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charismaofobedience · 1 year

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i joined the d4dj fandom recently and if you told me the whole lore i wouldn't complain

Okok!!!!! I think i will focus more on both the main stories for the 6 main units here since unichord, call or artemis and abyssmare are still somewhat recent so ok uhh. here we go. also i might mix both some anime + game things there but i think it's understandable ish

Happy around is somewhat easy. Rinku found maho one day, found her music cool, rinku was implied to somehow have perfect pitch and perfectly transitioned a song into the other one based on vibes only (i think she mentions it being based around the dance-ability of the song. she's so <3). after that the two get together and, after some time, they start needing art to promote their small lives which are gathering some traction, so they eventually find muni who's rinkus childhood friend!!! muni is. truly smth. it's implied/confirmed her mother is hospitalized and stuff like that and she has a really big complex with her art and herself, and after some convincing that "rinku didn't abandon her" (she didn't. also about that, it's mainly because rinkus parents had to travel to africa for work and she went along them) she joins them. rei joins them because they needed someone who could actually compose and she, as a pianist, had more practice with that than the other three. Happy around was formed through that and, in the unit story season 2, it focuses more on them arguing what will be of them, if they want to continue that and go pro which ends as an easy yes from all of them, with the unit continuing to do their stuff

Peaky P-key is truly smth. I haven't fully read the manga (yet) but what i can tell you is that 1- they know each other since childhood 2- they're somewhat "pros" ever since before the story itself. Shinobu is a really good dj and is amazing at it since she was a child (implied in a lot of cards + stories, such as the untrained halloween shuffle shinobu where we see her mixing alongside nagisa, her cousin) being the granddaughter of a famous dj and this somewhat caused her to distance herself from her family, since she saw herself as too worthy and the others saw her as too prideful. kyoko has been amazed at her abilities since a child and, with yuka and esoras help, eventually convinces her to let the three join and peaky is formed. their whole thing is that they want to get better and become the next "best unit" in-universe, surpassing their predecessor and stuff like that, somewhat both their unit story 1 and 2 focused on that. i personally think that, for them specifically, their character/shuffle/relations stories are a LOT more interesting than the unit story itself

photon maiden is also one of the "professional" units, and they in specific even have (did have) a producer. Their unit story 1 tells about their formation and reasons, how they meet, their troubles and how they eventually got close to each other. on the unit story 2 it focuses more on their development as a unit after their produce not only gives them more freedom of choice, but also low-key kind of drops them and lets them do their own thing, also having the goal of surpassing their producers old unit (which is the same as peakys lmao)

Merm4id i think i talked about enough on my small m4 ramble???? Yeah the tldr is that rika brought it up to them saori tried to say that was a horrible idea because none of them knew how to dj. surprise surprise saori was surprisingly good at it because she enjoyed "old" technology and alas they became a unit. Season 2 is just them touring through Japan. Girlbosses

Rondo.... It's a gay movie. Aoi and Hiiro are besties and work in a club (alter ego) but aoi feels like something is missing + the owner tells them that they should get a vocalist. one day while walking close to a church she hears someone singing and it's tsubaki. cue "i need your voice..." Tsubaki dying in embarrassment and gay panic. Nagisa legit just finds them one day in the streets and goes "oh hey lmao aren't you two the resident djs in alter ego" to which they reply yes and then nagisa asks if they can join them just like that because no one else could keep with her guitar skills. Hiiro feeds her and nagisa joins (unofficially) until they confirm it with alter egos owner, which then settled her as rondos official guitarist. Cue a LOT of "i need you..." From aoi to tsubaki who's still gay panic, she joins them for some time but panics her first time singing for the public and people get angry, "either you all find a vocalist or you're out" and aoi goes after her again. Tsubaki initially refuses again until aoi goes "oh ok. rondo is no more ^^" because she KNOWS tsubaki is the vocalist and voice she's been looking for. Tsubaki finally understands this and gay panics. They met in a church for 3/4 times through the story btw. Hiiro and Nagisa watched all of this shit. Aoi literally went after tsubaki in the university she studies at. I hate gay people. Unit season 2 focuses on the fact that nagisas guitar, calendula, is cursed and possessed. This makes sense trust me

Lyrical lily... Their school literally banned playing music other than singing on the choir (haha christian school). One day while cleaning the place, one of them finds an old machine and they get curious to see what it is and does. Miiko and kurumi lead them (the two + chairwoman haruna + miyu) to their secret hideout and they start hosting small parties there after some students hear the music that haruna was playing and went to see them. "MUSIC IS FORBIDDEN I SHOULDNT BE DOING THIS!!!!" haruna panic but also she's legit having fun and one person in her family liked music so she's really enjoying it. They keep at it + going out to buy new vinyls in used stores until they're found out since most students were going there. They all panic and try to take the blame from the other until miyu steps in and says it was all her fault because she's the one who got curious and wanted to check it. Miyu, basically the schools angel, shocks everyone and goes on a small ramble on how fun it was and how music was important because it united them all. Music is eventually un-banned and they get to play it <3 i don't really remember what goes on in season 2 but i think they're gay and are learning more about the outside world besides their catholic school slash rich families

General plot wise, there was this one dj celebration years ago called d4fes where a unit called call of artemis performed at and it impacted both happy around girls and peaky p-key. After years of it being cancelled and CoA disbanding, d4fes comes back and the 6 units audition in to go perform after troubles of their own (happy around almost not qualifying, aoi needing a vocalist etc) with peaky winning the first round... however, on the SECOND d4fes the call of artemis comeback is announced and hell breaks loose with pkpk winning and both them + pm realizing they still have a long way to go.

I think these are the basics for general plot + each unit? And then there's character specific stories, relations events, unit events, shuffles, the d4fes stories... D4 is really fun to read about honestly cknfkfjfkd,, i think we currently are about to enter the canonical third year of the timeline as soon as the unit stories 3 come out!!!

#d4dj #♡𑁬࿔ chii talks #sighhs oh to infodump about d4dj <3

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kimium · 2 years

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My first memory of you is when I dragged myself out of that basement over Reading Break. I knew my father had invited my brother's new English teacher to dinner, and I was tired with the stress of university tests and home work, and other stressors that still leave a shadow on my heart.

I imagined a grandmotherly woman, maybe even a widow, with the same air of "polite and proper" I was used to from every other older guest my parents had over from the church or school.

When I finally saw you, a young woman not much older than myself, wearing clothes that fit much more to my style than the elderly ladies at the church, sitting there politely enduring what appeared to be similar to an interrogation led by my father and also my grandfather, I damn near got whiplash. And then I was curious. Sitting down and talking, I was trying to gauge just what would be appropriate to talk about. It was when you brought up NBC's Hannibal that you really lit up and I was pleasantly surprised and also excited to have someone I could talk to about the show. It was at that moment that I actually regretted not having come upstairs sooner to take a break from schoolwork and studying. You were (and still are) so cool and I really enjoyed talking with you. I will say, I think it was that bravery to talk about that particular show that led to us growing closer during our next meetings.

My brother would later that evening tell me that he knew we would be friends. I brushed him off at the time because I was excited and intrigued, but I also was still preoccupied with school, so I didn't have much energy to give to friendships and relationships. Don't tell him, because he will gloat even more than he does about being right already, but I am so happy he was right and that you and I are friends now. 💜💜💜

(From this ask post HERE)

I know I've said this before but I really love I was not what you expected.

Anyways, I still remember how your father asked if I'd like to come over for dinner. Truth be told I almost didn't go to church that evening. I was exhausted from the week but then I remembered "I'm in a small town and work for the separate school system. If I don't go to mass on a semi-regular basis they might talk?" So, I went. When your father first approached me and introduced himself I legit almost blue screened and worried he was going to ask about your brother.

Instead I got a dinner invite?? And like I couldn't be rude and say no... so I said yes.

They actually told me about you in the basement when I first arrived. I felt a little bad because here we are having fun upstairs while you're studying in the basement. So when you came up I was excited. Finally I get to meet this "Meagan" person they mentioned.

Truth be told I just fretted for about 65-70% of the time I was over that I'd make a bad impression and be the source of silent gossip over town. Very glad to hear I did not make a bad impression and my talking of NBC Hannibal helped pave the way to us becoming friends.

By the way, I was told earlier you like anime by your mother or father (sorry forgot who said it) with the air of "Hey I know you taught in Japan for two years". Somehow it did not clue into me that talking about anime at the table might actually be a better alternative than talking about a show with a gay cannibalistic serial killer LOL.

Oh well. I had my BNHA shirt at the time. You saw it. Everything worked out in the end.

Yes! You mentioned your brother predicted we'd be friends. I'll never tell him this don't you worry. We can't let the success of predicting right go to his head ahaha.

I'm also so happy we're friends still!! You made my two years of teaching in a different place a much better experience!

#personal #replies

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brooklel · 3 years

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my thoughts on worlds end club, under the cut because it’ll probably be long and also spoilers

so i bought the game today at around 9am and played it until i beat it at around 11:30pm ish? so ha uh yeah it took a little while but i was very enthralled in the story

the story and characters are hands down the best part of the game. compared to literally any of the danganronpa games, i like the cast of characters so much more. like there’s always one or two in a danganronpa games group that i just don’t like but in wec i loved all of them. i’d usually dislike chuko’s tsundere character type but i actually ended up liking her. my least favorite is probably dragon power ranger kid whatshisname but i don’t hate him or anything i just found him to be the weakest character tbh. but i do really like his character design

speaking of the character designs OOF they’re all so good. i didn’t realize until looking up stuff on the characters but they’re all based on the animals of the Chinese zodiac which is cool and the design elements are subtle and it’s not narratively important but i mean they didn’t need to be. there’s a few offhand remarks here and there like comparing kansai to a tiger and chuko to a rat but they’re not really shoved in your face which is nice

oh also i wanna compliment pai in particular. she’s the boar character which first of all i feel like people would usually make male, and if they made her female, then she would be angry and stubborn and probably not conventionally attractive but she’s not any of those! also she’s a little heavier than the rest of the girls which 1. makes her even more adorable, and 2. no one in the game brings up or makes fun of her for which is nice. mowchan sadly didn’t get exactly the same treatment he was still the fat comic relief character. he deserved so much better.

the art is all so pretty as well like i already loved the art style from pokemon and in wec it’s even more exaggerated and i live for it. i also like the movie they’re watching at the beginning has more realistic humans that’s just kinda funny.

the humor is pretty good i guess but what i’m really here for is the fun childish but realistic portrayal of friendship and emotions like it does kinda take me back to my own little group of friends in elementary school, where sometimes there would be disagreements, but we were still always friends

i loved reicho as a canonically mute protag and how none of his friends ever minded or even brought it up like that’s so cute. but the reveal that reicho was basically just a big puppet kinda just made it feel a little different... like idk how to explain it but yeah

ANYWAY here’s my obligatory paragraph about pochi because he’s my son now. the writers knew what they were doing by making him a kinda shy gamer kid bc they knew people were gonna relate to him even when he had a somewhat smaller role in the story before turning into the full fledged protagonist. anyway this robot puppy boy is my son i will protect him

the scene where pochi basically gets dunked on by the rest of the team is weird to me like idk it just feels out of character for most of them to be like lol yeah pochis useless RIGHT after he drove an entire train to one of the specific places that those special mushrooms grow and now they can all see vanilla

also kinda unrelated but this is my second game in the past few months where i correctly guessed one of the characters was voiced by megumi ogata because dang i just love her voice. this time it was pochi and the other one was the protag in the famicom detective club games. i legit heard one line and was like HOL UP and googled it lmao

i’m still confused on why the story takes place in the 90s. it doesn’t have a particularly 90s aesthetic and most of the technology just doesn’t match up with 90s tech. like i feel like it works better if it takes place more near present day. if there’s more cultural reasons then i’m not sure what they are but i’m really curious about this. the game is very reliant on japanese culture and locations, which isn’t a bad thing but i’m an ignorant american who was also born after the 90s so im wondering if there’s some specific reason why it’s SPECIFICALLY 90s japan

oh yeah i haven’t even talked about the gameplay yet. it’s.... shitty. maybe i’m a little biased because i’m not a big platformer girl but even so it’s just not.... good...... i kinda got myself soft locked one time because a big snowman guy was blocking my way and i had no way to kill him or get around him, luckily you can just restart from your last checkpoint but still. some of the special abilities/attacks just didn’t feel that good to use, like dragon boi’s and chuko’s felt too short range at times and jennu’s and aniki’s felt a little too slow. the rest were fine i guess. the only one i felt like was done well was kansai’s.

i played on easy mode cuz it was the default one that was highlighted and idk if it effects the platforming sections or the “puzzles” but the puzzles were way too easy. most of them just felt like they were checking that you paid basic attention to the story. the ones at the end are somewhat harder but i still didn’t have any problems with them. the stuff the outright tell you would have mad better puzzles like the xxy thing but at the same time were you even supposed to realize that? the otherworlder aka you i guess says it like no big deal but like i guess the middle x looked slightly different? but not enough to be like OH OBVIOUSLY ITS X TIMES Y. on the flipside i solved the heaven map puzzle before i even had all of the pieces. i guess i have to give it some slack though because it would probably be a bit harder if you didn’t really know english kinda like the danganronpa 11037 thing

also am i just stupid or how were you supposed to know the year the phone displayed was the y number in that puzzle? i forgot to get it before trying to solve the puzzle so i knew it corresponded to the y because it was the only clue i didn’t have so i didn’t have to think about it that hard but like did the phone have something to do with the letter y or was it just like a what clue haven’t i used kinda thing

anyway apologies for the super long post if you read the whole thing then wow thanks i guess? anyway in conclusion pochi is my son

#bud says stuff #i liked the game but i have some opinions™#worlds end club

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am-molloy · 5 years

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20 Facts About Me: A.M. Molloy

Hello everyone! Welcome back (or to) my blog.

Today I thought I would share with you all 15 random facts that you may or may not know about me. These factoids may not have to with my writing life, but they’ll help you understand who I am as a person. So! Let’s take a dive into my life.

If you didn't know this already, I have a cat named Sorren. She is my soul-kitty and the love of my life. We’ve barely been apart the 11 years she’s been in my life. I wasn’t going to accept any job abroad unless I could bring her.

I love to travel. In fact, my first big travel was to a summer camp in China when I was 15, way back in 2004.

So far, I’ve been to (in order), China, America, Japan ( x3 ), Korea, (x3 ), Belgium, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Hong Kong, and Thailand. Being Canadian, I’ve obviously been to Canada, though I haven’t travelled as much within my own country. I do plan on visiting more countries soon, but for now, I’m planning another return visit to Japan for my upcoming summer vacation.

I am a 2nd-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, although it’s been a few years since I practiced due to financial issues. I would love to practice again, especially as I live in Korea now, but now is not the right time for me. I still have all my equipment and remember most of my forms so perhaps someday!

Side note, back in the day when I did practice, I used to go to competitions and would usually win first or second place. Usually first for forms and second for sparing. I rarely got lower and if I did it was for sparing. Forms were my strong suit.

I used to be an animator. I went to an art school studying animation and graphics and working in my field after graduation. Though if I’m being honest, I was never the best at animation. Still, art was more my thing. So when I worked for Contendo, I eventually gravitated towards mostly audio work and eventually becoming their Senior Audio Editor. I still do art, but it’s now for fun rather work. And let’s be honest, the art I did for Contendo isn’t what you would have expected me to be doing. At Contendo we made training videos for oil and gas companies.

Below is my super old demo reel, and I have improved since 2009 But this is to just show you what I used to do. I was by far the best but I enjoyed doing it all the same.

Note: The video is from my old YouTube channel from college. I do not use that channel anymore. If you want to see more up to date videos and life in Korea, check out my actual YouTube channel: Canadian Abroad: A.M. Molloy.

I have a total of 11 tattoos! (So far). Below is a slideshow from my very first tattoo (the tribal dragon when I was 17) to my latest, number eleven done this year in Korea (Sorren).

I am fluent in English, French, Spanish and I can speak intermediate Japanese (taught myself) and beginner Korean (also teaching myself).

My dad is French (from Quebec) so I learned English and French growing up in my household. I majored in Spanish at university and spent a semester in Spain as an exchange student.

I used to do a lot of cosplay, but I haven’t done so in years. I haven’t cosplayed very much and I reused the same cosplay for many cons (and halloween costumes) but I still enjoyed doing it all the same. I can’t sew so I always had help making them. I still appreciate a good cosplay from other cosplayers.

I love photography, though I’m still learning. I’m far from good but I’m getting better every day. I mostly take iPhone photography shots because I don’t always lug around my Nikon D3200. Honestly, with a bit of practice, anyone can make iPhone pictures turn out great. Featured below are a few of my favourite shots taken with my iPhone 8.

I have a wall of all my shots but my favourite will always be of my best friend, Leila, holding the Polaroid picture I just took of her. The picture of her holding the picture (INCEPTION) was also another iPhone shot.

I made my own language/culture because reasons. Mostly RP though. The language is called Hikaran and is spoken by a race on the planet Spira. I go into full length on said language and people in a previous blog post, so please, go ahead and check it out!

Admittedly, I made most of this up during math class in high school. It’s safe to say I’m not very good at math.

Anyway, instead of going into full detail here (because it’s in the blog post), I’ll just leave this popular Hikaran saying here:

While on exchange to Spain back in the summer of 2016, I met and shook hands with the queen of Spain in what I call a happy accident. One day I was walking around my school and taking a stroll around town and I noticed a blocked road a crowd starting to form where there usually isn’t. So, naturally, I had to get up front to see what was going to happen. Turns out the queen of Spain was in town and she took time to shake hands with people and I got lucky enough to be one of them. Moral of the story: when you see a tent or a barricade and people starting to gather where there usually isn’t, get up front because awesome things are gonna happen. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture with her, but I do, however, have a picture of her. (Pictured above).

Back in high school, when it was time for graduation photos, we were told we could bring an item, like a soccer ball or baseball bat, if we wanted for our pictures. Being the cat-obsessed weird person that I am, I legit brought my cat, Marbles (AKA Mibs) in a duffle bag (it was open) to school for my picture. Needless to say, I was the talk of the school for bringing a cat haha. I lived super close to my school so I took my picture and brought her straight home. She hated going to school but was a good girl and took an amazing picture.

I’m a huge Harry Potter fan. Literally grew up with it. I was in the 6th grade reading the first three books because that’s all that was published at the time. When the first Harry Potter movie came out, I’ll never forget the experience. It was amazing and I loved every bit of it.

PS: I’m a proud Gryffindor. I also have many friends from all of the houses, but most of them are from Slytherin.

I grew with Pokemon. I was around when it was all first released and Pokemon Red was my first ever game I owned to go with the first ever consul I opened, Nintendo Colour. I buy every game, still collect cards, and I used to watch the anime. Pokemon will always have a special place in my heart.

My new all time favourite game is Life is Strange all other games in said franchise. THAT GAME IS MY LIFE, YO. I mean, if you noticed on fact number 5 that one of my tattoos is Life is Strange themed.

My favourite author is Rachel Vincent.

Literally, anything she writes is golden to me.

My favourite series of hers will always be the Soul Screamers series. I still can’t believe how she ended that series. Love it! I just get so invested in each world that she creates that I feel like I’m right there with the characters and I don’t know what to do with my life when I finish each book.

If you love reading, I highly recommend checking her out.

The origin of my author name: A.M. Molloy is basically the initials to my given name, Alex Molloy. However, in person, I prefer to be called Mina. Mina is my Korean name and to be honest, I was never fond of Alex. Since I live in Korea, everyone here calls me Mina. It makes me happy to hear people call me Mina. :3

My novel is in its third round of edits and beta reader stage. One of my beta readers created SOUTH’s very first meme! I’m so in love with it that I’m sharing it here.

So, my university had this mini ball pit kept in the student center. Once during a society meeting at my university, my friend and I decided to completely organize the ball pit into a rainbow. It literally took us forty-five mins straight but we did it! And then no one wanted to sit in the ball bit for like a week because they didn’t want to mess it up so we had to mess it up again so people would use it again.

During my second visit to Japan, I had the pleasure to meet a real sumo wrestler. It was an honour. I wish I could have seen an actual match but this was still awesome all the same.

I loved volunteering at my university for many things, but my favourite was being an NSO Leader. My last year at uni I had the privilege to be on the best team, Yellow Team, and had the most amazing crew. It was truly the best experience. I loved helping all the newcomers to UPEI and I would do it again in a heartbeat if I was still in school.

Well, you’ve made it this far! Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about me. For now, this concludes my new post, 20 facts about me.

Take care.

— Mina (A.M. Molloy)

#FAQ #Ramdom Facts #Author

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steve0discusses · 6 years

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Yugioh S2 Ep4: How to Go on a Date Without Actually Going on a Date

Ah, summertime! Love is in the air, can’t you feel it?

Well uh...thunderclouds. I guess. It’s ominously pouring rain. It’s as if the show has turned in it’s squeaky swivel chair said to us “look, we’re giving you a date episode...but don’t you be gettin’ any ideas!” and then swiveled right back around to face a blank wall.

I’m sure that they will put in some sort of cute backdrop...eventually.

While mopping the gross purple floor and talking about Joey’s nuts soap opera family.

Y’all did they get reference for this shot? I sure hope so. I sure hope that in some animation studio in Japan, two dudes fumbled together to assemble this particular formation, and then a third dude was like “Perrrrfect, now can you hold that for five minutes for me so I can draw it out?”

(read more under the cut)

So here and now, suddenly inspired by the very romantic tableau of threatening rain and thunder, Yugi sees an opportunity to fill out that bucket list, as it is the end of the world and all. So, he cracks his knuckles, remembers the advice from his Grandfather, wisely decides to forget that advice, and stumbles through the absolute weirdest way to officially ask out the girl you’ve been unofficially dating since you were like 10:

...

Start over.

So...he goes up to Tea...starts asking her out--but then makes it into a blind date with the ghost in his body? Because he’s...concerned about Pharaoh?

OK kid.

It’s just very Muto in that not only does he ask this girl out in the pouring rain, probably hoping for a lightning cue that thankfully never came, but this date can only be done through the medium of a very sad dead guy.

And even Tea wonders “I talk to Pharaoh kind of a lot, what the hell are you going on about?”

But what do you do, girl? Looks like you got stuck on a date trap with a dead dude! At least he has the better butt!

Now, you might say “Rach, he didn’t use the word “date” so this isn’t a date.” but y’all must’ve had a very different high school experience than I, because, unless forced to go to a socially obligatory dance, High Schoolers generally never say “lets go on a date,” they make sneaky date traps.

This is universal, the classic “I REALLY need your help with something I can easily accomplish myself. Meet me at the mall, although we could do this probably right now at school. Don’t bring Joey.”

So, Yugi either has a lot of trust in Pharaoh, or he’s seeing this as a clever way to avoid the actual dating part of dating Tea.

Dude...he’s on to something here. This is an ascended level of friend-zoning. Here I was thinking Yugi was pretty worthless with that puzzle, and then he just BAM unlocks it’s actual, true potential with the ultimate dating dodge. Like, Tea can’t even be mad. He’s on the date even. But also--*not on the date*--gets to enjoy the fun stupid stuff-- *doesn’t have to do any boring stuff*--Goes on a date--*but can’t call it a relationship if it wasn’t hypothetically with yourself* like this actually a pretty great set up and at first I was like wow, what an idiot, and now I’m like 5 paragraphs later and low key jealous I can’t do this Schrödinger's Date nonsense myself.

Anyway, despite how awkward he made it, Yugi is SUPER excited about this date. It’s ALMOST as if he’s going on it himself--which again, he is not. He’s just fretting in a mirror going all “Pharaoh’s gonna freakin love this. I love setting up my friends! Especially when they share the same body as me! Hahaha don’t think about it!”

But apparently Pharaoh was totally sleeping when Yugi was talking to Tea (and probably is whenever Tea shows up, lets be real) because he has no idea that Yugi has done this.

First off--Yugi’s art on the wall.

Ok, glad we all saw it together.

Second off, I love the motif of “kid is going on a date, so he throws everything he owns onto his bed and throws on the other half his closet to make the most ridiculous joke combo” because here it means Pharaoh has to wear the same weird ass outfit.

Y’all I cannot believe this anime is doing this three-way I just cannot. It’s been like a full season building up to it but it still feels VERY sudden.

And, as you know, I have a superpower that makes me immune to shipping, I dunno...maybe it’s because I grew up with the nuts Harry Potter era of ships (freakin Snape/Lily)? Or maybe that I come from the era of Kingdom Hearts-style romance twists (whooo will he eat ice cream with)? I feel like I can’t throw too many rocks at this ship because I know when my house is glass. Especially since I enjoy shows that are bonkers, I’ve seen some weird ass dating stuff that didn’t make me bat an eyelash. I watched Season 2 of Seaquest where at least 2 people accidentally ask out their own Mother. I would double check, but it was so awful Netflix pulled it (or trust me I’d be recapping that show, too)

Personally, I have never wanted to date a ghost but I guarantee other people have thought about it. And, youknow, if it’ll make the 2002-era tweens that were super excited about this ship happy, lets get these kids on a date and get this over with. With the Pharaoh that died at hell knows what age, was reborn so hypothetically you could also argue he’s only like a couple years old, and was mind wiping up until basically a couple weeks ago. Whatever, it’s a new season, he’s a new boy, just, don’t think about it, sit back and enjoy it for what it -- HOLY CRAP

What fake-goth funeral date are you going to here!? Wow. This is...This is a bad choice of clothes! It’s the middle of the day! Other people are in shorts. He is wearing so many chains from his neck, to his bracelets...also he still has that massive bike lock chain on - the one that went through a FIRE.

And does his shoes have freakin studs?

At least neck belt is still here.

I’d say he doubles as a stage tech but with those 7 bangles he’s got on, he would make too much noise. He’d sound like a freakin wind chime.

Anyways, Yugi switches places and Pharaoh freaks the Hell out like he’s been pranked. I wish it were a prank, y’all, I wish it were. But this is actually happening on this television show where the only other legit romance we saw was Pegasus macking a ghost.

MAN ghosts gets a lot of action in this show.

Now, this anime gets a lot of flack, but it does do one thing, and that’s make me appreciate something I forget a lot of the time when I see character designs in pictures rather than in motion. And it’s that that character design’s aesthetic includes physics. Sometimes--like very often in Yugioh--the aesthetic is mostly about those physics and what all these separate pieces do when they move.

In Yugioh, the designs are a hot mess. I can’t say they aren’t. But, there is a reason why he has all those moving bangles--it’s because he holds cards a lot and that’s where is camera is. I guarantee, when jacket comes back it’ll be flowing in the wind 100% of the time. Every single one of Yugi’s weird bangs can sway around like a weather vane.

So, while this looks not great from the get go, by the time you’ve watched Yugioh for a while, it all comes back together somehow. That’s the thing--that’s what Yugioh proves, it’s that no matter how freakin weird and abstract your design is, if it has the right physics, you’ll have a good time, and that’s an aesthetic all in itself that can’t be described in photo caps.

BUT

but

but, it’s still hella fun to roast Yugi for it because like--look what he’s wearing.

First stop on their date: a diner of lies that gave us no anime food. Just some nondescript milkshake. Every time we see a diner and I don’t get to see anime food my heart shrivels a little smaller like the Grinch.

Yo I assumed the neck belt was attached to the belt-shirt before--but I guess not. Oh man was belt shirt a turtleneck the whole time??? A belt TURTLENECK?

Tea decides to pull out her idea. The idea that Yugi asked her to give Pharaoh--that she could have just...given...straight to Yugi...but here it is. Here’s the big Tea idea.

Tea suggests “Listen, you don’t know who you’re going to be, but that’s true of everyone” which kind of ignores destiny and prophecies and the end of the world, but she’s gonna be a dancer, OK? And because Pharaoh hasn’t seen very much of the world, and is as impressionable as a newborn lamb, he just soaks it right up.

And so they decide not to go to the Museum because Pharaoh’s not feeling it. Probably also has a sixth sense that the museum is currently staffed by the most boring Millennium Item.

FYI this is exactly what my local Dave & Busters looks like floor to ceiling. It’s a real disappointment. It has only 1 DDR machine and one off brand DDR machine, unlike this place.

Yugioh has more diversity than most Anime I’ve seen, but it’s still a work in progress. Also, it’s hard to spot but keep an eye out for this guy’s fringe moccasins.

...Someone brought their briefcase to the arcade? Wh...why?

This whole episode is a whole lot of why.

WHAT?

Everyone just kinda watched this go down?

Again, I’ve never actually played DDR at an arcade because it’s always taken by two sweaty high schoolers who are sweating like ALL OVER the handlebars, and I’m just like...I could ask them to move or...I could not touch their sweat? So, long story short, if DDR involves elbowing each other in the face, this is news to me, and I have been missing out.

Long story short, she wins. We actually get to see Tea use her one and only useful skill--dance fighting. We’ll probably never see it again. Glad they gave us a very long narcissistic Tea dancing montage while they were there. Wish it was done to ska, but you can’t have everything.

And right when this settles into a romantic sunset I start to worry because we’re getting VERY close to a non-vague situation. The show senses this too and just, out of no where, pulls any distraction to get them away from said sunset.

Y’all how do you even manage to draw a spike mullet with dreads?

And here we all thought we’d get through this episode without cards!

JK, you were absolutely right for thinking that.

In her defense, he did try to elbow jab her in the head.

Anyways, after seeing Tea tear through Johnny Steps, Pharaoh feels like maybe he can handle whatever crazy thing happened to him 5000 years ago. He decides “Lets go recklessly open that Pandora’s box!”

I just noticed his second belt has a fanny pack on the butt for his cards.

Well, that was...still vague somehow. Good. Got me worried there for a second.

Next week, on Yugioh:

Bets on how long it takes for the show to never mention this date again and immediately forget these two were an item, I’m betting at the very beginning of the next episode? Are we going to get the same exposition but for the second time--will I even have anything to recap? In the dark is Yugi just a pair of swinging arms?

#yugioh #yugioh recap #s2 ep4 #yugi muto #tea gardner #johnny steps #so many belts #so many bangles #the other day it came to my attention that the tag for yugioh is ygo #and that is the most 00's thing I've ever heard #hell did that happen #obligatory date episode #would you even date a ghost #if the ghost shared the same body #as your most awkward freind

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sally-mun · 7 years

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As someone who hasn't, wouldn't, and won't be experiencing Major/Minor (or whatever it was called) could you perhaps analyze more specifically some of the things you felt were missteps more in depth, so others who decide they might want to make a visual novel or even just a story, might be able to avoid the same issues? I realize this might not be your area of interest, but I'm always interested in these kinds of analyses.

Man, where do I even begin.

I suppose I should start by saying that this game could have been fine; I don’t necessarily hate this game for the story, even if I think it’s uninspired. I play lots of point-and-click games and usually enjoy them (even the stupid ones) so long as they have merit in one area or another. But that’s the core of the problems with Major/Minor: It has NO merit to work with. Its construction shows absolutely no understanding of this genre of game design. Or of writing. Or of entertainment in general. Or of simply respecting one’s audience.

First and foremost, let’s discuss visual novels.

The critical difference between a novel and a visual novel is interactivity; a novel is a set and done deal that takes its readers along for the ride, whereas a visual novel invites the readers to be part of the ride itself. The direction of the story is influenced by the player, and this allows them to personally take ownership of later events. It’s the sort of game that tries to put you in the role of the protagonist in the most direct form possible. Like other first-person games your view as a player is exactly that of the character you’re playing, but in a VN’s case it’s like reading a comic book in a choose-your-own-adventure format.

Major/Minor not only fails on both the visual and novel elements, but it also fails when combined as a visual novel.

1) Visual

For the most part, visual novels don’t have a lot of action. They primarily consist of conversations with NPCs and usually take place in static locations. For this reason, both the characters and the environments need to have a lot of personality. Players need to feel like they’re actually having conversations with the characters and that they’ve entered a unique location that sees real use. This is the red, meaty center of how VNs engage and gratify their players.

Designing characters in a visual novel is about more than giving each one a different face; it’s about giving each character enough of a range of actions and emotions to sell the idea that the character is actually interacting with you, and in a way that’s truly unique from every other character. In real life, people do all sorts of crap when speaking: Our expressions change, we gesture with our hands, our posture varies, and sometimes we even have small ticks associated with certain topics or emotions. Between these visual cues and the actual discussions themselves, players ought to know the NPCs well enough to be able to describe them like real-life friends by the end of the game.

This brings us to Major/Minor’s first serious offense: Every character has one face. Typically in a VN, each character has a minimum of half a dozen expressions, poses, and gestures/ticks to match the different emotions they’ll need to exhibit over the course of their conversation topics. The characters in Major/Minor can only make a single expression and pose throughout the entire game, which immediately leads to some seriously disjointed discussions. It’s hard for me to take a character seriously when they say they’re angry with me when the art staring through the computer screen is bright, cheerful, and apparently mid-laugh. Sorry, NPC #672, I really don’t care that you’re allegedly on the brink of tears, because your singular piece of character art is so smarmy and mischievous that I forgot you were trying to tell me something tragic.

What makes this even more annoying is that most of the characters DO have a secondary piece of art, but it’s only ever used ONE time as an introduction to a new character before the game chucks it in the bin and we never see it again. Each character COULD have had at least two expressions if the dev had planned his commissions carefully enough, buuut instead he chose to get two shots that are barely distinguishable from one another so there could be a ~=*FLOURISH*=~ when we see someone for the first time. Granted, two per character still isn’t anywhere near enough, but it’s a hell of a lot better than just one! It makes me wonder why he bothered to spend the money on a second image for each character at all, since half of these commissions only get about 10 seconds of screen time. What a waste.

And hey, speaking of wasted opportunities, let’s talk more about the environments! Lots of visual novels don’t spend much energy on their backgrounds, and although that’s usually fine (albeit not my first preference), Major/Minor seriously needed to think more about its settings. For the moment I’ll ignore the laziness of the fact that the backgrounds are generic photos with a blur filter over them; what’s more important is that this game loves to tell us all kinds of random crap about the rooms we’re in, especially during the scenes that take place in Japan. This game would’ve benefited dearly from simply having more detailed backgrounds and just letting us observe the goings on of the room on our own. Y’know, because that makes it more... visual.

Honestly, if it were me, I would’ve taken it all a step further and gone full-blown Ace Attorney on the environments. In AA games, investigating the scene is very important because you have to look for clues. I’m not saying Major/Minor needed to let you hunt for items, but I do think that it could’ve cut a ton of random information from the text by simply letting us inspect the backgrounds. That way the players that want to know what a kotatsu is can find out on their own time and players that already know or don’t care can move on.

Something else that would’ve brought the game a much-needed boost of interest is cut scenes. As noted earlier, visual novels don’t tend to have a lot of action, so when something physical DOES happen, it makes an impact. One way to maximize that flash of excitement is with a cut scene – or at least, the visual novel equivalent of one. A “cut scene” in a VN isn’t typically a full motion video like most video games boast; it still makes use of a static image, but it’s an image whose quality far surpasses that of the rest of the art in the game. Maybe it’s abnormally large and the camera slowly pans across for dramatic effect, or maybe it’s a scene drawn from an interesting angle that isn’t the player’s POV. Some games take this even farther and really do animate their cut scenes a bit (usually on par with a nice animated gif). Lots of VN cut scenes make use of sound effects or action-specific music cues to keep the player emotionally involved with the scene, as it’s a moment that’s out of the player’s control.

Major/Minor, on the other hand, does none of this. Much like the drought of facial expressions, the game simply pelts you with paragraph after paragraph to tell you about the events taking place around you, rather than simply letting you see for yourself and be, y’know, involved. Even a handful of cut scenes that had some real effort put into them would’ve really given this game some pep. Not only would it have kept me engaged as a player, but it would’ve weeded out even more unnecessary narration.

Oh, and speaking of weeding shit out of the text…

2) Novel

The writing in this game badly, badly needed to be edited. Like, so badly it makes me physically hurt from how poorly this text is constructed. I’m not talking about the simple things like misspellings and failed capitalizations, I mean BIG mistakes, like sentence fragments and improper conjugations and completely misusing some words all together. It’s also excruciatingly repetitive. Never in my life have I ever seen prose that recaps itself so frequently – sometimes literally within minutes of the event that it’s reminding you of. It even recaps itself within the same block of text a few times.

It’s pretty obvious the dev never allowed a seasoned editor to proof the text, but it’s so unbelievably bad that I’m not even sure the dev himself ever gave it a second glance. It reeks of being a first draft that was never once revisited; actually, it strongly reminds me of the sort of stories I myself wrote when I was about 13. At that time I wanted so badly to write big, dramatic stories! Stories that had deep themes and lots of intrigue! With a complicated plot and several subplots!! And lots of characters that would all totally be different and completely matter!!!! But the problem was I was so wrapped up in wanting to make my stories big, impressive epics that I stretched myself way too thin and everything came out incredibly shallow. It’s honestly kind of eerie to think back on the things I wrote as a kid while I play this game. The similarities are so striking that I can’t tell if this is something the dev wrote at that age and just never decided to polish, or if he did write it as an adult but has the writing skill-level of a teenager.

But honestly, I’d overlook all the technical flaws and melodrama this guy could throw at me if he would just show and not tell. “Show, don’t tell” is one of the oldest rules in the book when it comes to storytelling, and for good reason: Telling instead of showing is not only fucking boring, but it treats the reader like an idiot. If a writer knows what they’re doing, they shouldn’t have to tell, because they’d just demonstrate those things instead.

For example, let’s examine another huge flaw with the writing: Incredibly shallow characterizations. Early in the game the player meets a character named Rook. Rook is very rude. I know this because the game tells me. All. The. Time. I legit don’t remember how many times the game has mentioned that Rook is rude at this point. The dev seems completely oblivious to the notion that you don’t have to tell the player these things. You can just… write Rook as being rude. Trust me, my dude, I can figure out if a character is an asshole or not. Not only can Rook’s rudeness be demonstrated by how he treats me as a player, but it can be further reinforced by other characters reacting to him in a put-off manner. If you’re so concerned that I won’t pick up on the fact that Rook is a rude person just based on how he behaves, then you’re doing it wrong, end of discussion.

But then, as I said, the characterizations are shallow in general. Everyone tends to have their one basic trope and the story rests on the idea that you know what the character is. None of the scenes go out of their way to really dig into who someone is – which is kind of amazing, honestly, since the prose is so obsessed with making sure you know the most inane and unrelated shit half the time – and even after I’ve known a character for several chapters they still feel like a cardboard cut-out to me.

To be honest, I’m kind of impressed by the sheer volume of ways that Major/Minor fails at showing instead of telling. It tells you what characters are like instead of just letting you interact with them, it tells you about the places you visit instead of just letting you view them, it tells you every single time the characters have a mood shift or expression change because it couldn’t be bothered to give them each more than one face, and it hamfists unnecessary information into the script where it’s unneeded and interrupts the scene – and THEN, it makes SURE you notice that it’s telling instead of showing by repeating those things over and over and over again!

All of this is further exacerbated, by the way, because the dev has no idea how to tell a story in the first place. Even with all the above flaws, I miiight have still been able to enjoy this game if it was just a compelling narrative in any sense of the word at all. I will happily deal with poor construction and telling-not-showing if the story still has some intrigue. Even a flawed story can have a mind-blowing plot and keep you reading just to find out what happens next, right? I thought so too, until I realized that Major/Minor goes SO far out of its way to spoil its own plot that it frequently makes you sit through scenes that you, the protagonist, are not even present for. Yes, in a game that’s built upon being a first-person experience, the story will slam on the brakes and take you OUT of the protagonist’s shoes to make you sit by as an observer to events that probably would’ve been an great reveal later on had the dev just kept his mouth shut.

3) Visual Novel

So the visuals suck and the writing sucks, but hey, lots of games get by without investing much in those areas. Could Major/Minor pull it together and at least give the player an interesting mechanic? Hahahaha no, of course it didn’t. As far as the gameplay is concerned, Major/Minor is so bad that in many ways I hesitate to even call it a game.

The cornerstone of visual novels is making choices. They can range from serious decisions that determine the overall outcome of the game or small cosmetic details, but either way, the core of this gaming style is putting the player in the driver’s seat as often as possible. When playing Major/Minor, however, the player is strapped into a straight jacket, blindfolded, and tossed into the trunk of the damn car. This game is so reluctant to surrender control of the narrative that it’s not uncommon at all to go through entire sections of the game having made no choices whatsoever. It fails so spectacularly as a visual novel that I’d be willing to bet that the dev had never played one before. He is astonishingly disinterested in what makes a visual novel enjoyable to the player.

There’s a principle in game design called Illusion of Control. The goal of this idea is to allow the player to feel like they’re in charge of the game while actually keeping them within strict boundaries. It applies to a lot of games, but it’s especially important in visual novels. Players need to be able to dictate how the story progresses, even if some of those choices make no real impact on outcomes. For example, players can enter conversation trees with NPCs that seemingly offer a lot of control – perhaps the player chooses the discussion topics, or can decide if they want to be shy or snarky in their replies – and yet at the end of the scene there could realistically be no change to the story’s progress. The greater point is that the player feels like they handled the conversation the way they wanted to. This allows them to still feel like they’ve gotten somewhere and that they accomplished something.

Major/Minor appears to scoff at the very idea of this, like the game’s worried you’ll cramp its style if it gives you too much power.The player is allotted no input whatsoever on how the PC treats the other characters, what subjects to discuss, where they’d like to go, how to react to the actions of other characters… It’s truly mind-blowing just how consistently the game misses opportunities to allow the player even the illusion of control. For example, there’s a scene where the player character (PC) is awakened in the middle of the night by a pounding on the door, and no options are offered on how the player would like to handle this. A better game might allow the player to choose if they want to pretend to keep sleeping, or call out to whomever is knocking, or try escaping out a window, or crack the door open to see what the person wants. Even if it’s an absolute necessity to the plot that this person enters the room, it’s still better to let the player choose, because there are a plethora of ways to redirect each of those options back around toward the character getting in.

Unfortunately, Major/Minor is just too damn lazy to be bothered with gameplay, and the PC just lets the stranger in with no input from the player. Soon after, the stranger attacks the PC, which would again be a prime opportunity for lots of reactionary options: The player could duck! Or the player could punch their assailant! Or maybe they could kick instead! Maybe they’d try to run away or call for help! Buuut no, Major/Minor really doesn’t care what you want YOUR CHARACTER to do, and it’s already decided that you’re going to put up no fight at all and immediately pass out. It’s by far one of the most unsatisfying things I’ve ever experienced in a video game.

The disconnect between the player and the protagonist is so extreme that I honestly don’t feel it’s a fair assessment to refer to the protagonist as the “player character.” It’s not uncommon for visual novel protagonists to speak in the first person, but in most games it feels like the PC is speaking on your behalf because they’re acting according to your will. The protagonist of Major/Minor decides so many things for themself that it stopped feeling like “my” character a very, very long time ago. This character isn’t me and never was; it’s the main character of a book that I didn’t ask to read, who very occasionally pauses to ask my opinion on something.

HEY HOWDY HEY SPEAKING OF PAUSING… If you boot this “game” up for a session, you’d better hope you have plenty of time on your hands to get through it, because you’re at the dev’s mercy for when you can save your progress. Being able to save anytime you want is a staple of visual novels because 1) people read at wildly different paces, and 2) for many people, excessive reading makes them tired. Not only that, but sometimes life just plain gets in the way and you have to pick up and go on short notice. Major/Minor ignores all of these factors and leaves the player relegated to appointed checkpoints throughout the game.

Now, I’m not necessarily saying that checkpoints are inherently bad, but they do need to be used very, very wisely. Any game (VN or otherwise) that doesn’t allow the player to save anytime they want needs to be sure checkpoints are reasonably close from any given location, and furthermore that they’re spaced at regular intervals. As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, however, the dev flushed that idea down the toilet along with what was left of his common sense and parents’ love. Sometimes Major/Minor stacks save points practically back-to-back within the span of a few minutes, and in other cases I’ve literally played for over and hour before the game finally rewarded me with the option to save.

There’s no discernible pattern or technique that I can detect for when save points are bestowed on the player; you’re not even guaranteed an opportunity to save when the game switches chapters! I would say that I can’t fathom why the dev thought this would be a good idea, but let’s not kid ourselves here, it’s clear that the dev never thought this through in the first place. If he had, he might’ve noticed that players being uncertain about whether or not they’ll be able to save their progress discourages them from playing at all.

Also, before I fully move on from the game design, I just wanted to make a brief side note about the music. To be honest, I turned the music off a VERY long time ago, so I don’t even remember what it sounds like; however, I’ve read that all of the music in the game is from the free assets you get in RPG Maker. I’ve further read that the free assets (both audio and visual) were the entire reason the dev decided to use RPG Maker for this game in the first place, in spite of the fact that there are other programs out there specifically geared toward making visual novels. This is worth mentioning because it further highlights just how lazy this entire game is. It’s not a sin to use free program assets – that IS what they’re there for, after all – but when you ONLY use the free assets and then advertise your game on Steam for being sooo creative and original, AND have the gall to charge $20 for it?? Yeah, that’s a gigantic slap in the face.

Speaking of Steam, you’d think a game like this would’ve been weeded out by the gaming community for being the garbage that it is, right? After all, there’s a ranking right at the top of the page showing the proportion of good and bad reviews it’s gotten, and right now it says the feedback is “very positive.” I will say that I do take community feedback into consideration when I’m thinking about a game that I haven’t otherwise heard of before, and my misstep with this game has definitely taught me a valuable lesson. When I saw that the game is ranked “very positive” and I scrolled down to see several glowing reviews, I felt that was sufficient enough research to know if the game was worth my time and money.

However, upon trying out the game and realizing just how badly I’d been deceived, I did a little more digging. As it turns out, the dev is known for flagging negative reviews as “abusive” and getting them deleted, allowing him to effectively filter out the bad press so long as he can make some kind of a case to Steam. This debacle has taught me that it’s not enough to scroll to the bottom of a Steam page for user reviews, as those tend to be the most recent; what you do instead is click the “Read all [x] reviews” link, as those reviews are sorted by popularity. THIS is where you’ll find the reviews that the community has deemed the most helpful and informative, and in this case, it’s like night and day. ALL of the highest-ranked reviews of Major/Minor are negative, and the numbers are staggering. Literally HUNDREDS of people have ranked these terrible reviews as helpful, and most of them are in the 80-90% range on agreement. You have to load more reviews four times to find even one single positive post, and once you do start getting into the positives, the upvotes are significantly fewer.

SO, in conclusion...

I want to say that’s about all I have to give on this subject, but the sad truth is it’s not. I could probably critique this game line-by-line, moment-by-moment, if I really wanted to. Fortunately for my sanity, I really don’t want to. … Not right now, anyway. I’m sure I’ll lose it at some point and decide to go through and count all the missed opportunities in the game or something, but I won’t be doing that right now, thankfully.

So in the vein of others learning from the mistakes of this game: If you were thinking about buying Major/Minor, don’t. If you bought it a while ago during a sale and were thinking about starting to play it, don’t. If you’re interested in making a visual novel and wanted to learn from this game’s mistakes… Well granted there’s a lot to learn about what not to do, but still, don’t give this lazy, deceptive dev any more money. Learn from this guy’s shortcomings based on the feedback of players. Hell, read or watch a Let’s Play if you really want to experience it first-hand. Just please don’t buy and play this game. As a favor to ME, please don’t buy and play this game.

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#sciver #Sallymun plays Major/Minor #I hope you guys enjoy this because it was not easy #if you know someone who's thinking about this game please show them this post #REBLOG TO SAVE A LIFE

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nehswritesstuffs · 6 years

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2017 Movies in Review

So my boyfriend and I go to the movies quite a bit. How much is that? Well, enough to remind our family and friends that we met in film school. Here is our stupidly-long list of things we’ve seen in 2017, from the local art house to blockbusters, shorts and features, and much more. Yay having a writing blog so I can actually have a goal for compiling this sort of thing~

~**~The following is simply my opinion as I stand, and will probably differ from your own. This is not a good thing or bad thing, just a thing, nothing more. Please take nothing personally~**~

Hidden Figures: We nearly saw this in 2016 instead, but didn’t because… reasons…? I dunno. We figure that it’s a pretty good addition to the math-teacher-doesn’t-want-to-teach repertoire of Stand and Deliver and October Sky, about people who math really good despite not being from what society thinks as mainstream-math-type backgrounds (black women joining Latin kids and Coal Country boys, respectively). I also am not exactly a fan of Jim Parsons, so him playing an antagonistic force was a bit cathartic when it was comeuppance time.

One Piece: Film Gold: My boyfriend is the best boyfriend and brought me to see this despite the fact he knows very little about One Piece. Actually, more like knew very little about One Piece, as I was talking about the manga the entire way back to my place. It’s very One Piece, very Eiichiro Oda, very Japan, very shonen.

Eleven P.M. and Hell-Bound Train: Not a wide release by any means, as the local art theater played these two as part of a Black History Month series involving early African-American directors. Both are black-and-white, as well as silent, and both do very different things for an audience now that they’re edging on 90 years old. Eleven P.M. is a very surreal, nearly modern—as in 2017 modern—type of story within a story that has some fucking legit special effects, whilst Hell-Bound Train was constructed as part of a sermon, leading to an… interesting view into the mindset of 1930s Bible Belt preachers (and in many places is unintentionally hilarious).

The Great Wall: While the context was not as bad as it looks (Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal playing White Savior in Fantasy Ancient China --> ACTUALLY --> Damon and Pascal being in the right place at the right time and while helping, not being the ultimate deciding factors (nor was their help only possible because of their European-ness)), it still was really weird to watch and I would have rather it been a couple of Koreans or Japanese trying to take a peek at Fantasy Ancient China’s Great Wall than a couple Europeans, because it makes a bit more sense geographically-speaking, but what are ya gonna do when companies want Western Name Recognition. Quite violent and really interesting to watch, at least from an American perspective that’s not regularly exposed to a wide variety of Chinese films.

Logan: I HOPE THIS WINS SO MANY AWARDS. EXCELLENT STRAIGHT-DRAMA, LOW-KEY SCI-FI, I CANNOT SCREAM ENOUGH. IT MIGHT HELP REDEEM MOVIE AWARDS IN MY EYES, AT LEAST A LITTLE. MAYBE. (Okay, probably not, but it still deserves a buttload of awards.)

2017 Oscar Nominated Short Films

Animated: Borrowed Time, Pearl, Piper, Blind Vaysha, Pear Cider and Cigarettes

Can Pixar steal an Oscar from itself? It pretty much did when it came to Piper (which was cute, and that’s about it) winning over Borrowed Time (which contains MURDER~ and SUICIDE~). Pearl was alright, Blind Vaysha was weird, and Pear Cider and Cigarettes was a bizarre 35-minute eulogy to this dude’s friend that the theater I went to made positive to warn us about the fact it was not kid-friendly constantly. Like, frick, no one was told to pull the little kid down the aisle out when it came to Borrowed Time, but nope don’t see Pear Cider and Cigarettes don’t do it (to be fair: there was a “holy shit was that oral?” moment in the latter, but how does one say murder/suicide is okay for kids but sex/smoking/heavy drinking is not (and the kid did not leave during either, for the record)).

Live-Action: Sing/Mendenki, Silent Nights, Timecode, Ennemis Interieurs, La Femme et le TGV

While I 100% agree with Sing (original title: Mendenki) getting the win, I’m also fond of Timecode and Ennemis Interieurs. Sing reaches to my inner by cataloguing a couple students running into a complete bitch of a teacher, Timecode is simply endearing (two security guards and dance antics), and Ennemis Interieurs (a French Algerian being grilled over patriotism when he always considered himself French) is so fucking real I had to refrain from making any noise in the theater lest I shout “you French bastard” over and over. Silent Nights and La Femme et le TGV weren’t all that stellar to me, since both involved flirting/falling in love with men who surprisingly had families and Silent Nights was pretty much “white girl has compulsion to provide for brown boys” with little else to it and I was pretty disgusted by how it played out overall.

Kong: Skull Island: There are finally multiple movies where I don’t mind John C. Reilly being in it (Wreck-It Ralph was the first)! Now I studied how the Vietnam War has been portrayed on film in varying angles (it was a theme concentration), and this is actually a really interesting look at how American involvement in Vietnam messed up a bunch of people in varying ways without going to Vietnam itself or focusing on a soldier’s inability to reintegrate into the homefront. Packard was very much someone for whom the war was not over despite the official pull-out that the movie is set during, Weaver clearly saw some shit and was not there to stand idle (despite that’s what a war photographer technically does when out in the field), and Conrad was there to let Hiddleston be British. Okay, that wasn’t a very good explanation, but just trust me: it’s a really good Vietnam movie with character subtleties… plus all the awesome stuff that would have been great in Peter Jackson’s 2005 King Kong remake but we weren’t allowed to explore Skull Island for that long.

Power Rangers: A generally-fun movie, being as I grew up with the TV show (I was four when it premiered in the US) and did a whole heck of a lot with the ‘verse while incorporating the capabilities of modern graphics and special effects. My only points of contention are these: A) the original theme seems very shoehorned and “aw crap we forgot the original theme GET THE SOUND MIXER BACK HERE IDC IF IT’S TWO IN THE MORNING”, and B) I want to know who to flipping ship after I get out of the theater, so either make Trini gay/bi, or don’t, because I don’t need an open-ended speech about coming together despite differences when THE QUESTION AT-HAND WAS NOT ANSWERED IN THE TEXT. I WAS EVEN LOOKING FOR SUBTLE THINGS, BUT NOPE. I don’t even care if that was resolved in extra features somewhere, because if it didn’t make the cut, it clearly wasn’t that important, and ffs Power Rangers you can do better than that.

Ghost in the Shell: Okay, this has some major problems, I get that. Hollywood doing anime doesn’t end up being the best of anything, but this one worked for me. Scarlett Johansson as the Major instead of an East Asian actress? I totally buy it because it actually fits with the thematic loss of identity in the original series, also opening the door for there to be a multitude of different actresses (and even actors) playing the Major as she struggles to regain her old self. The setting and other characters, both rather diversified compared to the originals, make the movie feel like a reinterpretation rather than a straight-up adaptation (there is a difference!), and I generally liked it. So a decent reinterpretation, but shitty adaptation…? Yeah, that’s how I’m categorizing it.

Going in Style: Old people, far as the eye can see. Old people on the screen. Old people in the seats. Few are actually as cool as the ones on-screen are, and none of them sat around us. Ann-Margaret essentially reprised her role from Grumpy Old Men.

Colossal: A really quirky sci-fi movie that does an interesting take on the kaiju genre, as well as allowing Jason Sudeikis to really flex his acting chops. I honestly don’t remember seeing him in anything before this and holy cow he creeped me the fuck out (which was the point). I also got to snicker every time Dan Stevens came on the screen, because that’s what I do thanks to Downton Abbey ruining my life forever and for me he shall never shake that.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2: Basically everything I wanted in a Vol. 2 and more. Unfortunately, that’s all I can really say about it though. I do agree with Drax though: Mantis is pretty hideous, despite the fact they really tried to go as cute as possible with her design. It failed.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales: I squeed, not gonna lie. I’m in that increasingly-ageing demographic of people who was on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride both before and after the film franchise started, and from the moment I saw the first movie, I was in love. I mean, it doesn’t matter that I actually acknowledge the fourth PotC movie, and I was excited despite what some critics were saying, as with GitS. Dead Men Tell No Tales is definitely a worthy installment in my eyes, which could end up spinning the franchise into a direction not so bogged down by Jack Sparrow (I honestly think that Sparrow’s unexpected popularity forced the writers to have more focus on him, which worked in some cases, but that’s not always a good thing since it ends up so limiting).

Wonder Woman: When paired with PotC5, it means that day my inner 13yo was very, very happy, indeed. Freaking World War I and let’s beat bad guys up and mythology and oh yeah did I mention we were beating up bad guys during WWI? Fuck. Yeah. I mean, we should have had three movies of Gal Gadot kicking ass through the ages already, but oops can’t go cootie overload gotta make sure the quota stays alright for Justice League later in the year. It’s probably a good thing that Diana was only in Belgium though—can you imagine her losing her shit in the middle of the Armenian Genocide? MAYBE SHE DID LOSE HER SHIT IN THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THAT’S ANOTHER IN MEDIAS RES MOVIE?! (One loss isn’t more important than the other, duh, but they were contemporary tragedies and Diana needs to flip all her shit.)

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword: Why did no one like this movie? It was super-fun and didn’t pretend it was something it wasn’t, as it was balls-to-the-walls action/fantasy/dude movie. Uh, as much as I loved watching Wonder Woman, I also love the sort of movie King Arthur: Legend of the Sword tends to be, and to see that it was a flop makes me put it with the rest of my beloved box office flops that needed to get sequels but never got them because they weren’t appreciated as they should have been (can you sense a theme here?**).

Spider-Man: Homecoming: The cutest superhero movie I have seen to-date, because it is an A+ teen movie. It also holds the distinction of being the first Spider-Man movie I wanted to see since 2002. One thing that I am hoping for the franchise is that MJ kind of, well, grows the fuck up, as the more I heard her be needlessly snarky and “I’m a way better person than you because I know/acknowledge these things”, the more I want some serious character development to take place. I don’t have time for sassy teens who think they know more than I do; I got one living across the hall from me and let me tell you: that isn’t very funny most of the time when they’re like that, and when it is funny, it’s because of how little they genuinely know. Please Zendaya, I don’t know who the frick you are or why you’re popular other than The Mouse, but can you make sure MJ doesn’t stay a bitch? Please?

Valerian and the City of A Thousand Planets: It was kinda meh. Stunning visuals, lovely secondary characters, but a plot that needed enigmatic leads to hold it together. Hint: the leads were less than stellar and really unconvincing. As a sci-fi movie, it has a really nice background and world-building for it (thanks to the French comic series it’s based off of), though I can really see its downfall as being a rather adult movie compared to what we’re used to for colorfully-animated science fiction. I mean, come on, there’s a gratuitous “WE COULD CAST RHIANNA” striptease sequence. Naw, son, I ain’t about that, and chances are that people who equate colorful sci-fi with children and the childish REALLY aren’t about it and that’s why it kinda flopped about and died.

Cars 3: Otherwise known as: the Cars 2 that should have happened. I find it funny that it basically did not reference the previous movie in the slightest, making Super Agent 00-Mater null and void. God fucking bless.

Dunkirk: So. Freaking. Intense. As a history person, I do adore the care and precision that was taken when it came to the shooting and production (despite the focus on the White British and limited attention given to the bulk of the French and African troops as well as oops I can’t remember any Indian troops being there, though it is justifiable in-universe since the mains are from different regiments than ones you could get visual/linguistic diversity from). It’s been months and I still cry when I think about this movie—it’s that good. Even if you can’t stand monochrome/monogender casting, I would still recommend at least a peek, as everything fits together gorgeously. Acting, cinematography, writing, editing, music, settings… basically, it’s as close to a perfect WWII movie as we’re going to ever get. If I had to compile a list of movies to show an intro film class to exemplify How to Do the Thing Right, Dunkirk is definitely on it.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 40th Anniversary: I first watched this in a pre-boyfriend film class and seeing it with him was a very interesting treat. The effects hold up, the story holds up—it’s still a solid movie for being forty years old, despite some things that make me facepalm writing-wise.

Victoria & Abdul: “Inspired by true events… mostly” is basically every historically-set film ever and at least this had the balls to admit it. Since I’m down for watching anything about Vicky and Her Boytoys, I sat through a crowd similar to that of Going in Style to view it. It treats historical accuracy when it comes to Anglo-Indian relations a lot like Downton Abbey treats certain social issues, both addressing them directly while simultaneously glossing them over. While there is plenty of truth to the story, a lot of the devotion between the titular characters is both probably and definitely ramped up for story purposes. One bonus, however, is I got to see Paul Higgins play another character who could be “the Crossest Man in Scotland”, while actually being in Scotland, with much better outward grooming.

Blade Runner 2049: My mind is still a bit blown after seeing this, which is great considering the original was just as interesting. It is a worthy continuation of the original and I was pleasantly surprised at how much of it carried over. I hadn’t seen the first Blade Runner in years and wow so much of it stuck and shone through and was easy to recall thanks to the continuity.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women: Pretty sure this didn’t get a lot of promotion because DC and their fanboys tend to take the “la-la-la-I’m-not-listening” approach whenever anyone reminds them about Wonder Woman’s saucy origins (I had very little idea what sort of movie I was walking into when I entered the theater, and considering I go to the movies fairly frequently, that’s saying something). Best utilized as a trap to make obnoxious bros as uncomfortable as possible and possibly question some things about themselves due to gratuitous threesome/bondage prawns. Yup. It’s just a biopic with a gratuitous threesome center, the consummation scene of which could have been, like, five minutes shorter and still gotten the point across.

The Princess Bride, 30th Anniversary: Such a cute and lovely movie, though it had some problems, mainly that I was sitting right in front of a Quoter. Sorry, ma’am, I know the movie is highly quotable, but this was neither the time nor place, as we were in a packed theatre with a feature that’s not known for audience participation elements. Otherwise we were all good.

The Foreigner: I had way too much fun with this movie attempting to figure out what the frick was going on amongst all the Paddy MacIrishson accents and Jackie Chan being Chinese-British Liam Neeson in order to kick arse and take names, literally. One of my favorite little touches was that Chan’s Quan was the title character because he was a naturalized British citizen in Belfast amongst former IRAs. Snap…?

Thor Ragnarok: This was definitely a ton of fun and a decent installment to the MCU. New headcanons include that the Grand Master is an Earthling who loves the idea of having his own personality cult, Loki was Frigga’s replacement daughter, and that Asgardians and alcohol are almost like Tolkien elves and alcohol. Key word is almost. Also is weak in the same way as Power Rangers, either due to time constraints or something else entirely (the internet told me Valkyrie is bi, but the movie told me flirty-asexual who is mourning a biological sister? Because familial racial characteristics in this franchise (when it comes to non-royals) are about as idgaf as the Brandi-led Cinderella made-for-TV-movie? Does anyone else fucking remember that? Did I imagine that Lady Sif and Heimdall are siblings? I’m sitting here rather confused, okay).

Justice League: Definitely did its job correctly, as I am pumped for more. Aquaman and Cyborg cannot have their solo movies quick enough, while I needed another Wonder Woman movie last year, as that entry can attest. I was a bit disappointed though in the fact they brought back Superman so that he’s now a founding member of the League, because I thought it would be interesting to have him come back at the end and pull a true Sixth Ranger instead of the partial one he did. It would echo the Justice League cartoon I grew up watching where Diana was the newbie, as that was super-interesting in retrospect, and kept my attention during the initial run. Plus, while I did not hate the Flash as much as I thought I would, he definitely does not sit well with me (just trust me on this one; I’d rather have the Justice League cartoon’s Flash).

Coco: I CRIED LIKE A LITTLE BABY IN THE MOVIE THEATER. IT MIGHT’VE BEEN PRINCESS AND THE FROG SINCE I CRIED LIKE THAT. This movie should, 100%, win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. I was also completely done with the short before it even began, as it was garbage. My boyfriend tried to placate me by saying it was completely made for kids, but to be honest? Kids deserve better. Like Coco. It is an extremely multi-tiered message of a story, gorgeous artwork, and even involves generations-crossing relationships that are truly caring… that the younger party understands, despite frustration. Also the Frieda Kahlo jokes are on-freaking-point. FROZEN CANNOT GIVE KIDS ON-POINT FRIEDA KAHLO JOKES, ONLY VAGUE ICE-THEMED POWERS. COCO WINS.

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi: Extra special to me because the first date-date my boyfriend and I went on was to see Episode VII. Otherwise? I adored it. It was a ton of fun and had badass shit going down (Rey vs Kylo smackdown! Leia FINALLY getting to use the Force! Finn kicking some serious fucking shit! Getting a reason to care about Poe Dameron for once other than being told to trust us we’re not prequels-era George Lucas!). I mean, there are still issues overall, but we’re only 2/3s of the way through the trilogy and there are things that we are not allowed to do as Star Wars fans before the trilogy is over and they are 1) ship before we know all the stuff, 2) assume that we have been given all the facts about anything else, and 3) totally pan everything unless it is universally egregious. (Lucas’s ability to turn A-list actors into shit during the prequels? Please bitch all day long. Oh something doesn’t entirely mesh well with your personal bearings? I respect you and all but please give us a sec before we start saying that “Star Wars is dead” because you might be surprised in a movie or two to know there’s more to the situation and actually does mesh with you (a thing I heard someone say before I saw the movie and when I was watching I was really disappointed in that person bc really now).) I’m not actually convinced on a lot of things, such as Rey’s heritage, this being the last of Luke, that we will never see Phasma again, that Finn/Rose is a for certain thing that will last, etc.

Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time: I had a feeling that I was going to be disappointed and in the end I sorta was. You see, I waited to watch this until it came to the theater in one of those special event things, so I was all sorts of fretting from Christmas when I stopped looking at the internet, to two days later when I did finally get to see this. During one of the extra interviews, Moffat said that he didn’t expect Bill to be in TUaT until he was about a third of the way done, and I honestly believe that… because it felt much more like Bill’s role was written for Clara. It would have been SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING if it was Clara, and Twelve didn’t realize it was her until the end because reasons, but no, we needed to have Bill comment on One’s 1963 values and drop an I’m Gay Bomb, because that was what we really needed, apparently. No, that was not what we needed. We just had a whole season of Bill comment on squicky values and be a lesbian across time and space and it wasn’t that good or compelling, but felt massively hefted upon Moffat and the writers with not much wiggle room to actually explore her character properly despite the fact we got that out of Clara and… *groaning exhale* My boyfriend said he was going for two old men sniping and bickering and it delivered, and I can’t disagree with that in the slightest. Loved One, adored Twelve, glad they were at least able to get Clara framed in full Jesus Metaphor, because if I’ve seen the Jesus Metaphor done right in this show, it’s Clara being Twelve’s savior; was meh on Bill and was rather upset that of all the times they could have let me forget about Nardole, we bring him back for two seconds as if it was really necessary.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle: Just like with John C. Rielly in Skull Island, I’m not exactly a big fan of Jack Black, yet I was still able to enjoy myself. The adult leads did a great job of acting like they were teens stuck in these adult bodies, while the teen leads did a great job setting up the characterization, as well as following through once the resolution came about. It was much better than the previews made it out to be, as I had been getting a “lighter and softer, FOR KIDS” vibe, which wasn’t that at all. Well, it was still lighter and softer, but it wasn’t to hit any single-digit-age demographic. Probably the youngest I’d go would be 10 to 12, and that’s depending on the kid themselves. Oh well.

…aaaand, on the VERY LAST DAY OF 2017:

The Shape of Water: Guillermo, “Totoro-san” del Toro has done it again. If the Universal Monsterverse dies in a fire, then this is what Creature from the Black Lagoon will end up being. If not, then the Creature is going to be constantly compared to this one. Great creature effects and acting and a portrayal of 1961. Includes nudity, not-really-sexy-times, solo-times, and plenty of blood and violence despite it not being a “violent movie”. Similar audience to Going in Style and Victoria & Abdul, which was odd, but whatever. A very, erm, quirky movie, so be careful with whom you see it with. Possibly with Dunkirk as far as “movies that show you How to Do the Thing”, though with the extra warnings.

A very full, interesting 2017 film-wise! Hopefully 2018 is just as packed full of interesting and neat things! Happy New Year, everyone!

#Nehs writes #idk how to tag this

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wanderlust225 · 7 years

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More temples and noodles? You betcha!

If I could, I would have stayed in Kyoto for another day but it wasn't in the cards this time so I crammed a lot into the last 1.5 days I had in what I've decided is the heart of Japan. (I realize that is a bit unfair to say, as I've only been in a few different places so far!) I woke up early (for my current travel lifestyle, not my normal work lifestyle) and headed to Arashiyama which is what is more commonly referred to as the Bamboo forest. Though it was fairly modest in depth, it was really magical walking below the canopy of these mightly bamboo trees, with sunlight jetting through at even the smallest holes between leaves. Just next to the bamboo forest is the Tenryu-Ji temple, built in 1339 after the emporer had a dream that a dragon had risen from a nearby river, hence the name tenryu ("heavenly dragon"). Like most of the Kyoto temples I visited, the original grounds / buildings had been burned down a number of times in the past few hundred years - though it does seem like Kyoto was mostly spared during WWII. The coolest part of this temple was the garden which was remarkable, designed in a classic style of shakkei ("borrowed scenery"), set with the beautiful Arashiyama mountains in the background. I also booked at shigetsu to sample Buddhist vegetarian cuisine. To many, I'm sure this sounds terrible. To me, it was a welcome respite from constantly having to worry about what animal parts I might stumble upon in my food. Before I sat down I met a really cool couple from Santa Barbara, who had just spent a year in HK. The boyfriend was a chef, which I decided made my meal very legitimate. It was delicious; tofu and wasabi, pickled vegetables, squash soup (Ok, the only thing I did not love), vegetables in a sesame sauce -- and then they brought more; eggplant with a sesame-miso paste and delicious honeydew melon. So good. To make it even more legit it was served in a traditional dining hall and we removed our shoes and sat on a red mat on the floor. One thing I'm not down with in Japanese culture is so much sitting on the floor - it's so uncomforable and westerners bodies are just not accustomed to it - no matter how much yoga we do! Then I decided to test my navigational skills and took the train then a bus (!) to Kinkaku-ji Temple / Ryoan-ji Temple or, for the non-Japanese speakers, the Golden Pavilion, named for the gold leaf-coverd main hall. It was by far the most packed temple I went to the whole day - but since everyone basically snapped a few pics, it was a pretty quick blob of tourist pandamonium to move through. The pavilion was on a beautiful little pond, with mountains in the background and Japanese maples surrounding the water. The leaves of a few of the maples were just starting to turn a burnt red and amber themselves, which gave me a glimpse of what it might look like in the Fall. Just gorgeous. After the Golden Pavilion is had the choice to stop at my hotel first to freshen up (the weather report was still scattered clouds and feels like 100+ degrees) but with it getting later in the afternoon, and because many temples close between 4-5pm, I decided to trek on to Fushimi Inari Temple. This is one of the most famous temples in Kyoto, for the thousands of red shrines that envelope the walkways. I had no real comprehension of what that meant, until I spent almost 2 hours hiking through a never ending stream of red shrines. There was a map at the entrance of the temple which showed that you could walk up the mountain through the lined gates - there was no scale to the map and I thought, 'how hard can this be?' Now it wasn't anything close to Mt Batur in Bali, but I also wasn't prepared for a hike! The first few walkways were crawling with tourists. As the path continued on, and especially as it got steeper, the tourists started to thin out until when I got much closer to the top I spent quite a bit of time hiking to myself. In addition to the red shrines there were tons of little foxes everywhere - these are considered the messenger of Inari, the god of cereals or harvest. The Japanese also see the fox as a sacred figure capable of "possessing" humans - all of it reminded me of Jack. From signs on the path of how much each type of shrine costs, my best guess is that patrons of this temple can purchase them and (I think) put their family name on the legs of the shrine. For all the silent griping I did about this surprise hike, there were stunning views and it felt like a huge accomplishment getting to the top. On the way down there were 2 men installing a new shrine and I noticed as I went by that they were burning incense. I wondered, is it because this shrine installation is a semi-religious act - or is it because a few tourists I passed had absolutely terribly BO. Maybe both. Given the number of tourist attractions I visited I had a lot of time to think about the matchig outfits that were almost as prevalant as people wearing kimonos or outfits with cats on them. If anyone has any experience in this Japanese / Asian matching outfit phenomenon, I would love to know more, like: - Do you pack matching outfits for the whole trip or just one special day? - Is it typically one person's idea and they purchase the pair? - Are there stores that specialize in this - especially the cross gender outfit matching? - For couples, do Asian guys really get into this, or is it something to appease their girlfriends /wives? - For parents, do people judge you if your kids aren't coordinated? Better yet, if you're not coordinated with your friends? I can barely figure out someting I like enough to wear myself... After I freshened up a bit back at the hotel and had my last free evening drink, I headed to the bustling downtown Kyoto scene. Surprise surprise, it was really cool. I had dinner at Omen Shijo which is an udon noodle place off of the famed Panto Cho alley, supposedly where the modern day geishas roam. I wasn't quite sure how to order but wanted to try udon and tempura and fpund a set that included just that. They brought out the tempura first and a rice bowl topped with beef, all which looked fantastic. I dove in, wondering how I had missed ordering the udon, but it looked like plenty of food. As I dove into the tempura they brought 4 more plates - udon noodles, broth, sesame seeds and veggies and I almost regretted ordering my beer which I realized would take up precious stomach real estate. (Not quite though as it helped me cement the fact that I like Sapporo over Asai - very improtant to know.) The waitress taught me the udon procedure: add some sesame seeds, veggies and noodles to the broth and let them all soak for awhile. It was so delicious. (So good, I got almost the same meal the next day for lunch!) After dinner I wandered around Panto Cho "geisha hunting," as they say. I saw a number of women in kimonos, but they were all tourists. On a positive side I had a lovely stroll along a very lively riverway and then found a cool beer bar, where I chatted for a few hours with a nice Italian woman and two super fun gay guys from NYC. The guys told me about their one-day hike up Mt Fuji (which they said looked like another planet and I thought sounded horrifying). The Italian woman confessed that she has not really enjoyed traveling alone as there is no one to talk to -- which made me think to myself, 'huh, I guess that would be a normal reaction.' On the contrary though, I've enjoyed every second of solo travel - I guess there is more innovert in me than I thought! This morning I was a bit slow to get moving (which I will blame on all the beers last night!) but I packed up and headed out to the last temple on my list, Sanjusangen-do Temple. It was first built in 1164, but in the 13th century they added the defining charicteristic, 1,000 wooden and gold-plated, life-size kannons that flank one huge kannon in the middle. Each kannon had 42 arms and each looked a little different; the shape of the eyes, way the robes fell and the size of their mouths. It was an amazing sight, 10 rows with 100 kannons in each and all of this great hall protected by 28 statues of deities which had the creepiest marble eyes. After the temple I set off to buy some ceramics, which Kyoto is famous for. Lindsay bought me a set of two beautiful Japanese plates last time she was here so I bought vivid blue, smaller plates and bowls to match. Then I found anaother store that had super fancy matcha blending bowls, and I also bought two of those. WIth that, and after another quick udon lunch (pretty similar to the night before!) I had too much to carry to shop anymore, so I headed to the train station. Now I'm on the bullet train back to Tokyo for the night and I leave in the late afternoon tomorrow. Trying to decide what to eat tonight is going to be a BIG challenge and I realize that after 4 days in HK and even a week in healthy Bali, I couldn't wait to abandon their cuisines. In Japan though, I have had tons of different meals (all sans seafood) and I have enjoyed every different preparation procedure and every taste. ...though I must confess that when I get back to SF, I will be very happy on a diet of salads and pizza!

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steve0discusses · 7 years

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Yugioh: Ep4 S1 - Fyre Festival’s shaping up pretty good

We've landed on the Duelist Kingdom island, population: 1. It's covered in trees and mountains like the high sierras, and a...well...a structure.

I'm pretty sure this is the exact design of every sand castle I've ever constructed. It's...man. Yugioh pulls so many stops and then is like "please accept this generic castle, we are so tired." and youknow there's a lot of episodes this season so I'm going to let it go. You must be tired. You drew a lot of crazy eyes on Yugi and that must take a lot out of you.

(more under the cut)

In this Tardis-style island that seems a lot bigger on the inside than the outside, we march up about 5 million stairs, which must be convenient for Pegasus’s daily commute, and run into a familiar face. Complete with a sharp opera sting jump scare, it’s a guy in a completely average v-neck sweater, that’s right, it’s Bakura.

Then, just as quickly as Bakura appeared, he disappeared, complete with spooky music and pop-scare transitions although he just kinda seems like he’s lost on the way to a picnic in the woods. Like the music is telling me that he’s threatening, it’s zooming in on his face like it’s threatening, but the character design just feels like the worst he’s going to do is borrow my lawnmower and then maybe forget to ever bring it back.

I really do want to know if any kids out there were frightened of Bakura. So far I think I’d be more frightened by like...I dunno, any of the oversized, menacing monsters that come out of these card holograms because Bakura just seems like your very boring classmate who signs your yearbook with maybe an unhappy face and you can never recall why.

PS I have never seen all of Yugioh before so I’m assuming that Bakura is freakin nuts but don’t spoil.

After the 2 mile march up the stone steps, our villain shows up, still clad head to toe in Salmon (and fun fact, do you know who else was known for salmon pants? That’s right, Billy McFarland. Yugioh predicted it here first, folks.)

Instead of, I dunno, letting anyone inside after that exhausting hike up the wall of China, he decides to force them walk all the way back down the stairs and run through the woods and just fend for themselves--no food, no snacks, not even some soggy Fyre Festival tents. Just go for it, small children, if you die, who cares?

The only way out of this actual Hell and the only way to eat a real meal in a real building, is to attack the other people on the island with card duels but I’m gonna go on a limb and assume that very few people are going to do this legit.

Resolutely, our hero decides that ten star chips is the only way to save his Grandpa. I guess. I mean...sure.

And something I forgot to mention last time because it seemed like such a small thing, is that Yugi split his ticket with Joey--so each have one star chip instead of two. And Joey realizes that this is going to be a problem later so he immediately is like “I’m dumb but I’m not that dumb” but luckily, Yugi is just slightly dumber than he is.

The logic here is kind of strained--if they need the 3 million, just have Yugi win it and give it to you for your sister’s surgery. He would probably do that anyway. But sure, both are now competing in this tournament, and I dunno it’s a lot of Joey screen time and I don’t know how I feel about that.

Also this guy popped up for like a second and it spooked me more than Bakura.

He brought that harpoon with him. He boarded the boat with this 10 foot harpoon. He probably took the taxi to the boat with a 10 foot harpoon sticking out the window. What’s the open carry law on harpoons in Japan?

Anyway, Yugi seems overjoyed at the prospect of dueling on this wild island under horrifying conditions and under the complete law of whatever Pegasus decides.

Seeming shorter and more menacing by the moment, Yugi’s first target is Weevil, the guy who threw his cards off the boat and nearly drowned Joey. Now honestly, was that Weevils fault that Joey jumped off a boat? He didn’t push Joey off the boat. That was alllll Joey. I’m not saying Weevil’s a good guy, he did throw out Yugi’s good cards but I think Yugi is as much to blame for just giving his most precious grandpa’s cards to a clearly evil person in the first place.

But anyway he’s super excited to obliterate him in a card duel and is like gunning it across these Swiss Alps in between the castle and where Weevil is hiding.

(I have no commentary for this random bug swarm. I have no idea why this is there. Is this Pegasus? Bakura? Maybe even Weevil? Why would Moths be...whatever)

The duel begins, and there’s some new rules but I dunno if I’ll bother going over it in any great detail, since I just really want to talk about Pharaoh’s pantshoes for a second. Like if you saw someone wearing these pantshoes but for real--not as a cosplay, but like in tight formal pantshoes, what would you call them?

I mean cover up the belt part and they’re just long hooker boots. Cover up the shoes and they’re just very tight shiny pants. These are two sort of maybe-too-sensual-for-Yugioh garments but when you meld them together is it still? Like he’s in Japan so when you go inside the house you take your shoes off, but Pharoah would never be able to, he’d be in his...I don’t know what he wears under there, probably just another set of boots. Underwearboots.

Anyway, when I watched this I also had a theory. Here’s my theory: I’m assuming that Yugi transforming isn’t actually happening--that this is a symbolism of something going on deeper down. He’s not actually getting taller. His voice isn’t actually dropping. Instead this is a very unique take on the Sailor Moon trope. Yes, he has guidance of an ancient spirit living within him but maybe this isn’t ACTUALLY occuring like it is in other anime. It’s just him trying to make up for all his insecurities by letting a “different person” take the wheel so he deosn’t need to feel afraid.

But then his friends acknowledge sometimes that there is a change occuring, dashing my theory to pieces. They shrug it off saying “he’s like another person” but like...did they hear him scream “YUGIOH” on the top of his lungs just now? Or were they mind-wiped the moment that happened? I should stop analyzing this.

And don’t forget this is an actual Pharoah, and given an opportunity he will start preaching condescendingly to his opponents, with gusto, and with maybe too much pride. It’s kind of a lot, but I guess he was on par with Horus or however it worked in Ancient Egypt (like if memory serves, now that he’s dead he switches over to the god Osiris but I don’t remember so don’t quote me. Also it’s Youknow...Yugioh religion. They did not research this.)

Now again, Yugi relies maybe a little too much on that magician card, and so unfortunately, this particular duel is going to go into the next episode. I know he’s going to win but I think the real question is--will Weevil be turned into a human vegetable? We’ll find out soon

Please reply with “Boots” or “pants” I really want to know if you feel he’s wearing more long boots or more footy pants because I’m very much on team boots here.

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