#at least we got the funimation subs

[flaresanimedump]

Is it Ranpo or Rampo? PSA since the spelling is different between subs:

The real life author Edogawa Ranpo/Rampo was a very cool person. There are lots of fun stories about him, but the thing to know is that he liked Edgar Allan Poe and could speak English. (He liked Poe's mystery stories specifically, Poe having created the proto-Sherlock in his stories about character C. Auguste Dupin).

Why RaNpo: The original author based his pen name on Edgar Allan Poe. Because of the Japanese phonetic system, the first O is considered "soft" and can be skipped over when talking fast, and the W sound is so soft it's often omitted from translation altogether. The Rs are a little more complicated but for the purposes of this explanation I'll just say that soft Rs at the ends of English words are often omitted in their Japanese counterparts (i.e. "computer" is pronounced "computa"), and Japanese doesn't have an L sound exactly, so the R in Ranpo is a stand-in. Thus:

Edgar Allan Poe -> Edga aran po -> Edgaa ranpo -> Edogawa Ranpo -> えどがわ•らんぽ ->　江戸川•乱歩

So this makes it seem like a no-brainer to spell it Ranpo. I'll give another point in Ranpo's favor: Japanese does not have a stand-alone character for M. Each Japanese character has at least two letter sounds in it and one is always a vowel (thus "do" instead of just "d" in Edogawa). Vowel-only sounds are an exception to this rule. They have characters that represent solo A, E, I, O, U sounds - and one for N. ん is just the letter N. They do have the M sound of course, and Ranpo is written "Ra-n-po" so this must mean it's Ranpo, right?

Why RaMpo:

Now it gets complicated. As previously mentioned, Edogawa Rampo could read and speak English. He couldn't write it, however, and so in the 1950s he collaborated with a translator to translate his works into English. His chosen romanization of his pen name? Edogawa Rampo.

Now we KNOW he knew better. He can read English and he's a huge Poe fan, he knows this isn't how Allan is spelled. I haven't been able to find anything on his reasoning, but nobody in the US even realizes this is a play on Poe's name upon hearing it, so I doubt copyright had anything to do with the spelling (and they got way fewer claims for that in the 1950s anyway). I will say that I've seen quite a few Japanese people choose handles related to things they like in German/English and then choose to spell it differently in the romanization, so it might just be for fun. But whatever the reason, the fact remains that Edogawa Rampo himself spelled it Rampo.

On the use of ん, a translator friend of mine once explained the phonetics of the ん character to me. If you're an avid weeb you might have seen "senpai" spelled "sempai" on occasion. You know how the letter A has long and short pronunciations (denoted by "ā" and "ă" respectively)? Similarly, ん has 4 different pronunciations depending on the sounds around it. The most common one is indeed the N sound English-speakers are familiar with, but if ん comes before a sound where your lips press together (such as M, B, or P) it's pronounced like an M. Rampo has one of these sounds following the ん. Certain style guides advise using the letter M in this case.

Since these style guides are prevalent in Japan, it's possible that Edogawa was just following one of those in his chosen translation. Or he might have been being artistic. Someone out there may know but I sure don't.

As a final note for Rampo, all of the official Japanese merch uses the M spelling. I take any and all official merch spellings with a grain of salt, but in this case it's very consistent. Funimation's written romanization has been Rampo (check season 2), but Yen Press has used Ranpo.

So what's the answer?

Technically both are "right," it just depends on your style guide (and, personally, I like Ranpo better), so the answer is... use whichever you like! Such is the way of romanization in anime fandoms.

[weatherman667]

RWBY: Ice Queendom

I have a well earned reputation as a fandowner, but the real reason I didn't watch it's initial run, (aside from a long running argument with sony/crunchyroll/funimation/rightstuf), was RWBYxJL.

Despite my pessimism, I am willing to give series another chance, if I see progress. If we take Star Wars, they utterly ruined it. But, then we got The Mandalorian. I didn't watch it, but to anyone that asked, I said i would, if we got a second good Star Wars thing. They then fired Gina Carano because she wouldn't submit put her pronouns in her bio, and then wouldn't get onto a livestream with 50 pissed off Communists to be shamed about it.

For RWBY, Justice League was that chance. It gave us Jess, (let's be honest, we fucking stole her), and... added nothing to either RWBY or JL.

But, Ice Queendom looked like it was a work of love. It looked like it was made by people who genuinely loved the series, or at least had a good idea of the characters and story.

For off, the quick list:

Animation is sub-par.

I have to watched it subbed.

Now, I've been a weeb for nearly 30 years, so neither of those matter. How the characters move is wonderfully planned out, the movements themselves are simply stiff. The subtitles is really fucking weird, considering they are doing this with the approval of the rights holder, and so could easily get the voice actors, and crew, to dub it. But, neither of those are especially important.

No, the true sin of RWBY: Icequeendom is FRAMING. It's framed like it's a manga, as the start and end of the movements are beautifully decided, it's simply getting there. The camera is way too close to the action, because with this much action, the characters move way too much that the narrow framing doesn't let the eyes adjust to the movement. They honestly would have been better off if they had Weiss prepare to lunge, lunge, and then you just see her blade piercing the Arma-Gigas, (mild not spoilers).

The biggest problem RWBY had is that nothing was planned. They threw a bunch of cool shit into a pile, and it was great. Until they had to actually connect the dots, and come up with an extended story.

Well, Icequeendom has the benefit of hindsight. They include a number of story and world elements, and introduce them in a much more organic way. Even to the point of having the mysterious narrator... narrate. They even add a counterpoint, so firen lhain is not said out of malice nor enmity.

The characters are all much more rounded then they were in RWBY, (we can forgive CRWBY, as there is only so much you can do with 5 minute episodes). They do the Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood thing, where they expect you to know certain details, and so don't need to explain them. The characters and their motivations are introduced in a much better way, so that novices to the series can get just out as much out of it as veterans. Characters are introduced much earlier, and in a much more organic way. Jacques Schnee and Adam are made more monstrous, and more Human at the same time. Taiyang is made more fatherly, and less male feminist coward. Yang's motivations to Ruby are are lot clearly, (she wants to enable her, no, not that kind, you perverts). Whitley has more vitriol but less hatred. Bumblebee makes and early appearance, along with actual detail into the White and Black trailers. Last but not least, Zwei is present from episode one.

When RWBY was animated in Poser, they focused on high-octane, over-the-top fights. When they switched to Maya, they focused on making them more realistic, but forgot they are supposed to be using over the top anime fights. Ice Queendom takes a middle ground. The animation for the fights is not as smooth as either, but has far, far more weight. They decided how strong the characters are, how strong their Aura is, how strong their Semblance is, and stuck to it. Most of the firearms use actual bullets, and the effects of dust are actually quite well thought out. Grimm have realistic toughness, at least for creatures made out of enmity and darkness. Maybe I should say they have an established and consistent toughness. This makes the fights feel both a lot more dangerous for the Humans, and a lot more possible. In theory, a mundane Human could kill a Grimm, if they could get their sword into it enough times. Instead of Grimm being invincible, and only defeatable with Aura, they instead act like realistic creatures.

[blazehedgehog]

Thoughts on One Piece?

I've told this story, but since Tumblr search is so awful, I'll tell it again.

The short of it is: I really wanted to get into One Piece. When One Piece started, pirates weren't really a subject you saw a whole lot of in anime. I thought Oda's art style was fresh and cool, too.

I did not like dealing with fansubs. They were kind of difficult to acquire (relatively), and at the time, I had a router that would absolutely crap its pants if I left a torrent running (it would have a firmware crash and all internet traffic would die until you power cycled the device). So the Kaizoku stuff was right out for me from the start.

I forget which came first, the 4Kids dub or Viz launching American Shonen Jump with their version One Piece. I think the 4Kids dub was first, because I remember being angry at Viz for adopting "Zolo" instead of "Zoro." Either way, I was angry about the 4Kids dub, but I was lucky enough to pick up the entire first 12 months of Shonen Jump, and figured that's where I'd start with One Piece.

Didn't have the money to keep buying new Jumps past that first year, so I figured I'd have to slum it with scanlations at least. I believe I left off in the back half of Baratie, and the only scanlations I could find from that part of the manga were like, truly awful quality. I have described them as "third generation Yahoo Groups quality scans." They were dark, blurry, heavily compressed, and the dialog was barely a step above an automated machine translation. I almost wish I could find them again, because it was nasty.

Around this time I think Funimation announced they wrestled the rights to One Piece away from the decaying hands of 4Kids, so I was happy to wait for that. We subscribed to Netflix in those days, the original DVD-by-mail service, so I'd rent each new set as they came out. Got all the way up through Baratie, up through Arlong Park, up to where they visit and prepare to leave Loguetown.

I think by the time the DVDs hit the fifth set, I ran into a problem: physical rental locations like Blockbuster had hard rental deadlines. You had to bring the disc (or tape) back in a day or two. Netflix, famously, had no rental deadlines. Keep things as long as you like.

While I had no trouble getting 1-4, some clown got set 5 before I could, and sat on it. For over a year. I complained to Netflix, and Netflix just shrugged at me.

Within a year or two of that, Funimation officially launched a One Piece website, like my memory is saying it was onepiece.com or something (which it isn't, that's a clothing store), but the point was they were announcing they were going to simulcast subs of the anime, for free, on this site. They were also adding dub episodes to this site, again, to stream for free. Back then, this was pretty unprecedented. Hulu was only a few years old at this point.

I figured: wow! Now's my chance! Go to check the website and...

The free episodes ended at the exact same point I left off at with the Netflix DVDs. Episode 53. It went from Dub Episode 53 straight to Sub Episode 230, which is where the simulcast began. Looking at Funimation's current site, this is what they consider "Season 1."

So I earmarked it. "Maybe I can finish it some day."

Some day never came. One Piece is over 1000 chapters (100 volumes) and 1000 episodes. There is over 430 hours of One Piece available to watch. The manga is so big people have talked about it taking up an entire shelving unit. I even saw photos once of somebody who had their shelf break because their One Piece collection was so heavy.

It took me over a year to read 16 volumes of the original Dragon Ball. There are almost ten times as many volumes of One Piece.

I have given up. I will never read it. Never watch it. Never see it. It's great that it's this amazing thing, truly this long journey, but even at 500 chapters it would have been too much.

Even if I wanted to, it's grown to be such a thing that when something happens in the anime or the manga, there are instantly spoilers for it all over the entire internet. 107 volumes of that is pretty disheartening.

I know about One Pace. One Pace is still too long. Some of those videos are over 20 hours. For a single video. And One Pace still has gaps in their coverage anyway.

It's just not happening.

[sweetescapeartist]

You know, part of the reason why Marron's personality was terrible in GT was because she was possessed by Baby and the moments when she was mean to her father and had a terrible personality was were moments when she was under Baby's control. So yeah, you can blame her personalty being terrible all on Baby because she is seen doing and saying stuff that the real Marron would never do and say because she was obviously corrupted by Baby. She got better when she was released from his control.

Another similar ask by somebody else, or possibly the "Part 2" of this ask. [👇]

(Now to answer both asks...)

First of all... Shame on you for making me go back and watch some of GT in dub & sub! Jk. Well... kinda. I needed to research stuff about GT eventually. Plus, nowadays, I try to fact check everyone, even myself because we misremember things or overlook stuff. And doing research on GT 18 & GT Marron just validates why I hate the character depiction in GT. So, thank you & curse you? Lol.

Anyway, so I watched parts of the Baby Saga for clarification. Yes, Marron & 18 were infected by the Tuffle Parasite. But here's the thing... All the people infected by the parasite still behaved as themselves unless they were around unaffected/uninfected people like Goku, Pan, & Mr. Satan. When around them, infected ppl behaved with hostility. But when solely around other infected ppl like in DBGT EP 36, they behaved as normal & their personalities weren't drastically different. They just obeyed Baby's orders.

There's even a scene where Marron, Krillin, & 18 all got knocked back by a shockwave. Then, a scared Marron yelled for her dad & held on to him. GT Marron is rude to her father who she relies on for protection. What a trash character.

So, Marron being mean to Krillin was not Baby's influence. Because if Baby's influence made ppl meaner, then Krillin's personality would have changed as well. It did not. GT Krillin wasn't insulting his wife & daughter nor treating them harshly.

All blame does NOT fall upon Baby for Marron & 18's personality change.

All blame falls upon the GT writers who wrote for Marron's personality to be inconsiderate & selfish. Same for 18, who's personality was based off of the innacurate depiction of Android 18 from the DBZ filler that was written & overseen by Takao Koyama. And since the GT writers based GT 18's personality off of OOC filler, then of course they would make GT Marron have an OOC personality as well.

The GT versions of 18 & Marron are simply written to be inconsiderate towards Krillin. But that IS NOT how Toriyama wrote them. That is how Krillin haters wrote them; the Toei writers who learned from the head DBZ writer & Krillin hater, Takao Koyama. And the suspected Krillin haters that were the Funimation writers who purposefully made the terrible character depiction even worse than the original by making 18 & Marron even more hateful.

And lets not forget GT EP 40. This is after they are free from Baby's control. Marron & 18 behaved worse when not under Baby's control. In both dub & sub, 18 & Marron don't want to hold Krillin's hand when they are teleporting from Earth to Planet Plant. Instead they have him carry their luggage. In the dub, 18 is extremepy rude and uncaring. Same for Marron who says if Krillin gets left behind, at least make sure they get their luggage. Who treats family like that? 18 & Marron only cared for Krillin after 17 killed him.

And the Funimation DUB made GT 17 & GT 18's interaction... weird. Meanwhile, the Japanese version is to a far lesser degree.

17 says he & 18 are "nakama." It can mean partner, fellow, or comrade. But in this context it means "We are nakama/We are the same." In this context, it means that 17 & 18 are both cybernetic beings & fall into the same category. It's more so meant to show that the mind controlled 17 is trying to get 18 to join him in doing Dr. Gero's objective of killing mankind. Which is why Krillin has to snap both of them back to reality & remind them they are not weapons for Gero anymore. They hated Gero and have more to live for now, like how 18 has a family. They don't have to serve Gero. They are free from him.

Then, the other fully robotic 17 from Hell overpowers GT 17's mind, makes him kill Krillin. Then, GT 18 & GT Marron actually show compassion for Krillin for the first time in the show. And GT 18's fit of rage towards 17 felt more like remorse and regret for treating Krillin badly when he was alive.

Anyway...

DRAGON BALL GT TRANSLATION DIFFERENCES:

• DBGT Episode 36 [Japanese]

*18 & Marron inconsiderately make Kuririn carry all their bags & boxes*

Kuririn: "Hey, are you going to buy something else?"

*Marron turns around angrily & yells*

Marron: "Of course! The price for us not going to Planet Tsufuru is a big one!"

{Are they making Krillin buy & carry a lot of stuff for them because they're upset they didn't get to go to Planet Tsufuru? That's messed up & undeserving.}

• DBGT Episode 36 [Funimation DUB]

*18 & Marron inconsiderately make Krillin carry all their bags & boxes*

Krillin: "Please tell me this is the last of what you need to buy today."

*Marron turns around angrily & yells*

Marron: "We need supplies! When they call us to the Tuffle planet, we want to be ready, don't we, dad!?"

• DBGT Episode 40 [Japanese]

Trunks: "Are you ready, everyone? Hold hands tightly with each other!"

*18 has a free hand on her hip*

18: "Why should we have to go there?"

Marron: "I don't want to go to that planet."

Kuririn: "Before you start complaining, why don't you at least carry your own luggage!?"

{Marron doesn't want to go to Planet Tsufuru now that she isn't under Baby's influence, but she & 18 are still inconsiderate & make Kuririn carry all the luggage. Krillin is understandably frustrated by 18 & Marron's lack of consideration. The inconsiderate actions of 18 & Marron remained the unchanged regardless of Baby's influence or lack of it. Not to mention that 18 didn't even at least put her hand on Krillin's shoulder as his hands were full with THEIR luggage. Instead, a stranger touches Krillin with an umbrella. Not even that guy places his hand on Krillin's shoulder. The GT writers suck.}

• DBGT Episode 40 [Funimation DUB]

Trunks: "Now everyone, grab your neighbor's hand!"

*18 has a free hand on her hip*

18 to Krillin: "You'll have to grab someone else's. Mine are taken."

Marron to Krillin: "If you get left behind, make sure you bring the luggage."

Krillin: "You two have some nerve! I get more respect from total strangers!" *sobs*

Both the Japanese and English versions of GT 18 & GT Marron are inconsiderate & rude towards Krillin. But, Funimation turns it up to 11 by making GT 18 & GT Marron absolutely hateful & abusive towards Krillin. The Funimation dub of GT is many times worse than the original Japanese version of GT.

This one of the main reasons why I love Dragon Ball Super so much. The character depiction of Krillin's family in Dragon Ball Super is accurate because the hateful writers at Toei aren't sabotaging Toriyama's work by constantly insulting Krillin and making 18 (& Marron) hateful towards Krillin. The DBS interpretation has been in line with how Toriyama writes K18's relationship. The proof is shown in DBS: Super Hero (a film Toriyama was extremely involved in, especially when it comes to dialogue) where we see that 18 greatly respects & loves Krillin.

There. Full context & full explanation as to why I hate GT 18 & GT Marron.

I love 18 & Marron, especially so in the DB manga & DBS anime! But, GT 18 & GT Marron? Those two act like some bitches. And Tobi says,

Link to another post where I add context & show the differences of the Sub & Dub as well as how the Toei & Funimation script writers of DBZ & DBGT wrote 18 OOC in unnecessary filler scenes. [Link]

[animecreator3000]

About the Boueibu iceberg

@delphoxqueen asked me to explain about my list for the iceberg so here it is. I might update this from time to time with links and stuff if I stumble across the original posts. This is all from what I know so feel free to add new info. Also, spoiler warning for RobiHachi and the Boueibu manga and novels. (This is like a masterpost it’s very long)

1. There’s a theory in tumblr about which decade the series is set in, using data like the friday the 13th calendar in s2 ep11. In HK we got a second number for when the next monthly Pretty Boy Contest was happening and using the one from Love it was theorized that around a decade had passed since then, which ended up being true.

2. The stage play had a few original songs and characters exclusive to it so unless you watched the full performance, you probably weren’t able to witness all of them. One of the characters is called “Robato Deniro”, as romanized in the stage play booklet I own.

3. The nurse and the cafeteria staff from the s1 mobile game appear in the background in around the first half of s2 ep3.

4. S2 had an unfinished manga that was only available online and was never released on physical format; it was centered around the defense club and sometimes the conquest club and Beppu brothers. All that’s left from what I know are the scans linked on magicalgirlsandcerulean’s blog.

5. This isn’t that obscure because it’s talked about in the anime, but I’m mentioning it because I think many people dropped it before the ova, where right at the beginning it is revealed that the alien that resucitated Mr. Tawarayama twice was, as described by Io, a “mulberry-colored naked mole rat-looking thing”, and was nicknamed “Moley-san” by Yumoto. At least in the anime, we had never heard before of who this was and it never appeared on screen nor was mentioned again.

6. In HK ep8, Karurusu promises the knights to grant a wish if they show him how earthlings spend summer. Kyoutarou reveals at the end of the episode that he wished that summer lasted one more day so he could spend it doing nothing, which prompts Ichiro to theorize that it’s the 32nd of august, and the next day is the second 1st of september.

7. The stage play was was held from march 10th to 13rd, of which the latter is Ryuu’s birthday. There’s an additional recording of a small celebration with cake focused on Ryuu and Io.

8. Atsushi mentions his older sister in the flashback at the beginning of s1 ep4, but she never appears or is mentioned again.

9. There’s a few posts on tumblr theorizing about what happened to the Hakone parents since Yumoto only says in s2 ep3 that according to Gora, “they are busy with their hot springs tour”. En mentions that it’s a bit suspicious, but it’s all the information we have from the anime. Posts talk about the parents perhaps passing away from an accident or an illness, thus the reason why Gora was so worried about Yumoto’s cold in s1 ep10, but from another post I think it’s implied in the second novel that they actually left their home when Yumoto was still a toddler.

10. It’s no secret that the surnames of the characters are all real onsens in Japan that even the seiyuus have visited, but apparently the Arima onsen has two different kinds of water, “kinsen (gold hot spring)” and “ginsen (silver hot spring)”, with different properties each, and the Kusatsu onsen water also has certain properties, both that were used to build the characters. Additionally, Ryuu’s favorite food are Sato Nishiki cherries, which are grown in the same prefecture, Yamagata, as his onsen, Zaou.

11. The press club lose relevance after s1, with only Kinosaki and Tazawa reappearing briefly in s2 ep2 to interview the Beppu twins after they arrive at the school. Tazawa doesn’t even have lines. Hireashi is mentioned by Zundar in ep11.

12. What the heck

13. Exclusively in the manga we see that Arima met Kinshiro and Atsushi when they were little and they were good friends, but when they met again as adults, Kinshiro seemingly didn’t remember Arima. Atsushi, however, stated that Kinshiro’s talent is remembering people’s faces and names, so Arima wonders if he’s just trying to distance himself from him. He also explains to Akoya that he follows Kinshiro and obeys him because as a child, he was fascinated by his radiant smile. This is never talked about in the anime.

14. Like the previous point, the anime never shows Akoya being bullied, at most just a slight dislike of his full name, but the manga shows that he was made fun of for it and how he actually hates his surname, to the point of introducing himself formally to the president and vicepresident of the student council as “Holy Angel Akoya”.

15, 16, 17, 19. Batonama lives were the livestreams done through the franchise by the defense club seiyuus on youtube and niconico. They’re all on youtube, without any kind of translation.

Love-ko is a girl with a shell bikini drawn on a piece of cardboard that was used as a girlfriend in the Batonama Love! lives, acted by the seiyuus themselves.

RobiHachi has one episode full of official Boueibu artwork and a parody of the series too, a Love-ko doll appears, and Wombat appears as well, named “The Don”. It received an english dub, so for a bit, people were excited that Wombat was going to speak in english too. Also, various mechas appear in both Boueibu and RobiHachi.

18. The director of Fairy Ranmaru (Masakazu Hishida if I’m not wrong) revealed in an interview that he was inspired by Boueibu and aimed to make a show like that.

20, 21. The website super-groupies.com has results for defense and conquest club lingerie sets, dc and VEPPer tote bags, the Beppus’ scarf rings, dc bath sets and the pumps magicalgirlsandcerulean mentioned. I’ve found the s1 Loveracelets and Caerula Adamas’ ring on different sites, the True Loveracelets on TheChara’s twitter and the Happybraces (apparently called “Hapibure”) on broccoli.co.jp but I’m not sure where exactly they were all announced and sold, so I’ll just drop that.

22, 33. Boueibu was originally pretty much a copy of Sailor Moon, I think they were all going to be called “Lackluster Moon” and that stuff and be literally Sailor Moon genderbent. They were all different from color palettes to physical features (except Yumoto’s), and Ryuu was a shota, even smaller than Yumoto. Their names were also very reminiscent of the five Sailor Senshis’. Even if they made it more original, the show is still clearly inspired by Sailor Moon (just look at Caerula Adamas lol) and Pretty Cure. It has also referenced, very blatantly, animes like Doraemon, Detective Conan, Aikatsu and even Vocaloid, when Kyoutarou tries to guess what Karurusu is saying with ““Just Google It, Asshole”?” in ep1.

23. Wombat’s real name and the name of his planet sound like gibberish to the earthlings and ends up being named after the Earth animal, but Zundar, Dadacha, Karurusu and Furanui all have original names. And I think Hireashi means “goldfish”?

24. If you google “zundar technology”, it’s actually a company in Shanghai, China. Aren’t Wombat and Zundar always talking about “advanced alien technology”?

25. Zundar and Dadacha are siblings, so are Karurusu and Furanui, and so are their father King Kamopapa and their uncle minister Wao, but neither are the same species and, except the first two, not even the same color. But they are supposedly related because they share birthmarks or something like that...

26. Everyone who’s in this fandom knows about the pixel blur and voice pitch censor from s1, but I’ve added it anyway because it’s so rare for mahou shoujo and shounen animes to explain why the heroes aren’t recognized when transformed.

27. A good while of s2 ep11 is spent discussing Zundar’s ex-wife and his problems to give child support. Naturally, he gets mad at this.

28. “Money doesn’t betray” (s1 ep6) and “The despair hidden behind your smile that comes from not being understood” (s3 ep11) are sentences that came out of nowhere and implied that the people they were said by (Io) or about (Taiju) respectively had some kind of angst going on but were never explained at all. They’re famous for just that.

29. The Beppu twins’ house in Andromeda shown in flashbacks had strange green circles that apparently are from another anime I don’t know but honestly I didn’t get it very well... It was revealed on a tweet from Takamatsu.

30. Alien language mostly appeared in s2 due to the many flashbacks of Aki and Haru in Andromeda, but in Boueibu s1, it appears on the Zundar Needle before it is shot on the human. It appears a lot through RobiHachi as well, due to being a story about travelling through space. There might be an alphabetical chart somewhere, but I can’t assure it exists, I might even have dreamed it.

31. Hikaru Midorikawa as the melon monster, Kousuke Toriumi as the bishounen monster, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as the kotatsu and panda monsters and Takuya Eguchi as the remote controller monster in s1 and 2, before going on to voice the main cast in HK. Keisuke Koumoto voiced Hatchi Kita in RobiHachi as well as Akihiko in Boueibu, and the characters look similar.

A new addition is that so far Boueibu is the only anime I’ve seen where children weren’t voiced by female seiyuus, but by actual children. Personally, it’s charming and makes it so much more realistic, specifically since no women appear in the franchise at all either (not counting Protag-chan in the game).

32. Speaking of seiyuus, Can I Destroy The Earth? had a dub shown in ep11/12 (?) that made Gora the villain that wanted Earth to stay the same and not progress, against the monsters that supposedly wanted to bring good things to earthlings. Aki and Haru quickly dismissed this dub as fake. (I made a mistake in the title in the previous post btw)

34. As seen in the glossary in the Boueibu Mook (I think, but might not be the mook), Caerula Adamas’ speeches are based on an old japanese detergent commercial that went “Gold, silver, pearl, gift”.

35. In the manga there’s a short parody of the first chapter of Sailor Moon with “Pretty Boy Guardian Gakuran Akoya”. The conquest club manga was released before the anime, so I remember reading somewhere that a fake website appeared for the Gakuran Akoya manga, before turning into the conquest club manga website in the day of its release.

36. Cgi was used a few times in the anime: s2 ep10 for a short sequence of the defense club on a rollercoaster and the carousel monster, ep11 for a cenital shot of the Battle Lovers singing, and HK ep12 for the Honyalaland soldiers and the Wao mecha.

37. The toothbrush incident in s1 ep7. (It’s definitely well-known but it’s so weird lol)

38. “We hope we can see each other again someday!” Something along those lines was the last text to appear in the last episode of HK, implying a s2. We all know how that went.

[1kook]

kissanime & foreplay

this is part of my netflix & chill collection !

summary; You get a glimpse of the KissAnime screen for a good two seconds before about seven ads pop up. Another tab to a raunchy hentai website opens, and Jungkook groans. warnings; mentions of hentai yes u read right, kook leads most of it, cunnilingus, masturbation (f), oral (f), use of a sex toy, fingering, nipple play, face sitting/fucking/riding idk (f), praise kink, hints of dumbification, cum eating, jk is like passive aggressive in this one, 4 (f) orgasms, this is the kicker: sub kook at the end😳, like 2 sec of dom yn lol, & u get 0.002 sec of adams apple kink misc; more dumb story lines, made up sex stores bc my creativity knows no bounds, Jungkook plays nice but is actually mean for the majority of it, once again doyeon plays a pivotal role in the furthering of women empowerment, internal love monologues about jk best boy<3 wc; 8.2k

notes; back when kissanime was offed I remember looking at this fic in the drafts like what the hell we gone do now.. n almost deleting it but I was like yknow what this isn’t a 1kook fic unless there’s smthn weird going on so here we are. also yes I know ohshc is on Netflix shut up!!!!! 

HAPPY BDAY MY LOVE AND MUSE JEON JUNGKOOK !!!! 🥺💜

—

The good thing about getting your own apartment is that you finally have a place to call your own. There’s no limit on how many potted plants you can squeeze into a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment, and if there was one, you’re twelve in and no one has said anything to you yet. You don’t have to share the shower space with anyone, label all your products with a hastily scribbled name. There’s a bathtub—something you haven’t had the pleasure of using during college—and a fairly open living space. There’s so many empty spots to fill with useless decorations and family heirlooms and that ugly plastic rooster Jungkook won you at the summer kick-off fair last month.

The bad thing about having your own place is that the entire world and their mothers seem to know now. Despite graduating from college, you still keep in touch with your trusted graduate mentor Kim Namjoon, who is still very much in school, and has made it his mission to bring you a new plant every week, hence your growing collection. Your childhood friend comes over every Saturday morning to lounge around after her Friday nights out. Jungkook, although the only one who is ever actually invited, runs through your strawberry scented body wash like a madman.

And of course, Doyeon.

Your beloved college roommate of four years, Kim Doyeon, has been the bane of your apartment experience so far. Unlike you, who had slaved away for four years, saving every penny you made during college for this moment, Doyeon was a big spender. She blew every dollar she ever came across, which is why she’s going to be stuck living at her parent’s house for at least a couple more years.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, if she wasn’t the most maniac online shopper in existence. It hadn’t been a problem in college because she was always good old pals with the students who worked the mailroom. If they saw something questionable, they’d let it slide as long as it was under Miss Kim Doyeon, Room 229.

The reason it became an issue for her now is because it’s poor Mrs. Kim who signs over the package from Sexuality Unleashed: The Best Toys Worldwide! one Tuesday afternoon as it is delivered to their suburban home.

So now she’s taken to ordering all her freaky stuff to your new apartment, where the small cabinet by the door has quickly become home to her impulsive shopping habits. Truthfully, you don’t mind accepting Doyeon’s weird packages, and have long since grown used to the uncomfortable looks the mail carrier gives you.

Jungkook’s supposed to come over today and you really hope he doesn’t ask about the state of your hall cabinet. Now that you work at a small company outside of your degree to make ends meet, time with Jungkook has been significantly decreased. You weren’t in college anymore, so you didn’t have the luxury of dropping by his house whenever you wanted to in between classes. Of course, it’s mostly your schedule that conflicts with your planned hangouts, because Jungkook is still working his dream job from home.

However, because Jungkook is quite possibly the most amazing person on this planet, he’s started coming over every Saturday night to make sure you’re still alive and not dying. And so weekly media binges are a thing, and it’s currently week four.

He gave up on showing you the Marvel movie franchise last week, after you had asked where Wonder Woman was three times in a row. Since the Barbie Movie Debacle of last month, you’ve found a nice medium between who picks when. Jungkook picks most of the time, because most of the time you don’t really care. It’s become a running joke between the two of you that movie binges are usually just terribly masked excuses to go to town on each other, so you don’t mind missing an entire 15th Century French Revolution documentary if it means Jungkook is deep in your guts by the time King Louis XIV gets beheaded or whatever they did to him. Is it too obvious you didn’t watch the documentary?

Occasionally, there are instances where one of you genuinely does want to watch something, in which case you have an intense match of rock-paper-scissors to decide who’s picking that night. Most of the time, Jungkook wins. But for every match Jungkook wins, he promises you’ll pick the next one so you’ve long since stopped trying to actually beat him.

Long story short, last weekend you sat through a two part Ancient Aliens episode on the connection between aliens and American presidents.

It was the most god-awful conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard of, but Jungkook ate up every minute of it. By the time the two hosts announced their conclusion you were just about ready to rip your own ears off and single-handedly fist fight every producer on the channel for allowing the production of such an atrocious show.

Anyway, because you had so bravely sat through the entire evening without complaints— well, no complaints towards Jungkook’s terrible taste; the show, however, was not safe from your wicked tongue —Jungkook has so graciously allowed you to pick the media for this weekend.

You’ve been telling him for the longest time that you were going to hook him on anime. It was one of the few interests you always believed Jungkook should possess, being a weeb and all, because it was only fair that he had one questionable trait to balance out the rest of his perfection. Liking anime isn’t bad— if a hottie like you enjoyed it, then it obviously had its perks. However, you know a lot of other people are turned off by anime-enthusiasts due to preconceived notions of the genre and the viewer-base.

Now, it was a widely known fact that you always had ulterior motives. So maybe turning Jungkook into a weeb was just a ploy to turn other women off from him and keep your jealousy at bay. Sue you, your boyfriend was a walking wet dream, and you’d do anything to keep him to yourself.

After long deliberation, you’ve decided on introducing Jungkook to anime with a classic: Ouran High School Host Club, a god among anime, a true Beyonce among shoujos. The only problem was that you absolutely refused to pay Crunchyroll or Funimation when you could so easily find the entire show on KissAnime.com, home to only the finest of hentai ads and Are You a Robot? questions.

He sends you a text when he’s outside your building, and five minutes later there’s a rap against your door.

“Hi,” you smile up at him, heart fluttering in that same trademark way it did whenever Jungkook was within a five foot radius. He smiles back softly, leaning down to peck your lips as you step aside for him to enter. He’s got on those cotton sweats that you love, the ones that send your brain into a censored frenzy. But he’s also got that soft curl to his hair that lets you know he came here straight out of the shower in his hurry to see you. How you managed to bag a dream boyfriend like him was beyond you.

You bask in the overwhelming feeling of unannounced love for all of ten seconds before Jungkook is lifting up a square package you hadn’t seen at his hip. “Mailman gave me this,” he says, waving around the signature bright pink packaging of Sexuality Unleashed. Jungkook, for all his politeness and respect, seemed to falter in those categories when it came to you. He turns the box over, reading the big fat name of the company on the side. “Since when did you start buying sex toys?” he asks rather loudly in the hallway.

You yank him inside, hurriedly slamming the door shut before any of your neighbors can come out into the hallway and get a peek of this avid sex toy consumer. “They’re not mine!” you hiss, standing still when he uses you to balance himself as he tugs off his shoes. You snatch the box out of his hands, turning it around to make sure it is actually addressed to your home. Sure enough, it’s for you. Couldn’t there have been some other sex toy fanatic on this floor?

With his shoes off, Jungkook wastes no time enveloping you in a hug, the Sexuality Unleashed box tumbling to the ground. “It’s okay, baby, no need to be embarrassed.”

You groan, leaning your forehead against his shoulder as he continues to pat your back like you’re actually embarrassed to be caught buying toys— you’re not. You’re embarrassed he caught you with a sex toy you simply can’t put to use. “Whatever,” you sigh, “your gross popcorn is in my bedroom and it’s probably stale.”

He releases you, not before pulling you into a slow and languid kiss that has you clutching tightly at the front of his shirt. He pulls away with a soft smooch, right eye falling into a wink. “Bring the box, gorgeous,” he teases, before sauntering off in the direction of your bedroom.

You groan loudly. “It’s not mine!” you repeat, but for some reason do as he says.

Not only do you have no idea what’s in this package, but you’re frankly not too keen on finding out. You’re more interested in Jungkook’s reaction to one of your favorite animes of all time. The package is tossed onto the end of the bed, where Jungkook has already stripped himself of his socks and cuddled beneath your covers.

Your laptop has gone dark from inactivity so you slam down on the space bar to bring it back to life. Your first mistake was pressing anything at all. It flickers back on alright, but you forget that you are working with a minefield of ads ready to explode. You get a glimpse of the KissAnime screen for a good two seconds before about seven ads pop up. Another tab to a raunchy hentai website opens, and Jungkook groans.

“What the hell is this?” he asks in a tone that screams he has never had to fight viruses off his computer just to watch something at two in the morning.

You ignore him, cuddling into his side as you hurriedly type in the title of the anime before another annoying ad can intercept you. “KissAnime,” you answer for now, accidentally clicking down on the mousepad with the heel of your palm. Another tab opens up to some sketchy credit site. You huff.

“Baby, I swear I just saw like twelve viruses,” he says. “And what even are these?” he scoffs, jabbing a finger at one of the many ads that lines the perimeter of the website. “Animated teacher porn?”

By the grace of god, you somehow manage to get onto the episode selection screen without having another tab open on you. You smile in relief, turning the power of your excitement onto Jungkook… only to find his eyes narrowed in on the square advertisement for some hentai website. “What? You wanna watch hentai now?” you snort, placing the laptop on his legs as you cuddle into his side.

Jungkook sputters, cheeks tinting red at the mere insinuation he would ever consume such media. “No,” he glares, releasing the arm around your shoulders to huffily cross them over his chest. “I am not going to watch anatomically incorrect illustrations of a woman teacher relieving herself, ___,” he says rather matter-of-factly.

You snort, repeating, “a woman teacher,” mockingly and in a high pitched voice that, honestly, doesn't sound anything like him. You click play on the video box that appears after only about twenty more pop-up ads. “Silence, you nymphomaniac, the episode is starting.” Jungkook pulls you close with a displeased expression, finally quieting down when you put it on full screen and the ads disappear from his view.

You’re beginning to wonder if Jungkook really is the script and plot dissector he claims to be, or if he just lives to get under your skin. He doesn’t make it three minutes without finding something to critique. First it’s the quality of the frames, and then it’s the characterization of the lead character. He nitpicks everything about the best anime in existence, and by the end of the first episode you’re considering breaking up with him.

“Oh my god,” you groan, tearing yourself away from him. He’s all laid up against your mountain of pillows, tongue prodding at the insides of his mouth in that ridiculously attractive habit of his. Usually, you’d be tripping over yourself to kiss him, but you’re about two seconds from ripping his head off. “I mean this in the nicest way possible, baby,” you sigh, picking up his hand in yours. “You gotta shut up.”

Jungkook rolls his eyes. “I have to shut up?” he asks in a scandalized tone. “You sang through the entire intro, off tune may I add.”

At this rate you’re getting nowhere, so you just snatch the laptop back up before you actually hurt his feelings. You escape the full screen, met with those hentai ads that are slowly becoming the bane of Jungkook’s existence.

“Who actually watches those anyway?” he mumbles, covering the sidebar full of naked cartoon ladies with his palm for you, a real gentleman if you ever saw one. “Really?” he says, knocking his pointer finger against a particularly raunchy ad with the caption Be a Good Boy and Let her Play beneath it.

You snort. “You are such a baby,” you tease, pinching his cheek much to his annoyance. “What? Can’t handle seeing some anime titties?”

Jungkook shoves your hand away, leaning back to become one with the pillows as you continue onto the next episode. “They’re just weird,” he admits. “And make unrealistic faces.”

“Unrealistic,” you repeat, finally giving one of the ads the time of day. There’s an adorably drawn character making the most perverted expression, knees hiked up to her chest. Her face is twisted up, drooling like a dog and with her eyes crossed in ecstasy. You shrug. “Just because you can’t get those faces out of me doesn’t mean they’re unreal.”

The second the words leave your mouth Jungkook is letting out a scandalized scoff, sitting up to level you with another glare. “First of all, I can get you like that,” he defends, tapping his finger against the ad on screen. “In fact, I can get you like that without even trying, so let’s not say anything too drastic now, okay?”

His sudden bout of defensiveness makes something playful in you switch on, laying back down beside him with a smirk. “Oh, you can make me all stupid like this?”

Jungkook scoffs. “Yes.”

“Uh huh,” you drawl, tracing a finger up his chest teasingly; Jungkook knocks your knuckles away, obviously still butt hurt about your comment. That’s fine, because a slightly riled up Jungkook was always the best Jungkook. You sit up and lean in close, letting your hand slip beneath his hoodie, palm running over his bare shoulder and around the top of his back. You give his nape a light squeeze, lips pressed against the shell of his ear. “Why don’t you prove it to me, Jungkookie?” you purr, before pulling away.

His jaw twitches at the nickname, one shapely brow unconsciously arching as he regards you with a calculative expression.

The thing about Jungkook was that, after almost a year of dating, you know just how to push his buttons. He has a rather calm and collected exterior to him, the same one he’s had since the day you met him, but beneath it all was a childish competitiveness that raged with the heat of ten suns. He disliked being taunted like you were doing now, especially when his credibility was at stake.

Honestly speaking, you don’t doubt Jungkook can make you look as goofy and messy as those hentai ads. In fact you’re rather confident he can. Either way, him being right or you being right, you would still get some fun out of it.

“Hm?” you add, tracing your hand up to dance over the skin of his cheek, pads of your fingers running over that stiff jaw. “Are you scared I’m right and you’re wrong?”

A hand snaps up to catch your wrist, fingers tight around your skin until you’re shivering against him. “Oh baby, I can make you cum until you cry,” he murmurs, his usual sweet and lilting tone dropping to a low vibration that makes your pussy throb beneath your panties. Your heart leaps in your chest, lips falling open when he ducks down to brush them against yours. It’s too light, just a simple touch that makes you follow his mouth when he pulls back.

With one firm shove, the laptop is tumbling off the bed, thudding loudly against your bedside rug. Jungkook leans over you, his usual trademark doe eyes zeroed in on you with the focus of a laser. “Have a little faith in me,” he teases, and when he presses close you can feel his fattening cock flush against your thigh. Your body is begging to be touched, every brush of his fingers against your skin searing trails in their wake.

Suddenly, he’s drawing back. “Kook?” you frown, barely biting down on a childish whimper when he snuggles back into your mountain of pillows, one arm stretched behind his head.

He flashes you a smile. “Go on,” he says, arms behind his head. “Show me how to get you like that.”

“By myself?” you ask, shifting onto your knees anyway. Jungkook nods, a soft jut of his chin as he gives you another one of those easy going smiles of his. His goal seems a little unclear, but you had a ridiculous amount of trust in your boyfriend that whatever he had planned was certain to be good. With one final skeptical glance his way, you sink down onto your bum, knees spreading and giving him a clear view of your little pink boy shorts, elastic band hugging your waist.

The material of your t-shirt is guided away, held to your chest by the hand currently not traversing the length of your stomach, gliding across soft skin, over your belly button and past that band until it slips beneath. You chance another look Jungkook’s way, only to find his eyes wonderfully downcast in the direction of your core. That smile is gone now, replaced with a somber look as he watches your hand move mysteriously beneath the fabric of your undergarments.

The first brush of your forefinger against your swollen button makes you twitch, back arching at the sensation that is magnified by his watchful gaze. “Mmh,” you bite down, hand twisting in the material of your shirt. Jungkook’s eyes glare a molten path across your skin, from the comfy bra that peeks out from beneath your rumpled shirt to the wrist slowly working beneath your panties.

A hand falls over your thigh, tattooed fingers giving the skin a light squeeze as you get to work swirling your bud around. The sight of his inked skin on yours makes something warm blossom in your lower abdomen, your eyes following the inky swirls up, up, up. They lead you to the face of your very handsome boyfriend, long lashes fanning across his cheekbones as he watches you play with yourself. “Wanna take these off for me?” he says, the tip of his pointer finger wiggling beneath the fabric of your shorts.

You nod hurriedly, wiggling around on the bed until you’re on your back, legs bent in front of you. The shorts come down your legs; the simplest press of your thighs makes something quiver in your abdomen. You toss them off to the side, and just as you go to sit back up, Jungkook places a hand on your knee. “Stay like this for me,” he says, sitting up from his mountain of pillows to glance down at you. You melt into the plush mattress beneath you, staring down at him between your legs. He’s got that adoring look in his eyes, the one that makes you feel so warm and in love, it’s only natural your hand slips down to play with your bare clit again. “That’s my girl,” he smiles, rubbing a hand down the outside of your thigh, urging your legs to fall open.

There’s this overflowing vat of arousal that builds up inside of you everytime Jungkook is around, like the moment your eyes land on him you’re reminded of every position he’s ever had you in. You remember the soft brush of his hands on your body, the way his lips feel on yours, the soft tickle of his hair when he gets too close. It makes your heart lurch in your chest, like if you don’t grab onto him tightly this feeling will slip through your fingers and out of your life. So you were crazily in love with your boyfriend— now what?

A puckered set of lips meets the inside of your thigh, the action ripping you from your overly gooey, overly soft inner rambling. Your hand trails down your quivering pussy lips, collecting your dripping wetness as you go. At the same time, Jungkook kisses down the inside of your thigh, soft smacks of his lips against your skin filling the air with an emotion that makes you bite down a whimper. Your hole puckers at the brush of your fingers, anticipating an entrance that you yearn to give into soon.

His mouth is on you before your finger can go deeper than a centimeter in. But Jungkook doesn’t brush your hand off, doesn’t shove you away to prove his mouth was undoubtedly better. He places a kiss over your knuckles, before swallowing up your significantly smaller hand with his, that of which he clasps together over your navel.

You groan, head rolling from side to side. “Don’t be so soft with me,” you whine, leg twitching when he presses a kiss against your engorged bundle of nerves. “Push me around like that one time, you know I like it.”

Jungkook grins, mouthing over your clit with practiced ease that has you releasing all kinds of whimpers and sighs. He’s got his other hand wrapped around your thigh, strong arm pulling you closer to that devious mouth and tongue that lavished attention on your clit. “Need me to be mean to you, baby?” he purrs, curling his tongue in such a way that it makes your entire body tense up, muscles pulled tight. “Want me to push you around like the stupid little girl you are?” You moan, head bobbing up and down at the ideas he stuffs in your mind. As he moves down the length of your cunt, that round nose you love brushes against your bud, and the cheeky shit takes an obnoxiously loud sniff of it, a soft groan breathed against your lower lips. “But isn’t this better?” he hums, languidly molding his lips against your lower ones, much in the same way he does with the ones on your face; he moves slowly, slips his tongue in every few seconds before eventually diving in head on. “Slow... and so easy.”

“Kook,” you mewl, getting this overwhelming urge to cover your face with your hands. But you can’t, because he’s knotted one hand with yours and his fingers only tighten when you try to yank them apart. Instead you’re left pressing one knuckle against your mouth, brows pinching as he begins slowly fucking his tongue into your cunt. “F-Faster,” you beg. He, of course, ignores your plea.

The wet mass moves past the clenched muscles around your hole, nose brushing against your lips with every intrusion. Every few cycles he stops to press a kiss against your pussy, so hard and wet that it hurts when he pulls off. You’re left writhing and moaning, your heel knocking against his shoulder when he pushes your leg up closer to your chest. “It’s enough,” you cry, your entire body shivering.

Jungkook pulls off with a loud pop, lips glistening with your arousal. He’s got this glint on his eyes, like he’s thoroughly entertained by your reactions. He shuffles around to get comfortable, finally releasing that grip on your hand. Immediately, your newly freed hand jumps forward to tangle in the hair above his ear, tracing down the delicate curve of his cheekbone. Jungkook turns his head, pressing a soft peck against your open palm that makes your heartbeat thunder in your ears.

As he moves around, his leg bumps against something that has both of you pausing. It sounds out of place next to your shallow breaths, and both of you glance down only to catch sight of that stupid package from Sexuality Unleashed teetering on the edge of the bed.

The moment you see it, it’s like you’re transported into an omnipresent view of the scene, the next few hours flashing before your eyes as Jungkook snorts. You know he’s going to reach for it in two seconds, and you know he’s going to tear the hot pink packaging apart with his bare hands. He does so with a scary amount of power, the industrial tape not standing a chance against him. A box roughly the same size as the package falls out, and before you can kick it away and save yourself from suffering beneath Jungkook’s teasing antics, he’s snatching up the box.

“The Bullet Bestie,” he reads aloud, dark eyes flying across the text with lightning speed before that box is also being ripped open. (Briefly, there’s a voice in your head that thinks of Doyeon, but you’re not sure why.) Out tumbles a little pink bullet with a strap on one end that bounces against your thigh and an even smaller remote.

“Baby,” you rush out, the sight of the tiny toy making your heart thunder in your chest. “We can look at it another time,” you try, hands coming up to brush against his face again. “Why don’t you finish off here?” you ask, a sickeningly sweet politeness dripping off your tongue as the knot in your tummy fades into the background of his attention.

Jungkook ignores you, picking up the remote with a wondrous look in his eyes. Before you can try to persuade him back between your legs, a quiet click cuts you off and the little bullet whirls to life. You yelp at the sudden vibrations against the inside of your thigh, so close to your throbbing core. The jump of your thighs has it falling onto the mattress below you, wide eyes snapping back to the smirk that grows on his face.

“No,” you say slowly, sitting back up, “no, no,” you try, your usual assertiveness melting into a whiny cry as you try to wiggle away from him and the nefarious ideas infesting his lust-addled mind. You’re barely turning, ready to make a run for it and hand him his victory by forfeit, when Jungkook is catching you by the waist. Your hips get pulled up, arms clawing uselessly at the sheets beneath you as he drags you close to him. He’s fast, already having moved onto his knees behind you, and when he yanks you up, you can feel every hot plane of his body aligned with your backside. “Kook, please just make me cum,” you gasp.

There’s a smile pressed against your shoulder, lips still wet from before, kissing along the side of your neck. “Look at my girl,” he murmurs, and you nearly jump out of your skin when something smooth is traced along your thigh. One hand slips beneath the material of your shirt, soothingly rubbing circled against your skin. This hand also holds the tiny remote between two fingers, and every nerve in your body is on edge waiting for it to be used. “Where’s that smartmouth now?”

“Jungkook,” you try to warn. But there’s no bite to your words, only an anticipation that grows the closer he moves that damned toy between your thighs. “Baby, we-we can play another time, okay? Just please—“

A soft click, and suddenly your spine is giving out on you, upper body flopping forward as Jungkook runs the vibrations over your clit. Of course Jungkook follows, never letting you slip far from his reach. A loud moan spills from your lips, lower lip wobbling at the unreal amounts of pleasure he bestows upon you with such a small toy. “W-Wait,” you sob, the coil from before suddenly magnified tenfold. It makes your orgasm loom over you bigger than ever, a wave that threatens to spill over and drown you in one go. “No-please.”

His mouth presses against your ear, hot breaths fanning against the skin there. “Hey pretty girl, does it feel good?” he husks out, kissing just below your ear. “Aw fuck,” he groans, something stiff pressing against the cleft between your cheeks, “can’t even see if you’re making that stupid face right now.”

You are, but you don’t even have the words to tell him that. The moment the vibrator had made contact with your already ravished clit, your eyes had rolled into the back of your head. You don’t doubt you look like those silly ads you’d laughed at earlier, mouth opening and closing every few seconds as he circles the toy around your bud. You settle on a high-pitched whimper that has Jungkook laughing meanly against your ear.

It ends too soon, the stimulation from Jungkook eating you out for a few minutes combining with the bullet to form a powerful duo that swallows you whole. An embarrassingly loud moan rips itself from your throat, hands twisting in the sheets beneath you as it washes over you. It’s so powerful, it blinds you, pussy spasming. Jungkook’s name is repeated about a thousand times in between, your body eventually melting back into the mattress as the final shocks run through you.

The vibrator clicks off just as quietly as it turned on, your harsh breaths filling the room in its place. “Good girl,” Jungkook praises, raining down a parade of kisses against your shoulder. You mewl in appreciation, still awkwardly shoving your face into the mattress, and your hips in the air. From the corner of your eyes, you watch him set the glistening toy off to the side, and you’re just about ready to thank the heavens for such an experience with your boyfriend, when said boyfriend hits you with a curveball.

The gentle pecks against yours shoulder dissolve into harsh kisses, rough hands trailing up your waist. The t-shirt gathers around his knuckles, pushed and pushed until he’s got those same hands cupping your breasts. “Did you like that?” he asks, biting down against your shoulder; the sensation is dulled by your shirt being in the way but it still makes you whine. You moan softly, nodding against the mattress as he gets to kneading your breasts over your bra. “Mm,” Jungkook sighs, “my pretty girl was so good for me, wasn’t she?”

Those deft fingers run back down, crawl beneath the elastic of your lounge bra and push it away until your breasts are bouncing out of their cage. “Kook,” you sigh, eyes fluttering shut as he traces circles around your nipples. “W-Wait,” you whimper, suddenly reminded of the swollen cock pressed against your backside when he leans closer.

“Shhh,” he soothes, tweaking your nipples. “Relax for me, sweetheart,” he coos, flicking your hardened nipples with his fingers. You can’t relax, not with your body still so sensitive and him playing with you. Still, the low intonation makes something soft and warm settle in your chest, the kisses against your jaw making your eyes fall shut. “That’s it,” he says, giving one nipple a playful twist that draws a high-pitched moan from you.

Just as you’re beginning to fall into the rhythm of Jungkook’s caresses and voice, he releases one breast to traverse his hand down and over your tummy, to your sensitive pussy. You gasp, biting down on your lip as he teasingly flicks your clit with his fingers. “Bet you could come again now,” he murmurs, taking the tip of your earlobe into his mouth and nibbling softly. You groan, shoving your face into the sheets as if that will save you from your doom. “Bet your pretty little pussy can cream itself just like this, isn’t that right, sweet girl?”

You whimper, hips bucking back against him when he begins nudging your bud, lewd sounds reaching your ears. His other hand remains on your breast, no longer toying with your nipple but simply holding it almost comfortingly. There’s a smirk pressed against your skin, that pearly white smile you usually adore so much teasing you as he circles your nub.

“Come on,” he encourages quietly, kissing up the column of your neck again. You moan, thighs quivering as he strokes a second orgasm out of you with no struggle. Your eyes and throat burn at the heat that washes over you, and you release a hoarse scream into the mattress— Jungkook chuckles at the sound, egging you on with that low voice until your muscles go limp a second time.

When he rolls you onto your stomach again, you try desperately to cover the tears that blur your vision, turning away from him like a child when he tries to look. “Crybaby, crybaby,” he sings teasingly, prying your hands away to capture your mouth with his for the first time that night. “Lemme see those tears, baby,” he purrs.

He tastes like you, tongue dripping with that sweet tang of your pussy, and he smells like you too. It strokes the flames of you ego, arms eventually wrapping around his shoulders as he settles above you. He pulls off with a curl of his tongue against your swollen lips, brown eyes lazily staring down at you. It’s embarrassing how well kept he still was compared to your half-nude state of dress. His skin is all glowy and pretty, not a single tear track in sight, and his grin is still too relaxed for your liking.

Jungkook’s body feels so warm and comforting against yours, muscles keeping the heat trapped between your bodies. You go to brush a hand through his hair, needing to feel the familiarity of those silky locks, before he’s suddenly leaning away. He shuffles onto his knees again, glancing down at your thoroughly abused cunt with a quirk in his brows.

“God,” you groan, knocking your foot against his side. “Just fuck me already,” you huff despite your earlier fatigue. You could only go so long without feeling Jungkook’s fat demon cock inside of you.

He snorts at your snappy tone, cutely tilting his head to the side to move his hair out of his face. His jaw looks sharp from this angle, facial features covered in shadows the lamplight behind him can’t touch. “Can’t,” he announces, and you could pull your hair out from all this unnecessary build up.

Truth to be told, you and Jungkook were both equally as unrestrained when it came to each other. Most of the time, the lead up to actual, penetrative, key-in-lock sex included a couple minutes of heavy petting from his end, and maybe a half assed handjob from you. Sometimes if you felt extra attentive, he’d eat you out and you'd him off. But for the most part, the two of you jumped straight into it after an orgasm, like horny teenagers despite the two of you being twenty-three now.

The most adventurous you’d ever gotten up until the point was maybe two orgasms bestowed upon you by a crazed Jungkook. And, well. You had hit two orgasms now. You were ready for his monster cock.

“Kook,” you whine childishly.

Jungkook shakes you off, placing a palm on both your knees. Slowly, he spreads your thighs apart again, eyes zeroed in on the glossy folds that come into view, the sparkling pearly cum that leaks out of your hole. “I can’t, baby,” he says, almost pained. “I gotta clean you up first,” he insists, and before you can tell him how counterproductive it is to lick you clean of your arousal before fucking you, he’s diving face first into your cunt.

But the biggest surprise doesn’t come from Jungkook going in for thirds, but from the hands he clasps around your thighs, the sheer strength he uses to roll you over (ignoring the shriek you let out) to sit you on his face. “No, no,” you yelp immediately, “I-I‘ll break you,” you cry, trying to escape from his hold.

From beneath your thighs, dark eyes peering up at you daringly, you can see the clear warning on Jungkook’s face. It’s a look that loudly says don’t you dare fucking move, shapely brows sending a jolt of genuine fear down your spine for a moment. “Jungkook,” you fret, trying to ignore the arousal that only continues to blossom as his tongue laps against your folds for the second time that night. “I’m, I’m,” you stammer, hands burying themselves in his hair as he ignores your cries. “I’ll break you,” you try again, spine arching when he slurps your clit into his mouth. “I-I’ll—“

He pulls off with a pop. “Fuck my face, baby,” he says, as if he hadn’t heard a single of your concerns at all. His nose nudges against your clit, a whimper catching in your throat. Briefly, his hand disappears from around your thigh, and when it returns, that tiny bullet vibrator from earlier is pressed against your thigh. “You got that?”

You nod, internally torn apart by your fear of crushing him and your need to drag your cunt all over your boyfriend’s handsome face. You glance down at him, watch him slip that vibrator into his mouth for just a second and lewdly coat it in his saliva, before he’s reaching around to shove it past your pussy lips. They’re still swollen and puffy, but have long since relaxed enough for him to slip it in. “B-But what if—“

“You won’t,” he cuts off, readjusting himself closer to your cunt again, “come on, pretty girl.”

The reason you think you and Jungkook click so well was because he was able to bring that vulnerable side out of you every now and then. He knew you liked to parade around with that huge superiority complex, and he loved it. But he also knew there were things you liked and disliked, and sometimes it took a little pushing for you to reveal them.

For a second, that horny cloud over his irises lifts, and he gives you one of those cute, sloppy winks as he taps your thigh gently. “Fuck my face, sweetheart,” he whispers, “drag that pretty cunt all over me until I can’t breathe.” A gasp catches in your throat, hands unconsciously curling against his scalp. He notices, and flashes you a lazy smirk. “You can do that, can’t you?”

Something akin to adoration blooms in your chest, and before you can blurt out something embarrassing—like I love you—there’s a soft click that has The Bullet Bestie revving up inside of you. You gasp, the sudden vibrations deep inside your pussy making your hips snap forward, clit rubbing against Jungkook’s nose.

“O-Oh,” you cry, and that’s all it takes for you to lose it. Your hips start off slow, at first just savoring the wet drag of his tongue against your lips, his nose against your clit. He sticks his tongue out for you, and part of you wants to tell him he’s a good boy, that corny hentai ad flashing in your mind, but you doubt you’ll survive the aftermath of that. Once you find that perfect pace, your hands are practically yanking at his hair, pushing him further into the mattress as you ride his face like he’s nothing but a toy. “Kook, Jungkook,” you pant, grinding your lower lips against his all too eager mouth.

It feels oddly weird being over him like this, using him like this. You like to think you and Jungkook have equal power in the bedroom, but you will admit that more often than not, he assumes control by default. You’re not particularly bothered by that, because you doubt you’d ever come up with the crazy ideas Jungkook did when he was horny (okay, a lie, because you definitely have thought of crazy sex schemes before).

But, this moment…

The power was quickly going to your head. “Fuck,” you sob, roughly dragging the length of your pussy over and over his face. The hands around your thighs are pressing against your skin with a strength that would hurt were you not blinded by arousal. His eyes are shut, lids fluttering open every now and then as he watches you buck wildly over his face like he was a pillow in high school and your parents were gone for the weekend.

It doesn’t help that the rhythmic pulses of the vibrator inside of you are doing their job well, the tongue that slips into your pussy joining together to form a powerful combination. It’s ultimately what has you halting your manic thrusts, instead falling into a slow grind over him. Your hips circle, eyes squeezed shut as you lose yourself in the lapping of his tongue against your dripping hole. “Mmmf,” you mewl, biting down on your lower lip as the wet muscle prods against a delicate spot within you. You hear feels light, view of the gorgeous man beneath you obstructed by the eyelids that can't seem to stay open. “N-No,” you cry, pulling his hair more roughly than you intended to in order to redirect him. “There, there,” you whimper, holding him tight against your pussy.

Beneath you, Jungkook exhales harshly against your lips, hands moving frantically over your thighs as he works his tongue inside of you alongside the bullet vibrator. If you weren’t so caught up in your own pleasure, all kinds of sounds spilling from your lips, you would have heard the quiet moans that fall from his. Alas.

It takes a few more pulses from the toy and a few more licks from Jungkook until you’re coming for the third time that night, features twisting up as your pussy clenches around his tongue before spilling down his mouth. Your back arches, a defeated moan escaping you as you release the same mess he’d claimed to clean up onto his lovely face. You can barely breathe afterwards, mouth dry and head dizzy when Jungkook finally pops back out from between your thighs. You barely have enough time to lift yourself up, pussy lightly brushing across his Adam’s apple as you stop yourself from crushing his windpipe. It makes you twitch.

“Good girl,” Jungkook praises with a cheeky smile that distracts you from the bullet toy he retrieves from your quivering cunt. His face is absolutely glistening from your arousal, skin warm and flush. He’s looking up at you like you’re some mythical goddess and he’s but a humble villager coming to pay his respects at the temple that is your body. Fuck, were you okay? You don’t think you’ve ever felt this good in your entire life, and Jungkook’s mushy gaze was doing things to your heart.

He presses a kiss against the inside of your thigh before helping you off of him, laughing meanly when you flop limply down beside him. He’s still fully clothed, a fact that irks you when he leans over to kiss you with that glossy face of his. “D’you like it?” he mumbles, kissing softly down your face. You nod, legs twitching from the aftermath of that wild ride. “I saw it, y’know,” he says suddenly.

“Saw what?” you mumble, mindlessly rolling your head to the side and exposing more skin when he begins kissing along your neck.

Jungkook says nothing, just rolls over you. Part of you thinks he’s crazy, but you’re suddenly hit with the realization that while Jungkook’s drawn three orgasms out of you in the course of an hour, you hadn’t done anything for him. Before you can dive head first into swallowing his cock, he’s kissing you softly. “That stupid face,” he smirks, slotting his mouth against yours. “That weird, now realistic face,” he tacks on.

You huff out a laugh, throwing your leg around his waist comfortably. Jungkook smiles, kisses you one last time before settling in your arms, face cutely pressed in between your boobs. “Hey,” you call, “don't you wanna cum too?”

He shakes his head, a soft sigh filling the air. “Nah,” he says, cuddles closer into you. “Rest now, baby.”

You roll your eyes. “I can feel your dick against my thigh,” you point out, wiggling your pelvis upward to brush against his throbbing erection. Jungkook holds you down in an effort to stop you. “Fuck me.”

He groans against your collarbone. “No, you’re tired,” he tries to convince you, but his skin is warm and flushed in the way it always gets when he’s riled up. “Sleep.”

With the leg around his hip, you pull him closer. “Fuck me, Jungkookie,” you purr, using the hands in his hair to turn his face up towards yours. His dark eyes are drawn down cutely, pouty lips too. “Use my body,” you suggest, “I’m yours anyway.”

His eyes flutter shut, a quiet whimper falling from his lips. “Don’t say that,” he sighs, “makes me wanna do very mean things to you.”

You smile. “You can do whatever you want to me, don’t you know that?” Another groan, his head falling forward until he’s hiding in your neck. Still, there’s movement from below, he sweats slipping down at his hips until that throbbing cock is pressed into the tiny crease where your thigh meets your pelvis. There’s a moment of hesitation, and you wonder if this is what he felt like earlier when he’d managed to get you to sit on his face. “Inside, Jungkookie,” you murmur, reaching down to line him up with your sensitive entrance. He whines softly, arms wrapping around you as he pulls you close. “Good boy.”

Despite your earlier belief that you’d never survive an encounter with Jungkook after using such a term on him, the result is much different from what you had anticipated. He visibly melts into your arms, cock slipping past your folds easily. “No,” he says, his voice feathery and whiny against your ear. “I can’t.”

You soothe a hand down his back, eyes fluttering shut as he begins slowly rutting against your swollen lips. “That’s it,” you encourage, tugging softly at his wavy hair. Jungkook moans wantonly against your neck, rolling his hips harshly against you until his arms are the only things keeping you from jostling out of his hold. “Do you like this pussy?” you ask, purposefully clenching around him, tummy tightening at the stimulation you keep packing on.

Jungkook shudders, pace growing slipping inside of you. “Yes,” he pants, “s-so wet… creamy.”

“Yeah?” you huff, pressing a smiley kiss against his forehead. “It’s yours.”

“Ffffuck,” Jungkook chokes, picking up his pace as his well-deserved orgasm reaches its peak. He’s breathing harshly now, and it’s taking everything in you to keep your pussy tight around him. But after the night he’d given you, the sounds and faces he pulled from you, it’s the least you can do. Besides, your body, after being so thoroughly pleased, still rears up for one final orgasm with him. “Mine,” he growls, bucking his hips into you. “You’re mine, baby, mine,” he seethes, ending his little tryst with a piston of his hips that makes you gasp, body almost unconsciously spasming around him. It’s painful, but so, so delicious how he manages to pull this last orgasm from you as he finally busts inside of you.

He comes with a stuttering garble of words, none of which you catch as he collapses into your hold for the final time that night. “Fuck,” he pants afterwards, leaning into your touch when he finally registers the soft combing of fingers through his hair. “That was evil.”

You laugh, pulling him closer. “As evil as you making me suffer through three orgasms before putting your dick in me?” you tease. Jungkook slips out of you, and you know it’ll be a hassle to clean your sheets tomorrow but it’s worth it.

“It’s called building the scene,” he weakly defends, blindly tugging the puffy blanket over the two of you. “I was gonna rhyme it with that horrible website you made me use but I already forgot it’s name.”

“Rude,” you snap, “it’s called KissAnime.”

“And fore-play,” he suddenly says, and you almost yank his eyeballs out of their sockets for doing that stupid thing again.

—

epilogue 

Two weeks later, your favorite website and home to hentai ads is shut down after years of piracy. Jungkook laughs at your demise, sits and actually cackles at your heartbreak, until he eventually comforts you with his flaming demon cock and a subscription to both Crunchyroll and Funimation. Doyeon spends weeks tracking down a missing package, apparently some freebie she’d gotten for being such an avid customer on Sexuality Unleashed: The Best Toys Worldwide! before eventually finding it in your drawer. And because her and Jungkook have some awkward life-long rivalry for your attention, he doesn’t pay for that. 

—

Copyright © 2020, 1kook on tumblr. absolutely NO reposts allowed.

[nadohunter]

kind of disappointing to see you supporting something like H*talia, I liked your art a lot but you support one of the most racist anime out there....

Okay. Lets talk about this. I’m actually going to copy and paste something I already wrote on my main blog about Hetalia then I’ll add a few notes... Yes. Hetalia the show is problematic. I garentee most sane Hetalia fans will agree, the fandom is probably going to go down in fandom culture history as one of the first disaster fandoms way before the fandoms that surrounded voltron or Steven Universe. Again, most Hetalia fans will also probably agree with that. There’s certain bits from the comic and show that are absolutely not okay- however for those of you making a ton of assumptions about ppl who were in that fandom or are excited about the possibility of it coming back-> let me just explain a few things.

1. Hetalia made massive history nerds out of a lot us, it’s not that didn’t have some problematic results and of course it’s very euro-centric. But I’d argue because of this show It made a lot of people interested in the world and history way more than they ever would have and educated themselves further as a result

ADDED NOTE: The fandom, while small, I’d say has grown up a LOT. The people in it are a lot more informed and aware - The abbreviation was changed pretty damn quick as people started coming back with the new season announced from “APH” (Axis Powers Hetalia - We can all know what’s wrong with that) to “HWS” (Hetalia World Stars).

2. If you were a fan of Hetalia…. that honestly actually meant you were more a fan of the fandom than the actual show. Hetalia has more AUs than probably any fandom I’ve EVER seen: these people made a ton of content Off of characters that appeared in episodes less than 5 minutes long. It got to the point where a lot of people’s interpretations of the characters were SO far removed from the original show they may as well just be entirely new characters. I’m not going to sit here and argue like the fandom couldn’t get toxic, I was there, I remember. This is absolutely a piece of media you SHOULD ABSOLUTELY still be critical of and many many many many many people since the day Hetalia showed it’s face and the ended up getting a creepy pasta story made out of it already have. We’ve been here. Fans have used these characters as an easy way to inform and educate, even more so now than there used to be. So any new fans coming in as well may actually learn a lot about history and other cultures. Which can be really important when done right. It CAN aND HAS been done responsibly. So at the very least if you see a few current or ex Hetalians on your radar just don’t automatically assume shit. It’s way more complicated, we’ve all been through this shit before. Us oldies have seen and understood many a fandom through aaaaaallll the highs and lows.  We were there. We know both the bad and the good that can come from this, as is the case with literally any fandom ever. All of them can be great, creative, and create friendships and community (I have my long term best friend in large part due to Hetalia) … and they can also be latched on to by people who aren’t gonna have others best interests at heart, and are gonna try and use something for bigotry or being just gross. That’s why you stay I n f o r m e d above all else. If you weren’t there for this whole rodeo before, just… at least get the idea that this ain’t a cut and dry situation FURTHER ADDITION: “One of The most racist anime” is a pretty bold claim. Shows like Attack on Titan I would argue have way more damaging mixed messaging around the holocast and nazism. However I wouldn’t go so far to call fans of it racist. Because either A. People aren’t focusing on that aspect of the anime and just like the cool action or B. They know but they’re consuming and reacting to it critically and making informed choices about where they put their money and time. Naruto and Once Peice - two of THE MOST POPULAR ANIME for a LONG time out there, have characters that are EXTREMELY racist charactures of black people but no one talked about that for a long time. I would also argue that yes, the Hetalia dub has some very racist and problematic things with it, we should all get on funimation’s ASS about that, however, the original sub is mostly harmless outside of just plain not acknowledging the horrors of the holocost - which I think since the show is supposed to stay a comedy is why the author steered away from having things set in the 1940s because at a certain point and most modern Hetalia strips don’t touch it - you either make a mockery of a serious topic (cough cough the musical in a lot of ways) , OR you don’t touch WWII and just keep the setting modern and you can continue making fun of Europeans especially all you want.

Point being, If I draw Hetalia fanart... that is not me putting a stamp of approval on everything in the show. If you see a Hetalia fan drawing a character in a Nazi uniform, or putting the pasty-ass character for America in a Native American headdress of course! Call them the fuck out! We are too! Report and block them! So... yeah. And look, I get it, from an outside perspective where the only thing you’ve heard about Hetalia is the absolutely WORST of it, of course you would feel that way, that’s how most Fandoms get a bad reputation. It IS good to talk about this. And if you or anyone still wants to disagree with me, look I’ll still hear you out... but I think we have to get out of this headspace in any fandom of EITHER YOU STAN EVERYTHING ABOUT SOMETHING AND SUPPORT EVERYTHING ABOUT IT OR YOU MUST HATE AND DESPISE IT. Life... human thoughts... just don’t work like that.

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Season in Review - Spring 2021

Your text here

Pretty Boy Detective Club

When this got announced I laughed at the title then I saw Nisioisin for original creator and Akiyuki Shinbo on direction and it went from being a total joke to like, one of my most anticipated shows of the season.

And yeah no it totally lived up to my unexpected hype. I don’t think I had any specific expectations other than hoping the dialogue was fun and it was visually interesting. It was both of those things to the max.

There’s just a lot of entertaining wit to all of the dialogue, especially since Mayumi Doujima – our perspective character – is a bit of a sassy fucking asshole, she’s a real treat to listen to. Strong vocal performance helps her too. Trust me to latch the most onto the one girl character in a show called Pretty Boy Detective Club, huh. Note that the boys are all pretty great too.

And then as for visuals, I really cannot even fucking begin to describe how amazing this show looks. It’s probably the most visually interesting and exciting anime I’ve ever seen? It depends on your tastes to a large extent – certainly the show is more impressive for art than animation even if that animation is still pretty great – but if you’re into shows that are as fucky and experimental and crazy as they can possibly be, finding new art styles every episode and with direction that’s constantly keeping you visually engaged, yeah this show’s for you.

And just to top that all off, the music is also absolutely amazing. There are so many memorable and fun tracks for every occasion and hearing these compositions is the absolute cherry on top of the rest of its strengths.

I don’t even feel like I have too much else to say tbf. The themes are fairly spelled out for us but they’re far from what I was enjoying the show for even if they’re still nice, the plots are generally always really creative and enjoyable even if I didn’t feel like they were worth that much as mysteries, and the last episode functioning as a soft recap was kinda disappointing – but again you fall in love with this show because it’s an audiovisual masterpiece and the rest if just cute bonus fluff for the hell of it.

Funimation’s subs for this show were abysmal so looking forward to rewatching whenever a good group picks it up.

Zombie Land Saga Revenge

Season fucking 2 baby!!!! It’s only been 3 years.

I haven’t read my original review of ZLS in ages and have no idea how it holds up at all, so while most of what I’m gonna say will probs be in relation to how this holds up against season 1 I have no idea if my season 1 thoughts are particularly well documented.

But anyway season 2 is both better and worse than season 1, wildin. Obviously looks a lot better, especially the CGI has had a great glowup, and a good amount of the songs are probably better than season 1 as well, idk I’m so exposed to s1’s music that it’s hard to say atm. Plus we have a clearer focus this season in theory, and particularly the last few episodes work really well compared to how season 1 approached its ending.

Guess the problem though is this season has quite a lot of fairly mid episodes? Episode 1 was a nice return to form but some moments down the line make it odd in retrospect; episode 2 was just kinda eh that didn’t do loads for anyone’s character, particularly its “focus” character Saki almost feels untouched in it; episode 3 is an okay setup episode but still eh; episode 5 doesn’t do a lot for Lily’s character despite being the focus; 8 and 9 are a Yuugiri “focus” arc that spends more time on some forgettable fucko than it does Yuugiri and what happened in them only needed an episode; and episode 10 is almost a recap out of nowhere? Like it’s not a recap but it almost just retells episode 1 from a very drawn out perspective that’s not in service of anything ig. Idk.

Most of those episodes were still at least good tbf tho and the season still has a lot of real banger episodes – 4 cemented Junko as my absolute favourite and had the best actual live show in the series; 6 was just hilarious and endearing as all fucking hell; 7 was probably the funniest episode of anime I’ve ever seen and did an excellent job introducing us to a brand new character, completely endearing us to her, and giving her a great sendoff that’s in service of the main cast as well; and then 11 and 12 are a really great end to the season that do well by every character.

Season 2 does a lot of work in service of making Saga itself feel like a very living place. Lots of season 1 minor characters return in different situations having had nice off-screen arcs and there are plenty of new faces that are instantly endearing as well – what Saga means to the people living there is actually explored which feels fucking great and I really appreciated being actually invested in their specific goal.

The whole “Revenge” part of the title was… meh. I like what they’re going for – give a clear narrative and thematic goal for the sake of the sequel season – though despite mentioning their EFS failure a bunch and how much they want their revenge, it feels kind of undercooked. Like, it’s mentioned but that’s it, it doesn’t really feel like it informs their actions much though. Not really bothered by it but it did feel a bit wasted.

Iffy on how indulgent in the supernatural this is getting. “Ever seen a zombie movie?” was enough for me – immortal old bartenders bringing back the dead and predicting disasters such as alien attacks is like… it’s not like I can’t suspend my disbelief or anything, guess I’m just too idolpilled? There was a s3 hook and I imagine it sold well so maybe I’d end up enjoying where it goes and eat my words here.

Guess a TL;DR really is just what I said near the start of both better and worse than season 1. Kinda disappointing since you obviously want a sequel to be even better, but happy to be able to say it’s not just straight up worse.

Junko best girl.

Odd Taxi

Pretty quick and easy show to sum up the appeal of. Odd Taxi sits within the ranks of such shows as Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood for being a narrative consisting of basically a massive interconnected web of different characters with different personalities and different motives interacting with one another and shaking up that entire web with every exchange and decision they make.

I actually don’t even feel like I have loads more to say than that. That description of what the show fundamentally is kind of just is the key appeal for me. Every single character is engaging to watch and they all have very realistic behaviours and reactions to everything that goes on. We get a pretty thorough understanding of who every individual in the show is and how they operate and how they influence one another even though half of them don’t even know each other.

It’s also very good as a mystery anime, obviously has loads of moving pieces to begin with and seeing and hearing people theorise throughout was satisfying. Probs will rewatch – potentially more than once – just to catch it all.

Episode about gacha guy was one of the best written things I’ve seen in anime. This show has pretty fucking godly dialogue but this episode especially, god damn.

When I saw Odokawa’s design I had no idea how Natsuki fucking Hanae would do such a character. Feel bad underestimating the dude – he killed it.

OP was cummable.

Ending is sorta eh? It’s a good end point for sort of the main plot and I think it does its big reveal moment well. But for lots of the characters it’s basically just “they have a happy ending now” even if it doesn’t feel like their arc reached that point. I still enjoyed it but I guess it was kind of underwhelming compared to the rest of the show.

Slime Taoshite 300-nen, Shiranai Uchi ni Level Max ni Nattemashita

Hence just Killing Slimes.­­­

I watched Spider Isekai for Aoi Yuuki. It was shit and disappointing and she wasn’t in it enough. This was looking to be my Aoi Yuuki fix to fill that void. It did so much more than that.

In terms of Aoi Yuuki I’ve got loads of her in here. She sings the OP and it’s great fun - I could never get enough of it. And beyond that she’s the protagonist – Azusa is a super endearing character with a mad respectable approach to life, she encourages everyone to commit as hard as possible to a good work-life balance, overexerting yourself is not a fucking option. Based. And of course she’s a treat to listen to. Not quite as chaotic or loud as I tend to favour from Aoi Yuuki but tbf this performance fits the show like a glove.

On that note this show is basically just Yuri Harem Family Iyashikei: The Animation. There are only girls, all the adults are very in love with each other, all the kids are just the most innocent adorable fuckers ever, it’s got a huge constantly expanding cast and I felt like I had a brand new favourite character every episode, it was fucking brilliant.

Tbh right, art style isn’t quite the cutest in the world. But the show’s overall tone and presentation and concept and vibe is so fucking adorable and happy and comfy and fun that the show feels cuter than it actually is? I’ve seen shows with cuter artwork than this that feel less cute anyway because they just don’t hit that vibe as well. It’s wild.

Btw don’t take what I just said as a slight against the visuals at all – this show actually has more than one choreographed fight scene with like, pretty fucking good animation. Again not the most impressive in the world but directed so well as to really feel the action and excitement – Azusa taking on like a dozen dragons actually gets to look fucking badass, it’s great.

I mean if feelgood yuri harem/family sounds appealing to you you’ve already seen and loved this show. If that’s not for you, get the fuck out my life.

Godzilla: S.P.

Despite enjoying all like, 2 other kaiju anime I’ve seen, I’m not really a kaiju guy at all. And I was initially gonna pass on this for that reason. Like, I don’t care about Godzilla lol.

However, the combination of a Bones and Orange production alongside primarily me seeing a visual with all the character designs persuaded me to give it a chance. Do not regret it whatsoever.

To get the execution of what drew me in out of the way – this show looks absolutely fucking fantastic. The art style is deceptively distinctive and extremely easy on the eyes + animates really well on the 2D front; and the 3D is as high quality as you’d expect from Orange – high quality models with really clean and natural animations that still befit the kaiju we’re seeing. I do think when you see the 2D and 3D in the same shot they don’t feel completely in the same environment – but the execution is still better than a lot of other shows and hey tbf you can blame it on the kaiju being otherworldly anyway lol. Also the character designs are just absolutely fucking amazing. Every single recurring character of which there are many has a very distinct design – sameface doesn’t exist – and so much is communicated about everyone via their design, they’re all hella aesthetically pleasing, just makes it a very lovely show to look at.

Then in terms of narrative and pretty much the remainder of the show feel since this is a very dialogue driven experience – the main thing I can say is the same comparison I use all the time. Have you ever found yourself reading wiki pages for stuff you know nothing about, or watching several YouTube videos for a topic you otherwise had no interest in? Going down a suggested videos rabbit hole and learning a whole bunch of shit you’d never learn otherwise but just these videos are so good in their presentation that you become engaged anyway? Yeah you forget or can’t even truly process the info because of how complicated it is, but you really enjoyed the ride anyway? That’s what watching this anime is like. The dialogue is so informed by a bunch of scientific – particularly theoretical physics – jargon that I never actually felt like I totally knew what was going on. And yet I loved every single second of everything I was watching regardless. You may not understand anything about this wild ride but it’s so fucking fun that who gives a shit? That’s what watching this show is like.

I genuinely don’t have much else to add lol. I watched this with Moyai fansubs and they were really high effort – since I know them from Mewkledreamy anyway I was excited to see how they’d manage this and they did swell.

Mei best girl.

I even found the kaiju shit genuinely cool, particularly when the titular big guy himself appears there are lots of really striking and memorable action shots. Cool time.

SSSS.Dynazenon

Hey our second kaiju show of the day! And some sort of loosely related Gridman follow-up too – that show was a completely unexpected treat for me so I was really looking forward to seeing what Dynazenon would have in store.

Right off the bat I want to clarify that I’ve not seen Gridman since it aired and didn’t rewatch at all so I can’t deny my memory being a little fuzzy, and everything I say in relation to it should be taken with a grain of salt.

So for our first Gridman comparison I’m not fully confident in – I think Dynazenon is probably better on average. I think Gridman reaches higher highs overall – particularly with regards to how Akane’s written – but it didn’t always use its time amazingly and could get pretty repetitive, alongside Yuta not being much of a character. Dynazenon opts for a more consistent tone and story structure; and with gradual status quo shifts and character development as well it puts great work into feeling as good on the last episode as it did the first.

Kind of the key area in which it’s beating Gridman for me as well as being a really strong show in general is in its character writing – Dynazenon has perhaps some of the most down to earth, relatable and human characters I’ve seen in anime. Every single recurring character (sans poor old Chise) is very thoroughly explored and extensive depth is given to their characterisation. We know exactly what makes everyone tick and what pushes them forward or holds them back. They’re all pretty damn flawed individuals but not even all of them want to improve – it’s really grounded despite the odd denpa atmosphere and uh, giant monster shit going on.

Helping said cast is what I’m just gonna describe as the best all around cast performance I have ever heard in a show. Every single word delivered by all these VAs for even the most minor characters is so specifically and carefully delivered and just feels so, intimate and human? Like you can fully feel everything going on in a character’s mind at the same time as whatever front they’re projecting just based on the strength of the deliveries alone. And it’s a genuinely constant feeling of this – it’s not a show with voice acting normal enough to not notice until the big explosive moments where you’re like “wow that was great” – it is literally 12 straight episodes of a show where you hold on to the sound of every single delivery because of how masterfully delivered they all are. I really can’t overstate how fucking fantastic these vocal performances are – it’s a really huge part as to what makes this show’s characters so fucking impressive. It’s gonna take a lot to surpass this for me.

I do think there are some areas in which Dynazenon needed improvement though – it kind of ends too quickly with some resolutions feeling sped up in a sense – particularly Chise’s arc basically just stops early on and then she’s given an ending anyway. And it’s a weird issue since like, the show could remedy it if it didn’t spend so much time just kinda doing repetitive mecha stuff. But I actually adore the repetitive mecha stuff – it’s a show for which the deliberate and slow pacing builds atmosphere really well. And yet it’s also at the expense of some arcs. I don’t want the show to change the pacing for those arcs but I don’t want those arcs to stop. Guess I just wanted a few more episodes, maybe?

I pretty much liked everything else, lots of “holy shit giant robots are cool” moments which are quite difficult to get out of me, music was really great, show as a whole has a real great style and episode 11 especially is beautiful, some other praises. Watch Dynazenon.

Super Cub

I kinda meme got excited for Super Cub in a server based off of nothing specific, though the very washed out colours of the PV had me curious about what sort of show Super Cub was going to be. I think I just expected “cute girls doing cute things but on motorbikes”. What I got was something so much more unique than that.

Super Cub is a very specific breed of iyashikei. The classical piano soundtrack is grand yet simple, the colours muted, dialogue exceptionally minimal. It’s lonely. Minimalistic. Devoid of gags. For much of its runtime Super Cub genuinely is just getting simple satisfaction from seeing a lonely girl find a small bit of happiness with her brand new Honda Super Cub.

It shouldn’t need to be said just based on the type of person I am, but yeah I was absolutely in love with this.  Super Cub is a show that finds so much comfort in solitude and to that end it’s an absolutely perfect show to just put on when you’re just vibing by yourself. You know, the shit I live for.

Super Cub also benefits from being a show where the gimmick of “colour coming back into my dull world” trope thing isn’t done horribly. Every show I’ve seen do that tries to always be the most beautiful colourful show ever and only shows the washed out stuff as like POV for its MC only whenever it’s relevant. Super Cub meanwhile is near permanently washed out and only gains more vibrant colours whenever Koguma is happy – sometimes it’s only just for a few seconds. Lots of thought and care goes into the direction and the vibe the show wants to convey, it’s really great.

Helping Super Cub further is that it’s not just Koguma the Adorable going on bike trips or whatever. Like it’s predominantly that but it works in service of giving her genuine character arcs – like the show actually has some 3 episode arc structures and I’d say for a good majority of the show those arcs are actually fantastic.

Where Super Cub starts to go a bit more wrong for me though unfortunately is with the introduction of Reiko. She’s kind of the opposite of what I loved about the show. She’s loud. Bombastic. Constantly quipping. Good for Koguma getting friends ig but it feels like the first 3 episodes were the start of the show being a 10/10 for me and Reiko being the start of that score going down. Despite this, the next 3 episodes are still really solid.

Where it goes even more wrong for me is with the introduction of girl 3 – Shii. Shii basically exists to shill some weird westaboo foodie café jokes and have someone simp for Koguma for no real reason. She’s genuinely annoying and since this is also the part of the show where Koguma turns into a bit of an asshole (which I don’t not like but she was better before so) by this point I’d felt like the Super Cub I fell in love with was being replaced with some kinda boring iyashikei full of café scenes. Shii also gives us the one straight up bad episode with episode 11 – which is melodramatic unrealistic tasteless garbage.

For all that though I do want to say that the majority of the show is just lovely OST, minimal dialogue, beautiful background art cute girls with great expressions and a really distinctive yet cute and appealing art style being iyashikei. What made Super Cub so special is lost tragically quickly, but most of why it’s still very good is retained for the bulk of its runtime. I wish it had been more consistent, but I’m very glad to say I’m still not disappointed by how Super Cub turned out.

Mini Dragon

Mini Dragon isn’t a thing that lends itself to too much discussion. Pretty much 60-ish second episodes of Maid Dragon – a show with kind of a skit structure anyway, so this doesn’t feel like too little time or anything.

What actually else do I say about this lol. I love Maid Dragon. This is Maid Dragon. It’s fantastic.

Shadows House

I’m not gonna lie – of everything that survived the great dropping of this season, this seemed to be the show that was hanging on by the thinnest thread. I found parts of the first 4 or 5 episodes interesting, and I like the vibe of the show – good visuals and music at all times with nice character designs too. But I was also pretty bored a lot of the time, and found myself only holding on because of faint hopes that it’d turn into some cool show about uncovering and dismantling a big corrupt system thing. I do like that type of thing so.

Fortunately from like episode 5 or 6 onwards – basically whenever the debut started and characters began taking direct action and actually being thrust directly into its systems, I started having fun. Cool mystery, cool character dynamics, cool reveals, the systems being propagated are realistic and not cartoonishly evil within the confines of the world and the young revolutionaries rising against it feel just in doing so as well.

I don’t actually have too much else to say about this show – it got off to a slow start hinting at greater potential, and then just worked to realise that potential in a fine way. It’s not the most impressive show in the world – like I’ve got it at 7/10 for a reason – but it sure was fun enough to convince me to keep watching in a season where I dropped the overwhelming majority of what I was watching. I’d say that’s pretty worthy of respect. I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend it but if somebody asked if it’s worth watching I’d be very happy to tell them “yes”.

Emilico is cute.

Yakunara Mug Cup mo

I also got meme excited for this – except unlike Super Cub this show stayed a meme for its entire runtime.

Mug is bad in a really specific and fascinating way. It appears to be a cute girls doing cute things show – its gimmick being pottery to shill its town. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Mug is a sports slice of life drama and character study, - about a girl who gets into a hobby where everyone outclasses her and she’s constantly failing to live up to the expectations placed on her due to her prodigal mother, who’s long passed away. The person she most wants support from is her dad but he struggles to give it to her for the simple fact that she’s just not great at pottery. The support from her friends doesn’t do anything from her because she can see with her own eyes the skill difference between herself and them. It’s honestly a deeply tragic narrative. Other than the part where it’s uh, so fucking hard to care about lol.

Mug is boring beyond description, like other than the occasional really good shot and also that one episode where they dream some funky fantastical Japanese mythos shit, it’s basically only appealing in so far as viewing it as what I described above, that sports tragedy thing. But it still kinda wants to be a cute girls doing cute things show first? But the other girls are so forgettable and barely even have character traits. They just… exist.

I do think a combination of my meme hype for this show and the tragedy angle are what keep it as high as a 4 for me, but yeah no I wouldn’t recommend this unless you very specifically want to see something exactly like this.

Season 2 got announced the instant the show ended and you already know it’s in my Fall ptw lol.

Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru: Churutto

It’s Yuki Yuna chibi shorts.

80 second episodes.

Characters from across all the various Yuusha de Aru series – suffice to say as an anime only I did not know who anyone was.

Some VAs I really liked.

Jokes were actually okay sometimes, and hey episodes didn’t drag that much.

Still not really for me lol.

Mewkledreamy Mix

Man…

“oh yeah I loved season 1 I’d totally watch another year of this” I managed 6 episodes.

Mix is just boring. It’s not funny, it dials up the stock animation by tenfold, it also has a lower target age range by about a tenfold as well, Akki’s fucking annoying, my darling Yuni-sama was barely in it, I just found extremely little to appreciate here.

Fumetsu no Anata e

Yeah so I and lots of others were really looking forward to this because it’s by the Koe no Katachi manga originally and has a damn appealing sounding premise. Think I expected it to be a traveller show at some point but I did have the fact that it’s more arc-driven told to me in advance, so it’s not like I went in with the wrong expectations, but… it was just real fucking boring lol.

Made it 3 episodes in? I thought the first one was about the best possible execution of what a fairly standard first episode it was, but it was still kinda eh for me. Technically flawless but didn’t exactly grip me.

Next 2 episodes just kept that feeling up but with like 3 minutes of recap at the start of each episode, and being even less engaging than that already meh first episode was. I really was in “fuck anything that bores you” mood this season so just stopped wanting to put up with this.

Ijirinaide, Nagatoro-san

Tbh the one episode of this I watched was like, decently fun. I guess I’m the type of person that can enjoy seeing a kinky simp get bullied to shit by some asshole girl. Except I don’t think I’m enough of that to want to watch 12 episodes of said content.

People will move on from this show very quickly so fuck the culture currently surrounding it lol.

Hige wo Soru. Soshite Joshikousei wo Hirou.

I actually greatly enjoyed the 5 episodes of this I watched. It’s a refreshingly optimistic show that preaches self-love, self-respect, and recovery above all else, which are principles I can hardcore get behind, so I appreciated that a lot. Also main dude’s insistent on the fact that he’s not a good person and Sayu’s just had her standards warped by lots of bad people, and yeah I respect that humble normalcy of his as well.

Thing is I kinda think I got all the good I was going to get out of the show at that point – everything I liked was already happening and how thy were going about that didn’t seem to be changing. But they set up a love triangle! And I fucking hate those. So basically just dropped because yeah, don’t need to see more of the good, don’t enjoy what I’m already expecting to be bad.

86

God tryna remember how I felt about this show even.

I finished episode 1 and basically decided that nothing that it was setting up or doing interested me even remotely, I guess?

Also they tried to make MC moe and have her uwu anime girl uwu moments which felt real tonally jarring from what seemed to want to be a serious military drama with some real basic allegories huh.

Found it dumb that MC was the one and only not racist person in this city wow.

Everyone having white hair got me a bit excited though.

Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song

Yeah I made it 5 episodes into this?

It was doing a setup episode -> payoff episode structure I got bored of real fucking quickly. I forgot details from setup episodes and then had zero interest in any of the happenings in payoff episodes so, really was nothing for me there.

Also found Vivy and her teddy’s dynamic unbearable, they have zero chemistry or banter, she hardly feels like she’s even talking to him, there’s some timeskip real early on that glosses over some interesting things this show could be doing, and apparently a recent thing happened that basically cancelled out everything the show already did so by god am I glad I dropped lol.

Dialogue wasn’t very good but I’m glad the bear spoke quick enough to not test my patience that much.

The animation is pretty great and the pretty shots are real pretty, but tbh the pretty shots worked against the show because they’re just so high detail compared to the normal look of the show that it becomes fucking jarring.

I don’t remember anything else worth saying.

Osananajimi ga Zettai ni Makenai Love Comedy

Made it 5 minutes into this. It was painfully bland and uninspired. I hated it.

Mars Red

Yeah so episode 1 of this show, right. Was fucking brilliant. Just a masterfully directed tonally excellent visually distinctive and appealing piece with fantastic voice acting and a really top tier execution on a seemingly standard premise. Other than that one vampire boy being real generic and dull I had zero problems with this episode and was thoroughly impressed. If it was just that it’d have been like an 8 or even a 9 out of 10. Realise that was just a bunch of positive adjectives in a row but like, man I enjoyed that first episode a lot.

Episode 2 was probably the hardest episode to finish of anything this season. I wasn’t even tired when I started watching it yet it nearly put me to sleep several times, like I was fucking fighting to stay awake during it. It was nightmarishly boring and a gigantic disappointment after how much I loved the first episode. Pretty easy drop then.

Jouran: The Princess of Snow and Blood

Dropped after 2 episodes.

Tbh was really looking forward to this because it looks cool as fuck and also all the Raise A Suilen involvement, but me oh my this show was hard to watch.

Tbh it kinda felt like starting a 24 episode show from episode 13. The show acts as though everything’s already been established and we already know what’s going on, so we should appropriately be surprised at all these twists and turns and double agents and whatnot. But we just don’t.

There are a lot of shows that are very much fully indulgent in their own world, and it can work out for the better. This was not such a case.

Sayounara Watashi no Cramer

Well documented fact about me is that I fucking hate Your lie in April with a passion and it is uncontested in its position as the worst anime I’ve ever seen. Cramer comes close!

So yeah naturally hating YliA so much I tried to hatewatch Cramer as well – I mean hey it has my literal first and second favourite seiyuu as its lead characters, that’s at least something?

I think in the 2 episodes of Cramer I watched it managed to do literally zero things well and literally everything else at just about the worst level imaginable, holy shit. It’s transcendentally bad at everything to a degree to where I’m at a loss for words in even describing it.

TL;DR one of the worst things I’ve ever had the misfortune of watching and not even funny bad enough to get beyond episode 2.

Blue Reflection Ray

I was excited for this because of magical girls but it was boring and ugly :(

Half-respect this show anyway, primarily because I have a friend who likes it but I also feel like it definitely feels like something from a different era without necessarily feeling dated? Like there was risk in letting this show happen but staff wanted to make it happen anyway.

Didn’t pay off because nobody in the west cares and nobody in Japan cares and the BD’s production has been cancelled which isn’t something you hear every day.

Tbh I could hypothetically see me picking this up again, if only for that one friend, but yeah nothing about it compelled me to enjoy it.

Anyway yeah that’s anime so

Anime of the Season - Pretty Boy Detective Club

Feel like I said just about everything I love about this show so, yeah.

Girl of the Season - Mayumi Doujima

Actually kinda tough choosing between her and Koguma but Mayumi’s a lot more likeable for a lot more of the show so.

Boy of the Season - Hiroshi Odokawa

Tbh I like him for similar reasons as I do Mayumi - it’s the wit, the demeanour, though in his case he’s like 40 and jaded and cynical. Both are fun all the same.

Anyway that’s it! My Season in Review for Spring! Took longer to make than any other oops, not for any specific reason other than just me taking my sweet time lol. Hope y’all enjoy the read uwu.

[okayto]

I really love your anime reviews, and I was wondering if you have a favorite "lesser-known" anime. Or like, a top 5?

Thank you!!! (⁄ ⁄•⁄ꇴ⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄

One of my favorite series, which isn't particularly well-known, is The File of Young Kindaichi Returns (link goes to my Tumblr review). A 2014-16 detective series that fills my love of mysteries, and the cases themselves have clues that you can theoretically solve the case, or at least give it a decent attempt.

Another perennial favorite is Ghost Hunt, which despite me reviewing it last year, is something I've enjoyed for years. Supernatural mysteries aren't the same as detective style mysteries like Kindaichi; there's no way the viewer can "solve" the case, but I still find it super enjoyable.

I debated whether to include Mononoke, because it's very well-regarded, but I don't think it's particularly well-known. It's avant garde animation, a bit older, and lack of dub or current physical release (though it's streaming subtitled) mean that people are probably less likely to come across it. But dang is it cool.

One show I haven't mentioned on Tumblr before is The Disastrous Life of Saiki K, something I've watched multiple times. It's not unknown by any means, but I don't think I hear much about it, plus it's the kind of show that might be funnier if you're already familiar with anime tropes.

A mashup and send-up of school and shounen tropes, this humor-filled series has tongue firmly in cheek as it follows Kusuo Saiki, born with immense psychic powers, as he deadpans and snarks his way through life, just trying to get through high school without getting discovered. Unfortunately, a bunch of annoyances (in his mind) / friends (in their minds) hang around and hijinks ensue. The first season is easily accessible on Funimation, Netflix, and TubiTV and I love the dub; the second season is only on Netflix and I think it's subtitles-only, which was a disappointment.

Finally, for nostalgia reasons: Saint Tail. A magical thief show from the 90s, it was licensed and released with both subs and a dub until the final few DVDs, which were sub-only. For me, who got into fandom via a Sailor Moon obsession around this time, Saint Tail was fantastic: pretty girls, bright colors, magic and transformations, with an enjoyably predictable caper-of-the-week format, all while the titular Saint Tail/schoolgirl Meimi Haneoka tries to keep her identity a secret from suspicious classmate/crush/junior detective Asuka. I own all the DVDs, but the license is expired and it's not streaming anywhere legal as of July 2021 (maybe some place like RetroCrush will eventually rescue it if we hope hard enough).

(Honorable mention to Tokyo Mew Mew, but also for purely nostalgia reasons: it was my first real fandom, but is very much a kids show.)

[scoutception]

Yet again ranking the 5 animes I’ve watched most recently

After losing the will to just sit down and watch it for quite a while, I’ve finally gotten through 5 anime series yet again, and, as is tradition for me by now, I’ve decided to just type out my thoughts and rankings of them, with my first two posts of this nature being here and here. As usual, this is just my personal thoughts, and the only other thing worth noting before I start is that, unlike last time, I do think everything listed here is at least decent on its own. With that, I’ll just get to it. 5. Robotics;Notes

Number of episodes: 22. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Funimation. Robotics;Notes is an adaptation of a visual novel, which I actually just wrote a review on, which can be found here. Long story short, it’s the third entry in the Science Adventure series, the same series Steins;Gate is part of, unknown to most people, with Robotics;Notes technically being the sequel to it. Originally aired in 2012, the same year as the visual novel was released, and made by Production I.G, Robotics;Notes is in an interesting middle ground between the acclaimed and popular Steins;Gate animes and the downright awful and obscure Chaos;Head and Chaos;Child animes, and until 2020 was the only option those who didn’t speak Japanese had to experience it at all. Since I went into so much detail in said visual novel review, I’m mostly going to focus on how the anime holds up both by itself and as an adaptation. Ever since its creation nearly ten years ago, the dream of the Chuo Tanegashima High Robotics Research Club has been to finish Gunbuild-1, a lifesize recreation of Gunvarrel, the titular mecha of an insanely popular anime that’s credited with starting a “robot boom” within Japan, and the club’s current president, Akiho Senomiya, the little sister of the club’s founder, Misaki Senomiya, is extremely determined to see this dream achieved. Unfortunately for her, the club has fallen on hard times, with its funding being cut, its advisor being completely unreliable, and the few other members it has, namely Kaito Yashio, Subaru Hidaka, Junna Daitoku, and Kona Furugoori, aka Frau Koujiro, being quite difficult in their own ways, and often more than Akiho can handle. While Akiho puts her all into finally bringing the club to greatness, the otherwise apathetic Kaito finds himself involved with a mysterious AI called Airi, who exists within the augmented reality app IRUO. Airi’s creator, the deceased Kou Kimijima, turns out to have also created several AR annotations scattered throughout Tanegashima, titled the Kimijima Reports, which warn of a grand conspiracy that will utterly devastate humanity if unopposed. I’m not the most unbiased viewer, since I had played, and enjoyed, the visual novel months before watching this anime, but generally, it’s actually an enjoyable time. Some of Robotics;Notes’ biggest strengths were always its cast of characters and lighter tone, and for the most part, the anime preserves both well, keeping it mostly silly, but endearing early on. The artstyle actually matches up fairly well with the VN’s CGs, and the dub, which I watched just to spice things up, since I already knew the Japanese voice cast was quite good, is overall solid, with Clifford Chapin as Kaito, Lindsay Seidel as Akiho, and Monica Rial as Junna especially sticking out to me. As an adaptation, on the other hand, it falls short in quite a few places, namely when it comes to characterization. While obviously, no adaptation could feasibly fit in every detail from its source material, the Steins;Gate anime managed to preserve almost all of its cast’s characterization, whereas in Robotics;Notes, several characters lose prominent details to their backstories or personal conflicts, or act differently in scenes unrelated to that, making quite a few of them come off different. While instances of the latter case, such as Junna coming off as less shy and hesitant, don’t necessarily worsen anything for the most part, the former definitely does, as it makes the affected characters much less developed and interesting. Nobody suffers from this worse than Kaito himself, who loses most of his backstory, motivations, and arc, to the point of one of his best moments being changed from something intentional to completely accidental, with the end result making him come off as a completely different character, and an inferior one, at that. Additionally, around episode 16, the anime starts diverging pretty significantly from the VN, and not in ways that are improvements, to the point it even leaves a few otherwise preserved scenes in earlier episodes without context. Overall, I can imagine the Robotics;Notes anime still being a decent, if unremarkable watch on its own, and was certainly an interesting and fun way to reexperience the story, and definitely fares better than many visual novel adaptations, but I can’t quite say I’d recommend it. If Robotics;Notes interests you, the visual novel is very much preferred. 4. Nichijou

Number of episodes: 26. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming options: Funimation. Here we have one of the most acclaimed anime comedies out there, an adaptation of Keiichi Arawi’s surreal sketch comedy manga series, produced by Kyoto Animation, a name that’ll be showing up here again later. Nichijou mainly focuses on two different trios of characters. There’s the ordinary high school girls Yuuko Aioi, a rather dim and reckless girl with terrible luck, Mio Naganohara, the most relatively normal one of the cast, whenever she’s not having explosive freak outs that involve beating people up, and Mai Minakami, a stoic girl who enjoys messing with people just for their reactions. On the other hand, there’s the far less ordinary Shinonome Laboratories trio of Professor Shinonome, an 8 year old girl who happens to be capable of building incredibly advanced machines, Nano Shinonome, a robot built by the Professor who desperately desires a normal girl more than anything, and Sakamoto, their pet cat who, thanks to a special scarf also made by the Professor, is capable of talking. The series focuses on their would-be ordinary lives, were it not for the seemingly daily chaos they get involved in, from witnessing the school principal wrestle a wild deer, to being trapped in an elevator for hours, to the school science teacher attempting to capture Nano for study. It also follows the antics of several other side characters, such Koujiro Sasahara, the seemingly upper class student who is actually just the son of a family of farmers, to Misato Tachibana, a very typical tsundere towards Sasahara, whose tsun side manifests as assaulting him with military-grade weapons, to little effect, to the equally quirky teachers of their school. Needless to say, it’s a very silly and chaotic series, and that’s exactly what makes it so memorable. The humor is pretty hit and miss in the first half of the series, but from episode 14 onwards, they thoroughly master it, with every episode having at least a few scenes that got me laughing. Beyond the silliness, though, the series actually has a lot of heart to it. There’s a few moments that change up the status quo, or even develop the characters just a bit, and some scenes are surprisingly sweet, if still played for laughs more often than not. There’s also a lot of continuity, which in later episodes often provide the punchlines to some of the best gags, which definitely encourages watching the whole series. The Japanese voice acting is fittingly crazy for each character, and the animation fits perfectly, as while the character designs are quite simple, there’s many would be mundane moments that have contrasting overly impressive and exaggerated animation that makes them very memorable. All in all, Nichijou is a very enjoyable series once it finds its groove, and about the only reason its not higher on my rankings is just because pure comedies aren’t really one of my favorite genres. Still, if you ever want a good laugh, you can’t go wrong with this. 3. Soul Eater

Number of episodes: 51. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Netflix, Funimation. Soul Eater is yet another adaptation, this time of a manga by Atsushi Ōkubo, produced by Studio Bones, who also did the Fullmetal Alchemist animes, and is quite similar to the original FMA series in that it outpaced the manga and, rather than simply overloading itself with filler, decided to go in an entirely different direction by the end. The Death Weapon Meister Academy is a school founded by Death himself, dedicated to the training of Meisters, who wield Weapons, humans with the ability to shapeshift into weapons, for the purpose of destroying Kishin Eggs, evil beings who have consumed the souls of others, and pose the risk of transforming into extremely dangerous demons. Any Meister who can collect the souls of these corrupted beings, as well as the soul of a Witch, can transform their Weapon into a Death Scythe, the personal arms of Death. Among the students of the DWMA are seven Meisters and Weapons who stand out in particular: the teams of Maka Albarn, a kind hearted and responsible, though temperamental, girl, her Weapon, Soul “Eater” Evans, a laidback and snarky wannabe “cool” guy, Black Star, a prideful and loudmouthed ninja who’s seemingly always out to make a spectacle of himself, regardless of how it hampers him, his Weapon, Tsubaki, a humble and levelheaded woman, Death the Kid, the son of Death and one of the top students in the cool, held back only by a crippling obsession with symmetry, and his Weapons, Liz and Patty Thompson. While these seven gradually come together as a team, a Witch named Medusa begins to put an ambitious and destructive plan into motion, one involving her “child”, Crona, and the strange, insanity inducing black blood that courses through their veins. Soul Eater has a lot going for it. A likeable and crazy cast of characters, even the side ones, like the maniacal Doctor Stein, or the surprisingly goofy and casual Death, or the tragic Crona, or the hilariously egotistical Excalibur, to a lot of fun action scenes, to its great animation and overall unique visual design, including the sun and moon having giant, creepy laughing faces. It has a lighthearted, comedic tone that doesn’t detract from the serious moments, and the main characters get some pretty good development as the series goes on. The dub is also great, with Laura Bailey as Maka, Micah Solusod as Soul, Brittney Karbowski as Black Star, and Todd Haberkorn as Death the Kid especially sticking out to me. In general, I don’t have a lot of significant criticisms, besides how the story is handled once the villainous organization Arachnophobia is introduced, which is also about where it begins to deviate from the manga. Most of the villains part of it never really feel like a threat, and the story becomes much more simple and typical compared to how the manga went, and when the ending arrives, it just kinda, happens, with several notable subplots just kinda left unfinished. It definitely feels like an underwhelming ending, and is a big reason why I place this lower on the list, but Soul Eater is still a pretty entertaining watch that’s worth a try if you want a decently lengthy, but not horribly long shonen. 2. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Number of episodes: 28. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Funimation. Here we have the big one, an extremely memetic and famous series by Kyoto Animation, based on a series of light novels by Nagaru Tanigawa, a series that was finally completed back in November 2020 after its start in 2003. Kyon is a lazy and down to earth high school student who wishes for little more for himself than an uneventful, normal high school life- a hope that’s abruptly shattered when, on a whim, he becomes involved with Haruhi Suzumiya, an eccentric, hyperactive, and thoroughly self centered girl, who claims to have no interest in ordinary humans, and instead wishes to discover things thoroughly unusual, such as aliens, time travelers, or espers, and forces Kyon to form a club, the SOS Brigade, with her to achieve this. Haruhi quickly pulls three other students into the brigade, those being Yuki Nagato, a stoic and quiet bookworm, Mikuru Asahina, a shy and passive girl often subjected to humiliation and abuse by Haruhi, and Itsuki Koizumi, a calm transfer student who acts extremely subservient to Haruhi. While Kyon initially writes off the club as an unreasonable use of his time, his fellow members reveal an unexpected truth to him: the subjects of Haruhi’s fascinations actually do exist. Yuki is an alien, of a sort, created and controlled by an entity known as the Data Overmind, Mikuru is a time traveler from some point in the future, and Itsuki is an esper, and member of an organization of similar people. All three of them have been sent to observe the oblivious Haruhi, who appears to have the unconscious ability to change reality itself according to her desires, and is at threat of remaking the entire world if not placated. With Haruhi apparently having taken a unique interest in Kyon, he finds himself taken along for all sorts of supernatural adventures spawned from Haruhi’s whims. There’s a lot I could go on about regarding Haruhi, but in the interest of not turning this into a full on rant, I’ll keep shortish. It’s more or less an insane mishmash of several different genres, from slice of life, to science fiction, to fantasy, just depending on what each individual story feels like being. The episodes are mostly adapted from the early light novels, mostly the multiple stories from the third and fifth novels, The Boredom and The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya, respectively. It’s not often you’ll have any idea just what to expect from each individual episode, which makes the series very chaotic, but interesting. The characters are likeable and memorable, including the side characters, and the sheer ridiculousness of what goes on makes for many amusing moments. At the same time, the series is surprisingly complex, with many possible interpretations of its characters and the events they go through, furthered by the antics Kyoto Animation pulled when it was originally airing, such as airing the episodes out of chronological order, meaning the plot would often jump from the middle of an arc to something else. The end result is a very unique and enjoyable product, helped by the fantastic dub, with the actors capturing each character perfectly, from Crispin Freeman as the grounded and snarky Kyon, to Wendee Lee as the aggressively energetic Haruhi, to Stephanie Sheh as the gentle, yet secretive Mikuru. That said, there is one pretty disappointing part of it all, and that’s the second season, mostly thanks to the infamous Endless Eight arc, an eight part arc that’s more or less the same things happening over and over, with only the first and last episodes having anything noticeably different. Regardless of its own uniqueness, more than half the season is taken over by this, and something that may have worked if cut down to three or four episodes instead singlehandedly killed off the series’ goodwill. About the only redeeming factor of the second season is the five part adaptation of The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya, which has some of the funniest moments in the whole series. Overall, Haruhi is still a very fun series, and I’m really gonna have to watch its movie, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, one of these days. 1. Trigun

Number of episodes: 26. Language options: dub and subs available. Streaming availability: Funimation, Hulu. Finishing off this list is an adaptation of a manga series by Yasuhiro Nightow, produced by Madhouse and another adaptation that overtook its source material. Compared to how Soul Eater handled it, however, Trigun went down much, much better, to the point Nightow himself had nothing but praise for how the anime turned out, and the series is generally considered one of the best animes of the late 90′s. On the harsh desert planet of Gunsmoke lives a wandering gunslinger known as Vash the Stampede, the “Humanoid Typhoon” with a large handgun known to leave tremendous destruction in his wake, who amassed a bounty of $$60,000,000,000 after destroying the city of July, leading to an endless trail of bounty hunters out to collect the price on his head. In the middle of all this, Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson, two representatives of an insurance society which is often forced to pay for damages caused by Vash, track him down for the purposes of minimizing the chaos he causes. Upon catching up with him, however, the duo discovers that, contrary to his reputation, Vash is a kindhearted goof, and self proclaimed hunter of love and peace, who absolutely refuses to ever take another person’s life, even at great personal risk to himself. Vash continues his travels carefree, helping out whoever he can, with the occasional assistance of Meryl and Milly, as well as a traveling priest known as Nicholas D. Wolfwood, only to one day have an encounter with a mysterious and cruel man known as Legato Bluesummers. Vash soon learns that Legato has hired a group of assassins known as the Gung-Ho Guns to kill Vash, and leave a trail of bodies wherever they go, seemingly for the sole purpose of tormenting Vash. As Vash hunts down Legato, he is gradually forced to face his past, and consider whether he can truly stay committed to his pacifist ideals. In general, Trigun is just a very, very well made series. It has a likeable and developed cast of characters, with special mention going to Vash, who is a very compelling and sympathetic character, and Wolfwood, who makes a great foil to Vash with very interesting development of his own, with characters outside of the main cast being memorable as well, from Legato himself, to even some of the more minor villains, such as the varied members of the Gung-Ho Guns, or Brilliant Dynamites Neon, who makes an inexplicably strong impression for a one off villain not even important to the overall plot. The space western setting is quite good, and the designs are great, with many villains having distinctive looks that further help them make an impression. The action is great, and the animation is also quite good, and has that 90′s anime charm. The dub, while a bit rough around the edges, is generally solid too. From Lia Sargent as the ditzy but kind Milly, to Dorothy Elias Fahn as the hotheaded Meryl, to Jeff Nimoy as the weary Wolfwood, to Richard Cansino as the calculating and disturbing Legato, with special mention needing to go to Johnny Yong Bosch as Vash. Despite it actually being his first voice acting role ever, he does a great job in portraying the many sides to Vash, and absolutely sells many of the biggest moments in the story. Speaking of which, the series started quite lighthearted and wacky, with the first four episodes actually being filler, but gets gradually darker as it goes on. The earlier episodes are still quite enjoyable on their own, though, and manage to slowly reveal new aspects to Vash in each one, before finally setting his nature in stone in episode 5. What really sells the series and makes it so memorable, however, are the themes it explores, of the practicality of unwavering pacifism, and whether taking a life, whether for heinous crimes committed without remorse, or with the purpose of protecting others, is ever justifiable. While quite a few series have touched dilemmas like this before, what makes Trigun stand out with it is the emphasis placed upon it throughout the whole series, with many episodes touching upon it in some regard. It genuinely fairly looks at the different sides of it all, and the consequences of each, with many emotional moments coming from it as a result. While the manga did ultimately take a very different turn from the anime, the anime actually preserves several of the most important plot moments, and manages to come to a satisfactory conclusion of its own regarding the themes. Ultimately, Trigun makes for a very fun and interesting watch that I highly recommend. And with that, my ranking is complete. With the exception of Robotics;Notes, I can pretty confidently recommend every show on this list. Got some more shows I plan to get through soon, so another ranking like this may be soon in the making. Either way, till next time. -Scout

[animegenork]

I Finally Watched the Second My Hero Movie

This is a summary of my feelings on it:

I really, really love the My Hero movies. Now, don’t get me wrong, a lot of movies for anime series are great (I’ve had a great time with a couple of the One Piece ones, as well as those for Digimon, Fairy Tail, Blue Exorcist, etc.). The thing about the My Hero movies, however, is that they’re directly connected to, if not a canon sequence, of the main plot. Even if we’re not supposed to take them as fully canon, they feel like it, and that’s not something we get every day. 

With the Fairy Tail movies, we know where, theoretically, where they lie on the timeline. The Bleach and One Piece movies were released at certain points in the anime’s release so we have a general reference for where they supposedly occurred. But with the My Hero movies, they’re specifically placed where they are, timeline-wise, to coincide with what’s happened in the series. The first movie was even teased sometime during the third season of the anime. It takes place in the summer sometime during this season, as a sort of explanation for “what happened during X timeskip”. The second movie takes place, chronologically, after the fourth season, which is why I waited to watch the movie until Funimation got off its ass and finished dubbing the season. (I wasn’t going to watch 2 episodes in sub because that’s just dumb. I don’t care how long it took... even though I ranted about it a lot.) 

[Of course, the Digimon movies for Adventure are taken as canon most of the time, especially when it comes to Omnimon, but with most, that is not the case.]

The other thing I love about the My Hero movies is that they don’t mince the plot. Heroes: Rising was nearly two hours - TWO HOURS! A lot of the One Piece movies don’t go over one hour, and even the various Digimon films were pasted together to make a longer feature. The My Hero movies don’t fuck around when it comes to telling their story, especially in this one, where we got to see EVERY. SINGLE. STUDENT. OF CLASS 1-A. DO SOMETHING. That’s pretty rare for this series! We usually only see up to 6 of them at a time doing something, but this movie made it clear that all of them had some sort of part to play (although maybe Hagakure got slighted a bit not that I could see her sorry not sorry). I was thrown back and forth emotionally throughout this movie, and I was most certainly sobbing during the last twenty minutes.

More than that, I found myself clutching at my heart, because I really felt like something incredibly major was going to happen. That is the true beauty of the writing they did for this movie.

[SPOILER ALERT!]

As soon as Deku held out his hand to Bakugo, saying, “There’s only one way,” I was like, “nononononononononono” and feared the worst. I was crying during the ensuing fight sequence, and I was crying right up through Deku apologizing to All Might for passing on One For All. Then, of course, as anime does, they made it so that our little Deku didn’t lose his Quirk and Bakugo didn’t retain it (or remember the event). Although that was a bit of a cop out, in retrospect, the way it was written and how it was explained made me cry harder? One For All is one of those Quirks that seems to have a mind of its own, sort of like the “a wand chooses its wizard” thing. And I actually don’t mind it that much. Plus, considering the entire story is about Deku becoming the greatest hero, so what would be the point in taking his Quirk away?

(Well, a lot of things, but I digress.)

[End of Spoiler Time]

And last, but certainly, not least.

I’m not saying BakuDeku, but

BakuDeku

[medea10]

My Review of Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni GOU

(a.k.a. When They Cry Gou)

I know what you’re thinking. Why the heck am I reviewing this anime again? I’ve already written a review in 2009 and re-polished it in 2016. (Here it is BTW) I’ve made my point on who I like, hate, what ships are worthy, and poked fun at all the deaths that happened throughout the series. I think some time has passed that I should say some thoughts on this…um, story. After all, Higurashi is one of my favorite animes.

STORY: Ah shit, here we go again!

Higurashi or When They Cry is about a boy named Keiichi Maebara who recently moved to a place called Hinamizawa. And ever since moving to this town, he’s found his days are filled with fun mischief with fellow friends Rena Ryuuguu, Satoko Hojo, Mion Sonozaki, and Rika Furude. But little does Keiichi know that there’s a little murder mystery that surrounds the town. During a town festival known as Watanagashi (or Cotton Drifting), there’s usually one or two people that go missing or turn up dead. And this year, Keiichi is next. So let’s relive the horrors that plague the town of Hinamizawa and…

One episode later.

Wait, what the…?! It’s episode 2, why are we seeing Hanyuu? I don’t remember that in the manga. The visual! THE VISUAL! WHAT THE FUCK?! ISN’T THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A REBOOT? WHAT THE FUCK?! WHAT THE FUCK?! WHY IS THERE AN ADULT RIKA?! WAIT, IS THAT ADULT RIKA OR BERN? IS THIS GOING TO BE THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE TO THE WITCHES OF UMINEKO?! THE SHADOWS IN THE OPENING ARE TOO FAMILIAR FROM OTHER WORKS! Ryukishi07, you magnificent, fucking troll master for keeping this hidden until the second episode’s air date!

Many of us did not see this coming. When they announced a new Higurashi series that was going to be done by a different studio, many of us speculated whether this was going to be a reboot or a sequel. But then we got the PV trailers and it looked like we were going to get a reboot to correct the mistakes Studio Deen made years ago. Rika’s head doesn’t look like its gonna snap off because her body is so small in comparison. Improvements! I mean, they showed everything we were already used to like the yandere girls, the original soundtrack, the original freakin’ cast, and death by baseball bat. Hell, the first episode ended with an Eiko Shimamiya song! It was on track to being a reboot! A better looking reboot!

Here in lies the sequel aspect! After episode one, we get a scene that isn’t usually seen until the Kai part of Higurashi (a good 4-5 arcs away). And they give away the secret that Rika Furude is repeating the timeline of June 1983 over and over because she keeps dying. And as the series progresses, you notice little things different from the original series. Many of the well-known storylines end much differently than what you remember. Instead of Keiichi killing Rena and Mion with a baseball bat, you’ve got Rena going psycho on Keiichi. And Rika’s fate is somehow worse than the stories of the original series. So let’s head back to Hinamizawa to hear the cicadas cry and watch a murder mystery unfold.

THE SUB: All the original voice actors have returned to voice their respected roles. Perfection in a nutshell!

LICENSING: You’ve gotta be shitting me!

As I’ve mentioned years ago in my review, the original Higurashi anime went through a turbulent time being licensed in the states. It was originally licensed and dubbed by Geneon. But once Geneon collapsed, FUNimation licensed it and did absolutely fuck all with it. Geneon could only manage to squeak out one season. At this point, FUNimation was picking up titles that Geneon used to have before it fell under including Familiar of Zero, Kyou Kara Maou, and yes, Higurashi. All of these titles mentioned here were done absolutely nothing with despite having cult followings, second seasons, and OVA’s.

A year or two after licensing it, the license expired for Higurashi. For nearly six years, the only copies you could get were out of print and estimating at $500 at the very least for a full collection. Single DVD’s could be found in rare shops, but it would take like 13 years to complete the fucking collection if you did it that way. And that was only for the first season. Second season, the best all of us could do was bootleg DVD’s from Japan Town or fansubs with glaring errors for the best season to Higurashi. We had to deal with this shit until Sentai Filmworks licensed and released the first 2 seasons and the Rei OVA’s.

AND NOW YOU’RE TELLING ME FUNIMATION IS CLAIMING HIGURASHI ALL FOR THEMSELVES?!

Where the shit was this love 10 years ago when we were asking politely to release Kai? People ignorantly blew Higurashi off for years because season two was never released in the states until 2016 because they thought the damn anime ended after Rena held up the school. I’m already irritated with FUNimation after the Interspecies Reviewers debacle and I’m still quite butt-hurt over them re-releasing Nichijou with a dub to make a quick buck. Licensing Higurashi just brings back old anger. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy Higurashi is legally licensed and can be seen on at the very least Hulu. It’s just that I hold grudges and this was a big one.

THE DUB: Holy…um, okay! This is a rather big gulp to take in. As I’ve repeatedly mentioned in past reviews, the Higurashi dub was a mixed bag of okay, bad, and oh gasperts kill it with fire. So, not great! The good folks at Geneon (before bankrupting in America) dubbed the first season with a good chunk of folks that put their fake names to the credits. Again, not great! To me, there were some aspects of Megan Hollingshed, Mela Lee, and Grant George’s performances of Mion, Rena, and Keiichi that were okay. SOME! John Snyder and Karen Strassmen as Ooishi and Takano were the best out of that dub. Everything else was just irredeemable! It needed a redub, an overhaul, and a spit-shine. For years, I’ve wondered who would be the dream cast. Sentai Filmworks unfortunately never dubbed the remaining seasons when they released them. Would Luci Christian be the heavenly voice to do Rika Furude? Could we get Hilary Haag to do Satoko? Okay, that never came to pass.

This dub is a breath of fresh air. Rika doesn’t sound like Mihoshi. Satoko doesn’t sound fake, Keiichi doesn’t sound like a weird Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s perfect. ESPECIALLY BRITTANY LAUDA AS SATOKO! I knew the second she was cast as Satoko that she was going to excel the fuck out of this role. And I was not disappointed! The only voice I’m still not quite used to is Michelle Rojas as the Sonozaki twins. Probably because I was somewhat okay with Megan Hollingshed’s voice in the 2006 version that it’ll take some time! And we FINALLY got a voice for Hanyuu. I am super excited that Xanthe Huynh is the voice and I know she’ll do great with this role! With all of that said, here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

*Keiichi is now played by Khoi Dao (known for Kiriyama on March Comes in Like a Lion, Murata on Demon Slayer, Chaka on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Pt. 3, and Iskhan on SAO: Alicization)

*Rena is now played by Emi Lo

*Mion/Shion is now played by Michelle Rojas (known for Shizu Delta on Overlord, Touka on Assassination Classroom, Minase on Psycho Pass, Kanan on Love Live Sunshine, and Kusakai on Keijo!!!!!!!!)

*Rika is now played by Apphia Yu (known for Rio on Assassination Classroom, Marie on Black Clover, You on Love Live Sunshine, Victorique on Gosick, Natsumi on Danganronpa 3, and Laki on Fairy Tail)

*Satoko is now played by Brittany Lauda (known for Riko on Made in Abyss, Meidri on Interspecies Reviewers, Lessar on Index III, and Ichigo on Darling in the FranXX)

*Hanyuu is played by Xanthe Huynh (known for Menma on Anohana, Haru on Persona 5, Hanayo on Love Live, Hidomi on FLCL: Progressive, PallaPalla on Sailor Moon Super S [redub], and Sachi on SAO)

ANY CHANGES IN YOUR HATE-O-RADE:

Okay Medea, let-a-rip!

*inhales and exhales*

Teppei Hojo is trash. He is ultimate trash. This fucker needs to be murdered in every timeline. He is a turd in a Glenn Quagmire shirt. Him and his wife are trash. And when this pile of trash is cheating on that pile of trash, he sleeps with peak trash named Ritsuko. Teppei Hojo needs to die in every timeline. Whenever Keiichi bashes this cum-burger’s head in with a blunt instrument, I scream at the top of my lungs, “DIE SCUM, DIE”! And nothing, I repeat, NOTHING will change my opinion of Teppei Hojo.

Episode 23.

Oh, fuck you Higurashi Gou!

MUSIC: Okay, thank you for proving me wrong. I did not despise the opening theme. Having Higurashi with no Eiko Shimamiya is like having Pokemon with no Rika Matsumoto. Or Rozen Maiden with no ALI PROJECT. But this new opening is fine by my standards.

That’s right, get the niceness of the review before I get angry down below.

THESE TIMELOOPS: Rika tries to find solutions to end her time-loop in June 1983. Much like the original series, we follow stories from the Onikakushi-hen, Watanagashi-hen, and Tatarigoroshi-hen arcs (the first three stories to Higurashi, although now these have different names). However, all of these arcs have different endings. And after a positive turnaround with Satoko escaping from her abusive uncle, shit goes south when Detective Ooishi, who up to this point has never suffered under the Hinamizawa Syndrome or died a painful death goes on a murderous rampage. Higurashi style! That means, he’s after Rika Furude, will slaughter anyone in his way, and scratching his neck because he sees maggots (part of the hallucination effect).

What the shit? Ooishi for the most part has been a great guy. With the exception of the Tatarigoroshi-hen storyline, he was a nice guy! In the limbo with Hanyuu, Rika now remembers who has killed her. Every time Rika dies up to this point, she never remembers who was the cause of her demise. Hanyuu implanted that power to remember the deaths and a clue for Rika to use and then she disappears.

Now seriously, imagine Rika’s plight here. She has been repeating the month of June 1983 for over a hundred years. And each of these times she repeats, she’s horribly murdered. Rika got the shit-end of the deal in the murder department in the original series, including being dissected on while alive. Then, leaving her bloody, naked corpse out in the open of the Oyashiro altar! She’s tired of this shit! She wants to live a happy life away from Hinamizawa. She wants to grow older, become a teenager, and have fun. And this series made it worse by having her die four times in one episode. Not just that, but murdered by the most unexpected people including Akasaka, Chief Kimiyoshi, Mion’s mother Akane, and Keiichi. Keiichi has never killed Rika in any of the timelines up to this point. He has killed Mion and Rena, but never Rika. Keiichi loves Rika! Welcome back to A Million Ways to Die in Hinamizawa.

I’ll just add decapitation, drowning in a lake, set on fire, drowning in a sewage pipe, and death by…um…

Alexa, play Chandelier by Sia.

ENDING: We all know by now that in the original series, Miyo Takano is the betrayer and the reason behind all the murders during the Cotton Drifting Festival. This time, it’s someone closer to Rika that’s causing Rika so much pain. After we watched the worst kinds of murders happen to Rika, the episode after gave us our answer. Satoko, Rika’s friend and confidant is not happy that Rika is turning her back on Oyashiro and Hinamizawa. All the while pulling out her intestines!

Oh Higurashi, don’t stop being gory!

Yes, Satoko is aware of past timelines much like Rika and is almost on a god-like state. So what the hell happened to her? I know Satoko’s past has been a cluster-fuck of horror with her brother disappearing, her parents dying, and every form of abuse from her uncle. But she was able to prevail after all that. After surviving 1983, a lot has changed in Hinamizawa. The three big families of Hinamizawa put an end to the Cotton Drifting Festival and claiming there is no curse of Oyashiro. Mion and Shion moved on and are going to high school. And Rika decides she wants to move away from this village. By attending St. Lucia! And she wants to do this with Satoko.

Oh, if you don’t recall St. Lucia, Shion attended this academy until she escaped during the Meakashi-hen arc. It was also the same school that Ange from Umineko attended. But of course Ange attended it in the 90’s and we are clearly in the 80’s. Moving on!

Rika and Satoko studied their butts off for years and their hard work paid off as both were admitted into St. Lucia. Now Rika was able to prevail and fit in with everyone. Satoko on the other hand couldn’t do the same as her grades took a dip, her manners are atrocious, and she doesn’t seem to fit in with anyone. And this caused a drift between Rika and Satoko! And so during a trip to Hinamizawa, Satoko went to the old shrine where she ended up getting sent to that limbo place Rika and Hanyuu were at many times before. There, she meets Eua (God, I hope that really isn’t her name). She’s much like Hanyuu except a lot more condescending. Oh, and she’s that mysterious shadow during the opening theme. She bestows the power to Satoko of reviving on death and returning to a certain point in time. In the hopes that Satoko is able to stop Rika from going to St. Lucia! But Rika is not going to budge. She wants out of Hinamizawa no matter what. And Satoko just wants to be with her friend no matter what. Satoko is even shown Rika’s past and still no dent in…Okay, this is bugging the fuck outta me. Pause the Ending portion!

MY GRIPES WITH SATOKO: Satoko, girl, the fuck is wrong with you?! I know Rika is like your main chick and everything, but for fuck’s sake loosen the grip you have with Rika. This season has changed you and not for the better. You made a connection with ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS from Hinamizawa. Big connections! At least in the original series you did. Look at your moments with Keiichi and Shion. Are you just going to shove them off? And what really sets me off is that Satoko literally had the opportunity to learn about Rika’s hundred year’s loop of death. And feels nothing about it! Only that it’s a challenge to break her herself! God damn, at the end of season one, Keiichi learned the truth and he was remorseful. This bitch doesn’t care that her friends were murdered in such a way. And Rika’s been shot in the head, had a live dissection performed on her, and other forms of torture…AND IT DOESN’T FAZE SATOKO!

I know in my original Higurashi review, I felt sorry for Satoko as she did seem to get the short-end of the stick living in Hinamizawa. I mean, her parents died right in front of her, she suffered abuse from her uncle, abuse from her aunt, ostrisized by the town for years, and a myriad of all types of shit to befall her. But Higurashi Gou has ruined this character. Rika didn’t really do anything wrong to Satoko. She didn’t snitch on her when Satoko got in trouble. She offered help to Satoko when she thought her grades were slipping. Satoko just held onto this petty vendetta. Satoko acted like Rika sexually assaulted her and have two other people gang rape her while drugging her. Okay, that’s a call for revenge, not your petty shit.

YOU SEE WHERE I’M AT WITH YOU SATOKO?! Your actions are so bad that you have me siding with the protagonist from Redo of Healer.

REDO.

OF.

HEALER!!!

I’m done with you! Girl, bye! We now return you to my talk about the ending already in progress.

BACK TO THE ENDING: Sorry, had to get that off my chest. Yeah, Satoko is leaving a bad impression on many of us who have been following the Higurashi story for years. And it just gets worse as she uses her new power for petty shit and abusing it at that. I mean, we saw Rika use her power in order to find a way to live past June 1983. Satoko is just using that shit to win some games and have things go her way. What else could this series bless us with? How about an epiphany from Teppei Hojo?

What?!

Teppei changes for the better.

What?!

Look, I admit that these moments with Teppei and Satoko were tame compared to the shit she’s pulled in the last several episodes. But this is Teppei Hojo! The same guy that used Satoko as his personal punching bag! The same guy who fleeced Rena’s father! The same guy many of us who cheer every time we see him on a moped because we know someone’s going to bash his head in with a baseball bat. Even my best friend knows how I am with this guy. When she gave me Higurashi free swag, I took everything except for Teppei. I don’t take trash. So seeing him so remorseful makes me…conflicted.

So now Satoko’s got things turned around for her. Her uncle has…changed?! Add to that, her God-like power. Satoko decides to change the past for her own advantage. This includes changing one of the biggest stories in Higurashi Kai with the kids vs. Miyo Takano. If Rika doesn’t experience the pain in those timelines, she won’t think about leaving Hinamizawa. And if she doesn’t leave Hinamizawa, she’ll stay with Satoko forever.

Oh what a tangled web of crazy Higurashi Gou was! I gotta tell you, Higurashi got me excited all the way up until we learn it was Satoko. And then it went straight to Hell. They turned Satoko into a straight-up selfish monster. Totally unlike the Satoko we’ve all grown to love in the original series. Yes, Satoko had those moments where, yeah, you would want to throw a chair at her and beat her ass with it. But that was only temporary! You would always see the good in Satoko despite that mischievous laugh and those episodes in Higurashi Rei. And God help me, I was a shipper of Rika x Satoko 10 years ago. Not a big one, but a supporter of it. Now, I would rather support Amourshipping from Pokemon than root for this. And I despise the living fuck out of Amourshipping. That should tell you something!

If original Satoko were bestowed the powers from Eua, I think things would be different. Satoko would probably use her powers to prevent all the bad stuff from happening to her friends and to her brother Satoshi. I mean, my goodness, not once did I see her think, hey maybe I should find a way to help my ailing brother. Change a few timelines, make him all better! And of course, feel sympathy for Rika’s plight. Do it for Rika’s sake, not your own selfish desires! Rika has died horrificly for hundreds of years. And I seriously just can’t get over Satoko’s reaction to that when she learned the truth. Instead, she wants to treat Rika like a caged bird. Best friend my ass!

Now can Higurashi SOTSU fix the hot mess of Satoko? Time will only tell! And good on them for having Higurashi air in the summertime. Summertime is for Higurashi! Autum is for Umineko. Speaking of, it’s been since 2009. Any chance you want to give Umineko the old reboot or sequel it sorely needs? Oh forget it! My likeness for this season is conflicted. I was annoyed by it, but I didn’t fully hate it. It’s just that last arc with Satoko really burned my beans. And I’m sure a lot of you all feel the same way.

Guys, if you want to watch Higurashi Gou, do yourselves a favor and watch the original series first. Let that swirl around your heads for a while. I know the creator tricked us at the beginning of this series thinking it was going to be an honest-to-God retelling. It is not! It is a sequel. And a sequel that isn’t based off a game or manga of all things. So fans are jumping into this with eyes closed! And if you’re a fan of Satoko Hojo, I’m sorry. I’m just sorry.

If you want to check out Higurashi Gou, it is available to watch on FUNimation and Hulu. But please, if you haven’t watched the original series, go to HI-DIVE now and watch “When They Cry” and “When They Cry Kai”. I think you can manage without watching any of the OVA’s.

I’d rather watch that Kira OVA where the fanservice is thin, you can practically lick off the whipped cream from the Sonozaki’s tit.

That should tell you something if I’m starting to say something nice about Higurashi Kira.

See you in a few months when Higurashi SOTSU comes out.

[zerochanges]

Robotech: Unboxing + Rant

Anime licensing and localization has come a long way since the dark ages of the medium where you had to track down old fan subbed VHS tapes or hope you can catch some heavily edited version of a show on one of your local networks before cable was even a thing. The latter describes the place in history that Robotech holds, and for many it was a landmark experience and a gateway into anime--and that should have been its legacy whole stop but well, corporate greed is a bitch. I’m sure I don’t have to sit here and explain the myriad of ways license holder Harmony Gold has more or less been super scummy. From downright patent trolling, to blocking any attempt at localizing certain series and even preventing video game releases; they have become infamous in the anime fandom--so much so to the point where I just don’t want to talk about Robotech anymore. 

Which is a damn shame! Robotech is legitimately a fairly fascinating and well crafted attempt at bringing over anime for its time. The writing is sharp, the voice acting holds up surprisingly well--and it is some of the earliest known roles for a bunch of now prolific voice actors in the anime dubbing community like Tony Oliver and Wendee Lee. Most importantly however the material is treated with respect, and while a bit clumsy at times, there is an obvious love from the staff being put into the work. It’s easy to see how generations grew up with this Frankenstein of an adaptation and became lifelong fans of anime. 

For me personally Robotech will always occupy the same part of my heart that loves the work of Ted Woolsey and other earlier localization figures who took a mess of bland too literal translations (sometimes ones that didn’t even make sense in English) and reworked them with a lot of character and charm despite some really insane restraints of the time. It’s not for everyone, but I do enjoy these early localizations for what they were.

Sadly it seemed Robotech would only be remembered in infamy for Harmony Gold and its (very well documented) downright criminal powers-that-be. Until this past April, where out of nowhere anime fans’ prayers seemingly have been answered. Now the agreement between the three companies is still not fully understood, and it’s hard to say for sure where this will go but for now I like to have goodwill that things will be different from now on. Which is what I want, I easily do love Robotech, and this new agreement brining new Robotech blu-rays is great, but I also want Macross blu-rays too! Hell, I don’t want just that but also Southern Cross and Mospeada releases too, even if they have to be on SD-BD. Over the recent years we have seen blu-rays for all kinds of tangentially related Robotech properties: Megazone 23, Zilion, Orguss, it would be great to have all of Macross as well as the main three series that comprise Robotech to go alongside with them on my blu-ray shelf.

With all that out of the way, I will stop ranting now and show off the most recent Robotech Collector’s Edition from Funimation as well as some comparisons to a past set I posses. 

The box itself is absolutely gorgeous and the contents inside of high quality too. The asking price may be a bit steep but for fans it really does pay off. 

I was especially impressed with the figure which I had no real interest in (and will still keep stuffed in the box lol) but was shocked to find out it can indeed transform between the three iconic forms of the Veritech fighter.

The blu-rays themselves are housed in a nice sturdy chipboard box and each set has unique art separate from the standard retail release.

Anyone familiar with Funimation’s previous release of the anime series Zillion will easily notice the similar “retro” (or maybe even VHS???) look of the packaging. 

I was somewhat annoyed at this graphic design choice when Zillion came out. I love older anime art and want to appreciate it for all its worth. I get how the vintage VHS look is a fun idea but still! Despite saying that however I ended up really liking it for this latest Robotech set. Probably helps that the o-cards aren’t made of the usual glossy paper stock and are instead really heavy and thick cardboard giving them an almost old book type feel. 

The interior art for the amaray cases as well as the disc art are all great looking. I was especially impressed with the art used for the Masters Saga set which opted to feature protagonist Dana instead of a mech.

The earlier mentioned chipboard box. The entire set looks great in it but it does lead to my major complaint for Funimation about the packaging; it’s all Macross. Yes, the Macross Saga is great, hell it’s a common sentiment amongst fans that “The Macross portion of Robotech is the best part”. But really what makes Robotech what it is was the mixing of multiple shows. Really bummed out that Southern Cross or Mospeada got no love this time. 

The Collector’s Edition blu-ray standing next to the 2013 A&E DVD set, which was the only one I could really find laying around at the time of this writing. 

The first of these two images is a screenshot directly taken from the 2013 A&E DVD set, and the second of the two is a screenshot taken directly from the 2021 BD from Funimation. This pattern will be followed for all subsequent comparison shots; DVD on top then BD below it. 

The colors really pop when the image is done right--with darker frames advantaging the most while brighter ones are too oversaturated.  

Overall there is greater detail and the colors presented better reflect the original animation work in the BD but it isn’t too uncommon for it to look a bit garish and oversaturated at times too. 

I’d still say this BD upscale is a noticeable improvement at least from the 2013 DVD set I had on hand but well any fan of DBZ will know the song and dance with Funimation and how they remaster old footage. The similar issue of them working off a copy of a master and not the original film itself probably also is equally in play here as it is for their many botched DBZ sets. I’d also argue this set is a bit too heavy on grain (and I say that as a huge lover of grain) but the oversaturation may be the true culprit behind that feeling. 

Overall Funimation’s BD is a nice upgrade but I don’t see myself dipping any more into Robotech unless they actually can recreate the show from the original film master, by this point any more work will just be negligible.

It’s a steep price tag, and the entire series is fairly easy to stream now too if you have a Funimation account, but for the right kind of fan it makes a great piece for your collection. Until next time, let us all hold out hope for potential Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada blu-rays.

[risingsouls]

[I’m about to risk sounding like one of those annoying Vegeta stans, but I was watching DBZ with the crew last night and we got to the point where Vegeta tells Frieza to transform. Before I go any further, I’m going to of course agree that this was stupid of him without even trying to just kill Frieza, BUT I think there was more logic (I use the term loosely) than people give him credit for.

Also note: this is based on the Funimation dub, which is really the only one I’ve seen (outside of reading the manga and maybe I’ll open that up someday and compare). So if it’s different in any other dub or the sub, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Also this is based on the first time Frieza transforms. It’s been a HOT MINUTE since I’ve watched/read the Namek saga, but I VAGUELY remember him doing it again for Frieza’s final form (which is probably definitely more ego-fueled than this one if I remember right SO this is about the first instance only).

ANYWAY, it was interesting to me because this moment is always framed in such a way that mirrors what he does with allowing Cell to reach perfection and doing it for his ego, to test himself, whatever. Which, again, I think is still apart of it but I think he is actually using some brain cells, too, because at least in this dub, he's more explanatory and like "why don't you go ahead and transform?" and goes on to talking about how he learned his secret from Zarbon and that it won't give him much of a boost anyway (obviously basing it off his experience with Zarbon's own transformation which is dumb and presumptuous of him, but not FULLY out of bounds to assume).

So I feel like he in some part he is bringing it up because he knows that Frieza sees in that moment that Vegeta could match him and potentially defeat him as he is. Thus, since he knows about his transformations, he would assume that, even if he got Frieza on the ropes, Frieza would just transform to get the upper hand just as Zarbon had and no one, especially Frieza, is looking to lose in this scenario. 

LIKE I SAID.  It's still a dumb move and presumptuous on his part considering Zarbon and Frieza aren’t even the same race and there are a thousand more reasons why he should be more cautious in just assuming this (probably another instance of his ego or just general denial with the very hopeless situation he’s found himself in...maybe both). I'm sure his ego and the “I want to test myself” sort of feeling is still there--he’s a Saiyan after all--since by this point he is pretty sure he's a Super Saiyan. Not to mention, considering their history, I’m sure he would love to humiliate Frieza at his strongest. BUT it doesn't have the full ego trip vibe as when he does it with Cell.]

[piercebaron]

episode 22 and adaptations

Actually, I do want to talk about it! I feel like episode 22 encapsulates my “weird” feelings towards the anime adaptation and how it has cut and reframed certain things. It’s not bad? Just weird. 

Spoilers for the Plunderer anime and for the manga, up to chapter 36. 

prefacing all of this with a general note: if you’ve only seen the anime, please read the manga. You’re valid, I’m so glad you’ve been enjoying the anime, but please read the manga because as horny as Minazuki is (and the man is . . . very, very much so), his art is also amazing and some of his panels deserve a second, third, or even a fourth look. The little details here and there actually crop up later and become important, and it’s just great. Chapters 46 - 53 are some of my favorite in media in a long, long time and I absolutely cannot wait until they’re released in an official capacity so I can fork over my money for them.

(seriously, you guys don’t know how hard I’ve tried to legally purchase volume 13. I want to give my money to this series so bad.)

This will also be a little scattershot and bounce around between other episodes, so apologies in advance. I’m trying to double-check chapters and whatnot as I go but if I get something wrong or miss something, please don’t hesitate to correct me in the replies! I’ve been watching the anime through Funimation’s site -- dubbed up through episode 11 and then subs from then on. 

Adaptations! Adaptations. By their very nature, they are not a 1:1 sort of thing. A lot of times, you’ll hear people say “read the book” when a movie adaptation of said book comes out. This is because by its very nature, a movie adaptation simply can’t capture everything in the book -- nor should it. Little things will slip through the cracks. This doesn’t make the movie adaptation bad, necessarily, just that it loses something. 

By the same token, if someone tried to do a direct 1:1 adaptation of a book where, say, the book is used as a script (which is an extremely bad idea for so many reasons, please have a script oh my goodness), chances are it’s not going to be a very good movie. There are musicals, for example, where when filmmakers try to make them into films, they flop because they’re not “cinematic.” The directors didn’t take into account the shift in mediums or, more likely, they sorely underestimated it. Understandable, since it’s two visual mediums, but still.

This is all leading up to me talking about Plunderer, I swear.

Manga to anime is a tricky, tricky thing. A manga has [X] amount of pages to work with, depending on if it’s a weekly or monthly series (or even some different increment!). The author, then, has to structure their chapters accordingly, moving things along to keep the reader interested while also controlling the ebb and flow of the story. Note how when the chapters end, they’re engineered to keep you wanting to read more!

Anime is similar in that respect, except the crew has 20-22 minutes to fill over the course of 12 to 24 episodes depending on the series order. Plunderer, ftr, had a 2 “cour” order from the get-go. They have to plan out the series as a whole, figuring out certain things like, where will the season end? What are the big beats, when will we hit them? Etc. It’s no coincidence that the “school” arc started right around episode 12, which is the halfway point of the series; note how there was that filler episode with Hina and Lynne cooking, after all. 

When I started watching the anime after reading the manga, I assumed they’d end the season with, roughly, the end of chapter 36. It’s a nice “resolution” to a lot of things that had been building up over the series. Hina and Licht are finally together, Licht has resolved to keep his mask off and face the future, Jail has a new direction, Lynne -> Licht is basically resolved, and Pele’s layers finally get peeled back just a bit. 

I saw some predictions online that they’d leave off at the cliffhanger in chapter 39 and while that’s a good guess, in terms of narrative ebb and flow for an anime, it doesn’t really line up. They’d really have to rush some stuff (Charles!! i love you, charles) to get there and in terms of a product that they want to be able to market in several territories, it makes more sense to give it some feeling of resolution. That said, what’s more likely along that vein is us potentially getting some sort of stinger at the end of episode 24 with one character talking to That Certain Character, and us getting a brief, shadowy shot of said character to make people go “ohhhhh shit, dude.” 

but idk this anime has made some strange choices.

Going into that! I’ve mentioned this here and there and talked about it with a friend, but the choices the anime has made in terms of adaptation is, uh, pretty strange at times. When changes get made, my instinct is to try and think through why they were changed and, ultimately, if it really affects the story in any way. If I went through the entire anime, it would be an extremely dull read; please know, however, that I am forever sad we missed Jail’s computer antics and Pele being the ultimate shit when it comes to Nana’s video, even if I understand why they were cut. 

That said, episode 22 is a perfect example of this, so uh. Let’s dive in, shall we?

The chapters that episode 22 covers are chapters 33 and 34. The events leading up to it are pretty much the same, but episode 22 contains some divergences. Going through them quickly:

We see more of Pele and Hina trying to stop Douan from going after Lynn.

Sonohara doesn’t show up during this confrontation. Hina gets her “the body was too clean” line instead.

Because Sonohara doesn’t show up, it’s Douan who attacks Lynn instead, causing her injuries with rocks. In the manga, Sonohara shows up, is drugged by Douan, and shoots a couple of bullets at Lynn.

Nana is just randomly lurking around?? In the manga, it’s clear she got caught at the same time. I’m really not sure what was up in the anime. Douan just yanks her out from behind a wall.

Douan sits with Nana, Hina, and Pele until morning, telling them he’ll kill them at dawn if Licht doesn’t show up. In the manga, he sits back and lets Sonohara terrorize them with a game of Russian Roulette, and Hina promptly (without words) calls Sonohara’s bluff.

Jail doesn’t show up in this episode at all. Instead, Hina gets his “did you check?” line.

We actually see Nana leave with Pele when he takes Lynn off. It looks like we’re going to actually see Doctor Pele in action, maybe? Hina is later sent off to help them.

Sonohara shows up towards the end, already drugged. Based on Douan’s line, it’s assumed that she was drugged off screen by the Secret Service. In the manga, he forcefully injects her.

The end of the episode sets up episode 23 to be Licht vs. Douan and Sonohara, with the preview showing Jail jumping into the fray.

whew, that’s a lot. 

I actually get why most of these changes were made! Setting up the penultimate episode of the series to be this big battle is a necessary change for an anime. And narratively speaking, this is much cleaner than it was in the manga, where Sonohara shows up briefly at the beginning of chapter 33, is drugged, and then basically exists to be crazy and antagonize people. It’s less balls in the air for the staff to have to juggle and for the audience to follow.

Douan’s character also gets some more depth. It’s funny because I feel like in the anime, he’s much more cruel than he was in the manga originally -- which is a feat, let me tell you. The anime flipped that in this episode, though, by not having Douan force the drugs onto Sonohara. 

The manga frames it as him doing it because he believes he knows what’s best for her, he’s trying to protect her in his own awful way, but it’s also, you know . . . nonconsensual as hell and gross on so many levels. This takes that off his shoulders which is a good change, honestly. 

But we lose some little character moments for the others in terms of streamlining. I think the thing that bums me out the most is Jail’s stuff. In the manga, after the confrontation with Alan, Jail steps in, calls Sonohara out and snaps her out of her drugged stupor without much of a fight (”without conviction, your bullets can’t pierce me”) and then slaps down the iron throne, telling Douan to shut up because Licht is coming. Chapter 34 ends with him just dead-eye staring at Douan like yeah, it’s annoying, but look. You’re the one who calls him a cockroach. Jail saying “did you check?” is a major mic drop moment and it’s basically when, from then on, Jail does not give a single flying fuck about the barons / aces. 

It definitely should be noted that some of these Jail moments will probably pop up in other ways in the next episode. I fully expect the bit about Sonohara’s bullets to come up, at least.

We lose out on Sonohara stuff too, though. She willingly throws herself into the lion’s den, shooting at Douan to distract him for long enough to allow Lynne to get away. It’s Sonohara who points out that Licht’s body was too clean -- something that makes more sense as someone who’s known him for 300+ years, knows what it means to be a baron / ace, and wasn’t immediately dragged off by the Secret Service. Her then terrorizing them while drugged is also a moment because when she forces Nana to play Russian Roulette, Hina immediately grabs the gun and points it at her head, firing all the “shots.” It’s empty, showing that despite the drugs, Sonohara didn’t want to kill them and Hina knew that all too well.

with all that said, I should note here that it’s entirely possible this scene will show up in some form next episode. Sonohara is still drugged and Hina, Nana, and Pele are all together in the bunker that is right nearby. I kind of doubt it given how the episode is framed and because narratively, it makes more sense to focus on the Licht vs. Douan and Sonohara -> Licht and Jail vs. Douan and Sonohara fight than to have Sonohara split off to randomly terrorize them, but. Like I said, this anime has made some strange choices.

Of course, character moments we get instead are Hina and even Pele being metal as hell. As much as I’m flapping my hands about losing the little character moments for Jail and Sonohara, it’s clear that they thought about how to utilize those moments while streamlining things, and they do work for Hina. And honestly, it’s really nice to see more stuff with her and Lynn? They get some cute panels later on in the manga (think chapter 55), but I like ladies and I like some lady solidarity. And Hina getting those little moments is on the same level as her straight up pointing a gun at her head all “you won’t kill me.”

and on a selfish note, I am actually really excited to see Pele tend to Lynn. The anime has been good about fleshing them out more and giving them little moments. My little shipper heart is delighted.

In the end, does it change much? Not really. These are small things, ultimately, just like how we didn’t lose much with the added filler and cut moments during the school arc. It’s all ultimately in the name of adaptation and while it’s weird, it’s not necessarily “bad.” It’s jarring for me as someone familiar with the manga (and having stared at some of these panels for so long, I’ve gotten really familiar with it), but thinking on it critically, yeah, I can see why. 

they better damn well do the “how did you know I could do surgery?” scene in the last episode though or I will be super bummed, okay. 

[lunawings]

Love Live Nijigasaki School Idol Club 3

Had somewhat more to say about this one ‘cause I typed while watching. 

Every time Karin sings her line in the OP my entire body is just goosebumps. I STILL can’t believe Miyutan is in Love Live. I don’t know if I’ll ever see Nijigaku in person, but at least I know I’ve seen Miyutan two... no three? Times live before, albeit as other characters. And that’s pretty neat. It’s like hearing an old friend.

And while I’m speaking of it, this one character performance per episode format is REALLY reminding me of Pretty Series. So when Karin finally performs her insert song it’s gonna blow my MIND.

Now that I think about it, Yu being super excitable does make sense. She did begin as an analogue for the audience after all. When she just LOCKED ON to Setsuna Nana, immediately losing it over the small possibility that she may have found someone who likes the same thing she does... the vicarious cringe I had over how I would do... the sa...m.....e.... thi....ng....... (I wear my Love Live shirts out in public every so often hoping for this exact same kind of encounter.)

When Ayumu walks in on what she realizes was a private moment between Nana and Yu................ 

“Outsider lady” PFFFFFFFT okay so I finally went straight and got around to subscribing to Funimation so I’m watching this with subs for the first time. I don’t always read them but I caught that and had a good chuckle. Gold star, Funimation. 

HANPENNN. Yup. We have our Nijigaku mascot.

Kasumin’s shady bread dealings. 

I’m kinda surprised nobody has mentioned μ's or Aqours yet, unless I missed it? Is this so far in the future that they’re no longer relevant? It would have been nice if Nijigaku was inspired by Aqours, but... I do remember being annoyed in the first season of Sunshine at how much μ's was mentioned. I was like... just let them be their own group, geez. So maybe it’s for the best.    

Wait... WAIT do we have a Love Live show about not going for Love Live? But... B-But the name of the show is--

Ayumu is A SAINT for having no reaction at all to Yu being ALL UP in Setsuna’s busiNESS the end good lord. 

Who’s gonna be the next to join I wonder... I’m not sure but I’d bet Rina is last?

I should mention that I don’t really remember what happened in the app story at all ahah.