have a built-in display for augmented reality

500,000 new Witcher books are being printed in the US

Information

Riot Games’ Legends of Runeterra enters open beta on January 24

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's first season gets an extension

Limited testing for Halo: Combat Evolved begins next month

Capcom will align content updates for PC and console players of Monster Hunter World

Pokemon-esque MMO Temtem is down to two last stress tests before early access next week

Hunt: Showdown is getting a solo PvE mode and a PS4 port

The Joker is having a bloody good time in his Mortal Kombat 11 trailer

Rocket League's Chinese New Year event kicks off next week

Overwatch has seven skins for Lunar New Year 2020

Cuphead and Assassin's Creed are invading Smash Ultimate in Mii form

Disintegration is running a few beta tests this month

The Sims is asking players about potential new features like “bromances” and second homes

This video solidifies just how packed Zelda: Breath of the Wild's world really is

Mobius Final Fantasy will be shutting down in June

Etc

There's an official rap version of Toss a Coin to Your Witcher that you might get to hear someday

Netflix created an interactive timeline for The Witcher and now I understand what's actually going on

This South Korean apartment block looks like a Minecraft house

Pokémon's official ASMR video lets you relax to fireside Charmander

There's an animated Mortal Kombat movie coming in the first half of this year

Mortal Kombat movie reveals new spin on the famous dragon logo

Videogame subtitles could learn a lot from comic book lettering

Twitch's latest obsession is betting on a Final Fantasy Tactics autobattler

The Writer of Rogue One Wants to Make a Star Fox Film

Tekken-Style Health Bars Make Watching Taekwondo So Much Better

Somebody has speedrun the entirety of Ring Fit Adventure in 18 sweaty hours

[konoha-kohai-discord]

🐢Almost a Week Away!🐢

The Stars Align - An Eternal Rivalry Begins! starts in under 2 weeks! To sort of get our heads in the game, our team has collected a mini list of some kid!Kakashi and kid!Gai HCs we collectively enjoy, and we invite you all to share some of yours below if you'd like! - 🌿🐝

Some soft HCs-

• Kakashi started plastering those sitckers with different expressions on them all over originally to cause a small brand of chaos, but that somehow devolved into him placing stickers on people whenever he has trouble expressing something.

- Gai catches on to Kakashi's lil sticker code after the 6th or 7th "You Tried" sticker gets placed on his forehead (he was trying to get Kakashi to spar with him again) and starts carrying around stickers in case Kakashi runs out/doesn't have any on him.

- They formed a sort of sticker code for people in their lives- a Sun for Minato, Turtle for Dai, etc. and start to have almost mini conversations that no one else gets using the stickers.

• Gai gets Kakashi hooked on hot cocoa during one of many sleepovers Gai sort of pushed him into in an effort to get his rival to decompress. Said mini addiction lasts for a good number of months up until Kakashi happens to sip from a cup of cocoa that had a bug in it, switches to tea and refuses to touch cocoa for years afterwards.

• Their first challenge that wasn't a spar of some sort was a long rock paper scissors match over a final piece of dango. (Before either could win, one of Kakashi's canine companions nabbed the dango and ate it- both agree that this event counts as a draw.)

• Gai gets into gardening at some point and finds it fairly therapeutic (a much needed activity, considering the whispers of a rising war rolling around- plus it's quite youthful wouldn't you say?). Kakashi gifts him scrolls on occasion with new tricks for caring for his plants or seeds he got from who knows where.

- Kakashi on the other hand, despite being skilled in various things, is found to have the opposite of a green thumb in every sense of the word (much to his internal chagrin). Because of this Gai usually doesn't issue any sort of challenges involving growing things, and despite never stating why Kakashi knows. (Kakashi does, out of pure stubbornness years later, eventually even his skills out enough to the point he can keep some hearty plants alive- though he'll never be able to care for something like irises.)

We're incredibly excited to see you all on September 1st! See you all then o7 o7 - 🌿🐝

Link to Eternal Rivalry Event's first post

Link to Eternal Rivalry Event's Rules & FAQ

[konoha-kohai-discord]

🎉The Rivalry Begins!🎉

The Stars Align - An Eternal Rivalry Begins! has finally begun! We have been so excited to share this event with you all, and hope that you enjoy participating o7

Remember - this is a casual event, so no need to worry over submitting things on day one! Submissions will gladly be accepted at any time and highly cherished. A link to the Event's rule list & FAQ is down below, and please remember that if you have any questions, we're always here if you need us o7

Please note that this blog plans on reblogging submissions posted here on Tumblr. If you do not wish for your work to be reblogged, please let us know and we will not reblog said works. Your work is your own, we acknowledge and respect said fact, and will not reblog your creations if you are not comfortable with us doing so.

Now then- let's get this show on the road aye?

Things you'll need during Section 1 of this event-

1. Item List & Deadline of Section 1 (aka Weeks 1 & 2)

Atleast 1 of these items has to be included in your works somehow, additional points may or may not be possible if more are used (Only if a part of server Teams)

• Hair Pin • Whip Cream

• Letter Opener • Glitter

2. The Name Wheel

Click Here to jump to our wheel of names! Remember, spin twice for two names, atleast one has to be included in your works. (All names on the wheel are of Kakashi and Gai's peers, any other characters are up to you!)

3. Our mini prompt-

Gai doesn't know the grey haired boys name, but he looks cool, and Gai wants to find out just how strong he is.

Kakashi isn't sure who this hyperactive bowl cut is, and honestly wonders if he even wants to.

What sort of chaos do you think their first meeting could devolve into? Just how disastrous would one of their first rivalry challenges be? Or was there no chaos at all- what happens is up to you!

4. And last but not least, the collection you can add your fics to on ao3 o7

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/EternalRivalryEvent

We are so incredibly excited to see what you all can do, and we'll be seeing you out on the training grounds! May your flames of youth flourish under the bright light of your unfathomable talents o7 - 🌿🐝

Link to Eternal Rivalry Event's Rules & FAQ

Link to our Discord Server Invite post