#actually heck now i want to read the arc that one panel that makes me feral is from

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

THEY BOTH BELIEVE NO ONE WILL COME FOR THEM

[aannonn]

Amane's motives

wAIT A SEC I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING-

After reading this analysis, now a thought has crossed my mind which probably doesn't really makes much sense and I'm probably wrong and overthinking it but-

Now I.. kind of have a theory as to why Amane killed Tsukasa... It just crossed my mind and I really wanted to talk about it, even if it doesn't make much sense lol

Without much further ado, let's begin with a dramatic entrance because I like suspense! also lil' note; I'll refer to the fake Shijima Mei as Shijima, while to the real Shijima Mei I'll refer to her as Mei.

Ookay... We all know that Amane's reasoning as to why he killed Tsukasa was never revealed yet right...? And we know that Amane is possessive about the people he loves, right…?

What if- uhm

What if the reason as to why Amane killed Tsukasa.. was because of his possessiveness?

like- bear with me

In the manga, we can clearly see how possessive and jealous Amane is.

Pushing Kou away from Nene just so he could hug her-

(Most likely) 'punishing' Nene for worrying more about Kou than himself... Which made him punish her by transforming her hair into a HORSE RADISH TO HEAVEN MIRACLE! lol

"Your world may be kind to her.. This one may be cruel... But it doesn't matter. Because Yashiro likes me."

I know he was saving her, but that sentence still sounded a bit possessive-

"Didn't your master teach you not to take things that don't belong to you?"

Definitely possessive.

Once again.. 'Punishing' her for thinking about other boys.

Heck- The whole picture perfect arc (more specifically, when we finally learn more about Shijima-san and Mei-chan) is a whole parallel to how Hanako wants to protect Nene, the same way Shijima wants to protect Mei.

And we know that it had a whole panel about Shijima trying to kill Mei-

Shijima made everything out of her way to keep Mei happy and living, because that's what Mei's wish was; To live.

However, Shijima felt like she failed on her purpose, which lead her to trying to kill Mei so she could erase herself.

Shijima and Hanako parallels each other so much; They both wanted/wants to protect their loved ones, but they ended up failing at it. So Shijima tried to kill Mei so they both wouldn't have to suffer even more, and Hanako sacrificed Aoi for Nene's life so she can live longer.

There are more panels about Hanako being jealous and possessive towards Nene, but I'm afraid this blog will run out of image limits if I put all of them into one-

Hanako said that he wanted Nene to live a life bestowed by his own hands. Not by Kou nor anyone else, but his.

So yeah, Hanako is possessive.

Does that mean that he's also possessive towards Tsukasa..? Well..

Let's take a look first...

"You sure have a lot of friends, Tsukasa. Are you really my little brother?"

It might just be because he's fixing the clock (and fixing a clock really takes all of your effort, i think), but the way his expression looks as he points that out really sounds like he's jealous, almost possessive.

And Tsukasa is often associated with the Moon…

(Tsukasa is also named after Tsukuyomi, who is the God of the Moon.)

And, in some of the official arts, Amane is often seen holding an object that has some relationship to the Moon, looking at the Moon, or just holding the Moon itself.

(there is more but you know- tumblr image limits;-;;-;)

[GORE WARNING IN THE LAST IMAGE!]

and the fact that Tsukasa is often associated with the Moon, Amane states that his Moon rock (who may or may not parallel Tsukasa) is his prize possession, and that this official art has the space as part of the background...

Honestly, I don't think Tsukasa is the one who is possessive, actually. Still have no idea how did people came to this conclusion.Tsukasa is obsessive, yes, but not possessive.. You don't see him stopping Nene and Amane from being all lovey-doveys towards each other, even though he's clearly watching it all.

So yeah- Amane is possessive, and my theory is that he may have killed Tsukasa out of possessiveness, but why? Why did he get so possessive all of sudden to the point of killing Tsukasa?

Thing is.. Idk lol

I don't think Amane knew that Tsukasa has a demon inside him, or think that Tsukasa has been 'replaced' by that demon- I mean, how would he know? Tsukasa has disappeared at the age of 4, and came back different than usual, but people change, and since they were both so young at that time, Amane probably doesn't even remember how Tsukasa used to act like besides acting all happy and energetic as usual.

They grew up, so they both changed from the people they were before.

Of course, it still has the possibility that Amane may have been convinced that Tsukasa has a demon inside him, or have been replaced by this very same demon, and Amane killed him because he wanted his brother back, not some sort of demon using his brother's face.

But then, it also has the possibility that Amane killed Tsukasa out of possessiveness, just like how Shijima tried to kill Mei just so they both wouldn't have to suffer anymore.

Who knows- Maybe the reason why Amane killed Tsukasa was because he didn't want them both to suffer anymore-? Just like Shijima.

Amane was most likely getting bullied, and Tsukasa had a demon inside him (that Amane may or may not have found that out sometime around middle school), so the only thing Amane could think of that could spare them any more suffering was to kill Tsukasa and then himself.

The main evidence for it is that Shijima and Hanako are really similar to each other, and Shijima tried to do the exact same thing just so she and Mei wouldn't have to suffer anymore.

So yeah- not many evidences, but it was still fun to theorize about it lol (not in a weird way.. I just like theorizing.)

I may be wrong, I am most likely wrong, but I atleast I got this out of my chest xd

Man.. I love theorizing about the Yugi Twins lmao

So yeah-- I think that's it..?

Cya 'till the next post! <3

lil' note; feel free to add your own thoughts about it or to correct me about something! Just be respectful about it, please.

lil' update from 10/17/23: Just noticed that someone else already had this theory... Welp xD It's very well thought out, though. So go read it if you want!

[ben-talks-art]

JJK and its use of HYPE!

There has been a silly little "war" going on at Twitter lately about which series is better, My Hero Academia or Jujutsu Kaisen, with people trying to compare what are things that one series does better than the other.

I don't usually like this type of thing where we try to put something up by putting something else down, it always feels like trying to shame someone for liking what they like in order to validate what YOU like, as if you need to make sure everyone knows that the thing you like is superior so you will feel validated for enjoying it, which to me always sounds like insecurity.

(Heck, my all-time favorite manga is "Zatch Bell!", a series that literally nobody ever talks about, yet I don't feel the need to go around writing essays to convice people of its quality. I know why I like it and that's enough for me.)

However, in this case, this discussion did bring up a small point I want to talk about that I think it might be interesting, the way JJK uses "hype" in a way I don't really see MHA doing it. (Spoilers for JJK and MHA)

As always, I need to make it clear, I am not a JJK fan. I tried reading it, didn't felt like it was for me. And moved on.

But even as someone that doesn't love this series, I can't ignore its ability to generate hype. Something about the way this author writes this comic manages to make every single character in it look like the coolest person on the planet.

I was thinking about that when wondering why so many people were upset that characters kept dying in JJK but not so much in a series like Chainsaw Man, and I realzied why after reading this thread:

When a character dies in CSM, it's expected, because the way Fujimoto writes it makes each of them look pretty lame in their own way, while still being very likable and interesting as characters.

Even though you love these people, when they die, you just go "Yeah... Sounds about right."

In JJK, deaths are more upsetting cause the people in there are build-up like mad, and hyped up as if they were rock stars about to enter a stage.

When a character suddenly enters a fight, the readers will always go "OMFG! That character is entering the fight!!"

They just make these people look cooler and treat them like they're Superman arriving at the last second to save the day...

... And I was thinking to myself, I don't think My Hero really is that good at doing this.

Maybe this is just me, I don't know, but for some reason I just struggle a lot to feel hyped in My Hero. Even though I like/know these characters more, I vibe with this story and setting more, I dig these desgins and visuals and can actually understand the fight a lot more... But whenever they have their big "Oh, sh*t!" moments, I just don't get that excited.

I don't think I've been hyped for My Hero since the All Might vs. AFO fight, even when they do have scenes where you know you're meant to be excited, it just doesn't come for me.

I've been reading this latest arc of JJK due to curiosity from people constantly talking about it on social media and, even though I still don't know what the heck is happening most of the time or how each person's powers works (to this day I have no idea what the f*ck domain expasion even means), or what most of these people's backstories are, even though I'm so lost while trying to read this, I can still feel the emotion somehow.

The panel with Megumi at the bottom of a pit of darkness after the events that happened outside legit messed with me when I first saw it.

I reremember reading this and going "Jesus! Someone give this boy a hug!"

Now, I don't know why that is, and I'm not using this to say that JJK is better than MHA, after all, MHA did get me to read its whole series while JJK basically made me skip to its latest arc due to ocasianal lack of interest in its plot and events, but I do feel like JJK has a way of getting an emotion out of you that MHA doesn't seem to be as good at.

I don't know if it's because MHA struggles with making stakes feel real (like, I think you can count on one hand the number of times the villains won a fight), or if the emotion of the characters are just more relatable and easier to connect, or if the way the story is told makes it easier to get you hyped up, or what. I don't know what the secret formula is.

This is just me saying, I know everything that's happening in MHA and know very little of what's happening in JJK, and yet I still feel more hype from JJK than from MHA, and I think this might be an interesting thing to analyze and think about.

This is what these "Series A" vs. "Series B" should be about imo. Not trying to have one up the other, but trying to understand what they're doing and how they're doing it that makes them succeed of fail in one specifc narrative aspect.

I would honestly like to hear some opinions on this, maybe from people that do enjoy both series and understand both series enough to talk about what each excel and fails at without just trying to say one is better than the other.

My Hero fans, do you feel your series suceeds at generating hype? Am I alone in this? Do you feel complete emotional investment whenever a big moment arrives? Yes? No? And if not, why not?

JJK fans...

I don't really know what to ask, I don't know this series that well... Uuhh...

Why don't these people use blades? If they're trying to kill this guy isn't punching him to death the worst way to go about it? This just looks so ineffective...

[towerofgodscreamblogwink]

reading im not even sure which chap oh no wait it’s 85 i actually put it in notes great 

uh

reading 85-86 s3 but nothing is happening we are happy lo po bia family 

...

(white’s interrupts flashbacks, aria hates this arc, khun might have onlyfans, hansung almost sings a furry song)

happy disclaimer cos i don’t want any awkward convos: these readings were made weeks ago cause im up to date with raws, but waitin till official release till i post (so i can replace the screens with official ones) (unless ill get impatient and just post with fan translations as soon as they come out lol)

white: hell yeah dude it’s super cool

BAM: STOP TALKING IN MY FLASHBACK

“It’s just what he does” - siu

me: how abt ill do the edits after am finished

other me: no

also fun fact my mouse decided to commit rip so i need to do it with touchepad

BAM: BECAUSE...WE MADE...A PINKY PROMISE!!

aria: no we didn’t 

bam: we didn’t??

and so bam left aria 

wait, didn’t you say your lives had expire date-? and that’s why there was a spell on y’all in the first place?? DOES IT MEAN SHE’LL JUST DIE AT SOME POINT LATER ??

bam: the one who banged yo mom. and yo dad. am dark now. i make edgy jokes.

dude with ice creams: ayo who wants free ice creams

bam: OMG MEEEEEEEEEEEE :pleading:

aria, seeing the title of this arc: yo this arc sUCKS

who she

the legend, the myth, the bitch

try not to be evil for 2 seconds challenge

u guys suck

for a goddamn jahad army you’re irresponsible as heck

skinny arm legend

i love her

i like this panel

he’s acting more composed than i thought he would tbh

kudos

SAY IT

aria...

sob

OOP

hansung: aaiiyee uhh.... big whoops

evankhell: ye

sniper girl: ye

hansung: ...u guys think they’ll let us go if we sing them pop furry song?

sniper girl: the what

evankhell: absolutely not but feel free to try *pulls out camera*

kinda cool we got to see hockney using his rod

hockney: y,yes?

crab: it’s almost like one of em has some sort of HAX EYES!!

hockney: uh

i like this crab

KHUN MY BELOVED (oh got his braid cloned)

eyelashes that would absolutely be able to stab a man. very sharp. very beautiful

DSFSDFSADADSGAFSDFASFDSFSDFSDF

yo if khun’s a youtuber does it mean he has onlyfans 

and does he take requests

i wamma

see

his

A- *redacted*

i a m g o i n g t o e v a p o r a t e 

fan translations: h i s g a z e i s f u l l o f c a p i t a l i s m 

s t o p 

JESUS CHRIST TEAM IS CHILLING WITH CAPITALISM WHILE YAMA’S FUCKIN DYING

AIIIEOOUUIIIIEE

FUCK I KNEW HIS WAS INVOLVED IN IT IN A NON MURDEROUS WAY

catboy’s angry

well this is hype

bonus for hockney bc this is prolly the only chance i’ll be able to make this edit

[marieanneline]

wait wait hold up i am actually seething about the reveal

ya boi's not a dabi stan. at all. the only reason i'm remotely interested in his character is if he's actually related to shouto and how that would affect hero society in general. i remember reading the training camp arc, seeing him being one of the villains there, him saying todoroki's full name, and thinking "SIBLINGS?????" because agshdfjlk their EYES are SO SIMILAR!! i really want to give credit to horikoshi being able to portray their similarities from artstyle alone because that's talent.

(it's more apparent in the anime since you see the eye color— but appearance-wise, shouto takes after rei and dabi takes after enji the most, so this definitely isn't the best photo to prove my point...)

anyways,,,, dabi's ideals of heroics fall in line with stain's ideals and so we all already theorized how if he was the long lost big brother touya, it would be because of the fact that his father really wasn't a hero. this makes sense. and so, we're all fucking right. props to us, really, and props to horikoshi for all the foreshadowing because i had fun :)) in terms of story and plot, i think this reveal is fantastic.

alright, on to why dabi is a dick

(i'm assuming this was his choice and no one pressured him after all)

the todoroki family is on the road to recovery!!

- shouto finally visits his mother back in season 2 and visits her every chance he gets. you see the effort he makes and it's nice to see him change from season 1 to 2 (early-roki!!)

(guys he even sends her letters- look at that sparkle by his face!! he's sweet :)) and rei's smile!!!!)

- enji (whether we wanted it or not, i don't mind much personally) is trying to atone for everything he's done to his family

- natsuo, who originally wasn't fond of shouto because he had their father's attention (although he does come to the horrible realization that shouto was one of the most unfortunate) and mother's attention (because she wanted to protect shouto), has a closer relationship with his little brother now (can you believe he didn't even know shouto's favorite food was cold soba until ch. 192?? i was sobbing). he really regrets the prejudice he had against shouto and he's trying to be an actual brother to him now.

- rei's almost recovered enough to be released from the hospital!!

- fuyumi and her idyllic "happy family"– wHICH, BY THE WAY, ALMOST CAME TO FRUITION. their mother coming home, shouto connecting with his siblings, and enji being not-the-way-he-was-before is the best outcome they could have hoped for. and it was happening.

and i realize that all of that setup is for this very moment

this? this. this. this is being broadcasted. to everyone. that means the citizens know that their new #1 hero is directly related to a member of a really bad villain organization (i almost called it a terrorist group oop-).

by ruining endeavor, the citizens faith in heroes will collapse. this also affects shouto's reputation as an upcoming hero, and i am so terrified of what this could mean for him. imagine your career ending before it even started, just when you found your passion for being a hero again. all that progress he's made for himself since starting UA could be seen as pointless to him and i would hate for him to retrogress like that because it's not his fault. i would absolutely hate it if the media starts bashing shouto for being related to a villain, when he was also a victim of abuse.

seeing this look on shouto's face is making me dehydrated istg i'm fucking SOBBING— he doesn't even look angry!! in the last few chapters he was angry and worried for his friends, teachers, father maybe, other heroes... but he just looks sad. and the fact that the panel chooses to show the left side of his face is.... there's so much to unpack.

but yeah, this is being broadcasted. does fuyumi know? the cameo she had showed her working so maybe not. natsuo's cameo showed that he was at a lecture, so he also probably didn't see.

but rei did. that's like- that's the person i would want to keep this from the most.

the effects of this entire reveal genuinely scare me. how will this affect rei's mental state? she'll realize that what enji did is actually so much worse. their first child being a villain?? i'm terrified for how she'll react, she's doing much better in recent chapters after all. her kids are visiting her, shouto sends her letters to keep in touch, and enji sends her flowers and respectfully keeps his distance. i really don't want this reveal to result in a relapse. and if she does relapse, then fuyumi's ideal of a happy family is once again out of arms reach. the future of their mother finally coming back home is so far away again and it's genuinely so heart-breaking.

:(

plus— how will fuyumi's little elementary school students react to her being related to a villain? will the school fire her because of her connection to a villain and how that might cause concerns for students and parents????

it's also hard to say exactly how this will affect shouto and natsuo. natsuo was the closest to touya when they were kids so what would his whole opinion be of what touya's become? will he have a moral crisis?

in terms of moral crisises, i guess i'm more concerned about shouto. the boy knows he wants to forgive his father, but this is just making it so much harder. and after this, will he still want to? and finding out that his own sibling is a villain... remember the stain arc? there were some parallels between midoriya's, iida's, and todoroki's positions in the last chapter and i'm worried about what that could foreshadow. from that arc alone, we know that shouto doesn't agree with stain's views at all [i forgot what he said but it was really compelling]. we know that dabi's a stain follower though, so will this disrupt shouto's sense of justice? i hope not.

but family has always been kind of a weak spot for shouto, hasn't it? i hope this doesn't affect his resolve to be a hero because i do think that there's a way to– somehow– not have a corrupt hero society and i want him to fight for that.

touya being a villain is perfectly valid though, i don't doubt that. it's just disheartening to address that while every other todoroki was working hard to become a normal family, here's their oldest brother, who's not really dead. what's going to become of that altar at their house now?

learning the extent to touya's hatred towards endeavor is truly terrifying. we know enji is or was a horrible person and his redemption arc is based on the very fact that he can't be forgiven, despite some of his family trying their best to do so or at least get over it. but the fact that touya has even thought about killing shouto? that's just. ouch. touya's definitely gone through too much abuse, and all of the todoroki family problems are because of enji's bad parenting. but this does not justify murder and especially that of his younger brother, who also got the brunt of the abuse.

needless to say, i am a fool. i don't know if anything i just said will ever be true, but the important thing to take from whatever the heck i just shat out is that all of this is/could be a result of this reveal. it's the fact that dabi seems to have no sympathy. it's the fact that he doesn't care if his blood related family crashes and burns. really, if this is solely about endeavor and what he did, there's no need to bring the rest of the family into this. rei was sent to a hospital for god's sake. shouto has a scar. it's excessive and unmoral and although questionable ethics and values are key traits of a villain, it doesn't justify how much he's hurting the todorokis.

(look at this shit eating grin he has. no remorse. he really doesn't give a shit about the others but I DO and I'M so SAD)

and assuming that the whole "endeavor's wife admitted into hospital" was swept under the rug in terms of media, will that suddenly come back to light? because it shouldn't. maybe it should be known that she's in the hospital because of marital abuse but either way rei should not be dragged back into this disaster, and neither should the rest of them. there's also a chance that the media will accuse rei of having abused her kids too, which is messed up for different reasons. they're trying so hard to have any semblance of a normal family, and if dabi's way of revealing this to the world ruins that in any way then i hATE THIS REVEAL ASDFGHJKL—

[junikshanasar]

bnha chapter 323 thoughts

im backkkkkkk from Alberta and also bnha deprived!

and yet somehow there are only two chapters to catch up on ಥ_ಥ

But wow, WOW, what a chapter to return to

For one, I love how we finally see how smart Principal Nezu really is. His intelligence as been alluded to multiple times, and heck, his quirk is literally being super duper smart, but so far it feels like UA’s safety system has been overstated, what with being broached by villains twice, but consider that nobody actually broke into UA? It was always in a separate facility.

And nice, this cute rodent set up such an intricate system based off his intuition! What a chad

Nezu just feels so reliable, somehow it feels we can’t go wrong when he’s involved. I also love how he didn’t wait for all the admin stuff and went right ahead to pay out of his pocket, really shows how much he cares for his students, and also what a incredible person he is in this world.

Like oh my god?!! And it totally makes sense he’s a major contributor to quirk morality, as a literal lab rat that we’ve seen holds memories of the way he’s been treated before.

Honestly kaminari is so perfect, he’s just me this entire chapter

Kiri and Tokoyami just pointing at each other lol

I actually really love how we can see the closeness between characters now

Look at Bakugou and Todoroki, I said this before but they are for real such great friends now, and honestly my favourite friendship because their dynamic is just hilarious

Also I lowkey miss the Shiketsu kids, in particular Inasa and Camie. Bring back the Disaster Squad!

Also, awwwwwww we all seem to ferget that these kids have parents! And families!

She’s so worried oh my god poor Mama Midoriya, when I saw this I couldn’t help but want to yell at the crowd to see that this kid they’re all bashing is so young, and has a worried mother crying her eyes out

(also look at Mitsuki holding her back so she doesn’t get hurt, I think these two are still friends? I don’t think Inko or Mitsuki actually knew abt Bakugou’s bullying. Regardless, it’s sweet to see camaraderie between the UA kids parents)

Eri! And Monoma. These two got close when practicing with her quirk, that’s cute. Everyone likes to put together Shinsou and Eri, though I don’t think they acc ever interact in canon. Not that I hate Shinsou-Eri sibling life, but just saying Monoma’s got the older brother role down pat too =￣ω￣=

Kota! And Ragdoll. Is she still quirkless? Eri could technically reverse that, right?

This acc made me laugh, because I genuinely couldn’t recognize Endeavor in this get up

Also holy cow I am so close to beating these civilians up

There’s just so much spite and hostility, Mido’s danger sense is going haywire

But it’s ok, because we have Uraraka, the true mvp of this arc. She does what we all wanted to do, and screams at everyone to open their eyes and look:

Actually you can see she’s been brewing about this for a while,

You can see she took the tackling with full power to heart, and throughout the confrontation with the crowd:

She’s been watching, until she finally decides to take it into her own hands.

Also lol, did you really need the megaphone present mic??

And yea, I love how Nezu’s thoughts about surpassing All Might are over Uraraka’s panel:

Bakugou says it himself, they’re all here to step up when Midoirya can’t by himself. Surpassing All Might isn’t just Midoirya’s duty, but the duty of all of Class A, and the rest of the future generation of heroes.

Truly an inspiring chapter, but anyway im yeeting to go read the next one so look forward to my thoughts on that tomorrow!

[nanakah]

about Ishigami, his growth and Miko's role

most people, myself included, thought at some point that Tsubame's rejection (or acceptance) could wrap up Ishigami's arc and even his past's flashbacks neatly, but Osaragi's arc suddenly revealing there was more to his relationship with Miko made me reflect more and think nah...if anything we're halfway there. It also showed glimpses of him already struggling to find his place in the world by quitting his clubs, even though he was successful at them and there was no Ootomo incident yet to undermine his self-image.

It seemed odd that despite everything he went through he still has his "hair=shield/averting eyes" theme going strong, but it makes sense if you consider even though Tsubame helped him see the way to be more accepting of people and cleared his name, his self-esteem still is super low. I spoke of this in my "sutera" meta, but to Ishigami, his life still has been a sucession of failures and almosts. At his core, he still hasn't fully opened up to people or learned to use his vulnerabilities to his advantage.

If I have grabbed your interest thus far, keep reading for more considerations!

Tsubame is kind to anyone and attempted to do good for him, but ultimately he was never fully himself around her, nor she tried/he alllowed her reaching out to the deepest parts of his insecurities. She doesn't show her own flaws to him either and to this day we get the feeling we don't know her well, just the best parts that Ishigami wanted to see. Kaguya, Miyuki and Chika contribute a lot in a sibling-like way, but there's a limit to how much Kaguya in particular can inspire him. Miko however, has scratched a little beneath the surface and has expressed an interest in helping him with that, even if he himself is still avoiding the topic. She's also more relatable to him in the sense that the rest of the stuco has a history of successes in their lives, while he was able to watch Miko's hardships and failures closely. Their panic attacks even look similar and they're always watching the other to provide backup (in a very roundabout way, at least before) when they happen.

While their personalities are fundamentally different, his arc and struggles remind me a lot of Miyamura from Horimiya and today, as I was musing on what is so different about them as of now, I believe it's how Miyamura didn't have a single *traumatic* mistake to get over, so he goes down his development road much faster. Putting it another way, it's ultimately that Ishigami hasn't yet learned to be kind to himself like Miyamura has through Hori. Like Shirogane and Kaguya are through themselves. In Miyamura's case, sympathizing with how Hori despite her strong exterior can be very fragile inside but still support him (fight for him, defend him, accept his true self, not judge him, hear him, make him feel good enough) made him feel compelled to grow stronger to protect her back.

Miko as she was at the beggining of the story couldn't provide Ishigami this sort of stability (and that's where Osaragi's "prettier story"/"you weren't there for him" reasoning fails) even if deep down she wanted to, but now after making many mistakes, learning from them and becoming more flexible, she absolutely can. Both Ishigami and Miko have deeply rooted issues that took them more than just each other to flesh out and develop, but they're very much the missing puzzle piece the other needs.

Miko still very much has room for growth as well, mainly concerning finding a middle ground between her "bad girl" and "good girl" personas that Ishigami can easily see through, as demonstrated by the consolation chapter. She tried being "bad", she attempted lying but was still saying half-truths, because her love of justice isn't just out of parental abandonment issues or loneliness - she does believe them sincerely. The moment Ishigami headpated her and shared genuine, spot-on words of concern and admiration (thus a hint of fondness), it was all over for her trying to keep up the love-warfare upper hand.

That's not actually new - Ishigami has always demonstrated he was able to see glimpses of her true self, be it teasing how she's an otaku or a closet pervert and such, he never fully bought the strait-laced image she aspired to make real. But it did take him being around her more to see she could be sweet to him and as he puts it, that smiling more is not a bad look on her. Miko says to Osaragi your true self only comes through interacting with others, so given how lonely she has always been (and how the one person close to her - Osaragi - was actually keeping things between them superficial because of her own problems), it's no surprise she's only finding out now who she is. Ishigami can help Miko find a better compromise of good/bad after both not following any rules at all for so long and recently learning that hard work can pay off. Miko immersing herself in his hobby will clash with her rigid study schedule sooner or later, and he'll know how to help her with that better than anyone else.

On the other hand, Ishigami's moral compass, romanticism (love for flowers, planing dates etc) and idealism aren't things he is proud of...yet. He protects himself with layers of cynism, especially in his first appearances, but he is always being contradictory and letting it slip how idealistic/pure he is at heart. He also is only now learning to like his outward image with things like fitness/studying and finding out it's not like he never cared about it - it's just that he was scared shitless of failure, thus never even tried hard in the first place to avoid being hurt. And as I have advocated for in the Sutera post, I expect Miko in some level to help him come to terms with seeing good in himself. Heck, even being able to game with her now and showing off how good he is and having her appreciate it is gonna do wonders to make him feel more "adequate". Tsubame's arc had a lot of him changing himself to become "better", but Miko on the other hand is trying to put herself in HIS shoes to maybe go "hey, I like you as you are. I'm trying to understand you more and put effort in for you".

Ishigami and Miko start out watching out for each other behind their backs - which instead of helping their relationship, drives them further apart because they think the other side is showing no appreciation. As the story progresses, they're slowly learning to make each other more aware of their support, and it is making them open up more in general.

They have a strong belief the other wants to be rescued and there is truth in that. Both want help and to be recognized for their efforts, but won't cry out for it. In the unplugged earbuds chapter Ishigami takes it upon himself to protect Miko's reputation in spite of himself, the election arc has him actually putting effort into the campaign just for the sake of protecting her and at first posing as a rival of hers to Shirogane only to reveal he's trying to "make Miko smile", he is constantly fending off men from interacting with her as protection (while also sounding jealous), he was way more protective of her when she was wearing that cast than needed and is now being able to openly headpat her and sounds almost like her "soothing sounds" from the days of yore lol Sure Tsubame seems like his start to becoming "a better man", but all the way back on the election, it was for Miko's sake that we first SEE him putting effort into *anything* without being coerced by anyone to take action.

And while it's more discreet compared to Ishigami's "white knight" attitude, Miko also tries hard to protect him - cheering him on during the sports festival race and wanting to console him before the stuco intervened, telling him he should study (but he thinks it's just nagging), christmas (which I'll elaborate bellow), making sure he was able to graduate middle school by actually confronting school staff and, of course, their very first meeting as recently revealed.

Many people hated the entirety of Osaragi's arc, but 232 gave very juicy info indeed. Ishigami's reason for supporting Miko from the shadows comes from admiration AND part gratitude for her attempting to talk to him and listen to what troubles him, and seeing they actually had a "falling out" argument was game changing.

He looks sad and troubled to have shut her down there, not simply angry, and so does she (there's tears in her eyes when her face is shown in the next page) - despite her black and white sense of justice at this point of the story, she still wanted to listen to him. And even after that outburst she still believed the rumors weren't real, unlike Osaragi sees it - otherwise she wouldn't have made the effort for him to be able to move on to high school. Why would she care, if she truly hated him and thought he was in the wrong?

If any further proof was needed at all that this info is important, I'm happy to say we have more. I noticed the Christmas stairs scene mirrors this exact falling out moment: "Go away"/"Suit yourself"

But this time Miko had already decided to change, had already seen the mess their relationship became the last time she did not reach out to him and thus already had their previous falling out in mind - meaning she decides to chase after him.

I don't like how the scanlations handled this scene because reading the japanese raws, my interpretation was that Miko was sounding "annoying" because she was still kinda drunk/unfiltered and freaking out when talking to Ishigami, not outright berating him like the Jaimini's box translation made it look like. She also sounds too angry after the fall, so I generally thought Viz's version (the panel shown above) was closer to the original.

"I always have to take care of you! You keep putting youself in danger. You can't make it on your own." is a better translation than Jaimini's, and also parallels better what Ishigami is often telling Miko as well (That she keeps putting herself in danger and that he has to be around to keep her in check). But with 232 in mind, I think it misses a nuance of the original line: "ほんとあんたは 私が居ないと危なっかしく駄目ね" - "Honto anta wa watashi ga inaito abunakkashiku dame ne" - while I'm a novice at japanese studies, gathering from what I can read and trying to get a feel of the whole sentence, it's closer to "So it really is dangerous to you if I'm not there/ It's no good if I'm not around you". You can take that as her being full of herself, which is the route Jaimini's goes ("You'd be screwed without me") but that's too hostile - Viz's got the spirit of wanting to protect him better, but the original has an implication that she has "tested not being there"/failed being there before (due to not fully siding with him in middle school) that's absent elsewhere.

IMO the reason Ishigami's "closed his eyes" arc is not over yet is because he hasn't accepted or gotten over or fully learned from his past yet, he simply shut it down. That's why briefly during the sports festival his eyes are in plain view, then go back to their usual for the balloon gag. I'm not sure if Ootomo herself will make a comeback, may or may not - regrets are regrets and sometimes the only solution to them is letting them stay in the past. But the topic of how he saw Miko in middle school and the letter certainly are being set up to still show up in the story.

If I compare him to Miyamura again, he'd still be at the point before Miyamura's haircut - not wanting to face the parts of himself he doesn't like, not quite ready to change. Not quite ready to patch up his own wounds yet and instead silencing everything from his past.

In this sense, Miko does wonders to make him feel more confident even if he hasn't realized it yet, and she's always dropping little hints she'd like him to worry about his future not in a naggy way, but because she genuinely prays for his success. He unconsciously wants Miko to think well of him and it fills him with confidence and a more prideful image of himself he doesn't really display to anyone else, not even Tsubame - like his usages of "ore" (a more manly/confident way of addressing himself) around her (AND HER ALONE):

( I don't like the available translations to the staircase scene either, lol. Zaibatsu has conveyed the tone of the second scene up there perfectly. For the staircase line, I've seen "I'll be there to catch you" and "I'll save you" which are contextually correct, but to me the original "俺が絶対守る" - "I (ore) will absolutely protect you" carries a much more romantic nuance or ambiguity, regardless of him realizing it at that point. It's like, the title to one of the most romantic moments/songs in the CCS Clear card anime ost, for instance. OF COURSE MIKO LOVES HIM. The narrator doesn't overexplain or take apart Ishimiko's interactions like for Prezguya, but all the evidence needed is there. And I gotta add the very next chapter to the staircase one is the "eternal love" x "real love" I'm super fond of that says fate is irrelevant and to find real love you must use your head to realize/understand things, so makes the romantic subtext even greater.)

This whole affair is also making me open my eyes that I should try to study japanese more...of course I'm happy to have translations and scanlators working hard, but there is something inherently lost in adaptations because it robs you of connecting with the author's intentions unless it was the author who wrote the translation in the first place

Thinking back on Ishigami's early "i wanna die/i'm going home/don't look at me" role, it seems unbelievable we're at the point he's now able to directly confront a "stranger" (lololol) or make serious promises with so much confidence.

PLEASE DON'T END SO SOON MANGA, I NEED MORE.

( off-topic kind of, but i'm lazy to make a separate post just for it: Since I mentioned things lost in translation, I saw something on Discord about Ishigami having an unreliable narrator moment in the "compliments" chapter/Iino Miko cannot love part 4 and holy molly, it is true. He first says something akin to "You're just too beautiful" out of context, Miko HEARS IT - and that's why she looks so shocked before asking for clarification - and he DID SAY IT in the speech bubble, but after she's nice to him and he thinks back to what he said he adds a "Your handwriting is just too beautiful" to his flashback. I'm ONTO HIM. ONTO HIM I SAY. It is what he meant, but it's like his mouth betrayed him. Whether it's unconscious or denial...it totally is something. The scanlation completely skips this and had the same line both times it's mentioned.)

[hanjo-love]

Now I became selfish and I hope the shard is showing Hanji being saved by Kiyomi or something. She go the worst treatment and if Isayama was afraid of the backslash like you said why make it even worse with those parallels with eremika? Is he preparing the Fandom for another levihan moment? I'm tired of EVERYONE surviving but her, Kiyomi's kindness really??? And Onyankopon, while I don't hate him, he survived a plane crash and he doesn't add much yet he is there for being the editor's favorite, Yelena is there after all she did and she adds even less, and the people titanized will revert to human (or at the very least Isayama's favorites will).

Oh anonie, you and me both my friend, you and me both 😔 Beware, a long rant-ish meta is ahead of you lol

I have absolutely no fucking idea why Yams decided to treat Hanjo like shit. You know, after a long time of denying her death, I was starting to accept it, because she was finally free, free of the burden and pain and finally reunited with the people she missed and longed for the most. But then Yams decided to slap us all in the faces saying there's no happy & peaceful afterlife in snk and Hanjo was probs only hallucinating because of her 4 years long depression? Well then, fuck you Yams! What was that even for? Isayama never backed off of showing us the horrors of death in snk, no matter how important the characters and how brutal their deaths really were. Still, he never showed us Hanji's actual death or dead body. He kept it misterious and his vague answers only made it worse. So it's only natural for us to expect a plot twist, right? That's the reason all of us gathered various hints in the manga, anime and his interviews. And lemme tell you, these theories are far more logical, better explained and have less plot holes than the entire final arc smh (yes I'm salty, fight me lol)

I hate to admit it, my inner self is still in denial and fighting, but Hanjo ain't coming back folks. We won't get any background story and the misterious shard will never be explained to us either. Yams had more than enough time to bring Hanjo back, if he truly wanted to. But he didn't. And now with only one chapter and so many unanswered questions left, there's no time for Hange's return. Why would he even do that anyways? Hanjo isn't important to him or to the story anymore. To us she is, always was and always will be ❤�� You know, I'm so fucking desperate to see her again, I'll even take one last panel of Levi remembering her, just like in ch136. Yams just let us see Hanjo one more fucking time 🙏🏻 I need to say my proper goodbyes to my one&only comfort character, who's influenced my life like no one else ever did ❤️

Back to Levihan (I don't think I can answer an ask without my biased and trashy shipper ass butting in lmfao): the question why Yams confirmed Levihan as canon if he didn't intend to bring Hange back and reunite her with Levi to make us him happy again? Well, isn't it obvious? This man is the devil incarnate. THIS MAN HAS NO FUCKING CHILLS lmfao JK y'all before someone declares war on me and my blog haha Well anonie, I feel like Yams really wanted to confirm his initially planned ships as canon, before the manga ends. And he chose the safest way possible. Easy as that. Also he said he is going for a bittersweet ending and what's more tragic (in this literal hell) than separating lovers, ergo Eremika and Levihan.

Now to something else, that's been bothering me for a while now and I'll use your ask anonie to share my thoughts with the world even though nobody asked lmao tbh I'm a bit disappointed with Armin. I love him, I really do. He's my precious cinnamon roll and my fave 104th kiddo. But honestly, I was expecting a bit more of the alleged "hero who will safe humanity". In fact, I'm sure Hanjo only died for Armin to become the new commander. That's it. That was the reason she had to die. Yams glossed over her to make Armin shine. But in fact, Levi's the one who's giving orders ever since Hange has left them. I might me salty, but I really hope the talk with Zeke (and probs Ymir as well, we still might have a chance to see the dialog that made Ymir change her mind) and his titan nuke weren't the only things he did as "humanity's hero" in this final arc. For some people this might me enough, for me it isn't. It wasn't worth Hange's sacrifice. Also what made me really sad was Armin himself glossing over Hanjo when he remembered Erwin Danchou, but not her. Like she didn't just pass away an hour ago to save their pathetic asses. Ugh this is making me hella mad, ngl. Hanjo didn't deserve this treatment! She gave her all for this! To save the alliance, to "pay the price" for her "sins" as the SC commander and to save humanity. I can't deal with how all of them and the fandom apparently forgot about that.

Now on to "Kiyomi's kindness" lol I wasn't really mad at Gabi for saying this as most of the fandom was. I won't go into detail why she isn't really a rationally thinking character (yo guys, you do remember she's a 12 year old kid, right?), but it's a fact that she didn't care for Hange enough to mention her. I mean, why would she? She barely even knew her. Also we don't really know what's gonna happen with Yelena, Kiyomi and her delegation. I don't know if I'm reading too much into it, but I feel like Kiyomi accepted her death with saying "that's not enough atonement for what I did anyway". I mean they don't know if the alliance will win (they probably think they won't) and they're in the middle of literally nowhere. So I feel like Gabi said that because Kiyomi sacrificed herself (and the others on that ship) willingly, for Gabi, Falco and Annie getting a little chance of surviving and helping the alliance. But I get the rage of the fandom. Especially because no one, except for Levi, remembered Hange after her noble sacrifice.

As for Yelena and Onyankopon, there obviously has to be someone from outside of Paradis to survive the rumbling, otherwise it wouldn't make a lot of sense, I guess. I like Onyankopon a hecking lot ❤️ precious boi was literally crying for Hanjo 😭 Yelena on the other hand deserves what she got. Death would be too easy and kind for her tbh. She has to live with the consequences, just like Kiyomi, so I'm actually glad they survived. So my guess is, it's not really about who's Yams' favorite and what these people are contributing to the story, but it's rather about a logical ending and a good conclusion of the story.

I agree with you about the ones who have been titanized. They'll for sure revert back to humans. It's not really Yams' style to kill of an important character like Gabi, whose character development he's been forcing on us for quite a while now lol. I'm pretty positive about an ending with the titan curse being broken and bringing the titanized people back to human beings (probs also the millions of colossal titans?). It's only natural for Yams to end the story with the titan curse being lifted. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense to end his story at this point. But let's not forget what a big ass troll Yams is lmao you never really know what he's up to, so let's prepare for the unimaginable lmfao

I'll probably never forgive Isayama for what he did to Hange, his best written character, how he completely ruined her and threw her away as disposable, just to make other characters "shine". HER DEATH WAS POINTLESS AND IT DID NOT FUCKING CHANGE ANYTHING! That's the harsh truth y'all. Yams betrayed Hanjo and us AND FOR WHAT?

Thanks for the ask anonie and sorry I turned this into my personal rant lmao hope you still enjoy reading my thoughts on this ❤️

[makeste]

Wait. No, wait, I just-I just had a thought, op.

About new chapter, all the new information we've learned about OFA, and how quirkless Bakugou theory is still an option. Or if not him, someone else.

Okay so in this chapter it's practically confirmed that, well, OFA needs a quirkless successor in order to keep on running around without "hippity hippity I'm gonna destroy your body" the next in line person, right.

Okay, cool. Which is why, by lucky chance, Izuku got the real deal "safely" in a way of speaking.

Remember how there's still one "quirk the heck out of someone" bullet on shigarakis possession? One or two, which we were able to see during the war arc but just-I weren't used?

Panels arent drawn just for fun you know, if those bullets were put there for us to see, it means that something could still be under the wraps.

What if- what if someone is shoot quirkless, and THEN OFA is passed to them without all the dying risk and what not?

We already know that the second bnha movie was one of the ideas that could have been the end of it, right? What if the ending that will happen isn't that far off from the movie ending?

What if OFA is passed to someone quirkless, after all? Someone who's been made quirkless via the bullet?

What if!

I honestly wouldn't be too sad if Izuku ended up quirkless all over again. He could make big changes, even that way. In fact, it would be something if be very happy about. Breaking stereotypes, making a change as not what society expects of him, but as him, period.

What if all those analysis he's written over the years and keeps writing, will actually play an important part again? He could become a different kind of hero.

Anyway, these are my thoughts at the moment. What do you think? Is it a far stretched idea or-?

I should probably clarify that a huge chunk of my enthusiasm for the quirkless!Bakugou theory was based on my erroneous assumption that Bakugou was still obsessed with comparing his progress to Deku’s, and hadn’t moved past that mindset. this was based on the “I can’t afford to stay a loser” scene from chapter 275, one of the few times we actually got to see his thought bubbles.

at the time, it seemed to me like he was still overly preoccupied with not losing to Deku, which seemed to indicate his inferiority complex was still alive and well even after all of his recent character growth. this came as a surprise to me, because up until that point I’d been assuming that Deku VS Kacchan 2, his remedial course bonding with Todoroki, and his internship with Endeavor had all helped him to mature and move past this already. so I started wondering if this meant it was going to take something much more drastic to finally shift him out of that mindset. and since there were already hints that something big was going to happen to him in this arc, along with hints that the quirk-be-gone bullets would play a role in the fight, I connected the wrong dots and arrived at the wrong conclusion.

instead of losing his quirk, Katsuki wound up getting stabbed instead. instead of the bullets being used on him, they were used on Aizawa, who ended up losing his leg. but most importantly, it turned out that Katsuki actually wasn’t in need of any course correction with his character development after all. the obsession with keeping up with Deku didn’t stem from a fear of being inferior to him -- it stemmed from Katsuki’s growing fear that something might happen to Deku. it stemmed from his desire to protect him.

turns out, I badly underestimated just how far this kid had come. I ought to have seen this coming, but honestly? the character development in 284 is so spectacular that even now it almost feels like wish fulfilment. it’s everything I ever wanted, really. and so I didn’t anticipate it because it didn’t feel realistic to hope for so soon, I guess. it’s almost too good to be true.

but it happened! and then 285 happened after. so at that point, there was really no reason for me to want quirkless!Bakugou after all. for me, it was always about the character development, and it turned out Kacchan didn’t need that. he was one step ahead of me.

so, while I do still think it would have been an interesting thing to explore, at this point the story has moved in an entirely different direction and I no longer feel like this development would fit well with the current storyline. Kacchan’s arc now is all about reconciling with Deku and working towards his atonement. and of course, helping to defeat AFO, and becoming the number one hero.

BUT, all that said, the quirk-be-gone bullets potentially being used to pass OFA on to someone else is a very intriguing idea. just in general, that’s something I hadn’t considered before, and I always like reading theories I haven’t considered before. as far as I’m aware though, Tomura still has the remaining bullets, so without them there’s no other way of removing someone’s quirk, save for AFO. and honestly, even if the heroes did somehow find a way to part someone from their quirk, I don’t think the story is moving away from the “Deku is the final wielder of OFA” angle at this point. that was the whole point of introducing the “only quirkless people can use it without dying” twist in the first place, after all.

so as far as “what do you think”, I don’t really see Bakugou or anyone else losing their quirk at this point in the story. I do like the irony of the concept, though. if Heroes Rising hadn’t come out, I think it could have made a very entertaining ending. just the idea of Tomura/AFO shooting someone with a bullet and being all “HA HA NO QUIRK FOR YOU”, not realizing they’ve created the perfect opportunity for Deku to be all “oh perfect, thank you!” and pass on OFA in order to unleash the shiny Super Saiyan double team attack lol. so yeah, although I don’t anticipate it happening, it’s an interesting Chekhov’s gun that I hadn’t even realized existed, so thank you for the ask!

[bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture]

Alright, chapter 8! And man is there a lot to talk about here. I don’t really have any pre-content things to say, so we’ll just hop right into it today!

[No. 8 - Rage, You Damned Nerd]

I swear, this first page has a LOT to talk about on it, so I’ll go from panel to panel and do some rambling thoughts on each segment. 

First off, UA doesn’t actually handle the costumes the kids get! It’s support companies affiliated with the school that does - which makes sense, since the school has to focus on teaching their support students before letting them get their hands on actual costumes that these kids might be fighting in.

I mean, they seem to be allowed to practice on like, minor support stuff (read: Mei making Izuku his new gloves post-Nighteye or somewhere around there) but not full costuming, which is… actually a bit reassuring? But also explains some of the lag time in getting costume repairs / upgrades since they’re probably busy companies. It also explains why there probably aren’t major alterations to any costumes besides between the summer and winter variants, since it would be time-consuming to remake these costumes so regularly.

(It still doesn’t excuse some of the costumes the kids got, but that’s more on the whole ‘eye candy’ thing for readers than actual practicality, so whatever.)

(Also, I can’t get over the fact that Snipe has a support company. Fucking Snipe. Guess we know another canon or likely-canon Support teacher.)

Next we get a preview of what the kids sent in for specifications for their costumes:

We get a bit of insight into a few of the characters - as background stuff, we get Shouji, Mineta, Aoyama, and Sato. Mineta got pretty dunked on for char design and costuming, and Aoyama’s costume almost looks like a magical girl outfit like this, which honest to god would have been fantastic to see him in. More interesting (at least to me) are the other three: Ochako, Tenya, and Katsuki.

Ochako first, because that pressure point thing is interesting, and I dunno how often those actually come up in fics besides a passing mention, like. What if her support bracelets / neck piece broke during training / a mission / whatever? Would she suddenly have to fight through the nausea? By the point of current canon (War Arc) she’s probably trained enough that she doesn’t need them as much, but man, it could be an interesting little thing to explore, like, post-Kamino.

Tenya is a bit surprising, since we know he comes from a well-off hero family. Logically, this was before the whole Hosu / Ingenium plotline was really developed, so Tenya didn’t have that to fall back on, or it could be argued that the support company that Ingenium is associated with also works with UA. Alternatively, it could be that either Tenya didn’t want to rely on his family (which seems silly when they’d know how to work with his quirk best) or UA is very firm on ALL costume stuff going through them…

But then again, Katsuki. Oh god, Katsuki. What fucking support company looked at this kid and went ‘yeah we should give him a way to store more explosives AND give him bombs’ and just. Did so. Why did UA not vet that. Maybe the support company didn’t realize how strong his explosions were without the gear, but UA, man, I just. I suppose they had no way of knowing how reckless he’d be with them, but honestly, after the battle trials, they should have been fucking yoinked from him so damned fast. 

Anyways, onto other parts of Katsuki’s costume, we see he’s a fucking dork. Possibly what lowered their guard. ‘Something scary’ and ‘Dynamighte all over’. What the hell, kid. At least your designer stuck close to your design… including the huge-ass clunky gauntlets. Man, the Musketeer Trio movie poster ones are so much better looking and so, so streamlined. Works of art, they are.

Moving on, we get a bit of a flashback to ~three weeks ago, which by the calendar would be around March 20th? So a few weeks after the Entrance Exam. And Izuku is only NOW getting around to updating the quirk registry? Izuku baby seriously, how the FUCK did none of the UA staff notice the ‘quirkless’ on your application form at any point before this?

But yeah, he’s worried about his registry, so he calls Toshinori, who explains the update process. It gives the example of someone who might alter their stuff with updated information, with one or two allowed - though major ones aren’t accepted. Toshinori then says it’ll probably be okay since he started with nothing, then tries to correct himself to ‘definitely’, only to get cut off because Izuku accidentally hangs up in a panic when Inko calls out that she’s home. Haha poor Toshinori, and poor Izuku, the two anxious dumbasses. 

Anyways, moving on from that is Inko showing off the jumpsuit she made, with Izuku surprised. She admits it’s not the coolest, but she based it off of the design in his notebook (the one we saw back in chapter 1). She tells him she regrets giving up on him back then, and how he never quit regardless of her faith. She apologizes and says from there on she’ll be cheering him on with all she’s got. 

Izuku’s narration notes that it’s a symbol of his mom’s love, and that he couldn’t wear anything else, even if it’s not ‘efficient’ or ‘cutting edge’. (Or even at all decent looking.) And it’s also hinted through the present thoughts on it that it’s meant to be an homage to All Might (the smile and the hair pieces) which is just such a dorky thing.

We get to the wide-spread of hero costumes, which- wait a second.

That’s Momo’s initial hero costume design???? Why did Hori not stay with that??? It’s a LOT better than the stuff we’ve seen her in later! Like, sure, it’d still be improved with the main opening being her stomach and not her chest, but this still looks like actual human clothing and not a sexy Halloween costume variant of her hero uniform. Fucking hell, now I’m even more mad.

Tsuyu’s costume meets the approval of the discord server as basically ‘no changes needed’ asides from maybe the goggles being a bit bulky.

Tenya’s costume, I’m sorry, I know it’s an homage to your brother / family, but were the additional pipes really needed? Also, the helmet isn’t a bad idea since he goes fast, and bugs in the mouth/teeth have to suck, but it just looks so damned Gundam-y I can’t help but laugh a little.

Shouto… nah, too easy a target.

Aoyama is Aoyama. I’m actually a bit disappointed now that it’s not a magical girl costume, but alas, I suppose even Hori couldn’t be that brave.

Kaminari… I forgot he had that headset thingy. 

Don’t really have much else to say about anyone else, so let’s move on.

Izuku bugs out a bit about Ochako’s costume/appearance, while she compliments his more practical looks and laments not being specific, saying it’s a bit too puffy and curvy for her. Which means it’s more the accessories which seem to be her issue with it over the main costume itself? Huh.

Anyways, after All Might confirms they’re all there, he notices Izuku’s headpieces, which are a match to his costume, and has to turn to muffle a laugh for how obvious a reference it is. Tenya steps up, asking whether they’ll be doing cityscape maneuvers again since it’s the same field used in the entrance exam. Izuku thinks to himself how cool Tenya’s costume is, while All Might explains that they’re moving onto step two - indoor anti-personnel battle training!

He explains what while villain battles are most commonly seen outdoors, statistically the worst crimes and villains are more likely to be found indoors. Confinement, house arrest, black market deals… the clever villains luck indoors to avoid heroes. Which is why the class will be split into teams of two and pit against each other, heroes versus villains style!

Ah, Tsuyu. Calling him right the heck out, as expected. All Might then notes that in this scenario, the fight won’t be against disposable robots. 

This entire page is just fucking hilarious. The class and all their questions while All Might is shaking with nerves. The fucking cheat sheet he uses to try to get back on track. Him being questioned on the lot drawing, and shaking while Izuku accidentally ends up covering for him. I just. All Might was not prepared for this mess and it shows. He was doing so much better when it was the one on one stuff with Izuku.

But yeah, Izuku notes the scenario is like from a western comic plot, and he’s also the one who ‘realizes’ the lots are like when heroes from different agencies have to team up for emergencies without prior warning. 

Lots are drawn, and we have our teams:

Izuku’s so stressed out because he still can’t really talk to her, while she’s excited to be teamed up and calls it ‘fate’ that it happened. All Might draws the first two teams to participate, and… team Izuku and Ochako (as the heroes) versus team Katsuki and Tenya (as the villains). Both Izuku and Katsuki are alert from this development…

Which makes this a good point to cut off, since it’s halfway through and we got a lot of information to chew on already. Second part should be out this weekend (hopefully). 

[runolllo-fanboygirl]

---------------------------------

I'm going to start by clarifying that these are messages I got in response to my post here /// LINK /// After this, I'm not replying to messages about this kinda thing in a long time. Talking about sexualization and such other topics is important but I'm not in a state to be made the center of it. Please, don't come to my inbox asking for discourse, go and create your own posts if you want to raise awareness or vent.

And now to answer to these new asks:

FIRST OF ALL: while I love the way Murata draws men, robotic stuff, monsters... I actually HATE the way he draws ladies! I prefer their proportions in the OPM anime and games. Murata is literally SO BAD at drawing women compared to the level of expertise he has drawing men, and it's all ‘cos he keeps drawing ladies "the h0rny way". We all know this, let's move on.

"He's drawing all the monster girls sexualized" Did the fact that Manako's genre reveal deconstructs the trope "the default is male" totally go over your head? That Psykos's reveal as a woman running the whole MA was a big deal for this same reason as well? There are a bunch of female monsters… you just assume they're all male unless you see big b00bs and then complain about that very fact. They literally made a whole point about this specifically!

"He changed Mizuki's shorts to p4nties to please fanboys" I liked the shorts better too (just because I find her whole character design a bit more balanced that way) so that change bothered me as well, but the "p4nties" are actually standard athletic wear for competition. Shorts are not. Technically, she’s drawn more accurately now.

"Sports Bras don't work that way he just wants to draw b00bs" neither do the shirts and bodysuits the guys are wearing. You can see all their muscles and manb00bs and cr0tch lines, just as much as with Fubuki and Tatsu's hero outfits and Mizuki's top.

"But when the boys are drawn that way, it's not to please the ladies, it's male power fantasy" THERE IS NO HETEROSEXUAL MALE POWER FANTASY BULLSHIT THAT CAN POSSIBLY EXPLAIN THE WAY MURATA DRAWS GAROU, FLASH, SONIC, STINGER AND SOME OF THE OTHER GUYS. The fact is that the way he draws eye candy of them appeals to other collectives other than the cis het men and he knows exactly what he's doing. Period.

"He constantly draws sexualized art of Mizuki to please the fanboys" Why exaggerate so much? This is simply not true. She's a woman in athlete wear, most of the time she's either standing up talking or fighting, no weird angles or anything. There is like 1 sexy cover of her, the back cover with all the girls in bikinis and then that infamous watermelon sequence. That's all the sexualization you are talking about.

"Mizuki only gets so much screen time because of how much p0rn of her there is" oh yeah Mizuki got a grand total of, like, *drum roll* 1 chapter and a half dedicated to her! Wow! Which is NOTHING taking into consideration how dense Garou's arc is and the fact that they will need at least 2 seasons of the anime to finish it.

But think about this: OPM desperately needed more female presence, in special with the prospect of finishing Garou's arc in the anime. Making anime is hard and COSTLY. Most of the people who is going to watch the anime haven't read the manga and they'll be like "what the heck there are no female characters in this anime for like 3 seasons?" and there is no team that's going to risk it working with such prospects. We know why.

Of all the expansion that Garou's arc got in the manga adaptation (and later in the anime), one of the most sensible and balanced decisions was to add more ladies. They put all those monster ladies for season 2, and then for season 3 we get Manako and Mizuki having some strong presence, Shadow and Kamaitachi there a bit in the back too. It benefits the pace and balance of both the manga and the future season 3 so immensely because Fubuki, Tatsumaki and Psykos take a LOOONG while to be relevant during Garou's Arc… in special with all the filler the manga put in between (but all that filler is of the S-Class boys getting development and a reality check which is kinda important too lol).

Point is: the screentime Mizuki got was VERY necessary to balance things in between of all the relentless Garou fights and the boys being boys. Sure Mizuki is beautiful and sexy and all, but really EVERYONE was waiting for a new female character that was relevant, likeable, fun… and on top of everything, it's so rare to see a strong 2m tall girl in fiction in general, not even just anime. Everyone got instantly excited about her because she's exactly what we needed AND MORE. And sure, people draw p0rn of her like they do with most other popular characters, what did you expect.

"The ladies are always more sexualized-" YES, in the OPM manga, the ladies are a little more sexualized than the men –but not by much AND not during plot stuff. By that I mean that most of the so called "sexualizing the girls" happens in the covers, back covers and promotional art very exclusively, and not during the story itself. HOWEVER, a lot of the sexy men bits do happen during the story, curiously.

 In the anime though, there is almost zero ladies fanservice (which makes sense since there is almost no female presence in the first 2 seasons anyway). Yet it's full of naked dudes, sometimes for a good reason, but mostly just so we can look at them being sexy and silly.

 I personally don't care if the man candy and ladies fanservice is not perfectly even in Murata's manga adaptation, because there is enough of both in his work, as well as other official OPM stuff like the anime and games to bring a very nice balance in the s3xy department.

 "The way the women are dressed-" Most of the background ladies are wearing skirt uniforms and shit, but all the relevant ladies primarily dress in nothing you can call "sexualized" except for maybe Tatsumaki with her strong leg game. To recall:

 Lilly wears the same as the men of the Blizzard Group; Twin Tail just dresses like a jester; Mizuki is the first to show so much skin, but she's still wearing real standard competition wear for athletes. All the other sportwomen (Hornet and Swim) and martial artists (Shadow, Suiko, Lin Lin) wear standard clothes for their respective professions too. Sure we've seen Shadow wearing some, uh, ninja bikini thing under her ACTUAL work clothes, but for actual fights she's fully dressed and surprisingly not stuffed in a tiny nylon bodysuit that rips like stocking, like all the ninja men in the series do lmao.

Fubuki and Tatsumaki are, like, the only ones wearing dresses and they can because they use psychic powers anyway. Fubuki doesn't even show ANY skin, ever! She just happens to have big b00bs! Kamaitachi is the other one wearing a "skirt" but it's similar to what Japanese martial artists would wear, too.

So, again… all this sexualization we are talking about is not even happening anywhere except in Murata's covers and some promotional art. ONE is famous for treating ladies very fairly, even if Murata tries very hard to exploit the sexy out of every single of the ladies ONE creates. All these ladies have their own agenda and personality that have nothing to do with being pretty or f*ckable. In fact, in-universe, no one ever mentions if the heroines are beautiful or sexy and no one ever talks about liking them for those reasons (except for Lilly and Erika who are gay for Fubuki and Tatsumaki respectively, amazingly enough no hetero characters mention it). I think the first time we've ever seen a relevant character talking about dating another relevant character is when Suiryu told Saitama and Suiko to date (but Suiryu is the resident h0rny fuckboy of the series, if someone was going to say something so stupid for all the wrong reasons, it was going to be him).

For being an adult series, a seinen that parodies shonen tropes and all, OPM is seriously very tame in the sexy ladies department. For this series, the sexy is just a luxurious accessory, just one more little thing. It's always pretty weird when people get so angry and disappointed about a new sexy girl cover or a couple of compromising panels, like they don't know what to expect.

 "He only draws that way to please the h0rny fanboys" Murata IS a h0rny fanboy himself and draws shit that appeals to him as much as he feels he’s allowed to insert in the series. Please remember he's the insane fanboy that reached up to ONE to beg him to continue One Punch Man and offered to make a manga adaptation to promote OPM.

From the moment Murata started drawing OPM, the tone of the manga was set and never changed: lots of blood and guts, comical and non-comical nudity, irreverence, sexy angles, Genos ripping his shirts off, ninjas in body suits that rip like they are nylons… people in shirts, tanktops and dresses so tight you can see all their muscles, boobs and even belly buttons whether they are men or women or otherwise… h0rny chapter covers, stupidly h0rny monsters…

Just reading the manga to the point where Genos and Mosquito Girl first appear, you know what you are in for with OPM. I don't know what some fans are expecting to see in OPM next, but I'm going to take a wild guess here and say: you should expect more of the same.

 At the end of the day, the manga is Murata's work with ONE, and if he likes drawing h0rny ladies more than boys, that's how things are! This is just 2 guys with their passion project. I don't expect of them the same as if there was a bigger team with a big budget behind the series, like it happens with many games and shows. In this last case, I would be a lot stricter about all this, because with more resources you're expected to do better things.

[gerrimime]

Thoughts post the chapter 63 of the fairy tail 100 year quest

*breathes deeply*

Ok so the new chapter for fairy tail 100 year quest  finally came out and when I saw the cover I literally was sooo freaking hyped ( due to the nalu obviously) but then I read it and was like …

Oh well that was short.

Meh.

First let’s talk about the positives..

JERZA that’s all !!! I mean they fully, greatly, totally deserved it and I am glad that now finally they can move to somewhere solid. That being said jerza is probably the only couple who was in terms with their feelings for the LONGEST time. They didn’t have much moments but they both knew their love for each other heck they almost even kissed (while others here are like yay we hugged, yipee) The only thing keeping them was jellal’s guilt and now that it is outta the way … jerza can happen scratch that it IS happening. Its amazing and I ain’t complaining 😊 good for you jellal.

And now my actual rant..

Gale is adorable but they now have their happy ending of sorts they love each other, are happy and are about to have a baby, and from the earlier chapter gajeel’s slight insecurities were also dealt with beautifully.. now they can roll in here and there with small moments and that’d be enough... I mean getting married would be the only new development for them but I don’t think it’ll change much relationship and story wise.

 Gruvia …. HUH…they make me want to die like wtf are you guys doing… juvia is so patient I swear.. Gray you know what, you are really being unfair . the amount of development gruvia had during the alvarez arc was already so huge that gray should have kept his promise and given her a straight answer like ….just..ahhhh..it would have been nice to see them develop while being in a commited relationship. Its so aggravating just talking about it.. in this series they literally had 3 whole chapters with gruvia being the focus .. like lets ignore the would be’s of alvarez arc ending ;after the rain hill chapter gray should have confessed like this is too much .. and now too in this chapter they are like hehhehehe we’re hugging wohoo.( well at lest he isn’t swatting her away now but still..like…uhhh)

i’m honestly bored. I love the couple but its gone too far they literally sacrificed themselves for the other; honestly if the next time they don’t kiss/become official when they share a moment I wouldn’t even give a tiny little damn about it…. its too frustrating and outstretched. Seriously like when gray pulled juvia towards himself in the ice and water chapter I wasn’t even moved I was ok …anything else…

Huuhhhhhhhuuuuuuuuuu…. I’ll shutup about them now; honestly now I feel like they take up and waste precious panels that could be used for another ship or for the story in general with their lack of development. I don’t wanna ruin this ship for myself but its starting to happen now. Gray’s acknowledgement is great and all but it has too little impact after all this time. He’s telling juvia to wait since forever....I swear if it wasn’t for juvia, gray would die alone( got a little dark there but idk anymore).

 Now finally NALU . mashima is literally killing me with this I don’t even.. I cant even express myself rationally now. Nalu had one only ONE freaking panel with some concrete development  at the end of chapter 22 and it didn’t really develop into anything big later too.. I feel like they have the purest bond out of any other goddamn ship and have gone through so much together and done so much for each other.

But no matter how much they fight for one another, support one another it’s never direct.. or discussed about. Literally anytime they have a major moment either one of them is in a death battle hanging to life or just plainly out of their senses. They always know it’s the other who supported and helped them (which is soo pure ..i’m crying)  but they are also apart during these crucial moments… natsu was almost dead .. lucy saved him but they never freaking talked about it or felt the other’s emotions first-hand. Eg: gruvia; they sacrificed themselves for each other but they had their interaction then and there. Heck gale confessed in similar situations. nalu really needs something huge and literally thrown to their faces considering that they are the BIGGEST dorks and the densest people out there when it comes to realizing the severity of their relationship….. sure let’s say that they are slightly aware but they really need a push to reach that level..

Seeing the cover I really hoped at least there could be a silent epiphany from at least  natsu’s side but …I’m honestly disappointed..

I really hope If mashima is playing the whole best for last card they better go through some realization and moments and stuff.. cause if at the literal last chapters they are like suddenly confessing and shit then … I don’t even know what to say I am already near tearing up just writing this and thinking about it - they deserve way too much than a downright plain out of the blue confession…. *really holding back tears here*(though whatever happens i’ll take it cause those babies deserve each other)

Let’s see what happens up next in the 100 year quest. Ships aside I really am enjoying the story overall and excited about the new character and the new arc but seeing how their relations are such a key factor in the story ( as they should be..) I cant help but think about it .. its been way too god damn long already.

ALSO..i REALLY really don’t want them to do any villain turned good shit with the white wizard..seeing how they are foreshadowing.. some mystery over her character .. i don’t want her to have a sob story and then suddenly turn good.. i want her to be the evil messed up person she is and go freaking die!!( yeah yeah im a bit dramatic)

this rant is over now..

 *SIGH*

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Alex ze Pirate Mini Review 4: The EED: Emotional Exposition Dump. Or why THIS is not friendship

So here we are. The last part of this 45 page three parter, meant to be about what Sam really means to the crew. And what have we seen so far in the previous parts? That Sam is not just their underappreciated, but downright exploited slave (yeah, did you know that in ancient Greece slaves supposedly had more rights than Sam in this one? At least they could buy out their freedom one day), that Dobson has no idea how to genuinely pace a story, turning what could have been a decent 100 page story if planned out and presented with more care into a 45 page short snore fest and that Hat Andy’s idea for jokes are either based on abusing token buttmonkeys, turning annoying memes into even more unfunny jokes or making dark comedy with dead orphans.

At least when South Park makes jokes about children dying, they are appropriate in that dark setting and the death is still in some way handled or refered to as a horrific event. In Dobson’s case however, it just leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

Sorry, I just can’t get over the orphanage thing. If Dobson wanted the reason for Sam leaving be that he finds out someone he cared about from his old life is dead, that is one thing. But did this asshole have to destroy an entire building with countless victims to do it? Couldn’t he just have one person die and the rest be still at that place? Honestly, I think it would have been funnier and more meaningful emotionally, if Alex and Co actually interacted with people from Sam’s past and in doing so learn more about him as a person, by genuinely visiting a still standing orphanage. Give the comic some meat on the bones and in doing so actually create the impression this comic is truly about Sam and not just about characters doing random stuff in relation to finding him. Instead Dobson goes for a literal overkill, which he then does not even treat as a tragedy but as a joke.

Dobson, THIS is a better and more dignified joke about orphans than the shit you did.

You got outclassed by Chuck Lorree of all people on this planet, you disgrace of a storyteller. A storyteller who can’t even keep his own barely existing continuity in the Alex-verse straight, now that I think of it. After all, according to Legends, the orphanage was closed and all the orphans were sold out to others, with Sam being the last of the litter

Which again is just unintentionally more horrific than Dobson likely intented. But you know, dumb people don’t know when they do dumb shit.

But I digress Let us just get into the last part. In which we finally see the “emotional” pay off of everything that happened so far.

 Spoilers, this is my reaction to that pay off.

And here is what everything led up to now.

 Sam ran away, because he wants to say his final farewell to his sister figure, we never knew about at all and about whom we do not learn one single thing really.

 Where do I begin with how this revelation fails?

Let’s start with the fact that this in execution does not have the emotional impact that was intended. And why is that? Because Dobson doesn’t bother to actually introduce us to the sister as a character.

If I may digress a bit to talk about One Piece here: In the manga, oftentimes Oda will “interrupt” an ongoing story arc to feature flashback chapters, through which he tells about past events referenced in the “present” chapters prior. Through those flashbacks he further gives meaning to why in present time the characters facing certain foes or having to win in their current situation, is so important, even on an emotional level. In short, those flashbacks are no interruptions, they are integral in giving those story arcs emotional weight.

Because now we are not just “told” why we should care about things and people, we have been shown why we should care. The old rule of “show, don’t tell” being followed on.

A good example from a more “recent” storyline I can think of, is through the flashback chapters of the Dress Rosa story arc, where we are not only being shown how De Flamingo took over the kingdom of Dress Rosa and brought pain and misery over its people for years to come, but also the past of characters such as the gladiator Rebecca and Mr. Soldier, her father figure that raised her up from the time she was 10 and De Flamingo took over… only for the flashbacks to also reveal properly how Mr Soldier is not just a father figure for her that took her in, but her biological father Kyros, who had been turned into a toy by one of De Flamingo’s henchmen via a power, that also took Rebecca’s memories of her dad away so she never identified the toy as her dad.

This way Oda achieves multiple things at once; Among other things, he establishes how evil De Flamingo is, how tragic Mr Soldier and Rebecca’s lives really are, adding to us the readers wanting to see them and Luffy beat De Flamingo into a pulp and it makes the later “present day” moment when Mr. Soldier and many other victims turn back to normal and Rebecca regains her memories and is reunited with her dad so much more sweeter. Cause now we care.

Truth be told, I myself believe that Oda is one of few storytellers on this planet, who truly has “mastered” the technique of emotional flashback storytelling.

A technique Dobson could have used in this part of the story, but didn’t. Cause honestly, the way he tells how Sam’s sister was “important” to our poor cabin boy is not emotionally engaging from a storytelling perspective. We are told she is important, but we learn genuinely nothing about her, not even what her name was and what she looked like except from that one picture in the locket from over 15 pages ago. Nothing about how “close” she and Sam truly were is revealed through showing, only telling and as such we don’t even begin to care for her relationship with Sam and how her loss is genuinely important to him. So the main goal of this story, to make us the readers feel something for Sam aside of pity for how he is treated by his supposed friends, has not been achieved.

 … Dobson, you are a hack. You can’t even use flashbacks, a basic technique in the realm of storytelling, to show us why we should “care” more, heck, even at all, about Sam and his loss.

If you just had adjusted a few things, you could have had something good here.

By adjustments I mean the following: Take the first page of this chapter as well as the first panel of the second page, and combine them into the final page of the previous chapter. In doing so creating a proper cliffhanger for part two. Then start chapter 3 of with a few pages (lets say 6 or so) showing young Sam and his sister interacting in the orphanage in doing so turning her from a nameless plotdevice into a genuine person to care about. And then use content of page 2 and 3 of this chapter, to elaborate on their relationship, potentially with small cuts always between present day Sam at the grave explaining himself and saying his farewells, with pictures of the past showing what they meant to each other.

 But nope. This very basic idea a fanfic writer now has come up with, a fanfic writer who never studied literature or took writing classes by the way, something I doubt you did at college the more I read your work, has never crossed your “superior” mind.

Also, I find Sam’s text on page 3 really, really backwards in a way. Like, I get that we are meant to consider it a good thing Sam is this way. You know, being genuinely selfless and wanting to make others happy. And don’t get me wrong, generosity and selflessness are virtues I hold in high regard. But the way Sam talks about how he just wanted her to be happy while sacrificing any fulfillment of basic needs for himself feels more like a pathological disorder in that case than something to reach for. In fact, psychology speaks from different forms of generosity and the thing Sam describes here is likely “compulsive giving” or “unrelenting generosity”, a pathological variant that can be highly toxic for all people affected by it.

Funny how Dobson, a person who wants to claim he is all for mental healthcare, is essentially “promoting” the positivity of a psychological disorder via Sam.

 Then again, this also feels more like Dobson putting words into Sam’s mouth (in a literal sense) to retroactively make Sam’s treatment look less horrid. Cause now Sam doesn’t just do all the work because he is ordered around, he deep down is “happy” doing all of the work and gain not even some basic respect in return, because he cares so deeply for his friends.

… I feel myself get livid again here.

And the next few pages don’t really help me “calm down”.

 Cause now the “justifications” just go on. The thing that is meant to be a heartfelt farewell turning into Sam “justifying” that hey, it must be good that he ended up with Alex and her crew. Cause after all, by being abducted years ago and being treated as a slave who in the ginger’s eyes is worth less than lint, he likely avoided dying of shitting his pants and a crushing roof. Ignoring the fact that he was going to be sold out anyway back then and would have potentially ended up with a more generous master than the crew of non Captain Syrup.

Also, just all of the shit going on in page 6. Sam asking his “sister” to be at peace, when likely, if the girl could still talk, she may even just ask Sam the following: Who the heck are you. Cause really, if you think about it, if Sam did all the nice things for her in secret, did the girl even realize she had a “big brother” figure to watch over her? Also, him saying he is happy and he is doing quite alright for himself?

All the pictures of him sighing and looking in misery in this story alone, plus the cavalry of strips I posted about how Sam is abused in the first part of this post series tells me another story.

Finally, Sam’s message “At least now, we are both free”? Sam, she is dead, likely having died in pain when a house crushed on her, weakened by a deadly disease and traumatized by other children around her dying of said disease. And you are stuck with a bunch of people that haven’t shown to care for you up until this story and the only reason they may even care for you now is out of “sympathy” because you lost your sister figure, not because they genuinely love and care for you as a person. As far as I am concerned, you would be better off being the slaveboy of some nymphomanic pirate princess in the world of Berserk than you are on this plane of existence.

And now that the “emotional” farewell is out of the way, Dobson can go back to focus on the characters he really cares about in this shit anyway: Little Bitch Annie, lesbian chocolate rain Miroku and Deadpool’s pubes.

 Oh Alex, you are such a rascal. You really make me want to shoot you with a crossbow, stab you in the eye, hurl you out a window and shove explosives where the sun won’t shine.

Yeah yeah, you are a pirate, but that doesn’t mean you need to be that awful as a person or even protagonist.

Christ. For someone who complains how toxic Walter White is to the point he believes “sympathizing” with the character turns you into a nazi, Dobson certainly is blind to how awful Alex really is, particularly as protagonist in a comic series intented for little kids. Compared to her, I can think of freaking slasher movie villains with more of a moral compass. Like say what you want about Jigsaw, at least he never victimized genuine children or teenagers.

And Talus, thanks for ruining the “emotional” moment Sam “earned” by pointing out how weird it is he kissed a gravestone. Also, I am glad I know what happens in the next pages or else I would assume Alex’s great idea includes to dig up his sister and turn her into a life sized doll for Sam to cuddle.

No, their ideas to assure he is emotionally save and to redeem themselves for years of taking him for granted/hurting him, is to throw him a surprise party.

… you know, I think you may be the only individuals in fiction, that Pinkie Pie would think do not deserve to throw a party or get one thrown for.

 But I guess Sam is just so nice, he even throws you a party for no apparent reason.

Either that or now that his “sister” is dead he will overcompensate even more and this is the next destructive stage of his compulsive generosity.

… Sam, I am sorry for your loss. But you need to get help. Once by the authorities who will hopefully get rid of Alex and then by some psychologist who helps you redefine your own self worth.

By the way, I find it funny that the banner he made also actually only mentions Talus, Atea and Captain Daphne with a bad hair day. It just confirms that Peggy either never bothered to join the others or that Dobson developed an early onset of dementia and totally forgot about the fact that the midget is a genuine character in this trainwrack. And I am convinced the later is the case, which really just makes me wonder how someone is able to do that. To forget a major character of the thing they create and want to turn into a money making franchise. Imagine if Disney did e.g. a sequel to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, only to forget about the god damn dwarves themselves.

At least Talus finally realizes he is unworthy to get a party thrown or be Sam’s friends. Good. Now jump into a wood chipper and free ourselves from your existence you dog beaver thing.

Content of the next page in a just alternate universe… Alex: You are a better human being than I could ever be and this is all because my creator is a hack who does not know how to create genuinely likable personalities.

The reality:

 FUCK YOU, ALEX! FUCK YOU AND THE BIKE PUMP YOU FLEW IN ON! Atea and Talus have learnt more than you about what it means to be a friend and they don’t even bother to punch you in the face for still being the biggest red haired  raging cunt since Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

If this is how Dobson thinks “friends” should treat each other, it is no wonder he has a friendless background. Hey, Hat Andy, if you want to emulate manga, may I suggest you just become even more blatantly about it and simply copy paste One Piece? Cause Luffy at least knows how to be a friend. How much does he care for his friends, strangers and even at times former enemies of his?

He cares so much, that e.g. when a special military force that beat the crap out of him got hands on his crewmate Nico Robin, he did THIS:

He declared war on the world government. Fuck, even Jack Sparrow, who is an opportunistic jackass, in a movie where everyone stabs the others at least three times in the back, was less selffish than Alex, when he gave up his chance on immortality as Captain of the Flying Dutchman, just so Will would live in some form.

Metalbeard from the Lego Movie cared more about doing the right thing than anyone in Alex the pirate did. You created the worst friends and “heroes” I have ever seen in a webcomic since the entirety of sinfest. Congratulations for that accomplishment, Dobson. It really takes a special kind of anti-talent to show such level of not understanding the power of friendship as one of the most basic tropes in storytelling, to the point a show about pastel colored equines managed to profit of it for nine years.

 WOOOOO! We are the worst, we are the worst!

And look, Uncle Pennywise’s scrotum is back.

Anyway, here are the last two pages of this thing, to end on what is meant to be a whimsical note because Sam actually gets something from Alex that is not a beating or verbal abuse.

 Too bad anything that would feel heartwarming about this is drowned by a) me actually remembering all the shit Alex, the crew and the writer pull to get to this point (from abusive neglect of the characters to pathetic emotional manipulation on a narrative level) and b) the weird rapey face Uncle Peggy makes in the picture. Like Jesus, did Dobson try to emulate the Burger King here?

But hey, this story is over. And who knows, perhaps from this moment on, Sam will actually be treated better overall in the comic and Dobson will spend time actually developing an overall plot and the world of this com-

Tom Kenny: ONE COMIC STRIP LATER

And it is back to business as usual.

... How much would I need to pay for someone on the internet to write an alternate ending to the story where it turns out Sam actually poisoned the food at the party and while Alex is slowly dying, a now evil Sam who has finally broke under years of abuse, is going to become a genuine threatening pirat? that is after he villain monologues to Alex how much she sucks before scalping her?

Wow, I am entering a dark place right now. I think I need to take a break.

So I am going to give my final verdict on this story with the next post around the weekend most likely. Cause that is how much time I will now spend rereading One Piece and watching the Pirates of the Carribean movies in addition to playing the Pirates level of Kingdom Hearts 3, in order to forget this shit and remind myself why I think pirates are cool.

[elmaxlys]

About Juo’s decision to die and his last words

I am talking, of course, about this panel from chapter 251

(all quotes and panels are from MangaBox’s translation)

For context - some things to keep in mind

A few things we know about Juo in a concise way before going in some more details for the last arc: Juo kills for fun - he willingly chose an evil life-style in a yolo kind of way and has caused the suicide of a classmate back on Earth. On top of that, he doesn’t like “good guys” who do the right thing and can’t kill for their benefits and thinks they’re weak. He didn’t like begging for his life to one of those good guys (Rika).

After his fight with Rika and with the activation of the next stage by the Administrator, Juo had been thinking of changing his ways. He mentions it a few times, as he’s considering whether allying with the Administrator or with Yuri.

He chooses to get the code first, which backfires on him as it convinces the Administrator that he is a real threat that could hinder his plan to become God. Yoshida gets the code, the Administrator takes his body and breaks Juo’s neck. Doing so he also uses “the capability to stop the move” and he seals Juo’s ability to life transfer.

Then the Administrator yeets Juo from the helicopter and leaves him to die, unable to move in body or in spirit.

What are Juo’s thoughts at that moment? Again, he thinks about changing his ways, thinking “changing my way of living doesn’t matter anymore”, along with other regrets and the fear (or unwillingness) to die. 

Yuri jumps, Juo sees her and thinks: 

“I’m going to survive, going to live and change my way of living.”

This, of course, is immediately followed by the middle finger panel and him falling to his death while thinking:

“It’s meaningless after all. No matter what you do and how hard you try... we can’t change our ways of living. As long as we exist, humans are still evil. You deserve it! Idiots!”

Why is it so important?

Because Juo is able to disobey orders from the Mask. Now I should have included it in the previous section but this gets his own because that’s the most badass thing anyone has done in this manga.

Obeying the Mask is the one thing Sniper, Kuon and Yuri haven’t been able to counter. Those three have the most powerful minds in the whole manga apart from Juo himself and Rika - who didn’t get a Mask but was exposed to the Apostle code who works the same way and that he only managed to resist for a bit before awakening.

Sniper is the one that exposed the rule in the first place. You can’t disobey the Mask’s orders. He wasn’t able to resist it. Kuon, who managed life transfer and was able to complete the God Code Trial, wasn’t able to resist it and broke her Mask. Yuri, who became God’s antithesis out of pure spite, grew her power exponentially thanks to her powerful mind and overthrew the Administrator to become the new one, wasn’t able to resist it and broke her Mask. 

Juo didn’t.

The Mask’s code penetrates in your brain, it locks informations and memories away. Its orders are absolute because it comes from your own brain.

Juo was able to resist it. Badass mofo

“After putting on the Mask, there was an order to destroy it... But I refused with all my guts, and I was able to get away from that order! You know, I hate getting orders.”

Now back to the last arc and his death scene.

Despite his movements having been sealed, he moved.

I’m talking about how he went from totally limp and just falling to flipping Yuri the bird. Also, he breathed enough to be able to laugh.

What I’m getting at is: he broke the Administrator’s restrictions on him. Just like he did the Mask, he broke the orders given to his body. My guess is, it was easier since it was an exterior seal and not one from his brain directly. But that’s not what we’re discussing. We’re discussing Juo’s last words.

How does it tie back to his last words?

If he broke the seal on his body’s movements, he might have also broken the seal on his soul’s. Aka he might have performed life transfer anyway.

“but you’re a Juo stan,” you might be thinking, “you just want him to be alive” 

Well yes and no.

For me, his last words can mean three (3) things:

1- Basic stuff (aka he’s really dead and really evil good riddance for the world)

He knows the heroes won’t ever run out of bad guys, lmao have fun with that and anyway he’s not letting good guys save his life once again. Miss him with that shit. Plus, he’s not feeding that hero complex, thank you very much. Find someone else to save.

2- Life Transfer (aka as a Juo stan please Miura make it that)

He knows he’ll live on, thus about “we” still existing to make humanity evil. If so he might have a role in TSA and I also have thoughts about it but no spoilers and I don’t have the translation to the info on TSA’s antag so we’ll see when I do if my theory holds (unlikely but who knows. might be fun).

3- Redemption (aka my personal favorite, fanfic writing-wise)

“What do you mean, ‘redemption’? this dude is a bully and a murderer. stop simping and come back to earth”

I hear you and I raise you: Juo really wanted to change his ways. That’s literally what he’s thinking about before the middle finger.

Juo’s desperate to live. He’s about to take Yuri’s hand and change. He actually wants to. What he was hesitating over a few chapters back, he’s taking it seriously and realizes that as long as he’s alive he can change. And he wants to.

Then the “It’s meaningless after all, we can’t change our way” line. That might seem a bit contradictory at first but listen, here’s how I understand it half the times I read this scene (the other half goes to the two aforementioned meanings) : It’s meaningless because he’s done so much wrong there’s no going back for him, especially since he had chosen evil willingly and knowingly, done it for the heck of it and not for some grand ideal like, say, Aikawa.

Now for the last lines.

“As long as we exist, humans are still evil”

What is Juo doing at that very moment? Letting himself die. Killing evil. If the good guys won’t do it (looking directly at the Honjo siblings) then he’ll do it himself. 

“You deserve it! Idiots!”

Saying he’s talking to himself or the evil “we” mentioned before would be too much lmao - but I still think that works. You good guys deserve to see me die of my own free will and thus more effectively getting rid of evil that you guys did in your whole career as good guys. (Admin killed Aikawa, not the good guys. Biker killed the corrupt humans. Sniper still controlled by his Mask killed the molesters. Faceless-kun via Floor 9 killed the Administrator. Ultimately the Administrator (and Juo himself) killed Juo. None of these actions was performed for the greater good by the good guys.)

By dying Juo both redeemed himself and atoned for his actions - as it’s what the Administrator talks about as he’s killing Juo.

-

That’s it. If you read it all, thank you very much and don’t hesitate to tell me what you think! 

[geekmedium]

Jack Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen

So I just got through reading the first omnibus in Jack Kirby’s Fourth World saga. I’m gonna try to make my way through every last one in order to see what the big deal is and analyze why they have such imaginative power while other Jack Kirby creations like the Eternals went down the memory hole.

And honestly this isn’t an auspicious way to start. I had wondered for a while why Jimmy Olsen isn’t really recommended in the New Gods Saga and now I know why. It’s barely a New Gods book. The only connections to the New Gods are:

Mokkari and Simyan as the recurring antagonists

Morgan Edge working for Darkseid (which isn’t resolved in this book)

Lightray appearing for a scene

Clark spending an issue in New Genesis

A few references to the Forever People

Not exactly the best intro to the War of the New Gods. In fact I would describe this book more as New Gods clean up. It spends more time dealing with threats that are the spillover of war rather than confronting the war directly.

The real through line of these tales is “The Project.” A genetics facility that would later be known as Project Cadmus.

Mokkari and Simyan create threats based on Cadmus tech. Superman and Jimmy deal with the monsters of a Cadmus scientist. We meet the D.N.Alien Dubbilex who investigates a secret passage to Cadmus. Heck the entire story starts with Jimmy investigating a wildness group that uses technology left over from Cadmus. If you’re someone who likes Project Cadmus then this is a highly recommended collection for you.

I think the biggest revelation was that Superman was a partner and firm advocate for the Project. Literally every piece of superhero media I’ve watched portrayed Project Cadmus as morally dubious at best, so it’s kind of surreal that Kirby intended them to be good guys. Especially since a lot of stuff they do in this book is still morally dubious. They create human clones (seemingly without permission) and employ mad scientists. Some of their soldiers are children or teens and they seem really intent on keeping all this literal life changing tech undercover. It’s kind of wild that Kirby framed all of this in the narrative as morally good without questioning it at all. Then again, wasn’t eugenics a well thought of science back in the day? I figured it died out in the 50s or so, but maybe a lot of people still agreed with it in the early 70s.

Anyway, the real reason why I think Project Cadmus is the focal point is that it allowed Kirby to work where he shines brightest. Big ideas.

Someone once described Jack Kirby as a hundred ideas per square inch, and it’s hard to disagree when reading through this. Small planets, D.N.Aliens, the Habitat, Zoomway, and the solar phone are just some of the inventions that fill the pages of this collection and I purposely left out the stuff connected with New Gods like the Boom Tube. But more than just making cool technology, Jack gave Superman cool threats.

It can be hard coming up with challenges for any incarnation of the Man of Steel, and I have to imagine the Bronze Age one was one of the hardest. But reading through these I’m amazed with how rarely I felt the threat was below Superman. And I think that comes down to the fact that rarely was Kirby trying to write a cosmic wrestling match. His solution to problems had a more cerebral element to them, and required Superman to get creative or even occasionally play for a more peaceful resolution. I think my favorite was when he saved Cadmus from a collection of atomic energy eaters in like 10 seconds.

In fact, Kirby wrote an absolutely fantastic Superman. Strong, clever, mature, creative, kind, and badass. I said it can be hard to write for Superman, and I think a lot of comic writers think that decreasing him makes him work better, but Kirby knew that all you really have to do is make the threats bigger. And this cosmic war of gods, with Earth as just a casualty in the way, is about as big as you can get. And as a result, the Superman that emerges here is all the stronger for facing these threats as they come one by one while also trying to help start a whole new branch of science that these monsters threaten or distort. While this isn’t much of a New Gods book, I consider it a bit of a hidden classic for Bronze Age Superman stories.

But what about the titular character of Jimmy Olsen? Well honestly, he really ends up playing a side character in his own book. And I’m fine with that, because I think Jimmy only really works as a spotlight character once every couple dozen of issues, but if you are reading these stories for him, you’ll probably be disappointed. It’s not that he has nothing to do, but when your book has New Gods and Superman and genetic warfare and interdimensional schemes of every shape and size, you’re just gonna have to play second or even third billing. To be fair, no other main player in the Superman mythos can really tag along either. Lois is nowhere to be seen, I think Perry White only shows up once, and while Morgan Edge is a small antagonists, he really only acts as an orchestrator instead of a major player. They are all gone to make room for the Newsboy Legion.

And man do the Newsboy Legion just barge into the story. Sometimes literally.

Kirby seemed to really want to make them a thing again like when he wrote them in the 40s. It kind of reminds me of how J.M. DeMatteis tried to put Vermin in a lot of his stories. And just like with Vermin, they really end up over staying their welcome.

They were fine in the first two or three issues, but around the time the Outsiders (no not those Outsiders, a different one) exit the story, the NL should have left too. They could return for a story or two, but no more. Instead Kirby makes sure they appear in every single story in this omnibus, including ones where they aren’t really needed. Oh no! Jimmy has been ambushed and Clark has been sent off to Apokolips with no way to return. Quick, let’s go see what hijinks the Newsboy Legion are getting up to. Like, I don’t hate them, and giving Superman super wacky kids who support him in his adventures isn’t a setup I’m adverse to, since that’s basically what Jimmy was for the Silver/Bronze Age. But man, the 70s slang and rapscallion attitude you see in the panel above is only a little of what shows up, and it gets really grating after a while.

On top of that were some other weird cast choices. I actually really like the Golden Guardian’s setup as a genetically made man with memories implanted with those of a dead man. I really looked forward to him relearning his past life while making a new one in Metropolis as much needed backup for Superman. But he honestly ends up as just a kind of Captain America clone

He also ends up just dropping out of the story later on. Not even leaving, it’s just that one scene he is with Superman exploring the city and the next Superman is off exploring a secret tunnel with Dubbilex and not-Lois character Terry Dean.

And speaking of Terry Dean I find it just hilarious that she is in this panel. Superman and the others are exploring secret entrances and contemplating literal apocalyptic war, and she’s just kind of...there. For those who don’t know or care, according to my research she is a character who showed up once before Kirby came on the Jimmy title, twice after he left it, and then one more time eighteen years later as a deep cut in Superman vol 2. #46.

If I seem to be nitpicking, it’s just that it’s so weird Kirby would go for this character instead of bringing in Lois. And he includes another weird character named Goody Rickels for like two or three issues for a story arc I’m gonna have to reread just to understand what the point of it was.

Still, ignoring these flaws, the Jack Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen Omnibus is a recommend if for nothing else than the fact that it is a good set of Superman stories with incredibly inventive and creative plots that hint at a larger world on the horizon. And I honestly can’t wait to tackle that new world of New Gods.

[agl03]

Hi! I love your blog. Have any of your theories about the episode changed with all the interviews that have come out today?

Hi Anon,

Thank You!

Yes, in reading some of the interviews, seeing the peeks, and mulling things over in my head I’ve been adjusting a few things in my head.   

I’m still very much on the something terrible happens to Enoch train.  For me that is due to IMDB having him only in 11 and 13 which to me could mean those coveted “We Had Time Flashbacks”   It also means that those flashbacks are likely to happen along with the team gearing up for the final battle.  IE whatever they are doing in those flashbacks will tie directly to what is happening in ‘Real Time”.  The other worrying point is him doing the panel at SDCC with Lil.  Just feels like a bit of a send off to me.  Worst case he dies, best case he’s kidnapped  or takes one heck of a hit that knocks him out and that explains the in and out of the final episodes.  Either way I cry.

Jemma is a vital part of the loop and breaking it.  So that could be why we see someone going after Diana and Sousa having the device.  IF the team find out about her and feels that without her Jemma can give them the answers they need they will really press her to deactivate her.  Which we know its protecting Fitz and I don’t see Jemma allowing them all to die to protect Fitz, he would never want that....however if this is also protecting BBG then absolutely, she is going to fight tooth and nail to keep anyone and everyone away.   As would Enoch.  Because I’m sure he made Fitz a promise that he would get Jemma back to him and keep her save.  

As we’ve seen over the last few episodes we are seeing the characters get closure on their arcs in ways that the actors involved seem heavily involved with as I’m seeing lots of “Wishes Granted” from interviews over the years here in how these episodes play out.  Henry said he wanted Mack to get a really emotional arc to show that side of the character.  Jeff wanted a all out Deke being peak Deke episode.  Natalia wanted to get an awesome team up episode with Ming.   Now the pair that is highlighted is Coulson and Daisy, one last father daughter mission that is gonna work out all sorts of emotional things during all the peril and confusion.  Coulson could reveal to Daisy what his wishes are after the mission and ask her to ensure that they are actually followed through on.  This will be big for Daisy as in previous seasons she wasn’t really down with allowing him to die. Oh and we’ll have a healthy side of moving along the SS Sousy.  

If Coulson has been corrupted the more I think about it the more I think they’ll go for a longer con here.  So he may do things in this episode that doesn’t help the situation but he also doesn’t reveal his hand.  

Fitz showing up or no, we are going to start to get some “We Had Time” questions answered.  

The team is stressed to the max which could lead to them not making some of the best decisions through the loops.  As we saw in Season 5.

Deke said they were ‘Circling the drain” and I feel this could mean that with every loop Daisy and Coulson go through they wind up with less time to find the solution.  

The Jump within the Jump that landed them there might not have been an accident and someone purposely triggered the jump to try to take out the team.  As Fitz is triggering the jumps this could be a sign he is indeed in danger or found out and the baddies are now driving the time jumping bus.  I also imagine if FItz knows what is going on he must be losing his mind seeing the Zephyr spiraling off into space time.

I don’t think Deke is going to take too well to anyone be it the team, Corrupted Robo Coulson, Corrupted Enoch, or a mystery hitchhiker being after his Nana and is going to fight to protect her and Diana too. 

I still feel that how this goes down could lead to our annual team split up.  

As always this could all shift with yet another interview or tease.  

No matter what I’m super excited to see what Drew and Elizabeth have in store.  But I can not emphasize enough the “big episode is a coming” feeling right now.